Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
THE GREY ROOM
by Eden Phillpotts
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE PARTY II. AN EXPERIMENT III. AT THE ORIEL IV. "BY THE HAND OF GOD" V. THE UNSEEN MOVES VI. THE ORDER FROM LONDON VII. THE FANATIC VIII. THE LABORS OF THE FOUR IX. THE NIGHT WATCH X. SIGNOR VERGILIO MANNETTI XI. PRINCE DJEM XII. THE GOLDEN BULL XIII. TWO NOTES
CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE PARTY
The piers of the main entrance of Chadlands were of red brick, and uponeach reposed a mighty sphere of grey granite. Behind them stretched awaythe park, where forest trees, nearly shorn of their leaves at theedge of winter, still answered the setting sun with fires of thinningfoliage. They sank away through stretches of brake fern, and alreadyamid their trunks arose a thin, blue haze--breath of earth made visibleby coming cold. There was frost in the air, and the sickle of a new moonhung where dusk of evening dimmed the green of the western sky.
The guns were returning, and eight men with three women arrived at thelofty gates. One of the party rode a grey pony, and a woman walked oneach side of him. They chattered together, and the little company oftweed-clad people passed into Chadlands Park and trudged forward, wherethe manor house rose half a mile ahead.
Then an old man emerged from a lodge, hidden behind a grove of laureland bay within the entrance, and shut the great gates of scroll iron.They were of a flamboyant Italian period, and more arrestive thandistinguished. Panelled upon them, and belonging to a later day thanthey, had been imposed two iron coats of arms, with crest above andmotto beneath--the heraldic bearings of the present owner of Chadlands.He set store upon such things, but was not responsible for the work. Asurvival himself, and steeped in ancient opinions, his coat, won in aforgotten age, interested him only less than his Mutiny medal--his solepersonal claim to public honor. He had served in youth as a soldier, butwas still a subaltern when his father died and he came into his kingdom.
Now, Sir Walter Lennox, fifth baronet, had grown old, and his invinciblekindness of heart, his archaic principles, his great wealth, and thelimited experiences of reality, for which such wealth was responsible,left him a popular and respected man. Yet he aroused much exasperationin local landowners from his generosity and scorn of all economicprinciples; and while his tenants held him the very exemplar of alandlord, and his servants worshipped him for the best possible reasons,his friends, weary of remonstrance, were forced to forgive his badprecedents and a mistaken liberality quite beyond the power of theaverage unfortunate who lives by his land. But he managed his greatmanor in his own lavish way, and marvelled that other men declareddifficulties with problems he so readily solved. That night, after alittle music, the Chadlands' house party drifted to the billiard-room,and while most of the men, after a heavy day far afield, were content tolounge by a great open hearth where a wood fire burned, Sir Walter, whohad been on a pony most of the time, declared himself unwearied, anddemanded a game.
"No excuses, Henry," he said; and turned to a young man lounging in aneasy-chair outside the fireside circle.
The youth started. His eyes had been fixed on a woman sitting beside thefire, with her hand in a man's. It was such an attitude as sophisticatedlovers would only assume in private but the pair were not sophisticatedand lovers still, though married. They lacked self-consciousness, andthe husband liked to feel his wife's hand in his. After all, a thingimpossible until you are married may be quite seemly afterwards, andnone of their amiable elders regarded their devotion with cynicism.
"All right, uncle!" said Henry Lennox.
He rose--a big fellow with heavy shoulders, a clean-shaven, youthfulface, and flaxen hair. He had been handsome, save for a nose with abroken bridge, but his pale brown eyes were fine, and his firm mouth andchin well modelled. Imagination and reflection marked his countenance.
Sir Walter claimed thirty points on his scoring board, and gave a misswith the spot ball.
"I win to-night," he said.
