The Haunted Room Part 19

"My child--my sweet child--what ails you? what has happened to alarm you thus?" said Mr. Trevor soothingly, while Bruce dismissed the servants, who had, in a body, answered the summons of the bell, only bidding Susan bring a gla.s.s of cold water. "Emmie has merely had some little fright,"

he said to himself, as he returned to the table.

But that the fright had been no little one was but too evident when Emmie raised her head, and turned her face to the light. Her countenance was colourless, even to the lips, and ghastly as that of a corpse, whilst her eyes stared wildly, with the pupils dilated, as if seeking some object of terror. Mr. Trevor made his daughter sit down close by his side, and put his arm fondly around her, whilst with his left hand he gently stroked and chafed Emmie's icy-cold fingers.

"My poor little trembling dove, what has frightened you so?" he inquired.

Emmie's lip quivered, but she was unable to speak.

"I'm sure that I'm monstrously sorry that I left you for a moment!"

cried Vibert. "I'm a thoughtless fellow, I own; but no harm could possibly have come to you, if you had quietly remained where you stood.

Where did you hide that I could not find you? Surely you must have heard me calling your name?"

Emmie shivered, but gave no reply.

"Do not trouble her with questions now," said her father; "she is in a weak and nervous state,--but this will set her right," he added, as he proffered to Emmie's lips the gla.s.s of sal-volatile and water which had been quickly brought by Susan.

The cordial revived the poor girl; her eyes lost their wild excited expression, and the lips regained a more natural hue, though the cheeks remained very pale. But when Emmie was again questioned as to what had caused her alarm, she but gasped forth, "Don't ask, don't ask!" and burst into a fit of hysterical weeping, which lasted for several minutes.

"She had better go to rest at once," said Mr. Trevor, when the fit had somewhat subsided; "quiet sleep is what she most wants. We will take her to her own room; and, Susan, do not quit the side of my daughter to-night."

Supporting the trembling Emmie, who did not even turn to bid her brothers good-night, Mr. Trevor then left the study, followed by Susan.

"Something strange must have happened," said Vibert, when the three had left the apartment.

"I see no reason to think so," said Bruce, who had resumed his seat by the table, and had taken up again the paper which he had dropped.

"Emmie's timidity is like a disease, a kind of waking nightmare, and it would be as idle to look for external cause for her terrors as it would be for those experienced in a bad dream. What could have been more unreasonable than her dread of occupying a bright pleasant room, because a gentleman had died of hydrophobia in the one next to it, and that fifty years ago!"

"And with such a good thick wall between the two apartments," observed Vibert, who was standing with his back to the fire, "so that there is not so much as a key-hole through which ghost or goblin might creep."

"I cannot say so much," remarked Bruce; "there is a door of communication between the two rooms, though, by the way, the key-hole does _not_ go right through it, for it can be opened but on one side."

"A door of communication!" exclaimed Vibert. "I never knew that before."

"Nor did I," observed Bruce, "until the workmen from S---- had to move in my presence the large heavy press which had stood in that room for I know not how many years. As they were dragging it off to place it in the apartment prepared for poor dear Emmie, I noticed a key-hole in one of the panels which had hitherto been covered by the oak press. When the workmen had departed, I tried whether the key of the door which opens on the corridor would fit into this newly-discovered key-hole."

"And did it fit it?" inquired Vibert eagerly.

"Exactly," was his brother's reply.

"Does any one but yourself know the secret of the door in the panel?"

asked Vibert.

"No; nor do I care that the servants should know it, nor Emmie, who is sufficiently nervous already as to what regards the so-called haunted chamber. I have hung a large map over that part of the panel in which is the key-hole; and as the housemaid never ventures to move what I place on the walls, the fact of there being a door of communication between the two rooms is not likely to be discovered even by her."

"And with the power to enter at will into the haunted chamber, had you not the curiosity to tread the forbidden ground?" cried Vibert.

"When I first found that the key fitted the key-hole in the wall, I turned it, and pushed open the small panel-door," replied Bruce; "but I did not pa.s.s into the bricked-up room."

