THE SECRET OF THE LABORATORY.
XV.
THE BEGINNING OF CHANGES.
As Frank went by the house early the next morning on his way to the
train, he paused and glanced at one of the upper windows, where he had
once before seen Hermione's face looking out. The blinds were closed,
but the slats were slightly turned, and through them he thought, but he
could not be quite sure, he caught the glimpse of a pair of flashing
eyes. In the hope that this was so, he laid his hand upon the gate and
then glanced up again, as if asking permission to open it. The blinds
moved and in another instant fell back, and he saw the face he loved,
looking very pale but sweet, bending towards him from the clustering
honeysuckles.
"May I come in," he asked, "just for a few words more? You know we were
interrupted last night."
She shook her head, and his heart sank; then she seemed to repent her
decision and half opened her lips as if to speak, but no words came. He
kept his hand on the gate, and his face grew eloquent.
"You cannot say no," he now pleaded, smiling at the blush that was
slowly mantling on her cheek. "I may not be here again for weeks, and if
you do not let me say good-by I shall always think I have displeased
you, and that will not add to my happiness or peace."
"Wait," came in sudden eagerness from her lips, and he saw her disappear
from the window and appear, almost before he could realize his own
relief, in the open door-way before him. "Come in," said she, with the
first full glad smile he had ever seen on her lips.
But though he bounded up the steps he did not enter the house. Instead
of that he seized her hand and tried to induce her to come out in the
open air to him. "No close rooms," said he, "on such a morning as this.
Come into the poplar-walk, come; let me see you with the wind blowing
your hair about your cheeks."
"No, no!" burst from her lips in something almost like fright. "Emma
goes into the garden, but not I. Do not ask me to break the habit of
months, do not."
But he was determined, tenderly, firmly determined.
"I must," said he; "I must. Your white cheeks and worn face demand the
freshness of out-door air. I do not say you must go outside the gate,
but I do say you must feel again what it is to have the poplars rustle
above your head and the grass close lovingly over your feet. So come,
Hermione, come, for I will not take no, I will not, even from the lips
whose business it shall be to command me in everything else."
His eyes entreated her, his hand constrained her; she sought to do
battle with his will, but her glances fell before the burning ardor of
his. With a sudden wild heave of her breast, she yielded, and he drew
her down into the garden and so around to the poplar-walk. As she went
the roses came out on her cheeks, and she seemed to breathe like a
creature restored to life.
"Oh, the blue, blue sky!" she cried, "and oh, the hills! I have not seen
them for a year. As for the poplars, I should love to kiss their old
boughs, I am so glad to be beneath them once more."
But as she proceeded farther her spirits seemed to droop again, and she
cast him furtive looks as much as to say:
"Is it right? ought I to be enjoying all this bliss?"
But the smile on his face was so assured, she speedily took courage
again, and allowed him to lead her to the end of the poplar-walk, far up
in those regions where his eye had often strayed but his feet never been
even in fancy. On a certain bench they sat down, and he turned towards
her a beaming face.
"Now I feel as if you were mine," he cried. "Nothing shall part us after
this, not even your own words."
But she put her hands out with a meek, deprecating gesture, very unlike
the imperious one she had indulged in before.
"You must not say that," she cried. "My coming out may have been a
weakness, but it shall not be followed by what you yourself might come
to regard as a wrong. I am here, and it was for your pleasure I came,
but that commits me to nothing and you to nothing, unless it be to the
momentary delight. Do you hear that bird sing?"
"You are lovely with that flickering sunlight on your face," was all the
reply he made.
And perhaps he could have made no better, for it gave her a sweet sense
of helplessness in the presence of this great love, which to a woman who
had been so long bearing herself up in solitary assertion had all the
effect of rest and relief.
"You make me feel as if my youth was not quite gone," said she; "but,"
she added, as his hand stole towards hers, "you have not yet made me
feel that I must listen to all the promptings of love. There is a gulf
between me and you across which we cannot shake hands. But we can speak,
friend, to one another, and that is a pleasure to one who has travelled
so long in a wilderness alone. Shall we not let that content us, or do
you wish to risk life and all by attempting more?"
"I wish to risk everything, anything, so as to make you mine."
"You do not know what you are saying. We are talking pure foolishness,"
was her sudden exclamation, as she leapt to her feet. "Here, in this
pure air, and in sight of the fields and hills, the narrow, confining
bands which have held me to the house seem to lose their power and
partake of the unsubstantiality of a dream. But I know that with my
recrossing of the threshold they will resume their power again, and I
shall wonder I could ever talk of freedom or companionship with one who
does not know the secrets of the house or the shadow which has been cast
by them upon my life."
"You know them, and yet you would go back," he cried. "I should say the
wiser course would be to turn away from a place so fatal to your
happiness and hopes, and, yielding to my entreaties, go with me to the
city, where we will be married, and----"
"Frank, what a love you have for me! a love which questions nothing, not
even my past, notwithstanding I say it is that past which separates us
and makes me the recluse I am."
"You have filled me with trust by the pure look in your eyes," said he.
"Why should I ask you to harrow up your feelings by telling me what you
would have told me long ago, if it had not been too painful?"
"You are a great, good man," she cried. "You subdue me who have never
been subdued before, except by my own passionate temper. I reverence you
and I--love--you. Do not ask me to say anything more." And the queenly,
imperious form swayed from side to side, and the wild tears gushed
forth, and she fled from his side down the poplar-walk, till she came
within sight of the house, when she paused, gathering up her strength
till he reached the place where she stood, when she said:
"You are coming again, some time?"
"I am coming again in a week."
"You will find a little packet awaiting you in the place where you stay.
You will read it before you see me again?"
"I will read it."
"Good-by," said she; and her face in its most beautiful aspect shone on
him for a moment; then she retreated, and was lost to his view in the
shrubbery.
As he passed the house on his way to the gate, he saw Doris casting
looks of delight down the poplar-walk, where her young mistress was
still straying, and at the same instant caught a hurried glimpse of Mrs.
Lovell and Emma, leaning from the window above, in joyful recognition of
the fact that a settled habit had been broken, and that at his
inducement Hermione had consented to taste again the out-door air.
He was yet in time for the train, for he had calculated on this visit,
and so made allowances for it. He was therefore on the point of turning
towards the station, when he saw the figure of a man coming down the
street, and stopped, amazed. Was it--could it be--yes, it was Hiram
Huckins. He was dressed in black, and looked decent, almost trim, but
his air was that of one uncertain of himself, and his face was
disfigured by an ingratiating leer which Etheridge found almost
intolerable. He was the first to speak.
"How do you do, Mr. Etheridge?" said he, ambling up, and bowing with
hypocritical meekness. "You didn't expect to see me here, did you? But
business calls me. My poor, dear sister Harriet is said to have been in
Marston, and I have come to see if it is true. I do not find her, do
you?"
The sly, half-audacious, half-deprecating look with which he uttered
these words irritated Frank beyond endurance.
"No," he rejoined. "Your valuable time will be wasted here. You will
have to look elsewhere for your _dear_ sister."
"It has taken you a long time to find that out," insinuated the other,
with his most disagreeable leer. "I suppose, now, you thought till this
very last night that you would find her in the graveyard or in some of
these old houses. Else why should you waste _your_ valuable time in a
place of such mean attractions."
They were standing directly in front of the Cavanagh house and Frank was
angry enough to lift his hand against him at these words, for the old
man's eyes--he was not old but he always presented the appearance of
being so--had wandered meaningly towards the windows above him, as if he
knew that behind them, instead of in any graveyard, centred the real
attractions of the place for Frank.
But though a lawyer may have passions, he, as a rule, has learned to
keep a curb upon them, especially in the presence of one who is likely
to oppose him.
So bowing with an effort at politeness, young Etheridge acknowledged
that he had only lately given up his hope, and was about to withdraw in
his haste to catch the train, when Huckins seized him by the arm with a
low chuckle and slyly whispered:
"You've been visiting the two pretty hermitesses, eh? Are they nice
girls? Do they know anything about my sister? You look as if you had
heard good news somewhere. Was it in there?"
