The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
But remember, Mrs. Bizzey, they will not hurt you, and try and be
brave for all our sakes.”
We were in a state of high nervous excitement for the next five
minutes, during which the same noises I had heard the night before
were repeated overhead, only that the courses were louder and
delivered with more determination, and the falls appeared to succeed
each other like hail.
“Oh, sir, what are they a-doing?” exclaimed Mrs. Bizzey, paralysed
with terror. “They must be killing each other all round.”
“Hush!” I replied. “Listen, now. Some one is pleading for love or for
mercy. How soft and clear the voice is!”
“It sounds for all the world like my poor sister Jane when she was
asking her husband to forgive her for everything she had done amiss,”
said the old woman.
“Perhaps it is your sister Jane, or some of your relations,” I
replied. “She may want you to do something for her. Would you be
afraid if she were suddenly to open the door and come into the room?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure, sir; but I hope she mayn’t. It makes me
curdle all over only to think of it.”
“They’re quieter now. Let us ask if there is any one present who
wishes to speak to us,” I said; and addressing the table to that
effect, I commenced to spell out the alphabet rather loudly--“A, B,
C,” etc.
Whether from my nervousness, or the united strain we laid upon it, I
know not, but the table certainly began to rock at that juncture,
though I could make neither head nor tail of its intentions. Treating
it in the orthodox manner by which Britons invariably attempt to
communicate with a foreigner who does not understand one word of the
language spoken, I began to bawl at the table, and my A, B, C, must
have reverberated through the empty house.
Again the old woman whispered mysteriously to the old man, but he
dismissed her question with an impatient answer; and my attention was
too much attracted in another direction at that moment to give much
heed of what they were doing. My ear had caught the sound of a
descending footstep, and I felt sure the spirits were at last about to
visit us _in propriæ personæ_. But dreading the effect it might have
on Mrs. Bizzey’s nerves, I purposely held my tongue, and applied
myself afresh to a vigorous repetition of the alphabet, striving to
cover the approaching footstep by the noise of my own voice, although
I was trembling with excitement and delight at the successful issue of
my undertaking. At last I plainly heard the footstep pause outside the
door, as though deliberating before it opened it. The old man was
apparently too deaf or too absorbed to notice it, and his wife was in
a state of helpless fright. I alone sufficiently retained my senses to
see the door slowly open, and a white-robed figure--a real,
materialised spirit--stand upon the threshold. The gesture of delight,
which I could not repress, roused my companions from their reverie;
and as soon as Mrs. Bizzey turned and saw the figure, she recognised
it.
“It’s Jane!” she screamed. “It’s my own poor sister Jane come back
from the grave to visit me again, with her red hair and blue eyes; I
can see ’em as plain as plain. I’ll die of the shock, I know I shall!”
“Nonsense!” I exclaimed sternly, fearful, lest by her folly she should
scare the newly-born spirit back to the spheres. “If it is your
sister, speak to her as you used to do. Tell her you are glad to see
her, and ask if she wants anything done.”
“Oh, Jane!” said the old woman, half falling upon her knees, “don’t
come a-nigher me, for mercy’s sake! I never kept nothing of yourn back
from the children except the old blue dress, which it wouldn’t have
been no use for them to wear, and the ring, which I had asked you to
give me a dozen times in your life, and you had always refused. I’d
give ’em both back now if I could, Jane, but the gownd have been on
the dust-heap these twenty years past, and the ring I sold the minute
my man was laid up with rheumatis. Forgive me, Jane, forgive me.”
“_Why, what on earth are you making such a row about?_” replied the
spirit.
I leapt to my feet in a moment.
“This is some shameful hoax!” I exclaimed. “Who are you, and what do
you do here?”
“I should think I might put the same question to you, since I find you
sitting in the dark, at dead of night, with my landlord and landlady.”
“Lor’, Mr. Montmorency, it’s never you, sir!” ejaculated old Bizzey,
with a feeble giggle.
The voice seemed familiar to me. Who on earth was this Mr.
Montmorency, who had intruded upon our séance at the most important
juncture? I turned up the lamp and threw its light full upon his
features. “Good heavens!” I exclaimed, “it’s Julian Cockleboat.”
