And year went by; and the tale at lastWas told as a sorrowful one long past.—Mistletoe Bough.
A week after Lyon Berners went away Captain Pendleton resigned his commission in the army, placed the management of his estate in the hands of lawyer Sheridan, and, accompanied by Miss Pendleton, left the neighborhood for Baltimore, whence he sailed for Liverpool.
After this departure the secret of Sybil's escape was known but to two persons in the valley—to Mr. Sheridan, whose very profession made him reticent, and to Miss Tabby, who would have died rather than have divulged it.
Mr. Sheridan managed the manor, Miss Tabby kept the house, and both guarded the secret.
But great was the wonder and wild were the conjectures among the people of the valley on the subjects of Sybil's mysterious disappearance, Lyon's sudden voyage, and Clement and Beatrix Pendleton's eccentric conduct in following him.
Opinions were as various as characters.
Some came near the truth in expressing their belief that Sybil had been rescued on the night of the flood, secreted for awhile in the neighborhood, and then "spirited" away by her friends; that she was safe in some foreign country, and that her husband and her two friends had gone to join her.
Others whispered that Sybil had been drowned in the flood; that Lyon Berners, finding himself a widower, had proposed for Beatrix Pendleton, with whom he had always been in love, and that he had been accepted by her; that they had been anxious to marry immediately; but ashamed to do so, so soon after the tragic death of Sybil, and in her own neighborhood; and so they had gone abroad to be united, and to spend the first year of their wedded lives.
These and many other speculations were rife among the neighbors, and the "Hallow Eve Mystery," deepened by recent events, formed the subject of conversation of never-flagging interest, at every country fireside that winter.
In the midst of all this, Miss Tabby Winterose lived her quiet, dull, whimpering life at Black Hall, carefully keeping the house, waited on by Aunt Mopsa, guarded by Joe, and solaced by little Cromartie, who had been left in her care.
Dilly, Sybil's own maid, had been taken abroad by Miss Pendleton, which fact gave additional scandal to the gossips.
"The impudence of her!" they said, "to take the late Mrs. Berners' very maid, before even she had fairly married the widower."
All this, when it came to Miss Tabby's ears, made that faithful but desponding soul whimper all the more.
Miss Tabby had but few recreations at Black Hall. Going to church every Sunday in the old carryall, with little Cro' by her side and Joe on the box, was her "most chiefest."
Then once a month or so, she went to take tea with her parents and sister; or she walked over to spend an afternoon at the cottage occupied by Robert Munson, who had married Rachel, the pretty daughter of that Norfolk inn-*keeper, who had been Lyon's and Sybil's host at the time of their first flight.
And sometimes Miss Tabby had both these families up at Black Hall, to pass a day with her.
But wherever Miss Tabby went, she always took little Cro'; and whoever came to the house had to make much of the child, or get little favor from his "aunty."
As for Joe, Robert Munson, and other of Sybil's devoted friends, they felt, in their secret hearts, that Sybil was safe in foreign parts, and that her husband and friends had gone to join her; but as no one had actually imparted this intelligence to them, they never talked over the subject except among themselves.
Thus passed the winter; but with the opening of the spring, an event occurred that for a while even superseded the "Hallow Eve Mystery," in the fever of curiosity and interest it excited in the valley.
The great Dubarry manor, so long held in abeyance, was claimed!—claimed by a gentleman in right of his wife—claimed by no less a person than Mr. Horace Blondelle, once the husband and afterwards the widower of that beautiful Rosa Blondelle who had been so mysteriously murdered at Black Hall, and now the bridegroom of Gentiliska, the great-granddaughter and only lineal descendant and heiress of Philip Dubarry and Gentiliska his wife.
During the investigation of this claim, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Blondelle occupied a handsome suite of apartments at the Blackville Hotel, and made themselves very popular by the elegant little dinners and suppers they gave, and the like of which had never before been seen in that plain village.
When their case came on for a hearing, there was but little opposition to the claimants, whose legal right to the manor was soon proved by the documents they held in their possession, and firmly established.
When the case was decided in their favor, Mr. Horace Blondelle rented Pendleton Park, which had been to let ever since the departure of its owner.
And in that well-furnished mansion on that well-cultivated plantation he settled down with his pretty young bride to the respectable life of a country gentleman.
His residence in the neighborhood gave quite an impetus to the local business.
The very first thing that he did, after his settlement at Pendleton Park, was to advertise, through the columns of the "Blackville Banner," that he intended to rebuild the Dubarry mansion, and was ready to employ the necessary artisans at liberal wages.
This gave great satisfaction to the laboring classes, who were half their time pining in idleness, and the other half working at famine prices.
But such a "reconstruction" was a gigantic undertaking. There was a wilderness to be cleared, a desert to be reclaimed, a mansion to be rebuilt, and a chapel to be restored.
All the carpenters, stone-cutters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters and glaziers, upholsterers and decorators, as well as ornamental gardeners and agricultural laborers that could be found, were at once employed at generous wages.
And the work went on merrily, and the people blessed Horace Blondelle.
But during the progress of the work, a discovery was made that changed the whole plan of the proprietor's life.
In the course of clearing the grounds, the workmen found a spring, whose water was so particularly nasty that they at once suspected it to possess curative qualities of the greatest value, and so reported it to the proprietor.
Horace Blondelle invited the local medical faculty to taste the waters of the spring, and their report was so favorable that he bottled up a gallon of it, and sent it to an eminent chemist of New York, to be analyzed.
In due time the analysis was returned. The water of the spring, it showed, was strongly impregnated with a half dozen, more or less, ofthemost nauseous minerals known to the pharmaceutists, and therefore were of the highest medicinal virtues.
