'Can such things be?' Or, the Weird of the Beresfords. A study in occult willpower

Front matter

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Preface

. I CANNOT pretend to account for, or in any way attempt to explain, the extraordinary mystery of the following tale. I only try to tell the mere facts of a marvellous unearthly experience in all the same as here related, save that she who went through this great horror lived — though but for a brief week or two — and told the story of that terrible night. Many will, doubtless, assert that it must have been a dream, an hallucination, or the phantasma goria of a diseased fancy ; that either insanity, or the strange optical delusions and imaginations engendered by opiates when they fail as sleep inducers, must be the true solution of this weird problem. And possibly they may be right ; but one or two unalterable, inexplicable facts remain. The mysterious music was heard by others besides her to whom the ghastly manifestation

PREFACE.

. was made ; and, above all, the singular disappearance of the violin, its reappearance a year later, and its still more marvellous and weirdly-mystic vanishing at the moment of death, are inexplicable phenomena. I think it necessary to say this little word of deprecation, as apology for offering to the world a tale almost too wild for belief. ARNOLD DYSART, M.A, F.R.S., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Professor of Modem Philosophy. Cambridge, June ijl/i, iSSj. CONTENTS.

Part I. His Violin

CHAPTER PAGE I. Alone! ... ... ... ... ... 9 II. Vanished ! ... ... ... ... 21 III. Her Vision ... ... ... ... 36 IV. A Psychologist... ... ... ... 47 V. The Discovery ... ... ... ... 59 VI. What was it? ... ... ... ... 70 VII. An Open Coffin ! ... ... ... ... 80 VIII. Conclusion of the Professor's Narrative 93

Part II. The Varley Murder Case

IX. The Verdict ... ... ... ... 109 X. Told by a Special Pleader ... ... 116 XI. From the "Evening Star" ... ... 129 XII. The Eastern Gable ... ... ... 145 a CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIII. The Shadow of the Stain ... 160 XIV. An Ominous Whisper ... ... ... 169 XV. A Startling Likeness ... ... .•• 178 XVI. In the Stillness of the Night ... '91

Part III. The Prophecy Fulfilled

XVII. The Manor House Phantom again Visible 209 XVIII. Realization of the Vision ... ... 224 XIX. The Wail of a Little Child ... ... 237 XX. Miserrima ! ... ... ... ...

Part I. His Violin

" There are more things in heaven and earth Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." "CAN SUCH THINGS BE?" or, THE WEIRD OF THE BERESFORDS.

Chapter I. Alone

! As the last stroke of midnight sounds on the still, frosty air, and the sweet Christmas bells ring out in a burst of glad triumphant harmony, old Maxwell Beresford's spirit passes away unto the God who gave it, and his daughter Eunice is indeed alone — a desolate, friendless loneliness, very terrible to contemplate. These two have been so thoroughly all in all to each other, have lived so utterly in and for one another, for such a number of years now, that the daughter can scarcely remember or imagine any other state of being. Her mother died when she was but ten years of age. She is now some years past forty ; and in all that long time, save for a " CAN SUCH THINGS BE ? ' 10 brief halcyon interlude, more than twenty years ago (but her lover had to travel to distant lands, and for long, long years his bones have been bleaching under an Indian sun), none have come into this father's and daughter's life, to disturb its even, monotonous current, to cheer or sadden, or in any way break the long union of these two, con nected by that closest of all ties — parent and child.

And now — she is alone ! Alone in the cold, cruel, pitiless world, with not one hand outstretched across that awful silence, in friendship or com passion ; alone and poor (for her father's means died with him), with youth and hope behind her, and an open grave in front. Maxwell Beresford was in all things a disappointed man. Life with him had been a failure in those things that men hold dear. Success had been denied him ; the ambitions, hopes, and aspira tions of his earlier years had never reached fruition. His marriage, also, had been somewhat unfor tunate, and had not yielded him the happiness he craved. Worldly prosperity was not his, and all his love and dreams and hopes centred in his little daughter ; in her bright and radiant future he would live and be glad again. But the cloud had darkened his own life, that cast its brood ing shadow o'er his child's. A brilliant, happy future seemed suddenly to open to his Eunice, but only to close up again into the grey dreary blank, that became all the gloomier when shorn of hope, and sorrow-laden.

