Queensland Cousins Part 7

"O mummie," he pleaded, "not just yet. Couldn't you tell me a story first?"

"I could, of course," Mrs. Orban admitted slowly, "but the question is, Ought I to? It is getting late for you."

"But it is awfully early for you," Eustace argued. "I don't believe you will sleep if you go now. You always say you can't if you go to bed too soon. You see, we needn't get up quite so early, as father isn't here to go out to the plantation."

"That is true," said Mrs. Orban with a laugh. "I really think we shall have to make a barrister of you, Eustace, you plead a cause so eloquently. But what kind of story shall I tell you?"

"Oh, one of the old home stories, please," he said instantly. "I should like to know all I can about it before Aunt Dorothy comes."

"I wonder if there are any I have not told you," Mrs. Orban said thoughtfully.

"There must be hundreds," Eustace said. "I always think Maze Court must have stories without end."

"We used to think so, I remember," said his mother; "but I suppose that is always the case with a house when one family has possessed and occupied it for so many generations."

"It is a sixteenth-century house, isn't it?" Eustace asked.

"Seventeenth century," was the answer, "built in 1688 by Eustace Chase, a loyal subject of the king. His father lost everything for the cause, and the young man was rewarded for following the Royalist fortunes--or rather misfortunes--soon after the king came to his own again."

Eustace gave a huge sigh.

"I do like belonging to people like that," he said with satisfaction.

There was a long silence.

"Mummie--the story," prompted Eustace at last.

"I was just hunting my memory for one," said his mother. "Did you ever hear how we lost Aunt Dorothy?"

Eustace shook his head and settled himself comfortably to listen, so Mrs. Orban went on:--

"One summer we gave a large party for young people. It happens that several of us have birthdays in the summer, and this was a sort of combined birthday treat. So we invited friends varying in age from five, suitable for Dorothy, to seventeen or eighteen, and a very merry party it promised to be. The day began gloriously, but father prophesied it was going to be too hot to be perfect; and he was right. About the middle of the afternoon thunder-clouds gathered quickly, and by tea-time there was a raging storm; but it was as short as it was sharp, and all over in an hour. There was no question as to going out again, the ground was too sopping wet after the rain to dream of such a thing, so it was proposed that we should have a good game of hide-and-seek all over the house. I wish I could tell you what a lovely place home is for hide-and-seek.

There are so many rooms with doors between that you can almost go the round of the house on any landing without coming out into the pa.s.sage more than twice or three times. Then there are several staircases, and lastly the turret, which was always used for 'home,' because it was a regular trap for hiding in. Once found, you could never get away from there."

"O mummie," breathed Eustace softly, "how it does make me want to go and see it all."

"I am glad it does, sonny," Mrs. Orban said. "I want you to want to go--I always pray some day you will. It is a home to be proud of."

"Go on, please," said Eustace in the little pause that followed.

"I don't think people ever get tired of hide-and-seek," Mrs. Orban continued. "It is the one game that seems to suit all ages--I mean among young people. We played on and on till dusk, and then the game was only stopped by people coming for or sending to fetch their children home. Just in the middle of the first 'good-byes,'

mother, who had been entertaining grown-ups most of the afternoon, came and asked for Dorothy. No one knew where she was. 'Who had seen her last?' It was impossible to find out, but apparently she had not been seen by any one for a long time. Dorothy at five years old was a very independent little person, and resented being obviously looked after. She always liked to hide by herself, for instance. Well, then, there began a game of hide-and-seek in real earnest, and it became more and more serious every minute, when white-faced groups met in the hall declaring that every corner had been searched, and still there was no trace of Dorothy."

"Didn't grannie nearly go mad?" asked Eustace feelingly. He well knew what the loss of Becky would mean to his mother.

"Very nearly," was the answer; "but I think your grandfather was even worse. All the tiny children were taken home, but many of the elder boys and girls begged to be allowed to stay and help, and now the hunt began outside with lanterns among outhouses and stables.

The echoes rang with Dorothy's name, but in vain; the hunt was useless, and some of us straggled back into the house and began calling and looking all over the same ground again. I cannot tell you what terrible thoughts had got into our heads by that time. We remembered the story of the lady who hid herself in the old spring chest and could not get out--"

"The Mistletoe Bough lady," breathed Eustace.

"Yes; and we hunted every box, chest, and cupboard in the house, but Dorothy was in none of them. She seemed literally to have been spirited away. It became so late that at last all the other children were taken home, and we were left just ourselves--a very miserable family."

Eustace sat up suddenly and held his breath, his face blanched, his eyes alert.

"At last, close on midnight," Mrs. Orban went on in a low voice.

"Mother, mother," Eustace said in a sharp whisper, kneeling and putting an arm protectingly round her, "did you hear something?"

"Yes, darling," Mrs. Orban continued, "close on midnight--"

"No, no," Eustace said, "not then--now--this minute, as you were speaking!"

Mrs. Orban started perceptibly.

"No, darling," she answered. "Why? Did you?"

There was an instant's tense silence.

"It is some one coming round the veranda--barefoot," Eustace whispered.

"One of the maids, perhaps," said Mrs. Orban, but her voice quivered.

"They would come through the house," said the boy. "This fellow has come up the veranda steps. I heard them creak."

A lifetime in great solitude sharpens the hearing to the most extraordinary extent. Children born and brought up in the wilds often have this sense more keenly developed than any other. The Orban children seemed to hear without listening--sounds which, even when she was told of them, Mrs. Orban, with her English training, did not catch till several minutes later.

But now the pad-pad-pad of bare feet was unmistakable--a pad-pad-pad, then a halt, as if the visitor stopped to listen.

Below in the scrub--that wild thick undergrowth among trees, harbouring so many strange creatures--there were hoa.r.s.e cries, and now and then the howl of a dingo, so horribly suggestive of a human being in an agony of pain.

The pair on the veranda clung together for an instant--one only.

"I must go to Becky," whispered Mrs. Orban, recovering herself.

But Eustace held her down.

"Oh, don't--don't for one moment," he implored; "wait and see what it is."

"Pad-pad-pad" came the steps, nearer and nearer. A shadow fell aslant the corner of the veranda--the shadow of a man thrown by the light from the drawing-room side window.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The shadow of a man fell aslant the corner of the veranda.]

CHAPTER IV.

A NIGHT OF TERROR.