Told in a French Garden August, 1914

I

THE YOUNG­STER'S STO­RY

IT HAP­PENED AT MID­NIGHT

THE TALE OF A BRIDE'S NEW HOME

The day­times were not ev­er very bad. Short-​hand­ed in the pret­ty gar­den, ev­ery one did a lit­tle work. The Lawyer was pas­sion­ate­ly fond of flow­ers, and the Young­ster did most of the er­rands. The Sculp­tor had found some clay, and loved to sur­prise us at night with a new cen­tre piece for the ta­ble, and the Di­vorcee spent most of her time tend­ing An­gele's ba­by, while the Doc­tor and the Nurse were eter­nal­ly fuss­ing over new kinds of ban­dages and if ev­er we got to­geth­er, it was usu­al­ly for a lit­tle read­ing aloud at tea-​time, or a lit­tle mu­sic. The spir­it of dis­cus­sion seemed to keep as far away be­fore the lights were up as did the spir­it of war, and noth­ing could be far­ther than that _ap­peared_.

The next day we were un­usu­al­ly qui­et.

Most of us kept in our rooms in the af­ter­noon. There were those sto­ries to think over, and that we all took it so se­ri­ous­ly proved how very much we had been need­ing some re­al thing to do. We got through din­ner very com­fort­ably.

There was lit­tle news in the pa­pers that day ex­cept en­thu­si­as­tic ac­counts of the re­cep­tion of the British troops by the French. It was love­ly to see the two races that had met on so many bat­tle fields--con­quered, and been con­quered by one an­oth­er--em­brac­ing with en­thu­si­asm. It was to the cred­it of all of us that we did not make the in­evitable re­flec­tions, but on­ly saw the hu­mor and charm of the thing, and re­mem­bered the fears that had pre­vent­ed the plans of tun­nelling the chan­nel, on­ly to find them hu­mor­ous.

The cof­fee had been placed on the ta­ble. The Trained Nurse, as usu­al, sat be­hind the tray, and we each went and took our cup, found a com­fort­able seat in the cir­cle un­der the trees, where a few yel­low lanterns swung in the soft air.

Then the Young­ster pulled a white head-​band with a huge “Num­ber One” on it, out of his pock­et, placed it on his head af­ter the man­ner of the French Con­scripts, struck an at­ti­tude in the mid­dle of the cir­cle, drew his chair deft­ly un­der him, and with the air of an ex­pe­ri­enced mo­nolo­gist be­gan:

* * * * *

Not so very many years ago there was a pret­ty wed­ding at Trin­ity Church in Boston. It was quite the sort of mar­riage Bosto­ni­ans be­lieve in. The man was a ris­ing lawyer, rather a scep­tic on all sorts of ques­tions, as most of us chaps pride our­selves on be­ing, when we come out of col­lege. They were mar­ried in church to please the Wom­an. What odds did it make?

Be­fore they were mar­ried they had de­cid­ed to live out­side the city. She want­ed a gar­den and an old house. He did not care where they lived so long as they lived to­geth­er. Very prop­er of him, too. They spent the last year of their en­gaged life, the nicest year of some girls' lives, I have heard--in hunt­ing the place. What they fi­nal­ly set­tled on was an old colo­nial house with a colon­nad­ed front, and a round tow­er at each end, stand­ing back from the road, and ap­proached by a wide cir­cu­lar drive. It was large, sub­stan­tial, with great pos­si­bil­ities, and plen­ty of ground. It had been un­oc­cu­pied for many years, and the place had an evil re­port, and, at the time when they first saw it, ap­peared to de­serve it.

He had looked it over. The sit­ua­tion was healthy. It was con­ve­nient to the city. He could make it in his car in less than forty-​five min­utes. They saw what could be done with the place, and did not con­cern them­selves with _why_ oth­er peo­ple had not cared to live there. Ar­chi­tects, in­te­ri­or dec­ora­tors, and land­scape gar­den­ers were put to work on it, and, even be­fore the wed­ding, the place was well on to­ward its hab­it­able stage.