Yes, his girl's life was ALONE ! 11 blighted at its outset ; she grew old and grave and sad, while the bloom of freshest, loveliest youth was on her brow. And so these two maimed and narrowed lives grew closer, each finding in the other the solace, the sympathy, the happiness which the outside world denied them — " the world forgetting, by the world forgot." Such was the story of the Beresfords' lives during those latter years. And now, for all time, they are divided. One has gone forth into the great un known, and has left the other behind, to mourn in a desperate, infinite loneliness. And what makes this solitariness and isolation seem more awful is, that Eunice must, perforce, go forth and face that hard, unsympathetic world ; she must leave her home — the home of her race, the home in which she has spent her whole existence, save for three or four baby years.

Even now, as she gazes down in a passion of unutterable grief on that dear dead face— even now, it is no longer her own, but has already, writh that spent breath, passed away into the possession of aliens and strangers. This great grey old Manor House, in which Eunice has lived her life, is the last remnant of the Beresford property, once vast and flourishing ; but now even the name is extinct, and Eunice, the last of her race, must go forth in a few days, not only to face the world, but to fight it single handed ; to try and add to the miserable pittance of some ,£30 a year, which is about all she will be "CAN SUCH THINGS BE?" 12 able to call her own. To increase this scanty store, she must work — alas ! poor Eunice ! at her age, and having lived such a life of refined seclu sion, with no rough-rubbing or sharp contact with the callous world to prepare her for the fray.

But though timid, shrinking, and sensitive, Eunice Beresford is true to the instincts of her race. She has a faithful, unselfish heart, coupled with in finite endurance and unending patience ; she accepts her fate with a resigned and Christian spirit. And by-and-by, when she bids an eternal farewell to that dear old Manor, with which all memories of him whom she has lost are so indis solubly connected, that the familiar house and grounds seem like a part of her own very being, she does so through blinding tears, but not with a bitter, rebellious spirit. An infinite trust, rather, is the attitude of her broken heart — trust in God's goodness and mercy ; He will not leave her desolate. And deep down in her breast, unconfessed even to herself, but yet there, is the hope, the long ing, that this desolation will soon be broken, in the only one way that can give her reunion with that beloved lost father.

It cannot be for long, that she feels — this blank, cold barrier of separation. Life has naught to offer her, death has much. She will live on as long as God wills, unmurmuringly, patiently waiting for the end that will bring her joy and peace ineffable ; but surely that end will not be very long in coming. And, in the meantime, she will struggle bravely, and try to bear meekly, ALONE ! 13 without impious repining, her heavy burden of sorrow, taking up the broken threads of her life, and essaying to weave them into as goodly a garment of Christian fortitude and endurance as she may. These are desolate Eunice's thoughts and yearn ings and resolutions, as she drives away alone from the only home she remembers — away to that distant cheap lodging, in a respectable, though somewhat humble neighbourhood of the busy city, a few miles outside of which she has lived her life.

It seems singular — some might say, almost im possible — how any one could be so completely alone as Eunice Beresford, not being a stranger in a strange place — a circumstance which always accounts for intensest solitariness ; but it is easily explained. When Maxwell Beresford succeeded his father as squire of the Manor, and took possession of his barren heritage, he was even then a weary, world-worn, disappointed man, though his little daughter was but four years of age. He shrank from meeting strangers, and gave himself up somewhat to the life of a morbid recluse, living in and with his music and his books. His wife, a gay and frivolous woman of fashion, had become already a confirmed invalid ; and, between physical suffering and seriously crippled means, she also shrank from the world during the half-dozen years she lived ; and, save her attendant physician, no stranger entered the doors of the Manor House, " CAN SUCH THINGS BE ?

" 14 Gradually this isolated mode of life grew so on Mr. Beresford, that he could contemplate no other ; and through all the days of his daughter's child hood there was no alteration. The little girl had governesses, therefore she had not even the chance of making school friends. By-and-by, when she was grown, she made a few acquaintances — one could hardly call them by the stronger term — as youth must and will ; but when her own life was shattered, and all its sweet promise buried in a far-away grave, she too with drew from the small world that had been hers for a brief space. Shunning those whom she knew and mingled with during the short sunshine of her life, she drew back into the shadow which seemed her portion, as well as her beloved father's ; and none cared to follow into its drear duskiness.

