But even while Varick and Blanche Farrow were arranging together that
this disturbing and mysterious occurrence should remain secret, Helen
Brabazon was actually engaged in telling one who was still a stranger to
her the story of her amazing experience.
Perhaps this was owing to the fact that the door of the hall had
scarcely shut behind her when she met Sir Lyon Dilsford face to face.
Almost involuntarily he exclaimed, with a good deal of real concern in
his voice: "Is anything the matter? I hope you haven't had bad news?"
She said, "Oh, no," and shook her head; but the tears welled up again
into her eyes.
When an attractive girl who generally shows remarkable powers of
quietude and self-control breaks down, and proves herself a very woman
after all, the average man is generally touched, and more than a little
moved. Sir Lyon felt oddly affected by Helen's evident distress, and an
ardent desire to console and to help her rose instinctively in his mind.
"Come into the study!" he exclaimed in a low voice. "And tell me if
there's anything I can do to help you?"
She obeyed him, and, as he followed her in, he shut the door.
She sat down, and for a while he stood before her, gazing
sympathetically into her flushed, tear-stained face.
"I'm afraid you'll think it so absurd," she said falteringly. "Even I
can hardly believe now that what happened _did_ happen!"
"Don't tell me--if you'd rather not," he said suddenly; a very
disagreeable suspicion entering his mind.
Was it within the bounds of possibility that James Tapster had tried
to--to kiss her? Sir Lyon had a great prejudice against the poor
millionaire, but he instantly rejected the idea. If such a thing had
indeed happened to her, Helen Brabazon was the last girl ever to offer
to tell anyone, least of all a man.
Helen all at once felt that it would be a comfort to confide her
strange, terrifying experience to this kind new friend.
"I'd rather tell you, I think."
She waited a moment, and then came out with a bald statement of what had
happened. "I was sitting knitting, when something seemed to force me to
look up--and I saw, or I thought I saw, the spirit of a dear, dead
friend."
Sir Lyon uttered an exclamation of extreme astonishment.
"Yes, I know it was only my imagination," Helen went on in a low,
troubled voice. "But it gave me a most fearful shock, and I feel that,
however long I live, I shall never forget it!"
"I wish you would tell me a little more about it," he said persuasively.
"I don't ask out of idle curiosity. I was very much impressed by what
happened on the first night of our visit here--I mean at the séance."
"So was I," she said reluctantly. "But, of course, this had nothing to
do with--with anything of that sort. In fact, Bubbles (as she has asked
me to call her) was sitting, asleep, I think, in that curious old carved
confessional box. My aunt and Mr. Varick were reading--Mr. Varick had
just come up from the village with this morning's London papers; Miss
Farrow was doing her embroidery, and I'd just been counting some
stitches in my knitting, when I looked up and saw--"
She stopped, as if not able to go on.
"Was what you saw, what you took to be an apparition, close to the
confessional?" asked Sir Lyon abruptly.
"No, not so very close--still, not very far away. It--she--seemed to be
standing behind Mr. Varick, a little to his left, on the door side."
"I suppose you would rather not tell me who it was you saw?"
Sir Lyon thought he knew, but he wished to feel sure.
"I don't see why I shouldn't tell you," yet she hesitated. "It was poor
Milly, Sir Lyon--I mean Mrs. Lionel Varick. She and I became great
friends during the weeks preceding her death. She even told me that,
apart from her husband, she had never cared for anyone as she grew to
care for me. And yet--oh, Sir Lyon, what was so very, very terrible just
now, was that I felt her looking at me with a kind of hatred in her dead
face," and, as she uttered these last words, an expression of deep pain
came over Helen Brabazon's countenance.
Sir Lyon then asked a rather curious question: "How was the apparition
clothed?"
"In her shroud. A woman in Redsands made it. I saw the woman about
it--perhaps that impressed it on my mind," her mouth quivered. "The
figure standing there was exactly like Milly dead, excepting that her
eyes seemed alive, and that there was that dreadful look of anger on
her face."
"How long did the vision last?"
"Oh, not a whole minute altogether! When I first saw it I got up, and
without knowing what I was doing, I screamed; and then she, Milly,
seemed to fade away--to melt into the air.
"Did anyone else see anything?" asked Sir Lyon eagerly.
"No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm quite sure not. My aunt was sitting
with her back to Mr. Varick."
There was a pause. And then Helen asked: "You don't believe that the
dead _can_ appear to the living--do you, Sir Lyon?"
