# The Lady



## Maywalk (Jun 6, 2014)

As I said earlier I would start posting stories of things that have happened in my life from when I first got married. 
Some things may sound far fetched but I can assure you that I am NOT nuts nor am I looking for fame. 
I am too old now to be bothered with that sort of thing so I will leave it up to the reader and whoever runs the forum to either delete this posting or if those who read it would like me to carry on with other tales NOT as unbelievable as this one. 

 When I was younger I used to have many strange feelings and/ or messages coming to me and I will understand if folks cant really believe this true tale BUT it did happen. IF this is NOT the sort of thing wanted here I will also understand if the mods decide to delete it. 

I have been looking through my files that I have written for my family and this is the FIRST tale that happened during the beginning of our marriage, which reminds me, it will be our 65th year anniversary this year on the 17th of September IF we both live long enough to share it. 
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In 1950 my hubby and I moved to his home village where we went to share a home with an elderly gentleman who I will refer to as Kerry. 
Houses to rent were not in abundance then so the next best thing was to go in rooms until you were allocated a house from the council. 
The house we moved into was a very large double fronted house that at some time during its 200/300 year reign had housed gentry. Kerry owned the house and he had one side of it and we rented the other side. 

It still had some boarded up windows from many years hence when there was a tax on windows. 
I believe it was something to do with the expense of glass as well. The tax was not repealed until 1851 and council tax took over. 
Kerry was oblivious to the boarded up windows and as it was not any windows that I had to use I deemed it not my place to say anything about them. 
Kerry I might add was aged 85 and although he could potter about downstairs he could not climb the stairs because of a painful double hernia. Which he was told at that time he was too old to have them repaired. 
The back part of the house on Kerry’s side had been struck by lightening the same night that his wife had died some years previously. It was never repaired mainly because the old gent never had the money to do it nor was he capable of doing it himself. 
Anyway we settled in and got on extremely well with Kerry and when a month had passed my suspicions were confirmed that I was pregnant. 

The same evening I knew I went to tell Kerry and ask him if he minded a baby being in the house. 
He was over the moon bless him! 
He told me there had not been any babbies ( his word ) in the house for over a 100 years because he and his wife could not have them, and there were none born in the house before he and his wife got married and went to live there in the 1870s. It was I gathered a house that had belonged to his family that was bequeathed to him when the last uncle died. 
I was happy to find out that he did not mind about the babbie as he insisted on calling it. 

The same night as hubby and I were going to bed I SAW a woman at the top of the stairs with long dark hair and a gown on that had wide sleeves trimmed with some sort of white fur. She was beckoning to me and the shock of seeing her made me stop in my tracks at the foot of the stairs and hubby consequently bumping into the back of me. He asked me what was wrong and I said that I had seen a woman at the top of the stairs. He said it was my condition that caused it because he could not see one. 
Neither could I then because she had gone. 

We dropped off to sleep but about 2am hubby was shaking me awake saying he could hear footsteps along the stone landing. I too could hear them but funnily enough I was NOT frightened. 
I said I thought it was “the lady” who I had SEEN earlier. 

When morning came even though hubby had got up and locked the oldfashioned lock on the door the door was open. Hubby became quite agitated at this and said he did not like to leave me alone in the house while he was at work. 
I felt completely relaxed and said “I don’t think she is here to hurt me somehow. I think she is protecting me in some way. ” 
I had to reassure hubby quite a few times I would be OK when he went to work. 

It became a regular ritual to hear the footsteps every night and “ Prince” my hubby’s parents white Cairn Terrier had taken to coming every day to be with me. 

Dogs were not kept on leads then but a 7s/6d licence had to be paid every year. 

When “Prince” used to come in he would sense that “the lady” was about and do a wonderful imitation of a porcupine with his coat sticking up like a wire brush and slink under the chaise longue. He still came every day even though he was frightened and whether he sensed that I was pregnant or not I don’t know. The queer part about it was the fact that “Prince” never took to me in the first place but here I was pregnant and now he would do anything to get to me each day. 

I had a letter one day from my sister saying that she was coming to visit her poorly mother -in-law with her son and could she stop with me for the weekend. 
I was thrilled to bits and went to ask Kerry, because as it wasn’t my house I needed an extra room for my sister and my nephew to sleep in. 
Kerry was a darling and said use the fourposter bedroom because that bed is very comfortable. 

I never went in the bedrooms that were nothing to do with me and it was the first time I knew there was a four poster bed. 
I decided to sleep in that myself and let my sister sleep with her little lad in my bedroom. 

They came to stop but the next morning my sister said “ I am not stopping here again tonight its spooky because footsteps are walking up and down all night.” I tried to tell her that “the lady” was not out to hurt her and I thought she was looking after me. 
I have to mention here that the fourposter bedroom door was open when hubby and myself got up and when I asked my sister if the bedroom door was opened that she slept in the answer was NO. 
“The lady” seemed to know I had swapped bedrooms. 

You may wonder if I mentioned “the lady” to Kerry and the answer is NO. This was because in those far off days it would be assumed that I was going round the bend and not fit to look after my baby when it arrived. 
As time went on and I got heavier with carrying “the lady” seemed to be forever near and “Prince” was beginning to look more like a porcupine than ever. 

