Best Horror Novels

Part 1 The Old Nurse's Story-1

Part 1

The Old Nurse's Story

You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only

child; and I daresay you have heard that your grandfather was a

clergyman up in Westmoreland, where I come from. I was just a girl

in the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to

ask the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a

nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye, when the

mistress called me up, and spoke of me being a good girl at my

needle, and a steady, honest girl, and one whose parents were very

respectable, though they might be poor. I thought I should like

nothing better than to serve the pretty young lady, who was

blushing as deep as I was, as she spoke of the coming baby, and

what I should have to do with it. However, I see you don't care so

much for this part of my story, as for what you think is to come,

so I'll tell you at once. I was engaged and settled at the

parsonage before Miss Rosamond (that was the baby, who is now your

mother) was born. To be sure, I had little enough to do with her

when she came, for she was never out of her mother's arms, and

slept by her all night long; and proud enough was I sometimes when

missis trusted her to me. There never was such a baby before or

since, though you've all of you been fine enough in your turns; but

for sweet, winning ways, you've none of you come up to your mother.

She took after her mother, who was a real lady born; a Miss

Furnivall, a grand-daughter of Lord Furnivall's, in Northumberland.

I believe she had neither brother nor sister, and had been brought

up in my lord's family till she had married your grandfather, who

was just a curate, son to a shopkeeper in Carlisle — but a clever,

fine gentleman as ever was — and one who was a right-down hard

worker in his parish, which was very wide, and scattered all abroad

over the Westmoreland Fells. When your mother, little Miss

Rosamond, was about four or five years old, both her parents died

in a fortnight — one after the other. Ah! that was a sad time. My

pretty young mistress and me was looking for another baby, when my

master came home from one of his long rides, wet and tired, and

took the fever he died of; and then she never held up her head

again, but just lived to see her dead baby, and have it laid on her

breast, before she sighed away her life. My mistress had asked me,

on her death-bed, never to leave Miss Rosamond; but if she had

never spoken a word, I would have gone with the little child to the

end of the world.

The next thing, and before we had well stilled our sobs, the

executors and guardians came to settle the affairs. They were my

poor young mistress's own cousin, Lord Furnivall, and Mr.

Esthwaite, my master's brother, a shopkeeper in Manchester; not so

well to do then as he was afterwards, and with a large family

rising about him. Well! I don't know if it were their settling, or

because of a letter my mistress wrote on her death-bed to her

cousin, my lord; but somehow it was settled that Miss Rosamond and

me were to go to Furnivall Manor House, in Northumberland, and my

lord spoke as if it had been her mother's wish that she should live

with his family, and as if he had no objections, for that one or

two more or less could make no difference in so grand a household.

So, though that was not the way in which I should have wished the

coming of my bright and pretty pet to have been looked at — who was

like a sunbeam in any family, be it never so grand — I was well

pleased that all the folks in the Dale should stare and admire,

when they heard I was going to be young lady's maid at my Lord

Furnivall's at Furnivall Manor.

But I made a mistake in thinking we were to go and live where my

lord did. It turned out that the family had left Furnivall Manor

House fifty years or more. I could not hear that my poor young

mistress had never been there, though she had been brought up in

the family; and I was sorry for that, for I should have liked Miss

Rosamond's youth to have passed where her mother's had been.

My lord's gentleman, from whom I asked as many questions as I

durst, said that the Manor House was at the foot of the Cumberland

Fells, and a very grand place; that an old Miss Furnivall, a

great-aunt of my lord's, lived there, with only a few servants; but

that it was a very healthy place, and my lord had thought that it

would suit Miss Rosamond very well for a few years, and that her

being there might perhaps amuse his old aunt.

I was bidden by my lord to have Miss Rosamond's things ready by

a certain day. He was a stern, proud man, as they say all the Lords

Furnivall were; and he never spoke a word more than was necessary.

Folk did say he had loved my young mistress; but that, because she

knew that his father would object, she would never listen to him,

and married Mr. Esthwaite; but I don't know. He never married, at

any rate. But he never took much notice of Miss Rosamond; which I

thought he might have done if he had cared for her dead mother. He

sent his gentleman with us to the Manor House, telling him to join

him at Newcastle that same evening; so there was no great length of

time for him to make us known to all the strangers before he, too,

shook us off; and we were left, two lonely young things (I was not

eighteen) in the great old Manor House. It seems like yesterday

that we drove there. We had left our own dear parsonage very early,

and we had both cried as if our hearts would break, though we were

travelling in my lord's carriage, which I thought so much of once.

And now it was long past noon on a September day, and we stopped to

change horses for the last time at a little smoky town, all full of

colliers and miners. Miss Rosamond had fallen asleep, but Mr. Henry

told me to waken her, that she might see the park and the Manor

House as we drove up. I thought it rather a pity; but I did what he

bade me, for fear he should complain of me to my lord. We had left

all signs of a town, or even a village, and were then inside the

gates of a large wild park — not like the parks here in the south,

but with rocks, and the noise of running water, and gnarled

thorn-trees, and old oaks, all white and peeled with age.

The road went up about two miles, and then we saw a great and

stately house, with many trees close around it, so close that in

some places their branches dragged against the walls when the wind

blew; and some hung broken down; for no one seemed to take much

charge of the place; — to lop the wood, or to keep the moss-covered

carriage-way in order. Only in front of the house all was clear.

