FullReads

“I should have felt no inclination, with the broad sun of the squire’s face, the keen eyes of James, and the beauty of Laetitia before me at the breakfast table, to say a word about what I had seen, even if I had not been afraid of the doubt concerning my sanity which the story would certainly awaken. What with the memories of the night and the want of my spectacles, I passed a very dreary day, dreading the return of the night, for, cool as I had been in her presence, I could not regard the possible reappearance of the ghost with equanimity. But when the night did come, I slept soundly till the morning.

“The next day, not being able to read with comfort, I went wandering about the place, and at length began to fit the outside and inside of the house together. It was a large and rambling edifice, parts of it very old, parts comparatively modern. I first found my own window, which looked out of the back. Below this window, on one side, there was a door. I wondered whither it led, but found it locked. At the moment James approached from the stables. ‘Where does this door lead?’ I asked him. ‘I will get the key,’ he answered. ‘It is rather a queer old place. We used to like it when we were children.’ ‘There’s a stair, you see,’ he said, as he threw the door open. ‘It leads up over the kitchen.’ I followed him up the stair. ‘There’s a door into your room,’ he said, ‘but it’s always locked now.–And here’s Grannie’s room, as they call it, though why, I have not the least idea,’ he added, as he pushed open the door of an old-fashioned parlour, smelling very musty. A few old books lay on a side table. A china bowl stood beside them, with some shrivelled, scentless rose-leaves in the bottom of it. The cloth that covered the table was riddled by moths, and the spider-legged chairs were covered with dust.

“A conviction seized me that the old bureau must have belonged to this room, and I soon found the place where I judged it must have stood. But the same moment I caught sight of a portrait on the wall above the spot I had fixed upon. ‘By Jove!’ I cried, involuntarily, ‘that’s the very old lady I met in Russell Square!’

“‘Nonsense!’ said James. ‘Old-fashioned ladies are like babies–they all look the same. That’s a very old portrait.’

“‘So I see,’ I answered. ‘It is like a Zucchero.’

“‘I don’t know whose it is,” he answered hurriedly, and I thought he looked a little queer.

“‘Is she one of the family?’ I asked.

“‘They say so; but who or what she was, I don’t know. You must ask Letty,” he answered.

“‘The more I look at it,’ I said, ‘the more I am convinced it is the same old lady.’

“‘Well,’ he returned with a laugh, ‘my old nurse used to say she was rather restless. But it’s all nonsense.’

“‘That bureau in my room looks about the same date as this furniture,’ I remarked.

“‘It used to stand just there,’ he answered, pointing to the space under the picture. ‘Well I remember with what awe we used to regard it; for they said the old lady kept her accounts at it still. We never dared touch the bundles of yellow papers in the pigeon-holes. I remember thinking Letty a very heroine once when she touched one of them with the tip of her forefinger. She had got yet more courageous by the time she had it moved into her own room.’

“‘Then that is your sister’s room I am occupying?’ I said.

“‘Yes.’

“‘I am ashamed of keeping her out of it.’

“‘Oh! she’ll do well enough.’

“‘If I were she though,’ I added, ‘I would send that bureau back to its own place.’

“‘What do you mean, Heywood? Do you believe every old wife’s tale that ever was told?’