The Wyvern Mystery

In the small breakfast parlour of Oulton, a pretty girl, Miss Alice Maybell, with her furs and wrappers about her, and a journey of forty miles before her⁠—not by rail⁠—to Wyvern, had stood up to hug and kiss her old aunt, and bid her goodbye.

“Now, do sit down again; you need not be in such a hurry⁠—you’re not to go for ten minutes or more,” said the old lady; “do, there’s a darling.”

“If I’m not home before the sun goes down, aunt, Mr. Fairfield will be so angry,” said the girl, laying a hand on each shoulder of kind old Lady Wyndale, and looking fondly, but also sadly, into her face.

“Which Mr. Fairfield, dear⁠—the old or the young one?”

“Old Mr. Fairfield, the Squire, as we call him at Wyvern. He’ll really be angry, and I’m a little bit afraid of him, and I would not vex him for the world⁠—he has always been so kind.”

As she answered, the young lady blushed a beautiful crimson, and the old lady, not observing it, said⁠—

“Indeed, I don’t know why I said young⁠—young Mr. Fairfield is old enough, I think, to be your father; but I want to know how you liked Lord Tremaine. I told you how much he liked you. I’m a great believer in first impressions. He was so charmed with you, when he saw you in Wyvern Church.

The excited nerves of children people the darkness of the nursery with phantoms. The moral and mental darkness of suspense provokes, after its sort, a similar phantasmagoria. Alice Maybell’s heart grew still, and her cheeks paled as she looked with most unreasonable alarm upon the carriage, which had come to a standstill.

There was, however, the sense of a great stake, of great helplessness, of great but undefined possible mischiefs, such as to the “lookout” of a rich galleon in the old piratical days, would have made a strange sail, on the high seas, always an anxious object on the horizon.

And now Miss Alice Maybell was not reassured by observing the enemy’s driver get down, and taking the horses by the head, back the carriage far enough across the road, to obstruct their passage, and this had clearly been done by the direction of the lady in the carriage.

They had now reached the point of obstruction, the driver pulled up; Miss Maybell had lowered the chaise window and was peeping. She saw a tall woman, wrapped up and reclining, as I have said. Her face she could not see, for it was thickly veiled, but she held her hand, from which she had pulled her glove, to her

Happy as she was, I cannot tell what effect these faintly lighted glimpses of old and desolate rooms, aided by the repulsive companionship of her ancient guide, may have insensibly wrought upon her imagination, or what a trick that faculty may have just then played upon her senses, but turning round to enter the gallery under the open arch, the old woman standing by her, with the candle raised a little, Alice Fairfield stepped back, startled, with a little exclamation of surprise.

The ugly face of old Mildred Tarnley peeped curiously over the young lady’s shoulder. She stepped before her and peered, right and left, into the gallery; and then, with ominous inquiry into the young lady’s eyes, “I thought it might be a bat, my lady; there was one last night got in,” she said; “but there’s no such a thing now⁠—was you afeared of anything, my lady?”

“I⁠—didn’t you see it?” said the young lady, both frightened and disconcerted.

“I saw’d nothing, ma’am.”

“It’s very odd. I did see it; I swear I saw it, and felt the air all stirred about my face and dress by it.”

“On here, miss⁠—my lady; was it?”

“Yes; here, before us. I⁠—weren’t you looking?”

“Not that way, miss⁠—I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, something fell down before us⁠—all the way⁠—from the top to the bottom of this place.”

And with a slight movement of her hand and eyes, she indicated the open archway before which they stood.

“Oh, lawk! Well, I dare to say it may a bin a fancy, just.”

“Yes; but it’s very odd⁠—a great heavy curtain of black fell down in folds from the top to the floor just as I was going to step through.

Here followed a pause, as when a train is fired and men are doubtful whether the mine will spring. The leaves rustled and the flies hummed happily outside as if those seconds were charged with nothing, and the big feeble bee, who had spent the morning in walking up a pane of glass and slipping down again, continued his stumbling exercise as if there was nothing else worth attending to for a mile round Carwell Grange.

Harry had set both heels on the ground at this talismanic word; one hand clenched had come from his pocket to his thigh, and from his eyes “leaped” the old Fairfield fury.

It was merely, as Harry would have said, the turn of a shilling, whether a Fairfield battle, short, sharp, and decisive, had not tried the issue at that instant.

“I don’t vally a hot word spoke in haste; it’s ill raising hands between brothers⁠—let it pass. I’m about the last friend ye’ve left just now, and I don’t see why ye should seek to put a quarrel on me. It’s little to me, you know⁠—no thanks, loss o’ time, and like to be more kicks than ha’pence.”

Harry spoke these words after a considerable pause.

“I was wrong, Harry, I mean, to use such a word, and I beg your pardon,” said Charles, extending his hand to his brother, who took his fingers and dropped them with a rather short and cold shake.

Again she heard the same stealthy sound, as of something cutting or ripping. Again she cried, “Hish, hish!” but with no effect. She fancied at the far corner of the room, about as high as she could easily reach, that she saw some glittering object. It might be a little bit of looking-glass pass slowly and tremulously along the wall, horizontally, and then with the same motion, in a straight line down the wall, glimmering faintly in the candle light. At the same time was a slight trembling of that part of the wall, a slight, wavy motion, and⁠—could she believe her eyes?⁠—a portion of the wall seemed to yield silently, an unsuspected door slowly opened, and a tall figure wrapt in a flannel dress came in.

This figure crouched a little with its hand to its ear, and moved its head slowly round as if listening in all directions in turn. Then softly, with a large hand, it pushed back the door, which shut with a little snap, as if with a spring-lock.

Alice all this time was gazing upon the visitor, actually freezing with terror, and not knowing whether the apparition was that of a living person or not. The woollen-clothed figure, with large feet in stockings, and no shoes on, advanced, the fingers of one hand sliding gently along the wall.