IN THE SECRET CHAMBER.
Have only twenty-four hours elapsed? Is it but yesternight that all the
terrible events took place, the memory of which are now making my frame
tremble? So the clock says, and yet how hard it is to believe it. Madame
Letellier-- But I will preserve my old method. I will not anticipate
events, but relate them as they occurred.
To go back then to the note which I received from madame. I did not like
it. I did not see its consistency, and I did not mean to be its dupe. If
she intended remaining in the oak parlor, then over the oak parlor I
would keep watch; for from her alone breathed whatever danger there
might be for any of us, and to her alone did I look for the explanation
of her mysterious presence in a spot that should have held a thousand
repellent forces for her and hers. As for her sudden illness, that was
nonsense. She was as well as I was myself. Had I not seen her standing
at the window an hour or two before?
But here I made a mistake. Madame was really ill, as I presently had
occasion to observe. For not only was a physician summoned, but word
came that she wished to see me, also; and when I went to her room I
found her in bed, her face pallid and distorted with pain, and her whole
aspect betraying the greatest physical suffering.
It was a rheumatic attack, affecting mainly her right limb, and made her
so helpless that, for a moment, I stood aghast at what looked to me like
a dispensation of Providence. But in another instant I began to doubt
again; for though I knew it was beyond anybody's power to simulate the
suffering under which she evidently labored, I was made to feel, by her
penetrating and restless looks, that her mind retained its hold upon its
purpose, whatever that purpose might be, and that for me to relax my
vigilance now would be to give her an advantage that would be
immediately seized upon.
I therefore held my sympathies in check; and, while acting the part of
the solicitous landlady, watched for that glance or word which should
reveal her secret intentions. Her daughter, whose eyes were streaming
with tears, stood over her like a pitying angel, and not till we had
done all we could to relieve her mother, and subdue her pain, did she
allow her longing eyes to turn toward the clock that beat out the
passing moments with mechanical precision. It was just a quarter to
nine.
The mother saw that glance, and hid her face for a moment; then she took
mademoiselle by the hand, and drawing her down to her, whispered
audibly:
"I expect you to keep your appointment. Mrs. Truax will send one of the
girls to sit with me. Besides, I feel better, and as if I could sleep.
Only remember your promise, dear. No look, no hint of your feelings."
Mademoiselle flushed scarlet. Stealing a look at me, she drew back
embarrassed, but oh! how joyous. I felt my old heart quiver as I
surveyed her, and in spite of the dread form of the redoubtable woman
stretched before me, in spite of the grewsome room and its more than
grewsome secrets, something of the fairy light of love seemed to fall
upon my spirit and lift the darkness from the place for one short and
glowing moment.
"Look in the glass," the mother now commanded. "You need to tie up your
curls again and to put a fresh flower at your throat. I do not wish you
to show weariness. Mrs. Truax"--these words to me in low tones, as her
daughter withdrew to the other side of the room--"you received my note?"
I nodded.
"You will do what I ask?"
I nodded again. Deliberate falsehood it was, but I showed no faltering.
"Then I will excuse you now."
I rose.
"And do not send any one to me. I wish to sleep, and another's presence
would disturb me. See, the pain is almost gone."
She did look better.
"Your wishes shall be regarded," I assured her. "If you do feel worse,
ring this bell and Margery will notify me." And placing the bell rope
near her hand, I drew back and presently quitted the room.
Lingering in the hall just long enough to see the lovely Honora flit
across the threshold of the sitting-room which I had purposely ordered
vacant for her use, I hurried to my room.
It was dark, dark as the secret chamber into which I now stole with the
lightest and wariest of steps. Horror, gloom, and apprehension were in
the air, which brooded stiflingly in the narrow spot, and had it not
been for the righteous purpose sustaining me, I should have fallen at
this critical moment, crushed beneath the terrible weight of my own
feelings.
But one who has to listen, straining every faculty to catch the purport
of what is going on behind an impenetrable wall, soon forgets himself
and his own sensations. As I pressed my ear to the wall and caught the
sound of a prolonged and painful stir within, I only thought of
following the movements of madame, who, I was now sure, had left her bed
and was dragging herself, with what difficulty and distress I could but
faintly judge by the involuntary groans which now and then left her,
across the floor toward the door, the key of which I presently heard
turn.
This done, a heavy silence followed, then the slow, dragging sound began
again, interrupted now by weary pants and heavy sobs that at first
chilled me and then shook me with such fear that it was with difficulty
that I could retain my place against the wall. She was crawling in my
direction, and at each instant I heard the pants grow louder.
I gradually withdrew, step by step, till I found myself pressed up
against the wall in the remotest corner I could find. And here was I
standing, enveloped in darkness and dread, when the sounds changed to
that of a shuddering, rushing noise which I had heard once before in my
life, and from a narrow gap through which the faint light in the room
beyond dimly shone in a thread of lesser darkness, the aperture grew,
till I could feel rather than see her form, crawling, not walking,
through the opening, and hear, distinct enough, her horrible, gurgling
tones as she murmured:
"I shall have to grope for what I want--touch it, feel it, for I cannot
see. O God! O God! What horror! What punishment!"
