CHAPTER V.
HAUNTED ROOMS.
November has come with nights of drizzle and mornings of fog. The dreariness of the weather without adds to the sense of discomfort within the half-dismantled house. The carpet has been taken from the staircase, and the old family clock no longer is heard striking the hours. The drawing-room is much changed in appearance from what it was when the reader was first introduced into the Trevors’ cheerful abode. It is evening, and the family are sitting together, with the exception of the master of the house, who is busy in his study with lawyers’ papers and parchment deeds before him. The light of the drawing-room lamp falls on a scanty amount of furniture; for sofa, arm-chair, and piano have all been packed up for removal to the new home. No ornament of china, no graceful vase relieves the bareness of the white mantelpiece; the mirror has been taken away, no trace remains of pictures except square marks on the wall. The guitar has vanished from view; the globe of gold-fish is now the property of a friend; the ferns have been sent to the greenhouse of an aunt in Grosvenor Square.
Emmie sits at the table with her lace-work beside her, but her needle is idle. Bruce, the most actively occupied of the party, is drawing plans of cottages, and jotting down in his note-book estimates of expenses. The captain has a book in his hand, but makes slow progress with its contents. Vibert is glancing over a number of Punch. The party have been for the last ten minutes so silent that the pattering of the November rain on the window-panes is distinctly heard.
“I hope that we shall not have such weather as this when we go to our new home,” said Vibert, as with a yawn he threw down his paper. “The place will need at least sunshine to make it look a degree more lively than a lunatic asylum. ’Tis lucky that our queer old great-aunt did not take it into her head to paint the house black, inside and outside, and put in her will that it must remain so, as a compliment to her husband, who has been dead for the last fifty years. Fancy bricking up the best bed-room!”
“Such an act proves that Mrs. Myers was in a very morbid state of mind,” said the captain.
“What a misfortune!” observed Emmie.
“Misfortune! I should rather call it weakness—absurdity,” said Bruce, sternly glancing up from his drawing.
“I should call it a sin, a downright sin,” cried Vibert. “Such a shame it is to make what might have been a jolly country-house into a sort of rural Newgate! I’m afraid that even our best friends will not care to visit us there. Why, I asked pretty little Alice to-day whether she were coming to brighten us up at Christmas, and she actually answered that she was rather afraid of haunted houses, especially on dark winter nights.”
Bruce smiled a little disdainfully; and the captain suggested that perhaps the fair lady was jesting.