In the Wrong Paradise and Other Stories | ||
THE HOUSE OF STRANGE STORIES.
The House of Strange Stories, as I prefer to call it (though it is not known by that name in the county), seems the very place for a ghost. Yet, though so many peoples have dwelt upon its site and in its chambers, though the ancient Elizabethan oak, and all the queer tables and chairs that a dozen generations have bequeathed, might well be tenanted by ancestral spirits, and disturbed by rappings, it is a curious fact that there is not a ghost in the House of Strange Stories. On my earliest visit to this mansion, I was disturbed, I own, by a not unpleasing expectancy. There must, one argued, be a shadowy lady in green in the bedroom, or, just as one was falling
“Does the priest of your ‘priest-hole’ walk?” I asked the squire one winter evening in the House of Strange Stories.
Darkness had come to the rescue of the pheasants about four in the afternoon, and all of us, men and women, were sitting at afternoon tea in the firelit study, drowsily
“No,” said the squire, “even the priest does not walk. Somehow very few of the Jesuits have left ghosts in country houses. They are just the customers you would expect to ‘walk,’ but they don't.”
There is, to be sure, one priestly ghost-story, which you may or may not know, and I tell it here, though I don't believe it, just as I heard it from the Bishop of Dunchester himself. According to this most affable and distinguished prelate, now no more, he once arrived in a large country house shortly before dinner-time; he was led to his chamber, he dressed, and went downstairs. Not knowing the plan of the house, he found his way into the library, a chamber lined with the books of many studious generations. Here the learned bishop remained for a few minutes, when the gong sounded for dinner, and a domestic, entering the apartment showed the prelate the way to the drawing-room, where the other guests were now assembled. The bishop, when the company appeared
“What ecclesiastic?” asked his lordship.
“The priest,” replied the bishop, “whom I met in the library.”
Upon this Lord Birkenhead's countenance changed somewhat, and, with a casual remark, he put the question by. After dinner, when the ladies had left the men to their wine, Lord Birkenhead showed some curiosity as to “the ecclesiastic,” and learned that he had seemed somewhat shy and stiff, yet had the air of a man just about to enter into conversation.
“At that moment,” said the bishop, “I was summoned to the drawing-room, and did not at first notice that my friend the priest had not followed me. He had an interesting and careworn face,” added the bishop.
“You have certainly seen the family ghost,” said Lord Birkenhead; “he only haunts the library, where, as you may imagine, his retirement is but seldom disturbed.” And, indeed, the habits of the great, in England, are not studious, as a rule.
“Then I must return, Lord Birkenhead, to your library,” said the bishop, “and that without delay, for this appears to be a matter in which the services of one of the higher clergy, however unworthy, may prove of incalculable benefit.”
“If I could only hope,” answered Lord Birkenhead (who was a Catholic) with a deep sigh, “that his reverence would recognize Anglican orders!“
The bishop was now, as may be fancied, on his mettle, and without further parley, retired to the library. The rest of the men awaited his return, and beguiled the moments of expectation with princely havannas.
In about half an hour the bishop reappeared, and a close observer might have detected a shade of paleness on his apostolic features, yet his face was radiant like that of a good man who has performed a good action. Being implored to relieve the anxiety of the company, the worthy prelate spoke as follows:
“On entering the library, which was illuminated by a single lamp, I found myself alone. I drew a chair to the fire, and, taking up a volume of M. Renan's which chanced to be lying on the table, I composed myself
“Your reasoning, bishop,” replied Lord Birkenhead, “is worthy of your reputation; but pray pardon the curiosity which entreats you to return from the simulacra of the past to the ghost of the present.”
“I had not long been occupied with M. Renan,” said the bishop, thus adjured, “when I became aware of the presence of another person in the room. I think my eyes had strayed from the volume, as I turned a page, to the table, on which I perceived the brown strong hand of a young man. Looking up, I beheld my friend the priest, who was indeed a man of some twenty-seven years of age, with a frank and open, though somewhat careworn, aspect. I at once rose, and asked if
“‘You can, indeed, my lord, relieve me of a great burden,’ said the young man, and it was apparent enough that he did acknowledge the validity of Anglican orders. ‘Will you kindly take from the shelf that volume of Cicero “De Officiis,” he said, pointing to a copy of an Elzevir variorum edition,—not the small duodecimo Elzevir,—’remove the paper you will find there, and burn it in the fire on the hearth.‘
“‘Certainly I will do as you say, but will you reward me by explaining the reason of your request?’
