R. COLE,” said the parlourmaid, announcing the curate at the drawing-room door.
Nellie L'Estrange rose from the chair in which she had been nestling before the fire, laid down her book, and greeted the Rev. John Cole with a smile of welcome. She did not, under ordinary circumstances, care for entertaining the curate, whom she regarded as a bore; but the day had been persistently wet, and for many hours she had not interchanged a word with any one. Besides, there was always a certain amount of pleasure to be got out of teasing Mr. Cole. He was curiously defenceless when Nellie poked fun at him.
“My mother,” she said, “is upstairs. She has a very bad headache to-day; but I shall be so pleased if you will stay and have tea with me.”
Mr. Cole expressed great sorrow for Mrs. L'Estrange. Then he sat down and began to talk heavily about the sensational event which a week before had broken the calm of the village. A tramp of most disreputable appearance had been found dead one morning in the churchyard. He had, apparently, sought shelter for the night behind a tombstone. A coroner's jury sat upon his body and brought in a very proper verdict. Then Mr. Cole buried him almost in the exact spot on which he died. The subject, once exciting enough, bored Nellie. She had heard all she wanted to hear about the dead tramp.
“So nice of him,” she said flippantly, “to choose such a convenient place to die. I daresay now, if there had happened to be an open grave he'd have lain down in it, and then you'd have had nothing to do but cover him up. He couldn't, of course, do that for himself.”
Mr. Cole sought for a rebuke suitable for Nellie's flippancy. Before he found one the parlourmaid entered with the tea-tray. Mr. Cole disliked the parlourmaid, whose name was Esther, because he suspected her of being nearly as flippant as Nellie herself. He did not speak again until the girl had left the room. Then he handed Nellie the buttered toast, fishing it up out of the fender with some trouble, and began a new discourse.
“The amount of superstition,” he said, “which still lingers in these remote villages is surprising and depressing. I understand that no one will go near the churchyard at night since the tramp died there. The bucolic mind remains impervious to the efforts of educationists. It is”
He spoke very pompously, so Nellie interrupted him at once.
“Is there really a ghost?” she said. “How jolly! Do you know, I've never seen a ghost, have you?”
“The subject,” said Mr. Cole, “is not one I care to joke about.”
“Surely you don't really believe there is a ghost in the churchyard?”
“I regard the stories the village people tell as pure fabrications,” said Mr. Cole; “but I am far from venturing to assert dogmatically ”
“But what do the village people say?”
Mr. Cole, somewhat unwillingly, repeated a story of a tall white figure, seen night after night flitting among the tombstones. It was a ghost of the most orthodox description, and the road near the churchyard, which was nearly a mile from the village, had got a very bad name. Nellie ridiculed each point of the story, and it appeared to Mr. Cole that she was also ridiculing him. He disliked being laughed at, and asserted his dignity by saying several very ponderous things about psychical phenomena. Nellie seemed to find them irresistibly comic.
Esther, the parlourmaid, entered with a fresh plate of buttered toast. Her face was perfectly demure, but Mr. Cole formed the opinion that she, too, was inclined to laugh at him. He became painfully self-conscious, and talked more pompously than ever.
“Mr. Cole,” said Nellie suddenly, “will you take me to see the ghost?”
“I don't think I can very well do that,” said Mr. Cole. “The fact is”
“The fact is that you're a little nervous. Is that what you were going to say?”
He intended to say something quite different. The ghost, according to the witness of the villagers, was not timed to appear until twelve o'clock at night. Mr. Cole, as a clergyman, had a character to lose. He did not like the idea of parading the roads at midnight alone with Miss L'Estrange. He hesitated. It was not easy to put his feelings into words without being insulting. Nellie was, apparently, quite reckless about her character.
“You are afraid,” she said. “I can see it by your face.”
“I'm not the least afraid,” he said, “and if you really wish”
“There's nothing I should like more,” said Nellie. “I told you I had never seen a ghost, and we all ought to see one at least before we die. I may never get such a chance again. Besides, it can't do me any harm if you are with me, can it? You'd exorcise it.”