"Startled by her own thoughts, she looked around:
There was no fair fiend near her."
_Shelley_.
It was really a very respectable attempt at a haunted room.
"Something like, isn't it?" said Mr Morpeth, looking round him with
approval, while Miss Morpeth shivered and declared she would not care to
spend a night in it, and Miss Cecilia laughed at her and said she would
like nothing better than to stay there till to-morrow morning, to see
what was to be seen.
"Nonsense, my dear," said Mrs Greville. "You would be as frightened as
possible long before it got dark."
"She would be in hysterics in half an hour," said her brother, politely.
"I am _sure_ I wouldn't," protested Cecilia. "Miss Western, you
wouldn't be afraid to spend the night here, would you?"
"I don't know," said Mary, doubtfully. "I almost think I should be.
Those faces in the tapestry are so ghostly. I suppose," she went on,
simply, "if I _had_ to stay here--I mean if there were any good reason
for it, I should not be frightened--but I shouldn't feel inclined to try
it just as a test of bravery."
"As a piece of foolish bravado, _I_ should call it," said Mrs Greville.
"It would be an awkward place to be shut up in," said Mrs Golding, "for
the door is in the tapestry, you see, ladies,"--she closed it as she
spoke--"and it opens with a spring, and unless one knows the exact spot
to press, it would be very difficult to find. The other door, which
leads into the new part of the house, is hidden in the same way."
She crossed the room, and, almost without hesitation, pressed a spot in
the wall, and a door flew open. It led into another room, something
like the first, but rather more modern in its furniture. All the party
pressed forward.
"There is nothing particular to see here," said Mrs Golding, "but this
room opens again into the white corridor, where my master's own rooms
are. There is a very pretty view from the window at the end, if you
would come this way, and we can get round to the front of the house
again."
A sudden impulse seized Mary.
"Mrs Greville," she said, "I would like to go out into the garden by
the door at the foot of the stair we tame up. Mayn't I go back? I will
meet you at the front of the house."
"Very well," said Mrs Greville. "You are such an odd girl, Mary," she
added, in a lower voice, "I suppose your dislike to Mr Cheviott
prevents your liking to see his rooms!"
Mary laughed, but coloured a little too.
"Then I'll meet you at the front of the house," she said, as she turned
away.
"Let me go with you," put in Mr Morpeth--the others, under Mrs
Golding's guidance, had already passed on--"it wouldn't do for you to go
prowling about those ghostly rooms all by yourself, Miss Western. Who
knows what might happen to you?"
Mary laughed again--this time more heartily.
"It's not dark enough yet to be frightened," she said, as they
re-entered the haunted chamber, where already the heavy old hangings had
toned down the afternoon light into dimness.
"Hardly," said Mr Morpeth, carelessly, stepping forward to the window
as he spoke. Mary was following him when a slight sound arrested her.
"Mr Morpeth," she exclaimed, "it is to be hoped we can get out by the
other door, for the one we have just come in by was shut behind us; I
heard it click; it is my fault. I never thought about its being a
spring door, and I let it swing to."
She looked startled and a little pale. Mr Morpeth was surprised at her
seeming to take it so seriously, and felt half inclined to banter her.
"We never meant to go back by the door we came in by," he said. "What
would have been the good of that? We'll find the other in a minute--
sure to; don't look so aghast, Miss Western. At the worst we can ring
the bells and alarm the house till some one comes to let us out. You
are surely not afraid that we shall have to get out by the window?"
As he spoke he crossed over to the side of the room where, to their
knowledge, the second door _was_, if only they could find it! Mr
Morpeth, at first, began feeling about in a vague way, as if expecting
to light upon the spring by a happy accident. But no such result
followed; he began to look a little more thoughtful.
"Let's see," he said, consideringly, "whereabouts was it we first came
into the room?"
Mary stepped backwards close to the wall, and then moved slowly along,
keeping her back to it.
"It must have been about here, I think," she said, stopping short. "I
remember the first thing I caught sight of was that cabinet, and it
seemed just opposite me; and Mrs Greville standing in front of it
seemed to shut out that narrow pane of the window. Yes," as Mr Morpeth
put himself in the position she described--"yes, she was standing just
there; the door _must_ be hereabouts."
They turned to search more systematically, but in vain. Peer as they
would into every square inch of the musty tapestry hangings within a
certain radius, feel as they would, up and down, right and left, higher
up than Mrs Golding could possibly have reached, lower down than any
door within the memory of man ever locked; it was all in vain. Then
they looked at each other.
"It must be a spring pressing inwards--flat on the surface," said Mr
Morpeth. "I thought there would have been a little knob of some kind.
However, let's try again."
