A Bottomless Grave Read online

  Her smiling untroubled eyes left his face and turned to me: she put out her arms, swaying towards me, and so fervid and so great a light glowed in her face that, as one distraught of superhuman means, I took her into my embrace. And then the madness seized me.

  ‘Woman or devil,’ I said, ‘I will go with you! Of what account this pitiful past? Blight me even as that wretch, so be only you are with me.’

  She laughed, and, disengaging herself, leaned, half-clinging to me, towards the coughing creature by the mire.

  ‘Come,’ I cried, catching her by the waist. ‘Come!’ She laughed again a silver-ringing laugh. She moved with me slowly across the flat to where the track started for the portals of the marsh. She laughed and clung to me.

  But at the edge of the track I was startled by a shrill, hoarse screaming, and behold, from my very feet, that loathsome creature rose up and wound his long black arms about her shrieking and crying in his pain. Stooping I pushed him from her skirts, and with one sweep of my arm drew her across the pathway; as her face passed mine her eyes were wide and smiling. Then of a sudden the still mist enveloped us once more; but ere it descended I had a glimpse of that contorted figure trembling on the margin, the white face drawn and full of desolate pain. At the sight an icy shiver ran through me. And then through the yellow gloom the shadow of her darted past me, to the further side. I heard the hoarse cough, the dim noise of a struggle, a swishing sound, a thin cry, and then the sucking of the slime over something in the rushes. I leapt forward: and once again the fog thinned, and I beheld her, woman or devil, standing upon the verge, and peering with smiling eyes into the foul and sickly bog. With a sharp cry wrung from my nerveless soul, I turned and fled down the narrow way from that accursed spot; and as I ran the thickening fog closed round me, and I heard far off and lessening still the silver sound of her mocking laughter.

  A Tragic Honeymoon

  by G. R. SIMS

  ‘It was Christmas Day in the workhouse...’ I have not yet met anybody who knows the official next line of that famous verse and even fewer people who know of the author. George R. Sims (1847—1922). Workhouses were something that G. R. Sims knew a lot about, for he was one of Victorian England’s greatest reforming spirits on behalf of the poor. It was his letters to the Daily News that helped to prompt a Royal Commission to investigate and remedy the appalling conditions of the poor in London.

  George Sims was a poet, playwright and novelist who was born in London and educated at Hanwell College and Bonn University. Under the pseudonym ‘Dagonet’ he contributed articles to The Referee from 1877, as well as contributing to such other journals as Fun. His best known play was probably The Lights of London.

  As well as his plays and poetry, Sims wrote many short stories, collected into several volumes over the years. One of the best volumes was The Ten Commandments (1896), ten stories each depicting the breaking of one commandment. Other volumes included Stories in Black and white (1885) and The Ring’o’Bells (1886). ‘A Tragic Honey-, moon’ comes from My Two Wives (1894) and is a very sombre piece indeed. Typically Victorian, it deals with unrequited love and passion, and has a decidedly gruesome twist.

  My chamber-maid at the—Hotel, Scarborough, was a nice, motherly, middle-aged woman. I like motherly, middle-aged women for chamber-maids. They know their business better, and they answer the bell quicker than young, flighty chamber-maids. And they are not so fond of reading the letters you leave about you, and prying into your private affairs.

  The bump of curiosity is strongly developed in some women, and you find striking examples of the length to which female curiosity will go in hotels, lodging-houses, and places where they let apartments.

  I stayed for a fortnight once in private apartments in Broadstairs, and when I left I recommended them to a friend of mine. He took them later on in the season without saying that they had been recommended to him by anyone. The landlady was a gossip—the kind of landlady that comes in herself to clear away the tea-things, and stands at the door for half an hour with the tray in her hand, while she tells you her trials and troubles, and throws in an anecdote or two concerning her former lodger.

  I suffered considerably from this kind of landlady in my early days when hotels were beyond my means, and when I had to be content with two rooms in an unfashionable quarter.

  It is only fair to say that in after-life I turned my sufferings to good account, and used up a lot of material that had been supplied by lodging-housekeepers.

  My friend who took my old apartments at Broadstairs was full of his adventures when he met me again. He assured me that he had learnt more about me in one week than he had learnt in all the ten years he had known me. His informant was the landlady.

  She had furnished him with a full, true and particular account of a lodger she had had earlier in the season—a lodger who was always writing and walking up and down the room, and muttering to himself, and she had grave misgivings that he had a crime on his conscience, because one day she picked up a sheet of paper he had left on the table, and it was all about a robbery or something. She fancied her lodger had begun to write a confession of what he had done, and then thought better of it, for she put the paper back, and the next day she found it all torn and ‘scrobbled up’ in the waste-paper basket. With an utter lack of consideration the landlady gave my real name, and furthermore furnished my friend with choice extracts from some of my private letters, and wound up by saying: ‘I wonder what he could have been, sir; I’m sure there was something wrong about him.’

  I have a friend, a celebrated novelist, whose housemaid for years read every letter that he left on his table, and a good many that he put away in the pigeon-holes of his desk, and when, in consequence of having stayed out till one o‘clock in the morning on a bank holiday, she received notice, her temper got the better of her discretion, and she gave her astonished master a ‘bit of her mind’, and referred to various matters which she could only have become acquainted with by a very close study of his correspondence.

