The Green Lady

By Benjamin Parsons

In this tale of comedy, mystery and the battle of the sexes, cheating-heart Hamish has finally driven his wife Elizabeth out of her senses. She has fled into the crypt of her ancestral home, convinced that she's the ghost of the Green Lady, whose spectral footsteps stalk the dark passages of Brackley Castle. But Hamish's friend Max isn't so sure. He suspects Elizabeth has a trick or two up her sleeve, especially as she's being aided and abetted by her clever, bewitching cousin Mina. Armed with only cunning and charm, who will see it through the night when the ghostly Green Lady walks? Part of the collection The Green Lady and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Feb 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310291999

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

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The Green Lady

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2012.

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On overcast days, at the turning times of the year, I sometimes grow wistful, and pine for rural quiet and lonely ruins. Mists and dripping branches, soaking greenswards and the chirrups of chilly blackbirds occupy all my thoughts, and I cannot be content until I’ve escaped from the city.

When seized with this half-melancholy, half-cosy longing for solitude, dark skies and romantic edifices, I remember that, if I take a train from London Bridge, I can be transported in a mere matter of four hours or so (and two changes) to the branch-line station at Brackley, a modest little nowhere on the south coast. Three miles from thence, Brackley Castle stands against the sea.

I often think of it there, and plot excursions to this atmospheric getaway. I imagine myself stroaming, as I’ve done in years gone by, around the ancient curtain wall, and gazing up at the turrets. A sort of Radcliffe-enthusiasm overwhelms me then, which makes my heart quail in awe as I survey the massy towers, the tremendous gatehouse and the sublime, decayed fabric of the whole, while listening to the crushing roar of the breakers that neverendingly accost the crumbling crags of the almost beetling cliff upon which the castle rises.

So I sit and sigh, listening to the traffic, and resolve again and again that, at the very next opportunity I will take that train, a copy of Udolpho, and indulge myself. But then it always happens that the weather improves, the sun begins to shine with brash cheerfulness, and I set aside my dreams of Brackley Castle for another day.

However, pondering on those venerable stones inclines me recount the story of the Green Lady. For, as you must know, every castle, abbey or antique manor house worth the name must have a bleeding nun, headless cavalier or shrieking banshee in residence, and Brackley Castle is fully equipped with its own Green Lady.

The property passed through the Hargrave family for sixteen generations until, falling into the lap of Miss Elizabeth Hargrave, it promptly passed out of Hargraveship altogether, when she married Hamish Evering. Elizabeth argued for some time to get a double-barrel, but the couple quarrelled so furiously throughout their engagement over whether it should be Hargrave-Evering, or Evering-Hargrave, that no decision was made, and when the dispute threatened to end itself in the dissolution of the relationship, the lady was obliged to yield, and so the Hargraves of Brackley Castle are no more.

One October evening— let’s say Halloween, for amusement’s sake— Hamish was making his way down to Brackley from the metropolis, driven by a good friend. Hamish, a blonde, foppish fellow, was a little too old for his boyish looks, but still a little too boyish to qualify for manish looks.

‘Why are you going back to her?’ asked his friend Max, a dark haired, green-eyed, handsome specimen, and well aware of it. ‘Wait, let me guess, though. A wife— even yours— suddenly seems very appealing when your mistress ditches you. Any warm body in bed’s better than a cold pillow.’

‘I ended it with her,’ objected Hamish then, sticking out his chin.

‘Oh! Of course.’

‘I did!’

‘I said of course, didn’t I?’

‘You had a sarcastic look in your eye.’

‘It’s a natural squint, I