No sooner, however, was the breath out of the old man’s body, than his eccentricity and dislike to his kin began to display themselves. Only Oswald and I were to attend his funeral; not a woman was to be present, while his coffin was to be kept above ground till midnight of Christmas Day, when it was to be deposited in the family vault. In conclusion, he peremptorily ordered that his will should not be opened nor read till an exact twelvemonth, to the very hour, after that date, when a ball was to be given, and all the neighbouring gentry invited. During the intervening period, Holme Grange was to be shut up, the old housekeeper, who had been in the Tregethans’ service from childhood, being left in sole charge. A month, however, before the prescribed year expired, Oswald, myself, and our cousin Cicely were to make the Grange our home.
To uninformed ears the latter command appeared simple enough, but to those who knew the ancient traditions of our race it bore a deep significance; for those ancient traditions affirmed that no two Tregethans, after they had reached man or woman’s estate, could dwell many weeks together under the roof of Holme Grange without dire quarrels ensuing, which, in past ages, had ended in a life’s enmity, or death. The oldest inhabitant knew it as ‘The Tregethans’ Curse’.
Oswald and I, conscious of the strong affection binding us, had frequently laughed at these old women’s tales, and as the eventful Christmas drew near, jestingly wrote that, if we quarrelled with any one, it must be with Cicely Mostyn, whom we remembered as a bright-eyed, fair- complexioned, golden-haired lassie of six, who had termed us ‘rough laddies’, and who had needed high bribery and corruption, in the form of fruit and sugar-plums, before she would consent to be kissed.
One bleak, wintry, November night, just returned from India, I was being carried express through the English counties to Wales. The allotted time had expired, and I was hastening to the dead man’s appointed rendezvous for the living.
The snow had fallen heavily during the day—so heavily as often to impede our progress, and once or twice even threatened to extinguish the engine fires. Trees and hedgerows were laden with it; but November had covered it from view by a veil of fog, till the arrival of December and the keen north wind.
At the station I found the carriage waiting to drive me to the Grange, four miles distant. The horses, like the coachman, were fat from long idleness, and dragged slowly through the heavy country lanes, till—the fog everywhere, the snow only glinting occasionally through it, and the wind whistling over the bleak hills—I thought the Grange would never come in view. I knew the turn of the road at which it generally could be seen; but now we had proceeded more than halfway up the oak avenue before it loomed forth from the dull grey night.
It was a vast building of red brick, somewhat of the Elizabethan style, with modern additions added quaintly here and there. The roof was gabled, the chimneys eccentric, while, above all, rose a bell tower.
The bell yet remained, though the rope had long rotted away; and when the rushing hurricanes from the hills swung it creakingly to and fro, occasionally the ponderous clapper striking the rusty sides, sent forth a low, hollow groaning sound, especially ghostly in the night season.
The reception-rooms were in the front—the more homely at the back; thus, as the carriage drew up, not a light broke the vast frontage to bid me welcome, while the footman’s knock reverberated mournfully in the large hall within.
In a moment, however, many lights gleamed, and the door opening, the old housekeeper stood curtseying to receive me.
‘And so you are the first at the old place, Master Frank? You are the first, and you are welcome!’ she remarked, as—I having warmly shaken her mittened hands—taking a lamp from the servant, she led the way to the back of the house. ‘Mr Oswald comes by the last train, and Miss Cicely does not arrive until tomorrow.’
We traversed a long, high corridor; and the light, casting our shadows in ghostly proportions on the walls, dark with age, gave an awesome, chilling aspect to one returning after years of absence to the home of his forefathers. The place, too, owing to its being so long shut up, possessed a damp, musty smell, which crept through the blood as did the fog without.
‘It’s been a dull time here, Master Frank, and I’m glad it’s over, and that Tregethan voices are again to sound in the old rooms. I’ve made everything as comfortable as I could.’
In speaking, she threw wide a door, disclosing beyond the family dining apartment—the ceiling low, the walls oak-panelled, that reflected the glorious fire of logs which crackled on the spacious hearth, while a lamp burned brightly on the centre table.
