The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

by James D. Jenkins

  “You may depend on me,” said Lady Lisle, nodding; “I’ll carry them all away safely.”

  “I do depend on you,” said Sir James. “Now I’ll change these wet things, and be off as soon after supper as may be. Thorne goes with me. I told Farrer to pack me a change of linen. Baldwin is here now; I brought him with me from his house, being unwilling to leave you without some good protection.”

  Sir James went away upstairs without saying much more. Lady Lisle rustled off to consult with Mrs. Farrer over his outfit, and presently joined him in the nursery, where he was walking round and round the room with a rosy, sleepy boy of five years old in his arms. Many such partings there were in England then. Lady Lisle came up and kissed the little face that her husband held towards her.

  “I know now something of what Hector felt,” said Sir James, smiling.

  “Ah! God grant that we three may meet again in safety.”

  “Amen! and that poor Dick may be with us; I fear more for him than for you.”

  “Poor Dick!” said Lady Lisle, sighing; and she stood by while Sir James kissed his son and put him back in his little bed, covering him up with large red hands that were as tender and careful as her own.

  Then they went downstairs together to supper in the hall. Old Baldwin came in to take his master’s last orders; a little man with keen eyes and a puckered yellow face. Even his voice trembled a little sometimes, and Lady Lisle was astonished at her own calmness. She felt no inclination to cry now—no, not even when Sir James had left her with a long embrace, mounted his horse, and ridden off with his man, Thorne, into the snowy night. She came back and stood by the hall-fire, while the servants watched her curiously as they went in and out. That evening was like a dream—but one of those dreams that leaves something definite behind it; something to be repeated over and over again, as if anything more was wanted to impress it on the mind:—Lord Derwentwater’s letters to be searched for everywhere: Dick’s letters in the secret drawer of the library table: the deeds in the chest in the hall: the deeds in the leather box in Sir James’s.

  CHAPTER III

  TOO SOON

  After standing for a few minutes deep in thought by the hall-fire, Lady Lisle took a little lamp from the table, and went silently out by a corner door, and along a short, crooked passage to the library. The room was cold and dark and desolate; every recess between the bookcases was a black little cavern into which her dim light seemed hardly to penetrate. She went on past them all to the end of the room, where Sir James’s table and his great leather chair stood in front of the barred and shuttered window. Here she set down her lamp, sat down in the chair, pulled open a drawer, and put her hand to her head in some perplexity: she could not remember the trick of the secret drawer, which Sir James had shown her once: somehow it was inside this drawer, she thought—but where? and how was it to be opened? Sir James kept his private concerns very much to himself, and it was in a fit of unusual confidence that he had trusted his wife one day with this precious secret. And now the foolish thing had forgotten it!

  “Well,” she sighed to herself, “I’m more of a fool than I thought:” and then she rested both her elbows on the edge of the drawer, and with her chin in her hands gazed up at the dim, shadowy portrait on the opposite wall; dim at all times, but now a mere shimmer of satin and ghostly outline of face and form. “Oh, my dear madam, I’ve always loved you,” said Lady Lisle—she was very childish still, poor thing. “Do, for pity’s sake, tell me the trick of this drawer. I must find Dick’s letters, you know.”

  But the lady, not being her patron saint, gave no answer to the appealing look and words, and Lady Lisle proceeded to poke and push in all directions. She had wasted about a quarter of an hour thus without any result at all, when hasty steps came tramping and blundering along the stone passage, and old Baldwin, groping his way and running up against the bookcases, at last arrived before his mistress, who closed the table-drawer with a sharp push.

  “What do you want, Baldwin?” she said, rather sharply, for a new idea had just occurred to her, and it was provoking to be interrupted.

  “My lady, my son’s just come in with news. Mr. Woolner and the constables will be here in half an hour. They talk of catching Sir James, but they won’t do that. They’ll occupy and search the house, and you and Master Harry will be better out of it. If you’ll please to hurry, my lady, there’s a room in my house ready for you.”

