O sweetest lady ever seen,(With a heigh ho! and a lily gay,)Give consent to be my queen,(As the primrose spreads so sweetly.)
Before the long ballad was ended, the line between Mrs. Peyton's eyebrows was gone, and her beautiful face wore a look of contentment that was not common to it.
"Go away now!" the lady murmured. "You have straightened me out again. Be thankful for that little silver voice of yours, child! You can do more good with it in the world than you know. I really think you are one of the few good persons who are not odious. Go now! Good-bye!"
Margaret went away, thinking, as she had often thought before, how like her Cousin Rita this fair lady was. "Only Rita has a great, great deal more heart!" she said to herself. "Rita only laughs at people when she is inone of her bad moods. Dear Rita! I wonder where she is to-day. And Peggy is driving the mowing machine, she writes; mowing hundreds of acres, and riding bareback, and having a glorious time."
A letter had come the day before from Peggy Montfort, telling of all her delightful doings on the farm, and begging that her darling Margaret would come out and spend the rest of the summer with her. "Darling Margaret, do, do,docome! Nobody can possibly want you as much as I do; nobody can begin to think of wanting you one hundredth part as much as your own Peggy."
Margaret had laughed over the letter, and kissed it, and perhaps there was a tear in her eye when she put it away to answer. It was good, good to be loved. And Peggy did love her, and so she hoped—she knew—did Uncle John; and now the children were hers, two of them, at least; hers to have and to hold, so far as love went. Go away and leave them now, when they needed her every hour? "No, Peggy dear, not even to see your sweet, round, honest face again."
Coming back to the house she found Gerald Merryweather on the verandah. He was in his working clothes again, but they were fresh and spotless, and he was a pleasant object to look upon. He explained that he had called to inquire for the ladies' health, and to express his hope that they had suffered no further annoyance the night before. He was on his way to the bog, and just thought he would ask if there was anything he could do.
"Thank you!" said Margaret, gratefully. "You are very good, Mr. Merryweather. No; nothing more happened; and my poor cousin got some sleep after awhile. But I still cannot imagine what the noise was, can you?"
"So many noises at night, don't you know?" said Gerald. "Especially round an old house like this. You were not personally alarmed, were you, Miss Montfort? I think you may be pretty sure that there was nothing supernatural about it. Oh, I don't mean anything in particular, of course; but—well, I never saw a ghost; and I don't believe in 'em. Do you?"
"Certainly not. I didn't suppose any one believed in them nowadays. But,—do you know, I really am almost afraid my Cousin Sophronia does. She will not listen to any explanation I can suggest. I really—oh, here she is, Mr. Merryweather!"
Miss Sophronia greeted Gerald with effusion. "I heard your voice, my dear young man," she said, "and I came down to beg that you would take tea with us this evening—with my niece—she is quite the same as my own niece; I make no difference, dearest Margaret, I assure you,—with my niece and me. If—if there should be any more unpleasant occurrences, it would be a comfort to have a man, however young, on the premises. Willis sleeps in the barn, and he is deaf, and would be of little use. He couldn't even be of the smallest use, if we should be murdered in our beds."
"Oh, but we are not going to be murdered, Cousin Sophronia," said Margaret, lightly. "We are going to be very courageous, and just let that noise understand that we care nothing whatever about it."
"Margaret, my love, you are trivial," responded Miss Sophronia, peevishly. "I wish you would pay attention when I speak. I ask Mr. Merryweather to take tea with us, and you talk about noises. Very singular, I am sure."
"Oh, but of course it would be very pleasant, indeed, to have Mr. Merryweather take tea with us!" cried Margaret, in some confusion. "I hope you will come, Mr. Merryweather."
It appeared that nothing in the habitable universe would give Mr. Merryweather greater pleasure. At half-past six? He would not fail to be on hand; and if there should be noises again, why—let those who made them look to themselves. And, with this, the young man took his leave.
The children were very troublesome that day. Margaret could not seem to lay her hand on any one of them. If she called Basil, he was "in the barn, Cousin Margaret, helping Willis with the hay. Of course I'll come, if you want me, but Willis seems to need me a good deal, if you don't mind."
