Forgotten Bedfordshire ghost stories come out of the shadows

Do you like spooky stories? Well, look no further as British folklorist Dr Simon Young - who is working on Bedfordshire supernatural folklore - has produced a new book on forgotten Bedfordshire ghost tales.

Called Ghost Tales from Victorian and Edwardian Bedfordshire: Seven Stories from the Bedfordshire Twilight, it's a collection by Victorian and Edwardian writers.

These are not the usual suspects of the endlessly repeated Bedfordshire ghost stories, but seven forgotten tales from the 1850s through to the 1910s. So sit back and enjoy this story - The Haunted Room at Marshmoor Manor: An Induced Dream - which appeared in a newspaper in 1909. The book is available now on Amazon here

In my youth I was a wild psychologist, or more properly speaking, a rabid ghost-hunter. Had the Society for Psychical Research existed at that period in the lives of my actors of which I am the chronicler, I should have been one of its most enthusiastic supporters; as it was, I had to content myself with attending spiritualistic séances in the capacity of a profound sceptic, and, as often as no, got turned out for my pains.

I have related elsewhere, how soon after the death of Daphne Préault, Dick Lindsay married Eva Easton; this took place immediately after the death of his father, which placed our old friend Dick in the pleasantly independent position of the freeholder and squire of Marshmoor in the county of Bedfordshire, and no sooner had he taken possession his new domain than he found that he was the owner of a manor-house containing an extremely well authenticated ‘spook’ legends of its own.

As soon as he made this discovery, his first idea was to play ‘the spook’ upon me, and accordingly he sent me repeated invitations to spend Christmas to Marshmoor, whither in due course – that is to say in the second year of Dick’s tenancy, I betook myself one Christmas, somewhat to the chagrin of some old friends with whom I had always hitherto spend this festive season.

Immediately upon my return I committed to paper the subjoined account of my experiences.

Throughout the month of December I had been harder at work than usual over concluding sheets and proofslips of a – to me – important volume, and, consequently, when Dick Lindsay and his wife wrote me a joint invitation to spend Christmas with them, I accepted with joy, regretting deeply, however, that my work would keep me in London until Christmas Eve, when I proceeded to pack up my traps and make for Lindsay’s place – Marshmoor, in the county of Bedford.

Of all the counties in England, Bedfordshire is perhaps the plainest – and planest therefore I did not look forward to gorgeous winter scenery. I wanted rest, pure and simple, and that I knew I was sure to find in Lindsay’s manor-house. I had never been there before, but Dick had often spoken to me about the place. It had been shut up for half a century, the succession thereto having lapsed in the first ten years of the eighteen hundreds to a remote branch of the family to whom the manor originally belonged. For some reason or another the place had acquired a bad name, and was practically tumbling to pieces when Dick’s father bought the house and a couple of hundred acres of low-lying land round it for, comparatively, a mere song. The old gentleman never occupied it – he only visited it once, and that was the Christmas after he bought it – he went down alone to find the rafters tumbling about his ears and myriads of rats holding high carnival in the deserted rooms and passages. He declared on his return, his unalterable determination never to go near the place again – the rats were too much for him, he said – but there were those among his intimate friends who declared, in timorous whispers, that William Lindsay had ‘seen something!’ in his ramshackle manor-house that had undermined his intellect and planted one foot firmly in the grave, whither it was followed by the other and his body a few years later.

Whatever credence may have been the due of these surmises, certain it is that when Dick came into possession of the property and married Eva Easton, who was a strong-hearted and strong-minded English lass of unparallelled health and equanimity, he announced his intention of inhabitating his Bedfordshire demesne, and proceeding with the assistance of builders, rat-catchers, plumbers, upholsters, and decorators to carry that intention into effect, straightway [sic] Dick instituted a practice of filling his house with choice spirits at Christmas time, and yearly sought in the neighbourhood of Marshmoor a welkin for the purpose of making it ring.

