Scary Stories

To Be Read at Dusk - Charles Dickens

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Duration:: 24m
Broadcast on:: 04 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Play for free at LuckyLand Sluts.com. No purchase necessary. BGW Graboid, we're prohibited by law. 18+ terms and conditions apply. To be read at dusk by Charles Dickens. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There are five of them. Five couriers sitting on a bench outside the convent on the summit of the great Saint Bernard in Switzerland. Looking at their remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top. And they're not yet had time to sink into the snow. This is not my simile. It was made for the occasion by the Stautus Courier, who was a German. None of the others took any more notice of it than they took of me, sitting on another bench on the other side of the convent door. Smoking my cigar, like them, and also like them. Looking at the red and snow, and at the lowly shed, hard by, where the bodies of belated travelers dug out of it, slowly with their way, knowing no corruption in that cold region. The wind upon the mountain top soaked in as we looked. The mountain became white. The sky of very dark blue. The wind rose, and the air turned piercing cold. The five couriers buttoned their rough coats. There being no safer man to imitate in all such proceedings than a courier, I buttoned mine. The mountain in the sunset had stopped the five couriers in a conversation. It is a sublime sight, likely to stop conversation. The mountain being now out of the sunset, they resumed. Not that I had heard any part of their previous discourse, for indeed, I had not then broken away from the American gentleman and the travelers parlor of the convent, who, sitting with his face to the fire, had undertaken to realize to me the whole progress of events, which had led to the accumulation by the horrible nanias, dodger, of one of the largest acquisitions of dollars ever made in our country. My God said the close west courier, speaking in French, which I do not hold, as some authors appeared to do, to be such an also vision excuse for an oddie word, that I have only to write it in that language to make it innocent. If you talk of ghosts, but I don't talk of ghosts at the German. Of what then asked the Swiss. If I knew of what then said the German, I should probably know a great deal more. It was a good answer, I thought, and it made me curious, so I moved my position to that quarter of my bench, which was nearest to them, and leaning my back against the convent wall, heard privately, without appearing to attend. "Thunder and lightning," said the German, warming, "when a certain man is coming in to see you unexpectedly, and without his own knowledge, sends some invisible messenger to put the idea of him into your head all day. What do you call that? When you walk along a crowded street at Frankfurt, Milan, London, Paris, and think that a passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and then that another passing stranger is like your friend Heinrich, and so begin to have a strange foreknowledge that presently you'll meet your friend Heinrich, which you do, though you believed him at Trieste. What do you call that? It's not uncommon either, remember the Swiss, or the other three. On comments of the German, it's as common as cherries in the Black Forest, it's as common as macaroni at Naples, and Naples reminds me, "When the old Marchesa Senzanuma shrieks at a card-play on the Chiaca, as I heard and saw her, for it happened in a Bavarian family of mine, and I was overlooking the service that evening. I say, when the old Marchesa starts up at the card-table, went through her rouge, and cries, "My sister in Spain is dead." I felt her cold touch on my back, and when that sister is dead at that moment, what do you call that? Or when the blood of San Gennaro liquefies at the request of the clergy, as all the world knows that it does regularly once a year, in my native city, said the Neapolitan Courier, after a pause with a comical look. What do you call that? That cried the German, "Well, I think I know a name for that." Miracles said the Neapolitan, with the same sly face. The German merely smoked and laughed, and they all smoked and laughed. Bath said the German personally, "I speak of things that really do happen. When I want to see the conjurer, I pay to see a professed one, and have my money's worth." Very strange things do happen without ghosts. Ghosts, Giovanni Baptiste, tell your story of the English bride. There's no ghost in that, but something full of strange. Why, any man, tell me what? As there was assignments among them, I glanced around. He whom I took to be by Baptiste was lighting a fresh cigar. He presently went on to speak. He was in Genoese, as I dodged. The story of the English bride said he, "Basta! One ought not to call us a sleight of thing a story. Well, it's all one, but it's true. Observe you, well, gentlemen, it's true. That which glitters is not always gold, but what I'm going to tell is true." He repeated this more than once. Ten years ago, I took my credentials to an English gentleman at the Long's Hotel in Bond Street, London, who was about to travel. It might be for one year, it might be for two. He approved at them, likewise of me. He was pleased to make inquiry. The testimony that he received was favorable. He engaged me by the six months, and my entertainment was generous. He was young, handsome, very happy. He was inanimate of a fair young English lady with a sufficient fortune, and they were going to be married. It was the wedding trip in short that we were going to take. For three months of rest in the hot weather, it was early summer then. He had hired an old place in the Riviera at an easy distance from my city, Genoa, on the road to Nice. Did I know that place? Yes, I told him I knew it well. It was an old palace with great gardens. It was a little bear, and it was a little dark and gloomy, being close surrounded by trees. But it was spacious, ancient, grand, and on the seashore. He said it had been so described to