The excitement in the little town of S----, when Jacob returned from
Boston, and told his singular story, may well be imagined. The whole
community was in a buzz.
It was found that Mrs. Allen had so arranged matters, as to get all
the servants away from the house, on one pretence or another, for
that night, except an old negro woman, famous for her good sleeping
qualities; and she was in the land of forgetfulness long before the hour
appointed for flight.
Many conjectures were made, and one or two rather philanthropic
individuals proposed, as a common duty, an attempt to arrest the
fugitives and bring them back. But there were none to second this, the
general sentiment being, that Captain Allen was fully competent to look
after his own affairs. And that he wood look after them, and promptly
too, on his return, none doubted for an instant. As for Jacob Perkins,
no one professed a willingness to stand in his shoes. The fire-eating
Captain would most probably blow that gentleman's brains out in the
heat of his first excitement. Poor Jacob, not a very courageous man,
was almost beside himself with fear, when his view of the case was
confidently asserted. One advised this course of conduct on the part of
Jacob, and another advised that, while all agreed that it would on no
account be safe for him to fall in the Captain's way immediately on his
return. More than a dozen people, friends of Jacob, were on the alert,
to give him the earliest intelligence of Captain Allen's arrival in
S----, that he might hide himself until the first fearful outbreak of
passion was over.
Well, in about two weeks the Captain returned with his little son.
Expectation was on tip-toe. People's hearts beat in their mouths. There
were some who would not have been surprised at any startling occurrence;
an apparition of the scarred sea-dog, rushing along the streets,
slashing his sword about like a madman, would have seemed to them
nothing extraordinary, under the circumstances.
But expectation stood so long on tip-toe that it grew tired, and came
down a few inches. Nothing occurred to arouse the quiet inhabitants.
Captain Allen was seen to enter his dwelling about two o'clock in the
afternoon, and although not less than twenty sharp pairs of eyes were
turned in that direction, and never abated their vigilance until night
drew down her curtains, no one got even a glimpse of his person.
Jacob Perkins left the town, and took refuge with a neighbor living two
miles away, on the first intimation of the Captain's return.
The next day passed, but no one saw the Captain. On the third day a
member of the inquisitorial committee, who had his house under constant
observation, saw him drive out with his son, and take the road that
went direct to the neighborhood where Jacob Perkins lay concealed in the
house of a friend.
Poor Jacob! None doubted but the hour of retribution for him was at
hand. That he might have timely warning, if possible, a lad was sent
out on a fleet horse, who managed to go by Captain Allen's chaise on the
road. Pale with affright, the unhappy fugitive hid himself under a hay
rick, and remained there for an hour. But the Captain passed through
without pause or inquiry, and in due course of time returned to his
home, having committed no act in the least degree notable.
And so, as if nothing unusual had happened, he was seen, day after day,
going about as of old, with not a sign of change in his deportment that
any one could read. In a week, Jacob Perkins returned to his home, fully
assured that no harm was likely to visit him.
No event touching Captain Allen or his family, worthy of record,
transpired for several years. The only servants in the house were negro
slaves, brought from a distance, and kept as much as possible away from
others of their class in town. Among these, the boy, John, grew up. When
he was ten years old, Jacob Perkins, though in some fear, performed the
sacred duty promised to his mother on that memorable morning, when he
looked upon her pale, statuesque countenance for the last time. A flush
covered the boy's face, as he received the locket, and understood from
whence it came. He stood for some minutes, wholly abstracted, as if
under the spell of some vivid memory.
Tears at length filled his eyes, and glistened on the long fringed
lashes. Then there was a single, half-repressed sob--and then, grasping
the locket tightly in his hand, he turned from Jacob, and, without a
word, walked hastily away.
When the boy was sixteen, Captain Allen took him to sea. From that
period for many years, both of them were absent for at least two-thirds
of the time. At twenty-five, John took command of a large merchant-man,
trading to the South American coast, and his father, now worn down by
hard service, as well as by years, retired to his home in S----, to
close up there, in such repose of mind as he could gain, the last days
of his eventful life. He died soon after by apoplexy.
Prior to this event, his son, the younger Captain Allen, had brought
home from Cuba a Spanish woman, who took the name of his wife. Of her
family, or antecedents, no one in our town knew anything; and it was
questioned by many whether any rite of marriage had ever been celebrated
between them. Of this, however, nothing certain was known. None of the
best people, so called, in S----paid her the hospitable compliment of a
visit; and she showed no disposition to intrude herself upon them.
And so they stood towards each other as strangers; and the Allen house
remained, as from the beginning, to most people a terra incognita.
