Count W.’s castle, the scene of the tragic events connected with the Pavlinski family, was a large and handsome building standing on a slight eminence to the west of the village. The entrance hall and other parts of the castle situated on its eastern side were of great antiquity and looked down on to it from a distance of about half a mile; the western part of the castle was of more modern construction and commanded an extensive view of the Hungarian plain.
In 1848 the direct line of the W. family had dwindled down to one representative, who was popularly known locally as ‘the wicked Count’. His reputation, however, was largely one of hearsay as far as the village was concerned and was founded chiefly on the fact that, contrary to Hungarian traditions, he had embraced in his youth the side of the Austrian Government, had gone to Vienna and had there joined the Imperial Guard. After some years’ service in the Austrian Army he had retired, and after a further stay in the metropolis had returned to W. where he lived a quiet life attended exclusively by imported Austrian servants.
His means were scanty, as the estate was much decayed and it was by no means clear whence he derived income sufficient to maintain himself at all. He was addicted to sudden and secret comings and goings and popular rumour ascribed to him the part of an Austrian secret agent, hence his local sobriquet.
In appearance Count W. was a tall, handsome man with curly dark hair and black eyes, and in 1848 was about forty-five years old. At the time of the émeute previously described he was residing at the castle, and it was greatly to the astonishment of the mob that he was not found therein, but presumably he had had warning of their coming and had escaped. What was even more singular was that he never reappeared. After that autumn afternoon in 1848 he vanished completely and some years later, his death being presumed, the estate passed to a distant relative then living in America. This gentleman did not care to leave his American interests in order to take possession of a practically bankrupt estate and accordingly selected a firm of agents in Budapest to take charge of his affairs, closed up the castle and caused caretakers to be established therein, pending the date when he might wish actually to reside in his Hungarian home. Such was the position of the castle of W. at the date of the opening of the story.
Two or three months had elapsed since the scene first described when one day old Michael, the custodian of the castle, hobbled down to Ivan’s home, which stood at the entrance to the village, in considerable distress. He himself had long been crippled with rheumatism and the bulk of the work at the castle had been performed by his old wife. He now came to explain that she had fallen down and injured her hip and that he was anxious to obtain the help of one of the village girls to look after his wife and to do what was necessary at the castle.
After some talk it was arranged that Anna should go to the help of Michael and his wife, and it was not long before she found herself installed in her new work. At first it was expected that the old woman would soon recover; but she did not do so, and Anna quickly became so indispensable that at the next visit of the Budapest agent Michael pleaded for her permanent appointment. This was arranged without undue difficulty.
Anna now became a regular resident of the castle and found plenty to occupy her in looking after the old couple and in doing a certain amount of airing and cleaning in its closed up rooms. She also began for the first time to keep a diary of her daily life, and it is upon this diary that we depend for the next portion of the story.
Matters appear to have gone on quite uneventfully until midsummer, when on the eve of the Feast of St John Anna found herself engaged in cleaning in the West Gallery, a long and noble apartment in the newer part of the castle. She had actually finished her day’s work and before going downstairs was standing by the last open window leaning against the framework and gazing dreamily out over the low Hungarian plain toward the setting sun. All was absolutely still, no air was stirring and the only sounds audible were the noises of a distant farmyard. She was about to close the window and leave the gallery, when she was startled by hearing a low sigh behind her followed by a. gentle rustle. She turned hastily, to see nothing to account for the sigh, but the rustle was easily explained by the slipping off of the covering of one of the pictures behind her. The rays of the setting sun shone full upon it and showed it to be the portrait of a tall, dark, handsome man of about forty years of age, clothed in the fashion of some thirty-five years previously.
In an instant Anna recognised the picture as being that of the visionary being she had seen in the looking glass, of which the memory had never left her. Rapt in astonishment, Anna moved nearer the picture and saw by the legend on the frame that it was the portrait of the so-called ‘wicked Count W.’ who had vanished mysteriously so many years ago. She gazed fixedly at the picture and as the declining beams of the sun shed their last glory upon it, it seemed to her that human intelligence showed itself in its painted lines; the features seemed to become endued with life and to smile upon her. As she stood before it an awful sense of an unfolding mystery took possession of her, she was filled with joy, joy at the manifestation vouchsafed to her; she was filled with fear, fear of the uncanny, of the unknown future that was spreading itself before her. At that moment she heard Michael’s voice calling from below and, hastily shutting the window, she ran downstairs. Neither then nor at any subsequent time did she speak of her experience either to Michael or to her grandmother, nor did she follow her general household instructions and replace the covering on the picture, which gradually came to exercise an extraordinary fascination upon her. It became her habit to spend long hours gazing at and, as she imagined, communing with it, in fact her diary is filled to a large extent with her accounts of mystic correspondence with her painted lover, for into such she gradually transformed the picture.
