Narrow, slit-like windows in perfect
keeping with the architecture and the needs of the period in which it was
built--if not with modern ideas of hygiene and health--kept the rooms
dark and musty. When Nigel first entered the place through the great
front door thrown open by the solemn-faced butler, who he learned had
been kept on from his uncle's time, he felt as though he were entering
his own tomb. When the door shut he shuddered as the light and sunshine
vanished.
The first night he hardly slept a wink. His bed was a huge four-poster,
girt about with plush hangings like over-ripe plums, that shut him in as
though he were in some monstrous Victorian trinket box. A post creaked at
every turn he made in its downy softnesses, and being used to the light,
camp-like furniture of an Indian bungalow he got up, took an eiderdown
with him, and spent the rest of the hours upon a sofa drawn up beside an
open window.
"That people could live in such places!" he told himself, over and over
again. "No wonder my poor old uncle disappeared! Any self-respecting
Christian would.
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