"You like the old tower in the church-yard, Miss Percival, I believe?"
"Oh, yes: it is a great attraction for me. Redleaf would be Redleaf no
longer, if it were away."
"Have you visited it since you've been here this time?"
"Once only."
"Were there any changes?" she asked.
"A few," I said. "There is another entrance to the tower than by the
door, Miss Axtell."
Slowly the lady dropped back to the pillows whence she had arisen from
the disturbing dream. She did not move again for many minutes; then it
was a few low-spoken words that summoned me to her side.
"I know there is another entrance to the tower," she said; "but I did
not think that any one else knew of it. Who told you?"
"Excuse me from answering, if you please," I said, unwilling to excite
her more, for I knew that the fever was rising rapidly.
"Who knows of this besides you? You don't mind telling me that much?"
"No one knows it, I think; no person told me, and I have told no one.
You seem to have more fever; can you not sleep?"
"Not with all this equinoctial storm raging, and the tide you told me of
coming up with the wind."
She looked decidedly worse. Mr. Axtell let her have her own way. I
thought it wise to follow his leading, and I asked,--
"What tide do you mean? You cannot hear the sea, and it isn't time for
the equinoctial gale."
This question seemed to have quieted Miss Axtell beyond thought of
reply. She did not speak again until the Sabbath-day had begun. Then, at
the very point where she had ceased, she recommenced.
"It is a pity to let the sea in on the fertile fields of your young
life," she said; "but this tide,--it is not that that is now flowing in
on the far-away beach of Redcliff. It is the tide of emotion, that _some
one day_ in life begins to rise in the human heart,--and, oh, what a
strange, wondrous thing it is! There are Bay-of-Fundy tides, and the
uniform tides, and the tideless waters that rest around Pacific Isles;
and no mortal knoweth the cause of their rise or fall. So in human
hearts: some must endure the great throbbing surges that are so hard
coming against one poor heart with nothing but the earth to rest upon,
and yet _must stand fast_; then there are the many, the blessed
congregation of hearts, that are only stirred by moderate, even-flowing
emotions, that never rise over a tide-line, behind which the
congregation are quite secure, and stand and censure the souls striving
and toiling in waves that they only look upon, but never--no,
never--feel. Is this right, Miss Percival?"
"It seems not," I said; "but the tideless hearts, what of them?"
"Oh, they are the hardest of all. Think! Imagine one of those serene,
iridescent rings of land, moored close beside the cliff, at which the
waves never rest from beating. Could the one forever at peace, with
leave from wind and wave to grow its verdure and twine its tendrils just
where it would,--_could_ it feel for the life-points against which the
Gulf-Stream only now and then sent up a cheering bit of warmth, whilst
the soul of the cliff saw its own land of greenness, only far, far away
over the waters, but could not attain unto it, not whilst north-land
winds blow or the earth-time endures?"
Miss Axtell ceased, and the same fixed, absorbed expression came to her.
She looked as she had done on the night, four days since, when I came in
at that door for the first time. I thought of the question her brother
had asked me concerning the turning of the key; and crossing the room, I
turned it.
"Why did you lock the door?" she asked.
"I am constitutionally timid," was my apology.
"You have never evinced it before; why now?"
"Because I have not thought of it sooner."
"Will you unlock it, please?" she asked; and her eyes were very bright
with the fever-fire that I knew was burning up, until I feared the flame
would touch her mind. "I don't like being locked in; I wish to be free,"
she added.
This lady has something of Mr. Axtell's command of manner. I could not
think it right to refuse to comply, and I unlocked the door.
She seemed restless. "Bring me the key, will you?" she asked, after a
few moments of silence, in which her wandering eyes sought the door
frequently.
I gave it to her. I might have locked the door before giving her the
key, but I could not do it even in her approach to wildness. I hate
deception as devoutly as she disguises. She thanked me for my
compliance, and said, with a scintillation of coaxingness in her
manner,--
"You need not be afraid; there's nothing to harm one in Redleaf."
"Why did you come, to be kind to me, sick and in sorrow?" she suddenly
asked, whilst I, unseen by her, was preparing one of the soothing
powders that still were left from the night wherein I forgot my duty.
I knew not how to reply. The very bit of material which she had hidden
underneath a pillow was the cause; and so I answered,--
"Town-life is so different; one becomes so accustomed to a ring of
changes in the all-around of life, that, when in the country, one looks
for something to remind one of the life that has been left."
"Then you did not come from genuine kindness?"
"No, I am afraid not."
"Do not be afraid to be truthful, ever," she said, and added,--"Once
more, will you tell me where you found the fragment you have given me?"
"I cannot, Miss Axtell."
She did not speak again, but lay looking at the ceiling until long after
the moon had risen,--the waning moon, that comes up so weirdly, late in
the night, like a spectre of light appointed to haunt the solemn old
earth, and punish it with the remembrance of a brighter, better light
gone, and a renewed consciousness of its own once unformed, chaotic
existence. I saw rays from it coming in through the parted curtains, and
distinctly traced tree-branches wavering to and fro out in the
night-wind, set astir as the moon came up. At last she said,--
"I wish you would go to sleep. Won't you wake Katie up, and then lie
down? She has had a rest."
"Poor, tired child," I said; "she had work to do yesterday; I had not."
"Abraham, then, if not Katie."
"He has been up three nights, Miss Axtell,--I only one."
"I did not know it," she said. "I forgot that I had been so long ill."
"Will you try and sleep?" once more I asked; "it is near morning."
She wished to know the hour, made me give her watch into her own
keeping, and then said "she would not talk, no, she would be very quiet,
if I would only gratify her by making myself comfortable on the lounge."
It did not seem very unreasonable, and I consented.
"But you are looking at me," she said. "I hate to be watched; do shut
your eyes."
I looked away from her. Time went on. I heard the clock strike four
times, in the March night. Miss Axtell was very quiet,--better, I was
convinced. I arose once to rebuild the fire. Wood-fires burn down so
soon. Then I took up my watch, thinking over the strange events, all
unconsummated, that had been and still were in being under this roof.
Five hours came booming up from the village-clock. The wind must have
changed, or I could not have heard the strokes, so roundly full.
"How short the hour has been!" was my first thought. Kino began a
furious, untimely barking. "What for?" I wondered; and I lifted up my
head and listened. No sound; the room was very still. Miss Axtell had
dropped the curtains of the bed. It annoyed her, I supposed, to feel
herself watched. "Her breathing is very soft," I thought; "I do not even
hear it. Her sleep must be pleasant, after the fever."
I laid my head down to its resting-place, listening still. Kino kept up
a low, ominous growl, quite different from his first barking. Nothing
more came. "I'm glad he doesn't waken Miss Axtell," I thought; and
gradually Kino dropped his growls into low, plaintive moans, which in
time died away. As they did so, another sound, not outside, but in the
house, set my poor, weak heart into violent throbbings. Footsteps were
in the upper hall, I felt sure. Miss Axtell might not hear them, if she
had not heard Kino's louder noise. Slowly they came,--not heavy, with a
stout, manly tread, but muffled. They came close to the door. If the key
were only in it! But I could not move. I heard a hand going over it,
just as I had heard that hand three days before in the dark tower. A
moment's awful pour of feeling, and then came the gentlest, softest of
knocks. Why did I not get up and see who it was? Simply because Nature
made me cowardly, and meant me, therefore, to bear cowardice bravely. I
never moved. A second time came the knock, but no more nerve of sound in
it than at the first. A hand touched the knob after that, and turning it
gently, the door was carefully pushed open, and a figure, looking very
much like Mr. Axtell, only the long, dark hair fell over his face, came
noiselessly in. I could not tell at the moment who it was. I watched him
cautiously. He stood still, looking first at the bed, whose curtains
were down, then around the room. For one moment I thought him looking at
me, and involuntarily my eyelids closed, lest he might know himself
watched. He put up his hand, and pushed back the heavy hair from his
forehead. It was only Mr. Axtell. The relief was so great that I
spoke,--softly, it is true.
"What is it?" I asked. "Is anything wrong, Mr. Axtell?"
"It seems not," he said. "Kino's barking aroused me,--it is so unusual.
How has she slept?"
"Very well. For the last hour she has not spoken."
Kino began again his low, dismal howling.
"Did not the dog disturb her when he barked?"
Mr. Axtell had walked to the lounge from which I had risen, still
speaking in the voice that has much of tone without much sound.
"No,--she did not seem to hear it."
"She must be sleeping very deeply," the brother said; and as he spoke,
he cautiously uplifted a fold of the hangings.
What was it that came over his face, made visible even in the gloom of
the room? Something terrible.
"What is it?" I asked, springing up; "what has happened?" and I put out
my hand to take the look at the sleeper in there that he had done.
He stayed my hand, waved it back, folded his arms, as if nothing unusual
had occurred, and questioned me.
"What has she talked about to-night?"
"She has said very little."
"Tell me something that she has said, immediately"; and he looked
fearfully agitated.
"What has happened?" I asked; and again I caught at the hangings which
concealed the fearful thing that he had seen.
"Answer me!" Two words only, but tremendously uttered.
