An anonymous ghost story published in an Australian newspaper at Christmas 1848.
PENROYSTETH CASTLE. A LEGEND OF TERROR. AN ORIGINAL TALE.
Geelong Advertiser (December 1848)
I was born in 1811, on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, although
nowhere near the scene of that memorable contest. Ajmeer, the most central
station of India, having over looked, with its thrice sanctified minarets and
pagodas, the roof beneath which I was ushered into the world. My father,
Colonel Berkely Wagstaffe, then in command of a dragoon regiment, dying shortly
afterwards of a malignant fever, I was taken by my surviving parent, the Lady
Alicia, to England, where I was received by Sir Greville Wagstaffe as the heir
presumptive to the immense estates of Penroysteth Castle and Domain, lying in
the county of Cornwall, and of the ancient baronetcy attached to those
possessions.
My mother, who, as Lady Alicia Gisborne, daughter of the Viscount Hanbury,
had allied herself at the age of sixteen to my father at the age of forty,
although still young and beautiful, preserving her widowed state, gave herself
up entirely to the care of my nurture and education, in the fond hope that an
extinct peerage in the Wagstaffe family might be revived in my favor, through
the joint means of influence and wealth, and the strawberry leaved coronet of
my ancestors might again encircle the brow of her only and darling son.
I received my early education at the attractive College of Harrow,
passing the vacations at a pretty country seat bequeathed to my mother for her
life, by her departed husband, but on reaching my sixteenth year, I was removed
to the splendid mansion of my grandfather, where Lady Alicia had been invited
to take up her abode, and my subsequent training in arts and arms confided to a
Dr Emanuel, a gentleman of Hebrew descent, but of the Christian profession; and
thus sur rounded with every means of luxury and happiness, I passed the time
until the period appointed for entering on the usual circle of continental
travel.
Previous to this, however, occurred the solemn and strange events which
it is my immediate purpose to leave upon record. I said that I had every means
of happiness within any reach, but nevertheless, unalloyed enjoyment of early
life, as in many other cases, was not destined to be mine, and the thorn brier
in my path was a domestic in the employment of Sir Greville, a man who acted
ostensibly as his valet, but really as major domo of the establishment.
Unquestionable as were the position and prospects of Lady Alicia and myself in
the Castle to which I was the heir, yet so complete was the mastery that this
cold, caustic, impenetrable man had gained over my grandfather, that nothing
could take place without his being consulted and his acquiesence obtained. Lady
Alicia could not get the family coach for an airing, nor I my saddle horse,
dogs, gun or fishing rod, for an hour's amusement, without his nasty temper was
in some way propitiated; every servant but one was at his nod or beck; to him
they owed their situations, and upon his favour alone they retained them, he
had surrounded his master with his own dependents, and contrived in every, the
most trivial matter, to have his own way and advance his own interests. His
jealousy at the introduction of myself, Lady Alicia, and Dr Emanuel into the
house, where no mistress had been seen for twenty years, and no one had
hitherto divided the sway with himself, knew no bounds, and every system of
annoyance short of absolute rudeness, was practised towards us all, but
particularly to myself.
Naturally of a high spirited and independent character, I determined to
wage ceaseless war with this bugbear of my existence; vowing in the heat of my
indignation, that either he or I should be wanting at the castle, before twelve
months had passed over our heads; nor was I without allies against Stafford
(such was his name,) for Brierly, the butler and his son Jack, an under game
keeper, were his sworn enemies, and owed the retention of their places to the
forty years' servitude of the former, in the responsible situation which he
held in the household. By their means, I resolved to obtain my end, and the narrative
of the events which followed my determination, will show the nature and extent
of my success. Mr Stafford being of Scotch extraction, pretended amongst other
amiable qualities, to an extra degree of presbyterian sanctimoniousness, and
failing to find a preacher after his own heart, in the national church,
succeeded in introducing on the estate, an Independent dissenter, who was not
only allowed to establish himself, amongst the mining laborers of the domain, but
received an annual stipend from the liberal purse of Sir Greville. To this
place of worship, the Major Domo used regularly to march on every Sabbath
morning, followed and surrounded by the whole sept of those Caledonian menials,
whose services he had dexterously substituted, in the place of the simpler but
less flexible domestics of Cornish breeding. At chapel, he acted himself as
precentor, and occasionally exercised the gifts, as he termed them, of prayer
and exhortation; never failing, however, to exact the most rigid deference to
his person, as well from the humble miners, who attended, as from his own domestic
companions; while at home, he displayed an exclusiveness of disposition, and
established an espionage that was perfectly intolerable, ever to the most
servile of his creatures.
