THE TRUE GHOST STORY.
_Horatio._--"Look, my lord, it comes!"
Hamlet the Dane.
Valentine was at Melcombe again. He had begun several improvements about
the place which called for time, and would cost money. It was not
without misgiving that he had consented to enter on the first of them.
There was still in his mind, as he believed, a reservation. He would
give up the property if he ever saw fit cause.
Now, if he began to tie himself by engaging in expensive enterprises, or
by undertaking responsibilities, it might be impossible to do this.
Therefore he held off for some little time.
He fell into his first enterprise almost unawares, he got out of his
reluctant shrinking from it afterwards by a curious sophistry. "While
this estate is virtually mine," he thought, "it is undoubtedly my duty
to be a good steward of it. If, in the course of providence, I am shown
that I am to give it up, no doubt I shall also be shown how to proceed
about these minor matters."
He had learnt from his uncle the doctrine of a particular providence,
but had not received with it his uncle's habit of earnest waiting on
providence, and straightforward desire to follow wherever he believed it
to lead.
Valentine came almost at once under the influence of the vicar, Mr.
Craik, the man who had always seen something so more than commonly
mysterious about the ways of God to men. Mr. Craik wanted Valentine to
restore the old church, by which he meant to pull it almost to pieces,
to raise the roof, to clear away the quaint old oaken galleries, to push
out a long chancel, and to put in some painted windows, literally such,
pictures of glass, things done at Munich.
When Valentine, always facile, had begun to consider this matter, a
drawing of the building, as it was to look when restored, was made, in
order to stir up his zeal, and make him long for a parish church that
would do him and the vicar credit. He beheld it, and forthwith vowed,
with uncivil directness, that he would rather build the vicar a _crack
church_ to his mind, in the middle of the village, than help in having
that dear old place mauled and tampered with.
Mr. Craik no sooner heard this than he began to talk about a site.
He was a good man, had learned to be meek, so that when he was after
anything desirable he might be able to take a rebuff, and not mind it.
In the pleasant summer evenings he often came to see Valentine, and
while the latter sauntered about with a cigar, he would carve faces on a
stick with his knife, walking beside him. He had given up smoking,
because he wanted the poor also to give it up, as an expensive luxury,
and one that led to drinking. Valentine respected him, was sure the
scent of a cigar was still very pleasant to his nostrils, and knew he
could well have afforded to smoke himself. That was one reason why he
let himself be persuaded in the matter of the site (people never are
persuaded by any reason worth, mentioning). Another reason was, that Mr.
Craik had become a teetotaller, "for you know, old fellow, that gives
me such a _pull_ in persuading the drunkards;" a third reason was, that
there was a bit of land in the middle of the village, just the thing for
a site, and worth nothing, covered with stones and thistles. Mr. Craik
said he should have such a much better congregation, he felt sure, if
the church was not in such an extremely inconvenient out-of-the-way
place; that aged saint, who was gone, had often regretted the
inconvenience for the people.
Valentine at last gave him the site. Mr. Craik remarked on what a
comfort it would have been to the aged saint if she could have known
what a good churchman her heir would prove himself.
But Valentine was not at all what Mr. Craik meant by a good churchman.
Such religious opinions and feelings as had influence over him, had come
from the evangelical school. His old father and uncle had been very
religious men, and of that type, almost as a matter of course. In their
early day evangelical religion had been as the river of God--the one
channel in which higher thought and fervent feeling ran.
Valentine had respected their religion, had seen that it was real, that
it made them contented, happy, able to face death with something more
than hope, able to acquiesce in the wonderful reservations of God with
men, the more able on account of them to look on this life as the
childhood of the next, and to wait for knowledge patiently. But yet, of
all the forms taken by religious feeling, Valentine considered it the
most inconvenient; of all the views of Christianity, the most difficult
to satisfy.
He told the vicar he did not see why his grandmother was to be called a
saint because she had gone through great misfortunes, and because it had
pleased her to be _trundled_ to church, on all Sundays and saints' days,
besides attending to the other ordinances of the church and the
sacraments.
When he was mildly admonished that a site seemed to presuppose a
church, he assented, and with one great plunge, during which he
distinctly felt, both that his position as landlord was not to be
defended, and that this good use of the money might make things more
secure, he gave a promise to build one--felt a twinge of compunction,
and a glow of generosity, but blushed hotly when Mr. Craik observed that
the old church, being put in decent repair, and chiefly used for
marriages and for the burial service, it might, perhaps be a pleasing
testimony, a filial act, to dedicate the new one to St. Elizabeth,
"Simply in reverend recollection, you know, Melcombe, of that having
been--been your grandmother's name."
