New Ghost Stories E-Book

Lettice Galbraith

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

• “The Case of Lady Lukestan”
• The Trainer’s Ghost
• The Ghost in the Chair
• In the Séance Room
• The Missing Model
• A Ghost’s Revenge
• The Blue Room

Leseprobe

NEW GHOST STORIES

SEVEN STORIES OF SUPERNATURAL VENGEANCE

LETTICE GALBRAITH

© 2020 Librorium Editions All rights reserved

CONTENTS:

“The Case of Lady Lukestan”

The Trainer’s Ghost

The Ghost in the Chair

In the Séance Room

The Missing Model

A Ghost’s Revenge

The Blue Room

“The Case of Lady Lukestan”

Coeval with the existence of mankind has existed the belief in ghosts. Like other cults, it has had its ups and downs; its periods of exaltation and of persecution.

It has received the sanction of the priesthood and attained the dignity of a special office in the Book of Common Prayer. It has been lashed by the scorn of the materialist, and derided by professors of exact Science. Advancing education stripped it to the skeleton as Superstition, and Advanced Thought has re-clothed it with the nebulous draperies of Esoteric Philosophy.

The swing of the pendulum and the exertions of the Society for Psychical Research have improved the position of the ghost, but its rights as a citizen have yet to be established. The State recognises it not. Legally, a ghost labours under greater disadvantages than a Catholic before the passing of the Emancipation Bill. It cannot make a will or bring an action at law. It may not, whatever its qualifications during life, celebrate a marriage or give a certificate of death. No judge on the bench would convict on the evidence of a ghost, though, could subpoenas be served on the spirit world, some had escaped the gallows and many died publicly on the scaffold, instead of decently in their beds.

Rightly or wrongly, however, the law takes no cognisance of ghosts, and ghosts would seem to be aware of this and occasionally act with the irresponsibility of those who cannot be called to account.

Legally a ghost has no existence. This point was established in the case of “Lukestan v. Lukestan and others.”

The trial, as may be remembered (it was very inadequately reported in the daily papers), involved the succession to the Earldom of Marylebone (1776 G.B.). Mr. Baron Collings, before whom the case was tried, ruled there was no evidence of a legal marriage between the late Lord Lukestan and Miss Pamela Ardilaun, that the entry of the said marriage in the parish register was a forgery, and he directed the jury to give their verdict for the defendants, with costs.

I do not pretend to criticise the learned judge’s attitude in the matter, though it was apparent from the first that his “summing-up” was dead against the plaintiff. I merely place before such of the public as may be interested therein the exact facts of one of the most singular cases ever heard in a court of law, and the public, which is always intelligent (is not vox populi, vox Dei an all but universally accepted axiom today?), may judge for itself whether Lady Lukestan, otherwise known as Miss Ardilaun, was entitled to the sympathy due to a deeply injured woman, or the contumely which is justly heaped on the head of an unsuccessful adventuress.

Morally, Miss Ardilaun was not entirely innocent. She undoubtedly played with the feelings of a nervous and hyper-sensitive man. Other women have done the same without any very serious result. The mistake in Miss Ardilaun’s case was, that she did net take the trouble to study the mechanism of her plaything. The truth is, that years of over-work, enforced solitude, and rigorous self-repression had reduced the Rev. Cyprian Martyn to a condition of mind closely bordering on insanity, and in this condition he construed an ordinary flirtation into a cardinal sin.

He believed that in falling in love with Miss Ardilaun and acquainting her with the fact, he had broken his faith with God and man, and incurred the curse pronounced on those who, “having put their hand to the plough, turn back.”

In a moment of delirium he told the girl that his choice lay between the Creator and the creature—between Good and evil—and that he had deliberately, and with his eyes open, chosen the latter; that he was prepared to risk all penalties here and pains hereafter for the gratification of his passion; and as he had proved himself unworthy of the high office of the priesthood, he would resign his cure, marry her, and claim the privileges he had purchased at the price of his very soul.

