OLD ZILLAH
“She has come to life,” said Wynnette, quoting the words of the departed
woman.
All looked at the girl in some surprise. With all her oddities, Wynnette
was not used to make such speeches as that. And now, for the first time,
they noticed that Wynnette’s face was very pale, with dark circles under
her eyes.
“What is the matter with you, my dear?” inquired her mother.
“Nothing at all, mamma,” answered the girl.
“She sat by the open window late last night and fell asleep there, and
slept until I woke her up this morning. That was quite enough to make
her ill,” Odalite explained.
“Nay, my dear; in such fine June weather as the present, and in such
pure air as ours, it would hardly have hurt her had she slept outdoors,”
said the earl. “But what do you mean, my dear, by saying that our poor
Old Zillah ‘has come to life’?” he inquired, as he turned to the girl.
“Nothing heterodox, uncle. Nothing but what we hear from our pulpits on
every Easter Sunday morning,” she replied.
“Oh!” he exclaimed.
“Only in this case the truth seems to be very marked. A woman nearly a
hundred years old must have been nearly dead for many years and now has
certainly come to life.”
“Ah!”
“Nothing new, uncle, please. I never said anything new in my life.”
“Then you put old truths in a very new way.”
“Eternal truth, uncle, eternal truth; plain to gentle and simple, to
young and old; plain as the sunshine to all who can see; hidden only
from them who are blind, or who choose to keep their eyes shut.”
“Hum! Truth that neither the aged, the invalid nor the bereaved can
afford to disregard, at least. And now, my dear, I must leave you, to
inquire into the cause of Old Zillah’s sudden death. Will you come with
me, gentlemen?”
Mr. Force and Leonidas arose to attend him.
Le gave the invalid the support of his strong young arm.
And so the three men passed out of the room.
“Mamma, did you know anything about this wonderful old woman?” inquired
Wynnette.
“Very little, my dear. Only the years of my earliest childhood were
passed here. Old Zillah was an object of terror to me. Partly, perhaps,
because she wore a man’s coat over her skirt, and a man’s hat on her
head, and partly because she had the reputation of being a wise woman or
a witch. She never came to the castle, and I never saw her except by
chance, when I went with my nursery governess to walk or ride. She never
came near me or spoke to me. I think I should have gone into fits if she
had.”
“How old were you then, mamma?” she inquired.
“I do not know when I first began to hear of Old Zillah, or when I first
saw her. She was the shadow and the terror of my dawn of life. I was but
four years old when I lost my mother, and then my father left this
place, taking me with him; and he went to his estate in
Ireland—Weirdwaste, on the west coast.”
“‘Weirdwaste!’ What a name! Did you live long at Weirdwaste, mamma,
dear?”
“Yes, many years alone there with my governess. My father was traveling
on the continent.”
“What sort of a place was it, mamma?” inquired Wynnette. And Rosemary
and Elva drew their chairs nearer to the sofa on which their mother sat
to hear her answer.
“It was an old manor house on the inland end of a long, flat, dreary
point of land stretching into the Atlantic Ocean. At high tide the
entire cape, to within a few rods of the manor wall, was covered by the
sea, and day and night the swash of the sea was heard.”
“How lonely you must have been, mamma, with no one but your governess
and the servants,” said Elva. “But perhaps you had neighbors,” she
added.
“No; no neighbors at all. There was no one within miles of us but the
poorest Irish peasants, who were tenants of my father. The estate was
vast in extent of territory, but poor in soil. The land steward lived in
the manor house, to take care of it and of me. They kept two old
servants—a man and a woman—an old horse, and older jaunting car. That is
how I lived at Weirdwaste.”
“Oh! what a lonely life! How long did you live there, mamma?”
“Until I was nearly fifteen years of age, when my health failed, and the
surgeon from the nearest town was called to see me, and thought my case
so serious that he wrote to my father, who was in Paris. My father then
came to see me, took me and my governess to Brighton, and established us
in elegant lodgings on the King’s Road.”
