Elizabeth Gaskell was a Victorian novelist and social reformer born in Chelsea in 1810.
A friend and contemporary of Charles Dickens she produced several novels concerning life in Victorian Britain but more crucially for us here at Wyrd Britain a significant body of ghostly gothic fiction.
The story presented below, originally published in 1852 is perhaps the most well known of these.
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You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only
child; and I dare say you have heard that your grandfather was a
clergyman up in Westmoreland, where I come from. I was just a girl in
the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to ask
the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a
nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye, when the mistress
called me up, and spoke to my being a good girl at my needle, and a
steady, honest girl, and one whose parents were very respectable,
though they might be poor. I thought I should like nothing better
than to serve the pretty young lady, who was blushing as deep as I
was, as she spoke of the coming baby, and what I should have to do
with it. However, I see you don't care so much for this part of my
story, as for what you think is to come, so I'll tell you at once. I
was engaged and settled at the parsonage before Miss Rosamond (that
was the baby, who is now your mother) was born. To be sure, I had
little enough to do with her when she came, for she was never out of
her mother's arms, and slept by her all night long; and proud enough
was I sometimes when missis trusted her to me. There never was such a
baby before or since, though you've all of you been fine enough in
your turns; but for sweet, winning ways, you've none of you come up
to your mother. She took after her mother, who was a real lady born;
a Miss Furnivall, a grand-daughter of Lord Furnivall's, in
Northumberland. I believe she had neither brother nor sister, and had
been brought up in my lord's family till she had married your
grandfather, who was just a curate, son to a shopkeeper in
Carlisle--but a clever, fine gentleman as ever was--and one who was a
right-down hard worker in his parish, which was very wide, and
scattered all abroad over the Westmoreland Fells. When your mother,
little Miss Rosamond, was about four or five years old, both her
parents died in a fortnight--one after the other. Ah! that was a sad
time. My pretty young mistress and me was looking for another baby,
when my master came home from one of his long rides, wet and tired,
and took the fever he died of; and then she never held up her head
again, but just lived to see her dead baby, and have it laid on her
breast, before she sighed away her life. My mistress had asked me, on
her death-bed, never to leave Miss Rosamond; but if she had never
spoken a word, I would have gone with the little child to the end of
the world.
The next thing, and before we had well stilled our sobs, the
executors and guardians came to settle the affairs. They were my poor
young mistress's own cousin, Lord Furnivall, and Mr. Esthwaite, my
master's brother, a shopkeeper in Manchester; not so well-to-do then
as he was afterwards, and with a large family rising about him. Well!
I don't know if it were their settling, or because of a letter my
mistress wrote on her death-bed to her cousin, my lord; but somehow
it was settled that Miss Rosamond and me were to go to Furnivall
Manor House, in Northumberland; and my lord spoke as if it had been
her mother's wish that she should live with his family, and as if he
had no objections, for that one or two more or less could make no
difference in so grand a household. So, though that was not the way
in which I should have wished the coming of my bright and pretty pet
to have been looked at--who was like a sunbeam in any family, be it
never so grand--I was well pleased that all the folks in the Dale
should stare and admire, when they heard I was going to be young
lady's maid at my Lord Furnivall's at Furnivall Manor.
But I made a mistake in thinking we were to go and live where my
lord did. It turned out that the family had left Furnivall Manor
House fifty years or more. I could not hear that my poor young
mistress had ever been there, though she had been brought up in the
family; and I was sorry for that, for I should have liked Miss
Rosamond's youth to have passed where her mother's had been.
My lord's gentleman, from whom I asked as many questions as I
durst, said that the Manor House was at the foot of the Cumberland
Fells, and a very grand place; that an old Miss Furnivall, a
great-aunt of my lord's, lived there, with only a few servants; but
that it was a very healthy place, and my lord had thought that it
would suit Miss Rosamond very well for a few years, and that her
being there might perhaps amuse his old aunt.
I was bidden by my lord to have Miss Rosamond's things ready by a
certain day. He was a stern, proud man, as they say all the Lords
Furnivall were; and he never spoke a word more than was necessary.
Folk did say he had loved my young mistress; but that, because she
knew that his father would object, she would never listen to him, and
married Mr. Esthwaite; but I don't know. He never married, at any
rate. But he never took much notice of Miss Rosamond; which I thought
he might have done if he had cared for her dead mother. He sent his
gentleman with us to the Manor House, telling him to join him at
Newcastle that same evening; so there was no great length of time for
him to make us known to all the strangers before he, too, shook us
off; and we were left, two lonely young things (I was not eighteen)
in the great old Manor House. It seems like yesterday that we drove
there. We had left our own dear parsonage very early, and we had both
cried as if our hearts would break, though we were travelling in my
lord's carriage, which I thought so much of once. And now it was long
past noon on a September day, and we stopped to change horses for the
last time at a little smoky town, all full of colliers and miners.
Miss Rosamond had fallen asleep, but Mr. Henry told me to waken her,
that she might see the park and the Manor House as we drove up. I
thought it rather a pity; but I did what he bade me, for fear he
should complain of me to my lord. We had left all signs of a town, or
even a village, and were then inside the gates of a large wild
park--not like the parks here in the south, but with rocks, and the
noise of running water, and gnarled thorn-trees, and old oaks, all
white and peeled with age.
