An illusion—the very word made use of by the schoolmaster! What did it mean? Could I, in truth, no longer rely upon the testimony of my senses? A thousand half-formed apprehensions flashed across me in a moment. I remembered the illusions of Nicolini, the bookseller, and other similar cases of visual hallucination, and I asked myself if I had suddenly become afflicted in like manner.
‘By Jove! this is a queer sight!’ exclaimed Wolstenholme.
And then I found that we had emerged from the glade, and were looking down upon the bed of what yesterday was Blackwater Tarn.
It was indeed a queer sight—an oblong, irregular basin of blackest slime, with here and there a sullen pool, and round the margin an irregular fringe of bulrushes. At some little distance along the bank—less than a quarter of a mile from where we were standing—a gaping crowd had gathered. All Pit End, except the men at the pumps, seemed to have turned out to stare at the bed of the vanished tarn.
Hats were pulled off and curtsies dropped at Wolstenholme’s approach. He, meanwhile, came up smiling, with a pleasant word for everyone.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘are you looking for the lake, my friends? You’ll have to go down Carshalton shaft to find it! It’s an ugly sight you’ve come to see, anyhow!’
‘’Tes an ugly soight, squoire,’ replied a stalwart blacksmith in a leathern apron; ‘but thar’s summat uglier, mebbe, than the mud, ow’r yonder.’
‘Something uglier than the mud?’ Wolstenholme repeated.
‘Wull yo be pleased to stan’ this way, squoire, an’ look strite across at yon little tump o’ bulrushes—doan’t yo see nothin?’
‘I see a log of rotten timber sticking half in and half out of the mud,’ said Wolstenholme; ‘and something—a long reed, apparently . . . by Jove! I believe it’s a fishing rod!’
‘It is a fishin’ rod, squoire,’ said the blacksmith with rough earnestness; ‘an’ if you rotten timber bayn’t an unburied corpse, mun I never stroike hammer on anvil agin!’
There was a buzz of acquiescence from the bystanders. ’Twas an unburied corpse, sure enough. Nobody doubted it.
Wolstenholme made a funnel with his hands, and looked through it long and steadfastly.
‘It must come out, whatever it is,’ he said presently. ‘Five feet of mud, do you say? Then here’s a sovereign apiece for the first two fellows who wade through it and bring that object to land!’
The blacksmith and another pulled off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trousers, and went in at once.
They were over their ankles at the first plunge, and, sounding their way with sticks, went deeper at every tread. As they sank, our excitement rose. Presently they were visible from only the waist upwards. We could see their chests heaving, and the muscular efforts by which each step was gained. They were yet full twenty yards from the goal when the mud mounted to their armpits . . . a few feet more, and only their heads would remain above the surface!
An uneasy movement ran through the crowd.
‘Call ’em back, vor God’s sake!’ cried a woman’s voice.
But at this moment—having reached a point where the ground gradually sloped upwards—they began to rise above the mud as rapidly as they had sunk into it. And now, black with clotted slime, they emerge waist-high . . . now they are within three or four yards of the spot . . . and now . . . now they are there!
They part the reeds—they stoop low above the shapeless object on which all eyes are turned—they half-lift it from its bed of mud—they hesitate—lay it down again—decide, apparently, to leave it there; and turn their faces shorewards. Having come a few paces, the blacksmith remembers the fishing-rod; turns back; disengages the tangled line with some difficulty, and brings it over his shoulder.
They had not much to tell—standing, all mud from head to heel, on dry land again—but that little was conclusive. It was, in truth, an unburied corpse; part of the trunk only above the surface. They tried to lift it; but it had been so long under water, and was in so advanced a stage of decomposition, that to bring it to shore without a shutter was impossible. Being cross-questioned, they thought, from the slenderness of the form, that it must be the body of a boy.
‘Thar’s the poor chap’s rod, anyhow,’ said the blacksmith, laying it gently down upon the turf.
I have thus far related events as I witnessed them. Here, however, my responsibility ceases. I give the rest of my story at second-hand, briefly, as I received it some weeks later, in the following letter from Philip Wostenholme:
Blackwater Chase, Dec. 20th, 18——.
Dear Frazer: My promised letter has been a long time on the road, but I did not see the use of writing till I had something definite to tell you. I think, however, we have now found out all that we are ever likely to know about the tragedy in the tarn; and it seems that—but, no; I will begin at the beginning. That is to say, with the day you left the Chase, which was the day following the discovery of the body.
You were but just gone when a police inspector arrived from Drumley (you will remember that I had immediately sent a man over to the sitting magistrate); but neither the inspector nor anyone else could do anything till the remains were brought to shore, and it took us the best part of a week to accomplish this difficult operation. We had to sink no end of big stones in order to make a rough and ready causeway across the mud. This done, the body was brought over decently upon a shutter. It proved to be the corpse of a boy of perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age. There was a fracture three inches long at the back of the skull, evidently fatal. This might, of course, have been an accidental injury; but when the body came to be raised from where it lay, it was found to be pinned down by a pitchfork, the handle of which had been afterwards whittled off, so as not to show above the water, a discovery tantamount to evidence of murder. The features of the victim were decomposed beyond recognition; but enough of the hair remained to show that it had been short and sandy. As for the clothing, it was a mere mass of rotten shreds; but on being subjected to some chemical process, proved to have once been a suit of lightish grey cloth.
