An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

　　[The Editor of the University Magazine submits the following veryremarkable statement, with every detail of which he has been for someyears acquainted, upon the ground that it affords the most authentic andample relation of a series of marvellous phenoma, in nowise connectedwith what is technically termed "spiritualism," which he has anywheremet with. All the persons--and there are many of them living--upon whoseseparate evidence some parts, and upon whose united testimony others, ofthis most singular recital depend, are, in their several walks of life,respectable, and such as would in any matter of judicial investigationbe deemed wholly unexceptionable witnesses. There is not an incidenthere recorded which would not have been distinctly deposed to on oathhad any necessity existed, by the persons who severally, and some ofthem in great fear, related their own distinct experiences. The Editorbegs most pointedly to meet in limine the suspicion, that he iselaborating a trick, or vouching for another ghost of Mrs. Veal. As amere story the narrative is valueless: its sole claim to attention isits absolute truth. For the good faith of its relator he pledges his ownand the character of this Magazine. With the Editor's concurrence, thename of the watering-place, and some special circumstances in noessential way bearing upon the peculiar character of the story, butwhich might have indicated the locality, and possibly annoyed personsinterested in house property there, have been suppressed by thenarrator. Not the slightest liberty has been taken with the narrative,which is presented precisely in the terms in which the writer of it, whoemploys throughout the first person, would, if need were, fix it in theform of an affidavit.]Within the last eight years--the precise date I purposely omit--I I wasordered by my physician, my health being in an unsatisfactory state, tochange my residence to one upon the sea-coast; and accordingly, I took ahouse for a year in a fashionable watering-place, at a moderate distancefrom the city in which I had previously resided, and connected with itby a railway.Winter was setting in when my removal thither was decided upon; butthere was nothing whatever dismal or depressing in the change. The houseI had taken was to all appearance, and in point of convenience, too,quite a modern one. It formed one in a cheerful row, with small gardensin front, facing the sea, and commanding sea air and sea views inperfection. In the rear it had coach-house and stable, and between themand the house a considerable grass-plot, with some flower-beds,interposed.Our family consisted of my wife and myself, with three children, theeldest about nine years old, she and the next in age being girls; andthe youngest, between six and seven, a boy. To these were added sixservants, whom, although for certain reasons I decline giving their realnames, I shall indicate, for the sake of clearness, by arbitrary ones.There was a nurse, Mrs. Southerland; a nursery-maid, Ellen Page; thecook, Mrs. Greenwood; and the housemaid, Ellen Faith; a butler, whom Ishall call Smith, and his son, James, about two-and-twenty.We came out to take possession at about seven o'clock in the evening;every thing was comfortable and cheery; good fires lighted, the roomsneat and airy, and a general air of preparation and comfort, highlyconducive to good spirits and pleasant anticipations.The sitting-rooms were large and cheerful, and they and the bed-roomsmore than ordinarily lofty, the kitchen and servants' rooms, on the samelevel, were well and comfortably furnished, and had, like the rest ofthe house, an air of recent painting and fitting up, and a completelymodern character, which imparted a very cheerful air of cleanliness andconvenience.There had been just enough of the fuss of settling agreeably to occupyus, and to give a pleasant turn to our thoughts after we had retired toour rooms. Being an invalid, I had a small bed to myself--resigning thefour-poster to my wife. The candle was extinguished, but a night-lightwas burning. I was coming up stairs, and she, already in bed, had justdismissed her maid, when we were both startled by a wild scream from herroom; I found her in a state of the extremest agitation and terror. Sheinsisted that she had seen an unnaturally tall figure come beside herbed and stand there. The light was too faint to enable her to define anything respecting this apparition, beyond the fact of her having mostdistinctly seen such a shape, colourless from the insufficiency of thelight to disclose more than its dark outline.We both endeavoured to re-assure her. The room once more looked socheerful in the candlelight, that we were quite uninfluenced by thecontagion of her terrors. The movements and voices of the servants downstairs still getting things into their places and completing ourcomfortable arrangements, had also their effect in steeling us againstany such influence, and we set the whole thing down as a dream, or animperfectly-seen outline of the