The road went up about two miles, and then we saw a great and
stately house, with many trees close around it, so close that in some
places their branches dragged against the walls when the wind blew,
and some hung broken down; for no one seemed to take much charge of
the place;--to lop the wood, or to keep the moss-covered carriage-way
in order. Only in front of the house all was clear. The great oval
drive was without a weed; and neither tree nor creeper was allowed to
grow over the long, many-windowed front; at both sides of which a
wing projected, which were each the ends of other side fronts; for
the house, although it was so desolate, was even grander than I
expected. Behind it rose the Fells, which seemed unenclosed and bare
enough; and on the left hand of the house, as you stood facing it,
was a little, old-fashioned flower-garden, as I found out afterwards.
A door opened out upon it from the west front; it had been scooped
out of the thick, dark wood for some old Lady Furnivall; but the
branches of the great forest-trees had grown and overshadowed it
again, and there were very few flowers that would live there at that
time.
When we drove up to the great front entrance, and went into the
hall, I thought we should be lost--it was so large, and vast, and
grand. There was a chandelier all of bronze, hung down from the
middle of the ceiling; and I had never seen one before, and looked at
it all in amaze. Then, at one end of the hall, was a great fireplace,
as large as the sides of the houses in my country, with massy
andirons and dogs to hold the wood; and by it were heavy,
old-fashioned sofas. At the opposite end of the hall, to the left as
you went in--on the western side--was an organ built into the wall,
and so large that it filled up the best part of that end. Beyond it,
on the same side, was a door; and opposite, on each side of the
fireplace, were also doors leading to the east front; but those I
never went through as long as I stayed in the house, so I can't tell
you what lay beyond.
The afternoon was closing in, and the hall, which had no fire
lighted in it, looked dark and gloomy; but we did not stay there a
moment. The old servant, who had opened the door for us, bowed to Mr.
Henry, and took us in through the door at the further side of the
great organ, and led us through several smaller halls and passages
into the west drawing-room, where he said that Miss Furnivall was
sitting. Poor little Miss Rosamond held very tight to me, as if she
were scared and lost in that great place; and as for myself, I was
not much better. The west drawing-room was very cheerful-looking,
with a warm fire in it, and plenty of good, comfortable furniture
about. Miss Furnivall was an old lady not far from eighty, I should
think, but I do not know. She was thin and tall, and had a face as
full of fine wrinkles as if they had been drawn all over it with a
needle's point. Her eyes were very watchful, to make up, I suppose,
for her being so deaf as to be obliged to use a trumpet. Sitting with
her, working at the same great piece of tapestry, was Mrs. Stark, her
maid and companion, and almost as old as she was. She had lived with
Miss Furnivall ever since they both were young, and now she seemed
more like a friend than a servant; she looked so cold, and grey, and
stony, as if she had never loved or cared for any one; and I don't
suppose she did care for any one, except her mistress; and, owing to
the great deafness of the latter, Mrs. Stark treated her very much as
if she were a child. Mr. Henry gave some message from my lord, and
then he bowed good-bye to us all--taking no notice of my sweet little
Miss Rosamond's outstretched hand--and left us standing there, being
looked at by the two old ladies through their spectacles.
I was right glad when they rung for the old footman who had shown
us in at first, and told him to take us to our rooms. So we went out
of that great drawing-room, and into another sitting-room, and out of
that, and then up a great flight of stairs, and along a broad
gallery--which was something like a library, having books all down
one side, and windows and writing-tables all down the other--till we
came to our rooms, which I was not sorry to hear were just over the
kitchens; for I began to think I should be lost in that wilderness of
a house. There was an old nursery, that had been used for all the
little lords and ladies long ago, with a pleasant fire burning in the
grate, and the kettle boiling on the hob, and tea-things spread out
on the table; and out of that room was the night-nursery, with a
little crib for Miss Rosamond close to my bed. And old James called
up Dorothy, his wife, to bid us welcome; and both he and she were so
hospitable and kind, that by-and-by Miss Rosamond and me felt quite
at home; and by the time tea was over, she was sitting on Dorothy's
knee, and chattering away as fast as her little tongue could go. I
soon found out that Dorothy was from Westmoreland, and that bound her
and me together, as it were; and I would never wish to meet with
kinder people than were old James and his wife. James had lived
pretty nearly all his life in my lord's family, and thought there was
no one so grand as they. He even looked down a little on his wife;
because, till he had married her, she had never lived in any but a
farmer's household. But he was very fond of her, as well he might be.
They had one servant under them, to do all the rough work. Agnes they
called her; and she and me, and James and Dorothy, with Miss
Furnivall and Mrs. Stark, made up the family; always remembering my
sweet little Miss Rosamond! I used to wonder what they had done
before she came, they thought so much of her now. Kitchen and
drawing-room, it was all the same. The hard, sad Miss Furnivall, and
the cold Mrs. Stark, looked pleased when she came fluttering in like
a bird, playing and pranking hither and thither, with a continual
murmur, and pretty prattle of gladness. I am sure, they were sorry
many a time when she flitted away into the kitchen, though they were
too proud to ask her to stay with them, and were a little surprised
at her taste; though to be sure, as Mrs. Stark said, it was not to be
wondered at, remembering what stock her father had come of. The
great, old rambling house was a famous place for little Miss
Rosamond. She made expeditions all over it, with me at her heels:
all, except the east wing, which was never opened, and whither we
never thought of going. But in the western and northern part was many
a pleasant room; full of things that were curiosities to us, though
they might not have been to people who had seen more. The windows
were darkened by the sweeping boughs of the trees, and the ivy which
had overgrown them; but, in the green gloom, we could manage to see
old china jars and carved ivory boxes, and great heavy books, and,
above all, the old pictures!
