A Water Witch by H. D. Everett

A Water Witch is a novelette. It first published in 1920, in the H. D. Everett story anthology The Death-Mask and Other Ghosts. The story doesn’t seem to have been reprinted until more than half a century later, when Peter Haining chose it for inclusion in the anthology A Circle of Witches (1971). A Water Witch was later reprinted in The Weiser Book of the Fantastic and Forgotten: Tales of the Supernatural, Strange, and Bizarre (2016).

 

About H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)

Henrietta Dorothy Everett (née Huskisson) was a popular author during the late 1800s to early 1900s. However, her work has since fallen into obscurity, and most people are unlikely to be familiar with her name. The daughter of John Huskisson, a Royal Marines Lieutenant, little is known about her life, including her date of birth. However, church records show she was baptized 4 March 1851.

In 1869, she married Isaac Edward Everett, a solicitor; and began writing in 1896, when she was aged 44. Between then and 1920, she published 22 books, with 17 different publishers, using her pen-name Theo Douglas. Although Everett wrote three historical novels, more than half of her books had fantasy or supernatural themes. For instance, her novel Iras: A Mystery (1896) is about an Egyptologist who revives an ancient mummy and falls in love with the beautiful Iras he has unwrapped.

In 1920, when she published The Death-Mask and Other Stories, for reasons unknown, she discarded her pen-name and published the collection as H. D. Everett. However, her identity had already been revealed in 1910, so using a pseudonym probably no longer offered any advantages.

The Death-Mask and Other Stories earned the praise of both M. R. James and H.P. Lovecraft. In his essay “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories” (1929) [paragraph 16], James described Everett’s anthology as having “a rather quieter tone on the whole” and “some excellently conceived stories”. Meanwhile, in his essay essay Supernatural Horror in Literature [Chapter 9, paragraph 9], Lovecraft stated: “Mrs. H. D. Everett, though adhering to very old and conventional models, occasionally reaches singular heights of spiritual terror in her collection of short stories.”

The Death-Mask and Other Stories was Everett’s only story collection. However, in 2006, Wordsworth Editions republished an expanded versions of the collection under the title The Crimson Blind & Other Stories. The expanded version contained all 14 stories from the original collection, along with two additional tales: “The Pipers of Mallory” and “The Whispering Wall”. It’s interesting to note the author published both of these stories in magazines, prior to putting together her anthology, and either she or her publisher must have decided not to include them in original anthology.

 

A Water Witch

By H. D. Everett

(Online Text)

 

I

We were disappointed when Robert married. We had for long wanted him to marry, as he is our only brother and head of the family since my father died, as well as of the business firm; but we should have liked his wife to be a different sort of person. We, his sisters, could have chosen much better for him than he did for himself. Indeed we had our eye on just the right girl—bright-tempered and sensibly brought up, who would not have said No: of that I am assured, had Robert on his side shown signs of liking. But he took a holiday abroad the spring of 1912, and the next thing we heard was that he had made up his mind to marry Frederica. Frederica, indeed! We Larcombs have been plain Susans and Annes and Marys and Elizabeths for generations (I am Mary), and the fantastic name was an annoyance. The wedding took place at Mentone in a great hurry, because the stepmother was marrying again, and Frederica was unhappy. Was not that weak of Robert?—he did not give himself time to think. We may perhaps take that as some excuse for a departure from Larcomb traditions: on consideration, the match would very likely have been broken off.

Frederica had some money of her own, though not much: all the Larcomb brides have had money up to now. And her dead father was a General and a K.C.B. [1], which did not look amiss in the announcement; but there our satisfaction ended. He brought her to make our acquaintance three weeks after the marriage, a delicate little shrinking thing well matched to her fanciful name, and desperately afraid of mother and of us girls, so the introductory visit was hardly a success. Then Robert took her off to London, and when the baby was born—a son, but too weakly to live beyond a day or two—she had a severe illness, and was slow in recovering strength. And there is little doubt that by this time he was conscious of having made a mistake.

I used to be his favourite sister, being next to him in age, and when he found himself in a difficulty at Roscawen he appealed to me. Roscawen was a moor Robert had lately rented on the Scotch side of the Border, and we were given to understand that a bracing air, and the complete change of scene, were expected to benefit Frederica, who was pleased by the arrangement. So his letter took me by surprise.