Well, to get to my own story. Christmas Eve arrived, and with it my temporary release from labour, and I found myself on the Midland Railway making the dull, uninteresting journey from St. Pancras to Luton, where they make straw hats and die of malaria. At Luton, Dick’s dog-cart waited for me, and in the early winter afternoon I bowled along in the direction of Marshmoor. What a revolting country! I had never seen it before but profoundly sympathised with the elder Lindsay’s disgust for his real estate in Bedfordshire. Eight miles of uniformly hideous and straight moor-road brought us to a half-mile cutting, through which, though the air had hitherto seemed still, a north wind howled and chilled one to the bones. At the end of the cutting the little, God-forsaken village of Barton-by-Ampthill nestled unnecessarily in a hollow, and another mile brought us to a dilapidated looking gate in the winter-stricken hedge, which was opened by a toothless and evil-looking old man, the whiteness of whose sparse locks was thrown into stronger relief by the dirtiness of his wrinkled face. This was the gate leading to Marshmoor. What a horrible approach. The drive lay across black, dark fields, down a slight incline that culminated in another pronounced hollow which – thank Heaven, thought I, seemed filled with trees and evergreen shrubs. To this oasis we were admitted by a second gate, and found ourselves before the main entrance of Marshmoor Manor.

Marshmoor was an oblong building, in the ugly and uncompromising style that spoiled so many landscapes in the last century. In the early dusk its white stuccoed front rose against the purple-gray sky, and had it not been for the broad avenues of light that streamed from the French windows of the rez-de-chaussée,[1] might have inspired ‘The House on the Marsh’, or ‘Wildfell Hall’. Such gloomy thoughts as these, however, were dispelled by the jolly face and hearty welcome of Dick Lindsay, who came to meet me at the door, and ushered me into a wide hall, where all was tapestried and rugstrewn, where a great fire blazed, and where half a dozen young people sat chattering over the tea-table.

As usual, Dick had filled his house for Christmas, and a merrier party than that gathered around the hall-fire on the afternoon of that Christmas Eve, it would be difficult to discover or imagine. Still something about me seemed to cast a momentary cloud over the group; the conversation suddenly ceased, as it ceases when the subject of a conversation suddenly enters the room, and while Dick presented me to two – the only two – of the party with whom I was not already acquainted, Mrs. Lindsay offered me some tea, and one of the girls remarked that save for the less picturesque effect, it was lucky there was no snow on the ground to make it difficult for the guests to reach the house that night.

For there was to be a Christmas Eve dinner at Marshmoor that evening – Christmas Day proper fell on Sunday, and the majority of the neighbours proposed to keep the day on Monday, so as not to be arrested in their merry-making by scruples of conscience at midnight. Therefore many had been able to accept Dick’s invitation for Christmas Eve; and, besides, Dick told me it was an immemorial custom at Marshmoor – long before his or his father’s time, to celebrate the eve instead of the day itself.

The party round the fire gradually regained its life and spirits, though once or twice a furtive look in my direction confirmed my suspicion that at the moment of my appearance I had been the subject of their conversation. However, this did not trouble me much, and very presently I went up with Dick to inspect the room I was to occupy during my stay at Marshmoor. It was a large room on the first floor, with two large windows looking out over the hills in front of the house. The space between the windows was occupied by a high carved press; at one end of the room a bright fire blazed in an old-fashioned open grate, and at the other another press and writing table were set against the wall. The bed which stood facing the press and the window, was of the type familiar to us all in the ghost stories of our childhood – a great square machine, with the conventional canopy and curtains at the head, and the foot-rail at the foot. But the room was brilliantly lighted, and I felt that I was going to be supremely comfortable as Dick said to me:

‘Here you are, old man; we’ve put you as the guest of honour into the best guest-chamber. The history of the house centres round this room, and former owners have died in it. I hope you appreciate the honor.’

‘Haunted?’ I queried.

‘No, I’m sorry to say it isn’t. The most nervous and impressionable persons may sleep in this room with perfect impunity – sounds like a house-agent’s circular, doesn’t it? If we’d had a haunted room, we should have put you in it, so as to give you something to talk about at the next meeting of your ghost-hunting club.’

