The Open Door by Charlotte Riddell

The Open Door was first published in 1882, in the Charlotte Riddell anthology Weird Stories. It has been reprinted many times in short story collections, which often identify its author as Mrs J. H. Riddell (Mrs Joseph Hadley Riddell).

At around 12,500 words, The Open Door is a novellete, not a short story, but shouldn’t take most people more than 60 to 90 minutes to read. As much a mystery as it is a ghost story, The Open Door is as enjoyable as it is entertaining, and, though not as dark in nature as many other ghost stories from the Victorian era, due to it likable characters and the strength of its plot, it’s a story that should appeal to anyone who enjoys reading stories about haunted houses or mysteries.

About Charlotte Riddell

Charlotte Eliza Lawson Riddell(nee Cowan) was an Irish writer, from Carrickfergus, who was very popular during the Victorian era. She published her first novel The Moors and the Fens in 1858 under the pseudonym F. G. Trafford, switching to her own name for copies published from 1864 onward. Many novels and short stories followed.

Although Riddell was not strictly a writer of genre fiction, she wrote an impressive number of ghost stories, with five of her novels featuring haunted buildings, The Open Door standing out as a fine example.

The Open Door

By Charlotte Riddell

(Online Text)

Some people do not believe in ghosts. For that matter, some people do not believe in anything.

There are persons who even affect incredulity concerning that open door at Ladlow Hall. They say it did not stand wide open—that they could have shut it; that the whole affair was a delusion; that they are sure it must have been a conspiracy; that they are doubtful whether there is such a place as Ladlow on the face of the earth; that the first time they are in Meadowshire they will look it up.

That is the manner in which this story, hitherto unpublished, has been greeted by my acquaintances. How it will be received by strangers is quite another matter. I am going to tell what happened to me exactly as it happened, and readers can credit or scoff at the tale as it pleases them. It is not necessary for me to find faith and comprehension in addition to a ghost story, for the world at large. If such were the case, I should lay down my pen.

Perhaps, before going further, I ought to premise there was a time when I did not believe in ghosts either. If you had asked me one summer’s morning years ago when you met me on London Bridge if I held such appearances to be probable or possible, you would have received an emphatic ‘No’ for answer.

But, at this rate, the story of the Open Door will never be told; so we will, with your permission, plunge into it immediately.

‘Sandy!’

‘What do you want?’

‘Should you like to earn a sovereign?’

‘Of course I should.’

A somewhat curt dialogue, but we were given to curtness in the office of Messrs Frimpton, Frampton and Fryer, auctioneers and estate agents, St Benet’s Hill, City.

(My name is not Sandy or anything like it, but the other clerks so styled me because of a real or fancied likeness to some character, an ill-looking Scotchman, they had seen at the theatre. From this it may be inferred I was not handsome. Far from it. The only ugly specimen in my family, I knew I was very plain; and it chanced to be no secret to me either that I felt grievously discontented with my lot. I did not like the occupation of clerk in an auctioneer’s office, and I did not like my employers.

We are all of us inconsistent, I suppose, for it was a shock to me to find they entertained a most cordial antipathy to me.)

‘Because,’ went on Parton, a fellow, my senior by many years—a fellow who delighted in chaffing me, ‘I can tell you how to lay hands on one.’

‘How?’ I asked, sulkily enough, for I felt he was having what he called his fun.

‘You know that place we let to Garrison, the tea-dealer?’ Garrison was a merchant in the China trade, possessed of fleets of vessels and towns of warehouses; but I did not correct Parton’s expression, I simply nodded.

‘He took it on a long lease, and he can’t live in it; and our governor said this morning he wouldn’t mind giving anybody who could find out what the deuce is the matter, a couple of sovereigns and his travelling expenses.’

‘Where is the place?’ I asked, without turning my head; for the convenience of listening I had put my elbows on the desk and propped up my face with both hands.

‘Away down in Meadowshire, in the heart of the grazing country.’

‘And what is the matter?’ I further enquired.

‘A door that won’t keep shut.’

‘What?’

‘A door that will keep open, if you prefer that way of putting it,’ said Parton.

‘You are jesting.’

‘If I am, Garrison is not, or Fryer either. Garrison came here in a nice passion, and Fryer was in a fine rage; I could see he was, though he kept his temper outwardly. They have had an active correspondence it appears, and Garrison went away to talk to his lawyer. Won’t make much by that move, I fancy.’

‘But tell me,’ I entreated, ‘why the door won’t keep shut?’

‘They say the place is haunted.’

‘What nonsense!’ I exclaimed.

Then you are just the person to take the ghost in hand. I thought so while old Fryer was speaking.’

‘If the door won’t keep shut,’ I remarked, pursuing my own train of thought, ‘why can’t they let it stay open?’

‘I have not the slightest idea. I only know there are two sovereigns to be made, and that I give you a present of the information.’

And having thus spoken, Parton took down his hat and went out, either upon his own business or that of his employers.

There was one thing I can truly say about our office, we were never serious in it. I fancy that is the case in most offices nowadays; at all events, it was the case in ours. We were always chaffing each other, playing practical jokes, telling stupid stories, scamping our work, looking at the clock, counting the weeks to next St Lubbock’s Day, counting the hours to Saturday.

For all that we were all very earnest in our desire to have our salaries raised, and unanimous in the opinion no fellows ever before received such wretched pay. I had twenty pounds a year, which I was aware did not half provide for what I ate at home. My mother and sisters left me in no doubt on the point, and when new clothes were wanted I always hated to mention the fact to my poor worried father.

We had been better off once, I believe, though I never remember the time. My father owned a small property in the country, but owing to the failure of some bank, I never could understand what bank, it had to be mortgaged; then the interest was not paid, and the mortgages foreclosed, and we had nothing left save the half-pay of a major, and about a hundred a year which my mother brought to the common fund.

We might have managed on our income, I think, if we had not been so painfully genteel; but we were always trying to do something quite beyond our means, and consequently debts accumulated, and creditors ruled us with rods of iron.

Before the final smash came, one of my sisters married the younger son of a distinguished family, and even if they had been disposed to live comfortably and sensibly she would have kept her sisters up to the mark. My only brother, too, was an officer, and of course the family thought it necessary he should see we preserved appearances.

It was all a great trial to my father, I think, who had to bear the brunt of the dunning and harass, and eternal shortness of money; and it would have driven me crazy if I had not found a happy refuge when matters were going wrong at home at my aunt’s. She was my father’s sister, and had married so ‘dreadfully below her’ that my mother refused to acknowledge the relationship at all.

For these reasons and others, Parton’s careless words about the two sovereigns stayed in my memory.

I wanted money badly—I may say I never had sixpence in the world of my own—and I thought if I could earn two sovereigns I might buy some trifles I needed for myself, and present my father with a new umbrella. Fancy is a dangerous little jade to flirt with, as I soon discovered.

She led me on and on. First I thought of the two sovereigns; then I recalled the amount of the rent Mr Garrison agreed to pay for Ladlow Hall; then I decided he would gladly give more than two sovereigns if he could only have the ghost turned out of possession. I fancied I might get ten pounds—twenty pounds. I considered the matter all day, and I dreamed of it all night, and when I dressed myself next morning I was determined to speak to Mr Fryer on the subject.