"She asked me if I liked the tower in the church-yard," I said.
"You told her what?"
"That I did like it."
"Has she seemed worried about anything?" and Mr. Axtell threw up a
window-sash, letting the cold March wind into this room of sickness. As
he did so, I lifted the folds that the wind rudely swayed. _Miss Axtell
was not there_.
He turned around. I stood speechless.
"How long have you been asleep?" he asked, coolly, as if nothing had
occurred.
"Not at all," I answered. Then I thought, "I must have slept, else she
could not have gone out without my knowing it."--"I heard the stroke of
four and of five," I said.
He looked up and down the street, only a little lighted by the feeble,
old, fading moon.
"Have you any idea where she would go?" he asked.
"She may be in the house," I said; "why not look?"
"No; I found the front-door unfastened. I thought Katie might have
forgotten it, when I went to see. She has gone out, I know."
He looked for the wrappings she might have put on, searching, as he did
so, for the small lamp that always was placed beside the larger one upon
the table. It was gone. It had been there at four o'clock, when I put
wood on the fire.
"Where would she carry a lamp?" Mr. Axtell asked, as he went on,
searching, in known places, for articles of apparel that were not in
their wonted homes. Having found them, he went out hurriedly, went to
his own room, came out thence a moment after, with boots on his feet in
place of the slippers he had frightened me with, and an overcoat across
his arm. He did not seem to see me, as I stood waiting in the hall.
"Where are you going?" I asked of him, but he did not answer. He went
straight on by me, and down, out of the house, closing the great
hall-door after him with a force that shook the walls.
I went into the deserted room, put down the window-sash that he had left
open, laid more wood upon the dying embers, caught up Miss Axtell's
shawl, and, throwing it over my head, started down the stairs. It was
pitch-dark, not even moonlight, there. I went back for a lamp: the only
one was the heavy bronze, in the lone room. Mr. Axtell's door was open.
He had left a light. I went in and took it up, with a box of matches
lying near, and once more started down the stairs. How full of trembling
I was! yet not afraid: there was a life, perhaps, to save. I opened the
heavy oaken door. The wind put out my light. I did not need it longer.
The shred of moon, hanging prophetic of doom, let out its ghastly
whiteness to ghost the village.
Kino did not bark. The wind came down the street from churchward, whence
I had heard the stroke of the village-clock. Ten minutes past five: it
would be morning soon. I listened. The wind brought me footsteps, going
farther and farther on: or was it the fluttering of my own garments that
I heard? "I will know," I thought; and I ran a little way, then listened
again. They seemed less far than before, but still going on. I ran
again, farther than at first. I saw a figure before me, but, oh, _so_
far! It seemed that I should never catch it. I tried, and called. I
might as well have shouted to my father, miles away; for the wind
carried my voice nearer to him than to Mr. Axtell, hurrying on. Where
would he go? I tried to keep him in sight. He turned a corner, and the
wind tormented me; it was almost a gale that blew, and I had the shawl
to hold over my head. I came to the corner that he had turned: it was
near the parsonage,--only two or three houses away. There was less of
wind. I went on, half-breathless with the intensity of the effort I made
to breathe. The stars looked cold. I was near the church-yard. First the
church,--then the place of graves,--after that, the long, sloping
garden, and the parsonage higher up. I passed by the last house. I drew
near to the church. How fearful! I stopped. It was only a momentary
weakness: a life was concerned; it was no place for idle fears. I crept
on, shivering with the cold, and the night, and the loneliness, and the
awful thought that the Deity was punishing me for having gone, in
imagination, down to the cradle of His dead, by sending me out this
night among graves. I heard the church-windows rattling coarse, woody
tunes; but I tried not to hear, and went past. A low paling ran along
the interval between the church and the parsonage-garden. I had crossed
the street when I came up to the church; now I moved along opposite this
fearful spot. The paling was white. I listened. No sound. A shadow from
a tall pine-tree fell across a part of the paling. Therein I thought I
saw what might be Mr. Axtell, leaning on the fence. I went a little of
the distance across the street. Whatever it was, it stirred. I ran back,
and started on, thinking to gain the parsonage. The figure--it was Mr.
Axtell--came after me. As soon as I knew, for he called, "Lettie," I
stopped and turned toward him.
"It isn't your sister," I said.
"You, Miss Percival? Why are you out?" and he seemed anxious. He said,
"You are suffering too much from the 'strange people.'"
How could he mention my hasty words at such a time? and I remembered the
unforgiving face that I had touched a fathom deep under the hard ground.
"I'm glad I've found you," I said. "Have you the church-key?"