Mr. Lupton, it was observed, frequently haunted that room alone. There lay a charm in it that he could not resist, and one that evidently day by day gained power upon his mind.
Amongst other signs of his having become in some respects a changed man, it was remarked that he gave strict orders that the private sitting room of the departed lady should not under any circumstances be disturbed, but that everything should remain exactly in the state in which she had last left it. And so it remained. The very work-table stood open as when last she had sat there; the snow-white muslin was thrown negligently upon it; and there also lay the opened book with which, in some perhaps painful moment, she had tried to beguile her weary heart, and to forget her own too real sorrows in the imaginary joys described of another.
At length the night for the interment came. The doors which opened into the court-yard, conducting to the little chapel, were thrown back upon their reluctant hinges, and, amidst the uncertain and mingled light and shadow produced by flickering torches, while all friends attended in a black and mournful troop, the corpse of the Lady of Kiddal was carried in and laid in like state beside the similar remains of many a fanciful beauty and many a stalwart man who had laid down their beauty and their strength, and gone in there before her.
Some time ere midnight the solemn ceremony was concluded, and the grave doors were closed, not to be opened again, perhaps, until that widowed man who now walked slowly from them should himself return, and, with the tongue of death, demand a lodging there.
All gathered together in the great hall itself that night; and few, save those to whom it was absolutely necessary to visit other portions of the building, ventured out even with a light. The dead, somehow, seemed to pervade every place under the roof, to have become endued, as it were, with the principle of ubiquity, and to affright, with its presence, the air of the whole house. The servants fancied they heard noises and groanings, and took abundant pains to alarm one another with the most horrible stories they could produce by the combination of memory and invention. Neither, at last, did they retire to bed until, by common consent, all had finished their work exactly at the same point of time, so as to enable them to make their transit, from the great kitchen to the top of the staircase, in one compact though small squadron.
Now, whether there be or be not any truth in the supposed appearance of such disembodied forms as were here evidently dreaded to be seen, I shall leave to the reader to determine for himself; but I am bound to relate a curious occurrence which took place during the night, as being—I can vouch for—a true part and parcel of this our history.
CHAPTER XVI.
Relates what happened to Mr. Lupton on the night of the funeral.—Together with some curious information respecting Longstaff, and Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Pale-thorpe.