MARGARET'S PERIL.
Margaret double-locked her door, and stood listening with the book
clutched fast in her hand.
Drop by drop her blood gurgled from her heart--her hair bristled.
What had she done?
She had thrown the gauntlet at him; henceforth there should be no
quarter.
She thought it all out in that breathless watch for the result. She knew
that she had given herself over to his sworn vengeance; that she would
be cut down from his path like a noxious weed; that the battle which was
coming would be a _battle for her life_.
Yes, her day of grace was past--even now her enemy knew his loss. She
had--oh, galling thought!--outwitted him.
He searched his pockets--all of them; he shook the coat--in vain. His
eyes stole up the staircase with the green glare of murder in their
tawny depths; his lean face grew chalk-white; his hand hid itself in his
bosom and griped something there. Alas, for reckless Margaret!
And yet the wretch stood scheming--scheming, wary as his own blood
thirsty sleuth-hound.
It was a woman not easily brushed aside; He must be very cautious with
his dark revenge, and creep with sheathed claws toward his purpose.
John, coming down stairs empty-handed, met the gaze of a face looking at
him, which he thought at first was that of the arch enemy of mankind.
"Where has your mistress gone, my man?"
"To her room, your honor."
"Have you been meddling with the pockets of this coat?"
"No, indeed, sir; I hope you'll believe me, sir. I just had but hung it
up when I was sent with a lamp to the upper hall. Please ask Miss
Walsingham if it wasn't so, yer honor."
"Then, by Heaven! I've been robbed!"
He turned on his heel, and carried his livid face into the library, as
spotted as if he had been smitten with a white plague, rummaged without
ceremony until he had got himself pen, and ink, and paper, and wrote a
_billet-doux_ to his lady-love.
Five minutes after Margaret's whirlwind rush to her room, there came a
knocking at the door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me. Miss Margaret, dear."
"Oh, Mrs. Chetwode! what is it."
"A letter from the colonel, Miss Margaret."
"Push it under the door."
"Dear me, it won't go."
"Make it go."
Presently a slip of white appeared, caught on the edge of the carpet.
She seized and pulled it through.
It had got rid of its envelope in the rough transit, and came followed
by fluttering rags, held together by a great wax seal, like a scarlet
beacon of danger.
Still kneeling, she read it, fiercely bit her lip, and pondered.
"I give five minutes to retract your mistake. A few pencil-scrawls are
not worth a life. Only five minutes, my dear Miss Walsingham."
"If I yielded, would I be safer than if I was obstinate?" she thought,
crushing the scraps in her hand. "No, what are _his_ assurances? Lies to
lull me to sleep. Let me drive my foe to open enmity--let me goad him to
his ruin, or mine, if God so forgets me, but I will never give up this
evidence of his guilt." She held aloft, with wild triumph, the green
note-book. "Do your worst to Margaret Walsingham, you monster, but you
will not get St. Udo's right out of her faithful hands. My five minutes
of grace are slipping away, and I am going to defy him. I will pray
Heaven to protect me, and--I will do my duty."
She bowed her head on her hands, and, as second by second slipped by,
her thoughts went up to Heaven and to God, and, with the love of a
servant tried and true, to Ethel Brand.
"Mrs. Chetwode?"
"I am waiting here, miss, for the answer."
"Tell Colonel Brand that the five minutes are past, and _I defy him_."
"Oh, Miss Margaret, dearie, them same words?"
"Exactly. Change nothing."
The housekeeper went with lagging feet and this message to the snarling
hound in the library, who cursed her heartily and shut the door in her
face.
Margaret remained with her head sunk on her knees in that sort of trance
with which the wretch awaits the too sure sentence of death. It came; a
dull tremor through the massive walls--the great door was shut--Colonel
Brand had left the house.
Now she knew that she was sentenced to death; no remedy--no drawing
back.
