The Haunted Chamber - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

CHAPTER I.

The sun has "dropped down," and the "day is dead." The silence and calm of coming night are over everything. The shadowy twilight lies softly on sleeping flowers and swaying boughs, on quiet fountains--the marble basins of which gleam snow-white in the uncertain light--on the glimpse of the distant ocean seen through the giant elms. A floating mist hangs in the still warm air, making heaven and earth mingle in one sweet confusion.

The ivy creeping up the ancient walls of the castle is rustling and whispering as the evening breeze sweeps over it. High up the tendrils climb, past mullioned windows and quaint devices, until they reach even to the old tower, and twine lovingly round it, and push through the long apertures in the masonry of the walls of the haunted chamber.

It is here that the shadows cast their heaviest gloom. All this corner of the old tower is wrapped in darkness, as though to obscure the scene of terrible crimes of past centuries.

Ghosts of dead-and-gone lords and ladies seem to peer out mysteriously from the openings in this quaint chamber, wherein no servant, male or female, of the castle has ever yet been known to set foot. It is full of dire horrors to them, and replete with legends of by-gone days and grewsome sights ghastly enough to make the stoutest heart quail.

In the days of the Stuarts an old earl had hanged himself in that room, rather than face the world with dishonor attached to his name; and earlier still a beauteous dame, fair but frail, had been incarcerated there, and slowly starved to death by her relentless lord. There was even in the last century a baronet--the earldom had been lost to the Dynecourts during the Commonwealth--who, having quarreled with his friend over a reigning belle, had smitten him across the cheek with his glove, and then challenged him to mortal combat. The duel had been fought in the luckless chamber, and had only ended with the death of both combatants; the blood stains upon the flooring were large and deep, and to this day the boards bear silent witness to the sanguinary character of that secret fight.

Just now, standing outside the castle in the warmth and softness of the dying daylight, one can hardly think of by-gone horrors, or aught that is sad and sinful.

There is an air of bustle and expectancy within-doors that betokens coming guests; the servants are moving to and fro noiselessly but busily, and now and then the stately housekeeper passes from room to room uttering commands and injunctions to the maids as she goes. No less occupied and anxious is the butler, as he surveys the work of the footmen. It is so long since the old place has had a resident master, and so much longer still since guests have been invited to it, that the household are more than ordinarily excited at the change now about to take place.

Sir Adrian Dynecourt, after a prolonged tour on the Continent and lingering visits to the East, has at last come home with the avowed intention of becoming a staid country gentleman, and of settling down to the cultivation of turnips, the breeding of prize oxen, and the determination to be the M.F.H. when old Lord Dartree shall have fulfilled his declared intention of retiring in his favor. He is a tall young man, lithe and active. His skin, though naturally fair, is bronzed by foreign travel. His hair is a light brown, cut very close to his head. His eyes are large, clear, and honest, and of a peculiarly dark violet; they are beautiful eyes, winning and sweet, and steady in their glance. His mouth, shaded by a drooping fair mustache, is large and firm, yet very prone to laughter.

It is quite the end of the London season, and Sir Adrian has hurried down from town to give directions for the reception of some people whom he has invited to stay with him during the slaughter of the partridges.

Now all is complete, and the last train from London being due half an hour ago Sir Adrian is standing on the steps of his hall-door anxiously awaiting some of his guests.

There is even a touch of genuine impatience in his manner, which could hardly be attributed to the ordinary longing of a young man to see a few of his friends. Sir Adrian's anxiety is open and undisguised, and there is a little frown upon his brow. Presently his face brightens as be hears the roll of carriage-wheels. When the carriage turns the corner of the drive, and the horses are pulled up at the hall door, Sir Adrian sees a fair face at the window that puts to flight all the fears he has been harboring for the last half hour.

"You have come?" he says delightedly, running down the steps and opening the carriage door himself. "I am so glad! I began to think the train had run away with you, or that the horses had bolted."

"Such a journey as it has been!" exclaims a voice not belonging to the face that had looked from the carriage at Sir Adrian. "It has been tiresome to the last degree. I really don't know when I felt so fatigued!"

A little woman, small and fair, steps languidly to the ground as she says this, and glances pathetically at her host. She is beautifully "got up," both in dress and complexion, and at a first glance appears almost girlish. Laying her hand in Sir Adrian's, she lets it rest there, as though glad to be at her journey's end, conveying at the same time by a gentle pressure of her taper fingers the fact that she is even more glad that the end of her journey has brought her to him. She looks up at him with her red lips drooping as if tired, and with a bewildered expression in her pretty blue eyes that adds to the charm of her face.

