Lady Mary's Experiences: a novel

Front matter

A NOVEL By MRS. ROBERT JOCEL YN — 7C Author of • Thc M.F.H.'s Daughter,' ' The Criton Hunt Mystery? 'Only a Horse Dealer,' 'A Regular Fraud,' ' £100,000 versus Ghosts' ' Pamela's Honeymoon,' Etc, Eic IN ONE VOLUME L ON DON F. V. WHITE & CO 14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C PRINTED by KELLY AND CO. LIMITED, 182, 183 AND 184, HIGH IIOLB0RN, W.C. AND KINOSTON-ON-TIIAMES. CONTENTS. CHAPTF.R PAGF. I. — A Haunted House i II. —A New Interest .... io III. — Young Mr. Ackroyd .... 20 IV. — The Head of the Family . . 29 V. — Veronica is Confronted by Difficulties 39 VI. — A New Name ..... 51 VII. — An Old Lover 58 VIII. — Two Ghost Stories ... 66 IX. — More about Lady Molly's Ghosts . 75 X. — The Black Dress .... 83 XI. — " I Thought You Knew Me " . ,91 XII. — Her Other Ghost Story . . 98 XIII. — Is about a Child .... 106 XIV. — The Child's Mother . . . 115 XV. — Friendly Advice . . . .124 XVI. — Annie Cuthbert . . . , 133 XVII. — Making Arrangements . . , 140 XVIII. — Lord Artingdale's Story . .

CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIX.— An Amateur Cook . . . 156 XX.— Veronica's Dog . . . .164 XXI. — Veronica Owns that it is Odd , 174 XXII.— "Alarm No. 1 " . . . .180 XXIII.— Lady Molly is Right. . . 187 XXIV. — Lady Mary Explains Her Theory 199 XXV. — Lord Artingdale's Experiences 205 XXVI. — Ann Worthington . . . -213 XXVIL— Freda 222 XXVIII. — A Secret Understanding . . 229 XXIX. — An Uncurtained Window . . 239 XXX.— "In the Dark" . . . .246 XXXI. — Further Adventures . . . 254 XXXII.— Kept at Bay 263 XXXIII. — A Troublesome Ghost . . 269 XXXIV. — The Fate of Cuthbert and Ann . 276 XXXV. — Veronica's Experiences . . 284 XXXVI.— And Last LADY MARY'S EXPERIENCES. I LADY MARY'S EXPERIENCES.

Chapter I

A HAUNTED HOUSE. " Now that is just the kind of house I should like to live in, Veronica," said Mary Merton, after bestow ing a prolonged stare upon the house in question. " Would you ? " replied Veronica, in a more than half-doubtful tone of voice. " Well, I really cannot say that I agree with you. I seldom saw a more uninviting, dreary-looking place." Molly Merton shook her head pensively. " You have no imagination, Veronica," she returned, " not an atom. It is }rour one fault." Veronica laughed. " I wish I could believe it," she replied, "because if that is true, it would leave me faultless. I assure you I have plenty of imagination on the subject of that house, at any rate. It is easy to imagine that in a few more years the roof will fall in, and the few remaining panes of glass in the windows will fall out.

It is also easy to imagine that bats and rats have been its sole occupants for many years past." " My dear Veronica," returned her companion gravely, "that is not imagination, it is common sense, and merely refers to facts. Imagination is quite another matter. It has poetry in it, and your mere facts have none." LADY MARY'S EXPEBSENCES. 2 " I cannot argue, Molly, I never could. But I can listen, which is perhaps better. And I am quite prepared to receive valuable instruction. I much prefer sitting here in the shade, to toiling along a dusty road under a scorching sun on a bicycle, and I shall be interested to hear your poetic views about that tumble-down old house." Molly raised her eyes and looked thoughtfully across the road. " I can see all kinds of things," she said, without a shadow of a smile upon her habitually sunny, smiling face.

" I can see it once well-cared for and inhabited. And the people who inhabited it were interesting people, and they were attached to the place and looked upon it as being ' home.' " Veronica turned her head and surveyed her young companion's face in a questioning, critical kind of way, which spoke of a mind full of perplexity, and a heart even more full of affection and kindness. She was extremely fond of Molly, but she did not understand her in the least. Molly Merton was such a mass of contradictions, that no one ever had understood her, excepting one little atom of humanity, whose years numbered four, and who called Molly Merton " Mother." Then Veronica turned her eyes away from her young companion's face, and fixed her gaze once again upon the house, which stood immediately facing them, on the opposite side of the road.

