Best Horror Novels

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

December 12th, 1747. — My life has been strangely bound up with

extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had any

connection with the principal actors in them, or, indeed, before I

even knew of their existence. I suppose, most old men are, like me,

more given to looking back upon their own career with a kind of

fond interest and affectionate remembrance, than to watching the

events — though these may have far more interest for the multitude

— immediately passing before their eyes. If this should be the case

with the generality of old people, how much more so with me!… If I

am to enter upon that strange story connected with poor Lucy, I

must begin a long way back. I myself only came to the knowledge of

her family history after I knew her; but, to make the tale clear to

any one else, I must arrange events in the order in which they

occurred — not that in which I became acquainted with them.

There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a

part they call the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district

named Craven. Starkey Manor-House is rather like a number of rooms

clustered round a grey, massive, old keep than a regularly-built

hall. Indeed, I suppose that the house only consisted of the great

tower in the centre, in the days when the Scots made their raids

terrible as far south as this; and that after the Stuarts came in,

and there was a little more security of property in those parts,

the Starkeys of that time added the lower building, which runs, two

stories high, all round the base of the keep. There has been a

grand garden laid out in my days, on the southern slope near the

house; but when I first knew the place, the kitchen-garden at the

farm was the only piece of cultivated ground belonging to it. The

deer used to come within sight of the drawing-room windows, and

might have browsed quite close up to the house if they had not been

too wild and shy. Starkey Manor-House itself stood on a projection

or peninsula of high land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that

form the sides of the Trough of Bolland. These hills were rocky and

bleak enough towards their summit; lower down they were clothed

with tangled copsewood and green depths of fern, out of which a

grey giant of an ancient forest-tree would tower here and there,

throwing up its ghastly white branches, as if in imprecation, to

the sky. These trees, they told me, were the remnants of that

forest which existed in the days of the Heptarchy, and were even

then noted as landmarks. No wonder that their upper and more

exposed branches were leafless, and that the dead bark had peeled

away, from sapless old age.

Not far from the house there were a few cottages, apparently of

the same date as the keep, probably built for some retainers of the

family, who sought shelter — they and their families and their

small flocks and herds — at the hands of their feudal lord. Some of

them had pretty much fallen to decay. They were built in a strange

fashion. Strong beams had been sunk firm in the ground at the

requisite distance, and their other ends had been fastened

together, two and two, so as to form the shape of one of those

rounded waggon-headed gipsy-tents, only very much larger. The

spaces between were filled with mud, stones, osiers, rubbish,

mortar — anything to keep out the weather. The fires were made in

the centre of these rude dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the

only chimney. No Highland hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher

construction.

The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present

century, was a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to

the old faith, and were staunch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even

a sin to marry any one of Protestant descent, however willing he or

she might have been to embrace the Romish religion. Mr. Patrick

Starkey's father had been a follower of James the Second; and,

during the disastrous Irish campaign of that monarch, he had fallen

in love with an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as zealous for her

religion and for the Stuarts as himself. He had returned to Ireland

after his escape to France, and married her, bearing her back to

the court at St. Germains. But some licence on the part of the

disorderly gentlemen who surrounded King James in his exile, had

insulted his beautiful wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from

St. Germains to Antwerp, whence, in a few years' time, he quietly

returned to Starkey Manor-House — some of his Lancashire neighbours

having lent their good offices to reconcile him to the powers that

were. He was as firm a Roman Catholic as ever, and as staunch an

advocate for the Stuarts and the divine right of kings; but his

religion almost amounted to asceticism, and the conduct of those

with whom he had been brought in such close contact at St. Germains

would little bear the inspection of a stern moralist. So he gave

his allegiance where he could not give his esteem, and learned to

respect sincerely the upright and moral character of one whom he

yet regarded as an usurper. King William's government had little

need to fear such a one. So he returned, as I have said, with a

sobered heart and impoverished fortunes, to his ancestral house,

which had fallen sadly to ruin while the owner had been a courtier,

a soldier, and an exile. The roads into the Trough of Bolland were

little more than cart-ruts; indeed, the way up to the house lay

along a ploughed field before you came to the deer-park. Madam, as

the country-folk used to call Mrs. Starkey, rode on a pillion

behind her husband, holding on to him with a light hand by his

leather riding-belt. Little master (he that was afterwards Squire

Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a serving-man. A

woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strong step, by the

cart that held much of the baggage; and, high up on the mails and

boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on the

topmost trunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the

cart rocked and shook in the heavy roads of late autumn. The girl

wore the Antwerp faille, or black Spanish mantle over her head, and

altogether her appearance was such that the old cottager, who

described the procession to me many years after, said that all the

country-folk took her for a foreigner. Some dogs, and the boy who

held them in charge, made up the company. They rode silently along,

looking with grave, serious eyes at the people, who came out of the

scattered cottages to bow or curtsy to the real Squire, 'come back

at last,' and gazed after the little procession with gaping wonder,

not deadened by the sound of the foreign language in which the few

necessary words that passed among them were spoken. One lad, called

from his staring by the Squire to come and help about the cart,

accompanied them to the Manor-House. He said that when the lady had

descended from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom I have

described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly

forward, and taking Madam Starkey (who was of a slight and delicate

figure) in her arms, she lifted her over the threshold, and set her

down in her husband's house, at the same time uttering a passionate

and outlandish blessing. The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at

first; but when the words of blessing were pronounced, he took off

his fine feathered hat, and bent his head. The girl with the black

mantle stepped onward into the shadow of the dark hall, and kissed

the lady's hand; and that was all the lad could tell to the group

that gathered round him on his return, eager to hear everything,

and to know how much the Squire had given him for his services.

