The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

whose now grey waters narrowed to a point beyond which there stood a low, pillared building. It was more like an eighteenth-century orangery than a house meant for human habitation. Eerily beautiful, and yet exceedingly desolate, to Laura The Folly appeared unreal – a fairy dwelling in that Kingdom of Romance whither her feet had never strayed, rather than a place where men and women had joyed and sorrowed, lived and died.

“If only I could feel that you will never regret that you came here,” Treville whispered.

She answered quickly, “I shall always be glad, not sorry, Julian.”

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Then he said: “Old Celestine will have it that The Folly is haunted by La Belle Julie. You’re not afraid of ghosts, my dearest?”

Laura smiled a little wanly in the twilight. “Far more afraid of flesh and blood than ghosts,” she murmured. “Where do Celestine and her husband live, Julian?”

“We can’t see their cottage from here; but it’s quite close by.” His voice sank: “I’ve told them that you’re not afraid of being in the house alone at night.”

They went down a winding footpath, she clinging to him for very joy in his nearness, till they reached the stone-paved space which lay between the shore of the lake and the low grey building. And then, suddenly, while they were walking towards the high front door, Laura gave a stifled cry, for a gnome-like figure had sprung, as if from nowhere, across their path.

“Here’s old Jacques,” exclaimed Treville vexedly. “He always shows an excess of zeal!”

The little Frenchman was gesticulating and talking eagerly, explaining that fires had been burning all day in the three rooms which were to be occupied by the visitor. He further told, at unnerving length, that Celestine would be at The Folly herself very shortly to install “Madame.”

When the old chap had shuffled off, Julian Treville put a key in the lock of the heavy old door; taking Laura’s slight figure up into his strong arms, he lifted her over the threshold straight into an enchanting living-room where nothing had been altered for over a hundred years.

She gave a cry of delight. “What a delicious place, Julian! I never thought it would be like this—”

A log fire threw up high flames in the deep fire-place, and a lighted lamp stood on a round, gilt-rimmed, marble table close to a low and roomy, if rather stiff, square arm-chair. The few pieces of fine Empire furniture were covered with faded yellow satin which had been brought from Paris when Napoleon was ironing out the frontiers of Europe, for the Treville of that day had furnished The Folly to please the Frenchwoman he loved. The walls of the room were hung with turquoise silk. There was a carved-wood gilt mirror over the mantelpiece, and on the right- hand wall there hung an oval pastel of La Belle Julie.

Hand in hand they stood, looking up at the lovely smiling face.

“According to tradition,” said Treville, “that picture was the only thing the poor soul brought with her when she left France. The powdered hair proves it must have been done when Julie was in her teens, before the Revolution. My great-great-grandfather fell in love with her when she must have been well over thirty—”

Then, dropping the mask he had worn since they had left the motor, “Laura!” he exclaimed; “Beloved! At last – at last!”

For him, and for her, too, the world sank away, though, even so, that which is now called her subconscious self was listening, full of shrinking fear, for the sound of a key in the lock . . .

He said at last in a low, shaken voice, “And now I suppose that I must leave you? . . .”

Her lips formed the words telling him that he had been overscrupulous in his care for her, that they might as well brave the curious eyes of old Celestine tonight as tomorrow. And then, before she could utter them, there came the sound of steps on the stone path outside.

“It’s Celestine, come before her time,” muttered Treville.

The front door opened and Laura, turning round quickly, saw a tall, thin, old woman, clad in a black stuff dress; a white muslin cap lay on her white hair, and over her shoulders a fur cape.

Standing just within the door, which she had shut behind her, she cast a long, measuring glance at her master, and at the lady who had come to spend a week at The Folly at this untoward time of the year.

It was a kindly, even an indulgent, glance, but it made Laura feel suddenly afraid.

“I come to ask,” exclaimed Celestine in very fair English, “if Madame is comfortable? Is there anything I can do for Madame besides laying the table and cooking Madame’s dinner?”

“I don’t think so – everything is delightful,” murmured Laura.

The old woman, taking a few steps forward, vanished into what the newcomer was soon to learn was the dining-room.

Treville said wistfully, “And now I must leave you—”

Laura whispered faintly, “I am a coward, Julian.”

He answered eagerly, “I would not have you other than you are.”

She took his hand in hers, and laid it against her cheek. “It’s because of David – only because of David – that I feel afraid.”

And as she said the word “afraid”, the old Frenchwoman came back into the room. “Would Madame like me to come in to sleep each night?” she asked.

Treville answered for Laura. “Mrs Darcy prefers being here alone. She will live as does my stepmother, when she is staying at The Folly.”

He turned to Laura. “I will say good night now, but after I come in from hunting to-morrow I’ll come down, as you have kindly asked me to do, to dinner.”

She answered in a low voice, “I shall be so glad to see you tomorrow evening.”

“By the way—” he waited a moment.

Why did Celestine stand there, looking at them? Why didn’t she go away, as she would have hastened to do if his companion had been his stepmother?

But at last he ended his sentence with “—there’s a private telephone from The Folly to my study, if you have occasion to speak to me.”

After her lover had left her with a quiet clasp of the hand, and after old Celestine had gone off, at last, to her own quarters, Laura sat down and covered her face with her hands; she felt both happy and miserable, exultant and afraid.

At last she threw a tender thought to La Belle Julie, who had given up everything that to her should have seemed worth living for, in a material sense, to follow the man she loved into what must have been a piteous exile. And yet Laura felt tonight that she too would have had that cruel courage, had she not been the mother of a child.

She got up at last, and walked across the room, wondering how lovely Julie had fared during the long, weary hours she must have waited here for her lover.

Would the Treville of that day have done for his Julie what Julian had done for his Laura to-night? Would he have respected her cowardly fears? She felt sure not. Julie’s Treville might have gone away, but Julie’s Treville would have come back. Well, she knew that Laura’s Treville would not return to-night.

And then she turned round quickly, for across the still air of the room had fallen the sound of a deep sigh.

Swiftly Laura went across to the door, masked by a stiff curtain of tapestry, which led into the corridor linking the various rooms of The Folly.

She lifted the curtain, and slipped out into the dimly lit corridor, but there was no one there.

Coming back into the sitting-room she sat down again by the fire, convinced that her nerves had played her a trick, and once more she found herself thinking of La Belle Julie. She felt as if there was a bond between herself and the long dead dancer; the bond which links all poor women who embark on the danger- fraught adventure of secret, illicit love.

2

That evening Celestine proved that her hand had not lost its French cunning. But Laura was too excited, as well as too tired, to eat. The old woman made no comment as to that, but when at last she found with delight that “Mrs Darcy” spoke excellent French, she did tell her that if she heard strange signs, or maybe a stifled sob, she was not to feel afraid, as it would only be the wraith of La Belle Julie expatiating her sin where that sin had not only been committed but exulted in.

But it was not the ghost of Julie of whom Laura was afraid – it was Celestine, with her gleaming brown eyes