Chapter 14. Black Spirits And White

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_ CHAPTER XIV. BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE

The evening fell close and hot. Gerald Merryweather, taking his way to Fernley House, noticed the great white thunder-heads peering above the eastern horizon. "There'll be trouble by and by," he said.

"I wonder, oh, I wonder,
If they're afraid of thunder.

"Ever lapsing into immortal verse, my son. You are the Lost Pleiad of Literature, that's what you are; and a mighty neat phrase that is. Oh, my Philly, why aren't you here, to take notice of my coruscations? Full many a squib is born to blaze unseen, and waste its fizzing--Hello, you, sir! Stop a minute, will you?"

A small boy was scudding along the path before him. He turned his head, but on seeing Gerald he only doubled his rate of speed. Merton was a good runner for his size, but it was ill trying to race the Gambolling Greyhound, as Gerald had been called at school. Two or three quick steps, two or three long, lopping bounds, and Master Merton was caught, clutched by the collar, and held aloft, wriggling and protesting.

"You let me go!" whined Merton. "Oh, please Mr. Merryweather, don't stop me now. It's very important, indeed, it is."

"Just what I was thinking," said Gerald. "We'll go along together, my son. I wouldn't squirm, if I were you; destructive to the collar; believe one who has suffered. What! it is not so many years. Take courage, small cat, and strive no more!"

Merton, after one heroic wriggle, gave up the battle, and walked beside his captor in sullen silence.

"Come!" said Gerald. "Let us be merry, my son. As to that noise, now!"

"What noise?" asked Merton, peevishly.

"The roarer, my charmer. Why beat about the bush? You frightened the old--that is, you alarmed both your cousins, with the joyful instrument known among the profane as a roarer. Tush! Why attempt concealment? Have I not roared, when time was? And a very pretty amusement, I could never deny; but I wouldn't try it again, that's all. You hear, young sir? I wouldn't try it again."

"I don't know what you mean--" Merton began; but at this Gerald lifted him gently from the ground by his shirt-collar, and, waving him about, intimated gently that it would not be good for his health to tell lies.

"Well, I didn't do it, anyhow!" Merton protested. "Honest, I did not."

"Honesty is not written in your expressive countenance, Master Merton Montfort," said Gerald. "However, it may be so. We shall see. Meantime, young fellow, and merely as between man and man, you understand, it would be money in your youthful pocket if you could acquire the habit of looking a person in the eyes, and not directing that cherubic gaze at the waistcoat buttons, or even the necktie, of your in-ter-loc-utor. Now, here we are at the house, and you may go, my interesting popinjay. Bear in mind that my eye is upon you. Adieu! adieu! Rrrrrememberrrr me!!!"

Gerald put such dramatic fervour into this farewell that Merton was as heartily frightened as he could have desired, and scurried away without stopping to look behind.

"That's not such a very nice little boy, I believe," said Gerald. "T'other one is worth a cool dozen of Master Merton. Well, they won't do much mischief while I am to the fore. Though I should be loth to interfere with the end they probably have in view. I should like full well myself to make that-- Ah, good evening, Miss Montfort!"

* * * * *

It was so hot after tea, that even Miss Sophronia made no suggestion of sitting in the house. They all assembled on the verandah, which faced south, so that generally here, if anywhere, a breath of evening coolness might be had. To-night, however, no such breath was to be felt. The thunder-heads had crept up, up, half-way across the sky; their snowy white had changed to blackish blue; and now and again, there opened here or there what looked like a deep cavern, filled with lurid flame; and then would follow a long, rolling murmur, dying away into faint mutterings and losing itself among the treetops.

Miss Sophronia was very uneasy. At one moment she declared she must go into the house, she could not endure this; the next she vowed she would rather see the danger as it came, and she would never desert the others, never.

"Do you think there is danger, my dear young man?" she asked, for perhaps the tenth time.

"Why, no!" said Gerald. "No more than usual, Miss Montfort. These trees, you see, are a great protection. If the lightning strikes one of them, of course it will divert the fluid from the house. If you have no iron about your person--"

But here Miss Sophronia interrupted him. She begged to be excused for a moment, and went into the house. When she returned, her head was enveloped in what looked like a "tidy" of purple wool, while her feet were shuffling along in a pair of blue knitted slippers.

"There!" she said, "I have removed every atom of metal, my dear young man, down to my hairpins, I assure you; and there were nails in my shoes, Margaret. My dear, I advise you to follow my example. So important, I always say, to obey the dictates of science. I shall always consider it a special providence that sent this dear young man to us at this trying time. Go at once, dearest Margaret, I implore you."

But Margaret refused to adopt any such measures of precaution. She was enjoying the slow oncoming of the storm; she had seldom seen anything more beautiful, she thought, and Gerald agreed with her. He was sitting near her, and had taken Merton on his knee, to that young gentleman's manifest discomposure. He wriggled now and then, and muttered some excuse for getting down, but Gerald blandly assured him each time that he was not inconveniencing him in the least, and begged him to make himself comfortable, and entirely at home. Meantime, Margaret had called Basil and Susan D. to her side, and was holding a hand of each, calling upon them from time to time to see the wonderful beauty of the approaching storm. They responded readily enough, and were really interested and impressed. Once or twice, it is true, Basil stole a glance at his sister, and generally found her looking at him in a puzzled, inquiring fashion; then he would shake his head slightly, and give himself up once more to watching the sky.

