Grave Visitor
Today, many names come to mind when one thinks of macabre fiction, but in the early twentieth century, Poe, Shelley and Stoker were probably the best known. Dorian Mason rightfully belongs in this distinguished company although he was not widely recognized outside New England during his brief lifetime. Mason, a contemporary of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, gained his literary fame posthumously.
Dorian Mason had been a gifted poet, an idealistic writer whose verses were brimming with joyousness, romance and optimism, but he lost his joie de vivre when his beloved wife died of consumption. Devastated by her untimely death, Mason took first to drink and then to drugs to combat his grief. As his addiction took hold, he stopped writing poetry and began spinning bizarre tales of death, lunacy, premature burial, vengeful phantoms and evil demons.
The same critics and fellow litterateurs who once praised his poetry condemned and ridiculed his short stories. Yet Mason continued to write even though his health was steadily deteriorating. Before he was found dead in a gutter in Boston at the age of thirty-six, he had amassed enough tales to fill two volumes. These were published by a friend, who made the gesture more out of affection for the writer than out of any appreciation for his work. The books were purchased mainly by the curious and those who wanted to delve into the psyche of a madman.
Although Monroe Albright had never read any of Mason's short stories—or if he had, he'd forgotten them—he was by no means illiterate. Quite the contrary, Monroe was an educated young man, but he had no time for fiction or poetry. He was far too busy studying his textbooks because Monroe, the son of a carpenter, was attending Harvard, bent on studying law.
It was during the summer of 1913, when Monroe came home after the completion of his first year of college, that he took an interest in Dorian Mason. It had been an unusually hot and humid day in early July, and Monroe, after helping his father frame a house, was feeling the enervating effects of the heat. When the workday was over, he decided to cool himself off by wading in the river.
The sun had just started to dip below the horizon when Monroe passed the cemetery in back of what remained of the old Hamilton Township Methodist Church. In the twilight, he saw a shadowy figure glide along the ground among the vandalized and weather-beaten headstones and abruptly stop in front of one of the graves. A natural curiosity compelled him to get closer to the shadow. As Monroe watched with fascination, the dark shape collapsed onto the grave. At closer range, he could plainly see that the shape was human, and the high pitch of the sobs indicated that it was female.
Out of respect for the woman's sorrow, he looked away. When she stood up, Monroe realized why he had mistaken her for a shadow. She was wearing a long black dress with a hoop skirt, an outfit that resembled an antebellum mourning gown. In the gathering darkness, he saw her turn and walk away, her black-clad figure melting into the night.
Who was she? And why was she wearing a dress that hadn't been in style for at least half a century? The curiosity that brought him into the old cemetery beckoned him toward the grave on which the woman had lain prostrate with grief. The name chiseled on the headstone was one he remembered from his high school days: Dorian Mason. The date of his demise was July 7, 1884.
"Today is the anniversary of his death," Monroe murmured.
Then the student's eyes drifted from the granite stone to the ground. On top of the grave lay a single red rose.
* * *
The following day a severe thunderstorm prevented Monroe and his father from working. Choosing to make the most of this unexpected break by brushing up on his studies, the student put up his umbrella and walked to the Hamilton Township Public Library. The last time he had visited the old brick building—just before he went off to Harvard—there had been a display beside the librarian's desk in memory of those who had lost their lives aboard the Titanic. The display had since been changed to honor the town's native son, Dorian Mason.
Normally, Monroe would have passed by without examining the items exhibited on the large mahogany table, but his encounter with the weeping woman at the writer's gravesite the preceding evening had piqued his interest. On display were leather-bound copies of Mason's works as well as two biographies written about the man himself. In addition to the books, there were several personal items that had once belonged to the late writer: a pair of reading spectacles, a pipe, a pocket watch with gold fob and a miniature portrait in an elegant silver frame. It was not the exquisite frame that caught Monroe's attention, however; it was the woman in the portrait. Whoever had painted her likeness had to have been flattering the subject. Surely no mortal woman could have a face as beautiful as the one in the miniature.
Could that be Mason's wife? Monroe wondered as he stared at the stunning facial features framed by a head of magnificent blond curls.
