by Otto Penzler
“Allan!” She looked at him, frightened, but went with him. “It was of Frances you dreamed,” she said, quietly, as they entered the library together.
“Did I say it was a dream? But I was awake—thoroughly awake. I had not been sleeping well, and I heard, twice, the striking of the clock. And as I lay there, looking out at the stars, and thinking—thinking of you, Theresa—she came to me, stood there before me, in my room. It was no sheeted specter, you understand; it was Frances, literally she. In some inexplicable fashion I seemed to be aware that she wanted to make me know something, and I waited, watching her face. After a few moments it came. She did not speak, precisely. That is, I am sure I heard no sound. Yet the words that came from her were definite enough. She said: ‘Don’t let Theresa leave you. Take her and keep her.’ Then she went away. Was that a dream?”
“I had not meant to tell you,” Theresa eagerly answered, “but now I must. It is too wonderful. What time did your clock strike, Allan?”
“One, the last time.”
“Yes; it was then that I awoke. And she had been with me. I had not seen her, but her arm had been about me and her kiss was on my cheek. Oh. I knew; it was unmistakable. And the sound of her voice was with me.”
“Then she bade you, too——”
“Yes, to stay with you. I am glad we told each other.” She smiled tearfully and began to fasten her wrap.
“But you are not going—now!” Allan cried. “You know that you cannot, now that she has asked you to stay.”
“Then you believe, as I do, that it was she?” Theresa demanded.
“I can never understand, but I know,” he answered her. “And now you will not go?”
I am freed. There will be no further semblance of me in my old home, no sound of my voice, no dimmest echo of my earthly self. They have no further need of me, the two that I have brought together. Theirs is the fullest joy that the dwellers in the shell of sense can know. Mine is the transcendent joy of the unseen spaces.
THE AVENGING OF ANN LEETE
Marjorie Bowen
AS THE AUTHOR OF more than one hundred fifty books and countless short stories, Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long (née Campbell) (1886–1952) used numerous pseudonyms, writing mainly ghost stories as Marjorie Bowen. She was born to deeply poor parents on Hayling Island, Hampshire, a situation made worse when her father abandoned the family. To help assist her sister and profligate, unstable mother, she began to write and had her first novel published when she was only sixteen, immediately becoming the prime supporter of her small family. Her dark and unhappy early years led her to produce a plethora of fictional works with Gothic overtones. While many were hastily written potboilers, she often wrote finely crafted tales that remain highly readable and popular today. Her seemingly inexhaustible imagination and smooth, accessible style made her popular with readers while also earning the praise of such significant critics of her time as Rebecca West, William Roughead, Graham Greene, and Will Cuppy.
“The Avenging of Ann Leete” was originally published in Seeing Life! and Other Stories (London, Hurst & Blackett, 1923; the collection was published in the United States two years later).
The Avenging of Ann Leete
MARJORIE BOWEN
THIS IS A QUEER story, the more queer for the interpretation of passions of strong human heat that has been put upon it, and for glimpses of other motives and doings, not, it would seem, human at all.
The whole thing is seen vaguely, brokenly, a snatch here and there; one tells the tale, strangely another exclaims amaze, a third points out a scene, a fourth has a dim memory of a circumstance, a nine-days’ (or less) wonder, an old print helps, the name on a mural tablet in a deserted church pinches the heart with a sense of confirmation, and so you have your story. When all is said it remains a queer tale.
It is seventy years odd ago, so dating back from this present year of 1845 you come to nearly midway in the last century when conditions were vastly different from what they are now.
The scene is in Glasgow, and there are three points from which we start, all leading us to the heart of our tale.
The first is the portrait of a woman that hangs in the parlour of a respectable banker. He believes it to be the likeness of some connexion of his wife’s, dead this many a year, but he does not know much about it. Some while ago it was discovered in a lumberroom, and he keeps it for the pallid beauty of the canvas, which is much faded and rubbed.
Since, as a young man, I first had the privilege of my worthy friend’s acquaintance, I have always felt a strange interest in this picture; and, in that peculiar way that the imagination will seize on trifles, I was always fascinated by the dress of the lady. This is of dark-green very fine silk, an uncommon colour to use in a portrait, and, perhaps, in a lady’s dress. It is very plain, with a little scarf of a striped Roman pattern, and her hair is drawn up over a pillow in the antique mode. Her face is expressionless, yet strange, the upper lip very thin, the lower very full, the light brown eyes set under brows that slant. I cannot tell why this picture was always to me full of such a great attraction, but I used to think of it a vast deal, and often to note, secretly, that never had I chanced to meet in real life, or in any other painting, a lady in a dark-green silk dress.
In the corner of the canvas is a little device, put in a diamond, as a gentlewoman might bear arms, yet with no pretensions to heraldry, just three little birds, the topmost with a flower in its beak.
It was not so long ago that I came upon the second clue that leads into the story, and that was a mural tablet in an old church near the Rutherglen Road, a church that has lately fallen into disrepute or neglect, for it was deserted and impoverished. But I was assured that a generation ago it had been a most famous place of worship, fashionable and well frequented by the better sort.
