* * * *
September 20th—Have seen Dr C— today, and he agrees with me—that there is nothing for it but change and bracing air. He declares that the fright Lily had in July must have been much more serious than we imagined, and that she has never got over it. She seemed to do so. She was out and about after her confinement as soon as other people; but I remember now her nerves seemed gone from the first. She was always starting, listening, and trembling without any cause, except that she appeared in constant alarm lest something should happen to the baby; and as I took that to be a common weakness with young mothers over their first child, I’m afraid I paid no attention to it. We’ve a very nice nurse for the boy, a young Irishwoman named Bridget McBean (not that she’s ever seen Ireland herself, but her parents came from there, driven by poverty to earn their living elsewhere, and after faithfully sending over every farthing they could screw out of their own necessities to “the ould folks at home”, died in the same poverty here). Bridget is devoted to the child, and as long as he is in her care Lily generally seems easy and peaceful. Otherwise (and some strange instinct seems to tell her when this is the case) she gets nervous at once, and is always restless and uneasy.
Once she awoke with a scream in the middle of the night, declaring, “Something was wrong with the baby. Nurse had gone away and left it; she was sure of it!” To pacify her I threw on my dressing-gown and ran up to the nursery to see; and, true enough, though the boy was all right and sound asleep, Nurse was absent, having gone up to the cook’s room to get something for her toothache. She came back the next moment and I returned to satisfy Lily, but she would scarcely listen to me.
“Is it gone?” she asked. “Was the nursery door open? Oh, if it had been! Thank God, you were in time to drive the thing down. But how—how could it have got into the house?”
“It? What?” I repeated, staring.
“The dog you passed on the stairs. I saw it as it ran past the door—a big black dog!”
“My dear, you’re dreaming. I passed no dog; nothing at all.”
“Oh, Harry, didn’t you see it then? I did, though it went by so quietly. Oh, is it in the house still?”
I seized the candle, went up and down the stairs and searched the whole house thoroughly; but again found nothing. The fancied dog must have been a shadow on the wall only, and I told her so pretty sharply; yet on two subsequent occasions when, for some reason or another, she had the child’s cot put beside her own bed at night, I was awoken by finding her sitting up and shaking with fright, while she assured me that something—some animal—had been trying to get into the room. She could hear its breathing distinctly as it scratched at the door to open it! Dr C is right. Her nerves are clearly all wrong, and a thorough change is the only thing for her. How glad I am that the builder writes me my Kerry shooting-box is finished! We’ll run over there next week…
* * * *
September 26th, The Cabin, Kilmoyle Castle, Kerry—Certainly this place is Paradise after London, and never did I imagine that by raising the roof so as to transform a garret into a large, bright attic, quite big enough for a nursery, throwing out a couple of bay windows into the two rooms below, and turning an adjoining barn into a kitchen and servants’ room, this cottage could ever have been made into such a jolly little box. As for Lily, she’s delighted with it, and looks ever so much better already. Am getting my guns in order for tomorrow, anticipating a pleasant day’s shooting.
* * * *
September 27th—Here’s an awful bother! Bridget has given warning and declares she will leave today! It seems she knew her mother came from Kerry, and this morning she has found out that the old man who lived in this very cottage was her own grandfather, and that he died of a broken heart within a week of his eviction, having first called down a solemn curse on Kilmoyle and me, and all belonging to us, in this world and the next. They also say that he managed to scoop out a grave for his dog, and bury it right in front of the cabin door; and now Bridget is alternately tearing her hair for ever having served under her “grandfather’s murtherer”, and weeping over the murderer’s baby the while she packs her box for departure. That wouldn’t matter too much, though it’s awfully unpleasant; for the housekeeper at the Castle will send us someone to mind the boy till we get another nurse; but the disclosure seems to have driven Lily as frantic as Bridget. She entreated me with tears and sobs to give up the cabin, and take her and baby back to England before “the curse could fall upon us”, and wept like one brokenhearted when I told her she must be mad even to suggest such a thing after all the expense I had been to. All the same, it’s a horrid nuisance. She has been crying all day, and if this fancy grows on her the change will do her no good, and I shan’t know what to do. I’m sorry I was cross to her, poor child, but I was rather out of sorts myself, having been kept awake all night by the ceaseless mournful howling of some unseen cur. Besides, I’m bothered about Kilmoyle. He arranged long ago to be here this week; but the bailiff says he has been ill and is travelling, and speaks in a mysterious way as if the illness were D.T. I hope not! I had no idea before that my old chum was even addicted to drink. Anyhow, I won’t be baulked of a few days shooting, at all events, and perhaps by that time Lily will have calmed down.
