Amelia Edwards – Was it an Illusion?

Even as a child, Amelia Edwards was extraordinary. She published her first poem at the age of seven and a short story at twelve. She was a talented artist, musician and mathematician and enjoyed shooting guns and riding.

Amelia was also interested in mountain climbing and exploring. She travelled to France and Spain and climbed the Dolomite mountains in her twenties and then decided to walk across France. This trip was not a success though because of the heavy rain. It decided her on exploring a warmer, drier country: Egypt. Her journey there in 1973 – 74 opened her eyes to the beauties of the country, both modern and ancient. She became anxious that Egypt’s historic treasures were lost, stolen and sold, and started to lecture on this subject in Britain and America.  She also wrote a best-selling book about her experiences in Egypt, ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile’.

All this time, Edwards was writing novels and short stories too – the shorter works were usually about ghosts.

She died in 1862 at the age of sixty of flu, with her lesbian lover at her bedside.

Was it an Illusion?

The facts which I am about to tell you happened to me sixteen or eighteen years ago, when I worked as an Inspector of Schools. Now, an Inspector is always on the move; and I was still young enough to enjoy a life of constant travelling.

There are many less pleasant professions. In faraway places, where there are few strangers, the Inspector’s annual visit is an important event; and, although at the end of a long day’s work, I would sometimes prefer a quiet evening, I am usually a guest at someone’s home. If I make an effort and am sociable, I make new friends and see English home-life; and sometimes I may even have the luck to enjoy an adventure.

Unfortunately for me, my post was in a thinly populated but very large geographical area. It was cut off from the main railway lines and was as inconvenient as it could be. The villages were far apart and I spent half my time in hired vehicles and lonely country guesthouses.

Winter was near when I paid my first visit to Pit End, a tiny village in the most northerly corner of my area, twenty-two miles from the nearest train station. I slept overnight at a place called Drumley, and inspected the schools there in the morning, and then started for Pit End, with fourteen miles of railway and twenty-two of hilly roads between myself and my journey’s end. I made, of course, all the enquiries I could think of before leaving; but neither the schoolmaster nor the landlord of the hotel knew much more about Pit End than its name.

With this little information I started off. My fourteen miles of railway journey soon ended at a place called Bramsford Road, where a bus took passengers to a dull little town called Bramsford Market. Here I found a coach to carry me to my destination. It was a raw afternoon in mid-November, growing rawer as day turned to evening. 

“How much further now, driver?” I asked.

He grunted something about ‘fewer than five miles by road’.

And then I learned that by turning off at a point on the road and taking a footpath across the fields, the distance was much shorter. I decided, therefore, to walk the rest of the way and, setting off quickly, I soon left the driver behind. At the top of the hill I lost sight of him, and found the footpath without difficulty.

It took me across a hill with some sheds here and there and a tall chimney, marking the site of a deserted mine. Meanwhile, it was quickly getting dark.

Now, to lose the way in such a place and at such an hour is unpleasant enough but I would not be able to see the footpath in another ten minutes. Looking anxiously ahead, therefore, in the hope of seeing a house or farm, I hurried on, till I found myself next to a fence around a park. Following this, with bare branches overhead and dead leaves underfoot, I soon came presently to a point where the path divided.

Which path should I take?

By following the fence, I could be sure to arrive at a place where I could ask my way to Pit End; but the park might be very large, and I might have a long distance to go before I came to the nearest house. Again, the other path, instead of leading to Pit End, might take me in a totally opposite direction. But there was no time to think; so I chose the path across the field.

Up to this moment I had not met anybody to ask my way; it was, therefore, a relief when I saw a tall lad, half-running, half-walking, with a fishing rod over his shoulder. Where then had he come from? I asked him the way to Pit End, but he walked by, like he had not heard me. Was I dreaming? Darkness, meanwhile, had fallen, and, dreaming or not dreaming, I must carry on walking. So I hurried forward, turning my back on the last gleam of daylight. I was, however, close to my journey’s end. The path ended at the bottom of a lane, where I found the welcome sight of the village inn.

The ‘Traveller’s Rest’ was not luxurious and I shared its dining room with a couple of small farmers and a young man who told me that he was a salesman for Thorley’s Food for Cattle. Here I ate my dinner, wrote my letters, chatted with the landlord, and learnt any local news that he mentioned.

