menu_book Chapter 15

part fifteen of ghosts and family legends a volume for christmas by katherine crow this librivox recording is in the public domain part fifteen legends of the earth-bound my friend's story i don't know how often you have promised to tell me a remarkable thing in the ghostly line that happened to yourself said i the other day to my friend but something has always come in the way now i shall be very much obliged to you for the particulars if you have no objection to my printing the story None, she said, but as regards names of persons and places, the circumstances are so singular that I think they deserve to be recorded. That part of the affair which happened to myself I vouch for, and I can only say that I have most entire confidence in the truth of the rest,

and that all the inquiries I made tended to confirm the story. I remember your asking me once why I so seldom visited our place at Est, and I told you it was because it was so dreadfully triste that I could not inhabit it. You will perhaps suppose that what I am going to relate happened there, but it did not, for the house has not even the recommendation of being haunted. That would at least give it an interest, but I am sorry to say the sole interest it possesses

is that it happened to be ours though as it is however we lived there shortly after i was married for some time i had no children then which made it all the duller particularly when my husband was called away and on one of these occasions some acquaintances i had who were living at a place called the belfry about two miles distant invited me to visit them for a few days the belfry is a commonplace square house just such as the doctor or lawyer would inhabit in a provincial town a little white swing gate a round grass plot with a few straggling dahlias a gravel road leading to the small portico and a terrible loud bell to ring when you want to be admitted so much for the exterior the interior is not at all more suggestive to the fancy on the ground floor there is the usual parlor on one side and drawing-room on the other with a long passage leading to the offices at the back upstairs a sort of corridor with dingy bedrooms opening into it decidedly not lively but perfectly prosaic it was by no means calculated to inspire ghostly terrors

and indeed i must confess the supernatural as it is called was a subject that at that time had never engaged my attention i mention all this to show you that what happened was not the offspring of my excited imagination as the learned always tell you these things are moreover i was young and to the best of my belief in very good health the room they gave me was the best it was plainly but comfortably furnished with a large four-post bed and it looked into the churchyard but this is not an uncommon prospect in country towns and i thought nothing about it now that we understand these things better i should think it not ghostly but unhealthy the first two or three nights i slept there nothing particular occurred but on the fourth or fifth night soon after i had fallen asleep i was awoke by a noise which appeared very near me and on listening attentively i heard a rustling sound and footsteps on the floor i forgot for the moment that i had locked my door and concluding it was the housekeeper who sometimes looked in when i was going to bed to ask if i was comfortable i said is that you mrs h but there was no answer upon which i sat up and looked around and seeing nobody, though I heard the sound still, I jumped out of bed. Then I observed,

for it was a bright moonlit night, that there was a large tree in the churchyard, which grew very close to the window, and I concluded that a breeze had arisen, and caused the branches to touch the glass. So I got into bed again quite satisfied, and settled myself to sleep. But scarcely had I closed my eyes when the footsteps began again, much too distinct this time to be mistaken for anything else, and whilst I was listening in

amazement I heard a heavy, heavy sigh. I had raised myself on my elbow in order to have my ears freer to listen, and presently I saw the curtains at the foot of the bed, which were closed, slowly and gently opened. I saw no figure, but they were held apart, apparently by the two hands of someone standing there. I bounded out of bed and rushed out of the room into the corridor, screaming for help. All who heard me got up and came out of their rooms to inquire what

had happened. But I had not courage to tell the truth. I was afraid of giving offence or incurring ridicule, and I said I had been awakened by a noise in my room, and I was afraid somebody was concealed there. They went in with me and searched. Of course nobody was found, and one suggested that it was a mouse, another that it was a dream, and so forth. But then, and still more the next morning, I fancied from their manner they were better acquainted

with my midnight visitor than they chose to say. However, I changed my room, and soon after quitted the belfry, which I have never slept at since, so there concludes the story, so far as I am concerned, but there is a sequel to the tale. I must tell you that I never mentioned these circumstances because I knew I should only be laughed at. Besides, I thought it might annoy my hosts as they had an idea of going abroad for some time, and it might have interfered with their

letting the house. Now to my sequel. Two or three years after this occurrence, I fell desperately ill. First I was confined of an infant which did not survive, and then I was attacked with typhus fever which raged in the neighborhood. I was at death's door for eleven weeks and not expected to recover. But, you see, I did, non obstant mesurs les médecins. But I was so long regaining my strength that I was recommended to try the effects of a sea voyage. Even then I could not sit up,

and was lifted about like a baby, and as a fine lady's maid would have been of no use on board the yacht, a sailor's daughter from the coast was engaged to attend me, a strong, healthy young woman to whom my weight was a feather. She tended me most faithfully, and I found her simple, truthful, and straightforward, insomuch that I had thoughts of engaging her in my service permanently. With this view, and also because it helped to pass the time, I questioned her about

her family and the manner of life of her class in the out-of-the-way part of the country from which she came. I suppose, Mary, you've never been away from home before? Oh, yes, ma'am, I was in service as housemaid for a short time at the Belfry, not far from your place, ma'am, but I soon left that, and I have never been out again. But why did you leave? Didn't you like the place?