bed-curtains. When, however, we werealone, my wife reiterated, still in great agitation, her clear assertionthat she had most positively seen, being at the time as completely awakeas ever she was, precisely what she had described to us. And in thisconviction she continued perfectly firm.A day or two after this, it came out that our servants were under anapprehension that, somehow or other, thieves had established a secretmode of access to the lower part of the house. The butler, Smith, hadseen an ill-looking woman in his room on the first night of our arrival;and he and other servants constantly saw, for many days subsequently,glimpses of a retreating figure, which corresponded with that so seen byhim, passing through a passage which led to a back area in which weresome coal-vaults.This figure was seen always in the act of retreating, its back turned,generally getting round the corner of the passage into the area, in astealthy and hurried way, and, when closely followed, imperfectly seenagain entering one of the coal-vaults, and when pursued into it, nowhereto be found.The idea of any thing supernatural in the matter had, strange to say,not yet entered the mind of any one of the servants. They had heard somestories of smugglers having secret passages into houses, and using theirmeans of access for purposes of pillage, or with a view to frightensuperstitious people out of houses which they needed for their ownobjects, and a suspicion of similar practices here, caused them extremeuneasiness. The apparent anxiety also manifested by this retreatingfigure to escape observation, and her always appearing to make heregress at the same point, favoured this romantic hypothesis. The men,however, made a most careful examination of the back area, and of thecoal-vaults, with a view to discover some mode of egress, but entirelywithout success. On the contrary, the result was, so far as it went,subversive of the theory; solid masonry met them on every hand.I called the man, Smith, up, to hear from his own lips the particularsof what he had seen; and certainly his report was very curious. I giveit as literally as my memory enables me:----His son slept in the same room, and was sound asleep; but he lay awake,as men sometimes will on a change of bed, and having many things on hismind. He was lying with his face towards the wall, but observing a lightand some little stir in the room, he turned round in his bed, and sawthe figure of a woman, squalid, and ragged in dress; her figure ratherlow and broad; as well as I recollect, she had something--either a cloakor shawl--on, and wore a bonnet. Her back was turned, and she appearedto be searching or rummaging for something on the floor, and, withoutappearing to observe him, she turned in doing so towards him. The light,which was more like the intense glow of a coal, as he described it,being of a deep red colour, proceeded from the hollow of her hand, whichshe held beside her head, and he saw her perfectly distinctly. Sheappeared middle-aged, was deeply pitted with the smallpox, and blind ofone eye. His phrase in describing her general appearance was, that shewas "a miserable, poor-looking creature."He was under the impression that she must be the woman who had been leftby the proprietor in charge of the house, and who had that evening,after having given up the keys, remained for some little time with thefemale servants. He coughed, therefore, to apprize her of his presence,and turned again towards the wall. When he again looked round she andthe light were gone; and odd as was her method of lighting herself inher search, the circumstances excited neither uneasiness nor curiosityin his mind, until he discovered next morning that the woman in questionhad left the house long before he had gone to his bed.I examined the man very closely as to the appearance of the person whohad visited him, and the result was what I have described. It struck meas an odd thing, that even then, considering how prone to superstitionpersons in his rank of life usually are, he did not seem to suspect anything supernatural in the occurrence; and, on the contrary, wasthoroughly persuaded that his visitant was a living person, who had gotinto the house by some hidden entrance.On Sunday, on his return from his place of worship, he told me that,when the service was ended, and the congregation making their way slowlyout, he saw the very woman in the crowd, and kept his eye upon her forseveral minutes, but such was the crush, that all his efforts to reachher were unavailing, and when he got into the open street she was gone.He was quite positive as to his having distinctly seen her, however,for several minutes, and scouted the possibility of any mistake as toidentity; and fully impressed with the substantial and living reality ofhis visitant, he was very much provoked at her having escaped him. Hemade inquiries also in the neighbourhood, but could procure noinformation, nor hear of any other persons having seen any womancorresponding with his visitant.The cook and the housemaid occupied a