A SHOCK.
The discovery of these papers thus brought the visit to Pomeroy Court
to an abrupt termination. The place had now become intolerable to
Zillah. In her impatience she was eager to leave, and her one thought
now was to apply to Lord Chetwynde for a solution of this dark
mystery.
"Why, Zillah," he cried, as she came back; "what is the meaning of
this? You have made but a short stay. Was Pomeroy Court too gloomy,
or did you think that your poor father was lonely here without you?
Lonely enough he was--and glad indeed he is to see his little
Zillah."
And Lord Chetwynde kissed her fondly, exhibiting a delight which
touched Zillah to the heart. She could not say any thing then and
there about the real cause of her sudden return. She would have to
wait for a favorable opportunity, even though her heart was
throbbing, in her fierce impatience, as though it would burst. She
took refuge in caresses and in general remarks as to her joy on
finding herself back again, leaving him to suppose that the gloom
which hung around Pomeroy Court now had been too oppressive for her,
and that she had hurried away from it.
The subject which was uppermost in Zillah's mind was one which she
hardly knew how to introduce. It was of such delicacy that the idea
of mentioning it to the Earl filled her with repugnance. For the
first day she was distrait and preoccupied. Other days followed. Her
nights were sleepless. The Earl soon saw that there was something on
her mind, and taxed her with it. Zillah burst into tears and sat
weeping.
"My child," said the Earl, tenderly. "This must not go on. There can
not be anything in your thoughts which you need hesitate to tell me.
Will you not show some confidence toward me?"
Zillah looked at him, and his loving face encouraged her. Besides,
this suspense was unendurable. Her repugnance to mention such a thing
for a time made her silent; but at last she ventured upon the dark
and terrible subject.
"Something occurred at Pomeroy Court," she said, and then stopped.
"Well?" said the Earl, kindly and encouragingly.
"It is something which I want very much to ask you about--"
"Well, why don't you?" said Lord Chetwynde. "My poor child, you can't
be afraid of me, and yet it looks like it. You are very mysterious.
This 'something' must have been very important to have sent you back
so soon. Was it a discovery, or was it a fright? Did you find a dead
body? But what is that you can want to ask me about? I have been a
hermit for twenty years. I crept into my shell before you were born,
and here I have lived ever since."
The Earl spoke playfully, yet with an uneasy curiosity in his tone.
Zillah was encouraged to go on.
"It is something," said she, timidly and hesitatingly, "which I found
among my father's papers."
Lord Chetwynde looked all around the room. Then he rose.
"Come into the library," said he. "Perhaps it is something very
important; and if so, there need be no listeners."
Saying this he led the way in silence, followed by Zillah. Arriving
there he motioned Zillah to a seat, and took a chair opposite hers,
looking at her with a glance of perplexity and curiosity. Amidst this
there was an air of apprehension about him, as though he feared that
the secret which Zillah wished to tell might be connected with those
events in his life which he wished to remain unrevealed. This
suspicion was natural. His own secret was so huge, so engrossing,
that when one came to him as Zillah did now, bowed down by the weight
of another secret, he would naturally imagine that it was connected
with his own. He sat now opposite Zillah, with this fear in his face,
and with the air of a man who was trying to fortify himself against
some menacing calamity.
"I have been in very deep trouble," began Zillah, timidly, and with
downcast eyes. "This time I ventured into dear papa's study--and I
happened to examine his desk."
She hesitated.
"Well?" said the Earl, in a low voice.
"In the desk I found a secret drawer, which I would not have
discovered except by the merest chance; and inside of this secret
drawer I found some papers, which--which have filled me with
anxiety."
"A secret drawer?" said the Earl, as Zillah again paused. "And what
were these papers that you found in it?" There was intense anxiety in
the tones of his voice as he asked this question.
"I found there," said Zillah, "a paper written in cipher. There was a
key connected with it, by means of which I was able to decipher it."
"Written in cipher? How singular!" said the Earl, with increasing
anxiety. "What could it possibly have been?"
Zillah stole a glance at him fearfully and inquiringly. She saw that
he was much excited and most eager in his curiosity.
"What was it?" repeated the Earl. "Why do you keep me in suspense?
You need not be afraid of me, my child. Of course it is nothing that
I am in any way concerned with; and even if it were--why--at any
rate, tell me what it was."