"No, I shouldn't like it," said Valentine abruptly. Mr. Craik was not
sure whether his evident shrinking was due to some low-church scruple as
to any dedication at all, or whether the name of the sainted Elizabeth
had startled him by reminding him of self-renunciation and a self-denial
even to the death, of all that in this world we love and long for. This
Elizabeth, his grandmother, might have been a saintly old woman in her
conversation, her patience, her piety, for anything Valentine knew to
the contrary, but he had hold now of all her accounts; he knew from
them, and from investigations made among the tenants, that she had held
a hard grip of her possessions, had sometimes driven shrewd bargains,
and even up to her extreme old age had often shown herself rather more
than a match for some of those about her. Things to be done by others
she had seen to with vigilance, things to be done by herself she had
shown a masterly power of leaving undone. Her property had considerably
increased during her term of possession, though in ordinary charity a
good deal had been given away. All was in order, and her heir whom she
had never seen was reaping the fruits of her judgment and her savings;
but whether she ought to be called a saint he rather doubted.
He had returned to Melcombe, not without shrewd suspicions that his
cousin was soon to be his brother-in-law. A letter following closely on
his steps had confirmed them. Some time in September he expected a
summons to be present at the wedding; he wished after that to travel for
several months, so he allowed Mr. Craik to persuade him that his good
intentions ought not to be put off, and he made arrangements for the
commencement of the new church at once.
It was to cost about three thousand pounds, a large sum; but the payment
was to be spread over three or four years, and Valentine, at present,
had few other claims. He had, for instance, no poor relations, at least
he thought not; but he had scarcely given his word for the building of
the church when he received a letter from Mrs. Peter Melcombe--"an ugly
name," thought Valentine. "Mrs. Valentine Melcombe will sound much
better. Oh, I suppose the young woman will be Mrs. Melcombe, though."
Mrs. Peter Melcombe let Valentine know that she and Laura had returned
to England, and would now gladly accept his invitation, given in the
spring, to come and stay a few weeks with him whenever this should be
the case.
"I have always considered Laura a sacred trust," continued the good
lady. "My poor dear Peter, having left her to me--my means are by no
means large--and I am just now feeling it my duty to consider a certain
very kind and very flattering offer. I am not at all sure that a
marriage with one whom I could esteem might not help me to bear better
the sorrow of my loss in my dear child; but I have decided nothing.
Laura has actually only five hundred pounds of her own, and that, I need
not say, leaves her as dependent on me as if she was a daughter."
"Now look here," exclaimed Valentine, laying the letter down flat on the
table, and holding it there with his hand--"now look here, this is
serious. You are going to bring that simpleton Laura to me, and you
would like to leave her here, would you? Preposterous! She cannot live
with me! Besides, I am such a fool myself, that if I was shut up with
her long, I should certainly marry her. Take a little time, Val, and
consider.
"'Wilt them brave?
Or wilt thou bribe?
Or wilt thou cheat the kelpie?'
"Let me see. Laura is my own cousin, and the only Melcombe. Now, if Craik
had any sense of gratitude--but he hasn't--it seems so natural, 'I built
you a church, you marry my cousin. Do I hear you say you won't? You'd
better think twice about that. I'd let you take a large slice of the
turnip-field into your back garden. Turnips, I need hardly add, you'd
have _ad lib._ (very wholesome vegetables), and you'd have all that
capital substantial furniture now lying useless in these attics, and an
excellent family mangle out of the messuage or tenement called the
laundry--the wedding breakfast for nothing. I think you give in, Craik?'
Yes; we shake hands--he has tears in his eyes. 'Now, Laura, what have
you got to say?' '_He has sandy hair._' 'Of course he has, the true
Saxon colour. Go down on your knees, miss, and thank heaven fasting for
a good man's love (Shakespeare).' '_And he has great red hands._'
'Surely they had better be red than green--celestial rosy red, love's
proper hue.' Good gracious! here he is."
"Ah, Craik! is that you? How goes it?"
One of Mr. Craik's gifts was that he could sigh better than almost
anybody; whenever he was going to speak of anything as darkly
mysterious, his sigh was enough to convince any but the most hardened.