From all I could gather, the Manor-House, at the time of the

Squire's return, was in the most dilapidated state. The stout grey

walls remained firm and entire; but the inner chambers had been

used for all kinds of purposes. The great withdrawing-room had been

a barn; the state tapestry-chamber had held wool, and so on. But,

by-and-by, they were cleared out; and if the Squire had no money to

spend on new furniture, he and his wife had the knack of making the

best of the old. He was no despicable joiner; she had a kind of

grace in whatever she did, and imparted an air of elegant

picturesqueness to whatever she touched. Besides, they had brought

many rare things from the Continent; perhaps I should rather say,

things that were rare in that part of England — carvings, and

crosses, and beautiful pictures. And then, again, wood was

plentiful in the Trough of Bolland, and great log-fires danced and

glittered in all the dark, old rooms, and gave a look of home and

comfort to everything.

Why do I tell you all this? I have little to do with the Squire

and Madam Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, as if I were

unwilling to come to the real people with whom my life was so

strangely mixed up. Madam had been nursed in Ireland by the very

woman who lifted her in her arms, and welcomed her to her husband's

home in Lancashire. Excepting for the short period of her own

married life, Bridget Fitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her

marriage — to one above her in rank — had been unhappy. Her husband

had died, and left her in even greater poverty than that in which

she was when he had first met with her. She had one child, the

beautiful daughter who came riding on the waggon-load of furniture

that was brought to the Manor-House. Madam Starkey had taken her

again into her service when she became a widow. She and her

daughter had followed 'the mistress' in all her fortunes; they had

lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now come to her home

in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived there, the Squire

gave her a cottage of her own, and took more pains in furnishing it

for her than he did in anything else out of his own house. It was

only nominally her residence. She was constantly up at the great

house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods from her own

home to the home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in like

manner, moved from one house to the other at her own will. Madam

loved both mother and child dearly. They had great influence over

her, and, through her, over her husband. Whatever Bridget or Mary

willed was sure to come to pass. They were not disliked; for,

though wild and passionate, they were also generous by nature. But

the other servants were afraid of them, as being in secret the

ruling spirits of the household. The Squire had lost his interest

in all secular things; Madam was gentle, affectionate, and

yielding. Both husband and wife were tenderly attached to each

other and to their boy; but they grew more and more to shun the

trouble of decision on any point; and hence it was that Bridget

could exert such despotic power. But if every one else yielded to

her 'magic of a superior mind,' her daughter not unfrequently

rebelled. She and her mother were too much alike to agree. There

were wild quarrels between them, and wilder reconciliations. There

were times when, in the heat of passion, they could have stabbed

each other. At all other times they both — Bridget especially —

would have willingly laid down their lives for one another.

Bridget's love for her child lay very deep — deeper than that

daughter ever knew; or I should think she would never have wearied

of home as she did, and prayed her mistress to obtain for her some

situation — as waiting-maid — beyond the seas, in that more

cheerful continental life, among the scenes of which so many of her

happiest years had been spent. She thought, as youth thinks, that

life would last for ever, and that two or three years were but a

small portion of it to pass away from her mother, whose only child

she was. Bridget thought differently, but was too proud ever to

show what she felt. If her child wished to leave her, why — she

should go. But people said Bridget became ten years older in the

course of two months at this time. She took it that Mary wanted to

leave her. The truth was, that Mary wanted for a time to leave the

place, and to seek some change, and would thankfully have taken her

mother with her. Indeed, when Madam Starkey had gotten her a

situation with some grand lady abroad, and the time drew near for

her to go, it was Mary who clung to her mother with passionate

embrace, and, with floods of tears, declared that she would never

leave her; and it was Bridget, who at last loosened her arms, and,

grave and tearless herself, bade her keep her word, and go forth

into the wide world. Sobbing aloud, and looking back continually,

Mary went away. Bridget was still as death, scarcely drawing her

breath, or closing her stony eyes; till at last she turned back

into her cottage, and heaved a ponderous old settle against the

door. There she sat, motionless, over the grey ashes of her

extinguished fire, deaf to Madam's sweet voice, as she begged leave

to enter and comfort her nurse. Deaf, stony, and motionless, she

sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third time, Madam

came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying with her

a young spaniel, which had been Mary's pet up at the hall, and

which had not ceased all night long to seek for its absent

mistress, and to whine and moan after her. With tears Madam told

this story, through the closed door — tears excited by the terrible

look of anguish, so steady, so immovable — so the same to-day as it

was yesterday — on her nurse's face. The little creature in her

arms began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold.

Bridget stirred; she moved — she listened. Again that long whine;

she thought it was for her daughter; and what she had denied to her

nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that Mary

had cherished. She opened the door, and took the dog from Madam's

arms. Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old woman,

who took but little notice of her or anything. And sending up

Master Patrick to the hall for fire and food, the sweet young lady

never left her nurse all that night. Next day, the Squire himself

came down, carrying a beautiful foreign picture: Our Lady of the

Holy Heart, the Papists call it. It is a picture of the Virgin, her

heart pierced with arrows, each arrow representing one of her great

woes. That picture hung in Bridget's cottage when I first saw her;

I have that picture now.