And so the years rolled on, and the few young people she had known in life's glad morning are now dead, or scattered, or faded into unknowingness, and Eunice, as we see, is utterly alone. To increase the miserable yearly sum that would barely save her from actual starvation, she determines to get a little teaching. She loves music with all her heart and soul. Dear as are her books to her, yet her piano has been still more of a solace — a faithful friend that cheered and com forted and soothed in the long years of her shadowed life. Music was a passion with the Beresfords, both father and child ; and old Max- ALONE ! 15 well's violin and Eunice's piano led a wedded life of truest concord, and were continually blent in sweetest harmony and union. Both loved the divine art for its own sake, and not for the sake of shining before others, as it was only the unresponsive walls of their lonely home heard the wild, sweet, wailing music that they delighted in.

Yes, Eunice is fortunate, and possesses a speciality ; and when some few months are gone by, and the first fresh torturing anguish of her sorrow has somewhat spent itself, she awakes to the knowledge that there is business as well as grief in the world for her ; awakes to the know ledge that she has already four pupils, all girls over fifteen, each of whom pays her two guineas a month. And the knowledge that she can earn the bread that is necessary to life — though that life she would gladly lay down — is pleasant, even though that bread must ever be mixed for her with tears and sorrow. And now a sort of saddened peace, a dreary, desolate restfulness, comes to Eunice, after those first few months of active, agonized sorrow. During those first days of her mourning, after she had left her old home, life seemed insupportable.

Pray as she might for resignation, for strength to endure, the hideous, awful loneliness was so terrible, the sudden, complete severance from that one friend, who had never failed her since she was born, was so frightful, so impossible to realize, and yet such a soul-crushing fact, that she felt she must cither go mad or die. She and her father, who had scarcely been apart a day ; from whom, looking forward, she felt she could never be separated, they loved each other so well, — now to be divided for ever! at least, for all time; and to know nothing of him — where lie was, or what lie was ! Was he no longer the loved parent, whose intangible presence seemed ever near her? Or must she think of him only as an ethereal essence, a spirit, cold, passionless, sublimated, purified from all mortal dross, with no remnant or memory ofthe humanity that was so dear to her ?

The thought of meeting him again in that guise brought no satisfaction or comfort, but, rather, dismay and shrinking — a disembodied soul ! " When, leaving the body, out to the free ether thou readiest, A god undying thou shalt be, no longer a mortal." These lines were ever in her mind during those first days, and brought her desolation instead of solace. She longed and craved and yearned for the father she -had known, the earthly being she had loved so well ; and these wild, speculative thoughts, that would intrude themselves, only made her faint with shuddering scepticism and despair. But "Time the consoler" lays its soften ing healing hand on this wounded heart, and when some six months have glided into the past since that terribly sad Christmas Eve, Eunice Beresford has regained her calm, steadfast faith and trust, that never wavered, until half-stunned ALONE ! 17 by the force of a paralyzing blow ; and she has also regained, in a measure, the noble endurance, the sweet, serene patience, that have been hers through life.

"All will be right in the end," she whispers to herself. She, and he, so lately gone out into the darkness of nothingness, and that other he, she "loved long since and lost awhile," will all be reunited in God's own good time — reunited for all eternity. The unshakable con viction grows each day stronger in her breast, that the great and wise Creator never implanted in the human heart the capability of such true, intense, unchanging love, merely to serve our little span on earth. These unsearchable mysteries of love, these unfathomable depths of man's heart, were fashioned for everlasting, and not for a day. " For what is your life ? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." So the apostle speaks of the life, the breath ; but so he does not speak of that God-like attribute in man — love.

"Many waters cannot quench love ; " no, not even the Lethe of death. The order of her life is changed to an extent ; she has new duties and responsibilities — duties that infuse a faint flavour of interest in the performing ; Eunice being not merely a pains taking automatic teacher, bent only on bringing on her pupils, but one who feels an individual regard and interest in each young life thus brought into contact with her own. Thus her mornings are passed in work that B occupies without fatiguing, and is consequently healthful. Her late afternoons and evenings are her own, to spend with the books she delights in, or the music that is her second self. Her beloved piano from the Manor has accompanied her in her exile ; that, and her father's violin, her dearest, most treasured possession, are almost the only visible links in her present obscure home that connect her with the past.