I did so—I told that gentleman Parton had mentioned the matter to me, and that if Mr Fryer had no objection, I should like to try whether I could not solve the mystery. I told him I had been accustomed to lonely houses, and that I should not feel at all nervous; that I did not believe in ghosts, and as for burglars, I was not afraid of them.

‘I don’t mind your trying,’ he said at last. ‘Of course you understand it is no cure, no pay. Stay in the house for a week; if at the end of that time you can keep the door shut, locked, bolted, or nailed up, telegraph for me, and I will go down—if not, come back. If you like to take a companion there is no objection.’

I thanked him, but said I would rather not have a companion.

‘There is only one thing, sir, I should like,’ I ventured.

‘And that—?’ he interrupted.

‘Is a little more money. If I lay the ghost, or find out the ghost, I think I ought to have more than two sovereigns.’

‘How much more do you think you ought to have?’ he asked.

His tone quite threw me off my guard, it was so civil and conciliatory, and I answered boldly:

‘Well, if Mr Garrison cannot now live in the place perhaps he wouldn’t mind giving me a ten-pound note.’

Mr Fryer turned, and opened one of the books lying on his desk. He did not look at or refer to it in any way—I saw that.

‘You have been with us how long, Edlyd?’ he said.

‘Eleven months tomorrow,’ I replied.

‘And our arrangement was, I think, quarterly payments, and one month’s notice on either side?’

‘Yes, sir.’ I heard my voice tremble, though I could not have said what frightened me.

‘Then you will please to take your notice now. Come in before you leave this evening, and I’ll pay you three months’ salary, and then we shall be quits.’

‘I don’t think I quite understand,’ I was beginning, when he broke in:

‘But I understand, and that’s enough. I have had enough of you and your airs, and your indifference, and your insolence here. I never had a clerk I disliked as I do you. Coming and dictating terms, forsooth! No, you shan’t go to Ladlow. Many a poor chap’—(he said ‘devil’)—-‘would have been glad to earn half a guinea, let alone two sovereigns; and perhaps you may be before you are much older.’

‘Do you mean that you won’t keep me here any longer, sir?’ I asked in despair. I had no intention of offending you. I—’

‘Now you need not say another word,’ he interrupted, ‘for I won’t bandy words with you.

Since you have been in this place you have never known your position, and you don’t seem able to realize it. When I was foolish enough to take you, I did it on the strength of your connections, but your connections have done nothing for me. I have never had a penny out of any one of your friends—if you have any. You’ll not do any good in business for yourself or anybody else, and the sooner you go to Australia’—(here he was very emphatic)—and get off these premises, the better I shall be pleased.’

I did not answer him—I could not. He had worked himself to a white heat by this time, and evidently intended I should leave his premises then and there. He counted five pounds out of his cash-box, and, writing a receipt, pushed it and the money across the table, and bade me sign and be off at once.

My hand trembled So I could scarcely hold the pen, but I had presence of mind enough left to return one pound ten in gold, and three shillings and fourpence I had, quite by the merest good fortune, in my waistcoat pocket.

‘I can’t take wages for work I haven’t done,’ I said, as well as sorrow and passion would let me. ‘Good-morning,’ and I left his office and passed out among the clerks.

I took from my desk the few articles belonging to me, left the papers it contained in order, and then, locking it, asked Parton if he would be so good as to give the key to Mr Fryer.

‘What’s up?’ he asked ‘Are you going?’

I said, ‘Yes, I am going’.

‘Got the sack?’

‘That is exactly what has happened.’

‘Well, I’m—!’ exclaimed Mr Parton.

I did not stop to hear any further commentary on the matter, but bidding my fellow-clerks goodbye, shook the dust of Frimpton’s Estate and Agency Office from off my feet.

I did not like to go home and say I was discharged, so I walked about aimlessly, and at length found myself in Regent Street. There I met my father, looking more worried than usual.

‘Do you think, Phil,’ he said (my name is Theophilus), ‘you could get two or three pounds from your employers?’

Maintaining a discreet silence regarding what had passed, I answered:

‘No doubt I could.’

I shall be glad if you will then, my boy,’ he went on, for we are badly in want of it.’

I did not ask him what was the special trouble. Where would have been the use? There was always something—gas, or water, or poor-rates [1], or the butcher, or the baker, or the bootmaker.

Well, it did not much matter, for we were well accustomed to the life; but, I thought, ‘if ever I marry, we will keep within our means’. And then there rose up before me a vision of Patty, my cousin—the blithest, prettiest, most useful, most sensible girl that ever made sunshine in poor man’s house.

My father and I had parted by this time, and I was still walking aimlessly on, when all at once an idea occurred to me. Mr Fryer had not treated me well or fairly. I would hoist him on his own petard. I would go to headquarters, and try to make terms with Mr Garrison direct.

No sooner thought than done. I hailed a passing omnibus, and was ere long in the heart of the city. Like other great men, Mr Garrison was difficult of access—indeed, so difficult of access, that the clerk to whom I applied for an audience told me plainly I could not see him at all. I might send in my message if I liked, he was good enough to add, and no doubt it would be attended to. I said I should not send in a message, and was then asked what I would do. My answer was simple. I meant to wait till I did see him. I was told they could not have people waiting about the office in this way.

I said I supposed I might stay in the street. ‘Garrison didn’t own that,’ I suggested.

The clerk advised me not to try that game, or I might get locked up.

I said I would take my chance of it.

After that we went on arguing the question at some length, and we were in the middle of a heated argument, in which several of Garrison’s ‘young gentlemen’, as they called themselves, were good enough to join, when we were all suddenly silenced by a grave-looking individual, who authoritatively enquired:

‘What is all this noise about?’

Before anyone could answer I spoke up:

‘I want to see Mr Garrison, and they won’t let me.’

‘What do you want with Mr Garrison?’

‘I will tell that to himself only.’

‘Very well, say on—I am Mr Garrison.’

For a moment I felt abashed and almost ashamed of my persistency; next instant, however, what Mr Fryer would have called my ‘native audacity’ came to the rescue, and I said, drawing a step or two nearer to him, and taking off my hat:

‘I wanted to speak to you about Ladlow hall, if you please, sir.’

In an instant the fashion of his face changed, a look of irritation succeeded to that of immobility; an angry contraction of the eyebrows disfigured the expression of his countenance.

‘Ladlow Hall!’ he repeated; ‘and what have you got to say about Ladlow Hall?’

‘That is what I wanted to tell you, sir,’ I answered, and a dead hush seemed to fall on the office as I spoke.

The silence seemed to attract his attention, for he looked sternly at the clerks, who were not using a pen or moving a finger.

‘Come this way, then,’ he said abruptly; and next minute I was in his private office.

‘Now, what is it?’ he asked, flinging himself into a chair, and addressing me, who stood hat in hand beside the great table in the middle of the room.

I began—I will say he was a patient listener—at the very beginning, and told my story straight trough. I concealed nothing. I enlarged on nothing. A discharged clerk I stood before him, and in the capacity of a discharged clerk I said what I had to say. He heard me to the end, then he sat silent, thinking.

At last he spoke.

‘You have heard a great deal of conversation about Ladlow, I suppose?’ he remarked.

