In Sir rupert's Room (2 of 2)

[Otzchiim]

'That's right, dear. Now I shall know they are all safe,' said Sir Hugh,
his eyes full of a smile that was good to see, as he felt the warm little cheek
against his own! 'Goodbye, my treasure! good-bye, my best little treasure!'

Lady Hurst sailed down the broad oak stairs, holding up her white velvet
skirt in one hand, and a rare and brilliant bouquet in the other. Dolly had
taken her fur cloak from the maid, and now came forward with it. But when she
held it up, daintily and demurely, her mother dropped the frail flowers and the
rich white dress, and kneeling down upon it on the marble pavement, to bring
her face on a level with the child's, clasped, her closely to her.

'Dolly darling, the little arms are too short yet; put them round
mother's neck instead.'

As she knelt so, the child fast in her embrace, the flowers crushed and
unheeded at her feet, the father looking down upon them both with a curious
glad pride and tenderness, a strange incomprehensible fear stole over me, a
fear of their leaving me alone with the care of their darling, and for a minute
the responsibility seemed greater than I could bear. Only for that minute did
I feel it, though. When we all stood together to watch the carriage out of
sight, we were the gayest little party possible.

'Miss May, will you consent to hide-and-seek?' asked Hugh, beginning at
once to follow his father's advice, and enjoy himself.

'Yes, willingly; if Dolly and Harry like it.'

'0, yes, we like it!' they both cried at once; and I said we would begin
at once, as it would not be light very long, and then we could play firelight
games in the schoolroom.

They answered delightedly, and we raced each other along the passages,
while the echo of our rapid footsteps and our laughter went before.

It was a grand house for hide-and-seek; and I enjoyed the game as
thoroughly as the children did.

'Just one more find,--just one more, please, Miss May,' pleaded Dolly,
when I, feeling the short winter afternoon was drawing in, proposed to change
the game. 'I have a plan, and I want just one more hide, please,' she went on,
her little feet dancing, as they always did when she was earnest and excited:
'I have a plan; just one more hide, please. Hugh, it's your turn to seek.'

She watched Hugh out of sight with impatient eyes, then she whispered her
plan:

'Miss May, you and I will hide in Sir Rupert's room. Hugh will never,
never guess it; because--because he knows I'm a little bit frightened of being
there--at least, that I used to be. So he will never look there, and never
find us--never, and our side will win. Would you mind, though?'

+I+ mind, if she did not!

'Then come now, quick. Harry will lock us in, won't you, Harry? and hang
the key up again where it is now; then hide yourself somewhere, as far away as
possible. O, what a good thought it is! Hugh never will guess.'

The light feet ran down the gloomy, darkening corridor, I following
closely, for Dolly had fast hold of my dress all the time. We went gaily
together into the great high room, walking heedlessly over those faded stains
on the colourless carpet. When Harry took down the key, and I saw how large
and massive it was, an odd little shudder crept over me; but before I could
speak, he had opened the door, and Dolly, half curiously, half timidly, stepped
in, still holding me so, that I could not but follow immediately. Harry hung
the key upon its hook again, and then ran off.

Dolly still held me in the darkness, and I was very glad. I felt almost
afraid of her passing from my touch, as well as from my sight. Presently we
grew accustomed to the blackness; and Dolly even whispered, laughing softly,
that it would be greater fun still, if we could slide the panel back, so that
neither Hugh nor Harry could find us. For my own part, I felt relieved that we
could not; and I said I fancied Hugh would hardly be able to find us as it was.

'I don't really think he will,' cried Dolly in her gleeful voice. 'I
don't seem a bit afraid now, do you?'

'No; but I want to feel what the place is like. Let me go a moment, pet.'

But when I moved my hand along the walls, I felt nothing but dust and
cobwebs, until it came against the pile of old pictures propped there. Dolly's
groping fingers had just seized mine again, when we could hear the noisy
opening of the door at the other end of the long outer room, and we guessed
rightly that Harry was found, and that Hugh had a good idea of our
hiding-place.

'Stop, stop a moment!' exclaimed Dolly, in an excited whisper; 'I'll go
behind the big pictures. I won't mind the dirt.'

Before I had time to stop her or help her, she was, I suppose, safely
hidden under the boards and canvas, for her voice had a half-muffled sound when
she told me she was 'all right now.'

At that instant I heard the key put into the lock, and through the open
doorway came a little light at last.

'Miss May, I declare!' shouted Hugh, pulling me triumphantly from the
narrow room. 'Now, where's Dolly? Not far off, I'll be bound.'

