The Leaden Ring

Scary Books: A Book Of Ghosts

"It is not possible, Julia. I cannot conceive how the idea of attending

the county ball can have entered your head after what has happened. Poor

young Hattersley's dreadful death suffices to stop that."



"But, aunt, Mr. Hattersley is no relation of ours."



"No relation--but you know that the poor fellow would not have shot

himself if it had not been for you."



"Oh, Aunt Elizabeth, how can you say so, when the verdict was that he

committed suicide when in an unsound condition of mind? How could I help

his blowing out his brains, when those brains were deranged?"



"Julia, do not talk like this. If he did go off his head, it was you who

upset him by first drawing him on, leading him to believe that you liked

him, and then throwing him over so soon as the Hon. James Lawlor

appeared on the tapis. Consider: what will people say if you go to the

assembly?"



"What will they say if I do not go? They will immediately set it down to

my caring deeply for James Hattersley, and they will think that there

was some sort of engagement."



"They are not likely to suppose that. But really, Julia, you were for a

while all smiles and encouragement. Tell me, now, did Mr. Hattersley

propose to you?"



"Well--yes, he did, and I refused him."



"And then he went and shot himself in despair. Julia, you cannot with

any face go to the ball."



"Nobody knows that he proposed. And precisely because I do go everyone

will conclude that he did not propose. I do not wish it to be supposed

that he did."



"His family, of course, must have been aware. They will see your name

among those present at the assembly."



"Aunt, they are in too great trouble to look at the paper to see who

were at the dance."



"His terrible death lies at your door. How you can have the heart,

Julia----"



"I don't see it. Of course, I feel it. I am awfully sorry, and awfully

sorry for his father, the admiral. I cannot set him up again. I wish

that when I rejected him he had gone and done as did Joe Pomeroy, marry

one of his landlady's daughters."



"There, Julia, is another of your delinquencies. You lured on young

Pomeroy till he proposed, then you refused him, and in a fit of vexation

and mortified vanity he married a girl greatly beneath him in social

position. If the menage prove a failure you will have it on your

conscience that you have wrecked his life and perhaps hers as well."



"I cannot throw myself away as a charity to save this man or that from

doing a foolish thing."



"What I complain of, Julia, is that you encouraged young Mr. Pomeroy

till Mr. Hattersley appeared, whom you thought more eligible, and then

you tossed him aside; and you did precisely the same with James

Hattersley as soon as you came to know Mr. Lawlor. After all, Julia, I

am not so sure that Mr. Pomeroy has not chosen the better part. The

girl, I dare say, is simple, fresh, and affectionate."



"Your implication is not complimentary, Aunt Elizabeth."



"My dear, I have no patience with the young lady of the present day, who

is shallow, self-willed, and indifferent to the feelings and happiness

of others, who craves for excitement and pleasure, and desires nothing

that is useful and good. Where now will you see a girl like Viola's

sister, who let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, feed on her damask

cheek? Nowadays a girl lays herself at the feet of a man if she likes

him, turns herself inside-out to let him and all the world read her

heart."



"I have no relish to be like Viola's sister, and have my story--a blank.

I never grovelled at the feet of Joe Pomeroy or James Hattersley."



"No, but you led each to consider himself the favoured one till he

proposed, and then you refused him. It was like smiling at a man and

then stabbing him to the heart."



"Well--I don't want people to think that James Hattersley cared for

me--I certainly never cared for him--nor that he proposed; so I shall go

to the ball."



Julia Demant was an orphan. She had been retained at school till she was

eighteen, and then had been removed just at the age when a girl begins

to take an interest in her studies, and not to regard them as drudgery.

On her removal she had cast away all that she had acquired, and had been

plunged into the whirl of Society. Then suddenly her father died--she

had lost her mother some years before--and she went to live with her

aunt, Miss Flemming. Julia had inherited a sum of about five hundred

pounds a year, and would probably come in for a good estate and funds as

well on the death of her aunt. She had been flattered as a girl at home,

and at school as a beauty, and she certainly thought no small bones of

herself.