“Dear Mary,” he wrote, and, characteristically, he did not beat about the bush. “Pack up your things as soon as you get this, and come off here the day after to-morrow. You will have to travel via York, and I will meet you at Draycott Halt, where the afternoon train stops by signal. Freda is a bit nervous, and doesn’t like staying alone here, so I am in a fix. I want you to keep her company the weeks I am at Shepstow. I know you’ll do as much as this for—Your affectionate brother, Robert Larcomb.”

This abrupt call upon me, making sure of response and help, recalled bygone times when we were much to each other, and Frederica still in the unknown. A bit nervous, was she, and Robert in a fix because of it: here again was evidence of the mistake. It was not very easy then to break off from work, and for an indefinite time; but I resolved to satisfy the family curiosity, to say nothing of my own, by doing as I was bid.

When I got out of the train at Draycott Halt, Robert was waiting for me with his car. My luggage was put in at the back, and I mounted to the seat beside him; and again it reminded me of old times, for he seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

“Good girl,” he said, “to make no fuss, and come at once.”

“We Larcombs are not apt to fuss, are we?”—and as I said this, it occurred to me that probably he was in these days well acquainted with fuss—Frederica’s fuss. Then I asked: “What is the matter?”

I only had a sideways glimpse of him as he answered, for he was busy with the driving-gear.

“Why, I told you, didn’t I, that it was arranged for me to be here and at Shepstow week and week about, Falkner and I together, for it is better than taking either moor with a single gun. And I can’t take Freda there, for the Shepstow cottage has no accommodation for a lady—only the one room that Falkner and I share. Freda is nervous, poor girl, since her illness, and somehow she has taken a dislike to Roscawen. It is nothing but a fancy, of course, but something had to be done.”

“Why, you wrote to mother that you had both fallen in love with the place, and thought it quite ideal.”

“Oh, the place is right enough, it is just my poor girl’s fancy. She’ll tell you I daresay, but don’t let her dwell on it more than you can help. You will have Falkner’s room, and the week he is over here I’ve arranged for Vickers to put him up, though I daresay he will come in to meals. Vickers?—oh, he’s a neighbour on the opposite side of the water, Roscawen Water, the stream that overflows from the lake in the hills. He’s a doctor of science as well as medicine, and has written some awfully clever books. I understand he’s at work on another, and comes here for the sake of quiet. But he’s a very good sort though not a sportsman, does not mind taking in Falkner, and he is by way of being a friend of Freda’s—they read Italian together. No, he isn’t married, neither is the parson, worse luck; and there isn’t another woman of her own sort within miles. It’s desperately lonely for her, I allow, when I’m not here. So there was no help for it. I was bound to send for you or for the mater [2], and I thought you would be best!”

We were passing through wild scenery of barren broken hills, following the course of the river upstream. It came racing down a rocky course, full and turbulent from recent rains. Presently the road divided, crossing a narrow bridge; and there we came in sight of the leap the water makes over a shelf of rock, plunging into a deep pool below with a swirl of foam and spray. I would have liked to linger and look, but the car carried us forward quickly, allowing only a glimpse in passing. And, directly after, Robert called my attention to a stone-built small house high up on the hill-side—a bare place it looked, flanked by a clump of firs, but with no surrounding garden-ground; the wild moor and the heather came close under the windows.

“That’s Roscawen,” he said. “Just a shooting-box, you see. A new-built place, raw, with no history behind it later than yesterday. I was in treaty for Corby, seventeenth century that was, with a ghost in the gallery, but the arrangement fell through. And I’m jolly glad it did”—and here he laughed; an uncomfortable laugh, not of the Larcomb sort, or like himself. And in another minute we were at the door.

Freda welcomed me, and I thought her improved; she was indeed pretty—as pretty as such a frail little thing could be, who looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away. She was very well dressed— of course Robert would take care of that—and her one thought appeared to be of him. She was constantly turning to him with appeal of one sort or another, and seemed nervous and ill at ease when he was out of her sight. “Must you really go to-morrow?” I caught her whisper later, and heard his answer: “Needs must, but you will not mind now you have Mary.” I could plainly see that she did mind, and that my companionship was no fair exchange for the loss of his. But was not all this exaction the very way to tire out love?