It is at all times dangerous to disclose the inmost workings of the heart to a woman, who rarely comprehends, and can never realise, the length, breadth, and depth of a man’s passion, and this mad avowal was the seal of Cyprian Martyn’s fate.

Miss Ardilaun probably resented the position assigned her by the terms of her lover’s choice. She certainly thought him insane, and the event proved her to be absolutely correct. She very curtly stated that, at no period of their very informal acquaintance, had she reckoned on him as a factor in her future life. She had tolerated his attentions solely because she was bored to distraction in the rural solitude periodically insisted on by her aristocratic and tyrannical invalid aunt; and as to her marriage, the only part he could possibly take in the ceremony would be that of marrying her to another man, for she should never dream for a moment of marrying him. With this rather cruel speech, Miss Ardilaun would have parted from her clerical admirer, but before she could realise his intention, Martyn had caught her in his arms and kissed her passionately, full on the mouth. “You have ruined me body and soul,” he said, when at last he released her; “but remember, I shall marry you, if not to myself, then to another man. Living or dying I will have my revenge.”

This was his farewell. A week later he was found dead in his study, with an empty bottle, which had contained morphia, lying on the table at his side.

That the unhappy man had deliberately taken his own life was beyond a doubt. All his affairs had been set in order, his liabilities paid, and his correspondence and diaries destroyed. He had written to his brother and only near surviving relative, requesting him to receive such goods as he might die possessed of, and begging him to carry out certain directions as to the disposal of his body.

The letter, which was produced at the inquest, also referred to some unpardonable sin committed by the writer, which rendered him unfit for prolonged existence. As the dead man had borne the most exemplary character, and was universally respected, this allusion was generally regarded as a symptom of mental derangement.

The local practitioner stated in evidence that the deceased had consulted him professionally before starting on his annual holiday. He was then in a very low, nervous state, and complained of depression and insomnia. He (the medical man) attributed his condition to over-work and insufficient nourishment. Mr. Martyn was a strict Anglican, and held extreme views on matters of self-discipline. Hallucination as to the commission of some unpardonable sin was a common and painful feature in cases of religious mania, from which, in his (Dr. Garrod’s) opinion, the deceased was undoubtedly suffering at the time of his death.

The jury brought in a verdict of “Suicide whilst of unsound mind,” and the unfortunate man was buried in the shadow of the village church which for ten dreary years had been the scene of his ministrations.

All this happened in the autumn of 1886. During the following winter I made the acquaintance of Miss Ardilaun at a crowded “At Home” given by the wife of a legal luminary of the first magnitude. She was kind enough to give me a dance, and inquired if I knew many people. I confessed I was practically a stranger, brought by my cousin and particular chum, Charley Roskill, who as a dancing man and a rising “junior” was a persona gratissama with his hostess.

I think it was then Miss Ardilaun owned to being tired and suggested that, as the rooms were hot and overcrowded (which was certainly true), we should find a seat outside, and she selected one immediately opposite the stairs.

Our conversation turned chiefly on Roskill, in whom my companion appeared to take more than a little interest. She said Sir Charles had spoken of him as an Attorney-General of the future, and she asked what struck me as rather a singular question.

“Is he,” she said, “the sort of man to whom you would advise a woman to go if she were in urgent need of assistance and advice?”

I replied, I was “convinced that Roskill, like myself, would at any time be ready to place his entire professional resources at Miss Ardilaun’s service, and that he was undoubtedly clever.”

She laughed a little. “I wasn’t sure,” she said; “but you ought to know.”

Then she went away on the arm of a young man, who had arrived to claim his partner.

It was Lord Lukestan. I saw them several times in the course of the evening, always sitting out in sheltered corners, and engaged in earnest conversation. Lukestan was a good-looking boy, a year or two Miss Ardilaun’s junior, and it struck me that she accepted his manifest admiration in a serious manner, which indicated that she meant business.

