Gaslit Nightmares

by Lamb, Hugh;

  Thus it was that the girl went always alone, and one morning in the late autumn, having risen from a bed fevered with evil dreams, she betook herself, as was her wont, to the Serpent’s Head. It was low water, and stepping lightly from point to point, she soon reached the utmost projecting crag, and sat herself down upon it. Now as she sat, she looked into the waters below, and her eyes fastened on two long ribands of seaweed which floated out of a cave beneath, or were sucked back as the tide ebbed or flowed. As she looked on them, these ribands of weed seemed to her like two long arms stretching and reaching out to her. Then suddenly she remembered her dream, for in her dream it had seemed to her that her own heart lay in her hands, and as she held it before her, lo! two arms had stretched themselves out of the darkness, and her heart lay no longer in her own hands, but in those of her mother, and she heard her mother’s voice saying, ‘It is mine!’ and a great anguish had come upon her, as she felt her mother’s fingers in her heart-strings, and she awoke.

  Now when the girl remembered her dream, the fever of the night ran yet in her veins, and she continued to watch the witch-like movements of the weeds upon the water, until it was as though she felt the clasp of their slimy tendrils drawing her downwards, and yielding to a sudden impulse, she sprang to her feet, cast her garments from her, and hastily girding on a little blue gown which she had brought with her, she threw herself into the sea. Once she had touched the water her dream faded, and she forgot her meaning to enter the cave below, and struck out from the land. Nor was it long before all the blackness in her heart vanished, and she began to laugh, joying and sporting in the boundless waters. But soon there arose a sea fog such as afflict those coasts, and in a moment the shore and the sea were as one, for on all sides the impenetrable mist had fallen.

  At this the girl made, as she thought, for the point whence she had come, and she did not discover that she had utterly lost her bearings till the sound of the signal, fired from the castle walls, rolled past her through the waves of shivering mist. She was now weary, but the sound was no sure guide, for, having reached the shore, she found herself still so far out of her course that her feet were in the quicksands which lay to the south of the Serpent’s Head. Now anger and fear laid hold upon her, for the tide was coming in fast, and she knew that no man might land at that point with his life; so, turning to the north, she struck out again for the rocks, and the old fever mounted to her brain, and she fancied that the hand of her mother lay heavy on her life, and her thought was, ‘I will not die, but live. I will be stronger than thou!’ And even when, in her extremity, the end seemed very close to her, the fog began to lift, and before her she saw the black shape of the Serpent’s Head. Then, with a desperate effort, she drew near it, and the fog lifted altogether, and she saw that no other part of the reef was visible; but though she laid her hands upon it, the numbness of her body was such that she could get no footing, nor by any means could she raise herself on to the rock.

  There was one, however, who now watched her, one who had ridden from afar, and caught by the fog and the rising tide had tarried near the rocks. When this one saw the girl clinging to the Serpent’s Head, he rode his horse a little way up the shore, till he could put him in the curve of the breakers, and thus, like one who had often done the same, he strove to reach her; but by this means he could not, so next, letting go his horse, he made himself ready, and fetching a wide circle, he reached her and brought her safely to land.

  When he touched the shore he laid her on the sands and knelt beside her, and she, half conscious only, opening her eyes and seeing him thus close, made one of her dreams and of her escape from death, and putting her arms about him said, ‘I have saved my heart, and it is yours;’ and she thrust her mouth to his and she kissed him. After this she lay still as in a swoon, and he was amazed; but the girl was very beautiful, and great pity and tenderness possessed him as he saw her thus. Then he looked about for help, and so looking he espied a narrow path embedded in the grass-grown sand, and leading to the postern gate of the castle. Taking her then in his arms, he bore her slowly thither, for the way was steep, and pausing now and again he felt that the pressure of her arms about him tightened until she held him so close that when he had brought her into the presence of her mother scarcely might her stiffened fingers be unclasped from about his neck.

