Out of the Air Part 9

But I've got to do it. So here goes!

Spink, the remaining seventy-five per cent that I own in this place is-- This place is haunted. Not by a ghost, but by _ghosts_! There are not one of them, but four. Three I see occasionally. But one of the quartet--I see her all the time. She is Lutetia.

It began-- Well, it all goes back to your rooms in New York. They're haunted too, but you don't know it, you wall-eyed old grave-digger, you.

Not because you're inept or unsensitive or anything stupid-- It's because there's something they want to say to _me_--a message they want to give to me alone. But I can't stop to go into that now. To return to your apartment, _something_ ... used to come ... to my bed at night ...

and bend over me ... I don't know who it was or what it was, except that it was masculine. And how I knew that, I dunno.

It bothered me. One reason why I came down here was that I thought I was going crazy. Perhaps I have gone crazy. Anyway, if I have I like it. But here I am again! It's as though the world slipped out from under me. I can fly on and on or climb, but it's the coming down that baffles me.

When I cut the motor off and the noise dies away, I feel sick and afraid; the bus seems to take its own head. Now for a landing--even if I do smash.

From the moment I entered this house, I felt as though there were others here. Not specifically, you understand. At first, it was only a sensation of warmth in the atmosphere that grew to a feeling of friendliness that deepened to a sense of companions.h.i.+p until-- Well, I found myself in a mood of eternal expectancy. Something was going to happen but I didn't know what or how or when.... Oh yes, in a _way_ I knew what. I was going to see something. Some time--I felt dimly--when I should enter one of these rooms, so stark and yet so occupied, somebody would be there to greet me ... or some day turning a corner I should come suddenly on.... I did not dread that experience, Spink, I give you my word. I reveled in the expectancy of it. It was beautiful; it was rich. I wasn't anything of what you call _afraid_. I wanted it to happen.

And it did happen.

One evening, as usual, I was reading Lutetia. I was sitting in my big chair beside the refectory table. Outside, it was a perfect night I remember; dark and still, and the stars so big that they seemed to spill out of the heavens. Inside, the lamp was bright. My eyes were on my book. Suddenly.... I was not alone. Don't ask me how I knew it. Only take it from me that I did. I knew it all right. For--_oh, Spink_--(I've underlined that just like a girl) all in a flash I didn't want--to look up. I wanted to go away from this place and to go with considerable speed, not glancing back. It was the worst sensation that I have ever known--worse even than a night raid. After a while something came back; courage I suppose you'd call it; a kind of calm, a poise. Anyway, I found that I was going to be able to look up presently and not mind it....

Of course I knew whom I was going to see....

I did look up. And I did see-- It was Lutetia. Spink, if you try to say those things that people always say--that it was imagination, that I was overwrought, that my mind, moving all the day among the facts and realities of Lutetia's life, suddenly projected a picture--I'll never speak to you again. There she sat, her elbow resting on the arm of her chair, her chin in her hand, looking at me. I can't tell you how long she stayed. But all the time she was there she looked at me. And all that time I looked at her. I don't think, Spink, I have ever guessed how much eyes can say. Her eyes said so much that I think I could write the whole rest of the night about them. Except that I'm not quite sure what they said. It was all entreaty; oh, blazing, blasting, blinding entreaty.... Of that I am sure. But what she asked of me I haven't the remotest idea. After a while ... something impelled me to look down at my book again. When I lifted my eyes Lutetia was gone.

That wasn't all, Spink; for that night, or the next day-- But I'm going to try to keep to a consecutive story. I didn't go to bed immediately. I didn't feel like sleeping. You can understand it was considerable of a shock. And very thrilling. Literally thrilling! I shook. It didn't bother me an atom after it was over. I wasn't the least afraid. But I vibrated for hours. I walked four or five miles--where, I don't know. I must have pa.s.sed the Fallows place, because I recall the scent of honeysuckle. But I a.s.sure you I seemed to be walking through the stars.... She is beautiful. I can't tell you how beautiful because I have no colors to give you; no flesh to go by. Perhaps she is not beautiful, but lovely. What queer things words are! I have called females _pretty_ and _stunning_ and even _fascinating_ and _beautiful_.