‘No sir; I have heard nothing except what I have told you.’

‘And why do you desire to strive to solve such a mystery?’

‘If there is any money to be made, I should like to make it, sir.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Two-and-twenty last January.’

‘And how much salary had you at Frimpton’s?’

‘Twenty pounds a year.’

‘Humph! More than you are worth, I should say.’

‘Mr Fryer seemed to imagine so, sir, at any rate,’ I agreed, sorrowfully.

‘But what do you think?’ he asked, smiling in spite of himself.

‘I think I did quite as much work as the other clerks,’ I answered.

‘That is not saying much, perhaps,’ he observed. I was of his opinion, but I held my peace.

‘You will never make much of a clerk, I am afraid,’ Mr Garrison proceeded, fitting his disparaging remarks upon me as he might on a lay figure. ‘You don’t like desk work?’

‘Not much, sir.’

‘I should judge the best thing you could do would be to emigrate,’ he went on, eyeing me critically.

‘Mr Fryer said I had better go to Australia or—’ I stopped, remembering the alternative that gentleman had presented.

‘Or where?’ asked Mr Garrison.

‘The—-, sir’ I explained, softly and apologetically.

He laughed—he lay back in his chair and laughed—and I laughed myself, though ruefully.

After all, twenty pounds was twenty pounds, though I had not thought much of the salary till I lost it.

We went on talking for a long time after that; he asked me all about my father and my early life, and how we lived, and where we lived, and the people we knew; and, in fact, put more questions than I can well remember.

‘It seems a crazy thing to do,’ he said at last; ‘and yet I feel disposed to trust you. The house is standing perfectly empty. I can’t live in it, and I can’t get rid of it; all my own furniture I have removed, and there is nothing in the place except a few old-fashioned articles belonging to Lord Ladlow. The place is a loss to me. It is of no use trying to let it, and thus, in fact, matters are at a deadlock. You won’t be able to find out anything, I know, because, of course, others have tried to solve the mystery ere now; still, if you like to try you may. I will make this bargain with you.

If you like to go down, I will pay your reasonable expenses for a fortnight; and if you do any good for me, I will give you a ten-pound note for yourself. Of course I must be satisfied that what you have told me is true and that you are what you represent. Do you know anybody in the city who would speak for you?’

I could think of no one but my uncle. I hinted to Mr Garrison he was not grand enough or rich enough, perhaps, but I knew nobody else to whom I could refer him.

‘What!’ he said, ‘Robert Dorland, of Cullum Street. He does business with us. If he will go bail for your good behaviour I shan’t want any further guarantee. Come along.’ And to my intense amazement, he rose, put on his hat, walked me across the outer office and along the pavements till we came to Cullum Street.

‘Do you know this youth, Mr Dorland?’ he said, standing in front of my uncle’s desk, and laying a hand on my shoulder.

‘Of course I do, Mr Garrison,’ answered my uncle, a little apprehensively; for, as he told me afterwards, he could not imagine what mischief I had been up to. ‘He is my nephew.’

‘And what is your opinion of him—do you think he is a young fellow I may safely trust?’

My uncle smiled, and answered, ‘That depends on what you wish to trust him with.’

‘A long column of addition, for instance.’

‘It would be safer to give that task to somebody else.’

‘Oh, uncle!’ I remonstrated; for I had really striven to conquer my natural antipathy to figures—worked hard, and every bit of it against the collar.

My uncle got off his stool, and said, standing with his back to the empty fire-grate: ‘Tell me what you wish the boy to do, Mr Garrison, and I will tell you whether he will suit your purpose or not. I know him, I believe, better than he knows himself.’

In an easy, affable way, for so rich a man, Mr Garrison took possession of the vacant stool, and nursing his right leg over his left knee, answered:

‘He wants to go and shut the open door at Ladlow for me. Do you think he can do that?’

My uncle looked steadily back at the speaker, and said, ‘I thought, Mr Garrison, it was quite settled no one could shut it?’

Mr Garrison shifted a little uneasily on his seat, and replied: I did not set your nephew the task he fancies he would like to undertake.’

‘Have nothing to do with it, Phil,’ advised my uncle, shortly.

‘You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, Mr Dorland?’ asked Mr Garrison, with a slight sneer.

‘Don’t you, Mr Garrison?’ retorted my uncle.

There was a pause—an uncomfortable pause—during the course of which I felt the ten pounds, which, in imagination, I had really spent, trembling in the scale. I was not afraid. For ten pounds, or half the money, I would have faced all the inhabitants of spirit land. I longed to tell them so; but something in the way those two men looked at each other stayed my tongue.

‘If you ask me the question here in the heart of the city, Mr Dorland,’ said Mr Garrison, at length, slowly and carefully, ‘I answer “No”; but it you were to put it to me on a dark night at Ladlow, I should beg time to consider. I do not believe in supernatural phenomena myself, and yet—the door at Ladlow is as much beyond my comprehension as the ebbing and flowing of the sea.’

‘And you can’t Live at Ladlow?’ remarked my uncle.

‘I can’t live at Ladlow, and what is more, I can’t get anyone else to live at Ladlow.’

‘And you want to get rid of your lease?’

‘I want so much to get rid of my lease that I told Fryer I would give him a handsome sum if he could induce anyone to solve the mystery. Is there any other information you desire, Mr Dorland? Because if there is, you have only to ask and have. I feel I am not here in a prosaic office in the city of London, but in the Palace of Truth.’

My uncle took no notice of the implied compliment. When wine is good it needs no bush. If a man is habitually honest in his speech and in his thoughts, he desires no recognition of the fact.

‘I don’t think so,’ he answered; ‘it is for the boy to say what he will do. If he be advised by me he will stick to his ordinary work in his employers’ office, and leave ghost-hunting and spirit-laying alone.’

Mr Garrison shot a rapid glance in my direction, a glance which, implying a secret understanding, might have influenced my uncle could I have stooped to deceive my uncle.

‘I can’t stick to my work there any longer,’ I said. ‘I got my marching orders today.’

‘What had you been doing, Phil?’ asked my uncle.

‘I wanted ten pounds to go and lay the ghost!’ I answered, so dejectedly, that both Mr Garrison and my uncle broke out laughing.

‘Ten pounds!’ cried my uncle, almost between laughing and crying. ‘Why, Phil boy, I had rather, poor man though I am, have given thee ten pounds than that thou should’st go ghost-hunting or ghostlaying.’

When he was very much in earnest my uncle went back to the thee and thou of his native dialect. I liked the vulgarism, as my mother called it, and I knew my aunt loved to hear him use the caressing words to her. He had risen, not quite from the ranks it is true, but if ever a gentleman came ready born into the world it was Robert Dorland, upon whom at our home everyone seemed to look down.

‘What will you do, Edlyd?’ asked Mr Garrison; ‘you hear what your uncle says, “Give up the enterprise,” and what I say; I do not want either to bribe or force your inclinations.’

‘I will go, sir,’ I answered quite steadily. I am not afraid, and I should like to show you—’ I stopped. I had been going to say, ‘I should like to show you I am not such a fool as you all take me for’, but I felt such an address would be too familiar, and refrained.

