Sea and Shore Part 27

"Will not Bridget Maloney do as well?" I asked, desperately. She, at least, I thought, may be compa.s.sionate.

"It is strange you should know of her at all, or she of you. It is that girl, then, who has given us all this trouble," going to the bed, "when I did not suppose she knew of her existence. Explain this, Clayton, if you can."

"I suppose Ernie, who is fond of her, has mentioned her name to Miss Monfort; she thinks his mother is sick up-stairs, but knows no more, I am certain; besides, it's Dr. Englehart's establishment--such things are to be expected, and surprise no one of the attendants. Bridget is kept busy among them all." The farce was to be kept up, it seemed, to the end.

Old Dinah was evidently quaking in her shoes, and began to see her error, as she glanced reproachfully at me, but no further revelation seemed to be expected. It was, indeed, to divert, partly, immediate suspicion from one I still hoped to make my tool, that I mentioned the Irish girl at all, or craved her presence, but I soon found how futile in one instance was this trust. No sooner had Mrs. Raymond turned to depart, than Dinah followed her, protesting against being locked up the whole evening with the invalid, and begging leave to go out for an hour or two on business of her own, which she declared important.

"But Miss Monfort may need you in making her preparations," remonstrated Mrs. Raymond, "and Clayton and Ernie will want your attention; besides, fires will go down if not constantly mended, this cold evening."

"Dar's plenty of coal in de box, an' de tongs, wid claws, wat Ernie is so fond of handlin', ready and waitin' for dem wat's strong enough to use dem if dey choose, an' tea in de caddy, an' de kittle on de trivet, jes filled up, de bra.s.s toastin'-fork on de peg in de closet, 'sides bread an' b.u.t.ter, an' jam, an' new milk on de shelf, an' I is 'bliged to go anyway, case my ticklerest friend am dyin' ob de numony--I is jes got word; but at nine o'clock" (and she looked maliciously at me) "percisely Dinah 'll be in dis pickin' patch--he! he! he! can't possumbly c.u.m no airlier."

In a flash I saw the advantage her prolonged absence would give me, unless, indeed, she had become my confederate, so I beheld her depart with a feeling of relief which reacted in the next moment to positive helplessness and terror as the bolt was drawn behind her. What could I do? What was there to be done? For a time I sat mute and crushed by consideration; then casting myself on my bed I slept for half an hour, the kind of slumber that confusion generates, and yet I woke refreshed, calmed, comforted, and with a clearly-formed resolution and plan of action. I rose and approached Mrs. Clayton, whose groans, perhaps, aroused me, and, as I stood beside her bed, the clock in the dining room below struck six. I had still three hours for hope--for endeavor, before the circle of flame should close hopelessly around me forever! Three hours--were they not enough? Could I not compel them to concentration?

A cup of strong tea was hastily drawn and swallowed--another made for, and administered by my hand to, Mrs. Clayton, with toast _ad libitum_,--a tedious process--and afterward Ernie's supper prepared and eaten--all in less than half an hour. By seven he was in bed and asleep, and I had taken my seat by Mrs. Clayton, for the purpose, apparently, of merciful ministry to her condition--a piece of self-abnegation, as it seemed, and as she felt it, scarcely to be expected on my blissful marriage night.

"I feel very sorry for you; you suffer so, Mrs. Clayton," I had said, as I drew a chair beside her bed.

"And I for you, Miss Monfort; our fate seems equally hard, but we must bear it;" and she groaned heavily and closed her eyes, evidently in great pain.

"I have come to that conclusion, also, after a bitter struggle; physical pain is not so easily borne, however; the body has little philosophy."

"I thought all this was over," she rejoined, abstractedly, "when my hands were drawn as you see them by neuralgia ten years since. But I did not suffer as much then, I believe, as I do now; besides, I was younger, happier, better able to bear pain."

"Yes, that is true; the old should be at rest," at least my sense of justice whispered this; then, after a pause: "Does my rubbing ease your shoulder, Mrs. Clayton?"

"Somewhat--it is my head to-night, however, that troubles me chiefly. Be good enough to press my temples. Ah, that is great relief! You are very kind, Miss Monfort; yet, in reviewing the past, I hope you will not find that I have been wanting to you in my turn. I trust we shall part in peace and meet hereafter as friends. But you do not answer me."

"Pardon me, I was thinking. This is a crisis, you know--this night decides my fate for good or ill, all rests with merciful G.o.d!"

"Yes, all--of ourselves we are helpless, of course. It is a comfort to me, I confess, as I lie here, to feel that I have never willingly injured a fellow-being; to think that I--but, bless my soul, Miss Monfort, you must not hold me down in that way! you would not, I trust.

