ALL IN THE DARK

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

• GUY DEVERELL
• ALL IN THE DARK
• THE WYVERN MYSTERY
• THE COCK AND ANCHOR
• WYLDER’S HAND
• THE WATCHER
• CHECKMATE
• THE ROSE AND THE KEY
• TENANTS OF MALORY
• WILLING TO DIE
• GOLDEN FRIARS
• THE EVIL GUEST
• TORLOGH O’BRIEN

All in the Dark

BY

J. S. LE FANU

Downey & Co

12 York St

Covent Garden.

[ 1898 ]

ALL IN THE DARK.

CHAPTER I.

GILROYD HALL AND ITS MISTRESS.

Near the ancient and pretty village of Saxton, with its gabled side to the road, stands an old red-brick house of moderate dimensions, called Gilroyd Hall, with some tall elms of very old date about it; and an ancient, brick walled garden, overtopping the road with standard fruit-trees, that have quite outgrown the common stature of such timber, and have acquired a sylvan and venerable appearance.

Here dwelt my aunt, an old maid, Miss Dinah Perfect by name; and here my Cousin William Maubray, the nephew whom she had in effect adopted, used to spend his holidays.

I shall have a good deal to say of her by-and-by, though my story chiefly concerns William Maubray, who was an orphan, and very nearly absolutely dependent upon the kindness of his aunt. Her love was true, but crossed and ruffled now and then by temper and caprice. Not an ill temper was hers, but whimsical and despotic, and excited oftenest upon the absurdities which she liked letting into her active and perverse little head, which must have been the proper nidus of all odd fancies, they so prospered and multiplied there.

On the whole, Gilroyd Hall and the village of Saxton were rather slow quarters for the holidays. Besides his aunt, William had but one companion under that steep and hospitable roof. This was little Violet Darkwell, a child of about eleven years, when he had attained to the matured importance of seventeen, and was in the first eleven at Rugby, had his cap, and was, in fact, a person with a career to look back upon, and who had long left childish things behind him.

This little girl was—in some roundabout way, which, as a lazy man, I had rather take for granted than investigate—a kinswoman; and Miss Dinah Perfect had made her in some sort her property, and had her at least eight months out of the twelve down at Gilroyd Hall. Little Violet was lonely at home—an only daughter, with a father working sternly at the bar, not every day seen by her, and who seemed like a visitor in his own house—hurried, reserved, unobtrusive, and a little awful.

To the slim, prettily-formed little girl, with the large dark eyes, brown hair and delicate bright tints, the country was delightful—the air, the flowers, the liberty; and old Aunt Dinah, though with a will and a temper, still so much kindlier and pleasanter than Miss Placey, her governess, in town; and good old Winnie Dobbs was so cosy and good-natured.

To this little maid, in her pleasant solitude, the arrival of William Maubray for the holidays was an event full of interest and even of excitement. Shy as he was, and much in awe of all young lady-kind, she was far too young to be in his way. Her sparkling fuss and silvery prattle were even pleasant to him. There was life and something of comicality in her interruptions and unreasonableness. She made him visit her kittens and kiss them all round, and learn and recite their names; whistle after tea for her bullfinch, dig in her garden, mend and even nurse her doll, and perform many such tasks, quite beneath his dignity as a “swell” at Rugby, which, however, the gentle fellow did very merrily and industriously for the imperious little woman, with scant thanks, but some liking for his guerdon.

So, in his fancy, she grew to be mixed up with the pleasant influences of Gilroyd Hall, with the flowers and the birds, with the freaks of the little dog Pixie, with the stories he read there, and with his kindly welcomes and good-byes.

Sitting, after breakfast, deep in his novel in the “study,” with his white flannel cricket trousers on, for he was to play against Winderbroke for the town of Saxton that day, he received a smart tweak by the hair, at the back of his head, and, looking round, saw little Vi, perched on the rung of his old-fashioned chair, and dimly recollected having received several gentler tweaks in succession, without evincing the due attention.

“Pert little Vi! what’s all this?” said the stalwart Rugby boy, turning round with a little shake of his head, and his sweet smile, and leaning on his elbow. The sunny landscape from the window, which was clustered round with roses, and a slanting sunbeam that just touched her hair, helped to make the picture very pretty.

“Great, big, old bear! you never listen to one word I say.”

“Don’t you call names, Miss,” said Aunt Dinah, who had just glided into the room.

“What was little silver-hair saying? What does she want?” he replied, laughing at the child’s indignation, and pursuing the nomenclature of Southey’s pleasant little nursery tale. “Golden-hair, I must call you, though,” he said, looking on her sun-lit head; “and not quite golden either; it is brown, and very pretty brown, too. Who called you Violet?” He was holding the tip of her pretty chin between his fingers, and looking in her large deep eyes. “Who called you Violet?”

“How should I know, Willie?” she replied, disengaging her chin with a little toss.

“Why, your poor mamma called you Violet. I told you so fifty times,” said Aunt Dinah sharply.

“You said it was my godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, grannie!” said Miss Vi, not really meaning to be pert.

“Don’t answer me, Miss—that’s of course, your catechism—we’re speaking of your poor mamma. ’Twas her mamma who called her Violet. What about it?”

“Nothing,” answered William, gently looking up at his aunt, “only it is such a pretty name;” and glancing again at the child, “it goes so well with her eyes. She is a jolly little creature.”

“She has some good features, I suppose, like every other child, and you should not try to turn her head. Nothing extraordinary. There’s vanity enough in the world, and I insist, William, you don’t try to spoil her.”