He was a small, very upright man, with a face that seemed to belong tohis generation, and an expression seldom to be seen on a man youngerthan seventy. Life had not puzzled him; his moderate intellect had takenit as he found it, and, through the magic glasses of good health, goodtemper, and great wealth, judged existence a desirable thing and quiteeasy to conduct with credit. "You only want patience and a brain," healways declared. Sir Walter wore an eyeglass. He was growing bald, butpreserved a pair of grey whiskers still of respectable size. His face,indeed, belied him, for it was moulded in a stern pattern. One hadguessed him a martinet until his amiable opinions and easy-goingpersonality were manifested. The old man was not vain; he knew that aworld very different from his own extended round about him. But he waspuzzle-headed, and had never been shaken from his life-long complacencyby circumstances. He had been disappointed in love as a young man, andonly married late in life. He had no son, and was a widower--facts that,to his mind, quite dwarfed his good fortune in every other respect. Heheld the comfortable doctrine that things are always levelled up, and hehonestly believed that he had suffered as much sorrow and disappointmentas any Lennox in the history of the race.
His only child and her cousin, Henry Lennox, had been brought uptogether and were of an age--both now twenty-six. The lad was hisuncle's heir, and would succeed to Chadlands and the title; and it hadbeen Sir Walter's hope that he and Mary might marry. Nor had the youthany objection to such a plan. Indeed, he loved Mary well enough; therewas even thought to be a tacit understanding between them, and theygrew up in a friendship which gradually became ardent on the man's part,though it never ripened upon hers. But she knew that her father keenlydesired this marriage, and supposed that it would happen some day.
They were, however, not betrothed when the war burst upon Europe, andHenry, then one-and-twenty, went from the Officers' Training Corps tothe Fifth Devons, while his cousin became attached to the Red Cross andnursed at Plymouth. The accident terminated their shadowy romance andbrought real love into the woman's life, while the man found hishopes at an end. He was drafted to Mesopotamia, speedily fell sick ofjaundice, was invalided to India, and, on returning to the front, sawservice against the Turks. But chance willed that he won no distinction.He did his duty under dreary circumstances, while to his hatred of warwas added the weight of his loss when he heard that Mary had fallenin love. He was an ingenuous, kindly youth--a typical Lennox, who haddeveloped an accomplishment at Harrow and suffered for it by gettinghis nose broken when winning the heavy-weight championship of the publicschools in his nineteenth year. In the East he still boxed, and afterhis love story was ended, the epidemic of poetry-making took Henry also,and he wrote a volume of harmless verse, to the undying amazement of hisfamily.
For Mary Lennox the war had brought a sailor husband. Captain ThomasMay, wounded rather severely at Jutland, lost his heart to the plainbut attractive young woman with a fine figure who nursed him back tostrength, and, as he vowed, had saved his life. He was an impulsive manof thirty, brown-bearded, black-eyed, and hot-tempered. He came from alittle Somerset vicarage and was the only son of a clergyman, theRev. Septimus May. Knowing the lady as "Nurse Mary" only, and fallingpassionately in love for the first time in his life, he proposed on theday he was allowed to sit up, and since Mary Lennox shared his emotions,also for the first time, he was accepted before he even knew her name.
It is impossible to describe the force of love's advent for Mary Lennox.She had come to believe herself as vaguely committed to her cousin, andimagined that her affection for Henry amounted to as much as she wasever likely to feel for a man. But reality awakened her, and its glorydid not make her selfish, since her nature was n
ot constructed so tobe; it only taught her what love meant, and convinced her that she couldnever marry anybody on earth but the stricken sailor. And this she knewlong before he was well enough to give a sign that he even appreciatedher ministry. The very whisper of his voice sent a thrill through herbefore he had gained strength to speak aloud. And his deep tones, whenshe heard them, were like no voice that had fallen on her ear till then.The first thing that indicated restoring health was his request that hisbeard might be trimmed; and he was making love to her three days afterhe had been declared out of danger. Then did Mary begin to live, andlooking back, she marvelled how horses and dogs and a fishing-rod hadbeen her life till now. The revelation bewildered her and she wrote heremotions in many long pages to her cousin. The causes of such changesshe did not indeed specify, but he read between the lines, and knew itwas a man and not the war that had so altered and deepened her outlook.He had never done it, and he could not be angry with her now, for shehad pretended no ardor of emotion to him. Young though he was, he alwaysfeared that she liked him not after the way of a lover. He had hoped toopen her eyes some day, but it was given to another to do so.