him exactly, and he was well pleased that I knew it. For it being a little bear of furniture, all such places were. For it's being a little gloomy, he had hired it principally for the gardens, and he and my mistress would pass the summer weather in their shade. So all goes well. Baptista said he, and doobly Signore very well. We had a traveling chariot for our journey, newly built for us, and our all respects complete. All we had was complete. We wanted for nothing. The marriage took place. They were happy. I was happy, seeing all so bright, being so was situated, going to my own city, teaching my language in the rumble to the maid, La Bella Carolina. His heart was gay with laughter, who was young and rosy. The time flew, but I observed, listened to this I pray, and hear the career dropped his voice. I observed my mistress sometimes brooding in a manner very strange, in a frightened manner, in an unhappy manner, with a cloudy, uncertain alarm upon her. I think that I began to notice this when I was walking up hills by the carriage side, and Master had gone on in front. At any rate, I remember that it impressed itself upon my mind one evening in the south of France, when she called to me to call Master Beck, and when he came back and walked for a long way, talking encouragingly and effectually to her, with his hand upon the open window and hers in it. Now and then he laughed in a merry way, as if he were bantering her out of something. Pying by she laughed and then all went well again. It was curious. I asked La Bella Carolina, the pretty little one. Was Mr. Sunwell? No. Out of spirits? No. Fearful of bad roads or brigands? No. What made him more mysterious was the pretty little one would not look at me in giving answer, but would look at the view. But one day she told me the secret. If you must know, said Catalina, I find from what I have overheard that Mistress is haunted. How haunted? By a dream. What dream? By a dream of a face. The three nights before her marriage she saw a face in a dream, all was the same face, and only one. A terrible face? No. The face of a dark, remarkable looking man in black, with black hair and a grey mustache. A handsome man, except for a reserved and secret heir. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her, fixedly, out of darkness. Does the dream come back? Never. The black selection of it is all her trouble. And why does it trouble her? Catalina shook her head. That's Master's question, said La Bella. She didn't know. She won as why herself, but I heard her tell him only last night that if she was to fight a picture of that face in our Italian house, which she is afraid she will, she did not know how she could ever bear it. Upon my word I was fearful after this, said the Genoese courier, of our coming to the old Palazzo, lest some such ill-starred picture should happen to be there. I knew there were many there, and as we got nearer and nearer to the place, I wished the whole gallery and the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter it was a stormy dismal evening when we at last approached that part of the Riviera. It thundered, and the thunder of my city and its environs, rolling along among the hills is very loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks and the broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened. The frogs bubbled and croaked their lattice. The sea wind moaned, and the wet trees dripped, and the lightning, body of sad Lorenzo, how it lightened. We all know what an old place in nor near Genoa is, how time in the sea air have blotted it, how the drapery painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes of plaster, how the low windows are darkened with rusty bars of iron, how the courtyard has overgrown with grass, how the outer buildings are dilapidated, how the whole pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of true kind; it had been shut up for close for months, months, years. It had an earthy smell like a tomb. The scent of the orange trees on the broad back terrace and of the lemon's ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew around a broken fountain, had gotten to the house somehow and had never been able to get out again. There was in every room an aged mill, grown faint with confinement. It pined in all the cupboards and drawers, in the little rooms of communication between great rooms it was stifling. If you turned a picture to come back to the pictures, there it still was clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort of bath. The lattice blinds were closed shut all over the house. There were two ugly grey old women in the house to take care of it. One of them was a spindle, who stood winding and numbling in the doorway, and who would assume to have let in the devil as in the air. Master Mistress Labela Carolina and I went all through the palazzo. I went first, though I have named myself last, opening the windows on the lattice blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of rain and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dozy mosquito or monstrous flat blotchy jetties fighter. When I let the evening light into a room, Master Mistress and Labela Carolina entered. Then we looked around at all the pictures that I went forward again into another room. Mistress secretly had great fear meeting with the likeness of that face. We all had, but there was no such thing. The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco, San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Carina, angels, brigands, friars, temples of sunset, battles, white horses, forests, apostles, doge, all my old acquaintances many times repeated, yes, dark handsome man in black reserved in secret with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly at Mistress out of darkness? No. At last we got through all the rooms and all the pictures and came out into the gardens. They were pretty well kept being rented by a gardener and were large and shady. One place that was a rustic theater opened to the sky, the stage green slope, the cooluses, three entrances upon the side, sweet smelling leafy screens. Mistress