Then they were mar­ried, and, quite cor­rect­ly, went abroad to float in a gon­do­la on the Grand Canal--to­geth­er; to cross the Gem­mi--to­geth­er; to stroll about Pom­peii and cross to Capri--to­geth­er; and then rav­age an­tiq­ui­ty shops in Paris--to­geth­er. They re­turned in the ear­ly days of a glo­ri­ous Septem­ber. The house was ready for its mas­ter and mis­tress to lay the touch of their per­son­al­ity on it, and put in place the tro­phies of their Wed­ding Jour­ney.

The evil look the house once had was gone.

A few old trees had been cut down round it to let in the glo­ri­ous au­tumn sun all over the house, and when, on their first morn­ing, af­ter a good sound, well-​earned sleep, they took their cof­fee on the ter­race off the break­fast room, un­der a yel­low awning, they cer­tain­ly did not think, if they ev­er had, of the mys­te­ri­ous ru­mors against the house which had been whis­pered about when they first bought it. To them it seemed that they had nev­er seen a gay­er place.

But on the sec­ond night, just as the Wom­an was putting her book aside, and had a hand stretched out to shut off the light, she stopped--a car­riage was com­ing up the drive. She sat up, and lis­tened for the bell. It did not ring. Af­ter a few mo­ments--as there was ab­so­lute­ly no sound of the car­riage pass­ing--she got up, and gen­tly pushed the shut­ter--her room was on the front--there was noth­ing there, so, at­tach­ing no im­por­tance to it, she went qui­et­ly to bed, put out her light, just notic­ing as she did so, that it was mid­night, and went to sleep. In the morn­ing, the in­ci­dent made so lit­tle im­pres­sion on her, that she for­got to even men­tion it.

The next night, by some queer trick of mem­ory, just as she went to bed, the thing came back to her, and she was sur­prised to find that she had no sleep in her. In­stead of that she kept look­ing at the clock, and just be­fore twelve, cold chills be­gan to go down her back, when she heard the rapid ap­proach of a car­riage--this time she was con­scious that her hear­ing was so keen that she knew there were two hors­es. She lis­tened in­tent­ly--no doubt about it--the car­riage had stopped at the door.

Then there was a si­lence.

She was just con­vinc­ing her­self that there must be some sort of echo which made it ap­pear that a team pass­ing in the road had come up the drive--when she was sud­den­ly sure that she heard a hur­ried step in the cor­ri­dor--it passed the door. Now she was nat­ural­ly a very unimag­ina­tive per­son, and had nev­er had oc­ca­sion to know fear. So, af­ter a bit, she put out her light, say­ing to her­self that a be­lat­ed ser­vant was busy with some ne­glect­ed work--noth­ing more like­ly--and she went to sleep.

Again the morn­ing sun­light, the Man's gay com­pan­ion­ship, the hun­dreds of de­light­ful things to do, wiped out that bad quar­ter of an hour, and again it nev­er oc­curred to her to men­tion it.

The next night the re­mem­brance came back so vivid­ly af­ter the Man had gone to his room, that she re­gret­ted she had not at least asked him if he had heard a car­riage pass in the night. Of course she was sure that he had not. He was such a sound sleep­er. Be­sides, it was not im­por­tant. If he had, he would not have been ner­vous about it. Still, she could not sleep, and, just be­fore the din­ing room clock be­gan to chime mid­night--she had nev­er heard it be­fore, and that she heard it now was a proof of how her whole body was lis­ten­ing--again came the rapid tread of run­ning hors­es. This time ev­ery hair stood up on her head, and be­fore she could con­trol her­self, she called out to­ward the open door: “Dear­est, are you awake?”

Al­most be­fore she had the words out he was stand­ing smil­ing in the door­way. It was all right.

“Did you _think_ you heard a car­riage come up the drive­way?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” he replied, “but I didn't.”

“Lis­ten! Is there some one com­ing along the cor­ri­dor?”

He crossed the room qui­et­ly, opened the door, and turned on the light. “No, dear. There is no one there.”

“Hadn't you bet­ter ring for your man, and have him see if any of the ser­vants are up?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, and laughed hearti­ly.

“See here, dear girl,” he said, “you and I are a pair of healthy peo­ple. We have hap­pened to hear a noise which we can't ex­plain. Be sure that there is ra­tio­nal ex­pla­na­tion. You're not afraid?”

