Dead! And there was an end of the clue, if any had existed. It could be traced no farther. Probably it never will be now, since, as I have said, the man and his ward are both dead; though how she died, or where, no one will ever know save God, who looks down on every ghastly secret of this earth and suffers them to lie hidden in His hand until the Day of Judgment. Anyhow, the house is there now, empty. You may pass it any day and read the big “To Let” in sprawling letters on a card in the dining-room window. No one has ever opened the shutters in that dreary room. A rumour has got about that Number Two is haunted, and that evil sights are seen there; and the landlord cannot let it in consequence. That is why he is now threatening me with an action for libel; and if he chooses he may, of course, carry it out. In my defence I can only make a plain statement, the same that I have written here. Let anyone else make what further examination he pleases, and draw his own conclusions.
Anonymous
THE WEIRD VIOLIN
Stories of haunted antiques or other cursed objects were popular in the Victorian era, and violins in particular often figured in weird and ghostly tales, the most famous of which is J. Meade Falkner’s novel The Lost Stradivarius (1895). “The Weird Violin” originally appeared anonymously in the long-running monthly magazine Argosy in December 1893, just in time for eerie Christmas reading.
The great Polish violinist, S——, was strolling aimlessly about the town, on a sunny, but cold afternoon, in November of a certain year. He was to play, at night, at one of the great concerts which made the town so musically famous, and, according to his usual custom, he was observing passers-by, looking in shop windows, and thinking of anything rather than the approaching ordeal. Not that he was nervous, for none could be less so, but he came to his work all the fresher for an hour or two of idle forgetfulness, and astonished his audiences the more.
Turning out of the busiest street, he ambled into a comparatively quiet thoroughfare, and, throwing away an inch of cigar-end, produced a new havannah, lighting up with every sign of enjoyment. Now, it was part of his rule, when out on these refreshing excursions, to avoid music shops, and he had already passed half-a-dozen without doing more than barely recognise them. It is therefore very remarkable that, walking by a large music warehouse in this quiet thoroughfare, he should suddenly stop, and, after remaining in doubt for a few moments, go straight to the window, and look in.
He had not seen anything when he first passed, and, indeed, he had merely ascertained, out of the corner of his eye, that one of the forbidden shops was near. Why, then, did he feel impelled to return?
The window was stocked, as all such windows are, with instruments, music, and such appurtenances as resin, bows, chin-rests, mutes, strings, bridges and pegs. An old Guanerius, valued at several hundred guineas, lay alongside a shilling set of bones, and a flageolet, an ocarina, and several mouth-organs were gracefully grouped upon a gilt-edged copy of “Elijah.”
Amongst the carefully-arranged violins was a curious old instrument the like of which the virtuoso had never seen before, and at this he now stared with all his eyes. It was an ugly, squat violin, of heavy pattern, and ancient appearance. The maker, whoever he had been, had displayed considerable eccentricity throughout its manufacture, but more especially in the scroll, which, owing to some freak, he had carved into the semblance of a hideous, grinning face. There was something horribly repulsive about this strange work of art, and yet it also possessed a subtle fascination. The violinist, keeping his eyes upon the face, which seemed to follow his movements with fiendish persistency, slowly edged to the door, and entered the shop.
The attendant came forward, and recognising the well-known performer, bowed low.
“That is a curious-looking fiddle in the window,” began the artist, at once, with a wave of his hand in the direction of the fiend.
“Which one, sir?” inquired the attendant. “Oh, the one with the remarkable scroll, you mean. I’ll get it for you.” Drawing aside a little curtain, he dived into the window-bay, and produced the instrument, whose face seemed to be grinning more maliciously than ever.
“A fair tone, sir,” added the man, “but nothing to suit you, I’m sure.”
As soon as Herr S—— touched the neck of the violin he gripped it convulsively, and raised the instrument to his chin. Then, for a few moments, he stood, firm as a rock, his eyes fixed upon the awe-stricken attendant, evidently without seeing him.
“A bow,” said the musician, at length, in a low voice. He stretched out his disengaged hand and took it, without moving his eyes. Then he stopped four strings with his long fingers, and drew the horse-hair smartly over them with one rapid sweep, producing a rich chord in a minor key.
