The Haunted Room Part 3

"And what will you do?" inquired John of Susan.

"Stay by the family, to be sure," was the answer. "Would I leave my young lady now, just when her heart is heavy? for heavy it is, I am certain of that. While she was dressing for dinner, Miss Emmie could hardly keep in her tears. It is no pleasure to her to leave a home like Summer Villa, where she has nothing to cross her, and everything to please. There's not a day but Miss Alice, or some other friend, comes dropping in to see her; nor a week that pa.s.ses without some sight or amus.e.m.e.nt in London. At the age of nineteen, a young lady like Miss Trevor does not willingly leave such a pleasant place as this for a dreary, deserted old country-house."

"Poor miss! I pity her from my soul!" cried Ann.

"With a pity that would leave her to see none but new faces in her household!" said the indignant Susan. "No; I'll stick by my young lady through thick and thin, were she to go to the middle of Africa. I've been with her these ten years, ever since she lost her poor mother, and I will not desert her now."

"You don't believe in ghosts," observed John.

"I believe my Bible," replied Susan gravely; "I read there that I have a Maker far too wise and good to allow His servants to be troubled by visitors from another world. This ghost-fearing is all of a piece with fortune-telling, and spirit-rapping, and all such follies, after which weak-brained people run. Simple faith in G.o.d turns out faith in such nonsense, as daylight puts an end to darkness."

Susan was not laughed at for her little lecture as ten years before she might have been. Her long period of service and her tried character had given her influence, and won for her that respect which a consistent life secures even from the worldly. Her fellow-servants felt somewhat ashamed of their own credulous folly.

"I'm not a bit afraid of ghosts," said Ann; "but I don't choose to mope in the country."

"I don't care a rap for a house being haunted; but I mean to better myself," said the cook.

"Do you think, John, that the young gentlemen will like Myst Court?"

inquired Susan.

"I think Master Bruce has a purpose and a plan in his head; and when he has a purpose and a plan, it's his way to go right on, steady and straight, and none can say whether he likes or don't like what he's a-doing," answered the footman. "When he looked over the house, it wasn't to say how bad things were, but to see how things could be bettered. He has a lot o' common sense, has Master Bruce; I believe that he'll make himself happy after his fas.h.i.+on, and that ghosts, if there be any, will take care to keep out of his way."

"He'd see through them," said Susan, laughing.

"As for Master Vibert," continued John, "if he has plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt, he'll not trouble his head about ghost or goblin. He's a light-hearted chap is Master Vibert, and a bit giddy, I take it. Perhaps his father ain't sorry to have him a bit further off from London than he is here in Summer Villa."

"The one for whom I feel sorry is my young lady," said Susan. "She'll not take a gun or a fis.h.i.+ng-rod like her brothers, and--"

"She'll be mortally afraid of ghosts," cried Ann.

"She's timid as a hare," observed John.

"If miss screams when a puppy-dog barks at her, and hides her face under her bed-clothes if there's a peal o' thunder, how will she face ghosts ten feet high, with eyes like carriage-lamps?" cried the cook.

Susan looked annoyed and almost angry at hearing her mistress spoken of thus. "Miss Emmie is nervous and not very strong, so she is easily startled," said the maid; "but she is as good a Christian as lives, and will not, I hope, give way to any idle fancies and fears such as trouble folk who are afraid of their own shadows. I should not, however, wonder if she find Myst Court very dull."

"She'd better take to amusing herself by looking after the poor folk around her," observed the cook. "From what you've told us, John, I take it there's company enough of bare-legged brats and ragged babies."

"Miss Emmie is mighty afraid of infection," said John, doubtfully shaking his head. "She has never let me call a four-wheeler for her in London since small-pox has been going about. Miss will cross to the other side of the road if she sees a child with a spot on its face. No, no; she'll never venture to set so much as her foot in one of them dirty hovels that I saw down there in Wilts.h.i.+re."

"'Tain't fit as she should," observed Ann. "Why should ladies demean themselves by going amongst dirty beggarly folk?"

"To help them out of their misery," said Susan. "In the place where I lived before I came here, I saw my mistress, and the young ladies besides, take delight in visiting the poor. They thought that it no more demeaned them to enter a cottage than to enter a church; the rich and the poor meet together in both."

"Miss Emmie is too good to be proud," observed John; "but, take my word for it, she'll never muster up courage to go within ten yards of a cottage. Kind things she'll say, ay, and do; for she has the kindest heart in the world. But she'll send you, Susan, with her baskets of groceries and bundles of cast-off clothes; she'll not hunt up cases herself. Miss would shrink from bad smells; she'd faint at the sight of a sore. She'll not dirty her fine muslin dresses, or run the risk of catching fevers, or may be the plague, by visiting the poor."

"Time will show," observed Susan. But from her knowledge of the disposition of her young lady, the faithful attendant was not without her misgivings upon the subject.

CHAPTER IV.

PREPARING TO START.

The question of a move was finally settled; Myst Court was to be the future residence of its new owner, who lost no time in making arrangements for effecting in it such repairs as were absolutely necessary to make it a tolerably comfortable dwelling. More than this Mr. Trevor did not at present attempt; his expenses, he knew, would be heavy. His newly-inherited property would yield no immediate supply; improvements must be gradually made. The life of a landed proprietor was one altogether new to Mr. Trevor, who had pa.s.sed thirty years of his life in a government office, never being more than a few weeks at a time absent from London. Being a sensible man, he was aware that experience on a hitherto untried path is often dearly bought. He expected to make some mistakes, but resolved to act with such prudence that even mistakes should not involve him in serious difficulties.

