The Lonely Road by H. D. Everett
“The Lonely Road” was first published in 1920, in Everett’s anthology The Death-Mask and Other Ghosts. It doesn’t appear to have been reprinted until 2016, when Fall River Press included it in the mixed-author anthology Great Ghost Stories: 101 Terrifying Tales. Despite the name of the aforementioned anthology, “The Lonely Road” is unlikely to terrify many readers, and may seem overly tame to those who are used to reading modern-day horror stories.
About H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)
Henrietta Dorothy Everett (née Huskisson) was a popular author during the late 1800s to early 1900s. However, her work has since fallen into obscurity, and most people are unlikely to be familiar with her name. The daughter of John Huskisson, a Royal Marines Lieutenant, little is known about her life, including her date of birth. However, church records show she was baptized 4 March 1851.
In 1869, she married Isaac Edward Everett, a solicitor; and began writing in 1896, when she was aged 44. Between then and 1920, she published 22 books, with 17 different publishers, using her pen-name Theo Douglas. Although Everett wrote three historical novels, more than half of her books had fantasy or supernatural themes. For instance, her novel Iras: A Mystery (1896) is about an Egyptologist who revives an ancient mummy and falls in love with the beautiful Iras he has unwrapped.
In 1920, when she published The Death-Mask and Other Stories, for reasons unknown, she discarded her pen-name and published the collection as H. D. Everett. However, her identity had already been revealed in 1910, so using a pseudonym probably no longer offered any advantages.
The Death-Mask and Other Stories earned the praise of both M. R. James and H.P. Lovecraft. In his essay “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories” (1929) [paragraph 16], James described Everett’s anthology as having “a rather quieter tone on the whole” and “some excellently conceived stories”. Meanwhile, in his essay essay Supernatural Horror in Literature [Chapter 9, paragraph 9], Lovecraft stated: “Mrs. H. D. Everett, though adhering to very old and conventional models, occasionally reaches singular heights of spiritual terror in her collection of short stories.”
The Death-Mask and Other Stories was Everett’s only story collection. However, in 2006, Wordsworth Editions republished an expanded versions of the collection under the title The Crimson Blind & Other Stories. The expanded version contained all 14 stories from the original collection, along with two additional tales: “The Pipers of Mallory” and “The Whispering Wall”. It’s interesting to note the author published both of these stories in magazines, prior to putting together her anthology, and either she or her publisher must have decided not to include them in original anthology.
The Lonely Road
By H. D. Everett
(Online Text)
“I am awfully sorry, Tom, I am indeed, and after all your kindness in coming down to see me about that tiresome business, but we can’t drive you to the station this evening as I promised. The mare has been kicking in the stable again, and Summers has just discovered she is dead lame. You must really make up your mind to stay another night, and we will get a conveyance over from Ardkellar first thing to-morrow. If I write at once I shall catch the post: we haven’t a telegraph office in the village, or I would wire. Summers has only just made the discovery, so he tells me. Now do be reasonable, and say you’ll stay.”
“That is kind of you, Margaret.”
Tom Pulteney fixed again in his left eye the single eyeglass that was always dropping out. This so that he might look at his widowed cousin with the right expression, and she was good to look at, though no longer in her first youth.
“A few more hours here is a temptation; a greater one than I can say. But I’m positively bound to get back to Dublin to-night, and somehow or other I must contrive to catch the 8-50. I’m not such a weakling that I can’t walk the distance. How far do you call it to the station?”
“It is eight miles good from here to Ardkellar. And it is a lonely road—”
“Well—I shan’t need company for that short distance. I shall be too full of regrets after tearing myself away from you—to say nothing of Adelaide. Though you know very well that Adelaide does not count.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort. But I hate you going—all that way on foot, and at such an hour.”
“Hate my going by all means—I’d wish nothing better. But for a different reason.”
“Oh, Tom, do be serious: but if you must go, take care. The road has had a bad character of late; there have been assaults and robberies. Of course you don’t go about with a revolver—here. But do you carry a heavy stick?”
“I didn’t bring one. But I’ve got my fists, and I know how to use them.”
“You must have a stick. I will lend you Laurence’s; it is loaded at the head. I know you will sometime let me have it back.”
“If it will make you easy about me—”
“It will make me easier. I am vexed about the mare—and not knowing till the last minute. I am afraid you will have to set off at once if that train is to be caught. And it is getting dusk even now.”
The farewells followed, which Tom Pulteney made as affectionate as he dared. It was something of a triumph to him that Margaret was really concerned about the possible risk he was running, on a lonely stretch of road where there had been at least one attempted murder; and he set out with that conviction kept warm at heart.
To him an eight mile walk was truly a light matter, but he happened to be burdened carrying a suit-case made heavy by expensive fittings, and before the end of the first half mile he began to wish he had slipped his pet razors into his pocket, and asked his cousin to send the case after him, which without doubt she would have done. And for a reason other than the weight: if thieves were abroad, and he was attacked by two, it would be easily snatched by a confederate while one of them knocked him on the head. And a good sound leather suit-case, all but new, is worth stealing now-a-days apart from what it may contain. The contents of Tom’s were also of value, things that he could ill spare— among other oddments a handsome finger-ring which he had brought from town, hoping he might find courage to offer it to Margaret as a gage d’amour. [1] The parcel had not been opened: opportunity had not served, or else he had feared to damage his own cause by speaking too early in her widowhood. These articles would, he reflected, be safer if carried on his person, and then he could abandon the suit-case with less reluctance should there be need.
