The Turn of the Screw

THE TURN OF THE SCREWThe story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless,but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, onChristmasEve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, Iremember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that itwas the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallenon a child. The case, I may mention, was that of anapparition injust such an old house as had gathered us for the occasion—anappearance, of a dreadful kind, to a little boy sleeping in theroom with his mother and waking her up in the terror of it; wakingher not to dissipate his dread and soothe him tosleep again, but toencounter also, herself, before she had succeeded in doing so, thesame sight that had shaken him. It was this observation that drewfrom Douglas—not immediately, but later in theevening—a reply that had the interesting consequence towhichI call attention. Someone else told a story not particularlyeffective, which I saw he was not following. This I took for a signthat he had himself something to produce and that we should onlyhave to wait. We waited in fact till two nights later; but thatsame evening, before we scattered, he brought out what was in hismind. “I quite agree—in regard to Griffin’s ghost,or whatever it was—that its appearing first to the littleboy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch. But it’snot the firstoccurrence of its charming kind that I know to haveinvolved a child. If the child gives the effect another turn of thescrew, what do you say to TWO children—?” “We say, of course,” somebody exclaimed, “thatthey give two turns! Also that we want to hearaboutthem.” I can see Douglas there before the fire, to which he had got upto present his back, looking down at his interlocutor with hishands in his pockets. “Nobody but me, till now, has everheard. It’s quite too horrible.” This, naturally, wasdeclared by several voices to give the thing the utmost price, andour friend, with quiet art, prepared his triumph by turning hiseyes over the rest of us and going on: “It’s beyondeverything. Nothing at all that I know touches it.” “For sheer terror?” I remember asking. He seemed to say it was not so simple as that; to be really at aloss how to qualify it. He passed his hand over his eyes, made alittle wincing grimace. “Fordreadful—dreadfulness!” “Oh, how delicious!” cried one of the women. He took no notice of her; he looked at me, but as if, instead ofme, he saw what he spoke of. “For general uncanny uglinessand horror and pain.” “Well then,” I said, “just sit right down andbegin.” He turned round to the fire, gave a kick to a log, watched it aninstant. Then as he faced us again: “I can’t begin. Ishall have to send to town.” There was a unanimous groan atthis, and much reproach; after which, in his preoccupied way, heexplained. “The story’s written. It’s in a lockeddrawer—it has not been out for years. I could write to my manand enclose the key; he could send down the packet as he findsit.” It was to me in particular that he appeared to propoundthis—appeared almost to appeal for aid not to hesitate. Hehad broken a thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter; hadhad his reasons for a long silence. The others resentedpostponement, but it was just his scruples that charmed me. Iadjured him to write by the first post and to agree with us for anearly hearing; then I asked him if the experience in question hadbeen his own. To this his answer was prompt. “Oh, thank God,no!” “And is the record yours? You took the thingdown?” “Nothing but the impression. I took thatHERE”—he tapped his heart. “I’ve never lostit.” “Then your manuscript—?” “Isin old, faded ink, and in the most beautifulhand.” He hung fire again. “A woman’s. She hasbeen dead these twenty years. She sent me the pages in questionbefore she died.” They were all listening now, and of coursethere was somebody to be arch, or at any rate to draw theinference. But if he put the inference by without a smile it wasalso without irritation. “She was a most charming person, butshe was ten years older than I. She was my sister’sgoverness,” he quietly said. “She was the mostagreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position; she wouldhave been worthy of any whatever. It was long ago, and this episodewas long before. I was at Trinity, and I found her at home on mycoming down the second summer. I was much there that year—itwas a beautiful one; and we had, in her off-hours, some strolls andtalks in the garden—talks in which she struck me as awfullyclever and nice. Oh yes; don’t grin: I liked her extremelyand am glad to this day to think she liked me, too. If shehadn’t she wouldn’t havetold me. She had never toldanyone. It wasn’t simply that she said so, but that I knewshe hadn’t. I was sure; I could see. You’ll easilyjudge why when you hear.” “Because the thing had been such a scare?” He continued to fix me. “You’ll easily judge,”he repeated: “YOU will.” I fixed him, too. “I see. She was in love.” He laughed for the first time. “You ARE acute. Yes, shewas in love. That is, she had been. That came out—shecouldn’t tell her story without its coming out. I saw it, andshe saw I sawit; but neither of us spoke of it. I remember the timeand the place—the corner of the lawn, the shade of the greatbeeches and the long, hot summer afternoon. It wasn’t a scenefor a shudder; but oh—!” He quitted the fire anddropped back into his chair. “You’ll receive the packet Thursday morning?”I inquired. “Probably not till the second post.” “Well then; after dinner—” “You’ll all meet me here?” He looked us roundagain. “Isn’t anybody going?” It was almost thetone of hope. “Everybody will stay!” “Iwill”—and “Iwill!” cried theladies whose departure had been fixed. Mrs. Griffin, however,expressed the need for a little more light. “Who was it shewas in love with?” “The story will tell,” I took upon myself toreply. “Oh, I can’t wait for the story!” “The story WON’T tell,” said Douglas;“not in any literal, vulgar way.” “More’s the pity, then. That’s the only way Iever understand.” “Won’t YOU tell, Douglas?” somebody elseinquired. He sprang to his feet again. “Yes—tomorrow. Now Imust go to bed. Good night.” And quickly catching up acandlestick, he left us slightly bewildered. From our end of thegreat brown hall we heard his step on the stair; whereupon Mrs.Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don’t know who she was inlove with, I know who HE was.” “She was ten years older,” said her husband. “Raison de plus—at that age! But it’s rathernice, his long reticence.” “Forty years!” Griffin put in. “With this outbreak at last.” “The outbreak,” I returned, “will make atremendous occasion of Thursday night;” andeveryone so agreedwith me that, in the light of it, we lost all attention foreverything else. The last story, however incomplete and like themere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook and“candlestuck,” as somebody said, and went to bed. I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by thefirst post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spiteof—or perhaps just on account of—the eventual diffusionof this knowledge we quite let him alone till after dinner, tillsuch an hourof the evening, in fact, as might best accord with thekind of emotion on which our hopes were fixed. Then he became ascommunicative as we could desire and indeed gave us his best reasonfor being so. We had it from him again before the fire in thehall,as we had had our mild wonders of the previous night. Itappeared that the narrative he had promised to read us reallyrequired for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. Let mesay here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative,from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shallpresently give. Poor Douglas, before his death—when it was insight—committed to me the manuscript that reached him on thethird of these days and that, on the same spot, with immenseeffect, hebegan to read to our hushed little circle on the night ofthe fourth. The departing ladies who had said they would staydidn’t, of course, thank heaven, stay: they departed, inconsequence of arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as theyprofessed, produced by the touches with which he had already workedus up. But that only made his little final auditory more compactand select, kept it, round the hearth, subject to a commonthrill. The first of these touches conveyed that the written statementtookup the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. Thefact to be in possession of was therefore that his old friend, theyoungest of several daughters of a poor country parson, had, at theage of twenty, on taking service for the first time in theschoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation, to answer in personan advertisement that had already placed her in briefcorrespondence with the advertiser. This person proved, on herpresenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, thatimpressed her as vast and imposing—this prospective patronproved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figureas had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before afluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One couldeasily fixhis type; it never, happily, dies out. He was handsomeand bold and pleasant, offhand and gay and kind. He struck her,inevitably, as gallant and splendid, but what took her most of alland gave her the courage she afterward showed was that he put thewhole thing to her as a kind of favor, an obligation he shouldgratefully incur. She conceived him as rich, but as fearfullyextravagant—saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of goodlooks, of expensive habits, of charming ways with women. He had forhis owntown residence a big house filled with the spoils of traveland the trophies of the chase; but it was to his country home, anold family