CHAPTER IX

NIGHT RAMBLINGS ON WIMBLEDON COMMON AND HOUNSLOW HEATH

If there are any places in London that should be more haunted than others, assuredly those places are the parks and commons. When I was living on the south side of the river, I spent many nights tramping about Wimbledon, Clapham, Wandsworth, Tooting and Streatham Commons. Since then I have lived at Blackheath, Hampstead, Hounslow and Dulwich, so that I may say I know pretty nearly every inch of these places. I can see myself now standing on Wimbledon Common close to a pool, in the dead of night. No one about, and the reflection of the moon staring at me from the unruffled surface of the water. I am trying to get impressions of any event that may have taken place there. I got none. Suddenly a hand falls on my shoulder; I swing round, and peering into my face is the white, haggard face of a tramp.

“You ain’t going to drown yourself, are you?” he said.

“Why?” I asked, anticipating a severe rebuke from this withered and worn scarecrow of humanity.

“Why,” he said, “because don’t do it here! I can show you a much better spot, where the water is deep, and where, when once you get in, you can’t very easily get out.”

“But how will that benefit you?” I enquired, wondering why he was so eager.

“You can let me have your clothes, can’t you?” he explained; “you won’t want to take them with you into the next world. From what I hears about it, sperrits don’t need neither coats nor trousers, and the few shillings I shall get for them will do me a bit of good, and won’t hurt you.”

“But I wasn’t contemplating suicide,” I remarked. “I’m not tired of life yet.”

“Ain’t you,” he said, in extremely disappointed tones. “Then why are you out here at this time of night?”

“If it comes to that,” I observed, “why are you?”

“I ain’t got nowhere else to go,” he said; “and there are no police out here to disturb anyone.”

“Nor ghosts?” I remarked.

“Ghosts!” he chuckled. “I’m not afraid of ghosts. I shall soon be one myself, I expect; but there is one spot here I don’t go near after dark.”

“Why?”

“Why,” he said. “Come along with me, and maybe you’ll guess.”

Had he been anything like my size I should not have gone, for his appearance was very far from assuring, but, as he was a small man, I felt comparatively safe. We walked side by side over the grass, crossed a gleaming, white path, and steering in a slightly northerly direction—I could tell that much by the stars—abruptly halted in front of a shallow pit, on the other side of which was a big bush.

“It’s there,” he said, pointing at the pit. “I’ve tried to sleep there twice, and each time I’ve been woken up by hearing something heavy fall close to my head. It seems to come from the bush. It’s the bush that skeers me,” he added, “and though I don’t mind passing it in the day-time, nothing on earth will persuade me to look behind it after dark.”

“Not even sixpence,” I said, fingering that coin in my waistcoat pocket.

“Go on,” he said, “you haven’t sixpence, otherwise you’d not be here. You’re joking. If anyone really did offer me sixpence now to do it, well, I don’t say but what I mightn’t try.”

He spoke so hungrily and looked so famished that I decided to part with it, though sixpence to me just then had a particularly real value. I showed it him. “Look behind that tree,” I said, “and I’ll give it you.”

He set off at once. “No,” I called out, “that won’t do; you must go through the pit.” He proceeded to obey, and was in the middle of the hollow, when I distinctly heard something very heavy strike the ground apparently close to him. I ran round the bush, just in time to see what I thought was a black shadow shoot across the ground and disappear in a neighbouring cluster of trees. When I returned, the tramp was still in the pit, but I could see nothing there to account for the noise.

“Well,” he said. “Did you hear it?”

“I heard something,” I replied, “and there’s your sixpence.”

I often went to Wimbledon Common afterwards, but never again saw the tramp, nor found the hollow.

My Blackheath and Greenwich Park experiences, or at least most of them, are narrated fully in my “Haunted Houses of London,” so that I can only refer briefly to them here.

From the impressions I got, when walking on the Common at Blackheath, I shall always believe that the superphysical influences there are particularly demoralising. It always seemed to me that Blackheath—by the way a curiously appropriate name—might be the rendezvous of the very worst type of earth-bound phantasms of the dead, and of the most vicious neutrarians.

After leaving London and entering on my scholastic career, I was first of all a master at Daventry, then tutor in an Irish family at Aldershot, and then, in succession, a master in preparatory schools at Wandsworth, Hereford and Blackheath. Of these various posts, I liked that at Blackheath the least, partly because the headmaster there was the most unmitigated snob, and my pupils hopelessly spoilt, and partly because I had such a detestation of the heath after dark.

