have seen her close to, only from the other side of the garden, where
she walks at night. She never goes out by day. Deborah waits upon her.
I haven't been here long; but I have always heard about Madam, bless
you! Folks tell all kinds of strange stories. She's fearful old, and
there's many believes she never will die; and where she came from
nobody knows. I've heard that her folks used to live here; but nobody
can remember them, and she used to wander about; and once before she
was here,--a good while ago; but this last time she come was nine
years ago; one stormy night she came across the ferry, and scared them
to death, looking in at the window like a ghost. She said she used to
live here in Colonel Haverford's time. They saw she wasn't right in
her head--the ferry-men did. But she came up to the house, and they
let her in, and she went straight to the rooms in the north gable, and
she never has gone away; it was in an awful storm she come, I've
heard, and she looked just the same as she does now. There! I can't
tell half the stories I've heard, and Deborah she most took my head
off," said Martha, "because, when I first came, I was asking about
her; and she said it was a sin to gossip about a harmless old creature
whose mind was broke, but I guess most everybody thinks there's
something mysterious. There's my grandmother--grandmother her mind is
failing her; but she never had such ways! And then those clothes that
my lady in the gable wears: they're unearthly looking; and I heard a
woman say once, that they come out of a chest in the big garret, and
they belonged to a Mistress Haverford who was hung for a witch, but
there's no knowing that there is any truth in it." And Martha would
have gone on with her stories, if just then we had not heard cousin
Agnes's step on the stairway, and I hurried into bed.
But my bright eyes and excited look betrayed me. Cousin Agnes said she
had hoped I would be asleep. And Martha said perhaps it was her fault;
but I seemed wakeful, and she had talked with me a bit, to keep my
spirits up, coming to a new, strange place. The apology was accepted,
but Martha evidently had orders before I next saw her; for I never
could get her to discuss Lady Ferry again; and she carefully told me
that she should not have told those foolish stories, which were not
true: but I knew that she still had her thoughts and suspicions as
well as I. Once, when I asked her if Lady Ferry were Madam's real
name, she answered with a guilty flush, "That's what the folks
hereabout called her, because they didn't know any other at first."
And this to me was another mystery. It was strongly impressed upon my
mind that I must ask no questions, and that Madam was not to be
discussed. No one distinctly forbade this; but I felt that it would
not do. In every other way I was sure that I was allowed perfect
liberty, so I soon ceased to puzzle myself or other people, and
accepted Madam's presence as being perfectly explainable and
natural,--just as the rest of the household did,--except once in a
while something would set me at work romancing and wondering; and I
read some stories in one of the books in the library,--of Peter Rugg
the missing man, whom one may always meet riding from Salem to Boston
in every storm, and of the Flying Dutchman and the Wandering Jew, and
some terrible German stories of doomed people, and curses that were
fulfilled. These made a great impression upon me; still I was not
afraid, for all such things were far outside the boundaries of my safe
little world; and I played by myself along the shore of the river and
in the garden; and I had my lessons with cousin Agnes, and drives with
cousin Matthew who was nearly always silent, but very kind to me. The
house itself was an unfailing entertainment, with its many rooms, most
of which were never occupied, and its quaint, sober furnishings, some
of which were as old as the house itself. It was like a story-book;
and no one minded my going where I pleased.
I missed my father and mother; but the only time I was really unhappy
was the first morning after my arrival. Cousin Agnes was ill with a
severe headache; cousin Matthew had ridden away to attend to some
business; and, being left to myself, I had a most decided re-action
from my unnaturally bright feelings of the day before. I began to
write a letter to my mother; but unluckily I knew how many weeks must
pass before she saw it, and it was useless to try to go on. I was
lonely and homesick. The rain fell heavily, and the garden looked
forlorn, and so unlike the enchanting moonlighted place where I had
been in the evening! The walks were like little canals; and the
rose-bushes looked wet and chilly, like some gay young lady who had
been caught in the rain in party-dress. It was low-tide in the middle
of the day, and the river-flats looked dismal. I fed cousin Agnes'
flock of tame sparrows which came around the windows, and afterward
some robins. I found some books and some candy which had come in my
trunk, but my heart was very sad; and just after noon I was overjoyed
when one of the servants told me that cousin Agnes would like to have
me come to her room.
She was even kinder to me than she had been the night before; but she
looked very ill, and at first I felt awkward, and did not know what to
say. "I am afraid you have been very dull, dearie," said she, reaching
out her hand to me. "I am sorry, and my headache hardly lets me think
at all yet. But we will have better times to-morrow--both of us. You
must ask for what you want; and you may come and spend this evening
with me, for I shall be getting well then. It does me good to see your
kind little face. Suppose you make Madam a call this afternoon. She
told me last night that she wished for you, and I was so glad. Deborah
will show you the way."
Deborah talked to me softly, out of deference to her mistress's
headache, as we went along the crooked passages. "Don't you mind what
Madam says, leastways don't you dispute her. She's got a funeral going
on to-day;" and the grave woman smiled grimly at me. "It's curious
she's taken to you so; for she never will see any strange folks.
Nobody speaks to her about new folks lately," she added warningly, as
she tapped at the door, and Madam asked, "Is it the child?" And
Deborah lifted the latch. When I was fairly inside, my interest in
life came back redoubled, and I was no longer sad, but looked round
eagerly. Madam spoke to me, with her sweet old voice, in her courtly,
quiet way, and stood looking out of the window.
There were two tall chests of drawers in the room, with shining brass
handles and ornaments; and at one side, near the door, was a heavy
mahogany table, on which I saw a large leather-covered Bible, a
decanter of wine and some glasses, beside some cakes in a queer old
tray. And there was no other furniture but a great number of chairs
which seemed to have been collected from different parts of the house.
With these the room was almost filled, except an open space in the
centre, toward which they all faced. One window was darkened; but
Madam had pushed back the shutter of the other, and stood looking down
at the garden. I waited for her to speak again after the first
salutation, and presently she said I might be seated; and I took the
nearest chair, and again waited her pleasure. It was gloomy enough,
with the silence and the twilight in the room; and the rain and wind
out of doors sounded louder than they had in cousin Agnes's room; but
soon Lady Ferry came toward me.
"So you did not forget the old woman," said she, with a strange
emphasis on the word old, as if that were her title and her chief
characteristic. "And were not you afraid? I am glad it seemed worth
while; for to-morrow would have been too late. You may like to
remember by and by that you came. And my funeral is to be to-morrow,
at last. You see the room is in readiness. You will care to be here, I
hope. I would have ordered you some gloves if I had known; but these
are all too large for your little hands. You shall have a ring; I will
leave a command for that;" and Madam seated herself near me in a
curious, high-backed chair. She was dressed that day in a maroon
brocade, figured with bunches of dim pink flowers; and some of these
flowers looked to me like wicked little faces. It was a mocking, silly
creature that I saw at the side of every prim bouquet, and I looked at
the faded little imps, until they seemed as much alive as Lady Ferry
herself.
Her head nodded continually, as if it were keeping time to an
inaudible tune, as she sat there stiffly erect. Her skin was pale and
withered; and her cheeks were wrinkled in fine lines, like the
crossings of a cobweb. Her eyes might once have been blue; but they
had become nearly colorless, and, looking at her, one might easily
imagine that she was blind. She had a singularly sweet smile, and a
musical voice, which, though sad, had no trace of whining. If it had
not been for her smile and her voice, I think madam would have been a
terror to me. I noticed to-day, for the first time, a curious
fragrance, which seemed to come from her old brocades and silks. It
was very sweet, but unlike any thing I had ever known before; and it
was by reason of this that afterward I often knew, with a little
flutter at my heart, she had been in some other rooms of the great
house beside her own. This perfume seemed to linger for a little while
wherever she had been, and yet it was so faint! I used to go into the
darkened chambers often, or even stay for a while by myself in the
unoccupied lower rooms, and I would find this fragrance, and wonder if
she were one of the oldtime fairies, who could vanish at their own
will and pleasure, and wonder, too, why she had come to the room. But
I never met her at all.
That first visit to her and the strange fancy she had about the
funeral I have always remembered distinctly.
"I am glad you came," Madam repeated: "I was finding the day long. I
am all ready, you see. I shall place a little chair which is in the
next room, beside your cousin's seat for you. Mrs. Agnes is ill, I
hear; but I think she will come to-morrow. Have you heard any one say
if many guests are expected?"--"No, Madam," I answered, "no one has
told me;" and just then the thought flitted through my head that she
had said the evening before that all her friends were gone. Perhaps
she expected their ghosts: that would not be stranger than all the
rest.
The open space where Lady Ferry had left room for her coffin began to
be a horror to me, and I wished Deborah would come back, or that my
hostess would open the shutters; and it was a great relief when she
rose and went into the adjoining room, bidding me follow her, and
there opened a drawer containing some old jewelry; there were also
some queer Chinese carvings, yellow with age,--just the things a child
would enjoy. I looked at them delightedly. This was coming back to
more familiar life; and I soon felt more at ease, and chattered to
Lady Ferry of my own possessions, and some coveted treasures of my
mother's, which were to be mine when I grew older.
Madam stood beside me patiently, and listened with a half smile to my
whispered admiration. In the clearer light I could see her better, and
she seemed older,--so old, so old! and my father's words came to me
again. She had not changed since he was a boy; living on and on, and
the 'horror of an endless life in this world!' And I remembered what
Martha had said to me, and the consciousness of this mystery was a
great weight upon me of a sudden. Why was she living so long? and what
had happened to her? and how long could it be since she was a child?
There was something in her manner which made me behave, even in my
pleasure, as if her imagined funeral were there in reality, and as if,
in spite of my being amused and tearless, the solemn company of
funeral guests already sat in the next room to us with bowed heads,
and all the shadows in the world had assembled there materialized into
the tangible form of crape. I opened and closed the boxes gently, and,
when I had seen every thing, I looked up with a sigh to think that
such a pleasure was ended, and asked if I might see them again some
day. But the look in her face made me recollect myself, and my own
grew crimson, for it seemed at that moment as real to me as to Lady
Ferry herself that this was her last day of mortal life. She walked
away, but presently came back, while I was wondering if I might not
go, and opened the drawer again. It creaked, and the brass handles
clacked in a startling way, and she took out a little case, and said I
might keep it to remember her by. It held a little vinaigrette,--a
tiny silver box with a gold one inside, in which I found a bit of fine
sponge, dark brown with age, and still giving a faint, musty perfume
and spiciness. The outside was rudely chased, and was worn as if it
had been carried for years in somebody's pocket. It had a spring, the
secret of which Lady Ferry showed me. I was delighted, and
instinctively lifted my face to kiss her. She bent over me, and waited
an instant for me to kiss her again. "Oh!" said she softly, "it is so
long since a child has kissed me! I pray God not to leave you
lingering like me, apart from all your kindred, and your life so long
that you forget you ever were a child."--"I will kiss you every day,"
said I, and then again remembered that there were to be no more days
according to her plan; but she did not seem to notice my mistake. And
after this I used to go to see Madam often. For a time there was
always the same gloom and hushed way of speaking, and the funeral
services were to be on the morrow; but at last one day I found Deborah
sedately putting the room in order, and Lady Ferry apologized for its
being in such confusion; the idea of the funeral had utterly vanished,
and I hurried to tell cousin Agnes with great satisfaction. I think
that both she and cousin Matthew had a dislike for my being too much
with Madam. I was kept out of doors as much as possible because it was
much better for my health; and through the long summer days I strayed
about wherever I chose. The country life was new and delightful to me.
At home, Lady Ferry's vagaries were carelessly spoken of, and often
smiled at; but I gained the idea that they disguised the truth, and
were afraid of my being frightened. She often talked about persons who
had been dead a very long time,--familiar characters in history, and,
though cousin Agnes had said that she used to be fond of reading, it
seemed to me that Madam might have known these men and women after
all.
Once a middle-aged gentleman, an acquaintance of cousin Matthew's,
came to pass a day and night at the ferry, and something happened then
which seemed wonderful to me. It was early in the evening after tea,
and we were in the parlor; from my seat by cousin Agnes I could look
out into the garden, and presently, with the gathering darkness, came
Lady Ferry, silent as a shadow herself, to walk to and fro on the
flagstones. The windows were all open, and the guest had a clear, loud
voice, and pleasant, hearty laugh; and, as he talked earnestly with
cousin Matthew, I noticed that Lady Ferry stood still, as if she were
listening. Then I was attracted by some story which was being told,
and forgot her, but afterward turned with a start, feeling that there
was some one watching; and, to my astonishment, Madam had come to the
long window by which one went out to the garden. She stood there a
moment, looking puzzled and wild; then she smiled, and, entering,
walked in most stately fashion down the long room, toward the
gentlemen, before whom she courtesied with great elegance, while the
stranger stopped speaking, and looked at her with amazement, as he
rose, and returned her greeting.
"My dear Captain Jack McAllister!" said she; "what a surprise! and are
you not home soon from your voyage? This is indeed a pleasure." And
Lady Ferry seated herself, motioning to him to take the chair beside
her. She looked younger than I had ever seen her; a bright color came
into her cheeks; and she talked so gayly, in such a different manner
from her usual mournful gentleness. She must have been a beautiful
woman; indeed she was that still.
"And did the good ship Starlight make a prosperous voyage? and had you
many perils?--do you bring much news to us from the Spanish Main? We
have missed you sadly at the assemblies; but there must be a dance in
your honor. And your wife; is she not overjoyed at the sight of you? I
think you have grown old and sedate since you went away. You do not
look the gay sailor, or seem so light-hearted."
"I do not understand you, madam," said the stranger. "I am certainly
John McAllister; but I am no captain, neither have I been at sea. Good
God! is it my grandfather whom you confuse me with?" cried he. "He was
Jack McAllister, and was lost at sea more than seventy years ago,
while my own father was a baby. I am told that I am wonderfully like
his portrait; but he was a younger man than I when he died. This is
some masquerade."
Lady Ferry looked at him intently, but the light in her face was fast
fading out. "Lost at sea,--lost at sea, were you, Jack McAllister,
seventy years ago? I know nothing of years; one of my days is like
another, and they are gray days, they creep away and hide, and
sometimes one comes back to mock me. I have lived a thousand years; do
you know it? Lost at sea--captain of the ship Starlight? Whom did you
say?--Jack McAllister, yes, I knew him well--pardon me; good-evening;"
and my lady rose, and with her head nodding and drooping, with a
sorrowful, hunted look in her eyes, went out again into the shadows.
She had had a flash of youth, the candle had blazed up brilliantly;
but it went out again as suddenly, with flickering and smoke.
"I was startled when I saw her beside me," said Mr. McAllister. "Pray,
who is she? she is like no one I have ever seen. I have been told that
I am like my grandfather in looks and in voice; but it is years since
I have seen any one who knew him well. And did you hear her speak of
dancing? It is like seeing one who has risen from the dead. How old
can she be?"--"I do not know," said cousin Matthew, "one can only
guess at her age."--"Would not she come back? I should like to
question her," asked the other. But cousin Matthew answered that she
always refused to see strangers, and it would be no use to urge her,
she would not answer him.
"Who is she? Is she any kin of yours?" asked Mr. McAllister.
"Oh, no!" said my cousin Agnes: "she has had no relatives since I have
known her, and I think she has no friends now but ourselves. She has
been with us a long time, and once before this house was her home for
a time,--many years since. I suppose no one will ever know the whole
history of her life; I wish often that she had power to tell it. We
are glad to give shelter, and the little care she will accept, to the
poor soul, God only knows where she has strayed and what she has seen.
It is an enormous burden,--so long a life, and such a weight of
memories; but I think it is seldom now that she feels its
heaviness.--Go out to her, Marcia my dear, and see if she seems
troubled. She always has a welcome for the child," cousin Agnes added,
as I unwillingly went away.
I found Lady Ferry in the garden; I stole my hand into hers, and,
after a few minutes of silence, I was not surprised to hear her say
that they had killed the Queen of France, poor Marie Antoinette! she
had known her well in her childhood, before she was a queen at all--"a
sad fate, a sad fate," said Lady Ferry. We went far down the gardens
and by the river-wall, and when we were again near the house, and
could hear Mr. McAllister's voice as cheery as ever, madam took no
notice of it. I had hoped she would go into the parlor again, and I
wished over and over that I could have waited to hear the secrets
which I was sure must have been told after cousin Agnes had sent me
away.
One day I thought I had made a wonderful discovery. I was fond of
reading, and found many books which interested me in cousin Matthew's
fine library; but I took great pleasure also in hunting through a
collection of old volumes which had been cast aside, either by him, or
by some former owner of the house, and which were piled in a corner of
the great garret. They were mostly yellow with age, and had dark brown
leather or shabby paper bindings; the pictures in some were very
amusing to me. I used often to find one which I appropriated and
carried down stairs; and on this day I came upon a dusty, odd-shaped
little book, for which I at once felt an affection. I looked at it a
little. It seemed to be a journal, there were some stories of the
Indians, and next I saw some reminiscences of the town of Boston,
where, among other things, the author was told the marvellous story of
one Mistress Honor Warburton, who was cursed, and doomed to live in
this world forever. This was startling. I at once thought of Madam,
and was reading on further to know the rest of the story, when some
one called me, and I foolishly did not dare to carry my book with me.
I was afraid I should not find it if I left it in sight; I saw an
opening near me at the edge of the floor by the eaves, and I carefully
laid my treasure inside. But, alas! I was not to be sure of its safe
hiding-place in a way that I fancied, for the book fell down between
the boarding of the thick walls, and I heard it knock as it fell, and
knew by the sound that it must be out of reach. I grieved over this
loss for a long time; and I felt that it had been most unkindly taken
out of my hand. I wished heartily that I could know the rest of the
story; and I tried to summon courage to ask Madam, when we were by
ourselves, if she had heard of Honor Warburton, but something held me
back. There were two other events just at this time which made this
strange old friend of mine seem stranger than ever to me. I had a
dream one night, which I took for a vision and a reality at the time.
I thought I looked out of my window in the night, and there was bright
moonlight, and I could see the other gable plainly; and I looked in at
the windows of an unoccupied parlor which I never had seen open
before, under Lady Ferry's own rooms. The shutters were pushed back,
and there were candles burning; and I heard voices, and presently some
tinkling music, like that of a harpsichord I had once heard in a very
old house where I had been in England with my mother. I saw several
couples go through with a slow, stately dance; and, when they stopped
and seated themselves, I could hear their voices; but they spoke low,
these midnight guests. I watched until the door was opened which led
into the garden, and the company came out and stood for a few minutes
on the little lawn, making their adieus, bowing low, and behaving with
astonishing courtesy and elegance: finally the last good-nights were
said, and they went away. Lady Ferry stood under the pointed porch,
looking after them, and I could see her plainly in her brocade gown,
with the impish flowers, a tall quaint cap, and a high lace frill at
her throat, whiter than any lace I had ever seen, with a glitter on
it; and there was a glitter on her face too. One of the other ladies
was dressed in velvet, and I thought she looked beautiful: their eyes
were all like sparks of fire. The gentlemen wore cloaks and ruffs, and
high-peaked hats with wide brims, such as I had seen in some very old
pictures which hung on the walls of the long west room. These were not
pilgrims or Puritans, but gay gentlemen; and soon I heard the noise of
their boats on the pebbles as they pushed off shore, and the splash of
the oars in the water. Lady Ferry waved her hand, and went in at the
door; and I found myself standing by the window in the chilly, cloudy
night: the opposite gable, the garden, and the river, were
indistinguishable in the darkness. I stole back to bed in an agony of
fear; for it had been very real, that dream. I surely was at the
window, for my hand had been on the sill when I waked; and I heard a
church-bell ring two o'clock in a town far up the river. I never had
heard this solemn bell before, and it seemed frightful; but I knew
afterward that in the silence of a misty night the sound of it came
down along the water.
In the morning I found that there had been a gale in the night; and
cousin Matthew said at breakfast time that the tide had risen so that
it had carried off two old boats that had been left on the shore to go
to pieces. I sprang to the window, and sure enough they had
disappeared. I had played in one of them the day before. Should I tell
cousin Matthew what I had seen or dreamed? But I was too sure that he
would only laugh at me; and yet I was none the less sure that those
boats had carried passengers.