He _fetched_ a sigh then (that is the right expression)--he fetched it
up from the very bottom of his heart, and then he began to unfold his
grievances to Valentine, how some of his best school-girls had tittered
at church, how some of his favourite boys had got drunk, how some of
the farmers had not attended morning service for a month, and how two
women, regular attendants, had, notwithstanding, quarrelled to that
degree that they had come to blows, and one of them had given the other
a black eye, and old Becky Maddison is ill, he concluded. "I've been
reading to her to-day. I don't know what to think about administering
the Holy Communion to her while she persists in that lie."
"Do you mean the ghost story?" asked Valentine.
"Yes."
"It may have been a lie when she first told it; but in her extreme old
age she may have utterly forgotten its first invention. It may possibly
not be now a conscious lie, or, on the other hand, it may be true that
she did see something."
"Your grandmother always considered that it was a lie, and a very cruel
lie."
"How so? She accused no one of anything."
"No, but she made people talk. She set about a rumour that the place was
haunted, and for some years the family could hardly get a servant to
live with them."
"Poor old soul!" thought Valentine. "I suppose it would be wrong to try
and bribe her to deny it. I wish she would though."
"I think," said Mr. Craik, an air of relief coming over his face--"I
think I shall tell her that I regard it in the light you indicated."
Soon after that he went away. It was evening, the distant hills, when
Valentine sauntered forth, were of an intense solid blue, gloomy and
pure, behind them lay wedges of cloud edged with gold, all appeared
still, unchanging, and there was a warm balmy scent of clover and
country crops brooding over the place.
Valentine sauntered on through the peaceful old churchyard, and over the
brow of the little hill. What a delightful evening view! A long hollow,
with two clear pools (called in those parts meres) in it, narrow, and
running side by side, the evening star and crescent moon, little more
than a gold line, reflected in one of them. The reed warbler was
beginning to sing, and little landrails were creeping out of the green
sedges, the lilies were closing and letting themselves down. There was
something so delightful, so calm, that Valentine felt his heart elevated
by it. The peace of nature seems a type of the rest of God. It reminds
man of that deep awful leisure in which his Maker dwells, taking thought
for, and having, as we express it, time, to bless and think upon his
creatures.
Valentine watched the gold in the sky, and the primrose-tinted depths
beyond. He was thankful for his delightful home; he felt a good impulse
in him, urging that he must do his duty in this his day and generation;
he seemed to respond to it, hoped the new church would be of use in the
neighbourhood, and felt that, even if it cost him some sacrifice, Laura
must be provided for; either he must settle on her something that she
could live on, or he must promise her a marriage portion.
As for himself, he was a good young fellow, better than many, and when
he went on to think of himself, he saw, in his vision of his own future,
nothing worse than an almost impossibly pretty girl as his bride, one
with whom he was to take a specially long and agreeable wedding tour;
and some time after that he supposed himself to see two or three jolly
little boys rolling about on the grass, the Melcombes of the future, and
with them and their mother he saw himself respected and happy.
Sauntering on still, he came past Becky Maddison's cottage, a pleasant
abode, thatched, whitewashed, and covered with jasmine, but too close to
the mere. "I will talk to that poor old soul again, and see if I can
make anything of her. I am sure Craik is mistaken about her."
"She fails fast," said the daughter, when accosted by Valentine; and she
took him up-stairs to see her mother. He first made himself welcome by
giving her a handsome alms, and then inquired about her health.
The daughter had gone down of her own accord. "I'n bin very bad with my
_sparms_" meaning spasms, she answered in a plaintive voice. Valentine
saw a very great change in her, the last sunset's afterglow fell upon
her face, it was sunk and hollow, yet she spoke in clear tones, full of
complaint, but not feeble. "And I'n almost done wi' this world."
"Mr. Craik comes to see you, I know; he told me to-day that you were
ill."
"Parson were always hard on I."
"Because he doesn't believe the ghost story."
"Ay, told me so this blessed marnin'; and who be he? wanted I to own
'twas a lie, and take the blessed sacrament, and make a good end. 'Sir,'
says I, 'Mr. Martimer believed it, that's Mr. Melcombe now--and so 'e
did, sir.'"
"No, I didn't," said Valentine.
"No?" she exclaimed, in a high piping tone.
"No, I say. I thought you had either invented it--made it up, I mean--or
else dreamed it. I do not wish to be hard on you, but I want to remind
you how you said you had almost done with this world."
"Why did 'e goo away, and never tell I what 'e thought?" she
interrupted.
Valentine took no notice, but went on. "And the parson feels uneasy
about you, and so do I. I wish you would try to forget what is written
down in the book, and try to remember what you really saw; you must have
been quite a young girl then. Well, tell me how you got up very early in
the morning, almost before it was light, and tell what you saw, however
much it was, or however little; and if you are not quite sure on the
whole that you saw anything at all, tell that, and you will have a right
to hope that you shall be forgiven."
