Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [33]
An age it seemed I lay there, with all thought suspended, until I felt of a sudden that I should sooner die from fright of an apparition, than sweat in my bed from foolish fancies. I threw back the bedcovers, swung a cold foot to the floor, and crept to the door as soundlessly as I knew how. It but remained to turn the knob quietly and slowly, to crack the door an inch or two, and peer around the jamb.
In the dimness of the hall I saw him: a tall, gaunt figure dressed in the outmoded fashion of nearly two centuries past. A gossamer veiling concealed his head, which bore a long wig of cascading dark curls; his shoes were heeled and pitched forward in the fashion of the long-dead Sun King, and from their precarious perch he seemed to plod down the gallery on the tips of his toes. Cobwebs hung from his fingers, and from the hem of his satin coat; he was as dusty as a tailor's dummy fetched from a forgotten attic. The very shade of the First Earl, called from the dead to mourn the late Frederick; and to my thankfulness, the spectre had passed and was departing with turned back. I readied myself to observe him glide through the wall at the gallery's nether end, when he stopped before a closed chamber door, listening in the stillness, never moving a spectral muscle. I felt my skin prickle with consciousness. Would that he did not turn his face and stare with terrible eyes upon my night-clad form! But perhaps he felt the weight of my gaze; there could be no other cause for such suspension of purpose. The door before which he halted led to Fitzroy Payne's apartments; and I prayed for that gentleman to awake, and fright the ghost back into the ether, until I recollected that Lord Scargrave was even still bent over his uncle's papers in the late Earl's library. I drew breath, and disturbed the stillness; and with that, the shade's head began to turn.
I shot back around the doorjamb, my breathing and pulse quickening, waiting for the wrath of the undead to descend upon my room; but all remained silent—no creaking boards, no ghostly wind progressing down the hall. The spectre had not moved. Summoning my courage, I peeked back into the hall and saw with relief that the First Earl had vanished. Movement alone must be adequate to dispel a wraith; but I did not care to test the efficacy of my exorcism. I bolted the oak, fled to my bed, and pulled the covers over my head; and when the boards creaked once more, not long thereafter, I merely burrowed deeper.
AND SO I AM COME TO MY TWENTY-SEVENTH YEAR, WITH the bleary eyes and pale complexion of one robbed of sleep. My birthday has dawned with little of cheer to mark it; the sky is a lowering grey, and a chill wind rattles the leafless trees. I declare that I feel old this morning, despite the gallantries of Lieutenant Tom Hearst (more concerning that in time). There was less of the frightening in being five-and-twenty, or even six-and-twenty, than I feel today. There is something so inevitable about seven-and-twenty; it is decidedly on the wrong side of the decade for a lady, particularly an unmarried one. But none here at Scargrave is apprised of my birthday, and so I would keep it; too much of a serious nature demands our attention.
Having slept rather heavily in the wake of the ghost's visit, I was a full half-hour late for breakfast. Tho’ the custom at home is to take one's chocolate and rolls at ten o'clock, the sideboard in Scargrave's pretty little morning room is laid an hour earlier, as befits a country household. I thought to find the table deserted, and rejoiced at the prospect of solitude; the peace of bright yellow walls and fresh muslin curtains—a rare note of cheer amidst Scargrave's ponderous decoration—should be my reward for dissipation.
But to my surprise,