The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
or something round and round the room. At last I heard another groan,
followed by a heavy fall.
I started to my feet. Surely Mr. and Mrs. Bizzey must have been roused
by such an unusual commotion, and would come upstairs to learn the
reason! But no!--they did not stir. All was silent as the grave below,
and above also. The noises had suddenly ceased. I appeared to be alone
in the empty house. It was all so strange that I put my hands up to my
head and asked myself if I were properly awake. I was hardly satisfied
on this point before the sounds recommenced overhead, and precisely in
the same order as before. Again I listened to the pacing feet--the
groan--the curse--the chase--the fall! Each phase of the ghostly
tragedy--for such I now felt sure it must be--was repeated in
rotation, not once, but a couple of dozen or more times; and then at
last the disturbance ceased as suddenly and as unexpectedly as it had
commenced.
I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock, and already the early
birds on the look-out for the worm had begun to herald the dawn with a
few faint twitters in the trees in the cloister. I threw off my
clothes impatiently, and lying down in my bed, gave myself up, not to
sleep, but reflection on what was best to be done. I had not the
slightest doubt left as to the cause of the noises I had heard. My
landlady might ascribe them to rats, but were she closely questioned
she would probably acknowledge the truth--that she knew the sounds to
proceed from spirits, popularly called ghosts; which accounted for all
her hesitation and change of countenance when speaking to me about the
apartments, also for the low price she asked for her rooms, and her
evident wish to dissuade me from sitting up at night.
Naturally the poor woman was afraid she should never secure a lodger
if the truth were known; but as far as I was concerned, she was
altogether mistaken--I was not afraid of her ghosts. On the contrary,
as I lay in bed and thought on what had just occurred, I congratulated
myself that, by a third strange coincidence, my visit to Norwich
promised to turn out all that I could desire.
I must “lay” these ghosts, of course--_i.e._, if they interfered with
my graver work; but to have the opportunity of doing so was the very
thing my heart was set upon. Is my reader surprised to hear this? Then
I must take him further into my confidence.
When I confessed I was an author, Press writer, amateur detective, and
father of six children, I did not add the crowning iniquity, and write
myself down a believer in ghosts and spiritualism. Every man
acknowledges himself a spirit, and to have been created by the power
of a spirit. Most men believe that spirits have the capability of free
volition and locomotion, and many that they have exercised these
powers by re-appearing to their fellow spirits in the flesh. But to
assert publicly that you believe in all this because you have proved
it to be the truth, is to throw yourself open to the charge of being a
dupe, or a madman, or a liar. Therefore I had preferred until then to
keep my faith a secret. My children’s bread depended in a great
measure on the reputation I kept up as a man of sense, and I had not
dared to risk it by attempting to put my theories into practice. Not
that I was entirely ignorant of the rules pertaining to the science of
spiritualism. Under cover of the darkness that hides all
delinquencies, I had attended several circles gathered for the sole
purpose of investigating the mysteries of other worlds; but it had
always been accomplished with the utmost secrecy, as my wife was
hysterically disposed, and the mere mention of a spirit would have
upset the house for days together.
I had never, therefore, had the opportunity of pursuing spiritualism
on my own account; and until the day broke I lay awake, congratulating
myself on the good luck that had thrown me, cheek by jowl, with a
party of ready-made ghosts, whom a very little encouragement would, I
trusted, induce to pay me a visit in my own apartments.
All the next day I wandered through the streets of Norwich and in the
country surrounding them, speculating--not on the whereabouts of
Julian Cockleboat, nor “The Origin of Dreams”--but how I should
persuade my landlady to help me unravel the mysterious occurrence of
the night before. At last I bethought me that “honesty is the best
policy” after all, and decided that I would make a clean breast of my
suspicions and desires. If Mrs. Bizzey were a sensible woman, she
would prove only too ready to aid me in ridding her apartments of
visitors that must injure their reputation; and, at all events, I
could but try her. So I opened the subject on the very first
opportunity. The woman was clearing away my tea-things the same
evening, when she remarked that I had not eaten well.
“I am afraid you sit up too much at night, sir, to make a good
appetite.”
“Other people seem to sit up in this house at night as well as myself,
Mrs. Bizzey,” I replied, significantly.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, colouring.
“Why, do you mean to say you never hear noises;--that you were not
disturbed last night, for instance, by the sound of groans and voices,
and of some one falling about in the upper rooms?”
“Oh, sir, you don’t mean to tell me as you’ve heard them already!”
exclaimed Mrs. Bizzey, clasping her hand and letting a teacup fall in
her agitation. “If you go too, you’ll be the third gentleman that has
left within a fortnight on that account; and if a stop ain’t put to
it, the house will get such a name that nobody will put a foot inside
the door for love or money.”
“But I don’t mean to go, Mrs. Bizzey; on the contrary, I should be
very sorry to go; and if you and your husband will consent to help me,
I will do my best to stop the noises altogether,” for the idea of
forming a little circle with these worthy people had suddenly flashed
into my mind.
“How can me and my good man help you, sir?”