Time went on until one afternoon in September when old Michael once more came down to Ivan’s home in as great trouble as before, this time to report the disappearance of Anna. It appeared from his story that her work that day had consisted in cleaning out a room known as the Countess’s boudoir, which adjoined the West Gallery. The last time she had been seen was at about half-past three, when she had come downstairs in search of some article needed for her work. She was then in her usual health and spirits and, having found what she sought, had returned to her work. She usually came down to the lower floor, where she and the caretakers lived, at five to attend to various small duties, and since at half-past five o’clock she had not appeared Michael had called to her and receiving no reply had gone upstairs to seek for her. He found the Countess’s boudoir littered with Anna’s household implements but no trace of the girl, for whom he consequently made search elsewhere.
In the course of this search he discovered the uncovered picture of the wicked Count and an open window in the West Gallery, but of Anna he could see and hear nothing. Although his wife was positive that Anna had not gone out, he decided ultimately to go down to Ivan’s home, partly in the faint hope of finding her there and partly to give the alarm and obtain help for a further and more thorough investigation of the castle. Ivan and one of his sons accordingly returned there with the old man, but despite a careful search in all parts of the building they could find nothing to indicate what had become of Anna. The following day another search party, headed by the village priest, made an even more careful exploration of the castle and its surroundings, but with like result. Anna had vanished as mysteriously as the Count and, like him, she never reappeared. The affair created a village sensation but was forgotten, save by a few, after the lapse of some years.
Some eight years after the disappearance of Anna the then owner of the property wrote to his Budapest agents that, having made a fortune sufficient for his needs, he intended to leave America and take up his abode at W. He gave instructions that the castle should be put in repair and modern conveniences installed.
A firm of Budapest builders was employed for the purpose, and in the course of their work the following curious discoveries were made. In the eastern o
r older part of the castle was situated the great entrance hall panelled with magnificent old oak. It was necessary to remove part of this panelling temporarily, and the workmen engaged on the task discovered close to the entrance to the castle a movable panel in the woodwork, which formed the outside of a strong secret door. This door opened on to a short passage leading into a tiny but lofty room lighted and aired by a narrow slit in the stonework above the main entrance. In this room were a chair and a small table, and seated at the table, with its arm resting on a bundle of papers, was a skeleton which by the remains of the dress was easily identifiable as that of the missing Count. The papers proved that he had been in the secret employ of the Austrian police, and it seems clear that on learning of the approach of the mob he had fled for safety to this hiding-place, taking the papers with him. It was noted, however, that the spring opening the door from within was broken, and it was therefore evident that once the Count had entered the passage and closed the door he was a prisoner.
Whether he knew that the lock was hampered, and relied on being able to summon aid by calling his servants after the mob had gone, or whether he himself broke the spring in attempting to open the door cannot now be known, but it will be remembered that the mob drove the servants away from the castle, which remained absolutely deserted for a period more than long enough to cause the Count’s death by starvation. He had evidently met his fate with resignation and had died in his chair with his arm on his papers. His fate forms no great mystery, but the discovery of a second skeleton in the little room gives rise to a more interesting problem. For, crouching at the foot of the Count in a kneeling position and in an attitude of adoration, was found the skeleton of a girl which it was not difficult to identify as that of the lost Anna.
The problem to solve is: how did she reach the place where she was found, why was she found in that attitude, and why did she not permit herself to be rescued by the searchers?
At the time of the discovery Anna’s grandmother, Michael and his wife were all dead, but the priest and Ivan were both alive and narrated the happenings of that September afternoon to the Budapest agent who, summoned in haste, came to W. and saw the bodies in the position in which they were found.
It was clear that at half-past three on the afternoon of her disappearance Anna was in good health and spirits. Her diary showed that up to the night before she had been ignorant of the existence of the secret room; it is impossible that she should have known it and of its contents and should not have mentioned them in her diary. As she did not come down to the kitchen at five o’clock it must be assumed that at some time between half-past three and five o’clock something occurred which caused her to leave her work in one part of the castle, go to another part, discover a secret room and voluntarily shut herself up in it – it was proved that the door of the secret passage was not self-closing.
And having entered the secret room why did she kneel down and adore a skeleton? Most people, young girls especially, on finding themselves in such company would have done their best to escape from it; again, why did she not make her presence in the secret room known to one or other of the search parties? It is unlikely that she died so quickly as not to have heard either Michael or later on the first search party calling in the East Hall, though it is possible she may have succumbed before the advent of the priest’s party on the following day. The questions, as my friend, the Budapest agent, said, are easy enough to put but impossible to answer unless one is willing to believe that the wicked Count, driven to his terrible death by the mob headed by Pavlinski, continued after leaving his earthly body to pursue Pavlinski and his family with his vengeance. The seemingly accidental and violent deaths within the walls of the castle of the two male members of the family may perhaps be thus explained, as well as the singular illusions which lured to her end the unfortunate Anna, the last of her race.