The ground-floor of the house was divided into a sitting-hall, upon which the front door opened without division, and to the right you entered a fair-sized dining-room. Each of these apartments had the offshoot of a smaller room, one being Freda’s snuggery, and the other the gun-room where the gentlemen smoked. Above there were two good bedrooms, a dressing-room and a bathroom, but no higher floor: the gable-space was not utilised, and the servants slept over the kitchen at the back. The room allotted to me, from which Captain Falkner had been ejected, had a wide window and a pleasant aspect. As I was hurriedly dressing for dinner, I could hear the murmur of the river close at hand, but the actual water was not visible, as it flowed too far below the overhanging bank. I could not see the flowing water, but as I glanced from the window, a wreath of white mist or spray floated up from it, stretched itself out before the wind, and disappeared after the fashion of a puff of steam. Probably there was at that point another fall (so I thought) churning the river into foam. But I had no time to waste in speculation, for we Larcombs adhere to the good ways of punctuality. I fastened a final hook and eye, and ran downstairs.

Captain Falkner came to dinner and made a fourth at table, but the fifth place which had been laid remained vacant. The two men were full of plans for the morrow, and there was to be an early setting out: Shepstow, the other moor, was some thirty miles away.

“I am afraid you will be dull, Mary,” Robert said to me in a sort of apology. “I am forced to keep the car at Shepstow, as I am my own chauffeur. But you and Freda will have her cart to jog about in, so you will be able to look round the nearer country while I am away. You will have to put up with the old mare. I know you like spirit in a horse, but this quiet gee [3] suits Freda, as she can drive her going alone. Then Vickers will look in on you most days. I do not know what is keeping him away to-night.”

Freda was in low spirits next morning, and she hung about Robert up to the time of his departure, in a way that I should have found supremely irritating had I been her husband. And I will not be sure that she did not beg him again not to leave her—to my tender mercies I supposed—though I did not hear the request. When the two men had set out with their guns and baggage, the cart was ordered round, and my sister-in-law took me for a drive.

Robert had done well to prepare me for the “quiet gee”: a meek old creature named Grey Madam, that had whitened in the snows of many winters, and expected to progress at a walk whenever the road inclined uphill. And all the roads inclined uphill or down about Roscawen; I do not remember anywhere a level quarter of a mile. It was truly a dull progress, and Freda did not find much to say; perhaps she still was fretting after Robert. But the moors and the swelling hills were beautiful to look at in their crimson flush of heather. “I think Roscawen is lovely,” I was prompted to exclaim; and when she agreed in my admiration I added: “You liked it when you first came here, did you not?”

“Yes, I liked it when first I came,” she assented, repeating my words, but did not go on to say why she disliked Roscawen now. She had an errand to discharge at one of the upland farms which supplied them with milk and butter. She drew rein at the gate, and was about to alight, but the woman of the house came forward, and so I heard what passed. Freda gave her order, and then made an inquiry.

“I hope you have found your young cow, Mrs. Elliott? I was sorry to hear it had strayed.”

“We’ve found her, ma’am, but she was dead in the river, and a sad loss it has been to us. A fine young beast as ever we reared, and coming on with her second calf. My husband has been rarely put about, and I’ll own I was fit to cry over her myself. This is the fifth loss we have had within the year— a sheep and two lambs in March, and the cart-foal in July.”

Freda expressed sympathy.

“You need better fences, is that it, to keep your cattle from the river?”

Mrs. Elliott pursed up her lips and shook her head.

“I won’t say, ma’am, but that our fences might be bettered if the landlord would give us material; as it is, we do our best. But when the creatures take that madness for the water, nought but deer-palings [4] would keep them in. I’ve seen enough in my time here to be sure of that. What makes it come over them I don’t take upon myself to say. They make up fine tales in the district about the white woman, but I know nothing of any white women. I only know that when the madness takes them they make for the river, and then they get swept into the deeps.”

When we were driving away, I asked Freda what the farmer’s wife meant about a white woman and the drowning of her stock.

“I believe there is some story about a woman who was drowned, whose spirit calls the creatures to the river. If you ask Dr. Vickers he will tell you. He makes a study of folk-lore and local superstitions, and—and that sort of thing. Robert thinks it is all nonsense, and no doubt you will think it nonsense too.”

What her own opinion was, Freda did not say. She had a transparent complexion, and a trifling matter made her change colour; a blush rose unaccountably as she answered me, and for a full minute her cheek burned. Why should she blush about Roscawen superstitions and a drowned cow? Then the attention of both of us was suddenly diverted, because Grey Madam took it into her head to shy.

She had mended her pace appreciably since Freda turned her head towards home, trotting now without needing to be urged. We were close upon a cross-roads where three ways met, a triangular green centred by a finger-post. There was in our direction a bank and hedge (hedges here and there replaced the stone walls of the district) and the right wheel went up that bank, giving the cart a dangerous tilt; it recovered balance, however, and went on. Freda, a timid driver, was holding on desperately to the reins.

