Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic ExperiencesTweedale, Violet
Religion
Ghosts I Have Seen, and Other Psychic Experiences
Tweedale, Violet
Ghosts; Parapsychology
Quite half an hour must have passed when suddenly a click made us both
look up. The handle of the door, but a couple of yards distant from me,
leading into the small room, was turning, and the door quietly opened
wide enough to admit the passing of a human being. It was a bright sunny
day, and one could see the brass knob turning round quite distinctly. We
saw no form of any sort, and the door remained half open. For perhaps a
couple of moments we awaited developments, then our attention was
suddenly switched off the door by the sound of hurrying footsteps
running along the bare boards on the corridor above us. My husband
rushed up and searched each empty room, but neither saw anything nor
heard anything more. Before leaving the house we shut all doors, and
locked all that would lock. Such was the meager extent of our second
day's investigations.
On the third day the doors were all found wide flung. No door opened
before our eyes as on our former visit, but a brushing sound was heard
ascending the stairs, as if from some one pressing close against the
wall.
For about a fortnight nothing happened beyond what I have recounted, but
I was strongly conscious that we were being watched. The most
unhealthful spots were the bathroom, a servants' room entered by a
staircase leading from the kitchen, and the stable, a small building
immediately to the right of the house. The bathroom was in great
disrepair, long strips of paper hung from the walls, and an air of
profound depression pervaded it. Obviously it had once been merely a
large cupboard, and it had a window admitting light from a passage
behind it.
We had never once failed to find every door which we had closed thrown
wide on our return, and one day we locked the bathroom, and removing the
key we looked about for some spot in which to secrete it. On that floor
was nothing large enough to hide even so small an object as a key, so we
took it downstairs to the dining-room. In a corner lay a rag of linoleum
about six inches square, under this we placed the bathroom key and left
the house.
That afternoon a house agent called and asked for the loan of the keys.
He told us that a brave widow, who knew the history of the house,
thought it might suit her to live in, and he proposed to take her over
it and point out its charms. He would return the keys to us directly
afterwards. I took advantage of this occasion to say to the agent that
probably the screams some people had heard proceeded from the peacocks
in the neighborhood.
He shook his head and answered, "We hoped that might prove to be the
case, but we have ascertained that it is not so." He seemed despondent
about the place, even though what we had to tell him was as yet nothing
very formidable or exciting. What we did not tell him was that we had
locked up the bathroom, and hidden the key. We left him to discover that
fact for himself.
He returned with the keys in about an hour, and I asked him what the
widow thought of "Castel a Mare."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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