The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (41 page)

'She have, sir!' persisted Margaret eagerly, now that her confession was made. 'We're all afraid, sir; but she's been worser nor the rest of us. And she says to me only this morning, "Margaret", she says, "if I see it, I'll die!"'

'What ghost, you fool?' cried George more angrily. 'A pretty set you are!—great, grown men and women, afraid of some bogie story you have heard when you were gossipping with the servants on the terrace, I suppose!'

'No, indeed, sir,' said Margaret; 'I wasn't gossippin', sir; but the parlour-maid over the way, sir—Mrs. Carmichael's parlour-maid, ma'am—she told me that there was somethin'

'I thought so!' interrupted George. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourselves not to have an ounce of brains among you.'

'But, sir!' Margaret burst out again, unheeding her master's rather uncomplimentary phrenological verdict, 'we didn't mind, sir, though we was a bit frightened, until we seen it, sir! The butler see it, and he ran, and cook ran.'

'And you ran after them?' said George, with an indignant laugh.

'I did, sir, for I saw it too—a big woman with fair hair all over her shoulders,' said Margaret, in an awestruck whisper to Harriet, who nodded her head.

The doctor looked up, gravely and without a smile. The servants clustered together near the door, and muttered in undertones. George looked at me with a forced smile, which died away in an instant:

'You are not so foolish as to credit any of this nonsense, Helen?' he said.

The servants all turned eagerly to hear their mistress's opinion. I am afraid it was written in my pallid face. Was it true? Was it what I had seen? Could there be any reality in this, that here, in our pleasant, happy home, here, beneath the roof with our helpless little ones, was a dreadful, unblessed presence—a shadowy horror; that that thing with the watchful, cruel eyes had not been a mere vision of imagination, the mere offspring of an active brain, and the unstrung nerves of an overtired frame?

'Oh! they imagined something from the stories they heard, I dare say,' I faltered.

The butler shook his head solemnly: 'I could swear to it, ma'am.'

'And so could I, ma'am!' chorused the cook and housemaid.

'Hush!' said the doctor, as the nurse, roused, at length, from her stupor, lay quietly, with closed eyes, from which the tears streamed down her face. 'Some one must sit up with her now,' said the doctor, looking around.

'I will, sir, if my mistress allows me,' said Harriet.

'Certainly, Harriet,' said I at once.

He communicated his instructions to her and took his leave, promising to call in the morning.

'Did you ever hear anything like this folly, doctor?' said George, as he shook hands with him at the head of the stairs.

'Oh! yes, sir, I often hear such stories,' said the doctor quietly, as he bade us both goodnight.

'George! what has frightened the girl? What has she seen?' I whispered, clasping my husband's arm.

'Nellie, go to bed, and don't be a goose,' was George's reply.

'George—I saw that thing—that woman, in my dressing-room,' I said, trembling, 'and oh! think if the children were to see it and be frightened like poor Mary!'

'Well, Helen,' said my husband sharply, 'if you are going to listen to ignorant servants' superstitions and run out of your house, just as we are comfortably settled in it, on account of a foolish sickly woman fainting from hearing a ghost story—I say—it is a pity you ever came into it.'

He spoke very decidedly and sternly, and yet I felt in my inmost heart that he uttered what he wished me to believe, not what he believed himself.

I said no more, but went to my bedroom—not into the dreaded dressing-room—and lay awake listening and fevered with nervous anxiety until the morning dawned.

The nurse was better and able to speak next day, though extremely weak and unnerved yet. The doctor forbade much questioning, and all that could be got from her at intervals was that something had come up the staircase and ran through the corridor, that she heard struggling and scuffling outside, and then the nursery door opened and she saw a woman's face peering in, the eyes gleaming wickedly at her, and it had the yellow hair that 'belonged to the ghost'.

'The woman has had a bad fit of nightmare—that is all, Helen,' said George, rattling his paper unconcernedly, when I repeated to him the story I had just heard from poor Mary's trembling lips.

