Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - THE SCREAM - 60 Horror Tales in One Edition

“This lady was neither pig nor maid, And so she was not of human mould; Not of the living nor the dead. Her left hand and foot were warm to touch; Her right as cold as a corpse’s flesh! And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune. The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof; And women feared her and stood afar. She could do without sleep for a year and a day; She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more. No one knew how this lady fed — On acorns or on flesh. Some say that she’s one of the swine-possessed, That swam over the sea of Gennesaret. A mongrel body and a demon soul. Some say she’s the wife of the Wandering Jew, And broke the law for the sake of pork; And a swinish face for a token doth bear, That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.”

And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed to go on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no signs of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direction of our destination.

When she had sung to her heart’s content, up rose Madame, and began to walk onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, toward the village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she observed me, for she enquired —

“Wat is that a smoke there?”

“That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.”

“Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?”

I told her, and silence resumed.

Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly undulating sheep-walk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of which, by a bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small abbey, with a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows’ nests hung untenanted in the trees; the birds were foraging far away from their roosts. The very cattle had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.

Madame drew a long breath and smiled.

“Come down, come down, cheaile — come down to the churchyard.”

As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world, and the scene grew more sad and lonely, Madame’s spirits seemed to rise.

“See ‘ow many grave-stones — one, two hundred. Don’t you love the dead, cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-day, for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.”

We were by this time at the little brook’s side, and the low churchyard wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping stones, across the stream, immediately at the other side.

“Come, now!” cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; “we are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of them. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la Morgue — Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play, Ouaah!” And she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her wig and bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was laughing, and really looked quite mad.

“No, Madame, I will not go with you,” I said, disengaging my hand with a violent effort, receding two or three steps.

“Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi — wat mauvais goût! But see, we are already in shade. The sun he is setting soon — where well you remain, cheaile? I will not stay long.”

“I’ll stay here,” I said, a little angrily — for I was angry as well as nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to frighten me.

Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her long, lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she strode, and I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-omened rhymes, as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and courtesy, among the graves and headstones, towards the ruin.

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THREE YEARS LATER I learned — in a way she probably little expected, and then did not much care about — what really occurred there. I learned even phrases and looks — for the story was related by one who had heard it told — and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply towards the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was merely exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air, turning the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a grave-stone, a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large, light whiskers, a jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short pipe, and made a nod to Madame, without either removing it from his lips or rising, but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up, he eyed her with something of the impudent and sulky expression that was habitual in it.

“Ha, Deedle, you are there! an’ look so well. I am here, too, quite alon; but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, byside the leetle river, for she must not think I know you — so I am come alon.”

“You’re a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,” said the gay man, and spat on the ground; “and I wish you would not call me Diddle. I’ll call you Granny if you do.”

“Eh bien! Dud, then. She is vary nice — wat you like. Slim waist, wite teeth, vary nice eyes — dark — wat you say is best — and nice leetle foot and ankle.”

Madame smiled leeringly.

Dud smoked on.

“Go on,” said Dud, with a nod of command.

“I am teach her to sing and play — she has such sweet voice!”

There was another interval here.

“Well, that isn’t much good. I hate women’s screechin’ about fairies and flowers. Hang her! there’s a scarecrow as sings at Curl’s Divan. Such a caterwauling upon a stage! I’d like to put my two barrels into her.”

By this time Dud’s pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.

“You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass her by.”

“That’s as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a poke, you know. And s’pose I shouldn’t like her, arter all?”

Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.

“Vary good! Then some one else will not be so ‘ard to please — as you will soon find.”

“Some one’s bin a-lookin’ arter her, you mean?” said the young man, with a shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.

“I mean precisely — that which I mean,” replied the lady, with a teazing pause at the break I have marked.

“Come, old ’un, none of your d —— q old chaff, if you want me to stay here listening to you. Speak out, can’t you? There’s any chap as has been a-lookin’ arter her — is there?”

“Eh bien! I suppose some.”

“Well, you suppose, and I suppose — we may all suppose, I guess; but that does not make a thing be, as wasn’t before; and you tell me as how the lass is kep’ private up there, and will be till you’re done educating her — a precious good ’un that is!” And he laughed a little lazily, with the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent derision.

Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.

“I’m only chaffin’, you know, old girl. You’ve bin chaffin’— w’y shouldn’t I? But I don’t see why she can’t wait a bit; and what’s all the d —— d hurry for? I’m in no hurry. I don’t want a wife on my back for a while. There’s no fellow marries till he’s took his bit o’ fun, and seen life — is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to church, or to meeting, by jingo! — for they say she’s a Quaker — with a babby on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when I’m only beginning?”