The Sword of Damocles Part 31

"A week, two weeks pa.s.sed, and her look of wilful happiness did not fly.

She was flooded with notes from her accepted lover, whose handwriting I had learned by this time to distinguish, but not one, so far as I could learn, from any other source; yet her feet tripped lightly through the house, and her form had a rich grace in its every movement, that bespoke a mind settled in some deep joy or quiet determination. I felt the impenetrability of a secretly cherished hope, whenever I looked at her.

If I had not known to the contrary, I should have said that her prospective marriage had become to her a dream of unfathomable delight.

Whence then came this rapture? Through what communication was born this secret hope? I could not guess, I could only watch and wait.

"Meanwhile some random guesses at the truth had been made by the neighbors. Jacqueline had a lover. That lover was a gentleman; but the Colonel was critical; he had refused his consent and the young people had parted. Such was the talk, begotten perhaps by the persistency with which Jacqueline remained in the house, and the almost severe look with which Colonel j.a.pha trod the streets of his native village, which he soon felt would lose all their charm in the departure of his only child.

I scarcely ventured out more than Jacqueline; for I have but little control over my feelings and did not know what I would do, if any one should closely press me with questions.

"The unexpected discovery that our pretty young servant girl was in the habit of stealing into Jacqueline's room late at night, was the first thing that startled me into asking whether or not my supposition was true, that Jacqueline received no messages from Mr. Robert Holt. And scarcely had I become certain that a clandestine correspondence was being carried on between them through the medium of this girl, then the climax came, and knowledge on my part and secrecy on hers availed no longer.

"It was a day in October. The stoves had been put up in the house, and seeing Jacqueline roaming about the halls, in a renewed fit of that strange restlessness which had affected her the day before Mr. Roger Holt's visit, I went into her room to light a fire, and make everything look cheerful before dusk. I found the atmosphere warm, and going to the stove, discovered that a fire had been already kindled there, but had gone out for want of fuel. I at once commenced to rake away the ashes, in order to make preparations for a new one, when I came upon several sc.r.a.ps of half burned paper.

"Jacqueline had been burning letters. Do you blame me for picking out those sc.r.a.ps and hastening with them to another room, when I tell you they were written in a marked and characteristic hand that bore little or no resemblance to that of her accepted lover, and that the words which flashed first upon my eye were those ominous ones of _my wife_!

"They were three in number, and while more or less discolored and irregular, were still legible. Think child with what a thrill of horror and sharp motherly anguish, I read such words as 'Love you! I would press you in my arms if you were plague-stricken! The least turn of your head makes my blood cringe, as if a flame had touched me. I would follow you on my knees, if you led me round the world. Let me see Robert take your hand again and I will--'

"'Forget you! Do we forget the dagger that has struck us? I am another man since--'

"'I will have you if Robert goes mad and your father kills me. That I am burdened with a wife, is nothing. What is a wife that I do not--' 'You shall be my true wife, my--'

"'To-night then, be ready; I will wait for you at the gate. A little resolution on your part, and then--'

"I could read no further. The living, burning truth had forced itself upon me, that Jacqueline, our darling, our pride, the soul of our life, stood tottering upon the brink of a gulf horrible as the mouth of h.e.l.l.

For I never doubted for an instant what her answer would be to this entreaty. In all her past life, G.o.d pity us, there had been no tokens of that immovable hold on virtue, that would save her in such an extremity as this. Nevertheless, to make all sure, I flew back to her room, and tearing open bureau drawers and closet doors, discovered that her prettiest things had been sent away. She was going, then, and on that very night! and her father did not even know she was untrue to her betrothed lover. The horror of the situation was too much for me; I faltered as I left her room, her dainty, maidenly room, and actually crouched against the wall like a guilty thing, as I heard the sound of her voice singing some maddening strain in the parlors below. What should I do? Appeal to her, or warn her father of the frightful peril in which his honor and happiness stood? Alas, any appeal to her would be useless. In the glare of this awful revelation I had come to a full comprehension of her nature. But her father was a man; he could command as well as entreat, could even force obedience if all other methods failed. To him, then, must I go; but I had rather have gone to the rack.

He was so proud a man! Had owned to such undeviating trust in his daughter's honor, as a j.a.pha and his child! The blow would kill him; or daze him so, he might better have been killed. My knees shook under me, as I traversed the hall to his little study over the parlor, and when I came to the door, I rather fell against it than knocked, so great was my own anguish, and so deep my terror of his. He was a ready man and he came to the door at once, but upon seeing me, drew back as if his eye had fallen upon a phantom.

