Best Horror Novels

Chapter 1-2

Years went on. Mary was still abroad. Bridget was still and

stern, instead of active and passionate. The little dog, Mignon,

was indeed her darling. I have heard that she talked to it

continually; although, to most people, she was so silent. The

Squire and Madam treated her with the greatest consideration, and

well they might; for to them she was as devoted and faithful as

ever. Mary wrote pretty often, and seemed satisfied with her life.

But at length the letters ceased — I hardly know whether before or

after a great and terrible sorrow came upon the house of the

Starkeys. The Squire sickened of a putrid fever; and Madam caught

it in nursing him, and died. You may be sure, Bridget let no other

woman tend her but herself; and in the very arms that had received

her at her birth, that sweet young woman laid her head down, and

gave up her breath. The Squire recovered, in a fashion. He was

never strong — he had never the heart to smile again. He fasted and

prayed more than ever; and people did say that he tried to cut off

the entail, and leave all the property away to found a monastery

abroad, of which he prayed that some day little Squire Patrick

might be the reverend father. But he could not do this, for the

strictness of the entail and the laws against the Papists. So he

could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as guardians to his

son, with many charges about the lad's soul, and a few about the

land, and the way it was to be held while he was a minor. Of

course, Bridget was not forgotten. He sent for her as he lay on his

death-bed, and asked her if she would rather have a sum down, or

have a small annuity settled upon her. She said at once she would

have a sum down; for she thought of her daughter, and how she could

bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity would have died with

her. So the Squire left her her cottage for life, and a fair sum of

money. And then he died, with as ready and willing a heart as, I

suppose, ever any gentleman took out of this world with him. The

young Squire was carried off by his guardians, and Bridget was left

alone.

I have said that she had not heard from Mary for some time. In

her last letter, she had told of travelling about with her

mistress, who was the English wife of some great foreign officer,

and had spoken of her chances of making a good marriage, without

naming the gentleman's name, keeping it rather back as a pleasant

surprise to her mother; his station and fortune being, as I had

afterwards reason to know, far superior to anything she had a right

to expect. Then came a long silence; and Madam was dead, and the

Squire was dead; and Bridget's heart was gnawed by anxiety, and she

knew not whom to ask for news of her child. She could not write,

and the Squire had managed her communication with her daughter. She

walked off to Hurst; and got a good priest there — one whom she had

known at Antwerp — to write for her. But no answer came. It was

like crying into the awful stillness of night.

One day, Bridget was missed by those neighbours who had been

accustomed to mark her goings-out and comings-in. She had never

been sociable with any of them; but the sight of her had become a

part of their daily lives, and slow wonder arose in their minds, as

morning after morning came, and her house-door remained closed, her

window dead from any glitter, or light of fire within. At length,

some one tried the door; it was locked. Two or three laid their

heads together, before daring to look in through the blank,

unshuttered window. But, at last, they summoned up courage; and

then saw that Bridget's absence from their little world was not the

result of accident or death, but of premeditation. Such small

articles of furniture as could be secured from the effects of time

and damp by being packed up, were stowed away in boxes. The picture

of the Madonna was taken down, and gone. In a word, Bridget had

stolen away from her home, and left no trace whither she was

departed. I knew afterwards, that she and her little dog had

wandered off on the long search for her lost daughter. She was too

illiterate to have faith in letters, even had she had the means of

writing and sending many. But she had faith in her own strong love,

and believed that her passionate instinct would guide her to her

child. Besides, foreign travel was no new thing to her, and she

could speak enough of French to explain the object of her journey,

and had, moreover, the advantage of being, from her faith, a

welcome object of charitable hospitality at many a distant convent.

But the country people round Starkey Manor-House knew nothing of

all this. They wondered what had become of her, in a torpid, lazy

fashion, and then left off thinking of her altogether. Several

years passed. Both Manor-House and cottage were deserted. The young

Squire lived far away under the direction of his guardians. There

were inroads of wool and corn into the sitting-rooms of the Hall;

and there was some low talk, from time to time, among the hinds and

country people, whether it would not be as well to break into old

Bridget's cottage, and save such of her goods as were left from the

moth and rust which must be making sad havoc. But this idea was

always quenched by the recollection of her strong character and

passionate anger; and tales of her masterful spirit, and vehement

force of will, were whispered about, till the very thought of

offending her, by touching any article of hers, became invested

with a kind of horror: it was believed that, dead or alive, she

would not fail to avenge it.

Suddenly she came home; with as little noise or note of

preparation as she had departed. One day, some one noticed a thin,

blue curl of smoke, ascending from her chimney. Her door stood open

to the noon-day sun; and, ere many hours had elapsed, some one had

seen an old travel-and-sorrow-stained woman dipping her pitcher in

the well; and said, that the dark, solemn eyes that looked up at

him were more like Bridget Fitzgerald's than any one else's in this

world; and yet, if it were she, she looked as if she had been

scorched in the flames of hell, so brown, and scared, and fierce a

creature did she seem. By-and-by many saw her; and those who met

her eye once cared not to be caught looking at her again. She had

got into the habit of perpetually talking to herself; nay, more,

answering herself, and varying her tones according to the side she

took at the moment. It was no wonder that those who dared to listen

outside her door at night, believed that she held converse with

some spirit; in short, she was unconsciously earning for herself

the dreadful reputation of a witch.

Her little dog, which had wandered half over the Continent with

her, was her only companion; a dumb remembrancer of happier days.

Once he was ill; and she carried him more than three miles, to ask

about his management from one who had been groom to the last

Squire, and had then been noted for his skill in all diseases of

animals. Whatever this man did, the dog recovered; and they who

heard her thanks, intermingled with blessings (that were rather

promises of good fortune than prayers), looked grave at his good

luck when, next year, his ewes twinned, and his meadow-grass was

heavy and thick.

