Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

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“No, sir, I won't deceive you. If you are wanting rooms, as you say, for a permanency, and think of buying good furniture that would get knocked about and ruined in moving, and settling down comfortably in the next lodgings you take, you had better not come here.”

“Why, are you going to leave the house?”

“My husband is answerable for the rent for nearly two years longer,” replied Mrs. Tippens evasively. “No, sir, it is not that; I wish it was.”

“Have you any infectious illness in the place?”

“I'd rather have smallpox,” broke out Mrs. Tippens, who felt she could endure her trouble no longer in silence. “We might get rid of that, but we can't get rid of old Mrs. Jones.”

“Who is she—a lodger?”

“Worse than the worst of lodgers, sir; a lodger can do no more than owe rent, or at the most take things that don't belong to him; but Mrs. Jones pays no rent, and wants to live in every room in the house, and as fast as new lodgers come and we think we are going to be a bit comfortable at last, drives them to give notice. Fever and ague would be small evils in comparison to old Mrs. Jones, and why she torments us so I can't imagine, we never did the woman any injury; and as for her money I am sure if it was lying in bags of gold and silver at my feet I wouldn't touch a coin of it.”

The two men stared at each other in amazement, then the elder said solemnly: “In Heaven's name, who is Mrs. Jones?”

“She was the wife of a Doctor Jones, sir. He once rented this house. He and she disappeared the same night, and have never been heard of since.”

“But I thought you said she lived here?”

“No, sir; I don't know where she lives, if she is living at all; but this is the way of it, one set of lodgers after another say they are very sorry but they can't stop on account of old Mrs. Jones. They either meet her on the stairs, or she takes a chair at the table when they are having their dinner, or she goes into their bedroom with a light in her hand, and then my cousin must get dreaming about her and, as you saw, was taken bad the moment she crossed the threshold of this room. I am sure, sir, I never did believe in ghosts and suchlike before we came here, but I can't disbelieve now, after what I've heard; and so I tell you not to take the apartments or to go to any expense buying furniture, for you wouldn't stop—I know you wouldn't—a fortnight is the longest anybody ever stays now.”

“That settles the matter, we'll come, and we'll stay longer. For my own part I have always rather wanted to see a ghost and—”

“Oh, don't talk that way, please, sir.”

“Well, at any rate, we'll pay you for the rooms for a month certain, and if you can do our cooking and make us a little comfortable, we won't quarrel about terms.”

“But I don't think you exactly understand, sir.”

“Yes I do, and I trust we shall know more about old Mrs. Jones than we do now before we are much older.”

“I hope you won't buy good furniture, sir, till you have been here a few days; I can spare enough just to make the place tidy for you to come into.” And so it was settled; the young men, after saying they would like to take possession the same evening, put a month's rent and money to provide grocery and so forth into Mrs. Tippens' reluctant hand, and departed.

“Let what will happen, they can't say I did not warn them,” thought Mrs. Tippens, as she hurried off to see whether Anne Jane had been able to attend to the potatoes or if they were boiled to pulp.

Meantime the friends, walking along the street together, remarked, “What a strange-looking girl that young woman who so nearly fainted.”

“Yes, cataleptic I shouldn't wonder; did you notice what a faraway, unseeing sort of expression there was in her eyes.”

“I did; and what a thick white complexion, if I may use the term.”

“That is a queer notion about old Mrs. Jones; we must get Mrs. Tippens up to make tea for us some night and hear all the rights of the story.”

“And I'll take the liberty of putting fresh locks on the doors.”

“You think it is somebody playing tricks, then?”

“Of course; what else can it be. You don't believe in disembodied spirits taking up their abode in brick and mortar houses, I suppose?”

