The 7th Ghost Story
Page 13
The dinner-bell rang, and I left my room, again traversing the long gallery, which was now lit. I met a footman at the far end, who was evidently deputed to conduct me to the drawing-room, where I was almost, if not quite, the last to appear.
I found myself taken in to dinner by Captain Shelvey, a young man who evidently had a good opinion of himself and no hesitation in displaying it. A place was left for me on one side of Lord Glencoine, and dinner commenced.
My neighbour kept me in close conversation; and Lady Mary, who occupied the right-hand seat opposite to me, also talked to our host without intermission, and it was not till dinner was half over that there was a pause, which enabled him to address me.
“Well, Mrs. Haywood,” he said, in his cheery tones, “and what, so far, do you think of my old house? Did l exaggerate its beauty when I romanced about it to you on the ship last summer?”
“Oh, no,” I exclaimed warmly; “of course I haven’t half seen it as yet, but it seems to me that nothing could be more beautiful, and that words are not half good enough to describe it.”
He smiled at my enthusiasm. “It’s very lucky you were able to come, because I am afraid this will be your first and last chance of seeing it.”
“Why?” I asked curiously, thinking what a very odd thing it was for him to say.
“Because,” he answered, smiling rather sadly, “I am afraid I shall have to sell it I have struggled on a long time in the hopes of better things, but bad times and rents going down as they have done, almost to nothing, make it impossible, and much as it grieves me, I am afraid it will have to go. Charlie and I cut off the entail some time ago, and it is already advertised.”
“It is too sad!” I exclaimed. “It does seem such a grievous pity that an old family place like this should go away into the hands of strangers.”
“Yes, it’s not exactly nice,” he answered, “and it was a long time before I could make up my mind to it; but it is what a great many people have come to, and nothing short of a miracle will save landed property in England now. And,” he continued, “the maddening part of this place is, that we believe somewhere here, either in the house or grounds, there are jewels and treasure hidden, and we can’t find them.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, with astonishment.
“Well,” said Lord Glencoine, “about fifty years ago my grandfather was turning out old boxes and safes, and he found a record, or rather diary, of an ancestress of ours, a Lady Glencoine in her own right, who was the owner of this house at the time when Cromwell was making havoc in all the English places. She had kept this diary for years; and the last record in it is an account of Cromwell having arrived at Gloucester, and a report of an intended raid on this house, and she writes that she is, at that moment, about to hide what she calls her ‘priceless jewels’ in a place only known to herself, so that they may be safe. Whether she did or did not was never known, and the only other entry in the diary is a few lines, written evidently by the maid, who tells of the soldiers’ invasion that night, and that ‘my lady’ disappeared, and was never seen again; so whether she and the jewels were carried off by Cromwell’s men, or whether she was murdered for the sake of them, remains a mystery; only my grandmother was so bent on trying to find them, that she sent for several architects and archaeologists from London, who searched all over the house, and did succeed in discovering two secret staircases, but there was nothing in them, and no one ever found anything.”
“How very, very extraordinary!” I exclaimed, “and how deeply interesting! But were none of the jewels ever found again?”
“Nothing,” he answered—“in fact, till my grandfather bought a few there were no ornaments in the family of any sort; and that there were plenty in the old days is a certainty, because all the ladies whose pictures I will show you tomorrow have extraordinarily beautiful jewels on their heads and necks up to the time I told you of, and since then all those whose portraits have been painted have been noticeably without any.”
“One feels inclined to go and have a search,” I said, laughing, as we all rose to leave the dining-room.
“I know,” he answered, “as boys, we used to be forever looking and hoping, but we were always disappointed, and gave it up in despair at last.”
We passed out of the dining-room into the drawing-room, which was hung with old English tapestry, in wonderful preservation. We clustered round the large wood fire, for it was a chilly evening late in October, with a slight frost.
“Didn’t I hear Glencoine telling you about the lost jewels?” asked Lady Glencoine, as she knelt on the rug, and threw another log on to the already blazing fire.
“Yes,” I answered, “and I was immensely interested. It sounded such a wonderful tale—rather like a fairy story, I think.”
“I cannot help believing,” she answered, “that they are somewhere here, and that some day they will be found; only I am afraid it will be too late for us,” she added sadly. Then suddenly she turned to me: “Mrs. Haywood, do you believe in ghosts?”
Before I could answer, my cousin, Hilda Broughton, broke in:
“Oh yes: didn’t you know, Lady Glencoine, that Beatrice is a great medium? She can write automatically, and sees all sorts of strange things in a crystal ball. She’s a wonderful person!”
“Do you really?” said Lady Glencoine, rising from the rug. “My dear Mrs. Haywood, how exciting! I am so deeply interested in these things. Why did you never tell me about it?”
“I don’t know,” I answered shyly. “I do it sometimes. I have been a member of the Psychical Research Society for some time, and I took to it then, more or less; but I have not done it for a long time now.”
“But you know, Beatrice,” said Hilda, “you have done some wonderful things with your crystal.”
