Works of Ellen Wood, page 971
I looked down at Annabel. Her face was the hue of death, and though she shook from head to foot, her voice was painfully imperative. The screams died away.
A sound of servants was heard in the hall, and Annabel turned to open the door. “You will not take advantage of my being obliged to do so, Charles?” she hurriedly whispered. “You will not attempt to go up?”
She glided out and stood before the servants, arresting their progress as she had arrested mine. “It is only a similar attack to the one mamma had last night,” she said, addressing them. “You know that it arises from nervousness, and your going up would only increase it. She prefers that Hatch alone should be with her; and if Hatch requires help, she will ring.”
They moved away again slowly; and Annabel came back to the drawing-room.
“Charles,” she said, “I am going upstairs. Pray continue your tea without waiting for me; I will return as soon as possible.”
And all this time she was looking like a ghost and shaking like an aspen leaf.
I crossed to the fire almost in a dream and stood with my back to it. My eyes were on the tea-table, but they were eyes that saw not. All this seemed very strange. Something attracted my attention. It was the tea that Hatch had spilt, slowly filtering down to the carpet. I rang the bell to have it attended to.
Perry answered the ring. Seeing what was wrong, he brought a cloth and knelt down upon the carpet. I stood where I was, and looked on, my mind far away.
“Curious thing, sir, this illness of mistress’s,” he remarked.
“Is it?” I dreamily replied.
“The worst is, sir, I don’t know how we shall pacify the maids,” he continued. “I and Hatch both told them last night what stupids they were to take it up so, and that what missis saw could not affect them. But now that she has seen it a second time — and of course there was no mistaking the screams just now — they are turning rebellious over it. The cook’s the most senseless old thing in the world! She vows she won’t sleep in the house to-night; and if she carries out her threat, sir, and goes away, she’ll spread it all over the neighbourhood.”
Was Perry talking Sanscrit? It was about as intelligible to me as though he had been. He was still over the carpet, and in matter-of-fact tones which shook with his exertion, for he was a fat man, and was rubbing vehemently, he continued:
“I’m sure I couldn’t have believed it. I wouldn’t have believed it, sir, but that I have been in the house and a witness to it, as one may say; at any rate, heard the screams. For a more quieter, amiabler, and peaceabler man never lived than my master, kind to all about him, and doing no harm to anybody; and why he should ‘Walk’ is beyond our comprehension.”
“Why he should — what?” I exclaimed.
“Walk, sir,” repeated Perry. “Hatch says it’s no doubt on account of his dying a sudden death; that he must have left something untold, and won’t be laid till he has told it. It’s apparent, I take it, that it concerns Mrs. Brightman, by his appearing to her.”
“What is it that has appeared to Mrs. Brightman?” I asked, doubting my ears.
Perry arrested his occupation, and raised himself to look at me. “My dead master, sir,” he whispered mysteriously. “Master’s ghost.”
“Your master’s — ghost!” I echoed.
“Yes, sir. But I thought my young lady had told you.”
I felt an irreverent inclination to laugh, in spite of the serious surroundings of the topic. Ghosts and I had never had any affinity with each other. I had refused to believe in them as a child, and most unhesitatingly did so as a man. When I returned “The Old English Baron” to Annabel, some years before, she wished she had never lent it to me, because I declined to accept the ghost.
“I am sure, sir, I never supposed but what Miss Annabel must have imparted it to you,” repeated Perry, as if doubting his own discretion in having done so. “But somebody ought to know it, if it’s only to advise; and who so fit as you, sir, master’s friend and partner? I should send for a clergyman, and let him try to lay it; that’s what I should do.”
“Perry, my good man,” and I looked at his bald head and rotund form, “you are too old, and I should have thought too sensible, to believe in ghosts. How can you possibly listen for a moment to stories so absurd as these?”
“Well, sir,” argued Perry, “my mistress did see it or she didn’t; and if she didn’t, why should she scream and say she did? You heard her screams just now; and they were worse yesterday.”
“Did you see the ghost?”
