THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories (16 page)

I had one friend, by name Frank Ormesby. He was an Englishman, and had entered the university about a year later than myself. Young, brilliantly gifted, and saturated with the spirit of German literature, he had chosen to finish his education at Leipzig. But for this friendship I should scarcely have had a tie of human affection in common with the world around me.

Frank Ormesby was the last male descendant of an old aristocratic family in the West of England. His ancestors had suffered extensive losses during the period of the Commonwealth, and had regained but a small portion of their property at the hands of the graceless and profligate Charles. Two or three farms, with the old manor-house and park, alone remained to that family whose loyal cavaliers had not hesitated to arm their tenantry and melt their hereditary plate in the service of the Stuarts. Small as it was, the estate was rendered still less valuable through the extravagance of some later Ormesbys; and, when Frank succeeded to it, was so encumbered as scarcely to yield him the few annual hundreds which were necessary to supply the expenses of a gentleman.

In this remote and melancholy manor, shut in by dark old trees, and attended only by a governess and one or two old servants, my friend’s young sister lived, in deep seclusion. The pair were orphans; and they were all in all to each other. Frank had not a thought in which the happiness of Grace was not considered; Grace looked up to Frank as to a paragon of truth and talent.

During the long walks which we used sometimes to take beyond the confines of the city, Frank delighted to talk to me of his sister’s gentleness and beauty; and I delighted to listen to him. It was a topic of which we were never weary, and which no discussion could exhaust.

Secluded as I was from the gentle influences of female society, these conversations produced a profound impression upon my heart. I learned to love without having beheld her. I suffered myself to dream golden dreams. I hung upon his words with the enraptured faith of a devotee before the shrine of a veiled divinity; and yielded up my whole soul to the dangerous fascination.

At length the time came when Frank must return to England. When I must be once more alone—more alone than if I had never possessed his friendship!

One evening we were loitering through the garden of the university, arm-in-arm, silent and melancholy. Each knew the other’s thoughts, and neither spoke of parting. Suddenly Frank turned, and said:

‘Why don’t you come with me, Heinrich? The trip to England would do you good.’

I smiled, and shook my head.

‘Ah! no,’ I said, ‘I am a snail, and the college is my shell.’

‘Nonsense!’ he replied. ‘You must come. I will have it so. Who knows? Perhaps you and Grace may fall in love with each other!’

The hot blood rushed up to my face, but I made no answer. Frank stopped short, and looking earnestly into my eyes:

‘Heinrich,’ he said, ‘I seem to have spoken lightly, but I have thought deeply. Could this union be, it would fulfil the wish that lies nearest to my heart.’

My pulse throbbed—my eyes became suffused with tears. Still I remained silent.

‘Will you come?’ he asked.

I said, ‘Yes.’

Never before had I travelled beyond the limits of my native Saxony, and so far from feeling any of the anticipative delight of youth, I shrank from the journey with the nervous timidity of a recluse. Frank rallied me upon my apprehensions.

‘My good fellow,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have shut yourself up in this old German college till you are little better than a dusty moth-eaten folio yourself! You are but twenty-one years of age, and you are pale and wise as a philosopher of eighty. Your clothes hang about you like an old-fashioned binding; your face is as yellow as parchment; you bow as if you were making an Eastern salaam; and the very character of your handwriting is distorted into a resemblance of Oriental characters. This will never do! You must become rejuvenescent, and make up your mind to descend for once to the level of other people. Be a martyr, Heinrich, and write to your tailor for a dress-suit!’

Having resolved to travel round by the Rhine, we proceeded first of all to Mayence.

On the morning of the third day, an incident occurred which, to my mind, was deeply significant. It wanted more than two hours of noon. The carriage was ascending a precipitous hill, and we were walking some fifty yards in advance. The air was deliciously cool and fragrant, and we paused every now and then to look upon the fair level prospect of wood and vineyard which we were leaving behind. The birds were singing in the green shade of the lindens beside the road. An old man and a young girl passed us with pleasant words of greeting, and we heard the voices of the vintagers down in the valley. Frank was in high spirits, and sprang forward as if he dared the toilsome hill to weary him.

‘See!’ he cried, ‘we shall soon reach the summit, and then I predict that we shall be rewarded by the sight of a divine landscape! Mayence must be close at hand, and we shall see the broad, bright rushing Rhine below.’

And he began singing in a loud, clear voice, that song beloved of German students, ‘To the Rhine—to the Rhine!’ I smiled at his fresh-hearted enthusiasm, and followed him somewhat more slowly. It was, indeed, as he had said; and on a sudden we beheld close under our feet, the streets—the cathedral of Mayence—the wide rapid river—the long boat-bridge—the lordly façade of the Palace of Biberich—the banks clothed with plants and autumn flowers—the hurrying steamers with their canvas awnings and their clouds of fleecy smoke—and then, far away, the shadowy hills, the vineyards, the riverside villages, and the winding Rhine flashing along for miles and miles through all the scene. It was a glorious prospect, and my friend was breathless with delight. But the effect which it produced upon myself was fearful and unexpected. I stood quite still and pale; then, uttering a wild cry, I clasped my hands over my eyes and cast myself upon the ground. I distinctly remembered to have seen that very prospect—those spires and towers—that bridge—that red-hued palace—that far landscape in some past stage of being, vague, dark, forgotten as a dream! When they came to lift me from the spot where I had fallen, they found me in a state of insensibility; and when I recovered my consciousness, it was in a bedchamber of the Königlicher Hof, a little roadside tavern just outside the city. I did not tell Frank the real cause of my illness. I alleged a sudden giddiness as the reason of my cry when falling. He fancied that it might have been a slight sunstroke, and I allowed him to think so. The next morning I had sufficiently recovered to resume the journey. We now proposed to take a Rhine steamer to Cologne; but as the boat would not start before the afternoon, I yielded to my friend’s persuasions, and went with him to visit the Cathedral of Mayence.