The aspect, so different to the other portion, cheered me, as wine cheers a fainting man; and, advancing, I exclaimed, ‘Ah, this looks like home indeed! Now, my dear old friend, come and tell me all the news; it’s long since we two had a chat together.’
‘Always the same—always the same, Master Frank,’ replied the housekeeper, highly gratified—‘ever ready to flatter an old woman by listening to her chattering. But there, I’ll do your bidding. True the place was your ancestors’, and must interest you. So there is the mulled claret, and now, Master Frank, you sit down and get warm, while I sit here.’
We each took our seat, and garrulously the old lady talked, while I listened.
Meanwhile the wind, which had risen in fury rattled the window-panes, and the fog began to lift—not without a struggle, though growing brighter one moment, to be denser the next.
‘I should think Oswald will scarcely risk the road tonight,’ I abruptly remarked. ‘The wind is a tempest; while once or twice I fancy I have seen snowflakes.’
‘Maybe, he’ll stop the night at Llandudyn; and perhaps it’s better, though we at Holme count nothing of these storms. We are used to them, and the Grange, is strong enough to stand their fury,’ rejoined the housekeeper. Then, with a cough, as if to dismiss the subject, she continued some domestic piece of intelligence which I, thinking of my brother, had interrupted.
Another hour passed. The Grange clock had beaten out ten; and, owing partly to the heat of the fire, partly to the rather prosy talk of my companion, I was dozing in my chair, when I was aroused by a sharp, startling cry.
I glanced quickly up, and my surprise changed to alarm, as my eyes rested on the housekeeper. She sat erect in her chair, rigid as in death, her head half-turned over her shoulder to the window, her face corpse-like in hue, her lips parted, her grey eyes dilated, and one hand raised as to arrest attention. Her attitude was that of attentive listening; her expression denoted unspeakable horror.
Had she gone mad?
Pulling myself up on my seat, I gazed at her in perplexity. Was it a case of catalepsy? Should I address her? Should I summon aid?
Before I could decide, she had sprung to her feet, her horror increasing; and darting to my side, as I also arose, clinging to me in mortal terror, her face still bent on the large recessed lattice window, she cried, ‘Oh Master Frank, did you not hear it? Heaven aid us! Listen, listen! There— it’s there! Ah, woe to the house of Tregethan! Blood—blood is again to stain its threshold!’
I stood utterly bewildered. What did the old woman mean? Had she, indeed, lost her reason? She was trembling like a leaf.
‘My good Mrs Lloyd,’ I ejaculated, ‘what, in heaven’s name, is the matter?’
‘Matter? What, are you a Tregethan, and cannot hear it?’ she asked, lifting her white face to mine. ‘There—there, it is coming again! Listen!’
Leaning forward, I instinctively obeyed.
There certainly was a singular sound in the storm—a strange, floating, weird shriek—blending with the tempest, yet not of it.
‘I hear what you mean,’ said I; ‘but it is only the wind among the hills. The storm is terrific.’
She shook her head with a smile.
‘Wind?’ she repeated. ‘No, no; I’ve lived long enough among the hills, and heard tempests enough to know the difference between them and that cry. I tell you, when it is heard, evil and bloodshed is coming to the
Tregethans. I am seventy now, but only once have I heard it before: then its warning was verified. It was before you, Master Frank, were born.’
‘Do you mean,’ I asked impressed, despite myself, and catching so much of her awe as to speak in whispers, ‘when my uncle Jaffery and my father quarrelled?’
‘Yes; it ended in a foolish, boyish duel in the plantation. Still, blood was shed; but, praise to heaven, that time life was spared. Ah, hark! It comes; three—three times—and nearer, nearer!’ cried the old woman, frantically wringing her hands. ‘The Lord be with us! Perhaps she will come; then bitter is the woe indeed!’
‘She—whom?’ I asked.
‘The Weird Woman.
Despite the effect the singular scene was beginning to have over me, I could not prevent a smile; but it speedily vanished. The housekeeper, approaching the table, had extinguished the lamp; then, returning, knelt crouching on the hearthrug at my feet, as if for protection as, extending her aged, wrinkled hand towards the casement, she said, in a low, thrilling whisper, ‘Look, Master Frank, at the window. Never move your gaze from it, if you would see her, for the Woman with the Dead Eyes goes by like a flash. Wait.’
