continually in my fancy?--there seemed, there was, a movement in the
bushes by the road, and a form crept gradually into sight that, when
half seen, made the blood cease coursing through my veins; and, when
fully in view, sent it in torrents to heart and brain; so deep, so
vivid, so peculiar was the relief I felt. For--realize the effect upon
me if you can--the figure that now stole towards me through the dank
grass, looking and peering for the notice I had torn from the wall, was
no other than my friend--or was it my enemy?--the idiot boy.
He was soaked with the rain, but he seemed oblivious of the fact. For
him the wind had evidently no fierceness, the wet no chill. All his
energies--and he seemed, as in that first moment when I saw him in the
summer-house, to be alive with them--were concentrated in the gaze of
his large eyes, as, coming nearer and nearer, he searched the wall,
then the ground, and finally, with a leap, picked up the soaked and
useless paper which I had dropped there.
His expression as he raised himself and looked fiercely about almost
made me reveal myself. This an idiot, this trembling, wrathful,
denunciatory figure, with its rings of hair clinging to a forehead pale
with passion and corrugated with thought! Were these gestures, sudden,
determined, and full of subdued threatening, the offspring of an
erratic brain or the expression of a fool's hatred? I could not believe
it, and stood as if fascinated before this vision, that not only upset
every past theory which my restless mind had been able to form of the
character and motives of the secret denunciator of the Pollards, but
awakened new thoughts and new inquiries of a nature which I vaguely
felt to be as mysterious as any which had hitherto engaged my attention.
Meantime the boy had crushed the useless paper in his hand, and,
flinging it aside, turned softly about as if to go. I had no wish to
detain him. I wished to make inquiries first, and learn if possible all
that was known of his history and circumstances before I committed
myself to an interview. If he were an idiot--well, that would simplify
matters much; but, if he were not, or, being one, had moments of
reason, then a mystery appeared that would require all the ingenuity
and tact of a Machiavelli to elucidate. The laugh which had risen from
the shrubbery the night before, and the look which Dwight Pollard had
given when he heard it, proved that a mystery did exist, and gave me
strength to let the boy vanish from my sight with his secret unsolved
and his purposes unguessed.
X.
RHODA COLWELL.
I spare you common curses.
--MRS. BROWNING.
It was not long after this that the storm began to abate. Sunshine took
the place of clouds, and I was enabled to make my way back to the town
at the risk of nothing worse than wet feet. I went at once to my
boarding-house. Though I was expected back at the Pollards', though my
presence seemed almost necessary there, I felt that it would be
impossible for me to enter their door till something of the shadow that
now enveloped their name had fallen away. I therefore sent them word
that unlooked-for circumstances compelled me to remain at home for the
present; and having thus dismissed one anxiety from my mind, set myself
to the task of gleaning what knowledge I could of the idiot boy.
The result was startling. He was, it seemed, a real idiot--or so had
always been regarded by those who had known him from his birth. Not one
of the ugly, mischievous sort, but a gentle, chuckling vacant-brained
boy, who loved to run the streets and mingle his harmless laughter with
the shouts of playing children and the noise of mills and manufactories.
He was an orphan, but was neither poor nor dependent, for--and here was
where the fact came in that astonished me--he had for protector a twin
sister whose wits were as acute as his were dull; a sister who through
years of orphanage had cherished and supported him, working sometimes
for that purpose in the factories, and sometimes simply with her needle
at home. They lived in a nest of a cottage on the edge of the town, and
had the sympathy of all, though not perhaps the full liking of any. For
Rhoda, the sister, was a being of an unique order, who, while arousing
the interest of a few, baffled the comprehension of the many. She was a
problem; a creature out of keeping with her belongings and the
circumstances in which she was placed. An airy, lissom, subtle specimen
of woman, whose very beauty was of an unknown order, causing as much
inquiry as admiration. A perfect blonde like her brother, she had none
of the sweetness and fragility that usually accompanies this
complexion. On the contrary, there was something bizarre in her whole
appearance, and especially in the peculiar expression of her eye, that
awakened the strangest feelings and produced even in the minds of those
who saw her engaged in the most ordinary occupations of life an
impression of remoteness that almost amounted to the uncanny. The fact
that she affected brilliant colors and clothed both herself and brother
in garments of a wellnigh fantastic make, added to this impression, and
gave perhaps some excuse to those persons who regarded her as being as
abnormally constituted as her brother, finding it impossible, I
suppose, to reconcile waywardness with industry, and a taste for the
rich and beautiful with a poverty so respectable, it scarcely made
itself known for the reality it was. A blonde gypsy some called her, a
dangerous woman some others; and the latter would undoubtedly have been
correct had the girl possessed less pride of independence or been
unhampered, as she was untrammelled, by the sense of responsibility
towards her imbecile brother. As it was, more than one mother had had
reason to ask why her son wore such a moody brow after returning from a
certain quarter of the town, and at one time gossip had not hesitated
to declare that Dwight Pollard--the haughty Dwight Pollard--had not
been ashamed to be seen entering her door, though every one knew that
no one stepped under its wreath of vines except their intentions were
as honorable as the beauty, if not the poverty, of its owner demanded.