The Earl spoke in a tone of feverish excitement, which was so unlike
any thing that Zillah had ever seen in him before that her
embarrassment was increased.
"It was something," she went on, desperately, and in a voice which
trembled with agitation, "with which you are connected--something
which I had never heard of before--something which filled me with
horror. I will show it to you--but I want first to ask you one thing.
Will you answer it?"
"Why should I not?" said the Earl, in a low voice.
"It is about Lady Chetwynde," said Zillah, whose voice had died away
to a whisper.
The Earl's face seemed to turn to stone as he looked at her. He had
been half prepared for this, but still, when it finally came, it was
overwhelming. Once before, and once only in his life, had he told his
secret. That was to General Pomeroy. But Zillah was different, and
even she, much as he loved her, was not one to whom he could speak
about such a thing as this.
"Well?" said he at last, in a harsh, constrained voice. "Ask what you
wish."
Zillah started. The tone was so different from that in which Lord
Chetwynde usually spoke that she was frightened.
"I--I do not know how to ask what I want to ask," she stammered.
"I can imagine it," said the Earl. "It is about my dishonor. I told
General Pomeroy about it once, and it seems that he has kindly
written it out for your benefit."
Bitterness indescribable was in the Earl's tones as he said this.
Zillah shrank back into herself and looked with fear and wonder upon
this man, who a few moments before had been all fondness, but now was
all suspicion. Her first impulse was to go and caress him, and
explain away the cipher so that it might never again trouble him in
this way. But she was too frank and honest to do this, and, besides,
her own desire to unravel the mystery had by this time become so
intense that it was impossible to stop. The very agitation of the
Earl, while it frightened her, still gave new power to her eager and
feverish curiosity. But now, more than ever, she began to realize
what all this involved. That face which caught her eyes, once all
love, which had never before regarded her with aught but tenderness,
yet which now seemed cold and icy--that face told her all the task
that lay before her. Could she encounter it? But how could she help
it? Dare she go on? Yet she could not go back now.
The Earl saw her hesitation.
"I know what you wish to ask," said he, "and will answer it. Child,
she dishonored me--she dragged my name down into the dust! Do you ask
more? She fled with a villain!"
That stern, white face, which was set in anguish before her, from
whose lips these words seemed to be torn, as, one by one, they were
flung out to her ears, was remembered by Zillah many and many a time
in after years. At this moment the effect upon her was appalling. She
was dumb. A vague desire to avert his wrath arose in her heart. She
looked at him imploringly; but her look had no longer any power.
"Speak!" he said, impatiently, after waiting for a time. "Speak. Tell
me what it is that you have found; tell me what this thing is that
concerns me. Can it be any thing more than I have said?"
Zillah trembled. This sudden transformation--this complete change
from warm affection to icy coldness--from devoted love to iron
sternness--was something which she did not anticipate. Being thus
taken unawares, she was all unnerved and overcome. She could no
longer restrain herself.
"Oh, father!" she cried, bursting into tears, and flinging herself at
his feet in uncontrollable emotion. "Oh, father! Do not look at me
so--do not speak so to your poor Zillah. Have I any friend on earth
but you?"
She clasped his thin, white hands in hers, while hot tears fell upon
them. But the Earl sat unmoved, and changed not a muscle of his
countenance. He waited for a time, taking no notice of her anguish,
and then spoke, with no relaxation of the sternness of his tone.
"Daughter," said he, "do not become agitated. It was you yourself who
brought on this conversation. Let us end it at once. Show me the
papers of which you speak. You say that they are connected with
me--that they filled you with horror. What is it that you mean?
Something more than curiosity about the unhappy woman who was once my
wife has driven you to ask explanations of me. Show me the papers."
His tone forbade denial. Zillah said not a word. Slowly she drew from
her pocket those papers, heavy with fate, and, with a trembling hand,
she gave them to the Earl. Scarcely had she done so than she
repented. But it was too late. Beside, of what avail would it have
been to have kept them? She herself had begun this conversation; she
herself had sought for a revelation of this mystery. The end must
come, whatever it might be.
"Oh, father!" she moaned, imploringly.
"What is it?" asked the Earl.
"You knew my dear papa all his life, did you not, from his boyhood?"
