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

Those who have eve had cast upon them more than their strength seemed framed to bear — the weak, the aspiring, the adventurous and self-sacrificing in will, and the faltering in nerve — will understand the kind of agony which I sometimes endured.

But, again, consolation would come, and it seemed to me that I must be exaggerating my risk in the coming crisis; and certain at least, if my father believed it attended with real peril, he would never have wished to see me involved in it. But the silence under which I was bound was terrifying — double so when the danger was so shapeless and undivulged.

I was soon to understand it all — soon, too, to know all about my father’s impending journey, whither, with what visitor, and why guarded from me with so awful a mystery.

That day there came a lively and goodnatured letter from Lady Knollys. She was to arrive at Knowl in two or three days’ time. I thought my father would have been pleased, but he seemed apathetic and dejected.

“One does not always feel quite equal to Monica. But for you — yes, thank God. I wish she could only stay, Maud, for a month or two; I may be going then, and would be glad — provided she talks about suitable things — very glad, Maud, to leave her with you for a week or so.”

There was something, I thought, agitating my father secretly that day. He had the strange hectic flush I had observed when he grew excited in our interview in the garden about Uncle Silas. There was something painful, perhaps even terrible in the circumstances of the journey he was about to make, and from my heart I wished the suspense were over, the annoyance past, and he returned.

That night my father bid me good-night early and went up-stairs. After I had been in bed some little time, I heard his hand-bell ring. This was not usual. Shortly after I heard his man, Ridley, talking with Mrs. Rusk in the gallery. I could not be mistaken in their voices. I knew not why I was startled and excited, and had raised myself to listen on my elbow. But they were talking quietly, like persons giving or taking an ordinary direction, and not in the haste of an unusual emergency.

Then I heard the man bid Mrs. Rusk good-night and walk down the gallery to the stairs, so that I concluded he was wanted no more, and all must therefore be well. So I laid myself down again, though with a throbbing at my heart, and an ominous feeling of expectation, listening and fancying footsteps.

I was going to sleep when I heard the bell ring again; and, in a few minutes, Mrs. Rusk’s energetic step passed along the gallery; and, listening intently, I heard, or fancied, my father’s voice and hers in dialogue. All this was very unusual, and again I was, with a beating heart, leaning with my elbow on my pillow.

Mrs. Rusk came along the gallery in a minute or so after, and stopping at my door, began to open it gently. I was startled, and challenged my visitor with —

“Who’s there?”

“It’s only Rusk, Miss. Dearie me! and are you awake still?”

“Is papa ill?”

“Ill! not a bit ill, thank God. Only there’s a little black book as I took for your prayer-book, and brought in here; ay, here it is, sure enough, and he wants it. And then I must go down to the study, and look out this one, ‘C, 15;’ but I can’t read the name, noways; and I was afraid to ask him again; if you be so kind to read it, Miss — I suspeck my eyes is a-going.”

I read the name; and Mrs. Rusk was tolerably expert at finding out books, as she had often been employed in that way before. So she departed.

I suppose that this particular volume was hard to find, for she must have been a long time away, and I had actually fallen into a doze when I was roused in an instant by a dreadful crash and a piercing scream from Mrs. Rusk. Scream followed scream, wilder and more terror-stricken. I shrieked to Mary Quince, who was sleeping in the room with me:—“Mary, do you hear? what is it? It is something dreadful.”

The crash was so tremendous that the solid flooring even of my room trembled under it, and to me it seemed as if some heavy man had burst through the top o the window, and shook the whole house with his descent. I found myself standing at my own door, crying, “Help, help! murder! murder!” and Mary Quince, frightened half out of her wits, by my side.

I could not think what was going on. It was plainly something most horrible, for Mrs. Rusk’s screams pealed one after the other unabated, though with a muffled sound, as if the door was shut upon her; and by this time the bells of my father’s room were ringing madly.

“They are trying to murder him!” I cried, and I ran along the gallery to his door, followed by Mary Quince, whose white face I shall never forget, though her entreaties only sounded like unmeaning noises in my ears.

“Here! help, help, help!” I cried, trying to force open the door.

“Shove it, shove it, for God’s sake! he’s across it,” cried Mrs. Rusk’s voice from within; “drive it in. I can’t move him.”

I strained all I could at the door, but ineffectually. We heard steps approaching. The men were running to the spot, and shouting as they did so —

“Never mind; hold on a bit; here we are; all right;” and the like.

We drew back, as they came up. We were in no condition to be seen. We listened, however, at my open door.

Then came the straining and bumping at the door. Mrs. Rusk’s voice subsided to a sort of wailing; the men were talking all together, and I suppose the door opened, for I heard some of the voices, on a sudden, as if in the room; and then came a strange lull, and talking in very low tones, and not much even of that.

“What is it, Mary? what can it be?” I ejaculated, not knowing what horror to suppose. And now, with a counterpane about my shoulders, I called loudly and imploringly, in my horror, to know what had happened.

But I heard only the subdued and eager talk of men engaged in some absorbing task, and the dull sounds of some heavy body being moved.

Mrs. Rusk came towards us looking half wild, and pale as a spectre, and putting her thin hands to my shoulders, she said —“Now, Miss Maud, darling, you must go back again; ‘tisn’t no place for you; you’ll see all, my darling, time enough — you will. There now, there, like a dear, do get into your room.”

What was that dreadful sound? Who had entered my father’s chamber? It was the visitor whom we had so long expected, with whom he was to make the unknown journey, leaving me alone. The intruder was Death!

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MY FATHER was dead — as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of those fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward sign of giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by Dr. Bryerly. My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be long deferred. He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted only in the allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of true consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his rugged ways was hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe that he was actually dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild tumult of such a shock, have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be instantly sent for from the village.

“Well, Miss Maud, dear, I will send to please you, but it is all to no use. If only you saw him yourself you’d know that. Mary Quince, run you down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he’ll go down this minute to the village for Dr. Elweys.”

Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don’t know what I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose his life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk said —