ENTRAPPED
“Thief!” hissed the woman, under her breath. “How dare you? Where did
you come from?”
She had not seen Isabel since her encounter with Brownie, therefore did
not know until that moment of her proximity.
She had come out of her own room just as Miss Douglas entered Isabel’s,
and, seeing the door open, glanced in as Brownie had done.
She recognized Miss Douglas in an instant, and comprehended at once her
object there.
She glided in noiselessly, hoping to come upon her unawares, and wrest
the casket from her without much trouble, but the girl turned just in
season to confront her.
Brownie herself grew pale at this unexpected encounter, but, clutching
her recovered property firmly in her hands, she held herself proudly at
bay.
“You are the thief, madam—you and your daughter,” she said, haughtily.
“Liar! Put down that box!”
“I shall not, madam!”
“Then I will ring and have you arrested. I know not how you happen to be
here; I devoutly hoped you would never cross our path again; but fate
seems to decree that you turn up as a marplot wherever we go. Will you
put that box down, or shall I ring?” and the angry woman grasped the
bell-pull vigorously.
Brownie never relaxed a muscle, except that the proud lips curled into a
scornful smile.
“You can ring the bell if you choose, Mrs. Coolidge.”
“Have you no fear of the consequences?” her enemy asked, eying her
wonderingly, and her lips twitching with wrath.
“None!”
“But you will have to face this whole household.”
“Gather the whole household here, if you will, and have the facts
regarding this property brought to light; also the way in which you
became possessed of it. Methinks Sir Charles Randal would not be pleased
to know that his betrothed wife entered the room of another and
purloined such things as these.”
Mrs. Coolidge winced at her words, and she could have trampled her under
foot for her scorn and fearlessness.
“You are insolent, Miss Douglas,” she breathed, in suppressed, wrathful
tones.
“Insolent or not, I only speak plain truth; and I shall not yield up
this casket unless personal violence is used to wrest it from me,”
Brownie answered, with calm dignity.
“You are cool, truly,” sneered the woman, exasperated by her manner more
than by her words, and as desirous of creating no disturbance as Brownie
herself could be.
“Yes, I am cool. This box is mine, I tell you, and this much I will say,
if you persist in disputing my right to it and its contents, I have only
to appeal to a certain nobleman of the realm to substantiate my claim
and protect me from your abuse,” Brownie said, suddenly resolving to
appeal to Lord Dunforth, if Mrs. Coolidge persisted in her abuse.
“A nobleman of the realm! You!”
Intense scorn was breathed in these few words.
“Yes, madam, I! I have but to tell my story of these jewels to prove
that they belong to me, and reveal your wickedness to those whom you do
not care to have know it!”
“Pray, why did you not make this appeal in the first place?” queried
Mrs. Coolidge, skeptically.
“Because I did not know then if he were living. I have since discovered
that he is. Now, as I have no desire to prolong this interview further,
I will wish you good-day.”
Brownie took a step toward the door, but her enemy, rendered desperate
by her undaunted bearing, and the fearful consequences which would
result if Isabel should thus suddenly be deprived of wearing the jewels,
darted before her, shut the door, locking it, and put the key in her
pocket.
“There! We will see who will win in this little game, Miss Douglas,” she
said, between her teeth, while there was a dangerous gleam in her eye.
“You do not leave this room,” she added, “until you give up that casket.
How do you suppose Isabel will account for the disappearance of all her
elegant jewels, which have been so much admired?”
“Madam, truth is a virtue which is safe always to cultivate,” Brownie
answered, with quiet sarcasm.
She utterly baffled her; while she was so cool, so haughty, so beautiful
standing so fearless there, with her jewels closely clasped in her arms,
that she became enraged beyond endurance.
“Will you give me that, once for all, I ask you?” Mrs. Coolidge
whispered, hoarsely, with livid face and a deadly light in her light
blue eyes.
“I will not!” and the beautiful brown eyes met hers fearlessly,
defiantly.
Mrs. Coolidge took a few steps forward, as if impelled by some hidden
force, hesitated, bent her head a moment in thought, while an evil smile
flitted over her hard features.
Then, assuming a more conciliatory tone, she said:
“Really, Miss Douglas, you are so persistent, and so positive, that you
almost persuade me into the belief that the jewels are yours, after
all.”
Brownie made no reply to this concession, but stood quietly regarding
her enemy.
