THE FALL OF THE DUBARRYS.
But, soft! behold, lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.--Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me!--SHAKESPEARE.
"The Dubarrys," he began, "were a French Roman Catholic family of
distinction. A cadet of that family came over to Virginia among the
earliest English settlers of the colony.
"As in the case of the more important among his anglican comrades, he
obtained a very large tract of land by Royal patent. He built his hut
and fixed his abode here, not a hundred yards from the spot where this
church now stands.
"He took an Indian girl for a wife, and continued to live a wild
huntsman sort of life in the wilderness; only breaking it sometimes by
going down to Jamestown, twice a year, to buy such necessaries of
civilized life as the wilderness could not furnish, and to hear news
from any ship that might have come in from the old country; and above
all, to take a holiday among civilized pleasure-seekers--for such
existed even in the primitive settlement of Jamestown.
"In due course of time, a family of half-breed sons and daughters grew
up around him, and the little primitive hut gave place to a substantial
stone lodge.
"And the country around was becoming settled. The Berners had got a
grant of the Black Valley, and had built the first part of Black Hall,
which has since been added to in every generation, until it has grown to
its present dimensions.
"About this time also, Charles Dubarry was inspired with a certain
ambition for his eldest son, a densely ignorant, half-Indian youth of
nineteen; and hearing that the two young sons of Richard Berners of
Black Hall were to be sent to England to be educated, he proposed that
his own 'black boy,' as he called his handsome dark-eyed heir, should go
with them. And as the three lads had been forest companions for some
years, the proposal of old Dubarry was gladly accepted, and the three
young men sailed in company for England.
"They spent ten years in the old world, and returned, as as they had set
out, together. It was after their return that the close friendship of a
young lifetime was turned to the deadliest enmity. It happened in this
manner:
"The country, during their absence, had grown a great deal in
population. Every rich valley among these mountains had its white
proprietor. In the Valley of the Roses--so named, because at the time it
was taken possession of by its first proprietor, it was fairly carpeted
and festooned all around and about with the wild-rose vine--dwelt one
Gabriel Mayo, a gentleman of fortune, taste, and culture. He had a
family of fair daughters, of whom old Charles Dubarry, with his national
gallantry and proneness to exaggeration, had said, that 'they were all
the most beautiful girls in the world, and each one more beautiful than
all the others.'
"Be that as it may, it is certain that there were five lovely maidens,
ranging from fifteen years to twenty-one, to choose from. Yet who can
account for human caprice, especially in such matters? The three young
men--Louis Dubarry, and John and William Berners--all fixed their
affections upon Florette Mayo, the youngest beauty.
"Fierce and bitter was the rivalry between the lovers. But the young
girl returned the love of John Berners, and married him, and became your
ancestress, as you know, Sybil.
"And from that time to the time of the extinction of the American branch
of the Dubarry family, a feud, as fierce and bitter, if not as warlike,
as any that ever raged between rival barons of the middle ages,
prevailed between the Berners and the Dubarrys.
"I come now to the period just before the breaking out of the Old French
War, when the first rude stone lodges in these valleys had given place
to handsome and spacious manor houses, and when the then proprietor of
the Dubarry estate had erected a magnificent dwelling on the site of his
first rough cottage. He called the mansion the Chateau Dubarry, a name
which the country people quickly changed into Shut-up Dubarry.
"The last name was not inappropriate, for a more morose, solitary, and
misanthropical man never lived than Henry Dubarry, the builder of that
house. He neither visited nor received visits, but remained selfishly
'shut-up' in the paradise of art and letters that he had created within
his dwelling.
"He had a wife, a son, and two daughters, all of whom suffered more or
less from this isolation from their fellow-beings. So it was a great
relief to the son when he was sent, first to the William and Mary
College of Williamsburg for five years, and afterwards to Oxford for
five more.
"After the departure of the son and brother, the mother and sisters
suffered more and more seriously from the gloom and horror of their
isolation, and in the course of years utterly succumbed to it. First the
mother died, then the elder sister; and then the younger sister, left
alone with her recluse father in that awful house, became a maniac.
"Under these circumstances, the father wrote to his son to come home.
But selfishness, not love, ruled that young man, as it had ruled his
fathers. He had graduated with honors, and won a 'fellowship' at the
University, and he was about to start for the fashionable European tour.
He wrote home to this effect, and went on his farther way.
"He remained abroad until summoned home by two events--the deaths of his
father and sister, and the necessity of raising money for himself.
"He came home, but not alone. He brought with him a gipsy girl of
singular beauty, who seemed to be passionately attached to him, and whom
he loved as much as it was in his selfish nature to love anything.
"He placed her at the head of his household, and his simple servants
obeyed her as their mistress; and his sociable neighbors, willing to
forgive old rebuffs, called upon the young pair.
