Rutledge Part 53

Sometimes I really thought I was losing my reason; the knowledge that I held the life of another in my own weak hands, made them tremble more; the keeping of the secret was wearing my very life away; sleepless nights and wretched days were doing their sure work with me, and the terrible excitement within, shone out in my eyes and burned in a crimson spot on each white cheek, throbbed in my quick pulse and sapped the strength and vigor of my being. I could have wrestled with and overcome fear and timidity, if they had been all; I could have been brave and strong, if I had had but his sin to cover, his crime to hide; if I had been true, if my own heart had been pure of sin, I could have borne it.

But it was the weight of remorse, added to all the rest, that crushed me to the dust. It was remembering how great a part I had had in Victor's sin, that took all courage out of my heart. If I had not deceived him, and allowed him to believe I loved him--would he not now have been safe?

From those first beginnings of pride and resentment, I traced my sin in regard to him. Whenever they had got a foothold, the soothing flattery of Victor's love had crept in, to allay and lull the pain they caused.

And I had not remembered to pray in those hours; I had trusted to myself, and gone on sinning. Just so far as I had been estranged from duty, and grown cold to holy things, just so far had I gone forward in the path which had now brought me to such terrible bewilderment.

Whenever I had prayed and repented, his influence and the temptation of his presence had been weakened or withdrawn; whenever I had listened to the whispers of wounded pride or determined resentment, his voice had been at my ear, his love laid at my feet. When little Essie's death had drawn my thoughts awhile toward heaven, and made me realize the littleness and impotence of pride and wrath, and the insignificance of things seen, the power and eternity of things unseen, he had been forgotten and indifferent; but so soon as I had allowed the return of worldliness, so soon had I found myself snared in hypocrisy and deceit toward him. The little sins of every day, they had tempted me on to where I now stood. It was so easy to look back and see it all--how one slight omission of duty had led to another--how one moment of indulgence had weakened self-control--one disregard of truth had grown into the tyrant sin from which I could not now release myself; struggle as I might, I was helpless in its grasp. Every step but plunged me deeper; every word was but a fresh deceit.

I saw Victor that evening for a few moments; Kitty had watched long for a safe chance to admit me. Mrs. Roberts, contrary to all precedent, had taken her knitting and seated herself in one of the hall windows, declaring that it was the coolest place in the house, and there remained the whole afternoon. There was nothing to induce her to do it but the obstinate instincts of her nature, to which she was ever true. She may have had some lurking suspicion that there was "something going on"

upstairs, and though entirely ignorant of its nature, she could not doubt its evil tendency, believing as she had reason to, that Kitty was concerned in it. She had encountered that young person on the stairs after dinner, with a surrept.i.tious plate of confectionery and fruit from dessert. Kitty had readily answered upon demand, that it was for her young lady; and Mrs. Roberts had very tartly remarked that in _her_ time, young ladies thought it best manners to eat as much as they wanted at the table, and not take the credit of being delicate, and then have extra plates of good things brought up to their rooms. Kitty could hardly brook the implied taunt, but she had to swallow it. She hovered anxiously around all the afternoon, inventing all manner of excuses to get Mrs. Roberts away, but to no avail, and it was only after dusk, when she had at last withdrawn to order tea, that Kitty eagerly beckoned me to follow her to the door of the hidden room, that had always had such a mysterious awe in my eyes.

As I crept through the narrow s.p.a.ce between the wardrobe and the door, I grasped Kitty's hand with an involuntary shudder. "Don't go away," I whispered.

"No, Miss. I'll stay just outside the door and watch, and you must come the very minute I tap at it, for Mrs. Roberts will be back as soon as ever she has given out the things for tea. I won't go away, don't be afraid, Miss."

The twilight was too dim for me to distinguish anything as Kitty closed the door softly behind me, and I groped my way into the room. "Victor!"

I said, in a whisper, as no sound met my ear.

A dark figure between me and the faint light of the window, started forward as I spoke, and, in another moment, my hands were grasped in hands as cold and trembling. Did it give me a shudder to remember the work those hands had done in the grey shadowy twilight, one short week before? I tried not to think of it. I tried to remember it was the man who loved me--who had risked his life for my love. But crime and remorse had strangely darkened and changed him. There was a wild sort of despair in his very tenderness--a fierce recklessness when he spoke of the future; I tried in vain to rea.s.sure myself and soothe him, but I quailed before a nature, beside the strength of whose pa.s.sion, all that I had known or seen of despair and desperation faded into insignificance. A weak man can sin weakly, and bewail it feebly and with tears: a strong man, who is hurried into crime by the very intensity and strength, of his nature, turns fiercely upon the remorse that besets him; the very gall of bitterness is his repentance--blood and curses are the tears he sheds.

Tenderness and confidence shrunk back affrighted from such contact; I trembled in his grasp, and he caught a suspicion of my fear. I never shall forget the agony of the gesture with which he released me, and turning away, buried his face in his hands. I started forward, and tried, in faltering accents, to a.s.sure him of--what? The words died on my lips. At that moment there was a hurried tap at the door, and Kitty's voice whispered:

"Quick!"

"There is your release!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "You have done your duty; draw a long breath, and hurry back into the light and freedom of the outer world. Quick! I must not keep you."

"You are wrong," I murmured, "I must go, but it is just as dark and miserable outside to me, as it is here for you. Don't fancy, Victor, that there is any pleasure for me now."

"You need not remind me of that!" he exclaimed, sinking down, and bowing his face on the table before him. "You need not remind me of that! I know I have dragged you down with me in my fall, and it is the cruellest thought in all my cruel anguish; but you shall be freed--be sure you shall be freed!"

"Why will you talk so strangely, Victor? What have I done to make you doubt me now? I would die to serve you--I have no other thought than how to save you from the danger that threatens"----

Kitty shook the door impatiently, and implored me to come out.

"I must go, Victor," I whispered. "Will you not speak to me? Good night."

I bent over him, and touched my lips to his forehead, and then groped my way hastily to the door. He did not move or speak, and I turned back irresolutely, to beg him for a word of forgiveness, but Kitty, opening the door, caught me by the hand, and pulled me out.

"They are all asking for you; Miss Josephine has been upstairs for you, and when she came down and said you weren't in your room, master looked so white, and started up so frightened, that the others all caught it of him, and began to call you and hunt all about for you; and I couldn't let you know, for old Roberts was marching up and down the hall, and keeping her eyes all about her. She's gone into her room a minute--now's your chance; run right down the private staircase--there's n.o.body in the butler's pantry--go out on the piazza, and so around to the front door.

Quick! She's coming back!"

I should have done anything Kitty told me to do at that moment. It was lucky for me she was the clear-headed, ingenious girl she was. I ran downstairs, and hurried round the piazza. At the hall door I paused a moment, and leaned against one of the pillars, to recover myself before I entered. Some one hurrying out of the house brushed against me. An exclamation of surprise and relief escaped his lips, and looking up, I saw Mr. Rutledge.

"Where have you been?" he asked, abruptly.

The suddenness of the question, and my miserable nervousness, overcame my self-possession entirely. I struggled in vain to speak, but ended by putting my face in my hands, and bursting into a flood of tears.

"You are not well," he said, kindly, taking my hand and drawing me to a seat. "You are very unhappy. I cannot bear to see you suffer so. Will you not tell me what it is, and let me help you?"

"No one can help me--no one can do me the least good."

"You think so, perhaps; but you do not know how far I might. You do not know how much I would sacrifice to see you happy again. If you will only confide to me the anxiety that I see is killing you, I will promise to further your wishes, and to endeavor to relieve your mind, at the cost of anything to myself except my honor."

I shook my head. "You cannot help me--no one can."

"If it is only grief at parting with your lover," he went on, quickly, "I cannot do you any good; but if it is what I fear for you, I can perhaps advise you--perhaps materially aid you. Trust in me for this; show the confidence in me that you have hitherto refused, and you shall see how well I will serve you--how unselfishly and unreservedly I will try to restore you to happiness."

Pity can make the human face almost like the face of an angel; there is no emotion that is so transforming. When pride, self-will, and selfishness, resign their sway, and pity, heaven-born and G.o.d-like, dawns, all that is mean, and coa.r.s.e, and earthly, seems to fade before it, to grow dumb and quiet in the calm radiance of its risen fullness.

Such pity beamed on me now, but its healing and tenderness came too late,

"As on the uprooted flower, the genial rain."

"You are very kind," I murmured; "but there is nothing anybody can do for me."

He rose sadly. "I will not torment you, then. Will you come into the house? If you desire to go to your room, I will manage your excuses for you."

With almost inaudible thanks, I hurried into the hall and upstairs. My aunt came up in the course of the evening, but Kitty represented me as "just going to sleep," and I was spared an interview.

"Kitty!" I exclaimed, starting up, long after she had fancied I was soothed to sleep, "how--how will it all end? What is to become of him after we go? It was decided yesterday that we leave in two days' time, and you know it will not be safe for him to think of escape till the excitement has died away in the country. Poor Victor! What is to become of him?"

"Don't fret," said Kitty, soothingly, "even if you have to leave him here, there'll be no more danger for him than if you stayed. Mr.

Rutledge is going too, you know, and the house will be shut up, and it will be safer, if anything, than now. I'll write you every day of my life, and tell you how things go on. And, depend upon it, the worst of the danger is over. Since this body has been found in the lake, people will begin to content themselves that there's no use in looking further for the murderer--that he did it and then drowned himself in despair.

Michael hasn't brought up the news of the inquest yet--he's waiting in the village to hear it; but I've no manner of doubt what it'll be.

Everybody knows he and the doctor had dealings together, and that, with the character he bears, will tell against him."

"You don't suppose he had any papers about him that might do Victor harm?"

"If he had had, they wouldn't be of any use now; they've been in the water too long to serve any purpose, good or bad. No, Black John, as they call him, will have to bear the credit of the crime he was hunting poor Mr. Victor to death for. There ain't many that he didn't deserve to take the credit of. Everybody knows that he was nothing slow at all manner of wickedness, and it seems the likeliest thing in the world that he should do the devil's work; and, mark my words, before a week is over, there won't be man, woman or child in the country round, that won't curse Black John as Dr. Hugh's murderer. It won't do him much harm now, poor wretch; a few curses more or less won't make much difference to him where he is now, I suppose."

"Had he a wife?"

"A drunken, half-crazy thing. She spends her time between the poor-house and the grog-shop. She'll never mind about her husband, beyond howling for an hour or two when she first hears it, if she happens to be sober.

Now, Miss, don't think any more about it, but try to go to sleep. You'll be quite worn out."

And Kitty threw herself upon her mattress by my bed, where she now slept, and, faithfullest and tenderest of attendants, never left me, day or night.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

"Nor peace nor ease, the heart can know, That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe, But, turning, trembles too."

GREVILLE.

"Things seem to be taking a new turn," said the captain, meditatively, over his coffee the next morning. "I own I thought we were at the bottom of the mystery, yesterday, but this woman's testimony seems to set us all adrift again, and we're no nearer a conclusion than we were a week ago."

"What woman's?" asked Ellerton, who had just come in.

"The man's wife," said the captain.