E.F. (Edward Frederic) Benson (1867 – 1940) was an English novelist most notably remembered for his Mapp and Lucia novels but was also the author of a number of well regarded 'spook stories'. Regular readers of Wyrd Britain will remember we have already posted one of his most famous stories - '
The Bus-Conductor' which was adapted for the classic Ealing portmanteau horror, '
Dead of Night'. Here we present one of his more whimsical stories in a haunted house tale where the residents are fully reconciled to sharing their house with all except the spirits that inhabit the 'Long Gallery'
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Church-Peveril is a house so beset and frequented by spectres,
both visible and audible, that none of the family which it shelters
under its acre and a half of green copper roofs takes psychical
phenomena with any seriousness. For to the Peverils the appearance of
a ghost is a matter of hardly greater significance than is the
appearance of the post to those who live in more ordinary houses. It
arrives, that is to say, practically every day, it knocks (or makes
other noises), it is observed coming up the drive (or in other
places). I myself, when staying there, have seen the present Mrs.
Peveril, who is rather short-sighted, peer into the dusk, while we
were taking our coffee on the terrace after dinner, and say to her
daughter:
"My dear, was not that the Blue Lady who has just gone into the
shrubbery. I hope she won't frighten Flo. Whistle for Flo, dear."
(Flo, it may be remarked, is the youngest and most precious of
many dachshunds.)
Blanche Peveril gave a cursory whistle, and crunched the sugar
left unmelted at the bottom of her coffee-cup between her very white
teeth.
"Oh, darling, Flo isn't so silly as to mind," she said. "Poor blue
Aunt Barbara is such a bore!"
"Whenever I meet her she always looks as if she wanted to speak to
me, but when I say, 'What is it, Aunt Barbara?' she never utters, but
only points somewhere towards the house, which is so vague. I believe
there was something she wanted to confess about two hundred years
ago, but she has forgotten what it is."
Here Flo gave two or three short pleased barks, and came out of
the shrubbery wagging her tail, and capering round what appeared to
me to be a perfectly empty space on the lawn.
"There! Flo has made friends with her," said Mrs. Peveril. "I
wonder why she -- in that very stupid shade of blue."
From this it may be gathered that even with regard to psychical
phenomena there is some truth in the proverb that speaks of
familiarity. But the Peverils do not exactly treat their ghosts with
contempt, since most of that delightful family never despised anybody
except such people as avowedly did not care for hunting or shooting,
or golf or skating. And as all of their ghosts are of their family,
it seems reasonable to suppose that they all, even the poor Blue
Lady, excelled at one time in field-sports. So far, then, they
harbour no such unkindness or contempt, but only pity. Of one
Peveril, indeed, who broke his neck in vainly attempting to ride up
the main staircase on a thoroughbred mare after some monstrous and
violent deed in the back-garden, they are very fond, and Blanche
comes downstairs in the morning with an eye unusually bright when she
can announce that Master Anthony was "very loud" last night. He
(apart from the fact of his having been so foul a ruffian) was a
tremendous fellow across country, and they like these indications of
the continuance of his superb vitality. In fact, it is supposed to be
a compliment, when you go to stay at Church-Peveril, to be assigned a
bedroom which is frequented by defunct members of the family. It
means that you are worthy to look on the august and villainous dead,
and you will find yourself shown into some vaulted or tapestried
chamber, without benefit of electric light, and are told that
great-great-grandmamma Bridget occasionally has vague business by the
fireplace, but it is better not to talk to her, and that you will
hear Master Anthony "awfully well" if he attempts the front staircase
any time before morning. There you are left for your night's repose,
and, having quakingly undressed, begin reluctantly to put out your
candles. It is draughty in these great chambers, and the solemn
tapestry swings and bellows and subsides, and the firelight dances on
the forms of huntsmen and warriors and stern pursuits. Then you climb
into your bed, a bed so huge that you feel as if the desert of Sahara
was spread for you, and pray, like the mariners who sailed with St.