“‘In me,’ said the appearance, ’you behold Francis Wilton, priest. I was born in 1657, and, after adventures and an education with which I need not trouble you, found myself here as chaplain to the family of the Lord Birkenhead of the period. It chanced one day that I heard in confession, from the lips of Lady Birkenhead, a tale so strange, moving, and, but for the sacred circumstances of the revelation, so incredible, that my soul
“I rose (for I had seated myself during his narrative), my heart was stirred with pity; I took down the Cicero, and lit on a sheet of yellow paper covered with faded manuscript, which, of course, I did not read. I turned to the hearth, tossed on the fire the sere old paper, which blazed at once, and then, hearing the words pax vobiscum, I looked round. But I was alone. After a few minutes, devoted to private ejaculations, I returned to the dining-room; and that is all my story. Your maids need no longer dread the ghost of the library. He is released.”
“Will any one take any more wine?” asked Lord Birkenhead, in tones of deep emotion. “No? Then suppose we join the ladies.”
“Well,” said one of the ladies, the Girton girl, when the squire had finished the prelate's narrative, “I don't call that much of a story. What was Lady Birkenhead's confession about? That's what one really wants to know.”
“The bishop could not possibly have read the paper,” said the Bachelor of Arts, one of the guests; “not as a gentleman, nor a bishop.”
“I wish I had had the chance,” said the Girton girl.
“Perhaps the confession was in Latin,” said the Bachelor of Arts.
The Girton girl disdained to reply to this unworthy sneer.
“I have often observed,” she said in a reflective voice, “that the most authentic and best attested bogies don't come to very much. They appear in a desultory manner, without any context, so to speak, and, like other difficulties, require a context to clear up their meaning.”
These efforts of the Girton girl to apply the methods of philology to spectres, were received in silence. The women did not understand them, though they had a strong personal opinion about their learned author.
“The only ghost I ever came across, or, rather, came within measurable distance of, never appeared at all so far as one knew.”
“Miss Lebas has a story,” said the squire, “Won't she tell us her story?”
The ladies murmured, “Do, please.”
“It really cannot be called a ghost-story,” remarked Miss Lebas, “it was only an uncomfortable kind of coincidence, and I never think of it without a shudder. But I know there is not any reason at all why it
“It was the Long Vacation before last,” said the Girton girl, “and I went on a reading-party to Bantry Bay, with Wyndham and Toole of Somerville, and Clare of Lady Margaret's. Leighton coached us.”
“Dear me! With all these young men, my dear?” asked the maiden aunt.
“They were all women of my year, except Miss Leighton of Newnham, who was our coach,” answered the Girton girl composedly.
“Dear me! I beg your pardon for interrupting you,” said the maiden aunt.
“Well, term-time was drawing near, and Bantry Bay was getting pretty cold, when I received an invitation from Lady Garryowen to stay with them at Dundellan on my way south. They were two very dear, old, hospitable Irish ladies, the last of their race, Lady Garryowen and her sister, Miss Patty. They were so hospitable that, though I did not know it, Dundellan was quite full when I reached it, overflowing with young people. The house has nothing very remarkable about it: a grey, plain building, with remains of the chateau about it, and a high
“When I arrived the house was so full that there was literally no room for me. But ‘Dundellan was never beaten yet,’ the old ladies had said. There was still the room in the tower. But this room had such an evil reputation for being ‘haunted’ that the servants could hardly be got to go near it, at least after dark, and the dear old ladies never dreamed of sending any of their guests to pass a bad night in a place with a bad name. Miss Patty, who had the courage of a Bayard, did not think twice. She went herself to sleep in the haunted tower, and left her room to me. And when the old nurse went to call her in the morning, she could
There was a little silence after the Girton girl's story.
“I never heard before in my life,” said the maiden aunt, at last, “of any host or hostess who took the haunted room themselves, when the house happened to be full. They always send the stranger within their gates to it, and then pretend to be vastly surprised when he does not have a good night. I had several bad nights myself once. In Ireland too.”
“Tell us all about it, Judy,” said her brother, the squire.
“No,” murmured the maiden aunt. “You would only laugh at me. There was no ghost. I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. I didn't even smell anything, as they do in that horrid book, ‘The Haunted Hotel.’“
“Then why had you such bad nights?”
“Oh, I felt” said the maiden aunt, with a little shudder.
“What did you feel, Aunt Judy?”
