CHAPTER XXVI.A MEMORABLE NIGHT.
’Tis only the obscure is terrible;Imagination frames events unknown,In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,And what it fears, creates.—Hannah More.
’Tis only the obscure is terrible;Imagination frames events unknown,In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,And what it fears, creates.—Hannah More.
’Tis only the obscure is terrible;Imagination frames events unknown,In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,And what it fears, creates.—Hannah More.
’Tis only the obscure is terrible;
Imagination frames events unknown,
In wild fantastic shapes of hideous ruin,
And what it fears, creates.—Hannah More.
It was two hours after midnight, on a keen March morning, when Alexander Lyon, in the face of a fierce northwest wind, rode on towards his almost forsaken home.
His frame of mind was not enviable.
Never since he had entered upon his life of deception had his double-dealing so much disturbed him. The discovery of his duplicity was now impending. His uncle had proposed his immediate marriage with his betrothed; and should the obstinate old gentleman persist in pushing on the project, and should Anna raise no objection to it, there would be no other course for Alexander to pursue but frankly to confess his secret marriage with Drusilla, and so brave the old soldier’s roused wrath, and bear the young beauty’s bitter scorn.
Yet, still Mr. Lyon resolved to delay the degradation of such a disclosure, and the shame of such a scene as long as possible, for still he hoped, “out of this nettle danger to pluck the flower safety.”
It was possible, he thought, that his uncle might not persevere in his purpose, and it was probable that Anna herself would be the first to object to a precipitated wedding, and would insist that the programme should be followed, and that the full year of mourning for his mother should elapse before Alexander should claim her hand.
There yet remained nearly eight months to the end of this probation. In this time, how much, he reflected, might happen to deliver him from his disagreeable dilemma.
Drusilla might die.
He felt a pang of shame and sorrow as this idea entered his mind. Yet still he entertained it. Drusilla was now declining in health, and she might die. And in such a case he should be free from the trammels of his reckless marriage, and from the necessity of making the humiliating confession that he had ever worn them.
Agitated by these evil thoughts, he rode rapidly onward towards Cedarwood.
As he entered the private road leading through the dark wood he saw the beacon lights of his home in the drawing-room windows, shining out to guide him on his way.
“She is waiting for me, poor child,” he said, half in compassion, half in contempt. “Still waiting and watching as she has been doing no doubt, for the last three nights—the last three nights! Ah! and how many nights behind them! Poor little miserable! I wish I had never seen her!”
So muttering to himself Alexander rode around to the stable and put up his horse, and then walked back to the house and knocked at the front door.
It did not fly open as usual at his summons, so he knocked again, louder than before; but there was no response.
Then he sounded an alarm upon the knocker, and waited for the result.
But when the noise he made died away, all remained silent in the house.
“What the deuce is the meaning of this, I should like to know?” he inquired of himself, as he went down the steps and climbed up to the sill of the front windows, and looked into the drawing-room.
The room was brilliantly lighted up, but the fire in the grate had burned low; the untasted supper covered up on the hearth had probably grown cold; and the little guardian angel of the place was no where to be seen.
“Where the mischief can she be?” he asked himself; and having frequently expressed annoyance that she should sit up late to let him in, he now felt vexation that she should have gone to rest, and left him to get in as he could.
There was nothing now for him to do but to go back to the stable and rouse up his man-servant, and get the key of the kitchen door, by which that functionary always let himself in in the morning to make the fires.
Leo slept in the loft over the carriage-room, which was shut off from the horse stalls, and locked within.
And it required considerable knocking and calling before the man could be awakened.
When at last he aroused he started up in terror shouting;
“Who’s there? Thieves! murder! fire!—go away, or I’ll shoot!”
“Coward, and fool!—come down and open the door!” loudly and angrily exclaimed his master.
But before Mr. Lyon had fairly got the words out of his mouth Leo put his pistol out of the window, and pulled the trigger and blazed away.
The ball whizzed past within an inch of the ear of Alexander, who instinctively dodged and shrank out of the range of fire, as he shouted:
“Stop that, you villain! What do you mean, you poltroon? It is I, your master.”
But the man was mad with terror; and even while his master spoke, fired again and again, until he had discharged six shots from his revolver; and then he retired from the window.
