A GHOSTLY LAUGH.
Miss Drusilla was so angry with Lucy for blurting out the truth to Nina
that she drove her out of the room.
“You have killed the poor child with your long tongue!” she exclaimed.
Lucy sobbed and protested that she had not wished to hurt her darling
Miss Nina, but Miss Strangemore sent her out with the others, and
followed them a minute after with a grave, portentous face.
“Mind,” she said, shaking her long, slim finger at the staring
frightened group, “not a word of what has happened outside this
house! Listen to me, all of you women, and Jack there, too. I do not
want any of you to open your lips to any one on the subject of Mrs.
Strangemore’s return. No one outside this house must know that your
young mistress is alive and that she has come back to Selwyn Heights.
Her presence here must be kept perfectly secret. I know that this
silence will be hard upon you, for women have long tongues, but it is
necessary to the safety of your mistress that you keep her secret.”
“I’d have my right arm cut off before I’d tell,” exclaimed Jack the boy
of all work, loyally, for he worshiped the beautiful young mistress who
was always kind and pleasant to him.
“And I, and I”--came the quick response from all, and though Miss
Strangemore had small faith in humanity in general she believed in the
promises of these simple, humble servants. She knew that each one
worshiped their gentle, indulgent, young mistress.
“Very well,” she said, “I am glad to see that you are all disposed to
obey orders, and if you all keep your word I will see that you each
receive a nice present for doing your duty. Now go back to your beds
and don’t stand gaping in the halls, gossiping, and looking for Mrs.
St. Alban’s ghost. She does not walk at all. It was only Nina’s and
Kitty’s fancy. Dead people don’t come back to earth, for if they get to
heaven they don’t want to return, and if the devil gets ’em he won’t
let ’em, and I am pretty sure he got Sibyl St. Alban!”
And leaving her startled hearers, shivering and gaping in a
huddled-together group, the stern female returned to the room where she
had left Kitty applying restoratives to her mistress.
But none of her remedies had taken effect as yet. Nina still lay upon
the floor, her beautiful, rigid face upturned to the light with no more
signs of life upon it than if she had been a corpse. Kitty was silently
weeping over her.
“Oh, Miss Drusilla, I can’t bring her to. She is dead, surely,” she
sobbed. “She was weak and faint. She told me that she had been ill a
long time, and so she could not bear the shock of Lucy’s words. They
have killed her, my poor young mistress.”
“No, Kitty, I do not believe that she is dead. She is in a deep swoon,
that is all. But we must do the best we can for her ourselves. We
cannot call a doctor. You understand me, Kitty?” said Miss Drusilla,
and in the dim light they looked at each other across the lifeless body
with awed eyes.
“You mean”--Kitty said, with a shudder.
“That the horrible malice, the dying falsehoods of Sibyl St. Alban
have ruined Nina’s life. Oh, what a wicked woman she must have been to
die with a lie upon her lips to gratify her jealous malice! If it were
known that Nina were alive, that she had come home to Selwyn Heights,
she would be arrested for murder!”
Was it only their fancy, or did a low laugh of horrible, unearthly,
exultant malice echo through and through the room, seeming to come from
the other side of the door? Kitty was a devout Catholic. She crossed
herself when she heard it.
“The saints preserve us!” she cried. “Did you hear the ghost laughing,
Miss Drusilla?”
“Kitty, you’re a fool! ’Twas nothing but the wind in the gables,” the
lady cried, sharply, but she went quickly to the door and threw it wide
open.
“There’s nothing there,” she said, triumphantly, and Kitty did not
know that she was shuddering in spite of her pretended bravado, and
that that eerie, mocking laugh still rang in her ears. “Mind,” she
continued, sharply, “don’t you tell the servants you fancied you heard
something. They’ll be leaving the house in a body if you tell them any
more ghost tales.”
“I’ll not breathe a word to them, ma’am,” answered trembling,
frightened Kitty.
“And now let us do what we can for this poor, unhappy girl,” continued
Miss Drusilla, calmly. “Let us take this tight dress off and put on
her night-gown and lay her in bed. I think she is going to revive
presently.”
“The saints grant it,” prayed Kitty, and Miss Drusilla replied, rather
bitterly:
“Perhaps the saints would be in better business if they took her home
to glory. Even if she lives what will she do with her blighted future?
She will have to fly from justice, a poor, hunted creature! All the
world believes her guilty of Mrs. St. Alban’s death!”
And while she busied herself with tender assiduity to bring back the
suspended life of the girl, she told herself that she was doing wrong,
that Nina was better off dead than to awake to the doom that menaced
her.