He felt no surprise, therefore, when news of her engagement reached himfrom herself. He wrote the letter of his life in reply, and was at painsto laugh at their boy-and-girl attachment, and lessen any regret shemight feel on his account. Her father took it somewhat hardly at first,for he held that more than sufficient misfortunes, to correct thebalance of prosperity in his favor, had already befallen him. But he wasdeeply attached to his daughter, and her magical change under the newand radiant revelation convinced him that she had now awakened to anemotional fulness of life which could only be the outward sign of love.That she was in love for the first time also seemed clear; but he wouldnot give his consent until he had seen her lover and heard all there wasto know about him. That, however, did not alarm Mary, for she believedthat Thomas May must prove a spirit after Sir Walter's heart. And so hedid. The sailor was a gentleman; he had proposed without the faintestnotion to whom he offered his penniless hand, and when he did find out,was so bewildered that Mary assured her father she thought he wouldchange his mind.
"If I had not threatened him with disgrace and breach of promise, I dothink he would have thrown me over," she said.
And now they had been wedded for six months, and Mary sat by the greatlog fire with her hand in Tom's. The sailor was on leave, butexpected to return to his ship at Plymouth in a day or two. Then hisfather-in-law had promised to visit the great cruiser, for the Navy wasa service of which he knew little. Lennoxes had all been soldiers orclergymen since a great lawyer founded the race.
The game of billiards proceeded, and Henry caught his uncle in theeighties and ran out with an unfinished fifteen. Then Ernest Travers andhis wife--old and dear friends of Sir Walter--played a hundred up, thelady receiving half the game. Mr. Travers was a Suffolk man, and hadfagged for Sir Walter at Eton. Their comradeship had lasted a lifetime,and no year passed without reciprocal visits. Travers also looked atlife with the eyes of a wealthy man. He was sixty-five, pompous, large,and rubicund--a "backwoodsman" of a pattern obsolescent. His wife, tenyears younger than himself, loved pleasure, but she had done more thanher duty, in her opinion, and borne him two sons and a daughter. Theywere colorless, kind-hearted people who lived in a circle of others likethemselves. The war had sobered them, and at an early stage robbed themof their younger boy.
Nelly Travers won her game amid congratulations, and Tom May challengedanother woman, a Diana, who lived for sport and had joined thehouse party with her uncle, Mr. Felix Fayre-Michell. But MillicentFayre-Michell refused.
"I've shot six partridges, a hare, and two pheasants to-day," said thegirl, "and I'm half asleep."
Other men were present also of a type not dissimilar. It was aconventional gathering of rich nobodies, each a big frog in his ownlittle puddle, none known far beyond it and none with sufficientintellect or ability to create for himself any position in the worldsave that won by the accident of money made by their progenitors.
Had it been necessary for any of them to earn his living, only in somevery modest capacity and on a very modest plane might they have doneso. Of the entire company only one--the youngest--could claim even thecelebrity that attached to his little volume of war verses.
And now upon the lives of these every-day folk was destined to break anevent unique and extraordinary. Existence, that had meandered withoutpersonal incident save of a description common to them all, was, withintwelve hours, to confront men and women alike with reality. They weredestined to endure at close quarters an occurrence so astounding andunparalleled that, for once in their lives, they would find themselvesinteresting to the wider world beyond their own limited circuit, and,for their friends and acquaintance, the centre of a nine days' wonder.
Most of them, indeed, merely touched the hem of the mystery and were notinvolved therein, but even for them a reflected glory shone. They wereat least objects of attraction elsewhere, and for many months furnishedconversation of a more interesting and exciting character than any couldever claim to have provided before.
The attitude to such an event, and the opinions concerning it, of suchpeople might have been pretty accurately predicted; nor would it be fairto laugh at their terror and bewilderment, their confusion of tonguesand the fatuous theories they adventured by way of explanation. Forwiser than they--men experienced in the problems of humanity and trainedto solve its enigmas--were presently in no better case.
A very trivial and innocent remark was prelude to the disaster; and hadthe speaker guessed what his jest must presently mean in terms of humanmisery, grief, and horror, it is certain enough that he would not havespoken.
