The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

by Simon Stern

  Somehow that evening I did not carry away such a pleasing impression of my brother’s bride as I did when first I met her. I can give no reason for this, except that I was not forgetful of my wife’s accusation, that when first I met Judith Despard I had been carried away by the glamour of her beauty, and thought of nothing else. As I walked to Claud’s rooms, which I occupied for the night, I almost regretted that he had been so hasty—certainly I wished that we knew more of his bride. But it was now too late for regrets or wishes.

  I called for Mrs. Despard at the appointed hour, and found her quite ready to start. Her dress was plain and simple—I can not describe it; but I saw that in spite of her excessive pallor she looked very beautiful. In the carriage on our way to the church she was very silent, answering my remarks with monosyllables. I left her in peace, supposing that at such a moment every woman must be more or less agitated.

  When the carriage drew up at the church door, the bride laid her hand upon my arm. I could feel that she was trembling. “Claud will be here?” she asked. “Nothing will stop him?”

  “Nothing. But I may as well step out and see that he is waiting.”

  Yes, Claud was in the church waiting for us. We exchanged greetings. The old sexton summoned the curate; and Judith Des­pard, my brother, and myself walked up to the altar rails.

  Claud looked very well that morning; a little fagged perhaps, but the long night journey would account for that. He certainly looked proud and happy as he stood on the altar step side by side with the woman who in a few minutes would be his wife.

  But before the curate had finished reading the opening address a great change came over him. From where I was standing I could see only his side face, but that was enough to show me that he was suffering from some agitation—something far above the nervousness so often displayed by a bridegroom. A deadly pallor came over his face, small beads of perspiration sprang to his brow, and I noticed that those tell-tales of mental disturbance, the hands, were so tightly clenched that the knuckles grew white. It was evident that he was suffering anguish of some kind, and for a moment I thought of stopping the service. But the rite is but a short one, and from whatever cause Claud’s agitation might proceed, it was perhaps better to trust to him to curb it for a few moments than to make a scene. Nevertheless I watched him intently and anxiously.

  Then came the charge to declare any impediment. As the curate made the conventional pause, Claud, to my surprise, glanced round in a startled way, as if fearing that his marriage would at the last moment be forbidden. The look on his face was now one of actual terror.

  Both bride and bridegroom said their “I wills” in such low tones that I could scarcely hear their voices. Then, in pursuance of my duty, I gave the woman to the priest. He joined the hands of Claud and Judith.

  After having played my little part I had not moved back to my former station. I was now close to the bride, and as Claud turned to her, could see his face to advantage. It was positively distorted with suppressed emotion of some kind. His mouth was set, and I could see that his teeth were closed on his under lip. He did not look at his fair bride. His gaze passed over her shoulder. In fact, he seemed almost oblivious to her presence. I was dreadfully frightened.

  The clergyman’s voice rang out: “I, Claud, take thee, Judith, to my wedded wife.” Then, hearing no echo of his words, he paused.

  “Repeat after me,” he prompted. Again he began, “I, Claud—”

  But his voice was drowned in a louder one, which rang through the empty church. With a fierce cry, as of inexpressible rage, Claud had thrown the bride’s hand from him, and was pointing and gesticulating toward the wall, upon which his eyes had been riveted.

  “Here!—even here!” he almost shrieked. “That cursed, white, wicked, dying face! Whose is it! Why does it come between me and my love! Mad! Mad! I am going mad!”

  I heeded not the clergyman’s look of dismay, or the bride’s cry of distress. I thought of nothing but my unfortunate brother. Here, at the moment which should be the happiest he had yet known, the grewsome hallucination had come back to him. I threw my arm round him and tried to calm him.

  “It is fancy, dear boy,” I said. “In a moment it will be gone.”

  “Gone! Why does it come? What have I to do with this dying man? Look, Frank, look! Something tells me if you look you will see it. There! there! Look there!”

  His eyes were ever fixed on the same point. He grasped my arm convulsively. I am ashamed to say that I yielded, and looked in the direction of his gaze.

  “There is nothing there,” I said, soothingly.

  “Look!” he exclaimed. “It will come to you as to me.”

  It may have been the hope of convincing Claud of the illusionary nature of the sight which tormented him, it may have been some strange fascination, wrought by his words and manner, which made me for some moments gaze with him. God of heaven! I saw gradually forming out of nothing, gathering on the blank wall in front of me, a face, or the semblance of a face, white, ghastly, horrible! Long, dank, wet-looking dark hair, eyes starting from their sockets, lips working—the whole appearance that of the face of a man who is struggling with death: in every detail as Claud had described it. And yet to me that face was more terrible than ever it could be to Claud.

  I gazed in horror. I felt my eyes growing riveted to the sight as his own. I felt my whole frame trembling. I knew that in another moment I should be raving as wildly as he raved. Only his hoarse whisper recalled me to my senses.

  “You see?” he asked, or rather asserted.

  Horror forced the truth from me. “I see, or fancy I see,” I answered.

  With a wild laugh Claud broke from me. He rushed down the church and disappeared. As he left me, the face, thank Heaven! faded from the wall, or from my imagination.

  I turned to my companions. Judith Despard was lying in a dead swoon on the altar steps; the curate with trembling hands was loosening the throat of her dress. I called for water. The sexton brought it. I bathed the poor woman’s temples, and in a few minutes she sighed, opened her eyes, and then shuddered. I took her in my arms and staggered to the church door. The curate removed his surplice and followed me. I placed my almost senseless burden in the carriage.

  “For Heaven’s sake, see her home,” I said to the curate. “I must go and look after my brother. As soon as I have seen him I will come round to Mrs. Despard’s. Get her home quickly. The coachman knows where to go.”

  The brougham drove off. I threw myself into a cab, and drove toward Claud’s rooms. I hoped he might have gone straight there.

  To my great relief, when I reached his house he was on the door-step. We entered his room together; he sank wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. I was scarcely less agitated than himself, and my face, as I caught its reflection in the mirror, was as white as his own. I waited for him to speak.

  Presently he raised his head. “Go to her,” he said. “Ask her why that face comes between us. You saw it—even you. It can be no fancy of mine. Tell her we can meet no more.”

  “I will wait until you are calmer before I go.”

  “Calm! I am myself now. The thing has left me, as it always does. Frank, I have hidden from you one peculiarity of my state. That awful face never shows itself to me unless I am in her company. Even at the altar it came between us. Go to her; ask her why it comes.”

  I left him, but did not quit the house for some time. I went into an adjoining room and tried to collect my thoughts; for, as I said, my mind was more troubled than even Claud’s could be.

  I am ashamed to re-assert it; I am willing to own that excitement, my brother’s impressive manner, superstition which I did not know I possessed—any thing that may bear a natural explanation—may have raised that vision. But why should that phantom, gathering and growing from nothing until it attained to form, or at least semblance, have been the face of one I had known? Why should the features distorted in deadly agony have been those of my brother Stephen? Fo
r his was the dreadful face which Claud’s prompting or my own imagination had raised.

  Almost like one in a dream I went to do Claud’s bidding. I was thankful, upon reaching Mrs. Despard’s, to find that she had gone to her room, and left word that she could see no one to-day. This gave me time to consider the position.

  Acting on a sudden impulse, I went to the telegraph office, and sent instructions to my wife to forward to me, by passenger train, a small box in which I kept old letters and papers. Then I went back to Claud, and after some persuasion induced him to leave town at once. I told him I would arrange every thing on the morrow. He was better away.

  In the morning my box arrived. In it I found what I wanted. After the calming effects of a night’s rest I felt ashamed of my weakness as I drew from old letters a photograph of my brother Stephen—one taken about two years before the report of his death reached us. Nevertheless I put the portrait in my pocket, and about noon went to Mrs. Despard’s.

