Saved from herself or, On the edge of doom
“There must be something inside that’s like a musical-box,” she said,
more to herself than to him. But he shook his head.
“There’s naught. I’ve seen it and I know. ’Tis the fingers of her that
plays it--and God knows that’s enough! Pray to Him that you never see
her, Miss Trelane”--reverentially.
“Did any one ever?” she breathed sharply.
“Yes! She walks--all over the house--of nights like this,” he admitted
unwillingly. “But I have the servants all sleep in the new wing, else
we’d have ne’er a one. But you stay in your bed, miss, and you’ll never
see her. And don’t tell Miss Cristiane; her father never let her hear
of any such tales.”
“I won’t tell her; for one thing, I don’t believe in it,” Ismay said
sharply. But she showed no sign of leaving the pantry.
“Who was the ghost, Thomas, and what did she do, that she
walks?”--seating herself on one end of his table.
“She was a Lady Le Marchant,” he began sullenly, but at her interested
face he warmed suddenly to his tale. “You’ll give your word you’ll not
tell Miss Cristiane?” he promised.
“Not I,” she answered, her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of
her hand, in a curious crouching attitude that brought her eyes full on
his as he faced her.
“Go on, Thomas.”
“Well, then, she was a Lady Le Marchant. And her husband, Sir Guy,
fairly doted on her; but she was a childless woman, and given up to
pleasure and dancing, and the like. She had lovers by the score, but
she never cared for one of them beyond the first day or so. Fair she
was, they say; as fair as you, Miss Trelane”--glancing at her flaxen
hair--“and ’tis her picture hangs in the room with the spinet. ’Twas
done by a foreign artist Sir Guy had over from Italy, and that man the
lady loved.
“While the picture was being painted Sir Guy noticed nothing, but when
’twas done, and the man still stayed on, he wondered. And one day he
saw them kissing. She was playing the tune she loved best of all on
that spinet, and the foreign artist was behind her. And, not seeing her
husband, she throws back her head, and the man kisses her lips.
“They say Sir Guy was a proud man. Anyhow, he turned and went away as
if he’d seen nothing.
“But that night he told her, as she was singing herself that ungodly
tune she was forever playing on the spinet.
“Whatever he said no one knows. But it must have maddened her, for she
whipped up a knife that was on a table and stabbed him to the heart.
“He put out his hands to her, and one of them marked the dress she had
on with a stain of blood on the breast. But he lay dead in his chair,
and she with his blood wet on her gown went down-stairs to the artist,
and told him plump and plain what she’d done for his sake. And he would
have none of her.”
“He was a fool; she must have been good stuff,” observed his listener
musingly. “But I don’t know. She should have known him better first.”
“She was good stuff, Miss Trelane,” the old man went on quietly. “For
when he laid her crime before her, and told her he loved her no more,
she never even answered him. Just turned away silent, and up-stairs to
the room where Sir Guy lay dead.
“They say she played that tune then, in that room with a murdered man
to listen; played it for the last time. For one of the servants heard
it as he passed. And she heard him, too, for she opened the door and
called him.
“‘James,’ she says, ‘come here. Did you hear me playing just now?’
“‘Madam, yes,’ he answers. ‘’Tis all writ out in a book in the library.
You can see it if you like, miss.’
“‘And did you know the tune?’
“’Twas the one you’re so fond of, my lady.’ And he wondered at her for
asking, and for sitting without a light, for the room was dark and he
could not see into it.
“‘You’ll have no chance to forget it, you and those that come after
you,’ she says very slow. ‘When I’m gone you’ll hear it, and always
for evil. When you hear it’--and she laughed till he thought she was
crazy--‘you’ll remember I told you that in my dying hour.’
“Then she draws herself up and speaks out loud and grand till they
heard her through the house.
“‘Come in, man, and look at your master! He lies dead, and I killed
him; for I was weary of his face;’ and before he could know what she
meant, she had struck that bloody knife into her own breast, for she
was a strong woman, and she knew where to find her heart.”
“Is that all?” Ismay spoke with a curious effort, like one in a dream.
“All. Except that ’twas a stormy night like this will be, and ’tis
those times that she walks. And her spinet plays yet, and no one ever
heard it for good, or went into that room for luck.”
“I’d like to, Thomas,” she said quietly.
“Don’t you go,” he warned her. “For you might be frightened and run,
and them stairs outside and the rails of them are fairly crumbling
with dry-rot. If you tripped and fell against them, as like as not the
banisters would give way with you, and you’d fall to your death into
the great hall below. Mind now, Miss Trelane, for that’s the truth.”
“What would you do if you saw her, Thomas?” she queried idly.
“Me--miss?” he said shamefully. “Well! I’d run and get out of her way,
behind a locked door, and so would Jessie. As for the maids, they don’t
know, and if they did, they’d be gone without waiting to see her.”
Ismay slipped off the table.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she said. “I won’t tell Miss Cristiane, or any one
else. But it’s a queer story.”
“Too queer when you know it’s true,” he muttered. “Excuse me, miss, but
the dressing-bell has rung.”
“All right. I’m going.”
But as she went slowly up the stairs she laughed to herself, and the
laugh was short and ugly.