“Is Mr. Bizzey at home? If so, go downstairs and fetch him up here,
and I will explain what I mean to you both at the same time.”
She left the room at once, and in a few minutes returned with a
dapper-looking little old fellow, in knee-breeches and a red plush
waistcoat, who pulled his forelock to me on entering.
“This is Mr. Bizzey, sir, and I’ve been telling him all you say as we
came up the stairs.”
I leant back in my chair, folded my hands, and looked important.
“I suppose you must have heard the science of spiritualism mentioned?”
I commenced, grandly.
“The science of _what_, sir?” inquired Mr. Bizzey, with a puzzled air.
“Of spiritualism--_i.e._, the power of converse or communication with
disembodied spirits.”
“Lor’! you never mean ‘_ghosts_,’ sir?” said the old woman.
“I do, indeed, Mrs. Bizzey. I suppose you believe that spirits (or
ghosts, as you call them) may re-appear after death?”
“Oh, yes,” interposed the husband; “for I mind the night that my poor
mother lay dying, there was an apparition of a turkey-cock that sat
upon the palings opposite our cottage, and when it fluttered off ’em
with a screech, just for all the world like a real turkey, you know,
sir, she turned on her side suddenly, and give up the ghost. I’ve
always believed in apparitions since then.”
“And when my sister Jane lay in of her last,” chimed in Mrs. Bizzey,
“there was a little clock stood on the mantel-shelf that had always
been wound up regular and gone regular ever since she was married; and
we was moving a lot of things to one side, and we moved that clock and
found it had stopped; and the nurse, she said to me, ‘Mark my words if
that’s not a warning of death;’ and, sure enough, Jane died before the
morning, which makes me so careful of moving a clock since then that
I’d rather go three miles round than touch one if a body lay sick in
the house.”
“I see that you both take a most sensible view of the business, and
are fully alive to the importance attached to it,” I answered; “I
hope, therefore, to secure your assistance to find out what these
unusual and mysterious noises in your house portend, and what the
authors require us to do for them.”
Then--whilst the old man scratched his head with bewilderment, and the
old woman looked scared out of her seven senses--I explained to them,
as well as I was able, the nature of a séance, and asked them if they
would come and sit at the table with me that evening and hold one.
“But, lawk a mussy, sir, you never want to speak to them!” cried Mrs.
Bizzey.
“How else are we to ascertain for what reason these spirits disturb
your lodgers and render your rooms uninhabitable by their pranks?”
“I should die of fright before we had been at it five minutes,” was
her comment; but her husband was pluckier, and took a more practical
view of the matter.
“You’ll just do as I bid you, missus, and hold your chatter. There’s
no doubt these noises are a great nuisance--not to say a loss--and if
this gentleman will be good enough to try and stop them, and can’t do
without us, I’ll help him for one, and you will for another.”
Mrs. Bizzey protested, and wept, and was even refractory, but it was
all of no avail, and before we separated it had been agreed we should
meet again at ten o’clock, and hold a séance. There was some
whispering between the old couple after that that I did not quite
understand, but as it ended by Mrs. Bizzey ejaculating, “Nonsense; I
tell you the house will be quiet enough by ten o’clock,” I concluded
he was referring to some expected visitor, and dismissed the subject
from my mind. As soon as they had disappeared I delivered myself up to
self-gratulation. I was really going to hold a séance, under my own
direction and the most favourable circumstances with a large haunted
house at my command, and no one to be any the wiser for my dabbling in
the necromantic art. I took out an old number of the “Spiritualist,”
and referred to the directions for forming circles at home. I prepared
the paper, pencils, and speaking tubes, and symmetrically arranged the
table and chairs.
Nothing was wanted when Mr. and Mrs. Bizzey entered my room at the
appointed hour--he looking expectant, and she very much alarmed. I was
prepared for this, however, and insisted upon their both joining me in
a glass of whisky and hot water before commencing the sitting,
alleging as a reason the fact that the presence of spirits invariably
chills the atmosphere, whether in summer or winter. So I mixed three
bumping tumblers of toddy, strong enough to give us the courage we
required for the occasion; and after we had (according to the
directions) engaged for some little time in light and friendly
conversation, I induced my friends to approach the table.
It was now, I was glad to see by my watch, about half-past
eleven--just about the time when the mysterious sounds had commenced
the night before; and having lowered the lamp, much to Mrs. Bizzey’s
horror, until it was represented by a mere glimmer of light, I
instructed her husband and herself how to place their hands upon the
table, linked with mine, and the séance began.
I had enjoined perfect silence on my companions, and after we had been
sitting still for about fifteen minutes, during which I had watched in
vain for some symptoms of movement on the part of the table, we all
heard distinctly the sound of a foot creeping cautiously about the
upper rooms, upon which Mrs. Bizzey, too frightened to shriek, began
to weep, and her husband, in order to stop her, pinched her violently
in the dark.
“Hush!” I exclaimed, almost as agitated as the woman. “Do not disturb
them for your life, and whatever you may see, don’t scream.”
“La, sir, you never mean to say that they’ll come downstairs!”
“I cannot say what they may do. I think I hear a step descending now.