When it was time for Susan D.'s sewing, the child came most obediently and affectionately; but her thimble was nowhere to be found, and she had mislaid her spool, and, finally, when everything was found, she had not sat still ten minutes, when she was "sothirsty; and must go and get a glass of water, please, Cousin Margaret!"
"Susan," said Margaret, "I want to talk to you, and I cannot seem to get a chance for a word. Sit still now, like a good little girl, and tell me—"
"Yes, Cousin Margaret, I couldn't find my thimble first, you see; and then there wasn't any spool, and I left it in my basket yesterday, I'm sure I did, but Mertonwilltake it to teach the kitten tricks with, and then it gets all dirty. Don't you know how horrid a spool is when a kitten has been playing with it? You have to wind off yards and yards, and then the rest is sort of fruzzly, and keeps making knots."
"Yes, I know. Susan D., what were you doing last evening?" said Margaret.
"Last evening?" repeated the child. "Wewere in the summer-house, Cousin Margaret. We were playing Scottish Chiefs, don't you know? Merton had to play Lord Soulis, 'cause he drew the short straw; but he got cross, and wouldn't play good a bit."
"Wouldn't playwell, ornicely," corrected Margaret. "But after that, Susan dear?"
"That took a long time," said the child. It seemed, when she was alone with Margaret, that she could not talk enough; the little pent-up nature was finding most delightful relief and pleasure in unfolding before the sympathy that was always warm, always ready.
"You see, when it came to carrying me off (I was Helen Mar, after I'd been Marion and was dead), Merton was just horrid. He said he wouldn't carry me off; he said he wouldn't have me for a gift, and called me Scratchface, and all kinds of names. And of course Lord Soulis wouldn't have talked that way; so Wallace (of course Basilhadto be Wallace when he drew the long straw, and he never cheats, though Merton does, whenever he gets a chance)—well, and so, Wallace told him,if he didn't carry me off in two shakes of a cat's tail—"
"Susan D.!"
"Well, that's what hesaid, Cousin Margaret. I'm telling you just as it happened, truly I am. If he didn't carry me off in two shakes of a cat's tail, he'd pitch him over the parapet,—you know there's a splendid parapet in the summer-house,—and so he wouldn't, and so he did; but Mert held on, and they both went over into the meadow. I guess Lord Soulis got the worst of it down there, for when they climbed up again he did carry me off, though he pinched me hard all the way, and made my arm all black and blue; I didn't say anything, because I was Helen Mar, but I gave it to him good—I mean well—this morning, and served him out. And then Wallace had to rescue me, of course, and that wasgreat, and we all fell over the parapet again, and that was the way I tore the gathers out of my frock. So you see, Cousin Margaret!"
Susan D. paused for breath, and bent over her sewing with exemplary diligence. Margaret took the child's chin in her hand, and raised her face towards her.
"Susan," she said, gently, "after you had that fine play—it must have been a great play, and I wish I had seen it—after that, what did you do?"
"We—we—went to bed!" said Susan D.
"Why did you go without coming to say good night? Answer me truly, dear child."
The two pairs of gray eyes looked straight into each other. A shadow of fear—a suggestion of the old look of distrust and suspicion—crept into the child's eyes for a moment; but before Margaret's kind, firm, loving gaze it vanished and was gone. A wave of colour swept over her face; her eyes wavered, gave one imploring glance, and fell.
"Aren't you going to tell me, Susan D.?" asked Margaret once more.
"N—no!" said Susan D., in a whisper scarcely audible.
"No? And why not, dear child?"
"I promised!" whispered Susan D.
"Susan D., do you know anything about that strange noise that frightened us so last night?"
But not another word would Susan D. say. She looked loving, imploring, deprecating; she threw her arms around Margaret's neck, and hid her face and clung to her; but no word could she be brought to say. At last Margaret, displeased and puzzled, felt constrained to tell the child rather sternly to fold her work and go away, and not come back to her till she could answer questions properly. Susan went obediently; at the door she hesitated, and Margaret heard a little sigh, which made her heart go out in sympathy toward the little creature. Instantly she rose, and, going to the child, put her arms round her affectionately.
"Darling, I think you are puzzled about something," she said, quickly. Susan D. nodded, and clung close to her cousin's side.