Surely she had found a weapon at last to do her good service against
Marcus Wray.
“To hear is to know,” she thought; “but I hope it may be a long time
before I hear his voice in this house. But at least I will be prepared.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
“AT MIDNIGHT.”
The household retired to rest early, at Marchant’s Hold, and Ismay was
in her bed and asleep by ten o’clock, but with a purpose in her mind
that made her wake to the minute as the clock rang two.
She had left her blinds up, and as she sat up in her bed she saw the
moonlight lying on the carpet. The rain was over.
“That is lucky, I sha’n’t need much light,” she thought composedly, as
she got up and put on a warm, dark dressing-gown, and woolen slippers
that would make no sound.
She must investigate that room up-stairs, and her only chance was at
night, when her mother and Cristiane were safe.
“Besides,” she reminded herself quite gaily, “I shall have to use it
at night, when I need it; and I may as well get used to it. It is at
night that mother and Marcus Wray will make their plans, at night that
they will carry them out. And at night I always lock my door! I’m very
nervous--in the dark!” she laughed noiselessly. “I must impress that
on my parent.” But it was without a tremor that she slipped out into
the silent house and up the stairs, where there were no windows and the
darkness was inky.
There was no sound of music to-night to guide her as she stood at
last in the black hall, where a dozen shut doors kept the darkness
inviolate. She felt in her pocket for her end of candle and matches.
They were there, but she dared not strike a light here in the corridor.
One hand held at arm’s length before her, she moved on cautiously, till
she felt a door. The handle turned under her fingers, and she went in
without a sound; without a sound the door closed behind her, though for
all she knew she stood alone at night, in the room where Thomas had
been terror-stricken in daylight.
With steady fingers she lit the candle, and stared round her as it
burned dimly. The room was chilly and close, but it was not the room
she wanted, only an unused bedroom, a little dusty. She pinched out her
candle and went into the hall again.
“What a fool I am not to remember!” she thought angrily; “it’s cold up
here, and no fun.”
She tried three more rooms in succession; all had no sign in them of
any musical instrument, nor ghostly habitation. Could she be in the
wrong hall?
She opened the next door in doubtful irritation, but her hand stopped
with a jerk as she lifted it to strike a match.
Opposite her the moonlight poured through a wide, low window, till the
room seemed light as day after the dark hall, and in the very full
flood of the moonlight stood the little spinet on its high, thin legs,
its narrow ivory keyboard shining dustily in the moon-rays.
An inexplicable terror that she was not alone clutched at the girl’s
bold heart. Thomas was right, there was something queer about this
room! Without turning, Ismay stretched out her arm backward, to shut
the door. But it was fast already; noiselessly it had swung back on its
hinges, without even a click of the latch.
In the cold, musty air the girl felt choked. With quick, steady fingers
she lit her candle; to stay in this room with no light but the moon’s
was beyond her. As the lighted wick burned from blue into yellow, she
sighed with relief.
“I--to be frightened by Thomas’ silly stories!” she thought
contemptuously. “If I had heard nothing about the room I should never
have thought of having cold chills down my back.”
With the thought she had set the candle on the side of the old spinet
that was supposed to sound from the touch of fingers that had long been
mold. It was silent enough now. Not a sound came from it as she opened
the back and peered into the depths of the case where the strings were
stretched like a piano’s. She put her slim, long arm down inside it,
and felt the instrument all over. It was a plain, old-fashioned thing
enough, strong and good still. But it apparently held no trace of any
mechanism that would make it play alone at night.
Ismay drew back and stared at it. In the fantastic mingling of
moonlight and candle-light her uncanny beauty was more witchlike than
ever, with the flaxen hair falling to her knees over the dark wrapper.
“I should say Thomas was crazy if I had not heard the thing myself!”
she said aloud, and there was nothing but puzzled curiosity in her
voice.
“But it’s got to be made to play again, and I don’t know the national
air of the mice.”
She put a stool carefully in front of the spinet, and sat down,
fumbling at the keys. Clear, thin, and sweet, the notes tinkled softly
under her fingers.
“The tune--how did it go?” she tried for it softly. It had been a
strange tune, with queer intervals; an air that was very old and
wailing.
She played a few bars, stumblingly.
How cold, how very cold the room was, and what was the matter with
the candle? Without a flicker the yellow flame had turned blue as she
stared at it, it went out; she could see the wick smoking in the
moonlight.
“Truly,” said Ismay, to herself, “I must have iron nerves! I’m not
frightened. Yet I don’t think that was a draft.”
Without moving, she tried the strange tune again, and this time the
very terror of death fell on her. Without turning her head, she knew
there was something behind her; something very cold and threatening;
something that in a minute would be at her throat, choking her till her
hand fell from the keyboard. She swung sharply round. There was nothing
there.
“Thomas’ nonsense again, and my fancy,” she said deliberately, for the
room was certainly empty. “My nerves are playing me tricks, after all.”
As she started, in the darkness beyond the patch of moonlight she saw
something, the picture of a woman hanging on the wall.
“The late owner of the spinet!”
She got up, and lit her candle. Light in hand, she went close to the
picture, till the painted eyes were plain. Dark eyes they were, in a
pale, cruel face, with red lips, like Ismay’s own. The fair hair was