Chapter 1

THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER

by Sir Walter Scott

INTRODUCTION.

This is another little story from The Keepsake of 1828. It was told
to me many years ago by the late Miss Anna Seward, who, among other
accomplishments that rendered her an amusing inmate in a country house,
had that of recounting narratives of this sort with very considerable
effect--much greater, indeed, than any one would be apt to guess from
the style of her written performances. There are hours and moods when
most people are not displeased to listen to such things; and I have
heard some of the greatest and wisest of my contemporaries take their
share in telling them.

AUGUST 1831

THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER;

OR,

THE LADY IN THE SACQUE.

The following narrative is given from the pen, so far as memory permits,
in the same character in which it was presented to the author’s ear; nor
has he claim to further praise, or to be more deeply censured, than
in proportion to the good or bad judgment which he has employed in
selecting his materials, as he has studiously avoided any attempt at
ornament which might interfere with the simplicity of the tale.

At the same time, it must be admitted that the particular class of
stories which turns on the marvellous possesses a stronger influence
when told than when committed to print. The volume taken up at noonday,
though rehearsing the same incidents, conveys a much more feeble
impression than is achieved by the voice of the speaker on a circle of
fireside auditors, who hang upon the narrative as the narrator details
the minute incidents which serve to give it authenticity, and lowers his
voice with an affectation of mystery while he approaches the fearful
and wonderful part. It was with such advantages that the present writer
heard the following events related, more than twenty years since, by
the celebrated Miss Seward of Litchfield, who, to her numerous
accomplishments, added, in a remarkable degree, the power of narrative
in private conversation. In its present form the tale must necessarily
lose all the interest which was attached to it by the flexible voice and
intelligent features of the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud to an
undoubting audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or in
silence by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude of a half-lighted
apartment, it may redeem its character as a good ghost story. Miss
Seward always affirmed that she had derived her information from an
authentic source, although she suppressed the names of the two persons
chiefly concerned. I will not avail myself of any particulars I may have
since received concerning the localities of the detail, but suffer them
to rest under the same general description in which they were first
related to me; and for the same reason I will not add to or diminish the
narrative by any circumstance, whether more or less material, but simply
rehearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror.

About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord
Cornwallis’s army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who had
been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated controversy, were
returning to their own country, to relate their adventures, and repose
themselves after their fatigues, there was amongst them a general
officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I
understood, to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent
in the narrative. He was an officer of merit, as well as a gentleman of
high consideration for family and attainments.

Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour through the western
counties, when, in the conclusion of a morning stage, he found himself
in the vicinity of a small country town, which presented a scene of
uncommon beauty, and of a character peculiarly English.

The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore testimony
to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pastures and cornfields of
small extent, but bounded and divided with hedgerow timber of great age
and size. There were few marks of modern improvement. The environs of
the place intimated neither the solitude of decay nor the bustle of
novelty; the houses were old, but in good repair; and the beautiful
little river murmured freely on its way to the left of the town, neither
restrained by a dam nor bordered by a towing-path.

Upon a gentle eminence, nearly a mile to the southward of the town, were
seen, amongst many venerable oaks and tangled thickets, the turrets of
a castle as old as the walls of York and Lancaster, but which seemed to
have received important alterations during the age of Elizabeth and
her successor, It had not been a place of great size; but whatever
accommodation it formerly afforded was, it must be supposed, still to
be obtained within its walls. At least, such was the inference which
General Browne drew from observing the smoke arise merrily from several
of the ancient wreathed and carved chimney-stalks. The wall of the park
ran alongside of the highway for two or three hundred yards; and through
the different points by which the eye found glimpses into the woodland
scenery, it seemed to be well stocked. Other points of view opened in
succession--now a full one of the front of the old castle, and now
a side glimpse at its particular towers, the former rich in all the
bizarrerie of the Elizabethan school, while the simple and solid
strength of other parts of the building seemed to show that they had
been raised more for defence than ostentation.

Delighted with the partial glimpses which he obtained of the castle
through the woods and glades by which this ancient feudal fortress was
surrounded, our military traveller was determined to inquire whether
it might not deserve a nearer view, and whether it contained family
pictures or other objects of curiosity worthy of a stranger’s visit,
when, leaving the vicinity of the park, he rolled through a clean and
well-paved street, and stopped at the door of a well-frequented inn.