I mentioned this to Roskill as we walked home together, and he laughed the suggestion to scorn. Lukestan’s people would never permit such a match. It was well known that old Lord Marylebone destined his nephew for his cousin, Lady Adeliza Skelton. It was quite possible that the boy himself might prefer Miss Ardilaun as a bride-elect, but he could not afford to run counter to his uncle’s wishes. He was dependent on his prospects as Lord Marylebone’s heir, and more than half the property was unentailed.

“Besides,” he concluded, “the girl hasn’t a penny. She is virtually the companion and white slave of her aunt, old Lady Catermaran. Take my word, it’s only a common or garden flirtation, and it won’t last long at that.”

Roskill speaks with authority on social matters, and I let the subject drop, but somehow I wasn’t convinced.

People talked a good deal about Miss Ardilaun that winter, but with the new season, interest in her seemed to die down. She was seldom seen, and I heard, through Roskill, that she was devoting herself entirely to her aunt, who had become a confirmed invalid, and went nowhere. It seemed a dreary life for a young and beautiful woman, and I wondered whether Lord Lukestan’s engagement to his cousin, which had been formally announced in all the Society papers, had anything to do with the girl’s sudden retirement from the world.

In June Lord Marylebone died. For the past six months he had been hovering on the brink of the grave, and no one had expected him to last so long. He was, from all accounts, a very disagreeable old gentleman, and I should doubt if any of his relatives, even including his only daughter, much regretted his removal to another sphere.

Lukestan attended the funeral as chief mourner, and was present at the subsequent reading of the will. There were a few legacies to servants and dependents, and a suitable provision for Lady Adeliza. The bulk of the property went with the title.

Lukestan was now Lord Marylebone, and a free agent, but the dead man’s shoes, for which he had waited, were destined to be fitted on a dead man. He left Marylebone Castle for town on the evening of the funeral, an evening made memorable by the occurrence of the worst railway disaster of recent years. The night mail from the North collided with a goods train a little beyond Settringham Junction, and while the confusion and dismay, incidental to such a misfortune, were at their height, the Lowton and Wolds express dashed into the rear of the wrecked passenger train, and completed a scene of horror rarely equalled in the annals of modern travel.

The daily papers chronicled in full the ghastly details of the catastrophe. The boiler of the express engine burst within a few minutes of the second collision, and steam and fire alike wreaked their fury on the unhappy passengers imprisoned in the overturned carriages. First on the long list of victims, published by the evening press, was the name of Lord Lukestan.

The compartment which had been reserved for his use was reduced to matchwood, and it was only after immense exertions on the part of the officials that the bodies of the young man and his valet could be removed from the mass of smoking debris.

“Poor fellow!” said Roskill, as he put down the paper. “His luck has come too late. I wonder”—he paused to light his cigarette over the lamp—“how Miss Ardilaun will take it?”

We had dined early, preparatory to looking in at the Frivolity, but somehow the smash on the Great Northern had taken the edge off our interest in the new burlesque. Roskill’s acquaintance with Lukestan had been of the slightest; to me he was hardly more than a name, but the tragic circumstances attending his death evoked a sympathy that was almost personal.

“I wonder,” Charley repeated, meditatively, “how Miss Ardilaun will take it?”

The words were barely past his lips when the servant appeared with a message.

“Lady to see you, sir. She wouldn’t give her name, but I was to say her business was most urgent.”

She must have followed close on Stevens’s heels, for before he had finished speaking she was in the room. A tall, slender woman, wrapped from head to foot in a long cloak of softly rustling silk. She wore a thick veil, but even under this disguise I was struck by something familiar in her gait and carriage.

The moment the door had closed upon the retreating man, she lifted the thick folds of black gauze. It was Miss Ardilaun. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face as white as a sheet.

“I hope you will forgive me for disturbing you at this hour,” she said, going straight to Charley, “but I knew you lived in chambers, and I wanted to find you at home. I am in great trouble, Mr. Roskill, dreadful trouble, and I must have advice without delay. I thought—I felt sure you would help me.”