Miss Flemming was an elderly lady with a sharp tongue, very outspoken,

and very decided in her opinions; but her action was weak, and Julia

soon discovered that she could bend the aunt to do anything she willed,

though she could not modify or alter her opinions.



In the matter of Joe Pomeroy and James Hattersley, it was as Miss

Flemming had said. Julia had encouraged Mr. Pomeroy, and had only cast

him off because she thought better of the suit of Mr. Hattersley, son

of an admiral of that name. She had seen a good deal of young

Hattersley, had given him every encouragement, had so entangled him,

that he was madly in love with her; and then, when she came to know the

Hon. James Lawlor, and saw that he was fascinated, she rejected

Hattersley with the consequences alluded to in the conversation above

given.



Julia was particularly anxious to be present at the county ball, for she

had been already booked by Mr. Lawlor for several dances, and she was

quite resolved to make an attempt to bring him to a declaration.



On the evening of the ball Miss Flemming and Julia entered the carriage.

The aunt had given way, as was her wont, but under protest.



For about ten minutes neither spoke, and then Miss Flemming said, "Well,

you know my feelings about this dance. I do not approve. I distinctly

disapprove. I do not consider your going to the ball in good taste, or,

as you would put it, in good form. Poor young Hattersley----"



"Oh, dear aunt, do let us put young Hattersley aside. He was buried with

the regular forms, I suppose?"



"Yes, Julia."



"Then the rector accepted the verdict of the jury at the inquest. Why

should not we? A man who is unsound in his mind is not responsible for

his actions."



"I suppose not."



"Much less, then, I who live ten miles away."



"I do not say that you are responsible for his death, but for the

condition of mind that led him to do the dreadful deed. Really, Julia,

you are one of those into whose head or heart only by a surgical

operation could the thought be introduced that you could be in the

wrong. A hypodermic syringe would be too weak an instrument to effect

such a radical change in you. Everyone else may be in the wrong,

you--never. As for me, I cannot get young Hattersley out of my head."



"And I," retorted Julia with asperity, for her aunt's words had stung

her--"I, for my part, do not give him a thought."



She had hardly spoken the words before a chill wind began to pass round

her. She drew the Barege shawl that was over her bare shoulders closer

about her, and said--"Auntie! is the glass down on your side?"



"No, Julia; why do you ask?"



"There is such a draught."



"Draught!--I do not feel one; perhaps the window on your side hitches."



"Indeed, that is all right. It is blowing harder and is deadly cold. Can

one of the front panes be broken?"



"No. Rogers would have told me had that been the case. Besides, I can

see that they are sound."



The wind of which Julia complained swirled and whistled about her. It

increased in force; it plucked at her shawl and slewed it about her

throat; it tore at the lace on her dress. It snatched at her hair, it

wrenched it away from the pins, the combs that held it in place; one

long tress was lashed across the face of Miss Flemming. Then the hair,

completely released, eddied up above the girl's head, and next moment

was carried as a drift before her, blinding her. Then--a sudden

explosion, as though a gun had been fired into her ear; and with a

scream of terror she sank back among the cushions. Miss Flemming, in

great alarm, pulled the checkstring, and the carriage stopped. The

footman descended from the box and came to the side. The old lady drew

down the window and said: "Oh! Phillips, bring the lamp. Something has

happened to Miss Demant."



The man obeyed, and sent a flood of light into the carriage. Julia was

lying back, white and senseless. Her hair was scattered over her face,

neck, and shoulders; the flowers that had been stuck in it, the pins

that had fastened it in place, the pads that had given shape to the

convolutions lay strewn, some on her lap, some in the rug at the bottom

of the carriage.



"Phillips!" ordered the old lady in great agitation, "tell Rogers to

turn the horses and drive home at once; and do you run as fast as you

can for Dr. Crate."



A few minutes after the carriage was again in motion, Julia revived. Her

aunt was chafing her hand.



"Oh, aunt!" she said, "are all the glasses broken?"



"Broken--what glasses?"



"Those of the carriage--with the explosion."



"Explosion, my dear!"



