Chapter II: Preface (2)

“‘For Heaven’s sake, Mrs. Hartley!’ he said in a semi-whisper, leaning forward in such a manner as emphasised the mysterious air he had suddenly assumed, ‘for Heaven’s sake! leave this house as quickly as you can!’

“‘There now, Arthur!’ Mrs. Hartley exclaimed, the angry expression in her eyes being replaced by a mixture of triumph and curiosity--‘There now! didn’t I tell you all along something was wrong with the place?’

“‘Drains, I suppose!’ her husband said mournfully, ‘drains or rats!--and I do hate moving.’

“‘Neither one nor the other!’ the Rev. Silas whispered. ‘No! the house is haunted.’

“At this announcement Mrs. Hartley gave a slight ejaculation of terror--an ejaculation which, reduced to its constituent parts, might be found to consist of affectation, fear, and no small amount of pleasure, the latter engendered by the glamour of something both ENIGMATICAL and FASHIONABLE.

“‘What’s it haunted by? Teapots?’ Mr. Hartley muttered with a contemptuous movement of his mouth. ‘If it’s not haunted by teapots now, it will be some day, for that new maid of yours, my dear, is always breaking them. She has smashed two since yesterday, and if you examine this one closely you will observe that the spout is already chipped.’

“Mrs. Hartley puckered her dainty brows into the most alarming frown.

“‘Really, Arthur! how mundane you are,’ she remarked loftily; then, turning to Mr. Wetherby, ‘My husband is, as you see, one of those solid individuals who believes in nothing till he sees it.’

“‘And not always then,’ Arthur murmured, gazing intently at the parson as the latter was about to pour the contents of the cream-jug into his cup. ‘Everything that appears to the eye white and sticky is not cream! Some animals have brains, even pigs--and some dairymen are frauds--most of them!’

“‘Good gracious me!’ the Rev. Silas cried hastily replacing the jug. ‘You surely don’t mean to insinuate----’

“‘He doesn’t mean anything!’ Mrs. Hartley interrupted with considerable impatience, ‘he is unusually silly this afternoon--so pray excuse him!’ and--with the regular six-months-in-Paris accent--‘revenons à nos moutons, s’il vous plait. I am anxious to hear about the ghost.’

“Mr. Wetherby looked a trifle sulky; he fought shy of sceptics, and he no longer enjoyed his tea.

“‘Now, mind I don’t ask you to believe me!’ he began, ‘although there are plenty of people in this parish who will confirm what I say; but eighty, or a hundred or so years ago, a son poisoned his father in this very house.

“‘The manner of the poisoning was quite orthodox--arsenic in apple dumplings. There have been many parallel cases, chiefly, I believe, in Liverpool.

“‘Arsenic being an irritant, causes considerable vomiting, hence the old man must have had several attacks of sickness prior to the one that terminated his existence as he was travelling downstairs to fetch a doctor. He died, it is said, in excruciating agony on the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs.’

“‘And it is his ghost that haunts the house?’ Mrs. Hartley hazarded.

“The Rev. gentleman nodded. ‘Just so,’ he said, ‘and it was this apparition, undoubtedly, that your little boy saw just now. It always appears on November 4, the anniversary of the murder, and--’ Mr. Wetherby was going to add something that, judging from the increased solemnity of his voice, would have been very impressive, when Mr. Hartley cut in: ‘Then at all events we shall have a reprieve, a year’s undisputed possession, subject to no interference on the part of the spook--Mr. Whatever’s his name.’ He laughed irreverently, ‘You certainly won’t catch me giving up this lease for any so immaterial a reason. No, thank you! I cannot get as good a bargain as this every day in the week!’

“The Rev. Silas rose to go. ‘Very well then!’ he said, bowing stiffly, ‘I could say more--but I won’t! I am sorry I have said as much. Some sceptics are never convinced! Some sceptics do not wish to be convinced! Some sceptics may be convinced, but prefer to appear unconvinced!

“‘I am no metaphysician! I will not attempt to classify YOU. I will only say, “May you never be AFRAID.”

“‘I trust Mrs. Hartley, at all events, is not a sceptic: I hope she is not a psychic! especially not a psychic in this house. I wish you good day!’

