In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) (22 page)

She suited her actions to her words and sat silently gazing at the ruined flower. Mr Carmichael struggled between fear and anger. Who was this boastful girl, he thought; was he not a gentleman, a man of position, what had he really to fear from the threats of an unknown girl from a second-class shop?

Summoning up his courage he answered: ‘These are fine words, Miss Rourke, but you do not consider what I may do in the meantime. You indulge in threats to persecute me? Have you considered our relative social positions? Do you know I am Mr Carmichael and a man of influence and reputation? In the last place have you considered – the police? Persons who annoy others are apt to find themselves in trouble.’

He spoke more bravely than he felt. As the words passed his lips he felt his courage evaporating. She listened unmoved, smiling, with something of the air of a cat watching a mouse.

When he had finished, she waited a few moments and then in a low, intensely concentrated voice answered: ‘Oh, you poor fool! How little you understand. Since that night five weeks ago when first I found you, before you saw my living face, have you learned nothing? You talk of your position, of your social influence; you prate of the police.’ Her eyes, dark and gloomy, seemed to devour him as she went on: ‘What can you do? I hold you and shall always hold you. I may never see you again in this body, I want nothing of your material life, I want something more, I want you yourself, I want your soul.’

He shrank back in horror. ‘Are you the Devil?’ he said.

She burst into a fit of terrible, silent laughter. ‘The Devil,’ she said, ‘we are becoming quite mediaeval. Do you expect to see this foot,’ and she pushed forward her own, ‘turned into a hoof? Are you waiting for me to take out a parchment to be signed in your blood?’

She laughed again. ‘No, Mr Carmichael,’ she went on, ‘I am not the Devil. Perhaps you would be better off if I were.’

There was a silence. Mr Carmichael felt like a bird in the presence of a snake. He was fascinated, he was filled with abhorrence: he wished to fly, he could not; he wished to fortify his spirit to resist, he felt it yielding and becoming more and more plastic under the influence of her personality.

Presently she spoke again. ‘There is no more to be said now,’ she began, ‘we have talked long enough. You understand as much as you are
yet fitted
to understand: you know now what you but feared
before, that I control you, control you for a purpose clear to myself, if not to you. We need not meet again, I shall summon you when I choose and you will come to me when I call you in the places of sleep.’

Another shock passed through Oliver Carmichael. Like a lightning flash there passed across him the knowledge that in those deep sleeps he had had recently his soul, detached from his body, communed with that of Phyllis Rourke amidst strange and terrible surroundings. He resolved he must try not to sleep again; she answered his thought with a laugh.

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘you will sleep as well as ever. And now,’ she added, ‘it is time to part. I live with my aunt in Fulham and the old soul will wonder where I am.’

She rose from her chair. ‘Goodbye, Mr Carmichael,’ she said. ‘
Au revoir
, my dear affinity, till tonight.’

She left him and Oliver remained sitting dazed, helpless and despairing, till a park keeper warned him of the closing gates.

Mr Carmichael returned home in a state verging on stupefaction; the amazing conversation which had taken place, the force and malevolent disposition of Phyllis Rourke appalled him. He felt, as before said, like a bird fascinated by a snake, he desired to struggle, to escape from the toils which were closing round him, but no avenue presented itself. Vainly he racked his brains and vainly he tried to summon up will-power sufficient to effect – he scarcely knew what. He was threatened from a quarter totally unguarded and by dangers the very existence of which he had never hitherto suspected. And he was threatened by what? That again he did not know. Tangible evils affecting his life or his possessions he would have known how to face or to endeavour to face, but this was an evil affecting his soul. Like many other people who have always led smooth and peaceful lives, the problems of the soul had never disturbed him. He was vaguely conscious of its existence, he had in his youth been an orthodox member of the English Church, but of late years he had slipped imperceptibly into a mild form of agnosticism and, while always ready to offer a helping hand to those needing his assistance, he had never really given any consideration to the problems of suffering or wrong. He had sought to avoid them; he knew of their existence, but only after an ill-defined fashion, and he had endeavoured to retain his own happy calm by minimising them and hiding them from his consciousness as far as possible.

