The ghost of Charlotte Cray, and other stories
“May I not glance round your den?” I replied courteously. “I have not
had the honour of seeing it before.”
Then I entered into a few details with him concerning the day’s sport
we had enjoyed; but I took care to be brief, for I saw that my
presence there displeased him, and I could not get the rustle of that
dress out of my mind. As I concluded, and with some remark upon the
lateness of the hour, turned to leave the room, a cough sounded from
behind a large Indian screen which stood in one corner. It was the
faintest, most subdued of coughs, but sufficiently tangible to be
sworn to; and as it fell upon my ear I could not help a change of
countenance.
“All right!” said my host, with affected nonchalance, as he rose and
almost backed me to the door. “We’ll have a talk over all this after
dinner, Wilmer; sorry I wasn’t with you; but, as you say, it’s late.
_Au revoir!_” and simultaneously the study door closed upon me.
I was very much startled and very much shocked. I had not a doubt that
I was correct in my surmise that Sir Harry had some visitor in his
room whom he had thought it necessary to conceal from me; and though
Hope suggested that it might have been his wife, Common Sense rose up
to refute so absurd an idea. Added to which, I had not traversed
twenty yards after leaving him before I met Justina attired in her
walking things, and just returning from a stroll round the garden.
“Is it very late, uncle?” she demanded, with a smile, as we
encountered one another. “I have been out with the children. Have you
seen Mary or Lady Amabel? I am afraid they will think I have neglected
them shamefully this afternoon.”
I answered her questions indifferently, thinking the while that she
had no occasion to blame herself for not having paid sufficient
attention to Lady Amabel Scott, for that it was she whom I had
surprised _tête-à-tête_ with Sir Harry Trevor, I had not a shadow
of doubt.
Well, I was not the one to judge them, nor to bring them to judgment;
but I thought very hard things of Sir Harry’s cousin during the
dressing hour, and pitied my poor niece, who must some day inevitably
learn that it was a true instinct which had made her shrink from her
beautiful guest. And during the evening which followed my discovery, I
turned with disgust from the lightning glances which darted from Lady
Amabel’s blue eyes, and the arch smile which helped to make them so
seductive. I could no longer think her beauty harmless: the red curves
of her mouth were cruel serpents in my mind; poisoned arrows flew from
her lips; there was no innocence left in look, or word, or action; and
I found myself turning with a sensation of relief to gaze at the
Quakerlike attire, the downcast eyes, and modest appearance of the
professor’s wife, whilst I inwardly blamed myself for having ever been
so foolish as to be gulled into believing that the flaunting beauty of
Lady Amabel Scott was superior to Mrs. Benson’s quiet graces.
I did not have much to say to Sir Harry Trevor during that evening:
indignation for his deception towards Justina made me disinclined to
speak to him, whilst he, for his part, seemed anxious to avoid me. For
a few days more all went on as usual: my host’s affability soon
returned, and every one, my niece included, appeared so smiling and
contented, that I almost began to think I must have been mistaken, and
that there could have been no real motive for concealing Lady Amabel
in Sir Harry’s room, except perhaps her own girlish love of fun. I
tried to think the best I could of both of them; and a day came but
too soon when I was thankful that I had so tried.
It was about a week after the little incident related above that Sir
Harry Trevor was shooting over his preserves, accompanied by his
guests. We had had a capital day’s sport and an excellent luncheon--at
which latter some of the ladies had condescended to join us--and were
beating the last cover preparatory to a return to Durham Hall, when
the report of a fire-arm was quickly followed by the news that Sir
Harry Trevor had been wounded.
I was separated from him by a couple of fields when I first heard of
the accident, but it did not take me long to reach his side, when I
perceived, to my horror, that he was fast bleeding to death, having
been shot through the lungs by the discharge of his own gun whilst
getting through the hedge. I had seen men die from gunshot wounds
received under various circumstances, and I felt sure that Sir Harry’s
hours were numbered; yet, of course, all that was possible was done at
once, and five minutes had not elapsed before messengers were flying
in all directions--one for the doctor, another for the carriage, a
third for cordials to support the sinking man; whilst I entreated Mr.
Warden Scott and several others to walk back to the Hall as though
nothing particular had happened, and try to prevent the immediate
circulation of the full extent of the bad news. Meanwhile, I remained
by the wounded man, who evidently suspected, by the sinking within
him, that he was dying.
“Wilmer!” he gasped, “old fellow, have I settled my hash?”
“I trust not, Sir Harry,” I commenced; but I suppose that my eyes
contradicted my words.
“Don’t say any more,” he replied, with difficulty. “My head a little
higher--thanks. I feel it will soon be over.”
And so he lay for a few moments, supported on my knee, with his fast
glazing eyes turned upward to the December sky, and his breath coming
in short, quick jerks.
The men who had remained with me seemed as though they could not
endure the sight of his sufferings; one or two gazed at him speechless
and almost as pale as himself; but the majority had turned away to
hide their feelings.