When I heard this, and heard also that he visited her no more, I seemed
to have gained some enlightenment as to the odd and contradictory
actions of my famous idiot boy. He loved his sister, and was in some
way imbued with a sense that she had been wronged. He was, therefore,
jealous of any one who had, or seemed to have, gained the attention of
the man who had possibly forsaken her. Yet even with this explanation
of his conduct, there was much for which I could not account, making my
intended interview with the sister a matter to be more or less
apprehended.
It was therefore with a composure altogether outward and superficial
that I started for the quaint and tiny cottage which had been pointed
out to me as the abode of these remarkable twins. I reached it just as
the clock struck three, and was immediately impressed, as my informants
evidently expected me to be, by the air of poetry and refinement that
characterized even its humble exterior. But it was not till I had
knocked at the door and been ushered into the house by the idiot
brother, that my real astonishment began. For though the room in which
I found myself did not, as I was afterwards assured, contain a single
rich article, it certainly had the effect of luxuriousness upon the
eye; and had it not been for my inward agitation and suspense, would
have produced a sense of languid pleasure, scarcely to be looked for in
the abode of a simple working-girl. As it was, I was dimly conscious of
a slight relief in the keen tension of my feelings, and turned with
almost a sensation of hope to the boy who was smiling and grimacing
beside me. But here another shock awaited me, for this boy was not the
one I had seen at the mill barely two hours ago, or, rather, if it were
the same--and the identity of his features, figure, and dress with
those I knew so well, seemed to proclaim him to be--he was in such a
different mood now as to appear like another being. Laughing, merry,
and inane, he bore on his brow no sign nor suggestion of the fierce
passion I had seen there, nor did his countenance change, though I
looked at him steadily and long with a gaze that was any thing but in
keeping with his seemingly innocent mirth.
"It is not the boy I have known," I suddenly decided in my mind; and I
cannot say in what wild surmises I might have indulged, if at that
moment the door at my back had not opened and a figure stepped in which
at the first glance attracted my whole attention and absorbed all my
thought.
Imagine a woman, lithe, blonde, beautiful, intense; with features
regular as the carver's hand could make them, but informed with a
spirit so venomous, passionate, and perverse, that you lost sight of
her beauty in your wonder at the formidable nature of the character she
betrayed. Then see her dressed as no other woman ever dressed before,
in a robe of scarlet of a cut and make quite its own, and conceive, if
you can, the agitation I felt as I realized that in her I beheld my
rival, my antagonist, the enemy of Dwight Pollard's peace and mine.
That her face, even the hatred that visibly contracted it as her eyes
met mine, were familiar to me in the countenance and expression of the
boy I had met, went for nothing. The beauty and malice of a seeming
imbecile, and the same characteristics in a woman subtle and decided as
this, awaken very different emotions in the mind. Though I had seen
that same brow corrugated before, it was like a revelation to behold it
now, and watch how the rosy lips took a straight line and the
half-shut, mysterious eyes burned like a thread of light, as she
stretched out one white hand and asked half imperiously, half
threateningly:
"Who are you, and for what do you come to _me?_"
"I am Constance Sterling," I retorted, satisfied that nothing short of
the heroic treatment would avail with this woman; "and if I do not
mistake, I think you know very well why I come here."