"I will not ask you anything more," said Margaret. "I am going to trust you, Susan D., not to do anything wrong. Remember, dear, that the two most important things inthe world are truth and kindness. Now kiss me, dear, and go."
Left alone, Margaret sat for some time, puzzling over what had happened, and wondering what would happen next. It was evident that the children were concerned in some way, or at least had some knowledge, of the mysterious sounds which had so alarmed Miss Sophronia. What ought she to do? How far must she try to force confession from them, if it were her duty to try; and how could she do it?
Thus pondering, she became aware of voices in the air; she sat near the open window, and the voices were from above her. The nursery window! She listened, bending nearer, and holding her breath.
"Well, if you back out now, Susan D., it will be mean!" Basil was saying. "What did you say to her?"
"I didn't say anything!" Susan D. answered, sullenly.
"Why didn't you tell her that we had a pain, and didn't want tobotherher, 'cause she had company?" cried Merton, eagerly."I had that all fixed to tell her, only she never asked me."
"I wouldn't tell her a lie," said Susan D. "Basil, you wouldn't tell her a lie, either, you know you wouldn't, when she looks at you that way, straight at you, and you can't get your eyes away."
"Of course I wouldn't," said Basil. "And the reason she didn't ask you, Merton, was because she knew it wouldn't make much difference what you said. That's the trouble about you. But now, Susan, if you had only had a little dipplo-macy, you could have got through all right, as I did."
"I don't know what you mean by dipplo-macy," retorted Susan.
"Ho, stupid!" sneered Merton.
"I don't believe you know what it means yourself!" cried Basil. "Come, tell now, if you are so wise. What does it mean? Ah, I knew you didn't know! Youarea sneak, Mert! Well, I guess in the beginning, when Adam was making the words, you know, he must have wanted to hide from the serpent or something—perhaps a hairy mammoth, or amegatherium, I shouldn't wonder,—so he said, 'Dip low,' and then 'Massy!' for a kind of exclamation, you see. And spelling gets changed a lot in the course of time; you can see that just from one class to another in the grammar school. Well, anyhow, it means a sort of getting round things, managing them, without telling lies, or truth either."
"You've got to tell one or the other," objected Susan D.
"No, you haven't, either! Now, how did I manage? I have just kept out of Cousin Margaret's way all day, so far, and I'm going to keep out the rest of it. I've been helping Willis ever since breakfast, and he says I really helped him a great deal, and I'll make a farmer yet; only I won't, 'cause I'm going into the navy. And now pretty soon I'm going in, in a tearing hurry, and ask her if I can take some lunch and go over to see Mr. Merryweather at the bog, 'cause he is going to give me a lesson in surveying. Heis;he said he would, any time I came over. And so, you see—"
"That's all very well," interrupted Merton,scornfully. "But when it comes night, what'll you do then, I should like to know?"
"Easy enough. I shall have a headache, and she won't ask me questions when I have a headache; she'll just sit and stroke my head, and put me to sleep."
"Ho! How'll you get your headache? Have to tell a lie then, I guess."
"No, sir, I won't! And if you say that again, I'll bunt you up against the wall. Easy enough to get a headache. I don't know whether I shall eat hot doughnuts, or just ram my head against the horse-chestnut-tree till it aches; but I'll get the headache, you may bet your boots—"
"Basil, she asked you not to say that, and you said you wouldn't."
"Well, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to. Pull out a hair, Susan D., and then I shall remember next time. Ouch! You pulled out two."
"I say, come on!" cried Merton. "We've got lots of things to see to. We have to—"
The voices were gone. Margaret sat still, sewing steadily, and working many thoughts into her seam.
It might have been half an hour after this that Basil burst into the room, breathless and beaming, his tow-colored hair standing on end. "Oh, Cousin Margaret, can I—I mean may I, go over to the bog? Mr. Merryweather said he would give me a lesson in surveying; and Frances is going to put me up some luncheon, and I'm in anorfulhurry. May I go, please?"
"Yes, Basil; you may go after you have answered me one question."
"Yes, Cousin Margaret," said the diplomat. "I may miss Mr. Merryweather if I don't go pretty quick, but of course I will."
"Basil, did you make that strange noise last night?"
"No, Cousin Margaret!" cried the boy; the smile seemed to break from every corner of his face at once, and his eyes looked straight truth into hers. "I did not. Is that all? You said one question! Thank you ever and ever so much! Good-bye!" And he was gone.
