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- [00:00]
Christy
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- [00:48]
Narrator
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- [00:54]
Christy
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- [00:57]
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- [00:59]
Christy
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- [01:02]
Narrator
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- [01:03]
Christy
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- [01:05]
Narrator
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- [01:09]
Christy
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- [01:15]
Narrator
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- [01:19]
David Suchet
This story features scenes of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised.
- [01:27]
Christy
Foreign.
- [01:32]
David Suchet
I'm David Suchet and from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Charles Dickens Ghost Stories in the last episode, Dickens fictional alter ego Francis Goodchild and his friend Thomas Idle came to stay at a mysterious inn in Lancaster where wedding cake is served after dinner every evening and a number of identical old men seem to haunt the building. Late one night at 1am precisely, Goodchild was astonished when one of these ghostly figures appeared and announced he had a tale to tell them. The story of the bride in whose honour the wedding cake is served. This is that story, the second and final part of the Ghost in the Bride's Chamber.
- [02:39]
Narrator
She was a fair flaxen haired, large eyed girl who had no character, no purpose. A weak, credulous, incapable, helpless. Nothing. Not like her mother. No, no, it was her father whose character she reflected. Her mother had taken care to secure everything to herself for her own life when the father of this girl, a child at the time, died of sheer helplessness, no other disorder. And then he renewed the acquaintance that had once subsisted between the mother and him. He had been put aside for the flaxen haired, large eyed man or nonentity with money he could overlook that for money he wanted compensation in money. So he returned to the side of that woman, the mother, made love to her again, danced attendance on her and submitted himself to her whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she had or could invent. He bore it, and the more he bore, the more he wanted compensation in money and the more he was resolved to have it. But lo, before he got it, she cheated him in one of her imperious states. She froze and never sword again. She put her hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened, lay in that attitude certain hours and died. And he got no compensation from her in money yet blight and moraine on her, not a penny. He had hated her throughout that second pursuit and had longed for retaliation on her. He now counterfeited her signature to an instrument, leaving all she had to leave to her daughter, 10 years old then, to whom the property passed absolutely, and appointing himself the daughter's guardian. When he slid it under the pillow of the bed on which she lay, he bent down in the deaf ear of death and whispered, mistress pride, I've.
- [05:38]
David Suchet
Determined a long time, the dead or alive, you must make me compensation in money.
- [05:46]
Narrator
So now there were only two left. Which two were he and the flaxen haired, large eyed, foolish daughter who afterwards became the bride. He put her to school in a secret, dark, oppressive ancient house. He put her to school with a watchful and unscrupulous woman. My worthy lady, he said, here is a mind to be formed.
- [06:20]
David Suchet
Will you help me to form it?
- [06:24]
Narrator
She accepted the trust for which she too wanted compensation in money and had it. The girl was formed in the fear of him and in the conviction that there was no escape from him. She was taught from the first to regard him as her future husband, the man who must marry her. The destiny that overshadowed her, the appointed certainty that could never be evaded. The poor fool was soft white wax in their hands and took the impression that they put upon her. It hardened with time. It became a part of herself, inseparable from herself and only to be torn away from her by tearing life away from her. 11 years she had lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden. He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her and they kept her close. He stopped. The wide chimneys shaded the little windows, left the strong stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house front. The moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit trees in the red walled garden. The weeds to overrun its green and yellow walks. He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation. He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it. And then, on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark. When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then he would come out of one of the hiding places from which he overlooked her and present himself as her sole resource. Thus, by being from her childhood the one embodiment her life presented to her, of power to coerce and power to relieve, power to bind and power to loose, the ascendancy over her weakness was secured. She was 21 years and 21 days old when he brought her home to the gloomy house, his half witted, frightened and submissive bride of three weeks. He had dismissed the governess by that time, and what he had left to do he could do best alone. And they came back upon a rainy night to the scene of her long preparation. She turned to him upon the threshold as the rain was dripping from the porch and said, oh, sir, it is.
- [09:54]
David Suchet
The death watch ticking for me.
- [09:57]
Narrator
When he answered, and if it were, oh, sir, she returned to him.
- [10:05]
David Suchet
Look kindly on me and be merciful to me. I beg your pardon. I will do anything you wish, if you will only forgive me.
- [10:17]
Narrator
That had become the poor fool's constant song.
- [10:21]
David Suchet
I beg your pardon and forgive me.
