"Dear Sir Adrian," says Dora Talbot, laying down her bat upon a
garden-chair, and forsaking the game of tennis then proceeding to go
forward and greet her host, "where have you been? We have missed you so
much. Florence"--turning to her cousin--"will you take my bat, dearest?
I am quite tired of trying to defeat Lord Lisle."
Lord Lisle, a middle-aged gentleman of sunburned appearance, looks
unmistakably delighted at the prospect of a change in the game. He is
married; has a large family of promising young Lisles, and a fervent
passion for tennis. Mrs. Talbot having proved a very contemptible
adversary, he is charmed at this chance of getting rid of her.
So Florence, _vice_ Dora retired, joins the game, and the play continues
with unabated vigor. When however Lord Lisle has scored a grand victory,
and all the players declare themselves thoroughly exhausted and in need
of refreshment, Sir Adrian comes forward, and walks straight up to Miss
Delmaine, to Dora's intense chagrin and the secret rage of Arthur
Dynecourt.
"You have often asked to see the 'haunted chamber,'" he says; "why not
come and visit it now? It isn't much to see, you know; but still, in a
ghostly sense, it is, I suppose, interesting."
"Let us make a party and go together," suggests Dora, enthusiastically
clasping her hands--her favorite method of showing false emotion of
any kind. She is determined to have her part in the programme, and is
equally determined that Florence shall go nowhere alone with Sir Adrian.
"What a capital idea!" puts in Arthur Dynecourt, coming up to Miss
Delmaine, and specially addressing her with all the air of a rightful
owner.
"Charming," murmurs a young lady standing by; and so the question is
settled.
"It will be rather a fatiguing journey, you know," says Captain
Ringwood, confidentially, to Ethel Villiers. "It's an awful lot of
stairs; I've been there, so I know all about it--it's worse than the
treadmill."
"Have you been there too?" demands Miss Ethel saucily, glancing at him
from under her long lashes.
"Not yet," answers the captain, with a little grin. "But, I say, don't
go--will you?"
"I must; I'm dying to see it," replies Ethel. "You needn't come, you
know; I dare say I shall be able to get on without you for half an hour
or so."
"I dare say you could get on uncommonly well without me forever,"
retorts the captain rather gloomily. To himself he confesses moodily
that this girl with the auburn hair and the blue eyes has the power of
taking the "curl out of him" whensoever she wishes.
"I believe you are afraid of the bogies hidden in this secret chamber,
and so don't care to come," says Miss Villiers tauntingly.
"I know something else I'm a great deal more afraid of," responds the
gallant captain meaningly.
"Me?" she asks innocently, but certainly coquettishly. "Oh, Captain
Ringwood"--in a tone of mock injury--"what an unkind speech! Now I know
you look upon me in the light of an ogress, or a witch, or something
equally dreadful. Well, as I have the name of it, I may as well have
the gain of it, and so--I command you to attend me to the 'haunted
chamber.'"
"You order--I obey," says the captain. "'Call and I follow--I follow,
though I die!'" After which quotation he accompanies her toward the
house in the wake of Dora and Sir Adrian, who has been pressed by the
clever widow into her service.
Florence and Arthur Dynecourt follow them, Arthur talking gayly, as
though determined to ignore the fact that he is thoroughly unwelcome to
his companion; Florence, with head erect and haughty footsteps and eyes
carefully averted.
Past the hall, through the corridor, up the staircase, through the
galleries, along more corridors they go, laughing and talking eagerly,
until they come at last to an old and apparently much disused part of
the house.
Traversing more corridors, upon which dust lies thickly, they come at
last to a small iron-bound door that blocks the end of one passage.
"Now we really begin to get near to it," says Sir Adrian encouragingly,
turning, as he always does, when opportunity offers, to address himself
solely to Florence.
"Don't you feel creepy-creepy?" asks Ethel Villiers, with a smothered
laugh, looking up at Captain Ringwood.
Then Sir Adrian pushes open the door, revealing a steep flight of stone
steps that leads upward to another door above. This door, like the lower
one, is bound with iron.
"This is the tower," explains Sir Adrian, still acting as cicerone
to the small party, who look with interest around them. Mrs. Talbot,
affecting nervousness, clings closely to Sir Adrian's arm. Indeed she is
debating in her own mind whether it would be effective or otherwise to
subside into a graceful swoon within his arms. "Yonder is the door of
the chamber," continues Sir Adrian. "Come, let us go up to it."
