I took his hand and held it firmly; we went through the dining-room. Nothing could have looked more comfortable and less ghostly. For the lights were still burning on the table, and the flowers in their silver bowls, some wine gleaming in the glasses, the fruit and pretty dishes, made a pleasant glow of colour. It certainly seemed a curiously sudden contrast when we found ourselves in the gallery beyond, cold and unillumined, save by the pale moonlight streaming through the unshuttered windows. For the door closed with a bang as we passed through – the gallery was a draughty place.
Dormy's hold tightened.
"Sister," he whispered, "I've shut my eyes now. You must stand with your back to the windows – between them, or else you'll think it's our own shadows – and watch."
I did as he said, and I had not long to wait.
It came – from the farther end, the second condemned door, whence the winding stair mounted to the attics – it seemed to begin or at least take form there. Creeping along, just as Dormy said – stealthily but steadily – right down to the other extremity of the long room. And then it grew blacker – more concentrated – and out from the vague outline came two bony hands, and, as the child had said, too, you could see that they were feeling– all over the upper part of the door.
I stood and watched. I wondered afterwards at my own courage, if courage it was. It was the shadow of a small man, I felt sure. The head seemed large in proportion, and – yes – it – the original of the shadow – was evidently covered by an antique wig. Half mechanically I glanced round – as if in search of the material body that must be there. But no; there was nothing, literally nothing, that could throw this extraordinary shadow.
Of this I was instantly convinced; and here I may as well say once for all, that never was it maintained by any one, however previously sceptical, who had fully witnessed the whole, that it could be accounted for by ordinary, or, as people say, "natural" causes. There was this peculiarity at least about our ghost.
Though I had fast hold of his hand, I had almost forgotten Dormy – I seemed in a trance.
Suddenly he spoke, though in a whisper.
"You see it, sister, I know you do," he said.
"Wait, wait a minute, dear," I managed to reply in the same tone, though I could not have explained why I waited.
Dormer had said that after a time – after the ghastly and apparently fruitless feeling all over the door – "it" – "went out".
I think it was this that I was waiting for. It was not quite as he had said. The door was in the extreme corner of the wall, the hinges almost in the angle, and as the shadow began to move on again, it looked as if it disappeared; but no, it was only fainter. My eyes, preternaturally sharpened by my intense gaze, still saw it, working its way round the corner, as assuredly no shadow in the real sense of the word ever did nor could do. I realised this, and the sense of horror grew all but intolerable; yet I stood still, clasping the cold little hand in mine tighter and tighter. And an instinct of protection of the child gave me strength. Besides, it was coming on so quickly – we could not have escaped – it was coming, nay, it was behind us.
"Leila!" gasped Dormy, "the cold – you feel it now?"
Yes, truly – like no icy breath that I had ever felt before was that momentary but horrible thrill of utter cold. If it had lasted another second I think it would have killed us both. But, mercifully, it passed, in far less time than it has taken me to tell it, and then we seemed in some strange way to be released.
"Open your eyes, Dormy," I said, "you won't see anything, I promise you. I want to rush across to the dining-room."
He obeyed me. I felt there was time to escape before that awful presence would again have arrived at the dining-room door, though it was coming– ah, yes, it was coming, steadily pursuing its ghastly round. And, alas! the dining-room door was closed. But I kept my nerve to some extent. I turned the handle without over much trembling, and in another moment, the door shut and locked behind us, we stood in safety, looking at each other, in the bright cheerful room we had left so short a time ago.
Was it so short a time? I said to myself. It seemed hours!
And through the door open to the hall came at that moment the sound of cheerful laughing voices from the drawing-room. Some one was coming out. It seemed impossible, incredible, that within a few feet of the matter-of-fact pleasant material life, this horrible inexplicable drama should be going on, as doubtless it still was.
Of the two I was now more upset than my little brother. I was older and "took in" more. He, boy-like, was in a sense triumphant at having proved himself correct and no coward, and though he was still pale, his eyes shone with excitement and a queer kind of satisfaction.
But before we had done more than look at each other, a figure appeared at the open doorway. It was Sophy.
"Leila," she said, "mamma wants to know what you are doing with Dormy? He is to go to bed at once. We saw you go out of the room after him, and then a door banged. Mamma says if you are playing with him it's very bad for him so late at night."
Dormy was very quick. He was still holding my hand, and he pinched it to stop my replying.
"Rubbish!" he said. "I am speaking to Leila quietly, and she is coming up to my room while I undress. Good night, Sophy."
"Tell mamma Dormy really wants me," I added, and then Sophy departed.
"We musn't tell her, Leila," said the boy. "She'd have 'sterics."
"Whom shall we tell?" I said, for I was beginning to feel very helpless and upset.
"Nobody, to-night," he replied sensibly. "You mustn't go in there," and he shivered a little as he moved his head towards the gallery; "you're not fit for it, and they'd be wanting you to. Wait till the morning and then I'd – I think I'd tell Philip first. You needn't be frightened to-night, sister. It won't stop you sleeping. It didn't me the time I saw it before."
He was right. I slept dreamlessly. It was as if the intense nervous strain of those few minutes had utterly exhausted me.
PART II
Phil is our soldier brother. And there is nothing fanciful about him! He is a rock of sturdy common-sense and unfailing good nature. He was the very best person to confide our strange secret to, and my respect for Dormy increased.
We did tell him – the very next morning. He listened very attentively, only putting in a question here and there, and though, of course, he was incredulous – had I not been so myself? – he was not mocking.
"I am glad you have told no one else," he said, when we had related the whole as circumstantially as possible. "You see mother is not very strong yet, and it would be a pity to bother father, just when he's taken this place and settled it all. And for goodness' sake, don't let a breath of it get about among the servants; there'd be the – something to pay, if you did."
"I won't tell anybody," said Dormy.
"Nor shall I," I added. "Sophy is far too excitable, and if she knew, she would certainly tell Nannie." Nannie is our old nurse.
"If we tell any one," Philip went on, "that means," with a rather irritating smile of self-confidence, "if by any possibility I do not succeed in making an end of your ghost and we want another opinion about it, the person to tell would be Miss Larpent."
"Yes," I said, "I think so, too."
I would not risk irritating him by saying how convinced I was that conviction awaited him as surely it had come to myself, and I knew that Miss Larpent, though far from credulous, was equally far from stupid scepticism concerning the mysteries "not dreamt of" in ordinary "philosophy".
"What do you mean to do?" I went on. "You have a theory, I see. Won't you tell me what it is?"
"I have two," said Phil, rolling up a cigarette as he spoke. "It is either some queer optical