A Woman in Grey

Front matter

A WOMAN IN GREY BETWEEN US WE TOOK L'F IHE BOUND FORM." P. 267. A WOMAN IN GREY BV MRS. C. N. WILLIAMSON AUTHOR OF 'the barn-stormers,' ' the strange story of anne garth,' etc LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED Broadway, Ludgate Hill %a LEICESTER HARMSWORTH, Esq., IN APPRECIATION OF MANY KINDNESSES. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE HOUSE OF FEAR . . . . .9 n. A WOMAN IN GREY . . . . .14 III. WHO SENT THE TELEGRAM? . . . .24 IV. BEWITCHED . . . . . .30 V. THE KEY AND THE CATECHISM . . . .39 VI. ' FROM THE EVIL ONE AND THE MONK ' . . .49 VII. IN THE DARK . . . . . .53 VEU. WHAT I SAW THROUGH THE WINDOW OVER THE STAIRS 69 IX. A FIGHT WITH DEATH . . . . .77 X. A NEW COMPLICATION . . . . .82 XI. FREE ! . . . . . . .87 XII. A STRANGER BESIDE THE GRAVE . . . .95 Xin. THE NIGHT AND THE DAWN . , . .110 XIV.

TAKEN BY SURPRISE ..... 118 XV. THE SECRET OF THE PEARLS .... 128 XVI. WHERE IS PAULA? ..... 135 XVII. A PIECE OF PARCHMENT ..... 144 XVIII. THE DRAGGING OF THE MOAT . . . .154 XIX. THE CORONER'S INQUEST ..... 161 XX. THE MYSTERY AT THE SPIDER FARM . . . 170 XXI. MR. NOBODY OF NOWHERE .... 187 XXII. BEHIND THE BLUE DOOR ..... 197 XXIII. A LIGHT OUTSIDE THE WINDOW .... 209 XXIV. WHILE LIFE HUNG ON A WORD .... 219 XXV. WHAT HAD HAPPENED AT HOME .... CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXVI. WHAT I SAW IN THE CELLAR .... 237 XXVII. AT TOM GORDON'S CHAMBERS .... 255 XXVIII. ON THE TRACK OF A MYSTERY .... 274 XXIX. THE MYSTERY OF LORN ABBEY .... 285 XXX. THE TREASURE-CHEST ..... 297 XXXI. CAN SHE FORGIVE ?.....

Chapter I. The House Of Fear

Mists were rising from the river as the chill October twilight fell. A dim yellow band lay along the yvestern horizon, where the sun had set, and above, the horns of a new moon shone red in a creamy haze. The smell of the water and of dying leaves came pungently to my nostrils as I stood leaning on the crumbling stone of the sundial. Before me, fifty yards away, lay the river, deserted and silent at this hour and season, save for the occasional harsh cry of a belated corncrake. To my right stood Lorn Abbey, known for many a year to the scattered neighbourhood as the ' House of Fear.' Few buildings in England had weathered more centuries without falling into ruin. An abbey it really had been in the days of Queen Mary, but during the reign of Elizabeth it had not only become the private property of a certain Lord Loveless and his family, but had had the honour of a visit from the maiden Queen.

It was queerly built rather than imposing, with a flat front turned half away from the river, a great number of small windows, and a tower with a clock in it, which jutted with an arch over the principal entrance, a low, mean door of oak. But many generations of Amorys (Lord Loveless' s descendants) had added on almost as many wings of all sorts and conditions of architecture, some of which had not withstood the wear and tear of time as bravely as had the old Abbey itself. There was a legend of a secret room, all knowledge of which had perished ; and so awful were the two best-known and most authentic ghost stories, which pertained first to the clock-towar and then to the rubbish-choked moat, that to this day the gossips in the village a mile away glanced fearfully over their shoulders as they repeated them.

This was the house — with its tangled wilderness of a garden, its weed-grown lawns, its broken statues and Italian flower vases, and the few accompanying meadows which alone re mained of a great estate — that my uncle, Sir Wilfrid Amory, Home Secretary under the late Tory Administration, wished to possess. To be sure, Lorn Abbey had been the property of another and elder branch of our own family since the time of Queen Bess, but the days of its grandeur had long since departed. It had been the gloomy shelter of family poverty for half a century or more ; and then, twenty years before the October night which found the river mists rising round me at the sundial, the place had been sold to a rich old woman, who, though once only a housekeeper in the Amory family, had come into a fortune through the death of a relative.

