MRS. FORCE’S BROTHER
A tall, fair, delicate-looking patrician of about forty years of age,
clothed in an India silk dressing gown, leaning on the arm of his
gray-haired valet, and further supporting himself by a gold-headed cane,
approached to welcome them.
“My sister—I am glad to see you, Elfrida,” he said, passing his cane
over to his valet and taking the lady by the hand to give her his
brotherly kiss. “Now present me to your husband and daughters, and to
these—young friends of yours. I am glad to see them all. Very glad.”
Mrs. Force introduced Mr. Force, Leonidas and the girls in turn.
Lord Enderby shook hands with each in succession, and heartily welcomed
them all to Enderby.
“You must take your place at the head of my bachelor household, Elfrida.
In the meantime, my housekeeper, Mrs. Kelsy here, will show you to your
rooms.”
As he spoke, an elderly woman, in her Sunday dress of black silk, with a
white net shoulder shawl and a white net cap, came from the rear of the
hall, courtesied, and said:
“My lady, this way, if you please.”
“Breakfast will be served as soon as you are ready for it, Elfrida,”
said the host, as, still leaning on the arm of his valet and supporting
himself by his cane, he turned and passed through a door on the right,
into his own sanctum.
Widely yawned the foot of the broad staircase, up which Mrs. Kelsy led
the guests of the house, to a vast upper hall, flanked with oaken doors
leading into a suit of apartments on either side.
The housekeeper opened a door on the right, saying:
“Here is a suit of five rooms, my lady, fitted up for yourself and the
young ladies. And here, on the opposite side, is a large room, with
dressing room attached, for the young gentlemen—Good Lord!!”
This sudden exclamation from the housekeeper was called forth by the
unexpected apparition of Gipsy, the negro maid, than whom no blacker
human being ever saw the light. Gipsy was as black as ink, as black as
ebony. Wynnette declared that charcoal made a light-colored mark on her.
But aside from her complexion, Gipsy was a good-looking girl, with
laughing black eyes, and laughing lips that disclosed fine white teeth.
“This is my maid, Zipporah, but we call her Gipsy for convenience,” said
Mrs. Force.
“Oh, my lady! Will it bite? Can’t it talk? Is it vicious?” inquired the
Cumberland woman, who had never seen and scarcely ever heard of a negro,
and had the vaguest idea of dark-colored savages in distant parts of the
world, who were pagans and cannibals.
“She is a very good girl, and can read and write as well as any of us;
and she is, besides, a member of the Episcopal church at home, which is
the same as your Church of England here,” Mrs. Force explained.
“Yes, my lady. Certainly, my lady. I beg pardon, my lady, I am sure,”
said the housekeeper, in profuse apology; but still she did not seem
satisfied, but gave Gipsy a wide berth while she eyed her suspiciously.
Now Gipsy resented this sort of treatment; besides, she was a bit of a
wag; so every time her mistress’ back was turned she rolled up the
whites of her big eyes, curled up her large red lips, and snapped her
teeth together, in a way that made Kelsy’s blood run cold.
As soon as it was possible to do so, she made an excuse and left the
room.
“Where is Dickon?” inquired Mr. Force.
“He’s round at the kennel with the dog. Joshua won’t make friends ’long
o’ none of the grooms, nor likewise none o’ the doogs, so Dickon have to
stay ’long o’ him to keep him quiet,” said Gipsy.
Mr. Force groaned.
“Now everything is going to be laid on that poor dog! Gipsy, I won’t
give you my crimson silk dress when I have done with it, just for that.
Papa, I can help you to dress just as well as Dickon can—and a great
deal better, too. I can fix your shaving things and hair brushes, and
lay out your clothes myself!” exclaimed Wynnette.
“My dear, I think you had better prepare for breakfast,” said her
mother.
“Mother, we can’t do much preparing, as our trunks have not been brought
up.”
“Take off your duster, my dear, and wash your face and hands, and brush
your hair,” suggested Mrs. Force.
“I suppose these two rooms are yours and papa’s, but which are ours?”
Mrs. Force walked through the whole suit, and finally assigned a room
next to her own to Wynnette and Odalite, and another to Elva and
Rosemary.
What struck all these visitors was the heavy and rather gloomy character
of their apartments. Thick Brussels carpets, thick moreen window
curtains, and bed curtains of dull colors and dingy appearance, massive
bedsteads, bureaus, presses and chairs.
“And they call this the modern part of the castle! Oh, I know I shall
see ghosts!” said Wynnette.
When they were all ready, they went downstairs to the hall, all hung
with suits of armor, and decorated with arms, shields, spears, banners,
battle-axes, and so on, and with stags’ heads and other trophies of the
battlefield and the chase.
Here a footman showed them into the breakfast room, where the earl sat
waiting for them. Breakfast was served in a very few minutes.
After breakfast the whole party adjourned to the drawing room, a vast,
gloomy apartment with walls lined with old oil paintings, windows hung
with heavy, dark curtains; floor covered with a thick, dull carpet, and
filled up with massive furniture.