Paul, for day. And, all the time, you are aware that Freddy and Harry
and Blanche and possibly even Mrs. Peveril are quite capable of
dressing up and making disquieting tappings outside your door, so
that when you open it some inconjecturable horror fronts you. For
myself, I stick steadily to the assertion that I have an obscure
valvular disease of the heart, and so sleep undisturbed in the new
wing of the house where Aunt Barbara, and great-great-grandmamma
Bridget and Master Anthony never penetrate. I forget the details of
great-great-grandmamma Bridget, but she certainly cut the throat of
some distant relation before she disembowelled herself with the axe
that had been used at Agincourt. Before that she had led a very
sultry life, crammed with amazing incident.
But there is one ghost at Church-Peveril at which the family never
laugh, in which they feel no friendly and amused interest, and of
which they only speak just as much as is necessary for the safety of
their guests. More properly it should be described as two ghosts, for
the "haunt" in question is that of two very young children, who were
twins. These, not without reason, the family take very seriously
indeed. The story of them, as told me by Mrs. Peveril, is as
follows:
In the year 1602, the same being the last of Queen Elizabeth's
reign, a certain Dick Peveril was greatly in favour at Court. He was
brother to Master Joseph Peveril, then owner of the family house and
lands, who two years previously, at the respectable age of
seventy-four, became father of twin boys, first-born of his progeny.
It is known that the royal and ancient virgin had said to handsome
Dick, who was nearly forty years his brother's junior, "'Tis pity
that you are not master of Church-Peveril," and these words probably
suggested to him a sinister design. Be that as it may, handsome Dick,
who very adequately sustained the family reputation for wickedness,
set off to ride down to Yorkshire, and found that, very conveniently,
his brother Joseph had just been seized with an apoplexy, which
appeared to be the result of a continued spell of hot weather
combined with the necessity of quenching his thirst with an augmented
amount of sack, and had actually died while handsome Dick, with God
knows what thoughts in his mind, was journeying northwards. Thus it
came about that he arrived at Church-Peveril just in time for his
brother's funeral. It was with great propriety that he attended the
obsequies, and returned to spend a sympathetic day or two of mourning
with his widowed sister-in-law, who was but a faint-hearted dame,
little fit to be mated with such hawks as these. On the second night
of his stay, he did that which the Peverils regret to this day. He
entered the room where the twins slept with their nurse, and quietly
strangled the latter as she slept. Then he took the twins and put
them into the fire which warms the long gallery. The weather, which
up to the day of Joseph's death had been so hot, had changed suddenly
to bitter cold, and the fire was heaped high with burning logs and
was exultant with flame. In the core of this conflagration he struck
out a cremation-chamber, and into that he threw the two children,
stamping them down with his riding-boots. They could just walk, but
they could not walk out of that ardent place. It is said that he
laughed as he added more logs. Thus he became master of
Church-Peveril.
The crime was never brought home to him, but he lived no longer
than a year in the enjoyment of his blood-stained inheritance. When
he lay a-dying he made his confession to the priest who attended him,
but his spirit struggled forth from its fleshly coil before
Absolution could be given him. On that very night there began in
Church-Peveril the haunting which to this day is but seldom spoken of
by the family, and then only in low tones and with serious mien. For
only an hour or two after handsome Dick's death, one of the servants
passing the door of the long gallery heard from within peals of the
loud laughter so jovial and yet so sinister which he had thought
would never be heard in the house again. In a moment of that cold
courage which is so nearly akin to mortal terror he opened the door
and entered, expecting to see he knew not what manifestation of him
who lay dead in the room below. Instead he saw two little white-robed
figures toddling towards him hand in hand across the moon-lit
floor.
The watchers in the room below ran upstairs startled by the crash
of his fallen body, and found him lying in the grip of some dread
convulsion. Just before morning he regained consciousness and told
his tale. Then pointing with trembling and ash-grey finger towards
the door, he screamed aloud, and so fell back dead.
