|
CASE XVI
THE GHOST OF THE HINDOO CHILD, OR THE HAUNTINGS OF THE WHITE DOVE HOTEL,
NEAR ST. SWITHIN’S STREET, ABERDEEN
In the course of many
years’ investigation of haunted houses, I have naturally come in contact
with numerous people who have had first-hand experiences with the
Occult. Nurse Mackenzie is one of these people. I met her for the first
time last year at the house of my old friend, Colonel Malcolmson, whose
wife she was nursing.
For some days I was hardly aware she was in the house, the illness of
her patient keeping her in constant seclusion, but when Mrs. Malcolmson
grew better, I not infrequently saw her, taking a morning
“constitutional” in the beautiful castle grounds. It was on one of these
occasions that she favoured me with an account of her psychical
adventure. .
It happened, she began, shortly after I had finished my term as
probationer at St. K.’s Hospital, Edinburgh. A letter was received at
the hospital one morning with the urgent request that two nurses should
be sent to a serious case near St. Swithin’s Street. As the letter was
signed by a well-known physician in the town, it received immediate
attention, and Nurse Emmett and I were dispatched, as day and night
nurses respectively, to the scene of action. My hours on duty were from
9 p.m. till 9 a.m. The house in which the patient was located was the
White Dove Hotel, a thoroughly respectable and well-managed
establishment. The proprietor knew nothing about the invalid, except
that her name was Vining, and that she had, at one period of her career,
been an actress. He had noticed that she had looked ill on her arrival
the previous week. Two days after her arrival, she had complained of
feeling very ill, and the doctor, who had been summoned to attend her,
said that she was suffering from a very loathsome Oriental disease,
which, fortunately is, in this country, rare. The hotel, though newly
decorated and equipped throughout with every up-to-date convenience, was
in reality very old. It was one of those delightfully roomy erections
that seem built for eternity rather than time, and for comfort rather
than economy of space. The interior, with its oak-panelled walls,
polished oak floors, and low ceilings, traversed with ponderous oaken
beams, also impressed me pleasantly, whilst a flight of broad, oak
stairs, fenced with balustrades a foot thick, brought me to a seemingly
interminable corridor, into which the door of Miss Vining’s room,
opened. It was a low, wainscoted apartment, and its deep-set window,
revealing the thickness of the wall, looked out upon a dismal yard
littered with brooms and buckets. Opposite the foot of the bed— a modern
French bedstead, by the bye, whose brass fittings and somewhat flimsy
hangings were strangely incongruous with their venerable
surroundings—was an ingle, containing the smouldering relics of what had
doubtless been intended for a fire, but which needed considerable
coaxing before it could be converted from a pretence to a reality. There
was no exit save by the doorway I had entered, and no furniture save a
couple of rush-bottomed chairs and a table strewn with an untidy medley
of writing materials and medicine bottles.
A feeling of depression, contrasting strangely with the effect produced
on me by the cheerfulness of the hotel in general, seized me directly I
entered the room. Despite the brilliancy of the electric light and the
new and gaudy bed-hangings, the air was full of gloom—a gloom which, for
the very reason that it was unaccountable, was the more alarming. I felt
it hanging around me like the undeveloped shadow of something singularly
hideous and repulsive, and, on my approaching the sick woman, it seemed
to thrust itself in my way and force me back.
Miss Vining was decidedly good-looking; she had the typically theatrical
features— neatly moulded nose and chin, curly yellow hair, and big,
dreamy blue eyes that especially appeal to a certain class of men; like
most women, however, I prefer something more solid, both physically and
intellectually—I cannot stand “ the pretty, pretty.” She was, of course,
far too ill to converse, and, beyond a few desultory and spasmodic
ejaculations, maintained a rigid silence. As there was no occasion for
me to sit close beside her, I drew up a chair before the fire, placing
myself in such a position as to command a full view of the bed. My first
night passed undisturbed by any incident, and in the morning the
condition of my patient showed a slight improvement. It was eight
o'clock in the evening when I came on duty again, and, the weather
having changed during the day, the whole room echoed and re-echoed with
the howling of the wind, which was raging round the house with
demoniacal fury.
I had been at my post for a little over two hours—and had just
registered my patient's temperature, when, happening to look up from the
book I was reading, I saw to my surprise that the chair beside the head
of the bed was occupied by a child— a tiny girl. How she had come into
the room without attracting my attention was certainly extraordinary,
and I could only suppose that the shrieking of the wind down the wide
chimney had deadened the sound of the door and her footsteps.