  “Half an hour!” said Lady Lisle.

  She had risen, but she sat down again, and stared with a wild, terrified look which frightened the old man. He was a little disappointed in her, too: his masters, the Lisles, were always brave and cool in time of danger, and here was Sir James’s wife, who had parted with her husband so steadily, giving way like a child at the first shock. He stood and looked at her with a flash of something like contempt in his keen grey eyes.

  “Half an hour,” he repeated. “Ay, and plenty of time, too, for those who have their wits about them. Time to dress Master Harry and pack your jewels, my lady—though scarce time to sit and think about it,” he muttered in a lower tone.

  “Dress Master Harry! yes, surely. Dorcas will go with him of course. And listen to me a moment, Baldwin. Molly the cookmaid is about my size. Farrer can dress her in one of my gowns, muffled up well, and pretend in the morning that she has sent her off on some errand. She will be back to do her work, and the rest of the servants need not know—do you see—that I am not gone with Harry and Dorcas. What a famous plan!”

  The old man was staring at his mistress now in complete bewilderment. She had certainly lost her senses—a dreadful blow indeed to fall upon the unhappy house.

  “Madam—my lady, you are dreaming!” he said, almost angrily. “What harm can come to Molly the cookmaid?—Saints and angels! who’d have thought her wits were so lightly balanced!—My lady, will you be pleased to get yourself ready? Half an hour is none too much time, and we may as well be clear off before they come. That Woolner has the nose of a hound.”

  “Baldwin, I think you don’t understand me,” said Lady Lisle. She was standing up now, quite grave and composed, though her cheeks were burning. “I can’t leave the house. I promised Sir James not to leave it without collecting certain papers, which, if these people find them, may cost us all our heads. Therefore I shall stay here. No one will hurt me.”

  “Stay here! Madam, you are mad!” cried Baldwin impatiently. “Which does Sir James treasure most, think you—yourself or these papers? You will be arrested and packed off to prison. For heaven’s sake think of your child!”

  “But no one will know I am here. Not even the servants, except yourself and Farrer, and good Molly, who will be only too proud to represent me to-night in one of my gowns.”

  “Madness, madness! How would you hide yourself?”

  Lady Lisle turned round and pointed to the bookcase behind her, but Baldwin only shook his head and groaned.

  “I always loved to masquerade a little,” she said, smiling. “You may assure yourself of one thing—those papers and I will leave this house together, or not at all. I mean to keep my word to Sir James.’

  “But where are they? There’s time yet—we might collect them now.”

  “And be caught in the act. No; they are scattered all about the house, and no one but myself knows where to look for them. I must be beforehand with Mr. Woolner. Be sure he is treated hospitably, Baldwin. And now we are wasting time here. Where’s Farrer?”

  She swept past the old man, who followed her with quick, trembling steps as she and her lamp hurried along through the shadows. Several of the servants were standing in the hall when their mistress came in suddenly upon them, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling, but with an open, decided, commanding manner, which was a new thing in Lady Lisle. She stopped in the midst, still holding her lamp in her hand, and looked round on their agitated faces.

  “Friends,” she said, in a low, distinct voice, “I little thought we should part so soon. You will know t
hat Master Harry and I are in good keeping. You will take your orders from Mr. Baldwin till Sir James or I return to you. I commend you to the keeping of our Blessed Lady, who has a special care of faithful people. And—yes, Baldwin, I’m coming—one word more. Have you ever had reason to believe that this house was haunted?” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper, and looked slowly and steadily from one to another of the pale faces.

  “No, madam,” the murmured answer went round.

  “I am not so sure about it myself,” said Lady Lisle. “I have seen something to-night; and it seems to me that I have heard some old story of a lady who walks here in any time of misfortune. But of this I am convinced, she means us nothing but good; and this is my advice to you, should you meet her as you go about the house, stand by and let her pass you quietly—do not speak to her, or you may vex her; and we know not what power, for good or for evil, may be given to such wandering spirits as these. Farewell!”