  Now when at last she opened her eyes, she lay in her own room, and her mother stood near, and she heard her mother say, ‘Would God that she had perished in the sea!’ and she saw her mother’s face that it was very stern as she said this. But the heart of the girl was glad; she felt neither fear nor anger, and hate seemed harmless, so great a love within an hour past had leapt up within her. And, though no word had passed, she knew that he who had fetched her from the sea was her lover, and that even as it was with her so it was with him.

  Next day, and each day after, they met again by the Serpent’s Head; but her mother watched her, and looking towards the rocks at sunset she saw them together. Then neither that night nor the next did she take any rest, and on the morning of the second day, when the girl would have gone forth, her mother met her and said, ‘I have somewhat to say unto you.’ And the girl, suspecting her purpose, stood still before her, and folding her arms across her breast she answered, ‘He is my lover, and shall be my husband.’ And the mother at this cried, ‘Are you hot so soon? But I have that to tell you which shall put out your fires. There is a curse on you, even the curse of your accursed father and his race. O God!’ she continued, ‘shall not one life suffice, and shall his seed drag yet another and another down into the abyss? Shall a son born of your body live to rivet these devil’s chains on another life as fair as mine?’

  And a great shiver passed over her, and she closed her eyes a space before she spoke again, and then if was in a different tone, a tone of pitiful pleading, that she said, ‘Child! for the sake of your love, put him from you; die sooner than bring this death to his soul;’ and in so saying she averted her eyes, for she knew that if she looked upon the girl and saw in her her father’s features, the dregs of hate, grown cold, would be as gall within her, and turn her words to bitter. So laying her hands on the hangings of the wall her lips moved silently as in prayer, and she went on, as one in a trance, ‘I gave my soul to him who was your father, and here for years I served him, but by no service could his spirit be appeased, and the hour came that I knew him to be mad, and he knew it also, but the world knew it not, and a great fear came upon him that I who knew it should betray him. Day and night he watched me, nor could I by any means elude his cunning, till at the last he had me at his will.’

  Here her voice dropped and her lips were white, as thrusting aside the folds she pointed to the stains on the floor beneath. ‘There,’ she said, ‘is my blood;’ and letting go the curtains she loosened her gown and showed a deep and ugly scar upon her breast, and even as she did so, a dagger, dislodged by her sudden action from among the weapons on the wall above, slipped from its holdings and fell between them with a terrible rattling sound. So she stooped, and picking it up looked steadfastly upon it. ‘It is the same,’ she said. ‘Ah, God! that night, and the long days that went before, and the long years that have followed after! Is there any mercy or any justice in Heaven?’

  But the girl put no faith in her, and the thoughts which had been in her mind that day when the fog had fallen on the waters returned to her, so that she gave no heed to threats or pleadings, and the anguish of the other’s soul moved her to scorn only and laughter, for the story of her house was as a fable to her, and when her mother called on her to stay the curse, and stretched out her hands in her praying, she called to mind the witchlike moving weeds below the Serpent’s Head, and she remembered her dream, and how she had felt the fingers of her mother on her heart. Then too she remembered how she had been delivered in her need, and turning to go she answered, ‘I will not die, but live. I will be stronger than thou.’

  But the mother said, ‘Not so; yet if you will do this deed you shall fir
st ask your father’s blessing;’ and as she said this she laughed, and the girl felt that her laughter was more to be dreaded than any threats.

  So now they two went forth, and crossing the court, came to the broken flight of steps which led up to the Chamber on the Wall. When they had mounted these they stood before an ancient door heavily bound with iron. Then the mother knocked, and was answered, and entered, and the girl, though she was stricken with fear, followed her in silence. But when she had come into the presence of her father a great compassion filled her heart, and her eyes were drawn to the subtle appeal of his. ‘Has she told you,’ he said, ‘that I am mad? I am not mad, my little child, it is she;’ and here his voice took on an accent of infinite pathos; ‘it is she, who was once all the world to me, who has abandoned me and left me desolate. Ah! for God’s sake take me home! Come back to me, my wife! Give me love! Yet, how should any love such as I am?’