A crowd of witnesses came forward at this stage of the inquiry—for I am now giving you the main facts as they came out at the coroner’s inquest—to prove that about a year or thirteen months ago, Skelton the schoolmaster had staying with him a lad whom he called his nephew, and to whom it was supposed that he was not particularly kind. This lad was described as tall, thin, and sandy-haired. He habitually wore a suit corresponding in colour and texture to the shreds of clothing discovered on the body in the tarn; and he was much addicted to angling about the pools and streams, wherever he might have the chance of a nibble.
And now one thing led quickly on to another. Our Pit End shoemaker identified the boy’s boots as being a pair of his own making and selling. Other witnesses testified to angry scenes between the uncle and nephew. Finally, Skelton gave himself up to justice, confessed the deed, and was duly committed to Drumley gaol for wilful murder.
And the motive? Well, the motive is the strangest part of my story. The wretched lad was, after all, not Skelton’s nephew, but Skelton’s own illegitimate son. The mother was dead, and the boy lived with his maternal grandmother in a remote part of Cumberland. The old woman was poor, and the schoolmaster made her an annual allowance for his son’s keep and clothing. He had not seen the boy for some years, when he sent for him to come over on a visit to Pit End. Perhaps he was weary of the tax upon his purse. Perhaps, as he himself puts it in his confession, he was disappointed to find the boy, if not actually half-witted, stupid, wilful, and ill brought-up. He at all events took a dislike to the poor brute, which dislike by-and-by developed into positive hatred. Some amount of provocation there would seem to have been. The boy was as backward as a child of five years old. That Skelton put him into the Boys’ School, and could do nothing with him; that he defied discipline, had a passion for fishing, and was continually wandering about the country with his rod and line, are facts borne out by the independent tes
timony of various witnesses. Having hidden his fishing-tackle, he was in the habit of slipping away at school-hours, and showed himself the more cunning and obstinate the more he was punished.
At last there came a day when Skelton tracked him to the place where his rod was concealed, and thence across the meadows into the park, and as far as the tarn. His (Skelton’s) account of what followed is wandering and confused. He owns to having beaten the miserable lad about the head and arms with a heavy stick that he had brought with him for the purpose; but denies that he intended to murder him. When his son fell insensible and ceased to breathe, he for the first time realised the force of the blows he had dealt. He admits that his first impulse was one, not of remorse for the deed, but of fear for his own safety. He dragged the body in among the bulrushes by the water’s edge, and there concealed it as well as he could. At night, when the neighbours were in bed and asleep, he stole out by starlight, taking with him a pitchfork, a coil of rope, a couple of old iron-bars, and a knife. Thus laden, he struck out across the moor, and entered the park by a stile and footpath on the Stoneleigh side; so making a circuit of between three and four miles. A rotten old punt used at that time to be kept on the tarn. He loosed this punt from its moorings, brought it round, hauled in the body, and paddled his ghastly burden out into the middle of the lake as far as a certain clump of reeds which he had noted as a likely spot for his purpose. Here he weighted and sunk the corpse, and pinned it down by the neck with his pitchfork. He then cut away the handle of the fork; hid the fishing-rod among the reeds; and believed, as murderers always believe, that discovery was impossible. As regarded the Pit End folk, he simply gave out that his nephew had gone back to Cumberland; and no one doubted it. Now, however, he says that accident has only anticipated him; and that he was on the point of voluntarily confessing his crime. His dreadful secret had of late become intolerable. He was haunted by an invisible Presence. That Presence sat with him at table, followed him in his walks, stood behind him in the school-room, and watched by his bedside. He never saw it; but he felt that it was always there. Sometimes he raves of a shadow on the wall of his cell. The gaol authorities are of opinion that he is of unsound mind.
I have now told you all that there is at present to tell. The trial will not take place till the spring assizes. In the meanwhile I am off tomorrow to Paris, and thence, in about ten days, on to Nice, where letters will find me at the Hotel des Empereurs.
Always, dear Frazer,
Yours, &c., &c.,
P.W.
P.S.—Since writing the above, I have received a telegram from Drumley to say that Skelton has committed suicide. No particulars given. So ends this strange eventful history.
By the way, that was a curious illusion of yours the other day when we were crossing the park; and I have thought of it many times. Was it an illusion?—that is the question.
Ay, indeed! that is the question; and it is a question which I have never yet been able to answer. Certain things I undoubtedly saw—with my mind’s eye, perhaps—and as I saw them, I have described them; withholding nothing, adding nothing, explaining nothing. Let those solve the mystery who can. For myself, I but echo Wolstenholme’s question: Was it an illusion?
Appendix I
Four Stories
ALL FOUR SHALL BE told exactly as I, the present narrator, have received them. They are all derived from credible sources; and the first—the most extraordinary of the four—is well known at first hand to individuals still living.
