Chapter XIV: The Poltergeist Again

It must have been half past three when I stumbled up to my room at last, stripped off my clothes almost automatically, and fell into bed. I was asleep in two minutes.

It was the deep, dreamless sleep of exhaustion, from which one does not wake immediately, with every sense alert. No; I must climb, as it were, up from the very bottom of a black abyss of unconsciousness, a sea of oblivion, struggling with infinite pains back toward the light. For hours, as it seemed, I fought my way stubbornly through a welter of half-seen dreams, in response to some imperative summons whose nature, even, my sleep-drugged senses refused to grasp.

At last I came out from sleep into wakefulness suddenly, as a train whizzes out of a long tunnel into the daylight. I sat up, blinking. It was still dark; somewhere in the distance a rooster crowed. That did not aid me in fixing the time, for in North Carolina the cocks crow all night; but now I saw that the east was faintly gray, and I heard the first shrill whistle of an early-rising quail.

By that I knew dawn must be near at hand. But why had I waked so early? What was the insistent call which had dragged me back from deep slumber? I blinked bewilderedly.

Then suddenly a chill swept over me; an eerie horripilation crept up my spine and plucked at the short hairs of my neck. As I shivered with actual, physical cold, I saw that some one or something had drawn back the blanket, so that I lay uncovered almost to my knees. Then, as I leaned forward, clutching after the coverlets, they moved beneath my hand, as though by their own independent volition!

I gave a strangled gasp; perhaps I cried aloud. I am not sure, for the thing shook me. At any rate, in the pale gray light of coming dawn, I saw my blanket creep swiftly, silently, over the foot of the bed and move toward the door.

No one was in sight. My eyes, from which sleep was miraculously purged, raced about the empty room and saw its every detail distinctly. There was the dresser, the rocking chair whereon hung my clothes, the corner table, every familiar furnishing. Beyond the foot of my bed the door stood half open, and through it my blanket and counterpane were moving in a white, undulating mass, that seemed curiously and uncannily alive. And still there was no sound, no stir.

I grew cold and rheumatic. Perhaps I hesitated for an instant, daunted by this mysterious phenomenon. But it was not more than three seconds, I am sure, before I was out of bed and standing at the door, ready for--for whatever cursed thing might lurk there.

There was nothing. The hall stood empty and still, as commonplace as at high noon. I ran to the head of the stairs and leaned over the balustrade. The broad staircase stood empty, also, and the lower hall, as far as my eye could reach. Everything was very still, so that I heard the loud ticking of the grandfather clock below me. But of my nocturnal visitor, if visitor there had been, and of my coverlets, there was no sign at all. Both had vanished.

A door creaked, and I spun about, nerves tense as fiddlestrings. It was Doctor Somers, more lathy and slender of limb in his pajamas than by day, if that were possible.

“Nightmare?” he inquired sourly. “You yelled horribly.”

Peter appeared beside him, dwarfed by the other’s lank height; and Dorothy’s smooth black head peered from her door.

I blushed hotly. I must have made an extraordinary racket, to wake all these tired young folks! “I’m sorry, people,” I said apologetically. “Either I’ve had a nightmare, or it was the Poltergeist again.”

“Humph!” said Somers and looked at me queerly. “Poltergeist?”

“I don’t know. Either I dreamed it all, or my blankets just climbed over the footboard and walked away by themselves. They’re gone, anyhow.”

Dorothy came out, wrapped in her fuzzy blue robe, hair hanging in two sleek braids to her knees. “Oh, dear!” said she and peeped into my room. “Yes, they’re gone. That best white wool blanket, Peter, and the crocheted counterpane. It must have been the Poltergeist!”

“I’m c-cold,” I muttered, suddenly conscious of my thin pajamas.

“Poor old dear! You climb right back into bed and let Peter tuck you in. Here!” Dorothy opened the linen closet at the end of the hall and dragged out more blankets. “Cover him up, Peter; we’ll look for the other things in the morning. No telling what the Poltergeist has done with them!”

“Humph!” repeated Somers. He cocked his head on one side, and, in his pajamas, whose wide stripes, running up and down, accentuated his height and lankiness, he looked like some new variety of long-legged bird--a striped crane.

“Humph! Poltergeist! That’s interesting.” His tone held an impersonal enthusiasm, as of a surgeon confronted with some new and rare disease; I was reminded of the manner in which he had pronounced Miss Christie’s sleepiness due to “hypothyroidism,” whatever that may be. “A Poltergeist! Then such things have happened here before?”

Dorothy nodded. “Yes, the nasty thing’s been hanging round for a year, almost, playing tricks like this, breaking dishes, yelling through the halls, and everything.”

“Humph! Well, let’s get back to bed. I’ll look into this later.”

“Ask Aunt Mary,” suggested Peter grimly. “She’ll talk your arm off about spiritism, if you once get her started.”

“I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting your aunt yet,” replied Somers. Then he yawned and went back into his room.

I went back to bed, to shiver beneath my new blankets. It was not really cold, but I was chilled through. And what with fatigue and excitement and the honest fright of watching my blankets creep away in that eerie fashion, I could not get to sleep again. Moreover, bobwhite had tuned up in earnest now. The shrill, insistent whistling of a dozen quail, calling and answering each other under my window, effectually barred me from further rest. The high-pitched, monotonous call rang through my aching head maddeningly.

At last, it might have been seven o’clock, I did doze off, to waken with a start an hour later. I rose then and dressed. Dorothy was just coming from her rooms; she gave me a brave smile.

“Good morning, my dear! You’re fresh as a rose.”

She was wearing a little blue morning gown, her mass of black hair neatly dressed, and she was smiling. One of the many things I found to admire in Dorothy McGregor was this: that she was always good-natured, even in the morning. No matter how early one saw her, she was never peevish or sullen, in spite of a hot, flashing, little temper.

“Good morning, Uncle George. Did you get any rest at all?”

I sighed. “Oh, a little. Where’s Somers?”

“I haven’t heard anything of him. Tired out, I suppose.”

There was no need to ask where Peter was, for I could hear his lusty snores through his bedroom door. So we two went downstairs together.

“We’ll have our breakfast,” declared Dorothy. “Aunt Mary’ll be waiting, and she hates to eat alone. The others can eat when they get up. They had a hard night, poor boys!”

But, as we came through the big living room, the front door opened and Doctor Somers entered. His lean, sallow face wore its customary look of acute dissatisfaction with the universe; it was neither more nor less saturnine than when I had first set eyes on it, scarcely more than twelve hours ago. The strain of last night had left no visible mark upon him.

We gave him a good morning, to which he replied with a sour grunt. “Been to the post office,” he explained. “They’re poor stamps your postmaster sells here; no stick to ’em at all. Had to buy a bottle of mucilage.”

“You poor man! And did you stamp and mail all those notes?”

Somers shrugged. “It had to be done,” he declared ungraciously.

We went on into the dining room. Before we could be seated, the creaking of her wheel chair announced Aunt Mary’s coming. Dorothy rang the bell.

“Quick, Rosina! Get auntie’s coffee!”

Miss McGregor appeared, the patient nurse at her back. The old lady’s face wore its usual pathetic smile, and she inclined her head to us with sad graciousness.

Somers’ eyes traveled past her. “Good morning, Miss Christie!”

The nurse bowed shyly; her big, violet eyes dropped, and a tinge of color crept into her cheek.

Aunt Mary’s stately head came up. Her thin eyebrows arched. “I don’t think I’ve had the honor----”

“Oh, forgive me, auntie! I’d forgotten you didn’t come out to supper last night. This is Doctor Somers, Aunt Mary; Dr. Somers, my aunt, Miss McGregor. The doctor is--was to be--Lewis’ best man, you know.”