“‘He did not wish us good luck!’ Mr. Hartley explained as the door banged. ‘By Jove! I have no patience to listen to such stuff! Haunted, indeed!’

“But his wife shook her head. ‘Scepticism is one thing, and what Bobbie saw is another!’ she argued. ‘You can’t get over that, Arthur! Now, are we doing the right thing for the children in remaining here?’

“In all matters concerning her children Mrs. Hartley’s instincts were always acute--one or two of them were babies, even younger than Bobbie.

“On this occasion, however, Mr. Hartley held his own. ‘BOBBIE,’ he reasoned, ‘must have had the daymare, and even if he did see anything, no harm has come of it. You must recollect, my dear,’ he observed, ‘that I have not been doing over-well on the Stock Exchange lately; moving is a costly thing, and if I spend money in one way, I must recoup in another, which means no new dress for you and no Weston-super-Mare for the children.’

“The validity of this logic was not lost upon Mrs. Hartley. She reflected; and then with her customary adroitness gave a turn to the conversation.

* * * * *

“It was once again November, the fourth of November, and the staircase incident of a year ago now seemed remote and improbable. It was, however, uppermost in the minds of both Mr. and Mrs. Hartley, though they both pretended to have forgotten it.

“They had neither seen Mr. Wetherby again, nor had they mentioned the appearance of the ghost to anyone. It was really of so little consequence.

“It was a wet afternoon--wet and chilly, and as neither Mr. or Mrs. Hartley had any particular inducement to face the elements, they decided to stay indoors, Mrs. Hartley reclining in an easy chair before the drawing-room fire whilst her husband seated himself in like manner before a blazing hearth in the dining-room.

“They tried to read--they could not; they tried to sleep--they could not: and somehow they felt that they ought to go and look at the children--but they would not; and so they whiled away the hours in this half-hearted and wholly unsatisfactory manner.

“It seems the sudden opening of the nursery door first disturbed Mrs. Hartley, and fancying she heard someone steal gently across the landing, she called out; there was no reply, so, thinking it was fancy, she was about to settle down again when the sound of some one coughing made her heart beat quickly.

“Who could it be? Not the nurse! The nurse wouldn’t cough in such a deep and hoarse manner! nor yet Arthur; she would recognise his cough anywhere. Hark! there it was again--cough! cough! cough! just as if some one was being sick. Someone being sick! Ah! who could that someone be? who indeed? but--and fearing lest one of the children might be on the stairs, she overcame a momentary weakness and sallied forth.

“What she saw froze her with horror.

“At the top of the hall staircase was the figure of a man clad in the costume of the eighteenth century, viz., long maroon tail-coat with vest to match, knee breeches, and coarse yellow stockings. Mrs. Hartley couldn’t see his face, as he was in a recumbent position and vomiting horribly. Looking up at him from below, her eyes big with pity and wonder--not fear--was Kitty, the Hartley’s youngest child.

“Catching sight of her mother, Kitty cried, ‘Oh! mummy, do tum down! the poor man is awful ill. Do help him! I’ll tum too,’ and suiting the action to her words the little mite prepared to ascend. No sooner, however, had she set a foot on the staircase than the old man slipped, and, falling sideways, plunged through the air.

“Making sure Kitty would be hurt, and regardless of the fact that she was merely clutching at a phantom, Mrs. Hartley appears to have made frantic efforts to stay the disaster. Whether in her agitation she tried to go down the stairs too quickly, or whether in her anxiety to save her child she lost her head and simply leaped forward, it is impossible to say; she herself always declares that the stairs ‘collapsed’ under her. Anyhow, she fell, and crashing into Kitty, literally crushed the life out of her. Mr. Hartley found mother and child lying together at the foot of the stairs, and although he saw no sign of any apparition, he is no longer a sceptic.

“His wife recovered--at least, she is alive--though I am told some internal complaint--the result of the catastrophe--makes her long for death.

“Some months after Kitty’s burial, when time had to a certain extent mollified the poignancy of suffering caused by her death, Mr. Hartley received a letter of condolence from the Rev. Silas Wetherby.

