Welcome to Macabre Miscellanea, a curated collection
of classic curiosities. There is a particular
kind of courage that announces itself in advance.
Our narrator tonight has been 8 and 20 years
without encountering a ghost, and he'd like you
to know that. He has an open mind, a scientific
disposition, a revolver he will not use, and
17 candles. He has taken every reasonable precaution.
by his own assessment, entirely prepared. The
house disagrees. Tonight's tale, The Red Room,
by H .G. Wells. Turn down the lights. Let's begin.
I can assure you, said I, that it will take a
very tangible ghost to frighten me. And I stood
up before the fire with my glass in my hand.
It is your own choosing, said the man with the
withered arm, and glanced at me askance. Eight
and twenty years, said I. I have lived, and never
a ghost have I seen as yet. The old woman sat
staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide
open. She broke in. An eight and twenty years
you have lived and never seen the likes of this
house, I reckon. There's a many things to see
when one's still but eight and twenty. She swayed
her head slowly from side to side. A many things
to see and sorrow for. I half suspected the old
people were trying to enhance the spiritual terrors
of their house. by their droning insistence.
I put down my empty glass on the table and looked
about the room, and caught a glimpse of myself,
abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness,
in the queer old mirror at the end of the room.
Well, I said, if I see anything tonight, I shall
be so much the wiser, for I come to the business
with an open mind. It's your own choosing, said
the man with the withered arm once more. I heard
the faint sound of a stick and a shambling step
on the flags in the passage outside. The door
creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered,
more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than
the first. He supported himself by the help of
a crutch. His eyes were covered by a shade. and
his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink
from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight
for an armchair on the opposite side of the table,
sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man
with the withered hand gave the newcomer a short
glance of positive dislike. The old woman took
no notice of his arrival, but remained with her
eyes fixed steadily on the fire. I said, it's
your own choosing, said the man with the withered
hand when the coughing had ceased for a while.
It's my own choosing, I answered. The man with
the shade became aware of my presence for the
first time and threw his head back for a moment,
and sidewise, to see me. I caught a momentary
glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed.
Then he began to cough and splutter again. Why
don't you drink? said the man with the withered
arm, pushing the beer toward him. The man with
the shade poured out a glassful with a shaking
hand that splashed half as much again on the
deal table. A monstrous shadow of him crouched
upon the wall and mocked his action as he poured
and drank. I must confess. I had scarcely expected
these grotesque custodians. There is, to my mind,
something inhuman in senility, something crouching
and atavistic. The human qualities seem to drop
from old people insensibly day by day. The three
of them made me feel uncomfortable with their
gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident
unfriendliness to me and to one another. And
that night, perhaps, I was in the mood for uncomfortable
impressions. I resolved to get away from their
vague foreshadowings of the evil things upstairs.
If, said I, you will show me to this haunted
room of yours, I will make myself comfortable
there. The old man with the cough jerked his
head back so suddenly, that it startled me, and
shot another glance of his red eyes at me from
out of the darkness under the shade. But no one
answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from
one to the other. The old woman stared like a
dead body, glaring into the fire with lackluster
eyes. If, I said a little louder, if you will
show me to this haunted room of yours, I will
relieve you from the task of entertaining me.
There's a candle on the slab outside the door,
said the man with the withered hand, looking
at my feet as he addressed me. But if you go
to the Red Room tonight... This night of all
nights, said the old woman softly. You go alone?
Very well. I answered shortly. And which way
do I go? You go along the passage for a bit,
said he, nodding his head on his shoulder at
the door. Until you come to a spiral staircase,
and on the second landing is a door covered with
green bays. Go through that, and down the long
corridor to the end, and the red room is on your
left up the steps. Have I got that right? I said,
and repeated his directions. He corrected me
in one particular. And you are really going?