Mr Garrison looked at me curiously. I think he supplied the end of the sentence for himself, but he only answered:

‘I should like you to show me that door fast shut; at any rate, if you can stay in the place alone for a fortnight, you shall have your money.’

‘I don’t like it, Phil,’ said my uncle: ‘I don’t like this freak at all.’

‘I am sorry for that, uncle,’ I answered, ‘for I mean to go.

‘When?’ asked Mr Garrison.

‘Tomorrow morning,’ I replied.

‘Give him five pounds, Dorland, please, and I will send you my cheque. You will account to me for that sum, you understand,’ added Mr Garrison, turning to where I stood.

‘A sovereign will be quite enough,’ I said.

‘You will take five pounds, and account to me for it,’ repeated Mr Garrison, firmly; ‘also, you will write to me every day, to my private address, and if at any moment you feel the thing too much for you, throw it up. Good afternoon,’ and without more formal leavetaking he departed.

‘It is of no use talking to you, Phil, I suppose?’ said my uncle.

‘I don’t think it is,’ I replied; ‘you won’t say anything to them at home, will you?’

‘I am not very likely to meet any of them, am I?’ he answered, without a shade of bitterness—-merely stating a fact.

‘I suppose I shall not see you again before I start,’ I said, ‘so I will bid you goodbye now.

‘Goodbye, my lad; I wish I could see you a bit wiser and steadier.’

I did not answer him; my heart was very full, and my eyes too. I had tried, but office-work was not in me, and I felt it was just as vain to ask me to sit on a stool and pore over writing and figures as to think a person born destitute of musical ability could compose an opera.

Of course I went straight to Patty; though we were not then married, though sometimes it seemed to me as if we never should be married, she was my better half then as she is my better half now.

She did not throw cold water on the project; she did not discourage me. What she said, with her dear face aglow with excitement, was, ‘I only wish, Phil, I was going with you.’ Heaven knows, so did I.

Next morning I was up before the milkman. I had told my people overnight I should be going out of town on business. Patty and I settled the whole plan in detail. I was to breakfast and dress there, for I meant to go down to Ladlow in my volunteer garments. That was a subject upon which my poor father and I never could agree; he called volunteering child’s play, and other things equally hard to bear; whilst my brother, a very carpet warrior to my mind, was never weary of ridiculing the force, and chaffing me for imagining I was ‘a soldier’.

Patty and I had talked matters over, and settled, as I have said, that I should dress at her father’s.

A young fellow I knew had won a revolver at a raffle, and willingly lent it to me. With that and my rifle I felt I could conquer an army.

It was a lovely afternoon when I found myself walking through leafy lanes in the heart of Meadowshire. With every vein of my heart I loved the country, and the country was looking its best just then: grass ripe for the mower, grain forming in the ear, rippling streams, dreamy rivers, old orchards, quaint cottages.

‘Oh that I had never to go back to London,’ I thought, for I am one of the few people left on earth who love the country and hate cities. I walked on, I walked a long way, and being uncertain as to my road, asked a gentleman who was slowly riding a powerful roan horse under arching trees—a gentleman accompanied by a young lady mounted on a stiff white pony—my way to Ladlow Hall.

‘That is Ladlow Hall,’ he answered, pointing with his whip over the fence to my left hand. I thanked him and was going on, when he said:

‘No one is living there now.’

‘I am aware of that,’ I answered.

He did not say anything more, only courteously bade me good-day, and rode off. The young lady inclined her head in acknowledgement of my uplifted cap, and smiled kindly. Altogether I felt pleased, little things always did please me. It was a good beginning—half-way to a good ending!

When I got to the Lodge I showed Mr Garrison’s letter to the woman, and received the key.

‘You are not going to stop up at the Hall alone, are you, sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I am,’ I answered, uncompromisingly, so uncompromisingly that she said no more.

The avenue led straight to the house; it was uphill all the way, and bordered by rows of the most magnificent limes I ever beheld. A light iron fence divided the avenue from the park, and between the trunks of the trees I could see the deer browsing and cattle grazing. Ever and anon there came likewise to my ear the sound of a sheep-bell.

It was a long avenue, but at length I stood in front of the Hall—a square, solid-looking, old-fashioned house, three stories high, with no basement; a flight of steps up to the principal entrance; four windows to the right of the door, four windows to the left; the whole building flanked and backed with trees; all the blinds pulled down, a dead silence brooding over the place: the sun westering behind the great trees studding the park. I took all this in as I approached, and afterwards as I stood for a moment under the ample porch; then, remembering the business which had brought me so far, I fitted the great key in the lock, turned the handle, and entered Ladlow Hall.

For a minute—stepping out of the bright sunlight—the place looked to me so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the objects by which I was surrounded; but my eyes soon grew accustomed to the comparative darkness, and I found I was in an immense hall, lighted from the roof, a magnificent old oak staircase conducted to the upper rooms.

The floor was of black and white marble. There were two fireplaces, fitted with dogs [2] for burning wood; around the walls hung pictures, antlers, and horns, and in odd niches and corners stood groups of statues, and the figures of men in complete suits of armour.

To look at the place outside, no one would have expected to find such a hall. I stood lost in amazement and admiration, and then I began to glance more particularly around.

Mr Garrison had not given me any instructions by which to identify the ghostly chamber—-which I concluded would most probably be found on the first floor.

I knew nothing of the story connected with it—if there were a story. On that point I had left London as badly provided mentaly as with actual luggage—worse provided, indeed, for a hamper, packed by Patty, and a small bag were coming over from the station; but regarding the mystery I was perfectly unencumbered. I had not the faintest idea in which apartment it resided.

Well, I should discover that, no doubt, for myself ere long.

I looked around me—doors—doors—doors I had never before seen so many doors together all at once. Two of them stood open—one wide, the other slightly ajar.

‘I’ll just shut them as a beginning,’ I thought, ‘before I go upstairs.’

The doors were of oak, heavy, well-fitting, furnished with good locks and sound handles. After I had closed I tried them. Yes, they were quite secure. I ascended the great staircase feeling curiously like an intruder, paced the corridors, entered the many bed-chambers—some quite bare of furniture, others containing articles of an ancient fashion, and no doubt of considerable value—chairs, antique dressing-tables, curious wardrobes, and such like. For the most part the doors were closed, and I shut those that stood open before making my way into the attics.

I was greatly delighted with the attics. The windows lighting them did not, as a rule, overlook the front of the Hall, but commanded wide views over wood, and valley, and meadow. Leaning out of one, I could see, that to the right of the Hall the ground, thickly planted, shelved down to a stream, which came out into the daylight a little distance beyond the plantation, and meandered through the deer park. At the back of the Hall the windows looked out on nothing save a dense wood and a portion of the stable-yard, whilst on the side nearest the point from whence I had come there were spreading gardens surrounded by thick yew hedges, and kitchen-gardens protected by high walls; and further on a farmyard, where I could perceive cows and oxen, and, further still, luxuriant meadows, and fields glad with waving corn.

‘What a beautiful place!’ I said. ‘Garrison must have been a duffer to leave it.’ And then I thought what a great ramshackle house it was for anyone to be in all alone.

Getting heated with my long walk, I suppose, made me feel chilly, for I shivered as I drew my head in from the last dormer window, and prepared to go downstairs again.