“Well,” I admitted, “I did see some rather curious things, and I made a few prophecies that came true.”
“Have you got it here?” asked Lady Mary eagerly. “Do show it to us.”
“What are you all so excited about?” asked Lord Glencoine, coming into the room at this moment.
“Oh, Herbert,” cried his wife, “Mrs. Haywood does all sorts of extraordinary things: she writes automatically, and has a crystal in which she sees things, and we are dying to see her do it.”
“I will go and get it,” I answered, seeing that nothing else would satisfy them; and I left the room, and made my way upstairs. The moon was just rising and pouring into the gallery windows, which, in spite of the artificial light with which it was lit, gave it a ghostly look, and I shivered slightly as I hurried through. Though I was not a nervous nor imaginative person, still I had felt, each of the three times I had walked down this gallery, a consciousness that someone or something walked with me. There were no steps—there was no sound—but there was something, and this time it seemed to be even more defined and more conscious.
I picked up my crystal, and, as quickly as I could, made my way downstairs. As I entered the drawing-room I was greeted with innumerable questions—where would I sit? Must the room be darkened? Should they all hold my hand and wish?—in fact, questions for which no one waited for an answer were poured into my ears.
As soon as there was a lull, I spoke:
“You can leave the room exactly as it is. I must sit where I get no reflection on the crystal, and I do not want any one to touch me.”
Lord Glencoine gave me a chair, and I moved it about till I got into what I considered a suitable light.
“Now,” I said, “is there any one who wants particularly to ask something? Of course I can’t promise that I shall see what they wish, or in fact anything; but I can try.”
“Oh, I know!” cried Charlie Glencoine: “I say, father, let’s ask about the jewels.”
“Yes, do,” said Lord Glencoine: “ask if you can see where the jewels are hidden—if they are hidden,” he added, in a lower tone.
So they all seated themselves, and conversation went on in an undertone.
I concentrated all my sight on the crystal ball I had in my hand, and presently—after two or three minutes—I saw—what is always the first thing one does see—a kind of thickness in the glass; then that faded away, and I began to speak.
“I see,” I said, in a slow, dreamy way, “what appears to be a small stone vaulted chamber; there is no window in it, but apparently some light from inside; in the middle of the room a lady is standing”—here I paused, as her figure was not yet very clear—“a lady who seems to be very fair, with ringlets clustering on her forehead, dressed in a stiff white satin dress with lace; and she is radiant with jewels”—here I heard, amidst the almost dead silence, a muttered, “Ah,” from Lord Glencoine. “It looks like a diadem of rubies and diamonds on her head, and ropes of pearls hang from her neck and over the body of her dress; and she has a diamond girdle clasped round her waist. But what seems more than anything else to attract my attention is a ring she is wearing—a ring that almost covers the second finger of her left hand: it is quite the biggest I have ever seen, and it seems to be a magnificent square ruby in the middle, and two large diamonds at each side; and with this finger she is beckoning—she is looking full at me as if to entreat me to follow her, and her expression is very weary and anxious. She does not appear to move at all, and it is a face I have never seen before.”
“Mrs. Haywood,” said my host’s voice, trembling with excitement, “describe to me please once more her dress.”
I did so, telling him also that it struck me the dress was of the period of Sir Peter Lely’s pictures, or perhaps a little earlier than that; and then, my eyes beginning to ache with the continued strain, I lifted them from the crystal, and met the astonished and excited gaze of my audience.
“Do you know,” said Lord Glencoine, coming up to me and speaking in a low voice, “that you have described exactly the ancestress I told you of—the Lady Glencoine who disappeared with the jewels.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?” I asked eagerly.
“Because,” he said, “in my study, where you have not yet been, there is a life-sized picture of that Lady Glencoine; and the most extraordinary thing is that the jewels she is wearing answer exactly to your description, and above all that strange ring is on her second finger.”
I felt myself turning quite pale with my own discoveries. What did it all mean? And why was it given to me to see this strange picture?
Lady Glencoine came up. “You look so exhausted I am going to carry you off to bed, Mrs. Haywood. I have never been so much interested in my life as I have been tonight, but I think it has been too much for you—you look so pale and tired.”
I owned to feeling fatigued, and shortly afterwards we proceeded upstairs to bed.
My hostess accompanied me to my room, and, having lit my candles, wished me good-night. I could see she was much excited, but that she would not say more, thinking I had had enough and was tired.
I undressed, dismissed my maid, and, going to the window, drew up the blinds, letting the full moon pour into the room. The whole terrace below me was lit up with it, making long and ghostly shadows, and one could almost imagine one saw the human phantoms of the past flitting up and down.
I got into bed, still leaving the moon looking into my windows, and fell asleep very shortly.
How long after I cannot tell—but the room was still in moonlight, when I was awaked by that nameless consciousness that I was not alone. Turning my head to the door, I saw what made my heart stand still and my blood run cold within me.
