Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny by Snailham Fiona

Author:Snailham, Fiona [Snailham, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: traditional ghost stories, Victorian ghost stories, British ghost stories, church hauntings, haunted graveyards, Edith Nesbit, classic Gothic horror
Publisher: British Library Publishing
Published: 2023-06-05T06:00:00+00:00

But, in spite of those great sorrows which come to disturb the current of life, commonplace daily realities must be thought of and faced. I had learnt that lesson in the year of hard struggling I went through on quitting Mrs Morris’s pleasant roof to take the place of junior teacher in a German school; and yet I confess I felt almost horrified at the contents of a letter I received one June morning from my old friend, Millicent Power.

She was going to be married to Arthur, she wrote, and she hoped I would come and act as bridesmaid. What! had she forgotten so soon that horrible Christmas story? I thought. With her usual forethought, she had enclosed a banknote for my travelling expenses; and she made her request in terms which a lonely orphan like myself was not likely to resist.

Lady Jane was dead, leaving Millicent sole heiress to her property; but Milly told me she could not endure the solitude of Power Place, and still lived with Mrs Morris, from whose house she was to be married. I was to go to her there, and I should find more than one familiar face to welcome me.

It is only those who are homeless who can sympathise with me in the intense affection I bore to that dear old house and all its occupants, and the eagerness with which, in spite of my weariness, I leaned forward in the coach to catch the first glimpse of the tall, ivy-covered chimneys.

I knew the horn announcing the entrance of the coach into the village would be heard at Mount Silver, and I quite expected to see Milly’s fair face at the garden-gate waiting for me. There was one figure standing there between the rose-bushes; but it was Mrs Morris’s, not Millicent’s.

“No, my dear, I would not allow Milly out so late, though the evening is mild,” she answered, after the first embraces were over: “her health is very delicate, and I sent her to bed.”

Though Mrs Morris spoke drily, and almost indifferently, I could detect anxiety in her eyes, and I knew that before long I should hear something of the reason; for I was a favourite of hers, and she had always treated me as a friend rather than a pupil.

I found that I was to sup in private with my former instructress; and I was scarcely surprised when, as soon as the first hospitable cares were over, she began abruptly, “Do you know, Dora, I am very uneasy about Milly? I am not at all sure that this marriage ought to take place.”

I started.

“I mean, of course, on account of her health. Ever since that night when—when—you remember—Milly has been altering in a manner that perhaps others may not have observed, but which I have. There is a family malady hereditary to the Powers, you probably know—”

“Consumption! Ah, I have heard that.”

“I wish it were only that,” sternly replied Mrs Morris, as if forcing herself to utter the words. “It is something more awful—insanity.

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