COMING TO A DECISION.
"Yes, I am satisfied in regard to educational advantages for my sons,"
said Mr. Trevor, in reply to a question asked by the captain, when, a
few minutes afterwards, the family were gathered together in the
drawing-room. "The tutor, Mr. Blair, appears to be in every way
qualified to do full justice to his pupils; I had a very satisfactory
interview with him at S----."
"But Myst Court itself, what do you think of the place?" inquired
Vibert.
"The house was originally handsome, but it is now utterly out of
repair," replied Mr. Trevor.
"I don't suppose that painter or glazier has entered the door for these
last fifty years," observed Bruce.
"The grounds are extensive," continued Mr. Trevor; "but the trees are
choking each other for lack of thinning; and the brushwood, through
neglect, has thickened into a jungle."
"A good cover for rabbits and hares," observed Vibert, who had an eye to
sport.
"I never before saw such wretched cottages," said Bruce; "and there are
sixty-one of them on the estate, besides two farms. The hovels are
dotted in groups of threes and fours in every corner where one would not
expect to find them. Some lean forward, as if bending under the weight
of their roofs; some to one side, as if trying to get away from their
neighbours; some cottages look as if they were tired of standing at all.
I cannot imagine how the men and women, and swarms of bare-footed
children, manage to live in such dirty dens."
"Is there no one to look after the people?" asked Captain Arrows.
"There is no church or school-house nearer than S----," replied Mr.
Trevor. "The people either work for the neighbouring farmers, or in a
dyeing factory which stands about a mile from Myst Court. Wages are low
in that part of the country; but that is not sufficient to account for
the misery which we saw there. Ignorance prevails--ignorance more dense
than I could have believed to have been found in any part of our
favoured land. I doubt whether of the peasants one in four is able even
to read. As a matter of course, drunkenness and every other vice spread
as weeds over a field so neglected."
"It is there that the labourer is called to lay his hand to the plough,"
observed Captain Arrows.
Vibert gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders; Bruce as
slight an inclination of his head. A very faint sigh escaped from the
lips of Emmie.
"I have been giving the matter serious, very serious thought," said Mr.
Trevor. "My first idea, when I found that my aunt had bequeathed the
property to me, was to let Myst Court, and to remain at least for some
years in Summer Villa, where we have been for long so comfortably
settled. But I found, on visiting Myst Court, that it would be
impossible to let the house without effecting such extensive and
thorough repairs as I could not at present undertake. Even if this were
not so--" Mr. Trevor paused, as if to reflect.
"No mere tenant could be expected to take the same interest in the
people as would be felt by you, their landlord and natural protector,"
observed the captain, concluding the sentence which his brother-in-law
had left unfinished.
"And so you think that we are bound to act as props to the cottages that
are leaning forwards or sideways, and make them hold themselves
straight, as respectable cottages ought to do!" laughed Vibert.
"But what have you to say about the haunted room?" timidly inquired
Emmie, who had been sitting with her hand in that of her father, a
hitherto silent but much interested listener to the conversation.
"Haunted! Oh, that's all nonsense!" exclaimed Bruce. "Myst Court is no
more haunted than is Summer Villa; it is simply a big, dreary-looking
house that wants new mortar on its walls, new glass to replace what is
cracked in its windows, and a good fairy, in the shape of a young lady,
to turn it into a cheerful, comfortable home."
"What gives to Myst Court the name of being haunted," said his father,
"is simply this. My aunt, who was of a nervous and highly sensitive
nature, had the misfortune to lose her husband, a short time after their
marriage, in a very distressing way. When on his wedding-tour, Mr. Myers
was bitten by a mad dog, and a few weeks after bringing his bride to
their home he died of hydrophobia."
"How dreadful!" exclaimed Emmie.
"Very dreadful indeed," said her father. "The shock of witnessing Mr.
Myers' sufferings (he died in frantic delirium) almost upset the reason
of his unfortunate wife. She fell into a state of morbid melancholy,
making an idol of her grief. From the day of her husband's funeral to
that of her own death, a period of fifty years, my poor aunt never once
quitted the house, even to attend a place of worship."
"The most singular and eccentric mark of the widow's sorrow was her
determination that the room in which her husband died should always
remain as it was on the day of his burial," said Bruce. "Aunt Myers had
the shutters closed, and the door not only locked, but actually bricked
up, so that no foot might ever enter or eye look on the apartment
connected in her mind with associations so painful. It is merely that
closed-up chamber which gives to the house the name of being haunted."
