"One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead."
I myself have never seen a ghost (I am by no means sure that I wish ever
to do so), but I have a friend whose experience in this respect has been
less limited than mine. Till lately, however, I had never heard the
details of Lady Farquhar's adventure, though the fact of there being a
ghost story which she could, if she chose, relate with the authority of
an eye-witness, had been more than once alluded to before me. Living at
extreme ends of the country, it is but seldom my friend and I are able
to meet; but a few months ago I had the good fortune to spend some days
in her house, and one evening our conversation happening to fall on the
subject of the possibility of so-called "supernatural" visitations or
communications, suddenly what I had heard returned to my memory.
"By the bye," I exclaimed, "we need not go far for an authority on the
question. You have seen a ghost yourself, Margaret. I remember once
hearing it alluded to before you, and you did not contradict it. I have
so often meant to ask you for the whole story. Do tell it to us now."
Lady Farquhar hesitated for a moment, and her usually bright expression
grew somewhat graver. When she spoke, it seemed to be with a slight
effort.
"You mean what they all call the story of 'my old lady,' I suppose," she
said at last. "Oh yes, if you care to hear it, I will tell it you. But
there is not much to tell, remember."
"There seldom is in _true_ stories of the kind," I replied. "Genuine
ghost stories are generally abrupt and inconsequent in the extreme,
but on this very account all the more impressive. Don't you think so?"
"I don't know that I am a fair judge," she answered. "Indeed," she went
on rather gravely, "my own opinion is that what you call _true_ ghost
stories are very seldom told at all."
"How do you mean? I don't quite understand you," I said, a little
perplexed by her words and tone.
"I mean," she replied, "that people who really believe they have come in
contact with--with anything of that kind, seldom care to speak about it."
"Do you really think so? do you mean that you feel so yourself?" I
exclaimed with considerable surprise. "I had no idea you did, or I would
not have mentioned the subject. Of course you know I would not ask you
to tell it if it is the least painful or disagreeable to you to talk
about it."
"But it isn't. Oh no, it is not nearly so bad as that," she replied,
with a smile. "I cannot really say that it is either painful or
disagreeable to me to recall it, for I cannot exactly apply either of
those words to the thing itself. All that I feel is a sort of shrinking
from the subject, strong enough to prevent my ever alluding to it
lightly or carelessly. Of all things, I should dislike to have a joke
made of it. But with you I have no fear of that. And you trust me,
don't you? I don't mean as to truthfulness only; but you don't think me
deficient in common sense and self-control--not morbid, or very apt to
be run away with by my imagination?"
"Not the sort of person one would pick out as likely to see ghosts?"
I replied. "Certainly not. You are far too sensible and healthy and
vigorous. I can't, very readily, fancy you the victim of delusion of any
kind. But as to ghosts--are they or are they not delusions? There lies
the question! Tell us your experience of them, any way."
So she told the story I had asked for--told it in the simplest language,
and with no exaggeration of tone or manner, as we sat there in her
pretty drawing-room, our chairs drawn close to the fire, for it was
Christmas time, and the weather was "seasonable." Two or three of
Margaret's children were in the room, though not within hearing of us;
all looked bright and cheerful, nothing mysterious. Yet notwithstanding
the total deficiency of ghostly accessories, the story impressed me
vividly.
