CHAPTER XX.
AN ALARM
“It strikes me that there are unusual sounds in this generally quiet house,” observed Mr. Trevor, raising his head to listen, after he and Bruce had been for nearly half-an-hour employed in reading and making extracts.
“I have been noticing them too,” said Bruce. “I suppose that Vibert is in one of his wild merry moods, and that – ”
Ere he could finish his sentence, the door of the study was suddenly flung wide open, and Vibert rushed in, with anxiety painted on his face.
“Emmie – is she with you?” he breathlessly cried.
“Emmie!” repeated Mr. Trevor, rising in sudden alarm. Bruce dropped the paper which he had held in his hand, and sprang to his feet.
“Did she not go with you to watch the eclipse?” asked the father; “when did you miss her? – where did you leave her?” The questions were asked in a manner and tone that expressed anxiety.
“I left Emmie on the sward by the yew-trees,” said Vibert, answering the last question first.
“Surely not alone?” interrupted his brother.
“I was back in three minutes, but she was gone. I called – loudly enough – but there was no answer! I rushed back to the house, and have since been hunting all over the place – upper rooms, lower rooms, kitchen, and all! The servants know nothing about Emmie, but are looking for her in every corner!”
“The grounds must be searched with torches without a moment’s delay,” cried the father, loudly ringing the bell of the study. Bruce hurried to the door with such anxious haste that he almost came into collision with – Emmie!
“Here she comes herself, our wandering fairy, to give an account of her doings!” he cried, drawing back to let Emmie pass him and enter the lighted apartment. “She has only been playing at hide-and-seek.”
Bruce spoke gaily, but almost before the last word had left his lips his manner changed, for he looked on his sister, and saw at a glance that no mirthful frolic had caused her late disappearance. Had the poor heroine of the story of the oaken-chest contrived by some superhuman effort to burst her living tomb, even in such ghastly guise might she have appeared before her wondering friends.
Emmie had entered the study with rapid steps; she now threw herself into the arms of her father, and buried her face on his breast, as if seeking for protection and safety. The poor girl uttered no sound, but her bosom heaved convulsively, and her clinging hands trembled as if with ague. Emmie’s scarlet shawl had fallen back on her shoulders, and over it flowed her dishevelled hair. Emmie’s attitude was so expressive of terror, that she might have been deemed some fugitive who had barely escaped with life from some scene of slaughter.
“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 glass 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 glass 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 pass 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 superstitious 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 passionate 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.
“What a lucky chance it was that Bruce should have barked at me just as papa came in!” thought the triumphant Vibert. “I’ll be off before daylight to-morrow, or the hard-headed, hard-hearted chap would find a thousand reasons for not letting me go after all.”
CHAPTER XXI.
INDECISION
“Vibert gone to London, – and so suddenly!” exclaimed Bruce, when, on the following morning, he heard from his father of his brother’s early departure. “Wherefore did he go? He did not mention to me a word of his intention to make the journey.”
“You scarcely invite his confidence,” observed Mr. Trevor.
“There is more money thrown to the dogs,” muttered Bruce.
“No; Vibert has shown more consideration for my purse than usual,” said Mr. Trevor. “He has made no call upon it for this little expedition to London.”
Bruce looked steadfastly into the face of his father for several seconds, but not in order to read anything there. The young man’s mind was busy with its own thoughts; a slight smile came over his lips, – the smile of one who has detected a little plot, and knows how to foil it. With an inaudible “I smell a rat,” Bruce turned and walked up to the window.
“Vibert need no money to carry him to London! As well might we believe that the train in which he travels requires no steam,” thought Bruce to himself. “I happen to know that his purse was empty yesterday morning. My belief is that Vibert is in this house at this moment, or at any rate not further off than S – . He has some silly practical joke in his head connected with the haunted chamber, and means to throw me off my guard by a feigned absence in London. What folly possessed me to tell a wild hare-brain like Vibert of the little door in the panel? But it is no matter; whatever frantic freak he may have in his head, he at least shall find me prepared.”
Emmie came down to morning prayers looking very pale, and with the violet tints under her languid eyes, which were tokens of her having passed a sleepless night. She presided as usual at the breakfast-table, but in a dreamy, listless manner, herself scarcely touching the viands. It was evidently an effort to the poor girl to join in the conversation, which her father purposely led to such topics as he thought might interest his daughter. Mr. Trevor talked of literature and arts, recounted amusing passages from his own history, and did his best to divert Emmie’s mind, but with little apparent effect. Her eyes were constantly turned towards her brother with an anxious, questioning look, until, the morning meal being concluded, Mr. Trevor, perplexed and disappointed, left the room to speak to his steward.
Emmie then went up to Bruce, who was about to start on his daily walk to his tutor’s.
“Bruce, dearest, you look ill,” said Emmie, laying a tremulous hand on the arm of her brother.
“I might say the same to you, if it were not treason to utter anything so uncomplimentary to a fair lady,” observed Bruce.
“Why do you look ill? Has – has anything painful occurred?” asked Emmie, in a hurried, nervous manner.
“I must act echo again,” answered Bruce.
“Tell me, oh, tell me what has happened,” urged his sister, who was not in the slightest degree disposed to enter into a jest.
“Nothing has happened, dear Emmie,” replied Bruce more gravely. “I have had a little headache these one or two days; it is of no consequence. You have not the least occasion to look so miserably anxious as far as I am concerned.”
To the young man’s surprise, his sister’s eyes filled and then brimmed over with tears. Emmie leaned her brow against his shoulder, and drops fell fast on the sleeve of his arm, which she was pressing with a nervous grasp.
“My dear Emmie, what can be the cause of all this sorrow? What ails you?” asked Bruce, grieved at the sight of distress for which he could not account.
“Oh, Bruce!” sobbed Emmie, pressing her brother’s arm yet more closely, “promise me – promise me – ” She stopped short, as if afraid to finish her sentence.
“What would you have me promise?” asked Bruce.
Emmie gave no direct reply, but inquired abruptly, “Have you a bell in your room?”
Her question was a real relief to the mind of Bruce, as it convinced him that Emmie’s misery arose merely from some fanciful terrors in regard to the bricked-up apartment.
“Yes,” he answered gaily, “and a gun besides, to say nothing of poker and tongs, pen-knife, and razors. If any unpleasant guests were to make their appearance, they should find me quite ready to meet them.”
Emmie was crying no longer, but she looked pale and anxious as ever; something seemed to be on her tongue struggling for utterance, – something which she was afraid or unable to speak.
“It is time for me to be off,” said Bruce, gently releasing his arm from the clasp of his sister.
“Bruce, stay. Tell me if you would again change rooms with me,” cried Emmie, with a convulsive effort.
“I am very sorry that you do not like your new apartment,” said Bruce, slightly knitting his brows.
“I do like it, – it is only too good for me,” faltered poor Emmie.
“Then why quit it?” asked Bruce, with a little impatience.
“I thought that if you would not mind changing – ” Again Emmie stopped abruptly, without concluding her sentence.
“Of course I will change rooms with you if you really wish it,” said Bruce, willing to humour his sister, but making mental reflections on the fickleness and unreasonableness of the fair sex, of which Emmie was the only representative with whom he was well acquainted.
“But I do not wish it, – no, no, – not yet, not yet!” exclaimed Emmie, betraying terror at the idea of her brother complying with her request. The patience of Bruce was fairly exhausted.
“I wish that you would know your own mind,” he said, with an air of vexation. “Really, Emmie, you should try to overcome these ridiculous fears and fancies. Where is your spirit, – where is your faith?”
Emmie turned away her head with a shivering sigh.
“We must send you to London for change of scene,” observed Bruce; “a few weeks with Aunt Mary will drive all these unreasonable terrors out of your mind.”
“Oh, let us all go – at once – to-day!” exclaimed Emmie, clasping her hands. “Let us all leave this horrible place.”
“For my father or myself to leave Myst Court at present is simply impossible,” said Bruce, in that tone of quiet decision which, as Emmie well knew, expressed a resolution which it was useless for her to attempt to shake.
“Then I will not leave you, – no, no!” she murmured. “Let us all at least be together.”
“If we be in danger from any foe, corporeal or spiritual, your slender arm and more slender courage will scarcely avail much for our protection,” observed Bruce, with a smile. He had regained his good-humour, and sought to rally Emmie out of her fears by assuming a playful manner.
But the attempt was vain; Emmie only burst again into a fit of weeping, and hastily quitted the apartment, brushing past her father, who was just returning to the breakfast-room after his interview with his steward.
“I am extremely annoyed about Emmie,” said the affectionate parent, addressing himself to Bruce; “I cannot comprehend what has taken such a strange hold on her mind.”
“Mere fear, I believe,” answered Bruce. “She has never struggled to overcome it, and now in this gloomy old place it has gained complete mastery over her reason.”
“The mere incident of her having been left alone on the lawn for a few minutes last night seems scarcely to account for my child’s terror,” observed Mr. Trevor. “Surely Vibert, thoughtless as he is, cannot have had the senseless cruelty to play on his sister’s timidity any practical joke.” The same idea had occurred, to Bruce.
“Vibert is capable of any folly,” thought the elder brother; but after the experience of the preceding evening, he did not put the thought into words.
“I shall keep my girl as close by my side as possible,” observed Mr. Trevor. “Perhaps this strange fit of melancholy may pass off; if not, I must arrange for her going to Grosvenor Square. Her departure would leave a sad blank in our little circle at Christmas-time, but my own gratification must not weigh in the balance against my child’s comfort and health.”
“Where is your faith, – where is your faith?” moaned poor Emmie, repeating to herself again and again her brother’s question, as she paced up and down her own apartment, wringing her hands. “Oh, miserable doubt and mistrust! I might once have met my enemy on the ground of duty, and by prayer and resolute effort have gained some strength to meet more serious trials; but I let my fears subdue me without a struggle to cast them off, and now I lie prostrate, – a helpless victim bound in their chains. Usefulness marred, peace destroyed, a horrible dread on my mind, a reproving conscience within my breast, I seem now unable even to pray! I have let go the Hand that would so gently have led me; darkness is thick around me; I cannot find my Heavenly Guide! I dread to keep silent, yet dare not speak. Oh, that horrible, blasphemous oath!”
But it is time that the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances which led to Emmie’s present state of misery. We will therefore return to that point in the story where we left the maiden silently tracking in the darkness the steps of Jael up the dark and narrow stone stairs.