“Does she often do this sort of thing?” I asked. “I thought Robert said she was quiet.”

“So she is—so we thought her. I never knew her do it before,” gasped my sister-in-law, still out of breath with her fright.

“And I cannot think what made her shy. There was nothing—absolutely nothing; not even a heap of stones.”

Freda did not answer, but I was to hear more about that cross-roads in the course of the day.

 

II

After lunch Freda did not seem willing to go out again, so, as I was there to companion her, we both settled down to needlework and a book for alternate reading aloud. The reading, however, languished; when it came to Freda’s turn she tired quickly, lost her place twice and again, and seemed unable to fix her attention on the printed page. Was she listening, I wondered later. When silence fell between us, I became aware of a sound recurring at irregular intervals, the sound of water dropping. I looked up at the ceiling expecting to see a stain of wet, for the drop seemed to fall within the room, and close beside me.

“Do you hear that?” I asked. “Has anything gone wrong in the bathroom, do you think?” For we were in Freda’s snuggery, and the bathroom was overhead.

But my suggestion of overflowing taps and broken water-pipes left her cold.

“I don’t think it is from the bathroom,” she replied. “I hear it often. We cannot find out what it is.”

Directly she ceased speaking the drop fell again, apparently between us as we sat, and plump upon the carpet. I looked up at the ceiling again, but Freda did not raise her eyes from her embroidery.

“It is very odd,” I remarked, and this time she assented, repeating my words, and I saw a shiver pass over her. “I shall go upstairs to the bathroom,” I said decidedly, putting down my work. “I am sure those taps must be wrong.”

She did not object, or offer to accompany me, she only shivered again. “Don’t be long away, Mary,” she said, and I noticed she had grown pale.

There was nothing wrong with the bathroom, or with any part of the water supply; and when I returned to the snuggery the drip had ceased. The next event was a ring at the door bell, and again Freda changed colour, much as she had done when we were driving. In that quiet place, where comers and goers are few, a visitor is an event. But I think this visitor must have been expected. The servant announced Dr. Vickers. Freda gave him her hand, and made the necessary introduction. This was the friend Robert said would come often to see us, but he was not at all the snuffy old scientist my fancy had pictured. He was old certainly, if it is a sign of age to be grey-haired, and I daresay there were crowsfeet about those piercing eyes of his; but when you met the eyes, the wrinkles were forgotten. They, at least, were full of youth and fire, and his figure was still upright and flat-shouldered.

We exchanged a few remarks; he asked me if I was familiar with that part of Scotland; and when I answered that I was making its acquaintance for the first time, he praised Roscawen and its neighbourhood. It suited him well, he said, when his object was to seek quiet; and I should find, as he did, that it possessed many attractions. Then he asked me if I was an Italian scholar, and showed a book in his hand, the Vita Nuova. Mrs. Larcomb was forgetting her Italian, and he had promised to brush it up for her. So, if I did not find it too great a bore to sit by, he proposed to read aloud. And, should I not know the book, he would give me a sketch of its purport, so that I could follow.

I had, of course, heard of the Vita Nuova, who has not! but my knowledge of the language in which it was written went no further than a few modem phrases, of use to a traveller. I disclaimed my ability to follow, and I imagine Dr. Vickers was not ill-pleased to find me ignorant. He took his seat at one end of the Chesterfield sofa, Freda occupying the other, still with that flush on her cheek; and after an observation or two in Italian, he opened his book and began to read.

I imagine he read well. The crisp, flowing syllables sounded very foreign to my ear, and he gave his author the advantage of dramatic expression and emphasis. Now and then he remarked in English on some difficulty in the text, or slipped in a question in Italian which Freda answered, usually by a monosyllable. She kept her eyes fixed upon her work. It was as if she would not look at him, even when he was most impassioned; but I was watching them both, although I never thought—but of course I never thought!

Presently I remembered how time was passing, and the place where letters should be laid ready for the post-bag going out. I had left an unfinished one upstairs, so I slipped away to complete and seal. This done, I re-entered softly (the entrance was behind a screen) and found the Italian lesson over, and a conversation going on in English. Freda was speaking with some animation.

“It cannot anymore be called my fancy, for Mary heard it too.”

“And you had not told her beforehand? There was no suggestion?”

“I had not said a word to her. Had I, Mary?”—appealing to me as I advanced into sight.