Carried away by her strange manner, as though my will was subservient to hers, I complied.
A death-like silence reigned in the apartment, illumined only by the fire-light, which threw grotesque forms on the dark panelling, gave movement to the pictures of my ancestors suspended upon it, and darted bright, shifting lights on the broad lattice, beyond which was darkness, and the beating, howling wind.
I kept my eyes riveted upon the window. I no longer seemed to have a will of my own. A spell was on me. Minutes were as hours, marked by the quick breathing of the old housekeeper at my feet.
As I looked, the pall of darkness was abruptly broken; and—yes—I swear it—amid the gloom, there swelled out the floating form of a woman, her trailing garments of a dull red brown, saturated by rain, clung about her limbs; her long, red hair, streamed over her partly exposed shoulders. Her face was turned towards the room—towards us.
What a face! —cold, colourless, deathly white, as the hueless lips—with two large, dark, awful eyes gleaming forth, dilated as by some unearthly horror—blended with malignant triumph. But what was more awful yet, the eyes were dead fixed, staring, as if plucked from the face of a corpse-a face to freeze the blood of the strongest—to overturn the brain of the weakest.
The housekeeper shrieked aloud, and buried her face in her hands, while with an ejaculation of fear, I sank into my chair.
The whole had passed in a few seconds. The Weird Woman, with the Dead Eyes had indeed flashed by; but, ere she vanished, the long, bony, narrow hand had been directed at me; and, shivering as with an ague, I cowered under the icy stare.
The logs falling together aroused me; and angry, both with myself and the housekeeper, I leaped up, exclaiming, ‘Why, Mrs Lloyd, what an absurd donkey you have been making me by these old tales; listening to such stories the mind’s eye could conjure up anything. Pray, let us have the lamp again.’
She looked fixedly at me, as quietly she arose.
‘You saw it, Master Frank,’ she said. ‘There is evil coming. Pray heaven it is not to you!’
‘Nonsense!’ I retorted, irritably. ‘I could swear you had been reared among the hills. I gazed long enough to people the air with phantoms, and make my eyes ache to bursting. There, take off the glasses. Where is a light?’
‘Stay, Master Frank’—and she laid her hand impressively on my arm, as I bent to the logs— ‘promise not to tell a soul of this. It will be better not.’
‘Tell! not very likely, my good old lady, that I shall seek to make myself a laughing-stock,’ I rejoined. ‘Your claret was rather too abundant, I imagine, for its fumes to create such visions.
Mrs Lloyd shook her head.
‘You are trying to deceive yourself, Master Frank. You wish not to believe it; but mark my words, before the year is out, you’ll have cause to recall this night. Hark! here comes your brother.’
Carriage wheels were sounding in the avenue. Seizing the lamp in my hand, I hastened to the door.
It had been already opened as I reached it.
Oswald was coming up the broad steps, the snow falling about him.
‘My dear Oswald!’ I exclaimed, hurrying forward. ‘So, here you are, old fellow!’
‘Yes,’ he laughed, ‘like a certain personage, when he quits the lower regions—in a perfect whirlwind.’
He extended his hand. As I took it in mine, the bell in the tower gave one prolonged boom, which, echoing dolefully, fled away to the hills, where it was broken and lost.
I could not suppress the start it caused me. There appeared something ominous in the occurrence. As I turned to conduct Oswald to the dining-room, my eyes rested on the housekeeper’s features. They were perfectly white. She, too, had noticed the chill boom of the bell in the tower.
I found Oswald much changed; study, and the hard fight for gentlemanly subsistence, seemed to have bitten into his nature. Two wrinkles had sprung up from the eyebrows to the forehead, adding to the intellectuality of the countenance. The small mouth was graver, while the dark eyes were less mirthful, with an inner look, as of one brooding on silent thought. This, however, seemed to wear off as we conversed together on past, present, and future, enjoying the sumptuous supper prepared by the housekeeper, who did not appear again that night.
The hour was late before we separated; and soon after, Wearied by my day’s journey, I was sleeping heavily.
Towards morning, when slumber grew lighter, I was troubled by a strange dream. It seemed to come in rapid snatches—nothing was Continuous. All I felt certain upon was, that Oswald and the Weird Woman played parts in it.