The mural tablet was to one “Ann Leete,” and there was just the date (seventy-odd years old) given with what seemed a sinister brevity.
And underneath the lettering, lightly cut on the time-stained marble, was the same device as that on the portrait of the lady in the green silk dress.
I was curious enough to make inquiries, but no one seemed to know anything of, or wished to talk about, Ann Leete.
It was all so long ago, I was told, and there was no one now in the parish of the name of Leete.
And all who had been acquainted with the family of Leete seemed to be dead or gone away. The parish register (my curiosity went so far as an inspection of this) yielded me no more information than the mural tablet.
I spoke to my friend the banker, and he said he thought that his wife had had some cousins by the name of Leete, and that there was some tale of a scandal or great misfortune attached to them which was the reason of a sort of ban on their name so that it had never been mentioned.
When I told him I thought the portrait of the lady in the dark-green silk might picture a certain Ann Leete he appeared uneasy and even desirous of having the likeness removed, which roused in me the suspicion that he knew something of the name, and that not pleasant. But it seemed to me indelicate and perhaps useless to question him.
It was a year or so after this incident that my business, which was that of silversmith and jeweller, put into my hands a third clue. One of my apprentices came to me with a rare piece of work which had been left at the shop for repair.
It was a thin medal of the purest gold, on which was set in fresh-water pearls, rubies, and cairngorms the device of the three birds, the plumage being most skilfully wrought in the bright jewels and the flower held by the topmost creature accurately designed in pearls.
It was one of these pearls that was missing, and I had some difficulty in matching its soft lustre.
An elderly lady called for the ornament, the same person who had left it. I saw her myself, and ventured to admire and praise the workmanship of the medal.
“Oh,” she said, “it was worked by a very famous jeweller, my great-uncle, and he has a peculiar regard for it—indeed I believe it has never before be
en out of his possession, but he was so greatly grieved by the loss of the pearl that he would not rest until I offered to take it to be repaired. He is, you will understand,” she added, with a smile, “a very old man. He must have made that jewellery—why—seventy-odd years ago.”
Seventy-odd years ago—that would bring one back to the date on the tablet to Ann Leete, to the period of the portrait.
“I have seen this device before,” I remarked, “on the likeness of a lady and on the mural inscription in memory of a certain Ann Leete.” Again this name appeared to make an unpleasant impression.
My customer took her packet hastily.
“It is associated with something dreadful,” she said quickly. “We do not speak of it—a very old story. I did not know anyone had heard of it——”
“I certainly have not,” I assured her. “I came to Glasgow not so long ago, as apprentice to this business of my uncle’s which now I own.”
“But you have seen a portrait?” she asked.
“Yes, in the house of a friend of mine.”
“This is queer. We did not know that any existed. Yet my great-uncle does speak of one—in a green silk dress.”
“In a green silk dress,” I confirmed.
The lady appeared amazed.
“But it is better to let the matter rest,” she decided. “My relative, you will realize, is very old—nearly, sir, a hundred years old, and his wits wander and he tells queer tales. It was all very strange and horrible, but one cannot tell how much my old uncle dreams.”
“I should not think to disturb him,” I replied.
But my customer hesitated.
“If you know of this portrait—perhaps he should be told; he laments after it so much, and we have always believed it an hallucination——”
She returned the packet containing the medal.
“Perhaps,” she added dubiously, “you are interested enough to take this back to my relative yourself and judge what you shall or shall not tell him?”
I eagerly accepted the offer, and the lady gave me the name and residence of the old man who, although possessed of considerable means, had lived for the past fifty years in the greatest seclusion in that lonely part of the town beyond the Rutherglen Road and near to the Green, the once pretty and fashionable resort for youth and pleasure, but now a deserted and desolate region. Here, on the first opportunity, I took my way, and found myself well out into the country, nearly at the river, before I reached the lonely mansion of Eneas Bretton, as the ancient jeweller was called.
A ferocious dog troubled my entrance in the dark overgrown garden where the black glossy laurels and bays strangled the few flowers, and a grim woman, in an old-fashioned mutch or cap, at length answered my repeated peals at the rusty chain bell.
It was not without considerable trouble that I was admitted into the presence of Mr. Bretton, and only, I think, by the display of the jewel and the refusal to give it into any hands but those of its owner.
The ancient jeweller was seated on a southern terrace that received the faint and fitful rays of the September sun. He was wrapped in shawls that disguised his natural form, and a fur and leather cap was fastened under his chin.
I had the impression that he had been a fine man, of a vigorous and handsome appearance; even now, in the extreme of decay, he showed a certain grandeur of line and carriage, a certain majestic power in his personality. Though extremely feeble, I did not take him to be imbecile nor greatly wanting in his faculties.
He received me courteously, though obviously ill-used to strangers.
I had, he said, a claim on him as a fellow craftsman, and he was good enough to commend the fashion in which I had repaired his medal.
This, as soon as he had unwrapped, he fastened to a fine gold chain he drew from his breast, and slipped inside his heavy clothing.
“A pretty trinket,” I said, “and of an unusual design.”