“About what?” I asked, for I had forgotten the water incident.

“About the drops falling. You remarked on them first: I had told you nothing. And you went to look at the taps.”

“No, certainly you had not told me. What is the matter? Is there any mystery?”

Dr. Vickers answered:

“The mystery is that Mrs. Larcomb heard these droppings when everyone else was deaf to them. It was supposed to be auto-suggestion on her part. You have disproved that. Miss Larcomb, as your ears are open to them too. That will go far to convince your brother; and now we must seriously seek for cause. This Roscawen district has many legends of strange happenings. We do not want to add one more to the list, and give this modern shooting-box the reputation of a haunted house.”

“And it would be an odd sort of ghost, would it not—the sound of dropping water! But—you speak of legends of the district; do you know anything of a white woman who is said to drown cattle? Mrs. Elliott mentioned her this morning at the farm, when she told us she had lost her cow in the river.”

“Ay, I heard a cow had been found floating dead in the Pool. I am sorry it belonged to the Elliotts. Nobody lives here for long without hearing that story, and, though the wrath of Roscawen is roused against her, I cannot help being sorry for the white woman. She was young and beautiful once, and well-to-do, for she owned land in her own right, and flocks and herds. But she became very unhappy—”

He was speaking to me, but he looked at Freda. She had taken up her work again, but with inexpert hands, dropping first cotton, and then her thimble.

“She was unhappy, because her husband neglected her. He had—other things to attend to, and the charm she once possessed for him was lost and gone. He left her too much alone. She lost her health, they say, through fretting, and so fell into a melancholy way, spending her time in weeping, and in wandering up and down on the banks of Roscawen Water. She may have fallen in by accident, it was not exactly known; but her death was thought to be suicide, and she was buried at the crossroads.”

“That was where Grey Madam shied this morning,” Freda put in. “And—people suppose—that on the other side of death, finding herself lonely (too guilty, perhaps, for Heaven, but at the same time too innocent for Hell) she wants companions to join her; wants sheep and cows and horses such as used to stock her farms. So she puts madness upon the creatures, and also upon some humans, so that they go down to the river. They see her, so it is said, or they receive a sign which in some way points to the manner of her death. If they see her, she comes for them once, twice, thrice, and the third time they are bound to follow.”

This was a gruesome story, I thought as I listened, though not of the sort I could believe. I hoped Freda did not believe it, but of this I was not sure.

“What does she look like?” I asked. “If human beings see her as you say, do they give any account?”

“The story goes that they see foam rising from the water, floating away and dissolving, vaguely in form at first, but afterwards more like the woman she was once; and some say there is a hand that beckons. But I have never seen her, Miss Larcomb, nor spoken to one who has: first hand evidence of this sort is rare, as I daresay you know. So I can tell you no more.”

And I was glad there was no more for me to hear, for the story was too tragic for my liking. The happenings of that afternoon left me discomforted—annoyed with Dr. Vickers, which perhaps was unreasonable—with poor Freda, whose fancies had thus proved contagious—annoyed, and here more justly, with myself. Somehow, with such tales going about, Roscawen seemed a far from desirable residence for a nervous invalid; and I was also vaguely conscious of an undercurrent I did not understand. It gave me the feeling you have when you stumble against something unexpected blindfold, or in the dark, and cannot define its shape.

Dr. Vickers accepted a cup of tea when the tray was brought to us, and then he took his departure, which was as well, seeing we had no gentleman at home to entertain him.

“So Larcomb is away again for a whole week? Is that so?” he said to Freda as he made his adieux.

There was no need for the question, I thought impatiently, as he must very well have known when e was required again to put up Captain Falkner.

“Yes, for a whole week,” Freda answered, with again that flush on her cheek; and as soon as we were alone she put up her hand, as if the hot colour burned.

 

III

I did not like Dr. Vickers and his Italian lessons, and I had the impression Freda would have been better pleased by their intermission. On the third day she had a headache and charged me to make her excuses, so it fell to me to receive this friend of Robert’s, who seemed quite unruffled by her absence. He took advantage of the opportunity to cross-examine me about the water-dropping: had I heard it again since that first occasion, and what explanation of the Sounds appeared satisfactory to myself?

The fact was, I had heard it again, twice when I was alone in my room, and once more when sitting with Freda. Then we both sat listening—listening, such small nothings as we had to say to each other dying away, waiting to see which of us would first admit it to the other, and this went on for more than an hour. At last Freda broke out into hysterical crying, the result of over-strained nerves, and with her outburst the sounds ceased. I had been inclined to entertain a notion of the spiritist order, that they might be connected with her presence as medium; but I suppose that must be held disproved, as I also heard them when alone in my own room.