"It was early in the spring of '55 that it happened," began Lady
Farquhar; "I never forget the year, for a reason I will tell you
afterwards. It is fully fifteen years ago now--a long time--but I am
still quite able to recall the _feeling_ this strange adventure of mine
left on me, though a few details and particulars have grown confused
and misty. I think it often happens so when one tries, as it were _too_
hard, to be accurate and unexaggerated in telling over anything. One's
very honesty is against one. I have not told it over many times, but
each time it seems more difficult to tell it quite exactly; the
impression left at the time was so powerful that I have always dreaded
incorrectness or exaggeration creeping in. It reminds me, too, of the
curious way in which a familiar word or name grows distorted, and then
cloudy and strange, if one looks at it too long or thinks about it too
much. But I must get on with my story. Well, to begin again. In the
winter of '54-'55 we were living--my mother, my sisters, and I, that is,
and from time to time my brother--in, or rather near, a quiet little
village on the south coast of Ireland. We had gone there, before the
worst of the winter began at home, for the sake of my health. I had not
been as well as usual for some time (this was greatly owing, I believe,
to my having lately endured unusual anxiety of mind), and my dear mother
dreaded the cold weather for me, and determined to avoid it. I say that
I had had unusual anxiety to bear, still it was not of a kind to render
me morbid or fanciful. And what is even more to the point, my mind was
perfectly free from prepossession or association in connection with the
place we were living in, or the people who had lived there before us. I
simply knew nothing whatever of these people, and I had no sort of fancy
about the house--that it was haunted, or anything of that kind; and
indeed I never heard that it _was_ thought to be haunted. It did not
look like it; it was just a moderate-sized, somewhat old-fashioned
country, or rather sea-side, house, furnished, with the exception of one
room, in an ordinary enough modern style. The exception was a small room
on the bedroom floor, which, though not locked off (that is to say, the
key was left in the lock outside), was not given up for our use, as it
was crowded with musty old furniture, packed closely together, and all
of a fashion many, many years older than that of the contents of the
rest of the house. I remember some of the pieces of furniture still,
though I think I was only once or twice in the room all the time we were
there. There were two or three old-fashioned cabinets or bureaux; there
was a regular four-post bedstead, with the gloomy curtains still hanging
round it; and ever so many spider-legged chairs and rickety tables; and
I rather think in one corner there was a spinet. But there was nothing
particularly curious or attractive, and we never thought of meddling
with the things or 'poking about,' as girls sometimes do; for we always
thought it was by mistake that this room had not been locked off
altogether, so that no one should meddle with anything in it.
"We had rented the house for six months from a Captain Marchmont, a
half-pay officer, naval or military, I don't know which, for we never
saw him, and all the negotiations were managed by an agent. Captain
Marchmont and his family, as a rule, lived at Ballyreina all the year
round--they found it cheap and healthy, I suppose--but this year they
had preferred to pass the winter in some livelier neighbourhood, and
they were very glad to let the house. It never occurred to us to doubt
our landlord's being the owner of it: it was not till some time after we
left that we learned that he himself was only a tenant, though a tenant
of long standing. There were no people about to make friends with, or to
hear local gossip from. There were no gentry within visiting distance,
and if there had been, we should hardly have cared to make friends for
so short a time as we were to be there. The people of the village were
mostly fishermen and their families; there were so many of them, we
never got to know any specially. The doctor and the priest and the
Protestant clergyman were all newcomers, and all three very uninteresting.
The clergyman used to dine with us sometimes, as my brother had had some
sort of introduction to him when we came to Ballyreina; but we never
heard anything about the place from him. He was a great talker, too;
I am sure he would have told us anything he knew. In short, there was
nothing romantic or suggestive either about our house or the village.
But we didn't care. You see we had gone there simply for rest and quiet
and pure air, and we got what we wanted.
"Well, one evening about the middle of March I was up in my room
dressing for dinner, and just as I had about finished dressing, my
sister Helen came in. I remember her saying as she came in, 'Aren't you
ready yet, Maggie? Are you making yourself extra smart for Mr. Conroy?'
Mr. Conroy was the clergyman; he was dining with us that night. And then
Helen looked at me and found fault with me, half in fun of course, for
not having put on a prettier dress. I remember I said it was good enough
for Mr. Conroy, who was no favourite of mine; but Helen wasn't satisfied
till I agreed to wear a bright scarlet neck-ribbon of hers, and she ran
off to her room to fetch it. I followed her almost immediately. Her room
and mine, I must, by the bye, explain, were at extreme ends of a passage
several yards in length. There was a wall on one side of this passage,
and a balustrade overlooking the staircase on the other. My room was at
the end nearest the top of the staircase. There were no doors along the
passage leading to Helen's room, but just beside her door, at the end,
was that of the unused room I told you of, filled with the old furniture.
The passage was lighted from above by a skylight--I mean, it was by no
means dark or shadowy--and on the evening I am speaking of, it was still
clear daylight. We dined early at Ballyreina; I don't think it could
have been more than a quarter to five when Helen came into my room.
