The Ghost Girl

by H. De Vere Stacpoole

  CHAPTER IV

  When Phyl withdrew from the dining-room, Hennessey filled his glass withport, Pinckney, who took no wine, lit a cigarette and the two men drewmiles closer to one another in conversation.

  They were both relieved by the withdrawal of the girl, Hennessey becausehe wanted to talk business, Pinckney because her presence had affected himlike a wet blanket.

  His first impression of Phyl had been delightful, then, little by little,her stiffness and seeming lifelessness had communicated themselves to him.It seemed to him that he had never met a duller or more awkwardschoolgirl. His mind was of that quick order which requires to be caughtin the uptake rapidly in order to shine. Slowness, coldness, dulness orhesitancy in others depressed him just as dull weather depressed him. Hedid not at all know with what a burning interest his arrival had beenawaited, or the effect that his voice had produced and his firstappearance. He did not know how the dull schoolgirl had weighed him in amysterious balance which she herself did not quite comprehend and hadfound him slightly wanting. Neither could he tell the extent of theparalyses produced in that same mind of hers by the cracked china, the olddish cover, Byrne's awkwardness, and the deboshed crumb-brush.

  He should have kept to his first impression of her, for first impressionsare nearly always right; he should have sought for the reason of so muchcharm proving charmless, so much positive attraction proving so negativein effect. But he did not. He just took her as he found her and was gladshe was gone.

  "And I believe," said Hennessey, "the South is different now. It used tobe all cotton before the war."

  "Oh, no," said Pinckney. "Before the war there was a lot of cotton grownbut we used to grow other things as well, we used to feed ourselves, theplantation was economically independent. The war broke us. We had to getmoney, so we grew cotton as cotton was never grown before; the Southbecame a great sheet of cotton. You see, cotton is the only crop you canmortgage, so we grew cotton and mortgaged it. Of course the old-timeplanter is gone, everything is done now by companies, and that's the devilof it--"

  Pinckney was silent for a moment and sat staring before him as though hewere looking at the Past.

  "Companies, you see, don't grow sunflowers to look at, don't grow trees toshade them, don't make love in a wild and extravagant manner and shootother companies for crossing them in their affections--don't play theguitar, in short.

  "Companies don't breed trotting horses and wear panama hats and putflowers in their buttonholes. The old Planter used to do these things anda lot of others. He was a bit of a patriarch in his way, too--well, he'sgone and more's the pity. He's like an old house pulled down. No one canever build it again as it was. The South's a big industrial region now.Not only cotton--ore and coal and machinery. We supply the North and Eastwith pig-iron, machinery, God knows what. Berknowles was very keen onSouthern industries, regularly bitten. He was talking of selling off hereand coming to settle in Charleston when the illness took him-- and thatreminds me."

  He took a document from his pocket. "This is the will. I've kept it on myperson since I started for here. It's not the thing to trust to a handbag.It's in correct form, I believe. Temperley, our solicitor, made it out forhim and it leaves everything to the girl when she's twenty--but just readit and see what you think."

  He lit another cigarette whilst Hennessey, putting on his glasses andpushing his dessert plate away, spread the will on the table.

  Pinckney watched him as he read it. Hennessey was a new order of being tohim. This easy-going, slipshod, garrulous gentleman, fond of his glass ofwine, contrasted strangely with the typical lawyer of the States. Flushedand not in his business mood, the man of law cast his eyes over thedocument before him, reading bits of it here and there and seeming notinclined to bother himself by a concentration of his full energies on thematter.

  Then, suddenly, his eyes became fixed on a paragraph which he re-read asthough puzzled by the meaning of it. Then he looked up at the other overhis glasses.

  "Why, what's this?" said he. "He has made _you_ Phyl's guardian. _You!_"

  Pinckney laughed.

  "Yes, that was the chief thing that brought me over. He has made me herguardian, till she's twenty, and he made me promise to look after herinterests and see to all business arrangements. He said he had no nearrelations in Ireland, and he said that he'd sooner trust the devil thanthe few relatives he had, that they were Papists--that is to say RomanCatholics--he seemed to fear them like the deuce and their influence onthe girl. I couldn't understand him. I've never seen any harm in RomanCatholics; there are loads in the States and they seem to be just as goodcitizens as the others, better, for they seem to stick tighter by theirreligion. Anyhow, there you are. Berknowles had them on the brain andnothing would do him but I must come over to look after the businessmyself."

  Hennessey, with his finger on the will, had been staring at Pinckneyduring this. He looked down now at the document and then up again.

  "But you--her guardian--why, it's absurd," said he. "You aren't old enoughto be a guardian, why, Lord bless my soul, what'll people be doing next? Ayoung chap like you to be the guardian of a girl like Phyl--why, it's notproper."

