Читать книгу Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic Experiences - Violet Tweedale - Страница 7

Table of Contents

I was about six years old when my family moved to a brand new house in Claremont Crescent, that had just been erected on the outskirts of Edinburgh. There were still some green fields unbuilt upon, and some fine old trees left standing close to us, and those were still included in a triangular group of three grand old Manors—Broughton Hall, Powder Hall, and Logie Green. All three had the reputation of being badly haunted. The first named stood almost within a stone's throw of our end of the Crescent, and was occupied by an ancient family named Walker, who had held the property for generations. They still existed as a very charming relic of Scotch antiquity, and they had always been friends of our family.

The house from the outside was very grim and forbidding-looking. It was hidden from the eyes of the curious behind very high walls, and was entered upon by two huge gates, always kept closed.

Inside, the house was most interesting and attractive. There were many closed rooms and winding staircases, and odd steps in long, dark corridors, but the rooms that were lived in were beautiful of their kind. There were desks with secret drawers, wonderful pieces of Chippendale, tenderly cared for, quantities of rare old china and cut glass, and on the walls hung glorious Romneys and Hoppners, which fetched huge prices at Christie's when the household was finally broken up by death.

The family consisted of three sisters, Fanny, Hope, and Kitty, the latter a widow, named Mrs. Chew. There were two brothers, Adam and John. The former lived with his sisters. John was a minister, and only paid visits. There was a nephew, the heir, William Stephens, who also paid long visits to the Hall. Though, at the date of which I speak, about 1870, he must have been at least sixty, he was always referred to as "the Laddie."

The three sisters occupied distinct positions in the house. Mrs. Chew acted as cook, though servants were kept, and she always sat in the kitchen, only coming "through" to the dining-room for her meals. Miss Hope was the worldly member of the family. She had been to London Town, and could not be relied upon to stop at home. She looked after the polishing of the furniture, the old glass and china. Miss Fanny was the lady of the family. She always sat in the best parlor. Every one waited on her, and she was never permitted to do anything for herself.

She dressed for the part in thick, black satin, with, in winter, a white silk embroidered Chinese shawl, and, in summer, old Brussels lace. Across her forehead was a band of black velvet, with a pear-shaped pearl depending between the eyebrows. Over her snow-white hair was flung a piece of old lace surmounting a wreath of artificial flowers. Her claw-like hands were covered by lace mittens and many rings. I saw her constantly, and she was always idle. I never saw her read, or sew, or knit, and often I wondered what she thought about, as she sat there always in the same chair, year in year out, and with no companion but a large gray parrot. True, her surroundings were delightful. From her chair near the fire she could look out on the quaint old garden, always full of flowers, and she could glance around her at the many beautiful objects the room contained.

I especially admired one Hoppner. The subject was a beautiful woman, with a mass of powdered hair, seated by an open window. Her cheek was supported in her hand, and at her elbow was a quaint little wicker cage containing a bird. I think the artist meant to suggest that both were captives. Though quite well in health, Miss Fanny never left the house, even to walk in the garden.

My father and I went very often to call upon those curious old people, who were so utterly out of touch with modern life, backward though life was then in the Northern Capital. We arrived at all sorts of hours, but refreshments were always produced. An amazingly rich cake, and fruity old port, served in large quarter-pint cut-glass rummers. It was not considered polite to refuse those offerings, which were always kept in a corner cupboard, and served by Mrs. Chew, who emerged from the kitchen, or Miss Hope, who left her housework to greet us.

Though Broughton Hall was commonly reputed to be haunted, no one seemed to know what form the ghost took. I was great friends with Mr. Adam, a majestic, clean-shaven old man, who carried his chin very high above an enormous black silk stock, and often I tried to draw him on the subject of the ghost, but without success. He took it very seriously, and warned me that "I wouldn't be any the better for having seen it. Besides," he always concluded, "it's a family affair." The sisters were even more uncommunicative.