The young man was equally astonished with myself.
“Did Lord Seaborne send you after me?” he said, guessing the truth at
once. “And how did you find out I was lodging here?”
“Aha, my boy!” I replied, unwilling to deny the _kúdos_ with which he
credited me, “that’s _my_ secret. Do you suppose I have gained the
name of the amateur detective among my friends for nothing? No, no! I
am in Norwich expressly for the purpose of restoring you to your
guardian, and as I knew that to show my hand more openly would be to
scare you off to another hiding place, I devised this little plan for
making you reveal yourself in your true character.”
“Did Robson tell you, then, that I had taken an engagement at the
theatre here?”
“Never you mind, Mr. Cockleboat; it is quite sufficient that I knew
it. This is a proper sort of house to play hide-and-seek in, isn’t
it?”
I was dispersing the table and chairs again with angry jerks as I
spoke, fearful lest my attempted investigation of the occult mysteries
should be discovered before I had removed its traces.
“Still I can’t understand how you discovered that Mr. Montmorency was
myself, although naturally my night rehearsals must have disturbed
you. But you told me you had no other lodgers,” continued Julian
Cockleboat reproachfully, to the Bizzeys.
“And you said the same thing to me,” I added, in similar tones.
“Well, sir--well, Mr. Montmorency, I’m very sorry it should have
happened so,” replied the landlord, turning from one to the other,
“but it’s all my old woman’s fault, for I said to her--”
“You did nothing of the sort,” interrupted his better half; “for when
I come to you and told you as a second gentleman wanted rooms here, it
was you as said, ‘Let him have the little room upstairs, and no one
will be ever the wiser if he takes his meals out of a day.’”
“But we never thought--begging your pardon, Mr. Montmorency--as you’d
take such a liberty with the upper offices as to make noises in them
as should disturb the whole house.”
“Well, what was I to do?” replied the young man, appealing to me.
“They’ve given me three leading parts to get up at a fortnight’s
notice, and if I don’t study them at night I have no chance of being
ready in time.”
“In fact,” I said, oracularly, “you’ve been cheating each other all
round. Mr. Bizzey has cheated his employers by letting apartments to
which he has no right; you have cheated the Bizzeys by using one which
you never hired of them; and I have--” “cheated myself,” I might have
added, but I stopped short and looked wise instead.
“And it was never no ghosts after all!” said Mrs. Bizzey, in accents
of disappointment, as her husband marched her downstairs.
* * * * * * *
There is nothing more to tell. I reconciled Mr. Julian Cockleboat to
his guardian and his destiny; and I wrote “The Origin of Dreams,” the
best part, by the way (as all the critics affirmed), of “The
Cyclopædia of the Brain.” I made more money by my little trip than
six months of ordinary labour would have brought me; and Lord Seaborne
speaks of me to this day, amongst his acquaintances, as the “very
cleverest amateur detective he has ever known.”
And so I am.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
This book is volume 2179 in the _Collection of British Authors,
Tauchnitz Edition_ series.
Obsolete and inconsistent spellings (e.g. basons, inuendoes,
firearm/fire-arm, man-servant/man servant, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation: correct some quotation mark pairings/nestings.
[The Invisible Tenants of Rushmere]
Change “Though we entered _evey_ room in turn” to _every_.
[Little White Souls]
“_aud_ a very dull Christmas the members of the 145th Bengal"
_and_.
“love and charity make themselves _conspicious_” to _conspicuous_.
“but very _advisible_, not only for Katie, but for yourself” to
_advisable_.
“supported by a stone _ballustrade_, and containing eight more” to
_balustrade_.
“happened for an hour longer than is _apsolutely_ necessary” to
_absolutely_.
[Still Waters]
“flowed over the _white-dressing gown_ which she had worn” to
_white dressing-gown_.
(“_Dont_ be a goose!” replied her husband, as he put her) to _Don’t_.
[Chit-Chat from Andalusia]
“who evidently belonged to the little _cortége_” to _cortège_.
[“Mother.”]
“You have been too long away from home as it _it_” to _is_.
[End of text]