After they had been seated for a while, the earl arose, taking his cane
in one hand and the arm of his brother-in-law with the other, and said:
“I hope you will amuse yourselves as you please, my dears, and excuse
me: I wish to have a talk on family matters with your parents in the
library. If you would like to go over the house, call one of the maids
or the housekeeper to be your guide,” he concluded, as he left the room,
accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Force.
Odalite acted on her uncle’s suggestion, rang the bell, and requested to
see the housekeeper.
Mrs. Kelsy came, and on being requested, expressed her willingness to
show the young ladies over the house.
“And to the picture gallery first, if you please,” she said, as she led
the way across the hall to a long room on the opposite side.
Here were the family portraits.
“Odalite, here are the originals of all the ghosts I saw with my eyes
shut, on last night’s journey, and of all the ghosts I saw here on the
battlements and in the courtyard—all, all, all—men-at-arms, squires,
knights, lords and ladies. If they would but talk, what interesting
shades they would be!”
“Which, Wynnette? The ghosts or the pictures?”
“Either. Both. This, you say, Mrs. Kelsy, was Elfrida, Lady Enderby, my
mother’s mother? Why, I should have known it. How much she is like my
mother, and like Elva. And this is the second and last Lady Enderby? How
lovely, yet how fragile. She was mamma’s stepmother, and she died young,
leaving one delicate little boy, our uncle, the present earl. _Sic
transit_, and so forth.”
They spent an hour in the picture gallery, and then the housekeeper
proposed that they go into the library.
“But we cannot go there. Papa, mamma and uncle are shut up there, in
close council,” said Odalite.
“Ah! Well, we will go upstairs, if you please, miss,” said Kelsy.
And upstairs they went. And all over the vast building they went,
finding only gloomy rooms, each one more depressing than the others.
“And now show me the room Queen Elizabeth slept in when on a visit to
Baron Ealon, of Enderby,” said Wynnette.
“Queen Elizabeth, miss! I never heard that Queen Elizabeth was ever in
this part of the country!” the housekeeper exclaimed.
Wynnette laughed.
“Oh, well, then,” she said, “show me the room that Alexander the Great,
or Julius Cæsar, or Napoleon Bonaparte, or George Washington slept in.”
“I—do not think I ever heard of any of these grandees stopping at
Enderby. But there is a room——”
“Yes, yes!” eagerly exclaimed Wynnette.
“Where the Young Pretender was hidden for days before he escaped to
France,” said the housekeeper.
“Oh, show us that room, Mrs. Kelsy,” said a chorus of voices.
The housekeeper took them down a long flight of stairs and along a dark
passage, and up another flight of stairs, and through a suit of
unfurnished apartments, to a large room in the rear of the main
building, whose black oak floor and whose paneled walls were bare, and
whose windows were curtainless.
In the middle of this room stood a huge bedstead, whose four posts were
the dragon supporters of the arms of Enderby and whose canopy was
surmounted by an earl’s coronet. The velvet hangings of this bedstead,
the brocade quilt and satin pillow cases had almost gone the way of all
perishable things.
“And the Young Pretender occupied this room?” inquired Rosemary,
reverently.
“Yes, miss, and it is kept just as he left it, except that the curtains
have been taken from the windows, because they had fallen into rags.”
“And he slept in this bed?” said Elva, timidly laying her hand upon the
sacred relic.
“Yes, miss, but I wouldn’t touch the quilt, if I was you. Bless you, it
would go to pieces if you were to handle it!”
“I would make a bonfire of every unhealthy mess in this room, if it were
mine!” said Wynnette.
The housekeeper looked at her in silent horror.
They lingered some time in “the pretender’s room.”
As they were leaving it, Wynnette said, at random:
“And now show us the haunted chamber, please.”
The housekeeper stopped short, turned pale and stared at the speaker.
“Who told you anything about the haunted room?” she inquired.
“Nobody did,” replied Wynnette, staring in her turn.
“How, then, did you know anything about it?”
“By inference. Given an old castle, inferred a haunted room. Come, now,
show it to us, dear Mrs. Kelsy.”
“No, you cannot see the haunted chamber, young miss. It has not been
opened for ten years or more.”
“Come! This is getting to be exciting, and I declare I will see it, if I
die for it,” said Wynnette.
“Not through my means, you will not, young lady. But there is the
luncheon bell, and we had better go down.”
They returned to the inhabited parts of the house, and were shown by the
housekeeper to the morning room, where the luncheon table was spread.
There they found Mr. and Mrs. Force. Their host had not yet joined them.
“My dear,” said Mr. Force, in a low voice, addressing Odalite, “we have
had a consultation in the library. It is almost certain that Lady Mary
Anglesea died one year before the time stated as that of her death. It
is best, however, that we go down to Angleton and search for evidence in
the church and mausoleum. Therefore, it is decided that Leonidas and
myself go to Lancashire to-morrow to investigate the facts, leaving your
mother, sisters, and self here. We shall only be absent for a few days.”
“Oh, papa! then you will take poor John Kirby’s letter and parcel to his
old father there? You see, they live only a few miles from Angleton,”
said Wynnette.
“Yes, dear, I will take them,” assented the squire. “And, Odalite, my
love,” he added, turning to his eldest daughter, “if all goes well we
shall have a merry marriage here at Enderby.”