My father and I were profoundly interested in this ghost. There was something about the whole establishment that was extremely promising, from the ghost-hunter point of view. The consequence of this was that we were always on the prowl. Nothing discouraged us, and we spared neither time nor trouble. There is no research which requires such infinite patience as psychic research. Several years passed before the great moment arrived, and when it did arrive it was all over in about four minutes.

My father had a way of suddenly looking up from his work and saying, "Let's go to Broughton Hall." I would at once rise, and together we would pass out into the night, without either hats or coats. Very eccentric, it may be said, but then we frankly were very eccentric. We would steal away together around the Crescent, and down the road till we reached the great gates. Very softly we opened and closed them, and keeping well in the shadow of the trees and bushes we would creep round the silent house.

I cannot describe the thrill of those nocturnal adventures. It was all so eerie, so full of vague, terrifying possibilities. I don't know what we expected to see, and we were generally back again in our own house in half an hour; but one night our patience really was rewarded.

It was November, dry, but wild and bitterly cold. Billowy white snow clouds scudding before a brisk north wind threw us alternately into light and darkness, as they covered and uncovered the face of the full moon. We had emerged from our house about half-past nine, and had reached the back of Broughton Hall. The house was shrouded in darkness and dead silence, every blind was close drawn, and the suggestion was one of utter emptiness. My father and I were walking apart, I being right under the shadow of the walls, whilst he was in the middle of the paved court, which had neither hedge nor walls, but met the edge of the field running up to it.

Suddenly I heard him whisper "Hush!" though we never did utter a word whilst close to the house. His arm was pointing in front of him. I stared ahead, and then I saw, clearly lit by the moon, a woman who had apparently just rounded the corner of the house. She was running hard, straight towards us, and her feet made no sound on the round cobble stones.

Terror suddenly seized me, and I darted across to my father, and got well behind him, seizing him firmly round the waist. The woman came on, rushing wildly. She had nearly reached us, and I was almost thrown over as my father faced her, and backed to allow her to pass. I peeped round him, and saw a woman, ghastly pale, and distraught-looking, clad in a white nightdress. Two long strands of black hair streamed out behind her, and her bare arms were outstretched in front. In a flash she had passed, and absolutely silently, and I found myself lying on the ground alone, and my father vanishing in hot pursuit.

Needless to say I very quickly picked myself up again, and joined the chase. Terror lent me wings, and in a minute or two I came up with him, standing breathless by the gate.

"Vanished into thin air just as I reached her. That's always the way. You can't catch them," he said.

We made a little détour before going home, in order to discuss the great event. We had no doubt that we had seen a genuine apparition. We knew all the occupants of the Hall, and the woman had vanished in the open, and in full flight, just as my father had come up alongside her. He cautioned me against mentioning our adventure to any one, and I kept silence until years after, when Broughton Hall was pulled down and its inmates were all dead.

Before going on to our next ghostly adventure I will say a few words about my father, Robert Chambers, who in those days was something of a celebrity, and a very remarkable man.

In appearance he was very handsome, extremely tall and well built, and with features that were well-nigh perfect. It was the fashion in his time to wear the hair rather long, and his was dark and very curly. He always dressed well, in the style of the country gentleman, rather than as a town dweller.

In character he was extremely independent, and was utterly indifferent to two things—money and public opinion. His intellect was extraordinary, and it was commonly said that he knew a great deal about most things, and something about all things.

In Scotland, in those days, it was not considered necessary to trouble about the education of girls. No one ever tried to educate me, consequently at a very early age I was absolutely free to devote myself entirely to my father, and we were inseparable. Our intercourse was not that of father and daughter. It was that of confidential friends of an equal age. At that period my mother was more or less of an invalid, and had her own attendants.

My father and I went every morning at ten o'clock to the old business house of W. and R. Chambers, in the High Street of Edinburgh, and remained there till half-past two, when we walked home together, sometimes paying a call or two on the way. Though a mere uneducated child I helped him in his literary work, and at odd hours committed to memory many poets. We returned to four o'clock dinner, the correct hour in those days, and at six o'clock a porter arrived with my father's bag, containing manuscripts to be read and selected for Chambers' Journal. From six p. m. till midnight he worked at reading manuscript, not typed then, and proof correcting.