“The greater portion of the epistle was simply a formal declaration of sympathy, but the concluding lines, inasmuch as they bear on the haunting, are worth repeating.

“The worthy divine wrote as follows:

“‘If you recollect, at our last meeting I gave you to understand that I had something further to tell you _re_ the occult disturbances in your late abode.

“‘You will probably treat my statement with contempt, badly concealed under cover of a pretty pasquinade, but I am prepared to run the gauntlet of your scepticism in order to relieve my conscience.

“‘What I would have told you had I not been silenced (culpably I own) by your ridicule, is this: the appearance of the sick man had always been followed by some dire calamity, whenever any attempt has been made to set even as much as one foot on the staircase during the manifestations--hence my warning to Bobbie.

“‘I cannot, of course, explain to you why a phenomenon of this sort should entail physical disaster any more than I can elucidate the mystery of the Ghost Candles of Wales, or the Banshees of Ireland, between which manifestations and the phenomena in question there is a strong analogy. But should you feel sufficiently interested in the subject to ask for further information, or even be sufficiently dubious to demand testimony, I will with pleasure provide you with an abundance of creditable corroborations both documentary and oral.’

“But Mr. Hartley was perfectly satisfied.”

THE MINERY, DEVON

THE MAN WITH THE BUCKET

Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of dead

Source of authenticity: Letter from the person who saw the ghost

Cause of haunting: Murder

HOTEL RIETZ, VIENNA.
_Feb. 10, 1908._

DEAR MR. O’DONNELL,

In reply to your inquiry as to that psychic experience I had in Devon, I will do my best to make the affair explicit, although, as you know very well, I do not pose as a scribe.

Well! it took place three years ago--June 15th, 1905--shall I ever forget the date! My friends, the Maitlands had only just taken “The Minery,” a pretty yellow stone villa, modern in every respect. It stood some few yards away from the road and was fronted by a lawn, bordered with honeysuckle, sweet-peas and Devon roses.

I tell you this to impress upon you the fact that there was positively nothing suggestive of ghosts either in the grounds or building, the latter being as unlike the orthodox haunted house as one can well imagine. If anything should have warned me it was the hesitating and half nervous manner (so unlike herself) with which Dora Maitland showed me my room.

“I do hope you will like it and be comfortable, dear!” she said as she stood for a moment on the threshold, a strangely perplexing expression in her eyes, and one which I couldn’t then interpret. “Be sure to tell us if you DON’T and we will have you moved at once.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked in unfeigned astonishment. “It is delightfully snug and sunny--a south aspect--a charming view and--oh! the most delightful of dainty furniture. Why, Dora! I should indeed be an ungrateful Sybarite if I didn’t revel in it.” And Dora forced a smile.

The hot summer days drove us into the open: we got up early and went to bed late. Being a man, and fond of cricket and fishing, you would hardly appreciate the life we led. We are women of the old school, and consequently spent all our time at home on the lawn, plying our needles, possibly at the same time chewing chocolates or discussing our favourite books; motoring and golf we left to others.

The 15th of June was warm and sultry; we had been invited to spend the evening at the adjoining vicarage; Dora had a headache, her mother was a chronic invalid, and so--willy-nilly--I went alone.

It was a stupid affair: mediocre music, still more mediocre supper--and--BRIDGE!

Fancy Bridge in a sleepy country Parsonage, fancy Bridge anywhere! I hate Bridge!

The guests were of the usual sort, prudish, prosy and plain; a widow and twins, the Miss Somebodies of Somewhere; a curate, a doctor and a lawyer! What (with the exception of the last) could be more respectable, what more dull--deadly dull?

They were all (the men, I mean) very anxious I should play cards, but for once in a way I made myself positively disagreeable--and sat--alone!

Eleven o’clock came. It was time to go! I rose with alacrity, omitting, I believe, in the intensity of joy, the formal expressions of regret.

The vicar accompanied me as far as the gates; bidding me a bland good-night, he retraced his steps with a sigh of relief. Mrs. Maitland had left a light burning in the hall. I turned it out, and taking up my candle proceeded to my bedroom and was beginning to undress when a strange thing happened.

My bedroom door (which I felt positively certain I had locked) slowly opened and a man peered in.

