The Critic’s Selection of Great Ghost Stories: Volume 2—Twenty-Two Short Stories of the Strange and Unusual Including ‘John Charrington’s Wedding’, ‘The Ghost at the Rath’, ‘The Shadow of a Shade’, ‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ and ‘The Botathen Ghost’

Twenty- two chilling tales recommended by critics of supernatural fiction

Anthologies of ghost stories are perennially popular. Sometimes the raison d’etre for a collection might be that the stories embrace a particular theme or that the fame or authority of the compiler imbues a special appeal or credibility. However, it occurred to the Leonaur editors that the principal concern of anyone buying such an anthology must surely be that the stories included will be of the highest order as examples of originally plotted fine writing, guaranteed to deliver the required thrills and chills. In consideration of how that outcome might best be achieved and offered to readers we decided to research as many lists of ‘the best ghost stories’ as we could find, compiled by critics, informed journalists and authorities of supernatural fiction, to determine which stories those people—based on as much consensus as possible—believed were, indeed, the finest ghostly tales written during the ‘golden age’ of the genre. Sometimes their lists included well-known stories that would be familiar to most ghost story enthusiasts, so these were removed from consideration. What remained were 42 stories which had received deservedly high praise and these we have divided between two Leonaur volumes. These collections are also available as Leonaur ‘Christmas Books’ since they make ideal gifts, but are here offered in the familiar Leonaur ‘Supernatural and Weird Fiction’ cover for both a general readership and series collectors.

In volume two can be found the anonymous story ‘Pichon & Sons of the Croix Rousse’, ‘The Story of Mary Ancel’ by William Makepeace Thackeray, ‘At Crighton Abbey’ by Mary Braddon, ‘The Miniature’ by J. Y. Akerton, ‘The Tapestried Chamber’ by Sir Walter Scott and sixteen other creepy tales.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

IMPORTANT: THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK ARE INDENTICAL TO THE SECOND LEONAUR CHRISTMAS BOOK OF GREAT GHOST STORIES.

Everyone I touched eluded me somehow. Substantial as they all looked, I could not contrive to lay my hand on anything that felt like solid flesh. Two or three times I felt a momentary relief from the oppressive sensations which distracted me, when I firmly believed I saw Frank’s head at some distance among the crowd, now in one room and now in another, and again in the conservatory, which was hung with lamps, and filled with people walking about among the flowers. But, whenever I approached, he had vanished. At last I came upon him, sitting by himself on a couch behind a curtain watching the dancers. I laid my hand upon his shoulder. Here was something substantial at last. He did not look up; he seemed aware neither of my touch nor my speech. I looked in his staring eyes, and found that he was sound asleep. I could not wake him.
Curiosity would not let me remain by his side. I again mixed with the crowd, and found the stately host still leading about the magnificent lady. No one seemed to notice that the golden-haired girl was sitting weeping in a corner; no one but the beauty in the silver train, who sometimes glanced at her contemptuously. Whilst I watched her distress a group came between me and her, and I wandered into another room, where, as though I had turned from one picture of her to look at another, I beheld her dancing gaily, in the full glee of Sir Roger de Coverley, with a fine-looking youth, who was more plainly dressed than any other person in the room. Never was a better-matched pair to look at. Down the middle they danced, hand in hand, his face full of tenderness, hers beaming with joy, right and left bowing and curtseying, parted and meeting again, smiling and whispering; but over the heads of smaller women there were the fierce eyes of the magnificent beauty scowling at them. Then again, the crowd shifted around me, and this scene was lost.
For some time, I could see no trace of the golden-haired girl in any of the rooms. I looked for her in vain, till at last I caught a glimpse of her standing smiling in a doorway with her finger lifted, beckoning. At whom? Could it be at me? Her eyes were fixed on mine. I hastened into the hall, and caught sight of her white dress passing up the wide black staircase from which I had shrunk some hours earlier. I followed her, she keeping some steps in advance. It was intensely dark, but by the gleaming of her gown I was able to trace her flying figure.
Where we went I knew not, up how many stairs, down how many passages, till we arrived at a low-roofed large room with sloping roof and queer windows where there was a dim light, like the sanctuary light in a deserted church. Here, when I entered, the golden head was glimmering over something which I presently discerned to be a cradle wrapped round with white curtains, and with a few fresh flowers fastened up on the hood of it, as if to catch a baby’s eye.
The fair sweet face looked up at me with a glow of pride on it, smiling with happy dimples. The white hands unfolded the curtains, and stripped back the coverlet. Then, suddenly there went a rushing moan all round the weird room, that seemed like a gust of wind forcing in through the crannies, and shaking the jingling old windows in their sockets. The cradle was an empty one. The girl fell back with a look of horror on her pale face that I shall never forget, then, flinging her arms above her head, she dashed from the room.
I followed her as fast as I was able, but the wild white figure was too swift for me. I had lost her before I reached the bottom of the staircase. I searched for her, first in one room, then in another, neither could I see her foe (as I already believed to be), the lady of the silver train. At length I found myself in a small ante-room, where a lamp was expiring on the table. A window was open, close by it the golden-haired girl was lying sobbing in a chair, while the magnificent lady was bending over her as if soothingly, and offering her something to drink in a goblet. The moon was rising behind the two figures.
The shuddering light of the lamp was flickering over the girl’s bright head, the rich embossing of the golden cup, the lady’s silver robes, and, I thought, the jewelled eyes of the serpent looked out from her bending head. As I watched, the girl raised her face and drank, then suddenly dashed the goblet away; while a cry such as I never heard but once, and shiver to remember, rose to the very roof of the old house, and the clear sharp word “Poisoned!” rang and reverberated from hall and chamber in a thousand echoes, like the clash of a peal of bells. The girl dashed herself from the open window, leaving the cry clamouring behind her. I heard the violent opening of doors and running of feet, but I waited for nothing more. Maddened by what I had witnessed, I would have felled the murderess, but she glided unhurt from under my vain blow.
I sprang from the window after the wretched white figure. I saw it flying on before me with a speed I could not overtake. I ran till I was dizzy. I called like a madman, and heard the owls croaking back to me. The moon grew huge and bright, the trees grew out before it like the bushy heads of giants, the river lay keen and shining like a long unsheathed sword, couching for deadly work among the rushes. The white figure shimmered and vanished, glittered brightly on before me, shimmered and vanished again, shimmered, staggered, fell, and disappeared in the river. Of what she was, phantom or reality, I thought not at the moment; she had the semblance of a human being going to destruction, and I had the frenzied impulse to save her. I rushed forward with one last effort, struck my foot against the root of a tree, and was dashed to the ground. I remember a crash, momentary pain and confusion; then nothing more.
When my senses returned, the red clouds of the dawn were shining in the river beside me. I arose to my feet, and found that, though much bruised, I was otherwise unhurt. I busied my mind in recalling the strange circumstances which had brought me to that place in the dead of the night. The recollection of all I had witnessed was vividly present to my mind. I took my way slowly to the house, almost expecting to see the marks of wheels and other indications of last night’s revel, but the rank grass that covered the gravel was uncrushed, not a blade disturbed, not a stone displaced. I shook one of the drawing-room windows till I shook off the old rusty hasp inside, flung up the creaking sash, and entered. Where were the brilliant draperies and carpets, the soft gilding, the vases teeming with flowers, the thousand sweet odours of the night before? Not a trace of them; no, nor even a ragged cobweb swept away, nor a stiff chair moved an inch from its melancholy place, nor the face of a mirror relieved from one speck of its obscuring dust!