All here was so cool and still, that I felt my troubled heart grow calmer. The sunlight coming in through the stained windows flickered in patches of gold and purple on the marble pavement, and cast long lines of light through the dim ruined cloisters beyond. The sacristan was putting fresh flowers on the altar; the great organ, with its front of shining pipes, was quite dumb and breathless, like a dead giant. Some little flaring tapers were burning on a votive stand beside the door; and an old beggar-woman, with her crutches lying beside her on the ground, was devoutly kneeling before the altar. Leaving these, we hurried through the dirty narrow streets of the town, and sat under the shadow of some leafy walnuts on one of the hills looking over the Rhine. Here we watched the women spinning at their doors, and my friend recited Schiller’s wondrous ballad, ‘The Cranes of Ibycus’.

Thus the morning passed away, and in a few hours more we were gliding along the broad current, between vineyards and rocks, and ruined blank-eyed towers; islands with trees dipping down to the water; quaint old towns, with gothic spires and sloping forests of the oak and pine. But there is no need that I should describe the Rhine to you, O my friend, for whom I write these brief pages of troubled memories! Since those days of my youth, you, too, have traversed the scenes of which I speak—you, too, have felt the influence of their beauty sink like dew upon the arid sands of your thirsty heart. If I say that we went on and on, past Coblentz and Andernach, and Bonn—that we stayed for a day at Cologne; that we there hired a vehicle to transport us to Clêves; and that from thence we proceeded along the smooth roads of Holland, you will recall sufficient of your own experience to follow in our track, and to imagine the feelings with which I, a hermit-student, must have contemplated such varied and remarkable scenery.

From Rotterdam we took the steamer for England, and in rather more than a fortnight from the date of our departure, arrived one sultry evening in London.

‘Shall we stay here for a few days, that I may show you some of the wonders of our great city?’ asked Frank, as we sat at supper in a dismal sitting-room at the back of a great gloomy inn in the neighbourhood of St Paul’s Cathedral.

But I felt stunned by the roar and hurry of the streets through which we had just passed.

‘Ah, no!’ I said; ‘I am not fit for this place. So much life oppresses me. Let us go quickly to your old quiet home. I shall be better when loitering amid the dim alleys of your park, or dreaming over the books in your library. I need peace—peace and rest!’

* * * * *

It was already evening when we reached the gates of Ormesby Park. They were very rusty old gates, and creaked mournfully upon their hinges as we rolled through them. A white-headed man crept out of the dilapidated lodge to admit us, and stood looking after the chaise in feeble wonder, as it proceeded up the avenue.

‘Poor old Williams!’ said Frank, leaning back with a sigh. ‘He has quite forgotten me!’

‘What superb trees!’ I exclaimed, looking up at the gigantic branches overhead.

‘They
are
beautiful!’ replied my friend, more cheerfully. ‘I have often been tempted, I confess, to cut down the old timber; but now I vow it shall never be desecrated by the axe. See, there you catch a glimpse of the house.’

I leaned forward, and just saw it for a moment through a passing gap. It was an antique Elizabethan building, with gable-ends and large bay windows, and a terraced garden in front.

‘I think I know at which window Grace is standing!’ said Ormesby. ‘I wonder how she looks! To think of its being five years since we parted!’

I began to get nervous.

‘Does she know that I am coming?’ I asked hurriedly.

Frank burst into a hearty laugh. ‘Know that you are coming! to be sure she does; and she will be surprised enough when she sees you. Why, man, I told her that I was going to bring the Professor of Oriental Literature with me—a grave old gentleman of eccentric habits, but profound learning, whom I hoped she would try to like for my sake!’

‘My dear Frank,’ I said hastily, ‘it was unnecessary, I think, to place your friend in so ridiculous a position at his first interview . . .’

‘Hush!’ said he, grasping me affectionately by the hand; ‘do not say that. She has long known how I love and value Heinrich Henneberg. And now jump out, for here we are at last!’

We had driven round to the back of the house, where two or three old servants were gathered to receive us. Frank ran past them, and taking a lady in his arms, who was standing near the door, covered her cheeks and brow with kisses.

‘Grace, my darling Grace!’ he said, bending his proud head fondly down towards her.

‘My dear brother!’ replied the lady, hiding her face upon his shoulder, and sobbing aloud.

I turned away; for I had no place there, and my own eyes filled with tears.

‘So tall too!’ I heard him say; ‘so tall and so beautiful! So changed; and yet the same dear Grace I left five years ago!’

‘Five years ago!’ echoed the lady in a low voice.

‘But here is Professor Henneberg, waiting to be introduced to you,’ said Frank, drawing her arm through his. ‘Heinrich, this is my dear and only sister: Grace, welcome this gentleman—he is my friend.’

It was not because I had heard and thought so much of her already; it was not even for her beauty, rare and winning though it was—— No, it was for none of these, but for the earnest soul looking out from her dark eyes, that I succumbed in one moment to that deep and passionate tide of love which has never ceased since then to overflow my heart. Confused and silent, I could only bow to her; and when she extended her hand—that small white hand—what could I do but hold it, tremblingly and irresolutely in mine, and then stoop down and kiss it?