Queensland Cousins Part 8

"Mrs. Orban," called a voice softly--a familiar English-speaking voice; "Mrs. Orban, are you still up?"

Mother and son fell apart, and Eustace sprang to his feet.

"Why, it is Bob!" he exclaimed in bewilderment.

"Bob!" cried his mother. "Impossible!"

"Not a bit," said Bob Cochrane, coming round into the streak of lamplight, carrying his boots in his hands. "I just strolled over to see if you were all right. When I got to the steps it struck me I might startle you if I came thundering up, so I took my boots off and crept round to find out where you were. You were so quiet I thought you must have gone to bed and left the lights burning."

"We were talking, nevertheless, when you arrived," Mrs. Orban said, "for I was telling Eustace a story."

"I didn't hear you," Bob said. "Probably my heart was in my mouth, and beating so loud that it deafened me; for, of course, I knew I carried my life in my hand."

"Your life in your hand?" repeated Eustace wonderingly.

"Certainly. I felt sure you would bound on me with a revolver the moment you heard me, shoot me dead, and then demand an explanation.

It is the sort of ardent thing one might expect from a knight of your order, Sir Eustace."

Bob's chaff went deeper home than he meant it to. Eustace was in no mood for joking after the strain of the last few minutes. He hoped with all his heart that Mrs. Orban would not betray to Bob how terror-stricken he had just shown himself. Perhaps she understood, or it may be that she was half ashamed of her own unnecessary panic, for she only said,--

"It is really very good of you to have come in the face of that grave peril, and at such an hour too."

"Well, the fact is I wanted to," Bob said in his casual way, "and the mater insisted. I've left our old foreman sleeping in the house for to-night, and I thought I would just turn in with Eustace, if you don't mind."

"We shall be simply delighted," Mrs. Orban said, with a feeling of real relief.

"The mater wants me to take you all back to the Highlands early to-morrow," Bob went on; "you, Becky, and Eustace. She can't bear to think of your loneliness here. Do come and stay with us till Mr.

Orban comes back."

It was the kind of thought good, homely little Mrs. Cochrane was celebrated for. But Mrs. Orban shook her head.

"It is just like your mother to think of such a thing," she said, "and just like her son to be her messenger so readily, but I can't do it, Bob. I couldn't possibly leave the maids and the house to take care of themselves. Mary and Kate would be terrified."

"Oh, bother Mary and Kate!" said Bob.

"I should be _most_ bothered if they took it into their heads to run away and leave us, especially now that my sister is coming. No, really, I cannot leave home, much as I should enjoy it. Your mother, as an experienced housekeeper, will feel for me in that."

"We forgot the maids and the house," said Bob in a disappointed tone.

"It can't be helped," said Mrs. Orban lightly; "and, indeed, we are quite all right. There is nothing to be afraid of, and I have Eustace.--Which reminds me, old man, hadn't you better be off to bed? This is considerably later than I meant you to be."

"Oh but, mother," Eustace exclaimed, "what about Aunt Dorothy? I couldn't sleep without the rest of that story."

"Oh yes, do let's have the rest of the story first," pleaded Bob.

"There isn't much left now," said Mrs. Orban. "I was only telling him how we once lost Dorothy in a game of hide-and-seek when she was five years old. We had been hunting the house for hours; a sort of awful silence had fallen among us, as if we were expecting I don't know what--"

"When close upon midnight," quoted Eustace in a mysterious voice.

"There arose the cry of a terror-stricken child--shriek upon shriek--feeble because of the distance it was from the great hall, where we were all mustered in s.h.i.+vering silence, but distinct enough to be recognized as Dorothy's voice. I shall never forget it--it makes me shudder now--for the panic in that child's cry was appalling. What was being done to her? What awful pain was she in that she should shriek in such a way? Such were our thoughts as we hurried in a tumbling ma.s.s after father and mother. We reached the turret stairs, and father commanded every one with lanterns to go first and light the way. Right to the very top we went, into the little round room we called the Watchman's Nest, and here the sounds were loudest; but they were still m.u.f.fled, and there was not a sign of Dorothy anywhere."