"It is quite evident that I am not a dipplo-mat," said Margaret, with a laugh that ended in a sigh. "I wish Uncle John would come home!"
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 maygo, 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 likea "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 himselfcomfortable, 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, youmustlet 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 Cæsar, 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 thundershook 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 piteouslythat 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 thelast 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 eventhe 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 overMargaret'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.
A LIVELY GHOST.A LIVELY GHOST.
"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 graspedonce 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 hisskirts 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?"
"I am extremely sorry, Sophronia, that you were so alarmed last night. I trust you feel no ill effects this morning?"
"Ill effects! My dear John, I am a wreck! Simply a wreck, mentally and physically. I shall never recover from it—never."
"Oh, don't say that, Cousin Sophronia!" exclaimed Margaret, who was really much distressed at all that passed.
"My love, if it is the truth, I must say it. Truth, Margaret, is what I live for. No, I shall never recover, I feel it. My prayer is that these unhappy children may never know that they are the cause of my untimely—"
"Has Basil made his apology?" asked Mr. Montfort, abruptly.
"Yes, John, yes; I am bound to say he has, though he showed little feeling in it.Not a tenth part so much as little Merton, who was in real sorrow,—actually shed tears,—although he had no hand in the cruel deceit. Ah! Merton is the only one of those children who has any heart."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Montfort, "I didn't know it was as bad as that."
"Quite, I assure you, dearest John. If it were not for my poor William and his children, I should take Merton with me and be a mother to him. His nerves, like mine, are shattered by the terrible occurrences of the last two nights. He was positively hysterical as he pointed out to me—what I had already pointed out to you, Margaret—that thereal thinghad not been explained. I might, in time, live down the effect of those children's wicked jest; but the Voice of Fernley has never been explained, and never will be."
Mr. Montfort pulled his moustache, and looked out of the window, observing the prospect; but Margaret cried:
"Oh, Cousin Sophronia, you are wrong; indeed, indeed you are! Young Mr. Merryweather found out all about it last night, only he had not time to tell us. He said it was something perfectly simple, and that there was no need of being alarmed in the least."
"By the way," said Mr. Montfort, "I have a note from the lad this morning. He found some special tools were needed, and went up to town by the early train to see about them. May be gone a day or two, he says. What was the noise like, Margaret?"
Margaret was about to tell all she knew, but Miss Sophronia interrupted. "Spare me, dearest Margaret, spare me the recalling of details. I am still too utterly broken,—I shall faint, I know I shall. John, it was simply the voice that was heard ten, or it may be fifteen years ago, when I was a young girl. You must remember; it is impossible but that you must remember."
"I remember perfectly," said Mr. Montfort. "That was thirty years ago, Sophronia; that was in 1866. Oh, yes, I remember." Again Mr. Montfort became absorbed in the view from the window. His face was very grave; why, then, did the buttons on his waistcoatshake? "And Master Merton was frightened, was he?" he resumed, presently. "Ha! that looks bad. Good morning, Jones," as a respectable-looking man in livery came up the gravel walk. "A note for me? no answer? thanks." The man touched his hat, and departed; Mr. Montfort opened the pretty, pearl-coloured note, and read, as follows:
"Dear John:"Don't punish the children; it was partly my fault, and partly your own. I supposed you expected something to happen, and I thought the old trick would serve as well as a new one."As ever,E. P."
"Don't punish the children; it was partly my fault, and partly your own. I supposed you expected something to happen, and I thought the old trick would serve as well as a new one.
"As ever,E. P."
"Humph!" said Mr. Montfort, twisting the note, and frowning at the window. "Precisely! and so, you were saying, Sophronia—ahem! that is, you are obliged to leave us?"
"Yes, my dearest John, I must go. I could not, no! I could not sleep another night beneath this roof. I have told Willis. I am cut to the heart at leaving you, so helpless, with only this poor child here, and those—those dreadful children of Anthony's. Iwould so gladly have made a home for you, my poor cousin. I live only for others; but still it seems my dutytolive, and I am convinced that another night here would be my death."
