The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Page 12

  Their repast over, voices outside announced the arrival of the carol-singers, and they being speedily admitted, and, after partaking of refreshment, arranged on the stage, the whole family from the drawing-room assembled in the hall to hear them, Sir Gilbert sitting in front, with purse in hand, giving many an encouraging and approving smile. They gave place to mummers, to the great satisfaction of the younger part of the audience. There was Father Christmas and his attendant sprites, Hail, Frost, and Snow, and heroes innumerable, dressed in paper hats, helmets, and armour decked with spangles and ribbons, and swords of wood, and long spears, altogether a motley group; the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte; Nelson, Soult, and Blucher; the Black Prince and Julius Caesar; the Duke of Marlborough and Richard of the Lion Heart; and numerous other men of renown of all ages, brought together with delightful disregard to historical correctness. They fought one with the other, and fell mortally wounded, the Great Duke of modern days alone surviving, when a new character rushed in—a doctor with a nostrum to cure all complaints—and, applying it to their noses, with some words of a cabalistic character, which sounded like “Take some of this riff-raff up thy sniff-snaff,” he set each dead hero on his feet ready to fight another day.

  “That gentleman would have wonderful practice if he could be as successful among the public as he has been to-night,” observed Cousin Giles, while Sir Gilbert was bestowing his largesse on the performers. “Let’s have it all over again!”

  “Ancore!—ancore!” was shouted by the younger members of the audience; and not unwillingly the actors, with the utmost gravity, went through their parts without the slightest variation of word or gesture.

  Tea over, the juveniles were invited into the dining-room, where at the farther end of the table a hideous witch was seen presiding over a huge bowl, from which suddenly, as the lights were withdrawn, blue flames burst forth, and the witch, her long brown arms extending over the bowl, grew more hideous still, and a voice was heard inviting them all to partake of the contents—“Hot raisins—sweet raisins—nice burning raisins”—and but few hung back, for the voice was not unfriendly, and was easily recognised as that of Cousin Giles; and when they had seen their own faces turn blue and yellow and green, and the raisins were all gone, the witch sunk down under the table and Cousin Giles popped up, and the witch was gone. Then came games of all sorts, old and young joining with equal zest, led by Cousin Giles and Jane Otterburn. Now all were silent to listen to, and many to join in, a Christmas carol sweetly sung, and family prayers were held and the Scriptures read, and Christmas-day was over, and all retired, with grateful hearts and kindly thoughts of one another, to rest.

  CHAPTER II

  A TALE OF A GHOST

  There is said to be a skeleton in some out-of-the way cupboard of every house. There was one in Huntingfield Hall. No one liked to speak of it, though. Even the jovial Sir Gilbert shunned the subject. The morning had been spent on the ice—several of the ladies had put on skates for the first time, and the gentlemen had exerted themselves till all were tolerably tired. Still games of all sorts had gone on as usual for the sake of the younger members of the party, blindman’s-buff and hide-and-seek suiting best the taste of most of them, no one thinking of the tale of the Old Oak Chest, or dreading a fate similar to that of the heroine. At length even the most active had had enough of movement, and a general cry was raised for a story from Jane Otterburn. Cousin Giles pressed the point, and Jane was led within a large semicircle formed round the fire, Sir Gilbert taking his usual seat on one side, and Lady Ilderton on the other. She took a low seat, with one arm resting on Miss Ilderton’s chair, her dark locks falling over the light-blue dress of her fair cousin, while her other hand held a feather-screen to guard her eyes from the fire.

  “Now, Jane—now Miss Otterburn, your story—your story!” cried several voices, old and young.

  Jane waited a moment in silence, gazing at the fire, and began:

  There was an old, old family, whose ancestors were among the Norman conquerors of Britain, and who had ever since owned the same estate in the centre of England. The ladies were fair and virtuous, the men brave and upright, but proud of their birth, and somewhat haughty withal. They had fought for King Charles, and sided with James to the last, though they became loyal subjects of William of Orange, and, whatever their sympathies, having sworn to acknowledge him, they took no part with the supporters of the Pretender.

