XVI.
THE RED ROOM.
"I can assure you," said I, "that it will take a very tangible ghost tofrighten me." And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand.
"It is your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm, and glancedat me askance.
"Eight-and-twenty years," said I, "I have lived, and never a ghost have Iseen as yet."
The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open."Ay," she broke in; "and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and neverseen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's a many things to see, whenone's still but eight-and-twenty." She swayed her head slowly from side toside. "A many things to see and sorrow for."
I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritualterrors of their house by their droning insistence. I put down my emptyglass on the table and looked about the room, and caught a glimpse ofmyself, abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness, in thequeer old mirror at the end of the room. "Well," I said, "if I seeanything to-night, I shall be so much the wiser. For I come to thebusiness with an open mind."
"It's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm once more.
I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in thepassage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old manentered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. Hesupported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade,and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decayingyellow teeth. He made straight for an arm-chair on the opposite side ofthe table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with thewithered arm gave this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike; theold woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes fixedsteadily on the fire.
"I said--it's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm, whenthe coughing had ceased for a while.
"It's my own choosing," I answered.
The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, andthrew his head back for a moment and sideways, to see me. I caught amomentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then hebegan to cough and splutter again.
"Why don't you drink?" said the man with the withered arm, pushing thebeer towards him. The man with the shade poured out a glassful with ashaky hand that splashed half as much again on the deal table. A monstrousshadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his action as he pouredand drank. I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesquecustodians. There is to my mind something inhuman in senility, somethingcrouching and atavistic; the human qualities seem to drop from old peopleinsensibly day by day. The three of them made me feel uncomfortable, withtheir gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness tome and to one another.
"If," said I, "you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will makemyself comfortable there."
The old man with the cough jerked his head back so suddenly that itstartled me, and shot another glance of his red eyes at me from under theshade; but no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from one to theother.
"If," I said a little louder, "if you will show me to this haunted room ofyours, I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me."
"There's a candle on the slab outside the door," said the man with thewithered arm, looking at my feet as he addressed me. "But if you go to thered room to-night----"
("This night of all nights!" said the old woman.)
"You go alone."
"Very well," I answered. "And which way do I go?"
"You go along the passage for a bit," said he, "until you come to a door,and through that is a spiral staircase, and half-way up that is a landingand another door covered with baize. Go through that and down the longcorridor to the end, and the red room is on your left up the steps."
"Have I got that right?" I said, and repeated his directions. He correctedme in one particular.
"And are you really going?" said the man with the shade, looking at meagain for the third time, with that queer, unnatural tilting of the face.
("This night of all nights!" said the old woman.)
"It is what I came for," I said, and moved towards the door. As I did so,the old man with the shade rose and staggered round the table, so as to becloser to the others and to the fire. At the door I turned and looked atthem, and saw they were all close together, dark against the firelight,staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent expression on theirancient faces.
"Good-night," I said, setting the door open.
"It's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm.
I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then Ishut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing passage.
I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whosecharge her ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned, old-fashionedfurniture of the housekeeper's room in which they foregathered, affectedme in spite of my efforts to keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase. Theyseemed to belong to another age, an older age, an age when thingsspiritual were different from this of ours, less certain; an age whenomens and witches were credible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their veryexistence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in deadbrains. The ornaments and conveniences of the room about them wereghostly--the thoughts of vanished men, which still haunted rather thanparticipated in the world of to-day. But with an effort I sent suchthoughts to the right-about. The long, draughty subterranean passage waschilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower andquiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadowcame sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darknessoverhead. I came to the landing and stopped there for a moment, listeningto a rustling that I fancied I heard; then, satisfied of the absolutesilence, I pushed open the baize-covered door and stood in the corridor.
The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, coming in bythe great window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vividblack shadow or silvery illumination. Everything was in its place: thehouse might have been deserted on the yesterday instead of eighteen monthsago. There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and whatever dusthad gathered on the carpets or upon the polished flooring was distributedso evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight. I was about to advance, andstopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landing, hidden from me bythe corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvellous distinctnessupon the white panelling, and gave me the impression of someone crouchingto waylay me. I stood rigid for half a minute perhaps. Then, with my handin the pocket that held my revolver, I advanced, only to discover aGanymede and Eagle glistening in the moonlight. That incident for a timerestored my nerve, and a porcelain Chinaman on a buhl table, whose headrocked silently as I passed him, scarcely startled me.
The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in a shadowy corner.I moved my candle from side to side, in order to see clearly the nature ofthe recess in which I stood before opening the door. Here it was, thoughtI, that my predecessor was found, and the memory of that story gave me asudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my shoulder at the Ganymedein the moonlight, and opened the door of the red room rather hastily, withmy face half turned to the pallid silence of the landing.
I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found inthe lock within, and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the sceneof my vigil, the great red room of Lorraine Castle, in which the youngduke had died. Or, rather, in which he had begun his dying, for he hadopened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended.That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt to conquer theghostly tradition of the place, and never, I thought, had apoplexy betterserved the ends of superstition. And there were other and older storiesthat clung to the room, back to the half-credible beginning of it all, thetale of a timid wife and the tragic end that came to her husband's jest offrightening her. And looking aro
und that large sombre room, with itsshadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understandthe legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinatingdarkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, thatfailed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean ofmystery and suggestion beyond its island of light.