A cold ooze broke over her; her natural womanly fears became rampant;
her fancy pictured the form of murder which the crawling wretch she had
to deal with would most surely employ. At once the dull waves of the
pool where she had encountered the sleuth-hound and his monster occurred
to her; its cold chill waters enveloped her heart; the weeds and mud
chocked her even more than the fancied hand at her throat; that gleaming
stiletto seemed driven into her bosom; for a time she lived through the
agonies of actual death.
But she was naturally a brave woman, notwithstanding all her timidity;
yes, a dauntless creature, whose generous blood was sure to rise before
wrong and danger.
She shook of the slavish terror which threatened to overcome her
altogether, and set herself to her next course of action.
"And now for my night's work," she said, glancing round the room, where
a fire burned redly in the grate, and the ghostly December day faded
from point to point.
She quietly made arrangements against being interrupted; rang the bell,
and called to the maid through the door that she had retired for the
night, and did not wish any dinner, except a cup of strong coffee, which
should be brought to her by the housekeeper.
Then she carefully locked her window, and closed the massive mahogany
shutters, lit her candles, drew her writing-table before the fire, swept
the hearth, and saw that she had a supply of candles, matches, and pens.
By the time these arrangements were completed, the housekeeper was
knocking at the door with the edge of a lunch-tray.
"Has Colonel Brand left the house?" called Margaret.
"Yes, miss, some time ago."
"Are you sure he's not lurking about your back, Mrs. Chetwode?"
"Holy mercy! I hope not."
Sounds of the tray being dumped on a hall-table ensued, and the hurried
tread of the old woman showed that she was looking into various empty
rooms.
"What made you think such a queer thing, dearie?" whispered she,
presently, through the key-hole. "I seen him go out, plain as plain can
be."
Margaret opened the door, and held out her hands for the tray.
"What did he say to my message?"
The housekeeper gave an expressive shudder.
"Ugh! He swore like a blasphemer at me, Miss Margaret, dear."
"Keep watch lest any of the doors be left open to-night, Mrs. Chetwode."
"Oh, yes, miss--though I'm sure Purcell is very careful. My goody! Miss
Margaret, how wild you look! Surely you can't be well?"
"Oh, yes. Do not let any one disturb me to-night again, if you please.
Good-night."
"Sleep soundly, miss. Good-night."
The door was locked again, and Margaret sat down to her cup of coffee
and her ponderings.
She was quite calm, quite strong of purpose when she opened her desk,
laid the note-book upon it, and began her task.
And what a story these notes, remarks, and hinted plots disclosed to
her!
It commenced with, strange to say, a description of herself, her
position at Castle Brand, what she said when summoned to receive St. Udo
Brand's note on the night of Mrs. Brand's death. Then followed the
words:
"I believe I could do it. My own perseverance tells me I could do it;
the devil in the shape of Calembours tells me I could do it."
Leaf after leaf of such hints were read and laid to heart, then a
paragraph which made those deep gray eyes grow black with apprehension.
"All right. Am _sure_ I can do it. My chances doubled by the actors
themselves. The will is in favor of M. W. St. U. scornfully washes his
hands of the affair, preferring a pretty face and poverty. Stupid devil,
to throw away such a birthright! Lucky dog, who is to be his successor?
Let the rogue win the race. I am so tired of the dodges, the twists, the
aliases, the lurkings, that I will put on the greatest disguise of all,
a gentleman swell, and try what freedom is like, and the sea-captain's
daughter, and Seven-Oak Waaste. St. U. sails to-morrow for the United
States, and I send company with him which will twist him into shape more
than the haughty dog expects. Be kind to him, oh, captivating chevalier!
be attentive to him, oh, patient _Thoms_!"
Then came a complete interview between St. Udo Brand and the
"Chevalier," purporting to have taken place on board the steamer going
to New York, with this laudatory conclusion:
"Thoms, you are no fool. Thoms, I really think you are a genius."
Leaf after leaf again. The firm lip curved with stern determination, the
brain quick and comprehending.
The copy of the farewell letter from St. Udo to herself was the next
glimpse of a familiar past, with the leaf turned down just where the
cunning hypocrite had marked the place during that walk under the oaks.