Once, I remember, my darling would have Dorothy go with us to tell
us who they all were; for they were all portraits of some of my
lord's family, though Dorothy could not tell us the names of every
one. We had gone through most of the rooms, when we came to the old
state drawing-room over the hall, and there was a picture of Miss
Furnivall; or, as she was called in those days, Miss Grace, for she
was the younger sister. Such a beauty she must have been! but with
such a set, proud look, and such scorn looking out of her handsome
eyes, with her eyebrows just a little raised, as if she wondered how
any one could have the impertinence to look at her, and her lip
curled at us, as we stood there gazing. She had a dress on, the like
of which I had never seen before, but it was all the fashion when she
was young: a hat of some soft white stuff like beaver, pulled a
little over her brows, and a beautiful plume of feathers sweeping
round it on one side; and her gown of blue satin was open in front to
a quilted white stomacher.
"Well, to be sure!" said I, when I had gazed my fill. "Flesh is
grass, they do say; but who would have thought that Miss Furnivall
had been such an out-and-out beauty, to see her now?"
"Yes," said Dorothy. "Folks change sadly. But if what my master's
father used to say was true, Miss Furnivall, the elder sister, was
handsomer than Miss Grace. Her picture is here somewhere; but, if I
show it you, you must never let on, even to James, that you have seen
it Can the little lady hold her tongue, think you?" asked she.
I was not so sure, for she was such a little sweet, bold,
open-spoken child, so I set her to hide herself; and then I helped
Dorothy to turn a great picture, that leaned with its face towards
the wall, and was not hung up as the others were. To be sure, it beat
Miss Grace for beauty; and I think, for scornful pride, too, though
in that matter it might be hard to choose. I could have looked at it
an hour but Dorothy seemed half frightened at having shown it to me,
and hurried it back again, and bade me run and find Miss Rosamond,
for that there were some ugly places about the house, where she
should like ill for the child to go. I was a brave, high-spirited
girl, and thought little of what the old woman said, for I liked
hide-and-seek as well as any child in the parish; so off I ran to
find my little one.
As winter drew on, and the days grew shorter, I was sometimes
almost certain that I heard a noise as if some one was playing on the
great organ in the hall. I did not hear it every evening; but,
certainly, I did very often, usually when I was sitting with Miss
Rosamond, after I had put her to bed, and keeping quite still and
silent in the bedroom. Then I used to hear it booming and swelling
away in the distance. The first night, when I went down to my supper,
I asked Dorothy who had been playing music, and James said very
shortly that I was a gowk to take the wind soughing among the trees
for music; but I saw Dorothy look at him very fearfully, and Bessy,
the kitchen-maid, said something beneath her breath, and went quite
white. I saw they did not like my question, so I held my peace till I
was with Dorothy alone, when I knew I could get a good deal out of
her. So, the next day, I watched my time, and I coaxed and asked her
who it was that played the organ; for I knew that it was the organ
and not the wind well enough, for all I had kept silence before
James. But Dorothy had had her lesson, I'll warrant, and never a word
could I get from her. So then I tried Bessy, though I had always held
my head rather above her, as I was evened to James and Dorothy, and
she was little better than their servant So she said I must never,
never tell; and if ever told, I was never to say she had told me; but
it was a very strange noise, and she had heard it many a time, but
most of all on winter nights, and before storms; and folks did say it
was the old lord playing on the great organ in the hall, just as he
used to do when he was alive; but who the old lord was, or why he
played, and why he played on stormy winter evenings in particular,
she either could not or would not tell me. Well! I told you I had a
brave heart; and I thought it was rather pleasant to have that grand
music rolling about the house, let who would be the player; for now
it rose above the great gusts of wind, and wailed and triumphed just
like a living creature, and then it fell to a softness most complete,
only it was always music, and tunes, so it was nonsense to call it
the wind. I thought at first, that it might be Miss Furnivall who
played, unknown to Bessy; but one day, when I was in the hall by
myself, I opened the organ and peeped all about it and around it, as
I had done to the organ in Crosthwaite Church once before, and I saw
it was all broken and destroyed inside, though it looked so brave and
fine; and then, though it was noon-day, my flesh began to creep a
little, and I shut it up, and run away pretty quickly to my own
bright nursery; and I did not like hearing the music for some time
after that, any more than James and Dorothy did. All this time Miss
Rosamond was making herself more and more beloved. The old ladies
liked her to dine with them at their early dinner James stood behind
Miss Furnivall's chair, and I behind Miss Rosamond's all in state;
and, after dinner, she would play about in a corner of the great
drawing-room as still as any mouse, while Miss Furnivall slept, and I
had my dinner in the kitchen. But she was glad enough to come to me
in the nursery afterwards; for, as she said Miss Furnivall was so
sad, and Mrs. Stark so dull; but she and were merry enough; and,
by-and-by, I got not to care for that weird rolling music, which did
one no harm, if we did not know where it came from.
