And from another point of view I don’t know but that my pride is legitimate, for, though there may be—doubtless are—many men and women who have been more favoured than I, yet again, on the other hand, there are to my certain knowledge numbers who have been less so. For, after making every reasonable deduction, after allowing that someone may have been playing a trick on me, for instance, or that I may have been dreaming, still the fact—can I call it a fact?—yes, I think I may—still the fact remains that I may have seen a ghost. And it is not everybody that can say that!
It is not likely that I was dreaming, you will, I am sure, allow. For it was not in the middle of the night—not even late in the evening, but still early, about four o’clock or thereabouts on a peculiarly lovely summer afternoon. We were in the country, in the house which we were already—though it had not long been ours, and though none of our family had ever before lived in it learning to call “home.” A dear old house it was still is; and dearer and pleasanter I think it every time we return to it after sometimes prolonged absences. It is not very large, but it is charmingly straggly, and therefore seems larger than it is, for there are two or three ways of getting to every room, and till one learns to know it well it is really rather puzzling. It has been added to and altered till the original owner, could he return to it, would assuredly not know it again. It has been lived in for a couple of centuries or more by many people, young and old, for, as seems the fate of certain houses, it has very often changed hands. Could stone walls tell tales, these would doubtless have many interesting ones to relate; but, unfortunately, they are dumb, and so we must draw upon our imagination if we want to picture to ourselves anything of the past of our old house.
And from the very fact of its having been the home of so many different families, we know peculiarly little about any of these predecessors of ours. It is said to be haunted by a tall lady dressed in white I believe, but that has nothing to do with what happened to me that bright summer afternoon. I was in the garden; the garden too is in its way delightful—quaint and old-fashioned, and yet not too prim to ramble about in. You enter the house by a sort of covered-in terrace which runs along one side, and this adds to the eccentricity of the place, for, on first coming, there is no front door to be seen! It is perfectly secure, for, though the door opening from the house into this verandah is only a glass one, you cannot get into the verandah except through the garden and by another door, which is always kept locked, and has a bell which rings into the house. I have to trouble you with these details as you will see, and I must also mention that this verandah entrance was not the original entrance, but was a whim of one of the several owners of the house, who appear to have had a mania for reconstructing it.
I remember being told, on first going to our new home and remarking on this odd kind of entrance, that in former times there had been a different “approach,” as they call it a much more imposing one somewhere away at what is now the back of the house, though where I never had thought or cared to inquire.
Well, as I was saying, I was in the garden. It was rather hot, and I had been resting a little after my labours among my roses, under the shade of one of the big elms of which we are so proud. And here I suppose some people would suggest that I had there fallen asleep, and that what followed was a dream! But it just wasn’t—that is all I can say about it. I got up at last and sauntered slowly towards the house, along the verandah to the front door, which I opened and went into the hall. It looked dark after the light outside; my eyes felt a little dazzled, and for half a moment I thought they were playing me false when, from the gloom at the farther end of the hall, I saw a figure approaching me.
“Who is there?” I called out. What made me say that, I can’t tell, for there was nothing the least remarkable in one of the servants my maid, perhaps crossing the hall, or coming to meet me.
“Is it you, Fanny?” I said, for I saw it was a woman. But there was no reply, and, slightly rubbing my eyes to get the sunshine out of them, I looked again. Yes, it was no fancy. A small, neat figure in black was noiselessly approaching me, and, as she drew nearer, I saw that she was an elderly, not to say a very old, woman. She was very small—much smaller than my maid Fanny or than anyone in the house except my baby daughter! —very, very neat and trim, though even in the half-light I could see that her clothes had a painfully cared-for look about them; that they would have been threadbare on anyone less careful; and more than that, that the fashion of them was curiously antique—more ancient than I have ever seen clothes worn by even the oldest or oldest-fashioned of my old lady friends.
Yet she looked like a lady. Her face, from beneath the shade of her large bonnet, was very pale and wrinkled; two or three queer little prim curls of gray hair were carefully arranged at each side; the eyes had a sad, tired look—an indescribably pathetic look it was; and yet when she smiled, as she did when she drew still nearer, the sadness melted into a real sweetness of expression which curiously attracted me. I did not speak—I don’t know why. Was I frightened? No, I do not think so. I felt strange; that is all I can vouch for, except one other thing I felt cold. It was natural, perhaps. The shady hall could not but feel cold in comparison with the sun-bright garden outside, but yet—the cold seemed to have come suddenly; I had not felt it when I first came in, and certainly never before or since, in spring or autumn, midsummer or mid-winter, have I felt that same kind of cold in our hall or any part of the house.
And I just stood there without speaking, staring at her, and she stood there smiling that strange sweet smile at me. And then she spoke. And this, you see, goes greatly against the ghost story theory, for everyone knows that a ghost never does—can’t, in fact—speak to any human being till the human being speaks to it. But my old lady did speak.
“I beg your pardon, madam,” she said; and her voice was very low and soft, though with an accent I could not define or recognise. It was not a foreign accent; it was not a provincial one such as I had ever heard. I know now what I think it was. I think it was the accent of fifty or sixty or a hundred years ago; but I did not then think of this. “I beg your pardon, madam,” said the clear, soft, strange voice. “I most humbly ask your pardon for presuming, but perhaps you may be in need of someone to repair your laces. I have great experience. May I show you some of my work?”
