In consequence
she was very considerably dismayed one morning, about a fortnight after
her strange experience in the long gallery, to observe on her left cheek
an inch or two below her turquoise-coloured eyes, a little greyish patch
of skin, about as big as a threepenny piece. It was in vain that she
applied her accustomed washes and ungents: vain, too, were the arts of
her _fardeuse_ and of her medical adviser. For a week she kept herself
secluded, martyring herself with solitude and unaccustomed physics, and
for result at the end of the week she had no amelioration to comfort
herself with: instead this woeful grey patch had doubled itself in size. Thereafter the nameless disease, whatever it was, developed in new and
terrible ways. From the centre of the discoloured place there sprouted
forth little lichen-like tendrils of greenish-grey, and another patch
appeared on her lower lip. This, too, soon vegetated, and one morning
on opening her eyes to the horror of a new day, she found that her
vision was strangely blurred. She sprang to her looking-glass, and what
she saw caused her to shriek aloud with horror. From under her upper
eye-lid a fresh growth had sprung up, mushroom-like, in the night, and
its filaments extended downwards, screening the pupil of her eye. Soon
after her tongue and throat were attacked: the air passages became
obstructed, and death by suffocation was merciful after such suffering. More terrible yet was the case of a certain Colonel Blantyre who fired
at the children with his revolver. What he went through is not to be
recorded here. *       *       *       *       *

It is this haunting, then, that the Peverils take quite seriously, and
every guest on his arrival in the house is told that the long gallery
must not be entered after nightfall on any pretext whatever. By day,
however, it is a delightful room and intrinsically merits description,
apart from the fact that the due understanding of its geography is
necessary for the account that here follows. It is full eighty feet in
length, and is lit by a row of six tall windows looking over the gardens
at the back of the house. A door communicates with the landing at the
top of the main staircase, and about half-way down the gallery in the
wall facing the windows is another door communicating with the back
staircase and servants’ quarters, and thus the gallery forms a constant
place of passage for them in going to the rooms on the first landing. It
was through this door that the baby-figures came when they appeared to
Mrs Canning, and on several other occasions they have been known to make
their entry here, for the room out of which handsome Dick took them lies
just beyond at the top of the back stairs. Further on again in the
gallery is the fireplace into which he thrust them, and at the far end a
large bow-window looks straight down the avenue. Above this fireplace
there hangs with grim significance a portrait of handsome Dick, in the
insolent beauty of early manhood, attributed to Holbein, and a dozen
other portraits of great merit face the windows. During the day this is
the most frequented sitting-room in the house, for its other visitors
never appear there then, nor does it then ever resound with the harsh
jovial laugh of handsome Dick, which sometimes, after dark has fallen,
is heard by passers-by on the landing outside. But Blanche does not grow
bright-eyed when she hears it: she shuts her ears and hastens to put a
greater distance between her and the sound of that atrocious mirth. But during the day the long gallery is frequented by many occupants, and
much laughter in no wise sinister or saturnine resounds there. When
summer lies hot over the land, those occupants lounge in the deep window
seats, and when winter spreads his icy fingers and blows shrilly between
his frozen palms, congregate round the fireplace at the far end, and
perch, in companies of cheerful chatterers, upon sofa and chair, and
chair-back and floor. Often have I sat there on long August evenings up
till dressing-time, but never have I been there when anyone has seemed
disposed to linger over-late without hearing the warning: “It is close
on sunset: shall we go?” Later on in the shorter autumn days they often
have tea laid there, and sometimes it has happened that, even while
merriment was most uproarious, Mrs Peveril has suddenly looked out of
the window and said, “My dears, it is getting so late: let us finish our
nonsense downstairs in the hall.” And then for a moment a curious hush
always falls on loquacious family and guests alike, and as if some bad
news had just been known, we all make our silent way out of the place. But the spirits of the Peverils (of the living ones, that is to say) are
the most mercurial imaginable, and the blight which the thought of
handsome Dick and his doings casts over them passes away again with
amazing rapidity. *       *       *       *       *

A typical party, large, young, and peculiarly cheerful, was staying at
Church-Peveril shortly after Christmas last year, and as usual on
December 31, Mrs Peveril was giving her annual New Year’s Eve ball. The
house was quite full, and she had commandeered as well the greater part
of the Peveril Arms to provide sleeping-quarters for the overflow from
the house. For some days past a black and windless frost had stopped all
hunting, but it is an ill windlessness that blows no good (if so mixed a
metaphor may be forgiven), and the lake below the house had for the last
day or two been covered with an adequate and admirable sheet of ice. Everyone in the house had been occupied all the morning of that day in
performing swift and violent manœuvres on the elusive surface, and as
soon as lunch was over we all, with one exception, hurried out again. This one exception was Madge Dalrymple who had had the misfortune to
fall rather badly earlier in the day, but hoped, by resting her injured
knee, instead of joining the skaters again, to be able to dance that
evening. The hope, it is true, was of the most sanguine sort, for she
could but hobble ignobly back to the house, but with the breezy optimism
which characterises the Peverils (she is Blanche’s first cousin), she
remarked that it would be but tepid enjoyment that she could, in her
present state, derive from further skating, and thus she sacrificed
little, but might gain much. Accordingly after a rapid cup of coffee which was served in the long
gallery, we left Madge comfortably reclined on the big sofa at
right-angles to the fireplace, with an attractive book to beguile the
tedium till tea. Being of the family, she knew all about handsome Dick
and the babies, and the fate of Mrs Canning and Colonel Blantyre, but as
we went out I heard Blanche say to her, “Don’t run it too fine, dear,”
and Madge had replied, “No; I’ll go away well before sunset.” And so we
left her alone in the long gallery.