THE SPANISH WOMAN'S HOUSE
Sunday, which found me sole mistress of the place, was beautiful, warm,
and beguiling. That lovely locked-in feeling, which comes only when
the streets are quiet, and no tradesmen, not even the postman, comes
knocking, soothed me after the days of tension and expectancy.
Abby went off early to church, and I took a book out to the rustic seat
by the heliotrope. At about half-past ten Mr. Dingley came through the
conservatory; but he was used to coming in and out of the house so much
that his joining me in the garden was no more of an invasion than if he
had been one of the family. He said father had told him he was to be
out of town, and he had come around to see how the household was
getting on. We sat there very comfortably in the warm sun, aimlessly
talking, hearing the sweet notes of church bells. I was just about to
resume my book when Lee put his head out of the conservatory door.
"Some one to see you, Miss Ellie," he announced, and disappeared
abruptly before I could ask who.
I went in, fearing it would prove to be some girl whom I did not know
well, who had called out of mere curiosity. I was surprised to find,
awaiting me in the hall, a person whom I did not know at all--whom I
had never even seen before. It was a half-grown shuffling Mexican,
with a blank and stupid face, looking as if he might be some one's
stable-boy. But as soon as he saw me, he produced from some pocket and
presented to me with remarkable swiftness and dexterity, a small
immaculate white note. It was addressed to me, and the writing was not
Estrella Mendez's small copper-plate script, but a larger, bolder, more
dashing hand, scarcely like a woman's.
"To the Senorita Elenora:" it began,--and I wondered whether it could
be from one of mother's old friends, for she had had several among the
great Spanish families of the north. "I am asking if you will honor me
with your presence for a short hour this morning," the letter ran. "It
is impossible that I come to you, for I am ill. But there is a very
great reason why I must see you. It is a matter touching justice. You
will not fail." It was signed "Carlotta Valencia."
I read the signature twice over, and then the letter. No, my eyes were
not playing tricks. But still, could it be some practical joke? I put
the envelope to my face. Ah, it was she, it was the perfume of that
flower! She had really written; she had summoned me.
The very fact that she had communicated with me, this being who was not
as I was, whose life seemed as irrevocably separated from mine, as if
she inhabited another planet, was amazing. And as for those
expressions in her letter, "a very great matter," "touching justice," I
dared not think what I wanted to believe.
I carried the note out into the garden. "I don't know how to answer
this," I said, handing it to Mr. Dingley.
He read it, and whistled. "Well!" he said; and then, "there's one
thing sure; you will not go alone!"
"Why, you don't mean to say I'm to go!" I cried.
He looked inquiringly. "Why not?"
"Oh, but father doesn't even like me to speak her name."
Mr. Dingley coughed. "Quite right, quite right! That is, of course,
under ordinary circumstances. But in affairs of this sort, where
state's evidence is concerned, we are obliged to lay personal feeling
aside. Now from this letter," and Mr. Dingley tapped the little sheet
which he held before him, "I gather that the Senora Valencia may have
some information concerning this case of ours now going forward. Of
course if it's incriminating, the state must have it. On the other
hand, if it should tend to exonerate the defendant, of course we shall
be very glad."
I murmured, "Oh, yes!" The hope of a possible means of clearing Johnny
Montgomery went flushing through me.
If the Spanish Woman had anything to say I knew it would be in his
favor. Still, there was something strange about it. "But if she has
this information," I asked, "why doesn't she tell it in the court?"
"My dear Miss Ellie, why indeed? We never know why women do things.
But it has been my experience in legal cases, and especially in
criminal ones, that women will often give evidence in some such
high-fantastic way as this, which could never be got out of them
through the proper channel,--that is by means of cross-examination, in
court. Now she's evidently taken a fancy to tell you something, and I
feel it is our duty to see just how much is in it."
"Oh, yes," I said again, but this time more faintly, for when I thought
of whom I was to face, some cowardly thing in me wavered, "But are you
sure it's--safe?"
Mr. Dingley laughed. "My dear Miss Ellie, we don't live in the dark
ages!"
He made me feel ashamed of my hesitations. I went back into the hall,
told the Mexican in Spanish, yes, that I would come quickly. He seemed
satisfied with this verbal message, and I watched him shuffle down the
steps, in spite of his loose-hung gait, with admirable quickness. Then
I told Lee that I was going out; dinner at half-past two, all as simply
and usually as if I had been intending merely to stroll over to the
beach. But there the usualness of things ended.
Mr. Dingley did not at all take the way I expected, the most direct and
open way by the broad easy streets, where at this hour of Sunday the
church-goers were promenading; but we went roundabout, through
unexpected short cuts, and then across the empty stretches of the
sand-lots toward where the long gray facade of the convent stretched;
and close beside it the high fence with the latticed top which
surrounded the Spanish Woman's house. Above the fence the roof and the
small windows beneath the eaves were just visible. As we drew near my
heart beat quickly, and still I felt that, as when I was a child, I was
only going to pass it. But we turned, and I realized I was actually
stopping at the gate.
This was so high it was merely a door cut in the fence, allowing no
glimpse of what was within, and instead of immediately opening it, Mr.
Dingley rapped upon it with the iron knocker, whose lion head had been
wont to snarl at me years ago. I heard a sharp clicking as of
something being unlocked, and the gate opened. But after we were
inside I got an uncanny shock, for excepting ourselves there was not a
soul to be seen.
"Clever contrivance that," said Mr. Dingley, glancing up. And then I
noticed a wire which ran from the fastening of the gate to its top, and
from there in a straight line to the house. But even this discovery
didn't remove my uneasy sense of being in an enchantment.
Around us were weedy grass plots, bushes smothering in vines, broken
flower urns, a dry and weather-stained fountain; and to and fro across
the neglect of it all moved the shadows of the restless eucalyptus
trees. A brick path, very mossy and giving uncertain foothold, ran
straight to the front of the house--a blank-looking facade, all the
shutters closed over the windows, and a deeply hooded door.
Mr. Dingley gave the bell handle a vigorous pull, but not the faintest
tinkle reechoed through the interior. We waited. There wasn't a sound
of any one inside approaching through the hall. I was fully prepared
to be admitted by the same unseen agency that had moved the gate. But
when, quite suddenly, the door opened, I was aware of a figure, very
dimly seen in the gloom of the hall. We were allowed to enter without
a question, without a word; and as quickly the door closed upon us.
After the broad sunlight the hall seemed so dark, I could but sense
high ceilings and hanging draperies above my head, and feel beneath my
feet the soft depth of a carpet. All that my eyes could distinguish
was the little white glimmer of Mr. Dingley's card as he handed it to
the person who had opened the door.
We were led through several rooms; but either they were interior rooms
without windows, or else the windows were closely muffled, for they
were so dark I could hardly find my way. But when at last our
conductor drew back a curtain, a tempered light streamed upon us, and
showed me that the cornices of the anteroom where we were standing were
gilded, that the carpet which I was crushing under my feet, was the
color of wine, and every fold of the velvet curtain where it took the
light like a ruby. The servant, holding it back, was a strange
creature, with a tightly closed mouth, and eyes that looked as if he
kept them open only a crack to see out of, but not on any account to
let any one peep in. He waved at the room in front of us, and then,
still silent as an apparition, returned, disappearing into the gloom
through which we had come, carrying Mr. Dingley's card with him. I
followed Mr. Dingley into the great apartment, which I thought must be
the _sala_ of the house, and sat down in the midst of its magnificence.
It was in strange contrast to the neglect of the garden without; and to
my eyes it was novel in character. There were dark portraits in old
gold frames on the wall; curtains shutting out all light, but the
faintest and most colored; mirrors multiplying the tapestries and
marble statues, and seeming to extend the very walls of the room
itself. I kept catching glimpses of figures standing in these delusive
vistas, and then, with a start, realizing they were but myself.
Presently the servant returned. I saw multiple images of him advancing
upon me from all sides as if to surround me. They flitted,
disappeared, and the real presence bowed.
"The Senora wishes to say she is too ill to descend to the _sala_.
Will the Senorita graciously come up-stairs?"
Mr. Dingley turned to me. "That's about as I expected. Then I will
wait for you here."
Involuntarily I took hold of his coat, "But you said I shouldn't go
alone!"
"Oh, of course, of course," he smiled. "I meant I'd come with you to
the house. That's one matter. But to go up-stairs, that's hardly
possible! Don't you see, Miss Ellie," he lowered his voice, "it's
quite probable this is just a ruse to get rid of me? She would hardly
want to speak before a third party."
The reminder that the Spanish Woman was going to speak, and the
probability of what that speech might mean was enough to make me
relinquish Mr. Dingley's coat, and send me in the wake of the
serving-man with almost a light heart.
He led me out of the _sala_, not by the curtained way through which we
had come, but by a door opening on a little entry, and from that up a
stair, which was not at all like the stairway I had seen in the large
entrance hall. I had never been in a house so bewilderingly built. I
followed down halls that dwindled into passageways and so quickly did
my guide move, so far he kept in front of me that even when my blue bow
dropped from my hair pat upon the floor I dared not stoop to pick it up
for fear of losing sight of him. I kept on ascending unexpected little
steps; entered doors that opened abruptly as panels in the wall,
branched off into yet narrower halls, and finally was ushered into what
seemed a sort of anteroom, with only a few chairs furnishing it, and a
great extent of polished floor stretching out in front of me to a
curtain which hung across one whole side of it. There was a sweet
though rather close odor, which wrought powerfully upon my imagination.
Walking cautiously, since the floor seemed as slippery as glass, I
followed my conductor. He drew the curtain aside a little--enough to
let me slip through--said something in Spanish, some one musical word
which I did not understand, and the curtain closed behind me. I stood
there feeling like a doll, absurd, small and lost.
I was aware of a greater sense of air and sun than I had had since I
entered the house, of a farther extent of that shining floor, broken by
great opaque oblongs which absorbed light and gave out colors beautiful
and dim; of a uniform even interplay of color upon all sides of me, as
if the walls were hung with tapestry of one pattern; but all I was
really intensely conscious of was a seated figure. She was sitting
almost profile to me, with her back to the light, which fell splendidly
upon the full length of her hair, hanging quite to the floor. She was
wrapped in something silk, of two shifting colors, green and copper,
uncovering the neck and leaving a most beautiful arm bare to the
shoulder. A maid was brushing her hair, bending low with each measured
stroke. At my appearance she straightened, stopped, and stepped back.
It looked really as if she sank away into the shadow; and the Spanish
Woman rose and came toward me, holding out her hand. The colors in her
gown seemed fairly alive, and whether it was really a woven pattern of
copper serpents rushing through green water, or only an accident of my
fancy and the twisted lights, I couldn't determine. But, looking in
her face, I thought, "Oh, surely Mr. Dingley is right. It isn't that
she is ill, but only that she wants to talk with me alone." Like her
hand, her voice was soft and warm.
"You are very kind," she said. There was hardly a trace of accent in
her speech, only a delicate precision that made it delightful. "You
see, I have been sick, and am yet too weak to go out upon the street.
It is why I have given you the trouble to come to me." And still
keeping my hand she led me to a chair and gently, prettily pushed me
into it. There was something persuasive in her very touch. Then,
taking her seat again, "Maria, _prondo_!" she cried; and the maid
coming forward gathered up the mass of hair, twisted it deftly into a
sort of crown around her head, filling it with gold-colored hair-pins,
tucked into its coil a single tuberose; then collecting the combs and
brushes went softly out of the room.
The Spanish Woman sat there, resting her chin in her hand, looking at
me with a pleasant rather smiling expression; and I thought she was a
great deal less overwhelming than I had expected, though she was even
more beautiful. "You have seen Mr. Montgomery?" she began. I thought
it was only a question in form.
I said, "Oh, yes, I first saw him several years ago, dancing at a ball."
She gave me a keen glance. "Yes, and later than that?"
"Then, then," I stammered, for I was at a loss to know whether she knew
what my evidence was to be, "then once or twice on the street, and
yesterday in court."
"Well, and what do you think of him?"
"Why I--I don't know him."
She made an amused little sound in her throat. "Yet you have seen him
three times. Once would have been enough. Surely you can tell me at
least one thing--do you think he looks like a murderer?"
"Oh, no!" I murmured.
Her eyes never left me. "But you do not think well of him; he is
perhaps repulsive to you?"
"Oh, no!" I whispered. There was a painful tightness around my heart,
and my head felt on fire. It was not the Spanish Woman but I who
seemed to be telling the story.
She gave a quick nod, as if my answers thus far had satisfied her.
"You do not believe him to be a murderer, you do not even think him
unpleasant, and yet you will go into the court and swear away his
freedom--perhaps his life?"
"I said I thought he did not look like a murderer," I desperately
insisted, "but I can't help--"
"I know, my child, just what you are going to say," she interrupted.
"You are going to say the words they have taught you--that it is your
duty, and all that! And do you not know that the law is just a great
machine of rules, and that this is one of them: that you must tell
whatever you have seen, no matter how unjust, no matter what harm it
does? It is for that reason I do not go to the law. I come to you,
who are a woman like me, and have compassion. You say you do not know
this man, but you have seen him. You can not be quite blind to what he
is. He has been rash and foolish, and it is true that he has made
angry some very virtuous citizens"--she rolled out the last two words
with a curl of her handsome lip--"but he is a most lovable and charming
boy, and the most brave! Can't you see by his face that he could not
do an evil thing? He was dragged into this affair as a matter of
honor; the quarrel was a fair and open one."
A joyful feeling went through me at her words--the first really kind,
saving words I had heard spoken of him. I almost loved her for them;
and the expectation that the next moment I was to hear the explanation
of them held me, leaning forward in my chair, breathless.
She made a little imploring movement toward me with her open hands.
"It would be cruel, cruel for a gentle, tender-hearted girl like you to
speak such words against him!" A faint color was beginning to shine in
her cheeks, and her eyes had opened wide their wonderful blacks.
"But," I cried, "if you know something in his favor why don't you go
into court and tell them about it? If only you would speak to them as
you do to me, I know they would believe you! They couldn't help it!"
She shot a quick glance at me, half suspicious, half fierce; but
immediately it softened into a rather sad smile. "That is very
gracious of you, to speak so; but about the court do not make a
mistake! The words I have, the things I know, are not those that speak
to the mind but to the heart. All that the lawyers take count of are
the facts; and for the jury, they would be more swayed by one word a
little innocent-eyed girl will say, than by the most eloquent plea I
could offer. It is you who will sway this balance of justice. Do not
try to escape from that responsibility. Think, think, of how, when you
saw him come out of the door, he looked at you, and with his eyes
implored you to be silent!"
I stared at her, terribly wrought upon by the memory she had called up
of that look; astounded that she had known of it, had even been able to
translate its meaning for me.
"Yes," she said, smiling, "I know all about it. And then you ran home
and told them." Her voice grew very caressing. "But that was in the
moment when you had lost your head. Now that you have had time to
think it all over, now that you know how much it means--oh, surely, you
will not speak again! I beg you, in human mercy, not that you plead
for him, not that you tell a false story, but only as you are a woman,
keep silence, keep silence!"
I listened with increasing dismay, as the hot words poured from her
lips; and, with the end, a revulsion of feeling took me, a lost and
bewildered sense of being completely astray. It was not to tell me
anything she had called me hither--oh, quite the opposite!--it was to
try to close my lips. If I hadn't been so blinded by my obstinate
hopes I might have thought of this before! I might have saved myself
the ordeal; for I had felt the very heart in me weaken at the picture
of him her words called up.
"If I could make myself believe as you do," I said, "that what I have
to tell will condemn him, even though he is innocent, I should want,
myself, to die. But I can't believe, I can't think, that God can be so
unjust as to let him be condemned when he is innocent!"
She let her head drop back, and laughed a little. "You will find, my
child, that it is men who control the affairs of the earth; and that if
you believe any such fine things of them you will be disappointed. As
for the lawyers, they will convict an innocent man as merrily as they
will eat their dinner, if only the popular cry is loud enough, and they
can get enough of what they call their evidence against him. Do not
expect any miraculous intervention on his behalf."
"I don't," I cried stoutly. "But some one must know the truth of what
has really happened; and that person surely will come forward and tell
what he knows before he will let Mr. Montgomery be condemned. Oh, if
only I knew, nothing should keep me from saying it!"
She had drawn herself upright in her chair, her face whiter than her
flower, her clenched hands resting on either arm; and now she slowly
rose to her feet. Standing there she seemed fairly to tower above me,
and looking down with her eyes glimmering upon me through her lashes.
"What if he is guilty?" she said slowly.
The room around me grew dreamy. My head felt light. All the things I
had ever believed in seemed to have fallen far, far below me, tiny and
inconsequent. I closed my hands hard around the arms of my chair. I
clung to it as if it had been my last principle of faith. "I have
given my word," I said, "and even if I had not, I should have to tell
the truth. It is a question of honor."
She stood a moment longer with her hands still clenched and slightly
raised, as if she were going to strike a blow--myself, or her own
breast. Then she let them fall limp, and, lifting her shoulders with a
superb little scornful motion, "Ah, I thought you were only a fool,"
she said. "I see, you are cold."
She turned sharply about, and crossed the room to where something which
looked like a large bench stood against the wall, covered with
gold-colored velvet. I saw her fling back the covering and kneel
beside it, fumbling with the lid. I heard the clicking of what seemed
a series of locks. At last she turned her head and spoke, "Come here!"
I rose and went slowly over to where she knelt in the shadow.
"Sit down."
I seemed involuntarily to obey those imperious words. I took the seat
she indicated, a carved stool, drawn near the chest, and saw her just
lifting out a long string of blue flashing stars. It was like a toy,
like one of those strings you hang upon a Christmas tree, only a
hundred times more brilliant. "See how pretty!" she said, and ran it
through her fingers in a little blue stream; then, with an easy motion
of her wrist, she tossed it around my shoulders. She put her hand down
into the chest and brought out a long, long string of pearls--if pearls
had ever been so large--long as the rosaries I used to string of oak
balls, and dropped it over my head. I felt the great weight of it upon
my neck.
"Look," she said, and taking up a velvet case, opened it, and showed
me, lying on the crimson satin bed, a necklace like a wreath of light.
There was no misunderstanding the preciousness of that. The shock of
the realization of what they were sent the blood into my face. Her
eyes laughed at me with a gleam that seemed devilish. She threw the
box into my lap. She took out rings and covered my fingers with them,
drops of blood, red, and brilliant green, and rainbow colors. I
couldn't seem to speak or move. I thought she must be mad.
"Here," she said, and leaning toward me, deftly pulled out the pins and
took off my hat. Then in both her hands she lifted something from the
chest, and, before I could stop her she had pressed it down upon my
head. Then she rose. Her face was flushed; her lips parted eagerly on
her gleaming teeth. She caught my hand and pulled me in front of a
great mirror that hung upon the wall.
I saw reflected there a small, shrinking figure, with a white face, in
a white dress, crowned with a circlet of gold, and hung with necklaces
that made brightness in the shadow. I heard the Spanish Woman's voice
speaking excitedly close beside my cheek.
"There is not their like in this state, in this country. Some of those
have come out of the greatest houses in Spain. They will make you
rich, they will make you beautiful! They are nothing to me; I will
give them to you, every one, to keep for ever! Take them--take them
all! And go away! Just for three little days; until the trial is
over!"
I shrank from her in mere amazement. In the first moment I did not
take in what she meant.
"No, but listen," she cried, catching at me, "I can make it easy for
you to go. I have influence--I will help you--I will hide you! We
will arrange the story."
I raised my hands to my head. Now I was choking with anger, with
tears. "Do you think I would do for these, what I would not do for
him?" I lifted the circlet off my head, but my hands shook so that it
fell, and rolled on the floor between us, and I believe we both forgot
it. "Do you suppose I don't care as much as you do? I would do
anything in the world to clear him of this charge. But you don't
understand--to clear him! I can't hush it and hide it. It wouldn't
make it come right, and I don't believe he wants me to. I don't
believe that is what he meant. I know he would hate me if I saved him
with such a lie!"
She grew white. A small sharp shadow came on each side of her mouth.
Her lips parted with a sort of gasp. "What do you know about saving or
dying; what do you know about hating or loving? You would not lie--oh,
no! You would save him--if he were innocent! Why, you child, I would
save him the same if he had killed fifty! You are so precious of your
little self, and your little virtue! Virtue? Pah! I love him--and
that is my virtue!"
Something in the triumphant ring of her voice, in the very strength of
her passion itself, for the moment made her noble. Beside her I felt
myself small, mean and wretched.
It seemed to me I was in a nightmare and never should awake. I pulled
the necklaces, the bracelets, the rings, off me, struggling with the
tangled chains and stubborn clasps. I shook my hand free of the last
jewel, and then snatching up my turban, pinned it on with trembling
fingers, and all the while she stood looking silently at me. One could
not tell what was behind her face. But when, at last, I had taken up
the little ball of my gloves and stood before her, she spoke in a very
soft voice:
"Pardon me, I have lost my wits. But you are made of a material--I do
not know it--but it is not flesh and blood. Nevertheless we must not
part bad friends."
She turned to the table and, pushing aside the jewels as if they had
been colored glass, pulled toward her a tray, and took up a glass
decanter. She poured two glasses of wine, and taking one, gracefully
held it out to me. "Will you not drink to his acquittal?" she asked.
"Forgive me," I said, "if I do not drink to it. I will wish for it
with all my heart. That will be the same."
"But it is not," she said, advancing, with her bright eyes fixed upon
me. "To drink--that is a deed which shows the good will. The rest is
but words. Come, you have spoken of great things you would do for him
if only you could. Well, here is one small thing. Let me see you make
good your words!" Her voice was so sweetly coaxing my hand hesitated
toward the glass. Then, as she thought I was going to take it,
something in the expectant, intense look of her caught me; and a
dreadful thought flashed into my mind.
I shrank back. "No," I said, "I can not!"
But she was fairly upon me with it. She was leaning over me. "Drink,
yes, drink!" She thrust it upon me.
"No, no!" I cried in terror. "I will not!" I flung up my hand with
the impulse to keep it off me, and struck the glass, and overturned it.
She stepped backward and set down the tray with a clang. There was no
perceptible change in her face, but suddenly she had become terrible.
"You shall never go out of my house," she said.
My ears wouldn't believe, my senses rejected the meaning of those
words. "You would not do such a thing--you would not dare!"
She threw back her head until I could see the great column of her white
throat swell, and laughed. "I tell you, my pretty little girl, I would
fling away a dozen such as you for only the chance of saving him!"
I saw that she meant it--I understood how well!--I felt like a little
dry stick in a river, like a leaf in the wind. I looked behind me.
The windows did not open into the outer air but into a tightly closed
conservatory. The sound that was struggling in my throat was a scream,
but suppose it would only call in some of her creatures before Mr.
Dingley should hear! I looked squarely into her face, and I am sure,
in that moment, that I understood what death might mean. "I am going,"
I said, very quietly, and walked across the room toward the curtains.
She did not try to stop me, and every unobstructed step I took forward
I thought, with increasing terror, "What is it that she means to do?"
When I reached the closed curtain the grasp of her hands, which I had
dreaded; was the least of my fears. The anteroom was empty, but as I
passed its threshold I heard her move across the inner room, and then a
bell rang, away down in the lower part of the house. There is no
describing the feeling that was in me when, with the sound of that
uncanny signal in my ears, I opened the door into the grizzly maze of
passageways.
I remembered that I had turned to the right in coming in, so now I
turned to the left, and hurried down that narrow, unlighted way that
led me directly to another door. But I remembered that and opened it
and stepped through into another hall. Here were three branching ways,
and it was only one of these, of course, which would bring me to the
_sala_ door. The others might plunge me into Heaven knew what places
of the house, or what hands! There was no time to hesitate, I must
choose and chance it! There was not one thing--window, furniture or
color--to distinguish them. Yet in my agony of mind I gave a glance
down one and two of them; and on the floor of the second, a few yards
from me some small, light-colored object was lying. I ran forward and
stooped. It was the blue bow that had fallen from my hair.
I picked it up with a rush of thankfulness. This was an incident in a
fairy tale! It seemed an omen of safety, and as I held it in my hand I
fairly ran along the passage and came at last triumphantly out into the
hall, which I remembered, broad and carpeted with red.
Down the stairs I hastened, my heart going quick with the alarms of my
escape, opened the door at the foot of it and came into the little
entry. As I entered it I fancied a sound. It was like a step, very
soft, so soft as to be hardly audible, not behind me, not on the other
side of the door in front of me, but somewhere beyond the entry
partition on my right. It was there, I reckoned, that one of those
dark anterooms, through which we had approached the _sala_, must be.
The flesh of my back was pricking, but I was almost safe. Once let me
reach Mr. Dingley and I knew that somehow he would get us out. With a
great effort I pulled open the heavy door into the _sala_.
"Oh, I--" I began; but then I stopped. The room was so large that it
took me some moments to make sure it was empty. Mr. Dingley was not
there.
I stood perfectly still in that stupendous place. Everything in me
seemed to have stopped moving, too--my blood and my heart. And, in the
listening pause, there came again unmistakably, soft, stealthy
footsteps, sounding beyond the heavy curtain of the door--sounding as
if creatures were gathering in those dark rooms that lay between me and
the outer hall.
I didn't scream. I didn't want to. I walked quite quietly across the
room to one of the heavily curtained windows at the back, and pulled
the hangings aside.
In front of me, not three feet from the window was the blank face of
the convent wall rising straight up, higher than I could see. I looked
downward. The stone pavement, which I could just make out in the
gloom, must have been ten feet below. Nevertheless I had a wild
thought that, if the worst came, I could at least fling myself down the
narrow cleft; and in that mind I took hold of the window-frame. I had
no hope that I could move it, even after I had stirred the heavy locks;
but, with the pressure of all my weight against it, slowly the two
sides of the casement opened out. As the dusty panes of glass swung
away from before me my eye caught a singular irregularity in the
surface of the wall. About on a level with the window-sill was a niche
in the masonry, perhaps three feet square, and looking to be the depth
of the wall itself. The back of it seemed to be made of a dark
substance--darker than the bricks--through which shone twinkling
glimpses of daylight.
I climbed upon the window-sill, and, taking hold of the upper edge of
one of the casements, swung myself by this. I felt myself hovering an
instant in mid-air. Then my feet had found the niche. I crouched,
and, groping forward with one hand, grasped a stout tangle of vines.
Releasing the casement I half-dragged, half-swung myself into the
opening in the wall. I clung there a moment trembling, catching my
breath, before I realized that the dark mass at the back of the niche
was merely ivy, some of which I had grasped, tearing quite a little
opening, and through this I could see a blessed glimpse of blue sky.
Putting my eyes close to this peep-hole I looked downward and saw below
me the grass plots of the convent garden. A great tangle of bushes was
at the foot of the wall, but in spite of that it looked a dreadful
drop. I glanced over my shoulder into the room behind me, and thought
I saw a shadow moving down the floor. I do not know how I turned
myself in the cramped space where I knelt. All I could remember
afterward was the feel of the edge of the rough masonry under my
fingers; the tearing of the ivy as my body crushed through it; the
straining of my arms as I swung downward. I gave one horrified glance
into the depths of the garden; then closed my eyes and let go.