* * * *
October 19th, The Castle—It is weeks since I opened this, and I only do so now before closing it for ever. I shall never dare to look at it again after writing down what I must today. I did go out for my shooting on the morning after my last entry, and my wife, with the babe in her arms, stood at the cabin door to see me off. The sunlight shone full on them—on the tear-stains still dark under her sweet blue eyes, and the downy head and tiny face of the infant on her breast. But she smiled as I kissed my hand to her. I shall never forget that—the last smile that ever… The woman we had brought with us as servant told me the rest. She said her mistress went on playing with the child in the sunshine till it fell asleep and then laid it in its cot inside, and sat beside it rocking it. By-and-by, however, the maid went in and asked her to come and look at something that was wrong with the new kitchen arrangements, and Lily came out with her. They were in the kitchen about ten minutes, when they heard a wail from the cabin, and both ran out. Lily was first, and cried out:
“Oh, Heaven! Look! What’s that—that great dog, all black and burnt-looking, coming out of the house? Oh, my baby! My baby!”
The maid saw no dog, and stopped for an instant to look round for it, letting her mistress run on. Then she heard one wild shriek from within—such a shriek as she had never heard in all her life before—and followed. She found Lily lying senseless on the floor, and in the cradle the child—stone dead! Its throat had been tom open by some strange savage animal, and on the bedclothes and the fresh white matting covering the floor were the blood-stained imprints of a dog’s feet!
* * * *
That was three weeks ago. It was evening when I came back; came back to hear my wife’s delirious shrieks piercing the autumn twilight—those shrieks which, from the moment of her being roused from the merciful insensibility which held her for the first hours of her loss, she has never ceased to utter. We have moved her to the Castle since then; but I can hear them now. She has never regained consciousness once. The doctors fear she never will.
* * * *
And she never did! That last entry in my diary was written two years ago. For two years my young wife, the pretty girl who loved me so dearly, and whom I took from such a happy home, has been a raving lunatic—obliged to be guarded, held down, and confined behind high walls. They have been my own walls, and I have been her keeper. The doctors wanted me to send her to an asylum; said it would be for her good, and on that I consented; but she grew so much worse there, her frantic struggles and shrieks for me to come to her, to “save her from the dog, to keep it off”, were so incessant and heart-rending that they sent for me; and I have never left her
again. God only knows what that means; what the horror and agony of those two years, those ceaseless, piteous cries for her child, our child, those agonized entreaties to me “not to go with Kilmoyle; to take her away, away”; those—oh! how have I ever borne it!…
Today it is over. She is dead; and I scarce dare leave her even yet! Never once in all this time have I been tempted to share the horrible delusion which, beginning in a weak state of health, and confirmed by the awful coincidence of our baby’s death, upset my darling’s brain; and yet now—now that it is over, I feel as if the madness which slew her were coming on me also. As she lay dying last night, and I watched by her alone, I seemed to hear a sound of snuffing and scratching at the door outside, as though some animal were there. Once, indeed, I strode to it and threw it open, but there was nothing—nothing but a dark, fleeting shadow seen for one moment, and the sound of soft, unshod feet going pit, pat, pit, pat, upon the stairs as they retreated downwards. It was but fancy; my own heartbeats, as I knew; and yet—yet if the women who turned me out an hour ago should have left her alone—if that sound now—
* * * *
Here the writing came to an abrupt end, the pen lying in a blot across it. At the inquest held subsequently the footman deposed that he heard his master fling open the study door, and rush violently upstairs to the death-chamber above. A loud exclamation, and the report of a pistol-shot followed almost immediately; and on running to the rescue he found Captain Glennie standing inside the door, his face livid with horror, and the revolver in his outstretched hand still pointed at a corner of the room on the other side of the bier, the white covering on which had in one place been dragged off and tom. Before the man could speak, however, his master turned round to him, and exclaiming:
“Williams, I have seen it! It was there! On her! Better this than a madhouse! There is no other escape,” put the revolver to his head, and fired. He was dead ere even the servant could catch him.