bed-room on the kitchen floor. Ithad whitewashed walls, and they were actually terrified by theappearance of the shadow of a woman passing and repassing across theside wall opposite to their beds. They suspected that this had beengoing on much longer than they were aware, for its presence wasdiscovered by a sort of accident, its movements happening to take adirection in distinct contrariety to theirs.This shadow always moved upon one particular wall, returning after shortintervals, and causing them extreme terror. They placed the candle, asthe most obvious specific, so close to the infested wall, that the flameall but touched it; and believed for some time that they had effectuallygot rid of this annoyance; but one night, notwithstanding thisarrangement of the light, the shadow returned, passing and repassing, asheretofore, upon the same wall, although their only candle was burningwithin an inch of it, and it was obvious that no substance capable ofcasting such a shadow could have interposed; and, indeed, as theydescribed it, the shadow seemed to have no sort of relation to theposition of the light, and appeared, as I have said, in manifestdefiance of the laws of optics.I ought to mention that the housemaid was a particularly fearless sortof person, as well as a very honest one; and her companion, the cook, ascrupulously religious woman, and both agreed in every particular intheir relation of what occurred.Meanwhile, the nursery was not without its annoyances, though as yet ofa comparatively trivial kind. Sometimes, at night, the handle of thedoor was turned hurriedly as if by a person trying to come in, and atothers a knocking was made at it. These sounds occurred after thechildren had settled to sleep, and while the nurse still remained awake.Whenever she called to know "who is there," the sounds ceased; butseveral times, and particularly at first, she was under the impressionthat they were caused by her mistress, who had come to see the children,and thus impressed she had got up and opened the door, expecting to seeher, but discovering only darkness, and receiving no answer to herinquiries.With respect to this nurse, I must mention that I believe no moreperfectly trustworthy servant was ever employed in her capacity; and, inaddition to her integrity, she was remarkably gifted with sound commonsense.One morning, I think about three or four weeks after our arrival, I wassitting at the parlour window which looked to the front, when I saw thelittle iron door which admitted into the small garden that lay betweenthe window where I was sitting and the public road, pushed open by awoman who so exactly answered the description given by Smith of thewoman who had visited his room on the night of his arrival asinstantaneously to impress me with the conviction that she must be theidentical person. She was a square, short woman, dressed in soiled andtattered clothes, scarred and pitted with small-pox, and blind of aneye. She stepped hurriedly into the little enclosure, and peered from adistance of a few yards into the room where I was sitting. I felt thatnow was the moment to clear the matter up; but there was somethingstealthy in the manner and look of the woman which convinced me that Imust not appear to notice her until her retreat was fairly cut off.Unfortunately, I was suffering from a lame foot, and could not reach thebell as quickly as I wished. I made all the haste I could, and rangviolently to bring up the servant Smith. In the short interval thatintervened, I observed the woman from the window, who having in aleisurely way, and with a kind of scrutiny, looked along the frontwindows of the house, passed quickly out again, closing the gate afterher, and followed a lady who was walking along the footpath at a quickpace, as if with the intention of begging from her. The moment the manentered I told him--"the blind woman you described to me has thisinstant followed a lady in that direction, try to overtake her." He was,if possible, more eager than I in the chase, but returned in a shorttime after a vain pursuit, very hot, and utterly disappointed. And,thereafter, we saw her face no more.All this time, and up to the period of our leaving the house, which wasnot for two or three months later, there occurred at intervals the onlyphenomenon in the entire series having any resemblance to what we heardescribed of "Spiritualism." This was a knocking, like a soft hammeringwith a wooden mallet, as it seemed in the timbers between the bedroomceilings and the roof. It had this special peculiarity, that it wasalways rythmical, and, I think, invariably, the emphasis upon the laststroke. It would sound rapidly "one, two, three, four--one, two,three, four;" or "one, two, three--one, two, three," and sometimes"one, two--one, two," &c., and this, with intervals andresumptions, monotonously for hours at a time.At first this caused my wife, who was a good deal confined to her bed,much annoyance; and we sent to our neighbours to inquire if anyhammering or carpentering was going on in their houses but were informedthat