In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) (14 page)

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I will go and see my father and find out if he will see you. He has been very strange ever since my sister’s death about four months ago, and doesn’t like visitors.’

I was pleased with her sweet face and, besides having nothing to do, really wanted to see her father, so I entered and sat down in a pretty little parlour while she went upstairs. In a few minutes she reappeared, saying: ‘Father is coming down. He wouldn’t do so at first, but when he heard who you were said he would. I think,’ she added, ‘he is going to ask you for something, so please don’t be angry.’

‘Angry?’ I said. ‘Why should I be angry?’

‘Well,’ she answered, ‘Father has been very queer since my sister Rose died, and always wanting to have something to remind him of her, a picture most particularly. He once said he was going to write and ask you to paint one, but, oh dear, the little sketch that we used to have has been lost, and that,’ she added plaintively, ‘was the only likeness we had of her.’

As she finished speaking her father – my old friend J. – entered the room. He shook me warmly by the hand, but I noticed at once in his manner something strange and unsettled. He sat down, and for a minute or two we spoke of indifferent subjects, but all at once he broke out: ‘Oh, M., my good friend, you can help me, and you only. Cannot you paint her, just a little picture, only a little one.’

‘I would like to, J.,’ I answered, ‘but it is pretty difficult unless you have some photograph to give me. Your daughter here has been telling me that you want a picture of your eldest child, but says you have lost the only sketch you had.’

‘Yes, yes,’ murmured J. ‘And I shall never see her again.’

I pitied his distress, and more to soothe him than anything said: ‘Cannot you describe your daughter, J.? Perhaps I could do something from your description.’

‘Yes,’ he cried eagerly, ‘perhaps you could. Oh, she was so pretty, so sweet: dark brown eyes, and such black hair, never had anyone hair like Rose.’

I cannot tell what prompted me, some strange, unseen influence it certainly must have been, for taking my portfolio I unbuckled it, and producing the sketch given me by my strange visitor the first time she came to my studio I handed it to J. saying: ‘Did she resemble this sketch, J.?’

For a few moments J. and his daughter gazed at the sketch with the blankest amazement; at last J. managed to articulate: ‘Where did you get this?’

‘A lady gave it to me about three or four months ago,’ I answered, ‘she came to my studio to ask me to paint her, and as she was unable to give me any sittings left me this sketch to work from. I saw her again a few days ago, and she begged me to hasten on with my work. Here are one or two sketches I have taken of her.’

‘This is my daughter’s portrait,’ cried J. as he glanced at the sketches. ‘In God’s name when did you see her?’

‘I saw her first in my studio just about fourteen weeks ago,’ I replied, ‘when she gave me an order to paint her picture and send it to – Great Heaven! why, it was this address, 14 Colchester Street, she gave me at the time she handed me this little sketch of herself.’

‘When did you miss the picture, Alice?’ cried her father.

‘Just fourteen weeks ago today,’ answered Miss J. ‘I was looking through the portfolio and found it was not there.’

‘Great are God’s ways,’ said J. after a few moments’ silence. ‘My daughter Rose died just four months ago; she had long been failing, and it was my special wish that she should have her picture taken. She kept on delaying it till it was too late.’

My story is now ended, and I will close it as I commenced it, by asking whether there is any returning for a specified purpose? Perhaps there may be, perhaps, as in the quaint, weird story of old Lady Mary there may be a returning, a returning of the loved one to wander in silence and unperceived amongst us, bearing as his punishment for some unexpiated fault the bitter grief of seeing those he has loved suffering under unmerited wrong. Perhaps even as this is written and this is read the spirits of the departed are hovering silent and unseen near the writer and the reader, perhaps guiding the hand to write, and the eye to read, perhaps, unhappy that they be, only conscious of the griefs to fall on the mortals before them and unable to avert the impending calamities. These things can never be known. Suffice it now to say that the narrator of the above story believed it to be true, and that he actually painted the portrait of the dead Rose J., partly from the little sketch and partly from the remembrance of her face as he saw it. Herself he never saw more: the mission for which she had been permitted to revisit the earth was accomplished, the fault she had committed in neglecting her father’s wishes had doubtless been expiated, and her troubled soul rested in peace.