Now this was an antique joke of Dick’s. The society of which he spoke, the forerunner of the present S.P.R. had only then lately been started, and we had recently formed ourselves into a committee to perambulate England in search of ghosts, sleeping in haunted rooms and watching o’ nights in spook-frequented churchyards. I regret to say that we failed to discover a single genuine bogey, and by the outer Philistines we had been considerably laughed at for our pains.

Presently Dick left me to my own devices, and I completed my tour of inspection of my new quarters. The windows were rather deeply set, and in the embrasure of each there was a bench seat. I parted the thickly drawn curtains and looked out into the blackness of the night; there was, as I have said, no snow on the ground, and the heavens were unilluminated by a single star. There was also no moon, and consequently nothing broke the dirty gloom but the blurred yellow dabs of the carriage gates that shone at a little distance from the house. I shuddered as I carefully reclosed the curtains, and, turning back into the brightly-lit room, commenced leisurely to dress for dinner, and arrange on my writing-table the books and papers I had brought down to be leisurely worked upon in the moments of désoeuvrement, which especially in winter, fall at intervals upon country-house parties.

The at first infrequent, and subsequently almost incessant roll of wheels upon the gravel outside, told me that the guests were mustering in the drawing-room below, and as the clock pointed to the dinner hour, I went down to find a large country party assembled, with Dick doing the honors [sic] of the house as if he were the descendant of a long line of baronial entertainers. Dinner, as all Christmas dinners are, was merry to the verge of riot. When one is ten miles from the nearest railway station one becomes necessarily mediaeval, and there being mistletoe artfully disposed in unsuspected coignes, we freely kissed there under – we made the most of our time that evening, for the time was short. At 11 o’clock the rector of Higham-Gobion and the vicar of Barton-by-Ampthill gave the signal of departure, and shortly before midnight none but the house-party were left within the hospitable walls of Marshmoor. Some of the ladies went to bed, others clustered round the fire in the hall; some of the men adjourned to talk shop in the smoking-room, while the remainder ensconced themselves among the petticoats in the hall. At Marshmoor one smoked all over the house, and there became apparent a tendency to make a night of it despite the fact that the joy bells that celebrated the birth of Christ rang in the Sabbath with the Christmas morn.

I had, as I have said, been working very hard during the preceding weeks, and bidding Dick Lindsay and his wife good-night. I took my candle and unostentatiously retired. The fire blazed in my grate, and I stirred it into new activity before seating myself in a cozy arm-chair to cut and read a volume of Christmas stories preparatory to cutting them up in a forthcoming review. It must have been about one o’clock when I tumbled into bed and fell incontinently asleep.

I could not tell how long, but it seemed hours, after this, when I awoke with a start into a sitting position and looked round my room. The fire, which had burned low, lit the room dimly and threw gaunt shadow-shapes upon the almost indistinguishable walls. I was indubitably alone, but my whole being was possessed by the sensation that something weird was happening. I smiled, then frowned at myself, and sank back upon my pillows. As I did so I noticed straight in front of me, and, as it were, upon the carved press between the curtained windows, a tiny point of light.

I lay looking at it lazily, wondering vaguely whence it came – what metal object caught the ray of fire-light and reflect it upon the press. And as I looked it seemed to increase in size. ‘Good!’ thought I, ‘I am automatically mesmerising myself, staring at this point of light. It will swell to the size of my fist, and then I shall fall asleep.’

But I did not fall asleep. On the contrary, the spot grew larger and larger, and invested by an intense curiosity, I crawled down my bed to the foot, and there, leaning on the foot-rail, I watched this strange phenomenon.

The circle opened wider and wider till at last it occupied the whole side of the room, showing me a beautiful picture in a wide oval frame. I was looking out over the fields in front of the house, and the ground was covered with a shining layer of snow. The heavens blazed with myriads of starts, the great winter moon rode serenely in the purple-azure vault overhead. It surprised me that such an atmospheric change should have taken place since I looked from my windows earlier in the evening. Set diagonally across the upper right-hand corner of the picture was a hedge broken by a stile; from this stile a foot-path trodden in the snow led past a hazel copse in the left foreground and lost itself in the shadows beyond.