It was a strange thing, as Mrs. Tippens often subsequently remarked, that from the time the new lodgers, who were medical students, took possession of the first-floor, people seemed able to stay in the other parts of the house. Where old Mrs. Jones had gone, and what old Mrs. Jones was doing, could only, Mrs. Tippens felt, be matter for conjecture; one comfort, she ceased to roam about the rooms and wander up and down the staircase; there were even times when Mrs. Tippens, passing through the hall, forgot to remember that sudden waft of cold air and the chilly hand laid on the back of her neck; she still—force of habit, perhaps—instinctively refrained from looking round, lest she should encounter the streaming grey hair and dark face and fierce black eyes of old Mrs. Jones; but at the end of a fortnight she began to feel, as she expressed the matter, “quite comfortable and easy in her mind.”

She had said something of this sort one evening to her cousin, and was waiting vainly for a reply, when Miss Tippens, without the slightest apparent reason, burst into a despairing fit of tears.

“What, crying? For the Lord's sake, girl, tell me what you are crying for,” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens. “Do, Anne, dear, if you are in any trouble, only trust it to me, and I'll help you all I can, and so will d**k. Who has vexed you?”

“It's—old—Mrs.—Jones,” sobbed Anne Jane. “I have tried hard for your sake, but I can't bear her any longer; I must go away—I must—I shall be a raving maniac if I stop in this house much longer. Why has she fastened on me?” asked Miss Tippens, looking at her relation with streaming eyes. “Oh, Lucy, why has she left everyone else in the house to give me no peace of my life—I can't sleep for dreaming of her—she is at my bedside every night wanting me to do something for her, or go to some place with her; and then the whole day long I keep trying to remember what she said and what she wanted, and I can't; no, Lucy, for no advantage to you, or any other human being, can I face the horror of her any longer.”

At Anne Jane's first words Mrs. Tippens' work dropped from her hands on to the floor, and during the delivery of this address she remained gazing at the speaker with a sort of fascinated terror; then she cried out:

“Oh, dear! oh, dear! and just when I thought we were all settling down so comfortably; what an awful old woman! But do you ever see her, Anne, except when you are asleep?”

“No, but I feel her round and about me. There's a chilliness blows on my neck, and a coldness creeps down my spine, and I seem always to know that there's somebody beside or behind me; it's dreadful—if it was to go on, I'd rather be dead and out of my misery at once.”

“Suppose I made you up a bed somewhere else,” suggested Mrs. Tippens.

“What would be the good? She's in every room in the house; she's up and down the stairs, and on the roof, and along the parapet, and—”

“Don't talk about her any more, you'll frighten me,” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens.

“And haven't I been frightened? How would you like to lie in the dark and know a woman—”

“Mrs. Tippens,” called a voice, which made both women jump.

“Lor!” exclaimed Mrs. Tippens, recovering herself, “you needn't be frightened, Anne, it's only Mr. Maldon—(yes, sir, I'm coming)—I remember he left word with little Lucy he wanted to see me before he went out this morning, and what with one thing and another I quite forgot it.” Having tendered which explanation, Mrs. Tippens hurried to the first floor, leaving Anne Jane sitting with her hands tightly folded and her great eyes fixed on vacancy, or—old Mrs. Jones.

“Close the door, if you please, Mrs. Tippens,” said Mr. Maldon, the elder of her two new lodgers, as, after her apologies for her forgetfulness, the nominal mistress of Dr. Jones' former residence stood waiting to hear what was wanted. “For some days past I have wished to speak to you alone. I only think it right to say—”

“Oh, sir, don't, for mercy's sake, say you've seen old Mrs. Jones too.” There was such an agony of entreaty in Mrs. Tippens' voice, the young man, who did not believe in ghosts, and had expressed a wish to see one, might well have been excused smiling, but he did not smile, he only answered:

“No, but I have seen something else.”

“What, sir?”

“Your cousin wandering about the house in her sleep.”

“In her sleep! When, Mr. Maldon?”

“Well, to go no further back, last night. I followed her up to the top of the house, and she was actually going out on the roof, when I gently took her by the arm and walked her down to her own room again. I am afraid she may do herself a mischief. I was careful not to wake her, but if she should be frightened, and wake suddenly, no one can tell what accident might happen. From the first I thought there was something strange in her appearance, but I should not have imagined she was a sleep-walker.”

