Young Bartleby stood before the aged, drooping house on the secluded country lane, clutching the letter in a trembling hand.
The reclusive Grimsdyke was one of society’s greatest authors, a celebrated master of the ghost story. However, even as Grimsdyke’s fame had spread, the man himself had retreated from the world. Countless young writers had sought to study under his tutelage, but their letters had all been returned unopened. All their letters, save one.
Bartleby stopped at the front step to reread the invitation he had received, and to gather his courage. Out of all the young writers vying for Grimsdyke’s attention, for some unknowable reason the famed author had chosen to reply to Bartleby, and to Bartleby only, inviting the young man to his home.
Holding his breath in anticipation, Bartleby raised the door’s heavy brass knocker and rapped once, twice, thrice.
There was no answer from within. After several more knocks upon the door, and several minutes of waiting, Bartleby’s anxiety returned. Now, however, he pondered the fate of the aged hermit Grimsdyke, fearing the worst. Cautiously, he tried the handle on the heavy front door, and found it unlocked.
Slowly, the door swung open, and Bartleby took a tentative step inside the home. Thick tomes were stacked on every surface and all along the walls of the room that greeted him, and the air was thick with dust.
“Excuse me,” called out the young man. “Mister Grimsdyke?” Bartleby slowly moved deeper into the darkened house. “Are you here, Mister Grimsdyke? Are you well?” Bartleby’s calls were muffled in the musty air, and they brought no reply.
As Bartleby stepped into the next room, he finally found some sign of life. A wide staircase, illuminated by a golden beam of summer sun streaming in through a high window, ascended into the shadows of the second floor. Though the posts of the heavy banister, Bartleby spied a young and joyous boy, silently playing on the steps, shining in the sunbeam.
“Pardon me,” offered Bartleby, approaching the stairs to better greet the child, “but could you tell me if a mister—” Bartleby’s introduction died in his throat, for as he rounded the banister, the “child” faded from view. A trick of the light; the boy had been nothing more than motes of dust, dancing in the light of the sun.
Bartleby stood rooted to the spot for several minutes, his mind swimming and quite unable to grasp how his eyes could have been so thoroughly fooled.
When Bartleby heard the voice, it startled him so terribly he gasped, and only then did he realize how dry his throat had become.
“Well?” the whiskeyed voice called out again. “Who goes there?”
Bartleby collected his wits and finally replied.
“I’m Bartleby, sir! I… I’m sorry to intrude, but there was no answer at the door… I-I have an invitation…” Bartleby paused a moment to think. “Excuse me, sir, but are you Mister Grimsdyke?”
The shadows at the top of the stairs were silent for a moment before responding. “I am. And I’ve been waiting for you. Come upstairs.”
To finally hear the voice of the idol he had come to meet did much to steady Bartleby’s nerves, so that by the time he reached the second floor, the illusory child had been all but forgotten. At the top of the stairs, Bartleby found the landing marked the middle of a long hallway, each side lined with several doors. Unsure where to go, he peered first one way, then the other. As he peered off to his left, a woman stepped into view at the end of the hall. She was about Bartleby’s age, her features beautiful even in the shadows. She took in Bartleby with kind eyes and the hint of a smile upon her lips, but as she stepped forward to greet him, the young man’s attention was stolen by the return of the rasping voice.
“In here, Bartleby.” Grimsdyke’s voice came from the door just to Bartleby’s right, so close that it startled him. Bartleby stepped towards the door. His mind then jumping back to the lady, he turned back towards her to make a proper introduction.
She was gone. She had never been there. Where she had stood, where Bartleby had seen a lovely young woman, there was now nothing more than a dark shadow, distorted by imperfections in the plastered wall. Bartleby felt a chill run through his veins as he began to understand the nature of his surroundings.
His thoughts churning, Bartleby followed Grimsdyke’s voice into a study, choked with even more books than the rooms before. It was there that Bartleby finally found himself facing the great author.
Grimsdyke sat at a heavy desk, cluttered by papers and folios, even more tomes piled up on the floor around him. His legs wrapped in a blanket, Grimsdyke seemed not so much to be sitting as his desk as cocooned within it. His sixty years weighed heavily upon every feature of his face, and he peered up at Bartleby with passionless eyes.
“Have a seat,” offered Grimsdyke, gesturing to one of the less cluttered chairs. After clearing the seat of its books, Bartleby accepted the invitation.
“So,” continued Grimsdyke at last, “I understand you wish to know the secret of my inspiration.”