“Well, no, I re­al­ly am not,” she de­clared, “but you can­not de­ny that it is strange. Did you hear it last night?”

“Go on, now, with your cross-​ex­am­ina­tion,” he said. “Let's go to sleep. At any rate the ex­hi­bi­tion is over for to-​night.”

The fourth night they did not speak in the night any more than they had in the day­time. But the next day they had a long con­ver­sa­tion, the gist of which was this: That they had bought the place, that ex­cept for fif­teen min­utes at mid­night, the place was ide­al. They were both lev­el-​head­ed, nei­ther be­lieved in any­thing su­per-​nat­ural. Were they to be driv­en out of such a place by so harm­less a thing as an un­ex­plained noise? They could get used to it. Af­ter a bit it would no more wake them up,--such was the force of habit--than the tick­ing of the clock. To all this they both agreed, and the mat­ter was dropped.

For ten days they did not men­tion it, but in all those ten days a sort of crescen­do of emo­tion was go­ing on in her. At first she be­gan to think of it as soon as bed-​time ap­proached; then she felt it in­trud­ing on her thoughts at the din­ner ta­ble; then she was un­able to sleep for an hour or two af­ter the fif­teen min­utes had passed, and, fi­nal­ly, one night, she fled in­to his room to find him wide awake, just be­fore dawn, and to con­fess that the shad­ow of mid­night was stretched be­fore and af­ter un­til it was al­most a black cir­cle round the twen­ty-​four hours.

She knew it was ab­surd. She had no in­ten­tion of be­ing driv­en out of such a love­ly place--BUT--

“See here, dear,” he said. “Let's break our rule. We nei­ther of us want com­pa­ny, but let's, at least, have a big week en­der, and per­haps we can prove to our­selves that our nerves are wrong. One thing is sure, if you are go­ing to get pale over it, I'll burn the bloom­ing house down be­fore we'll live in it.”

“But you mind it your­self?”

“Not a bit!”

“But you are awake.”

“Of course I am, be­cause I know that you are.”

“Do you mean to say that if I slept you wouldn't no­tice it?”

“On my hon­or--I should not.”

“You are a com­fort,” she ejac­ulat­ed. “I shall go right to sleep.” And off she went, and did go to sleep.

All the same, in the morn­ing, he in­sist­ed on the house-​par­ty.

“Let me see our list,” he said. “Let us have no stu­dents of oc­cult; no men who dab­ble in lab­ora­to­ry spir­itu­al­ism; just nice, live, healthy peo­ple who nev­er heard of such things--if pos­si­ble. You can find them.”

“You see, dear,” she ex­plained, “it would not trou­ble me if I heard it and you did not--but--”

“Oh, fudge!” he laughed. “Just now I should be sure to hear any­thing you did, I sup­pose.”

“You old dar­ling,” she replied, “then I don't care for it a bit.”

“All the same we'll have the house-​par­ty.”

So the fol­low­ing Sat­ur­day ev­ery room in the house was oc­cu­pied.

At mid­night they were all gath­ered in the long draw­ing room open­ing on the colon­nade, and, when the hour sound­ed, some one was singing. The host and host­ess heard the run­ning hors­es, as usu­al, and they were con­scious that one or two peo­ple turned a lis­ten­ing ear, but ev­ident­ly no one saw any­thing strange in it, and no com­ment was made. It was af­ter one when they all went up to their rooms, so that evening passed off all right.

But on Sun­day night two of the younger guests had gone to sit on the front ter­race, and the old­er peo­ple were walk­ing, in the moon­light, in the gar­den at the back. The sweet lit­tle girl, who was hav­ing her hand held, got up prop­er­ly when she heard the car­riage com­ing, and went to the edge of the ter­race to see who was ar­riv­ing at mid­night. She had a fit of nerves as the in­vis­ible ve­hi­cle and its run­ning hors­es seemed about to ride over her. She ran in, trem­bling with fear, to tell the tale, and of course ev­ery one laughed at her, and the mat­ter would have been dropped, if it had not hap­pened that, just at that mo­ment a very pale gen­tle­man came stum­bling out of the house with the state­ment that he want­ed a con­veyance “to take him back to town,” that “he re­fused to sleep in a haunt­ed house,” that he “had en­coun­tered an in­vis­ible per­son run­ning along the cor­ri­dor to his room,” in fact the foot­steps had as he put it “passed right through him.”