A few months after my arrival at Penroysteth, one of the poorer servants
obtained the privilege, of having his daughter placed upon the serving staff at
the castle, through the influence of Stafford, under whose patronage it was
announced the family had been taken, with a view to bettering their condition
and pushing their fortunes in life. Lucy Deacon, when introduced to her new
sphere of occupation, was about fifteen, a pretty demure looking creature,
whose exemplary attendance at the meeting house and Sunday school, had gained
her, I presumed, the favorable notice of her patron. She was placed by his
instructions under the especial care of Mrs Heath, the housekeeper, and it was
intimated, that on no account were my casual visits to that quarter of the
house to be encouraged. It may easily be imagined that this gratuitous piece of
impertinence, was the most effectual way to put a youth like myself upon
conduct the very opposite to that which was to be so carefully guarded against.
I made it in short, a point, to find needless excuses for visiting Mrs Heath's
sanctum, and seducing her ward into a flirtation, but finding, after repeated
trials, that the little maiden, both when under the eye of the housekeeper, and
when alone with myself, was not only invariably staid and respectful, but
seemed to be distressed by my foolish attentions, I had the grace to abandon
this line of attack and fall back upon other resources of aggression.
Things were in this position, when my seventeenth birthday arrived, and
by the permission of Sir Greville, I united a number of my old schoolmates at Harrow,
to join in the festivities of the week, set apart to commemorate this important
event. The first two or three days after our set had mustered, were devoted to
those pursuits which boys particularly covet. Under the charge of careful gamekeepers,
we sallied out one day, to whip the neighboring stream for trout; the second,
we ransacked the preserves for pheasants and woodcocks; a third, we rode about the
grounds, and held cricket or archery matches; and on the fourth, we drew the
warrens and covers, and coursed with the best greyhounds of Penroysteth and the
neighborhood. On the fifth, we joined the elder guests at a magnificent picnic,
and in the evening took our parts in the gaieties of a ball; this, indeed, was
the gala day, being that of my nativity, and the following day being the last
of the week, the company broke up, and took their departure for their several
homes. Three or four of the senior class, amongst my own companions, were
detained at my request over the following Sunday, but we passed the Saturday
morning in sauntering over the house and grounds, in a manner that evidenced
the ennui which the contrast of extreme quietude to extreme excitement
naturally occasions in the overstrained and undisciplined mind. In a sheer fit
of idleness, we lounged down into the basement story of the building, and
carried our restless search over every room of the servants' department, from
the store-room and scullery to use servants’ hall and butler’s pantry and
housekeeper's room. In the last, we found Lucy engaged in arranging the
furniture, and led by myself we began, with all the precocious faculties of boy-men,
to make love to Mr Stafford's protegée.
Judge of my surprise, when, instead of witnessing the distress, or at
least customary reserve which I had expected on her part, I found her prepared
at all points, and able by repartee, look and action, to play the part of a finished
coquette. Observing her more particularly, I saw that her personal appearance
had been highly improved in dress, carriage, and manner; she was actually
metamorphosed into a fine young woman, with a pair of bold, black, sparkling
eyes, and a red full-lipped month, which although rather large, displayed, when
she laughed, a set of teeth that glistened like enameled ivory; her hands were
not quite so perfect as a tenderly-bred lady's, but the skin of her face was
clear, although dark, and suffused with a damson colored bloom that a duchess
might have envied. Out of the pleasant understanding, however, which we had
established, with the beauty of Mrs Heath's sanctum, we were suddenly roused
and put to flight, by the entrance of the pragmatical guardian of the young
lady, the glossy stare of whose eye, and whose lengthened physiognomy
effectually neutralize all our fun, and sent us off in search of old Brierly,
upon whom we had agreed to call, to assist in making fireworks for that
evening's contemplated display.
We found the butler busy, under Sir Greville's instructions,
superintending the cleaning out of a suite of apartments, which had never
before been entered by myself, nor to my knowledge by any inmate of the place.
Catching at any trifle, wherewith to amuse ourselves, we commenced gambolling
through these rooms, criticising the antique furniture, and making the
cobwebbed walls and ceiling ring to our boisterous laughter. This natural
escapade however was presently and formally checked by the appearance of the
old domestic himself, who assured us of the displeasure with which my
grandfather would view any unseemly exhibition of hilarity in a place sacred,
as we understood him, to the memory of the dead. This announcement having
eventually restrained the effervescence of our spirits within due bounds, our
curiosity expended itself in a series of questions as to the meaning of
Brierley's caution. Who was the dead, and what the nature of his end? It turned
out to be one of those generic stories so frequently found attached to old
houses and families, especially amongst an ill-educated and superstitious
peasantry, of dark deeds and darker characters, whose shadows, long after their
day, rested upon those stricken walls, and either consigned them to the ominous
solitude of the grave, or left them in the sole possession of those rest less
and unembodied spirits, who, according to tradition, still haunted the scenes
of their former guilt. After the lapse of nearly a century, the wing, in which
these apartments were situated, was to be re-occupied; but it was plain to see
that neither, the butler nor his underlings were at all reconciled to the task
imposed upon them, while, with many a mutter and many a whisper or shake of the
head, the handmaidens strove to get through their allotted task before the
evening shades came on.
