THE FIGURE BENEATH THE TREES.
As I came near the old Argyll mansion, it seemed to me never to have
looked so fair before. The place was the embodiment of calm prosperity.
Stately and spacious it rose from the lawn in the midst of great old
oaks whose trunks must have hardened through a century of growth, and
whose red leaves, slowly dropping, now flamed in the sunshine. Although
the growing village had stretched up to and encircled the grounds, it
had still the air of a country place, for the lawn was roomy and the
gardens were extensive. The house was built of stone, in a massive yet
graceful style; with such sunshiny windows and pleasant porticoes that
it had nothing of a somber look.
It is strange what opposite emotions will group themselves in the soul
at the same moment. The sight of those lordly trees called up the
exquisite picture of Tennyson's "Talking Oak":
"Oh, muffle round thy knees with fern,
And shadow Sumner-chace!
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!"
I wondered if Henry had not repeated them, as he walked with Eleanor
amid the golden light and flickering shadows beneath the branches of
these trees. I recalled how I once, in my madness, before I knew that
she was betrothed to another, had apostrophized the monarch of them
all, in the passionate words of Walter. Now, looking at this ancient
tree, I perceived with my eyes, though hardly with my mind, that it had
some fresh excoriations upon the bark. If I thought any thing at all
about it, I thought it the work of the storm, for numerous branches had
been torn from the trees throughout the grove, and the ground was
carpeted with fresh-fallen leaves.
Passing up the walk, I caught a glimpse of Eleanor at an upper window,
and heard her singing a hymn, softly to herself, as she moved about her
chamber. I stopped as if struck a blow. How could I force myself to
drop the pall over this glorious morning? Alas! of all the homes in
that village, perhaps this was the only one on which the shadow had not
yet fallen--this, over which it was to settle, to be lifted nevermore.
Of all the hearts as yet unstartled by the tragic event was that most
certain to be withered--that young heart, this moment so full of love
and bliss, caroling hymns out of the fullness of its gratitude to God
for its own delicious happiness.
Oh, I must--I must! I went in at an open window, from a portico into
the library. James was there, dressed for church, his prayer-book and
handkerchief on the table, and he looking over the last evening's
paper. The sight of him gave me a slight relief; his uncle and myself
had forgotten him in the midst of our distress. It was bad enough to
have to tell any one such news, but any delay in meeting Eleanor was
eagerly welcomed. He looked at me inquiringly--my manner was enough to
denote that something had gone wrong.
"What is it, Richard?"
"Horrible--most horrible!"
"For heaven's sake, _what_ is the matter?"
"Moreland has been murdered."
"Moreland! What? Where? Whom do they suspect?"
"And her father wishes me to tell Eleanor. You are her cousin, James;
will you not be the fittest person?" the hope crossing me that he would
undertake the delivery of the message.
"_I!_" he exclaimed, leaning against the case of books beside him. "I!
oh, no, not I. I'd be the last person! I'd look well telling her about
it, wouldn't I?" and he half laughed, though trembling from head to
foot.
If I thought his manner strange, I did not wonder at it--the dreadful
nature of the shock had unnerved all of us.
"Where is Mary?" I asked; "we had better tell her first, and have her
present. Indeed, I wish--"
I had turned toward the door, which opened into the hall, to search for
the younger sister, as I spoke; the words died on my lips. Eleanor was
standing there. She had been coming in to get a book, and had evidently
heard what had passed. She was as white as the morning dress she wore.
"Where is he?" Her voice sounded almost natural.
"At the Eagle Hotel," I answered, without reflection, glad that she
showed such self-command, and, since she did, glad also that the
terrible communication was over.
She turned and ran through the hall, down the avenue toward the gate.
In her thin slippers, her hair uncovered, fleet as a vision of the
wind, she fled. I sprung after her. It would not do to allow her to
shock herself with that sudden, awful sight. As she rushed out upon the
street I caught her by the arm.
"Let me go! I must go to him! Don't you see, he will need me?"
