THE TURN OF THE SCREW
Ā Ā The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently
breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as,
on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially
be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say
that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had
fallen on a child. The case, I may mention, was that of an
apparition in just such an old house as had gathered us for the
occasionā an appearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy
sleeping in the room with his mother and waking her up in the
terror of it; waking her not to dissipate his dread and soothe him
to sleep again, but to encounter also, herself, before she had
succeeded in doing so, the same sight that had shaken him. It was
this observation that drew from Douglasā not immediately, but later
in the eveningā a reply that had the interesting consequence to
which I call attention. Someone else told a story not particularly
effective, which I saw he was not following. This I took for a sign
that he had himself something to produce and that we should only
have to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but that
same evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in his
mind.
Ā Ā āI quite agreeā in regard to Griffin's ghost, or
whatever it wasā that its appearing first to the little boy, at so
tender an age, adds a particular touch. But it's not the first
occurrence of its charming kind that I know to have involved a
child. If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw,
what do you say to TWO childrenā ? ā
Ā Ā āWe say, of course, ā somebody exclaimed, āthat they
give two turns! Also that we want to hear about them. ā
Ā Ā I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he
had got up to present his back, looking down at his interlocutor
with his hands in his pockets. āNobody but me, till now, has ever
heard. It's quite too horrible. ā This, naturally, was declared by
several voices to give the thing the utmost price, and our friend,
with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning his eyes over the
rest of us and going on: āIt's beyond everything. Nothing at all
that I know touches it. ā
Ā Ā āFor sheer terror? ā I remember asking.
Ā Ā He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be
really at a loss how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his
eyes, made a little wincing grimace. āFor dreadfulā dreadfulness!
ā
Ā Ā āOh, how delicious! ā cried one of the women.
Ā Ā He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as
if, instead of me, he saw what he spoke of. āFor general uncanny
ugliness and horror and pain. ā
Ā Ā āWell then, ā I said, ājust sit right down and
begin. ā
Ā Ā He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log,
watched it an instant. Then as he faced us again: āI can't begin. I
shall have to send to town. ā There was a unanimous groan at this,
and much reproach; after which, in his preoccupied way, he
explained. āThe story's written. It's in a locked drawerā it has
not been out for years. I could write to my man and enclose the
key; he could send down the packet as he finds it. ā It was to me
in particular that he appeared to propound thisā appeared almost to
appeal for aid not to hesitate. He had broken a thickness of ice,
the formation of many a winter; had had his reasons for a long
silence. The others resented postponement, but it was just his
scruples that charmed me. I adjured him to write by the first post
and to agree with us for an early hearing; then I asked him if the
experience in question had been his own. To this his answer was
prompt. āOh, thank God, no! ā
Ā Ā āAnd is the record yours? You took the thing down?
ā
Ā Ā āNothing but the impression. I took that HEREāā he
tapped his heart. āI've never lost it. ā
Ā Ā āThen your manuscriptā ? ā
Ā Ā āIs in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful
hand. ā He hung fire again. āA woman's. She has been dead these
twenty years. She sent me the pages in question before she died. ā
They were all listening now, and of course there was somebody to be
arch, or at any rate to draw the inference. But if he put the
inference by without a smile it was also without irritation. āShe
was a most charming person, but she was ten years older than I. She
was my sister's governess, ā he quietly said. āShe was the most
agreeable woman I've ever known in her position; she would have
been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this episode was
long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on my coming
down the second summer. I was much there that yearā it was a
beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls and talks
in the gardenā talks in which she struck me as awfully clever and
nice. Oh yes; don't grin: I liked her extremely and am glad to this
day to think she liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have
told me. She had never told anyone. It wasn't simply that she said
so, but that I knew she hadn't. I was sure; I could see. You'll
easily judge why when you hear. ā
Ā Ā āBecause the thing had been such a scare? ā
Ā Ā He continued to fix me. āYou'll easily judge, ā he
repeated: āYOU will. ā
Ā Ā I fixed him, too. āI see. She was in love. ā
Ā Ā He laughed for the first time. āYou ARE acute. Yes,
she was in love. That is, she had been. That came outā she couldn't
tell her story without its coming out. I saw it, and she saw I saw
it; but neither of us spoke of it. I remember the time and the
placeā the corner of the lawn, the shade of the great beeches and
the long, hot summer afternoon. It wasn't a scene for a shudder;
but ohā ! ā He quitted the fire and dropped back into his
chair.