My only consolation in those days was cricket and writing. Every evening, after my work with the boys was done, I repaired to a room over a library in Blackheath village, and it was there that I completed my first novel, “For Satan’s Sake.”

The book deals with the soul of a suicide, and was based, as I have already stated, on my experiences in America and York Road, Lambeth. I tried it with various publishers, but without success, and it was not until six years later, when I was living in a small fishing town in Cornwall, that I eventually got it taken. It so happened that a well-known novelist came to see me one day, and when I told him that I had attempted a book, he said he would like to see it. I fished it out of the box, where it had lain undisturbed for years, and he went off with it, subsequently showing it to a reader of a publishing firm—also a well-known novelist—who was staying in the town at the time, and who was so impressed with it, that he advised his firm to accept it. It did not even then come out for over a year, and the anxiety of awaiting my début as an author can better be imagined than described. The success I prayed for was not showered upon me, but the book was well received on the whole, and paved the way for other works to follow.

And now, let me hie back to London and its commons. Though Hampstead has, in all probability, its share of phantasms, my impressions there have been of a more agreeable nature than at Blackheath. I spent the greater part of several consecutive nights one summer sitting on a bench in a very rustic glade on the heath, waiting for anything that might happen. Once or twice between one and two something seemed to be making a violent effort to materialise, and I fully expected to see a figure suddenly appear before me. My impressions were that it would be the figure of a woman, and that she would be carrying a white bundle in her arms. I felt that she was in great trouble and wanted to ask me for advice. I associated her worries with a big house that used to stand somewhere near the summit of Hampstead Hill. I felt all this very acutely, and I used to repeat aloud my willingness to do anything I could to assist her.

Strange to say, a few years later, I met a lady who told me that she had had a curious experience in the same spot. She was walking through it rather late one autumn evening, accompanied by her dog, a big black retriever. When she came to the seat where I used to sit, the dog started barking and showed signs of great terror. Somewhat alarmed, she was about to hurry on, when a voice close to her said, “It’s only me, Winifred; don’t be frightened. The boat I sailed in to America was wrecked, and only the child was saved.”

The lady looked round, but there was no one in sight. On reaching home, she mentioned the incident to her mother, who exclaimed in astonishment, “Well, that is odd! I was sitting on a seat, I should think in that very spot, about forty years ago—we were living in D—— House, on Haverstock Hill, at the time—when a letter was brought me announcing the loss of a big sailing vessel in the Atlantic, on which my maid, Winnie, as we used to call her, had sailed with her husband to America. Only a very few of the passengers and crew survived, and Winnie and her husband were both drowned. But I never knew they had a child.”

Hounslow Heath should teem with ghosts, for it once swarmed with foot-pads, who, after committing every conceivable act of violence on and around the heath, usually ended their career there on gibbets. I once had rooms near the Bath Road, and spent many nights rambling about the Heath in quest of ghostly adventure. One evening I kept fancying I was followed everywhere by a tall, muffled figure, and when, in alarm, I hastened over the grass on to the roadway, I heard a low, cynical laugh. All the way home the steps seemed to pursue me, and when I got into bed and prepared to blow out the light, I saw the curtains by the window rustle and swell out, as if someone was behind them. It was a long time before I ventured to blow out the light, and, when I slept, I dreamed a dark, hooded figure was bending over me.

On another occasion, as I perambulated the heath, where the trees were thickly clustered and the undergrowth had become the densest tangle, I caught a glimpse of two men playing dice. I heard their laughter and the rattling of the box, as they shook it in the air and threw out the dice. Then suddenly their gaiety was turned to wrath—there were oaths and blows, cries and groans, and all became silent, save for the soughing and moaning of the wind through the lofty tree-tops. But as I came away from the heath, there was again that cynical laugh, and again footsteps seemed to follow me home, and again the curtain by the window of my room shook and swelled.

I did not go to the heath one night; I lay awake in bed instead, and about the hour I had usually returned I heard steps, long, swinging steps coming down the little side road towards the house. My memory at once went back to that night in Dublin, and I strained my ears to catch the accompanying sound. I had not long to wait—it soon came, the same old familiar click, click, click! In an agony of fear, lest the steps should stop at the house and there should be a repetition of the terrible knocking at the door, I lighted a candle and sat up. Nearer and nearer they came, and then, when I felt certain they would stop, to my infinite relief they went on. On past the house, the echoes ringing out loud and clear in the keen, frosty air, until they reached the Bath Road.