During the next fifty years this strange and terrible legend of
the twin-babies became fixed and consolidated. Their appearance,
luckily for those who inhabit the house, was exceedingly rare, and
during these years they seem to have been seen four or five times
only. On each occasion they appeared at night, between sunset and
sunrise, always in the same long gallery, and always as two toddling
children scarcely able to walk. And on each occasion the luckless
individual who saw them died either speedily or terribly, or with
both speed and terror, after the accursed vision had appeared to him.
Sometimes he might live for a few months: he was lucky if he died, as
did the servant who first saw them, in a few hours. Vastly more awful
was the fate of a certain Mrs. Canning, who had the ill-luck to see them in the middle of the
next century, or to be quite accurate, in the year 1760. By this time
the hours and the place of their appearance were well known, and, as
up till a year ago, visitors were warned not to go between sunset and
sunrise into the long gallery.
But Mrs. Canning, a brilliantly clever and beautiful woman,
admirer also and friend of the notorious sceptic M. Voltaire,
wilfully went and sat night after night, in spite of all
protestations, in the haunted place. For four evenings she saw
nothing, but on the fifth she had her will, for the door in the
middle of the gallery opened, and there came toddling towards her the
ill-omened innocent little pair. It seemed that even then she was not
frightened, but she thought it good, poor wretch, to mock at them,
telling them it was time for them to get back into the fire. They
gave no word in answer, but turned away from her crying and sobbing.
Immediately after they disappeared from her vision and she rustled
downstairs to where the family and guests in the house were waiting
for her, with the triumphant announcement that she has seen them
both, and must needs write to M. Voltaire, saying that she had spoken
to spirits made manifest. It would make him laugh. But when some
months later the whole news reached him he did not laugh at all.
Mrs. Canning was one of the great beauties of her day, and in the
year 1760 she was at the height and zenith of her blossoming. The
chief beauty, if it is possible to single out one point where all was
so exquisite, lay in the dazzling colour and incomparable brilliance
of her complexion. She was now just thirty years of age, but, in
spite of the excesses of her life, retained the snow and roses of
girlhood, and she courted the bright light of day which other women
shunned, for it but showed to great advantage the splendour of her
skin. In consequence she was very considerably dismayed one morning,
about a fortnight after her strange experience in the long gallery,
to observe on her left cheek, an inch or two below her
turquoise-coloured eyes, a little greyish patch of skin, about as big
as a threepenny piece. It was in vain that she applied her accustomed
washes and unguents: vain, too, were the arts of her fardeuse and of
her medical adviser. For a week she kept herself secluded, martyring
herself with solitude and unaccustomed physics, and for result at the
end of the week she had no amelioration to comfort herself with:
instead this woeful grey patch had doubled itself in size. Thereafter
the nameless disease, whatever it was, developed in new and terrible
ways. From the centre of the discoloured place there sprouted forth
little lichen-like tendrils of greenish-grey, and another patch
appeared on her lower lip. This, too, soon vegetated, and one
morning, on opening her eyes to the horror of a new day, she found
that her vision was strangely blurred. She sprang to her
looking-glass, and what she saw caused her to shriek aloud with
horror. From under her upper eye-lid a fresh growth had sprung up,
mushroom-like, in the night, and its filaments extended downwards,
screening the pupil of her eye. Soon after, her tongue and throat
were attacked: the air passages became obstructed, and death by
suffocation was merciful after such suffering.
More terrible yet was the case of a certain Colonel Blantyre who
fired at the children with his revolver. What he went through is not
to be recorded here.
It is this haunting, then, that the Peverils take quite seriously,
and every guest on his arrival in the house is told that the long
gallery must not be entered after nightfall on any pretext whatever.