And as I looked out upon the snowy landscape, there appeared at the stile the figure of a man. He climbed over the stile and began making his way down the footpath. He staggered slightly from side to side, as though he were drunk, and as he came along, with one hand he pressed own upon his head a three-cornered hat, while the other was engaged wrapping a red muffler about his neck; he seemed to be walking against a strong wind, for the skirts of his long brown coat flew out behind him as he bent his head. Nearer he came until he reached the copse in the left foreground, and then – a man, the vileness of whose face remains stamped upon my memory to the present day, sprang out, and, seizing the solitary traveller by the hair, that seemed long at the back of his neck, drew his head backward. His hat flew off and marvellously handsome face was upturned to the winter moon; then his assailant, drawing from his boot a long knife, cut the wayfarer’s throat from ear to ear, the blood sprang forth staining both men as they fell to the ground in the incarnadined snow.

And instantly the whole closed in, and all was dark.

I was leaning on the foot-rail of my bed, staring blankly at the press before me, bathed from head to foot in a cold perspiration.

Collecting my dazed senses as best I could, I arose and looked at my watch. It was a quarter-past two. I went to the window, and drawing the curtains, looked out into the night. All was black as it had been before; not even the lamps at the gate pierced the Cimmerian darkness of the scene. Wondering at the startling vividness of my dream – for dream I held it to be, I regained my bed. A quarter of an hour later I was fast asleep, and slept till daylight.

The moment I awoke I drew my curtains. There, indeed, was the scenery I had looked out upon in my dream. The field, the hedge and the pathway leading past the copse. But not a trace of snow; all was black, dank, horrible. I dressed thoughtfully, wondering yet the more.

As I entered the breakfast-room the majority of the party was already assembled. As I took my seat and exchanged the conventional morning greetings, it struck me that the same silence that I had remarked on my arrival seemed to fall on the company.

‘Well?’ said Dick Lindsay, cheerily, ‘how did you sleep?’

‘Extremely well’, I replied, ‘after I settled down to sleep in earnest; before that, however, I had the most extraordinary dream. I...’

‘You dreamed that you looked from your room upon a snow scene,’ interrupted Dick amid a dead silence. ‘As you looked, a drunken man staggered across the home-acre and was assassinated at the hazel copse.’

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, ‘that is exactly what I dreamed. What does it mean?’

‘I can’t tell you what it means, but these are the facts. The man who built this house, in the last century, had two sons. The elder was what was – even then – called ‘a bad lot’, and left home before he was of age, travelled to the West Indies, and was there reported to have been killed in a conflict with savages. In course of time the old man died, and the younger son entered into possession of the property. Many years later a rumour reached the then proprietor that his elder brother had returned from the Bermudas and was stopping in the village of Barton-by-Ampthill, waiting to see how matters stood preparatory to dispossessing his younger brother. It was Christmas-time and the wrongful heir sent a message to the claimant inviting him to join his Christmas-eve gathering, with a view to talking over the possession of the property should his claim prove to be a just one. He came and the meeting between the brothers seemed to be in every way fraternal and cordial. It ended by the younger making the elder very drunk, after which he sent him home across the fields. At the copse he stationed one of his farm hands, who murdered his brother while the tortuous owner watched from the window as you watched last night. A story was spread in the country to the effect that the two brothers had satisfactorily arranged matters, and that the elder had departed as he came, leaving no trace behind.

They say that, year after year, whoever occupies the room from which he watched his brother’s assassination, sees the whole scene re-enacted. I believe my father saw it, though he never spoke of it. We determined to put you, as a trebly-distilled sceptic and ghost-hunter, into that room, without telling you anything about it. We were all in the secret, and you nearly surprised it when you arrived yesterday afternoon. What do you think about it?’

I did not know what to think, but since then, turning the matter over in my mind, I have come to the conclusion that I was in my tired state, the victim – the agent, if you will – of all those strong young minds, and that with every one in the house thinking of the story and directing their thoughts upon me, they caused me to see in my mind the scene upon which their own were fixed.

That is why I have called it ‘An Induced Dream’.