Читать книгу Those Other Days - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Calcutta, November 13.—I have had an adventure to-day. I was riding back here from Tom Sadler's place, where a few of us have been stopping since last Thursday, when I came upon a young lady in distress. She had been trying to ford a swollen stream, and her mare, a leggy, narrow-chested brute, had pretty nearly come to grief. It was a close thing, and no mistake. They'd have been down the stream anyhow in another minute, and I doubt if the great brute wouldn't have dragged her under even if she had been able to swim. Of course I managed to pull her out, and found her not much the worse for her ducking. I took her home, as she really wasn't fit to go alone, but I'm thankful to say that I escaped the parental blessing. The old gentleman—he's a tea-planter—was out, and I pleaded regimental duties as an excuse for hurrying off. Promised to call first opportunity.

November 20.—I can't get that girl's face out of my mind. I don't know that I ever saw a more lovely one. Strange thing for me to do, but I've actually dreamt of her three nights following. What an absurdity!

December 10.—I wish here most distinctly to affirm that I am not a superstitious man. This is a land of weird and fanciful beliefs, but I have always prided myself upon my sound common sense. If anything, I am a little too much inclined to absolute materialism, and yet what I now set down I believe to be the sober truth. I have seen a ghost. Three times during the middle of the night last week I have seen a woman in my room, standing just inside the door, with her hands stretched out appealingly towards me, and her face was the face of the girl whom I dragged out of the water near Tom Sadler's place scarcely a month ago. God grant that I may not see it again.

June 13.—As long as I live this day, or rather last night, will dwell in my mind. What have I done that I should be thus tormented? My nerves are completely shattered, and every one tells me that I look like a ghost. Again last night, it, or she, came, and as I sat up in bed I saw her scarcely a yard away, and her hands, which she held out as before, were red with blood. I saw it dripping slowly on to the floor, and I saw her look of horror as she drew back and pointed to the stain. Then I jumped out of bed, but she vanished with a last imploring gesture, and there was no stain on the mats. Another night like last night, and the fever will have me.

June 13.—Thank God I have seen no more of it. 'This afternoon I am going up country to seek her at the house. I doubt whether I shall find her alive.

June 20.—Just returned. I found the house shut up, and learnt that the late proprietor had died five months ago, and that his daughter had gone to Europe. I scarcely know whether I dread or long most to see her again.

June 30.—The mail has brought me strange news. My uncle and cousin have died suddenly, and I am Sir Reginald Shagshaft of Shagshaft Castle, Northumberland, and owner of more thousands a year than I have ever had hundreds. Good-bye to India, and the army! I sail for England in a week.

November 20.—I am at Shagshaft Castle, and a grand old place it is, but terribly desolate. It is built on the summit of a cliff, and a couple of hundred feet below as wild-looking a grey sea as ever I saw in my life thunders in upon a rocky storm-bound coast. When I have set things a little in order, I shall go to Paris for a while. The screech of the sea gulls alone is enough to give one the horrors, and in all this great place there are only three servants, for not a girl in all the country side will come here because of the ghost, which is said to inhabit the western wing and to walk in the black copse. Mrs. Cross, the housekeeper, seems a decent sort of person, but she firmly believes in the ghost, and came to me yesterday with tears in her eyes imploring me not to intrude upon its haunts. I ought to have humoured her a little, I think; for when I told her that I should make a point of finding out all about this ghost with a view to evicting it, and that I should fill the place with London servants, she turned as pale as a sheet, and very nearly went into hysterics. I have always heard that north-country people are superstitious.

November 21.—I can't understand Mrs. Cross at all. To-day she would persist in telling me the story of a terrible tragedy which took place near here a few months ago—a man murdered by a girl—and insisted upon my giving my opinion about it. I said that if the story she told was true, it served the man right—and so it did. She seemed unaccountably pleased at my answer.