“I would sooner see her laid in her grave than dragged before a judge
and jury to be tried for the murder of the bad and cruel woman who
stole her husband and blighted all the happiness of her young life!”
she said to herself, “And yet I would give worlds to see her cleared
from the base accusation Sibyl St. Alban made against her in her dying
hours. But there is no hope of that. The mystery will never be cleared
away.”
When she looked at the rigid white face upon the bed and thought of
the suffering that had come to this last fair descendant of the proud
old Selwyns through her nephew’s sin she felt that she cordially hated
Talbot Strangemore.
“If his mother could look down upon Nina now what must she think of
her selfish work?” she thought, for she could not divest herself of
the impression that her sister-in-law had acted from purely selfish
considerations in bringing about Nina’s marriage with her son.
“Oh,” cried Kitty, and looking down at Nina, Miss Strangemore saw that
her dark eyes had flared wide open and her lips parted with a gasp of
returning consciousness.
She had come back to life, to consciousness, to sorrow. The two women
there who loved this beautiful young creature better than they loved
anything else on earth did not know whether to laugh or weep at her
recovery.
But Kitty took the nerveless white hand in her own and kissed it warmly
through falling tears, while the spinster scarcely less moved, but
hiding her emotion better, continued to bathe Nina’s face and hands
with delicate, pungent perfumes.
“Oh, Aunt Drusilla, I thought I was dying just now, and I was so glad,
so glad, but now I am come back to life, and I could weep with the
very sorrow of it,” shivered the wretched girl, “I--I--think something
frightened me very much just now, but I cannot quite remember. My brain
seems dazed. Some one said something just now, something very horrible!
What was it, Kitty? tell me.”
“It was nothing, Miss Nina, dear, only your fancy,” soothed the maid.
She could not summon courage to tell her the truth, she looked so frail
and helpless, so like a broken flower, lying back among the pillows
with her wan, white face and masses of disheveled golden hair that
contrasted so strangely with her large, brilliant dark eyes, darker and
larger than ever now as they stared perplexedly at the maid.
“But I am sure there was something,” she said, faintly, “I--I--shall
remember it myself presently,” and suddenly like a flash of light
memory came back.
She gave a long, low, shivering moan, and exclaimed:
“Some one--Lucy I think--said that I had killed Mrs. St. Alban.”
“No, no, dear,” her aunt answered. “Not quite that.”
“Something very like it, then. Now I remember it. Mrs. St. Alban
made them write down that I, Nina, who never harmed the tiniest fly,
even--that I had killed her.”
“We did not believe it, darling,” soothed Miss Drusilla.
“Did any one believe it?” Nina asked, and somehow Miss Drusilla quickly
gathered the yearning thought in her young mind.
“Talbot did not believe it. He felt quite sure that you were innocent,”
she replied, and she saw a look of relief pass quickly over the lovely
face.
“But, oh, Nina, why did you go away that night?” continued her aunt.
“I went away to die, that Talbot might be free to marry the woman he
loved so much,” answered the girl. “Oh, Aunt Drusilla, do not look so
shocked! there was no other way for me. Talbot’s mother made me promise
solemnly on her death-bed that I would always try to secure his
happiness, that I would give him all my love and all my life. So when I
found that his happiness could only be secured by a union with Mrs. St.
Alban, what could I do but give him my life as I had promised Mamma?”
Miss Drusilla raised her hands and eyes to heaven in holy horror.
“Oh, you poor devoted child, Mrs. Selwyn did not mean that!” she cried.
“She did not want you to kill yourself for the sake of that great,
hulking, selfish fellow. She only meant for you to be true and faithful
to him all your life, and to make him happy with your love.”
That view of the matter had never occurred to Nina. She lay looking at
her aunt with a mild surprise in her eyes.
“And did you really try to kill yourself, poor darling?” cried Kitty.
“Yes, I threw myself into the water the night I ran away, but Doctor
Fielding saw me and saved my life. He took me to Baltimore, and I ran
away again and drank some laudanum, but he had followed me, and he
frustrated my purpose again. So then I was very ill, and as soon as I
grew better I came back here.”
“Repenting of your silliness in running away, and wishing to make it
all up with Talbot?” Miss Drusilla inquired.
Nina blushed through all her pallor, but she answered, readily.
“No, indeed. It was no such pacific motive that brought me back. I came
to get some money that I had hidden away in my jewel casket. Then I
intended to steal away again unseen, but I was so unfortunate as to be
caught by Kitty who would not let me go.”
“Do you mean to say that you intended to live your life out away from
us, and never let us know you were living?”
Nina blushed and hung her head.
“Yes, for Talbot’s sake, you know,” she answered.