I
It was not her beauty which made Irene Gaspic unusual, although she was
bewitchingly pretty; nor yet her wit, her cleverness, or her wealth,
albeit she was well endowed with all these good gifts: other girls were
pretty, and wise, and witty, and rich. It was something far more piquant
and rare which marked Irene as different from her mates, the fact being
that from her great-aunt on the mother's side, an old lady who for
nearly ninety years displayed to her fellow-mortals one of the most
singular characters possible, Irene had inherited the power of seeing
ghosts.
It is so generally regarded as a weakness even to believe in disembodied
spirits that in justice to Irene it is but fair to remark that she
believed in them only because she could not help seeing them, and that
the power with which she was endowed had come to her by inheritance
quite without any wish on her part. Any fair-minded person must perceive
the difference between seeing ghosts because one is so foolish as to
believe in them, and believing in their existence because one cannot
help seeing them. It might be added, moreover, that the firmness which
Miss Gaspic had displayed when visited by some of the most unpleasant
wraiths in the whole category should be allowed to tell in her favor.
When she was approached during a visit to Castle Doddyfoethghw--where,
as every traveler in Wales is aware, is to be found the most ghostly
phantom in the three kingdoms--by a gory figure literally streaming with
blood, and carrying its mangled head in its hands, she merely remarked
coldly: "Go away at once, please. You do not alarm me in the least;
but to come into the presence of a lady in such a state of unpleasant
dismemberment is in shockingly bad taste." Whereat the poor wraith fell
all along the ground in astonishment and alarm, leaving a stain of
blood upon the stone floor, which may be seen to this day by any one
who doubts the tale enough to go to Castle Doddyfoethghw to see.
Although Irene seldom referred to her inheritance, and professed, when
she did speak of it, to feel a lively indignation that her aunt Eunice
Mariamne should have thrust upon her such a bequest, she was too
thoroughly human and feminine to lack wholly a secret pride that she
should be distinguished by a gift so unusual. She had too good taste
openly to talk of it, yet she had not the firmness entirely to conceal
it; and her friends were pretty generally aware of the legacy and
of many circumstances resulting from its possession. Some few of
her intimates, indeed, had ventured to employ her good offices in
communicating with family wraiths; and although Irene was averse to
anything which savored so strongly of mediumship and other vulgar
trades, she could not but be pleased at the excellent results which
had followed her mediations in several instances.
When, therefore, she one day received a note from her old school friend
Fanny McHugh, inviting her to come down to visit her at Oldtower, with
the mysterious remark, "I not only long to see you, dear, but there is
something most important that you can do for me, and nobody but you,"
Irene at once remembered that the McHughs had a family ghost, and was
convinced that she was invited, so to say, in her professional capacity.
She was, however, by no means averse to going, and that for several
reasons. The McHugh estate was a beautiful old place in one of the
loveliest of New England villages, where the family had been in the
ascendancy since pre-Revolutionary days; Irene was sufficiently fond of
Fanny; and she was well aware, in virtue of that intuition which enables
women to know so many things, that her friend's brother, Arthur McHugh,
would be at home at the time named for the visit. Irene and Lieutenant
Arthur McHugh had been so much to each other at one time that they had
been to the very verge of a formal engagement, when at the last moment
he drew back. There was no doubt of his affection, but he was restrained
from asking Irene to share his fortunes by the unpleasant though timely
remembrance that he had none. The family wealth, once princely for the
country and time, had dwindled until little remained save the ancestral
mansion and the beautiful but unremunerative lawns surrounding it.
Of course this conduct upon the part of Lieutenant McHugh was precisely
that which most surely fixed him in the heart of Irene. The lover who
continues to love, but unselfishly renounces, is hardly likely to be
forgotten; and it is to be presumed that it was with more thought of the
young and handsome lieutenant in flesh and blood than of the Continental
major in ghostly attenuation who lurked in the haunted chamber that Miss
Gaspic accepted the invitation to Oldtower.