I fully expected some misfortune would happen to me after this occurrence, as the last time I had heard the steps had been at the time of my failure to pass the medical for the R.I.C., and shortly before my disastrous trip to America. Yet nothing of a specially untoward nature happened. Apparently, the steps on this occasion merely heralded another change in my vocation, for I shortly afterwards became imbued with the desire to be an actor, and commenced what was destined to be a lively, though very brief theatrical career, as a pupil in the Henry Neville Studio, Oxford Street.

Before, however, passing on to subsequent events, I must relate one other—the only other—ghostly happening I experienced at Hounslow. In a remote corner of the heath there was one spot that had a peculiar fascination for me, and, whenever I returned from it, I dreamed the same dream—that a beautiful girl in an old-world costume, with fair hair, large, blue eyes and daintily-moulded lips, approached my bed and leaned over me. She had the most appealing expression in her face, and seemed to be anxious to make me her confidant. I was always about to address her, when some extraordinary metamorphosis took place, and I awoke, palpitating with terror.

The dream greatly impressed me, and I tried my best to discover a reason for it. I did eventually, but not until the year I published “Some Haunted Houses of England and Wales,” when I got into correspondence with a very old lady, whom I will call Miss Carmichael. Miss Carmichael lived at Ealing, close to the Parish Church, and wrote to me to the effect that, if I liked to call on her, she could tell me a curious tale about an old house that used to stand on the outskirts of Hounslow Heath. Of course I accepted this invitation.

I found Miss Carmichael, when I called, lying on a sofa, crippled with rheumatism, but otherwise in the full possession of all her senses, and wonderfully vivacious, despite the fact that she was well over ninety.

“The house I want to tell you about,” she said, “was called ‘The Gables.’ It was a large, old-fashioned manor house with very extensive grounds, and at the beginning of the last century it belonged to my aged relative, Miss Denning. She never lived in it herself, but she kept it in excellent repair, and at her death, in or about 1820, her nephew inherited an apparently valuable property. Now, Tom Denning had a great friend, Dick Mayhew, and it was from Dick Mayhew, who was also a great friend of mine, that I heard the most detailed account of the hauntings. I will try and tell you the story just as my friend told it to me.”[3]

[3] I have reproduced the gist of this narrative in my own language.

* * * * *

“I was sitting in my stuffy office in Jermyn Street one spring morning, when, who should suddenly walk in but Tom Denning, whom I had not seen for some time. ‘Why, Dick,’ he said, ‘how fagged and run down you look. A spell in the country is what you need, it would do you all the good in the world. Supposing you come down to my place at Hounslow, and have a blow on the Heath. I keep a couple of horses, and you can ride all day if you like.’

“What surprises you spring on one,” I ejaculated. “I didn’t know you were living so near London—and at Hounslow, too! Aren’t you afraid of highwaymen. I hear they still visit the place occasionally. How long have you been there?”

“I haven’t been there yet,” Dick replied with a laugh; “at least, not to stay. The property has just been left me by my aunt. It’s a queer old house, just the kind of place a romantic beggar like you would like, and if any house ought to be haunted, it ought. They say a murder was once committed there by an ancestress of mine, a girl whose face was as beautiful as she herself was evil, and that her spirit still roams the house and grounds.”

“I should certainly like to see her,” I said, “and so, I am sure, would Greg.” (Greg was Dick’s bloodhound).

“Well, I’ll give you both an opportunity,” Tom laughed. “Take Greg with you, and a friend too, if you like, for I may not be able to join you at once.”

“I accepted, and in due course arrived at ‘The Gables,’ accompanied by my cousin Ralph, who was then a Lieutenant in the Buffs, and Greg.

“The grounds surrounding ‘The Gables,’ which stood near the edge of the heath, were encompassed by a very high, red-brick wall, and consisted of a broad, well-kept lawn in front, a small spinney on one side, an extensive shrubbery on the other, and big kitchen gardens at the back. The house itself, seventeenth century and covered with ivy from tip to toe, was picturesque in the extreme. There were no servants, only the caretakers, a middle-aged man and his wife, who occupied rooms in the east wing. The west wing was reserved for us.

