Hathercourt

And Mary turned to Mrs Greville with a smile.

“Very well,” she said. “I won’t be silly, and I will go.”

“That’s all right,” said Mrs Greville, and Mary wished she could have said so too.

After all, why not? It was entirely a matter of personal feeling on her part; there was nothing unladylike or unusual in her going with the others to see the show house of the neighbourhood; and yet the bare thought of her doing so by any possibility coming to Mr Cheviott’s ears made her cheeks burn.

“That horrible man-servant!” she said to herself – “supposing he recognises me!”

But there was no good in “supposings.” She determined to make the best of the unavoidable, though it was impossible altogether to refrain from fruitless regrets that her return home had been delayed.

Nothing came in the way of the expedition. The afternoon turned out very fine, remarkably fine and mild for February, and the little party that set out from the Vicarage would have struck any casual observer as cheerful and light-hearted in the extreme.

“Do you care about this sort of thing?” said Mr Morpeth to Mary, when in the course of the walk they happened to fall a little behind the others.

“About what?” said Mary, absently. Her thoughts had been far away from her companions; she now recalled them with some effort.

“Going to see other people’s houses,” replied the young man. “I hate it, though I have had more than my share of it, knocking about from place to place, as we have been doing for so long.”

“Why do you hate it?” inquired Mary, with more interest. The mere fact of Mr Morpeth’s aversion to such expeditions in general seemed congenial, smarting as she was with her own sore repugnance to this one in particular. And even a shadow of sympathy in her present discomfort was attractive to Mary to-day.

Mr Morpeth kicked a pebble or two out of his path with a sort of boyish impatience which made Mary smile.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, vaguely, “I always think it is a snobbish sort of thing to do, going poking about people’s rooms, and all that. And if it’s a pretty house, it makes one envious, and if it’s ugly, what’s the good of seeing it?”

Mary laughed.

“I like seeing old houses – really old houses,” she said.

“Not ruins, but an old house still habitable enough to enable one to fancy what it must have really been like ‘once upon a time.’”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, “I know how you mean. But even that interest goes off very quickly. We once lived near an old place that nearly took my breath away with awe and admiration the first time I went through it. But very soon it became as commonplace as anything, and I hated to hear people go off into rhapsodies about it.”

“What a pity!” said Mary. “I don’t know that I envy you people who have travelled everywhere and seen everything. You don’t enjoy little things as we do who have seen nothing.”

“But you don’t enjoy going to see this stupid place today,” persisted Mr Morpeth. “I know you don’t, for I was in the drawing-room this morning when you were all talking about it; I came in behind Mrs Greville, and sat down in the corner, though you didn’t see me.”

“Then if you heard all that was said you must have heard my reason for disliking to go to see Romary,” said Mary, in a tone of some annoyance.

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth, coolly, “I did. I wonder why you dislike that unfortunate Mr What’s-his-name so? For before you came Mrs Greville entertained us with a wonderful story about a ball and a very grand gentleman who never looks at young ladies at all, having quite succumbed to – ”

“Mr Morpeth,” exclaimed Mary, stopping short and turning round on her companion with scarlet cheeks, “I shall be very angry if you speak like that, and I don’t think Mrs Greville should have – ”

“Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to vex you, and Mrs Greville was not telling any secrets,” said Mr Morpeth. “Only I have been wondering ever since why you should have taken such a dislike to the poor man. You must be very unlike other girls, Miss Western?”

He looked at her with a sort of half innocent, half mischievous curiosity, and somehow Mary could not keep up her indignation.

“Well, perhaps I am,” she said, good-naturedly. “All the same, Mr Morpeth, you have got quite a wrong idea about why I dislike Mr Cheviott. Don’t let us talk about him any more.”

“I don’t want to talk about him, I’m sure,” said Mr Morpeth. “I only wish he didn’t live here, or hadn’t a house which people insist on dragging me to see. I have no other ill-will at the unfortunate man.”

“Only you won’t leave off talking about him,” said Mary, “and we are close to Romary now. See, that is the lodge gate – on there just past the bend in the road.”

“Oh, you have been here before. I forgot,” said her companion, simply. But innocently as he spoke, his remark sent the blood flying again to Mary’s cheeks.

“What shall I do if that horrible footman opens the door?” she said to herself.

But things seldom turn out as bad as we picture them – or, rather, they seldom turn out as we picture them at all. The horrible footman did not make his appearance – men-servants of no kind were visible – the house seemed already in a half state of deshabille; only old Mrs Golding, the housekeeper, came forward, with many apologies and regrets that she had not known before of Mrs Greville’s and her friends’ coming. “Mr Petre had only just sent word,” and the carpets were up in the morning-room and library! So sorry, she chatted on, but she was thankful to take advantage of her master’s and Miss Cheviott’s absence, even for a day of two, to get some cleaning done.

