The day was very fine: the air was as mild as if it were the month of May instead of March; and the whole party were in excellent spirits—for even Egerton recovered his natural gaiety when he saw that the affair was likely to pass off without any of those annoyances which he had feared would arise from the collision of Finsbury denizens and West End fashionables.
At length the open country was gained; and in due time the stately pile of Ravensworth Hall appeared in the distance. Nothing could equal the gratification which Mrs. Bustard and the five Misses Bustard experienced when the edifice was pointed out to them as Egerton’s country-seat; and, without pausing to reflect how incompatible were his means with such a grand mansion, they felt no small degree of pride at the idea of claiming the proprietor of Ravensworth Hall as their own near relation.
“What a beautiful place!” whispered Miss Clarissa to Mr. Jones, who would insist on keeping her hand locked in his during the whole ride.
“Charming, dearest—charming!” replied the enamoured swain; “and so are you.”
Miss Clarissa blushed for the thirtieth time that morning; and, as if the squeeze of the hand which Mr. Jones gave her as a proof of his undivided affection were not sufficient, he planted his boot upon her foot at the same time.
This is, however, so common a token of love in all civilised and enlightened countries, that Miss Clarissa Jemima received it as such, although the tender pressure somewhat impaired the snow-white propriety of her stocking.
“Oh! what an immense building!” exclaimed Miss Susannah Rachel Bustard, as the three carriages now swept through Ravensworth Park.
“Gigantic!” said another Miss Bustard.
“Very stupendous, indeed, ladies,” observed Colonel Cholmondeley, who was seated in the same vehicle with two of Mrs. Bustard’s fair daughters.
“And so this great large edifisk is yours, my dear Al?” said the good lady herself, as she thrust her head from the window of the glass-coach, and surveyed the building with ineffable satisfaction. “But what a sight of chimbleys it has, to be sure!”
“Because it has a great number of rooms, aunt,” replied Egerton.
“What sweet balconies!” cried the enraptured lady.
“Yes,” said Egerton: “and they will look very handsome when all the shutters are opened and the windows are filled with flowers and evergreens.”
“Oh! to be sure,” exclaimed Mrs. Bustard, joyfully. “Well, really, it is a most charming place; and I never did see such lovely chimbley-pots in all my life. Quite picturesque, I declare!”
The three carriages now stopped before the entrance of the Hall; and Lord Dunstable’s lacquey gave a furious ring at the bell.
In a short time one of the folding-doors was slowly opened to a distance of about a foot, and an old man, wearing a strange brown wig surmounted by a paper cap, thrust his head forth. Then, having surveyed the party with a suspicious air for some moments, he opened the door a little wider and revealed the remainder of his form.
“Come, my good fellow,” ejaculated Dunstable, as he rushed up the steps; “don’t you know your new master, who is just handing that lady out of the glass-coach?”
This was intended as a hint to make the gardener aware of the particular individual who was to be passed off as the owner of Ravensworth Hall.
“Oh! ah!” said the man, in a drawling tone, as he took off the paper cap, and made a bow to the company; “I sees him, and a wery nice gentleman he is, I’ve no doubt. But I hope he’ll ex-kooze me for not opening the gate at fust, because——”
“Because, I suppose,” hastily interposed Dunstable, “you did not know who we all were.”
“No that I didn’t,” continued the old man; “and I’m desperate afeard of thieves.”
“Thieves!” cried Lord Dunstable: “what—in the broad day-light, and riding in carriages?”
“Lor, sir,” said the gardener, turning a quid of tobacco from one side of his mouth to another, so that a swelling which at first appeared in his left cheek was suddenly transferred to the right; “me and my old ’ooman is wery lonesome in this great place; and we’ve heerd such strange stories about the tricks of thieves, that we never know what shape they may take a fancy to come in.”
Dunstable cut short the old man’s garrulity by inquiring if the baskets, that were sent on the previous day, had arrived; and, on receiving a round-about reply in the misty verbosity of which he perceived an affirmative, the nobleman desired Egerton to do the honours of his new mansion.
“My good man,” said Mrs. Bustard, advancing in a stately fashion towards the gardener, who had replaced the paper cap on his head, and had tucked up his dirty apron, so that it looked like a reefed sail hanging to his waist—“my good man, what is your name? I don’t ask through imperent curiosity; but only because I am the aunt of your new master, and all them young ladies is my daughters, your new master’s first cousins in consequence; and it’s more than likely that we shall pay a many visits to the Hall. So it is but right and proper that we should know by what name we’re to call you.”
The gardener was a little, shrivelled, stolid-looking old man; and there was something so ludicrous in the way in which he stared at Mrs. Bustard as she thus addressed him, that Cholmondeley and Chichester were compelled to turn aside to prevent themselves from bursting into a roar of laughter.
“My good fellow,” said Dunstable, hastening forward to the rescue—for Egerton was trembling like a leaf through the fear of exposure,—“this lady puts a very proper question to you; but of course her nephew, your new master, is able to answer.”
“Well, now!” cried Mrs. Bustard, struck by this observation; “and I never thought of asking Albert! Why, it’s nat’ral that one should know the proper names of one’s own servants.”
“To be sure,” said Lord Dunstable, hastily; “and this worthy man’s name is—is—ahem?”
“Oh! yes,” observed Egerton, in a faint tone, “his name is——”
“Squiggs is my name, ma’am,” said the gardener: “leastways, that’s the name I’ve bore these nine-and-sixty blessed years past, come next Aperil—Abraham Squiggs at your service. And now that I’ve told you my name, ma’am, p’rhaps you’ll be so obleeging as to tell me your’n?”
But Dunstable hastened to cut short this somewhat disagreeable scene,—which, by the way, never would have occurred, had he adopted the precaution of previously ascertaining the name of the gardener,—by desiring Mr. Abraham Squiggs to lead the way into the drawing-room prepared to receive the company.
This request was complied with; and the old man slowly proceeded up the marble staircase, followed by the whole party.
Mrs. Bustard and her daughters were highly delighted at the splendid appearance of the mansion; and their joy was expressed by repeated exclamations of “Beautiful!”—“Charming!”—“Quite a palace!”—“Well, I never!”—“Oh! the sweet place!”—and other sentences of equally significant meaning.
“Ah! this here mansion has seen a many strange things,” said the old gardener, as he admitted the company into a handsome apartment, the shutters of which were open: “this wery room is the one where Mr. Gilbert Vernon throwed his-self out of winder about two years ago.”
“Threw himself out of the window!” cried Mrs. Bustard; “and what did he do that for?”
“To kill his-self, ma’am,” answered the old man. “I wasn’t here at the time: I’d gone down into the country to see a garden that a friend o’ mine manured with some stuff that he bought in a jar at the chemist’s—about a pint of it to a acre. Ah! it’s a wonderful thing, to be sure, to be able to carry manure enow for a whole garden in your veskit-pocket, as one may say.”
“But you was speaking about a gentleman who threw himself out of the window?” said Mrs. Bustard, impatiently.
“Ah! so I were,
” continued the gardener. “It was told in the newspapers at the time; but no partickler cause was given. Oh! there was a great deal of mystery about all that business; and I don’t like to say much on it, ’cos Mr. Vernon is knowed to walk.”
“Known to walk!” exclaimed several of the ladies and gentlemen, all as it were speaking in one breath.
“Yes,” returned the gardener, with a solemn shake of the head: “Gilbert Vernon sleeps in a troubled grave; and his sperret wanders about the mansion of a night. If it wasn’t that me and my wife is old and friendless, and must go to the workus if we hadn’t this place, we’d not sleep another night in Ravensworth Hall.”
“Why, my dear Al!” ejaculated Mrs. Bustard, casting a terrified glance around, although the sun was shining gloriously and pouring a flood of golden lustre through the windows,—“you have gone and bought a haunted house, I do declare!”
“How charmingly poetical!” whispered the tripeman’s son to Miss Clarissa Jemima: “only think, dearest—a haunted house!”