It was a very extraordinary sky. The clouds, now deep purple, covered it almost from east to west; only low down in the west a band of angry orange still lingered, and added to the sinister beauty of the scene. The red caverns opened deeper and brighter, and now and again a long, zigzag flash of gold stood out for an instant against the black, and following it came crack upon crack of thunder, rolling and rumbling over their heads. But still the air hung close and heavy, still there was no breath of wind, no drop of rain.

Sitting thus, and for the moment silent, there came, in a pause of the thunder, a new sound; a sound that some of them, at least, knew well. Close at hand, rising apparently from the very wall at their side, came the long, eerie wail of the night before. Louder and louder it swelled, till it rang like a shriek in their ears, then suddenly it broke and shuddered itself away, till only the ghost of a sound crept from their ears, and was lost. Margaret and Gerald both sprang to their feet, the girl held the children's hands fast in hers, the lad clutched the boy in his arms till he whimpered and cried; their eyes met, full of inquiry, the same thought flashing from blue eyes and gray. Not the children? What, then? Before Gerald could speak, Miss Sophronia was clinging to him again, shrieking and crying; calling upon him to save her; but this time Gerald put her aside with little ceremony.

"If you'll take this boy!" he cried. "Hold him tight, please, and don't let him get off. I'm going--if I may?" he looked swift inquiry at Margaret.

"Oh, yes, yes!" cried the girl. "Do go! We are all right. Cousin Sophronia, you _must_ let him go."

Dropping Merton into the affrighted lady's arms, the lithe, active youth was in the house in an instant, following the Voice of Fernley. There it came again, rising, rising,--the cry of a lost soul, the wail of a repentant spirit.

"A roarer, by all means!" said young Merryweather. "But where, and by whom?" He ran from side to side, laying his ear against the wall here, there, following the sound. Suddenly he stopped short, like a dog pointing. Here, in this thickness of the wall, was it? Then, there must be a recess, a something. What corresponded to this jog? Ha! that little low door, almost hidden by the great picture of the boar-hunt. Locked? No; only sticking, from not having been opened, perhaps, for years. It yielded. He rushed in,--the door closed behind him with a spring. He found himself in total darkness,--darkness filled with a hideous cry, that rang out sharp and piercing,--then fell into sudden silence.

"Is it you, Master Merton?" said a whisper. "I didn't wait; I thought maybe--"

Gerald stretched out his arm, and grasped a solid form. Instantly he was grasped in return by a pair of strong arms,--grasped and held with as powerful a grip as his own. A full minute passed, two creatures clutching each other in the pit-dark, listening to each other's breathing, counting each other's heart-beats. Then--

"Who are you?" asked Gerald, under his breath.

"None of your business!" was the reply, low, but prompt. "Who are you, if it comes to that?"

"Why,--why, you're a woman!"

"And you're a man, and that's worse. What are you doing here?"

"I am taking tea here. I'm a visitor. I have been here all the evening."

"And I've been here twenty years. I'm the cook."

The young man loosed his hold, and dropped on the floor. He rocked back and forth, in silent convulsions of laughter.

"The cook! Great Caesar, the cook! Oh, dear me! Stop me, somebody. What--what did you do it for?" he gasped, between the paroxysms.

"Hush! Young Mr. Merryweather, is it? Do be quiet, sir! We're close by the verandah. Was--was she frightened, sir?"

"She? Who? One of 'em was."

"She--the old one. I wouldn't frighten Miss Margaret; but she has too much sense. Was the other one scared, sir?"

"Into fits, very near. You did it well, Mrs. Cook! I couldn't have done it better,--look here! I shall have to tell them, though. I came expressly to find out--"

Groping in the dark, Frances clutched his arm again, this time in a gentler grasp. "Don't you do it, sir!" she whispered. "Young gentleman, don't you do it! If you do, she'll stay here all her days. No one can't stand her, sir, and this were the only way. Hark! Save us! What's that?"

No glimmer of light could penetrate to the closet where they stood, in the thickness of the wall, but a tremendous peal of thunder shook the house, and Miss Sophronia's voice could be heard calling frantically on Gerald to come back.

"I must go," said Gerald. "I--I won't give you away, Mrs. Cook. Shake!"

"You're a gentleman, sir," replied Frances. They shook hands in the dark, and Gerald ran out. Even as he opened the door the storm broke. A violent blast of wind, a blinding flare, a rattling volley of thunder, and down came the rain.

A rush, a roar, the trampling of a thousand horses; and overhead the great guns bellowing, and the flashes coming and going--it was a wild scene. The family had come in, and were all standing in the front hall. All? No, two, only,--Margaret and Miss Sophronia. In the confusion and tumult, the children had escaped, and were gone. Margaret, a little pale, but perfectly composed, met Gerald with a smile, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for young gentlemen to walk out of the wall. She was supporting Miss Sophronia, who had quite lost her head, and was crying piteously that they would die together, and that whoever escaped must take her watch and chain back to William. "Poor William, what will become of him and those helpless babes?"

