Ghosts by Gaslight (27 page)

I understood now that Brewster had been aware of what going back into that terrible valley to fetch Smithers would do to him. It would rob him of most or all of the remaining years of his life. He had known, but Yule had ordered him to go, and yes he had gone. The poor man. The poor doomed man.

To cover my confusion I reached into the box. “And what is this?” I asked, picking up a pinch of something fine and white that I took for desert sand, lying beneath the little heap of bones like a cushion. “A souvenir of the Thar?”

“In a manner of speaking. That’s all that remains of her. She crumbled to dust right in front of me. Shriveled and died and went absolutely to dust, all in a moment.”

Shuddering, I brushed it free of my fingers, back into the box.

I was silent for a while.

The room was spinning about me. I had spent all my days in a world in which three and three make six, six and six make twelve, but I was not sure that I lived in such a world any longer.

Then I said, “Take what’s left of Smithers to the chaplain, and see what he wants to do about a burial.”

He nodded, the good obedient Brewster of old. “And what shall I do with this?” he asked, pointing to the sandy deposit in the box.

“Scatter it in the road,” I said. “Or spill it into the river, whatever you wish. She was Smithers’s undoing. We owe her no courtesies.”

And then I thought of Helena, sweet, patient Helena. She had never understood the first thing about him, had she? And yet she had loved him. Poor, sweet Helena.

She must be protected now, I thought. The world is very strange, and sometimes too harsh, and we must protect women like Helena from its mysteries. At least, from such mysteries as this one—not the mystery of that hidden valley, I mean, though that is mysterious enough, but the mysteries of the heart.

I drew a deep breath. “And—with regard to the Adjutant’s daughter, Brewster—”

“Yes?

“She will want to know how he died, I suppose. Tell her he died bravely, while in the midst of his greatest adventure in Her Majesty’s Service. But you ought not, I think, to tell her very much more than that. Do you understand me? He died bravely. That should suffice, Brewster. That should suffice.”

Afterword to
“Smithers and the Ghosts of the Thar”

I’ve long been an admirer of the classic Victorian and Edwardian ghost stories—by M. R. James, Oliver Onions, J. S. Le Fanu, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, and so on—and had been reading another old favorite, Rudyard Kipling, when news of this new anthology arrived. It seemed a logical thing to write a ghost story in the mode of Kipling for it.

—R
OBERT
S
ILVERBERG

John Langan

John Langan is the author of a novel,
House of Windows,
and a collection of stories,
Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters
. His stories have appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Cthulhu’s Reign,
By Blood We Live,
Poe,
and
The Living Dead
. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award. He teaches classes in creative writing and gothic fiction and film at SUNY New Paltz and lives nearby with his wife, son, two cats, and a changing menagerie of insects, amphibians, and reptiles.

J
OHN
L
ANGAN
The Unbearable Proximity of
Mr. Dunn’s Balloons

I

“Come, now,” Dunn said. His voice sounded as reasonable as it had at any point these last seven days. “Surely, you must have expected something like this.”

On reflection, Coleman supposed the man had a point. That did not stop him from thrusting his rapier into the nearest of the balloons.

II

“I’m sorry?” Coleman said, turning from the train’s window. Under the pretense of watching the Hudson slide past, he had been studying his reflection, renewing his debate with himself over shaving the beard he had worn since his midtwenties, the white hairs which he feared added a full decade to his appearance, advancing (distinguished) middle age to premature old age.

“I asked if you are planning to interview Mr. Dunn,” the young man seated across the compartment said. “You had said you write, so it occurred to me that you might be at work on an article about him.”

“I am not,” Coleman said. “I no longer write as much for the magazines as I used to. Of late, I’ve been concentrating my efforts on my fiction.”

“Oh,” said the young man, who had introduced himself at Grand Central as Cal Earnshaw. While the suit in which he traveled appeared of reasonable quality, there was a leanness to Cal’s face that suggested those of beggars Coleman had passed along the Venetian canals. The even younger woman seated beside Cal, his wife, Isabelle, said, “If I may be forward, Mr. Coleman, why are you on your way to Mr. Dunn’s? From what I’ve read of your novels, it doesn’t seem as though the . . . extravagances of Mr. Dunn and his followers would hold much of interest for you.”

