Kitabı oku: «Cynthia Wakeham's Money», sayfa 15

"Frank," said he, with the effort of a reticent man compelled at last to make an admission, "if you are going to the Cavanaghs, I think – I – will – go – with you."

Frank started and leaped forward warmly with outstretched hand. But before their two palms could meet, the door was violently opened and a messenger came panting in with the announcement:

"Dr. Sellick's wanted. Hermione Cavanagh is at the point of death."

XXVIII.
IN EXTREMITY

Frank and Edgar were equally pale as they reached the Cavanagh house. No time had been lost on the way, and yet the moments had been long enough for them both to be the prey of the wildest conjectures. The messenger who had brought the startling news of Hermione's illness knew nothing concerning the matter beyond the fact that Doris, their servant, had called to him, as he was passing their house, to run for Dr. Sellick, as Miss Hermione was dying. They were therefore entirely in the dark as to what had happened, and entered the house, upon their arrival, like men for whom some terrible doom might be preparing.

The first person they encountered was Huckins. He was standing in the parlor window, rubbing his hands slowly together and smiling very softly to himself. But when he saw the two young men, he came forward with a cringing bow and an expression of hypocritical grief, which revived all Frank's distrust and antipathy.

"Oh, sir," he exclaimed to Frank, "you here? You should not have come; indeed you should not. Sad case," he added, turning to the Doctor; "very sad case, this which we have upstairs. I fear we are going to lose the dear young lady." And he wiped his half-shut eyes with his fine white handkerchief.

"Let me see her; where is she?" cried the Doctor, not stopping to look around him, though the place must have been full of the most suggestive associations.

"Doris will show you. She was in the laboratory when I saw her last. A dangerous place for a young lady who has been jilted by her lover!" And he turned a very twinkling eye on Frank.

"What do you mean?" cried Frank. "The laboratory! The place where – O Edgar, go to her, go at once."

But Edgar was already half-way upstairs, at the top of which he was met by Doris.

"What is this?" he cried. "What has happened to Miss Cavanagh?"

"Come and see," she said. "O that she should go out of the house first in this way!"

Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. For Hermione lay on that same old couch which had once held her father, ill to speechlessness, and though the Doctor did not know what had brought her to this condition, he began to suspect and doubt if he were in time to revive her.

"What has she taken?" he demanded. "Something, or she would not be as low as this without more warning."

Emma, quaking, put a little piece of paper in his hand.

"I found this in her pocket," she whispered. "It was only a little while ago. It is quite empty," said she, "or you would have had two patients."

He stared at her, hardly taking in her words. Then he leaped to the door.

"Frank," he cried, tossing down a slip of paper on which he had hastily written a word, "go with this to the druggist at once! Run, for moments are precious!"

They heard a shout in answer; then the noise of the front door opening and shutting, and the sound of rapidly departing steps.

"Thank God!" the young physician murmured, as he came back into the laboratory, "that I studied chemistry with Mr. Cavanagh, or I might not know just what antidote was required here."

"Look!" Emma whispered; "she moved, when you said the word Frank."

The Doctor leaned forward and took Emma's hand.

"If we can rouse her enough to make her speak, she will be saved. When did she take that powder?"

"I fear she took it this morning, shortly after – after nine o'clock; but she did not begin to grow seriously ill till an hour ago, when she suddenly threw up her arms and shrieked."

"And didn't you know; didn't you suspect – "

"No, for she said nothing. She only looked haggard and clung to me; clung as if she could not bear to have me move an inch away from her side."

"And how long has she been unconscious and in that clammy, cold sweat?"

"A little while; just before we sent for you. I – I hated to disturb you at first, but life is everything, and – "

He gave her one deep, reassuring look.

"Emma," he softly murmured, "if we save your sister, four hearts shall be happy. See if you can make her stir. Tell her that Frank is here, and wants to see her."

Emma, with a brightening countenance, leaned over and kissed Hermione's marble-like brow.

"Hermione," she cried, "Hermione! Frank wants you; he is tired of waiting. Come, dear; shall I not tell him you will come?"

A quiver at the word Frank, but that was all.