"'Hus.h.!.+' said I, scarcely knowing what I uttered; and going in, I closed the door and latched it firmly behind me. 'I have come,' said I in a voice that made him start, 'to ask you to save your daughter. She is in deadly peril; she--' a strain of her song came in at that moment from the staircase. She was ascending to her room. He looked at me in a doubt of my sanity.

"'Not physical peril,' I stammered, 'but _moral_. She loves madly, unreasonably, and with a headlong pa.s.sion that laughs at every obstacle, a man whom neither you nor heaven can look upon with aught but execration. She--'

"'Mrs. Hamlin!'--How well I remember his cool, calm voice, so deliberate in his impressive moments, so deliberate now, when perhaps she was donning hat and shawl for her elopement--'You are laboring under a great mistake. Instead of execrating Mr. Holt, I admire him most profoundly.

Since the time has come for me to give up my daughter, I know of no one to whom I would rather surrender her.'

"'But Mr. Holt is not the man,' I cried, half wild in my fear and desperation. 'Do you remember the gentleman who came with him on his last visit? He called him his brother, and he is I believe, but--'

"The way he turned his grand white forehead towards me at that, made every fibre in my being quiver. 'Jacqueline does not love _him_!'

exclaimed he. How sharp his voice, how changed his eye! I shrank back, trembling as I bowed my head, thinking of the word yet to be said.

"'But he won't compare--' he went on with a severe intonation. 'Besides her honor is engaged. You are dealing in fancies, Mrs. Hamlin.'

"I tore out of my breast the sc.r.a.ps of paper which had enlightened me so horribly, and held them towards him; then bethought myself, and drew back. 'I have proof,' said I; 'but first I must tell you that Jacqueline is not as good a girl as you have thought her. She is not her mother's child in the qualities of love and honor. She is destined to bring a great woe upon your head. In her pa.s.sion for this man, she has forgotten your trust in her, the incorruptibility of your name, the honor of your house. Be strong, sir, for G.o.d is about to smite you in your tenderest spot.

"Ah, with what pride he towered upon me! this white-haired, stately gentleman before whom I had hitherto held my breath in admiring awe; towered upon me though his face was ghostly pale and his hand trembled like an aspen as he held it out!

"'Give me the papers you hold there,' cried he. 'Either you are gone mad, or else--Who wrote these lines?' he demanded, glancing down upon the hard, firm scrawl that blackened the bits of paper I had given him.

"'Mr. Roger Holt,' I returned unhesitatingly. 'I found those bits in Jacqueline's stove. Her clothes have been sent away, sir,' I continued as I saw his face grow fixed above the sc.r.a.ps he consulted. 'Twilight is coming on and--Mr. Roger Holt is a married man!'

"'What!'

"I never saw such a look flash from a human face as that which darted from his at that terrible moment. I thought he would have fallen, but he only dropped the papers out of his hand. 'Heaven forgive us!' murmured I, calmed by a sight of his misery, into some semblance of of self-control, 'but we have never understood Jacqueline. She is not to be led, sir, by principles or duty. She loves this man, and love with her is a stormy wind, capable of sweeping her into any abyss of contumely or suffering. If you would save her, kill her love; the death of her lover would only transform her into a demon.'

"He looked at me as if I had told him the world had come to an end. 'My Jacqueline!' he murmured in a low, incredulous voice of the tenderest yearning. 'My Jacqueline!'

"'Oh!' I shrieked, torn by my anguish for him and the terror of her escaping while we were yet talking, 'G.o.d knows I had rather have died than contaminate her by such words as I have uttered. She is dear to me as my soul; dearer to me than my life. I have a mother's feeling for her, sir. If to fling myself headlong from that window, would delay her feet from going down the stairs to meet her guilty lover, I would gladly do it. It is her danger makes me speak. O sir, realize that danger and hasten before she has taken the irrevocable step.'

"He started like a man p.r.i.c.ked by a sudden dart. 'She is going--you believe she is going to meet him?'

"'I do,' said I.

"He gave me a terrible look and started for the door. I hurriedly picked up the sc.r.a.ps that had fallen to the floor, and rushed around by an inner pa.s.sage-way to my own little room, hiding my head and waiting as for the crash of a falling avalanche. Suddenly a cry rose in the hall.

"There are some sounds that lift you unconsciously to your feet. Das.h.i.+ng out of my room, I detected the face of the servant-girl whom I have before mentioned, looking out of her door some distance down the corridor. Hastening towards her, I uttered some words about her being a busy-body, and thrusting her inside her room, locked the door upon her.

