Part 2 — HARLEY HOUSE, PORTISHEAD THE BLACK ANTENNÆ

Technical form of apparitions: Poltergeists (or Elementals)

Source of authenticity: First-hand evidence

Cause of hauntings: Unknown

The following account of a haunted house is taken from the diary of a gentleman—since deceased. The narrator was the owner of the house, and, being a professional man, asked me to give fictitious names, lest the publication of the story should be detrimental both to his practice and to the letting of the place:

“Before I commence my story,” he writes, “I think it expedient to state that both my parents are dead, my father having died many years ago and my mother quite recently. The latter had lived to the very ripe age of ninety, had possessed an unusually strong will, was a most devout Roman Catholic, and took the deepest interest in everything that concerned our welfare. She had two peculiarities: (1) A strange aversion to children; (2) a positive loathing and dread of blackbeetles. The house stands alone, some thirty yards or so from the road, and is well concealed from view by a high brick wall and numerous trees.

“There are four bedrooms upstairs, two on either side of the landing—which for clearness I will number—viz., No. 1 occupied by my wife and I; No. 2 my sister Mary’s room; No. 3 my sister Joan’s room; No. 4 the spare bedroom in which my mother died. The top storey consists of two attics inhabited by the servants.

“January 1, 1906, we first became aware of the disturbances—violent knockings being heard about midnight on the walls and floor of room No. 4. On hurriedly entering it, we could discover nothing. But on leaving the room the noises were repeated and kept up till two or three in the morning.

“January 5. A recurrence of the disturbance—only much louder.

“January 6. Have in a carpenter who makes a thorough examination of the wainscoting and reports ‘no traces of rats, mice nor any other animals.’

“January 10. Tremendous knockings again in room No. 4, the door of which is swinging to and fro violently. A loud clatter on landing as though half a dozen children were engaged in the roughest horse-play. The uproar terminates in a terrific crash on the panel of No. 3 door. Joan rushes out of her bedroom thinking the house is on fire and sees a strange, green light some six by two feet long moving across the landing. It disappears in room No. 4.

“January 15. We are all awakened by a loud crash and on reaching the landing find a big, black oak chest from the coach-house, lying there on its back. Every one much alarmed.

“February 1. My sister Mary awakened at midnight by feeling something tickle her cheeks. She puts out her hand to brush it away and encounters something cold and scaly. Her shrieks of terror bring us all into her bedroom—there is nothing there.

“February 3. My wife and I are aroused by feeling our bed gently lifted up and down, and on my getting out for a light, I tread on something indescribably disgusting. It feels like a monstrous insect!!

“February 4. The knocking very bad all night—particularly in room No. 4.

“February 5, 6, 7, ditto.

“February 10. The clothes mysteriously taken off Joan’s bed and transported to room No. 2.

“February 15. Both servants undergo our experience of February 3.

“February 16. The knockings still continued and distant sounds heard as of some one coming upstairs and turning the handles of all the room doors.

“February 17. Scufflings on the landings, and in the passage as though caused by a troop of very noisy children.

“February 19. Knockings in room No. 2. The washstand and a heavy mahogany wardrobe moved some feet out of their places. Mary, who was awake at the time, saw the shunting of the furniture, but could detect no sign of any agent.

“March 1. About 8.30 A.M. after Martha had laid the breakfast things she went downstairs to finish a cup of tea. On her return to the breakfast room she found it in the wildest state of disorder; chairs over-turned, ashpan and front of grate removed to furthest extremity of room, all the pictures taken down from the walls and laid face upwards on the floor, and the cups, saucers, plates, knives and forks piled in one heap in centre of table; all this had been done without either breakage or noise.

“Terrified out of her wits Martha rushed upstairs to our door, and nothing would induce her to enter the breakfast room again alone.

“March 3. On returning home about 10 P.M. from a neighbouring town, we found the servants sitting huddled together, half dead with fright in the kitchen. They had heard knockings and the most appalling thuds ever since we had gone out; and on entering our room (No. 1) we found it in an absolute turmoil: the bed-clothes in a promiscuous pile on the floor, the duchess table turned round with its face to the wall, the pictures ditto—but—nothing broken.

“March 15. Awakened in middle of night by three loud crashes in room No. 3, after which we distinctly heard our door open and some one crawl stealthily under our bed.

“We at once lit a candle—no one was there.

“March 18. Knockings in both the attics. The servants badly scared.

“March 21. As Joan was running downstairs about mid-day, she received a violent bang on her back as if some one had hit her with the palm of their hand. She came to my study in a very exhausted condition, and it took her some minutes to recover.

“March 24. Found my mother’s shoes, which we were certain had been locked up in a bureau, placed where she had always placed them in her lifetime—i.e., on the hearth-rug before the dining-room fire.

“March 31. My mother’s favourite arm-chair found upside down in front of the fire-place in room No. 4.

“April 2, 11 P.M. As Mary was stooping to look under the bed for fear of burglars, she was suddenly pushed down and the mattresses and bedclothes were thrown on the top of her. Her frantic struggles and muffled screams being, fortunately, overheard by my wife (I was in London at the time), she was immediately extricated. No injury, only bad shock.

“April 3, midnight. The contents of a large chest of drawers in room No. 3 suddenly emptied on to the floor. Loud crashes in all parts of the house.

“April 10, 11 P.M. On going up to bed, we find room No. 4 aglow with a pale green light and filled with a faint sickly odour, which we at once recognised as identical with that smelt there at the time of my mother’s decease and which we considered was peculiar to her disease.

“I must mention that after her death, the room had been thoroughly renovated, the old flooring replaced by new, the walls repapered and everywhere well disinfected with the strongest carbolic. My mother had died at 11 P.M.

“April 12, 13, 14, 15; 11 P.M. The same light and smell.

“April 20. Joan fell over some large obstacle in the hall, hurting herself badly. She could see nothing, but was half suffocated with a stench similar to the one already described.

“April 30, 2.20 A.M. Both my wife and I distinctly felt something brush across our faces. We lit a candle and perceived to our horror two long black antennæ (like the antennæ of a monstrous beetle) waving to and fro on our pillow.

“We spent the rest of the night on the drawing-room chairs and sofa.

“May 1. Shut up the house.”

Note.—An attempt to solve the mystery surrounding these hauntings will appear in a subsequent volume.