AMONG THE SHADOWS.
When no more the shattered senses round the throne of reason dwell,
Thinking every sight a specter, every sound a passing bell;
When the mortal desolation falleth on the soul like rain,
And the wild hell-phantoms dance and revel in the human brain.
PHILIP STANHOPE WORSELY.
It was nearly dinner-time when Erle reached Redmond Hall; Sir Hugh had
not returned from London, Ellerton told him; he had telegraphed that
he might be detained all night--my lady was in the damask
drawing-room, and the young ladies had left an hour ago. Erle listened
to all this, and then rushed up to his room to make himself
presentable; and the dogs slunk off, evidently on the same errand.
He had to dine in solitary state by himself, while Fay ate her chicken
in the big drawing-room, where the old-fashioned mirrors always
reflected the tiny figure.
Fay was looking very pretty to-night, but just a trifle sad at the
thought that Hugh might not be home. She had put on his favorite gown,
too, to do honor to her first appearance in the drawing-room; it was a
lovely gown, and she looked a perfect fairy queen in it, as Erle told
her when he came into the room; but somehow Erle's praise was rather
flat to-night. Fay was longing for her husband; and she had only
dressed to please his eyes. She played with her wedding-ring rather
restlessly while Erle talked his nonsense, and then she remembered
that he must be amused.
"The girls were so dreadfully disappointed," she said, trying to rouse
herself; "they were very good and kind, and stayed with me until six,
and then Dora said they must go; she kept looking at the door, and
fancying she heard Nero bark; and then the younger one, Connie--no,
not Connie, it was Addie--asked so many questions about you--where you
lived, and if I had ever been to Belgrave House? trying to find out
things, you know; and, Erle--I don't believe you are listening a bit,"
with a stamp of her little foot.
"I don't believe I was," returned Erle, frankly. "Don't be vexed, my
Fairy Queen, I can't bother about the girls to-night. I want to tell
you about my visit to the Grange--it is no secret, Mr. Ferrers says,
and I thought you would be interested, it is such a strange affair
altogether."
Well, it was not such a dull evening after all: neither of them could
tell how the time had passed when Ellerton came in to say the last
train had been due for some time, and, as Sir Hugh had not returned,
would my lady have the house shut up; could it actually be past
eleven, and Erle and she still talking about this wonderful story.
Fay's cheeks were quite pink when she bade Erle goodnight; her eyes
shining like stars. Oh, these dear people, she thought, how strange
and sad it all was, and yet how interesting; she had made Erle
describe this Crystal over and over again. She must be an odd girl,
she thought--so passionate and so undisciplined, and to think she was
living with the other one, with the fair hair and the pretty smile;
but when she had said this there had been no answering smile on Erle's
face.
"Yes," he had returned, seriously, "I have often wondered to see them
such friends; they are so utterly dissimilar. Fern--Miss Trafford, I
mean--is gentle and yielding--more like you, Fay; and Miss Ferrers--as
I suppose I ought to call her--is so high-spirited and proud. I often
wonder how Percy dares to make love to her, but he seems to dare
anything."
Well, Fay thought about it all when she went to bed; she had got used
to her big shadowy room by this time; she lay wide awake watching the
fire-light flicker and dance on the walls; how odd that people who
loved each other so much should misunderstand each other so strangely;
of course Crystal loved this grand-looking Raby, and yet of her own
accord she was hiding from him; and Fay thrilled with pity and
affectionate sympathy, as she pondered over the sad story. She tried
to tell Hugh when he returned the next day, but he was too busy or
else unwilling to listen to her.
"Yes, I know all about it--I never cared very much for the girl," he
said, hastily; and then, as Fay looked intensely surprised, he added
rather irritably:
"I told you we were old friends once, and of course I saw Miss Crystal
when I visited at the Grange; she was never my taste--handsome, of
course, but one could see she had a bit of the devil in her--she had a
temper of her own if you like; and Mr. Ferrers spoiled her; he was
terribly infatuated--I dare say he is still--men will be fools
sometimes. There, don't keep me talking, Fay; of course every one in
Sandycliffe and Singleton knows the story. I am not so sure that it
was not wise of the girl to run away, after all."
"Hugh must have been very intimate with them all," thought Fay when
she was left alone. "How I wish he were not always too busy to talk to
me. Erle says he is sure he is killing himself rushing about as he
does, and he does look terribly ill. I wish he would see Dr. Martin,
but of course my asking him to do so would only make him angry. It is
very wrong of me, I am afraid; but I can not help longing to know why
Hugh has quarreled with them so. I don't like to vex him, but it seems
to me as though I have a right to know all that concerns my husband"--
and Fay's throat swelled and her eyes grew a little dim. "Perhaps when
something happens he will think me older and talk to me more," she
said; and though she was alone a rosy flush came over her face.