“After dinner, in a hall so enormous that it made us feel positively lilliputian, we wandered out into the garden. It was a glorious night, the sky one mass of silver, scintillating stars, the air redolent with the odour of spring flowers. ‘By Jove,’ Ralph remarked to me, as we strolled across the lawn, ‘By Jove! No one would think we were so close to that God-forsaken heath; why, it was only a few years ago that a fellow in my regiment was set on there, and, after being robbed of all he had on him, half beaten to death with bludgeons. It’s one of the worst cut-throat spots round London.’ Then he uttered an exclamation of surprise and jogged my elbow.

“Coming towards us from the house was the figure of a young girl. She wore a white dress with a dark cloak flung loosely over her shoulders, and the moonlight playing over her face revealed a countenance of extraordinary delicacy and beauty. Her eyes were large and childlike in their expression, her lips daintily modelled, her teeth wonderfully white and even, her hair golden. Whether it was the effect of the moonlight on them or not, I cannot say, but her cheeks were absolutely devoid of colour, almost strikingly pale, whilst I fancied I detected in the slightly open mouth an expression of pain. I saw every detail most distinctly, even to the shape of her fingers, which were very pointed. She came on without apparently noticing us, and we watched her trip past us and disappear in the spinney.

“‘What a stunner!’ Ralph exclaimed. ‘I don’t know when I’ve seen a prettier face! Sly fellow, Denning! I wonder who she can be!’ He had hardly finished speaking when we heard the most awful scream, a shriek of terror and despair, such as sent all the blood in my body to my heart, and left the rest of me like ice.

“‘My God! What’s happened to her?’ Ralph gasped. ‘She’s being murdered. Quick!’ We dashed into the spinney, but despite the fact that we searched everywhere, no girl was to be found.

“Returning to the house, we made enquiries of the caretakers, who were vehement in their denial of knowing the girl or of having heard her cries. Much puzzled, we then retired to our night quarters. The room that had been assigned to us, for we preferred to share one between us, was situated about midway down a long, narrow corridor, lighted at the further end by a casement window, across which sprays of ivy blew to and fro in the cool breeze.

“For a long time we sat in front of the fire chatting, but at one o’clock Ralph got up, and exclaimed that it was high time we turned into bed.

“‘Hullo, look at Greg!’ he said, pointing to the dog, who was crouching on the floor in front of the door showing its teeth in a series of savage growls. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

“Before I had time to reply, we suddenly heard a regular, measured tap, tap, tap, as of high-heeled shoes, coming along the corridor towards our door.

“‘That can’t be either the caretaker or his wife,’ Ralph whispered. ‘I wonder if it’s the young lady! Perhaps she’s going to pay us a surreptitious visit. I only wish she would—the little darling!’

“Nearer and nearer came the steps, until they seemed to stop just outside our door. Greg’s hair bristled, he gave a deep growl, and retreated half way across the room. Then there came a loud knock on the door, followed by the sound of a violent scuffle. Springing forward, Ralph threw the door wide open. There was nothing there, only the cold light of the moon, and the white, motionless faces of the Dennings’ ancestors hanging on the walls.

“‘It’s deuced odd,’ Ralph said. ‘I swear I heard steps and a knock, and yet there’s nothing to account for it. Could it have been rats?’

“‘I don’t think so,’ I said; ‘rats wouldn’t have frightened Greg. Look at him now; he has quite recovered.’ Greg had come to my side and was licking my hand and wagging his tail.

“In the morning I asked the caretaker’s wife if the place was haunted.

“‘Haunted,’ she stammered. ‘No. Whatever made you think of such a thing, sir! There ain’t no such things as ghosts. It’s them howls you ’eard.’

“Seeing there was nothing to be got out of her, Ralph and I did not refer to the subject again, but spent our time reading in the library, and wandering about the heath.

“In the evening we sauntered out into the garden and tried to coax Greg to come with us, but he resolutely refused, and so we had to leave him behind. Just about the same time as on the previous evening, and in identically the same place, we again saw the girl.

“‘I’ll speak to her, hanged if I don’t,’ Ralph muttered, and taking off his hat, he stepped forward and accosted her. Without apparently perceiving us, she passed resolutely on, and, entering the spinney, was speedily lost to sight. Almost directly afterwards, the same awful, wailing scream rose shrill and high on the still night air. This time we did not rush after her, but, walking hurriedly back to the house, we sought the companionship of the bright and cheery fireside.

“At one o’clock we were again seated in our bedroom, and the events of the preceding night were repeated in every detail.

“On the morrow Tom joined us. When we told him of the ghost, he became intensely interested.

“‘It must be my ancestress,’ he said. ‘The girl who was supposed to have murdered somebody. I’ll sit up with you two fellows to-night and we’ll have the door open.’

