Produced by Robert Fite, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, from images
generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
Historical Microreproductions.
THE MILL MYSTERY
BY
ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE," "HAND AND
RING," ETC. ETC.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I-------THE ALARM
II------A FEARFUL QUESTION
III-----ADA
IV------THE POLLARDS
V-------DOUBTS AND QUERIES
VI------MRS. POLLARD
VII-----ADVANCES
VIII----A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY
IX------AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
X-------RHODA COLWELL
XI------UNDER THE MILL FLOOR
XII-----DWIGHT POLLARD
XIII----GUY POLLARD
XIV-----CORRESPONDENCE
XV------A GOSSIP
XVI-----THE GREEN ENVELOPE
XVII----DAVID BARROWS
XVIII---A LAST REQUEST
XIX-----A FATAL DELAY
XX------THE OLD MILL
XXI-----THE VAT
XXII----THE CYPHER
XXIII---TOO LATE
XXIV----CONFRONTED
XXV-----THE FINAL BLOW
XXVI----A FELINE TOUCH
XXVII---REPARATION
XXVIII--TWO OR ONE
THE MILL MYSTERY
* * * * *
I.
THE ALARM.
Life, struck sharp on death,
Makes awful lightning.
--MRS. BROWNING.
I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was
for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and
whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and
quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the
table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more of it; my
mind was too full, my heart too heavy with my own trouble.
Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the deep
sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness that
comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility sounded, she
realizes that the world has no place for her, and that she must either
stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve! I have no words for
the misery I felt, for I am a proud woman, and----But no lifting of the
curtain that shrouds my past. It has fallen for ever, and for you and
me and the world I am simply Constance Sterling, a young woman of
twenty-five, without home, relatives, or means of support, having in
her pocket seventy-five cents of change, and in her breast a heart like
lead, so utterly had every hope vanished in the day's rush of
disappointments.
How long I stood with my face to the window I cannot say. With eyes
dully fixed upon the blank walls of the cottages opposite, I stood
oblivious to all about me till the fading sunlight--or was it some stir
in the room behind me?--recalled me to myself, and I turned to find my
pretty room-mate staring at me with a troubled look that for a moment
made me forget my own sorrows and anxieties.
"What is it?" I asked, going towards her with an irresistible impulse
of sympathy.
"I don't know," she murmured; "a sudden pain here," laying her hand on
her heart.
I advanced still nearer, but her face, which had been quite pale,
turned suddenly rosy; and, with a more natural expression, she took me
by the hand, and said:
"But you look more than ill, you look unhappy. Would you mind telling
me what worries you?"
The gentle tone, the earnest glance of modest yet sincere interest,
went to my heart. Clutching her hand convulsively, I burst into tears.
"It is nothing," said I; "only my last resource has failed, and I don't
know where to get a meal for to-morrow. Not that this is any thing in
itself," I hastened to add, my natural pride reasserting itself; "but
the future! the future!--what am I to do with my future?"
She did not answer at first. A gleam--I can scarcely call it a
glow--passed over her face, and her eyes took a far-away look that made
them very sweet. Then a little flush stole into her cheek, and,
pressing my hand, she said:
"Will you trust it to me for a while?"
I must have looked my astonishment, for she hastened to add:
"Your future I have little concern for. With such capabilities as
yours, you must find work. Why, look at your face!" and she drew me
playfully before the glass. "See the forehead, the mouth, and tell me
you read failure there! But your present is what is doubtful, and that
I can certainly take care of."
"But----" I protested, with a sensation of warmth in my cheeks.
The loveliest smile stopped me before I could utter a word more.
"As you would take care of mine," she completed, "if our positions were
reversed." Then, without waiting for a further demur on my part, she
kissed me, and as if the sweet embrace had made us sisters at once,
drew me to a chair and sat down at my feet. "You know," she naively
murmured, "I am almost rich; I have five hundred dollars laid up in the
bank, and----"
I put my hand over her lips; I could not help it. She was such a frail
little thing, so white and so ethereal, and her poor five hundred had
been earned by such weary, weary work.
"But that is nothing, nothing," I said. "You have a future to provide
for, too, and you are not as strong as I am, if you have been more
successful."
She laughed, then blushed, then laughed again, and impulsively cried:
"It is, however, more than I need to buy a wedding-dress with, don't
you think?" And as I looked up surprised, she flashed out: "Oh, it's my
secret; but I am going to be married in a month, and--and then I won't
need to count my pennies any more; and, so I say, if you will stay here
with me without a care until that day comes, you will make me very
happy, and put me at the same time under a real obligation; for I shall
want a great many things done, as you can readily conceive."
What did I say--what could I say, with her sweet blue eyes looking so
truthfully into mine, but--"Oh, you darling girl!" while my heart
filled with tears, which only escaped from overflowing my eyes, because
I would not lessen her innocent joy by a hint of my own secret trouble.
"And who is the happy man?" I asked, at last, rising to pull down the
curtain across a too inquisitive ray of afternoon sunshine.