I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once, anddispel the fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained ahold upon me. After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, Ibegan to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture,tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its curtains wide. Ipulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windowsbefore closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blacknessof the wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak panelling for any secretopening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair ofsconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were more candles inchina candlesticks. All these I lit one after the other. The fire waslaid, an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper,--and I lit it,to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burning well, Istood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. I had pulledup a chintz-covered arm-chair and a table, to form a kind of barricadebefore me, and on this lay my revolver ready to hand. My preciseexamination had done me good, but I still found the remoter darkness ofthe place, and its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination.The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfortto me. The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular, had thatundefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking,living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude. At last, toreassure myself, I walked with a candle into it, and satisfied myself thatthere was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor ofthe alcove, and left it in that position.
By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although tomy reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind, however,was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly that nothingsupernatural could happen, and to pass the time I began to string somerhymes together, Ingoldsby fashion, of the original legend of the place. Afew I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason Ialso abandoned, after a time, a conversation with myself upon theimpossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three oldand distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic.The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with sevencandles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in adraught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetuallyshifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candlesI had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into themoonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presentlyreturned with as many as ten. These I put in various knick-knacks of chinawith which the room was sparsely adorned, lit and placed where the shadowshad lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window recesses, until atlast my seventeen candles were so arranged that not an inch of the roombut had the direct light of at least one of them. It occurred to me thatwhen the ghost came, I could warn him not to trip over them. The room wasnow quite brightly illuminated. There was something very cheery andreassuring in these little streaming flames, and snuffing them gave me anoccupation, and afforded a helpful sense of the passage of time. Even withthat, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily uponme. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out,and the black shadow sprang back to its place there. I did not see thecandle go out; I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as onemight start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. "By Jove!" saidI aloud; "that draught's a strong one!" and, taking the matches from thetable, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner, to relight thecorner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with thesecond, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my headinvoluntarily, and saw that the two candles on the little table by thefireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet.
"Odd!" I said. "Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?"
I walked back, relit one, and as I did so, I saw the candle in the rightsconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost immediatelyits companion followed it. There was no mistake about it. The flamevanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and athumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While Istood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadowsseemed to take another step towards me.
"This won't do!" said I, and first one and then another candle on themantelshelf followed.
"What's up?" I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voicesomehow. At that the candle on the wardrobe went out, and the one I hadrelit in the alcove followed.
"Steady on!" I said. "These candles are wanted," speaking with ahalf-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match the whilefor the mantel candlesticks. My hands trembled so much that twice I missedthe rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from darkness again,two candles in the remoter end of the window were eclipsed. But with thesame match I also relit the larger mirror candles, and those on the floornear the doorway, so that for the moment I seemed to gain on theextinctions. But then in a volley there vanished four lights at once indifferent corners of the room, and I struck another match in quiveringhaste, and stood hesitating whither to take it.
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the twocandles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, theninto the corner, and then into the window, relighting three, as two morevanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a better way, I dropped thematches on the iron-bound deed-box in the corner, and caught up thebedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches;but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadowsI feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first astep gained on this side of me and then on that. It was like a raggedstorm-cloud sweeping out the stars. Now and then one returned for aminute, and was lost again. I was now almost frantic with the horror ofthe coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me. I leaped pantingand dishevelled from candle to candle, in a vain struggle against thatremorseless advance.
I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong,I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall. Mycandle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptlythis was blown out, as I swung it off the table by the wind of my suddenmovement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But therewas light still in the room, a red light that staved off the shadows fromme. The fire! Of course I could still thrust my candle between the barsand relight it!
I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals,and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps towardsthe grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glowvanished, the reflections rushed together and vanished, and as I thrustthe candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shutting ofan eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my vision, andcrushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain. The candle fell from myhand. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderousblackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice, screamed with all mymight--once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and, with my head bowedand my arms over my face, made a run for the door.
But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and struck myselfheavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back, turned, and waseither struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture. I havea vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in the darkness, of acramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I darted to and fro, of aheavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling thatlaste
d an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then Iremember no more.
I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the manwith the withered arm was watching my face. I looked about me, trying toremember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect. Irolled my eyes into the corner, and saw the old woman, no longerabstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue phialinto a glass. "Where am I?" I asked; "I seem to remember you, and yet Icannot remember who you are."
They told me then, and I heard of the haunted Red Room as one who hears atale. "We found you at dawn," said he, "and there was blood on yourforehead and lips."
It was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience. "You believenow," said the old man, "that the room is haunted?" He spoke no longer asone who greets an intruder, but as one who grieves for a broken friend.
"Yes," said I; "the room is haunted."
"And you have seen it. And we, who have lived here all our lives, havenever set eyes upon it. Because we have never dared... Tell us, is ittruly the old earl who----"
"No," said I; "it is not."
"I told you so," said the old lady, with the glass in her hand. "It is hispoor young countess who was frightened----"
"It is not," I said. "There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost of countessin that room, there is no ghost there at all; but worse, far worse----"
"Well?" they said.
"The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man," said I; "andthat is, in all its nakedness--Fear that will not have light nor sound,that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms.It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me in the room----"
I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went up tomy bandages.
Then the man with the shade sighed and spoke. "That is it," said he. "Iknew that was it. A power of darkness. To put such a curse upon a woman!It lurks there always. You can feel it even in the daytime, even of abright summer's day, in the hangings, in the curtains, keeping behind youhowever you face about. In the dusk it creeps along the corridor andfollows you, so that you dare not turn. There is Fear in that room ofhers--black Fear, and there will be--so long as this house of sinendures."