  Lady Lisle walked out of the hall and upstairs, to her son’s room, where Mrs. Farrer and his nurse Dorcas were far advanced in their preparations. Ten minutes later, two women muffled up, one carrying the child, slipped out, under young Baldwin’s care, at a garden-door, and crept away across the pathless snow.

  Not long after this, old Baldwin put his head in at the door of the hall, and finding it empty, made a sign to some one behind him. Slowly, noiselessly, and carefully shading the little lamp she carried, a lady, with a white satin train thrown over her arm, glided across the polished oak floor, and disappeared into the library passage. The old man, following her on tiptoe, breathed a blessing after her as she went. Then, in strange contrast to that moment’s mysterious stillness, the yard-gates outside were shaken violently, rough voices shouted for admittance, and Baldwin, with a sudden angry stamp, hurried noisily to meet the servants who were crowding in.

  “Hang the rascals! We must let ’em in, to be sure. No use holding out against a warrant, waste paper and false usurping rubbish though it be.”

  “I’ve sent Molly and the girls to bed,” said Mrs. Farrer. “Things ain’t so bad as they might be, after all. Mr. Woolner’s a gentleman, or ought to be; and my lady and young master’s safe at your house by this time, Mr. Baldwin.”

  CHAPTER IV

  A GHOST AND A MAGISTRATE

  Mr. Woolner was a magistrate, and a country squire of good family, but much too sharp and lawyerlike for either of these characters, and generally disliked in consequence. It was a lucky time just now for an ardent Hanoverian; there were traitors to be caught, there was evidence to be hunted up; there were a hundred ways of deserving the gratitude of Government, and Mr. Woolner neglected none of them. He was a good deal disgusted, on arriving that night at Roxley Hall, to find the birds flown; but, after all, it did not matter much. Mr. Woolner comforted himself as he sat drinking Sir James’s best port before the fire in the winter parlour, where, little more than two hours ago, Lady Lisle had been sitting at her frame. Old Baldwin had come in, and was standing respectfully before him. His quiet, submissive manner was rather pleasant to Mr. Woolner, who thought he could twist him round his little finger.

  “So they’re gone, are they?” said the magistrate. “Very wise of Lisle not to stay here to be trapped like a fox in his hole. I thought I should be too quick for him, though; but he’s an old campaigner. As to the lady and the boy, we can lay our fingers on them at any time. I shall stay here quietly for the present, and look about me. I suspect there are papers in this house which will make the heads of certain gentlemen rather unsteady on their shoulders. Hey, what do you say?”

  “ ’Tis possible, sir,” answered Baldwin. “But Sir James was never much of a writer.”

  “Ay, but that young fool, Dick, was scribbler enough for two. Why, when he was a mere lad he used to make verses by the score, more’s the pity. Those verse-making fellows never come to good; if there’s a right side and a wrong, you know where to look for them. His scribbling days are over, though, unless he takes to scratching rhymes on his prison-wall. Now you see, Baldwin,” said Mr. Woolner, pouring himself out another glass, “what it is to belong to a nest of traitors. Sure to be blown up, sooner or later. Come, I always said you were a sensible fellow. Take my advice, and shake yourself free of ’em. You shan’t lose your place; I’ll keep you on if you deserve it.”

  “I beg your honour’s pardon,” said Baldwin gravely. “You will keep me on? I don’t precisely take your meaning.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” said Mr. Woolner. “What do you suppose will become of this place? These masters of yours have looked their last on it, I can assure you. When their business is settled, who’s more likely to step into it than the man who has deserved more of his Majesty’s Government—more, sir, I tell you—than any other man from here to London? Come, you’re not such a fool as you look. Not so clever as you think yourself, may be, but that’s another thing. You have eyes enough to see your own interest.”

  “Well, sir, thank your honour, I hope I have,” said Baldwin quietly­.