Before ordering horses, to proceed on his journey, General Browne
made inquiries concerning the proprietor of the chateau which had so
attracted his admiration, and was equally surprised and pleased at
hearing in reply a nobleman named, whom we shall call Lord Woodville.
How fortunate! Much of Browne’s early recollections, both at school
and at college, had been connected with young Woodville, whom, by a few
questions, he now ascertained to be the same with the owner of this fair
domain. He had been raised to the peerage by the decease of his father
a few months before, and, as the General learned from the landlord, the
term of mourning being ended, was now taking possession of his paternal
estate in the jovial season of merry, autumn, accompanied by a select
party of friends, to enjoy the sports of a country famous for game.

This was delightful news to our traveller. Frank Woodville had been
Richard Browne’s fag at Eton, and his chosen intimate at Christ Church;
their pleasures and their tasks had been the same; and the honest
soldier’s heart warmed to find his early friend in possession of so
delightful a residence, and of an estate, as the landlord assured
him with a nod and a wink, fully adequate to maintain and add to his
dignity. Nothing was more natural than that the traveller should suspend
a journey, which there was nothing to render hurried, to pay a visit to
an old friend under such agreeable circumstances.

The fresh horses, therefore, had only the brief task of conveying the
General’s travelling carriage to Woodville Castle. A porter admitted
them at a modern Gothic lodge, built in that style to correspond with
the castle itself, and at the same time rang a bell to give warning of
the approach of visitors. Apparently the sound of the bell had suspended
the separation of the company, bent on the various amusements of the
morning; for, on entering the court of the chateau, several young
men were lounging about in their sporting dresses, looking at and
criticizing the dogs which the keepers held in readiness to attend their
pastime. As General Browne alighted, the young lord came to the gate
of the hall, and for an instant gazed, as at a stranger, upon the
countenance of his friend, on which war, with its fatigues and its
wounds, had made a great alteration. But the uncertainty lasted no
longer than till the visitor had spoken, and the hearty greeting which
followed was such as can only be exchanged betwixt those who have passed
together the merry days of careless boyhood or early youth.

“If I could have formed a wish, my dear Browne,” said Lord Woodville,
“it would have been to have you here, of all men, upon this occasion,
which my friends are good enough to hold as a sort of holiday. Do not
think you have been unwatched during the years you have been absent
from us. I have traced you through your dangers, your triumphs, your
misfortunes, and was delighted to see that, whether in victory or
defeat, the name of my old friend was always distinguished with
applause.”

The General made a suitable reply, and congratulated his friend on his
new dignities, and the possession of a place and domain so beautiful.

“Nay, you have seen nothing of it as yet,” said Lord Woodville, “and I
trust you do not mean to leave us till you are better acquainted with
it. It is true, I confess, that my present party is pretty large, and
the old house, like other places of the kind, does not possess so much
accommodation as the extent of the outward walls appears to promise.
But we can give you a comfortable old-fashioned room, and I venture
to suppose that your campaigns have taught you to be glad of worse
quarters.”

The General shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. “I presume,” he said,
“the worst apartment in your chateau is considerably superior to the old
tobacco-cask in which I was fain to take up my night’s lodging when I
was in the Bush, as the Virginians call it, with the light corps. There
I lay, like Diogenes himself, so delighted with my covering from the
elements, that I made a vain attempt to have it rolled on to my next
quarters; but my commander for the time would give way to no such
luxurious provision, and I took farewell of my beloved cask with tears
in my eyes.”

“Well, then, since you do not fear your quarters,” said Lord Woodville,
“you will stay with me a week at least. Of guns, dogs, fishing-rods,
flies, and means of sport by sea and land, we have enough and to
spare--you cannot pitch on an amusement but we will find the means of
pursuing it. But if you prefer the gun and pointers, I will go with you
myself, and see whether you have mended your shooting since you have
been amongst the Indians of the back settlements.”

The General gladly accepted his friendly host’s proposal in all its
points. After a morning of manly exercise, the company met at dinner,
where it was the delight of Lord Woodville to conduce to the display of
the high properties of his recovered friend, so as to recommend him to
his guests, most of whom were persons of distinction. He led General
Browne to speak of the scenes he had witnessed; and as every word marked
alike the brave officer and the sensible man, who retained possession
of his cool judgment under the most imminent dangers, the company looked
upon the soldier with general respect, as on one who had proved himself
possessed of an uncommon portion of personal courage--that attribute of
all others of which everybody desires to be thought possessed.

The day at Woodville Castle ended as usual in such mansions. The
hospitality stopped within the limits of good order. Music, in which the
young lord was a proficient, succeeded to the circulation of the bottle;
cards and billiards, for those who preferred such amusements, were in
readiness; but the exercise of the morning required early hours, and not
long after eleven o’clock the guests began to retire to their several
apartments.