Once I was battling my way over a barren waste, the wind and rain dashing full in my teeth. Yet I never swerved. It appeared compulsory that I should hurry on, though my feet felt bound with lead. Abruptly, a river was before me; there was no way to cross it, save by swimming. I plunged in. The water pressed so warm and heavy about my limbs that, with difficulty, I could move. Then the moon broke forth, and with a scream of horror, I saw that the river was one of blood, whilst Oswald, his face white, his dark eyes hateful, was regarding me with fiendish malice from the bank.
I scrambled out, sick and dizzy. My brother had vanished, but I hastened on. Then came a fearful rushing of waters in my ears; again Oswald and the Woman with the Dead Eyes were there; but a mist enveloped what took place. When I awoke, I could remember nothing. I was merely conscious that, despite the water being frozen in the caraffes and ewers, I was bathed in perspiration, and hanging half out of bed, my head within a few inches of the floor.
As my eyes opened, I was trembling violently, like one seized by panic. Speedily recovering myself, and assuming a more comfortable position, I drew the clothes about me, for I soon began to shiver, and exclaimed, ‘Confound that old housekeeper, for giving me the nightmare! Whatever was I dreaming about?’
But all my efforts to recall it were in vain. During the ensuing morning—nay, for days after— the dream haunted me, bringing with it a vague dread; but at the very instant I believed the subject of it was becoming lucid, a cloud enveloped it, giving it the shape of a reflection in a blurred mirror.
By the next morning the fog had disappeared before the hurricane wind, which, proud of its victory, had subsided into a low, purring breeze, and the sun shone out with a warmth that recalled the sweet-smelling, fallen leaves of autumn. It was just the right day for the advent of youth and beauty, and Cicely Mostyn was to arrive that morning, under the chaperonage of Mrs Bruce, an elderly connection on the father’s side.
Oswald and I had gone on the terrace to await her, but by some mistake the ladies missed the carriage sent to the station, and, taking a fly, had dismounted at the lodge-gates to walk up the avenue. Thus the first sight we had of Cicely Mostyn, was when—while we were chatting carelessly, cigar in mouth, listening for the carria
ge-wheels—she suddenly emerged from under the shadow of the oaks, into the full sunlight, within a few paces of the terrace-Mrs Bruce leaning on her arm.
Was this the prim, staid little ‘lassie, wi’ the lint-white locks’, about whom Oswald and I had been recalling many a childish incident? This young, beautiful girl, her soft cheek dimpled like a summer brook, who, stopping abruptly, half-shyly, half-curiously, regarded us?
Ah, Cissy, Cissy! that was the moment to me, which a man never forgets, whatever be his alloted span. It was the joy of heaven comprised in one delicious, earthly second.
Cicely Mostyn was about middle height, and only eighteen. Her form was slim and graceful; every move, every pose displaying new charms. Her complexion was transparently clear, flushed with a delicate rose tint. Her eyes were dark, arch, mirthful, yet tender; her mouth a Cupid’s treasury of smiles and man-traps; her hair like threads of brightest shimmering gold. But why describe her? Suffice it, that from that moment Cicely Mostyn was all the world to me.
I could not remove my gaze from her, not even to note the effect her loveliness had had on Oswald; but, side by side, we advanced to give our cousin greeting.
Cicely was muffled up in furs; her face peeping from beneath a coquettish hat, trimmed with blue ribbons, and when she spoke, it was with the most delightful hint of the Scottish accent imaginable. Winningly, yet bashfully, she returned our salutation, then introduced her companion.
Mrs Bruce was stout, with a matronly dignity; had soft, grey hair, bright happy eyes, and a face to smile at youth’s innocent follies, as if the fleeting years had not wholly made her forget that period in her own existence. She was a kindly adviser and friend.
With two such pleasant additions to the Holme Grange household, it need scarcely be said that the days passed rapidly. We talked, we played, we sang, we walked, rode, drove, and skated, when the weather permitted it. All the while, Christmas came creeping towards us—the Christmas that was to proclaim to whom the Holme should belong, and as each moment of the present became past, my love grew stronger.
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