The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories Read online

  Bewildered by the sudden apparition, and but half awake, Phil sat up, blinking owl-like and silent at Jack and his candle.

  “By Jove!” he cried at length, “then that was the hall-lamp!” And then Phil, moved thereto by the recollection of his dream, fell back upon his pillow and fairly roared.

  It was Jack’s turn to stare now; and there is no saying how long Phil’s fit might have continued, had not his eyes suddenly fallen on the white face still by his bed-side.

  “What is it, Jack?” he cried, starting up, sobered and wide awake.

  Jack went over to the mantelshelf and put down his candle, then he came back to the bed.

  “Phil,” he said, “do you believe in ghosts?”

  If Jack had not been so evidently in earnest, it is more than probable that his friend would have had another relapse. As it was, he only answered, “I never have done;” as if, with Jack’s face before him, he would not take upon himself to say what he might not do before the interview was over.

  “Phil,” said white-faced Jack, “if there are such things, I have seen one to-night.”

  “Bad dreams,” suggested Phil, thinking of his own, perhaps.

  But Jack shook his head. “I was as wide awake as you are.”

  Carlyon lay looking at him for a moment or two silently. “Wait a bit,” said he at last; “I see there’s a little fire still; poke it up, Jack, and I’ll get into my dressing-gown. Give me my slippers, there’s a good fellow; and now let’s talk it over comfortably.”

  Jack had got up a tolerably cheerful fire, and the two drew their chairs before it.

  “Now then, Jack, for the ghost.”

  “Don’t laugh, old fellow. I give you my word I wouldn’t go through it again for a fortune—ghost or no ghost.”

  “I’m not going to laugh, Jack, I promise you; so there now, fire away!”

  “Well then, to begin at the beginning, I was not long getting into bed; and I should say that my getting to bed and to sleep were about one and the same thing. I must have been asleep some time, for at first I thought it was morning, and that it was Blake outside with the shaving-water.”

  “Thought what was?”

  “Why, the ghost, or whatever it was. I woke up in a sudden kind of way—all in a moment, you know—and there it stood, just at the foot of the bed, so that the light from the window close by fell right on it, and I could see that it, whatever it was, was all white, and staring, and wrapped up in what looked like grave-clothes; that is, the head was all wrapped up. I haven’t got over it yet.” Jack shivered in a kind of apology.

  “Never mind, old man; I daresay it was deuced unpleasant.” And Phil gave a sturdy poke at the logs before them, as if even he would not be quite beyond the influences of a cheering blaze.

  “At first,” Jack went on, “I thought if it would only speak, it would be better than the horrible silence; but when it did speak, it was more horrible still. I may as well make a clean breast of it, and tell you that I fairly bolted under the bedclothes. When I could positively bear it no longer, I screwed up my courage and came to the surface once more; but the thing was gone.”

  “But not before you had heard what it had got to say?”

  Jack stammered and flushed in an unaccountable manner.

  “Phil,” he said earnestly, laying his hand on his friend’s knee, “there’s not another man in this world I would have told all this to.”

  “I can believe it, Jack, and I shouldn’t have liked it a bit more than you did; so tell me all about it, old boy, what it said, and everything.”

  “That’s the queerest part of it,” Jack began, anything but white-faced now. “You remember what you were telling us in the hall,—about your sister and your cousin, you know?”

  Phil nodded, a trifle wonderingly.

  “Well, that’s what it was.”

  Phil could only stare at Jack blankly.

  “You take me?” the latter asked.

  “Can’t say I do—unless,” Phil added, “you mean me to understand that a visitant from the other world comes to talk to you about my relations, which, to say the least of it, sounds rather unlikely.”

  “I didn’t mean that—at least, not exactly; it was a kind of—in short, a warning—there!”

  “Concerning marriage and cousinship?”

  Jack nodded.

  Phil came bolt upright in his chair. “Supper,” he said shortly.

  Jack made a movement of impatience.

