A Bottomless Grave Read online

  ‘It is getting cooler,’ I thought, as the chill came on, and I rose and looked at the thermometer. It still registered the highest possible point, and the mercury was rebelliously trying to break through the top of the glass tube and take a stroll on the roof.

  ‘That’s queer,’ I said to myself. ‘It’s as hot as ever, and yet I’m shivering. I wonder if my goose is cooked? I’ve certainly got a chill.’

  I jumped back into bed and pulled the sheet up over me; but still I shivered. Then I pulled the blanket up, but the chill continued. I couldn’t seem to get warm again. Then came the counterpane, and finally I had to put on my bath-robe—a fuzzy woollen affair, which in midwinter I had sometimes found too warm for comfort. Even then I was not sufficiently bundled up, so I called for an extra blanket, two afghans, and the hot-water bag.

  Everybody in the house thought I had gone mad, and I wondered myself if perhaps I hadn’t, when all of a sudden I perceived, off in the corner, the Awful Thing, and perceiving it, I knew all.

  I was being haunted, and the physical repugnance of which I have spoken was on. The cold shiver, the invariable accompaniment of the ghostly visitant, had come, and I assure you I never was so glad of anything in my life. It has always been said of me by my critics that I am raw; I was afraid that after that night they would say I was half baked, and I would far rather be the one than the other; and it was the Awful Thing that saved me. Realising this, I spoke to it gratefully.

  ‘You are a heaven-born gift on a night like this,’ said I, rising up and walking to its side.

  ‘I am glad to be of service to you,’ the Awful Thing replied, smiling at me so yellowly that I almost wished the author of the Blue-Button of Cowardice could have seen it.

  ‘It’s very good of you,’ I put in.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied the Thing; ‘you are the only man I know who doesn’t think it necessary to prevaricate about ghosts every time he gets an order for a Christmas story. There have been more lies told about us than about any other class of things in existence, and we are getting a trifle tired of it. We may have lost our corporeal existence, but some of our sensitiveness still remains.’

  ‘Well,’ said I, rising and lighting the gas-logs—for I was on the very verge of congealment—‘I am sure I am pleased if you like my stories.’

  ‘Oh, as for that, I don’t think much of them,’ said the Awful Thing, with a purple display of candour which amused me, although I cannot say that I relished it; ‘but you never lie about us. You are not at all interesting, but you are truthful, and we spooks hate libellers. Just because one happens to be a thing is no reason why writers should libel it, and that’s why I have always respected you. We regard you as a sort of spook Boswell. You may be dull and stupid, but you tell the truth, and when I saw you in imminent danger of becoming a mere grease spot, owing to the fearful heat, I decided to help you through. That’s why I’m here. Go to sleep now. I’ll stay here and keep you shivering until daylight anyhow. I’d stay longer, but we are always laid at sunrise.’

  ‘Like an egg,’ I said, sleepily.

  ‘Tutt!’ said the ghost. ‘Go to sleep. If you talk I’ll have to go.’

  And so I dropped off to sleep as softly and as sweetly as a tired child. In the morning I awoke refreshed. The rest of my family were prostrated, but I was fresh. The Awful Thing was gone, and the room was warming up again; and if it had not been for the tinkling ice in my water-pitcher, I should have suspected it was all a dream. And so throughout the whole sizzling summer the friendly spectre stood by me and kept me cool, and I haven’t a doubt that it was because of his good offices in keeping me shivering on those fearful August nights that I survived the season, and came to my work in the autumn as fit as a fiddle—so fit, indeed, that I have not written a poem since that has not struck me as being the very best of its kind, and if I can find a publisher who will take the risk of putting those poems out, I shall unequivocally and without hesitation acknowledge, as I do here, my debt of gratitude to my friends in the spirit world.