  At length, a certain Sir Hugh Oswald became the head of the house. He had a son and daughter, of whose good looks, manners, and general bearing, he was justly proud. He was proud, indeed, of all things belonging to himself, and it would have been difficult to persuade him that they were otherwise than perfection.

  It was on a dark night in November, the wind was howling and whistling through the trees, and the sleet and rain came pelting down with a fury which drove even the most hardy under shelter, that young Hugh Oswald left the Hall by a side-door, and took his way across the park towards a keeper’s cottage. At his tap the door opened, and a young girl, fair and beautiful as a Houri, who had been sitting reading by a lamp, stood ready to receive him.

  “Dearest Hugh, you know I love to see you, but what a night for you to come out, and leave the gay party assembled at the Hall.”

  “The very reason that I came, as no one will suspect, even if I am missed, that I have left the Hall, my own sweet May,” answered Hugh, folding her in his arms.

  What more was said I need not describe. This was only one of many stolen visits to the keeper’s lodge, strange as it may seem, known of and suspected by no one at the Hall. At length Hugh obtained leave from his father to travel. He had seen little of England, nothing of the Continent. He was absent for some time, and then he wrote to say that he had taken a step he hoped his father would forgive, though he had acted without first seeking his sanction. He had married a girl, young, lovely, and amiable. It was only necessary to see her to love her. He entreated forgiveness, and hoped that his father would receive her as his bride.

  The answer Sir Hugh sent was more favourable than might have been expected, still he remarked that his forgiveness must of necessity depend on circumstances. Hugh, on one pretence or another, delayed returning home, not trusting, apparently, to the circumstances on which his forgiveness depended. At last, Sir Hugh, losing patience, or suspecting that all was not right, peremptorily ordered his son to return. The young couple came. Hugh had not overpraised his wife’s beauty. Sir Hugh gazed at her earnestly without speaking, then took his son aside.

  “Hugh,” he said, “you do not know whom you have married, but I do. There is no happiness for you on this side the grave.”

  Not another word would he say, notwithstanding all his son’s solicitations for an explanation. Little did he know what at that very moment was taking place.

  It was summer. In a distant part of the shrubbery, in a bower covered with roses, jasmine, and other creeping plants, stood Emily Oswald, waiting with anxious gaze and beating heart the coming of one who had declared himself her lover. He came; his dress was rustic, but his figure was refined, his countenance eminently handsome, and his bearing manly. He showed no timidity as he approached the young lady, for he was evidently confident of her love. He urged her to fly with him. He pleaded his devoted love and affection. He told her that he knew her father would never consent to their union, and that it would be better to marry without his sanction than after he had refused it. She listened credulously and too readily. She fled with him; her subsequent history I will not detail. She had believed that the peasant youth, the keeper’s pretended son, was a noble in disguise.

  She was not missed till late at night, and when sought for throughout the house and grounds no trace of her could be found. Not till two days afterwards did Sir Hugh discover that his only daughter, the beautiful child of whom he was so proud, had fled with the keeper’s son, the brother of the girl his own boy Hugh had married, and thereby entailed, as he conceived, eternal disgrace on his
family; yet, as if that were not enough, Emily, his trusted child, must commit an act to increase the stigma tenfold. He suspected, too, that the wound to his feelings had been premeditated, and he knew, too, the foe by whose machinations it had been accomplished. The baronet took his gun and wandered forth into the grounds. Such was his constant custom. He seldom went out without his weapon.

  It was said that he met the keeper, a man who had strangely come to the place and sought for employment in that situation, that Sir Hugh had charged the keeper with acts of villany and treachery, that the other had insultingly retorted, that a fierce struggle had ensued. Two days afterwards the body of the keeper had been found, shot through the breast, in a remote part of the grounds. Rumour pointed to Sir Hugh as the murderer, but he was never accused openly. It was further asserted that the dying man had foretold that his spirit would haunt the Hall for ten generations, and that during that time the eldest son should never succeed to his inheritance. Sir Hugh appears to have been severely punished, at all events.

