Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

O, why did she leave him then, why did she turn away? stepped forward to the spot I had pointed out.

[ocr errors]

'Yes,' said he, this is plainly the way out.'

He

What was that noise? What next met our horrified gaze? There was a creaking and crushing of planks giving way; the spot on which he stood failed beneath him. He clutched wildly round with his hands. We sprang forward to save him. We touched him; we almost grasped him. He slipped from our hold. For one moment we looked on his agonised face as, with one cry, he fell―gone from our sight for ever. And the boards rose and fitted into their places with a snap, and all was firm and solid as before.

For one moment I believe I was mad-so sudden and so awful was the shock. I tore wildly at the flooring with my bare hands, and called loudly on his name-called to him to return. It was Gwen who brought me to myself-Gwen, Harry's wife, nay, his widow. She drew me back, her face distorted with horror, yet her senses alert and under command. Her voice was hoarse and grating.

'The room below-the room where you saw the fire; he has only fallen through. Come; be quick!"

She would believe it, she must believe it. She drew me on; it was a ray of hope. We rushed across the lobby and down the stairs. Five minutes before he had been with us on those very steps; where was he now ? The room below, all the rooms near, the passages, all were empty. The fatal thickness of those walls, what might they not conceal? We called him-there was no reply; and as we stood and listened, the rich flood of sunshine fell on our white faces, and we heard the joyous song of the birds and the voices of the gardeners outside.

[ocr errors]

There must be a hiding-place in those walls,' exclaimed Gwen. The tools! fetch the tools! I will go back and stay with him till you come.'

[ocr errors]

Stay with him!' Never again, Gwen; never again. It comforted her to say that, and she went back to the room. I fetched not only the tools but the men, and in a few minutes a ghastly secret was laid bare.

It is hollow, sir,' said the man who dealt the first stroke.

It was hollow. A hole about six feet in circumference descended -ah, how far?

I had to hold Gwen back with all my strength, she leaned in so far, as her voice shrieked down the fathomless abyss,

'Harry! my Harry!'

Shall I ever forget that cry? Did it reach his ear? There was no answer, no sound from below. Then she raised herself up, stretched both her arms before her, and with one cry of despair fell back into a dead faint. Poor thing! it was the best

thing that could happen to her then. We carried her down and gave her over to Mrs. Ransley's care, and as soon as I had sent for a doctor I returned to the room. They were trying to fathom the abyss, and trying in vain. It seemed to descend to the very foundation of the building. Lights had been lowered and extinguished by the foul air. All hope was of course at an end; and when at length the lights burnt steadily, there was that revealed which told of a fate so awful that strong men who stood by turned sick and faint.

The sides of that awful hole were, after a certain space, jagged and uneven. Sharp stones, pieces of iron, hooks, seythes, and knives were let into the wall with such diabolical art, that any one falling must have been fearfully mangled ere he reached the bottom; and sickening marks of such a fall were there. Nothing but the utter demolition of the building would enable us to recover all that remained of him who half-an-hour before stood among us in life and health.

The demolition was ordered. The building was to be razed to the ground. Gwen would have had the work continued night and day; she hoped, hoped madly, long after hope seemed impossible. But men must eat and sleep, even though widows' hearts are wasting and breaking beneath the load of agony. And when days grew into weeks, and little apparent progress was made, then, and not till then, did Gwen consent to leave the place. She went to her mother in London. We hoped that her child would rouse her from her grief and bring her back to life, but it was not so. A strong nature is not always an elastic one; she had received a shock from which she had not power to rally. Her heart was broken. She meekly did what she was told to do, and no more. Never again was she seen voluntarily to open a book, or to take any kind of employment in her hand. She only sat and waited the summons, which came ere many weeks had passed, and then the weary spirit was set free. But I am forestalling my tale.

I cannot tell what we found when at last the work of demolition was completed. Gwen was at rest before that, and as I followed the remains of my best, my only friend from the Castle (for he was taken to his father's home), I called to mind with bitterness our first entrance within those walls destined to be so fatal to us both.

I saw Gwen often during the weary interval before her death. I was the only person who could rouse her even for a moment from her lethargy. When she had ceased to hope, she only once alluded to the past. Some old papers had been found in the picture-gallery so often described, and as they threw light on the mystery of the haunted room, the doctors hoped they might rouse her. For the moment she was roused-not to listen to the tale of black wickedness

unfolded, but to give me one warning, one charge regarding her boy -my ward. She told me that the appearance of an imaginary door was an event of usual occurrence in her family before a death. Her father and all his brothers had seen it, but she added it had been seen three times in each instance, and with intervals of years between. I felt little fear, for he only saw it once,' said she. It was the only time she spoke of Harry. I did not undeceive her.

She had with rare courage kept the knowledge of this tradition from her husband. She hoped, she said, that it was only a superstition, and would die away if not fostered. She desired that her boy might never hear of it.