But even if you did--no key this time, the door is fast without!"

"Oh, not for worlds! be still, the pain will pa.s.s. I have the gift, you know, of soothing physical suffering. There, rest, you must not stir; give yourself up to me, if you can--slumber will come."

"It must not come--see, we are all alone!"

Her glazing eye--her slower breathing began already to attest the influence of the electric fluid, so potent in my veins, so wanting in her own, both from temperament and disease, yet she resisted bravely and long, and, even when her limbs were powerless, her spirit rebelled against me in murmured words of defiant opposition; but this, too, yielded finally to silence and to stupor; and she slept the deep, calm, unmistakable slumber caused by magnetism.

Then, again, I went through the experiment of the preceding night, and strove to awaken her.

"Get up," I said, and yet without willing that she should do so. "Mrs.

Raymond is here to show you her marriage-dress, and Mr. Bainrothe calls."

"Tell them to let me sleep; don't--don't--disturb me. I am so happy--so peaceful. It is sweet, too, to think that she will be married at last.

Poor thing! it was no fault of hers, though--no fault. A young actress is exposed to so many temptations, and it was better so--Harry Raymond's mistress."

That secret would never have escaped her devoted lips had she been able to retain it.

As carefully as the eyes of the dead are closed, I drew down her gaping lids, and turned away. As I did so, the clock struck eight. Fatima never listened more anxiously to the toll of parting time than I did that night; but, alas for me! no sister Anne kept watch on the tower; no brother hastened to arrest the sword. I was deserted by all save G.o.d and desperation. One hour comprised my fate! Very quietly I closed the door between Mrs. Clayton's room and my own. The bolt was on the other side, so I could not secure my privacy, even for a moment, should she chance to wake, or should Mrs. Raymond or Dinah return unexpectedly. As rapidly as I could, I altered my dress--this time above my clothes--threw on the black silk frock and mantilla prepared for me on s.h.i.+pboard, tied a dark veil over my head, an old woolen scarf about my throat, provided for Ernie's sore-throat and croup, and stood equipped for my enterprise.

Neither bonnet, nor gloves, nor boots, did I possess--Mrs. Raymond's loan having long since been condoned on behalf of some one else, and my clothing, in my captivity, had been contrived to suit my circ.u.mstances.

Wheeling the bedstead very gently on its noiseless castors a few inches from the wall, I insinuated myself between them, and, sheltered by the head-board, loosened again the slightly-adhering covering of paper that concealed the door, and fitted into the key-hole the well-oiled wooden key, which once before had proved its efficiency. It did not fail me now, in my hour of extremity, for a moment later I had turned and removed it from its socket, stepped forth upon the landing, and relocked without the door of my prison; but, perhaps, with too much of nervous haste, too little caution, for, to my inexpressible confusion, the handle of the instrument of my emanc.i.p.ation remained in my hand, broken off at the lock, and useless forever more.

In delaying probable pursuit from within, I had cut off all possibility of my own retreat in case of failure. My bridges were literally burned behind me, and I had no alternative left between flight and detection.

And yet there was something in the situation that, inconsistently enough, made me smile, albeit with a trembling heart.

I shook my head drearily, as a couplet from Collins's "Camel-Driver,"

with its strange appropriateness, irresistibly crossed my brain.

Why is it that, in times like these, such conceits beset us, such comparisons arise? Does the quality called presence of mind find root in the same source that impels us to apt quotation?--

"What if the lion in his rage I meet?

Oft in the dust I see his printed feet."

I gained fresh heart from that trivial diversion of thought, and stood quietly contemplating alternately the hall below and that above (both of which were visible from my place on the intermediate platform; all was still in both of these wide corridors), to make sure of the safety of my enterprise; and now, once more my foot was on the brink of those mysterious stairs which led, I felt, to doom or to liberty. I commenced, very cautiously, to descend them. The study-door at their foot was closed, and all seemed silent within. The murmur of voices, and the remote rattling of china proceeding from the ell behind the hall, encouraged me to believe that on this bitter night the family was concentrated, for greater comfort, in the supper-room.

With my hand on the bal.u.s.ter, pausing at every step, I crept quietly down the stairway; then, as if my feet were suddenly winged with terror, I darted by the study-door, flew lightly over the carpeted hall, and found myself, in another moment, secure within, the small enclosed vestibule into which the door of entrance gave. My worst misgivings had never compa.s.sed the terrific truth. At this early hour of the evening, not only was the front door locked, but the key had been withdrawn. This was despair.

