THE SPECTRAL FACE.
I felt my senses slackened with the fright
And a cold sweat shrilled down, o’er all my limbs,
As if I’d been dissolving into water.—DRYDEN.
And now the morning sky resumes her light,
And nature stands recovered of her night,
My fear, the last of ills, remains behind,
And horror heavy sick upon my mind.—IBID.
When Drusilla recovered from her deathly swoon, the cold gray light of
the winter morning was stealing through the unshuttered windows.
She lifted herself upon her elbow and gazed around her in utter
bewilderment. Slowly, slowly came memory back to her. And with it the
sense of fear and the instinct of flight. But before she could command
her chilled and benumbed limbs, observation and reflection both assured
her that there was now no cause for alarm.
The windows were still closed although the shutters were open.
Everything in the room was in its usual place. Nothing had been
disturbed. No intruder had been there. Whose ever the face had been that
had looked in upon her through the window in the dead of night, it had
done no harm.
The feeling of relief with which Drusilla acknowledged all this was
speedily followed by one of extreme depression; for by all the signs
around her, she perceived that Alexander had not yet come home.
The lamps were still burning brightly in the face of the broadening day.
And the untasted supper sat in its covered dishes on the hearth. But the
fire had burned out and the room was cold.
Very drearily Drusilla arose; put out the lamps and then went up to her
own chamber, and rang the bell for her servant, to make her a fire.
“Good patience, ma’am!” exclaimed the girl when she entered the chamber
and found the bed undisturbed, and her mistress in the dress of the
evening before. “Surely ma’am, you have never been sitting up all
night?”
“I have not been in bed, as you see, Pina. Make me a fire as quickly as
you can, for I am very cold. And then bring me some warm water and get
me a cup of tea,” said Drusilla.
When all these orders had been obeyed, and the unhappy young wife had
refreshed herself with a wash, a change of dress and a cup of hyson, and
reclined at rest in her easy chair, she said to her handmaid:
“Pina—go and bring your brother here, I wish to question him in your
presence.”
The girl started at this unusual order, and looked alarmed, as if she
supposed that herself and her brother were to be arraigned upon some
grave charge.
But her mistress perceived her fears and hastened to relieve them by
saying:
“Don’t be afraid, Pina; there is nobody in fault that I know of. I only
wish to question your brother upon a circumstance that occurred last
night. Now go at once and fetch him here.”
The girl left the room and went to find her fellow servant, who was in
the kitchen eating his breakfast.
“You must just leave off gormandizing this minute and come up to _her_
directly. Something’s up; but I don’t know what it is. She says she
wants to question you about what happened last night, whatever that was,
if you know, for I don’t. I hope you’ve not been having unproper
company, and misbehaving of yourself up there in the stable loft,” said
Pina, breathlessly, as she stood before her brother.
Leo, with his mouth full and his eyes starting, stared at his sister in
stupefaction.
“Come, I say; come along with me up to the mistress,” repeated Pina.
“What for? I haven’t been a doing of nothing!” exclaimed the boy.
“Well, tell her so, then, and get her to believe it; but come along.”
Leo reluctantly left his tea and muffins and bacon, and hesitatingly
followed Pina to the presence of his mistress, where he also expected to
be arraigned upon some charge of misconduct.
But the first worst words of the little lady set him at ease.
“Leo, have you seen any suspicious persons or any strangers lurking
about here lately?” she inquired.
“Lor, no ma’am, no person at all, not a soul, except ’twas master and
you, ma’am, and Pina and me. The place is so out of the way, you know,
ma’am. And so lonesome! Awful lonesome I calls it,” answered the boy.
“No sportsmen after birds or other such small game?”
“Not a one, ma’am.”
“Nor boys setting traps for snow-birds?”
“No, ma’am. Bless you, ma’am, hasn’t I just told you how I’ve never seen
a human face about the place, except it is you and master’s and me and
Pina’s.”
“Well, _I_ saw a man’s face between two and three o’clock after
midnight, peeping in at the drawing-room windows,” said the little lady
very gravely.
“Indeed, ma’am!—whose could it a been?” inquired the boy in
astonishment.
“That is what I do not know, and what I wished to ascertain.”
The boy scratched his head and looked confounded.
“A face a peeping in at the windows in the dead o’ night! Bless us and
save us!” he muttered to himself.
“I shall be feared to stay in the house nights when the master’s not
in,” said Pina, turning as pale as one of her color could.
“I hope there is nothing to fear. I shall speak to your master as soon
as he comes home,” said Drusilla, to reassure her domestics.
“But there’s so many bugglers about,” said Pina, with a shudder.
“And to be sure, the house is very unprotected like and lonesome, and
there’s a deal of silver and gold into it,” added Leo.
“I don’t think the face was that of a burglar. If it had been, he might
have entered the house and killed me, and taken what he wanted. There
was nothing to prevent him,” said Drusilla.