"Indeed!" came in something like a hiss from between her set lips. And
in one short instant all that was best in her and all that was worst
became suddenly visible, as turning to her softly chuckling brother,
she motioned him gently out of the room, and then turning to me,
advanced a step and said: "Will you explain yourself, Miss--or is it
Mrs. Constance Sterling?"
"I will explain myself," I returned, wondering, as I saw her cheeks
pale and her eyes emit strange and fitful sparks, if I exerted any such
influence over her as she did over me. "I said I thought you knew why I
came here. I said this, because this is not the first time we have met,
nor am I the first one who has presumed to address the other in a tone
that to a sensitive ear sounded like menace. The idiot boy----"
"We will leave my brother out of the discussion," she broke in, in a
voice so distinct I scarcely noticed that it was nothing but a whisper.
"I am not alluding to your brother," I declared, meeting her eyes with
a look steady as her own, and I hope more open.
"Oh, I see," she murmured; and she took another step, while the flash
of her glance cut like a knife. "You accuse me then----"
"Of assuming a disguise to spy upon Dwight Pollard."
It was a well-sped shaft, and quivered alive and burning in her heart
of hearts. She gave a spring like the panther she seemed at that
minute, but instantly recovered herself, and launching, upon me the
strangest smile, mockingly exclaimed:
"You are a brave woman." Then as I did not quail before her passion,
drew up her slight figure to its height and said: "We are worthy of
each other, you and I. Tell me what you want."
Then I felt my own cheek turn pale, and I was fain to sit upon the pile
of cushions that were arranged in one corner for a seat.
"What I want?" I repeated. "I want to know how you dared put in
language the insinuations which you hung up on the door of the old mill
this morning?"
Her eyes, narrowed, as I have said, in her seemingly habitual desire to
keep their secrets to herself, flashed wide open at this, while a low
and mirthless laugh escaped her lips.
"So my labor was not entirely wasted!" she cried. "You saw--"
"Both the lines and the writer," I completed, relentlessly preserving
the advantage I felt myself to have gained--"the lines before they were
defaced by the storm, the writer as she picked up the useless paper and
went away."
"So!" she commented, with another echo of that joyless laughter; "there
are two spies instead of one in this game!"
"There are two women instead of one who know your enmity and purpose,"
I retorted.
"How came you at the mill?" she suddenly asked, after a moment of
silent communion with her own repressed soul.
"By accident," was all my reply.
"Were you alone?"
"I was."
"Then no one but yourself saw the paper?"
"No one but myself."
She gave me a look I made no sign of understanding.
"Have you told any one of what you saw and read?" she inquired at last,
as she perceived I meant to volunteer nothing.
"That I am not called upon to state," I returned.
"Oh, you would play the lawyer!" was her icy and quiet remark.
"I would _play_ nothing," was the answer that came from my lips.
She drew back, and a change passed over her.
Slowly as a fire is kindled, the passion grew and grew on her face.
When it was at its height she leaned her two hands on a table that
stood between us, and, bending forward, whispered:
"Do you love him? Are you going to fight to keep his name free from
stain and his position unassailed before the world?"
Believe me if you can, but I could not answer; possibly because I had
as yet no answer to the question in my soul.
She took advantage of my hesitation.
"Perhaps you think it is not worth while to fight me; that I have no
real weapons at my command?" and her eyes shot forth a flame that
devoured my rising hopes and seared my heart as with a fiery steel.
"I think you are a cruel woman," I declared, "anxious to destroy what
no longer gives you pleasure."
"You know my story then?" she whispered. "He has talked about me, and
to you?"
"No," I replied, in quiet disdain. "I know nothing save what your own
eyes and your conduct tell me."
"Then you shall," she murmured, after a moment's scrutiny of my face.
"You shall hear how I have been loved, and how I have been forsaken.
Perhaps it will help you to appreciate the man who is likely to wreck
both our lives."
I must have lifted my head at this, for she paused and gave me a
curious look.
"You don't love him?" she cried.
"I shall not let him wreck my life," I responded.
Her lip curled and her two hands closed violently at her sides.
"You have not known him long," she declared. "You have not seen him at
your feet, or heard his voice, as day by day he pleaded more and more
passionately for a word or smile? You have not known his touch!"