nothing of the sort was taking place. I have myself heard itfrequently, always in the same inaccessible part of the house, and withthe same monotonous emphasis. One odd thing about it was, that on mywife's calling out, as she used to do when it became more than usuallytroublesome, "stop that noise," it was invariably arrested for a longeror shorter time.Of course none of these occurrences were ever mentioned in hearing ofthe children. They would have been, no doubt, like most children,greatly terrified had they heard any thing of the matter, and known thattheir elders were unable to account for what was passing; and theirfears would have made them wretched and troublesome.They used to play for some hours every day in the back garden--the houseforming one end of this oblong inclosure, the stable and coach-house theother, and two parallel walls of considerable height the sides. Here, asit afforded a perfectly safe playground, they were frequently left quiteto themselves; and in talking over their days' adventures, as childrenwill, they happened to mention a woman, or rather the woman, for theyhad long grown familiar with her appearance, whom they used to see inthe garden while they were at play. They assumed that she came in andwent out at the stable door, but they never actually saw her enter ordepart. They merely saw a figure--that of a very poor woman, soiled andragged--near the stable wall, stooping over the ground, and apparentlygrubbing in the loose clay in search of something. She did not disturb,or appear to observe them; and they left her in undisturbed possessionof her nook of ground. When seen it was always in the same spot, andsimilarly occupied; and the description they gave of her generalappearance--for they never saw her face--corresponded with that of theone-eyed woman whom Smith, and subsequently as it seemed, I had seen.The other man, James, who looked after a mare which I had purchased forthe purpose of riding exercise, had, like every one else in the house,his little trouble to report, though it was not much. The stall inwhich, as the most comfortable, it was decided to place her, sheperemptorily declined to enter. Though a very docile and gentle littleanimal, there was no getting her into it. She would snort and rear, and,in fact, do or suffer any thing rather than set her hoof in it. He wasfain, therefore, to place her in another. And on several occasions hefound her there, exhibiting all the equine symptoms of extreme fear.Like the rest of us, however, this man was not troubled in theparticular case with any superstitious qualms. The mare had evidentlybeen frightened; and he was puzzled to find out how, or by whom, for thestable was well-secured, and had, I am nearly certain, a lock-up yardoutside.One morning I was greeted with the intelligence that robbers hadcertainly got into the house in the night; and that one of them hadactually been seen in the nursery. The witness, I found, was my eldestchild, then, as I have said, about nine years of age. Having awoke inthe night, and lain awake for some time in her bed, she heard the handleof the door turn, and a person whom she distinctly saw--for it was alight night, and the window-shutters unclosed--but whom she had neverseen before, stepped in on tiptoe, and with an appearance of greatcaution. He was a rather small man, with a very red face; he wore anoddly cut frock coat, the collar of which stood up, and trousers, roughand wide, like those of a sailor, turned up at the ankles, and eithershort boots or clumsy shoes, covered with mud. This man listened besidethe nurse's bed, which stood next the door, as if to satisfy himselfthat she was sleeping soundly; and having done so for some seconds, hebegan to move cautiously in a diagonal line, across the room to thechimney-piece, where he stood for a while, and so resumed his tiptoewalk, skirting the wall, until he reached a chest of drawers, some ofwhich were open, and into which he looked, and began to rummage in ahurried way, as the child supposed, making search for something worthtaking away. He then passed on to the window, where was adressing-table, at which he also stopped, turning over the things uponit, and standing for some time at the window as if looking out, and thenresuming his walk by the side wall opposite to that by which he hadmoved up to the window, he returned in the same way toward the nurse'sbed, so as to reach it at the foot. With its side to the end wall, inwhich was the door, was placed the little bed in which lay my eldestchild, who watched his proceedings with the extremest terror. As he drewnear she instinctively moved herself in the bed, with her head andshoulders to the wall, drawing up her feet; but he passed by withoutappearing to observe, or, at least, to care for her presence.Immediately after the nurse turned in her bed as if about to waken; andwhen the child, who had drawn the clothes about her head, again venturedto peep out, the man was gone.The child had no idea of her having seen any thing more formidable thana thief. With the