* * * * *
Some few years ago a well-known English artist received a commission from Lady F. to paint a portrait of her husband. It was settled that he should execute the commission at F. Hall, in the country, because his engagements were too many to permit his entering upon a fresh work till the London season should be over. As he happened to be on terms of intimate acquaintance with his employers, the arrangement was satisfactory to all concerned, and on the 13th of September he set out in good heart to perform his engagement.
He took the train for the station nearest to F. Hall, and found himself, when first starting, alone in a carriage. His solitude did not, however, continue long. At the first station out of London, a young lady entered the carriage, and took the corner opposite to him. She was very delicate looking, with a remarkable blending of sweetness and sadness in her countenance, which did not fail to attract the notice of a man of observation and sensibility. For some time neither uttered a syllable. But at length the gentleman made the remarks usual under such circumstances, on the weather and the country, and, the ice being broken, they entered into conversation. They spoke of painting. The artist was much surprised by the intimate knowledge the young lady seemed to have of himself and his doings. He was quite certain that he had never seen her before. His surprise was by no means lessened when she suddenly inquired whether he could make, from recollection, the likeness of a person whom he had seen only once, or at most twice? He was hesitating what to reply, when she added, ‘Do you think, for example, that you could paint me from recollection?’
He replied that he was not quite sure, but that perhaps he could.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘look at me again. You may have to take a likeness of me.’
He complied with this odd request, and she asked, rather eagerly:
‘Now, do you think you could?’
‘I think so,’ he replied; ‘but I cannot say for certain.’
At this moment the train stopped. The young lady rose from her seat, smiled in a friendly manner on the painter, and bade him goodbye: adding, as she quitted the carriage, ‘We shall meet again soon.’ The train rattled off, and Mr H. (the artist) was left to his own reflections.
The station was reached in due time, and Lady F.’s carriage was there, to meet the expected guest. It carried him to the place of his destination, one of ‘the stately homes of England’, after a pleasant drive, and deposited him at the hall door, where his host and hostess were standing to receive him. A kind greeting passed, and he was shown to his room: for the dinner-hour was close at hand.
Having completed his toilet, and descended to the drawing-room, Mr H. was much surprised, and much pleased, to see, seated on one of the ottomans, his young companion of the railway carriage. She greeted him with a smile and a bow of recognition. She sat by his side at dinner, spoke to him two or three times, mixed in the general conversation, and seemed perfectly at home. Mr H. had no doubt of her being an intimate friend of his hostess. The evening passed away pleasantly. The conversation turned a good deal upon the fine arts in general, and on painting in particular, and Mr H. was entreated to show some of the sketches he had brought down with him from London. He readily produced them, and the young lady was much interested in them.
At a late hour the party broke up, and retired to their several apartments.
Next morning, early, Mr H. was tempted by the bright sunshine to leave his room, and stroll out into the park. The drawing-room opened into the garden; passing through it, he inquired of a servant who was busy arranging the furniture, whether the young lady had come down yet?
‘What young lady, sir?’ asked the man, with an appearance of surprise.
‘The young lady who dined here last night.’
‘No young lady dined here last night, sir,’ replied the man, looking fixedly at him.
The painter said no more: thinking within himself that the servant was either very stupid or had a very bad memory. So, leaving the room, he sauntered out into the park.
He was returning to the house, when his host met him, and the usual morning salutations passed between them.
‘Your fair young friend has left you?’ observed the artist.
‘What young friend?’ inquired the lord of the manor.
‘The young lady who dined here last night,’ returned Mr H.
‘I cannot imagine to whom you refer,’ replied the gentleman, very greatly surprised.
‘Did not a young lady dine and spend the evening here yesterday?’ persisted
Mr H., who in his turn was beginning to wonder.
‘No,’ replied his host; ‘most certainly not. There was no one at table but yourself, my lady, and I.’
The subject was never reverted to after this occasion, yet our artist could not bring himself to believe that he was labouring under a delusion. If the whole were a dream, it was a dream in two parts. As surely as the young lady had been his companion in the railway carriage, so surely she had sat beside him at the dinner-table. Yet she did not come again; and everybody in the house, except himself, appeared to be ignorant of her existence.
He finished the portrait on which he was engaged, and returned to London.
For two whole years he followed up his profession: growing in reputation, and working hard. Yet he never all the while forgot a single lineament in the fair young face of his fellow-traveller. He had no clue by which to discover where she had come from, or who she was. He often thought of her, but spoke to no one about her. There was a mystery about the matter which imposed silence on him. It was wild, strange, utterly unaccountable.
Mr H. was called by business to Canterbury. An old friend of his—whom I will call Mr Wylde—resided there. Mr H., being anxious to see him, and having only a few hours at his disposal, wrote as soon as he reached the hotel, begging Mr Wylde to call upon him there. At the time appointed the door of his room opened, and Mr Wylde was announced. He was a complete stranger to the artist; and the meeting between the two was a little awkward. It appeared, on explanation, that Mr H.’s friend had left Canterbury some time; that the gentleman now face to face with the artist was another Mr Wylde; that the note intended for the absentee had been given to him; and that he had obeyed the summons, supposing some business matter to be the cause of it.
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 41
