Chapter III

Steven came and went now as if nothing had happened. He made a point of keeping the house as it would be kept if Mr. Greathead were alive. Mrs. Blenkiron, coming in once a fortnight to wash and clean, found the fire lit in Mr. Greathead’s study and his slippers standing on end in the fender. Upstairs his bed was made, the clothes folded back, ready. This ritual guarded Steven not only from the suspicions of outsiders, but from his own knowledge. By behaving as though he believed that Mr. Greathead was still living he almost made himself believe it. By refusing to let his mind dwell on the murder he came to forget it. His imagination saved him, playing the play that kept him sane, till the murder became vague to him and fantastic like a thing done in a dream. He had waked up and this was the reality; this round of caretaking, this look the house had of waiting for Mr. Greathead to come back to it. He had left off getting up in the night to examine the place on the dairy floor. He was no longer amazed at his impunity.

Then suddenly, when he really had forgotten, it ended. It was on a Saturday in January, about five o’clock. Steven had heard that Dorsy Oldishaw was back again, living at the “King’s Arms” with her aunt. He had a mad, uncontrollable longing to see her again.

But it was not Dorsy that he saw.

His way from the Lodge kitchen into the drive was through the yard gates and along the flagged path under the study window. When he turned on to the flags he saw it shuffling along before him. The lamplight from the window lit it up. He could see distinctly the little old man in the long, shabby black overcoat, with the grey woollen muffler round his neck hunched up above his collar, lifting the thin grey hair that stuck out under the slouch of the black hat.

In the first moment that he saw it Steven had no fear. He simply felt that the murder had not happened, that he really _had_ dreamed it, and that this was Mr. Greathead come back, alive among the living. The phantasm was now standing at the door of the house, its hand on the door-knob as if about to enter.

But when Steven came up to the door it was not there.

He stood, fixed, staring at the space which had emptied itself so horribly. His heart heaved and staggered, snatching at his breath. And suddenly the memory of the murder rushed at him. He saw himself in the bathroom, shut in with his victim by the soiled green walls. He smelt the reek of the oil-stove; he heard the water running from the tap. He felt his feet springing forward, and his fingers pressing, tighter and tighter, on Mr. Greathead’s throat. He saw Mr. Greathead’s hands flapping helplessly, his terrified eyes, his face swelling and discoloured, changing horribly, and his body sinking to the floor.

He saw himself in the dairy, afterwards; he could hear the thudding, grinding, scraping noises of his tools. He saw himself on Hardraw Pass and the headlights glaring on the pit’s mouth. And the fear and the horror he had not felt then came on him now.

He turned back; he bolted the yard gates and all the doors of the house, and shut himself up in the lighted kitchen. He took up his magazine, _The Autocar_, and forced himself to read it. Presently his terror left him. He said to himself it was nothing. Nothing but his fancy. He didn’t suppose he’d ever see anything again.

Three days passed. On the third evening, Steven had lit the study lamp and was bolting the window when he saw it again.

It stood on the path outside, close against the window, looking in. He saw its face distinctly, the greyish, stuck-out bud of the under-lip, and the droop of the pinched nose. The small eyes peered at him, glittering. The whole figure had a glassy look between the darkness behind it and the pane. One moment it stood outside, looking in; and the next it was mixed up with the shimmering picture of the lighted room that hung there on the blackness of the trees. Mr. Greathead then showed as if reflected, standing with Steven in the room.

And now he was outside again, looking at him, looking at him through the pane.

Steven’s stomach sank and dragged, making him feel sick. He pulled down the blind between him and Mr. Greathead, clamped the shutters to and drew the curtains over them. He locked and double-bolted the front door, all the doors, to keep Mr. Greathead out. But, once that night, as he lay in bed, he heard the “shoob-shoob” of feet shuffling along the flagged passages, up the stairs, and across the landing outside his door. The door handle rattled; but nothing came. He lay awake till morning, the sweat running off his skin, his heart plunging and quivering with terror.

