The Haunted Room: A Tale

“Woe to him, then, for an evil spell is upon it!” muttered the man; and a distant rumble succeeded the words like an echo. “The thunder and lightning, the darkness and storm, the mistaken way, the stumbling horse, – omens of evil – omens of evil! These things do not happen by chance.”

“I wish that, instead of muttering unpleasant things, you would give a plain answer to a plain question, and not keep us shivering here!” said Vibert impatiently. “Are we, or are we not, on the direct road to Myst Court?”

“No, sir,” replied the taller stranger; “but by yon lane you can reach the high-road which leads straight from S – to the place of your destination.”

“Then that urchin did misdirect us!” exclaimed Vibert. “If I meet him again, I will break every stick in his faggot over his back! Must we really return through that slough of a lane, through which we have scarcely been able to struggle?”

“You must retrace your way,” said the stranger. “As far as the high-road my path is the same as your own, as I am returning to my quarters at S – . Perhaps you will permit me to occupy the vacant place in your chaise (I perceive that there is a back seat), as it would be a satisfaction to me to see the lady so far safe on the road. I shall do myself the honour of calling at Myst Court to-morrow, to inquire after her health. My name is Colonel Standish, at your service, and I serve beneath the star-spangled banner.”

“We shall be glad of your company, sir,” said Vibert; “and are much obliged for your ready help.”

“It is lucky that old Harper and I were at hand,” observed Standish, as he stepped into the low basket-chaise.

Vibert sprang into the front seat beside his sister, but before taking the reins from the hand of Harper, young Trevor pulled a shilling out of his waistcoat-pocket, and tendered it to the old man. There was light now afforded by the moon, for the rain had ceased, and through a rift in the clouds the radiant orb shone clearly.

“A silver shilling to him who has helped you to reach the haunted house,” said Harper, as he took the coin and thrust it into a deep pocket. “I trow there will be gold for him who shall show you the way to leave it!”

Vibert laughed; Emmie shivered, but that may have been from cold, for the night-air was clamp and chilly, and her clothes were saturated with rain. Vibert now turned the pony into the lane, but the creature limped, and had evidently some difficulty in dragging the chaise.

“The beast is lame,” observed Standish; “he has probably strained a leg in the fall. We gentlemen must walk through the lane, where the ground is so boggy.” The colonel sprang from the chaise, and his example was followed by Vibert.

At a slow pace the party proceeded along the tree-overshadowed way. The recent rain had increased the heaviness of the road, and the trees dripped moisture from their wet branches over the travellers’ heads. To Emmie, cold and damp as she was, and longing for shelter and rest, it seemed as if that wearisome lane would never come to an end.

Harper, uninvited, had joined himself to the party, and his peculiar croaking tones were frequently heard blending in converse with the clear voice of young Vibert, or the more manly accents of Standish. Emmie alone kept silence.

“Our friend Harper is a near neighbour of yours,” observed the colonel to Vibert. “He has fixed himself just outside the gate of your father’s grounds.”

“But I never pass through that gate,” croaked Harper. Neither Vibert nor Emmie felt any regret that their forbidding-looking neighbour should keep outside.

“You call the place haunted?” said Vibert.

“Haunted!” repeated Harper, muttering the word between his clenched teeth; and the old man shook his grizzled locks with so mysterious an air, that Vibert’s curiosity was roused. He began to question Harper on the traditions connected with the place.

The old man was not loath to speak on the subject, though he imparted his information, if such it could be called, only in broken fragments; giving as it were, glimpses of grisly horrors, and leaving his hearers to imagine the rest.

Then Standish followed up the theme, and recounted strange stories from the New World, – all “well-authenticated” as he declared; stories of haunted houses and apparitions, each tale more horrible than the last. Such relations would have tried Emmie’s nerves, even had the stories been told on some calm summer eve; but heard, as they were, in a dark, dreary lane, on a chilly November night, when she was wet, bruised, and trembling from the shock of a recent accident, tales of horror seemed to make the blood freeze to ice in her veins. Had Bruce been present, he would have discouraged such conversation; but sensational stories had charms for Vibert, and he never considered that they might work an evil effect on the sensitive mind of his sister.