“And what do you want of me, little woman?” asked William.

“You come out and sow my lupins for me.”

“Why, foolish little woman, it isn’t the season; they would not grow.”

“Yes, they would though—you say that just because you don’t like; you story!”

“Violet!” exclaimed Aunt Dinah, tapping the table with the seal end of her silver pencil-case.

“Well, but he is, grannie, very disobliging. You do nothing now but read your tiresome old books, and never do anything I bid you.”

“Really! Well, that’s very bad; I really must do better,” said William, getting up with a smile; “I will sow the lupins.”

“What folly!” murmured Aunt Dinah, grimly.

“We’ll get the hoe and trowel. But what’s to be done? I forgot I’m to play for the town to-day; and I don’t think I have time—no, certainly—no time to-day for the lupins;” and William shook his head, smiling disconsolately.

“Then I’ll never ask you to do anything for me again as long as I live—never—never—never!” she vowed with a tiny stamp.

“Yes you shall—you shall, indeed, and I’ll do ever so much; and may she come and look at the cricket?”

So, leave granted, she did, under old Winnie’s care; and when she returned, and for days after, she boasted of Willie’s long score, and how he caught the ball.

When he returned at the end of next “half” he found old Miss Dinah Perfect with her spectacles on, in her comfortable old drawing-room, in the cheer of a Christmas fire, with her head full of the fancies and terrors of a certain American tome, now laid with its face downwards upon the table—as she jumped up full of glee and affection, to greet him at the threshold.

It was about this period, as we all remember, that hats began to turn and heads with them, and tables approved themselves the most intelligent of quadrupeds; chests of drawers and other grave pieces of furniture babbled of family secrets, and houses resounded with those creaks and cracks with which Bacon, Shakespeare, and Lord Byron communicated their several inspirations in detestable grammar, to all who pleased to consult them.

Aunt Dinah was charmed. Her rapid genius loved a short-cut, and here was, by something better than a post-office, a direct gossiping intimacy opened between her and the people on t’other side of the Styx.

She ran into this as into her other whimsies might and main, with all her heart and soul. She spent money very wildly, for her, upon the gospels of the new religion, with which the transatlantic press was teeming; and in her little green-papered dressing-room was accumulating a library upon her favourite craze, which might have grown to the dimensions of Don Quixote’s.

She had been practising for a year, however, and all the minor tables in her house had repeatedly prophesied before she disclosed her conversion to her nephew, or to anyone else except old Winnie.

It was no particular business of his if his aunt chose to converse with ghosts and angels by the mediation of her furniture. So, except that he now and then assisted at a séance, the phenomena of which were not very clear to him, though perfectly so to his aunt, and acquiesced in dimly and submissively by good old Winnie, things went on in their old course; and so, for some three or four years more, during which William Maubray read a great deal of all sorts of lore, and acquired an erudite smattering of old English authors, dramatists, divines, poets, and essayists, and time was tracing fine wrinkles about Aunt Dinah’s kind eyes and candid forehead, and adding graceful inches to the lithe figure of Violet Darkwell; and the great law of decay and renewal was asserting itself everywhere, and snows shrouding the dead world in winter, and summer fragrance, and glow of many hues in the gardens and fields succeeding, and births and deaths in all the newspapers every morning.

CHAPTER II.

A LETTER.

The following letter, posted at Saxton, reached a rather solitary student in St. John’s College, Cambridge.

“Dear William,

“You will be sorry—I know you will—to hear that poor old auntie is not long for this world; I don’t know exactly what is wrong, but something I am certain very bad. As for Doctor Drake, I have no faith in him, or, indeed, in medicine, and don’t mean to trouble him except as a friend. I am quite happy in the expectation of the coming change, and have had within the last week, with the assistance of good old Winnie Dobbs, some very delightful communications, you know, I dare say, what I mean. Bring with you—for you must come immediately, if you care to see poor Aunt Dinah before she departs—a basket-bottle of eau de Cologne, like the former, you know the kind I mean, and buy it at the same place. You need not get the cameo ring for Doctor Drake; I shan’t make him a present—in fact, we are not now on terms. I had heard from many people of his incivility and want of temper; God forgive him his ingratitude, however, as I do. The basket-bottle holds about a pint, remember. I want to tell you exactly what I can do for you by my will; I always told you, dear William, it was very small; still, as the people used to say, ‘every little makes a muckle,’ and though little, it will be a help. I cannot rest till you come; I know and am sure you love poor old auntie, and would like to close her eyes when the hour comes; therefore, dear Willie, come without delay. Also bring with you half a pound of the snuff, the same mixture as before; they make it up at Figgs’s—get it there—not in paper, observe; in a canister, and rolled in lead, as will be poor auntie before long! Old Dobbs will have your room and bed comfortable, as usual; come by the cross coach, at eight o’clock. Tea, and anything else you like, will await you.

“Ever your fond old

“Auntie.

“P.S.—I send you, to guard against mistakes, the exact proportions of the mixture—the snuff I mean, of course. I quite forgot a new collar for Psyche, plated. Make them engrave ‘Mrs. Perfect, Gilroyd Hall,’ upon it. Heaven bless you. We are all progressing upward. Amen! says your poor old Aunt Dinah, who loves you.”

It was in his quiet college room by candlelight that William Maubray read this letter from his kind, wild, preposterous old aunt, who had been to him as a mother from his early days.

Aunt Dinah! was it possible that he was about to lose that familiar friend and face, the only person on earth who cared about him?