  The fate of his beautiful and beloved daughter was a sad one. The keeper’s son, though talented, was utterly unprincipled, and she died young, from a broken heart. His sister, too, did not turn out as well as her young husband had anticipated. As she grew older, and more was expected of her, tastes and manners became apparent which had been overlooked in a young and pretty girl. Hugh died before his father, and Sir Hugh lived long, a sad and childless old man, and his estate descended to a brother’s son.

  “Where did you get that story, Jane?” asked the baronet, in a tone of annoyance, very unlike that in which he usually spoke.

  “My dear Jane, where could you possibly have heard that tale?” exclaimed her aunt.

  “That is more than I can tell you,” answered Miss Otterburn. “I thought that I had invented it, and I certainly drew on my imagination for the names, but I confess that it is possible I may have heard it somewhere. I often, when I fancy that I am inventing, find that I have heard the outline of the tale before.”

  Neither Sir Gilbert nor Lady Ilderton said anything more on the subject, though both were unusually grave. Other tales were told, in many of which ghosts and goblins played a prominent part. During the course of the evening, Cousin Giles took an opportunity of drawing Miss Otterburn aside.

  “What in the name of wonder, my dear Jane, induced you to tell that story?” he exclaimed. “Don’t you know that it is connected with this house and Sir Gilbert’s ancestors? You gave even the right Christian names of father and son. There can be no doubt that Sir Hugh really did shoot the keeper, old Hooker, as he was called, and it is asserted and believed that his ghost haunts, as he threatened, the mansion of his murderer.”

  “What! this very house!” exclaimed Jane, with a look of astonishment, and it might have been terror, or some other uncomfortable feeling, in her countenance.

  “Yes, if old women, housekeepers, and superannuated butlers can be believed, old Hooker’s ghost has appeared more than once or twice stalking through the Hall at midnight, no one daring to speak to it or attempt to stop it. You must understand that the family give a different version of the story. They say that old Hooker committed suicide, in consequence of his daughter running off with young Hugh, who, they state, did not marry her, and of his son, of whom he was very proud, being transported for the abduction of Miss Ilderton. With regard to the son, it is difficult to say who was most to blame. The young man had, I believe, raised himself by his extraordinary talents far above his former position, and he might have supposed that a marriage with her would have advanced his ambitious projects; or he might have run off with her and treated her as he ultimately did in retaliation for the way his sister had been treated by young Hugh. Still I suspect that, at the best, he was an unprincipled fellow, and that not much can be said in favour of any of the parties concerned. However, they are all long ago dead and buried, and waiting to be tried by a tribunal which will measure out even justice to all men; so do not let us condemn them undefended.”

  CHAPTER III

  PREPARATIONS FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT

  The story of old Hooker’s Ghost was not again alluded to in the presence of any of the Ilderton family, as the subject was evidently distasteful to them; but it formed the subject of conversation among the guests when only two or three were together, and at length, through one or two of the ladies’-maids, the story reached the servants’-hall, where, of course, it was eagerly received. Lampet, the butler, however, shook his head when he heard it, and advised that it should not be talked about.

  “It may be true, or it may not be true, but there’ll be no harm come of letting it alone,” he observed.

  Notwithstanding the wisdom of this remark, neither in the servants’-hall nor above-stairs would people let it alone, till at length many began to feel uncomfortable as night drew on, and preferred having a companion when they had to traverse the long passages and corridors which led from wing to wing of the mansion. Jane Otterburn found that she had indeed raised a ghost of a character she had little anticipated. All this time none of the family knew what was going on, as, after it had been understood that Sir Gilbert and Lady Ilderton disliked the subject, when any of them approached it was instantly dropped. In time even the costume old Hooker had worn was minutely described: a hunting-­frock of Lincoln green, with leathern belt; a cap with iron bands, shaped somewhat like a Mambrino’s helmet, or the hat of a policeman of modern days; a powder-horn at his back, high leathern boots, and a huge spear, which it must have required two hands to wield. This showed that he was a head keeper—a person of no little consequence, and one who must have proved a formidable opponent to deerstalkers and poachers of all descriptions. That he was above the ordinary keepers, accounted for the superior education he had managed to give his son.

