FROM BAD TO WORSE.
The stillness of a large house at dead of night has something at all
times very oppressive in it, but more especially when the intruder on
this silence is in a highly wrought state of nerves, and acutely
watchful of any sound which may arise to alarm him, or interfere with
the project he has in hand.
Fred felt this oppression to a painful degree as he passed out of
ear-shot of the great pendulum in the main hall, whose loud ticking
might be heard over the greater part of the house; but the passages
into which he must turn his steps, in order to reach the store-room,
were in a wing all to themselves, and separated from the main
building by walls thick and massive enough to deaden even a more
penetrating sound than the metallic click, click of the old
time-piece.
Even the wind, which all night long had kept up a monotonous wail
round the Hall, did not seem to make itself heard in those dark and
out-of-the-way lobbies; and the chirp, chirp of the cricket, which
Fred detested so much to hear in his own home, would have been a
welcome intrusion now on the overpowering feeling of utter loneliness
and isolation.
Had Fred not made himself master of a whole handful of matches, his
fears at this moment would have been almost enough to have conquered
every other feeling; for at each turn of the way the flame of the
candle flickered horribly, sometimes dying out to a thin blue line
and then reviving again as the unseen draught was left behind, and
making Fred's heart suddenly leap up into his throat with each fresh
terror, leaving him more and more unfit to cope with the dangerous
task which he had undertaken.
It was a green baize door leading into the further-most passage of
all which first brought him to a complete standstill, and made him
actually shudder with disgust and horror at the thought of having to
pass through its tightly closed portals.
For as Fred stretched forth his hand to push it inwards on its
spring, and in so doing brought his candle close to its nail-dotted
covering, he beheld the whole surface of the baize one moving mass of
black and horny animals; some creeping rapidly to and fro with
shining spiky legs; and others, with huge demon-like horns and
palpitating antennae, slowly and leisurely inspecting the green
woollen fabric on which they had taken up a temporary position.
"What diabolical monsters! how on earth can anybody face such a host
of dirty black brutes!" muttered Fred between his teeth, as he
lowered the candle sufficiently to see that the whole ground at his
feet was in possession of the same uncanny creatures, and that one
monster with great stag-like horns was already in occupation of the
toe part of his stocking.
Fred uttered a faint scream, and shook his foot to and fro, hoping to
dislodge the enemy, but all in vain; its black claws were fastened
firmly into the wool, and until he struck it two or three times with
the edge of the silver candlestick, he did not succeed in ridding
himself of his enemy.
In despair he now pushed his way through the door, only to find the
passage beyond in possession of the same hideous invaders; so he
determinedly closed his eyes and hurried forward, every now and then
shuddering from head to foot as he felt himself crushing down some
horny and unpleasant substance. Nor did he venture to look around
him until he had arrived at the head of the private flight of stairs
leading immediately from his aunt's own boudoir to the store-room
beneath; but at the foot of which also lay certain ghostly
subterranean passages with their iron-clamped doors, and dark and
dismal surroundings.
This was the moment which, from the beginning, Fred had dreaded the
most: for even in the daylight he had felt a certain amount of
nervousness in penetrating any distance into these underground
places, and especially since one of the grooms had told him of a
white figure which might be seen there occasionally at night time,
wandering about dim and ghostly, with its right hand mournfully
extended as if in search of some one or something it had lost; and an
access of almost childish terror overpowered Fred as he felt he must
now either encounter these supernatural horrors quite alone and
unprotected, or retire from a certain victory just at the moment when
its fulfilment was actually within his reach.
But at this juncture the mocking face and voice of Maurice came so
vividly before his mind, that he felt quite a new and sudden rush of
courage; and the desire to be equal with the boy who had kicked him
so ignominiously aside in the store-room beneath, made for the moment
every other feeling but that of revenge sink into utter nothingness;
and shading the flame of the candle carefully with his hand so as to
secure its light in this most dreary and darksome region, he
descended cautiously step by step until he stood at the foot of the
stone flight, within a few paces of which was the goal of all his
hopes.
He resolutely determined not to look around him until he should reach
the door of the store-room, so as not to conjure up imaginary
terrors; and turning round at the foot of the stairs, in another
moment he stood in front of the panelling, from which, in the bright
light of the candle, he could already see the ends of the cord
depending through the slits in the store-room wall.