"Ah, the noblest, best man in town!" she breathed, with a burst of
gentle pride. "Mr. B----"
She went no further, or if she did, I did not hear her, for just then a
hubbub arose in the street, and lifting the window, I looked out.
"What is it?" she cried, coming hastily towards me.
"I don't know," I returned. "The people are all rushing in one
direction, but I cannot see what attracts them."
"Come away then!" she murmured; and I saw her hand go to her heart, in
the way it did when she first entered the room a half-hour before. But
just then a sudden voice exclaimed below: "The clergyman! It is the
clergyman!" And giving a smothered shriek, she grasped me by the arm,
crying: "What do they say? '_The clergyman_'? Do they say 'The
clergyman'?"
"Yes," I answered, turning upon her with alarm. But she was already at
the door. "Can it be?" I asked myself, as I hurriedly followed, "that
it is Mr. Barrows she is going to marry?"
For in the small town of S---- Mr. Barrows was the only man who could
properly be meant by "The clergyman"; for though Mr. Kingston, of the
Baptist Church, was a worthy man in his way, and the Congregational
minister had an influence with his flock that was not to be despised,
Mr. Barrows, alone of all his fraternity, had so won upon the
affections and confidence of the people as to merit the appellation of
"The clergyman."
"If I am right," thought I, "God grant that no harm has come to him!"
and I dashed down the stairs just in time to see the frail form of my
room-mate flying out of the front door.
I overtook her at last; but where? Far out of town on that dark and
dismal road, where the gaunt chimneys of the deserted mill rise from a
growth of pine-trees. But I knew before I reached her what she would
find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that stretched
amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old mill lay the
dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his precept and
example, had won not only the heart of this young maiden, but that of
the whole community in which he lived and labored.
II.
A FEARFUL QUESTION.
Nay, yet there's more in this:
I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
--OTHELLO.
My room-mate was, as I have intimated, exceedingly frail and
unobtrusive in appearance; yet when we came upon this scene, the group
of men about the inanimate form of her lover parted involuntarily as if
a spirit had come upon them; though I do not think one of them, until
that moment, had any suspicion of the relations between her and their
young pastor. Being close behind her, I pressed forward too, and so it
happened that I stood by her side when her gaze first fell upon her
dead lover. Never shall I forget the cry she uttered, or the solemn
silence that fell over all, as her hand, rigid and white as that of a
ghost's, slowly rose and pointed with awful question at the pallid brow
upturned before her. It seemed as if a spell had fallen, enchaining the
roughest there from answering, for the truth was terrible, and we knew
it; else why those dripping locks and heavily soaked garments oozing,
not with the limpid waters of the stream we could faintly hear gurgling
in the distance, but with some fearful substance that dyed the forehead
blue and left upon the grass a dark stain that floods of rain would
scarcely wash away?
"What is it? Oh, what does it mean?" she faintly gasped, shuddering
backward with wondering dread as one of those tiny streams of strange
blue moisture found its way to her feet.
Still that ominous silence.
"Oh, I must know!" she whispered. "I was his betrothed"; and her eyes
wandered for a moment with a wild appeal upon those about her.
Whereupon a kindly voice spoke up. "He has been drowned, miss. The
blue----" and there he hesitated.
"The blue is from the remains of some old dye that must have been in
the bottom of the vat out of which we drew him," another voice went on.
"The vat!" she repeated. "The vat! Was he found----"
"In the vat? Yes, miss." And there the silence fell again.
It was no wonder. For a man like him, alert, busy, with no time nor
inclination for foolish explorations, to have been found drowned in the
disused vat of a half-tumbled-down old mill on a lonesome and neglected
road meant----But what did it mean? What could it mean? The lowered
eyes of those around seemed to decline to express even a conjecture.
My poor friend, so delicate, so tender, reeled in my arms. "In the
vat!" she reiterated again and again, as if her mind refused to take in
a fact so astounding and unaccountable.
"Yes, miss, and he might never have been discovered," volunteered a
voice at last, over my shoulder, "if a parcel of school-children hadn't
strayed into the mill this afternoon. It is a dreadful lonesome spot,
you see, and----"
"Hush!" I whispered; "hush!" and I pointed to her face, which at these
words had changed as if the breath of death had blown across it; and
winding my arms still closer about her, I endeavored to lead her away.
But I did not know my room-mate. Pushing me gently aside, she turned to
a stalwart man near by, whose face seemed to invite confidence, and
said:
"Take me in and show me the vat."
He looked at her amazed; so did we.
"I must see it," she said, simply; and she herself took the first step
towards the mill.
There was no alternative but to follow. This we did in terror and pity,
for the look with which she led the way was not the look of any common
determination, and the power which seemed to force her feeble body on
upon its fearful errand was of that strained and unnatural order which
might at any moment desert her, and lay her a weak and helpless burden
at our feet.
"It must be dark by this time down there," objected the man she had
appealed to, as he stepped doubtfully forward.
But she did not seem to heed. Her eyes were fixed upon the ruined walls
before her, rising drear and blank against the pale-green evening sky.
"He could have had no errand here," I heard her murmur. "How then be
drowned here?--how? how?"
Alas! that was the mystery, dear heart, with which every mind was busy!
