THE SECRET STAIR.
Chloris! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kind.
EDMUND WALLER.
Heavily and slowly passed the cloudy winter day at Clermiston, and
evening found Lilian seated, full of tears and misery, by the great
fire that rumbled in the arched chimney, and threw a ruddy glow on
the rough architecture of the ancient hall. According to old
etiquette, there were but two chairs, one for the lord of the manor
and the other for his lady; the additional seats were mere stools.
Lilian occupied one of these chairs, and her suitor the other. On
one of the stone benches within the ingle sat Juden Stenton still
trimming hawks' lures; opposite was Beatrix, spinning with all the
assiduity of Arachnè. These from time to time regarded her with
furtive glances, which roused her anger not less than the presence
and odious attentions of their lord did her apprehension. She felt a
load accumulating on her breast, as the night wore on; anxiety was
impairing her strength and weakening her fortitude, and whenever
Clermistonlee addressed her, she answered only by tears. Touched at
last by her sorrow, a sentiment of generosity at times would prompt
him to return her to her home; but other thoughts came with greater
power, and the momentary weakness was immediately dismissed.
"Psha!" thought he; "'tis only a woman."
Sitting close by her, he spoke from time to time in a low voice; and
the scorn, malice, and jealousy which lighted up the keen grey eyes
and pinched features of the fallen and forgotten Beatrix on these
occasions, filled the gentle Lilian with a horror and pity which she
could not conceal. The presence of this unfortunate woman, who, with
the indefatigable Juden, formed now his entire household, was a curb
for the present on the vivacity of his lordship's passion, and seemed
to restrain it within the decorous bounds of gentle whispering. He
soon tired of that, and ordering supper to be laid, took advantage of
the domestic's absence to draw his chair still nearer Lilian, and
take her hands within his own. She was so humbled, so gentle and
broken in spirit, that she permitted them to remain, and the
passiveness of the action made the heart of Clermistonlee glow with
additional ardour.
"She loves me in secret," thought he; "but how charming is her
coyness--how enchanting her modesty! My dear Lilian--"
"My Lord, oh cease to persecute me thus. What wrong have I done you?
In what have I offended, that you should make me so utterly
miserable?"
"What a soft, low, charming voice! Does it offend you, to hear the
sighs of the most honourable love that ever warmed a human heart?"
"This is the mere cant of love-making--flirtation--the phrases you
have addressed to hundreds. My Lord, I know their full value, and
despise them. 'Tis enough! I can have no love for you."
"Indeed!"
"None--so for heaven sake spare me more of this humiliation, and let
me begone to the house of Bruntisfield."
"Now what strange infatuation is this? No love for me?" mused the
egotist. "Why, damsel, when I was in London with Charles, all the
women were mad about me--I was quite the rage. Rochester and I led
the way in everything. But that was before Bothwell Brig." He
glanced at a veiled picture that often attracted his eye, and
disturbed the current of his thoughts. "No love for me," he resumed,
after a pause. "My pretty one, does my zeal offend you?"
"Like your flattery, it does; and my captivity here--a captivity
which, I fear, will ever be a stain upon my honour, makes me abhor
you."
"Abhor? Oh! 'tis a word never said to me before. Provoking Lilian!
But," he added, maliciously, "you are right--your honour is lost, and
there is only one way to redeem it."
She gave him a momentary glance of inquiry and disdain.
Clermistonlee drew a ring from his finger. Lilian started back.
"Never--never! death were better."
"Hah--then you are still thinking of him--this beggarly boy--this
nameless soldier--this so-named Fenton. 'Tis a cursed infatuation,
Madam; for doubtless, soldierlike he will forget you, while the
flower of your youth is wasted in fruitless reliance on his constancy
and advancement to honour and fortune."
"Forget me?" reiterated Lilian, raising her bright blue eyes to the
speaker. "Oh no, he never will forget me! Dear, dear Walter," she
added, weeping bitterly; "I know thy worth and truth too well to lose
my own."
"He will forget thee," said Clermistonlee, angrily.
"Never!" replied Lilian, energetically clasping her hands. "In the
busy city and on the lonely hills, in the hour of battle and storm by
sea and land, he will ever think of me--ever, ever!"
"But he may be slain?" said the lord maliciously.
