A Book of Ghosts. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "This must do," said she, drawing out a large, thick Johnston's Atlas, "if the scale be not too small to give Henley."

      She put the heavy volume on the table and opened it. England, she found, was in two parts, one map of the Northern, the second of the Southern division. She spread out the latter, placed her finger on the blue line of the Thames, and began to trace it up.

      Whilst her eyes were on it, searching the small print, they closed, and without being conscious that she was sleepy, her head bowed forward on the map, and she was breathing evenly, steeped in the most profound slumber.

      She woke slowly. Her consciousness returned to her little by little. She saw the atlas without understanding what it meant. She looked about her, and wondered how she could be in the schoolroom, and she then observed that darkness was closing in. Only then, suddenly, did she recall what had brought her where she was.

      Next, with a rush, upon her came the remembrance that she was due at the boat-race.

      She must again have overslept herself, for the evening had come on, and through the window she could see the glimmer of gaslights in the street. Was this to be accompanied by her former experiences?

      With throbbing heart she went into the passage. Then she noticed that the hall was lighted up, and she heard her aunt speaking, and the slam of the front door, and the maid say, "Shall I take off your wraps, my lady?"

      She stepped forth upon the landing and proceeded to descend, when – with a shock that sent the blood coursing to her heart, and that paralysed her movements – she saw herself ascending the stair in her silver-grey costume and straw hat.

      She clung to the banister, with convulsive grip, lest she should fall, and stared, without power to utter a sound, as she saw herself quietly mount, step by step, pass her, go beyond to her own room.

      For fully ten minutes she remained rooted to the spot, unable to stir even a finger. Her tongue was stiff, her muscles set, her heart ceased to beat.

      Then slowly her blood began again to circulate, her nerves to relax, power of movement returned. With a hoarse gasp she reeled from her place, and giddy, touching the banister every moment to prevent herself from falling, she crept downstairs. But when once in the hall, she had recovered flexibility. She ran towards the morning-room, whither Lady Lacy had gone to gather up the letters that had arrived by post during her absence.

      Betty stood looking at her, speechless.

      Her aunt raised her face from an envelope she was considering. "Why, Betty," said she, "how expeditiously you have changed your dress!"

      The girl could not speak, but fell unconscious on the floor.

      When she came to herself, she was aware of a strong smell of vinegar. She was lying on the sofa, and Martha was applying a moistened kerchief to her brow. Lady Lacy stood by, alarmed and anxious, with a bottle of smelling-salts in her hand.

      "Oh, aunt, I saw – " then she ceased. It would not do to tell of the apparition. She would not be believed.

      "My darling," said Lady Lacy, "you are overdone, and it was foolish of you tearing upstairs and scrambling into your morning-gown. I have sent for Groves. Are you able now to rise? Can you manage to reach your room?"

      "My room!" she shuddered. "Let me lie here a little longer. I cannot walk. Let me be here till the doctor comes."

      "Certainly, dearest. I thought you looked very unlike yourself all day at the regatta. If you had felt out of sorts you ought not to have gone."

      "Auntie! I was quite well in the morning."

      Presently the medical man arrived, and was shown in. Betty saw that Lady Lacy purposed staying through the interview. Accordingly she said nothing to Dr. Groves about what she had seen.

      "She is overdone," said he. "The sooner you move her down to Devonshire the better. Someone had better be in her room to-night."

      "Yes," said Lady Lacy; "I had thought of that and have given orders. Martha can make up her bed on the sofa in the adjoining dressing-room or boudoir."

      This was a relief to Betty, who dreaded a return to her room – her room into which her other self had gone.

      "I will call again in the morning," said the medical man; "keep her in bed to-morrow, at all events till I have seen her."

      When he left, Betty found herself able to ascend the stairs. She cast a frightened glance about her room. The straw hat, the grey dress were there. No one was in it.

      She was helped to bed, and although laid in it with her head among the pillows, she could not sleep. Racking thoughts tortured her. What was the signification of that encounter? What of her strange sleeps? What of those mysterious appearances of herself, where she had not been? The theory that she had walked in her sleep was untenable. How was she to solve the riddle? That she was going out of her mind was no explanation.

      Only towards morning did she doze off.

      When Dr. Groves came, about eleven o'clock, Betty made a point of speaking to him alone, which was what she greatly desired.

      She said to him: "Oh! it has been worse this last occasion, far worse than before. I do not walk in my sleep. Whilst I am buried in slumber, someone else takes my place."

      "Whom do you mean? Surely not one of the maids?"

      "Oh, no. I met her on the stairs last night, that is what made me faint."

      "Whom did you meet?"

      "Myself – my double."

      "Nonsense, Miss Mountjoy."

      "But it is a fact. I saw myself as clearly as I see you now. I was going down into the hall."

      "You saw yourself! You saw your own pleasant, pretty face in a looking-glass."

      "There is no looking-glass on the staircase. Besides, I was in my alpaca morning-gown, and my double had on my pearl-grey cloth costume, with my straw hat. She was mounting as I was descending."

      "Tell me the story."

      "I went yesterday – an hour or so before I had to dress – into the schoolroom. I am awfully ignorant, and I did want to see a map and find out where was Henley, because, you know, I was going to the boat-race. And I dropped off into one of those dreadful dead sleeps, with my head on the atlas. When I awoke it was evening, and the gas-lamps were lighted. I was frightened, and ran out to the landing and I heard them arrive, just come back from Henley, and as I was going down the stairs, I saw my double coming up, and we met face to face. She passed me by, and went on to my room – to this room. So you see this is proof pos that I am not a somnambulist."

      "I never said that you were. I never for a moment admitted the supposition. That, if you remember, was your own idea. What I said before is what I repeat now, that you suffer from failure of memory."

      "But that cannot be so, Dr. Groves."

      "Pray, why not?"

      "Because I saw my double, wearing my regatta costume."

      "I hold to my opinion, Miss Mountjoy. If you will listen to me I shall be able to offer a satisfactory explanation. Satisfactory, I mean, so far as to make your experiences intelligible to you. I do not at all imply СКАЧАТЬ