Ghost Stories by Henry James

Author:Henry James [James, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited
Published: 2011-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

‘She couldn’t have run it so close,’ I declared. ‘That was a thing she particularly never did.’

‘There was no need of running it close, my dear – she had plenty of time. Your memory’s at fault about my having left you late: I left you, as it happens, unusually early. I’m sorry my stay with you seemed long, for I was back here by ten.’

‘To put yourself into your slippers,’ I retorted, ‘and fall asleep in your chair. You slept till morning – you saw her in a dream!’ He looked at me in silence and with sombre eyes – eyes that showed me he had some irritation to repress. Presently I went on: ‘You had a visit, at an extraordinary hour, from a lady – soit : [8] nothing in the world’s more probable. But there are ladies and ladies. How in the name of goodness, if she was unannounced and dumb and you had into the bargain never seen the least portrait of her – how could you identify the person we’re talking o f?’

‘Haven’t I to absolute satiety heard her described? I’ll describe her for you in every particular.’

‘Don’t!’ I cried with a promptness that made him laugh once more. I coloured at this, but I continued: ‘Did your servant introduce her?’

‘He wasn’t here – he’s always away when he’s wanted. One of the features of this big house is that from the street door the different floors are accessible practically without challenge. My servant makes love to a young person employed in the rooms above these, and he had a long bout of it last evening. When he’s out on that job he leaves my outer door, on the staircase, so much ajar as to enable him to slip back without a sound. The door then only requires a push. She pushed it – that simply took a little courage.’

‘A little? It took tons! And it took all sorts of impossible calculations.’

‘Well, she had them – she made them. Mind you, I don’t deny for a moment,’ he added, ‘that it was very very wonderful!’

Something in his tone kept me a time from trusting myself to speak. At last I said: ‘How did she come to know where you live?’

‘By remembering the address on the little label the shop-people happily left sticking to the frame I had had made for my photograph.’

‘And how was she dressed?’

‘In mourning, my own dear. No great depths of crape, but simple and scrupulous black. She had in her bonnet three small black feathers. She carried a little muff of astrachan. She has near the left eye,’ he continued, ‘a tiny vertical scar – ’

I stopped him short. ‘The mark of a caress from her husband.’ Then I added: ‘How close you must have been to her!’ He made no answer to this, and I thought he blushed, observing which I broke straight off. ‘Well, goodbye.’

‘You won’t stay a little?’ He came to me again tenderly, and this time I suffered him.

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