November 22.-I walked in the black copse to-night, but saw nothing of the ghost. I shall leave here in a week.

November 23.—A touch of my old madness has returned. Unless my eyes can lie I have seen this ghost. I was in the garden last night, and distinctly saw a white figure move along the battlements of the western tower and disappear. It was the figure of a woman, and, strange though it may appear, it seemed somehow familiar to me.

November 24.—Again I have seen the ghost. As I live I will find out what this means. I have not worn the V.C. for nothing, and no one has ever called Colonel Shagshaft a coward. I will stand face to face with this tormenting shadow, and with my own hands will find out whether or no my senses are mocking me.

November 25.—To-night I stood on the battlements of the western wing and waited, with my sword in my hand, for well-nigh three hours. It never came. When I descended, I found Mrs. Cross in a fit. It seems strange that she should be so anxious. She feared for my safety, she declared trembling; and if anything happened to me, strangers would come to the old place. For I am the last of the Shagshafts of Shagshaft.

November 26.—This morning I asked Mrs. Cross for an old manuscript copy of the history of Shagshaft Castle, as I fancied that I had heard something about a secret room in the western wing.

What a nervous woman she is! I had scarcely got the words out before she fainted. There is something all about this which I cannot understand. When she came to, she declared solemnly that she had never heard of such a book. This must be false, for I have often been told about it; anyhow, I was only the more determined to thoroughly explore the western wing, so I commenced at once. On the topmost storey, starting from the centre tower, and going to the right, I counted thirteen rooms, all large, empty, and in a neglected state. When I reached the furthermost, I turned round with a start to find Mrs. Cross just behind me. At the sight of her my suspicions were at once thoroughly aroused.

"Mrs. Cross," I said quietly, "I am quite aware that I am getting warm; in other words, that I shall unearth this precious ghost in something less than five minutes. Now let me tell you this," I continued, drawing a small pocket revolver: "I am going to put an end to this confounded masquerading once and for all."

She drew close to him.

"You have found the book!" she gasped. "You know about the secret chamber!"

"Precisely!" I answered. "And it will go ill with its tenant."

Then she fell on her knees before me.

"For the love of God don't hurt her, Sir Reginald," she moaned. "Doan't 'e give her up; so young as she is and so beautiful, and so innocent like. She'd never 'a hurt a hair of old Roger Martin's head if he hadn't offered her an insult worse nor death; and she ne'er meant to kill him. He tried to take the gun frae 'er, and it went off. What could 'a do when she came to me for help but hide her. Oh, Sir Reginald! you're the last Shagshaft o' Shagshaft, but, afore God, I'll curse 'ee if 'ee hurt her, or give her up to the law."

"Stand up, woman, and tell me whom you have been hiding," I cried.

She trembled all over.

"Her as killed old Roger Martin, the wickedest man in all the country side. Her father left her to his care. Little he could 'a knowed what sort of a man he was; and she came from India here last April—"

Down fell the revolver from my nerveless fingers, and I bent eagerly forward.

"The date! What was the day of the month when she—she did this deed?"

"It wur the night o' the eleventh o' June ——"

She stopped short. My eyes followed hers, and standing in an aperture of the wall at the other end of the room, her arms stretched out appealingly to me, was the figure of a young girl. I knew her at once, and a cold shiver went through me. I had seen her before in her drenched riding-hood on the banks of tile Ghooly stream, and I had seen her, too, in this same posture by my bedside at the barracks in Calcutta. And yet on that same night she had been many thousand miles away. My eyes remained fixed upon her—fascinated. No longer could I call myself a brave man, for I was trembling.

"Sir Reginald Shagshaft, I—"

She stopped short and put her hand to her forehead. Then she moved swiftly into the room and threw herself on her knees before me.

"Oh, it is you," she cried joyfully; "you, who saved me from drowning in the Ghooly river You will not give me up? You will let me stay here? Before God, I swear to you that I never meant to hurt him."

