Cursed be the treasure
in my heart I knew I felt for him. I think it must have been the
sort of affection a dog feels for the master who is gradually taming
and training it and breaking it to his will. Perhaps in my feelings
towards him there was even an element of pity which helped to cement
our comradeship, for he was so utterly lonely that in my heart, though
inveighing against him, I yearned towards him. And certainly his
courage, though not of the hardy physical type which I was best fitted
to understand, appealed to my sense of the heroic.
I think the clinching incident which at length united us was the result
of one of my yarns to my fellows. For living as I did in the famous
haunted house, and having been the companion of smugglers, not to
mention the stories I had drunk in from my father's lips, I must have
seemed to my mates a very treasure-house of yarns, and my vanity didn't
urge me to hide my light under a bushel. It was during one of these
yarns that I looked up to find Worthing listening to me. I stopped,
feeling guilty somehow of babyish superstition, for my story was one of
ghosts, and the scene of it I had laid quite unwarrantably at Sunset
Towers.
I waited for Worthing to speak, and at last he said, "Of course you
know that's all rubbish."
I felt wounded in my pride, especially as the story was one of my
father's, and the insult seemed to glance off me and strike him; so I
answered hotly, "You may sneer, but you wouldn't spend a night alone in
our haunted room."
"I'll do it to-night," he answered without hesitation.
I was taken aback, for first of all our house had no special haunted
room that I was aware of, though I knew several rooms where a night
alone would be distinctly unpleasant. But chiefly I was alarmed because
I knew I had committed myself. Worthing would insist on the ordeal; I
knew him well enough for that; and I was frightened at the possible
consequences.
Whether I believed the old place was haunted or not, I can't rightly
say, but the mysterious wailing voices still clung about the air more
like a pervading feeling than an articulate sound, though on some
nights when the wind was high there seemed to mingle with it a shaken
sobbing unspeakably desolate that caught at one's very heart and set it
throbbing with an ominous presentiment of impending evil. And lately
the crying had taken on such a note of human pain that I had often
started awake at night shaken to the soul with pity, and feeling an
urgency upon me to rise and search out the suffering thing wherever
it might be hid, and soothe it with what consolation the living might
bring the dead. And looking at Worthing with the memory of these things
in mind I felt a reluctant compunction at submitting him to such a
trial. For I knew something of that creeping terror that comes with a
strange sighing on the night, and I didn't think he fully realized what
he was undertaking. And at this moment it came to me with a shock how
dearly I held him, and if possible I would have drawn back.
"Not to-night," I said, feeling about for some way of evasion,
"To-morrow, if you like."
"So that you can prepare a ghost for me?" he said coldly.
"No," I cried, "no, on my honour. But--but I must tell my father, and
get a bed ready for you, and so on."
"To-morrow then," he agreed.
Now the next day was Saturday and a holiday, so I said, "Come in the
morning and we'll spend the day together. Have a look round the place,
and that."
"Right," and he turned away.
I didn't tell my father till the next morning, when I was already
expecting Worthing to arrive. I didn't at all know how my father would
take the information, but as it happened it seemed to amuse him, and he
raised no objection. It seemed to me as though he saw no danger, and I
said questioningly, "But suppose there is a ghost, daddy?"
"Ghosts," he answered with a laugh, "are like miracles. They only
happen to people who believe in them."
Worthing arrived early, and we spent a splendid day clambering about
the old mansion. Half of it was in ruins, and the habitable part had
been partially bricked and partially boarded up. My father and I shared
a room at the top of the first flight of the great oaken stairs. It
was a huge room, and its mere spaciousness made it an eerie place at
night, for the little circle of the candlelight intensified the shadows
in the corners. And there was a great wardrobe by the fireplace which
suggested secret things, and facing it across the room a tall mirror
by my bed which played unholy tricks with my reflection in the dark.
This was bad enough; but at least the room was in the main body of
the house. But before we could reach the room which Worthing was to
occupy, an archway on the landing, which had been closed before we
took possession, had to be opened again. The room lay out among the
ruins, and was fairly easily approachable, though not always under
cover, by a long and tortuous passage and one flight of stairs; but
though in the ruined part of the house the room itself was still
sound and weatherproof. I had frequently been in it, having chosen it
indeed as my own private sanctum; but my method of approach had been
by an unorthodox route up a broken wall or two and along a perilous
causeway, not to be attempted in the night.
Especially on such a night. For during the day the wind began to rise,
and before sunset half a gale was sweeping across from the north-east,
howling dismally among the turrets and corridors of our ruinous home,
and wailing down the great chimney of our dining-room, puffing the
smoke out in great blue clouds.
