THE ROKEBY GHOST.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 23

THE ROKEBY GHOST.

• Simply perfect, Bess,' said Miss Lawrence, sinking down in the depths of a great easy chair after a tour - of her friend's country house. • 1 don't wonder- you.and Dick seized upon it at once—rats, bats, ghost, and. " all.' • - ► . ' We've driven off the rats and bats,' laughed ' the little hostess 1 , as she poured a welcome cup of tea, 'and as for the ghost, we don't talk ior think about him.' • Why nat ? ' askpd Miss Lawrence ligfitly. 'An oldfashioned ghost is a delightful addition to an establishment, in these prosaic days. I should make every effort to retain the ghost, Bess. It is so patrician.' 4 Of course some of us believe in such things,' said little Mrs. .Winters, dropping another lump of sugar in her friend's cup. ' Still there are always so many stories ajbfcmt an old house like this. The Rokebys came over with Lord Baltimore, you know, and the family have owned the place ever since. And it was entailed in the old English fashion, so they couldn't sell. And Jack Rokeby— you know him, Nell.' ' Yes, 1 answered Miss Lawrence briefly, a delicate flush rising to her cheek. ' Well, he has nothing left to speak of, except that old place — with an invalid mother and two sisters on his hands, and he was glad to let us have it at a rent I am almost ashamed to tell. The doctor said Dick ought to live an out-door life for a year or two after his sjell of typhoid. So when we came back from our honeymoon in Florida, Dick brought me down to see the place,, and I lost my heart at once.' ' I don't wonder,' said Miss Lawrence, looking up at the old colonial mantel, upheld by carved pillars 'bearing the Rokeby crest. *It is just the place for lovers to live and dream.' ' I suppose it is,' was the response, ' only Dick and I are not the dreaming sort. To us it seemed just the place for house parties and hunting parties, and all sorts of jollifications. Twenty rooms at least, my dear, with no one knows how many more walled up.' 4 Walled up ! T exclaimed 'Miss Lawrence, opening her violet eyes in wide amaze. ' Yes, Jack told us there were one or two rooms sealed up. One is the old Romish chapel. It seems that the Rokebys were an o,ld Catholic family in England. Dated back to the Crusades. All sorts of dreadful things happened to them in the times of persecution; they lost their home and their fortune and several of them their heads for their faith, and finally they came over here with the Calverts, who gave them a grant of this manor. And they had their own chapel — and— Mass —don't you call it ?— and a priest here — even when they had to hide him to save his neck. And so when, about seventy years ago, the son and heir of the house gave up his faith while abroad at a German university, and married a Protestant wife, it created excitement, as you may guess.' ' . i • It ' Naturally,' said- Miss Lawrence warmly ; ' I am a Catholic myself, you know, Bess, and can understand what apostacy' means to such a race of martyrs and saints.' ' They say it broke his mother's heart. She is the lady in the Empire gown, whose portrait you saw downstairs. But the old father was of sterner stuff — he tried to disinherit his son, but the entail still held in those days, and he could not prevent Rokeby Manor from falling into his heir's hands. So he had the chapel, which had been a holy place for so long, walled up that it might not be profaned or dishonored. And . where he left his money no one knew. His son concluded it must have been given away in secret charity, for the old gentleman got strange and moody at the last, and lived and died here alcne with the exception of a few trusty slaves? It is his ghost that is supposed to walk— and really I don't wonder*. The Rokeby fortunes are going down in a wa,y to rouse any "right-minded ancestor. As Jack told Dick, things have touched bottom rock with him. He is too poor to marry for love, and too proud to marry for money, so he is likely to prove the last of the Rokeby name and line. 'But goodriessgracious ! here lam chattering away, forgetting my Nesselrode pudding that Chloe can never manage alone. We dine at seven, Nell. Look your prettiest ; Dick has half a dozen fine fellows down for the duck-shooting all ready to fall victims to your charms.' And the pretty little housewife of a year flitted away, leaving her guest to think over the light, careless words with a pain stirring; in her heart that those who knew Helen Lawrence best would never have guessed.