Then I hastened with what speed I might to the front of the house, and coming out upon the grand staircase, met a sight that shook me to the very soul. You have been up the stairs; you know how they branch off to left and right from the platform near the top. The left branch led in those days to Colonel j.a.pha's room, the right to the apartments occupied by Jacqueline and myself. Coming upon them, then, as I did from my side of the house, I found myself in full view of the opposite approach, and there on the topmost step I beheld Colonel j.a.pha, standing in an att.i.tude of awful denunciation, while half way down the staircase, I beheld the figure of Jacqueline, hindered in her gliding course towards the front door by the terrible, 'Stop!' whose echo had reached me in my room and caused me to rush quaking and horrified to this spot. I leaned back sick and horror-stricken against the wall. There was no mercy in his voice: he had awakened to a full realization of the situation and the pride of the j.a.phas had made him steel.

"'You are my child!' he was saying. 'I have loved you and do still; but proceed one step farther towards the man that awaits you at the gate, and the door that opens upon you, _shuts_ never to open again!'

"'Colonel!' I exclaimed, starting forward; but he heard me no more than he would a fly buzzing or a bird singing.

"'I desire it to shut; I have no wish to come back!' issued from the set white lips of the girl beneath us. 'There is no such charm for me in this humdrum house, that I should wish to exchange life with the man I adore, for its droning, spiritless existence!' And she lifted her foot to proceed.

"'Jacqueline!' I shrieked, leaning forward in my turn, and holding her by my anguish, as I never believed she could be held by anything, 'Think, child, think what you do! It is not life you are going to but death. A man who can take a young girl from her father's house, from her lover's arms, from her mother's grave, from the shrine of all that is pure and holy, to dash her into a pit of all that is corrupt, loathsome and deadly, is not one with whom you can _live_. You say you adore him: can one adore falsehood, selfishness and depravity? Does hypocrisy win love? Can the embraces of a serpent bring peace? Jacqueline, Jacqueline, you are yet pure; come back to our love and our hearts, before we die here in our shame at the head of the stairs, where your mother was carried out to her grave!'

"She trembled. I saw the hand that clutched the banister loosen its grip; she cast one quick look behind her, and her eyes flashed upon her father's face; it was set like a flint.

"'If you come back,' cried he, leaning towards her, but not advancing a step from where he stood, 'you must come back of your own free will. I will hold no creature prisoner in my house. I must trust you implicitly, or not at all. Speak then, which shall it be?' And he raised his hand above his head, with a supreme and awful gesture, 'a father's blessing or a father's curse?'

"'A father's curse, then! since you command me to choose,' rang out from her lips in a burst of uncontrollable pa.s.sion. 'I want no blessing that separates me from _him_!' And she pointed towards the door with a look that, defiant as it was, spoke of a terrible love before which all our warnings and entreaties were but as empty air.

"'Curses then upon your head, slayer of a family's honor, a father's love, and a mother's memory! Curses upon you, at home and abroad! in the joy of your first pa.s.sion and in the agony of your last despair! May you live to look upon that door as the gateway to heaven, and find it shut!

May your children, if you are cursed with them, turn in your face, as you are turning now in mine! May the lightning of heaven be your candle, and the blackness of death your daily food and your nightly drink!' And with a look in which all the terrors he invoked, seemed to crash downward from his reeling brain upon her shrinking terror-crouched head, he gave one mighty gasp and fell back stricken to the floor.

"'G.o.d!' burst from her lips, and she rushed downwards to the door like a creature hunted to its quarry. I saw her white face gleam marble-like in the fading light that came in from the c.h.i.n.ks about the door. I saw her trembling hand fumbling with the k.n.o.b, and rousing from my stupor, called down to her with all the force of a breaking heart,

"'Jacqueline, beware!'

"She turned once more. There was something in my voice she could not withstand. 'I do not hope to keep you,' cried I, 'but before you go, hear this. In the days to come, when the face that now beams upon you with such longing, shall have learned to turn from you in weariness, if not distaste, when hunger, cold, contumely and disease shall have blasted that fair brow and seared those soft cheeks, know, that although a father can curse, a woman who loves like a mother can forgive. The father cries, 'Once go out of that door and it shuts upon you never to open!' 'Once come to _that_ door, say I,' pointing in the direction of the house's other entrance, 'and if I live and if I move, it shall open to you, were you as defiled and wretched and forsaken as Magdalen.

Remember! Each day at this hour will I watch for you, kneeling upon its threshold. In sickness or in health, in joy or in sorrow, in cold or in heat. The hour of six is sacred. Some one of them shall see you falling weeping on my breast!'

"She gave me a quick stare out of her wide black eyes, then a mocking smile curled her lips, and murmuring a short, 'You rave!' opened the door, and rushed out into the falling dusk. With a resounding clang like the noise of a stone rolled upon an open grave, the great door swung to, and I was left alone in that desolated house with my stricken master.

XXVII.

THE LONE WATCHER.

"Hark! to the hurried question of Despair, Where is my child?--and Echo answers--Where?"