The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (27 page)

'The next day, not being able to read with comfort, I went wandering about the place, and at length began to fit the outside and inside of the house together. It was a large and rambling edifice, parts of it very old, parts comparatively modern. I first found my own window, which looked out of the back. Below this window, on one side, there was a door. I wondered whither it led, but found it locked. At the moment James approached from the stables. "Where does this door lead?" I asked him. "I will get the key," he answered. "It is rather a queer old place. We used to like it when we were children." "There's a stair, you see," he said, as he threw the door open. "It leads up over the kitchen." I followed him up the stair. "There's a door into your room," he said, "but it's always locked now. And here's Grannie's room, as they call it, though why, I have not the least idea," he added, as he pushed open the door of an old-fashioned parlour, smelling very musty. A few old books lay on a side table. A china bowl stood beside them, with some shrivelled, scentless rose-leaves in the bottom of it. The cloth that covered the table was riddled by moths, and the spider-legged chairs were covered with dust.

'A conviction seized me that the old bureau must have belonged to this room, and I soon found the place where I judged it must have stood. But the same moment I caught sight of a portrait on the wall above the spot I had fixed upon. "By Jove!" I cried, involuntarily, "that's the very old lady I met in Russell Square!"

' "Nonsense!" said James. "Old-fashioned ladies are like babies— they all look the same. That's a very old portrait."

' "So I see," I answered. "It is like a Zucchero."

' "I don't know whose it is," he answered hurriedly, and I thought he looked a little queer.

' "Is she one of the family?" I asked.

' "They say so; but who or what she was, I don't know. You must ask Letty," he answered.

' "The more I look at it," I said, "the more I am convinced it is the same old lady."

' "Well," he returned with a laugh, "my old nurse used to say she was rather restless. But it's all nonsense."

'"That bureau in my room looks about the same date as this furniture." I remarked.

' "It used to stand just there," he answered, pointing to the space under the picture. "Well I remember with what awe we used to regard it; for they said the old lady kept her accounts at it still. We never dared touch the bundles of yellow papers in the pigeon-holes. I remember thinking Letty a very heroine once when she touched one of them with the tip of her forefinger. She had got yet more courageous by the time she had it moved into her own room."

' "Then that is your sister's room I am occupying?" I said.

'"Yes."

' "I am ashamed of keeping her out of it." ' "Oh! she'll do well enough."

' "If I were she though," I added, "I would send that bureau back to its own place."

' "What do you mean, Heywood? Do you believe every old wife's tale that ever was told?"

'"She may get a fright some day—that's all!" I replied.

'He smiled with such an evident mixture of pity and contempt that for the moment I almost disliked him; and feeling certain that Lastitia would receive any such hint in a somewhat similar manner, I did not feel inclined to offer her any advice with regard to the bureau.

'Little occurred during the rest of my visit worthy of remark. Somehow or other I did not make much progress with Laetitia. I believe I had begun to see into her character a little, and therefore did not get deeper in love as the days went on. I know I became less absorbed in her society, although I was still anxious to make myself agreeable to her—or perhaps, more properly, to give her a favourable impression of me. I do not know whether she perceived any difference in my behaviour, but I remember that I began again to remark the pinched look of her nose, and to be a little annoyed with her for always putting aside my book. At the same time, I daresay I was provoking, for I never was given to tidiness myself.

'At length Christmas Day arrived. After breakfast, the squire, James, and the two girls arranged to walk to church. Laetitia was not in the room at the moment. I excused myself on the ground of a headache, for I had had a bad night. When they left, I went up to my room, threw myself on the bed, and was soon fast asleep.

'How long I slept I do not know, but I woke again with that indescribable yet well-known sense of not being alone. The feeling was scarcely less terrible in the daylight than it had been in the darkness. With the same sudden effort as before, I sat up in the bed. There was the figure at the open bureau, in precisely the same position as on the former occasion. But I could not see it so distinctly. I rose as gently as I could, and approached it, after the first physical terror. I am not a coward. Just as I got near enough to see the account book open on the folding cover of the bureau, she started up, and, turning, revealed the face of Laetitia. She blushed crimson.

' "I beg your pardon, Mr Heywood," she said, in great confusion; "I thought you had gone to church with the rest."

' "I had lain down with a headache, and gone to sleep," I replied. "But, forgive me, Miss Hetheridge," I added, for my mind was full of the dreadful coincidence, "don't you think you would have been better at church than balancing your accounts on Christmas Day?"

'"The better day the better deed," she said, with a somewhat offended air, and turned to walk from the room.

' "Excuse me, Laetitia," I resumed, very seriously, "but I want to tell you something."

'She looked conscious. It never crossed me, that perhaps she fancied I was going to make a confession. Far other things were then in my mind. For I thought how awful it was, if she too, like the ancestral ghost, should have to do an age-long penance of haunting that bureau and those horrid figures, and I had suddenly resolved to tell her the whole story. She listened with varying complexion and face half turned aside. When I had ended, which I fear I did with something of a personal appeal, she lifted her head and looked me in the face, with just a slight curl on her thin lip, and answered me. "If I had wanted a sermon, Mr. Heywood, I should have gone to church for it. As for the ghost, I am sorry for you." So saying she walked out of the room.

'The rest of the day I did not find very merry. I pleaded my headache as an excuse for going to bed early. How I hated the room now! Next morning, immediately after breakfast, I took my leave of Lewton Grange.'

'And lost a good wife, perhaps, for the sake of a ghost, uncle!' said Janet.

'If I lost a wife at all, it was a stingy one. I should have been ashamed of her all my life long.'

'Better than a spendthrift,' said Janet.

