In the Chaise.
Hearing steps approaching, Donica recollected herself, and said, locking
the room door--
"Don't let them in for a minute."
"Who is she?" inquired the nurse, following Donica's glance.
"Lady Jane Lennox."
The woman looked at her with awe and a little involuntary courtesy,
which Lady Jane did not see.
"A relation--a--a sort of a niece like of the poor master--a'most a
daughter like, allays."
"Didn't know," whispered the woman, with another faint courtesy; "but
she's better out o' this, don't you think, ma'am?"
"Drink a little wine, Miss Jennie, dear," said Donica, holding the glass
to her lips. "Won't you, darling?"
She pushed it away gently, and got up, and looked at Sir Jekyl in
silence.
"Come away, Miss Jennie, darling, come away, dear, there's people at the
door. It's no place for you," said Donica, gently placing her hand under
her arm, and drawing her toward the study door. "Come in here, for a
minute, with old Donnie."
Lady Jane did go out unresisting, hurriedly, and weeping bitterly.
Old Donica glanced almost guiltily over her shoulder; the nurse was
hastening to the outer door. "Say nothing of us," she whispered, and
shut the study door.
"Come, Miss Jennie, darling; do as I tell you. They must not know."
They crossed the floor; at her touch the false door with its front of
fraudulent books opened. They were now in a dark passage, lighted only
by the reflection admitted through two or three narrow lights near the
ceiling, concealed effectually on the outside.
The reader will understand that I am here describing the architectural
arrangements, which I myself have seen and examined. At the farther end
of this room, which is about twenty-three feet long, is a niche, in
which stands a sort of cupboard. This swings upon hinges, secretly
contrived, and you enter another chamber of about the same length. This
room is almost as ill-lighted as the first, and was then stored with
dusty old furniture, piled along both sides, the lumber of fifty years
ago. From the side of this room a door opens upon the gallery, which
door has been locked for half a century, and I believe could hardly be
opened from without.
At the other end of this dismal room is a recess, in one side of which
is fixed an open press, with shelves in it; and this unsuspected press
revolves on hinges also, shutting with a concealed bolt, and is, in
fact, a door admitting to the green chamber.
It is about five years since I explored, under the guidance of the
architect employed to remove this part of the building, this mysterious
suite of rooms; and knowing, as I fancied, thoroughly the geography of
the house, I found myself with a shock of incredulity thus suddenly in
the green chamber, which I fancied still far distant. Looking to my
diary, in which I that day entered the figures copied from the ground
plan of the house, I find a little column which explains how the
distance from front to rear, amounting to one hundred and seventy-three
feet, is disposed of.
Measuring from the western front of the house, with which the front of
the Window dressing-room stands upon a level, that of the green chamber
receding about twelve feet:--
ft. in.
Window dressing-room or hexagon 12 0
Green chamber 38 0
Recess 2 0
First dark room 23 0
Recess 1 6
Second dark room 23 0
Recess 1 6
Study 25 0
Wall 1 0
Sir Jekyl's bed-room 27 0
Ante-room 10 0
Stair, bow-window of which forms part of the
eastern front 9 0
-------
173 0
I never spoke to anyone who had made the same exploration who was not as
much surprised as I at the unexpected solution of a problem which seemed
to have proposed bringing the front and rear of this ancient house, by
a "devilish cantrip slight," a hundred feet at least nearer to one
another than stone mason and foot-rule had ordained.
The rearward march from the Window dressing-room to the foot of the back
stair, which ascends by the eastern wall of the house, hardly spares you
a step of the full distance of one hundred and seventy-three feet, and
thus impresses you with an idea of complete separation, which is
enhanced by the remote ascent and descent. When you enter Sir Jekyl's
room, you quite forget that its great window looking rearward is in
reality nineteen feet nearer the front than the general line of the
rear; and when you stand in that moderately proportioned room, his
study, which appears to have no door but that which opens into his
bed-room, you could not believe without the evidence of these figures,
that there intervened but two rooms of three-and-twenty feet in length
each, between you and that green chamber, whose bow-window ranks with
the front of the house.
Now Lady Jane sat in that hated room once more, a room henceforward
loathed and feared in memory, as if it had been the abode of an evil
spirit. Here, gradually it seemed, opened upon her the direful vista of
the future; and as happens in tales of magic mirrors, when she looked
into it her spirit sank and she fainted.
When she recovered consciousness--the window open--eau de cologne, sal
volatile, and all the rest around her, with cloaks about her knees, and
a shawl over her shoulders, she sat and gazed in dark apathy on the
floor for a time. It was the first time in her life she had experienced
the supernatural panic of death.
Where was Jekyl now? All irrevocable! Nothing in this moment's state
changeable for ever, and ever, and ever!
This gigantic and inflexible terror the human brain can hardly apprehend
or endure; and, oh! when it concerns one for whom you would have almost
died yourself!
"Where is he? How can I reach him, even with the tip of my finger, to
convey that one drop of water for which he moans now and now, and
through all futurity?" Vain your wild entreaties. Can the dumb earth
answer, or the empty air hear you? As the roar of the wild beast dies in
solitude, as the foam beats in vain the blind cold precipice, so
everywhere apathy receives your frantic adjuration--no sign, no answer.
Now, when Donica returned and roused Lady Jane from her panic, she
passed into a frantic state--the wildest self-upbraidings; things that
made old Gwynn beat her lean hand in despair on the cover of her Bible.
