Night Music Read Online Free Page A

but Mr. Berger’s eyes were still keen, and through habit he grew practiced at picking out the difference in the density of the bushes.
    But the trail remained undisturbed until February came, and the woman returned.
VI
    It was a cold but bracing evening. There was no damp in the air, and Mr. Berger enjoyed the sight of his breath pluming as he took his constitutional. There was to be music in the Spotted Frog that night: some form of folk revivalism, for which Mr. Berger had a sneaking fondness. He intended to drop in for an hour or two, once he had watched the train go by. His vigil at the stile had become something of a ritual, and although he told himself that it was no longer connected to the business of the woman with the red bag, he secretly knew that it was. He was haunted by the image of her.
    He took his seat on the stile and lit his pipe. From somewhere to the east, he heard the sound of the approaching train. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after six. The train was early. This was unheard of. If he had still been in the habit of writing letters to the Telegraph , he might well have popped off a missive announcing this turnup for the books, much in the manner of those twitchers who liked to let the populace know of the appearance of the first cuckoo of spring.
    He was already composing the letter in his head when he was distracted by a commotion to his right. Someone was coming down the trail, and in some hurry. Mr. Berger dropped from the stile and began walking in the direction of the sounds. The sky was clear, and the moon was already silvering the undergrowth, but even without the aid of its light Mr. Berger would have been able to pick out the woman rushing to meet the train, and the red bag that hung from her arm.
    Mr. Berger dropped his pipe, but managed to retrieve it. It was, after all, a good pipe.
    While it would not be untrue to say that he had become obsessed with the woman, he had no real expectation of ever seeing her again. After all, people did not make a habit of throwing themselves under trains. It was the kind of act that tended to be performed once, or not at all. In the case of the former, any possible repeat of the incident was likely to be ruled out by the action of a heavy engine or, in the unlikely event of survival, sufficient recall of the painfulness of the first attempt to render most unwelcome any repetition of it. Yet here, without a shadow of a doubt, was the same young woman carrying the same red bag and making the same rush toward self-destruction that Mr. Berger had previously witnessed.
    It must be a ghost, thought Mr. Berger. There can be no other explanation. This is the spirit of some poor woman who died long ago—for he saw that her clothing was not of this century—and she is doomed to repeat her final moments over and over until—
    Until what? Mr. Berger wasn’t certain. He had read his share of M. R. James and W. W. Jacobs, of Oliver Onions and William Hope Hodgson, but had never come across anything quite like this in their stories. He had a vague notion that digging up a forgotten corpse and reburying it in a more appropriate location sometimes helped, while James tended to favor restoring ancient artifacts to their previous resting place, thereby calming the spirits associated with them, but Mr. Berger had no idea where the young woman might be interred, and he had not picked so much as a flower while on his walks, let alone removed some old whistle or manuscript. All of this would have to be dealt with later, he realized. There was more important business to attend to.
    The early arrival of the train had obviously caught the woman, spectral or otherwise, by surprise, and the branches seemed to be conspiring to keep her from her date with mortality. They caught at her dress, and at one point she took a tumble that sent her to her knees. Despite all of these hindrances, it was obvious to Mr. Berger that she was still likely to make it