In the attics, as in the other parts of the house I had as yet explored, I closed the doors, when there were keys locking them; when there were not, trying them, and in all cases, leaving them securely fastened.

When I reached the ground floor the evening was drawing on apace, and I felt that if I wanted to explore the whole house before dusk I must hurry my proceedings.

‘I’ll take the kitchens next,’ I decided, and so made my way to a wilderness of domestic offices lying to the rear of the great hall. Stone passages, great kitchens, an immense servants’-hall, larders, pantries, coal-cellars, beer-cellars, laundries, brewhouses, housekeeper’s room—it was not of any use lingering over these details. The mystery that troubled Mr Garrison could scarcely lodge amongst cinders and empty bottles, and there did not seem much else left in this part of the building.

I would go through the living-rooms, and then decide as to the apartments I should occupy myself.

The evening shadows were drawing on apace, so I hurried back into the hall, feeling it was a weird position to be there all alone with those ghostly hollow figures of men in armour, and the statues on which the moon’s beams must fall so coldly. I would just look through the lower apartments and then kindle a fire. I had seen quantities of wood in a cupboard close at hand, and felt that beside a blazing hearth, and after a good cup of tea, I should not feel the solitary sensation which was oppressing me.

The sun had sunk below the horizon by this time, for to reach Ladlow I had been obliged to travel by cross lines of railway, and wait besides for such trains as condescended to carry third-class passengers; but there was still light enough in the hail to see all objects distinctly. With my own eyes I saw that one of the doors I had shut with my own hands was standing wide!

I turned to the door on the other side of the hail. It was as I had left it—closed. This, then, was the room—this with the open door For a second I stood appalled; I think I was fairly frightened.

That did not last long, however. There lay the work I had desired to undertake, the foe I had offered to fight; so without more ado I shut the door and tried it.

‘Now I will walk to the end of the hall and see what happens,’ I considered. I did so. I walked to the foot of the grand staircase and back again, and looked.

The door stood wide open.

I went into the room, after just a spasm of irresolution—went in and pulled up the blinds: a good-sized room, twenty by twenty (I knew, because I paced it afterwards), lighted by two long windows.

The floor, of polished oak, was partially covered with a Turkey carpet. There were two recesses beside the fireplace, one fitted up as a bookcase, the other with an old and elaborately caned cabinet. I was astonished also to find a bedstead in an apartment so little retired from the traffic of the house; and there were also some chairs of an obsolete make, covered, so far as I could make out, with Faded tapestry. Beside the bedstead, which stood against the wall opposite to the door, I perceived another door. It was fast locked, the only locked door I had as yet met within the interior of the house. It was a dreary, gloomy room: the dark panelled walls; the black, shining floor; the windows high from the ground; the antique furniture; the dull four-poster bedstead, with dingy velvet curtains; the gaping chimney; the silk counterpane that looked like a pall.

‘Any crime might have been committed in such a room,’ I thought pettishly; and then I looked at the door critically.

Someone had been at the trouble of fitting bolts upon it, for when I passed out I not merely shut the door securely, but bolted it as well.

‘I will go and get some wood, and then look at it again,’ I soliloquized. When I came back it stood wide open once more.

‘Stay open, then!’ I cried in a fury. ‘I won’t trouble myself any more with you tonight!’

Almost as I spoke the words, there came a ring at the front door. Echoing through the desolate house, the peal in the then state of my nerves startled me beyond expression.

It was only the man who had agreed to bring over my traps [3]. I bade him lay them down in the hall, and, while looking out some small silver, asked where the nearest post-office was to be found. Not far from the park gates, he said; if I wanted any letter sent, he would drop it in the box for me; the mail-cart picked up the bag at ten o’clock.

I had nothing ready to post then, and told him so. Perhaps the money I gave was more than he expected, or perhaps the dreariness of my position impressed him as it had impressed me, for he paused with his hand on the lock, and asked:

‘Are you going to stop here all alone, master?’

‘All alone,’ I answercd, with such cheerfulness as was possible under the circumstances.

‘That’s the room, you know,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the open door, and dropping his voice to a whisper.

‘Yes, I know,’ I replied.

‘What you’ve been trying to shut it already, have you? Well, you are a game one!’ And with this complementary if not very respectful comment he hastened out of the house. Evidently he had no intention of proffering his services towards the solution of the mystery.

I cast one glance at the door—it stood wide open. Through the windows I had left bare to the night, moonlight was beginning to stream cold and silvery. Before I did aught else I felt I must write to Mr Garrison and Patty, so straightway I hurried to one of the great tables in the hall, and lighting a candle my thoughtful girl had provided, with many other things, sat down and dashed off the two epistles.

Then down the long avenue, with its mysterious lights and shades, with the moonbeams glinting here and there, playing at hide-and-seek round the boles of the trees and through the tracery of quivering leaf and stem, I walked as fast as if I were doing a march against time.

It was delicious, the scent of the summer odours, the smell of the earth; if it had not been for the door I should have felt too happy. As it was—’Look here, Phil,’ I said, all of a sudden; ‘life’s not child’s play, as uncle truly remarks. That door is just the trouble you have now to face, and you must face it! But for that door you would never have been here. I hope you are not going to turn coward the very first night. Courage!—that is your enemy—conquer it.’

‘I will try,’ my other self answered back. ‘I can but try. I can but fail.’

The post-office was at Ladlow Hollow, a little hamlet through which the stream I had remarked dawdling on its way across the park flowed swiftly, spanned by an ancient bridge.

As I stood by the door of the little shop, asking some questions of the postmistress, the same gentleman I had met in the afternoon mounted on his roan horse, passed on foot. He wished me goodnight as he went by, and nodded familiarly to my companion, who curtseyed her acknowledgements.

‘His lordship ages fast,’ she remarked, following the retreating figure with her eyes.

‘His lordship,’ I repeated. ‘Of whom are you speaking?’

‘Of Lord Ladlow,’ she said.

‘Oh! I have never seen him,’ I answered, puzzled.

‘Why, that was Lord Ladlow!’ she exclaimed.

You may be sure I had something to think about as I walked back to the Hall—something beside the moonlight and the sweet night-scents, and the rustle of beast and bird and leaf, that make silence seem more eloquent than noise away down in the heart of the country.

Lord Ladlow! my word, I thought he was hundreds, thousands of miles away; and here I find him—he walking in the opposite direction from his own home—I an inmate of his desolate abode. Hi!—what was that? I heard a noise in a shrubbery close at hand, and in an instant I was in the thick of the underwood. Something shot out and darted into the cover of the further plantation. I followed, but I could catch never a glimpse of it. I did not know the lie of the ground sufficiently to course it with success, and I had at length to give up the hunt—heated, baffled, and annoyed.

When I got into the house the moon’s beams were streaming down upon the hall; I could see every statue, every square of marble, every piece of armour. For all the world it seemed to me like something in a dream; but I was tired and sleepy, and decided I would not trouble about fire or food, or the open door, till the next morning: I would go to sleep.

With this intention I picked up some of my traps and carried them to a room on the first floor I had selected as small and habitable. I went down for the rest, and this time chanced to lay my hand on my rifle.

It was wet. I touched the floor—it was wet likewise.

