“La Grand’ Garce.”
“Qu’est qu’tu ’as? Non dirait qu’tu ’as veu la grand’ garce.” (“What is the matter with you? One would suppose you had seen the great girl.”)
Such were the words with which a gentleman (Mr. Peter Le Pelley, Seigneur of Sark), in the last century greeted his sister-in-law, (Miss Frances Carey, daughter of Mr. John Carey), who had come to spend a few days with him at his manorial residence in Sark, on her appearance at the breakfast table the morning after her arrival. He meant to banter her on her anxious and haggard look, which she attributed to a restless night and headache, occasioned in all probability by crossing the water on the previous day.
In reality, although she did not like to acknowledge it at the time, her rest had been disturbed. Having previously locked her door, as was her habit, she had fallen asleep almost as soon as she laid her head on the pillow, but was awakened suddenly,—about midnight, as far as she could judge,—by someone drawing aside the curtains at the foot of her bed. She started up, and saw plainly an elderly lady standing there. She fell back fainting, and when she recovered her senses the figure had disappeared.
It was probably nothing more than a very vivid nightmare, and was followed by no results beyond the effects of the fright which a few days sufficed to remove, but she never again revisited Sark. The question, however, is one which is not unfrequently addressed to a person who has an anxious or startled look, and refers to the apparition of a tall maiden, which is supposed to presage the death of the person who sees it, or that of some near connection.[144]
[144] From Rachel du Port, who was formerly a servant of Mr. John Carey, and heard it from Miss Fanny Carey herself.
Editor’s Notes.
My cousin, Miss E. Le Pelley, whose great-uncle Peter was Seigneur of Sark, and whose old servant Caroline is still alive and in the service of the Le Pelley family, sends me the following confirmation of the above, which she wrote down from the lips of old Caroline herself. Caroline, as a girl, had one day been teased by some of her fellow servants on the Seigneurie farm, who told her that they would come in and awake her during the night. So she, to prevent such disturbance, locked her door. In the middle of the night she awoke and saw a lady standing at the foot of her bed. She was so frightened that she shut her eyes, but twice curiosity prevailed and she opened them again, and saw the lady gliding away. She had on a crossover shawl, and a beautifully gauffred white cap. Caroline was just going to look again, when she felt something heavy fall on her feet “with a great thump,” which so frightened her that she put her head under the clothes, and did not uncover it until the morning, though she could not sleep again. The lady is supposed to be a Miss de Carteret, sister of one of the original Seigneurs of Sark. She had unaccountably disappeared from that room, which was the last spot in which she had been seen.
Old Caroline went on to say that many others besides herself had seen the ghost. Fifty years previously, an old woman living at Havre Gosselin had been terrified by it. The cook, who was fellow-servant with Caroline, had seen it three times.