- [10:27]
Narrator
She was not worth hating. He felt nothing but contempt for her. But she had long been in the way, and he had long been weary, and the work was near its end and had to be worked out. You fool, he said, go up the stairs. She obeyed very quickly, murmuring, I will.
- [10:54]
David Suchet
Do anything you wish.
- [10:57]
Narrator
When he came into the bride's chamber, having been a little retarded by the heavy fastenings of the great door. For they were alone in the house, and he had arranged that people who attended on them should come and go in the day. He found her withdrawn to the furthest corner, and there standing pressed against the panelling as if she would have shrunk through it, her flaxen hair all wild about her face, her large eyes staring at him in vague terror.
- [11:33]
David Suchet
What are you afraid of? Come and sit by me. I'll do anything you wish.
- [11:39]
Narrator
I beg your pardon, sir. Forgive me, Herman. Not a Nestune as usual.
- [11:46]
David Suchet
Ellen, here is a writing that you must write out tomorrow in your own hand. You may as well be seen by others busily engaged upon it. When you have written it all fairly and corrected all mistakes. Call in any two people there may be about the house and sign your name to it before them. Then put it in your bosom to keep it safe, and when I sit here again tomorrow night, give it to me.
- [12:13]
Narrator
I will do it all with the greatest care.
- [12:17]
David Suchet
I will do anything you wish, but don't shake and tremble. Then I will try my utmost not.
- [12:24]
Narrator
To do it, if you will only forgive me. Next day she sat down at her desk and did as she had been told. He often passed in and out of the room to observe her, and always saw her slowly and laboriously writing, repeating to herself the words she copied in appearance, quite mechanically and without caring or endeavoring to comprehend them. So that she did her task. He saw her follow the directions she had received in all particulars. And at night when they were alone again in the same bride's chamber and he drew his chair to the hearth, she timidly approached him from her distant seat, took the paper from her bosom, and gave it into his hand. It secured all her possessions to him in the event of her death. He put her before him face to face that he might look at her steadily, and he asked her in so many plain words. Neither fewer nor more did she know that there were spots of ink upon the bosom of her white dress, and they made her face look whiter and her eyes looked larger as she nodded her head. There were spots of ink upon the hand with which the she stood before him nervously plaiting and folding her white skirts. He took her by the arm and looked her yet more closely and steadily in the face. Now die.
- [14:42]
David Suchet
I have done with you.
- [14:44]
Narrator
She shrunk and uttered a low suppressed cry.
- [14:52]
David Suchet
I'm not going to kill you. I will not endanger my life for yours. Die.
- [15:10]
Narrator
He sat before her in the gloomy bride's chamber, day after day, night after night, looking the word at her. When he did not utter it as often as her large unmeaning eyes were raised from the hands in which she rocked her head to the stern figure sitting with crossed arms and knitted forehead in the chair, they read in it. Die. When she dropped asleep in exhaustion, she was called back to shuddering consciousness by the whisper, Die. When she fell upon her old entreaty to be pardoned, she was answered. Die. When she had out watched and out suffered the long night and the rising sun flamed into the sombre room, she heard it hailed with another day and not dead. Die. Shut up in the deserted mansion, aloof from all mankind and engaged alone in such a struggle without any respite. It came to this that either he must die, or she he knew it very well, and concentrated his strength against her feebleness. Hours upon hours he held her by the arm, when her arm was black where he held it, and bade her die. It was done. Upon a windy morning before sunrise, he computed the time to be half past four, but his forgotten watch had run down, and he could not be sure. She had broken away from him in the night with loud and sudden cries, the first of that kind to which she had given vent, and he had had to put his hands over her mouth. Since then she had been quiet in the corner of the panelling, where she had sunk down, and he had left her, and had gone back with his folded arms and his knitted forehead to his chair. Paler in the pale light and more colourless than ever in the leaden dawn, he saw her coming, trailing herself along the floor towards him, a white wreck of hair and dress and wild eyes, pushing itself on by an irresolute and bending hand. Oh, forgive me. I will do anything.
- [18:40]
David Suchet
Oh sir, pray tell me I may live.
- [18:46]
Narrator
Die. Are you so resolved?
- [18:50]
David Suchet
Is there no hope for me?
- [18:55]
Narrator
Die. Her large eyes strained themselves with wonder and fear, wonder and fear changed to reproach, reproach to blank.
- [19:14]
David Suchet
Nothing.