"It's an awful distance from town!" says Sir Adrian, as if apologizing for the spot on which his grand old castle has been built. "And it was more than good of you to come to me. I can only try to make up to you for the discomfort you have experienced to-day by throwing all possible chances of amusement in your way whilst you stay here."

By this time she has withdrawn her hand, and so he is free to go up to his other guest and bid her welcome. He says nothing to her, strange to say, but it is his hand that seeks to retain hers this time, and it is his eyes that look longingly into the face before him.

"You are tired, too?" he says at length. "Come into the house and rest awhile before dinner. You will like to go to your rooms at once, perhaps?" he adds, turning to his two visitors.

"Thank you--yes. If you will have our tea sent upstairs," replies Mrs. Talbot plaintively, "it will be such a comfort!" she always speaks in a somewhat pouting tone, and with heavy emphasis.

"Tea--nonsense!" responds Sir Adrian. "There's nothing like champagne as a pick-me-up. I'll send you tea also; but, take my advice, and try the champagne."

"Oh, thank you, I shall so much prefer my tea!" Mrs. Talbot declares, with a graceful little shrug of her shoulders, at which her friend Miss Delmaine laughs aloud.

"I accept your advice, Sir Adrian," she says, casting a mischievous glance at him from under her long lashes. "And--yes, Dora will take champagne too--when it comes."

"Naughty girl!" exclaims Mrs. Talbot, with a little flickering smile. Dora Talbot seldom smiles, having learned by experience that her delicate face looks prettier in repose. "Come, then, Sir Adrian," she adds, "let us enter your enchanted castle."

The servants by this time have taken in all their luggage--that is, as much as they have been able to bring in the carriage; and now the two ladies walk up the steps and enter the hall, their host beside them.

Mrs. Talbot, who has recovered her spirits a little, is chattering gayly, and monopolizing Sir Adrian to the best of her ability, whilst Miss Delmaine is strangely silent, and seems lost in a kind of pleased wonder as she gazes upon all her charming surroundings.

The last rays of light are streaming in through the stained-glass windows, rendering the old hall full of mysterious beauty. The grim warriors in their coats of mail seem, to the entranced gaze of Florence Delmaine, to be making ready to spring from the niches which hold them.

Waking from her dream as she reaches the foot of the stone staircase, she says abruptly, but with a lovely smile playing round her mouth--

"Surely, Sir Adrian, you have a ghost in this beautiful old place, or a secret staircase, or at least a bogy of some sort? Do not spoil the romantic look of it by telling me you have no tale of terror to impart, no history of a ghostly visitant who walks these halls at the dead of night."

"We have no ghost here, I am sorry to say," answers Sir Adrian, laughing. "For the first time I feel distressed and ashamed that it should be so. We can only boast a haunted chamber; but there are certain legends about it, I am proud to say, the bare narration of which would make even the stoutest quail."

"Good gracious--how distinctly unpleasant!" exclaims Mrs. Talbot, with a nervous and very effective shudder.

"How distinctly delicious, you mean!" puts in Miss Delmaine. "Sir Adrian, is this chamber anywhere near where I shall sleep?"

"Oh, no; you need not be afraid of that!" answers Dynecourt hastily.

"I am not afraid," declares the girl saucily. "I have all my life been seeking an adventure of some sort. I am tired of my prosaic existence. I want to know what dwellers in the shadowy realms of ghost-land are like."

"Dear Sir Adrian, do urge her not to talk like that; it is positively wicked," pleads Dora Talbot, glancing at him beseechingly.

"Miss Delmaine, you will drive Mrs. Talbot from my house if you persist in your evil courses," says Sir Adrian, laughing again. "Desist, I pray you!"

"Are you afraid, Dora?" asks Florence merrily. "Then keep close to me. I can defy all evil spirits, I have spells and charms."

"You have indeed!" puts in Sir Adrian, in a tone so low that only she can hear it. "And, knowing this, you should be merciful."

Though she can not hear what he says, yet Mrs. Talbot can see he is addressing Florence, and marks with some uneasiness the glance that passes from his eyes to hers. Breaking quickly into the conversation, she says timidly, laying her hand on her host's arm--

"This shocking room you speak of will not be near mine?"

"In another wing altogether," Sir Adrian replies reassuringly. "Indeed it is so far from this part of the castle that one might be safely incarcerated there and slowly starved to death without any one of the household being a bit the wiser. It is in the north wing in the old tower, a portion of the building that has not been in use for over fifty years."

"I breathe again," says Dora Talbot affectedly.

"I shall traverse every inch of that old tower--haunted room and all--before I am a week older,"