Tom Ossington's Ghost (Horror Thriller). Richard Marsh
drunk I can’t see ghosts — it’s only when I’m sober. I’ve had nothing to eat since I don’t know when, let alone to drink. I’m starving, starving! That’s the time when I see ghosts. They point at me with their fingers and say, ‘Look at us and look at you — this is what it’s come to!’ They make me see what might have been. He made me come today; I didn’t want to, but he made me. And now he’s in all the house. — Listen! He’s getting out of bed in the room upstairs — that’s his bedroom. Can’t you hear his lame foot moving about the floor? How often I’ve thrown that lame foot in his face when I’ve been wild! — can’t you hear it hobble — hobble?”
“You are mad! How dare you talk such nonsense? There’s no one in the house but you and I.”
The woman seemed to believe so implicitly in the diseased imaginings of her conscience-haunted brain, that Madge felt that unless she made a resolute effort her own mental equilibrium might totter. On the other’s face there came a look of shrewd, malignant cunning.
“Isn’t there! That’s all you know — I’m no more mad than you are. And I tell you what — he’s not the only thing that’s in the house. There’s something else as well. It was his, and now it’s mine. And don’t you think to rob me.”
“Rob you? — I.”
“Yes, you. There’s others after it as well as you — I know! I’m not the simpleton that some may think. But I won’t be robbed by all the lot of you — you make no error. It was his, and now it’s mine.”
“If there really is anything in the house to which you have the slightest shadow of a claim, which I very much doubt, and let me know what it is, and where it is, I’ll see that you have it without fail.”
A look of vacancy came on the woman’s face. She passed her hand across her brow.
“That’s it — I don’t know just where it is. He comes and tells me, almost, but never quite. He says it’s in the house, but he doesn’t say exactly where. But he never lies — so I do know it’s in the house, and I won’t be robbed.”
“I have not the slightest idea of what you mean — if you really do mean anything at all. I don’t know if you know me — or are under the impression that I know you; if so, I can only assure you that I don’t. I have not the faintest notion who you are.”
The woman, drawing nearer, clutched Madge’s arm with both her hands.
“Don’t you know who I am? I’m the ghost’s wife!”
Her manner was not only exceedingly unpleasant; it was, in a sense, uncanny — so uncanny that, in spite of herself, Madge could not help a startled look coming into her face. The appearance of this look seemed to amuse her tormentor. She broke into a continuous peal of unmelodious laughter.
“I’m the ghost’s wife!” she kept repeating. “I’m the ghost’s wife.”
Madge Brodie prided herself on her strength of nerve, and as, a rule, not without cause. But, on that occasion, almost for the first time in her life it played her false. She would have been glad to have been able to scream and flee; but she was incapable even of doing that. The other seemed to hold her spellbound; she was conscious that her senses were reeling — that, unless something happened soon, she would faint.
But from that final degradation she was saved.
“Madge,” exclaimed a voice, “who is this woman?”
It was Ella Duncan, and with her was Jack Martyn. At the sound of the voice, the woman released her hold. Never before had Madge been sensible of such a spasm of relief. She rushed to Ella with a hysterical sob.
“Oh, Ella!” she cried, “how thankful I am you’ve come.”
Ella looked at her with surprise.
“Madge! — who is this woman?”
The woman in question spoke for herself. She threw up her arms.
“I’m the ghost’s wife!” she shrieked, “I’m the ghost’s wife!”
Before they had suspected her purpose, or could say anything to stop her, she had rushed out of the room and from the house.
Chapter 3
Two Lone, Lorn Young Women
Ella and Jack eyed each other. Madge took refuge in a chair, conscious of a feeling of irritation at her weakness now that the provocation had passed. Ella regarded her curiously.
“What’s the matter with you, Madge? What’s happened?”
“It’s nothing — only that horrible woman has upset me.”
“Who is she? and what’s she been doing? and what’s she want?”
“I don’t know who she is, or what she wants, or anything at all about her. I only know that she’s prevented me getting anything for your tea.”
“That’s all right — we’ve got something, haven’t we, Jack?” Jack waved a parcel. “But whatever did you let such an extraordinary-looking creature into the house for? and whatever did she mean by screaming out that she’s a ghost’s wife? Is she very mad?”
“I think she is — and I didn’t let her in.”
Then, while they were preparing tea, the tale was told, or at least a part of it. But even that part was enough to make Jack Martyn grave. As the telling proceeded, he grew graver and graver, until, at the end, he wore a face of portentous gloom. When they seated themselves to the meal he made precisely the remark which they had expected him to make. He rested his hands on his knees, and he solemnly shook his head.
“This comes of your being alone in the house!”
Ella laughed.
“There! now you’ve started him on his own particular crotchet; he’ll never let you hear the last of this.”
Jack went on.
“I’ve said before, and I say again, and I shall keep on saying, that you two girls ought not to live alone by yourselves in a house in this out-of-the-way corner of the world.”
“Out-of-the-way corner of the world! — on Wandsworth Common!”
“For all practical intents and purposes you might as well be in the middle of the Desert of Sahara; you might shriek and shriek and I doubt if any one would hear you. This agreeable visitor of Madge’s might have cut her throat from ear to ear, or chopped her into mincemeat, and she would have been as incapable of summoning assistance as if she had been at the top of Mont Blanc.”
“That’s it. Jack — pile it on!”
“I don’t think it’s fair of you to talk like that, Ella; I’m not piling it on; I’m just speaking the plain and simple truth. Honestly, Madge, when you’ve been alone in the house all day long, haven’t you felt that you were at the mercy of the first evil-disposed person who chose to come along; or, if you haven’t felt it before, don’t you think you’ll feel it now?”
“No — to both your questions.”
“Supposing this woman comes back again tomorrow?”
Madge had to bite her lip to repress a shudder; the idea was not a pleasant one.
“She won’t come back.”
“But suppose she does? — and from what you say I think it very probable that she will; if not tomorrow, then the day after.”
“If she comes the day after tomorrow she’ll find me out; I shall be out all day.”
“There’s a confession! It’s only because you know that you