- [19:18]
Narrator
It was done. He was not at first so sure it was done, but that the morning sun was hanging jewels in her hair. He saw the diamond, emerald, and ruby glittering among it in little points as he stood looking down at her. And when he lifted her and laid her on her bed, She was soon laid in the ground. And now they were all gone. And he had compensated himself well.
- [20:13]
Christy
Foreign.
- [20:19]
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- [20:50]
Christy
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- [21:41]
Narrator
He had a mind to travel. Not that he meant to waste his money, for he was a pinching man and liked his money dearly, like nothing else indeed, but that he had grown tired of the desolate house and wished to turn his back upon it and have done with it. But the house was worth money, and money must not be thrown away. He determined to sell it before he went, that it might look the less wretched and bring a better price. He hired some labourers to work in the overgrown garden, to cut out the dead wood, trim the ivy that drooped in heavy masses over the windows and gables, and clear the walks in which the weeds were growing mid leg high. He worked himself along with them, where he worked later than they did, and one evening at dusk was left working alone with his bill hook in his hand one autumn evening when the bride was five weeks dead. It grows too dark to work longer, he said to himself. I must give over for the night. He detested the house and was loathe to enter it. He looked at the dark porch waiting for him like a tomb, and felt that it was an accursed house. Near to the porch, and near to where he stood, was a tree whose branches waved before the old bay window of the bride's chamber where it had been done. The tree swung suddenly and made him start. He swung again, although the night was still looking up into it. He saw a figure among the branches. It was the figure of a young man. The face looked down as his looked up. The branches cracked and swayed, and the figure rapidly descended and slid upon its feet before him. A slender youth of about her age, with long light brown hair. What thief are you? He said, seizing the youth by the collar. The young man, in shaking himself free, swung him a blow with his arms across the face and throat. They closed, but the young man got from him and stepped back, crying with great eagerness and horror. Don't touch me.
- [24:40]
David Suchet
I would as lief be touched by the Devil.
- [24:43]
Narrator
He stood still with his billhook in his hand, looking at the young man. For the young man's look was the counterpart of her last look, and he had not expected ever to see that again.
- [25:00]
David Suchet
I am no thief. Even if I were, I would not have a coin of your wealth if it would buy me the Indies. You must.
- [25:09]
Narrator
Murderer.
- [25:10]
David Suchet
What?
- [25:11]
Narrator
I climbed it, said the young man, pointing up into the tree for the.
- [25:16]
David Suchet
First time nigh four years ago. I climbed it to look at her. I saw her. I spoke to her. I have climbed it many a time to watch and listen for her. I was a boy hidden among its leaves, when from that bay window she gave me this.
- [25:38]
Narrator
He showed a tress of flaxen hair tied with a mourning ribbon. Her life, said the young man, was.
- [25:52]
David Suchet
A life of mourning. She gave me this as a token of it and a sign that she was dead to everyone but you. Oh, if I had been older, if I had seen her sooner, I might have saved her from you. But she was fast in the web when I first climbed the tree. And what could I do then to break it.
- [26:14]
Narrator
In? Saying those words, he burst into a fit of sobbing and crying, weakly at first, and then passionately.
- [26:25]
David Suchet
Murderer. I climbed the tree. On the night when you brought her back, I heard her from the tree speak of the death watch at the door. I was three times in the tree while you were shut up with her, slowly killing her. I saw her from the tree lie dead upon her bed. I have watched you from the tree for proofs and traces of your guilt. The manner of it is a mystery to me yet. But I will pursue you until you have rendered up your life to the hangman. You shall never, until then be rid of me.
- [27:10]
Narrator
I loved her.
- [27:14]
David Suchet
I can know no relenting towards you. Murderer.
- [27:19]
Narrator
I loved her. The youth was bareheaded, his hat having fluttered away in his descent from the tree. He moved towards the gate. He had to pass him to get to it. There was breadth for two old fashioned carriages abreast. And the youth's abhorrence, openly expressed in every feature of his face and limb of his body, and very hard to bear, had verge enough to keep itself at a distance in. He, by which I mean the other, had not stirred hand or foot since he had stood still to look at the boy. He faced round now to follow him with his eyes. As the back of the bare light brown head was turned to him, he saw a red curve stretch from his hand to it. He knew before he threw the billhook where it had alighted I say, had alighted, and not would alight. For to his clear perception, the thing was done before he did. Cleft the head and it remained there, and the boy lay on his face. He buried the body in the night at the foot of the tree. As soon as it was light in the morning, he worked at turning up all the ground near the tree and hacking and hewing at the neighbouring bushes and undergrowth. When the labourers came, there was nothing suspicious and nothing suspected, but he had in a moment defeated all his precautions and destroyed the triumph of the scheme he had so long concerted and so successfully worked out. He had got rid of the bride and had acquired her fortune without endangering his life. But now, for a death by which he had gained nothing, he had evermore to live with a rope around his neck. Beyond this he was chained to the house of gloom and horror which he could not endure. Being afraid to sell it or to quit it, lest discovery should be made, he was forced to live in it. He hired two old people, man and wife, for his servants and dwelt in it and dreaded it. His great difficulty for a long time was the garden. Whether he should keep it trim, whether he should suffer it to fall into its former state of neglect, what would be the least likely way of attracting attention to it. He took the middle course of gardening himself in his evening leisure, and of then calling the old serving man to help him, but of never letting him work there alone. And he made himself an arbor over against the tree where he could sit and see that it was safe. As the seasons changed and the tree changed, his mind perceived dangers that were always changing in the leafy time. He perceived that the upper boughs were growing into the form of the young man, that they made the shape of him exactly sitting in a forked branch, swinging in the wind in the time of the falling leaves, he perceived that they came down from the tree forming telltale letters on the path, or that they had a tendency to heap themselves into a churchyard mound above the the grave in the winter, when the tree was bare, he perceived that the boughs swung at him the ghost of the blow the young man had given, and that they threatened him openly. In the spring, when the SAP was mounting in the trunk, he asked himself, were the dried up particles of blood mounting with it? To make out more obviously this year than last, the leaf screamed figure of the young man swinging in the wind. However, he turned his money over and over, and still over he was in the dark trade. The gold dust trade and most secret trades that yielded Great returns in 10 years. He had turned his money over so many times that the traders and shippers who had dealings with him absolutely did not lie for once when they declared that he had increased his fortune 1200%. He possessed his riches 100 years ago when people could be lost easily. He had heard who the youth was from hearing of the search that was made after him. But he died away and the youth was forgotten Foreign.
- [34:03]
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- [34:33]
David Suchet
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- [34:34]
Christy
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- [34:36]
David Suchet
Can I make my site firmer?
- [34:38]
Narrator
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- [34:39]
David Suchet
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- [35:10]
Narrator
The annual round of changes in the tree had been repeated 10 times since the night of the burial at its foot, when there was a great thunderstorm over this place. It broke at midnight and roared until morning. The first intelligence he heard from his old serving man that morning was that the tree had been struck by lightning. It had been riven down the stem in a very surprising manner, and the stem lay in two blighted shafts, one resting against the house and one against a portion of the old red garden wall in which its fall had made a gap. The fissure went down the tree to a little above the earth, and there. There was a great curiosity to see the tree, and with most of his former fears revived, he sat in his arbor grown quite an old man, watching the people who came to see it. They quickly began to come in such dangerous numbers that he closed his garden gate and refused to admit any more. But there were certain men of science who travelled from a distance to examine the tree and in an evil hour he let them in. Light and murrain on them let them in. They wanted to dig up the ruin by the roots and closely examine it and the earth about it. Never while he lived. They offered money for it, they men of science, whom he could have bought by the growth. With a scratch of his pen he showed them the garden gate again and locked and barred it. But they were bent on doing what they wanted to do. When they bribed the old serving man, a thankless wretch who regularly complained when he received his wages of being underpaid. And they stole into the garden by night with their lanterns, picks and shovels and fell to at the tree. He was lying in a turret room on the other side of the house. The bride's chamber had been unoccupied ever since. But he soon dreamed of picks and shovels and got up. He came to an upper window on that side, whence he could see their lanterns and them and the loose earth in a heap which he had himself disturbed and put back. When it was last turned to the.
- [38:17]
Christy
Air.
- [38:20]
Narrator
It was found they had that minute lighted on it. They were all bending over it. One of them said, the skull is fractured.
- [38:35]
David Suchet
And another, see here the bones.
- [38:38]
Narrator
And another, see here the clothes. And then the first struck in again and said, a rusty bill hook. He became sensible next day that he was already put under a strict watch and that he could go nowhere without being followed. Before a week was out he was taken and laid in hold. The circumstances were gradually pieced together against him with a desperate man malignity and an appalling ingenuity. But see the justice of men and how it was extended to him. He was further accused of having poisoned that girl in the bride's chamber. He who had carefully and expressly avoided imperiling a hair of his head for her and who had seen her die of her own incapacity. There was doubt for which of the two murders he should be first tried. But the real one was chosen, and he was found guilty and cast for death. Bloodthirsty wretches. They would have made him guilty of anything. So set they were. Upon having his life, his money could do nothing to save him. And he was hanged. I am he, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall a hundred years.