"It is Frank, dear; Frank!" Emma persisted. "Rouse up long enough just to see him. He loves you, Hermione."

Not even a quiver now. Dr. Sellick began to turn pale.

"Hermione, will you leave us now, just as you are going to be happy? Listen, listen to Emma. You know I have always told you the truth. Frank is here, ready to love you. Wake, darling; wake, dearest – "

There was no use. No marble could be more unresponsive. Dr. Sellick rushed in anguish to the door. But the step he heard there was that of Huckins, and it was Huckins' face he encountered at the head of the stairs.

"Is she dead?" cried that worthy, bending forward to look into the room. "I was afraid, very much afraid, you could not do any good, when I saw how cold she was, poor dear."

The Doctor, not hearing him, shouted out: "The antidote! the antidote! Why does not Frank come!"

At that instant Frank was heard below: "Am I in time?" he gasped. "Here it is; I ran all the way"; and he came rushing up the stairs just as Huckins slipped from the step where he was and fell against him.

"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which might have been broken in their encounter.

Dr. Sellick, who saw nothing but the packet Frank held, grasped the remedy and dashed back into the room. Frank followed and stood in anguished suspense within the open doorway. Huckins crouched and murmured to himself on the stair.

"Can we get her to take it? Is there hope?" murmured Emma.

No word came in reply; the Doctor was looking fixedly at his patient.

"Frank," he said solemnly, "come and take her hand in yours. Nothing else will ever make her unlock her lips."

Frank, reeling in his misery, entered and fell at her feet.

"Hermione," he endeavored to say, but the word would not come. Breaking into sobs he took her hand and laid his forehead upon it. Would that anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life, and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he held. It seemed to move her, to reach her heart, to stay the soul just hovering on the confines of life, for the lips parted further, the lids of the eyes trembled, and before the reaction came, Dr. Sellick had succeeded in giving her a few grains of the impalpable powder he was holding.

"It will either kill or restore her," said he. "In five minutes we shall know the result."

And when at the end of those five minutes they heard a soft sigh, they never thought, in their sudden joy and relief, to look for the sneaking figure trembling on the staircase, who, at this first sign of reviving life in one he thought dead, slid from his station and went creeping down the stairs, with baffled looks that would have frightened even Doris had she seen them.

XXIX.
IN THE POPLAR WALK

Two days had passed. Hermione was sitting in the cheerful sitting-room with the choicest of flowers about her and the breeze from the open window fluttering gayly in her locks. She was weak yet, but there was promise of life in her slowly brightening eye, and from the language of the smile which now and then disturbed the lines of her proud lips, there was hope of happiness in the heart which but two short days before had turned from life in despair.

Yet it was not a perfect hope, or the smiles would have been deeper and more frequent. She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and anticipated marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon us. As the pleasure of living and the ecstasy of love began to make themselves felt again in her weakened frame, she could not refrain from asking herself by what right she contemplated taking up the joys of life, who had not only forfeited them by her attempt at suicide, but who had been cursed by a father and doomed by his will to perpetual imprisonment. Had he not said, "Let not hatred, let not love, lead you to leave these doors"? How then presume to think of it or dream that she could be happy with such remembrances as hers ever springing up to blight her life? She wished, oh! how she wished, that Frank would not ask her to leave her home. Yet she knew this was weakness, and that soon, at the next interview, perhaps, she would have to dash his hopes by speaking of her fears. And so Hermione was not perfectly happy.

Emma, on the contrary, was like a bird loosed from a cage. She sang, yes, sang as she flitted up and down the stairs, and once Hermione started and blushed with surprise as her voice in a merry peal of laughter came from the garden. Such a sound had not been heard in that house for a year; such a sound seemed an anomaly there. Yet how sweet it was, and how it seemed to lift the shadows.

There was another person who started as this unusual note of merriment disturbed the silence of the garden. It was Huckins, who was slowly walking up and down beneath the poplars. He was waiting for Doris, and this sound went through him like an arrow.

