The Last Tenant
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"It is singular," I said. "The number of the house we are going to is 79, and the presumption is that there are other houses in the terrace, with people living in them, yet there is no list of them in this directory."
My wife turned over the pages, but could find no further reference to the place.
"It is rather singular," she said, and handed me back the book.
A few minutes afterward we were on our way, having been informed by Mr. Gascoigne on the previous day that a North Star 'bus would take us to the neighborhood in which it was situated.
"How many houses are we going to look over?" I inquired.
"Only one," replied my wife, "and if that doesn't suit us I really don't know what we shall do."
With all my heart I wished that it would not suit us. Reluctant as I had been, when we first commenced these wearisome journeys, to remove from our old home, I felt now, after the experiences I had gone through, that it would be a positive misfortune.
Lamb's Terrace was not easy to find. The conductor of the North Star 'bus knew nothing of it, and said he had best take us as far as his conveyance went, and set us down. This was done, no other course suggesting itself to us; he took us as far as he went, and then cast us adrift upon the world. We made inquiries of many persons, and the replies we received added to our confusion. Women especially set their tongues wagging with astonishing recklessness, for they were totally ignorant of the subject upon which they were offering an opinion. But they gave instructions and advice, which we followed, for the reason that we did not know what else we could do. Some said they thought Lamb's Terrace must lie in this direction; we went in this direction, and did not find it. Others said it must lie in that direction; and we went in that direction, with the same result. We requested sundry cabmen to drive us to 79 Lamb's Terrace, and they nodded their heads cheerfully and asked where Lamb's Terrace was. We could not inform them. "Do you know Lamb's Terrace?" they asked their comrades, who scratched their heads and passed the question along the rank, and eventually said they were blarmed (or something worse) if they did. The consequence was that they lost a fare, and that we were cast adrift again.
At length, after tramping about for nearly two hours, we found ourselves in what I can only describe as a locality which had lost its place in civilized society. It was deplorably desolate and forlorn, and its dismal aspect suggested the thought that it had been abandoned in despair. Fields had been dug up, but not leveled; roads had been marked out, but not formed; buildings had been commenced, but not proceeded with. Rubbish had been shot there freely. Empty cans, battered out of shape, broken bottles, dead branches, musty rags, useless pieces of iron and wood, and the worst refuse of the dustbin, lay all around. If there had ever been a time in its history-and it seemed as if there had been, and not so very long ago-when it deserved to be regarded as a region of good intentions, its character was gone entirely, and it could now only be regarded as a region of desolation. Wandering about this mournful region, my wife suddenly exclaimed:
"Why, here it is!"
And there it was. A narrow thoroughfare, not wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other, with the words "Lamb's Terrace" faintly discernible on the crumbling stones.
"Shall we go on?" I asked.
"Of course we will go on," replied my wife. "What did we come out for? And after the trouble we have had to get here!"
We turned at once into the narrow lane. On the right-hand side was a gloomy house, untenanted. Beyond this was a long wall, very much out of repair. On the opposite side there were no houses at all, but another long wall, also very much out of repair. I searched for the number of the gloomy untenanted house, but could not see one, and my wife suggested that the house we wanted was lower down. We went lower down, and passed the gloomy house a distance of fifty or sixty yards, between the said walls. So still and deathlike was everything around, and so secluded did Lamb's Terrace appear to be that I regarded it as being not only lost to society, but almost out of the world.
I glanced at my wife, and saw on her face no traces of disappointment. Her spirits were not so easily dashed as mine.
Having traversed these fifty or sixty yards we came to the end of the right-hand wall. Adjoining it was a large building, in rueful harmony with all the depressing characteristics of the neighborhood. The house was approached by a front garden choked up with weeds and rank grass, and inclosed by rusty and broken railings; at the end of this garden was a flight of stone steps. The gate creaked on its hinges as I pushed it open, and a prolonged wheeze issued from the joints; the sound was ludicrously and painfully human, and resembled that which might have been uttered by a rheumatic old woman in pain. My wife pushed past me, and I followed her up the flight of stone steps.
