by Duchess
CHAPTER VI.
"Dear Sir Adrian," says Dora Talbot, laying down her bat upon agarden-chair, and forsaking the game of tennis then proceeding to goforward and greet her host, "where have you been? We have missed you somuch. Florence"--turning to her cousin--"will you take my bat, dearest?I am quite tired of trying to defeat Lord Lisle."
Lord Lisle, a middle-aged gentleman of sunburned appearance, looksunmistakably delighted at the prospect of a change in the game. He ismarried; has a large family of promising young Lisles, and a ferventpassion for tennis. Mrs. Talbot having proved a very contemptibleadversary, he is charmed at this chance of getting rid of her.
So Florence, _vice_ Dora retired, joins the game, and the play continueswith unabated vigor. When however Lord Lisle has scored a grand victory,and all the players declare themselves thoroughly exhausted and in needof refreshment, Sir Adrian comes forward, and walks straight up to MissDelmaine, to Dora's intense chagrin and the secret rage of ArthurDynecourt.
"You have often asked to see the 'haunted chamber,'" he says; "why notcome and visit it now? It isn't much to see, you know; but still, in aghostly sense, it is, I suppose, interesting."
"Let us make a party and go together," suggests Dora, enthusiasticallyclasping her hands--her favorite method of showing false emotion ofany kind. She is determined to have her part in the programme, and isequally determined that Florence shall go nowhere alone with Sir Adrian.
"What a capital idea!" puts in Arthur Dynecourt, coming up to MissDelmaine, and specially addressing her with all the air of a rightfulowner.
"Charming," murmurs a young lady standing by; and so the question issettled.
"It will be rather a fatiguing journey, you know," says CaptainRingwood, confidentially, to Ethel Villiers. "It's an awful lot ofstairs; I've been there, so I know all about it--it's worse than thetreadmill."
"Have you been there too?" demands Miss Ethel saucily, glancing at himfrom under her long lashes.
"Not yet," answers the captain, with a little grin. "But, I say, don'tgo--will you?"
"I must; I'm dying to see it," replies Ethel. "You needn't come, youknow; I dare say I shall be able to get on without you for half an houror so."
"I dare say you could get on uncommonly well without me forever,"retorts the captain rather gloomily. To himself he confesses moodilythat this girl with the auburn hair and the blue eyes has the power oftaking the "curl out of him" whensoever she wishes.
"I believe you are afraid of the bogies hidden in this secret chamber,and so don't care to come," says Miss Villiers tauntingly.
"I know something else I'm a great deal more afraid of," responds thegallant captain meaningly.
"Me?" she asks innocently, but certainly coquettishly. "Oh, CaptainRingwood"--in a tone of mock injury--"what an unkind speech! Now I knowyou look upon me in the light of an ogress, or a witch, or somethingequally dreadful. Well, as I have the name of it, I may as well havethe gain of it, and so--I command you to attend me to the 'hauntedchamber.'"
"You order--I obey," says the captain. "'Call and I follow--I follow,though I die!'" After which quotation he accompanies her toward thehouse in the wake of Dora and Sir Adrian, who has been pressed by theclever widow into her service.
Florence and Arthur Dynecourt follow them, Arthur talking gayly, asthough determined to ignore the fact that he is thoroughly unwelcome tohis companion; Florence, with head erect and haughty footsteps and eyescarefully averted.
Past the hall, through the corridor, up the staircase, through thegalleries, along more corridors they go, laughing and talking eagerly,until they come at last to an old and apparently much disused part ofthe house.
Traversing more corridors, upon which dust lies thickly, they come atlast to a small iron-bound door that blocks the end of one passage.
"Now we really begin to get near to it," says Sir Adrian encouragingly,turning, as he always does, when opportunity offers, to address himselfsolely to Florence.
"Don't you feel creepy-creepy?" asks Ethel Villiers, with a smotheredlaugh, looking up at Captain Ringwood.
Then Sir Adrian pushes open the door, revealing a steep flight of stonesteps that leads upward to another door above. This door, like the lowerone, is bound with iron.
"This is the tower," explains Sir Adrian, still acting as ciceroneto the small party, who look with interest around them. Mrs. Talbot,affecting nervousness, clings closely to Sir Adrian's arm. Indeed she isdebating in her own mind whether it would be effective or otherwise tosubside into a graceful swoon within his arms. "Yonder is the door ofthe chamber," continues Sir Adrian. "Come, let us go up to it."
They all ascend the last flight of stone stairs; and presently theirhost opens the door, and reveals to them whatever mysteries may liebeyond. He enters first, and they all follow him, but, as if suddenlyrecollecting some important point, he turns, and calls loudly to CaptainRingwood not to let the door shut behind him.
"There is a peculiar spring in the lock," he explains a moment later;"and, if the door slammed to, we should find it impossible to open itfrom the inside, and might remain here prisoners forever unless thehousehold came to the rescue."
"Oh, Captain Ringwood, pray be careful!" cries Dora falteringly. "Ourvery lives depend upon your attention!"
"Miss Villiers, do come here and help me to remember my duty," saysCaptain Ringwood, planting his back against the open door lest by anymeans it should shut.
The chamber is round, and has, instead of windows, three narrowapertures in the walls, through which can be obtained a glimpse of thesky, but of nothing else. These apertures are just large enough to admita man's hand. The room is without furniture of any description, and onthe boards the dark stains of blood are distinctly visible.
"Dynecourt, tell them a story or two," calls out Ringwood to Sir Adrian."They won't believe it is veritably haunted unless you call up a ghostto frighten them."
But they all protest in a body that they do not wish to hear any ghoststories, so Sir Adrian laughingly refuses to comply with Ringwood'srequest.
"Are we far from the other parts of the house?" asks Florence at length,who has been examining some writing on the walls.
"So far that, if you were immured here, no cry, however loud, couldpenetrate the distance," replies Sir Adrian. "You are as thoroughlyremoved from the habitable parts of the castle as if you were in thenext county."
"How interesting!" observes Dora, with a little simper.
"The servants are so afraid of this room that they would not venturehere even by daylight," Sir Adrian goes on. "You can see how the dust ofyears is on it. One might be slowly starved to death here without one'sfriends being a bit the wiser."
He laughs as he says this, but, long afterward, his words come back tohis listeners' memories, filling their breasts with terror and despair.
"I wonder you don't have this dangerous lock removed," says CaptainRingwood. "It is a regular trap. Some day you'll be sorry for it."
Prophetic words!
"Yes; I wish it were removed," responds Florence, with a strange quickshiver.
Sir Adrian laughs.
"Why, that is one of the old tower's greatest charms," he says. "Itbelongs to the dark ages, and suggests all sorts of horriblepossibilities. This room would be nothing without its mysterious lock."
At this moment Dora's eyes turn slowly toward Arthur Dynecourt. Sheherself hardly knows why, at this particular time, she should look athim, yet she feels that some unaccountable fascination is compelling hergaze to encounter his. Their eyes meet. As they do so, Dora shudders andturns deadly pale. There is that in Arthur Dynecourt's dark and sulleneyes that strikes her cold with terror and vague forebodings of evil. Itis a wicked look that overspreads the man's face--a cruel, implacablelook that seems to freeze her as she gazes at him spell-bound. Slowly,even while she watches him, she sees him turn his glance from her to SirAdrian in a meaning manner, as though to let her know that the vilethought that is working in his brain and is betraying itself
on his faceis intended for him, not her. And yet, with this too, he gives hersilently to understand that, if she shows any treachery toward him, hewill not leave it unrewarded.
Cowed, frightened, trembling at what she knows not, Dora staggersbackward, and, laying a hand upon the wall beside her, tries to regainher self-possession. The others are all talking together, she istherefore unobserved. She stands, still panting and pallid, tryingto collect her thoughts.
Only one thing comes clearly to her, filling her with loathing ofherself and an unnamed dread--it is that, by her own double-dealing andfalseness toward Florence, she has seemed to enter into a compact withthis man to be a companion in whatever crime he may decide upon. Hisvery look seems to implicate her, to drag her down with him to hislevel. She feels herself chained to him--his partner in a vileconspiracy. And what further adds to the horror of the situation is theknowledge that she knows herself to be blindly ignorant of whateverplans he may be forming.
After a few seconds she rouses herself, and wins back some degree ofcomposure. It is of course a mere weakness to believe herself in thepower of Arthur Dynecourt, she tries to convince herself. He is no morethan any other ordinary acquaintance. If indeed she has helped him alittle in his efforts to secure the love of Florence, there was no greatharm in that, though of course it served her own purpose also.
"How pale you are, Mrs. Talbot?" remarks Sir Adrian suddenly, wheelinground to look at her more closely. "Has this damp old place reallyaffected your nerves? Come, let us go down again, and forget in thesunshine that bloody deeds were ever committed here or elsewhere."
"I am nervous, I confess," responds Dora, in a low tone. "Yes, yes--letus leave this terrible room forever."
"So be it," says Sir Adrian gayly. "For my part, I feel no desire toever re-enter it."
"It is very high art, I suppose," observes Ethel Villiers, glancinground the walls. "Uncomfortable places always are. It would be quitea treasure to Lady Betty Trefeld, who raves over the early Britons. Itseems rather thrown away upon us. Captain Ringwood, you look as if youhad been suddenly turned into stone. Let me pass, please."
"It was uncommonly friendly of Ringwood not to have let the door slam,and so imprisoned us for life," says Sir Adrian, with a laugh. "I amsure we owe him a debt of gratitude."
"I hope you'll all pay it," laughs Ringwood. "It will be a nice newexperience for you to give a creditor something for once. I never pay myown debts; but that doesn't count. I feel sure you are all going to giveme something for my services as door-keeper."
"What shall I give you?" asks Ethel coquettishly.
"I'll tell you by and by," he replies, with such an expressive look thatfor once the saucy girl has no answer ready, but, blushing crimson,hurries past him down the stone stairs, where she waits at the bottomfor the others.
As Florence reaches the door she pauses and stoops to examine the lock.
"I wish," she says to Sir Adrian, a strange subdued excitement in hertone, "you would remove this lock. Do."
"But why?" he asks, impressed in spite of himself, by her manner.
"I hardly know myself; it is a fancy--an unaccountable one, perhaps--butstill a powerful one. Do be guided by me, and have it removed."
"What--the fancy?" he asks, laughing.
"No--the lock. Humor me in this," she pleads earnestly, far moreearnestly than the occasion seems to warrant. "Call it a sillypresentiment, if you like, but I honestly think that lock will work youevil some day. Therefore it is that I ask you to do away with it."
"You ask me?" he queries.
"Yes, if only to please me--for my sake."
She has evidently forgotten her late distrust of him, for she speaks nowin the old sweet tone, and with tears in her eyes. Sir Adrian flusheswarmly.
"For your sake," he whispers. "What is there I would not do, if thusrequested?"
A bitter sneer contracts Arthur Dynecourt's lips as he listens to thefirst part of this conversation and guesses at the latter half. He notescorrectly the kindling of their eyes, the quick breath that comes andgoes like happy sighs from the breast of Florence. He hears the whisper,sees the warm blush, and glances expressively at Dora. Meeting her eyeshe says his finger on his lips to caution her to silence, and then, whenpassing by her, whispers:
"Meet me in half an hour in the lower gallery."
Bowing her acquiescence in this arrangement, fearing indeed to refuse,Dora follows the others from the haunted chamber.
At the foot of the small stone staircase--before they go through thefirst iron-bound door that leads to the corridor without--they findEthel Villiers awaiting them. She had been looking round her in thedimly lighted stone passage, and has discovered another door fixedmysteriously in a corner, that had excited her curiosity.
"Where does this lead to, Sir Adrian?" she asks now, pointing to it.
"Oh, that is an old door connected with another passage that leads bya dark and wearying staircase to the servants' corridor beneath! I amafraid you won't be able to open it, as it is rusty with age and disuse.The servants would as soon think of coming up here as they would ofmaking an appointment with the Evil One; so it has not been opened foryears."
"Perhaps I can manage it," says Arthur Dynecourt, trying with all hismight to force the ancient lock to yield to him. At length his effortsare crowned with success; the door flies creakingly open, and a cloud ofdust uprising covers them like a mist.
"Ah!" exclaims Ethel, recoiling; but Arthur, stooping forward, carefullyexamines the dark staircase that lies before him wrapped in impenetrablegloom. Spider-nets have been drawn from wall to wall and hang in duskyclouds from the low ceiling; a faint, stale, stifling smell greets hisnostrils, yet he lingers there and looks carefully around him.
"You'll fall into it, if you don't mind," remarks Captain Ringwood. "Onewould think uncanny spots had an unwholesome attraction for you."
Ringwood, ever since the memorable night in the smoking-room, when SirAdrian was so near being killed, has looked askance at Arthur Dynecourt,and, when taking the trouble to address him at all, has been eithersharp or pointed in his remarks. Arthur, contenting himself with ascowl at him, closes the little door again, and turns away from it.
"At night," says Sir Adrian, in an amused tone, "the servants, passingby the door below that leads up to this one, run by it as though theyfear some ghostly ancestors of mine, descending from the hauntedchamber, will pounce out upon them with their heads under their arms,or in some equally unpleasant position. You know the door, don't you,Arthur--the second from the turning?"
"No," replies Arthur, with his false smile, "I do not; nor, indeed,do I care to know it. I firmly believe I should run past it too afternightfall, unless well protected."
"That looks as if you had an evil conscience," says Ringwood carelessly,but none the less purposely.
"It looks more as if I were a coward, I think," retorts Arthur,laughing, but shooting an angry glance at the gallant captain as hespeaks.
"Well, what does the immortal William say?" returns Ringwood coolly."'Conscience doth make cowards of us all!'"
"You have a sharp wit, sir," says Arthur, with apparent lightness, butpale with passion.
"I say, look here," breaks in Sir Adrian hastily, pulling out his watch;"it must be nearly time for tea. By Jove, quite half past four, and weknow what Lady FitzAlmont will say to us if we keep her deprived of herfavorite beverage for even five minutes. Come, let us run, ordestruction will light upon our heads."
So saying, he leads the way, and soon they leave the haunted chamber andall its gloomy associations far behind them.