The Haunted Room: A Tale

Thus the high-principled young man, who was so ready to act or to suffer for what he deemed the cause of truth; he whose character was in human sight almost without a blemish, was in a state in which, according to Scripture, all his faith, knowledge, and zeal could profit him nothing. Death, if death had met him now, would not have found Bruce with his face turned heavenwards, though he had long since, with sincerity of purpose, entered on the pilgrim’s narrow path. He stood condemned by the solemn words of inspiration, If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.

Emmie noticed with pain, after family prayers were over, that her brothers went to their respective apartments without so much as bidding each other good-night.

CHAPTER XI.

EVENING AND MORNING

“How foolish – how weak – how wrong has been my conduct through this day!” murmured Emmie to herself, as, after dismissing her attendant, she sat alone in the small apartment which she had chosen for her own. The room was a contrast to that which had at first been assigned to the young maiden. The cell, as Bruce had called it, did not possess even a fireplace, and might have belonged to some cloistered ascetic. The stained, dusky, peeling-off paper on the narrow walls had its blots and patches made only more visible by the whiteness of three large unframed maps, which the practical Bruce had fastened up for his own convenience. The young man had rather a contempt for the luxuries in which Vibert always indulged if he could; to the idea of Bruce they were only suitable for ladies, or those to whom age or ill-health rendered them needful. Bruce considered it unworthy of a man in the prime of his life to care about the softness of a cushion, or the temperature of an apartment. Thus, in making household arrangements, Bruce had selected his own quarters with very little regard to personal comfort, while he had spared no pains in trying to secure that of his sister.

Emmie now suffered from her brother’s unselfishness, as well as from her own nervous fears. Hasty arrangements had indeed been made to improve the appearance of the cell. Some of Emmie’s books had been transferred to the bookcase by Susan, nor had footstool or guitar been forgotten; but for her sofa there was no space, and the young lady’s toilette-table, draped with white muslin, looked incongruous in so mean an apartment. Perhaps the discomfort of that fireless room on a damp November night was not without its effect on the spirits of Emmie, who was accustomed to the refinements and elegances of civilized life, and who was not indifferent to them; but the melancholy which oppressed the maiden chiefly rose from a deeper source, a profound discontent with herself.

It was Emmie’s custom to review, every night ere she went to rest, the events of the preceding day, with self-examination as to the part which she had acted. The review had hitherto been very imperfect, for she had never traced her errors in practice to the source from whence most of them had proceeded. Instead of recognizing mistrust as a besetting sin, it had hardly occurred to Emmie that it was anything meriting blame. The occurrences of that Friday had been a striking comment upon the words of her uncle, which Emmie now recalled to memory.

“Unreasonable fear, – uncontrolled fear, – what has it done for me to-day?” mused Emmie. “It has destroyed my peace, most utterly destroyed it, and cast needless gloom over my arrival in my new home. Fear has made me displease both my brothers, has lowered me in the eyes even of my servants; it has caused an accident which has been painful, and which, but for Heaven’s mercy, might have even been fatal. Should I have lost self-command in the storm, had I recognized the presence of Him who grasps the lightning in His hand, and whose voice is heard in the thunder? If my heart were indeed the abode of His Spirit, would that heart fail me at the bare thought of – hark! what was that sound?” Emmie started and turned pale at the cry of an owl outside her window; in her home near London she had never heard the hoot of the bird of night. The cry was repeated, and though the nervous girl now guessed its cause, in her superstitious mind it was still linked with fearful fancies.

Emmie, to compose herself, took up her Bible, and opening it, turned to the Twenty-seventh Psalm. She read the heart-stirring verse: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

“Why cannot I make this glorious assurance of faith my own?” thought Emmie. “Why am I, a Christian girl in an English home, troubled with fears which would better beseem some poor ignorant African, worshipping his fetich, and knowing nothing of a protecting, loving God! I must struggle against this enemy, mistrust; I must try to bring my very thoughts into subjection, – those thoughts now so full of fears dishonouring to my gracious Master. Where is my reason, – where is my faith? I cannot believe that there is real danger in sleeping next to the bricked-up room, or even my selfishness would hardly have induced me to put dear Bruce in a post of peril. I must have been secretly assured that the danger existed only in fancy. But I am now too weary to be able to reason; I need a night’s rest to enable me to distinguish between facts and the creations of an excited brain. I am so tired – my nerves are so weak! I shall scarcely now be able to rouse my mind even for the exercise of prayer, and by prayer alone dare I hope to conquer mistrust.”

