The Haunted Homestead. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
for her father, who had been dead about nine months. She was a very pretty, timid-looking girl, with a fair face, soft brown hair and large hazel eyes.
"Ah! my dear child," I thought to myself, "you are scarcely the most proper denizen for a crime-cursed, haunted chamber."
And I made up my mind to protect her, if possible, from the knowledge that would only make her wretched, and perhaps drive her away from the place. As this was the fourth evening of Christmas revelry, and we had all been up to a very late hour upon each of the three preceding nights, it was moved, seconded, and carried by a large majority that we should retire early on this and the succeeding evenings of the week, so as to recruit a little for the New Year's festivity.
Accordingly, at ten o'clock we separated.
Mrs. Legare and Mathilde accompanied Rachel Noales and myself to our chamber. And when our hostess and her daughter had seen that the room was in perfect order, the fire burning well, the beds turned down, the ewers filled, etc., etc., they took leave, waiting, as before, until they had heard me lock the chamber door behind them. When they had passed down the stairs and out at the hall door and locked it after them, I turned around to meet the surprised look of Rachel Noales.
"Why, where have they gone?" she asked.
"Into the old house, to bed."
"Why!—do they sleep there?"
"Certainly—the whole family sleep there."
"And who sleeps here in the new house?"
"No one but you and I!"
"You don't mean to say that they have put us in this house to sleep alone?"
"Why not? It is an adjunct to the other house, which is, besides, quite full of guests. It was so when I came."
"And where did you sleep?"
"Here."
"Alone?"
"Certainly."
She looked at me with astonishment. And had my mind been sufficiently at ease I should have enjoyed her naïve admiration. But it was not so; and when I saw her draw her chair up in front of the fire, and sit down immediately over that spot, I shuddered and spoke to her.
"Rachel, dear, don't sit directly in front of the fire; it is injurious to the eyes."
She moved to one side and began to unfasten her dress preparatory to going to bed. We were now ready. But before lying down, Rachel asked me:
"Is the door secure?"
"Yes, my dear."
"And the windows?"
"Yes."
Not quite content with my answer, Rachel went slyly around to all the windows, and then to the door, to ascertain their security; then she searched the closets, and finally got into bed.
I soon followed her example, but found myself more sleepless than upon the preceding evening. I know not exactly how long I had lain awake, thinking of the dead proprietors, of Madeleine Van Der Vaughan, and her sad history and tragic fate (whatever they might have been), and of the stern, dark woman of my dream, and of the blood-stained floor, and trying to combine these materials into some coherent whole, when suddenly I heard the lock click back, the door swing slowly open, and a rustle, as of silken drapery, and I opened my eyes to behold the awful woman of my dream standing in the middle of the room, and pointing sternly to the blood-stained floor!
And in the very same instant that I heard and saw this, Rachel had also been awakened, and was even now asking in frightened tones:
"Who is that?"
But there was no answer.
"Who is that?" again asked the girl.
And still there was no answer.
"Who—is—that?" she reiterated, emphatically.
No answer.
"Aunt Legare!—Mathilde!—Jet!—Who is it?"
No reply. But the tall, black-robed woman standing motionless, and pointing with spectral finger to the spot on the floor!
"Oh! dear me! Agnes, Agnes!"
I answered:
"What, my dear?"
"Have you opened the door?"
"No, love."
"Have you been up at all since you laid down?"
"No, Rachel."
"Who opened the door?"
"I do not know."
"Didn't you hear it open?"
"Yes."
"And it is open now!"
"I see it is."
"But how came it open?"
"I do not know; perhaps it was not quite locked, and the catch flew back."
"Oh, perhaps that was it," said Rachel; and, though her teeth were chattering with a nervous tremor, she got out of bed, and went to the door, to close and lock it, And, reader, the black-robed woman passed out before her, and she saw her not.
I fell back upon my pillow, nearer swooning than ever I had been in my life; for now I knew that this was no dream, but a vision—an apparition to me, and to me only.
I slept no more that night.
And in the morning when I arose, and looked into the glass, I was startled at the haggardness of my own face.
When we appeared at the breakfast-table, some of the young people remarked my paleness, and said that I had been frolicking more than was good for me. Then one of the company inquired of Rachel Noales how she had rested.
"Not very well," Rachel answered; "I was frightened by the door flying open in the middle of the night."
I noticed a quick, intelligent look pass between Mathilde and her mother, while Rachel continued:
"I thought at first that it was thieves breaking in; but I know now that it flew open because Agnes had not locked the door fast enough to hold it."
"No, I had not," said I.
The arrival of the mailbag put an end to this discussion. The letters were distributed at the table. Among them was one from my brother to Mr. Legare, accepting his invitation for himself and his friend, whom he begged to name as the Hon. Francis Howard, of Massachusetts, and announcing the letter as a mere avant courier of the party which would reach Frost Height that afternoon.
Upon hearing the name of Frank Howard as the "friend" of John and their expected guest, Mathilde flushed and paled, and was quite unable to conceal from the interested scrutiny of her parents the emotion these tidings caused her.
As for Mr. Legare, upon reading his name, he said: "Humph!" and "humph!" very emphatically several times before he could get any further. But he considered his hospitality implicated; nay, his honor pledged to receive and treat with politeness the guest that he had so unconsciously invited. He was a fine old gentleman, notwithstanding his prejudices—was Mr. Legare.
So, in the afternoon, once more Uncle Judah was ordered to take the mules and go up to Frost Height to meet the stage-coach, and bring two visitors to the house; an order so little to the old man's satisfaction that he vented his disapprobation in the exclamation:
"Ole masse better had set up 'Entertainment for Man and Beast' at once."
As usual, when expecting a new arrival of visitors, Mrs. Legare put back her tea hour, and prepared a supper of extra luxuriousness. And Mr. Legare brewed the great ancestral punchbowl to the brim with rich, frothy eggnog, and set it away to "mellow," against the coming of the gentlemen.
"My dear mother and father! they have noble hearts in spite of their social conservatism! And you shall see that they will treat my Frank with as much kindness and respect as if they did