I can see him now--strong, regular features with piercing dark and somewhat sinister eyes that were in marked contrast to the iron-grey brows and wavy, neatly parted hair. The chin was square, the head well shaped; he was a handsome man, yet he did not please me!

I was frightened.

For some seconds he glanced furtively round the room, his eyes finally resting on the bedstead, which he regarded in a manner that made my flesh creep! Who could he be? what on earth did he want?

Terrified lest he should see me--though why it was he hadn’t done so I couldn’t for the life of me imagine--I kept shrinking backwards, backwards into the alcove where I hung my dresses, in the wild hope that they would afford me a safe hiding-place.

Presently, to my unutterable relief, he disappeared, and I heard his footsteps tiptoeing gently down the staircase.

Here then was my chance of escape! Hardly daring to breathe, I rushed frantically to the door (Heaven preserve me!--it was locked again!) and tearing it open, I made directly for the passage leading to Dora’s room.

On my way I heard a noise--a noise that fascinated and kept me still--the clanging of a bucket.

What could a man be doing with a bucket at this time of night--a bucket!--and on that staircase so daintily furnished with velvet pile?

Breathlessly I watched him ascend, his step light and springing, his head bent low, and the bucket clanging each time he mounted--clang! clang! clang!

The agony I suffered--for I could now only conclude he was either a madman or burglar--was indescribable; I dreaded above all things the act of being seen--of encountering a glance from those evil eyes.

Nearer and nearer he came! One more step, and he stood on the little lobby outside my bedroom door. What was he going to do--to enter my room or follow me?

My heart stood still; a cold sweat burst out all over me; I essayed to shriek and implore the aid of Dora; my throat dried up, my tongue stuck to the palate of my mouth--I was speechless! helpless! hopeless! Another yard, and the uncanny stranger would have me in his clutches.

At the crucial moment Heaven heard my silent prayer; he halted, I was saved! With one hand on the handle, he slowly--very slowly--opened the door, and crouching down on his hands and feet, crept quietly in, muffling the sound of the bucket.

Incongruous sight!--a man, a madman, or a burglar with a common, an every-day bucket, and in the ecstasies of salvation I gave a weak, hysterical laugh!--a madman with a bucket! and what a bucket!

After this little display of emotion, and being now in the full possession of all my motive faculties, I promptly fled, not pausing for the fraction of a second till I had reached the bedside of Dora and had shaken her to wakefulness. She listened to my story with blanched cheeks, beseeching me with terror in her eyes to make sure the door was locked and that her Bible was well in evidence.

Her fears adding to my own, for I now concluded that there was some horrible mystery attached to what I had just witnessed, I hastily scrambled into bed, and, drawing the clothes well over our heads, begged her to confide in me the secret.

“I hardly know how to explain it, Kate,” she whispered, “you will be so shocked! and I’m afraid you will blame us horribly for putting you in that room; but, to tell you the truth, we had nowhere else--at least nowhere suitable, as the ceilings and walls are sadly out of repair.

“You see, we bought this house at a very low price; it had stood empty for a good many months, was in a sad state of dilapidation, and the owner was only too glad to get rid of it.

“After we had settled in, he coolly informed us that it was reputed to be haunted; that the remains of a woman had been found under the cement of the back-kitchen floor (it is now nicely tiled), and that on the anniversary of its committal the tragedy was reported to be re-enacted in all its grim details.”

“And was she murdered in my room?” I inquired.

“It is supposed so,” Dora murmured. “There is a tell-tale stain (which nothing will efface) under the carpet--and--former tenants are reported to have seen all you have witnessed, and rather more.”

“And the murderer! what of him?” I asked, thinking with a shudder of his eyes.

“No one knows anything!” Dora whispered, edging closer to me as we heard a distant clang. “It is only surmised he was her husband--she was quite a stranger here--and--he was never caught.”

“But the bucket, what could he want with such an absurd thing as a bucket?” and as I heard it clanging from below I gave a ghastly chuckle.

“For Heaven’s sake don’t laugh!” Dora shivered. “They found that bucket--he had used it for transporting her remains!”

* * * * *

Please remember me, &c., to all.

Ever yours sincerely,
KATHLEEN M. DEAN.

