Tom Ossington's Ghost

Graham smiled; the smile lighting up his features, and correcting what was apt to be their chief defect, a prevailing sombreness.

"I am a barrister-one of the briefless brigade. One morning, about fourteen months ago, I left London for a spin on my bicycle. It was the long vacation; every one was out of town except myself. I thought I would steal a day with the rest. I came through Wandsworth, meaning to go across Wimbledon Common, through Epsom, and on towards the Shirley Hills. As I came down St. John's Hill my tyre caught up a piece of broken glass off the road, and the result was a puncture, or rather a clean cut, nearly an inch in length. I took it to a repairing shop by the bridge. As I stood waiting for the job to be done, two policemen came along with a man handcuffed between them, a small crowd at their heels.

"I asked the fellow who was doing my cycle what was wrong. He told me that there had been a burglary at a house on the Common the night before, that the burglar had been caught in the act, had half-murdered the policeman who had caught him, and was now on his way to the magistrate's court.

"As it seemed likely that the mending of my tyre would take some time, actuated by a more or less professional curiosity, I followed the crowd to the court.

"The case was taken up without delay. The statement that the constable who had detected what was taking place had been half-murdered was an exaggeration, as the appearance of the officer himself in the witness-box disclosed. But he had been roughly handled. His head was bandaged, he carried his arm in a sling, and he bore himself generally as one who had been in the wars. My experience, small as it is, teaches that constables on such occasions are wont, perhaps not unnaturally, to make the most of their injuries; and, to say the least, the prisoner had not escaped scot free. His skull had been laid open, two of his teeth had been knocked down his throat, his whole body was black and blue with bruises. Indeed his battered appearance so excited my sympathy that then and there I offered him my gratuitous services in his defence. My offer was accepted. I did what I could.

"However, there was very little that could be done. The burglary, it seemed, had occurred at a place called Clover Cottage."

"Why," cried Ella, "this is Clover Cottage!"

"Yes," said Jack, shaking his head with what he meant to be mysterious significance, "as you correctly observe, this is Clover Cottage. Didn't I tell you you'd see the hand of Providence? You just wait a bit, you'll be dumbfounded."

Mr. Graham continued.

"Clover Cottage it appeared was unoccupied. There were in it neither tenants nor goods. So far as the evidence showed, it contained nothing at all. Being found in an absolutely empty house is not, as a rule, an offence which meets with a severe punishment. I was at a loss, therefore, to understand why my client should have made such a desperate defence and thus have enormously increased the measure of his guilt in the way he had done. Had it not been for what was termed, and perhaps rightly, his assault on the police, the affair would have been settled out of hand. As it was, the magistrate felt that he had no option but to send the case to trial; which he did do there and then.

"Before his trial I had more than one interview with my client in his cell at Wandsworth Gaol. He told me, by way of explaining his conduct, an extraordinary story; so extraordinary that, from that hour to this, I have never been able to make up my mind as to its truth.

"Under ordinary circumstances I should have had no hesitation in affirming his statement, or rather his series of statements, was a more or less badly contrived set of lies. But there was something about the fellow which assured me that at any rate he himself believed what he said. He was by no means an ordinary criminal type, and there seemed no reason to doubt his assertion that this was the first felonious transaction he had ever had a hand in. He admitted he had led an irregular life, and that he had come down the ladder of respectability with a run, but he stoutly maintained that this was the first time he had ever done anything deserving the attention of the police.

"He was a man about forty years of age; he claimed to be only thirty-six. If that was the fact, then the life he had been living, and the injuries he had recently received, made him look considerably older. His name, he said, was Charles Ballingall. By trade he was a public-house broker; once, and that not so long ago, in a very fair way of business. He had had a lifelong friend-I am telling you the story, you understand, exactly as he told it me-named Ossington-Thomas Ossington. Ballingall always spoke of him as Tom Ossington."

Ellen looked at Madge.

"Madge!" she exclaimed, "how about Tom Ossington's Ghost?"

"I know."

Madge sat listening with compressed lips and flashing eyes; that was all she vouchsafed to reply. Mr. Graham glanced in her direction as he went on.

"According to Ballingall's story, Ossington must have been a man of some eccentricity. He was possessed of considerable means-according to Ballingall, of large fortune. But his whole existence had been embittered by the fact that he suffered from some physical malformation. For one thing, he had a lame foot-"

"I know that he was lame." This was Madge; all eyes stared at her.

"You knew? How did you know?"

"Because she told me."

Ella's eyes opened wider.

"She told you? Who?"

"The ghost's wife."

"The ghost's wife!"

"Yes, the ghost's wife. But never mind about that now. Mr. Graham will perhaps go on."

And Mr. Graham went on.

"This had preyed upon his spirits his whole life long; and, as his unwillingness to show himself among his fellows increased, it had made of him almost a recluse. He was, however, as it seemed, a man of strong affections, tender heart, and simple disposition. In these respects Ballingall could not speak of him with sufficient warmth. There never had been, he declared, a man like Tom. There was nothing he would not do for a friend-self-abnegation was the passion of his life. Ballingall owned that he owed everything to Ossington. Ossington had set him up in business, had helped him in a hundred ways. In return he (Ballingall) had rewarded him with the most hideous ingratitude. This part of the story was accompanied by such a strong exhibition of remorse that I, for one, found it difficult not to believe in the fellow's genuineness.

