i think i have mentioned how, soon after we had got our house straight and ready to be an hotel, i sent a nice, respectful letter to those of my old masters and mistresses that i thought i should like to know where i was, so that we might perhaps have their patronage.
of course i did not expect them all to pack up at once, and leave their homes and come and stay with us, but i thought at some time or other one or two of them might want to go somewhere, say, from saturday to monday, and they might say, “oh, let us go down and see how mary jane is getting on!”
but the one i was most anxious to get down was mr. saxon—the author i told you such a lot about in my “memoirs”—because i knew he wrote in the papers about the places he visited, and i thought if we made him comfortable, and the place suited him, and the air did his liver good, he might write about our hotel, and give it what harry calls “a leg up,” though, of course, it isn’t right, because an hotel doesn’t have legs.
mr. saxon wrote a line of congratulation to us. i think it was to say he was glad we were settled so comfortably, and he’d come and see us one day, but we only guessed it was that, after reading over the letter for about two hours, because he wrote so dreadfully that you had to get as near what he meant as a word that was readable here and there would let you.
after the letter we heard no more, and as months went by we’d quite given up expecting him, when one morning{85} we had a telegram from him, and that not being in his handwriting (thank goodness!), we could read it. it was this: “keep me sitting-room and bedroom. arrive this evening.—saxon.”
“oh, i’m so glad!” i said. “i hope he’ll like the place. we must make him comfortable and humour him, and he’ll give us a nice advertisement.”
“i hope he will,” said harry; “but, i say, my dear, you don’t think he’ll go on like he does in your ‘memoirs,’ do you?”
“oh, he’s a little odd, and he’s sure to be a bit fidgety, but you’ll soon get used to him,” i said; and then i went upstairs and got the best rooms ready, and put the furniture just how i knew he liked it. two tables in the sitting-room—one for him to eat on, and the other for him to write on—and i put a great big linen-basket in the room for a waste-paper basket, and i put the big inkstand on the table, and i sent out for a dozen pens and a new blotting-pad; and i put an easy-chair for him to sit in, because i remembered how particular he was about his chairs, always declaring that he never could get one that was fit to sit in, and i made the place look so nice and comfortable that i said to harry, “there now, i don’t believe even he can grumble at it.”
we wished he had said whether he was coming to dinner or not, because we could have had the table all laid ready for him; but as he only said “this evening,” we made up our minds he would arrive by the train which got in at 8.15; and that was the one he did come by.
when the fly drove up we went outside to welcome him, and we saw there was another gentleman with him—a big gentleman, with a large round face and a fair moustache and blue eyes, who looked like a german, but we found out afterwards he wasn’t—through mr. saxon, who, when we asked what nation the gentleman was, said, “oh, i don’t think he knows himself, but his father was a russian and his mother was a german, and so i suppose he’s a swede.”
when mr. saxon got out he was going on at the other gentleman about something dreadfully, and i said to myself, “oh dear, he’s come down in a bad temper! we must look out for squalls.{86}”
the other gentleman said, “well, mr. saxon, it was not my fault; didn’t you tell me you would pack the manuscript yourself?”
“no, i didn’t. never mind. it doesn’t matter. nothing matters now. i’m getting used to everything. i’ve come down here on purpose to finish that story, and you’ve left the manuscript behind, and it’s wanted in a hurry. i’m working against time. don’t say anything. it’s my punishment—it’s my doom. heaven doesn’t want me to prosper. i’m to be ruined, and you are only the humble instrument sent by providence to accomplish my ruin.”
“well, sir, hadn’t i better telegraph?”
“telegraph! to whom? who knows which manuscript i want? besides, it couldn’t get here in time. i wanted to finish that story to-night. now it’s impossible. if my greatest enemy had employed you to play me a trick, you couldn’t have played me one that would have caused me more inconvenience.”
the swedish gentleman looked very miserable, and all this time there was me and harry and the fly-driver standing with the door of the fly open, and mr. saxon was going on at the swedish gentleman, taking no notice of anybody.
so i thought i’d interrupt, and i said, “i hope you’re well, mr. saxon?”
he turned on me in a minute, and said, “no, mary jane, i am not well. i’m half dead.”