  “My dear Jack, there’s no other way out of it—there really isn’t. Now, just ask yourself, for one moment, who should come, on the strength of my poor sister’s story, from the other world, to trouble you with the desirability or undesirability of a match between you and any cousin in Christendom?”

  “My mother.” Jack’s voice was very low, and Jack’s face, that had been very red, was white again. His companion gave a long low whistle. “I daresay you think me mad or an idiot, Phil; but I have seen it, and that makes all the difference.”

  “And I’ll see it too, Jack; somebody’s been playing you a trick, depend upon it. They may try it again probably; and then we’ll be even with ’em, or at least we’ll try.”

  “But I sleep with my door locked.”

  “Humph! where did you find your key—just now, I mean?”

  “Why, that was rather funny, now you mention it—on the floor.”

  “And the door was still locked?”

  “Yes, it was locked all right. But why do you ask? Have you got some wonderful idea in that long head of yours?”

  “Never you mind my head; we aren’t going to talk any more about this affair to-night; and as I don’t suppose you care exactly to go back to your own room, do you take my bed; I shall do very well on this chair.”

  But Jack would not hear of this arrangement; so Philip himself went back to his bed and his dreams, while Jack sat on by the dying fire, sleep coming once more, even to him, at last.

  Before the two descended to breakfast the next morning, it was agreed between them that nothing more should be said concerning the mystery of the night. Whatever poor Jack may have done, his friend did not let the night’s events or their solution interfere in any way with his appetite for breakfast, or with his enjoyment of the walk after it to the church by the side of his newly-discovered princess. For him the fairy tale was going on still, and Jack and his troubles had, for the time, no place in it.

  It was not the pleasantest of wintry days. The sky promised more snow, and a cutting north wind drove the stray flakes that were already falling into the faces of the Manor party like bits of veritable ice, till poor Flop’s nose threatened to leave her face altogether. But to Philip Carlyon the day was perfect, and the blasts of north wind might have been zephyrs from Paradise itself. Miss Layford, too, looked warm and smiling, but that might have been only the reflection of her companion’s face—at times, it must be confessed, rather near to hers. There was the Squire, beaming and cheery, surrounded by his laughing, chatting ones. Miss Dormer, too, was bright and cheerful; so, perhaps, it was only poor Jack who really felt what an unpleasant day it was. “The sort of weather one would like to kick, by Jove!” growled Jack. But even Jack thawed into a happier frame of mind under Miss Dormer’s care. Besides, returning, the wind was no longer in their faces, and it was decidedly pleasanter.

  Philip Carlyon and Margaret, dropping behind, soon lost sight of the rest of the party; and when next a turn of the road brought them again to view, they saw that Jack and Miss Dormer had detached themselves from the rest, and were walking briskly on ahead. At the sight all Philip’s misgivings touching the little governess and his friend came back to him. In his own happiness poor foolish Jack’s had been well-nigh overlooked altogether. Philip stole an inquiring glance at the face by his side; he saw quite enough to know that he need not be afraid to speak.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Margaret knew what this meant, and answered at once.

  “I can’t sa
y—not exactly, that is—but it has never been as bad as this before. O Phil, can’t you save him?” and Margaret’s soft brown eyes, with the bright tear-drops in them, were lifted beseechingly to her companion’s face.

  What man, so adjured, would not have pledged himself to an even less-hopeful task? Of course Phil promised.

  “You remember our charade last night? It shall be ‘checkmate’ with my lady yet; never fear.”

  “Poor dear Jack, only fancy his marrying that dreadful woman!”

  “She must go,” said Phil; “that’s settled. By the way, that reminds me to ask why she is not away for her holidays, like other people?”

  “She always says she has nowhere to go.”

  “Humph! I’m afraid we must trouble her to find somewhere.”

  They were in sight of the house now, and Philip Carlyon stopped.

  “Wait a moment, Margaret,” he said; “you know who I am going to see this morning, and what I am going to say; you don’t repent?”

  “Repent! O Phil!”

  She said nothing more; but Mr. Philip Carlyon appeared to be more than satisfied.

