CHAPTER LXII.THE FURNITURE BEGINS TO TALKHe read Aunt Dinah’s letters over again, and marked the passage with his pencil, and read again,“Do remember, dear boy, all told you, dear, about the five years. I dreamed much since. If you think of such a thing I must do it.”This last sentence he underlined, “If you think of such a thing, I must do it.Sorry I shoul” (she meansshould) “fear or dislike me. I should haunt, torment Willie. But you will do right.”Do right.She meant wait for five years, of course. My poor darling aunt! I wish you had never seen one of those odious books of American bosh—Elihu Bung! I wish Elihu Bung was sunk in a barrel at the bottom of the sea.Then William looked to his diary, for about that period of his life he kept one for two years and seven months, and he read these entries:“⸺Dear Aunt Dinah pressed me very much to give her a distinct promise not to marry for five years—marry indeed! I—poor, penniless William Maubray! I shall never marry—yet I can’t make this vow—and she threatened me saying, ‘If I’m dead there’s nothing that spirit can do, if you so much as harbour the thought, beI good, or evil, or mocking, I’ll not do to prevent it. I’ll trouble you, I’ll torment you, I’ll pick your eyes out, but I won’t suffer you to ruin yourself.’ And she said very often that she expected to be amockingspirit; and said again, ‘Mind I told you, though I be dead, you sha’n’t escape me.’ That night I had an odious nightmare. An apparition like my aunt came to my bedside, and caught my arm with its hand, and said quite distinctly, ‘Oh! my God! William, I am dead; don’t let me go.’ I fancied I saw the impression of fingers on my arm; and think I never was so horrified in my life. And afterwards in her own bed-room, my aunt having heard my dream, returned to the subject of her warning and said, ‘If I die before the time, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse, if you so much as think of it. I’ll plague you; I’ll save you in spite of yourself, and mortal was never haunted and tormented as you will be, till you give it up.’ And saying this she laughed.“The whole of this new fancy turns out to be one of the Henbane delusions. How I wish all those cursed books of spiritualism were with Don Quixote’s library.”William had now the facts pretty well before him. He had moreover a very distinct remembrance of that which no other person had imagined or seen—the face of the apparition of Aunt Dinah, and the dark and pallid stare she had actually turned upon him, as he recounted the particulars of his vision. It had grown very late, and he was quite alone, communing in these odd notes, and with these strange remembrances with the dead. Perhaps all the strong tea he had drunk with old Winnie that night helped to make him nervous. One of his candles had burnt out by this time, and as he raised hiseyes from these curious records, the room looked dark and indistinct, and the slim, black cabinet that stood against the wall at the further end of the room startled him, it looked so like a big muffled man.I dare say he began to wish that he had postponed his scrutiny of his papers until the morning. At all events he began to experience those sensations, which in morbid moods of this kind, dispose us to change of scene. What was it that made that confounded cabinet, and its shadow, again look so queer, as he raised his eyes and the candle; just like a great fellow in a loose coat extending his arm to strike?That was the cabinet which once, in a confidential mood, poor Aunt Dinah had described as the spiritual tympanum on which above all other sympathetic pieces of furniture in the house she placed her trust. Such a spirit-gauge was in no other room of Gilroyd. It thrummed so oracularly; it cracked with such a significant emphasis.“Oh! I see; nothing but the shadow, as I move the candle. Yes, only that and nothing more. I wish it was out of that, itissuch an ugly black beast of a box.”Now William put poor Aunt Dinah’s letter carefully back in its place, as also his diary, and locked his desk; and just then the cabinet uttered one of those cracks which poor Aunt Dinah so much respected. In the supernatural silence it actually made him bounce. It was the first time in his life he had ever fancied such things could have a meaning.“The fire’s gone out; the room is cooling, and the wood of that ridiculous cabinet is contracting. What can it do but crack? I think I’m growingas mad as”—he was on the point of saying as poor Aunt Dinah, butsomething restrained him, and he respectfully substituted“as a March hare.”Here the cabinet uttered a fainter crack, which seemed to say, “I hear you;” and William paused, expecting almost to see something sitting on the top of it, or emerging through its doors, and he exclaimed, “Such disgusting nonsense!” and he looked round the room, and over his shoulder, as he placed his keys in his pocket.His strong tea, and his solitude, and the channel into which he had turned his thoughts; the utter silence, the recent death, and the lateness of the hour, made the disgusted philosopher rise to take the candle which had not a great deal of life left in it, and shutting the door on the cabinet, whose loquacity he detested, he got to his bed-room in a suspicious and vigilant state; and he was glad when he got into his room. William locked his door on the inside. He lighted his candles, poked his fire, violently wrested his thoughts from uncomfortable themes, sat himself down by the fire and thought of Violet Darkwell. “Oh that I dare think it was for my sake she refused Vane Trevor!” and so on, building many airy castles, and declaiming eloquently over his work. The old wardrobe in the room made two or three warning starts and cracks, but its ejaculations were disrespectfully received.“Fire away, old fool, much I mindyou! A gentlemanlike cabinet may be permitted, but a vulgar cupboard, impudence.”So William got to his bed, and fell asleep: in no mood I think to submit to a five years’ wait, if a chance of acceptance opened; and in the morning he was astonished.Again, my reader’s incredulity compels me to averin the most solemn manner that the particulars I now relate of William Maubray’s history are strictly true. He is living to depose to all. My excellent friend Doctor Drake can certify to others, and as I said, the rector of the parish, to some of the oddest. Upon this evidence, not doubting, I found my narrative.
CHAPTER LXII.