THURLOW HALL,[3] NEAR EXETER

FIRE! FIRE! BRING ME FIRE!

Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of dead

Source of authenticity: First-hand evidence

[3] All names altered by request.

The following story was related to me by Miss Constance Delaunay, and is given as near as possible in her own words:

“The early spring of 1898 was, I daresay you remember, exceptionally fine--so fine, indeed, that my mother, a chronic sufferer from rheumatism, determined to remain in England instead of going, as was her custom, to the Riviera.

“We did not want, however, to stay in town, an unusually gay Christmas having given us an appetite for the country; so we sub-let our flat and took Thurlow Hall, furnished, on a three months’ lease.

“We had never been to Devon; we had heard much of its beauty; we were disappointed.

“Possibly, being of foreign extraction, I am prejudiced, but in my opinion the scenery of Devon is almost, if not quite, as inferior to that of Belgium and Switzerland as the manners of its peasants are inferior to those of the corresponding class of Continentals.

“The West Country rustics did not impress us favourably; on our arrival they welcomed us with gapes and stares and boorish grunts; not a few of them giggled, whilst others, slouching up to our boxes, read the labels and muttered disparaging things about foreigners.

“We were told it was the spirit of independence, a spirit presumably fostered by the democratic teaching of the board school which--if it had accomplished nothing else--had effectually taught the children to be RUDE. The pretty simplicity and deferential mannerism described as characteristics of these villagers by mid-Victorian writers had become obsolete; courtseying was now regarded as _infra dig_: no one touched their hats to or moved aside for ladies, and the colloquial ‘sir’ and ‘mam’ had long since given place to a familiar and condescending ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ as the case might be.

“In Cornwall, we were informed, the manners of the people are even worse, and if that is a fact, one can hardly believe it possible, I am quite certain we shall never cross the Tamar.

“Fortunately we had taken two of our favourite servants with us, namely, Marie and Eugenie--the latter my mother’s own maid, a capable person who could turn her hand to anything, the former a clever little cook we had imported from our own country. But for this foresight on my part, I do not know how my mother could have managed to exist.

“She is even more fastidious than I. She cannot bear anything coarse or uncouth--in comparison a local servant would have made purgatory seem pleasant.

“I am afraid you will conclude we are rather hard to please: perhaps we are somewhat exacting, but we cannot help it; we are women of the old school, may I add, of gentle birth, who claim to the full all the privileges of our sex and station; besides we offered a good sum for the house: we expected to be treated fairly.

“According to the advertisement, ‘The Hall’ was furnished: it was, in reality, nothing of the sort. Can any house in which there is neither bookcase nor bathroom be said to be furnished? Though standing alone on a fairly large piece of ground--I cannot truthfully say a garden--it might well have been called semi-detached, for we searched in it in vain to find a whole piece of furniture.

“Marie and Eugenie are smart young women: they pride themselves on being slim and elegant. Imagine then their disgust when the kitchen chairs actually collapsed under them.

“I, too, had a grievance. Without conceit I may say that it is not in my nature to be clumsy. How was it then that I broke three cups, a saucer, and a cream-jug within the short space of half an hour? The reason was obvious enough! The cups were all cracked, the saucers damaged, and the jugs should have been labelled ‘beware of the handle.’ Even moderately disfigured china is my mother’s pet aversion. How she suffered under these circumstances I will not attempt to describe.

“But the plate! I have heard of gold plate, silver plate, copper plate, brass plate, and electro plate, but with none of these could I associate this mongrel species, these odds and ends we were called upon to use. It was, indeed, an enigma, and I hate enigmas, especially when they are not worth the trouble of solving. Luckily, substitutes were easily obtainable. I wired for a complete supply of plate from home, after which the motley crew of hirelings were no longer in evidence.

“And the carpets! I have always thought such luxuries, even the most costly, a doubtful blessing; these were undoubtedly an unmixed evil. Fortunately, we were able to dispense with them. The floors underneath were of polished oak, and with these we were greatly taken. True, we were somewhat puzzled to account for certain irregularities in the boards, but, on the whole, I think we should have been more astonished had we found them intact.

