The House by the Church-Yard Part 53

''Tis only the vapours,' said Betty, drawing a long breath, and doing her best to be cheerful; and so she finished her labours, stopping every now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts.

Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a good half-hour later than Moggy--all was quiet within the house--only the sound of the storm--the creak and rattle of its strain, and the hurly-burly of the gusts over the roof and chimneys.

Over her shoulder she peered jealously this way and that, as with flaring candle she climbed the stairs. How black the window looked on the lobby, with its white patterns of snow flakes in perpetual succession sliding down the panes. Who could tell what horrid face might be looking in close to her as she pa.s.sed, secure in the darkness and that drifting white lace veil of snow? So nimbly and lightly up the stairs climbed Betty, the cook.

If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.

Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I say, saw something--a figure--or a deep shadow--only a deep shadow--or maybe a dog. She lifted the candle--she peeped under the candlestick: 'twas no shadow, as I live, 'twas a well-defined figure!

He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the fascination lasted--while you might count one, two, three, deliberately--that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she did. The light glimmered on his white eye-b.a.l.l.s.

Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness; she whirled into the opposite bed-room she knew not how, and locked the door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bed-clothes, half mad with terror.

The squall was heard of course. Moggy heard it, but she heeded not; for Betty was known to scream at mice, and even moths. And as her door was heard to slam, as was usual in panics of the sort, and as she returned no answer, Moggy was quite sure there was nothing in it.

But Moggy's turn was to come. When spirits 'walk,' I've heard they make the most of their time, and sometimes pay a little round of visits on the same evening.

This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of spirits in general. She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had never seen the devil. Therefore such terrors as she that night experienced were new to her, and I can't reasonably doubt the truth of her narrative. Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old white-painted press showed its front from the wall. So Moggy popped her head through her thin curtains at the side, and--blessed hour!--there she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.

The shape was very like her master. The saints between us and harm! The glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light. She said he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the cape b.u.t.toned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all, sprinkled over with snow.

As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and with an awful e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n she cried, ''Tis you, Sir!'

'Don't stir, and you'll meet no harm,' he said, and over he posts to the bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more, and the tread pa.s.sed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down stairs.

In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had left them the night before.

You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light, and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut, discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable companionship.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

HOW AN EVENING Pa.s.sES AT THE ELMS, AND DR. TOOLE MAKES A LITTLE EXCURSION; AND TWO CHOICE SPIRITS DISCOURSE, AND HEBE TRIPS IN WITH THE NECTAR.

Up at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look--an outline--a light--something, in little Lily's fair, girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the remembrance of her mother's stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But then his darling's gay talk and pleasant ways would rea.s.sure him, and she smiled away the momentary shadow.

And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin, French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages besides, sentence about; and how he remembered his own dear mother's dress when she went to Lord Wharton's great ball at the castle--dear, oh! dear, how long ago that was! And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies, and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and 'rapparees,' and adventures in the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles.

'And now, darling,' said little Lily, nestling close to him, with a smile, 'you _must_ tell me all about that strange, handsome Mr. Mervyn; who he is, and what his story.'

'Tut, tut! little rogue----'

'Yes, indeed, you must, and you will; you've kept your little Lily waiting long enough for it, and she'll promise to tell n.o.body.'

'Handsome he is, and strange, no doubt--it was a strange fancy that funeral. Strange, indeed,' said the rector.

'What funeral, darling?'

'Why, yes, a funeral--the bringing his father's body to be laid here in the vault, in my church; it is their family vault. 'Twas a folly; but what folly will not young men do?'

And the good parson poked the fire a little impatiently.

'Mr. Mervyn--_not_ Mervyn--that was his mother's name; but--see, you must not mention it, Lily, if I tell you--_not_ Mr. Mervyn, I say, but my Lord Dunoran, the only son of that disgraced and blood-stained n.o.bleman, who, lying in gaol, under sentence of death for a foul and cowardly murder, swallowed poison, and so closed his guilty life with a tremendous crime, in its nature inexpiable. There, that's all, and too much, darling.'

'And was it very long ago?'