prowling, cautious, and noiseless manner of proceedingcommon to such marauders, the air and movements of the man whom she hadseen entirely corresponded. And on hearing her perfectly distinct andconsistent account, I could myself arrive at no other conclusion thanthat a stranger had actually got into the house. I had, therefore, inthe first instance, a most careful examination made to discover anytraces of an entrance having been made by any window into the house. Thedoors had been found barred and locked as usual; but no sign of anything of the sort was discernible. I then had the variousarticles--plate, wearing apparel, books, &c., counted; and after havingconned over and reckoned up every thing, it became quite clear thatnothing whatever had been removed from the house, nor was there theslightest indication of any thing having been so much as disturbedthere. I must here state that this child was remarkably clear,intelligent, and observant; and that her description of the man, and ofall that had occurred, was most exact, and as detailed as the want ofperfect light rendered possible.I felt assured that an entrance had actually been effected into thehouse, though for what purpose was not easily to be conjectured. Theman, Smith, was equally confident upon this point; and his theory wasthat the object was simply to frighten us out of the house by making usbelieve it haunted; and he was more than ever anxious and on the alertto discover the conspirators. It often since appeared to me odd. Everyyear, indeed, more odd, as this cumulative case of the marvellousbecomes to my mind more and more inexplicable--that underlying my senseof mystery and puzzle, was all along the quiet assumption that all theseoccurrences were one way or another referable to natural causes. I couldnot account for them, indeed, myself; but during the whole period Iinhabited that house, I never once felt, though much alone, and often upvery late at night, any of those tremors and thrills which every one hasat times experienced when situation and the hour are favourable. Exceptthe cook and housemaid, who were plagued with the shadow I mentionedcrossing and recrossing upon the bedroom wall, we all, withoutexception, experienced the same strange sense of security, and regardedthese phenomena rather with a perplexed sort of interest and curiosity,than with any more unpleasant sensations.The knockings which I have mentioned at the nursery door, precededgenerally by the sound of a step on the lobby, meanwhile continued. Atthat time (for my wife, like myself, was an invalid) two eminentphysicians, who came out occasionally by rail, were attending us. Thesegentlemen were at first only amused, but ultimately interested, and verymuch puzzled by the occurrences which we described. One of them, atlast, recommended that a candle should be kept burning upon the lobby.It was in fact a recurrence to an old woman's recipe against ghosts--ofcourse it might be serviceable, too, against impostors; at all events,seeming, as I have said, very much interested and puzzled, he advisedit, and it was tried. We fancied that it was successful; for there wasan interval of quiet for, I think, three or four nights. But after that,the noises--the footsteps on the lobby--the knocking at the door, andthe turning of the handle recommenced in full force, notwithstanding thelight upon the table outside; and these particular phenomena became onlymore perplexing than ever.The alarm of robbers and smugglers gradually subsided after a week ortwo; but we were again to hear news from the nursery. Our second littlegirl, then between seven and eight years of age, saw in the nighttime--she alone being awake--a young woman, with black, or very darkhair, which hung loose, and with a black cloak on, standing near themiddle of the floor, opposite the hearthstone, and fronting the foot ofher bed. She appeared quite unobservant of the children and nursesleeping in the room. She was very pale, and looked, the child said,both "sorry and frightened," and with something very peculiar andterrible about her eyes, which made the child conclude that she wasdead. She was looking, not at, but in the direction of the child's bed,and there was a dark streak across her throat, like a scar with bloodupon it. This figure was not motionless; but once or twice turnedslowly, and without appearing to be conscious of the presence of thechild, or the other occupants of the room, like a person in vacancy orabstraction. There was on this occasion a night-light burning in thechamber; and the child saw, or thought she saw, all these particularswith the most perfect distinctness. She got her head under thebed-clothes; and although a good many years have passed since then, shecannot recall the spectacle without feelings of peculiar horror.One day, when the children were playing in the back garden, I asked themto point out to me the spot where they were accustomed to see the womanwho occasionally showed herself as I have described, near the stablewall. There was no division of opinion as to this precise