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THE GHOST GIRL
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Sea Plunder $1.30 netThe Gold Trail $1.30 netThe Pearl Fishers $1.30 netThe Presentation $1.30 netThe New Optimism $1.00 netPoppyland $2.00 net
The Poems of Francois VillonTranslated byH. DE VERE STACPOOLE
Boards $3.00 netHalf Morocco $7.50 net
THE GHOST GIRL
BYH. DE VERE STACPOOLE
AUTHOR OF"THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "SEA PLUNDER,""THE PEARL FISHERS," "THE GOLD TRAIL," ETC.
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANYLONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEADTORONTO: S. B GUNDY--MCMXVIII
Copyright, 1918By JOHN LANE COMPANY
PRESS OFVAIL-BALLOU COMPANYBINGHAMTON, N. Y.U. S. A.
THE GHOST GIRL
PART I
CHAPTER I
It was a warm, grey, moist evening, typical Irish weather, and MissBerknowles was curled up in a window-seat of the library reading a book.Kilgobbin Park lay outside with the rooks cawing in the trees, miles ofpark land across which the dusk was coming, blotting out all things fromArranakilty to the Slieve Bloom Mountains.
The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady glowthat touched the black oak panelling of the room, the book backs, and thelong-nosed face of Sir Nicholas Berknowles "attributed to Lely" andlooking down at his last descendant from a dusty canvas on the oppositewall.
The girl made a prettier picture. Red hair when it is of the right colouris lovely, and Phylice Berknowles' hair was of the right red, worn in atail--she was only fifteen--so long that she could bite the end with easeand comfort when she was in a meditative mood, a habit of perdition thatno schoolmistress could break her of.
She was biting her tail now as she read, up to her eyes in the marvellousstory of the Gold Bug, and now, unable to read any more by the light fromthe window, she came to the fire, curled herself on the hearthrug andcontinued the adventures of the treasure-seekers by the light of theburning turf.
What a pretty face it was, seen by the full warm glow of the turf, andwhat a perfectly shaped head! It was not the face and head of a Berknowlesas you could easily have perceived had you compared it with the portraitsin the picture gallery, but of a Mascarene.
Phyl's mother had been a Mascarene, a member of the old, adventurousfamily that settled in Virginia when Virginia was a wilderness and spreadits branches through the Carolinas when the Planter was king of the South.Red hair had run among the Mascarenes, red hair and a wild spirit thatbrooked no contradiction and knew no fear. Phyl had inherited something ofthis restless and daring spirit. She had run away from the RottingdeanAcademy for the Daughters of the Nobility and Gentry where she had beensent at the age of twelve; making her way back to Ireland like a homingpigeon, she had turned up one morning at breakfast time, quite unshaken byher experiences of travel and with the announcement that she did not likeschool.
Had her mother been alive the traveller would have been promptly returned,but Phyl's father, good, easy man, was too much taken up with agrariandisputes, hunting, and the affairs of country life to bother much aboutthe small affair of his daughter's future and education. He accepted herrejection of his plans, wrote a letter of apology to the RottingdeanAcademy, and hired a governess for her. She wore out three in eighteenmonths, declared herself dissatisfied with governesses and competent tofinish the process of educating and polishing herself.
This she did with the aid of all the books in the library, old Dunn, therat-catcher of Arranakilty, a man profoundly versed in the habits ofrodents and birds, Larry the groom, and sundry others of low estate buthigh intelligence in matters of sport and woodcraft.
Now it might be imagined from the foregoing that hardihood,self-assertion, and other unpleasant characteristics would be indicated inthe manner and personality of this lover of freedom and rebel againstrestraint. Not at all. She was a most lovable and clinging person, whenshe could get hold of anything worth clinging to, with a mellifluous Irishvoice at once soothing and distracting, a voice with pockets in it but nota trace of a brogue or only the very faintest suspicion. Yet when shespoke she had the Irish turn of words and she used the word "sure" in amanner strange to the English.
She had reached the point in the "Gold Bug" where Jupp is threatening tobeat Legrand, when, laying the book down beside her on the hearthrug, shesat with her hands clasping her knees and her eyes fixed on the fire.
The tale had suddenly lost interest. She was thinking of her dead father,the big, hearty man who had gone to America only eight weeks ago and whowould never return. He had gone on a visit to some of his wife's people,fallen ill, and died.
Phyl could not understand it at all. She had cried her heart out amongstthe ruins of her little world, but she could not understand why it hadbeen ruined, or what her father had done to be killed like that, or whatshe had done to deserve such misery. The Reverend Peter Graham ofArranakilty could explain nothing about the matter to her understanding.She nearly died and then miraculously recovered. Acute grief often endslike that, suddenly. The mourner may be maimed for life but the sharpnessof the pain of that dreadful, dreadful disease is gone.
