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o begin with, let me say that i am not a story-teller, neither can i make fine phrases nor coin strange words which shall delight the ear. i am only a country doctor, getting well along in years, and i write this tale only because i promised richard crew so to do, as i held his feverish hand while he lay and tossed in pain, and prayed for a death that would not come.
so without further excuse or apology, let me begin. richard crew was the only son of sir davies crew, distinguished as artist, soldier, and scholar. his mother, anne sargent, was the fairest englishwoman it has ever been my privilege to know. of money there was a plenty on both sides; so when the young lad richard reached his eighteenth year, and under his father’s careful teaching showed a decided taste for painting, he was sent forthwith to paris and[164] placed under the best master that gold could procure.
as family physician of the crews, i was somewhat of a privileged character at redfern, as the old estate was called, and many an evening have i spent with old sir davies playing chess, or listening to his tales of a life full of strange experiences. it was i who helped young richard to first blink his large blue eyes on this world, and who attended him through his trials of teething, measles, and all the other evils to which childhood is heir. it was my hand also which reverently closed the eyes of lady anne after a short illness, the very year that richard went to paris.
sir davies never recovered from the shock of his wife’s death, and what with brooding over her loss, shutting himself up in his room, and neglecting the exercise that a man of his physique always requires, i was deeply grieved but not surprised when bingham, the head butler, came down to the house one evening to inform me that sir davies had died in an apoplectic fit during dinner.
it is a bad thing for most boys who are about to come of age to fall heir to a lot of money, but when that boy is a student in the latin quarter of paris, is fair to look upon, popular with his set, and generous to a fault, the result can be imagined.
for the next three years i saw very little of richard. he came to redfern only occasionally[165] in the summer, and then he was always accompanied by a gay crowd of his paris associates; artists like himself, scribblers for some paris sheet, and the hangers-on invariably to be found in the train of the rich young man. these visits to his old home became rarer and rarer, for which the country people around were very glad, for they had developed into little better than riotous orgies; when nights, for weeks at a time, were spent in carousals, and the days in resting up only for another night.
exercising what i considered my right as an old friend of the family, i called one morning at redfern to remonstrate with the boy, but i came away sorry that i had made the attempt. it was hard to imagine that the dissipated young wreck, with trembling hands and swollen, bloodshot eyes, was the same lad whom i saw the morning of his journey to paris, as he whirled by on the coach and waved his cap to me in farewell.
it was the same sad, old story; wine, women, and song, and then more wine and more women, and for seven long years the son of my dear old friend lived the life that is worse than death, and then came back to redfern with the seal of sin upon his brow.
only once did i see him that summer after my morning call. then i was called up at two in the morning by a young man in austrian uniform, who, half drunk himself, begged me in[166] a maudlin way to come up to the house, for young crew was down with the “jumps,” as he called it. i went with him of course, and found richard in the old banquet room with a motley crowd of men and women bending over him, as he lay stretched out on the couch.
i have seen many men in my life who have drunk too much, and are tasting that bitter after draught by which an abused system avenges itself, and i looked to find a far different sight from that which met my eyes as they made room for me about the couch. in the white drawn face before me there was nothing but fear, not ordinary healthy fear such as every man at times experiences, but a kind of speechless horror; and his eyes, as they turned toward me, had in them the fathomless misery of a lost soul.
his lips moved, and i heard him pleading faintly with somebody or something to go away and leave him for a little while; but as entreaties did no good he tried to bribe the thing, and offered a thousand, ten thousand pounds to be left in peace. then, as nothing seemed to avail, his voice rose to a frenzied scream, and he cursed the thing that haunted him, the god that made him, yes, and the mother who bore him.
at last, worn out and exhausted, he sank back to the floor, and i succeeded in getting him into a fitful sleep, while that crowd of tawdry, painted women and drunken men crept[167] past him out of the room, with all the laughter gone from their faces.
“the next day i was surprised by a visit from the young man.” (see page 167.)
the next day i was surprised by a visit from the young man, who, as might be expected of one in his position, was thoroughly frightened. i explained to him, as a man of medicine, just what his condition the night before meant, and he promised solemnly, and of his own accord, not to touch anything more for a year. then he told me what he had seen the night before; for, strange to say, he remembered perfectly all he had been through. as he lay there, he said, he could see across the room, slowly forming itself out of nothing, and yet having a frightful form, some hideous thing which, neither man nor beast, and yet resembling both, approached slowly, grinning at him. he could not describe it more definitely, for he had not learned to know it as he afterwards did. all that i could find out was that it was a great flabby creature that waddled as it walked; and though it had a face, it was not like anything he had ever seen.
as regards this pledge to me, i think he kept it, for i heard indirectly from him several times during the year, and the report was always good. he was back again in paris, but had given up all his old companions, and was working faithfully. that year one of his pictures received a prize in the salon, and he was prophesied a great future.
i was away during the next year and a half,[168] looking up interests of mine in america, and heard little that was going on among my own people. on the evening of my return to our village, therefore, i was surprised to see the big house at redfern gaily illuminated, and was told by the servants that there had been bad doings up on the hill for many a day. the temptation of the old life had been too strong; he had gathered his all too willing crowd of former associates around him, and was “celebrating” with all the pent up passion of a roué who has walked in the narrow path for nearly a year.
