The Master of Phoenix Hall by Jennifer Wilde Read Free Book Online Page B

black walking near the quarries. He might have imagined it.”
    â€œSurely you’re teasing Billy,” I said.
    â€œNo, Ma’am,” he replied. “There’s been lots of talk about the robbers’ den being hereabouts. There’s been search parties, but no one has ever found anything. But the lights have been seen, curious lights like hooded lanterns in the quarries and in the woods. Folks stay away from both places at night.”
    â€œMy aunt was never bothered,” I said.
    â€œNo one has been bothered. There have been no incidents, except for Old Hatcher seeing the black figure, and Hatcher isn’t a very reliable witness. He hits the bottle a bit too often.”
    Nan’s face had grown a little pale, and Billy grinned when he noticed it. He was mischievous by nature and enjoyed frightening her. I could see the boyish devilment sparkling in his eyes.
    â€œOf course there was a lunatic loose in these parts once,” he continued. “He had a butcher knife he had stolen when he escaped from the Home. Belle James was coming through the woods one night after she had left her boy friend—she was a flighty thing, always doin’ what she had no business doin’—and she met up with him. They found her next morning, a pitiful sight to see.”
    â€œAnd—did they catch him?” Nan asked.
    â€œNot for a while. The men roamed all through the woods with torch lights burning, and they could hear insane laughter. It took them two days and nights, but they finally rounded him up. Poor man was curled up in a cave, babbling like a child. The blood-stained butcher knife was beside him.”
    â€œYou hush now,” Nan cried. “I don’t want to hear any more. It’s all nonsense, anyway! Nothing is going to hurt Miss Angel and me. Not while I’m in possession of all my senses. Let me tell you what I said to the highwayman when he held us up last night—”
    Nan began to babble about the holdup, and Billy continued gazing at her with admiration. I was glad when Billy finally left, for it was late now and I was very tired. Nan told me that he had asked her to go berry-picking with him at the end of the week. She was undecided about going but, holding her head to one side, she guessed that a good berry cobbler would be nice. After a while she went to her room and I undressed to go to bed.
    It was very dark outside, with only a few frosty stars in a black sky. The limbs of the trees rustled in the wind, and I could hear the boughs groaning, the leaves rattling. Crickets chirped, and I heard a dog howling to the night from somewhere far off. I was far too excited and far too happy, and I lay in bed in a state of semiconsciousness and watched the shadows creep across the floor to the edge of the bed. Like Nan, I felt the isolation of Dower House. It was strange not to be able to hear all the noises of London that had sometimes kept me awake when I was at the boardinghouse. No carriages rumbling over the cobbles, no horses’ hooves, no nocturnal footsteps moving down the street. Here there was only a serene silence that gradually lulled me to sleep.
    I awoke with a start, completely awake, every sense alert. I had the acute sensation that something was wrong, and the strange, eerie feeling that always comes when one is awakened in the middle of the night. The room was very cold. The window was open, and the chilly breeze blew the curtains inward. They were billowing and rustling. Something had happened. In my sleep, even, I had been aware of it, and it had torn away the layers of unconsciousness and sent me hurtling into a state of tingling awareness. I sat up now, trying to recall what had happened. There was that sensation of aftermath, the air still full of the reverberations of something that had just taken place. The house was still and silent but for the sound of the curtains flapping in the breeze. My heart was pounding and my throat was