“Ah-h-h!” screamed Pina, “I shall never dare to sleep in the house when
master is away.”
“I shall ask your master to allow Leo to sleep in the house when he
himself means to be absent,” said Drusilla.
“But then they would steal the horses,” objected Leo.
“Well, and if they do? Ain’t the mistress’s life, to say nothing of the
gold and silver plate, and money and jewels, a deal more vallearble than
the hosses, you——”
Pina stopped her tongue in time not to call her brother bad names in her
mistress’s presence.
“You may both go now. And, Pina, say nothing of what has happened. And
you, Leo, keep your faculties on the alert and try to discover this
mystery,” said the little lady.
“What—what is it I am to do with my factories, ma’am?” inquired the boy,
doubtingly.
“You are to keep your eyes and ears open and try to find out who it was
that looked into my window,” said Drusilla, smiling even in the midst of
her sadness.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” answered the boy, as he bowed himself out, followed by
his sister.
That day, owing to the alarm of the previous night and the long swoon,
and the awakening in the cold room, Drusilla was unusually ill, both in
mind and body; she remained in her chamber, wrapped in her dressing gown
and reclining in her easy chair.
But when evening came, from sheer force of habit, she roused herself and
gave orders for a fire to be kindled and lamps to be lighted in the
drawing-room, and supper to be prepared in case her husband should
return.
And she dressed herself with care and went down and seated herself in
her usual place to be ready to receive him.
But another long and lonely evening was before her, with an unusual
trial at its close.
At ten o’clock, as usual, Pina came in to ask her mistress if there were
any more orders and to bid her good night.
“No, Pina, I want nothing more this evening. You may go,” said Drusilla.
“Won’t you let me close the shutters, ma’am, for fear that gashly face
will look in again?”
“No, Pina, they must be left open to guide your master home. The night
is very dark, and here are no gas-lighted streets, you know,” smiled the
little lady, determined not to yield to her fears.
“Well, ma’am,” said the girl, hesitatingly—“Brother Leo, ma’am, he says
if you would take the ’sponsibility to give him an order so to do, he
would stay in the house until master comes home. Shall I tell him to do
it, ma’am?”
“Certainly not. Leo must not disobey his master; nor can I interfere
with Mr. Lyon’s arrangements,” answered the faithful wife.
Pina looked distressed; and raising and rolling her apron and casting
down her eyes, she ventured to say:
“Beg pardon, ma’am, but won’t you please be coaxed to let Brother Leo
stay in the house to take care of us instead of the horses to-night?”
“By no means, Pina. Say no more about it, my good girl,” answered the
little matron, firmly.
The girl looked up at her mistress to see if she was really in earnest,
and then burst into tears and sobbed forth the broken words:
“Well, ma’am, if you won’t let Brother Leo stay in here to take care of
the house an’ us, plea—plea—please let me go long of him to the stable;
becau—cau—cause I should die of fright to stay here with nobody but you,
ma’am, please.”
Drusilla looked at the maid in surprise and displeasure for a minute,
and then her beautiful benevolence got the ascendancy over every other
emotion, and she answered:
“You poor, timid girl, go if you wish.”
“And you won’t be ang—ang—angry long of me, ma’am, I hope?” inquired
Pina, half ashamed of herself.
“No more than I should be angry with a hare for running away. It is your
nature, as it is the hare’s, to be cowardly.”
“Well, then, ma’am, as Brother Leo is a waiting to know what he is to
do, I may go now, mayn’t I?”
“Yes, go.”
“Good night, ma’am, please; and I hope the Lord will take care of you.”
“I do not doubt that He will, Pina. Good night.”
And so the girl retired.
And Drusilla was left quite alone, not only in the room but in the
house. At first she felt very desolate and depressed and inclined to
cry. But presently she reasoned with herself:
“That timid girl was really no protection. I am quite as safe without
her as with her. I must trust in the Lord without whom ‘the watchman
watcheth in vain.’ One of our wisest sages said, to become heroic, we
must be sure to do that which we most fear to do. And I suppose his
words must be received in their spirit rather than in the letter. I fear
to jump into the fire, and I will not do so. And I fear, oh, how I fear,
to stay in this house alone to-night! And all the more because I fear to
do it, I _will_ do it, rather than break up my husband’s arrangements by
calling Leo from the stables to guard me, and rather than torture that
poor cowardly girl by making her stay here to keep me company. But I
will not touch De Quincey’s or Mrs. Crowe’s works to-night to add to my
morbid terrors. I will read the book of comfort.”
And so saying, Drusilla took the Bible from its stand, and opened at the
Psalms of David, those inspired outpourings of the soul, that have
consoled and strengthened—how many millions of suffering and fainting
hearts, for how many thousand years!
We must now leave Drusilla to meet the events of the night, and we must
turn to Alexander, and relate the circumstances that had kept him away
from his home these three days past—circumstances more ominous of evil
to his gentle wife than anything which had as yet happened at Cedarwood.