said the man with the shade, looking at me again
for the third time with that queer, unnatural
tilting of the face. This night of all nights,
whispered the old woman. It is what I came for,
I said. and moved toward the door. As I did so,
the old man with the shade rose and staggered
around the table so as to be closer to the others
and to the fire. At the door, I turned and looked
at them and saw they were all close together,
dark against the firelight, staring at me over
their shoulders with an intent expression on
their ancient faces. Good night, I said, setting
the door open. It's your own choosing, said the
man with the withered arm. I left the door wide
open until the candle was well alight, and then
I shut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing
passage. I must confess that the oddness of these
three old pensioners in whose charge her ladyship
had left the castle and the deep -toned, old
-fashioned furniture of the housekeeper's room,
in which they foregathered, had affected me curiously,
in spite of my effort to keep myself at a matter
-of -fact phase. They seemed to belong to another
age, an older age, an age when things spiritual
were indeed to be feared, when common sense was
uncommon, an age when omens and witches were
credible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their very
existence, thought I, is spectral. The cut of
their clothing, fashions born in dead brains,
the ornaments and conveniences in the room about
them even are ghostly. The thoughts of vanished
men, which still haunt rather than participate
in the world of today. And the passage I was
in, long and shadowy. with a film of moisture
glistening on the wall, was as gaunt and cold
as a thing that is dead and rigid. But with an
effort, I sent such thoughts to the right about.
The long, drafty, subterranean passage was chilly
and dusty, and my candle flared and made the
shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up
and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came
sweeping up after me. and another fled before
me into the darkness overhead. I came to the
wide landing and stopped there for a moment,
listening to a rustling that I fancied I heard
creeping behind me, and then, satisfied of the
absolute silence, pushed open the unwilling bays
-covered door and stood in the silent corridor.
The effect was scarcely what I expected. For
the moonlight, coming in by the great window
on the grand staircase, picked out everything
in vivid black shadow or reticulated silvery
illumination. Everything seemed in its proper
position. The house might have been deserted
on the yesterday instead of twelve months ago.
There were candles in the sockets of the sconces.
and whatever dust had gathered on the carpets
or upon the polished flooring was distributed
so evenly as to be invisible in my candlelight.
A waiting stillness was over everything. I was
about to advance and stopped abruptly. A bronze
group stood upon the landing hidden from me by
a corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with
marvelous distinctness upon the white paneling.
and gave me the impression of someone crouching
to waylay me. The thing jumped upon my attention
suddenly. I stood rigid for half a moment, perhaps.
Then, with my hand in the pocket that held the
revolver, I advanced, only to discover a Ganymede
and eagle glistening in the moonlight. That incident,
for a time, restored my nerve, and a dim porcelain
Chinaman, on a ball table, whose head rocked
as I passed, scarcely startled me. The door of
the red room and the steps up to it were in a
shadowy corner. I moved my candle from side to
side in order to see clearly the nature of the
recess in which I stood before opening the door.
Here it was, thought I, that my predecessor was
found. and the memory of that story gave me a
sudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over
my shoulder at the black Ganymede in the moonlight,
and opened the door of the Red Room rather hastily,
with my face half turned to the pallid silence
of the corridor. I entered, closed the door behind
me at once, turned the key I found in the lock
within, and stood with the candle held aloft
surveying the scene of my vigil, the great red
room of Lorraine Castle, in which the young Duke
had died. Or rather, in which he had begun his
dying, for he had opened the door and fallen
headlong down the steps I had just ascended.
That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant
attempt to conquer the ghostly tradition of the
place, and never, I thought. had apoplexy better
served the ends of superstition. There were other
and older stories that clung to the room, back
to the half -incredible beginning of it all,
the tale of a timid wife, and the tragic end
that came to her husband's jest of frightening
her. And looking round that huge shadowy room
with its black window bays, its recesses and
alcoves, its dusty brown -red hangings and dark,
gigantic furniture. One could well understand
the legends that had sprouted in its black corners,
its germinating darknesses. My candle was a little
tongue of light in the vastness of the chamber.
Its rays failed to pierce to the opposite end
of the room and left an ocean of dull red mystery
and suggestion. sentinel shadows and watching
darknesses beyond its island of light, and the
stillness of desolation brooded over it all.
I must confess some impalpable quality of that
ancient room disturbed me. I tried to fight the
feeling down. I resolved to make a systematic
examination of the place, and so... By leaving
nothing to the imagination, dispel the fanciful
suggestions of the obscurity before they obtained
a hold upon me. After satisfying myself of the
fastening of the door, I began to walk round
the room, peering round each article of furniture,
tucking up the valances of the bed and opening
its curtains wide. In one place, there was a
distinct echo to my footsteps. The noises I made
seemed so little that they enhanced rather than
broke the silence of the place. I pulled up the
blinds and examined the fastenings of the several
windows. Attracted by the fall of a particle
of dust, I leaned forward and looked up the blackness
of the wide chimney. Then, trying to preserve
my scientific attitude of mind, I walked round
and began tapping the oak panelling for any secret
opening, but I desisted before reaching the alcove.