THE STORY OF MEDHANS LEA, by E. Heron & H. Heron
Originally appeared Ghosts: Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low, 1899.
The following story has been put together from the account of the affair given by Nare-Jones, sometime house-surgeon at Bart’s, of his strange terror and experiences both in Medhans Lea and the pallid avenue between the beeches; of the narrative of Savelsan, of what he saw and heard in the billiard room and afterwards; of the silent and indisputable witness of big, bullnecked Harland himself; and, lastly, of the conversation which subsequently took place between these three men and Mr. Flaxman Low, the noted psychologist.
It was by the merest chance that Harland and his two guests spent that memorable evening of the 18th of January, 1899, in the house of Medhans Lea. The house stands on the slope of a partially-wooded ridge in one of the Midland Counties. It faces south, and overlooks a wide valley bounded by the blue outlines of the Bredon hills. The place is secluded, the nearest dwelling being a small public-house at the cross roads some mile and a half from the lodge gates.
Medhans Lea is famous for its long straight avenue of beeches, and for other things. Harland, when he signed the lease, was thinking of the avenue of beeches; not of the other things, of which he knew nothing till later.
Harland had made his money by running tea plantations in Assam, and he owned all the virtues and faults of a man who has spent most of his life abroad. The first time, he visited the house he weighed seventeen stone and ended most of his sentences with “don’t yer know?” His ideas could hardly be said to travel on the higher planes of thought, and his chief aim in life was to keep himself down to the seventeen stone. He had a red neck and a blue eye, and was a muscular, inoffensive, good-natured man, with courage to spare, and an excellent voice for accompanying the banjo.
After signing the lease, he found that Medhans Lea needed an immense amount of putting in order and decorating. While this was being done, he came backwards and forwards to the nearest provincial town, where he stopped at a hotel, driving out almost daily to superintend the arrangements of his new habitation. Thus, he had been away for the Christmas and New Year, but about the 15th January he returned to the Red Lion, accompanied by his friends Nare-Jones and Savelsan, who proposed to move with him into his new house during the course of the ensuing week.
The immediate cause of their visit to Medhans Lea on the evening of the 18th was the fact that the billiard table at the Red Lion was not fit, as Harland remarked, to play shinty on, while there was an excellent table just put in at Medhans Lea, where the big billiard-room in the left wing had a wide window with a view down a portion of the beech avenue.
“Hang it!” said Harland, “I wish they would hurry up with the house. The painters aren’t out of it yet, and the people don’t come to the Lodge till Monday.”
“It’s a pity, too,” remarked Savelsan regretfully, “when you think of that table.”
Savelsan was an enthusiast in billiards, who spent all the time he could spare from his business, which happened to be teabroking, at the game. He was the more sorry for the delay, since Harland was one of the few men he knew to whom it was not necessary to give points.
“It’s a ripping table,” returned Harland. “Tell you what,” he added, struck by a happy idea, “I’ll send out Thoms to make things straight for us tomorrow, and we’ll put a case of syphons and a bottle of whisky under the seat of the trap, and drive over for a game after dinner.”
The other two agreed to this arrangement, but in the morning Nare-Jones found himself obliged to run up to London to see about securing a berth as ship’s doctor. It was settled, however, that on his return he was to follow Harland and Savelsan to Medhans Lea.
He got back by the 8.30, entirely delighted, because he had booked a steamer bound for the Persian Gulf and Karachi, and had gained the cheering intelligence that a virulent type of cholera was lying in wait for the advent of the Mecca pilgrims in at any rate two of the chief ports of call, which would give him precisely the experience he desired.
Having dined, and the night being fine, he ordered a dogcart to take him out to Medhans Lea. The moon had just risen by the time he reached the entrance to the avenue, and as he was beginning to feel cold he pulled up, intending to walk to the house. Then he dismissed the boy and cart, a carriage having been ordered to come for the whole party after midnight. Nare-Jones stopped to light a cigar before entering the avenue, then he walked past the empty lodge. He moved briskly in the best possible temper with himself and all the world. The night was still, and his collar up, his feet fell silently on the dry carriage road, while his mind was away on blue water forecasting his voyage on the S.S. Sumatra.
He says he was quite halfway up the avenue before he became conscious of anything unusual. Looking up at the sky, he noticed what a bright, clear night it was, and how sharply defined the outline of the beeches stood out against the vault of heaven. The moon was yet low, and threw netted shadows of bare twigs and branches on the road which ran between black lines of trees in an almost straight vista up to the dead grey face of the house now barely two hundred yards away. Altogether it struck him as forming a pallid picture, etched in like a steel engraving in black, and grey, and white.
He was thinking of this when he was aware of words spoken rapidly in his ear, and he turned half expecting to see someone behind him. No one was visible. He had not caught the words, nor could he define the voice; but a vague conviction of some horrible meaning fixed itself in his consciousness.
The night was very still, ahead of him the house glimmered grey and shuttered in the moonlight. He shook himself, and walked on oppressed by a novel sensation compounded of disgust and childish fear; and still, from behind his shoulder, came the evil, voiceless murmuring.
He admits that he passed the end of the avenue at an amble, and was abreast of a semi-circle of shrubbery, when a small object was thrust out from the shadow of the bushes, and lay in the open lig
ht. Though the night was peculiarly still, it fluttered and balanced a moment, as if windblown, then came in skimming flights to his feet. He picked it up and made for the door, which yielded to his hand, and he flung it to and bolted it behind him.
Once in the warmly-lit hall his senses returned, and he waited to recover breath and composure before facing the two men whose voices and laughter came from a room on his right. But the door of the room was thrown open, and the burly figure of Harland in his shirt-sleeves appeared on the threshold.
“Hullo, Jones, that you? Come along!” he said genially.
“Bless me!” exclaimed Nare-Jones irritably, “there’s not a light in any of the windows. It might be a house of the dead!”
Harland stared at him, but all he said was: “Have a whisky-and-soda?”
Savelsan, who was leaning over the billiard table, trying side-strokes with his back to Nare-Jones, added:
“Did you expect us to illuminate the place for you? There’s not a soul in the house but ourselves.”
“Say when,” said Harland, poising the bottle over a glass.
Nare-Jones laid down what he held in his hand on the corner of the billiard table, and took up his glass.
“What in creation’s this?” asked Savelsan.
“I don’t know; the wind blew it to my feet just outside,” replied Nare-Jones, between two long pulls at the whisky-and-soda.
“Blown to your feet?” repeated Savelsan, taking up the thing and weighing it in his hand. “It must be blowing a hurricane then.”
“It isn’t blowing at all,” returned Nare-Jones blankly. “The night is dead calm.”
For the object that had fluttered and rolled so lightly across the turf and gravel was a small battered, metal calf, made of some heavy brass amalgam.
The Fifth Ghost Story Megapack 25 Classic Haunts Page 4