He read the letter over again. A person who did not know Aunt Dinah so well as he, would have argued from the commissions about scents, dog-collars, and snuff, that the old lady had no honest intention of dying. But he knew that incongruous and volatile soul too well to infer reliable consolation from those levities.

“Yes, yes—I shall lose her—she’s gone,” said the young man in great distress, laying the letter, with the gentleness of despair, upon the table, and looking down upon it in pain and rumination.

It would certainly make a change—possibly a fatal one—in his prospects. A sudden change. He read the letter through again, and then, with a sinking heart, he opened the window and looked out upon the moonlight prospect. There are times when in her sweetest moods nature seems unkind. Why all this smiling light—this cheer and serenity of sky and earth—when he was stricken only five minutes since, perhaps undone, by the message of that letter—that sorrow-laden burlesque?

This sort of suggestion, in such a moment, comes despairingly. The vastness of creation—the inflexibility of its laws, and “What is man, and what am I among men, that the great Projector of all this should look after ephemeral me and my concerns? The human sympathy that I could rely upon, and human power—frail and fleeting—but still enough—is gone, and in this solitary hour, as in the coming one of death, experience fails me, and I must rest all upon that which, according to my light, is faith, or theory, or chance!”

With a great sigh, and a heavy heart, William Maubray turned away from the window, and a gush of very true affection flooded his heart as he thought of kind old Aunt Dinah. He read the letter once more, to make out what gleams of comfort he could.

A handsome fellow was William Maubray—nearly three-and-twenty by this time—good at cricket—great at football: three years ago, in the school days, now, so old, tall, and lithe. A studious man in his own way—a little pale, with a broad forehead, good blue eyes, and delicately formed, but somewhat sad features.

He looked round his room. He had grown very fond of that homely apartment. His eyes wandered over his few shelves of beloved old books, in all manner of dingy and decayed bindings—some of them two centuries and a half old, very few of later birth than a hundred years ago. Delightful companions—ready at a moment’s call—ready to open their minds, and say their best sayings on any subject he might choose—resenting no neglect, obtruding no counsel, always the same serene, cheerful inalienable friends.

The idea of parting with them was insupportable, nearly. But if the break-up came, they must part company, and the world be a new one for him. The young man spent much of that night in dismal reveries and speculations over his future schemes and chances, all of which I spare the reader.

Good Dr. Sprague, whom he saw next day, heard the news with much concern. He had known Miss Perfect long ago, and was decorously sorry on her account. But his real regrets were for the young man.

“Well, you go, of course, and see your aunt, and I do trust it mayn’t be quite so bad. Stay, you know, as long as she wants you, and don’t despond. I could wish your reading had been in a more available direction, but rely on it, you’ll find a way to make a start and get into a profession, and with your abilities, I’ve no doubt you’ll make your way in the world.”

And the doctor, who was a shrewd as well as a kindly little gentleman, having buttoned the last button of his gaiter, stood, cap in hand, erect, and smiling confidently, he shook his hand with a “God bless you, Maubray,” and a few minutes later William Maubray, with all his commissions stowed away in his portmanteau, had commenced his journey to Gilroyd Hall.

The moon was up, and the little town of Saxton very quiet, as Her Majesty’s mail, dropping a bag at the post-office, whirled through it, and pulled up at the further end, at the gate of Gilroyd Hall, there to drop our friend, an outside passenger.

The tall, florid iron gate was already locked. William tugged at the bell, and drew back a little to reconnoitre the premises. One of the old brick gables overhangs the road, with only a couple of windows high up, and he saw that his summons had put a light in motion within them. So he rejoined his hat-case, and his portmanteau, awaiting him on its end, in front of the white iron gate that looked like lace-work in the moonlight.

“Ha! Tom; glad to see you.”

“Welcome, Mr. William, Sir; she a wearyin’ to see ye, and scarce thought you’d a come to-night.”

The wicket beside the great gate was now open, and William shook hands with the old retainer, and glancing anxiously up at the stone-faced windows, as it were to read the countenance of the old house, he asked, “And how is she, Tom, to-night?”

“Complainin’ an’ down-hearted a bit for her, that is now and again. She cried a good bout to-day wi’ old Winnie, in the little parlour.”

“She’s up, then?”

“Ooh, ay; she’s not a body to lay down while she’s a leg to stan’ on. But I do think she’s nigh her endin’. Gie’t to me,” this referred to the portmanteau. “I do, poor old girl; and we’s all be sorry, Master Willie.”

William’s heart sank.

“Where is she?” he inquired.

“In the drawing-room, I think.”

By this time they were standing in the oak-panelled hall, and some one looked over the banister from the lobby, upon them. It was old Winnie; the light of her candle was shining pleasantly on her ruddy and kindly face.

“Oh! Master Willie. Thank God, you’re come at last. Glad she’ll be to see you.”

Old Winnie ambled down the stairs with the corner of her apron to her eye, and shook him by both hands, and greeted him again very kindly, and even kissed him according to the tradition of a score of years.

“Is she very ill, Dobbs?” whispered he, looking pale.

“Well, not to say very to look at, you’d say, but she’s had a warnin’, her and me sittin’ in the bed-room, an’ she’s bin an’ made a new will; the lawyer’s bin up from Saxton. Don’t ye say I said nothing, mind; ’twould only fret her, maybe.”

CHAPTER III.

MISS DINAH PERFECT AND HER GUESTS.