"Cruel--cruel!"
"What then--hah?"
"No second choice would ever make me violate the solemn vow I pledged
to him--that plight which I called on heaven to witness and angels to
register."
Clermistonlee made no reply, but her fervour and her words stung him
to the soul; her eyes sparkled and her usually pale cheek glowed; but
he knew that it was for the love and by the recollection of another;
his first thoughts were those of wrath; his second spleen and sorrow.
He arose and stepped aside a little.
"Unfortunate that I am!" said he, with something of sadness and real
love in his tone and manner. "By what witchcraft am I so hateful to
her; but I must quit her presence for a time at least, or lose all
hope of her favour for ever."
He walked to and fro, while Lilian, resigned again to tears, covered
her face with her handkerchief.
"Beatrix," said Clermistonlee, in a fierce whisper to the shrinking
woman, as she laid supper on the long dark oaken board, over which
six tall waxen candles flared from a great iron candelabrum.
"Beatrix Gilruth--hear me, old shrivel-skin! Hast never a love
philtre about thee? Ere now I have known thee to my own cost use
such things."
She gave a keen and fierce glance with her sunken eyes, and drawing
him into one of the deeply bayed windows, pointed to where the square
keep and round towers of the castle of Corstorphine threw a long dark
shadow across the frozen lake that, like a mirror before its gates,
lay shining in the cold light of the winter moon.
"You see yonder castle?" she said.
"Yes."
"And the aged sycamore beside the dovecot-tower?"
"Yes--yes."
"Then remember how, nine years ago, the lord of that fair mansion
perished under its shadow; and how his own good rapier, urged by the
hand of the woman he had wronged, was driven--yea, to the very
hilt--in his false and fickle heart. Often at mirk midnight have I
seen the dead-light glimmering on his tomb in St. John's kirk, and
illuminating the west window of the Forresters' aisle."
She gave him a glance so expressive of hatred, fear, contempt, and
reproach that he almost quailed beneath it; and as she pointed to the
veiled portrait, he turned abruptly away. Her words and allusion had
evidently a deep effect on Clermistonlee. He was about to retire,
but paused irresolutely, turned, and paused again. Then kissing
Lilian's hand, he said in a gentle tone--
"Forgive me if I have offended, but love for you makes me perhaps act
unwisely. Adieu, dear Lilian: if my presence is obnoxious, I hasten
to relieve you of it. Till to morrow, adieu; and pleasant dreams to
you."
He bowed profoundly, and retired to his own apartment followed by
Juden, who kept close to his heels as a spaniel would have done.
"Will you not sup, Madam Lilian?" asked Beatrix in a kinder tone than
usual.
"Sup--oh, no!"
"Bethink you, lady; the whole day hath passed, and you have tasted
nothing but a posset of milk with a little sack. Still weeping!
'Twas so with me once; but I shall never weep again, until I have
wrung tears of blood from my betrayer."
"Now you are going to frighten me again. A light, if it please you,
good woman; I will retire. Another night under his roof! My poor
aunt Grisel.... how bad, how wicked is this!"
"My lord desired me to ask if you wished to read a little: it may
compose your mind."
"Oh, yes!--a thousand thanks, kind Beatrix. Bring me a Bible, if you
have one."
Beatrix laughed.
"A Bible! when was one last seen in the tower of Clermiston? Not
since the days of auld Mess John, I warrant; and his was torn up by
the troopers for cartridges. There is nothing here but a rowth of
evil play and jest books, and some anent hawking, hunting, and
farriery, and others, my bairn, that suit only--women like me."
"Poor Beatrix!" said Lilian kindly, touching her hand, for the
exceeding humility of her manner raised all her pity. Beatrix
surveyed her for a moment, with a troubled and dubious expression.
Seldom was it that a word of compassion or commiseration fell upon
her ear. Her heart was touched; a moisture suffused her eyes; but,
fearing to betray her feelings through the outward aspect of
moroseness and misanthropy she had assumed, she set a light upon the
cabinet of the bedchamber, and hurried away.