  And as he pleaded thus, turning from one to the other, the girl, seeing his chains, thought shame of her mother, and with reproach on her tongue she made to go forward as though she would have embraced him. But her words died on her lips, for looking on her mother’s face she saw that it was as the face of one inspired, and even as she was about to advance towards him, her mother put her on one side, and saying, ‘Lord God! take my life if by this means it is Thy will that this plague be stayed,’ she put herself within his reach, and kneeling down close to him folded her arms on her breast. Then, before the girl was aware of his purpose, he had her mother in his grip, and before any aid could come near she was dead.

  All that night long the girl watched alone by the body of her mother in the tower, and a great struggle went on in her mind as she began to see the meaning of her mother’s act, and at daybreak the spell upon her was so strong, that as she saw the grey light of dawn she rose, and falling on her knees beside the bed she folded her arms on her breast, and it seemed as if she, too, were about to dedicate her life that so the curse of her house might be stayed. But the chamber windows fronted the east, and even as she lifted her face to heaven the first rays of the morning sun flushed the sky, and caught the crests of the waves, and the path of light on the waters went by the Serpent’s Head and changed its black to gold. At this sight the girl started to her feet, and throwing wide the windows, ‘I will not die!’ she said. ‘Is there no other way?’ Even as she asked this question she answered it with another. ‘Why should my seed live?’ and as she spoke thus, turning to leave the room she saw her own face in the glass, and it was as the face of her father. Then her gaze became fixed, and presently she whispered to herself and smiled. And turning her back upon the corpse she went swiftly to seek her lover on the rocks.

  Not long after this the father died, and the girl married her lover, and the castle, which had so long seemed like a vast and empty shell, overflowed with life. And all things prospered with her, only of all the children born to her not one lived. And many said it was best so, seeing that their inheritance, all fair to outward seeming, had so dark a spot within; but the husband was ill content, for most of all he desired a son that should bear his name, and his wife was angered at this, for she thought, ‘Why should not I be sufficient for him? What need has he of child or heir when I am near?’ And her passion for him was spiced with jealousy, and when once more she became with child and saw the hope in his eyes, she set herself to cheat it. Nor by any means could she be persuaded to value rest, or to live in such wise as was deemed fitting; and now at dusk the hoofs of her horses would be heard in mad gallop along the causeway, or at early dawn she would be seen battling with the crested waters off the Serpent’s Head.

  Between her and her husband there were high words, and he reproached her, and swore there was purpose in her folly; then she caught him and held him, crying, ‘Why should this devil’s brat come between us! You are all the world to me. Am I less to you?’ and she would have kissed him, but there was that in her passion which filled him with loathing, and thrusting her from him he said, ‘Are you mad?’ After he had said this he repented himself, but she answered him nothing, only her face blanched. And from this day forward she was very gentle, nor did she cross his will in any way, nor even once did she return to the Serpent’s Head; only sitting in the tower chamber there, where her mother had so often sat before her, she watched the waves beating on the rocks. And her husband, wishing to feel her mind, said ‘The day will come when you will be there again;’ and she smiled as she answered, ‘Ay! the day will come.’

  Yet, though she was so gentle, he felt that there was wrong between them, and when the child was born his great joy was poisoned by fear lest it should displease her, and he watched to see if there should be any change in her manner or in her look; but he could find none, till one day he, having taken the child in his arms, looked up suddenly, and thought he saw a gleam of malice in her eyes, yet this faded into smiles so swiftly, that after, when he recalled her look, he misdoubted that which he had seen.

  Shortly after this she and her child were missed from the castle, and it was late evening; so fearing he knew not what, the husband looked from the windows to the rocks, and there he descried her, seated on the Serpent’s Head, with her little one on her knee. The tide was coming in fast, and dumb with anguish and terror, he made haste to reach the shore; but the way seemed long to him, and even when he drew near to her he scarce dared to approach her, for his fears shaped themselves as he ran, and became one agony of terror for his child’s life, and he thought, ‘If I come upon her unawares, she may cast him into the sea.’ But she, though her back was turned to him, was aware of his coming, and she rose to her feet and faced him, still holding her child in her arms, whilst he, wading, and often slipping and stumbling, made his way slowly to her.