“I know you will laugh,” said the maiden aunt, abruptly entering on her nervous narrative. “I felt all the time as if somebody was looking through the window. Now, you know, there couldn't be anybody. It was in an Irish country house where I had just arrived, and my room was on the second floor. The window was old-fashioned and narrow, with a deep recess. As soon as I went to bed, my dears, I felt that some one was looking through the window, and meant to come in. I got up, and bolted the window, though I knew it was impossible for anybody to climb up there, and I drew the curtains, but I could not fall asleep. If ever I began to dose, I would waken with a start, and turn and look in the direction of the window. I did not sleep all night, and next night, though I was dreadfully tired, it was just the same thing. So I had to take my hostess into my confidence, though it was extremely disagreeable, my dears, to seem so foolish. I only told her that I thought the air, or something,
The story of the maiden aunt, so far as it recounted her own experience, did not contain anything to which the judicial faculties of the mind refused assent. Probably the Bachelor of Arts felt that something a good deal more unusual was wanted, for he instantly started,
“I also was staying,” said the Bachelor of Arts, “at the home of my friends, the aristocracy in Scotland. The name of the house, and the precise rank in the peerage of my illustrious host, it is not necessary for me to give. All, however, who know those more than feudal and baronial halls, are aware that the front of the castle looks forth on a somewhat narrow drive, bordered by black and funereal pines. On the night of my arrival at the castle, although I went late to bed, I did not feel at all sleepy. Something, perhaps, in the mountain air, or in the vicissitudes of baccarat, may have banished slumber. I had been in luck, and a pile of sovereigns and notes lay, in agreeable confusion, on my dressing-table. My feverish blood declined to be tranquillized, and at last I drew up the blind, threw open the latticed window, and looked out on the drive and the pine-wood. The faint and silvery blue of dawn was just wakening in the sky, and a setting moon hung, with a peculiarly ominous and wasted appearance, above the crests of the forest. But conceive my astonish-
I exhausted my ingenuity in conjectures as to the presence of this remarkable vehicle with the white horses, so unusual, though, when one thinks of it, so appropriate to the chariot of Death. Could some belated visitor have arrived in a hearse, like the lady in Miss Ferrier's novel? Could one of the domestics have expired, and was it the intention of my host to have the body thus honourably removed without casting a gloom over his guests?
Wild as these hypotheses appeared, I could think of nothing better, and was just about to leave the window, and retire to bed, when the driver of the strange carriage, who had hitherto sat motionless, turned, and looked me full in the face. Never shall I forget the appearance of this man, whose sallow countenance, close-shaven dark chin, and small, black moustache, combined with I know not what of martial in his air, struck
“Next morning, feeling far from refreshed, I arrived among the latest at a breakfast which was a desultory and movable feast. Almost all the men had gone forth to hill, forest, or river, in pursuit of the furred, finned, or feathered denizens of the wilds—“
“You speak,” interrupted the schoolboy, “like a printed book! I like to hear you
The Bachelor of Arts “drove on,” without noticing this interruption. “I tried to ‘lead up’ to the hearse,” he said, “in conversation with the young ladies of the castle. I endeavoured to assume the languid and preoccupied air of the guest who, in ghost-stories, has had a bad night with the family spectre. I drew the conversation to the topic of apparitions, and even to warnings of death. I knew that every family worthy of the name has its omen: the Oxenhams a white bird, another house a brass band, whose airy music is poured forth by invisible performers, and so on. Of course I expected some one to cry, ‘Oh, we've got a hearse with white horses,’ for that is the kind of heirloom an ancient house regards with complacent pride. But nobody offered any remarks on the local omen, and even when I drew near the topic of hearses, one of the girls, my cousin, merely quoted, ’Speak not like a death's-head, good Doll’ (my name is Adolphus), and asked me to play at lawn-tennis.
In the evening, in the smoking-room, it was no better, nobody had ever heard of
Here the Bachelor of Arts paused, and a shower of chaff began.
“Is that really all?” asked the Girton girl.
“Why, this is the third ghost-story to-night without any ghost in it!“
“I don't remember saying that it was a ghost-story,” replied the Bachelor of Arts; “but I thought a little anecdote of a mere ‘warning’ might not be unwelcome.”
“But where does the warning come in?” asked the schoolboy.
“That's just what I was arriving at,” replied the narrator, “when I was interrupted with as little ceremony as if I had been Mr. Gladstone in the middle of a most important speech. I was going to say that, in the Easter Vacation after my visit to the castle, I went over to Paris with a friend, a fellow of my college. We drove to the Hôtel d'Alsace (I believe there is no hotel of that name; if there is, I beg the spirited proprietor's pardon, and assure him that nothing personal is intended). We marched upstairs with our bags and baggage, and jolly high stairs they were. When we had removed the soil of travel from our persons, my friend called out to me, ‘I say, Jones, why shouldn't we go down by the lift.’ * ‘All right,’ said I,
“His eyes met mine, and I knew him in a moment. I had seen him once before. His sallow face, black, closely shaven chin, furtive glance, and military bearing, were the face and the glance and bearing of the driver of that awful hearse!
“In a moment—more swiftly than I can tell you—I pushed past the man, threw open the door, and just managed, by a violent effort, to drag my friend on to the landing. Then the lift rose with a sudden impulse, fell again, and rushed, with frightful velocity, to the basement of the hotel, whence we heard an appalling crash, followed by groans. We rushed downstairs, and the horrible spectacle of destruction that met our eyes I shall never forget. The unhappy porter was expiring in agony; but the warning had saved my life and my friend's.”
“I was that friend,” said I—the collector
At this moment, however, the gong for dressing sounded, and we went to our several apartments, after this emotional specimen of “Evenings at Home.”
In the Wrong Paradise and Other Stories | ||