Loe raamatut: «One Of Them», lehekülg 39

CHAPTER VII. THE COTTAGE NEAR BREGENZ

There was something actually artistic in the choice old Holmes had made for his daughter’s residence near Bregenz. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse, with a deep eave, and a massive cornice beneath it. A wooden gallery ran the entire length, with a straggling stair to it, overgrown with a very ancient fig-tree, whose privilege it was to interweave through the balustrades, and even cross the steps at will, the whole nearly hidden by the fine old chestnut-trees which clothe the Gebhardts-Berg to its very summit. It was the sort of spot a lone and sorrowing spirit might have sought out to weep away unseen, to commune with grief in solitude, and know nothing of a world she was no more to share in. The simple-hearted peasants who accepted them as lodgers asked no reason for their selection of the place, nor were they likely, in their strange dialect, to be able to discuss the point with others, save their neighbors. The chief room, which had three windows opening on a little terrace, looked out upon a glorious panorama of the Swiss Alps, with the massive mountains that lead to the Splugen; and it was at one of these Mrs. Morris – or rather, to give her that name by which for the last few pages of our story she may be called, Mrs. Hawke – now sat, as the sun was sinking, watching with an unfeigned enjoyment the last gorgeous tints of declining day upon the snow peaks.

Perhaps at that moment the sense of repose was the most grateful of all sensations to her, for she had passed through a long day of excitement and fatigue. Like a great actress who had, in her impersonation of a difficult part, called forth all her powers of voice, look, and gesture, straining every fibre to develop to the utmost the passion she would convey, and tearing her very heart to show its agony, she was now to feel the terrible depression of reaction, the dreary void of the solitude around her, and the death-like stillness of her own subdued emotions. But yet, through all this, there was a rapturous enjoyment in the thought of a task accomplished, an ordeal passed.

On that same morning it was Trover had arrived with Mr. Winthrop, and her first meeting took place with the friend of her late husband, – perhaps the one living being whom alone of all the world she felt a sort of terror at seeing. The fear he inspired was vague, and not altogether reasonable; but it was there, and she could not master it. Till she met him, indeed, it almost overcame her; but when she found him a mild old man, of gentle manners and a quiet presence, unsuspecting and frank, and extending towards her a compassionate protection, she rallied quickly from her fears, and played out her part courageously.

How affecting was her grief! It was one of those touching pictures which, while they thrill the heart, never harrow the feelings. It was sorrow made beautiful, rather than distressing. Time, of course, long years, had dulled the bitterness of her woe, and only cast the sombre coloring of sadness over a nature that might have been – who knows? – made for joy and brightness. Unused to such scenes, the honest American could only sit in a sort of admiring pity of such a victim to an early sorrow; so fair a creature robbed of her just meed of this world’s happiness, and by a terrible destiny linked with an awful event! And how lovely she was through it all, how forgiving of that man’s cruelty! He knew Hawke well, and he was no stranger to the trials a woman must have gone through who had been chained to his coarse and brutal nature; and yet not a harsh word fell from her, not a syllable of reproach or blame. No; she had all manner of excuses to make for him, in the evil influences by which he was surrounded, the false and bad men who assumed to be his friends.

It was quite touching to hear her allude to the happiness of their early married life, – their contentment with humble fortune, their willing estrangement from a world of luxury and display, to lead an existence of cultivated pursuits and mutual affection. Winthrop was moved as he listened, and Trover had to wipe his eyes.

Of the dreadful event of her life she skilfully avoided details, dwelling only on such parts of it as might illustrate her own good qualities, her devotion to the memory of one of whom she had much to pardon, and her unceasing affection for his child. If the episode of that girl’s illness and death was only invented at the moment of telling, it lost nothing by the want of premeditation; and Winthrop’s tears betrayed how he took to heart the desolate condition of that poor bereaved woman.

