Lowndes / Nemo Essential Novelists - Marie Belloc Lowndes

the impact of the extraordinary
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-96724-036-8
Verlag: Tacet Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 135, 339 Seiten

Reihe: Essential Novelists

Welcome to the Essential Novelists book series, were we present to you the best works of remarkable authors. For this book, the literary critic August Nemo has chosen the two most important and meaningful novels of Marie Belloc Lowndes wich are Barbara Rebell and From Out the Vasty Deep. Marie Belloc Lowndes was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc. Active from 1898 until her death, she had a literary reputation for combining exciting incidents with psychological interest. Novels selected for this book: - Barbara Rebell - From Out the Vasty DeepThis is one of many books in the series Essential Novelists. If you liked this book, look for the other titles in the series, we are sure you will like some of the authors.

Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Lowndes (née Belloc; 5 August 1868 14 November 1947) was a prolific English novelist, and sister of author Hilaire Belloc.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lowndes, Marie Belloc

Nemo, August

Leseproben

Chapter 1
“I always thought that you, Pegler, were such a very sensible woman.” The words were said in a good-natured, though slightly vexed tone; and a curious kind of smile flitted over the rather grim face of the person to whom they were addressed. “I’ve never troubled you before in this exact way, have I, ma’am?” “No, Pegler. That you certainly have not.” Miss Farrow looked up from the very comfortable armchair where she was sitting—leaning back, with her neatly shod, beautifully shaped feet stretched out to the log fire. Her maid was standing a little to the right, her spare figure and sallow face lit up by the flickering, shooting flames, for the reading-lamp at Miss Farrow’s elbow was heavily shaded. “D’you really mean that you won’t sleep next door to-night, Pegler?” “I wouldn’t be fit to do my work tomorrow if I did, ma’am.” And Miss Farrow quite understood that that was Pegler’s polite way of saying that she most definitely did refuse to sleep in the room next door. “I wish the ghost had come in here, instead of worrying you!” As the maid made no answer to this observation, her mistress went on, turning round so that she could look up into the woman’s face: “What was it exactly you did see, Pegler?” And as the other still remained silent, Miss Farrow added: “I really do want to know! You see, Pegler—well, I need hardly tell you that I have a very great opinion of you.” And then, to the speaker’s extreme surprise, there came a sudden change over Pegler’s face. Her pale countenance flushed, it became discomposed, and she turned her head away to hide the springing tears. Miss Farrow was touched; as much touched as her rather hard nature would allow her to be. This woman had been her good and faithful friend, as well as servant, for over twelve years. She sprang up from her deep chair with the lightness of a girl, though she was over forty; and went and took the other’s hand. “Pegler!” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter, you dear old thing?” But Pegler wrenched away her hand, rather ungraciously. “After two such nights as I’ve had,” she muttered, “it’s no wonder I’m a bit upset.” Excellent maid though she was—Miss Farrow had never known anyone who could do hair as Pegler could—the woman was in some ways very unconventional, very unlike an ordinary lady’s maid. “Now do tell me exactly what happened?” Miss Farrow spoke with a mixture of coaxing and kindly authority. “What do you think you saw? I need hardly tell you that I don’t believe in ghosts.” As the maid well knew, the speaker might have finished the sentence with “or in anything else.” But that fact, Pegler being the manner of woman she was, did not detract from the affection and esteem in which she held her lady. You can’t have everything—such was her simple philosophy—and religious people do not always act up to their profession. Miss Farrow, at any rate in her dealings with Pegler, was always better than her word. She was a kind, a considerate, and an intelligent mistress. So it was that, reluctantly, Pegler made up her mind to speak. “I’d like to say, ma’am,” she began, “that no one said nothing to me about that room being haunted. You was the first that mentioned it to me, after I’d spoken to you yesterday. As you know, ma’am, the servants here are a job lot; they don’t know nothing about the house. ‘Twasn’t till today that one of the village people, the woman at the general shop and post office, let on that Wyndfell Hall was well known to be a ghosty place.” There was a pause, and then Pegler added: “Still, as you and I well know, ma’am, tales don’t lose nothing in the telling.” “Indeed they don’t! Never mind what the people in the village say. This kind of strange, lonely, beautiful old house is sure to be said to be haunted. What I want to know is what you think you saw, Pegler—” The speaker looked sharply into the