"But their visits were not kindly received, and not in any case
returned. And the report went around the neighborhood, that Philip
Dubarry was as morose and selfish as his father had been before him. And
so the house was abandoned, as it had been in the days of the old man
and the idiot girl.
"But by and by other rumors, darker and more dishonorable to the master
and mistress of Shut-up Dubarry, crept out among the people. These
rumors were started by the Dubarry servants, in their gossipping with
other family servants in the chance meeting in church or village. They
were to the effect that Philip Dubarry often quarrelled fiercely with
his gipsy wife, and even threatened to send her back to her native
county, and that Gentiliska, or Iska, as she was more commonly called,
wept and raved and tore her black hair by turns.
"It is the old sad tale, dear Sybil. At length the cultivated scholar
and unprincipled villain grew tired of his beautiful but ignorant gipsy
wife, who was a wife only in justice and not in law. He frequently left
home for long absences. He spent his winters in the cities, and his
summers in a round of visits to hospitable country houses, leaving her
at all seasons to pine and weep, or rage and tear her hair in the gloomy
solitude of Shut-up Dubarry. But for all this, whenever he did
condescend to visit his home, she received him with an eagerness of
welcome--a perfect self-abandonment to joy, that knew no bounds. And
when he left her again, her despair was but the deeper, her anguish the
fiercer. And all this was duly reported by that indefatigable corps of
reporters, the domestics of the house.
"At last came the crisis. Philip Dubarry sent down an agent who opened
the doors of Shut-up Dubarry, and brought into it an army of workmen, to
repair, refurnish and decorate the mansion-house. In vain Gentiliska
asked questions; the workmen either could not or would not give her any
satisfaction. 'It was the master's orders,' they said, and nothing more.
To no one in the world were 'the master's' orders more sacred than to
his loyal gipsy wife. She bowed in submission, and let the workmen do
their will. All the summer season was occupied with the work. But by the
first of October the house was thoroughly renewed, within and without,
so that it seemed like a palace in the midst of Paradise; and the gipsy
wife wandered through the house and grounds in a delight that was only
damped by the long-continued absence of her husband.
"At length, near the middle of the month, at the height of the hunting
season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was
met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave
way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair,
as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least
patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He had ceased to love her
and to want her, and so, in acting out his selfish and demoniac nature,
he did not hesitate to treat her with cruel scorn and ignominy. He told
her that she was not his wife, and never had been so. He called her ill
names, and bade her pack up and go, he cared not where, so it was out of
his sight, for he hated her; and out of his house also, for she
dishonored it; and that, after being repaired and refurnished, it must
also be purified of _her_ presence, before he could bring into it the
fair maiden whom he was about to make his wife.
"Then all her fury suddenly subsided, and she became calm and resolute
unto death. She assured him that she never would leave the house; that
she was his wife, and the house's mistress; and she had the right to
remain, and would remain. Whereupon he broke out into furious oaths,
swearing that if she did not go, he would put her out by force. Then she
answered, in these memorable words, that have come down to us in
tradition:
"'My body you may thrust forth from my home, but my spirit never! Living
or dead, in the flesh or the spirit, I will stay in this house as long
as its walls shall stand! Nay, though you were to pull this house down
to eject me, in the flesh or the spirit, I would enter in and possess
the next house you should build! And should you venture to bring here,
or there, a bride to supplant me, in the flesh or the spirit I will
blast and destroy her. So help me the gods of my people.'
"For a moment the ruthless and dauntless man stood appalled by the awful
spirit he had raised in that slight form. But when he did recover
himself it was to fall into a transport of fury, in which he seized the
girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they
were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was,
besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and
feet upon a thick carpet of the dead leaves that strewed the lawn.
"For a moment she lay where she had fallen, breathless from the shock;
then she lifted herself slowly up. One arm hung useless by her side; it
was dislocated at the shoulder joint; but the other was raised to
heaven, and she muttered some words in her native tongue, and then
turned and walked away until she disappeared in the woods.
"'I hope she'll drown herself according to rule, and there will be an
end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to
follow her. She probably _did_ drown herself, but that was by no means
the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to have kept her word.
"The third day thereafter, as a boy in search of eagle's eggs was
climbing the highest fastnesses of the Black Mountain, his eyes were
attracted by the glow of something scarlet lying on a ledge of rocks
about half way down the course of the Black Torrent. Agile as any
chamois hunter of the Alps, the boy let himself down, from point to
point, until he reached the ledge, upon which the dead body of the gipsy
girl was found. It was crushed by the fall, and sodden by the white foam
of the cascade that continually rolled over it.