At last the open road was regained, and Standish took leave of the Trevors. Rather to Emmie’s surprise, the colonel familiarly shook hands with herself as well as her brother, as if the night’s adventure had converted them into old friends. Vibert again sprang into the chaise; he was very impatient to get at last to the end of his wearisome journey, and urged the pony to as quick a pace as its lameness permitted over the smoother road.

The rest of the time of the drive was passed in silence. The way to Myst Court was clear enough from the brief directions given by Harper, of whom the travellers soon lost sight in the darkness, though he was following in the same track. Emmie had thought of inviting the old man to take the back seat in the chaise, but an intuitive feeling of repugnance prevented her from making the offer.

Glad were the weary travellers to reach the large iron gate which had been described as marking the entrance to the grounds of Myst Court. The gate had been left wide open to let them pass through. The drive up to the house was rather a long one. Emmie noticed only that it appeared to be through a thick wood, and that the chaise occasionally jolted over impediments in the way. To her great relief, the weary girl at length distinguished lights in some of the windows of a building which dimly loomed before her. There streamed forth also light from the open door, at which her brother Bruce was standing, watching for the arrival of the long-expected chaise.

CHAPTER X.

A FAINT HEART

“What has delayed you? – where have you been? – how comes the pony to be lame, and Emmie all splashed with mud? – what insane prank have you been playing?”

Such were the questions, each successive one asked in a louder and more angry tone, which were addressed by Bruce to Vibert when the brothers met in front of the house. The lad attempted to answer the questions lightly.

“We’ve only had a bit of an adventure,” cried he. “I’ve been in a dilemma, Emmie in a fright, the chaise in a ditch, and – ”

“None of your foolery for me, sir! You have acted like a selfish idiot!” exclaimed Bruce, who was in a passion more towering than any to which he had given way before since the days of his boyhood. While Vibert had been speaking, Bruce had been engaged in half lifting Emmie out of the chaise; but he turned round as he was supporting her into the hall, and uttered his angry exclamation, while his eyes flashed indignation and scorn. Vibert bit his lip and cowered for an instant under his brother’s rebuke, conscious that it was not altogether unmerited.

“Susan, take care of my sister; let her change her dripping garments directly,” said Bruce to the maid, who was waiting in the hall, candle in hand, to receive her young mistress. “You will see that your lady has all that she wants,” continued Bruce, who was ever considerate and thoughtful. “I will send up something hot for her to drink.”

“I’ll mix a tumblerful at once. The wine’s on the table – hot water and nutmeg in the kitchen,” cried a female voice that was strange to the ear of Emmie. But the poor girl was too much exhausted by the events of the evening to look much around her; she was stiff and trembling with cold, and bruised by her fall, and faintly asked Susan to show her without delay to her room.

Emmie was conducted by her maid up a broad staircase of oak, which ended in a corridor, of which the length nearly corresponded with that of the house. To the left were the apartments which had been assigned to the use of Mr. Trevor and his sons. Susan, on reaching the corridor, turned to the right, drawing back a large curtain of old-fashioned tapestry, on which the life-size figures, wrought by hands long since cold in the grave, were so faded that their outlines could scarcely be traced by the light of the candle carried by the maid. This piece of stiff tapestry had been hung across the corridor in order to keep off draughts from the aged lady who had last inhabited Myst Court. Susan held back the curtain till Miss Trevor had passed through the opening thus made, and then the tapestry again shut out one portion of the corridor from the staircase and the other side of the house.

A cheerful red light guided Emmie to a room on the right side of the passage. The light came from a blazing wood-fire in the young lady’s own apartment, which she now entered, followed by Susan. Glad was the weary girl to enjoy her home comforts again. Wet clothes were quickly exchanged for dry ones; Emmie’s cold hands were chafed into warmth; soft slippers were placed on her feet; and while the fire shed its kindly glow over her frame, the maiden revived, and began to survey with some interest the features of her new abode.

