Doctor Feversham's Story Page #2

"Doctor Feversham's Story" by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu is a compelling tale that blends elements of mystery and the supernatural. The story follows the experiences of Doctor Feversham, a physician whose unusual and tumultuous life is marked by strange occurrences and tragic events. As Feversham confronts his own past and the specter of death, the narrative delves into themes of love, loyalty, and the boundaries of life and death. Le Fanu's signature gothic style imbues the story with an atmospheric tension, making it a captivating exploration of the human psyche and the mysteries that lie beyond the veil of existence.

• Horror

								

fancy of Miss Patricia. These absurdities, together with the past
grandeur of their house, and the former glories of their religion,
formed the staple subjects of conversation when the family was
assembled; and as I became more intimately acquainted with the state of
my patient, I felt convinced that the atmosphere of gloomy superstition
in which she had been reared had fostered, even if it had not altogether
been the cause of, her morbid mental and bodily condition.

"Among the many legends connected with the mansion, one seemed to have a
peculiar fascination for Miss Collingham, perhaps because it was the
most ghastly and repulsive. One wing of the house was held to be haunted
by the spirit of an ancestress of the family, who appeared in the shape
of a tall woman, with one hand folded in her white robe and the other
pointing upward. It was said, that in a room at the end of the haunted
wing this lady had been foully murdered by her jealous husband. The
window of the apartment overhung the wild wooded side of one of the
'cloughs' common in the country; and tradition averred that the victim
was thrown from this window by her murderer. As she caught hold of the
sill in a last frantic struggle for life, he severed her hand at the
wrist, and the mutilated body fell, with one fearful shriek, into the
depth below. Since then, a white shadowy form has forever been sitting
at the fatal window, or wandering along the deserted passages of the
haunted wing with the bleeding stump folded in her robe; and in moments
of danger or approaching death to any member of the Collingham family,
the same long, wild shriek rises slowly from the wooded cliff and peals
through the mansion; while to different individuals of the house, a pale
hand has now and then been visible, laid on themselves or some other of
the family, a never-failing omen of danger or death.

"I need not tell you how false and foolish all this dreary superstition
appeared to me; and I exerted all my powers of persuasion to induce Miss
Patricia to dwell less on these and similar themes in the presence of
Miss Collingham. But there seemed to be something in the very air of the
gloomy old mansion which fostered such delusions; for when I spoke to
Father O'Connor the priest, and urged on him the pernicious effect which
was thus produced on my patient's mind, I found him as fully imbued with
the spirit of credulity as the most hysterical housemaid of them all. He
solemnly declared to me that he had himself repeatedly seen the pale
lady sitting at the fatal window, when on his way to and from his home
beyond the hills; and moreover, that on the death of Lady Collingham,
which occurred at her daughter's birth, he had heard the long, shrill
death-scream echo through the mansion while engaged in the last offices
of the Church by the bedside of the dying lady.

"So I found it impossible to fight single-handed against these adverse
influences, and could only endeavor to divert the mind of my patient
into more healthy channels of thought. In this I succeeded perfectly.
She became an enthusiastic botanist, and our rambles in search of the
rare and lovely specimens which were to be found among the woods and
moors surrounding her dwelling did more for her health, both of body and
mind, than all the medical skill I could bring to bear on her melancholy
case.

"Four years had elapsed since I first took up my abode at
Collingham-Westmore. Miss Collingham had grown from a sickly child into
a singularly graceful young woman, full of bright intelligence, eager
for information, and with scarcely an outward trace remaining of her
former fragile health. Still those mysterious swoons occasionally
visited her, forming an insurmountable obstacle to her mingling in
general society, which she was in all other respects so well fitted to
adorn. They occurred without any warning or apparent cause; one moment
she would be engaged in animated conversation, and the next, white and
rigid as a statue, she would fall back in her chair insensible to all
outward objects, but rapt and carried away into a world of her own,
whose visions she would sometimes describe in glowing language, although
she retained no recollection whatever of them when she returned, as
suddenly and at as uncertain a period, to her normal condition. On one
of these occasions we were sitting, after dinner, in a large apartment
called the summer dining-room. Fruit and wine were on the table, and the
last red beams of the setting sun lighted up the distant woods, which
were in the first flush of their autumn glory. I turned to remark on the
beautiful effect of light to Miss Collingham, and at the very moment I
did so she fell back in one of her strange swoons. But instead of the
death-like air which her features usually assumed, a lovely smile
lighted them up, and an expression of ecstasy made her beauty appear for
the moment almost superhuman. Slowly she raised her right hand, and
pointed in the direction of the setting sun. 'He is coming,' she said in
soft, clear tones; 'life and light are coming with him,--life and light
and liberty!'

"Her hand fell gently by her side; the rapt expression faded from her
countenance, and the usual death-like blank overspread it. This trance
passed away like others, and by midnight the house was profoundly still.
Soon after that hour a vociferous peal at the great hall-bell roused
most of the inmates from sleep. My rooms were in a distant quarter of
the house, and a door opposite to that of my bedroom led to the haunted
wing, but was always kept locked. I started up on hearing a second ring,
and looked out, in hopes of seeing a servant pass, and ascertaining the
cause of this unusual disturbance. I saw no one, and after listening for
a while to the opening of the hall-door, and the sound of distant
voices, I made up my mind that I should be sent for if wanted, and
re-entered my room. As I was closing the door, I was rather startled to
see a tall object, of grayish-white color and indistinct form, issue
from the gallery whose door, as I said before, had always been locked in
my recollection. For a moment I felt as though rooted to the spot, and a
strange sensation crept over me. The next, all trace of the appearance
had vanished, and I persuaded myself that what I had seen must have been
some effect of light from the open door of my room.

"The cause of the nightly disturbance appeared at breakfast on the
following morning in the shape of a remarkably handsome young man, who
was introduced by Sir James as his nephew, Don Luis de Cabral, the son
of an only sister long dead, who had married a Spaniard of high rank.
Don Luis showed but little trace of his southern parentage. If I may so
express it, all the depth and warmth of coloring in that portion of his
blood which he inherited from his Spanish ancestors came out in the
raven-black hair and large lustrous dark eyes, which impressed you at
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