“No, sir; I was not up there. Hatch thought she saw it as she went into the room. It was in a corner, and wore its shroud: but when we got up there it was gone.”
“When was all this?”
“Last night, sir. When you left, Miss Annabel took off her bonnet in the drawing-room and rang for tea, which I carried in. Presently Hatch ran in at the front door, and Miss Annabel told me to call her in. ‘Has mamma had her tea, Hatch?’ said my young lady. ‘Yes, she has,’ returned Hatch; which was a downright falsehood, for she had not had any. But Hatch is master and missis too, as far as we servants go, and nobody dares contradict her. Perhaps she only said it to keep Mrs. Brightman undisturbed, for she knows her ailments and her wants and ways better than Miss Annabel. So, sir, I went down, and Hatch went up, but not, it seems, into Mrs. Brightman’s room, for she thought she was asleep. In two or three minutes, sir, the most frightful shrieks echoed through the house; those to-night were nothing half as bad. Hatch was first in the chamber, Miss Annabel next, and we servants last. My mistress stood at the foot of the bed, which she must have left — —”
“Was she dressed?” I interrupted.
“No, sir; she was in her night-gown, or a dressing-gown it might have been. She looked like — like — I don’t hardly know what to say she looked like, Mr. Strange, but as one might suppose anybody would look who had seen a ghost. She was not a bit like herself. Her eyes were starting and her face was red with terror; almost all alight, as one may say; indeed, she looked mad. As to her precise words, sir, I can’t tell you what they were, for when we gathered that it was master’s ghost which she had seen, appearing in its shroud in the corner by the wardrobe, the women servants set up a cry and ran away. That stupid cook went into hysterics, and declared she wouldn’t stop another night in the house.”
“What was done with Mrs. Brightman?”
“Miss Annabel — she seemed terrified out of her senses, too, poor young lady — bade me hasten for Mr. Close; but Hatch put in her word and stopped me, and said the first thing to be done was to get those shrieking maids downstairs. Before I and John had well done it — and you’d never have forgot it, sir, had you seen ’em hanging on to our coat tails — Hatch followed us down, bringing her mistress’s orders that Mr. Close was not to be fetched; and indeed, as Hatch remarked, of what use could a doctor be in a ghost affair? But this morning Miss Annabel sent for him.”
“Mrs. Brightman must have had a dream, Perry.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know; it might have been; but she is not one given to dreams and fancies. And she must have had the same dream again now.”
“Not unlikely. But there’s no ghost, Perry; take my word for it.”
“I hope it will be found so, sir,” returned Perry, shaking his head as he retired; for he had done his work and had no further pretext for lingering.
CHAPTER IX.
SOMEONE ELSE SEEN.
Standing with my back to the fire in the drawing-room, waiting for Annabel’s return, the tea growing cold on the table, I puzzled over what I had just heard, and could make nothing of it. That Mr. Brightman’s spirit should appear to his wife seemed to be utterly incomprehensible; was, of course, incredible. That many people believed in the reappearance of the dead, I well knew; but I had not yet made up my mind to become one of them.
It was inexplicable that a woman in this enlightened age, moving in Mrs. Brightman’s station, could yield to so strange a delusion. But, allowing that she had done so, did this sufficiently explain Annabel’s deep-seated grief? or the remark that her grief would end only with her life? or the hint that she could never be my wife? And why should she refuse to confide these facts to me? why, indeed, have prevented my going upstairs? I might have reassured Mrs. Brightman far more effectually than Hatch; who, by Perry’s account, was one of the believers in the ghost theory. It was altogether past comprehension, and I was trying hard to arrive at a solution when Hatch came in, her idioms in full play.
“My young lady’s complemens, sir, and will you excuse her coming down again to-night? she is not equal to seeing nobody. And she says truth, poor child,” added Hatch, “for she’s quite done over.”
“How is your mistress now, Hatch?”
“Oh, she’s better, she is. Her nerves have been shook, sir, of late, you know, through the shock of master’s unexpected death, and in course she starts at shadders. I won’t leave the room again, without the gas a-burning full on.”