“That must have been a most delightful change. How long did you stay in
Brighton, mamma? And where did you go next? Not back to Weirdwaste, I
hope,” said Wynnette.
“No, not back to Weirdwaste. I have never seen the dreary place since I
left it,” replied the lady, in a low voice, but with paling cheeks and
troubled brow.
“Mamma, love,” said Odalite, rising, “will you come with me into the
library now and help me to translate the passage in Camoëns we were
talking about yesterday?”
“Yes, dear,” replied the lady, rising to follow her eldest daughter.
“Well, I’m blest if that isn’t playing it rather too low down on a
fellow, Odalite—I mean it is very inconsiderate in you to carry off
mamma just as she is telling about the days of her youth, for the very
first time, too! Bah! bother! what a nuisance!”
But Mrs. Force and her eldest daughter had passed out of the room.
The death of Old Zillah caused quite a commotion in the castle and its
neighborhood. Notwithstanding her age, or, perhaps, because of her great
age, her death came as a surprise, not to say as a shock, to the
community. She had lived so long that it almost seemed as if she must
always continue to live.
“Why, it’s like as if the old tower of the ruined castle itself had
fallen!” said one to another.
People came from far and near to see the remains of the centenarian, and
to get her real age, and hear some facts of her life. And all the cruel
old legends were raked up again, until the whole air of the place was
full of fetor, fire and brimstone. The people reveled in the moral
malaria.
The mortal body of the oldest retainer of the House of Enderby at length
found a peaceful resting place in Enderby churchyard.
No peeress of the realm ever had a larger funeral than this pauper, at
least so far as the number of followers went.
It was not until night on the day after the funeral that Wynnette
slipped away from the family circle and went to the housekeeper’s room
to hear the promised story.
“I will hear both sides,” she said to herself, “though I do believe Old
Zillah’s version to be the true one.”
She found the good woman seated at a small worktable and engaged in
knitting.
“Well, Mrs. Kelsy, how are you to-night?” inquired Wynnette, as she took
the offered seat beside the dame.
“Thanky’, miss, I’m none the better for the worriment of this week,”
replied the housekeeper.
“You mean the funeral?”
“The whole on’t, miss! The greatest crowd as ever was every day this
week, not even honoring the Sabbath itself, but coming more on that day
than any other! And the talk, and the gossip, and the raking up of old
scandals, until I was soul sick of it all. And all because a wise woman,
over a hundred years old, was found dead in her bed. Warraloo! How else
and where else should she ha’ been found dead, I’d like to know!”
“But you have had a night and day of rest, and I hope you feel
recovered.”
“Rest, is it, miss? Recovered, is it? Not very much of either! It is
dead beat I am!”
“I am sorry to hear that. I was hoping that you would feel well to-night
and be inclined to tell me the story of the pretty maiden you promised.”
“Oh, ay, well, there is not so much to tell. And now the old creature as
hung on so long is gone, I don’t mind telling it so much. The girl’s
soul may have rest now that her mither doesn’t harry it up.”
“Yes, I hope it will,” said Wynnette, in a conciliating tone. “You will
tell me the story now?”
“Yes! and whatever other story you may hear about it will be false, for
I know that you will hear other stories, if you haven’t heard ’em
already. There’s plenty of ’em going around, I tell you, and no two
alike. But only I have the truth, for I have it straight from my mother,
who had it from her’n! So it must be true! And no other story could be!”
“But I suppose if Old Zillah were alive she also could give the real
facts,” ventured Wynnette.
“She? Least of all in this world could she tell it! For not only did she
fail to tell the truth, but she told a many mad fancies; for she was
about as mad as a March hare! Saw visions and talked with departed
spirits, prophesied future events, and all that, she did! Yes, miss. She
has been that a way ever since I knowed her, and as I have heard tell,
was that a way ever since she lost her daughter.”
