Armed by the extremity of his alarm, Horace ventured, no one being near
to spy upon him, to enter, in his miserable search, the chamber of death
itself. He dared not look towards the bed, on which lay that rigid
outline of humanity, all covered and dressed with white. He could
scarcely contain the horror of his trembling as he stood, dismayed and
powerless, in the presence of his victim; but, after his first pause of
involuntary homage, he turned--though still not daring to turn his back
to the bed, overpowered with a terror which he could not explain--to
pursue his search. Stealthily moving about, with his head bent, and his
step shuffling as if with age, he examined every corner, peering into
the wardrobe, where his heart thrilled desperately to see the
well-remembered garments which it was so hard to believe could never be
worn again; and turning over familiar articles of daily use with awed
and trembling fingers, as though they could betray him; but he could not
find any trace of the object of his search. Its very absence seemed to
him significant and terrible. Had some enemy taken it to testify against
him? Had the dead man himself taken measures to secure his own revenge?
Heavy, cold, clammy beads of moisture hung upon the young man's face; a
chill as of death entered into his heart; deep to the very centre of his
being he himself knew and felt his own guilt--and now another
mysterious, gnawing misery was added to his own self-consciousness. Some
one else knew also; some one meaning him evil had withdrawn that
dreadful instrument of death and vengeance. He had played his horrible
game, but the great stakes were further off than ever. Already, in his
miserable, excited imagination, he saw, instead of fortune and Amelia,
a trial and a scaffold, and the dread name of parricide. A wild agony of
impatience and intolerable suffering came over him. Rather than wait
till this slow, deadly avenger of blood had found him out, he would rush
forth somewhere, and denounce himself, and have it over. His punishment
was more than he could bear!
But all was silent in the death-stricken house; not a sound, save the
loud ticking of the clock downstairs, and the deep throbs of his own
heart, could Horace hear as he stood, stealthy and desperate, at the
door of his father's room. Susan's face, innocent and wondering; Uncle
Edward's benign countenance, disapproving and sad; and, still more
dangerous, Peggy's troubled eyes, watching where he went and what he
did, haunted his imagination. He could fancy them all grouped together
under covert somewhere, watching that guilty, stealthy pause of
his--watching his secret, clandestine footsteps as he stole downstairs.
But still he did go down, in the breathless cowardice of his conscious
crime; fearing everything, yet with all his mind fixed, in an intensity
which was half insane, upon that dumb witness against him. He did not
expect to find it. He could have supposed it possessed by some malicious
spirit, and with an actual animate will working against him; but he
could not rest till he had, through every corner, sought it out--if,
perhaps, it could be found.
When he had got downstairs he paused again to consider where he should
go; a faint sound of Peggy's voice in the kitchen, and the slight stir
made now and then for a moment by Colonel Sutherland in the dining
parlour, confused and stopped him in his course. He stood for a moment
irresolute and breathless, not seeing what to do, and then almost
involuntarily opened the closed door of Mr. Scarsdale's study. The
recluse was dead, and could harm no man now; but he was alive when his
guilty son stepped into that room so deeply instinct with his presence,
where now more than ever he lived and had his sure abode. Almost more
awful than the actual presence of the dead was that presence unseen and
terrible, the invisible life of life, which death could not touch, and
which should remain here for ever. Horace dared scarcely breathe the air
of this deserted room. An hour's imprisonment in it, in his present
state of mind, would have driven him into mad superstition, if not to
positive frenzy; but he saw something there, set out almost with
ostentation on the table, which would have drawn him through fire and
water. There it stood, solemnly by itself, the books and papers cleared
away from its immediate vicinity, in malign and mischievous state,
calling the attention of everyone who entered. Horace made his
shuddering way forward, and seized upon it with the grasp of
desperation. Yes, there it was, with all its evidence within his own
reach, and safe, if he willed it so, to harm him no more!
