The Plattner Story and Others Read online

  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, andglanced at me askance.

  "Eight-and-twenty years," said I, "I have lived, and never a ghost haveI seen 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 andnever seen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's a many things tosee, when one's still but eight-and-twenty." She swayed her head slowlyfrom side to side. "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 sideof the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with thewithered arm gave this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike;the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyesfixed steadily on the fire.

  "I said--it's your own choosing," said the man with the withered arm,when the 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,and threw his head back for a moment and sideways, to see me. I caughta momentary 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, pushingthe beer towards him. The man with the shade poured out a glassfulwith a shaky arm that splashed half as much again on the deal table.A monstrous shadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked hisaction as he poured and drank. I must confess I had scarce expectedthese grotesque custodians. There is to my mind something inhuman insenility, something crouching and atavistic; the human qualities seemto drop from old people insensibly day by day. The three of them mademe feel uncomfortable, with their gaunt silences, their bent carriage,their evident unfriendliness to me and to one another.

  "If," said I, "you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I willmake myself 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 underthe shade; but no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from oneto the other.

  "If," I said a little louder, "if you will show me to this haunted roomof yours, 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 tothe red 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 adoor, and through that is a spiral staircase, and half-way up that is alanding and another door covered with baize. Go through that and downthe long corridor to the end, and the red room is on your left up thesteps."

  "Have I got that right?" I said, and repeated his directions. Hecorrected me 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 theface.

  ("This night of all nights!" said the old woman.)

  "It is what I came for," I said, and moved towards the door. As I didso, the old man with the shade rose and staggered round the table, soas to be closer to the others and to the fire. At the door I turnedand looked at them, and saw they were all close together, dark againstthe firelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intentexpression on their ancient 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 inwhose charge her ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned,old-fashioned furniture of the housekeeper's room in which theyforegathered, affected me in spite of my efforts to keep myself at amatter-of-fact phase. They seemed to belong to another age, an olderage, an age when things spiritual were different from this of ours,less certain; an age when omens and witches were credible, and ghostsbeyond denying. Their very existence was spectral; the cut of theirclothing, fashions born in dead brains. The ornaments and conveniencesof the room about them were ghostly--the thoughts of vanished men,which still haunted rather than participated in the world of to-day.But with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right-about. The long,draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candleflared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up anddown the spiral staircase, and a shadow came sweeping up after me, andone fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to the landingand stopped there for a moment, listening to a rustling that I fanciedI heard; then, satisfied of the absolute silence, I pushed open thebaize-covered door and stood in the corridor.

  The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, comingin by the great window on the grand staircase, picked out everythingin vivid black shadow or silvery illumination. Everything was in itsplace: the house might have been deserted on the yesterday instead ofeighteen months ago. There were candles in the sockets of the sconces,and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets or upon the polishedflooring was distributed so evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight.I was about to advance, and stopped abruptly. A bronze group stood uponthe landing, hidden from me by the corner of the wall, but its shadowfell with marvellous distinctness upon the white panelling, and gaveme the impression of someone crouching to waylay me. I stood rigid forhalf a minute perhaps. Then, with my hand in the pocket that held myrevolver, I advanced, only to discover a Ganymede and Eagle glisteningin the moonlight. That incident for a time restored my nerve, and aporcelain Chinaman on a buhl table, whose head rocked silently as Ipassed him, scarcely startled me.

  The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in a shadowycorner. I moved my candle from side to side, in order to see clearlythe nature of the recess in which I stood before opening the door. Hereit was, thought I, that my predecessor was found, and the memory ofthat story gave me a sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over myshoulder at the Ganymede in the moonlight, and opened the door of thered room rather hastily, with my face half turned to the pallid silenceof 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 thescene of my vigil, the great red room of Lorraine Castle, in which theyoung duke had died. Or, rather, in which he had begun his dying, forhe had opened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had justascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt toconquer the ghostly tradition of the place, and never, I thought, hadapoplexy better served the ends of superstition. And there were otherand older stories that clung to the room, back to the half-crediblebeginning of it all, the tale of a timid wife and the tragic end thatcame to her husband's jest of frightening her. And looking around thatlarge shadowy room, with its
shadowy window bays, its recesses andalcoves, one could well understand the legends that had sprouted in itsblack corners, its germinating darkness. My candle was a little tongueof light in its vastness, that failed to pierce the opposite end of theroom, and left an ocean of mystery and suggestion beyond its island oflight.

  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 candlesin china candlesticks. All these I lit one after the other. The firewas laid,--an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper,--and Ilit it, to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burningwell, I stood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. Ihad pulled up a chintz-covered arm-chair and a table, to form a kindof barricade before me, and on this lay my revolver ready to hand. Myprecise examination had done me good, but I still found the remoterdarkness of the place, and its perfect stillness, too stimulating forthe imagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the firewas no sort of comfort to me. The shadow in the alcove, at the endin particular, had that undefinable quality of a presence, that oddsuggestion of a lurking living thing, that comes so easily in silenceand solitude. At last, to reassure myself, I walked with a candle intoit, and satisfied myself that there was nothing tangible there. I stoodthat candle upon the floor of the alcove, and left it in that position.

