Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, Montague Rhodes James [best ereader under 100 .TXT] 📗

you

wrong, but I’ve got the idea that there’s something wrong in the

atmosphere of the library. I know this, that just before we found you I

was coming along the gallery with Davis, and I said to him, “Did ever you

know such a musty smell anywhere as there is about here? It can’t be

wholesome.” Well now, if one goes on living a long time with a smell of

that kind (I tell you it was worse than I ever knew it) it must get into

the system and break out some time, don’t you think?’

 

Garrett shook his head. ‘That’s all very well about the smell—but it

isn’t always there, though I’ve noticed it the last day or two—a sort of

unnaturally strong smell of dust. But no—that’s not what did for me. It

was something I saw. And I want to tell you about it. I went into that

Hebrew class to get a book for a man that was inquiring for it down

below. Now that same book I’d made a mistake about the day before. I’d

been for it, for the same man, and made sure that I saw an old parson in

a cloak taking it out. I told my man it was out: off he went, to call

again next day. I went back to see if I could get it out of the parson:

no parson there, and the book on the shelf. Well, yesterday, as I say, I

went again. This time, if you please—ten o’clock in the morning,

remember, and as much light as ever you get in those classes, and there

was my parson again, back to me, looking at the books on the shelf I

wanted. His hat was on the table, and he had a bald head. I waited a

second or two looking at him rather particularly. I tell you, he had a

very nasty bald head. It looked to me dry, and it looked dusty, and the

streaks of hair across it were much less like hair than cobwebs. Well, I

made a bit of a noise on purpose, coughed and moved my feet. He turned

round and let me see his face—which I hadn’t seen before. I tell you

again, I’m not mistaken. Though, for one reason or another I didn’t take

in the lower part of his face, I did see the upper part; and it was

perfectly dry, and the eyes were very deep-sunk; and over them, from the

eyebrows to the cheek-bone, there were cobwebs—thick. Now that closed

me up, as they say, and I can’t tell you anything more.’

 

*

 

What explanations were furnished by Earle of this phenomenon it does not

very much concern us to inquire; at all events they did not convince

Garrett that he had not seen what he had seen.

 

*

 

Before William Garrett returned to work at the library, the librarian

insisted upon his taking a week’s rest and change of air. Within a few

days’ time, therefore, he was at the station with his bag, looking for a

desirable smoking compartment in which to travel to Burnstow-on-Sea,

which he had not previously visited. One compartment and one only seemed

to be suitable. But, just as he approached it, he saw, standing in front

of the door, a figure so like one bound up with recent unpleasant

associations that, with a sickening qualm, and hardly knowing what he

did, he tore open the door of the next compartment and pulled himself

into it as quickly as if death were at his heels. The train moved off,

and he must have turned quite faint, for he was next conscious of a

smelling-bottle being put to his nose. His physician was a nice-looking

old lady, who, with her daughter, was the only passenger in the carriage.

 

But for this incident it is not very likely that he would have made any

overtures to his fellow-travellers. As it was, thanks and inquiries and

general conversation supervened inevitably; and Garrett found himself

provided before the journey’s end not only with a physician, but with a

landlady: for Mrs Simpson had apartments to let at Burnstow, which seemed

in all ways suitable. The place was empty at that season, so that Garrett

was thrown a good deal into the society of the mother and daughter. He

found them very acceptable company. On the third evening of his stay he

was on such terms with them as to be asked to spend the evening in their

private sitting-room.

 

During their talk it transpired that Garrett’s work lay in a library.

‘Ah, libraries are fine places,’ said Mrs Simpson, putting down her work

with a sigh; ‘but for all that, books have played me a sad turn, or

rather a book has.’

 

‘Well, books give me my living, Mrs Simpson, and I should be sorry to say

a word against them: I don’t like to hear that they have been bad for

you.’

 

‘Perhaps Mr Garrett could help us to solve our puzzle, mother,’ said Miss

Simpson.

 

‘I don’t want to set Mr Garrett off on a hunt that might waste a

lifetime, my dear, nor yet to trouble him with our private affairs.’

 

‘But if you think it in the least likely that I could be of use, I do beg

you to tell me what the puzzle is, Mrs Simpson. If it is finding out

anything about a book, you see, I am in rather a good position to do it.’

 

‘Yes, I do see that, but the worst of it is that we don’t know the name

of the book.’

 

‘Nor what it is about?’

 

‘No, nor that either.’