The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, to the
chamber destined for him, which answered the description he had given
of it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned, The bed was of the massive
form used in the end of the seventeenth century, and the curtains of
faded silk, heavily trimmed with tarnished gold. But then the sheets,
pillows, and blankets looked delightful to the campaigner, when he
thought of his “mansion, the cask.” There was an air of gloom in the
tapestry hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the
walls of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal breeze
found its way through the ancient lattice window, which pattered and
whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet, too, with its mirror,
turbaned after the manner of the beginning of the century, with a
coiffure of murrey-coloured silk, and its hundred strange-shaped boxes,
providing for arrangements which had been obsolete for more than fifty
years, had an antique, and in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing
could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles;
or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming, bickering fagots in
the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth through
the snug apartment, which, notwithstanding the general antiquity of its
appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern habits
rendered either necessary or desirable.

“This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment, General,” said the
young lord; “but I hope you find nothing that makes you envy your old
tobacco-cask.”

“I am not particular respecting my lodgings,” replied the General; “yet
were I to make any choice, I would prefer this chamber by many degrees
to the gayer and more modern rooms of your family mansion. Believe
me that, when I unite its modern air of comfort with its venerable
antiquity, and recollect that it is your lordship’s property, I shall
feel in better quarters here than if I were in the best hotel London
could afford.”

“I trust--I have no doubt--that you will find yourself as comfortable
as I wish you, my dear General,” said the young nobleman; and once more
bidding his guest good-night, he shook him by the hand, and withdrew.

The General once more looked round him, and internally congratulating
himself on his return to peaceful life, the comforts of which were
endeared by the recollection of the hardships and dangers he had lately
sustained, undressed himself, and prepared for a luxurious night’s rest.

Here, contrary to the custom of this species of tale, we leave the
General in possession of his apartment until the next morning.

The company assembled for breakfast at an early hour, but without the
appearance of General Browne, who seemed the guest that Lord Woodville
was desirous of honouring above all whom his hospitality had assembled
around him. He more than once expressed surprise at the General’s
absence, and at length sent a servant to make inquiry after him. The
man brought back information that General Browne had been walking abroad
since an early hour of the morning, in defiance of the weather, which
was misty and ungenial.

“The custom of a soldier,” said the young nobleman to his friends. “Many
of them acquire habitual vigilance, and cannot sleep after the early
hour at which their duty usually commands them to be alert.”

Yet the explanation which Lord Woodville thus offered to the company
seemed hardly satisfactory to his own mind, and it was in a fit of
silence and abstraction that he waited the return of the General. It
took place near an hour after the breakfast bell had rung. He looked
fatigued and feverish. His hair, the powdering and arrangement of which
was at this time one of the most important occupations of a man’s whole
day, and marked his fashion as much as in the present time the tying of
a cravat, or the want of one, was dishevelled, uncurled, void of
powder, and dank with dew. His clothes were huddled on with a careless
negligence, remarkable in a military man, whose real or supposed duties
are usually held to include some attention to the toilet; and his looks
were haggard and ghastly in a peculiar degree.

“So you have stolen a march upon us this morning, my dear General,” said
Lord Woodville; “or you have not found your bed so much to your mind as
I had hoped and you seemed to expect. How did you rest last night?”

“Oh, excellently well! remarkably well! never better in my life,” said
General Browne rapidly, and yet with an air of embarrassment which
was obvious to his friend. He then hastily swallowed a cup of tea, and
neglecting or refusing whatever else was offered, seemed to fall into a
fit of abstraction.

“You will take the gun to-day, General?” said his friend and host, but
had to repeat the question twice ere he received the abrupt answer, “No,
my lord; I am sorry I cannot have the opportunity of spending another
day with your lordship; my post horses are ordered, and will be here
directly.”

All who were present showed surprise, and Lord Woodville immediately
replied “Post horses, my good friend! What can you possibly want with
them when you promised to stay with me quietly for at least a week?”

“I believe,” said the General, obviously much embarrassed, “that I
might, in the pleasure of my first meeting with your lordship, have
said something about stopping here a few days; but I have since found it
altogether impossible.”

“That is very extraordinary,” answered the young nobleman. “You seemed
quite disengaged yesterday, and you cannot have had a summons to-day,
for our post has not come up from the town, and therefore you cannot
have received any letters.”