"Yes. That gun which was discharged. It stunned me. Were you hurt?"



"I heard no gun--no explosion."



"But I did. It was as though a bullet had been discharged into my brain.

I wonder that I escaped. Who can have fired at us?"



"My dear, no one fired. I heard nothing. I know what it was. I had the

same experience many years ago. I slept in a damp bed, and awoke stone

deaf in my right ear. I remained so for three weeks. But one night when

I was at a ball and was dancing, all at once I heard a report as of a

pistol in my right ear, and immediately heard quite clearly again. It

was wax."



"But, Aunt Elizabeth, I have not been deaf."



"You have not noticed that you were deaf."



"Oh! but look at my hair; it was that wind that blew it about."



"You are labouring under a delusion, Julia. There was no wind."



"But look--feel how my hair is down."



"That has been done by the motion of the carriage. There are many ruts

in the road."



They reached home, and Julia, feeling sick, frightened, and bewildered,

retired to bed. Dr. Crate arrived, said that she was hysterical, and

ordered something to soothe her nerves. Julia was not convinced. The

explanation offered by Miss Flemming did not satisfy her. That she was a

victim to hysteria she did not in the least believe. Neither her aunt,

nor the coachman, nor Phillips had heard the discharge of a gun. As to

the rushing wind, Julia was satisfied that she had experienced it. The

lace was ripped, as by a hand, from her dress, and the shawl was twisted

about her throat; besides, her hair had not been so slightly arranged

that the jolting of the carnage would completely disarrange it. She was

vastly perplexed over what she had undergone. She thought and thought,

but could get no nearer to a solution of the mystery.



Next day, as she was almost herself again, she rose and went about as

usual.



In the afternoon the Hon. James Lawlor called and asked after Miss

Flemming. The butler replied that his mistress was out making calls, but

that Miss Demant was at home, and he believed was on the terrace. Mr.

Lawlor at once asked to see her.



He did not find Julia in the parlour or on the terrace, but in a lower

garden to which she had descended to feed the goldfish in the pond.



"Oh! Miss Demant," said he, "I was so disappointed not to see you at the

ball last night."



"I was very unwell; I had a fainting fit and could not go."



"It threw a damp on our spirits--that is to say, on mine. I had you

booked for several dances."



"You were able to give them to others."



"But that was not the same to me. I did an act of charity and

self-denial. I danced instead with the ugly Miss Burgons and with Miss

Pounding, and that was like dragging about a sack of potatoes. I believe

it would have been a jolly evening, but for that shocking affair of

young Hattersley which kept some of the better sort away. I mean

those who know the Hattersleys. Of course, for me that did not matter,

we were not acquainted. I never even spoke with the fellow. You knew

him, I believe? I heard some people say so, and that you had not come

because of him. The supper, for a subscription ball, was not atrociously

bad."



"What did they say of me?"



"Oh!--if you will know--that you did not attend the ball because you

liked him very much, and were awfully cut up."



"I--I! What a shame that people should talk! I never cared a rush for

him. He was nice enough in his way, not a bounder, but tolerable as

young men go."



Mr. Lawlor laughed. "I should not relish to have such a qualified

estimate made of me."



"Nor need you. You are interesting. He became so only when he had shot

himself. It will be by this alone that he will be remembered."



"But there is no smoke without fire. Did he like you--much?"



"Dear Mr. Lawlor, I am not a clairvoyante, and never was able to see

into the brains or hearts of people--least of all of young men. Perhaps

it is fortunate for me that I cannot."



"One lady told me that he had proposed to you."



"Who was that? The potato-sack?"



"I will not give her name. Is there any truth in it? Did he?"



"No."



At the moment she spoke there sounded in her ear a whistle of wind, and

she felt a current like a cord of ice creep round her throat, increasing

in force and compression, her hat was blown off, and next instant a

detonation rang through her head as though a gun had been fired into her

ear. She uttered a cry and sank upon the ground.




THROUGH HER HEAD AS THOUGH A GUN HAD BEEN FIRED INTO HER EAR.]



