Part 3

When the curtain rose again the house instantly settled into silence, a sure sign that things were going well. Connie leaned forward with something of the eagerness of a child; even Captain Bolitho unhinged himself, as it were, and indicated interest by a slightly curved back. Annesley began to feel master of himself again; part of the future, at least, was now safe; how much that means to a man who steps from poverty to the security of a decent income can only be realised by those who have been in a like case; the mere fact of being able to pay a debt with promptitude is capable of affording a very exquisite joy. But, now that so much was within his grasp, he longed for all; the horizon of desire, like the horizon of the actual world, always recedes as we advance; since a few months before he had travelled innumerable miles towards success; that being reached, there was still an infinite distance beyond.

In the second act there was a simple love-scene that appeared to take the audience by surprise; it was direct, touching, convincing. Annesley noticed that no one laughed, a thing almost unprecedented in a London theatre when sentiment attitudinises upon the boards. This gave him a glow of well-earned triumph; he had mentally decided beforehand that that was the crucial point of the play; when it was passed he dropped back and closed his eyes.

"You didn't see all that act," Connie said to him in the interval; "are you tired,--were you asleep?"

"I'm neither tired nor sleepy, I heard everything."

"Didn't you think the love-scene beautiful?"

"Yes," he said, blushing at his own candour.

"I didn't think much of that," said Captain Bolitho, "I suppose because I can't see myself saying pretty things to a girl. It's not in my line, you know. I feel 'em, but can't express 'em. My notion is that the girl should make love to me."

"But you must begin, surely," Connie said.

"That's just the deuce of it," said the Captain, "I can't."

Annesley rose. "I must go now," he said, "to another part of the house. When it's over will you remain here till I come? I've an idea that I can find out who this Conrad Howe is. May I bring him to see you if I'm right?"

"Do, I'll wait for you." He went out into the Strand and lit a cigarette. The aspect of the world had changed for him; he even saw cabs and busses with different eyes. Every passenger upon the pavement seemed a friend, the roar of traffic had new music in it,--the stars above the housetops looked down with kindly eyes. The cool air put fresh courage into him, soothed his pulse, made his hope seem real. Inside the theatre it had been altogether difficult to understand substantial facts; but out there in the hurry of the street it was easy enough. There was no doubt about "The Golden Circlet," or Connie Bolitho, or about himself; they all existed, they all were of the world. The name of Conrad Howe stared at him from the placards; he even touched the letters with his fingers to make quite sure. Ten minutes later he re-entered the theatre by the stage door.

He met the manager in the wings. That gentleman was simmering with joy, his congratulations were overwhelming. Annesley bore them with resignation.

"There's sure to be a call for 'Author,'" said the manager; "you'll go to the front, won't you? It's always better; pleases them, you know. Do you feel nervous? Come to my room and have some champagne. This is a howling success, Mr. Howe--nothing like it for years. Just listen to that applause? You've fetched 'em, no doubt about it. Come along and have that champagne." Annesley went readily enough; the atmosphere of the theatre was getting on his nerves again.

When the last curtain fell the pit and gallery got upon their feet and cheered; the rest of the house was equally decisive if more discreet; "The Golden Circlet" was a success. And in the midst of the hubbub Annesley found himself before the curtain, bowing, dazzled by the footlights and straining his eyes to see one face. And, as though in obedience to his call, it rose before him, flushed, glowing, with eyes from which the delight and astonishment had hardly died, and with lips whose smile seemed tremulous with coming tears. That was the true moment of his triumph.

As soon as he could escape he found his way into the empty stalls; one figure remained. As he approached Connie raised her head. The colour had died out of her face; she was as pale as Annesley was himself. He held out his hand.

"I have brought Conrad Howe to see you," he said.

"Why didn't you tell me before? It was cruel of you."

"Perhaps it was because I thought that if I failed I could not bear that you should know it."

"That was not true friendship."

"Did I ever profess friendship for you?"

She hesitated, and played with her fan. A little wave of colour flowed back into her cheeks.

"You see," he went on, "I was pretty much alone in the world, and had to make my mark in my own way. A few months ago things were very black with me. I shut myself up and worked."

"It must have been hard for you," she said, "to cut yourself off from everything like that."

"It was hard, I'm not going to pretend it wasn't. But I had hope--not very bright, perhaps, but still it was enough to keep me from going under."

"You had faith in yourself and in your own work."

"I had more than that. Can you guess what it was?" Their voices sounded curiously hollow in the empty theatre,--the attendants were already putting up and covering the seats.

"You hoped to get fame and money?"

"Yes, but more than either I wished to win your love. Don't kill my illusion, don't ring down the curtain on my romance, Connie, and leave me in the dark. Everything I did was for you. You inspired whatever was good in 'The Golden Circlet.' The thought of you kept my head above water. I can come to you now without feeling ashamed."

