The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

by Simon Stern

  “Will you kindly give me your name? I do not think I have had the pleasure of meeting you before.”

  “No,” said the Ghost, “this is my first edition. I have been allotted to wait upon you this evening and show you round a bit.”

  “Thank you,” said the Editor, “but the chief reporter generally attends to this sort of thing. You will find him in the other office. Good evening.”

  “Not so,” said the Ghost. “It is to you I am sent, and you know that if I sought the chief reporter, you would make your escape by the back way. You see we know all about you.”

  The Ghost then moved all the best articles of furniture into one corner, and seated himself in the midst of them. “There is a spirit taking a snap shot of this interview,” he explained, “and it will give a better impression down below if one corner of your room is decently furnished.”

  “I see you are thoroughly up to date,” said the Editor; “would you tell me the origin of the Christmas Ghost?”

  “Dyspepsia,” answered the Ghost, briefly.

  “Why is he so much more respectable and tiresome than any of the other kind?”

  “There is nothing like the liver,” said the Ghost, “for awakening the conscience, and there is no season of the year when the liver is more likely to be out of order, and the conscience correspondingly susceptible. We take advantage of this, and come to earth to administer our rebukes and suggest improvements.”

  “I suppose you follow the old rules—pictures of the past, present, and future,” said the Editor.

  “Yes, I work on the good old lines,” replied the Ghost, “though I flatter myself I have introduced a little variety into the business. Shall we start? You won’t want a catalogue, shall you?”

  The Editor groaned.

  “You won’t think it rude if I don’t sit out the whole of the show,” he said. “I had an important engagement this evening, and I have a singular repugnance to keeping anyone waiting.”

  “You shall go at half time,” said the Ghost.

  Then the room was darkened, and the Editor felt himself swiftly whirled through the air. He shut his eyes and opened them to find himself in a very strange place. He had, as it were, a bird’s eye view of a number of houses, all poorly furnished, and filled with men, women, and children, looking scantily fed and clad. In the centre of the place was a pyramid of used foolscap, dusty with age, at which the people gazed sadly. Some of them held closely-written sheets in their hands, and seemed to be brooding over them despairingly.

  “What is this?” asked the Editor.

  “This,” said the Ghost, “is the Abode of Dejected Men and Rejected Copy. You have largely helped in peopling this.”

  “Well,” said the Editor, “there wasn’t room for it all, you know, and I did my best.”

  “Not always,” said the Ghost, in denouncing tones. “Read that.”

  He pointed to a manuscript over which a very thin, pallid-­looking man was leaning, and the Editor read it carefully. It was addressed to him, and bore a date of some weeks ago, but he had never read it before.

  “By jove,” he said, “that’s uncommonly good. I’ll use that on Friday.”

  “Too late,” said the Ghost monotonously, “too late. Look into the man’s face.”

  The Editor looked. It was the face of a corpse.

  “That man died of want,” said the Ghost.

  The Editor shivered.

  “Shall we move on?” he said. “This place is draughty and I have a slight cold on my chest.”

  There was another rush through the air, and then they stopped where there was a perfect Pandemonium of movement and noise. All about were hung various copies of contents’ bills of the Editor’s own paper, and up and down ran boys shouting it out, and offering it for sale. The Editor was proud to see how the people rushed to buy it.

  “It has an immense circulation,” he said with a smile of satisfaction.

  “Yes,” said the Ghost, grimly. “It has—down here. Read that bill out to me.”

  “Horrible murder. Shocking disclosures at the Divorce Court. Suicide of a well-known tradesman. Full details in second edition,” read the Editor as well as he could above the din of the boys shouting “Speshul,” and the stampede of the buyers’ feet. “Yes, I remember that well. We got that murder before anybody.”

  “Do not boast,” said the spirit. “Watch this boy and girl.”

  The Editor followed the direction of the pointing hand. Both boy and girl were reading the paper earnestly and attentively. The girl who was pretty and innocent looking, was gloating over the story of the Divorce, and the boy was drinking in every line of the Murder case.

  “We shall see them again,” said the Ghost.

  On they went through the Babel and the Editor saw many strange sights as they passed along. Here and there he caught a glimpse of a prison cell, once he saw a gallows, and everywhere his paper was being read. When they got to the extreme end of the place the Ghost stopped.

  “There are the two you saw just now,” he said. The Editor looked but he would not have recognised them. The girl had grown flaunting and bold, and the boy cunning and wizen-faced. He did not like the change.

  “Am I answerable for this?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the Ghost. “You and others are answerable for all this.”

  “But,” remonstrated the Editor, “the realistic stuff sells so well now-a-days, everyone goes in for it.”

  “Even so,” said the Ghost, “and that girl is an outcast and that boy is going to the gallows. Have you had enough?”

  “I should be glad to go,” said the Editor, “if you have nothing pleasanter to show me.”

  “I was not sent to be pleasant,” said the Ghost.

  “I gathered that from the very first,” said the Editor, for they had left the noisy regions and were ascending again.

