CHAPTER V.AUNT DINAH IS IN THE HORRORS, AND DOCTOR DRAKE PUTS HIS NIGHTCAP IN HIS POCKET.“I wish to say good-bye to you very kindly,” said Aunt Dinah, quite sadly and gently, and somehow not like herself, “and—and I’ve tried to keep up; I know it must happen, and I’m sure it is for the best, but⸺”“I hope and expect, my dear Dinah,” interposed Miss Letty, sharply—she was pulling on her worsted “wrists”—“to see you in the enjoyment of many years of your accustomed health and spirits, and I have no doubt, humanly speaking, that I shall.”Miss Letty was quiet and peremptory, but also a little excited. And the doctor, for want of something better to do, cleared his voice, in a grand abstraction, and wound up his watch slowly, and held it to his ear, nobody knew exactly why.“You won’t believe me, but I know it, and so will you—too late; to-morrow night at twelve o’clock I shall be dead. I’ve tried to keep up—I have; I’ve tried it; but oh! Ho, ho, hoo, ooh,” and poor Aunt Dinah quite broke down, and cried and hooted hysterically.Dr. Drake had now before him an intelligible case, and took the command accordingly with decision. Upwent the window; cold water was there, and spirit of hartshorn. And when she had a little recovered, the doctor, who was a good-natured fellow, said—“Now, Miss Perfect, Ma’am, it won’t do, I tell you; it’s only right; you may want some assistance; and if, as an old friend, you’ll allow me to return and remain here for the night, a sofa, or an armchair, anything, I’ll be most happy, I do assure you.”But Aunt Dinah, with many thanks, said, “No,” peremptorily, and wilful man or woman, who will contend with?So, like the awful banquet in Macbeth, Miss Dinah Perfect’s tea-party broke down and up, and the guests,somewhat scared, got into their walking wrappers, rather silently, and their entertainer remained behind unstrung and melancholic.But William Maubray, who came down to assist in the rummage for cloaks and umbrellas, asked leave, in his blunt modest way, to accompany Miss Letty and her brother, the doctor, to Saxton.Now there seemed something real and grisly in Aunt Dinah’s terror, which a little infected William Maubray; and the little party marched in silence along the frost-hardened road, white in moonlight, with the bare switch-like shadows of the trees across it, on their way to the pretty old town of Saxton.At last the doctor said—“She won’t miss you, do you think?”“She told me she’d like to be quiet for half an hour, and I should be so much obliged if you could tell me, whether you really, that is,stillthink that she ought to have a medical man in attendance to-night.”“Why, you know what hysteria is. Well, she is in a highly hysterical state. She’sa woman who resists; itwould be safer, you see, if she gave way and cried a bit now and then, when nature prompts, but she won’t, except under awful high pressure, and then it might be serious; those things sometimes run off into fits.”And so the doctor lectured William upon his aunt’s nerves, until they had arrived at the door of his snug house in the High Street.Here they shook hands; but William Maubray, who was unhappy about Aunt Dinah, after Miss Letty had mounted to her chamber, very urgently entreated the doctor to return and see how it might end.With a bottle of valerian, his slippers, and a nightcap in his pocket, Doctor Drake did consent to return, and be smuggled into Gilroyd Hall.“I don’t know what to make of that spirit-rapping quite,” said the doctor, as side by side they approached the Hall. “There’s a quantity of books published on it—very unaccountable if half what they say is true. I suppose you’ve read it all. You read a lot, Miss Perfect tells me.”“I’ve read very little about it, except in the papers. She fancies she has had a message, telling her she is to die sometime to-morrow. I can’t believe there’s really anything more than self-deception; but is there not a danger?”“How?” asked the doctor.“I mean, being so nervous as you suppose, and quite convinced that she is to die at a particular time; might not her own mind—you know Lord Lyttelton died in consequence of such a persuasion.”William paused, Doctor Drake lowered, between his fingers, the cigar he was smoking, and they came to a halt, with a little wheel to the left, and the doctor, with his head aside, blowing the smoke up in a thin stream,looked with a thoughtful scrutiny up at the clear bright moon; perhaps a not unsuitable source of inspiration upon their crazy theme.“I forgetwhichLord Lyttelton that was,” said the doctor, wisely. “Isn’t itLyttelton, you say? But the thing is quite possible. There’s a spirit you know she’s always talking about. She calls him Henbane. Egad, Sir, I was devilish near laughing at tea when she named him so suddenly that time; I’d have been up a tree if I had, you know. You did not see what she was at, but I did. That Henbane’s her gospel, egad, and she thinks it was he who told her—d’ye see? Come along. She’ll be wondering where you are.”So on they went towards Gilroyd Hall, whose outline, black and sharp, against the luminous sky, was relieved at one point by the dull glow of candle-light through the red curtains of what William Maubray knew to be Aunt Dinah’s bed-chamber window.