'How do you know that?' returned her uncle. 'All the difference I see is, that the extravagant ruins the rich, and the stingy robs the poor.' 'But perhaps she repented, uncle,' said Kate. 'I don't think she did, Katey. Look here.'

Uncle Cornelius drew from the breast pocket of his coat a black-edged letter.

'I have kept up my friendship with her brother,' he said. 'All he knows about the matter is, that either we had a quarrel, or she refused me—he is not sure which. I must say for Laetitia, that she was no tattler. Well, here's a letter I had from James this very morning. I will read it to you.

My Dear Heywood—We have had a terrible shock this morning. Letty did not come down to breakfast, and Lizzie went to see if she was ill. We heard her scream, and, rushing up, there was poor Letty, sitting at the old bureau, quite dead. She had fallen forward on the desk, and her housekeeping-book was crumpled up under her. She had been so all night long, we suppose, for she was not undressed, and was quite cold. The doctors say it was disease of the heart.

'There!' said Uncle Cornie, folding up the letter. 'Do you think the ghost had anything to do with it, uncle?' asked Kate, almost under her breath.

'How should I know, my dear? Possibly.'

'It's very sad,' said Janet; 'but I don't see the good of it all. If the ghost had come to tell that she had hidden away money in some secret place in the old bureau, one would see why she had been permitted to come back. But what was the good of those accounts after they were over and done with? I don't believe in the ghost.'

'Ah, Janet, Janet! but those wretched accounts were not over and done with, you see. That is the misery of it.'

Uncle Cornelius rose without another word, bade them goodnight, and walked out into the wind.

The Shadow of a Shade

TOM HOOD

My sister Lettie has lived with me ever since I had a home of my own. She was my little housekeeper before I married. Now she is my wife's constant companion, and the 'darling auntie' of my children, who go to her for comfort, advice, and aid in all their little troubles and perplexities.

But, though she has a comfortable home, and loving hearts around her, she wears a grave, melancholy look on her face, which puzzles acquaintances and grieves friends.

A disappointment! Yes, the old story of a lost lover is the reason for Lettie's looks. She has had good offers often; but since she lost the first love of her heart she has never indulged in the happy dream of loving and being loved.

George Mason was a cousin of my wife's—a sailor by profession. He and Lettie met one another at our wedding, and fell in love at first sight. George's father had seen service before him on the great mysterious sea, and had been especially known as a good Arctic sailor, having shared in more than one expedition in search of the North Pole and the North-West Passage.

It was not a matter of surprise to me, therefore, when George volunteered to go out in the Pioneer, which was being fitted out for a cruise in search of Franklin and his missing expedition. There was a fascination about such an undertaking that I felt I could not have resisted had I been in his place. Of course, Lettie did not like the idea at all, but he silenced her by telling her that men who volunteered for Arctic search were never lost sight of, and that he should not make as much advance in his profession in a dozen years as he would in the year or so of this expedition. I cannot say that Lettie, even after this, was quite satisfied with the notion of his going, but, at all events, she did not argue against it any longer. But the grave look, which is now habitual with her, but was a rare thing in her young and happy days, passed over her face sometimes when she thought no one was looking.

My younger brother, Harry, was at this time an academy student. He was only a beginner then. Now he is pretty well known in the art world, and his pictures command fair prices. Like all beginners in art, he was full of fancies and theories. He would have been a pre-Raphaelite, only pre-Raphaelism had not been invented then. His peculiar craze was for what he styled the Venetian School. Now, it chanced that George had a fine Italian-looking head, and Harry persuaded him to sit to him for his portrait. It was a fair likeness, but a very moderate work of art. The background was so very dark, and George's naval costume so very deep in colour, that the face came out too white and staring. It was a three-quarter picture; but only one hand showed in it, leaning on the hilt of a sword. As George said, he looked much more like the commander of a Venetian galley than a modern mate.

However, the picture pleased Lettie, who did not care much about art provided the resemblance was good. So the picture was duly framed—in a tremendously heavy frame, of Harry's ordering—and hung up in the dining-room.

And now the time for George's departure was growing nearer. The Pioneer was nearly ready to sail, and her crew only waited orders. The officers grew acquainted with each other before sailing, which was an advantage. George took up very warmly with the surgeon, Vincent Grieve, and, with my permission, brought him to dinner once or twice.

'Poor chap, he has no friends nearer than the Highlands, and it's precious lonely work.'

'Bring him by all means, George! You know that any friends of yours will be welcome here.'

So Vincent Grieve came. I am bound to say I was not favourably impressed by him, and almost wished I had not consented to his coming. He was a tall, pale, fair young man, with a hard Scotch face and a cold, grey eye. There was something in his expression, too, that was unpleasant—something cruel or crafty, or both.

I considered that it was very bad taste for him to pay such marked attention to Lettie, coming, as he did, as the friend of her fiance. He kept by her constantly and anticipated George in all the little attentions which a lover delights to pay. I think George was a little put out about it, though he said nothing, attributing his friend's offence to lack of breeding.

Lettie did not like it at all. She knew that she was not to have George with her much longer, and she was anxious to have him to herself as much as possible. But as Grieve was her lover's friend she bore the infliction with the best possible patience.

The surgeon did not seem to perceive in the least that he was interfering where he had no business. He was quite self-possessed and happy, with one exception. The portrait of George seemed to annoy him. He had uttered a little impatient exclamation when he first saw it which drew my attention to him; and I noticed that he tried to avoid looking at it. At last, when dinner came, he was told to sit exactly facing the picture. He hesitated for an instant and then sat down, but almost immediately rose again.