Nearer, nearer over the floor she came, dragging her useless limb behind
her. Her outstretched arm groped, groped about the floor, while I stood
trembling and agonized with horror till her hand touched the skirt of my
dress, when, with a great shriek of suddenly liberated feeling, I pushed
her from me, and crying out, "Murderess! do you seek the bones of your
victim?" I flung open the door against which I stood and let the light
from my own room stream in upon us two.
Her face as I saw it at that moment has never left my memory. She had
fallen in a heap at my first move, and now lay crushed before me, with
only her wide-staring eyes and shaking lips to tell me that she lived.
"You thought I did not know you," I burst forth. "You thought, because I
had never seen your face, you could come back here, bringing your
innocent daughter with you, and cast yourself into the very atmosphere
of your crime without awakening the suspicion of the woman whose house
you had made a sepulcher of for so many years. But crime was written too
plainly on your brow. The spirit of Honora Urquhart, breaking the bounds
of this room, has walked ever beside you, and I knew you from the first
moment that you strayed down this hall."
Broken sounds, unintelligible murmurings, were all that greeted me.
"You are punished," I went on, "in the misery of your daughter. Nemesis
has reached you. The blood of Honora Urquhart has called aloud from
these walls, and not yourself only, but the still viler being whose name
you have so falsely shared, must answer to man and God for the life you
so heartlessly sacrificed and the rights you so falsely usurped."
"Mercy!" came in one quick gasp from the crushed heap of humanity before
me.
But I was inexorable. I remembered Honora Urquhart's sweet face, and at
that moment could think of nothing else. So I went on.
"You have had years of triumph. You have borne your victim's name, worn
your victim's clothes, sported with your victim's money. And he, her
husband, has looked on and smiled. Day after day, month after month,
year after year, you have gone in and out before your friends,
unmolested and unafraid; but God's vengeance, though it halts, is sure
and keen. Across land and across water the memories of this room have
drawn you, and not content with awakening suspicion, you must make
suspicion certainty by moving a spring unknown even to myself, and
entering this spot, from which the bones of your victim were taken only
two months ago, Marah Leighton!"
Moved by the name, she stood up. Tottering and agonized with pain, but
firm once more and determined, she towered before me, her face turned
toward the room she had left, her hand lifted, her whole attitude that
of one listening.
"Hark!" she cried.
It was a knock, a faint, low, trembling knock that we heard, then the
word "Mamma" came in muffled accents from the hallway.
A convulsion crossed the countenance of the miserable woman before me.
"Oh, God! my daughter, my daughter!" she cried. And falling at my feet,
she groveled in anguish as she pleaded:
"Will you kill her? She knows nothing, suspects nothing. The whole
fifteen years of her life are pure. She is a flower. I love her--I love
her, though she looks like the woman I hated and killed. She bears her
name--why, I do not know--I could not call her anything else; she is my
living reproach, and yet I love her. Do you not see it was for her I
crossed the water, for her I plunged my living hand into this tomb to
learn if our secret had ever been discovered, and if there was any hope
that she might yet be made happy? Ah, woman, woman, you are not a
wretch--a demon! You will not sentence this innocent soul to disgrace
and misery. Even if I must die--and I swear that I will die if you say
so--leave to my child her hopes; keep secret my sin, and take the
blessing of the most miserable being that crawls upon the earth, as a
solace for your old age. Hear me; hear a wretched mother's plea--"
"It is too late," I broke in. "Even were I silent there are others upon
your track. I doubt if your husband does not already know that the day
of his prosperity is at an end."
She gave a low cry, and tottered from the place. Entering her own room,
she threw herself upon the bed. I followed, drawing the curtains about
her. Then closing the door of communication between the oak parlor and
the chamber beyond, I passed to the door behind which we could yet hear
her daughter's soft voice calling, and, unlocking it, let the radiant
creature in.
"Oh, mamma!" she began, "I could not keep my word--"
But here I held up my hand, and drawing her softly out, told her that
her mother needed rest just now, and that if she would come to my room
for a little while it would be best; and so prevailed upon her that she
promised to do what I asked, though I saw her cast longing glances
through the partly opened door toward the somber bed so like a tomb, and
which at that moment was a tomb, had she known it--a tomb of hope, of
joy, of peace for evermore.
I was just going out, when a slight stir detained me. Looking back, I
saw a hand thrust out from between the falling curtains. Just a hand,
but how eloquent it was! Pointing it out to mademoiselle, I said:
"Your mother's hand. Give it a kiss, mademoiselle, but do not part the
curtains."
She smiled and crossed to that ominous bed. Kneeling, she kissed the
hand, which thereupon raised itself and rested on her head. In another
instant it was drawn slowly away, and, with a startled look, the
half-weeping daughter rose and glided again to my side.
As I closed the door I thought of those words: "And the sins of the
father shall be visited upon the children to the third and fourth
generation."