'But Miss Lawrence was a woman of the world and women of the world often walk its glittering ways with hearts as veiled and silent aa those of the cloister hearts that break and die and make no sign, When she floated into the' dining-room that night a radiant, vision in filmy white, the violets that followed . this reigning ,belle everywhere blcoming on her breast her snowy throat banded with pearls, the six bold hunters succumbed „ without a struggle. --• - „„■ All the evening ~sfie : held gay -gSHELdn- the .-great Manor. Hall, where -huge hickory l<sgs hlazing and crack- * fing in -the big chimney-place showed the old. Crusader's shield of the RoKebys, wilh its cross and sword and proud motto, ' Dieu et mon droit.' - ' . - •-__ All the evening, -as she laughed "and jested,": ihe< grave, tender -eyes : of - .the pictured Rokebys on the wairiscotted walls seemed to rest .upon her. . DespiteLthe love locks and doublets, the eyes seemed to pierce- her heart with unforgotten pain. ~v-!"~ v - ! " - - Not six months ago eyes just like, these had. looked i into hers with a hopeless' love the lips had been > too I proud to spea'*. For Miss Lawrence was heiress, as well as tteauty, and Jack Rakeby was bound by strong fetters of duty, the last of his ruined . race." It was with a sigh of relief that she entered her own room that night, glad to drop her glittering mask and be at rest. ' You can go, Margaret,' she said to the maid who was awaiting !ler ; ' i will not need you to-night. 1 1 Let me stay with you, miss,' said the girl. ' It's such a strange, lonely place, and the housemaid has been telling me how the rooms over here are haunted. I '-don't like lea\ing you alone.' ' Nonsense,' said the young lady. ' I thought you had more sense than to listen to such foolishness, Margaret. There are no such things as ghosts, as you have been taught and ought to Know.' ' They were saying this was the worst room of all,' continued the girl uneasily. ' Mrs. Rokeby, the old lady, was fairly driven out of it with the moanings and the rappings. And the candles are flaring, as you can see, miss, without a breath blowing on them. The maids were telling me they always flare and flicker in here, and there's a cold draught, like that from an open vault, even on a summer night. It is the room where the old squire died, him that put the ban on the place. They say you can hear his cane tap, tapping, just as When he walked in life, miss.' ' How perfectly silly ! ' laughed the young, lady. ' I am not in the least afraid of the old squire or his cane, and I prefer to be alone. Put another log on the fire, Margaret, and go to bed.' And as the girl reluctantly obeyed Miss Lawrence locked and bolted her chamber door and flung herself in the great easy chair before the hearth to dream hopeless dreams. This old house had put a spell upon her she had never felt before. Though scores of princely mansionshad been open to her qjueendom, none had charmed her like this. It seemed to call her, to hold her, to claim her for its own— the old ivy-veiled walls closing around her seemed to take her to the heart of things. And how she could lift its shadow, how she could brighten and bless it, how sweet it would be to unseal its closed sanctuary, and let the light of faith shine out once more from its hallowed walls ! But this could never be, she felt, with a hopeless pang. Stronger even than the love she had read in its master's earnest eyes was his pride. ! ' You will come to see me in town next winter ?" she had asked when they had parted last spring at the friend's where they had met, at an Easter house-party. ',-No,' he had answered, and she had almost winced I at the despairing clasp that had wrung her little hand. 1 ' I—lI — I dare not — it would \>e madness. This is goodrbye.' "Good-bye ! ' The wind had sounded like a knell in i her ear — the death knell of a sweet, womanly hope. It seemed echoing throuah his old home to-night in tender, sorrowful plaint. The old home in which she could only poise like a brilliant winged bird, and where, she -must not rest. ' Good-bye ! ' Phe leaned back in the- soft, cushioned chair and let the tears that had" gathered in her violet eyes fall freely, tears that she had held back s all the evening, and that even her f aithful - Margaret must not see. And as she sat there, abandoned to her grief, a cold breath swept over her that made her start. It was like the touch "of j>n icy hand. The lace ruffles on the toilet table stirred, "the candle flickered, -flared, and went out. And tap, tap, in the-suddpn darkness, came the sound of a ghostly" cane. - The dreamer sprang to her feet, her blood for the moment chilled}. But ifc was heroic "blooxL, Helen Lawrence had been trained to wisdom and courage beyond her years. . - -