  “Is it all over?” he asked, for he seemed to be sitting in his office chair once more.

  “Not quite,” said the Ghost. “You are a little wavering in your politics, are you not?”

  “I think you can hardly say that,” said the Editor. “It’s rather hard to please everybody, you know.”

  “I understand,” said the Ghost, “you are a wobbler. Feel the effects of that.”

  The Ghost made strange signals in the air, and the Editor instantly found himself seized and shaken roughly from side to side. On his right was a grim apparition all collar and hawk-like eyes, and on his left was one who wore an eye-glass of what seemed at that dread moment to be forty horse-power.

  “Who and what are these?” he gasped.

  “The one to the right is known as the Grim Old Masterpiece, the other we call the Man of Parts. Have you decided between them?”

  The Editor could only just shriek “Yes,” so severe was the shaking, and then freed himself with a tremendous effort. The fire was out, and he was in a cold perspiration.

  “There was too nutmeg in that punch,” he said, as he lowered the gas and went to bed.

  THE BARBER’S GHOST by Anonymous

  A gentleman travelling some time since, called at a tavern, and requested entertainment for the night. The landlord informed him that it was out of his power to accommodate him, as his house was already full. He persisted in stopping, as he, as well as his horse, was almost exhausted with travelling. After much solicitation, the landlord consented to his stopping, provided he would sleep in a certain room that had not been occupied for a long time in consequence of a belief that it was haunted by the ghost of a barber, who was reported to have been murdered in that room years before.

  “Very well,” said the man. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

  After having refreshed himself, he inquired of the landlord how and in what manner the room in which he was to lodge was haunted. The landlord replied that shortly after they retired to rest, an unknown voice was heard in a trembling and protracted accent, saying: “Do you want to be shaved?”

  “Well,” replied the
man, “if he comes he may shave me.”

  He then requested to be shown to the apartment in going to which he was conducted through a large room, where were seated a great number of persons at a gambling-table. Feeling a curiosity which almost every one possesses, after having heard ghost stories, he carefully searched every corner of his room, but could discover nothing but the usual furniture of the apartment. He then lay down, but did not close his eyes to sleep immediately; and in a few minutes he imagined he heard a voice saying:

  “Do you w-a-n-t to be s-h-a-v-e-d?”

  He arose from his bed and searched every part of the room, but could discover nothing. He again went to bed; but no sooner had he begun to compose himself to sleep, than the question was again repeated. He again arose, and went to the window, the sound appearing to proceed from that quarter, and stood silent awhile. After a few moments of anxious suspense, he again heard the sound distinctly, and convinced that it was from without, he opened the window, when the question was repeated full in his ear, which startled him not a little. Upon a minute examination, however, he observed that the limb of a large oak tree, which stood under the window, projected so near the house, that every breath of wind, to a lively imagination, made a noise resembling the interrogation: “Do you w-a-n-t to be s-h-a-v-e-d?”

  Having satisfied himself that his ghost was nothing more or less than the limb of a tree coming in contact with the house, he again went to bed, and attempted to get to sleep; but he was now interrupted by peals of laughter, and an occasional volley of oaths and curses, from the room where the gamblers were assembled. Thinking that he could turn the late discovery to his own advantage, he took a sheet from the bed, and wrapped it around him, and taking a wash basin in his hand, and throwing a towel over his shoulder, proceeded to the room of the gamblers, and suddenly opening the door, walked in, exclaiming in a tremulous voice:

  “Do you w-a-n-t to be s-h-a-v-e-d?”

  Terrified at the sudden appearance of the ghost, the gamblers were thrown into the greatest confusion in attempting to escape it—some jumping through the windows, and others tumbling head over heels down stairs. Our ghost taking advantage of a clear room, deliberately swept a large amount of money from the table into the basin, and retired unseen to his own room.

  The next morning he found the house in the utmost confusion. He was immediately asked if he rested well, to which he replied in the affirmative.

  “Well, no wonder,” said the landlord, “for the ghost, instead of going to his own room, made a mistake, and took away every dollar of our money.”

  The guest, without being the least suspected, quietly ate his own breakfast, and departed, many hundred dollars richer by the adventure.

  A SPIRIT BRIDE by Andrew Haggard

  PART I

  The origin of the very sad adventure, which has tinged my life with grief, was that I went by invitation to a séance which was held in a haunted house. Although the owner and his wife had for long been disturbed by horrid shrieks and other unaccountable noises, and although the servants and themselves had occasionally had fleeting “rencontres” with flitting shadowy forms, they had never been able to make out what it was that the ghosts wanted, as these never stopped long enough to be asked. At length, however, it became almost impossible to live in the house, the spirits that inhabited it having developed the unpleasant habit of twitching the bed-clothes at night from off the living inhabitants. It was of no use putting them on again, they were twitched off repeatedly. Now, even a worm will turn, and my friends, Mr. Smith and his wife, who had given the spiritual inhabitants of the old Manor House a free rein as long as they had contented themselves with shriekings, tramplings, rattling of chains, and sudden flittings by in the long passages, drew a line at twitching of bed-clothes. They therefore determined to obtain the services of the most powerful medium of the day, and, if possible, make the ghosts materialise fully, give an account of themselves, and say what it was they wanted. Smith was a stockbroker, without a scrap of superstition in his nature. He had only bought the Manor House a year or two before, and would not in the least have objected to buying the family ghost also, on account of the air of respectability that it would give the place, had he been told about it. But he had been “done.” Instead of one family ghost there were evidently two or three, and they were, not only not respectable, but distinctly malignant and spiteful spirits.