That winter was very cold. In the middle of October the frosts
began, and lasted many, many weeks. I remember one day, at dinner,
Miss Furnivall lifted up her sad, heavy eyes, and said to Mrs. Stark,
"I am afraid we shall have a terrible winter," in a strange kind of
meaning way But Mrs. Stark pretended not to hear, and talked very
loud of something else. My little lady and I did not care for the
frost; not we! As long as it was dry, we climbed up the steep brows
behind the house, and went up on the Fells which were bleak and bare
enough, and there we ran races in the fresh, sharp air; and once we
came down by a new path, that took us past the two old gnarled
holly-trees, which grew about half-way down by the east side of the
house. But the days grew shorter and shorter, and the old lord, if it
was he, played away, more and more stormily and sadly, on the great
organ. One Sunday afternoon--it must have been towards the end of
November--I asked Dorothy to take charge of little missy when she
came out of the drawing-room, after Miss Furnivall had had her nap;
for it was too cold to take her with me to church, and yet I wanted
to go, And Dorothy was glad enough to promise and was so fond of the
child, that all seemed well; and Bessy and I set off very briskly,
though the sky hung heavy and black over the white earth, as if the
night had never fully gone away, and the air, though still, was very
biting.
"We shall have a fall of snow," said Bessy to me. And sure enough,
even while we were in church, it came down thick, in great large
flakes--so thick, it almost darkened the windows. It had stopped
snowing before we came out, but it lay soft, thick, and deep beneath
our feet, as we tramped home. Before we got to the hall, the moon
rose, and I think it was lighter then--what with the moon, and what
with the white dazzling snow--than it had been when we went to
church, between two and three o'clock. I have not told you that Miss
Furnivall and Mrs. Stark never went to church; they used to read the
prayers together, in their quiet, gloomy way; they seemed to feel the
Sunday very long without their tapestry-work to be busy at. So when I
went to Dorothy in the kitchen, to fetch Miss Rosamond and take her
upstairs with me, I did not much wonder when the old woman told me
that the ladies had kept the child with them, and that she had never
come to the kitchen, as I had bidden her, when she was tired of
behaving pretty in the drawing-room. So I took off my things and went
to find her, and bring her to her supper in the nursery. But when I
went into the best drawing-room, there sat the two old ladies, very
still and quiet, dropping out a word now and then, but looking as if
nothing so bright and merry as Miss Rosamond had ever been near them.
Still I thought she might be hiding from me; it was one of her pretty
ways,--and that she had persuaded them to look as if they knew
nothing about her; so I went softly peeping under this sofa and
behind that chair, making believe I was sadly frightened at not
finding her.
"What's the matter, Hester?" said Mrs. Stark sharply. I don't know
if Miss Furnivall had seen me for, as I told you, she was very deaf,
and she sat quite still, idly staring into the fire, with her
hopeless face. "I'm only looking for my little Rosy Posy," replied I,
still thinking that the child was there, and near me, though I could
not see her.
"Miss Rosamond is not here," said Mrs. Stark. "She went away, more
than an hour ago, to find Dorothy." And she, too, turned and went on
looking into the fire.
My heart sank at this, and I began to wish I had never left my
darling. I went back to Dorothy and told her. James was gone out for
the day, but she, and me, and Bessy took lights, and went up into the
nursery first; and then we roamed over the great, large house,
calling and entreating Miss Rosamond to come out of her hiding-place,
and not frighten us to death in that way. But there was no answer; no
sound.
"Oh!" said I, at last, "can she have got into the east wing and
hidden there?"
But Dorothy said it was not possible, for that she herself had
never been in there; that the doors were always locked, and my lord's
steward had the keys, she believed; at any rate, neither she nor
James had ever seen them: so I said I would go back, and see if,
after all, she was not hidden in the drawing-room, unknown to the old
ladies; and if I found her there, I said, I would whip her well for
the fright she had given me; but I never meant to do it. Well, I went
back to the west drawing-room, and I told Mrs. Stark we could not
find her anywhere, and asked for leave to look all about the
furniture there, for I thought now that she might have fallen asleep
in some warm, hidden corner; but no! we looked--Miss Furnivall got up
and looked, trembling all over--and she was nowhere there; then we
set off again, every one in the house, and looked in all the places
we had searched before, but we could not find her. Miss Furnivall
shivered and shook so much, that Mrs. Stark took her back into the
warm drawing-room; but not before they had made me promise to bring
her to them when she was found. Well-a-day! I began to think she
never would be found, when I bethought me to look into the great
front court, all covered with snow. I was upstairs when I looked out;
but, it was such clear moonlight, I could see, quite plain, two
little footprints, which might be traced from the hall-door and round
the corner of the east wing. I don't know how I got down, but I
tugged open the great stiff hall-door, and, throwing the skirt of my
gown over my head for a cloak, I ran out. I turned the east corner,
and there a black shadow fell on the snow but when I came again into
the moonlight, there were the little footmarks going up--up to the
Fells. It was bitter cold; so cold, that the air almost took the skin
off my face as I ran; but I ran on, crying to think how my poor
little darling must be perished and frightened. I was within sight of
the holly-trees, when I saw a shepherd coming down the hill, bearing
something in his arms wrapped in his maud. He shouted to me, and
asked me if I had lost a bairn; and, when I could not speak for
crying, he bore towards me, and I saw my wee bairnie, lying still,
and white, and stiff in his arms, as if she had been dead. He told me
he had been up the Fells to gather in his sheep, before the deep cold
of night came on, and that under the holly-trees (black marks on the
hill-side, where no other bush was for miles around) he had found my
little lady--my lamb--my queen--my darling--stiff and cold in the
terrible sleep which is frost-begotten. Oh! the joy and the tears of
having her in my arms once again I for I would not let him carry her;
but took her, maud and all, into my own arms, and held her near my
own warm neck and heart, and felt the life stealing slowly back again
into her little gentle limbs. But she was still insensible when we
reached the hall, and I had no breath for speech. We went in by the
kitchen-door.
