The Haunted Room Part 24

replied Susan in a flurried manner. The quiet, respectable, lady's-maid had never before been examined by a superintendent of police, and her usual self-possession had forsaken her on that eventful morning.

"Bruce must have heard something of this warrant against Standish,"

thought Emmie; "perhaps he has gone off early to S----, to help in the search after this daring impostor. I am glad that he felt well enough to do so; but how he could have received such early information of what has occurred, I know not."

Emmie now went down-stairs to the breakfast room; there was no family-prayer in the confusion of that strange day. Susan brought in a tray with her young lady's breakfast, in the absence of Joe. Emmie was not disposed to touch it. She lingered near the window, half hoping that Bruce might appear, or that her father, having missed the early train, might return to Myst Court. The policemen were very quiet; only the sound of a heavy tread, now and then, showed that they were in the house; but Emmie saw nothing of the officers of the law.

There were signs, however, that the unusual occurrences which had taken place at Myst Court had excited curiosity and interest in the surrounding neighbourhood. Knots of persons, not only from the hamlet, but apparently even from the town, came up the carriage-drive, as it seemed for no purpose but to stare up, open-mouthed, at the house. There was much shaking of heads and whispering amongst these spectators; but they had caught sight of the lady looking forth from the window, and nothing was uttered by them loud enough for its import to be distinguished by Emmie through the closed window.

Presently the wind rose in wild gusts, whirling the snow into blinding drifts; dark clouds were sweeping over the sky; all portended a violent storm; and the a.s.sembled crowd hastily retreated from the grounds of Myst Court, to seek refuge from the fury of the tempest.

"I would give anything to know whether Harper and his wife are under suspicion!" said Emmie to herself. "Susan is so strangely unwilling to give full information, she stammers as she answers my questions. I think that my father must have charged her to say nothing that could possibly agitate my nerves. He has desired that his weak daughter should be kept from excitement; and thus I, who have the deepest interest in all that is happening here, am more ignorant of what is going on than any servant in the household. I must question Susan again."

Emmie was about to ring the bell for her maid; but before she did so, there was a quick tap at the door, and, without waiting for the lady's "Come in," Hannah entered the room. The cook looked more excited than Susan had done; but while, in the case of the latter, there had been an appearance of perplexity, if not of pain, with a desire to speak as little as she could, Hannah's face, on the contrary, showed that she was not only br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with news, but that she had a vulgar pleasure in being the first to impart it. "Now I shall know all," thought Emmie.

"La, miss!" exclaimed Hannah, "to think of you taking your breakfast so quietly here, as if nothing had happened, when there be such goings on in the place!"

"Any one arrested?" asked Emmie eagerly. She dared not mention the names of Harper or Jessel, lest, by turning suspicion on them, she should indirectly violate her oath.

"No one took up yet, that I know of, but he in London," said Hannah.

"Didn't master go off like a shot, as soon as he heard the news!"

"What news? who was taken up?" asked Emmie.

"La, miss! you don't mean to say that you've not heard of the sc.r.a.pe of poor Master Vibert, how he's been catched and put into jail!"

Emmie staggered backwards as though she had been struck. "Put into jail!

my brother! and on what pretext?" she exclaimed, grasping the table for support.

"I'll tell you all about it--you ought to know, seeing you're his own sister," said Hannah, enjoying the excitement of the scene, and yet not without a touch of natural pity, on seeing the anguish which she inflicted. "Master Vibert went yesterday to London, you know; and when he got there, he went off straight to a jeweller (Golding, I think, is the name), and bought from him lots of jewels, diamonds, pearls, and all kinds of gim-cracks, worth more than a thousand pounds."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Emmie.

"But he did buy the jewels, and paid for them too with a lot of nice, fresh, clean ten-pound notes," said Hannah. "The shopman didn't suspect nothing at first, 'cause he knew the young gentleman's face so well, as he'd often dealt at the shop. But when the head of the firm, as they call him, came in the afternoon to look after the business (there's nothing like a master's eye, we know), he said the notes weren't real and honest bank-notes; and off he went at once to the biggest police-station in London."

"My brother has been the unconscious tool of a villain!" murmured Emmie, who felt certain that Vibert's vanity and careless security must have made him the victim of the impostor who had called himself Colonel Standish.

"The p'lice and Mr. Golding drove off to Grosvenor Square," continued Hannah, "for the jeweller knew the address; and a mighty bustle and fuss was caused by their coming, for there was an afternoon party, and the gentlefolk were amazed when they found that he who had been the merriest of them all was to be haled up afore a magistrate, on a charge of pa.s.sing forged notes."

"Did not my brother at once clear himself from suspicion?" cried Emmie, the paleness of whose face was now exchanged for the crimson flush of indignation and shame.

"Master Vibert said that the notes had been given to him by a Colonel Standish; and that he had bought the jewels for Colonel Standish; and that he would have sent them off at once to some address in Liverpool, only he had waited to have out his dance."

"Then are the jewels safe in the hands of the police?" asked Emmie.

"Ay; I wish that this cheat of a colonel were so too," replied Hannah.

"Hanging is too good for him, say I; for sure and certain it was his wheedling which made poor Master Vibert do so wicked a thing. Some of the police were sent off to Liverpool, and some hurried down to S----.

And first they searched the colonel's lodgings, and then they came ferreting here."

"Did they easily find their way into the bricked-up room?" asked Emmie, who knew of no way of access into it but by the secret staircase.

"Bless you, miss, what could be easier, when the door was wide open 'twixt that room and Master Bruce's!"

Emmie started, and turned deadly pale.