“Ah, of course! And how do you do, doctor?” Miss McGregor’s tone was cool, to say the least. Her manner implied that Somers would have done much better to stay in his lunatic asylum. “It’s so unfortunate that you made that long trip for nothing; you’re from New York, I think? Quite so. You won’t be able to get back to your practice before Wednesday, even by starting to-night, will you? It’s a great inconvenience, but then this dreadful affair has inconvenienced everybody. It has upset me terribly--though that, of course, amounts to nothing!”

Her tone, however, suggested that it was the most important consequence of Doctor Gaskell’s death; and that we others had deliberately planned the killing to annoy her, Mary McGregor. It was truly remarkable, the unpleasant suggestions Aunt Mary managed to convey by a turn of the eye, an arching of her high, thin brows, a pathetic inflection of her sweet, plaintive voice, and all with the kindest, bravest, most self-sacrificing manner in the world. I could still understand how casual visitors considered her an uncomplaining heroine, a saint on earth; but I was no longer inclined to share their opinion.

Doctor Somers smiled at her in his sudden, heartwarming fashion, no whit ruffled by her attitude. “But I’m not going back just yet,” he explained. “The hospital will do very well without me; I wrote this morning for a month’s leave. I shan’t go back until we’ve got poor old Parker safe out of jail.”

Aunt Mary looked dubious. “Can you make them think he did it in self-defense?”

He smiled again. “Something like that. But tell me, Miss McGregor, how did you rest last night?”

She softened visibly. “Very poorly indeed. I’m a great sufferer, doctor, a great sufferer. I worry so about my niece.” She cast a bitter glance at Dorothy, who winced. “I lay awake for hours, just thinking about her troubles, until the knots came in my neck so terribly that I could have screamed. You know, being a doctor, of course.”

Aunt Mary looked at Somers eagerly, a bit apprehensively, I fancied. But he nodded gravely. “I know,” he assured her. _“Torticollis ephemeralis!_ Yes, indeed, a very painful ailment.” His air of serious sympathy was admirable.

“Yes, isn’t it? Well, I kept thinking, I must be patient; I must try to comfort poor Dorothy in her trials. She’s not used to suffering, as I am. I mustn’t notice it if her worries make her heedless and self-absorbed; she doesn’t mean to be inconsiderate. I won’t make it harder for her by complaining. I was so sorry, dear”--turning to the poor girl, who looked supremely uncomfortable--“so sorry that I had to wake Miss Christie and send her out last night--this morning, rather. I knew, if you hadn’t been so upset, you’d have remembered that I never can sleep when there’s so much going on in the house. I know you didn’t mean to be selfish, and so I stood it just as long as I could.”

Dorothy sighed deeply. “Here, auntie, try this piece of toast; it’s crisper. Rosina, fill auntie’s cup. Yes, dear, drink another cup of coffee. It’ll do you good.”

Doctor Somers came to the rescue with a deft question, and presently Aunt Mary was beaming upon him, discussing her symptoms with infinite relish. The charm of an intelligent and sympathetic listener brought unwonted color to her delicately faded cheek; her rigid pose relaxed; her eyes shone brighter. Absently she finished her second cup of coffee and ate three more slices of toast, talking all the while. Aunt Mary was enjoying herself thoroughly.

We others rose and slipped out, leaving her in the midst of an animated account of the strange sensations in her limbs. “You see, doctor, I’ve been paralyzed in both limbs for fourteen years now, never able to leave my chair except for bed. I have to be lifted and carried about like a baby. And for years my limbs were perfectly numb and dead; but lately I’ve had the queerest feelings--creepy, prickly feelings. Do you suppose it’s atrophy?”

Somers nodded gravely. “No doubt! Your muscles are wasting away, and the spinal cord is affected, I think.”

“Oh, he’s making her out worse than she is!” whispered Dorothy, horrified. “He’ll scare her to death!”

“Hush!” I told her. “Can’t you see she loves it?”

“I resigned myself to that long ago, doctor--not being able to stand on my feet ever again. But the queer feelings, and those terrible knots in my neck----”

We slipped out. Doctor Somers listened attentively, nodding at intervals, but his keen, gray-green eyes were all for the silent nurse.