"By Jove," I cried, "here is an adventure; let us he the
first to occupy the haunted rooms, the first to greet the ghosts on their
restoration to animated society. What say you?"
"Agreed, agreed," was echoed by my companions, on every side,
and what was then propounded, half in jest, was before the night set in
determined on, in serious consultation amongst ourselves. As soon, accordingly,
as the household was dismissed from evening prayer, we took possession of the
largest room, resolving, with the aid of Brierley, to make a night of it, and
by the blaze of a cheerful fire, assisted by numerous wax can dies, and a
capital supper of cold game and pastry, with some light Rhenish wines, we made
ourselves and each other equally comfortable and cheerful.
We sat down to the tempting comestibles amidst general jesting and
laughter, and with many a toast to the health of the supposed spiritual tenants,
we made the time wag pleasantly, until within half an hour of midnight, when,
drawing our chairs round the fire, we endeavoured to amuse ourselves by
recounting the pleasures, occupations, and exploits of the foregoing week; the
conversation, however, began in a few moments to flag, and I saw that
drowsiness was fast overpowering the whole party, except myself, the result, as
I conjectured, of the late hour and the meal of which they had so heartily
partaken. In short, the whole three were, in a marvellous short space of time,
nodding in their chairs; whilst I, leaning back in my seat, saw the fire
burning low on the hearth, and the candles casting their cross flickering light
athwart the various objects at hand, without feeling much inclination either to
stir up the one or rearrange the other.
I was finally about to sink, myself, into a state of unconsciousness,
when suddenly my ear was saluted by a low whirring noise, that sounded as if
from some concealed closet within the room, and something like a chain wheel
running abruptly down. Roused from my reclining attitude, I gazed around with
an anxious eye and a palpitating heart my surprise was increased when I heard
this singular sound I describe, followed by the distinct and deep, but distant
boom of a clock; one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve,
I heard echoed, now clearer and louder, now fainter and thicker, upon the
midnight air without; and I was conjecturing what church was near enough to
Penroysteth, for me to hear the note of time so distinctly, when the entrance door
opened and rolled back upon its hinges to its utmost stretch, with a quick but
perfectly noiseless motion, and the figure of a female, dressed in deep
mourning habiliments, stood upon the threshold; a mantilla or shawl was drawn
over her head, in a manner that caused its sable colour to contrast frightfully
with the grave-like pallour of her features; her eyes, fixed yet gleaming, were
directed into the void space of the apartment, nor did they move the slightest
in their hollow sockets, as she advanced with apparent unconsciousness of our
presence, wringing her attenuated hands with the deepest expression of unutterable
woe!
Rooted to the spot with intense dismay, I stood and looked upon the
unearthly visitant as if paralyzed with the terror which parted my lips, caused
my tongue to cleave to the palate, and the hair of my scalp to crawl with
unmitigated terror; a minute sufficed her to cross the room and vanish through
the opposite door, which rolled in the same mysterious manner upon its hinges,
although touched by no visible hand; to afford her exit. As the skirt of her
robe cleared the sill, both doors closed with a bang that echoed through the
house, and I fell as if struck by an electric battery, to all appearance dead,
upon the hearth.
The combined noises which I have mentioned, startled my companions from
their slumbers, when they beheld with affright my prostrate and inanimate form
stretched upon the floor, nor was their alarm decreased when on stooping to
raise me in their arms, they observed my white shirt front and collar bathed in
blood. To this circumstance, perhaps, I owe my life, for the congestion of the
brain under which I was laboring, was relieved by a copious discharge of the
sanguine stream, which in a few moments was discovered to be flowing from my
nostrils. At this juncture, the careful Brierly, who suspecting that we might fall
asleep and allow the room to catch fire, by the fall of a brand from the grate
or a candle from the table, fortunately made his appearance. Snatching me up,
and followed by the bewildered youths, who as they could give no explanation of
the occurrence, were wisely despatched to their respective beds, he carried me
to my own room, and called up Mr Emanuel to attend me. My tutor, learned
himself, in medical science, ascertaining at once that my system must have
sustained some inexplicable shock, treated me accordingly, and as a state of
collapse supervened, immediately applied such stimulants as were necessary,
until a physician could arrive to take his place. My life was safe from the
moment ay physical faculties were regenerated, but for forty-eight hours I was
weak to childishness, and wandered in my conversation. It does not appear,
however, that they gathered from my incoherent remarks, any clue to our adventure
or its catastrophe; and as Brierly and the boys were silent from sufficient
motives, concerning our Saturday night's freak, I was enabled to keep my own
secret, until the appointed time for the development of the mystery had
arrived.