" I should think the garden has been nice at one time," she remarked. " There are some good trees in it, and one can imagine the possibility of old fashioned borders at the other side of that high wall. It is near the road, but well shut in from it, and seems to extend a long way back." " I am sure it is a charming garden," returned Molly Merton. "As I said before, it is altogether just the kind of place I am certain I should like." " It is very near Muddleton," suggested Ve ronica, in a doubtful tone of voice. " So near, indeed, that I really feel curious why it has been allowed to fall to rack and ruin." " I can at once satisfy your curiosity," said Molly Merton. " There is no doubt why the place is not occupied. It is haunted." Veronica laughed. "It is much more probable that the drains are all wrong," she replied, practically.

" It does not look to me like a healthy place. I should imagine it is very damp." " Any house would be damp that had been unoccupied for some years, and had not a whole pane of glass in any of its windows," returned her companion, in a quiet, perfectly unmoved tone. " And as to the drains being wrong, they would soon have been set right, if that had been all." "On the other hand," objected Veronica, "I greatly doubt if the mere fact that the place was supposed to be haunted would have kept it un occupied long, considering that it is a good-sized house, has a lot of stables belonging to it, and is within a mile of so well-known a hunting centre as Muddleton." I* " Look at the house," said Molly, " and cease to doubt. It has certainly been unoccupied for years." " But not because it is haunted, Molly," replied Veronica, with decision, " be sure of that."

" I am not sure of it," returned Molly, " but I will soon find out ; and what is more, I mean to do so." She rose to her feet as she spoke. Veronica looked up and regarded her indolently. "What are you going to do, Molly?" she enquired, with mild protest in her tone. " Do sit still and try and get cool." " I am quite cool, thanks," replied Molly, " and I am going across to that cottage to see what I can find out about the house." " Save yourself the trouble," said Veronica. " They will not know anything about it." But her advice was thrown away, as she ought to have known it would be. Advice generally is ; there is nothing for which the human race cares so little ; and unfortunately, as a rule, the better it is the more it is resented. Molly Merton was crossing the road before her friend had finished speaking ; and Veronica, seeing that her words had been wasted, leant further back amongst the primroses on the bank on which she was sitting, and watched Molly's graceful figure as it moved quickly towards its destination, and presently passed through the garden gate of a small cottage, which seemed as if it ought by rights to be occupied by the gardener who worked for the owners of the house which had ceased to be in habited several long years ago.

And as Veronica Lawrence watched her young friend's retreating figure, a thought occurred to her which had done so very often before, and which would have entered the minds of most people who had any observation and an eye for beauty. How more than attractive and charming that figure of Molly Merton's was, and how absurdly young she looked to be a mother and a widow. She looked seventeen, or possibly eighteen. Had anyone stated she was sixteen no one would have doubted the statement. As a matter of fact she was just two-and-twenty ; but one would have had to talk to Molly Merton before one would have found it easy to believe it. Veronica often spoke of her as a child, and called her so ; and the title suited Molly, and yet did not suit her. It was nearly ten minutes before she returned to Veronica.

She did so with an even quicker step than the one with which she had departed, and there was a smile upon her lips and a gleam of excitement in her eyes as she did so. " I am quite right, Veronica," she said, a little breathlessly. " It is haunted — badly." " No doubt," agreed Veronica. " By rats." " Oh, you are hopeless," said Molly, whose spirits were too high to be easily damped. " But rats or no rats, ghosts or no ghosts, I am simply dying to inspect the inside of it. Get up, Veronica, do ! The man in that cottage has the keys of the house, stables and gardens, and he will show us all over it with pleasure, he says." Veronica rose with alacrity. She was sceptical on the subject of ghosts, but she had her share of that curiosity with which they say all women are blessed, and she would not have been the friend of Molly Merton if she had not possessed energy.

" Let us look over the place by all means, Molly, if you have a wish to do so," she replied cheerfully. "And I have no doubt the man's pleasure will be none the less when he discovers that you are a reckless young woman who prefers giving five or ten shillings to half-a-crown." " My dear," said Molly, " I would gladly give five or ten pounds to see the inside of that house. We shall have to carry our bicycles up those steps and leave them in the hall, though, because I shall probably be minus a thirty-pound Beeston Humber and have to present you with another if we leave them outside here. And that would be worse than even having to pay five or ten pounds." " I do not know," said Veronica, laughingly. " It would not be worse for me if I got a Beeston Humber instead of this only very indifferent machine of mine, which I bought second-hand for twelve pounds."