The great oval drive was without a w**d; and neither tree nor

creeper was allowed to grow over the long, many-windowed front; at

both sides of which a wing protected, which were each the ends of

other side fronts; for the house, although it was so desolate, was

even grander than I expected. Behind it rose the Fells; which

seemed unenclosed and bare enough; and on the left hand of the

house, as you stood facing it, was a little, old-fashioned

flower-garden, as I found out afterwards. A door opened out upon it

from the west front; it had been scooped out of the thick, dark

wood for some old Lady Furnivall; but the branches of the great

forest-trees had grown and overshadowed it again, and there were

very few flowers that would live there at that time.

When we drove up to the great front entrance, and went into the

hall, I thought we would be lost — it was so large, and vast and

grand. There was a chandelier all of bronze, hung down from the

middle of the ceiling; and I had never seen one before, and looked

at it all in amaze. Then, at one end of the hall, was a great

fire-place, as large as the sides of the houses in my country, with

massy andirons and dogs to hold the wood; and by it were heavy,

old-fashioned sofas. At the opposite end of the hall, to the left

as you went in — on the western side — was an organ built into the

wall, and so large that it filled up the best part of that end.

Beyond it, on the same side, was a door; and opposite, on each side

of the fire-place, were also doors leading to the east front; but

those I never went through as long as I stayed in the house, so I

can't tell you what lay beyond.

The afternoon was closing in, and the hall, which had no fire

lighted in it, looked dark and gloomy, but we did not stay there a

moment. The old servant, who had opened the door for us, bowed to

Mr. Henry, and took us in through the door at the further side of

the great organ, and led us through several smaller halls and

passages into the west drawing-room, where he said that Miss

Furnivall was sitting. Poor little Miss Rosamond held very tight to

me, as if she were scared and lost in that great place; and as for

myself, I was not much better. The west drawing-room was very

cheerful-looking, with a warm fire in it, and plenty of good,

comfortable furniture about. Miss Furnivall was an old lady not far

from eighty, I should think, but I do not know. She was thin and

tall, and had a face as full of fine wrinkles as if they had been

drawn all over it with a needle's point. Her eyes were very

watchful, to make up, I suppose, for her being so deaf as to be

obliged to use a trumpet. Sitting with her, working at the same

great piece of tapestry, was Mrs. Stark, her maid and companion,

and almost as old as she was. She had lived with Miss Furnivall

ever since they both were young, and now she seemed more like a

friend than a servant; she looked so cold, and grey, and stony, as

if she had never loved or cared for any one; and I don't suppose

she did care for any one, except her mistress; and, owing to the

great deafness of the latter, Mrs. Stark treated her very much as

if she were a child. Mr. Henry gave some message from my lord, and

then he bowed good-by to us all, — taking no notice of my sweet

little Miss Rosamond's outstretched hand — and left us standing

there, being looked at by the two old ladies through their

spectacles.

I was right glad when they rung for the old footman who had

shown us in at first, and told him to take us to our rooms. So we

went out of that great drawing-room and into another sitting-room,

and out of that, and then up a great flight of stairs, and along a

broad gallery — which was something like a library, having books

all down one side, and windows and writing-tables all down the

other — till we came to our rooms, which I was not sorry to hear

were just over the kitchens; for I began to think I should be lost

in that wilderness of a house. There was an old nursery, that had

been used for all the little lords and ladies long ago, with a

pleasant fire burning in the grate, and the kettle boiling on the

hob, and tea-things spread out on the table; and out of that room

was the night-nursery, with a little crib for Miss Rosamond close

to my bed. And old James called up Dorothy, his wife, to bid us

welcome; and both he and she were so hospitable and kind, that

by-and-by Miss Rosamond and me felt quite at home; and by the time

tea was over, she was sitting on Dorothy's knee, and chattering

away as fast as her little tongue could go. I soon found out that

Dorothy was from Westmoreland, and that bound her and me together,

as it were; and I would never wish to meet with kinder people than

were old James and his wife. James had lived pretty nearly all his

life in my lord's family, and thought there was no one so grand as

they. He even looked down a little on his wife; because, till he

had married her, she had never lived in any but a farmer's

household. But he was very fond of her, as well he might be. They

had one servant under them, to do all the rough work. Agnes they

called her; and she and me, and James and Dorothy, with Miss

Furnivall and Mrs. Stark, made up the family; always remembering my

sweet little Miss Rosamond! I used to wonder what they had done

before she came, they thought so much of her now. Kitchen and

drawing-room, it was all the same. The hard, sad Miss Furnivall,

and the cold Mrs. Stark, looked pleased when she came fluttering in

like a bird, playing and pranking hither and thither, with a

continual murmur, and pretty prattle of gladness. I am sure, they

were sorry many a time when she flitted away into the kitchen,

though they were too proud to ask her to stay with them, and were a

little surprised at her taste; though to be sure, as Mrs. Stark

said, it was not to be wondered at, remembering what stock her

father had come of. The great, old rambling house was a famous

place for little Miss Rosamond. She made expeditions all over it,

with me at her heels; all, except the east wing, which was never

opened, and whither we never thought of going. But in the western

and northern part was many a pleasant room; full of things that

were curiosities to us, though they might not have been to people

who had seen more. The windows were darkened by the sweeping boughs

of the trees, and the ivy which had overgrown them; but, in the

green gloom, we could manage to see old china jars and carved ivory

boxes, and great heavy books, and, above all, the old pictures!