From Out the Vast Deep: Occult & Supernatural Thriller. Marie Belloc Lowndes
“The people about the place, ma’am.”
“I can’t help wishing, Pegler, that you hadn’t told this strange story to the servants. You see it makes it so awkward for Mr. Varick.”
Pegler flushed uncomfortably. “I was that scared,” she murmured, “that I felt I must tell somebody, and if you tell one, as I did, you tell all. I’m sorry I did it, ma’am, for I’m afraid I’ve inconvenienced you.”
“It can’t be helped,” said Miss Farrow good-naturedly. “I know you wouldn’t have done it if you could have helped it, Pegler. But of course in a way it’s unlucky.”
“I’ve pointed out to them all that there never is but one room haunted in a house as a rule,” said the maid eagerly, “and I think they all quite sees that, ma’am. Besides, they’re very pleased with Mr. Varick. You know what he did today, ma’am?”
“No,” said Miss Farrow, looking up and smiling, “what did he do?”
“He called them all together, without distinction of class, so to speak, ma’am, and he told them that if he was pleased with the way in which his Christmas party went off, he’d give them each a five-pound note at the end of the month. It made them forget the haunted room, I can tell you, ma’am!” She added grudgingly, “He is a kind gentleman, and no mistake.”
“Indeed he is! I’m glad that you see that now, Pegler.” Miss Farrow spoke with a touch of meaning in her voice. “I did a very good turn for myself when I got him out of that queer scrape years ago.”
“Why yes, ma’am, I suppose you did.” But Pegler’s tone was not as hearty as that of her lady.
There was a pause. “Then what have you settled to do about to-night?”
“If you don’t mind, ma’am—I’m arranging to sleep in what they call the second maid’s room. There is a bell through, ma’am, but you’ll have to go into the next room to ring it, for you know, ma’am, that it’s the next room that ought to have been your room by rights.”
“I wish now that I’d taken it and put you in here,” said Miss Farrow ruefully.
“They’re going to keep up a good fire there. So when you go in you won’t get a chill.”
“That does seem luxurious,” said Miss Farrow, smiling. She loved luxury, and it was pleasant to think that there should be a fire kept up in an empty room just so that she shouldn’t feel a chill when she went in for a moment to ring for her maid!
“By the way, I hope there’s a fireplace in your room, Pegler”—the words were uttered solicitously.
“No, there isn’t, ma’am. But I don’t mind that. I don’t much care about a fire.”
“There’s no accounting for taste!”
Miss Farrow took up her book again, and Pegler, as was her way, slid noiselessly from the room—not through the door leading into the haunted chamber, but out on to the beautiful panelled landing, now gay with bowls of hothouse flowers which had come down from London that morning by passenger train, and been brought by car all the way from Newmarket.
Chapter 2
The book Miss Farrow held in her hand was an amusing book, the latest volume of some rather lively French memoirs, but she put it down after a very few moments, and, leaning forward, held out her hands to the fire. They were not pretty hands: though small and well-shaped, there was something just a little claw-like about them; but they were very white, and her almond-shaped nails, admirably manicured, gleamed in the soft red light.
Yes, in spite of this stupid little contretemps about Pegler, she was glad indeed that circumstances over which she had had rather more control than she liked to think had made it impossible for her to go out to Monte Carlo this winter. She had been sharply vexed, beside herself with annoyance, almost tempted to do what she had never yet done—that is, to ask Lionel Varick, now so delightfully prosperous, to lend her a couple of hundred pounds. But she had resisted the impulse, and she was now glad of it.
After all, there’s no place like dear old England at Christmas time. How much nicer, too, is a bachelor host than a hostess! A bachelor host? No, not exactly a bachelor host, for Lionel Varick was a widower. Twice a widower, if the truth were known. But the truth, fortunately, is not always known, and Blanche Farrow doubted if any other member of the circle of friends and acquaintances he had picked up in his adventurous, curious life knew of that first—now evidently by him almost forgotten—marriage. It had taken place years ago, when Varick was still a very young man, and to a woman not of his own class. They had separated, and then, rather oddly, come together again. Even so, her premature death had been for him a fortunate circumstance.
It was not Varick who had told Blanche Farrow of that painful episode of his past life. The story had come to her knowledge in a curious, accidental fashion, and she had thought it only fair to tell him what she had learned—and then, half reluctantly, he had revealed something of what he had suffered through that early act of folly. But they had only spoken of it once.
Varick’s second marriage, Miss Farrow was almost tempted to call it his real marriage, the news of which he had conveyed to his good friend in a laconic note, had surprised her very much.
The news had found her far away, in Portugal, where, as just a few English people know, there is more than one Casino where mild gambling can be pursued under pleasant conditions. Blanche Farrow would have been hurt if someone had told her that in far-away Portugal Lionel Varick and his affairs had not meant quite so much to her as they would have done if she had been nearer home. Still, she had felt a pang. A man-friend married is often a man-friend marred. But she had been very glad to gather, reading between the lines of his note, that the lady in question was well off. Varick was one of those men to whom the possession of money is as essential to life as the air they breathe is to most human beings. Till this unexpected second marriage of his he had often been obliged to live on, and by, his wits.
Then, some months later—for she and Varick were not given to writing to one another when apart, their friendship had never been of that texture—she had received a sad letter from him saying that his wife was seriously ill. The letter had implied, too, that he ought to have been told, before the marriage had taken place, that his wife’s family had been one riddled with consumption. Blanche had written back at once—by that time she was a good deal nearer home than Portugal, though still abroad—asking if she could “do anything?” And he had answered that no, there was nothing to be done. “Poor Milly” had a horror of sanatoriums, so he was going to take her to some quiet place on the south coast. He had ended his note with the words: “I do not think it can last long now, and I rather hope it won’t. It is very painful for her, as well as for me.” And it had not lasted very long. Seven weeks later Miss Farrow had read in the first column of the Times the announcement: “Millicent, only daughter of the late George Fauncey, of Wyndfell Hall, Suffolk, and the beloved wife of Lionel Varick.”
She had been surprised at the addition of the word “beloved.” Somehow it was not like the man she thought she knew so well to put that word in.
That was just over a year ago. But when she had met Varick again she had seen with real relief that he was quite unchanged—those brief months of wedded life had not apparently altered him at all. There was, however, one great difference—he was quite at ease about money. That was all—but that was a great deal! Blanche Farrow and Lionel Varick had at any rate one thing in common—they both felt a horror of poverty, and all that poverty implies.
Gradually Miss Farrow had discovered a few particulars about her friend’s dead wife. Millicent Fauncey had been the only child of a rather eccentric Suffolk squire, a man of great taste, known in the art world of London as a collector of fine Jacobean furniture, long before Jacobean