Twice a week we went to the theater—there was only one in Edinburgh then. It was managed by a hard working couple, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, who sometimes filled up a week by acting themselves. I am bound to say we spent most of our time in the Green Room, and I knew every turn and twist behind the curtain. This turned out to be lucky for us.

One night we went to a performance given by the Arthur Sullivan Company, and about halfway through a cry of "Fire" was raised. Great masses of burning stuff began to drop from the ceiling down into the auditorium. Instantly there was a panic, and a terrible stampede, and my father and I leaned forward, protecting our heads behind the backs of the stalls in front, whilst the mad rush climbed over us. When all was clear in front of us we made our way to the back of the stage, and escaped quite easily. I looked behind me, and I can see now the dense mass of struggling humanity wedged in the doorway.

I remained safely with Mrs. Howard whilst my father ran around to the front and helped to extricate the dead. The theater was burned to the ground, but was very rapidly built up again.

My first literary effort must here be recorded. I collaborated with Professor Andrew Wilson in writing the pantomime of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."

Andrew Wilson was Professor of Natural Science, and an extremely versatile person—a passionate love of the drama was added to his many scientific attainments. We wrote the dialogue together, in one long revelry of laughter, and I was responsible for the words of the songs. As a literary effort I can only describe it as appalling. The pantomime was, however, a great success. The audacity of our utter incompetence proved highly successful, and the critics justly described it as "The funniest Pantomime in Scotland." No wonder the audience laughed from start to finish.

My father always called at once upon any celebrity who happened to be passing through the city, and thus I became acquainted with many interesting and amusing people. Henry Irving was amongst the number. We always called upon him on our way to business, a little before ten. If he was playing for a week we called on him every morning, and often looked into the Green Room at night. He and my father were great friends, and at the hour of our visit he was always propped up in bed having breakfast. I used to perch on the bed whilst the two men talked. Irving's nightshirt interested me (pyjamas had not come in then). It was white cambric with two enormous double frills down the front, and quite a pierrot ruffle round his neck. He was profoundly interested in the occult, and told me that a ghost he had once seen had suggested to him a particular action of his whilst playing in "The Bells." At the moment when he parted the curtains, and looked wildly out, shouting hoarsely, "The Bells, the Bells."

Through Irving we came to know the Baroness Burdett Coutts, his ardent admirer. She was very kind to me, and presented me with a green silk dress, but I always thought her a very melancholy woman, even when entertaining many interesting people in her celebrated corner house in Piccadilly, with its white china parrot swinging in the window. She was much attached to my father, and treated him with a humble and touching deference.

Robert Chambers was a very keen sportsman, who fortunately did not require much practice to keep up his game. He held championships in golf and bowling. He was too ardent a naturalist and ornithologist to care for shooting, but he was an expert angler. He was also a born actor and mimic, and used to keep a Green Room in roars by "taking off" any of "the profession" called for, and I never heard a better ventriloquist. He adored music, and played the flute well. As a platform speaker he was extremely fluent and perfectly at ease.

His indifference to money resulted in his never having a penny in his pocket at night, no matter how much he took with him in the morning, and one of my tasks was to prevent his being fleeced by those who lay in wait for him. He took any amount of trouble over impecunious and incompetent authors, and constantly re-wrote their work for them in order to make it fit for publication. He was a unique editor, and his labors in the cause of charity were strenuous, secret, and, I fear, rather indiscriminate.

During this period of my life, the head of the house, William Chambers, was still living, with his quaint old wife, in the West End of Edinburgh. William, who had survived his more versatile brother, Robert (my grandfather), was a little shriveled-up old man, with a dry and severe manner. Most people were afraid of him, few liked him, but I got on with him famously. I have always been extremely proud of the fact that he rose from nothing to great wealth. There must be something fine in a man, who, as a lad, rose at four a. m. to read classics to an intelligent baker, whilst the batch of bread was being baked, and who gladly accepted as payment a copper or a roll.

