THROUGH THE WALL.
Alice had slept quietly for some time. The old clock at the foot of
the stairs had purred and struck twice since she had ceased listening
and thinking. It was for all that time an unbroken sleep, and then she
wakened. She had been half conscious for some time of a noise in the
room, a fidgeting little noise, that teased her sleep for a time, and
finally awoke her completely. She sat up in her bed, and heard, she
thought, a sigh in the room. Exactly from what point she could not be
certain, nor whether it was near or far.
She drew back the curtain and looked. The familiar furniture only met
her view. In like manner all round the room. Encouraged by which
evidence she took heart of grace, and got up, and quite to satisfy
herself, made a search--as timid people will, because already morally
certain that there is no need of a search.
Happily she was spared the terror of any discovery to account for the
sound that had excited her uneasiness.
She turned again the key in her door, and thus secured, listened
there. Everything was perfectly still. Then into bed she got, and
listened to silence, and in low tones talking to herself, for the
sound of her own voice was reassuring, she reasoned with her tremors,
she trimmed her light and made some little clatter on the table, and
bethought her that this sigh that had so much affrighted her might be
no more than the slipping of one fold of her bed-curtain over
another--an occurrence which she remembered to have startled her once
before.
So after a time she persuaded herself that her alarm was fanciful, and
she composed herself again to sleep. Soon, however, her evil genius
began to worry her in another shape, and something like the gnawing
and nibbling of a mouse grated on her half-sleeping ear from the
woodwork of the room. So she sat up again, and said--
“Hish!”
Now toward the window, now toward the fire-place, now toward the door,
and all again was quite still.
Alice got up, and throwing her dressing-gown about her shoulders,
opened the window-shutter and looked out upon the serene and
melancholy landscape, which this old-fashioned window with its clumsy
sashes and small panes commanded. Sweet and sad these moonlit views
that so well accord with certain moods. But the cares at Alice’s heart
were real, and returned as she quite awoke with a renewed pang--and
the cold and mournful glory of the sky and silvered woodlands neither
cheered nor soothed her. With a deep sigh she closed the shutter
again, and by the dusky candle-light returned to her bed. There at
last she did fall into a quiet sleep.
From this she awoke suddenly and quite. Her heart was throbbing fast,
but she could not tell whether she awoke of herself or had been
aroused by some external cause.
“Who’s there?” she cried, in a fright, as she started up and looked
about the room.
Exactly as she called she thought she heard something fall--a heavy
and muffled sound. It might have been a room or two away, it might
have been nearer, but her own voice made the sound uncertain. She
waited in alarm and listened, but for the present all was again quiet.
Poor little Alice knew very well that she was not herself, and her
reason took comfort from her consciousness of the excited state of her
nerves.
“What a fool I am!” she whispered, with a sigh. “What a fool!
Everything frightens me now, I’ve grown such a coward. Oh! Charlie,
Charlie--oh, Ry darling!--when will you come back to your poor
wife--when shall this dreadful suspense be over and quiet come again?”
Then poor little Alice cried, after the manner of women, bitterly for
a time, and then, as she used in all trouble, she prayed, and essayed
to settle again to sleep. But hardly had she begun the attempt when it
was terminated strangely.
Again she heard the same stealthy sound, as of something cutting or
ripping. Again she cried, “Hish, hish!” but with no effect. She
fancied at the far corner of the room, about as high as she could
easily reach, that she saw some glittering object. It might be a
little bit of looking-glass pass slowly and tremulously along the
wall, horizontally, and then with the same motion, in a straight line
down the wall, glimmering faintly in the candle light. At the same
time was a slight trembling of that part of the wall, a slight, wavy
motion, and--could she believe her eyes?--a portion of the wall seemed
to yield silently, an unsuspected door slowly opened, and a tall
figure wrapt in a flannel dress came in.
This figure crouched a little with its hand to its ear, and moved its
head slowly round as if listening in all directions in turn. Then
softly, with a large hand, it pushed back the door, which shut with a
little snap, as if with a spring-lock.
Alice all this time was gazing upon the visitor, actually freezing
with terror, and not knowing whether the apparition was that of a
living person or not. The woollen-clothed figure, with large feet in
stockings, and no shoes on, advanced, the fingers of one hand sliding
gently along the wall. With an aspect fixed on the opposite end of the
room, and the other hand a little raised in advance, it was such a
fixed, listening look, and groping caution of motion as one might
fancy in a person getting along a familiar room in the dark.
The feeling that she was not seen made Alice instinctively silent. She
was almost breathless. The intruder passed on thus until she had
reached the corner of the room, when she felt about for the door-case,
and having got her hand upon it she quickly transferred it to the
handle, which she turned, and tried the door two or three times. Oh!
what Alice would have given at this moment that she had not locked it,
believing, as she now did, that the stranger would have passed out
quietly from the room if this obstruction had not presented itself.