I admitted as little as possible to Dr. Vickers, and was stout in asserting that a natural cause would and must be found, if the explanation were diligently sought for. But I confess I was posed [5] when confronted with the fact that these sounds heard by Freda were inaudible to her husband, also present—to Robert, who has excellent hearing, in common with all our family. Until I came, and was also an auditor, no one in the house but Freda had noticed the dropping, so there was reason for assuming it to be hallucination. Yes, I was sorry for her trouble (answering a question pressed on me), but I maintained that, pending discovery, the best course was to take no notice of drops that wet nothing and left no stain, and did not proceed from overflowing cisterns or faulty pipes.

“They will leave off doing it if not noticed; is that what you think, Miss Larcomb?” And when I rashly assented—”Now perhaps you will define for me what you mean by they? Is it the ‘natural cause’?”

Here again was a poser: I had formulated no idea that I cared to define. Probably the visitor divined the subject was unwelcome, for he turned to others, conversing agreeably enough for another quarter of an hour. Then he departed, leaving a message of concern for Freda’s headache. He hoped it would have amended by next day, when he would call to inquire.

He did call on the following day, when the Italian lesson was mainly conversational, and I had again a feeling Freda was distressed by what was said, though I could only guess at what passed between them under the disguise of a foreign tongue. But at the end I recognised the words “not to-morrow” as spoken by her, and when some protest appeared to follow, she dumbly shook her head.

Dr. Vickers did not stay on for tea as before. Did Freda think she had offended him, for some time later I noticed she had been crying? That night I had an odd dream that the Roscawen house was sliding down from its foundations into the river at the call of the white woman, and I woke suddenly with the fright.

The next day was the last of Robert’s stay at Shepstow. In the evening he and Captain Falkner returned, and at once a different atmosphere seemed to pervade the house. Freda recovered cheerfulness, I heard no more dropping water, and except at dinner on the second evening we saw nothing of Dr. Vickers. But he sent an Italian book with many scored passages, and a note in it, also in Italian, which I saw her open and read, and then immediately tear up into the minutest pieces. I supposed he wished her to keep up her studies, though the lessons were for a while suspended; I heard him say at dinner that he was busy correcting proofs.

So passed four days out of the seven Robert should have spent at Roscawen. But on the fourth evening came a telegraphic summons: his presence was needed in London, at the office, and he was bound to go up to town by the early express next day. And the arrangement was that in returning he should go straight to Shepstow and join Captain Falkner there; this distant moor was to be reached from a station on another line. Freda must have known that Robert could not help himself, but it was easy to see how her temporarily restored spirits fell again to zero. I hope I shall never be so dependent on another person’s society as she seemed to be on Robert’s. I got up to give him his early breakfast, but Freda did not appear; she had a headache, he said, and had passed a restless night. She would not rise till later: perhaps I would go up and see her by-and-bye.

I did go later in the morning, to find her lying like a child that had sobbed itself to sleep, her eyelashes still wet, and a tear sliding down her cheek. So I took a book, and drew a chair to the bedside, waiting for her to wake.

It was a long waiting; she slept on, and slept heavily. And as I sat and watched, there began again the dropping of water, and, for the first time in my experience of them, the drops were wet.

I could find traces now on the carpet of where they fell, and on the spread linen of the sheet; were they made, I wondered fantastically, out of Freda’s tears? But they had ceased before she woke, and I did not remark on them to her. Yes, she had a headache, she said, answering my question: it was better, but not gone: she would lie quietly where she was for the present. The servants might bring her a cup of tea when I had luncheon, and she would get up later in the afternoon.

So, as I was not needed, I went out after lunch for a solitary walk. Not being governed by Freda’s choice of direction, I determined to explore the course of the river, and especially how it flowed under the steep bank below the house, where I saw the wreath of foam rise in the air on my first evening at Roscawen. I expected to find a fall at this spot, but there was only broken water and rapids, alternating with smoother reaches, and deep pools, one of which, I concluded, had been the death-trap of the Elliotts’ cow. It was a still, perfect autumn day, warm, but not with the oppression of summer heat, and I walked with enjoyment, following the stream upward to where it issued from the miniature lake among the hills, in which it slept for a while in mid-course. Then I turned homewards, and was within sight of our dwelling when I again beheld the phenomenon of the pillar of foam.

