From out the Vasty Deep | Page 3

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 up."
"D'you mean you actually saw what you took to be a ghost?"
"I did see a ghost, ma'am; not a doubt of it! She walked up and down
that room in there, wringing her hands all the time--I'd heard the
expression, ma'am, but I'd never seen anyone do it."
"Did anything else happen?"
"At last she went over to the window, and--and I'm afraid you won't
believe me, ma'am--but there seemed no curtains there any more,
nothing but just an opening into the darkness. I saw her bend over--"
An expression of terror came over the woman's face.

"But how could you see her," asked Miss Farrow quickly, "if there was
no light in the room?"
"In a sort of way," said Pegler somberly, "the spirit was supplying the
light, as it were. I could see her in the darkness, as if she was a lamp
moving about."
"Oh, Pegler, Pegler!" exclaimed Miss Farrow deprecatingly.
"It's true, ma'am! It's true as I'm standing here." Pegler would have
liked to add the words "So help me God!" but somehow she felt that
these words would not carry any added conviction to her mistress. And,
indeed, they would not have done so, for Miss Farrow, though she was
much too polite and too well-bred ever to have said so, even to herself,
did not believe in a Supreme Being. She was a complete materialist.
"And then, ma'am, after a bit, there it would begin, constant-like, all
over again."
"I don't understand...."
"I'd go to sleep, and tell myself maybe that it was all a dream--argue
with myself, ma'am, for I'm a sensible woman. And then all at once I'd
hear that rustle again! I'd try not to open my eyes, but somehow I felt I
must see what was happening. So I'd look at last--and there she'd be!
Walking up and down, walking up and down, her face--oh, ma'am, her
face staring-like most 'orrible--and wringing her hands. Then she'd go
over to the window, lean out, and disappear, down into the black
water!"
In a calmer tone Pegler added: "The moat used to be much bigger and
deeper than it is now, ma'am--so they all say."
"All?" said Miss Farrow sharply. "Who do you mean by 'all'?"
"The people about the place, ma'am."
"I can't help wishing, Pegler, that you hadn't told this strange story to

the servants. You see it makes it so awkward for Mr. Varick."
Pegler flushed uncomfortably. "I was that scared," she murmured, "that
I felt I must tell somebody, and if you tell one, as I did, you tell all. I'm
sorry I did it, ma'am, for I'm afraid I've inconvenienced you."
"It can't be helped," said Miss Farrow good-naturedly. "I know you
wouldn't have done it if you could have helped it, Pegler. But of course
in a way it's unlucky."
"I've pointed out to them all that there never is but one room haunted in
a house as a rule," said the maid eagerly, "and I think they all quite sees
that, ma'am. Besides, they're very pleased with Mr. Varick. You know
what he did to-day, ma'am?"
"No," said Miss Farrow, looking up and smiling, "what did he do?"
"He called them all together, without distinction of class, so to speak,
ma'am, and he told them that if he was pleased with the way in which
his Christmas party went off, he'd give them each a five-pound note at
the end of the month. It made them forget the haunted room, I can tell
you, ma'am!" She added grudgingly, "He is a kind gentleman, and no
mistake."
"Indeed