THE WEIRD WOMAN.
The morning-room at Chetwynde Castle was about the pleasantest one
there, and the air of poverty which prevailed elsewhere was here lost
in the general appearance of comfort. It was a large apartment,
commensurate with the size of the castle, and the deep bay-windows
commanded an extensive view.
On the morning following the conversation already mentioned General
Pomeroy arose early, and it was toward this room that he turned his
steps. Throughout the castle there was that air of neglect already
alluded to, so that the morning-room afforded a pleasant contrast.
Here all the comfort that remained at Chetwynde seemed to have
centred. It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that the
General seated himself in an arm-chair which stood within the deep
recess of the bay-window, and surveyed the apartment.
The room was about forty feet long and thirty feet wide. The ceiling
was covered with quaint figures in fresco, the walls were paneled
with oak, and high-backed, stolid-looking chairs stood around. On one
side was the fire-place, so vast and so high that it seemed itself
another room. It was the fine old fire-place of the Tudor or
Plantagenet period--the unequaled, the unsurpassed--whose day has
long since been done, and which in departing from the world has left
nothing to compensate for it. Still, the fireplace lingers in a few
old mansions; and here at Chetwynde Castle was one without a peer.
It was lofty, it was broad, it was deep, it was well-paved, it was
ornamented not carelessly, but lovingly, as though the hearth was the
holy place, the altar of the castle and of the family. There was room
in its wide expanse for the gathering of a household about the fire;
its embrace was the embrace of love; and it was the type and model of
those venerable and hallowed places which have given to the English
language a word holier even than "Home," since that word is "Hearth."
It was with some such thoughts as these that General Pomeroy sat
looking at the fire-place, where a few fagots sent up a ruddy blaze,
when suddenly his attention was arrested by a figure which entered
the room. So quiet and noiseless was the entrance that he did not
notice it until the figure stood between him and the fire. It was a
woman; and certainly, of all the women whom he had ever seen, no one
had possessed so weird and mystical an aspect. She was a little over
the middle height, but exceedingly thin and emaciated. She wore a cap
and a gown of black serge, and looked more like a Sister of Charity
than any thing else. Her features were thin and shrunken, her cheeks
hollow, her chin peaked, and her hair was as white as snow. Yet the
hair was very thick, and the cap could not conceal its heavy white
masses. Her side-face was turned toward him, and he could not see
her fully at first, until at length she turned toward a picture which
hung over the fire-place, and stood regarding it fixedly.
It was the portrait of a young man in the dress of a British officer.
The General knew that it was the only son of Lord Chetwynde, for whom
he had written, and whom he was expecting; and now, as he sat there
with his eyes riveted on this singular figure, he was amazed at the
expression of her face.
Her eyes were large and dark and mysterious. Her face bore
unmistakable traces of sorrow. Deep lines were graven on her pale
forehead, and on her wan, thin cheeks. Her hair was white as snow,
and her complexion was of an unearthly grayish hue. It was a
memorable face--a face which, once seen, might haunt one long
afterward. In the eyes there was tenderness and softness, yet the
fashion of the mouth and chin seemed to speak of resolution and
force, in spite of the ravages which age or sorrow had made. She
stood quite unconscious of the General's presence, looking at the
portrait with a fixed and rapt expression. As she gazed her face
changed in its aspect. In the eyes there arose unutterable longing
and tenderness; love so deep that the sight of it thus unconsciously
expressed might have softened the hardest and sternest nature; while
over all her features the same yearning expression was spread.
Gradually, as she stood, she raised her thin white hands and clasped
them together, and so stood, intent upon the portrait, as though she
found some spell there whose power was overmastering.
At the sight of so weird and ghostly a figure the General was
strangely moved. There was something startling in such an apparition.
At first there came involuntarily half-superstitious thoughts. He
recalled all those mysterious beings of whom he had ever heard whose
occupation was to haunt the seats of old families. He thought of the
White Lady of Avenel, the Black Lady of Scarborough, the Goblin Woman
of Hurst, and the Bleeding Nun. A second glance served to show him,
however, that she could by no possibility fill the important post of
Family Ghost, but was real flesh and blood. Yet even thus she was
scarcely less impressive. Most of all was he moved by the sorrow of
her face. She might serve for Niobe with her children dead; she might
serve for Hecuba over the bodies of Polyxena and Polydore. The
sorrows of woman have ever been greater than those of man. The widow
suffers more than the widower; the bereaved mother than the bereaved
father. The ideals of grief are found in the faces of women, and
reach their intensity in the woe that meets our eyes in the Mater
Dolorosa. This woman was one of the great community of sufferers, and
anguish both past and present still left its traces on her face.
Besides all this there was something more; and while the General was
awed by the majesty of sorrow, he was at the same time perplexed by
an inexplicable familiarity which he felt with that face of woe.
Where, in the years, had he seen it before? Or had he seen it before
at all; or had he only known it in dreams? In vain he tried to
recollect. Nothing from out his past life recurred to his mind which
bore any resemblance to this face before him. The endeavor to recall
this past grew painful, and at length he returned to himself. Then he
dismissed the idea as fanciful, and began to feel uncomfortable, as
though he were witnessing something which he had no business to see.
She was evidently unconscious of his presence, and to be a witness of
her emotion under such circumstances seemed to him as bad as
eaves-dropping. The moment, therefore, that he had overcome his
surprise he turned his head away, looked out of the window, and
coughed several times. Then he rose from his chair, and after
standing for a moment he turned once more.
As he turned he found himself face to face with the woman. She had
heard him, and turned with a start, and turning thus their eyes met.