“What is this tale about Mr. Brightman?”
Hatch and her streamers swung round, and she closed the door before answering. “Miss Annabel never told you that; did she, sir?”
“No; but I have heard a word or two elsewhere. You fancy you saw a ghost?”
“Missis do.”
“Oh, I thought you did also.”
“I just believe it’s a delusion of hers, Mr. Charles, and nothing more,” returned Hatch confidently. “If master had been a bad sort of character, or had taken his own life, or anything of that, why, the likelihood is that he might have walked, dying sudden. But being what he was, a Christian gentleman that never missed church, and said his own prayers at home on his knees regular — which I see him a doing of once, when I went bolt into his dressing-room, not beknowing he was in it — why, it is not likely, sir, that he comes again. I don’t say as much to them downstairs; better let them be frightened at his ghost than at — at — anybody else’s. I wish it was master’s ghost, and nothing worse,” abruptly concluded Hatch.
“Nothing worse! Some of you would think that bad enough, were it possible for it to appear.”
“Yes, sir, ghosts is bad enough, no doubt. But realities is worse.”
So it was of no use waiting. I finished my cup of cold tea, and turned to go, telling Hatch that I would come again the following evening to see how things were progressing.
“Yes, do, Mr. Charles; you had better,” assented Hatch, who had a habit, not arising from want of respect, but from her long and confidential services, and the plenitude of her attachment, of identifying herself with the family in the most unceremonious manner. “Miss Annabel’s life hasn’t been a bed of roses since this ghost appeared, and I fear it is not likely to be, and if there’s anybody that can say a word to comfort her, it must be you, sir; for in course I’ve not had my eyes quite blinded. Eyes is eyes, sir, and has their sight in ‘em, and we can’t always shut ‘em, if we would.”
Hatch was crossing the hall to open the door for me, and I had taken my great-coat from the stand, when Annabel flew down the stairs, her face white, her voice sharp with terror.
“Hatch! Hatch! mamma is frightened again!”
Hatch ran up, two stairs at a time, and I went after her. Mrs. Brightman had followed Annabel, and now stood outside her chamber-door in her white dressing-gown, trembling violently. “He is watching me again,” she panted: “he stands there in his grave-clothes!”
“Don’t you come,” cried Hatch, putting Annabel back unceremoniously. “I shall get my missis round best alone; I’m not afraid of no ghostesses, not I. Give a look to her, sir,” she added, pointing to Annabel, as she drew Mrs. Brightman into her chamber, and fastened the door.
Annabel, her hands clasped on her chest, shook as she stood. I put my arm round her waist and took her down to the drawing-room. I closed the door, and Annabel sat down on the sofa near the fire.
“My darling, how can I comfort you?”
A burst of grief prevented her from replying — grief that I had rarely witnessed. I let it spend itself; you can do nothing else with emotion so violent: and when it was over I sat down beside her.
“Annabel, you might have confided this to me at first. It can be nothing but a temporary delusion of Mrs. Brightman’s, arising from a relaxed state of the nervous system. Imaginary spectral appearances — —”
“Who told you about that?” she interrupted, in agitation. “How came you to hear it?”
“My dear, I heard it from Perry. But he did not break faith in speaking of it, for he thought you had already told me. There can be no reason why I should not know it; but I am sorry that it has penetrated to the servants.”
Poor Annabel laid her head on the arm of the sofa, and moaned.
“I do not like to leave you or Mrs. Brightman either, in this distress. Shall I remain in the house to-night? I can send a message to Leah — —”
“Oh no, no,” she hastily interrupted, as if the proposal had startled her. And then she continued slowly, hesitatingly, pausing between her words: “You do not — of course — believe that — that papa — —”
“Of course I do not,” was my hearty reply, relieving her from her embarrassing question. “Nor you either, Annabel: although, as a child, you devoured every ghost-story you came near.”
She made no confirmatory reply, only looked down, and kept silence. I gazed at her wonderingly.