He moved his hand slowly around the wall, pressing carefully, anxiously
endeavouring to detect the slightest inequality or indentation, and Mary
followed his example till their patience was exhausted. Then again they
stopped and looked at each other.
"Would it be any good trying to find the spring of the other door?" said
Mary, at last.
"I don't fancy it would," said Mr Morpeth. "You see, we're quite in
the dark as to what sort of spring it is; we may have touched it twenty
times, but not pushed or pressed it the right way. Don't you think we'd
better just not bother for a little? They're sure to miss us before
long, and then that old party will hunt us up."
But Mary looked by no means disposed to take things so philosophically.
"I don't know that they _will_ miss us so quickly," she said. "It will
take them some time to go all over the front of the house, and if they
don't find us in the grounds they are sure just to think we have walked
on. I am sure Mrs Greville will think so, any way; she always takes
things so comfortably," she added, with an uneasy reflection that Mrs
Greville would probably be rejoicing at the success of her amiable
scheme for throwing herself and "young Morpeth" together. "I _wish_ I
had not left the others."
Mr Morpeth smiled.
"I really think you are wasting a great deal of unnecessary energy on
our misadventure," he said. "_I_ don't see anything so very desperate
about it. If we were in a box now, like that girl at Modena,
Guinevere--no, Genevieve--no, bless me, I can't remember. You know whom
I mean--we _might_ be rather uneasy. But at the _very_ worst we cannot
be left here more than an hour or two. I dare say the housekeeper will
be coming back to look for us immediately, for she will know how awkward
these doors are."
"Yes," said Mary, "I do think that is not unlikely. She did not hear us
speak of going back to the gardens though, did she? she had gone on in
front."
"But she is pretty sure to miss us, and ask what had become of us--she's
not a stupid old lady by any means. Just let's wait here comfortably a
few minutes, and see if she doesn't come."
Mary tried to take his advice, but as the minutes passed she grew more
and more uncomfortable.
"I say," exclaimed Mr Morpeth, "supposing we try to make ourselves
heard somehow. I never thought of that. Very likely there are
offices--pantries, or kitchens, and so on under these rooms. There's no
bell, but supposing we jump on the floor and scream--I'll jump, if you
will be so good as to scream--some one will be sure to hear us and rush
up to see what's happening in the haunted room."
But at this proposal Mary grew literally white with anxiety.
"Oh, _please_ don't, Mr Morpeth," she said, so beseechingly that the
young man looked at her with more concern than he had yet shown.
"What a queer girl she must be to take it to heart so!" he said to
himself.
"_Please_ don't," she repeated. "It would make such a to-do. I should
be so dreadfully annoyed--oh, _please_ don't."
"That horrible footman" was the great terror in her mind; "if he came up
and saw me he would be sure to tell his master. What would Mr Cheviott
think of me if he heard of my being here, prying about his house the
very day after?"
"Very well. _I'm_ very comfortable. I'm quite content to wait till
some one comes to let us out," said Mr Morpeth. "It was you, Miss
Western, that was in such a hurry."
Which was true enough. Mary did not know what to say--only her
uneasiness increased. It began to grow dusk too--outside among the
trees it was getting to look decidedly dusk.
"What shall we do?" she exclaimed at last, in a sort of desperation.
"Evidently they are not missing us, and will not do so till they get
home, and then there will be _such_ a fuss! Oh, Mr Morpeth," she went
on, as a new idea struck her, "do you think you could possibly get out
of the window?"
She said it so simply, and was evidently so much in earnest, that Mr
Morpeth gave up for once his habit of looking at the ludicrous side, and
set to work to discover how this last suggestion could be carried out.
The window was much more easy to deal with than the doors. It opened at
once, and, leaning over, Mr Morpeth descried a little ledge below it,
leading to the top of the porch above the side-door into the shrubbery.
"I can easily get out," he said, turning back to Mary, "but once I am
out what do you want me to do? You don't want any fuss, but I must tell
somebody to come and get you out."
"Oh, yes, of course--if you could find Mrs Greville and ask her to tell
the housekeeper of the door's having shut to, she would come and open
it," said Mary. "If you could just tell her in a matter-of-fact way,
you know. What I don't want is a great rush of all the servants and
people about the place to see me locked up here; it would be so
uncomfortable. I'll wait here quite patiently once I know you've gone,
for you'll be sure to find them."
"I'll do my best," said Mr Morpeth, quietly, "and of course if I
_should_ break my neck or my arms or anything, there will be the
satisfaction of knowing it was in a good cause."
Mary started forward.
"You don't mean that there is really any risk for you," she exclaimed.