Ā Ā āYou'll receive the packet Thursday morning? ā I
inquired.
Ā Ā āProbably not till the second post. ā
Ā Ā āWell then; after dinnerā ā
Ā Ā āYou'll all meet me here? ā He looked us round
again. āIsn't anybody going? ā It was almost the tone of hope.
Ā Ā āEverybody will stay! ā
Ā Ā āI willāā and āI will! ā cried the
ladies whose departure had been fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however,
expressed the need for a little more light. āWho was it she was in
love with? ā
Ā Ā āThe story will tell, ā I took upon myself to
reply.
Ā Ā āOh, I can't wait for the story! ā
Ā Ā āThe story WON'T tell, ā said Douglas; ānot in any
literal, vulgar way. ā
Ā Ā āMore's the pity, then. That's the only way I ever
understand. ā
Ā Ā āWon't YOU tell, Douglas? ā somebody else
inquired.
Ā Ā He sprang to his feet again. āYesā tomorrow. Now I
must go to bed. Good night. ā And quickly catching up a
candlestick, he left us slightly bewildered. From our end of the
great brown hall we heard his step on the stair; whereupon Mrs.
Griffin spoke. āWell, if I don't know who she was in love with, I
know who HE was. ā
Ā Ā āShe was ten years older, ā said her husband.
Ā Ā āRaison de plusā at that age! But it's rather nice,
his long reticence. ā
Ā Ā āForty years! ā Griffin put in.
Ā Ā āWith this outbreak at last. ā
Ā Ā āThe outbreak, ā I returned, āwill make a tremendous
occasion of Thursday night; ā and everyone so agreed with me that,
in the light of it, we lost all attention for everything else. The
last story, however incomplete and like the mere opening of a
serial, had been told; we handshook and ācandlestuck, ā as somebody
said, and went to bed.
Ā Ā I knew the next day that a letter containing the key
had, by the first post, gone off to his London apartments; but in
spite ofā or perhaps just on account ofā the eventual diffusion of
this knowledge we quite let him alone till after dinner, till such
an hour of the evening, in fact, as might best accord with the kind
of emotion on which our hopes were fixed. Then he became as
communicative as we could desire and indeed gave us his best reason
for being so. We had it from him again before the fire in the hall,
as we had had our mild wonders of the previous night. It appeared
that the narrative he had promised to read us really required for a
proper intelligence a few words of prologue. Let me say here
distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, from an
exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall
presently give. Poor Douglas, before his deathā when it was in
sightā committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third
of these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he
began to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the
fourth. The departing ladies who had said they would stay didn't,
of course, thank heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of
arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as they professed,
produced by the touches with which he had already worked us up. But
that only made his little final auditory more compact and select,
kept it, round the hearth, subject to a common thrill.
Ā Ā The first of these touches conveyed that the written
statement took up the tale at a point after it had, in a manner,
begun. The fact to be in possession of was therefore that his old
friend, the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson,
had, at the age of twenty, on taking service for the first time in
the schoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation, to answer in
person an advertisement that had already placed her in brief
correspondence with the advertiser. This person proved, on her
presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, that
impressed her as vast and imposingā this prospective patron proved
a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had
never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered,
anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his
type; it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and
pleasant, offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as
gallant and splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her
the courage she afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to
her as a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur.
She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagantā saw him
all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits,
of charming ways with women. He had for his own town residence a
big house filled with the spoils of travel and the trophies of the
chase; but it was to his country home, an old family place in
Essex, that he wished her immediately to proceed.
Ā Ā He had been left, by the death of their parents in
India, guardian to a small nephew and a small niece, children of a
younger, a military brother, whom he had lost two years before.
