Mrs Veal's Ghost
:
The Strange Story Book
Now you are going to hear a ghost story published, but he says, not
written, by Daniel Defoe the author of 'Robinson Crusoe.' If you read it
carefully, you will find how very curious it is.
Miss Veal, or as she was then called according to custom, Mrs. Veal, was
an unmarried lady of about thirty living with her only brother in Dover.
She was a delicate woman, and frequently had fits, during which she
woul
often stop in the middle of a sentence, and begin to talk
nonsense. These fits probably arose from not having had enough food or
warm clothes in her childhood, for her father was not only a poor man
but also a selfish one, and was too full of his own affairs to look
after his children. One comfort, however, she had, in a little girl of
her own age, named Lodowick, who often used to bring her neighbour half
of her own dinner, and gave her a thick wadded tippet to wear over her
bare shoulders.
Years passed away and the girls grew to women, meeting as frequently as
of old and reading together the pious books of the day, 'Drelincourt
upon Death' being perhaps their favourite. Then gradually a change took
place. Old Veal died; the son was given a place in the Customs, and his
sister went to keep house for him. She was well-to-do now, and had no
longer any need of a friend to provide her with food and clothes, and
little by little she became busy with her new life, and forgot the many
occasions on which she had exclaimed gratefully to her playfellow, 'You
are not only the best, but the only friend I have in the world, and
nothing shall ever loosen our friendship.' Now she visited in the houses
of people who were richer and grander than herself and sought out her
old companion more and more seldom, so that at length when this story
begins, two years and a half had passed by without their having seen
each other.
Meanwhile, though Mrs. Veal, in spite of a few love affairs, had
remained a spinster, her friend had married a Mr. Bargrave, and a very
bad match he proved, for the way in which he ill-used his wife soon
became known to everyone. They left Dover about a year after Mrs.
Bargrave's last visit to Mrs. Veal, and several months later they
settled in Canterbury.
* * * * *
It was noon, on September 8, 1705, and Mrs. Bargrave was sitting alone
in an armchair in her parlour, thinking over all the misery her husband
had caused her and trying hard to feel patient and forgiving towards
him. 'I have been provided for hitherto,' she said to herself, 'and
doubt not that I shall be so still, and I am well satisfied that my
sorrows shall end when it is most fit for me.' She then took up her
sewing, which had dropped on her lap, but had hardly put in three
stitches when a knocking at the door made her pause. The clock struck
twelve as she rose to open it, and to her profound astonishment admitted
Mrs. Veal, who had on a riding dress of silk.
'Madam,' exclaimed Mrs. Bargrave, 'I am surprised to see you, for you
have been a stranger this long while, but right glad I am to welcome you
here.' As she spoke, she leaned forward to kiss her, but Mrs. Veal drew
back, and passing her hand across her eyes, she answered:
'I am not very well;' adding after a moment, 'I have to take a long
journey, and wished first to see you.'
'But,' answered Mrs. Bargrave, 'how do you come to be travelling alone?
I know that your brother looks after you well.'
'Oh, I gave my brother the slip,' replied Mrs. Veal, 'because I had so
great a desire to see you before I set forth.'
'Well, let us go into the next room,' said Mrs. Bargrave, leading the
way to a small room opening into the other. Mrs. Veal sat down in the
very chair in which Mrs. Bargrave had been seated when she heard the
knocking at the door. Then Mrs. Veal leaned forward and spoke:
'My dear friend, I am come to renew our old friendship, and to beg you
to pardon me for my breach of it. If you can forgive me, you are one of
the best of women.'
'Oh! don't mention such a thing,' cried Mrs. Bargrave. 'I never had an
unkind thought about it, and can most easily forgive it.'
'What opinion can you have had of me?' continued Mrs. Veal.
'I supposed you were like the rest of the world,' answered Mrs.
Bargrave, 'and that prosperity had made you forget yourself and me.'
After that they had a long talk over the old days, and recalled the
books they had read together, and what comfort they had received from
Drelincourt's Book of Death, and from two Dutch books that had been
translated, besides some by Dr. Sherlock on the same subject. At Mrs.
Veal's request, Mrs. Bargrave brought Drelincourt's discourses down from
upstairs, and handed it to her friend, who spoke so earnestly of the
consolations to be found in it that Mrs. Bargrave was deeply touched.
But when Mrs. Veal assured her that 'in a short time her afflictions
would leave her,' Mrs. Bargrave broke down and wept bitterly.
'Are you going away and leaving your brother without anyone to look
after him?' asked Mrs. Bargrave as soon as she could speak.
'Oh no! my sister and her husband had just come down from town to see
me, so it will be all right,' answered Mrs. Veal.
'But why did you arrange to leave just as they arrived?' again inquired
Mrs. Bargrave. 'Surely they will be vexed?'
'It could not be helped,' replied Mrs. Veal shortly, and said no more on
the subject.
After this, the conversation, which continued for nearly two hours, was
chiefly carried on by Mrs. Veal, whose language might have been envied
by the most learned doctors of the day. But during the course of it Mrs.
Bargrave was startled to notice Mrs. Veal draw her hand several times
across her eyes (as she had done on her entrance), and at length she
put the question, 'Mrs. Bargrave, don't you think I look much the worse
for my fits?'
'No,' answered Mrs. Bargrave, 'I think you look as well as ever I saw
you.'
'I want you to write a letter for me to my brother,' then said Mrs.
Veal, 'and tell him to whom he is to give my rings, and that he is to
take two gold pieces out of a purse that is in my cabinet, and send them
to my cousin Watson.' Cousin Watson was the wife of a Captain Watson who
lived in Canterbury. As there seemed no reason that Mrs. Veal should not
write the letter herself, the request appeared rather odd to Mrs.
Bargrave, especially as then and afterwards it was the custom for people
to leave rings to their friends in their wills. These rings contained
little skulls in white enamel, and the initials in gold of the dead.
Mrs. Bargrave wondered if her friend was indeed about to suffer from one
of her attacks. So she hastily placed herself in a chair close by her,
that she might be ready to catch Mrs. Veal if she should fall, and, to
divert her visitor's thoughts, took hold of her sleeve, and began to
admire the pattern.
'The silk has been cleaned,' replied Mrs. Veal, 'and newly made up,' and
then she dropped the subject and went back to her letter.
'Why not write it yourself?' asked Mrs. Bargrave. 'Your brother may
think it an impertinence in me.'
'No,' said Mrs. Veal; 'it may seem an impertinence in you now, but you
will discover more reason for it hereafter;' so to satisfy her, Mrs.
Bargrave fetched pen and ink and was about to begin when Mrs. Veal
stopped her.
'Not now,' she said; 'wait till I am gone; but you must be sure to do
it,' and began to inquire for Mrs. Bargrave's little girl, Molly, who
was not in the house.
'If you have a mind to see her, I will fetch her home,' answered the
mother, and hastily ran over to the neighbour's where the child was.
When she returned, Mrs. Veal was standing outside the street door,
opposite the market (which was crowded, the day being Saturday and
market day), waiting to say good-bye to her.
'Why are you in such a hurry?' inquired Mrs. Bargrave.
'It is time for me to go,' answered Mrs. Veal, 'though I may not start
on my journey till Monday. Perhaps I may see you at my cousin Watson's
before I depart whither I am hastening.' Then she once more spoke of the
letter Mrs. Bargrave was to write, and bade her farewell, walking
through the market-place, till a turning concealed her from view.
It was now nearly two o'clock.
* * * * *
The following day Mrs. Bargrave had a sore throat, and did not go out,
but on Monday she sent a messenger to Captain Watson's to inquire if
Mrs. Veal was there. This much astonished the Watsons, who returned an
answer that Mrs. Veal had never been to the house, neither was she
expected. Mrs. Bargrave felt sure that some mistake had been made, and,
ill though she was, put on her hood and walked to the Watsons' (whom she
did not know) to find out the truth of the matter.
Mrs. Watson, who was at home, declared herself unable to understand
why Mrs. Bargrave should imagine that Mrs. Veal should be in their
house. She had never been in town, Mrs. Watson was persuaded, as if she
had, she would certainly have called on them. It was to no purpose that
Mrs. Bargrave assured the good lady that Mrs. Veal had spent two hours
with her on the previous Saturday; Mrs. Watson simply refused to believe
it.
In the midst of the discussion Captain Watson came in and announced that
on the previous Friday--September 7, 1705--at noon, Mrs. Veal had died
of exhaustion, after one of her fits; and that even at that moment the
big painted board with the family coat of arms--called by Captain Watson
an 'escutcheon' and by us a 'hatchment'--was being painted in
Canterbury. When finished, it would be taken to Dover and hung up in
front of the Veals' house. Mrs. Bargrave found the Captain's story
impossible to believe, and she went off immediately to the undertaker's
shop, where the 'escutcheon' was shown her. Not knowing what to think,
she next hastened back to the Watsons, and told the whole tale of Mrs.
Veal's visit, describing every particular of her appearance and silk
habit, which Mrs. Veal had specially mentioned was scoured. On hearing
this, Mrs. Watson cried out excitedly, 'Then you must indeed have seen
her, as I helped her myself to make it up, and nobody but she and I knew
that it was scoured.'
* * * * *
In this way the Watsons' doubts of the appearance of Mrs. Veal were set
at rest, and the story was soon 'blazed' all about the town by the lady,
while the Captain took two of his friends to Mrs. Bargrave in order that
they might listen to her own account of the strange circumstance, which
she gave in exactly the same words as before. Very soon her house was
besieged by all sorts of people interested in the story, who saw that
Mrs. Bargrave was a straightforward, cheerful person, not at all likely
to have invented such a surprising tale.
Amongst those who visited Mrs. Bargrave was the lady whose account was
published by Defoe in 1706. Their houses were near together, and they
had known each other well for many years. It is she who tells us of
various little facts which go far to prove the truth of Mrs. Veal's
apparition: how it was discovered that the sister and brother-in-law to
whom Mrs. Veal referred really had travelled from London to Dover in
order to pay their family a visit but only arrived just as Mrs. Veal was
dying; how the servant next door, hanging out clothes in the garden, had
heard Mrs. Bargrave talking to someone for above an hour at the very
time Mrs. Veal was said to be with her; and how immediately after Mrs.
Veal had departed, Mrs. Bargrave had hurried in to the lady next door,
and told her that an old friend she feared she had lost sight of had
been to see her, and related their conversation.
But Mrs. Veal's brother in Dover was very angry when he heard what was
being said in Canterbury, and declared he should go and call on Mrs.
Bargrave, who seemed to be making a great deal out of nothing. As to the
little legacies which Mrs. Bargrave had mentioned in her letter that
Mrs. Veal wished him to give to her friends, why, he had asked his
sister on her death-bed--for she was conscious for the last four hours
of her life--whether there was anything she desired to dispose of, and
she had answered no. But, in spite of Mr. Veal's wrath, everyone
believed in Mrs. Bargrave's tale, for they believed in Mrs. Bargrave
herself. She had nothing to gain by inventing such a story, and was
ready to answer all questions put to her in a plain, straightforward
way.
'I asked her,' said the lady from whom Defoe obtained his account, 'if
she was sure she felt the gown; she answered, "If my senses are to be
relied on, I am sure of it."'
'I asked her if she had heard a sound when Mrs. Veal clapped her hand
upon her knee; she said she did not remember that she did, but added:
"She appeared to be as much a substance as I did, who talked with her;
and I may be as soon persuaded that your apparition is talking to me now
as that I did not really see her, for I was under no manner of fear; I
received her as a friend and parted with her as such. I would not," she
concluded "give one farthing to make anyone believe it, for I have no
interest in it."'
From Defoe's day to this many people have read the tale, and several
have held it to be a pure invention of the novelist. But some have taken
the trouble to search out the history of the persons mentioned in it,
and have found that they at any rate were real, and living in Dover and
in Canterbury at the very dates required by the story. In the reign of
Charles I. a Bargrave had been Dean of Canterbury, and a Richard
Bargrave married a widow in the church of St. Alphege in 1700. There had
been also Veals connected with Canterbury, which is curious, and we find
that a son of William Veal was baptised in St. Mary's, Dover, in August
1707. Now, as Mrs. Veal kept her brother's house when they moved into
Dover, he must have married after his sister's death on September 7,
1705. And if we turn over the Parish Register of that very year, we
shall see the burial of a 'Mrs. Veal' on September 10.
The Watsons are also to be found in Canterbury, and an 'old Mr. Breton'
in Dover, who was known to have given Mrs. Veal L10 a year.
Of course it does not follow from this that, because the characters of
the tale published by Defoe only ten months after Mrs. Veal's death were
actually alive in the very places where he said we should find them,
Mrs. Veal's ghost did really appear to Mrs. Bargrave. But if not, why
drag in all these people to no purpose? They could all have contradicted
him, but the only person who did so was Mr. Veal himself, and he alone
had a motive in disbelieving the appearance of his sister, as he may not
have wished to hand over the rings which she had bequeathed to her
friends, or to diminish the contents of the purse of gold he was driven
to admit that she possessed.
Once more, it is perfectly certain that Mrs. Bargrave told and stood by
her story, for in May 1714 a gentleman went to see her and cross-examine
her. Mrs. Bargrave said that she did not know the editor of her story,
but that it was quite correct except in three or four small points; for
instance, that she and Mrs. Veal had talked about the persecution of
Dissenters in the time of Charles II. was omitted in the printed
version. The gentleman then made the corrections by his copy of the
book, and added a long note in Latin about his visit to Mrs. Bargrave on
May 21, 1714.
This copy of the book Mr. Aitken found in the British Museum; so,
whether we believe Mrs. Bargrave's story or not, she undoubtedly told
it, and it was not invented by Defoe.
The facts were discovered by Mr. G. A. Aitken, who published them in his
edition of Defoe's tales. He does not seem to have known that in an old
book, Dr. Welby's 'Signs before Death,' there is another version, with
curious information about Mistress Veal's broken engagement with
Major-General Sibourg, killed in the battle of Mons; and about the
kinship of the mother of Mrs. Veal with the family of the Earl of
Clarendon, which induced Queen Anne, moved by Archbishop Tillotson, to
give Mr. Veal his place in the Customs. We also learn that Mrs.
Bargrave's cold on the Sunday was caused by the conduct of her husband,
who came home intoxicated, found her excited by her interview with Mrs.
Veal, and saying, 'Molly, you are hot, you want to be cooled,' led her
into the garden, where she passed the night.