THE GUARDIANS OF THE OLD HOUSE.
On every lip a speechless horror hung,
On every brow the burden of affliction;
The old ancestral spirits knew and felt
The 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,
but _chiefly_ because 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 and loom. 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 round once 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 pine cones, 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.
"The _what_? What in patience are _you_ talking about, Libby?" severely
demanded the old lady, as she briskly wound off her yarn.
"The _souls_, 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 in _this_ world, 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, you _know_ as how the old folks _do_ say,
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 how _her_ soul was a wandering about
here now!" continued Miss Libby, solemnly clasping her hands and rolling
up her pale-blue eyes. "Yes! what if as how _her_ soul 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 of
_her_ dying groan as her soul fled from the body, and revived by memory,
if so be she should be walking now," shuddered Miss Libby.
"And surely, if any soul ever _did_ wander 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 the cones. 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, _you_ do 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 she never 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 it on 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 I _have_ to tell,
but you shall hear it! Well, soon after you left, mother, the prison
doctor _he_ got up to go home; and he asked Mr. Berners, who had been
waiting out in the lobby to hear from his wife, if _he_ would 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 took _her_ up, 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."