"No, I am sure there isn't," she continued, after looking out of the
window, and examining it for herself, "of course, if there was, I
shouldn't want you to go. You are laughing at me because you think me
very silly--I am very sorry, but I can't help it. I do _so_ wish I
hadn't come here--I wish I could get out of the window too!"
"No, indeed, it would not be safe for you at all," said Mr Morpeth,
hastily, concealing his private opinion that the feat was not so easy as
it looked. "I am a good climber and I've had plenty of practice. It is
nothing for me, but it would be quite different for you--promise me,
Miss Western, you will not try to get out of the window while I am away.
I shall be as quick as I can, but I may not be able to find the others
all at once."
"Very well," said Mary. "I do promise. Not that I ever meant to get
out of the window, I assure you."
Mr Morpeth clambered out successfully. Mary watched him groping along
the ledge, holding on first by a projecting window sash, then by a
water-pipe, then by what she could not tell--somehow or other he had
made his way to the roof of the door porch, and was hidden from her
sight. But, in a minute, a whistle and a low call of "all right"
satisfied her as to his safety.
"He is very good-natured," thought Mary. "He called out softly on
purpose not to attract attention. What a silly girl he must think me,
to make such a fuss about such a simple thing! But I can't help it."
She drew back from the window and sat down on one of the
straight-backed, tapestry-cushioned chairs, and began to calculate how
long she would probably have to wait. Ten minutes at most--it could not
take longer to run round to the front of the house and find Mrs
Golding.
"They will come back by that door," said Mary, to herself, directing her
eyes towards the invisible entrance by which she and Mr Morpeth had
returned to the haunted room. "How glad I shall be when I see it open!
How I wish I had a watch! It would pass the time to count the minutes
till they come--but I could hardly see the minute hand on a watch even
now. How dark it is getting! It is those great trees outside--in
summer, no light at all can get in here I should think."
She got up and turned again to the window, fancying that looking out
would be a little less gloomy than sitting staring at the old furniture
and the shadowy figures on the walls, growing more and more weird and
gruesome as the light faded. But, standing there at the window, there
returned to her mind the tragic story of which Mrs Golding had given,
her the outlines, and, despite her endeavours to think of something
else, her imagination persisted in filling in the details. "She had
thrown herself out of the window in despair," Mrs Golding had told of
the unhappy prisoner, and Mary recalled it with a slight shudder.
Was it much to be wondered at? Any one would grow desperate shut up
within these four gloomy walls--gloomy now, and gloomy then, no doubt,
for the tapestry was _very_ old--older, probably, than the date of the
story--and the room had ever since been left much as it was at that
time. It was a ghastly story, as much for what had preceded the final
tragedy as for the catastrophe itself.
"It is so _very_ horrible to think of any one's having been shut up in
this very room for days, and weeks, and months, perhaps," thought Mary.
"And to think that her only way out of it was to many a man she hated!
Still, whoever she was, she must have been brave; the only inconsistent
part of the story is her being supposed to haunt the place she must have
had such a horror of. Dear me, how dark it is getting!--how I do wish
they would come, and how I wish I had not heard that story!"
Mary left the window again, and sat down on one of the hard, high-backed
chairs. In spite of her anxiety and excitement, she was growing very
tired, and once or twice she almost felt as if she were getting sleepy.
But she was determined not to yield to this.
"It would be far worse if I fell asleep, and woke to find myself all in
the dark," she said to herself. "If I have to stay all night, I must
keep awake, and, indeed, it begins to look very like having to stay all
night. What can have become of Mr Morpeth? I am sure he has been gone
half an hour."
She listened till her ears were strained, but there was no sound. Then
again the confused, sleepy feeling came over her; she dozed
unconsciously for a minute or two, to be awakened suddenly by what in
her sleep had seemed a loud noise. Mary started up, her heart beating
violently, but she heard nothing for a moment or two. Then there came a
faint creaking sound, as of some one coming up the staircase and along
the passage outside. It was not the side from which she was looking for
assistance, and, besides, whoever it was was approaching in perfect
silence.
"Mr Morpeth would be sure to call out if it was he," she reflected;
"besides, Mrs Golding would be with him, and they would come the other
way. Who can it be? Oh! supposing--just _supposing_ the ghost were to
come in, what should I do? I should always be told it was a dream; but
I am not dreaming. And _something_ must have been seen, otherwise there
would not be the story about it."
All this flashed through her mind in an instant. She got up from her
chair with a vague intention of escaping, hiding herself somewhere,
anywhere, but sat down again, as the steps came nearer and nearer, with
a feeling of hopelessness. How could she escape? Where could she hide
herself? There was no cupboard or recess, not even a curtain, in the
bare, half-furnished room; she must just wait where she was, whatever
happened, and, as if fascinated, poor Mary sat gazing on that part of
the wall where she knew the door to be. Another moment--it seemed to
her hours--and she heard the slight click of the concealed spring, and,
thank Heavens, it was no ghost in flowing white, but a gentleman in a
great-coat! Thus much Mary could discern, dusk though it was, even at
the first glance, to her inexpressible relief.