By day, however, it is a delightful room and intrinsically merits
description, apart from the fact that the due understanding of its
geography is necessary for the account that here follows. It is full
eighty feet in length, and is lit by a row of six tall windows
looking over the gardens at the back of the house. A door
communicates with the landing at the top of the main staircase, and
about half-way down the gallery in the wall facing the windows is
another door communicating with the back staircase and servants'
quarters, and thus the gallery forms a constant place of passage for
them in going to the rooms on the first landing. It was through this
door that the baby-figures came when they appeared to Mrs. Canning,
and on several other occasions they have been known to make their
entry here, for the room out of which handsome Dick took them lies
just beyond at the top of the back stairs. Further on again in the
gallery is the fireplace into which he thrust them, and at the far
end a large bow-window looks straight down the avenue. Above this
fireplace there hangs with grim significance a portrait of handsome
Dick, in the insolent beauty of early manhood, attributed to Holbein,
and a dozen other portraits of great merit face the windows. During
the day this is the most frequented sitting-room in the house, for
its other visitors never appear there then, nor does it then ever
resound with the harsh jovial laugh of handsome Dick, which
sometimes, after dark has fallen, is heard by passers-by on the
landing outside. But Blanche does not grow bright-eyed when she hears
it: she shuts her ears and hastens to put a greater distance between
her and the sound of that atrocious mirth.
But during the day the long gallery is frequented by many
occupants, and much laughter in no wise sinister or saturnine
resounds there. When summer lies hot over the land, those occupants
lounge in the deep window seats, and when winter spreads his icy
fingers and blows shrilly between his frozen palms, congregate round
the fireplace at the far end, and perch, in companies of cheerful
chatterers, upon sofa and chair, and chair-back and floor. Often have
I sat there on long August evenings up till dressing-time, but never
have I been there when anyone has seemed disposed to linger over-late
without hearing the warning: "It is close on sunset: shall we go?"
Later on in the shorter autumn days they often have tea laid there,
and sometimes it has happened that, even while merriment was most
uproarious, Mrs. Peveril has suddenly looked out of the window and
said, "My dears, it is getting so late: let us finish our nonsense
downstairs in the hall." And then for a moment a curious hush always
falls on loquacious family and guests alike, and as if some bad news
had just been known, we all make our silent way out of the place.
But the spirits of the Peverils (of the living ones, that is to
say) are the most mercurial imaginable, and the blight which the
thought of handsome Dick and his doings casts over them passes away
again with amazing rapidity.
A typical party, large, young, and peculiarly cheerful, was
staying at Church-Peveril shortly after Christmas last year, and as
usual on December 31, Mrs. Peveril was giving her annual New Year's
Eve ball. The house was quite full, and she had commandeered as well
the greater part of the Peveril Arms to provide sleeping-quarters for
the overflow from the house. For some days past a black and windless
frost had stopped all hunting, but it is an ill windlessness that
blows no good (if so mixed a metaphor may be forgiven), and the lake
below the house had for the last day or two been covered with an
adequate and admirable sheet of ice. Everyone in the house had been
occupied all the morning of that day in performing swift and violent
manoeuvres on the elusive surface, and as soon as lunch was over we
all, with one exception, hurried out again. This one exception was
Madge Dalrymple, who had had the misfortune to fall rather badly
earlier in the day, but hoped, by resting her injured knee, instead
of joining the skaters again, to be able to dance that evening. The
hope, it is true, was the most sanguine sort, for she could but
hobble ignobly back to the house, but with the breezy optimism which
characterises the Peverils (she is Blanche's first cousin), she
remarked that it would be but tepid enjoyment that she could, in her
present state, derive from further skating, and thus she sacrificed
little, but might gain much.
Accordingly, after a rapid cup of coffee which was served in the
long gallery, we left Madge comfortably reclined on the big sofa at
right-angles to the fireplace, with an attractive book to beguile the
tedium till tea. Being of the family, she knew all about handsome
Dick and the babies, and the fate of Mrs. Canning and Colonel
Blantyre, but as we went out I heard Blanche say to her, "Don't run
it too fine, dear," and Madge had replied, "No; I'll go away well
before sunset." And so we left her alone in the long gallery.