“For a house like this takes a dell,” She added, pathetically, appealing to Mrs Greville, who answered good-humouredly that to be sure it must.

“But the best rooms are not dismantled, I suppose?” she inquired. “The great round drawing-room and the picture-gallery with the arched roof? Just like a Church,” she observed, parenthetically, to her companions; “that is what I want you so much to see. And the old part of the house, we are sure to see that, and it is really so curious.”

There was no “cleaning” going on in the great drawing-room, and Mrs Golding led the way to its splendours with unconcealed satisfaction. It was much like other big drawing-rooms, with an even greater air of formality and unusedness than is often seen.

Mary, who was not learned in old china, its chief attraction, turned away with little interest, and wished Mrs Greville would hasten her movements.

“What splendid old damask these curtains are,” she was saying to Mrs Golding. “One could not buy stuff like this nowadays.”

“No, indeed, ma’am,” said the housekeeper, shaking her head. “They must have been made many a long year ago. But they’re getting to look very dingy – Miss Alys’s always asking Mr Cheviott to refurnish this room. But it must have been handsome in its day – I remember being here once when I was a girl and seeing it all lighted up. I did think it splendid.”

“There are some very old rooms, are there not?” said Mary.

“Yes, miss, the tapestry rooms,” said Mrs Golding. “There’s a stair leading up to them that opens out of the picture-gallery – the only other way to them is through Mr Cheviott’s own rooms, and he always keeps that way locked, as no one else uses it. The stair runs right down to the side door on the terrace, so it’s a convenient way of getting in from the garden,” continued the communicative housekeeper. “But there’s not many in the house cares to go near those rooms, for they say the middle one’s haunted.”

“Dear me, this is getting interesting,” said Mr Morpeth. “What or whom is it haunted by, pray?”

Mrs Golding looked up at him sharply, then with a slight smile she shook her head.

“You would only make fun of it if I told you, sir,” she said, “and somehow one doesn’t care to have old stories made fun of, silly though they may be.”

“No,” said Mary, “one doesn’t. I think you are quite right,” and the old woman looked pleased.

“You won’t prevent my seeing the haunted room, though you won’t tell me its story?” said Mr Morpeth, good-naturedly. So Mrs Golding led the way.

They passed along the arched picture-gallery, which in itself merited Mrs Greville’s praises, though the pictures it contained were neither many nor remarkable.

“I like this room,” said Mary, approvingly. “It is much less commonplace than the drawing-room – not that I have seen many great houses,” she added, with a smile, to Mr Morpeth, who was walking beside her, “but this is a room one would remember wherever one went.”

“Yes,” said Mr Morpeth. “It is a room with a character of its own, certainly. Frances will be calling it romantic and picturesque and all the rest of it. I am so tired of all those words.”

“I am afraid you are tired of most things,” said Mary. “See what an advantage we dwellers at home have over you travelled people!”

Her spirits were rising. So far there had been nothing at all in the expedition to arouse her fears, and she began to think they had been exaggerated.

“Which is the way to the haunted room?” asked Mr Morpeth, when they were all tired of admiring the picture-gallery.

Mrs Golding replied by opening a door at the further end of the room from that at which they had entered. It led into a little vestibule up one side of which ran a narrow staircase.

“Up that stair, sir,” she said to Mr Morpeth, “you get into a passage with two doors, one of them leads into the new part of the house and one into the old tapestry rooms – it is one of those rooms that is haunted.”

“Let us see if we can guess which it is,” exclaimed Mr Morpeth, springing up the staircase. His sister and Mrs Greville followed him, but Mary lingered a little behind.

“What is the story of the haunted room?” she said, in a low voice, to the housekeeper.

Mrs Golding smiled. She had somehow taken a liking to this quietly-dressed, quietly-spoken young lady, with the pretty eyes and pleasant voice.

“To tell you the truth, miss,” she answered, “I do not very rightly know, it myself. It was something about a lady from foreign parts that was brought here sorely against her will by one of the old lords – I think I have heard said they were once lords – of Romary. He wanted her to marry him, but she would not. Whether he forced her to give in or not I can’t tell, but the end of it was she killed herself – I fancy she threw herself out of the window of the room where he had imprisoned her. And since then they say she is to be seen there now and then.”

“Was it very long ago?”

“I couldn’t say. It was at the time, I know, when there was wars in foreign parts, and that was how the squire of Romary had found the lady. Miss Alys knows all the story – that’s our young lady. Miss Cheviott I should say. It is a sad enough story anyway.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “ghost stories always are, I think. It is queer that the people who have been the most miserable in this world are always the ones who are supposed not to be able to rest without returning to it.”

But just then a voice from above interrupted them.

“Miss Western,” it said, “do come up. This is the jolliest place of the whole house.”

So Mary ran up the staircase. Mr Morpeth was waiting for her at the top.

Chapter Sixteen

The Haunted Room

“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.