"Was there any furniture for her to hide in?" asked Eustace, looking puzzled.

"One table, one chair," said Mrs. Orban, "and a small black oak cupboard against the inner wall--it would have just about held Dorothy on the lower shelf. We opened it, flashed in our lanterns, but it was black and empty. One peculiar feature there was about it--when the cupboard door was open we heard the child more clearly. It seemed a stupid, senseless thing to do, but down I went on my hands and knees to feel those empty shelves, as if I imagined Dorothy might be there in spite of our seeing nothing--invisible but tangible. Of course there was nothing but wood to touch; but with my head inside there, I could hear Dorothy so well I might have been in the same room with her."

"How queer!" Eustace broke out excitedly.

"'Dorothy, Dorothy,' I shouted. 'Mother--I want mother, mother, mother,' she shrieked. 'Where are you? Tell us where you are,' I called. 'I want mother, mother, mother,' was the only answer.

'Mother is here,' I said; and again, 'Tell us where you are.'

Something made me feel the cupboard again, and this time I did not only touch the shelves, but put my hand right back. 'Quick, quick!

a lantern,' I simply screamed, and half a dozen were lowered instantly. There was no back to the cupboard on the lower shelf.

The blackness we had mistaken for the old oak was just nothingness--a deep, deep hollow into the wall."

"Mother," Eustace cried, "a secret chamber!"

"A secret chamber that no one had ever suspected; and Dorothy it was who had found it."

"But how?" The question came from Bob Cochrane.

"She was the most daring child I have ever known," said Mrs. Orban.

"I don't think Dorothy knew what fear meant in those days. She knew that scarcely any one ever searched the turret, because it was difficult to get away from, and it entered her small head to creep up to the Watchman's Nest and into this cupboard. Whether she went to sleep waiting for us to find her, or whether she rolled over at once and fell down the little flight of steps into the secret chamber, to lie there stunned, no one knows. Dorothy could not explain herself. Anyhow, there she was, and the moment she came to her senses and found herself in the dark she began to scream with fright."

"But how was it no one had ever discovered the secret chamber before?" demanded Eustace. "It seems funny."

"You would not think so if you saw the cupboard," Mrs. Orban said.

"It is a little, insignificant-looking thing--low and rather deep, and, as we then found, built into the wall. The back of the lower shelf was a sliding panel; and your grandfather's theory is that the last person who used the secret chamber left the panel open.

Without nearly standing on one's head it was impossible to see the back of the lower shelf, and no one had ever suspected such a thing."

"O Bob, Bob, wouldn't you just like to see Maze Court?" cried Eustace. "I shall never be happy till I do."

"I tell you you will all be off on Miss Dorothy's broomstick one of these fine days," growled Bob. "She is a witch, and she has already bewitched you, for you can talk of nothing but England now."

"You had better go to bed, Eustace," Mrs. Orban said with a laugh.

"Bob is getting quite fierce."

Bob left very early next day to get back to work. As Nesta and Peter were having holidays, Eustace, of course, did no lessons, but spent the day very contentedly helping his mother. She was busy rearranging furniture in the room that was to be Miss Chase's, and they scarcely sat down the whole day till evening.

"Early to bed this night, my son," said Mrs. Orban as they left the dinner-table. "I expect you will sleep like a top."

He was looking sleepy already, and a quarter of an hour later went very readily to his room, with a parting entreaty to his mother that she would not sit up late.

"Not I," was the laughing rejoinder. "I promise you I will only write one little line to father and begin my mail letter to grannie, and then I will go to bed."

This Mrs. Orban did, and being very tired she fell asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

For several hours a great silence reigned over the house; but even when it was broken by the soft pad-pad-pad of bare feet creeping stealthily round the veranda, the sleepers lay utterly unconscious.

The stairs had not creaked under the weight of this figure; it cast no shadows, for there was no light either within the house or without. At every window it halted, listened, peered in, as if it had the eyes of a cat to see with in the dark.