"I will not attempt to change your purpose, Sophronia. At the same time I am bound to tell you that—a—that the disturbance of which you speak is of no supernatural kind, but is attributable to—to human agency altogether. If you wish, I will have it looked into at once, or we can wait till young Merryweather comes back. He seemed to know about it, you say, Margaret. And—but at any rate, Sophronia, we can write you the sequel, and, if you feel uneasy, why, as you say— You have ordered Willis? Then I'll go and get some tags for your trunks."
Mr. Montfort retired with some alacrity, and Margaret, with an unexplained feeling of guilt at her heart, offered to help Miss Sophronia with her packing.
An hour later the lady was making her adieux. The carriage was at the door, Willis had strapped on the two trunks, and all wasready. Mr. Montfort shook his cousin by the hand, and was sorry that her visit had ended in such an untoward manner. Margaret begged Cousin Sophronia's pardon for anything she might have done amiss. Indeed, the girl's heart was full of a vague remorse. She had tried, but she felt that she might have tried harder to make things go smoothly. But Miss Sophronia bore, she declared, no malice to any one.
"I came, dear John, determined to do my best, to be a sister to you in every way; it will always be a comfort to think that I have been with you these two months. It may be that some time, when my nerves are restored, I may be able to come to Fernley again; if you should make any changes, you understand me. Indeed, a complete change, my dear cousin, is the thing I should most recommend. Missing me as you will,—a companion of your own age,—you might still marry, dearest John, you might indeed. Emily—"
"That will do, Sophronia!" said Mr. Montfort, sternly. "Have you everything you want for the journey?"
"Everything, I think, dear John. Ah! well, good-bye, Margaret! It has been a blow to find that you do not love me, my dear, as I have loved you, but we must bear our burdens."
"What do you—what can you mean, Cousin Sophronia?" asked Margaret, turning crimson. "I am sure I have tried—"
"Ah! well, my dear, one gives oneself away," said the lady. "You said in your letter to your cousin,—I recall the precise words—'I have tried to love her, but I cannot succeed.' Yes; very painful to one who has a heart like mine; but I find so few—"
"Cousin Sophronia," cried the girl, all softer thoughts now merged in a burning resentment. "You—you read my letter, the letter that was on my own desk, in my own room?"
"Certainly, my love, I did. I hope I know something about young girls and their ways; I considered it my duty, my sacred duty, to see what you wrote."
"You seem to know little about the ways of gentle people!" cried Margaret, unable for once to restrain herself. Her uncle laid hishand on her arm. "Steady, little woman!" he said. His quiet, warning voice brought the angry girl to herself, the more quickly that she knew his sympathy was all with her.
"I—I should not have said that, Cousin Sophronia," she said. "I beg your pardon! Good-bye!"
She could not say more; she stood still, with burning cheeks, while Mr. Montfort helped the lady into the carriage.
"A pleasant journey to you, Sophronia," he said, as he closed the door. "Willis—"
"Good-bye!" cried Miss Sophronia, out of the window. "Bless you, dearest John! Margaret, my love, I shall always think of you most tenderly, believe me, in spite of everything. It is impossible for me to harbour resentment. No, my child, I shall always love you as a sister. I have taken the old vinaigrette with me, as a little souvenir of you; I knew it would give you pleasure to have me use it. Bless you! And, John, if you want me to look up some good servants for you, I know of an excellent woman who would be the very thing—"
"Willis!" said Mr. Montfort again. "You'll miss that train, Sophronia, if you don't,—bon voyage!"
Mr. Montfort stood for some seconds looking after the carriage as it drove off; then he drew a long breath, and threw out his arms, opening his broad chest.
"Ha!" said he. "So that is over. Here endeth the— What, crying, May Margaret? Come and sit here beside me, child; or shall we come out and see the roses? Really astonishing to have this number of roses in August; but some of these late kinds are very fine, I think."
Chatting quietly and cheerfully, he moved from one shrub to another, while Margaret wiped her eyes, and gradually quieted her troubled spirit.
"Thank you, Uncle John!" she said, presently. "You know, don't you? You always know, just as papa did. But—but I never heard of any one's doing such a thing, did you?"