Two last pieces of evidence as to the truth of this strange story may be adduced in the testimony of the porter at Liverpool Street railway station, who distinctly remembered that the part of the platform where he had been standing was empty, and that suddenly he heard a lady’s voice say: ‘Porter, in this carriage please,’ and turning, had seen a lady in black pointing to M.’s carriage.

The servant also at Mr M.’s remembered admitting her to the studio.

The Downs

I am venturing to set down the following personal experience, inconclusive as it is, as I feel that it may interest those who have the patience to study the phenomena of the unseen world around us. It was my first experience of a psychical happening and its events are accordingly indelibly imprinted on my memory.

The date was, alas, a good many years ago, when I was still a young man and at the time was engaged in reading hard for a certain examination. My friend J. was in similar plight to myself and together we decided to abjure home and London life and seek a quiet country spot, where we might devote ourselves to our work amidst pleasant and congenial surroundings.

J. knew of such a place: a farm belonging to a Mr Harkness, who was a distant connection of his own by marriage. Mr Harkness was a childless widower and lived much to himself at Branksome Farm, attended to only by an elderly housekeeper and one or two servants. Although he called himself a farmer and did in fact farm fairly extensively, he was a man of cultivated and even learned tastes, widely read and deeply versed in the history and folklore of his neighbourhood. At the same time, although good-natured, he was the most reserved and tactiturn man I ever met, and appeared to have a positive horror of communicating his very considerable fund of local knowledge to outsiders like ourselves. However, he was glad to welcome us as paying guests for the sake of his relationship to J., and he and his housekeeper certainly took great care to make us comfortable and happy.

Branksome Farm is a large old-fashioned house, surrounded by the usual farm buildings and situated in a valley winding its way among the Downs. The situation is beautiful and remote, and it would astonish many of our City dwellers to know that within two or three hours’ railway journey from London there still are vast stretches of open downland on which one may walk for hours without sight of a human being, and traversed only by winding roads which run from one small town or hamlet to another, linking a few lonely cottages or farms to civilisation on their route. Behind the house Branksome Down, the highest in the neighbourhood, rises steeply, and beyond it at a distance of about three miles is Willingbury, the nearest town, whence the railway runs to London.

It is necessary to describe the geography of the country between Willingbury and Branksome a little more closely. The two places lie, as is usually the case in the Down country, in valleys between the hills and by road are distant from each other about six to seven miles, being separated by the long ridge of Branksome Down. But actually the distance between them does not exceed three miles across the Down: the path from Branksome, a mere sheep-track, leading up to the top of Branksome Down whence the wanderer sees before him a wide shallow dip in the Down, nearly circular, about three-quarters of a mile across and at the other side sloping up to another gentle ridge. Arrived at the summit of this second elevation the traveller gazes down on the Willingbury-Overbury road and following another sheep-track down the hillside he reaches the road about a mile outside Willingbury.

The whole Down is covered with sweet, short turf, unbroken by trees or shrubs and, at the time of my story, was unmarred by fencing of any form. Flocks of sheep tended by shepherds and their watchful dogs were almost its sole inhabitants, save for the shy, wild life that clings to all natural shelters. Of the beauty of this Down and, in fact, of the whole neighbourhood it is useless to speak. To anyone who has once felt the fascination of a walk in the fresh, pure air, over the springy and centuries-old turf, and who has allowed his eyes to wander over the miles and miles of open Down, studded here and there with rare belts of trees, and has watched the shifting lights play over the near and distant hills, it is needless to speak, and to anyone who has never yet been fortunate enough to find himself in downland in fine weather one can hardly make its fascination clear in words, and one can only advise him to go and explore its beauties for himself.