  Jane had talked so much and thought so much about the story, that she was not quite comfortable herself, and more than once, when going somewhat late to bed, her door having suddenly burst open as she went to shut it, she thought she saw—the moonlight streaming through a window—a strange figure moving along the passage in the distance. She was a courageous girl, though imaginative in the extreme, so she watched the figure, wondering if it would turn, but it vanished apparently through the window at the farther end of the passage. She told no one what she had seen, believing that her senses had deceived her; but three nights afterwards, when, under precisely the same circumstances, the figure again appeared and disappeared, she was, to say the least of it, extremely puzzled and secretly agitated, though she still determined not to mention the occurrence. By the morning she had recovered her equanimity, and was as lively and agreeable as usual. The gentlemen thought her especially so, and the light-hearted merry Captain Fotheringsail, whose breast when in uniform was covered with orders, seemed to have ears and thoughts for no one else. Jane liked him, but had a fancy that he had come to the Hall as a suitor for the hand of one of her cousins. She was one of those happy beings who think so little of self that she always fancied that, if attentions were paid, they must be intended for some other person present. It might have been very stupid in the captain not to make his intentions more clear, but so it was, and Jane thought herself heart free.

  It should have been mentioned that, on Christmas-day, Sir Gilbert and Lady Ilderton had had their hearts made glad by the announcement that their sailor son, Charley, was on his way to England, and, as he would soon get leave, might be expected shortly at the Hall.

  Several of the proposed amusements were put off till his arrival; among them was a fancy ball, or masquerade rather, which it was settled should take place on Twelfth Night, should he write word that he could come in time.

  “Hurra! Charley is coming!” cried Gilbert, on opening a letter at the breakfast-table—that delightful period of the day in a well-ordered English household, when, rising refreshed by sleep, all the members meet round the snow-white board, laden with sweet-smelling bread and rolls of all shapes, and toast and butter in fanciful pats swimming
in crystal bowls of pure water, and preserves in cut glasses, and, maybe, some delicate sausages or cutlets kept hot under covers, and fragrant tea and coffee, and china of elegant pattern, all so cool, and fresh, and bright, and then the sideboard groaning with substantial viands. “Yes, he’ll be here by the fifth at latest, and, depend on it, if any one is inclined to be slow, he’ll stir them up.”

  Charley was a general favourite, though it must be acknowledged, when he went to sea, he was a somewhat harum-scarum fellow.

  Now great preparations were making for the ball, and the costumes which were to be worn at it. There were to be knights in armour, and a Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and Turks, and Greeks, and Albanians, and Circassians, and Hamlets, and an Othello, a Rolla, and a Young Norval, and a Virgin of the Sun, and Night and Morning, and the Four Seasons, and a Harlequin, and a Clown, and Columbine—indeed, it was difficult to say what characters were not to appear; but the best of it was, that no one knew who was to be who, except, perhaps, Cousin Giles, and Jane Otterburn, and Gilbert, who were among the initiated. The ball-room was a magnificent hall—the pride of the county—and that was to be decked with evergreens, with lamps placed amidst them, and bowers of flowers which the hothouses alone could provide at that season of the year.

  “It would be great fun,” said Cousin Giles to Jane, as they were busy over some of their plans. “I don’t think, really, that Sir Gilbert would be annoyed. What vexes him is to have the matter taken in earnest. I rather fancy that he doesn’t believe the story himself. The dress is that of a society of Foresters in this party of the country, and I can easily procure it.”

  Jane looked thoughtful. Could it have been any one masquerading at night whom she had seen in the passage? Had she seen it but one night that might have been the solution of the mystery. She did not like to mention the subject, even to Cousin Giles, for she had an idea that he would laugh at her, so she said nothing, and kept wondering on.