“I had resolved,” said she, “never to avail myself of this fortune. To what end could I desire wealth? I was dead to the world. If enough remained to support me through my lonely pilgrimage, I needed no more. The simple life of these peasants here offered me all that I could now care for, and it was in this obscure spot I meant to have ended my days, unnoticed and unwept. My dear father, however, a distinguished officer, whose services the Government is proud to acknowledge, had rashly involved himself in some speculations; everything went badly with him, and he finished by losing all that he had laid by to support his old age. In this emergency I bethought me of that will; but even yet I don’t believe I should have availed myself of its provisions if it were not that my father urged me by another and irresistible argument, which was that in not asserting my own claim, I was virtually denying yours. ‘Think of Winthrop,’ said he. ‘Why should he be defrauded of his inheritance because you have taken a vow of poverty?’ He called it a vow of poverty,” said she, smiling through her tears, “since I wore no better dress than this, nor tasted any food more delicate than the rough fare of my peasant neighbors.”

If the costume to which she thus directed their attention was simple, it was eminently becoming, being, in reality, a sort of theatrical travesty of a peasant’s dress, made to fit perfectly, and admitting of a very generous view of her matchless foot and ankle; insomuch, indeed, that Mr. Winthrop could not help feeling that if poverty had its privations, it could yet be eminently picturesque.

If Winthrop wished from time to time to ask some question about this, or inquire into that, her answers invariably led him far afield, and made him even forget the matter he had been eager about. A burst of emotion, some suddenly recalled event, some long-forgotten passage brought back to mind in a moment, would extricate her from any difficulty; and as to dates, – those awful sunk rocks of all unprepared fiction, – how could she be asked for these, – she, who really could not tell the very year they were then living in, had long ceased to count time or care for its onward course? There were things he did not understand; there were things, too, that he could not reconcile with each other; but he could not, at such a moment, suggest his doubts or his difficulties, nor be so heartless as to weary that poor crushed and wounded spirit by prolonging a scene so painful.

When he arose to take his leave, they were like old friends. With a delicate tact all her own, she distinguished him especially from Mr. Trover; and while she gave Winthrop both her hands in his, she bestowed upon his companion a very cold smile and a curtsey.

“Are they gone, – positively gone?” asked she of her father, who now entered the room, after having carefully watched the whole interview from a summer-house with a spy-glass.

“Yes, dear; they are out on the road. I just overheard the American, as he closed the wicket, remark, ‘She’s the most fascinating creature I ever talked to!’”

“I hope I am, papa. When one has to be a serpent, one ought surely to have a snake’s advantages! What a dear old creature that American is! I really have taken a great liking to him. There is a marvellous attraction in the man that one can deceive without an effort, and, like the sheep who come begging to be eaten, only implores to be ‘taken in again.’”

“I never took my eyes off him, and I saw that you made him cry twice.”

“Three times, papa, – three times; not to speak of many false attacks of sensibility that went off in deep sighs and chokings. Oh dear! am I not wearied? Fetch me a little lemonade, and put one spoonful – only one – of maraschino in it. That wretch Trover almost made me laugh with his absurd display of grief. I ‘ll not have him here to-morrow.”

“And is Winthrop to come to-morrow?”

“Yes; and this evening too. He comes to-night to tea; he is so anxious to know you, papa; he has such a pleasant theory about that dear old man covered with wounds and honors, and devoting his declining year’s to console his poor afflicted child. You have put too much maraschino in this.”

“One spoonful, on honor; but I mean to treat myself more generously. Well, I ‘m heartily glad that the interview is over. It was an anxious thing to have before one, and particularly not knowing what manner of man he might be.”

“That was the real difficulty. It ‘s very hard to ‘play up’ to an unknown audience!”

“I ‘d not have asked them back this evening, Loo. It will be too much for you.”

“I did not do so. It was Winthrop himself begged permission to come; but he promised that not a syllable of business was to transpire, so that I have only to be very charming, which, of course, costs nothing.”

“I gather that all went smoothly on this morning. No difficulty anywhere?”

“None whatever. The account Trover gave us is fully borne out. The property is immense. There are, however, innumerable legal details to be gone through. I can’t say what documents and papers we shall not have to produce; meanwhile our American friend most generously lays his purse at our disposal, and this blank check is to be filled at my discretion.”

“‘Barnet and King,’” read he; “an excellent house. ‘Please to pay to Mrs. Hawke, or order.’ Very handsome of him, this, Loo; very thoughtful.”

“Very thoughtful; but I’d as soon Trover had not been present; he’s a greedy, grabbing sort of creature, and will insist upon a large discount out of it.”

“Make the draft the bigger, darling; the remedy is in your own hands.”

“Strange there should be no letter from O’Shea. I was full certain we should have heard something before this.”

“Perhaps we may by this post, dear. It ought to have arrived by this time.”

“Then go and see, by all means. How I hate a post that comes of an evening! One ought to begin the day with one’s letters; they are the evil fates, whose machinations all our efforts are directed against. They are, besides, the whispering of the storm that is brewing afar off, but is sure to overtake us. One ought to meet them with a well-rested brain and refreshed spirit, not wearied and jaded and unstrung by the day’s toil.”

And the Captain prepared to obey, but not without a variety of precautions against catching cold, which seemed somewhat to try his daughter’s patience.

“You really,” said she, with a half-bitter smile, “take very little account of the anxiety I must feel about my future husband.”

“Nonsense, dear; the O’Shea is not to be thought of. It would really be a gross misuse of wealth to share it with such a man.”

“So it might, if one were free to choose. But it’s the old story, papa,” said she, with a sigh. “To be cured of the ague, one is willing to take arsenic. There, you are surely muffled enough now; lose no more time, and, above all things, don’t get into a gossiping mood, and stay to talk with Trover, or be seduced by Mr. Winthrop’s juleps, but come back at once, for I have a sort of feverish foreboding over me that I cannot control.”

“How silly that is, dear! – to have a stout heart on the high seas and grow cowardly in the harbor.”

“But are we in the harbor? Are we so very certain that the voyage is over?” said she, with increased eagerness, “But pray go for the letters, or I will myself.”

He set out at last, and she watched him as he shut the wicket and crossed out upon the high-road; and then, all alone as she sat, she burst into a passionate flood of tears. Was this the relief of a nature strained like an over-bent bow? Was it the sorrowful outburst of a spirit which, however bold and defiant to the world, was craven to itself; or was it simply that fear had mastered her, and that she felt the approach of the storm that was to shipwreck her?

She must have been partly stunned by her sorrow, for she sat, no longer impatient, nor watching eagerly for his return, but in a sort of half-lethargic state, gazing out unconsciously into the falling night that now closed in fast around her.

It is neither a weak nor an ignorant theory that ascribes, even to the most corrupt natures, moments of deepest remorse, sincere and true, aspirations after better things, and a willingness to submit to the severest penalties of the past, if only there be a “future” in store for them. Who can tell us what of these were now passing through the mind of her who sat at that window, brooding sorrowfully?

“Here ‘s a letter for you, Loo, and a weighty one too,” said Holmes, entering the room, and approaching her before she was aware. “It was charged half a dollar extra, for overweight. I trust you ‘ll say it was worth the money.”

“Fetch a light! get me a candle!” cried she, eagerly; and she broke the seal with hands all trembling and twitching. “And leave me, papa; leave me a moment to myself.”

He placed the candles at her side, and stole away. She turned one glance at the address, “To Mrs. Hawke,” and she read in that one word that the writer knew her story. But the contents soon banished other thoughts; they were her own long-coveted, long-sought letters; there they were now before her, time-worn and crumpled, records of a terrible season of sorrow and misery and guilt! She counted them over and over; there were twenty-seven; not one was missing. She did not dare to open them; and even in her happiness to regain them was the darkening shadow of the melancholy period when they were written, – the long days of suffering and the nights of tears. So engrossed was she by the thought that they were now her own again, that the long tyranny of years had ended and the ever-impending shame departed, that she could not turn to learn how she came by them, nor through whom. At length this seemed to flash suddenly on her mind, and she examined the envelope, and found a small sealed note, addressed, as was the packet, “Mrs. Hawke.” O’Shea’s initials were in the corner. It contained but one line, which ran thus: —

“I have read the enclosed. – G. O’S.”

Then was it that the bitterness of her lot smote her with all its force, and she dropped down upon her knees, and, laying her head on the chair, sobbed as if each convulsive beat would have rent her very heart.

Oh, the ineffable misery of an exposed shame! the terrible sense that we are to meet abroad and before the world the stern condemnation our conscience has already pronounced, and that henceforth we are to be shunned and avoided! There is not left to us any longer one mood of mind that can bring repose. If we are depressed, it is in the mourning of our guilt we seem to be dressed; if for a moment we assume the air of light-heartedness, it is to shock the world by the want of feeling for our shame! It is written that we are to be outcasts and live apart!

