E. Nesbit - In the Dark - Tales of Terror by E. Nesbit

I heard a bell-beat from the church. Eleven already! I turned to go in, but the night held me. I could not go back into our little warm rooms yet. I would go right on up to the church. I felt vaguely that it would be good to carry my love and thankfulness to the sanctuary, whither so many loads of sorrow and gladness had been borne by men and women dead long since.

I looked in at the low window as I went by. Laura was half lying on her chair in front of the fire. I could not see her face, only her head showed dark against the pale blue wall. She was quite still. Asleep no doubt. My heart reached out to her, as I went on. There must be a God, I thought, and a God that was good. How otherwise could anything so sweet and dear as she ever have been imagined?

I walked slowly along the edge of the wood. A sound broke the stillness of the night. I stopped and listened. The sound stopped too. I went on, and now distinctly I heard another step than mine answer mine like an echo. It was a poacher or a wood-stealer, most likely, for these were not unknown in our Arcadia. But, whoever it was, he was a fool not to step more lightly. I turned into the wood, and now the footstep seemed to come from the path I had just left. It must be an echo, I thought. The wood lay lovely in the moonlight. The large, dying ferns and the brushwood showed where, through thinning foliage, the pale light came down. The tree trunks stood up like Gothic columns all around me. They reminded me of the church, and I turned into the bier-balk and passed through the corpse-gate between the graves to the low porch. I paused for a moment on the stone seat where Laura and I had last night watched the fading landscape. Then I noticed that the door of the church was open, and I blamed myself for having left it unlatched the other night. We were the only people who ever cared to come to the church except on Sundays, and I was vexed to think that through our carelessness the damp autumn airs had had a chance of getting in and injuring the old fabric. I went in. It will seem strange perhaps that I should have gone half-way up the aisle before I remembered – with a sudden chill, followed by as sudden a rush of self-contempt – that this was the very day and hour when, according to tradition, the ‘shapes drawed out man-size in marble’, began to walk.

Having thus remembered the legend, and remembered it with a shiver of which I was ashamed, I could not do otherwise than walk up towards the altar, just to look at the figures – as I said to myself; really what I wanted was to assure myself, first, that I did not believe the legend, and, secondly, that it was not true. I was rather glad that I had come. I thought that now I could tell Mrs Dorman how vain her fancies were, and how peacefully the marble figures slept on through the ghostly hour. With my hands in my pockets, I passed up the aisle. In the grey, dim light, the eastern end of the church looked larger than usual, and the arches above the tombs looked larger too. The moon came out and showed me the reason. I stopped short, my heart gave a great leap that nearly choked me, and then sank sickeningly.

The ‘bodies drawed out man-size’ were gone , and their marble slabs lay wide and bare in the vague moonlight that slanted through the west window.

Were they really gone? or was I mad? Clenching my nerves, I stooped and passed my hand over the smooth slabs and felt their flat unbroken surface. Had someone taken the things away? Was it some vile practical joke? I would make sure, anyway. In an instant I had made a torch of a newspaper which happened to be in my pocket, and lighting it held it high above my head. Its yellow glare illumined the dark arches and those slabs. The figures were gone. And I was alone in the church; or was I alone?

And then a horror seized me, a horror indefinable and indescribable – an overwhelming certainty of supreme and accomplished calamity. I flung down the torch and tore along the aisle and out through the door, biting my lips as I ran to keep myself from shrieking aloud. Was I mad – or what was this that possessed me? I leaped the churchyard wall and took the straight cut across the fields, led by the light from our windows. Just as I got over the first stile, a dark figure seemed to spring out of the ground. Mad still with the certainty of misfortune, I made for the thing that stood in my path, shouting ‘Get out of the way, can’t you?’

But my push met with a very vigorous resistance. My arms were caught just above the elbow and held as in a vice, and the raw-boned Irish doctor actually shook me.

‘Would ye?’ he cried in his own unmistakable accents – ‘would ye, then?’

‘Let me go, you fool,’ I gasped. ‘The marble figures have gone from the church; I tell you they’ve gone.’

He broke into a ringing laugh. ‘I’ll have to give ye a draught tomorrow, I see. Ye’ve been smoking too much and listening to old wives’ tales.’

‘I’ll tell you I’ve seen the bare slabs.’

‘Well, come back with me. I’m going up to old Palmer’s – his daughter’s ill – it’s only hysteria, but it’s as bad as it can be; we’ll look in at the church and let me see the bare slabs.’

‘You go if you like,’ I said, a little less frantic for his laughter, ‘I’m going home to my wife.’

‘Rubbish, man,’ said he; ‘D’ye think I’ll permit of that? Are ye to go saying all yer life that ye’ve seen solid marble endowed with vitality, and me to go all my life saying ye were a coward? No, sir – ye shan’t do ut!’

The night – a human voice – and I think also the physical contact with this six feet of solid common sense, brought me back a little to my ordinary self, and the word ‘coward’ was a shower-bath.

‘Come on, then,’ I said sullenly, ‘perhaps you’re right.’

He still held my arm tightly. We got over the stile and back to the church. All was still as death. The place smelt very damp and earthy. We walked up the aisle. I am not ashamed to confess I shut my eyes; I knew the figures would not be there, I heard Kelly strike a match.

‘Here they are, ye see, right enough; ye’ve been dreaming or drinking, asking yer pardon for the imputation.’

I opened my eyes. By Kelly’s expiring vesta I saw two shapes lying ‘in their marble’ on their slabs. I drew a deep breath and caught his hand.

‘I’m awfully indebted to you,’ I said. ‘It must have been some trick of the light, or I have been working rather hard, perhaps that’s it. Do you know, I was quite convinced they were gone.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ he answered rather grimly; ‘ye’ll have to be careful of that brain of yours, my friend, I assure you.’

He was leaning over and looking at the right-hand figure, whose stone face was the most villainous and deadly in expression. He struck another match.

‘By Jove!’ he said, ‘something has been going on here – this hand is broken.’

And so it was. I was certain that it had been perfect the last time Laura and I had been there.

‘Perhaps someone has tried to remove them,’ said the young doctor.

‘That won’t account for my impression,’ I objected.

‘Too much painting and tobacco will account for what you call your impression,’ he said.

‘Come along,’ I said, ‘or my wife will be getting anxious. You’ll come in and have a drop of whisky, and drink confusion to ghosts and better sense to me.’

‘I ought to go up to Palmer’s, but it’s so late now, I’d best leave it till the morning,’ he replied. ‘I was kept late at the Union, and I’ve had to see a lot of people since. All right, I’ll come back with ye.’

I think he fancied I needed him more than did Palmer’s girl, so, discussing how such an illusion could have been possible, and deducing from this experience large generalities concerning ghostly apparitions, we saw, as we walked up the garden path, that bright light streamed out of the front door, and presently saw that the parlour door was open too. Had she gone out?