She made an effort to break away, looking down the street with strained
eyes. Poor child! as if, he being dead, she could do him any good! Her
stunned heart had as yet gone no further than that if Henry was hurt,
was murdered, he would need her by his side. She must go to him and
comfort him in his calamity. It was yet to teach her that this world
and the things of this world--even she, herself, were no more to him.
"Come back, Eleanor; they will bring him to you before long."
I had to lift her in my arms and carry her back to the house.
In the hall we met Mary, who had heard the story from James, and who
burst into tears and sobs as she saw her sister.
"They are keeping me away from him," said Eleanor, pitifully, looking
at her. I felt her form relax in my arms, saw that she had fainted;
James and I carried her to a sofa, while Mary ran distractedly for the
housekeeper.
There was noisy wailing now in the mansion; the servants all admired
and liked the young gentleman to whom their mistress was to be married;
and, as usual, they gave full scope to their powers of expressing
terror and sympathy. In the midst of cries and tears, the insensible
girl was conveyed to her chamber.
James and myself paced the long halls and porticoes, waiting to hear
tidings of her recovery. After a time the housekeeper came down,
informing us that Miss Argyll had come to her senses; leastwise, enough
to open her eyes and look about; but she wouldn't speak, and she looked
dreadful.
Just then Mr. Argyll came in. After being informed of what had
occurred, he went up to his daughter's room. With uttermost tenderness
he gave her the details of the murder, as they were known; his eyes
overrunning with tears to see that not a drop of moisture softened her
fixed, unnatural look.
Friends came in and went out with no notice from her.
"I wish they would all leave me but you, Mary," she said, after a time.
"Father, you will let me know when--"
"Yes--yes." He kissed her, and she was left with her sister for a
watcher.
Hours passed. Some of us went into the dining-room and drank of the
strong tea which the housekeeper had prepared, for we felt weak and
unnerved. The parents were expected in the evening train, there being
but one train running on Sunday. The shadow deepened over the house
from hour to hour.
It was late in the afternoon before the body could be removed from the
hotel where the coroner's inquest was held. I asked James to go with me
and attend upon its conveyance to Mr. Argyll's. He declined, upon the
plea of being too much unstrung to go out.
As the sad procession reached the garden in front of the mansion with
its burden, I observed, in the midst of several who had gathered about,
a woman, whose face, even in that time of preoccupation, arrested my
attention. It was that of a girl, young and handsome, though now thin
and deadly pale, with a wild look in her black eyes, which were fixed
upon the shrouded burden with more than awe and curiosity.
I know not yet why I remarked her so particularly; why her strange face
made such an impression on me. Once she started toward us, and then
shrunk back again. By her dress and general appearance she might have
been a shop-girl. I had never seen her before.
"That girl," said a gentleman by my side, "acts queerly. And, come to
think, she was on the train from New York yesterday afternoon. Not the
one poor Moreland came in; the one before. I was on board myself, and
noticed her particularly, as she sat facing me. She seemed to have some
trouble on her mind."
I seldom forget faces; and I never forgot hers.
"I will trace her out," was my mental resolve.
We passed on into the house, and deposited our charge in the back
parlor. I thought of Eleanor, as she had walked this room just
twenty-four hours ago, a brilliant vision of love and triumphant
beauty. Ay! twenty-four hours ago this clay before me was as
resplendent with life, as eager, as glowing with the hope of the soul
within it! Now, all the hours of time would never restore the tenant to
his tenement. Who had dared to take upon himself the responsibility of
unlawfully and with violence, ejecting this human soul from its house?
I shuddered as I asked myself the question. Somewhere must be lurking a
guilty creature, with a heart on fire from the flames of hell, with
which it had put itself in contact.
Then my heart stood still within me--all but the family had been
banished from the apartment--her father was leading in Eleanor. With a
slow step, clinging to his arm, she entered; but as her eyes fixed
themselves upon the rigid outlines lying there beneath the funeral
pall, she sprung forward, casting herself upon her lover's corpse.