  Manifestations of this nature, then, are harmful, as I have already observed, only when the person who is haunted yields to his physical impulses. Fought stubbornly inch by inch with the will, they can be subdued, and often they are a boon. I think I have proved both these points. It took me a long time to discover the facts, however, and my discovery came about in this way. It may perhaps interest you to know how I made it. I encountered at the English home of a wealthy friend at one time a ‘presence’ of an insulting turn of mind. It was at my friend Jarley’s little baronial hall, which he had rented from the Earl of Brokedale the year Mrs Jarley was presented at court. The Countess of Brokedale’s social influence went with the château for a slightly increased rental, which was why the Jarleys took it. I was invited to spend a month with them, not so much because Jarley is fond of me as because Mrs Jarley had a sort of an idea that, as a writer, I might say something about their newly acquired glory in some American Sunday newspaper; and Jarley laughingly assigned to me the ‘haunted chamber’, without at least one of which no baronial hall in the old country is considered worthy of the name.

  ‘It will interest you more than any other,’ Jarley said; ‘and if it has a ghost, I imagine you will be able to subdue him.’

  I gladly accepted the hospitality of my friend, and was delighted at his consideration in giving me the haunted chamber, where I might pursue my investigations into the subject of phantoms undisturbed. Deserting London, then, for a time, I ran down to Brokedale Hall, and took up my abode there with a half-dozen other guests. Jarley, as usual since his sudden ‘gold-fall’, as Wilkins called it, did everything with a lavish hand. I believe a man could have got diamonds on toast if he had chosen to ask for them. However, this is apart from my story.

  I had occupied the haunted chamber about two weeks before anything of importance occurred, and then it came—and a more unpleasant ill-mannered spook never floated in the ether. He materialised about 3 a.m. and was unpleasantly sulphurous to one’s perceptions. He sat upon the divan in my room, holding his knees in his hands, leering and scowling upon me as though I were the intruder, and not he.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked, excitedly, as in the dying light of the log fire he loomed grimly up before me.

  ‘None of your business,’ he replied, insolently, showing his teeth as he spoke. ‘On the other hand, who are you? This is my room, and not yours, and it is I who have the right to question. If you have any business here, well and good. If not, you will oblige me by removing yourself, for your presence is offensive to me.’

  ‘I am a guest in the house,’ I answered, restraining my impulse to throw the ink-stand at him for his impudence. ‘And this room has been set apart for my use by my host.’

  ‘One of the servant’s guests, I presume?’ he said, insultingly, his lividly lavender-like lip upcurling into a haughty sneer, which was maddening to a self-respecting worm like myself.

  I rose up from my bed, and picked up the poker to bat him over the head, but again I restrained myself. It will not do to quarrel, I thought. I will be courteous if he is not, thus giving a dead Englishman a lesson which wouldn’t hurt some of the living.

  ‘No,’ I said, my voice tremulous with wrath—‘no; I am the guest of my friend Mr Jarley, an American, who—’

  ‘Same thing,’ observed the intruder, with a yellow sneer. ‘Race of low-class animals, those Americans—only fit for gentlemen’s stables, you know.’

  This was too much. A ghost may insult me with impunity, but when he tackles my people he must look out for himself. I sprang forward with an ejaculation of wrath, and with all my strength struck at him with the poker which I still held in my hand. If he had been anything but a ghost, he would have been split vertically from top to toe; but as it was, the poker passed harmlessly through his misty make-up, and rent a great gash two feet long in Jarley’s divan. The yellow sneer faded from his lips, and a maddening blue smile took its place.

  ‘Humph!’ h
e observed, nonchalantly. ‘What a useless ebullition, and what a vulgar display of temper! Really you are the most humorous insect I have yet encountered. From what part of the States do you come? I am truly interested to know in what kind of soil exotics of your particular kind are cultivated. Are you part of the fauna or the flora of your tropical States—or what?’