“Come into my room and let us talk the matter over quietly,” the wily
woman added, flashing a cunning look at the young girl from her
half-closed eyes. “I think we can come to a better understanding, and I
have a proposition to make to you.”
Brownie felt somewhat suspicious of this smooth talk, and feared that
the sudden change in Mrs. Coolidge’s manner was only assumed for some
hidden purpose; yet she thought it might be better to temporize with
her, and it would, perhaps, save publicity.
She could not leave the room, as things were, without making a
disturbance, for the door was locked, the key in the woman’s pocket, and
she knew of no other means of egress, although there were several arches
in the spacious apartment, hung with draperies, which she thought must
conceal entrances to some other portion of the house.
“I do not know what better understanding you may wish for,” she replied,
coldly. “Your daughter took this box from my room, and I have told you
repeatedly that it and its contents belong to me, and you know, as well
as I, Mrs. Coolidge, that any judge would decide in my favor should the
case be brought into court. But we can talk it over here as well as
anywhere.”
“Then why did you come sneaking into this room, like a thief, to get
them? Why didn’t you take the matter into court, and let the judge
decide in your favor?” sneered the exasperated woman, almost losing her
self-control again under Brownie’s coolness and her refusal to go with
her.
“I did not sneak into the room like a thief, madam. I was passing along
the corridor, the door was open, and, glancing in, I saw my casket upon
the table, I entered and took it, intending to inform Miss Coolidge of
the fact as soon as I had it beyond her reach.”
“You say you can prove your claim. Who is this nobleman who knows so
much about these jewels?” asked Mrs. Coolidge, with sudden interest.
Brownie thought a moment before answering.
She disliked to implicate his lordship in the matter if she could
possibly help it; but she saw that Mrs. Coolidge was desperate about the
jewels, and perhaps the power of his name might frighten her into
letting them go, and the matter would drop there, so she said:
“It is Lord Dunforth!”
“Lord Dunforth!” she exclaimed, with a violent start of surprise.
Then she suddenly remembered, with a thrill that made her feel faint,
Isabel’s account of her strange interview with his lordship at Lady
Peasewell’s, and she began to fear that she was getting beyond her depth
in this matter; and yet this very revelation made her more determined
than ever to keep the jewels, at least until after Isabel’s marriage;
for their absence would occasion a great hue and cry, and necessitate
such awkward explanations that Sir Charles would mistrust something
wrong, and then all their plans would be ruined, for he had only that
day named the wedding day. Yet, if she resorted to force to keep them,
Brownie, on the other hand, would instantly take active measures to
recover them, and if she could, she said, prove through Lord Dunforth
that they were hers, they would immediately be brought into open
disgrace. Whichever way she turned, it looked dark.
There was only one way of escape from this threatening danger, and that
was very hazardous; but she had resolved from the first, if worse came
to worst, that she would try it, and that was why she appeared so
anxious to get her into her rooms.
She stood measuring her strength against Brownie’s, while these thoughts
passed through her mind, and that same cunning gleam lurked in her eyes
as before.
“Lord Dunforth!” she repeated. “Do you know him?”
“No, madam; at least, not well enough to claim his acquaintance and
protection, except in case of stern necessity; but he knows all about
these jewels, and when I told my story he would know that I spoke the
truth.”
“How would he know it? When did he ever see those jewels before he saw
Isabel wear them?” the woman asked, inquisitively, and burning with a
desire to know more about them herself.
“Madam,” Brownie answered, haughtily, “I decline answering any more
questions. I insist that you let me go quietly; you can then make
whatever explanation regarding the absence of these gems you may see
fit. But, if you persist in giving me further trouble, I shall
immediately make the whole matter public, and doubtless you know what
the consequences will be.”
Mrs. Coolidge’s eyes flashed, and the young girl, catching their gleam
at that instant, involuntarily shivered, they looked so evil.
“My dear Miss Douglas,” she began, politely, after a moment, “can we not
temporize in this matter? You know if Isabel ceases suddenly to wear
those jewels it is going to make matters very awkward for her. Could you
not be persuaded, for a handsome consideration, to loan them to her
until after her marriage, which will be in a little more than a month?”
Brownie’s lips curled with scorn at this proposition. The woman who
could make it under the existing circumstances seemed so little and
small of soul to her.
“No, madam; I think I have loaned them long enough already,” was her
quiet but scathing reply.
