The Haunted Chamber by The Duchess

T >> The Duchess >> The Haunted Chamber

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Reaching the corridor, they cross it hurriedly, and carrying Adrian up
a back staircase that leads to Captain Ringwood's room by a circuitous
route, they gain it without encountering a single soul, and lay him
gently down on Ringwood's bed, almost at the very moment that midnight
chimes from the old tower, and only a few minutes before Arthur
Dynecourt steals from his chamber to make that last visit to his
supposed victim.

CHAPTER XII.

Slowly and with difficulty they coax Sir Adrian back to life. Ringwood
had insisted upon telling the old housekeeper at the castle, who had
been in the family for years, the whole story of her master's rescue,
and she, with tears dropping down her withered cheeks, had helped
Ringwood to remove his clothes and make him comfortable. She had also
sat beside him while the captain, stealing out of the house like a
thief, had galloped down to the village for the doctor, whom he had
smuggled into the house without awaking any of the servants.

This caution and secrecy had been decided upon for one powerful reason.
If Arthur Dynecourt should prove guilty of being the author of his
cousin's incarceration, they were quite determined he should not escape
whatever punishment the law allowed. But the mystery could not be quite
cleared up until Sir Adrian's return to consciousness, when they hoped
to have some light thrown upon the matter from his own lips.

In the meantime, should Arthur hear of his cousin's rescue, and know
himself to be guilty of this dastardly attempt to murder, would he not
take steps to escape before the law should lay its iron grasp upon him?
All four conspirators are too ignorant of the power of the law to know
whether it would be justifiable in the present circumstances to place
him under arrest, or decide on waiting until Sir Adrian himself shall
be able to pronounce either his doom or his exculpation.

The doctor stays all night, and administers to the exhausted man, as
often as he dares, the nourishment and good things provided by the old
housekeeper.

When the morning is far advanced, Adrian, waking from a short but
refreshing slumber, looks anxiously around him. Florence, seeing this,
steps aside, as though to make way for Dora to go closer to him. But
Mrs. Talbot, covering her face with her hands, turns aside and sinks
into a chair.

Florence, much bewildered by this strange conduct, stands irresolute
beside the bed, hardly knowing what to do. Again she glances at the
prostrate man, and sees his eyes resting upon her with an expression in
them that makes her heart beat rapidly with sweet but sad recollections.

Then a faint voice falls upon her ear. It is so weak that she is obliged
to stoop over him to catch what he is trying to say.

"Darling, I owe you my life!"

With great feebleness he utters these words, accompanying them with a
glance of utter devotion. How can she mistake this glance, so full of
love and rapture? Perplexed in the extreme, she turns from him, as
though to leave him, but by a gesture he detains her.

"Do not leave me! Stay with me!" he entreats.

Once again, deeply distressed, she looks at Dora. Mrs. Talbot, rising,
says distinctly, but with a shamefaced expression--

"Do as he asks you. Believe me, by his side is your proper place, not
mine."

Saying this, she glides quickly from the room, and does not appear again
for several hours.

By luncheon-time it occurs to the guests that Arthur Dynecourt has not
been seen since last evening.

Ringwood, carrying this news to the sick-room, the little rescuing party
and their auxiliaries, the nurse and doctor, lay their heads together,
and decide that, doubtless, having discovered the escape of his
prisoner, and, dreading arrest, Arthur has quietly taken himself off,
and so avoided the trial and punishment which would otherwise have
fallen upon him.

Ringwood is now of opinion that they have acted unwisely in concealing
the discovery of Sir Adrian in the haunted chamber. By not speaking to
the others, they have given Dynecourt the opportunity of getting away
safely, and without causing suspicion.

"Is it not an almost conclusive proof of his guilt, his running away in
this cowardly fashion?" says Ethel Villiers. "I think papa and Lady
FitzAlmont and everybody should now be told."

So Ringwood, undertaking the office of tale-bearer, goes down-stairs,
and, bringing together all the people still remaining in the house,
astounds them by his revelation of the discovery and release of Sir
Adrian.

The nearest magistrate is sent for, and the case being laid before him,
together with the still further evidence given by Sir Adrian himself,
who has told them in a weak whisper of Arthur's being privy to his
intention of searching the haunted chamber for Florence's bangle on that
memorable day of his disappearance, the magistrate issues a warrant for
the arrest of Arthur Dynecourt.