He was eager; he was insinuating; he seemed to hang upon Frank's reply.
But the lawyer, struck and troubled by this allusion to the women he so
cherished, on lips he detested beyond any in the world, stood still for
a moment, looking the indignation he dared not speak.
Huckins took advantage of this silence to speak again, this time with an
off-hand assurance only less offensive than his significant remarks.
"I know they keep at home and do not go out in the world to hear the
gossip. But women who keep themselves shut up often know a lot about
what is going on around them, Mr. Etheridge, and as you have been there
I thought--"
"Never mind what you thought," burst out Frank, unable to bear his
insinuations any longer. "Enough that I do not go there to hear anything
about Harriet Smith. There are other law cases in the world besides
yours, and other clients besides your sister and her heirs. These young
ladies, for instance, whom you speak of so freely."
"I am sure," stammered Huckins, with great volubility, and an air of
joviality which became him as little as the suspicious attitude he had
hitherto taken, "I never meant to speak with the least disrespect of
ladies I have never met. Only I was interested you know, naturally
interested, in anything which might seem to bear upon my own affairs.
They drag so, don't they, Mr. Etheridge, and I am kept so long out of my
rights."
"No longer than justice seems to demand, Mr. Huckins; your sister, and
her heirs, if they exist, have rights also."
"So you say," quoth Huckins, "and I have learned not to quarrel with a
lawyer. Good-day, Mr. Etheridge, good-day. Hope to hear that some
decision has been arrived at soon."
"Good-day," growled Frank, and strode rapidly off, determined to return
to Marston that very night if only to learn what Huckins was up to. But
before he had gone a dozen steps he came quickly back and seized that
person by the arm. "Where are you going?" he asked; for Huckins had laid
his hand on Miss Cavanagh's gate and was about to enter.
"I am going to pay a visit," was the smiling reply. "Is there anything
wrong in that?"
"I thought you did not know these young ladies--that they were strangers
to you?"
"So they are, so they are, but I am a man who takes a great interest in
eccentric persons. I am eccentric myself; so was my sister Cynthia; so I
may say was Harriet, though how eccentric we have still to find out. If
the young ladies do not want to see an old man from New York they can
say so, but I mean to give them the chance. Have you anything to say
against it?"
"No, except that I think it an unwarrantable intrusion about which you
had better think twice."
"I have thought," retorted Huckins, with a mild obstinacy that had a
sinister element in it, "and I can't deny myself the pleasure. Think of
it! two healthy and beautiful girls under twenty-four who never leave
the house they live in! That is being more unlike folks than Cynthia and
myself, who were old and who had a fortune to guard. Besides we did
leave the house, or rather I did, when there was business to look after
or food to buy. But they don't go out for anything, I hear, _anything_.
Mr. Ruthven--he is the minister you know--has given me his card by way
of introduction; so you see they will have to treat me politely, and
that means I shall at least see their faces."
His cunning, his satisfaction, and a certain triumph underlying all,
affected Frank like the hiss of a serpent. But the business awaiting him
in New York was imperative, and the time remaining to him before the
train left was barely enough to enable him to reach the station. So
curbing his disgust and the dread he had of seeing this knave enter
Hermione's door, he tore himself away and made what haste he could to
the station. He arrived just as the first whistle of the coming train
was heard, and owing to a short delay occasioned by the arrival of a
telegram at the station, he was enabled to write two notes, one to Miss
Cavanagh and one to Dr. Sellick. These he delivered to Jerry, with
strict injunctions to deliver them immediately, and as the train moved
off carrying him back to his duties, he had the satisfaction of seeing
the lumbering figure of that slow but reliable messenger disappear
around the curve in the highway which led directly to Miss Cavanagh's
house.
XVI.
A STRANGE VISITOR.
Frank's visit and interview with Hermione had this advantage for the
latter, that it took away some of the embarrassment which her first
meeting with Emma, after the revelations of the night before, had
necessarily occasioned. She had breakfasted in her own room, feeling
that it would be impossible for her to meet her sister's eye, but having
been led into giving such proof of her preference for Mr. Etheridge, and
the extent of his influence over her, there could of course be no
further question of Dr. Sellick, or any need for explanations between
herself and Emma regarding a past thus shown to be no longer of vital
interest to her. When, therefore, she came in from the garden and saw
Emma waiting for her at the side-door, she blushed, but that was all, in
memory of the past night; and murmuring some petty commonplace, sought
to pass her and enter again the house which she had not left before in a
full year.
But Emma, who was bright with a hope she had not felt in months, stopped
her with a word.
"There is an old man waiting in the parlor who says he wants to see us.
He sent in this card--it has Dr. Ruthven's name on it--and Doris says he
seemed very eager and anxious. Can you guess who he can be?"
"No," rejoined Hermione, wondering. "But we can soon see. Our visitors
are not so numerous that we can afford to slight one." And tripping by
Emma, she led the way into the parlor.
A slight, meagre, eager-eyed man, clad in black and wearing a
propitiatory smile on very thin lips, rose as she entered, and bowed
with an awkward politeness that yet had something of the breeding of a
gentleman in it.
Hermione did not like his looks, but she advanced cordially enough,
perhaps because her heart was lighter than usual, and her mind less
under the strain of one horrible fixed idea than it had been in months.
"How do you do?" said she, and looked at him inquiringly.
Huckins, with another bow, this time in recognition of her unexpected
beauty and grace, shambled uneasily forward, and said in a hard,
strained voice which was even more disagreeable than his face:
"I am sure you are very good to receive me, Miss Cavanagh. I--I had a
great desire to come. Your father----"
She drew back with a gasp.
"My father----" she repeated.
"Was an old friend of mine," he went on, in a wheedling tone, in
seeming oblivion of the effect his words had had upon her. "Did you
never hear him speak of Hope, Seth Hope?"
"Never," cried Hermione, panting, and looking appealingly at Emma, who
had just entered the room.
"Yet we were friends for years," declared the dissimulator, folding his
hands with a dreary shake of his head.
"For years?" repeated Emma, advancing and surveying him earnestly.
"Our father was a much older man than you, Mr.--Mr. Hope."
"Perhaps, perhaps, I never saw him. But we corresponded for years. Have
you not come across letters signed by my name, in looking over his
effects?"
"No," answered Emma, firmly, while Hermione, looking very pale,
retreated towards the door, where she stopped in mingled distress and
curiosity.
"Then he must have destroyed them all," declared their visitor. "Some
people do not keep letters. Yet they were full of information, I assure
you; full, for it was upon the ever delightful subject of chemistry we
corresponded, and the letters I wrote him sometimes cost me a week's
effort to indite."
Emma, who had never met a man like this before, looked at him with
wide-open eyes. Had Hermione not been there, she would have liked to
have played with his eccentricities, and asked him numberless questions.
But with her sister shrinking in the doorway, she dared not encourage
him to pursue a theme which she perceived to be fraught with the keenest
suffering for Hermione. So she refrained from showing the distrust which
she really felt, and motioning the old man to sit down, asked, quietly:
"And was it for these letters you came? If so, I am sorry that none such
have been found."
"No, no," cried Huckins, with stammering eagerness, as he marked the
elder sister's suspicious eyes and unencouraging manner. "It was not to
get them back that I ventured to call upon you, but for the pleasure of
seeing the house where he lived and did so much wonderful work, and the
laboratory, if you will be so good. Why has your sister departed?" he
suddenly inquired, in fretful surprise, pointing to the door where
Hermione had stood a moment before.
"She probably has duties," observed Emma, in a troubled voice. "And she
probably was surprised to hear a stranger ask to see a room no one but
the members of his family have entered since our father's death."