At the top of the stairs there was a big box cupboard. As it was nothing to do with me I never looked in there. 
Further along the hall was a bathroom with a bath in it but it had NO outlet so it meant if you wanted a bath you had to cart the water upstairs and then cart it down again when you had finished your ablutions. 
I could see the maid in my minds eye filling the bath for her master/mistress and having to scoop it all out when they finished to cart it downstairs again. 
I never used the bathroom because it was one of the rooms that had the window boarded up. 
My bath was in front of the coal or log fire downstairs which was taken in a zinc bath. 

One day when I was about eight months pregnant I went upstairs to bring something down and to my astonishment an array of hats dating well back in time were leading to the bathroom door from the box cupboard. I had difficulty in bending down to pick them up and I assumed they had come out of the box cupboard and put them back. 
I was rather bothered about this but still had a feeling that “the lady” was looking after me. 

About an hour later I went up stairs again to put back what I had been up for in the first place and LO AND BEHOLD! There were the hats in a row leading to the bathroom door again. 
I got rather cross with this and said out loud “ You can stop this lark because its getting very tiring for me to keep bending down to pick the hats up.” 
Anyone was listening to me who belonged to this world must have wondered who the hell I was talking to. 

When Saturday October the 14th came round I had the urge to clean everything from top to bottom and for some weeks I the baby had been lying on a nerve. It was as I climbed up on the chair to put my curtains back up that I realised the pain had gone. 
In the early hours of Sunday morning I started with niggly pains and as I was putting my dinner on to cook a knock came at the front door and who should be standing there but my mother saying “ I felt your labour pains starting and I will be staying until you have had the baby .” 
This to me was uncanny because I had NEVER been particularly close to my mother but here she was wanting to help out. 
By Sunday evening I was in the labour ward but unfortunately my baby was idle and had no intention of coming into the world yet. 
It was 5-30am on Tuesday morning when he decided to make himself known to the world weighing just over 4lbs. 

Later in the day hubby came in to be introduced to his son and heir and he told me that at 5-28am he was punched in the stomach and he woke up SO startled he fell out of bed and started dressing himself. 
My mother was up already and hubby put his foot on the top stair to descend when he was pushed again and finished up at the bottom of the stairs unhurt. 
My mother came running out of the living room and just said “ What the heck are you doing down there?” 
Hubby said “ Someone or somethng has pushed me down the stairs.” 
My mother simply said “ Maisie has had the baby” the time was 5-30am. Strangely enough hubby was NOT hurt in the fall. 
I learnt afterwards that my mother too could feel the presence of “the lady” and she too felt she was protecting me in some way but I was puzzled as to WHY. 

I was in hospital for over three weeks because I had a rare blood and the baby was turning blue. 
We got over all the scares and what have you and I told my hubby to bring my clothes in when I was ready to come home. My mother had gone back to London by this time. 
It was a cold foggy November day when I took my baby home for the first time. Hubby decided to bring a summer dress in for me to put on with high heeled white shoes NO coat or stockings just a thin cardigan. Bloody men have NO idea. 

Strangely enough when I got back home “the lady”never came again and I felt satisfied to think that she had looked after me through my pregnancy and once she knew the baby was ok she never came back again. 
I thought this was the end of the story but one day Kerry who knew his time was running out asked me if I would do him a great favour. I was only too happy to because Kerry brought stick for my fire every day to keep the babbie warm. 
He was a great old chap and he thought the world of the babbie. 
I asked him what he would like me to do and he asked me to go to the bathroom and in the very large boxroom in there I would find some cut glass vases and other ornaments and various things his wife had bought and inherited. 
He asked me if I would be kind enough to wash them because he wanted to share them among his nieces and nephews. I was happy to do this and I was amazed at the beautiful crystal ware I was handling. 
It was when I finally cleared the floor I saw what I thought was the back of a picture. As I turned it over it was an engraved plaque stating that it was in remembrance of ---stating a name – who with her baby both died in childbirth. The year was 1802. 

I was frozen to the spot because she must have lived there during that time well before Kerry took it over. I just felt dazed and the the farce with the hats came back into my mind. WAS that why the hats were all leading to the bathroom.? DID she want me to find the plaque? I will never know. 

I NEVER mentioned it to Kerry because he was getting very forgetful anyway. The only thing he remembered each day was to pop in to have a word with the babbie. 

Shortly after we had the chance of a house through my hubby’s firm that he worked for and we moved about six weeks later. Just before we moved to Loughborough another occurrence happened while living at Kerry's but nothing to do with the supernatural. It was when I first got to know our three foster children. Another tale that can be told if anyone is not bored already.


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## Ina (Jun 6, 2014)

Maywalk, I loved reading you story, and I would love to read more. :wave:


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## Mirabilis (Jun 6, 2014)

Ohh I enjoyed ths soooo much!!!  I would have loved to see that picture.  Moooore!!


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## Maywalk (Jun 6, 2014)

Many thanks Ina and Mirabilis. 
It wasn't a picture Mirabilis more like an engraving with a little prayer and the ladies name on it and date saying that she had died in childbirth. I wonder what happened to it when the old house was knocked down and made into an old peoples home.  

I will go and sort the next one out of meeting our foster children. 
The girl in the story still calls me her Mum and calls to see us when they are here because she has lived in the Shetlands since she got married.


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