The squire was almost never there. He lived mostly in Paris, spending abroad the wealth of his Pit End coal mines. He happened to be at home just now, the landlord said, after five years’ absence, but he would be off next week, and another five years might probably pass before they should see him at Blackwater Chase again.

Blackwater Chase! The name was not new to me, yet I could not remember where I had heard it. When, however, the landlord went on to say that, although he seldom visited, Mr Wolstenholme was a pleasant gentleman, and that, after all, Blackwater Chase was “a lonely sort of place for a young man to live in”, then I at once remembered Phil Wolstenholme at Oxford University, who, in his grand way, had once given me a general invitation to hunt at Blackwater Chase. That was twelve years ago, when I was studying hard at Oxford, and Wolstenholme was playing, betting, writing poetry, and giving wine parties at Balliol.

Yes, I remembered all about him – his handsome face, his luxurious rooms, his boyish generosity, his complete laziness, and the blind faith of his followers, who believed that he could win every prize which the University had to offer, if he studied a bit. But he left college with a poor academic reputation. How vividly I remembered it all – the old college life, the college friendships, the pleasant time that could never come again! It was only twelve years ago; yet it seemed like half a century. And now, after these twelve years, here were Wolstenholme and I as neighbours! I wondered if he had changed, and whether, if changed, for better or worse. Should I let him know where I was? Nothing could be easier than to write a note tomorrow morning and send it up to the big house. I sat late next to the fire and, by the time I went to bed, I had almost forgotten my adventure with the boy with the fishing rod who disappeared so mysteriously.

Next morning, finding I had time to spare, I wrote the note, saying that I believed we knew each other at Oxford, and that I would inspect the National Schools from nine till about eleven. And then, after sending it with one one of my landlord’s sons, I went off to work. The day was fine. The sun shone clear and cold, and the smoke-dirty village, and the buildings at the mouths of the coal pits round about, looked as bright as they could look at any time of the year. I climbed the one street, followed a path around the church and found myself at the schools. There was a gate over the main entrance with the words: ‘These school-houses were re-built by Philip Wolstenholme: AD 18-.’

“Mr Wolstenholme, sir, is the squire,” said a soft voice.

I turned and found the speaker at my elbow, a square-built, pale man, all in black, with copy-books under his arm.

“You are the schoolmaster?” I said, unable to remember his name.

“Exactly, sir. And you are Mr Frazer?”

It was an unusual face, very anxious-looking. The eyes, too, had a watchful look in them, which I found unpleasant.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Will you please take the boys first, sir, or the girls?”

The words were common enough, but the man’s manner was disagreeable.

I said I would begin with the boys and so moved on.

 “We will start with the examination,” I said.

He turned, if possible, even paler than before, bent his head silently, and called the students one after another.

I soon found that he was an excellent schoolmaster. His boys were extremely well taught. When, therefore, at the end of the examination, he said he hoped I would recommend the Pit End Boys’ School, I at once agreed. And now I thought I had finished with the teacher for a year. Not so, however. When I came out of the Girls’ School, I found him waiting at the door. Apologizing, he asked for five minutes of my valuable time. He wished to suggest a little improvement. The boys, he said, were allowed to play in the ground, which was too small and inconvenient; but round at the back there was a piece of waste land, which could be ideal. He led the way to the back of the building and I followed him.

“Who does this ground belong to?” I asked.

“To Mr Wolstenholme, sir.”

“Then why not ask Mr Wolstenholme? He gave the schools, and he might give the ground.”

“I beg your pardon, sir. Mr Wolstenholme has not been over here since his return and it is quite possible that he may leave Pit End without visiting us. I could not write to him, sir.”

I stopped and looked round.

“It seemed to me there was someone here,” I said, “a third person, not a moment ago.”

“I beg your pardon, sir – a third person?”

“I saw his shadow on the ground, between yours and mine.”

“A shadow?” he said. “Impossible.”

There was not a bush or a tree in half a mile. There was not a cloud in the sky. There was nothing, absolutely nothing that could have made a shadow.

I admitted it was impossible and that I must have imagined it and so went back to the matter of the playground.

“If you see Mr Wolstenholme,” I said, “you can say that I thought it would make an improvement.”

“Thank you, thank you very much,” he said. ‘But, but I hoped you might perhaps use your influence.”

“Look there!” I interrupted. “Is that imagination?”

We were now under the wall of the boys’ schoolroom. On this wall, lying in full sunlight, our shadows – mine and the schoolmaster’s – showed clearly. And there, too, no longer between his and mine, but a little way apart, I again saw, though only for a moment, that third shadow. As I spoke, as I looked round, it was gone!

“Didn’t you see it?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“I saw nothing,” he said, faintly. “What was it?”

His lips were white. He seemed unable to stand.

“But you must have seen it!” I shouted. “It fell just there. There must be a boy hiding. It was a boy’s shadow, I am sure.”

“A boy’s shadow!” he repeated, looking round in a wild, frightened way. “There is no place for a boy to hide.”“Place or no place,” I said, angrily, “if I catch him, ….”

I searched in every direction, the schoolmaster, with his scared face, following; but there was not a hole in the ground big enough to hide a rabbit.

“But what was it?” I said, impatiently.

“An illusion. Begging your pardon, sir, but an illusion.”

He looked so frightened.

“But you saw it?” I said again.

“No, sir. I saw nothing, nothing whatever.”

I felt positive that he had not only seen the shadow, but that he knew more about it than he chose to tell me. I was by this time really angry.

I said something short and rude. Then, I turned my back on the schools, and walked rapidly back to the village.

As I neared the bottom of the hill, a coach arrived at the door of the ‘Traveller’s Rest’, and the next moment I was shaking hands with Wolstenholme, as handsome as ever, looking not a day older than when I last saw him at Oxford! He gripped me by both hands, said that I was his guest for the next three days, and insisted on taking me at once to Backwater Chase. I complained I had two schools to inspect tomorrow ten miles away and that my room was ordered at the hotel.

“My dear friend,” he said, “you will send your horse back with a message to the ‘Traveller’s Rest’, and a couple of telegrams to be sent to the two schools. And, with this, he shouted to the landlord to send my luggage to his house and took me off to Backwater Chase.

It was a gloomy old place, standing high in the middle of a park. Wolstenholme took me through the picture gallery after lunch and then for a ride round the park.

“Now, tomorrow,” said my host, as we sat with our wine in front of a fire, “tomorrow, if we have decent weather, you’ll have a day’s shooting and, on Friday … have you ever been down a coal pit? No? Then a new experience for you! I’ll take you down Carshalton mine.”

“Is Carshalton one of your own mines?” I asked.

“You must be as rich as a prince!”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well,” he said, lightly, “I am rich enough to do what I please; and that is saying a good deal. But then, always to squander money, always to travel about the world, is that happiness? I have been trying the experiment for the last ten years; and what’s the result?”

We sat up late that first night, I cannot say chatting, because Wolstenholme did the talking, while I encouraged him to tell me about his travels on land and by sea.

So the time passed in stories of adventure and, when at last he threw the end of his cigar into the fire and discovered that it was time to go to bed, the clock showed us it was far into the small hours of the morning.

Next day, according to the programme made for my entertainment, we did seven hours’ shooting; and the day following I was to go down Carshalton mine before breakfast, and afterwards ride over to a place fifteen miles away, called Picts’ Camp, to see the ruins of a prehistoric fort.

Unused to field sports, I slept heavily after those seven hours with the gun and was slow to wake up when Wolstenholme’s servant came next morning with the waterproof suit I was to wear to go down the pit.

“Mr Wolstenholme says, sir, you had better not take your bath till you come back,” said this servant, putting the ugly clothes across the back of a chair. ‘And please dress warmly underneath the waterproofs, as it is very cold in the mine.”

The sound of voices reached me as I got nearer to the breakfast room. Going in, I found ten or a dozen miners grouped near the door and Wolstenholme, looking serious, standing with his back to the fire.

“Look here, Frazer,” he said, with a short laugh, “here’s some bad news. A fissure has opened in the bed of Blackwater Lake; it has disappeared in the night and the mine is flooded! No Carshalton pit for you today!”

“Seven foot of water,” grunted a huge red-headed man, who seemed to be the spokesman.

“And thank God it happened at night-time, or we’d all be dead men,” added another.

So saying, he dismissed the men with a warm nod and an order for unlimited beer.

I listened in amazement. The lake vanished! I could not believe it. Wolstenholme assured me, however, that it was not so very unusual. Rivers had disappeared before now, in mining districts; and sometimes, instead of just cracking, the ground would fall in, burying houses, even whole villages. The foundations of the houses were, however, usually known to be unsafe long enough before the crash came and these accidents were not therefore often followed by loss of life.