I never felt anything like the thrill of delight which shot through me. I had to deal with flesh and blood, and I would deal with it, heaven helping me.

The next morning broke clear and bright. I was up with the lark—had washed, dressed, breakfasted, and explored the house before the postman came with my letters.

One from Mr Garrison, one from Patty, and one from my uncle: I gave the man half a crown, I was so delighted, and said I was afraid my being at the Hall would cause him some additional trouble.

‘No, sir,’ he answered, profuse in his expressions of gratitude; ‘I pass here every morning on my way to her ladyship’s.’

‘Who is her ladyship?’ I asked.

‘The Dowager Lady Ladlow,’ he answered—’the old lord’s widow.’

‘And where is her place?’ I persisted.

‘If you keep on through the shrubbery and across the waterfall, you come to the house about a quarter of a mile further up the stream.’

He departed, after telling me there was only one post a day; and I hurried back to the room in which I had breakfasted, carrying my letters with me.

I opened Mr Garrison’s first. The gist of it was, ‘Spare no expense; if you run short of money telegraph for it.’

I opened my uncle’s next. He implored me to return; he had always thought me hair-brained, but he felt a deep interest in and affection for me, and thought he could get me a good berth if I would only try to settle down and promise to stick to my work. The last was from Patty. O Patty, God bless you! Such women, I fancy, the men who fight best in battle, who stick last to a sinking ship, who are firm in life’s struggles, who are brave to resist temptation, must have known and loved. I can’t tell you more about the letter, except that it gave me strength to go on to the end.

I spent the forenoon [4] considering that door. I looked at it from within and from without. I eyed it critically. I tried discover whether there was any reason why it should fly open, and I found that so long as I remained on the threshold it remained closed; if I walked even so far away as the opposite side of the hall, it swung wide.

Do what I would, it burst from latch and bolt. I could not lock it because there was no key.

Well, before two o’clock I confess I was baffled.

At two there came a visitor—none other than Lord Ladlow himself. Sorely I wanted to take his horse round to the stables, but he would not hear of it.

‘Walk beside me across the park, if you will be so kind,’ he said; ‘I want to speak to you.

We went together across the park, and before we parted I felt I could have gone through fire and water for this simple-spoken nobleman.

‘You must not stay here ignorant of the rumours which are afloat,’ he said. ‘Of course, when I let the place to Mr Garrison I knew nothing of the open door.’

‘Did you not, sir?—my lord, I mean,’ I stammered.

He smiled. ‘Do not trouble yourself about my title, which, indeed, carries a very empty state with it, but talk to me as you might to a friend. I had no idea there was any ghost story connected with the Hall, or I should have kept the place empty.’

I did not exactly know what to answer, so I remained silent.

‘How did you chance to be sent here?’ he asked, after a pause.

I told him. When the first shock was over, a lord did not seem very different from anybody else. If an emperor had taken a morning canter across the park, I might, supposing him equally affable, have spoken as familiarly to him as to Lord Ladlow. My mother always said I entirely lacked the bump of veneration! Beginning at the beginning, I repeated the whole story, from Parton’s remark about the sovereign to Mr Garrison’s conversation with my uncle. When I had left London behind in the narrative, however, and arrived at the Hall, I became somewhat more reticent. After all, it was his Hall people could not live in—his door that would not keep shut; and it seemed to me these were facts he might dislike being forced upon his attention.

But he would have it. What had I seen? What did I think of the matter? Very honestly I told him I did not know what to say. The door certainly would not remain shut, and there seemed no human agency to account for its persistent opening; but then, on the other hand, ghosts generally did not tamper with firearms, and my rifle, though not loaded, had been tampered with—I was sure of that.

My companion listened attentively. ‘You are not frightened, are you?’ he enquired at length.

‘Not now,’ I answered. ‘The door did give me a start last evening, but I am not afraid of that since I find someone else is afraid of a bullet.’

He did not answer for a minute; then he said:

‘The theory people have set up about the open door is this: As in that room my uncle was murdered, they say the door will never remain shut till the murderer is discovered.’

‘Murdered!’ I did not like the word at all; it made me feel chill and uncomfortable.

‘Yes—he was murdered sitting in his chair, and the assassin has never been discovered. At first many people were inclined to the belief that I killed him; indeed, many are of that opinion still.’

‘But you did not, sir—there is not a word of truth in that story, is there?’

He laid his hand on my shoulder as he said:

‘No, my lad; not a word. I loved the old man tenderly. Even when he disinherited me for the sake of his young wife, I was sorry, but not angry; and when he sent for me and assured me he had resolved to repair that wrong, I tried to induce him to leave the lady a handsome sum in addition to her jointure. “If you do not, people may think she has not been the source of happiness you expected,” I added.

“Thank you, Hal,” he said. “You are a good fellow; we will talk further about this tomorrow.”

And then he bade me goodnight.

‘Before morning broke—it was in the summer two years ago—the household was aroused by a fearful scream. It was his death-cry. He had been stabbed from behind in the neck. He was seated in his chair writing—writing a letter to me. But for that I might have found it harder to clear myself than was the case; for his solicitors came forward and said he had signed a will leaving all his personalty to me—he was very rich—unconditionally, only three days previously. That, of course, supplied the motive, as my lady’s lawyer put it. She was very vindictive, spared no expense in trying to prove my guilt, and said openly she would never rest till she saw justice done, if it cost her the whole of her fortune. The letter lying before the dead man, over which blood had spurted, she declared must have been placed on his table by me; but the coroner saw there was an animus in this, for the few opening lines stated my uncle’s desire to confide in me his reasons for changing his will—reasons, he said, that involved his honour, as they had destroyed his peace. “In the statement you will find sealed up with my will in—” At that point he was dealt his death-blow. The papers were never found, and the will was never proved. My lady put in the former will, leaving her everything. Ill as I could afford to go to law, I was obliged to dispute the matter, and the lawyers are at it still, and very likely will continue at it for years.

When I lost my good name, I lost my good health, and had to go abroad; and while I was away Mr Garrison took the Hall. Till I returned, I never heard a word about the open door. My solicitor said Mr Garrison was behaving badly; but I think now I must see them or him, and consider what can be done in the affair. As for yourself, it is of vital importance to me that this mystery should be cleared up, and if you are really not timid, stay on. I am too poor to make rash promises, but you won’t find me ungrateful.’

‘Oh, my lord!’ I cried—the address slipped quite easily and naturally off my tongue—’I don’t want any more money or anything, if I can only show Patty’s father I am good for something—’

‘Who is Patty?’ he asked.

He read the answer in my face, for he said no more.

‘Should you like to have a good dog for company?’ he enquired after a pause.

I hesitated; then I said:

‘No, thank you. I would rather watch and hunt for myself.’

And as I spoke, the remembrance of that ‘something’ in the shrubbery recurred to me, and I told him I thought there had been someone about the place the previous evening.

‘Poachers,’ he suggested; but I shook my head.

‘A girl or a woman I imagine. However, I think a dog might hamper me.’

He went away, and I returned to the house. I never left it all day. I did not go into the garden, or the stable-yard, or the shrubbery, or anywhere; I devoted myself solely and exclusively to that door.

