The Quiet Gentleman

Marianne clasped her own hands together, and fixed her eyes on his face. “Oh, no! Do you mean it? And is that the only ghost? Does it not enter the Castle?”

“I have never known it to do so,” he said truthfully. “Of course, we have not put you in the Haunted Room — that would never do! The noise of clanking chains would make it impossible for you to sleep, and the groans, you know, are dreadful to hear. You will not be disturbed by anything of that nature, I hope. And if you should happen to hear the sound of a coach-and-four under your window at midnight pay no heed!”

“For shame, Gervase!” exclaimed Theo, laughing, as Marianne gave an involuntary shudder.”

“What is that you are saying, St. Erth?” called the Dowager, breaking off her conversation with Ulverston. “You are talking a great deal of nonsense! If any such thing were to happen I would be excessively displeased, for Calne has orders to lock the gates every night.”

“Ah, ma’am, but what can locked gates avail against a phantom?”

“Phantom! Let me assure you that we have nothing of that sort at Stanyon! I should not countenance it; I do not approve of the supernatural.”

Her disapproval was without its effect, the gentlemen continuing to tease Marianne with accounts of spectres, and Martin achieving a decided success with a very horrid monkish apparition, which, when it raised its head, was seen to have only a skull under its cowl. “It is known as the Black Monk of Stanyon,” he informed Marianne. “It — it appears only to the head of the house, and then as a death-warning!”

She turned her eyes involuntarily towards Gervase. “Oh, no!” she said imploringly, hardly knowing whether to be horrified or diverted. “You are not serious!”

“Hush!” he said, in an earnest tone. “Martin should not have disclosed to you the Secret of Stanyon: we never speak of it! It is a very dreadful sight.”

“Well, I don’t know how you should know that,”remarked Miss Morville, a good deal amused. “You cannot have seen it, after all!”

“My dear Miss Morville, what makes you think so?”

“You are not dead!” she pointed out.

“Not yet!

”struck in Ulverston, in sepulchral accents. “We cannot tell, however, when we may find him stiff in his bed, his fingers still clutching the bell-rope, and an expression on his face of the greatest terror!”

“No, no! Oh, you are roasting me! I do not believe it!” Marianne said faintly.

Her cheeks were quite blanched, and she could not resist the impulse to look over her shoulder. The Earl judged it to be time to have done, and to assure her that the Black Monk existed only in Martin’s imagination. The Dowager set Lord Ulverston right on a little misapprehension, telling him that the bell-rope in the Earl’s bedchamber hung beside the fireplace, and was out of reach of the bed. This was an inconvenience which she continued to deplore until dinner was announced; and as Miss Morville, rallied on her lack of sensibility, said that she could not be terrified by tales of skeletons, since these could only be produced by human contrivance, Marianne’s alarms were soon sufficiently dispelled to enable her to eat her dinner with a good appetite, and not to suppose that if she glanced behind her at the footman about to present a syllabub to her she would discover him to be a fleshless monk.

The Dowager’s benevolence had not led her to make any plans for the entertainment of her young guest, but when she discovered that the party numbered eight persons, she directed that a second card-table should be set up, so that those who did not play whist with her might enjoy a rubber of Casino. “Mr. Clowne, and my nephew, Mr. Theo Frant, will make up our table,” she informed Lord Ulverston. “You, I know, will prefer to play whist!”

The grace with which the Viscount accepted this decree was only equalled by the dexterity with which he convinced her ladyship that she would be better amused by a game of speculation. To her objection that she had never played the game, he responded that it would afford him delight to teach her. He seated himself on her right hand; and not even Martin, whose jealous disposition made him at all times suspicious, could decide whether it was by chance, or deep stratagem, that Marianne was placed on his other side. To her he largely devoted himself, cheating himself to enable her to win fish, and keep her in a ripple of laughter with his inconsequent chatter. Fortunately for the Dowager, Mr. Clowne, who sat on her left, considered that it behoved him to direct her bids; and since she was acquisitive by nature it was not long before she grasped the principles of the game, and was making some pretty shrewd bids on her own account.

Seldom had an evening at Stanyon passed more merrily. No one noticed the appearance of the tea-tray, and it was very nearly midnight before the party broke up.