The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

There I stood and hesitated, trembling in every limb; I dared not open the door. No words of mine can convey the sense of utter desolation that overpowered me. I felt as though I were the only living man in the whole world.

“Frank! Frank!” cried the voice with the dreadful familiar ring in it. “Open the door; I am so cold. I have so little time.”

My heart stood still, and yet my hands were constrained to obey. Slowly, slowly I lifted the latch and unbarred the door, and, as I did so, a great rush of air snatched it from my hands and swept it wide. The black clouds had broken a little overhead, and there was a patch of blue, rain-washed sky and with just a start or two glimmering in it fitfully. For a moment I could only see this bit of sky, but by degrees I made out the accustomed outline of the great trees swinging furiously against it, and the rigid line of the coping of the garden wall beneath them. Then a whirling leaf hit me smartly on the face, and instinctively I dropped my eyes on to something that as yet I could not distinguish – something small and black and wet.

“What are you?” I gasped. Somehow I seemed to feel that it was not a person – I could not say, Who are you?

“Don’t you know me?” wailed the voice, with the far-off familiar ring about it. “And I mayn’t come in and show myself. I haven’t the time. You were so long opening the door, Frank, and I am so cold – oh, so bitterly cold! Look there, the moon is coming out, and you will be able to see me. I suppose that you long to see me, as I have longed to see you.”

As the figure spoke, or rather wailed, a moonbeam struggled through the watery air and fell on it. It was short and shrunken, the figure of a tiny woman. Also it was dressed in black and wore a black covering over the whole head, shrouding it, after the fashion of a bridal veil. From every part of this veil and dress the water fell in heavy drops.

The figure bore a small basket on her left arm, and her hand – such a poor thin little hand – gleamed white in the moonlight. I noticed that on the third finger was a red line, showing that a wedding-ring had once been there. The other hand was stretched towards me as though in entreaty.

All this I saw in an instant, as it were, and as I saw it, horror seemed to grip me by the throat as though it were a living thing, for as the voice had been familiar, so was the form familiar, though the churchyard had received it long years ago. I could not speak – I could not even move.

“Oh, don’t you know me yet?” wailed the voice; “and I have come from so far to see you, and I cannot stop. Look, look,” and she began to pluck feverishly with her poor thin hand at the black veil that enshrouded her. At last it came off, and, as in a dream, I saw what in a dim frozen way I had expected to see – the white face and pale yellow hair of my dead wife. Unable to speak or to stir, I gazed and gazed. There was no mistake about it, it was she, ay, even as I had last seen her, white with the whiteness of death, with purple circles round her eyes and the grave-cloth yet beneath her chin. Only her eyes were wide open and fixed upon my face; and a lock of the soft yellow hair had broken loose, and the wind tossed it.

“You know me now, Frank – don’t you, Frank? It has been so hard to come to see you, and so cold! But you are going to be married tomorrow, Frank; and I promised – oh, a long time ago – to think of you when you were going to be married wherever I was, and I have kept my promise, and I have come from whence I am and brought a present with me. It was bitter to die so young! I was so young to die and leave you, but I had to go. Take it – take it; be quick, I cannot stay any longer. I could not give you my life, Frank, so I brought you my death – take it!”

The figure thrust the basket into my hand, and as it did so the rain came up again, and began to obscure the moonlight.

“I must go, I must go,” went on the dreadful, familiar voice, in a cry of despair. “Oh, why were you so long opening the door? I wanted to talk to you before you married Annie; and now I shall never see you again – never! never! never! I have lost you for ever! ever! ever!”

As the last wailing notes died away the wind came down with a rush and a whirl and the sweep as of a thousand wings, and threw me back into the house, bringing the door to with a crash after me.