If .Roskill was surprised (and I think he was) he did not show it. He said simply, “I shall be very glad to give you any assistance in my power, Miss Ardilaun,” and looked at me.

She followed the direction of his eyes, and became aware, for the first time, of the presence of a third person. I intimated my readiness to withdraw, but she cut me short.

“Please don’t go, Mr. Bryant. I am not sure that I don’t require a solicitor’s rather than counsel’s opinion— at present. In any case you may as well hear my story—if you do not mind.”

I was only too glad of the opportunity, for I own my curiosity was a good deal excited. We sat down and waited.

Miss Ardilaun’s manner was that of a woman who has nerved herself to go through anything. She was unnaturally, almost horribly, calm. She began without any hesitation, speaking in a dry, metallic tone, which was devoid of the least trace of emotion.

“You have seen in the papers that Lord Lukestan was killed last night in the railway accident? I had better tell you at once that he was my husband. We were married last January. There were strong reasons for keeping the marriage secret. Lord Lukestan was entirely dependent on his uncle, who had other views for him, and he dare not risk the consequences of openly disregarding those wishes. At that time Lord Marylebone was not expected to live more than a few weeks, and he (Arthur) felt sure that a private marriage would be the easiest way of extricating ourselves from the many family difficulties which surrounded us. We never anticipated the necessity for secrecy lasting so long. Of course Lord Marylebone’s partial recovery placed us in a most painful position, but we knew it could only be temporary, and we resolved to chance it and wait. That was why Lord Lukestan’s engagement to his cousin was formally announced. What would have happened if the old earl had insisted on their immediate marriage I don’t know; fortunately, or unfortunately, he did not make a point of that, and when circumstances rendered it necessary. that our marriage should be acknowledged, Lord Marylebone died. I cannot tell you how rejoiced I was to receive the news, and only last night I went down on my knees and thanked God for this.”

She drew a telegram from her pocket and laid it on the table before us. The message had been handed in at Marfleet, the post town for Marylebone Castle, and ran—

THANK HEAVEN, ALL RIGHT AT LAST, AM LEAVING BY NIGHT MAIL. SHALL BE WITH YOU ELEVEN TO-MORROW. WILL SEE CRAIKE ON WAY. —ARTHUR.

“I thought my prayers had been answered,” she went on, in the same low, even voice, “that my troubles were over; but you see I was premature in my thanksgivings. Today I am in the most horrible position in which any woman could be placed—a widow who has never been acknowledged as a wife. I have neither father nor mother. My aunt has never desired my confidence; she has always regarded me in the light of an unpaid servant, and even if I wished to do so, I could not consult her now, for the doctors inform me that in her present state of health any sudden shock might prove fatal. I have no other relations, no one to whom I can turn for help. I must make my marriage public. What am I to do?” *

The first step was manifestly to procure the necessary proofs of the marriage. We said so and inquired whether she was provided with a copy of the certificate.

She replied she was quite certain that no such document had been given or demanded.

“I know nothing about the preliminary arrangements,” she said, “I left them entirely to Lord Lukestan. I cannot even tell you the name of the village where we were married, though I should be able to find my way there. It is a tiny place, quite out of the world, about ten miles from Garstang Junction. Parker, Lord Lukestan’s confidential servant, met us there with a cart and we drove straight to the church. It stands above the village on the top of a hill. We were married by the vicar. I know his name—it is Martyn.”

I referred to Crockford, and presently found “Martyn, Lucian John, Vicar of Slumber-le-Wold, Yorkshire.”

“That is the map, I suppose. Was he a personal friend of your husband’s?”

“He was a stranger to both of us,” she replied, emphatically.

I undertook to obtain a copy of the certificate and wrote the same night to the Rev. Lucian Martyn. To my utter dismay I received in reply a courteous note regretting his inability to comply with my request, as the marriage to which I referred had never been solemnised.