“And what should you advise me to do, sir?” asked Mrs. Tippens earnestly, for this seemed to her a dreadful thing. For a respectable young woman—and she believed and felt certain Anne Jane to be as respectable a young woman as ever lived, a wise, prudent, sensible, virtuous girl—to go wandering in the middle of the night about a house in which there were lodgers, and be handed down the stairs and back to her own room by any man, young or old, was a matter which appeared in Mrs. Tippens' eyes so preposterous, so dreadful, she could scarcely realise it; she had not courage to inquire the fashion of the costume in which Anne Jane started to make her uncomfortable pilgrimage.

“I should advise you to take your cousin to some good medical man,” said Mr. Maldon, answering her spoken question. “There is no doubt she is from some cause thoroughly out of health, but meanwhile I should not say anything to her about this walking in her sleep; only you would do well to take the precaution of locking her door outside at night.”

“Oh! I couldn't do that,” answered Mrs. Tippens, “If she were my worst enemy, instead of my husband's first cousin, I couldn't lock her up in a room alone with old Mrs. Jones.”

“Oh — old Mrs. Jones!” exclaimed Mr. Maldon.

“Begging your pardon, sir, I don't think you would be right to say that about the worst of sinners, let alone a poor, ill-used lady that, if all accounts be true, led a most miserable life in this very house.”

“Yes, yes, that's all very well,” interrupted Mr. Maldon, “but don't you see, my good soul, this tendency of your cousin's explains the whole mystery; gets rid, in fact, of Mrs. Jones altogether.”

“In what way?” asked Mrs. Tippens.

“Why, only in one way, of course. Your lodgers had heard the story and thought your cousin walking in her sleep must be old Mrs. Jones.”

“Yes, sir, but my cousin never entered these doors till two days before yourself, and for nine months previous to that my lodgers were fainting and flitting on account of the woman who came into their room and met them on the stairs.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Maldon, in the tone of a man who feels his theory has no more substantial foundation than an air castle.

“Yes, sir, it is quite true,” answered Mrs. Tippens, a little triumphantly—since no one likes to be dispossessed of a point. “Anne Jane came up from Brighton the day but one before you took these lodgings. All the same, sir, I don't mind telling you that she can't get rest neither night nor day, because of old Mrs. Jones.”

“Dreams about her, eh?” suggested the medical student with alacrity.

“She has been crying her eyes out just now because she declares the old lady won't let her be. Stands at her bedside every night regular, wanting her to do something Anne Jane spends her days trying to remember.”

“Really an interesting case,” thought the future medical man, who added aloud: “Well, Mrs. Tippens, I can but repeat my advice, let your cousin see a good doctor, and lock her door on the outside.”

“I am sure, sir, I feel very thankful to you,” answered Mrs. Tippens, and she went downstairs and tossed up a very pretty little supper for d**k and her cousin, during the course of which meal she announced in a laughing way to her husband that Anne Jane was not very well, and felt a bit nervous, and that she, Luce, meant to sleep with their visitor; which information she accompanied with such sly looks and such a world of meaning in her face, that Tippens, looking up from the crab, cucumber, lettuce, and vinegar he was eating in disastrous quantities, answered shortly:

“All right, old girl.”

Consequently, Mrs. Tippens, for once, leaving the custody of her children with d**k, after having cleared away the supper things retired to rest with Miss Tippens.

Mrs. Tippens took the side of the bed next the door (which she locked), and firmly decided she would not go to sleep that night. For about an hour, or an hour and a half, she lay awake, thinking, as she afterwards said, “of all manner of things”; then she “fell over,” and did not awaken till the room was full of the light of a summer morning's early dawn.

For a moment she could not remember where she was; then she remembered, and stretching out her hand, found the place her cousin should have occupied empty and cold.

Anne Jane was gone, and Mrs. Tippens, rushing to the door, found it unlocked.

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