"Bring the warming-pan," said I; and I carried her upstairs, and
began undressing her by the nursery fire, which Bessy had kept up. I
called my little lammie all the sweet and playful names I could think
of,--even while my eyes were blinded by my tears; and at last, oh! at
length she opened her large blue eyes. Then I put her into her warm
bed, and sent Dorothy down to tell Miss Furnivall that all was well;
and I made up my mind to sit by my darling's bedside the live-long
night. She fell away into a soft sleep as soon as her pretty head had
touched the pillow, and I watched by her till morning light; when she
wakened up bright and clear--or so I thought at first--and, my dears,
so I think now.
She said, that she had fancied that she should like to go to
Dorothy, for that both the old ladies were asleep, and it was very
dull in the drawing-room; and that, as she was going through the west
lobby, she saw the snow through the high window
falling--falling--soft and steady; but she wanted to see it lying
pretty and white on the ground; so she made her way into the great
hall: and then, going to the window, she saw it bright and soft upon
the drive; but while she stood there, she saw a little girl, not so
old as she was, "but so pretty," said my darling; "and this little
girl beckoned to me to come out; and oh, she was so pretty and so
sweet, I could not choose but go." And then this other little girl
had taken her by the hand, and side by side the two had gone round
the east corner.
"Now you are a naughty little girl, and telling stories," said I.
"What would your good mamma, that is in heaven, and never told a
story in her life, say to her little Rosamond, if she heard her--and
I dare say she does--telling stories!"
"Indeed, Hester," sobbed out my child, "I'm telling you true.
Indeed I am."
"Don't tell me!" said I, very stern. "I tracked you by your
foot-marks through the snow; there were only yours to be seen: and if
you had had a little girl to go hand-in-hand with you up the hill,
don't you think the footprints would have gone along with yours?"
"I can't help it, dear, dear Hester," said she, crying, "if they
did not; I never looked at her feet, but she held my hand fast and
tight in her little one, and it was very, very cold. She took me up
the Fell-path, up to the holly-trees; and there I saw a lady weeping
and crying; but when she saw me, she hushed her weeping, and smiled
very proud and grand, and took me on her knee, and began to lull me
to sleep, and that's all, Hester--but that is true; and my dear mamma
knows it is," said she, crying. So I thought the child was in a
fever, and pretended to believe her, as she went over her story--over
and over again, and always the same.
At last Dorothy knocked at the
door with Miss Rosamond's breakfast; and she told me the old ladies
were down in the eating parlour, and that they wanted to speak to me.
They had both been into the night-nursery the evening before, but it
was after Miss Rosamond was asleep; so they had only looked at
her--not asked me any questions.
"I shall catch it," thought I to myself, as I went along the north
gallery. "And yet," I thought, taking courage, "it was in their
charge I left her; and it's they that's to blame for letting her
steal away unknown and unwatched."
So I went in boldly, and told my
story. I told it all to Miss Furnivall, shouting it close to her ear;
but when I came to the mention of the other little girl out in the
snow, coaxing and tempting her out, and wiling her up to the grand
and beautiful lady by the holly-tree, she threw her arms up--her old
and withered arms--and cried aloud, "Oh! Heaven forgive! Have
mercy!"
Mrs. Stark took hold of her; roughly enough, I thought; but she
was past Mrs. Stark's management, and spoke to me, in a kind of wild
warning and authority.
"Hester! keep her from that child! It will lure her to her death!
That evil child! Tell her it is a wicked, naughty child." Then, Mrs.
Stark hurried me out of the room; where, indeed, I was glad enough to
go; but Miss Furnivall kept shrieking out, "Oh, have mercy! Wilt Thou
never forgive! It is many a long year ago"--
I was very uneasy in my mind after that. I durst never leave Miss
Rosamond, night or day, for fear lest she might slip off again, after
some fancy or other; and all the more, because I thought I could make
out that Miss Furnivall was crazy, from their odd ways about her; and
I was afraid lest something of the same kind (which might be in the
family, you know) hung over my darling. And the great frost never
ceased all this time; and, whenever it was a more stormy night than
usual, between the gusts, and through the wind we heard the old lord
playing on the great organ. But, old lord, or not, wherever Miss
Rosamond went, there I followed; for my love for her, pretty,
helpless orphan, was stronger than my fear for the grand and terrible
sound. Besides, it rested with me to keep her cheerful and merry, as
beseemed her age. So we played together, and wandered together, here
and there, and everywhere; for I never dared to lose sight of her
again in that large and rambling house. And so it happened, that one
afternoon, not long before Christmas-day, we were playing together on
the billiard-table in the great hall (not that we knew the right way
of playing, but she liked to roll the smooth ivory balls with her
pretty hands, and I liked to do whatever she did); and, by-and-by,
without our noticing it, it grew dusk indoors, though it was still
light in the open air, and I was thinking of taking her back into the
nursery, when, all of a sudden, she cried out--
"Look, Hester! look! there is my poor little girl out in the
snow!"