moved her bright eyes, even there, as if she looked to see the face come in upon the scene, but all was well. Now, Clara, master said in a low voice, "You see that it is nothing, you are happy." Mistress was much encouraged, she soon accustomed herself to that grim palazzo and would sing and play the harp, and copy the old pictures, and stroll with master under the green trees and vines all day. She was beautiful, he was happy, he would laugh and say to me, mounting his horse for his morning ride before the heat, "All goes well, Baptista, yes, in your day, thank God, very well. We kept no company, I took La Bella to the Duomo and Anunciata, to the cafe, to the opera, to the village fester, to the public garden, to the day theater, to the marionetti. The pretty little one was charmed with all she saw, she learned Italian, heavens miraculously, was Mistress quite forgetful of that dream, I asked Carolina sometimes. Newly said La Bella, almost, it was wearing out. One day master received a letter and called me. Stista, señoré, a gentleman who is presented to me will dine here today. He is called the señor de lombre. Let me dine like a prince. It was an odd name, I did not know that day, but there have been many noblemen and gentlemen pursued by Austria, um, political suspicions lately, and some names had changed. Perhaps this was one. Altra, de lombre was as good a name to me as another, when the señor de lombre came to dinner, said the gentleman's career, and the low voice, into which he had cited once before. I showed him into the reception room, the great sala of the gold palazzo. Master received him with cordiality, and represented him to Mistress. As she rose her face changed, she gave a cry and fell upon the marble floor. Then I turned my head to the señor de lombre, and saw that he was dressed in black, and had a reserved and secret air, and was a dark, remarkable looking man, with black hair and a grey mustache. Master raised Mistress in his arms, and carried her to her room, where I sent Labella Catalina straight. Labella told me afterwards that Mistress was mainly terrified to death, and that she wanted in her mind about her dream, all night. Master was vexed and anxious, almost angry, and yet full of solicitude. The señor de lombre was a cordiality gentleman, and spoke with great respect and sympathy of Mistress's being so ill. The African wind had been blowing for some days. They had told him at his hotel, the Maltese Cross, and he knew that it was often hurtful. He hoped the beautiful lady would recover soon. He begged for mission to retire, and to renew his visit when he should have the happiness of hearing that she was better. Master would not allow this, and they dined alone. He withdrew early. Next day he called up the gate on horseback to inquire for Mistress. He did so two or three times in that week. What I observed myself, and what Labella Catalina told me, united to explain to me that Master had now set his mind on curing Mistress of our fanciful terror. He was all kindness, but he was sensible and firm. The reason with her that to encourage such fancies was to invite melancholy, if not madness, that it rested with herself to be said herself, that if she once resisted her strange weakness, so successfully as to receive the señor de lombre as an English lady would receive any other guest, it was forever conquered. To make an end this señoré came again, and Mistress received him without marked distress, though with constraint and apprehension still, and the evening passed serenely. Master was so delighted with this change, and so anxious to confirm it, that the señor de lombre became a constant guest. He was accomplished in pictures, books, and music, any society, any degree in Palazzo would have been welcome. I used to notice many times that Mistress was not quite recovered. She would cast out her eyes and droop her head before the señor de lombre, or would look at him with a terrified and fascinated glance, as if his presence had some evil influence or power upon her. Turning for her to him, I used to see him in the shaded gardens, or the large half-lighted sala, looking, as I might say, fixically upon her out of darkness. But truly I had not forgotten a lot about like how Lina's words were, describing the face in the dream. After his second visit I heard, Master say, "Now see my dear Clara, it's over, de lombre has come and gone, and your apprehension is broken like glass. Will he, will he ever come again?" asked Mistress, "Again, why surely, over and over again? Are you cold?" She shivered. "But he terrifies me, are you sure that he need come again?" "The surer for the question Clara," replied Master cheerfully, "but he was very hopeful of her complete recovery now, and grew more and more so every day. She was beautiful, he was happy. All goes well by Batista, he would say to me again, "Yes, señor de thank God very well." "We were well," said the Genoese courier, concerning himself to speak a little louder, "we're all at room for the carnival. I had been out all day with the Sicilian, a friend of mine, and a courier who was there with an English family. As I returned at night to our hotel I met the little Carolina, who never stirred from home alone, running distractily along the Corso. "Carolina, what's the matter? Oh, Batista, oh, for the Lord's sake, where is my Mistress? Mistress Carolina, gone since morning, told me when Master went out on his day's journey not to call her, for she was tired, with not resting in the night, having been in pain, and would lie in bed until the evening, then get up refreshed. She's gone, she's gone. Master has come back, broken down the door, and she's gone. My beautiful, my good, my innocent Mistress. The pretty little one so cried and raved, and tore herself that I could not have held her, but for a swooning on my arm as if she had been shot. Master came up, in manner, face or voice, no more the Master that I knew, that I knew it was he. He took me, I laid the little one upon her bed in the hotel, and left her with a chamber woman, in a carriage, furiously through the darkness, across the desolate