Madge read her attractive book for some minutes, but failing to
get absorbed in it, put it down and limped across to the window.
Though it was still but little after two, it was but a dim and
uncertain light that entered, for the crystalline brightness of the
morning had given place to a veiled obscurity produced by flocks of
thick clouds which were coming sluggishly up from the north-east.
Already the whole sky was overcast with them, and occasionally a few
snow-flakes fluttered waveringly down past the long windows. From the
darkness and bitter cold of the afternoon, it seemed to her that
there was like to be a heavy snowfall before long, and these outward
signs were echoed inwardly in her by that muffled drowsiness of the
brain, which to those who are sensitive to the pressures and
lightness of weather portends storm. Madge was peculiarly the prey of
such external influences: to her a brisk morning gave an ineffable
brightness and briskness of spirit, and correspondingly the approach
of heavy weather produced a somnolence in sensation that both drowsed
and depressed her.
It was in such mood as this that she limped back again to the sofa
beside the log-fire. The whole house was comfortably heated by
water-pipes, and though the fire of logs and peat, an adorable
mixture, had been allowed to burn low, the room was very warm. Idly
she watched the dwindling flames, not opening her book again, but
lying on the sofa with face towards the fireplace, intending drowsily
and not immediately to go to her own room and spend the hours, until
the return of the skaters made gaiety in the house again, in writing
one or two neglected letters. Still drowsily she began thinking over
what she had to communicate: one letter several days overdue should
go to her mother, who was immensely interested in the psychical
affairs of the family. She would tell her how Master Anthony had been
prodigiously active on the staircase a night or two ago, and how the
Blue Lady, regardless of the severity of the weather, had been seen
by Mrs. Peveril that morning, strolling about. It was rather
interesting: the Blue Lady had gone down the laurel walk and had been
seen by her to enter the stables, where, at the moment, Freddy
Peveril was inspecting the frost-bound hunters. Identically then, a
sudden panic had spread through the stables, and the horses had
whinnied and kicked, and shied, and sweated. Of the fatal twins
nothing had been seen for many years past, but, as her mother knew,
the Peverils never used the long gallery after dark.
Then for a moment she sat up, remembering that she was in the long
gallery now. But it was still but a little after half-past two, and
if she went to her room in half an hour, she would have ample time to
write this and another letter before tea. Till then she would read
her book. But she found she had left it on the window-sill, and it
seemed scarcely worth while to get it. She felt exceedingly
drowsy.
The sofa where she lay had been lately recovered, in a greyish
green shade of velvet, somewhat the colour of lichen. It was of very
thick soft texture, and she luxuriously stretched her arms out, one
on each side of her body, and pressed her fingers into the nap. How
horrible that story of Mrs. Canning was: the growth on her face was
of the colour of lichen. And then without further transition or
blurring of thought Madge fell asleep.
She dreamed. She dreamed that she awoke and found herself exactly
where she had gone to sleep, and in exactly the same attitude. The
flames from the logs had burned up again, and leaped on the walls,
fitfully illuminating the picture of handsome Dick above the
fireplace. In her dream she knew exactly what she had done to-day,
and for what reason she was lying here now instead of being out with
the rest of the skaters. She remembered also (still dreaming), that
she was going to write a letter or two before tea, and prepared to
get up in order to go to her room. As she half-rose she caught sight
of her own arms lying out on each side of her on the grey velvet
sofa.
But she could not see where her hands ended, and where the grey
velvet began: her fingers seemed to have melted into the stuff. She
could see her wrists quite clearly, and a blue vein on the backs of
her hands, and here and there a knuckle. Then, in her dream, she
remembered the last thought which had been in her mind before she
fell asleep, namely the growth of the lichen-coloured vegetation on
the face and the eyes and the throat of Mrs. Canning. At that thought
the strangling terror of real nightmare began: she knew that she was
being transformed into this grey stuff, and she was absolutely unable
to move. Soon the grey would spread up her arms, and over her feet;
when they came in from skating they would find here nothing but a
huge misshapen cushion of lichen-coloured velvet, and that would be
she. The horror grew more acute, and then by a violent effort she
shook herself free of the clutches of this very evil dream, and she
awoke.