"There is a number on the door," she said, tiptoeing. "Yes, here it is, 79, almost rubbed out."
"Numbers 1 to 78," I grimly remarked, "must be somewhere round the corner, if there is any round the corner in the neighborhood; they are perhaps two or three miles off."
"My dear," said my wife bravely, "don't be prejudiced. Here is the house; what we have to do is to see whether it will suit us."
"You would not care to go into it alone," I said.
"I should not," she admitted, with praiseworthy candor; "but that is not to the point."
I thought it was; but I did not argue the matter. She had removed from the keys as much rust as she could, and had had the foresight to bring with her a small bottle of oil, without the aid of which I doubt if we should have been able to turn the key in the lock. After a deal of trouble this was accomplished, and the mysterious tenement was open to us; as the door creaked upon its hinges, the sound that tortured my ears was infinitely more lugubrious than that which had issued from the gate, and it produced upon me the same impression of human resemblance. When we entered the hall I asked my wife whether I should close the street door.
"Certainly," she said. "Why not?"
I did not answer her. Have her way she would, and it was useless to argue with her. I closed the door, and felt as if I had entered a tomb.
The entrance hall was spacious, and shaped like an alcove; there was a door on the right, and another on the left; in the center was a wide staircase, leading to the rooms above; farther along the passage was a masked door, leading to the rooms below.
"Upstairs or downstairs first?" I inquired.
"Downstairs," my wife replied.
The stairs to the basement were very dark, and my wife, prepared for all such emergencies, produced a candle and matches. Lighting the candle we descended to the stone passage. There was a dreary and gloomy kitchen; there was a large scullery, a larder and all necessary offices, cobwebbed and musty; also two rooms which could be used as living rooms. The glass-paneled doors of both these rooms opened out into the back garden, which was in worse condition and more choked up with weeds, and rank grass, and monstrous creepers than the ground in front of the house; two greenhouses were at the extreme end, and there were some trees dotted about, but whether they were fruit trees it was impossible to say without a closer examination.
"I don't think," said my wife, "we will go over the garden just now. It looks as if it was full of creeping things."
"The rooms we have seen are not much better, Maria."
"They are not, indeed; I never saw a place in such a dreadful state."
I was more than ordinarily depressed. As a rule these expeditions invariably had a dispiriting effect upon me, but I had never felt so melancholy as I did on this occasion. I made no inquiry into my wife's feelings; I considered it best that she should work out the matter for herself; the chances of my emerging a victor from the contest in which we were engaged would be all the more promising.
We ascended to the hall, and then I observed to my wife that we had forgotten to examine the stabling and the wine cellar; we had even neglected the coal cellars.
"We won't bother about them to-day," she said, and despite my despondency I inwardly rejoiced.
I had also learned to prepare myself for the trials of this house-hunting. In my side pocket were two flasks, one containing water, the other brandy. I had often grown faint during our wanderings, and a sup of brandy now and then had kept up my strength. I saw that my wife was lower spirited than usual, and I mixed some spirits and water in the tin cup attached to one of the flasks. She accepted the refreshment eagerly, and I took a larger draught myself, and was much cheered by it.
"It always," said my wife, in a brighter tone, "makes one feel rather faint to look over a house which has been empty a long time, especially a house which is so far away from-from any others."
"It is almost as if we were in a grave," I observed.
"How can you say such dreadful things!" she retorted. "If I were a man I should have more courage."
There were three rooms on the ground floor, each of considerable dimensions, and all in shocking dilapidation. The paper had peeled off the walls, and was hanging in tattered strips to the ground; quantities of plaster had dropped from the ceilings, and here and there the bare rafters were exposed; there were holes in the flooring; the grates were cracked, the hearths broken up.
"A hundred pounds," I observed, "would not go far toward making this house habitable."
"It wouldn't be half enough," said my wife.
Upon quitting the dining room I inquired whether she wished to go any further.
"I am going," she said stoutly, "all over the house."