He was now far beyond Ballymacor, and the road before him was solitary. On a sudden impulse he deposited the case under the hedge, unsnapped the locks, and sought in the fast-fading light for his more treasured possessions. These he secured in innermost pockets, again shouldered his burden, and went on whistling under his breath, as might a man light-hearted and unafraid.
But was he unafraid? Was he not assuming the pretence of a boldness he did not possess? In the midst of that search into his luggage, a doubt beset him that the action there and then had been unwise; for at the same time he heard, or thought he heard, a rustle of movement behind the hedge. There was nothing for it then but to go on, and trust he had been mistaken, or the presence and movement wholly innocent. But presently he imagined—imagination first, but soon there was no doubt—that he heard footsteps following. He swung round twice and glanced behind him, but so far as he could see in the dusk the road was clear. The sound went on, and now the footsteps approached nearer, quickening upon his, and he was already bracing every nerve, preparing for the encounter he expected.
At this critical moment a huge white dog leaped over the fence on the right.
“Why, Boris,” he exclaimed unthinking, and the creature came beside him with wagging tail: surely in the event of attack, here would be a formidable ally.
The dog was friendly, and appeared to answer to the name called. Margaret had had such a dog in her husband’s lifetime, a Russian wolf- hound of which she had been fond; Pulteney had often seen them together, the tall elegant woman followed by the noble hound. Surely this must be Boris; and yet he had a dim recollection of some mischance mentioned in a letter of Adelaide’s, an accident in which the dog had been injured, and he thought killed. Certainly he had not seen Boris on any recent visit to Ballymacor. If only he could keep the dog beside him, he would, he thought, be safe. So he spoke to the creature by name, and spoke again; and each time Boris responded in dog fashion, pleased by the recognition, or so it seemed.
The footsteps still were following; and now, bolder because accompanied, he glanced over his shoulder. Yes, there were two men, and they were close behind, of villainous aspect in the dusk. The dog also looked round and growled, showing his teeth, formidable white fangs, set in a jaw like an alligator’s: if the creature was strong enough and fierce enough to pull down a wolf, he would surely be a match for any man. But supposing the followers were armed, and their object murder and not mere robbery, what then?
The sky by this time was clearing, and behind the breaking clouds there came some shining of the moon, showing the way in front and the white hound beside him, and, as he remembered after, both their shadows. From time to time he spoke to his four-footed companion, and also put out his hand to pat the dog’s neck; but somehow he never succeeded in touching him—the white rough coat seemed always just beyond reach, though there was no shrinking away to avoid contact.
Pulteney all the while was on the strain to listen, and though he still heard the following footsteps, double footsteps, it seemed to him that they were falling further behind. He could not now be far from Ardkellar, his destination; the railway-line here crossed the road high up on bridge and embankment, and a luggage train lumbered over before him, with gleaming lights and a long rattle of trucks. Not far beyond there was a crossroads, and here the footsteps stopped. Pulteney glanced again over his shoulder, and saw that the two men had halted there, and seemed to be consulting together.
He turned and went on, and now he heard no more the pursuing feet. He was close to the outskirts of the country town, and, he concluded, in comparative safety. He could still see the dog beside him, and was beginning to wonder how he could best dispose of his companion in safety, and contrive to let Margaret know; as Boris who had befriended him, must certainly have strayed from Ballymacor.
They had reached the first row of houses and the outpost of street lights, when he noticed that the form of the dog was altering, becoming shadowy in outline, instead of substantial as before. Still the creature kept step by step beside him, though a figure compacted of white mist growing more and more transparent, till at last, at the passing of the third lamp, this ghostly likeness of Boris faded into nothing and was gone. Tom Pulteney walked into the station of Ardkellar, grateful for his escape, but a bewildered man.
He wrote the history of that night’s adventure to his cousin Margaret. “Upon my word of honour, this is the literal truth, though you will find it difficult to believe. I made sure the dog was yours, as he seemed to know me, and evidently would have shown fight had I been attacked. And I believe the men saw him just as I did, and were deterred from carrying out their plan.
It is true I could not touch him, though I tried; but no one could have been more astonished than I was when he dissolved into something like white smoke and then was gone. It was an experience I shall never forget.”
To him, Margaret in reply:
“I do believe your story, and to me it is altogether convincing, though so strange. My dear Boris died two years ago: there was an accident I cannot bear to think of, even now. He was caught by a touring car going at speed, and caring nothing for the life or safety of a dog. I had him shot in mercy; I never say destroyed. And what you saw that night is witness that under other conditions he is in existence still. He was so good, so faithful: I never called on him in vain, and he knew almost my thought before I spoke. I was thinking of him that evening. I said to Adelaide—she will tell you—how I wished I had had Boris here, for I would have sent him with you on that lonely walk, and then you would have been safe. For I was very anxious. I believe my thought, my wish, did send him, dear, dear fellow. But I cannot expect you to receive this as I do, or think that it explains.”
Tom Pulteney to Margaret:
“I am convinced, indeed. It was you who worked the miracle, and you worked it for me. Your letter, which explains so much, tells me one thing more: may I hope it is the one thing I would give the world to know? You were anxious—you cared what became of me. Could you care always—could you care enough? I pray that the post may bring me the answer I long for; but I am ever your devoted lover, however you reply.”
H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)
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1. Gage d’amour is French. Some translations state it means “love pledge”, but “love token” is more correct—especially for the context of the story. The narrator hoped to present his cousin with ring, as a token of his love.