“Is she alone?” he asked, postponing the trying moment of seeing her.

“No, the doctor’s with her still—Dr. Drake, and Miss Letty, his sister, you remember; they’re drinkin’ a cup o’ tea, and some crumpets, and they’ll all be right glad you’re come.”

“They ought to go away, don’t you think?” mildly suggested William Maubray, a good deal shocked. “However, let me get to my room for two or three minutes, and I shall be ready then.”

They passed the drawing-room door, and Miss Letty Drake’s deliberate tones were audible from within. When he had got to his room he asked Dobbs—

“What was the warning you spoke of?”

“Well, dear me! It was the table; she and me, she makes me sit before her, poor thing, and we—well, there is cracks, sure, on and off! And she puts this an’ that together; and so one way or other—it puzzles my poor head, how—she does make out a deal.”

William Maubray was an odd, rather solitary young man, and more given to reading and thinking than is usual at his years, and he detested these incantations to which his aunt, Miss Perfect, had addicted herself, of late years, with her usual capricious impetuosity; and he was very uncomfortable on hearing that she was occupying her last days with these questionable divinations.

When, in a few minutes, William ran down to the drawing-room, and with a chill of anticipation opened the door of that comfortable rather than imposing chamber, the tall slim figure of his aunt rose up from her armchair beside the fire, for though it was early autumn, the fire was pleasant, and the night-air was frosty, and with light and wiry tread, stepped across the carpet to meet him. Her kind, energetic face was pale, and the smile she used to greet him with was nowhere, and she was arrayed from head to foot in deep mourning, in which, particularly as she abhorred the modern embellishment of crinoline, she looked more slim and tall even than she was.

The presence of her guests in nowise affected the greeting of the aunt and nephew, which was very affectionate, and even agitated, though silent.

“Good Willie, to come so quickly—I knew you would.” Miss Perfect never wept, but she was very near tears at that moment, and there was a little silence, during which she held his hands, and then recollecting herself, dropt them, and continued more like herself.

“You did not expect to see me up and here; everything happens oddly with me. Here I am, you see, apparently, I dare say, much as usual. By half-past twelve o’clock to-morrow night I shall be dead! There, don’t mind now—I’ll tell you all by-and-by. This is my friend, Miss Drake, you know her.”

They shook hands, Miss Drake smiling as brisk a smile as in a scene so awful she could hazard.

“And this, my kind friend Dr. Drake.”

William had occasionally seen Dr. Drake in the streets of Saxton, and on the surrounding high roads at a distance, but he had never before had the honour of an interview.

The doctor was short and fat, a little bald, and rather dusty, and somehow, William thought, resembled a jolly old sexton a good deal more than a physician. He rose up, with his hands in his trowsers pockets, and some snuff in the wrinkles of his black cloth waistcoat, and bowed, with raised eyebrows and pursed mouth, gravely to his plate of crumpet.

William Maubray looked again on his aunt, who was adjusting her black draperies in her chair, and then once more at the doctor, whose little eye he caught for a second, with a curious and even cunning expression in it; but it was averted with a sudden accession of melancholy once more—and William asked—

“I hope, Sir, there is nothing very imminent?”

The doctor cleared his voice, uneasily, and Aunt Dinah interposed with a nod, a little dryly—

“It is not quite in his department.”

And whose department is it in? the student thought.

“I dare say Doctor Drake would tell you I’m very well—so, perhaps, in a sense, I am; but Doctor Drake has kindly come here as a friend.”

Doctor Drake bowed, looking steadfastly into his cup.

“As a friend, dear Willie, just as you have come—an old friend.” Miss Perfect spoke low, with a little tremor in her voice, and was, I believe, near crying, but braced her resolution. William drew near gently and sat down beside her, and placing her hand upon his, she proceeded.

“My dear friend Miss Drake, there, does not agree with me, I’m aware; but Doctor Drake who has read more, and perhaps, thought more, thinks otherwise—at least, so I’m led to suppose.”

The doctor coughed a little; Miss Drake raised her long chin, and with raised eyebrows, looked down on her finger-tips which were drumming on the table, and my Cousin William glanced from one to the other, not quite understanding her drift.

“But,” she continued, “I’ve apprised them already, and I tell you of course; it is—you’ll remember the name—an intimation from Henbane.”

“Poison!” said William, under his breath, with a look of pale inquiry at Doctor Drake, who at the moment was swallowing his tea very fast, and was seized on a sudden with an explosion of coughing, sneezing, and strangling, which compelled him to jump to his feet, and stagger about the room with his face in his pocket-handkerchief and his back to the tea-table.

“When Dr. Henbane,” said my aunt with severity, “I mean a—Doctor Drake—has quite done coughing, I’ll go on.”

There was a little pause.

“Confound it,” thought William, who was half beside himself, “it’s a very odd dying scene!”

The doctor, blowing his nose, returned very red and solemn, and explained, still coughing at intervals, that it was a little tea in the trachea; it invariably occurred to him when he drank tea in the evening; he must give it up; “you know, Letty.”

Miss Drake did not deign to assist him.

“She does not seem to know so much about it as you do,” observed Aunt Dinah with an irony.

“Owing to my not thinking so much,” replied Miss Letty, sarcastically.

“Henbane?” murmured William again, in a puzzled horror.

“H’m!—yes!—Henbane? you seem to have forgotten; one of those—one of the spirits who have attached themselves to me,” and Aunt Dinah shot a quick glance at the doctor, who, though looking again at his crumpet, seemed to cower awfully under it.