  “I would not mind them much,” said Smith to me, “if only they would treat me fairly; but as they don’t appear inclined to do that, I will be even with them soon by pulling the old house down until the site it occupied is as flat and unrecognisable as the place where stood Babylon of old. I will put the plough over it too, and turn it into an apple orchard,” he added reflectively. “Apples do very well down there. Not much fun they’ll get twitching bed-clothes then,” he chuckled vindictively between his teeth. “But I’ll tell them all this at the séance, and give them a chance though. Perhaps when I have made it quite plain to them, that if I have to go they will have to do too, they will be a bit more reasonable, and we may be friends yet. But we’ll have a nice little party at the séance, even if it is the last party we ever have in my house.”

  As Smith said, he had a nice little party, but with a view to making the thing a greater success, he had only invited those whom he had heard of as being believers in spiritualism. Some of these he had never even met himself before; thus as a party it was scarcely a congenial one, for very few of those present knew each other,—not that that made much difference to the people, who only went with the object of studying the supernatural.

  When Mr. Hawkshaw, the celebrated medium, arrived from town it was eleven o’clock at night. About a dozen of the visitors arrived with him, and as there were several people already assembled we formed quite a large party. When the medium was shown over the house and told to choose a room in which he thought the séance had better be held, he selected a musty old room known as the library. There were not very many books in it, but what there were were large and heavy ones, and there were plenty of chairs, sofas, and settees, quite sufficient, indeed, to accommodate all the guests. As I took my seat on the end of the sofa, I particularly noticed that the chair against it to my right was unoccupied. We determined at first to sit in the dark, so we bound the medium hand and foot and laid him on a sofa, sealed him tight over every knot with many seals, and turned out the lights. No sooner were the lights turned out than a fearful crash was heard behind us on my side of the room. It was the sound of falling books, and as we heard one mighty tome after another being dashed violently on the floor the air became redolent of dust. It was almost stifling.

  Suddenly a voice shouted out in an authoritative tone, “You had better all join hands and sing a hymn, there are spirits present.”

  I knew the voice to be that of John Roberts, the medium’s controlling spirit. He had been in his lifetime one of the earliest disciples of John Wesley, and had always shown himself to be a religious God-fearing spirit. In accordance with John Roberts’s directions I took hold of the hand of the person on my left, and was leaning across the empty chair on my right to take that of my nearest neighbour, when I found the chair was no longer unoccupied, for a little hand instantly seized mine. I had hardly time for astonishment, indeed only just had time to think that someone must have moved nearer to me, when the din in the room became so terrific that it seemed as if all the powers of hell had broken loose. All the fallen books commenced flying round the room, we were violently lifted up in our seats and shaken, and we could then hear a large table overturned with a smash.

  “Strike a light,” roared out John Roberts, “or someone will be killed.”

  Instantly half a dozen matches were lighted, just in time for me to see that a heavy book-case was tottering and about to fall on the heads of several of the people opposite. When the lights were struck, and candles lighted, I was able to see whose hand it was I was grasping on my right. I found it was that of a most beautiful young lady, a bru
nette, with a perfect figure, splendid black hair, and a pair of lovely and lustrous dark eyes, which were turned somewhat mockingly upon mine.

  “Are you frightened,” she asked, smiling somewhat sarcastically. “I should have thought, Mr. Ashburton, you were accustomed to the vagaries of the spirits by this time! But never mind, hold tight on to me, I am smaller than you, but I will protect you all the same. The spirits and I are very good friends.”

  I wondered how she knew my name, but giving her hand a responsive grip, I answered, “Well, really, my dear young lady, you make me feel a little ashamed of myself, but I must honestly own I do not like the idea of being hit in the eye by the brass-bound corner of an ancient bible, or of having my head bashed in by a falling book-case. Still I am glad to find that you are a friend of the spirits,” I added, laughingly, “as, then, quite apart from your generous offer to protect me, you will probably run less risk of being hurt yourself.”

  “Hush,” she said, laying a shapely finger on her charming lips, “we must go on with the séance. Don’t you know we have come here to see the ghosts? But we will not go on with the business quite in the dark any longer,” she said. “It is too rough altogether.” Then to my surprise she spoke in an authoritative voice, “John Roberts, we cannot run this séance quite in the dark or there will be accidents. We must have a couple of lamps lit and turned down low, placed at the corners of the room, and you must watch to see that the evil spirits do not overturn them and put them out.”