J. S. Le Fanus Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 | Page 8

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
which they both entered. It was then raised by

the men who surrounded it, and speedily carried towards the city, and
before it had proceeded very far, the darkness concealed it from the
view of the Dutch coachman. In the inside of the vehicle he found a
purse, whose contents more than thrice paid the hire of the carriage and
man. He saw and could tell nothing more of Minheer Vanderhausen
and his beautiful lady.
This mystery was a source of profound anxiety and even grief to
Gerard Douw. There was evidently fraud in the dealing of
Vanderhausen with him, though for what purpose committed he could
not imagine. He greatly doubted how far it was possible for a man
possessing such a countenance to be anything but a villain, and every
day that passed without his hearing from or of his niece, instead of
inducing him to forget his fears, on the contrary tended more and more
to aggravate them. The loss of her cheerful society tended also to
depress his spirits; and in order to dispel the gloom, which often crept
upon his mind after his daily occupations were over, he was wont
frequently to ask Schalken to accompany him home, and share his
otherwise solitary supper.
One evening, the painter and his pupil were sitting by the fire, having
accomplished a comfortable meal, and had yielded to the silent and
delicious melancholy of digestion, when their ruminations were
disturbed by a loud sound at the street door, as if occasioned by some
person rushing and scrambling vehemently against it. A domestic had
run without delay to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and they
heard him twice or thrice interrogate the applicant for admission, but
without eliciting any other answer but a sustained reiteration of the
sounds. They heard him then open the hall-door, and immediately there
followed a light and rapid tread on the staircase. Schalken advanced
towards the door. It opened before he reached it, and Rose rushed into
the room. She looked wild, fierce and haggard with terror and
exhaustion, but her dress surprised them as much as even her
unexpected appearance. It consisted of a kind of white woollen wrapper,
made close about the neck, and descending to the very ground. It was
much deranged and travel-soiled. The poor creature had hardly entered
the chamber when she fell senseless on the floor. With some difficulty

they succeeded in reviving her, and on recovering her senses, she
instantly exclaimed, in a tone of terror rather than mere impatience:----
"Wine! wine! quickly, or I'm lost!"
Astonished and almost scared at the strange agitation in which the call
was made, they at once administered to her wishes, and she drank some
wine with a haste and eagerness which surprised them. She had hardly
swallowed it, when she exclaimed, with the same urgency:
"Food, for God's sake, food, at once, or I perish."
A considerable fragment of a roast joint was upon the table, and
Schalken immediately began to cut some, but he was anticipated, for no
sooner did she see it than she caught it, a more than mortal image of
famine, and with her hands, and even with her teeth, she tore off the
flesh, and swallowed it. When the paroxysm of hunger had been a little
appeased, she appeared on a sudden overcome with shame, or it may
have been that other more agitating thoughts overpowered and scared
her, for she began to weep bitterly and to wring her hands.
"Oh, send for a minister of God," said she; "I am not safe till he comes;
send for him speedily."
Gerard Douw despatched a messenger instantly, and prevailed on his
niece to allow him to surrender his bed chamber to her use. He also
persuaded her to retire to it at once to rest; her consent was extorted
upon the condition that they would not leave her for a moment.
"Oh that the holy man were here," she said; "he can deliver me: the
dead and the living can never be one: God has forbidden it."
With these mysterious words she surrendered herself to their guidance,
and they proceeded to the chamber which Gerard Douw had assigned to
her use.
"Do not, do not leave me for a moment," said she; "I am lost for ever if
you do."

Gerard Douw's chamber was approached through a spacious apartment,
which they were now about to enter. He and Schalken each carried a
candle, so that a sufficiency of light was cast upon all surrounding
objects. They were now entering the large chamber, which as I have
said, communicated with Douw's apartment, when Rose suddenly
stopped, and, in a whisper which thrilled them both with horror, she
said:----
"Oh, God! he is here! he is here! See, see! there
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