The angry woman’s lips twitched nervously, and her hands were clinched
with passion that this poor, friendless girl should dare to thwart her
so—that she should dare to stand so proudly, defiantly before her, and
fling out so coolly her scathing sarcasms. She grew white as the
delicate lace at her throat, and her eyes burned with a lurid light
which boded mischief.
“Hark,” she said, suddenly. “Somebody is coming. It may be Isabel, and
we shall have a scene. Come into my room, and I will let you out through
there.”
She walked swiftly across the room, seemingly much disturbed, although
Brownie had caught no sound of any one approaching.
She pushed aside some hangings and revealed a narrow door.
Brownie wondered that such a narrow, peculiar door should connect two
elegant rooms, but she reasoned that this must be part of the original
castle, and that all these elegant hangings had been put up to conceal
the awkward doors.
Before opening it, Mrs. Coolidge shoved a heavy bolt (another
circumstance which struck Brownie as singular), and, opening the door,
revealed a small, square room or passage, dimly lighted by a dormer
window set high in the stone wall.
The place was perfectly bare, and there was a damp, uncanny feeling in
the atmosphere, as if it had not been opened before in a long while.
Brownie involuntarily drew back, as she reached the door, and again
glanced suspiciously at her companion.
Mrs. Coolidge, who was watching her prey with the intentness of a cat
watching a mouse, noticed her hesitation, and, with a light laugh, said:
“It isn’t a very nice way to take you, Miss Douglas, but it saves going
through the corridor, and I would not have Isabel meet you now, with
that casket in your hands, for the world. My room is at the end of this
passage, and we use it when we want to run back and forth. I do not
think it can have been used much of late years, for it is so damp and
full of cobwebs; but I discovered it while gratifying my Yankee
curiosity to find out what was underneath all these hangings, and we
have found it very convenient, I assure you. Come on; I’ll go forward
and open the door at the other end of the passage, and then you will see
better.”
She half-crossed the dimly lighted space, and Brownie followed,
considerably reassured by her fluent explanation, although even then she
thought it strange that the door should have been bolted if the passage
was “so convenient.”
Suddenly Mrs. Coolidge stopped, with a startled look.
“Did you not hear some one at the door?” she whispered.
“No; I heard nothing,” Brownie replied, yet bending her head to listen.
“There is surely some one there,” persisted Mrs. Coolidge. “I forgot to
unlock Isabel’s door, and the key is in my pocket. Wait just a moment
while I go and unfasten it.”
She glided swiftly by the young girl, holding her breath and watching
her narrowly with her basilisk eyes, passed through the narrow door,
drew it hastily after her, and shoved the bolt, leaving the astonished
and dismayed girl a close prisoner in that dismal cell.
All too late, Brownie saw how she had been fooled and entrapped, and
berated herself soundly for having trusted the faithless woman for an
instant.
After the first surprise was over, she looked about her to measure the
dimensions of her prison.
It could not have been more than eight feet by six, and was lighted only
by that one small window set so high in the wall that it was impossible
to look out. There was no sign of any other door or mode of egress that
she could discover, only the bare, damp walls of solid stone.
There was not an article of furniture in the place, and Brownie groped
her way to the wall, leaning against it for support, for she was excited
and trembling at finding herself so cleverly entrapped and shut up from
the light of day.
“I suppose she thinks to frighten me into submission by shutting me up
like a naughty child,” she said, with curling lips and flashing eyes.
“But she will find she has ‘reckoned without her host,’ for only one
stronger than I shall ever get these precious jewels away from me again.
Oh, auntie,” she added, a moment after, “you little knew what a
troublesome legacy you were giving me; were they not sacred to me on
your account, they are not worth all this trouble and contention. But
they shall not have them now.”
She walked to the door and rapped upon it.
“Mrs. Coolidge,” she said, in cold, stern tones, “if you think to subdue
me thus, and gain your end, you are very much mistaken in my character,
and I warn you that you are only heaping up wrath for yourself.”
There was no answer, and Brownie finally concluded that the only thing
she could do for the present was to exercise abundant patience and wait.
She had not a thought of fear, however, that the wicked woman would dare
to keep her there long; her whole soul—all the Douglas blood in her
veins rose up in rebellion against this arbitrary act, and she resolved
that the future should hold for her jailer a reckoning full of
retribution.
When Mrs. Coolidge had accomplished her piece of diabolical treachery,
and the door was bolted upon her prisoner, she sank down upon a chair,
nearly fainting.