“May I come in, Loo?” said a low voice from the half-opened doorway. It was her father, asking for the third time before she heard him.

She uttered a faint “Yes,” and tried to rise; but her strength failing, she laid her head down again between her hands.

“What is this, darling?” he said, stooping down over her. “What bad tidings have you got there? Tell me, Loo, for I may be able to lighten your sorrow for you.”

“No,” said she, calmly, “that you cannot, for you cannot make me unlive the past! Read that.”

“Well, I see nothing very formidable in this, dear. I can’t suppose that it is the loss of such a lover afflicts you. He has read them. Be it so. They are now in your own hands, and neither he nor any other will ever read them again. It would have been more interesting had he told us how he came by them; that was something really worth knowing; for remember, Loo, – and it is, after all, the great point, – these are documents you were ready and willing to have bought up at a thousand pounds, or even more. Paten often swore he ‘d have three thousand for them, and there they are now, safe in your own keeping, and not costing you one shilling. Stay,” said he, laughing, “the postage was about one-and-sixpence.”

“And is it nothing to cost me open shame and ignominy? Is it nothing that, instead of one man, two now have read the dark tracings of my degraded heart? Oh, father, even you might feel for the misery of exposure!”

“But it is not exposure: it is the very opposite; it is, of all things, the most secret and secure. When these letters are burned, what accusation remains against you? The memory of two loose men about town. But who ‘ll believe them, or who cares if they be believed? Bethink you that every one in this world is maligned by somebody, and finds somebody else to credit the scandal. Give me a bishop to blacken to-morrow, and see if I won’t have a public to adopt the libel. No, no, Loo; it’s a small affliction, believe me, that one is able to dispose of with a lucifer-match. Here, girl, give them to me, and never waste another thought on them.”

“No,” said she, resolutely, “I ‘ll not burn them. Whatever I may ask of the world to think of me, I do not mean to play the hypocrite to myself. Lend me your hand, and fetch me a glass of water. I cannot meet these people tonight. You must go over to the inn, and say that I am ill, – call it a headache, – and add that I hope by to-morrow I shall be quite well again.”

“Nay, nay, let them come, dear, and the very exertion will cheer you. You promised that American to sing him one of his nigger melodies, – don’t forget that.”

“Go and tell them that I have been obliged to take to bed, father,” said she, in a hollow voice. “It is no falsehood to call me very ill.”

“My dear Loo,” said he, caressingly, “all this is so unlike yourself. You, that never lacked courage in your life! you, that never knew what it was to be faint-hearted!”

“Well, you see me a coward at last,” said she, in a faint voice. “Go and do as I bade you, father; for this is no whim, believe me.”

The old man muttered out some indistinct grumblings, and left the room on his errand.

She had not been many minutes alone when she heard the sharp sounds of feet on the gravel, and could mark the voices of persons speaking together with rapidity. One she quickly recognized as her father’s, the other she soon knew to be Trover’s. The last words he uttered as he reached the door were, “Arrested at once!”

“Who is to be arrested at once?” cried she, rushing wildly to the door.

“We, if we are caught!” said Holmes. “There’s no time for explanation now. Get your traps together, and let us be off in quick time.”

“It is good counsel he gives you,” said Trover. “The game is up, and nothing but flight can save us. The great question is, which way to go.”

She pressed her hands to her temples for a moment, and then, as if recalled, by the peril, to her old activity of thought and action, said, —

“Let Johann fetch his cousin quickly; they both row well, and the boat is ready at the foot of the garden. We can reach Rorschach in a couple of hours, and make our way over to St. Gall.”

“And then?” asked Trover, peevishly.

“We are, at least, in a mountain region, where there are neither railroads nor telegraphs.”

“She is right. Her plan is a good one, Trover,” broke in Holmes. “Go fetch what things you mean to take with you, and come back at once. We shall be ready by that time.”

“If there be danger, why go back at all?” said she. “Remember, I know nothing of the perils that you speak of, nor do I ask to know till we are on the road out of them. But stay here, and help us to get our pack made.”

“Now you are yourself again! now I know you, Loo,” said Holmes, in a tone of triumph.

In less than half an hoar after they were skimming across the Lake of Constance as fast as a light skiff and strong arms could bear them. The night was still and calm, though dark, and the water without a ripple.

For some time after they left the shore scarcely a word was spoken amongst them. At last Holmes whispered something in his daughter’s ear, and she rejoined aloud, —

“Yes, it is time to tell me now; for, though I have submitted myself to your judgment in this hasty flight, I am not quite sure the peril was as imminent as you believed it What did you mean by talking of an arrest? Who could arrest us? And for what?”

“You shall hear,” said Trover; “and perhaps, when you have heard, you ‘ll agree that I was not exaggerating our danger.”

Not wishing to impose on our reader the minute details into which he entered, and the narrative of which lasted almost till they reached the middle of the lake, we shall give in a few words the substance of his story. While dressing for dinner at the inn, he saw a carriage with four posters arrive, and, in a very few minutes after, heard a loud voice inquiring for Mr. Harvey Winthrop. Suddenly struck by the strangeness of such a demand, he hastened to gain a small room adjoining Winthrop’s, and from which a door communicated, by standing close to which he could overhear all that passed.

He had but reached the room and locked the door, when he heard the sounds of a hearty welcome and recognition exchanged within. The stranger spoke with an American accent, and very soon placed the question of his nationality beyond a doubt.

“You would not believe,” said he, “that I have been in pursuit of you for a matter of more than three thousand miles. I went down to Norfolk and to St Louis, and was in full chase into the Far West, when I found I was on the wrong tack; so I ‘wore ship’ and came over to Europe.” After satisfying, in some degree, the astonishment this declaration excited, he went on to tell how he, through a chance acquaintance at first, and afterwards a close friendship with the Laytons, came to the knowledge of the story of the Jersey murder, and the bequest of the dying man on his daughter’s behalf, his interest being all the more strongly engaged because every one of the localities was familiar to him, and his own brother a tenant on the very land. All the arts he had deployed to trace out the girl’s claim, and all the efforts, with the aid of the Laytons, he had made to find out Winthrop himself, he patiently recounted, mentioning his accidental companionship with Trover, and the furtive mode in which that man had escaped him. It was, however, by that very flight Trevor confirmed the suspicion he had attached to him, and so the stranger continued to show that from the hour of his escape they had never “lost the track.” How they had crossed the Atlantic he next recorded, – all their days spent in discussing the one theme; no other incident or event ever occupying a moment’s attention. “We were certain of two things,” said he: “there was a deep snare, and that girl was its victim.” He confessed that if to himself the inquiry possessed a deep interest, with old Layton it had become a passion.

“At last,” continued Trover, “he began to confess that their hopes fell, and each day’s discomfiture served to chill the ardor that had sustained them, when a strange and most unlooked-for light broke in upon them by the discovery of a few lines of a note written by you to Dr. Layton himself years before, and, being produced, was at once recognized as the handwriting of Mrs. Penthony Morris.”

“Written by me! How could I have written to him? I never heard of him,” broke she in.

“Yes, he was the doctor who attended Hawke in his last illness, and it appeared you wrote to beg he would cut off a lock of hair for you, and bring it to you.”

“I remember that,” said she, in a hollow voice, “though I never remembered his name was Layton. And he has this note still?”

“You shall hear. No sooner had his son – ”

“You cannot mean Alfred Layton?”

“Yes; the same. No sooner had he declared that he knew the hand, than they immediately traced you in Mrs. Penthony Morris, and knowing that Stocmar had become the girl’s guardian, they lost no time in finding him out. I was too much flurried and terrified at this moment to collect clearly what followed, but I gathered that the elder Layton held over him some threat which, if pushed to execution, might ruin him. By means of this menace, they made Stocmar confess everything. He told who Clara was, how he had gained possession of her, under what name she went, and where she was then living. Through some influence which I cannot trace, they interested a secretary of state in their case, and started for the Continent with strong letters from the English authorities, and a detective officer specially engaged to communicate with the foreign officials, and permit, when the proofs might justify, of an arrest.”

“How much do they know, then?” asked she, calmly.

“They know everything. They know of the forged will, the false certificate of death, and Winthrop has confirmed the knowledge. Fortunately, I have secured the more important document I hastened to his room while they were yet talking, opened his desk, and carried away the will. As to the certificate, the Laytons and the detective had set off for Meisner the moment after reaching Bregenz, to establish its forged character.”