The women were gone to bed and the men sat around the fire smoking andadmiring Sir Walter's ancient blend of whisky. He himself had just flungaway the stump of his cigar and was admonishing his son-in-law. "Churchto-morrow, Tom. None of your larks. When first you came to see me,remember, you went to church twice on Sunday like a lamb. I'll have nobacksliding."
"Mary will see to that, governor."
"And you, Henry."
Sir Walter, disappointed of his hopes respecting his nephew anddaughter, had none the less treated the young man with tact andtenderness. He felt for Henry; he was also fond of him and doubted notthat the youth would prove a worthy successor. Thomas May was one withwhom none could quarrel, and he and his wife's old flame were now, afterthe acquaintance of a week, on friendly terms.
"I shan't fail, uncle."
"Will anybody have another whisky?" asked Sir Walter, rising.
It was the signal for departure and invariably followed the stroke ofa deep-mouthed, grandfather clock in the hall. When eleven sounded, themaster rose; but to-night he was delayed. Tom May spoke.
"Fayre-Michell has never heard the ghost story, governor," he said, "andMr. Travers badly wants another drink. If he doesn't have one, he won'tsleep all night. He's done ten men's work to-day."
Mr. Fayre-Michell spoke.
"I didn't know you had a ghost, Sir Walter. I'm tremendously interestedin psychical research and so on. If it's not bothering you and keepingyou up--."
"A ghost at Chadlands, Walter?" asked Ernest Travers. "You never toldme."
"Ghosts are all humbug," declared another speaker--a youthful "colonel"of the war.
"I deprecate that attitude, Vane. It may certainly be that our ghost isa humbug, or, rather, that we have no such thing as a ghost at all.And that is my own impression. But an idle generality is alwaysfutile--indeed, any generality usually is. You have, at least, no rightto say, 'Ghosts are all humbug.' Because you cannot prove they are. Theweight of evidence is very much on the other side."
"Sorry," said Colonel Vane, a man without pride. "I didn't know youbelieved in 'em, Sir Walter."
"Most emphatically I believe in them."
"So do I," declared Ernest Travers. "Nay, so does my wife--for the bestpossible reason. A friend of hers actually saw one."
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Mr. Fayre-Michell spoke.
"Spiritualism and spirits are two quite different things," he said. "Onemay discredit the whole business of spiritualism and yet firmly believein spirits."
He was a narrow-headed, clean-shaven man with grey hair and moustache.He had a small body on very long legs, and though a veteran now, wasstill one of the best game shots in the West of England.
Ernest Travers agreed with him. Indeed, they all agreed. Sir Walterhimself summed up.
"If you're a Christian, you must believe in the spirits of the dead,"he declared; "but to go out of your way to summon these spirits, to callthem from the next world back to ours, and to consult people who professto be able to do so--extremely doubtful characters, as a rule--that Ithink is much to be condemned. I deny that there are any living mediumsof communication between the spirit world and this one, and I shouldalways judge the man or woman who claimed such power to be a charlatan.But that spirits of the departed have appeared and been recognized bythe living, who shall deny?
"My son-in-law has a striking case in his own recent experience. Heactually knows a man who was going to sail on the Lusitania, and hisgreatest friend on earth, a soldier who fell on the Maine, appeared tohim and advised him not to do so. Tom's acquaintance could not say thathe heard words uttered, but he certainly recognized his dead friend ashe stood by his bedside, and he received into his mind a clear warningbefore the vision disappeared. Is that so, Tom?"
"Exactly so, sir. And Jack Thwaites--that was the name of the man in NewYork--told four others about it, and three took his tip and didn't sail.The fourth went; but he wasn't drowned. He came out all right."
"The departed are certainly proved to appear in their own ghostlypersons--nay, they often have been seen to do so," admitted Travers."But I will never believe they are at our beck and call, to bangtambourines or move furniture. We cannot ring up the dead as we ringup the living on a telephone. The idea is insufferable and indecent.Neither can anybody be used as a mouth-piece in that way, or tell us thepresent position or occupation and interests of a dead man--or what hesmokes, or how his liquor tastes. Such ideas degrade our impressionsof life beyond the grave. They are, if I may say so, disgustinglyanthropomorphic. How can we even take it for granted that our spiritswill retain a human form and human attributes after death?"
