Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (10 page)

It was now our turn to look surprised.

“Gentleman!” Nora repeated in amazement. “What can you mean? My husband is away in Scotland and my two sons went to the other side of the county this morning. You could not have seen any gentleman in the room.”

“But surely,” cried the girl, “when we came in, there was certainly a man sitting on the sofa beside the elder of those two ladies who went out just now. And he never spoke at all, except once to her in so low a voice that I could only see his lips move. He got up when she did and went away with her.”

Una Mitchell turned to me. “Scot saw him,” she said in a low voice. “And Scot didn’t like him.”

“What sort of a man was he?” I asked the girl.

“I can’t say that I liked his face,” she answered, “it had such an unpleasant expression. But he seemed a respectable sort of person—rather big, dark and clean-shaven. Only, his clothes didn’t look right somehow. I really thought he was wearing a dress-coat with grey trousers, and I wondered for an instant if he could be a French man come from a wedding. To tell the truth,” she went on, “he didn’t seem to me quite a gentleman. If he hadn’t been sitting there I should have taken him for the butler.”

“Ah, well, I don’t keep a butler,” said Nora, “so if he was one he must have belonged elsewhere.” The girl laughed whimsically. “It doesn’t matter at all my saying that, and you won’t be angry when you know.” She glanced at her friend. “I’m certain from their mystified faces that I’ve been
seeing
.”

“Seeing!” echoed Nora, bewilderedly. “Oh, you don’t mean—?”

Her lips whitened and quivered. I knew that she was thinking of a certain psychic experience of her own.

“Seeing—
what?
” she asked solemnly.

“Thought-forms, spooks, dead people,” explained the other lady, airily. “Etta is the most uncanny being you ever came across. She’s always beholding things in the astral; she’s clairvoyant, you know. I used to be frightened at her. Now I find it immensely amusing when she describes Joan of Arc sitting in the hall and Mary Stuart hanging round my drawing-room. We tried the other evening to get her to explain about the Casket Letters, but Etta couldn’t make her understand. Poor thing! Perhaps she had forgotten.”

Una was half-tickled, half-awed.

“I have never seen a clairvoyant before!” she said. “It seems very wonderful.”

“Oh, it is quite a common faculty,” replied the young lady who was called Etta. “The race is developing a sixth sense, that is all. But it’s just a little confusing sometimes, and I didn’t feel sure at first which plane I was on—the astral or the physical.”

None of us had anything to say and Miss Etta continued: “I think that gentleman may very probably have been a deceased relative or something of your friend’s, and that very likely she was as unconscious of his presence as you were. I shouldn’t fancy, though, having him round me much. He didn’t look good.”

The incident dropped then and conversation went off on other tracks. It came up again naturally, however, at dinner, and Colonel Mitchell and the boys made great fun of Miss Etta and her astral seeings. I must own that I had a very uncomfortable feeling about the whole matter, and so, I could see, had Una. But Miss Etta soon went away from Elchester, and nothing more was heard about spooks and the astral plane. As for Margery Grieve, we had decided that we would not tell her anything about Miss Etta’s “seeings,” though there never was a less morbidly-inclined girl.

The most miserable thing about the business—if indeed there was any connection between Miss Crosson’s ghostly companion and the fate of Nora’s dear collie—was that a few mornings afterwards Scot was found lying dead in front of Una’s door, where he always slept. No sound had been heard in the night and the dog’s body bore no trace of violence. Scot’s death seemed inexplicable and it appeared unreasonable to suppose that Miss Crosson had anything to do with it. Yet one little circumstance in the case—though we could hardly say why—had for us a horrid significance. Miss Crosson sent in to ask whether we would allow the animal to be buried in her garden cemetery and offered to put up a stone to his memory. We declined the offer, wondering why it had been made, and Scot found his last resting place in a sunny grave under the cast wall of the Mitchell territory. There, with many tears, Nora and Una laid their faithful pet.

It was a short time after this that we remarked how ill and worried Margery Grieve began to look. When our sorrow over poor Scot’s untimely end had somewhat abated, Nora asked Margery to tea and I made an opportunity for taking her up to my bedroom and talking to her about the change in herself and about her life with her aunt. I tried in a roundabout way to get her to tell me if she were happy, for it seemed a settled thing now that she was to live with Miss Crosson.

She answered falteringly that she was happy. Oh, yes, she did not mind at all living with her aunt, and it made such a difference, she said, our all being so kind to her. Only, of course, she added, it had seemed a great change coming from a merry family circle to companionship with one so silent and reserved as her aunt.