Then a copy of his letter to Lady Juliana Ducie, in which he had "pinned
his faith" to her sleeve, with a memorandum attached of, "Faithfully
mailed by good Thoms; and thus ends St. U.'s affair with little Ducie.
Now he will fight like a devil with these Yankees."
Following this was the transcription of two letters to Gay and
Davenport, in which St. Udo had scornfully explained the fact of his
departure from England.
Then came the secret of his ready recognition of Lady Juliana when she
stood before him in the Brands' reception-room. Her photograph, painted
beautifully, was pasted into a cunning little pocket, and her
description was written out at full, as if the picture were not to be
trusted alone.
Initials of strange names--addresses in London, scraps of information
about officers in the Guards--a frequent (see private album)--carefully
noted _bon mots_ of different English friends of the colonel's,
anecdotes of London life, all headed by the significant note:
"Brand's daily gossip.--Study well."
Then came a copy of Lady Juliana's letter of dismissal, with the
comment:
"Thoms, my boy, you did well to search that vest pocket."
This grim pleasantry of the genial writer closed what appeared to be
part the first in the movements of the watched man.
Let her think before she turned the leaf; let her rest her whirling
brain awhile, and examine this curious idea which had slid into her
mind. Who was Thoms!
In this memorandum book he purported to be a valet. Was Thoms Roland
Mortlake? Could he have crawled round his purpose under the disguise of
a body-servant, touching daily the man whom he meant to murder?
Put these thoughts of horror away--go on to the end.
Part the second commenced with St. Udo's first battle, and his part in
it minutely described.
Then followed letters from the executors of the Brand estates, in which
Margaret saw her departure to become school-teacher freely commented on
as a freak which would soon wear itself out.
Then suddenly followed, dashed down in a rough, unsteady hand, as if in
the dark, five or six pages of phonetic writing.
Patiently Margaret spelled it out--the life of St. Udo Brand, as told to
the Chevalier de Calembours at the midnight camp-fire. Every minute
detail, every passing mention of a friend, of a place visited, of
scenes, adventures, college incidents; also what made the heart burn in
the breast of the woman who was reading these records--a few sad
sentences which told the secret of poor St. Udo's bitterness.
"Calembours, I would have been a better man now but for one grave
mistake which I made early in life. I loved a woman passionately and
purely; she was my first conception of love, and would have perfected in
me a noble manhood had she been worthy. She broke the trust--vilely
cheated me, and fled with an officer in the artillery, a man whom all
pure women would have shrunk from; and she was lost, as she might have
foreseen. Since then, to perdition to the sex, say I, and their cant of
feminine purity, for of all crafty, insatiable, double-faced hypocrites
I have found woman to be the worst."
The next few leaves were covered with crude specimens of writing. St.
Udo's name again and again, until it was a perfect imitation of St.
Udo's hand, and, after this, the notes were written in the
newly-acquired style, as if to perfect the cunning forger.
Then was faithfully narrated an interview between "the chevalier" and
Colonel Brand, in which the former was proposing to his friend to turn
traitor, and go with him to the South, and take up arms against their
present comrades.
And, as a brave man would answer, so answered the honest Englishman,
heaping epithets of scorn and anger on the little traitor. Attached to
this was the memorandum:
"Calembours has parted with my man; not good for Calembours; he has
broken the bargain. Thoms has stuck by Brand; invaluable Thoms; so will
he stick by Brand while he lives. He says so. Has he very long to live?
No."
On the succeeding page came a sudden change; a few wild sentences in the
breathlessness of rage.
"He has given me the slip. He has slipped the noose and got away. Where?
where? Have I lost him? have I lost my prize at the last trick, my
Castle Brand, my good luck, my fair play, my amends for seven months of
toil under his boot-heel? No, not while I have brain to plan, or body to
track him. I swear to leave this book untouched until I have found him
and left him a lump of clay."
Leaf by leaf is turned over; the pale hand stops and trembles down to
her side.
Here is a note. If he has kept his vow, this note is a record of St.