  And then I realised the truth. There is no physical method of combating a ghost which can result in his discomfiture, so I resolved to try the intellectual. It was a mind-to-mind contest, and he was easy prey after I got going. I joined him in his blue smile, and began to talk about the English aristocracy; for I doubted not, from the spectre’s manner, that he was or had been one of that class. He had about him that haughty lack of manners which bespoke the aristocrat. I waxed very eloquent when, as I say, I got my mind really going. I spoke of kings and queens and their uses in no uncertain phrases, of divine right, of dukes, earls, marquises—of all the pompous establishments of British royalty and nobility—with that contemptuously humorous tolerance of a necessary and somewhat amusing evil which we find in American comic papers. We had a battle royal for about one hour, and I must confess he was a foeman worthy of any man’s steel, so long as I was reasonable in my arguments; but when I finally observed that it wouldn’t be ten years before Barnum and Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth had the whole lot engaged for the New York circus season, stalking about the Madison Square Garden arena, with the Prince of Wales at the head beating a tomtom, he grew iridescent with wrath, and fled madly through the wainscoting of the room. It was purely a mental victory. All the physical possibilities of my being would have exhausted themselves futilely before him; but when I turned upon him the resources of my fancy, my imagination unrestrained, and held back by no sense of responsibility, he was as a child in my hands, obstreperous, but certain to be subdued. If it were not for Mrs Jarley’s wrath—which, I admit, she tried to conceal—over the damage; to her divan, I should now look back upon that visitation as the most agreeable haunting experience of my life; at any rate, it was at that time that I first learned how to handle ghosts, and since that time I have been able to overcome them without trouble—save in one instance, with which I shall close this chapter of my reminiscences, and which I give only to prove the necessity of observing strictly one point in dealing with spectres.

  It happened last Christmas, in my own home. I had provided as a little surprise for my wife a complete new solid silver service marked with her initials. The tree had been prepared for the children, and all had retired save myself. I had lingered later than the others to put the silver service under the tree, where its happy recipient would find it when she went to the tree with the little ones the next morning. It made a magnificent display: the two dozen of each kind of spoon, the forks, the knives, the coffee-pot, water-urn, and all; the salvers, the vegetable-dishes, olive-forks, cheese-scoops, and other dazzling attributes of a complete service, not to go into details, presented a fairly scintillating picture which would have made me gasp if I had not, at the moment when my own breath began to catch, heard another gasp in the corner immediately behind me. Turning about quickly to see whence it came, I observed a dark figure in the pale light of the moon which streamed in through the window.

  ‘Who are you?’ I cried, starting back, the physical symptoms of a ghostly presence manifesting themselves as usual.

  ‘I am the ghost of one long gone before,’ was the reply, in sepulchral tones.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, for I had for a moment feared it was a burglar.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘You gave me a start at first. I was afraid you were a material thing come to rob me.’ Then turning towards the tree, I observed, with a wave of the hand, ‘Fine layout, eh?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ he said, hollowly. ‘Yet not so beautiful as things I’ve seen in realms beyond your ken.’

  And then he set about telling me of the beautiful gold and silver ware they used in the Elysian Fields, and I must confess Monte Cristo would have had a hard time, with Sinbad the Sailor to help, to surpass the picture of royal magnificence the spectre drew. I stood enthralled until, even as he was talking, the clock struck three, when he rose up, and moving slowly across the floor, barely visible, murmured regretfully that he must be off, with which he faded away down the back stairs. I pulled my nerves, which were getting rather strained, together again, and went to bed.

  Next morning every bit of that silverware was gone; and, what is more, three weeks later I found the ghost’s picture in the Rogue’s Gallery in New York as that of the cleverest sneak-thief in the country.

  All of which, let me say to you, dear reader, in conclusion, proves that when you are dealing with ghosts you mustn’t give up all your physical resources until you have definitely ascertained that the thing by which you are confronted, horrid or otherwise, is a ghost, and not an all too material rogue with a light step, and a commodious jute bag for plunder concealed beneath his coat.

  ‘How to tell a ghost?’ you ask.

  Well, as an eminent master of fiction frequently observes in his writings, ‘that is another story’, which I shall hope some day to tell for your instruction and my own aggrandisement.