Despite himself, a little thrill raced up Coleman’s spine at Mrs. Earnshaw’s admission of familiarity with his work; a similar confession, he felt certain, would not trouble her husband’s lips. He said, “You underestimate me, Madame. My father was a Swedenborgian, albeit an idiosyncratic one.”

“You don’t say,” Cal said.

“I do.”

“Do you imply that you have inherited your father’s beliefs?” Isabelle said.

“I imply nothing of the kind,” Coleman said. “My father found Swedenborg sufficient to his needs; my interest, however, has tended towards the manner in which we make our way through this life, rather than any other.”

“Yet surely,” Isabelle said, “the nature of our beliefs about the life to come may exert a profound influence upon our conduct in the life that is.”

“Undoubtedly,” Coleman said. “Although, from my observations, that influence is frequently more occult than direct.”

“Then why have you joined us?” Cal said. “Not that we regret the company.”

“I am on this train,” Coleman said, “in hopes of seeing Mr. Dunn’s balloons, about which so much has been written.”

“You have read Mrs. Barchester’s report of them?” Isabelle said.

“It was that which brought them to my attention,” Coleman said. “A friend passing through London made me a gift of her book. My thoughts of late have tended in the direction of the place of my birth. I would not call any point along the Hudson my home, but so much of my childhood was spent traveling up and down the shores of what we used to call the North River that something of the word’s glamour attaches to the region, as a whole. When my friend’s generosity presented me with Mrs. Barchester’s record of her tour up the Hudson, I took it as practically an omen that I should revisit the scenes of my boyhood. Her description of Mr. Dunn’s rather remarkable paper balloons iced the cake, so to speak. Even before I had turned the last page, I had booked my trip and written to another friend to ask if it were in his powers to arrange a visit to Summerland for me. It was, and”—Coleman spread his hands—“I have the pleasure of your company. I take it your motivations are of a more spiritual character.”

“We are going to prepare for my crossing,” Cal said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My husband is ill, Mr. Coleman.” Isabelle laid a gloved hand on her husband’s. “We have exhausted all of his inheritance and most of mine in search of a cure. There is none. The last physician we consulted—Sir Luke Strett: perhaps you have heard of him? He is very well known on the Continent.”

Coleman was unsure. “The name is familiar, yes.”

“He advised us that Cal’s time is short, and that there are better ways to spend it than chasing false hope.”

“I’ve long had an interest in the writings of Mr. Dunn and his set,” Cal said. “Mr. Davis, the Fox sisters . . . the picture of the next life they have advanced seems so much more
reasonable
than that of the traditional faiths. Upon our return to Brooklyn, I threw myself into a study of their work. I read their books; I sat in on their séances; I heard their lectures. Had my health been firmer, I would have attended one of their conventions, although there was no real need of that. What I had learned was enough to justify my previous interest.”

Isabelle said, “During one of Mr. Dunn’s lectures, he mentioned that, upon occasion, he had aided those approaching this life’s end in readying themselves for the next. Afterwards, Cal and I succeeded in speaking to the man, and once he knew our story, he volunteered his services upon the spot.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” Cal nodded. “Not only did Mr. Dunn refuse what little payment we could offer, he provided for our travel from our home to his.”

“How very generous of him.”

“It was—it is,” Isabelle said.

“Perhaps you had rather I defer my visit to Summerland,” Coleman said. “Compared to yours, my reasons for this trip are trivial. I would not wish to interfere with Mr. Dunn’s plans for you.”

“Nonsense,” Cal said. “You won’t be interfering a bit.”

“According to Mr. Dunn’s letter to us,” Isabelle said, “he will require some time alone with my husband. Although he assures us his house’s library is thoroughly stocked, I should be grateful for a companion to help me pass the hours.”

“You may consider me at your disposal,” Coleman said.