General Browne, without giving any further explanation, muttered
something about indispensable business, and insisted on the absolute
necessity of his departure in a manner which silenced all opposition on
the part of his host, who saw that his resolution was taken, and forbore
all further importunity.

“At least, however,” he said, “permit me, my dear Browne, since go you
will or must, to show you the view from the terrace, which the mist,
that is now rising, will soon display.”

He threw open a sash-window, and stepped down upon the terrace as he
spoke. The General followed him mechanically, but seemed little to
attend to what his host was saying, as, looking across an extended
and rich prospect, he pointed out the different objects worthy of
observation. Thus they moved on till Lord Woodville had attained
his purpose of drawing his guest entirely apart from the rest of the
company, when, turning round upon him with an air of great solemnity, he
addressed him thus:--

“Richard Browne, my old and very dear friend, we are now alone. Let me
conjure you to answer me upon the word of a friend, and the honour of a
soldier. How did you in reality rest during last night?”

“Most wretchedly indeed, my lord,” answered the General, in the same
tone of solemnity--“so miserably, that I would not run the risk of such
a second night, not only for all the lands belonging to this castle, but
for all the country which I see from this elevated point of view.”

“This is most extraordinary,” said the young lord, as if speaking to
himself; “then there must be something in the reports concerning that
apartment.” Again turning to the General, he said, “For God’s sake,
my dear friend, be candid with me, and let me know the disagreeable
particulars which have befallen you under a roof, where, with consent of
the owner, you should have met nothing save comfort.”

The General seemed distressed by this appeal, and paused a moment before
he replied. “My dear lord,” he at length said, “what happened to me last
night is of a nature so peculiar and so unpleasant, that I could hardly
bring myself to detail it even to your lordship, were it not that,
independent of my wish to gratify any request of yours, I think that
sincerity on my part may lead to some explanation about a circumstance
equally painful and mysterious. To others, the communication I am about
to make, might place me in the light of a weak-minded, superstitious
fool, who suffered his own imagination to delude and bewilder him; but
you have known me in childhood and youth, and will not suspect me of
having adopted in manhood the feelings and frailties from which my early
years were free.” Here he paused, and his friend replied,--

“Do not doubt my perfect confidence in the truth of your communication,
however strange it may be,” replied Lord Woodville. “I know your
firmness of disposition too well, to suspect you could be made the
object of imposition, and am aware that your honour and your friendship
will equally deter you from exaggerating whatever you may have
witnessed.”

“Well, then,” said the General, “I will proceed with my story as well
as I can, relying upon your candour, and yet distinctly feeling that
I would rather face a battery than recall to my mind the odious
recollections of last night.”

He paused a second time, and then perceiving that Lord Woodville
remained silent and in an attitude of attention, he commenced, though
not without obvious reluctance, the history of his night’s adventures in
the Tapestried Chamber.

“I undressed and went to bed so soon as your lordship left me yesterday
evening; but the wood in the chimney, which nearly fronted my bed,
blazed brightly and cheerfully, and, aided by a hundred exciting
recollections of my childhood and youth, which had been recalled by the
unexpected pleasure of meeting your lordship, prevented me from falling
immediately asleep. I ought, however, to say that these reflections were
all of a pleasant and agreeable kind, grounded on a sense of having for
a time exchanged the labour, fatigues, and dangers of my profession for
the enjoyments of a peaceful life, and the reunion of those friendly and
affectionate ties which I had torn asunder at the rude summons of war.

“While such pleasing reflections were stealing over my mind, and
gradually lulling me to slumber, I was suddenly aroused by a sound like
that of the rustling of a silken gown, and the tapping of a pair of
high-heeled shoes, as if a woman were walking in the apartment. Ere
I could draw the curtain to see what the matter was, the figure of a
little woman passed between the bed and the fire. The back of this form
was turned to me, and I could observe, from the shoulders and neck, it
was that of an old woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which I
think ladies call a sacque--that is, a sort of robe completely loose in
the body, but gathered into broad plaits upon the neck and shoulders,
which fall down to the ground, and terminate in a species of train.