James Lawlor was bewildered. His first impulse was to run to the house

for assistance; then he considered that he could not leave her lying on

the wet soil, and he stooped to raise her in his arms and to carry her

within. In novels young men perform such a feat without difficulty; but

in fact they are not able to do it, especially when the girl is tall and

big-boned. Moreover, one in a faint is a dead weight. Lawlor staggered

under his burden to the steps. It was as much as he could perform to

carry her up to the terrace, and there he placed her on a seat. Panting,

and with his muscles quivering after the strain, he hastened to the

drawing-room, rang the bell, and when the butler appeared, he gasped:

"Miss Demant has fainted; you and I and the footman must carry her

within."



"She fainted last night in the carriage," said the butler.



When Julia came to her senses, she was in bed attended by the

housekeeper and her maid. A few moments later Miss Flemming arrived.



"Oh, aunt! I have heard it again."



"Heard what, dear?"



"The discharge of a gun."



"It is nothing but wax," said the old lady. "I will drop a little

sweet-oil into your ear, and then have it syringed with warm water."



"I want to tell you something--in private."



Miss Flemming signed to the servants to withdraw.



"Aunt," said the girl, "I must say something. This is the second time

that this has happened. I am sure it is significant. James Lawlor was

with me in the sunken garden, and he began to speak about James

Hattersley. You know it was when we were talking about him last night

that I heard that awful noise. It was precisely as if a gun had been

discharged into my ear. I felt as if all the nerves and tissues of my

head were being torn, and all the bones of my skull shattered--just what

Mr. Hattersley must have undergone when he pulled the trigger. It was

an agony for a moment perhaps, but it felt as if it lasted an hour. Mr.

Lawlor had asked me point blank if James Hattersley had proposed to me,

and I said, 'No.' I was perfectly justified in so answering, because he

had no right to ask me such a question. It was an impertinence on his

part, and I answered him shortly and sharply with a negative. But

actually James Hattersley proposed twice to me. He would not accept a

first refusal, but came next day bothering me again, and I was pretty

curt with him. He made some remarks that were rude about how I had

treated him, and which I will not repeat, and as he left, in a state of

great agitation, he said, 'Julia, I vow that you shall not forget this,

and you shall belong to no one but me, alive or dead.' I considered this

great nonsense, and did not accord it another thought. But, really,

these terrible annoyances, this wind and the bursts of noise, do seem to

me to come from him. It is just as though he felt a malignant delight in

distressing me, now that he is dead. I should like to defy him, and I

will do it if I can, but I cannot bear more of these experiences--they

will kill me."



Several days elapsed.



Mr. Lawlor called repeatedly to inquire, but a week passed before Julia

was sufficiently recovered to receive him, and then the visit was one of

courtesy and of sympathy, and the conversation turned upon her health,

and on indifferent themes.



But some few days later it was otherwise. She was in the conservatory

alone, pretty much herself again, when Mr. Lawlor was announced.



Physically she had recovered, or believed that she had, but her nerves

had actually received a severe shock. She had made up her mind that the

phenomena of the circling wind and the explosion were in some mysterious

manner connected with Hattersley.



She bitterly resented this, but she was in mortal terror of a

recurrence; and she felt no compunction for her treatment of the

unfortunate young man, but rather a sense of deep resentment against

him. If he were dead, why did he not lie quiet and cease from vexing

her?



To be a martyr was to her no gratification, for hers was not a martyrdom

that provoked sympathy, and which could make her interesting.



She had hitherto supposed that when a man died there was an end of him;

his condition was determined for good or for ill. But that a disembodied

spirit should hover about and make itself a nuisance to the living, had

never entered into her calculations.



"Julia--if I may be allowed so to call you"--began Mr. Lawlor, "I have

brought you a bouquet of flowers. Will you accept them?"



"Oh!" she said, as he handed the bunch to her, "how kind of you. At this

time of the year they are so rare, and aunt's gardener is so miserly

that he will spare me none for my room but some miserable bits of

geranium. It is too bad of you wasting your money like this upon me."



"It is no waste, if it afford you pleasure."