“Oh—ay—Henbane?” exclaimed William in a tone of familiarity, which indicated anything but respect for that supernatural acquaintance. “Henbane, to be sure.”

And he looked on his aunt with a half amused recognition, which seemed to say, “Well—and what about that humbug?”

But Aunt Dinah said decisively—

“So much for the present; you shall hear more—everything, by-and-by.”

And there followed a silence.

“Did you remember the snuff, dear William?” inquired the doomed lady, with rather an abrupt transition.

“Certainly; shall I fetch it?” said William, half rising.

Miss Perfect nodded, and away he went, somehow vastly relieved, and with his bed-room candle in his hand, mounted the oak stairs, which were broad and handsome in proportion to the other dimensions of that snug old house.

CHAPTER IV.

VIOLET DARKWELL.

At the head of the stairs, the topmost step of which had been their bench, there rose to him two female figures. He did not instantly recognise them, for one candle only was burning, and it was on the little table nearly behind them. One was old Winnie Dobbs, the other Violet Darkwell; she stood up slight and girlish still, but looking taller than he had expected, with an old faded silk quilted shawl of Aunt Dinah’s about her shoulders, and hood-wise over her head, for the night was frosty.

“Ha! Vi—little Vi, I was going to say; dear me! how you have grown! So glad to see you.”

He had the girl’s slim hand in his, and was speaking as he felt, very kindly.

“We’ve been waiting here, Winnie and I, to hear what you thought of dear grannie,”—(grannie was merely a pet name in this case, defining no relationship)—“and what do you think, William?”

“I really don’t understand it,” he answered. “I—I hope it’s all nonsense; I really think so. She says she is very well; and the doctor—Drake, you know—I really think he was laughing, and one thing I’m quite certain of—it is connected in her mind with that foolish spirit-rapping.”

“And you don’t believe in it?” inquired the young lady.

“All bosh and nonsense. Not a bit of it,” he replied.

“Oh, William, I am so delighted to hear you say so!” she exclaimed, much relieved by the promulgation of so valuable an opinion. “And you’re quite right, I know, about grannie. It is, really—is not it, Winnie?—all, all about that awful spirit-rapping. Grannie never speaks of it to me; I believe she’s afraid of frightening me; but old Winnie, here—you must not tell of her—she tells me all about it—everything; and I am so afraid of it; and it is entirely that. Grannie thinks she has got a message! fancy! How awful! And Winnie does not know what the words were; for grannie writes down the letters with a pencil, and tells her only what she thinks fit; and I am so delighted—you can’t think.”

“You good little Vi, I’m so glad to see you!” She laughed a low little laugh—the first for several days—as he shook her hand again; and he said—

“Winnie, do, like a dear old thing, open my portmanteau—here’s the key—and fetch me a canister you’ll see at the top, with a great paper label, blue and red, on it.”

Away went Winnie Dobbs, with his key and candle, and he said to the pretty girl who stood leaning lightly against the banister—

“My old friend, Vi! When I went into the drawing-room just now, I looked all round for you, and could not think what had become of you, and was really afraid you had gone away to London. I don’t think I should ever care to come to Gilroyd Hall again; I should prefer seeing my aunt anywhere else—it would not be like itself if you were gone.”

“So you really missed me, William!” she laughed.

“I should think so. And another thing—you are not to call me William. Why don’t you call me Willie, or old bear, as you used to do? If you change old names, I’ll begin and call you Miss Darkwell.”

“How awful!”

“Indeed I will, and be as formal as you please, and treat you like a young lady, and you’ll never be ‘wicked little Vi’ any more.”

She was laughing as she leaned back, and he could see her small teeth, and he bethought him that she was looking really quite lovely; so with two fingers he picked up her little hand again, as it lay at her side, and he said—

“And we are always to be good friends, you know—great friends; and although you’ve no more dolls to mend, I’ll still be of use. I’m going to the bar, and I’ll manage all your law suits, if you let me; and when you are going to be married, I’ll draw your settlements, and you are to have me always for your counsel.”

She was still smiling, but said nothing, and looked wonderfully pretty, with the old gray silk hood wrapped all about her, so that sober old William was on the very point of kissing the slender hand he held in his. But a new feeling of shyness prevented, and he only shook her hand gently once more, and laid it by her side again, as you replace some precious thing you have been admiring where you found it.

“And you really think we may be happy about dear old grannie again?” she said.

The sound of Winnie’s footsteps was heard approaching.

“Yes; certainly. I’ll try to get a word with Doctor Drake. I can’t imagine anything serious. Won’t you come to the drawing-room now?”

“No; not to-night; not while those people are there. I was so wretched about dear grannie, I could not bear to go in at first; and now it would be odd, I think, going down when tea is over.”

“As if I had brought you down from the nursery, as I often did, Vi, on my back. Well, old Winnie, have you got it?”

“Here, I think, Master William,” answered Winnie.

“Yes; all right. So you won’t come, Vi?”

“No.”

“Quite made up your mind?”

“Quite, Willie.”

“That’s right—Willie,” said he, with a smile, and a nod of approbation. “I should so like to stay here a little longer, as you won’t come, and hear all the news, and tell you mine; but Aunt Dinah would lose patience—I’m afraid she has.”

“Yes, indeed; you had better go. Good-night, bear.”

“Good-night, wicked little Vi. Remember we meet at breakfast—shan’t we?”

“Oh, certainly. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

And so the gray silk hood vanished, with a smile, prettily, round the corner, and William Maubray descended with his snuff to the drawing-room, with the pretty oval portrait of that young face still hovering before him in the air.