William and Robert Chambers had left their widowed mother to fend for themselves. The family was at the lowest financial ebb. Much money had been spent on the French refugees who flocked into Scotland in 1810, and there was nothing to spare now. We were originally French, like so very many of the old Scotch families. The first of us in history is recorded as Guillaume de la Chaumbre, who, as the most prominent man in Peebles, signed the Ragman Roll in 1296. My people had always lived in the dales of the Tweed, so very appropriately I married a man called Tweedale.

Towards the end of his life William Chambers amused himself by spending many thousands on the restoration of St. Giles' Cathedral, an historic church which had fallen into great disrepair. This was a time of great interest for me, and I used to spend hours helping the workmen to gather up the thousands of human skulls that paved the church to a good depth. There were tombs laid bare of many celebrated people of the long ago, and these had to be identified, and carefully kept intact, until finally given a safer resting-place.

William Chambers had been offered a baronetcy some years previously, but he refused it. He told me he did not consider it a dignified thing for a man of letters to bear any other honor than that accorded to brain power by a benefited world. He and his brother Robert were the pioneers of cheap and good educational literature for the laboring man, and the avidity with which this literature, "Chambers' Information for the People," was consumed, appeared to be a fitting reward. In those days it was an unheard-of thing for a publisher to be honored by a title. Now, however, on the eve of the re-opening of St. Giles' Cathedral, Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, commanded William Chambers to accept a baronetcy. The old couple were much agitated, but had to submit, and the Queen announced her intention of performing the opening ceremony.

When the day arrived William Chambers lay dead in his house, and my father and I took the place of the old couple. The Queen was indisposed, and Lord Aberdeen took her place.

After the ceremony both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Rosebery urged upon my father to take up the baronetcy, more especially as he was his uncle's heir, but this he utterly refused to do.

Old Lady Chambers, the widow, discarded her title immediately and remained Mrs. Chambers till the day of her death.

It must have been at least a month after William Chambers' death that he visited me in a very vivid dream. I dreamed that he was standing beside my bed, and suddenly he bent over me and whispered in my ear, "I've left you all my money." On waking I had totally forgotten the dream, but later in the day an old servant of ours said to me, "I saw the wraith of your Uncle William last night, but he had nothing to say to me."

Then my dream flashed back to me. A day or two afterwards I said suddenly to the old family lawyer, "Was there ever a question of Uncle William leaving his money to me?"

The dry answer was, "Yes! at one time there was a question of that." I could never extract anything further from him on the subject.

Though now possessed of considerable wealth my father made no difference in his mode of life, and he continued to work just as hard as ever, and to give away large sums of money. He never wanted anything for himself, but was always ready to give to others. He had a great love of precious stones, and always carried about little packets of diamonds, which looked like packets of chemists' powders. Had I desired I could have loaded myself with jewels. He never denied me anything and we continued our close companionship, the only difference now being we took some holidays in the form of afternoons off.

On one of these occasions we saw our second ghost.

We went to pay a visit to a very old woman, whose name I cannot remember. She lived alone with one servant in an ancient dwelling in Inveresk. The house was a large one, and was enclosed by very high walls, which entirely isolated it from the busy streets that surrounded it. The original old garden remained, in all its beauty, and the rooms were full of quaint heirlooms.

We were always made very welcome, and the servant at once produced a delicious tea, consisting of fresh baked scones, butter made of real cream—margarine being not then invented—home-made strawberry jam, and home-laid eggs. Russian eggs were not then imported.

I must here interpose that deliciously innocent telegram sent by an Aberdeen merchant in the first days of the Great War, and which set all England and Scotland mad to see the fur and snow-clad Russian troops passing through to the Front. The telegram ran as follows:—