Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/47

34 summarily as impossible. This was the gentleman who was conducted up-stairs, by the two young ladies, to the presence of Lady Caroline.

“And how are you, my dear sister, in this best of all possible worlds? I am glad to find you in such good quarters, and hope you will be able to find a corner in which your poor brother may repose after the fatigues of the London season last summer, and an autumn in Paris.”

“Well, brother, well,” replied Lady Caroline, “and I am glad that the villa we have chosen meets with your approbation. Right glad are we to see you: but—but—” Lady Caroline paused with a made-up smile.

“Eh! What do you mean? Is there not a room for me here?”

“Yes, dear brother, there is not only one room, but two rooms. The only objections I know to the first, are four. It is over the stable, dark, small, and looks on the court-yard. The second is a noble chamber, with a glorious view of the Mediterranean; but—but—I say again—”

“But what?”

“There is a report that it is haunted.”

“Pooh!” replied Mr. Daubville, with a look of the most ineffable contempt; “no doubt there will be room for both of us. So the ghost does not insist upon sharing my bed I shall make no objection, and indeed if he does—By the way, is it he or she?”

“He, John, he,” replied Lady Caroline, with a look worthy of Lucretia at her spinning-wheel.

“Umph? Well, if he does, being a ghost it is no great matter. Only there must be an arrangement between us as to our hours of getting up; for, as I have always understood, ghosts are in the habit of rising at cock-crow. Now, unless you could make away with all the cocks in the neighbourhood save one, and shut that one up in a dark closet till 10, and then open the door. Eh?”

“Well, well, John,” said Lady Caroline, “I see you are as sceptical as ever.”

Mr. Daubville made a profound bow.

“And so Margaret and Eliza shall conduct you to the .”

“By all means,” replied her brother. “I dare say your ghost and I can get on well together.”

The room into which Mr. Daubville was conducted by his nieces, had obviously been used of old as the principal sleeping apartment of the villa. It was very large, and contrary to the received opinions with regard to haunted rooms, was very cheerful and bright. Three large windows looked out upon, or rather towards the sea, for the Villa Ardinghelli stood upon the slope of a hill, distant about three-quarters of a mile from the sandy beach. Through these windows the western sun was now pouring his rays, and illuminating the mysterious chamber. At one end of the room was a huge bed, such a bed as is only found in Italy, with the exception of that one specimen which still exists at Ware in Hertfordshire. The hangings of the bed were of old discoloured tapestry, such as a ghost might reasonably enough expect to find in any apartment devoted to the use of a lodger of his class. The bed was not only enormously broad, but high in proportion, so that it would have required considerable gymnastic powers to have reached the table land on the summit, but for a flight of steps which stood by its side. Mattrass after mattrass stuffed with the leaves of the Indian corn had been piled up, the one on the other, in order that the stately pile might attain its due proportions. Over against the bed was a large open chimney—the hearth fitted up with “dogs” of quaint old workmanship. Great blocks of fir, and the pine-cones picked up in the adjacent woods, were the fuel with which it was fed. There was a clumsy but richly-carved dressing-table placed facing the centre window, with a large mirror behind it, and well-nigh opposite this, against the fourth and remaining wall of the room, a black chestnut wardrobe, large enough to hold half-a-dozen people standing upright. Now it must not be supposed that the great bed with its hangings, the toilette-table with its mirror, the open chimney with its dogs, the wardrobe with its capabilities—though these might fairly be considered ghostly furniture—were sufficient to communicate to the apartment the feeling of a haunted room. It was so large that if the articles named did not appear quite lost in it, at any rate they seemed to be the right things in the right place. The care of the young ladies had provided three or four small tables, unquestionably of modern fashion and make, covered over with those little knick-knacks which look so charming, and which are so useless, but without which ladies do not seem to consider that bed-rooms in country-houses can be complete. A few vases of flowers contributed their share of brightness, and unwholesomeness, to the Haunted Room.

“Well, my dear girls,” said Mr. Daubville, after a glance round the room, “at any rate, I see nothing very terrible here. Your ghost must be of simple and inoffensive habits; and there is plenty of room, as I am happy to observe, in that portentous bed for us both. No window curtains either; nothing but the open shutters outside—all the better: less cover, Miss Eliza, for young ladies who might be disposed to play tricks at a poor old credulous uncle’s expense.”

“Tricks! I would not come near the place after sun-down for ten thousand pounds.”

“Hum! my dear, large sum—very. But let us have a peep into this wardrobe. There, if anywhere, we shall find the solution of the enigma in case of disturbance. Nothing in there but three racks for clothes: back all sound, and clear of the wall Not much danger there,—dressing-table without furniture, frills, or fooleries—right again—not like a conjuror’s table with all the apparatus underneath. Frame of the bedstead three inches from the ground. Egad, if anybody slips beneath that, he can’t be a body—must be a ghost—all the better.”

“Oh, uncle!” said Miss Margaret, “it’s quite awful to hear you talk so. Who wouldn’t exchange a cold, nasty, thin ghost for a good, solid, comfortable human housebreaker, with—perhaps, a flannel waistcoat on.”

“Not I, for one, Maggie. Housebreaker might make a ghost of me; ghost couldn’t turn me into a housebreaker. Let me have a look up the chimney—cross-bars—all right, again—besides, good fire, smoke him out—make the place too hot