Musical Ghost.
Weird story of a haunted house at Brighton.
A story of a haunted house where a ghost has been seen was published by the “Daily Mail” on Saturday last as follows: –
Brighton’s ghost has selected an ordinary two-storied house in a very ordinary street as its residence. For obvious reasons, we refrain from publishing the names of those who claim to be able to substantiate every detail we give below, and in the interests of the landlord we also withold the name of the street.
A middle-aged lady, who formerly occupied the house, says that one Sunday evening she was startled to see standing by the piano in the drawing room the figure of a woman. There was an awful look on the face, but the apparition vanished before the terror-stricken occupier could gather any further detail.
A gentleman well known in Brighton lived in the house with his wife and children for fifteen months. Sturdy and muscular, with a partiality for mountain-climbing as a pastime, this gentleman, who was seen by a “Daily Mail” representative yesterday, is certainly not teh kind of man to suffer from “nerves.” He said that he had not seen the ghost, but a very curious thing happened in the corner of the drawing room where the figure is said to have appeared. “We had our piano there,” he said, “and over it hung a guitar. One night, just as I had got into bed, the guitar suddenly sounded three notes in quick succession. I exclaimed ‘Whatever is that?’ and my wife and I walked up to the instrument and looked at it. It was hanging on the wall as usual, but as we looked at it it gave out the same three notes again, and then a third time. We took the guitar down, and saw that it had not ‘run down’ in any way. We could find nothing whatever to account for the sounds.”
“These were the notes,” said his wife, who was standing by, “a minor chord”; and she played on the piano the notes A, C, E. “On more than one occasion after that,” she added, “I heard notes sounded on the piano by an invisible hand.”
Friends who slept in the house spoke of strange noises they had heard, and a servant declares that on one occasion she was awakened by what seemed to be the falling of a basket of crockery outside her door.
Towards the end of his tenancy the gentleman was visited by a clergyman, who informed him that the house was haunted, and that he knew of three tenants who had been driven away by the sights and sounds.
A barrister, now living in a fashionable part of Brighton, says that some time ago he and two friends decided to sleep in the house and investigate. He took with him a revolver and a terrier. “During the night,” he says, “my dog became strangely agitated, and suddenly I heard my friends, who were in a nother room, cry out, ‘For Heaven’s sake, come here at once, Jack.’ I ran down, and in the room I saw, as clearly as I see you now, a woman crossing the floor. I looked straight at her, and I can tell you that I shall never forget the sight of her face. Its look of agaony was awful. I could see right through the figure, which was transparent. I got the impression that she was wearing a brown dress. She walked up to the wall, and then vanished. We all three of us felt that we had seen enough for that night, and came out at once. It had a great effect upon our nerves.”
It is said that some years ago a young woman, driven mad by the cruelty of a man, hanged herself in a bedroom of the house.
Regarding the above story, a “Brighton Gazette” representative learns that the ghost was exorcised by a clergyman ten years ago, and since then has not been heard or seen. The house is situated in the district of Prestonville.
Brighton Gazette, 29th December 1904.