“The signature reads A. Postlethwaite.”
“Then it’s she. Her name is Arabella. She hates the name, being a woman
of no sentiment. Uses her initials even on her cheques. What does she
want of you?”
“To draw her will.”
“Oblige her. It’ll be experience for you.” And he slammed home the
receiver.
I decided to follow the suggestion so forcibly emphasized; and the next
day saw me at Highland Station. A superannuated horse and a still more
superannuated carriage awaited me--both too old to serve a busy man
in these days of swift conveyance. Could this be a sample of the
establishment I was about to enter? Then I remembered that the woman who
had sent for me was a helpless invalid, and probably had no use for any
sort of turnout.
The driver was in keeping with the vehicle, and as noncommittal as the
plodding beast he drove. If I ventured upon a remark, he gave me a
long and curious look; if I went so far as to attack him with a direct
question, he responded with a hitch of the shoulder or a dubious smile
which conveyed nothing. Was he deaf or just unpleasant? I soon learned
that he was not deaf; for suddenly, after a jog-trot of a mile or so
through a wooded road which we had entered from the main highway, he
drew in his horse, and, without glancing my way, spoke his first word:
“This is where you get out. The house is back there in the bushes.”
As no house was visible and the bushes rose in an unbroken barrier along
the road, I stared at him in some doubt of his sanity.
“But--” I began; a protest into which he at once broke, with the sharp
direction:
“Take the path. It’ll lead you straight to the front door.”
“I don’t see any path.”
For this he had no answer; and confident from his expression that it
would be useless to expect anything further from him, I dropped a coin
into his hand, and jumped to the ground. He was off before I could turn
myself about.
“‘Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,’” I quoted in startled
comment to myself; and not knowing what else to do, stared down at the
turf at my feet.
A bit of flagging met my eye, protruding from a layer of thick moss.
Farther on I espied another--the second, probably, of many. This, no
doubt, was the path I had been bidden to follow, and without further
thought on the subject, I plunged into the bushes which with difficulty
I made give way before me.
For a moment all further advance looked hopeless. A more tangled,
uninviting approach to a so-called home, I had never seen outside of the
tropics; and the complete neglect thus displayed should have prepared me
for the appearance of the house I unexpectedly came upon, just as, the
way seemed on the point of closing up before me.
But nothing could well prepare one for a first view of Gloom Cottage.
Its location in a hollow which had gradually filled itself up with
trees and some kind of prickly brush, its deeply stained walls, once
picturesque enough in their grouping but too deeply hidden now amid
rotting boughs to produce any other effect than that of shrouded
desolation, the sough of these same boughs as they rapped a devil’s
tattoo against each other, and the absence of even the rising column of
smoke which bespeaks domestic life wherever seen--all gave to one who
remembered the cognomen Cottage and forgot the pre-cognomen of Gloom, a
sense of buried life as sepulchral as that which emanates from the mouth
of some freshly opened tomb.
But these impressions, natural enough to my youth, were necessarily
transient, and soon gave way to others more business-like. Perceiving
the curve of an arch rising above the undergrowth still blocking my
approach, I pushed my way resolutely through, and presently found myself
stumbling upon the steps of an unexpectedly spacious domicile, built not
of wood, as its name of Cottage had led me to expect, but of carefully
cut stone which, while showing every mark of time, proclaimed itself
one of those early, carefully erected Colonial residences which it
takes more than a century to destroy, or even to wear to the point of
dilapidation.
Somewhat encouraged, though failing to detect any signs of active life
in the heavily shuttered windows frowning upon me from either side, I
ran up the steps and rang the bell which pulled as hard as if no hand
had touched it in years.
Then I waited.
But not to ring again; for just as my hand was approaching the bell a
second time, the door fell back and I beheld in the black gap before me
the oldest man I had ever come upon in my whole life. He was so old
I was astonished when his drawn lips opened and he asked if I was the
lawyer from New York. I would as soon have expected a mummy to wag its
tongue and utter English, he looked so thin and dried and removed from
this life and all worldly concerns.
But when I had answered his question and he had turned to marshal me
down the hall towards a door I could dimly see standing open in the
twilight of an absolutely sunless interior, I noticed that his step was
not without some vigour, despite the feeble bend of his withered body
and the incessant swaying of his head, which seemed to be continually
saying No!
“I will prepare madam,” he admonished me, after drawing a ponderous
curtain two inches or less aside from one of the windows. “She is very
ill, but she will see you.”
