XII
THE PHANTOM COACH
Ghosts! What could the fellow have meant? If I had pressed him he wouldhave told me, but it did not seem quite a lady's business to pick upinformation in this way, especially when it involved a young lady likeLucetta. Yet did I think I would ever come to the end of this matterwithout involving Lucetta? No. Why, then, did I allow my instincts totriumph over my judgment? Let those answer who understand the workingsof the human heart. I am simply stating facts.
Ghosts! Somehow the word startled me as if in some way it gave a ratherunwelcome confirmation to my doubts. Apparitions seen in the Knollysmansion or in any of the houses bordering on this lane! That was aserious charge; how serious seemed to be but half comprehended by thisman. But I comprehended it to the full, and wondered if it was onaccount of such gossip as this that Mr. Gryce had persuaded me to enterMiss Knollys' house as a guest.
I was crossing the street to the hotel as I indulged in theseconjectures, and intent as my mind was upon them, I could not but notethe curiosity and interest which my presence excited in the simplecountry folk invariably to be found lounging about a country tavern.Indeed, the whole neighborhood seemed agog, and though I would havethought it derogatory to my dignity to notice the fact, I could not butsee how many faces were peering at me from store doors and thehalf-closed blinds of adjoining cottages. No young girl in the pride ofher beauty could have awakened more interest, and this I attributed, aswas no doubt right, not to my appearance, which would not perhaps be aptto strike these simple villagers as remarkable, or to my dress, which israther rich than fashionable, but to the fact that I was a stranger intown, and, what was more extraordinary, a guest of the Misses Knollys.
My intention in approaching the hotel was not to spend a couple ofdreary hours in the parlor with Mrs. Carter, as Mr. Simsbury hadsuggested, but to obtain if possible a conveyance to carry meimmediately back to the Knollys mansion. But this, which would have beena simple matter in most towns, seemed well-nigh an impossibility in X.The landlord was away, and Mrs. Carter, who was very frank with me, toldme it would be perfectly useless to ask one of the men to drive methrough the lane. "It's an unwholesome spot," said she, "and only Mr.Carter and the police have the courage to brave it."
I suggested that I was willing to pay well, but it seemed to make verylittle difference to her. "Money won't hire them," said she, and I hadthe satisfaction of knowing that Lucetta had triumphed in her plan, andthat, after all, I must sit out the morning in the precincts of thehotel parlor with Mrs. Carter.
It was my first signal defeat, but I was determined to make the best ofit, and if possible glean such knowledge from the talk of this woman aswould make me feel that I had lost nothing by my disappointment. She wasonly too ready to talk, and the first topic was little Rob.
I saw the moment I mentioned his name that I was introducing a subjectwhich had already been well talked over by every eager gossip in thevillage.
Her attitude of importance, the air of mystery she assumed, werepreparations I had long been accustomed to in women of this kind, and Iwas not at all surprised when she announced in a way that admitted of nodispute:
"Oh, there's no wonder the child is sick. We would be sick under thecircumstances. _He has seen the phantom coach._"
The phantom coach! So that was what the locksmith meant. A phantomcoach! I had heard of every kind of phantom but that. Somehow the ideawas a thrilling one, or would have been to a nature less practical thanmine.
"I don't know what you mean," said I. "Some superstition of the place? Inever heard of a ghostly appearance of that nature before."
"No, I expect not. It belongs to X. I never heard of it beyond thesemountains. Indeed, I have never known it to have been seen but upon oneroad. I need not mention what road, madam. You can guess."
Yes, I could guess, and the guessing made me set my lips a littlegrimly.
"Tell me more about this thing," I urged, half laughing. "It ought to beof some interest to me."
She nodded, drew her chair a trifle nearer, and impetuously began:
"You see this is a very old town. It has more than one ancient countryhouse similar to the one you are now living in, and it has its earlytraditions. One is, that an old-fashioned coach, perfectly noiseless,drawn by horses through which you can see the moonlight, haunts thehighroad at intervals and flies through the gloomy forest road we havechristened of late years Lost Man's Lane. It is a superstition,possibly, but you cannot find many families in town but believe in it asa fact, for there is not an old man or woman in the place but has eitherseen it in the past or has had some relative who has seen it. It passesonly at night, and it is thought to presage some disaster to those whosee it. My husband's uncle died the next morning after it flew by him onthe highway. Fortunately years elapse between its going and coming. Itis ten years, I think they say, since it was last seen. Poor little Rob!It has frightened him almost out of his wits."