Campania. When it was day, we stopped at a miserable posthouse, all the horses a bit higher, twelve hours ago, and sent away in different directions. Marked me by the Signor de Lombre, who had passed there in a carriage, with a frightened English lady crouching in one corner. I never heard, said the generalist's courier drawing a long breath, that she was ever traced beyond that spot. All I know is that she vanished into infamous oblivion, but the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream. What do you call that, to the German courier triumphal knee? Ghost, the Arno Ghost there. What do you call this, that I am going to tell you? Ghost, the Arno Ghost here. I took an engagement once, pursued the German courier, with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my father-led. He was a merchant who traded with my country, and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy, as I judged some sixty years before. His name was James, and he had a twin brother John, also a bachelor. Between these brothers there was a great affection. They were in business together, at Goodman's Fields, but they did not live together. Mr. James dwelt in Poland Street, turning out of Oxford Street, London. Mr. John resided by Epping Forest. Mr. James and I were to start for Germany in about a week. The exact day depended on business. Mr. John came to Poland Street, where I was staying in the house, to pass that week with Mr. James, but he said to his brother on the second day, "I don't feel very well, James. That's not much the matter with me, but I think I am a little gouty. I'll go home and put myself under the care of my old housekeeper, who understands my ways. If I get quite better, I'll come back and see you before you go. If I don't feel well enough to resume my visit, where I leave it off, why, you will come and say me before you go." Mr. James, of course, said he would, and they shook hands. Both hands, as they always did, and Mr. John ordered, out of his old-fashioned chariot, and rumbleed home. It was on the second night after that, that is to say the fourth in the week, when I was awake out of my sound sleep by Mr. James, coming into my bedroom in his flannel gown, with a lighty candle. He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said, "Wolom, I have reason to think I've got some strange illness upon me." I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his face. "Wolom," said he, "I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you, that I might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a sensible country where my mysterious things are inquired into and are not settled to have been weighed and measured, or to have been unwable and unmeasurable, or in either case to have been completely disposed of for all time, ever so many years ago. I have just now seen the phantom of my brother. I confess to the German courier that it gave me a little tingling of the blood to hear it. I have just now seen Mr. James repeat it, looking full of me, that I might see how collected he was, the phantom of my brother John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into my room, in a wide dress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to the end of the room, glassed at some papers on my writing desk, turned, and still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed, went out the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and I am not in the least disposed to invest that phantom with any external existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am ill. I think I had better be led. I got out of bed directly, so the German courier began to get on my clothes, begging him not to be alarmed, and telling him that I would go to myself to the doctor. I was just ready, when we heard a loud knocking and ringing at the street door, my room being an attic at the back, and Mr. James is being the second floor room in the front. We went down to his room, and put out the window to see what was the matter. Is that Mr. James, said a man below, falling back to the opposite side of the way to look up? It is said Mr. James, and you are my brother's man, Robert. Yes, sir. I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. John is ill. He is very bad, sir. It is even feared that he may be lying at the point of death. He wants to see you, sir. I have a shade here. Pray come to him. Pray lose no time. Mr. James and I looked at one other. "Well, um," he said he, "this is strange. I wish you to come with me. I helped him to dress, partly there and partly in the shades, and no grass grew under the horse's eye and shoes between Poland Street and the forest. Now mine," said the German courier, "I went with Mr. James into his brother's room, and I saw and heard myself what follows. His brother lay upon his bed at the upper end of a long bed chamber. His old housekeeper was there, and others were there. I think three others were there, not four, and they had been with him since earlier in the afternoon. He was in white, like the figure, necessarily so, because he had his night dress on. He looked like the figure, necessarily so, because he looked earnestly at his brother when he saw him come into the room. But what his brother reached the bedside, he slowly raised himself in bed, and looked at full upon him, said these words, "James, you have seen me before, tonight, and you know it, and so died." I waited, when the German courier ceased to hear something said over this strange story. The silence was unbroken. I looked round, and the five couriers were gone. So noisily that the ghostly mountain might have absorbed them into its eternal snows. By this time I was by no means in a mood to settle alone in that awful scene, with the chiller echoing solemnly upon me, or if I may tell the truth to sit alone anywhere. So I went back into the convent parlor, and, finding the American gentleman still disposed to relate the biography of the honorable Ananias Dodger, heard it all out. And, of to be read at dusk by Charles Dickens. Have you had your high five moment today? 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