LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2231, 31 May 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MY LADY’S HAND. It is strange how a trifling occurrence will recall events that happened years ago, and which we had apparently forgotten. When I unpacked my grandchildren’s birthday present, ' bought with their own money,’ as sweet Eflie’s little note informed me, I nearly dropped the pretty Parian ring-stand. Its shape, a hand with extended fingers, brought up before me that strange event of nearly thirty years agf-, which has never yet been satisfactorily explained, and which I still think of with a shudder. I had buried that unpleasant recollection, I thought, but it has started into life again. Perhaps the effect of writing down the story will au-ist to lay the spectre. Just about thirty years ago I, now a lonely old widow, was a happy wife and mother. My husband was engaged in business in London, but every year we took a house in the country t. T a month or six weeks, ho remaining with us as lone as he could, and then returning to hia work. This year we had secured a charming o'd Queen Anne mansion, not very far from the metropolis—a place with ample accommodation for our six little ones, both within and without doors. The boys revelled in the well-stocked garden, and romped along the spacious corridors on wet days ; and the first week or two of onr stay we constantly congratulated ourselves at having been fortunate enough to meet with so commodious a house at so moderate a rental. The owner was abroad, the agent told us ; through losses incident on a Chancery suit, he could not afford to live on hia property ; indeed, the house itself was ill ‘kept up,’ but the children ca ed little for faded chintz or moss-grown garden walks, and rather enjoyed the liberty of playing where there was ‘ nothing to spoil,’ There were so many rooms in the old mansion, that I had appropriated to my own especial use a snug little chamber off the stairs, evidently a lady’s boudoir In old days, furnished with those trophies of patient labor in the shape of cross-stitch chair covers and imitation Japan work, to which our great-grand-mothers devoted so much time. It was a pretty, cheerful room, with china vases of pot-ponrrl in the window seats, and quaint Chippendale tables scattered about; but I never entered that boudoir after the night of the events I am about to relate.

Autumn was setting in rather chilly. My husband and I had been dining with a neighbour and had walked home, the distance being short. Country folk keep early hours, and it was not much past ten o’clock when we returned home. The night air was cold, and as I passed upstairs and saw that a fire was still bnroiag in my little sanctum, I entered to warm myself before going to bed. The servants had already gone to their rooms ; my husband was smoking a cigar in his study. Throwing off my cloak, I lighted one of the candles on the mantelpiece, and stood, with my feet on the fender, gazing idly into the dark, old-fashioned mirror over the chimney, in the dreamy way one often does in the evening. Suddenly I thought I saw the door, as reflected in the mirror, move, and, thinking it was my husband, turned round. Yes, the door was opening very gradually, as though gently pushed from outside. ‘Come in,’ I called out, thinking one of the children had stolen down to say ‘ Good night! ’ and then, as though obedient to my summons, something did enter ! A hand—a woman’s hand—was laid on the inside handle of the door, the delicate fingers and wrist showing distinctly against the dark pannelling. Nothing but a hand, defined only to the wrist. As softly as the door bad opened it closed again, as thongh by the pressure of the spectre band. The fingers lingered a moment on the lock, and then the hand advanced across the room to a table littered with books, and rested on one of them, as thongh some one were standing by the table and leaning there. I had sunk into a chair, and stared with horrcr and amazement. I was never what is called a nervous woman, and even now, shocked and startled as I was, I tried to rally my spirits, and reason myself into a belief that what 1 saw was a freak of imagination. I rose and moved the candle, to test if the apparition was the result of a shadow. The light fell direct on the mysterious form. I can see It still—a beautiful, ladylike hand, its taper fingers resting gracefully on the book. Dead silence in the room, nothing visible but that woman’s hand ! 1 could not summon up courage to approach and tonch It, and thus test the reality of the apparition. Sick and trembling, I crouched in my chair—and the hand quietly waited there 1 A footstep a hearty, human footstep—sounded on the stair, and, with a sensation of intense relief, I stood up. Harry was coming in ; he would see the apparition if it really existed—at all events I should not be alone in that fearful presence. ‘The fire looks jolly here,’ said my husband, entering. ‘ Are you going to sit here, or coming to bed, Mary ?’ Evidently he saw nothing, yet the hand rested there still. 1 resolved to test him further. *

