Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling Page #4

"Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling" is a novella by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, published in 1864. Set in the early 19th century, the story follows the troubled life of Captain Walshawe, an enigmatic and morally ambiguous figure, as he navigates themes of ambition, betrayal, and the supernatural. The narrative explores the Captain's complex relationships and the dark consequences of his actions, combining elements of gothic fiction and psychological drama. Through its atmospheric writing, Le Fanu delves into the intricacies of human nature and the haunting impact of the past, making it a compelling read for fans of gothic literature.

• Short story

								

jerk that frightened him awfully.

Meanwhile the storm kept singing, and howling, and ha-ha-hooing
hoarsely among the limbs of the old trees and the chimney-pots; and my
Uncle Watson, although he prayed and meditated as was his wont when he
lay awake, felt his heart throb excitedly, and sometimes thought he
was beset with evil spirits, and at others that he was in the early
stage of a fever.

He resolutely kept his eyes closed, however, and, like St. Paul's
shipwrecked companions, wished for the day. At last another little
doze seems to have stolen upon his senses, for he awoke quietly and
completely as before--opening his eyes all at once, and seeing
everything as if he had not slept for a moment.

The fire was still blazing redly--nothing uncertain in the light--the
massive silver candlestick, topped with its tall extinguisher, stood
on the centre of the black mahogany table as before; and, looking by
what seemed a sort of accident to the apex of this, he beheld
something which made him quite misdoubt the evidence of his eyes.

He saw the extinguisher lifted by a tiny hand, from beneath, and a
small human face, no bigger than a thumb-nail, with nicely
proportioned features, peep from beneath it. In this Lilliputian
countenance was such a ghastly consternation as horrified my uncle
unspeakably. Out came a little foot then and there, and a pair of wee
legs, in short silk stockings and buckled shoes, then the rest of the
figure; and, with the arms holding about the socket, the little legs
stretched and stretched, hanging about the stem of the candlestick
till the feet reached the base, and so down the satyr-like leg of the
table, till they reached the floor, extending elastically, and
strangely enlarging in all proportions as they approached the ground,
where the feet and buckles were those of a well-shaped, full grown
man, and the figure tapering upward until it dwindled to its original
fairy dimensions at the top, like an object seen in some strangely
curved mirror.

Standing upon the floor he expanded, my amazed uncle could not tell
how, into his proper proportions; and stood pretty nearly in profile
at the bedside, a handsome and elegantly shaped young man, in a bygone
military costume, with a small laced, three-cocked hat and plume on
his head, but looking like a man going to be hanged--in unspeakable
despair.

He stepped lightly to the hearth, and turned for a few seconds very
dejectedly with his back toward the bed and the mantel-piece, and he
saw the hilt of his rapier glittering in the firelight; and then
walking across the room he placed himself at the dressing-table,
visible through the divided curtains at the foot of the bed. The fire
was blazing still so brightly that my uncle saw him as distinctly as
if half a dozen candles were burning.

CHAPTER VII

The Visitation Culminates

The looking-glass was an old-fashioned piece of furniture, and had a
drawer beneath it. My uncle had searched it carefully for the papers
in the daytime; but the silent figure pulled the drawer quite out,
pressed a spring at the side, disclosing a false receptable behind it,
and from this he drew a parcel of papers tied together with pink tape.

All this time my uncle was staring at him in a horrified state,
neither winking nor breathing, and the apparition had not once given
the smallest intimation of consciousness that a living person was in
the same room. But now, for the first time, it turned its livid stare
full upon my uncle with a hateful smile of significance, lifting up
the little parcel of papers between his slender finger and thumb. Then
he made a long, cunning wink at him, and seemed to blow out one of his
cheeks in a burlesque grimace, which, but for the horrific
circumstances, would have been ludicrous. My uncle could not tell
whether this was really an intentional distortion or only one of those
horrid ripples and deflections which were constantly disturbing the
proportions of the figure, as if it were seen through some unequal and
perverting medium.

The figure now approached the bed, seeming to grow exhausted and
malignant as it did so. My uncle's terror nearly culminated at this
point, for he believed it was drawing near him with an evil purpose.
But it was not so; for the soldier, over whom twenty years seemed to
have passed in his brief transit to the dressing-table and back again,
threw himself into a great high-backed arm-chair of stuffed leather at
the far side of the fire, and placed his heels on the fender. His feet
and legs seemed indistinctly to swell, and swathings showed themselves
round them, and they grew into something enormous, and the upper
figure swayed and shaped itself into corresponding proportions, a
great mass of corpulence, with a cadaverous and malignant face, and
the furrows of a great old age, and colourless glassy eyes; and with
these changes, which came indefinitely but rapidly as those of a
sunset cloud, the fine regimentals faded away, and a loose, gray,
woollen drapery, somehow, was there in its stead; and all seemed to be
stained and rotten, for swarms of worms seemed creeping in and out,
while the figure grew paler and paler, till my uncle, who liked his
pipe, and employed the simile naturally, said the whole effigy grew to
the colour of tobacco ashes, and the clusters of worms into little
wriggling knots of sparks such as we see running over the residuum of
a burnt sheet of paper. And so with the strong draught caused by the
fire, and the current of air from the window, which was rattling in
the storm, the feet seemed to be drawn into the fire-place, and the
whole figure, light as ashes, floated away with them, and disappeared
with a whisk up the capacious old chimney.

It seemed to my uncle that the fire suddenly darkened and the air grew
icy cold, and there came an awful roar and riot of tempest, which
shook the old house from top to base, and sounded like the yelling of
a blood-thirsty mob on receiving a new and long-expected victim.

Good Uncle Watson used to say, "I have been in many situations of fear
and danger in the course of my life, but never did I pray with so much
agony before or since; for then, as now, it was clear beyond a cavil
that I had actually beheld the phantom of an evil spirit."

CONCLUSION

Now there are two curious circumstances to be observed in this
relation of my uncle's, who was, as I have said, a perfectly veracious
man.

First--The wax candle which he took from the press in the parlour and
burnt at his bedside on that horrible night was unquestionably,
according to the testimony of the old deaf servant, who had been fifty
years at Wauling, that identical piece of "holy candle" which had
stood in the fingers of the poor lady's corpse, and concerning which
the old Irish crone, long since dead, had delivered the curious curse
I have mentioned against the Captain.

Secondly--Behind the drawer under the looking-glass, he did actually
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