"It would be both weak-minded and irreligious to attempt to get at thesethings, no doubt," declared Colonel Vane.
"And they make confusion worse confounded by saying that evil spiritspretend sometimes to hoodwink us by posing as good spirits. Now, that'sgoing too far," said Henry Lennox.
"But your own ghost, Sir Walter?" asked Fayre-Michell. "It is a curiousfact that most really ancient houses have some such addition. Is ita family spectre? Is it fairly well authenticated? Does it reign in aparticular spot of house or garden? I ask from no idle curiosity. Itis a very interesting subject if approached in a proper spirit, as thePsychical Research Society, of which I am a member, does approach it."
"I am unprepared to admit that we have a ghost at all," repeated SirWalter. "Ancient houses, as you say, often get some legend tacked on tothem, and here a garden walk, or there a room, or passage, is associatedwith something uncanny and contrary to experience. This is an old Tudorplace, and has been tinkered and altered in successive generations.We have one room at the eastern end of the great corridor which alwayssuffered from a bad reputation. Nobody has ever seen anything in ourtime, and neither my father nor grandfather ever handed down any storyof a personal experience. It is a bedroom, which you shall see, if youcare to do so. One very unfortunate and melancholy thing happened in it.That was some twelve years ago, when Mary was still a child--two yearsafter my dear wife died."
"Tell us nothing that can cause you any pain, Walter," said ErnestTravers.
"It caused me very acute pain at the time. Now it is old history andmercifully one can look back with nothing but regret. One must, however,mention an incident in my father's time, though it has nothing to dowith my own painful experience. However, that is part of the story--ifstory it can be called. A death occurred in the Grey Room when I wasa child. Owing to the general vague feeling entertained against it,we never put guests there, and so long ago as my father's day it wasrelegated to a store place and lumber-store. But one Christmas, when wewere very full, there came quite unexpectedly on Christmas Eve an auntof my father--an extraordinary old character who never did anything thatmight be foreseen. She had never come to the family reunion before, yetappeared on this occasion, and declared that, as this was going to beher last Christmas on earth, she had felt it right to join the clan--myfather being the head of the family. Her sudden advent strained ourresources, I suppose, but she herself reminded us of the Grey Room, and,on hearing that it was empty, insisted on occupying it. The place is abedroom, and my father, who personally entertained no dislike or dreadof it, raised not the least objection to the strong-minded old lady'sproposal. She retired, and was found dead on Christmas morning. She hadnot gone to bed, but was just about to do so, apparently, when she hadfallen down and died. She was eighty-eight, had undergone a lengthycoach journey from Exeter, and had eaten a remarkably good dinner beforegoing to bed. Her maid was not suspected, and the doctor held her endin no way unusual. It was certainly never associated with anything butnatural causes. Indeed, only events of much later date served to remindme of the matter. Then one remembered the spoiled Christmas festivitiesand the callous and selfish anger of myself and various other youngpeople that our rejoicings should be spoiled and Christmas shorn of allits usual delights.
"But twelve years ago Mary fell ill of pneumonia--dangerously--and anurse had to be summoned in haste, since her own faithful attendant,Jane Bond, who is still with us, could not attend her both day andnight. A telegram to the Nurses' Institute brought Mrs. GilbertForrester--'Nurse Forrester,' as she preferred to be called. She was alittle bit of a thing, but most attractive and capable. She had been anurse before she married a young medical man, and upon his unfortunatedeath she returned to her profession. She desired her bedroom to be asnear the patient as possible, and objected, when she found it arrangedat the other end of the corridor. 'Why not the next room?' she inquired;and I had to tell her that the next room suffered from a bad nameand was not used. 'A bad name--is it unwholesome?' she asked; and Iexplained that traditions credited it with a sinister influence. 'Infact,' I said, 'it is supposed to be haunted. Not,' I added, 'thatanything has ever been seen, or heard in my lifetime; but nervouspeople do not like that sort of room, and I should never take theresponsibility of putting anybody into it without telling them.' Shelaughed. 'I'm not in the least afraid of ghosts, Sir Walter,' she said,'and that must obviously be my room, if you please. It is necessary Ishould be as near my patient as possible, so that I can be called atonce if her own nurse is anxious when I am not on duty.'
"Well, we saw, of course, that she was perfectly right. She was afearless little woman, and chaffed Masters and the maids while theylighted a fire and made the room comfortable. As a matter of fact, itis an exceedingly pleasant room in every respect. Yet I hesitated, andcould not say that I was easy about it. I felt conscious of a discomfortwhich even her indifference did not entirely banish. I attributed it tomy acute anxiety over Mary--also to a shadow of--what? It may havebeen irritation at Nurse Forrester's unconcealed contempt for mysuperstition. The Grey Room is large and commodious with a rather fineoriel window above our eastern porch. She was delighted, and rated mevery amusingly for my doubts. 'I hope you'll never call such a lovelyroom haunted again after I have gone,' said she.
"Mary took to her, and really seemed easier after she had been in thesick-room an hour. She loved young people, and had an art to win them.She was also a most accomplished and quick-witted nurse. There seemedto be quite a touch of genius about her. Her voice was melodious and hertouch gentle. I could appreciate her skill, for I was never far frommy daughter's side during that anxious day. Mrs. Forrester came at thecritical hours, but declared herself
very sanguine from the first.
"Night fell; the child was sleeping and Jane Bond arrived to relieve theother about ten o'clock. Then the lady retired, directed that she shouldbe called at seven o'clock, or at any moment sooner, if Jane wanted her.I sat with Jane I remember until two, and then turned in myself. BeforeI did so, Mary drank some milk and seemed to be holding her strengthwell. I was worn out, and despite my anxiety fell into deep sleep, anddid not wake until my man called me half an hour earlier than usual.What he told me brought me quickly to my senses and out of bed. NurseForrester had been called at seven o'clock, but had not responded. Norcould the maid open the door, for it was locked. A quarter of an hourlater the housekeeper and Jane Bond had loudly summoned her withoutreceiving any reply. Then they called me.
"I could only direct that the door should be forced open as speedily aspossible, and we were engaged in this task when Mannering, my medicalman, who shot with us to-day, arrived to see Mary. I told him what hadhappened. He went in to look at my girl, and felt satisfied that she washolding her own well--indeed, he thought her stronger; and just ashe told me so the door into the Grey Room yielded. Mannering and myhousekeeper, Mrs. Forbes, entered the room, while Masters, Fred Caunter,my footman, who had broken down the lock, and I remained outside.
"The doctor presently called me, and I went in. Nurse Forrester wasapparently lying awake in bed, but she was not awake. She slept thesleep of death. Her eyes were open, but glazed, and she was alreadycold. Mannering declared that she had been dead for a good many hours.Yet, save for a slight but hardly unnatural pallor, not a trace of deathmarked the poor little creature. An expression of wonder seemed to siton her features, but otherwise she was looking much as I had last seenher, when she said 'Good-night.' Everything appeared to be orderly inthe room. It was now flooded with the first light of a sunny morning,for she had drawn her blind up and thrown her window wide open. The poorlady passed out of life without a sound or signal to indicate trouble,for in the silence of night Jane Bond must have heard any alarm had sheraised one. To me it seemed impossible to believe that we gazed upona corpse. But so it was, though, as a matter of form, the doctor tookcertain measures to restore her. But animation was not suspended; it hadpassed beyond recall.
"There was held a post-mortem examination, and an inquest, of course;and Mannering, who felt deep professional interest, asked a friendfrom Plymouth to conduct the examination. Their report astounded allconcerned and crowned the mystery, for not a trace of any physicaltrouble could be discovered to explain Nurse Forrester's death. She wasthin, but organically sound in every particular, nor could the slightesttrace of poison be reported. Life had simply left her without anyphysical reason. Search proved that she had brought no drugs or any sortof physic with her, and no information to cast the least light came fromthe institution for which she worked. She was a favorite there, and thenews of her sudden death brought sorrow to her many personal friends.