The recent discovery of this invaluable spring on the home grounds, together with the long known existence of the magnificent cavern, or chain of caverns, in the adjacent mountains, determined Mr. Horace Blondelle to alter his whole scheme—to abandon the role of country gentleman, which a very short experience proved to be too "slow" for his "fast" tastes, and to adopt that of the proprietor of a great watering-place, and summer resort.
And so, instead of rebuilding the family mansion, he built a large hotel on the Dubarry manor, and instead of restoring the chapel, he erected a pavilion over the spring.
This was not only at the time a very popular measure, but it proved in the event a very great success.
That summer and autumn saw other changes in the valley.
First old Mr. Winterose, the overseer of the Black Valley manor, died a calm and Christian death.
Young Robert Munson succeeded him in office.
Next lawyer Sheridan received an appointment from the President as consul at a certain English seaport; and, no doubt with the consent of the proprietors, he transferred the management of the Black Valley manor to old lawyer Closeby of Blackville. And then, with his sister, he went abroad.
Then, on the thirty-first of October of that year, old Mrs. Winterose and her eldest daughter Libby received anorder to remove from their cottage and take up their residence with Miss Tabby at Black Hall.
The next spring, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Blondelle removed to the "Dubarry Hotel," at the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," as the place was now christened, and there they commenced preparations for the summer campaign.
Mr. Horace Blondelle, was much too "sharp" not to understand the importance of advertising. He advertised very largely in the newspapers, and he also employed agents to distribute beautiful little illustrated books, descriptive of the various attractions of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the salubrious and delightful climate, the sublime and beautiful scenery, the home comforts of the hotel, and the healing powers of the water.
All these were so successfully set forth that even in this first season the house was so well filled with guests that the proprietor determined that, before another season should roll around, he would build a hundred or so of cottages to accommodate the great accession of visitors he had every reason to expect.
Another brisk season of work blessed the poor people of the place. And by the next summer a hundred and fifty white cottages were here and there on the rocks, in the woods, by the streams, or in the glens around the great hotel; and the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs" grew to look like a thriving village on the mountains.
The profits justified the expenditures; that second summer the place was crowded with visitors; and the lonely and quiet neighborhood of the Black Valley became, for the time, as populous and as noisy as is now Niagara or Newport.
In fact, from the advent of Mr. Horace Blondelle, and the inauguration of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the whole character of the place was changed.
All summer, from the first of June to the first of September, it would be a scene of fashion, gayety, confusion, and excitement.
But all the winter, from the first of October until the first of June, it is happily true that it would return to its aboriginal solitude and stillness.
Mr. Horace Blondelle was making money very fast indeed.
The life suited him. Many people called him a gambler and a blackleg, and said that he fleeced his guests in more ways than one.
The haughtiest among the old aristocratic families cut him, not because he was a gambler—for, oh dear! it too often happened that their own fathers, brothers, husbands, or sons were gamblers!—but because he kept a hotel and took in money!
Notwithstanding this exclusion from companionship with certain families, Mr. Horace Blondelle led a very gay, happy, and prosperous life.
We see and grieve over this sort of thing very frequently in the course of our lives. We fret that the wicked man should "flourish like a green bay tree," and we forget that the time must come when he will be cut down and cast into the fire.
That time was surely coming for Mr. Horace Blondelle.
Meanwhile he "flourished."
The third season of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," was even more successful than its forerunners had been.
People were possessed with a furor for the nasty waters and flocked by thousands to the neighborhood.
But the autumn of that year was marked by other events of more importance to this story.
First, in the opening of the fall term of the Blackville Academy for young gentlemen, lawyer Closeby came to Black Hall, armed with the authority of Mr. Lyon Berners,and straightway took little Cromartie, now a lad of seven years of age, out of the hands of Miss Tabby, and placed him in those of Dr. and Mrs. Smith, dominie and matron of the academy, for education.
Miss Tabby mourned over the partial loss of her favorite, but was consoled on the very next Hallow Eve, when a beautiful babe was left at her door.
And now that years have passed, we approach the time when the great Hallow Eve Mystery was destined to be a mystery no longer.
On every lip a speechless horror hung,On every brow the burden of affliction;The old ancestral spirits knew and feltThe house's malediction.—Thomas Hood.
Time does but deepen the gloom that hangs over an old mansion where a heinous crime has been committed, an awful tragedy enacted.
As the years darkened over the old Black Hall, the house fell to be regarded as a place haunted and accursed.
But as there is a certain weird attraction in the horrible, the old Black Hall came to be the greatest object of morbid interest in the neighborhood, greater even than the magnificent caverns, or the miraculous springs.
The crowds of visitors who came down to the "Dubarry White Sulphur" every summer, after tasting the waters of the spring and exploring the beauties of the caverns, invariably drove down the banks of the Black River to where it broadened into the Black Lake, from whose dark borders arose the sombre wood that shadowed the mountain's side,and from whose obscure depths loomed up the gloomy structure now known as Black Hall, the deserted home of the haughty Berners, the haunted and accursed mansion.
Here, on the murky borders of the lake, the visitors would draw up their carriages, to sit and gaze upon the fatal edifice, and listen to the story of that awful Hallow Eve, when the fiery-hearted young wife was driven by jealousy to desperation, and her fair young rival was murdered in her chamber.
"And on every Hallow Eve," their informant would continue—"on every Hallow Eve, at midnight deep, the spirit of the murdered guest might be seen flying through the house pursued by the spirit of the vengeful wife."
Visitors never penetrated into the wood that surrounded and nearly concealed the mansion, much less ventured near that mansion itself.
The place was guarded by three old women, they were told, weird as Macbeth's witches, and who discouraged all approach to their abode.
