The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
see a real ghost, only you must promise never to leave us alone,
Colonel, for I should die of fright if I were left by myself.”
“But I shall not be there, I am sorry to say,” replies the colonel.
“My wife and Katie are going for change of air, but I must simmer
meanwhile at Mudlianah.”
Pretty Cissy Lawless looks decidedly dumfoundered, and begins to back
out of her consent immediately. “I pity you,” she answers, “and I pity
myself too, for I expect we shall have to simmer together. I should
like it of all things, as I said before, but Jack would never let me
leave him. He is such a dear, useless body without me. Besides, as you
know, colonel, I have business to keep me in Mudlianah.”
Business again! Ethel turns away in disgust; but it is with difficulty
she can keep the tears from rushing to her eyes. However, there is no
help for it, and she must go. Her child is very dear to her, and at
all risks it requires mountain air. She must leave her colonel to take
his chance in the plains below--only as he puts her and the child into
the transit that is to convey them to the hills, and bids her farewell
with a very honest falter in his voice he feels her hot tears upon his
cheek.
“Oh, Charlie, Charlie, be true to me! Think how I have loved you. I am
so very miserable.”
“Miserable, my love, and for this short parting? Come, Ethel, you must
be braver than this. It will not be long before we meet again,
remember.”
“And, till then, you will be careful, won’t you, Charlie, for my sake,
and think of me, and don’t go too much from home? and remember how
treacherous women are; and I am not beautiful, I know, my darling; I
never was, you know,” with a deep sob, “like--like Mrs. Lawless and
others. But I love you, Charlie, I love you with all my heart, and I
have always been faithful to you in thought as well as deed.” And so,
sobbing and incoherent, Ethel Dunstan drives away to the Mandalinati
Hills, whilst the good colonel stands where she left him, with a
puzzled look upon his honest sunburnt face.
“What does she mean?” he ponders, “by saying she is not beautiful like
Cissy Lawless, and telling me to remember how treacherous women are,
as if I didn’t know the jades. Is it possible Ethel can be
jealous--jealous of that poor, pretty little creature who is breaking
her heart about her Jack? No! that would be too ridiculous, and too
alarming into the bargain; for even if I can get the boy out of the
scrape, it is hardly a matter to trust to a woman’s discretion. Well,
well, I must do the best I can, and leave the rest to chance. Ethel to
be jealous! the woman I have devoted my life to! It would be too
absurd if anything the creatures do can possibly be called so.”
And then he walks off to breakfast with the Lawlesses, though his
heart is rather heavy, and his spirits are rather dull for several
days after his wife starts for the castle on the hill. Ethel, on the
other hand, gets on still worse than her husband. As she lies in her
transit, swaying about from side to side over the rough country roads,
she is haunted by the vision of Charlie walking about the garden till
the small hours of the morning, hand in hand with Cissy Lawless, with
a mind entirely oblivious of his poor wife and child, or indeed of
anything except his beautiful companion. Twenty times would she have
decided that she could bear the strain no longer, and given the order
to return to Mudlianah, had it not been for the warning conveyed in
the fretful wailing of her sickly child--his child--the blossom of
their mutual love. So, for Katie’s sake, poor Ethel keeps steadfastly
to her purpose, and soon real troubles take the place of imaginary
ones, and nearly efface their remembrance. She is well protected by a
retinue of native servants, and the country through which she travels
is a perfectly safe one; yet, as they reach the foot of the hills up
which they must climb to reach the celebrated castle, she is surprised
to hear that her nurse (or Dye), who has been with her since Katie’s
birth, refuses to proceed any further, and sends in her resignation.
“What do you mean, Dye?” demands her mistress with a natural vexation,
“you are going to leave Katie and me just as we require your services
most. What can you be thinking of? You, who have always professed to
be so fond of us both. Are you ill?”
“No, missus, I not ill, but I cannot go up the hill. That castle very
bad place, very cold and big, and bad people live there and many
noises come, and I want to go back to Mudlianah to my husband and
little children.”
“What nonsense, Dye! I didn’t think you were so foolish. Who has been
putting such nonsense into your head? The castle is a beautiful place,
and you will not feel at all cold with the warm clothes I have given
you, and we have come here to make Miss Katie well, you know, and you
will surely never leave her until she is quite strong again.”
But the native woman obstinately declares that she will not go on to
the Mandalinati hills, and it is only upon a promise of receiving
double pay that she at last complainingly consents to accompany her
mistress to the castle. Ethel has to suffer, however, for descending
to bribery, as before the ascent commences every servant in her employ
has bargained for higher wages, and unless she wishes to remain in the
plains she is compelled to comply with their demands. But she
determines to write and tell Charlie of their extortion by the first
opportunity, and hopes that the intelligence may bring him up,
brimming with indignation, to set her household in order. Her first
view of the castle, however, repays her for the trouble she has had in
getting there. She thinks she has seldom seen a building that strikes
her with such a sense of importance. It is formed of a species of
white stone that glistens like marble in the sunshine, and it is
situated on the brow of a jutting hill that renders it visible for
many miles round. The approach to it is composed of three terraces of
stone, each one surrounded by mountainous shrubs and hill-bearing
flowers, and Ethel wonders why the Rajah Mati Singh, having built
himself such a beautiful residence, should ever leave it for the use
of strangers. She understands very little of the native language, but
from a few words dropt here and there she gathers that the castle was
originally intended for a harem, and supposes the rajah’s wives found
the climate too cold for susceptible natures. If they disliked the
temperature as much as her native servants appear to do, it is no
wonder that they deserted the castle, for their groans and moans and
shakings of the head quite infect their mistress, and make her feel
more lonely and nervous than she would otherwise have done, although
she finds the house is so large that she can only occupy a small
portion of it. The dining hall, which is some forty feet square, is
approached by eight doors below, two on each side, whilst a gallery
runs round the top of it, supported by a stone balustrade, and
containing eight more doors to correspond with those on the ground
floor. These upper doors open into the sleeping chambers, which all
look out again upon open-air verandahs commanding an extensive view
over the hills and plains below. Mrs. Dunstan feels very dismal and
isolated as she sits down to her first meal in this splendid dining
hall, but after a few days she gets reconciled to the loneliness and
sits with Katie on the terraces and amongst the flowers all day long,
praying that the fresh breeze and mountain air may restore the roses
to her darling’s cheeks. One thing, however, she cannot make up her
mind to, and that is to sleep upstairs. All the chambers are
furnished, for the Rajah Mati Singh is a great ally of the British
throne, and keeps up this castle on purpose to ingratiate himself with
the English by lending it for their use; but Ethel has her bed brought
downstairs, and occupies two rooms that look out upon the moonlit
terraces. She cannot imagine why the natives are so averse to this
proceeding on her part. They gesticulate and chatter--all in Double
Dutch, as far as she is concerned--but she will have her own way, for
she feels less lonely when her apartments are all together. Her Dye
goes on her knees to entreat her mistress to sleep upstairs instead of
down; but Ethel is growing tired of all this demonstration about what
she knows nothing, and sharply bids her do as she is told. Yet, as the
days go on, there is something unsatisfactory--she cannot tell
what--about the whole affair. The servants are gloomy and
discontented, and huddle together in groups, whispering to one
another. The Dye is always crying and hugging the child, while she
drops mysterious hints about their never seeing Mudlianah again, which
make Ethel’s heart almost stop beating, as she thinks of native
insurrections and rebellions, and wonders if the servants mean to
murder her and Katie in revenge for having been forced to accompany
them to Mandalinati.
Meanwhile, some mysterious circumstances occur for which Mrs. Dunstan
cannot account. One day, as she is sitting at her solitary dinner with
two natives standing behind her chairs, she is startled by hearing a
sudden rushing wind, and, looking up, sees the eight doors in the
gallery open and slam again, apparently of their own accord, whilst
simultaneously the eight doors on the ground floor which were standing
open shut with a loud noise. Ethel looks round; the two natives are
green with fright; but she believes that it is only the wind, though
the evening is as calm as can be. She orders them to open the lower
doors again, and having done so, they have hardly returned to their
station behind her chair before the sixteen doors open and shut as
before. Mrs. Dunstan is now very angry; she believes the servants are
playing tricks upon her, and she is not the woman to permit such an
impertinence with impunity. She rises from table majestically and
leaves the room, but reflection shows her that the only thing she can
do is to write to her husband on the subject, for she is in the power
of her servants so long as she remains at the castle, where they
cannot be replaced.
She stays in the garden that evening, thinking over this occurrence
and its remedy, till long after her child has been put to bed--and as
she re-enters the castle she visits Katie’s room before she retires to
her own, and detects the Dye in the act of hanging up a large black
shawl across the window that looks out upon the terrace.
“What are you doing that for?” cries Ethel impetuously, her suspicions
ready to be aroused by anything, however trivial.
The woman stammers and stutters, and finally declares she cannot sleep
without a screen drawn before the window.
“Bad people’s coming and going at night here!” she says in
explanation, “and looking in at the window upon the child; and if they
touch missy she will die. Missus had better let me put up curtain to
keep them out. They can’t do me any harm. It is the child they come
for.”
“Bad people coming at night! What on earth do you mean, Dye? What
people come here but our own servants? If you go on talking such
nonsense to me I shall begin to think you drink too much arrack.”
“Missus, please!” replies the native with a deprecatory shrug of the
shoulders; “but Dye speaks the truth! A white woman walks on this
terrace every night looking for her child, and if she sees little
missy, she will take her away, and then you will blame poor Dye for
losing her. Better let me put up the curtain so that she can’t look in
at window.”
Ethel calls the woman some opprobrious epithet, but walks away
nevertheless, and lets her do as she will; only the next day she
writes a full account to Charlie of what she has gone through, and