Now all was changed in an instant. He found himself in the grip of what seemed to him Evil incarnate. He knew the mind of the girl to be as fertile a field for evil as he had hitherto imagined his own to be for good. And he was powerless to resist her. What would become of him? Was she destined to drag him down to her own low plane and destroy that entity, his soul, which he now for the first time began clearly to realise existed?

He thought and thought, but little help came to him. Only one way finally illumined his darkness and this he well realised might prove a will-o’-the-wisp. The girl had threatened to seek him out in sleep. Well, he would turn night into day, he would watch at night and rest in the daylight hours, when he fondly imagined that she would be attending to her waking duties. Somewhat encouraged at having at least found a chance of salvation, he passed through the rest of the evening endeavouring to collect and control himself and at the usual hour for going to rest he made up his fire and selecting a book settled down to his nocturnal vigil.

But he found it impossible to concentrate on the printed page. His thoughts wandered to Phyllis Rourke. What was she doing, was she triumphing over him, was she even now striving to approach him? He tried to dismiss these thoughts; he resumed his book.

* * *

He woke with a start. The fire was out, the lamp had died down, daylight streamed into the room and he fancied as he regained his consciousness he heard Phyllis Rourke’s low, mocking laugh.

* * *

This night was the beginning of despair for Oliver Carmichael. His hope for protection against his unseen assailant had failed him and he knew of no other help.

To detail the events of the next few months would be as difficult as useless; to the end of his life Oliver Carmichael looked back upon them as a descent into bell itself. It will suffice to summarise his experiences briefly. After his one effort at an all-night vigil he decided it was useless to attempt to vary his ordinary form of life and he returned to it and lived it as heretofore. Dealing first with this external existence, it may be said, that his acquaintances found him gradually changing; the differences were not very marked, but it was noticed that he did not take quite his old placid, kindly view of human nature. His judgment grew more bitter, he became prone to attribute bad motives rather than good to the actions of others; his good temper became less marked, his desire to help others faded, he became selfish, cold, unmerciful. Socially, he became more ambitious; he frequented parties, he entertained at home, but although he thus joined more in the life of the body politic, yet he was less popular than of old. His more intimate friends grieved over the change in him, endeavoured to reason with him and, failing to convince, drew gradually away from him. In his work he did well and earned the approbation, without increasing the affection, of his colleagues. So much for the outer Mr Carmichael. It will be harder to paint the inner man.

At first he fought desperately against the hated invasion of his personality, but from the first he felt it to be a losing fight. He was unarmed and blinded against the attack of a skilled and watchful foe. In his waking hours he was never conscious of any hostile presence. Night and she were his enemies. He rested soundly, never dreaming, or rather never being able to recall his dreams. And yet he was well aware that it was during sleep that his soul, torn from his body by the powerful spirit of Phyllis Rourke, was dragged, resisting hopelessly, through the mire of spiritual degradation. He knew this, and nightly he summoned up his forces to this losing battle and daily realised he had taken another step on the downward path.

It is, perhaps, not accurate to say that his struggles were renewed every night; it is impossible to say, but it is certain that on some nights the battle was fiercer than on others, since he would wake on certain mornings, trembling, weary and bathed in perspiration, as if indeed he had but just emerged from a frightful ordeal. And he noticed that after each one of these dreadful nights he made a very distinct step forward in his knowledge and love of evil. His love of evil! It was with a frightful pang that once, when meditating on his fate and bemoaning his lost innocence, a still, small voice spoke within him, ‘With lost innocence you have gained knowledge.’ The thought had dwelt with him and slowly he had begun to realise that, deep within himself, he had begun to prefer vice to virtue, evil to good.