“Could we, by any means, make the place tenantable? Marie and Eugenie are brave and forgiving girls! In spite of their recent adventure--they had never been so insulted in their lives--they thought it possible; mother and I were doubtful.

“We hired all the furniture there was to be hired from the village, we engaged by the day the only prepossessing and respectable woman it contained, and we tried to settle down and pretend we enjoyed it. From the beginning it was a fiasco--we were miserable! and to add to our distress, or rather, to fill to overflowing our cup of misfortune, the weather became miserable, too; it began to rain.

“What was there to hope for now? Nothing! What was there to do now? Nothing! Nothing but sit at the window and gaze at the dreary lawn, shut off from the road by a hideous wall, or to flit about from room to room wringing one’s hands like a distracted phantom.

“A phantom! I did not believe in phantoms when I came to Thurlow; I treated the Unknown with the blind levity of a Voltaire; I was inconsequently sceptical; I had been born psychic.

“Though I was sublimely unconscious of it, the dawn of my awakening was at hand.

“Though the house was undesirable in so many ways--cold, bare, comfortless, dilapidated--it was not without interest. It was old--old with the antiquity of two or more centuries--and age is always interesting.

“There were rooms in it, narrow, rectangular rooms darkened by Virginian creeper that dropped their crimson foliage over diamond panes, rooms the very air of which seemed charged with the shades of old-world wits and _savants_.

“In my imagination the house had once been a school: the severity of the walls, the coldness of their neat yellow stones suggested it; I even went so far as to fancy I could discern ink-stains on the skirting-boards; and who but schoolboys ever desecrate a floor with ink-stains?

“The predominating feature in the house was undoubtedly the staircase.

“It was the first thing one noticed on entering; there was no escaping it. Confronting the door in the very middle of the hall, it stood there like some grey and massive sentinel--and barred the way. One wondered how it had ever got there, it was so disproportionately large for the house. It was masterful, aggressive, FASCINATING (Marie declared ‘there was no getting away from it--that it LIVED’)--and--it was made of STONE. There was no doubt about it now ‘The Hall’ had indeed been a school; would any one but a pedagogue have a stone staircase? Eugh! my mother felt a twinge of rheumatism the moment she set eyes on it.

“It was curiously wanting in proportion; consisting of barely a dozen steps, it was most uncomfortably steep and of a most unnecessary width. I compared it with some strange, squatting animal--a comparison that grew on me the longer I remained in the house.

“At the top of the staircase was a gallery, protected by high rails, which I discovered connected the used and disused portions of the house. In the latter there were some rooms we did not care to inhabit; there were a few we were even unable to explore--they were locked.

“I felt no curiosity about them; they were certain to be both commonplace, prosaic and dusty: every time I passed them I smelt dust--and I cannot endure a particle of dust. If I had believed any of them to be a library, I might have been tempted to pick the lock; I am passionately fond of books--that is to say, of some books--when I am exiled in the country and it is always raining.

“I was in search of a book which I had laid down somewhere, when I crossed the hall one afternoon, and left my mother dozing in a big armchair before the drawing-room fire.

“Marie said she had seen it on the oak settle; most likely, for I often took my book and lounged on it. You see I had grown fond of the oak settle naturally, for it was the only piece of furniture in that monster house that stirred in me any friendly feeling whatever. But Marie must have been dreaming, it was certainly not there. I would have called to Marie to come and help me search for it, had I not remembered that she and Eugenie had gone into the village to do a little shopping on their own account. They laugh in their grandest manner at those ‘silly little shops,’ but with a true woman’s instinct they cannot resist ‘buying.’

“I felt indignant, provoked, angry! never had I wanted to read so much and never had I been at such a loss to find a book.

“Oh! I recollected there was one upstairs--an ancient and musty edition of ‘Eugene Aram’--(proof positive, this, that the place was once a school; would any one save a schoolmaster read ‘Eugene Aram’)? I had seen it lying on the floor of a disused cupboard--alone and forsaken: a solitary relic of the Academical bookshelf.

“Were I in a library, ‘Eugene Aram’ would probably be the last book I would choose to read; Lytton’s tales are horrible; I abominate horrors. I thought of the staircase, I glanced at it; it was really very dark. I shuddered!