If I shut it once, I shut it a hundred times, and always with the same result. Do what I would, it swung wide. Never, however, when I was looking at it. So long as I could endure to remain, it stayed shut—the instant I turned my back, it stood open.

About four o’clock I had another visitor; no other than Lord Ladlow’s daughter—the Honourable Beatrice, riding her funny little white pony.

She was a beautiful girl of fifteen or thereabouts, and she had the sweetest smile you ever saw.

‘Papa sent me with this,’ she said; ‘he would not trust any other messenger,’ and she put a piece of paper in my hand.

‘Keep your food under lock and key; buy what you require yourself. Get your water from the pump in the stable-yard. I am going from home; but if you want anything, go or send to my daughter.’

‘Any answer?’ she asked, patting her pony’s neck.

‘Tell his lordship, if you please, I will “keep my powder dry”!’ I replied.

‘You have made papa look so happy,’ she said, still patting that fortunate pony.

‘If it is in my power, I will make him look happier still, Miss—-‘ and I hesitated, not knowing how to address her.

‘Call me Beatrice,’ she said, with an enchanting grace; then added, slily, ‘Papa promises me I shall be introduced to Patty ere long,’ and before I could recover from my astonishment, she had tightened the bit and was turning across the park.

‘One moment, please,’ I cried. ‘You can do something for me.’

‘What is it?’ and she came back, trotting over the great sweep in front of the house.

‘Lend me your pony for a minute.’

She was off before I could even offer to help her alight—off, and gathering up her habit dexterously with one hand, led the docile old sheep forward with the other.

I took the bridle—when I was with horses I felt amongst my own kind—stroked the pony, pulled his ears, and let him thrust his nose into my hand.

Miss Beatrice is a countess now, and a happy wife and mother; but I sometimes see her, and the other night she took me carefully into a conservatory and asked:

‘Do you remember Toddy, Mr Edlyd?’

‘Remember him!’ I exclaimed; ‘I can never forget him!’

‘He is dead!’ she told me, and there were tears in her beautiful eyes as she spoke the words.

‘Mr Edlyd, I loved Toddy!’

Well, I took Toddy up to the house, and under the third window to the right hand. He was a docile creature, and let me stand on the saddle while I looked into the only room in Ladlow Hall I had been unable to enter.

It was perfectly bare of furniture, there was not a thing in it—not a chair or table, not a picture on the walls, or ornament on the chimney-piece.

‘That is where my grand-uncle’s valet slept,’ said Miss Beatrice. ‘It was he who first ran in to help him the night he was murdered.’

‘Where is the valet?’ I asked.

‘Dead,’ she answered. ‘The shock killed him. He loved his master more than he loved himself.’

I had seen all I wished, so I jumped off the saddle, which I had carefully dusted with a branch plucked from a lilac tree; between jest and earnest I pressed the hem of Miss Beatrice’s habit to my lips as I arranged its folds; saw her wave her hand as she went at a hard-gallop across the park; and then turned back once again into the lonely house, with the determination to solve the mystery attached to it or die in the attempt.

Why, I cannot explain, but before I went to bed that night I drove a gimlet I found in the stables hard into the floor, and said to the door:

‘Now I am keeping you open.’

When I went down in the morning the door was close shut, and the handle of the gimlet, broken off short, lying in the hall.

I put my hand to wipe my forehead; it was dripping with perspiration. I did not know what to make of the place at all! I went out into the open air for a few minutes; when I returned the door again stood wide.

If I were to pursue in detail the days and nights that followed, I should weary my readers. I can only say they changed my life. The solitude, the solemnity, the mystery, produced an effect I do not profess to understand, but that I cannot regret.

I have hesitated about writing of the end, but it must come, so let me hasten to it.

Though feeling convinced that no human agency did or could keep the door open, I was certain that some living person had means of access to the house which I could not discover, This was made apparent in trifles which might well have escaped unnoticed had several, or even two people occupied the mansion, but that in my solitary position it was impossible to overlook. A chair would be misplaced, for instance; a path would be visible over a dusty floor; my papers I found were moved; my clothes touched—letters I carried about with me, and kept under my pillow at night; still, the fact remained that when I went to the post-office, and while I was asleep, someone did wander over the house. On Lord Ladlow’s return I meant to ask him for some further particulars of his uncle’s death, and I was about to write to Mr Garrison and beg permission to have the door where the valet had slept broken open, when one morning, very early indeed, I spied a hairpin lying close beside it.

What an idiot I had been! If I wanted to solve the mystery of the open door, of course I must keep watch in the room itself. The door would not stay wide unless there was a reason for it, and most certainly a hairpin could not have got into the house without assistance.

I made up my mind what I should do—that I would go to the post early, and take up my position about the hour I had hitherto started for Ladlow Hollow. I felt on the eve of a discovery, and longed for the day to pass, that the night might come.

It was a lovely morning; the weather had been exquisite during the whole week, and I flung the hall-door wide to let in the sunshine and the breeze. As I did so, I saw there was a basket on the top step—a basket filled with rare and beautiful fruit and flowers.

Mr Garrison had let off the gardens attached to Ladlow Hall for the season—he thought he might as well save something out of the fire, he said, so my fare had not been varied with delicacies of that kind. I was very fond of fruit in those days, and seeing a card addressed to me, I instantly selected a tempting peach, and ate it a little greedily perhaps.

I might say I had barely swallowed the last morsel, when Lord Ladlow’s caution recurred to me. The fruit had a curious flavour—there was a strange taste hanging about my palate. For a moment, sky, trees and park swam before my eyes; then I made up my mind what to do.

I smelt the fruit—it had all the same faint odour; then I put some in my pocket—took the basket and locked it away—walked round to the farmyard—asked for the loan of a horse that was generally driven in a light cart, and in less than half an hour was asking in Ladlow to be directed to a doctor.

Rather cross at being disturbed so early, he was at first inclined to pooh-pooh my idea; but I made him cut open a pear and satisfy himself the fruit had been tampered with.

‘It is fortunate you stopped at the first peach,’ he remarked, after giving me a draught, and some medicine to take back, and advising me to keep in the open air as much as possible. ‘I should like to retain this fruit and see you again tomorrow.’

We did not think then on how many morrows we should see each other!

Riding across to Ladlow, the postman had given me three letters, but I did not read them till I was seated under a great tree in the park, with a basin of milk and a piece of bread beside me.

Hitherto, there had been nothing exciting in my correspondence. Patty’s epistles were always delightful, but they could not be regarded as sensational; and about Mr Garrison’s there was a monotony I had begun to find tedious. On this occasion, however, no fault could be found on that score. The contents of his letter greatly surprised me. He said Lord Ladlow had released him from his bargain—that I could, therefore, leave the Hall at once. He enclosed me ten pounds, and said he would consider how he could best advance my interests; and that I had better call upon him at his private house when I returned to London.

‘I do not think I shall leave Ladlow yet awhile,’ I considered, as I replaced his letter in its envelope. ‘Before I go I should like to make it hot for whoever sent me that fruit; so unless Lord Ladlow turns me out I’ll stay a little longer.’

Lord Ladlow did not wish me to leave. The third letter was from him.