As if her life was concentrated in her eyes, Alice gazed still at this
person, who paused for a few seconds, and lowering her head listened
fixedly. Then very cautiously she, with the tips of her fingers,
tried--was it to turn the key in the lock or to extricate it? At all
events, she failed. She removed her hand, turned a little, stood
still, and listened.
To Alice’s horror her business in the room was plainly not over yet.
The woman stood erect, drawing a long breath, holding her underlip
slightly in her teeth, with just a little nip. She turned her face
toward the bed, and for the first time Alice now quite distinctly saw
it--pale, seamed with small-pox, blind. This large face was now turned
toward her, and the light of the candle, screened by the curtain from
Alice’s eyes, fell full upon its exaggerated and evil features. The
woman had drawn in a long, full breath, as if coming to a resolution
that needed some nerve.
Whatever this woman had come into the room for, Alice thought, with
hope, that she, at all events, as she stood pallid and lowering before
her, with eyes white with cataract, and brows contracted in malignant
calculation, knew nothing, as she undoubtedly saw nothing, of her.
Still as death sat Alice in her terror gazing into the sightless face
of this woman, little more than two yards removed from her.
[IMAGE: images/img_200.jpg
CAPTION:
“Still as death sat Alice in her terror gazing into the sightless face
of this woman.”]
Suddenly this short space disappeared, and with two swift steps and an
outstretched hand she stood at the bedside and caught Alice’s
night-dress, and drew her forcibly towards her. Alice as violently
resisted. With a loud scream she drew back, and the night-dress tore.
But the tall woman instantly grasped her nearer the shoulder, and
scrambling on the bed on her knees she dragged her down upon it, and
almost instantly struck at her throat with a knife.
To make this blow she was compelled to withdraw one hand, and with a
desperate spring, Alice evaded the stroke.
The whole thing was like a dream. The room seemed all a cloud. She
could see nothing but the white figure that was still close, climbing
swiftly over the bed, with one hand extended now and the knife in the
other.
Not knowing how she got there, she was now standing with her back to
the wall, in the further corner of the room, staring at the dreadful
figure in a catalepsy of terror.
There was hardly a momentary pause. She was afraid to stir lest the
slightest motion should betray her to the search of this woman. Had
she, as she stood and listened sharply, heard her breathing?
With sudden decision, long light steps, and her hand laid to the wall,
she glided swiftly toward her. With a gasp Alice awoke, as it were,
from her nightmare, and, almost wild with terror, fled round the bed
to the door. Hastening, jostling by the furniture, gliding, on the
whole, very adroitly after her, her face strained with a horrible
eagerness and fear, came the blind woman.
Alice tried to pull open the door. She had locked it herself, but in
her agitation forgot.
Now she seized the key and tried to turn it, but the strong hand of
the stranger, in forcing it round a second time, had twisted it so
that it was caught in the lock and would not turn.
Alice felt as people feel in dreams, when pursuit is urgent and some
little obstruction entangles flight and threatens to deliver the
fugitive into the hands of an implacable pursuer. A frantic pull, and
a twist or two of the key in vain, and the hand of the pursuer was all
but upon her. Again she sprang and scrambled across the bed, and it
seemed enraged by the delay, and with a face sharpening and darkening
with insanity, the murderess, guided by the sound, flung herself after
her; and now, through the room and lobbies pealed shrieks of murder,
as Alice flew before the outstretched hand of the beldame, who, balked
of her prey, followed with reckless fury, careless now against what
she struck or rushed, and clawing the air, as it seemed, within an
inch of Alice’s shoulder.
Unequal as it appeared, in this small pen, the struggle to escape
could not have lasted very long. The old closet door, thinly covered
with paper, through which the sharp knife had glided almost without
noise, was locked, and escape through it as hopeless as through the
other door. Through the window she would have thrown herself, but it
was fastened, and one moment’s delay would have been death. Had a
weapon been in her hand, had she thought of it in this extremity of
terror, her softer instincts might have been reversed, and she might
have turned on her pursuer and fought, as timid creatures have done,
with the ferocity of despair, for her life. But the chance that might
have so transformed her did not come. Flight was her one thought, and
that ended suddenly, for tripping in the upturned carpet she fell
helplessly to the floor. In a moment, with a gasp, her pursuer was
kneeling by her side, with her hand in her dishevelled hair, and
drawing herself close for those sure strokes of the knife with which
she meant to mangle her.
As the eyes of the white owl glare through the leaves on the awaking
bird, and its brain swims, and its little heart bounces into a gallop,
seeing its most dreadful dream accomplished, escape impossible, its
last hour come--then the talons of the spectre clutch its throat, and
its short harmless life is out, so might it have been with pretty
Alice.
In that dreadful second of time all things that her eyes beheld looked
strange, in a new reality--the room contracted, and familiar things
were unlike themselves, and the certainty and nearness of that which
she now knew--all her life before was but a dream to her--what an
infidel, what a fool she had been--_here_ it was, and _now_--death.