- [40:38]
David Suchet
At this terrific announcement, Mr. Goodchild tried to rise and cry out. But the two fiery lines extending from the old man's eyes to his own kept him down, and he could not utter a sound. His sense of hearing, however, was acute, and he could hear the clock strike two. No sooner had he heard the clock strike two than he saw before him two old men.
- [41:08]
Narrator
Two.
- [41:09]
David Suchet
The eyes of each connected with his eyes by two films of fire, each exactly like the other, each addressing him at precisely one and the same instant, each gnashing the same teeth in the same head, with the same twitched nostril above them and the same suffused expression around it. Two old men differing in nothing, equally distinct to the sight. The copy no fainter than the original, the second as real as the first. At what time, said the two old.
- [41:47]
Narrator
Men, did you arrive at the door below? At six. And there were six old men upon the stairs.
- [41:59]
David Suchet
Mr. Goodchild having wiped the perspiration from his brow, or tried to do it, the two old men proceeded in one voice. And in the singular number.
- [42:11]
Narrator
I had been anatomized, but had not yet had my skeleton put together and rehung on an iron hook. When it began to be whispered that the bride's chamber was haunted. It was haunted. And I was there. We were there, she and I were there. I in the chair upon the hearth, she a white wreck again trailing itself towards me on the floor. But I was the speaker no more. And the one word that she said to me from midnight until dawn was.
- [43:06]
David Suchet
Liv.
- [43:09]
Narrator
The youth was there likewise in the tree outside the window, coming and going in the moonlight as the tree bent and gazed. He has ever since been there, peeping in at me in my torment, revealing to me by snatches in the pale light and slaty shadows where he comes and goes bare headed, a bill hook standing edgewise in his hair in the bride's chamber every night from midnight until dawn. One month in the year excepted, as I'm going to tell you, he hides in the tree and she comes towards me on the floor, always approaching, never coming nearer, always visible, as if by moonlight whether the moon shines or no. Always saying from midnight until dawn, her one word live. But in the month wherein I was forced out of this life, this present month of 30 days, the bride's chamber is empty and quiet. Not so my old dungeon. Not so the rooms where I was restless and afraid 10 years. Both are fitfully haunted. Then at 1 in the morning, I am what you saw me when the clock struck that hour. One old man. At two in the morning I am two old men. At three I am three. By twelve at noon I am twelve old men. One for every hundred percent of old gain every one of the 12 with 12 times my old power of suffering and agony. From that hour until 12 at night I 1212 old men in anguish and fearful foreboding wait for the coming of the executioner. At 12 at night I 12 old men turned off swing invisible outside Lancaster Castle, with 12 faces to the wall. When the bride's chamber was first haunted, it was known to me that this punishment would never cease until I could make its nature and my story known to two living men together. I waited for the coming of two living men together into the bride's chamber. Years upon years it was infused into my knowledge of the means. I am ignorant that if two living men with their eyes open, could be in the bride's chamber at one in the morning, they would see me sitting in my chair. At length the whispers that the room was spiritually troubled brought two men to try the adventure. I was scarcely struck upon the hearth at midnight. I come there as if the lightning blasted me into being. When I heard them ascending the stairs, next I saw them enter. One of them was a bold, gay, active man in the prime of life, some 5 and 40 years of age, the other a dozen years younger. They brought provisions with them in a basket and bottle. A young woman accompanied them with wood and coals for the lighting of the fire. When she had lighted it, the bold, gay, active man accompanied her along the gallery outside the room to see her safely down the staircase, and came back laughing. He locked the door, examined the chamber, put out the contents of the basket on the table before the fire, little recking of me in my appointed station on the hearth close to him, and filled the glasses and ate and drank. His companion did the same, and was as cheerful and confident as he, though he was the leader. When they had supped, they laid pistols on the table, turned to the fire, and began to smoke their pipes of foreign make. They had travelled together, and had been much together, and had an abundance of subjects in common. In the midst of their talking and laughing, the younger man made a reference to the leaders. Being all always ready for any adventure, that one or any other, he replied.
- [49:22]
David Suchet
In these words, not quite so, Dick. If I'm afraid of nothing else, I'm afraid of myself.