he was sick with his old trouble twice that month, and both times for old friendship’s sake i did what i could for him; but i saw there must come an end before many months. but such an end!
i was surprised one day to hear the servants talking in the next room, for they said that all the crowd at redfern had left for the city that morning, with the exception of master richard, who was shut up in his room working all day like mad on some picture, and drinking furiously at night.
the end of it all came one night two weeks later, about ten o’clock in the evening, when one of the maids came down to my house, white and trembling, to tell me that “master richard was down with the horrors again, worse than ever, and would i please come up as quick as possible.” i hurried on a hat and coat, and followed[169] her up the hill. as we turned in at the little gate in the garden i was startled by a shriek so terrible that i turned to the trembling maid questioningly.
“that’s the way he’s been at it for an hour, sir,” she whispered, and her teeth chattered as she spoke, though the night was not cold.
she left me at the door of his room and i went in alone. at first i could see nothing, for the light was turned down; but from the bed there came a low, moaning noise. then, suddenly, the clothes were thrown aside, and, god help me, i saw a face the like of which i pray i may never see again. i have doctored many men in my time, and i have seen some sights that are not nice to think about; but never have i seen such nameless horror, such uncontrollable fear, as looked at me from the eyes of that man.
he stood there for a minute gibbering and making strange noises like a beast; and then jumping from the bed, he ran to a piece of canvas standing against the wall and covered by a thick drapery. he pulled the cover aside a little way and peeped fearfully behind. then, in a very paroxysm of terror, he ran shrieking and screaming to the bed. he buried himself under the clothes, and i could hear him sobbing and moaning again as when i first came in. there is to me something inexpressibly pitiful in the sight of a man in tears, and yet i had to stay[170] there for three mortal hours and watch that man. always the same program,—the look behind the drapery, and then that horrible fright, which in a few minutes was followed by another look.
toward two in the morning he quieted down suddenly, and i went and sat by the bedside trying to soothe him to sleep; but he wanted to talk.
“i am almost done for, doctor,” he whispered; “but i have finished it, and it has finished me. i have lived a bad life, a very bad life, but on the canvas behind that drapery is the thing god sent me to avenge my wasted life; and when i am gone and you see what it is that i have lived with for the last two years, you will believe me when i say that i do not fear the terrors of any hell hereafter.”
he broke off suddenly and glanced fearfully about the room, but as if reassured by the pressure of my hand, he continued,—
“i lived straight, for over a year, after the pledge i made you, the night of my first trouble. i left all the old companions, and worked hard. you saw the notice of my picture?” he asked eagerly, and i nodded.
“during that year i met a woman who was the very type of all that is pure and innocent, and i even dared to think that sometime, after i had lived down my frightful past, i might make her my wife. but one day as i was[171] straining my eyes to catch the last light of the fading afternoon, i chanced to glance over the canvas, and, my god, there creeping out of the darkness, was that hideous thing. i was unconscious for several hours, but when i came to myself i consulted the best physician in paris, and was under his care for over a month, but it was of no use. since that day it has followed me everywhere, day and night. i tried to drown it in drink, and it only came the oftener. then i sent the crowd home, and resolved to paint a likeness of the thing, to have always with me, so as to accustom myself to it, but it was too awful.” his voice trailed off into a shuddering whisper.
i tried to turn his thoughts to pleasant things, and at last he began to talk of his childhood, and how he used to ride about the country in the little pony chaise with his mother, and the children of the village called him “young master dick.” then, even as i watched him, i saw creeping into his face again that nameless horror. the pupils of his eyes grew larger and larger till you could scarcely see the blue. the sweat of fear started from his forehead in huge drops; and in less time than it takes to tell it he was again a madman.
he jumped to his feet and stood there for a minute, his knees knocking drunkenly together, and his teeth rattling like a pair of castanets, while his eyes stared straight ahead of him at[172] the bare wall, and then he started for the picture again. but he never reached it. god in his mercy spared him the agony of that last look, and he fell forward, one hand clutching the drapery, which went down with him to the floor and left me staring at the thing it had covered.
i looked, and something dragged me nearer, for painted on the canvas i saw an evil, formless thing which made my blood run cold. it might have been a man, for it stood upon two feet, and had arms and a head, and yet, thank god, it was no man. or it might have been a devil, for if ever an imp of hell looked down from canvas it must have had a face like that. yet there were no definite outlines to it. when you tried to place a certain contour it faded off into the somber background, and all that remained was the head, a great flabby thing without any nose which looked down at you and grinned horribly.
if that was the demon which had haunted richard crew’s fevered and disordered brain for two long years, i thanked my god that i was not a drinking man. i looked again and could not turn my eyes away. then, as i looked, i felt that indescribable, sickening fear coming over me that i had read in the dead man’s eyes.
the grinning thing seemed to be moving slowly. i could see the rocking motion of the body as it waddled toward me.
[173]by a mighty effort of the will i tore myself from the spot, and seizing a french dueling sword that hung on the wall, i hacked and cut that leering face till only an empty frame remained, with a few clinging shreds of tattered canvas.