“After dinner we all three went into the garden.

“‘It’s here we first caught sight of her,’ Ralph exclaimed, as we halted on the lawn, ‘here, and precisely at this hour. Yes—by Jove!—and there she is!’

“I looked, and there was the figure I knew so well, tripping daintily towards us, her yellow hair and silver shoe buckles gleaming furiously in the moonlight.

“‘She wears a hood,’ Tom cried, ‘and it completely hides her face.’

“‘What!’ Ralph retorted; ‘she has no hood, you must be dreaming.’

“As before, the girl passed us and we lost sight of her amongst the trees. The next moment, and we again heard her scream. Then we searched everywhere, but with no result. She was certainly not on the premises, and as there was no avenue of escape save by scaling a ten foot wall, we could only conclude she had melted into fine air, in other words—vanished.

“‘I’ll get to the bottom of this mystery,’ Tom growled between his teeth, ‘if I root up every tree in the garden.’

“‘What you’ve seen so far,’ Ralph observed, ‘is only the prelude. There’s more to come, and I’m not sure if Act II. is not the most exciting. What do you think, Dick?’

“‘Ask Greg,’ I replied. ‘I believe he knows more about it than we do.’

“On arriving indoors, we all three retired to the bedroom we had agreed to share. The night was so exquisite that I sat by the open window. Directly beneath me was the gravel drive, which lay like a broad, white belt encircling the house, and beyond it, on the level sweep of lawn, danced the shadows from the larch and fir trees in the paddock; the only sign of life came from the bats and night birds that wheeled and skimmed in silent flight in and out the bushes. There was very little breeze, sufficient only to make the ivy rustle and the window in the corridor outside give the faintest perceptible jar. I gazed at my companions. Ralph lay on the sofa, sound asleep, a half-serious, half-amused look on his handsome features, while Tom sat in an armchair directly in front of the fire, his head buried in the palms of his hands, as if wrapt in profound thought. A distant church clock boomed one. Greg growled, and Tom, at once springing up, flung the door widely back on its hinges. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Come what may, we’re ready for it.’ As he concluded, there came a tapping.

“Tap, tap, tap; someone in high-heeled shoes was walking over the polished oak boards of the corridor in our direction. To me there was a world of stealth and cautiousness in the sounds, that suggested a host of conflicting motives. As the steps drew nearer, the door suddenly swung to with a loud crash, and before we had time to recover from our astonishment, someone rapped. With a shout of baffled rage, Tom leaped to his feet and tore at the handle. The massive door at once flew open. The corridor was empty—only moonbeams and pictures—nothing more.

“The following day was wet, and we stayed indoors, all the morning and afternoon, reading. As it cleared up a little towards supper-time, Tom proposed going for a short walk. We slipped on our overcoats, and were crossing the big entrance hall to the front door, when Tom suddenly exclaimed, ‘Hang it! I’ve left my pipe upstairs. I say, wait a minute, you fellows, till I get it.’ He started running, and then stopped short, giving vent to a loud exclamation. Ascending the broad staircase in front of us was a form, whose back view exactly resembled that of the golden-haired beauty we had seen in the garden. Where she had sprung from we could not say. We only knew she was there.

“‘By Jove! I’ll see her face this time,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll see it, even if I have to force her to turn round.’ He ran after her, and, mounting the stairs two at a time, stretched out his hand to pluck at her sleeve. She turned, and her face was to us a blank. What Tom saw we never knew. Shouting, ‘Take the damned thing away from me!’ he stepped back and fell; and when we ran forward, we found him lying at the foot of the stairs—dead.”

The property, Miss Carmichael informed me, passed to a distant relative, who, after trying in vain to let it, pulled it down. The ghost, it was rumoured, was that of a very beautiful ancestress of the Dennings, who, after leading a life, evil even for those times, disappeared. What happened to her material body no one ever knew, but her spirit was supposed to haunt the house and grounds in dual form. To the stranger, that is to say, to those outside her own family, she appeared in all the radiant beauty of her earthly body, but to the Dennings she seldom revealed her face. When she did, they beheld something too terrible for the mind to conceive—and live.

“I have heard,” Miss Carmichael added, “that the ghost has been seen quite recently haunting the site once occupied by the house and grounds, and also the borders of the heath.”

And as Miss Carmichael was very emphatic on this last point, I may not unreasonably conclude that the girl of my dreams was the actual ghost of “The Gables.”