1 I am coming upstairs directly, ’ I said, ‘ Will yon take up that magazine I was reading?’ and I poioted to one under the spectre hand. * All right, ’ said Harry carelessly advancing to the table, while I watched him with a terrible fascination. He laid hia hand on the end of the magazine—the warm, living hand nearly touched the shadowy one for an instant—then the latter drew hack, as though to allow him to remove the volume, and, aa he turned away, fell again into its former attitude, I could not apeak or stir ; but my husband, quite unconscious of my emotion, took up the book and had left the room before I could find words to express myself. I and the hand were again alone, I have had some shocks and trials in my life. I have watched by the bedside of loved ones while life trembled in the balance, but never—never did I experince such a sensation of sickening terror as 1 felt, while sitting, fascinated by that spectral form. I was alike powerless to move or call for aid—to reach the door I must have passed that hand ! Presently, as I sat looking fixedly at what I seemed unable to avert my eyea from, the hand moved again. It {floated gradually towards the door, as though its owner was slowly crossing the room; then, again, the fingers rested on the doorhandle. Another pause; then it was lifted into the air, and the fingers beckoned. I pressed my hands ovsr my eyes, but presently, obeying an irresistible impulse, looked again. The sign was repeated, more impatiently this time, and the hand advanced nearer towards me, A power stronger than myself seemed to force mo to obey the signal. I rose mechanically and followed. The door opened, and I saw the hand cross the hall, and rest on the balustrade of the stairs. Slowly, as though leaning on them for support, it passed upwards —I following. Twice I halted ; twice the [hand was raised to beckon me on. In silence we passed upstairs, until the top floor was reached, b itherto I had followed aa a bird obeys the fascinating gaze of its natural enemy, but now I summoned my will to a resolute effort. Never would I bo led to my children’s room by that terrible phantom. Firmly grasping the balhistrado, I paused at the entrance of the corridor. The fingers again beckoned, but I stood resolute For an instant I felt my will struggling with that of some other. Then, as I gazed on my fearful guide, the hand was flung up with a gesture as of despair, and I beheld in the palm a wound, from which blood was trickling ! A wild cry, whether from my own lips or not I cannot say, rang through the house, and I sank se.-.selesa. I was very ill for some weeks, delirious they said. Aa I got better I told my story, which, of course, nobody believed, or at best accounted for as being the premonitory symptoms of the brain fever which attacked me. Perhaps they were right. But nothing altered my conviction that what I had seen was a delusion, and I shall live and die in that belief Everyone was always assuring me that no ‘ story ’ was ever attached to the house, that no tragedy had ever taken place there to give it rank as a haunted mansion. But during my somewhat tedious convalescence I made the acquaintance of an old dame who came to assist my nurse in waiting upon me, and who was as injudicious a go?tip as could well be found. Discovering that she had been an old retainer of the family who owned the house, I succeeded by do grees in extracting from her certain fact* which served to explain my adventure—at least to me. It seemed that the father of the present owner had been married twice, once to the mother of the present possessor, afterwards to an Italian lady of great beauty, but of whose family nothing was known Mr returned one year from abroad with

his bride and her brother, who took np hie residence with them. The new comer booh became extremely unpopular. The lady, beautiful as she was, possessed the temper of a fury. She speedily quarrelled with all her neighbors, turned out the old family servants, and generally scanda'ised the great folk of the neighborhood. Darker stories yet were whispered about her brother’s character, The fair tyrannised over the unfortunate husband, a man of weak and indolent temper, and reduced him to a mere cypher in his own house. The young heir to the property, a toy at school, was the especiil object of his stepmother's hatred, probably because, do what she might, the estate must be his at his father’s death. A year went by, the weak husbmd, entirely under the dominion of his wife, rarely saw his son, who passed his holidays at the school. One evening the servants were startled by iond talking upatvirs ; some quarrel was evidently going on. My okl informant, then a girl, had the curiosity to'eteal upstairs to a little room next ta the apartment where the family sat, and peep through the keyhole. According to her story a terrible scene took place. Her master whs attacking his wife about some letter he had opened accidentally, and which apparently startled him greatly. The lady stood facing him like an animal at bay, and presently her brother entered the room The sight of him seemed to madden her husband, for with an angry exclamation he rushed at him as if to strike him. The Italian stopped back, and then a knife glittered in hia hand; the husband wrenched it from his grasp, and for a moment seemed about to use it, but-the lady caught the blade, inflicting a slight wound on her hand as she grasped it. Both men stopped, and, twisting a handkerchief round her wounded hand, she turned on her husband, a fearful look In her face. Slowly, and in terms that, as the listener said, "made her flesh creep," she cursed her husband and bis son, and concluded by vowing that the estate should never descend to that hated step-child. Then she and the Italian quitted the apartment together, and the old man sank on the floor in a fit. The lady and her brother were never seen afterwards; they must have left the house during the first confusion, incident on Mr illness. With them had vanished also a good deal of valuable property, plate and jewels, and, worst of all, the title deeds of the estate. (To be continued )