point, whichthey indicated in the most distinct and confident way. I suggested that,perhaps, something might be hidden there in the ground; and advised themdigging a hole there with their little spades, to try for it.Accordingly, to work they went, and by my return in the evening they hadgrubbed up a piece of a jawbone, with several teeth in it. The bone wasvery much decayed, and ready to crumble to pieces, but the teeth werequite sound. I could not tell whether they were human grinders; but Ishowed the fossil to one of the physicians I have mentioned, who cameout the next evening, and he pronounced them human teeth. The sameconclusion was come to a day or two later by the other medical man. Itappears to me now, on reviewing the whole matter, almost unaccountablethat, with such evidence before me, I should not have got in a labourer,and had the spot effectually dug and searched. I can only say, that soit was. I was quite satisfied of the moral truth of every word that hadbeen related to me, and which I have here set down with scrupulousaccuracy. But I experienced an apathy, for which neither then norafterwards did I quite know how to account. I had a vague, but immovableimpression that the whole affair was referable to natural agencies. Itwas not until some time after we had left the house, which, by-the-by,we afterwards found had had the reputation of being haunted before wehad come to live in it, that on reconsideration I discovered the seriousdifficulty of accounting satisfactorily for all that had occurred uponordinary principles. A great deal we might arbitrarily set down toimagination. But even in so doing there was, in limine, the oddity,not to say improbability, of so many different persons having nearlysimultaneously suffered from different spectral and other illusionsduring the short period for which we had occupied that house, who neverbefore, nor so far as we learned, afterwards were troubled by any fearsor fancies of the sort. There were other things, too, not to be soaccounted for. The odd knockings in the roof I frequently heard myself.There were also, which I before forgot to mention, in the daytime,rappings at the doors of the sitting-rooms, which constantly deceivedus; and it was not till our "come in" was unanswered, and the hall orpassage outside the door was discovered to be empty, that we learnedthat whatever else caused them, human hands did not. All the persons whoreported having seen the different persons or appearances here describedby me, were just as confident of having literally and distinctly seenthem, as I was of having seen the hard-featured woman with the blindeye, so remarkably corresponding with Smith's description.About a week after the discovery of the teeth, which were found, Ithink, about two feet under the ground, a friend, much advanced inyears, and who remembered the town in which we had now taken up ourabode, for a very long time, happened to pay us a visit. Hegood-humouredly pooh-poohed the whole thing; but at the same time wasevidently curious about it. "We might construct a sort of story," said I(I am giving, of course, the substance and purport, not the exact words,of our dialogue), "and assign to each of the three figures who appearedtheir respective parts in some dreadful tragedy enacted in this house.The male figure represents the murderer; the ill-looking, one-eyed womanhis accomplice, who, we will suppose, buried the body where she is nowso often seen grubbing in the earth, and where the human teeth andjawbone have so lately been disinterred; and the young woman withdishevelled tresses, and black cloak, and the bloody scar across herthroat, their victim. A difficulty, however, which I cannot get over,exists in the cheerfulness, the great publicity, and the evident veryrecent date of the house." "Why, as to that," said he, "the house isnot modern; it and those beside it formed an old government store,altered and fitted up recently as you see. I remember it well in myyoung days, fifty years ago, before the town had grown out in thisdirection, and a more entirely lonely spot, or one more fitted for thecommission of a secret crime, could not have been imagined."I have nothing to add, for very soon after this my physician pronounceda longer stay unnecessary for my health, and we took our departure foranother place of abode. I may add, that although I have resided forconsiderable periods in many other houses, I never experienced anyannoyances of a similar kind elsewhere; neither have I made (stupid dog!you will say), any inquiries respecting either the antecedents orsubsequent history of the house in which we made so disturbed a sojourn.I was content with what I knew, and have here related as clearly as Icould, and I think it a very pretty puzzle as it stands.[Thus ends the statement, which we abandon to the ingenuity of ourreaders, having ourselves no satisfactory explanation to suggest; andsimply repeating the assurance with which we prefaced it, namely, thatwe can vouch for the perfect good faith and the accuracy of thenarrator.--E.D.U.M.]