“Yes, Tedworth—I do indeed think——”
“What? beloved one!” asked the sentimental swain.
“That I hope we shall leave it before it grows dusk,” returned the young lady, who evidently saw nothing poetical in the matter at all.
“My dear aunt,” said Egerton, in reply to the observation which his relative had addressed to him, “I am not so silly as to be frightened by tales of ghosts and spirits; and I would as soon sleep in this room as in any other throughout the mansion.”
“No, you wouldn’t, young man—no, indeed, you wouldn’t!” exclaimed the gardener, in so earnest and impressive a manner that the young ladies huddled together like terrified lambs, and even the gentlemen now began to listen to the old man with more attention than they had hitherto shown: “I say, sir, that you would not like to sleep in this room—for, as sure as there is a God above us, have me and my wife seen the sperret of Gilbert Vernon standing at dusk in that very balcony which he throwed his-self from.”
“Dear! dear!” whispered all the young ladies together.
“And what was he like?” asked Mrs. Bustard.
“Why, ma’am,” returned the gardener, “he was dressed all in deep black; but his face were as pale as a corpse’s; and when the moonbeams fell on it, me and my wife could see that it was the face of a dead man as well as I can see e’er a one of you at this present speaking.”
“Egad! you have bought a nice property, Egerton,” said Lord Dunstable, turning towards his young friend. “I shall propose that we return to London again before it grows dusk.”
“Decidedly—since you are so disposed,” returned Egerton, who was rejoiced to think that the old gardener had started a topic so well calculated to frighten his aunt and cousins away from the Hall some hours earlier than they might have otherwise been induced to leave it.
“ ’Pon my honour, all this is vastly entertaining!” exclaimed Sir Rupert Harborough. “But how long ago was it that you saw the ghost, my good friend?”
“How long ago?” repeated the old man, slowly: “why, I have seen it a matter of fifty—or, may be a hundred times. The fust time, me and my wife was together: we had been across the fields to a farm-house to get some milk, butter, and what not; and we was a-coming home through the Park, when we see a dark object in the balcony there. My wife looks—and I looks—and sure enow there it were.—‘What do you think it is?’ says she.—‘I think it’s a thief,’ says I.—‘No it ain’t,’ say she: ‘it don’t move; and a thief wouldn’t stand there to amuse his-self.’—‘No more he would,’ says I: ‘let’s go near, for no one won’t harm two poor old creaturs like us.’ And we went close under the balcony, and looked up; but never shall I forget, or my old ’ooman either, the awful pale face that stared down upon us! Then we recollected that that wery balcony was the one which Mr. Vernon had throwed his-self from; and that was enow for us. We knowed we had seen his sperret!”
“Oh! dear, if it should come now!” murmured Miss Clarissa, who was so alarmed—or at least seemed to be—that she was forced to throw herself into the arms of Mr. Tedworth Jones.
“Well—this is what I call a hectic dilemmy that you’ve got into, Albert,” said Mrs. Bustard; “for you’ll never be able to live in this place.”
“And no one else—unless it is such poor old helpless creaturs as me and my wife,” said the gardener. “Since the fust time we see the sperret—and that’s near a year and a half ago—we’ve seen him a many, many times; but he don’t hurt us—we’ve got used to him, as one may say.”
“If this be the room that your ghost frequents,” exclaimed Colonel Cholmondeley, “why did you select it for our reception to-day, since there are so many other apartments in the mansion?”
The gardener looked confused, and made a movement as if he were about t0 leave the room.
“Oh! do make him tell us why he chose this apartment of all others!” whispered Mrs. Bustard to her nephew.
“My good fellow,” said Egerton, thus urged on in a manner to which he could not reasonably object in his presumed capacity of owner of the mansion,—“my good fellow, did you not hear the question addressed to you by Colonel Cholmondeley?”
“Yes,” replied the gardener, abruptly.
“Then, why—why do you not answer it?” said Egerton, not daring to speak in a firm or commanding tone.
“Why—if you’re koorious to know, I han’t no objection to tell you,” responded the old gardener, after a few moments’ consideration. “You see, when the establishment was broke up just after Lady Ravensworth left the Hall on a sudden, and when her lawyer come down here to discharge the servants, except me and my wife, who was put in charge o’ the place, he goes through the whole building, has all the shutters shut, and locks up all the rooms——”
“Yes, yes—of course,” interposed Dunstable, hastily: “because the mansion was to be sold just as it stood, with all the furniture in it.”
“But he give us the keys, in course,” continued the gardener; “on’y he told us to keep the rooms locked, and the shutters shut, when we wasn’t dusting or cleaning. Well, the very next day arter we see the sperret in the balcony, me and my wife come up to this room together, and sure enow the shutters was open!”
“And they had been closed before?” asked one of the young ladies, in a tremulous tone.
“As sure as you’re there, Miss,” replied the old man, “what I now tell you is as true as true can be. But the door was locked—and that made it more koorious still.”
“It is clear that the shutters in this one particular room had been left open when all the others were closed,” said Colonel Cholmondeley, with a contemptuous smile; for he began to grow weary of the old man’s garrulity.
“Well—and if they was,” cried Abraham Squiggs, in an angry tone,—for the Colonel’s remark seemed to convey an imputation against his veracity,—“me and my wife shut ’em up again, and locked the door when we went out.”
“And what followed?” inquired two or three of the Misses Bustard, speaking in low voices which indicated breathless curiosity.
“Why, that next night the shutters was opened again,” answered the old man, fixing a reproachful glance upon the sceptical Colonel.
The young ladies shuddered visibly, and crowded together;—Mrs. Bustard again cast a timorous glance around;—and the gentlemen knew not what to make of the gardener’s story.
“Yes,” continued the old man, now triumphing in the impression which he had evidently made upon his audience; “and from that moment till now I’ve never set foot in this here drawing-room. But the sperret is often here; for sometimes the shutters stays open for two or three days—sometimes they’re closed for weeks together.”
“But what has all that to do with your bringing us to this very room on the present occasion?” asked Eger
ton, his aunt again prompting the question.
“Now don’t be angry, sir, and I’ll tell you,” replied the gardener, remembering that he was to treat Mr. Egerton as the owner of the place. “The shutters has been shut for a matter of three weeks up to last night; and so when I see ’em open agen, I says to my wife, says I, ‘Now’s the time to see what the sperret raly wants, and why he troubles that room. There’s a power of fine folks a-coming to-morrow,’ says I; ‘and we’ll just put ’em in the haunted-room. If so be the sperret shows his-self, they’re sure to speak to him; and may be he’ll tell them why he walks.’—‘Do so,’ says my old ’ooman: and by rights I shouldn’t have said a word about the sperret at all;—but it come out some how or another; and now you know all.”
“And we are very much obleeged, indeed, for being put into a haunted room,” exclaimed Mrs. Bustard, bridling up.
“Oh! the joke is a capital one!” cried Cholmondeley; “and we will stay here by all means. If the ladies should be frightened, the gentlemen must take them upon their knees.”
“Oh! this before one in my situation!” whispered Clarissa Jemima to her lover.
“It is too bad, my charmer,” returned the poetical tripe-man.
But the Colonel’s observation, however grievously it shocked the tender couple, had only produced a vast amount of giggling and blushing on the part of the four Misses Bustards who were not engaged to be married; and the result was that no serious opposition manifested itself to Cholmondeley’s proposal to occupy that particular room.
“Pray be seated, ladies and gentlemen,” said Egerton, now taking upon himself the duties of a host: “and excuse me for a few minutes while I ascertain that every thing necessary for your entertainment has been provided.”
Egerton accordingly left the room, beckoning Abraham Squiggs to follow him.
The gardener conducted his temporary master to the kitchen, where Mrs. Squiggs was busily engaged in unpacking the hampers of wine and cold provisions sent on the preceding day. She was as like her husband as if she had been his sister instead of his wife; and therefore the reader is prepared to hear that she was a little, shrivelled, dirty old woman, possessing a face and hands apparently at open war with soap and water.
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 121