"The boy hastened away to spread the news. With the greatest difficulty
the body was recovered, and conveyed to Shut-up Dubarry. The inquest
that sat upon it rendered the simple verdict, 'Found Dead'; for whether
the death were accidental or suicidal, or whether it resulted from the
fall upon the rocks, or from the waters of the cascade, the Dogberries
of that jury could not decide.
"The gipsy girl was buried; and her brutal protector coarsely professed
himself to be greatly relieved by her death. And he assembled all his
servants before him, and forbade them, under the penalty of his heaviest
displeasure, ever to mention the name of Gentiliska to the lady he was
about to bring home as his wife. These slaves knew their master, and in
great fear and trembling they each and all solemnly promised to obey
him. Then he left home for the eastern part of the State from which he
was to bring his bride. On this occasion he was gone a month.
"It was in the middle of the month of November that he returned to
Shut-up Dubarry, bringing with him his fair young bride. She was a
Fairfax, from the county that was named after her family. She was
unquestionably a lady of the highest and purest order, and the
neighboring gentry, ever pleased to welcome such an one among them,
called on her, invited her to their houses, and gave dinner or supper
parties in her honor.
"Philip Dubarry, who had recently fretted at the galling 'ban' under
which, for the transient love of the gipsy girl, he had voluntarily
placed himself, now rejoiced at being delivered from it, and entered
with all the zest of novelty into the social pleasures of the place. He
loved his beautiful and high-born wife with both passion and pride, and
she loved some imaginary hero in his form, and was happy in the
illusion. Thus all went merry as a marriage bell until one dark and
dismal day in December, when the rain fell in floods and the wind raved
around the house, and the state of the weather kept the newly married
couple closely confined within doors, his bride turned to him, and
inquired quietly:
"'Who is that little dark-haired girl with the piercing black eyes, and
in the short red cloak, that I see so often around the house?'
"'What did you say?' inquired Philip Dubarry, in a quavering voice.
"'Who is that little girl in the red cloak, who seems so much at home in
the house? Is she deaf and dumb? I speak to her, but she never answers
me; generally indeed, she goes away as soon as she perceives that I
notice her. Who is she, Phil?' and the young wife looked at her husband
for an answer. But his face was that of a corpse, and his form was
shaking with an ague fit, for the guilty are ever cowardly.
"But his wife mistook the cause of his agitation. Forgotten in an
instant was the question she had asked, and upon which, she had placed
no sort of importance; and she went to her husband and took his hand,
and gazed into his face, and asked him, for Heaven's sake, to tell her
what was the matter.
"He told her a lie. He faltered out between his chattering teeth, that
he feared he was struck with a congestive chill; that the sudden and
severe change in the weather had affected him;--and more to the same
effect.
"She hurried out and prepared a hot drink of brandy, boiling water, and
spices, and she brought it to him and made him drink it.
"Under this powerful stimulant he revived. But she had, in the fear and
excitement of the hour, utterly forgotten the inquiry she had put to
him, and no more would have been said of it, had not he, in fearful
interest, resumed the subject.
"'You were asking me about--one of the servants, were you not?' he
inquired.
"'Oh, yes. But never mind! sit still, and keep your feet to the fire
until you get warm. Never mind about gratifying my foolish curiosity
now,' she answered, thoughtfully.
"'My chill is already gone, thanks to your skilful nursing! What chill
could resist your warm draughts? But now about your question. What was
it?'
"'Oh, nothing much! I only asked you who was the little girl with the
red cloak, who is so silent and shy that she never answers me when I
speak to her, and always shrinks away whenever she finds herself
observed.'
"The trembling wretch was ready with his falsehood. He answered:
"'Oh! she is the child of a poor couple on the mountain, and comes to
the house for cold victuals; but she is as you have observed, very shy;
so I think you had better leave her to herself.'
"'Yes, but are you sure she is to be trusted? For shy as she is in
other matters, she is bold enough to intrude into the most private parts
of the house, and at the most untimely hours of the night,' remarked the
lady.
"'Indeed!' muttered the guilty man, in a sepulchral tone.
"'Indeed and indeed! Why, only last night, when we came home at
midnight, from Mrs. Judge Mayo's ball, when you lingered below stairs to
speak to the butler, and I ran up into my own room alone, I saw this
strange looking little creature, with the streaming black hair and the
red cloak, standing before my dressing-glass! Now what do you think of
that?'
"'She--she--she has been a sort of a pet of the family, and has had the
run of the house, coming in and out of all the rooms at all hours, like
any little dog,' answered the conscious criminal, in a quavering voice.
"'_That_ must be reformed at once!' said the Fairfax bride, drawing
herself up with much dignity, and also perhaps with some jealous
suspicion.
"'It shall, by my soul! I will give orders to that effect,' quavered
Philip Dubarry.
