The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Elia W. Peattie
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Table of Contents
A Child of the Rain
A Grammatical Ghost
A Lady of Yesterday
A Michigan Man
A Mountain Woman
An Astral Onion
A Spectral Collie
“Covers for Twelve”
From the Loom of the Dead
On the Northern Ice
Story of an Obstinate Corpse
Story of the Vanishing Patient
The Angel With the Broom
The Blood Apple
The House That Was Not
The Piano Next Door
The Room of the Evil Thought
The Shape of Fear
Their Dear Little Ghost
Shehens’ Houn’ Dogs
A Word With the Women
The Great Delusion
A Drama in One Act For four men and five women
THE DELUSION
THE COLLECTED SUPERNATURAL AND WEIRD FICTION OF
ELIA W. PEATTIE
Twenty-Two Short Stories of the Strange and Unusual
Elia W. Peattie
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of
Elia W. Peattie
Twenty-Two Short Stories of the Strange and Unusual
by Elia W. Peattie
FIRST EDITION
Leonaur is an imprint of Oakpast Ltd
Copyright in this form © 2013 Oakpast Ltd
ISBN: 978-1-78282-154-0 (hardcover)
ISBN:978-1-78282-155-7 (softcover)
http://www.leonaur.com
Publisher’s Notes
The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.
A Child of the Rain
It was the night that Mona Meeks, the dressmaker, told him she didn’t love him. He couldn’t believe it at first, because he had so long been accustomed to the idea that she did, and no matter how rough the weather or how irascible the passengers, he felt a song in his heart as he punched transfers, and rang his bell punch, and signalled the driver when to let people off and on.
Now, suddenly, with no reason except a woman’s, she had changed her mind. He dropped in to see her at five o’clock, just before time for the night shift, and to give her two red apples he had been saving for her. She looked at the apples as if they were invisible and she could not see them, and standing in her disorderly little dressmaking parlour, with its cuttings and scraps and litter of fabrics, she said:
“It is no use, John. I shall have to work here like this all my life—work here alone. For I don’t love you, John. No, I don’t. I thought I did, but it is a mistake.”
“You mean it?” asked John, bringing up the words in a great gasp.
“Yes,” she said, white and trembling and putting out her hands as if to beg for his mercy. And then—big, lumbering fool—he turned around and strode down the stairs and stood at the corner in the beating rain waiting for his car. It came along at length, spluttering on the wet rails and spitting out blue fire, and he took his shift after a gruff “Goodnight” to Johnson, the man he relieved.
He was glad the rain was bitter cold and drove in his face fiercely. He rejoiced at the cruelty of the wind, and when it hustled pedestrians before it, lashing them, twisting their clothes, and threatening their equilibrium, he felt amused. He was pleased at the chill in his bones and at the hunger that tortured him. At least, at first he thought it was hunger till he remembered that he had just eaten.
The hours passed confusedly. He had no consciousness of time. But it must have been late,—near midnight,—judging by the fact that there were few persons visible anywhere in the black storm, when he noticed a little figure sitting at the far end of the car. He had not seen the child when she got on, but all was so curious and wild to him that evening—he himself seemed to himself the most curious and the wildest of all things—that it was not surprising that he should not have observed the little creature.
She was wrapped in a coat so much too large that it had become frayed at the bottom from dragging on the pavement. Her hair hung in unkempt stringiness about her bent shoulders, and her feet were covered with old arctics, many sizes too big, from which the soles hung loose.
Beside the little figure was a chest of dark wood, with curiously wrought hasps. From this depended a stout strap by which it could be carried over the shoulders. John Billings stared in, fascinated by the poor little thing with its head sadly drooping upon its breast, its thin blue hands relaxed upon its lap, and its whole attitude so suggestive of hunger, loneliness, and fatigue, that he made up his mind he would collect no fare from it.
“It will need its nickel for breakfast,” he said to himself.“The company can stand this for once. Or, come to think of it, I might celebrate my hard luck. Here’s to the brotherhood of failures!” And he took a nickel from one pocket of his great-coat and dropped it in another, ringing his bell punch to record the transfer.
The car plunged along in the darkness, and the rain beat more viciously than ever in his face. The night was full of the rushing sound of the storm. Owing to some change of temperature the glass of the car became obscured so that the young conductor could no longer see the little figure distinctly, and he grew anxious about the child.
“I wonder if it’s all right,” he said to himself.“I never saw living creature sit so still.”
He opened the car door, intending to speak with the child, but just then something went wrong with the lights. There was a blue and green flickering, then darkness, a sudden halting of the car, and a great sweep of wind and rain in at the door. When, after a moment, light and motion reasserted themselves, and Billings had got the door together, he turned to look at the little passenger. But the car was empty.
It was a fact. There was no child there—not even moisture on the seat where she had been sitting.
“Bill,” said he, going to the front door and addressing the driver, “what became of that little kid in the old cloak?”
“I didn’t see no kid,” said Bill, crossly.“For Gawd’s sake, close the door, John, and git that draught off my back.”