The door of the mill had fallen down and rotted away years before, so
we had no difficulty in entering. But upon crossing the threshold and
making for the steps that led below, we found that the growing twilight
was any thing but favorable to a speedy or even safe advance. For the
flooring was badly broken in places, and the stairs down which we had
to go were not only uneven, but strangely rickety and tottering.
But the sprite that led us paused for nothing, and long before I had
passed the first step she had reached the bottom one, and was groping
her way towards the single gleam of light that infused itself through
the otherwise pitchy darkness.
"Be careful, miss; you may fall into the vat yourself!" exclaimed more
than one voice behind her.
But she hurried on, her slight form showing like a spectre against the
dim gleam towards which she bent her way, till suddenly she paused and
we saw her standing with clasped hands, and bent head, looking down
into what? We could readily conjecture.
"She will throw herself in," whispered a voice; but as, profoundly
startled, I was about to hasten forward, she hurriedly turned and came
towards us.
"I have seen it," she quietly said, and glided by us, and up the
stairs, and out of the mill to where that still form lay in its ghostly
quietude upon the sodden grass.
For a moment she merely looked at it, then she knelt, and, oblivious to
the eyes bent pityingly upon her, kissed the brow and then the cheeks,
saying something which I could not hear, but which lent a look of
strange peace to her features, that were almost as pallid and set now
as his. Then she arose, and holding out her hand to me, was turning
away, when a word uttered by some one, I could not tell whom, stopped
her, and froze her, as it were, to the spot.
That word was _suicide!_
I think I see her yet, the pale-green twilight on her forehead, her
lips parted, and her eyes fixed in an incredulous stare.
"Do you mean," she cried, "that _he_ deserves any such name as that?
That his death here was not one of chance or accident, mysterious, if
you will, but still one that leaves no stigma on his name as a man and
a clergyman?"
"Indeed, miss," came in reply, "we would not like to say."
"Then, _I_ say, that unless Mr. Barrows was insane, he never
premeditated a crime of this nature. He was too much of a Christian.
And if that does not strike you as good reasoning, he was too--happy."
The last word was uttered so low that if it had not been for the faint
flush that flitted into her cheek, it would scarcely have been
understood. As it was, the furtive looks of the men about showed that
they comprehended all that she would say; and, satisfied with the
impression made, she laid her hand on my arm, and for the second time
turned towards home.
III.
ADA.
For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die.
--OTHELLO.
There was death in her face; I saw it the moment we reached the refuge
of our room. But I was scarcely prepared for the words which she said
to me.
"Mr. Barrows and I will be buried in one grave. The waters which
drowned him have gone over my head also. But before the moment comes
which proves my words true, there is one thing I wish to impress upon
you, and that is: That no matter what people may say, or what
conjectures they may indulge in, Mr. Barrows never came to his end by
any premeditation of his own. And that you may believe me, and uphold
his cause in the face of whatever may arise, I will tell you something
of his life and mine. Will you listen?"
Would I listen? I could not speak, but I drew up the lounge, and
sitting down by her side, pressed my cheek close to hers. She smiled
faintly, all unhappiness gone from her look, and in sweet, soft tones,
began:
"We are both orphans. As far as I know, neither of us have any nearer
relatives than distant cousins; a similarity of condition that has
acted as a bond between us since we first knew and loved each other.
When I came to S---- he was just settled here, a young man full of zeal
and courage. Whatever the experience of his college days had been--and
he has often told me that at that time ambition was the mainspring of
his existence,--the respect and appreciation which he found here, and
the field which daily opened before him for work, had wakened a spirit
of earnest trust that erelong developed that latent sweetness in his
disposition which more than his mental qualities, perhaps, won him
universal confidence and love.
"You have heard him preach, and you know he was not lacking in genius;
but you have not heard him speak, eye to eye and hand to hand. It was
there his power came in, and there, too, perhaps, his greatest
temptation. For he was one for women to love, and it is not always easy
to modify a naturally magnetic look and tone because the hand that
touches yours is shy and white, and the glance which steals up to meet
your own has within it the hint of unconscious worship. Yet what he
could do he did; for, unknown, perhaps, to any one here, he was engaged
to be married, as so many young ministers are, to a girl he had met
while at college.
"I do not mean to go into too many particulars, Constance. He did not
love this girl, but he meant to be true to her. He was even contented
with the prospect of marrying her, till----Oh, Constance, I almost
forget that he is gone, and that my own life is at an end, when I think
of that day, six months ago--the day when we first met, and, without
knowing it, first loved. And then the weeks which followed when each
look was an event, and a passing word the making or the marring of a
day. I did not know what it all meant; but he realized only too soon
the precipice upon which we stood, and I began to see him less, and
find him more reserved when, by any chance, we were thrown together.
His cheek grew paler, too, and his health wavered. A struggle was going
on in his breast--a struggle of whose depth and force I had little
conception then, for I dared not believe he loved me, though I knew by
this time he was bound to another who would never be a suitable
companion for him.
"At last he became so ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for a
month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us. He
was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had to
bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of my
own crushed and broken heart.