They all ascend the last flight of stone stairs; and presently their
host opens the door, and reveals to them whatever mysteries may lie
beyond. He enters first, and they all follow him, but, as if suddenly
recollecting some important point, he turns, and calls loudly to Captain
Ringwood not to let the door shut behind him.
"There is a peculiar spring in the lock," he explains a moment later;
"and, if the door slammed to, we should find it impossible to open it
from the inside, and might remain here prisoners forever unless the
household came to the rescue."
"Oh, Captain Ringwood, pray be careful!" cries Dora falteringly. "Our
very lives depend upon your attention!"
"Miss Villiers, do come here and help me to remember my duty," says
Captain Ringwood, planting his back against the open door lest by any
means it should shut.
The chamber is round, and has, instead of windows, three narrow
apertures in the walls, through which can be obtained a glimpse of the
sky, but of nothing else. These apertures are just large enough to admit
a man's hand. The room is without furniture of any description, and on
the boards the dark stains of blood are distinctly visible.
"Dynecourt, tell them a story or two," calls out Ringwood to Sir Adrian.
"They won't believe it is veritably haunted unless you call up a ghost
to frighten them."
But they all protest in a body that they do not wish to hear any ghost
stories, so Sir Adrian laughingly refuses to comply with Ringwood's
request.
"Are we far from the other parts of the house?" asks Florence at length,
who has been examining some writing on the walls.
"So far that, if you were immured here, no cry, however loud, could
penetrate the distance," replies Sir Adrian. "You are as thoroughly
removed from the habitable parts of the castle as if you were in the
next county."
"How interesting!" observes Dora, with a little simper.
"The servants are so afraid of this room that they would not venture
here even by daylight," Sir Adrian goes on. "You can see how the dust of
years is on it. One might be slowly starved to death here without one's
friends being a bit the wiser."
He laughs as he says this, but, long afterward, his words come back to
his listeners' memories, filling their breasts with terror and despair.
"I wonder you don't have this dangerous lock removed," says Captain
Ringwood. "It is a regular trap. Some day you'll be sorry for it."
Prophetic words!
"Yes; I wish it were removed," responds Florence, with a strange quick
shiver.
Sir Adrian laughs.
"Why, that is one of the old tower's greatest charms," he says. "It
belongs to the dark ages, and suggests all sorts of horrible
possibilities. This room would be nothing without its mysterious lock."
At this moment Dora's eyes turn slowly toward Arthur Dynecourt. She
herself hardly knows why, at this particular time, she should look at
him, yet she feels that some unaccountable fascination is compelling her
gaze to encounter his. Their eyes meet. As they do so, Dora shudders and
turns deadly pale. There is that in Arthur Dynecourt's dark and sullen
eyes that strikes her cold with terror and vague forebodings of evil. It
is a wicked look that overspreads the man's face--a cruel, implacable
look that seems to freeze her as she gazes at him spell-bound. Slowly,
even while she watches him, she sees him turn his glance from her to Sir
Adrian in a meaning manner, as though to let her know that the vile
thought that is working in his brain and is betraying itself on his face
is intended for him, not her. And yet, with this too, he gives her
silently to understand that, if she shows any treachery toward him, he
will not leave it unrewarded.
Cowed, frightened, trembling at what she knows not, Dora staggers
backward, and, laying a hand upon the wall beside her, tries to regain
her self-possession. The others are all talking together, she is
therefore unobserved. She stands, still panting and pallid, trying
to collect her thoughts.
Only one thing comes clearly to her, filling her with loathing of
herself and an unnamed dread--it is that, by her own double-dealing and
falseness toward Florence, she has seemed to enter into a compact with
this man to be a companion in whatever crime he may decide upon. His
very look seems to implicate her, to drag her down with him to his
level. She feels herself chained to him--his partner in a vile
conspiracy. And what further adds to the horror of the situation is the
knowledge that she knows herself to be blindly ignorant of whatever
plans he may be forming.
After a few seconds she rouses herself, and wins back some degree of
composure. It is of course a mere weakness to believe herself in the
power of Arthur Dynecourt, she tries to convince herself. He is no more
than any other ordinary acquaintance. If indeed she has helped him a
little in his efforts to secure the love of Florence, there was no great
harm in that, though of course it served her own purpose also.
"How pale you are, Mrs. Talbot?" remarks Sir Adrian suddenly, wheeling
round to look at her more closely. "Has this damp old place really
affected your nerves? Come, let us go down again, and forget in the
sunshine that bloody deeds were ever committed here or elsewhere."
"I am nervous, I confess," responds Dora, in a low tone. "Yes, yes--let
us leave this terrible room forever."
"So be it," says Sir Adrian gayly. "For my part, I feel no desire to
ever re-enter it."