At first, in his nervous haste, Fred tugged at the wrong strings, and
thus only succeeded in riveting the bolts tighter, and for a few
minutes his distress of mind and disappointment were so great, that
beads of perspiration started out upon his forehead, and his knees
bent and trembled beneath him.
Almost in despair, and without realizing that his failure was all
owing to his own mistake, Fred seized one of the other cords and
chucked it violently, the result of which proved almost as terrifying
in its own way; for the bolt, thus suddenly appealed to, started back
from its socket with such a noisy screech that Fred leaped back
against the wall and thrust his fingers into his ears, with some
foolish thought that, in doing this, he would deaden the ears of the
rest of the world as well. For a few minutes he waited and watched
anxiously to see if any one had been roused by the noise, holding the
flame of the candle close to his lips, so as to blow it out at a
moment's warning, and so shroud himself in the security of darkness;
but no movement or stir of any kind followed, and, somewhat
reassured, Fred set to work with more caution to loosen the companion
bolt at the foot of the secret door.
Fortunately for him it glided from its socket freely, without even
the grating sound which might have been anticipated, for the grease
which had been applied in the afternoon had done its work most
effectually; and Fred, with a joy not unmixed with fear, saw the slit
in the panel open yawningly before him, revealing sundry ghostly
shapes within, the exact outlines of which it was impossible for him
as yet to distinguish by the one dim and flickering light which
trembled in his guilty hand.
To enter by this secret door, Fred had to stand on a low broad step
in the passage outside; a fact which he had not noticed in the haste
and flurry of the previous evening, and on which if he had paused now
to reason, he might have saved himself from the disaster which almost
immediately followed.
But full of eagerness to gain his object, and yet more desirous of
regaining the peace and security of his own room, Fred stooped low
down, and holding the light in front of him, entered in a cat-like,
stealthy manner, by the half open door.
His first sensation, which, unhappily for him, was of short duration,
was that of treading on some soft and peculiarly yielding substance,
first with one foot and then with the other; and a most unpleasant
sensation it was, as of something adhesive and horribly clammy
sticking to the soles of his stockings, and he hastened to extricate
himself from his position as quickly as he could, to do which he
stepped forward boldly with the lighted candle in his hand.
Too boldly, alas, for him, as, forgetful that the inner step or shelf
on which he had entered was higher by many inches than the ground, he
fell headlong on the floor, extinguishing the candle in his fall and
scattering the matches in hopeless confusion over jars, and shelves,
and jam-pots, emitting at the same time a loud yell of terror, enough
in itself to alarm all the people both within and without the
building, and to apprise them of his whereabouts.
For a few moments all was darkness, confusion, and misery; and Fred,
in a wild kind of hopelessness, tried to force himself to believe
that it was all a dream of horror, from which he would awake
presently, and rejoice in the knowledge of his safety. But no such
relief came to him; and presently, with a sinking heart, he began to
free himself from the cramped position in which he lay, when, to his
inexpressible disgust, he found it was a dish of honey into which he
had stepped a moment before, for his stockings and the legs of his
trousers were sticky and clammy to a pitiable degree. And to add to
his discomfiture, as he stood in the dark, and strove to wipe off
with his handkerchief some of the adhesive stuff, a half-dead bee
(the honey having been taken from the hive only that afternoon) stung
him in the arm, and forced him to stamp on the floor with rage and
vexation.
Fred's one idea now was to find a match somewhere, and strike a
light; the darkness in itself was intolerable. What if he were to
see the figure, clothed all in ghostly white, come down the passage
now in search of its lost companion! A shudder passed over him at
the bare idea.
It would be too disappointing if he had to return without having
gained the object for which he had risked so much. His scream had,
fortunately, not aroused any of the inmates of the house: it would be
well to make one last and decisive effort to carry out his scheme;
and Fred, rubbing his elbows, which had suffered severely in the
fall, searched over the ground for the candlestick, which had fallen
from his hand.
But the candlestick had rolled off behind a chest of tea; and when at
length, after much stooping and groping, he had found it, the candle
itself was missing, having been jerked forward in quite an opposite
direction.
This new search lasted fully five minutes, for the candle had got
wedged between a box of raisins and the back of a shelf; and when at
last he actually had it in his hand, it was broken quite in two, and
refused to sit up straight in the candlestick.
