“You have something dreadful in that room—it rustled and moaned and cried all night long right in the wall behind my bed. I won’t stay—I won’t—.”
Emily’s tears came in spite of her efforts to repress them. She was so unstrung nervously that she couldn’t help crying. It lacked but little of hysterics with her already.
Aunt Nancy looked at Caroline and Caroline looked back at Aunt Nancy.
“We should have told her, Caroline. It’s all our fault. I clean forgot—it’s so long since any one slept in the Pink Room. No wonder she was frightened. Emily, you poor child, it was a shame. It would serve me right to have my head on a charger, you vindictive scrap. We should have told you.”
“Told me—what?”
“About the swallows in the chimney. That was what you heard. The big central chimney goes right up through the walls behind your bed. It is never used now since the fireplaces were built in. The swallows nest there—hundreds of them. They do make an uncanny noise—fluttering and quarrelling as they do.”
Emily felt foolish and ashamed—much more ashamed than she needed to feel, for her experience had really been a very trying one, and older folks than she had been woefully frightened o’ nights in the Pink Room at Wyther Grange. Nancy Priest had put people into that room sometimes expressly to scare them. But to do her justice she really had forgotten in Emily’s case and was sorry.
Emily said no more about going home; Caroline and Aunt Nancy were both very kind to her that day; she had a good nap in the afternoon; and when the second night came she went straight to the Pink Room and slept soundly the night through. The rustles and cries were as distinct as ever but swallows and spectres were two entirely different things.
“After all, I think I’ll like Wyther Grange,” said Emily.