Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (160 page)

CHAPTER IV

The next day the ghost was very weak and tired.  The terrible excitement of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect.  His nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise.  For five days he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the point of the blood-stain on the library floor.  If the Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not deserve it.  They were evidently people on a low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena.  The question of phantasmic apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a different matter, and really not under his control.  It was his solemn duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large oriel window on the first and third Wednesday in every month, and he did not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations.  It is quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand, he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural.  For the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor as usual between midnight and three o’clock, taking every possible precaution against being either heard or seen.  He removed his boots, trod as lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a large black velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun Lubricator for oiling his chains.  I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a good deal of difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last mode of protection.  However, one night, while the family were at dinner, he slipped into Mr. Otis’s bedroom and carried off the bottle.  He felt a little humiliated at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to see that there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a certain degree, it served his purpose.  Still, in spite of everything, he was not left unmolested.  Strings were continually being stretched across the corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion, while dressed for the part of ‘Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,’ he met with a severe fall, through treading on a butter-slide, which the twins had constructed from the entrance of the Tapestry Chamber to the top of the oak staircase.  This last insult so enraged him, that he resolved to make one final effort to assert his dignity and social position, and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the next night in his celebrated character of ‘Reckless Rupert, or the Headless Earl.’

He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years; in fact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish by means of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the present Lord Canterville’s grandfather, and ran away to Gretna Green with handsome Jack Castleton, declaring that nothing in the world would induce her to marry into a family that allowed such a horrible phantom to walk up and down the terrace at twilight.  Poor Jack was afterwards shot in a duel by Lord Canterville on Wandsworth Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken heart at Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, it had been a great success.  It was, however, an extremely difficult ‘make-up,’ if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection with one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to employ a more scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it took him fully three hours to make his preparations.  At last everything was ready, and he was very pleased with his appearance.  The big leather riding-boots that went with the dress were just a little too large for him, and he could only find one of the two horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quite satisfied, and at a quarter past one he glided out of the wainscoting and crept down the corridor.  On reaching the room occupied by the twins, which I should mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account of the colour of its hangings, he found the door just ajar.  Wishing to make an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water fell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his left shoulder by a couple of inches.  At the same moment he heard stifled shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed.  The shock to his nervous system was so great that he fled back to his room as hard as he could go, and the next day he was laid up with a severe cold.  The only thing that at all consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that he had not brought his head with him, for, had he done so, the consequences might have been very serious.

He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American family, and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the passages in list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his throat for fear of draughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he should be attacked by the twins.  The final blow he received occurred on the 19th of September.  He had gone downstairs to the great entrance-hall, feeling sure that there, at any rate, he would be quite unmolested, and was amusing himself by making satirical remarks on the large Saroni photographs of the United States Minister and his wife, which had now taken the place of the Canterville family pictures.  He was simply but neatly clad in a long shroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw with a strip of yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a sexton’s spade.  In fact, he was dressed for the character of ‘Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,’ one of his most remarkable impersonations, and one which the Cantervilles had every reason to remember, as it was the real origin of their quarrel with their neighbour, Lord Rufford.  It was about a quarter past two o’clock in the morning, and, as far as he could ascertain, no one was stirring.  As he was strolling towards the library, however, to see if there were any traces left of the blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from a dark corner two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads, and shrieked out ‘BOO!’ in his ear.

Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only natural, he rushed for the staircase, but found Washington Otis waiting for him there with the big garden-syringe; and being thus hemmed in by his enemies on every side, and driven almost to bay, he vanished into the great iron stove, which, fortunately for him, was not lit, and had to make his way home through the flues and chimneys, arriving at his own room in a terrible state of dirt, disorder, and despair.

After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition.  The twins lay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the passages with nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their parents and the servants, but it was of no avail.  It was quite evident that his feelings were so wounded that he would not appear.  Mr. Otis consequently resumed his great work on the history of the Democratic Party, on which he had been engaged for some years; Mrs. Otis organised a wonderful clam-bake, which amazed the whole county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker, and other American national games; and Virginia rode about the lanes on her pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to spend the last week of his holidays at Canterville Chase.  It was generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in fact, Mr. Otis wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who, in reply, expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his best congratulations to the Minister’s worthy wife.