Well, as I was saying, I followed her almost immediately, so quickly
that as I came out of my room I was in time to catch sight of her as
she ran along the passage, and to see her go into her own room. Just
as I lost sight of her--I was coming along more deliberately, you
understand--suddenly, how or when exactly I cannot tell, I perceived
_another_ figure walking along the passage in front of me. It was a
woman, a little thin woman, but though she had her back to me, something
in her gait told me she was not young. She seemed a little bent, and
walked feebly. I can remember her dress even now with the most perfect
distinctness. She had a gown of gray clinging stuff, rather scanty in
the skirt, and one of those funny little old-fashioned black shawls with
a sewed-on border, that you seldom see nowadays. Do you know the kind I
mean? It was a narrow, shawl-pattern border, and there was a short tufty
black fringe below the border. And she had a gray poke bonnet, a bonnet
made of silk 'gathered' on to a large stiff frame; 'drawn' bonnets they
used to be called. I took in all these details of her dress in a moment,
and even in that moment I noticed too that the materials of her clothes
looked _good_, though so plain and old-fashioned. But somehow my first
impulse when I saw her was to call out, 'Fraser, is that you?' Fraser
was my mother's maid: she was a young woman, and not the least like the
person in front of me, but I think a vague idea rushed across my mind
that it might be Fraser dressed up to trick the other servants. But the
figure took no notice of my exclamation; it, or she, walked on quietly,
not even turning her head round in the least; she walked slowly down the
passage, seemingly quite unconscious of my presence, and, to my extreme
amazement, disappeared into the unused room. The key, as I think I told
you, was always turned in the lock--that is to say, the door was locked,
but the key was left in it; but the old woman did not seem to me to
unlock the door, or even to turn the handle. There seemed no obstacle in
her way: she just quietly, as it were, walked _through_ the door. Even
by this time I hardly think I felt _frightened_. What I had seen had
passed too quickly for me as yet to realise its strangeness. Still I
felt perplexed and vaguely uneasy, and I hurried on to my sister's room.
She was standing by the toilet-table, searching for the ribbon. I think
I must have looked startled, for before I could speak she called out,
'Maggie, whatever is the matter with you? You look as if you were going
to faint.' I asked her if she had heard anything, though it was an
inconsistent question, for to _my_ ears there had been no sound at all.
Helen answered, 'Yes:' a moment before I came into the room she had
heard the lock of the lumber-room (so we called it) door click, and had
wondered what I could be going in there for. Then I told her what I had
seen. She looked a little startled, but declared it must have been one
of the servants.
"'If it is a trick of the servants,' I answered, 'it should be exposed;'
and when Helen offered to search through the lumber-room with me at
once, I was very ready to agree to it. I was so satisfied of the reality
of what I had seen, that I declared to Helen that the old woman, whoever
she was, _must_ be in the room; it stood to reason that, having gone in,
she must still be there, as she could not possibly have come out again
without our knowledge.
"So, plucking up our courage, we went to the lumber-room door. I felt so
certain that but a moment before, some one had opened it, that I took
hold of the knob quite confidently and turned it, just as one always
does to open a door. The handle turned, but the door did not yield. I
stooped down to see why; the reason was plain enough: the door was still
locked, locked as usual, and the key in the lock! Then Helen and I stared
at each other: _her_ mind was evidently recurring to the sound she had
heard; what _I_ began to think I can hardly put in words.
"But when we got over this new start a little, we set to work to search
the room as we had intended. And we searched it thoroughly, I assure
you. We dragged the old tables and chairs out of their corners, and
peeped behind the cabinets and chests of drawers where no one _could_
have been hidden. Then we climbed upon the old bedstead, and shook the
curtains till we were covered with dust; and then we crawled under the
valances, and came out looking like sweeps; but there was nothing to be
found. There was certainly _no one_ in the room, and by all appearances
no one could have been there for weeks. We had hardly time to make
ourselves fit to be seen when the dinner-bell rang, and we had to hurry
downstairs. As we ran down we agreed to say nothing of what had happened
before the servants, but after dinner in the drawing-room we told our
story. My mother and brother listened to it attentively, said it was
very strange, and owned themselves as puzzled as we. Mr. Conroy of
course laughed uproariously, and made us dislike him more than ever.
After he had gone we talked it over again among ourselves, and my
mother, who hated mysteries, did her utmost to explain what I had seen
in a matter-of-fact, natural way. Was I sure it was not only Helen
herself I had seen, after fancying she had reached her own room? Was
I quite certain it was not Fraser after all, carrying a shawl perhaps,
which made her look different? Might it not have been this, that, or the
other? It was no use. Nothing could convince me that I had _not_ seen
what I had seen; and though, to satisfy my mother, we cross-questioned
Fraser, it was with no result in the way of explanation. Fraser evidently
knew nothing that could throw light on it, and she was quite certain
that at the time I had seen the figure, both the other servants were
downstairs in the kitchen. Fraser was perfectly trustworthy; we warned
her not to frighten the others by speaking about the affair at all, but
we could not leave off speaking about it among ourselves. We spoke about
it so much for the next few days, that at last my mother lost patience,
and forbade us to mention it again. At least she _pretended_ to lose
patience; in reality I believe she put a stop to the discussion because
she thought it might have a bad effect on our nerves, on mine especially;
for I found out afterwards that in her anxiety she even went the length
of writing about it to our old doctor at home, and that it was by his
advice she acted in forbidding us to talk about it any more. Poor dear
mother! I don't know that it was very sound advice. One's mind often
runs all the more on things one is forbidden to mention. It certainly
was so with me, for I thought over my strange adventure almost
incessantly for some days after we left off talking about it."