I saw my face in a mirror. White. There were
two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair
of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantel
shelf, too, were candles in china candlesticks.
All these I lit one after the other. The fire
was laid. an unexpected consideration from the
old housekeeper, and I lit it to keep down any
disposition to shiver. And when it was burning
well, I stood round with my back to it and regarded
the room again. I had pulled up a chintz -covered
armchair and a table to form a kind of barricade
before me. On this lay my revolver, ready to
hand. My precise examination had done me a little
good, but I still found the remoter darkness
of the place and its perfect stillness too stimulating
for the imagination. The echoing of the stir
and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfort
to me. The shadow in the alcove at the end of
the room began to display that undefinable quality
of a presence. That odd suggestion of a lurking
living thing that comes so easily in silence
and solitude. And to reassure myself, I walked
with a candle into it and satisfied myself that
there was nothing tangible there. I stood that
candle upon the floor of the alcove and left
it in that position. By this time I was in a
state of considerable nervous tension. although,
to my reason, there was no adequate cause for
my condition. My mind, however, was perfectly
clear. I postulated, quite unreservedly, that
nothing supernatural could happen, and to pass
the time I began stringing some rhymes together,
in Goldsbar fashion, concerning the original
legend of the place. A few I spoke aloud, but
the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason,
I also abandoned, after a time, a conversation
with myself upon the impossibility of ghosts
and haunting. My mind reverted to the three old
and distorted people downstairs, and I tried
to keep it upon that topic. The somber reds and
greys of the room troubled me. Even with its
seven candles, the place was merely dim. The
light in the alcove flaring in a draft and the
fire flickering kept the shadows and penumbra
perpetually shifting and stirring in a noiseless
flighty dance. Casting about for a remedy, I
recalled the wax candles I had seen in the corridor
and, with a slight effort, carrying a candle
and leaving the door open, I walked out. and
presently returned with as many as ten. These
I put in the various knick -knacks of China with
which the room was sparsely adorned, and lit
and placed them where the shadows had lain deepest,
some on the floor, some in the window recesses,
arranging and rearranging them, until at last
my seventeen candles were so placed that not
an inch of the room but had the direct light
of at least one of them. It occurred to me that
when the ghost came, I could warn him not to
trip over them. The room was now quite brightly
illuminated. There was something very cheering
and reassuring in these little silent streaming
flames, and to notice their steady diminution
of length offered me an occupation. and gave
me a reassuring sense of the passage of time.
Even with that, however, the brooding expectation
of the vigil weighed heavily enough upon me.
I stood watching the minute hand of my watch
creep towards midnight. Then something happened
in the alcove. I did not see the candle go out.
I simply turned and saw that the darkness was
there, as one might start. and see the unexpected
presence of a stranger. The black shadow had
sprung back to its place. By Jove, said I aloud,
recovering from my surprise, that drafts a strong
one. And taking the matchbox from the table,
I walked across the room in a leisurely manner
to relight the corner again. My first match would
not strike, and as I succeeded with the second,
Something seemed to blink on the wall before
me. I turned my head involuntarily and saw that
the two candles on the little table by the fireplace
were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet.
Odd, I said. Did I do that myself in a flash
of absent -mindedness? I walked back, relit one,
and as I did so, I saw the candle in the right
sconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right
out, and almost immediately its companion followed
it. The flames vanished as if the wick had been
suddenly nipped between a finger and thumb, leaving
the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black.
While I stood, gaping the candle at the foot
of the bed, went out, and the shadows seemed
to take another step toward me. This won't do,
said I, and first one and then another candle
on the mantel shelf followed. What's up? I cried,
with a queer high note getting into my voice
somehow. At that, the candle on the corner of
the wardrobe went out, and the one I had relit
in the alcove followed. Steady on, I said. Those
candles are wanted. speaking with a half -hysterical
facetiousness and scratching away at a match
the while. For the mantle candlesticks. My hands
trembled so much that twice I missed the rough
paper of the matchbox. As the mantle emerged
from darkness again, two candles in the remoter
end of the room were eclipsed. But with the same
match, I also relit the larger mirror candles
and those on the floor near the doorway. so that
for the moment I seemed to gain on the extinctions.
But then, in a noiseless volley, there vanished
four lights at once in different corners of the
room, and I struck another match in quivering
haste and stood hesitating whither to take it.
As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed
to sweep out the two candles on the table. With
a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, then
into the corner, and then into the window, relighting
three as two more vanished by the fireplace.
