Part 2 — NO. — HACKHAM TERRACE SWINDON THE GHASTLY SCREAMS ON THE STAIRCASE

Technical form of apparition: Phantasm of dead

Cause of hauntings: Unknown

Last December I journeyed up from Cornwall, as usual, to the annual concert given by my old school, Clifton College, and at the subsequent House Supper I made the acquaintance of several O. C.s who were considerably my juniors in point of age.

We chatted together for a long time, and in the course of our conversation touched upon the superphysical.

“You couldn’t have a better authenticated instance of a haunted house,” one of my young friends remarked, “than that of No. —, Hackham Terrace, Swindon. Isn’t that so, Neilson? You come from Swindon.”

Neilson agreed.

“I know the people who live there,” my informant, Jarvis, continued, “and they have seen and heard the phantasm over and over again.”

“What form does it take?” I asked.

“A shrieking woman’s.”

“Like the ghost of Tehiddy,” I ejaculated.

“I have never heard of the ghost of Tehiddy,” Jarvis rejoined, “but I cannot conceive anything more gruesome than the Hackham Terrace apparition. Let me tell you some of Mrs. Belmont’s experiences.

“You must know the house is quite new, the Belmont’s being the first tenants, and that nothing has been discovered, so far, that can in any way account for the hauntings.

“To proceed, about a month after they had taken the house, every one was aroused in the middle of the night by a succession of the most unearthly screams, coming, so it seemed, from the basement of the house.

“For some seconds no one ventured out of their rooms, and then, Mrs. Belmont very pluckily taking the lead, other members of the family followed her down-stairs.

“Arriving at the commencement of the passage leading to the kitchen, they all saw an indefinable black object lying on the ground.

“Frozen to the spot with horror, the Belmonts watched the thing slowly rise, developing as it did so until it assumed the appearance and dimensions of a gigantic naked woman. But what was so inconceivably horrid about her was the face: she had no eyes, their places being filled by ordinary flesh.

“Confronting them for some moments in silence, she suddenly and without the least warning assumed a horizontal position in mid-air, dematerialised, and passed through the wall in the guise of a rectangular mass of pale blue light. Could anything be more ghastly?”

“It has parallels in the luminous woman known as Proctor’s ghost, Wellington, near Newcastle, and in a house, also new, in Portishead. Can you tell me any further experiences there?”

“Yes,” Jarvis rejoined; “one of the servants was breaking coal in the cellar one evening, when the hammer was unceremoniously snatched from her hand, the candle blown out, and a blue, tatooed arm thrust so roughly against her face that one of her front teeth was actually loosened.

“She screamed, and the arm vanished.

“Still another incident: One of the Belmont boys, Percy, was preparing to get into bed one night, when something caught him sharply by the foot, and looking down, he saw to his surprise a large hairy hand encircling his ankle.

“He particularly noticed the nails, which, though filbert in shape, were excessively long and dirty.

“Mumbling a prayer, the first that came into his mind, he emphasised it by a violent kick. He could not say which produced the desired effect—the prayer or the kick—but the hand let go its hold, and the next moment a shapeless mass of blue something rising from the bed, and hovering for the briefest duration of time on a level with his eyes, disappeared through the ceiling.

“On another occasion, when Mrs. Belmont was in the conservatory watering flowers, one of the pots behind her suddenly fell to the ground with a crash.

“She turned round and found herself confronted by a blue face that occupied the spot where the pot had stood.

“Too dismayed and startled even to think of escape, she stood rooted to the spot, gazing at the evil thing in open-mouthed horror. What was it?

“Though resembling a man in contour and features, its expression was too thoroughly bestial to belong to anything human.

“The eyes, deep, sunken and lurid, leered malignantly at her, whilst the mouth was distorted into a diabolical grin.

“The apparition had no body.

“Mrs. Belmont is of the opinion she might have stayed there till doomsday had not the unexpected arrival of the gardener scared the thing away—it disappeared as he entered the greenhouse door and its place was once again taken by the flower-pot!

“Mrs. Belmont had another unpleasant experience only this week.

“As she was crossing the landing to her bedroom one morning, some one seized her by her shoulders, and, pulling her violently backwards, threw her on the floor.

“She was then gripped by the throat (so firmly that the impressions of the fingers could be seen next day), and on looking up she encountered the same awful face she had seen in the conservatory.

“The hateful thing was now in full possession of a body which, blue and hairy, accorded well with the strangely animal expression in its eyes.

“Mrs. Belmont was too fascinated and horror-stricken to struggle, and she thinks she would undoubtedly have been strangled had not succour once again arrived at the most opportune moment.

“Her rescuer this time was Bruce, a very pugnacious Irish terrier.

“Nothing daunted, and contrary to what one is led to expect from the generality of psychic tales, Bruce flew at the figure.

“The phantasm immediately dissolved into a blue vapour and vanished.

“I could enumerate many other occasions on which similar occult phenomena occurred in the house; sometimes the eyeless woman would be seen gliding down the staircase or heard screaming in the passages; at other times the blue man would pounce upon his unsuspecting victims out of some dark sequestered corner, or frighten them to the verge of a fit, by simply peering at them through a door or window—the manifestations always terminating in a bluish vapour.”

“The house, you say, was quite new,” I observed.

Jarvis nodded.

“Then the history of the hauntings,” I replied, “must either be in some piece of furniture or in the ground itself. The blue man with the bestial expression in his face and tatoo-marks on his arms suggests to me the probability that he is a phantasm of an ancient Celt.

“Possibly he was a suicide or murderer; possibly he was neither, but is merely tied to this earth by his animal propensities—in either case, he would hover round the place of his burial, and his naturally ferocious spirit would be rendered doubly ferocious at being disturbed.

“The woman, of course, may have been some one associated with him in this life—the lack of eyes the sign of some dreadful depravity in her nature.”[6]