Part 5 (2/2)

”My dearest child,” she exclaimed, ”you look blue, and your teeth are chattering! I do wish I had not alluded to that fright we had. I had no idea you were so nervous.”

”I did not know it myself,” I replied. ”I often think of the Finster ghost quite calmly, even in the middle of the night. But just then, Miss Larpent, do you know, I really _felt_ that horrid cold again!”

”So did I--or rather my imagination did,” she replied, trying to talk in a matter-of-fact way. She got up as she spoke, and went to the window.

”It can't be _all_ imagination,” she added. ”See, Leila, what a gusty, stormy day it is--not like the beginning of August. It really is cold.”

”And this play-room seems nearly as draughty as the gallery at Finster,”

I said. ”Don't let us stay here--come into the drawing-room and play some duets. I wish we could quite forget about Finster.”

”Dormy has done so, I hope,” said Miss Larpent.

That chilly morning was the commencement of the real break-up in the weather. We women would not have minded it so much, as there are always plenty of indoor things we can find to do. And my two grown-up brothers were away. Raxtrew held no particular attractions for them, and Phil wanted to see some of our numerous relations before he returned to India. So he and Nugent started on a round of visits. But, unluckily, it was the beginning of the public school holidays, and poor Nat--the fifteen-year-old boy--had just joined us. It was very disappointing for him in more ways than one. He had set his heart on seeing Finster, impressed by our enthusiastic description of it when we first went there, and now his antic.i.p.ations had to come down to a comparatively tame and uninteresting village, and every probability--so said the wise--of a stretch of rainy, unsummerlike weather.

Nat is a good-natured, cheery fellow, however--not nearly as clever or as impressionable as Dormy, but with the same common sense. So he wisely determined to make the best of things, and as we were really sorry for him, he did not, after all, come off very badly.

His princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt was roller-skating in the play-room. Dormy had not taken to it in the same way--the greater part of _his_ time was spent with the rabbits and guinea-pigs, where Nat, when he himself had had skating enough, was pretty sure to find him.

I suppose it is with being the eldest sister that it always seems my fate to receive the confidences of the rest of the family, and it was about this time, a fortnight or so after his arrival, that it began to strike me that Nat looked as if he had something on his mind.

”He is sure to tell me what it is, sooner or later,” I said to myself.

”Probably he has left some small debts behind him at school--only he did not look worried or anxious when he first came home.”

The confidence was given. One afternoon Nat followed me into the library, where I was going to write some letters, and said he wanted to speak to me. I put my paper aside and waited.

”Leila,” he began, ”you must promise not to laugh at me.”

This was not what I expected.

”Laugh at you--no, certainly not,” I replied, ”especially if you are in any trouble. And I have thought you were looking worried, Nat.”

”Well, yes,” he said, ”I don't know if there is anything coming over me--I feel quite well, but--Leila,” he broke off, ”do you believe in ghosts?”

I started.

”Has any one----” I was beginning rashly, but the boy interrupted me.

”No, no,” he said eagerly, ”no one has put anything of the kind into my head--no one. It is my own senses that have seen--felt it--or else, if it is fancy, I must be going out of my mind, Leila--I do believe there is a ghost here _in the play-room_.”

I sat silent, an awful dread creeping over me, which, as he went on, grew worse and worse. Had the thing--the Finster shadow--attached itself to us--I had read of such cases--had it journeyed with us to this peaceful, healthful house? The remembrance of the cold thrill experienced by Miss Larpent and myself flashed back upon me. And Nat went on.

Yes, the cold was the first thing he had been startled by, followed, just as in the gallery of our old castle, by the consciousness of the terrible shadow-like presence, gradually taking form in the moonlight.

For there had been moonlight the last night or two, and Nat, in his skating ardour, had amused himself alone in the play-room after Dormy had gone to bed.

”The night before last was the worst,” he said. ”It stopped raining, you remember, Leila, and the moon was very bright--I noticed how it glistened on the wet leaves outside. It was by the moonlight I saw the--the shadow. I wouldn't have thought of skating in the evening but for the light, for we've never had a lamp in there. It came round the walls, Leila, and then it seemed to stop and fumble away in one corner--at the end where there is a bench, you know.”

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