When he got up he saw a white, scared face in the looking-glass. A face with a half-open mouth, ready to blab, to blurt out his secret; the face of an idiot. He was afraid to take that face into Eastthwaite or into Shawe. So he shut himself up in the house, half starved on his small stock of bread, bacon and groceries.

Two weeks passed; and then it came again in broad daylight.

It was Mrs. Blenkiron’s morning. He had lit the fire in the study at noon and set up Mr. Greathead’s slippers in the fender. When he rose from his stooping and turned round he saw Mr. Greathead’s phantasm standing on the hearthrug close in front of him. It was looking at him and smiling in a sort of mockery, as if amused at what Steven had been doing. It was solid and completely lifelike at first. Then, as Steven in his terror backed and backed away from it (he was afraid to turn and feel it there behind him), its feet became insubstantial. As if undermined, the whole structure sank and fell together on the floor, where it made a pool of some whitish glistening substance that mixed with the pattern of the carpet and sank through.

That was the most horrible thing it had done yet, and Steven’s nerve broke under it. He went to Mrs. Blenkiron, whom he found scrubbing out the dairy.

She sighed as she wrung out the floor-cloth.

“Eh, these owd yeller stawnes, scroob as you will they’ll navver look clean.”

“Naw,” he said. “Scroob and scroob, you’ll navver get them clean.”

She looked up at him.

“Eh, lad, what ails ’ee? Ye’ve got a faace like a wroong dishclout hanging ower t’ sink.”

“I’ve got the colic.”

“Aye, an’ naw woonder wi’ the damp, and they misties, an’ your awn bad cooking. Let me roon down t’ ‘King’s Arms’ and get you a drop of whisky.”

“Naw, I’ll gaw down mysen.”

He knew now he was afraid to be left alone in the house. Down at the “King’s Arms” Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw were sorry for him. By this time he was really ill with fright. Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw said it was a chill. They made him lie down on the settle by the kitchen fire and put a rug over him, and gave him stiff hot grog to drink. He slept. And when he woke he found Dorsy sitting beside him with her sewing.

He sat up and her hand was on his shoulder.

“Lay still, lad.”

“I maun get oop and gaw.”

“Nay, there’s naw call for ’ee to gaw. Lay still and I’ll make thee a coop o’ tea.”

He lay still.

Mrs. Oldishaw had made up a bed for him in her son’s room, and they kept him there that night and till four o’clock the next day.

When he got up to go Dorsy put on her coat and hat.

“Is tha gawing out, Dorsy?”

“Aye. I canna let thee gaw and set there by thysen. I’m cooming oop to set with ’ee till night time.”

She came up and they sat side by side in the Lodge kitchen by the fire as they used to sit when they were together there, holding each other’s hands and not talking.

“Dorsy,” he said at last, “what astha coom for? Astha coom to tall me tha’ll navver speak to me again?”

“Nay. Tha knaws what I’ve coom for.”

“To saay tha’ll marry me?”

“Aye.”

“I maunna marry thee, Dorsy. ’twouldn’ be right.”

“Right? What dostha mean? ’Twouldn’t be right for me to coom and set wi’ thee this road ef I doan’t marry thee.”

“Nay. I darena’. Tha said tha was afraid of me, Dorsy. I doan’t want ’ee to be afraid. Tha said tha’d be unhappy. I doan’t want ’ee to be unhappy.”

“That was lasst year. I’m not afraid of ’ee, now, Steve.”

“Tha doan’t knaw me, lass.”

“Aye, I knaw thee. I knaw tha’s sick and starved for want of me. Tha canna live wi’out thy awn lass to take care of ’ee.”

She rose.

“I maun gaw now. But I’ll be oop to-morrow and the next day.”

And to-morrow and the next day and the next, at dusk, the hour that Steven most dreaded, Dorsy came. She sat with him till long after the night had fallen.