  "Not only am I to be her guardian," said Pinckney with a twinkle in hiseyes, "but she's to come and live under my roof at Charleston. I promisedBerknowles that--He was dying, you see, and one can refuse nothing to adying man."

  Hennessey rose up in an abstracted sort of way, went to the sideboard,poured himself out a whisky and soda, took a sip, and sat down again.

  "Extraordinary, isn't it?" said Pinckney, tapping the ash off hiscigarette. "All the same, you need not be worried at the impropriety ofthe business; there's none, nothing improper could live in the same housewith my aunt, Maria Pinckney. Vernons belongs to her though I livethere."

  "Vernons," put in the other. "What's that?"

  "It's the name of our house in Charleston. It's mine, really, but myfather left it to Maria to live in; it comes to me at her death. I don'twant that house at all. I want her to keep it forever, but it's such apleasant old place, I like to live there instead of buying a house of myown. Vernons isn't exactly a house, it's more like a familytree--hollow--with all the ancestors inside instead of hanging on thebranches."

  "But why on earth didn't Berknowles make your aunt guardian to the girl?"asked Hennessey. "There'd have been some sense in that--a middle-agedwoman--"

  "I beg your pardon," said Pinckney, "my aunt is not a middle-aged woman,she's not fifteen."

  "Not what?" said Hennessey.

  "Not fifteen--in years of discretion, though she's over seventy as timegoes. She has no knowledge at all of what money is or what moneymeans--she flings it away, doesn't spend it--just flings it away onanything and everything but herself. I don't believe there's a charity inthe States that hasn't squeezed her, or a beggar-man in the South thathasn't banked on her. She was sent into the world to grow flowers and lookafter stray dogs and be robbed by hoboes; she has been nearly seventyyears at it and she doesn't know she has ever been robbed. She's not afool by any manner of means, and she rules the servants at Vernons in thegood old patriarchal way, but she's lost where money is concerned. That'swhy Berknowles wanted me to look after the girl's interests. As foranything else, I guess Maria Pinckney will be the real guardian."

  "Well, I don't know," said Hennessey. He was confused by all these newideas shot into his mind suddenly like this after dinner, he could seethat Pinckney was genuine enough, all the same it irritated him to thinkthat Philip Berknowles should have chosen a youth like this to be secondfather to Phyl. What was the matter with himself, Hennessey? Hadn't he afine house in Merrion Square and a wife who would have treated the girllike a daughter?

  "Well, I don't know," said he. "It's not for me to dispute the wishes of aclient, but I've known Phyl since she was born and I've known her fathersince we were together at Trinity College and I'd have taken it morehandsome if he'd left the looking after of her to me."

  "I wonder he didn't," said
Pinckney. "He spoke of you a good deal to me,spoke of you as his best friend; all the same he seemed set on the idea ofus taking care of the girl. He fell in love with Charleston and hecottoned to us; then, of course, there were the family reasons. Phyl'smother was a Mascarene; my mother was her mother's first cousin. Vernonsbelonged to the Mascarenes, my mother brought it to my father as part ofher wedding portion. The Pinckneys' old house was lost to us in the smashup after the war. So, you see, Phyl ought to be as much at home at Vernonsas I am. Funny, isn't it, how things get mixed up and old family houseschange hands?"

  "And when do you want to take her away?" asked Hennessey.

  "Upon my word, I've never thought of that," replied the other. "I want tosee things settled up here and to go over the accounts with you.Berknowles said the house had better be let--I should think it would beeasy to find a good tenant--then I want to go to London on business andget back as quick as possible. She need not come back with me, it wouldscarcely give her time to get things ready. There's a Mrs. Van Dusen, afriend of ours who lives in New York, she's coming over in a month or soand Phyl might come with her as far as New York. It's all plain sailingafter that."

  "Well," said Hennessey, folding up the will and putting it in his pocket."I suppose it's all for the best, but it's hard lines for a man to losehis best friend and see a good old estate like Kilgobbin taken off to theStates--Oh, you needn't tell me, if Phyl goes out there she's done for asfar as Ireland is concerned. Sure, they never come back, the people thatgo there, and if she does come back it'll be with an American husband andhe master of Kilgobbin. I know what America is, it never lets go of theman or woman it catches hold of."

  "You're not far wrong there," said Pinckney. "You see, life is set to afaster pace in America than over here and once you learn to step that paceyou feel coming back here as if you were living in a country where peopleare hobbled. At least that's my experience. Then the air is different.There's somehow a feeling of morning in America that goes through thewhole day--almost--here, afternoon begins somewhere about eleven."

