"The Haunted Organist of Hurley Burley" by Rosa Mulholland (Lady Gregory) (first published [uncredited] in All the Year Round, edited by Charles Dickens, Jr., November 10, 1886; reprinted as "The Haunted Organist" in Mulholland's collection The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly and Other Stories, n.d. [1881]; in Reign of Terror: The f4th Corgi Book of Great Victorian Horror Stories, edited by Michael Parry, 1878; in Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology [also published as The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories], edited by Michael Cox & R. A. Gilbert, 1991; in Classic Ghost Stories II, edited by Glen & Karen Bledsoe, 1998; in Classic Scary Stories, edited by Glen & Karen Bledsoe & Molly Cooper, 1999; in Best Ghost Short Stories 1850-1899: A Phantasmal Ghost Anthology, edited by Andrew Berger, The Wimbourne Book of Victorian Ghost Stories: Volume I, edited by Alistair Quinn, 2016; in Mulholland's Collection Not to Be Taken at Bed-time & Other Strange Stories, 2019; in Haunted Tales: Classic Stories of Ghosts and the Supernatural, edited by Leslie S. Klinger & Lisa Morton, 2022, and in Spectral Sounds, edited by Manon Burz-Labrande, 2022.
The story takes place "more than half a century ago" (so, some time before 1831) in the village of Hurly Burly, where lived the influential Hurly family. After several dry months, a sudden heavy rainstorm hit, bringing with it strange noises, which, for some reason, disturbed the elderly Hurly couple, who lived alone in their ancestral home. They can hear the sound of carriage wheels outside the house. A few minutes later, the maid came to announce that a young lady had arrived and said that she was expected and that the maid had shown her to a guest room. But the Hurlys had expected no visitor.
The strange visitor turned out to be Lisa, a young Italian woman, who had traveled to England, she said, to play the organ at the Hurly mansion at the request of The Hurlys' son. Lisa, who had been taching music since her English father and Italian mother, as well as her brothers and sisters, had died, leaving her alone. She was often visited by The Hurly son, who became affianced to the girl, and constantly urged her to "play better, better still" because he had work for her to do by-and-by. He told Lisa that she must travel to England and play the organ at his parents' house. Lisa must "get up in the night and play" and she must "never tire."
When questioned, Lisa said that she last spoke to their son five days before -- which is something quite strange because Lisa was just eighteen and their son had died twenty years ago...
Yet Lisa was able to pick out their son from a group of portraits in their home...
A classic Victorian ghost story that included the rakehell son, part of a group of young men who formed the 'Devil's Club," a profane act at a funeral, a curse upon the organ now located at the Hurley home and upon their son, a long-broken engagement, spectral music, a sealed room, and an impossible death. The creepiness just kept getting creepier.
Rosa Mulholland (1841-1821) was an Irish novelist, poet, and playwright who was encouraged in her writing by Charles Dickens. She published her first novel in 1864. Many of her books feature females desiring to be artistic successes in professional setting, although she never opposed the gender limits set by Victorian standards. When she was fifty years old she married Irish historian Sir John Gilbert, becoming Lady Gilbert. Mulholland may best remembered today for a handful of highly effective ghost stories.
The Haunted Organist of Hurley Burly and Other Stories is available to read here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=bc.ark:/13960/t7pp31119&seq=1
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