Monday, February 14, 2022

The House of Her Dreams: A Living Ghost Story




Accounts of premonitory dreams are, of course, a dime a dozen.  However, the following story, related by the prolific Victorian writer Augustus Hare in his autobiography, “The Story of My Life,” is unusual enough to be worthy of notice.  It is also one of the relatively rare instances where dreams predicted a happy ending, as opposed to tragedy:

"A  few  years  ago  there  was  a  lady  living  in  Ireland--a  Mrs.  Butler--clever,  handsome,  popular,  prosperous, and  perfectly  happy.  One  morning  she  said to  her  husband,  and  to  anyone  who  was  staying there,  ‘Last  night  I  had  the  most  wonderful  night.  I seemed  to  be  spending  hours  in  the  most  delightful place,  in  the  most  enchanting  house  I  ever  saw--not large,  you  know,  but  just  the  sort  of  house  one  might live  in  one's self,  and  oh! so  perfectly,  so  deliciously comfortable.  Then  there  was  the  loveliest  conservatory, and the  garden  was  so  enchanting!  I  wonder if  anything  half  so  perfect  can  really  exist.' 

"And  the  next  morning  she  said,  'Well,  I  have been  to  my  house  again.  I  must  have been  there  for hours.  I  sat  in  the  library;  I  walked  on  the  terrace; I  examined  all  the  bedrooms;  and  it  is  simply  the most  perfect  house  in  the  world.'  So  it  grew  to  be quite  a  joke  in  the  family.  People  would  ask  Mrs. Butler  in  the  morning  if  she  had  been  to  her  house in  the  night,  and  often  she  had,  and  always  with  more intense  enjoyment.  She  would  say,  'I  count  the hours  till  bedtime,  that  I  may  get  back  to  my  house!’  Then  gradually  the  current  of  outside  life  flowed  in, and  gave  a  turn  to  their  thoughts:  the  house  ceased to  be  talked  about. 

"Two  years  ago  the  Butlers  grew  very  weary  of their  life  in  Ireland.  The  district  was  wild  and  disturbed. The  people  were  insolent  and  ungrateful.  At last  they  said,  'We  are  well  off,  we  have  no  children, there's  no  reason  why  we  should  put  up  with  this,  and we'll  go  and  live  altogether  in  England.' 

"So  they  came  to  London,  and  sent  for  all  the  house-agents'  lists  of  places  within  forty  miles  of  London, and  many  were  the  places  they  went  to  see.  At  last they  heard  of  a  house  in  Hampshire.  They  went  to it  by  rail,  and  drove  from  the  station.  As  they  came to  the  lodge,  Mrs.  Butler  said,  'Do  you  know,  this  is the  lodge  of  my  house.'  They  drove  down  an  avenue--’But  this  is  my  house!’  she  said. 

"When  the  housekeeper  came,  she  said,  'You  will think  it  very  odd,  but  do  you  mind  my  showing  you the  house;  that  passage  leads  to  the  library,  and through  that  there  is  a  conservatory,  and  then  through a  window  you  enter  the  drawing-room,'  &c,  and  it was  all  so.  At  last,  in  an  upstairs  passage,  they  came upon  a  baize  door.  Mrs.  Butler,  for  the  first  time, looked  puzzled.  'But  that  door  is  not  in  my  house,' she  said.  'I  don't  understand  about  your  house, ma'am,'  said  the  housekeeper,  'but  that  door  has  only been  there  six  weeks.' 

"Well,  the  house  was  for  sale,  and  the  price  asked was  very  small,  and  they  decided  at  once  to  buy  it. But  when  it  was  bought  and  paid  for,  the  price  had been  so extraordinarily  small,  that  they  could  not  help a  misgiving  that  there  must  be  something  wrong  with the  place.  So  they  went  to  the  agent  of  the  people who  had  sold  it  and  said,  'Well,  now  the  purchase  is made  and  the  deeds  are  signed,  will  you  mind  telling us  why  the  price  asked  was  so  small?’ 

"The  agent  had  started  violently  when  they  came in,  but  recovered  himself.  Then  he  said  to  Mrs. Butler,  'Yes,  it  is  quite  true  the  matter  is  quite  settled, so  there  can  be  no  harm  in  telling  now.  The  fact  is that  the  house  has  had  a  great  reputation  for  being haunted ;  but  you,  madam,  need  be  under  no  apprehensions, for  you  are  yourself  the  ghost!’ 

"On  the  nights  when  Mrs.  Butler  had  dreamt  she was  at  her  house,  she--her  'astral  body '--had  been seen  there." 


4 comments:

  1. That’s an unusual story and, as you wrote, with a happy ending. It seems that Mrs Butler claimed the house as a ghost - while she was still alive. I hope she and her husband had many years to enjoy their new home.

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  2. I've seen versions of this narrative in other books, where it's often listed as an urban legend or anecdote. I wonder if the Augustus Hare account is the origin story.

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  3. I have read several versions of this story. In 1957 my father died suddenly and we moved away from the farm where we had lived to a small town. I adjusted, you could say, but I was not happy to have left my freedom, as well as my dog, there. No near neighbors to keep up appearances in front of there. For many years - well into adulthood - I dreamed of going back to that place. I wondered if the people who were living there thought it was haunted by me.

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  4. This can also be found in Andrew MacKenzie's A Gallery of Ghosts (1972). He adds that there is no evidence it was true, and that it may have been exaggerated in repeated tellings. Hare was known as a raconteur of ghost stories.

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