He was just going back to seek Dolly, when Harry, guessing her stratagem,
and pleased to delay his brother's triumph, pulled him back, turned the key
upon his sister, and, with it in his hand, ran off, shouting that our side was
not beaten yet.

This of course assured Hugh that Dolly was hidden in the closet; and he
turned and followed, crying that this was unfair, as it certainly was. But
Harry had had a good start, and was the better runner too.

'Dolly my darling,' I cried, wishing with all my heart that I was locked
into the darkness with her, 'come close to the door and talk to me. You will
not mind being by yourself a very little time. Hugh is gone for the key; he
will be back in a few minutes.'

I heard a movement of the boards, and I waited.

'Come close to me; with only the door between us, Dolly.'

'I cannot,' answered a distant, muffled voice; 'the things have slipped,
and I cannot get out now till you come and move them. I don't mind, Miss May
dear. I'm not afraid--don't you mind.'

I ran to the other door, and called and listened, but I heard no sign of
the boys' return.

'Do you hear them coming now?' questioned Dolly's distant voice, when I
had regained my old position.

'Not yet, dear; but they must come in a few minutes.'

And again I ran and shouted; but the dismal corridor only echoed my own
frightened tones, and gave me back no answer.

'Dolly dear,' I cried again, through the key-hole, only wanting to hear
her speak, 'Dolly. I am here.' Then the little weak voice answered me,

'Miss May dear, I feel so strange, just as if I couldn't breathe. And I
hear odd sounds--do you?'

'No, darling, nothing. Perhaps you hear the boys.'

'N-no. Will they come soon?'

'I think so, pet; I am going to hasten them now. I shall only be a minute
or two away.'

'Don't go yet,' the child pleaded; 'wait a little minute. Hugh is sure to
come. It is so dark.'

Then I put my mouth to the keyhole, and spoke to my little one again.

'Do you hear me, darling?'

'Yes.'

'Then, Dolly dear, if I sing your favourite hymn, will you sing it with
me? We should be more companions so; and it would do us good and cheer us.'

She began the hymn at once, without waiting to answer me; and I joined
her, singing as loudly as I could, glad that my plan had succeeded so well.
But presently I missed the little smothered voice, and I stopped, calling out
to ask her why it was.

'I can't, Miss May'--the answer seemed more faint and distant now, though
my ear was at the keyhole; 'I feel as if I could do nothing. Don't go.'

'I must, my darling,' I cried, in untold fear; 'I must go for Harry.'

I fled along the passages, calling at every step, stopping at every door
and window, with the same cry, 'Hugh! Harry! boys!'

At last, through one of the staircase windows, I saw them, and I darted
from the house and followed. I was just in sight of them, when I saw Hugh
seize Harry, who laughingly held the key up at arm's length out of his
brother's reach. As Hugh sprang to grasp it, Harry flung it from him
heedlessly--flung it, in one moment, over the stone wall of the kitchen-garden;
but none but myself could see that it fell into the old deep unused well. I
saw the key drop, though I did not hear it; and I looked for one helpless
moment down the shaft, while Harry's cry was half laughter, and Hugh's angry
exclamation pierced me where I stood. Then I ran wildly back to the house,
seeing nothing and hearing nothing by the way. I sped in through one of the
servants' entrances, shouting as I ran, to tell them to send men to Sir
Rupert's room with tools to break the door. I knew they heard and understood
me, though I never stopped to say it; and I fled on breathlessly up the stairs
and along the corridor, crying now, in my passionate eager fear, that I was
coming to rescue my darling. But (his 1 knew I cried below my breath, in the
deathlike muffled fear which was clinging round my heart.

'Here I am, my pet,' I whispered, bending to the keyhole; 'you shall be
let out in a moment now.'

But no answer came from my imprisoned child.

'Speak to me, Dolly dear,' I cried, my voice shrill and tremulous; 'just
one word.'

And I listened with beating heart for the distant voice. But no answer,
not even a faint, faint word, came back to me.

'I am so lonely here without you, pet.'

No answer still.

Then I beat at the door wildly, crying -- literally shrieking -- for help.
I heard footsteps hurrying up the distant stairs, and I called to the servants
to make haste, breaking off in that cry to plead again with my little one for
just one word.

'Dolly! darling! Dolly! Dolly, answer me one word, my dearest.'

The steps came on through the passage and into the room, and a crowd of
curious or troubled faces gathered round me. Some one took my hands from the
door, and I started back, uttering brokenly my thanks and gratitude.

One heavy blow upon the door broke it a little, but did not open it. My
glad exultant cry pierced the thick panels.