“i’m very sorry, sir. what’s the matter with you?”
“what’s the matter with me!” he said. then he gave a withering glance at the swedish gentleman, and said, “idiots, mary jane—that’s the disease i’m suffering from! idiots!”
then he nodded to harry, and walked into the house, and harry showed him upstairs to his sitting-room.
i helped the flyman to get the rugs and the small things out of the fly and carried them in, and the swedish gentleman paid the man.
i noticed all he did, because i said to myself, “this is somebody new. i suppose he’s mr. saxon’s new secretary.” and so he was, as he told me afterwards, when he came down and had a pipe in the bar-parlour, mr. saxon being{87} busy upstairs writing, having found the manuscript after all in the portmanteau, where he’d put it himself.
“mr. saxon seemed a little put out just now,” i said to him.
“oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “his liver’s bad. he can’t help it. he must go on at somebody when he’s like that, and i’m getting used to it.”
presently i went upstairs and knocked at the sitting-room door. when i went in mr. saxon was groaning, but writing away for his life.
“if you please, sir,” i said, “i only want to know if you would like any supper.”
“what!” he yelled—really he used to yell sometimes, and that’s the only word for it. “supper! good heavens, mary jane, do you want me to wake the house up in the middle of the night screaming murder? look at me now. do you see how yellow i am? can’t you see the agony i’m suffering? supper! yes, bring me some bread and beetlepaste and a pint of laudanum in a pewter. that’s the supper i want!”
“lor’, sir,” i said, beginning to be used to him again through old times coming back, “i shouldn’t like you to have that in my house. i hope we’re going to do you good and make you better here. i’m sure we shall do our best.”
he looked up at that, and said, “thank you, i know you will. you mustn’t mind me if i grumble and growl a bit. i can’t help it. i’m ill, and the least thing makes me irritable.”
“oh, we sha’n’t take any notice, sir. we hope you’ll do just as you like here, and if there’s anything you want, tell us, so that we can get it for you.”
he turned quite nice after that, and began chatting with me so pleasantly, you’d think he was the most agreeable gentleman in the world if you didn’t know him. he asked about the house and the customers, and all about the people who lived in the neighbourhood, and, thinking to amuse him, i told him a lot of queer things about the people who came to the house, and were characters, being quite taken off my guard, till i saw him jotting down something on the blotting-pad, and then i saw what a stupid girl i’d been. he was taking notes, and i knew he’d go{88} and use up all my characters and make stories of them. so i stopped short all at once, and pretended i’d left somebody downstairs waiting for me.
it was a narrow escape, and i only just remembered his old tricks in time, and what a dreadful man he was for putting everybody into his stories. i knew he’d put his own pa and ma and all his brothers and sisters and all his relations in stories, and nobody ever told their experience about anything, or an adventure that had happened to them, but he’d have it all in his note-book before you could say jack robinson.
i remember what he did once, when i was in his service. he went down to stay with his ma at cheltenham at a boarding-house for a day or two, and his ma told him a lot of things about the people in the house, and the queer characters they were, and what they said and did, never dreaming of any harm; and the very next week if he didn’t write a paper about “life in a boarding-house,” and put all these people in, only making them a good deal worse than they were, because he couldn’t help exaggerating if he was to be killed the next minute for it.
his pa, it seems, who came down to the boarding-house too, had let out to several people that it was his son who was the mr. saxon who wrote for the newspapers, and had persuaded a lot of the people to read what he wrote; and the monday after, when the paper on boarding-houses came out, a lot of the people staying at the same boarding-house as his ma bought it, and saw themselves in it, and things that only the landlady could know—it was the landlady who had told his ma—and they were so indignant they all gave notice and left, except some that didn’t care and stopped, and were so nasty his ma had to leave. i heard him tell the story, and that’s how i knew, and it was remembering that that made me drop the conversation before i put my foot in it in the same way.
when i got downstairs, the swedish gentleman was talking to harry, and telling him some of the wonderful adventures he and mr. saxon had had abroad, and we sat talking till it was closing time. then the swedish gentleman said, “i must go upstairs to the governor and get all his medicines out.{89}”
“all his medicines!” i said. “why, how many does he take?”