"It is very high art, I suppose," observes Ethel Villiers, glancing
round the walls. "Uncomfortable places always are. It would be quite
a treasure to Lady Betty Trefeld, who raves over the early Britons. It
seems rather thrown away upon us. Captain Ringwood, you look as if you
had been suddenly turned into stone. Let me pass, please."
"It was uncommonly friendly of Ringwood not to have let the door slam,
and so imprisoned us for life," says Sir Adrian, with a laugh. "I am
sure we owe him a debt of gratitude."
"I hope you'll all pay it," laughs Ringwood. "It will be a nice new
experience for you to give a creditor something for once. I never pay my
own debts; but that doesn't count. I feel sure you are all going to give
me something for my services as door-keeper."
"What shall I give you?" asks Ethel coquettishly.
"I'll tell you by and by," he replies, with such an expressive look that
for once the saucy girl has no answer ready, but, blushing crimson,
hurries past him down the stone stairs, where she waits at the bottom
for the others.
As Florence reaches the door she pauses and stoops to examine the lock.
"I wish," she says to Sir Adrian, a strange subdued excitement in her
tone, "you would remove this lock. Do."
"But why?" he asks, impressed in spite of himself, by her manner.
"I hardly know myself; it is a fancy--an unaccountable one, perhaps--but
still a powerful one. Do be guided by me, and have it removed."
"What--the fancy?" he asks, laughing.
"No--the lock. Humor me in this," she pleads earnestly, far more
earnestly than the occasion seems to warrant. "Call it a silly
presentiment, if you like, but I honestly think that lock will work you
evil some day. Therefore it is that I ask you to do away with it."
"You ask me?" he queries.
"Yes, if only to please me--for my sake."
She has evidently forgotten her late distrust of him, for she speaks now
in the old sweet tone, and with tears in her eyes. Sir Adrian flushes
warmly.
"For your sake," he whispers. "What is there I would not do, if thus
requested?"
A bitter sneer contracts Arthur Dynecourt's lips as he listens to the
first part of this conversation and guesses at the latter half. He notes
correctly the kindling of their eyes, the quick breath that comes and
goes like happy sighs from the breast of Florence. He hears the whisper,
sees the warm blush, and glances expressively at Dora. Meeting her eyes
he says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, when
passing by her, whispers:
"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."
Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse,
Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.
At the foot of the small stone staircase--before they go through the
first iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without--they find
Ethel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in the
dimly lighted stone passage, and has discovered another door fixed
mysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.
"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.
"Oh, that is an old door connected with another passage that leads by
a dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I am
afraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse.
The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would of
making an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened for
years."
"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all his
might to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his efforts
are crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud of
dust uprising covers them like a mist.
"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefully
examines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrable
gloom. Spider-nets have been drawn from wall to wall and hang in dusky
clouds from the low ceiling; a faint, stale, stifling smell greets his
nostrils, yet he lingers there and looks carefully around him.
"You'll fall into it, if you don't mind," remarks Captain Ringwood. "One
would think uncanny spots had an unwholesome attraction for you."
Ringwood, ever since the memorable night in the smoking-room, when Sir
Adrian was so near being killed, has looked askance at Arthur Dynecourt,
and, when taking the trouble to address him at all, has been either
sharp or pointed in his remarks. Arthur, contenting himself with a
scowl at him, closes the little door again, and turns away from it.
"At night," says Sir Adrian, in an amused tone, "the servants, passing
by the door below that leads up to this one, run by it as though they
fear some ghostly ancestors of mine, descending from the haunted
chamber, will pounce out upon them with their heads under their arms,
or in some equally unpleasant position. You know the door, don't you,
Arthur--the second from the turning?"
"No," replies Arthur, with his false smile, "I do not; nor, indeed,
do I care to know it. I firmly believe I should run past it too after
nightfall, unless well protected."
"That looks as if you had an evil conscience," says Ringwood carelessly,
but none the less purposely.
"It looks more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur,
laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain as he
speaks.
"Well, what does the immortal William say?" returns Ringwood coolly.
"'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!'"
"You have a sharp wit, sir," says Arthur, with apparent lightness, but
pale with passion.
"I say, look here," breaks in Sir Adrian hastily, pulling out his watch;
"it must be nearly time for tea. By Jove, quite half past four, and we
know what Lady FitzAlmont will say to us if we keep her deprived of her
favorite beverage for even five minutes. Come, let us run, or
destruction will light upon our heads."
So saying, he leads the way, and soon they leave the haunted chamber and
all its gloomy associations far behind them.