  By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, althoughto my reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind,however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly thatnothing supernatural could happen, and to pass the time I began tostring some rhymes together, Ingoldsby fashion, of the original legendof the place. A few I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant.For the same reason I also abandoned, after a time, a conversation withmyself upon the impossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind revertedto the three old and distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keepit upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled me;even with seven candles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcoveflared in a draught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows andpenumbra perpetually shifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy,I recalled the candles I had seen in the passage, and, with a slighteffort, walked out into the moonlight, carrying a candle and leavingthe door open, and presently returned with as many as ten. These I putin various knick-knacks of china with which the room was sparselyadorned, lit and placed where the shadows had lain deepest, some on thefloor, some in the window recesses, until at last my seventeen candleswere so arranged that not an inch of the room but had the direct lightof at least one of them. It occurred to me that when the ghost came, Icould warn him not to trip over them. The room was now quite brightlyilluminated. There was something very cheery and reassuring in theselittle streaming flames, and snuffing them gave me an occupation, andafforded a reassuring sense of the passage of time.

  Even with that, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighedheavily upon me. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcovesuddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back to its place there.I did not see the candle go out; I simply turned and saw that thedarkness was there, as one might start and see the unexpected presenceof a stranger. "By Jove!" said I aloud; "that draught's a strong one!"and, taking the matches from the table, I walked across the room in aleisurely manner to relight the corner again. My first match would notstrike, and as I succeeded with the second, something seemed to blinkon the wall before me. I turned my head involuntarily, and saw that thetwo candles on the little table by the fireplace were extinguished. Irose 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 theright sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almostimmediately its companion followed it. There was no mistake about it.The flame vanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between afinger and a thumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, butblack. While I stood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed wentout, and the shadows seemed 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 thewhile for the mantel candlesticks. My hands trembled so much thattwice I missed the rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emergedfrom darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the windowwere eclipsed. But with the same match I also relit the larger mirrorcandles, and those on the floor near the doorway, so that for themoment I seemed to gain on the extinctions. But then in a volley therevanished four lights at once in different corners of the room, and Istruck another match in quivering haste, and stood hesitating whitherto 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,then into the corner, and then into the window, relighting three, astwo more vanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a better way,I dropped the matches on the iron-bound deed-box in the corner, andcaught up the bedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay ofstriking matches; but for all that the steady process of extinctionwent on, and the shadows I feared and fought against returned, andcrept in upon me, first a step gained on this side of me and then onthat. It was like a ragged storm-cloud sweeping out the stars. Now andthen one returned for a minute, and was lost again. I was now almostfrantic with the horror of the coming darkness, and my self-possessiondeserted me. I leaped panting and dishevelled from candle to candle, ina vain struggle against that remorseless advance.

  I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chairheadlong, I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table inmy fall. My candle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as Irose. Abruptly this was blown out, as I swung it off the table, by thewind of my sudden movement, and immediately the two remaining candlesfollowed. But there was light still in the room, a red light thatstaved off the shadows from me. The fire! Of course, I could stillthrust my candle between the bars and relight it!

  I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowingcoals, and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two stepstowards the grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished,the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together and vanished, andas I thrust the candle between the bars, darkness closed upon me likethe shutting of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealedmy vision, and crushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain. Thecandle fell from my hand. I flung out my arms in a vain effort tothrust that ponderous blackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice,screamed with all my might--once, twice, thrice. Then I think I musthave staggered to my feet. I know I thought suddenly of the moonlitcorridor, and, with my head bowed and my arms over my face, made a runfor 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, andwas either struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture.I have a vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in thedarkness, of a cramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I dartedto and fro, of a heavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horriblesensation of falling that lasted an age, of my
last frantic effort tokeep my footing, and then I remember 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, tryingto remember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect.I rolled my eyes into the corner, and saw the old woman, no longerabstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little bluephial into a glass. "Where am I?" I asked. "I seem to remember you, andyet I cannot remember who you are."

  They told me then, and I heard of the haunted Red Room as one who hearsa tale. "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 longeras one who greets an intruder, but as one who grieves for a brokenfriend.

  "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 ishis poor young countess who was frightened"--

  "It is not," I said. "There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost ofcountess in that room, there is no ghost there at all; but worse, farworse"--

  "Well?" they said.

  "The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man," said I; "andthat is, in all its nakedness--_Fear!_ Fear that will not have lightnor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens andoverwhelms. It followed me through the corridor, it fought against mein the room"--

  I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went upto my bandages.

  Then the man with the shade sighed and spoke. "That is it," said he."I knew that was it. A Power of Darkness. To put such a curse upon awoman! It lurks there always. You can feel it even in the daytime, evenof a bright summer's day, in the hangings, in the curtains, keepingbehind you however you face about. In the dusk it creeps along thecorridor and follows you, so that you dare not turn. There is Fear inthat room of hers--black Fear, and there will be--so long as this houseof sin endures."