I was naturally, of course, very indignant that she had dared to come in
without rapping, and, getting up from my seat I was preparing to address
her and bid her go, when she lifted a wee white hand and motioned me
back. I obeyed because I could not help myself—her action was
accompained by a peculiar,—an unpleasantly peculiar, expression that
held me spellbound; and without exactly knowing why, I stood staring at
her, tongue-tied and trembling. As her face was turned towards the
patient, and she wore, moreover, a very wide-brimmed hat, I could see
nothing of her features; but from her graceful little figure and dainty
limbs, I gathered that she was probably both beautiful and aristocratic.
Her dress, though not perhaps of the richest quality, was certainly far
from shoddy, and there was something in its style and make that
suggested foreign nationality,—Italy—or Spain—or South America—or even
the Orient, the probability of the latter being strengthened by her
pose, which was full of the serpent-like ease which is characteristic of
the East. I was so taken up with watching her that I forgot all about my
patient, until a prolonged sigh from the bed reminded me of her
existence. With an effort I then advanced, and was about to approach the
bed, when the child, without moving her head, motioned me back, and
—again I was helpless. The vision I had obtained of the sick woman,
brief though it was, filled me with alarm. She was tossing to and fro on
the blankets, and breathing in the most agonised manner as if in
delirium, or enthralled by some particularly dreadful nightmare. Her
condition so frightened me, that I made the most frantic efforts to
overcome my inertia. I did not succeed, however, and at last, utterly
overcome by my exertion, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, the
chair by the bed was vacant— the child had gone. A tremendous feeling of
relief surged through me, and, jumping out of my seat, I hastened to the
bedside— my patient was worse, the fever had increased, and she was
delirious. I took her temperature. It was 104. I now sat close beside
her, and my presence apparently had a soothing effect. She speedily grew
calmer, and after taking her medicine gradually sank into a gentle sleep
which lasted until late in the morning. When I left her she had
altogether recovered from the relapse. I, of course, told the doctor of
the child's visit, and he was very angry.
“Whatever happens, Nurse," he said, “take care that no one enters the
room to-night; the patient’s condition is far too critical for her to
see any one, even her own daughter. You must keep the door locked."
Armed with this mandate, I went oh duty the following night with a
somewhat lighter heart, and, after locking the door, once again sat by
the fire. During the day there had been a heavy fall of snow ; the wind
had abated, and the streets were now as silent as the grave.
Ten, eleven, and twelve o'clock struck, and my patient slept tranquilly.
At a quarter to one, however, I was abruptly roused from a reverie by a
sob, a sob of fear and agony that proceeded from the bed. I looked, and
there—there, seated in the same posture as on the previous evening, was
the child. I sprang to my feet with an exclamation of amazement. She
raised her hand, and, as before, I collapsed— spellbound—paralysed. No
words of mine can convey all the sensations I experienced as I sat
there, forced to listen to the moaning and groaning of the woman whose
fate had been entrusted to my keeping. Every second she grew worse, and
each sound rang in my ears like the hammering of nails in her coffin.
How long I endured such torment I cannot say, I dare not think, for,
though the clock was within a few ^eet of me, I never once thought of
looking at it. At last the child rose, and, moving slowly from the bed,
advanced with bowed head towards the window. The spell was broken. With
a cry of indignation I literally bounded over the carpet and faced the
intruder.
“Who are you?” I hissed. “Tell me your name instantly I How dare you
enter this room without my permission?”
As I spoke she slowly raised her head. I snatched at her hat. It melted
away in my hands, and, to my unspeakable terror, my undying terror, I
looked into the face of a corpse!—the corpse of a Hindoo child, with a
big, gaping cut in its throat. In its lifetime the child had, without
doubt, been lovely; it was now horrible—horrible with all the ghastly
disfigurements, the repellent disfigurements, of a long consignment to
the grave. I fainted, and, on recovering, found my ghostly visitor had
vanished, and that my patient was dead. One of her hands was thrown
across her eyes, as if to shut out some object on which she feared to
look, whilst the other grasped the counterpane convulsively.
It fell to my duty to help pack up her belongings, and among her letters
was a large envelope bearing the postmark “Quetta.” As we were on the
look-out for some clue as to the address of her relatives, I opened it.
It was merely the cabinet-size photograph of a Hindoo child, but I
recognised the dress immediately— it was that of my ghostly visitor. On
the back of it were these words: “Natalie. May God forgive us both.”
Though we made careful inquiries for any information as to Natalie and
Miss Vining in Quetta, and advertised freely in the leading London
papers, we learned nothing, and in time we were forced to let the matter
drop. As far as I know, the ghost of the Hindoo child has never been
seen again, but I have heard that the hotel is still haunted—haunted by
a woman. |