Before, she had been silent; now began a murmur of woe so heart-rending
that we who listened wished ourselves deaf before our ears had heard
tones and sentences which could never be forgotten. It would be useless
for me, a man, with a man's language and thoughts, to attempt to repeat
what this broken-hearted woman said to her dead lover.
It was not her words so much as it was her pathetic tones.
She talked to him as if he were alive and could hear her. She was
resolved to make him hear and feel her love through the dark death
which was between them.
"Ah, Henry," she said, in a low, caressing tone, pressing back the
curls from his forehead with her hand, "your hair is wet still. To
think that you should lie out there all night--all night--on the
ground, in the rain, and I not know of it! I, to be sleeping in my warm
bed--actually sleeping, and you lying out in the storm, dead. That is
the strangest thing! that makes me wonder--to think I _could_! Tell me
that you forgive me for that, darling--for sleeping, you know, when you
were out there. I was thinking of you when I took the rose out of my
dress at night. I dreamed of you all night, but if I had known where
you were, I would have gone out barefooted, I would have stayed by you
and kept the rain from your face, from your dear, dear hair that I like
so much and hardly ever dare to touch. It was cruel of me to sleep so.
Would you guess, I was vexed at you last evening because you didn't
come? It was that made me so gay--not because I was happy. Vexed at you
for not coming, when you could not come because you were dead!" and she
laughed.
As that soft, dreadful laughter thrilled through the room, with a groan
Mr. Argyll arose and went out; he could bear no more. Disturbed with a
fear that her reason was shaken, I spoke with Mary, and we two tried to
lift her up, and persuade her out of the room.
"Oh, don't try to get me away from him again," she pleaded, with a
quivering smile, which made us sick. "Don't be troubled, Henry. I'm
_not_ going--I'm _not_! They are going to put my hand in yours and bury
me with you. It's so curious I should have been playing the piano and
wearing my new dress, and never guessing it! that you were so near
me--dead--murdered!"
The kisses; the light, gentle touches of his hands and forehead, as if
she might hurt him with the caresses which she could not withhold; the
intent look which continually watched him as if expecting an answer;
the miserable smile upon her white face--these were things which
haunted those who saw them through many a future slumber.
"You will not say you forgive me for singing last night. You don't say
a word to me--because you are dead--that's it--because you are
dead--murdered!"
The echo of her own last word recalled her wandering reason.
"My God! murdered!" she exclaimed, suddenly rising to her full hight,
with an awful air; "who do you suppose did it?"
Her cousin was standing near; her eyes fell upon him as she asked the
question. The look, the manner, were too much for his already
overwrought sensibility; he shrunk away, caught my arm, and sunk down,
insensible. I did not wonder. We all of us felt as if we could endure
no more.
Going to the family physician, who waited in another apartment, I
begged of him to use some influence to withdraw Miss Argyll from the
room, and quiet her feelings and memory, before her brain yielded to
the strain upon it. After giving us some directions what to do with
James, he went and talked with her, with so much wisdom and tact, that
the danger to her reason seemed passing; persuading her also into
taking the powder which he himself administered; but no argument could
induce her to leave the mute, unanswering clay.
The arrival of the relatives was the last scene in the tragedy of that
day. Unable to bear more of it, I went out in the darkness and walked
upon the lawn. My head was hot; the cool air felt grateful to me; I
leaned long upon the trunk of an oak, whose dark shadow shut out the
starlight from about me; thought was busy with recent events. Who was
the murderer? The question revolved in my brain, coming uppermost every
other moment, as certainly as the turning of a wheel brings a certain
point again and again to the top. My training, as a student of the law,
helped my mind to fix upon every slightest circumstance which might
hold a suspicion.
"Could that woman?"--but no, the hand of a woman could scarcely have
given that sure and powerful blow. It looked like the work of a
_practiced_ hand--or, if not, at least it had been deliberately given,
with malice aforethought. The assassin had premeditated the deed; had
watched his victim and awaited the hour. Thus far, there was absolutely
no clue whatever to the guilty party; bold as was the act, committed in
the early evening, in the haunts of a busy community, it had been most
fatally successful; and the doer had vanished as completely as if the
earth had opened and swallowed him up. No one, as yet, could form any
plausible conjecture, even as to the _motive_.