"I've never been able quite to make up my mind," he said slowly. "But I
do believe, absolutely, in what is now called materialization. I must
believe in it, because I've witnessed the phenomena a number of times
myself. But, of course, always under a most carefully prepared set of
conditions. I wish you'd tell me," he went on, "exactly how the figure
struck you? Can you describe to me in greater detail the appearance of
what seemed to be the spirit of your friend?"
Helen did not quite understand what he meant, but she answered
obediently: "It's very difficult to describe more exactly what I did
see. As I told you just now, the eyes alone seemed to be really alive in
the pale, waxen-looking face, and I thought the mouth quivered."
"I know," he interjected quickly.
"But the rest of her poor, thin, emaciated looking body seemed to be so
stiff and still, swathed in the long, white grave-clothes--and I can't
express to you the sort of growing horror of it all! I _knew_ it was
only a few moments, yet it _seemed_ like hours of time. I felt as if I
_must_ call out and indeed I did. But before I could go on to utter her
name, Miss Farrow spoke to me, my aunt got up from her chair, and Mr.
Varick rushed forward! Of course it all happened in much less time than
it takes to tell."
She looked at him earnestly. What a kind, dependable face he had!
"Have you, Sir Lyon, any explanation to suggest?" she asked.
"I don't suppose," he said slowly, "that you would accept my
explanation, Miss Brabazon."
"I think I would," she said simply. "After what happened that first
night I feel that anything is possible. I am _sure_ my dear father's
spirit was there."
"I am inclined to think so too. But as to this instance I am not so sure
that what you saw was your dead friend. Unless--"
"Unless?" repeated Helen questioningly.
"You told me that during her lifetime you were on the best terms of
friendship with this poor lady, and yet that on her dead face there was
a look of hatred? How do you account for that?"
He looked questioningly, penetratingly, into the girl's distressed face.
Sir Lyon had always prided himself on his self-command and perfect
self-control, and yet he would have given almost anything for a really
honest answer to this question.
And poor Helen did give him an honest answer--honest, that is, from her
own simple-hearted point of view. "I can't account for it!" she
exclaimed. "But I am sure it was there. I felt the hatred coming out
from her towards me. And oh, Sir Lyon, it was horrible!"
"Try and think it was not Mrs. Varick's spirit," he said impressively.
"Try and tell yourself that it was either a dream, a waking phantom of
your brain, or--or--"
"Or what?" asked Helen eagerly.
But there are thoughts, questions, suspicions that no human being
willingly puts into words.
* * * * *
During the last few days Sir Lyon had become convinced that Lionel
Varick had resolved in his powerful, unscrupulous mind to make Helen
Brabazon his wife. It was in vain that he argued with himself that the
question of Miss Brabazon's future concerned him not at all. He found
himself again and again, when watching those two, giving a great deal of
uneasy thought to the matter. Now and again he would remind himself that
Varick had been no greater an adventurer than many a man who, when
utterly impecunious, has married an heiress amid the hearty approval and
acclamation of most of the people about them. And Varick could not now
be regarded as impecunious; he was a man of substance, though no doubt
even his present income would seem as nothing compared with the Brabazon
fortune.
Sir Lyon was ashamed of his growing distaste, even dislike, of his
courteous host. It was as if in the last few days a pit had been dug
between them. It was not pleasant to him to be accepting the hospitality
of a man whom he was growing to dislike and suspect more and more every
day. And yet though he could have made a hundred excuses to leave
Wyndfell Hall, he stayed on, refusing to inquire too closely into the
reason.
At times he tried to persuade himself that he was keenly interested in
the problem presented by Bubbles Dunster. The girl was beyond question a
most rare and exceptional medium. At one time he had made a close study
of psychic phenomena; and though he had come to certain conclusions
which had led to his entirely giving up the practices which had once
seemed to him the only thing worth living for, he was still sufficiently
interested in the subject to feel that Bubbles' powers were well worth
watching.
Sir Lyon would have given much to have been present at what, if Helen's
account were correct, had been an extraordinary example of what is
called materialization.
Had this terrible vision of Mrs. Varick been an emanation of Helen
Brabazon's own brain--some subconscious knowledge that she, Helen, was
now the object of Varick's pursuit? Or was this woman, whom they all
called "poor Milly," an unquiet spirit, wandering about full of jealous,
cruel thoughts, even with regard to the two who had evidently been so
selflessly devoted to her--her girl friend and her husband?
And then, suddenly a queer feeling of intense relief swept over him.
Whether a sentient being or not had appeared to Helen Brabazon, there
could be no doubt that what had just happened would make the course of
Varick's wooing more arduous. He was ashamed to find that this
conviction made him suddenly feel oddly light-hearted--almost, so he
told himself, a young man again!