woman’s face. “I don’t like to see you standing, ma’am,” said Pegler inconsequently. “If you’ll sit down in your chair again I’ll tell you what happened to me.” Miss Farrow sank gracefully down into her deep, comfortable chair. Again she put out her feet to the fire, for it was very cold on this 23rd of December, and she knew she had a tiring, probably a boring, evening before her. Some strangers of whom she knew nothing, and cared less, excepting that they were the friends of her friend and host, Lionel Varick, were to arrive at Wyndfell Hall in time for dinner. It was now six o’clock. “Well,” she said patiently, “begin at the beginning, Pegler. I wish you’d sit down too—somehow it worries me to see you standing there. You’ll be tempted to cut your story short.” Pegler smiled a thin little smile. In the last twelve years Miss Farrow had several times invited her to sit down, but of course she had always refused, being one that knew her place. She had only sat in Miss Farrow’s presence during the days and nights when she had nursed her mistress through a serious illness—then, of course, everything had been different, and she had had to sit down sometimes. “The day before yesterday—that is the evening Miss Bubbles arrived, ma’am—after I’d dressed you and you’d gone downstairs, and I’d unpacked for Miss Bubbles, I went into my room and thought how pleasant it looked. The curtains was drawn, and there was a nice fire, as you know, ma’am, which Mr. Varick so kindly ordered for me, and which I’ve had the whole week. Also, I will say for Annie that even if she is a temporary, she is a good housemaid, making the girls under her do their work properly.” Pegler drew a long breath. Then she went on again: “I sat down just for a minute or two, and I turned over queer—so queer, ma’am, that I went and drew the curtains of one of the windows. Of course it’s a much bigger room than I’m generally accustomed to occupy, as you know, ma’am. And I just threw up the window—it’s what they call a guillotine window—and there I saw the water, you know, ma’am, in what they call the moat—” “Yes,” said Miss Farrow languidly. “Yes, Pegler, go on.” “As I looked down, ma’am, I had an awful turn. There seemed to me to be something floating about in the water, a little narrow thing like a child’s body—and—and all on a sudden a small white face seemed to look up into mine! Oh, it was ‘orrible!” Pegler did not often drop an aitch, but when she did so forget herself, she did it thoroughly. “As I went on looking, fascinated-like”—she was speaking very slowly now—“whatever was down there seemed to melt away. I didn’t say nothing that evening of what had happened to me, but I couldn’t keep myself from thinking of it. Well, then, ma’am, as you know, I came and undressed you, and I asked you if you’d like the door kept open between our two rooms. But you said no, ma’am, you’d rather it was shut. So then I went to bed.” “And you say—you admit, Pegler—that nothing did happen the night before last?” Pegler hesitated. “Nothing happened exactly,” she said. “But I had the most awful feeling, ma’am. And yes—well, something did happen! I heard a kind of rustling in the room. It would leave off for a time, and, then begin again. I tried to put it down to a mouse or a rat—or something of that sort.” “That,” said Miss Farrow quietly, “was probably what it was, Pegler.” As if she had not heard her lady’s remark, the maid went on: “I’d go off to sleep, and then suddenly, I’d awake and hear this peculiar rustle, ma’am, like a dress swishing along—an old-fashioned, rich, soft silk, such as ladies wore in the old days, when I was a child. But that dress, the dress I heard rustling, ma’am, was a bit older than that.” “What do you mean, Pegler?” The maid remained silent, her eyes were fixed; it was as if she had forgotten where she was. “And what exactly happened last night?” “Last night,” said Pegler, drawing a long breath, “last night, ma’am—I know you won’t believe me—but I saw the spirit!” Miss Farrow looked up into the woman’s face with an anxious, searching glance. She felt disturbed and worried. A great deal of her material comfort—almost, she might have truly said, much of her happiness in life—depended on Jane Pegler. In a sense Blanche Farrow had but two close friends in the world—her host, Lionel Varick, the new owner of Wyndfell Hall; and the plain, spare, elderly woman standing now before her. She realized with a sharp pang of concern what Pegler’s mental defection would mean to her. It would be dreadful, dreadful, if Pegler began seeing ghosts, and turning hysterical. “What was the spirit like?” she asked quietly. And then, all at once, she had to suppress a violent inclination to burst out laughing. For Pegler answered with a kind of cry, “A ’orrible happarition, ma’am!” Miss Farrow could not help observing a trifle satirically: “That certainly sounds most unpleasant.” But Pegler went on, speaking with a touch of excitement very unusual with her: “It was a woman—a woman with a dreadful, wicked, spiteful face! Once she came up close to my bed, and I wanted to scream out, but I couldn’t—my throat seemed shut...