The room in which Emmie found herself was of good size; the ceiling had been freshly whitewashed; the walls were panelled with oak; the furniture, with one exception, had all been taken from Summer Villa, and had a familiar appearance which was pleasant to the eye of the maiden, and made her feel grateful to Bruce for his thoughtful kindness. It was Emmie’s own chintz-covered sofa, which Susan had wheeled close to the fire, on which the tired traveller reclined; the screen was one specially valued as being the work of her mother; the guitar-case was seen in a corner; the rows of prettily-bound books which filled the shelves of the book-case looked as if they had made the journey to S – without even having been moved from their accustomed places. Emmie was fond of pictures, and had collected quite a little gallery of them at Summer Villa. Bruce had taken care that his sister should not miss one of them at Myst Court. Here numbers of pictures, great and small, – portraits, prints, coloured sketches, – adorned the panelled walls, relieved by the dark background of oak, from which they took all appearance of gloom.

It has been said that, with one exception, the furniture of Miss Trevor’s room had all belonged to her former home; that exception was a tall press of elaborately-carved oak, which rested against one of the side-walls, between the fireplace and the window. Bruce had not ordered the removal of this press for various reasons. It was heavy, and had probably remained in its present place since the house had first been built, as the style of the carving was antique, and the wood almost black with age. Bruce had thought that a high press was a convenient article of furniture for a young lady’s room; and this one was so handsome that, though it matched nothing in the apartment except the panelled walls, its beauty as a work of art might atone for the incongruity.

The gaze of Emmie rested longer on that dark press than on anything else in the room. Perhaps she was trying to make out the meaning of the figures carved in bold relief on the front; or, perhaps, she was recalling one of the sensational stories which she had heard that night, in which just such a press as this had played a mysterious part. Absurd as it may appear, the young lady would have liked her apartment better if the handsomest article of its furniture had not been left within it.

As Emmie was languidly gazing around, while Susan, on her knees by the sofa, was chafing her young lady’s feet, there was heard a tap at the door. A woman then entered the apartment, bearing a steaming tumblerful of wine and hot water. As this person will reappear in the story, I will briefly describe her appearance.

She was dressed in mourning, and wore a black bonnet covered with crape flowers and pendants of bugles. Her person was short and somewhat stout. The round eyes, above which the sandy-coloured brows formed not arches but an upward-turned angle, gave her a cat-like look, which resemblance to the feline race was increased by the peculiar form of her lower jaw, and the noiseless softness of her movements.

In an obsequious manner this personage not only gave the reviving beverage to Miss Trevor, but volunteered her unasked aid to make the young lady comfortable, beating up her pillow, stirring the fire, and making inquiries about her health in a pitying tone, as if the fear of Emmie’s having caught any chill were to her a matter of tender concern. Emmie guessed that the stranger must be the confidential attendant of the late Mrs. Myers, and her conjecture was soon confirmed by the woman’s introducing herself as Mrs. Jael Jessel. The young lady did not like to give Mrs. Jessel a hint to depart, though the tired girl would have been glad to have been left to the quiet attentions of Susan. Jael herself was in no haste to quit the apartment; and leaning against the mantelpiece, began to converse in a voluble way.

“I could not help running over from my new home to see that everything was arranged comfortable-like for the niece of my dear departed lady,” began Mrs. Jessel. “I know the ins and outs of this place so well, – it seems so natural to come about a house in which one has lived for years.”

“My brother has arranged everything comfortably,” observed Miss Trevor. “He came down before the rest of the family on purpose to do so.”

“Ah, yes; I see. Master Bruce is a clever young gentleman, and he has done all that he could under the circumstances,” said Mrs. Jessel, lowering her tone, as she uttered the last three words, to a mysterious whisper. The black bugles in her bonnet trembled with the shake of her head, as the late attendant went on, – “But if young Mr. Trevor had taken the advice of one who knows what I know, he’d have had this room shut up as closely as the one which is next to it, – I mean the haunted chamber!” Jael Jessel’s round eyes glanced stealthily from one side to another, as if she were afraid of being overheard by some invisible listener.

Susan saw a look of uneasiness pass over the face of her young mistress, and could not help breaking silence.

“Hannah has told me this evening,” she said, “that Mrs. Myers always slept in this room, and that you, Mrs. Jessel, were on a couch beside her. Since the room was chosen for her own by the mistress of the house, it must have been considered the best one.”

Mrs. Jessel did not condescend to address herself to Susan, but in speaking to Emmie virtually gave a reply to the observation made by the servant.