  CHAPTER III

  Coming out from the library some half-hour later, Philip Carlyon stumbled on, or rather was stumbled upon by, the inevitable Flop, and a shower of miscellaneous articles—books, a drawing-board, paint-pencils, and so forth—were incontinently delivered at his feet.

  “Dear me!” bleated poor Flop, when the din had a little subsided, “how the things in this house do tumble about! And perhaps you’ve got corns, and that drawing-board is dreadfully sharp and heavy too; it nearly cut poor little Tiny’s head open the other day; she’d got right under it when I let it fall, you know—poor silly little dear!”

  “Nearly as silly as I was,” said Philip, laughing. “I believe the confounded thing has all but taken my foot off.”

  “Has it really, though? O dear, dear, I’m so sorry! And the paint-box—it’s one of those tin things—moist colours, you know—has cut my finger, I think, see!” and Flop thrust forth a bleeding digit to within an inch of Phil’s nose; for poor Flop, short of sight herself, laboured under the delusion that all her fellow-mortals were similarly afflicted.

  “So it is!” cried Phil. “Here, let me wrap it up, poor thing!”

  They were standing in one of the hall-windows, and Philip—poor Flop’s wounded hand in his—was making some laughing comment, when a shadow from outside fell upon them, and, looking up, there was Jack’s fair face, with the honest blue eyes opened to their utmost, staring at them in a kind of blank amaze.

  “Come in!” cried Philip. “I want to speak to you.”

  Jack, thus called upon, marched round to the great door, kicking off the snow from his boots as he went. Flop was gone, and Philip was standing by the hall-fire making a little pretence of warming himself as Jack entered.

  “Well?” inquired Jack, the surprised stare not quite gone out of his blue eyes yet.

  “The fact is, Jack, I’ve got something to say to you—something to tell you. Can’t you guess within a little what it’s about, old fellow?”

  But Jack only stared still more, and shook his head.

  “I think you could guess if you liked, Jack; but if you won’t, why I suppose I must tell you. I have asked your sister, and—she is going to take me for better for worse—there!”

  The stare of amazement on Jack’s face had been as nothing compared to that which it now wore. For the best part of a minute Jack seemed, in his astonishment, utterly speechless. At the end of that time he had managed to recover himself sufficiently to utter the one word, “Flop!” It was really not so very surprising when you consider the little picture Jack had looked upon a moment since from the great hall-window; and yet Phil found something so irresistibly comic in the idea, that he burst into one of his roars, to poor Jack’s still greater mystification.

  “Flop’s one of the best souls going,” said Phil, when he had sufficiently recovered himself to attempt an explanation; “but it isn’t Flop; and not being Flop, my dear Jack, and Tiny not looking upon me in quite the favourable light that I could wish—why, it’s Margaret!”

  The old uneasiness, all that has so puzzled him in his friend Jack—but laid aside in these later hours—flashed back upon Philip Carlyon the moment Margaret’s name had left his lips. A white face fronted him, but it was only for a moment; the next it was buried in Jack’s sturdy arms upon the old carved mantleshelf before him.

  “Jack, Jack, what is it? For heaven’s sake, speak, man!”

  But Jack neither spoke nor moved.

  “There’s a mystery somewhere,” cried Philip desperately; “I’ve felt it all along; I saw it the first day I came; what is it, old man? Jack, dear old Jack, what is it?”

  At the touch of Phil’s hand, at the sound of his troubled voice, poor Jack lifted his face. With a great effort he looked straight at Philip, and put out one hand towards him.

  “Phil,” he said, with a little attempt at a smile, “never mind me. I shall be all right in a minute or two. I see it all now. I thought you were trying to cut me out, old fellow, and got savage. I thought you knew—everybody does; I daresay I never told you; I took it for granted you knew—Margaret is my cousin. She has always lived here, one of us, and I have been fool enough to fancy she always might; that is all, that is the grand mystery, Phil. I have been a fool!” and poor Jack tried a laugh that was more dreary even than the smile had been.

  “If I had only known,” Philip began.