The most blood-curdling ghost story of the legion which clustered round the ' House of Fear ' was the sole legacy left the Abbey by this old woman, who had been murdered one night, seven or eight years before, in the bedroom she had chosen up in the clock-tower. With the history of this tragedy, and the trial of the murderer, my uncle had been, in his official capacity as Home Secretary, in some way more or less concerned. Exactly to what extent I scarcely knew, for at that period he had been nobly rounding off the educa tion he had given me by sending me on a tour round the world. Since the murder, however, Lorn Abbey had stood empty There was not even a caretaker kept, for bold indeed must be the tramp who would seek to steal a lodging under that haunted roof. It was only lately that the house and remain ing estates, which had passed into the hands of the murdered woman's stepson, had been advertised for sale ; but no sooner had this intelligence reached my uncle's ears than he deter mined, if possible, to be the purchaser.

THE HOUSE OF FEAR 11 He had always regretted, he said, that the old place should pass away from the family, and though he had never been inside the Abbey doors, he had a vague, inherited affection for the strange and ancient house. Melancholy as must be the condition into which it had fallen, it could not be beyond repair, he had decided ; and as a consequence of this decision (and some preliminary negotiations with the representatives of the owner, who was out of England), I had been sent down to spy and report upon the nakedness of the land. I had no reason in the world for sadness, or even dis content, that mist-ridden evening. My uncle's influence had made me prosperous. A very good appointment under Government had been secured for me, now that my uncle had retired from public life and I was about to cease my labours of love as his private secretary.

I was not yet quite thirty ; I had many friends and few enemies ; I had perfect health, some pretension to good looks, and I was engaged to marry a beautiful woman — my cousin, Paula Wynne. It is true that I did not love Paula as a man, when very youthful and romantic, hopes to love his future wife. But I cared for no one else, neither did she. The marriage would please our uncle, who had done everything for us both ; we had known each other all our lives, and believed that we should be able to rub on very contentedly together. This was my agreeable outlook upon life. And yet, as I stood leaning on the pitiful remains of the old sundial, surveying the house which was yet to be explored (I had been delayed, and had come down from London rather late), an unreasonable yet poignant misery lay heavy upon me.

As I thus reflected, my eyes wandered, as though by some fascination, to the clock-tower. In that room underneath, so strangely selected for her own by the mistress of the house, a murder had been committed — there behind that shuttered window. Suddenly, something just beyond the line of my vision seemed to move. I looked up quickly, and, to my surprise, saw that the two great gilt hands were travelling round the face of the silent clock. Silent it had been, no doubt, for years ; but now, as the long hand turned to twelve, the short one to five, it was silent no longer. Its cracked yet solemn voice boomed out the hour ; then, with a low concluding grumble, subsided into its wonted stillness again. I was amazed beyond measure, and knew not what to think. Had the sunshine of morning flung its cheery radiance over the scene instead of the weird light of fading day and sinking moon, I should have decided without a moment of doubt that some mischievous person, regardless of ghost stories, had ventured boldly in and proceeded to wind up the clock.

But as it was — I have no excuse to offer for myself — a little creeping chill wandered up the length of my spine. I did not, however, hesitate as to what course of action I should pursue. If I had not previously quite made up my mind whether I should explore the house that night or the next morning, it was now made up in a flash. I walked quickly along the weed-grown drive to the front-door, which I had been regarding with such distaste, and, after pushing against it once or twice with all my force, found myself able to enter. I stood in a wide, shadowy space, more like a room than a modern entrance-hall. Its dimensions stretched away into darkness, but the twilight which penetrated the low, open door, and fell, with broken glints of colour, through a stained glass window on the landing of the stairs, showed me that the place still boasted a few remnants of furniture.

Several doors opened into vistas of deeper gloom ; and the smell might have been that of a sepulchre. I stood holding the door open with my hand, and gazing up the broad oak stairway, with its worn, shallow steps faintly flecked here and there with light-red, purple, and yellow. But the stillness was deathlike, and the form which I had half expected to see coming downstairs or peeping at me from above did not appear. Then, as suddenly as the voice of the old clock had spoken, a board or a door creaked somewhere above ; and I went towards it, up the steps, which groaned out a yvarning of my approach. I passed the landing, with its seat in the recess of the window, and groped my way further on, for beyond all lay in the darkness of a closed and shuttered house. I only knew when I had reached the top of the stairs by the feeling that my feet yvere on a level floor ; but, putting up both hands until I touched a wall, I speedily arrived at a closed door, and opened it.