When she brings herself to play again, which is not for months, she always opens that dear violin case, leaving the enclosed silent inmate within sight ; and somehow she fancies she feels less lonely thus. That same violin has somewhat of a strange history of its own. It is old, very old, and has been in the family for generations, belonging to a far-away ancestor of Maxwell's, whose life history had been a shadowed one, according to tradition ; which said that his wife had played him false, and had murdered either him or her lover some where in the eastern gable of the Manor House, which was declared to be haunted by her unresting spirit. This, at least, was the popular legend attached to Eunice's home ; but she thought little of it. The phantom presence had never made any sign during her time or her father's, and she often forgot the strange old story connected with the house, of which there was no record whatever among the family papers ; but she did know of the violin's antiquity, and had, in consequence, a sort ALONE ! 19 of veneration, almost verging on reverence, for it.

It seemed a part of themselves, as if it bore a mystic life that somehow linked it with the family. Of course it was only imagination, but it sometimes seemed to her a sensient creature, with a human wail of sorrow in its wondrous voice. It had been her father's best and dearest friend, save herself — his "familiar," as she would laughingly say ; and for this reason, if for no other, she loved and treasured it. And so the year wanes and wastes for Eunice Beresford in the calm, uneventful, monotonous routine of this new life — routine that is so often as a bulwark to saddened, broken-hearted women ; a moral defence, entrenched behind which they struggle on, hopeless but enduring, deprived of which they would collapse and die. Though her pupils increase, and her income improves, yet still she remains on in the obscure home she has made for herself.

The street is respectable, though situated in a somewhat humble neighbourhood, and the house quiet in the extreme ; the only occupants being the owner, a lady, elderly, frail, and partly deaf, but gentle and kind-hearted, and her servant, a cheerful, obliging young woman, who seems to think it a pleasure to do Eunice's small behests. A house in which the only lodger can be as secluded, as utterly alone, solitary, and quiet, as if it were her own, — this is what Eunice craves, and this is the reason why she remains. She shrinks from the idea of the stir of gay young life, noise, bustle, excitement. When her day's duties are over, she likes to creep to her quiet rooms, and there, with those inanimate intellectual companions, pass her long hours of leisure ; though it would be much more wholesome for her if she were compelled to mingle more, if she were not thus enabled to indulge her love of solitude, and so perhaps foster singular mystic thoughts and imaginings.

Chapter II. Vanished

! The year has worn almost to its close ; Christmas Eve has again come round — Christmas Eve, so glad, so joyous a season for nearly all ; the saddest day in the year for Eunice Beresford. Was it not with its expiring breath, and the new-born moment of the holy morning, that Maxwell Beresford passed into the " silent land," and left his daughter desolate ? Yesterday Eunice bade her pupils " good-bye " for a fortnight, and this most melancholy anni versary is the first day of her liberty. All those long, sad hours she spends in unbroken solitude, and sorrow that forbids all occupation. Better for her were she compelled to work till she almost dropped, than thus to muse and grieve and yearn. She feels tired — so tired — towards evening, and half determines to go to bed early (quite contrary to her habitual custom, as in no circumstances does she leave her sitting-room till past twelve), and try to forget her troubles in sleep ; but she changes her mind suddenly.

To-night, of all nights in the year, she must remain up and awake. Must she not live, in spirit, over again that moment of anguish last year? Would it be even respectful or reverential to that dear memory to pass in sleep the first return of the time when soul and body underwent their mystic parting ? Besides, she feels involuntarily that it would be yielding to a sort of cowardice ; for as the hour grows later, she is half-conscious of an eerie sense of expectation — a watchful, nervous, half-formed dread, for which she despises and condemns herself. So she heaps coal upon her fire, turns up the lamp, to give a brighter light, and, for the first time that day, tries to seek in occupation a refuge from unhappy thoughts. The piano — she cannot touch it — and the violin in its case, which rests upon it, arc closed and mute.