Miss Letty Drake, whose countenance was unpleasantly long in proportion to her height, and pallid, and her small figure bony, and who was dressed on this sad occasion in her silk “half-mourning,” a sad and, it was thought, a dyed garment, which had done duty during many periods of affliction, as William entered the room, was concluding a sentence with a low and pointed asperity, thus—“which seems to me hardly compatible with Saint Paul’s description of Christian charity,” and a short silence followed these words.

“I was going to ring the bell, William,” said the doomed lady of the house. “One would have thought you were making that snuff. Let me see it—h’m. See, get off this cover. Ho! what is this? A lead wrapper!”

“You said, Aunt Dinah, you wished it.”

“Did I? Well, no matter. Get it open. Thanks. Yes; that’s it. Yes; very good. You take snuff, doctor, don’t you?”

“Aw—yes, certainly, nothing like it, I do believe—where a man is obliged to work his head—aw haw—a stimulus and a sedative.”

The doctor, it was averred, “worked” his occasionally with brandy and water, and not a great deal otherwise.

“No, many thanks; don’t care for perfumes; high toast is my snuff.” And Doctor Drake illustrated the fact by a huge pinch, which shed another brown shower over the wrinkles of his waistcoat.

“Letty, dear,” said Aunt Dinah, turning suddenly to Miss Drake, “we won’t quarrel; we can’t agree, but I won’t quarrel.”

“Well, dear, I’m glad to hear you say so. I’m sure, for my part, I never quarrel. ‘Be ye angry, and let not the sun go down on your wrath.’”

CHAPTER V.

AUNT DINAH IS IN THE HORRORS, AND DOCTOR DRAKE PUTS HIS NIGHTCAP IN HIS POCKET.

“I wish to say good-bye to you very kindly,” said Aunt Dinah, quite sadly and gently, and somehow not like herself, “and—and I’ve tried to keep up; I know it must happen, and I’m sure it is for the best, but⸺”

“I hope and expect, my dear Dinah,” interposed Miss Letty, sharply—she was pulling on her worsted “wrists”—“to see you in the enjoyment of many years of your accustomed health and spirits, and I have no doubt, humanly speaking, that I shall.”

Miss Letty was quiet and peremptory, but also a little excited. And the doctor, for want of something better to do, cleared his voice, in a grand abstraction, and wound up his watch slowly, and held it to his ear, nobody knew exactly why.

“You won’t believe me, but I know it, and so will you—too late; to-morrow night at twelve o’clock I shall be dead. I’ve tried to keep up—I have; I’ve tried it; but oh! Ho, ho, hoo, ooh,” and poor Aunt Dinah quite broke down, and cried and hooted hysterically.

Dr. Drake had now before him an intelligible case, and took the command accordingly with decision. Up went the window; cold water was there, and spirit of hartshorn. And when she had a little recovered, the doctor, who was a good-natured fellow, said—

“Now, Miss Perfect, Ma’am, it won’t do, I tell you; it’s only right; you may want some assistance; and if, as an old friend, you’ll allow me to return and remain here for the night, a sofa, or an armchair, anything, I’ll be most happy, I do assure you.”

But Aunt Dinah, with many thanks, said, “No,” peremptorily, and wilful man or woman, who will contend with?

So, like the awful banquet in Macbeth, Miss Dinah Perfect’s tea-party broke down and up, and the guests, somewhat scared, got into their walking wrappers, rather silently, and their entertainer remained behind unstrung and melancholic.

But William Maubray, who came down to assist in the rummage for cloaks and umbrellas, asked leave, in his blunt modest way, to accompany Miss Letty and her brother, the doctor, to Saxton.

Now there seemed something real and grisly in Aunt Dinah’s terror, which a little infected William Maubray; and the little party marched in silence along the frost-hardened road, white in moonlight, with the bare switch-like shadows of the trees across it, on their way to the pretty old town of Saxton.

At last the doctor said—

“She won’t miss you, do you think?”

“She told me she’d like to be quiet for half an hour, and I should be so much obliged if you could tell me, whether you really, that is, still think that she ought to have a medical man in attendance to-night.”

“Why, you know what hysteria is. Well, she is in a highly hysterical state. She’s a woman who resists; it would be safer, you see, if she gave way and cried a bit now and then, when nature prompts, but she won’t, except under awful high pressure, and then it might be serious; those things sometimes run off into fits.”

And so the doctor lectured William upon his aunt’s nerves, until they had arrived at the door of his snug house in the High Street.

Here they shook hands; but William Maubray, who was unhappy about Aunt Dinah, after Miss Letty had mounted to her chamber, very urgently entreated the doctor to return and see how it might end.

With a bottle of valerian, his slippers, and a nightcap in his pocket, Doctor Drake did consent to return, and be smuggled into Gilroyd Hall.

“I don’t know what to make of that spirit-rapping quite,” said the doctor, as side by side they approached the Hall. “There’s a quantity of books published on it—very unaccountable if half what they say is true. I suppose you’ve read it all. You read a lot, Miss Perfect tells me.”

“I’ve read very little about it, except in the papers. She fancies she has had a message, telling her she is to die sometime to-morrow. I can’t believe there’s really anything more than self-deception; but is there not a danger?”

“How?” asked the doctor.

“I mean, being so nervous as you suppose, and quite convinced that she is to die at a particular time; might not her own mind—you know Lord Lyttelton died in consequence of such a persuasion.”

