THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT.
After the party was out of sight, I went into Mrs. Dennison's room to
see that the maid had performed her duty, as was my custom; for I had
assumed these light cares in the household, and loved them from the fact
that they attached an idea of usefulness to my residence in the house.
Everything seemed in order. Cora, the mulatto girl, was busily arranging
the dress her mistress had just taken off. Ear-rings and a brooch of
blue lava were lying on the toilet, and the pretty cap, with its
streamers of black velvet and azure ribbon, hung upon one of the
supports of the dressing-table, as she had left them.
I looked for the basket of mossrose-buds, but it was gone; some buds
were opening in one of the toilet-glasses, but that was all. Why had the
widow Dennison taken such pains to put the basket out of sight?
"What have you done with the basket?" I inquired very quietly of the
girl. "If you wet the moss again, we can fill it with fresh flowers."
"What basket, Miss?" inquired the girl, lifting her black eyes
innocently to my face.
"The basket you brought in here last evening."
"Oh, that!" she continued, dropping her eyes; "I've made so many of them
things that mistress doesn't seem to care for 'em any more."
"You--you make them?"
"Yes, indeed! Is there any harm, Miss?" she said, lifting her eyes
again, with a look of genuine earnestness.
"And you arranged those buds in the moss?"
"Yes, indeed!"
"And placed the half peach among them?"
"Was there any harm, Miss?"
"The half peach--after an Oriental fashion?"
"Dear me! I hope there wasn't any harm in the gardener's letting me have
that one. It was the first I had seen this year, so I couldn't give up
more than I did; but it was the biggest half that I saved for the
mistress."
Nothing could be more natural than her dawning contrition, nothing more
satisfactory than the solution she had given to a subject that had kept
me awake half the night. What a fool I had been! Was I, in fact,
becoming fanciful and old-maidish--ready to find error in shadows, and
crimes in everything? Heaven forbid that anything so unwomanly and
indelicate as this should come upon me.
Was it possible that I, in the waning freshness of my life, had begun to
envy brighter and handsomer women the homage due to their attraction,
and had thus become suspicious? The very idea humiliated me; I felt
abashed before that mulatto girl, who sat so demurely smoothing the
folds of her mistress's breakfast-dress across her lap. It seemed as if
she must have some knowledge of the mean suspicion that had brought me
there. How artful and indirect my conduct had been! In my heart I had
rather plumed myself on the adroit way in which my questions had been
put regarding that annoying basket. Now, I was heartily ashamed of it
all, and stole out of the room bitterly discomfited.
In shutting the door, I glanced back; the girl was looking up from her
work. The demure expression had left her face, the black eyes flashed
and danced as they followed me; but the moment my look met hers, all
this passed away so completely, that my very senses were confused, and
the doubts that I had put aside came crowding back upon me.
I went up to Mrs. Lee's room. She was resting on the lounge, sound
asleep; but her face seemed cold as well as pale. There was a strange
look about it, as if all the vitality were stricken out; yet she
breathed evenly, and though I made some noise in entering, it did not
disturb her in the least.
I sat down on a low chair by the side of her couch; for Jessie had
desired me to sit by her during all the time I could command. Thus I was
placed close to the gentle sleeper. The deathly stillness in which she
lay troubled me; it seemed too profound for healthy slumber. One little
hand fell over the couch. I took it in my own, and passed my other hand
softly over it. Strange enough, she did not move, but began to murmur in
her sleep, while a cold, troubled cloud contracted her forehead.
"Ah! now I can see everything--everything; they are cantering by the old
mill. I haven't seen it before in years. How beautifully the shadows
fall on the water; the waves are tipped with silver; the trees rustle
pleasantly! No wonder they draw up to look at the mill; it always was a
picturesque object!"
She was following the equestrians in her dreams--those strange dreams
that seemed to drink up all the color and warmth from her body.
According to the best calculation I could make, the party would have
reached the old mill about this time. It stood under the curve of the
precipitous banks, a mile or two up the river, and Mr. Lee had spoken of
riding that way at breakfast. Thus it seemed more than probable that the
party was exactly as she fancied it. Mr. Lee had doubtless informed her
what route he would take, and so her imagination followed him while her
frail form slumbered.
She stirred uneasily on her pillow, drew her black eyebrows together,
and spoke again:--
"Why does he leave my Jessie? She don't want to be left with that young
man;--and he, poor fellow! how frightened he is! What is that he is
saying? Wants to marry my Jessie! Alas! how the heart shrinks in her
bosom! My poor child! he should not distress you so! Yet it is an honest
heart he offers--full of warmth, full of goodness! Can't you understand
that, my darling?"
After this speech she lay quiet a few minutes, and then spoke like one
who had been examining something that puzzled her.
"Jessie, Jessie! what is this? Why does your heart stand still while he
speaks to her? It troubles me, darling. I am your mother, and this thing
disturbs me more than you can guess. You have driven one away--he
retreats to the rear, heart-broken. That other one comes up. Who is he?
what is he? Ask her, for she is watching him, and her loaded heart
follows after, though he, my husband, is by her side."
Here she dropped into silence again, only breaking it by faint moans,
and a single ejaculation, "Oh, not that! not that!"
Her face grew so painfully wan, and she gave evidence of so much inward
anguish, that I was constrained to arouse her. My voice made no
impression, and the clasp of my hand only threw her into a more deathly
slumber. I began to comprehend her state. I had heard of deep trances,
when the soul seems released from the body, or is gifted with something
like prophecy. I knew, or believed, that this was an unhealthy state,
the result of disease, or the offspring of a badly balanced
organization; and this thought horrified me; there was something of the
supernatural in it that filled my soul with awe. By the contraction of
her pale forehead, I saw that there was some distress in the head; so
lifting my hand, I passed it across her brow, hoping to soothe away the
pain.
Certainly, the face became calm, a smile stole across the lips, and
after a moment her eyes opened, and looked vaguely around, as a child
awakes from its sleep.