"But one morning--shall I ever forget it?--the door opened, and he,
_he_ came in where I was, and without saying a word, knelt down by my
side, and drew my head forward and laid it on his breast. I thought at
first it was a farewell, and trembled with a secret anguish that was
yet strangely blissful, for did not the passionate constraint of his
arms mean love? But when, after a moment that seemed a lifetime, I drew
back and looked into his face, I saw it was not a farewell, but a
greeting, he had brought me, and that we had not only got our pastor
back to life, but that this pastor was a lover as well, who would marry
the woman he loved.
"And I was right. In ten minutes I knew, that a sudden freak on the
part of the girl he was engaged to had released him, without fault of
his own, and that with this release new life had entered his veins, for
the conflict was over and love and duty were now in harmony.
"Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect
man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that
was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at
times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical
causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its
strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying
calling. But whatever his weaknesses--and they were very few,--he was
conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men would
be affected but slightly. You can imagine his joy, then, over this
unexpected end to his long pain; and remembering that it is only a
month previous to the day set apart by us for our marriage, ask
yourself whether he would be likely to seek any means of death, let
alone such a horrible and lonesome one as that which has robbed us of
him to-day?"
"No!" I burst out, for she waited for my reply. "A thousand times, no,
no, no!"
"He has not been so well lately, and I have not seen as much of him as
usual; but that is because he had some literary work he wished to
finish before the wedding-day. Ah, it will never be finished now! and
our wedding-day is to-day! and the bride is almost ready. But!" she
suddenly exclaimed, "I must not go yet--not till you have said again
that he was no suicide. Tell me," she vehemently continued--"tell me
from your soul that you believe he is not answerable for his death!"
"I do!" I rejoined, alarmed and touched at once by the fire in her
cheek and eye.
"And that," she went, "you will hold to this opinion in the face of all
opposition! That, whatever attack men may make upon his memory, you
will uphold his honor and declare his innocence! Say you will be my
deputy in this, and I will love you even in my cold grave, and bless
you as perhaps only those who see the face of the Father can bless!"
"Ada!" I murmured, "Ada!"
"You will do this, will you not?" she persisted. "I can die knowing I
can trust you as I would myself."
I took her cold hand in mine and promised, though I felt how feeble
would be any power of mine to stop the tide of public opinion if once
it set in any definite direction.
"He had no enemies," she whispered; "but I would sooner believe he had,
than that he sought this fearful spot of his own accord."
And seemingly satisfied to have dropped this seed in my breast, she
tremblingly arose, and going for her writing-desk, brought it back and
laid it on the lounge by her side. "Go for Mrs. Gannon," she said.
Mrs. Gannon was our neighbor in the next room, a widow who earned her
livelihood by nursing the sick; and I was only too glad to have her
with me at this time, for my poor Ada's face was growing more and more
deathly, and I began to fear she had but prophesied the truth when she
said this was her wedding-day.
I was detained only a few minutes, but when I came back with Mrs.
Gannon, I found my room-mate writing.
"Come!" said she, in a voice so calm, my companion started and hastily
looked at her face for confirmation of the fears I had expressed; "I
want you both to witness my signature."
With one last effort of strength she wrote her name, and then handed
the pen to Mrs. Gannon, who took it without a word.
"It is my will," she faintly smiled, watching me as I added my name at
the bottom. "We have had to do without lawyers, but I don't think there
will be any one to dispute my last wishes." And taking the paper in her
hand, she glanced hastily at it, then folded it, and handed it back to
me with a look that made my heart leap with uncontrollable emotion. "I
can trust you," she said, and fell softly back upon the pillow.
"You had better go for Dr. Farnham," whispered Mrs. Gannon in my ear,
with an ominous shake of her head.
And though I felt it to be futile, I hastened to comply.
But Dr. Farnham was out, attending to a very urgent case, I was told;
and so, to my growing astonishment and dismay, were Dr. Spaulding and
Dr. Perry. I was therefore obliged to come back alone, which I did with
what speed I could; for I begrudged every moment spent away from the
side of one I had so lately learned to love, and must so soon lose.
Mrs. Gannon met me at the door, and with a strange look, drew me in and
pointed towards the bed. There lay Ada, white as the driven snow, with
closed eyes, whose faintly trembling lids alone betokened that she was
not yet fled to the land of quiet shadows. At her side was a picture of
the man she loved, and on her breast lay a bunch of withered roses I
could easily believe had been his last gift. It was a vision of perfect
peace, and I could not but contrast it with what my imagination told me
must have been the frenzied anguish of that other death.
My approach, though light, disturbed her. Opening her eyes, she gave me
one long, long look. Then, as if satisfied, she softly closed them
again, breathed a little sigh, and in another moment was no more.
IV.
THE POLLARDS.
There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.
--HAMLET.
Fearful as the experiences of this day had been, they were not yet at
an end for me. Indeed, the most remarkable were to come. As I sat in
this room of death--it was not far from midnight--I suddenly heard
voices at the door, and Mrs. Gannon came in with Dr. Farnham.
"It is very extraordinary," I heard him mutter as he crossed the
threshold. "One dying and another dead, and both struck down by the
same cause."