Emmie’s rest was on that night troubled by a confused medley of dreams, the natural consequences of the excitement which she had undergone through the preceding day. Nothing was distinct, but the images of Harper and Jael Jessel mixed themselves up with the phantoms which their weird stories had raised in the imaginative mind of the girl. Emmie, early deprived of the guidance of a sensible mother, had often made an unprofitable use of her leisure; she had read much of the literature which is called sensational; she had pondered over tales of horror; her mind had been fed on unwholesome food. Emmie had let fancy lead her where it list, and it would be no easy task to undo the mischief wrought in idle hours under the name of amusement.

Morning came at last, and brightness and hope with the morning. How different objects appear in sunshine from what they seem to be when only faintly visible at night! Emmie gazed from her window, and greatly admired the prospect before her. Never, perhaps, in a well-wooded country, does Nature display more exquisite beauty than in the early part of November, when the foliage, thinned indeed, but brilliant in tints of crimson and gold, varied with russet and green, is lit up by the glorious sun. The orb of day, just rising, was overhung by rosy clouds; the air was fresh and fragrant after the storm; myriads of dew-drops glittered on the lawn; all was brightness above and below! Emmie thought that she could be very happy even at Myst Court, and anticipated with pleasure looking over the mansion, exploring the grounds, and examining the state of the garden.

When Emmie quitted her little room, the sunlight was streaming through the large east window which lighted the staircase, throwing gorgeous stains of crimson and azure from its coloured panes upon the wide oaken steps. What had been dreary and ghost-like by night, had become picturesque and romantic by day. Emmie tripped lightly down to the breakfast-room, where she found Bruce looking out his place in the book of family prayers.

“Did you sleep well?” was the sister’s eager greeting as she approached her brother; for Emmie had reproached herself a little for exposing Bruce to the chance of any nocturnal annoyance by the exchange of the rooms.

“I slept very well, – never better,” replied Bruce with a slightly sarcastic smile. “I had no expectation of seeing goblin or ghost, and was certainly troubled by none. I never knew a place more perfectly still; so far as I could judge, not a mouse stirred or a cricket chirrupped in the so-called haunted chamber. But that west room is by far too pretty and luxurious for a student like me. As ladies are allowed to change their minds once, I would strongly advise you, Emmie, to let us resume the first arrangement: do you go back to the west room, and let me study or sulk in my own little cell.”

“Not now,” replied Emmie Trevor; and, to do her justice, her motive in declining the second change was as much consideration for her brother’s comfort as the repugnance, which she had not yet quite overcome, to sleeping next door to the haunted chamber.

“Why has Master Vibert not made his appearance either at prayers or at breakfast?” asked Bruce, when, half an hour afterwards, he was enjoying the cup of hot coffee prepared by his sister.

“Vibert was tired last night, and has probably overslept himself,” replied Emmie.

“Not he,” said Bruce, “for I saw him from my window this morning, more than an hour ago, loitering about the grounds. Vibert must have heard the gong sound for breakfast. No; the fact is – you must have seen it from his manner last evening – that Vibert is in a huff because I called him a selfish idiot.”

“I am so very, very sorry that you called him that,” cried Emmie, with a look of distress. “You do not consider, dear Bruce, what real harm your sternness may do to our younger brother. Vibert is so affectionate – ”

“He cares for no one on earth but himself,” said Bruce. “Look at his conduct yesterday, and think what might have been its result.”

“Driving off from the station without waiting for you was but a foolish, boyish prank,” pleaded Emmie. “As for the accident that occurred, that cannot be laid to Vibert’s charge; it was caused by my catching hold of his arm just when the pony was turning a corner.”

“What made you do that?” inquired Bruce.

“I was foolishly frightened at the lightning,” replied Emmie meekly.

“Frightened, always frightened, at everything and at nothing!” said Bruce, but rather in sorrow than in anger. He was far more indulgent to the failings of Emmie than he was to those of Vibert.