- [49:33]
Narrator
His companion, seeming to grow a little dull, asked him in what sense, how?
- [49:41]
David Suchet
Why, thus he returned. Here is a ghost to be disproved. Well, I cannot answer for what my fancy might do if I were alone here, or what tricks my senses might play with me if they had me to themselves, but in company with another man. And especially with Dick, I would consent to outface all the ghosts that were ever heard of in the universe. I had not the vanity to suppose that I was of so much importance tonight, said the other.
- [50:18]
Narrator
Of so much, rejoined the leader, more seriously than he had spoken yet that.
- [50:24]
David Suchet
I would, for the reason I've given, on no account have undertaken to pass the night here alone.
- [50:33]
Narrator
It was within a few minutes of 1. The head of the younger man had drooped when he made his last remark, and it drooped lower. Now keep awake, Dick, said the leader gaily.
- [50:50]
David Suchet
The small hours are the worst, he.
- [50:54]
Narrator
Tried, but his head drooped again. Dick, urged the leader, keep awake. I can't, he indistinctly muttered.
- [51:10]
David Suchet
I don't know what strange influence is stealing over me. I can't.
- [51:17]
Narrator
His companion looked at him with a sudden horror. And I my different way felt a new horror also, for it was on the stroke of one, and I felt that the second watcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must send him to sleep.
- [51:38]
David Suchet
Get up and walk, Dick, cried the leader.
- [51:42]
Narrator
Try. It was in vain to go behind the slumbering chair and shake him. One o' clock sounded, and I was present to the elder man, and he stood transfixed before me. To him alone, I was obliged to relate my story without hope of benefit. To him alone, I was an awful phantom making a quite useless confession. I foresee it will ever be the same. The two living men together will never come to release me. When I appear, the senses of one of the two will be locked in sleep. You will neither see nor hear me. My communication will ever be made to a solitary listener and will ever be unserviceable. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [52:54]
David Suchet
As the two old men with these words wrung their hands, it shot into Mr. Goodchild's mind that he was in the terrible situation of being virtually alone with the spectre, and that Mr. Idle Immovability was explained by his having been charmed asleep at 1 o'.
- [53:13]
Narrator
Clock.
- [53:15]
David Suchet
In the terror of this sudden discovery, which produced an indescribable dread, he struggled so hard to get free from the four fiery threads that he snapped them after he had pulled them out to a great width. Being then out of bonds, he caught up Mr. Idol from the sofa and rushed downstairs with him. What are you about? Francis? Demanded Mr. Idol. My bedroom is not down here. What the deuce are you carrying me at all for? I can walk with a stick now. I don't want to be carried. Put me down, Mr. Goodchild. Put him down in the old hall and looked about him wildly. What are you doing idiotically plunging at your own sex and rescuing them, or perishing in the attempt? Asked Mr. Idol in a highly petulant state. The one old man. Cried Mr. Goodchild distractedly, and the two old men. Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than the.
- [54:26]
Narrator
One old woman, I think you mean.
- [54:30]
David Suchet
As he began hobbling his way back up the staircase with the assistance of its broad balustrade. I assure you, Tom, began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side, that since you fell asleep, come, I like that, said Thomas Idle. I haven't closed an eye with the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all mankind. Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same peculiar sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed with the same crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment. The settlement of the question of the one old man and the two old men was thus presently complicated and soon made quite impracticable, Mr. Idle said. It was all bride cake and fragments newly arranged of things seen and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said. How could that be when he hadn't been asleep? And what right could Mr. Idle have to say so? Who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he had never been asleep and never did go to sleep, and that Mr. Goodchild, as a general rule, was always asleep. They consequently parted for the rest of the night at their bedroom doors, a little ruffled. Mr. Goodchild's last words were that he had had in that real and tangible old sitting room of that real and tangible old innocent, he supposed, Mr. Idle denied its existence, every sensation and experience the present record of which is now within a line or two of completion, and that he would write it out and print it, every word. Mr. Idle returned that he might, if he liked. And he did like, and has now done it. In the next episode we bring you the peculiar tale of the Baron von Cold without of Grotsvik, a bombastic German nobleman who marries in haste, repents at leisure, and at his darkest hour is visited by a mysterious spectre who goads him into taking his own life. But will the Baron listen to the spirit's coaxing words? That's next time on Charles Dickens Ghost Stories. Can't wait a week until the next episode. Listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.comscriptions for more information or click the link in the episode Description.
- [57:58]
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