I think I never called any woman _lovely_ before. I've been that young.

But I'm not as young as I was yesterday. I'm a century, an age, an aeon older. I was obsessed though. If you believe it, when I went to bed, I had only one idea in my mind--a hope that she would come back soon.

She didn't come back soon--at least not that night. But somebody else did....

In the middle of the night, I suddenly found myself, wide-eyed and clear-minded, sitting upright in bed and listening to something. I don't know what I had heard, but I remember with perfect clearness--Spink, you tell me this is a dream and I'll murder you--what I immediately did and what I subsequently saw. I got up quite calmly and lighted a candle.

Then I opened the door.

Do you remember my writing you that the chamber, just back of the one I occupy, must have been the room of a child--Lutetia's little niece? The door of that room, of course, leads into the hall as mine does. As I stood there, shading my candle from the draft, that door opened and there emerged from the room--what do you suppose?

A little girl.

I say--a little girl. She wasn't, you understand, a real little girl.

Nor was she a dead little girl. Instantly I knew that--just as instantly as I had known that Lutetia _was_ dead. I mean, and I hope this phraseology is technically correct, that Lutetia, as I saw her, was the ghost of someone who had once lived. This little girl was an apparition; an appearance projected through s.p.a.ce of some one who now lives. That or--oh, how difficult this is, Spink--a sloughed-off, astral self left in this old place; or--but I won't go into that.

I stood there, as I said, shading my candle. The little girl closed her door with a meticulous care. Did I hear the ghost of a click? Perhaps my ear supplied that. By one hand she was dragging a big doll--one of those rag-dolls children have. I couldn't tell you anything about Lutetia--except that she was lovely--ineffably lovely. But I can tell you all about this little girl. She was pigtailed and freckled. The pigtails were short, very thick, so tight that their ends snapped upwards, like hundreds of little-girl pigtails that I have seen. There was a row of tangled little ringlets on her forehead. She didn't look at me. She didn't know that I was there. She proceeded straight across the hall, busily stub-toeing her way like any freckled, pigtailed little girl, the doll dragging on the floor behind her, until she reached the garret stairs. She opened the garret door, closed it with the same meticulous care. The last I got was a little white glimpse of her down-dropped face, as she pulled the rag-doll's leg away from the shutting door.

I waited there a long time--until my candle guttered to nothing. She did not return. I did not see her or anybody else again that night.

I went back to bed and fell immediately into a perfectly quiet, dreamless sleep. The next morning early, I went over to Hyde's brother--his name is Corning--and bought this house. Perhaps you can tell me why I did it. I don't exactly know myself; for of course I couldn't afford it. I realized only that I could not--I simply and absolutely could _not_--let anybody else buy Lutetia.

You think, of course, that I've finished now, Spink. But that isn't all.

Not by a million Persian parasangs--all. She has come again. I mean Lutetia. For that matter, they both have come again. But I'll try to tell my story categorically.

It was a night or two later; another dewy, placid large-starred night-- Strange how this beautiful weather keeps up! I had been reading as usual; but my mind was as vacant as a gla.s.s bell from which you have exhausted the air. I was rereading, I remember, Lutetia's _The Sport of the G.o.ddesses_. Spink, how that woman could write! And.... Again I became aware that I wasn't alone. Just as definitely, I knew that it was not Lutetia this time; nor even Little Pigtails. This time, and perhaps it's because I'm getting used to this sort of thing, I had a sense of--not _fear_--but only of what I'll call a _spiritual diffidence_.

Yet instantly I looked up.

He--it was a _he_ this time--was standing in the doorway, which leads from this big living-room into the front hall. We were vis-a-vis--tete-a-tete one might say. He was looking straight at me and I--I a.s.sure you, Spink--I looked straight at him.

