“You have been playing all these years a most extraordinary game,” I said.
She looked at me somberly, and seemed disinclined to reply. “I came in perfect good faith,” I went on. “The last time-three months ago—you remember?—you greatly frightened me.”
“Of course it was an extraordinary game,” she answered at last. “But it was the only way.”
“Had he not forgiven you?”
“So long as he thought me dead, yes. There have been things in my life he could not forgive.”
I hesitated and then—“And where is your husband?” I asked.
“I have no husband—I have never had a husband.”
She made a gesture which checked further questions, and moved rapidly away. I walked with her round the house to the road, and she kept murmuring—“It was he—it was he!” When we reached the road she stopped, and asked me which way I was going. I pointed to the road by which I had come, and she said—“I take the other. You are going to my father’s?” she added.
“Directly,” I said.
“Will you let me know tomorrow what you have found?”
“With pleasure. But how shall I communicate with you?”
She seemed at a loss, and looked about her. “Write a few words,” she said, “and put them under that stone.” And she pointed to one of the lava slabs that bordered the old well. I gave her my promise to comply, and she turned away. “I know my road,” she said. Everything is arranged. It’s an old story.”
She left me with a rapid step, and as she receded into the darkness, resumed, with the dark flowing lines of her drapery, the phantasmal appearance with which she had at first appeared to me. I watched her till she became invisible, and then I took my own leave of the place. I returned to town at a swinging pace, and marched straight to the little yellow house near the river. I took the liberty of entering without a knock, and, encountering no interruption, made my way to Captain Diamond’s room. Outside the door, on a low bench, with folded arms, sat the sable Belinda.
“How is he?” I asked.
“He’s gone to glory.”
“Dead?” I cried.
She rose with a sort of tragic chuckle.
“He’s as big a ghost as any of them now!”
I passed into the room and found the old man lying there irredeemably rigid and still. I wrote that evening a few lines which I proposed on the morrow to place beneath the stone, near the well; but my promise was not destined to be executed. I slept that night very ill—it was natural—and in my restlessness left my bed to walk about the room. As I did so I caught sight, in passing my window, of a red glow in the north-western sky. A house was on fire in the country, and evidently burning fast. It lay in the same direction as the scene of my evening’s adventures, and as I stood watching the crimson horizon I was startled by a sharp memory. I had blown out the candle which lighted me, with my companion, to the door through which we escaped, but I had not accounted for the other light, which she had carried into the hall and dropped heaven knew where in her consternation. The next day I walked out with my folded letter and turned into the familiar cross-road. The haunted house was a mass of charred beams and smoldering ashes; the well cover had been pulled off, in quest of water, by the few neighbors who had had the audacity to contest what they must have regarded as a demon-kindled blaze, the loose stones were completely displaced, and the earth had been trampled into puddles.
THE SOUL OF LAPLOSHKA, by Saki
Originally published in 1910.
Laploshka was one of the meanest men I have ever met, and quite one of the most entertaining. He said horrid things about other people in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horrid things he said about oneself behind one’s back. Hating anything in the way of ill-natured gossip ourselves, we are always grateful to those who do it for us and do it well. And Laploshka did it really well.
Naturally Laploshka had a large circle of acquaintances, and as he exercised some care in their selection it followed that an appreciable proportion were men whose bank balances enabled them to acquiesce indulgently in his rather one-sided views on hospitality. Thus, although possessed of only moderate means, he was able to live comfortably within his income, and still more comfortably within those of various tolerantly disposed associates.
But towards the poor or to those of the same limited resources as himself his attitude was one of watchful anxiety; he seemed to be haunted by a besetting fear lest some fraction of a shilling or franc, or whatever the prevailing coinage might be, should be diverted from his pocket or service into that of a hard-up companion. A two-franc cigar would be cheerfully offered to a wealthy patron, on the principle of doing evil that good may come, but I have known him indulge in agonies of perjury rather than admit the incriminating possession of a copper coin when change was needed to tip a waiter. The coin would have been duly returned at the earliest opportunity—he would have taken means to insure against forgetfulness on the part of the borrower—but accidents might happen, and even the temporary estrangement from his penny or sou was a calamity to be avoided.
The knowledge of this amiable weakness offered a perpetual temptation to play upon Laploshka’s fears of involuntary generosity. To offer him a lift in a cab and pretend not to have enough money to pay the fair, to fluster him with a request for a sixpence when his hand was full of silver just received in change, these were a few of the petty torments that ingenuity prompted as occasion afforded. To do justice to Laploshka’s resourcefulness it must be admitted that he always emerged somehow or other from the most embarrassing dilemma without in any way compromising his reputation for saying “No.” But the gods send opportunities at some time to most men, and mine came one evening when Laploshka and I were supping together in a cheap boulevard restaurant. (Except when he was the bidden guest of some one with an irreproachable income, Laploshka was wont to curb his appetite for high living; on such fortunate occasions he let it go on an easy snaffle.) At the conclusion of the meal a somewhat urgent message called me away, and without heeding my companion’s agitated protest, I called back cruelly, “Pay my share; I’ll settle with you tomorrow.” Early on the morrow Laploshka hunted me down by instinct as I walked along a side street that I hardly ever frequented. He had the air of a man who had not slept.