“I did not understand why I shuddered, unless it was on account of a draught! Of course, a draught. The house was full of draughts. The hour was late, the afternoon was cold, it was March, and undoubtedly a door was open somewhere; the book was not worth the trouble, I was over-tired, I would return to my mother. This I was actually preparing to do when the sudden appearance of a light made me pause--it came from the disused wing overhead.

“I can assure you I wanted very much to go to my mother; I would have given all I possessed to have gone to my mother; I could not: I could not stir; that light enthralled me.

“I had never seen such a light--such a queer, unaccountable light--a light that to anyone less sceptical might have seemed an ‘UNNATURAL’ Light! Perhaps it was an unnatural light--and I laughed. But what--what in the name of Heaven could it be?

“Drawing rapidly nearer and quickly assuming the appearance and proportions of a FIRE, it filled me with the most unusual, the most preposterously unusual, doubts and fears.

“And now for the first time I detected it was accompanied by incongruous though perfectly intelligible sound--the sound of someone tapping with all their might, tapping with a pair of high-heeled shoes.

“Aghast at this discovery, my perplexities increased, and I was vainly endeavouring to extricate myself from a chaotic quagmire of unpleasant thoughts, when a scream, the very intensity of which made me tremble, echoed and re-echoed throughout the house.

“‘Fire! Fire! Bring me Fire!’ These words, apparently so strangely paradoxical, were repeated with renewed vigour and anguish, the voice after each effort dying away into the most appalling and piteous wail.

“The screams were coming nearer, but before I had time to realise the tumult was so close at hand, or to fortify myself against the tableau I now had every reason to anticipate, a girl, her hair and dress a mass of lurid flames, came rushing frantically into the gallery.

“The spectacle she presented was so satanically awful that I immediately crossed myself. An indescribable thrill of terror ran through me. I felt--I KNEW--I was actually in the presence of an apparition; nothing ‘earthly’ could possibly have produced a similar or in any way equivalent effect.

“Staring at me through the yellow inferno of flames was a woman’s face that, despite its horribly contorted features, was amazingly and uniquely beautiful, the perfect regularity of the Jewish lineaments being strikingly enhanced by the whiteness of the teeth, the blueness of the eyes.

“The latter came upon me as a further shock. Though very lovely both in their excessive length and hue, they did not match that style of face; to have done so they should have been black or brown--and their expression was repellent.

“I say repellent; I might with great accuracy say ‘hellish,’ for I saw in them the mirror of a sinful soul--of a VERY sinful soul.

“I could form no idea as to her dress, the blaze effectually hid everything save her face; but from the partial glimpse I caught of a pair of satin shoes, I surmised she was in some sort of ball-room costume. The duration of her transit, though to me an eternity, could not, I fancy, have occupied more than a very few seconds.

“Still gazing at me and beating the air with its hands, the phantom rushed shrieking onwards, disappearing with the impetus of a tornado in the inhabited portion of the house.

“I had no further ‘use’ for ‘Eugene Aram.’ I returned to my mother.

“The same phenomena was witnessed by Marie and Eugenie respectively within the next three days--on the fourth we left. Had we remained, there might have been a fatality; we were all genuinely frightened--and mother is an invalid--a very nervous invalid.

“Perhaps you feel inclined to say it was all a matter of nerves. What more likely! We were an isolated quartet of over-imaginative women! Or you might say that some story we had heard in connection with the house suggested these occult demonstrations.

“Do not be premature! We only heard a few weeks ago that ‘The Hall’ had a reputation for being haunted, and it is now several months since we left Thurlow. Our informant, a former tenant, was, we have every reason to believe, a person of indisputable veracity and common sense, in short, a person quite incapable of inventing any such story as the following which he kindly narrated for our satisfaction.

“It appears from what he told us (his MS. is still in my bureau) that Thurlow Hall once belonged to Mrs. Purvis, an old lady with one child, Charles.

“Charles was, of course, the apple of her eye; Charles ruled the house; every one must obey Mr. Charles; Mr. Charles could do nothing wrong. Nothing wrong until, in the heyday of his youth, in the season of wild oats, he unexpectedly fell in love with a Gaiety girl--Phyllis (no one remembered her other name)--and married her--and THAT was very wrong.