But the greatest disappointment was yet to come; for now that the
candle was found, and so little remained between him and the
accomplishment of his object, the matches, dozens of which he
discovered lying upon the floor at his feet, all positively refused
to light! He struck them against the wall, the door, the shelves;
all in vain. He stamped on them, he kicked them, he called them by
every bad name in his calendar of epithets; but in vain. The matches
only lighted on their own box; and Fred, forgetful once more of the
dish of honey, actually sat down on the step in the store-room and
cried--cried with sheer mortification and disappointment--while in
the pauses of his grief he still hurled at Messrs. Bryant and May all
the furious expletives of which he was master. How was he ever to
get back again to his own room! It would be impossible without a
light to find his way through the intricate passages of the Hall, to
say nothing of the black and horny beasts which had possession of
those silent corridors. There was, alas! no help, no refuge from
this misfortune; unless, indeed, he chose to wait patiently where he
was till the early morning light should come to his aid. But oh what
an insufferable time to spend all alone in this dungeon of a
store-room! a place Fred now wished with all his heart he had never
seen or heard of.
His grief and utter misery became every moment more and more
overwhelming: the loneliness and silence of the place sent cold
shivers chasing each other down his back, while the hideous darkness
of all around and about him was almost beyond the strength of mind,
and endurance of body of a lad of his age.
At length he was driven most unwillingly to the conclusion that his
only chance of safety or success lay in patiently abiding in this den
of horrors until the first gray of the dawning should yield him
sufficient light to effect his escape; and having thus decided, Fred,
still unconsciously seated on a dish of honey, closed his eyes
tightly, and thrust his fingers into his ears, that no ghostly
apparition might startle him, nor sounds of supernatural footsteps
moving about and around him might rob him of the small stock of
self-command and courage which still existed within his breast.
How long he sat thus he did not know, or whether kindly sleep came to
his aid for a few minutes; but when next he uncovered his eyes,
although at first all seemed as dark as ever, he gradually became
aware that dawn was on the approach, for the closely-barred grating
which looked out on the passage began to make itself visible, though
after a horribly dread and mysterious fashion, giving to the newly
awakened eyes within the impression of some dim. far-off dungeon
window, and raising a thousand new and strange thoughts within the
over-tired and over-excited brain of the unfortunate self-made
prisoner.
Slowly, very slowly, however, other objects began to shape themselves
out of the darkness--the shelves, the sacks, the chests, the white
jam-pots. Fred gazed and gazed, till, with the very force of gazing,
he conjured up strange shapes out of the surrounding gloom. But what
was that tall object standing by the back row of shelves? Fred
leaned forward and looked so intently that small sparks of fire
seemed to pass over the surface of his eyeballs. It was horribly
like the height and figure of a man--the figure of some one dressed
in white, and standing in silent guard beside the long row of shelves!
Fred actually felt his hair rise up on end on his head, and, with one
hand pressed on the step on which he sat, he rose to fly--ay,
cowardly as the act might appear, Fred's one thought now was of
flight. But to effect his escape by the door, he must climb upon the
step where he had been seated; and this was awkward, for the ceiling
was low, and in order to mount he must move a step or so nearer the
white and motionless figure which so filled his heart with fear.
He stealthily stretched out one foot, and then cautiously advanced
the other; but with all his care he could not escape contact. His
heel touched the draped outline of the figure, and as it did so, to
his intense horror and surprise the white robes in which it had been
enveloped instantly glided from the body and fell upon the floor.
Another piercing scream rang through the Hall, only to be cut short
by a quick gasp of relief, as Fred, with the cold sweat on his
forehead, recognized the skeleton form of the ladder on which his
cousin Maurice had remained perched for so many hours the day before;
while the white garments which had filled him with such awe were none
other than the folds of the long pantry-apron which Maurice had tied
round his neck whilst assisting in the store-room.
Fred did not know he had screamed. The instantaneous change from
intense fear to a calm comprehension of his surroundings had so taken
up all his thoughts as to render him unaware that he had again risked
discovery; and now with the remembrance of Maurice had come back the
hot sting of anger and the desire for revenge. Ay, and he would have
it too. It was not for nothing he had gone through such a terrible
night; it was within his grasp now, and all the world should not
prevent him from tasting the pleasure of so complete a victory.
As these thoughts kindled furiously, and fanned themselves into a
blaze in Fred's mind, he actually made a movement forward, and laid
his hands on the still indistinct rungs of the ladder. All was still
so dark and shadowy he could not distinguish the box which he had
sworn to rifle, or rather into whose depths he was determined to
investigate, and the word "Fragile" was as yet invisible to his eye:
but time was precious, and the servants in the Hall were early
risers; who could tell that, although so gloomy and obscure in these
underground regions, sunlight might not be shining in the windows
above, and that the house was already alive with busy workers.