"But I am not a stranger," artfully pursued the cringing Huckins,
making himself look as benevolent as he could. "I am an admirer, a
devoted admirer of your remarkable parent, and I could show you
papers"--but he never did,--"of writing in that same parent's hand, in
which he describes the long, narrow room, with its shelves full of
retorts and crucibles, and the table where he used to work, with the
mystic signs above it, which some said were characters taken from
cabalistic books, but which he informed me were the new signs he wished
to introduce into chemistry, as being more comprehensive and less liable
to misinterpretation than those now in use."
"You do seem to know something about the room," she murmured softly, too
innocent to realize that the knowledge he showed was such as he could
have gleaned from any of Mr. Cavanagh's intimate friends.
"But I want to see it with my own eyes. I want to stand in the spot
where he stood, and drink in the inspiration of his surroundings, before
I go back to my own great labor."
"Have you a laboratory? Are you a chemist?" asked Emma, interested in
despite of the dislike his wheedling ways and hypocritical air naturally
induced.
"Yes, yes, I have a laboratory," said he; "but there is no romance about
mine; it is just the plain working-room of a hard-working man, while
his----"
Emma, who had paled at these words almost as much as her sister had done
at his first speech about her father, recoiled with a look in which the
wonderment was strangely like fear.
"I cannot show you the room," said she. "You exaggerate your desire to
see it, as you exaggerate the attainments and the discoveries of my
father. I must ask you to excuse me," she continued, with a slight
acknowledgment in which dismissal could be plainly read. "I am very
busy, and the morning is rapidly flying. If you could come again----"
But here Hermione's full deep tones broke from the open doorway.
"If he wishes to see the place where father worked, let him come; there
is no reason why we should hide it from one who professes such sympathy
with our father's pursuits."
Huckins, chuckling, looked at Emma, and then at her sister, and moved
rapidly towards the door. Emma, who had been taken greatly by surprise
by her sister's words, followed slowly, showing more and more
astonishment as Hermione spoke of this place, or that, on their way
up-stairs, as being the spot where her father's books were kept, or his
chemicals stored, till they came to the little twisted staircase at the
top, when she became suddenly silent.
It was now Emma's turn to say:
"This is the entrance to the laboratory. You see it is just as you have
described it."
Huckins, with a sly leer, stepped into the room, and threw around one
quick, furtive look which seemed to take in the whole place in an
instant. It was similar to his description, and yet it probably struck
him as being very different from the picture he had formed of it in his
imagination. Long, narrow, illy lighted, and dreary, it offered anything
but a cheerful appearance, even in the bright July sunshine that sifted
through the three small windows ranged along its side. At one end was a
row of shelves extending from the floor to the ceiling, filled with
jars, chemicals, and apparatus of various kinds. At the other end was a
table for collecting gases, and beneath each window were more shelves,
and more chemicals, and more apparatus. A large electric machine perched
by itself in one corner, gave a grotesque air to that part of the room,
but the chief impression made upon an observer was one of bareness and
desolation, as of the husk of something which had departed, leaving a
smell of death behind. The girls used the room for their dreary midnight
walks; otherwise it was never entered, except by Doris, who kept it in
perfect order, as a penance, she was once heard to declare, she having a
profound dislike to the place, and associating it always, as we have
before intimated, with some tragic occurrence which she believed to have
taken place there.
Huckins, after his first quick look, chuckled and rubbed his hands
together, in well-simulated glee.
"Do I see it?" he cried; "_the room_ where the great Cavanagh thought
and worked! It is a privilege not easily over-estimated." And he flitted
from shelf to drawer, from drawer to table, with gusts of enthusiasm
which made the cold, stern face of Hermione, who had taken up her stand
in the doorway, harden into an expression of strange defiance.
Emma, less filled with some dark memory, or more swayed by her anxiety
to fathom his purposes, and read the secret of an intrusion which as yet
was nothing but a troublous mystery to her, had entered the room with
him, and stood quietly watching his erratic movements, as if she half
expected him to abstract something from the hoard of old chemicals or
collection of formulas above which he hung with such a pretence of
rapture.
"How good! how fine! how interesting!" broke in shrill ejaculation from
his lips as he ambled hither and thither. But Emma noticed that his eye
ever failed to dwell upon what was really choice or unique in the
collection of her father's apparatus, and that when by chance he touched
an alembic or lifted a jar, it was with an awkwardness that betrayed an
unaccustomed hand.
"You do not hold a retort in that way," she finally remarked, going up
to him and taking the article in question out of his hand. "This is how
my father was accustomed to handle them," she proceeded, and he, taken
aback for the instant, blushed and murmured something about her father
being his superior and she the very apt pupil of a great scholar and a
very wise man.
"You wanted to see the laboratory, and now you have seen it," quoth
Hermione from her place by the door. "Is there anything else we can do
for you?"
The chill, stern tones seemed to rouse him and he turned towards the
speaker.
"No, no, my dear, no, no. You have been very good." But Emma noticed
that his eyes still kept roaming here, there, and everywhere while he
spoke, picking up information as a bird picks up worms.
"What does he want?" thought she, looking anxiously towards her sister.
"You have a very pleasant home," he now remarked, pausing at the head of
those narrow stairs and peering into the nest of Hermione's own room,
the door of which stood invitingly open. "Is that why you never leave
it?" he unexpectedly asked, looking with his foxy eyes from one sister
to the other.
"I do not think it is necessary for us to answer you," said Emma, while
Hermione, with a flash in her eye, motioned him imperiously down, saying
as she slowly followed him:
"Our friends do not consider it wise to touch upon that topic, how much
more should a stranger hesitate before doing so?"
And he, cowering beneath her commanding look and angry presence, seemed
to think she was right in this and ventured no more, though his restless
eyes were never still, and he appeared to count the very banisters as
his hand slid down the railing, and to take in every worn thread that
showed itself in the carpet over which his feet shuffled in almost
undignified haste.
When they were all below, he made one final remark:
"Your father owed me money, but I do not think of pressing my claim. You
do not look as if you were in a position to satisfy it."
"Ah," exclaimed Emma, thinking she had discovered the motive of his
visit at last; "that is why you wanted to see the laboratory."
"Partly," he acknowledged with a sly wink, "but not altogether. All
there is there would not buy up the I. O. U. I hold. I shall have to let
the matter go with other bad debts I suppose. But three hundred dollars
is a goodly sum, young ladies, a goodly sum."
Emma, who knew that her father had not been above borrowing money for
his experiments, looked greatly distressed for a moment, but Hermione,
who had now taken her usual place as leader, said without attempting to
disguise the tone of suspicion in her voice:
"Substantiate your claim and present your bill and we will try to pay
it. We have still a few articles of furniture left."
Huckins, who had never looked more hypocritically insinuating or more
diabolically alert, exclaimed,
"I can wait, I can wait."
But Hermione, with a grand air and a candid look, answered bitterly and
at once:
"What we cannot do now we can never do. Our fortunes are not likely to
increase in the future, so you had better put in your claim at once, if
you really want your pay."
"You think so?" he began; and his eye, which had been bright before,
now gleamed with the excitement of a fear allayed. "I----"
But just then the bell rang with a loud twang, and he desisted from
finishing his sentence.
Emma went to the door and soon came back with a letter which she handed
to Hermione.
"The man Jerry brought it," she explained, casting a meaning look at her
sister.
Hermione, with a quick flush, stepped to the window and in the shadow of
the curtains read her note. It was a simple word of warning.
DEAR MISS CAVANAGH:
I met a man at your gate who threatened to go in. Do not receive
him, or if you have already done so, distrust every word he has
uttered and cut the interview short. He is Hiram Huckins, the
man concerning whom I spoke so frankly when we were discussing
the will of the Widow Wakeham.
Yours most truly,
FRANK ETHERIDGE.
The flush with which Hermione read these lines was quite gone when she
turned to survey the intruder, who had forced himself upon her
confidence and that of her sister by means of a false name. Indeed she
looked strangely pale and strangely indignant as she met his twinkling
and restless eye, and, to any one who knew the contents of the note
which she held, it would seem that her first words must be those of
angry dismissal.