“It terrified me so much last night,” she whispered.
“What terrified you, Annabel?”
“I was terrified altogether; at mamma’s screams, at her words, at the nervous state she was in. Mr. Close has helped to frighten me, too, for I heard him say this morning to Hatch that such cases have been known to end in madness.”
“Mr. Close is not worth a rush,” cried I, suppressing what I had been about to utter impulsively. “So he knows of this fancy?”
“Yes, Hatch told him. Indeed, Charles, I do not see that there was any help for it.”
“He will observe discretion, I suppose. Still, I almost wish you had called in someone who is a stranger to the neighbourhood.”
“Mamma will not have a stranger, and you know we must not act in opposition to her will. She seemed so much better this morning; quite herself again.”
“Of course. With the return of daylight these fancies subside. But as it seems there is nothing I can do for you, Annabel, I must be going, and will come again to-morrow evening.”
The conclusion seemed to startle her. “Had — you — better come?” she cried, with much hesitation.
“Yes, Annabel, I had better come,” I firmly replied. “And I cannot understand why you should wish me not to do so, as I can see you do.”
“Only — if mamma should be ill again — it is all so uncomfortable. I dare say you never even finished your tea,” glancing at the table. All trivial excuses, to conceal her real and inexplicable motive, I felt certain. “Good-night, Charles.”
She held out her hand to me. I did not take it: I took her instead, and held her to my heart. “You are not yourself to-night, Annabel, for there is some further mystery in all this, and you will not tell it me. But the time will soon come, my dearest, when our mysteries and our sorrows must be shared in common.” And all the answer I received was a look of despair.
In passing through the iron gates, I met Mr. Close. The moon to-night was obscured by clouds, but the gas-lamps revealed us plainly to each other. “How is Mrs. Brightman?” he asked.
“Very ill and very strange,” I answered. “Do you apprehend any serious result?”
“Well — no,” said he; “not immediately. Of course, it will tell upon her in the long-run.”
“She has had another attack of nervous terror to-night; in fact, two attacks.”
“Ay; seen the ghost again, I suppose. I suspected she would, so thought I would just call in.”
“Would it not be as well — excuse me, Mr. Close, but you are aware how intimately connected I was with Mr. Brightman — to call in a consultation? Not that there is the slightest doubt of your skill and competency, but it appears to be so singular a malady; and in the multitude of counsellors there is safety, you know.”
“It is the commonest malady we have to deal with,” returned he; and the answer was so unexpected that I could only stare in silence.
“Have a consultation if you think it more satisfactory, Mr. Strange. But it will not produce the slightest benefit; and the less this matter is allowed to transpire the better. I assure you that all the faculty combined could not do more for Mrs. Brightman than I am doing. It is a lamentable disease, but it is one that must run its course.”
He went on to the house, and I got outside an omnibus that was passing the end of the road, and lighted my cigar, more at sea than ever. If seeing ghosts was the commonest malady doctors had to deal with, where had I lived all my life not to have learned it?
The next afternoon I was surprised by a visit from Perry. He brought word from his mistress that she was very much better, though not yet able to see me on business matters; when she felt equal to it, she would let me know. Miss Annabel, concluded the butler, was gone to Hastings.
“To Hastings!” I exclaimed.
“Well, yes, sir. My mistress decided upon it this morning, and I have just seen her off by train, with Sarah in attendance on her. Fact is, sir,” added Perry, dropping his voice to a confidential key: “Hatch whispered to me that it was thought best the poor young lady should be out of the house while it is so troubled.”
“Troubled!” I repeated, half in scorn.
“Why, yes, sir, you know what it is that’s in it,” rejoined Perry simply. “Mr. Close, too, he said Miss Annabel ought to be away from it just now.”
* * * * *
When every hour of the day is occupied, time glides on insensibly. A week passed. I heard no news of or from Mrs. Brightman, and did not altogether care to intrude upon her, unbidden. But when the second week was also quickly passing, I determined to take an evening to go to Clapham. Dinner over, I was going downstairs, and met Leah coming up.