So solitary and deserted were the house and its inmates, that every path leading through the forest towards its doors was overgrown and obliterated, except one—a little narrow bridle-path leading from the house through the woods, and out upon the Blackville road. This was kept open by the weekly rides of old Joe, who went every Saturday to the village to lay in the groceries for the use of the family; by the three old women, who, seated on their safe old horses, went in solemn procession every Sunday to church; by the young Cromartie, who came trotting on his fiery steed once a month to visit his old friends; and by old lawyer Closeby, who came ambling on his sedate cob every quarter-day to inspect the premises and pay the people.
No other passengers but these ever disturbed the stillness of the forest path; no other forms than these ever darkened the doors of Black Hall. A gloomy place to live in!gloomy enough for the three quiet old women—too gloomy for the bright young girl who was growing up to womanhood under its shadows.
And never was the place darker, drearier, or more depressing in its aspect than on a certain Hallow Eve, some fifteen years or more after the disappearance of Sybil Berners and the self-expatriation of her devoted friends.
All day long the sky had been overcast by low, dark leaden-hued clouds; the rain had fallen in dull drizzle; and when the vailed sun sunk beneath the horizon, the darkness of night was added to the darkness of clouds.
A dismal night! dismal without, and even more dismal within!
The three old guardians of the premises lived in the left wing of the house, which corresponded exactly with the right wing once occupied on the first floor by the unfortunate Rosa Blondelle with her child and nurse, and on the second floor by Sybil Berners and her maid.
The old women had chosen the left wing partly because it had always been occupied by Miss Tabby, who used the lower floor for housekeeper's room and store-room, and the second floor as a bedchamber and linen closet, butchieflybecause it was the furthest removed from the right wing, the scene of the murder, and now the rumored resort of ghosts.
On this dismal but eventful Hallow Eve of which I now write, the three old women, their early tea over, were gathered around the fire in the lower room of this left wing.
It was a long, low room, with a broad fireplace in the lower end. It was furnished in very plain country style. The walls were colored with a red ochre wash somewhat duller than paint. The windows had blinds made of cheap flowered wall paper. The floor was covered with a plaid woolen carpet, the work of old Mrs. Winterose's wheel andloom. A corner cupboard with glass doors, through which could be seen rows of blue delf dishes and piles of white tea-cups and saucers, occupied the corner on the right of the fireplace; the old-fashioned, coffin-like, tall eight-day clock stood in the corner on the left-hand side. Flag-bottomed wooden chairs flanked the walls. At the upper end of the room stood an old-time chest of drawers. On the right-hand corner of this end, a door opened upon a flight of stairs leading to the floor above. On the left-hand corner a door opened into a back room, with a little back porch, vine covered.
There was a large spinning-wheel near the stair door, and at it the young ward of Mrs. Winterose stood spinning.
Before the fire stood a plain deal table, and on it a brass candlestick supporting one tallow candle, that gave but a dim light to the three old ladies who sat before the dull, smouldering green wood fire and worked. Old Mrs. Winterose occupied her arm-chair, between the end of the table and the fireside near the corner cupboard. She was carding rolls of white wool for the spinner.
Miss Libby sat at the other end of the table, reeling off blue yarn from broaches that had just been drawn off the spindle.
Miss Tabby was squeezed into the chimney corner next her sister, knitting a gray stocking.
There was a deep silence, broken only by the sighing of the wind through the leafless trees without, the pattering of the rain against the windows, the whirr of the spinning-wheel at the foot of the stairs, the simmering of the green logs that refused to blaze, and the audible snivelling of Miss Tabby.
The silence grew so oppressive that Miss Tabby, like the child in the Quaker meeting, felt that she must speak, or sob, or suffocate.
"Hallow Eve again," she sighed, "it have come roundonce more since that awful night, which I shall never be rid on seeing it before me—no, not if I live to be as old as Methusalah! And oh, what gloomy weather! How the wind do moan and the rain do pour 'round the old house! Just like heaving sighs and steaming tears! And as for me, I never feel like nothing but sighs and tears myself whenever this most doleful night comes round again."
And suiting the action to the word, the speaker drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes.
"Tabby, you're always a whimpering. When 'tan't about one thing 'tis about another. Seems to me a woman of your age, turned fifty, ought to have more sense!" sharply commented old Mrs. Winterose, as she took a roll of wool from her card and placed it softly on a pile of others that lay upon the table.
"I can't help of it, mother. I can't, indeed. Whenever this most doleful night do come round again, I feel that low sperreted I don't know what to do. And it is just such a night as that night was. Everything so miserable, outside and in. The wind moaning and the rain drizzling out there, and in here the fire not burning, but just smouldering and smoking as if it was low-sperreted too!" sighed Miss Tabby.
"I'll soon raise the fire's sperrits," said the old lady, briskly rising and seizing the poker, and giving the logs a good lunge and lift, that sent up a shower of sparks and a sheet of flame, lighting the whole room with the brightness of day.
The effect was as transient as it was brilliant, however. The sparks expired in their upward flight, and the flame died down again, leaving the logs simmering as before.
"There, now, you see how it is, mother. The very fire feels the time," sighed Miss Tabby.
"Fiddle! it is only because the wood is green. I'll cure that too. I'll make lame-legged Joe gather a heap of pinecones, that will burn the greenest wood as ever sulked on a hearth," chirped the blithe old lady, as she set the poker in its place.
And then she went to the back door of the back room, and standing on the covered porch, called out:
"Joe, Joe, fetch in a basket of pine cones to make the fire burn!"
A rumbling noise a little resembling a human voice was heard in the distance, and the old lady shut the door, returned to her seat, and resumed her reeling.
"I—don't feel to think it is the firewood, mother; I—I think it is the souls," slowly and solemnly announced Miss Libby, who had not spoken before.