But instead of these, she first looked at him with some curiosity, and
then said in even, low, and slightly contemptuous tones:
"Will you not remain and lunch with us, Mr. Huckins?"
At this unexpected utterance of his name he gave a quick start, but soon
was his cringing self again. Glancing at the letter she held, he
remarked:
"My dear young lady, I see that Mr. Etheridge has been writing to you.
Well, there is no harm in that. Now we can shake hands in earnest"; and
as he held out his wicked, trembling palm, his face was a study for a
painter.
XVII.
TWO CONVERSATIONS.
That afternoon, as Emma was sitting in her own room, she was startled by
the unexpected presence of Hermione. As they were not in the habit of
intruding upon each other above stairs, Emma rose in some surprise. But
Hermione motioning her back into her chair, fell at her feet in sudden
abandon, and, laying her head in her sister's lay, gave way to one deep
sob. Emma, too much astonished to move at this unexpected humiliation of
one who had never before bent her imperious head in that household,
looked at the rich black locks scattered over her knees with wonder if
not with awe.
"Hermione!" she whispered, "Hermione! do not kneel to me, unless it be
with joy."
But the elder sister, clasping her convulsively around the waist,
murmured:
"Let me be humble for a moment; let me show that I have something in me
besides pride, reckless endurance, and determined will. I have not shown
it enough in the past. I have kept my sufferings to myself, and my
remorse to myself, and alas! also all my stern recognition of your love
and unparalleled devotion. I have felt your goodness, oh, I have felt
it, so much so, at times, that I thought I could not live, ought not to
live, just because of what I have done to _you_; but I never said
anything, could not say anything! Yet all the remorse I experienced was
nothing to what I experience now that I know I was not even loved----"
"Hush," broke in Emma, "let those days be forgotten. I only felt that
you ought to know the truth, because sweeter prospects are before you,
and----"
"I understand," murmured Hermione, "you are always the great-hearted,
unselfishly minded sister. I believe you would actually rejoice to see
me happy now, even if it did not release you from the position you have
assumed. But it shall release you; you shall not suffer any longer on my
account. Even if it is only to give you the opportunity of--of meeting
with Dr. Sellick, you shall go out of this house to-day. Do you hear me,
Emma, _to-day_?"
But the ever-gentle, ever-docile Emma rose up at this, quite pale in her
resolution. "Till you put foot out of the gate I remain this side of
it," said she. "Nothing can ever alter my determination in this regard."
And Hermione, surveying her with slowly filling eyes, became convinced
that it would be useless to argue this point, though she made an effort
to do so by saying with a noble disregard of her own womanly shame which
in its turn caused Emma's eyes to fill:
"Dr. Sellick has suffered a great wrong, I judge; don't you think you
owe something to him?"
But Emma shook her head, though she could not prevent a certain wistful
look from creeping into her face. "Not what I owe to you," said she, and
then flushed with distress lest her sister should misjudge the meaning
of her words.
But Hermione was in a rarely generous mood. "But I release you from any
promise you have made or any obligations you may consider yourself to be
under. Great heaven! do you think I would hold you to them _now_?"
"I hold myself," cried Emma. "You cannot release me,--except," she
added, with gentle intimation, "by releasing yourself."
"I cannot release myself," moaned Hermione. "If we all perish I cannot
release myself. _I_ am a prisoner to this house, but you----"
"We are sister prisoners," interpolated Emma, softly. Then with a sudden
smile, "I was in hopes that he who led you to break one resolution might
induce you to break another."
But Hermione, flushing with something of her old fire, cried out
warmly: "In going out of the house I broke a promise made to myself, but
in leaving the grounds I should--oh, I cannot tell you what I should do;
not even you know the full bitterness of my life! It is a secret, locked
in this shrinking, tortured heart, which it almost breaks, but does not
quite, or I should not linger in this dreadful world to be a cause of
woe to those I cherish most."
"But Hermione, Hermione----"
"You think you know what has set a seal on my lips, the gloom on my
brow, the death in my heart; but you do not, Emma. You know much, but
not the fatal grief, the irrepressible misery. But you shall know, and
know soon. I have promised to write out the whole history of my life for
Mr. Etheridge, and when he has read it you shall read it too. Perhaps
when you learn what the real horror of this house has been, you may
appreciate the force of will-power which it has taken for me to remain
in it."
Emma, who had never suspected anything in the past beyond what she
herself knew, grew white with fresh dismay. But Hermione, seeing it,
kissed her, and, speaking more lightly, said: "You kept back one vital
secret from me in consideration of what you thought the limit of my
endurance. I have done the same for you under the same consideration.
Now we will equalize matters, and perhaps--who knows?--happier days may
come, if Mr. Etheridge is not too much startled by the revelations I
have to make him, and if Dr. Sellick--do not shrink, Emma--learns some
magnanimity from his friend and will accept the explanations I shall
think it my duty to offer him."
But at this suggestion, so unlike any that had ever come from Hermione's
lips before, the younger sister first stared, and then flung her arms
around the speaker, with cries of soft deprecation and shame.
"You shall not," she murmured. "Not if I lose him shall he ever know
why that cruel letter was written. It is enough--it shall be
enough--that he was dismissed _then_. If he loves me he will try his
fate again. But I do not think he does love me, and it would be better
for him that he did not. Would _he_ ever marry a woman who, not even at
his entreaty, could be induced to cross the limits of her home?"
"Mr. Etheridge should not do it either; but he is so generous--perhaps
so hopeful! He may not be as much so when he has read what I have to
write."
"I think he will," said Emma, and then paused, remembering that she did
not know all that her sister had to relate.
"He would be a man in a thousand then," whispered the once haughty
Hermione. "A man to worship, to sacrifice all and everything to, that it
was in one's power to sacrifice."
"He will do what is right," quoth Emma.
Hermione sighed. Was she afraid of the right?
Meantime, in the poplar-walk below, another talk was being held, which,
if these young girls could have heard it, might have made them feel even
more bitterly than before, what heavy clouds lay upon any prospect of
joy which they might secretly cherish. Doris, who was a woman of many
thoughts, and who just now found full scope for all her ideas in the
unhappy position of her two dear young ladies, had gone into the open
air to pick currants and commune with herself as to what more could be
done to bring them into a proper recognition of their folly in clinging
to a habit or determination which seemed likely to plunge them into such
difficulties.
The currant bushes were at the farther end of the garden near the
termination of the poplar-walk, and when, in one of the pauses of her
picking, she chanced to look up, she saw advancing towards her down that
walk the thin, wiry figure of the old man who had taken luncheon with
the young ladies, and whom they called, in very peculiar tones, she
thought, Mr. Huckins. He was looking from right to left as he came, and
his air was one of contemplation or that of a person who was taking in
the beauties of a scene new to him and not wholly unpleasant.
When he reached the spot where Doris stood eying him with some curiosity
and not a little distrust, he paused, looked about him, and perceiving
her, affected some surprise, and stepped briskly to where she was.
"Picking currants?" he observed. "Let me help you. I used to do such
things when a boy."
Astonished, and not a little gratified at what she chose to consider his
condescension, Doris smiled. It was a rare thing now for a man to be
seen in this lonesome old place, and such companionship was not
altogether disagreeable to Mistress Doris.
Huckins rubbed his hands together in satisfaction at this smile, and
sidled up to the simpering spinster with a very propitiatory air.
"How nice this all is," he remarked. "So rural, so peaceful, and so
pleasant. I come from a place where there is no fruit, nor flowers, nor
young ladies. You must be happy here." And he gave her a look which she
thought very insinuating.
"Oh, I am happy enough," she conceded, "because I am bound to be happy
wherever the young ladies are. But I could wish that things were
different too." And she thought herself very discreet that she had not
spoken more clearly.
"Things?" he repeated softly.
"Yes, my young ladies have odd ideas; I thought you knew."
He drew nearer to her side, very much nearer, and dropped the currants
he had plucked gently into her pail.
"I know they have a fixed antipathy to going out, but they will get over
that."
"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly.