Molly suddenly stood still, and looked thoughtfully at the twelve pound bicycle in question. From it she looked up at her friend's face. " I will tell you what, Veronica," she said. " I will make a bargain with you. I think it possible I may take this house, and if I do, if you will come and sec me through my first couple of months in it, I will make you a present of a Beeston Humber with all the pleasure in life." " Done," said Veronica. But that Molly Merton was in earnest never for a moment entered Veronica's head. It soon occurred to her, however, that she was so. Thc minute way in which she inspected the house, from the attics to the cellars, left little room for doubt that she really was thinking seriously of taking up her abode in it. There was an even more forsaken look about the inside of the house than the outside, if that was possible.

Yet it was a nice house, or, rather, had been so when it had been in good repair. And there were many rooms in it which were not only good rooms, but were capable of being made charming. The drawing-room was fascinating, just as it was. Being panelled with old oak, there was no dingy, mouldy wall-paper to disfigure it, and thc ceiling was a masterpiece in itself, and, more than anything else in the house, spoke of a by-gone age when architecture and all that pertained to it were a much finer work of art than we can lay claim to in the present day. Veronica was interested and surprised. Looking at the house from the outside it had not struck her as being an especially old house. Outside it was an ordinary house, which ought to have been white, but which neglect and lack of whitewash had left a dull grey, and from which the plaster had fallen off in large patches here and there.

But inside it had many beauties and surprises to display, and proved to be a very old house indeed ; evidently of historical note, judging by some of the plaster and carving on the walls and ceilings of its chief reception and bed-rooms. Their guide, who seemed intelligent, informed them, of course, that Queen Elizabeth had once spent a night in it. And although it is impossible that that lady could have slept in all the houses she is credited with having spent a night in, the date of the house seemed to tally with the possi bility of that idea. It was undeniably an interesting house. Indeed, it was so interesting that it at once occurred to the practical Veronica that the owner of it was acting in a very curious manner in not turning it to monetary account. It stood on the high road between Muddleton and London, and, being within a mile of the former town, it would have brought in a considerable amount of sixpences if merely kept open on public view as a curiosity.

This idea occurred, also, to Lady Mary Merton. She turned to their guide, and asked him why the house was not used in this way. " His lordship would not hear of it," he replied, " though there is many as says as it's a pity. But then again there is many more as would not care to come pleasuring here, and would sooner spend their money going another road. The place has got a main bad name ; there is no denying it." Veronica, who had until that time left most of the conversation to him and Molly Merton, stepped forward and spoke. " What folly," she said. " I do not know how people can be so foolish as to believe nonsense of that kind. Some old woman's story, which has become magnified and spread far and wide, as such stories are. There must be more in it than that. Such a curious and charming old house would never have been allowed to fall to rack and ruin merely because it was supposed to be haunted."

" There be truth in that, me lady," agreed the man, drily, with a quiet smile by no means devoid of humour. " If this house here was only supposed to be haunted, there 'ud be a lot of folk as 'ud be wanting to set it to right, and take it off his lord ship's hands." " So I thought," said Veronica, quickly, with a glance at Molly as she did so. " And what is it that is wrong, really ? I was sure that there was something more tangible than a mere old woman's story." " Matter is that t'auld woman's story, as your ladyship calls it, is true," was the slowly-given reply. " Place is haunted right enough, there be no manner o' doubt on that." "It is the other lady who is her ladyship," returned Veronica, with a touch of impatience in her tone. " My name is Lawrence, Miss Lawrence. The other lady is Lady Mary Merton, and she believes in gho_ts.

I do not, so you must talk to her about them. It is my opinion that there must be something radically wrong with this house, and that it must be a very serious something, indeed. The house is a good one in every way, and would let easily, if nothing more formidable than a mere ghost-story confronted possible tenants." The caretaker turned his head and surveyed Miss Lawrence critically. " There bean't much use in people taking the house," he said, in his turn speaking somewhat impatiently. " A house as people can't sleep in ain't no manner o' good to them ; and there's not the man or woman to be found as 'ud sleep in this house here." " I would sleep in it with pleasure, if it was less damp, and had some whole panes of glass in its windows," returned Veronica. " That is to say, if I knew that the drains were right, and that I was not likely to be rewarded by an attack of typhoid fever."

" It's easy speaking," was the drily-given retort, " as many a one has found afore you, marm. But all as I know is, as there's not the man or woman as can sleep a wink in this 'ere house, though there's been a many as have tried it." "Why cannot they sleep in it?" enquired Veronica. " That's what I was thinking you'd maybe be able to tell me, marm," replied the man. " People in these parts say as it is because the house has a bad name, and is haunted. But you seems to know more nor they, and I was hoping as perhaps you'd kindly tell it to me. If I could explain it rightly to his lordship, I'd be a made man. He'd double my pension, I be sure, and do it gladly."