No, ma'am. But why? Perhaps you'd too much to do? No, ma'am, it wasn't a hard place, but unpleasant things happened, and so I left. What sort of unpleasant things, said I, my own adventure there suddenly recurring to my memory. She hesitated and said that perhaps it would alarm me

she had also made a sort of promise to her master and mistress not to talk about it, and she never had mentioned what happened except to her parents in order to account for leaving so suddenly. I assured her that I should not be alarmed and overcame her scruples, and then she told me what follows. It appeared that she was engaged as housemaid at the Belfry about two years before my visit there. Shortly after her arrival, her mistress being taken very

unwell, her master went to sleep at the other side of the house, whilst Mary made her bed in the dressing-room in order to be near at hand if the invalid required any assistance in the night. She had directions to keep some refreshment ready, in case it was wanted, and towards two o'clock in the morning, her mistress saying she should like a little broth, Mary rose, and half dressed, proceeded downstairs with a candle in her hand to fetch some which she had left simmering

on the kitchen fire. As she descended the last flight of stairs she was a good deal startled at seeing a bright light issuing from the kitchen, the door of which was open, much brighter than could possibly proceed from the fire, for the whole passage was illuminated by it. Her first and very natural idea was that there were thieves in the house, and she was about to rush upstairs again to her master's room, when it occurred to her that one of the servants might be sitting

up for some object of her own, and she stopped to listen, but there was not the least sound, all was silent. It then occurred to her that possibly something might have caught fire, so half frightened she advanced on tiptoe and peeped in, when, to her surprise, she saw a lady dressed in white, sitting by the fire, into which she was sadly and thoughtfully gazing. Her hands were clasped upon her knees, and two large greyhounds—beautiful dogs, said Mary—sat

at her feet, both looking up fondly in her face. Her dress seemed to be of cambric or dimity, and from Mary's description was that worn by ladies in the seventeenth century. The kitchen was as bright as if illuminated by twenty candles, but this did not strike her, she said, till afterwards. So quite reassured by the appearance of a lady instead of a band of robbers, it did not occur to her to question who she was or how she came there, and saying,

I beg your pardon, ma'am, she entered the kitchen, dropped a curtsy, and was going towards the fire, but as she advanced the vision retreated till at last lady chair and dogs glided through the closed window and then the figure appeared standing erect in the garden with its face close to the panes and the eyes looking sorrowfully and earnestly on poor mary and what did you do then mary said i oh ma'am then i fared to feel very queer and i fell upon the floor with a scream her master heard the cry and came down to see what was the matter when she told him what she had seen he endeavored to persuade her it was all fancy but mary said she knew better than that however she promised not to talk of it as it might frighten her sick mistress subsequently she met the same melancholy apparition pacing the corridor into which the room that i had slept in opened and not liking these rencontres she gave warning and left the place place. She knew nothing more, for her home was at some distance from the belfry, which she had not since visited, and when I had recovered my health, and returned to that

part of the country, I found on inquiry that this apparition was believed to haunt not only the house but the neighborhood, and I conversed with several people, who affirmed they had seen her generally alone, but sometimes accompanied by the two dogs. One woman said she had no fear, and that she had determined if she met the ghost to try and touch her, in order to ascertain if it was positively an apparition. She did meet her in the dusk of the

evening on the path that runs by the high road between the belfry and G, and put out her arm to take hold of her dress. She felt no substance, but she described the sensation as if she had plunged her hand into cold water. Another person saw her go through the hedge, and he observed that he could see the hedge through the figure as she glided into the field. It is whispered that this unfortunate lady was an ancestress of the original proprietor of the place,

who married a man she adored, contrary to the advice of her friends, and too late she discovered that he had taken her only for her money, which was needed to repair his ruined fortunes. He, the while being deeply enamored of her younger sister, whose portion was too small for his purpose. The sister came to live with the newly married couple, and suspecting nothing, the bride was sometime wholly unable to account for her husband's mysterious conduct and total

alienation. At length she awakened to the dreadful reality, but unable to overcome her passion, she continued to live under his roof, suffering all the tortures of jealousy and disappointed love. She shunned the world, and the world, who soon learnt the state of affairs, shunned her husband's society. So she dragged on her dreary existence with no companionship but that of two remarkable fine greyhounds, which her husband had given her before marriage.

Riding or walking, she was always accompanied by these animals. They and their affection were all she could call her own on earth. She died young, not without some suspicion that her end was hastened, at least passively by neglect, if not by more active means. When she was gone, the husband and the sister married, but the tradition runs that the union was anything but blessed. It is said that on the wedding night, immediately after her attendant had left her,

screams were heard proceeding from the bridal chamber, and that on going upstairs the bride was found in hysterics, and the groom pale and apparently horror-stricken. After a little while they desired to be left alone, but in the morning it was evident that no heads had pressed the pillows. They had passed the night without going to bed, and the next day they left their home, she never to return. She is supposed to have gone out of her mind and to have died abroad in that

state, carefully tended by him to the last. After her decease he returned once to the belfry, a prematurely aged melancholy man, and after staying a few days and destroying several letters and papers, to do which appeared the object of his visit, he went away and was seen no more in that county. Alas, for poor human nature, how we are cursed in the realization of our own wishes, how we struggle and sin to attain what we are never to enjoy.