“Who cares for that?” said she, carelessly. “It is a trifling offence. Where is the other, – the will?”

“I have it here,” said he, pointing to his breast-pocket

“Let us make a bonfire, then,” said she, “for I, too, have some inconvenient records to get rid of. I thought of keeping them as memories, but I suspect I shall need no reminders.”

While Trover tore the forged will in pieces, she did the like by the letters, and, a match being applied to the fragments, the flames rose up, and in a few seconds the blackened remnants were carried away by the winds, and lost.

“So, then, Mr. Trover,” said she, at length, “Norfolk Island has been defrauded of your society for this time. By the way, papa, is not this Dr. Layton your friend as well as mine?”

“Yes, Loo, he is the man of ozone and vulcanized zinc, and I don’t know what else. I hoped he had died ere this.”

“No, papa, they don’t die. If you remark, you ‘ll see that the people whose mission it is to torment are wonderfully long-lived, and if I were an assurance agent, I ‘d take far more account of men’s tempers than their gout tendencies and dropsies. Was there any allusion to papa, Mr. Trover?”

“Yes; old Layton seems to have a warrant, or something of the kind, against him, on a grave charge, but I had no mind to hear what.”

“So that, I suppose,” said she, laughing, “I am the only ‘innocent’ in the company; for you know, Mr. Trover, that I forged nothing, falsified nothing; I was betrayed, by my natural simplicity of character, into believing that a fortune was left me. I never dreamed that Mr. Trover was a villain.”

“I don’t know how you take it so easily. We have escaped transportation, it is true, but we have not escaped public shame and exposure,” said Trover, peevishly.

“She’s right, though, Trover, – she’s right. One never gets in the true frame of mind to meet difficulties till one is able to laugh a little at them.”

“Not to mention,” added she, “that there is a ludicrous side in all troubles. I wonder how poor dear Mr. Winthrop bears his disappointment, worse than mine, in so far that he has travelled three thousand miles to attain it.”

“Oh, he professes to be charmed. I heard him say, ‘Well, Quackinboss, I ‘m better pleased to know that the poor girl is alive than to have a million of dollars left me.

“You don’t say the stranger was Quackinboss, the dear Yankee we were all so fond of long ago at Marlia, and whom I never could make in love with me, though I did my very best? Oh, father, is it not provoking to think of all the old friends we are running away from? Colonel Quackinboss, Dr. Layton, and Alfred! every one of them so linked to us by one tender thought or another. What a charming little dinner we might have had to-morrow; the old doctor would have taken me in, whispering a little doleful word, as we went, about the Hawke’s Nest, and long ago; and you and he would have had your scientific talk afterwards!”

How old Holmes laughed at the pleasant conceit! It was really refreshing to see that good old man so cheery and light of heart; the very boat shook with his jollity.

“Listen! – do listen!” said Trover, in an accent of terror. “I’m certain I heard the sound of oars following us.”

“Stop rowing for a moment,” said she to the boatmen; and as the swift skiff glided noiselessly along, she bent down her head to listen. “Yes,” said she, in a low, quiet voice, “Trover is right; there is a boat in pursuit, and they, too, have ceased pulling now, to trace us. Ha! there they go again, and for Lindau too; they have heard, perhaps, the stroke of oars in that direction.”

“Let our fellows pull manfully, then, and we are safe,” cried Trover, eagerly.

“No, no,” said she, in the same calm, collected tone. “The moon has set, and there will be perfect darkness till the day breaks, full two hours off. We must be still, so long as they are within hearing of us. I know well, Trover, what a tax this imposes on your courage, but it can’t be helped.”

“Just so, Trover,” chimed in Holmes. “She commands here, and there must be no mutiny.”

The wretched man groaned heavily, but uttered no word of reply.

“I wish that great chemical friend of yours, papa, – the wonderful Dr. Layton, – had turned his marvellous mind to the invention of invisible fire. I am dying for a cigar now, and I am afraid to light one.”

“Don’t think of it, for mercy’s sake!” broke in Trover.

“Pray calm yourself, I have not the slightest fancy for being overtaken by this interesting party, nor do I think papa has either, – not that our meeting could have any consequence beyond mere unpleasantness. If they should come up with us, I am as ready to denounce the deceitful Mr. Trover as any of them.”