Spink, you have never heard of a jovial ghost, have you? I'm sure I haven't. But this was or could have been a jovial ghost. He was big--not fat but ample--middle-aged, more than middle-aged. He wore an enormous beard cut square like the men in a.s.syrian mural tablets. Hair a little long. I a.s.sure you he was the handsomest old beggar that I have ever seen. He looked like a portrait by t.i.tian. I got--it's like holding a photographic negative up to the light and trying to get the figures on it--that he wore a sort of flowing gown; it made him stately. And one of those little round caps that conceal or protect baldness. I can't describe him. How the devil _can_ you describe a ghost? I mean an apparition. For he isn't dead either--any more than the little girls is.

He's alive somewhere.

Well, our steady exchange of looks went on and on and on. If I could have said anything it would have been: "What do you want of me, you handsome old beggar?" What he would have said to me I don't know; although he was trying with all his ghostly strength to put some message over. How he was trying! It was that effort that kept him from being what he was--_is_--jovial. G.o.d, how that gaze burned--tore--ate. It grew insupportable after a while--it was melting me to nothingness. I dropped my eyes. Suddenly I could lift them, for I knew he was gone. Somehow I had the feeling that a monstrous bomb had noiselessly exploded in the room. His going troubled me no more than his coming. I remember I said aloud: "I'm sorry I couldn't get you, old top! Better luck next time!"

I got up from my chair after a few minutes to take my usual before-going-to-bed walk. I walked about the room; absent-mindedly putting things to rights--the way women do. My mind--and I suspect my eyes too--were still so full of him that when, on stepping outside, I came across another--I was conscious of some shock. Again not of fear, but of a terrific surprise.

Are you getting all this, Spink? Oh, of course you're not, because you don't believe it. But try to believe it. Put yourself in my place! Try to get the wonder, the magic, the terror, the touch now and then of horror, but above all the fierce thrill--of living with a family of ghosts?

This one--the fourth--was a man too. About thirty, I should say. And awfully charming. Yes, you spaniel-eyed fish, you, one man is saying this of another man. He was awfully charming. Short, dark. He wore--again it is like holding a negative up to the light--he wore white ducks or flannels. He stood very easily, his weight--listen to me, his _weight_--mainly on one foot and one hand curved against his hip. In the other hand, he carried his pipe. He looked at me--G.o.d, how he looked at me! How, for that matter, they all look at me! They want something, Spink. Of me. They're trying to tell me. I can't get it, though. But, believe me, I'm trying. This was worse than the old fellow. For this one, like Lutetia, was dead. And he, like her, was trying to put his message across a world, whereas the old fellow had only to pierce a dimension. How he looked at me; held me; bored into me. It was like sustaining visual vitriol.... How he looked at me! It became horrible.... Pretty soon I realized I wasn't going to be able to stand it....

Yet I stayed with it as long as he did, and of course we continued to glare at each other. I don't exactly know what the etiquette of these meetings is; but I seem to feel vaguely that it's up to me to stay with them as long as they're here. This time, it must have been all of five minutes, although it seemed longer ... much longer ... and I, all the time, trying to hold on. Then suddenly something happened. I don't know what it was, but one instant he was there, and another he wasn't. Don't ask me how he went away. I don't know. He simply ceased to be; and yet so swifter-than-instantly, so exquisitely, so subtly that my only question was--even though my mind was still stinging from his gaze--had he been there at all. It was as though the tree back of him had instantaneously absorbed him. It was a shock too--that disappearance.

Well, again I went out for a hike. I walked anywhere--everywhere. How far I don't know. But half the night. Again it was as though I marched through the stars....

I haven't seen the old painter again--I call him painter simply because he wore that long robe. And I haven't seen the young guy again. But I see Lutetia all the time. She comes and goes. Sometimes when I enter the living-room, I find her already there.... Sometimes when I leave it, I know she enters by another door.... We spend long evenings together....