Here Margaret paused.
"And is that all?" I asked, feeling a little disappointed, I think, at
the unsatisfactory ending to the "true ghost story."
"All!" repeated Lady Farquhar, rousing herself as if from a reverie,
"all! oh, dear no. I have sometimes wished it had been, for I don't
think what I have told you would have left any long-lasting impression
on me. All! oh, dear no. I am only at the beginning of my story."
So we resettled ourselves again to listen, and Lady Farquhar
continued:--
"For some days, as I said, I could not help thinking a good deal of the
mysterious old woman I had seen. Still, I assure you, I was not exactly
frightened. I was more puzzled--puzzled and annoyed at not being able in
any way to explain the mystery. But by ten days or so from the time of
my first adventure the impression was beginning to fade. Indeed, the day
before the evening I am now going to tell you of, I don't think my old
lady had been in my head at all. It was filled with other things. So,
don't you see, the explaining away what I saw as entirely a delusion,
a fancy of my own brain, has a weak point here; for _had_ it been all
my fancy, it would surely have happened _sooner_--at the time my mind
really was full of the subject. Though even if it had been so, it would
not have explained the curious coincidence of my 'fancy' with facts,
actual facts of which at the time I was in complete ignorance. It must
have been just about ten days after my first adventure that I happened
one evening, between eight and nine o'clock, to be alone upstairs in my
own room. We had dined at half-past five as usual, and had been sitting
together in the drawing-room since dinner, but I had made some little
excuse for coming upstairs; the truth being that I wanted to be alone
to read over a letter which the evening post (there actually was an
evening post at Ballyreina) had brought me, and which I had only had
time to glance at. It was a very welcome and dearly-prized letter, and
the reading of it made me very happy. I don't think I had felt so happy
all the months we had been in Ireland as I was feeling that evening. Do
you remember my saying I never forget the year all this happened? It was
the year '55 and the month of March, the spring following that first
dreadful 'Crimean winter,' and news had just come to England of the
Czar's death, and every one was wondering and hoping and fearing what
would be the results of it. I had no very near friends in the Crimea,
but of course, like every one else, I was intensely interested in all
that was going on, and in this letter of mine there was told the news
of the Czar's death, and there was a good deal of comment upon it. I had
read my letter--more than once, I daresay--and was beginning to think I
must go down to the others in the drawing-room. But the fire in my
bedroom was very tempting; it was burning so brightly, that though I had
got up from my chair by the fireside to leave the room, and had blown
out the candle I had read my letter by, I yielded to the inclination to
sit down again for a minute or two to dream pleasant dreams and think
pleasant thoughts. At last I rose and turned towards the door--it was
standing wide open, by the bye. But I had hardly made a step from the
fireplace when I was stopped short by what I saw. Again the same strange
indefinable feeling of not knowing how or when it had come there, again
the same painful sensation of perplexity (not yet amounting to fear) as
to whom or what it was I saw before me. The room, you must understand,
was perfectly flooded with the firelight; except in the corners, perhaps,
every object was as distinct as possible. And the object I was staring
at was not in a corner, but standing there right before me--between me
and the open door, alas!--in the middle of the room. It was the old
woman again, but this time with her face towards me, with a look upon
it, it seemed to me, as if she were conscious of my presence. It is very
difficult to tell over thoughts and feelings that can hardly have taken
any time to pass, or that passed almost simultaneously. My _very_ first
impulse this time was, as it had been the first time I saw her, to
explain in some natural way the presence before me. I think this says
something for my common sense, does it not? My mind did not readily
desert matters of fact, you see. I did not think of Fraser this time,
but the thought went through my mind, 'She must be some friend of the
servants who comes in to see them of an evening. Perhaps they have sent
her up to look at my fire.' So at first I looked up at her with simple
inquiry. But as I looked my feelings changed. I realised that this
was the same being who had appeared so mysteriously once before; I
recognised every detail of her dress; I even noticed it more acutely
than the first time--for instance, I recollect observing that here and
there the short tufty fringe of her shawl was stuck together, instead
of hanging smoothly and evenly all round. I looked up at her face. I
cannot now describe the features beyond saying that the whole face was
refined and pleasing, and that in the expression there was certainly
