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A
Haunted House Indeed
By
Anna
Kingsford
From
Dreams and Dream Stories
I dreamt that
during a tour on the Continent with my friend C. we stayed in a
town wherein there was an ancient house of horrible
reputation, concerning which we received the following account.
At the top of
the house was a suite of rooms, from which no one who entered at night ever
again emerged. No corpse was ever found; but it was said by some that the
victims were absorbed bodily by the
walls; by
others that there were in the rooms a number of pictures in frames, one frame,
however, containing a blank canvas, which had the dreadful power, first, of
fascinating the beholder, and next of drawing him towards it, so that he was
compelled to approach and gaze at it. Then, by the same hideous enchantment, he
was forced to touch it, and the touch was fatal.
For the canvas seized
him as a devil-fish seizes its prey, and sucked him in, so that he perished
without leaving a trace of himself, or of the manner of his death. The
legend said further that if any person could succeed in
passing a night in these rooms and in resisting their deadly influence, the
spell would for ever be broken, and no one would thenceforth be sacrificed.
Hearing all
this, and being somewhat of the knight-errant order, C. and I determined to
face the danger, and, if possible, deliver the town from the enchantment. We
were assured that the attempt would be vain, for that it had already been many
times made, and the Devils of the place were always
triumphant.
They had the
power, we were told, of hallucinating the senses of their victims; we should be
subjected to some illusion, and be fatally deceived.
Nevertheless,
we were resolved to try what we could do, and in order to acquaint
ourselves with the scene of the ordeal, we visited the place
in the daytime. It
was a
gloomy-looking building, consisting of several vast rooms, filled with lumber
of old furniture, worm-eaten and decaying; scaffoldings, which seemed to have
been erected for the sake of making repairs and then left; the windows were curtainless, the floors bare, and rats ran hither and
thither among the rubbish accumulated in the corners. Nothing could possibly
look more desolate and gruesome. We saw no pictures; but as we did not explore
every part of
the rooms, they may have been there without our seeing
them.
We were further
informed by the people of the town that in order to visit the
rooms at night it was necessary to wear a special
costume, and that without it
we should have no chance whatever of issuing from
them alive. This costume was
of black and white, and each of us was to carry a
black stave. So we put on this
attire, — which somewhat resembled the garb of an
ecclesiastical order, — and
when the appointed time came, repaired to the haunted
house, where, after
toiling up the great staircase in the darkness, we reached
the door of the
haunted apartments to find it closed. But light was
plainly visible beneath it,
and within was the sound of voices.
This greatly
surprised us; but after a short
conference we knocked. The door was presently opened by a
servant, dressed as a
modern indoor footman usually is, who civilly asked us to
walk in. On entering we found the place altogether different from what we
expected to find, and had found on our daylight visit. It was brightly lighted,
had decorated walls, pretty ornaments, carpets, and every kind of modern
garnishment, and, in short, bore all the appearance of an ordinary
well-appointed private flat.
While we stood
in the corridor, astonished, a gentleman in evening dress advanced towards us
from one of the reception rooms. As he looked interrogatively at us, we
thought it best to explain the intrusion, adding that we
presumed we had either
entered the wrong house, or stopped at the wrong apartment.
He laughed
pleasantly at our tale, and said, "I don't know anything about haunted
rooms, and, in fact, don't believe in anything of the kind. As for these rooms,
they have for a long time been let for two or three nights
every week to our Society for the purpose of social
reunion. We are members of a
musical and literary association, and are in the habit of
holding conversaziones
in these rooms on certain evenings, during which we
entertain ourselves with dancing, singing, charades, and literary gossip. The
rooms are spacious and lofty, and exactly adapted to our requirements. As you
are here, I may say, in
the name of the rest of the members, that we shall be
happy if you will join us."
