Rafael Sabatini - The Tapestried Room

"Very well, then," said our host reluctantly. "Since even the ladies insist, you shall hear it. But I warn you again that it is not a pleasant story."

There was a drawing-in of chairs about the big fireplace in the long library. Outside, the wind clamoured piteously, and through the tall windows the scudding, eddying snow was just visible in the blue-grey twilight. It heightened our relish of the cosy gloom about those blazing yule-logs.

Sir James, with the firelight playing upon his ruddy, shaven face and silver hair, buried his square chin in his ample stock, and proceeded to respond to our insistence by dragging the family skeleton from its cupboard.

"Briefly, then," he began, "it happened in Christmas-week of 1745. My grandmother, Lady Evangeline Margatt, was living here alone at the time; her husband was dead, and her two boys were away from home.

"Three days before Christmas a man presented himself here at the hall and asked to see her. He was a fugitive Jacobite whom King George's men had been seeking for some three months―ever since Culloden, in fact―and who had wandered into England. He had known Lady Evangeline in happier days, and it is believed that at one time they had been betrothed. Knowing her circumstances here, and having got as far as Preston and being in most desperate straits at the time, he came to cast himself upon her mercy.

"To receive and shelter a rebel was a very dangerous thing; but when sentiment prompts them, women can be very reckless. She gave him the shelter he begged, and announced him as a cousin to her household. But it happened that the messengers were hot upon his scent, and on the following evening, as Lady Evangeline and her Jacobite were sitting down to supper, in comes a lieutenant with a posse of red-coats, and my fine Jacobite was carried off and lodged in Preston Gaol.

"Whether her sometime lover believed that Lady Evangeline had betrayed him, or whether he acted from other motives, will never be known. What happened was that on Christmas Eve―that is to say, on the night after his arrest―he broke out of Preston Gaol whilst the guards were carousing. He made his way hither in the dead of night, scaled to the window of her ladyship's room, which is just over the porch; forced his way in, and brutally murdered her.

"He was taken at Lancaster on the day after Christmas, and he was hanged as he deserved. That is all."

A rustle went through the company as Sir James ceased. Then I sat forward to protest against this curtailing of the narrative we expected.

"But the sequel, Sir James―this haunting: what precisely is the traditional story of that?"

"The traditional story, my dear Dennison, is that on every anniversary of the crime the Jacobite is to be seen scaling to the window of the tapestried room―as Lady Evangeline's sometime bedroom has come to be called. It is said that he enters, and that the crime is committed all over again by a ghostly murderer upon a ghostly victim."

Edgeworth's laugh of frank contempt broke harshly upon the general awe. The story had left him undaunted. But then an Irishman who had landed at Lisbon as a lieutenant in 1810 and returned to England as a colonel a short five years later―just after Waterloo―is not easily daunted. "Of course you, yourself, attach no faith to any of this nonsense, James?" he exclaimed uncompromisingly.

As seen in the firelight, the baronet's face wore an expression of doubt as to what he actually did believe. "I don't know," he answered slowly. "I don't think that I either accept or reject the story. I have no proof. That is to say," he added, as if to temper the statement, "no proof afforded me by my own senses.

"But others have both seen and heard the ghost," put in Philip―Sir James's nephew and heir.

Colonel Edgeworth laughed again, softly, in frank derision. A slight frown momentarily drew Sir James's brows together. It was plain that he did not relish the colonel's contemptuous scepticism, which I secretly shared. Sir James was a man of intense pride in the family and in all that appertained to it; and the ghost, by its relation to the family, was a thing to be treated―like the religious opinions of another―with deference even when not accepted.

"On three separate occasions," he said, "I have been awakened in the small hours of Christmas morning by terrified servants with the announcement that there was some disturbance in the tapestried room."

"Probably a Christmas-party of rats," was Edgeworth's ready explanation. But no one laughed with him, whilst widowed Mrs. Hampton―the sister who kept house for Sir James―mildly repulsed the soldier's suggestion.

"Indeed, no, Colonel Edgeworth," she said. "The tapestried room is by no means given over to rats, as you seem to suppose. Whilst precisely as it was in the eighteenth century, at the time of the event of which we are speaking, it is, nevertheless, in every way kept just as if it were being occupied to-day."

The door opened at this moment, and the butler ushered in a couple of footmen bearing lamps and candles. There was a sigh of relief from the three ladies at the advent of lights―they came so very opportunely, to dissipate the eerieness which our topic had introduced into that darkening room.

Having drawn the curtains upon the ghostly weather outside, the servants noiselessly retired.

"It seems to me a little odd," I ventured then, "That you should never have been tempted to investigate this haunting for yourself, Sir James."

His ruddy face expanded in a smile. "Well―you see," he answered slowly, "it is said that to any member of the family the sight of the Jacobite is of evil omen―a warning, in fact, of approaching death. Now, I ride to hounds a good deal, and, well―." He caressed his neck affectionately, and one or two laughed softly with the amused indulgence which he seemed to solicit.

"That is a disappointing addition," I confessed.

"How?" he inquired.

"It brings your ghost-story down to the level of most other ghost-stories that I have ever heard. A household ghost's appearance to any member of the family invariably conveys a warning of approaching death. I am sorry, Sir James but you have shattered my faith in this Jacobite."

He looked so crestfallen that I began to regret my frankness. And then Edgeworth laughed again, and the crestfallen look on Sir James's face changed to one of annoyance, whilst the ladies looked at us with candid disapproval.

"But, Mr. Dennison," cried Philip's young wife, "Sir James has forgotten to tell you that his father saw the Jacobite on the day before he died."

"A perusal of the theories of M. Puységur will explain that," I answered, for I felt that I was committed now to a definite expression of opinion. "Sir James's father knew himself to be upon his deathbed, and he knew that it was usual for men of his house to see this Jacobite before they died; therefore he saw him."

"In imagination, of course," said Edgeworth, turning his bronzed face towards me.

"Of course," I answered. And then the idea occurred to me: "Anyway, the opportunity to investigate the matter is an excellent one. To-night is the anniversary. If you will allow me to spend the night in the tapestried room―"

"Oh, no, no! Please, Mr. Dennison!" exclaimed the baronet's sister, in agitation.

"But why not, Mrs. Hampton?" I insisted. "I am not afraid of ghosts."

"I really should prefer," said Sir James gravely, "that a guest of mine should not be subjected to any―any―" He fumbled for the word he needed and gave Edgeworth the opportunity of cutting in.

"Fudge!" said the soldier. "The fact of the matter is you're afraid of having this romantic bubble pricked."

For an instant our host's glance was almost choleric. Then, with a sudden smile, he turned to me again. "I will consent, Dennison," he said, "provided that you have a companion. Now, Edgeworth here, who professes to fear neither man nor devil, who sniffs at the very mention of ghosts―"