Miss Darrington, who had been unusually busy all day, laid down her pen, and, leaning wearily back in her arm-chair, turned her eyes on the glowing evening sky. It had been a day of unusual beauty, very warm for the season; and the sun was setting in a sky soft, brilliant, and clear. A flood of yellow light streamed on the quiet river and brightened the distant view. The spires and leafy domes of Cambridge swam in a golden haze. The softened radiance filled the little room, and, falling about the lady herself, seemed to wrap her in an atmosphere of reverie. She was dreamily conscious of the beauty of the parting day; but she was not thinking of that, or, indeed, of any thing definite. She was, in fact, physically and mentally tired; and it was perhaps owing to this that a kind of depression stole over her—not really a sense of pain or sorrow, only a heavy languor of spirit, a feeling more tinged with the hue of sadness than was habitual with her. A long time elapsed. The sunlight slowly withdrew; the splendor of the sky passed into the paleness of evening, and a few of the larger stars began to show them selves; but still she remained motionless, and half unconscious of place or time.
“Isabel!”
The name was uttered almost at her elbow in a low, clear voice, whose accents were unmistakable, even if she had not on the instant remembered who alone in all the world had ever called her by that name. She turned eagerly to welcome the unexpected guest. “Raphael!” she exclaimed, in accents of undisguised pleasure.
He was standing just within the room. The door, a heavy one, was closed; and she wondered in a flash of thought how it could have opened to admit him unheard by her. She half rose to meet him; but a strange thrill shot through her, and an irresistible force bound her to her seat. She looked at him fixedly. There was still enough of brightness in the fading twilight for her to recognize unmistakably his form and features. But his face was very pale, and there was a look upon it unlike any thing she had ever seen there. So sad, yet so still—so full of some strange calm—it filled her with awe. She noticed that he wore a dress half military in its character, with some tarnished gold embroidery upon the breast, and a large cloak, thrown back and falling from his shoulders as he stood, his hat in his hand, in an attitude of careless grace she well remembered. He was so near she could almost have touched him with her hand. But yet he never spoke; only his lips parted with a tender smile, and his eyes dwelt on her with a glance so intense, so full of fathomless love and sorrow, it was more than her heart could bear.
She tried to speak; but though her lips shaped his name, her voice died away in a husky whisper. Suddenly over the pale sad face broke a look of rapturous joy—a smile like the sunshine of heaven; and in that instant the figure vanished—was gone utterly in a breath; and the lady felt that she was alone.
Miss Darrington is not a nervous woman, but it was some minutes before she could summon sufficient calmness to act, or even to think. Then she rang her bell, and a servant came to the door. “Come in,” she said, in answer to his respectful tap. But when he attempted to obey her the door was found locked on the inside. She remembered that she had herself turned the key some hours before to secure herself from interruption. Moreover, the man, on being questioned, declared with evident truth that no visitor had passed in or out of the house since noon. It was by a strong effort of will that she now drove back the superstitious feelings that assaulted her, and forced a smile at her own absurdity. Of course the thing was an illusion, a trick of the imagination played on by nerves overworn with work. It was odd, though, that imagination should have raised up so vividly the image of one who certainly had not recently been in her thoughts. Then, too, her memory could hardly have supplied some details of this vision; they were unfamiliar. Where could she have got the picture of her friend in that garb? The wide gray cloak, the gold-laced military dress—these were very unlike the negligent white linen suit in which she remembered him. Only on one occasion had she seen him dressed otherwise, and that was the day when he rode to L, to sit for the photograph which still hung at her side. On that day he had put on a black evening dress. Then the voice which had uttered her name—a name which only he had ever applied to her. How could imagination have raised that sound in her ear with such suddenness as to give her a shock of surprise?
It was odd, certainly; but she did not choose to indulge herself in morbid fancies upon the subject. Convinced that a low physical condition was really responsible for the illusion of which she had been the victim, she resolutely put the whole thing out of her mind, and set herself to get back the healthy tone to which nature entitled her. She left off writing, rode and walked frequently, and went much into society. But she was not able to dissipate the impression made upon her mind by what she had seen. Whenever she thought of it it was with a renewal of the same strange thrill which she had contended with at the time. She could not help recalling certain words which Raphael had once spoken to her, how he had vowed to seek her through the universe when death should have left him free to do so. Could such things be? And had death really freed that fiery and generous spirit? If so, where and when had he passed away? In a country so full of political and social turmoil as Mexico it was easy to imagine all possible contingencies, especially with a man of his temper. She found herself frequently turning to the columns of “Mexican correspondence” in the newspapers, for the chance of lighting upon his name; yet she knew well how easy it would be, in the chaos of that country, for a single stranger to vanish out of life and leave no trace. And then she told herself again that this was all nonsense and nerves; that her old friend was probably alive and well somewhere, and that he had forgotten her as completely as if she had never crossed his path. So, by degrees, the intensity of her first impression wore off, and her mind was regaining its accustomed poise, when a new incident occurred.