'Why, 'twas before little Lily was born; and long before _that_ I knew him--only just a little. He used the Tiled House for a hunting-lodge, and kept his dogs and horses there--a fine gentleman, but vicious, always, I fear, and a gamester; an overbearing man, with a dangerous cast of pride in his eye. You don't remember Lady Dunoran?--pooh, pooh, what am I thinking of? No, to be sure! you could not. 'Tis from her, chiefly, poor lady, he has his good looks. Her eyes were large, and very peculiar, like _his_--his, you know, are very fine. She, poor lady, did not live long after the public ruin of the family.'

'And has he been recognised here? The townspeople are so curious.'

'Why, dear child, not one of them ever saw him before. He's been lost sight of by all but a few, a very few friends. My Lord Castlemallard, who was his guardian, of course, knows; and to me he disclosed himself by letter; and we keep his secret; though it matters little who knows it, for it seems to me he's as unhappy as aught could ever make him. The townspeople take him for his cousin, who squandered his fortune in Paris; and how is he the better of their mistake, and how were he the worse if they knew him for whom he is? 'Tis an unhappy family--a curse haunts it. Young in years, old in vice, the wretched n.o.bleman who lies in the vault, by the coffin of that old aunt, scarcely better than himself, whose guineas supplied his early profligacy--alas! he ruined his ill-fated, beautiful cousin, and she died heart-broken, and her little child, both there--in that melancholy and contaminated house.'

So he rambled on, and from one tale to another, till little Lily's early bed-hour came.

I don't know whether it was Doctor Walsingham's visit in the morning, and the chance of hearing something about it, that prompted the unquiet Tom Toole to roll his cloak about him, and buffet his way through storm and snow, to Devereux's lodgings. It was only a stone's-throw; but even that, on such a night, was no trifle.

However, up he went to Devereux's drawing-room, and found its handsome proprietor altogether in the dumps. The little doctor threw off his sleety cloak and hat in the lobby, and stood before the officer fresh and puffing, and a little fl.u.s.tered and dazzled after his romp with the wind.

Devereux got up and received him with a slight bow and no smile, and a 'Pray take a chair, Doctor Toole.'

'Well, this _is_ a bright fit of the dismals,' said little Toole, nothing overawed. 'May I sit near the fire?'

'Upon it,' said Devereux, sadly.

'Thank'ee,' said Toole, clapping his feet on the fender, with a grin, and making himself comfortable. 'May I poke it?'

'Eat it--do as you please--anything--everything; play that fiddle (pointing to the ruin of Puddock's guitar, which the lieutenant had left on the table), or undress and go to bed, or get up and dance a minuet, or take that pistol, with all my heart, and shoot me through the head.'

'Thank'ee, again. A fine choice of amus.e.m.e.nts, I vow,' cried the jolly doctor.

'There, don't mind me, nor all I say, Toole. I'm, I suppose, in the vapours; but, truly, I'm glad to see you, and I thank you, indeed I do, heartily, for your obliging visit; 'tis very neighbourly. But, hang it, I'm weary of the time--the world is a dull place. I'm tired of this planet, and should not mind cutting my throat and trying a new star.

Suppose we make the journey together, Toole; there is a brace of pistols over the chimney, and a fair wind for some of them.'

'Rather too much of a gale for my taste, thanking you again,' answered Toole with a cosy chuckle; 'but, if _you're_ bent on the trip, and can't wait, why, at least, let's have a gla.s.s together before parting.'

'With all my heart, what you will. Shall it be punch?'

'Punch be it. Come, hang saving; get us up a ha'porth of whiskey,' said little Toole, gaily.

'Hallo, Mrs. Irons, Madam, will you do us the favour to make a bowl of punch as soon as may be?' cried Devereux, over the banister.

'Come, Toole,' said Devereux, 'I'm very dismal. Losses and crosses, and deuce knows what. Whistle or talk, what you please, I'll listen; tell me anything; stories of horses, dogs, dice, snuff, women, c.o.c.ks, parsons, wine--what you will. Come, how's Sturk? He's beaten poor Nutter, and won the race; though the stakes, after all, were scarce worth taking--and what's life without a guinea?--he's grown, I'm told, so confoundedly poor, "quis pauper? avarus." A worthy man was Sturk, and, in some respects, resembled the prophet, _Shylock_; but you know nothing of him--why the plague don't you read your Bible, Toole?'

'Well,' said Toole, candidly, 'I don't know the Old Testament as well as the New; but certainly, whoever he's like, he's held out wonderfully.

'Tis nine weeks since he met that accident, and there he's still, above ground; but that's all--just above ground, you see.'