Читать книгу Midnight House - Ethel Lina White - Страница 22

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After the others had left the house, she lingered in the drawing-room, trying to imagine herself its mistress, instead of an intruder. She settled several minor alterations but shied at any major changes with carved ivory and peacock-feathers, even while she longed to recall the glamorous past. Presently commonsense prevailed and she went upstairs to the nursery—where she belonged.

She was crossing the hall when her heart leaped at the sound of muffled screams.

It sounded like Phil's voice raised in terror. In the ordinary way a nightmare might account for the cries; but because she was responsible for the children, her thoughts flew to disaster.

Rushing to the staircase, she raced up to the nursery floor. When she paused on the first landing, to recover her breath, she noticed that the screams were fainter. In a fresh panic, she burst into her large room, which she shared with Phil. It was lit by a night-light glimmering through the green eyes of a china owl's head.

Switching on the light, she saw that the child's bed was empty.

"Barney," she called. "Where's Philippa? Barnaby."

As no reply came from the small adjoining room, she dashed inside. A huddle of bed-clothes lay upon the floor but the boy had disappeared.

Faced with double desertion, she felt on the point of collapse, as though to prove the truth of the doctor's diagnosis. She knew that she was letting her nerves control her, just as she realised the cause for her exaggerated alarm.

It was a black flicker over a lighted wall.

At the moment, she was incapable of sustained thought and was animated solely by the need to find the children. Dashing down the stairs at a dangerous speed, she reached the hall just as the door leading to the basement was burst open. Screaming like a steam-siren, Phil rushed through and butted Elizabeth, nearly throwing her backwards before her weight.

"The Black Man," she shrieked.

For a moment, the infection of her fear leaped to Elizabeth, like the tongue of a prairie-fire. She remembered that she was the only adult in the house. Fortunately, as Phil continued to yell, her commonsense reminded her that the scene was the logical sequel to Barney's bogey-stories.

"Stop making that horrible noise," she commanded. "I want to know why you are downstairs."

Phil's response to treatment was speedy, for she stopped in the middle of a high note, to explain.

"I came down to find Barney."

"Why weren't you asleep?"

"That Barney would come into my room and wake me up. He wanted to see the clock. And he ran water in his basin, to keep him awake. You see, he mustn't go to sleep. She won't let him."

"Who won't let him?"

"Maxine... Then I woke up and he wasn't in his bed. I came down to the kitchen, cos I thought he'd be having supper. And then the Black Man—"

As the child started to cry again, Elizabeth changed her tactics.

"It's all right, darling," she said. "You're only half-awake and you've been fancying things. You didn't really see any one, did you?"

"No," admitted Phil. "But the Black Man left his hand. It's on the cellar door."

"Nonsense. Suppose we go and find Barnaby."

Phil's excited laughter as she hung heavily on to Elizabeth's arm made the governess suspect that she had stage-managed the adventure. Instead of protesting, she dragged Elizabeth down the stairs to the half-way landing.

"Look," she squealed, pointing down to the basement hall.

High up on the cream-painted door were black smudges, ominously like finger-prints. They were so realistic and sinister that Elizabeth felt a sudden weakening of her knees. She was about to rush Phil from the danger zone, when she remembered Chester—the man who always stoked the furnace to last during the night.

Although she had not explored the lower regions, she knew that the heating-apparatus must be near the cellars. Then she frowned with unwelcome recollection. Chester had paid his second visit, extra early, during the afternoon. He had come—and gone—when she stood looking at the door, before she caught Barney at the kitchen telephone.

Then—there were no black marks upon the paint.

Once again she was on the point of cracking, when Barney came out of the kitchen, in time to save her prestige. As he glanced at the finger-prints, his eyes were filled with such guilt that it gave her the clue to their origin. Instantly her mind leaped back to the incident in the nursery, when Geraldine had used black lead on the wallpaper.

She decided to try the effect of ridicule.

"Such silly children," she said. "Only babies play with coals. I'd be ashamed to let the cook see that. Let me get a duster."

As she went into the kitchen, she had a vague sense of discomfiture which she connected with a shelved responsibilty. Then she found a cloth and kicked the cook's foot-stool before her, into the hall.

By standing upon it, she was able to reach the marks. They were light and were soon rubbed out, while the children watched her in silence. After testing the locked back door, she turned the key of the cellar stairs, as an extra precaution.

"Back to bed," she commanded the children.

They obeyed her meekly until they reached the top of the stairs. As she switched off the light, plunging the basement into darkness, Barney made a lightning duck down the first flight. She dived after him and managed to clutch the collar of his sleeping-suit before he reached the bend.

"I've got to go down," he panted, as he fought and kicked. "I won't stay. I promise."

"Yes, I know all about it," she told him. "You are not going to that telephone, my lord."

The fight went out of him and he collapsed like a deflated balloon. A few minutes later, Elizabeth tucked into bed two angelic children who spoke in tones of ultra-refinement.