Mrs. Molesworth - The Grim House

We walked, too, quite long distances now and then, and several times, both walking and driving, we passed the high walls which surrounded Grimsthorpe House, the object of so much curiosity and speculation on my part.

As Isabel had warned me, there was but little to be seen of the house itself, except from one side, where a rise in the road enabled passers-by to look down, as it were, on the place.

And worthy of its name did it look, – “grim” indeed, as it was called.

It was a square grey building, with narrow windows in straight rows. There was nothing about it in the very least picturesque or attractive, for it was far too modern to at all suggest anything mediaeval or mysterious; it was just thoroughly ugly and forbidding. Yet to me it was full of fascination. We never passed the point of view in question without my begging Isabel to stop and have a good look at it, which at last she began to be rather unwilling to do.

“I think really it is getting on your brain, Regina,” she said. “I almost wish I had never told you anything about it.”

“As if any one could have helped noticing it,” I exclaimed. “But for the neatly kept grounds” – for neat they were, so far as one could see, though with nothing ornamental about them at this season at least – “one could be tempted to think it was a prison or a workhouse.”

“Prisons and workhouses are models of neatness, I believe,” said Isabel. “But certainly these gardens could not belong to anything of the kind. And there are flowers at one side of the house later on in the year. I have an idea that the younger brother – the cripple – looks after them.”

“Have you ever seen him gardening?” I asked eagerly.

Isabel shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she replied, “I have never seen one of the family except in church.”

“I am longing for Sunday,” I said. For though I had already been more than a week at Millflowers, I had not yet been to the village church, as on my first Sunday there we had driven some miles in a different direction, by Mr Wynyard’s wish, to hear a noted preacher who happened to be visiting in that neighbourhood.

We were standing just then, Isabel and I, on the rising ground I have spoken of, and my eyes were fixed on Grimsthorpe.

“No,” I went on, “I have never seen anything so strange. It might be an enchanted – not ‘palace,’ it is too ugly for that. I don’t know what to call it. We have stood here some minutes, and there has not been the very slightest sign of life to be seen or heard. Not even a dog barking. How do they manage to make even their servants as noiseless and invisible as themselves?”

“You are drawing on your imagination a little,” said Isabel, smiling. “There is a gardener mowing the grass in that corner. See!” and she pointed it out, “and – yes! there is the baker’s cart driving up the back entrance.”

I was almost disappointed by her matter-of-factness.

“You are so desperately unromantic,” I said impatiently. “You needn’t have pointed out the gardener and the baker!” And in my own mind I thought that I would keep my curiosity more to myself in the future. “I don’t believe Isabel would at all sympathise in any plan for getting to know these people!” but in this I did her injustice.

That very evening, just as it was beginning to get dusk, Isabel was called away by her father, as not infrequently happened, to do some writing for him. I was not inclined to stay indoors, so I ran upstairs to fetch my outdoor things, telling Isabel as I went, that I was going for a stroll on my own account, to pass the time that she was with her father.

Scarcely conscious of any intention of the kind, I turned nevertheless in the direction of the mysterious house. It was too late to have climbed up the hilly road referred to; besides, the fading light would have made it impossible to distinguish anything. So I contented myself with skirting the high wall of the grounds on the side nearer the Manor-house. I had walked about three-quarters of a mile, and was beginning to think it was time to return, when, standing still for a moment in consideration, I heard, in the perfect silence which seemed to pervade the locality, the sound of approaching footsteps. I glanced round, but no one was to be seen on the road, and as the steps drew nearer and more distinct, I became aware that they were those of some one on the inner side of the wall. I stood listening more and more intently, when, to my surprise and almost alarm, a figure appeared before me on the path, several yards beyond the spot I had reached. It was that of a person who had emerged from within; the fact being, though I was not then aware of it, that there was a door in the wall a little farther on.

Half confused, half frightened by this sudden apparition, I remained motionless, in what must have appeared a bewildered way to the newcomer. But before my fears had time to increase, the sound of a voice, unmistakably that of a gentleman, reassured me. Till he was close to me it was too dusky to distinguish his features clearly, but I saw him lift his hat as he approached.

“Excuse me,” he said. “May I ask if you have possibly seen a pocket-book on the path about here? I think I must have dropped it – not far off – an hour or two ago, and very few people pass this way.”

My curiosity, as well as my sympathy, was at once awakened.

“It must be,” I thought to myself, “one of the Greys. Perhaps they come out here more than is known, for a little change. How I wish I had found the pocket-book; it might have been an opening!”

But to him I could only reply —

“No, I am sorry I have seen nothing of the kind. It has been almost too dark, though, to see it, as I have only just now come straight up the road.”

Even now, close as we were, I could not distinguish his face very clearly, for the waning light was still further decreased by clouds. I saw, however, that he was anxious and worried, though, looking at him as attentively as I dared, I was surprised to see that he was not an elderly man, as from Isabel’s description the older brother must be.

“And it cannot be the younger,” I thought, “as he is crippled, and this man walks quite easily.”

He thanked me, and passing me, again raising his hat, walked quickly along the road, down which I was about to retrace my steps.

I waited a moment or two, and then followed him at a more leisurely pace. But I had not gone more than a hundred yards or so when I saw again his figure emerging from the gloom before me. In spite of myself I felt a little afraid. The modern ghost is so very material and commonplace in appearance, by all accounts, that one may easily mistake it for a real flesh and blood personality.

“Can this path be haunted?” I asked myself, and as the stranger came nearer I involuntarily shrank up a little towards the wall.

But as he was passing, the cheerful tones of his voice dispelled my misgivings. He made an almost imperceptible pause in his quick pace, exclaiming —

“I have found it! So sorry to have troubled you!” then hurried on, doubtless to enter the grounds at the same spot whence he had emerged, and where my common-sense told me there must be a door of some kind.

“I shall make Isabel come this way to-morrow to look for it,” I said to myself, and I hurried home, eager to relate to her my exciting adventure.

She was looking out for me, walking up and down the drive.

“I could have come with you if you had waited five minutes. Papa only wanted me for a moment or two, after all. It is rather too dark for you to be out alone, and I didn’t know which way you had gone,” she said.

“O Isabel!” I exclaimed. “Something so interesting has happened;” and I quickly related the incident, my friend listening attentively.