  Hotel servants are not so inquisitive as private servants and lodging-house servants. They have not the same opportunity for minutely investigating; but even in hotels there are chamber-maids who want to know all about the guests, and who chatter among themselves concerning No. 157, No. 63, or No. 215, and speculate as to his profession, his financial position, and his moral qualities. Chamber-maids in large hotels have some curious experiences, and, as the records of the law courts plainly show, they are close observers, and are able months, sometimes years, afterwards to identify parties, and to favour the court with detailed statements worthy of a detective or a paid spy.

  Let me hasten to remove the impression that I wish to be ‘down’ on chamber-maids. As a whole I look upon them as very worthy and decidedly useful members of the community. But I still prefer, when I am staying for any length of time at a hotel, to have a chamber-maid who has passed her first youth and settled down to a staid and matronly sort of person.

  Such a chamber-maid was Agnes, who, a few years ago, when for some five days I had to keep my room at the—Hotel, Scarborough, showed me the greatest kindness and consideration, gave me my medicine, and, like a good, kind-hearted woman, endeavoured to cheer me up and amuse me whenever she came in to tidy up the room, or to see how I was getting on, or to inquire if I wanted anything.

  It was one morning while she was dusting my room that she told me the story which I am about to relate. I had been (not entirely without a view to copy) asking her questions as to her experiences as a chamber-maid, and after telling me one or two incidents in her professional career, she informed me that the most curious experience she had ever had in her life was while she was a chamber-maid at one of the big London hotels much frequented by people on their way to the Continent.

  ‘I’ve seen people arrested there,’ said Agnes, ‘nice quiet people, that you would never have suspected of anything wrong; and I’ve seen runaway couples stopped just as they were coming downstairs to go off by the Conti
nental mail. There’s always something or other happening in a big hotel, but of all the extraordinary affairs that ever came under my notice the most terrible was one that happened about a year before I left. I was the head-chamber-maid on the third floor then, and had, of course, to look generally after all the rooms, and see that everything was right. One day we received a letter from the country, ordering a suite of rooms to be reserved for a newly-married couple on a certain date.

  ‘The bride and bridegroom were coming up to London on their way to spend their honeymoon abroad, and they would break the journey at our hotel, going on by the Continental train the next day.

  ‘The housekeeper came up to me with the letter, and gave me instructions to get a suite on my floor ready, and to see that everything was in proper order. The bridegroom had been a constant visitor at the hotel in his bachelor days, and the manager was anxious that everything should be made as comfortable for him and the young lady as possible.

  ‘As soon as I had received my orders I began to execute them, and I had the rooms thoroughly turned out, and everything dusted and rearranged. I put clean curtains at the windows, and womanlike, always feeling interested in bridals and honeymoons, I took extra pains to make the rooms look cheerful and pretty, and I think I succeeded.

  ‘The following evening, about an hour before the young couple were to arrive, I went in and gave a last look round to see that everything was right, and just went over the mantelpiece myself with a duster and gave the furniture a flick here and there where the dust—that no power on earth can keep out of a London room—had settled down again.

  ‘Satisfied that everything was in perfect order, I closed the door and went to give some instructions to one of the girls about lighting a fire in a room at the end of the corridor, which was always a fearful nuisance to us when a fire was wanted in it. But so sure as we were full up, and that room had to be given to a visitor, the visitor would want a fire lit in it. It seemed just as if it was to be. It became a joke all over the hotel at last.

  ‘Whenever a message came up that No. 63 was let, we always used to say, “Of course there’s a fire wanted,” and, upon my word, it really always was so.

  “The girl whose business it was to light the fire passed me in the corridor.

  ‘“Oh,” I said to her, “I was coming to see you about No. 63. Be sure to have the window open and the door open when you light the fire.’

  ‘“I’ve got ’em open,” she said, “but the wind’s the wrong way or something, and the fire won’t light at all.”

  ‘“Oh, nonsense!” I said; “I’ll come and see to it.”

  ‘We went back together and into the room. The gentleman who’d taken it was already there. He was standing with his hands in his pockets looking at the fireplace, and he seemed the picture of misery.

  ‘“Poor young fellow!” I said to myself “he looks ill and unhappy, and wants cheering up. This is not the sort of room to make him feel at home, any way.”

  ‘“If you could do without a fire, sir,” I said, “it would be better. We always have a trouble with this fireplace. I am sorry to say it smokes.”

  ‘“I must have a fire,” said the young gentleman. “If I can’t have one here, give me another room.”

  ‘“I’m afraid we’re full up, sir,” I said; “but I’ll go and see what can be done if you don’t mind waiting a little.”

  ‘I really was sorry for the poor young gentleman, he looked so utterly wretched, and I couldn’t bear to think of him, ill as he evidently was, shut up in that dreadful No. 63. half suffocated all night. There’s nothing I think makes one feel so miserable as a room full of smoke, especially when you’re away from home and alone.

  ‘Leaving the girl to struggle with the fire, I went downstairs to the housekeeper’s room to see if there was a chance of putting the young gentleman anywhere else, if it was only for the night. As luck would have it, a telegram had just been received from a gentleman who was to have come from Scotland that night. He had missed his train, and wouldn’t be in London till the following evening. The room reserved for him was on the fourth floor, immediately over the sitting-room on the third floor which we were keeping for the newly-married pair.

  ‘Having obtained permission, I went back to the young gentleman in No. 63, and told him that if he did not mind we would give him a room on the fourth floor, No. 217, where he could have a fire and be comfortable. I explained to him, however, that he would have to be moved on the following day if he intended staying on.

  ‘“Thank you very much,” he said; “that will do very well. I shall not want the room after tomorrow.”

  ‘I called one of the porters and told him to take the gentleman’s portmanteau up to 217, and then I went to the chamber-maid for the fourth floor, and asked her to get a fire lighted at once.

  ‘When I came downstairs the newly-married couple had just arrived, and were being shown to their rooms.

  ‘I took in the warm water myself and had an opportunity of seeing the young lady. She was very pretty, I thought, and she looked quite a picture in her lovely travelling dress.

  ‘The bridegroom was a tall, handsome gentleman, but much older than the young lady. I’d seen him several times at the hotel, and so, of course, I knew him. I should say he was about forty-five, and she couldn’t have been more than nineteen. It was about seven o’clock when they came, and they ordered dinner for eight o’clock. Of course it was known among all the servants on the floor that they were a newly-married couple. It would have been even if we hadn’t been told beforehand.

  ‘You can trust hotel servants for knowing a honeymoon when they see one. Plenty of brides and bridegrooms like to pretend that they’ve been married ever so long, especially at the very first, but they never deceive us. I remember a private sitting-room waiter telling me a story of a newly-married couple once, who, when he went into the sitting-room at breakfast time, began to talk to each other in a way to make him believe they’d been married for years. But when the young lady was pouring out the tea, and said to her husband, “How many lumps of sugar do you take, dear?” he had all his work to prevent himself from grinning. He did smile, and the poor young things went quite scarlet both of them, and he went out of the room and had a good laugh all to himself in the service-room, and, of course, told it to everybody as a good joke. Men have no sympathy with young married people; they’re not like women-folk in these matters.

  ‘Of course I had no opportunity of seeing the bride and bridegroom again for some time. But the sitting-room waiter told us they seemed nice people, and the young lady was full of spirits.

  ‘I went downstairs to supper at ten o’clock, and was back on duty again soon after ten-thirty. I had one or two things to see to, and when I had finished I sat down to do a little needlework.

  ‘It must have been nearly eleven o’clock, when a bell rang violently. The waiter for the floor had gone downstairs for his supper, so I went into the service-room and saw that it was the sitting-room bell of the bride and bridegroom. While I was looking at the indicator, the bell rang again, this time more violently still. I ran along the corridor to the room and knocked at the door.

  ‘“Come in! come in!” cried a man’s voice, and I went in, and there I saw the poor young bride in a chair and her husband bending over her.

  ‘“Some water, quick!” he cried. “She’s fainted.”

  ‘I ran into the bedroom and brought some water and a towel, and bathed her face.

  ‘“Is anything the matter, sir?” I said.

  ‘“Yes!” he exclaimed, “it’s terrible. I wouldn’t have had such a thing happen for the world. Look, don’t you see?”

  ‘He pointed to her hands, where they lay quite helpless in her lap.

  ‘On one hand—the hand that wore the wedding-ring—was a big, bright drop of blood. It had fallen right on the wedding-ring, and stained her hand as well.

  ‘“Oh dear !” I cried, feeling quite faint myself, “what is it?”

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sp; ‘“I don’t know,” he said; “I can’t understand it. It’s the most awful thing I ever knew in my life.”

  ‘He seemed quite terrified himself, and certainly it was a dreadful thing, especially to anybody who was at all superstitious or who believed in omens.

  ‘I took the towel, and dipped it in the water and wiped the blood-stain from the poor young lady’s hand. Presently she opened her eyes and looked about her.

  ‘“Are you better, my darling?” her husband said, stooping over her, and touching her forehead with his lips.

  ‘“Yes, I’m better, dear,” she said; “but it was so dreadful! Oh, what does it mean? what does it mean?”

  ‘She glanced down at her hand with a look of horror in her eyes, and when she saw that the blood had been removed she gave a deep sigh of relief.

  ‘Seeing she was a little better, I got up off my knees—I had been kneeling beside her—and went back into the bedroom with the water.

  ‘I was a little bit dazed myself, for I couldn’t understand how that drop of bright red blood could have got on the poor dear’s hand.

  ‘I was just putting the tumbler down on the washstand, when I heard a shriek from the bride, followed by a cry from the bridegroom. I ran back into the sitting-room, and there I found them both standing with terrified faces.

  ‘They couldn’t speak, but the bridegroom pointed to his wife’s hand.

  ‘It was stained with blood again.

  ‘“It has dropped upon her hand—this moment!” cried the gentleman. “I saw it, I saw it—with my own eyes!”