Upstairs we went to the first floor, where we found the rooms in a similar condition to those below.
"Disgraceful!" exclaimed my wife. "No wonder the landlord was indignant with the last tenant."
In due course we found ourselves on the second floor, and we stood in a large room, the windows of which faced the garden in the rear. I had opened the door of this room with difficulty, and the moment we entered it slammed to, which I ascribed to the wind blowing through some broken panes. By this time I perceived plainly that my wife's spirits were down to zero, and I was comforted by the reflection that looking over a house so wretched, so forlorn, so woe-begone, would, after all we had gone through, be the last straw that would break the back of her determination to move. We had been in the house about half an hour, and nothing but her indomitable spirit had sustained her in the trying ordeal.
In the room in which we were now standing there were two bell-pulls; one was broken, the other appeared to be in workable condition. It was not to prove this, but out of an idle humor as I thought at the time-though I was afterward inclined to change my opinion, and to ascribe the action to a spiritual impulse-that I stepped to the unbroken bell-pull, and gave it a jerk. It is not easy to describe what followed. Bells jangled and tolled and clanged as though I had set in motion a host in of infernal and discordant tongues of metal, and had raised the dead from their graves to take part in the harsh concert, for indeed there seemed to be something horribly fiendish, in the discord, which was at once hoarse, strident, shrill, and sepulchral, and finally resolved itself into a low, muffled wail which ran through the house like a funereal peal. With the exception of our own voices and footsteps and the slamming of the doors we had opened and shut, these were the only sounds we had heard, and they brought a chill to our hearts.
"How awful!" whispered my wife.
I nodded, and held up my hand. The last echo of the bells had died away, and now there came another sound, so startling and appalling that my wife clutched me in terror.
"My God!" she cried; "someone is coming upstairs!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANSWER TO THE BELL
We stood transfixed with fear.
As I have said, we were on the second floor, and the sound which now filled us with apprehension proceeded from the lower part of the house. It was very faint, and I judged-though in such circumstances but small reliance could be placed upon any judgment I may have formed-that if human feet produced it they must have been encased in soft shoes or slippers. It has ever since been to me a matter for wonder how a sound so fine could have reached our ears from that distance. It must have been that our senses, refined instead of dulled by the despair which held us spellbound, were preternaturally sharpened to catch the note of warning which at any other time would have been inaudible.
At the moment, therefore, of my wife's frenzied exclamation I inferred that the feet had left the kitchen and were on the stairs leading from the basement to the hall. If my surmise was correct there were still two flights of stairs to ascend before the full horror of the incident would be revealed to us.
I have described the impression produced upon me when we first turned into Lamb's Terrace, of being, as it were, cut off from the world. There was not an inhabited house near us. We had not seen a human being in the thoroughfare, and, as the prospect, from the windows of the room in which we now stood, stretched across a bare and desolate waste of ground, there was absolutely no hope of any helpful response being made to our appeals for assistance.
The possibilities of the peril in which we had placed ourselves presented themselves vividly to my agitated mind. The house, having been for so many years deserted by its proper tenant, might have become the haunt of desperate characters who would shrink from no deed, however ruthless, to secure their safety; who might even hail with satisfaction the intrusion of respectable persons who had unconsciously put themselves in their power. Supposing that these evil-doers were concealed in the lower rooms when we entered, they could rob and murder us with little fear of discovery. But there was also the consoling reflection that they might be in the house with no sinister designs, and that their only anxiety now was to escape from a building into which they had made an unlawful entrance. This would soon be put to the proof. If, when they were on the landing of the ground floor, we heard the street door open and shut, the fears which oppressed us would be dispelled, and we should be able to breathe freely.
I perceived that my wife was animated by a similar hope, and we both strained our ears in the endeavor to follow with our terrified senses the progress of the sound.
It ceased awhile on the ground floor, and we listened in agonized suspense for the click of a latch and the harsh creak of rusty hinges, but no such comforting sounds reached our ears, and presently the dead silence was broken by the soft pit-pat of footsteps on the stairs leading to the first floor. My wife's hold upon me tightened.