Then for the first time, as she brought it forward, I noticed that my queer visitor had a bag on her arm—a small bag, almost small enough to be described by the old-fashioned word “reticule,” and quite in accordance with the old lady’s own appearance, for it was worked in faded wools, and the piece of black silk which drew it together at the top was of that blue-black shade that our grandmothers so much affected. I had found my voice by this time. “Thank you,” I said courteously; “I do not require anything of the kind at present.” But she paid no attention to my words. She proceeded quietly to unfasten her bag, and from it she drew forth a long piece of the very queerest, yellowest lace I ever saw. She held it towards me, and I took hold of it.
“See, madam,” she repeated, “you will find it impossible to discern the repairs.” I certainly did. It just looked to me a mass of confused yellow thread. I am no great connoisseur in lace; had I been so, very likely I should have burst into enthusiastic admiration, but I only thought it very queer-looking stuff. And I felt anxious to dismiss my odd visitor. It began to occur to me that perhaps she had designs on some of the valuables in the house, and that the lace-repairing was only a blind.
“Thank you,” I said again. It would have been almost impossible to speak to her otherwise than courteously; besides she was old—yes, indeed, I have said to myself since, Heaven only knows how old! “Thank you; I have no doubt it is very beautifully done, but I don’t know much about lace, and I have certainly none to repair. But,” I added, fancying that a disappointed look came into the old face, and that the eyes grew sadder—they had brightened up a little with pride as she drew out the lace— “if you will leave me your address I will not forget yo
u in case I ever have any lace to repair, or my friends, perhaps—”
“I thank you, madam,” she replied with dignity; “I will leave you my card;” and again the reticule came into service, for she extracted from it the most astonishing calling card I ever saw, perfectly matching its owner and her old lace. “Thick” was no word for it; it was as hard as a piece of wood, highly glazed and yellow, and with a browny look round the edges as if it had been locked up in a drawer for a few score years. And on this wonderful card were inscribed the words:
Mrs. Kirtin,
14 Crossway.
“Fourteen Crossway,” I read aloud. “Where is that? You don’t live at Northsprings, then?”
Northsprings is the name of the neighbouring little watering-place—half town, half village, but, whichever you like to call it, venerable of its kind. Indeed there are antiquaries who maintain that it is one of the most ancient little towns in England! Again my odd visitor looked at me with her queer smile.
“Oh, yes,” she said; “the Crossway is well known at Northsprings. Perhaps, madam, you have not been long here?”
“Not very long,” I said; “but I certainly thought I knew all the streets in Northsprings.”
She did not reply to this remark, but turned as if to go. “I thank you, madam, for your courtesy, and I wish you farewell,” she said. But to my surprise, instead of going towards the door— the door by which I had come in—she moved away in the opposite direction, the same direction from which she had come forward to meet me, as if there lay the way out.
“Stop!” I exclaimed; “you are going into the dining-room. There is the front door,” and I pointed towards it. The old woman turned.
“Ah,” she said, half under her breath, “I forgot!”Then swiftly and silently more swiftly than I would have expected she moved away in the right direction this time. Only, just as she reached the door, she stopped again one instant. “It has been such a pleasure to see it all again,” she said softly, more as if speaking to herself than to me, and yet with a sort of tone of thanking me too, which touched me.
I followed her in a half mechanical way; she was already at the farther end of the verandah. I went on slowly, —I don’t quite know why, —and watched her making her way down the garden path. But again I was on the point of exclaiming, “Stop! that is not the right way,” for instead of directing her steps towards the garden door or gate, which she could not have mistaken—it was just before her—she turned straight off to the left, crossing a piece of grass which lay between the path and a belt of very thickly growing shrubs, and—that was the queerest part of it all—suddenly disappearing in the heart of these same shrubs. I rubbed my eyes—I could not believe their testimony; I was too confused and amazed for the first moment to reflect clearly—to say to myself that my old woman could not be among the shrubs; that they were far too closely planted for even a tiny child to get in among them without difficulty; and that as for easily stepping in among them—melting into them as she had to me appeared to do—it was, for a creature of flesh and bones, a physical impossibility.
All this I said to myself afterwards, and say it still, whenever I think over my adventure, but just then at the moment it did not come into my mind. A new idea seized me, and filled me with an unreasoning terror. “She is a madwoman,” I said to myself; “she must have escaped from the asylum,” (for there is one not far from Northsprings), “and she will hide among the bushes and make her way into the house again when no one is about.”
I rushed off to the servants’ quarters. “Fanny—Roberts—all—any of you,” I exclaimed; “there is an old madwoman hiding in the garden. Go and watch the door, and let no one out till I see who it is. And stay—she may have got out in this moment. You run round to the front gate, James, and Fanny come out at the back with me. If she has got out she cannot pass down the road without our seeing her.”