I turned towards the long narrow windows, and there, sure enough,
I saw a little girl, less than my Miss Rosamond--dressed all unfit to
be out-of-doors such a bitter night--crying, and beating against the
window panes, as if she wanted to be let in. She seemed to sob and
wail, till Miss Rosamond could bear it no longer, and was flying to
the door to open it, when, all of a sudden, and close upon us, the
great organ pealed out so loud and thundering, it fairly made me
tremble; and all the more, when I remembered me that, even in the
stillness of that dead-cold weather, I had heard no sound of little
battering hands upon the window-glass, although the phantom child had
seemed to put forth all its force; and, although I had seen it wail
and cry, no faintest touch of sound had fallen upon my ears. Whether
I remembered all this at the very moment, I do not know; the great
organ sound had so stunned me into terror; but this I know, I caught
up Miss Rosamond before she got the hall-door opened, and clutched
her, and carried her away, kicking and screaming, into the large,
bright kitchen, where Dorothy and Agnes were busy with their
mince-pies.
"What is the matter with my sweet one?" cried Dorothy, as I bore
in Miss Rosamond, who was sobbing as if her heart would break.
"She won't let me open the door for my little girl to come in; and
she'll die if she is out on the Fells all night.
Cruel, naughty
Hester," she said, slapping me; but she might have struck harder, for
I had seen a look of ghastly terror on Dorothy's face, which made my
very blood run cold.
"Shut the back-kitchen door fast, and bolt it well," said she to
Agues. She said no more; she gave me raisins and almonds to quiet
Miss Rosamond; but she sobbed about the little girl in the snow, and
would not touch any of the good things. I was thankful when she cried
herself to sleep in bed. Then I stole down to the kitchen, and told
Dorothy I had made up my mind. I would carry my darling back to my
father's house in Applethwaite; where, if we lived humbly, we lived
at peace. I said I had been frightened enough with the old lord's
organ-playing; but now that I had seen for myself this little moaning
child, all decked out as no child in the neighbourhood could be,
beating and battering to get in, yet always without any sound or
noise--with the dark wound on its right shoulder; and that Miss
Rosamond had known it again for the phantom that had nearly lured her
to death (which Dorothy knew was true); I would stand it no
longer.
I saw Dorothy change colour once or twice. When I had done, she
told me she did not think I could take Miss Rosamond with me, for
that she was my lord's ward, and I had no right over her; and she
asked me would I leave the child that I was so fond of just for
sounds and sights that could do me no harm; and that they had all had
to get used to in their turns? I was all in a hot, trembling passion;
and I said it was very well for her to talk, that knew what these
sights and noises betokened, and that had, perhaps, had something to
do with the spectre child while it was alive. And I taunted her so,
that she told me all she knew at last; and then I wished I had never
been told, for it only made me more afraid than ever.
She said she had heard the tale from old neighbours that were
alive when she was first married; when folks used to come to the hall
sometimes, before it had got such a bad name on the country side: it
might not be true, or it might, what she had been told.
The old lord was Miss Furnivall's father--Miss Grace, as Dorothy
called her, for Miss Maude was the elder, and Miss Furnivall by
lights. The old lord was eaten up with pride. Such a proud man was
never seen or heard of; and his daughters were like him. No one was
good enough to wed them, although they had choice enough; for they
were the great beauties of their day, as I had seen by their
portraits, where they hung in the state drawing-room. But, as the old
saying is, "Pride will have a fall;" and these two haughty beauties
fell in love with the same man, and he no better than a foreign
musician, whom their father had down from London to play music with
him at the Manor House. For, above all things, next to his pride, the
old lord loved music. He could play`on nearly every instrument that
ever was heard of; and it was a strange thing it did not soften him;
but he was a fierce, dour old man, and had broken his poor wife's
heart with his cruelty, they said. He was mad after music, and would
pay any money for it. So he got this foreigner to come; who made such
beautiful music, that they said the very birds on the trees stopped
their singing to listen. And, by degrees, this foreign gentleman got
such a hold over the old lord, that nothing would serve him but that
he must come every year; and it was he that had the great organ
brought from Holland, and built up in the hall, where it stood now.
He taught the old lord to play on it; but many and many a time, when
Lord Furnivall was thinking of nothing but his fine organ, and his
finer music, the dark foreigner was walking abroad in the woods, with
one of the young ladies: now Miss Maude, and then Miss Grace.
