CHAPTER XVI

GRIF RECEIVES A VISITOR

‘This hour is mine―― Though thou his guardian spirit be.’

――_Coleridge._

Next morning Grif declared himself better, but Aunt Caroline drew her own conclusions from the fact that he showed no great eagerness to get up. She had sent Edward for Doctor O’Neill, who had not yet arrived. Like an old-time king Grif received an audience at his bedside――an audience composed not only of his brothers and sisters, but which at one time or another included grandpapa and Miss Johnson, Bridget and Hannah. When the others were going he made a sign to Jim to remain behind.

“You’re only missing Sunday,” Jim consoled him, “and it’s never much good anyway. What d’you want?”

“I want you to take a note to Mr. Bradley, but you mustn’t let Palmer or anybody else see you giving it to him. You’ll have to invent an excuse for staying behind after church. Then, when the coast is clear, you can either go up to the choir and give it to him there, or if you would rather you can wait near the door and catch him as he is coming out. But it must be done secretly, and you mustn’t breathe a word about it to anybody.”

“That’ll be all right,” said Jim. “D’you want an answer?”

“No. As soon as he has the note you can come away. Get me a piece of paper and a pencil, and something to write on.”

These materials were supplied, and while Grif wrote his letter Jim laid plans for its safe delivery. Morning church, he felt, even with Drumsticks preaching, was not going to be so dull as usual.

* * * * *

Thus it came about that at four o’clock Aunt Caroline was surprised to learn that a gentleman had called to see Master Grif, and she was still more surprised when she discovered the gentleman to be Mr. Bradley, for the organist, as far as she could recollect, had only been in their house once before. Mr. Bradley was shown upstairs, and Aunt Caroline, closing the book she was reading aloud, left them alone together.

But now that his opportunity had come Grif found it difficult to take advantage of it. Mr. Bradley asked him how he was, and they talked a little about the solo he was to sing in church next Sunday. Then Grif said abruptly, “You remember the boy you saw yesterday afternoon?”

“That rascal! Yes, I remember him. I met him again as I was coming over here, and he took off his cap to me. Impudence I expect.”

Grif saw that Mr. Bradley’s annoyance had passed. It was a pity that he himself should be about to revive it, but he knew there was no other way. “I want to tell you something about him. He―――― If he talks to you or writes to you or anything, don’t take any notice. He’s awfully decent really, but he likes――likes playing tricks.” This, after all, was as much as he found it possible to say.

The warning produced no effect whatever upon Mr. Bradley, who appeared to have lost interest in Palmer, and who began at once to speak of something else. Then Grif told him about having walked in his sleep.

Immediately he had done so he regretted it, for he felt, rather than saw, that it had rekindled in the organist a train of thought which Grif did not want to be rekindled. He was powerless to prevent it, however, and as he listened and watched, that strange fascination he had before experienced dropped again about him, like the floating threads of a web. In his weakness it was stronger than ever. He became conscious of it now as an almost physical atmosphere, which had crept into the room, darkening the air about him. Shut in here between four walls, he seemed even less able to escape from it than he had been outside. Through his open window he could see the sunlight, the green waving trees, a warm strip of blue sky; but slowly they receded from him, while something misty and intangible, something cold, baffling, and obscure, crept in between, like a vapour or a cloud. He was drifting back, he knew, into the haunted, tormented, visionary world of last night; and Mr. Bradley, with his soft silver hair, his thin mouth and bright eyes, terrified him. Behind the softness of his voice there seemed to lurk something greedy and inhuman, an immense vitality, a kind of feverish flame that lapped against Grif’s spirit and withdrew, and advanced again, a resistless, devouring force.... He shrank into himself and wished that somebody would come.

Yet this feeling of dread was mingled with a sense of fascination: his tortured mind was like a singed moth which returns again and again to the burning lamp. As Mr. Bradley spoke he became conscious that he was describing all that had taken place last night as accurately as if he had been present in the room. He seemed to have divined that Grif had been afraid, that the looking-glass had glittered, that the shadows had grown alive, that his room had been invaded by a ghostly activity, which had permitted him to drop asleep only that it might draw him more certainly out into the darkness. And when he spoke now, it was no longer of a secret playmate, of a happy boy and of the open sky, but of an enemy, a beast hungry for its prey, a crouching cruel antagonist.

Grif had ceased altogether to reply to him. He lay perfectly still, his dark eyes wide and troubled, while Mr. Bradley told him dismal tales whose very craziness seemed to make them more real. And as his low voice vibrated with a curious, passionate gluttony, the churchyard, no longer green and pleasant, but a place of grisly horrors, seemed to creep closer and closer to them, till at last its white tombs lay just beneath the window.

“I will tell you how I first came to be certain of these things,” the organist whispered, drawing nearer and bending down, while his long thin fingers curved and straightened themselves on the bright counterpane, and his eyes glittered into Grif’s. “I must go back a good many years, to an autumn night long ago, when a young man, walking home through the streets, began to watch his shadow gliding over the ground in the light of the gas lamps. It was not till he was half way home that he noticed how unfamiliar it looked, and then something about it attracted his attention and he stood still. A strange, a horrible thought had entered his mind. He struggled against it as people struggle against a bad dream. Then he hurried on, and looked at his shadow again as seldom as possible.