"Thewhat? What in patience areyoutalking about, Libby?" severely demanded the old lady, as she briskly wound off her yarn.
"Thesouls, mother, the souls—the souls that do wander about without rest on this awful night."
"Well, I do think," gravely began the aged woman, laying down the ball she was winding, and taking off her spectacles, that she might speak with the more impressiveness, "I do really think, of all the foolish women in this foolish world, my two daughters is the foolishest! Here's Tabby always whimpering about the sorrowful things inthisworld, and Libby always whispering about the supernatural things in t'other! If you had both on you married twenty or thirty years ago, you wouldn't be so full of whimsies now! But, Libby, as the oldest of the two, and a woman nigh sixty years of age, you really ought to set a better example to your sister."
And having delivered this little lecture, old Mrs. Winterose replaced her spectacles on her nose, and resumed her reeling.
"It's all very well for you to talk that a way, mother, and it's all very right; but for all that, youknowas how theold folksdosay, as on this awful night, of all the nights in the year, the 'churchyards yawn and the graves give up their dead,' and the unsheltered souls do wander restlessly over the earth; and though we may not see them, they come in at our doors and stand beside us or hover over us all the night. Ugh! It do make me feel as if ice water was a trickling down my backbone only to think of it! For what if as howhersoul was a wandering about here now!" continued Miss Libby, solemnly clasping her hands and rolling up her pale-blue eyes. "Yes! what if as howhersoul was a wandering about here now—here, where, all unprepared to go, on just such a dismal Hallow Eve as this, it was wiolently druv out'n her body! Ah! good land! what was that?" suddenly exclaimed Miss Libby, breaking off with a half-suppressed scream.
"It was nothing but Gem's wheel stopping suddenly, as her thread snapped, you goose," said the old lady.
"Ah! but it sounded just like an awful groan, as it might be an echo ofherdying groan as her soul fled from the body, and rewived by memory, if so be she should be walking now," shuddered Miss Libby.
"And surely, if any soul everdidwander over the earth anywhere, at any time, her soul, of all souls, would wander in this place of all places, on this night of all nights, when she—"
"Hush, for Heaven's dear sake, both of you!" exclaimed the old lady. "Tabby is so sentimental and Libby is so superstitious, that what with the snivelling of one of you and the shuddering of the other, and the talking of both, I should get the horrors myself if it weren't for Gem, my bright Gem there, humming a tune to her humming wheel!" said the old lady, with an affectionate glance towards the young girl. "And I wonder," she added, "what has become of Joe? I shouldn't wonder if the poor fellow had gone out to the pine woods to collect thecones. But now, Tabby and Libby, let me hear no more of your snivelling and shivering."
"But I can't help of it, mother. I should die if I didn't cry. Hallow Eve, especially a dark, drizzly, windy, dreary Hallow Eve like this, always brings back that awful night so vividly again. I seem to see it all again. I seem to see my child, raging and burning like the Spirit of Fire she called herself. I seem to hear that piercing shriek that woke up all the house. I seem to meet that flying form in the flowing white dress, and with the scared and pallid face. I seem to feel the hot blood flowing down upon my hands and face, as I caught her in my arms and tried to stop her, when she broke from me and fled screaming into the library, and threw herself upon Lyon Berners' breast, dying. How can I help it? How can I help it?" cried Miss Tabby with a burst of tears.
"It is her spirit a hovering over you, and impressing on you, Tabitha," solemnly whispered Miss Libby.
"I shouldn't wonder! no, I shouldn't wonder the least in the world," assented Miss Tabby, with a serious nod of her head.
"And remember, Tabby, that her murderer is still at large, and her spirit cannot rest until that murderer is brought to justice," whispered Miss Libby.
"Ah, but who was her murderer? Surely Elizabeth Winterose,youdo not dare to hint as it was my darling, that beautiful and noble lady who was so nearly executed for the crime she never could have committed?" demanded Miss Tabby, with awful gravity.
"Tabitha Winterose, you know I don't," answered Miss Libby, in solemn indignation.
"I'm glad to hear you say so, for she never did it, nor yet could have done it, though she had cause enough, poor dear! cause enough to go raving mad with jealousy, and to hate her rival unto death, if ever a lady had. But shenever was that poor woman's death, though well the woman might have deserved it at her hands. But she never did it! No, she never did it!" reiterated Miss Tabby, with many vain repetitions, as she wiped her faded blue eyes.
"And if Rosa Blondelle's spirit cannot rest in her grave, it an't so much because her rale murderer is at large, as it is because Sybil Berners, her benefactress, as she wronged so ungratefully when she was alive, is now falsely accused of her death," whispered Miss Libby.
"Yes, and, would a been just as falsely executed for it too, if she hadn't a been reskeed on that dreadful night of the flood. And where is she now? Where is the last of the Berners now? An exile and a wanderer over the face of the earth! A fugitive from justice, they call her! 'A fugitive from justice!' when all she needs to make her happy in this world, if she still lives in it, is jest simple justice. Oh! I shall never, never, forget that awful night of the storm and flood, when with her infant of a few hours old, which they had waited for it to be born before they meant to murder her, she was suddenly snatched out of the flooded prison and carried away from sight, as if the waters had swallowed her! And that was the second horrible Hallow Eve of my life!" sobbed Miss Tabby.
"Hush! hush! why harp upon the horrors that happened so many years ago? 'What's done is done,' and can't be undone," urged the old lady.
"I know it, mother; but it is some sort o' relief to talk—it keeps me from thinking too deep about—"
"About what, Tabby? Don't be a fool!"
"About this, then; as there never was no dreadful thing ever happened to us as didn't happen to happen on a dark, drizzly, dreary Hallow Eve!" whimpered Miss Tabby.