Phyl found herself one morning discussing rats with old Dunn, asking himhow many he had caught in the barn and taking a vague sort of interest inwhat the old fellow was saying; books began to appeal to her again and theold life to run anew in a crippled sort of way. Then other thingshappened. Mr. Hennessey, the family lawyer, who had been a crony of herfather's and who had known her from infancy, came down to Kilgobbin toarrange matters.
It seemed that Mr. Berknowles before dying had made a will and that thewill was being brought over from the States by Mr. Pinckney, his wife'scousin in whose house he had died.
"I'm sure I don't know what the chap wants coming over with it for," saidMr. Hennessey. "He said it was by your father's request he was coming, butit's a long journey for a man to take at this season of the year--and Ihope the will is all right."
There was an implied distrust in his tone and an antagonism to Mr.Pinckney that was not without its effect on Phyl.
She disliked Mr. Pinckney. She had never seen him but she disliked him allthe same, and she feared him. She felt instinctively that this man wascoming to make some alteration in her way of life. She did not want anychange, she wanted to go on living just as she was with Mrs. Driscoll thehousekeeper to look after her and all the old servants to befriend her andMr. Hennessey to pay the bills.
Mr. Hennessey was in the house now. He had come down that morning fromDublin to receive Mr. Pinckney, who was due to arrive that night.
Phyl, sitting on the hearthrug, was in the act of picking up her book whenthe door opened and in came Mr. Hennessey.
He had been out in the grounds overlooking things and he came to the fireto warm his hands, telling Phyl to sit easy and not disturb herself. Then,as he held a big foot to the warmth he talked down at the girl, tellingher of what he had been about and the ruination Rafferty was letting thegreenhouses go to.
"Half-a-dozen panes of glass out--and 'I've no putty,' says he. 'Putty,'said I to him, 'and what's that head of yours made of?' The stoves are allout of order and there's a hole in one of the flues I could get my thumbin."
"Rafferty's awfully good to the dogs," said Phyl in her mellow voice, sowell adapted for intercession. "He may be a bit careless, but he neverdoes forget to feed the animals. He's got the chickens to look after, too,and then there's the beagles, he knows every dog in the pack and every dogknows him--oh, dear, what's the good of it all!"
The thought of the beagles had brought up the vision of their master whowould never hunt with them again. Her voice becam
e tinged with melancholyand Hennessey changed the subject, taking his seat in one of the armchairsthat stood on either side of the fireplace.
He was a big, loosely-made man, an easy going man with a kind heart whowould have come to financial disaster long ago only for his partner,Niven.
"He's almost due to be here by now," said he, taking out his watch andlooking at it, "unless the express from Dublin is late."
"What'll he be like, do you think?" said Phyl.
"There's no saying," replied Mr. Hennessey. "He's an American and I'venever had much dealings with Americans except by letter. By all accountsthey are sharp business men, but I daresay he is all right. The thing thatgets me is his coming over. Americans don't go thousands of miles fornothing, but if it's after any hanky-panky business about the property,maybe he'll find Jack Hennessey as sharp as any American."
"He's some sort of a relation of ours," said Phyl. "Father said he was asort of cousin."
"On your mother's side," said Hennessey.
"Yes," said Phyl. Then, after a moment's pause, "D'you know I've oftenthought of all those people over there and wondered what they were likeand how they lived--my mother's people. Father used to talk of themsometimes. He said they kept slaves."
"That was in the old days," said Hennessey. "The slaves are all gone longago. They used to have sugar plantations and suchlike, but the war stoppedall that."
"It's funny," said Phyl, "to think that my people kept slaves--my mother'speople--Oh, if one could only see back, see all the people that have gonebefore one so long ago-- Don't you ever feel like that?"
Mr. Hennessey never had; his forebears had been liquor dealers in Athloneand he was content to let them lie without a too close inquisition intothe romances of their lives.
"Mr. Hennessey," said Phyl, after a moment's silence, "suppose Father hasleft Mr. Pinckney all his money--what will become of me?"
"The Lord only knows," said Hennessey; "but what's been putting suchfancies in your head?"
"I don't know," replied the girl. "I was just thinking. Of course hewouldn't do such a thing--It's your talking of the will the last time youwere here set me on, I suppose, but I dreamed last night Mr. Pinckney cameand he was an American with a beard like Uncle Sam in _Punch_ last week,and he said Father had made a will and left him everything--he'd left himme as well as everything else, and the dogs and all the servants andKilgobbin--then I woke up."
"Well, you were dreaming nonsense," said the practical Hennessey. "A mancan't leave his daughter away from him, though I'm half thinking there'smany a man would be willing enough if he could."
Phyl raised her head. Her quick ear had caught a sound from the avenue.Then the crash of wheels on gravel came from outside and her companion,rising hurriedly from his chair, went to the window.
"That's him," said the easy-speaking Hennessey.