“You owe me two francs from last night,” was his breathless greeting.
I spoke evasively of the situation in Portugal, where more trouble seemed brewing. But Laploshka listened with the abstraction of the deaf adder, and quickly returned to the subject of the two francs.
“I’m afraid I must owe it to you,” I said lightly and brutally. “I haven’t a sou in the world,” and I added mendaciously, “I’m going away for six months or perhaps longer.”
Laploshka said nothing, but his eyes bulged a little and his cheeks took on the mottled hues of an ethnographical map of the Balkan Peninsula. That same day, at sundown, he died. “Failure of the heart’s action,” was the doctor’s verdict; but I, who knew better, knew that he died of grief.
There arose the problem of what to do with his two francs. To have killed Laploshka was one thing; to have kept his beloved money would have argued a callousness of feeling of which I am not capable. The ordinary solution, of giving it to the poor, would by no means fit the present situation, for nothing would have distressed the dead man more than such a misuse of his property. On the other hand, the bestowal of two francs on the rich was an operation which called for some tact. An easy way out of the difficulty seemed, however, to present itself the following Sunday, as I was wedged into the cosmopolitan crowd which filled the side-aisle of one of the most popular Paris churches. A collecting-bag, for “the poor of Monsieur le Cure,” was buffeting its tortuous way across the seemingly impenetrable human sea, and a German in front of me, who evidently did not wish his appreciation of the magnificent m
usic to be marred by a suggestion of payment, made audible criticisms to his companion on the claims of the said charity.
“They do not want money,” he said; “they have too much money. They have no poor. They are all pampered.”
If that were really the case my way seemed clear. I dropped Laploshka’s two francs into the bag with a murmured blessing on the rich of Monsieur le Cure.
Some three weeks later chance had taken me to Vienna, and I sat one evening regaling myself in a humble but excellent little Gasthaus up in the Wahringer quarter. The appointments were primitive, but the Schnitzel, the beer, and the cheese could not have been improved on. Good cheer brought good custom, and with the exception of one small table near the door every place was occupied. Half-way through my meal I happened to glance in the direction of that empty seat, and saw that it was no longer empty. Poring over the bill of fare with the absorbed scrutiny of one who seeks the cheapest among the cheap was Laploshka. Once he looked across at me, with a comprehensive glance at my repast, as though to say, “It is my two francs you are eating,” and then looked swiftly away. Evidently the poor of Monsieur le Cure had been genuine poor. The Schnitzel turned to leather in my mouth, the beer seemed tepid; I left the Emmenthaler untasted. My one idea was to get away from the room, away from the table where that was seated; and as I fled I felt Laploshka’s reproachful eyes watching the amount that I gave to the piccolo—out of his two francs. I lunched next day at an expensive restaurant which I felt sure that the living Laploshka would never have entered on his own account, and I hoped that the dead Laploshka would observe the same barriers. I was not mistaken, but as I came out I found him miserably studying the bill of fare stuck up on the portals. Then he slowly made his way over to a milk-hall. For the first time in my experience I missed the charm and gaiety of Vienna life.
After that, in Paris or London or wherever I happened to be, I continued to see a good deal of Laploshka. If I had a seat in a box at a theatre I was always conscious of his eyes furtively watching me from the dim recesses of the gallery. As I turned into my club on a rainy afternoon I would see him taking inadequate shelter in a doorway opposite. Even if I indulged in the modest luxury of a penny chair in the Park he generally confronted me from one of the free benches, never staring at me, but always elaborately conscious of my presence. My friends began to comment on my changed looks, and advised me to leave off heaps of things. I should have liked to have left off Laploshka.
On a certain Sunday—it was probably Easter, for the crush was worse than ever—I was again wedged into the crowd listening to the music in the fashionable Paris church, and again the collection-bag was buffeting its way across the human sea. An English lady behind me was making ineffectual efforts to convey a coin into the still distant bag, so I took the money at her request and helped it forward to its destination. It was a two-franc piece. A swift inspiration came to me, and I merely dropped my own sou into the bag and slid the silver coin into my pocket. I had withdrawn Laploshka’s two francs from the poor, who should never have had the legacy. As I backed away from the crowd I heard a woman’s voice say, “I don’t believe he put my money in the bag. There are swarms of people in Paris like that!” But my mind was lighter that it had been for a long time.