“When he reached home he felt a little ashamed, and yet he still had a lingering sense of uneasiness and depression. He went straight to bed, and it was later than usual when, next day, he woke out of a heavy stupid sleep. Immediately he knew that something had happened, that he had learned some secret――a secret he did not want to think of, but which he could not forget. He went out after breakfast. The sun was shining; the streets were full of people. ‘I won’t look,’ he said; but a moment later he cast a hurried glance at a whitewashed wall he was passing, and on the wall he saw the shadow.

“The thing was true then! It was worse even than he had imagined! For in the night, while he had slept, it seemed to have altered, and what had been vague was now clear. His forehead grew damp, and he felt a kind of sickness, as he glanced furtively from side to side to see if anyone were watching. He crossed over to the shady side of the street, and hurried home, but from that hour he began to be haunted by the dread of discovery. Day by day this fear increased, till at last it became almost impossible for him to stir out of his room when the sun shone or when the lamps were lit. And if he did go out he slunk along back streets, and where there was darkness he chose the darkness.

“And yet he had done nothing evil in the past. This curse had dropped upon him as if out of the clouds; had struck him down like some hideous secret disease. In the night he would wake up in agony and pray, but he knew, he always knew, that it was hopeless. He dreaded going to bed and to sleep, for when he slept it was to become at once what his shadow proclaimed him. Again and again in dreams he committed horrible crimes, and again and again, with his victim’s shrieks still ringing in his ears, he awoke. Then a subtle temptation entered his mind. It seemed to him that if he could gratify his shadow once it might leave him in peace. He saw it, like a crouching beast, drinking its fill of blood, and then lying down, satiated and quiet. If he did not gratify it detection was certain, sooner or later. He no longer left his room.

“But every evening, when he was alone and unlikely to be disturbed, he would lock his door and spend hours gazing at his shadow. He loathed it, it filled him with horror, but he could not resist the desire to watch it, to watch its growth, which was like that of some unclean fungus. In the brilliant light he would stand staring at it, putting it through its ugly pantomime, for he now began to see it at work; and there were times when he could feel it, clammy and cold,――when he felt its threatening fingers clutching at his own throat.

“He became pale and haggard-looking. Even his features, it seemed to him, were altering, growing from day to day more like the shadow. But as yet, owing to the precautions he took, nobody had guessed the truth. At last he consented to consult a specialist in nervous troubles. An appointment was made, and he went out with his younger brother. At first he felt safe enough, for it was dull and cloudy, and their shadows were invisible: but as they approached a railway-bridge the sun slid from behind the clouds, and, simultaneously, the two shadows sprang into life on the white asphalt, and on the walls of the houses. Never had his own shadow been so active and strong. It seemed to leer and grimace at him, and he began to talk and laugh so loudly that people turned to stare after them. He gripped his brother’s arm and pointed out things to right and left, trying to distract his attention; and in his efforts he could hear himself that his voice was growing shriller, his laughter wilder. His brother in his turn seemed to grow uneasy. Then suddenly they both became silent.

“But he now suspected his brother of deliberate treachery. Why else should he have enticed him out here? Why else should he walk with his head lowered, his eyes on the ground? Where were they going to? Into what trap was he being drawn? And then, just as they reached the middle of the bridge, his brother gave a little laugh and said, ‘How funny our shadows look!’

“The miserable wretch must have discovered his secret long before! He had been gloating over it; it was for this he had lured him out;――to gain this last positive proof. He saw it all now;――saw how this soft persuasive manner was only a mockery; understood the stealthy, sidelong glances. His brother _knew_! But if he knew, it should not be for long. An immense, rapturous strength seemed to shout within him for freedom, for action. He gripped the spy by the throat: he laughed aloud as he gripped him, and squeezed and tore and forced him back against the low parapet of the bridge. He pressed him against it, he bent him across the wall till he could feel the body limp and broken and utterly helpless, before he flung it over. Then he seemed to be fighting with a whole crowd of people who wanted to kill him, and who kept crying out in answer to his cries. The air was full of noise and laughter and screams. Joy! joy! and a tearing of flesh, and horrible pain!

“He remembered nothing more till he found himself shut up in a place where the walls were padded, and where he stayed for long years, till he got better. And he still stayed there, on and on, but at last one day he was brought out into the world again, for a new shadow had been given to him――the other, that misty, murderous vampire was gone....”

Grif said nothing, but his mouth felt dry and hot, and a mortal oppression weighed upon him. He wanted to get up, to go away, to get away from Mr. Bradley, but he could not move. And then, as he hid his face in the pillow, he heard the door open, and knew that Aunt Caroline had come back.

He looked up. In spite of the evidence of his senses it almost seemed as if he must have awakened from a nightmare. For Mr. Bradley was not bending over his bed, but standing by the window, smiling and talking pleasantly to Aunt Caroline; and he was telling her that he, Grif, had been asleep.

“Good-bye,” he said gaily, stepping jauntily to the bedside and wagging a playful finger. “I’m afraid we didn’t have much of a talk after all. The next time I pay you a visit I’ll wake you up at the first snore.”

He was gone, and Aunt Caroline with him. Grif stared with miserable, clouded eyes at the opposite wall.