  Hennessey yawned, and the two men, rising from the table, left the roomand crossed the hall to the library.

  Here, after a while, Hennessey bade the other good night and departed forbed, whilst Pinckney, leaning back in his armchair, fell into a lazy andcontemplative mood, his eyes wandering from point to point.

  All this business was very new to him. Pinckney had inherited his father'sbrains as well as his money. He had discovered that a large fortunerequires just as much care and attention as a large garden and that a mancan extract just as much interest and amusement and the physical healththat comes from both, out of money-tending as out of flower and vegetablegrowing. Knowing all about cotton and nearly everything about wheat, hemanaged occasionally to do a bit of speculative dealing without the leastdanger of burning his fingers. Self-reliant and self-assured, knowing hisroad and all its turnings, he had moved through life up to this with theease of a well-oiled and almost frictionless mechanism.

  But here was a new thing of which he had never dreamed. Here was anotherdestiny suddenly thrust into his charge and another person's property tobe conserved and dealt with. Never, never, did he dream when acceding toBerknowles' request, of the troubles, little difficulties and causes ofindecision that were preparing to meet him.

  Up till now, one side of his character had been almost unknown to him. Hehad been quite unaware that he possessed a conscience most painfullysensitive with regard to the interests of others, a conscience that wouldprick him and poison his peace were he to leave even little things undonein the fulfilment of the trust he had undertaken so lightheartedly.

  Possessing a keen eye for men he began to recognise now why Berknowles hadnot chosen the easy-going Hennessey to look after Phyl and her affairs,and he guessed, just by the little bit he had seen of Kilgobbin and theservants, the slipshoddedness and waste going on behind the scenes in theabsence of a master and mistress.

  Pinckney loathed waste as he loathed inefficiency and as he loathed dirt.They were all three brothers with Drink in his eyes and as he leaned backin the chair now, his gaze travelling about the room, he could not butperceive little things that would have brought exclamations from the soulof a careful housekeeper. The furniture had been upholstered, or ratherre-upholstered in leather some five years ago. There is nothing that criesout so much against neglect as leather, and the chairs and couch in thelibrary of Kilgobbin, without exactly crying out, still told their tale.Some of the buttons were gone, and some of them hung actually by thethread in the last stage of departure. There was a tiny triangular rent inthe leather of the armchair wherein Phyl had been sitting and anotherarmchair wanted a castor. The huge Persian rug that covered the centre ofthe floor shewed marks left by cigar and cigarette ash, and under aJacobean book-case in the corner were stuffed all sorts of odds and ends,old paper-backed novels, a pair of old shoes, a tennis racquet and aboxing glove--besides other things.

  Pinckney rose up, went to the book-case and placed his fingers on top ofit, then he looked at his fingers and the bar of dust upon them, brushedhis hand clean and came back to his chair by the fire. He heard the stableclock striking eleven. The sound of the wind that had been raging outsideall during dinner time had died away and the sounds of the house madethemselves manifest, the hundred stealthy accountable and unaccountablelittle sounds that night evolves from an old house set in the stillness ofthe country. Just as the night jasmine gives up its perfume to the night,so does an old house its past in the form of murmurs and crackings andmemories and suggestions. Notwithstanding Dunn's attentions there wererats alive in the cellars and under the boarding--and mice; the passagesleading to the kitchen premises made a whispering gallery where murderersseemed consulting together if the scullery window were forgotten and leftopen--as it usually was, and boards in the uneven flooring that had beenpreparing for the act for weeks and months would suddenly "go off with abang," a noise startling in the dead of night as the crack of a pistol,and produced, heaven knows how, but never by daylight.

  Even Pinckney, who did not believe in ghosts, became aware as he sat nowby the fire that the old house was feeling for him to make him creep,feeling for him with its old disjointed fingers and all the artfulness ofinanimate things.

  He was aware that Sir Nicholas Berknowles was looking down at him with theterrible patient gaze of a portrait, and he returned the gaze, trying toimagine what manner of man this might have been and how he had lived andwhat he had done in those old days that were once real sunlit days filledwith people with real voices, hearts, and minds.

  A gentle creak as though a light step had pressed upon the flooring of thehall brought his mind back to reality and he was rising from his chair toretire for the night when a sound from outside the window made him sitdown again. It was the sound of a step on the gravel path, a step stealthyand light, a real sound and no contraption of the imagination.

  The idea of burglars sprang up in his mind, but was dismissed; that was noburglar's footstep--and yet! He listened. The sound had ceased and nowcame a faint rubbing as of a hand feeling for the window followed by thesharp rapping of a knuckle on the glass.