Fay was very sorry when the time came for Erle to go back to Belgrave
House; she would miss him sadly she knew. They had resumed their old
walks and drives, and Fay paid visits to Bonnie Bess in her stable,
and taught the pretty creature to follow her over the place like a
dog.
Erle was sorry to go too; he had grown very much attached to his new
cousin. Mr. Ferrers was to join him a little later at Belgrave House,
and he promised to write and give her full particulars of their visit
to Beulah Place. In his heart he had a secret longing to feel Fern's
hand in his again, and to see her bright welcoming smile. "I have been
here a whole month," he grumbled; "no wonder Hugh is tired of me by
this time."
Fay was rather surprised then to receive a letter from him two or
three days afterward telling her that Mr. Ferrers's visit was
indefinitely postponed.
"Everything has gone wrong," he wrote; "and the fates, those
mischievous cross-grained old women with the one eye between them, are
dead against us.
"I went over to Beulah Place the first evening just to reconnoiter,
and was much disgusted to hear that Miss Davenport--Miss Ferrers, I
mean, only I stick to the old name from habit--was nursing one of her
pupils with the measles. The little rascal--it is a boy--had refused
to be nursed by any one else; and there she is in the curate's house
kept in durance vile; and, to make matters worse, there is some talk
of her going out of town with them.
"I wrote off to the Grange at once, and Miss Ferrers answered me. Her
brother would defer his visit for the present, she said, until Miss
Davenport was back in her old quarters. He was much disappointed, of
course, at this delay; but he was satisfied to know that she was in
good hands, and he was used to disappointments. I did feel so sorry
for the poor old fellow when I read that." And the rest of the letter
was filled with lively descriptions of a ball where he had met Miss
Selby, and danced with her half the night.
Fay shook her head over this part of Erle's letter. He was an
incorrigible flirt, she was afraid; but she missed him very much. The
old Hall seemed very quiet without Erle's springy footsteps and merry
whistle, and somehow Fay was a little quieter too.
For a change was passing over Hugh's Wee Wifie in those early spring
days.
With the new hope there came a new and tender expression on her sweet
face.
She grew less child-like and more womanly, and day by day there grew a
certain modest dignity that became her well. Hugh was very gentle with
her, and careful to guard her from all imprudence; but life was very
difficult to him just then, and he could not always restrain his
growing irritability.
He was ill, and yet unwilling to own anything was amiss. He scoffed at
the idea that his nerves were disorganized; and with the utmost
recklessness seemed bent on ruining his fine constitution.
His restlessness and inward struggles were making him thin and
haggard; still any fatigue was better than inaction, he thought.
Often, after a long day spent in riding over the Redmond and Wyngate
estates, he would set out again, often fasting, to walk across plowed
lands and through miry lanes to visit some sick laborer, and then sit
up half the night in his solitary study.
Years afterward he owned that he never looked back on this part of his
life without an inward shudder.
What would have become of him, he said, if the hand of Providence had
not laid him low before he had succeeded in ruining himself, body and
soul?
No one but Hugh knew how often he had yielded to the temptation to
drown his inward miseries in pernicious drugs; how in those solitary
vigils, while his innocent child-wife was sleeping peacefully like an
infant, his half-maddened brain conjured up delirious fancies that
seemed to people the dark library with haunting faces.
But he never meant to harm himself really; he would say in his sober
daylight reflections he was only so very wretched. Margaret's
influence had always kept him pure, and he was not the man to find
pleasure in any dissipation.
No, he would not harm himself; but he wanted more to do. If he could
represent his county, for example; but he had lost his seat last
election to his neighbor Colonel Dacre! If he could travel; if Fay
would only spare him! And then he shook his head as he thought of his
unborn child.
"You look so ill, Hugh," Fay would say with tears in her eyes when he
came up to wish her good-bye, "I wish you would stay with me a
little."
But Hugh would only give a forced laugh, and say that his "Wee Wifie
was becoming more fanciful than ever, and that he should not know what
to do with her if she went on like this;" and then, kissing her
hastily, and unloosening the little hands from his neck, he would go
out of the room pretending to whistle.
But one evening, when they were together in the library, he fell
asleep while she was talking to him, and looked so strange and flushed
that Fay got frightened and tried to wake him.