"It is a fatality!" whispered Miss Libby.
"It is a fiddlestick!" snapped the old lady.
"Oh, mother, mother, you can't dispute it! Wasn't iton a Hallow Eve at night that Rosa Blondelle, sleeping calmly in her bed, was mysteriously murdered?" inquired Miss Tabby.
"Yes, yes," impatiently admitted the old lady.
"And wasn't it that same night in the storm that Sybil Berners fled away from her home, some said driven mad by horror, and some said by remorse?"
"Oh yes!" sighed the old lady; "and that was the worst thing as ever she did in her life, for her flight was taken as a proof of conscious guilt. I was very sorry she fled."
"Yes, but she was persuaded by those as was wiser than we. And besides, what could she do but fly, when the evidence was so strong against her? so strong that everybody believed her guilty? so strong that even when she came forrard and give herself up, it convicted her, and she was doomed to death! that beautiful, noble lady! and only spared until she could bring her babe into the world—her babe born in the condemned cell.
"I know it, I know it; but for all that, it was her first flight that prejudiced people's minds against her."
"And do you remember, mother, that awful night when the child was born in the prison? You and I and the prison doctor was with her in that stone cell! And oh, how we prayed that she might die! But she was strong, and could not die, nor could the babe. Both lived."
"Yes, thank Heaven! despite our short-sighted, sinful prayers, both lived," fervently exclaimed Mrs. Winterose.
"But that awful night of storm and flood, when the condemned mother gave birth to the child in the condemned cell, that awful night was also Hallow Eve, and do you mind how, when all was over, and, the baby was dressed and the mother was lying in stupor, how you had to leave us, and go away in the storm to tend my father's sick-bed?"
"Ah, child, don't I remember it all!""And now I'm going to tell you what happened after you left!"
"Why, Tabby, you never would tell us before," said Mrs. Winterose, taking off her spectacles and becoming very attentive.
"No, mother, because I was bound by an oath. It is true, the man I made the oath to released me from keeping of it! But still I never did feel free to tell all I knew until to-night."
"And why to-night, Tabby?"
"Because it is borne in upon my mind that something will happen on this very Hallow Eve to clear up the whole mystery, that I feel free to reveal my part of it!"
"But what makes you feel as if something was going to happen to reveal the secret, Tabby?" inquired her mother.
"Because I had a dream last night as foretold it! I dreamed as I was a walking in the haunted wing, in the wery room where Rosa Blondelle was murdered, and suddenly the sun shone full into the room, lighting it up like noon-day."
"And to dream of the sun shining into a room, is a sure sign of the revelation of secrets and the discovery of hidden things," said Miss Libby, mysteriously.
"Stuff and nonsense about dreams and visions!" sharply exclaimed Mrs. Winterose; "but whatever has caused you to change your mind about Mrs. Berners' reskee, I shall be very glad to hear the particulars, Tabby; so go on."
"Well, goodness knows there an't much after all, as Ihaveto tell, but you shall hear it! Well, soon after you left, mother, the prison doctorhegot up to go home; and he asked Mr. Berners, who had been waiting out in the lobby to hear from his wife, ifhewould go along with him to bring back some medicine; and Mr. Berners and him they both went out in the storm, and oh, how it was a storming to be sure!"
"Yes, that it was!" assented Mrs. Winterose. "I thought as I should never a got through it myself!"
"Well, I sat there hour after hour, holding the new-born baby in my lap, watching the unconscious mother and waiting for Mr. Berners to come back with the medicine. Well, I might a waited!"
"Yes, for there was no getting back that night!" put in the old lady.
"No, for the storm got worse and worse! The rain poured, the wind howled, the waters rose! Oh, what a horrible night! It was as if the end of all things was come, and the world was about to be destroyed by water, instead of by fire!"
"I know what sort of a night it was, Tabby. I can never forget it! Tell me how Sybil Berners was reskeed?" said Mrs. Winterose, impatiently.
"I am a telling of you as fast as ever I can; which she never would a been reskeed neither, if it hadn't a been for that there blessed flood, which you don't even want me to tell about," complained Miss Tabby.
"Tell me about the reskee!" commanded Mrs. Winterose, peremptorily.
"Well, then, just as I had discovered as the waters had ris' almost up to the level of the windows, and was even oozing through the walls like dew, and rising higher every minute, and I was in deadly fear of our lives, and screeching as loud as I could screech, for some one to come and let us out, which nobody could hear us because of the hollering, and bawling, and running, and racing, and banging, and slamming of doors and windows, and all the rout and rumpus made by the people as were trying to save their own lives, suddenly the window was busted in. And before I had time to say my prayers, in jumped a big man followed by a little man."
"Lor!" exclaimed Mrs. Winterose and Miss Libby, in a breath.
"And the big man, in all his haste and hurry, he tookherup, Sybil, as tenderly, and wrapped her up as carefully as if he had a been her mother. He cussed some about the baby, which was a sort of surprise to him; but Raphael—-"
"Raphael!" exclaimed Mrs. Winterose and Miss Libby, in a breath.
"Yes, Raphael! He was the little man I soon discovered. Raphael pleaded for the baby, and so the big man he let him save her; but he said how he must leave the 'ole 'oman' meaning me, to be drownded, though goodness, knows, for that matter, I wasn't so old as to be tired of life, being only just turned of thirty-three—"
"Oh, bother about your age, Tabby! tell us about the reskee!" snapped her mother.