Her voice failed her, and her lithe, supple frame was convulsed with sobs. I spoke as one in a dream.

"I will not give you up or turn you away," I promised. "I will come to you to-morrow, and you shall tell me all about it."

Then I staggered out of the room like a drunken man, and left them weeping for joy.

November 27.—Most of the day I have spent with Maud Moray, and I have heard her story. Her father had died suddenly and had left her to the guardianship of an old Northumbrian squire, a distant relative, whom he had never seen. She had come over to England, and had found that her new home was a tumble-down farmhouse on a wild, desolate moor, and that her guardian was a man of evil repute—a drunkard, and worse. She was only two miles away from Shagshaft Castle, and she had often visited it, and, by her wondering praise of its grandeur and antiquity, had first won Mrs. Cross's heart. Then had come a terrible night when, flushed with drink, old Roger Martin had been sent to his doom by a desperate girl. I pass over her hasty, reluctant description of that awful scene. In her horror at what she had done her first instinct had been to fly, and she had found her way by the pale light of the moon across the bleak moor to Shagshaft Castle. She had lain hidden in the black copse, where none dare venture after nightfall, until morning, and then she had crept into Mrs. Cross's room and told her terrible tale. What could Mrs. Cross do but promise to try and hide her? Roger Martin had been her sworn enemy, and the news of his death was a joy to her. There and then she had promised to do her best to shield this unhappy girl from the consequences of her rash deed. There was a part of the Castle which neither man nor woman for many miles round dare visit, for, from time immemorial, it has been steadfastly believed to be haunted by the ghost of a former lady of Shagshaft. And so she had unlocked the secret chamber which none save she knew of, and Maud Moray had taken up her abode there. To increase the awe with which that part of the Castle was already looked upon by the rustics, she had now and then walked on the battlements at night clad in a white gown. So well had she succeeded that one by one the servants had fled away, and had left Mrs. Cross almost alone. Then had come the news of my unexpected arrival—I had not written until I arrived in England—and for a while their anxiety had been intense. I shall never forget how Mrs. Cross sobbed for joy when I gave that hasty promise or how beautiful she looked on her knees before me, with her golden hair streaming down her back, and her great blue eyes fixed upon mine, full of passionate entreaty. Justice or no justice, no man shall lay a hand upon her in my house.

November 28.—Mine is a terrible position. I am an officer in the service of the Queen, and I am wilfully harbouring a criminal. I learnt to-day that there is a warrant out for her arrest, and the whole country is being scoured for her. I defy them to find her here. Still I am nervous, and live in perpetual dread. Most of the day I have spent with her. She is very beautiful.

December 2.-I was never a fatalist, but every idea of mine is unhinged by the strange thing which has happened to me. It seems almost as if some invisible hand had drawn us together. I give up fighting against it. I confess that I am madly in love with Maud Moray. Death alone shall part us; I have sworn it.

December 3.—Another day of wild delirious happiness. She has confessed that she loves me. I have given up fighting against fate. Were she the blackest-hearted of women, instead of a pure innocent girl driven to defend her honour by desperate means, she should still be mine. We will go away together, to some far country, where she will be safe, and we can live in peace. For her sake I will welcome exile for ever from England and home.

December 12.—I have made plans. There is a steamer starts from Liverpool for Buenos Ayres in a month's time. We will go by it. Maud is willing and anxious to escape from her confinement. We can be married on board. Our chief difficulty will be in getting Maud away from this place.

December 20.—We have made arrangements about getting Maud away. Mrs. Cross has a niece about her height and complexion, whom she is to invite to stop here for a few days. Then Maud is to wear her clothes and leave in her stead. At Atwick I shall join her, and we shall go straight to Liverpool. God grant that there may be no slip! How I long for freedom, and to escape from this constant anxiety!