“My poor dear lady was perfectly deaf, she could not hear what I heard; her eyes were dim, she could not see what I saw, – or she would not have rested a second night with only a wall between her and” – again Jael glanced furtively around as she murmured – “that fearful chamber!”

“What did you see, – what did you hear?” asked Emmie, shuddering as she recalled to mind the warnings given by old Harper.

Mrs. Jessel did not wait to be asked twice; she was ready enough to impart to any credulous listener her tale of horrors. Susan was hardly restrained, by her respect for her young mistress, from repeatedly interrupting the stranger, who was doing her worst to fill the mind of a nervous girl with superstitious fears at a time when bodily weariness had prepared it for their reception. At last the indignant lady’s-maid could keep silence no longer.

“What you bore for years, Mrs. Jessel, and without being any the worse for it, could have been nothing very dreadful,” said Susan bluntly. “My lady knows that a good Providence is as near her in this room as anywhere else, and that they who keep a clear conscience need fear neither goblin nor ghost!”

“Ah, well, we shall see, we shall see,” observed Mrs. Jessel, drawing her black shawl closer around her, as a preparation for departure. “I don’t believe there’s a being who knows the place that would go through the wood at night but myself; but, as you say, a clear conscience gives courage. I wish you a good night, Miss Trevor,” added Jael, courtesying formally to the lady; “but, to my mind, you’d have a better chance of one if you were to sleep in a different room.”

Mrs. Jessel quitted the apartment; but she left behind her the painful impression which her words were calculated to make on a mind such as Emmie’s, – a mind not yet sufficiently disciplined by self-control, or influenced by faith, to bring reason and religion to bear upon superstitious fears and nervous forebodings.

Emmie rose from the sofa, and took two or three turns up and down her apartment; while Susan occupied herself in trimming the fire. The young lady then stopped abruptly in her walk.

“Susan,” she said, “I cannot sleep in this room!” It was humiliating to utter such a confession, even to a domestic.

“Oh, Miss Emmie, if you would let me be beside you to-night – ” began Susan; but Emmie did not heed her attendant’s suggestion.

“I could not close my eyes all the night, and I do so sadly need rest. I will go to my brother and ask him to make arrangements for at once changing my room.”

“But Master Bruce will be so much disappointed,” expostulated Susan. “He has spared no pains to have everything just as you would like it to be.”

“I cannot sleep here,” repeated Emmie, who was trembling with nervous excitement. “You will soon move my things – I care not whither – so that it be to the other side of the house, as far as possible from the bricked-up room.”

Emmie hastily quitted the apartment, and drawing back the tapestry curtain, passed on to the head of the staircase. The house appeared to her dreary, empty, and cold, as she glided down the broad oaken steps, almost afraid to look behind her. Emmie soon reached the wide hall, and, guided by the light of the lamp in the drawing-room, of which the door was open, she entered it, and found Bruce Trevor alone.

“I hope that you feel rested, Emmie,” said her brother, advancing to meet her. The clouded brow of Bruce still showed token of the angry altercation which had passed between him and Vibert.

“I cannot rest in that room, dear,” faltered Emmie, avoiding meeting her brother’s inquiring gaze.

“Not rest – why not?” asked Bruce in surprise.

Emmie coloured with shame as she stammered forth her reply. “I know that you will think it so silly – it – it is silly, I own, but – but I would rather be in any other part of the house than next door to the haunted chamber!”

“This is folly, Emmie, pure folly,” expostulated Bruce. “You know that a great part of the dwelling is at present uninhabitable, and cannot be used for months. There are but two upper rooms fitted up comfortably; the one is my father’s – he chose it himself; the other is given to you. Vibert and I can put up anywhere; our two little rooms, just beyond my father’s, have been left as I found them, save that the housemaid has been induced to clear a few cobwebs away. I could not possibly allow you, accustomed as you are to have comforts around you, to occupy one of those bare cells at the coldest side of the house.”