William paused, Doctor Drake lowered, between his fingers, the cigar he was smoking, and they came to a halt, with a little wheel to the left, and the doctor, with his head aside, blowing the smoke up in a thin stream, looked with a thoughtful scrutiny up at the clear bright moon; perhaps a not unsuitable source of inspiration upon their crazy theme.

“I forget which Lord Lyttelton that was,” said the doctor, wisely. “Isn’t it Lyttelton, you say? But the thing is quite possible. There’s a spirit you know she’s always talking about. She calls him Henbane. Egad, Sir, I was devilish near laughing at tea when she named him so suddenly that time; I’d have been up a tree if I had, you know. You did not see what she was at, but I did. That Henbane’s her gospel, egad, and she thinks it was he who told her—d’ye see? Come along. She’ll be wondering where you are.”

So on they went towards Gilroyd Hall, whose outline, black and sharp, against the luminous sky, was relieved at one point by the dull glow of candle-light through the red curtains of what William Maubray knew to be Aunt Dinah’s bed-chamber window.

“She is in her room, I think—there’s light in her window,” said William. The doctor nodded, chucking his cigar stump far away, for he knew Aunt Dinah’s antipathy to tobacco, and they were now on the door-step. He was thinking, if the case were to end tragically, what a capital paper he would make of it, beside the interesting letter he would send to the editor of the Spatula.

“Winnie’s bin a callin’ over the stairs for you, Master Willie. Missis wants ye to her room,” said Tom, who awaited them on the door-steps.

“I’ll sit by the fire in the study,” whispered the doctor. “I don’t mind sitting up a night now and then. Give me a cloak or something. There’s a sofa, and I’ll do very well.”

The principle of life was strong in Aunt Dinah, and three hours later that active-minded lady was lying wide awake on her bed, with a variety of topics, not all consisting with the assumed shortness of her hours, drifting in succession through her head. The last idea that struck her was the most congruous, and up she jumped, made a wild toilet, whose sole principle was warmth, tied a faded silk handkerchief over her nightcap, across her ears, and with her long white flannel dressing-gown about her, and a taper in her hand, issued, like the apparition of the Bleeding Nun, upon the gallery, and tapped sharply on William Maubray’s door.

“William, William!” she called as she tapped, and from within William answered drowsily to the summons.

“Wait a moment,” said the lady, and

“In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,

And stood at William’s feet.”

“We must have a séance, my dear boy; I’m going to wake up old Winnie. It certainly has a connexion with your arrival; but anything like the cracking, knocking, and creaking of everything, I’ve never yet heard. I have no doubt—so sure as you sit there”—(William was sitting up in his bed with glazed eyes, and senses only half awake)—“that your poor dear mother is here to-night. We’re sure of Henbane; and—just get your clothes on—I’m going for Winnie, and we meet in the study, mind, in five minutes.”

And Aunt Dinah, having lighted William’s candle, disappeared, leaving him with a fund of cheerful ideas to make his yawning and bewildered toilet.

CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH THE WITCHES ASSEMBLE.

A few minutes later she glided into the study, overthrowing a small table, round which her little séances were accustomed to be made, and which the doctor had providently placed against the door.

Aunt Dinah held under her arm the 8vo “Revelations of Elihu Bung, the Pennsylvanian Prophet,” a contribution to spiritual science which distanced all contemporary competition; and the chapter which shows that a table of a light, smart build, after having served a proper apprenticeship to ‘rapping,’ may acquire the faculty of locomotion and self-direction, flashed on her recollection as she recognised prostrate at her feet, in the glimmer of her taper, the altar of their mysteries, which she had with reverent hands herself placed that evening in its wonted corner, at the opposite end of the room.

Such a manifestation was new to her. She looked on it, a little paler than usual, and bethought her of that other terrible chapter in which Elihu Bung avers that spirits, grown intimate by a long familiarity, will, in a properly regulated twilight—and her light at the moment was no more—make themselves visible to those whom they habitually favour with their advices.

Therefore she was strangely thrilled at sight of the indistinct and shadowy doctor, who, awakened by the noise, rose at the opposite end of the room from the sofa on which he had fallen asleep. Tall and thin, and quite unrecognisable by him, was the white figure at the door, with a taper elevated above its head, and which whispered with a horrid distinctness the word “Henbane!”—the first heard on his awakening, the last in his fancy as he dropped asleep, and which sounded to him like the apparition’s considerate announcement of its name on entering the room; he echoed “Henbane” in a suppressed diapason, and Aunt Dinah, with an awful ejaculation, repeated the word from the distance, and sank into a chair.

“Henbane!” cried the doctor briskly, having no other exclamation ready and reassured by these evidences of timidity in the spectre, he exclaimed, “Hey, by Jove! what the plague!” and for some seconds he did not know distinctly where he was.

“Merciful goodness! Doctor Drake, why will you try to frighten people in this manner? Do you want to kill me, Sir?”

“I? Ho! Ha, ha! Ma’am,” replied the learned gentleman, incoherently.

“What are you doing here, Sir? I think you’re mad!” exclaimed Aunt Dinah, fiercely.

The doctor cleared his voice, and addressed himself to explain, and before his first period was reached, William and old Winnie, wofully sleepy, had arrived.

Luckily the person who approaches such oracles as “Henbane,” it is well known, must do so with a peaceful and charitable soul. So Miss Perfect was appeasable, and apologies being made and accepted, she thus opened her mind to the doctor—

“I don’t complain, Doctor Drake—William, light the candles over the chimney-piece—although you terrified me a great deal more than in my circumstances I ought to have been capable of.”