But it is all in vain; even though two of the cleverest detectives from
Scotland Yard are pressed into the service, no tidings of Arthur
Dynecourt come to light. A man answering to his description, but wearing
spectacles, had been traced as having gone on board a vessel bound for
New York the very day after Sir Adrian was restored to the world, and,
when search in other quarters fails, every one falls into the ready
belief that this spectacled man was in reality the would-be murderer.

So the days pass on, and it is now quite a month since Ringwood and
Florence carried Sir Adrian's senseless form from the haunted chamber,
and still Florence holds herself aloof from the man she loves, and,
though quite as assiduous as the others in her attentions to him, seems
always eager to get away from him, and glad to escape any chance of a
_tete-a-tete_ with him. This she does in defiance of the fact that Mrs.
Talbot never approaches him except when absolutely compelled.

Sir Adrian is still a great invalid. The shock to his nervous system,
the dragging out of those interminable hours in the lonely chamber, and
the strain upon his physical powers by the absence of nutriment for
seven long days and nights, had all combined to shatter a constitution
once robust. He is now greatly improved in health, and has been
recommended by his doctors to try a winter in the south of France or
Algiers.

He shows himself, however, strangely reluctant to quit his home, and,
whenever the subject is mentioned, he first turns his eyes questioningly
upon Florence, if she is present, and then, receiving no returning
glance from her downcast eyes, sighs, and puts the matter from him.

He has so earnestly entreated both Dora and Miss Delmaine not to desert
him, that they have not had the heart to refuse, and as Ringwood is also
staying at the castle, and Ethel Villiers has gained her father's
consent to remain, Mrs. Talbot acting as chaperon, they are by no means
a dull party.

To-day, the first time for over a month, Florence, going to her easel,
draws its cover away from the sketch thereon, and gazes at her work. How
long ago it seems since she sat thus, happy in her thoughts, glad in the
belief that the one she loved loved her! yet all that time his heart had
been given to her cousin. And though now, at odd moments, she has felt
herself compelled to imagine that his every glance and word speaks of
tenderness for her, and not for Dora--still this very knowledge only
hardens her heart toward him, and renders her cold and unsympathetic in
his presence.

No, she will have no fickle lover. And yet, how kind he is--how earnest,
how honest is his glance! Oh, that she could believe all the past to be
an evil dream, and think of him again as her very own, as in the dear
old days gone by!

Even while thinking this she idly opens a book lying on the table near
her, where some brushes and paints are scattered. A piece of paper drops
from between its leaves and flutters to the ground. Lifting it, she sees
it is the letter written by him to Dora, which the latter had brought to
her, here to this very room, when asking her advice as to whether she
should or should not meet him by appointment in the lime-walk.

She drops the letter hurriedly, as though its very touch stings her,
and, rousing herself with bitter self-contempt from her sentimental
regrets, works vigorously at her painting for about an hour, then,
growing wearied, she flings her brushes aside, and goes to the
morning-room, where she knows she will find all the others assembled.

There is nobody here just now however, except Sir Adrian, who is looking
rather tired and bored, and Ethel Villiers. The latter, seeing Florence
enter, gladly gathers up her work and runs away to have a turn in the
garden with Captain Ringwood.

Florence, though sorry for this _tete-a-tete_ that has been forced upon
her, sits down calmly enough, and, taking up a book, prepares to read
aloud to Sir Adrian.

But he stops her. Putting out his hand, he quietly but firmly closes the
book, and then says:

"Not to-day, Florence; I want to speak to you instead."

"Anything you wish," responds Florence steadily, though her heart is
beating somewhat hastily.

"Are you sorry that--that my unhappy cousin proved so unworthy?" he asks
at last, touching upon this subject with a good deal of nervousness. He
can not forget that once she had loved this miserable man.

"One must naturally feel sorry that anything human could be guilty of
such an awful intention," she returns gently, but with the utmost
unconcern.

Sir Adrian stares. Was he mistaken then? Did she never really care for
the fellow, or is this some of what Mrs. Talbot had designated as
Florence's "slyness"? No, once for all he would not believe that the
pure, sweet, true face looking so steadily into his could be guilty of
anything underhand or base.

"It was false that you loved him then?" he questions, following out the
train of his own thoughts rather than the meaning of her last words.

"That I loved Mr. Dynecourt!" she repeats in amazement, her color
rising. "What an extraordinary idea to come into your head! No; if
anything, I confess I felt for your cousin nothing but contempt and
dislike."

"Then, Florence, what has come between us?" he exclaims, seizing her
hand. "You must have known that I loved you many weeks ago. Nay, long
before last season came to a close; and then I believe--forgive my
presumption--that you too loved me."