He put down the portrait and picked up one of the biographies. Although he had no intention of checking out a book when he entered the library, he suddenly wanted to learn more about the writer from Hamilton Township.
Monroe began reading the book that afternoon and finished it two days later. By that time, he was so curious about Mason's life that he went to visit Professor Casper Breckenridge, the biographer, who lived nearby.
"Mr. Albright, won't you come in?" Breckenridge greeted him.
"I want to thank you for seeing me, professor."
"The pleasure is all mine," the elderly biographer insisted as he led his guest out onto the veranda where tea and cakes were awaiting them. "Since I've retired from the university, I don't get to see many people. I'm usually cooped up here in this place with no one but my housekeeper and my cat to talk to, and the cat never laughs at my jokes."
The two men spoke of trivial matters while they sipped their tea, but after they finished two helpings of the housekeeper's chocolate cake, they got down to business.
"I understand you're interested in learning more about Dorian Mason," Breckenridge declared. "Surely he's not required reading at Harvard?"
Monroe described the incident involving the woman he had seen visiting the writer's grave.
The professor nodded and smiled.
"Ah, yes! The mysterious woman in black."
"You know about her?" Monroe asked with mounting excitement. "Who is she?"
"I have no idea, and neither does anyone else. Oh, there are theories as to her identity—an illegitimate child, an obsessed fan—but no one knows for sure."
"That's odd," Monroe remarked. "Why doesn't someone simply go up to her and ask her who she is?"
"Perhaps because no one wants to destroy the mystery. An enigmatic woman in black visits a writer's grave every year on the anniversary of his death and disappears into the night, leaving behind a single red rose. She's like a spirit returned from the past to tantalize us. It's romantic, tragic and irresistibly enchanting."
"Are you suggesting she's a ghost?" Monroe asked with shock.
"No, not at all. She's real enough. She has left footprints in the graveyard, and as far as I know, revenants don't leave footprints."
"I wonder why she wears those old-fashioned clothes."
"Maybe she imagines herself a character out of one of Mason's gothic tales. The world is full of eccentric people, a good many of whom live in New England."
The conversation then shifted from the woman in black to Dorian Mason's writings.
"His early works showed great promise," the professor intoned as though delivering a lecture to a hall full of American lit students. "If he'd continued writing poetry, he might have been as great as Whitman and Emerson."
In his biography, Breckenridge referred to the poet as a true romantic. Ironically, it was after his marriage that Mason stopped writing poetry. He was not a wealthy man, and his verses, although undoubtedly well-written, did not put food on the table or a roof over the couple's heads. To provide for his wife and himself, he took a job as a newspaper editor. Mason didn't regret his decision. He and his wife were very much in love and during the short-lived marriage were deliriously happy.
"And it was not just his wife's physical perfection that held Dorian's heart," Breckenridge elaborated. "Rowena Mason was, by all accounts, the ideal woman. She was intelligent, warm and affectionate; she loved children and animals; and she had a wonderful sense of humor and a sunny, cheerful disposition."
"It's no wonder Mason was heartbroken when she died," Monroe observed.
"It was more than his heart that was broken. He was so devastated by her death that he lost his mind. Those stories he wrote about restless spirits and soulless creatures walking the night were strong indicators of his downward spiral into madness."
Monroe did not agree. He saw Mason's macabre tales as the writer's way of dealing with his grief.
"The early stories, the ones that made it to print, weren't too bad," Breckenridge continued, "but his later ones were pure rubbish!"
"You didn't mention any later stories in your biography," Monroe declared, clearly intrigued.
Breckenridge colored with embarrassment as he confessed, "That's what the rumors claim, anyway. Unfortunately, no one has been able to produce one of the later stories or even an excerpt from one."
"So, these stories may not even exist?"
"Many respected people do claim the rumors of Mason's later works are only a myth, but I believe those stories did exist. Furthermore, I pray that someday, somewhere, someone will discover one of them."
* * *
During the remainder of that summer, Monroe Albright read his way through the collected works of Dorian Mason, both his romantic poetry and his two volumes of macabre prose. Even Monroe, who had no great knowledge or appreciation of literature, knew the writer had true talent. Still, the student shared the generally held opinion that Mason's personal history was far more intriguing than his fiction.