I gleaned that Margery was the youngest of many daughters and that she had been sent here “on a long visit to Aunt Sarah,” partly because of rumours which had reached her father—Miss Crosson’s brother-in-law—of the old maid’s failing health and lonely ways, and partly, I opined, with the view of a possible inheritance. Margery was a sweet, simple girl, and I felt certain entertained no mercenary designs on her own account.

She admitted that Aunt Sarah was peculiar and rather depressing and that she had very few friends, but Margery said that she was sorry for her and would like very much to make the old lady’s life happier if that were possible. “Not that Aunt Sarah seemed really unhappy,” Margery added, “but she was so very strange and unsociable.”

Presently, touching Miss Crosson’s offer to have Scot interred in her own pets’ graveyard, I inquired how there came to be so many animals buried in the garden, since I never saw about the establishment any but stray cats and dogs, which, it seemed, were always sent back to their proper homes, as they invariably disappeared after a day or two. To my surprise, Margery burst into tears, and my questioning at first only elicited from her the information that the lost cats and dogs were put into the cemetery.

“But, my dear, I should have thought the right thing would be to communicate with the police, and get them restored to their real owners, who would probably be grieved at losing them.”

“Oh, but that’s just it!” Margery cried in deep distress. “They don’t belong anywhere. The dogs come from a dogs’ home.”

“A home for unclaimed dogs!” I said, much puzzled. “I can’t imagine Miss Crosson taking the trouble to get them from there; and if she does, and cares for them, why should they die?”

“She doesn’t care for them. She hates them. She—” Margery’s agitation increased. “Oh, I feel I must tell you or somebody—it’s so dreadful. I can’t bear it any longer; it makes me so wretched.… Don’t you understand? The reason why you never see animals about Aunt Sarah for more than a day or two at a time, is that because as soon as they come to her, they—they die.”

“But why should they die?” I repeated. “Tell me, my dear, how can this be?”

“You will scarcely believe it; I couldn’t myself make it out at first.” Margery spoke with evident relief, once the ice had been broken. “Oh, I have been so puzzled, so miserable; and now that I know, I am frightened.”

The girl trembled. Clearly she had had a nervous shock. I soothed her as far as I could, and did my best to draw forth her confidence.

“It is only since two or three days that I have really known,” she said. “I had guessed, but would not let myself believe the truth. Two nights ago I saw with my own eyes, and I could doubt no longer. It upset me so terribly, that now I simply dread the nights, though of course I lock my door when I go to bed.”

I urged her anew to tell me everything, and the story came out brokenly.

“You know when I first came here,” Margery said, “It seemed to me such a strange sort of house, and I found Aunt Sarah so unlike anybody else. I didn’t seem able to get fond of her, though I wanted to—and though she is always kind and generous—giving me presents and letting me send things to my sisters, who haven’t much money to spend on their clothes. Then too, I’m not obliged to be a great deal with Aunt Sarah. I always have the mornings to myself, because Aunt Sarah doesn’t get up ’til luncheon time. And she never minds my going out in the afternoons without her. She likes working in her garden. She—she plants things on the graves—”

Margery shivered.

“Yes, I see that from my window. Go on, dear. About the pets?”

“Ah, those graves! I daresay you haven’t noticed, because there are so many under the wall, how there get to be more and more of them. I was so puzzled. There would come cats and dogs—one by one—and Aunt Sarah would have the poor creatures in with her, and seem to gloat over them for a day or two; and then suddenly in the night, each one would disappear; and after a while I noticed that when one disappeared there would he a new mound in the graveyard, but nobody said anything about it. I thought at first that perhaps it was the cook who didn’t like animals, and that she poisoned them or sent them away, and that it was all my fancy about the new mounds which had no headstones. I supposed that the others were really graves of Aunt Sarah’s pets. But one day I saw stains of blood upon the gravel walk.… And then—the other night—I saw.” Margery became more and more agitated. “The moon was shining brightly; I could not sleep and I kept hearing the poor thing yelp. It was a dear little fox-terrier, and it cried so pitifully. I think it must have been tortured. I got up and looked over the balcony into the garden, and there it was.… Oh! Oh! And it was Aunt Sarah herself who killed it.”

The girl’s voice had sunk to a horror-stricken whisper.

“My dear Margery, there must have been some good reason. Perhaps the dog was mad. Otherwise the thing would be too shocking. Could you have been mistaken?”