"Don't _you_?" he queried, with an innocent look of surprise. He was
improving in his dissimulation, or else he succeeded better with those
of whom he had no fear.
"I don't know what to think. Are you an old friend of theirs?" she
inquired. "You must be, to lunch with them."
"I never saw them before to-day," he returned, "yet I am an old friend.
Reason that out," he leered.
"You like to puzzle folks," she observed, picking very busily but
smiling all the while. "Do you give answers with your puzzles?"
"Not to such sharp wits as yours. But how beautiful Miss Cavanagh is.
Has she always had that scar?"
"Ever since I knew her."
"Pity she should have such a blemish. You like her, don't you, very
much?"
"I love her."
"And her sister--such a sweet girl!"
"I love them both."
"That is right. I should be sorry to have any one about them who did not
love them. _I_ love them, or soon shall, very much."
"Are you," Doris inquired, with great inquisitiveness, "going to remain
in Marston any time?"
"I cannot say," sighed the old man; "I should like to. I should be very
happy here, but I am afraid the young ladies do not like me well
enough."
Doris had cherished some such idea herself an hour ago, and had not
wondered at it then, but now her feelings seemed changed.
"Was it to see them you came to Marston?" said she.
"Merely to see them," he replied.
She was puzzled, but more eager than puzzled, so anxious was she to find
some one who could control their eccentricities.
"They will treat you politely," she assured him. "They are peculiar
girls, but they are always polite."
"I am afraid I shall not be satisfied with politeness," he insinuated.
"I want them to love me, to confide in me. I want to be their friend in
fact as I have so long been in fancy."
"You are some relative of theirs," she now asserted, "or you knew their
father well or their mother."
"I wouldn't say no," he replied,--but to which of these three
intimations, he evidently did not think it worth while to say.
"Then," she declared, "you are the man I want. Mr. Etheridge--that is
the lawyer from New York who has lately been coming here--does not seem
to have much confidence in himself or me. But you look as if you might
do something or suggest something. I mean about getting the young ladies
to give up their whims."
"Has this Mr.--Mr. Etheridge, did you call him?--been doing their
business long?"
"I never saw him here till a month ago."
"Ah! a month ago! And do they like him? Do they seem inclined to take
his advice? Does he press it upon them?"
"I wish I knew. I am only a poor servant, remember, though my bringing
up was as good almost as theirs. They are kind to me, but I do not sit
down in the parlor; if I did, I might know something of what is going
on. I can only judge, you see, by looks."
"And the looks? Come, I have a _great_ interest in the young
ladies--almost as great as yours. What do their looks say?--I mean since
this young man came to visit them? He is a young man, didn't you say?"
"Yes, he is young, and so good-looking. I have thought--now don't spill
the currants, just as we have filled the pail--that he was a little
sweet on Miss Hermione, and that that was why he came here so often, and
not because he had business."
"You have?" twitted the old man, almost dancing about her in his sudden
excitement. "Well, well, that must be seen to. A wedding, eh, a wedding?
That's what you think is coming?" And Doris could not tell whether it
was pleasure or alarm that gave so queer a look to his eyes.
"I cannot say--I wish I could," she fervently cried; "then I might hope
to see a change here; then we might expect to see these two sweet young
ladies doing like other folks and making life pleasant for themselves
and every one about them. But Miss Hermione is a girl who would be very
capable of saying no to a young man if he stood in the way of any
resolve she had taken. I don't calculate much on her being influenced by
love, or I would never have bothered you with my troubles. It is fear
that must control her, or----" Doris paused and looked at him
knowingly--"or she must be lured out of the house by some cunning
device."
Huckins, who had been feeling his way up to this point, brightened as
he noticed the slyness of the smile with which she emphasized this
insinuation, and from this moment felt more assured. But he said nothing
as yet to show how he was affected by her words. There was another
little matter he wanted settled first.
"Do you know," he asked, "why she, and her sister, too, I believe, have
taken this peculiar freak? Have they ever told you, or have you ever--"
how close his head got to hers, and how he nodded and peered--"surprised
their secret?"
Doris shook her head. "All a mystery," she whispered, and began picking
currants again, that operation having stopped as they got more earnest.
"But it isn't a mystery," he laughed, "why you want to get them out of
the house just _now_. I know your reason for that, and think you will
succeed without any device of love or cunning."
"I don't understand you," she protested, puckering her black brows and
growing very energetic. "I don't want to do it _now_ any more than I
have for the last twelve months. Only I am getting desperate. I am not
one who can want a thing and be patient. I _want_ Miss Hermione Cavanagh
and her sister to laugh and be gay like other girls, and till they give
up all this nonsense of self-seclusion they never will; and so I say to
myself that any measures are justifiable that lead to that end. Don't
you think I am right?"
He smiled warily and took her pail of currants from her hand.
"I think you are the brightest woman and have one of the clearest heads
I ever knew. I don't remember when I have seen a woman who pleased me so
well. Shall we be friends? I am only a solitary bachelor, travelling
hither and thither because I do not know how else to spend my money; but
I am willing to work for your ends if you are willing to work for mine."
"And what are they?" she simpered, looking very much delighted. Doris
was not without ambition, and from this moment not without her hopes.
"To make these young ladies trust me so that I may visit them off and on
while I remain in this place. I thought it was pleasant here before, but
_now_----" The old fellow finished with a look and a sigh, and Doris'
subjugation was complete.
Yet she did not let him at this time any further into her plans,
possibly because she had not formed any. She only talked on more and
more about her love for the young ladies, and her wonder over their
conduct, and he, listening for any chance word which might help him in
his own perplexity, walked back at her side, till they arrived in sight
of the house, when he gave her the pail and slunk back to come on later
alone. But a seed was sown at that interview which was destined to bear
strange fruit; and it is hard telling which felt the most satisfaction
at the understood compact between them--the hard, selfish, and scheming
miser, or the weak and obstinate serving-woman, who excused to herself
the duplicity of her conduct by the plea, true enough as far as it went,
that she was prompted by love for those she served, and a desire to see
the two women she admired as bright and happy as their youth and beauty
demanded.
XVIII.
SUSPENSE.
The letter which Frank sent to Edgar described his encounter with
Huckins, and expressed a wish that the Doctor would employ some proper
person to watch his movements and see that he did not make himself
disagreeable to the Misses Cavanagh, whom he had evidently set himself
to annoy.
What, then, was Etheridge's surprise to receive on the following day a
reply from his friend, to the effect that Mr. Huckins had not only
called upon the young ladies mentioned by him, but had made himself very
much at home with them, having lunched, dined, and report even said
breakfasted at their table.
This was startling news to Frank, especially after the letter he had
written to Hermione, but he restrained himself from returning at once to
Marston, as he was half tempted to do, and wrote her again, this time
beseeching her in plain words to have nothing to do with so suspicious a
person as he knew this Huckins to be, and advised her where to appeal
for assistance in case this intolerable intruder was not willing to be
shaken off. This letter brought the following answer:
DEAR MR. ETHERIDGE:
Do not be concerned about us. Mr. Huckins will not trouble us
unduly. Knowing his character, we are not likely to be misled by
him, and it amuses us in our loneliness to have so queer and
surprising a person as our guest.
Aunt Lovell is very sharp and keeps a keen eye upon him. He does
not offend us except by his curiosity, but as that is excusable
in an old man introduced into a household like ours, we try to
make the best of it. When you come yourself we will dismiss the
intruder.
Ever sincerely yours,
HERMIONE CAVANAGH.
This letter was put very near Frank's heart, but it did not relieve him
from his anxiety. On the contrary, it added to his fears, because it
added to his mystification. What did Huckins want of the Misses
Cavanagh, and what was the real reason for the indulgence they showed
him? Was there a secret in their connection which he ought to know? He
began to hasten his business and plan to leave the city again, this time
for more than a single night.