Mr. Martyn’s letter reached me by the first post. Two hours later I presented myself at No. 20, Berkeley Square, asked for Miss Ardilaun and was shown into the library. In a few minutes she joined me, and I broke the news as gently as I could.

She seemed utterly overcome. “It is impossible,” she repeated; “he cannot deny it. Beside, there are our signatures in the register. Surely he can be made to produce that.”

“You are certain that Martyn is the right man?” I asked. “You could swear to his signing the register in that name?”

“No,” she replied. “I never saw his signature. I wrote my own name and I saw Arthur write his. Then Parker witnessed our signatures. Mr. Martyn followed, but I did not see what he had written.”

“You must excuse my asking questions, Lady Lukestan, where they are necessary. You mentioned that the clergyman who married you was a stranger to both you and your husband. How do you know that he was Mr. Martyn?”

She hesitated.

“I knew him from his likeness to his brother.”

“You are acquainted with his brother, then?”

“I was. The subject is very painful to me. Mr. Cyprian Martyn is dead. I believe he committed suicide, but our—our friendship had entirely ceased before that took place. I never corresponded with him, and our people were not aware of our acquaintance. It was merely an affair of a few weeks, and terminated very abruptly.”

“And the likeness between the brothers was so striking that you recognised Mr. Lucian Martyn immediately.”

“The likeness was more than striking, it was—horrible”—she shivered—“if they were both living I should not have known them apart. I was aware that Cyprian Martyn had a brother, who was vicar of a remote parish in Yorkshire, but until the last moment I did not know that he was to marry us. If I had heard the name sooner, I should have used every means in my power to prevent it.”

“You are prepared to affirm on oath that your marriage was solemnised by Mr. Martyn in due form, and recorded in the parish register?”

She looked surprised at my question.

“Certainly I am. You surely do not doubt my word?”

“Not at all, but this is a very serious matter. Will you now tell me every detail connected with the ceremony?”

“As I said, I know nothing of the preliminary arrangements. During the third week in January, Lord Lukestan and I were both staying at Chilworth Priory. My aunt was also to have been of the party, but a severe cold detained her in town. Lady Chilworth has great influence with Aunt Maria, and persuaded her to let me go to Yorkshire without her; I was to take part in some theatricals, and my place could not be supplied at the last moment It was the opportunity for which we had been waiting, and we decided not to let it slip. Lord Lukestan’s plans were complete. He showed me a special license, and he said Parker knew a village where we could be married, and that all the necessary steps had been taken. We left Chilworth on the morning of the 23rd of January. I had previously wired home that the heavy snow would delay my return twenty-four hours. Lady Chilworth was going abroad almost immediately, and as I write all my aunt’s letters I was not afraid of the deception being discovered. We left the train at Garstang, where Parker was waiting with a hired trap, and we drove to this church. There was no one about. The clergyman was waiting for us at the chancel step. He began the service at once. Parker gave me away, and we afterwards signed our names in the vestry. We drove back to the station and caught the next train to Doncaster. I returned to town the following day.”

“Was there any conversation between Mr. Martyn and yourselves?”

“None; he did not speak to either of us. Lord Lukestan put the fee on the vestry table. It was a ten-pound note, and he remarked afterwards, that the vicar might have wished us luck. There was no luck for us, I suppose,” she concluded bitterly.

I was a good deal puzzled by this sudden check. However, I said what I could to comfort her, and suggested that the clerk could be produced as a witness.

“There was no clerk,” she replied, “there was no one in church, but the clergyman, Parker, and ourselves.”

From Berkeley Square I hurried to the Temple, found Roskill, and decided with him that I should go up to Slumber-le-Wold, see Martyn, and examine the register.

I found the vicar at home, and acquainted him with my errand. He received me civilly, and in reply to my questions informed me that I was quite at liberty to inspect the register, but it was not possible that I could find any entry of the marriage.