“And now,” he said, lightly, “you can take off your waterproofs because I’ll only have time this morning for business. It is not every day that we lose a lake, and have to pump it up again!”

After breakfast, we went round to the mouth of the pit and saw the men fixing the pumps.

Later on, we started off across the park to see the scene of the disaster. Our way lay far from the house across a wood and the through a valley leading to the lake. Just as we entered this valley, Wolstenholme turning the whole affair into joke – a tall, slim lad, with a fishing rod across his shoulder, came out from one of the side paths to the right, crossed the valley, and disappeared among the trees on the opposite side. I recognized him immediately. It was the boy I saw the other day.

“If that boy thinks he is going to fish in your lake,” I said, “he will be disappointed.”

“What boy?” asked Wolstenholme, looking back.

“That boy who crossed the valley a minute ago.”

“In front of us?”

“Certainly. You must have seen him?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see him? A tall, thin boy, in a grey suit, with a fishing rod over his shoulder. He disappeared behind those trees.”

Wolstenholme looked at me with surprise.

“You are dreaming!” he said. “No living thing – not even a rabbit – has crossed our path since we entered the park gates.”

“I am not in the habit of dreaming with my eyes open,” I replied, quickly.

He laughed, and put his arm around my shoulders.

“Eyes or no eyes,” he said, “you are under an illusion this time!”

‘An illusion’, the exact word used by the schoolmaster! What did it mean? Could I really not rely on my senses?

Hats were pulled off as Wolstenholme approached. He came up smiling, with a pleasant word for everyone.

“Well,” he said, “are you looking for the lake, my friends? You’ll have to go down Carshalton mine to find it! It’s an ugly sight you’ve come to see, anyhow!”

“It is an ugly sight, squire,”replied one of the men, ‘but there’s something uglier, maybe, than the mud, over there.”

“Something uglier than the mud?” Wolstenholme repeated.

“Will you come this way, squire, and look straight across at that little group of bushes. Don’t you see anything?”

I see a rotten piece of wood sticking half in and half out of the mud,” said Wolstenholme, “and something – a long reed, apparently . . . by God! I believe it’s a fishing rod!”

“It is a fishing rod, squire,’ said the man, “and if that rotten piece of wood isn’t an unburied corpse, I will be very surprised!”

There was agreement among the bystanders. It was an unburied corpse, sure enough. Nobody doubted it.

“It must come out, whatever it is,” he said after a moment or two. “Five feet of mud, do you say? Then here’s a pound each for the first two men who bring that object to land!”

The man who had spoken and another pulled off their shoes, turned up their trousers, and went in at once.They were over their ankles as soon as they walked in and went deeper at every step. As they sank, our excitement increased. Soon, they were visible from only the waist up. We could see their chests moving and the effort they were making to take each step. They were still twenty yards from the object when the mud reached their armpits . . . a few feet more, and only their heads would remain above the surface!

An uneasy movement ran through the crowd.

“Call them back, for God’s sake!” cried a woman’s voice.

But at this moment, reaching a point where the ground gradually went upwards, they began to rise above the mud as fast as they sank into it. And now, black with mud, they are within three or four yards of the spot . . . and now . . . now they are there!

They part the reeds, they bend above the shapeless object which all eyes are looking at, they half-lift it from its bed of mud, they hesitate and lay it down again, decide, apparently, to leave it there, and turn their faces to the river bank. After a few steps, the man remembers the fishing rod, turns back, gets the line with some difficulty, and brings it over his shoulder.

They didn’t have much to tell, standing, covered in mud from head to foot, on dry land again, but that little was conclusive. It was an unburied corpse, only part of it above the surface. They tried to lift it, but it had been so long under water, and was so rotten, that bringing it to the riverbank without a stretcher was impossible. They thought, from the slimness of the shape, that it must be the body of a boy.

“There’s the poor chap’s rod, anyhow,” said the first man, laying it gently down on the grass.

I have so far explained events as I experienced them. Here, however, my responsibility ends. I give the rest of my story second-hand, briefly, as I received it some weeks later, in the following letter from Philip Wolstenholme:

“Blackwater Chase, Dec. 20th, 18-.

“Dear Frazer,

“My promised letter has been a long time on the road, but I did not see the use of writing till I had something definite to tell you. I think, however, we have now found out all that we will ever know about the tragedy in the lake; and it seems that …. but, no, I will begin at the beginning. That’s to say, with the day you left the Chase, the day following the discovery of the body.

“You had only just gone when a police inspector arrived, but neither the inspector nor anyone else could do anything till the remains were brought to the riverbank, and it took us a week to manage that difficult operation. In the end, the object proved to be the corpse of a boy of, perhaps, fourteen or fifteen years of age.

“There was a fracture three inches long at the back of the skull, clearly fatal. This might, of course, have been an accident, but when the body was raised from where it lay, it was found to be held down by a pitchfork, the handle of which had been cut off, so that it did not show above the water – of course, evidence of murder. Nobody could recognize the boy’s face after so long in the water, but enough of his hair remained to show that it had been short and blond. The clothing was just a mass of rotten material but was once a suit of lightish grey cloth.

“A crowd of witnesses came forward at this stage, because I am now giving you the main facts to prove that, about a year or thirteen months ago, the schoolmaster had a boy staying with him that he called his nephew. He was not especially kind to him. This lad was described as tall, thin with blond hair. He usually wore a light grey suitand he loved fishing about the pools and streams.

“And now one thing led quickly to another. Witnesses talked about angry scenes between the uncle and nephew. Finally, the schoolmaster admitted the murder.

“And the motive? Well, the motive is the strangest part of my story. The lad was, after all, not the teacher’s nephew, but his own illegitimate son. The mother was dead, and the boy lived with his grandmother in a remote area. The old woman was poor, and the schoolmaster paid her an annual sum for his son’s food and clothing. He had not seen the boy for some years, when he sent for him to come on a visit to Pit End. Perhaps he was tired of paying. Perhaps, he was disappointed to find the boy stupid and badly brought up. Hetook a dislike to the poor boy, which developed into hatred.

“The boy was as backward as a child of five years old. The teacher put him into the Boys’ School and could do nothing with him. He had noself-discipline, had a passion for fishing, and was continually wandering about the country with his rod and line. He was in the habit of running away during school hours. The more he was punished, the more he continued with these bad habits.

“At last there came a day when the schoolmaster followed him to the place where his rod was hidden, and then across the park as far as the lake. The teacher’s description of what followed is confused. He admits beating the miserable lad on the head and arms with a heavy stick that he had brought with him but denies that he planned to murder him. When his son fell down, unconscious, and stopped breathing, herealized the force of the beating for the first time. He admits that his first impulse was one of fear for his own safety. He dragged the body into the rushes by the water’s edge and there hid it as well as he could. At night, when the neighbours were in bed and asleep, he returned by starlight, taking with him a pitchfork, rope, a couple of old iron bars and a knife. He pulled the body into the middle of the lake as far as he could walk. Here he tied the iron bars to the corpse until it sank. He then used his pitchfork to keep the body down by sticking it through the boy’s neck. He then cut away the handle, hid the fishing rod among the reeds, and believed, as murderers always believe, that discovery was impossible.

“He told the people of Pit End that his nephew had gone back to his grandmother and no one doubted it.

“Now, however, he says that he was on the point of admitting his crime before the body was found. His dreadful secret had become unbearable. He was haunted by an invisible presence. That presence sat with him at table, followed him on his walks, stood behind him in the schoolroom, and watched by his bed. He never saw it but he felt that it was always there. Sometimes he screams about a shadow on the wall of his cell. The prison authorities believe he is insane.

“I have now told you all that there is to tell. The trial will not take place till the spring. Meanwhile, I am off tomorrow to Paris, and, in about ten days, to the South of France, where letters will find me at the Hotel des Empereurs.

“Yours,

“Phil Wolstenholme

“P.S. Since writing this, I have received a telegram to say that the school teacher has committed suicide. No details given. So this strange history ends.

“By the way, that was a curious illusion of yours the other day when we were crossing the park and I have thought of it many times. Was it an illusion? That is the question.”

Yes, indeed! That is the question and it is a question I have never been able to answer.

Certain things I undoubtedly saw with my own eyes and, as I saw them, I have described them, hiding nothing, adding nothing, explaining nothing. Let anyone who can solve the mystery do so. For myself, I can only repeat Wolstenholme’s question. Was it an illusion?