Meantime, Dr. Sellick was not without his own secret doubts. Hide it as
he would, he still cherished the strongest affection for the once
dimpling, dainty, laughing-eyed Emma. Not a day passed but he had to
combat a fervent desire to pass her gate, though when he yielded to this
temptation he went by like an automaton, and never looked to right or
left unless it was dark night. His was a proud soul and an exacting one.
His self-esteem had been hurt, and he could not bring himself to make
even the shadow of an advance towards one who had been the instrument of
his humiliation. And yet he trembled when he thought of misfortune
approaching her, and was almost as anxious as Frank about the presence
in her house of the hypocritical and unprincipled Huckins. Had he
listened only for a moment to the pleading of his better instincts, he
would have gone to their door and lent his entreaties to those of Frank
for a speedy dismissal of their unreliable guest; but the hour had not
yet come for such a self-betrayal, and so he refrained, even while
cursing himself for a pride which would not yield even at the impending
danger of one so passionately beloved.
He however kept a man at watch upon the suspected stranger, a precaution
which certainly did not amount to much, as the danger, if there was any,
was not one which a detective stationed outside of the Misses Cavanagh's
house would be able to avert.
Meanwhile Huckins, who was in his element, grew more insinuating and
fatherly in his manner, day by day. To him this run of a house in which
there lurked a mystery worth his penetrating, was a bliss that almost
vied with that of feeling himself on the road to wealth. He pottered and
poked about in the laboratory, till there was not a spot in the room or
an article on the shelves which had not felt the touch of his hand; and
Hermione and Emma, with what some might have thought a curious disregard
of their father's belongings, let him do this, merely restricting him
from approaching their own rooms. Possibly they felt as if some of the
gloom of the place was lifted by the presence of even this evil-eyed old
man; and possibly the shadows which were growing around them both, as
Hermione labored day after day upon the history she was writing for her
lover, made this and every other circumstance disconnected with the
important theme they were considering, of little moment to them. However
that may be, he came and went as he would, and had many sly hours in the
long, dim laboratory and in the narrow twisted corridors at the back of
the house, and what was worse and perhaps more disastrous still, on the
stairs and in the open doorways with Doris, who had learned to toss her
head and smile very curiously while busying herself in the kitchen, or
taking those brief minutes of respite abroad, which the duties of the
place demanded. And so the week passed, and Saturday night came.
It was seven o'clock, and train-time, and the blinds in the Cavanagh
house guarding the front windows were tipped just a little. Behind one
of these sat Emma, listening to the restless tread of Hermione pacing
the floor in the room above. She knew that the all-important letter was
done, but she could not know its contents, or what their effect would be
upon the free, light-hearted man whose approach they were expecting. She
thought she ought to know all that Hermione had been through in the year
which had passed, yet the wild words uttered by her sister in their late
memorable interview, had left a doubt in her mind which a week's
meditations had only served to intensify. Yet the fears to which it had
given rise were vague, and she kept saying to herself: "There cannot be
anything worse than I know. Hermione exaggerated when she intimated that
she had a secret bitterer than that we keep together. She has suffered
so much she cannot judge. I will hope that all will go right, and that
Mr. Etheridge will receive her explanations and so make her his
everlasting debtor. If once she is made to feel that she owes him
something, she will gradually yield up her resolve and make both him and
me happy. She will see that some vows are better broken than kept,
and----"
Here her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Hermione. The
latter had not been able to walk off her excitement, and so had come
down-stairs to bear the moments of suspense with her sister.
"I hope he will not stop," she cried. "I do not feel as if I could see
him till----"
"You will have to," murmured Emma, "for here he comes." And the next
moment the ardent, anxious face of the young lawyer appeared at the
gate, making the whole outside world seem brighter to one pair of eyes
which watched him.
"He wants to talk about our visitor," declared Hermione. "I cannot talk
about anything so trivial to-day; so do you see him, and when he rises
to go, say that Doris will bring a certain packet to his door to-night.
I will not meet his eyes till that ordeal is passed." And with a gasp
that showed what this moment was to her, she flew from the room, just as
Doris' step was heard in the hall on her way to the front door.
"Where is your sister?" were the first words uttered by Frank, as he
came into the room.
"Upstairs," answered Emma. "She does not feel as if she can see you
again till everything is clear between you. The letter she promised is
written, and you shall have it to-night. Then if you wish to come
again----" her smile completed the sentence.
He took heart at this smile.
"I do not doubt," said he, "that I shall be here very early in the
morning." And then he glanced all around him.
"Does Huckins still bother you?" he asked.
"Oh," she cried, with some constraint, "we allow him to come here. 'Tis
the least we can do for one----"
She paused, and seemed to bite off her words.
"Do not let us talk of trivialities," she completed, "till the great
question of all is settled. To-morrow, if you come, we will speak of
this visitor of whom you so little approve."
"Very well," he rejoined, with some wistfulness, and turned with his
usual impetuosity towards the door. "I will go to Dr. Sellick's, then,
at once, that I may receive your sister's communication the sooner. Tell
her every moment will be an hour till it is in my hands."
"Doris will carry it to you as soon as it is dark. Had we known you were
going to stop here, she might have had it ready now. As it is, look for
it as I have said, and may it bring you no deeper pain than the mystery
of our seclusion has already done. Hermione has noble qualities, and if
her temper had never been injured by the accident which befell her in
her infancy, there might have been no call for Doris' errand to-night."
"I will remember that," said he, and left the house with the confident
smile of a man who feels it impossible to doubt the woman towards whom
his heart has gone out in the fullest love.
When the door was shut behind him, Hermione came stealing again
down-stairs.
"Does he--is he--prepared to receive the letter?" she asked.
Emma nodded. "I promised that it should go as soon as it is dusk."
"Then send Doris to me in half an hour; and do not try to see me again
to-night. I must bear its long and tedious hours alone." And for a
second time Hermione disappeared from the room.
In half an hour Doris was sent upstairs. She found Hermione standing in
the centre of her room with a thick packet in her hand. She was very
pale and her eyes blazed strangely. As Doris advanced she held out the
packet with a hand that shook notwithstanding all her efforts to render
it firm.
"Take this," she said; "carry it to where Mr. Etheridge stays when here,
and place it in his hands yourself, just as you did a former note I
entrusted to you."
Doris, with a flush, seized the letter, her face one question, but her
lips awed from speaking by the expression of her mistress' face.
"You will do what I say?" asked Hermione.
The woman nodded.
"Go then, and do not wait for an answer; there will be none to-night."
Her gesture of dismissal was imperative and Doris turned to go.
But Hermione had one word more to say. "When you come back," she added,
"come to my door and tap on it three times. By that I shall know you
have delivered the letter; but you need not come in."
"Very well, Miss," answered the woman, speaking for the first time. And
as Hermione turned her back, she gave her young mistress one burning,
inquisitive look and then slid out of the room with her eyes on the
packet which she almost seemed to devour with her eyes.
As she passed the laboratory door she detected the thin weasel-like face
of Huckins looking out.
"What is that?" he whispered, pointing eagerly at the packet.
"Be in the highway at Dobbins' corner, and I'll tell you," she slyly
returned, going softly on her way.
And he, with a chuckle which ought to have sounded through that house
like a premonition of evil, closed the laboratory door with a careful
hand, and descending the twisted staircase which led to the hall below,
prepared to follow out her injunction in his own smooth and sneaking
way.
"I think I'll spend the evening at the prayer-meeting," he declared,
looking in at Emma, as he passed the sitting-room door. "I feel the need
of such comfort now and then. Is there anything I can do for either of
you up street?"
Emma shook her head; she was glad to be rid of his company for this one
evening; and he went out of the front door with a quiet, benevolent air
which may not have imposed on her, but which certainly did on Doris, who
was watching from the garden to see him go.
They met, as she had suggested, at Dobbins' corner. As it was not quite
dark, they walked into a shaded and narrow lane where they supposed
themselves to be free from all observation.
"Now tell me," said he, "what your errand is. That it is important I
know from the way you look. What is it, good, kind Doris; anything that
will help us in our plans?"