And then, perceiving a better way, I dropped
matches on the iron -bound deed box in the corner
and caught up the bedroom candlestick. With this,
I avoided the delay of striking matches, but
for all that the steady process of extinction
went on. And the shadows I feared and fought
against returned, and crept in upon me. First
a step gained on this side of me, then on that.
I was now almost frantic with the horror of the
coming darkness, and my self -possession deserted
me. I leaped, panting from candle to candle,
in a vain struggle against that remorseless advance.
I bruised myself in the thigh against the table.
I sent a chair headlong. I stumbled and fell
and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall.
My candle rolled away from me and I snatched
another as I rose. Abruptly, this was blown out
as I swung it off the table by the wind of my
sudden movement and immediately the two remaining
candles followed. But there was light still in
the room. A red light that streamed across the
ceiling and staved off the shadows from me. The
fire. Of course, I could still thrust my candle
between the bars and relight it. I turned to
where the flames were still dancing between the
glowing coals and splashing red reflections upon
the furniture. Made two steps toward the grate.
and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished,
the glow vanished, the reflections rushed together
and disappeared, and as I thrust the candle between
the bars, darkness closed upon me like the shutting
of an eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace,
sealed my vision, and crushed the last vestiges
of self -possession from my brain. and it was
not only palpable darkness, but intolerable terror.
The candle fell from my hands. I flung out my
arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderous
blackness away from me, and lifting up my voice,
screamed with all my might, once, twice, thrice.
Then I think I must have staggered to my feet.
I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor,
and with my head bowed and my arms over my face,
made a stumbling run for the door. But I had
forgotten the exact position of the door, and
I struck myself heavily against the corner of
the bed. I staggered back, turned, and was either
struck or struck myself against some other bulky
furnishing. I have a vague memory of battering
myself thus to and fro in the darkness, of a
heavy blow at last upon my forehead, of a horrible
sensation of falling that lasted an age, of my
last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then
I remember no more. I opened my eyes in daylight,
my head was roughly bandaged, and the man with
the withered hand was watching my face. I looked
about me, trying to remember what had happened,
and for a space I could not recollect. I rolled
my eyes into the corner and saw the old woman,
no longer abstracted, no longer terrible, pouring
out some drops of medicine from a little blue
phial into a glass. Where am I? I said. I seem
to remember you, and yet I cannot remember who
you are. They told me then, and I heard of the
haunted red room as one who hears a tale. We
found you at dawn, said he, and there was blood
on your forehead and lips. I wondered that I
had ever disliked him. The three of them in the
daylight seemed commonplace old folk enough.
The man with the green shade had his head bent
as one who sleeps. It was very slowly I recovered
the memory of my experience. You believe now,
said the old man with the withered hand, that
the room is haunted. He spoke no longer as one
who greets an intruder, but as one who condoles
with a friend. Yes, said I, the room is haunted.
And you have seen it, and we who have been here
all our lives have never set eyes upon it. Because
we have never dared. Tell us, is it truly the
old earl who... No, said I. It is not. I told
you so, said the old lady with the glass in her
hand. It is his poor young countess who was frightened.
It is not, I said. There is neither ghost of
earl nor ghost of countess in that room. There
is no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse,
something impalpable. Well, they said. The worst
of all the things that haunt poor mortal men,
said I, and that is, in all its nakedness, fear.
Fear that will not have light nor sound, that
will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens
and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor.
It fought against me in the room. I stopped abruptly.
There was an interval of silence. My hand went
up to my bandages. The candles went out one after
another and I fled. Then the man with the shade
lifted his face sideways to see me and spoke.
That is it, said he. I knew that was it. a power
of darkness, to put such a curse upon a home.
It lurks there always. You can feel it even in
the daytime, even of a bright summer's day, in
the hangings, in the curtains, keeping behind
you however you face about. In the dusk it creeps
in the corridor and follows you so that you dare
not turn. It is even as you say. Fear itself
is in that room. Black fear. And there it will
be, so long as this house of sin endures. And
that was The Red Room. H .G. Wells wrote this
in 1894. 130 years later, the argument hasn't
changed. You can bring a gun, a matchbox, and
17 candles. And fear will still work its way
through the dark to find you. It knows exactly
where you keep the lights. If you enjoyed tonight's
story, subscribe for more, leave a like, and
share it with someone who appreciates the darker
things. New classic horrors from macabre miscellanea
arrive every week. Until next time. Remember,
the room isn't haunted. You brought the haunting
with you.