+'Now+ we are coming, Dolly dear, +now+ we are coming;' and while they
tried a second time in vain, I wrung my hands, still crying with all my useless
strength, 'Now, darling! +now+ you are to come to me.'

The door burst open; then I felt suddenly blinded and bewildered by
looking into the darkness beyond, and I crept back a little way. The men
clustered into the narrow closet. Hugh and Harry, foremost of them all, were
groping in the dark as they called their little sister's name.

With a new and sudden strength I pushed the crowding forms aside, took the
heavy pictures easily in my shaking hands, and moved them away as if they had
been of feather's weight. Then, even in the deep gloom, I could see her--I
often see her so, even now, in my troubled dreams.

With the little white figure in my arms, the long bright hair hanging
against me--one tangled clotted mass touching my hand with a touch that wrung
my heart with a sharp and shuddering agony--I came out from the darkness.

I think they all drew back from me as I bore her through them; but the
crowd of horror-stricken faces followed me afar off, as I tottered from that
gloomy room with my darling.

My darling! Ah, it was too hard just yet to think that this little
bleeding form, in its soiled and stained white dress, was not my little one,
but that she lived already another life than ours, far, far away from us all,
in a white robe that never should be stained nor spotted more.

I laid her on her own little bed in the softened lamplight; I washed the
little white shoulder that had been so cruelly bitten; I washed and brushed the
soft rippling hair; and then I sat beside her, and my eyes were aching, aching,
as they were fixed upon the little white still face. I know not who came or
went; I know not if any one stayed with me. I know not how many hours I sat
so; but at last, late--very late --in the winter night, whose chill I could not
feel, I knew that the door had opened for the mother to come in. I heard each
footstep, as if it fell upon my own heart, while she came up to the side of the
little bed opposite me.

I slowly lifted my heavy eyes, in which all life and light seemed to have
died for ever, from my little one's face to the one that bent above it--a face
I could hardly have recognised. My lips moved; I was trying to tell the mother
how I had killed her child; but no sound came. I fancied I was speaking fast
and loud, but though the words were framed by my tight stiff lips, no sound
followed. Looking across the bed, the mother strangely, coldly signed to some
one to take me away. They raised me, and led me towards the door, while the
figures all melted slowly and mistily from around me, leaving nothing distinct
but that wild cold look with which I had been sent from my darling's side. My
feet tottered, my head swam. I suppose I drew back as they forced me on; I
suppose I would not let them take me away. I know I fancied I was dying too,
and wanted to die there beside the child whom I had killed; but at that instant
Sir Hugh, his face fierce and cruel in its anguish, shut the door with his own
hand against me. Then, through the closed door, there followed me one
thrilling agonised cry--a cry like which I never have heard cry since, like
which I hope that I may die before I hear a cry again; and then all the dreary
world was blotted from me in a sudden, heavy, lasting darkness.

Many and many a winter day I spent in my own room, apart from all sound
ill the great silent Abbey, too ill and weak to move, after the terrible
blindness had left me. Sometimes a pitying face would look in upon me,
sometimes a pitying word be said, but never a loving one, never a tender one.
I did not wonder that only the servants came to see me. I knew how hard it
would be for any one who had loved Dolly to bear to look upon my face. So, one
early, early morning, as soon as I was able to walk, I crept away to my
darling's grave, and from there, when the sun had risen, I crept farther out
into the wide cold world, which seemed to me just then only a vaster lonelier
grave than the one on which my burning fevered check had rested.

I did not know until long afterwards that I had been alone at Crayden
Abbey with the servants through all those weeks; that Lady Hurst and Sir Hugh
had left it after the funeral; for the mother's heart was broken, and they
feared her life or reason going, if she stayed in the memory-haunted place.
That is twenty years ago, as I said; and Sir Hugh and Lady Hurst have never
returned to England. Mr. Hugh and his wife and children live at the old place
now; but the long gloomy passage has been built up, and there is no entrance
now to Sir Rupert's room. Sir Hugh's grandchildren have not even heard of its
existence, nor do they ever hear the 'scuffling struggling sounds,' which must
have frightened my darling to death in that rat-haunted darkness, even before
the savage bite was given --the sounds that she used to say she heard in that
past time, when she fancied Sir Rupert's ghost fought still at times with his
betrayer.

Twenty years! and I have never told this tale before. I do it simply now,
without preface or appendix. It matters not where I lived before those few
months which I have told of, and which seem to hold my entire life; it matters
not where I have lived since. The name I have given here is not my own; yet is
my little story true -- most sadly, pitifully true.