She has been trying to rub up her German lately, which has got somewhat rusted. Some of Heine's poems in the original she is studying with much delight ; and now she brings out her books, and settles herself for an hour or two's work. The poem that presents itself for to-night's reading (she is going through her small selection regularly) is, by a strange chance, the singular legend of " Geoffry Rudel and Mclisanda of Tripoli." Doubtless, all know the story of how the Countess Melisanda saw Geoffry dying on the beach ; they kissed and loved ; he died, and she worked the scene into the tapestry. And VANISHED ! 23 Eunice dwells long, with a strange thrill at her heart, on these two verses, which are rendered thus in an English translation : — " In the Chateau Blay at night-time, Comes a rushing, crackling, shaking ; On the tapestry the figures Suddenly to life are waking.

" Troubadour and lady stretch their Drowsy ghost-like members yonder. And, from out the wall advancing, Up and down the hall they wander." The whole weird poem has a sort of fascination for her, and she lingers over it, until at last the fatigue and drowsiness that oppressed her earlier in the evening overcome her, and she drops asleep about eleven o'clock — profound, dreamless sleep, from which she starts suddenly, vividly, to hear the neighbouring church clock strike twelve ; and, with the last stroke of midnight, and just as the bells in a glad, sweet jangle break upon the still, cold air, a loud startling knock resounds through the silent house. Now, one of Maxwell Beresford's most decided characteristics was his mode of demanding ingress ; his knock was long, loud, peremptory, even when he was broken in health and spirits.

And Eunice now recognizes it — first (out of her sleep, before she remembers) with a thrill of delirious joy ; then as the steps move swiftly, in answer to that imperative summons, a feeling of awe, fear, astonished expectation steals over her, as she hearkens to the beloved familiar footfall ascending ! What mystery is she on the brink of penetrating ? . . . Then the step pauses, the door-handle is softly turned, while she remains transfixed, immovable, with dilated eyes gazing at that slowly opening door. How horribly slowly it moves ! . . . And what will be revealed in the void beyond ? . . . Then, with a cry of rapturous delight, she starts to her feet, and speeds across the room, for there on the threshold stands Maxwell Beresford ! Yes, it is he, and no other — even himself ; no mocking semblance or optical delusion.

For one instant she pauses, gazing in frenzied, non-com prehending joy and wonder at the dear face for which she has hungered. The next moment her arms are round his neck. Ah ! thank Heaven, all lingering doubt vanishes. This is no spirit, no ghost, but warm, living humanity. How she clings, and cries, and gasps incoherent questions, the answers to which, seem to reach her through a fog ! It is as if a mist enveloped her brain, her thoughts and ideas are so hazy and unreal. But through the confusion there is the one grand dominant feeling of thanksgiving and gratitude unutterable. Her father " was dead, and is alive again," " was lost, and is found." Time enough by-and-by to try and understand how it all is ; now she can only rejoice with an exceeding great joy. How wonderful it is to look on that beloved face again ! — that noble, grand old head, with the VANISHED ! 25 long, snowy hair resting on the coat collar ; the great dark, dreamy eyes that age or sorrow could not dim.

She leads him over to the easy-chair by the fire, and brings wine, for he looks weary and worn, and kneels at his feet in a transport of speechless gladness and content. And then after a little he explains to her the mystery of his presence, — how when he had appeared to die, it was but a trance, which left him conscious, though, to all seeming, dead ; and then, when, on the last night before the coffin was closed, he regained the power of movement — the fearful catalepsy that had bound him in iron chains falling suddenly away, and leaving him free in the dead of night — he rose from out that awful thing which would have closed on him for ever on the morrow, made a semblance of a figure beneath that terrible winding-sheet (in the early winter daylight the change would escape observation), and then stole away — away, so that none might know.

And when Eunice asks in astonished query, why the secrecy, the concealment, that gave her such agony of grief ? why he had not come straight to her, that they might give thanks together for the marvellous blessing of life restored, he speaks vaguely of motives, strong motives, that necessitated his acting as he did, compelling him all this time to refrain from making any sign. But all seems wrapped in mystery incomprehensible ; her head is dazed and bewildered, she cannot think or understand properly, and his talk is vague, dreamy, misty. But, after all, what matters anything but the one grand fact? Her father is not dead ! It was all a mistake, a horrible mistake. He has come back to her! Great and sudden joy some times kills, but she has survived the shock ; and they will bc happy once more in the old quiet way, and look back upon all this past misery as only a vivid, terrible dream.