"The physicians felt their failure to find a natural and scientificcause for her death. Indeed, Dr. Mordred, from Plymouth, an eminentpathologist, trembled not a little about it, as Mannering afterwardstold me. The finite mind of science hates, apparently, to be faced withany mystery beyond its power to explain. It regards such an incidentas a challenge to human intellect, and does not remember that we areencompassed with mystery as with a garment, and that every day and everynight are laden with phenomena for which man cannot account, and neverwill.
"Nurse Forrester's relations--a sister and an old mother--came to thefuneral. Also her dearest woman friend, another professional nurse,whose name I do not recollect. She was buried at Chadlands, and hergrave lies near our graves. Mary loves to tend it still, though to herthe dead woman is but a name. Yet to this day she declares that she canremember Nurse Forrester's voice through her fever--gentle, yet musicaland cheerful. As for me, I never mourned so brief an acquaintanceso heartily. To part with the bright creature, so full of life andkindliness, and to stand beside her corpse but eight or nine hoursafterwards, was a chastening and sad experience."
Sir Walter became pensive, and did not proceed for the space of aminute. None, however, spoke until he had again done so:
"That is the story of what is called our haunted room, so far as thisgeneration is concerned. What grounds for its sinister reputationexisted in the far past I know not--only a vague, oral tradition came tomy father from his, and it is certain that neither of them attached anypersonal importance to it. But after such a peculiar and unfortunatetragedy, you will not be surprised that I regarded the chamber as ruledout from my domiciliary scheme, and denied it to any future guests."
"Do you really associate the lady's death with the room, Walter?" askedMr. Travers.
"Honestly I do not, Ernest. And for this reason: I deny that anymalignant, spiritual personality would ever be permitted by the Creatorto exercise physical powers over the living, or destroy human beingswithout reason or justice. The horror of such a possibility to thenormal mind is sufficient argument against it. Causes beyond ourapparent knowledge were responsible for the death of Nurse Forrester;but who shall presume to say that was really so? Why imagine anything soirregular? I prefer to think that had the post-mortem been conducted bysomebody else, subtle reasons for her death might have appeared. Scienceis fallible, and even specialists make outrageous mistakes."
"You believe she died from natural causes beyond the skill of thoseparticular surgeons to discover?" asked Colonel Vane.
"That is my opinion. Needless to say, I should not tell Mannering so.But to what other conclusion can a reasonable man come? I do not, ofcourse, deny the supernatural, but it is weak-minded to fall back uponit as the line of least resistance."
Then Fayre-Michell repeated his question. He had listened with intenseinterest to the story.
"Would you deny that ghosts, so to call them, can be associated with oneparticular spot, to the discomfort and even loss of reason, or life, ofthose that may be in that spot at the psychological moment, Sir Walter?"
"Emphatically I would deny it," declared the elder. "However tragic thecircumstances that might have befallen an unfortunate being in life atany particular place, it is, in my opinion, monstrous to suppose hisdisembodied spirit will hereafter be associated with the place. Wemust be reasonable, Felix. Shall the God Who gave us reason be Himselfunreasonable?"
"And yet there are authentic--However, I admit the weight of yourargument."
"At the same time," ventured Mr. Travers, "none can deny that manystrange and terrible things happen, from hidden causes quite beyondhuman power to explain."
"They do, Ernest; and so I lock up my Grey Room and rule it out of ourscheme of existence. At present it is full of lumber--old furniture anda pack of rubbishy family portraits that only deserve to be burned, butwill some day be restored, I suppose."
"Not on my account, Uncle Walter," said Henry Lennox. "I have no morerespect for them than yourself. They are hopeless as art."
"No, no one must restore them. The art is I believe very bad, as yousay, but they were most worthy people, and this is the sole memorialremaining of them."
"Do let us see the room, governor," urged Tom May. "Mary showed it to methe first time I came here, and I thought it about the jolliest spot inthe house."
"So it is, Tom," said Henry. "Mary says it should be called the RoseRoom, not the grey one."
"All who care to do so can see it," answered Sir Walter, rising. "Wewill look in on our way to bed. Get the key from my key-cabinet in thestudy, Henry. It's labelled 'Grey Room.'"
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