- She held back the cry of alarm that she felt would only add to the shadow on the old house, and tc its master's embarrassments. The ruddy light from the leaping fire emboldened her to pause and reason. The sudden draught must come from some opening, a door or window which she had overlooked. She re-lit the candle with steady hand, and, holding it high abo\e her head began her search. The two windows were closed, the door bolted and locked securely, the oak-panelled walls .seemingly intact But the shadow of the high-curtained bed fell heavily in one corner, and as the girl neared it the ghostly draught swept icily upon her, heavy with earthly damp. lap, tap, tap came the chilling sound, and tho flaring light of the candle fell uocn a figure— the dim, shadowy figure of an old, white-haired man leaning on a cane. In a sudden madness of terror, she flung the silver candlestick she held at the grisly presence. There was a crash, a shock of blinding pain, and aIJ was blank. • ' Nell, Nell, oh, Nell darling,' little Mrs. Winter's voice was the first sound that reached her guest. ' Oh, thank God ; she is opening her eyes at last ! Do you know me, Nell ? ' "Bess, dear, yes ; what— what has happened ? ' Miss Lawrence lifted a hand that seemed strangely heavy to her bandaged brow. ' Oh, don't— don't talk, dear, please. The doctor said you must keep very quiet, 1 said the»little lady hysterically. ' You'ro sas3 again, quite safe, Nell. Oh we've all been wild about you for the last six hours. To think of my putting you in that dreadful room. Oh don't, don't thjnk about it, dear.' ' ' The room ! ' repeated the sick girl, her eyes widening with remembered horror ; ' the dreadful room— the draught— the tap— oh, Bess, what— what was it'? Are there indeed gihostsr- that— that cannot rest ? ' ' ' Oh, no, dear, no ! Don't look like that, Nell, there was no ghost at all, dear ; there ne\er has been. It -was only the picture of eld Martin Rokeby that fell on you, Nell, when you were bravely looking around, I suppose, for the strange sound. It seems that there was a door behind it "of which no one knew. 'A door whose rusty fastenings had given way, and that sometimes blew open a little, swinging to and fro against the picture, making the strange tap, tap, like an old man's cane. The door opened into the old chapel, and oh, such things as we found hidden there ; gold ' and jewels and family plate— all old Martin Rokeby's vanished wealth. We sent for Jack at once, but the poor fellow has not given a thought to his treasures, he has been so distracted about you. Gave himself dead away before everybody. He is madly in love, as we all can see. Now you must go to sleep— or I'll be simply torn to nieces for talking so much to you, Nell. Your face is flushing up with fever now— do shut your eyes and go tc sleep, please.' And though the little hostess' methods would doubtless have been criticised by a scientific nurse, they proved eminently successful. In suite of the talking, Miss Lawrence began to improve with astonishing rapidity from that moment. Within a week she was downstairs, with her soft hair rippling on the bruise on her temple' and the gentle languor of con alescence only adding to her charms. Mrs. Winter's other guests had discreetly vanishod— only the master of Ro cby remained to watch the red flush deepening on Miss Lawrence's cheek, the starry light brightening in her beautiful eyes. Seated i n the carved arm chair before the great log fire in the .Manor Hall, she seemed like some fair spirit sent to redeem the fallen fortunes of the race, for the hidden treasure her courage and daring had revealed brought the Rokebys independence, if not affluence, once more. 'It was a strange freak of my great-grandfather,' said the young heir of the house this evening as he sat at her side. 'We always understood that the old gen- , tleman grew very eccentric at the close of his life. The break with his son preyed upon his mind. After his death my grandfather never cared for the place ; he spent most of his life abroad, and the grounds were worked by tenant farmers. The house has been little but a burden for years— a burden we could ill afford.' ' But now surely the old rooftree, calls to you ? ' Miss Lawrence said gently. ' Surely you will come back ? ' ' That is for you to say,' was the eager, impassioned answer. ' Helen, beloved, I dare speak at last. Your touch has unsealed my lips. My home, my life, my heart are yours. , Will you kindle Ihe fijeside flame, the altar light, or leave them dark and desolate forever ? ' And in the starry beam of the beautiful eyes uplifted to his he read his answer.

• <f° x * ha PP e ned that there was a Christmas wedding ™ * Ol ? Rokeb y chapel, for the fair bride thus willed. The sturdy walls had withstood the years bravely • niOUJd and dust were soon cleared away— altar and sanctuary revealed again in all their beauty. The portrait of old Martin Rokeby, lifted again to a place of honor on the walls, seemed to smile in pale trumpn as, amid lights and flowers and bursts of glad music, the ,so,lemn \oice of the old Mother arose once more within the hallowed walls, blessing the children and the children's children of the young pair whose love had unsealed the closed sanctuary and banished the Rokeby ghost forever.—' Benziger's Magazine "