A slight shiver passed over his frame as the notes were struck, and the look of concentration upon his face, changed to one of horror; but he did not cease. Slowly drooping his gaze, the performer met the gibing glance of the scroll-face, and though his own countenance blanched, and his lips tightened, as if to suppress a cry, the bow was raised again, and the violin spoke.
Did the demon whisper to those moving, nervous fingers? It almost seemed to be doing so; and surely such a melody as came from the instrument was born of no human mind. It was slow and measured, but no solemnity was suggested; it thrilled the frame, but with terror, not delight; it was a chain of sounds, which like a sick man’s passing fancy, slipped out of the memory as soon as it was evolved, and was incapable of being recalled.
Slowly, when the last strains were lost, the great violinist dropped both arms to his side, and stood for a few moments, grasping violin and bow, without speaking. There were drops of perspiration on his forehead, and he was pale and weary-looking; when he spoke, it was in a faint voice, and he seemed to address himself to something invisible.
“I cannot endure it now,” he said. “I will play again to-night.”
“Do you wish to play on the instrument at this evening’s concert, sir?” inquired the dealer, not without some astonishment at the choice, much as the performance had affected him.
“Yes—yes, of course!” was the reply, given with some irritability, the speaker having apparently roused himself from his semi-stupor.
As the dealer took back the fiddle, he chanced to turn it back uppermost. It was a curiously marked piece of wood, a black patch spreading over a large portion, and throwing an ugly blur upon the otherwise exquisite purfling.
“See!” gasped the artist, pointing a shaking finger at this blotch, and clutching at the shopkeeper’s shoulder. “Blood!”
“Good gracious!” ejaculated the other, shrinking back in alarm. “Are you ill, sir?”
“Blood, blood!” repeated the half-demented musician, and he staggered out of the shop.
It was night, and the concert-room was crowded to excess. The performers upon the platform, accustomed as they were to such sights, could not but gaze with interest at the restless sea of eager, expectant faces which stretched before them.
That indescribable noise, a multitude of subdued murmurs, accompanied by the discordant scraping of strings, and blowing of reeds, was at its height; now and then a loud trombone would momentarily assert itself, or an oboe’s plaintive notes would rise above the tumult; and, in short, the moment of intense excitement which immediately precedes the entrance of the conductor was at hand.
Suddenly, the long-continued confusion ceased, and, for an incalculably short space of time, silence reigned. Then a storm of deafening applause burst forth; necks were craned, and eyes strained in vain attempts to catch an early glimpse of the great violinist who was to open the concert by playing a difficult Concerto of Spohr.
It was noticed, that as the virtuoso followed the grey-haired conductor to the centre of the platform, he was unusually pale; and those who were seated at no great distance from the orchestra, observed also that he carried a curious violin, instead of the Stradivarius upon which he was wont to perform.
A tap on the conductor’s desk, a short, breathless silence, and
the sweet strains of the opening bars issued from the instruments of a hundred able musicians.
The soloist, with a sinking at the heart which he could scarcely account for, raised the violin to his shoulder, and saw, for the first time, that it had been re-strung. As he invariably left stringing and tuning to others, this would appear to have been a matter of no moment, and yet it had a strange effect upon him. Again that shudder passed through his body, and again he unwillingly met the glance of those diabolical eyes upon the scroll. Horror of horrors! was the face alive, or was he going mad?
The band, which had swelled out to a loud forte, now dropped to a pianissimo. The moment had arrived. Herr S—— raised his bow, and commenced the lovely adagio.
What had come to him? Where were the concert room, the orchestra, the anxious crowd of people? What sounds were these? This was not Spohr, this sweet melody so like, and yet so unlike the weird music which he had played in the dealer’s shop. What subtle magic had so acted upon those strains that their horror, their cruel mockery had entirely vanished, and sweet, pure harmony alone remained?
It seemed to the player that he stood within a small, but comfortably furnished room. Two figures were in the room, those of a beautiful young girl, and of a dark, handsome, foreign-looking man.
There was something in the face of the latter which vividly recalled the face upon the scroll, and, strange to say, a counterpart of the violin itself rested under the man’s chin.
The girl was seated at a harpsichord, and, as she played, her companion accompanied her upon his strange instrument. From the costume of both, the dreamer concluded that they were phantoms of a hundred years ago.