  I was at once admitted, and in a few minutes she came to me. She looked worn and haggard, as if sleep had not visited her for nights. Dark circles had formed round her fine eyes; lines seemed to have deepened round her firm, passionate mouth. She advanced eagerly toward me and held out her hand. I took it in silence. Indeed, I scarcely knew what to say or how to act.

  “Where is Claud?” she asked, in a quick voice, but scarcely above a whisper.

  “He has left town for a few days.”

  She pressed her hand to her heart. “Does that mean I shall see him no more?”

  “I am afraid I must say it does. He thinks it better you should part.”

  She gave a sharp cry, and walked up and down the room wringing her hands. Her lips moved rapidly, and I knew she was muttering many words, but in so low a key that I could not catch their meaning. Suddenly she stopped, and turned upon me fiercely.

  “Is this by your council and advice?” she demanded.

  “No. It is his own unbiassed decision.”

  “Why?—tell me why? He loved me—I love him. Why does he leave me?”

  The passionate entreaty of her voice is indescribable. What could I say to her? Words stuck in my throat. It seemed the height of absurdity for a sane man to give a sane woman the true reason for Claud’s broken faith. I stammered out something about his bad state of health.

  “If he is ill, I will nurse him,” she cried. “I will wait for years if he will give me hope. Dr. Morton, I love Claud as I never before loved a man.”

  She clasped her hands and looked imploringly into my face. In a mechanical way I drew the portrait of my dead brother from my breast. She saw the action.

  “His likeness!” she cried, joyfully. “He sends it to me! Ah, he loves me!”

  I handed her the photograph. “Mrs. Despard,” I asked, “do you know—”

  I did not finish the question, yet it was fully answered. Never, I believe, save then did a human face undergo such a sudden, frightful change. The woman’s very lips grew ashen, her eyes glared into mine, and I saw them full of dread. She staggered—all but fell.

  “Why is it here—who is it?” she gasped out.

  I was a prey to the wildest excitement. To what revelation was this tending? what awful thing had I to learn?

  “Listen,” I said, sternly. “Woman, it is for you to answer the question. It is the face of this man, his dying face, that comes between you and your lover.”

  “Tell me his name.” I read rather than heard the words her dry lips formed.

  “The name he was once known by was Stanley.”

  A quick, sharp shudder ran through her. For a moment I thought she was going to faint.

  “He is dead,” she said. “Why does he come between my love and me? Others have loved or said they loved me since then. They saw no dead faces. Had I loved them I might have married and been happy. Claud I love. Why does the dead man trouble him?”

  “That man,” I replied, “was my brother—Claud’s brother.”

  She threw out her arms with a gesture of utter despair. “Your brother—Claud’s brother!” she repeated. Then she fixed her eyes on mine as if she would read the secrets of my soul.

  “You are lying,” she said.

  “I am not. He was our eldest brother. He left England years ago. He passed under a false name. He died. When and how did he die?”

  She sank, a dead weight, into a chair; but still she looked at me like one under a spell. I seized her wrist.

  “Tell me, woman,” I cried—“tell me what this man was to you; why his dying face comes to us? The truth—speak the truth.”

  She seemed to cower beneath my words, but her eyes were still on my face. “Speak!” I cried, fiercely, and tightening my grasp upon her wrist. At last she found words.

  “He was my husband; I killed him,” she said in a strange voice, low yet perfectly distinct.

  I recoiled in horror. This woman, the widow and self-­confessed murderess of one brother, within an ace of being the wife of the other!

  “You murdered him?” I said, turning to the woman.

  “I murdered him. He made my life a hell upon earth. He beat me, cursed me, ruined me. He was the foulest-hearted fiend that ever lived. I killed him.”

  No remorse, no regret in her words. Quite overcome, I leaned against the chimney-piece. Bad as I knew Stephen Morton to have been, I could at that moment only think of him as a gay, light-hearted school-boy, my elder brother, and in those days a perfect hero in my eyes. No wonder my heart was full of vengeance.

  Yet even in the first flush of my rage I knew that I could do nothing. No human justice could be meted out to this woman. There was nothing to prove the truth of her self-accusation. She would escape scot-free.

  “Would that I could avenge his death!” I said, sullenly.

  She sprang to her feet. Her dark eyes blazed. “Avenged!” she cried. “Is it not doubly, trebly avenged? Has he not taken all I care for in life from me? Has he not taken my love from my side? Coward in life, coward in death. When I killed him I knew he would try to come back to me. He has tried for years. Ah, I was too strong for him. I could banish the face with which he strove to haunt me. I could forget. I could love. I could have been happy. Yet he has conquered at last. Not me—he could not conquer me—but the one I love. Oh, the coward is avenged!”

  In spite of my feeling of abhorrence, I gazed on the speaker in amazement. Her words were not those of one who had committed a black crime, but of one who had suffered wrong. The strange, fanciful idea that the dead man had been trying to haunt her, but had been kept at bay by her strong will, was in my experience unprecedented. As I saw the agony of mind under which she was labouring, the thought came to me that perhaps her words were true, that my brother’s death was this day avenged. I resolved to leave her. I could gain no good by prolonging the painful scene.

  She was still pacing the room in fierce passion. Suddenly she stopped short, and in thrilling accents began to speak. It seemed as if she had forgotten my presence.

  “See,” she cried, “the river-bank—the dark rushing stream. Ah, we are all alone, side by side, far away from every one. Fool! if you could read my heart, would you walk so near to the giddy brink? Do you think the memory of the old love will stay my hand when the chance comes? Old love is dead: you beat it, cursed it to death! How fast does the stream run? Can a strong man swim against it? Oh, if I could be sure—sure that one push would end it all and give me freedom! Once I longed for love—your love. Now I long for death—your death. Oh, brave, swift tide, are you strong enough to free me forever? Hark! I can hear the roar of the rapids in the distance. There is a deep fall from the river cliff; there are rocks. Fool! you stand at the very edge and look down. The moment is come. Ah!”

  With her last exclamation she used a violent gesture, as if pushing something fiercely from her. She was, I knew, in her excitement, re-acting the tragedy.

  “Free! free! free!” she cried, with a delirious, almost rapturous laugh, and clasped her hands.
“Hold him, brave stream! Sweep him away. See! he swims; but he dare not swim with you. You are hurrying down to the rapids. He must face you, and wrestle with you for his life. Bear him down; keep him from me. If he masters you, he will land and kill me. Hold him fast, brave stream! Ha! his strength fails. He is swept away; he is under. No, I see him again. He turns his face to me. He knows I did it. With his last breath he is cursing me. His last breath! He is gone, gone forever! I am free!”

  The changes in her voice, ranging from dread to tearful joy, her passionate words, her eloquent gestures, all these combined to bring the very scene before my eyes. I stood spell-bound, and even, as she described it, seemed to see the unfortunate man battling for dear life in the rushing stream, growing every moment weaker and weaker. As the woman’s last wild exclamation—“Gone forever! I am free!”—rang through the room, I seemed to hear the cry of despair drowned as the waves closed over the wretched man’s head. I knew every detail of my brother’s fate.

  I turned to leave the room. I longed to get away, and if possible to banish the events of the day from my mind. It was not given to me to be Stephen Morton’s avenger.

  My hand was on the door, when the woman sprang to my side. She grasped my arm and drew me back into the room.

  “Look!” she whispered. “Do you see it! There! The face—that awful face! It has come at last to me. The dead man has conquered. There! look! His eyes glaring, his mouth mocking. Now it has once come, I shall see it always—always. Look!”

  No, I was not doomed again to see or to fancy I saw that face. Its mission, so far as I was concerned, was at an end. But the look of concentrated horror which Judith Despard cast at the wall of the room beggars description. Then with a piteous cry she fell at my feet, and seemed to strive to make me shield her from something she dreaded. I raised her. She broke from my grasp, and again fell upon the floor, this time in paroxysms of madness.