"Your belief was a true one," she returns calmly, tears standing in her
beautiful eyes. "But you, by your own act, severed us."

"I did?"

"Yes. Nay, Sir Adrian, be as honest in your dealings with me as I am
with you, and confess the truth."

"I don't know what you mean," declares Adrian, in utter bewilderment;
"you would tell me that you think it was some act of mine that--that
ruined my chance with you?"

"You know it was"--reproachfully.

"I know nothing of the kind"--hotly. "I only know that I have always
loved you and only you, and that I shall never love another."

"You forget--Dora Talbot!" says Florence, in a very low tone. "I think,
Sir Adrian, your late coldness to her has been neither kind nor just."

"I have never been either colder or warmer to Dora Talbot than I have
been to any other ordinary acquaintance of mine," returns Sir Adrian,
with considerable excitement. "There is surely a terrible mistake
somewhere."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Florence, rising in her agitation, "that
you never spoke of love to Dora?"

"Certainly I spoke of love--of my love for you," he declares vehemently.
"That you should suppose I ever felt anything for Mrs. Talbot but the
most ordinary friendship seems incredible to me. To you, and you alone,
my heart has been given for many a day. Not the vaguest tenderness for
any other woman has come between my thoughts and your image since first
we met."

"Yet there was your love-letter to her--I read it with my own eyes!"
declares Florence faintly.

"I never wrote Mrs. Talbot a line in my life," says Sir Adrian, more and
more puzzled.

"You will tell me next I did not see you kissing her hand in the
lime-walk last September?" pursues Florence, flushing hotly with shame
and indignation.

"You did not," he declares vehemently. "I swear it. Of what else are
you going to accuse me? I never wrote to her, and I never kissed her
hand."

"It is better for us to discuss this matter no longer," says Miss
Delmaine, rising from her seat. "And for the future I can not--will
not--read to you here in the morning. Let us make an end of this false
friendship now at once and forever."

She moves toward the door as she speaks, but he, closely following,
overtakes her, and, putting his back against the door, so bars her
egress.

He has been forbidden exertion of any kind, and now this unusual
excitement has brought a color to his wan cheeks and a brilliancy to his
eyes. Both these changes in his appearance however only serve to betray
the actual weakness to which, ever since his cruel imprisonment, he has
been a victim.

Miss Delmaine's heart smites her. She would have reasoned with him, and
entreated him to go back again to his lounge, but he interrupts her.

"Florence, do not leave me like this," he pleads in an impassioned tone.
"You are laboring under a delusion. Awake from this dream, I implore
you, and see things as they really are."

"I am awake, and I do see things as they are," she replies sadly.

"My darling, who can have poisoned your mind against me?" he asks, in
deep agitation.

At this moment, as if in answer to his question, the door leading into
the conservatory at the other side of the room is pushed open, and Dora
Talbot enters.

"Ah, here is Mrs. Talbot," exclaims Sir Adrian eagerly; "she will
exonerate me!"

He speaks with such full assurance of being able to bring Dora forward
as a witness in his defense that Florence, for the first time, feels a
strong doubt thrown upon the belief she has formed of his being a
monster of fickleness.

"What is it I can do for you?" asks Dora, in some confusion. Of late she
has grown very shy of being alone with either him or Florence.

"You will tell Miss Delmaine," replies Adrian quickly, "that I never
wrote you a letter, and that I certainly did not--you will forgive my
even mentioning this extraordinary supposition, I hope, Mrs.
Talbot--kiss your hand one day in September in the lime-walk."

Dora turns first hot and then cold, first crimson and then deadly pale.
So it is all out now, and she is on her trial. She feels like the
veriest criminal brought to the bar of justice. Shall she promptly deny
everything, or--No. She has had enough of deceit and intrigue. Whatever
it costs her, she will now be brave and true, and confess all.

"I do tell her so," she says, in a low tone, but yet firmly. "I never
received a letter from you, and you never kissed my hand."

"Dora!" cries Florence. "What are you saying! Have you forgotten all
that is past?"

"Spare me!" entreats Dora hoarsely. "In an hour, if you will come to my
room, I will explain all, and you can then spurn me, and put me outside
the pale of your friendship if you will, and as I well deserve. But, for
the present, accept my assurance that no love passages ever occurred
between me and Sir Adrian, and that I am fully persuaded his heart has
been given to you alone ever since your first meeting."

