H D Everett - A Short Story Collection

By H D Everett

Henrietta Dorothy Huskisson was born in January 1851 in Gillingham, Kent.

Little reliable information on her life is available and almost nothing on her early life.

The first concrete information concerns her marriage at age 18 to the solicitor Isaac Edward Everett.

It was only at the age of 44 that she began her literary career under the pseudonym of Theo Douglas, a popular device in a society that still frowned upon women writing for income.

During her lifetime she was a popular author and wrote 22 books and those were published by 17 different publishers.

Although she wrote some historical novels her main output was centered on fantasy and supernatural themes.

Henrietta Dorothy Everett died in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire in September 1923.

Index of Contents

A Perplexing Case,

Beyond the Pale,

Over the Wires,

The Whispering Wall,

The Lonely Road,

The Death Mask

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Jun 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803549590

Book preview

H D Everett - A Short Story Collection

An Introduction

Henrietta Dorothy Huskisson was born in January 1851 in Gillingham, Kent.

Little reliable information on her life is available and almost nothing on her early life. 

The first concrete information concerns her marriage at age 18 to the solicitor Isaac Edward Everett.

It was only at the age of 44 that she began her literary career under the pseudonym of Theo Douglas, a popular device in a society that still frowned upon women writing for income.

During her lifetime she was a popular author and wrote 22 books and those were published by 17 different publishers.

Although she wrote some historical novels her main output was centered on fantasy and supernatural themes.

Henrietta Dorothy Everett died in Weston-on-Trent in Derbyshire in September 1923.

Index of Contents

A Perplexing Case

Beyond the Pale

Over the Wires

The Whispering Wall

The Lonely Road

The Death Mask

A Perplexing Case

He opened his eyes; consciously opened them for the first time since the blow and roar the explosion which had seemed to blot him out of life; and looked about him, wondering. He was lying on his back in a narrow hospital bed, next but one to the wall, and in the next bed somebody was groaning: that was the first sound received by his understanding ears. His right side appeared to be stiff with bandages, but felt benumbed rather than painful;—he seemed to have no use in that arm. But his left arm lay out upon the covering, and he could move it without difficulty, and the fingers of the hand. And it was his hand which he was presently regarding with surprise.

If you had looked at the board hung over the head of the bed, you would have seen his name entered as Henri de Hochepied Latour, sous-lieutenant in a French regiment which co-operated with the British in a recent attack. His name as I have written it; his injury, wounds from shell-burst, and shock to brain—this a free translation of the surgical terms: and the date, five days before, on which he had been transferred from the dressing-station to this hospital behind the lines. Could the patient have lifted and turned himself to read, he might have challenged more than one item in this account; what these were will be apparent later. But for such an effort he had not the strength; he could only stare at his left hand, holding it before his face.

In this mischance that had befallen him, which he recognised as fortune of war, what had happened to alter that unwounded member? What he expected to see was a big brawny fist, with knotted joints and hard muscles; the hand of a working man, who, somewhat reluctant and at the call of duty, had taken to shouldering a rifle. It might be whitened and attenuated by illness, but surely it still would be the same in form. What he did see was a hand delicately slender, olive in hue of skin, strong no doubt in a determined grip, but not with navvy's strength; the nails almond-shaped, daintily manicured and tended; in all these details unlike his own. How could such a change have come about? He opened and shut the hand before his face, staring stupidly at it in his surprise.

Presently a nurse, who had been attending to the moaning patient in the next bed, bent over him and noticed that consciousness had returned.

I will bring you presently some tea, monsieur, she said, to test whether he understood, speaking in slow careful French, the French of an Englishwoman.

The dark head moved on the pillow.

Have you no English, Sister?

This man had been in hospital before.

Yes, of course I have. I am English. But I thought you would better understand my French, though I know it is not good.

Good or bad, it would be all the same to me. I can say bon jour, and ask for bread and cheese, and that's about all. What did you say to me?

Only that I would bring you tea as soon as it is ready.

Sister Bennett glanced again at the board hung over the bed before she turned away. There must have been some mistake, for certainly sous-lieutenant Henri Latour ought to be able to speak his own language, and understand it when spoken, even by an Englishwoman. And he was a thorough Frenchman to look at, this wounded soldier, though he had an English tongue in his head, and not the most refined intonation of speech. But she made no comment in reporting to the doctor that Number Forty-nine had come to himself. If there had been a mistake, they would find it out soon enough without intervention of hers. And doctors and nurses were all closely engaged that night, as a fresh batch of wounded had come in.

But the next day there was further trouble. Number Forty-nine indignantly denied his identity with the French officer Henri Latour, declaring that he was one Richard Adams, lance-corporal, attached to the London Scottish. He persisted in this assertion with so much ruffled temper, that the doctor gave direction that he should be humoured. Confusion was a common enough consequence of shell-shock, so said the man of experience; but, for all that, this was not quite a common case. It was an odd coincidence that Richard Adams of the London regiment was lying unconscious in that very hospital.

He had been injured, so it was believed, at the same time as young Latour, and by the bursting of the self-same shell; and, though his wounds were not considered serious, he had not yet come to himself. Sous-lieutenant Latour would be all right in a day or two, so Senhouse, the captain-doctor, forecasted. No doubt this young man had been in touch with Corporal Adams immediately before the catastrophe, and somehow—though how was unexplained—the impression of Adams' personality persisted in this condition of temporary aberration. That there could have been any actual mistake between the two was out of the question; the identification discs in each case furnished proof. And, beyond this, a friend of Latour's, visiting the hospital, had recognised him when he was carried unconscious from the ambulance.

Here was testimony enough, but further witness was forthcoming. The French lieutenant was presently inquired for by two ladies: Mademoiselle Ottilie Latour, his elder sister, and with her a charming girl whom she addressed as Julie, who was the young officer's betrothed. Might they be admitted