Your father, John Maltravers, was
born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded his father and
mine, who died when we were still young children.
John was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839,
when he was nineteen years of age, it was determined
that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell,
who visited us at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded
Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to send him instead to
Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal
of that institution, and represented that John, who
then exhibited some symptoms of delicacy, would meet
with more personal attention under his care than he
could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward’s
welfare, readily waived other considerations in favour
of an arrangement which he considered conducive to
John’s health, and he was accordingly matriculated
at Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.
Dr. Sarsdell had not been unmindful
of his promise to look after my brother, and had secured
him an excellent first-floor sitting-room, with a
bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College
Lane.
I shall pass over the first two years
of my brother’s residence at Oxford, because
they have nothing to do with the present story.
They were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine
of work and recreation common in Oxford at that period.
From his earliest boyhood he had been
passionately devoted to music, and had attained a
considerable proficiency on the violin. In the
autumn term of 1841 he made the acquaintance of Mr.
William Gaskell, a very talented student at New College,
and also a more than tolerable musician. The
practice of music was then very much less common at
Oxford than it has since become, and there were none
of those societies existing which now do so much to
promote its study among undergraduates. It was
therefore a cause of much gratification to the two
young men, and it afterwards became a strong bond
of friendship, to discover that one was as devoted
to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin.
Mr. Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had not
a pianoforte in his rooms, and was pleased to use
a fine instrument by D’Almaine that John had
that term received as a birthday present from his guardian.
From that time the two students were
thrown much together, and in the autumn term of 1841
and Easter term of 1842 practised a variety of music
in John’s rooms, he taking the violin part and
Mr. Gaskell that for the pianoforte.
It was, I think, in March 1842 that
John purchased for his rooms a piece of furniture
which was destined afterwards to play no unimportant
part in the story I am narrating. This was a
very large and low wicker chair of a form then coming
into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told, become
a familiar object of most college rooms. It was
cushioned with a gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought
for new of an upholsterer at the bottom of the High
Street.
Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle
to spend Easter in Rome, and obtaining special leave
from his college to prolong his travels; did not return
to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were
passed and May was well advanced. So impatient
was he to see his friend that he would not let even
the first evening of his return pass without coming
round to John’s rooms. The two young men
sat without lights until the night was late; and Mr.
Gaskell had much to narrate of his travels, and spoke
specially of the beautiful music which he had heard
at Easter in the Roman churches. He had also
had lessons on the piano from a celebrated professor
of the Italian style, but seemed to have been particularly
delighted with the music of the seventeenth-century
composers, of whose works he had brought back some
specimens set for piano and violin.
It was past eleven o’clock when
Mr. Gaskell left to return to New College; but the
night was unusually warm, with a moon near the full,
and John sat for some time in a cushioned window-seat
before the open sash thinking over what he had heard
about the music of Italy. Feeling still disinclined
for sleep, he lit a single candle and began to turn
over some of the musical works which Mr. Gaskell had
left on the table. His attention was especially
attracted to an oblong book, bound in soiled vellum,
with a coat of arms stamped in gilt upon the side.
It was a manuscript copy of some early suites by Graziani
for violin and harpsichord, and was apparently written
at Naples in the year 1744, many years after the death
of that composer. Though the ink was yellow and
faded, the transcript had been accurately made, and
could be read with tolerable comfort by an advanced
musician in spite of the antiquated notation.
Perhaps by accident, or perhaps by
some mysterious direction which our minds are incapable
of appreciating, his eye was arrested by a suite of
four movements with a basso continuo, or figured
bass, for the harpsichord. The other suites in
the book were only distinguished by numbers, but this
one the composer had dignified with the name of “l’Areopagita.”
Almost mechanically John put the book on his music-stand,
took his violin from its case, and after a moment’s
tuning stood up and played the first movement, a lively
Coranto. The light of the single candle
burning on the table was scarcely sufficient to illumine
the page; the shadows hung in the creases of the leaves,
which had grown into those wavy folds sometimes observable
in books made of thick paper and remaining long shut;
and it was with difficulty that he could read what
he was playing. But he felt the strange impulse
of the old-world music urging him forward, and did
not even pause to light the candles which stood ready
in their sconces on either side of the desk.
The Coranto was followed by a Sarabanda,
and the Sarabanda by a Gagliarda.
My brother stood playing, with his face turned to the
window, with the room and the large wicker chair of
which I have spoken behind him. The Gagliarda
began with a bold and lively air, and as he played
the opening bars, he heard behind him a creaking of
the wicker chair. The sound was a perfectly familiar
oneas of some person placing a hand on
either arm of the chair preparatory to lowering himself
into it, followed by another as of the same person
being leisurely seated. But for the tones of
the violin, all was silent, and the creaking of the
chair was strangely distinct. The illusion was
so complete that my brother stopped playing suddenly,
and turned round expecting that some late friend of
his had slipped in unawares, being attracted by the
sound of the violin, or that Mr. Gaskell himself had
returned. With the cessation of the music an
absolute stillness fell upon all; the light of the
single candle scarcely reached the darker corners of
the room, but fell directly on the wicker chair and
showed it to be perfectly empty. Half amused,
half vexed with himself at having without reason interrupted
his music, my brother returned to the Gagliarda;
but some impulse induced him to light the candles
in the sconces, which gave an illumination more adequate
to the occasion. The Gagliarda and the
last movement, a Minuetto, were finished, and
John closed the book, intending, as it was now late,
to seek his bed. As he shut the pages a creaking
of the wicker chair again attracted his attention,
and he heard distinctly sounds such as would be made
by a person raising himself from a sitting posture.
This time, being less surprised, he could more aptly
consider the probable causes of such a circumstance,
and easily arrived at the conclusion that there must
be in the wicker chair osiers responsive to certain
notes of the violin, as panes of glass in church windows
are observed to vibrate in sympathy with certain tones
of the organ. But while this argument approved
itself to his reason, his imagination was but half
convinced; and he could not but be impressed with
the fact that the second creaking of the chair had
been coincident with his shutting the music-book;
and, unconsciously, pictured to himself some strange
visitor waiting until the termination of the music,
and then taking his departure.
His conjectures did not, however,
either rob him of sleep or even disturb it with dreams,
and he woke the next morning with a cooler mind and
one less inclined to fantastic imagination. If
the strange episode of the previous evening had not
entirely vanished from his mind, it seemed at least
fully accounted for by the acoustic explanation to
which I have alluded above. Although he saw Mr.
Gaskell in the course of the morning, he did not think
it necessary to mention to him so trivial a circumstance,
but made with him an appointment to sup together in
his own rooms that evening, and to amuse themselves
afterwards by essaying some of the Italian music.
It was shortly after nine that night
when, supper being finished, Mr. Gaskell seated himself
at the piano and John tuned his violin. The evening
was closing in; there had been heavy thunder-rain in
the afternoon, and the moist air hung now heavy and
steaming, while across it there throbbed the distant
vibrations of the tenor bell at Christ Church.
It was tolling the customary 101 strokes, which are
rung every night in term-time as a signal for closing
the college gates. The two young men enjoyed
themselves for some while, playing first a suite by
Cesti, and then two early sonatas by Buononcini.
Both of them were sufficiently expert musicians to
make reading at sight a pleasure rather than an effort;
and Mr. Gaskell especially was well versed in the theory
of music, and in the correct rendering of the basso
continuo. After the Buononcini Mr. Gaskell
took up the oblong copy of Graziani, and turning over
its leaves, proposed that they should play the same
suite which John had performed by himself the previous
evening. His selection was apparently perfectly
fortuitous, as my brother had purposely refrained
from directing his attention in any way to that piece
of music. They played the Coranto and
the Sarabanda, and in the singular fascination
of the music John had entirely forgotten the episode
of the previous evening, when, as the bold air of the
Gagliarda commenced, he suddenly became aware
of the same strange creaking of the wicker chair that
he had noticed on the first occasion. The sound
was identical, and so exact was its resemblance to
that of a person sitting down that he stared at the
chair, almost wondering that it still appeared empty.
Beyond turning his head sharply for a moment to look
round, Mr. Gaskell took no notice of the sound; and
my brother, ashamed to betray any foolish interest
or excitement, continued the Gagliarda, with
its repeat. At its conclusion Mr. Gaskell stopped
before proceeding to the minuet, and turning the stool
on which he was sitting round towards the room, observed,
“How very strange, Johnnie,”for
these young men were on terms of sufficient intimacy
to address each other in a familiar style,“How
very strange! I thought I heard some one sit
down in that chair when we began the Gagliarda.
I looked round quite expecting to see some one had
come in. Did you hear nothing?”
“It was only the chair creaking,”
my brother answered, feigning an indifference which
he scarcely felt. “Certain parts of the
wicker-work seem to be in accord with musical notes
and respond to them; let us continue with the Minuetto.”
Thus they finished the suite, Mr.
Gaskell demanding a repetition of the Gagliarda,
with the air of which he was much pleased. As
the clocks had already struck eleven, they determined
not to play more that night; and Mr. Gaskell rose,
blew out the sconces, shut the piano, and put the
music aside. My brother has often assured me that
he was quite prepared for what followed, and had been
almost expecting it; for as the books were put away,
a creaking of the wicker chair was audible, exactly
similar to that which he had heard when he stopped
playing on the previous night. There was a moment’s
silence; the young men looked involuntarily at one
another, and then Mr. Gaskell said, “I cannot
understand the creaking of that chair; it has never
done so before, with all the music we have played.
I am perhaps imaginative and excited with the fine
airs we have heard to-night, but I have an impression
that I cannot dispel that something has been sitting
listening to us all this time, and that now when the
concert is ended it has got up and gone.”
There was a spirit of raillery in his words, but his
tone was not so light as it would ordinarily have
been, and he was evidently ill at ease.
“Let us try the Gagliarda
again,” said my brother; “it is the vibration
of the opening notes which affects the wicker-work,
and we shall see if the noise is repeated.”
But Mr. Gaskell excused himself from trying the experiment,
and after some desultory conversation, to which it
was evident that neither was giving any serious attention,
he took his leave and returned to New College.