This week’s winter tale is a haunted house story by Theo Gift, the pen name of Dora Havers (1847-1923). I have a soft spot for a Victorian ghost story with an independent female lead character, and “Number Two, Melrose Square” happens conveniently at Christmas, so how could I resist?
The protagonist, who seems to make her living as a translator and scholar, arrives to London to work on her latest project. A friend has found her a furnished house on Melrose Square, conveniently near the British Museum. Perhaps it’s a bit dreary, but for a furnished house, with housekeeper included, it’s quite a bargain!
Oops. Naturally, our heroine soon discovers that a bargain is never as good as it initially seems.
You can read “Number Two, Melrose Square” here.
Dorothy “Dora” Havers was the daughter of a colonial governor, and lived in the Falkland Islands and then Uruguay as a child and young woman. After her father died, she returned to England, working as a writer and journalist. She wrote novels, short stories, ghost stories, and children’s fiction, all published under the name Theo Gift. In 1879 she married botanist George Simonds Boulger, Professor of Natural History at the Royal Agricultural College. Hence, the name “Theo Gift” is sometimes listed as the pseudonym for Dora Boulger.
“Number Two, Melrose Square” originally appeared in All the Year Round, vol 24, 1880. The version that I’m sharing today is from Theo Gift’s collection Not for the Night-Time, published 1889.
Enjoy!
A list (with links) of the winter tales I’ve shared in previous years is on my Winter Tales page.
Featured image: “Dark and Winding Streets,” Charles-François Daubigny, illustration for Les mystères de Paris, vol 1 (1843). Source: Old Book Illustrations.
Post image generated by Stable Diffusion (prompt: “charcoal drawing haunted drawing room”)
Multo (Ghost) 