The Governess’s Story
We were sitting, a large group of us, round the blazing fire in the old hall one Christmas Eve and the conversation, guided by both hour and place, drifted on to things supernatural. Among those present was old Miss Hosmer, a lady well-known and popular, who, after an early life of struggle and poverty, was now spending her declining years in comfort on a modest fortune, derived from the bequest of a distant relative. In her youth Miss Hosmer had earned her livelihood as a governess and in the course of her scholastic career she had lived in various families and had undergone various experiences, some grave, some, but alas fewer, gay; she had seen the skeletons kept in more than one cupboard and had been the confidante of more than one curious story.
As a rule she was chary of recounting her experiences, since she rightly held that the histories of others, however discovered, should be kept confidential, and that more mischief is the result of idle gossip than comes from malicious tale-bearing. In person, she was small, grey-haired, old-fashioned, with a keen sense of humour twinkling in her blue eyes and a warm corner in her heart for those in difficulty or distress. During the early part of our talk, she had remained silent, listening with a queer expression of detachment to the various stories that circulated round the circle, and contributing nothing to them till directly appealed to by Mrs Leveson, one of her former and well-loved pupils.
In a pause of the conversation, Mrs Leveson turned abruptly to Miss Hosmer and said: ‘Can’t you tell us a story, Miss Hosmer? I know you have told me more than once that when you were quite a young woman you saw a ghost.’
‘No, my dear,’ answered Miss Hosmer, ‘I never told you that. I never saw a ghost in all my life.’
‘But surely you had some queer experience of that nature, didn’t you?’ returned Mrs Leveson.
‘Well,’ said the other, ‘I did once have an adventure of the sort you mention. I don’t often speak of it nowadays, and I try to think of it as little as I can.’
‘Why?’ I interrupted, ‘Is it anything so very dreadful?’
‘No,’ said Miss Hosmer slowly. ‘It was not really dreadful, but it was very, very sad, and I feel, perhaps, that I should be doing harm and causing pain to perfectly innocent people by repeating it.’
‘But not if you conceal the names and places,’ answered Mr Davies, the barrister, ‘and, now you have roused our curiosity so much, surely you will gratify it and tell us the story.’
Miss Hosmer hesitated for a few minutes, and then replied: ‘Well, perhaps you are right and, in any case, I hope and believe that I can so conceal identities that none of you will know of whom I am speaking. But I beg,’ she went on, ‘that if any of you do guess, you will keep your guesses to yourselves. Two of the people implicated are alive today, and I would not for the world that either of them should have the slightest inkling of what happened in their family when they were little children.’
We promised as she desired, and Miss Hosmer began.
‘What I am going to tell you is an experience that I actually underwent many years ago, when I was quite a girl, and had only recently taken up governessing as a means of earning my daily bread. I had been out of a situation for some little time, and was beginning to grow anxious as to my future; so that it was with a feeling of real happiness that one morning I opened a letter from Miss Butler, at whose agency I was registered, in which she asked me to come round to her office as soon as possible. It was not long before I was with her, when she told me that she had just had an application from Lady K., the widow of the late Sir Arthur K., G.C.M.G., for a young lady to come to her in the country to educate her two children, a boy of nine and a little girl of seven, and to give especial attention to preparing the boy for school. Up to the present, so far as I could gather, Lady K. had had entire charge of the education of the children since her husband’s death, but she did not feel her-self capable of instructing the boy sufficiently to prepare him for school, and she also desired a resident governess to continue the girl’s education after the boy had left home.
‘Miss Butler gave me Lady K.’s letter to read, and I gleaned from it that the famil
y resided always at the family seat Wyke Hall, near the town of Dellingham, in one of the Midland Counties. The work appeared to be exactly what I wanted and felt capable of undertaking; the terms offered were quite satisfactory, and the quietness of the life was by no means distasteful to me, since I have always been a lover of the country. It was accordingly arranged that I should write to Lady K. and seek an interview with her to go further into the matter. I returned to my rooms without delay and, having written and posted my letter, I hunted up an old book of reference that had belonged to my father to see what mention it made of the K. family. I quickly found what I sought and learned that Sir Arthur K. had died in 1887, leaving three children. He had been twice married, once to a Miss C. in 1874, by whom he had had one son, Edward, born in 1877, and again in 1883 to a Miss Constance G. by whom he had had two children, Arthur, born in 1884, and Eleanor, born in 1886. As the year of which I am speaking was 1893, this would make the ages of the three children sixteen, nine, and seven respectively. Except that the family residence was Wyke Hall, which I knew already, this was all the information my rather out-of-date reference book contained about the K. family.
In Ghostly Company (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural) Page 13