I said kept my secret, but this assertion I must now qualify – I kept
for a time; but ten days of prostration on a sick bed made me, in my very
helplessness, glad of a confident, and I chose, as might naturally be expected,
my nurse.
On the day following the catastrophe which I have recorded, my old
school-fellows took their departure, leaving me, restless, pale and fevered, to
the care of my mother and Lucy deacon. The
former, delicate and nervous, was no very fit associate for an invalid’s room;
but her want of skill and attention was amply compensated for by the gentleness
and assiduity of the latter, who, having been raised to the posit of the lady’s
own maid, was thus, perhaps fortunately brought into communication with her
formerly thoughtless persecutor. She was
not long in worming from me the matter that weighed so heavily upon my heart,
and, despite her care and fondness, threw a continual gloom over my otherwise
recovering frame of mind and body. She
advised me to hold an interview with an ancient crone, whose knowledge of the
traditions and mysteries of Cornish family memoirs was considered to be
unrivalled; I consented and the following found Betty Laban seated by my
bedside, recounting the story which I now subjoin, and which, from a natural
object connected with its most important event, I shall designate -
THE LEGEND OF THE RAVEN’S OAK.
Sir Nigel
Wagstaffe was possessor of Penroysteth Castle, in the day of Queen Elizabeth,
at whose court he became one of the followers of the Raleigh faction, as
opposed to that of the minion, Leicester, and accompanied his noble-minded
carer in the expedition he set on foot for the settlement of Virginia and
Guiana in North and South America.
In early
life Sir Nigel became enamoured of the daughter of one of his dependents, by
name Anne Courthope, and with whom, under the intriguing connivance of her
mother, it was supposed he had formed a connection, ratified by their secret
marriage; when Sir Nigel accompanied Sir Walter upon his voyage to Virginia,
she also made one of the passengers by the same vessel, but never returned,
having, it was averred, followed her own inclination in publicly and openly marrying
an adventurous planter, who was amongst the earliest settlers at the foundation
of that colony.
Sir
Nigel, soon after his return, set at rest all conjecture and gossip upon the
subject, by allying himself in marriage to Margaret, the daughter of Sir Robert
Warden, of Warwickshire, at the same time that Raleigh married (although in
secrecy) the cousin of this lady (Mary Throckmorton), for fear of the
ridiculous jealousy and selfishly exacting admiration of the imperial and
imperious Elizabeth. During the course
of these events, Mabel, the mother of Anne Courthope (herself of Gipsy or
Bohemian descent) continued to live upon the estate, where her influence over
the tenantry was remarkable, and arose equally from her superior deportment,
which might have given her ascendancy under any circumstances, and on account
of her threatening and vindictive character, rendered more terrible by the
power which she paraded, not only foretelling the destiny of others, but of
bringing about her own maledictions.
Subsequently,
Sir Nigel having taken a share in the glorious repulsion of the Armada,
accompanied Sir Cloudesly Shovel in his brilliant descent upon the Spanish
coast. Returning thence in safety, he
brought with him a beautiful lady, a native of that country, who had been
rescued by him from a convent, and who, rather than return to her captivity,
resolved to place herself under the loathsome protection of her deliverer.
The
unfortunate but now happy Isabel was received with open arms by Lady Margaret,
whose heart yearned over this victim of religious tyranny and forced
affections. It soon became plain, however,
to all, save her who was the most injured party, that Sir Nigel and Donna
Isabel were indulging in hopes of a closer union than, at present, law and
society would permit; this event indeed, which they seemed at last to take no
care in concealing, was approaching rapidly, for, from the day in which Sir
Nigel had returned from Spain his wife had sickened and waned in a manner that
showed her death would not long divide him from the object of his unholy
passion. To effect her decease was now
the study of the Spanish lady, her conspirator in this diabolical act being
Mabel, whose drugs and charms were used at once to gratify her own her own
malignity against her daughter’s superceder, and remove her vile employer’s
obstacle to the coveted sovereignty of Penroysteth. Becoming impatient at the lingering character
of Lady Margaret’s fatal illness she passionately urged upon Mabel no longer to
delay the termination of their plot, and received, in return, an assurance that
if she would meet the hag in the dead of the succeeding night at the foot of
the great Penroysteth Oak, the lord and pride of its broad green woods, a final
charm should be worked that would determine within twenty-four hours the fate
of their long ravelled web of wickedness.