"We are lost!" she moaned. "What shall we do-oh, what shall we do?"
I had no weapon about me with the exception of a small penknife, which was practically useless in such an encounter as that in which I expected soon to be engaged. A peaceful citizen like myself had no need to carry weapons. I looked around the room for one. There was not an article of furniture in it-not a stick. I would have given the world for an ax or a piece of iron with which I could have made some kind of defense. We were absolutely helpless and powerless, and it was my terror that made me certain that we were threatened by more than one enemy. To go from the room and meet the persons who were advancing toward us would be an act of madness, and would in all probability but hasten our fate. We must remain where we were, and wait for events; no reasonable alternative was open to us.
Pat, pat, pat, came the sound to our ears; nearer, nearer, nearer; not boldly, as if those from whom it proceeded were engaged upon an open and honest mission, but stealthily and covertly, as though they desired all knowledge of their movements to be concealed from their victims.
The footsteps had now reached the landing of the first floor and, after another deathlike pause, commenced to ascend the stairs which led directly to us.
"Can't you do something, Edward?" whispered my agonized wife, wringing her hands. "Can't you lock the door?"
It is strange that the fact of the door being unlocked had not occurred to me before. I rushed to it instantly, and a sigh of intense relief escaped me at finding the key in the lock. I turned it like lightning, and we were so far safe. Then my wife flew to the window, and, throwing it open, began to scream for help-that is to say, she would have screamed if she had had the power, but her voice was almost frozen in her throat, and the sounds that issued from her were of a ravenlike hoarseness, and could have traveled but a few yards; too short a distance in our lonely situation to be of any practical value. Soon I added my shouts to her hoarse scream. They were sent forth to a dead world; to our frantic appeals no answer was made.
Meanwhile, occupied as I was, I could still pay some attention to what was passing on the stairs that led to the room. I had indulged in a faint hope that our cries would alarm those without, and would induce them to forego their murderous attack upon us, but the stealthy pat, pat, pat of the footsteps continued, and were now in the middle of the staircase; there could be but a few more stairs to ascend. Still another hope remained-that when the footsteps reached the second landing they would proceed onward to the top of the house. This last hope, like those which had preceded it, was not fulfilled. Nearer, nearer, nearer they approached, until they were close to the door; then there was another pause; no further sounds were heard.
My impression now was that the villains who had a design against us-for by this time I entertained no doubt of their diabolical purpose, and that we were in the direst peril-were making preparations to carry it into effect. Presently they would try the handle of the door, and, discovering that it was locked, would burst it open and spring upon us.
A long and awful silence ensued, during which the agonizing question occupied my mind, what was being done outside the door? The torture of the suspense was maddening; the silence was more harrowing than the footsteps themselves had been. I was soon to receive an appalling answer to the question.
The door-notwithstanding my firm belief that I had securely locked it-slowly and noiselessly opened. My heart beat wildly, but I held myself ready, so far as lay in my poor power, to meet the attack with which we were threatened. And now the door stood wide open, and I saw no form of man or woman. But gradually there shaped itself in the air the outline of a female shape, a shadow, which as I gazed grew more distinct, and yet was never quite vivid to my sight. It was the figure of a young girl, poorly dressed, with carpet slippers on her feet. Her hair was hanging loose, and the tattered remnants of a cap attached to it was an indication that her station in life was-or more properly speaking, had been-that of a domestic servant. Her face was white and wan, and her large gray eyes were fixed mournfully upon me. There was a dead beauty in their depths which seemed to speak of glowing hopes of youth prematurely blasted and destroyed, and, though the features of the apparition were but airy outlines, I could not fail to perceive that in a bygone time they had been comely and prepossessing.
More terrible than any form of living man or woman was this appalling spectacle as it stood, silent and still, upon the threshold. Had the bell I rang summoned it from the grave? For what purpose had it come? What did it require of me? It is probable that I should have mustered courage to ask some such questions as these, and indeed I was aware that my lips were moving, but no sound issued from them-my voice was gone; I could not utter an audible sound.