"Florence, you believe her?" questions Sir Adrian beseechingly. "It is
all true what she has said. I love you devotedly. If you will not marry
me, no other woman shall ever be my wife. My beloved, take pity on me!"

"Trust in him, give yourself freely to him without fear," urges Dora,
with a sob. "He is altogether worthy of you." So saying, she escapes
from the room, and goes up the stairs to her own apartment weeping
bitterly.

"Is there any hope for me?" asks Sir Adrian of Florence when they are
again alone. "Darling, answer me, do, you--can you love me?"

"I have loved you always--always," replies Florence in a broken voice.
"But I thought--I feared--oh, how much I have suffered!"

"Never mind that now," rejoins Sir Adrian very tenderly. He has placed
his arm round her, and her head is resting in happy contentment upon his
breast. "For the future, my dearest, you shall know neither fear nor
suffering if I can prevent it."

* * * * *

They are still murmuring tender words of love to each other, though a
good half hour has gone by, when a noise as of coming footsteps in the
conservatory attracts their attention, and presently Captain Ringwood,
with his arm round Ethel Villiers's waist, comes slowly into view.

Totally unaware that any one is in the room besides themselves, they
advance, until, happening to lift their eyes, they suddenly become aware
that their host and Miss Delmaine are regarding them with mingled
glances of surprise and amusement. Instantly they start asunder.

"It is--that is--you see--Ethel, _you_ explain," stammers Captain
Ringwood confusedly.

At this both Sir Adrian and Florence burst out laughing so merrily and
so heartily that all constraint comes to an end, and finally Ethel and
Ringwood, joining in the merriment that has been raised at their
expense, volunteer a full explanation.

"I think," says Ethel, after awhile, looking keenly at Florence and her
host, "you two look just as guilty as we do. Don't they, George?"

"They seem very nearly as happy, at all events," agrees Ringwood, who,
now that he has confessed to his having just been accepted by Ethel
Villiers "for better for worse," is again in his usual gay spirits.

"Nearly? you might say quite," says Sir Adrian, laughing. "Florence, as
we have discovered their secret, I think it will be only honest of us to
tell them ours."

Florence blushes and glances rather shyly at Ethel.

"I know it," cries that young lady, clapping her hands. "You are going
to marry Sir Adrian, Florence, and he is going to marry you!"

At this they all laugh.

"Well, one of those surmises could hardly come off without the other,"
observes Ringwood, with a smile. "So your second guess was a pretty safe
one. If she is right, old man"--turning to Sir Adrian--"I congratulate
you both with all my heart."

"Yes, she is quite right," responds Sir Adrian, directing a glance full
of ardent love upon Florence. "What should I do with the life she
restored to me unless I devoted it to her service?"

"You see, he is marrying me only out of gratitude," says Florence,
smiling archly, but large tears of joy and gladness sparkle in her
lovely eyes.

CHAPTER XIII.

When Florence finds her way, at the expiration of the hour, to Dora's
room, she discovers that fair little widow dissolved in tears, and
indeed sorely perplexed and shamed. The sight of Florence only seems to
render her grief more poignant, and when her cousin, putting her arm
round her, tries to console her, she only responds to the caress by
flinging herself upon her knees, and praying her to forgive her.

And then the whole truth comes out. All the petty, mean, underhand
actions, all the cruel lies, all the carefully spoken innuendoes, all
the false reports are brought into the light and laid bare to the
horrified eyes of Florence.

Dora's confession is thorough and complete in every sense. Not in any
way does she seek to shield herself, or palliate her own share in the
deception practiced upon the unconscious girl now regarding her with
looks of amazement and deep sorrow, but in bitter silence.

When the wretched story is at an end, and Dora, rising to her feet,
declares her intention of leaving England forever, Miss Delmaine stands
like one turned into stone, and says no word either of censure or
regret.

Dora, weeping violently, goes to the door, but, as her hand is raised
to open it, the pressure upon the gentle heart of Florence is suddenly
removed, and in a little gasping voice she bids her stay.

Dora remains quite still, her eyes bent upon the floor, waiting to hear
her cousin's words of just condemnation; expecting only to hear the
scathing words of scorn with which her cousin will bid her begone from
her sight for evermore. But suddenly she feels two soft arms close
around her, and Florence, bursting into tears, lays her head upon her
shoulder.