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference. I see it now; she could never have cared for me, Phil; don’t say any more about it. I must get over it as best I can.”

  “Come for a walk,” said Philip; “there’s nothing like a good stretch; try it, old fellow!”

  “Not with you, Phil; let me go by myself. I shall turn up again at dinner; and,” these were Jack’s parting words at the open door, “whatever you do, don’t trouble yourself about—about this, you know, Phil; I shall be all right.”

  Philip Carlyon stood watching poor Jack’s big figure striding over the snow; he stood looking out over the white stretch of lawn and meadow long after the lonely figure had vanished from the scene. He was going over in his own mind the events of these past few days. The grand tangle of it all—poor Jack’s irritation, little Tiny’s simple speech, even the ghost mystery itself,—all lay unravelled at Philip Carlyon’s finger-ends. Margaret Layford not Jack’s sister, but his cousin; what was there that the simple fact did not explain? There was one thing now quite clear to Philip’s mind: if that small Macchiavelli, Miss Dormer, got hold of poor miserable Jack in his present frame of mind, the checkmate Phil had so glibly promised himself and Margaret would not be so easy of accomplishment. One result of his cogitations was, that Philip decided to take Miss Layford into his confidence with regard to the little affair of the previous night. A walk after luncheon was easily arranged, and then Margaret learned the whole story.

  “Jack was his poor mother’s favourite,” she said. “Miss Dormer, I suppose, has managed to learn so much; our conversation of last evening must have suggested to her scheming little brain the idea of making the use of the knowledge she has done.”

  “And will do again, depend upon it,” rejoined Philip. “Meanwhile not a word of our engagement, nor of our suspicions of herself; of the latter not a hint even to Jack. I shall change rooms with him to-night; and I think I may venture to say that, for the future, we shall find our friend the ghost tolerably well laid.”

  So it was arranged. Jack appeared at the dinner-table in decidedly higher spirits than was customary even with him. As for the little governess, it was just as Philip had predicted. The great stupid fly was hers past all doubt; and as the evening wore on, there was a flash of triumph in the dark eyes that their owner was scarcely at pains to conceal.

  “Patience!” whispered Philip, as he pressed Margaret’s hand at parting, and saw the anxious glances she was casting towards her cousin and Miss Dormer, w
ho were also saying good-night at the farther end of the great drawing-room—“patience; it will be our turn soon!”

  “But if she should—O Phil!”

  “But she sha’n’t; she shall marry me first—there!”

  Whereupon Margaret laughed, and going her way, with Miss Dormer following her, left the coast clear to the two young men. Jack came up to the fireplace, where his friend Philip stood, looking rather foolish—feeling even more foolish than he looked, if the truth were told. Philip made way for him, but said nothing.

  “Can you do nothing but stare at a fellow?” growled Jack at length; “if you must stare at somebody, there’s the glass!”

  “Thank you, my dear Jack,” returned Philip blandly; “I don’t doubt the sight would be charming; but just at this present moment I am wanting to look at the biggest, blindest”—and here Phil was speaking in the biggest capitals—“dearest, blundering young fool the World ever turned out; and she has done pretty well in that way.”

  Jack was for a moment inclined to be very wrathful, but the glamour of the day was falling from him—as also of the champagne at dinner—and he was by this time almost, if not quite, like the possessed of old, “in his right mind,” which for the last few hours or so he most certainly had not been.

  “Phil,” he said sadly, “I know you would help me if you could, and so would Margaret; but it’s too late.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s gone so far as that,” cried Phil savagely.

  Jack’s face grew very red.

  “It’s gone so far, that, in honour—”

  “Honour—bah!” echoed his companion contemptuously. “But there, go to bed, go to bed, and pray Heaven to help the greatest fool ever made;” which was a mistake of Phil’s; for Heaven had had nothing to do with it, as he ought to have known.

  “You’re going to my room, you know!” he called out, as Jack moved off.

  “I know!” Jack made answer dismally.

  All the ghosts in the universe would have been welcome to him beside this new horror he had been at such pains to raise.