The six weeks which elapsed before the departure of the family from Summer Villa were full of business and arrangements. Mr. Trevor, having to wind up his office-work, and settle the affairs of his late aunt, was, except in the evenings, very little at home. Emmie, who acted as her father's housekeeper, found a hundred small matters to arrange before making a move which must bring so complete a change. Her brothers attended a private tutor in London, and usually went and returned by the same trains as their father; so that, but for the company of her uncle, Emmie would have spent much of her time alone. But the captain was a cheerful companion and a most efficient helper to his young niece. He made up her accounts, he paid her bills, he helped her to decide which articles of furniture must be taken to the new home, which left to be sold or given away. The slow-paced John was astonished at the energy with which the naval officer would mount a ladder, and with his own hands take down family pictures and swathe them in the matting which was to secure their safe transit to Wilts.h.i.+re.

"Sure the captain does the work of three. One would think he'd been 'prenticed to a carpenter by the way he handles the tools; and he runs up a ladder like a cat," observed John to another member of the household.

Captain Arrows felt strong sympathy for his niece. He saw, perhaps more clearly than did any one else, how painful to her was the change which was coming over her life. Her uncle respected Emmie's unselfish efforts to hide from her father her reluctance to leave Summer Villa and all its pleasant surroundings. Arrows noticed the shade of sadness on Emmie's fair face when she received, as she frequently did, congratulations on her father's accession to property. The acute observer could not fail to see that the acquisition of Myst Court was no source of pride or pleasure to Emmie.

Miss Trevor was perpetually reminded of her approaching departure from the home in which her life had been so much like a summer holiday. Many visits of leave-taking had to be paid, and few could be paid without more or less of pain. Emmie had numerous friends, and to some she could not bid farewell without a sharp pang of regret. Even inanimate things, dear from a.s.sociation, were resigned with sadness. Emmie sighed to take leave of her garden, and spent much time in procuring cuttings from her favourite plants, her geraniums, her fuchsias, her myrtles. With what pleasant memories were those flowers connected in the affectionate mind of Emmie! Summer Villa and her friends seemed dearer than ever when she was about to leave them behind.

Next to the captain, Emmie found her best helper in Susan. Active, thoughtful, the neatest of packers, the most intelligent of maids, Susan was indeed "a treasure" to her young mistress.

"You seem to like the change," said the cook to Susan, who was humming cheerfully to herself as she knelt beside a hamper which she was packing with china.

Susan did not pause to look up from her work as she answered, "I never ask myself whether I like it or not; my business is to make ready for it, and that is enough for me."

"How dismal a house looks when everything in it is being pulled down and upset!" remarked the cook, standing with her back to the wall, and watching Susan as she imbedded quaint old china tea-pot and cream-jug in white cotton wool as carefully as she might have laid a baby in a cradle. "The hall all lumbered with luggage; the whole place smelling of matting; things awanted just when they've been packed up, corded, and labelled; the walls looking without their pictures as faces would do without eyes,--there is something horrid uncomfortable about a house as has been long lived in when it's agoing to be left for good. I'm half sorry that I agreed to stay on the extra fortnight; only it was such a convenience to the family. I don't know what they'd have done had Ann and I taken ourselves off before the move was fairly over."

Susan went quietly on with her occupation, while Mrs. Mullins went on with her talking.

"P'r'aps master did wisely to keep on Mrs. Myers' servants, for he'd hardly have got London folk to stay in his dismal country house, even on double wages. We'll have you at the Soho registry before three months are over."

"Time will show," said Susan.

"Them people down at Myst Court are accustomed to the kind of life they lead there," continued the loquacious Mrs. Mullins, "and that's the reason they don't mind it. Frogs like their ditch because they've never known anything better; and I suppose that folk in a haunted house get used to ghosts, as eels are used to skinning."

"Or learn not to be frightened at shadows," said Susan.

"I'm not frightened; don't you fancy that shadows keep me from going to Myst Court," cried the cook. "But I could never stand a place where the butcher--as John says--comes but twice a week in the winter; no cook could abide that."

"It seems that Mrs. Myers' cook did," observed Susan.

"She's no cook!" exclaimed Mrs. Mullins, with an emphatic snort of disdain: "she's had nothing to keep her hand in, and don't know a _vol-au-vent_ from a _soufflet_! Why, Mrs. Myers never saw company, never asked a friend to a meal! John says that for five days out of the seven the old lady dined on mutton-broth, and the other two on barley-gruel! John told me that he could hardly touch the dinners which Hannah prepared; he is used to have things so very different," added Mrs. Mullins with professional pride.

"If Hannah's cooking satisfied master and his son, John might have been satisfied too," observed Susan.

"Oh, Mr. Trevor is never partic'lar about his food; and as for Master Bruce, John says that he was so much taken up about arrangements, and alterations, and improvements, that he would not have noticed if the stew had been made of old shoes. But Master Vibert, he's not so easily pleased; he likes his dainty bits, his sauces, and his sweeties; there is some satisfaction in dis.h.i.+ng up a dinner for him! He'll soon find out that this Hannah knows just as much of cooking as I do of cow-milking, and there will be a worrit in the house." Mrs. Mullins folded her hands complacently at the thought of how much her own valuable services would be regretted, and then inquired, in an altered tone, "Is the captain going to Myst Court with the rest of the party?"

"No; I am sorry to say that the captain leaves this to-morrow," said Susan. "He is before long to start on another cruise, and as he has much business to do in the docks, he needs to stop for awhile in London. The carriage which takes the captain away is to drop Miss Emmie at the house of her friend, Miss Alice, to whom she wishes to say good-bye. My poor dear young lady! every day brings its good-bye to her now. It will be well when Friday comes, and the move to Myst Court is fairly over."

"I'd never go into a new house on a Friday; it's unlucky," observed Mrs.

Mullins, as she turned away and went off to the kitchen.