“oh, it’s awful!” said the swedish gentleman. “we have to carry a whole portmanteau full everywhere. there’s the medicine for his dyspepsia, and the medicine for his liver, and the embrocation for his rheumatics, and the wash for his hair, and three different sorts of pills, and a tonic, and now he takes powdered charcoal, and we have to carry a great bottle full of that—and i have to put them all out, so that he can find them directly he wants them—and then there are his clothes to unpack and his books. i tell you we shall want a furniture-van to take us about soon.”
the swedish gentleman went upstairs, and presently he came down again looking as white as death.
“oh, mrs. beckett,” he said, “whatever shall i do? look here.” he held up a lot of underclothing all smothered with black patches.
“why, whatever is it?” i said.
“it’s the bottles broken in the portmanteau,” he said. “the governor kept worrying me so while i was packing i didn’t know if i was on my head or my heels, and i’ve put the bottle of powdered charcoal and the bottle of cod liver oil too close together, and they’ve broken each other in the jolting, and mixed and run about all over the clothes.”
it was a nice mess, and no mistake. the cod liver oil and the charcoal had made a nasty, sticky blacking, and smothered everything.
“whatever shall i do?” said the swedish gentleman. “if the governor finds it out he’ll go on at me for a month.”
i thought a minute, and then i said, “well, sir, the best thing will be for me to have them all washed to-morrow. i’ll get them done at once and sent home. perhaps he won’t want them before they’re ready.”
he left the things with me and went upstairs again to put the medicines out, and then we went upstairs to bed. passing mr. saxon’s door i knocked just to ask him about breakfast in the morning, and when i opened the door he was dancing about in an awful rage, and the swedish{90} gentleman was standing in the middle of the room looking the picture of misery.
mr. saxon was shouting out, “i can’t sleep without it—you know i can’t! not one wink shall i have this blessed night. it’s murder, downright cold-blooded, brutal murder, and you’re my murderer!”
“well, sir,” said the swedish gentleman, “you didn’t tell me the bottle was empty. it’s in a wooden case for travelling, and i couldn’t see it was empty.”
“what is it you want, sir?” i said. “if it’s anything i can get you——”
“oh, i dare say you can get it me!” exclaimed mr. saxon, “i’ve no doubt you keep it on draught! do you draw bromide of potassium in people’s own jugs?”
“bro—— what, sir?”
“bromide of potassium. i have to take it every night. i must. my nerves are in such a state, i can’t sleep without it; and this gentleman, knowing that, has let me come away without it. i sha’n’t go to bed. i’ll sit up all night. if i go to bed i shall go mad, because i sha’n’t be able to go to sleep. go to bed, all of you. i’ll go out for a walk. there’s a forest near here; i can roam about that all night. i must do something, for i can’t go to sleep without my bromide of potassium.”
“oh,” i said, “perhaps the country air will make you sleep.”
“no, it won’t,” he said; and he began to put on his hat and coat. “i must go and walk about the forest all night. if i get tired i can hang myself to the branch of a tree.”
“oh, please don’t do that,” i said, for i knew i shouldn’t sleep a wink thinking of him roaming about the forest in his excited state.
“oh, very well,” he said, taking off his hat and coat and flinging them down on the floor, “then perhaps you’ll tell me what i am to do. i won’t go to bed and lie awake all night. it’s too awful.”
the swedish gentleman, who was looking awfully worried, let him go on, and, when he’d done, he said quietly—
“don’t put yourself out like that, sir; you’ll only be ill all day to-morrow. let me go to a chemist’s.{91}”
i was just going to say that there wasn’t a chemist’s in the village, and the doctor lived a mile and a half away, when i saw that the swedish gentleman was trying to make signs to me not to say anything, so i held my tongue.
at first mr. saxon refused. he said he wasn’t going to have a respectable chemist dragged out of his warm bed at that time of night because he was surrounded with idiots; but the swedish gentleman quieted him a bit, and then beckoned me to come outside.
when the door was shut he said, “come downstairs with me, mrs. beckett, and show me a light, please.”
“yes, sir,” i said; “but you’ll have to go a mile and a half to get what you want.”
“no, i sha’n’t,” he said. “come downstairs to the parlour.”
when we got there he pulled the empty medicine bottle out of his pocket, and said, “get me some cold water.”
i got him some cold water, and he put it in a tumbler. then he said, “give me a little salt.”
i gave him the salt, and he put it in the water. then he mixed it up well with a spoon, and then he tasted it. “that’ll do,” he said. then he poured it into the medicine-bottle, and corked it up.
“now,” he said, “i’ll put on my hat and coat, and you let me out and bang the door loud.”
i did, and waited five minutes; and then he knocked, and i let him in.
he was quite out of breath.
“why, you’ve been running!” i said.
“yes; i’ve been running up and down outside to make me look as if i’d been a long way. now, i’ll go upstairs and give the governor his bromide of potassium.”
“but it’s salt and water.”
“never mind; he’ll think it’s the bromide, and that’s all that’s necessary. i know mr. saxon, and i know how to manage him.”
and he did certainly, for the next morning, when i went to take breakfast up to the sitting-room, there was mr. saxon looking quite jolly, and he said he’d had the best night’s rest he’d had for a year.{92}
“and if i hadn’t had the bromide,” he said, “i shouldn’t have closed my eyes all night.”
the swedish gentleman never let a muscle of his face move, but i caught him looking at me, and there was a twinkle in his light blue eyes that said a good deal.
there was no doubt about his understanding mr. saxon, and knowing how to manage him.
* * * * *
the next evening mr. saxon hadn’t any work to do, and so after dinner he and the swedish gentleman came and sat in the bar-parlour along with mr. wilkins and the company, and he and the swedish gentleman joined in the conversation, and they both told such wonderful stories that it made our village people open their eyes. mr. wilkins generally had all the talk, but he had to sit still because mr. saxon didn’t let him get a word in edgeways when he was once fairly started.
of course he must talk about awful things—things to make your blood curdle—it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t do that; and the stories he told made what hair mr. wilkins had on his head stand upright, he being a very nervous man, and believing in ghosts and supernatural things.
“do you believe in ghosts?” said mr. saxon.
“well, i do to a certain extent,” said mr. wilkins; “but i’ve never seen one.”
“you’ve never had a conversation with a dead man?”
“lor’, no,” said mr. wilkins, “nor nobody else, i should think.”
“yes,” said mr. saxon, “i have.”
we were all silent directly, and i began to feel creepy, and as if somebody was breathing on the back of my neck, which is a feeling i always have when people begin to tell ghost stories.
“i’ll tell you about it,” said mr. saxon; and then he began. of course i can’t tell it in his own words, because i had to write it down from memory afterwards, but this is something like it.
“when i was a young fellow,” said mr. saxon, “and a clerk in my father’s office in the city, i used to knock about a good deal of an evening and see life, and as my{93} father and mother wouldn’t let me have a latchkey, and didn’t like me coming in at all hours, i left home, and went to live by myself in lodgings in a street running off the camden-road. there were a lot of other young fellows living in the house—all of them lads studying for veterinary surgeons at the royal veterinary college in great college-street. lots of the houses in this neighbourhood were filled with these young fellows, as many of them came up from the country for the ‘term,’ and, of course, wanted to live near the college.
“one of the nicest of them, and my particular friend, was charley ransom. he was a good-looking lad about eighteen, but very reckless, and a good deal fonder of billiard-rooms, and betting, and music-halls, than he was of work. he’d been up for an examination and failed, and he told me that his old dad down in the country was very wild with him, and that if he didn’t pass this term he would have to go back home and go into an office as a clerk.
“he made up his mind to try, but he was in with a bad set, and they got him out of an evening when he ought to be studying, and unfortunately he was a fellow that a very little drink made excited, and then he lost his head, and no freak was too mad for him.