III

Summerland, Poughkeepsie

June 16, 1888

Strange to meet Parrish Dunn today. I wouldn’t say I’ve been brooding on the man, but he has engaged my thoughts for much of the last several months. The successful arms merchant who washes his hands of the blood in which he’s steeped them for nigh on twenty years to devote himself to the promulgation of his new Spiritualist beliefs—not to mention, to fashioning his elaborate balloons—how could such a figure not be of interest? I’ve spent enough time—enough pages in this notebook—supplementing the scant description of him in Mrs. Barchester’s North Along the Hudson that to meet the original to whom my speculations owe their existence gave me a jolt.

He looks like an arms merchant—strike that, he looks like an arms maker, one of those powers charged by the other gods with forging their spears and shields deep in the bowels of a smoking volcano. Until this point in my life, I have considered my five foot ten inches a more than adequate height, but Dunn must stand somewhere in the vicinity of six foot seven, six foot eight. He rises up to that measurement like a mountain; I’ve never done well at estimating anyone’s weight, so it may be more useful to write that he appears almost as wide as he is tall. Every item he was wearing—black suit, white shirt, black shoes—must have been specially made for him.

Because of his size, Dunn’s face, which would otherwise fall somewhere in the broad middle of the human spectrum, has something of the grotesque to it. He is bald, and the expanse of his great skull somehow contributes to this impression. His heavy lips frame a mouth whose thick teeth seem formed for tearing the meat from a leg of venison. His nose is flat, wide, crossed by a white scar that continues across the right cheek. His eyes protrude from their sockets, so that he appears to watch you intensely.

His appearance aside, Dunn has been the model host. His carriage was waiting for us at the train station, and he was waiting for us at the front gate to Summerland. (Note: Must check details of house. I’m fairly sure it’s the style known as Second Empire—tall and narrow, like a collection of rectangles stood on their short ends. Roof—Mansard roof?—like a cap. White with black trim, freshly painted, so the white blinding in the afternoon, the black shining. Extensive gardens in the English fashion. Situated on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson and the step hills on the other shore.) The room in which I have been housed is easily four times as large as the cabin in which I crossed the Atlantic, and extravagantly furnished.

The single most interesting feature of my room, though, is the balloon floating in the center of it, at the foot of the bed. I’ve read Mrs. Barchester’s description of Dunn’s balloons over and over again; it’s one of the few passages in her book in which my fascination with the subject matter blinds me to the dreadfulness of her prose. Not surprisingly, she has not done the things justice. The size, for example: no doubt she’s measured the diameter correctly as three feet, but she has failed utterly in conveying a sense of the balloon’s volume, of the manner in which it fills the space in which it hangs like a globe set loose from its moorings. The things are apparently composed of brown paper, which appears heavy, coarse grained, and which still bears the folds and creases necessary to achieve the balloon’s shape. Its seams are dark with whatever Dunn used to seal them. Perhaps the most serious defect in Mrs. Barchester’s account of the balloons, however, lies in her remarks upon the designs that cover their surfaces. She writes of the “quaint, Oriental patterns with which Mr. Dunn has decorated his inventions.” Yet the arrangement of the figures in latitudinal lines, their irregular repetition, give more the impression of communication than ornamentation. The script is none I can read or even recognize: its characters appear drawn from the loops and twists woven into the room’s Turkey carpet; nor am I certain of the medium in which Dunn has applied them, which shines as if fresh, and in whose depths I catch traces of crimson, viridian, and purple.

And there is more to note. A distinct odor clouds the air around the balloon. It mixes the wood-pulp smell of the paper with another, faintly medicinal scent, possibly that of ether. (Is this due to the manner in which Dunn suspends his creations?) Underneath the combined smells, I perceive a third—damp, earthy. The balloon’s surface produces a low and constant crackling as it shifts in the currents of air wafting into the room through its windows. I went to touch the thing, to add its texture to my catalogue of impressions, only to hesitate with the tips of my fingers a hairsbreadth from its paper. I was seized by the most overpowering repugnance, such that the hairs from the back of my hand right up my forearm stood rigid. I swear, my flesh actually shrank from the thing. For the briefest of instants, I wanted nothing more than to see the balloon destroyed—torn apart, set alight. It was the kind and intensity of response I would have expected at confronting an especially loathsome insect, not an eccentric’s amusement. I dropped my hand and decided my investigations had proceeded far enough for the moment.