I could not imagine what he mean, so I looked at him with some
amazement. But he did not seem to heed me. Going straight to the bed,
he gazed silently at Ada's pure features, with what I could not but
consider a troubled glance. Then turning quickly to Mrs. Gannon, he
said, in his somewhat brusque way:
"All is over here; you can therefore leave. I have a patient who
demands your instant care."
"But----" she began.
"I have come on purpose for you," he put in, authoritatively. "It is an
urgent case; do not keep me waiting."
"But, sir," she persisted, "it is impossible. I am expected early in
the morning at Scott's Corners, and was just going to bed when you came
in, in order to get a little sleep before taking the train."
"Dr. Perry's case?"
"Yes."
He frowned, and I am not sure but what he uttered a mild oath. At all
events, he seemed very much put out.
I immediately drew near.
"Oh, sir," I cried, "if you would have confidence in me. I am not
unused to the work, and----"
His stare frightened me, it was so searching and so keen.
"Who are you?" he asked.
I told him, and Mrs. Gannon put in a word for me. I was reliable, she
said, and if too much experience was not wanted, would do better than
such and such a one--naming certain persons, probably neighbors.
But the doctor's steady look told me he relied more on his own judgment
than on anything she or I could say.
"Can you hold your tongue?" he asked.
I started. Who would not have done so?
"I see that you can," he muttered, and glanced down at my dress. "When
can you be ready?" he inquired. "You may be wanted for days, and it may
be only for hours."
"Will ten minutes be soon enough?" I asked.
A smile difficult to fathom crossed his firm lip.
"I will give you fifteen," he said, and turned towards the door. But on
the threshold he paused and looked back. "You have not asked who or
what your patient is," he grimly suggested.
"No," I answered shortly.
"Well," said he, "it is Mrs. Pollard, and she is going to die."
Mrs. Pollard! Mrs. Gannon and I involuntarily turned and looked at each
other.
"Mrs. Pollard!" repeated the good nurse, wonderingly. "I did not know
she was sick."
"She wasn't this noon. It is a sudden attack. Apoplexy we call it. She
fell at the news of Mr. Barrows' death."
And with this parting shot, he went out and closed the door behind him.
I sank, just a little bit weakened, on the lounge, then rose with
renewed vigor. "The work has fallen into the right hands," thought I.
"Ada would wish me to leave her for such a task as this."
And yet I was troubled. For though this sudden prostration of Mrs.
Pollard, on the hearing of her young pastor's sorrowful death, seemed
to betoken a nature of more than ordinary sensibility, I had always
heard that she was a hard woman, with an eye of steel and a heart that
could only be reached through selfish interests. But then she was the
magnate of the place, the beginning and end of the aristocracy of
S----; and when is not such a one open to calumny? I was determined to
reserve my judgment.
In the fifteen minutes allotted me, I was ready. Suitable arrangements
had already been made for the removal of my poor Ada's body to the
house that held her lover. For the pathos of the situation had touched
all hearts, and her wish to be laid in the same grave with him met with
no opposition. I could therefore leave with a clear conscience; Mrs.
Gannon promising to do all that was necessary, even if she were obliged
to take a later train than she had expected to.
Dr. Farnham was in the parlor waiting for me, and uttered a grunt of
satisfaction as he saw me enter, fully equipped.
"Come; this is business," he said, and led the way at once to his
carriage.
We did not speak for the first block. He seemed meditating, and I was
summoning up courage for the ordeal before me. For, now that we were
started, I began to feel a certain inward trembling not to be entirely
accounted for by the fact that I was going into a strange house to
nurse a woman of whom report did not speak any too kindly. Nor did the
lateness of the hour, and the desolate aspect of the unlighted streets,
tend greatly to reassure me.
Indeed, something of the weird and uncanny seemed to mingle with the
whole situation, and I found myself dreading our approach to the house,
which from its old-time air and secluded position had always worn for
me an aspect of gloomy reserve, that made it even in the daylight, a
spot of somewhat fearful interest.
Dr. Farnham, who may have suspected my agitation, though he gave no
token of doing so, suddenly spoke up.
"It is only right to tell you," he said, "that I should never have
accepted the service of an inexperienced girl like you, if any thing
was necessary but watchfulness and discretion. Mrs. Pollard lies
unconscious, and all you will have to do is to sit at her side and wait
for the first dawning of returning reason. It may come at any moment,
and it may never come at all. She is a very sick woman."
"I understand," I murmured, plucking up heart at what did not seem so
very difficult a task.
"Her sons will be within call; so will I. By daybreak we hope to have
her daughter from Newport with her. You do not know Mrs. Harrington?"
I shook my head. Who was I, that I should know these grand folks? And
yet----But I promised I would say nothing about days now so completely
obliterated.
"She will not be much of an assistance," he muttered. "But it is right
she should come--quite right."
I remembered that I had heard that Mrs. Pollard's daughter was a
beauty, and that she had made a fine match; which, said of Mrs.
Pollard's daughter, must have meant a great deal. I, however, said
nothing, only listened in a vague hope of hearing more, for my
curiosity was aroused in a strange way about these people, and nothing
which the good doctor could have said about them would have come amiss
at this time.