Udo's murder. She reads a date, and her eyes seem to pulsate with blind
fire.
"September 1st. The deed is done. Lost in the skurry of a midnight
sortie. 'Killed in battle,' his men will say; but--Thoms knows better!
He tracked him with his long sleuth-hound through the swamps, and the
surging morass, and the long, hot highway, the spikey groves, the dark
fens, and through hunger and danger of death; and he found him! Why not
keep his promise? He stole his history, habits, phrases, manners,
friends; and now, the lesson being learned, Thoms may keep his promise,
made to himself. He stooped this moonlit night upon the battle-field,
and stole his master's life, and stood erect--not _Thoms, the ignoble
valet, but St. Udo, the heir of Castle Brand_!"
Margaret paused, sick and heart-quenched.
Memory brought back the vision of the battle-field, and of the wounded
hero, and of the brooding assassin, and reason stood aghast at the
manifest overturn of her natural laws.
"Grant me days enough to avenge him, high Heaven!" she cried, with a
passion of tears.
She would allow herself no luxury of sorrow; she repressed these tears,
trimmed her candles--took up her bitter task again.
Part the third showed that the murderer had arrived in England; that he
had lurked about the castle for a few days before presenting himself,
and acquainted himself with as many necessary facts as possible. After
this came the appearance of the pseudo-heir before the executors.
"I have stepped into the wrong man's shoes with marvelous ease, and I
have seen my future wife. Could anything be more appropriate, I wonder,
than for her to faint at sight of me? I am resolved to marry her. It
wouldn't be fair play to silence _her_ as I silenced some one who is in
his grave; and when we are man and wife I will tell her where she first
saw her husband."
The second entry was not quite so confident:
"The girl is going to be troublesome. Confound her! why has she taken
such a dislike to me?"
Entry the third still more expressive of alarm:
"What's this I hear? The girl left Gay's house without any explanation,
and gone to Castle Brand. What does that mean? Has she taken anything
into her head against _me_?
"I think she has seen with those mystical eyes of hers the deep ruts on
my wrists and ankles; and I think she is looking back a dozen years to
the man who lay in chains and cursed her cup of cold water. Confound
her! I am afraid of her."
There were other allusions to her which made her eyes blaze with
indignation, intermixed with careful entries of names or localities
which might be useful to the adventurer; and still, step by step, the
purpose of the man slowly unfolded itself. He had expected at first to
deceive Margaret Walsingham with the rest, and to win the fortune by
marrying her.
"A more monstrous fate," thought the girl, "than death."
But it soon appeared that she had betrayed her distrust, and he was
quietly waiting a chance to remove her. One note broke out thus:
"The girl will be my ruin, unless _I shut the hatches_ on her. She has
shown her hand to-day in three different attempts to make me betray
myself. By Heaven, she will succeed if she tries that long; but I have
made a counter plot which, clever as she is, she can't evade. I have
been beforehand with her, and won the confidence of the executors. I
have also announced my determination to propose to-morrow for her. If
she refuses, that's a sign that I let the hatch drop; if she accepts,
hold up the hatch a while, and give her another chance."
The result of his proposal showed how unlooked for her answer had been.
"She's a move in advance again--clever she devil; I am quite thrown out.
Proposed according to plan; was put off for a month. I think her demand
of a month's time to consider means a month's time to run me to the end
of my chain. My chain would run out in a week with her at the right end
of it; so I suppose it must be once, twice, thrice, and _down goes the
hatch_!"
The next entry was written with the sneer of a triumphant demon:
"Thought you would trip me, did you? Silly fool, to tamper with your
crazy hatch-door! Don't you know that when it drops you will suffocate?
So you expected me to be caught by Lady Juliana Ducie, did you? No, no,
my bride of death, I have pored over her picture too often. But for your
fine intention you shall suffer, Margaret Walsingham!
"My lady is a mighty fine-feathered bird for _me_ to have fluttering
round me. I have a mind to marry the marquis' daughter when the
watch-dog of the castle has died of her little sickness; wouldn't that
be fair play all round?"