“And now, you scoundrel!” again shouted Mr. Lyon, as soon as silence was restored. “Do you hear me—do you know me now? I am your master. Come down and open the door; I want you.”
A minute passed, and then the voice of Leo was heard from above, calling cautiously:
“Marse Alick, Marse Alick! Is it you, sir?”
“Of course it is I, you cursed idiot! who else should it be? And it is very well for you that I am living to answer, and you are not a murderer. Come down instantly, I say, and open the door.”
“Lor, Leo, chile, it is marster; I knows his speech. So let him in,” spoke another low voice, which Mr. Lyon, in astonishment, recognized as belonging to Pina.
Another minute passed, and then Leo came down, with his teeth chattering from cold and fright, and opened the door.
“And now, you villain! what have you got to say for yourself, that I shall not have you committed to jail to-morrow on charge of assault with intent to kill?” angrily demanded Mr. Lyon.
“Oh, Marse Alick! I’m as much mortified at the mistake as ever I can be. Indeed, sir, I thought it was horse thieves, and I was duty bounden to ’fend the hosses, you know, sir,” pleaded Leo.
“Umph; well, you must be more careful another time, my man. Your mistake might have cost you your neck, you know.”
“’Deed, sir, I—if I had been so misfortunate as to hurt you I shouldn’t a caredthatfor my neck! I should a wanted to a’ hanged myself ’dout waitin’ for the judge to do it,” said the boy, so earnestly that he at once disarmed his master.
“Very well, I dare say you speak truly. And now let me have the key of the back door; I wish to get in the house and go to bed. Your mistress has shut up the place and retired. I suppose she has given up all thoughts of seeing me to-night. Where is the key?”
“Here it is, sir; shall I go on to the house with you?”
“No, there is no need. Oh, by the way—was not that Pina’s voice I heard speaking to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And pray how comes she to be sleeping down here in the stable loft, when she should be in the house with her mistress? And now I think of it, howisyour mistress?”
“Ah, purty much the same as usual, sir,” said Leo, trying to evade the ‘previous question.’
“I am glad to hear it. But about Pina; how comes she to be sleeping here?”
“Well, sir, you see there’s been a ’larm at the house; and Pina, she was feared—”
“‘An alarm at the house?’ What sort of an alarm?” anxiously inquired Mr. Lyon.
“Well, sir, if you will please to let me walk along home with you I could tell you as I go along.”
“Come then and be quick.”
“Oh lor, Brother Leo, ask master to wait for me, please. I don’t dare to stay here all alone by myself!” exclaimed Pina, scuttling down from the loft as fast as she could come.
“Hurry then, you provoking fool; and mind, I have an account to settle with you when you come,” said Mr. Lyon, as he stamped his feet and clapped his hands to keep his almost congealed blood in circulation, while the fierce wind whirled his riding-coat round and round.
Meantime Leo quickly took down his own overcoat from its peg in the coach-room, and put it on.
“Now then! How dared you to leave your mistress and come down here to sleep, eh?” angrily demanded Mr. Lyon, as Pina came to the side of her brother.
“Please, sir, it was along of the fright. And mistress said I might. And no more wasn’t she angry long o’ me for it,” whimpered the girl.
“Your kind mistress is never angry with anybody for anything,” answered Mr. Lyon, doing justice to his neglected young wife, on this occasion at least. “And,”he added, “I will hear what she has to say about the matter before I excuse you. And now, Leo,” he inquired, turning to the boy, “what about this alarm at the house? I hope it was a false one. Was it of thieves?”
“Well, sir, I don’t rightly know whether it was a false alarm or not, nor likewise whether it was thieves.”
“Tell me all you know of it.”
“If you please, I don’t know anything about it personably myself. It was not me as seen the face at the window, in the dead hour of the night, it was my mistress.”
“‘A face at the window in the dead of night?’” echoed Mr. Lyon, in astonishment.
“Yes, sir.”
“What night?”
“Last night, sir, about this hour, as I understand.”
“Give me the particulars.”
Leo began and related the story, as he had received it from his mistress.
“That is most extraordinary and it must be investigated,” said Mr. Lyon, in a musing and anxious manner, as the boy finished the tale. “But,” he added, turning sternly to the two servants, “how came you, you cowardly brutes, to leave your young mistress alone in the house to-night after such an alarm? I feel inclined to part with you both.”