“She is in her room, I think—there’s light in her window,” said William. The doctor nodded, chucking his cigar stump far away, for he knew Aunt Dinah’s antipathy to tobacco, and they were now on the door-step. He was thinking, if the case were to end tragically, what a capital paper he would make of it, beside the interesting letter he would send to the editor of theSpatula.“Winnie’s bin a callin’ over the stairs for you, Master Willie. Missis wants ye to her room,” said Tom, who awaited them on the door-steps.“I’ll sit by the fire in the study,” whispered the doctor. “I don’t mind sitting up a night now and then. Give me a cloak or something. There’s a sofa, and I’ll do very well.”The principle of life was strong in Aunt Dinah, and three hours later that active-minded lady was lying wideawake on her bed, with a variety of topics, not all consisting with the assumed shortness of her hours, drifting in succession through her head. The last idea that struck her was the most congruous, and up she jumped, made a wild toilet, whose sole principle was warmth, tied a faded silk handkerchief over her nightcap, across her ears, and with her long white flannel dressing-gown about her, and a taper in her hand, issued, like the apparition of the Bleeding Nun, upon the gallery, and tapped sharply on William Maubray’s door.“William, William!” she called as she tapped, and from within William answered drowsily to the summons.“Wait a moment,” said the lady, and“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,And stood at William’s feet.”“Wemusthave aséance, my dear boy; I’m going to wake up old Winnie. It certainly has a connexion with your arrival; but anything like the cracking, knocking, and creaking ofeverything, I’ve never yet heard. I have no doubt—so sure as you sit there”—(William was sitting up in his bed with glazed eyes, and senses only half awake)—“that your poor dear mother is here to-night. We’resureof Henbane; and—just get your clothes on—I’m going for Winnie, and we meet in the study, mind, in five minutes.”And Aunt Dinah, having lighted William’s candle, disappeared, leaving him with a fund of cheerful ideas to make his yawning and bewildered toilet.
CHAPTER V.
AUNT DINAH IS IN THE HORRORS, AND DOCTOR DRAKE PUTS HIS NIGHTCAP IN HIS POCKET.
AUNT DINAH IS IN THE HORRORS, AND DOCTOR DRAKE PUTS HIS NIGHTCAP IN HIS POCKET.
AUNT DINAH IS IN THE HORRORS, AND DOCTOR DRAKE PUTS HIS NIGHTCAP IN HIS POCKET.
“I wish to say good-bye to you very kindly,” said Aunt Dinah, quite sadly and gently, and somehow not like herself, “and—and I’ve tried to keep up; I know it must happen, and I’m sure it is for the best, but⸺”
“I hope and expect, my dear Dinah,” interposed Miss Letty, sharply—she was pulling on her worsted “wrists”—“to see you in the enjoyment of many years of your accustomed health and spirits, and I have no doubt, humanly speaking, that I shall.”
Miss Letty was quiet and peremptory, but also a little excited. And the doctor, for want of something better to do, cleared his voice, in a grand abstraction, and wound up his watch slowly, and held it to his ear, nobody knew exactly why.
“You won’t believe me, but I know it, and so will you—too late; to-morrow night at twelve o’clock I shall be dead. I’ve tried to keep up—I have; I’ve tried it; but oh! Ho, ho, hoo, ooh,” and poor Aunt Dinah quite broke down, and cried and hooted hysterically.
Dr. Drake had now before him an intelligible case, and took the command accordingly with decision. Upwent the window; cold water was there, and spirit of hartshorn. And when she had a little recovered, the doctor, who was a good-natured fellow, said—
“Now, Miss Perfect, Ma’am, it won’t do, I tell you; it’s only right; you may want some assistance; and if, as an old friend, you’ll allow me to return and remain here for the night, a sofa, or an armchair, anything, I’ll be most happy, I do assure you.”
But Aunt Dinah, with many thanks, said, “No,” peremptorily, and wilful man or woman, who will contend with?
So, like the awful banquet in Macbeth, Miss Dinah Perfect’s tea-party broke down and up, and the guests,somewhat scared, got into their walking wrappers, rather silently, and their entertainer remained behind unstrung and melancholic.
But William Maubray, who came down to assist in the rummage for cloaks and umbrellas, asked leave, in his blunt modest way, to accompany Miss Letty and her brother, the doctor, to Saxton.
Now there seemed something real and grisly in Aunt Dinah’s terror, which a little infected William Maubray; and the little party marched in silence along the frost-hardened road, white in moonlight, with the bare switch-like shadows of the trees across it, on their way to the pretty old town of Saxton.