It might be so; but why were they all agreed as to what they had seen? Why did they all speak of the tangled fair hair, and the wicked gleaming eyes? Was our house haunted? Was this the mysterious cause of the exceedingly moderate rent and the house-agent's profuse civility?

The nurse did not recover strength, and being worse than useless in her present weak, hysterical condition, I sent her down to her country home for change of air, and hired another temporarily in her place.

The newcomer was a stout, small, cheerful woman of about forty. I liked her face the moment I saw her; for, besides its smiling, honest expression, there was a good deal of decided character in the large firm features. 'You appear to be a sensible person,' I said, when giving her her first instructions in the nursery, 'and I think I can rely on you. You know my nurse is leaving because of illness, and that illness was caused by her being frightened by—a ghost-story.' I paused; but the woman remained unmoved, listening to me in respectful silence.

'The servants downstairs have got some nonsense of the kind into their heads,' I went on; 'they will try to frighten you, too, and tell you they have seen-' I could not go on. For my life I could not calmly give her the description of that shadowy image of fear.

'They cannot frighten me, ma'am,' said my new nurse quietly. 'I am not afraid of spirits.'

I thought she spoke in jest, and smiled.

'I am not indeed, ma'am,' she repeated. 'I have lived where there were such things seen, but they never harmed me.'

'You don't mean to say you believe such nonsense?' said I, hypocritically trying to speak carelessly.

'Oh yes, ma'am, I do! I could not disbelieve it,' said the nurse, opening her eyes with earnestness, 'I know the story of this house, ma'am.'

'What story?' I cried.

The woman coloured and looked confused.

'I beg your pardon, ma'am—I mean what people say is seen here.'

'What do they say? Do not frighten me,' I said, and my voice quivered in spite of me; 'I have heard nothing but what the servants said.'

The nurse looked deeply concerned.

'I am very stupid, ma'am; I beg your pardon for repeating such stories to you—I daresay it is only idle people's gossip.'

She went about her duties, and I went—not into my dressing-room—but down into the drawing-room, where I sat by the window looking out until my husband returned.

Two or three weeks more passed away without any more alarms. The summer had deepened into its longest days and hottest sunshine; the gay season had reached and passed its meridian of wealth, beauty, luxury, extravagance, success, misery, hopes, and disappointments. I had enjoyed it very much at first; but I soon wearied of it as my bodily strength weakened in the ordeal of constant excitement, late hours, hot rooms, heavy perfumed atmosphere, ices, and diaphanous ball-dresses.

'Poor Maid Marian,' George said, 'she is pining for her green wild woods.' However, by following the doctor's advice—the same whom he had summoned the night of the nurse's illness, and whom we both liked very much—and living more quietly, I was able to enjoy quiet entertainments and my favourite operas very fairly, although my red brunette cheeks had faded dismally.

'An invitation for us, Helen, I know, and that is Willesden's writing.'

It was a sultry morning at the close of June. I felt tired and languid, and it was with a bad grace I tore open the envelope lying beside the breakfast tray.

'Yes, "Colonel and Mrs. Willesden request the pleasure"-Why,

George, it is for this evening!'

'Written the day before yesterday, though—delayed somehow,' said George, reading over my shoulder. 'Well, Helen, what do you say? It is only for a quiet, friendly dinner, and I like Willesden very much.'

'No, dear,' I replied wearily. 'You can go and make apologies for me. I am tired of dinner-parties, and, besides, George is not well.'

'My dear, the young urchin is far better than yourself,' replied George, dissecting a sardine with amazing relish; 'but just as you like, Nellie. There's "Mudie's last" on the sofa-table, and perhaps it is as well you should stay quiet this evening, and amuse yourself reading it.'

