The Alleged Haunting of B---- House by - (read me like a book TXT) 📕

Mrs. B. C—— at once said that she also had heard precisely that sound each night, and had spoken of it to her maid, and, like the servants, had concluded that Miss Moore was reading to me, although it was as late as twelve o'clock. She had also heard a bang on a door close to her own, but had supposed it was a late comer, possibly one of the gentlemen from the smoking-room, and had not been disturbed. She had been sleeping in No. 1, her maid in No. 2, and none of the gentlemen are on the same floor. Mr. Garford, who is now in the wing, remarked that he too had heard voices as of speaking or reading several times when sleeping in No. 1, but had assumed that they were normal. As a matter of fact, Miss Moore goes straight to her dressing-room on going upstairs, and I am always too tired to read or speak. No two persons sleep in any other room.

We tested this by getting Colonel Taylor to shut himself into No. 1 while I, in No. 8, read aloud at the top of my voice, Miss Langton remaining in the room with me. The Colonel could hear no sound less than direct banging on the wall with a poker.

The cook has been talking to-day of the various noises heard at night; she is not nervous, nor are the maids, but all speak of voices and bangs for which they cannot account; except the butler, who has heard nothing, but is obviously impressed with his wife's experience last night. Her story is that, not feeling well, she went up to bed early, before the servants' supper, the rest of the household being as usual in the drawing-room. While in bed, before ten o'clock, she distinctly heard the sound of voices talking, apparently below, but not far distant (her room is over No. 7, at present empty). She "wondered if it could be the servants in the servants' hall at supper"—an obvious impossibility, as their room is not underneath, is two storeys away, and has no connection with the upper part of the house. She also heard bangs on the wall, behind her bed and to the side; there was no furniture there to crack, and it was mostly on the outside wall, so she finally became uncomfortable, and buried her head in the clothes to deaden the sound. She "doesn't believe in ghosts," but thinks the house "very queer," and says that far and wide in the country round it is spoken of as "haunted," though no one seems to know of any story, as to the cause, except that, very improbable, about the murder of a priest by the wife of a former proprietor. It appears that a maid engaged in the village refused to sleep in the house, because when in service here once before she had been frightened by bangs at the door of her bedroom (in a room over No. 1); she had also heard the sounds of a rustling silk dress on the back-stairs, and had seen the bedroom door pushed open and a lady come in.... A maid, who came after this one had left, told the cook that she believed there was a story of a "priest murdered somewhere at the Reformation"; she had once been told it by Mrs. S—— in explanation of the noises, but had not heard whether the said murder was in the house or the grounds, and thought Mrs. S—— particularly did not wish the spot known. This maid has only been an occasional help in the house, but has lived for years in the district, and knows the place well by reputation.

To-day as we passed through the churchyard, [a resident in the neighbourhood] pointed out the desolate grave of the Major, with the remark that one could hardly be surprised at a man being said to "walk" who was expected to rest in such a place as that. He said that there had been a great deal of talk all over the neighbourhood as to the excitement during the H——s' stay at B——, and seemed to believe that practical joking might account in part for what had occurred. He did not, however, deny that stories had been told long before their coming to the place.

This resident is the one as to whom the Times correspondent dogmatically stated, that having lived in the place for twenty years he asserted that there had never been a whisper of the haunting of B—— until the tenancy of the H——s.