At last the doctor said—
“She won’t miss you, do you think?”
“She told me she’d like to be quiet for half an hour, and I should be so much obliged if you could tell me, whether you really, that is,stillthink that she ought to have a medical man in attendance to-night.”
“Why, you know what hysteria is. Well, she is in a highly hysterical state. She’sa woman who resists; itwould be safer, you see, if she gave way and cried a bit now and then, when nature prompts, but she won’t, except under awful high pressure, and then it might be serious; those things sometimes run off into fits.”
And so the doctor lectured William upon his aunt’s nerves, until they had arrived at the door of his snug house in the High Street.
Here they shook hands; but William Maubray, who was unhappy about Aunt Dinah, after Miss Letty had mounted to her chamber, very urgently entreated the doctor to return and see how it might end.
With a bottle of valerian, his slippers, and a nightcap in his pocket, Doctor Drake did consent to return, and be smuggled into Gilroyd Hall.
“I don’t know what to make of that spirit-rapping quite,” said the doctor, as side by side they approached the Hall. “There’s a quantity of books published on it—very unaccountable if half what they say is true. I suppose you’ve read it all. You read a lot, Miss Perfect tells me.”
“I’ve read very little about it, except in the papers. She fancies she has had a message, telling her she is to die sometime to-morrow. I can’t believe there’s really anything more than self-deception; but is there not a danger?”
“How?” asked the doctor.
“I mean, being so nervous as you suppose, and quite convinced that she is to die at a particular time; might not her own mind—you know Lord Lyttelton died in consequence of such a persuasion.”
William paused, Doctor Drake lowered, between his fingers, the cigar he was smoking, and they came to a halt, with a little wheel to the left, and the doctor, with his head aside, blowing the smoke up in a thin stream,looked with a thoughtful scrutiny up at the clear bright moon; perhaps a not unsuitable source of inspiration upon their crazy theme.
“I forgetwhichLord Lyttelton that was,” said the doctor, wisely. “Isn’t itLyttelton, you say? But the thing is quite possible. There’s a spirit you know she’s always talking about. She calls him Henbane. Egad, Sir, I was devilish near laughing at tea when she named him so suddenly that time; I’d have been up a tree if I had, you know. You did not see what she was at, but I did. That Henbane’s her gospel, egad, and she thinks it was he who told her—d’ye see? Come along. She’ll be wondering where you are.”
So on they went towards Gilroyd Hall, whose outline, black and sharp, against the luminous sky, was relieved at one point by the dull glow of candle-light through the red curtains of what William Maubray knew to be Aunt Dinah’s bed-chamber window.
“She is in her room, I think—there’s light in her window,” said William. The doctor nodded, chucking his cigar stump far away, for he knew Aunt Dinah’s antipathy to tobacco, and they were now on the door-step. He was thinking, if the case were to end tragically, what a capital paper he would make of it, beside the interesting letter he would send to the editor of theSpatula.
“Winnie’s bin a callin’ over the stairs for you, Master Willie. Missis wants ye to her room,” said Tom, who awaited them on the door-steps.
“I’ll sit by the fire in the study,” whispered the doctor. “I don’t mind sitting up a night now and then. Give me a cloak or something. There’s a sofa, and I’ll do very well.”
The principle of life was strong in Aunt Dinah, and three hours later that active-minded lady was lying wideawake on her bed, with a variety of topics, not all consisting with the assumed shortness of her hours, drifting in succession through her head. The last idea that struck her was the most congruous, and up she jumped, made a wild toilet, whose sole principle was warmth, tied a faded silk handkerchief over her nightcap, across her ears, and with her long white flannel dressing-gown about her, and a taper in her hand, issued, like the apparition of the Bleeding Nun, upon the gallery, and tapped sharply on William Maubray’s door.
“William, William!” she called as she tapped, and from within William answered drowsily to the summons.
“Wait a moment,” said the lady, and
“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,And stood at William’s feet.”
“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,And stood at William’s feet.”
“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,And stood at William’s feet.”
“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,
And stood at William’s feet.”
“Wemusthave aséance, my dear boy; I’m going to wake up old Winnie. It certainly has a connexion with your arrival; but anything like the cracking, knocking, and creaking ofeverything, I’ve never yet heard. I have no doubt—so sure as you sit there”—(William was sitting up in his bed with glazed eyes, and senses only half awake)—“that your poor dear mother is here to-night. We’resureof Henbane; and—just get your clothes on—I’m going for Winnie, and we meet in the study, mind, in five minutes.”
And Aunt Dinah, having lighted William’s candle, disappeared, leaving him with a fund of cheerful ideas to make his yawning and bewildered toilet.