It rose above the rapids, as nearly as I could guess in the same spot as before; and as there was now little or no wind, it did not so quickly spread out and dissipate. I could imagine that at early morning, or in the dimness of evening, it might be taken for a figure of the ghostly sort, especially as, in dissolving, it seemed to move and beckon. I smiled to myself to think that, according to local superstition, I too had seen the white woman; but I felt no least inclination to rush to the river and precipitate [6] myself into its depths. Nor would I gratify Dr. Vickers by telling him what had been my experience, or confide in Freda lest she should tell again.

On reaching home, I turned into the snuggery to see if Freda was downstairs; it must, I thought, be nearly tea-time. She was there; and, as I pushed the door open and was still behind the screen, I heard Dr. Vickers’ voice. “Mind,” he was saying in English, “I do not press you to decide at once. Wait till you are convinced he does not care. To my thinking he has already made it plain.”

I stood arrested, not intending to play eavesdropper, but stricken with surprise. As I moved into sight, the two were standing face to face, and the doctor’s figure hid Freda from me. I think his hands were on her shoulders, holding her before him, but of this I am not sure. He was quick of hearing as a cat, and he turned on me at once.

“Ah, how do you do. Miss Larcomb? I was just bidding adieu to your sister-in-law, for I do not think she is well enough to-day to take her lesson. In fact, I think she is very far from well. These headaches spell slow progress with our study, but we must put up with delay.”

He took up the slim book from the table and bestowed it in his pocket, bowed over my hand and was gone.

If Freda had been agitated she concealed any disturbance, and we talked as usual over tea, of my walk, and even of Robert’s journey. But she surprised me later in the evening by an unexpected proposition.

“Do you think Mrs. Larcomb would have me to stay at Aston Bury? It would be very kind of her if she would take me in while Robert has these shootings. I do not like Roscawen, and I am not well here. Will you ask her, Mary?”

I answered that I was sure mother would have her if she wished to come to us; but what would Robert say when he had asked me to companion her here? If Robert was willing, I would write—of course. Did he know what she proposed?

No, she said, and there would be no time to consult him. She would like to go as soon as tomorrow. Could we send a telegram, and set out in the morning, staying the night in York, to receive an answer there? That she was very much in earnest about this wish of hers there could be no doubt. She was trembling visibly, and a red fever-spot burned on her cheek.

I wish I had done as she asked. But my Larcomb common-sense was up in arms, and I required to know the reason why. Mother would think it strange if we rushed off to her so, and Robert might not like it; but, given time to make the arrangement, she could certainly pay the visit, and would be received as a welcome guest. I would write to mother and post on the morrow, and she could write to Robert and send the letter by Captain Falkner. Then I said: “Are you nervous here, Freda? Is it because these water-droppings are unexplained?” And when she made a sort of dumb assent, I went on: “You ought not to dwell on anything so trivial; it isn’t fair to Robert. It cannot be only this. Surely there is something more?”

The question seemed to increase her distress.

“I want to be a good wife to Robert; oh, I want that, Mary. I can do my duty if I go away; if you will keep me safe at Aston Bury for only a little while. Robert does not understand; he thinks me crazed with delusions. I tried to tell him—I did indeed; hard as it was to tell.” While this was spoken she was torn with sobs. “I am terrified to be alone. What is compelling me is too strong. Oh Mary, take me away.”

I could get no fuller explanation than this of what was at the root of the trouble. We agreed at last that the two letters should be written and sent on the morrow, and we would hold ourselves in readiness to set out as soon as answers were received. It might be no more than an hysterical fancy on Freda’s part, but I was not without suspicion of another sort. But she never mentioned their neighbour’s name, and I could not insult her by the suggestion.

The letters were written early on that Thursday morrow, and then Grey Madam was brought round for Freda’s drive. The direction chosen took us past the cross-roads in the outward going, and also in return. I remember Freda talked more cheerfully and freely than usual, asking questions about Aston Bury, as if relieved at the prospect of taking refuge there with us. As we went, Grey Madam shied badly at the same spot as before, though there was no visible cause for her terror. I suggested we had better go home a different way; but this appeared impracticable, as the other direction involved an added distance of several miles, and the crossing of a bridge which was thought to be unsafe. In returning, the mare went unwillingly, and, though our pace had been a sober one and the day was not warm, I could see she had broken out into a lather of sweat. As we came to the crossroads for the second time, the poor creature again shied away from the invisible object which terrified her, and then, seizing the bit between her teeth, she set off at a furious gallop. Freda was tugging at the reins, but it was beyond her power to stop that mad career [7], or even guide it; but the mare kept by instinct to the middle of the road. The home gate was open, and I expected she would turn in stablewards; but instead she dashed on to the open moor, making for the river.