For a minute or two she lay there, conscious only of the
tremendous relief at finding herself awake. She felt again with her
fingers the pleasant touch of the velvet, and drew them backwards and
forwards, assuring herself that she was not, as her dream had
suggested, melting into greyness and softness. But she was still, in
spite of the violence of her awakening, very sleepy, and lay there
till, looking down, she was aware that she could not see her hands at
all. It was very nearly dark.
At that moment a sudden flicker of flame came from the dying fire,
and a flare of burning gas from the peat flooded the room. The
portrait of handsome Dick looked evilly down on her, and her hands
were visible again. And then a panic worse than the panic of her
dreams seized her.
Daylight had altogether faded, and she knew that she was alone in
the dark in the terrible gallery.
This panic was of the nature of nightmare, for she felt unable to
move for terror. But it was worse than nightmare because she knew she
was awake. And then the full cause of this frozen fear dawned on her;
she knew with the certainty of absolute conviction that she was about
to see the twin-babies.
She felt a sudden moisture break out on her face, and within her
mouth her tongue and throat went suddenly dry, and she felt her
tongue grate along the inner surface of her teeth. All power of
movement had slipped from her limbs, leaving them dead and inert, and
she stared with wide eyes into the blackness. The spurt of flame from
the peat had burned itself out again, and darkness encompassed
her.
Then on the wall opposite her, facing the windows, there grew a
faint light of dusky crimson.
For a moment she thought it but heralded the approach of the awful
vision, then hope revived in her heart, and she remembered that thick
clouds had overcast the sky before she went to sleep, and guessed
that this light came from the sun not yet quite sunk and set. This
sudden revival of hope gave her the necessary stimulus, and she
sprang off the sofa where she lay. She looked out of the window and
saw the dull glow on the horizon. But before she could take a step
forward it was obscured again. A tiny sparkle of light came from the
hearth which did no more than illuminate the tiles of the fireplace,
and snow falling heavily tapped at the window panes. There was
neither light nor sound except these.
But the courage that had come to her, giving her the power of
movement, had not quite deserted her, and she began feeling her way
down the gallery. And then she found that she was lost. She stumbled
against a chair, and, recovering herself, stumbled against another.
Then a table barred her way, and, turning swiftly aside, she found
herself up against the back of a sofa.
Once more she turned and saw the dim gleam of the firelight on the
side opposite to that on which she expected it. In her blind gropings
she must have reversed her direction. But which way was she to go
now. She seemed blocked in by furniture. And all the time insistent
and imminent was the fact that the two innocent terrible ghosts were
about to appear to her.
Then she began to pray. "Lighten our darkness, O Lord," she said
to herself. But she could not remember how the prayer continued, and
she had sore need of it. There was something about the perils of the
night. All this time she felt about her with groping, fluttering
hands. The fire-glimmer which should have been on her left was on her
right again; therefore she must turn herself round again. "Lighten
our darkness," she whispered, and then aloud she repeated, "Lighten
our darkness."
She stumbled up against a screen, and could not remember the
existence of any such screen.
Hastily she felt beside it with blind hands, and touched something
soft and velvety. Was it the sofa on which she had lain? If so, where
was the head of it. It had a head and a back and feet--it was like a
person, all covered with grey lichen. Then she lost her head
completely. All that remained to her was to pray; she was lost, lost
in this awful place, where no one came in the dark except the babies
that cried. And she heard her voice rising from whisper to speech,
and speech to scream. She shrieked out the holy words, she yelled
them as if blaspheming as she groped among tables and chairs and the
pleasant things of ordinary life which had become so terrible.
Then came a sudden and an awful answer to her screamed prayer.
Once more a pocket of inflammable gas in the peat on the hearth was
reached by the smouldering embers, and the room started into light.
