Best Horror Novels

Part 1 The Old Nurse's Story-2

Once, I remember, my darling would have Dorothy go with us to

tell us who they all were; for they were all portraits of some of

my lord's family, though Dorothy could not tell us the names of

every one. We had gone through most of the rooms, when we came to

the old state drawing-room over the hall, and there was a picture

of Miss Furnivall; or, as she was called in those days, Miss Grace,

for she was the younger sister. Such a beauty she must have been!

but with such a set, proud look, and such scorn looking out of her

handsome eyes, with her eyebrows just a little raised, as if she

wondered how anyone could have the impertinence to look at her, and

her lip curled at us, as we stood there gazing. She had a dress on,

the like of which I had never seen before, but it was all the

fashion when she was young; a hat of some soft white stuff like

beaver, pulled a little over her brows, and a beautiful plume of

feathers sweeping round it on one side; and her gown of blue satin

was open in front to a quilted white stomacher.

'Well, to be sure!' said I, when I had gazed my fill. 'Flesh is

grass, they do say; but who would have thought that Miss Furnivall

had been such an out-and-out beauty, to see her now.'

'Yes,' said Dorothy. 'Folks change sadly. But if what my

master's father used to say was true, Miss Furnivall, the elder

sister, was handsomer than Miss Grace. Her picture is here

somewhere; but, if I show it you, you must never let on, even to

James, that you have seen it. Can the little lady hold her tongue,

think you?' asked she.

I was not so sure, for she was such a little sweet, bold,

open-spoken child, so I set her to hide herself; and then I helped

Dorothy to turn a great picture, that leaned with its face towards

the wall, and was not hung up as the others were. To be sure, it

beat Miss Grace for beauty; and, I think, for scornful pride, too,

though in that matter it might be hard to choose. I could have

looked at it an hour, but Dorothy seemed half frightened at having

shown it to me, and hurried it back again, and bade me run and find

Miss Rosamond, for that there were some ugly places about the

house, where she should like ill for the child to go. I was a

brave, high-spirited girl, and thought little of what the old woman

said, for I liked hide-and-seek as well as any child in the parish;

so off I ran to find my little one.

As winter drew on, and the days grew shorter, I was sometimes

almost certain that I heard a noise as if someone was playing on

the great organ in the hall. I did not hear it every evening; but,

certainly, I did very often, usually when I was sitting with Miss

Rosamond, after I had put her to bed, and keeping quite still and

silent in the bedroom. Then I used to hear it booming and swelling

away in the distance. The first night, when I went down to my

supper, I asked Dorothy who had been playing music, and James said

very shortly that I was a gowk to take the wind soughing among the

trees for music; but I saw Dorothy look at him very fearfully, and

Bessy, the kitchen-maid, said something beneath her breath, and

went quite white. I saw they did not like my question, so I held my

peace till I was with Dorothy alone, when I knew I could get a good

deal out of her. So, the next day, I watched my time, and I coaxed

and asked her who it was that played the organ; for I knew that it

was the organ and not the wind well enough, for all I had kept

silence before James. But Dorothy had had her lesson, I'll warrant,

and never a word could I get from her. So then I tried Bessy,

though I had always held my head rather above her, as I was evened

to James and Dorothy, and she was little better than their servant.

So she said I must never, never tell; and if ever I told, I was

never to say she had told me; but it was a very strange noise, and

she had heard it many a time, but most of all on winter nights, and

before storms; and folks did say it was the old lord playing on the

great organ in the hall, just as he used to do when he was alive;

but who the old lord was, or why he played, and why he played on

stormy winter evenings in particular, she either could not or would

not tell me. Well! I told you I had a brave heart; and I thought it

was rather pleasant to have that grand music rolling about the

house, let who would be the player; for now it rose above the great

gusts of wind, and wailed and triumphed just like a living

creature, and then it fell to a softness most complete, only it was

always music, and tunes, so it was nonsense to call it the wind. I

thought at first, that it might be Miss Furnivall who played,

unknown to Bessy; but one day, when I was in the hall by myself, I

opened the organ and peeped all about it and around it, as I had

done to the organ in Crosthwaite church once before, and I saw it

was all broken and destroyed inside, though it looked so brave and

fine; and then, though it was noon-day, my flesh began to creep a

little, and I shut it up, and run away pretty quickly to my own

bright nursery; and I did not like hearing the music for some time

after that, any more than James and Dorothy did. All this time Miss

Rosamond was making herself more and more beloved. The old ladies

liked her to dine with them at their early dinner. James stood

behind Miss Furnivall's chair, and I behind Miss Rosamond's all in

state; and after dinner, she would play about in a corner of the

great drawing-room as still as any mouse, while Miss Furnivall

slept, and I had my dinner in the kitchen. But she was glad enough

to come to me in the nursery afterwards; for, as she said, Miss

Furnivall was so sad, and Mrs. Stark so dull; but she and I were

merry enough; and by-and-by, I got not to care for that weird

rolling music, which did one no harm, if we did not know where it

came from.

That winter was very cold. In the middle of October the frosts

began, and lasted many, many weeks. I remember one day, at dinner,

Miss Furnivall lifted up her sad, heavy eyes, and said to Mrs.