"Mr Morpeth," she exclaimed, "is it you? Oh, I am so thankful! But
why--"
The voice that interrupted her was not Mr Morpeth's.
"Who is there? Is it you, Mrs Golding? What is the matter?" exclaimed
the some one whose approach had so terrified her.
An instant's pause; Mary's wits, beginning to recover themselves, were
all but scattered again as a frightful suspicion dawned upon her. Was
she dreaming, _could_ it be that her very worst misgiving was realised?
Who was it standing in frowning bewilderment before her? Ghost,
indeed--at that moment it seemed to her she would rather have faced
twenty ghosts than the living man before her.
"Mr Cheviott!" she ejaculated, feebly, hardly conscious of speaking.
Mr Cheviott came forward a little, but cautiously, and in evident
astonishment and perplexity. Something in the tone of the half whisper
struck him as familiar, though it was too dark for him to distinguish at
once anything but the general outline of poor Mary's figure.
"Who is it? I don't understand; does Mrs Golding know of your being
here?" he asked, confusedly, with a vague idea that possibly the
mysterious visitor was some friend of the housekeeper.
"No--oh, yes, I mean," replied Mary; "I got locked in by mistake, and--
and--"
There was an end for the time of all explanation; Mary burst into
unheroic tears; but not before an exclamation, to her ears fraught with
inexpressible meaning, had reached her from Mr Cheviott.
"Miss Western, _you_ here!" was all he said, but it was enough.
Though from the first of his entrance she had had no hope of escaping
unperceived, yet the hearing his recognition expressed in words seemed
to make things worse, and for the moment exaggerated almost beyond
endurance the consciousness of her ignominious position. She cried as
much from a sort of indignation at circumstances as from nervousness or
timidity.
Mr Cheviott stood silent and motionless. Wild ideas were hurrying
through his brain to the exclusion for the time of all reasonable
conjecture. Had she been locked up here since the day before? Had she
come with a frantic idea of winning him over even now to approve of an
engagement between Arthur and her sister? If not, what _was_ she doing
here? And now that he had discovered her, what could he do or say that
would not add to her distress?
Suddenly Mary looked up. Her tears somehow or other, had restored her
self-control; the very shame she felt at Mr Cheviott's hearing her sobs
reacted so as to give her confidence.
"Why should I be ashamed? It is very natural I should cry after all the
worry I have had the last few days; and who has caused it all? Who has
broken Lily's heart and made us all miserable? Why should I care what
such a man as that thinks of me?"
She left off crying, and got up from the chair on which she had sunk
down at the climax of her terror. She turned to Mr Cheviott, and said
calmly, though not without the remains of an uncontrollable quaver in
her voice:
"If you will be so good as to open the door, I should very much like to
go."
Mr Cheviott took up the cue with considerable relief. Any amount of
formality was better than tears.
"Certainly," he said, quietly. Then, almost to his own astonishment,
the ludicrous side of the position suddenly presenting itself to him, a
spirit of mischief incited him to add, "you must allow, Miss Western,
_I_ am in no way to blame for this disagreeable adventure of yours.
And, if you will pardon my asking you, I must confess before I let you
out I should very much like to know how you got in."
Mary flamed up instantly.
"You have no right," she began,--"no right," she was going to say, "to
ask me anything I have not chosen to tell you," but she stopped short.
She was in Mr Cheviott's own house--how could she possibly refuse to
tell him how she had got there? "I beg your pardon," she said instead.
"I--I came here with Mrs Greville and some people who wanted to see the
house. _I_ did not want to come," she could not resist adding, with a
curious little flash of defiance, "but I could not help it."
"Ah! indeed, I understand," said Mr Cheviott, turning to open the door,
but to which part of her speech his observation was addressed, Mary was
left in ignorance.
Mr Cheviott stopped.
"Which way do you wish to go out?" he asked.
"Out to the garden, if you please," said Mary, eagerly. "That is the
way Mr Morpeth--the gentleman that was with me, I mean--will be coming
back. At least, I don't know," she went on, growing confused; "it
depends on where he finds the housekeeper. But anyway, I would rather
meet them all outside."
"How on earth did `the gentleman that was with her' get out?" thought
Mr Cheviott--"or was it through some foolery of his that she got locked
in?" But he was determined to ask no more questions.
He turned again to the wall, pressed the concealed spring without an
instant's hesitation, and the door flew open--flew open, and Mary,
without a glance behind her, flew out.