The succeeding notes described two visits to London, in which the daring
wretch had penetrated into the Marquis of Ducie's residence, and had
private interviews with my lady, who seemed to be straining every nerve
to win him from Miss Walsingham; and it closed with the ominous
sentence:
"Little Ducie proves so much to my taste that I will go down to Surrey,
and _drop that hatch_!"
The diary in the note-book had come to an end. Mortlake's secrets were
hers now. Mortlake's course of crime was run, if she could live to give
them to the world.
Margaret once more trimmed her candles, replenished the drowsy fire,
paced up and down her room, and then sat down and commenced to copy such
parts of the entries as bore directly upon the conspiracy.
Hour followed hour; the candles burned down; the fire wasted to white
ashes; the wintry wind moaned without, carrying sleet on its wings.
Still the girl's strength held out; she wrote with energy the dark
record which was to ruin the murderer of St. Udo Brand. Long past
midnight found her at the last page, and at the last sentence:
"Little Ducie proves so much to my taste that I will go down to Surrey,
and drop that hatch."
The hoarse baying of the dogs roused her to things present. She rose
from her cramped position, cold and trembling with terror.
Who was lurking about so late? Her enemy?
The candles dropped into their little wells of boiling wax and expired.
She stood in the pitchy darkness, listening.
The angry babel of howling dogs filled her ears again. A sudden pause;
they, too, were listening. Then a yelp of canine rage and eagerness.
Margaret groped in the box for another candle and a match; fitted the
candle into the tall silver candlestick, lit it, and gathered up her
papers, while the flame was as yet small and sickly as a far-off star.
She hid them all in a compartment of her desk, carried the desk to a
closet, locked it, and hid the key beneath a loose edge of the carpet.
"I may pay the forfeit of my life for these proofs," she thought; "but
Davenport and Gay shall see them, whatever the risk, and my work shall
descend to their hands if I am removed."
She was calm, but a curious pulse was beating in her ears and deadening
her sense of hearing. Through it she could swear that strange noises
were in the air, which were entirely foreign to any that could be caused
within the house.
The bounding pulse still beat in her ears, and she stood intently
waiting.
What it was she knew not, which smote her whole being into
intensity--her hair bristled.
There it was again--through the thick shutter and massive window--the
deep breathing of a man who has been hard at work, and stops his
operations to listen.
Could it be that her enemy was at the window?
Margaret shrank back; she had been standing in profile, not two feet
from the window, and her ear had caught the indistinct sounds so clearly
that she was able to trace them immediately to their cause.
A man was in the balcony outside her window, and he was listening to
know whether she was sleeping or waking. Perhaps a burglar? No.
Mortlake was there to retrace his false step before the morning light
should place his secret in other hands.
"He's going to force an entrance and murder me," thought Margaret, who
could reason distinctly in this moment of peril; "and, knowing that I
only share the knowledge of his guilt, he hopes to escape suspicion. He
will arrange it like a burglary--likely take away my few jewels and
articles of value, and drop them in the mere. I am afraid I am lost."
These thoughts just glanced through her mind as lightning glimmers
through the thunderous clouds, and, with the sudden instinct of
self-preservation, she ran to the door, determined to rush into safety.
Before she had reached it, or her hand could touch the lock, a slow and
gentle scratching on the window-pane arrested her, and she paused,
fascinated, to understand it. Scratch--scratch--scratch--cr-ick! the
tiny tinkle of falling glass.
Scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch--scratch! cr-ick--cr-ick!
More glass falling, a crunching footstep, a soft tremor of the mahogany
shutter!
Margaret essayed to wrench round the heavy lock of her door.
Her hand had no more strength than an infant's. She shuddered from head
to foot.
One more desperate wrench!
A low snarl reached her ear! Eager paws beat at the bottom of her door!
She stood transfixed as the devil's cunning of her adversary dawned upon
her mind.
The terrible sleuth-hound had been stationed outside her door, ready to
tear her limb from limb when she should issue.