THE HOUSE OF FEAR 13 Grey twilight filtered through a couple of broken-paned, dusty windows, but it served to break the darkness, and by its poor assistance I discovered other doors along the passage, and flung them open, too. Thus I had light enough on my path to know where it led, and I slowly progressed in what I judged to be the direction of some other hidden stairway at the right, which must lead to the clock-tower and the bed chamber of the murdered woman. There was, I discovered, another shorter and narrower passage, which led off the main one ; and, avoiding a flight of stairs at the left, which would have doubtless taken me into another wing, I came upon a half-open door shutting away the stairs, which from this story wound up into the tower. The rusty hinges creaked dismally as the door swung back, and once more, from the murder-haunted regions over my head, came the sound of a furtive footstep on a loose board.

I went up the few steps, which brought me to another landing and a door. This I knew must open into the room where, a few years ago, the murder had taken place — a room never slept in, never lived in, from that day to this. It was not latched, and I pushed gently against it until it moved away from my hands and showed me the dim interior of a furnished chamber. There was the big canopied bed, its draperies rotting away from the frame, a chest of drawers, two or three chairs, and a large wardrobe set with a mirror in the door, which, being opposite a broken-shuttered window, caught a ghostly reflection from the dying light outside. Behind a dark, torn curtain I could see a second door, which would lead out to the stairway on the other side, and so up to the works of the clock. As it appeared that the room was empty, I decided to carry my explorations above, where the elusive presence must have betaken itself ; but as I walked across the thick carpet I was brought to a sudden standstill by the rush and rustle of something jumping from the bed to the floor.

I had stopped facing the mirror, and it was in its pallid depths that I saw reflected what sent the blood back upon my heart with a throb. In a flash the story told by the landlady at the inn had come back to me : The spirit of the girl doomed every night to repeat the crime which had cost her her liberty, and at last (indirectly) her life — the wicked ghost which, having strangled its aged benefactress in the bed, leaped to the floor, wringing its hand, bitten to the bone, and so, with moanings of remorse, fled down the tower stairs. As I stared into the mirror, the curtains shrouded the bed and aught it might contain in ominous shadow ; but the eerie light sifting through the shutters revealed the figure of a tall woman in grey, reflected, spirit-like, in the glass, as she stood behind me in the centre of the floor.

Chapter II

A WOMAN IN GREY. I stepped hastily to the window, and, throwing wide the shutters, looked at her as I had never looked at any woman in my life before. I felt no more hesitation in examining every feature, every distinctive peculiarity of her dress, than I would if she had been a picture or a statue. She was very beautiful, surprisingly beautiful, with a strange, unearthly loveliness (if it were not the effect of the time and place) which might have belonged to Undine. She was as slim as she was tall, and, as she stood fearlessly answering my gaze, she swayed a little, like a lily in the wind. Her face was pale and pure as the rich petals of a magnolia. Its only colour lay in the lips, which gleamed out from the whiteness of her skin, moist and crimson as carnations after rain, and the long dark arch of the brows and the lashes.

Whether her eyes were blue, or grey, or black, I could not tell ; but her hair, tossed back from the low Greek forehead without the suspicion of a fringe, was palest amber rather than golden. Her dress was of a light shade of pearl-grey cloth, or serge, made simply in modern fashion. A grey straw hat to match, with two or three soft plumes, I now observed that she held in one hand. It was the hand nearest the -window, therefore more distinctly visible than it would otherwise have been, and was so curiously gloved that, even in that moment of bewilder ment, I was additionally puzzled. Though I had been guilty of much staring — as was but natural, perhaps — it had somehow not, on the instant, occurred to me to speak. Drawing the hand with the hat in it quietly out of my sight, the Woman in Grey said : ' I suppose you took me for a ghost ?' Her voice was a sweet, low contralto, of a curiously haunting and penetrating quality. 'For a few minutes, I must confess/ I returned, 'you certainly had me at a disadvantage.' ' And still you consider me mysterious ?' she went on. ' Even more so than most women.' ' Perhaps, if I feel inclined, I shall puzzle you still more.

But I am not a tramp, I am not a thief, and I am not a ghost.' ' I should scarcely have taken you for either of the former. But may I ask you one question, even though you may intend to remain a mystery ? Did you wind the clock and cause it to strike a few minutes ago ?' ' I did.' ' With any particular object ?' ' Naturally. But that I am not bound to explain.' ' Perhaps I can guess it,' I said, fascinated by her beauty, her unexpectedness, her odd yet dainty manner, into for getting our gruesome surroundings. ' I am sure you cannot. But I can guess what you would guess. You would fancy I had wound the clock out of pure mischief — a freak rather youthful for my years — for the sake of surprising and startling the superstitious villagers, who haven't heard it strike for many years, perhaps.' ' I confess something of the sort was in my mind.' ' That is the second confession you have made to me in the last few minutes.