Steven would have felt safe so long as she was with him, but for his fear that Mr. Greathead would appear to him while she was there and that she would see him. If Dorsy knew he was being haunted she might guess why. Or Mr. Greathead might take some horrible blood-dripping and dismembered shape that would show her how he had been murdered. It would be like him, dead, to come between them as he had come when he was living.

They were sitting at the round table by the fireside. The lamp was lit and Dorsy was bending over her sewing. Suddenly she looked up, her head on one side, listening. Far away inside the house, on the flagged passage from the front door, he could hear the “shoob-shoob” of the footsteps. He could almost believe that Dorsy shivered. And somehow, for some reason, this time he was not afraid.

“Steven,” she said, “didsta ’ear anything?”

“Naw. Nobbut t’ wind oonder t’ roogs.”

She looked at him; a long wondering look. Apparently it satisfied her, for she answered: “Aye. Mebbe ’tes nobbut wind,” and went on with her sewing.

He drew his chair nearer to her to protect her if it came. He could almost touch her where she sat.

The latch lifted. The door opened, and, his entrance and his passage unseen, Mr. Greathead stood before them.

The table hid the lower half of his form; but above it he was steady and solid in his terrible semblance of flesh and blood.

Steven looked at Dorsy. She was staring at the phantasm with an innocent, wondering stare that had no fear in it at all. Then she looked at Steven. An uneasy, frightened, searching look, as though to make sure whether he had seen it.

That was her fear—that _he_ should see it, that _he_ should be frightened, that _he_ should be haunted.

He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. He thought, perhaps, she might shrink from him because she knew that it _was_ he who was haunted. But no, she put up her hand and held his, gazing up into his face and smiling.

Then, to his amazement, the phantasm smiled back at them; not with mockery, but with a strange and terrible sweetness. Its face lit up for one instant with a sudden, beautiful, shining light; then it was gone.

“Did tha see ’im, Steve?”

“Aye.”

“Astha seen annything afore?”

“Aye, three times I’ve seen ’im.”

“Is it that ’as scared thee?”

“’Oo tawled ’ee I was scared?”

“I knawed. Because nowt can ’appen to thee but I maun knaw it.”

“What dostha think, Dorsy?”

“I think tha needna be scared, Steve. ’E’s a kind ghawst. Whatever ’e is ’e doan’t mean thee no ’arm. T’ owd gentleman navver did when he was alive.”

“Didn’ ’e? Didn’ ’e? ’E served me the woorst turn ’e could when ’e coomed between thee and me.”

“Whatever makes ’ee think that, lad?”

“I doan’ think it. I _know_.”

“Nay, loove, tha dostna.”

“’E did. ’E did, I tell thee.”

“Doan’ tha say that,” she cried. “Doan’ tha say it, Stevey.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Tha’ll set folk talking that road.”

“What do they knaw to talk about?”

“Ef they was to remember what tha said.”

“And what did I say?”

“Why, that ef annybody was to coom between thee and me, tha’d do them in.”

“I wasna thinking of _’im_. Gawd knaws I wasna.”

“_They_ doan’t,” she said.

“_Tha_ knaws? Tha knaws I didna mean ’im?”

“Aye, _I_ knaw, Steve.”

“An’, Dorsy, tha ’rn’t afraid of me? Tha ’rn’t afraid of me anny more?”

“Nay, lad. I loove thee too mooch. I shall navver be afraid of ’ee again. Would I coom to thee this road ef I was afraid?”

“Tha’ll be afraid now.”

“And what should I be afraid of?”

“Why—_’im_.”

“_’Im?_ I should be a deal more afraid to think of ’ee setting with ’im oop ’ere, by thysen. Wuntha coom down and sleep at aunt’s?”

“That I wunna. But I shall set ’ee on t’ road passt t’ moor.”

He went with her down the bridle-path and across the moor and along the main road that led through Eastthwaite. They parted at the turn where the lights of the village came in sight.