We might possibly have jumped out, but there was no time even for thought before we were swaying on the edge of the steep bank. The next moment there was a plunge, a crash, and I remember no more.

The accident was witnessed from the further side—so I heard later. A man left his digging and ran, and it was he who dragged me out, stunned, but not suffocated by the immersion. I came to myself quickly on the bank, and my instant thought was of Freda, but she, entangled with the reins, had been swept down with the mare into the deeper pool. When I staggered up, dizzy and half-blind, begging she might be sought for, he ran on down stream, and there he and Dr. Vickers and another man drew her from the water—lifeless it seemed at first, and it was long before any spark of animation repaid their utmost efforts.

That was a strange return to Roscawen house, she tenderly carried, I able to walk thither; both of us dripping water, real drops, of which the ghostly ones may have been some mysterious forecast, if that’s not too fantastic for belief!

It was impossible to shut Dr. Vickers out, and of course he accompanied us; for all my doubt of him, I welcomed the service of his skill when Freda’s life was hanging in the balance, and she herself was too remote from this world to recognise who was beside her. But I would have preferred to owe that debt of service to any other; and the feeling I had against him deepened as I witnessed his anguished concern, and caught some unguarded expressions he let fall.

I wired to Robert to acquaint him with what had happened, and he replied “I am coming.” And upon that I resolved to speak out, and tell him what I had guessed as the true cause of Freda’s trouble, and why she must be removed, not so much from a haunted house, as from an overmastering influence which she dreaded.

Did the risk of loss—the peril barely surmounted, restore the old tenderness between these two? I think it did, at any rate for the time, when Robert found her lying white as a broken lily, and when her weak hands clung about his neck. Perhaps this made him more patient than he would have been otherwise with what I had to say.

He could hardly tax me with being fancy-ridden, but he was aghast—angry—incredulous, all in one. Vickers, of all people in the world; and Freda so worked upon as to be afraid to tell him—afraid to claim the protection that was hers by right. And now the situation was complicated by the fact that Vickers had saved her life, so that thanks were due to him as well as a kicking out of doors. And there was dignity to be thought of too: Freda’s dignity as well as his own. Any open scandal must be avoided; she must neither be shamed nor pained.

I do not know what passed between him and Dr. Vickers when they met, but the latter came no more to Roscawen, and after a while I heard incidentally that he had gone abroad. As soon as Freda could be moved, her wish was fulfilled, and I took her to Aston Bury. Mother was very gentle with her, and I think before the end a genuine affection grew up between the two.

The end was not long delayed; a few months passed, and then she faded out of life in a sort of decline; the shock to the system, so they said, had been greater than her vitality could repair. Robert was a free man again, war had been declared, and he was one of the earliest volunteers for service.

That service won distinction, as everybody knows; and now he is convalescent from his second wound, and here at Aston Bury on leave. And I think the wiser choice his sisters made for him in the first place is now likely to be his own. A much more suitable person than Frederica, and her name is quite a plain one—a real Larcomb name: it is Mary, like my own. I am glad; but in spite of all, poor Freda has a soft place in my memory and my heart. Whatever were her faults and failings, I believe she strove hard to be loyal. And I am sure that she loved Robert well.

H. D. Everett (1851 – 1923)

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1. K. C. B. is short for Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Established by King George I in 1725, it’s a British order of Chivalry that takes its unusual name from the ceremony that used to part of the preparation for receiving this particular knighthood—those who were about to be knighted underwent a ritualistic bathing as a symbol of purification. Not all Knights of the Bath went through the ceremony, but those who did were known as “Knights of the Bath”.

2. Mater is the Latin word for mother.

3. Gee appears to be short for “gee-gee”, a British word that is sometimes used for a horse, especially by children and adults who are talking with them.

4. Deer-paling is type of fence that was used in enclosures intended to contain deer.

5. In the story, the word posed is being used as an adjective to describe a state of confusion. This is archaic usage. Most readers are unlikely to have encountered it, and many dictionaires no longer define it.

6. In the context of the story, precipitate means to throw violently.

7. The word career has several meanings. In the context of the story, it indicates the horse’s rate of movement—top speed.