"No," I impetuously cried, fascinated by her glance and tone.
I thought she looked relieved, and realized that her words might have
been as much an inquiry as an assertion.
"Then do not boast," she said.
The blood that was in my cheeks went out of them. I felt my eyes close
spasmodically, and hurriedly turned away my head. She watched me
curiously.
"Do you think I succumbed without a struggle?" she vehemently asked,
after a moment or two of this silent torture "Look at me. Am I a woman
to listen to the passionate avowals of the first man that happens to
glance my way and imagine he would like to have me for his wife? Is a
handsome face and honeyed tongue sufficient to gain my good graces,
even when it is backed by the wealth. I love and the position to which
I feel myself equal? I tell you you do not know Rhoda Colwell, if you
think she could be won easily. Days and days he haunted this room
before I let his words creep much beyond my ears. I had a brother who
needed all my care and all my affection, and I did not mean to marry,
much less to love. But slowly and by degrees he got a hold upon my
heart, and then, like the wretch who trusts himself to the maelstrom, I
was swept round and round into the whirlpool of passion till not earth
nor heaven could save me or make me again the free and light-hearted
girl I was. This was two years ago, and today--"
She stopped, choked. I had never seen greater passion, as I had never
seen a more fiery nature.
"It is his persistency I complain of," she murmured at last. "He forced
me to love him. Had he left me when I first said 'No,' I could have
looked down on his face to-day with contempt. But, no, he had a fancy
that I was his destiny, and that he must possess me or die. Die? He
would not even let _me_ die when I found that my long-sought 'Yes'
turned his worship into indifference, and his passion into constraint.
But--" she suddenly cried, with a repetition of that laugh which now
sounded so fearful in my ears--"all this does not answer your question
as to how I dared publish the insinuations I tacked up on the mill-door
this morning."
"No," I shudderingly cried.
"Ah! I have waited long," she passionately asserted. "Wrongs like mine
are very patient, and are very still, but the time comes at last when
even a woman weak and frail as I am can lift her hand in power; and
when she does lift it--"
"Hush!" I exclaimed, bounding from my seat and seizing her upraised
arm; for her vivid figure seemed to emit a flame like death. "Hush! we
want no tirades, you nor I; only let me hear what Dwight Pollard has
done, and whether you knew what you were saying when you called him and
his family--"
"Murderers!" she completed.
I shook, but bowed my head. She loosed her arm from my grasp and stood
for one moment contemplating me.
"You are a powerful rival," she murmured. "He will love you just six
months longer than he did me."
I summoned up at once my pride and my composure.
"And that would be just six months too long," I averred, "if he is what
you declare him to be."
"What?" came from between her set teeth, and she gave a spring that
brought her close to my side. "You would hate him, if I proved to you
that he and his brother and his mother were the planners, if not the
executors, of Mr. Barrows' death."
"Hate him?" I repeated, recoiling, all my womanhood up in arms before
the fearful joy expressed in her voice and attitude. "I should try and
forget such a man ever existed. But I shall not be easily convinced," I
continued, as I saw her lips open with a sort of eager hope terrible to
witness. "You are too anxious to kill my love."
"Oh, you will be convinced," she asserted. "Ask Dwight Pollard what
sort of garments those are which lie under the boards of the old mill,
and see if he can answer you without trembling."
"Garments?" I repeated, in astonishment; "garments?"
"Yes," said she. "If he can hear you ask that question and not turn
pale, stop me in my mad assertions, and fear his doom no more. But if
he flinches--"
A frightful smile closed up the gap, and she seemed by a look to motion
me towards the door.
"But is that all you are going to tell me?" I queried, dismayed at the
prospect of our interview terminating thus.
"Is it not enough?" she asked. "When you have seen _him_, I will see
_you_ again. Can you not wait for that hour?"
I might have answered No. I was tempted to do so, as I had been tempted
more than once to exert the full force of my spirit and crush her. But
I had an indomitable pride of my own, and did not wish to risk even the
semblance of defeat. So I controlled myself and merely replied:
"I do not desire to see Dwight Pollard again. I am not intending to
return to his house."
"And yet you will see him," she averred. "I can easily be patient till
then." And she cast another look of dismissal towards the door.
