CHAPTER XVI
SHADOWS AND MYSTERY
"Well, if it's a ghost," announced Mrs. Maria Gilligan in a loud voice, "I never did hear one that sounded so much like a suitcase sliding off a trunk."
The girls giggled and followed Mrs. Gilligan as she strode up the stairs. The flickering candles made grotesque shadows on the walls; the house, after that noise, was as still as a tomb, and despite the comforting presence of their valiant chaperone, the girls kept close together for protection.
"D-do you suppose it was only a s-suitcase?" stammered Violet.
"Don't whisper in my ear—you tickle," hissed Billie, and again they laughed hysterically.
"Look out, now, go slow," Mrs. Gilligan was cautioning them. "We don't want to stumble over this luggage and get a broken leg or two. Ouch!" she exclaimed, as she stubbed her toe against something hard. "I guess I'm the first casualty!"
She bent down to find what she had stumbled against, while the girls glanced nervously into the corners of the hall which the flickering candle light only seemed to make more dark.
"Goodness, if we feel like this now, I don't see how we're ever going to spend the night here," cried Laura, shivering a little. "I don't believe I'll be able to sleep a wink."
"Oh, yes, you will," said Billie, trying hard to make her voice sound natural and unconcerned. "We're all so tired we couldn't help sleeping anywhere."
"Just as I thought," said Mrs. Gilligan, referring to the object she had stubbed her toe against. "Your suitcase, Billie, and the creepy noise we heard was when it slid off the trunk. Come on now," she added, holding her candle high over her head again, "let's see what we can find in the way of bedrooms."
"Let's go in the first door we reach," suggested Billie, and at the moment Mrs. Gilligan's candle showed a wide, high doorway leading into a black cavern of a room.
"Well, here's the first one," she said. "If we have luck and find some bedding—"
She was already feeling her way cautiously between several chairs and tables, with the girls following close behind.
"There's the bed!" cried Laura. "Oh, isn't it funny? A regular old four-poster."
"With a canopy over it!" marveled Violet.
"And it's made up with clean things," added Billie, making another discovery. "Goodness, it makes you feel like the 'Little Princess' when she found all the good things in her room."
"Sure enough, it has been made fresh," said Mrs. Gilligan, as she wonderingly turned down a somewhat dusty spread and disclosed snowy sheets beneath.
"Somebody's been keeping house anyway," said Laura.
"Here's room for two of you girls," said Mrs. Gilligan.
"Oh, we all three want to sleep together," cried Violet, fearful that she might be picked to sleep alone. "There's safety in numbers."
"All right, but I have to sleep somewhere," Mrs. Gilligan reminded her with a wry little smile. "Aren't you going to help me find some place? This may be the only bed that's in sleeping condition in the house."
"Then we'd have to sleep four in a bed," said Billie, with a chuckle.
"But come on, let's see if some kind fairy hasn't prepared for you too,
Mrs. Gilligan."
Laughing, the girls pushed out into the hall and looked for the next doorway. They no longer glanced fearfully in the corners for something they were afraid to see. The thought of the nice clean bed pushed all their weird fancies into the background. Ghosts and clean beds did not seem to go together!
They found another room just as clean as the other one, and also with a canopied four-poster in one corner. With cries of delight the girls discovered that it also was ready for occupancy.
"Goodness, I wonder who could have done it?" mused Violet, as she dropped down on the edge of the bed and regarded the girls wonderingly.
"Maybe it was a ghost," said Laura, with a chuckle, and Violet glanced around uneasily.
"Can't you forget about ghosts for five minutes?" she asked rather irritably, for she was tired after the long day's trip. "Just when I'm beginning to be happy—"
"There, there," cried Billie soothingly. "Don't go and get mad, Vi, darling, or our last hope will be gone. I guess Aunt Beatrice left it this way. Gracious! what's that?"
"Only me opening a door," said Mrs. Gilligan from the farther end of the room. "My, but you girls are jumpy! Better get to bed," she added, crossing over to them with a decided step. "You're tired, and everything will seem better in the morning. Off with you now. No, not that way," as they started toward the hall, the way they had come in. "I've found a door between our two rooms—it was opening that that made you jump. See?"