The delicate mission of bestowing the retrieved sum on the deserving rich still confronted me. Again I trusted to the inspiration of accident, and again fortune favoured me. A shower drove me, two days later, into one of the historic churches on the left bank of the Seine, and there I found, peering at the old wood-carvings, the Baron R., one of the wealthiest and most shabbily dressed men in Paris. It was now or never. Putting a strong American inflection into the French which I usually talked with an unmistakable British accent, I catechised the Baron as to the date of the church’s building, its dimensions, and other details which an American tourist would be certain to want to know. Having acquired such information as the Baron was able to impart on short notice, I solemnly placed the two-franc piece in his hand, with the hearty assurance that it was “pour vous,” and turned to go. The Baron was slightly taken aback, but accepted the situation with a good grace. Walking over to a small box fixed in the wall, he dropped Laploshka’s two francs into the slot. Over the box was the inscription, “Pour les pauvres de M. le Cure.”
That evening, at the crowded corner by the Cafe de la Paix, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Laploshka. He smiled, slightly raised his hat, and vanished. I never saw him again. After all, the money had been given to the deserving rich, and the soul of Laploshka was at peace.
THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUXHALL WALK, by Charlotte Riddell
Originally published in 1882.
CHAPTER ONE
“Houseless—homeless—hopeless!”
Many a one who had before him trodden that same street must have uttered the same words—the weary, the desolate, the hungry, the forsaken, the waifs and strays of struggling humanity that are always coming and going, cold, starving and miserable, over the pavements of Lambeth Parish; but it is open to question whether they were ever previously spoken with a more thorough conviction of their truth, or with a feeling of keener self-pity, than by the young man who hurried along Vauxhall Walk one rainy winter’s night, with no overcoat on his shoulders and no hat on his head.
A strange sentence for one-and-twenty to give expression to—and it was stranger still to come from the lips of a person who looked like and who was a gentleman. He did not appear either to have sunk very far down in the good graces of Fortune. There was no sign or token which would have induced a passer-by to imagine he had been worsted after a long fight with calamity. His boots were not worn down at the heels or broken at the toes, as many, many boots were which dragged and shuffled and scraped along the pavement. His clothes were good and fashionably cut, and innocent of the rents and patches and tatters that slunk wretchedly by, crouched in doorways, and held out a hand mutely appealing for charity. His face was not pinched with famine or lined with wicked wrinkles, or brutalised by drink and debauchery, and yet he said and thought he was hopeless, and almost in his young despair spoke the words aloud.
It was a bad night to be about with such a feeling in one’s heart. The rain was cold, pitiless and increasing. A damp, keen wind blew down the cross streets leading from the river. The fumes of the gas works seemed to fall with the rain. The roadway was muddy; the pavement greasy; the lamps burned dimly; and that dreary district of London looked its very gloomiest and worst.
Certainly not an evening to be abroad without a home to go to, or a sixpence in one’s pocket, yet this was the position of the young gentleman who, without a hat, strode along Vauxhall Walk, the rain beating on his unprotected head.
Upon the houses, so large and good—once inhabited by well-to-do citizens, now let out for the most part in floors to weekly tenants—he looked enviously. He would have given much to have had a room, or even part of one. He had been walking for a long time, ever since dark in fact, bind dark falls soon in December. He was tired and cold and hungry, and he saw no prospect save of pacing the streets all night.
As he passed one of the lamps, the light falling on his face revealed handsome young features, a mobile, sensitive mouth, and that particular formation of the eyebrows—not a frown exactly, but a certain draw of the brows—often considered to bespeak genius, but which more surely accompanies an impulsive organisation easily pleased, easily depressed, capable of suffering very keenly or of enjoying fully. In his short life he had not enjoyed much, and he had suffered a good deal. That night, when he walked bareheaded through the rain, affairs had come to a crisis.
So far as he in his despair felt able to see or reason, the best thing he could do was to die. The world did not want him; he would be better out of it.
The door of one of the houses stood open, and he could see in the dimly lighted hall some few articles of furniture waiting to be removed. A van stood beside the curb, a
nd two men were lifting a table into it as he, for a second, paused.
“Ah,” he thought, “even those poor people have some place to go to, some shelter provided, while I have not a roof to cover my head, or a shilling to get a night’s lodging.” And he went on fast, as if memory were spurring him, so fast that a man running after had some trouble to overtake him.
“Master Graham! Master Graham!” this man exclaimed, breathlessly; and, thus addressed, the young fellow stopped as if he had been shot.
“Who are you that know me?” he asked, facing round.
“I’m William; don’t you remember William, Master Graham? And, Lord’s sake, sir, what are you doing out a night like this without your hat?”
“I forgot it,” was the answer; “and I did not care to go back and fetch it.”
“Then why don’t you buy another, sir? You’ll catch your death of cold; and besides, you’ll excuse me, sir, but it does look odd.”
“I know that,” said Master Graham grimly; “but I haven’t a halfpenny in the world.”
“Have you and the master, then—” began the man, but there he hesitated and stopped.
“Had a quarrel? Yes, and one that will last us our lives,” finished the other, with a bitter laugh.
“And where are you going now?”
“Going! Nowhere, except to seek out the softest paving stone, or the shelter of an arch.”
The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Page 20