And yet I can see that you're a man of the world. I have accomplished my object in coming up here to this most sorrowful room, and now I shall go down. But perhaps your object is not yet accomplished?' ' It is, in discovering the mystery of the winding of the clock.' ' And in finding that it was only half the mystery. In that case, will you follow what remains of it ?' She went down the steps which led to the passage with many doors, and I followed, with a subtle fragrance of an unknown flower wafted back to me from her hair and from her draperies. Some strange and indefinable magnetism seemed borne from her personality to me — an electricity which thrilled and startled me. At the foot of the stairs she paused. ' You came here,' she said, ' to look over the house ?' 'Yes,' I answered, rather surprised — if anything said by this woman could surprise me now ; ' but it is so dark that ■' 'You would fain leave it to the ghosts.

You will come again to-morrow morning, then ?' ' Yes ; it will be better. I shall stay at the inn in the village to-night' ' Ah !' — it was a breath rather than an exclamation — ' you will stay at the inn. I, too, am at the inn. I should be glad if we might walk there together, if you have no objection.' ' If I had dared ' I began, but she cut me short in a matter-of-fact manner assumed for the occasion. ' Would you be very much astonished,' she asked abruptly, ' if I told you that I was a mind-reader ?' ' My power of being astonished has been slightly numbed for the present,' I returned. ' That is all the better ; it saves trouble. Well then, I read your mind. I see why you have come to the " House of Fear," and I can tell you your name. Do you believe that ?' I laughed courteously, evasively.

And by this time we had reached the front-door, which I had left open when I entered. ' Your name is Terence Darkmore.' After all, I could still be astonished. My thoughts travelled to the village inn ; but I had not told my name there, and, so far as I was aw-are, no one knew me in the neighbourhood. ' When you are not at your uncle's place in Essex, you are with him in London, at Portman Square. I can even tell you the number. But now you see that I know you. I know that you are a gentleman, and that I can safely ask a favour of you.' ' A hundred,' I murmured, staring at her half dazed. ' One will be enough — for the moment. There is a grave somewhere near the house that I must find before I return to the village. Will you go with me ?' ' A grave ?' I echoed vaguely. ' Yes ; on the Abbey land.

I hope that won't put you off buying the place ?' I murmured something, and added that I would feel she had paid me an honour in allowing me to be her companion. But as for guiding her ' I know you cannot do that,' she said. ' I ought to be able to find the spot. Not that I have ever seen it before, you know, but I have been told. And — here is a little plan of the house and grounds which may help me, I hope.' We were standing in the melancholy drive which led to the entrance, damp and muddy under its weeds with the rain of yesterday. It must now have been nearly six o'clock, and, as the last day of October was approaching, the twilight had already deepened almost to darkness. We could still easily see our way before us — the distant river lying like a sheet of steel, the low wooded hills in the far background — but I thought it would be difficult to decipher any details set forth on the small, slightly-yellowed bit of paper which the Woman in Grey took from the bosom of her dress. ' Have you matches ?' she inquired suddenly, peering at her map.

I drew a silver box from my pocket and struck a wax vesta. The little circle of yellow light fell on the paper the girl held, and over the delicate white hands which grasped its edges. I could not keep my eyes from the left hand, with the singular covering which I had first noticed in the clock-tower. It was ungloved, in the conventional sense of the word, but a set of thin gold rings, fastened together by the slenderest of chains, had been drawn over the four fingers, and even the thumb, while across the back of the hand lay a close netting (something resembling the mesh of an old-fashioned silk mitten), formed entirely of small pearls. This was again attached at the wrist to a narrow, closely-fitting bracelet of plain gold. Never before had I seen so peculiar an ornament for a woman's hand, and I did not now admire it.

It was too bizarre, too conspicuous, without being, in my opinion, artistic. As I stared at the thing she looked up suddenly, and I thought that a quick frown passed over her lovely face. ' Were you looking at my map ?' she said lightly. And yet there was a concealed anxiety in her tone. ' No. I She folded up the paper and thrust it back into her dress. • There are some rather interesting features in that little plan," she went on ; ' extremely interesting to any member of the Amory family— at least, so / should think. You had better put out your match. I don't need it any longer, thanks, and you will burn your fingers. I believe that I can find what I want at last.' The night seemed of a purple darkness for a moment when the match went out. Then it lightened again ; but the moon was down, and a black bank of clouds was growing in the west.