THE FURNITURE BEGINS TO TALK
THE FURNITURE BEGINS TO TALK
THE FURNITURE BEGINS TO TALK
He read Aunt Dinah’s letters over again, and marked the passage with his pencil, and read again,
“Do remember, dear boy, all told you, dear, about the five years. I dreamed much since. If you think of such a thing I must do it.”
This last sentence he underlined, “If you think of such a thing, I must do it.Sorry I shoul” (she meansshould) “fear or dislike me. I should haunt, torment Willie. But you will do right.”Do right.She meant wait for five years, of course. My poor darling aunt! I wish you had never seen one of those odious books of American bosh—Elihu Bung! I wish Elihu Bung was sunk in a barrel at the bottom of the sea.
Then William looked to his diary, for about that period of his life he kept one for two years and seven months, and he read these entries:
“⸺Dear Aunt Dinah pressed me very much to give her a distinct promise not to marry for five years—marry indeed! I—poor, penniless William Maubray! I shall never marry—yet I can’t make this vow—and she threatened me saying, ‘If I’m dead there’s nothing that spirit can do, if you so much as harbour the thought, beI good, or evil, or mocking, I’ll not do to prevent it. I’ll trouble you, I’ll torment you, I’ll pick your eyes out, but I won’t suffer you to ruin yourself.’ And she said very often that she expected to be amockingspirit; and said again, ‘Mind I told you, though I be dead, you sha’n’t escape me.’ That night I had an odious nightmare. An apparition like my aunt came to my bedside, and caught my arm with its hand, and said quite distinctly, ‘Oh! my God! William, I am dead; don’t let me go.’ I fancied I saw the impression of fingers on my arm; and think I never was so horrified in my life. And afterwards in her own bed-room, my aunt having heard my dream, returned to the subject of her warning and said, ‘If I die before the time, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse, if you so much as think of it. I’ll plague you; I’ll save you in spite of yourself, and mortal was never haunted and tormented as you will be, till you give it up.’ And saying this she laughed.
“The whole of this new fancy turns out to be one of the Henbane delusions. How I wish all those cursed books of spiritualism were with Don Quixote’s library.”
William had now the facts pretty well before him. He had moreover a very distinct remembrance of that which no other person had imagined or seen—the face of the apparition of Aunt Dinah, and the dark and pallid stare she had actually turned upon him, as he recounted the particulars of his vision. It had grown very late, and he was quite alone, communing in these odd notes, and with these strange remembrances with the dead. Perhaps all the strong tea he had drunk with old Winnie that night helped to make him nervous. One of his candles had burnt out by this time, and as he raised hiseyes from these curious records, the room looked dark and indistinct, and the slim, black cabinet that stood against the wall at the further end of the room startled him, it looked so like a big muffled man.
I dare say he began to wish that he had postponed his scrutiny of his papers until the morning. At all events he began to experience those sensations, which in morbid moods of this kind, dispose us to change of scene. What was it that made that confounded cabinet, and its shadow, again look so queer, as he raised his eyes and the candle; just like a great fellow in a loose coat extending his arm to strike?
That was the cabinet which once, in a confidential mood, poor Aunt Dinah had described as the spiritual tympanum on which above all other sympathetic pieces of furniture in the house she placed her trust. Such a spirit-gauge was in no other room of Gilroyd. It thrummed so oracularly; it cracked with such a significant emphasis.
“Oh! I see; nothing but the shadow, as I move the candle. Yes, only that and nothing more. I wish it was out of that, itissuch an ugly black beast of a box.”
Now William put poor Aunt Dinah’s letter carefully back in its place, as also his diary, and locked his desk; and just then the cabinet uttered one of those cracks which poor Aunt Dinah so much respected. In the supernatural silence it actually made him bounce. It was the first time in his life he had ever fancied such things could have a meaning.
“The fire’s gone out; the room is cooling, and the wood of that ridiculous cabinet is contracting. What can it do but crack? I think I’m growingas mad as”—he was on the point of saying as poor Aunt Dinah, butsomething restrained him, and he respectfully substituted“as a March hare.”
Here the cabinet uttered a fainter crack, which seemed to say, “I hear you;” and William paused, expecting almost to see something sitting on the top of it, or emerging through its doors, and he exclaimed, “Such disgusting nonsense!” and he looked round the room, and over his shoulder, as he placed his keys in his pocket.
His strong tea, and his solitude, and the channel into which he had turned his thoughts; the utter silence, the recent death, and the lateness of the hour, made the disgusted philosopher rise to take the candle which had not a great deal of life left in it, and shutting the door on the cabinet, whose loquacity he detested, he got to his bed-room in a suspicious and vigilant state; and he was glad when he got into his room. William locked his door on the inside. He lighted his candles, poked his fire, violently wrested his thoughts from uncomfortable themes, sat himself down by the fire and thought of Violet Darkwell. “Oh that I dare think it was for my sake she refused Vane Trevor!” and so on, building many airy castles, and declaiming eloquently over his work. The old wardrobe in the room made two or three warning starts and cracks, but its ejaculations were disrespectfully received.
“Fire away, old fool, much I mindyou! A gentlemanlike cabinet may be permitted, but a vulgar cupboard, impudence.”
So William got to his bed, and fell asleep: in no mood I think to submit to a five years’ wait, if a chance of acceptance opened; and in the morning he was astonished.
Again, my reader’s incredulity compels me to averin the most solemn manner that the particulars I now relate of William Maubray’s history are strictly true. He is living to depose to all. My excellent friend Doctor Drake can certify to others, and as I said, the rector of the parish, to some of the oddest. Upon this evidence, not doubting, I found my narrative.