In the name of Eleanor Argyll--in the name of her whom I loved, whose
happiness I had that day seen in ruins, I vowed to use every endeavor
to discover and bring to punishment the murderer. I know not why this
purpose took such firm hold of me. The conviction of the guilty would
not restore the life which had been taken; the bloom to a heart
prematurely withered; it would afford no consolation to the bereaved.
Yet, if to discover, had been to call back Henry Moreland to the world
from which he had been so ruthlessly dismissed, I could hardly have
been more determined in the pursuit. In action only could I feel relief
from the oppression which weighed upon me. It could not give life to
the dead--but the voice of Justice called aloud, never to permit this
deed to sink into oblivion, until she had executed the divine vengeance
of the law upon the doer.
As I stood there in silence and darkness, pondering the matter, I heard
a light rustle of the dry leaves upon the ground, and felt, rather than
saw, a figure pass me. I might have thought it one of the servants were
it not for the evident caution of its movements. Presently, where the
shadows of the trees were less thick, I detected a person stealing
toward the house. As she crossed an open space, the starlight revealed
the form and garments of a female; the next moment she passed into the
obscurity of shadows again, where she remained some time, unsuspicious
of my proximity, like myself leaning against a tree, and watching the
mansion. Apparently satisfied that no one was about--the hour now
verging toward midnight--she approached with hovering steps, now
pausing, now drawing back, the west side of the mansion, from one of
the windows of which the solemn light of the death-candles shone. Under
this window she crouched down. I could not tell if her attitude were a
kneeling one. It must have been more than an hour that she remained
motionless in this place; I, equally quiet, watching the dark spot
where she was. For the instant that she had stood between me and the
window, her form was outlined against the light, when I saw that this
must be the young woman whose strange conduct at the gate had attracted
my attention. Of course I did not see her face; but the tall, slender
figure, the dark bonnet, and nervous movement, were the same. I
perplexed myself with vain conjectures.
I could not help connecting her with the murder, or with the victim, in
some manner, however vague.
At last she arose, lingered, went away, passing near me with that soft,
rustling step again. I was impelled to stretch out my hand and seize
her; her conduct was suspicious; she ought to be arrested and examined,
if only to clear herself of these circumstances. The idea that, by
following her, I might trace her to some haunt, where proofs were
secreted, or accomplices hidden, withheld my grasp.
Cautiously timing my step with hers, that the murmur of the leaves
might not betray me, I followed. As she passed out the gate, I stood
behind a tree, lest she should look back and discern me; then I passed
through, following along in the shadow of the fence.
She hurried on in the direction of the spot at which the murder had
been committed; but when nearly there, perceiving that some persons,
though long past midnight, still hovered about the fatal place, she
turned, and passed me. As soon as I dared, without alarming her, I also
turned, pursuing her through the long, quiet street, until it brought
her to a more crowded and poorer part of the village, where she went
down a side street, and disappeared in a tenement-house, the
entrance-hall to which was open. I ought to have gone at once for
officers, and searched the place; but I unwisely concluded to wait for
daylight.
As I came up the walk on my return, I met James Argyll in the avenue,
near the front portico.
"Oh, is it you?" he exclaimed, after I had spoken to him. "I thought it
was--was--"
"You are not superstitious, James?" for his hollow voice betrayed that
he was frightened.
"You did give me a confounded uneasy sensation as you came up," he
answered with a laugh.--How can people laugh under such
circumstances?--"Where have you been at this hour, Richard?"
"Walking in the cool air. The house smothered me."
"So it did me. I could not rest. I have just come out to get a breath
of air."
"It is almost morning," I said, and passed on into my chamber.
I knew who watched, without food, without rest, in the chamber of
death, by whose door my footsteps led; but ache as my heart might, I
had no words of comfort for sorrow like hers--so I passed on.