Stories of the Seen and Unseen (William Blackwood and Sons, 1902)/Old Lady Mary/Chapter 10

On the other side, however, visions which had nothing sacred in them began to be heard of, and Connie's ghost, as it was called in the house, had various vulgar effects. A housemaid became hysterical, and announced that she too had seen the lady, of whom she gave a description, exaggerated from Connie's, which all the household were ready to swear she had never heard. The lady, whom Connie had only seen passing, went to Betsey's room in the middle of the night, and told her, in a hollow and terrible voice, that she could not rest, opening a series of communications by which it was evident all the secrets of the unseen world would soon be disclosed. And following upon this, there came a sort of panic in the house—noises were heard in various places, sounds of footsteps pacing, and of a long robe sweeping about the passages; and Lady Mary's costumes, and the head-dress which was so peculiar, which all her friends had recognised in Connie's description, grew into something portentous under the heavier hand of the foot-boy and the kitchen-maid. Mrs Prentiss, who had remained, as a special favour to the new people, was deeply indignant and outraged by this treatment of her mistress. She appealed to Mary with mingled anger and tears.

"I would have sent the hussy away at an hour's notice, if I had the power in my hands," she cried, "but, Miss Mary, it's easily seen who is a real lady and who is not. Mrs Turner interferes herself in everything, though she likes it to be supposed that she has a housekeeper."

"Dear Prentiss, you must not say Mrs Turner is not a lady. She has far more delicacy of feeling than many ladies," cried Mary.

"Yes, Miss Mary, dear, I allow that she is very nice to you; but who could help that? and to hear my lady's name—that might have her faults, but who was far above anything of the sort—in every mouth, and her costume, that they don't know how to describe, and to think that she would go and talk to the like of Betsy Barnes about what is on her mind! I think sometimes I shall break my, heart, or else throw up my place, Miss Mary," Prentiss said, with tears.

"Oh, don't do that; oh, don't leave me, Prentiss!" Mary said, with an involuntary cry of dismay.

"Not if you mind, not if you mind, dear," the housekeeper cried. And then she drew close to the young lady with an anxious look. "You haven't seen anything?" she said. "That would be only natural, Miss Mary. I could well understand she couldn't rest in her grave—if she came and told it all to you."

"Prentiss, be silent," cried Mary; "that ends everything between you and me, if you say such a word. There has been too much said already—oh, far too much! as if I only loved her for what she was to leave me."

"I did not mean that, dear," said Prentiss; "but"

"There is no but; and everything she did was right," the girl cried with vehemence. She shed hot and bitter tears over this wrong which all her friends did to Lady Mary's memory. "I am glad it was so," she said to herself when she was alone, with youthful extravagance. "I am glad it was so; for now no one can think that I loved her for anything but herself."

The household, however, was agitated by all these rumours and inventions. Alice, Connie's elder sister, declined to sleep any longer in that which began to be called the haunted room. She, too, began to think she saw something, she could not tell what, gliding out of the room as it began to get dark, and to hear sighs and moans in the corridors. The servants, who all wanted to leave, and the villagers, who avoided the grounds after nightfall, spread the rumour far and near that the house was haunted.