"I should think so," I cried with becoming credulity. "But how came heto see it? I thought you said it only passed at night."
"At midnight," she repeated. "But Rob, you see, is a nervous lad, andnight before last he was so restless he could not sleep, so he begged tobe put in the window to cool off. This his mother did, and he sat therefor a good half-hour alone, looking out at the moonlight. As his motheris an economical woman there was no candle lit in the room, so he gothis pleasure out of the shadows which the great trees made on thehighroad, when suddenly--you ought to hear the little fellow tell it--hefelt the hair rise on his forehead and all his body grow stiff with aterror that made his tongue feel like lead in his mouth. A something hewould have called a horse and a carriage in the daytime, but which, inthis light and under the influence of the mortal terror he was in, tookon a distorted shape which made it unlike any team he was accustomed to,was going by, not as if being driven over the earth and stones of theroad,--though there was a driver in front, a driver with an oddthree-cornered hat on his head and a cloak about his shoulders, such asthe little fellow remembered to have seen hanging in his grandmother'scloset,--but as if it floated along without sound or stir; in fact, aspectre team which seemed to find its proper destination when it turnedinto Lost Man's Lane and was lost among the shadows of that ill-reputedroad."
"Pshaw!" was my spirited comment as she paused to take her breath andsee how I was affected by this grewsome tale. "A dream of the poorlittle lad! He had heard stories of this apparition and his imaginationsupplied the rest."
"No; excuse me, madam, he had been carefully kept from hearing all suchtales. You could see this by the way he told his story. He hardlybelieved what he had himself seen. It was not till some foolish neighborblurted out, 'Why, that was the phantom coach,' that he had any idea hewas not relating a dream."
My second _Pshaw!_ was no less marked than the first.
"He did know about it, notwithstanding," I insisted. "Only he hadforgotten the fact. Sleep often supplies us with these lost memories."
"Very true, and your supposition is very plausible, Miss Butterworth,and might be regarded as correct, if he had been the only person to seethis apparition. But Mrs. Jenkins saw it too, and she is a woman to bebelieved."
This was becoming serious.
"Saw it before he did or afterwards?" I asked. "Does she live on thehighway or somewhere in Lost Man's Lane?"
"She lives on the highway about a half-mile from the station. She wassitting up with her sick husband and saw it just as it was going downthe hill. She said it made no more noise than a cloud slipping by. Sheexpects to lose old Rause. No one could behold such a thing as that andnot have some misfortune follow."
I laid all this up in my mind. My hour of waiting was not likely toprove wholly unprofitable.
"You see," the good woman went on, with a relish for the marvellous thatstood me in good stead, "there is an old tradition of that roadconnected with a coach. Years ago, before any of us were born, and thehouse where you are now staying was a gathering-place for all the gay
young bloods of the county, a young man came up from New York to visitMr. Knollys. I do not mean the father or even the grandfather of thefolks you are visiting, ma'am. He was great-grandfather to Lucetta, anda very fine gentleman, if you can trust the pictures that are left ofhim. But my story has not to do with him. He had a daughter at thattime, a widow of great and sparkling attractions, and though she wasolder than the young man I have mentioned, every one thought he wouldmarry her, she was so handsome and such an heiress.
"But he failed to pay his court to her, and though he was handsomehimself and made a fool of more than one girl in the town, every onethought he would return as he had come, a free-hearted bachelor, whensuddenly one night the coach was missed from the stables and he from thecompany, which led to the discovery that the young widow's daughter wasgone too, a chit who was barely fifteen, and without a hundredth part ofthe beauty of her mother. Love only could account for this, for in thosedays young ladies did not ride with gentlemen in the evening forpleasure, and when it came to the old gentleman's ears, and, what wasworse, came to the mother's, there was a commotion in the great house,the echoes of which, some say, have never died out. Though the piperswere playing and the fiddles were squeaking in the great room where theyused to dance the night away, Mrs. Knollys, with her white brocadetucked up about her waist, stood with her hand on the great front door,waiting for the horse upon which she was determined to follow the flyinglovers. The father, who was a man of eighty years, stood by her side. Hewas too old to ride himself, but he made no effort to hold her back,though the jewels were tumbling from her hair and the moon had vanishedfrom the highway.