Tom Sibthorpe, at the close of the war, had settled himself to the practice of law in New York. He and Miss Darrington often met, and a warm friendship had grown up between them, kept alive by a frequent correspondence, not sentimental, but much like that which two clever men are apt to enjoy. One day early in December the lady received a letter from her friend, in which, after discussing in a lively manner one or two items of personal gossip, a new book, and the last bon-mot, the writer said:
“Have you heard that it is all over with our poor friend Aldama? He was one of the few victims of the almost bloodless revolution with which sleepy old Spain has just been astonishing the world. I was not unprepared to hear of him as involved in that affair, for I knew that the dream of a free and regenerated Spain had taken strong hold upon him. You remember that, notwithstanding his long residence in Cuba, he was always intensely a Spaniard in feeling. Seven or eight months ago he went to London, and fell in with Prim and his conclave of schemers. Of course they made much of him, for he was just the man for their purposes. His reckless courage, his familiarity with every species of dangerous adventure, his indifference to the ordinary objects of ambition, which took him out of the list of rivals, and the immense wealth at his command, would make him invaluable to them. He entered heart and soul into their schemes; but he seems to have been haunted by a presentiment that his life would be the cost. Some time in the summer he wrote me a long letter, in which, though it had occasional flashes of his old self, it was plain to see that he was oppressed by some strong foreboding. His life, he said, had never been of any use to himself or any one. He had wasted it all in the pursuit of a pleasure he had never found, chasing a phantom of happiness which had forever fled before him. It might partly redeem the worthlessness of such a life if he could strike one blow for Spain and liberty. If his country was to be free, some of her sons must bleed for her, and he could at least die as well as a better man. Then suddenly changing both his tone and topic, he referred to our school-days together, recalling certain wild frolics we two had shared, in a gay and witty way that made me laugh then, but which now I can only think upon with tears. That was the last I heard from him until a few days ago, when a letter
from my sister Alice, who, as you know, is married to Mr. Manners, an Englishman living in Madrid, gave me the whole sad story.
“It was in the month of August that Raphael, choosing, as usual, the post of greatest danger, went from Paris to Madrid, to communicate with the heads of the conspiracy there. The southern provinces were already alive with insurrection, but none of his friends in the city thought of connecting him with the movement. Only George Manners, a young relative of my brother-in-law, became, to some extent, his confidant, and was deeply infected with his enthusiasm. The thing must have been well managed, for the extent and power of the uprising would seem to have been quite unrecognized. But events, as you know, moved very fast. The absence of the Queen from her capital furnished the insurgents with just the opportunity they required, and immediately the revolt became a revolution. Raphael, who must have held in his hands some important threads of the affair, remained in the city until the resignations of the Queen’s ministry; but on the 20th of September he left Madrid to put himself in communication with Serrano, who was marching to give battle to the royalist forces. George Manners went with him, telling Alice that there was going to be a row, and he wanted to see it. A fortnight later George came back alone. The account he gives is not very clear as to details, but the main facts are plain enough.
“They succeeded in joining Serrano’s forces a day or two before the engagement, which occurred on the 28th of September, not very far from Cordova; my recollection of the place, as named in the newspaper reports, is a little at fault. Raphael had a command, and in the action became separated from his friend. When the fight was over, the Queen’s troops defeated and scattered, Manners tried in vain to find him. The young man had himself been taken prisoner, and only released when his captors found him a hinderance to flight, so his knowledge of the incidents of the fight was a good deal confused. After a two days’ search, however, he learned that a wounded officer had been carried by some of his men into the hut of a peasant, the locality of which was pointed out to him, and had since died there. He hastened to the place, and in the still, cold form that lay there alone on a rude bench, covered with a rough cavalry cloak, he recognized his friend and ours.”
Miss Darrington paused in her reading, and her breath came short and quick. The 28th of September! And he had lived for some hours after—how long she would never know. But she recalled with a shock that made every nerve quiver that it was on the evening of the 29th of September that she had seemed to see him in her own room!
It was some time before she could command herself sufficiently to go on with the letter.
“Poor Raphael,” the writer continued; “there were splendid possibilities in him, if a bad education had not spoiled their promise. I hardly knew until he was gone how dear he had been to me. We were almost like brothers; and yet I know that he never fully revealed himself to me, and never would. After that visit to Catalpa Grove he was more than ever reserved. He was greatly changed, too; his boyish high spirits had vanished, and he seemed colder, graver, older by many years. I could not fail to see that his nature had been stirred to its profoundest deeps by some experience—whether of joy or pain I never knew. The key to his secret was not in my hands. Dear friend, I believe that if any one possessed such a key it was yourself. You knew him but a little while, but you read him far better than I. No need to tell you how rich in high impulses, in noble aspirations, was that generous, ungoverned soul. But the world was out of joint for him always. Only once did any hope to set it right seem offered him, and he missed that. If he had not—But forgive me. I am speculating upon contingencies which, per haps, were never possible.”