"An't I a telling of you as fast as I can? But he did call me an ole 'oman, and me not thirty-four then, which I would say it if I was to die for it, and he would a left me to be drownded, but Raphael he pled for me like he did for the baby, and the waters was rising higher and higher, and the uproar in the prison was getting louder and louder, and the big man he swore at Raphael, and told him to fetch me on; but first he made me swear on the Bible never to tell how we was reskeed. Then he took us off on the boat which I tell you, mother, it was just awful to be a riding on the high floods over the tops of the houses. It had done raining, which was a good thing for my poor child, who was well wrapped up also. They rowed me up to the Quarries, and put me out high, and on a ledge of the mountain, and rowed away with my child, and that's the last I ever saw or heard of her or her baby until that letter come to Mr. Berners, a telling of him how she was took off to foreign parts, and a releasing of me from my oath of silence."
"But you never told us, for all that."
"Because, as I said afore, I never felt free to do it until to-night, and to-night it is borne in upon my mind as some thing will happen to clear up that Hallow Eve mystery."
"It is a presentiment," said Miss Libby, solemnly.
"It is a fiddle!" snapped the old lady.
"You may call it a fiddle, mother, but I believe you know more about the fate of Mrs. Berners and her baby too, than you are willing to tell," said Miss Libby.
"May be I do, and maybe I don't," answered the old lady. Then suddenly breaking out angrily, she exclaimed, "I told you both before as I didn't want to talk of these here horrid ewents! And I don't! And here you draw me on to talk of them, whether or no!And look at Gem there," she added, lowering her voice, and directing her glance towards the girl at the spinning-wheel; "she knows nothing about these dreadful doings, and ought to know nothing about them. Yet there she stands, with her wheel still, and she a drinking down every word."
A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,Full of eternal constancy and faith,And smiling lips, through whose soft portal sighsTruth's holy voice, with every balmy breath.—Mrs. Kemble.
Three pair of eyes were turned towards Gem. She was well worth looking at, as she stood there beside the pausing wheel, with the thread of yarn suspended in her hand between the delicate forefinger and thumb, and with her large, luminous dark eyes, fixed upon the face of the speaker. Yes, look at Gem—a slight, elegant creature, whose form was perfect symmetry, whose every motion was perfect grace, whose small stately head was covered with shining jet-black ringlets that hung down each side and half shaded a bright young face of exceeding beauty—an oval face, withregular features, large, soft, dark-blue eyes, vailed with thick, long lashes, and arched over by slender, jet-black brows, and with roseate cheeks and crimson lips. This will do for a pen and ink sketch; but how can I picture the light, the life, the gleam and glow of that brilliant and beautiful countenance?
She wore a plain brown linsey dress, that perfectly fitted her symmetrical form; and this rustic suit was relieved by a little linen collar that clasped her throat, and a pair of little white linen cuffs that bound her wrists.
The setting was plain enough, but the gem was a very rich and rare jewel, whoever might be destined to wear it.
Only for an instant she stood thus, like a bright and beautiful image, and then she suddenly darted across the room, sunk down beside the old lady's chair, and looking up into her face, said:
"Grandma! I know more of that awful tragedy than you think I do. Of course, in all these years, I have chanced to hear much from the talk of women and children seen in church or in school. And to-night I have heard too much from you, not now to be told more! What is all this mystery and horror connected with this anniversary of Hallow Eve? And—who am I?"
"You are my own darling child, Gem!" answered the old lady, in a trembling voice.
"I know that I am your foster-child, but that is all I, or any one else except you, seems to knew about me! But you know who I am, grandma! Now tell me—who am I?" she pleaded, taking the withered old hands within her own, and gazing imploringly up into the kind old eyes that looked compassionately down on hers.
"You are my pet, and my darling, and my blessing, Gem! That is enough for you to know!" answered the old lady, still in a tremulous tone.
"Am I that prison-born child? Am I the daughter ofthat poor lady who was crucified and cast out among human creatures? Am I? Am I?" persisted the young girl beseechingly, while Miss Tabby wept and Miss Libby moaned.
"Gem," said the aged woman gravely, and sorrowfully pressing the maiden's hands, "Gem, have I been a good grandma to you?"
"Oh, you have! you have!" answered the young girl, earnestly.
"And can you still trust me to be good to you, and true to your best interests?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes! dear grandma!"
"Then, my own little one, trust me, by obeying me, when I tell you to ask me no questions about yourself; because I cannot answer them yet a while. Will you do so, my little Gem?"
"Yes, yes, I will! I will! But, dear granny, I know! I know! although you are too tender to tell me, I know!"
"Know—what, Gem?" questioned Mrs. Winterose, in alarm.
"I know that some mystery and horror hung over my birth—hangs over my life! I have known this a long time. They call me 'Ingemisca;' that means, 'Bewail! Bewail!' Some one bewailed my birth, and bademebewail it! Some one sung the refrain of a requiem at my baptism, as they do at the burial of others! And oh, grandma! to-night! to-night! in what has reached my ears, I have found a clue to the solving of my mystery!"
"Gem! Gem! if ever I have been kind to you, mind me now! Never think, never speak of these things again. Look on yourself as my child, and nothing more," urged the old lady with so much earnestness, and even pain, that her pet hastened to caress her, and to say:
"I will mind you as much as I can, best, dearest granny! I will never speak of this again until you give me leave."
"That is my darling girl! And now put away yourwheel and come and sit down here, and let us have a pleasant talk after all this solemn nonsense. And when Joe comes in—Where the mischief is that fellow, and why don't he come with the cones, I wonder? Anyhow, when he does come I will send him down in the cellar for some nuts and apples, and we will have a little feast."
Gem sat back her wheel, and came and took her seat on a stool at the old lady's feet.
"Gem," said Mrs. Winterose, passing her hand through the girl's dark curls, "my two daughters have been horrifying us by telling of some awful events that happened on certain long past Hallow Eves. But they have said nothing of the pleasant things that have happened on later Hallow Eves! They haven't said a word of that Hallow Eve when me and my Libby was a sitting in our cabin without provisions, and a wondering where the money to buy them was to come from, and how long the agent would let us live there, seeing as we had no right, after my old man, who was the overseer, died, when in walks the agent himself, and offers of us a home rent free here, with the use of the garden, the orchard, and the wood, with a small salary besides, if so be we would come here and live with Tabby, and help keep rats and thieves and rust and mould out of the old house. You may depend, Gem, as we jumped at the offer, and came here the very next day."
"That was all the kindness of my child! It didn't need nobody but me to do all that. But, my sweet angel, she wanted to provide for you and Libby, and to make us all comfortable and happy together," said Miss Tabby.
"Yes, I know. Heaven bless her, wherever she is! And that was a happy Hallow Eve. But the next one was even happier, Gem."
"Yes, dear grandma, I know," smiled the girl.
"Yes, for just one year from that time, when HallowEve came around again, I got up early in the morning, as I used to dothenas well as now, and I came down into this very room, and went through to that back door and into the back room, and opened the back porch door to let in the morning air, and there on the porch with the sun shining bright on the scarlet seed-pods of the rose vines all over the shed, there, like a cradle, stood a large wicker basket, with a two year old baby comfortably tucked up into it, and fast asleep."
"That was I," said the maiden.
"Yes, Gem, it was you. But just think of my astonishment when I found you there! I stared at you, and was as 'fraid to touch you at fust as if you'd been a bombshell to blow me up! I rubbed my eyes to see if I was awake. I crept up to you and shrank back from you ever so many times, before I could venture to touch you. Then I saw a card tied to the handle of the basket. I took it off, put on my specks, and read this:
"'A Gem for Mrs. Winterose.'
"Then, my dear, I saw that somebody who wanted to get shet of a baby, had put it off on to me. And, Lord forgive me, I struck mad as hop, and said I wouldn't have the brat, and would send it to thealms-house. But, lor! there is a power in helplessness compared to which the power of a monarch is all moonshine! And however angry I might a felt at that minute with the unnatural monsters who I thought had dropped the baby there, why, I could no more a sent it to the alms-house than I could a smothered it in its basket," said the soft-hearted old dame, wiping away the tears that rose to her eyes at the very idea of such a piece of cruelty.
"So you took the little creature in?" smiled Gem.
"What else could I do? I was shivering with cold myself. Could I leave it out there? No. I took hold of the handle of the basket—which it was a large open clothesbasket with a handle at each end, and very useful I have found it ever since to put the siled clothes in—and I began to drag it through the door and through the back room into this very room. But the motion waked the baby up, and it opened the darkest blue eyes I ever had seen in my life, and looked at me as calm and quiet as if it had known me all my life, and then it opened its little rosy lips, and said:
"'Gamma!'
"Yes, my dear Gem, that was what you called me from the first, 'Gamma.' It went straight to my heart, Gem! And why? Because I was sixty years old then, and my hair was as white as it is now, and I never had a baby in the world to call me grandma: all because Tabby and Libby didn't marry as they ought to have done twenty years before that."
"You're always hitting of us in the teeth about that, mother, as if it was our fault. As for me I would have married fast enough if William Simpson hadn't a proved false," snivelled Miss Tabby.
"Bosh! there's as good fish in the sea as ever was got out of it," snapped the old lady.
"It was our fate," said the superstitious Miss Libby.
"You made your own fate," answered the inexorable old lady.
"So you adopted the poor little forsaken child," put in Gem, to stop the altercation between the mother and daughters.
"Yes, Gem, of course. But oh! the day you were given to us was a day of jubilee! While I was lifting you out of that basket, lame leg Joe came in to make the fire. When he saw me with a babe in my arms he let his wood fall, and lifted up his arms and opened his eyes in dumb amazement. And when I told him where I found it, he recovered his speech, and advised me to send it to the alms-house.
"'Joe,' I said, 'if everyou mention alms-houses andbabies in the same breath to me again, you and I will have to part."
"Yet poor old Joe spoke in your interests, grandma," said Gem.
"I know he did, dear, or he thought he did; but my real interest was to keep my Gem, for she has been the brightness of my life, and not only of mine, but of Tabby's and Libby's, poor childish old maids, and of Mopsy's and lame leg Joe's."
"It is because we all love each other so much, and it is such a happiness to love," said Gem.
"We all loved you, my darling, from the very first. We could not help it. Ah! you should have seen what a sunbeam you were in our dull house that day and all days after that. When I took you out of the basket and set you upon your feet, you tottered all about the room, eagerly examining all that was new to you; the chip-bottom chairs, the turkey-wing fans, the peacock's feathers, even poor Joe's crooked leg. And me and Joe watched you in your little crimson dress, as one watches some bright-plumed bird, hopping from twig to twig."
"How I wish I could remember that day, grandma."
"You were too young; not more than two years old. But oh! you should have seen the surprise and delight of Tabby and Libby, when, after they had made the beds up stairs, they came down to help me to get breakfast. They were as silly over you as ever you saw children over a new pet kitten. I thought you would have been pulled to pieces between them, which was another sign that they ought to have been married twenty years before."
"Oh, mother!" began Miss Tabby.
"Well, there! I won't say anything more about that But the way they talked to you, Gem!"
"'What's your name, little one?' they asked.
"'Gem,' you answered.
"'Who's your mother, baby?'
"'Gamma,' you replied. You had only them two words, my darling—'Gem' and 'Gamma.'"
"Did you ever afterwards find out who I was, grandma?" inquired the girl.
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't, Gem. Anyway there was no clue to your history there in that basket, Gem. There was heaps of baby clothes, nicely got up and marked 'In-gem-is-ca,' and there was a small bag of gold coins, amounting to just one hundred dollars. That was all. And now, didn't you give me your word never to ask me any questions about yourself?"
"I know I did, grandma, and I will keep my word; but oh, grandma, I can't help thinking about it and suspecting who I am."
"Hush! hush, Gem! Put away such troublesome thoughts. I had rather see a little natural silliness than so much gravity in one so young as you are. Be a girl while girlhood lasts. The season is short enough. This is Hallow Eve. When I was young, it used to be a gay festival, and not the funeral feast my mournful daughters would make it. When I was young, the lads and lasses, on a Hallow Eve night, used to try spells to find out their sweethearts and lovers. And if ghosts walked then, they were merry sprites who only came to tell the youths and maidens whom they were to love and marry. Come, now, I'll teach you a sure spell. Here are some chestnuts," she said, rising and taking a little basket from the chimney shelf, and emptying it into Gem's lap.
"What am I to do with these, grandma?" smiled the girl.
"You are to take half a dozen large ones, scratch on each the first letter in the name of some young man you know. Then on another, 'Str.' for stranger; on another 'Wid.' for widower; on the last one, a cross for old maidenhood."
Smilingly Gem complied with the directions, and marked the chestnuts, while the old lady, with spectacles on nose, watched her carefully.
When they were all ready, Gem looked up, saying:
"Well, they are marked! Nine of them altogether."
"Now lay them in a row on the hot hearth, close to the coals, to roast."
"It is done," said Gem, after she had arranged them according to rule.
"Now, then, my dear, you must sit and watch them in perfect silence, until they are roasted, when they will begin to pop; and the first one that pops will be your fate, whether it be one of the young men, or the widower, or the stranger, or whether it be the cross that stands for old maidenhood."
Smilingly Gem folded her hands, and composed herself to perfect silence and stillness.
While she watched her roasting chestnuts, the old lady watched her.
Each of these women, the ancient dame and the youthful maiden, was making herself silly to please the other. Mrs. Winterose, wishing to divert Gem from her troublesome thoughts, and Gem willing to gratify her "grandma."
But the law of silence was not laid upon any one else but the trier of the spell. And Miss Tabby and Miss Libby chattered together like a pair of sister magpies for some minutes, when suddenly Miss Tabby exclaimed:
"Look out, Gem! Your chestnuts are beginning to crack; they will shoot you presently, if you don't mind."
The warning came too late. A blazing chestnut was suddenly shot from the hearth like a smallbombshell, and struck Gem upon the right hand, inflicting a slight burn.
With a faint cry she sprang up and shook it off; and she sat down startled and trembling, for she was very delicate and very sensitive to pain.
"Never mind, never mind a little smarting! When I was young I would have been willing to have been scorched worse than that, to have had such a powerful sign that some one loved me so fiercely as all that! Goodness! how he loves you, to be sure! and how quickly he is coming to see you! Come, pick up your chestnut, child, and see what mark it bears. Come, now! Is it Cromartie?" inquired the old lady with an arch smile.
But the girl made no reply. She had picked up and blown out the blazing emblem that she had playfully made a messenger of fate, and she was gazing upon it. She remained pale and mute.
"Come, come; did you name it for that auburn-haired youth?" persisted the old lady.
"I named it for—the exile—the lady who was borne from the flooded prison that stormy night; I named it for—my mother," answered the maiden in a low tone.
Silence like a panic fell upon the little party.
Mrs. Winterose was the first to break it.
"Gem! how dare you do such dreadful things?" she demanded, speaking more harshly than she had ever before spoken to her spoiled child.
"It's enough to break anybody's heart to hear her say that," whimpered Miss Tabby, wiping her eyes.
"And, oh! what a sign and an omen! If there's any truth in the spell, her mother—if so besheis her mother and is a living—her mother loves her better than any one in the world, and is a hurrying to see her now! For I never knew that to fail," said Miss Libby, clasping her hands and rolling up her eyes.
Gem turned and gazed at the last speaker, while a superstitious faith in the omen crept into her heart.
"There is nothing at all in it! I was only trying to amuse the poor child by the old love spell. I had no thought it would turn out this way," said Mrs. Winterose, glancing uneasily at Gem.
But Miss Tabby sighed, and Miss Libby shook her head, and Gem continued to look very grave.
"Well, I declare! I am out of all patience with Joe!" exclaimed the old lady, by way of changing the whole conversation. "It has been full forty minutes or more since I sent him after them cones! And now I am going to call him."
And so saying she went and opened the back door.
But she had no sooner done so, than she started with a cry of horror and fled back into the room.
And well she might!
Behind her came three men, bearing in their arms the mutilated and bleeding body of a third man!
Following them limped lame-legged Joe.
The affrighted women shrank back to the chimney corner, where they clung together in that dumb terror which is the deeper for its very silence.
"Now don't you be scared, ladies," said Joe, soothingly. "Nobody an't a going to do you no harm. It is only some man as has been murdered out there."
"Murdered!" echoed Mrs. Winterose, in an awe-deepened tone.
"Another Hallow Eve murder!" groaned Miss Tabby, wringing her hands.
"It is doom!" muttered Miss Libby solemnly.
Gem vailed her eyes and said nothing.
"Lay him down here on the floor, men, and let us take a look of him to see if we know him," said Joe, as he took a candle from the table.
The bearers laid their burden gently down.
Joe held the candle to the face of the murdered man.
Old Mrs. Winterose cautiously approached to view it.
"Good angels in Heaven!" she exclaimed.
"Who is it, mother?? inquired her daughters, in terrified tones.
"Mr. Horace Blondelle!" she whispered.