“Tell me about her daughter.”
“I’m a-gwine to. Well, you see, it seems the feyther had been
undergardener, and he died, and then the widow was given the use of a
little hut in the outside of the old castle wall, on the lane. And there
she lived and brought up her only child, Phebe. They were both employed
in the poultry yard.
“Phebe grew up beautiful as an angel—so beautiful that everybody who
happened to meet her stopped to look at her—so beautiful, that her
beauty turned her own head, as well as her mother’s. While she was yet a
child all the gentry that met her gave her half crowns, and even half
guineas, for the love of her fair face. At least so ’twas said, and so
’twas handed down. And people used to make such foolish speeches about
her as that she was lovely enough to turn the head of a king.
“These speeches did turn her mother’s head, and her own as well. All the
young men were in love with her, but she scorned them all for a poor
little imp of a stableboy, an orphan as had been her playmate all her
life.”
“I did hear that it was for the sake of the young earl she flouted the
others,” said Wynnette.
“Oh, yes, I dare say—that was one of the stories that went round! That
was false. The young earl did come down to celebrate his coming of age,
and his mother and sisters came with him, and made up their minds to
stay with him, which they might do until he should marry, in which case
they would have to go to Kedge Hall, an old manor house on the moors. So
my lady seemed to think the longer she could keep my lord, her son, from
getting a wife, the better it would be for her and her girls.
“Among the men staying at the castle was an artist. He was to paint a
picture of St. Cecelia for the countess, but he wanted a model. One day
my lady, out driving, happened to see Phebe, and had her up to the
castle to sit to the artist. And then the mischief began. My lord fell
in love with her. Fairly went out of his senses for love of this
beautiful creature, who didn’t even know how to read.
“And my lady encouraged the folly and wickedness. Eh, my dear,
gentlefolks were not particular in those days. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘was a
beauty right on his own land, the child of his tenant, one of his own
born slaves, bound to do his will, who might amuse his fancy and keep
him from marriage for many a year.’ She never feared such a thing as my
lord marrying the girl. Such folly was not to be thought, and never was
thought of by either of them.”
“But,” said Wynnette, “I heard that the earl had married her.”
“Stuff and nonsense! He never dreamed of such a thing! He was the
proudest man alive! And he was engaged to a duke’s daughter! But the
crazy old mother and the silly young girl fancied that he even might do
that for love of Phebe’s fair face. So the poor stableboy was thrown
over, and the young earl was received. The boy got madly jealous, and
so—months after, when the hapless girl was found dead at the bottom of
the shaft in the old castle—the stableboy was arrested on suspicion of
the murder.”
“I know,” said Wynnette, “and the guide to Enderby Castle says that he
was tried and convicted and hanged at Carlisle. But I have heard that
contradicted.”
“Yes, it is contradicted. I do not know the truth. It has been so long
ago that no living person can remember it, now that Old Zillah is gone.”
“She could,” said Wynnette.
“Oh, yes! she could! But she got facts and fancies so mixed up in her
poor old brain that no one would dream of trusting to her stories. If
you could ever have had the chance to see her, miss, you would have seen
how very mad she was.”
Wynnette did not think it necessary to explain that she had seen Old
Zillah and heard her story.
To no one could the girl breathe one word of her terrible night in the
old castle. Sometimes she was half inclined to believe that she had
really fallen asleep on the window sill and dreamed it all—from the
moment of horror and amazement when the spectral eyes lighted up the
loopholes of the old wall, to the moment when she was awakened by the
voice of her sister.
Wynnette was more bewildered than she liked to own herself to
be—bewildered as to the dream, or the reality of her terrible night!
Bewildered as to the relative truth or falsehood of the two conflicting
stories she had heard of the beautiful peasant girl’s fate.
“What is dream and what is reality? What is fact and what is fable?” she
asked herself continually.