"In spite of his mis-shapenness, Ossington had found a wife, apparently a lovely one. The man loved her with the single-eyed affection of which such natures as his are capable. She, on the other hand, was as unworthy of his affection as she possibly could have been. From Ballingall's account she was evil through and through; he could find no epithet too evil to hurl at her. But then it was very possible that he was prejudiced. According to him, this woman, Ossington's wife, loathing her devoted husband, full to the lips with scorn of him, had deliberately laid herself out to win his (Ballingall's) love, and had succeeded so completely as to have caused him to forget the mountain-load of gratitude under which he ought to have stumbled, even to the extent of causing him to steal his friend's wife-the wife who was the very light of that friend's eyes.

"I think there was some truth in the fellow's version of the crime-for crime it was, and of the blackest dye. He declared to me that as soon as the thing was done, he knew himself to be the ineffable hound which he indeed was. The veil which the woman's allurements and sophistries had spread before his eyes was torn into shreds, and he saw the situation in all its horrible reality. She was as false to him as she had been to her husband, and he had been to his friend. In a few months she had left him, having ruined him before she went. From that time his career was all downhill. Remorse pursued him day and night. He felt that he was a pariah-an outcast among men; that an ineffaceable brand was on his brow which would for ever stamp him as accursed. It is possible that under the stress of privation, – for he quickly began to suffer actual privation-his mind became unhinged. But that he had suffered, and was still suffering, acutely, for his crime, the sweat of agony which broke out upon his brow as he told his tale was, to me, sufficient evidence.

"Two or three years passed. He sank to about the lowest depths to which a man could sink. At last, ragged, penniless, hungry, he was refused a job as a sandwich-man because of his incapacity to keep up with his fellows. One night he was on the Surrey side of the Embankment, near Westminster Bridge. It was after one o'clock in the morning; shortly before, he had heard Big Ben striking the hour. He was leaning over the parapet in front of Doulton's factory-you will observe that I reproduce the attention to detail which characterised this portion of his story, such an impression did it make upon my mind. As he stood looking at the water, some one touched him on the shoulder. Supposing it was a policeman who suspected his intentions, he turned hastily round. To his astonishment it was Tom Ossington. 'Tom!' he gasped.

"'Charlie!' returned the other. 'Come the first thing to-morrow morning to Clover Cottage.'

"Without another word he walked rapidly away in the direction of the Wandsworth Road-Ballingall distinctly noticing, as he went, that his limp had perceptibly diminished. Left once more alone, Ballingall was at a loss what to make of the occurrence. Ossington's appearance at that particular moment, so far away from home at that hour of the night, was a problem which he found it difficult to solve. He at last decided that the man's incurable tender-heartedness had caused him to at least partially overlook the blackness of the offence, and to offer his whilom friend succour in the depths of his distress. Anyhow, the next morning found the broken-down wretch in front of Ossington's house-of this house, as I understand."

As Mr. Graham said this, for some reason or other at least two of its hearers shivered; Ella clasped her hands more tightly as they lay upon her knee, and the expression of Madge's wide-open eyes grew more intense. Even Jack Martyn seemed subdued.

"To his indescribable astonishment, the house was empty. A board in the garden announced that it was to be let or sold. As he stood staring, a policeman came along.

"'Excuse me!' he said, 'but doesn't Mr. Ossington live here?'

"'He did!' answered the policeman; 'but he doesn't now.'

"'Can you tell me where he is living? I want to know because he asked me to call on him.'

"'Did he? Then if he asked you to call on him, I should if I was you. You'll find him in Wandsworth Churchyard. That's where he is living now!'

"The policeman's tone was jocular, Ballingall's appearance was against him. Evidently the officer suspected him of some clumsy attempt at invention. But as soon as the words were uttered Ballingall staggered back against the wall, according to his own account, like one stricken with death. He was speechless. The policeman, with a laugh, turned on his heel and left him there. Impelled by some influence which he could not resist, the conscience-haunted vagabond dragged his wearied feet to the churchyard. There among the tombstones he found one which purported to be erected to the memory of Thomas Ossington, who had been interred there some two years previously. While he stared, thunderstruck, at the inscription, Ballingall assured me that Tom Ossington stood at his side, and pointed at it with his finger."

Graham paused. His listeners fidgeted in their seats. It was a second or two before the narrator continued.

"You understand that I am telling you the story precisely as it was told me, without accepting for it any responsibility whatever. I can only assure you that whilst it was being told, I was so completely held, by what I can best describe as the teller's frenzied earnestness, that I accepted his facts precisely as he told them, and it was only after I got away from the glamour of his intensity of self-conviction that I perceived how entirely irreconcilable they were with the teachings of our everyday experience.

"Thenceforward, Ballingall declared that he was never without a feeling that Ossington was somewhere in the intermediate neighbourhood-to use his own word, that he was shadowing him. For the next week or two he lighted upon somewhat better times. He obtained a job at road-cleaning, and in one way or another managed to preserve himself from actual starvation. But, shortly, the luck ran out, and one night he again found himself without a penny with which to buy either food or lodging. He was struggling up Southampton Street, in the Strand, intending to hang about the purlieus of Covent Garden with the faint hope that he might be able to get some sort of job at the dawn of day, when he saw, coming towards him from the market, Tom Ossington. Ballingall shrank back into the doorway, and, while he stood there shivering, Ossington came and planted himself in front of him.

"'Charlie!' he said, 'why didn't you come to Clover Cottage when I told you?'

"Ballingall protested that he looked and spoke just like a rational being-with the little air of impatience which had always been his characteristic; that there was nothing either in his manner or his appearance in any way unusual, and that there was certainly nothing to suggest an apparition. A conversation was carried on between them just as it might have been between an ordinary Jones and Robinson.

"'I did come!' he replied.

"'Yes-but you stopped outside. Why didn't you come inside?'

"'Because the house was empty!'

"'That's all you know.'

"'Yes,' repeated Ballingall, 'that's all I do know.'