"Yes," said the Earl, mechanically, looking at the papers which
Zillah had placed in his hand; "yes--from boyhood."
"And you loved and honored him?"
"Yes."
"Was there ever a time in which you lost sight of one another, or did
not know all about one another?"
"Certainly. For twenty years we lost sight of one another completely.
Why do you ask?"
"Did he ever live in London?" asked Zillah, despairingly.
"Yes," said the Earl; "he lived there for two years, and I scarcely
ever saw him. I was in politics; he was in the army. I was busy every
moment of my time; he had all that leisure which officers enjoy, and
leading the life of gayety peculiar to them. But why do you ask? What
connection has all this with the papers?"
Zillah murmured some inaudible words, and then sat watching the Earl
as he began to examine the papers, with a face on which there were
visible a thousand contending emotions. The Earl looked over the
papers. There was the cipher and the key; and there was also a paper
written out by Zillah, containing the explanation of the cipher,
according to the key. On the paper which contained the key was a
written statement to the effect that two-thirds of the letters had no
meaning. Trusting to this, Zillah had written out her translation of
the cipher, just as Hilda had before done.
The Earl read the translation through most carefully.
"What's this?" he exclaimed, in deeper agitation. Zillah made no
reply. In fact, at that moment her heart was throbbing so furiously
that she could not have spoken a word. Now had come the crisis of her
fate, and her heart, by a certain deep instinct, told her this.
Beneath all the agitation arising from the change in the Earl there
was something more profound, more dread. It was a continuation of
that dark foreboding which she had felt at Pomeroy Court--a certain
fearful looking for of some obscure and shadowy calamity.
The Earl, after reading the translation, took the cipher writing and
held up the key beside it, while his thin hands trembled, and his
eyes seemed to devour the sheet, as he slowly spelled out the
frightful meaning. It was bad for Zillah that these papers had fallen
into his hands in such a way. Her evil star had been in the ascendant
when she was drawn on to this. Coming to him thus, from the hand of
Zillah herself, there was an authenticity and an authority about the
papers which otherwise might have been wanting. It was to him, at
this time; precisely the same as if they had been handed to him by
the General himself. Had they been discovered by himself originally,
it is possible--in fact, highly probable--that he would have looked
upon them with different eyes, and their effect upon him would have
been far otherwise. As it was, however, Zillah herself had found them
and given them to him. Zillah had been exciting him by her agitation
and her suffering, and had, last of all, been rousing him gradually
up to a pitch of the most intense excitement, by the conversation
which she had brought forward, by her timidity, her reluctance, her
strange questionings, and her general agitation. To a task which
required the utmost coolness of feeling, and calm impartiality of
judgment, he brought a feverish heart, a heated brain, and an
unreasoning fear of some terrific disclosure. All this prepared him
to accept blindly whatever the paper might reveal.
As he examined the paper he did not look at Zillah, but spelled out
the words from the characters, one by one, and saw that the
translation was correct. This took a long time; and all the while
Zillah sat there, with her eyes fastened on him; but he did not give
her one look. All his soul seemed to be absorbed by the papers before
him. At last he ended with the cipher writing--or, at least, with as
much of it as was supposed to be decipherable--and then he turned to
the other papers. These he read through; and then, beginning again,
he read them through once more. One only exclamation escaped him. It
was while reading that last letter, where mention was made of the
name Redfield Lyttoun being an assumed one. Then he said, in a low
voice which seemed like a groan wrung out by anguish from his inmost
soul:
"Oh, my God! my God!"
At last the Earl finished examining the papers. He put them down
feebly, and sat staring blankly at vacancy. He looked ten years older
than when he had entered the dining-room. His face was as bloodless
as the face of a corpse, his lips were ashen, and new furrows seemed
to have been traced on his brow. On his face there was stamped a
fixed and settled expression of dull, changeless anguish, which smote
Zillah to her heart. He did not see her--he did not notice that other
face, as pallid as his own, which was turned toward his, with an
agony in its expression which rivaled all that he was enduring.
No--he noticed nothing, and saw no one. All his soul was taken up now
with one thought. He had read the paper, and had at once accepted its
terrific meaning. To him it had declared that in the tragedy of his
young life, not only his wife had been false, but his friend also.