  Haunted by Spirits

  by GEORGE MANVILLE FENN

  Our second humorous tale, a piece with its tongue very firmly in its cheek, comes from an early work of one of the last century’s most prolific writers. George Manville Fenn (1831—1909) wrote over 170 books, sketches, novels and children’s stories. and contributed to most of the leading magazines of his day. Born in London, Fenn’s early career included work as a teacher and private tutor; then came a complete change when he became a printer, setting up his own press in Lincolnshire and publishing his own magazine, Modern Metre. His first opportunity of a wider circulation occurred when Charles Dickens bought one of his stories for the famous All The Year Round.

  As well as his writing, Fenn took an interest in the theatre, becoming drama critic of the Echo and even producing his own farce in 1888. Comedy was one of his stronger talents and he produced many amusing short stories and articles. One of his first short story collections, Christmas Penny Readings (1867), contained quite afew humorous pieces and, as one might expect with such a seasonal publication, some ghost stories. ‘Haunted by Spirits’ is one of Fenn’s Christmas stories that combines both ghosts and comedy, though in what proportions I leave you to find out.

  ‘But what an out-of-the-way place to get to,’ I said, after being most cordially received by my old school fellow and his wife, one bitter night after a long ride. ‘But you really are glad to see me, eh?’

  ‘Now, hold your tongue, do,’ cried Ned and his wife in a breath. ‘You won’t get away again under a month, so don’t think of it. But where we are going to put you I don’t know,’ said Ned.

  ‘Oh I can sleep anywhere, chairs, table, anything you like; only make me welcome. Fine old house this seems, but however came you to take it?’

  ‘Got it cheap, my boy. Been shut up for twenty years. It’s haunted, and no one will live in it. But I have it full for this Christmas, at all events, and what’s more I have some potent spirits in the place too, but they are all corked down tightly, so there is no fear at present. But I say, Lilly,’ cried Ned, addressing his wife, ‘why, we shall have to go into the haunted room and give him our place.’

  ‘That you won’t,’ I said. ‘I came down here on purpose to take you by surprise, and to beg for a snack of dinner on Christmas-day; and now you are going to give me about the greatest treat possible, a bed in a haunted room. What kind of a ghost is it?’

  ‘You mustn’t laugh,’ said Ned, trying to appear very serious; ‘for there is not a soul living within ten miles of this place, that would not give you a long account of the horrors of the Red Chamber: of spots of blood upon the bedclothes coming down in a regular rain; noises; clashing of swords; shrieks and groans; skeletons or transparent bodies. Oh, my dear fellow, you needn’t grin, for it’s all gospel truth about here,
and if we did not keep that room screwed up, not a servant would stay in the house.’

  ‘Wish I could buy it and take it away,’ I said.

  ‘I wish you could, indeed,’ cried Ned, cordially.

  Half an hour after, Ned and I were busy with screwdriver and candle, down in the large corridors, turning the rusty screws which held a large door at the extreme end of the house. First one and then another was twirled out till nothing held the door but the lock; the key for which Ned Harrington now produced from his pocket—an old, many-warded, rusty key, at least a couple of hundred years old.

  ‘Hold the candle a little lower,’ said Ned, ‘here’s something in the keyhole,’ when pulling out his knife, he picked out a quantity of paper, evidently very recently stuffed in. He then inserted the key, and after a good deal of effort it turned, and the lock shot back with a harsh, grating noise. Ned then tried the handle, but the door remained fast; and though he tugged and tugged, it still stuck, till I put one hand to help him, when our united efforts made it come open with a rush, knocking over the candle, and there we were standing upon the portals of the haunted room in the dark.

  ‘I’ll fetch a light in a moment out of the hall,’ said Ned, and he slipped off, while I must confess to a certain feeling of trepidation on being left alone, listening to a moaning, whistling noise, which I knew to be the wind, but which had all the same a most dismal effect upon my nerves, which, in spite of my eagerness to be the inmate of the closed room, began to whisper very strongly that they did not like it at all. But the next minute Ned was beside me with the light, and we entered the gloomy dusty old chamber—a bed-chamber furnished after the fashion of the past century. The great four-poster bedstead looked heavy and gloomy, and when we drew back the curtains, I half expected to see a body lying in state, but no, all was very dusty, very gloomy, and soul-chilling, but nothing more.