The tone was senile, but it was the senility of an educated man, and as
the cultivated accents wavered forth, my mind changed in, regard to the
position he held in the house. Interested anew, I sought to give him
another look, but he had already vanished through the doorway, and
so noiselessly, it was more like a shadow’s flitting than a man’s
withdrawal.
The darkness in which I sat was absolute; but gradually, as I continued
to look about me, the spaces lightened and certain details came out,
which to my astonishment were of a character to show that the plain if
substantial exterior of this house with its choked-up approaches and
weedy gardens was no sample of what was to be found inside. Though the
walls surrounding me were dismal because unlighted, they betrayed a
splendour unusual in any country house. The frescoes and paintings were
of an ancient order, dating from days when life and not death reigned in
this isolated dwelling; but in them high art reigned supreme, an art
so high and so finished that only great wealth, combined with the most
cultivated taste, could have produced such effects. I was still absorbed
in the wonder of it all, when the quiet voice of the old gentleman who
had let me in reached me again from the doorway, and I heard:
“Madam is ready for you. May I trouble you to accompany me to her room.”
I rose with alacrity. I was anxious to see madam, if only to satisfy
myself that she was as interesting as the house in which she was
self-immured.
I found her a great deal more so. But before I enter upon our interview,
let me mention a fact which had attracted my attention in my passage to
her room. During his absence my guide evidently had pulled aside other
curtains than those of the room in which he had left me. The hall, no
longer a tunnel of darkness, gave me a glimpse as we went by, of various
secluded corners, and it seemed as if everywhere I looked I saw--a
clock. I counted four before I reached the staircase, all standing on
the floor and all of ancient make, though differing much in appearance
and value. A fifth one rose grim and tall at the stair foot, and under
an impulse I have never understood I stopped, when I reached it, to note
the time. But it had paused in its task, and faced me with motionless
hands and silent works--a fact which somehow startled me; perhaps,
because just then I encountered the old man’s eye watching me with an
expression as challenging as it was unintelligible.
I had expected to see a woman in bed. I saw instead, a woman sitting up.
You felt her influence the moment you entered her presence. She was not
young; she was not beautiful;--never had been I should judge,--she had
not even the usual marks about her of an ultra strong personality; but
that her will was law, had always been, and would continue to be law
so long as she lived, was patent to any eye at the first glance. She
exacted obedience consciously and unconsciously, and she exacted it with
charm. Some few people in the world possess this power. They frown, and
the opposing will weakens; they smile, and all hearts succumb. I was
hers from the moment I crossed the threshold till--But I will relate the
happenings of that instant when it comes.
She was alone, or so I thought, when I made my first bow to her stern
but not unpleasing presence. Seated in a great chair, with a silver tray
before her containing such little matters as she stood in hourly need
of, she confronted me with a piercing gaze startling to behold in eyes
so colourless. Then she smiled, and in obedience to that smile I seated
myself in a chair placed very near her own. Was she too paralysed to
express herself clearly? I waited in some anxiety till she spoke, when
this fear vanished. Her voice betrayed the character her features failed
to express. It was firm, resonant, and instinct with command. Not loud,
but penetrating, and of a quality which made one listen with his heart
as well as with his ears. What she said is immaterial. I was there for
a certain purpose and we entered immediately upon the business of that
purpose. She talked and I listened, mostly without comment. Only once
did I interrupt her with a suggestion; and as this led to definite
results, I will proceed to relate the occurrence in full.
In the few hours remaining to me before leaving New York, I had learned
(no matter how) some additional particulars concerning herself and
family; and when after some minor bequests, she proceeded to name
the parties to whom she desired to leave the bulk of her fortune, I
ventured, with some astonishment at my own temerity, to remark:
“But you have a young relative! Is she not to be included in this
partition of your property?”
A hush. Then a smile came to life on her stiff lips, such as is seldom
seen, thank God, on the face of any woman, and I heard:
“The young relative of whom you speak, is in the room. She has known for
some time that I have no intention of leaving anything to her. There is,
in fact, small chance of her ever needing it.”
The latter sentence was a muttered one, but that it was loud enough to
be heard in all parts of the room I was soon assured. For a quick sigh,
which was almost a gasp, followed from a corner I had hitherto ignored,
and upon glancing that way, I perceived, peering upon us from the
shadows, the white face of a young girl in whose drawn features and
wide, staring eyes I beheld such evidences of terror, that in an
instant, whatever predilection I had hitherto felt for my client,
vanished in distrust, if not positive aversion.