More--that it was his friend who had betrayed his wife. More yet--and
there was fresh anguish in this thought--this friend, after the
absence of many years, had returned and claimed his friendship, and
had received his confidences. To him he had poured out the grief of
his heart--the confession of life-long sorrows which had been wrought
by the very man to whom he told his tale. And this was the man who,
under the plea of ancient friendship, had bought his son for gold!
Great Heaven! the son of the woman whom he had ruined--and for gold!
He had drawn away his wife to ruin--he had come and drawn away his
son--into what? into a marriage with the daughter of his own mother's
betrayer.
Such were the thoughts, mad, frenzied, that filled Lord Chetwynde's
mind as he sat there stunned--paralyzed by this hideous accumulation
of intolerable griefs. What was Zillah to him now? The child of a
foul traitor. The one to whom his noble son had been sold. That son
had been, as he once said, the solace of his life. For his sake he
had been content to live even under his load of shame and misery. For
him he had labored; for his happiness he had planned. And for what?
What? That which was too hideous to think of--a living death--a union
with one from whom he ought to stand apart for evermore.
Little did Zillah know what thoughts were sweeping and surging
through the mind of Lord Chetwynde as she sat there watching him with
her awful eyes. Little did she dream of the feelings with which, at
that moment, he regarded her. Nothing of this kind came to her. One
only thought was present--the anguish which he was enduring. The
sight of that anguish was intolerable. She looked, and waited, and at
last, unable to bear this any longer, she sprang forward, and tore
his hands away from his face.
"It's not! It's not!" she gasped. "Say you do not believe it! Oh,
father! It's impossible!"
The Earl withdrew his hands, and shrank away from her, regarding her
with that blank gaze which shows that the mind sees not the material
form toward which the eyes are turned, but is taken up with its own
thoughts.
"Impossible?" he repeated. "Yes. That is the word I spoke when I
first heard that she had left me. Impossible? And why? Is a friend
more true than a wife? After Lady Chetwynde failed me, why should I
believe in Neville Pomeroy? And you--why did you not let me end my
life in peace? Why did you bring to me this frightful--this damning
evidence which destroys my faith not in man, but even in Heaven
itself?"
"Father! Oh, father!" moaned Zillah.
But the Earl turned away. She seized his hand again in both hers.
Again he shrank away, and withdrew his hand from her touch. She was
abhorrent to him then!
[Illustration: "He Sat Staring Blankly At Vacancy."]
This was her thought. She stepped back, and at once a wild revulsion
of feeling took place within her also. All the fierce pride of her
hot, impassioned Southern nature rose up in rebellion against this
sudden, this hasty change. Why should he so soon lose faith in her
father? He guilty!--her father!--the noble--the gentle--the
stainless--the true--he! the pure in heart--the one who through all
her life had stood before her as the ideal of manly honor and loyalty
and truth? Never! If it came to a question between Lord Chetwynde and
that idol of her young life, whose memory she adored, then Lord
Chetwynde must go down. Who was he that dared to think evil for one
moment of the noblest of men! Could he himself compare with the
father whom she had lost, in all that is highest in manhood? No. The
charge was foul and false. Lord Chetwynde was false for so doubting
his friend.
All this flashed over Zillah's mind, and at that moment, in her
revulsion of indignant pride, she forgot altogether all those doubts
which, but a short time before, had been agitating her own soul
--doubts, too, which were so strong that they had forced her to bring
on this scene with the Earl. All this was forgotten. Her loyalty to
her father triumphed over doubt, so soon as she saw another sharing
that doubt.
But her thoughts were suddenly checked.
The Earl, who had but lately shrunk away from her, now turned toward
her, and looked at her with a strange, dazed, blank expression of
face, and wild vacant eyes. For a moment he sat turned toward her
thus; and then, giving a deep groan, he fell forward out of his chair
on the floor. With a piercing cry Zillah sprang toward him and tried
to raise him up. Her cry aroused the household. Mrs. Hart was first
among those who rushed to the room to help her. She flung her arms
around the prostrate form, and lifted it upon the sofa. As he lay
there a shudder passed through Zillah's frame at the sight which she
beheld. For the Earl, in falling, had struck his head against the
sharp corner of the table, and his white and venerable hairs were now
all stained with blood, which trickled slowly over his wan pale face.