"You might have come before. You need never have been ashamed. I could have helped you, oh, so much!"

"But now that the dark days are over, you won't turn your back on me and say I don't need your help? I need it more than ever. My love, the golden circlet is yours if you will take it from me."

She, gave him both her hands and lifted her face to his.

"I am your's always," she said, "but I think, perhaps, I loved you better when you were quite poor, but you never asked me then to love you. Think of what you've lost!"

Annesley took her in his arms in spite of a watchful attendant. "Never mind," he said, "everything's in the future for both of us, never mind the past. They may even damn my play now if they like."

At this point Captain Bolitho's voice was heard in loud protest.

"I tell you," he was saying, "I left a lady in your confounded theatre, and she hasn't come out. I've had a cab waiting ten minutes."

"It's Tom," Connie whispered, "I forgot all about him. Poor Tom!"

"Miss Bolitho's quite safe," said Annesley, "we've just been settling a little matter of great importance to both of us."

Captain Bolitho peered into the face of each in the uncertain light and seemed to understand.

"The devil you have!" he murmured under his breath. Then he said aloud, "Anyhow, Connie, I can't keep the cab waiting any longer. I congratulate you, Mr. Annesley Howe, on your 'Golden Circlet.' That was a deuced neat little surprise you'd hatched for us. I like your play, and I daresay I shall like you when I know more of you. Dine with me next Thursday, will you? Good-night."

MODERN FAMILY SKELETONS.

BY BEATRICE KNOLLYS.

_Illustrated by A. S. Hartrick._

A family ghost is a possession almost as respectable as a patent of nobility, and happy is the house reputed, on satisfactory evidence, to be haunted by one. There are still a few hereditary ghosts left, and a few leasehold and freehold ghosts; but these last are often the property of retired manufacturers and American millionaires who have bought house and lands, pedigrees, portraits, and family ghosts all together as they stood.

In this article it is my intention to be the biographer of a few ancient and well-born ghosts only, as space will not permit me to condescend to mere one-generation ghosts, pedigreeless spirits.

A. was an Airlie who killed a poor drummer, whose spirit plays a drum at Cortachy Castle, Kirriemuir, Scotland, whenever any member of the Ogilvy family is going to die. The origin of this tradition is that the drummer, for some reason or other, in his lifetime so enraged a former Lord Airlie that he had him thrust into his own drum and flung from the window of a tower of Cortachy Castle, though the drummer threatened to haunt the family ever after if his life were taken.

He has seemingly kept his word, for in 1849, before the decease of a Lord Airlie, and again in 1884, before the death of a Lady Airlie, the beat of the drum was on each occasion distinctly heard by different guests of the family. One of these guests was a lady staying in the castle, who was so ignorant of the tradition that, having heard the beating of a drum while dressing for dinner, she innocently asked her host--Lord Airlie--at the table who his drummer was. The question made the peer turn quite white, for the sound had preceded the loss of his first wife, and it was only a few months after this ominous dinner party that the second wife died.

The Combermere family have two ghosts in their record. In Combermere Abbey there is an old room, once a nursery, and here has been seen the spirit-figure of a little girl fourteen years old, dressed in a very quaint frock with an odd little ruff round its neck. It appeared to a niece of the late Lord Cotton as she was dressing for a very late dinner one evening in this former nursery, now used as a bedroom. She had just risen from her toilet-glass to get some article of dress when she saw the child standing near her bed--a little iron one which stood out in the room away from the wall--and presently the figure began running round the bed in a wild, distressed way, with a look of suffering in its little face, which the lady could see quite plainly as the full light of her candles fell upon it.

On mentioning this apparition, her widowed aunt, Lady Cotton, called to remembrance that the late Lord Cotton had told her of the sudden death years ago of a favourite little sister of his, with whom he had been playing, he being also a child then, by running round and round the bed with her, just the night before--indeed, only a few hours before, her decease.

A stranger story still, and one that has not yet, I believe, appeared in print, is that where quite recently a lady took an amateur photograph of the drawing-room of a house once inhabited by the late Lord Combermere--at Brighton I think it was. The lady in question saw, to her horror and astonishment, visible on the plate, the ghost of the old peer--a tall man with rather stout face and a moustache--reproduced sitting in one of the easy chairs of this drawing-room, though not apparent to the naked eye.

The Drake ghost--the spirit of Sir Francis Drake--might be termed a sporting spirit, as it has been frequently seen in different parts of Devonshire and Cornwall--notably Plymouth--driving a hearse drawn by headless horses and followed by a pack of headless hounds.