It was a night for strange stories, but there were no stories as it
happened. In spite of the increasing wind, which tore at the great
lonely house, shaking it to its foundations as though envying it its
place there on the hill, and grappling with it like a foe to root it
up and send it flying headlong, Worthing remained calmly by the fire
talking to my father in the most matter-of-fact voice as though nothing
unusual were to take place that night. As for me I was straining out to
catch the first echo of that bitter cry which I knew would soon come
wailing in the heart of some great burst of wind, thinner but more
piercing than the gale itself. And when at last I thought I heard it I
looked quickly across at Worthing, but he seemed to have heard nothing;
and my father was evidently lost in the conversation, for he showed no
sign of having heard anything other than the wind.
I felt left out in the cold, as though all the responsibility of what
might happen this night were thrown upon my shoulders. Or rather upon
my heart, for it beat heavily, and with the deepening darkness throbbed
with uneasier forebodings. And then there came a crash at which I
sprang to my feet, so unstrung was I with anxiety. But my father
listening for a moment said, "Some old chimney, I suppose," and resumed
the conversation. I sat down again, and tried to listen to what the
two were talking about, but I remember nothing, for all my attention
was strained out for that coming cry. And suddenly it came, sharp, as
though at a swift sting, shrill, and breaking into sobs of self-pitying
abandonment to anguish, to die away in a forlorn moan.
Again I sprang to my feet, and cried, "Listen!"
"You mustn't be afraid," said my father to Worthing, "the wind does
that kind of thing."
"Oh, daddy, it isn't the wind," I cried.
"Yes, Tommy, just the wind," he answered, looking at me, and throwing
a half glance towards Worthing. I took his hint to mean that my friend
mustn't be alarmed before the ordeal. So I tried to possess myself in
calmness. But when it was time to go to bed I was shaking with fear, so
much so that Worthing noticed it and said, "It looks as though you're
to sleep in the haunted room instead of me."
"Oh, Worthing, don't go," I said.
He looked at me coldly and answered, "Oh, so that's what all this
little farce is about, is it? You want to frighten me from the attempt?
Come."
That stung me, and without a word I handed him his candle and took my
own, and together we went up the echoing stairs, out under the archway,
and wound our way along through the twisting corridor, shielding our
candles as well as we could when we came to some half exposed space,
sometimes standing crouched against the wall till a gust had spent its
fury and swept by, and then on again, till puffing with the journey we
arrived at the haunted room. Once more I would have begged him to turn
back, and I did say, "Let me stay with you," but he froze me away from
him, and I turned and left him there alone, beating my way back through
the night and wind to my chamber. But once I heard a moan so near me
that I stopped as though petrified, and held my breath to listen. But
just as I breathed again, a deep draught, I thought I heard the sound
repeated, but it was drowned in my breathing. But what I did hear
sounded strangely like a little chuckle of some mocking and evil thing,
so that I stepped on hastily, heedless of my footing, and arrived at my
room in a fine state of terror. And there I sat on my bed, hearkening
to the sounds of the night, and bitterly reproaching myself, but unable
to still the absurd thumping of my heart and quivering of my limbs.
At length I controlled myself sufficiently to pull off my clothes and
scramble into bed. But there was no sleep for me. Long after my father
had crept in beside me I lay listening, listening for I knew not what;
for I felt the growing conviction that soon there would come a clear
call for me, and I should have to arise and go to meet what fate should
send.
And all the while the wind came rushing from the moors, to whirl
about the ruins as in a witches' dance, shrieking and clamouring and
tugging at the walls, and raced away in scampering gusts far into the
distance. And through it I caught faint echoes of that ghostly moan,
a kind of _Ughh! Ughh!_ of unutterable pain. I couldn't help thinking
of Worthing, alone there among the crazy ruins, and wondering how the
night was passing for him. Likely enough, I thought bitterly, he was
serenely sleeping while I was tossing in a fever on his account; for I
knew that if it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have suffered all this
terror, for this night was no worse than others had been; and to me
ghosts weren't alarming things, but creatures that gave to the night
a delicious shuddering thrill. And so tossing and listening I fell at
length into a troubled sleep, to be awakened by a shattering cry that
rang in my ears like an echo. I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering;
but my father didn't move. How was it possible? I asked myself. How
could he sleep through it? I felt out towards him and whispered,
"Daddy!" I didn't notice till then that I was gasping as though I had
run a race. I touched him, and felt his chest rising and falling calmly
and evenly. I lay down again, but I was wide-awake, and I was telling
myself that Worthing was in danger, and I ought to go to him. But I
dared not. So I lay awhile listening to the wind as it howled through
the night, till I grew calmer, strangely calm, and a new courage came
to me. "This is all nonsense," I said. "I'll go and see."
I crept noiselessly out of bed and pulled on a few clothes; lit my
candle and left the room, turning at the door to see that my father
hadn't awakened. On the landing it was very gusty, and a racing puff
caught at my flame, nearly extinguishing it. I guarded it with my hand,
and made for the archway. Going was very slow, for with each step my
candle nearly blew out, and in the darkness I should have been lost.
So I crept on slowly, my attention fixed to the flame. It was an eerie
journey, for I could give no heed to what lay ahead of me, only sparing