This week’s Winter Tale is “The Blue Room“, the last known published fiction by the writer known as Lettice Galbraith. It appeared uncredited in Macmillan’s Magazine October 1897, and if it was indeed Ms. Galbraith’s last published short story (for she may also have been writing under other names), then it was a great way to wind up her writing career.
Something is wrong with the Blue Room at Mertoun House. No one will say quite what, and several people have safely spent the night there. And yet the Mertouns keep the room unoccupied. Until one ill-fated Christmas evening….
You can read “The Blue Room” here.
I like this story for several reasons. First, it’s an interesting and well-written variation on the haunted room and occult investigation genres. Second, the “principal investigator” is a strong female character! Edith Erristoun attends Cambridge University, something still unusual for women at the time (in fact Cambridge didn’t actually grant degrees to women until 1948). She’s curious and brave, and her relationship with her fellow occult investigator is purely one of common intellectual interests, not romance. I can’t exactly say she doesn’t need rescuing, but her rescuer is also a woman: the narrator, Mrs. Marris, the housekeeper at Mertoun House.
And of course, like all of Lettice Galbraith’s stories, it’s a great read. I’ve noted before that Ms. Galbraith seems to touch more directly on sex-related topics than one might expect for her era; that’s kind of true for this story too, in a subtle way. So subtle that it took me two reads to notice.
But even it you don’t catch the allusion, it doesn’t diminish the pleasure of the tale. So grab a warm drink, curl up under your blanket, and enjoy!
A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.
I featured Lettice Galbraith in my Women of Folklore and the Fantastic series in September. You can read that post (with a link to her collection New Ghost Stories) here.
Images
Featured Image: A bed, Mikhail Vrubel (c. 1904). Source: WikiArt
Misty Outline of a Human Figure, Odilon Redon (1896). Illustration intended for La maison hantée by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Not included in final publication. Source: Old Book Illustrations
Multo (Ghost) 