As soon as this frenzy a little subsided, Donica laid her hand firmly on
the young lady's arm.
"Come, Lady Jane, you must stop that," she said, sternly. "What _I_ hear
matters nothing, but there's others that must not. The house full o'
servants; _think_, my darling, and don't let yourself _down_. Come away
with me to Wardlock--this is no place any longer for you--and let your
maid follow. Come along, Miss Jennie; come, darling. Come by the glass
door, there is no one there, and the chaise waiting outside. Come, miss,
you must not lower yourself before the like o' them that's about the
house."
It was an accident; but this appeal did touch her pride.
"Well, Donnie, I will. It matters little who now knows everything. Wait
one moment--my face. Give me a towel."
And with feminine precaution she hastily bathed her eyes and face,
looking into the glass, and adjusted her hair.
"A thick veil, Donnie."
Old Gwynn adjusted it, and Lady Jane gathered in its folds in her hand;
and behind this mask, with old Donnie near her, she glided down-stairs
without encountering anyone, and entered the carriage, and lay back in
one of its corners, leaving to Gwynn, who followed, to give the driver
his directions.
When they had driven about a mile, Lady Jane became strangely excited.
"I must see him again--I _must_ see him. Stop it. I _will_. Stop it."
She was tugging at the window, which was stiff. "Stop him, Gwynn. Stop
him, woman, and turn back."
"Don't, Miss Jennie; don't, darling. Ye could not, miss. Ye would not
face all them strangers, ma'am."
"Face them! What do you mean? _Face_ them! How dare they? I despise
them--I _defy_ them! What is their staring and whispering to me? I'll go
back. I'll return. I _will_ see him again."
"Well, Miss Jennie, where's the good? He's cold by this time."
"I must see him again, Donnie--I _must_."
"You'll only see what will frighten you. You never saw a corpse, miss."
"Oh! Donnie, Donnie, Donnie, don't--you mustn't. Oh! Donnie, yes, he's
gone, he is--he's _gone_, Donnie, and _I_'ve been his ruin. I--I--my
wicked, wretched vanity. He's gone, lost for ever, and it's _I_ who've
done it all. It's _I_, Donnie. I've destroyed him."
It was well that they were driving in a lonely place, over a rough way,
and at a noisy pace, for in sheer distraction Lady Jane screamed these
wild words of unavailing remorse.
"Ah! my dear," expostulated Donica Gwynn. "_You_, indeed! Put that
nonsense out of your head. _I_ know all about him, poor master Jekyl; a
wild poor fellow he was always. _You_, indeed! Ah! it's little you
know."
Lady Jane was now crying bitterly into her handkerchief, held up to her
face with both hands, and Donica was glad that her frantic fancy of
returning had passed.
"Donnie," she sobbed at last--"Donnie, you must never leave me. Come
with me everywhere."
"Better for you, ma'am, to stay with Lady Alice," replied old Donnie,
with a slight shake of her head.
"I--I'd rather die. She always hated him, and hated me. I tell you,
Gwynn, I'd swallow poison first," said Lady Jane, glaring and flushing
fiercely.
"Odd ways, Miss Jane, but means kindly. We must a-bear with one
another," said Gwynn.
"I hate her. She has brought this about, the dreadful old woman. Yes,
she always hated me, and now she's happy, for she has ruined me--quite
ruined--for nothing--all for nothing--the cruel, dreadful old woman. Oh,
Gwynn, is it all true? My God! is it true, or am I mad?"
"Come, my lady, you must not take on so," said old Gwynn. "'Tisn't
nothing, arter all, to talk so wild on. Doesn't matter here, shut up wi'
me, where no one 'ears ye but old Gwynn, but ye must not talk at that
gate before others, mind; there's no one talking o' ye yet--not a soul
at Marlowe; no one knows nor guesses nothing, only you be ruled by me;
you _know_ right well they can't guess nothink; and you must not be a
fool and put things in people's heads, d'ye _see_?"
Donica Gwynn spoke this peroration with a low, stern emphasis, holding
the young lady's hand in hers, and looking rather grimly into her eyes.
This lecture of Donica's seemed to awaken her to reflection, and she
looked for a while into her companion's face without speaking, then
lowered her eyes and turned another way, and shook old Gwynn's hand, and
pressed it, and held it still.
So they drove on for a good while in silence.
"Well, then, I don't care for one night--just one--and to-morrow I'll
go, and you with me; we'll go to-morrow."
"But, my lady mistress, _she_ won't like that, mayhap."
"Then _I_'ll go alone, that's all; for another night I'll not stay under
her roof; and I think if I were like myself nothing could bring me there
even for an hour; but I am not. I am quite worn out."
Here was another long silence, and before it was broken they were among
the hedgerows of Wardlock; and the once familiar landscape was around
her, and the old piers by the roadside, and the florid iron gate, and
the quaint and staid old manor-house rose before her like the scenery of
a sick dream.
The journey was over, and in a few minutes more she was sitting in her
temporary room, leaning on her hand, and still cloaked and bonneted,
appearing to look out upon the antique garden, with its overgrown
standard pear and cherry trees, but, in truth, seeing nothing but the
sharp face that had gazed so awfully into space that day from the pillow
in Sir Jekyl's bed-room.