Ever since the hated invasion of his sleeping personality had begun, Oliver Carmichael had striven his hardest to repel the invader. He was, as we know, a man of high principles, if not of strong will, and his waking consciousness, aware of the hostile influences acting on his soul, had set itself to resist these influences as resolutely as possible, and at first during his daylight hours with no little success. Even up to that moment he had believed that these horrible thoughts were forced upon him and were external to his real self; he now perceived that on the contrary they formed part of himself and were knit into him inextricably. Phyllis Rourke had done her work well; she had not only captured his pure soul with her evil one, but she had even intermingled her wicked personality with his so that her thoughts and his own had become one, and it was impossible for him to decide whether the impulses and reasons which guided him were his own or hers. He had lost his identity together with his principles.

This last blow seemed likely to crush him. Hitherto he had vaguely hoped that death at any rate would put a period to his sufferings, and he had from time to time even dwelt on thoughts of suicide to escape from them. He had been restrained from this last step by a vague recollection of earlier religious training and by a fear that by violating a moral law he might end by making his condition worse. All hope of final relief, however, was now cut off, he had lost himself, he was one for ever with his evil genius.

* * *

Six months of mental and spiritual anguish elapsed and during this time Oliver Carmichael never felt the faintest desire again to see his tormentor, nor did her presence force itself upon him during his waking hours. It was only subconsciously that he was aware of her approach to him during sleep, though he never doubted that she was the cause and formed the larger part of his misery. But he would pass the shop of Messrs — , where he presumed her still to be employed, without concern and without ever desiring to ascertain whether Phyllis Rourke was still to be found there. Nor had he made any enquiries about her, her relation to him had no connection with the things of this world, but lay, as he well knew now, entirely on another plane.

This was the position when, about six months after the first meeting between Mr Carmichael and Miss Rourke, the former awoke one morning with the well-known signs of his nocturnal battle upon him. He was tired, trembling, bathed in perspiration, but somewhere deep within him he felt a new sensation, a sense of exhilaration; in that awful battle of the souls he had for once proved victorious. He knew it, though he knew nothing else, for throughout his long period of suffering, it must be carefully remembered, he never knew the details of those nightly happenings: he knew the results, not the causes.

Strangely gladdened he rose from his bed and dressed himself, meditating as he did so on what had happened, and even now vaguely beginning to hope that his trials might yet come to an end, and that he would, through the aid of some unknown power, be able to tear Phyllis Rourke from his personality. The day passed more happily than any had done since his first visit to the shop and on his homeward way he felt an impulse towards entering it and seeking out his enemy. He did not do so, however.

That night he dreamed, and on this occasion the dream remained with him at waking. He dreamed that he was himself again and walking in a fair country. Overhead the sun shone brightly, its rays tempered by a gentle breeze. Birds sang in the trees and hedgerows, rabbits played on the short turf and myriads of wild flowers blossomed and scented the air. In front of him a pair of lovers were strolling, arms interlocked, evidently out for a happy day. All was peaceful and serene and he walked onwards, cheery, good tempered and feeling in charity with all men. Suddenly he heard a cry, the singing of the birds was hushed, a hawk had swooped and borne off a hapless little creature in its clutches. The sight was unpleasant and marred the peaceful scene; he turned away his eyes,
he
was not to blame, it was Nature. At that moment there was a shrill scream, a stoat had sprung upon one of the rabbits, it clung to its neck viciously biting under the ear of the little beast, which struggled vainly to shake off its deadly rider. Mr Carmichael shuddered; scenes of blood and violence were repulsive to him; he hurried on. But the wind had dropped, the heat had become oppressive, the wild flowers, withering under the glare of the sun, drooped their heads. The beauty of the landscape faded, its outlines were still there, but they were obscured and blurred by a mist, like those which, rising from the sea, instantaneously blot out the distant, sunlit shipping. He turned a corner of the road; again he saw the lovers, but they had quarrelled, high words were passing between them; on seeing Mr Carmichael’s approach they hurried on, but their angry voices came back to his ears. Now the clouds had gathered, the sun was obscured, the heat was stifling; suddenly the storm burst, the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed and rain fell in torrents. Mr Carmichael sheltered himself and, the fury of the storm quickly passing over, he resumed his way. Refreshed by the rain the wild flowers again raised their heads and perfumed the air, the birds sang, and before him the lovers, reconciled, pursued their happy way. Trouble had come and had passed. He woke.