Abigail had not quitted her bed-chamber long, on the morning
heretofore specified, when Dame Shedlock, whom she had left in
a deep sleep, awoke. Judging from the expression of her eyes,
she awoke in the perfect possession of her senses; but, on being
closely surveyed, her face still displayed certain traces of
fever, which showed that her sleep had not been refreshing. The
bright red spot, too, which has been described as capping her
cheek, burned with unabated lustre; and in its contrast with her
white forehead, and her parched and colourless lips, made the
beauty of her complexion look truly terrible.
For some little time, she lay perfectly still, with her eyes,
which seemed brighter than usual, turned towards heaven, and
apparently rapt in prayer. As her eyes finally turned another
way, the expression of her face changed, and became so radiant
with patience, that it actually affected her complexion; and its
traces of physical suffering, which have been pointed out above,
were lost in the loveliness of its moral revelation.
After lying thus for some brief space longer, she suddenly
altered her position; and by planting her two hands firmly on the
bed, in the manner of props, raised herself up. The achievement
cost her all her strength; and when she had gained a sitting
posture, she was obliged to pause a while, and catch for breath
as if she were stifling.
Several minutes elapsed before she recovered her breath. Even
then, indeed, her respiration was not free, and was evidently
effected with an effort. But her difficulty of breathing did not
induce her to continue still. Once able to draw her breath, she
slowly turned her feet over the side of the bed, and alighted on
the floor. Then, supporting herself against the bed, and clinging
with one hand to the contiguous post of the bedstead, she raised
herself upright.
Her body felt very light, yet her knees and ankles were so weak
and feeble, that, notwithstanding her personal buoyancy, she
could hardly bring them to bear her up. A bright smile stole over
her face as she noted their inefficiency; and while the smile was
yet traceable, she raised her head, and once more turned her eyes
towards heaven. Quickly dropping her glance again, she planted
her left hand, which she had at liberty, steadily on the bed,
and, relaxing her hold of the bed-post, stepped slowly forward,
and thus moved along towards the chamber-door.
She was obliged to halt several times on her way; but, pausing
only to recover her breath, she persevered in her purpose, and
finally gained the door.
She appeared to hesitate somewhat as she drew the door open. But
her indecision, if such it were, endured but a brief period; and,
drawing a deep breath, she once more set forward, and passed into
the passage without.
On the same side of the passage, a little way in her front, there
was another door, opening into an adjoining bed-chamber. On her
entry into the passage, her eye, without looking for any other
object, turned straight here; and, leaning against the contiguous
wall, she bent her steps thitherwards on the instant.
Passing slowly along, she ultimately arrived at the door. She
then hesitated a moment; but, quickly recovering herself, raised
her small hand, and threw the door open.
Right before the doorway, at a few paces distance, was a
bedstead, which, like her own, had no drapery, and was every way
open. It was occupied by a man, who, at the moment that Dame
Shedlock made her appearance, had his face towards the door, and
was lying perfectly awake. It was her husband.
Shedlock started up at this unexpected visit from his wife. The
scowl, however, that mounted to his face, had hardly collected
itself, when the ghost-like dame drew back, and disappeared.
Now more surprised than before, and more enraged, the furious
Puritan sprang to the floor, determined to call her to an account
for her intrusion. Assured of being able to avenge himself,
however, his precipitation subsided when he gained his feet; and,
previous to starting in pursuit of her, he tarried to put on his
clothes. His toilet achieved, he set out for his wife’s chamber.
There was no one in the intermediate passage, and, passing
quickly forward, he shortly gained the chamber-door. Trembling
with rage, and muttering an indistinct execration, he threw the
door violently open, and rushed into the room.
The heavy tread of his feet, in his progress towards the bed, for
which he made directly, no way effected the disposition of his
wife, although, strange to say, she was lying on her side in the
bed, with her eyes fixed on his. As he came up to the bedside,
he thought that her appearance of composure, though it was
really and clearly unfeigned, had been put on to defy him; and,
exasperated by this suspicion, he shook his clenched fist in her
face. Still the dame was no way disturbed, and her glassy eyes,
far from appealing for mercy, did not even flinch. The ruffian
now grew furious, and, relaxing his fist, he seized her by the
arm, and dragged her forcibly up. _She was dead!_
A thrill of horror shot through the bosom of Shedlock as he made
this discovery. A sudden thought struck him, that she was dead
when, a few moments previous, she had visited him in his chamber,
and that what he had then seen in her form was not her mortal
self, but her immortal and disembodied spirit.
The appalling surmise struck him to the soul. His face, always
pale, became quite ghastly; his hair rose on end; and his frame
was so agitated, that he could hardly bring his unnerved and
trembling step to lend him obedience.
But his awe of his wife’s corpse quickly lent him sufficient
vigour to flee. Still keeping his eye on the corpse, lest, in
the course of his retreat, it should rise upon him unawares, he
sprang to the chamber-door, and darted out into the adjoining
passage. Thence, with unabated speed, he passed to the
neighbouring stairs, and pursued his flight to the hall below.
The hall opened into a porch, leading into the park; but, at
its lower end, there were two more doors, one of which, noticed
in a former chapter, led to the chamber called the blue room;
and the other, to the kitchen. It was to the latter door that
Shedlock directed his steps; and, maintaining his original pace,
he arrived thither speedily. Still overwhelmed with fear, he drew
it open; and, with even increased impatience, passed through the
aperture, and closed and bolted the door in his rear.