The moon had risen as Steven went back across the moor. The ash-tree at the bridle-path stood out clear, its hooked, bending branches black against the grey moor-grass. The shadows in the ruts laid stripes along the bridle-path, black on grey. The house was black-grey in the darkness of the drive. Only the lighted study window made a golden square in its long wall.

Before he could go up to bed he would have to put out the study lamp. He was nervous; but he no longer felt the sickening and sweating terror of the first hauntings. Either he was getting used to it, or—something had happened to him.

He had closed the shutters and put out the lamp. His candle made a ring of light round the table in the middle of the room. He was about to take it up and go when he heard a thin voice calling his name: “Steven.” He raised his head to listen. The thin thread of sound seemed to come from outside, a long way off, at the end of the bridle-path.

“Steven, Steven—”

This time he could have sworn the sound came from inside his head, like the hiss of air in his ears.

“Steven—”

He knew the voice now. It was behind him in the room. He turned, and saw the phantasm of Mr. Greathead sitting, as he used to sit, in the arm-chair by the fire. The form was dim in the dusk of the room outside the ring of candlelight. Steven’s first movement was to snatch up the candlestick and hold it between him and the phantasm, hoping that the light would cause it to disappear. Instead of disappearing the figure became clear and solid, indistinguishable from a figure of flesh and blood dressed in black broadcloth and white linen. Its eyes had the shining transparency of blue crystal; they were fixed on Steven with a look of quiet, benevolent attention. Its small, narrow mouth was lifted at the corners, smiling.

It spoke.

“You needn’t be afraid,” it said.

The voice was natural now, quiet, measured, slightly quavering. Instead of frightening Steven it soothed and steadied him.

He put the candle on the table behind him and stood up before the phantasm, fascinated.

“_Why_ are you afraid?” it asked.

Steven couldn’t answer. He could only stare, held there by the shining, hypnotizing eyes.

“You are afraid,” it said, “because you think I’m what you call a ghost, a supernatural thing. You think I’m dead and that you killed me. You think you took a horrible revenge for a wrong you thought I did you. You think I’ve come back to frighten you, to revenge myself in my turn.

“And every one of those thoughts of yours, Steven, is wrong. I’m real, and my appearance is as natural and real as anything in this room—_more_ natural and more real if you did but know. You didn’t kill me, as you see; for here I am, as alive, more alive than you are. Your revenge consisted in removing me from a state which had become unbearable to a state more delightful than you can imagine. I don’t mind telling you, Steven, that I was in serious financial difficulties (which, by the way, is a good thing for you, as it provides a plausible motive for my disappearance). So that, as far as revenge goes, the thing was a complete frost. You were my benefactor. Your methods were somewhat violent, and I admit you gave me some disagreeable moments before my actual deliverance; but as I was already developing rheumatoid arthritis there can be no doubt that in your hands my death was more merciful than if it had been left to Nature. As for the subsequent arrangements, I congratulate you, Steven, on your coolness and resource. I always said you were equal to any emergency, and that your brains would pull you safe through any scrape. You committed an appalling and dangerous crime, a crime of all things the most difficult to conceal, and you contrived so that it was not discovered and never will be discovered. And no doubt the details of this crime seemed to you horrible and revolting to the last degree; and the more horrible and the more revolting they were, the more you piqued yourself on your nerve in carrying the thing through without a hitch.

“I don’t want to put you entirely out of conceit with your performance. It was very creditable for a beginner, very creditable indeed. But let me tell you, this idea of things being horrible and revolting is all illusion. The terms are purely relative to your limited perceptions.