As the end of the summer drew near, Monroe packed his bags, said goodbye to his friends and family and returned to Harvard. The many hours he dedicated to his studies left little time for recreational reading or for wondering about the identity of the woman who visited Mason's grave. She would remain a mystery for another year.
Nine months later, with the return of summer, Monroe headed home to Hamilton Township. On the night of July 7, he hurried home from work, ate dinner, donned black trousers and a black shirt and took off in the direction of the old cemetery. It was early yet. The sun would not go down for at least an hour, but with the lady in black making only one appearance a year, Monroe wanted to take no chances.
Time passed slowly, but eventually, the sun started to set. Monroe crouched down in the shadow of a giant oak tree where in the growing darkness he would be virtually invisible. A cool breeze blew in from the ocean, and he shivered, or maybe the gooseflesh on his arms was a result of anticipation. He did not have much longer to wait. Shortly after 9:00 p.m., he saw a familiar shadow making its way down the road. Her movement more a glide than a walk, she headed directly for Mason's grave. Monroe watched with fascination as she placed a red rose on the ground in front of the headstone. A few moments later, she fell beside it, sobbing.
Again, Monroe kept his distance, not wanting to intrude. When at last she stood up, the student rose, too. He had planned on confronting her there at Mason's grave. Instead, he walked behind her, slowly following in her shadow.
The woman did not lead him far. A short distance past the relic of the old Methodist Church stood the burned wreckage of the house that once belonged to the minister of the church. No one had lived there for more than three decades, yet the woman opened the front door and entered the portion of the building that was still standing. Forgetting his manners, Monroe followed her inside. Moments after his vision adjusted to the darkness, he heard her startled cry.
"Don't be afraid," he called, but the woman ran from the room, darted through the door and disappeared into the woods that separated the church property from the farm to the north.
His heart sank because he had failed to discover her identity. Still, maybe there was something in the house that would give him a clue.
He lit the candle on the table and searched the small parlor. All he found were a few old tattered magazines, a woman's handbag that looked as old as the mid-nineteenth-century outfit the lady in black wore, and a tintype of Dorian Mason.
Only one other room, a bedroom, escaped the fire that had destroyed most of the house. Monroe shamelessly invaded the woman's privacy and entered her bedroom. The odor of dust and decay made him gag. It was as though the room had not been exposed to fresh air for many decades.
"It's obvious no one lives in this house, so what was she doing here?" he asked himself.
He was about to leave when he spied an old chest beneath the tightly shuttered window. It stood out from the rest of the furniture in the room in that it was the only piece not covered with dust. There was no lock, so Monroe had no difficulty opening the latch and raising the lid. Inside were hundreds of manuscripts. Some had been typed, but most were handwritten. Many of the words were faded and hard to read in the dim candlelight, but Monroe had only to look at the name below the titles to realize that he had discovered Dorian Mason's lost works.
"The stories do exist, and I found them!" he exclaimed in triumph.
Monroe filled his arms with as many pages as he could hold and hurried home. After putting the pile of manuscripts on his desk, he shut his bedroom door and immediately returned to the burned house with his father's wheelbarrow. He did not want to wait until the following morning to empty the trunk for fear the mysterious woman would return to the house and remove the remaining stories.
The next day, Saturday, Monroe woke early and, after a hearty breakfast, returned to his room and placed the manuscripts in chronological order. The writing spanned more than a decade, from two years after his wife's death until a few short weeks before Mason himself passed away.
After sorting through the stories, Monroe spent nearly the entire weekend reading them. He was blurry-eyed Monday morning when he left for work, but his exhaustion mattered little to him. He was in complete awe of what he had read.
Professor Breckenridge had supposed Mason's later works to be the ravings of a demented mind, but they spoke to Monroe of genius. The tales, although dark and sometimes frightening, addressed the full gamut of human emotions: love, hate, fear, hope, guilt, joy and grief. Mason had cut open the human heart with the skill of a surgeon and left the reader emotionally drained.
"Perhaps there is a fine line between madness and genius," Monroe said as he looked at the stacks of manuscripts neatly arranged on his desk.