"A connecting door!" cried Billy delightedly. "Oh, that's fine!"
"Yes, you can lock your door, Mrs. Gilligan, and we'll lock ours, and we'll all be as snug—"
"As bugs in a rug," finished Laura, putting an arm about Violet and pushing her into the other room.
"Aren't you going to take your candles?" Mrs. Gilligan called after them.
"I fancy you'll need them to undress by."
"I fancy I'll need mine all night," said Laura in an undertone with a wry little grimace, as Violet went back for the candles. "I'm just scared to death to stay here in the dark."
"But we won't be able to keep these burning all night," said Billie, pausing in the act of unlacing her shoe to gaze at her half-burned candle. "They will probably burn out in a couple of hours."
Laura looked panicky.
"Well, some one will have to go down and get some more," she said, and gazed at Billie thoughtfully.
"Goodness, you needn't look at me when you say that," said the latter, going energetically to work on the other shoe. "I wouldn't go down into that gloomy place again for all the money there is in the world."
"But we'll be left in the dark," said Laura, staring at Billie as if it were all her fault.
"Who said anything about being left in the dark?" asked Violet, returning with a candle in each hand, the flickering light illumining her face and making her look like some saint.
"I did, and we will if you don't go down and get more candles," said
Laura, turning her fire against the newcomer.
"Go down and get candles all by myself?" asked Violet. Then she walked over to the table and set the two candles down with a decided thump. "You're crazy," she said.
"Well, the best thing I can see to do," said Billie, letting down her long hair and brushing it vigorously, "is to get to bed, go to sleep, and forget all about it."
"Yes, if we can sleep," said Laura doubtfully, as she took her nightgown out of the grip.
The girls undressed as quickly as they could, said their prayers, and crawled under the sheets, pulling them up tight beneath their chins.
"You know," whispered Billie, after they had been quiet for some time staring up at the ceiling, "I have an idea that I've got the worst of this bargain."
"Now what are you raving about?" asked Laura, turning a pair of unnaturally bright eyes upon her.
"Why, you chose the middle of the bed and Vi took the end nearest the wall. That leaves me on the outside to ward off the ghosts. It isn't fair."
"Oh, but, Billie dear, you're ever so much braver than we are," said Violet cajolingly. "Don't you remember how you've said right along that you weren't afraid of ghosts?"
"Well, I'm not," said Billie stoutly, while her eyes searched the far corners of the room which were beginning to get very indistinct and creepy in the flickering uncertain light of the fast shortening candles. "And, anyway," she added, the thought seeming to comfort her, "I locked the door."
"Well, don't you know a ghost can walk right through a door?" asked
Laura, and Violet bounced in the bed and came down with a thud.
"Stop it," she commanded. "I'm trying my hardest to get to sleep before those candles burn out. When it gets pitch dark in here I never can."
"And all this comes under the head of pleasure," murmured Laura with a little chuckle.
"All right—we'll keep still," agreed Billie. "I think myself that the best thing we can do is get to sleep. Night, girls. We'll all feel better in the morning."
"If we're here to feel anything," added Violet gloomily.
For a long time the girls lay wide-eyed and quiet, but gradually the law of nature asserted itself. Their eyelids drooped, and the deep regular breathing showed that they were asleep.
It was about three o'clock in the morning that it happened. Tortured by dreams in which she was being chased by a ghost in goggles and a green motor car, Violet finally awoke and lay staring out at the dark.
Then suddenly she sat up. Her dream had followed her into the world of reality. There was the same strange, weird purring noise that sounded like, yet was strangely unlike, the chugging of a motor car.
She sat absolutely still with every nerve tense, feeling chilly and scared.
At last she could stand it no longer and, leaning over, touched Laura gently on the arm.
"What's the matter?" cried the latter, starting up fearfully. At the same moment Billie opened her eyes.
"That noise!" whispered Violet. "Listen!"