A damp wind that came up from the river ruffled my companion's amber hair, and she lifted the hand with the pearls to smooth it into place, but, with a glance at me, changed it quickly for its fellow in a glove of suede. 'We shall come to the Abbot's Walk presently,' said the Woman in Grey. It was the first time the silence had been broken since the hiding away of the map. ' But I thought you had never been here before,' I caught her up quickly. ' I did not say that. I told you I had never seen the grave I am seeking. I have been here — as a child.' All the buoyancy of her manner was gone. Something moved her almost beyond her self-control. What, I could not tell, though I would have given much if I had dared to ask. Not so daring, I was silent, and we came forth upon a path which ran along the moat. ' The Abbot's Walk,' I repeated reflectively. ' Here it must have been, then, or somewhere close by, that the mutinous monks pushed the poor old chap in after the treasure that he had sunk in a bag under the stagnant water.

I heard the story to-day, and how neither the body nor the treasure was ever found. I think, if I come here to live, I must have a look for them.' And I laughed. ' I wouldn't waste my time, if I were you,' she said. ' If you are coming to live here, you may be able to make much better use of it, if the story that your face tells be not another proof that appearances are deceiving.' ' What does my face tell ?' I asked. ' That you are a man who thinks. What will you do for me if I give you a clue ?' ' A clue to the use I am to make of my time ?' •Ah, I was right ! You do think, and quickly. Yes ; that was what I meant. I hold the end of the skein.' She was looking at me through the darkness which ever drooped lower, like a pair of dusky, brooding wings. Her face and hair gleamed moon-like, indistinct, her features scarcely distinguishable, save the great mysterious eyes, which glowed with the deep lustre of jewels. ' Who are you ?' I cried suddenly, abruptly.

I had not meant to ask the question, but it came, in spite of myself. ' That does not signify. For to-night I remain simply a clock-winder !' Her laugh rang out girlishly. ' But you have not answered my question. What will you give for a clue ?' ' Is there something you would have me do for you ? If so, I assure you it is unnecessary to offer me a bribe.' ' I always like to give good value for what I receive. I do want something in particular of you, though, after all, it is just possible that I shall get it without your aid. You may scarcely believe it, but frankly I turned clock-winder for the express purpose of obtaining this one thing.' Her frankness was more abstruse than other women's mysteries. ' I don't understand you !' I exclaimed. ' How odd it would be if you did ! I don't always under stand myself.

The favour I want of you is, to arrange that I shall meet your uncle, Sir Wilfrid Amory.' A vague suspicion of the woman began to mingle with my unutterable bewilderment. ' You wish to meet my uncle. Why ?' ' There are so many reasons, any one of which might be the correct one. Sir Wilfrid is a man whom everybody wants to know. Maybe I am vulgarly ambitious, and have a desire to meet celebrities. Maybe it is because he may come to live in a place in which I am — interested. Maybe I write for the papers, and am anxious to "interview" him. Of all these " maybe's," I give you your choice.' ' If you would tell me your true reason ' I began ; but she cut me short. ' A man of the world asks a woman for her reason ! I want to meet Sir Wilfrid, because — I want to meet him. I have asked you a favour — a very simple one, I thought, for, after all, though you and I have come strangely into each other's lives, you know no evil of me.' Her voice was sweet as a siren's as she accused me of 2—2 refusing her a favour which would have been easy to grant, and, smitten with a weak remorse, I said that I had not refused.

If she would tell me how, I would promise that she should know my uncle. After all, though she had been so eager to extort the promise, I do not think she heard it when it came. We had been progressing slowly along the Abbot's Walk, the moat on one side, a row of gnarled, withered elms on the other ; but now she stopped abruptly, and I heard her draw in her breath with a gasp that was almost a sob. ' Over there — is the grave,' she whispered, pointing. My eyes followed the direction of her finger, and I saw the pale gleam of a stone among the grass. It stood up, tall and straight, under a tree outside the row of elms — a lonely thing, which spoke of death and desolation. ' Come !' she said. Mechanically I followed, through the sodden tangle of weeds, untU she and I stood together by the side of the mound.

I did not know who lay buried there. I had not known an hour ago that such a grave existed. And yet, somehow, my heart was stirred. The low billow of earth had assumed a weird import in my mind. ' Will you strike two or three matches, and let them burn in a bunch ?' she asked. I did so, and the flame rose steadily, sheltered in the hollow of my hand. The concentration of light shut the curtain of darkness more closely round us. Away in the moat the frogs gurgled hoarsely, with an occasional splash of water, and the rising wind wailed among the trees on the hill like a spirit in distress. ' Florence Haynes. Died July 11th, 1892. Aged twenty four.' I read the short epitaph aloud. And the name rang in my memory with the knowledge that I had heard it before — that it had to do with some unpleasant associations which I could not yet recall.