nothing to alarm or repel. It was rather wistful and beseeching, the
look in the eyes anxious, the lips slightly parted, as if she were on
the point of speaking. I have since thought that if _I_ had spoken, if I
_could_ have spoken--for I did make one effort to do so, but no audible
words would come at my bidding--the spell that bound the poor soul, this
mysterious wanderer from some shadowy borderland between life and death,
might have been broken, and the message that I now believe burdened her
delivered. Sometimes I wish I could have done it; but then, again--oh
no! a _voice_ from those unreal lips would have been too awful--flesh
and blood could not have stood it. For another instant I kept my eyes
fixed upon her without moving; then there came over me at last with an
awful thrill, a sort of suffocating gasp of horror, the consciousness,
the actual realisation of the fact that this before me, this _presence_,
was no living human being, no dweller in our familiar world, not a woman,
but a ghost! Oh, it was an awful moment! I pray that I may never again
endure another like it. There is something so indescribably frightful in
the feeling that we are on the verge of being tried _beyond_ what we can
bear, that ordinary conditions are slipping away from under us, that in
another moment reason or life itself must snap with the strain; and all
these feelings I then underwent. At last I moved, moved backwards from
the figure. I dared not attempt to _pass_ her. Yet I could not at first
turn away from her. I stepped backwards, facing her still as I did so,
till I was close to the fireplace. Then I turned sharply from her, sat
down again on the low chair still standing by the hearth, resolutely
forcing myself to gaze into the fire, which was blazing cheerfully,
though conscious all the time of a terrible fascination urging me to
look round again to the middle of the room. Gradually, however, now that
I no longer _saw_ her, I began a little to recover myself. I tried to
bring my sense and reason to bear on the matter. 'This being,' I said to
myself, 'whoever and whatever she is, _cannot harm_ me. I am under God's
protection as much at this moment as at any moment of my life. All
creatures, even disembodied spirits, if there be such, and this among
them, if it be one, are under His control. _Why_ should I be afraid?
I am being tried; my courage and trust are being tried to the utmost:
let me prove them, let me keep my own self-respect, by mastering this
cowardly, unreasonable terror.' And after a time I began to feel stronger
and surer of myself. Then I rose from my seat and turned towards the
door again; and oh, the relief of seeing that the way was clear; my
terrible visitor had disappeared! I hastened across the room, I passed
the few steps of passage that lay between my door and the staircase, and
hurried down the first flight in a sort of suppressed agony of eagerness
to find myself again safe in the living human companionship of my mother
and sisters in the cheerful drawing-room below. But my trial was not yet
over, indeed it seemed to me afterwards that it had only now reached its
height; perhaps the strain on my nervous system was now beginning to
tell, and my powers of endurance were all but exhausted. I cannot say
if it was so or not. I can only say that my agony of terror, of horror,
of absolute _fear_, was far past describing in words, when, just as I
reached the little landing at the foot of the first short staircase, and
was on the point of running down the longer flight still before me, I
saw _again_, coming slowly _up_ the steps, as if to meet me, the ghostly
figure of the old woman. It was too much. I was reckless by this time; I
could not stop. I rushed down the staircase, brushing past the figure as
I went: I use the word intentionally--I did _brush_ past her, I _felt_
her. This part of my experience was, I believe, quite at variance with
the sensations of orthodox ghost-seers; but I am really telling you
all I was conscious of. Then I hardly remember anything more; my agony
broke out at last in a loud shrill cry, and I suppose I fainted. I only
know that when I recovered my senses I was in the drawing-room, on the
sofa, surrounded by my terrified mother and sisters. But it was not
for some time that I could find voice or courage to tell them what
had happened to me; for several days I was on the brink of a serious
illness, and for long afterwards I could not endure to be left alone,
even in the broadest daylight."
Lady Farquhar stopped. I fancied, however, from her manner that there
was more to tell, so I said nothing; and in a minute or two she went on
speaking.
"We did not stay long at Ballyreina after this. I was not sorry to leave
it; but still, before the time came for us to do so, I had begun to
recover from the most painful part of the impression left upon me by my
strange adventure. And when I was at home again, far from the place
where it had happened, I gradually lost the feeling of horror altogether,
and remembered it only as a very curious and inexplicable experience.