"You are a demon!" I felt tempted to respond, but my own dignity
restrained me as well as her beauty, which was something absolutely
dazzling in its intensity and fire. "I will have the truth from you
yet," was what I did say, as I moved, heart-sick and desponding, from
her side.
And her slow "No doubt," seemed to fill up the silence like a knell,
and give to my homeward journey a terror and a pang which proved that
however I had deceived myself, hope had not quite given up its secret
hold upon my heart.
And I dreamed of her that night, and in my dream her evil beauty shone
so triumphantly that my greatest wonder was not that Dwight Pollard had
succumbed to her fascinations, but that having once seen the glint of
that subtle soul shine from between those half-shut lids, he could ever
have found strength to turn aside and let the fire he had roused burn
itself away.
XI.
UNDER THE MILL FLOOR.
I know, this act shows terrible and grim.
--OTHELLO.
I had never considered myself a courageous person. I was therefore
surprised at my own temerity when, with the morning light, came an
impulse to revisit the old mill, and by an examination of its flooring,
satisfy myself to whether it held in hiding any such articles as had
been alluded to by Rhoda Colwell in the remarkable interview just
cited. Not that I intended to put any such question to Dwight Pollard
as she had suggested, or, indeed, had any intentions at all beyond the
present. The outlook was too vague, my own mind too troubled, for me to
concoct plans or to make any elaborate determinations. I could only
perform the duty of the moment, and this visit seemed to me to be a
duty, though not one of the pleasantest or even of the most promising
character.
I had therefore risen and was preparing myself in an abstracted way for
breakfast, when I was violently interrupted by a resounding knock at
the door. Alarmed, I scarcely knew why, I hastened to open it, and fell
back in very visible astonishment when I beheld standing before me no
less a person than Anice, the late Mrs. Pollard's maid.
"I wanted to see you, miss," she said, coming in without an invitation,
and carefully closing the door behind her. "So, as I had leave to
attend early mass this morning, I just slipped over here, which, if it
is a liberty, I hope you will pardon, seeing it is for your own good."
Not much encouraged by this preamble, I motioned her to take a seat,
and then, turning my back to her, went on arranging my hair.
"I cannot imagine what errand you have with me, Anice," said I; "but if
it is any thing important, let me hear it at once, as I have an
engagement this morning, and am in haste."
A smile, which I could plainly see in the mirror before which I stood,
passed slyly over her face. She took up her parasol from her lap, then
laid it down again, and altogether showed considerable embarrassment.
But it did not last long, and in another moment she was saying, in
quite a bold way:
"You took my place beside the mistress I loved, but _I_ don't bear you
no grudge, miss. On the contrary, I would do you a good turn; for what
are we here for, miss, if it's not to help one another?"
As I had no answer for this worthy sentiment, she lapsed again into her
former embarrassed state and as speedily recovered from it. Simpering
in a manner that unconsciously put me on my guard, she remarked:
"You left us very suddenly yesterday, miss. Of course that is your own
business, and I have nothing to say against it. But I thought if you
knew what might be gained by staying--" She paused and gave me a look
that was almost like an appeal.
But I would not help her out.
"Why," she went on desperately, with a backward toss of her head, "you
might think as how we was not such very bad folks after all. I am sure
you would make a very nice mistress to work for, Miss Sterling," she
simpered; "and if you would just let me help you with your hair as I
did old Mrs. Pollard--"
Angry, mortified, and ashamed of myself that I had listened to her so
far, I turned on her with a look that seemed to make some impression
even upon her.
"How dare you--" I began, then paused, shocked at my own imprudence in
thus betraying the depth of the feelings she had aroused. "I beg your
pardon," I immediately added, recovering my composure by a determined
effort; "you doubtless did not consider that you are not in a position
to speak such words to me. Even if your insinuations meant any thing
serious, which I will not believe, our acquaintance"--I am afraid I
threw some sarcasm into that word--"has scarcely been long enough to
warrant you in approaching me on any subject of a personal nature,
least of all one that involves the names of those you live with and
have served so long. If you have nothing better to say--"
She rose with a jerk that seemed to my eyes as much an expression of
disappointment as anger, and took a reluctant step or two towards the
door.