True to my promise, I went the next day to the villa. Mrs. Scott brought the keys, I unlocked the doors, and together we entered the long-vacant place. There is always something impressive, one might say, “ghostly,” about a deserted building. When you enter into it, you feel the influence of those who were last within it, as if some portion of them lingered in the old locality. I confess that I felt an almost superstitious awe and dread, as I stepped over the threshold which I had last crossed with him. How joyful, how full of young and princely life, he had then been, his face lit up, as a man’s face lights up when he attends upon the woman he loves and expects soon to make his own! He was leading Eleanor to a carriage; they had been talking about the improvements they were going to make in the house. How every look and tone came back to me! With a silent shudder, I stepped into the hall, which had that moldy smell of confined air belonging to a closed dwelling. I hastened to throw open the shutters. When I unclosed a door, I flung it wide, stepping quickly in, and raising the windows, so as to have the sunlight before looking much about. I had to do it all, for my companion kept close to me, never stirring from my elbow. I went into every room on every floor, from the kitchen to the garret. Into the latter I only glanced, as Mrs. Scott said there was nothing up there which she wanted, or which required attention. It was a loft, rough-floored, of comfortable height, with a window at the gable end. The roof ran up sharply in the center, the villa being built in the Gothic style. There was such a collection of rubbish in it as is usual to such places—broken-down furniture, worn-out trunks, a pile of mattresses in a corner, over which a blanket had been thrown to keep them from the dust, some clothing depending from a line, and three or four barrels. Mrs. Scott was standing at the foot of the ladder, which led up into the attic out of a small room, or closet, used for storing purposes. I saw she was uneasy at having me even that far from her, and after a brief survey of the garret, I assured her there were no ghosts there, and descended.
“Help yourself to some of them apples,” said the woman, pointing to some boxes and barrels in the room where we now stood. “They’re winter pippins. John’s going to send them into the city, to the family, in a week or two. We’ve permission to keep ’em here, because it’s dry and cool, and the closet being in the middle of the house, it don’t freeze. It’s a good place for fruit. Hark! What was that?”
“It was a cat,” said I, as I put a couple of the apples in my overcoat pocket. “It sounded like a cat—in the garret. If we shut it up there, it’ll starve.”
I went up the ladder again, looking carefully about the attic, and calling coaxingly to the animal, but no cat showed itself, and I came down, saying it must have been in one of the lower rooms, and had probably run in since we opened the doors.
“It sartingly sounded overhead,” persisted my companion, looking nervous, and keeping closer to me than ever.
I had heard the noise, but would not have undertaken to say whether it came from above or below.
“If that is the material she makes ghosts of, I’m not surprised that she has a full supply,” I thought.
In going out, the woman was careful to close the door, and I could see her stealing covert glances into every corner, as we passed on, as if she expected, momently, to be confronted by some unwelcome apparition, there in the broad light of day. There were no traces of any intruders having made free with the house. The clothes and china closets were undisturbed, and the bureaus the same.
“This was Harry’s room; he liked it because it had the best view of the river,” said Mrs. Scott, as we paused before a chamber on the second floor.
We both hesitated; her apron was at her eyes, and my own throat swelled suddenly: reverently I opened the door, and stepped within, followed by the housekeeper. As I raised the window, and flung back the shutter, she gave a scream. I was really startled. Turning quickly, I saw her with her hands thrown up, an expression of terror upon her face.
“I told you the house was haunted,” she murmured, retreating backward toward the door.
“What do you see?” I asked, glancing about for the cause of her alarm.
“This room,” she gasped—“it was his—and he comes here still. I know it!”
“What makes you think so? Has it been disturbed? If it has, rest assured it has been by the living, not the dead.”
“I wish I thought so,” she said, solemnly. “It can not be. No other part of the house is in the least disturbed. No one has had admission to it—it is impossible; not a crack, not a cranny, by which anything but a spirit could have got in. Harry’s been here, Mr. Redfield; you can’t convince me different.”
“And if he has,” I said, calmly, for I saw that she was much agitated, “are you any more afraid of him now than you were when he was in the body? You loved him then; think you he will harm you now? Rather you ought to be glad, since you believe in ghosts, that it is a good spirit which haunts these premises—the innocent spirit of the murdered, not the guilty one
