Madam Crowl's Ghost

5 O'Clock Tea by David Comba Adamson

Madam Crowl's Ghost is a 1923 short story by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu. You can read it here, and since it starts with the brewing and sharing of tea, let's keep each other company with a cuppa and gather around for the tale. It begins,

Twenty years have passed since you last saw Mrs. Jolliffe’s tall slim figure. She is now past seventy, and can’t have many mile-stones more to count on the journey that will bring her to her long home. The hair has grown white as snow, that is parted under her cap, over her shrewd, but kindly face. But her figure is still straight, and her step light and active.

She has taken of late years to the care of adult invalids, having surrendered to younger hands the little people who inhabit cradles, and crawl on all-fours. Those who remember that good-natured face among the earliest that emerge from the darkness of non-entity, and who owe to their first lessons in the accomplishment of walking, and a delighted appreciation of their first babblings and earliest teeth, have “spired up” into tall lads and lasses, now. Some of them shew streaks of white by this time, in brown locks, “the bonny gouden” hair, that she was so proud to brush and shew to admiring mothers, who are seen no more on the green of Golden Friars, and whose names are traced now on the flat grey stones in the church-yard.

So the time is ripening some, and searing others; and the saddening and tender sunset hour has come; and it is evening with the kind old north-country dame, who nursed pretty Laura Mildmay, who now stepping into the room, smiles so gladly, and throws her arms round the old woman’s neck, and kisses her twice.

“Now, this is so lucky!” said Mrs. Jenner, “you have just come in time to hear a story.”

“Really! That’s delightful.”

“Na, na, od wite it! no story, ouer true for that, I sid it a wi my aan eyen. But the barn here, would not like, at these hours, just goin’ to her bed, to hear tell of freets and boggarts.”

“Ghosts? The very thing of all others I should most likely to hear of.”

“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Jenner, “if you are not afraid, sit ye down here, with us.”

“She was just going to tell me all about her first engagement to attend a dying old woman,” says Mrs. Jenner, “and of the ghost she saw there. Now, Mrs. Jolliffe, make your tea first, and then begin.”

The good woman obeyed, and having prepared a cup of that companionable nectar, she sipped a little, drew her brows slightly together to collect her thoughts, and then looked up with a wondrous solemn face to begin.

*******

I'm out of town today and won't be able to participate (if I get back in time I'll link to the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering, but it'll be later), but I am pleased about the new-to-me thrift store purchase of a one-cup French press coffee maker and thought I'd take this opportunity to share it here:

A couple of you may have already seen it on Facebook, but everything gets shared on Facebook first and in real time since I share way more than one thing a day there. Each social media outlet has its strengths and weaknesses, and each one is suited to a different type of sharing.

1.) Blog: I post once a day on blogger, scheduling posts well in advance so that movies are not on consecutive days. That means I'm already scheduling horror movies for October of 2020, but that's the way I have chosen to deal with the number of movies I watch.

2) Facebook: I post on Facebook as I do things so there might be posts on 3 or 4 movies on some days but without the video embeds or descriptions/reviews. I share articles and images as I see them, and I'm much more politically vocal on Facebook.

3) Twitter: I am on Twitter but just as a follower and reader, and I haven't tweeted since those first few just to show I am a real person and not a bot.

4) Instagram: I'm not on Instagram at all, mainly because I find it a bit intimidating with all the folks sharing such good photos there.

5) Youtube: I use YouTube and post videos there that I've taken myself and want to embed on my blog, and I subscribe to many of the fitness and garden channels.

6) Reddit: I follow the local Reddit but have never posted and rarely comment there.

7) Pinterest: I used to use Pinterest but never found it particularly engaging. Except for pinning the occasional image to my "Hats" board, I don't use it.

8) I set up accounts at Tumblr, LiveJournal, Google+, MySpace, GoodReads, Letterboxd, and maybe more -who remembers. I have used email "lists" and online message boards and the chat rooms that used to be set up for real-time discussions among members of email listserve communities. I either didn't find these useful and/or they're not around any more. I've been curious about Second Life but have never tried it.

Social media should not be feared but used in the way that is most appropriate for each of us. I'd just like to say: You, be you. Don't condemn online activity you either fear, don't understand, or don't find enjoyable. Different strokes, and all that. I find judgmentalism to be the worst part of any social media experience just as I do when involved in face-to-face interaction.