At this I
glanced at our dresses in some confusion, which being observed by the
gentleman, he hastened to say: " You need be under no anxiety about your appearance,
for this is a costume night, and the greater number of our guests are in
travesty." As he spoke he threw open the door of a large drawing-room and invited
us in. On entering we found a company of men and women, well-dressed, some in
ordinary evening attire and some costumed.
The room was
brilliantly lighted and beautifully furnished and decorated. At one end was a
grand piano, round which several persons were grouped; others were seated on
ottomans taking tea or coffee; and others strolled about, talking.
Our host, who appeared to be master of the ceremonies, introduced us to several
persons, and we soon became deeply interested in a conversation on literary
subjects. So the evening wore on pleasantly, but I never ceased to wonder how
we could have mistaken the house or the staircase after the precaution we had
taken of visiting it in the daytime in order to avoid the possibility of error.
Presently,
being tired of conversation, I wandered away from the group with
which C. was still engaged, to look at the beautiful
decorations of the great salon, the walls of which were covered with artistic
designs in fresco. Between each couple of panels, the whole length of the
salon, was a
beautiful painting, representing a landscape or a sea-piece.
I passed from
one to the other, admiring each, till I had reached the extreme end, and was
far away from the rest of the company, where the lights were not so many or so bright
as in the centre. The last fresco in the series then caught my attention.
At first it
appeared to me to be unfinished; and then I observed that there was upon its
background no picture at all, but only a background of merging tints which
seemed to change, and to be now sky, now sea, now green grass. This empty picture
had, moreover, an odd metallic colouring which
fascinated me; and saying to myself " Is there
really any painting on it ? " I mechanically put out my hand and touched
it. On this I was instantly seized by a frightful sensation, a shock that ran
from the tips of my fingers to my brain, and steeped my whole being.
Simultaneously
I was aware of an overwhelming sense of sucking and dragging, which, from my
hand and arm, and, as it were, through them, seemed to possess and envelop my
whole person. Face, hair, eyes, bosom, limbs, every portion of my body was
locked in an awful embrace which, like the vortex of a whirlpool, drew me
irresistibly towards the picture. I felt the hideous impulse clinging over me
and sucking me forwards into the wall. I strove in vain to
resist it. My efforts were more futile than the flutter
of gossamer wings. And then there rushed upon my mind the consciousness that
all we had been told about the haunted rooms was true; that a strong delusion
had been cast over us; that all this brilliant throng of modern ladies and
gentlemen were fiends masquerading, prepared beforehand for our coming; that
all the beauty and
splendour of our surroundings were mere glamour; and that in
reality the rooms were those we had seen in the daytime, filled with lumber and
rot and vermin.
As I realised all this, and was thrilled with the certainty of
it, a sudden access of strength came to me, and I was impelled, as a last
desperate effort, to turn my back on the awful fresco, and at least to save my
face from coming into contact with it and being glued to its surface. With a
shriek of
anguish
I wrenched
myself round and fell prostrate on the ground, face downwards, with my back to
the wall, feeling as though the flesh had been torn from my hand and arm.
Whether I was saved or not I knew not. My whole being was overpowered by the realisation of the deception to which I had succumbed.
I had looked
for something so different, — darkness, vacant, deserted rooms, and
perhaps a tall, white, empty canvas in a frame, against
which I should have been
on my guard. Who could have anticipated or suspected
this cheerful welcome, these entertaining literati, these innocent-looking frescoes ? Who could have foreseen so deadly a horror in
such a guise?
Was I doomed? Should I, too, be sucked in and absorbed, and perhaps C. after me,
knowing nothing of my fate? I had no voice; I could not warn him; all my
force seemed to have been spent on the single shriek I had uttered as I turned
my back on the wall. I lay prone upon the floor, and knew that I had swooned.
And thus, on
seeking me, C. would doubtless have found me, lying insensible among the
rubbish, with the rooms restored to the condition in which we had seen them by
day, my success in withdrawing myself having dissolved the spell and destroyed
the enchantment. But as it was, I awoke from my swoon only to find that I had
been dreaming.
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