"It's all right, Miss Montfort," said Gerald, cheerfully. "I ran the noise down, and it was the simplest thing in the world. Nothing to be alarmed about, I do assure you; nothing."

"What was it?" asked Margaret, in an undertone.

"I'll tell you by and by," replied the young man, in the same tone. "Not now, please; I promised--somebody. You shall know all in good time."

His look of bright confidence was not to be resisted. Margaret nodded cheerfully, and submitted to be mystified in her own home by an almost total stranger. Indeed, the Voice of Fernley had suddenly sunk into insignificance beside the Voice of Nature. The turmoil outside grew more and more furious. At length a frightful crash announced that the lightning had struck somewhere very near the house. This was the last straw for poor Miss Sophronia. She fled up-stairs, imploring Gerald and Margaret to follow her. "Let us die together!" she cried. "I am responsible for your young lives; we will pass away in one embrace. The long closet, Margaret! It is our only chance of life,--the long closet!"

The long closet, as it was called, was in reality a long enclosed passage, leading from the Blue Room, where Miss Sophronia slept, to one of the spare chambers beyond. It was a dim place, lighted only by a transom above the door. Here were kept various ancient family relics which would not bear the light of day; a few rusty pictures, some ancient hats, and, notably, a bust of some deceased Montfort, which stood on a shelf, covered with a white sheet, like a half-length ghost. Margaret did not think this gloomy place at all a cheerful place for a nervous woman in a thunder-storm; so, nodding to Gerald to follow, she ran up-stairs. But before she reached the landing, terrific shrieks began to issue from the upper floor; shrieks so agonising, so ear-piercing, that they dominated even the clamour of the storm. Margaret flew, and Gerald flew after. What new portent was here? Breathless, Margaret reached the door of the long closet. It stood open. On the floor inside crouched Miss Sophronia, uttering the frantic screams which rang through the house. Apparently she had lost the use of her limbs from terror, else she would not have remained motionless before the figure which was advancing towards her from the gloom of the long passage. First a dusky whiteness glimmered from the black of the further end, where the half-ghost sat on its shelf; then gradually the whiteness detached itself, took shape,--if it could be called shape,--emerged into the dim half-light,--came on slowly, silently. Shrouded, like the ghostly bust behind it, tall and slender, with dark locks escaping beneath the hood or cowl that drooped low over its face,--with one hand raised, and pointing stiffly at the unhappy woman,--the figure came on--and on--till it saw Margaret. Then it stopped. Next came in view the bright, eager face of Gerald Merryweather, looking over Margaret's shoulder. And at that, the spectre began, very slowly, and with ineffable dignity, to retreat.

"Exclusive party," whispered Gerald. "Objects to our society, Miss Montfort. Shall I head him off, or let him go?"

Margaret made no reply; she was bending over the poor lady on the floor, trying to make her hear, trying to check the screams which still rang out with piercing force.

"Cousin Sophronia! Cousin, do stop! Do listen to me! It is a trick, a naughty, naughty trick; nothing else in the world. Do, please, stop screaming, and listen to me. Oh, what shall I do with her?" This remark was addressed to Gerald; but that young gentleman was no longer beside her. He had been keeping his eye on the spectre, which slowly, softly glided back and back, until it melted once more into the thick blackness at the further end. Gerald dodged out into the hall, and ran along the outer passage, to meet, as he expected, the ghost full and fair at the other door. "Run!" cried a small voice. "I'll hold him; run!" Gerald was grasped once more, this time by a pair of valiant little hands which did their best, and which he put aside very gently, seeing a petticoat beneath them. "You sha'n't catch him!" cried the second spectre, clinging stoutly to his legs.

"Twice he wrung her hands in twain,
But the small hands closed again!"

Meantime the spectre-in-chief had darted back into the closed passage. There was a crash. The half-ghost toppled over as he ran against it, and was shivered on the floor, adding another noise to the confusion. The phantom raced along the passage, took a flying leap over Miss Sophronia's prostrate form, revealing, had any looked, an unsuspected blackness of leg beneath the flowing white, and scudded along the square upper hall. By this time Gerald was at his heels again, and a pretty race it was. Round the hall, up the stairs, and round the landing of the attic flight. At the attic door the spectre wavered an instant,--then turned, and dashed down-stairs again. Once more round the upper hall, now down the great front staircase, gathering his skirts as he went, the black legs now in good evidence, and making wonderful play. A good runner, surely. But the Greyhound was gaining; he was upon him. The phantom gave a wild shriek, gained the front door with one desperate leap, and plunged, followed by his pursuer, into the arms of a gentleman who stood in the doorway, in the act of entering.

"Easy, there!" said Mr. Montfort, receiving pursuer and pursued with impartial calm. "Is it the Day of Judgment, or what?" _

Read next: Chapter 15. A Departure

Read previous: Chapter 13. Who Did It?

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