[Illustration: "She Turned Toward A Picture Which Hung Over The
Fire-Place, And Stood Regarding It Fixedly."]
If the General had been surprised before, he was now still more so at
the emotion which she evinced at the sight of himself. She started
back as though recoiling from him; her eyes were fixed and staring,
her lips moved, her hands clutched one another convulsively. Then, by
a sudden effort, she seemed to recover herself, and the wild stare of
astonishment gave place to a swift glance of keen, sharp, and eager
scrutiny. All this was the work of an instant. Then her eyes dropped,
and with a low courtesy she turned away, and after arranging some
chairs she left the room.
The General drew a long breath, and stood looking at the doorway in
utter bewilderment. The whole incident had been most perplexing.
There was first her stealthy entry, and the suddenness with which she
had appeared before him; then those mystic surroundings of her
strange, weird figure which had excited his superstitious fancies;
then the idea which had arisen, that somehow he had known her before;
and, finally, the woman's own strong and unconcealed emotion at the
sight of himself. What did it all mean? Had he ever seen her? Not
that he knew. Had she ever known him? If so, when and where? If so,
why such emotion? Who could this be that thus recoiled from him at
encountering his glance? And he found all these questions utterly
unanswerable.
In the General's eventful life there were many things which he could
recall. He had wandered over many lands in all parts of the world,
and had known his share of sorrow and of joy. Seating himself once
more in his chair he tried to summon up before his memory the figures
of the past, one by one, and compare them with this woman whom he had
seen. Out of the gloom of that past the ghostly figures came, and
passed on, and vanished, till at last from among them all two or
three stood forth distinctly and vividly; the forms of those who had
been associated with him in one event of his life; that life's first
great tragedy; forms well remembered--never to be forgotten. He saw
the form of one who had been betrayed and forsaken, bowed and crushed
by grief, and staring with white face and haggard eyes; he saw the
form of the false friend and foul traitor slinking away with averted
face; he saw the form of the true friend, true as steel, standing
up solidly in his loyalty between those whom he loved and the Ruin
that was before them; and, lastly, he saw the central figure of
all--a fair young woman with a face of dazzling beauty; high-born,
haughty, with an air of high-bred grace and inborn delicacy; but the
beauty was fading, and the charm of all that grace and delicacy
was veiled under a cloud of shame and sin. The face bore all that
agony of woe which looks at us now from the eyes of Guido's Beatrice
Cenci--eyes which disclose a grief deeper than tears; eyes whose
glance is never forgotten.
Suddenly there came to the General a Thought like lightning, which
seemed to pierce to the inmost depths of his being. He started back
as he sat, and for a moment looked like one transformed to stone. At
the horror of that Thought his face changed to a deathly pallor, his
features grew rigid, his hands clenched, his eyes fixed and staring
with an awful look. For a few moments he sat thus, and then with a
deep groan he sprang to his feet and paced the apartment.
The exercise seemed to bring relief.
"I'm a cursed fool!" he muttered. "The thing's impossible--yes,
absolutely impossible."
Again and again he paced the apartment, and gradually he recovered
himself.
"Pooh!" he said at length, as he resumed his seat, "she's insane, or,
more probably, _I_ am insane for having had such wild thoughts as I
have had this morning."
Then with a heavy sigh he looked out of the window abstractedly.
An hour passed and Lord Chetwynde came down, and the two took their
seats at the breakfast-table.
"By-the-way," said the General at length, after some conversation,
and with an effort at indifference, "who is that very
singular-looking woman whom you have here? She seems to be about
sixty, dresses in black, has very white hair, and looks like a Sister
of Charity."
"That?" said Lord Chetwynde, carelessly. "Oh, that must be the
housekeeper, Mrs. Hart."
"Mrs. Hart--the housekeeper?" repeated the General, thoughtfully.
"Yes; she is an invaluable woman to one in my position."
"I suppose she is some old family servant."
"No. She came here about ten years ago. I wanted a housekeeper, she
heard of it, and applied. She brought excellent recommendations, and
I took her. She has done very well."
"Have you ever noticed how very singular her appearance is?"
"Well, no. Is it? I suppose it strikes you so as a stranger. I never
noticed her particularly."
"She seems to have had some great sorrow," said the General, slowly.
"Yes, I think she must have had some troubles. She has a melancholy
way, I think. I feel sorry for the poor creature, and do what I can
for her. As I said, she is invaluable to me, and I owe her positive
gratitude."
"Is she fond of Guy?" asked the General, thinking of her face as he
saw it upturned toward the portrait.
"Exceedingly," said Lord Chetwynde. "Guy was about eight years old
when she came. From the very first she showed the greatest fondness
for him, and attached herself to him with a devotion which surprised
me. I accounted for it on the ground that she had lost a son of her
own, and perhaps Guy reminded her in some way of him. At any rate she
has always been exceedingly fond of him. Yes," pursued Lord
Chetwynde, in a musing tone, "I owe every thing to her, for she once
saved Guy's life."
"Saved his life? How?"
"Once, when I was away, the place caught fire in the wing where Guy
was sleeping. Mrs. Hart rushed through the flames and saved him. She
nearly killed herself too--poor old thing! In addition to this she
has nursed him through three different attacks of disease that seemed
fatal. Why, she seems to love Guy as fondly as I do."
"And does Guy love her?"
"Exceedingly. The boy is most affectionate by nature, and of course
she is prominent in his affections. Next to me he loves her."
The General now turned away the conversation to other subjects; but
from his abstracted manner it was evident that Mrs. Hart was still
foremost in his thoughts.