At the same moment that he thus disappeared, the door at the
upper end of the hall, leading into the porch, was cautiously
pushed open, and another man presented himself. On coming into
the doorway, he halted a while, and looked eagerly round.
Seemingly assured by his survey, he ventured to pass in; and with
a stealthy step, yet hasty withal, proceeded towards the doorway
by which Shedlock had just made his egress. It was Bernard Gray.
He shortly arrived at the lower door, and, raising his hand to
the latch, sought to draw it open. To his surprise, however, it
resisted his efforts, and he found that it was secured on the
other side.
“’Tis fast!” he muttered, at length. “Yet the paper must be
secured. I will even venture to her chamber.”
With these words, he turned to the contiguous stairs; and after
listening a moment, and again looking round, passed quickly up to
the floor above. Breathless with his haste, he halted before the
chamber which, from having been conducted there on the preceding
day, he conceived to be occupied by Dame Shedlock.
Though so anxious to avoid observation, he was afraid to enter
the chamber unannounced, or without some previous warning, lest
his sudden appearance should cause the dame alarm; and, to
prevent any ill effect, he knocked two or three times on the
panel of the door. But no answer was rendered; and, after a
short interval, he cautiously opened the door, and stepped into
the chamber.
Having once crossed the threshold, Bernard paused only to close
the door, and then, with a light but hasty step, made straight
for the bed. His first glance at its inmate told him she was a
corpse.
He gazed in her face for a full minute; and when, at the last, he
withdrew his glance, his eyes were filled with tears.
“Who shall question thy ways, O, thou most Highest?” he said,
clasping his wrinkled hands. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord
taketh away: blessed be the name of the Lord!”
When he ceased speaking, a thought struck him that, as he had
found her alone, the dame might have died unattended, and might
be supposed to be yet living by the inattentive household.
Impressed with this belief, he determined to give the alarm,
and took a step towards the door, which was only a few paces
distant, with that view. But he quickly changed his resolution,
and, retracing his step, turned to the bedside again. Here he
looked once more at the corpse, and then, with a tenderness which
his rugged appearance would hardly have prepared one to expect,
placed his fingers on the dead matron’s eyelids, and fulfilled
the last sad office of closing them.
He seemed now to recollect, for the first time since he had
entered the chamber, what was the business that had brought
him thither, and the recollection was certainly not calculated
to soothe or console him. He had come in search of the paper
which was to establish the legitimacy of Hildebrand Clifford;
but the demise of Dame Shedlock, who alone could furnish him
with that paper, and who had promised to place it in his hands,
rendered the prospect of his achieving such an acquisition quite
hopeless. What clue had he to the place in which it had been
deposited? With his forefinger pressed against his forehead, he
proceeded to recall, word by word, all that had passed at their
last meeting, between him and the dame; and pondered deliberately
on each syllable. At length, he recollected that, as she
concluded her disclosures, she had seemed to point at something
over her shoulders. Hastily glancing over the head of the bed,
his eye fell on the wardrobe, with which, it may be borne in
mind, the course of our history has shown him to have been
connected heretofore. With a beating heart, he sprang a pace or
two forward, and drew the wardrobe-door open. It revealed a small
recess, having no shelves, but a row of pegs, some four or five
in number, just below the ceiling, from which dangled several
articles of female apparel. Bernard examined these separately,
but, on the most searching investigation, they afforded him no
clue, in any one particular, to the document he so earnestly
sought.
Though he had scarcely expected a more favourable result, the
conviction that further search would be fruitless, however
closely he might pursue it, depressed him severely. Yet he
felt thoroughly assured that the document was somewhere in the
wardrobe. He was speculating where it could be concealed, when,
happening to look downwards, he perceived that the floor of the
wardrobe, from the door to the wall, was covered with a rush
matting; and it suddenly occurred to him that the paper might be
hidden beneath. On surveying it closer, he found that the matting
was nailed down; but this circumstance, as may be supposed,
offered him but a trifling obstacle. Once possessed of the idea
that the paper was hidden under the matting, he stooped down;
and, with the aid of a small clasp-knife (which, as he wore it at
his girdle, was probably used generally for eating purposes),
cut away the matting round the nails, and raised it up. There,
indeed, was the paper, covered with dust, yet more precious to
him than tissue of gold.
It was a leaf of the parish register; and was written over, in
characters not very distinct, on both sides. Several marriages
were recorded on it, but that which principally interested
Bernard, and most concerned our history, was the first of all,
and testified to the marriage of “Hildebrand Clifford, Esquire,
and Mistress Philippa Gray.” But even the testimony to the other
marriages was not unimportant, as many of the parties it referred
to, Bernard well knew, were yet living, and their evidence to the
fact of their having been married at the times set forth, while
no record of the marriages could be found in the parish register
(though they would be able to swear that it _was_ so recorded),
would establish the truth and authenticity of the whole document.
Bernard was overjoyed at its acquisition. Having glanced over it,
he folded it carefully up, and placed it, with a circumspection
commensurate with its value, within his vest, buttoning his
jerkin above. He then replaced the matting, and turned to retire.
He lingered a moment at the side of the bed; but he was too
anxious to get clear off, now that he held such an invaluable
possession, to protract his pause. After one farewell glance
at his deceased friend, he hastened on to the door, and thence
passed to the outer passage.
No one was about; and, with a light and hasty step, he proceeded
to the hall below, and onward to the porch. Thus he made his
egress unobserved.