 

‘Except that we don’t think it’s in English, mother—and that is not much

of a clue.’

 

‘Well, Mr Garrett,’ said Mrs Simpson, who had not yet resumed her work,

and was looking at the fire thoughtfully, ‘I shall tell you the story.

You will please keep it to yourself, if you don’t mind? Thank you. Now it

is just this. I had an old uncle, a Dr Rant. Perhaps you may have heard

of him. Not that he was a distinguished man, but from the odd way he

chose to be buried.’

 

‘I rather think I have seen the name in some guidebook.’

 

‘That would be it,’ said Miss Simpson. ‘He left directions—horrid old

man!—that he was to be put, sitting at a table in his ordinary clothes,

in a brick room that he’d had made underground in a field near his house.

Of course the country people say he’s been seen about there in his old

black cloak.’

 

‘Well, dear, I don’t know much about such things,’ Mrs Simpson went on,

‘but anyhow he is dead, these twenty years and more. He was a clergyman,

though I’m sure I can’t imagine how he got to be one: but he did no duty

for the last part of his life, which I think was a good thing; and he

lived on his own property: a very nice estate not a great way from here.

He had no wife or family; only one niece, who was myself, and one nephew,

and he had no particular liking for either of us—nor for anyone else, as

far as that goes. If anything, he liked my cousin better than he did

me—for John was much more like him in his temper, and, I’m afraid I must

say, his very mean sharp ways. It might have been different if I had not

married; but I did, and that he very much resented. Very well: here he

was with this estate and a good deal of money, as it turned out, of which

he had the absolute disposal, and it was understood that we—my cousin

and I—would share it equally at his death. In a certain winter, over

twenty years back, as I said, he was taken ill, and I was sent for to

nurse him. My husband was alive then, but the old man would not hear of

his coming. As I drove up to the house I saw my cousin John driving

away from it in an open fly and looking, I noticed, in very good spirits.

I went up and did what I could for my uncle, but I was very soon sure

that this would be his last illness; and he was convinced of it too.

During the day before he died he got me to sit by him all the time, and I

could see there was something, and probably something unpleasant, that he

was saving up to tell me, and putting it off as long as he felt he could

afford the strength—I’m afraid purposely in order to keep me on the

stretch. But, at last, out it came. “Mary,” he said,—“Mary, I’ve made my

will in John’s favour: he has everything, Mary.” Well, of course that

came as a bitter shock to me, for we—my husband and I—were not rich

people, and if he could have managed to live a little easier than he was

obliged to do, I felt it might be the prolonging of his life. But I said

little or nothing to my uncle, except that he had a right to do what he

pleased: partly because I couldn’t think of anything to say, and partly

because I was sure there was more to come: and so there was. “But, Mary,”

he said, “I’m not very fond of John, and I’ve made another will in your

favour. You can have everything. Only you’ve got to find the will, you

see: and I don’t mean to tell you where it is.” Then he chuckled to

himself, and I waited, for again I was sure he hadn’t finished. “That’s a

good girl,” he said after a time,—“you wait, and I’ll tell you as much

as I told John. But just let me remind you, you can’t go into court with

what I’m saying to you, for you won’t be able to produce any collateral

evidence beyond your own word, and John’s a man that can do a little hard

swearing if necessary. Very well then, that’s understood. Now, I had the

fancy that I wouldn’t write this will quite in the common way, so I wrote

it in a book, Mary, a printed book. And there’s several thousand books in

this house. But there! you needn’t trouble yourself with them, for it

isn’t one of them. It’s in safe keeping elsewhere: in a place where John

can go and find it any day, if he only knew, and you can’t. A good will

it is: properly signed and witnessed, but I don’t think you’ll find the

witnesses in a hurry.”

 

‘Still I said nothing: if I had moved at all I must have taken hold of

the old wretch and shaken him. He lay there laughing to himself, and at

last he said:

 

‘“Well, well, you’ve taken it very quietly, and as I want to start you

both on equal terms, and John has a bit of a purchase in being able to go

where the book is, I’ll tell you just two other things which I didn’t

tell him. The will’s in English, but you won’t know that if ever you see

it. That’s one thing, and another is that when I’m gone you’ll find an

envelope in my desk directed to you, and inside it something that would

help you to find it, if only you have the wits to use it.”

 

‘In a few hours from that he was gone, and though I made an appeal to

John Eldred about it—’

 

‘John Eldred? I beg your pardon, Mrs Simpson—I think I’ve