The Circular Staircase - Page 59/154

Gertrude had gone to bed, having been up almost all night, and Halsey

was absent on one of those mysterious absences of his that grew more

and more frequent as time went on, until it culminated in the event of

the night of June the tenth. Liddy was in attendance in the sick-room.

There being little or nothing to do, she seemed to spend her time

smoothing the wrinkles from the counterpane. Louise lay under a field

of virgin white, folded back at an angle of geometrical exactness, and

necessitating a readjustment every time the sick girl turned.

Liddy heard my approach and came out to meet me. She seemed to be in a

perpetual state of goose-flesh, and she had got in the habit of looking

past me when she talked, as if she saw things. It had the effect of

making me look over my shoulder to see what she was staring at, and was

intensely irritating.

"She's awake," Liddy said, looking uneasily down the circular

staircase, which was beside me. "She was talkin' in her sleep

something awful--about dead men and coffins."

"Liddy," I said sternly, "did you breathe a word about everything not

being right here?"

Liddy's gaze had wandered to the door of the chute, now bolted securely.

"Not a word," she said, "beyond asking her a question or two, which

there was no harm in. She says there never was a ghost known here."

I glared at her, speechless, and closing the door into Louise's

boudoir, to Liddy's great disappointment, I went on to the bedroom

beyond.

Whatever Paul Armstrong had been, he had been lavish with his

stepdaughter. Gertrude's rooms at home were always beautiful

apartments, but the three rooms in the east wing at Sunnyside, set

apart for the daughter of the house, were much more splendid.

From the walls to the rugs on the floor, from the furniture to the

appointments of the bath, with its pool sunk in the floor instead of

the customary unlovely tub, everything was luxurious. In the bedroom

Louise was watching for me. It was easy to see that she was much

improved; the flush was going, and the peculiar gasping breathing of

the night before was now a comfortable and easy respiration.

She held out her hand and I took it between both of mine.

"What can I say to you, Miss Innes?" she said slowly. "To have come

like this--"

I thought she was going to break down, but she did not.

"You are not to think of anything but of getting well," I said, patting

her hand. "When you are better, I am going to scold you for not coming

here at once. This is your home, my dear, and of all people in the

world, Halsey's old aunt ought to make you welcome."