“So you say.” Pat wagged his head in undisguised scepticism. “It’s easy to talk, my dear, but I should prefer actions to words. You made a poor show on that ladder yesterday, and I don’t like to own a coward for my sister. Look here now, you were worrying me to give you that racket, and I said I would do nothing of the kind, but I’ll change my mind and hand it over to you to-night, if you will walk that round and come back here without letting a single howl out of you the whole time!”
Bridgie drew her brows together and looked suspicious at this unwonted generosity, but Esmeralda sprang to her feet, all eagerness and excitement.
“You will now? Honour bright? If I walk down the left wing, go down the circular staircase, and round by the hall, you will hand the racket over when I come back?”
“I will so!”
“You hear that, you girls? You are witnesses, remember! I’m off this minute, and if I meet my spouse I’ll bring him back for a warm by the fire, so stoke up and get a good blaze. I hope he will think I am becomingly arrayed.”
He was sure to do that, was Mademoiselle’s reflection as she smiled back into the sparkling face, and watched the tall figure flit down the corridor. Quite ghost-like it looked in the cold blue rays which came in through the windows, the dead white of the dress standing out sharply against the darkness of the background. It was almost as if the spirit of one of those old ancestors whose portraits lined the walls had come back to revisit her old home, and Bridgie shivered as she looked, and turned on Pat with unusual sharpness.
“What nonsense are you up to now? She’ll not catch anything but her death of cold, wandering about those galleries with her bare arms and neck. Spirits indeed! You ought to know better than to believe in such nonsense; but there’s some mischief afoot, or you wouldn’t be so generous all of a sudden. What’s the meaning of it now? Tell me this minute!”
Pat’s grin of delight extended from ear to ear; he stood in obstinate silence until the last flicker of whiteness disappeared in the distance, then shut the door, and deliberately barred it with his back.
“Sit down, then, and I’ll give the history; but don’t attempt to get out, for you’ll not pass this door except over my dead body. You say she won’t meet anybody, do you? That’s where you are wrong, for he’s waiting for her at this very minute. He came ringing at the door five minutes ago, the young Englishman that’s with the Trelawneys, and that father was after offering a mount to the other day. ‘Is Mr O’Shaughnessy at home?’ says he. ‘He is, sir,’ says Molly, knowing no better, for she never had a sight of the Major after dinner. ‘Can I see him for a moment? I’ll not come farther than the hall, for the cart’s waiting, and I am not fit to enter a room.’ So with that he comes in, six foot two, if he’s an inch, and covered from head to foot in a shiny white mackintosh, with his head peeping out on top, and I’ve seen uglier men than him before this. I was coming down the stairs after shedding me sheets, and Molly was asking me where the Major might be, so I told her to send Dennis in search, and I was all smiles and apologies for the darkness of the place, with only the one lamp and the fire dying out on the hearth. ‘I’ll fetch more light,’ says I, and, ‘Pray do nothing of the kind. It’s charming to see this fine old place lit up by the moonlight; I could study it for an hour on end. A perfect setting for a ghost story, isn’t it?’ says he, smiling, and with that he crosses over to the window, and by the same token it was a regular ghost he looked himself, all tall, and straight, and shiny white. Then it walked into my head what a jest it would be to send Esmeralda to meet him, and the two of them each thinking the other was a ghost, and frightened out of their seven senses. So I excused myself, polite like, saying I would speak to my sister, and the rest of the tale you know for yourselves. I taunted her with cowardice to make her rise to the occasion, but that wouldn’t work, and time was passing, so I turned to bribery, but by good fortune I’ll keep my racket yet. At this very moment she will be feeling her way cautiously down that stair, and he’ll be hearing the creak, and coming forward to see the cause. All bluey white they’ll be, and each one so scared by the sight of the other that they’ll hardly dare to breathe. Listen now while I open the door, and you may hear her squeal.”
“Patrick O’Shaughnessy, ye graceless boy, how dare you take such a liberty with your sister! A strange man,—an Englishman,—and Esmeralda knowing nothing about him, and believing there is no one near! Let me pass now! Stand aside this moment! Patrick O’Shaughnessy, will you let me pass, or will you not?”