Two Gordon ghosts live at Fyvie Castle in Scotland. One is a lady dressed in a magnificent costume of green brocade, who is seen, candle in hand, passing through a tapestried room of the old castle when any important event is going to happen to the family.

The other spirit is by profession a trumpeter, who tradition affirms haunts the castle in revenge for having during his lifetime been seized by the press-gang at the instigation of the then Gordon of Fyvie Castle, who wished to get rid of a rival in the affections of a pretty daughter of his factor or bailiff.

The girl, however, remained faithful to the trumpeter, the separation from him making her die of a broken heart; and now, like the drum of Cortachy Castle, a trumpet is heard whenever misfortune is in store for the unlucky Gordons. Ill-fated they certainly are, as beside being the hereditary owners of unlucky ghosts, they are also under a hereditary curse--the curse of a "Thomas the Rhymester"--who, when the gates of the castle long years ago were churlishly closed against him in the days of wandering minstrelsy, declared that the property should never descend in a direct line till three "weeping" stones were found; but up to twenty years ago, when a relative of the writer was staying at the castle, only one weeping stone had been discovered.

In Fyvie Castle there is also a sealed room, which is always kept religiously closed; for the saying is, should the door be ever opened, the master would die and his wife go blind. Faith and fear have prevented the saying being proved, as the room has never been opened; but as regards the curse of "Thomas the Rhymester," it is certainly a fact that the Gordons have never inherited in a direct line.

There is a perfect spirit vault of ghosts at Glamis Castle, the ancestral residence of another old and celebrated Scotch family, the Lyons, the head being the Earl of Strathmore. They also possess a secret chamber, which is supposed to be connected with some terrible mystery known only to each owner, the next heir, and the house-bailiff, of the time being. Even the exact locality of the room is never revealed to others than those three, and though more than one heir-apparent has promised to tell the secret to his bosom friends as soon as the attainment of his twenty-first year entitled him to learn it; yet after he has known it, a solemn silence on the subject has been maintained, and beyond the fact that a stonemason is supposed to be secretly employed to close the approach to this chamber after each visit, nothing more definite is known. The strangest part of it all is the evident necessity that each successive house steward should be made acquainted with this mystery, which looks as if to him was intrusted the duty of providing food for some person or thing imprisoned in those walls of fifteen feet thickness. Whether the mystery is in any way connected with the apparition of a bearded man, who flits about the castle at night, and hovers over the couches of children, is not known; perhaps it has something to do with a figure which appeared at a window to a guest staying at Glamis Castle, and sitting up late one moonlight night. The owner of the pale face, lit up with great sorrowful eyes, seemed to wish to attract attention, but it was suddenly pulled away as if by some superior power. Presently, horrible shrieks rent the night air, and an hour or so later, the guest, gazing horror-stricken from the window of the room, saw a dark huddled figure, like that of an old decrepit woman, carrying a bundle, pass across the waning moonlight outside, and vanish.

Perhaps the most interesting legend attached to this magnificent old castle is the historical tradition that in one of its rooms Duncan was murdered by Macbeth, "Thane of Glamis," and this Duncan is perchance the tall bearded ghost in armour who haunts the old square tower, and on one occasion nearly frightened to death a child who, with its mother, was on a visit to the castle. The child was asleep in a dressing-room off its mother's bedroom. She herself was lying awake, when a cold blast extinguished her light suddenly, but not the night-light in the dressing-room, from whence, immediately after, proceeded a shriek. The mother rushed in and found her child awake, and in an agony of fear, because the tall mailed figure she herself had seen pass into the dressing-room had come to the side of the cot and leant over the face of the child. As a matter of fact, tradition and truth are so mixed up with all the stories connected with this very ancient fortress-palace, that it is difficult, in fact impossible, to know what to believe and what to disbelieve.

A more peaceable spirit is the Townshend ghost of Rainham, in Norfolk, commonly known as the "Brown Lady." She is described as tall and stately, dressed in a rich brown brocade, with a sort of coif on her head. The features are clearly defined, but where the eyes should be are nothing but hollows. She is seen walking about the old mansion every now and then, though no reason can be discovered to account for her restlessness. Lord Charles Townshend, on being asked by a lady if he also believed in the apparition, replied, "I cannot but believe, for she ushered me into my room last night."

The Lonsdale spirit seems to have been as rowdy in death as it was during life when it inhabited the body of Jemmy Lowther, well known as the "bad Lord Lonsdale." For years after his decease the inhabitants of Lowther Hall and the neighbourhood were kept in a constant state of excitement by continual disturbances in the house, noises in the stables, and the galloping across country of Lord Lonsdale's phantom "coach and six."