These children were, by the strangest of chances for a man in his
positionā a lone man without the right sort of experience or a
grain of patienceā very heavily on his hands. It had all been a
great worry and, on his own part doubtless, a series of blunders,
but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had done all he could;
had in particular sent them down to his other house, the proper
place for them being of course the country, and kept them there,
from the first, with the best people he could find to look after
them, parting even with his own servants to wait on them and going
down himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing. The
awkward thing was that they had practically no other relations and
that his own affairs took up all his time. He had put them in
possession of Bly, which was healthy and secure, and had placed at
the head of their little establishmentā but below stairs onlyā an
excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, whom he was sure his visitor would
like and who had formerly been maid to his mother. She was now
housekeeper and was also acting for the time as superintendent to
the little girl, of whom, without children of her own, she was, by
good luck, extremely fond. There were plenty of people to help, but
of course the young lady who should go down as governess would be
in supreme authority. She would also have, in holidays, to look
after the small boy, who had been for a term at schoolā young as he
was to be sent, but what else could be done? ā and who, as the
holidays were about to begin, would be back from one day to the
other. There had been for the two children at first a young lady
whom they had had the misfortune to lose. She had done for them
quite beautifullyā she was a most respectable personā till her
death, the great awkwardness of which had, precisely, left no
alternative but the school for little Miles. Mrs. Grose, since
then, in the way of manners and things, had done as she could for
Flora; and there were, further, a cook, a housemaid, a dairywoman,
an old pony, an old groom, and an old gardener, all likewise
thoroughly respectable.
Ā Ā So far had Douglas presented his picture when
someone put a question. āAnd what did the former governess die of?
ā of so much respectability? ā
Ā Ā Our friend's answer was prompt. āThat will come out.
I don't anticipate. ā
Ā Ā āExcuse meā I thought that was just what you ARE
doing. ā
Ā Ā āIn her successor's place, ā I suggested, āI should
have wished to learn if the office brought with itā ā
Ā Ā āNecessary danger to life? ā Douglas completed my
thought. āShe did wish to learn, and she did learn. You shall hear
tomorrow what she learned. Meanwhile, of course, the prospect
struck her as slightly grim. She was young, untried, nervous: it
was a vision of serious duties and little company, of really great
loneliness. She hesitatedā took a couple of days to consult and
consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her modest measure,
and on a second interview she faced the music, she engaged. ā And
Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for the benefit of the
company, moved me to throw inā
Ā Ā āThe moral of which was of course the seduction
exercised by the splendid young man. She succumbed to it. ā
Ā Ā He got up and, as he had done the night before, went
to the fire, gave a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a
moment with his back to us. āShe saw him only twice. ā
Ā Ā āYes, but that's just the beauty of her passion.
ā
Ā Ā A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned
round to me. āIt WAS the beauty of it. There were others, ā he went
on, āwho hadn't succumbed. He told her frankly all his difficultyā
that for several applicants the conditions had been prohibitive.
They were, somehow, simply afraid. It sounded dullā it sounded
strange; and all the more so because of his main condition. ā
Ā Ā āWhich wasā ? ā
Ā Ā āThat she should never trouble himā but never,
never: neither appeal nor complain nor write about anything; only
meet all questions herself, receive all moneys from his solicitor,
take the whole thing over and let him alone. She promised to do
this, and she mentioned to me that when, for a moment, disburdened,
delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for the sacrifice, she
already felt rewarded. ā
Ā Ā āBut was that all her reward? ā one of the ladies
asked.
Ā Ā āShe never saw him again. ā
Ā Ā āOh! ā said the lady; which, as our friend
immediately left us again, was the only other word of importance
contributed to the subject till, the next night, by the corner of
the hearth, in the best chair, he opened the faded red cover of a
thin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole thing took indeed
more nights than one, but on the first occasion the same lady put
another question. āWhat is your title? ā
Ā Ā āI haven't one. ā
Ā Ā āOh, I have! ā I said. But Douglas, without
heeding me, had begun to read with a fine clearness that was like a
rendering to the ear of the beauty of his author's hand.
I
I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad daysā found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house. This convenience, I was told, had been ordered, and I found, toward the close of the June afternoon, a commodious fly in waiting for me. Driving at that hour, on a lovely day, through a country to which the summer sweetness seemed to offer me a friendly welcome, my fortitude mounted afresh and, as we turned into the avenue, encountered a reprieve that was probably but a proof of the point to which it had sunk. I suppose I had expected, or had dreaded, something so melancholy that what greeted me was a good surprise. I remember as a most pleasant impression the broad, clear front, its open windows and fresh curtains and the pair of maids looking out; I remember the lawn and the bright flowers and the crunch of my wheels on the g...