This was perfectly true. But see her we did not. Up and down the road we stared in vain. There was not a creature to be seen except some of our own ducks which had escaped, and were quacking along the edge of the footpath in search of some dirty water—for of course the more beautifully clean you keep ducks the more delighted they are with dirty water when they can find it—and a cart just coming into sight round the turn more than a quarter of a mile off, for we can see quite half a mile up and down the road from our back gate, and there is not a corner where anyone could hide—no hedge or ditch of any kind just about there. I strained my eyes in vain; the sun was beating down on my uncovered head, for it was a very hot, bright day. Imagine thinking of a ghost in such surroundings!
“Fanny,” I said, “she must be still in the garden;” but hardly had I said the words when the other servants came running towards us.
“There is no one in the garden, ma’am,” said James; “and no one has gone out neither.”
He looked at me with puzzled inquiry.
“But among the shrubs,” I said; “over there by the wall. She must be there.”
James looked at me now with an increasingly odd expression.
“Among the shrubs over there,” he said, following me as I hastily led the way; “why no one could hide there—not Tiny, let alone a woman.”
And when I myself got to the place, and stood gazing at the very spot where my queer visitor had disappeared, I could not but be sure he was right. No one could be hidden there! But, allowing this—and I was very ready to allow it; I had no wish to have an old maniac hidden in the garden, and to be wakened up in the middle of the night perhaps to find her dangling her bit of yellow lace over my nose—allowing this, the question remained—“Where was she?”
“I cannot make it out,” I said; “but at least I will try to do so. I have her card and address, though for that matter I know it by heart, —
Mrs. Kirtin,
14 The Crossway.
“Fanny, fetch me a calling-card—a very queer, yellow, old-looking card that you will see lying on the hall table. I just laid it down there.”
Fanny hastened off. She was a quick, ready girl, with, as the saying is, “all her eyes about her,” but this time she was slower than usual of executing her message. She appeared in a few minutes looking rather perplexed, and with no card in her hand.
“I cannot find it, ma’am,” she said, “and I have looked all over the hall—under the table and everywhere. It is really not there.”
“Not there,” I repeated; “but I am sure I left it there.” Still I mechanically put my hand in my pocket. There was no card forthcoming! And I remembered the exact spot on the hall table where I had laid it. The whole affair grew queerer and queerer. “I will go and look myself,” I said. But as I was turning away, another idea struck me.
“Which of you opened the door to the old woman?” I said to the assembled servants. “And whom did she ask for? Did she know my name?”
They all stared at each other and then at me.
“It wasn’t I” “I never saw her” “The bell never rang,” I heard repeated in various tones.
“You none of you let her in?” I exclaimed. “Then how did she get in? When I saw her first she appeared to be coming out of the dining-room. Who could have shown her in there?”
They all shook their heads. Somehow I did not feel surprised. Everything that had happened this afternoon had been so strange and disjointed that I began to feel as if ordinary rules of possibility and impossibility were not to be taken into account. I too shook my head, and made my way to the house to look for the card, as I had said, but with faint hopes of finding it. And I did not find it, though I searched most thoroughly.
There remained but one thing to do. The name and address of my queer visitor were firmly engraved on my memory. I would not give up my “adventure” as an insoluble mystery without at least an attempt at throwing some light on it.
“Fanny,” I said again, “I want you to go off to Northsprings at once and inquire for this person. If you find her; and yet, how you possibly can find her, how she can
possibly be there to be found, passes my comprehension; but if you find her, make any excuse you like—say that I have some old lace to repair, and wanted to be sure of her address—ask her for another card— anything you like. James will drive you in the pony-carriage. Don’t forget the address: ‘Mrs. Kirtin, 14 The Crossway.’ Stay, I’ll write it down. James is sure to say he doesn’t know it—he never does know any place that isn’t straight before him but never mind. It will be some old-fashioned little place. Inquire all about till you find it.”
“Oh yes, ma’am,” said Fanny confidently. And, armed with my written direction, off she set.
It was late when she came back late, that is to say, considering the comparatively short distance she had to go; I was dressing for dinner when her tap came to the door.
“Well?’ I said, “have you found her? You’ve been a good while about it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Fanny; “I’m sorry to be so late, but I knew you would be better pleased to hear all I could find out. It’s very odd, ma’am—very odd; but,”—she lowered her voice a little and spoke slowly,—“there’s no such place as The Crossway at Northsprings, and—”
“Then it’s a regular imposture,” I exclaimed, starting up; “or else,” I added—“or else the old woman’s an escaped lunatic, as I half feared. I wish I were quite sure she was out of our premises.”
“You may be quite sure of that, ma’am,” said Fanny; “leastways as sure as anyone can be with—with things like that. No, ma’am, she wasn’t a lunatic; but I know what I think she was,” and here Fanny grew quite pale and lowered her voice again, with a timid glance around her. “I think she was a ghost.”
“A ghost, and in broad daylight! A ghost—on a midsummer sunshiny afternoon! Oh, Fanny, what nonsense!” And yet, as I said it, there returned to my memory the strangeness of the old woman’s first appearance—the indescribable feeling that had gone through me—above all, the sudden sensation of cold, and my last words faltered on my lips.
The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mrs Molesworth Page 28