Miss Darrington read no farther. The letter dropped from her hands, and her face was buried in them, while hot tears forced themselves through her fingers—tears of remorseful tenderness, as she thought how little she had prized, how little deserved, that strong, true, generous love which had held her to the last in such tender remembrance; which had made its way across the ocean, across the wider, deeper gulf that divides us from the unseen world, to give to her the greeting of lips that were sealed, the last loving look of eyes that were forever closed to all on earth beside!
She believed that. If you doubt it—if you think it can not be—will you tell me what it was that Miss Darrington saw?
A GHOST STORY, by Mark Twain
I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came. The place had long been given up to dust and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping among the tombs and invading the privacy of the dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. For the first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle of the stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.
I was glad enough when I reached my room and locked out the mold and the darkness. A cheery fire was burning in the grate, and I sat down before it with a comforting sense of relief. For two hours I sat there, thinking of bygone times; recalling old scenes, and summoning half-forgotten faces out of the mists of the past; listening, in fancy, to voices that long ago grew silent for all time, and to once familiar songs that nobody sings now. And as my reverie softened down to a sadder and sadder pathos, the shrieking of the winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left no sound behind.
The fire had burned low. A sense of loneliness crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled me to sleep.
I slept profoundly, but how long I do not know. All at once I found myself awake, and filled with a shuddering expectancy. All was still. All but my own heart—I could hear it beat. Presently the bedclothes began to slip away slowly toward the foot of the bed, as if some one were pulling them! I could not stir; I could not speak. Still the blankets slipped deliberately away, till my breast was uncovered. Then with a great effort I seized them and drew them over my head. I waited, listened, waited. Once more that steady pull began, and once more I lay torpid a century of dragging seconds till my breast was naked again. At last I roused my energies and snatched the covers back to their place and held them with a strong grip. I waited. By and by I felt a faint tug, and took a fresh grip. The tug strengthened to a steady strain—it grew stronger and stronger. My hold parted, and for the third time the blankets slid away. I groaned. An answering groan came from the foot of the bed! Beaded drops of sweat stood upon my forehead. I was more dead than alive. Presently I heard a heavy footstep in my room—the step of an elephant, it seemed to me—it was not like anything human. But it was moving from me—there was relief in that. I heard it approach the door—pass out without moving bolt or lock—and wander away among the dismal corridors, straining the floors and joists till they creaked again as it passed—and then silence reigned once more.
When my excitement had calmed, I said to myself, “This is a dream—simply a hideous dream.” And so I lay thinking it over until I convinced myself that it was a dream, and then a comforting laugh relaxed my lips and I was happy again. I got up and struck a light; and when I found that the locks and bolts were just as I had left them, another soothing laugh welled in my heart and rippled from my lips. I took my pipe and lit it, and was just sitting down before the fire, when—down went the pipe out of my nerveless fingers, the blood forsook my cheeks, and my placid breathing was cut short with a gasp! In the ashes on the hearth, side by side with my own bare footprint, was another, so vast that in comparison mine was but an infant’s
! Then I had had a visitor, and the elephant tread was explained.
I put out the light and returned to bed, palsied with fear. I lay a long time, peering into the darkness, and listening.—Then I heard a grating noise overhead, like the dragging of a heavy body across the floor; then the throwing down of the body, and the shaking of my windows in response to the concussion. In distant parts of the building I heard the muffled slamming of doors. I heard, at intervals, stealthy footsteps creeping in and out among the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Sometimes these noises approached my door, hesitated, and went away again. I heard the clanking of chains faintly, in remote passages, and listened while the clanking grew nearer—while it wearily climbed the stairways, marking each move by the loose surplus of chain that fell with an accented rattle upon each succeeding step as the goblin that bore it advanced. I heard muttered sentences; half-uttered screams that seemed smothered violently; and the swish of invisible garments, the rush of invisible wings. Then I became conscious that my chamber was invaded—that I was not alone. I heard sighs and breathings about my bed, and mysterious whisperings. Three little spheres of soft phosphorescent light appeared on the ceiling directly over my head, clung and glowed there a moment, and then dropped—two of them upon my face and one upon the pillow. They, spattered, liquidly, and felt warm. Intuition told me they had—turned to gouts of blood as they fell—I needed no light to satisfy myself of that. Then I saw pallid faces, dimly luminous, and white uplifted hands, floating bodiless in the air—floating a moment and then disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, anal a solemn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand! All strength went from me apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment it seemed to pass to the door and go out.
The Ghost Story Megapack Page 39