"I'n can't put it in fine words."
"No, and there is no need."
"Would 'e believe it, if I told it as true as I could?"
"Yes, I would."
"I will, then, as I hope to be saved."
"I mean to stand your friend, whatever you say, and I know how hard it
is to own a lie.'
"Ay, that it be, and God knows I'n told a many."
"Well, I ask you, then, as in the sight of God, is this one of them?"
"No, sir. It ain't."
"What! you did see a ghost?"
"Ay, I did."
Valentine concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and went on.
"You told me the orchard of pear-trees and cherry-trees was all in
blossom, as white as snow. Now don't you think, as it was so very early,
almost at dawn, that what you saw really might have been a young
cherry-tree standing all in white, but that you, being frightened, took
it for a ghost?"
"The sperit didn't walk in white," she answered; "I never said it was in
white."
"Why, my good woman, you said it was in a shroud!"
"Ay, I told the gentleman when he took it down, the ghost were wrapped
up in a cloak, a long cloak, and he said that were a shroud."
"But don't you know what a shroud is?" exclaimed Valentine, a good deal
surprised. "What is the dress called hereabout, that a man is buried
in?"
"His buryin' gown. 'Tis only a sperit, a ghost, that walks in a shroud.
I'n told that oft enough, I _should_ know." She spoke in a querulous
tone, as one having reasonable cause for complaint.
"Well," said Valentine, after a pause, "if the shroud was not white,
what colour was it?"
"Mid have been black for aught I know, 'twere afore sunrise; but it mid
have been a dark blue, and I think 'twas. There were a grete wash up at
the house that marnin', and I were coming to help. A sight of
cherry-trees grow all about the door, and as I came round the corner
there it stood with its hand on the latch, and its eyes very serious."
"What did it look like?"
"It looked like Mr. Cuthbert Martimer, and it stared at I, and then I
saw it were Mr. Melcombe."
"Were you near it?"
"Ay, sir."
"Well, what next?"
"I dropped a curtsey."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Valentine, turning cold. "What, curtsey to a
ghost, a spirit?"
"Ay, I did, and passed on, and that very instant I turned, and it were
gone."
Valentine's voice faltered as he asked the next question. "You were not
frightened?"
"No, sir, because I hadn't got in my head yet that 'twere a sperit. When
I got in, I said, 'I'n seen him,' 'You fool,' says Mary Carfoil, that
was cook then, 'your head,' says she, 'is for ever running on the men
folks. He's a thousand mile off,' says she, 'in the Indies, and the
family heerd on him a week agoo.' 'I did see him,' says I. 'Goo along
about your business,' says she, 'and light the copper. It were Mr.
Cuthbert 'e saw, got up by-times to shoot rooks. Lucky enough,' says
she, 'that Mr. Melcombe be away.'"
"Why was it lucky?"
"Because they'd both set their eyes on the same face--they had. It's
hard to cry shame on the dead, but they had. And _she's_ dead too.
Neither on 'em meant any good to her. They had words about her. She'd
have nought to say to Mr. Cuthbert then."
Valentine groaned.
"No, nor she wouldn't after I'n seen the ghost, nor till every soul
said he was dead and drowned, and the letter come from London town."
"There must have been others beside you," said Valentine, sharply,
"other people passing in and out of the laundry door. Why did no one see
him but you--see it but you?"
"It were not the laundry door, sir, 'twere the door in the garden wall,
close by the grete pear-tree, as it went in at; Madam shut up that door
for ever so many years--'e can't mistake it."
"Ah!"
"That's the place, sir."
"And who was fool enough first to call it a ghost?" cried Valentine
almost fiercely. "No, no, I mean," he continued faltering--"I don't know
what I mean," and he dropped his face into his hands, and groaned. "I
always thought it was the yard door."
"No, Sir."
"And so when he disappeared, and was no more seen, you thought you had
seen his ghost?"
"Ay, sir, we all knowed it then, sure enough; Madam seemed to know't
from the first. When they told her I'n seen Mr. Melcombe, she fell in a
grete faint, and wrung her hands, and went in another faint, and cried
out he were dead; but the sperit never walked any more, folks said it
came for a token to I, 'her did ought to look for death by-times,' said
they."
"That's all, is it?"
"Ay, sir, that be all."
"I believe you this time."
"'E may, sir, and God bless 'e."