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The Haunted Hotel-Part14_WILKIE COLLINS (1824-1899)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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and luxurious modern furniture, these two promised to be at once

the most attractive and the most comfortable bedchambers in the hotel.



As for the once-desolate and disused ground floor of the building,

it was now transformed, by means of splendid dining-rooms, reception-rooms,



billiard-rooms, and smoking-rooms, into a palace by itself.

Even the dungeon-like vaults beneath, now lighted and ventilated



on the most approved modern plan, had been turned as if by magic

into kitchens, servants' offices, ice-rooms, and wine cellars,



worthy of the splendour of the grandest hotel in Italy, in the now

bygone period of seventeen years since.



Passing from the lapse of the summer months at Venice, to the lapse of

the summer months in Ireland, it is next to be recorded that Mrs. Rolland



obtained the situation of attendant on the invalid Mrs. Carbury;

and that the fair Miss Haldane, like a female Caesar, came, saw,



and conquered, on her first day's visit to the new Lord Montbarry's house.

The ladies were as loud in her praises as Arthur Barville himself.



Lord Montbarry declared that she was the only perfectly pretty woman

he had ever seen, who was really unconscious of her own attractions.



The old nurse said she looked as if she had just stepped out of a picture,

and wanted nothing but a gilt frame round her to make her complete.



Miss Haldane, on her side, returned from her first visit to the

Montbarrys charmed with her new acquaintances. Later on the same day,



Arthur called with an offering of fruit and flowers for Mrs. Carbury,

and with instructions to ask if she was well enough to receive



Lord and Lady Montbarry and Miss Lockwood on the morrow.

In a week's time, the two households were on the friendliest terms.



Mrs. Carbury, confined to the sofa by a spinalmalady, had been

hitherto dependent on her niece for one of the few pleasures she



could enjoy, the pleasure of having the best new novels read

to her as they came out. Discovering this, Arthur volunteered



to relieve Miss Haldane, at intervals, in the office of reader.

He was clever at mechanical contrivances of all sorts,



and he introduced improvements in Mrs. Carbury's couch, and in

the means of conveying her from the bedchamber to the drawing-room,



which alleviated the poor lady's sufferings and brightened her

gloomy life. With these claims on the gratitude of the aunt,



aided by the personal advantages which he unquestionably possessed,

Arthur advanced rapidly in the favour of the charming niece.



She was, it is needless to say, perfectly well aware that he was in love

with her, while he was himself modestly reticent on the subject--



so far as words went. But she was not equally quick in penetrating

the nature of her own feelings towards Arthur. Watching the two young



people with keen powers of observation, necessarily concentrated

on them by the complete seclusion of her life, the invalid lady



discovered signs of roused sensibility in Miss Haldane, when Arthur

was present, which had never yet shown themselves in her social



relations with other admirers eager to pay their addresses to her.

Having drawn her own conclusions in private, Mrs. Carbury took the first



favourable opportunity (in Arthur's interests) of putting them to

the test.



'I don't know what I shall do,' she said one day, 'when Arthur

goes away.'



Miss Haldane looked up quickly from her work. 'Surely he is not

going to leave us!' she exclaimed.



'My dear! he has already stayed at his uncle's house a month longer

than he intended. His father and mother naturally expect to see



him at home again.'

Miss Haldane met this difficulty with a suggestion, which could



only have proceeded from a judgment already disturbed by the ravages

of the tender passion. 'Why can't his father and mother go and see



him at Lord Montbarry's?' she asked. 'Sir Theodore's place is only

thirty miles away, and Lady Barville is Lord Montbarry's sister.



They needn't stand on ceremony.'

'They may have other engagements,' Mrs. Carbury remarked.



'My dear aunt, we don't know that! Suppose you ask Arthur?'

'Suppose you ask him?'



Miss Haldane bent her head again over her work. Suddenly as it

was done, her aunt had seen her face--and her face betrayed her.



When Arthur came the next day, Mrs. Carbury said a word to him

in private, while her niece was in the garden. The last new



novel lay neglected on the table. Arthur followed Miss Haldane

into the garden. The next day he wrote home, enclosing in his



letter a photograph of Miss Haldane. Before the end of the week,




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