Now it so happened that, about the year seventeen hundred and

eleven, one of the guardians of the young Squire, a certain Sir

Philip Tempest, bethought him of the good shooting there must be on

his ward's property; and, in consequence, he brought down four or

five gentlemen, of his friends, to stay for a week or two at the

Hall. From all accounts, they roystered and spent pretty freely. I

never heard any of their names but one, and that was Squire

Gisborne's. He was hardly a middle-aged man then; he had been much

abroad, and there, I believe, he had known Sir Philip Tempest, and

done him some service. He was a daring and dissolute fellow in

those days: careless and fearless, and one who would rather be in a

quarrel than out of it. He had his fits of ill-temper beside, when

he would spare neither man nor beast. Otherwise, those who knew him

well, used to say he had a good heart, when he was neither drunk,

nor angry, nor in any way vexed. He had altered much when I came to

know him.

One day, the gentlemen had all been out shooting, and with but

little success, I believe; anyhow, Mr. Gisborne had had none, and

was in a black humour accordingly. He was coming home, having his

gun loaded, sportsman-like, when little Mignon crossed his path,

just as he turned out of the wood by Bridget's cottage. Partly for

wantonness, partly to vent his spleen upon some living creature,

Mr. Gisborne took his g*n, and fired — he had better have never

fired g*n again, than aimed that unlucky shot. He hit Mignon; and

at the creature's sudden cry, Bridget came out, and saw at a glance

what had been done. She took Mignon up in her arms, and looked hard

at the wound; the poor dog looked at her with his glazing eyes, and

tried to wag his tail and lick her hand, all covered with blood.

Mr. Gisborne spoke in a kind of sullen penitence:

'You should have kept the dog out of my way — a little poaching

varmint.'

At this very moment, Mignon stretched out his legs, and

stiffened in her arms — her lost Mary's dog, who had wandered and

sorrowed with her for years. She walked right into Mr. Gisborne's

path, and fixed his unwilling, sullen look with her dark and

terrible eye.

'Those never throve that did me harm,' said she. 'I'm alone in

the world, and helpless; the more do the Saints in Heaven hear my

prayers. Hear me, ye blessed ones! hear me while I ask for sorrow

on this bad, cruel man. He has killed the only creature that loved

me — the dumb beast that I loved. Bring down heavy sorrow on his

head for it, O ye Saints! He thought that I was helpless, because

he saw me lonely and poor; but are not the armies of Heaven for the

like of me?'

'Come, come,' said he, half-remorseful, but not one whit afraid.

'Here's a crown to buy thee another dog. Take it, and leave off

cursing! I care none for thy threats.'

'Don't you?' said she, coming a step closer, and changing her

imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the gamekeeper's lad,

following Mr. Gisborne, creep all over. 'You shall live to see the

creature you love best, and who alone loves you — ay, a human

creature, but as innocent and fond as my poor, dead darling — you

shall see this creature, for whom death would be too happy, become

a terror and a loathing to all, for this blood's sake. Hear me, O

holy Saints, who never fail them that have no other help!'

She threw up her right hand, filled with poor Mignon's

life-drops; they spirted, one or two of them, on his

shooting-dress, — an ominous sight to the follower. But the master

only laughed a little, forced, scornful laugh, and went on to the

Hall. Before he got there, however, he took out a gold piece, and

bade the boy carry it to the old woman on his return to the

village. The lad was 'afeard,' as he told me in after years; he

came to the cottage, and hovered about, not daring to enter. He

peeped through the window at last; and by the flickering

wood-flame, he saw Bridget kneeling before the picture of our Lady

of the Holy Heart, with dead Mignon lying between her and the

Madonna. She was praying wildly, as her outstretched arms

betokened. The lad shrank away in redoubled terror; and contented

himself with slipping the gold-piece under the ill-fitting door.

The next day it was thrown out upon the midden; and there it lay,

no one daring to touch it.

Meanwhile Mr. Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, thought to

lessen his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir Philip who Bridget

was? He could only describe her — he did not know her name. Sir

Philip was equally at a loss. But an old servant of the Starkeys,

who had resumed his livery at the Hall on this occasion — a

scoundrel whom Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once

during her palmy days — said: —

'It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She needs a

ducking, if ever woman did, does that Bridget Fitzgerald.'

'Fitzgerald!' said both the gentlemen at once. But Sir Philip

was the first to continue:

'I must have no talk of ducking her, Dickon. Why, she must be

the very woman poor Starkey bade me have a care of; but when I came

here last she was gone, no one knew where. I'll go and see her

tomorrow. But mind you, sirrah, if any harm comes to her, or any

more talk of her being a witch — I've a pack of hounds at home, who

can follow the scent of a lying knave as well as ever they followed

a dog-fox; so take care how you talk about ducking a faithful old

servant of your dead master's.'

'Had she ever a daughter?' asked Mr. Gisborne, after a

while.

'I don't know — yes! I've a notion she had; a kind of

waiting-woman to Madam Starkey.'

'Please your worship,' said humbled Dickon, 'Mistress Bridget

had a daughter — one Mistress Mary — who went abroad, and has never

been heard on since; and folk do say that has crazed her

mother.'

Mr. Gisborne shaded his eyes with his hand.

'I could wish she had not cursed me,' he muttered. 'She may have

power — no one else could.' After a while, he said aloud, no one

understanding rightly what he meant, 'Tush! it's impossible!' — and

called for claret; and he and the other gentlemen set to to a

drinking-bout.