“Draught!” said John, indignantly, “where’s the draught?”
“You’ve left the hind door open,” growled Bill, and John saw him shivering as a blast struck him and ruffled the fur on his bear-skin coat. But the door was not open, and yet John had to admit to himself that the car seemed filled with wind and a strange coldness.
However, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered! Still, it was as well no doubt to look under the seats just to make sure no little crouching figure was there, and so he did. But there was nothing. In fact, John said to himself, he seemed to be getting expert in finding nothing where there ought to be something.
He might have stayed in the car, for there was no likelihood of more passengers that evening, but somehow he preferred going out where the rain could drench him and the wind pommel him. How horribly tired he was! If there were only some still place away from the blare of the city where a man could lie down and listen to the sound of the sea or the storm—or if one could grow suddenly old and get through with the bother of living—or if—
The car gave a sudden lurch as it rounded a curve, and for a moment it seemed to be a mere chance whether Conductor Billings would stay on his platform or go off under those fire-spitting wheels. He caught instinctively at his brake, saved himself, and stood still for a moment, panting.
“I must have dozed,” he said to himself.
Just then, dimly, through the blurred window, he saw again the little figure of the child, its head on its breast as
before, its blue hands lying in its lap and the curious box beside it. John Billings felt a coldness beyond the coldness of the night run through his blood. Then, with a half-stifled cry, he threw back the door, and made a desperate spring at the corner where the eerie thing sat.
And he touched the green carpeting on the seat, which was quite dry and warm, as if no dripping, miserable little wretch had ever crouched there.
He rushed to the front door.
“Bill,” he roared, “I want to know about that kid.”
“What kid?”
“The same kid! The wet one with the old coat and the box with iron hasps! The one that’s been sitting here in the car!”
Bill turned his surly face to confront the young conductor. “You’ve been drinking, you fool,” said he. “Fust thing you know you’ll be reported.”
The conductor said not a word. He went slowly and weakly back to his post and stood there the rest of the way leaning against the end of the car for support. Once or twice he muttered:
“The poor little brat!” And again he said, “So you didn’t love me after all!”
He never knew how he reached home, but he sank to sleep as dying men sink to death. All the same, being a hearty young man, he was on duty again next day but one, and again the night was rainy and cold.
It was the last run, and the car was spinning along at its limit, when there came a sudden soft shock. John Billings knew what that meant. He had felt something of the kind once before. He turned sick for a moment, and held on to the brake. Then he summoned his courage and went around to the side of the car, which had stopped. Bill, the driver, was before him, and had a limp little figure in his arms, and was carrying it to the gaslight. John gave one look and cried:
“It’s the same kid, Bill! The one I told you of!”
True as truth were the ragged coat dangling from the pitiful body, the little blue hands, the thin shoulders, the stringy hair, the big arctics on the feet. And in the road not far off was the curious chest of dark wood with iron hasps.
“She ran under the car deliberate!” cried Bill.“I yelled to her, but she looked at me and ran straight on!”
He was white in spite of his weather-beaten skin.
“I guess you wasn’t drunk last night after all, John,” said he.
“You—you are sure the kid is—is there?” gasped John.
“Not so damned sure!” said Bill.
But a few minutes later it was taken away in a patrol wagon, and with it the little box with iron hasps.
A Grammatical Ghost
There was only one possible objection to the drawing-room, and that was the occasional presence of Miss Carew; and only one possible objection to Miss Carew. And that was, that she was dead.
She had been dead twenty years, as a matter of fact and record, and to the last of her life sacredly preserved the treasures and traditions of her family, a family bound up—as it is quite unnecessary to explain to any one in good society—with all that is most venerable and heroic in the history of the Republic. Miss Carew never relaxed the proverbial hospitality of her house, even when she remained its sole representative. She continued to preside at her table with dignity and state, and to set an example of excessive modesty and gentle decorum to a generation of restless young women.
It is not likely that having lived a life of such irreproachable gentility as this, Miss Carew would have the bad taste to die in any way not pleasant to mention in fastidious society. She could be trusted to the last, not to outrage those friends who quoted her as an exemplar of propriety. She died very unobtrusively of an affection of the heart, one June morning, while trimming her rose trellis, and her lavender-coloured print was not even rumpled when she fell, nor were more than the tips of her little bronze slippers visible.
“Isn’t it dreadful,” said the Philadelphians, “that the property should go to a very, very distant cousin in Iowa or somewhere else on the frontier, about whom nobody knows anything at all?”
The Carew treasures were packed in boxes and sent away into the Iowa wilderness; the Carew traditions were preserved by the Historical Society; the Carew property, standing in one of the most umbrageous and aristocratic suburbs of Philadelphia, was rented to all manner of folk—anybody who had money enough to pay the rental—and society entered its doors no more.
