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Page 39
"Why, you see, she took up with some Spiritualistic notions after her
mother's death; thought she held communications with her, and all that,
Aunt Solomon says."
"Stuff and nonsense!"
"Of course. But, Fred, dear, I'm inclined to think she _must_ have made
her sewing-table walk into the front entry; and Aunt Solomon says the
spirits rapped out the whole of Cousin Dorothy's history on the
mantel-piece, behind those blue china vases,--you must have noticed them
at the funeral,--and not a human hand within six feet."
"Alison Hotchkiss!" I said, waking thoroughly, and sitting up in bed to
emphasize the opinion, "when I hear a spirit rap on _my_ mantel-piece,
and see _my_ tables walk about the front entry, I'll believe that,--not
before!"
"O, I know it! I'm not a Spiritualist, I'm sure, and nothing would tempt
me to be. But still that sort of reasoning has a flaw in it, hasn't it,
dear? The King of Siam, you know--"
I had heard of the King of Siam before, and I politely informed my wife
that I did not care to hear of him again. Spiritualism was a system of
refined jugglery. Just another phase of the same thing which brings the
doves out of Mr. Hermann's empty hat. It might be entertaining if it had
not become such an abominable imposition. There would always be nervous
women and hypochondriac men enough for its dupes. I thanked Heaven that
I was neither, and went to sleep.
Our new house was light and dry; the flues worked well, and the spare
chamber heated admirably. The baby exchanged the champagne-basket for
his dainty pink-curtained crib; Tip began to recover from the perpetual
cold with which three weeks' sitting in draughts, and tumbling into
water-pails, and playing in the sink, had sweetened his temper; Allis
forsook her bandboxes for the crimson easy-chair (very becoming, that
chair), or tripped about on her own rested feet; we returned to
table-cloths, civilized life, and a fork apiece.
In short, nothing at all worth mentioning happened, till that one
night,--I think it was our first Sunday,--when Allis waked me at twelve
o'clock with the announcement that some one was knocking at the door.
Supposing it to be Bridget with the baby,--croup, probably, or a fit,--I
unlocked and unlatched it promptly. No one was there, however; and
telling my wife, in no very gentle tone, if I remember correctly, that
it would be a convenience, on such cold nights, if she could keep her
dreams to herself, I shut the door distinctly and returned to my own.
In the morning I observed a little white circle about each of Allis's
blue eyes, and after some urging she confessed to me that her sleep had
been much broken by a singular disturbance in the room. I might laugh at
her if I chose, and she had not meant to tell me, but somebody had
rapped in that room all night long.
"On the door?"
"On the door, on the mantel, on the foot of the bed, on the
head-board,--Fred, right on the head-board! I listened till I grew cold
listening, but it rapped and it rapped, and by and by it was morning,
and it stopped."
"Rats!" said I.
"Then rats have knuckles," said she.
"Mice!" said I, "wind! broken plaster! crickets! imagination! dreams!
fancies! blind headache! nonsense! Next time wake me up, and fire
pillows at me till I'm pleasant to you. Now I'll have a kiss and a cup
of coffee. Any sugar in it?"
Tip fell down the cellar stairs that day, and the baby swallowed a
needle and two gutta-percha buttons, which I had been waiting a week to
have sewed on my vest, so that Alison had enough else to think about,
and the little incident of the raps was forgotten. I believe it was not
recalled by either of us till after Gertrude Fellows came.
It was on a Monday and in a drizzly storm that I brought her from the
station. She was a thin, cold, phantom-like woman, shrouded in
water-proofs and green _bar�ge_ veils. Why is it that homely women
always wear green _bar�ge_ veils? She did not improve in appearance when
her wraps were off, and she was seated by my parlor grate. Her large
green eyes had no speculation in them. Her mouth--an honest mouth, that
was one mercy--quivered and shrank when she was addressed suddenly, as
if she felt herself to be a sort of foot-ball that the world was kicking
about at pleasure,--your gentlest smile might prove a blow. She seldom
spoke unless she were spoken to, and fell into long reveries, with her
eyes on the window or the coals. She wore a horrible sort of
ruff,--"illusion," I think Allis called it,--which, of all contrivances
that she could have chosen to encircle her sallow neck, was exactly the
most unbecoming. She was always knitting blue stockings,--I never
discovered for what or whom; and she wore her lifeless hair in the shape
of a small toy cartwheel, on the back of her head.
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