Stories with a Vengeance — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SOME Save that she was breathing, and her ulse was beating slowly, she might have en mistaken for one in death—a death, too, which had occurred amid scenes of violence and horror. At first I was sorely puzzled to account for Miss Somerville’s condition; then I established itin my own mind that a sudden and terrible alarm had caused it. But what ? That was undiscoverable; nor.could Mr. or Mrs. Champneys give the slightest clue to it. Up to the moment when her cry had been heard no one could have been better or merrier, looking forward as she was to the party and her dances and love passages with Dobell of “ours,” her fiancée. Waiting as long as I could, and giving my directions for management, I took my way, depressed enough, to our ball; for understand that I, being one of the givers, could hardly absent myself from it al- together. The news of Miss Somerville’s disaster had got about, and her non-presence threw quite a damper upon the entertainment. Many times during the next forty-eight hours did I visit and revisit Seelie House. I found little or no change in Effie, still half-comatose, still cataleptic. But just as I was beginning to despair utterly of her recovery, nature shook itself, as it were, from the nervous shock, the trance passed away, and Effie awoke to life and lucidity. IT need not allude to the delicate and cautious process by which, after a while, the Champneys and I wormed out the strange cause of Miss Somerville’s state as ie had discovered it on that New Year’s ve. Better, too, to give the account in her own words than to trust it to my relating. “T was dressing,” said she, “ my thoughts intent upon how the white rose I was to wear in my hair could be most becomingly arranged. I had settled the point, and was fixing the flower, standing before the cheval-glass, when, oh, merciful Heaven! Isaw behind me, reflected on the mirror, the face and figure of a man—such a re- markable and never-to-be-forgotten man— tall, thin, ghastly white, wearing a beard, and yes i could not possibly be mistaken —with one arm only! “He was gazing intently into the glass, and I thought I saw his chest heave as if in the act of sighing. “ Turning round, I exclaimed, ‘ How dare you, sir, come into my room! Leave it! I shall call for Mr. Champneys,’ when, without the slightest noise on the mats, he Google AUTHENTICATED GHOST STORIES. 89 walked slowly before me and disappeared. Thardly realized what I had seen until I flew to the door and found it locked inside as I myself had locked it. — “Then I shrieked for help—and I know no more.” ‘“‘ Nonsense, Miss Effie,” said Champneys. “Mere illusion and brain trickery, from excitement or dyspepsia,” I observed, “ the thing is common.” “Tllusion, dyspepsia, or whatever else you like to call it, Doctor Carrington, I saw that man as plainly as I now see you; and he was a person | had never in my life looked upon before.” We got bothered did Champneys and I. “Tf this be a ghost which has interviewed Effie,” the lawyer observed, “it is the ghost of old Don Quixote come to have a look at his quondam home, for the girl is perfect to the letter in her description of him. As she says, she never could have seen him, as she is but recently in Pearl Island, and he left it years ago; 1s rarely talked about, almost forgotten. Besides, he is alive and well, residing on his little property in Skye. It is marvellous though, isn’t itP Beats me altogether. Ill tell you what I shall do, if you approve. Old Carolus Vanderbosh, a urgher and a former protégé of Strong- itharm’s, has an oil-colour portrait of him ; T’ll borrow it, and bring it home.” “Good,” said I; “do so.” | A night or two after, Champneys ap- peared with a faded picture under his arm. In a roundabout way he brought the in- cident of the illusion on the tapis, and laughingly said, “Oh, by the way, Effie, 1 am going to turn detective, and to find out that ill-bred old chap who disturbed you in your room on New Year’s Eve.” “How, Mr. Champneys P” Miss Somer- ville asked. “YT have got his portrait. Is this suffi- ciently like to set the police on his track ?” “Oh! oh! oh!” she cried, as her eyes fell upon the canvas, “the very, very man; the same beard, the same face, the same eyes, the same loss of one arm. How strange! how startling! Track him, Mr. Champneys? Howcan you? He is dead, and I have seen his ghost!” - * % #* If these things are to be believed at all, it was 80. On the arrival of the next mail from England it was heard that Sir Angus Strongitharm had died on the very night when Effie Somerville saw him in her room —once his room—in Seelie House, Pearl Island. Marvellous! and not to be satisfactorily accounted for, philosophy notwithstanding. CY, JOO S CO)