Miss Maude won the day and carried off the prize, such as it was;
and he and she were married, all unknown to any one; and, before he
made his next yearly visit, she had been confined of a little girl at
a farm-house on the Moors, while her father and Miss Grace thought
she was away at Doncaster Races. But though she was a wife and a
mother, she was not a bit softened, but as haughty and as passionate
as ever; and perhaps more so, for she was jealous of Miss Grace, to
whom her foreign husband paid a deal of court--by way of blinding
her--as he told his wife. But Miss Grace triumphed over Miss Maude,
and Miss Maude grew fiercer and fiercer, both with her husband and
with her sister; and the former--who could easily shake off what was
disagreeable, and hide himself in foreign countries--went away a
month before his usual time that summer, and half-threatened that he
would never come back again. Meanwhile, the little girl was left at
the farm-house, and her mother used to have her horse saddled and
gallop wildly over the hills to see her once every week, at the very
least; for where she loved she loved, and where she hated she hated.
And the old lord went on playing--playing on his organ; and the
servants thought the sweet music he made had soothed down his awful
temper, of which (Dorothy said) some terrible tales could be told. He
grew infirm too, and had to walk with a crutch; and his son--that was
the present Lord Furnivall's father--was with the army in America,
and the other son at sea; so Miss Maude had it pretty much her own
way, and she and Miss Grace grew colder and bitterer to each other
every day; till at last they hardly ever spoke, except when the old
lord was by. The foreign musician came again the next summer, but it
was for the last time; for they led him such a life with their
jealousy and their passions, that he grew weary, and went away, and
never was heard of again. And Miss Maude, who had always meant to
have her marriage acknowledged when her father should be dead, was
left now a deserted wife, whom nobody knew to have been married, with
a child that she dared not own, although she loved it to distraction;
living with a father whom she feared, and a sister whom she hated.
When the next summer passed over, and the dark foreigner never came,
both Miss Maude and Miss Grace grew gloomy and sad; they had a
haggard look about them, though they looked handsome as ever. But,
by-and-by, Miss Maude brightened; for her father grew more and more
infirm, and more than ever carried away by his music, and she and
Miss Grace lived almost entirely apart, having separate rooms, the
one on the west side, Miss Maude on the east--those very rooms which
were now shut up. So she thought she might have her little girl with
her, and no one need ever know except those who dared not speak about
it, and were bound to believe that it was, as she said, a cottager's
child she had taken a fancy to. All this, Dorothy said, was pretty
well known; but what came afterwards no one knew, except Miss Grace
and Mrs. Stark, who was even then her maid, and much more of a friend
to her than ever her sister had been. But the servants supposed, from
words that were dropped, that Miss Maude had triumphed over Miss
Grace, and told her that all the time the dark foreigner had been
mocking her with pretended love--he was her own husband. The colour
left Miss Grace's cheek and lips that very day for ever, and she was
heard to say many a time that sooner or later she would have her
revenge; and Mrs. Stark was for ever spying about the east rooms.
One fearful night, just after the New Year had come in, when the
snow was lying thick and deep; and the flakes were still
falling--fast enough to blind any one who might be out and
abroad--there was a great and violent noise heard, and the old lord's
voice above all, cursing and swearing awfully, and the cries of a
little child, and the proud defiance of a fierce woman, and the sound
of a blow, and a dead stillness, and moans and wailings, dying away
on the hill-side! Then the old lord summoned all his servants, and
told them, with terrible oaths, and words more terrible, that his
daughter had disgraced herself, and that he had turned her out of
doors--her, and her child--and that if ever they gave her help, or
food, or shelter, he prayed that they might never enter heaven. And,
all the while, Miss Grace stood by him, white and still as any stone;
and, when he had ended, she heaved a great sigh, as much as to say
her work was done, and her end was accomplished. But the old lord
never touched his organ again, and died within the year; and no
wonder I for, on the morrow of that wild and fearful night, the
shepherds, coming down the Fell side, found Miss Maude sitting, all
crazy and smiling, under the holly-trees, nursing a dead child, with
a terrible mark on its right shoulder. "But that was not what killed
it," said Dorothy: "it was the frost and the cold. Every wild
creature was in its hole, and every beast in its fold, while the
child and its mother were turned out to wander on the Fells! And now
you know all! and I wonder if you are less frightened now?"
I was more frightened than ever; but I said I was not. I wished
Miss Rosamond and myself well out of that dreadful house for ever;
but I would not leave her, and I dared not take her away. But oh, how
I watched her, and guarded her! We bolted the doors, and shut the
window-shutters fast, an hour or more before dark, rather than leave
them open five minutes too late. But my little lady still heard the
weird child crying and mourning; and not all we could do or say could
keep her from wanting to go to her, and let her in from the cruel
wind and snow. All this time I kept away from Miss Furnivall and Mrs.
Stark, as much as ever I could; for I feared them--I knew no good
could be about them, with their grey, hard faces, and their dreamy
eyes, looking back into the ghastly years that were gone. But, even
in my fear, I had a kind of pity for Miss Furnivall, at least. Those
gone down to the pit can hardly have a more hopeless look than that
which was ever on her face. At last I even got so sorry for her--who
never said a word but what was quite forced from her--that I prayed
for her; and I taught Miss Rosamond to pray for one who had done a
deadly sin; but often, when she came to those words, she would
listen, and start up from her knees, and say, "I hear my little girl
plaining and crying, very sad,--oh, let her in, or she will die!"
