(2) seen by author himself. Names of people and locality alone being altered
In the spring of 1899, being then a member of a certain Psychical Research Society, and hearing that a ghost had been seen at No. — Southgate Street, Bristol, I set off to interview the ladies who were reported to have seen it. I found them (the Misses Rudd) at home, and on their very graciously consenting to relate to me their psychical experiences, I sat and listened to the following story (told as nearly as possible in the eldest lady’s own words): “It is now,” she began, “some ten years since we were the tenants of the house you mention, but I recollect what I saw there as vividly as if it were yesterday.
“The house, I must tell you, is very small (only eight or so rooms), dingy, and in a chronic state of dilapidation; it stands in the middle of a terrace with no front garden to speak of, save a few yards of moss-covered tiles, slate-coloured and broken, whilst its back windows overlooked a dreary expanse of deep and silent water. Nothing more dismal could be imagined.
“Still, when we took it, the idea of it being haunted never for one instant entered our minds, and our first intimation that such was the case came upon us like a thunderbolt.
“We only kept one maid, Jane (a girl with dark hair and pleasant manners), my sisters and I doing all the cooking and helping with the light work. The morning on which incident No. 1 happened, knowing Jane to be upstairs occupied in dusting the rooms, and my sisters being out, my mother asked me to go into the kitchen and see if the stove was all right as ‘there was a smell of burning.’
“Doing as she bid, I hastened to the kitchen, where a strange spectacle met my sight.
“Kneeling in front of the stove, engaged apparently in polishing the fender, was a servant-girl with RED hair; I started back in astonishment. ‘Who could she be?’
“Too intent at first to notice my advent, she kept on at her work, giving me time to observe that she was wearing a very dirty dress, and that her ‘rag’ of a cap was quite askew. Satisfied she was not ‘Jane,’ and wondering whether some one else’s maid had mistaken our kitchen for her own—the houses in the terrace being all alike—I called out, ‘Who are you? what do you want?’—whereupon, dropping the fire-irons with a clatter, she quickly turned round, displaying an ashen-pale face, the expression on which literally froze me with horror.
“Never! never had I seen such an awful look of hopeless, of desperate, of diabolical abandonment in any one’s eyes as in those of hers when their glance met mine.
“For some seconds we glared at one another without moving, and then, still regarding me with a furtive look from out of the corner of her horrible eyes, she slowly rose from the hearth, and gliding stealthily forward, disappeared in the diminutive scullery opposite.
“Curiosity now overcoming fear, I at once followed. She was nowhere to be seen; nor was there any other mode of exit by which she could have made her departure than a tiny window, some four feet or so from the floor and directly overlooking the deep waters of the pond to which I have already alluded.
“Here, then, was a mystery! What had I seen? Had I actually encountered a phantasm, or was I but the victim of an exceedingly unpleasant and falsidical hallucination? I preferred to think the former.
“Not wishing to frighten my mother, I intended keeping the incident to myself, writing, however, a complete account of it in my diary for the current year, but, a further incident occurring to my youngest sister within the next few days, I determined to reveal what I had seen and compare notes.”
The eldest Miss Rudd now concluded, and on my expressing a desire to hear more, her youngest sister very obligingly commenced:
“I had been out shopping in the Triangle one morning,” she said, “and having omitted to take the latchkey, I was obliged to ring. Jane answered the summons. There was nothing, of course, unusual in this, as it was her duty to do so, but there was something extremely singular in what appeared at her elbow.
“Standing close beside—I might almost say, leaning against her (though Jane was apparently unaware of it)—was a strange, a VERY STRANGE, servant-girl, with RED HAIR and the most uncanny eyes; she had on a bedraggled print dress and a cap all askew; but it was her expression that most attracted my attention—it was HORRID.
“ ‘Oh Jane!’ I cried, ‘whoever is it with you?’
“Following the direction of my gaze, Jane immediately turned round, and, without a word, FAINTED.
“That is all. The apparition, or whatever you may please to call it, vanished, and the next time I saw it was under different circumstances.”
“Will you be so kind as to relate them?” I inquired.
Miss Rudd proceeded: “Oh! it is nothing very much!” she exclaimed, “only it was very unpleasant at the time—especially as I was all alone.
“You see, mother, being delicate, went to bed early, my sisters were at a concert, and it was Jane’s ‘night out.’
“I never, somehow, fancied the basement of the house; it was so cold and damp, reminding me not a little of a MORGUE or charnel-house; consequently I never stayed there a moment longer than was absolutely necessary, and on this night in question I was in the act of scurrying back to the drawing-room when a gentle tap! tap! at the scullery-window made me defer my departure. Entering the back kitchen, somewhat timidly I admit, I saw a face peering in at me through the tiny window.
“Though the night was dark and there was no artificial lighting at this side of the house, every feature of that face was revealed to me as clearly as if it had been day. The little, untidy cap, all awry, surmounting the shock-head of red hair now half-down and dripping with water, the ghastly white cheeks, the widely open mouth, and the eyes, their pupils abnormally dilated and full of lurid light, were more appallingly horrible than ever.
“I stood and gazed at it, my heart sick with terror, nor do I know what would have happened to me had not the loud rap of the postman acted like magic; the THING vanished, and ‘turning tail,’ I fled upstairs into the presence of my mother. That is all.”
I was profuse in my thanks, and the third Miss Rudd then spoke:
“My bedroom,” she began, “was on the top landing—the window over-looking the water. I slept alone some months after the anecdotes just related, and was awakened one night by feeling some disgusting, wet object lying on my forehead.
“With an ejaculation of alarm I attempted to brush it aside, and opening my eyes, encountered a ghastly white face bending right over me.
“I instantly recognised it, by the description my sisters had given, as the phantasm of the red-headed girl.
“The eyes were TERRIBLE! Shifting its slimy hand from my forehead, and brandishing it aloft like some murderous weapon, it was about to clutch my throat, when human nature would stand it no longer—and—I fainted. On recovering, I found both my sisters in the room, and after that I never slept by myself.”
“Did your mother ever see it?” I asked.
“Frequently,” the eldest Miss Rudd replied, “and it was chiefly on her account we relinquished our tenancy—her nervous system was completely prostrated.”
“Other people saw the ghost besides us,” the youngest Miss Rudd interrupted, “for not only did the long succession of maids after Jane ALL see it, but