I can't write when she's about; but curiously enough I can sometimes read; that is to say, I can read Lutetia. I try to read because moments come when I realize that she prefers me not to look at her. It's when she's exhausted from trying to give me her message. Or when she's girding herself up for another go. At those moments, the room is full of a frightful struggle; a gigantic spiritual concentration. It seems to me I could not look even if she wanted me. Oh, how she tries, Spink! It wrings my heart. She's so helpless, so hopeless--so gentle, so tender, so lovely! It's all my own stupidity. The iron-wall stupidity of flesh and blood. Perhaps, if I were to kill myself--and I think I could do that for her.... Only she doesn't want me to do that.... But what does she want me to do? If I could only....

Lindsay had written steadily the whole evening; written at a violent speed and with a fierce intensity. Now his speed died down. His hands dropped from the typewriter. That mental intensity evaporated. He became aware....

He was not alone.

The long living-room was doubly cheerful that night. The inevitable tracks of living had begun to humanize it. A big old bean-pot full of purple iris sat on one end of the refectory table. Lindsay's books and notebooks; his paper and envelopes; his pens and pencils sprawled over the length of table between him and the iris. That the night was a little cool, Lindsay had seized as pretext to build a huge fire. The high, jagged flames conspired with the steady glow of the big lamp to rout the shadows from everywhere but the extreme corners.

No more than--after her coming--he was alone was Lutetia alone. It was, Lindsay reflected, a picture almost as posed as for a camera. Lutetia sat; and leaning against her, close to her knee, stood a pigtailed little girl. She might have been listening to a story; for her little ear was c.o.c.ked in Lutetia's direction. That att.i.tude brought to Lindsay's observation a delicious, snub-nosed child profile. She gazed unseeingly over her shoulder to a far corner. And Lutetia gazed straight over the child's head at Lindsay--

They sat for a long time--a long long time--thus. The little girl's vague eyes still fixed themselves on the shadows as on magic realms that were being constantly unrolled to her. Lutetia's eyes still sought Lindsay's. And Lindsay's eyes remained on Lutetia's; held there by the agony of her effort and the exquisite torture of his own bewilderment.

After a while he arose. With slow, precise movements, he gathered up the pages of his letter to Spink. He arranged them carefully according to their numbers--twelve typewritten pages. He walked leisurely with them over to the fireplace and deposited them in the flames.

When he turned, the room was empty.

The next day brought storm again.

The coolness of the night vanished finally before the sparkling suns.h.i.+ne of a wind-swept day. Lindsay wrote for an hour or two. Then he gave himself up to what he called the "ch.o.r.es." He washed his few dishes. He toiled on the lawn and in the garden. He finished the work of repairing the broken stairway in the barn. At the close of this last effort, he even cast a longing look in the direction of the rubbish collection in the second story of the barn. But his digestion apprised him that this voyage of discovery must be put off until after luncheon. He emerged from the back entrance of the barn, made his way, contrary to his usual custom, by a circuitous route to the front of the house. He stopped to tack up a trail of rosebush which had pulled loose from the trellis there. He felt unaccountably tired. When he entered the house he was conscious for the first time of a kind of loneliness....

He had not seen Lutetia, nor any of her companions, for three days. He admitted to himself that he missed the tremendous excitement of the last fortnight. But particularly he missed Lutetia. He paused absently to glance into the two front rooms, still as empty as on the day he had first seen them. He wandered upstairs into his bedroom. From there, he journeyed to the child's room beyond; examined again the dim drawings on the wall. It occurred to him that, by going over them with crayons, he could restore some of their lost vividness. The idea brought a little spurt of exhilaration to his jaded spirit. He returned to his own room, just for the sake of descending Lutetia's little private stairway to what must have been her private living-room below. He walked absently and a little slowly; still conscious of loneliness. He did not pause long in the living-room, although he made a tentative move in the direction of the kitchen. Still absently and quite mechanically he opened the back door; started to step out onto the broad flat stone which made the step....

Most unexpectedly--and shockingly, he was not alone. A tiny figure ...

black ... sat on the doorstep; sat so close to the door that, as it rose, his curdling flesh warned him he had almost touched it. A curious thing happened. Lindsay swayed, pitched; fell backwards, white and moveless.