"Didn't you, my dear? Well, you see, you didn't know your Cousin Sophronia when shewas a girl. And—let us be just," he added. "You, belonging to the new order, have no idea of what many people thought and did forty years ago. I have no doubt, from my recollection of my Aunt Melissa, Sophronia's mother, that she read all her children's letters. I know she searched my pockets once, thinking I had stolen sugar; I hadn't, that time, and my white rat was in my pocket, and bit her, and I was glad."
Seeing Margaret laugh again, Mr. Montfort added, in a different tone, "And now, I must see those boys."
The children were sent for to the study, where they remained for some time. Basil and Susan D. came out looking very grave; they went up to the nursery in silence, and sat on the sofa, rubbing their heads together, and now and then exchanging a murmur of sympathy and understanding. Merton remained after the others, and when he emerged from the fatal door, he was weeping profusely, and refused to be comforted by Elizabeth; and was found an hour after, pinching Chico's tail, and getting bitten in return. TellingMargaret about it afterward, Mr. Montfort said:
"Basil and the little girl tell a perfectly straight story. It is just as I supposed; they were trying the old ghost trick that we other boys, your father and Richard and I, Margaret, played on Sophronia years ago. If the thunder-storm had not brought you all up-stairs, there would have been some very pretty ghost-gliding, and the poor soul would very likely have been frightened into a real fit instead of an imaginary one. Children don't realise that sort of thing; I certainly did not, nor my brothers; but I think these two realise it now, and they are not likely to try anything of the kind again. As for the noise,—"
"Yes, Uncle John, I am really much more puzzled about that noise, for, of course, I saw the other foolishness with my eyes."
"Well!" said Mr. Montfort, comfortably, "we used to make that noise with a thing we called a roarer; I don't know whether they have such things now. You take a tomato-can, and put a string through it, and then you— It really does make a finenoise, very much what you describe. Yes, I have that on my conscience, too, Margaret. You see, I told you I knew this kind of child, and so I do, and for good reason. But Basil won't say anything at all about the matter. He says it was not his hunt, and he will tell all that he did, but cannot tell on others; which is entirely proper. But when I turned to that other little scamp, Merton, I could get nothing but floods of tears, and entreaties that I would ask Frances. 'Frances knows all about it!' he said, over and over."
"And have you seen Frances?"
"N—no," replied Mr. Montfort, rather slowly. "I am going to see Frances now."
Accordingly, a few minutes later, Frances, bustling about her kitchen, became aware of her master standing in the doorway. She became aware of him, I say, but it was with "the tail of her eye" only; she took no notice of him, and went on rattling dish-pans at an alarming rate. She appeared to be house-cleaning; at all events, the usually neat kitchen was in a state of upheaval, and the chairs and tables, tubs and clothes-horses,were so disposed that it was next to impossible for any one to enter. Moreover, Frances apparently had a toothache, for her face was tied up in a fiery red handkerchief; and when Mr. Montfort saw that handkerchief, he looked grave, and hung about the door more like a schoolboy than a dignified gentleman and the proprietor of Fernley House.
"Good morning, Frances," he said at length, in a conciliatory tone.
"Good morning, sir," said Frances; and plunged her mop into a pail of hot water.
"You have a toothache, Frances? I am very sorry."
"Yes, sir, I have; thank you, sir."
"A—Frances—I came to ask if you can tell me anything about the strange noise that frightened the ladies so, last night and the night before."
"No, sir," said Frances. "I can't tell you nothing about it. There do be rats enough in this house, Mr. Montfort, to make any kind of a noise; and I do wish, sir, as the next time you are in town, you would get me a rat-trap as is good for something.There's nothing but trash, as the rats won't look at, and small blame to them. I can't be expected to do without things to do with, Mr. Montfort, and I was saying so to Elizabeth only this morning."
"I will see to the traps, Frances. But this noise that I am speaking of; Master Merton says—"
"And I was wishful to ask you, sir, if you would please tell Master Merton to keep out of my kitchen, and not come bothering here every hour in the day. The child is that greedy, he do eat himself mostly ill every day, sir, as his father would be uneasy if he knew it, sir. And to have folks hanging round my kitchen when I am busy is a thing I never could abide, Mr. John, as you know very well, sir, and I hope you'll excuse me for speaking out; and if you'd go along, sir, and be so kind, maybe I could get through my cleaning so as to have dinner not above half an hour or so late, though I'm doubtful myself, harried as I have been."