For several minutes, as it seemed to me, though it could not have been so long, did I continue to gaze upon the figure. I had directed a brief glance at its feet, but when my eyes traveled up to its face they became magnetized, as it were. The spell was broken by a movement on the ground, not proceeding from the apparition of the girl. I looked down, and there, gliding past the upright spectral figure, I saw creeping toward me a skeleton cat.
It was veritably a skeleton, and was to my sight as impalpable as the young girl. Through its skin, almost bare of hair, its bones were sharply outlined. It was black; its ears were pointed, its eyes were yellow, its mouth was open, showing its sharp teeth.
This second apparition added to my horror, which grew deeper and deeper as the cat, with gliding motion, approached me. Had its paws left upon the ground a bloody imprint I could not have been more awestricken. It paused a few inches from me, where it crouched motionless so long as I remained so. When I moved it accompanied me, and when I stopped it stopped, waiting for a mandate from me to set it in motion.
Raising my eyes to the door I discovered to my amazement that the figure of the girl had vanished. Nerving myself to the effort, I stepped softly into the passage and gazed along and at the staircases above and below me, but saw no movement of substance or shadow. Returning to the room I was irresistibly impelled by a desire to convince myself whether the cat which had accompanied me to and fro was as palpable to touch as to sight. Kneeling to put this to the test I found myself kneeling on my wife's dress. So engrossed had I been in the astounding apparitions that I had paid no attention to her, and now I saw that she had fainted. Before devoting myself to her I passed my hand over the cat and came in contact with nothing in the shape of substance. It was truly a specter, and I beheld it as clearly as I beheld the body of my wife lying at my side.
I took my flask from my pocket and bathed my wife's forehead, and poured a few drops of brandy and water down her throat, and I was presently relieved by seeing her eyes open. She closed them again immediately, and said, in a whisper:
"Is it gone?"
Anxious to learn what she had seen-for I inwardly argued that I might myself be the victim of a strange delusion-I met her inquiry by asking:
"Is what gone, Maria?"
"The girl," she murmured; "that dreadful figure that came into the room?"
"Look for yourself," I said.
It was not without apprehension that I made the request, and I nervously followed the direction of her eyes.
"It is not in the room," she sighed. "But, Edward, who opened the door?"
"The wind blew it open, most likely."
"You locked it, Edward! I heard you turn the key in the lock."
"I thought I did, but I must have been mistaken. Terrified as we were, how could we trust the evidence of our senses? And do you suppose there's a lock in the house in proper order?"
"It must have been my fancy. Did you see nothing?"
How should I answer her? Revive her terror by telling her that she was under no delusion, but that the spectral figure of the young girl had really presented itself; or, out of kindness to her, strive to banish her fears by a pardonable falsehood?
Before I decided how to act I felt it necessary to ascertain whether the cat lying in full view to me was visible to her.
"Maria," I said, "take the evidence of your senses. Look round the room-at the door, at the walls, at the ceiling, on the floor-and tell me what you see."
With timid eyes she obeyed, and glanced in every direction, not omitting the spot upon which the skeleton cat was lying.
"I don't see anything, Edward."
"Does not that prove that the figure you spoke of was a trick of the imagination?"
"You actually saw nothing?"
"Nothing."
All this time she had been sitting on the floor, keeping tight hold of me. I assisted her to her feet; she was so weak that she could hardly stand.
"For Heaven's sake!" she said "do not let us remain in the house another minute."
I was as anxious to leave as she was, and had I been alone I should have rushed downstairs in blind haste, but I had to attend to my wife. The power of rapid motion had deserted her, and when we were about to pass through the passage she shrunk back, fearing that the apparition of the young girl was lurking there. She experienced the same fear as we descended the stairs, and clung to me in terror when we approached an open door. I was grateful that the apparition of the cat-which followed us faithfully down to the hall-was invisible to her; if it had not been she would have lost her senses again, and it would have been hard work for me to carry her out, as she is by no means of a light weight.