Chapter II

A NEW INTEREST. Molly Merton laughed at her friend's expense. " You might explain it to him, Veronica," she said. "You see it would be a real kindness, and you will not withstand that, I know. You always were such a dear, kind-hearted, good-natured being." Veronica joined in the laugh against herself, but she did so in a half-impatient manner. " It does seem such nonsense," she said, and then turning to the caretaker, she again addressed him personally. " You say you cannot sleep in this house, but that you cannot tell me why. It seems to me that there must be something which keeps you awake more than the mere fact that the house is supposed to be haunted." " Oh, you grant that, do you, Veronica ? " ex claimed Mary Merton. " I should have thought that you would have been the last person in the world to have done so.

I should have thought that you would have said that it was fright and fright alone which was the foundation of the whole thing." " So I do say, Molly," agreed Veronica, calmly. "All I argue is that people generally have some idea of what they imagine they are afraid of." At this the caretaker gravely nodded his head. He had been listening attentively to the remarks these two young ladies had been making, and he seemed to be of the opinion that Miss Lawrence was a reasonable being. " There be a story, in course, marm," he said. " A main ugly one it be, an' all. And there's no doubt as it's that as keeps people away from the place. But it's not the story, nor yet the thought on it, as keeps me awake of nights when I try to sleep here, as I've done many a time, because it would suit me to do it and it would please his lordship."

Veronica returned the thoughtful glance he gave her in a manner almost as thoughtful. " But you must know what it is that keeps you from sleeping?" she said. "Is it something you see, or something you hear ? " " Neither one thing nor the other, marm," was the quietly-given reply. " There is people as has heard things and seen things as would make one's hair turn white to think on ; but in my case, it is as it's been in many another. I just can't sleep. Not a wink." " If that is all," said Veronica, "you would no doubt outgrow it. You have tried an odd night now and then, and kept awake because you were expecting something to happen, but if you had persisted in spending your nights here, it would have been a different matter." " Ay, marm, it would," agreed the man, with some humour. " It would have meant the lunatic asylum or my grave for me, and I'm a hale, healthy man as it is."

Veronica laughed. " Well, you were wise to give it up, if you feared it would affect your health or your mind," she remarked, " even if by persisting you would have pleased his lordship, and increased your own income." " There's no one as has health and mind to stand up against a lengthened period of want of sleep, marm," was the solemnly - given reply. " Doctors and books and such-like will all tell you that. Doctor here had me under him seven weeks once, and said as I'd have been a dead man if it hadn't been for him." "Doctors always do say that," said Mary Merton, who had been left out of the conversation quite as long as she cared to be. " It reflects credit on themselves, you see." This remark was accepted with a better grace than might have been expected. "That's likely, my lady," was the reply, " but I was main bad, for all that, as my missus would tell you, if she'd been alive, which she be not.

Shc left me five year ago come Christmas." A short pause, which Veronica broke diplomati cally : " That is your daughter, then, whom I saw standing at your gate ? " she said, in a tone of sympathetic interest. " Yes, miss," he replied, and his whole face lit up as he did so, in a way which was very complimentary to his daughter. " She is my only child, and a better one no man ever had. She was twenty-one last week, and I do not know what I should do without her." A momentary pause, then Molly Merton stated that she would like to see the garden. It pleased her, and had it not done so, she would have been hard to please. It was charming. On the garden side of the high ivy-clad wall, which divided it from the road, there grew a wild tangle of delightful shrubs and trees, which, just then, were wreathed with pink and white May blossoms, golden laburnums, lilacs, and azaleas Mollis and Ghent, in every shade and hue.

A broad long lawn sloped down to the river, by the banks of which masses of huge rhodo dendrons grew, and though not then fully in bloom, promised lovely patches of pink and red and creamy tints a little later on. At the end of the lawn was a high-clipped yew hedge, in which here and there were arches, through which an old fashioned garden, full of flower borders and rose bushes, could be seen. On the lawn itself a chestnut tree in full bloom, a copper beech freshly broken into leaf, and a group of fine old limes, were placed just where they were most picturesque. Passing through one of those arches in the yew hedge, Molly and Veronica both exclaimed upon beholding the surprise that awaited them there, so full were the borders of irises, Dutch tulips, peonies, scillas, narcissus, and late flowering daffodils.