But at last, after twenty years, and when all save the oldest Philadelphians had forgotten Miss Lydia Carew, the very, very distant cousin appeared. He was quite in the prime of life, and so agreeable and unassuming that nothing could be urged against him save his patronymic, which, being Boggs, did not commend itself to the euphemists. With him were two maiden sisters, ladies of excellent taste and manners, who restored the Carew china to its ancient cabinets, and replaced the Carew pictures upon the walls, with additions not out of keeping with the elegance of these heirlooms. Society, with a magnanimity almost dramatic, overlooked the name of Boggs—and called.
All was well. At least, to an outsider all seemed to be well. But, in truth, there was a certain distress in the old mansion, and in the hearts of the well-behaved Misses Boggs. It came about most unexpectedly. The sisters had been sitting upstairs, looking out at the beautiful grounds of the old place, and marvelling at the violets, which lifted their heads from every possible cranny about the house, and talking over the cordiality which they had been receiving by those upon whom they had no claim, and they were filled with amiable satisfaction. Life looked attractive. They had often been grateful to Miss Lydia Carew for leaving their brother her fortune. Now they felt even more grateful to her. She had left them a Social Position—one, which even after twenty years of desuetude, was fit for use.
They descended the stairs together, with arms clasped about each other’s waists, and as they did so presented a placid and pleasing sight. They entered their drawing-room with the intention of brewing a cup of tea, and drinking it in calm sociability in the twilight. But as they entered the room they became aware of the presence of a lady, who was already seated at their tea-table, regarding their old Wedgewood with the air of a connoisseur.
There were a number of peculiarities about this intruder. To begin with, she was hatless, quite as if she were a habitué; of the house, and was costumed in a prim lilac-coloured lawn of the style of two decades past. But a greater peculiarity was the resemblance this lady bore to a faded daguerreotype. If looked at one way, she was perfectly discernible; if looked at another, she went out in a sort of blur. Notwithstanding this comparative invisibility, she exhaled a delicate perfume of sweet lavender, very pleasing to the nostrils of the Misses Boggs, who stood looking at her in gentle and unprotesting surprise.
“I beg your pardon,” began Miss Prudence, the younger of the Misses Boggs, “but—”
But at this moment the daguerreotype became a blur, and Miss Prudence found herself addressing space. The Misses Boggs were irritated. They had never encountered any mysteries in Iowa. They began an impatient search behind doors and portières, and even under sofas, though it was quite absurd to suppose that a lady recognising the merits of the Carew Wedgewood would so far forget herself as to crawl under a sofa.
When they had given up all hope of discovering the intruder, they saw her standing at the far end of the drawing-room critically examining a water-colour marine. The elder Miss Boggs started toward her with stern decision, but the little daguerreotype turned with a shadowy smile, became a blur and an imperceptibility.
Miss Boggs looked at Miss Prudence Boggs.
“If there were ghosts,” she said, “this would be one.”
“If there were ghosts,” said Miss Prudence Boggs, “this would be the ghost of Lydia Carew.”
The twilight was settling into blackness, and Miss Boggs nervously lit the gas while Miss Prudence ran for other tea-cups, preferring, for reasons superfluous to mention, not to drink out of the Carew china that evening. The next day, on taking up her embroidery frame, Miss Boggs found a number of old-fashioned cross-stitches added to he
r Kensington. Prudence, she knew, would never have degraded herself by taking a cross-stitch, and the parlour-maid was above taking such a liberty. Miss Boggs mentioned the incident that night at a dinner given by an ancient friend of the Carews.
“Oh, that’s the work of Lydia Carew, without a doubt!” cried the hostess.“She visits every new family that moves to the house, but she never remains more than a week or two with anyone.”
“It must be that she disapproves of them,” suggested Miss Boggs.
“I think that’s it,” said the hostess.“She doesn’t like their china, or their fiction.”
“I hope she’ll disapprove of us,” added Miss Prudence.
The hostess belonged to a very old Philadelphian family, and she shook her head.
“I should say it was a compliment for even the ghost of Miss Lydia Carew to approve of one,” she said severely.
The next morning, when the sisters entered their drawing-room there were numerous evidences of an occupant during their absence. The sofa pillows had been rearranged so that the effect of their grouping was less bizarre than that favoured by the Western women; a horrid little Buddhist idol with its eyes fixed on its abdomen, had been chastely hidden behind a Dresden shepherdess, as unfit for the scrutiny of polite eyes; and on the table where Miss Prudence did work in water colours, after the fashion of the impressionists, lay a prim and impossible composition representing a moss-rose and a number of heartsease, coloured with that caution which modest spinster artists instinctively exercise.
“Oh, there’s no doubt it’s the work of Miss Lydia Carew,” said Miss Prudence, contemptuously. “There’s no mistaking the drawing of that rigid little rose. Don’t you remember those wreaths and bouquets framed, among the pictures we got when the Carew pictures were sent to us? I gave some of them to an orphan asylum and burned up the rest.”
“Hush!” cried Miss Boggs, involuntarily.“If she heard you, it would hurt her feelings terribly. Of course, I mean—” and she blushed. “It might hurt her feelings—but how perfectly ridiculous! It’s impossible!”