“I did, and do,” replied Bartleby, the excitement in his voice battling with his need for decorum. “But after what I’ve seen in this house, I suspect I’ve learned half your secret already.”
Grimsdyke frowned. “In what sense?”
Bartleby could not help a nervous grin. “The child on the stairs, and the woman in the hall.”—Bartleby noticed a hint of pain slip behind Grimsdyke’s gaze—”They are spirits, are they not?”
“One might say.” Grimsdyke’s voice sounded tired.
“This home is haunted, is it not?”
“One might say.”
Bartleby stopped to consider his next question.
“I fear that I go too far, but I must ask—do you know who these ghosts were in life?”
A slow and pained smile crept across Grimsdyke’s face, and he too seemed to consider his words before replying.
“They were my family,” Grimsdyke said, the smile draining from him. “One might say.”
Bartleby’s gaze slipped to the dusty floor. “I’m very sorry. I can only imagine what it must be like for you, first to lose your loved ones, and then to be haunted by…”
Bartleby’s rambling trailed off as waves of confusion washed his face. His mouth still lightly ajar, he looked at Grimsdyke again, his eyes searching. Grimsdyke grimaced.
“Ask it,” said the aged author.
“Well,” Bartleby stammered. “It’s just that… Well, I’ve studied everything you’ve ever written, and everything ever written about you. But…”
“Do go on,” urged Grimsdyke, grim amusement in his voice.
“Well, sir, in all my studies I never found any mention that you had married, or had a child, much less lost them.”
Grimsdyke smiled once again, but his eyes squeezed shut in pain. “Your studies were not incorrect. I never married. The woman you saw in the hall was a damsel I loved from afar in my youth. I rose from my bed each morning merely for the hope of seeing her pass me by in the street. She could have been the passion of my life, but I never had the courage to so much as speak to her.” Bartleby’s eyes betrayed his deepening confusion.
“The woman you saw is the beautiful wife I never wed, and the boy you saw is the beloved child we never had.”
“Never had?” The words trickled from Bartleby’s lips, almost before the thought had been formed. “But if you never had a son, then what did I encounter on the steps?”
“Or in the hall, for that matter,” continued Grimsdyke. “The woman I adored is very much so still alive, as is her husband, as are their children and their grandchildren.”
Grimsdyke released an anguished chuckle. “In my stories, I write about ghosts of the dead, so perhaps that’s what you expected here. But it is not so. At night, these halls echo with the laughter of the love I never knew. I am haunted by the choices I have made, by those things I left undone. I am an old man, haunted not by death, but by the life I never led.”
“Ghosts of the living?” replied Bartleby, still trying to understand.
“No, not of the living. I am surrounded by the ghosts of life.” Grimsdyke leaned forward, speaking to Bartleby in a conspiratorial tone. “I have not lived my life, young man, I merely haunted it. Now it haunts me in turn. In that light, the ghosts of death hold no fear for me, for the choices I have made in life marked me as one of them despite my beating heart.”
Grimsdyke leaned back in his chair again. “That is the secret of my inspiration, young man.”
Bartleby frowned, comprehending at last. “But if you regret your life so very much, is it not too late to change it? You have many admirers, sir! Why do you remain in this old house, surrounded by these phantoms?”
Grimsdyke touched a finger to the corner of his eye, then gazed out into the hall as he replied.
“One cannot build a house upon a foundation of cobwebs, my boy. When I turn away from my phantoms,”—Grimsdyke continued as his gaze turned back to Bartleby —”I see nothing else to keep me warm at night. My ghosts and my regrets are all that I have. All, other than this…”
Reaching into the stacks of papers on his desk, Grimsdyke produced a thick folio, stuffed full of manuscripts, and tossed it to the wide-eyed Bartleby.
“Here. All my unpublished notes and manuscripts. Enough ghost stories to fill an author’s career. They’re yours, to do with as you wish.”
“But why give them to me? Why not publish these tales yourself?”
“Because I tire of the life I made for myself. I made this house so empty that the void had to fill itself with the whispers of life. I read your letter, and saw that you were following my path. Take these stories. Use these ghosts to fill your pages, but keep your life for yourself. Now go. It is time for me to join my phantoms. In this house, you are the unwanted spirit.”
Bartleby stood and walked to the door in awed silence. At the door he paused, thinking better of his manners, and turned to thank his idol.
In Grimsdyke’s chair sat only a stack of yellowed books, with a moth-eaten blanket to cover them.