“No, no; I couldn’t have been mistaken. And I am positive the dog wasn’t mad. Just before dinner Aunt Sarah had been nursing it. And if you had seen her face in the moonlight! It was dreadful—like the face of a fiend.… I don’t know what to do,” Margery went on in a burst. “I must have talked to you or Mrs Mitchell today about it all. I cannot help feeling that there is something horribly wrong with Aunt Sarah. Lately she has been more strange than usual. She looks from side to side so oddly, and stops what she is doing, as if somebody had spoken to her, and she were listening. Last evening at dinner, she picked up the carving-knife and examined it, and put it down again, listening all the while. It really seemed that she was having things about it explained to her. I could scarcely bear to sit there. And haven’t you noticed how often she appears to be talking silently to somebody? I have wondered sometimes if it’s possible there could be a ghost beside her. Do you believe in familiar spirits who follow people about and tempt them to do wrong things?”

I assured Margery that the pure in heart need never fear such visitations, and spoke, with a confidence I did not wholly feel, of the barrier fast set between human beings and the powers of darkness. Thus I succeeded partially in turning the girl’s mind from the more gruesome aspects of the case. But all the same I thought of the other girl, Etta’s, seeings, and of her description of the “respectable sort of person—not a gentleman exactly; and who did not look good”—the man whom Etta had seen sitting on the couch beside Miss Crosson, and who had followed the old lady out of the drawing-room, invisible to all except the one who had eyes to see.

“I believe in mental illness, however,” I said to Margery, “and in the effect of nervous strain upon the mind. I think your poor aunt must be out of gear both in body and brain. She ought to see a doctor without delay. Can you think how this may be managed?”

Margery shook her head dubiously.

“Well, in the meantime, let me advise you to write to your father at once and tell him all you have told me. Ask him to come to you as soon as he possibly can.”

“I have written to father,” answered Margery. “I posted my letter this morning. But it is not the least use trying to get Aunt Sarah to see a doctor. She detests doctors and was saying the other day that Dr Gleeson has never dared to set foot within her house since he called to introduce himself when she first arrived.”

“We must get over that,” I answered decidedly. “Dr Gleeson shall find some pretext for calling again. I’ll go round and explain things to him. As for you, my dear, do you feel comfortable about tonight, or would you like to remain here? We can invent some pretext for that, I am sure.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t think of troubling Mrs Mitchell,” the girl exclaimed, “and there is no need. I daresay that I have been stupid to make so much of the thing. I feel ever so much happier now that I have told you. Perhaps it was partly my imagination—that dreadful look on Aunt Sarah’s face. The moonlight may have deceived me.” But she shuddered as she spoke.

I impressed upon her that she should lock her door on going to bed, and this she promised to do. Presently she got up to rejoin the others, having made me promise that I would not say anything to Nora or Una at present about her fears. “Daddy will be here tomorrow,” she said, and added remorsefully: “I feel a traitor to Aunt Sarah, who is really most kind to me. Only yesterday she gave me a cheque to send the girls. I would gladly do anything I could for her, and yet I know that if it hadn’t been for Una and for the kindness of you all here, I couldn’t have borne to stay on for as long as I have done.”

At the door as she was going out, Margery paused.

“There’s one thing that has been worrying me dreadfully,” she said. “Oh, do you think it possible that she—that it could have had anything to do with Scot’s death?”

“I do not think so,” I replied, though I must confess that the idea did cross my mind. “It seems quite impossible that anybody could have got into the house without our knowledge. Scot would certainly have barked. He slept at Una’s door, which is next to mine and I am a very light sleeper. That night, I remember, I was particularly wakeful.”

She seemed relieved. “I am so glad to hear you say that. But it was odd, wasn’t it? Poor Scot!”

Yes, the whole business was odd. It perplexed and troubled me. I could not help feeling nervous on Margery’s account, and was sorry that I had promised to keep silence to Nora about what she had told me. I went round to Dr Gleeson’s house but found that he was not likely to be in until late, so merely left a message that I would call early the following day.

It was a good thing that Tom Mitchell was tired after his shoot the previous day, and that he overslept himself the next morning, so that instead of being in the breakfast-room as usual at half-past eight, he was shaving in front of a window which looked straight across to Miss Crosson’s balcony. The old lady had added this balcony to her house, and her bedroom gave on to it by a French window. This window was open, and as Tom stood with his razor in his hand before his dressing-table, he heard suddenly a wild shriek and thought that he recognised the voice of Margery, for whom he had a distinct tenderness. Immediately upon the cry, came a crash of falling china and the over-turning of a piece of furniture. Then Tom saw Margery dart in terrified fashion through the window of Miss Crosson’s room on to the balcony and through another window into the house. A moment later, she was followed by a maniacal figure in a white nightgown with grey witch-locks streaming down her back and some gleaming weapon in her hand.