The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the house, and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to let matters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests was the young Duke of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis Stilton, had once bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that he would play dice with the Canterville ghost, and was found the next morning lying on the floor of the card-room in such a helpless paralytic state, that though he lived on to a great age, he was never able to say anything again but ‘Double Sixes.’  The story was well known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle’s
Recollections of the Prince Regent
and his Friends
.  The ghost, then, was naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected, his own first cousin having been married
en secondes noces
to the Sieur de Bulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of Cheshire are lineally descended.  Accordingly, he made arrangements for appearing to Virginia’s little lover in his celebrated impersonation of ‘The Vampire Monk, or, the Bloodless Benedictine,’ a performance so horrible that when old Lady Startup saw it, which she did on one fatal New Year’s Eve, in the year 1764, she went off into the most piercing shrieks, which culminated in violent apoplexy, and died in three days, after disinheriting the Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, and leaving all her money to her London apothecary.  At the last moment, however, his terror of the twins prevented his leaving his room, and the little Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the Royal Bedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.

CHAPTER V

A few days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went out riding on Brockley meadows, where she tore her habit so badly in getting through a hedge, that, on her return home, she made up her mind to go up by the back staircase so as not to be seen.  As she was running past the Tapestry Chamber, the door of which happened to be open, she fancied she saw some one inside, and thinking it was her mother’s maid, who sometimes used to bring her work there, looked in to ask her to mend her habit.  To her immense surprise, however, it was the Canterville Ghost himself!  He was sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of the yellowing trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing madly down the long avenue.  His head was leaning on his hand, and his whole attitude was one of extreme depression.  Indeed, so forlorn, and so much out of repair did he look, that little Virginia, whose first idea had been to run away and lock herself in her room, was filled with pity, and determined to try and comfort him.  So light was her footfall, and so deep his melancholy, that he was not aware of her presence till she spoke to him.

‘I am so sorry for you,’ she said, ‘but my brothers are going back to Eton to-morrow, and then, if you behave yourself, no one will annoy you.’

‘It is absurd asking me to behave myself,’ he answered, looking round in astonishment at the pretty little girl who had ventured to address him, ‘quite absurd.  I must rattle my chains, and groan through keyholes, and walk about at night, if that is what you mean.  It is my only reason for existing.’

‘It is no reason at all for existing, and you know you have been very wicked.  Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here, that you had killed your wife.’

‘Well, I quite admit it,’ said the Ghost petulantly, ‘but it was a purely family matter, and concerned no one else.’

‘It is very wrong to kill any one,’ said Virginia, who at times had a sweet Puritan gravity, caught from some old New England ancestor.

‘Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!  My wife was very plain, never had my ruffs properly starched, and knew nothing about cookery.  Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent up to table?  However, it is no matter now, for it is all over, and I don’t think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death, though I did kill her.’

‘Starve you to death?  Oh, Mr. Ghost, I mean Sir Simon, are you hungry?  I have a sandwich in my case.  Would you like it?’

‘No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of you, all the same, and you are much nicer than the rest of your horrid, rude, vulgar, dishonest family.’

‘Stop!’ cried Virginia, stamping her foot, ‘it is you who are rude, and horrid, and vulgar, and as for dishonesty, you know you stole the paints out of my box to try and furbish up that ridiculous blood-stain in the library.  First you took all my reds, including the vermilion, and I couldn’t do any more sunsets, then you took the emerald-green and the chrome-yellow, and finally I had nothing left but indigo and Chinese white, and could only do moonlight scenes, which are always depressing to look at, and not at all easy to paint.  I never told on you, though I was very much annoyed, and it was most ridiculous, the whole thing; for who ever heard of emerald-green blood?’

‘Well, really,’ said the Ghost, rather meekly, ‘what was I to do?  It is a very difficult thing to get real blood nowadays, and, as your brother began it all with his Paragon Detergent, I certainly saw no reason why I should not have your paints.  As for colour, that is always a matter of taste: the Cantervilles have blue blood, for instance, the very bluest in England; but I know you Americans don’t care for things of this kind.’

