The Bath Chair

Edward Frederic Benson (1867-1940) was an English novelist, biographer, memoirist, archaeologist, and short story writer, best known for his evocative and beautifully narrated ghost stories. The Bath Chair is a sinister tale of Alice Farraday who harbours an obsessive hatred of her selfish brother Edmund. Alice is a believer in occult powers, and she well knows that a hatred, nurtured and fed, will take on a life of its own and bring about disaster for its object. She herself will not have to lift a finger to harm her brother. She must merely be patient and continue to hate. And indeed, before long Edmund begins to see a stranger with a limp wherever he goes. At first he is unable to get a clear view of the strange man... but when finally he sees him close up, the man's face fills him with terror, as he realizes the ghastly significance of the apparition.