Now and then even, I did not shrink from talking about it, generally, I
think, with a vague hope that somehow, some time or other, light might
be thrown upon it. Not that I ever expected, or could have believed it
possible, that the supernatural character of the adventure could be
explained away; but I always had a misty fancy that sooner or later I
should find out _something_ about my old lady, as we came to call her;
who she had been and what her history was."
"And did you?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes, I did," Margaret answered. "To some extent, at least, I learnt
the explanation of what I had seen. This was how it was: nearly a year
after we had left Ireland I was staying with one of my aunts, and one
evening some young people who were also visiting her began to talk
about ghosts, and my aunt, who had heard something of the story from my
mother, begged me to tell it. I did so, just as I have now told it to
you. When I had finished, an elderly lady who was present, and who had
listened very attentively, surprised me a little by asking the name of
the house where it happened. 'Was it Ballyreina?' she said. I answered
'Yes,' wondering how she knew it, for I had not mentioned it.
"'Then I can tell you whom you saw,' she exclaimed; 'it must have been
one of the old Miss Fitzgeralds--the eldest one. The description suits
her exactly.'
"I was quite puzzled. We had never heard of any Fitzgeralds at Ballyreina.
I said so to the lady, and asked her to explain what she meant. She told
me all she knew. It appeared there had been a family of that name for
many generations at Ballyreina. Once upon a time--a long-ago once upon
a time--the Fitzgeralds had been great and rich; but gradually one
misfortune after another had brought them down in the world, and at the
time my informant heard about them the only representatives of the old
family were three maiden ladies already elderly. Mrs. Gordon, the lady
who told me all this, had met them once, and had been much impressed by
what she heard of them. They had got poorer and poorer, till at last
they had to give up the struggle, and sell, or let on a long lease,
their dear old home, Ballyreina. They were too proud to remain in
their own country after this, and spent the rest of their lives on the
Continent, wandering about from place to place. The most curious part of
it was that nearly all their wandering was actually _on foot_. They were
too poor to afford to travel much in the usual way, and yet, once torn
from their old associations, the travelling mania seized them; they
seemed absolutely unable to rest. So on foot, and speaking not a word of
any language but their own, these three desolate sisters journeyed over
a great part of the Continent. They visited most of the principal towns,
and were well known in several. I daresay they are still remembered at
some of the places they used to stay at, though never for more than a
short time together. Mrs. Gordon had met them somewhere, I forget where,
but it was many years ago. Since then she had never heard of them; she
did not know if they were alive or dead; she was only certain that the
description of my old lady was exactly like that of the eldest of the
sisters, and that the name of their old home was Ballyreina. And I
remember her saying, 'If ever a heart was buried in a house, it was that
of poor old Miss Fitzgerald.'
"That was all Mrs. Gordon could tell me," continued Lady Farquhar; "but
it led to my learning a little more. I told my brother what I had heard.
He used often at that time to be in Ireland on business; and to satisfy
me, the next time he went he visited the village of Ballyreina again,
and in one way and another he found out a few particulars. The house,
you remember, had been let to us by a Captain Marchmont. He, my brother
discovered, was not the owner of the place, as we had naturally imagined,
but only rented it on a very long lease from some ladies of the name of
Fitzgerald. It had been in Captain Marchmont's possession for a great
many years at the time he let it to us, and the Fitzgeralds, never
returning there even to visit it, had come to be almost forgotten. The
room with the old-fashioned furniture had been reserved by the owners
of the place to leave some of their poor old treasures in--relics too
cumbersome to be carried about with them in their strange wanderings,
but too precious, evidently, to be parted with. We, of course, never
could know what may not have been hidden away in some of the queer
old bureaux I told you of. Family papers of importance, perhaps;
possibly some ancient love-letters, forgotten in the confusion of their
leave-taking; a lock of hair, or a withered flower, perhaps, that she,
my poor old lady, would fain have clasped in her hand when dying, or
have had buried with her. Ah, yes; there must be many a pitiful old
story that is never told."
Lady Farquhar stopped and gazed dreamily and half sadly into the fire.
"Then Miss Fitzgerald _was_ dead when you were at Ballyreina?" I asked.
Margaret looked up with some surprise.
"Did I not say so?" she exclaimed. "That was the point of most interest
in what my brother discovered. He could not hear the exact date of her
death, but he learnt with certainty that she was dead--had died, at
Geneva I think, some time in the month of March in the previous year;
_the same month, March '55, in which I had twice seen the apparition at
Ballyreina._"
This was my friend's ghost story.