"Perhaps," said she. "It is a letter for Mr. Etheridge; see how big and
thick it is. It ought to tell a deal, this letter; it ought to explain
why she never leaves the house."
The woman's curious excitement, which was made up of curiosity and a
real desire to know the secret of what affected her two young mistresses
so closely, was quickly communicated to the scheming, eager old man.
Taking the packet from her hand, he felt of it with trembling and
inquisitive fingers, during which operation it would have been hard to
determine upon which face the desire to break the seal was most marked.
"It may contain papers--law papers," he suggested, his thumb and
forefinger twitching as they passed over the fastening.
But Doris shook her head.
"No," she declared vivaciously, "there are no law-papers in that
envelope. She has been writing and writing for a week. It is her secret,
I tell you--the secret of all their queer doings, and why they stay in
the house so persistently."
"Then let us surprise that secret," said he. "If we want to help them
and make them do like other reasonable folks, we must know with what we
have to contend."
"I am sure we would be justified," she rejoined. "But I am afraid Miss
Hermione will find us out. Mr. Etheridge will tell her somebody meddled
with the fastening."
"Let me take the letter to the hotel, and I will make that all right. It
is not the first----" But here he discreetly paused, remembering that
Doris was not yet quite ready to receive the full details of his
history.
"But the time? It will take an hour to open and read all there is
written here, and Miss Hermione is waiting for me to tell her that I
have delivered it to Mr. Etheridge."
"Tell her you had other errands. Go to the stores--the neighbors. She
need never know you delivered this last."
"But if you take it I won't know what is in it, and I want to read it
myself."
"I will tell you everything she writes. My memory is good, and you shall
not miss a word."
"But--but----"
"It is your only chance," he insinuated; "the young ladies will never
tell you themselves."
"I know it; yet it seems a mean thing to do. Can you close the letter so
that neither he nor they will ever know it has been opened?"
"Trust me," he leered.
"Hurry then; I will be in front of Dr. Sellick's in an hour. Give me the
letter as you go by, and when I have delivered it, meet me on my way
back and tell me what she says."
He promised, and hastened with his treasure to the room he still kept
at the hotel. She watched him as long as he was in sight and then went
about her own improvised errands. Did she realize that she had just put
in jeopardy not only her young mistresses' fortunes, but even their
lives?
XIX.
A DISCOVERY.
Frank Etheridge waited a long time that night for the promised
communication. Darkness came, but no letter; eight o'clock struck, and
still there was no sign of the dilatory Doris. Naturally impatient, he
soon found this lengthy waiting intolerable. Edgar was busy in his
office, or he would have talked to him. The evening paper which he had
brought from New York had been read long ago, and as for his cigar, it
lacked flavor and all power to soothe him. In his exasperation he went
to the book-shelves, and began looking over the numberless volumes
ranged in neat rows before him. He took out one, glanced at it, and put
it back; he took out another, without even seeing what its title was,
looked at it a moment, sighed, and put that back; he took out a third,
which opened in his hand at the title-page, saw that it was one of those
old-fashioned volumes, designated _The Keepsake_, and was about to close
and replace it as he had done the others, when his attention was
suddenly and forcibly attracted by a name written in fine and delicate
characters on the margin at the top. It was no other than this:
HARRIET SMITH
Gift of her husband
October 3rd 1848
_Harriet Smith!_ Astounded, almost aghast, he ran to Edgar's office with
the volume.
"Edgar! Edgar!" he cried; "look here! See that name! And the book was in
your library too. What does it mean? Who was, who is Harriet Smith, that
you should have her book?"
Dr. Sellick, taken by surprise, stared at the book a minute, then jumped
to his feet in almost as much excitement as Frank himself.
"I got that book from Hermione Cavanagh years ago; there was a poem in
it she wanted me to read. I did not know I had the book now. I have
never even thought of it from that day to this. Harriet Smith! Yes, that
is the name you want, and they must be able to tell you to whom it
belongs."
"I believe it; I know it; I remember now that they have always shown an
interest in the matter. Hermione wanted to read the will, and--Edgar,
Edgar, can they be the heirs for whom we are searching, and is that why
Huckins haunts the house and is received by them in plain defiance of my
entreaties?"
"If they are the heirs they would have been likely to have told you.
Penniless young girls are not usually backward in claiming property
which is their due."
"That is certainly true, but this property has been left under a
condition. I recollect now how disappointed Hermione looked when she
read the will. Give me the book; I must see her sister or herself at
once about it." And without heeding the demurs of his more cautious
friend, Frank plunged from the house and made his way immediately to the
Cavanagh mansion.
His hasty knock brought Emma to the door. As he encountered her look and
beheld the sudden and strong agitation under which she labored, he
realized for the first time that he was returning to the house before
reading the letter upon which so much depended.
But he was so filled with his new discovery that he gave that idea but a
thought.
"Miss Cavanagh--Emma," he entreated, "grant me a moment's conversation.
I have just found this book in Dr. Sellick's library--a book which he
declares was once given him by your sister--and in it----"
They had entered the parlor by this time and were standing by a table
upon which burned a lamp----"is a name."
She started, and was bending to look at the words upon which his finger
rested, when the door opened. Hermione, alarmed and not knowing what to
think of this unexpected return of her lover so soon, as she supposed,
after the receipt of her letter, had come down from her room in that
mood of extreme tension which is induced by an almost unendurable
suspense.
Frank, who in all his experience of her had never seen her look as she
did at this moment, fell back from the place where he stood and hastily
shook his head.
"Don't look like that," he cried, "or you will make me feel I can never
read your letter."
"And have you not read it?" she demanded, shrinking in her turn till she
stood on the threshold by which she had entered. "Why then are you here?
What could have brought you back so soon when you knew----"
"This," he interpolated hastily, holding up the book which he had let
fall on the table at her entrance. "See! the name of Harriett Smith is
written in it. Tell me, I pray, why you kept from me so persistently the
fact that you knew the person to whom the property I hold in trust
rightfully belongs."
The two girls with a quick glance at each other drooped their heads.
"What was the use?" murmured Emma, "since Harriet Smith is dead and her
heirs can never claim the property. _We_ are her heirs, Mr. Etheridge;
Harriet Smith was our mother, married to father thirty-nine years ago
after a widowhood of only three months. It was never known in this place
that she had had a former husband or had borne the name of Smith. There
was so much scandal and unhappiness connected with her first most
miserable marriage, that she suppressed the facts concerning it as much
as possible. She was father's wife and that was all that the people
about here knew."
"I see," said Frank, wondering greatly at this romance in real life.
"But you might have told me," he exclaimed. "When you saw what worriment
this case was causing me, you might have informed me that I was
expending my efforts in vain."
"I wished to do so," answered Emma, "but Hermione dreaded the arguments
and entreaties which would follow."
"I could not bear the thought of them," exclaimed the girl from the
doorway where she stood, "any more than I can bear the thought now when
a matter of much more importance to me demands your attention."
"I will go," cried Frank. But it was to the empty doorway he spoke;
Hermione had vanished with these passionate words.
"She is nearly ill," explained Emma, following him as he made for the
door. "You must excuse one who has borne so much."
"I do not excuse her," he cried, "I love her." And the look he cast up
the stairs fully verified this declaration. "That is why I go with half
on my lips unsaid. To-morrow we will broach the topic again, meanwhile
beware of Huckins. He means you no good by being here. Had I known his
connection with you, he should never have entered these doors."
"He is our uncle; our mother's brother."
"He is a scamp who means to have the property which is rightfully your
due."
"And he will have it, I suppose," she returned. "Hermione has never
given me a hope that she means to contend with him in this matter."
"Hermione has had no counsellor but her own will. To-morrow she will
have to do with me. But shut the door on Huckins; promise me you will
not see him again till after you have seen me."
"I cannot--I know too little what is in that letter."
"Oh, that letter!" he cried, and was gone from the house.
When he arrived at Dr. Sellick's again, he found Doris awaiting him,
looking very flushed and anxious. She had a shawl drawn around her, and
she held some bundles under that shawl.
