Shadows of Flames Part 39

"What's a-matter? What's a-matter?" asked the nurse, a blue-eyed Nottinghamshire woman, struggling to her elbow and staring, frightened, at the valet. "What be _you_ doin' here?"

Fright had startled her into her childhood's tongue. She was as correct in her ordinary speech as Gaynor himself.

"Keep quiet," he whispered. "The mistress thought she heard the child scream. It gave her a turn. Be quiet. I'll fetch some brandy."

"I s'll be quiet enow. You need na' fret for that," said the woman huffily. She resented being hectored in the middle of the night by that "wizzening little stick of a man." She got up grumpily and shuffled on her brown woolen wrapper. Looking like a sulky but dutiful she-bear in the clumsy garment, she went over beside her mistress. She had recovered her power of "proper" speech.

"I'm sorry you got a fright, madam. Won't you sit in a chair?"

Sophy did not move or answer. She could not. She felt as though some violent natural force had flung her against the little crib. She clung to it dizzily. A great void seemed waiting for her, should she loose her hold on it an instant.

Gaynor came back with the brandy. She turned her head when he urged her, respectfully insistent, and supped the liquor from the gla.s.s that Miller held to her lips, like a child. It revived her. She gave a long sigh, putting up her hand before her eyes, her elbow on the bed. She found strength to rise in a few moments. There were things that she and Gaynor must see to at once. She looked about the room. Thank G.o.d, the nursery windows were barred! She had a dread feeling that Cecil might be able to crawl over the sheer face of a building, like "Dracula." She turned to Miller, whose little blue eyes still stared inquisitively. There was something "beyond" in all this, the nurse was telling herself shrewdly.

"I wish you to lock the nursery doors on the inside to-night, Miller,"

Sophy said, looking frankly at her. "Mr. Chesney is delirious. I'm afraid he might startle you. He is very restless."

Miller paled. Privately, she had decided, long ago, that the master was "a bit off his head"; but she had orders never to lock the nursery doors, for fear of fire.

"I will do, madam," she said with energy.

Sophy went to her own room again, bidding Gaynor come with her. She shut the door and told him what had happened.

"Go and see if he is in his room now, Gaynor. I will wait here."

Gaynor returned saying that his master had again locked his door.

"Is he in the room, Gaynor?"

The man looked startled.

"I suppose so, madam. He would not answer when I knocked; but why else would he lock the door?"

"I don't know," said Sophy. "But I feel very uneasy. Is there any way that he could get out except by the door?"

"There's a ledge of the East Wing roof that pa.s.ses under one of his windows, madam. But why should he want to get out on the roof?"

"I don't know," said Sophy again. "Perhaps it is only that I'm nervous.

But we must tell Doctor Bellamy, Gaynor. You must go to his room and wake him."

Bellamy hurried on his clothes when the valet had explained to him. He went to Sophy's room, where Gaynor said that she was awaiting him. She, too, had dressed herself fully, in serge skirt and jacket. Somehow she felt that she must be dressed to meet emergencies--to go out into the night, if necessary. She looked oddly girlish in the plain, dark-blue costume. She had wound her long braid round and round her head to avoid its weight at the nape of her neck. This added to the girlish, scared look of her pale face.

"This is terrible, Mrs. Chesney," said Bellamy. "I feel that your life has been in danger. He must be a madman for the time being, with that crude spirit in him--nearly a quart within six hours, Gaynor tells me. I think Lady Wychcote and his brother should be put on their guard."

"Yes. I wanted to ask you about that."

And Sophy told him about the access from Chesney's window to the roof.

"Come--they had better be roused at once!" said Bellamy, turning pale.

Pale faces were the custom at Dynehurst in those days.

Sophy went with the doctor along the corridor leading to Lady Wychcote's room. Gerald slept on the other side of the house. They went cautiously, being careful not to speak or make any sound that might rouse the servants on the floor above. Gaynor was left on guard by his master's door.

But as they trod, noiseless and silent, with cautious apprehension, the sleeping house was roused by a long-drawn, fearful shriek--then another.

The silence that followed seemed to echo with it like the air with a clap of thunder.

Transfixed for an instant, the next both Sophy and Bellamy were running wildly towards Lady Wychcote's room. The scream had come from it.

They tore open the door without ceremony. Lady Wychcote was sitting up in bed, staring at the open window as though Death had appeared to her in its embrasure. Her eyes seemed to have set in her head.

Bellamy applied restoratives. She gasped, came to herself. She grew rigid with self-control under his hands, as though made of fine steel.

Her thin lips snapped to--then parted.

"A nightmare," she said curtly. "I thought I saw Cecil's face." Shudders took her in spite of her grim will. She put her hand over her eyes.

"Horrible!" she muttered. "'Twas horrible! I saw him as I see you--at the window ... his face, yet not his face ... a murderer's ...

swollen...." Then she added, curt again: "You can leave me now. I have these disgusting dreams occasionally. I am quite over it."

Then Bellamy explained matters to her. There was no doubt that she had really seen Cecil's face at her window. She always slept with curtains drawn back, and shutters wide. The light from the shaded lamp which she kept burning all night on her writing-table would have just caught his face, had he stood on the stone ledge beneath her window and looked in.

This is what he must have done.

When she had taken in the import of Bellamy's words, Lady Wychcote said that she, too, would rise and dress. They left her and went out to find the stairs and upper corridors rustling with frightened servants.

Jepson, the butler, was talking in low tones with Gaynor. He came forward as he saw Sophy and the doctor.

"I tried to make them keep their rooms, madam," he said to Sophy. "But there's no doing with them when they're frightened."

Bellamy explained that Lady Wychcote had screamed from nightmare, but, as Mr. Chesney had been taken seriously ill and was delirious, she had thought it better to get up.

"Just send the maids to bed, and come back, Jepson--we may need you," he concluded.

He was nonplussed as to the next move to make. Should he have the door of Chesney's bedroom forced, the man, frenzied with alcohol and drugs, might commit some hideous act of folly--either against himself or against others. He might just be climbing in again at his window as the door was burst open, and throw himself backwards in his rage onto the flagged court below.

Lady Wychcote and Gerald finally joined them as they stood perplexed, looking at that locked door, listening for some sound from behind it that would tell them that Cecil had come back safe from his perilous clambering over the dark roof. It was agreed that all should await events, together, in Sophy's bedroom. It was the nearest room to Cecil's, and by leaving the door open they could still see his door, and Gaynor sitting before it.

The night dragged on interminably--one of those grisly nights, when not only illness but peril and fear and madness squat on the hearthstone.

About five o'clock, they saw Gaynor start and rise, listening. They all rose. Bellamy went towards the door. Gaynor turned and came to meet him.

"He's back, sir," the man whispered. "He's moving round heavy-like. Do you think it may have worn off, sir?"

"I don't know," said Bellamy.

He, too, went and listened. Suddenly harsh, snoring breaths--slow, regular--fell on his ear. He straightened, giving a long sigh of relief.

"What is it, sir?" whispered the valet eagerly.

"He's asleep, Gaynor. He'll sleep for hours now. You'd better get some rest."

He went back to the others.