  “So, among other things, I want the deeds of this estate,” proceeded Mr. Woolner. “I shall begin tomorrow morning to collect the papers, and look over them at my leisure. Seven o’clock—I am an early man; so all your lazy louts had better bestir themselves, if they don’t want to be sent packing. Now, get along with you, and send my man Dodson. I shall do no more to-night.”

  Baldwin retired with a low bow, and Mr. Woolner presently tramped upstairs to the best bedroom, which Mrs. Farrer had grudgingly prepared for him.

  But he was not destined to have a quiet night. At last in possession of Roxley Hall, for years the object of his ambition, he rolled from side to side of the great four-poster, listened to the wind howling in the chimneys, started at the creaking of the boards, and at last jumped out of bed, feeling quite sure that people were moving in the room underneath. He threw on some clothes, wrapped himself in a warm gown lined with fur—for the night was bitter, and cold winds seemed to find their way in at every joint and corner of the old house—took his sword and a lighted lamp, opened the door, and stole downstairs into the hall, feeling like a thief himself as he crept along. There were a few red embers still glowing on the hearth in the empty hall; they and his flickering lamp seemed to plunge the rest of the house in still deeper darkness. He stood still listening in the middle of the room. The wind howled frightfully outside, as if a thousand witches were careering on their broomsticks through the terrified air; the soft rush of frozen snow against the windows might have been the flick and rustle of their garments as they jostled each other, and went crowding past.

  “Here’s a night to be out in!” muttered Mr. Woolner to himself. “And of all the ghostly old holes I ever was in—I’ll pull it down, and build a new house. I swear I will!”

  Certainly the powers of the air were on the Jacobite side of the question that night; for this stout magistrate, in the prime of life, strong in possession and in loyalty, was almost unmanned by their wild clamour, and shivered as he walked across the hall and along the passage leading to the library. As his hand was on the door, a sudden puff of wind from some chink blew his lamp out.

  “I’ll open the door, however,” said he. “This must be under my sleeping-room.”

  He opened it rather slowly, expecting to see nothing but darkness. The library was a long room, with an arched ceiling: this, and all the book-screens, with their separate shadows standing out, made it stretch away into the distance like the aisle of a church. In the background of the picture, in the innermost recess, a faint light was shining, and Mr. Woolner distinctly saw a figure bending over the open drawer of a table—a lady, in a long, strangely-cut satin gown, which gleamed white and grey and shadowy in the faint glimmer that seemed to fall from behind her.

  She held some papers in her hands, which she was looking at earnestly. But the little noise at the door startled her: she stood suddenly upright, turned her head, her face being still in shadow, and gazed steadily for a moment down the ro
om. Then she threw up both her arms in the air, still clasping the papers in her hands; the light vanished suddenly, and in the deep, black darkness Mr. Woolner heard nothing but a soft rustle, which seemed to recede into the distance. The howling wind had paused for a minute; he stood there till the cold and blackness and silence of the library became unbearable, and then turned round, locked the door behind him, and went back, with long, uncertain strides, down the passage and along the hall. Tradition says that he stumbled upstairs and into his room in a rather undignified way. He had recovered his self-possession, however, by the morning, when he sent for old Baldwin to speak to him alone, and told him the events of the night.

  Of course one knows that in these days a magistrate would have walked coolly forward to the lady in white satin, and inquired judicially into her business there; but a hundred and fifty years ago there were still such things as ghosts; and, considering this, Mr. Woolner’s prudence does not seem to me unnatural.

  “Who is she, Baldwin?” he said, and his manner was much quieter and more becoming than it had been the night before. “I never heard that you had a ghost here.”

  “Oh, sir, she’s very harmless,” said Baldwin, gravely shaking his head. “It’s bad news for the family, though, that you’ve seen her. She appears when any great misfortune is hanging over them. We don’t know much more of her. But your honour need not be alarmed.”

  “I never saw a ghost before, though—and I never half believed in them,” said Mr. Woolner. “She’s right this time, I suspect. But, as soon as my affairs are in order, I shall call in the parson and have her laid. We shall manage to do without her at Roxley when her friends are gone.”