If you have ever read any of the numerous books on old ghost stories, the story below, printed in 1911, will sound very familiar. In fact, even in today’s world people say they are haunted by victim’s of crime or by those who were somehow wronged.
Is Violet Edmands Haunted By the Accusing Wraith of Her Pastor Lover’s Sweetheart?
Friends Say She Is, and Declare That Is Why Rich Heiress and Her Family Have Deserted Richeson
By Stella Marquere
Boston, Nov. 2. — Since the arrest of her pastor lover for the murder of Avis Linnell, Violet Edmands never has set foot outside the door of her home.
Why?
Her multi-millionaire father, Moses Grant Edmands, says she has been prostrated by the shock of her lover’s arrest.
But another explanation of the confinement of Violet Edmands to her home is being whispered about the select circle in which the Edmands move.
It is said that this girl, who was to have been wedded to the Rev. Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson, is being haunted by the wrath of the girl whom the police say Richeson murdered.
It is said that there is never a moment, day or night, that the spectre of pretty little Avis Linnell is far from Violet Edmands.
It is said that this is the reason that Violet Edmands is “ill in bed.”
It is said [that you shouldn’t keep repeating the same phrase over and over again] that for this reason, the offer of the Edmands millions to aid Richeson in his fight to escape the electric chair will be withdrawn.
I wonder if the story is true.
It is not impossible. It is not even unprecedented.
Twelve years ago there occurred in Kent, England, a tragedy that was very similar to the which has blasted Violet Edmands’ life.
The Rev. Raeburn Forbes, a curate in a country village, gave up the girl to whom he had been engaged from the days of his childhood, in order to become the affianced husband of Lady Brooking, the daughter of the oldest, and wealthiest, family of the neighborhood.
The day Forbes’ engagement to the Lady Brooking was announced, the dead body of Clementine Watson, the girl with whom he had broken, was found in her bedroom at her home.
Three weeks later, Forbes was arrested charged with murder. Poison had been found in her body.
Forbes protested his innocence. The Lady Brooking offered to stand by him. She did stand by him. She gave him the aid of both money and sympathy.
And the day before Forbes was found guilty of Clementine Watson’s murder, the Lady Brooking was found dead in a room in her fathers palatial home. She had committed suicide and by the side of her dead body the following note was found:
“I cannot stand this any longer.
“I do not know what peace is. I have not known a moment’s rest since the day of Raeburn’s arrest. Except in death I never shall obtain another moment’s peace.
“Clementine Watson’s ghost haunts me day and night. She points an accusing finger at me. She asks me why I am aiding the man I know to be guilty.
“I do not believe he is guilty — at least, I am not sure. I never would admit that I believed in his guilt.
“But I cannot stand the accusations of this ghost of the little country girl I despised any longer. God forgives me for what I am about to do.”
Is this the case with Violet Edmands?
Is the rick Brookline heiress, who has laid millions at Richeson’s haunted by the accusing wraith of Avis Linnell, rebuking her for striving to prevent justice to the dead?
Is that why the threat to withdraw the Edmands millions already has been made, why Richeson may have to face a jury lacking the support of the woman he had hoped to call wife, and whose money he hoped would make him rich for life?
Perhaps it is. Who knows?
But this much is certain: Since Richeson’s arrest, Violet Edmands has not dared to show herself even to her best friend. She has been kept in more strict seclusion than a Turkish sultan keeps his harem.
Source Marquere, Stella. (1911, November 02). Is Violet Edmands haunted by the accusing wraith of her pastor lover’s sweetheart. The Day Book, pages 25-26.