“Ernestine,” the man was saying, in a low voice, as he passed his bow over the strings, “tell me to-night that you have not dismissed me for ever. I can wait for your love.”
“It is useless,” replied the girl—“oh, it is quite useless! Why importune me further? I could never love you, even if I were not already promised to another.”
A savage light gleamed in the man’s eye, and more than ever he looked like the face on the violin; but he did not immediately reply, and the music went on.
“You tell me it is useless,” he said, at length, “and I tell you that it is useless. Useless for you to think of him. Do you hear?” he continued, lowering his violin, and leaning towards her. “You shall never marry him; I swear it by my soul.”
The girl shrank from him, and the music ceased. Though he did not know it, the dreaming violinist had reached the conclusion of the adagio movement. He did not hear the deafening plaudits which greeted the fall of his bow; he knew nothing of the enthusiasm of the orchestra, or the praise of the conductor; he heard no more music.
Look! what is this? The girl has seated herself upon a couch, and her lover, his violin still in his left hand, is kneeling at her feet, passionately imploring her to listen. She expostulates for awhile, then repulses him and rises. A malignant fire darts from the furious foreigner’s eyes; something bright gleams in his hand; he rushes forward, raises his arm to strike——
The presto movement had commenced, and an extraordinary circumstance soon made itself apparent to the audience. The violinist was running away with the band. Greatly to the horror of the conductor, the tempo had to be increased until a prestissimo was reached. Still the performer was not satisfied, there seemed no limit to his powers to-night; his fingers literally flew up and down the fingerboard; his bow shot to-and-fro with incredible swiftness; and yet the music grew quicker, quicker, until the unhappy conductor, who with difficulty pulled along the toiling band, felt that a fiasco was inevitable.
On, on rushed the fingers and the bow, faster, and faster still; a few of the bandsmen fell off from sheer exhaustion, and stared, horror-stricken, at the mad violinist. Some of the listeners rose in alarm, and many were only detained, by extreme anxiety, from bursting into loud and frantic applause.
Suddenly, with the loud snap of a string, the spell was broken. The orchestra, unable now to proceed, stopped in utter confusion, and a loud sigh of released suspense went up from thousands of throats. Then the whole mass rose in sudden horror, as the violinist dropped his instrument with a crash upon the platform, stared wildly around, clasped a hand to his side, and, with a strange cry, fell to the ground insensible.
For weeks the great violinist lay between life and death; then nature reasserted herself, and he recovered. But it was long, very long, ere he could again appear in public; whilst the weird and mysterious violin never again sent forth its strange and mysterious influence. It had been hopelessly shattered in that last night of its performance, which had well-nigh proved fatal to the world-famed player.
E. Morant Cox
WALSHAM GRANGE
A Real Ghost Story
One of the lighter tales in this collection, “Walsham Grange” first appeared in the Illustrated London News Christmas Number in 1885. As readers of the first volume of our Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories series will know, such tales are about evenly divided between those featuring supernatural hauntings and those whose “ghosts” are revealed to have a rational explanation. The subtitle of this piece, “a real ghost story,” is playfully ambiguous, hinting that it contains a “real ghost,” though in fact the nature of the haunting turns more on the “real” or rational than on the ghostly. Little known today, E. Morant Cox was an illustrator of books for young readers in the late nineteenth century; this seems to be one of his few forays into fiction.
Walsham Grange—I have been requested to alter all the names—stood about six miles from the sea. A lonely, desolate old manor-house, with a bad name among the people round. Some horrible murder had been committed there in days gone by, and the house was haunted. Mudleigh was the nearest village, some three miles off, and queer tales were told by belated travellers of fearful shrieks, and strange lights flitting from room to room. It was, in fact, a regular haunted house of the old school.
Well, my great-uncle married, and wanted to settle down somewhere in the country.
“Look here, Ferriers,” said his friend Brufton, “here’s the very thing for you. Take Walsham Grange off my hands. My wife hates a country life, or I would live there myself. It seems a pity to let the old place go to wreck and ruin for want of a tenant. But no one will stay because of the nonsense about the ghosts. But you are a sensible man; and you shall have the place, grounds and all, for a mere song. And I tell you what, my boy, give a regular good Christmas party, fill the house with friends, invite us down, and we’ll find out all about the ghosts, and you can see how the place suits you.”
