Dressed in Black

Chapter 12

Late at night, I should say three hours after the family had retired to bed, one person sat wide awake in her bed, her white hands lying limply on her lap, and her absent eyes suggesting the heaviness she felt both in her heart and mind. She was fondling the necklace that contained her late father's hair when an unusual noise startled her out of her peaceful trance.

"What can that be?" she said to herself, her voice as sweet and firm as ever. She slipped out of her bed and walked to the door on her tiptoes, where she pressed her ear to the said door and listened, not knowing what to expect. Had one of the guests wandered out of their rooms and lost their way? Or could it be one of the servants? Faugh! What honourable servant would be tumbling about the halls at night, when all were fast asleep?

After the more reasonable suspicions, naturally came the more unreasonable ones that, though weaker in sense, made a point to be heard.

The now otherworldly shuffle repeated itself as it passed her door, and she jumped back at the repetition of the sound. Of course she would not go out into the gallery and see for herself, not because she lacked courage, but because should something happen to her; she should be held accountable for her own thoughtlessness. At the repetition of the noise she shot back into her bed and threw the quilts over her head, trembling at the thought of the Abbey ghost, though the idea would have enchanted her had it been in one of her books.

"O papa, I desperately wish your arms around me this instant!" she broke out in a childish passion. Superstition had been prowling in her room the whole night, but only then did it finally leap on her and gnaw impishly at her brave heart. She was seized by a nervousness of hearing the terrible noise again, but after a prolonged silence she drifted into sleep, and the next morning she had forgotten all about the previous night's unidentified noises.

*

"Miss Crane," Mr. Joseph Plympton said upon her soundless entrance into the drawing room, where the party was assembled around the piano. Her cheeks filled with the colour of embarrassment as everyone turned their eyes on her in expectation. "Miss Crane, be so kind as to play us a tune," Mr. Plympton resumed with a bow. "Every competent lady has played us something, excluding you. Do you know Schubert?" As he spoke, she had gracefully crept towards them, but lingered with an expression of timid perplexity outside of the group, hesitating to join it. All she wanted was to be left unnoticed.

"Come, I am sure you play better than Harryo," Harry said with his wonted sarcasm. "She is sinfully idle – probably she doesn't practice half as much as you do." Catherine was very glad that she was never the butt of Harry's jokes, though she often puzzled over how Henrietta could bear it.

"I am not very familiar with Schubert," she mumbled, sitting at the piano. "But I will try." Naturally, she played the tune exceptionally well, and charmed everyone with her pensive sweetness and artless grace, and at the conclusion of the piece, they all wanted an encore.

"No," she refused firmly, standing up and looking shyly at her admirers. "I have played once, and that is enough."

"The dear girl!" Henrietta cried, laughing ostentatiously. "My word, you are such a strange child!"

"Thank you for that, Henrietta," she said with a stoic bow, exiting the room with a brisk step.

"What?" Henrietta snapped as the others' eyes fixed accusingly upon her. "I said nothing to offend her – she is so fragile, you know! Vanessa, shall we walk?" And the two ladies joined arms, strolling around the large drawing room self-consciously, well aware of the men's looks of admiration.