"Come, Hugh," she said, softly, "it is eleven o'clock, and I can not
leave you like this, and I am so tired and sleepy, dear;" and she
knelt down and put her hand under his head, and stroked back the hair
from his hot forehead. But Hugh only muttered something inaudibly, and
turned his face away.
And Fay, watching him anxiously, felt her heart sink with some
undefined fear, and presently rang for his valet.
"Saville," she said, as the man entered the room, "I do not know what
is the matter with Sir Hugh to-night, he sleeps so heavily and looks
so strange. If it were not so late, and I were sure that he would not
mind it, I would send for Doctor Martin."
"Nonsense," exclaimed her husband, drowsily, for this threat of
sending for the doctor had roused him effectually, and he managed to
sit up and look at them.
"Why, what a white shaking child you look, you are not fit to be up so
late, Fay; why don't you take more care of yourself."
"I was so frightened, dear," she whispered; "I could not bear to leave
you. I am sure you are ill, Hugh; do let Saville help you to bed."
"Oh, is that Saville? I thought--I thought--well, never mind. There is
nothing the matter with me, Saville, is there?"
"No, Sir Hugh; only it is late, and I expect you are tired, as my lady
said."
"But she said I was ill"--very querulously; "I have never had a day's
illness in my life, have I, Saville? Mrs. Heron will know; ask Mrs.
Heron--well, I think I may as well go to bed and have my sleep out."
And the next day he reiterated the same thing, that there was nothing
the matter with him, nothing; only they had not called him at the
usual time, and he had slept late; but he had no appetite, and did not
care to rise.
It was foolish to have tired himself out so, he owned. But if Fay were
good and would not scold him, she might sit with him and read
something amusing. But he did not tell her, or Saville either, that he
had tried to dress himself and had fallen back half fainting on the
bed, or of the strange horrible feelings that were creeping over him,
and that made him dread to be alone. Only Fay was very disappointed
that he did not seem to hear anything she read; or remember a word of
it. It was the shooting pain in his head, he told her; and then he
laughed in a way that was hardly mirthful, and said he would try to
sleep.
But that night he never closed his eyes, and yet the next day he would
not allow Fay to send for the doctor, though she begged piteously for
permission. Doctors were old women, he said, and Dr. Martin
especially. It was only the pain in his head that kept him awake and
made him so feverish; but toward the evening his eyes began to shine
beautifully, and he grew quite lively and talkative.
He said he was much better, if only his head and hands were not
burning like live coals; and that he meant if it were fine to drive
Fay out in the pony-carriage to-morrow, and they would go and call on
Margaret.
Fay stared, as well she might. Did Hugh mean Miss Ferrers? she asked,
timidly.
And Hugh, speaking thickly, like a drunken man, said, "Yes, certainly!
and why not?" and he would ask Margaret to go with him to Shepherd's
Corner to-morrow, and see Tim Hartlebury, who was lying dying or dead,
he did not know which; but apropos to the Sudbury politics, and the
old Tory member, Lord Lyndhurst of Lyndhurst, at whom the Radical
party, with the publican of the Green Drake at their head, had shied
rotten eggs, would Lady Redmond assure him that the Grange was not
infested with serpents. The old hydra-headed reptile had lived there
in his father's time, and there was a young brood left, he heard, that
were nourished on Margaret's roses. No, he repeated, if there were
serpents at the Grange they would not drive there, for he was afraid
of Raby, and he hated parsons, for even blind ones could see
sometimes, and they might tell tales--lies--he said, beating wildly on
the bedclothes; lies, every one of them, and would they please take
away his Wee Wifie, for he was tired of her. And Fay, trembling very
much, called out to Saville to come quickly, for Sir Hugh was talking
so funnily, she could not make out what he meant. And Saville, as he
stood and held his master's hands, thought his talk so very fanny that
he summoned Mrs. Heron and Ellerton at once, while the groom saddled
one of the horses and galloped off for Dr. Martin; and when Dr.
Martin arrived, and had seen his patient, the mystery was soon
cleared.
Sir Hugh had brain fever; and that night Ellerton and Saville had to
hold him down in his bed to prevent him throwing himself from the
window. He very nearly did it once in the cunning of his madness, when
they left him unguarded for a moment; and after that they had to strap
him down.
They had taken his Wee Wifie from him almost by force; she had clung
to him so--her poor mad Hugh, as she called him. But Mrs. Heron took
the distracted young creature in her motherly arms when Dr. Martin
brought her downstairs, and soothed her as though she were a child.
