Followoing the theme of the previous post, this story concerns a game on Christmas Eve. Unlike the game  in “Smee”, the ghost isn’t a participant. Rather the ghost is the result of the game.

In this story, a young artist and his sister, through a legal issue, inherit a manor that had been owned by a relative of theirs. This relative had disappeared on Christmas Eve after playing cards with a friend.

They are told by the caretaker that the place is haunted. They scoff, but not for long. Noises disturb them every night.

They decide to spend a month in Europe to get away from teh noise. they have never had the means to travel before, and now they do. This is in August.

While in Europe, they make firends with an English family and discover the family lives near their manor. They decide to extend their tripa nd travel with this family. The plan is to spend Christmas in Rome  together. The artist is starting to pursue the daughter of the family.

But then  the matriach falls ill.

They all return to Englan jsut before Christmas.

That means the artist and his sister are int he manor on Christmas Eve. This time, they don’t just hear noises, they see that fateful Christmas Eve forty years before reenacted.

I’ll not say more. There is a twist I don’t want to give away.

Charlotte Riddell wrote a number of ghost stories in the second half of the Nineteenth Century.  The berst collection of her ghost stories was published by Dover in 1977.

I read this story in Supernatural Horror Vol. VII, edited by Will Oliver, who has done some guest posts here and is the author of the most recent Robert E. Howard biography.  Will edited seven volumes of this series, which I highly recommdend. The seventh volume is all Christmas ghost stories.