But 'Mudie's last' failed to possess either interest or the power of amusing me in the long, quiet evening hours, after I had fidgeted about George whilst he was dressing, until he spoiled two white ties, and played with my darlings, and heard them lisp their prayers, and sang them asleep; after the clock had struck eight, and through the open windows the echoes of footsteps in the hot, dusty street grew fewer and fewer. No, 'Mudie's last' was a failure, as far as I was concerned; and, after a faint attempt at practising an intricate Morceau de Salon, I lay down on my pet chintz-covered couch, near the window, to look at the sky and the stars—when they came.

The house was as still as the grave, save for the far-off sound of some of the servants' voices; for I had given leave to Harriet and the housemaid for an evening out, escorted and protected by Charles— gravest and most stupid of butlers, between whom and my maid there existed tender relations, which were to be consummated by 'the goodwill of a public' from master, and a silk wedding-dress from mistress, some happy future day.

Accordingly they had donned all their finery, and set off in high glee; at least, I had heard much giggling and rustling of ribbons, and Charles's dignified cockney accents, as he opened the area gate wide for the young ladies' crinolines, and then dead silence again. Cook and the nurse were ensconced in one of the garret windows comparing notes and chatting busily, and all the lower part of the house was left to darkness and to me.

Dead silence—and the 'ting, ting' of the little French clock on the mantelpiece marked the half-hour after eight. Dear me, how dark it was growing! this brooding storm I supposed, which had been making me feel so languid and restless. I wish it would come down and cool the air—not tonight, though. Dear me, how lonely it is! I wish George were home. Those women are talking very loudly—I wonder nurse would—here I got drowsy, and my eyes ached looking for the stars that had not come.

In a few minutes I roused again, my maternal anxiety changing into indignation as I heard the women's voices growing louder and shriller, and some doors opened and shut violently.

What can nurse be thinking of? They will wake the children most certainly, and Georgie was so long in falling asleep—quite feverish, my own boy! I shall really reprove her very plainly. I never needed to do so before. What could she be thinking of?

Dead silence again. Well, this was lonely; I was inclined to ring for lights, and turn on all the burners in the chandelier by way of company. Then I remembered there were some wax matches in one of the drawers of a writing-tray just at hand, and thought I would light the gas myself instead of bringing the servants down—yes—but—I wanted company. It was so dark and dreary, and—and—I was afraid.

Afraid to stir—afraid to get off the couch on which I was lying— afraid to look at the door! a numbing, chilling tide of icy fear ebbing through every vein—afraid to draw a breath—afraid to move hand or foot, in a nightmare of supernatural terror. At last, by a violent effort, I sprang at the bell-handle, and pulled it frantically, and as soon as I had done so, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my childish cowardice, although I could not have helped it, and it had overcome me as suddenly as unexpectedly. How George would have laughed at me!

There were those servants talking again, tramping about and banging the doors as before. Really, this was unbearable; cook must be in one of her fits of temper, and certainly had forgotten herself strangely.

And, as the quarrelsome tones grew louder and louder—evidently in bitter recrimination, although I could not catch a word—my own anger rose proportionately, and, forgetting loneliness and darkness in my indignant anxiety lest my children should be waked by this most unseemly behaviour of the servants, I ran hastily out of the room and up the wide staircase.

The dim light from the clouded evening sky, still further subdued by the gold and purple-stained glass of the conservatory door, streamed faintly down the steps from the first landing, and by it, just as I had ascended half way, I discovered the short, thick-set figure of the nurse rushing down—of course, in answer to my ring, I supposed.

Involuntarily I stepped aside to avoid coming in violent contact with her as she fled past. No, it was not the nurse; and the woman following her in headlong haste, sweeping by me so that the current of air from their floating dresses struck icily cold on my brow where the clammy dew of perspiration had started in great drops, was—was-Merciful Heavens! What was that tall figure, with the coarse, disordered, yellow hair, the white face, and glittering, steel-blue eyes, that glinted fiendishly on me for one dreadful instant, and then vanished? Vanished as the pursued and pursuing figures had vanished in the shadows of the wide, lofty hall, without sound of voice or footstep?