“I’m speaking now to your intelligence—I don’t mean that practical ingenuity which enabled you to dispose of me so neatly. When I say intelligence I mean intelligence. All you did, then, was to redistribute matter. To our incorruptible sense matter never takes any of those offensive forms in which it so often appears to you. Nature has evolved all this horror and repulsion just to prevent people from making too many little experiments like yours. You mustn’t imagine that these things have any eternal importance. Don’t flatter yourself you’ve electrified the universe. For minds no longer attached to flesh and blood, that horrible butchery you were so proud of, Steven, is simply silly. No more terrifying than the spilling of red ink or the rearrangement of a jig-saw puzzle. I saw the whole business, and I can assure you I felt nothing but intense amusement. Your face, Steven, was so absurdly serious. You’ve no idea what you looked like with that chopper. I’d have appeared to you then and told you so, only I knew I should frighten you into fits.

“And there’s another grand mistake, my lad—your thinking that I’m haunting you out of revenge, that I’m trying to frighten you.... My dear Steven, if I’d wanted to frighten you I’d have appeared in a very different shape. I needn’t remind you what shape I _might_ have appeared in.... What do you suppose I’ve come for?”

“I don’t know,” said Steven in a husky whisper. “Tell me.”

“I’ve come to forgive you. And to save you from the horror you _would_ have felt sooner or later. And to stop your going on with your crime.”

“You needn’t,” Steven said. “I’m not going on with it. I shall do no more murders.”

“There you are again. Can’t you understand that I’m not talking about your silly butcher’s work? I’m talking about your _real_ crime. Your real crime was hating me.

“And your very hate was a blunder, Steven. You hated me for something I hadn’t done.”

“Aye, what did you do? Tell me that.”

“You thought I came between you and your sweetheart. That night when Dorsy spoke to me, you thought I told her to throw you over, didn’t you?”

“Aye. And what did you tell her?”

“I told her to stick to you. It was you, Steven, who drove her away. You frightened the child. She said she was afraid for her life of you. Not because you half killed that poor boy, but because of the look on your face before you did it. The look of hate, Steven.

“I told her not to be afraid of you. I told her that if she threw you over you might go altogether to the devil; that she might even be responsible for some crime. I told her that if she married you and was faithful—_if she loved you_—I’d answer for it you’d never go wrong.

“She was too frightened to listen to me. Then I told her to think over what I’d said before she did anything. You heard me say that.”

“Aye. That’s what I heard you say. I didn’ knaw. I didn’ knaw. I thought you’d set her agen me.”

“If you don’t believe me, you can ask her, Steven.”

“That’s what she said t’ other night. That you navver coom between her and me. Navver.”

“Never,” the phantasm said. “And you don’t hate me now.”

“Naw. Naw. I should navver ’a hated ’ee. I should navver ’a laid a finger on thee, ef I’d knawn.”

“It’s not your laying fingers on me, it’s your hatred that matters. If that’s done with, the whole thing’s done with.”

“Is it? Is it? Ef it was knawn, I should have to hang for it. Maunna I gie mysen oop? Tell me, maun I gie mysen oop?”

“You want me to decide that for you?”

“Aye. Doan’t gaw,” he said. “Doan’t gaw.”

It seemed to him that Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting a little thin, as if it couldn’t last more than an instant. He had never so longed for it to go, as he longed now for it to stay and help him.

“Well, Steven, any flesh-and-blood man would tell you to go and get hanged to-morrow; that it was no more than your plain duty. And I daresay there are some mean, vindictive spirits even in my world who would say the same, not because _they_ think death important but because they know _you_ do, and want to get even with you that way.

“It isn’t _my_ way. I consider this little affair is strictly between ourselves. There isn’t a jury of flesh-and-blood men who would understand it. They all think death so important.”

“What do you want me to do, then? Tell me and I’ll do it! Tell me!”

He cried it out loud; for Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting thinner and thinner; it dwindled and fluttered, like a light going down. Its voice came from somewhere away outside, from the other end of the bridle-path.

“Go on living,” it said. “Marry Dorsy.”

“I darena’. She doan’ knaw I killed ’ee.”

“Oh, yes”—the eyes flickered up, gentle and ironic—“she does. She knew all the time.”

And with that the phantasm went out.

THE FINDING OF THE ABSOLUTE