"Oh, Dora, how could you do it!" she falters, and that is all. Never,
either then or afterward, does another sentence of reproach pass her
lips; and Dora, forgiven and taken back to her cousin's friendship,
endeavors earnestly for the future to avoid such untruthful paths as had
so nearly led her to her ruin.

Sir Adrian, from the hour in which his dearest hopes were realized,
recovers rapidly both his health and spirits; and soon a double wedding
takes place, that makes pretty Ethel Villiers Ethel Ringwood and
beautiful Florence Lady Dynecourt.

A winter spent abroad with his charming bride completely restores Sir
Adrian to his former vigorous state, and, when spring is crowning all
the land with her fair flowers, he returns to the castle with the
intention of remaining there until the coming season demands their
presence in town.

And now once again there is almost the same party brought together at
Dynecourt. Old Lady FitzAlmont and Lady Gertrude are here again, and so
are Captain and Mrs. Ringwood, both the gayest of the gay. Dora Talbot
is here too, somewhat chastened and subdued both in manner and
expression, a change so much for the better that she finds her list
of lovers to be longer now than in the days of yore.

It is an exquisite, balmy day in early April. The sun is shining hotly
without, drinking up greedily the gentle shower that fell half an hour
ago. The guests, who with their host and hostess have been wandering
idly through the grounds, decide to go in-doors.

"It was on a day like this, though in the autumn, that we first missed
Sir Adrian," remarks some one in a half tone confidentially to some one
else, but not so low that the baronet can not hear it.

"Yes," he says quickly, "and it was just over there"--pointing to a
clump of shrubs near the hall door--"that I parted with that unfortunate
cousin of mine."

Lady Dynecourt shudders, and draws closer to her husband.

"It was such a marvelous story," observes a pretty woman who was not at
the castle last autumn, when what so nearly proved to be a tragedy was
being enacted; "quite like a legend or a medieval romance. Dear Lady
Dynecourt's finding him was such a happy finish to it. I must say I have
always had the greatest veneration for those haunted chambers, so seldom
to be found now in any house. Perhaps my regard for them is the stronger
because I never saw one."

"No?" questioningly. "Will you come and see ours now?" says Sir Adrian
readily.

His wife clasps his arm, and a pang contracts her brow.

"You are not frightened now, surely?" says Adrian, smiling at her very
tenderly.

"Yes, I am," she responds promptly. "The very name of that awful room
unnerves me. There is something evil in it, I believe. Do not go there."

"I'll block it up forever if you wish it," declares Sir Adrian; "but,
for the last time, let me go and show its ghostly beauties to Lady
Laughton. I confess, even after all that has happened, it possesses no
terrors for me; it only reminds me of my unpleasant kinsman."

"I wonder what became of him," remarks Ringwood. "He's at the other side
of the world, I should imagine."

"Out of our world, at all events," says Ethel, indifferently.

"Well, let us go," agrees Florence resignedly.

So together they all start once more for the old tower. As they reach
the stone steps Sir Adrian says laughingly to Lady Laughton:

"Now, what do you expect to see? A ghost--a phantom? And in what shape,
what guise?"

"A skeleton," answers Lady Laughton, returning his laugh; and with the
words the door is pushed open, and they enter the room _en masse_.

The sunlight is stealing in through the narrow window holes and faintly
lighting up the dismal room.

What is that in yonder corner, the very corner where Sir Adrian's
almost lifeless body had been found? Is this a trick, a delusion of the
brain? What is this thing huddled together, lying in a heap--a ghastly,
ragged, filthy heap, before their terrified eyes? And why does this
charnel-house smell infect their nostrils? They stagger. Even the strong
men grow pale and faint, for there, before them, gaunt, awful,
unmistakable, lies a skeleton!

Lady Laughton's jesting words have come true--a fleshless corpse indeed
meets their stricken gaze!

Sir Adrian, having hurriedly asked one of the men of the party to
remove Lady Dynecourt and her friends, he and Captain Ringwood proceed
to examine the grewsome body that lies upon the floor; yet, though they
profess to each other total ignorance of what it can be, there is in
their hearts a miserable certainty that appalls them. Is this to be the
end of the mystery? Truly had spoken Ethel Ringwood when she had alluded
to Arthur Dynecourt as being "out of their world," for it is his remains
they are bending over, as a few letters lying scattered about testify
only too plainly.

Caught in the living grave he had destined for his cousin was Arthur
Dynecourt on the night of Sir Adrian's release. The lamp had dropped
from his hand in the first horror of his discovery that his victim had
escaped him. Then followed the closing of the fatal lock and his
insensibility.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9