I was still under the sway of this new impression, when Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s voice rose again, this time addressing the young girl:
“You may go,” she said, with such force in the command for all its
honeyed modulation, that I expected to see its object fly the room in
frightened obedience.
But though the startled girl had lost none of the terror which had made
her face like a mask, no power of movement remained to her. A picture
of hopeless misery, she stood for one breathless moment, with her
eyes fixed in unmistakable appeal on mine; then she began to sway so
helplessly that I leaped with bounding heart to catch her. As she fell
into my arms I heard her sigh as before. No common anguish spoke in that
sigh. I had stumbled unwittingly upon a tragedy, to the meaning of which
I held but a doubtful key.
“She seems very ill,” I observed with some emphasis, as I turned to lay
my helpless burden on a near-by sofa.
“She’s doomed.”
The words were spoken with gloom and with an attempt at commiseration
which no longer rang true in my ears.
“She is as sick a woman as I am myself,” continued Mrs. Postlethwaite.
“That is why I made the remark I did, never imagining she would hear me
at that distance. Do not put her down. My nurse will be here in a moment
to relieve you of your burden.”
A tinkle accompanied these words. The resolute woman had stretched out
a finger, of whose use she was not quite deprived, and touched a little
bell standing on the tray before her, an inch or two from her hand.
Pleased to obey her command, I paused at the sofa’s edge, and taking
advantage of the momentary delay, studied the youthful countenance
pressed unconsciously to my breast.
It was one whose appeal lay less in its beauty, though that was of a
touching quality, than in the story it told,--a story, which for some
unaccountable reason--I did not pause to determine what one--I felt it
to be my immediate duty to know. But I asked no questions then; I did
not even venture a comment; and yielded her up with seeming readiness
when a strong but none too intelligent woman came running in with arms
outstretched to carry her off. When the door had closed upon these two,
the silence of my client drew my attention back to herself.
“I am waiting,” was her quiet observation, and without any further
reference to what had just taken place under our eyes, she went on with
the business previously occupying us.
I was able to do my part without any too great display of my own
disturbance. The clearness of my remarkable client’s instructions, the
definiteness with which her mind was made up as to the disposal of every
dollar of her vast property, made it easy for me to master each detail
and make careful note of every wish. But this did not prevent the ebb
and flow within me of an undercurrent of thought full of question and
uneasiness. What had been the real purport of the scene to which I had
just been made a surprised witness? The few, but certainly unusual,
facts which had been given me in regard to the extraordinary relations
existing between these two closely connected women will explain the
intensity of my interest. Those facts shall be yours.
Arabella Merwin, when young, was gifted with a peculiar fascination
which, as we have seen, had not altogether vanished with age.
Consequently she had many lovers, among them two brothers, Frank and
Andrew Postlethwaite. The latter was the older, the handsomer, and the
most prosperous (his name is remembered yet in connection with South
American schemes of large importance), but it was Frank she married.
That real love, ardent if unreasonable, lay at the bottom of her choice,
is evident enough to those who followed the career of the young
couple. But it was a jealous love which brooked no rival, and as Frank
Postlethwaite was of an impulsive and erratic nature, scenes soon
occurred between them which, while revealing the extraordinary force of
the young wife’s character, led to no serious break till after her son
was born, and this, notwithstanding the fact that Frank had long given
up making a living, and that they were openly dependent on their wealthy
brother, now fast approaching the millionaire status.
This brother--the Peruvian King, as some called him--must have been
an extraordinary man. Though cherishing his affection for the spirited
Arabella to the point of remaining a bachelor for her sake, he betrayed
none of the usual signs of disappointed love; but on the contrary made
every effort to advance her happiness, not only by assuring to herself
and husband an adequate income, but by doing all he could in other and
less open ways to lessen any sense she might entertain of her mistake in
preferring for her lifemate his self-centred and unstable brother. She
should have adored him; but though she evinced gratitude enough, there
is nothing to prove that she ever gave Frank Postlethwaite the least
cause to cherish any other sentiment towards his brother than that of
honest love and unqualified respect. Perhaps he never did cherish
any other. Perhaps the change which everyone saw in the young couple
immediately after the birth of their only child was due to another
cause. Gossip is silent on this point. All that it insists upon is that
from this time evidences of a growing estrangement between them became
so obvious that even the indulgent Andrew could not blind himself to it;
showing his sense of trouble, not by lessening their income, for that
he doubled, but by spending more time in Peru and less in New York where
the two were living.
However,--and here we enter upon those details which I have ventured
to characterize as uncommon, he was in this country and in the actual
company of his brother when the accident occurred which terminated
both their lives. It was the old story of a skidding motor, and Mrs.
Postlethwaite, having been sent for in great haste to the small inn
into which the two injured men had been carried, arrived only in time to
witness their last moments. Frank died first and Andrew some few minutes
later--an important fact, as was afterwards shown when the latter’s will
came to be read.
This will was a peculiar one. By its provisions the bulk of the King’s
great property was left to his brother Frank, but with this especial
stipulation that in case his brother failed to survive him, the full
legacy as bequeathed to him should be given unconditionally to his
widow. Frank’s demise, as I have already stated, preceded his brother’s
by several minutes and consequently Arabella became the chief legatee;
and that is how she obtained her millions. But--and here a startling
feature comes in--when the will came to be administered, the secret
underlying the break between Frank and his wife was brought to light by
a revelation of the fact that he had practised a great deception upon
her at the time of his marriage. Instead of being a bachelor as was
currently believed, he was in reality a widower, and the father of a
child. This fact, so long held secret, had become hers when her own
child was born; and constituted as she was, she not only never forgave
the father, but conceived such a hatred for the innocent object of their
quarrel that she refused to admit its claims or even to acknowledge its
existence.
But later--after his death, in fact--she showed some sense of obligation
towards one who under ordinary conditions would have shared her wealth.
When the whole story became heard, and she discovered that this secret
had been kept from his brother as well as from herself, and that
consequently no provision had been made in any way for the child thus
thrown directly upon her mercy, she did the generous thing and took the
forsaken girl into her own home. But she never betrayed the least love
for her, her whole heart being bound up in her boy, who was, as all
agree, a prodigy of talent.
But this boy, for all his promise and seeming strength of constitution,
died when barely seven years old, and the desolate mother was left with
nothing to fill her heart but the uncongenial daughter of her husband’s
first wife. The fact that this child, slighted as it had hitherto been,
would, in the event of her uncle having passed away before her father,
have been the undisputed heiress of a large portion of the wealth now at
the disposal of her arrogant step-mother, led many to expect, now
that the boy was no more, that Mrs. Postlethwaite would proceed to
acknowledge the little Helena as her heir, and give her that place in
the household to which her natural claims entitled her.
But no such result followed. The passion of grief into which the
mother was thrown by the shipwreck of all her hopes left her hard and
implacable, and when, as very soon happened, she fell a victim to the
disease which tied her to her chair and made the wealth which had come
to her by such a peculiar ordering of circumstances little else than a
mockery even in her own eyes, it was upon this child she expended the
full fund of her secret bitterness.
And the child? What of her? How did she bear her unhappy fate when she
grew old enough to realize it? With a resignation which was the wonder
of all who knew her. No murmurs escaped her lips, nor was the devotion
she invariably displayed to the exacting invalid who ruled her as well
as all the rest of her household with a rod of iron ever disturbed by
the least sign of reproach. Though the riches, which in those early days
poured into the home in a measure far beyond the needs of its mistress,
were expended in making the house beautiful rather than in making the
one young life within it happy, she never was heard to utter so much as
a wish to leave the walls within which fate had immured her. Content,
or seemingly content, with the only home she knew, she never asked
for change or demanded friends or amusements. Visitors ceased coming;
desolation followed neglect. The garden, once a glory, succumbed to a
riot of weeds and undesirable brush, till a towering wall seemed to be
drawn about the house cutting it off from the activities of the world as
it cut it off from the approach of sunshine by day, and the comfort of
a star-lit heaven by night. And yet the young girl continued to smile,
though with a pitifulness of late, which some thought betokened
secret terror and others the wasting of a body too sensitive for such
unwholesome seclusion.
These were the facts, known if not consciously specialized, which gave
to the latter part of my interview with Mrs. Postlethwaite a poignancy
of interest which had never attended any of my former experiences. The
peculiar attitude of Miss Postlethwaite towards her indurate tormentor
awakened in my agitated mind something much deeper than curiosity,
but when I strove to speak her name with the intent of inquiring more
particularly into her condition, such a look confronted me from the
steady eye immovably fixed upon my own, that my courage--or was it my
natural precaution--bade me subdue the impulse and risk no attempt which
might betray the depth of my interest in one so completely outside
the scope of the present moment’s business. Perhaps Mrs. Postlethwaite
appreciated my struggle; perhaps she was wholly blind to it. There was
no reading the mind of this woman of sentimental name but inflexible
nature, and realizing the fact more fully with every word she uttered I
left her at last with no further betrayal of my feelings than might
be evinced by the earnestness with which I promised to return for her
signature at the earliest possible moment.
This she had herself requested, saying as I rose:
“I can still write my name if the paper is pushed carefully along under
my hand. See to it that you come while the power remains to me.”
I had hoped that in my passage downstairs I might run upon someone who
would give me news of Miss Postlethwaite, but the woman who approached
to conduct me downstairs was not of an appearance to invite confidence,
and I felt forced to leave the house with my doubts unsatisfied.
Two memories, equally distinct, followed me. One was a picture of Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s fingers groping among her belongings on the little
tray perched upon her lap, and another of the intent and strangely
bent figure of the old man who had acted as my usher, listening to
the ticking of one of the great clocks. So absorbed was he in this
occupation that he not only failed to notice me when I went by, but he
did not even lift his head at my cheery greeting. Such mysteries were
too much for me, and led me to postpone my departure from town till I
had sought out Mrs. Postlethwaite’s doctor and propounded to him one
or two leading questions. First, would Mrs. Postlethwaite’s present
condition be likely to hold good till Monday; and secondly, was the
young lady living with her as ill as her step-mother said.
He was a mild old man of the easy-going type, and the answers I got
from him were far from satisfactory. Yet he showed some surprise when
I mentioned the extent of Mrs. Postlethwaite’s anxiety about her
step-daughter, and paused, in the dubious shaking of his head, to give
me a short stare in which I read as much determination as perplexity.
“I will look into Miss Postlethwaite’s case more particularly,” were his
parting words. And with this one gleam of comfort I had to be content.
Monday’s interview was a brief one and contained nothing worth
repeating. Mrs. Postlethwaite listened with stoical satisfaction to the
reading of the will I had drawn up, and upon its completion rang her
bell for the two witnesses awaiting her summons, in an adjoining room.
They were not of her household, but to all appearance honest villagers
with but one noticeable characteristic, an overweening idea of Mrs.
Postlethwaite’s importance. Perhaps the spell she had so liberally woven
for others in other and happier days was felt by them at this hour. It
would not be strange; I had almost fallen under it myself, so great was
the fascination of her manner even in this wreck of her bodily
powers, when triumph assured, she faced us all in a state of complete
satisfaction.
But before I was again quit of the place, all my doubts returned and in
fuller force than ever. I had lingered in my going as much as decency
would permit, hoping to hear a step on the stair or see a face in some
doorway which would contradict Mrs. Postlethwaite’s cold assurance that
Miss Postlethwaite was no better. But no such step did I hear, and no
face did I see save the old, old one of the ancient friend or relative,
whose bent frame seemed continually to haunt the halls. As before,
he stood listening to the monotonous ticking of one of the clocks,
muttering to himself and quite oblivious of my presence.
However, this time I decided not to pass him without a more persistent
attempt to gain his notice. Pausing at his side, I asked him in the
friendly tone I thought best calculated to attract his attention, how
Miss Postlethwaite was to-day. He was so intent upon his task, whatever
that was, that while he turned my way, it was with a glance as blank as
that of a stone image.
“Listen!” he admonished me. “It still says No! No! I don’t think it will
ever say anything else.”
I stared at him in some consternation, then at the clock itself which
was the tall one I had found run down at my first visit. There was
nothing unusual in its quiet tick, so far as I could hear, and with a
compassionate glance at the old man who had turned breathlessly again to
listen, proceeded on my way without another word.
The old fellow was daft. A century old, and daft.
I had worked my way out through the vines which still encumbered the
porch, and was taking my first steps down the walk, when some impulse
made me turn and glance up at one of the windows.
Did I bless the impulse? I thought I had every reason for doing so, when
through a network of interlacing branches I beheld the young girl with
whom my mind was wholly occupied, standing with her head thrust forward,
watching the descent of something small and white which she had just
released from her hand.
A note! A note written by her and meant for me! With a grateful look in
her direction (which was probably lost upon her as she had already drawn
back out of sight), I sprang for it only to meet with disappointment.
For it was no billet-doux I received from amid the clustering brush
where it had fallen; but a small square of white cloth showing a line
of fantastic embroidery. Annoyed beyond measure, I was about to fling it
down again, when the thought that it had come from her hand deterred me,
and I thrust it into my vest pocket. When I took it out again--which was
soon after I had taken my seat in the car--I discovered what a mistake I
should have made if I had followed my first impulse. For, upon examining
the stitches more carefully, I perceived that what I had considered a
mere decorative pattern was in fact a string of letters, and that these
letters made words, and that these words were: