The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848-1954), Friday 13 July 1951, page 2
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DO
YOU
BELIEVE
IN
GHOSTS?
THE LADY IN GREY
Mr. George Arden into the swung offices of the Melbourne "Gazette"
THIS true
are ¿rue
-
is
the first of a' series of Australian ghost stories by
GORDON
WILLIAMS.
taken from
The
facts
records of the
happenings reported.
The stories are treated in fictional form, but nothing departs from the record except, here and there, a name which may be introduced to give the narration continuity.... All have their place in the literature of the supernormal in Australia..
.
a
"But
they
passing that
say that people cemetery after dark have
do
^^^3>^^B
seen
^^^l"
..
,
Grey Woman
pointing down
be
towards the earth
feeling thot oil was well with the world.
AT
the Imperial they had been pleased to
well
editorial,
comment
latest
declare that it the glister from the effort of his rival, who fulminated so viciously, but so, so ineffectively, in the "Patriot."
hi« and to had stolen
upon
a master of words, good to feel that the fate of the Colony might well be decided by what he thought next, expressed next. He marched through the outer office, the confounding night the gloom, and lighting, poor nodded generously toward old still Cripps, who was on seated his high stool during his inter
It was good to be an editor, of this good to be a monarch strange of black kingdom ink and white paper, good to be a master of words, good to
minable accounts, and passed into the leading to his passageway room-t-his sacred room. He whistled lightly a few bars of "The Girl I Left Behind Me," then remembered his dignity and coughed, in self-admonition. Then he laid his hand upon the doorknob of his office, turned
the knob
"Excuse
...
me,
please, Mr.
now.
a
Don't go In there Just bin in there again, sir,
Arden; She's
reading
National Library of Australia
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23055547
?
sir, a reading of your letters and splashing the ink about something cruel, tir."
work
sense
.
.
.
and to me.
no
more
. . .
non-
about send Carter who's been
"Jupiter Brown, what are you about, If this time? raving filling you've been yourself with, that villainous stuff they sell you at the tavern again, I'll have your Job out of you-even If you are the oldest compositor this newspaper. on Come, man.
What's this nonsense?" "She's bin in there again, sir. That woman. 'Orrible looking old thing 'Ooked on her, nose sir; tong robes. Rare banshee, that's what she looks like, though I must heard of say I have never her wailing. No, sir, she don't
.
. .
butt find out tampering with my correspondence, and spilling ink I'll ," desk. on my "That sir," won't, you muttered Jupiter, as he moved away. "That won't. Mark you my words, she isn't of this world, sir,
I'll
.
.
banshees
being
a
banshee,
or
v worse." I'll "Banshee bandit, find or cut," shouted Arden. But Arden did discover never who his visitor was-a nocturnal prowler dressed In grey, 'flowing robes, ugly (according to the stories of the two people who
maybe
saw-or
reported that they
...
saw
-
all But she's a banshee And she reads your letters, sir, and pulls 'em about your table and-" "Jupiter, if you have been In there sneaking a glance at my correspondence, I shall have you It is time charged. Banshee! little either sacked we you-but do your soul good that would had you shut away, or forbade you the taverns, by the power of the law."
. . .
.
wail right
.
.
.
..
her most frequently), and at times menacing. "I believe she is somebody they have plundered out of the graveyard," said Brown one night to~ a friend, who "had seen some pretty 'orrible things 'imself in 'is time, believe you me." "I see her pretty often. And she looks very ugly, although it may be because her face allooks twisted up as if she's ways in pain, and crying, like.
.
.
"T SEE
.
her the other night, when I am wandering around the office when I should ha' bin home, She goes right past me, and she couldn't
LAUGH but me
have
than
if
like, sir, you and Tom Jenks
X
seen her now more once, and she get« to fumbling around your desk as large life. 'Orrible as old thing. I did think, sir, she was some stray wench who might have blundered in, like, but there was that time I tried to stop 'er, and my 'and went through her. She's a banshee, Mr. Arden, and make no mistake." Arden walked into his office, improved the light, and glanced at his table. It was disordered. left it so. And he never There letters lying open were (his correspondence was always
. . .
have dark.
been able to see in the She struck) a light, she did, not with a matchbox like I've got here in my hand, but by dipping the top of a lucifer in a bottle bottle full of acid,
. . .
maybe.
"Then she goes into Mr. Arden'? room, and I'm game enough to follow her. Rummaging among letters, she was, his finding herself paper, picking up a pen and
writing
"But
...
.
hear of any writing left behind her. At least, no finds anything. one the
I don't
neatly away-well, neatly as be, anyway) in his drawer. may There a was strange smell about the place-not the pungency of ink, not the musty heaviof damp wood, ¡not a com« ness pound cf the invading smells of streets, the like but something it, what was again? .'Got whiff of brimstone,
_,
filed
tumbled about letters. "Maybe, I think, she has a on crush Mr. Arden, and wants to see who's writing to him. But
then, I say
Only
ghosts don't with humans.
order
to myself, 'Jupiter, have love affair It ain't in the
of tyature.' when young gets Tommy to set her, when I am not there,
"80
said Jupiter. "Exactly," said Arden. "That's it. nonsense Brimst-hey, what is this? Brimstone? Out of here, Brown, ano back to your work no and more non. .
sir,"
.
I say, 'Ah, that will be a lesson to them who think I have been time in the spending too much Imperial.' don't drink Tommy
Imperial.' don't drink Tommy he doesn't get ghosts out -aad of a glass. No more do I. "Mark words, I tell you my whose she is one body has been snatched out of the cemetery, and she is trying to write to the about it." papers "Never heard of a ghost wanting to write a letter to an editor." said his crony, "But Michael. It's she should funny you say been might have a stole from
self,"
have always thought mysaid a quiet man standing by, "that those resurrectionist stories were begun by an old la? who out here for Just such came a crime. "Still, there's been a whisper that one or two bodies have dis-
"I
appeared-practitioners wanted to do post-mortem studies without apprising the relatives or
risking proper the hurt feelings." of their
very
cemetery.
They
.
old Mrs. say Carrltch was stolen away. the old "In times, a lot of
fellers was
.
'
stolen out cemeteries. "Look
of
in my bones that Mr. Arden's lady Is of them," said Brown. one "Could be. But believe you me and Tommy-and maybe others
J.
who have round that gone office looking scared, Gazette but who would never say why-that is, banshee, or whatever is she there. I know." . . * And that is a reconstrucfirst
"¥'VE
got
it
at what
Marker, the mechanic, found. He 'ad to go and repair the vault of
old Mr. and Mrs. Á. The wet had got to the foundations. And when
he opened Mrs. A.'s
and.the
it
up-why,
coffin lid all coffin was empty.
there was askew,
. . ,
tion of one of Melbourne's recorded hauntings. Was there a Grey Woman?
Was Brown he inspired merely by took at the Im-
"Tlf'ARKER
'most dropped. UTA He didn't know what to do. So he just shoved the
the spirits perial?
lid back without letting on to Smlthle who was laboring for for days after he him. And is worried about this body-snatching, and he dcesn't know whether If to tell the police because anything valuable has been pinched from thccoffin he thinks maybe he will be blamed. He asks me it, about and I say to him, 'Let sleeping dogs lie, Marker, what Is
...
done
done.'
is
done
and
can't
be
un-
a "Course, I was 'un young then, and don't take much notice of spectres and haunts and things But they do say that people passing that cemetery after dark
. . .
Burke and that other fellow used to sell dead 'uns to the student doctors and apothecaries. didn't have "We a University for students to want bodies at then, and from what I hear the doctors didn't bother much about
have seen a Grey Woman pointing down toward the earth near ." the vault. "That was a good time ago, though," 'sighed Brown. "I never did take much stock in cemetery stealing, in spite of Mr. Arden's banshee lady. Who would want the bodies? Not like the old days in the Old Country when
. .
unreliable wit.was an Tommy ness? Certainly, there seems, in whatwas recorded ever of the "visitation," no in the haunt purpose ings. quite a good There was deal of evidence, persuasive the ugh-and rewhy (as It was lated) did Mr. Arden race furihis office one ously from night, face blanched, eyes staring? He have been in a fury may quite proper .. to editors. He may but conjecture have would be improper. Ardcm's Orey Lady was spoken cf much, but opinion was very sharply divided. visits Unfortunately, Brown's to the Imperial seem to have obscured the issue, and there was little or no recorded investigation.
. .
.
.
.
-
.
.
.
But
ago
it
that
passing
Collins
Gazette
many years a and woman by the Union Bank, in Street, near which the office once stood, saw a
a
ia
not
so
man
luminous iht«' wmie, jointly elad in flowing draperiei-cn old, old woman, with a lined /ace and /tooted noie; she wavered and) a vanished t as they looked A trick of the mist?., Of light??
...