If I had been ill-natured or if I had thought it wise to press her too closely, I might have inquired why she looked so pale and trembled so visibly.
But my natural kindness, together with an instinct of caution, restrained me, and I only remarked:
“There you are sensible, Miss Knollys—doubly so as a denizen of this house, which, Mrs. Carter was obliging enough to suggest to me, is considered by many as haunted.”
The straightening of Miss Knollys’ lips augured no good to Mrs. Carter.
“Now I only wish it was,” I laughed dryly. “I should really like to meet a ghost, say, in your great drawing-room, which I am forbidden to enter.”
“You are not forbidden,” she hastily returned. “You may explore it now if you will excuse me from accompanying you; but you will meet no ghosts. The hour is not propitious.”
Taken aback by her sudden amenity, I hesitated for a moment. Would it be worth while for me to search a room she was willing to have me enter? No, and yet any knowledge which could be obtained in regard to this house might be of use to me or to Mr. Gryce. I decided to embrace her offer, after first testing her with one other question.
“Would you prefer to have me steal down these corridors at night and dare their dusky recesses at a time when spectres are supposed to walk the halls they once flitted through in happy consciousness?”
“Hardly.” She made the greatest effort to sustain the jest, but her concern and dread were manifest. “I think I had better give you the keys now, than subject you to the drafts and chilling discomforts of this old place at midnight.”
I rose with a semblance of eager anticipation.
“I will take you at your word,” said I. “The keys, my dear. I am going to visit a haunted room for the first time in my life.”
I do not think she was deceived by this feigned ebullition. Perhaps it was too much out of keeping with my ordinary manner, but she gave no sign of surprise and rose in her turn with an air suggestive of relief.
“Excuse me, if I precede you,” she begged. “I will meet you at the head of the corridor with the keys.”
I was in hopes she would be long enough in obtaining them to allow me to stroll along the front hall to the opening into the corridor I was so anxious to enter. But the spryness I showed, seemed to have a corresponding effect upon her, for she almost flew down the passageway before me and was back at my side before I could take a step in the coveted direction.
“These will take you into any room on the first floor,” said she. “You will meet with dust and Lucetta’s abhorrence, spiders, but for these I shall make no apologies. Girls who cannot provide comforts for the few rooms they utilize, cannot be expected to keep in order the large and disused apartments of a former generation.”
“I hate dirt and despise spiders,” was my dry retort, “but I am willing to brave both for the pleasure of satisfying my love for the antique.” At which she handed me the keys, with a calm smile which was not without its element of sadness.
“I will be here on your return,” she said, leaning over the banisters to speak to me as I took my first steps down. “I shall want to hear whether you are repaid for your trouble.”
I thanked her and proceeded on my way, somewhat doubtful whether by so doing I was making the best possible use of my opportunities.
XVII
The Flower Parlor
The lower hall did not correspond exactly with the one above. It was larger, and through its connection with the front door, presented the shape of a letter T—that is, to the superficial observer who was not acquainted with the size of the house and had not had the opportunity of remarking that at the extremities of the upper hall making this T, were two imposing doors usually found shut except at mealtimes, when the left-hand one was thrown open, disclosing a long and dismal corridor similar to the ones above. Halfway down this corridor was the dining-room, into which I had now been taken three times.
The right-hand one, I had no doubt, led the way into the great drawing-room or dancing-hall which I had started out to see.
Proceeding first to the front of the house, where some glimmer of light penetrated from the open sitting-room door, I looked the keys over and read what was written on the several tags attached to them. They were seven in number, and bore some such names as these: “Blue Chamber,” “Library,” “Flower Parlor,” “Shell Cabinet,” “Dark Parlor”—all of which was very suggestive, and, to an antiquarian like myself, most alluring.
But it was upon a key marked A I first fixed my attention. This, I had been told, would open the large door at the extremity of the upper hall, and when I made a trial with it I found it to move easily, though somewhat gratingly, in the lock, releasing the great doors, which in another moment swung inward with a growling sound which might have been startling to a nervous person filled with the legends of the place.
But in me the only emotion awakened was one of disgust at the nauseous character of the air which instantly enveloped me. Had I wished for any further proof than was afforded by the warning given me by the condition of the hinges, that the foot of man had not lately invaded these precincts, I would have had it in the mouldy atmosphere and smell of dust that greeted me on the threshold. Neither human breath nor a ray of outdoor sunshine seemed to have disturbed its gloomy quiet for years, and when I moved, as I presently did, to open one of the windows I dimly discerned