But our drive had been too rapid, and we were too near the house for
him to think of any thing but turning into the gateway with the
necessary caution. For the night was unusually dark, and it was
difficult to tell just where the gate-posts were. We, however, entered
without accident, and in another moment a gleam of light greeted us
from the distant porch.
"They are expecting us," he said, and touched up his horse. We flew up
the gravelled road, and before I could still the sudden heart-beat that
attacked me at sight of the grim row of cedars which surrounded the
house, we were hurrying up between the two huge lions rampant that
flanked the steps, to where a servant stood holding open the door. A
sense of gloom and chill at once overwhelmed me. From the interior,
which I faintly saw stretching before me, there breathed even in that
first moment of hurried entrance a cold and haughty grandeur that,
however rich and awe-inspiring, was any thing but attractive to a
nature like mine.
Drawing back, I let Dr. Farnham take the lead, which he did in his own
brusque way. And then I saw what the dim light had not revealed before,
a young man's form standing by the newel-post of the wide staircase
that rose at our left. He at once came forward, and as the light from
the lamp above us fell fully upon him, I saw his face, and started.
Why? I could not tell. Not because his handsome features struck me
pleasantly, for they did not. There was something in their expression
which I did not like, and yet as I looked at them a sudden sensation
swept over me that made my apprehensions of a moment back seem like
child's play, and I became conscious that if a sudden call of life or
death were behind me urging me on the instant to quit the house, I
could not do it while that face was before me to be fathomed, and, if
possible, understood.
"Ah, I see you have brought the nurse," were the words with which he
greeted Dr. Farnham. And the voice was as thrilling in its tone as the
face was in its expression. "But," he suddenly exclaimed, as his eyes
met mine, "this is not Mrs. Gannon." And he hurriedly drew the doctor
down the hall. "Why have you brought this young girl?" he asked, in
tones which, however lowered, I could easily distinguish. "Didn't you
know there were reasons why we especially wanted an elderly person?"
"No," I heard the doctor say, and then, his back being towards me, I
lost the rest of his speech till the words, "She is no gossip," came to
salute me and make me ask myself if there was a secret skeleton in this
house, that they feared so much the eyes of a stranger.
"But," the young man went hurriedly on, "she is not at all the kind of
person to have over my mother. How could we----" and there his voice
fell so as to become unintelligible.
But the doctor's sudden exclamation helped me out.
"What!" he wonderingly cried, "do you intend to sit up too?"
"I or my brother," was the calm response, "Would you expect us to leave
her alone with a stranger?"
The doctor made no answer, and the young man, taking a step sidewise,
threw me a glance full of anxiety and trouble.
"I don't like it," he murmured; "but there must be a woman of some kind
in the room, and a stranger----"
He did not finish his words, but it seemed as if he were going to say:
"And a stranger may, after all, be preferable to a neighbor." But I
cannot be sure of this, for he was not a man easy to sound. But what I
do know is that he stepped forward, to me with an easy grace, and
giving me a welcome as courteous as if I had been the one of all others
he desired to see, led me up the stairs to a room which he announced to
be mine, saying, as he left me at the door:
"Come out in five minutes, and my brother will introduce you to your
duties."
So far I had seen no woman in the house, and I was beginning to wonder
if Mrs. Pollard had preferred to surround herself with males, when the
door was suddenly opened and a rosy-cheeked girl stepped in.
"Ah, excuse me," she said, with a stare; "I thought it was the nurse as
was here."
"And it is the nurse," I returned, smiling in spite of myself at her
look of indignant surprise. "Do you want any thing of me?" I hastened
to ask, for her eyes were like saucers and her head was tossing airily.
"No," she said, almost with spite. "I came to see if you wanted any
thing?"
I shook my head with what good nature I could, for I did not wish to
make an enemy in this house, even of a chambermaid.
"And you are really the nurse?" she asked, coming nearer and looking at
me in the full glare of the gas.
"Yes," I assured her, "really and truly the nurse."
"Well, I don't understand it!" she cried. "I was always Mrs. Pollard's
favorite maid, and I was with her when she was took, and would be with
her now, but they won't let me set a foot inside the door. And when I
asked why they keep me out, who was always attentive and good to her,
they say I am too young. And here you be younger than I, and a stranger
too. I don't like it," she cried, tossing her head again and again. "I
haven't deserved it, and I think it is mighty mean."
I saw the girl was really hurt, so I hastened to explain that I was not
the nurse they expected, and was succeeding, I think, in mollifying
her, when a step was heard in the hall, and she gave a frightened
start, and hurried towards the door.
"So you are sure you don't want anything?" she cried, and was out of my
sight before I could answer.
There was nothing to detain me, and I hastened to follow. As I crossed
the sill I almost started too, at sight of the tall, slim, truly
sinister figure that awaited me, leaning against the opposite wall. He
was younger than his brother, and had similar features, but there was
no charm here to make you forget that the eye was darkly glittering,
and the lip formidable in its subtlety and power. He advanced with much
of the easy nonchalance that had so characterized the other.
"Miss Sterling, I believe," said he; and with no further word, turned
and led me down the hall to the sick-room. I noticed even then that he
paused and listened before he pushed open the door, and that with our
first step inside he cast a look of inquiry at the bed that had
something beside a son's loving anxiety in it. And I hated the man as I
would a serpent, though he bowed as he set me a chair, and was careful
to move a light he thought shone a little too directly in my eyes.
The other brother was not present, and I could give my undivided
attention to my charge. I found her what report had proclaimed her to
be, a handsome woman of the sternly imposing type. Even with her age
against her and the shadow of death lying on her brow and cheek, there
was something strangely attractive in the features and the stately
contour of her form. But it was attraction that was confined to the
eye, and could by no means allure the heart, for the same seal of
mysterious reserve was upon her that characterized her sons, and in
her, as in the younger one of these, it inspired a distrust which I
could imagine no smile as dissipating. She lay in a state of coma, and
her heavy breathing was the only sound that broke the silence of the
great room. "God help me!" thought I; but had no wish to leave. Instead
of that, I felt a fearful pleasure in the prospect before me--such
effect had a single look had upon me from eyes I trembled to meet again
or read.
I do not know how long I sat there gazing in the one direction for that
faint sign of life for which the doctor had bid me watch. That he who
inspired me with dread was behind me, I knew; but I would not turn my
head towards him. I was determined to resist the power of this man,
even if I must succumb a trifle to that of the other.
I was, therefore, surprised when a hand was thrust over my shoulder,
and a fan dropped into my lap.
"It is warm here," was the comment which accompanied the action.
I thanked him, but felt that his sole object had been to cover his
change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he could
see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he had
offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk gaze.
And so a dreary hour went by.
It was now well on towards morning, and I was beginning to suffer from
the languor natural after so many harrowing excitements, when the door
opened behind me, and the electric thrill shooting through all my
members, testified as to whose step it was that entered. At the same
moment the young man at my side arose, and with what I felt to be a
last sharp look in my direction, hastened to where his brother stood,
and entered into a whispered conversation with him. Then I heard the
door close again, and almost at the same instant Mr. Pollard the elder
advanced, and without seeking an excuse for his action, sat down close
by my side. The fan at once dropped; I had no wish to avoid this man's
scrutiny.
And yet when with a secret bracing of my nerves I looked up and met his
eyes fixed with that baffling expression upon mine, I own that I felt
an inward alarm, as if something vaguely dangerous had reared itself in
my path, which by its very charm instinctively bade me beware. I,
however, subdued my apprehensions, thinking, with a certain haughty
pride which I fear will never be eliminated from my nature, of the
dangers I had already met with and overcome in my brief but troubled
life; and meeting his look with a smile which I knew to contain a spice
of audacity, I calmly waited for the words I felt to be hovering upon
his lips. They were scarcely the ones I expected.
"Miss Sterling," said he, "you have seen Anice, my mother's
waiting-maid?"
I bowed. I was too much disconcerted to speak.
"And she has told you her story of my mother's illness?" he went on,
pitilessly holding me with his glance. "You need not answer," he again
proceeded, as I opened my lips. "I know Anice; she has not the gift of
keeping her thoughts to herself."
"An unfortunate thing in this house," I inwardly commented, and made a
determination on the spot that whatever emotions I might experience
from the mysteries surrounding me, this master of reserve should find
there was one who could keep her thoughts to herself, even, perhaps, to
his own secret disappointment and chagrin.
"She told you my mother was stricken at the sudden news of Mr. Barrows'
death?"
"That was told me," I answered; for this was a direct question, put,
too, with an effort I could not help but feel, notwithstanding the
evident wish on his part to preserve an appearance of calmness.
"Then some explanation is needed," he remarked, his eyes flashing from
his mother's face to mine with equal force and intentness. "My
mother"--his words were low, but it was impossible not to hear
them--"has not been well since my father died, two months ago. It
needed but the slightest shock to produce the result you unhappily see
before you. That shock this very girl supplied by the inconsiderate
relation of Mr. Barrows' fearful fate. We have taken a prejudice
against the girl, in consequence. Do you blame us? This is our mother."
What could I feel or say but No? What could any one, under the
circumstances? Why then did a sudden vision of Ada's face, as she gave
me that last look, rise up before me, bidding me remember the cause to
which I was pledged, and not put too much faith in this man and his
plausible explanations.
"I only hope death will not follow the frightful occurrence," he
concluded; and do what he would, his features became drawn, and his
face white, as his looks wandered back to his mother.
A sudden impulse seized me.
"Another death, you mean," said I; "one already has marked the event,
though it happened only a few short hours ago."
His eyes flashed to mine, and a very vivid and real horror blanched his
already pallid cheek till it looked blue in the dim light.
"What do you mean?" he gasped; and I saw the doctor had refrained from
telling him of Ada's pitiful doom.
"I mean," said I, with a secret compunction I strove in vain to subdue,
"that Mr. Barrows' betrothed could not survive his terrible fate--that
she died a few hours since, and will be buried in the same grave as her
lover."
"His betrothed?" Young Mr. Pollard had risen to his feet, and was
actually staggering under the shock of his emotions. "I did not know he
had any betrothed. I thought she had jilted him----"
"It is another woman," I broke in, jealous for my poor dead Ada's fame.
"The woman he was formerly engaged to never loved him; but this
one----" I could not finish the sentence. My own agitation was
beginning to master me.
He looked at me, horrified, and I could have sworn the hair rose on his
forehead.
"What was her name?" he asked. "Is it--is it any one I know?" Then, as
if suddenly conscious that he was betraying too keen an emotion for the
occasion, pitiful as it was, he forced his lips into a steadier curve,
and quietly said: "After what has happened here, I am naturally
overcome by a circumstance so coincident with our own trouble."
"Naturally," I assented with a bow, and again felt that secret distrust
warring with a new feeling that was not unlike compassion.
"Her name is Ada Reynolds," I continued, remembering his last question.
"She lived----"
"I know," he interrupted; and without another word walked away, and for
a long time stood silent at the other end of the room. Then he came
back and sat down, and when I summoned up courage to glance at his
face, I saw that a change had passed over it, that in all probability
was a change for life.
And my heart sank--sank till I almost envied that unconscious form
before which we sat, and from which alone now came the one sound which
disturbed the ghostly silence of that dread chamber.
V.
DOUBTS AND QUERIES.
And that well might
Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
His wisdom can provide.
--MACBETH.
At daybreak the doctor came in. Taking advantage of the occasion, I
slipped away for a few minutes to my own room, anxious for any change
that would relieve me from the gloom and oppression caused by this
prolonged and silent _tete-a-tete_ with a being that at once so
interested and repelled me. Observing that my windows looked towards
the east, I hastened to throw wide the blinds and lean out into the
open air. A burst of rosy sunlight greeted me. "Ah!" thought I, "if I
have been indulging in visions, this will dispel them"; and I quaffed
deeply and long of the fresh and glowing atmosphere before allowing my
thoughts to return for an instant to the strange and harrowing
experiences I had just been through. A sense of rising courage and
renewed power rewarded me; and blessing the Providence that had granted
us a morning of sunshine after a night of so much horror, I sat down
and drew from my breast the little folded paper which represented my
poor Ada's will. Opening it with all the reverent love which I felt for
her memory, I set myself to decipher the few trembling lines which she
had written, in the hope they would steady my thoughts and suggest, if
not reveal, the way I should take in the more than difficult path I saw
stretching before me.
My agitation may be conceived when I read the following:
"It is my last wish that all my personal effects, together with the sum
of five hundred dollars, now credited to my name in the First National
Bank of S----, should be given to my friend, Constance Sterling, who I
hope will not forget the promise I exacted from her."
Five hundred dollars! and yesterday I had nothing. Ah, yes, I had _a
friend!_
The thoughts awakened by this touching memorial from the innocent dead
distracted me for a few moments from further consideration of present
difficulties, but soon the very nature of the bequest recalled them to
my mind, by that allusion to a promise which more than any thing else
lay at the bottom of the dilemma in which I found myself. For,
humiliating as it is to confess, the persistency with which certain
impressions remained in my mind, in spite of the glowing daylight that
now surrounded me, warned me that it would be for my peace to leave
this house before my presentiments became fearful realities; while on
the other hand my promise to Ada seemed to constrain me to remain in it
till I had at least solved some of those mysteries of emotion which
connected one and all of this family so intimately with the cause to
which I had pledged myself.
"If the general verdict in regard to Mr. Barrows' death should be one
of suicide," thought I, "how could I reconcile myself to the fact that
I fled at the first approaching intimation that all was not as simple
in his relations as was supposed, and that somewhere, somehow, in the
breast of certain parishioners of his, a secret lay hidden, which, if
known, would explain the act which otherwise must imprint an
ineffaceable stain upon his memory?"
My heart and brain were still busy with this question when the sound of
Mr. Pollard's footsteps passing my door recalled me to a sense of my
present duty. Rising, I hurried across the hall to the sick-chamber,
and was just upon the point of entering, when the doctor appeared
before me, and seeing me, motioned me back, saying:
"Mrs. Harrington has just arrived. As she will doubtless wish to see
her mother at once, you had better wait a few moments till the first
agitation is over."
Glad of any respite, and particularly glad to escape an introduction to
Mrs. Harrington at this time, I slipped hastily away, but had not
succeeded in reaching my room before the two brothers and their sister
appeared at the top of the stairs. I had thus a full opportunity of
observing them, and being naturally quick to gather impressions, took
in with a glance the one member of the Pollard family who was likely to
have no mystery about her.
I found her pretty; prettier, perhaps, than any woman it had ever been
my lot to meet before, but with a doll's prettiness that bespoke but
little dignity or force of mind. Dressed with faultless taste and with
an attention to detail that at a moment like the present struck one
with a sense of painful incongruity, she advanced, a breathing image of
fashion and perhaps folly; her rustling robes, and fresh, if troubled
face, offering a most striking contrast to the gloom and reserve of the
two sombre figures that walked at her side.