There, bathed in the rays of the moon, stood the lady of my crystal—the same face, gown, jewels, and with that strange and wonderful ring on her second finger, the stones of which sparkled in the light. With that finger she was beckoning to me. Too terrified to move or even to scream, I watched her, fascinated; and then my voice—was it my voice?—found itself in a frightened whisper:
“Who are you? What are you? And why do you come here?” I whispered: “Go, go—you terrify me!” and, almost before I had finished, the face and figure grew indistinct and disappeared: there was no sound, there was no movement. The place where she had stood was still in brilliant moonlight, but she was gone. Thank Heaven she was gone! My teeth were chattering with fear, my hands were cold and clammy, and I was almost beside myself with terror. With trembling hands I lit my candle—two—three candles—and I got out of bed and walked round the entire room; and there was nothing, nothing anywhere, and I began to doubt myself. Had I dreamt it? Or was it a creation of my brain, overwrought with my “crystal” effort? I had gone to sleep with my mind full of this apparition, and doubtless I had dreamt it. I nearly persuaded myself that this was the case, anything else seemed so impossible, and with this determination I at last fell asleep.
Morning broke—one of those lovely autumn days, after a night of frost, which hastens on the winter, and reminds the lingering blossoms that their days are well nigh done—and as I got up and dressed myself I almost persuaded myself that it had been a dream, and that my imagination had run riot with me. Still it had been very real, and even as I walked down the gallery on my way to the breakfast-room, with the broad prosaic sunlight shining in through the windows, I again had that same conviction, if possible more strongly than before, that I was not alone, and I began to feel quite glad that my visit was to be a short one.
After breakfast I reminded Lord Glencoine of his promise to show me the house, and specially the picture. He readily consented; and Lady Mary, being also a new corner, begged to accompany us, and we left the breakfast-room.
We followed our host along a small passage which led straight from the dining-room, and throwing open a door almost opposite, he ushered us into his sitting-room, which was a large and spacious apartment, more or less hung (like the drawing-room) with old English tapestry, with the exception of one side of the room, and that had one large oak panel which reached from the window at one end to the tapestry at the other, and into which was let a life-sized picture of Eleanor, Lady Glencoine. The likeness was so startling, the face so exactly what I had seen both in the crystal and in my room, that I was quite staggered for a moment, and caught hold of a chair for support.
“There,” said Lord Glencoine, “is the lady you described last night, do you see: is it not exact, Mrs. Haywood?”
“Yes,” I answered slowly, recovering myself with an effort—“the same, the very same, only several years younger.”
“Isn’t it most extraordinary,” he continued in an excited voice, turning to Lady Mary, who also seemed like me, quite fascinated by the picture, “that Mrs. Haywood had never seen it?—never been here before, had you?” to me.
“Never,” I answered; “never—it is the most curious thing I have ever known.” But I thought to myself he did not know how curious.
I remained gazing at the picture. The details, the hands, the dress, that wonderful ring—everything was as I had seen it: what did it mean? Was there more to come? And something within me—or did it pass by?—told me there was more still to come, and with this consciousness my heart sank within me. We passed on to the other rooms; at another time I should have enjoyed seeing them, but now all interest had suddenly left me. I was either worn out physically, or troubled mentally; and though I tried hard to shake it off and rouse myself, still all that day it was with me—driving, walking, eating—I lived in a sort of dream, seeing nothing but that one lady, hearing nothing but that indefinable sound, which yet was not a sound, but only a feeling: it absorbed me, while it troubled me, and I think, if I had not been ashamed to do so, I shou
ld have gone away that afternoon. Also, my mind was in a whirl: if she came again that night and beckoned to me, should I go, should I face what she had to show me, and would my courage last? Then I smiled at my folly, and remembered my decision that it was only a dream, and nothing supernatural—no message from the spirit world.
The night was approaching, and we were at dinner again. Every one but myself seemed to be even gayer than the night before. When it was over, and we were in the drawing-room, all alike clamoured for more crystal-gazing; but here I was firm in a refusal, and luckily for me Lady Glencoine came to my rescue. She was an observant woman, and, I think, had noticed my preoccupation and depression; and when they had settled down to whist and music she came up to me, and, remarking my tired appearance, begged me not to sit up, but to slip out of the room with her. I was really thankful to accede to her request, and together we went upstairs and entered the gallery.
“How beautiful!” she exclaimed, pausing for a moment to look out of the window on to the moonlit terrace below, “but how weird! Are you sure, my dear, you do not mind sleeping alone in this part of the house? You looked, this morning, as if you had not slept, and I know so many people are nervous.”
Just for a moment—only for a moment—my courage completely left me, and it was on my lips to say I was nervous, and would she allow me to change my room, but something stopped me: was it that feeling again of some one standing beside me, that froze the words on my lips, and left me standing looking at Lady Glencoine, who was, I think, beginning to wonder at my silence?
“Oh no, thank you,” I said hurriedly. “I really like that room, it is so pretty; and it would be quite wrong to make a change, I think,” and I laughed nervously.
She looked at me for a moment, and seemed as if she were about to say something more; but evidently changed her mind, for, taking me to my room, she said good-night, and left me, and I heard her steps growing fainter and fainter in the distance.