The Mistress

My mothers side of my family came from England and there is an interesting story attached to one of our relatives, a housekeeper to a certain Lord Breckly.

My story begins in 1856, Lord Breckly was a wealthy lord and owned a vast estate and several houses including his London townhouse at which he resided most of the time. Lord Breckly was a foul tempered man and he was said to have treated everyone horribly, from servants to family to other Lords and Ladies of his own estate. This included his mistress. His mistress was a small wiry girl, many years his junior, of Scottish decent and very beautiful. It was rumoured that she was the bastard daughter of a noble man and a Scottish girl. Her name was Ailee.

Ailee had been Lord Breckly's mistress for about 6 years when one night everyone in the house heard an ear shattering scream. Lord Breckly and Ailee had been having awful arguments and my relative, who was the housekeeper, worried for Ailees safety. All the servants rushed to see what was wrong, but they were met at the stairs by Lord Breckly. He was acting very strangely and wouldn't allow any of the servants, including my relative upstairs. He informed them that Ailee had tripped over and had cried out. The servants went back to bed, disbelieving his excuse but they had learned to keep their mouths shut if they wanted to keep their jobs.

The next morning Ailee was absent from the kitchen where she usually ate her breakfast. The servants wondered at this and were suspicious that the master had finally gone too far, and had done away with her in the night. For weeks their was no sign of Ailee and life at the town house went on as usual. That is until the noises and wailing started. Every night at just about 10.00pm the same time that Ailee had first screamed out, terrible shrieks and a moaning would begin. The voice obviously that of a woman, screamed and cried and begged for mercy, but for this poor soul their obviously was to be none. This went on for several months until what was left of the household staff decided to see if they could discover the cause of the terrible moans. When the moaning began that night the staff gathered up their courage and followed the direction of the sound. They came upon the masters chambers and heard a horrible wail from within. The master, unable to stand the wailing had gone to his country house in Yorkshire. When they pushed open the door they all almost died of fright for their standing in the middle of the room was Ailee. Her eyes hollow and devoid of life, her arms outstretched as if pleading for help. The housekeeper stepped forward and tried to grab her hand. For a moment Ailee was solid then she motioned toward the closet and disappeared. The household staff, after they got over the shock, looked in and around the closet but could not find what the ghostly Ailee had wanted them to find. The master returned and the housekeeper informed him of what they had seen. The master turned white as a ghost and the next day fired all the servants and put the house up for sale.

Through the years the visits of the poor Ailee have continued, every night at 10.00pm she begins to moan until someone finds her, then she points to what once was the closet door then vanishes. No one knows what happened to Ailee or why, some,many in fact speculate that Lord Breckly murdered her, stuffed her body in a secret compartment in the closet and became horrified when his secret was almost discovered, many believe other things, but the world will never know.