These reflections decided Fred upon immediate action. He did not
delay a moment, but laid a hand on each side of the ladder, which
tottered not a little as he moved it from its first position and
placed it more towards the centre of the wall, and pressing at the
same time its topmost rung against the highest range of shelves.
The ladder was by no means a very steady one, especially as its left
foot stood on the ball of string which had played such an important
part in the drama of the evening before; but Fred knew nothing of
this, and went very cautiously to work, so as not to overbalance
himself, and perhaps come to some fresh grief.
It was even yet so dark that though Fred knew he must be within a few
inches of the shelf on which the chess-box stood, he could not trace
the form nor even the faintest outline of any of the packages which
he remembered the night before to have noticed in close proximity to
the coveted case. So, still poised on the top rung but one of the
ladder, Fred stared with all his might straight before him, hoping by
the dint of earnest looking to see the word "Fragile" rise up out of
the darkness and greet his eyes with the glad promise of success.
And suddenly, as if by magic, and almost as it seemed to him as if a
fairy's wand had touched the space before him, the shelf grew
curiously and unexpectedly luminous, and the long-watched-for
chess-box started out of the gloom actually in front of him, and
within a couple of inches of the place where his right hand was
resting!
A sudden shaft of daylight had found its way down the obscure
passage; at least so Fred surmised, for he dared not turn round on
the ladder to look, and now or never was the moment to carry out his
project. He loosened his grip of the ladder, and stretched out his
right hand to the chest. In order to secure it, he had to put his
arm quite round it and draw it nearer to him, for he durst not let go
of the ladder with his other hand lest he might fall headlong from
his perch. But the box was much heavier than he had anticipated; and
having drawn it over towards the edge of the shelf, he leaned one
side of it against his chest, and still clasping it with his right
hand prepared for his descent; for it would be impossible to look
into its contents poised so insecurely on the ladder, and when once
carefully examined, in the security of the room beneath, he could
replace it in its original position.
But how was this? The whole room was becoming strangely bright; even
the printed labels on the sauce bottles and mustard-tins on the
shelves in front of him were becoming startlingly visible; neither
could it be the pale gray of dawn which was creeping in through the
window, but a yellow, tremulous light. He must turn his head a
little to see what it all could mean, and not allow a sudden and
terrible panic to overpower him and snatch away his victory just in
the moment of triumph.
And Fred did turn his head, while the blood rushed in a sickening
speed back upon his heart; for it was not daylight which was outside
yonder in the passage, but a flickering, advancing flame, which was
throwing shadows over the passage-wall, and casting into profound
darkness the nooks and angles where a faint dawn had only a moment
before been busy chasing the gloom away.
If only his heart would not thump so, then he could listen for
footsteps. Hark! yes, there were footsteps, he could hear them now;
stealthy, creeping footsteps, drawing nearer and nearer. If he could
only reach the bottom of the ladder and lie down on the ground, no
one could see him; but poised as he was in mid-air, the next turn of
the passage, and his figure must be revealed to the eyes of the
intruders outside.
Only for this miserable box marked "Fragile," he could slide down the
ladder in a trice; but now, unless he let it fall purposely from his
grasp, he must go down carefully and cautiously to the very ground.
If he could but know who and what they were that were approaching;
robbers perhaps, or some one startled by the noise of his fall, and
seeking through the Hall for its cause--or, or could it be--
The rungs of the ladder trembled under Fred's terrified steps, and
the wood creaked ominously. "Hush! good heavens, what was that?"
Fred's eyeballs almost leaped from their sockets, and he grasped the
sides of the ladder more firmly as a flutter of some white drapery
showed itself for a moment in the passage beyond.
"It is the ghost," gasped Fred, while the suspense which had thrilled
every fibre of his body up till now turned to a cold and deadly
faintness. "I--I saw--saw--" Fred felt his hand relaxing on the
chest and the sudden sway of the ladder, and in the agony of this new
terror he gave a quick short cry of fear.
At this moment a white-clothed figure with a light in its hand
appeared distinctly at the end of the passage; and Fred, with a
consciousness that the ladder was swinging completely round, and that
the chest marked "Fragile" was gliding from his hand, felt or knew
nothing more, save one sharp sting of pain behind his ear, and then
all was darkness about and around him, without either the light of
dawn or of candle to break its obscurity and silence.