Part 12 (1/2)
While this important little family aside was going on the other guests were wis.h.i.+ng each other a ”Happy New Year,” and chatting and laughing too merrily and noisily to hear what was there pa.s.sing.
And now they asked for their cloaks and hoods, which Rachel Noales and I flew to bring; and in less than half an hour all the evening visitors had departed, and the returning sound of their sleighbells died away in the distance.
We that were left separated and retired. When we reached our chamber Rachel and I locked the door and went to bed.
We were sufficiently wearied out to go fast asleep, and sleep until late in the morning, when the loud knocking of little Jet at our chamber door aroused us. I jumped up and went and opened it.
”De doors do stay shet fas' 'nuff now!” exclaimed my little maid, with a broad grin, as she entered.
”Yes, Jet; thanks to Mr. Howard.”
”Ain't him a smart gemlan, dough? Wunner if him's a wizard?”
”I really do not know, Jet. You must ask your Miss Mathilde.”
”Law! Do she know?”
”Yes, indeed.”
”Den I ax her, sure.”
And so my little maid proceeded to light the fire.
This was a New Year's day, and a large company was expected to dinner.
And it was upon this occasion that the engagement of the Hon. Frank Howard, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and Miss Mathilde Legare, was announced.
But little is left to be told. For the remainder of my stay I rested in undisturbed peace, suffering no recurrence of opening doors and midnight visitors. I was almost sorry that my ghostly mysteries had found so commonplace a solution--a mechanical defect taking the place of the phantom key, and an optical illusion explaining my midnight vision!--all was accounted for except the spot of blood upon the floor! Upon the morning of my departure, I called Mathilde into the room, and striking an att.i.tude like that of the woman of my vision, I silently pointed to the hidden spot, and gazed at Mathilde, to discover consciousness in her countenance.
But Mathilde first looked back in innocent surprise, and then recollecting herself, said:
”Oh! you allude to a stain there; yes, it is a pity! The men who were painting red lines on the doors over-turned the paint-pot and made a deep, ugly, crimson stain; and, like the spot of blood on Bluebeard's key, 'the more we scrub it the brighter it grows!' The next time a carpenter happens to be at work here, mamma intends to have it planed out.”
So much for my last hold upon the supernatural! Let me repeat--the phantom key, a mere mechanical defect; the spot of blood, a mere stain of paint; and the midnight spectre, an optical illusion!
But the reader may ask, how I account for the resemblance between the woman of my vision and the portrait of the ill-fated Madeleine Van Der Vaughan? I answer, that at this distance of time, I regard it as the effect of imagination only, as was the whole vision!
It was about two months after the conclusion of my Christmas visit that I was summoned to Wolfbrake to act as bridesmaid for Mathilde, for it was immediately after the rising of Congress upon the fourth of March, that Mr. Howard went up to claim the hand of his betrothed. They were married upon the seventh. It was a wedding in the fine, old-fas.h.i.+oned country style, with a ball and supper the same evening, and dinner parties and dancing parties, given successively by the neighbors, in honor of the bride, almost every day and night for the next two weeks.
They have now been married several years, and have several children--boys and girls. Frank Howard now holds a ”high official”
position in the present administration. And old Mr. Legare is justly proud of his gifted son-in-law. As Mathilde is too much of a Creole to bear the rigor of a New England climate they divide the year, spending the summer in Ma.s.sachusetts and the winter in Virginia ”with the old folks at home.”
And year after year I have visited them there, and slept in the haunted chamber, but never, since the locks were mended, have I been troubled by an opening door, or a midnight ghost!
THE PRESENTIMENT.
CHAPTER I.
THE QUADROON.