She saw the evil eyes of handsome Dick, she saw the little ghostly
snow-flakes falling thickly outside. And she saw where she was, just
opposite the door through which the terrible twins made their
entrance. Then the flame went out again, and left her in blackness
once more. But she had gained something, for she had her geography
now. The centre of the room was bare of furniture, and one swift dart
would take her to the door of the landing above the main staircase
and into safety. In that gleam she had been able to see the handle of
the door, bright-brassed, luminous like a star. She would go straight
for it; it was but a matter of a few seconds now.
She took a long breath, partly of relief, partly to satisfy the
demands of her galloping heart.
But the breath was only half-taken when she was stricken once more
into the immobility of nightmare.
There came a little whisper, it was no more than that, from the
door opposite which she stood, and through which the twin-babies
entered. It was not quite dark outside it, for she could see that the
door was opening. And there stood in the opening two little white
figures, side by side. They came towards her slowly, shufflingly. She
could not see face or form at all distinctly, but the two little
white figures were advancing. She knew them to be the ghosts of
terror, innocent of the awful doom they were bound to bring, even as
she was innocent. With the inconceivable rapidity of thought, she
made up her mind what to do. She had not hurt them or laughed at
them, and they, they were but babies when the wicked and bloody deed
had sent them to their burning death. Surely the spirits of these
children would not be inaccessible to the cry of one who was of the
same blood as they, who had committed no fault that merited the doom
they brought. If she entreated them they might have mercy, they might
forebear to bring the curse on her, they might allow her to pass out
of the place without blight, without the sentence of death, or the
shadow of things worse than death upon her.
It was but for the space of a moment that she hesitated, then she
sank down on to her knees, and stretched out her hands towards
them.
"Oh, my dears," she said, "I only fell asleep. I have done no more
wrong than that--"
She paused a moment, and her tender girl's heart thought no more
of herself, but only of them, those little innocent spirits on whom
so awful a doom was laid, that they should bring death where other
children bring laughter, and doom for delight. But all those who had
seen them before had dreaded and feared them, or had mocked at
them.
Then, as the enlightenment of pity dawned on her, her fear fell
from her like the wrinkled sheath that holds the sweet folded buds of
Spring.
"Dears, I am so sorry for you," she said. "It is not your fault
that you must bring me what you must bring, but I am not afraid any
longer. I am only sorry for you. God bless you, you poor
darlings."
She raised her head and looked at them. Though it was so dark, she
could now see their faces, though all was dim and wavering, like the
light of pale flames shaken by a draught. But the faces were not
miserable or fierce--they smiled at her with shy little baby smiles.
And as she looked they grew faint, fading slowly away like wreaths of
vapour in frosty air.
Madge did not at once move when they had vanished, for instead of
fear there was wrapped round her a wonderful sense of peace, so happy
and serene that she would not willingly stir, and so perhaps disturb
it.
But before long she got up, and feeling her way, but without any
sense of nightmare pressing her on, or frenzy of fear to spur her,
she went out of the long gallery, to find Blanche just coming
upstairs whistling and swinging her skates.
"How's the leg, dear," she asked. "You're not limping any
more."
Till that moment Madge had not thought of it.
"I think it must be all right," she said; "I had forgotten it,
anyhow. Blanche, dear, you won't be frightened for me, will you,
but--but I have seen the twins."
For a moment Blanche's face whitened with terror.
"What?" she said in a whisper.
"Yes, I saw them just now. But they were kind, they smiled at me,
and I was so sorry for them. And somehow I am sure I have nothing to
fear."
It seems that Madge was right, for nothing has come to touch her.
Something, her attitude to them, we must suppose, her pity, her
sympathy, touched and dissolved and annihilated the curse.
Indeed, I was at Church-Peveril only last week, arriving there
after dark. Just as I passed the gallery door, Blanche came out.
"Ah, there you are," she said: "I've just been seeing the twins.
They looked too sweet and stopped nearly ten minutes. Let us have tea
at once."