The gentle girl, who was very anxious to bring about a reconciliation between her two brothers continued her mild expostulation with Bruce.

“I am sure that you do not think Vibert an idiot, though he may, perhaps, be a little selfish. I have heard you say yourself that Vibert has plenty of brain.”

“If he were not too lazy and self-indulgent to work it,” interrupted the elder brother.

“You do not think – you never have thought poor dear Vibert a selfish idiot,” persisted Emmie; “and oh! Bruce, if I could only persuade you to tell him that you are sorry for having spoken that one hasty word, if – ”

“Apologize to Vibert! never!” cried Bruce, and he pushed his chair back from the table.

“Surely it is noble, generous, right to own to a brother that in a hasty moment we have done him a wrong!” said Emmie with an earnestness which brought the moisture into her eyes.

Bruce made no reply to his sister, but rose from his seat and left the room; not hurriedly, not passionately, but with that expression on his calm face in which Emmie easily read the unuttered thought, “I need no one’s advice to guide me, and I will receive rebuke from no one.”

Emmie breathed a heavy sigh. Bruce was in other points so noble, so good, – oh, why did he shut and bar so firmly against the entrance of duty and affection one haunted room of his heart! Emmie was distressed on account of Vibert; she knew that her volatile younger brother needed the support of the stronger sense, the firmer principle of the elder, – that the influence of Bruce might be of inestimable importance to Vibert. And all this influence was to be worse than thrown away, because the professed follower of Him who was meek and lowly would not bend his proud spirit to own that he had committed a fault!

CHAPTER XII.

THE STRANGER

Bruce had scarcely quitted the breakfast-room before it was entered by Vibert.

“Quick, Emmie, a cup of your delicious hot coffee! I’ve been out these two hours, and have come in with a hunter’s appetite!” exclaimed the youth, who was looking even handsomer than usual, with his clear complexion brightened by the invigorating effects of the fresh morning air. Vibert applied himself with energy to the work of cutting slices from the cold ham which had been placed on the side-board.

Emmie poured out the warm beverage for her brother, who turned round to bid her add plenty of cream. “Cream is the one country luxury to balance against country cookery,” he laughingly observed. “If that virago-looking Hannah continue to reign in the kitchen, I shall be driven to live upon cream, or be famished!”

Vibert did not appear likely to be famished as he sat at the well-spread table, doing ample justice to his slices of ham. Emmie had finished her own breakfast, but remained to keep her brother company.

“Since you were such an early riser to-day,” she observed, “why were you absent from prayers?”

“Because I can’t stand hearing the prayers read by Bruce!” exclaimed Vibert with some indignation. “It’s a mockery for him to call his own brother a selfish idiot, to treat him as if he were a slave or a dog, and then to kneel down and pray like a saint, asking for meekness and mercy, and all kinds of graces which he never had, and never wishes to have. If that be not downright hypocrisy, I know not what is deserving of the name.”

“Bruce is the very last person in the world who would play the hypocrite,” cried Emmie. “As for the harsh name which he gave you, I believe that in his heart he is sorry for what he said in a moment of ill-humour.”

“Then why does he not own frankly that he is sorry?” cried Vibert. “If Bruce would but confess that he regrets his hasty words, I’d hold out my hand at once and say, ‘Let by-gones be by-gones, old boy; I’m not the fellow to harbour a grudge.’ But Bruce would not own a fault were it to save his life or mine. Pride – that pride that repels advice, resents reproof, and refuses to acknowledge an error (how well the captain described it!) – that is Bruce’s pet sin, and he’ll carry it with him to his grave.”

“God forbid!” faintly murmured Emmie.

“Bruce and I are to begin daily studies at S – next Monday,” continued Vibert, who was making good progress with his breakfast whilst he kept up the conversation. “I know that papa imagines that the way to keep me safe and out of mischief, is to yoke me to one whom he considers the impersonification of sense and sobriety. He’d couple a greyhound with a surly mastiff; but the greyhound, at least, will strain hard against the connecting strap. If Bruce start early, I will start late; if he walk fast, I will walk slowly; I’ll keep as wide apart from him as the tether will let me get; – in plain words, I’ll have as little to do with Bruce as I possibly can.”

“Vibert, dear Vibert, it so grieves me that you should feel thus towards him,” cried Emmie. “Bruce is not without his faults, but he is a noble-minded, unselfish – ”

“Unselfish! I deny it!” exclaimed Vibert, while he kept the morsel which he was just about to convey to his lips suspended on his fork. “Unselfish indeed! when he has taken advantage of being sent on in front to make arrangements to secure the very best room in the house for himself!”

“He never did,” cried Emmie eagerly. “The west room was prepared for me, but I could not endure it, and, as a matter of kindness, Bruce exchanged our respective apartments.”

“Why could you not endure that capital room?” asked Vibert in surprise.

Emmie, who had been wishing, praying that she might be enabled to act the part of a faithful counsellor and friend to her younger brother, felt painfully that she had to step down from her position of vantage, as she owned, with a blush, that she had not liked to sleep next door to the bricked-up room.

Vibert burst out laughing. “So the chivalrous Bruce took the dangerous post!” he exclaimed. “Would I not just like to give him a fright!”

“Don’t, oh! don’t play any foolish practical joke!” exclaimed Emmie.

“I’m afraid that it would not answer,” said Vibert, still laughing. “Bruce is a hard-headed chap, who sifts everything to the bottom. He’d be as likely as not to cleave a ghost’s skull with a poker, and I’ve no fancy to try whether he hits as hard with his hand as he yesterday did with his tongue. But let’s talk no more about Bruce. As soon as I’ve finished my breakfast, you and I shall go into the grounds and have a ramble together. You’ve not yet seen the outside of our mansion, for when we arrived here last night you had not enough light to distinguish Aladdin’s palace from a Hottentot kraal.”

The brother and sister soon sauntered out on the terrace on the east side of the house, which was bathed in glowing sunshine. The air was so mild that Emmie had merely thrown a light blue scarf over her head and shoulders as a protection from the breeze; winter wraps would have been oppressive, and she enjoyed the luxury of being able to go out without donning bonnet or gloves. The terrace overlooked the lawn and the garden: the latter had once been fine, and had still a prim grace of its own.

“I rather like this old family mansion,” cried Vibert, glancing up at the building, which had been constructed of dark red brick, with handsome facings of stone. “There is something stately about it, as if it had seen better days, and remembered them still. Myst Court looks something like William and Mary’s part of Hampton Court Palace.”

“Oh, a mere miniature of that grand old building,” said Emmie.

“I can just fancy the kind of people who walked on this terrace when first it was laid out,” continued Vibert. “There were gentlemen in huge, full-bottomed wigs, long coats, embroidered waistcoats and ruffles of old point-lace, with rapiers hanging at their sides. There were ladies like those whom Sir Godfrey Kneller painted, stiff and stately, each smelling a rose which she held in her hand; ladies in hoops, who looked as if they could never dance anything more lively than a minuet de la cour. We seem too modern, Emmie, to match our mansion. Let’s return to the olden times, forget that Queen Anne is dead, and fancy her yet with the sharp-tongued Duchess Sarah playing the game of romantic friendship. Let’s imagine ourselves as we would have appeared some hundred and fifty years ago. I’m a young Tory gallant (of course, I’m a Jacobite at heart, and drink to ‘the king over the water’); Bruce is a decided Whig, – I’m not sure that he is not a Dutchman, and has come over from Holland in the train of the Prince of Orange.”

Emmie laughed at Vibert’s playful fancies, and wondered how her handsome young brother would have looked in a full-bottomed wig.

“Whig and Tory must unite,” she observed, “to get that garden into order. The walks are overrun with shepherd’s purse and chickweed, and the beds seem to grow little but nettles.”

“But these beds were clearly laid out at the time when Dutch taste prevailed,” said Vibert; “it reminds one of the poet’s description, —

‘Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother,One half the garden just reflects the other.’”

“Rather a mournful reflection now,” observed Emmie with a smile.

“But easily changed to a bright one!” cried Vibert; “we’ll set plenty of hands to work, and get everything right before spring. These old straggling bushes must come up; we’ll have new plants from a nursery-garden, and fill those beds with geraniums, fuchsias, and calceolaria. An orangery, as at Hampton Court, shall be at one end of the house; and we must fix on a site for a conservatory, in which some huge vine shall spread out its branches, heavy with delicious bunches of grapes.”

“My dear boy, you speak as if papa had the purse of Fortunatus,” said Emmie. “You know that he will have all kinds of expense in getting the property into tolerable order, – draining, and that sort of thing. The garden must wait for new plants, and we for conservatory and orangery, till more important matters are settled. Think of the cottages out of repair – ”

“Hang the cottages!” cried Vibert. “Leave them alone, and they’ll tumble down of their own accord. Why should we trouble ourselves about them?”

“We must care for the tenants that live in them,” observed Emmie.

“They’ve never done anything for us, why should we do anything for them?” said Vibert. “I don’t believe that half of them ever think of paying their rents. If I were master here,” continued Vibert, “I’d make a law that no dirty, ragged creature should come within a mile of the house. If these folk are miserable, I’m sorry for it; but that’s no reason why I should be miserable too. Charity begins at home, and the first thing to be done at Myst Court is to put house and garden into tip-top order, – buy new carpets and a good billiard-table, set up a fountain yonder on the lawn (we’ll consider about statues and vases), and then invite Alice and a merry party of young people down to the place. We’d drive out ghosts to the sound of fiddle and dancing, and depend upon it, you dear little coward, we should never again hear a word about Myst Court being haunted.”

“Ah, Vibert, we must remember our uncle’s warnings,” said Emmie, gently laying her hand on her brother’s arm.

“Beware of selfishness!– eh? well, I’ll think about that when I see you conquer mistrust. But to be gay is my nature, as it is yours to be timid, and Bruce’s to be proud. One cannot alter nature.”

“Can it not be improved?” asked Emmie. “Look at your garden, – it has been left for years to nature, so bears but a crop of weeds.”

“Oh, if you are going to moralize, I’ll be off!” cried Vibert. “I have not tried my new gun yet, and I expect capital sport. I warrant you that I will bring home a brace of pheasants to mend our fare!”

Mr. Trevor came down to Wiltshire by an early train, and was gladly welcomed at Myst Court. His presence greatly added to the harmony of the family circle; for his sons seldom exchanged bitter words when their father’s eye was upon them. Emmie’s spirits rose. When the family were gathered together at the luncheon-table, the young lady playfully rallied Vibert on his “capital sport,” for she had seen him return with an empty bag from his shooting.

Vibert laughed good-humouredly at his own want of success. “I thought that pheasants and partridges would be plentiful as blackberries in the brushwood,” said he; “but I lighted on no bird more aristocratic than a crow. I think that there must be poachers abroad, or perhaps four-footed poachers, in the shape of those starved, disreputable-looking cats which come prowling about the place.”

“I suppose some of those left by my aunt as a legacy to her maid,” observed Mr. Trevor.

“The legatee does not value the keepsakes,” said Vibert, “to judge by the looks of the cats that crossed my path to-day, sneaking back to their old quarters as if in search for scraps.”

“Does Mrs. Jessel live far from here?” inquired Emmie.

“About a mile from Myst Court by the road, but not half that distance by the path through the wood,” answered Bruce. “The house left to her by Mrs. Myers is a two-storied, shallow building, standing very near the high-road, and looking like a Cockney villa that had somehow strayed into the country, and could not find its way back.”

“So the cats have the good taste to prefer the antique beauties of Myst Court embowered in woods,” said Vibert; “and their new mistress has no objection to their living here at free quarters. I fired at one of the miserable creatures, out of pure benevolence, but unhappily missed my mark.”

“Your shooting is on a par with your driving,” remarked Bruce satirically; “but Emmie’s pony came off worse than the cat.”

“That was not my fault!” exclaimed Vibert. “I managed the pony famously, in the dark too, and over a road expressly contrived to break the springs of a carriage. I was turning a sharp corner with consummate skill, when Emmie took it into her head to scream and catch hold of my arm. Of course, chaise and all went into the ditch, and how long they might have stayed there I know not, had not those two men come to our help.”

“Do you know who they were?” asked Mr. Trevor, who had already heard something of the yesterday’s adventure from Emmie.

“The one is called Harper, a strange, weird-looking old man, with long grizzled hair, and croaking voice,” replied Vibert. “I don’t care if I never set eyes on him again, – but he lives just outside our gate. The other was a very different sort of person, evidently quite a gentleman.”