THE next evening Kate and Philip went to a ball. As Hope was passing
through the hall late in the evening, she heard a sudden, sharp cry
somewhere in the upper regions, that sounded, she thought, like a
woman’s voice. She stopped to hear, but there was silence. It seemed to
come from the direction of Malbone’s room, which was in the third story.
Again came the cry, more gently, ending in a sort of sobbing monologue.
Gliding rapidly up stairs in the dark, she paused at Philip’s deserted
room, but the door was locked, and there was profound stillness. She
then descended, and pausing at the great landing, heard other steps
descending also. Retreating to the end of the hall, she hastily lighted
a candle, when the steps ceased. With her accustomed nerve, wishing to
explore the thing thoroughly, she put out the light and kept still.
As she expected, the footsteps presently recommenced, descending
stealthily, but drawing no nearer, and seeming rather like sounds from
an adjoining house, heard through a party-wall. This was impossible, as
the house stood alone. Flushed with excitement, she relighted the hall
candles, and, taking one of them, searched the whole entry and stairway,
going down even to the large, old-fashioned cellar.
Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, her eye fell on a door
that seemed to open into the wall; she had noticed a similar door on the
story above,--one of the closet doors that had been nailed up by Aunt
Jane’s order. As she looked, however, a chill breath blew in from
another direction, extinguishing her lamp. This air came from the outer
door of the cellar, and she had just time to withdraw into a corner
before a man’s steps approached, passing close by her.
Even Hope’s strong nerves had begun to yield, and a cold shudder went
through her. Not daring to move, she pressed herself against the wall,
and her heart seemed to stop as the unseen stranger passed. Instead of
his ascending where she had come down, as she had expected, she heard
him grope his way toward the door she had seen in the wall.
There he seemed to find a stairway, and when his steps were thus turned
from her, she was seized by a sudden impulse and followed him, groping
her way as she could. She remembered that the girls had talked of secret
stairways in that house, though she had no conception whither they could
lead, unless to some of the shut-up closets.
She steadily followed, treading cautiously upon each creaking step. The
stairway was very narrow, and formed a regular spiral as in a turret.
The darkness and the curving motion confused her brain, and it was
impossible to tell how high in the house she was, except when once she
put her hand upon what was evidently a door, and moreover saw through
its cracks the lamp she had left burning in the upper hall. This glimpse
of reality reassured her. She had begun to discover where she was. The
doors which Aunt Jane had closed gave access, not to mere closets, but
to a spiral stairway, which evidently went from top to bottom of the
house, and was known to some one else beside herself.
Relieved of that slight shudder at the supernatural which sometimes
affects the healthiest nerves, Hope paused to consider. To alarm the
neighborhood was her first thought. A slight murmuring from above
dispelled it; she must first reconnoitre a few steps farther. As
she ascended a little way, a gleam shone upon her, and down the damp
stairway came a fragrant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. Then a
door was shut and reopened. Eager beyond expression, she followed on.
Another step, and she stood at the door of Malbone’s apartment.
The room was brilliant with light; the doors and windows were heavily
draped. Fruit and flowers and wine were on the table. On the sofa lay
Emilia in a gay ball-dress, sunk in one of her motionless trances, while
Malbone, pale with terror, was deluging her brows with the water he had
just brought from the well below.
Hope stopped a moment and leaned against the door, as her eyes met
Malbone’s. Then she made her way to a chair, and leaning on the back
of it, which she fingered convulsively, looked with bewildered eyes and
compressed lips from the one to the other. Malbone tried to speak, but
failed; tried again, and brought forth only a whisper that broke into
clearer speech as the words went on. “No use to explain,” he said.
“Lambert is in New York. Mrs. Meredith is expecting her--to-night after
the ball. What can we do?”
Hope covered her face as he spoke; she could bear anything better than
to have him say “we,” as if no gulf had opened between them. She sank
slowly on her knees behind her chair, keeping it as a sort of screen
between herself and these two people,--the counterfeits, they seemed,
of her lover and her sister. If the roof in falling to crush them had
crushed her also, she could scarcely have seemed more rigid or more
powerless. It passed, and the next moment she was on her feet again,
capable of action.
“She must be taken,” she said very clearly, but in a lower tone than
usual, “to my chamber.” Then pointing to the candles, she said, more
huskily, “We must not be seen. Put them out.” Every syllable seemed to
exhaust her. But as Philip obeyed her words, he saw her move suddenly
and stand by Emilia’s side.
She put out both arms as if to lift the young girl, and carry her away.
“You cannot,” said Philip, putting her gently aside, while she shrank
from his touch. Then he took Emilia in his arms and bore her to the
door, Hope preceding.
Motioning him to pause a moment, she turned the lock softly, and looked
out into the dark entry. All was still. She went out, and he followed
with his motionless burden. They walked stealthily, like guilty things,
yet every slight motion seemed to ring in their ears. It was chilly, and
Hope shivered. Through the great open window on the stairway a white fog
peered in at them, and the distant fog-whistle came faintly through; it
seemed as if the very atmosphere were condensing about them, to isolate
the house in which such deeds were done. The clock struck twelve, and it
seemed as if it struck a thousand.
When they reached Hope’s door, she turned and put out her arms for
Emilia, as for a child. Every expression had now gone from Hope’s face
but a sort of stony calmness, which put her infinitely farther from
Malbone than had the momentary struggle. As he gave the girlish form
into arms that shook and trembled beneath its weight, he caught a
glimpse in the pier-glass of their two white faces, and then, looking
down, saw the rose-tints yet lingering on Emilia’s cheek. She, the
source of all this woe, looked the only representative of innocence
between two guilty things.
How white and pure and maidenly looked Hope’s little room,--such a home
of peace, he thought, till its door suddenly opened to admit all this
passion and despair! There was a great sheaf of cardinal flowers on the
table, and their petals were drooping, as if reluctant to look on him.
Scheffer’s Christus Consolator was upon the walls, and the benign figure
seemed to spread wider its arms of mercy, to take in a few sad hearts
more.
Hope bore Emilia into the light and purity and warmth, while Malbone was
shut out into the darkness and the chill. The only two things to which
he clung on earth, the two women between whom his unsteady heart had
vibrated, and both whose lives had been tortured by its vacillation,
went away from his sight together, the one victim bearing the other
victim in her arms. Never any more while he lived would either of them
be his again; and had Dante known it for his last glimpse of things
immortal when the two lovers floated away from him in their sad embrace,
he would have had no such sense of utter banishment as had Malbone then.