“His mother was indignant--FURIOUS--not with Charles, of course--but with that creature--Phyllis.

“Phyllis had inveigled him into marrying her; Phyllis would bring eternal disgrace on the family; Phyllis would run away with another man and ruin him.

“Ruin HIM--ruin Charles--and the fond mother grew despondent, very despondent, so despondent indeed that unkind neighbours said she was mad. They were wrong; the despondency was only a reaction, she suddenly cheered up, all was apparently forgiven and forgotten. Charles and Phyllis were invited to spend Christmas at Thurlow.

“They went, very naturally they went--Charles overjoyed at the prospect of displaying the Purvis estate to his charming wife.

“His mother welcomed Phyllis effusively; she made her feel thoroughly at home; she expressed an ardent desire to see her in her bridal robes.

“Phyllis consented--what else could she do? She had been a Gaiety girl! she had lived for admiration.

“Arrayed in her wedding garments she entered Mrs. Purvis’s room, surprising the old lady in the act of lighting an oil lamp--a rather ‘shaky’ old lamp filled to the brim with oil.

“Phyllis was radiant; her sole thought was of the sensation she would create at the coming Christmas festivities. Had she been less absorbed she might have noticed how the hand trembled that raised the lamp; she might even have been on her guard.

“But vanity as well as love is blind. Phyllis accepted Mrs. Purvis’s profuse expressions of admiration and delight in good faith; they were, of course, both genuine and natural; they were, moreover, her due. The bride was intent on examining herself in the mirror; her mother-in-law approached her from behind, and, bending suddenly forward, deliberately hurled the lamp on to the train of her dress. There was a loud crash--an explosion--and the wedding dress was on fire.

“No one was at hand to render assistance, Charles and the servants having been slyly inveigled out of the house, and the only response to her screams were loud peals of laughter from her now wholly insane mother-in-law.

“It was small wonder that the poor girl lost her head, and, craving water, cried in her agony, ‘Bring me fire, oh! bring me fire!’

“In that mad rush from the room along the disused corridors her one endeavour would appear to have been to reach her bedroom--perhaps she had forgotten that Charles had gone OUT--but her efforts were frustrated by the fiendish fury of the flames. The amount of oil on her dress must have made it blaze like a furnace.

“She had barely crossed the gallery into the opposite wing of the house before her scorched and smouldering limbs gave way, and falling to the ground she was speedily burned to ashes; her supreme and final agony being summed up in a despairing cry, so loud and piercing that it was even heard outside by Charles.

“Not daring to approach the house alone, Charles summoned some villagers, and keeping well in their rear, gingerly accompanied them across the lawn to the front entrance.

“There they were met by Mrs. Purvis, chuckling horribly.

“Corridors, gallery and staircase were in flames, and had it not been for the opportune arrival of the vicar the whole place would have been consumed; thanks, however, to his vigour and level-headedness the fire was eventually extinguished, and although the damage done was considerable, the bulk of the property remained unscathed.

“No trace of the unfortunate Mrs. Charles Purvis being found, the precise manner of her death for many years remained a mystery. But the erratic babblings of her mother-in-law supplied material for certain conjectures, which were afterwards confirmed by the lucid and exhaustive confession of the old lady, who regained her reason on her deathbed.

“Though a thorough restoration of the property was effected, Charles would never live at the Hall. A long series of unsatisfactory tenancies succeeded the events I have just related, and the story of a ghost has at length come to stay.

“N.B.--I have good reason for believing the house is still (August 1908) haunted; most probably this will always be the case.”

THE GUILSBOROUGH GHOST

OR A
MINUTE ACCOUNT[4] OF THE APPEARANCE OF
THE GHOST OF
JOHN CROXFORD
EXECUTED AT NORTHAMPTON, AUGUST 4, 1764
For the Murder of a Stranger
in the Parish of GUILSBOROUGH

Printed in the year 1764 and reprinted by
F. Cordeaux, Northampton, 1819

[4] The different styles of writing in the following are due to
certain alterations I have been obliged to make, the English
of the original being so involved in places as to be nearly
unintelligible.