"You may well start with surprise, miss; all of us were astonished to find there was any door in that wall. Lizzie declares that even she never knew that there was one, though she tidies the room every day.

Master Bruce was so sly--he was--hanging the big map over the place!"

"How dare you speak thus of my brother?" cried Emmie.

"It ain't my speaking, but every one's speaking," said Hannah, firing up at the word of rebuke. "The police say as how young master could not have slept in the one room for a month, and have been innocent as a babe of what was going on in the other. Ay, they said that of him, Miss Trevor, before they'd found a lot of the odd kind of paper of which bank-notes are made in one of his drawers. I wonder young master did not throw it all into the fire before he absconded."

Emmie pressed her temples with both her icy cold hands. Her brain was reeling. Half unconsciously, she echoed the word "Absconded!"

"That's what the p'lice called it; and they're going to take out a warrant against Master Bruce," said Hannah. "It's plain he went off last night, for his bed had never been slept in."

This was to Emmie the crowning horror. There had been a door then--an open door--between her brother's room and that haunted by the presence of the unscrupulous Harper; and Bruce--the n.o.ble, the brave--had disappeared during the night!

"Leave me, leave me!" cried Emmie wildly; and, alarmed at the lady's ghastly looks, the bearer of evil tidings at once obeyed her command.

Hannah had said more than enough, and now retreated in alarm, lest the effect of her words should have been to turn her young mistress's brain.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WEAK ONE.

Emmie remained for a few brief seconds as if transfixed into stone. More wretched was she even than her father, who had rushed off to London on hearing of the arrest of his younger son, without knowing that any danger or disgrace threatened the elder. It need not be said that Emmie never for one instant doubted the innocence of either; her present intense agony arose from her fear regarding the fate of Bruce.

"In that fatal room which he has occupied through my own selfish folly,"

so flowed the stream of thought like burning lava through the poor girl's brain, "Bruce has heard--has discovered the forgers. He would take no cowardly oath, and they have murdered him to ensure his silence.

What a fearful fate may have overtaken mine own brave brother! But, oh!

may merciful Heaven have shielded his precious life!"

Susan entered the room, alarmed by the account of the state of her mistress given by Hannah. She expected to find Miss Trevor either fainting or in hysterics, but to her surprise the lady was perfectly calm. This was no time to give way to weakness; the very extremity of Emmie's anguish subdued its outward expression.

"Go to the policemen, Susan; tell them that I am certain that my brother Bruce has been the victim of some foul deed," she said with distinct articulation though a quivering, bloodless lip. "Let every corner of this house, from attic to cellar, be searched; a thousand pounds' reward to whoever shall find Bruce Trevor!" Emmie waved her hand impatiently to urge speed, and Susan hastened from the apartment, scarcely more certain of young Trevor's innocence, or less anxious regarding his fate, than was his unhappy sister.

"There are two guilty ones who are likely enough to be able to throw light on this dark mystery," said Emmie to herself; "Harper, and that wretched woman his wife. But can I set the police on their track without breaking my oath, my horrible oath? Would Heaven, in this dreadful emergency, condemn me for that, or suffer that those awful imprecations which I was forced to utter should fall on my body and soul? Is there any other course open before me in this maddening misery of doubt?"

Emmie made two hurried steps towards the door, and then paused.

"There is one other course; yes, I see it. I could go myself--alone--to the dwelling of Jael; there is something of the woman left in her still, she protected my life from her husband. Bruce may be living still, but kept in confinement,"--a gleam of hope came with that thought,--"not in Harper's hovel, which is too small and too close to others to be used as a hiding-place or a prison, but possibly in Jael's, which stands by itself. I will go thither. Threats, promises, entreaties, all will I use to win from her at least some tidings of my lost brother! If I go alone I break no oath, and Jael will be able henceforth implicitly to trust in my honour. She may confide to me things which she would effectually conceal from officers of justice. Yes, I will go alone. Oh, G.o.d of mercy, help and direct me!"

One measure of precaution suggested itself to the mind of Emmie, who could not dissociate the idea of personal danger from intercourse with any of those concerned in the forgery plot. She tore a leaf from her pocket-book, and wrote upon it the few following lines, to be left on the dining-room table. "_If there be tidings of my brother, or if I be long in returning, seek for me at the house of Mrs. Jessel._" "There is no breach of my oath in writing this," thought Emmie, as she added her initials to the lines which she had hastily penned.

Emmie's garden-hat and scarlet shawl were hung up in the hall; she sought no other equipment for her walk through the wood, though the clouds were hanging like a pall over the white earth, and the wind was now furiously high. Emmie did not pursue the path by the drive that would have led to the hamlet and the highway; there was a short cut through the woods to the dwelling of Jael, and the maiden took it, sheltering herself as best she might against the tempest which raged round her fragile form. The poor girl felt that she was on a dangerous enterprise. She knew not whom or what she might meet in the place to which she was going; she had not forgotten the gleam of Harper's sharp blade, or the fierce threat expressed in his eyes. It may be marvelled at that one so timid as was Emmie should venture without protection to a dwelling in which might be lurking those whom she knew to be criminals,--those who, as she fearfully suspected, might be murderers also. It was indeed sisterly affection that impelled Emmie onwards, but her support, her strength, was in prayer. Emmie was trusting now as she never had trusted before; she was leaning on, clinging to the invisible arm that could hold her up, to the love which would never forsake her.

It is not to be supposed that Vibert's miserable position was forgotten by Emmie in her terrors on account of his brother. But for Vibert the sister could do nothing but pray; his father was hastening to his aid: her whole energies, Emmie felt, must be concentrated on her own special work,--that of discovering the fate of Bruce Trevor.