“Oh, sir,” said Leo, “I begged my mistress to allow me to stay in the house to keep guard, I did, indeed, sir; but she wouldn’t so much as hear of it. She said how she wouldn’t interfere long of your arrangements, sir; and so she ordered me to go back to the stables and take care o’ the hosses.”
“And indeed, master, indeed, sir,” put in Pina, “I did say to my mist’ess wasn’t her safety of more ’count than the dumb brutes; but she wouldn’t hear to me, no more’r to Brother Leo.”
“And so she sent you both out of the house!” exclaimed Mr. Lyon, frowning darkly.
“Indeed she did, sir,” answered Pina.
“And remained in it alone?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Leo.
“Humph!” growled Mr. Lyon, and his anger was diverted from his offending servants to his neglected wife. An insane suspicion took possession of him, and he mentally connected the mysterious face at the window, with the circumstance of Drusilla’s sending her servants from the house, and he drew an inference which nothing but the madness of jealousy could have inspired, and he hurried on at a pace which even his agile young servants found it hard to keep up with.
They went around to the back door and opened it, and Mr. Lyon, calling his servants to follow him through the house, groped his way along the dark back passages to the octagon hall and up the stairs to his wife’s chamber, which was dimly lighted by a night-taper on the mantle-piece and a smouldering fire in the grate. The room was vacant and evidently had not been occupied since the morning.
“Where can she be?” he inquired, and in an accession of anxiety he hurried through the other rooms of the upper story; but found them all empty.
Then, still attended by his servants, he went below stairs and searched the library and the bird room. But neither Drusilla nor any one else could be found.
“I looked into the drawing-room before I entered the house—looked in through the unshuttered front windows and I saw that no one was in there. But I will look again,” muttered Mr. Lyon, in extreme astonishment and anxiety, as he passed into the apartment in question.
It was still brilliantly lighted up and he could see into every corner of it; but he saw, besides the usual furniture, only the neatly spread little supper table; the untastedsupper covered up on the hearth; and the easy chair and slippers near the blackened fire that had quite gone out.
But his wife was nowhere to be seen in the room.
“This is most inexplicable!” he exclaimed, in consternation, as he turned and looked at his servants, who stood near him aghast with terror. “At what hour did your mistress dismiss you?”
“At ten o’clock, sir; but we didn’t go out of the house till nearly half-past, as it took us some little time to rake out the kitchen fire and fasten up the place,” answered Leo, while Pina fell to sobbing.
“Stop that noise, will you, and follow me. I will search the rooms over the kitchen; though I suppose it will be quite in vain,” said Mr. Lyon, grimly, as there entered his mind the cruel suspicion that his neglected and lonely young wife had actually left her home.
They searched first the kitchen, pantry and laundry, on the first floor of the back building. Then they went up and searched the servants’ rooms on the second floor. But without success.
“She is gone,” said Mr. Lyon to himself, as he led the way back to the drawing-room. And in the strangely blended emotions of astonishment and mortification, there was also a delusive feeling of satisfaction and hope. If she was gone, he should be free. Her departure was his deliverance.
As he re-entered the drawing-room, still attended by his servants, he saw the broad morning light streaming in at the front windows. He ordered Leo to take away the lamps and to clear out the grate and kindle a new fire. And he directed Pina to remove the supper service and prepare his breakfast; for, under all the circumstances, he felt too much excited to think of lying down to sleep.
He walked up and down the room, while his servants quickly executed his orders. And soon every vestige ofthe evening’s untasted repast and extinguished fire was removed. And the clean hearth and glowing grate invited Alexander to repose himself in his easy chair.
After a while Pina appeared with the table linen in her hand, and inquired, respectfully:
“If you please, sir, will you have the breakfast laid here, or in the dining-room?”
“In the dining-room, of course,” answered Mr. Lyon.
“The dining-room,” as the reader knows, was but a cozy, elegant, little recess, curtained off from the drawing-room, and only large enough to hold a small table and two chairs, for the young couple’s tête-à-tête dinners.
As Pina now drew aside the crimson curtain, she uttered a wild scream, and stood transfixed and gazing down upon some object near her feet.
Alexander sprang up to see what had frightened her; but as he put aside the curtain, and saw what was under it, he started back with an irrepressible cry of horror.