The helpless yell that burst from her lips, as this dreadful woman
shuffled nearer on her knees, was answered by a crash from the door
burst in, and a cry from a manly voice--the door flew wide, and Alice
saw her husband pale as death; with a single savage blow he stretched
her assailant on the floor,--in another moment Alice, wild with
terror, half-fainting, was in his arms.
And--did he _strike_ her? Good God!--had he struck her! How did she
lie there bleeding? For a moment a dreadful remorse was bursting at
his heart--he would have kneeled--he could have killed himself. Oh,
manhood! Gratitude! Charity! Could he, even in a moment of frenzy,
have struck down any creature so--that had ever stood to him in the
relation of that love? What a rush of remembrances, and hell of
compunction was there!--and for a rival! She the reckless, forlorn,
guilty old love cast off, blasted with deformity and privation, and
now this last fell atrocity! Alice was clinging to him, the words
“darling, darling, my Ry, my saviour, my Ry,” were in his ears, and he
felt as if he hated Alice--hated her worse even than himself. He froze
with horror and agony as he beheld the ineffaceable image of that
white, blood-stained twitching face, with sightless eyes, and on the
floor those straggling locks of changed, grizzled hair, that once were
as black as a raven’s wing to which he used to compare them. Oh
maddening picture of degradation and cruelty! To what had they both
come at last?
But an iron necessity was upon him, and with an energy of hypocrisy,
he said--“Alice, my treasure, my darling, you’re safe, aren’t you?”
“Oh, darling, yes,” she gasped.
“Not here--you mustn’t stay here--run down--she’s mad--she’s a mad
woman--not here a moment.”
Half stunned and dreamy with horror, Alice glided down the stairs,
passing honest Tom who was stumbling up, half awake, but quite dressed
excepting his coat.
“Run, Tom, help your master, for God’s sake,--there’s something
dreadful,” she said as she passed him with her trembling hands raised.
“Where, ma’am, may’t be?” said Tom, pausing with a coolness that was
dreadful, she thought.
“There, there, in his room, my room; go, for heaven’s sake!”
Up ran Tom, making a glorious clatter with his hob-nails, and down ran
Alice, and just at the foot of the stair she met Mildred Tarnley’s
tall slim figure. The old woman drew to the banister, and stood still,
looking darkly and shrewdly at her.
“Oh! good Mildred--oh, Mrs. Tarnley, for God’s sake don’t leave me.”
“And what’s the row, ma’am, what is it?” asked Mrs. Tarnley, with her
lean arm supporting the poor trembling young lady who clung to her.
“Oh, Mrs. Tarnley, take me with you--take me out--I can’t stay in the
house; take me away--into the woods--anywhere out of the house.”
“Well, well, come down, come along,” she said, more tenderly than was
her wont, and watching her face hard from the corners of her eyes. She
was convinced that the “old soldier” was the cause of these horrors.
“Put your arm over my shouther, ma’am; there--that’s it--an’ I’ll put
mine round you, if you don’t think I’m making too bold. There now,
you’re more easy, I think.”
And as they got on through the passage she asked--
“’Twas you that skritched, hey?”
“I? I dare say--did I?”
“Ay did ye, with a will, whoever skritched. Ye seen summat. What may
ye have seen that frightened ye like that?”
“We’ll talk by-and-by. I’m ill--I’m horribly ill. Come away.”
“Come, then, if ye like best, ma’am,” said Mildred Tarnley, leading
her through the kitchen, and by the outer door into the open air, but
she had hardly got a step into the yard when the young lady, holding
her fast, stopped short in renewed terrors.
“Oh, Mildred, if she follows us, if she overtook us out here?”
“Hoot, ma’am, who are ye afeard on? Is it that crazy blind woman, or
who?”
“Oh, Mildred, yes, it is she. Oh, Mildred, where shall we go, where
can I hide myself? there’s nowhere safe.”
“Now you’re just drivin’ yourself distracted, you be. What for need ye
fear her? She’s crazy, I’ll not deny, but she’s blind too, and she
can’t follow ye here, if she was so minded. Why she couldn’t cross
the stile, nor follow ye through a spinnie. But see, ye’ve nout but
yer dressin’ gown over yer night clothes, and yer bare feet. Odd’s
I’ll not go wi’ ye--ye’ll come back, and if ye must come abroad, ye’ll
get yer cloaks and your shoon.”
“No, no, no, Mildred, I’ll go as I am,” cried the terrified lady, at
the same time hurrying onward to the yard door.
“Well,” said the old woman following, “wilful lass will ha’ her way,
but ye’ll clap this ower your shouthers.”
And she placed her own shawl on them, and together they passed into
the lonely woodlands that, spreading upward from the glen of Carwell,
embower the deep ravine that flanks the side of the Grange, and
widening and deepening, enter the kindred shadows of the glen.