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SHADOW LAND OR  LIGHT FROM THE OTHER SIDE by Elisabeth d’Esperance(1897)

As I grew older and was busy with lessons I had less time to dream, less time to spend with my shadow friends, as I had learned to call them. Yet no sooner was I released from the monotony of the schoolroom than I joyfully took my way to the haunted rooms [of the house she lived in as a child].

My dreams came back, and imagination had full sway in peopling the old fashioned apartments and passages. I am now using the words “dreams” and “imagination” because other people used them and I do not know what other words to use, but they are not the right ones, since “dreams” and “imaginings” imply something fancied and unreal, but these particular “dreams” and “imaginings” of mine were very real, more real than any other part of my daily life.

To me the rooms were never dark nor empty. Sometimes on entering I would look round disappointedly at meeting no familiar form, then I would be startled at finding them suddenly peopled by strangers.

Sometimes these shadowy figures were so real, so life-like that I mistook them for ordinary visitors. Scarcely ever did I go into a room without looking round for some possible shadowy occupant, and seldom did I look in vain. Some looked at me in a friendly, pleasant manner, and these I got quite accustomed to; others would take no notice, would pass me on the stairs or in the passages as though they never saw me. This vexed me sometimes and I felt indignant that my smile of greeting should pass unnoticed. 

One of my shadow friends, was an elderly lady always dressed in black of some soft silken material that resembled satin yet was not satin. The frills of soft lace round her close-fitting white cap enclosed a sweet old face with smoothly banded grey hair.  The cap was peculiar in shape having a high standing crown whilst at the back of the frills was passed a broad black band which came down under the chin and was tied there.  Round her shoulders she wore a lace kerchief knotted at the breast.

This shadowy lady seemed to occupy one special room, though I saw her many times in others