Ferriers was delighted at the notion; and they determined to go down together first, to see if they could discover anything before their wives and the guests arrived. They agreed to say nothing about the ghosts to anyone, especially the servants, who were to follow them as soon as possible. So off they started by the Exeter coach, having sent word to the caretakers to prepare for them.
Evening was just setting in when they reached Walsham Grange. They were delighted to find a capital repast ready for them, and were a good deal amused at the conduct of the old caretaker and his wife, who lived in a cottage hard by, and evidently dreaded staying so late in the great house, and were thankful when the time came to say “Good-night.” After the constant rumble of the coaches, the old house seemed painfully quiet. However, they chat away merrily, when “Bang!” goes a door close by. They seize candles, and rush out, pistol in hand. Yes; the drawing-room door is shut. There is no draught. What on earth can have closed it? Oh! what’s that? The door at the other end of the room is suddenly flung open. Ferriers runs up, sees something dark, and fires.
“I say, old fellow,” says Brufton, trying to laugh, “don’t do too much of that. It’s bad for the furniture. That was your shadow.”
Nothing more happened; so they persuaded themselves that it must have been the wind. And so, after a smoke and a glass of grog, they went to bed.
Next morning they thorough
ly explored the whole place, but found nothing. In due course their families and guests arrived. Not a word was said about the ghosts; but after dinner, when they were all in the drawing-room, doors were suddenly heard slamming violently. Our friends eye each other askance. And, hark! What’s that? A low wail, commencing far away at first, but gradually coming nearer and nearer, and culminating in one awful shriek! What is it? The ladies begin to scream and faint, and all the servants come rushing in, scared out of their wits. This helps to restore the scattered courage of the gentlemen; and, the last unearthly yell having died away, Ferriers proposes that the men should at once institute a search for “the miscreant, Sir, who is trying to frighten us.” All the servants are there; and their unmistakable alarm shows plainly enough that they know nothing of the mystery. “We must go at once,” says Terriers, “and discover the rascal. Ghosts? Pooh! Nonsense!” But, for all that the ladies would not be left alone. So it ended in the whole party going over the east wing, where the screams seemed to originate. The gentlemen were continually seizing each other in the gloom; and quite a struggle took place between two old gentlemen before either found out their mistake. However, this served to raise the company’s spirits; and, as nothing could be seen or heard, they readily accepted the suggestion of a footman, “Perhaps it’s cats, Sir.” And so, feeling infinitely relieved, they all went merrily to bed.
An hour or so passed away in silence; when suddenly a yell of agony rang through the house. Shriek follows shriek in close succession. The ladies in their rooms are screaming, and adding to the general uproar: then one last frightful yell, and all is still once more!
The rest of the night passes quietly enough; and at dawn the household gets a little sleep. The servants, however, give warning first thing. Everyone looks scared and shaky at breakfast; and one guest, Mrs. Ross, is quite hysterical, sends at once for a chaise, and declares she shall die if she sleeps another night in the house. And so goes away, taking the only three unmarried ladies with her. She said she was just dozing off to sleep, when a strange creaking noise aroused her. At first she thought it must be the wood fire, which was still smouldering on the hearth, when, to her awful horror, she saw a panel of the high wainscot slowly sliding down, and behind it the most frightful couple she had ever seen—a masked man and an old woman. The former softly stepped into the room. Then she saw what she had not before observed. Bending lovingly over a cradle just before the fire was a beautiful girl. She was singing a quaint little lullaby as she gently rocked the baby to sleep. Suddenly she looked round and shrieked with terror as she saw the hideous form behind her, with one hand extended towards the cradle. A moment more and they were struggling together—anything to protect her child from the man. Then he drew his dagger; but the poor girl, in her endeavour to keep him from reaching the cradle, had pushed it nearer to the open wainscot. In an instant the old hag threw herself forward, and clutched the still sleeping child, uttering as she did so a loud yell of triumph. Shriek after shriek rang from the wretched girl. Then the man struck her down with his dagger and leaped through the panel, which was closed directly after him!
The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Page 8