"It is a pleasure. I dearly love flowers."



"To give you pleasure," said Mr. Lawlor, "is the great object of my

life. If I could assure you happiness--if you would allow me to hope--to

seize this opportunity, now that we are alone together----"



He drew near and caught her hand. His features were agitated, his lips

trembled, there was earnestness in his eyes.



At once a cold blast touched Julia and began to circle about her and to

flutter her hair. She trembled and drew back. That paralysing experience

was about to be renewed. She turned deadly white, and put her hand to

her right ear. "Oh, James! James!" she gasped. "Do not, pray do not

speak what you want to say, or I shall faint. It is coming on. I am not

yet well enough to hear it. Write to me and I will answer. For pity's

sake do not speak it." Then she sank upon a seat--and at that moment her

aunt entered the conservatory.



On the following day a note was put into her hand, containing a formal

proposal from the Hon. James Lawlor; and by return of post Julia

answered with an acceptance.



There was no reason whatever why the engagement should be long; and the

only alternative mooted was whether the wedding should take place before

Lent or after Easter. Finally, it was settled that it should be

celebrated on Shrove Tuesday. This left a short time for the necessary

preparations. Miss Flemming would have to go to town with her niece

concerning a trousseau, and a trousseau is not turned out rapidly any

more than an armed cruiser.



There is usually a certain period allowed to young people who have

become engaged, to see much of each other, to get better acquainted with

one another, to build their castles in the air, and to indulge in little

passages of affection, vulgarly called "spooning." But in this case the

spooning had to be curtailed and postponed.



At the outset, when alone with James, Julia was nervous. She feared a

recurrence of those phenomena that so affected her. But, although every

now and then the wind curled and soughed about her, it was not violent,

nor was it chilling; and she came to regard it as a wail of

discomfiture. Moreover, there was no recurrence of the detonation, and

she fondly hoped that with her marriage the vexation would completely

cease.



In her heart was deep down a sense of exultation. She was defying James

Hattersley and setting his prediction at naught. She was not in love

with Mr. Lawlor; she liked him, in her cold manner, and was not

insensible to the social advantage that would be hers when she became

the Honourable Mrs. Lawlor.



The day of the wedding arrived. Happily it was fine. "Blessed is the

bride the sun shines on," said the cheery Miss Flemming; "an omen, I

trust, of a bright and unruffled life in your new condition."



All the neighbourhood was present at the church. Miss Flemming had many

friends. Mr. Lawlor had fewer present, as he belonged to a distant

county. The church path had been laid with red cloth, the church

decorated with flowers, and a choir was present to twitter "The voice

that breathed o'er Eden."



The rector stood by the altar, and two cushions had been laid at the

chancel step. The rector was to be assisted by an uncle of the

bridegroom who was in Holy Orders; the rector, being old-fashioned, had

drawn on pale grey kid gloves.



First arrived the bridegroom with his best man, and stood in a nervous

condition balancing himself first on one foot, then on the other,

waiting, observed by all eyes.



Next entered the procession of the bride, attended by her maids, to the

"Wedding March" in Lohengrin, on a wheezy organ. Then Julia and her

intended took their places at the chancel step for the performance of

the first portion of the ceremony, and the two clergy descended to them

from the altar.



"Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?"



"I will."



"Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband?"



"I will."



"I, James, take thee, Julia, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold----"

and so on.



As the words were being spoken, a cold rush of air passed over the

clasped hands, numbing them, and began to creep round the bride, and to

flutter her veil. She set her lips and knitted her brows. In a few

minutes she would be beyond the reach of these manifestations.



When it came to her turn to speak, she began firmly: "I, Julia, take

thee, James----" but as she proceeded the wind became fierce; it raged

about her, it caught her veil on one side and buffeted her cheek; it

switched the veil about her throat, as though strangling her with a

drift of snow contracting into ice. But she persevered to the end.



Then James Lawlor produced the ring, and was about to place it on her

finger with the prescribed words: "With this ring I thee wed----" when a

report rang in her ear, followed by a heaving of her skull, as though

the bones were being burst asunder, and she sank unconscious on the

chancel step.