Again, as on the preceding night, Lilian fastened the door; and
though the number and complication of its ancient iron locks somewhat
reassured her, her heart sank when she surveyed the great gloomy
tester-bed, with its dais, its solemn plumage and festooned
canopy--the sombre wainscotting, and well-barred window, past which
the changing clouds were hurrying in scudding masses, alternately
obscuring and revealing stars. Kneeling at a chair near the fire,
she prayed long and fervently, and, with innocent confidence, arose
more assured and courageous, though aware that, by anxiety, want of
food and rest, her natural strength and spirit were greatly impaired.
A folio volume lay upon the cabinet; it was covered with purple
velvet, on which a coat of arms and these words were exquisitely
embroidered:--"Alison, Lady Clermistonlee, on her marriage day, ye
penult Maij, 1668."
The hand of her tormentor's unhappy wife had probably worked these
words; all the dark and mysterious stories concerning her misfortunes
and her fate came crowding upon the mind of Lilian, and filled her
with melancholy forebodings. Perhaps, thought she, this was her
chamber, and that her bed, where often she had wept away the dreary
night in unseen and unregarded sorrow. Full of mournful interest,
she unclasped and opened the volume. It was the "Bentivolio and
Urania" of Nathaniel Ingelo, one of the prosy and metaphorical
romances of the seventeenth century. The first words arrested her,
and she read on.
"He was no sooner entered within the borders of the forlorn kingdom
of Ate, than the unhealthfulness of the air had almost choked his
vital spirits; and being removed from the gladsome sun by a chain of
hills, that lifted up their heads so high that they intercepted the
least glance of his comfortable beams: it was dark and rueful. He
chanced to light upon a path that led to Ate's house, which was
encompassed with the pitchy shade of cypresse and ebon trees, so that
it looked like the region of death. As he walked, he perceived the
hollow pavement made with the skulls of murdered wretches. At the
further end of this dismal walk he espied a court, whose gates stand
open day and night; in the midst whereof was placed the image of
cruelty, with a cup of poyson in one hand, and a dagger wet with
reeking bloode in the other. Her hairs crawled up and down her neck,
and sometimes wreathed about her head in knots of snakes; fire all
the while sparkling from her mouth and eyes......"
This dismal passage in no way tended to alleviate the perturbation of
her spirits; and, hastily closing the volume, she prepared to retire.
Aware that proper repose was absolutely necessary to enable her to
sustain all she might have to encounter or endure from Clermistonlee,
remembering the apparent security of her apartment, and somewhat
reassured by the cheerful blaze thrown by the fire upon the dark
brown panelling and high old-fashioned bed, she slowly and
reluctantly began to undress, often pausing to re-examine her room;
but, perceiving nothing more to alarm her, gathering up the bright
tresses of her hair into a caul, she unrobed and sprang into bed.
The sleep and the heaviness that preyed upon her now completely
evaporated; and, more awake than ever, she felt only the keenest
sensations of fear, and her prevailing horror was Clermistonlee. By
the light of the wood fire, that poured its broad blaze up the
massive stone chimney, she surveyed the room with watchful eyes, that
ached from the very intensity of their gaze, and the shadows of the
carved posts seemed like those of giants thrown against the panelled
wall.
Weariness overcame her, and she was about to drop asleep, when a
sound was heard, and one of the doors of the cabinet rattled and
opened; a cold wind blew upon her face; and by her recumbent
position, she beheld a steep staircase winding away down into
darkness she knew not where, between the masonry of the massive wall.
She would have screamed, but terror chained her tongue; and almost
fainting, and afraid to move or breathe, she continued to regard it
with the most painful anguish and intense alarm. But up that dark
and mysterious outlet, so suddenly disclosed, no sound came but the
night wind, which moved the oak door of the cabinet mournfully to and
fro.
Lilian's strength seemed utterly to have left her; and, though
painfully anxious to learn the secrets of this staircase, which
communicated so immediately with her bedchamber, she lacked equally
strength to rise, and presence of mind to examine it.
But the current of air that swayed the door to and fro, closed it;
the sound rumbled away in the far echoes of the tower, and all became
still. Now more alarmed by the reflection that she was sleeping in
this remote room alone, with a secret entrance, she bitterly
regretted her imprudence in undressing, but had not the courage to
rise and repair what a certain prophetic apprehension made her fear
had been very unwise.
Excessive lassitude at last completely overcame her, and she
slumbered.