"'Nay, do not take that trouble. It is _my_ prerogative to order my
household, and I shall do it,' proudly answered the lady.
"And here the matter might have ended, but for that interest Philip
Dubarry felt in the subject. He remembered the most awful threat of his
betrayed gipsy wife: 'In the flesh or in the spirit, to dwell in the
house as long as its walls should stand! In the flesh or in the spirit,
to blast and destroy the bride he should bring there to take her place.'
Up to this time he had never had any reason to suppose that the gipsy
girl had kept her word. He had never seen nor heard of anything unusual
about the house. But now when his wife spoke of this silent inmate in
the red cloak, he recognized the portrait all but too well, and his
guilty soul quaked with fear. And yet he was not superstitious. He was a
son of the eighteenth century, which was much more incredulous of the
supernatural than the nineteenth, with all its mysterious spiritual
manifestations, can be. He was a scientific and practical man. Yet he
shuddered with awe as he listened to the description given by his
unconscious wife of this strange visitant. And he could not forbear to
question her.
"'Did you speak to the girl when you found her in your room at
midnight?' he inquired.
"'Yes, certainly; I asked her how she came to be there so late. But
instead of answering my question, she glided silently away.'
"'Have you spoken to any of the servants of this girl's intrusion into
parts of the house where she has no business to come?'
"'No, not until this morning; for I never really felt interest enough in
the little creature that I only casually met in the passages of the
house, until I found her in my bedroom at midnight. So this morning I
described her to the housekeeper, and asked who she was, and who gave
her liberty to intrude into my bedroom so late. And what do you think
old Monica answered?'
"'I'm sure I don't know.'
"'She crossed herself, and cried out, 'Lord have mercy on all our souls!
You have seen her!' I inquired, 'Seen who?' But she answered, 'Nothing.
Nobody. I don't know what I'm talking about. My head's wool-gathering,
I believe.' Nor could any further questioning of mine draw from her any
more satisfactory answer. And so I came to you for an explanation. And
you tell me that she is Milly Jones, the child of poor parents, living
on the mountain, and that she comes here for broken victuals and old
clothes. Very well. In future I shall pension the poor family on the
mountain, for I would not have any fellow-creature in my reach to suffer
want; but I shall do it on condition that Miss Milly Jones stays home,
and helps her mother with the family cooking and washing, instead of
losing her time by day and her sleep by night in wandering through all
the rooms of a gentleman's house, and taking possession of a lady's
bed-chamber.'
"You see this bride never imagined a ghost, but strongly suspected a
sweetheart, and so she was a little surprised when her husband answered:
"'Do so, my dear; and may Heaven grant that you may get rid of this
unpleasant visitor at once and forever.'
"And as he said this, Philip Dubarry arose and went into his library and
rung the bell, and to the servant who answered it, he said:
"'Send Monica the housekeeper here.'
"In a few minutes Monica entered the room.
"'Did I not order you, on pain of my heaviest displeasure, never to
annoy Mrs. Dubarry by so much as the mention of the gipsy girl's name to
her?' sternly demanded Philip Dubarry.
"The old woman fell down upon her knees, and lifted up both her hands,
and exclaimed:
"'And no more I haven't, master, not once! But that don't do no good,
for _she walks_!'
"'Who walks, you old fool?'
"'_She_, the gipsy girl, master. _She walks_, and the missis sees her as
well as we do!'
"'We? Whom do you call "we," you insupportable idiot?'
"'Me and Ben the man-servant, and Betty the chambermaid, and Peggy the
parlormaid. All sees her, master. We never, none of us, see her before
the missis was brought home; but ever since that, we sees her every day;
we sees just as much of her as we used to see when she was alive!'
answered the woman, grovelling and weeping.
"'_Where_ do you see her, or fancy you see her, lunatic?' fiercely
demanded Philip Dubarry.
"'Everywhere, master! We meets her on the stairs; we sees her sitting at
the head of the table, as soon as the meal is ready, and before the
mistress comes to take the place; and we sees her lying in the unmade
beds of a morning; but always, as soon as we screams, as scream we must,
at such an object, master, she vanishes away!' answered the housekeeper.
"Philip Dubarry was awed and almost silenced,--_almost_, but not quite,
for he was the very sort of hero to browbeat others the most fiercely
when he was himself the most frightened. He rallied himself.
"'Look you here!' he furiously exclaimed; 'all this that you have just
told me is the most wicked and abominable falsehood and absurdity! And
now take notice! IF EVER I hear of one more word being uttered on this
subject in this house, or out of it, by any one of you, under any
circumstances whatever, by my blood, I will make you all wish that you
had never been born! Repeat this to your fellow-servants', and order
them from me to govern their tongues accordingly. Now go!' he thundered
at the poor old woman, who hastily picked herself up, and hurried out of
the room."