“I should prefer – oh, so greatly prefer one of those small rooms to my present one!” exclaimed Emmie. “Where I now am expected to sleep, that horrid tapestry curtain divides me from every other living being, and I am so close to the bricked-up room, that if so much as a mouse stirred in it, the sound would keep me awake. Dear Bruce, you who are so firm, and brave, and wise, you cannot tell what I feel. If you love me, let us exchange our rooms at once; you are not fearful and foolish like me.” Emmie was trembling; her hands were clasped, and tears rose into her eyes.

“Have your own way!” exclaimed Bruce, with some impatience of manner. He was annoyed at his sister’s betraying such weakness, provoked at his own arrangements being altered, and disappointed at having taken in vain a good deal of trouble to please. Without uttering another word to Emmie, the young man quitted the room to give needful orders, and did not return till the clang of the hall gong summoned the Trevors to a late dinner.

The meal was very unsociable and dull. The storm of anger between the two brothers had not passed off, and Emmie was too much disheartened by what had occurred to be able to act her usual part of peacemaker between them. Bruce had not forgiven Vibert his foolish prank of driving off with Emmie, which had been the primal cause of the accident which had occurred; and Vibert, stung to the quick, had not forgiven Bruce his bitter rebukes. During the whole of dinner-time neither of the young men addressed a word to the other.

The awkward waiting of the country lad hired as a servant, which, at another time, might have afforded some amusement to the young Trevors, now only provoked their patience. Bruce disliked the clumping tread and the creaking boots of Joe; Emmie started when the noisy clatter of plates ended at last in a crash. Vibert, whose lively conversation usually added so much to the cheerfulness of the family circle, scarcely uttered a syllable, save to find fault with the cookery, which was certainly none of the best. No one, under these circumstances, cared to prolong unnecessarily the time spent at the dinner-table.

But matters were little improved when the party had retired to the drawing-room, to spend there the remainder of the first evening passed together by them in their new home. Neither reading aloud nor music, neither playful converse nor game, lightened the heavy time which intervened before the accustomed hour for family prayers. Emmie thought that the large drawing-room of Myst Court was but dimly lighted by the lamp which had shed such cheerful radiance in Summer Villa. The light scarcely sufficed to enable her to trace the outlines of the time-darkened family portraits which hung on the dingy walls. The apartment was so spacious that one fire could hardly warm it, so that it was chilly as well as dark. The small-sized furniture which had suited Summer Villa would have looked mean in the handsome old saloon of Myst Court; therefore faded carpet and more faded tapestry remained, high-backed heavy chairs of carved oak, and narrow old-fashioned mirrors whose frames the lapse of two centuries had rendered dingy and dull. Emmie’s only occupation on that first evening was examining these relics of the past. She thought to herself that Myst Court was as gloomy as any cloister could be, and sighed when she remembered that she must regard it now as her permanent home.

At last Bruce, who had repeatedly glanced at his watch, saw that it was time to call up the servants for prayers. They came in answer to the summons of the bell which he rang – the three new members of the household looking awkward and shy, being evidently unaccustomed to be present at family worship. Bruce read the prayers, as was his custom whenever his father was absent from home. But there was a coldness, on that night, even in the family devotions, of which no one was more sensible than was he who had to conduct them. It was not because the room felt dreary and cold, nor because a death-bed scene had so lately occurred in the house, that a chilling damp fell over even the observance of a religious duty: Bruce, Vibert, and their sister had all on that day been overcome by their several besetting sins, and those sins were haunting them still. Pride, selfishness, and mistrust cast deeper shadows on the pathway of life than those merely external circumstances which we connect with ideas of gloom.

The spirit of Bruce was out of tune, and the noblest words of prayer were, as it were, turned into discord by the imperfection of the human instrument that gave them sound. The leaven of hypocrisy marred petitions in which the heart had no share. Bruce had to ask for the grace of meekness, whilst he was inwardly scorning a sister for weakness and a brother for folly. Had he been struggling to subdue the pride of his heart, such a prayer would have been a cry for help from above; but Bruce was attempting no such struggle. He was not seeking to imitate One who was meek and lowly; the sinner on his knees was preferring a prayer for a grace which he did not care to possess. If a remembrance of his uncle’s warning against pride had passed through Bruce’s mind on that evening, it had roused anger rather than contrition. “What is Captain Arrows, that he should probe the hearts of others; let him look to his own!”