Although he had never really cared for fiction, Monroe was rapidly falling under the spell of Dorian Mason's pen. It took him half the summer to read his way through all the stories. The day after he finished, he began reading them a second time.
That year when August came to an end, Monroe did not return to Harvard. Instead, he traveled to Boston where he became a full partner in a fledgling publishing company. The newly discovered works of Dorian Mason proved to be quite a bargaining chip in obtaining this position. The publication of the first volume alone made Monroe and his partner wealthy men, and their fortunes stood to increase at least tenfold by the time the entire collection was printed.
For the former Harvard student, however, his newfound success was incomplete. He had yet to learn the identity of the woman in black, but he hoped to rectify the situation the following July.
* * *
On the night of July 7, as on that date the previous year, Monroe dressed in black and hid in the shadow of the oak tree. His heart thudded in his chest when he saw the black-clad mourner approach the writer's grave. He waited only until the mourner threw herself on the ground before leaping out of the shadows. The woman screamed, but it was a reaction of surprise rather than fear. When Monroe grasped her slender arms, he knew beyond all doubt that she was no ghost.
"Let me go," she pleaded.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know who you are and what you're doing here."
"What business is it of yours?" she demanded to know.
"You are a mystery to me, and I do not like mysteries unless I can unravel them."
"You're the one who took the manuscripts, aren't you?" she asked accusingly.
"Yes," he admitted with no evasion or remorse. "Dorian Mason was a genius, and I believe I owed it to the world to make his stories available to readers everywhere. What, may I ask, were you doing with them, and how did they come to be in your possession?"
"I was Dorian's heir," the woman said through her thick, black veil.
"I'm sorry. According to the county records, Mason died intestate."
"I'm not his legal heir," she explained. "But I assure you that Dorian wanted me to have those stories."
"Why?"
The woman ignored his question.
"Please let me go. There are some things you are better off not knowing, mysteries that should remain unsolved."
"No. I can't let you go until I know who you are."
"I'm Dorian Mason's wife."
"But there is no record of his having a second wife."
"That's because he didn't. I was his only wife, Rowena Mason"
"That's impossible. She died more than sixty years ago."
"You read my husband's stories, didn't you? His tales of ghosts, zombies and vampires were inspired by his personal quest to bring the dead back to life. He frequently visited spiritualists, voodoo queens, shamans and witches in an attempt to restore breath to my lifeless body."
Monroe looked at the slim frame beneath the widow's weeds.
Poor thing, he thought. She actually believes her ravings. No doubt she'll wind up in a lunatic Hospital one day.
Still, regardless of her name and relationship to the dead writer, she was the owner of the missing manuscripts, if not legally, then certainly morally. He had taken them from her, and he decided he would recompense her for her loss.
As though she had read his mind, the woman declared, "I don't want your money. It would do me little good. I wanted only to preserve his writings for posterity."
"It's getting late. Why don't you let me see you home?"
"This is my home."
"Surely you don't live here. This place ought to have been torn down years ago."
"You still don't understand, do you?"
"No, I ...."
Rowena raised her hand and tugged at her veil. When the black crepe fell to the ground, Monroe saw the magnificent blond curls cascading down her back. Then she lifted her head and faced him, and he saw that those curls framed a face devoid of flesh. Even in the shadows of late evening, he could see that the eye sockets were empty. The teeth remained, however, and were visible when the animated corpse spoke.
"Do you believe me now?" she asked quietly.
Monroe did not reply. As though a zombie himself, he turned away from the terrifying sight and walked back to his home. It would be days before he spoke again, months before he slept through the night without waking and screaming.
Monroe never revealed to anyone the identity of the woman in black. In his later years, he often wondered if Dorian Mason's doomed wife still visited her husband's grave on the anniversary of his death, but his curiosity would never lure him back to the old cemetery, for nothing would ever persuade him to look again upon the once beautiful face of Rowena Mason, which after more than half a century of living death had been reduced to a decayed skull framed by a head of flowing blond curls.
This story was inspired by reports of a mysterious stranger leaving cognac and roses on the Baltimore grave of Edgar Allan Poe each year on his birthday.
Salem is a frequent grave visitor since the cemetery is one of the few places where he's not chased away.