“Wilmer,” he whispered presently, but in a much fainter voice than
before, “it’s coming fast now;” and then, to my surprise, just as I
thought he was about to draw his last breath, he suddenly broke into
speech that was almost a sob--“Oh, if I could only have seen her
again! I wouldn’t mind it half so much if I could but have seen Pet
again! Call her, Wilmer; in God’s name, call her!--call Pet to
me--only once again--only once! Pet! Pet! Pet!” And with that name
upon his lips, each time uttered in a shorter and fainter voice, and
with a wild look of entreaty in his eyes, Sir Harry Trevor let his
head drop back heavily upon my knees and died.
When the doctor and the carriage arrived, the only thing left for us
to do was to convey the corpse of its master back to Durham Hall.
For the first few hours I was too much shocked by the suddenness of
the blow which had descended on us to have leisure to think of
anything else. In one moment the house of feasting had been turned
into the house of mourning; and frightened guests were looking into
each other’s faces, and wondering what would be the correct thing for
them to do. Of my poor niece I saw nothing. The medical man had
undertaken to break the news of her bereavement to her, and I confess
that I was sufficiently cowardly to shrink from encountering the
sorrow which I could do nothing to mitigate.
As I passed along the silent corridors (lately so full of mirth and
revelry) that evening, I met servants and travelling-cases at every
turn, by which I concluded, and rightly, that the Christmas guests
were about at once to take their departure; and on rising in the
morning, I found that, with the exception of Lady Amabel and Mr.
Warden Scott, who, as relatives of the deceased, intended to remain
until after the funeral, and the professor and Mrs. Benson, on whose
delicate frame the shock of Sir Harry’s death was said to have had
such an effect as to render her unfit for travelling, Durham Hall was
clear.
Lady Amabel had wept herself almost dry: her eyes were swollen, her
features disfigured, her whole appearance changed from the violence of
her grief, and every ten minutes she was ready to burst out afresh.
We had not been together half-an-hour on the following morning before
she was sobbing by my side, entreating me to give her every particular
of “poor dear Harry’s” death, and to say if there was anything she
could do for Justina or the children; and notwithstanding the
repugnance with which her conduct had inspired me, I could not repulse
her then. However she had sinned, the crime and its occasion were both
past--Sir Harry was laid out ready for his burial, and she was
grieving for him.
I am an old man, long past such follies myself, and I hope I am a
virtuous man; but all my virtue could not prevent my pitying Lady
Amabel in her distress, and affording her such comfort as was
possible. And so (a little curiosity still mingling with my
compassion) I related to her in detail, whilst I narrowly watched her
features, the last words which had been spoken by her cousin. But if
she guessed for whom that dying entreaty had been urged, she did not
betray herself.
“Poor fellow!” was her only remark as she wiped her streaming
eyes--“poor dear Harry! Used he to call Justina ‘Pet?’ I never heard
him do so.”
Whereupon I decided that Lady Amabel was too politic to be very
miserable, and that my pity had been wasted on her.
Of Mrs. Benson I saw nothing, but the professor talked about attending
the funeral, and therefore I concluded that my niece had invited them,
being such intimate friends, to remain for that ceremony.
On the afternoon of the same day I was told that Justina desired to
speak to me. I sought the room where she was sitting, with folded
hands and darkened windows, with nervous reluctance; but I need not
have dreaded a scene, for her grief was too great for outward show,
and I found her in a state which appeared to me unnaturally calm.
“Uncle,” she said, after a moment’s pause, during which we had
silently shaken hands, “will you take these keys and go down
into--into--his study for me, and bring up the desks and papers which
you will find in the escritoire? I do not like to send a servant.”
I took the keys which she extended to me, and, not able to trust
myself to answer, kissed her forehead and left the room again. As I
turned the handle of the study door I shuddered, the action so vividly
recalled to me the first and last occasion upon which I had done so.
The afternoon was now far advanced, and dusk was approaching: the
blinds of the study windows also were pulled down, which caused the
room to appear almost in darkness. As I groped my way toward the
escritoire I stumbled over some article lying across my path,
something which lay extended on the hearth-rug, and which even by that
feeble light I could discern was a prostrated body.
With my mind full of murderous accidents, I rushed to the window and
drew up the blind, when to my astonishment I found that the person
over whom I had nearly fallen was no other than poor little Mrs.
Benson, who was lying in a dead faint before the arm-chair. Fainting
women not being half so much in my line as wounded men, I felt quite
uncertain in this case how to act, and without considering how the
professor’s wife had come to be in the study or for what reason, my
first impulse was to ring for assistance. But a second thought, which
came I know not how or whence, made me lift the fragile, senseless
body in my arms and carry it outside the study door into the passage
before I called for help, which then I did lustily, and female
servants came and bore the poor “quiet-looking little lady” away to
her own apartments and the care of her husband, leaving me free to
execute the errand upon which I had been sent. Still, as I collected
the desk and papers required by my niece, I could not help reflecting
on the circumstance I have related as being a strange one, and could
only account for it in my own mind by the probable fact that Mrs.