Stark, 'I am afraid we shall have a terrible winter,' in a strange

kind of meaning way. But Mrs. Stark pretended not to hear, and

talked very loud of something else. My little lady and I did not

care for the frost; not we! As long as it was dry, we climbed up

the steep brows behind the house, and went up on the Fells, which

were bleak and bare enough, and there we ran races in the fresh,

sharp air; and once we came down by a new path, that took us past

the two old gnarled holly-trees, which grew about half-way down by

the east side of the house. But the days grew shorter and shorter,

and the old lord, if it was he, played away, more and more stormily

and sadly, on the great organ. One Sunday afternoon — it must have

been towards the end of November — I asked Dorothy to take charge

of little missy when she came out of the drawing-room, after Miss

Furnivall had had her nap; for it was too cold to take her with me

to church, and yet I wanted to go. And Dorothy was glad enough to

promise, and was so fond of the child, that all seemed well; and

Bessy and I set off very briskly, though the sky hung heavy and

black over the white earth, as if the night had never fully gone

away, and the air, though still, was very biting and keen.

'We shall have a fall of snow,' said Bessy to me. And sure

enough, even while we were in church, it came down thick, in great

large flakes, — so thick, it almost darkened the windows. It had

stopped snowing before we came out, but it lay soft, thick and deep

beneath our feet, as we tramped home. Before we got to the hall,

the moon rose, and I think it was lighter then — what with the

moon, and what with the white dazzling snow — than it had been when

we went to church, between two and three o'clock. I have not told

you that Miss Furnivall and Mrs. Stark never went to church; they

used to read the prayers together, in their quiet, gloomy way; they

seemed to feel the Sunday very long without their tapestry-work to

be busy at. So when I went to Dorothy in the kitchen, to fetch Miss

Rosamond and take her upstairs with me, I did not much wonder when

the old woman told me that the ladies had kept the child with them,

and that she had never come to the kitchen, as I had bidden her,

when she was tired of behaving pretty in the drawing-room. So I

took off my things and went to find her, and bring her to her

supper in the nursery. But when I went into the best drawing-room,

there sat the two old ladies, very still and quiet, dropping out a

word now and then, but looking as if nothing so bright and merry as

Miss Rosamond had ever been near them. Still I thought she might be

hiding from me; it was one of her pretty ways, — and that she had

persuaded them to look as if they knew nothing about her; so I went

softly peeping under this sofa, and behind that chair, making

believe I was sadly frightened at not finding her.

'What's the matter, Hester?' said Mrs. Stark, sharply. I don't

know if Miss Furnivall had seen me, for, as I told you, she was

very deaf, and she sat quite still, idly staring into the fire,

with her hopeless face. 'I'm only looking for my little Rosy Posy,'

replied I, still thinking that the child was there, and near me,

though I could not see her.

'Miss Rosamond is not here,' said Mrs. Stark. 'She went away,

more than an hour ago, to find Dorothy.' And she, too, turned and

went on looking into the fire.

My heart sank at this, and I began to wish I had never left my

darling. I went back to Dorothy and told her. James was gone out

for the day, but she, and me, and Bessy took lights, and went up

into the nursery first; and then we roamed over the great, large

house, calling and entreating Miss Rosamond to come out of her

hiding-place, and not frighten us to death in that way. But there

was no answer; no sound.

'Oh!' said I, at last, 'can she have got into the east wing and

hidden there?'

But Dorothy said it was not possible, for that she herself had

never been in there; that the doors were always locked, and my

lord's steward had the keys, she believed; at any rate, neither she

nor James had ever seen them: so I said I would go back, and see

if, after all, she was not hidden in the drawing-room, unknown to

the old ladies; and if I found her there, I said, I would whip her

well for the fright she had given me; but I never meant to do it.

Well, I went back to the west drawing-room, and I told Mrs. Stark

we could not find her anywhere, and asked for leave to look all

about the furniture there, for I thought now that she might have

fallen asleep in some warm, hidden corner; but no! we looked — Miss

Furnivall got up and looked, trembling all over — and she was

nowhere there; then we set off again, every one in the house, and

looked in all the places we had searched before, but we could not

find her. Miss Furnivall shivered and shook so much, that Mrs.

Stark took her back into the warm drawing-room; but not before they

had made me promise to bring her to them when she was found.

Well-a-day! I began to think she never would be found, when I

bethought me to look into the great front court, all covered with

snow. I was upstairs when I looked out; but, it was such clear

moonlight, I could see, quite plain, two little footprints, which

might be traced from the hall-door and round the corner of the east

wing. I don't know how I got down, but I tugged open the great

stiff hall-door, and, throwing the skirt of my gown over my head

for a cloak, I ran out. I turned the east corner, and there a black

shadow fell on the snow; but when I came again into the moonlight,

there were the little foot-marks going up — up to the Fells. It was

bitter cold; so cold, that the air almost took the skin off my face

as I ran; but I ran on crying to think how my poor little darling

must be perished and frightened. I was within sight of the

holly-trees, when I saw a shepherd coming down the hill, bearing

something in his arms wrapped in his maud. He shouted to me, and

asked me if I had lost a bairn; and, when I could not speak for

crying, he bore towards me, and I saw my wee bairnie, lying still,

and white, and stiff in his arms, as if she had been dead. He told

me he had been up the Fells to gather in his sheep, before the deep

cold of night came on, and that under the holly-trees (black marks

on the hill-side, where no other bush was for miles around) he had

found my little lady — my lamb — my queen — my darling — stiff and

cold in the terrible sleep which is frost-begotten. Oh! the joy and

the tears of having her in my arms once again! for I would not let

him carry her; but took her, maud and all, into my own arms, and

held her near my own warm neck and heart, and felt the life

stealing slowly back again into her little gentle limbs. But she

was still insensible when we reached the hall, and I had no breath

for speech. We went in by the kitchen-door.