The library of Ten Eyck Hall was, to Bab, the most beautiful of all the
rooms. The walls were literally lined with books from floor to ceiling,
and there were little galleries halfway up for the convenience of
getting books that were too high to reach from the floor. Big leather
chairs and couches were scattered about and heavy curtains seemed to
conceal entrances to mysterious doors and passages leading off somewhere
into the depths of the old house.
"This is just the place for a secret door or a staircase in the wall,"
exclaimed Grace.
"There is a secret door, I believe, in this very room," replied the
major; "but it is really a secret, for the location was lost long ago
and nobody has ever been able to find it since."
"How interesting!" said Ruth. "Can't you thump the walls and locate it
by a hollow sound?"
"But, even if you discovered a hollow sound, you wouldn't know how to
open the door," said Martin.
"Press a panel, my boy. That is all that is necessary," replied Jimmie.
"With a wild shriek Lady Gwendolyn rushed through the portals of the
lofty chamber. With trembling hands she pressed a panel in the wainscot.
Instantly it flew back and disclosed a secret passage. Another instant
and she had disappeared. The panel was restored to its place and Sir
Marmanduke and her pursuers were foiled."
All this, the irrepressible Jimmie had acted out with wild
gesticulations.
They all laughed except Alfred Marsdale, who stood looking at Jimmie in
a dazed sort of way.
"Wake up, Al, old man! What's the matter with you?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Alfred, "I was only wondering where I had read
that before."
There was another laugh, and the major led the way to the red drawing
room. It had been the ball room in the old days.
"It's a long time," observed the major, "since anyone has danced on
these floors."
The room took its name, evidently, from the red damask hangings and
upholstering of the furniture. The walls were paneled in white and gold
and there was a grand piano at one end.
"We'll have to take turn about playing," said Ruth. "Grace and I each
play a little."
"Oh, Jimmie can play," replied Martin. "Is there anything Jimmie can't
do?"
"Jimmie, you're a brick," said Alfred.
Back of the red drawing room was another smaller room which, the major
said, had always been called a morning parlor, but it had been a
favorite room of the family when he was a young man, and had been used
as a gathering place in the evening as well as after breakfast.
"This is the prettiest room of all, I think," observed Mollie.
And it was certainly the most cheerful, with its brightly flowered
chintz curtains and shining mahogany chairs and tables.
After that came a billiard room, a small den used as a smoking room, and
a breakfast room.
"Who wants to see the attic?" said Martin.
"We all do?" came in a chorus from the young people.
"Now, girls," protested Miss Sallie, "remember you were to take your
rest this afternoon."
"Oh, we shan't be up there long," said Martin. "We promise you to bring
them back in time for the beauty sleep."
"Very well," answered Miss Sallie; "go along with you. It's very hard to
be strict, Major. Don't you find it so!"
"I never even tried the experiment, Sallie," replied the gentle old
soldier, "because I always found it harder on me than on the boys. It's
really a certain sort of selfishness on my part, I suppose. Cut along
now, boys, and don't keep the girls from their rest too long."
The pilgrimage started up the great front staircase, led by Martin and
his older brother, who together had made many excursions to the attic
and knew the way by heart.
On the second floor the explorers followed a passage that led to another
flight of stairs, and this in turn to another passage, and finally to
one last narrow flight of steps with a mysterious door at the top.
"This reminds me of the House of Usher," said Jimmie, "only it goes up
instead of down. Can't you imagine all these doors opening and closing,
and the sound of footsteps on the stairs, down, down?"
Just then Martin opened the door and a gust of wind blew in their faces.
Something flashed past that almost made the whole party fall backwards
down the steps.
Mollie gave a little shriek.
"Don't be frightened," said José, who was standing just behind her. "It
is only a bird."
"Somebody must have left the window open," exclaimed Stephen in
surprise. "I wonder who it was? The servants are afraid to come up here.
They believe it is haunted. Lights have been seen at midnight, shining
through some of these windows, and the only persons who are not afraid
are the housekeeper and the butler, who come twice a year, and clean out
the dust."
The young people found themselves in a vast attic whose edges were
hidden by dense shadows. The center was lighted by dormer windows, here
and there, that gleamed like so many eyes from the high sloping roof.
Scattered about were all sorts of odds and ends of antiquated furniture,
chests of drawers, hair trunks, carved boxes and spinning wheels.
"Isn't this great!" cried Jimmie Butler. "Just the place for
handsprings," and he began to turn somersaults like a professional,
while the girls looked on delighted.
"Stop that, Jim," protested Stephen. "You'll get yourself filthy and
break your neck into the bargain. You are much too old for such child's
play. You'll have rush of blood to the head and strain a nerve, and
heaven knows you've got enough to strain."
"'In my youth, Father William replied to his son,
I feared it would injure the brain,
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none;
Why, I do it again and again!'"
sang Jimmie as he wheeled over the floor toward a partition wall which
cut off one end of the great room. Over and over he circled, without
looking where he was going, until suddenly, bang, his heels hit against
the wall.
There was a curious grating noise, a creaking of rafters, and before
their amazed eyes the wall slid along and disclosed another attic as
large as the first.
Jimmie was so bewildered he forgot to pull himself up from the dusty
floor, and lay with his head propped against an old trunk looking across
the enormous space.
Then everybody began talking at once.
"This looks to me like smugglers," cried Alfred. "I was in an old house
in England, where there was the same sort of wall, only not so large."
"And look," called Bab, "there are footsteps in the dust. Who could have
been here lately, to have left those marks. Do you see? They come from
over there in the right hand corner."
"Yes, is it not curious," replied José, "that they are going away from
the wall and not approaching it? He must have walked out of the wall.
Perhaps there is a secret door there, too."
They rushed across pell mell, and began thumping the walls, but nothing
happened.
"I say, Stephen," said Martin, "do you suppose we had smugglers in our
family?"
"I don't know," answered Stephen. "They managed to keep it secret if
they had."
"I'd like to be a smuggler," cried Martin. "There would be some
excitement in life then. But how did you manage to do it, Jimmie? You
are always having things happen to you."
"I don't know," replied Jimmie. "I must have kicked the panel that
worked the spring. Let's see if we can move it back again. Here's the
place in the floor," and bending over he pressed on a sliding board in
the floor. Instantly the wall began slipping back in place. The others
leaped back into the first attic, and in a moment the partition had
fitted itself as snugly as if it never had been moved.
"All is as if it never had been," exclaimed Jimmie. "Now let's find the
place I kicked."
But try as they would, no one could locate the spot again.
"Well, of all that's curious and mysterious!" said Stephen. "Jimmie, go
and turn a few more wheels and see if it happens again."
Jimmie did as he was bade, and kicked the wall vociferously from one end
to the other but it never budged an inch.
In the meantime, Martin and the girls were diving into some old trunks
and carved chests which were filled with clothes of another date,
old-fashioned silks and dimities that had been worn by the major's
grandmother and aunts.
"There is a trunkful of men's things, too," called Stephen, leaving the
sliding partition, to join in the rummage.
"I say, girls," cried Jimmie, "wouldn't it be fun to give a fancy dress
party some day, and surprise the major and Miss Stuart?"
"How delightful!" exclaimed the girls in one voice.
"Oh, pshaw!" said Martin, disgusted.
"Oh, I say now, Jimmie, what a beastly idea!" exclaimed Alfred, equally
disgusted.
"Come on, fellows; don't throw cold water on the scheme if the girls
like it," put in Stephen.
And so the party was arranged.
All this time José had never left the partition, but had kept up a
continuous thumping to find the sliding panel.
"Everybody take a hand, and we will carry down everything we can find,
and then we won't have to make another trip," called Stephen. "Come,
José, we're going to dress up. You'll have to be a pirate. Here's a red
sash and a three cornered hat that will just suit your style."
So saying, the cavalcade departed from the dark old attic, laden with
spoils.
"If this is to be a surprise on uncle and Miss Stuart, we had better
hide the things, hadn't we?" observed Martin, who was very cautious and
always thought ahead, once he had decided to do a thing.
"Very well. We'll let Mary take charge of them and divide them later,"
replied Stephen. "You had better go take your naps now, girls," he added
in a whisper, "or we'll have the old lady and gentleman on our necks."
The young people separated, the boys taking a corridor leading to the
left wing, the girls following the main hall. Bab left the others and
started downstairs.
"I'll be right back," she called. "I left my handkerchief in the
library."
She confessed to herself, as she descended the stairs, that she was
rather tired. The excitement of the two past days, her uncomfortable bed
made of a steamer rug spread on the ground, the night before, and
finally the close, dusty air of the attic had combined to give her a
headache and a feeling of extreme weariness.
When she reached the cool, darkened library, she sat down for a moment
in one of the big chairs and closed her eyes. It was very restful in
there. The sun had left that side of the house in the shade and the room
with its heavy hangings, its dark leather furniture and rich rugs was
full of shadows.
She was almost asleep, a slender little figure in a great armchair of
carved black oak. Her head dropped to one side and her eyes closed, when
she was awakened with a start by a draught of cold air. One of the
curtains next the book shelves bulged out for a moment and Barbara's
eyes were fastened on a long, white hand that drew them aside. Then a
face she had seen in the wood looked from around the curtain. The eyes
met hers, and again that strange, childlike look of sorrow and amazement
filled them.
A dizziness came over Barbara. She closed her eyes for a moment, and,
when she opened them again, the face, or phantom, or whatever it was,
had gone.
Holding her breath to keep from crying out, Barbara ran from the room as
fast as her trembling knees could carry her. In the hall she met José.
He looked at her curiously.
"Mademoiselle, have you seen a ghost?" he asked as he stood aside to let
her pass.
She was afraid to answer, for fear of bursting into tears.
"I am sorry," he continued. "Has anything really happened?"
But still she refused to speak, and ran up the stairs.
He turned and went into the library, closing the door after him.
There was a queer little smile on his face. Perhaps he, too, had seen
the old man and understood her look of terror.
By the time she reached her room, Bab had regained her self-composure,
and had again determined to say nothing about the adventure. It would
only frighten the girls and take away from the pleasure of the visit.