The Powys Castle ghost was a much more amiable spirit, and of quite a superior character to the devil-may-care spirit of Jemmy Lowther. His object was benevolent, and his manners were well-bred and gracious when he appeared. His last visit was to a poor pious workwoman, who, in the absence of the Herberts from Powys Castle, was purposely put by the servants in the haunted bedroom, a handsomely furnished apartment with a boarded floor, a big bedstead in one corner, and two sash windows. A good fire was made up in the room, and a chair and a table with a large lighted candle on it was placed in front of the fire. She had just sat down in the chair to read her Bible, when to her astonishment in walked a gentleman. He wore a gold-laced hat and waistcoat, with coat and the rest of his attire to correspond. He went over to one of the sash windows, and putting an elbow on the sill, rested his face on the palm of his hand. She supposed afterwards that he stood quietly thus to encourage her to speak, but she was too frightened. Then he walked out of the room, and the poor woman, rising from her chair, fell on her knees and began to pray. Whilst praying, the spirit appeared again, walked round the room, and came close behind her. He again departed, and again appeared behind her as she still knelt. She said, "Pray, sir, who are you, and what do you want?"

It lifted its finger and said--

"Take up the candle and follow me, and I will tell you."

She did as she was bid, and followed him into a very small room, where, tearing up a board, he pointed to an iron box underneath, and then to a crevice in the wall where lay hidden a key. These he commanded were to be sent to the Earl of Powys, then in London. This was done, though history does not relate what the box contained; but it was known that this poor Welsh spinning woman was provided for liberally by the Powys family till she died about the beginning of this century.

Though one does not associate ghosts with such a city of excitement, life, and renovation as London, yet it does possess several haunted houses. One belonging to a present-day peer, and situated in Park Lane, is said to be haunted by fashionable spirits having a dance. Some people can only hear the buzz of their voices and the swish of dresses and the tap of feet, while others can see the figures themselves talking and dancing.

Yes, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

A ROSE AT LAST

BY

CLIFTON BINGHAM

It was only a rosetree slender On a dingy window sill, In the heart of the busy City, With its mingled good and ill. And the Angels must have seen it, Unwilling to let it die, For it thrived and bore a rose-bud Under that darksome sky!

A white face watched it daily With joy in its childish eyes, As she played alone in the garret Under the city skies: It brightened the dingy windows, Each night as she crept to bed, Though hungry and loveless and lonely, "It will soon be a rose," she said.

There at the window one morning, The bud was a rose so fair, But the garret was still and silent, There was no little white face there! It was smiling in happy slumber, Its pain and loneliness past, For the Angels who loved her were saying, That the bud was a rose at last!

HOW SANDOW MADE ME STRONG

A REMARKABLE PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION.

It was a question of going to South Africa or running the risk of a short life in England; health dictated the question, and the answer depended on many things. Someone suggested Sandow's School of Physical Culture as a compromise; and finally England, backed up by financial and other reasoning, carried the day.

I was a puny youth, weak of spirit and frail of frame, when I first visited Sandow's muscle factory in St. James's Street, London, and said that I had come to be made into a strong and healthy Englishman--to obtain a fresh lease of life if possible.

Sandow fingered my arms and chest as he might a prize ox, and remarked that I should make an admirable subject for his purpose; he liked pulling folks out of their graves. Whereupon I imagined I should be passed into the gymnasium to swing a dumb-bell for an hour or so, and be invited to drop in again when I was next that way. But I was mistaken. Had my object been to enlist in Her Majesty's forces, the examinations and tests I was subjected to could not have been more extensive or peculiar. I was sounded, measured, weighed, pounded and questioned, the results being solemnly entered into a big ledger, as though it might all be used as evidence against me should the need ever arise. Weight 120 lbs., chest measurement 32 in., height 5 ft. 6-1/2 in., though the latter is immaterial, as Sandow does not bargain to make one grow in that direction when nature considers her duty done.

Though I felt ashamed of the figures myself, they did not seem to affect my burly interrogators in any way, and the examination proceeded. Had I indigestion, and did I smoke? I confessed to a little of either weakness of the flesh. Was there any particular ailment in the family, and would I take a full breath and blow down this tube? As I did so, a little clock-like machine ticked merrily away, till it registered that my pair of lungs--or "one and a decimal," as a blunt old doctor had once informed me--could contain at full pressure 185 cubic inches of air--a poor record, be it said.

Next came dumb-bell and weight tests, careful note being made of the exact number of pounds I could lift with one hand, two hands, hold at arm's length, and support above my head. The record ran thus:--One hand lift, 65 lbs.; at arm's length, 18 lbs.; raised from shoulders (1) 40 lbs., (2) 35 lbs. each. Bar-bell raised above head, 85 lbs. So the examination ended, and when my photograph had been taken as a sort of example "before trying," I was free to join the little army of health-and-muscle seekers whenever I chose.