"'I will bring her back or die!' the passionate beauty exclaimed, andnot a lip said her nay, for they saw, what neither man nor woman hadbeen able to see up to that moment, that her very life and soul werewrapped up in the man who had stolen away her daughter.
"Shrilly piped the pipes, squeak and hum went the fiddles, but the soundthat was sweetest to her was the pound of the horses' hoofs on the roadin front. That was music indeed, and as soon as she heard it shebestowed one wild kiss on her father and bounded from the house. Aninstant later and she was gone. One flash of her white robe at the gate,then all was dark on the highway, and only the old father stood in thewide-open door, waiting, as he vowed he would wait, till his daughterreturned.
"She did not go alone. A faithful groom was behind her, and from him waslearned the conclusion of that quest. For an hour and a half they rode;then they came upon a chapel in the mountains, in which were burningunwonted lights. At the sight the lady drew rein and almost fell fromher horse into the arms of her lackey. 'A marriage!' she murmured; 'amarriage!' and pointed to an empty coach standing in the shadow of awide-spreading tree. It was their family coach. How well she knew it!Rousing herself, she made for the chapel door. 'I will stop theseunhallowed rites!' she cried! 'I am her mother, and she is not of age.'But the lackey drew her back by her rich white dress. 'Look!' he cried,pointing in at one of the windows, and she looked. The man she lovedstood before the altar with her daughter. He was smiling in thatdaughter's face with a look of passionate devotion. It went like adagger to her heart. Crushing her hands against her face, she wailed outsome fearful protest; then she dashed toward the door with 'Stop! stop!'on her lips. But the faithful lackey at her side drew her back oncemore. 'Listen!' was his word, and she listened. The minister, whose formshe had failed to note in her first hurried look, was uttering hisbenediction. She had come too late. The young couple were married.
"Her servant said, or so the tradition runs, that when she realized thisshe grew calm as walking death. Making her way into the chapel, shestood ready at the door to greet them as they issued forth, and whenthey saw her there, with her rich bedraggled robe and the gleam ofjewels on a neck she had not even stopped to envelop in more than theveil from her hair, the bridegroom seemed to realize what he had doneand stopped the bride, who in her confusion would have fled back to thealtar where she had just been made a wife. 'Kneel!' he cried. 'Kneel,Amarynth! Only thus can we ask pardon of our mother.' But at that word,a word which seemed to push her a million miles away from these twobeings who but two hours before had been the delight of her life, theunhappy woman gave a cry and fled from their presence. 'Go! go!' wereher parting words. 'As you have chosen, you must abide. But let notongue ever again call me mother.'
"They found her lying on the grass outside. As she could no longersustain herself on a horse, they put her into the coach, gave the reinsto her devoted lackey, and themselves rode off on horseback. One man,the fellow who had driven them to that place, said that the clock strucktwelve from the chapel tower as the coach turned away and began itsrapid journey home. This may and may not be so. We only know that itsapparition always enters Lost Man's Lane a few minutes before one, whichis the very hour at which the real coach came back and stopped beforeMr. Knollys' gate. And now for the worst, Miss Butterworth. When the oldgentleman went down to greet the runaways, he found the lackey on thebox and his daughter sitting all alone in the coach. But the soil on thebrocaded folds of her white dress was no longer that of mud only. Shehad stabbed herself to the heart with a bodkin she wore in her hair, andit was a corpse which the faithful negro had been driving down thehighway that night."
I am not a sentimental woman, but this story as thus told gave me athrill I do not know as I really regret experiencing.
"What was this unhappy mother's name?" I asked.
"Lucetta," was the unexpected and none too reassuring answer.