"I hope," she said, "that you did not get impatient, waiting for me. I
had some errands to do, and while doing them I lost the letter you
expected and had to go back and look for it. I found it lying under the
counter in Mr. Davis' store and that is why it is so soiled, but the
inside is all right, and I can only beg your pardon for the delay."
Drawing the packet from under her shawl, she handed it to the frowning
lawyer, her heart standing still as she saw him turn it over and over in
his hand. But his looks if angry were not suspicious, and with a
relieved nod she was turning to go when he observed:
"I have one word to say to you, Doris. You have told me that you have
the welfare of the young ladies you serve at heart. Prove this to be so.
If Mr. Huckins comes to the door to-night, or in the early morning, say
that Miss Cavanagh is not well and that he had better go to the hotel.
Do not admit him; _do not even open the door_, unless Miss Cavanagh or
her sister especially command you to do so. He is not a safe friend for
them, and I will take the responsibility of whatever you do."
Doris, with wide-stretched eyes and panting breath, paused to collect
her faculties. A week ago she would have received this intimation
regarding anybody Mr. Etheridge might choose to mention, with gratitude
and a certain sense of increased importance. But ambition and the sense
of being on intimate and secret terms with a man and bachelor who
boasted of his thousands, had made a change in her weak and cunning
heart, and she was disposed to doubt the lawyer's judgment of what was
good for the young ladies and wise for her.
But she did not show her doubt to one whom she had secretly wronged so
lately; on the contrary she bowed with seeming acquiescence, and saying,
"Leave me alone to take good care of my young ladies," drew her shawl
more closely about her and quietly slid from the house.
A man was standing in the shadow of a great elm on the corner.
As she passed, he whispered: "Don't stop, and don't expect to see me
to-night. There is some one watching me, I am sure. To-morrow, if I can
I will come."
She had done a wicked and dangerous thing, and she had not learned the
secret.
XX.
THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON.
Frank, being left alone, sat down with the letter Doris had given him.
These are the words he read:
"DEAR MR. ETHERIDGE:
"I must ask you to walk by my house as early as nine o'clock to-morrow
morning. If, having read this letter, you still feel ready to meet fate
at my side, you will enter and tell me so. But if the horror that has
rested upon my life falls with this reading upon yours, then pass by on
the other side, and I will understand your verdict and accept it.
"It was at a very early age that I first felt the blight which had
fallen upon my life with the scar which disfigures one side of my face.
Such expressions as 'Poor dear! what a pity!'--'She would be very
beautiful if it were not for that,' make a deep impression upon a
child's mind, especially if that child has a proud and sensitive nature,
eager for admiration and shrinking from pity. Emma, who is only a year
younger than myself, seemed to me quite an enviable being before I knew
what the word envy meant, or why I felt so hot and angry when the
neighbors took her up and caressed her, while they only cast looks of
compassion at me. I hated her and did not know it; I hated the
neighbors, and I hated the places where they met, and the home where I
was born. I only loved my mother; perhaps, because she alone never spoke
of my misfortune, and when she kissed me did not take pains to choose
that side of my face which was without blemish. O my mother! if she had
lived! But when I was just fifteen, and was feeling even more keenly
than ever what it was to have just missed being the beauty of the town,
she died, and I found myself left with only a stern and cruelly
abstracted father for guardian, and for companion a sister, who in those
days was a girl so merry by nature, and so full of play and sport, that
she was a constant source of vexation to me, who hated mirth, and felt
aggrieved by a cheerfulness I could not share. These passions of
jealousy and pride did not lessen with me as I slowly ripened into
womanhood. All our family have been victims of their own indomitable
will, and even Emma, gentle as you see her to be now, used to have
violent gusts of temper when she was crossed in her plans or pleasures.
I never flashed out into bitter speech as she did, or made a noise when
I was angry, but I had that slow fire within me which made me perfectly
inexorable when I had once made up my mind to any course--no one, not
even my father or my sister, having the least influence over me. And so
it was that those who knew me began to dread me, even while they were
forced to acknowledge that I possessed certain merits of heart and
understanding. For the disappointment which had soured my disposition
had turned me towards study for relief, and the determination to be
brilliant, if I could not be beautiful, came with my maturity, and saved
me, perhaps, from being nothing but a burden to my family and friends.
"It was Mr. Lothrop, the Episcopalian minister, who first gave me this
turn toward serious pursuits. He was a good man, who had known my
mother, and after her death he used to come to the house, and finding me
moping in a corner, while Emma made the room gay with her talk, he would
draw me out with wonderful stories of women who had become the centre of
a great society by the brilliance of their attainments and the sparkle
of their wit. Once he called me beautiful, and when he saw the deep
flush, which I could not subdue, mantle my cheeks and agitate my whole
body, he took me very kindly by the hand, and said:
"'Hermione, you have splendid powers. Perhaps God allowed a little
defect to fall upon your beauty, in order to teach you the value of the
superior faculties with which you are endowed. You can be a fine, grand
woman, if you will.'
"Alas! he did not know that one unconscious tribute to my personal
attractions would just then have gone much farther with me than any
amount of appreciation for my mental abilities. Yet his words had their
effect, and from that moment I began to study--not as my father did,
with an absorbed, passionate devotion to one line of thought; that
seemed to me narrow and demoralizing, perhaps because almost every
disappointment or grief incident to those days could be traced to my
father's abstraction to everything disconnected with his laboratory. If
I wished to go to the city, or extend my knowledge of the world by
travel, it was: 'I have an experiment on hand; I cannot leave the
laboratory.' If I wished a new gown, or a set of books, it was: 'I am
not rich, and I must use all my spare means in buying the apparatus I
need, or the chemicals which are necessary to the discoveries I am in
the way of making.' Yet none of those discoveries or experiments ever
resulted in anything further than the acquiring on his part of a purely
local fame for learning. Therefore no special branch for me, but a
general culture which would fit me to shine in any society it might
henceforth be my good fortune to enter.
"My father might brood over his books, and bend his back over the retort
and crucible; my sister might laugh and attract the liking of a crowd of
foolish heads, but I would be the Sevigny, the Rambouillet of my time,
and by the eloquence of my conversation and the grace of my manner win
for myself that superiority among women which nature had designed for
me, but of which cruel fate had robbed me, even before I knew its worth.
"You will say these are great hopes for a village girl who had never
travelled beyond her native town, and who knew the great world only
through the medium of books. But is it not in villages and quiet
sequestered places that lofty ambitions are born? Is it the city boy who
becomes the President of our United States, or the city girl who
startles the world with her talent as poet, artist, or novelist?
"I read, and learned the world, and felt that I knew my place in it.
When my training should be complete, when I had acquired all that my
books and the companionship of the best minds in Marston could teach,
then I would go abroad, and in the civilization of other lands complete
the education which had now become with me a passion, because in it I
saw the stepping-stone to the eminence I sought.
"I speak plainly; it is necessary. You must know what was passing in my
mind during my girlhood's years, or you will not understand me or the
temptations which befell me. Besides, in writing thus I am preparing
myself for the revelation of a weakness I have shrunk till now from
acknowledging. It must be made. I cannot put it off any longer. I must
speak of Dr. Sellick, and explain if possible what he gradually became
to me in those lonely and studious years.
"I had known him from a child, but I did not begin to think of him till
he began to visit our house. He was a student then, and he naturally
took a great interest in chemistry. My father's laboratory was
convenient, well-stocked with apparatus, and freely opened to him. To my
father's laboratory he accordingly came every day when he was in town,
till it began to be quite a matter of course to see him there.
"I was very busy that summer, and for some time looked upon this only as
a habit on his part, and so took little heed of his presence. But one
day, being weary with the philosophy I had been studying, I took from
the shelves a book of poems, and sitting down in the dimmest corner of
our stiff old parlor, I began to read some impassioned verses, which,
before I knew it, roused my imagination and inflamed my heart to a point
which made it easy for any new romantic impression to be made upon me.