THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.
Cora remained in the room some time after Seymour left it, walking up
and down, sometimes slowly, sometimes with the quick, impetuous tread of
an empress whose power was threatened. Her heart was in a tumult of
passionate feeling. The wild rush of joy that had overwhelmed her when
she first saw Seymour still beat in her bosom and crimsoned her cheeks.
So far as love is a passion, she felt it deeply toward that man—felt it
with that blind impulse which would have overmastered any obstacle and
rendered her capable almost of goodness, if that alone could have united
them. She would not have married him penniless because self-sacrifice
was not in her nature, but she possessed force of character to surmount
any difficulty which lay between them, and all her love and ambition
craved.
“He is young, accomplished, ambitious, splendidly handsome,” she said to
herself. “What more can I ask. One thing, and that I will procure. It
requires courage, audacity, an iron fixedness of will, almost impossible
self-possession; but I have all these things. This thought has been in
my mind too long for failure. Once it was a dream, now a fixed purpose—a
purpose that cannot fail unless she has grown generous or cowardly—no,
she is not old enough for that. I know all her weak points—a love of
display, luxurious habits, a hatred of the class from which she sprung.
No, I cannot fail with her. Well, the others? This man, for instance, he
is easily managed; but then Aunt Eunice, that sharp, hard old Yankee
woman, who never forgets. Well, I have courage even to defy her.”
Here Cora took out her watch, started on finding how late it was, and
hurried up to her room. Without a moment’s delay she changed her dress,
enveloped herself in a water-proof cloak, tied a thick veil over her
bonnet, and, locking the door after her, went down to the street,
passing unobserved as some sewing woman going about her ordinary
business. She beckoned a carriage which stood near the entrance, ordered
it to be driven to the Hudson River depot, and in half an hour was
seated in the remote seat of a car, ready to start up the river.
The train started slowly from the depot, and went with some caution
through the streets, seeming to scatter back stars along its path as it
passed lamp-post after lamp-post, linking them as it were in a swift
chain of fire. At last the engine plunged into the country, lighting up
the track and the shadowy trees in its swift progress. Cora sat still,
muffled close in her cloak of dull gray, and with her brown barege veil
drawn close over her face. She had no luggage, not even a travelling
basket or satchel, and sat motionless, looking out of the window as if
something enthralling lay in the dark rush of the river and the broken
shore along which she was whirled.
At the nearest station to the Lander’s dwelling she arose, softly
gathered the cloak around her, and, without speaking to the conductor,
stepped out upon the platform. She was not the only person set down at
that point, but a few moments found her standing there, as she supposed,
quite alone, while the train rushed up the river bank panting under
every impulse of its fiery heart.
When the train had disappeared like a huge black serpent scaled sparsely
with spots of fire, this young girl turned and walked hastily toward a
flight of steps which led up the terrace and would conduct her at once
to the lawn in front of the late Mr. Lander’s dwelling. Even in the
darkness, she could detect the gleam of white marble pillars and a lofty
façade breaking through the night, contrasted with the huge trees that
encompassed them with a world of black shadows.
It was a weird picture of home to which the young girl came, like a
thief and with the thoughts of a robber in her heart. If the darkness
had permitted it, her face would have shone out white and hard almost as
the marble on which her eyes turned with such burning greed. She stood a
moment on the verge of the terrace regarding the building, which soon
outlined itself in the sable cloud which surrounded it with vast
spectral indistinctness. Even thus, it was a noble pile, appealing
grandly to the imagination, and her heart swelled with rapacious
satisfaction as she gathered its value into her mind.
After a little, she began to regard the house with other thoughts. Her
eyes wandered over the building in search of a light, which she hoped to
find shining through some of the windows. But none appeared, and she
walked on, burying her footsteps in the crisp grass of the lawn, for it
was too dark for any hope of finding a path. There was no wavering or
hesitation about her. Swiftly as a human being could walk, she passed
through the shadows and turned an angle of the house. In the window of a
second story room, which overlooked a portion of the lawn most thickly
planted with flowers, a faint light was burning behind curtains of white
lace, which softened it as clouds envelop a star.
“That is her room, I know,” muttered the girl; “she never slept without
a light. But she has changed apartments with her new fortunes. That used
to be a guest chamber.”
As she spoke the light seemed to waver as if some one held it
unsteadily. It was only the curtain stirred by a gentle wind, for the
sash was open that pleasant summer night, and Mrs. Lander, being an
epicure, loved to have perfume from the dewy flowers wafted to her as
she slept.
“Thank Heaven for that coward habit of a night lamp,” thought the girl,
stealing softly around the house in search of some unbolted door through
which she might let herself in. She tried the back doors first, but to
no avail. Then searched for an open window, but Eunice had taken care
that no means of entrance should be left exposed. On the ground floor
every point was locked and guarded.
After satisfying herself of this fact, Cora went round to the flower
garden again, resolved, by some means, to reach the window which had at
first occupied so much of her attention. Sharp and vigilant as a fox,
she searched the wall for some means of ascent, but the white marble was
smooth as snow-crust and nothing but a vast rose-bush broke its polished
surface. This hush, however, hung loosely on the wall, and its branches
swayed to and fro in the flickering light. Cora was seized with a wild
impulse to climb up this uncertain support, and thus, if possible, reach
the window. She seized the rose-bush by the stem and brought it down
violently, with all its blossoming branches trailing on the grass. In
starting back, Cora trod upon something hard, which almost threw her
down. She groped in the grass at her feet and found that she had
stumbled against a ladder, which lay half-buried in the grass where it
had been thrown by the gardener; who had been busy about the climbing
roses the day before and had left his work unfinished. Cora lifted the
ladder, with some difficulty, and planting it against the white wall
found that it reached the open window. Light as a bird, she climbed from
round to round, till half her form and her entire side face was framed,
like a picture, against the faintly illuminated sash.
The stillness within the room fell upon her with a sudden check. She
leaned forward, holding her breath, and looked in. A bed stood in a
corner of the room clouded with volumes of white lace, through which the
outline of a female figure could be seen slumbering in the soft radiance
which stole like moonlight from a lamp that seemed shaded with
transparent snow. All the while Cora Lander remained as it were framed
in by the window, a stout man stood beneath that great willow, which
drooped over him like the curving waters of a fountain, and watched her
movements curiously. But when she disappeared through the window he
moved towards the stables a muttering,
“Well, it aint none of my business as I know on, but that is a mighty
queer way for any gal to come home. I wonder which on ’em it is!”
Cora Lander, all unconscious of this scrutiny, paused a moment to listen
before she crossed the room and drew the lace curtains back from the
bed. Mrs. Lander lay sleeping upon her pillow, frilled, laced, and
embroidered with that excess of ornament which those who come suddenly
into the possession of riches are apt to indulge in. A quantity of
Valenciennes lace lay softly around her forehead and temples. The plump
white hands crept out from double frills edged with the same rich
material, and the bosom of her night dress presented one mass of
insertion and embroidery. She was a tolerably handsome woman and these
things became her well, though a close observer would have understood
something of the suddenness of her late good fortune by those elaborate
appointments.
Cora Lander’s proud lip curved, and a gleam of malicious humor shot into
her eyes.
“Upon my word, she dashes into the thing with a will,” was her first
thought, “No fool like an old fool! All her toilet bottles mounted with
gold. Both hands loaded with diamonds even in her sleep! How
self-satisfied she looks. No wonder—no wonder! A property like this
might make any one rest sweetly. The more she prizes it, why the easier
my task.”