“at this time i had just begun to get things that i wrote put into the newspapers, and as i had to be at the city all day, i used to go straight home and shut myself up in my room, and work till very late, sometimes till one in the morning; but i always went out for a walk before going to bed, no matter what time it was when i left off.
“once or twice when i was going out i met ransom coming in, looking very queer, and walking very unsteady, and from that, and what the landlord told me, i knew he was ‘going wrong.’
“one sunday morning i met him in park-street, and we walked into the park together, and i ventured to say i thought it was a pity he didn’t try and settle down and be steady, as i was sure he’d never pass his exam. the way he was going on, and he might be wrecking all his future life.
“he took my advice in good part, and said i was quite{94} right, but he couldn’t help it. he’d got a lot of trouble, and he was up a tree.
“‘what is it?’ i said. ‘tell me; i may be able to help you.’
“‘no; you can’t, old fellow,’ and then he told me his trouble, and a very dreadful one it was. it seems he’d been squandering money and gambling, and had got into debt, and, not wanting his father to know, he’d raised money. he wouldn’t tell me how, because he said it would incriminate another fellow; but i knew it was in some way that might land him in a police-court.
“he had hoped to have got the money again, poor lad; he’d been betting to get it back again, but he’d only got deeper into the mire, and now every day might bring exposure, disgrace, and ruin.
“i was very sorry, but i couldn’t help him. i hadn’t any money to spare. all i could do was to beg him to write to his father, tell him everything, and get assistance there.
“this he refused to do. i found out afterwards that his father had sustained heavy losses, and was himself in straitened circumstances.
“two nights afterwards, while i was at work, there came a knock at my door, and one of the young fellows came in. ‘oh, mr. saxon,’ he said, ‘such a terrible thing’s happened! charley ransom’s poisoned himself accidentally.’ as soon as i had recovered from the shock ransom’s friend told me all about it. charley, who had been suffering with a troublesome cough, carried a bottle of ‘drops’ in his pocket, which he took when the cough was bad. that afternoon he had had a small bottle filled with poison which he was going to use in a chemical experiment. it was supposed that, the cough coming on, he had by mischance taken the poison instead of the drops. he had been found lying in an insensible state in the lavatory of a billiard-room in park-street, and had been taken to the hospital.
“i guessed the truth at once. in a moment of despair and desperation ransom had committed suicide.
“i went to the hospital that evening to make inquiries. i was told that the case was almost hopeless, and that death might be expected at any moment.{95}
“the landlord telegraphed to charley’s father, and the next day the poor old gentleman came up. he was allowed to see his son, but the lad was unconscious, and, being able to do nothing, the father came away.
“that night a message came to the house from the hospital.
“ransom was dead!
“the next morning, when i got to the city, i found my father there before me. he called me into his office and told me i must pack up at once and go to the south of france. my mother was there with my two sisters, and both of them had been attacked with scarlet fever. my mother wanted me to go out to her at once, as she did not like to be there alone with this anxiety on her mind.
“i returned to my lodgings, and, as i should probably be away some time, i paid my rent and a week in lieu of notice, and left. i was not at all sorry to turn my back upon the place, for ransom’s terrible fate had made me very miserable.
“i went to nice, and when i got there soon found something to distract my thoughts from ransom. my sisters were seriously ill. for a month it was a battle between life and death, and it was two months before they could be moved. in this fresh trouble i forgot all about poor charley. under any other circumstances, i should have tried to get the english newspapers, and have watched for the inquest.
“when my sisters were well enough to travel we returned to london, but only for a day, as they were to go at once to the seaside. i went down with them to eastbourne, which was the place recommended by the doctors.
“the first evening that we were there, after dinner i strolled out. it was just twilight, and, lighting my pipe, i turned away from the sea, and walked along the road leading to the links. the quietness of the country, and the stillness of the night, set me meditating, and i began to think of charley ransom. i was tired with my walk, and i sat down on a seat under one of the big trees, and was soon lost in reverie.
“how long i sat there i don’t know, but presently i{96} became conscious that somebody was sitting beside me. i struck a match to relight my pipe, which had gone out, and the light of the vesta fell full on the face of the man who was my companion.
“i could not speak—for a second i could not move. it was no human being that sat beside me. the face i saw was the white face of death—the face of the man who had poisoned himself and died in a london hospital—the face of charley ransom!
“i rose with an effort, and walked—almost ran—away. i am not ashamed to confess that in that moment of horror i was an absolute, abject coward. i walked on at full speed until i got to the town and saw the lights of the shops, and mixed with the crowd, and then only i began to recover myself.
“i said to myself that i had been deceived by my imagination—that there was nobody by me on that seat. i had been thinking of ransom, and had imagined that i saw him. such things, i knew, had often occurred to imaginative people.
“by the time i reached home i was convinced that i had been the victim of an hallucination.
“i determined to conquer my folly, and the next evening i went to the same place and sat down. there was no one there. the road was lonely and deserted. i sat on till it was dark, and no one came. i rose to go. i walked a little distance away, and then i turned round.
“there was a man on the seat now. i walked back again—trembling, but determined to know the truth. when i came within a few yards i could see the man’s face.
“it was that white, dead face again—it was the face of charley ransom!
“with a supreme effort i went right up to the ghost. its head was bent a little, its eyes were on the ground.
“‘ransom!’ i said.
“the face was slowly lifted. the strange lack-lustre eyes looked into mine.
“it was the dead man’s ghost!
“one look was sufficient to convince me, and then i took to my heels and fairly bolted.{97}
“laugh at me, if you will—call me a coward—but put yourself in my place, and say what you would have done. one doesn’t stop to reason—one doesn’t think of what a ghost can do, and what it can’t. the sight of a man you know to be dead and buried sitting within arm’s-length of you is enough to shock the nervous system of a brave man—and a brave man i am not, and never was.
“i didn’t go that walk again. no power on earth would have tempted me to pass, after the sun had gone down, that haunted seat. that, mr. wilkins, is the ghost i saw and spoke to—the ghost of the man who took poison and died in the hospital—the ghost of my fellow-lodger, charley ransom.”
“awful!” said mr. wilkins, as mr. saxon finished.
i didn’t say anything, but that ghostly blowing on the back of my neck was worse than ever, and i made up my mind that we’d burn a nightlight that night. i couldn’t sleep in the dark with mr. saxon’s ghost in my head, i was sure of that.
harry was the first to speak. “i suppose you did see it, sir?” he said. “but why should mr. ransom’s ghost come all the way to eastbourne after you?”
“ah!” said mr. saxon; “i’ll tell you why. it had been ordered there for change of air.”
“a ghost ordered to eastbourne for change of air?”
“yes; it seems that the man who had died in the hospital that night was a man named lansom. by one of those mischances which will sometimes happen, there was a confusion through the similarity of the names, and a messenger was sent to ransom’s friends and ransom’s address to give information of his death.”
“the mistake wasn’t rectified till after i had left the next day. it was nobody’s business to write to me, and nobody knew where i was, so i didn’t hear of it. ransom got better, and, when he was well enough to be moved, was sent to eastbourne. it was ransom, and not his ghost, that i had seen on the seat. the deathly look of the face was due to the effect of the poison he had taken.”
“and he wasn’t punished?” i said.
“no; the poison was supposed to have been taken acci{98}dentally, for nothing came out about his trouble. the young fellow who had got him into it made a clean breast of it to the other fellows, and the students at the college, like the good-hearted fellows they are, in spite of their little failings, made a subscription and paid the man who could have prosecuted all that was due to him.”
“three cheers for the vets.!” said harry.
“quite so,” said mr. saxon; “i’ve known a good many in my time, and, take them altogether, a better set of fellows, though a bit noisy now and again, doesn’t exist.”
* * * * *
i’ve been able to finish mr. saxon’s story without being interrupted, for a wonder. i shouldn’t have used it here, only it’s a little triumph for me to have got something out of him for my book. he’s got plenty out of other people. i don’t suppose he thought when he was telling it to make mr. wilkins’s hair stand up that i was taking it all in to use for my book. he can’t say anything, because it’s the way he’s served other people all his life. tit for tat, mr. saxon—and one to mary jane.