  "Hullo," cried Pinckney, jumping to his feet and approaching the shutteredwindow. "Who's there?"

  "It's me," said a voice. "I'm locked out. Byrne's bolted the front door.Go to the hall door, will you, please, and let me in?"

  "Phyl," said Pinckney to himself. "Good heavens!" Then to the other, "I'mcoming."

  Byrne had left a lamp lighted in the hall and the guest's candlestickwaiting for him on the table. The lamp was sufficient to show him theexecutive side of the big front door that had been nearly battered in inthe time of the Fenians and still possessed the ponderous locks and barsof a past day when the tenants of Kilgobbin had fought the pikemen ofArranakilty and Rupert Berknowles had hung seventeen rebels, no less, onthe branches of the big oak "be the gates."

  Pinckney undid bolt and bar, turned the key in the great lock and flungthe do
or open, disclosing Phyl standing in the moonlight. The contrastbetween the forbidding and ponderous door and the charming little figureagainst which it had stood as a barrier might have struck him had his mindbeen less astonished. As it was he could think of nothing but thestrangeness of the business in hand.

  "Where on earth have you been?" said he.

  "Out in the woods," said Phyl, entering quite unconcerned and removing hercloak. "A fox got trapped in the woods and I went to let it out andcouldn't find it, then that old fool Byrne locked the door; lucky you wereup. I saw the light in the library shining through a crack in the shuttersand knocked."

  Pinckney was putting up the bar and sliding the bolts. He said nothing.Had Phyl been another girl, he might have laughed and joked over thematter, but care of Phyl's well-being was now part of his business in lifeand that consideration just checked his speech. There was nothing at allwrong in the affair, and never for a moment did he dream of making theslightest remonstrance; still, the unwisdom of a young girl wanderingabout in the woods at night after trapped foxes was a patent fact whichdisturbed the mind of this guardian unto dumbness.

  Phyl, who was as sensitive to impressions as a radiometer to light, notedthe silence of the other and resented it as she hung up her old hat andcloak. She knew nothing of the true facts of the case, she looked onPinckney as a being almost of her own age, and that he should dare toexpress disapproval of an act of hers not concerning him, even by silence,was an intolerable insult. She knew that she loathed him now.--Prig!

  This was the first real meeting of these two and Fate, with the help ofIrish temper and the Pinckney conscience, was making a fine fiasco of it.

  Phyl, having hung up the hat and coat, turned without a word, marched intothe library and finding the book she had been reading that day, put itunder her arm.

  "Good night," said she as she passed him in the hall.

  "Good night," he replied.

  He watched her disappearing up the stairs, stood for a moment irresolute,and then went into the library. He knew he had offended her and he knewexactly how he had offended her. There are silences that can be morehurting than speech--yet what could he have said? He rummaged in his mindto find something he might have said and could find nothing moreappropriate than a remark about the weather and the fineness of the night.Yet a bald and decrepit remark like that would have been as bad almost assilence, for it would have ignored the main point at issue--thenight-wandering of his ward.

  He sat down again for a moment in the armchair by the fireplace and beganto wrestle with the position in which he found himself. This was a smallbusiness, but if Phyl in the future was to do things that he did notapprove of it would be his plain duty to remonstrate with her. An odiousposition for youth to be placed in. How she would loathe and hate him!

  Pinckney, though a man of the world in many ways and a good business man,was still at heart a boy just as young as Phyl; even in years he was verylittle older than she, and the boy side of his mind was in full revolt atthe job set before him by fate.

  Then he came to a resolution.

  "She can do jolly well what she pleases," said he to himself, "without myinterference. Aunt Maria can attend to that. My business will be to lookafter her property and keep sharks off it. _I'm_ not going to set up inbusiness to tell a girl what she ought or oughtn't to do--that's a woman'sjob."

  Satisfied with this seeming solution of the difficulty he went to bed.

  Meanwhile, Phyl, having marched off with the book under her arm found,when she reached her room, that she had forgotten a matchbox, and, tooproud to return to the hall for one, went to bed in the dark.

  She lay awake for an hour, her mind obsessed by thoughts of this man whohad suddenly stepped into her life, and who possessed such a strange powerto disturb her being and fill it with feelings of unrest, irritation and,strangely enough, a vague attraction.

  The attraction one might fancy the iron to feel for the distant magnet, orthe floating stick for the far-off whirlpool.

  Then she fell asleep and dreamed that they were at dinner and Mr.Hennessey was waiting at table. Her father was there and, before the dreamconverted itself into something equally fatuous she heard Pinckney'svoice, also in the dream; he seemed looking for her in the hall and he wascalling to her, "Phyl--Phyl!"