Well, it was at Branksome Farm that J. and I took up our abode and commenced a course of steady reading, tempered and varied by long walks about the country. Our time passed pleasantly and profitably, and we discovered one day with regret that more than half of it had elapsed. Dismayed at this discovery we began to set our wits to work to find an excuse for prolonging our stay at Branksome, when suddenly an event happened which entirely altered our plans.

Returning one day from our accustomed walk, J. found a telegram waiting for him, which called him to London without delay and the contents of which appeared to indicate the probability of his being unable to return to Branksome. No time was to be lost in making a start if he was to catch the afternoon train at Willingbury and, as it was really quicker to walk across the Down than to drive round the roads behind Mr Harkness’ rather slow old mare, he threw a few clothes hastily into a bag and departed for the station. I accompanied him to see him off and we made the best possible speed to Willingbury. But we had miscalculated the time; the afternoon train had gone, and we found on enquiry that there would be no other until the night mail for London, which passed through Willingbury shortly before 11 p.m.

J. urged me not to wait for this but to leave him at the little inn and go back to Branksome before dark, but I was anxious to keep him company and cheer up his rather depressed spirits, so finally we agreed to dine together at the
Blue Lion
and spend the evening there until the train left. I was perfectly confident in my ability to find my way back over the Down to Branksome at night, as the path was very familiar to us, and I expected to be aided by the light of the moon which would rise about ten o’clock. In due course the train arrived, and having seen J. safely on his way to London I turned my steps towards the Willingbury-Overbury road and its junction with the Branksome sheeptrack.

It was a little after 11 p.m. when I left Willingbury on my homeward way, and I was disappointed to find that the moon had failed me, being completely hidden behind a thick canopy of cloud. The night was profoundly still as well as being very dark, but I was confident in my powers of finding my way and I strode contentedly along the road till I reached the point where it was necessary I should diverge on to the Down. I found the commencement of the sheep-track without difficulty, as my eyes were now accustomed to the surrounding obscurity, and set myself to climbing the Down as quickly as possible.

I must make it clear that up to the present time I had been in my usual state of health and spirits, although the latter were somewhat depressed at J.’s sudden departure and the break-up of our pleasant association together. Up to this night, also, I had never in the least suspected that I was possessed of any special psychic intelligence. It is true that I had known that I was in the habit of occasionally dreaming very vividly and consecutively, but I had never given this faculty a serious thought, nor, like most young men in their twenties, had I ever given any consideration to psychic matters. It must be remembered also that I am writing of nearly forty years ago, when an intelligent interest in the potentialities of unseen beings and kindred topics was far less common than it is today.

Well, I commenced my ascent of the hill, and I had not gone very far when I became aware of a certain peculiar change taking place in myself. I fear I shall find it very difficult to describe my sensations in a fashion intelligible to those who have never experienced anything similar, whilst to those who have undergone psychic ordeals my description will probably appear bald and inadequate.

I seemed to be in some mysterious fashion divided into a dual personality. One, the familiar one, was myself, my body, which continued to walk up the sheep-track, keenly alive to the need to keep a sharp look out against losing my way or stumbling over some obstruction. This personality also felt loneliness and a certain degree of nervousness. The darkness, silence and immensity of the empty country round me were oppressive. I feared something, I was not quite sure what, and I anxiously wished I was at the end of my journey with the farm lights shining out to welcome me. My other personality was more vague and ill-defined; it seemed to be separated from my body and from my outer consciousness and to be floating in a region where there was neither space nor time. It seemed to be aware of another world, a world surrounding and intermingling with this one, in which all that is or was or will be was but one moment and in which all places near or far, the Down and the remotest of the invisible stars, were but one spot. All was instantaneous and all was eternal. I am not clear how long this mood lasted, but it was probably only a few minutes before my earthly self was brought or appeared to be brought into entire control of my personality by a sudden shock.