“I fashioned it myself,” he answered, “over seventy years ago. The year before, sir, she died.”
“Ann Leete?” I ventured.
The ancient man was not in the least surprised at the use of this name.
“It is a long time since I heard those words with any but my inner ear,” he murmured; “to be sure, I grow very old. You’ll not remember Ann Leete?” he added wistfully.
“I take it she died before I was born,” I answered.
He peered at me.
“Ah, yes, you are still a young man, though your hair is grey.”
I noticed now that he wore a small tartan scarf inside his coat and shawl; this fact gave me a peculiar, almost unpleasant shudder.
“I know this about Ann Leete—she had a dark-green silk dress. And a Roman or tartan scarf.”
He touched the wisp of bright-coloured silk across his chest.
“This is it. She had her likeness taken so—but it was lost.”
“It is preserved,” I answered. “And I know where it is. I might, if you desired, bring you to a sight of it.”
He turned his grand old face to me with a civil inclination of his massive head.
“That would be very courteous of you, sir, and a pleasure to me. You must not think,” he added with dignity, “that the lady has forsaken me or that I do not often see her. Indeed, she comes to me more frequently than before. But it would delight me to have the painting of her to console the hours of her absence.”
I reflected what his relative had said about the weakness of his wits, and recalled his great age, which one was apt to forget in face of his composure and reasonableness.
He appeared now to doze and to take no further notice of my presence, so I left him.
He had a strange look of lifelessness as he slumbered there in the faintest rays of the cloudy autumn sun.
I reflected how lightly the spirit must dwell in this ancient frame, how easily it must take flight into the past, how soon into eternity.
It did not cost me much persuasion to induce my friend, the banker, to lend me the portrait of Ann Leete, particularly as the canvas had been again sent up to the attics.
“Do you know the story?” I asked him.
He replied that he had heard something; that the case had made a great stir at the time; that it was all very confused and amazing, and that he did not desire to discuss the matter.
I hired a carriage and took the canvas to the house of Eneas Bretton.
He was again on the terrace, enjoying with a sort of calm eagerness the last warmth of the failing sun.
His two servants brought in the picture and placed it on a chair at his side.
He gazed at the painted face with the greatest serenity.
“That is she,” he said, “but I am glad to think that she looks happier now, sir. She still wears that dark-green silk. I never see her in any other garment.”
“A beautiful woman,” I remarked quietly, not wishing to agitate or disturb his reflections, which were clearly detached from any considerations of time and space.
“I have always thought so,” he answered gently, “but I, sir, have peculiar faculties. I saw her, and see her still as a spirit. I loved her as a spirit. Yet our bodily union was necessary for our complete happiness. And in that my darling and I were balked.”
“By death?” I suggested, for I knew that the word had no terrors for him.
“By death,” he agreed, “who will soon be forced to unite us again.”
“But not in the body,” I said.
“How, sir, do you know that?” he smiled. “We have but finite minds. I think we have but little conception of the marvellous future.”
“Tell me,” I urged, “how you lost Ann Leete.”
His dim, heavy-lidded, many-wrinkled eyes flickered a glance over me.
“She was murdered,” he said.
I could not forbear a shudder.
“That fragile girl!” I exclaimed. My blood had always run cool and thin, and I detested deeds of violence; my even mind could not grasp the idea of the murder of
women save as a monstrous enormity.
I looked at the portrait, and it seemed to me that I had always known that it was the likeness of a creature doomed.
“Seventy years ago and more,” continued Eneas Bretton, “since when she has wandered lonely betwixt time and eternity, waiting for me. But very soon I shall join her, and then, sir, we shall go where there is no recollection of the evil things of this earth.”
By degrees he told me the story, not in any clear sequence, nor at any one time, nor without intervals of sleep and pauses of dreaming, nor without assistance from his servants and his great-niece and her husband, who were his frequent visitors.
Yet it was from his own lips and when we were alone together that I learned all that was really vital in the tale.
He required very frequent attendance; although all human passion was at the utmost ebb with him, he had, he said, a kind of regard for me in that I had brought him his lady’s portrait, and he told me things of which he had never spoken to any human being before. I say human on purpose because of his intense belief that he was, and always had been, in communication with powers not of this earth.
In these words I put together his tale.
As a young man, said Eneas Bretton, I was healthy, prosperous, and happy.
My family had been goldsmiths as long as there was any record of their existence, and I was an enthusiast in this craft, grave, withal, and studious, over-fond of books and meditation. I do not know how or when I first met Ann Leete.
To me she was always there like the sun; I think I have known her all my life, but perhaps my memory fails.
Her father was a lawyer and she an only child, and though her social station was considered superior to mine, I had far more in the way of worldly goods, so there was no earthly obstacle to our union.
The powers of evil, however, fought against us; I had feared this from the first, as our happiness was the complete circle ever hateful to fiends and devils who try to break the mystic symbol.
The mistress of my soul attracted the lustful attention of a young doctor, Rob Patterson, who had a certain false charm of person, not real comeliness, but a trick of colour, of carriage, and a fine taste in clothes.