The candles were now lighted, and shone cheerfully upon the short, fat figure, and ruddy, roguish face of Doctor Drake, and as he was taking one of his huge pinches of snuff, she added—

“And I won’t deny that I did fancy for a moment you might be a spirit-form, and possibly that of Henbane.”

William Maubray, who was looking at the doctor, as Miss Perfect reverently lowered her voice at these words, exploded into something so like a laugh, though he tried to pass it off for a cough, that his aunt looked sharply on him in silence for a moment.

“And I’m blowed but I was a bit frightened too, Ma’am, when I saw you at the door there,” said the doctor.

“Well, let us try,” said Miss Perfect. “Come, we are four; let us try who are present—what spirits, and seek to communicate. You don’t object, Dr. Drake?”

“I? Ho! oh! dear no. I should not desire better—aw-haw—instruction, Ma’am,” answered the doctor.

I am afraid he was near saying “fun.”

“Winnie, place the table as usual. There, yes. Now let us arrange ourselves.”

The doctor sat down, still blinking, and with a great yawn inquired—

“Do we waw—haw—wa—w—want any particular information?”

“Let us first try whether they will communicate. We always want information,” said Miss Perfect. “William, sit you there; Winnie, there. I’ll take pencil and paper and record.”

All being prepared, fingers extended, company intent, Aunt Dinah propounded the first question—

“Is there any spirit present?”

There was a long wait and no rejoinder.

“Didn’t you hear something?” inquired the doctor.

William shook his head.

“I thought I felt it,” persisted the doctor. “What do you say, Ma’am?” addressing himself to Winnie, who looked, after her wont, towards her mistress for help.

“Did you feel anything?” demanded Miss Perfect, sharply.

“Nothing but a little wind like on the back of my head, as I think,” replied Winnie, driven to the wall.

“Wind on her head! That’s odd,” said Miss Perfect, looking in the air as if she possessed the porcine gift of seeing it, “very odd!” she continued, with her small hand expanded in the air. “Not a breath stirring, and Winnie has no more imagination than that sofa pillow. You never fancy anything, Winnie?”

“Do I, Ma’am?” inquired Winnie Dobbs, mildly.

“Well, do you, I say? No, you don’t; of course you don’t. You know you don’t as well as I do.”

“Well, I did think so, sure, Ma’am,” answered Winnie.

“Pity we can’t get an answer,” remarked the doctor, and at the same moment William felt the pressure of a large foot in a slipper—under the table. It had the air of an intentional squeeze, and he looked innocently at the doctor, who was, however, so entirely unconscious, that it must have been an accident.

“I say it is a pity, Mr. Maubray, isn’t it? for we might hear something that might interest Miss Perfect very much, possibly, I say?”

“I don’t know; I can’t say. I’ve never heard anything,” answered William, who would have liked to kick the table up to the ceiling and go off to bed.

“Suppose Ma’am, we try again,” inquired Doctor Drake.

“Certainly,” replied Aunt Dinah; “we must have patience.”

“Will you ask, Ma’am, please, again if there’s a spirit in the room?” solicited the doctor; and the question being put, there came an upward heave of the table.

“Well!” exclaimed the doctor, looking at Winnie, “did you feel that?”

“Tilt, Ma’am,” said Winnie, who knew the intelligence would be welcome.

“What do you say?” inquired Miss Perfect triumphantly of William.

“Doctor Drake was changing his position just at the moment, and I perceived no other motion in the table—nothing but the little push he gave it,” answered William.

“Oh, pooh! yes, of course, there was that,” said the doctor a little crossly; “but I meant a sort of a start—a crack like, in the leaf of the table.”

“I felt nothing of the kind,” said William Maubray.

The doctor looked disgusted, and leaning back took a large pinch of snuff. There was a silence. Aunt Dinah’s lips were closed with a thoughtful frown as she looked down upon the top of the table.

“It is very strange. I certainly never witnessed in this house more unequivocal evidences—preliminary evidences, of course—of spiritual activity.”

“I think, Ma’am, I have read,” said the doctor, with his hands in his pockets, “I think, somewhere, that if anyone of the manipulators happens to be an unbeliever⸺”

“An unbeliever in the manifestations, of course the spirits won’t communicate,” interrupted Miss Perfect, volubly laying down the law. “Winnie is a believer as much as I. We all know that. Nephew, how are you? Do you believe? You shake your head. Speak out. Yes or no?”

“Well, I don’t,” said he, a little sheepishly.

“You don’t? And, not believing, you sit here with your fingers on the table, keeping Doctor Drake out of his—his⸺”

She could not say bed, and the doctor relieved her by saying, “Oh, as to me, Ma’am, I’m only too happy; but you know it’s a pity, all the same.”

“Very true, doctor. Much obliged. We shall set it to rights. My dear William, you might have told us at starting; but we’ll commence again. Sit by the fire, William, and I trust in a little time you may be convinced.”

CHAPTER VII.

THE FAMILIAR SPEAKS.

So the excommunicated William, with his feet upon the fender, leaning upon his elbow in the great chair, made himself comfortable by the fire, and heard his aunt propound the questions, and the answers by the previously appointed manifestations, duly noted down.

“Is there a spirit present?”

“Yes.”

“Are there more than one?”

“No.”

“Is it a male or female spirit?”

No answer.

“Is it Henbane?”

“Yes” (emphatically).