Fay put her head down on the housekeeper's shoulder and cried until
she could cry no longer. "Will he die--will my darling die?" was all
she could say at first; and then she would ask piteously to go back to
him.
No one ventured to let her cross the threshold. After this there were
two hospital nurses sent down from London, and Dr. Conway, a
well-known physician in town, met Dr. Martin in consultation. Saville
and Ellerton were always in the sick-room when wanted. Everything that
money could procure, or faithful attendance could give, was lavished
on the patient, but for a long time there was no improvement.
If his violence had not banished Fay from the room his miserable
ravings would.
The nurses were too much accustomed to such scenes to take much notice
of their patient's wild talk; but the trusty old servants, who knew
their master's secret, shuddered as they heard him, for his talk was
always of Margaret. He never even mentioned his Wee Wifie.
"Oh, for Margaret!" he cried, to give him water to quench his thirst;
for he was in torment, and no one could give him drink. Oh, for
Margaret's cool hand--for Maggie--for his own love, Margaret; and so
on and so on, through the long hours of that fevered dream.
How that one idea beset him!
She was a star, and he went seeking her through space till he got lost
and entangled in the Milky Way, and revolved madly through the
infinite.
She was in Paradise, standing on the topmost stair of the golden
ladder, stretching out her hands and calling to him to come to her
before the door was shut; and ever as he tried to climb, the fiends
came swarming from their pits of darkness, and dragged him down with
endless fallings and precipitous crashings, while his Wee Wifie
laughed mockingly from the distance.
"Oh, for Margaret, Margaret, Margaret!" and so on through the day and
through the night, until they thought it must have killed him.
Those were terrible days at Redmond Hall. The very servants went
carefully about the house with hushed voices, looking after their
young mistress with pitying eyes, as she wandered like a lost spirit
from one room to another, generally followed by the faithful Janet.
Erle came down once, but Fay grew so hysterical at the sight of her
old favorite that Mrs. Heron was quite frightened, and begged him to
go away; and, as he could do no good, he acquiesced very sensibly in
this piece of advice.
Mrs. Heron was growing quite unhappy about my lady. Nothing she could
say would make Fay cease from those aimless wanderings; she could not
eat, she could not rest, and her fits of weeping seemed only to
exhaust her.
Nothing did her any good until Dr. Martin came to her one day, and,
taking the thin little hand in his, gave her his faithful promise
that, if the fever abated, and she were strong enough, she should help
to nurse him by and by, but it would depend upon herself, he said,
meaningly; and Fay promised to eat and sleep that she might be fit to
nurse Hugh.
She meant to be good and keep her promise; but one evening the longing
to see her husband was too strong for her.
Saville had just gone down-stairs for something and had left the
dressing-room door ajar. Fay, gliding down the corridor in her white
dress, caught sight of the half-opened door, and the temptation was
too strong for her; the next moment she was in the dimly lighted room,
with her finger on the handle of the closed door.
It yielded to her touch at once, and Fay's hungry eyes tried to pierce
through the semi-darkness.
It was the oriel chamber, and Sir Hugh lay on the very bed where, Mrs.
Heron had solemnly assured Fay, many a Redmond had breathed his first
and last breath. It had been found impossible to move him, but Fay did
not remember this as she stood with beating heart, not daring to move
a step.
It was very quiet and still--one of the strange nurses was sitting by
the bed with her face toward the patient; she had not heard Fay's
stealthy entrance; the next moment Fay choked back a sob that
threatened to rise in her throat, for she had caught sight at last of
the white changed face that lay on the pillow; and then, regardless of
everything but her love and longing, she glided quickly to the bed,
and kissing the wide staring eyes, laid the shaven head tenderly upon
her bosom.
"Oh, my lady!" exclaimed the nurse, in a terrified voice, "this is
very wrong--very wrong indeed."
"Hush--I am his wife--I have a right to be here. You know me, do you
not, my darling Hugh?"
Poor Fay! she had her punishment then; for Hugh did not know her in
the least, and seemed to shrink from her with horror; he begged her to
send Margaret to him--his dear Margaret, and not stand there like some
white horrible statue dressed up in grave-clothes.
"You had better go, my lady, you are only exciting him," observed the
nurse, quietly; and Fay wrung her hands and hurried from the room.
Saville found her crouching against the dressing-room door, with her
face hidden in her hands, and fetched Mrs. Heron at once to coax her
away; but Fay hardly seemed to understand their meaning; her face had
a white, strained look upon it as Mrs. Heron put her arm round her and
led her tenderly to her room.