I never sat alone, and preferred a crowd to solitude. I even thrust my company on Phil and Lucy, now an engaged couple. Taffy and I were fast friends; we two had shared a unique experience—an experience apart. I was sensible of this bond in his manner, and I read it in the expression of his wistful and expressive eye.
A suspicion, nay, a conviction, took root in my mind. Miss Boone knew more about Rochelle than she pretended. More than once, I found her gazing at me, with an air of peculiar interest, and, more than once, curiosity had urged her to angle (very cautiously) for some particulars of the tragedy I thought I had seen; but I declined to indulge her. She was an unbeliever—and I held my tongue.
In the month of January, Lucy once more faced the Atlantic, accompanied by Miss Boone, Philip, and myself. She was obliged to arrange about her trousseau, and money affairs. We travelled by a big liner, and had on the whole a capital trip. Miss Boone found several friends among the passengers, and one afternoon as we sat in the library in the idle hour which follows tea, an old lady, her son and daughter joined our small circle. We discussed a variety of topics and impressions, and at last came to Kentucky State, Lexington, and Rochelle.
“Rochelle,” repeated the lady’s daughter. “Is not that the haunted house, Momma?”
“Yes, the Taylors’ place,” she answered briskly; “there is a dreadful story about it, but I fancy it is more or less forgotten by this time. For years and years it could not be let—the house, I mean; the land of course is most valuable.”
“What is the story?” I enquired, and I glanced with some significance at Lucy and Philip.
“I remember hearing of it from my mother,” continued the old lady, “and it’s gospel truth. The Taylors were wealthy, and had a great estate, and hundreds of slaves, and were well thought of by all, till the time of Mrs. Herman Taylor, a widow, who inherited it from her husband. She was very strange—some said crazy—and lived alone; hoarded her money, flogged her slaves, and worked them to death. There were stories of terrible scenes at Rochelle—that lovely old place, so dignified and admired, had become a sort of negroes’ hell! People could only talk—they did not dare to interfere. Marcella Taylor was a rich woman, and a vindictive enemy, and had overseers as cruel and hard as herself, and she got more out of her slaves in the way of return than any mistress or master in the State. When it was moonlight, it was said, she worked them all night, and her crops were extraordinary.”
At last the situation became intolerable; beyond the endurance of flesh and blood. A field hand who had been cruelly flogged took the law into his own hands, and one evening, in the sight of the entire community, executed Mrs. Taylor in her own verandah! He had been summoned to receive a punishment, and the story is, that he suddenly drew a long knife, which he had concealed, dragged her backwards by the hair, and beheaded her on the spot. He took the head with him, escaped to the woods, and was never seen or heard of again.
“It was also said that every anniversary the scene was re-enacted in the same verandah—but fortunately was only visible to some. The Villiers, who succeeded to the estates, hated the place, and got rid of it, and so for two generations the house has had a bad name, but now it is apparently recovering its character. I suppose the supernatural has a time-limit?”
She glanced at me interrogatively, but Miss Boone threw me an imploring look and I suffered silence to pass for assent. In this extraordinary and unexpected fashion my experience was confirmed, my truthfulness vindicated, there was an end to gibes about dreams, and crab salad. Subsequently Miss Boone confessed to me that the tale of the north verandah was not new to her, but that she had not wished to frighten Cousin Carolina. As if anything could frighten Cousin Carolina! She has nerves of cast-iron.