Neither Captain Allen nor his Spanish consort, to whom no children
were born, as they advanced in years, “grew old gracefully.” Both
had repulsive features, which were strongly marked by passion and
sensuality. During the last two years of his life I was frequently
called to see him, and prescribe for his enemy, the gout, by which he
was sorely afflicted. Mrs. Allen also required treatment. Her nervous
system was disordered; and, on closer observation, I detected signs of a
vagrant imagination, leading her away into states verging upon insanity.
She was fretful and ill-tempered; and rarely spoke to the Captain except
complainingly, or in anger. The visits I made to the Allen house, during
the lifetime of Captain Allen, were among the most unsatisfactory of
all my professional calls. I think, from signs which met my eyes,
that something more than bitter words passed occasionally between the
ill-matched couple.
Late in the day, nearly five years anterior to the time of which I am
now writing, I was summoned in haste to visit Captain Allen. I found him
lying on a bed in the north-west chamber, where he usually slept, in
a state of insensibility. Mrs. Allen received me at the door of the
chamber with a frightened countenance. On inquiry as to the cause of
his condition, she informed me that he had gone to his own room about an
hour before, a little the worse for a bottle of wine; and that she had
heard nothing more from him, until she was startled by a loud, jarring
noise in his chamber. On running up stairs, she found him lying upon the
floor, insensible.
I looked at her steadily, as she gave me this relation, but could not
hold her eyes in mine. She seemed more uneasy than troubled. There was
a contused wound just below the right temple, which covered, with its
livid stain, a portion of the cheek. A cursory examination satisfied me
that, whatever might be the cause of his fall, congestion of the brain
had occurred, and that but few chances for life remained. So I informed
Mrs. Allen. At the words, I could see a shudder run through her frame,
and an expression of something like terror sweep over her face.
“His father died of apoplexy,” said she in a hoarse whisper, looking at
me with a side-long, almost stealthy glance, not full and open-eyed.
“This is something more than apoplexy,” I remarked; still observing her
closely.
“The fall may have injured him,” she suggested.
“The blow on his temple has done the fearful work,” said I.
There was a perceptible start, and another look of fear-almost terror.
“For heaven's sake, doctor,” she said, rousing herself, and speaking
half imperatively, “do something! Don't stand speculating about the
cause; but do something if you have any skill.”
Thus prompted, I set myself to work, in good earnest, with my patient.
The result was in no way flattering to my skill, for he passed to his
account in less than an hour, dying without a sign.
I shall never forget the wild screams which rang awfully through the old
mansion, when it was announced to Mrs. Allen that the Captain was dead.
She flung herself upon his body, tore her hair, and committed other
extravagances. All the slumbering passions of her undisciplined nature
seemed quickened into sudden life, overmastering her in their strong
excitement. So it would have seemed to a less suspicious observer; but I
thought that I could detect the overacting of pretence. I may have
done her wrong; but the impression still remains. At the funeral, this
extravagant role of grief was re-enacted, and the impression was left on
many minds that she was half mad with grief.
Occasionally, after this event, I was summoned to the Allen House to see
its unhappy mistress. I say unhappy, for no human being ever had a face
written all over with the characters you might read in hers, that was
not miserable. I used to study it, sometimes, to see if I could get
anything like a true revelation of her inner life. The sudden lighting
up of her countenance at times, as you observed its rapidly varying
expression, made you almost shudder, for the gleam which shot across it
looked like a reflection from hell. I know no other word to express what
I mean. Remorse, at times, I could plainly read.
One thing I soon noticed; the room in which Captain Allen died--the
north-west chamber before mentioned--remained shut up; and an old
servant told me, years afterwards, that Mrs. Allen had never been inside
of it since the fatal day on which I attended him in his last moments.
At the time when this story opens the old lady was verging on to sixty.
The five years which had passed since she was left alone had bent her
form considerably, and the diseased state of mind which I noticed when
first called in to visit the family as a physician, was now but a
little way removed from insanity. She was haunted by many strange
hallucinations; and the old servant above alluded to, informed me, that
she was required to sleep in the room with her mistress, as she never
would be alone after dark. Often, through the night, she would start up
in terror, her diseased imagination building up terrible phantoms in the
land of dreams, alarming the house with her cries.
I rarely visited her that I did not see new evidences of waning reason.
In the beginning I was fearful that she might do some violence to
herself or her servants, but her insanity began to assume a less
excitable form; and at last she sank into a condition of torpor, both of
mind and body, from which I saw little prospect of her ever rising.
“It is well,” I said to myself. “Life had better wane slowly away than
to go out in lurid gleams like the flashes of a dying volcano.”