The little medicine-chest was partially open, with the key in its lock;
but this had been done of purpose, and was the result of no accident;
and within lay something white--a sheet of paper--which assuredly was
not there when he had opened it before. Almost too anxious to pay any
attention to these elaborate marks of intention and design, Horace
seized the box and the phial which he had filled. He could not pause
even to look whether the leather which covered the cork had been
removed, or any of the contents were gone, but hastened to the
fireplace, where the ashes of a fire still lay in the grate, and with
trembling hands broke the neck of the bottle against the grate, and
emptied out its contents--for he dared not go outside, lest some one
should see him. As he paused, kneeling on the hearth, breathless and
with a beating heart, he tried to take comfort and re-assure himself. It
was gone; no evidence existed now that the son had entered in, murderous
and secret, to the father's chamber. He tried to persuade himself that
he breathed more freely; then he grovelled down upon the hearth, and hid
his face in his hands. God help him! what did it matter though no one
else suspected?--deep in the bottom of his heart did not he _know_?--and
was there anything in heaven or earth which could wash the horror of
that certainty out of Horace Scarsdale's miserable mind? He had been
selfish, malicious, unloving before; but never till now had he been a
_murderer_--and, oh! the horrible difference, the change unspeakable,
which that dread distinction made!
However, he got up at last, all shuddering and weak, with the remains of
the phial grasped in his hand, and with a morbid curiosity returned
again to examine the box. This time he set it open and took out the
sheet of paper. He could scarcely distinguish the words at first, for
the awe of looking at his father's writing, and receiving thus, as it
were, a direct message from the dead; but when the sense slowly broke
upon him the effect was like a stroke of magic. He stood staring at the
paper, his eyes starting from his head, his face flushing and paling
with wild vicissitudes of colour; then he dropped down heavily on the
floor, thrusting aside unconsciously Mr. Scarsdale's chair, which stood
in its usual place by the table. He could neither cry nor help himself;
he fell heavily, like a man stunned by a sudden blow--voice, strength,
consciousness went out of him; he lay prostrate, with his head upon the
fleecy lambskin where his father's feet had been accustomed to rest, no
longer a self-defending, self-torturing, conscious parricide, with a
brand upon his soul worse than that of Cain; a figure blind and
helpless, an insensible, inanimate mass of dull flesh and blood,
conscious of nothing in the world, not even that he lived and was a man.
The paper fell fluttering after him and covered his face. It was of the
kind and colour which Mr. Scarsdale always used--a blue flimsy leaf, and
had been carefully cut to fit the box in which it was placed. What had
tempted the recluse to record thus his suspicions and his precaution, no
one in the world could now ever tell; save as the expression of a
vindictive sentiment, and secret triumph to himself in his solitude for
discovering and baffling a secret enemy, there was no meaning in it, and
the chances are that nothing would have brought these words from the
unhappy father's pen could he have known the overpowering transport of
relief which at sight of them should overthrow all the strength and make
useless the defences of the still more unhappy son. On the paper were
written in large letters, in Mr. Scarsdale's distinctest handwriting,
the following words--
"Tampered with by some person to me Unknown, and the contents of this
chest left untouched by me since the 3rd May, on which day I have reason
to believe this was done."
This was the date of Horace's fatal visit to Marchmain; and the solemn
statement of the dead man relieving him from the actual guilt with which
he believed himself accursed, had overpowered him with an emotion beyond
words--beyond thought. Enough was left to sting him all his life long
with black suggestions of ineffaceable remorse, but so far as act and
deed went, he was not guilty. He could say nothing in his unspeakable
relief. The desperate tension of his misery had kept him alive and
conscious by very consequence of its sufferings--but when the bow was
unstrung it yielded instantly. There he lay senseless where his father's
feet had used to rest, smitten to the heart with an undeserved and
unutterable consolation--guilty, yet not guilty, by some strange
interposition of God. He could not even be thankful in this
overpowering, unbelievable relief from his misery; he could only fall
fainting, unconscious, rapt beyond all sense and feeling. He was deeply,
miserably guilty; too deeply stained ever to be clear of that
remembrance in this life; but he was not a parricide. In spite of
himself he was saved from that horror, and human hope might be possible
to him still.