“Yes,” said Mrs Waldron calmly, chiming in with Charlotte; “do tell us.”
“I had heard this old story as a child,” he began. “You know I lived in this neighbourhood as a little boy, but I don’t think I ever told you that in the old days I have stayed at Silverthorns.”
“At Silverthorns itself!” repeated several voices. “No, indeed, papa, you never told us. How very funny it seems! Why didn’t you ever tell us?”
“It is more or less painful to me to recall that time,” Mr Waldron replied quietly. “They are all dead, all those I loved and cared for then. And it is so long ago now! But to go on with my story. I happened to be at Silverthorns one winter when the old squire was taken ill. I was there because my guardian who took charge of me was a very dear and old friend of his, and I was a quiet sort of child that did not give much trouble. I was left to run about the place as I liked, while the two old people were together. I slept in a little room in the oldest part of the house, which was the part the squire liked best, and he and his guests—unless there happened to be a great many in the house—inhabited it much more than the modern part. Do you remember, Charlotte and Jerry, noticing a sort of square tower at the end?”
“With a pointed window high up, and a pointed roof, almost like a kind of great pigeon-house? Oh, yes, I remember it,” said Charlotte.
“Well, that room, the room with that window, is the one that is said to be haunted. It is quite a small room. I believe the story is that the ghost frequents it because it was from that window that the unnatural father watched poor Bridget making her way down the avenue, when his cruelty had made her at last determine to leave him. I had heard something of the story, as I told you, but in the vaguest way. I knew nothing of the particulars; I could scarcely have understood them. I only knew that a long-ago Osbert, who was said to have been a cruel, bad man, was supposed to haunt the tower. But I had never heard that he came more at one time than another; I never knew that his spirit was supposed to be especially restless when any of the family were going to die; above all, when the place was going to change hands, I suppose. And I was not the least afraid of the tower—I often ran in and out of it in the daytime, though there was nothing particularly interesting in the little bare, deserted room. But one night, late evening rather,—I remember it so well, it had been a bitterly cold day, and the ground was covered with snow,—I was hanging about, rather at a loss what to do with myself, for my gr—guardian had been all day shut up with the squire, who was really very ill, when a sudden fancy seized me that I would like to go up to the tower room, as it is called, and look out on the moonlight glittering on the frost-covered trees of the avenue,—I have often, by the bye, had a fancy that the great thorns at the end of the drive seen in a frost must have given their name to the place,—for, like most children brought up alone, I was fanciful and dreamy. My own room, where a nice fire was blazing, was only one flight of steps lower than the tower room, but it looked out to the other side. I ran up-stairs and opened the tower room door—it was perfectly flooded with clear cold moonlight, except in one corner, away from the window, which struck me, as is always the case in moonlight shadows, as extraordinarily black and dark. But I did not mind, I had no thought of fear. I ran to the window and gazed out. It was as I expected—the trees were glistening like silver and diamonds, it seems to me that I have never seen anything so beautiful since. I remember saying to myself, ‘How I wish I could make some poetry about them to myself,’ when suddenly I was startled by the sound, or feeling—feeling as much as sound perhaps—of something moving in the dark corner, and before I had time to look round I heard distinctly three deep sighs or groans. Even had it been the daytime, and had there been nothing eerie about the place, the sound would have made me shiver—it seemed to tell of such profound, hopeless misery. Then in half a moment there rushed over me the remembrance of the story I had heard, and that I was here actually in the haunted room itself. I dashed through the doorway and down-stairs, and never stopped till I got to the servants’ regions; and then I was so near fainting and looked so wretched that my guardian had to be sent for, and all manner of soothing and comforting employed to bring me round. The whole thing might have been forgotten but for what followed. The poor old squire died that very night, and I think my guardian was glad he did not live till the next morning; for it brought the news of the reappearance of the Osbert cousins whom he had thought it his duty to try to trace, and so his sister’s grandson was cut out of his inheritance!”
“And the ghost had reason to be miserable then,” said Jerry. “Poor ghost.”
“Yes,” said Mr Waldron; “his hopes of his long penance ending must have been dashed to the ground.”
“Papa,” said Charlotte, in a rather awe-struck tone, “you speak as if you really believed it. Do you? Do you in the bottom of your heart believe it was the ghost?”
“No,” said Mr Waldron, smiling. “In the bottom of my heart I believe it was—” He stopped, and dropped his voice mysteriously.