“I thought the intrusion singular enough, but never harboured for a
moment the idea that what I saw was anything more than the mortal form
of some old woman about the establishment, who had a fancy to dress like
her grandmother, and who, having perhaps (as your lordship mentioned
that you were rather straitened for room) been dislodged from her
chamber for my accommodation, had forgotten the circumstance, and
returned by twelve to her old haunt. Under this persuasion I moved
myself in bed and coughed a little, to make the intruder sensible of
my being in possession of the premises. She turned slowly round, but,
gracious Heaven! my lord, what a countenance did she display to me!
There was no longer any question what she was, or any thought of her
being a living being. Upon a face which wore the fixed features of a
corpse were imprinted the traces of the vilest and most hideous passions
which had animated her while she lived. The body of some atrocious
criminal seemed to have been given up from the grave, and the soul
restored from the penal fire, in order to form for a space a union
with the ancient accomplice of its guilt. I started up in bed, and sat
upright, supporting myself on my palms, as I gazed on this horrible
spectre. The hag made, as it seemed, a single and swift stride to the
bed where I lay, and squatted herself down upon it, in precisely the
same attitude which I had assumed in the extremity of horror, advancing
her diabolical countenance within half a yard of mine, with a grin which
seemed to intimate the malice and the derision of an incarnate fiend.”

Here General Browne stopped, and wiped from his brow the cold
perspiration with which the recollection of his horrible vision had
covered it.

“My lord,” he said, “I am no coward, I have been in all the mortal
dangers incidental to my profession, and I may truly boast that no man
ever knew Richard Browne dishonour the sword he wears; but in these
horrible circumstances, under the eyes, and, as it seemed, almost in the
grasp of an incarnation of an evil spirit, all firmness forsook me,
all manhood melted from me like wax in the furnace, and I felt my hair
individually bristle. The current of my life-blood ceased to flow, and
I sank back in a swoon, as very a victim to panic terror as ever was
a village girl, or a child of ten years old. How long I lay in this
condition I cannot pretend to guess.

“But I was roused by the castle clock striking one, so loud that it
seemed as if it were in the very room. It was some time before I dared
open my eyes, lest they should again encounter the horrible spectacle.
When, however, I summoned courage to look up, she was no longer visible.
My first idea was to pull my bell, wake the servants, and remove to a
garret or a hay-loft, to be ensured against a second visitation. Nay, I
will confess the truth that my resolution was altered, not by the shame
of exposing myself, but by the fear that, as the bell-cord hung by
the chimney, I might, in making my way to it, be again crossed by the
fiendish hag, who, I figured to myself, might be still lurking about
some corner of the apartment.

“I will not pretend to describe what hot and cold fever-fits tormented
me for the rest of the night, through broken sleep, weary vigils,
and that dubious state which forms the neutral ground between them. A
hundred terrible objects appeared to haunt me; but there was the great
difference betwixt the vision which I have described, and those which
followed, that I knew the last to be deceptions of my own fancy and
over-excited nerves.

“Day at last appeared, and I rose from my bed ill in health and
humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself as a man and a soldier,
and still more so at feeling my own extreme desire to escape from the
haunted apartment, which, however, conquered all other considerations;
so that, huddling on my clothes with the most careless haste, I made my
escape from your lordship’s mansion, to seek in the open air some relief
to my nervous system, shaken as it was by this horrible rencounter with
a visitant, for such I must believe her, from the other world. Your
lordship has now heard the cause of my discomposure, and of my sudden
desire to leave your hospitable castle. In other places I trust we may
often meet, but God protect me from ever spending a second night under
that roof!”

Strange as the General’s tale was, he spoke with such a deep air of
conviction that it cut short all the usual commentaries which are made
on such stories. Lord Woodville never once asked him if he was sure he
did not dream of the apparition, or suggested any of the possibilities
by which it is fashionable to explain supernatural appearances as
wild vagaries of the fancy, or deceptions of the optic nerves, On the
contrary, he seemed deeply impressed with the truth and reality of
what he had heard; and, after a considerable pause regretted, with much
appearance of sincerity, that his early friend should in his house have
suffered so severely.

“I am the more sorry for your pain, my dear Browne,” he continued, “that
it is the unhappy, though most unexpected, result of an experiment of my
own. You must know that, for my father and grandfather’s time, at least,
the apartment which was assigned to you last night had been shut on
account of reports that it was disturbed by supernatural sights and
noises. When I came, a few weeks since, into possession of the estate,
I thought the accommodation which the castle afforded for my friends was
not extensive enough to permit the inhabitants of the invisible world
to retain possession of a comfortable sleeping apartment. I therefore
caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we call it, to be opened, and, without
destroying its air of antiquity, I had such new articles of furniture
placed in it as became the modern times. Yet, as the opinion that the
room was haunted very strongly prevailed among the domestics, and was
also known in the neighbourhood and to many of my friends, I feared some
prejudice might be entertained by the first occupant of the Tapestried
Chamber, which might tend to revive the evil report which it had
laboured under, and so disappoint my purpose of rendering it a useful
part or the house.