“The person who put up those shutters wasn’t fond of either light or air. But you wait, I’ll have them down, I like plenty of both. You heard Mr. Paine’s story about the shutters having made their appearance in a night? If they did, then there was witchcraft used, or I’m a Dutchman. It took weeks, if not months, to get them there. If the walls have to be pulled to pieces I’ll have them moved. Give me a week or two and you won’t know the place. I’ll turn it inside out and upside down. Because Uncle Benjamin had his ideas of what a house ought to be like, dark as pitch, and alive with rats, not to name blackbeetles, it doesn’t follow that his ideas are mine, so I’ll show him.”
“We can’t do all that, you and I alone together.”
“Catch me trying! Before we’re many hours older I’ll have an army of workmen turned into the house.”
“What about the conditions? No one is to be allowed to enter except us two, especially no man.”
“Bother the conditions! Do you think I mind them? Uncle Benjamin must have been stark staring mad to think that I would. If I’m only to live in such a place as this on such terms as those, then I’ll live out of it—that’s all. By the way, where’s the envelope which was in that box? I took it out of my dress pocket. ‘This envelope is for Mary Blyth, and is not to be opened by her till she is inside 84, Camford Street.’ Well, now Mary Blyth is inside 84, Camford Street—a nice, sweet, clean, airy place she’s found it! So I suppose that now she may open the envelope. Let’s hope that the contents are calculated to liven you up, because I feel as if I wanted something a little chirrupy.”
Inside was a sheet of blue writing paper. It was not over clean, being creased, and thumb-marked, and blotted too. On it was a letter, written by somebody who was not much used to a pen. I recognised Uncle Benjamin’s hand in a moment, especially because I remembered how, in his letters to mother, which I had in my box, the lines kept getting more and more slanting, until the last was screwed away in a corner, because there was no room for it anywhere else. And here was just the same thing. He began straight enough, right across the page, but, long before he had reached the bottom, he was in the same old mess.
“I need no ghost to tell me that this is from my venerated uncle. I remember his beautiful neatness. Look at that, my dear, did you ever see anything like those lines for straightness?”
I held up the page for Emily to see. She actually smiled, for the first time since she had been inside that house.
“Now let’s see what the dear old creature says. Do hope it’s something comforting. What’s this?” I began to read out aloud.
“‘Dear Niece,—Now that you are once inside the house, you will never sleep out of it again.’ Shan’t I? We shall see. Nice prospect, upon my word. ‘You may think you will, but you won’t. The spell is on you. It will grow in power. Each night it will draw you back. At your peril do not struggle against it. Or may God have mercy on your soul.’ This is—this is better and better. My dear, Uncle Benjamin must have been very mad. ‘You are surrounded by enemies.’ Am I? I wasn’t till I had your fortune. I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have been better off without it. ‘Out of the house you are at their mercy. They watch you night and day. When you are out, they are ever at your heels. Sooner or later they will have you. Then again may God have mercy on your soul. But in the house you are safe. I have seen to that. Do not be afraid of anything you may see or hear. There is That within these walls which holds you in the hollow of Its hand.’ That last line, my dear, is in italics. It strikes me that not only was Uncle Bennie mad, but that writing novels ought to have been his trade. As you are so fond of saying, this is something like a romance; and I wish it wasn’t. Emily, what’s the matter with you now?”