December 25.—It is Christmas Day, and our last day here. Mrs. Cross's niece has arrived. Except that she is not one-tenth part as beautiful, she is not unlike Maud. All our arrangements are made. Nothing can go wrong; and yet I feel strangely depressed and nervous. The slightest noise makes me start. My heart seems dragged down as though by a weight of lead, and my blood is like ice. I have been drinking wine, but it does me no good. It seems to freeze within me, and I am cold. It must be this cursed damp room. 'Twould hold an army, and the table at which I dine would seat two hundred. This place is too big: it oppresses me. Good God I...

I must be ill. I could have sworn that it was she who came out of the shadows there, with her arms outstretched, just as I saw her in my room at Calcutta. What a superstitious fool I am! Can it be that the twilight is ma king a coward of me? It looks like it, for my limbs are trembling, and the cold sweat is running down my forehead. I must have some wine.

Now, I feel better. How strange it seems that in this great place she and I are alone! Mrs. Cross and her niece have gone down to the village, and the last of the remaining servants left us yesterday. "She couldn't spend Christmas day in a haunted house," she said. How the wind is howling through those pine trees in the black copse This is certainly the weirdest and the dreariest place I was ever in. One can imagine the people being superstitious. The moaning of the sea on the beach below is enough to give one the melancholies. I feel drowsy. I...

I have had a sleep and again the nightmare. I fancied that I heard her calling to me to save her. It must have been the sighing of the wind in the black copse. My God! What a blaze of light! Can it be daytime? Dark figures on the lawn! My God! What is this?...

[END OF DIARY.]

Fire at Shagshaft Castle! and such a fire Sheets of flame, leaping and curling round the grand old towers and blackened walls, shooting torrents of sparks high up into the air, bending low before the wild gusts of the storm-wind which urged it forward, and casting a red, hellish glare far out into the sea below, and high up into the heavens above. Never have the little knot of villagers, who are clustering together upon the lawn, seen or imagined anything so wildly, so fearfully grand. And from that fast grim pile of buildings there comes no sound or sign of life. Almost it seems that those within are sleeping the sleep of the dead.

Suddenly a window on the ground floor is thrown open with a crash, and a tall, military-looking man, with a note book in his hand, leaps out on to the lawn. He stares for a moment aghast, petrified, at the burning pile. Before he can speak or move, there is a low shuddering murmur from those around him, and all eyes are riveted upon the western wing.

"The ghost! The ghost!"

High up on the battlements of the doomed castle, her figure standing out with startling distinctness against the glowing background, a woman, in a long white robe, is standing. The flames, which bend and roll towards her, do her one good service; every one can see her desperate strait. They can see her fair hair streaming in the wind, her white arms stretched imploringly out towards one figure on the lawn, and can almost see her lips part in an agonized appeal.

He sees it all, and, with a wild cry which rises high above the roaring and crashing of the fire, he dashes through the smoke into the burning building. Some try to follow him, and some run for ladders; but all in vain. None other save he dare face the sheets of flame, nor will all the rapidly procured ladders reach half way to those frowning battlements, and so they wait in a breathless silence—thrilled, but helpless.

Minutes pass, and the flames are rapidly nearing the woman, who stands there motionless, like a Grecian statue. Then there is a wild shout as the blackened figure of a man leaps on to the roof by her side. She welcomes him with a great cry of joy, and for a moment they disappear, but only to return again. Their retreat has been cut off. They are doomed. They stand there, against the lurid sky, clasped in one another's arms—hero and heroine, facing death together as they could never have faced it apart. And on the lawn below the women are swooning and strong men fall sobbing to the ground that their fascinated eyes may not rest upon the awful sight.

One man alone had nerve enough to look upon it, and, with bated breath, he is often called upon to tell the tale. So often, that in that dreary Northumbrian village there is not a man, woman, or child who does not know by heart the story of how the last Lord of Shagshaft died like a hero amongst the ruins of his castle, with the beautiful Shagshaft ghost, for whom he had given his life, clasped in his arms.