In the midst of profound commotion, she was raised and conveyed to the

vestry, followed by James Lawlor, trembling and pale. He had slipped the

ring back into his waistcoat pocket. Dr. Crate, who was present,

hastened to offer his professional assistance.



In the vestry Julia rested in a Glastonbury chair, white and still, with

her hands resting in her lap. And to the amazement of those present, it

was seen that on the third finger of her left hand was a leaden ring,

rude and solid as though fashioned out of a bullet. Restoratives were

applied, but full a quarter of an hour elapsed before Julia opened her

eyes, and a little colour returned to her lips and cheek. But, as she

raised her hands to her brow to wipe away the damps that had formed on

it, her eye caught sight of the leaden ring, and with a cry of horror

she sank again into insensibility.



The congregation slowly left the church, awestruck, whispering, asking

questions, receiving no satisfactory answers, forming surmises all

incorrect.



"I am very much afraid, Mr. Lawlor," said the rector, "that it will be

impossible to proceed with the service to-day; it must be postponed till

Miss Demant is in a condition to conclude her part, and to sign the

register. I do not see how it can be gone on with to-day. She is quite

unequal to the effort."



The carriage which was to have conveyed the couple to Miss Flemming's

house, and then, later, to have taken them to the station for their

honeymoon, the horses decorated with white rosettes, the whip adorned

with a white bow, had now to convey Julia, hardly conscious, supported

by her aunt, to her home.



No rice could be thrown. The bell-ringers, prepared to give a joyous

peal, were constrained to depart.



The reception at Miss Flemming's was postponed. No one thought of

attending. The cakes, the ices, were consumed in the kitchen.



The bridegroom, bewildered, almost frantic, ran hither and thither, not

knowing what to do, what to say.



Julia lay as a stone for fully two hours; and when she came to herself

could not speak. When conscious, she raised her left hand, looked on the

leaden ring, and sank back again into senselessness.



Not till late in the evening was she sufficiently recovered to speak,

and then she begged her aunt, who had remained by her bed without

stirring, to dismiss the attendants. She desired to speak with her

alone. When no one was in the room with her, save Miss Flemming, she

said in a whisper: "Oh, Aunt Elizabeth! Oh, auntie! such an awful thing

has happened. I can never marry Mr. Lawlor, never. I have married James

Hattersley; I am a dead man's wife. At the time that James Lawlor was

making the responses, I heard a piping voice in my ear, an unearthly

voice, saying the same words. When I said: 'I, Julia, take you, James,

to my wedded husband'--you know Mr. Hattersley is James as well as Mr.

Lawlor--then the words applied to him as much or as well as to the

other. And then, when it came to the giving of the ring, there was the

explosion in my ear, as before--and the leaden ring was forced on to my

finger, and not James Lawlor's golden ring. It is of no use my resisting

any more. I am a dead man's wife, and I cannot marry James Lawlor."



Some years have elapsed since that disastrous day and that incomplete

marriage.



Miss Demant is Miss Demant still, and she has never been able to remove

the leaden ring from the third finger of her left hand. Whenever the

attempt has been made, either to disengage it by drawing it off or by

cutting through it, there has ensued that terrifying discharge as of a

gun into her ear, causing insensibility. The prostration that has

followed, the terror it has inspired, have so affected her nerves, that

she has desisted from every attempt to rid herself of the ring.



She invariably wears a glove on her left hand, and it is bulged over the

third finger, where lies that leaden ring.



She is not a happy woman, although her aunt is dead and has left her a

handsome estate. She has not got many acquaintances. She has no friends;

for her temper is unamiable, and her tongue is bitter. She supposes that

the world, as far as she knows it, is in league against her.



Towards the memory of James Hattersley she entertains a deadly hate. If

an incantation could lay his spirit, if prayer could give him repose,

she would have recourse to none of these expedients, even though they

might relieve her, so bitter is her resentment. And she harbours a

silent wrath against Providence for allowing the dead to walk and to

molest the living.