My knees gave way beneath me, and I sank like a flaccid heap in the corner, against one of the leaves of the small folding-door that divided the arched vestibule from the long entry, and which was secured to the floor by a bolt, while the other one was thrown back. Crouched in the shadow, powerless to move or think, I heard, with inexpressible terror, the door of the study open, and the voice and step of Bainrothe in the hall, approaching me.

Had he heard me? Would he come? Was I betrayed?

I felt my hair rise on my head as these questions rang like a tocsin through my brain, and I think, at that moment, I had a foretaste of the chief agony of death.

They were answered by Bainrothe himself, as he paused midway between the study-door and my place of refuge; and again I breathed--I lived.

"I was mistaken, 'Stasia, it is not he! the wind, probably; and that marble looks so cold--so uninviting--I shall not explore it. He has a key, you know, and can come when he likes; for my part, I shall go in to supper while the oysters are hot. Do as you like, though."

"Had we not better wait? You know he is sure to come to-night, bad as the weather is, on account of that affair. It was late when Wentworth notified him."

This was the rejoinder made from within the study, in which I recognized the voice of Mrs. Raymond, clear and shrill.

"Well, have it as you please. If you prefer courtesy to comfort, you shall be gratified; but what's the use of ceremony with Gregory? He will be here in twenty minutes, Mr. Bainrothe; but don't wait. I shall have time to sup with him before I go up-stairs, you know. I believe I will stay where I am until he comes, and finish taking in the poor thing's wedding-gown. Well, any thing is better than removal to the belfry"--and I thought I heard a sigh.

"A matter of mere temporary necessity, you know, only she might have frozen in the interval," said Bainrothe, jauntily, as he walked up the hall to the door of the dining-room, which I heard him open and let fall against its sill again. It closed with a spring, and in the next moment the study-door was also softly shut, and all was still.

My resolution was promptly taken. The folding leaves of the inner door--that which divided the marble-paved vestibule from the carpeted entry--against one of which I had been leaning, I well knew worked to and fro on pulleys which obeyed the drawing of a cord and ta.s.sel hanging at one side, and thus they could readily be closed with a touch by any one standing in the vestibule as they opened out into the hall on which side was the latch and bolt. I recalled this quaint arrangement with a quickness born of emergency, as one that might serve me now, and speadily possessed myself of the ta.s.sel at the extremity of the controlling cord. Thus armed, and praying inwardly for strength and courage, and wherewith to carry out my scheme successfully, I took my stand in one of the two niches (just large enough for the purpose) in the door-frame, preferring, of course, that next to the lock, prepared to darken the vestibule at the first approach of the expected guest (I was afraid to do it before, lest attention might be called to it from within the house), and make my escape by rus.h.i.+ng past him ere he could recover himself as he entered in the gloom.

The hazard was extreme, the result uncertain, the effort almost foolhardy, it may be thought; but the storm and darkness were in my favor, and I was fleet of foot, as were not all of my pursuers, as far as I could foresee who these might be.

Momently I grew cooler, more determined, more calm, more desperate, more regardless of consequences; and now the culmination of endeavor approached in the shape of the sound of stamping feet upon the icy platform of the steps which they had softly ascended, and the uncertain fitting of a dead-latch key in its dark socket, the feeling for the k.n.o.b with half-frozen fingers, and finally the sudden and violent throwing forward and open of the door into the darkened vestibule, for I had drawn the cord at the first symptoms of Gregory's advent, which yet took me by surprise. I had closed the inner doors, it is true, but paralyzed with sudden terror I had taken no advantage of the darkness thus evoked, and, as the tall form of the expected and expectant bridegroom staggered in, literally blown forward by the tempest, with introverted umbrella, and wet and streaming garments (dimly discerned in the gloom) that brushed against me as he pa.s.sed, I continued to stand transfixed to stone in the niche I still occupied.

The dream in which La Vigne had prophesied my failure flashed over me like lightning, and my knees trembled beneath me, yet I still clung spasmodically to the cord I held, and with such desperate force that, when Gregory pushed against the door, he believed it latched within, and so desisted from further effort.

"Dark as Erebus," he muttered, "and on such a night! Confound such hospitality! I suppose I must go back and ring;" and in pursuance of this idea he again suddenly opened the front-door, which, swinging violently back as he turned his face within, once more afforded me the golden opportunity so lately lost. Quick as thought I dropped the cord I held, and in the sudden gust the leaves of the inner door, thus released, flew open and impelled my foe irresistibly forward. With his flapping coat and hat he drifted into the lighted hall before the driving blast, and, roused to instantaneous action, I slid from the niche I filled to the icy platform without, and swift and silent as a spectre sped down the sleety steps to the outward darkness. I was free!

A moment after, I heard the door slammed heavily after me, while I crouched by the gate-post for concealment.