The host broke in­to laugh­ter, but he took the bull by the horns--the facts, as he knew them, were safer than the tales which he knew would run over the city if he at­tempt­ed to de­ny things.

“See here, my good peo­ple,” he said, “there is a lit­tle mys­tery here that we can't ex­plain. The truth is, there _is_ a sto­ry about this house. It used to be­long to the pres­ident of a well-​known rail­road. That was twen­ty-​five years ago. They say that one night, when he was driv­ing from a place he had up coun­try, his team was run in­to at a rail­way cross­ing five miles from here--one of those grade cross­ings that nev­er ought to have been--and he was killed and his hors­es came home at mid­night. 'They say' that the peo­ple who lived here af­ter that de­clared that the hors­es have come home ev­ery mid­night since. Now, there's the sto­ry. They don't do any harm. It on­ly takes them a few min­utes. They don't even tram­ple the drive­way, so why not?”

“All the same, I want to go back to town,” said the fright­ened guest.

“I would stay the night, if I were you,” said the host. “They won't come again un­til to-​mor­row.”

All the same, when morn­ing came, ev­ery one skipped, and as the last of them drove away, the Wom­an put her hand through the Man's arm, and smiled as she said: “It's all over. I don't mind a bit. When I heard you say­ing last night, 'They don't even tram­ple the drive­way, so why not?' I said to my­self, 'Why not?' in­deed.”

“Good girl,” he replied. “I'll bet my top hat you grow to be proud of them.”

I don't know that they ev­er did, but I do know that they still live there. I went to school with the son, and when­ev­er any one bragged, he used to say, “Well, we've _al­ways_ had a ghost. You ain't got that!”

The Young­ster threw his light­ed cigarette in­to the air, ran un­der it, caught it be­tween his lips, and made a bow, as the Doc­tor broke in­to a roar of laugh­ter.

“I know that old house,” he said. “Ja­maica Pond. But see here, Young­ster, your idea of ghosts is ter­ri­bly il­log­ical. It was the _man_ who was killed, not the _hors­es_. The wrong part of the team walked.”

“You _are_ par­tic­ular,” replied the Young­ster. “The man did not come back, and the hors­es did. I can't split hairs when it's a ghost sto­ry. I feel afraid that I have missed my vo­ca­tion, and that flights in the imag­ina­tion are more in my line than flights in the air. I don't know what you think. _I_ think it's a mighty good sto­ry. I say, Jour­nal­ist, do you think I could sell that sto­ry? I've nev­er earned a dol­lar in my life.”

“Well,” laughed the Jour­nal­ist, “a dol­lar is just about what you would get for it.”

“If I had been do­ing that sto­ry,” said the Crit­ic, “I should have found a log­ical ex­pla­na­tion for it.”

“Of course you would,” said the Young­ster. “I know one of a haunt­ed house on St. James Street which had an ex­pla­na­tion.”

But the Doc­tor cut him short with: “Come now, you've done your stunt. No more sto­ries to-​night. Off to bed. You and I are go­ing to take a run to Paris to-​mor­row.”

“What for?”

“Tell you to-​mor­row.”

As ev­ery one be­gan to move to­ward the house, the Vi­olin­ist re­marked, “I was think­ing of run­ning up to Paris my­self to-​mor­row. Any one else want to go with me?” The Jour­nal­ist said that he did, and the par­ty broke up. As they strolled to­ward the house the Lawyer was heard ask­ing the Young­ster, “What were the steps in the cor­ri­dor?”

“Well,” replied the Young­ster, “I sup­pose on the night that the team came home there must have been great ex­cite­ment in the house--ev­ery one run­ning to and fro and--”

But the Jour­nal­ist's shout of laugh­ter stopped him.

The Young­ster eyed him with shocked sur­prise.

“By Jupiter!” cried the Jour­nal­ist. “That is the darnedest ghost sto­ry I ev­er heard. Ev­ery­thing and ev­ery­body walked but the dead man--even the car­riage.”

“That isn't _my_ fault,” said the Young­ster, in­dig­nant­ly.