"I really don't see what I am to do with Frances," said Mr. Montfort, as he went backto his study; "she grows more and more impracticable. She will be giving me notice to quit one of these days, if I don't mind. I am very sure the house belongs to her, and not to me. But, until Master Gerald Merryweather comes back, I really don't see how I am to find out who worked that roarer."
Peace reigned once more at Fernley House; peace and cheerfulness, and much joy. It was not the same peace as of old, when Margaret and her uncle lived their quiet tête-à-tête life, and nothing came to break the even calm of the days. Very different was the life of to-day. The peace was spiritual purely, for the lively and varied round of daily life gave little time for repose and meditation, at least for Margaret. She had begun to give the children short but regular lessons in the morning, finding that the day was not only more profitable but pleasanter for them and for all, if it began with a little study. And the lessons were a delight to her. Remembering her struggles with Peggy,—dear Peggy,—it was a joy to teach these young creatures the beginnings of her beloved English history, and to see how they leaped at it, even as she herself had leaped so few years ago. They carried it about with them all day. Margaret never knew whom to expect to dinner in these days. Now a scowling potentate would stalk in with folded arms and announce that he was William the Conqueror, and demand the whereabouts of Hereward the Wake (who was pretty sure to emerge from under the table, and engage in sanguinary combat, just after he had brushed his hair, and have to be sent up to the nursery to brush it over again); now a breathless pair would rush in, crying that they were the Princes in the Tower, and would she please save them, for that horrid old beast of a Gloster was coming after them just as fast as he could come. Indeed, Margaret had to make a rule that they should be their own selves, and no one else, in the evening when Uncle John came home, for fear of more confusion than he would like.
"But I get sousedto being Richard," cried Basil, after a day of crusader-life. "You can't do a king well if you have to keep stoppingand being a boy half the time. Don't you see that yourself, Cousin Margaret?"
Yes, Margaret saw that, but she submitted that she liked boys, and that it was trying for a person in private life, like herself, to live all day in royal society, especially when royalty was so excited as the Majesty of England was at this juncture.
"Oh, but why can't you be some one too, Cousin Margaret? I suppose Susan D. would hate to give up being Berengaria, after you gave her that lovely gold veil—I say, doesn't she look bul—doesn't she look pretty in it? I never thought Susan D. would come out pretty, but it's mostly the way you do her hair—what was I saying, Cousin Margaret? Oh, yes, but there are other people you could be, lots and lots of them. And—Merton doesn't half do Saladin. He keeps getting mad when I run him through the body, and Ican'tmake him understand that I don't mean those nasty, fat, black things in ponds, when I call him 'learned leech,' and you know hehasto be the leech, it says so in the 'Talisman.' And so perhaps you would be Saladin, and hecan be Sir Kenneth, though he's too sneaky for him, too. Or else you could be the hermit, Cousin Margaret. Oh, do be the hermit! Theodoric of Engedi, you know, the Flail of the Desert, that's a splendid one to do. All you have to do is keep jumping about and waving something, and crying out, 'I am Theodoric of Engedi! I am the Flail of the Desert!' Come on, Cousin Margaret, oh, I say, do!" And Susan D., tugging at her cousin's gown, shouted in unison, "Oh, I say, do, Cousin Margaret!"
If any one had told Margaret Montfort, three months before this, that she would, before the end of the summer, be capering about the garden, waving her staff, and proclaiming herself aloud to be the highly theatrical personage described above, she would have opened her eyes in gentle and rather scornful amazement. But Margaret was learning many things in these days, and among them the art of being a child. Her life had been mostly spent with older people; she had never known till now the rapture of being a little girl, a little boy. Now, seeing it in these bright faces, that neverfailed to grow brighter at sight of her, she felt the joy reflected in her own face, in her own heart; and it was good to let all the quiet, contained maiden ways go, once in a while, and just be a child with the children, or a Flail of the Desert, as in the present instance.
John Montfort, leaning on the gate, watched the pretty play, well pleased. "They have done her all the good in the world," he said to himself. "It isn't only what she has done for them, bless her, but for her, too, it has been a great thing. I was selfish and stupid to think that a young creature could go on growing to fulness, without other young creatures about it. How will she feel, I wonder, about their going? How would she like—"