"You looked in?"

"But saw nothing, for the place was pitch-dark," answered Bruce. "I only observed that the air was close, as might be expected when coming from a chamber from which light and air had been carefully excluded for the last fifty years."

"And so you have been a whole month with only a door between you and the mysterious apartment to which such strange and thrilling stories belong!" cried Vibert. "I suppose that you intend thoroughly to explore its inmost recess."

"I see no use in so doing," was Bruce's reply. "As the relation to whose bequest my father owes the possession of the house so anxiously tried to ensure that no one should enter that room, it seems scarcely honourable to take advantage of her ignorance of the existence of that small door in the panel."

"Pshaw! that is a mere romantic scruple," said Vibert. "I could not withstand the temptation to explore the haunted chamber."

"I have a lack of curiosity," observed Bruce Trevor.

"Or a lack of something else," cried his thoughtless young brother, in a provokingly satirical tone.

Bruce was in an irritable mood on that evening, and at no time would have patiently borne what sounded like an imputation on his personal courage. Who should dare to taunt him with lack of daring, or the slightest taint of that superst.i.tious fear which he scorned even in Emmie?

"If you cannot speak common sense, you idiot," Bruce fiercely exclaimed, "keep your idle twaddle for those who may mistake it for wit!"

"How now, boys? what's all this?" cried the loud, angry voice of Mr.

Trevor, who, re-entering the room at that moment, had heard Bruce's pa.s.sionate words, and seen his fiery glance at his brother. "Bruce, you forget yourself strangely."

Bruce bit his nether lip hard. He would not bandy words with his father, but still less would his proud spirit brook such sharp reproof even from a parent. The young man rose, quitted the study, and with a swelling heart went to his own apartment. Bruce bitterly, though silently, accused his father of partiality and injustice; the young man was blinded by pride to the fact that Mr. Trevor had had good and sufficient reason for finding fault with his son's intemperate language.

"What caused this quarrel?" inquired Mr. Trevor of Vibert, after Bruce had quitted the room.

"Oh, Bruce is in a huff,--it is no novelty," replied Vibert. "He thinks that every one is wanting in common sense but his own oracular self."

Mr. Trevor paced up and down the study for some minutes with a troubled mien and furrowed brow. He had many things to disturb his mind; he was seriously grieved at Emmie's hysterical state, and in the dissension between his sons found a new cause of perplexing annoyance. Vibert marked his father's vexation, and characteristically enough managed to take advantage of it for the furtherance of his own wishes.

"I should like to keep out of the bear's way till he has had his growl out," observed Vibert, watching his father's countenance as he spoke. "I have lots of things that I want to do in London to-morrow. I would sleep at Aunt Mary's in Grosvenor Square, and come back on the following day."

The youth had thrown out a feeler, and saw by his father's face that Mr. Trevor would not be likely to offer violent opposition to the trip upon which his son's heart was set.

"You will be wanting more money, you young spendthrift," was Mr.

Trevor's remark, but made in an easy, good-humoured way.

"No, I have plenty left," answered Vibert.

The unexpected announcement was an agreeable surprise to the parent, who was not aware that Vibert's supply had been borrowed from Emmie.

"You might consult your aunt about Emmie," observed Mr. Trevor, pausing in his walk, and then resuming his seat. "I am not easy regarding the health of your sister; Myst Court is too dull for her, I fear, and its loneliness serves to fill her mind with idle fancies."

"Yes, yes, I'll tell my aunt all about Emmie," said Vibert, trying to look as thoughtful and sympathetic as his pleasure at getting his own way would permit. "It is so much easier to explain all these delicate matters by speaking than by writing," he added.

"And you will take up my watch to Golding to be repaired," observed Mr.

Trevor. "I do not like to trust one so valuable as mine to conveyance by post."

"I will take it with all the pleasure in life!" cried Vibert, who would eagerly have undertaken the charge of all the clocks in the house had they needed just then a journey to London.

The matter was quickly settled; it was arranged that Vibert should start by an early train.