"The sooner it is opened to heaven's light and air the better," observed
Captain Arrows. "Let the first thing done in that house be to unbrick
and unlock the door, fling back shutters and throw open windows, and the
first time that I visit Myst Court let me sleep in the haunted chamber."
"I am afraid that I have not the power either to follow your advice or
to gratify your wish," said Mr. Trevor. "My poor aunt, retaining her
strange fancy to the last, actually--in a codicil to her will--made as a
condition to my possession of the place that the room in which her
husband died should remain as it is now, bricked up and unused."
"That condition would add not a little to the difficulty of letting or
selling the house," observed the practical Bruce.
"It appears to be a law of nature that whatever is useless becomes
actually noxious," remarked the captain. "That closed chamber, into
which the sun never shines, will tend to make the dwelling less healthy,
as well as less cheerful."
Again Emmie breathed a faint sigh.
"And now we return to my proposition," said Mr. Trevor gravely. "Shall I
remain where I am, and put this large property into the hands of some
agent to let or improve as he may,--with but little chance of its
becoming of much more than nominal value; or shall I give up my office,
take the pension to which I am now entitled, live on my own estate, look
after my tenants, and gradually effect such improvements as may make the
land profitable, if not to myself, to my heirs?"
"What does Bruce, who has seen the property, say on the question?" asked
the captain, turning towards his elder nephew.
Bruce replied alike without haste or hesitation. "If my father leave his
office in London, there are at least twenty persons ready and eager to
fill his place, and to do his work; but there is not one who could be
his substitute at Myst Court. It is the master's eye that is wanted
there, not that of a paid agent."
Young as was Bruce, his words carried weight with his father. Mr.
Trevor's elder son in most points presented a contrast to Vibert; as
regarded ripeness of judgment, the fifteen months that separated their
ages might have been as many years. In physical appearance the brothers
were also unlike each other. Bruce, though older, was not so tall as
Vibert; his frame was spare and slight. He had not, like Emmie and his
brother, inherited their mother's beauty. The good sense expressed in
his steady gray eyes, the decision marked in the curve of his lip, alone
redeemed the countenance of Bruce from being of a commonplace type. The
characteristics of the three Trevors had been thus playfully sketched by
a lively girl who was a frequent guest at Summer Villa: "If I want
amusement, I choose Vibert for my companion; if I need sympathy, I turn
to Emmie; but if I am in difficulty or danger, commend me to Bruce, he
has the cool brain and firm heart. I like Vibert; I love Emmie; but
Bruce is the one whom I trust."
A brief silence succeeded the young man's reply to his father; it was
broken by Vibert's inquiry, "What sort of a town is S----?"
"Like any other county town," replied Bruce shortly. The question seemed
to him to be trifling, and irrelevant to the subject of conversation.
"S---- seemed to me to be a pleasant, cheerful place," said the more
indulgent father.
"And I suppose that fishing and shooting are to be had at Myst Court?"
inquired the youth.
"A stream runs through part of the property, and there is likely to be
plenty of game in the copse," replied Mr. Trevor.
"Then I vote that we go to Myst Court!" cried Vibert.
"The only thing which makes me hesitate in coming to a decision,"
observed Mr. Trevor, "is the doubt as to whether my dear girl would like
being taken from her present bright home. Emmie has here so many sources
of innocent amusement, so many young friends and pleasant companions,
that it might be trying for her to be transplanted to a place which I
cannot now represent as a cheerful abode, though I hope that it in time
may become such." Mr. Trevor, as he spoke, looked tenderly on his
daughter, and pressed the hand which he held in his own.
"Oh, papa, do not think about me; I shall have you and my brothers,"
said Emmie. It did not escape the notice of Arrows that his niece spoke
with a little effort, and that her lip quivered as she uttered the
words.
"You shall have a pony-chaise, too," said her father; "it will be
needed to carry you to church on Sundays, and on week-days you shall
drive about the country, explore the neighbourhood, or indulge a lady's
taste by shopping in S----."
"And carry us back from our tutor's," interrupted Vibert; "for I suppose
that a hansom is not to be got for love or money; and I've no fancy for
trudging six miles every day, like a horse in a mill."
By the time that the dressing-bell rang before dinner, the question of
removing to Wiltshire was virtually settled. Emmie was too unselfish and
high-principled to oppose a decision which approved itself both to her
common sense and her conscience. She tried to hide from her father her
strong repugnance to leaving Summer Villa, its pleasant associations and
friendly society, in order to bury herself alive in a grand, gloomy
house, quite out of repair, and with the name of being haunted besides.