‘You know nothing about it, and the best thing you can do is to emigrate and improve your mind.  My father will be only too happy to give you a free passage, and though there is a heavy duty on spirits of every kind, there will be no difficulty about the Custom House, as the officers are all Democrats.  Once in New York, you are sure to be a great success.  I know lots of people there who would give a hundred thousand dollars to have a grandfather, and much more than that to have a family Ghost.’

‘I don’t think I should like America.’

‘I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities,’ said Virginia satirically.

‘No ruins! no curiosities!’ answered the Ghost; ‘you have your navy and your manners.’

‘Good evening; I will go and ask papa to get the twins an extra week’s holiday.’

‘Please don’t go, Miss Virginia,’ he cried; ‘I am so lonely and so unhappy, and I really don’t know what to do.  I want to go to sleep and I cannot.’

‘That’s quite absurd!  You have merely to go to bed and blow out the candle.  It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake, especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about sleeping.  Why, even babies know how to do that, and they are not very clever.’

‘I have not slept for three hundred years,’ he said sadly, and Virginia’s beautiful blue eyes opened in wonder; ‘for three hundred years I have not slept, and I am so tired.’

Virginia grew quite grave, and her little lips trembled like rose-leaves.  She came towards him, and kneeling down at his side, looked up into his old withered face.

‘Poor, poor Ghost,’ she murmured; ‘have you no place where you can sleep?’

‘Far away beyond the pine-woods,’ he answered, in a low dreamy voice, ‘there is a little garden.  There the grass grows long and deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale sings all night long.  All night long he sings, and the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its giant arms over the sleepers.’

Virginia’s eyes grew dim with tears, and she hid her face in her hands.

‘You mean the Garden of Death,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, Death.  Death must be so beautiful.  To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence.  To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow.  To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.  You can help me.  You can open for me the portals of Death’s house, for Love is always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is.’

Virginia trembled, a cold shudder ran through her, and for a few moments there was silence.  She felt as if she was in a terrible dream.

Then the Ghost spoke again, and his voice sounded like the sighing of the wind.

‘Have you ever read the old prophecy on the library window?’

‘Oh, often,’ cried the little girl, looking up; ‘I know it quite well.  It is painted in curious black letters, and it is difficult to read.  There are only six lines:

When a golden girl can win
Prayer from out the lips of sin,
When the barren almond bears,
And a little child gives away its tears,
Then shall all the house be still
And peace come to Canterville.

But I don’t know what they mean.’

‘They mean,’ he said sadly, ‘that you must weep for me for my sins, because I have no tears, and pray with me for my soul, because I have no faith, and then, if you have always been sweet, and good, and gentle, the Angel of Death will have mercy on me.  You will see fearful shapes in darkness, and wicked voices will whisper in your ear, but they will not harm you, for against the purity of a little child the powers of Hell cannot prevail.’

Virginia made no answer, and the Ghost wrung his hands in wild despair as he looked down at her bowed golden head.  Suddenly she stood up, very pale, and with a strange light in her eyes.  ‘I am not afraid,’ she said firmly, ‘and I will ask the Angel to have mercy on you.’

He rose from his seat with a faint cry of joy, and taking her hand bent over it with old-fashioned grace and kissed it.  His fingers were as cold as ice, and his lips burned like fire, but Virginia did not falter, as he led her across the dusky room.  On the faded green tapestry were broidered little huntsmen.  They blew their tasselled horns and with their tiny hands waved to her to go back.  ‘Go back! little Virginia,’ they cried, ‘go back!’ but the Ghost clutched her hand more tightly, and she shut her eyes against them.  Horrible animals with lizard tails, and goggle eyes, blinked at her from the carven chimney-piece, and murmured ‘Beware! little Virginia, beware! we may never see you again,’ but the Ghost glided on more swiftly, and Virginia did not listen.  When they reached the end of the room he stopped, and muttered some words she could not understand.  She opened her eyes, and saw the wall slowly fading away like a mist, and a great black cavern in front of her.  A bitter cold wind swept round them, and she felt something pulling at her dress.  ‘Quick, quick,’ cried the Ghost, ‘or it will be too late,’ and, in a moment, the wainscoting had closed behind them, and the Tapestry Chamber was empty.