" Why, someone must take a great interest in this garden ? " exclaimed Veronica. " It tells its own tale of constant labour and care." The man who accompanied them, John Cuthbert by name, smiled as he replied : " Ay, miss, it do. It is I as does most of the labour, and her ladyship as takes the care. She sets a sight of store on this garden, does Lady Anne." Molly turned a puzzled face towards him. "Lady Anne?" she said. "Who is Lady Anne ? And why does she take an interest in this garden ? " The man, in his turn, looked surprised. " Why, Lady Anne, to be sure," he replied, " his lordship's sister." " Oh, the sister of the owner of the house," said Molly Merton. "But although I have heard you men tion him several times, I do not know who he is." John Cuthbert bestowed a suspicious kind of glance in her direction.

He had lived near Muddleton all his life, and Lord Artingdale was the great man of the place. In honest John's opinion, not to have heard of Lord Artingdale, proclaimed anyone strangely unknown. " I be speaking of the Earl of Artingdale," he said. " Bestwood, where he lives when he is in these parts, is just across the river. I thought as you would be sure to have heard of him. He is a man as they do say have travelled in all parts." A sharp glance at Veronica's face, and then Molly Merton spoke : " Oh, is that Bestwood ? " was what she said, " and is it Lord Artingdale who owns this house ? How odd ! I know Lord Artingdale." John Cuthbert looked relieved. " I thought as you must have heard of him," he said. There was a pause, during which Veronica, in her turn, looked at Mary Merton, and then the latter young lady spoke again, somewhat abruptly.

" Is Lord Artingdale at Bestwood now ? " was what she said. " Yes," replied John Cuthbert. " And Mr. James, he's at home. He most ways always is." The ladies did not seem to understand who Mr. James was, and John, seeing this by the expression of their faces, explained the matter. " Mr. James is his lordship's brother," he con tinued. " He's a deal younger than his lordship, too, but wonderful clever. He manages pretty near everything for his lordship, and I doubt if he could get along without him." A momentary pause, " If you be thinking of making more enquiries about the Hall, it will be Mr. James you will have to see. I know nothing about the rent or anything but just showing people over it." Veronica smiled. " And warning them of sleep less nights and ghosts," she said. " I wonder that his lordship approves of your doing that."

The man drew himself up rather stiffly. " It be Mr. Ackroyd's wish that no one takes the house without knowing what they'll find in it," he said. " He's a straight man, is Mr. Ackroyd, miss. I don't know a straighter." The expression on Veronica's face altered. That she was surprised was evident. " Mr. Ackroyd believes in the ghost, then," she said. " He does so, miss," replied John Cuthbert. " Oh, then if it is a subject that the family discuss openly, no doubt Mr. Ackroyd can tell us more about the ghost," said Molly Merton. " And we must certainly see him, because I am immensely interested." Upon this Veronica laid her hand on her young friend's arm, and drew her a little aside. Her face was grave as she did so. "My dear Molly, you know that you are not really thinking of taking this house," she said, in a tone of quiet remonstrance.

" And since that is so, do you not think that it would be wiser if you gave this man a tip, and pursued your enquiries no further ? " Molly Merton met her friend's eyes with an ex pression of amusement in hers as she did so. " Do you really know me so little, after having known me nearly all my life, as to imagine that after I have become as much interested as I am in this house, I am going quietly to let the matter drop without sifting it to the bottom ? " she enquired. Veronica laughed, though she evidently did so against her sense of what was fitting and prudent. " Oh, I know you are hare-brained and obstinate enough for anything," she acknowledged. " And that when you take a craze you take it hotly. All the same, I do think you have too much sense to take a house of which you know nothing, in a part of the world where you know nobody and do not wish to live, simply because you think it old fashioned, and you are told there is a ghost in it."

Molly sat down on a garden bench. There was a smile of quiet amusement on her lips and in her eyes. It was a smile Veronica understood perfectly. " My dear Veronica," said Lady Molly, mimicking the tone in which Veronica had said " My dear Molly " a few moments previously. " Why should I not wish to live near Muddleton ? And as to my knowing nobody here, do I not know Lord Arting dale? " " I suppose you know Lord Artingdale, since you say so," replied Veronica. " But as to your wishing to live near Muddleton, you told me only this morning that you had all but made up your mind to spend the season in London and then take a house in Greenshire for the winter." " I am glad I had not quite made up my mind about it," remarked Molly. "Because I already have the character of very often changing it, and I should have been obliged to again prove that I deserved that character."