The papers were curious. They comprised two or three letters and an old мs. book-journal, account-book, receipt and cookery book all in one, as was the mode of our ancestors. It was the private note-book of her of the black robes-the second wife of the master of Dumberdene. The story was told more by the extraordinary nature of the receipts, and by the entries in the portion devoted to accounts, than by any regular journal. The book seemed to have been commenced before the death of her first husband, for it began with sundry commonplace entries respecting the expenses of his somewhat long illness. Then we have his funeral, and her journey to England with her little son. A short stay in London, where she probably met the master of Dumberdene, for the various items of a trousseau occupy the next few pages; and then follow the usual small expenses of a lady in a country house. All this is interspersed with recipes for soups and puddings, possets, cures for small-pox, and various other matters of the kind. Up to this point I had been obliged to call in assistance to decipher the text, for though the writing was legible enough it was in German and Dutch. But after a year or two passed at the Dumberdene, the lady had apparently become sufficiently at home in the English language to adopt it as her own, and all difficulty on my part was at an end. husband soon appeared to be in failing health, for by degrees it becomes plain that the management is vested in her hands. The payments became more those of the master than of the mistress of the house, and about this time the recipes are of a strange nature. Next to a sleeping draught of a very mild character, we have one containing stronger narcotics, and a note underlined, to the effect. that this should on no account be given to children or young people, as it would prove fatal, though not at once. A short extract follows, from some old treatise on poisons, and then one or two recipes for poisoning animals without injury to the skin. Shortly after this comes the funeral expenses of the master of Dumberdene, and a short expression of desolation at this second widowhood, with the additional burden of the young master to bring up with her own

son.

Her second

The amount of medicine the poor young master swallows after this must have gone far towards relieving her of that burden. Then comes a curious and significant item. So much to a person called Johed Burkdorf for his journey, and that of his niece Santje, from the former home of the widow in Holland. Then an expression of joy at having once again the society of her old tutor and friend. What precise position this Johed held in the household is not clear. Ere long all payments pass through his hands, and if he acts as tutor to the lads, he evidently performs also many services which rather fall to the steward or bailiff. Santje's position is more clearly defined. She is what would now be termed nursery-governess. She waits on the children, and teaches them; and we learn that the young master, the delicate highbred English boy, wins her heart at once, whereas there is deadly feud between her and the fierce young Dutchman. About this time two circumstances of importance are to be noted. First, the family moves into the modern portion of the house, and the older part is deserted, though the lady reserves one room there for herself, and passes much time there in trying experiments with Johed. Secondly, the results of these experiments are noted down. Johed now comes out as a chemist, and the room is a laboratory. It is altered to facilitate their work. A curious chimney is built, to enable them to try an experiment which is set down at full length. Certain chemicals are to be thrown into a furnace. Any animals shut up in a room above this will be not only rendered insensible, but reduced to powder. If the fire is extinguished too soon, life may be preserved for centuries, though consciousness will never return. In human beings the flesh would wither and the skin assume a light-brown hue. This was the theory set forth.

It was impossible not to interpret this diabolical recipe by the light of recent discoveries. But the letters to which I have alluded make the tale of horror yet more clear. They were mere scraps in Dutch and broken English, evidently written by Santje, who, I doubt not, was the young girl over whose mortal remains I had read the burial service on that sad day. She appears to have been shut up in the old part of the castle with her charge, the young master, and I conjecture that these letters, by which she attempted to make known their danger, fell into the hands of Johed and his mistress, for they were all found in the мs. book. They contain short entreaties for help, and in one we have a hasty notice that they are moved to the Dumber room, and, on pretence that the master's illness is an infectious fever, are excluded from all intercourse with others.

'No one comes to us but my cruel uncle,' writes the girl, ‘and I dread the squeaking sound of his iron leg along the passage.' From these documents it was not hard to trace out the tale of

crime and sufferings. Had confirmation been wanting, it was found in the will, which left all to the widow should the young master die under age; and in the coffin found in the family vault with his name and the date outside, inside a carefully-weighed freight of wood and bricks.

If the wretched Johed did actually fall into the furnace which he was piling up for others, who can wonder that his accomplice should lack the courage to enter the room which she had made a grave? Who can wonder that she had the building barred and closed, and that she did her utmost to make this state of things binding upon her son and his descendants? Who can wonder that a curse rested upon the house? Whether she knew of the fearful oubliette over which she had placed her husband's son, we shall never know. There is no mention of it in the Ms. Its antiquity proves that she neither planned nor completed it, and we may hope that she had never discovered it.

I have never again revisited the Dumberdene. Beautiful grounds now cover the spot where once the haunted rooms rose in their masses of foliage. A fountain now plays over what was once a grave. Harry's boy lives in the more modern castle, which we left standing. He is always asking me to stay with him there. But I cannot face those memories. My trust is that the curse has died out, dare I say has been expiated ?-and that I alone am in possession of a secret so fearful, that there are hours when I could almost doubt if memory has served me rightly.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »