The week of the fête ended as it had begun, with sunshine and cloudless
skies. It had been pronounced simply perfect by everybody, who upon
leaving, congratulated their host and hostess upon the successful
termination of their more than delightful fête. Among themselves
opinions were exchanged regarding the master and mistress of “the Five
Gables.” All agreed that Mrs. Willing had proved a charming hostess,
with whom the most exacting could not find a grain of fault, but that
Mr. Willing, although courtly in manner and very agreeable, was absurdly
in love with his wife, so much so as to appear ridiculous in the eyes of
his female visitors, who could have forgiven any other fault in their
host more willingly, than this very unfashionable one of showing a
preference for his own wife while other ladies were by.
Meanwhile affairs at “the Five Gables” resumed the even tenor of their
way, which had been disturbed by the events of the past week. Andrew
sunk into a chair as the last guest disappeared, and with a huge sigh of
relief, took Mary upon his knee, who loudly wailed at seeing all her
little playmates depart, and would not be comforted.
“Hush, hush, my darling,” said Andrew, kissing the great tears coursing
down the cheeks of the child. “Papa will get you anything you wish, only
cease this crying, you will make yourself ill.”
“But—but I—but I want Lilian to return,” sobbed Mary. “She’s a dear,
and—and I love her, if she _did_ stick pins into poor Dinah and call her
a fright; and—and she has—she has such lovely long hair which I can pull
when I get real mad at her.”
“Ah!” laughed Andrew, “there is method in this violent grief. You have
not been so unladylike as to pull Miss Lilian’s hair, I hope?”
“Oh, heaps of times, papa. She liked it.”
“No doubt,” again laughed Andrew. “It must be an exquisite sensation.
What did Miss Lilian do while you were pulling her hair?”
“She bit me, here and here.” Mary displayed two red marks, evidently
made by four very sharp teeth.
“Upon my soul, chickie, your love-making was of a very tender nature.
You pull her hair; she bites you, and still you lament her departure and
wish her to return.”
“Of course,” replied Mary, sententiously.
“Why of course?” asked her father.
“Because of course I love her. She is the dearest girl I know. She hugs
just be-yew-tiful.”
Victoria came in at this moment and Andrew drew her to him. “I am glad
we are alone once more,” he said. “One such kick-up will do for a life
time.”
“But it has been very enjoyable, Andrew. Everybody has gone away
delighted. I have heard so many pleasant things said about you, and it
has made me glad. I feel very proud of my noble husband.”
She placed her hand upon his head. He caught it and carried it to his
lips. “I am rewarded,” he said, looking lovingly into her eyes. “I would
do it all over again to hear such sweet words from the lips I adore.”
“But there is something I wish to ask you, Andrew. Run away to Chloe, my
darling,” she continued, stooping to kiss Mary, “mamma wishes to be
alone with papa.”
As Mary left the room she turned again to Andrew, a slight shade of
annoyance on her face. “Is there a room in this house which I know
nothing of, Andrew? A room in the western gable which I have always
supposed was false?”
Andrew’s face became ashen pale. His eyes sought the floor. He dared not
look at Victoria. Wild thoughts flashed through his brain. Who had told
her? How much did she know? With an effort he mastered his emotions, but
he kept his eyes upon the floor. “Who has been filling you with silly
tales, Victoria?”
“Mrs. Bradley said——”
“Ah! that busybody,” exclaimed Andrew, tersely.
“Yes, Andrew, she seems to know more of the family history than your own
wife. She, with some other ladies and myself, was standing in the west
gallery this morning, when she said: ‘Mrs. Willing, there is one room
you have not shown us, and I, for one, am dying to see it. I have often
heard my father tell of its many lovely curios brought from foreign
lands, and its beautiful occupant long since dead. He was a boon
companion of your husband’s father.’”
“I told Mrs. Bradley that I had no knowledge of any such room and that
she must have been misinformed.”
“Oh, no indeed,” she replied. “It is in the western gable, and should
lead right out from this gallery.”
“Now I know you are mistaken,” I answered. “That gable is false. There
is no room such as you mention in the gable. Do you not see the solid
wall all along this gallery? and the gable lies directly back of it.”
“She smiled incredulously and looked at the other ladies as much as to
say: ‘She can tell us, but she won’t.’ I led the way from the gallery,
and the subject was dropped; but I have come to you for information,
Andrew. If there is any mystery about that gable you must know it, and I
should hear from your lips instead of from those of a gossip.”
As Victoria spoke Andrew’s face underwent a gradual change, and as she
finished he gravely took her on his knee. “Mrs. Bradley has laid bare
our family skeleton,” he said. “It is not pleasant to relate, but now
that a busybody has partly enlightened you, it is well that you should
know the truth instead of perhaps receiving a garbled account of it from
a stranger. You have been told that my father died from an accidental
pistol shot. So I was led to believe until my twenty-first year. Roger
believed the same; then our mother told us of the gabled room, the
knowledge of which was as much a surprise to us as it is now to you. We
had always believed the gable to be false. My father when a young man,
had fitted up in a most lavish style the western gable, making two
elegant rooms of it, filling them with all the rare things which he
could gather. Here he installed his favorite slave girl. After a time he
went to England and married my mother. The very night of their return
while he was showing my mother the house, as they went to ascend the
stairs leading to the gabled room, his slave girl, smarting from her
fancied wrongs, barred their progress and asked for freedom papers for
herself and child. My father refused her, and straightway she shot him
and then herself. Shortly after this Roger and I were born. My mother
never spoke of her sorrow to anybody, but ordered every trace of the
tragedy to be obliterated. No person ever entered the rooms after that
except to board the windows. Everything was left as its unhappy occupant
had stepped from it. The stairs were taken down and a solid wall built.
My mother never spoke of it but once on our twenty-first birthday. Never
again did I hear her allude to it in the faintest manner. That is the
story, Victoria. Do you wonder at my silence regarding it? Is it a topic
to be dwelt upon? A father’s shame and dishonor; a mother’s blighted
life?”
“No, no, my husband. I would never have asked you to tell it had I
known. Forgive me for unwittingly being the one to rake up these dead
ashes of a buried past.”
“There is nothing to forgive, dear wife. I think I feel better for the
telling. Mrs. Bradley knows not as much as I have told you, for my
mother succeeded in keeping the real facts to herself. The servants were
all freed and given money enough to go far away, so there was no
babbling. It was given out as an accident and so believed by most.”
“What became of the child?” asked Victoria.
“That went with the rest. An old aunty and her husband, who were going
to Raleigh to find their children who had been sold away from them, took
the boy with them. We have never heard from them since. My mother gave
them plenty of money and promised to send them more if they needed it,
but they never applied for more. No doubt they are dead.”
“No doubt,” replied Victoria, looking dreamily out over the fair lands
of which her husband was the sole possessor, “but I have a feeling, a
presentiment, that some day you will hear from this Ishmael who really
ought to receive some share of what was his father’s.”
Andrew smiled. “Don’t let any such foolish fancies linger in your mind,
dear wife. The laws of Virginia were made for just such cases as his. He
could not claim so much as a stone from off this plantation.”
“But, Andrew, laying all race prejudice aside, and speaking from your
heart, tell me honestly, would you not feel guilty of keeping all? Is
not a share of it your brother’s?”
“Never,” spoke Andrew decidedly. “Victoria, you are a queen among women.
You are more intelligent than any woman I know, but on such questions
allow me to be the judge. You certainly are not capable.”
He arose and paced the room excitedly. “There is one person whose
society I wish you to avoid Victoria, and that is Mrs. Bradley. When she
calls here again treat her very ceremoniously, and please do not return
her call. That woman gives me a creeping sensation whenever she come
near me. She is a human snake. Leave her entirely alone, I beg of you.
But for her this disagreeable conversation would not have occurred.
Unpleasant things like these _must_ not come up between us, my wife.
They are sure to leave thoughts in the mind which cannot easily be
forgotten. Am I right?” He stooped and kissed her.
“Yes, Andrew, you are always right. I will drop Mrs. Bradley from my
calling-list, and you shall never hear me speak again of this skeleton
in your family closet unless you first mention it. Will my doing so
please you?”
“Most certainly, Victoria. We have never had a word of disagreement
since our marriage. Do not let us begin now.”
So the subject from that day was not again referred to by either
Victoria or Andrew, but it cannot be said that neither thought of it
afterward, for Victoria, although she had none but loyal thoughts for
her husband, could not help her mind occasionally turning toward that
mysterious western gable, in which were the beautifully decorated rooms
which must now be in a state of utter decay after having been closed for
so many years. Victoria was not without her full share of curiosity, and
she often longed to speak with Andrew, and implore him to find some way
of opening a passage to the western gable, so that they might visit
those rooms and gaze upon the treasures supposed to be still there. Of
course it was a sad story, but then nearly every old family had a
skeleton of some kind in their closets, and now that the principal
actors in this tragedy were long since mouldered into dust, what harm
could be done by opening the rooms and making use of what must be the
pleasantest gable of all the five. She resolved, when the proper time
should present itself, to broach the subject to Andrew. He could only
refuse.
After this conversation Andrew spent more of his time than he had ever
done in his study. After breakfast he would repair to his study and give
orders that he was not to be disturbed by anybody unless he himself
should signify to the contrary, and often Victoria did not see him again
until the luncheon hour. Then for a few hours, usually until dinner, he
rode or drove with herself and Mary, and seemed for the time being to
throw off the melancholy which was becoming more noticeable every day,
and which Victoria gazed upon with alarm. Then shortly after dinner,
when Victoria would have prized his society the most, he again repaired
to his study, there to remain until the wee small hours, and it had
become a regular nightly habit for him to have a repast served to him
usually at midnight. Victoria had remonstrated with him until she had
become weary. She told him that his health could not always remain
perfect when subjected to such a strain; that he was growing aged far
beyond his years; but he only laughed, and stopped her mouth with a
kiss, and continued as before to immure himself within his den where
Mary alone was admitted, and she not at all times, for she often knocked
and even kicked at the closed door, and could get not so much as a word
from her father who, when she told him hours after, would reply: “Papa
cannot talk when he is writing or very busy, chickie.”
“But you might just come to the door,” persisted the child, “and say,
‘Go away, Mary, papa can’t see you just yet,’ and not keep me banging at
the door so long. I’ve listened at the keyhole many a time, and it’s so
awfully still it makes me afraid.”
And at such times Andrew would take Mary on his knee, and bury his
troubled face in the child’s clustering curls. The anguish of his heart
was plainly visible in his manner, but only his God and Mary was there
to witness it, and although the child knew that there was something
amiss, her childish mind could not fathom it. She only knew that her
father was troubled, and in her baby fashion she comforted him, calling
him “poor papa,” and smoothing the heavy lines of care upon his forehead
with soft, caressing fingers, which were as an angel’s to Andrew’s
fevered, throbbing temples. To him this child seemed nothing less than a
celestial being, lent to him by a merciful God for a time, to sooth his
tired frame, and who might be snatched from him in the twinkling of an
eye; and he clasped his treasure to him with a passion born of his
morbid fears, until the child begged to be released.
As the days grew into months Andrew’s strange melancholy increased, as
also his fancy that Mary must never be from his sight unless she were
asleep, until Victoria feared for his reason. To her his behavior was as
a tangled skein, of which she could find no end whereby she might begin
to unravel. To all her questions his invariable reply was that he felt
in the best of health; that his affairs in business were most
satisfactory, and with this she was obliged to content herself, although
it by no means reassured her. And too, his growing watchfulness over
Mary alarmed Victoria. He demanded that her crib be placed closed beside
his bed, and when Victoria surprised at the request asked the reason, he
replied that of late he had been troubled with strange dreams, and that
he thought he might rest better if he could awaken and lay his hand upon
his child. So to humor him, Victoria had Mary’s little bed removed from
her room to that adjoining, and many nights after that when Andrew came
from his study, he would bend over the sweet sleeper, touching softly
the dainty cheek, or raising a tiny hand kiss each finger passionately,
while tears which he did not strive to check, fell upon the innocent
being whom he had sinned against beyond pardon, yet whom he loved as few
children are beloved by their parents.