The Valet's Tragedy, and Other StudiesLang, Andrew
History
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies
Lang, Andrew
History; World history
Moving further from the event, to 1828, we find a book styled
‘Past Feelings Renovated,’ a reply to Dr. Hibbert’s ‘Philosophy of
Apparitions.’ The anonymous author is ‘struck with the total inadequacy
of Dr. Hibbert’s theory.’ Among his stories he quotes Wraxall’s
‘Memoirs.’ In 1783, Wraxall dined at Pitt Place, and visited ‘the
bedroom where the casement window at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the
DOVE appeared to flutter* was pointed out to me.’ Now the Pitt Place
document puts the vision ‘in Hill Street, Berkeley Square.’ So does Lord
Westcote. Even a bird cannot be in two places at once, and the ‘Pitt
Place Anonymous’ does seem to know what he is talking about. Of course
Lord Lyttelton MAY have been at Pitt Place on November 24, and had his
dream there. He MAY have run up to Hill Street on the 25th and delivered
his speech, and MAY have returned to Pitt Place on the Friday or
Saturday.** But we have no evidence for this view; and the Pitt Place
document places the vision in Hill Street. Wraxall adds that he has
frequently seen a painting of bird, ghost, and Lord Lyttelton, which was
executed by that nobleman’s stepmother in 1780. It was done ‘after the
description given to her by the valet de chambre who attended him, to
whom his master related all the circumstances.’
*It was a ROBIN in 1779.
**Coulton says Friday; the Anonymous says Saturday, with Lord Westcote.
Our author of 1828 next produces the narrative by Lord Lyttelton’s
widow, Mrs. Peach, who was so soon deserted. In 1828 she is ‘now alive,
and resident in the south-west part of Warwickshire.’ According to Lady
Lyttelton (who, of course, was not present), Lord Lyttelton had gone to
bed, whether in Hill Street or Pitt Place we are not told. His candle
was extinguished, when he heard ‘a noise resembling the fluttering of
a bird at his chamber window. Looking in the direction of the sound, he
saw the figure of an unhappy female, whom he had seduced and deserted,
and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence,
standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound
had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed: the room was
preternaturally light; the objects in the chamber were distinctly
visible. The figure pointed to a clock, and announced that Lord
Lyttelton would expire AT THAT VERY HOUR (twelve o’clock) in the third
day after the visitation.’
We greatly prefer, as a good old-fashioned ghost story, this version of
Lady Lyttelton’s. There is no real bird, only a fluttering sound, as in
the case of the Cock Lane Ghost, and many other examples. The room is
‘preternaturally light,’ as in Greek and Norse belief it should have
been, and as it is in the best modern ghost stories. Moreover, we have
the raison d’etre of the ghost: she had been a victim of the Chief
Justice in Eyre. The touch about the clock is in good taste. We did not
know all that before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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