‘I shall return home tomorrow night,’ he wrote, ‘and see you on Wednesday. I have arranged satisfactorily with Mr Garrison, and as the Hall is my own again, I mean to try to solve the mystery it contains myself. If you choose to stop and help me to do so, you would confer a favour, and I will try to make it worth your while.’

‘I will keep watch tonight, and see if I cannot give you some news tomorrow,’ I thought. And then I opened Patty’s letter—the best, dearest, sweetest letter any postman in all the world could have brought me.

If it had not been for what Lord Ladlow said about his sharing my undertaking, I should not have chosen that night for my vigil. I felt ill and languid—fancy, no doubt, to a great degree inducing these sensations. I had lost energy in a most unaccountable manner. The long, lonely days had told upon my spirits—the fidgety feeling which took me a hundred times in the twelve hours to look upon the open door, to close it, and to count how many steps I could take before it opened again, had tried my mental strength as a perpetual blister might have worn away my physical. In no sense was I fit for the task I had set myself, and yet I determined to go through with it. Why had I never before decided to watch in that mysterious chamber? Had I been at the bottom of my heart afraid? In the bravest of us there are depths of cowardice that lurk unsuspected till they engulf our courage.

The day wore on—the long, dreary day; evening approached—the night shadows closed over the Hall. The moon would not rise for a couple of hours more. Everything was still as death. The house had never before seemed to me so silent and so deserted.

I took a light, and went up to my accustomed room, moving about for a time as though preparing for bed; then I extinguished the candle, softly opened the door, turned the key, and put it in my pocket, slipped softly downstairs, across the hail, through the open door. Then I knew I had been afraid, for I felt a thrill of terror as in the dark I stepped over the threshold. I paused and listened—there was not a sound—the night was still and sultry, as though a storm were brewing.

Not a leaf seemed moving—the very mice remained in their holes! Noiselessly I made my way to the other side of the room. There was an old-fashioned easy-chair between the bookshelves and the bed; I sat down in it, shrouded by the heavy curtain.

The hours passed—were ever hours so long? The moon rose, came and looked in at the windows, and then sailed away to the west; but not a sound, no, not even the cry of a bird. I seemed to myself a mere collection of nerves. Every part of my body appeared twitching. It was agony to remain still; the desire to move became a form of torture. Ah! a streak in the sky; morning at last, Heaven be praised! Had ever anyone before so welcomed the dawn? A thrush began to sing—was there ever heard such delightful music? It was the morning twilight, soon the sun would rise; soon that awful vigil would be over, and yet I was no nearer the mystery than before. Hush! what was that? It had come. After the hours of watching and waiting; after the long night and the long suspense, it came in a moment.

The locked door opened—so suddenly, so silently, that I had barely time to draw back behind the curtain, before I saw a woman in the room. She went straight across to the other door and closed it, securing it as I saw with bolt and lock. Then just glancing around, she made her way to the cabinet, and with a key she produced shot back the wards [5]. I did not stir, I scarcely breathed, and yet she seemed uneasy. Whatever she wanted to do she evidently was in haste to finish, for she took out the drawers one by one, and placed them on the floor; then, as the light grew better, I saw her first kneel on the floor, and peer into every aperture, and subsequently repeat the same process, standing on a chair she drew forward for the purpose. A slight, lithe woman, not a lady, clad all in black—not a bit of white about her. What on earth could she want? In a moment it flashed upon me—THE WILL AND THE LETTER! SHE IS SEARCHING FOR THEM.

I sprang from my concealment—I had her in my grasp; but she tore herself out of my hands, fighting like a wild-cat: she hit, scratched, kicked, shifting her body as though she had not a bone in it, and at last slipped herself free, and ran wildly towards the door by which she had entered.

If she reached it, she would escape me. I rushed across the room and just caught her dress as she was on the threshold. My blood was up, and I dragged her back: she had the strength of twenty devils, I think, and struggled as surely no woman ever did before.

‘I do not want to kill you,’ I managed to say in gasps, ‘but I will if you do not keep quiet.’

‘Bah!’ she cried; and before I knew what she was doing she had the revolver out of my pocket and fired.

She missed: the ball just glanced off my sleeve. I fell upon her—I can use no other expression, for it had become a fight for life, and no man can tell the ferocity there is in him till he is placed as I was then—fell upon her, and seized the weapon. She would not let it go, but I held her so tight she could not use it. She bit my face; with her disengaged hand she tore my hair. She turned and twisted and slipped about like a snake, but I did not feel pain or anything except a deadly horror lest my strength should give out.

Could I hold out much longer? She made one desperate plunge, I felt the grasp with which I held her slackening; she felt it too, and seizing her advantage tore herself free, and at the same instant fired again blindly, and again missed.

Suddenly there came a look of horror into her eyes—a frozen expression of fear.

‘See!’ she cried; and flinging the revolver at me, fled.

I saw, as in a momentary flash, that the door I had beheld locked stood wide—that there stood beside the table an awful figure, with uplifted hand—and then I saw no more. I was struck at last; as she threw the revolver at me she must have pulled the trigger, for I felt something like red-hot iron enter my shoulder, and I could but rush from the room before I fell senseless on the marble pavement of the hall.

When the postman came that morning, finding no one stirring, be looked through one of the long windows that flanked the door; then he ran to the farmyard and called for help.

‘There is something wrong inside,’ he cried. ‘That young gentleman is lying on the floor in a pool of blood.’

As they rushed round to the front of the house they saw Lord Ladlow riding up the avenue, and breathlessly told him what had happened.

‘Smash in one of the windows,’ be said; ‘and go instantly for a doctor.’

They laid me on the bed in that terrible room, and telegraphed for my father. For long I hovered between life and death, but at length I recovered sufficiently to be removed to the house Lord Ladlow owned on the other side of the Hollow.

Before that time I had told him all I knew, and begged him to make instant search for the will.

‘Break up the cabinet if necessary,’ I entreated, ‘I am sure the papers are there.’

And they were. His lordship got his own, and as to the scandal and the crime, one was hushed up and the other remained unpunished. The dowager and her maid went abroad the very morning I lay on the marble pavement at Ladlow Hall—they never returned.

My lord made that one condition of his silence.

Not in Meadowshire, but in a fairer county still, I have a farm which I manage, and make both ends meet comfortably.

Patty is the best wife any man ever possessed—and I—well, I am just as happy if a trifle more serious than of old; but there are times when a great horror of darkness seems to fall upon me, and at such periods I cannot endure to be left alone.

Charlotte Riddell (1832 – 1906)

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1. In Victorian England, poor rates were local taxes governed at the parochial level. The money collected from householders was used to help those who were unable to work or on incomes too low to support their families. Institutions such as workhouses and poorhouses were a key part of the Poor Law benefits system. [Further Reading]

2. The term dogs appears to be short for fire dogs. During the Victorian era, fireplaces were often equipped with andirons (or fire dogs), which were used for supporting the wood being used as fuel.

3. Traps is an old word meaning luggage.

4. Modern readers may be unfamiliar with the term forenoon. Just as afternoon refers to the period from noon until sunset, forenoon refers to the time between sunrise and noon. It’s an archaic word that’s no longer in common use.

5. Wards refers to the projecting pieces of metal in lock casings, or keyholes, that only accepts keys with the correct corresponding notches.

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