The hour
arrived, and the Dona kept her appointment with Mabel at the oak; she was
cowering over a fire in a tripod, that throwing around a fitful glare,
displayed a coffin covered with velvet and surmounted with the Penroysteth
crest (a ducal coronet with a plume of crimson feathers issuing proper) by the
side of which she crouched. Having
performed some of her Bohemian incantations, she took off the coffin lid, and
discovered within, a human form clad in the habiliments of the grave, and
presenting the features, fixed in death, of Sir Nigel’s wife.
“To
complete your destiny and hers,” said Mabel, pointing to the semblance of the
body, “you must bury this dagger in the heart of that automaton.”
Isabel at
first trembled, so wonderfully exact were the figure and face, in likeness to
those of her meditated victim, and she was not yet prepared to commit murder,
in a manner so violent and repulsive to the feelings of a woman, but being
urged by Mabel and assured by the recollection that not ten minutes had
elapsed, since she had stood by and spoken to the dying Lady Margaret, she
raised her hand and drove the weapon with which it was armed, in the body of
the figure that was reposing beneath her arm.
A
frightful shriek awoke the echoes of the solemn wood, as the striker in dismay
heard a groan burst from the cerements, saw its lineaments visibly stir beneath
the shroud, and a burst of warm gore follow the weapon, as it was wrenched
again from the wound, by the demoniac Mabel.
What
length of time might have passed after this tragedy had occurred, before the
discovery which followed, is not known, for although Sir Nigel and Lady Isabel
were missing the next morning, it was not perhaps for forty eight hours
afterwards, that one of the rangers was led to the spot, by the croaking of a
huge black raven, perched upon the topmost branches of the old oak; from this
indeed, it acquired the name of the “Raven Oak.”
Suffice
it now to say, that there were found
the coffin, and hanging half out of it, with the cerements disturbed as if by
some convulsive struggle, the body, cold and dead, of Sir Nigel; near it was
crouched the form, living but possessed, of Dona Isabel, a jabbering,
frightful, hopeless maniac. On the night
of that murder, Lady Margaret had died, her breath passing from her, at the
very moment that the deceived paramour of her lord had ended his life, with the
poisoned dagger prepared by Mabel. It
will easily be conjectured, that to accomplish her great and dreadful revenge,
the Bohemian had caused Sir Nigel to succumb to the power of some potent drugs,
and placing his rigid form in the coffin, had directed the unconscious hand of
the Spaniard, to its fearful and effectual aim, in the self same hour, that the
subtle poisons concocted by herself, and administered by her agent, had ended
the life of that other and joint object of her intense and undying hatred.
Little
remains to be told; the body of Sir Nigel was removed to the castle, where it
was laid in state, side by side with that of his injured and lamented spouse;
the ravings of Isabel threw suspicion on Mabel, and as the first James then
commenced his reign, she found but small mercy, when arraigned as a witch, she
was tried, convicted and burnt at a stake; before she suffered, she
acknowledged the whole of her complicated designs and their result, glorying in
the gratification of her aim and reckless of that hereafter, in which,
according to the doctrines of her sect, she believed not. The last marvel connected with this tale of
horrors has yet to be told. On the
morning set apart for the funeral of Sir Nigel and Lady Margaret, his corpse
was found wanting! The coffin was empty, the bier had been robbed – they looked
for Donna Isabel who had been placed in proper custody, but she was gone, no
one knew whither, neither she nor the dead body of her paramour was ever
discovered,
“the clue to that secret of the grave,” concluded the narrator, “remains to be revealed to the person who
dares to waylay and accost the spirit of that woman of blood and poison, of
adultery and murder, whose impalpable and restless shade has appeared to you
and you alone!”
I
started, shuddered, and fell back in another swoon, at Betty’s gloomy, yet
impressive address, as she closed her narrative; I awoke, to find myself in the
arms of Lucy, who was crying her eyes out, over my unconscious form; I kissed
her, as I took the hand of the affectionate girl, and bade her to let the whole
of this painful and awe inspiring affair rest between ourselves, muttering
however, as I sunk down upon the pillows, “I will fathom the depths of this
mystery yet, I will follow it, and speak to it, no matter where it may lead
me.”