One night--just after New Year's Day had come at last, and the
long winter had taken a turn, as I hoped--I heard the west
drawing-room bell ring three times, which was the signal for me. I
would not leave Miss Rosamond alone, for all she was asleep--for the
old lord had been playing wilder than ever--and I feared lest my
darling should waken to hear the spectre child; see her I knew she
could not. I had fastened the windows too well for that. So I took
her out of her bed, and wrapped her up in such outer clothes as were
most handy, and carried her down to the drawing-room, where the old
ladies sat at their tapestry-work as usual. They looked up when I
came in, and Mrs. Stark asked, quite astounded, "Why did I bring Miss
Rosamond there, out of her warm bed?" I had begun to whisper,
"Because I was afraid of her being tempted out while I was away, by
the wild child in the snow," when she stopped me short (with a glance
at Miss Furnivall), and said Miss Furnivall wanted me to undo some
work she had done wrong, and which neither of them could see to
unpick. So I laid my pretty dear on the sofa, and sat down on a stool
by them, and hardened my heart against them, as I heard the wind
rising and howling.
Miss Rosamond slept on sound, for all the wind blew so; and Miss
Furnivall said never a word, nor looked round when the gusts shook
the windows. All at once she started up to her full height, and put
up one hand, as if to bid us listen.
"I hear voices!" said she. "I hear terrible screams--I hear my
father's voice!"
Just at that moment my darling wakened with a sudden start: "My
little girl is crying, oh, how she is crying!" and she tried to get
up and go to her, but she got her feet entangled in the blanket, and
I caught her up; for my flesh had begun to creep at these noises,
which they heard while we could catch no sound. In a minute or two
the noises came, and gathered fast, and filled our ears; we, too,
heard voices and screams, and no longer heard the winter's wind that
raged abroad. Mrs. Stark looked at me, and I at her, but we dared not
speak. Suddenly Miss Furnivall, went towards the door, out into the
ante-room, through the west lobby, and opened the door into the great
hall. Mrs. Stark followed, and I durst not be left, though my heart
almost stopped beating for fear. I wrapped my darling tight in my
arms, and went out with them. In the hall the screams were louder
than ever; they seemed to come from the east wing--nearer and
nearer--close on the other side of the locked-up doors--close behind
them. Then I noticed that the great bronze chandelier seemed all
alight, though the hall was dim, and that a fire was blazing in the
vast hearth-place, though it gave no heat; and I shuddered up with
terror, and folded my darling closer to me. But as I did so the east
door shook, and she, suddenly struggling to get free from me, cried,
"Hester! I must go. My little girl is there I hear her; she is
coming! Hester, I must go!"
I held her tight with all my strength; with a set will, I held
her. If I had died, my hands would have grasped her still, I was so
resolved in my mind. Miss Furnivall stood listening, and paid no
regard to my darling, who had got down to the ground, and whom I,
upon my knees now, was holding with both my arms clasped round her
neck; she still striving and crying to get free.
All at once, the east door gave way with a thundering crash, as if
torn open in a violent passion, and there came into that broad and
mysterious light, the figure of a tall old man, with grey hair and
gleaming eyes. He drove before him, with many a relentless gesture of
abhorrence, a stern and beautiful woman, with a little child clinging
to her dress.
"O Hester! Hester!" cried Miss Rosamond; "it's the lady! the lady
below the holly-trees; and my little girl is with her. Hester!
Hester! let me go to her; they are drawing me to them. I feel them--I
feel them. I must go!"
Again she was almost convulsed by her efforts to get away; but I
held her tighter and tighter, till I feared I should do her a hurt;
but rather that than let her go towards those terrible phantoms. They
passed along towards the great hall-door, where the winds howled and
ravened for their prey; but before they reached that, the lady
turned; and I could see that she defied the old man with a fierce and
proud defiance; but then she quailed--and then she threw up her arms
wildly and piteously to save her child--her little child--from a blow
from his uplifted crutch.
And Miss Rosamond was torn as by a power stronger than mine, and
writhed in my arms, and sobbed (for by this time the poor darling was
growing faint).
"They want me to go with them on to the Fells--they are drawing me
to them. Oh, my little girl! I would come, but cruel, wicked Hester
holds me very tight." But when she saw the uplifted crutch, she
swooned away, and I thanked God for it. Just at this moment--when the
tall old man, his hair streaming as in the blast of a furnace, was
going to strike the little shrinking child--Miss Furnivall, the old
woman by my side, cried out, "O father! father! spare the little
innocent child!" But just then I saw--we all saw--another phantom
shape itself, and grow clear out of the blue and misty light that
filled the hall; we had not seen her till now, for it was another
lady who stood by the old man, with a look of relentless hate and
triumphant scorn. That figure was very beautiful to look upon, with a
soft, white hat drawn down over the proud brows, and a red and
curling lip. It was dressed in an open robe of blue satin. I had seen
that figure before. It was the likeness of Miss Furnivall in her
youth; and the terrible phantoms moved on, regardless of old Miss
Furnivall's wild entreaty,--and the uplifted crutch fell on the right
shoulder of the little child, and the younger sister looked on,
stony, and deadly serene. But at that moment, the dim lights, and the
fire that gave no heat, went out of themselves, and Miss Furnivall
lay at our feet stricken down by the palsy--death-stricken.
Yes! she was carried to her bed that night never to rise again.
She lay with her face to the wall, muttering low, but muttering
always: "Alas! alas! what is done in youth can never be undone in
age! What is done in youth can never be undone in age!"
). Here the words are all Gaiman with Campbell providing painted illustrations.
