Edith Nesbit - The Book of Shadows Vol 3

Table of Contents

In the Dark

No. 11 Welham Square

Man-size in Marble

When I Was Dead

The Library Window

Lost Hearts

The Shadowy Third

The Beast with Five Fingers

Mrs. Lunt

The Step

Mary Elizabeth Penn

1885

“It is the strangest, most unaccountable thing I ever knew! I don’t think I am superstitious, but I can’t help fancying that—”

Ethel left the sentence unfinished, wrinkling her brows in a thoughtful frown as she gazed into the depths of her empty teacup.

“What has happened?” I enquired, glancing up from the Money Article of the Times at my daughter’s pretty, puzzled face. “Nothing uncanny, I hope? You haven’t discovered that a ‘ghost’ is included among the fixtures of our new house?”

This new house, The Cedars, was a pretty old-fashioned riverside villa between Richmond and Kew, which I had taken furnished, as a summer residence, and to which we had only just removed.

Let me state, in parenthesis, by way of introducing myself to the reader, that I, John Dysart, am a widower with one child: the blue-eyed, fair-haired young lady who sat opposite to me at the breakfast table that bright June morning: and that I have been for many years the manager of an old-established Life Insurance Company in the City.

“What is the mystery?” I repeated, as Ethel did not reply.

She came out of her brown study, and looked at me impressively.

“It really is a mystery, papa, and the more I think of it the more puzzled I am.”

“I am in the dark at present as to what ‘it’ may be,” I reminded her.

“Something that happened last night. You know that adjoining my bedroom there is a large, dark closet, which can be used as a box or store-room?”

“I had forgotten the fact, but I will take your word for it. Well, Ethel?”

“Well, last night I was restless, and it was some hours before I could sleep. When at last I did so, I had a strange dream about that closet. It seemed that as I lay in bed I heard a noise within, as if someone were knocking at the door, and a child’s voice, broken by sobs, crying piteously ‘Let me out, let me out!’ I thought that I got out of bed and opened the door, and there, crouching all in a heap against the wall, was a little boy; a pretty, pale little fellow of six or seven, looking half wild with fright. At the same moment I woke.”

“And lo, it was a dream!” I finished. “If that is all Ethel—”

“But it is not,” she interposed. “The strangest part of the story has to come. The dream was so vivid that when I woke I sat up in bed, and looked towards the closet door, almost expecting to hear the sounds again. Papa, you may believe me or not, but it is a fact that I did hear them, the muffled knocking, and the pitiful cry. As I listened, it grew fainter and fainter and at length ceased altogether. Then I summoned courage to get out of bed and open the door. There was no living creature in the place. Was it not mysterious?” she concluded. “What can it mean?”

I glanced at her with a smile, as I refolded the paper and rose from my chair.

“It means, my dear, that you had nightmare last night. Let me recommend you for the future not to eat cucumber at dinner.”

“No, papa,” she interrupted. “I was broad awake, and I heard the child’s voice as plainly as I ever heard a sound in my life.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I was afraid to stir till the sound had ceased; but if I ever hear it again, I will let you know at once.”

“Be sure you do. Meantime, suppose you come into the garden,” I continued, throwing open the French windows; “the morning air will blow all these cobwebs from your brain.”

Ethel complied, and for the present I heard no more of the subject.

Some days passed away, and we began to feel quite at home in our new quarters.

A more delightful summer retreat than The Cedars could hardly be imagined, with its cool, dusky rooms, from which the sunlight was excluded by the screen of foliage outside; its trellised verandah, overgrown with creepers, and its smooth lawn, shaded by the rare old cedar-trees which gave the place its name.

Our friends soon discovered its attractions and took care that we should not stagnate for want of society. We kept open house; lawn-tennis, garden-parties, and boating excursions were the order of the day. It was glorious summer weather, the days warm and golden, the lights starlit and still.

One night, having important letters to finish, I sat up writing after all the household were in bed. The window was open, and at intervals I glanced up from my paper across the moonlit lawn, where the shadows of the cedars lay dark and motionless. Now and then a great downy moth would flutter in and hover round the shaded lamp; now and then the swallows under the eaves uttered a faint, sleepy chirp. For all other signs and sounds of life I might have been the only watcher in all the sleeping world.

I had finished my task and was just closing my writing-case when I heard a hurried movement in the room above – Ethel’s. Footsteps descended the stairs, and the next moment the dining-room door opened, and Ethel appeared, in a long, white dressing-gown, with a small night-lamp in her hand.

There was a look on her face which made me start up and exclaim:

“What is the matter? What has happened?”

She set down the lamp and came towards me.

“I have heard it again,” she breathed, laying her hand on my wrist.

“You have heard – what?”

“The noise in the box-room.”

I stared at her a moment in bewilderment, and then half smiled.

“Oh, is that it?” I exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “You have been dreaming again, it seems.”

“I have not been asleep at all,” she replied. “The sounds have kept me awake. They are louder than the first time; the child seems to be sobbing and crying as if his heart would break. It is miserable to hear it.”

“Have you looked inside?” I asked, impressed in spite of myself by her manner.

“No, I dared not tonight. I was afraid of seeing – something,” she returned with a shiver.

“Come, we must get to the bottom of this mystery,” I said cheerfully, and taking up the lamp I led the way upstairs to her room.

As the door of the mysterious closet was level with the wall, and papered like it, I did not perceive it till Ethel pointed it out. I listened with my ear close to it, but heard not the faintest sound, and after waiting a moment, threw it open and looked in, holding the lamp so that every corner was lighted. It was a cramped, close, airless place, the ceiling (which was immediately below the upper staircase) sloping at an acute angle to the floor. A glance showed me that it contained nothing but a broken chair and a couple of empty boxes.

Slightly shrugging my shoulders, I closed the door.

“Your ghost is ‘ vox et praeterea nihil ,’ it seems,” I remarked drily. “Don’t you think, Ethel, you may have been—”

Ethel held up her hand, motioning me to silence.

“Hark,” she whispered, “there it is again! But it is dying away now. Listen—”

I complied, half infected by her excitement, but within and without the house all was profoundly still.

“There – it has ceased,” she said at length, drawing a deep breath. “You heard it, did you not?”

I shook my head. “My dear Ethel, there was nothing to hear.”

She opened her blue eyes to their widest.

“Papa – am I not to believe the evidence of my own senses?”

“Not when they are affected by nervous excitement. If you give way to this fancy, you will certainly make yourself ill. See how you tremble! Come, lie down again, and try to sleep.”