place in Essex, that he wished her immediately toproceed. He had been left, by the death of their parents in India,guardian to a small nephew and a small niece, children of ayounger, a military brother, whom he had lost two years before.These children were, by the strangest of chances for a man in hisposition—a lone man without the right sort of experience or agrainof patience—very heavily on his hands. It had all been agreat worry and, on his own part doubtless, a series of blunders,but he immensely pitied the poor chicks and had done all he could;had in particular sent them down to his other house, the properplace for them being of course the country, and kept them there,from the first, with the best people he could find to look afterthem, parting even with his own servants to wait on them and goingdown himself, whenever he might, to see how they were doing.Theawkward thing was that they had practically no other relations andthat his own affairs took up all his time. He had put them inpossession of Bly, which was healthy and secure, and had placed atthe head of their little establishment—but belowstairsonly—an excellent woman, Mrs. Grose, whom he was surehis visitor would like and who had formerly been maid to hismother. She was now housekeeper and was also acting for the time assuperintendent to the little girl, of whom, without children of herown,she was, by good luck, extremely fond. There were plenty ofpeople to help, but of course the young lady who should go down asgoverness would be in supreme authority. She would also have, inholidays, to look after the small boy, who had been for a termatschool—young as he was to be sent, but what else could bedone?—and who, as the holidays were about to begin, would beback from one day to the other. There had been for the two childrenat first a young lady whom they had had the misfortune to lose. Shehad done for them quite beautifully—she was a mostrespectable person—till her death, the great awkwardness ofwhich had, precisely, left no alternative but the school for littleMiles. Mrs. Grose, since then, in the way of manners and things,had done as she could for Flora; and there were, further, a cook, ahousemaid, a dairywoman, an old pony, an old groom, and an oldgardener, all likewise thoroughly respectable. So far had Douglas presented his picture when someone put aquestion. “And what did theformer governess die of?—ofso much respectability?” Our friend’s answer was prompt. “That will come out.I don’t anticipate.” “Excuse me—I thought that was just what you AREdoing.” “In her successor’s place,” I suggested,“I should have wished to learn if the office brought withit—” “Necessary danger to life?” Douglas completed mythought. “She did wish to learn, and she did learn. You shallhear tomorrow what she learned. Meanwhile, of course, the prospectstruck her as slightly grim. She was young,untried, nervous: it wasa vision of serious duties and little company, of really greatloneliness. She hesitated—took a couple of days to consultand consider. But the salary offered much exceeded her modestmeasure, and on a second interview she faced the music, sheengaged.” And Douglas, with this, made a pause that, for thebenefit of the company, moved me to throw in— “The moral of which was of course the seduction exercisedby the splendid young man. She succumbed to it.” He got up and, as he had donethe night before, went to the fire,gave a stir to a log with his foot, then stood a moment with hisback to us. “She saw him only twice.” “Yes, but that’s just the beauty of herpassion.” A little to my surprise, on this, Douglas turned round to me.“ItWAS the beauty of it. There were others,” he wenton, “who hadn’t succumbed. He told her frankly all hisdifficulty—that for several applicants the conditions hadbeen prohibitive. They were, somehow, simply afraid. It soundeddull—it sounded strange; andall the more so because of hismain condition.” “Which was—?” “That she should never trouble him—but never, never:neither appeal nor complain nor write about anything; only meet allquestions herself, receive all moneys from his solicitor, take thewholething over and let him alone. She promised to do this, and shementioned to me that when, for a moment, disburdened, delighted, heheld her hand, thanking her for the sacrifice, she already feltrewarded.” “But was that all her reward?” one of the ladiesasked. “She never saw him again.” “Oh!” said the lady; which, as our friendimmediately left us again, was the only other word of importancecontributed to the subject till, the next night, by the corner ofthe hearth, in the best chair, he opened the fadedred cover of athin old-fashioned gilt-edged album. The whole thing took indeedmore nights than one, but on the first occasion the same lady putanother question. “What is your title?” “I haven’t one.” “Oh,Ihave!” I said. But Douglas, without heeding me,had begun to read with a fine clearness that was like a renderingto the ear of the beauty of his author’s hand.