  And as he drew close he saw that she wore the little blue gown in which she was wont to bathe, and her golden hair was loose about her neck as when he had seen her first, and her feet were bare, and a smile was on her face as she kissed the child in her arms as if it were very dear. Then calling and moaning out to him she cried, ‘My mother’s hand is heavy on me; oh! my love, save me! Her hand is heavy on the child, and her arms are stretching from the waves to seize us. Ah! my love, save us!’ And now he had almost laid his hands upon her, when she, thrusting the little one from her, shrieked, ‘Take your devil’s brat, I will have none of it!’ And he saw that his child was dead.

  At this, he made as though he would have seized her, but before he could lay hands on her she had him by the throat, nor could any strength of his avail to unloose her fingers; as he struggled with her thus, he felt the crag rock beneath his feet, and between his teeth he cursed the day that had brought him thither to mix his blood with that of her demon blood.

  But neither to curse nor to pray could then avail him. The tide came on, nor was there any help from land or sea. And the great waves leapt high above them, and her fingers tightened on him, and her lips clung to his mouth, so that gasping for breath he stamped in his fury with his foot. Then was the great crag loosened utterly from its hold; for a moment it hung above the abyss below; next, with a steady roll and a sound as of thunder, it plunged into the seething waters. In the gathering night a cloud of spray arose to heaven; then the waves rolled on to the shore, and neither in ebb nor flow can any man find where the Serpent’s Head has made the grave of its ghastly burden. But the plague of that house was stayed in the land.

  The Phantom Model

  HUME NISBET

  If the introduction to his book of macabre tales is anything to go by, Hume Nisbet (1849 – c. 1920) was a midnight worker: ‘(these stories were) thought out during hours of solitude when the bustling world was hushed in slumber, and solemn midnight granted to the mind the true conditions for the reception of the occult mysteries.’ The results are certainly worth reading, as you’ll see.

  Hume Nisbet was born in Stirling, Scotland. He left home at the age of sixteen to spend the next seven years travelling around Australia. When he returned to Scotland, he
got a job as art master in an Edinburgh college, and after eight years, went back to Australia, where he took up writing for a living after a brief spell as a publisher’s agent.

  During his frequent visits back to Britain, he took the time to put together and introduce THE HAUNTED STATION (1894), from which comes ‘The Phantom Model’. In his introduction, Nisbet hinted strongly at the real-life origins of his literary phantoms. They were, he said, ‘gleaned from reliable sources or personal experience . . . malignant influences I have attempted to define in such sketches as “The Phantom Model”.’ If Nisbet’s art career ever brought him up against anything like the following story, small wonder he gave it up! It contains an interesting description of London’s poverty-stricken areas as potent as any by Charles Dickens; note the contemporary reference to Jack the Ripper.

  A WAPPING ROMANCE

  I

  The Studio

  ‘Rhoda is a very nice girl in her way, Algy, my boy, and poses wonderfully, considering the hundreds of times she has had to do it; but she isn’t the model for that Beatrice of yours, and if you want to make a hit of it, you must go further afield, and hook a face not quite so familiar to the British Public.’

  It was a large apartment, one of a set of studios in the artistic barrack off the Fulham Road, which the landlord, himself a theatrical Bohemian of the first class, has rushed up for the accommodation of youthful luminaries who are yet in the nebulous stage of their Art-course. Each of these hazy specks hopes to shine out a full-lustred star in good time; they have all a proper contempt also for those servile daubsters who consent to the indignity of having R.A. added to their own proper, or assumed, names. Most of them belong to the advanced school of Impressionists, and allow, with reservations, that Jimmy Whitetuft has genius, as they know that he is the most generous, as well as the most epigrammatical, of painters, while Rhoda, the model, also knows that he is the kindest and most chivalrous of patrons, who stands more of her caprices than most of her other masters do, allows her more frequent as well as longer rests in the two hours’ sitting, and can always be depended upon for a half-crown on an emergency; good-natured, sardonic Jimmy Whitetuft, who can well appreciate the caprices of any woman, or butterfly of the hour, seeing that he has so many of them himself.