And somehow I am sure I have nothing to fear.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It seems that Madge was right, for nothing untoward has come to her. Something, her attitude to them, we must suppose, her pity, her
sympathy, touched and dissolved and annihilated the curse. Indeed, I was
at Church Peveril only last week, arriving there after dark. Just as I
passed the gallery door, Blanche came out. “Ah, there you are,” she said, “I’ve just been seeing the twins. They
looked too sweet and stopped nearly ten minutes. Let us have tea at
once.”




CATERPILLARS


I saw a month or two ago in an Italian paper that the Villa Cascana, in
which I once stayed, had been pulled down, and that a manufactory of
some sort was in process of erection on its site. There is therefore no
longer any reason for refraining from writing of those things which I
myself saw (or imagined I saw) in a certain room and on a certain
landing of the villa in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances
which followed, which may or may not (according to the opinion of the
reader) throw some light on or be somehow connected with this
experience. The Villa Cascana was in all ways but one a perfectly delightful house,
yet, if it were standing now, nothing in the world--I use the phrase in
its literal sense--would induce me to set foot in it again, for I
believe it to have been haunted in a very terrible and practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done, do not do much harm; they may
perhaps terrify, but the person whom they visit usually gets over their
visitation. They may on the other hand be entirely friendly and
beneficent. But the appearances in the Villa Cascana were not
beneficent, and had they made their “visit” in a very slightly
different manner, I do not suppose I should have got over it any more
than Arthur Inglis did. *       *       *       *       *

The house stood on an ilex-clad hill not far from Sestri di Levante on
the Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that
enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut woods that
climb up the hillsides till they give place to the pines that, black in
contrast with them, crown the slopes. All round it the garden in the
luxuriance of mid-spring bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of
magnolia and rose, borne on the salt freshness of the winds from the
sea, flowed like a stream through the cool vaulted rooms. On the ground floor a broad pillared _loggia_ ran round three sides of
the house, the top of which formed a balcony for certain rooms of the
first floor. The main staircase, broad and of grey marble steps, led up
from the hall to the landing outside these rooms, which were three in
number, namely two big sitting-rooms and a bedroom arranged _en suite_. The latter was unoccupied, the sitting-rooms were in use. From these the
main staircase was continued to the second floor, where were situated
certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied, while from the other side of
the first-floor landing some half-dozen steps led to another suite of
rooms, where, at the time I am speaking of, Arthur Inglis, the artist,
had his bedroom and studio. Thus the landing outside my bedroom at the
top of the house, commanded both the landing of the first floor, and
also the steps that led to Inglis’ rooms. Jim Stanley and his wife,
finally (whose guest I was), occupied rooms in another wing of the
house, where also were the servants’ quarters. I arrived just in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of mid-May. The
garden was shouting with colour and fragrance, and not less delightful
after my broiling walk up from the _marina_, should have been the coming
from the reverberating heat and blaze of the day into the marble
coolness of the villa. Only (the reader has my bare word for this, and
nothing more), the moment I set foot in the house I felt that something
was wrong. This feeling, I may say, was quite vague, though very strong,
and I remember that when I saw letters waiting for me on the table in
the hall I felt certain that the explanation was here: I was convinced
that there was bad news of some sort for me. Yet when I opened them I
found no such explanation of my premonition: my correspondents all
reeked of prosperity. Yet this clear miscarriage of a presentiment did
not dissipate my uneasiness. In that cool fragrant house there was
something wrong. I am at pains to mention this because to the general view it may explain
that though I am as a rule so excellent a sleeper that the extinction of
my light on getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being
called on the following morning, I slept very badly on my first night
in the Villa Cascana. It may also explain the fact that when I did sleep
(if it was indeed in sleep that I saw what I thought I saw) I dreamed in
a very vivid and original manner, original, that is to say, in the sense
that something that, as far as I knew, had never previously entered into
my consciousness, usurped it then. But since, in addition to this evil
premonition, certain words and events occurring during the rest of the
day, might have suggested something of what I thought happened that
night, it will be well to relate them. After lunch, then, I went round the house with Mrs Stanley, and during
our tour she referred, it is true, to the unoccupied bedroom on the
first floor, which opened out of the room where we had lunched. “We left that unoccupied,” she said, “because Jim and I have a charming
bedroom and dressing-room, as you saw, in the wing, and if we used it
ourselves we should have to turn the dining-room into a dressing-room
and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however, we have our little
flat there, Arthur Inglis has his little flat in the other passage; and
I remembered (aren’t I extraordinary?) that you once said that the
higher up you were in a house the better you were pleased. So I put you
at the top of the house, instead of giving you that room.”

It is true, that a doubt, vague as my uneasy premonition, crossed my
mind at this. I did not see why Mrs Stanley should have explained all
this, if there had not been more to explain. I allow, therefore, that
the thought that there was something to explain about the unoccupied
bedroom was momentarily present to my mind. The second thing that may have borne on my dream was this. At dinner the conversation turned for a moment on ghosts. Inglis, with
the certainty of conviction, expressed his belief that anybody who could
possibly believe in the existence of supernatural phenomena was unworthy
of the name of an ass. The subject instantly dropped. As far as I can
recollect, nothing else occurred or was said that could bear on what
follows. We all went to bed rather early, and personally I yawned my way
upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot, and I threw
all the windows wide, and from without poured in the white light of the
moon, and the love-song of many nightingales.