"Laughter," he muttered, shaking his trembling hands in menace towards her. "That is a sound I must crush. It speaks too much of hope, and hope means the loss to me of all for which I have schemed for years. Why didn't that poison work? Why did I let that doctor come? I might have locked the door against him and left them to hunt for the key. But I was afraid; that Etheridge is so ready to suspect me."

He turned and walked away from the house. He dreaded to hear that silvery sound again.

"If she had died, as I had every reason to suspect after such a dose, Emma would have followed her in a day. And then who could have kept me out of my property? Not Etheridge, for all his hatred and suspicion of me." He shook his hand again in menace and moved farther down the path.

As his small black figure disappeared up the walk Doris appeared at the kitchen door. She also looked cheerful, yet there was a shade of anxiety in her expression as she glanced up the walk.

"He says he is going away," she murmured. "The shock of Miss Hermione's illness was too much for him, poor man! and he does not seem to consider how lonesome I will be. If only he had asked me to go with him! But then I could not have left the young ladies; not while they stick to this old horror of a house. What is it, Miss Emma?"

"A four-leaved clover! one, two, three of them," cried her young mistress from the lawn at the side of the house. "We are in luck! Times are going to change for us all, I think."

"The best luck we can have is to quit this house forever," answered Doris, with a boldness unusual on her lips.

"Ah," returned Emma, with her spirits a little dashed, "I cannot say about that, but we will try and be happy in it."

"Happy in it!" repeated Doris, but this time to herself. "I can never be happy in it, now I have had my dreams of pleasure abroad." And she left the kitchen door and began her slow walk towards the end of the garden.

Arrived at the place where Huckins waited for her, she stopped.

"Good afternoon," said she. "Pleasant strolling under these poplars."

He grunted and shook his head slowly to and fro.

"Nothing is very pleasant here," said he. "I have stood it as long as I can. My nieces are good girls, but I have failed to make them see reason, and I must leave it now to these two lovers of theirs to do what they can."

"And do you think they will succeed? That the young ladies will be influenced by them to break up their old habits?"

This was what Huckins did think, and what was driving him to extremity, but he veiled his real feelings very successfully under a doleful shake of the head.

"I do not know," said he. "I fear not. The Cavanagh blood is very obstinate, very obstinate indeed."

"Do you mean," cried Doris, "that they won't leave the house to be married? That they will go on living here in spite of these two young gentlemen who seem to be so fond of them?"

"I do," said he, with every appearance of truth. "I don't think anything but fire will ever drive them out of this house."

It was quietly said, almost mournfully, but it caused Doris to give a sudden start. Looking at him intently, she repeated "Fire?" and seemed to quake at the word, even while she rolled it like a sweet morsel under her tongue.

He nodded, but did not further press the subject. He had caught her look from the corner of his eye, and did not think it worth while to change his attitude of innocence.

"I wish," he insinuated, "there was another marriage which could take place."

"Another marriage?" she simpered.

"I have too much money for one to spend," said he. "I wish I knew of a good woman to share it."

Doris, before whose eyes the most dazzling dreams of wealth and consequence at once flashed, drooped her stout figure and endeavored to look languishing.

"If it were not for my duty to the young ladies," sighed she.

"Yes, yes," said he, "you must never leave them."

She turned, she twisted, she tortured her hands in her endeavor to keep down the evidences of her desire and her anxiety.

"If – if this house should be blown down in a storm or – or a fire should consume it as you say, they would have to go elsewhere, have to marry these young men, have to be happy in spite of themselves."

"But what cyclones ever come here?" he asked, with his mockery of a smile. "Or where could a fire spring from in a house guarded by a Doris?"

She was trembling so she could not answer. "Come out here again at six o'clock," said she; "they will miss me if I stay too long now. Oh, sir, how I wish I could see those two poor loves happy again!"

"How I wish you could!" said he, and there was nothing in his tone for her ears but benevolence.

As Huckins crept from the garden-gate he ran against Frank, who was on his way to the station.

"Oh, sir," he exclaimed, cringing, "I am sure I beg your pardon. Going up to town, eh?"

"Yes, and I advise you to do the same," quoth the other, turning upon him sharply. "The Misses Cavanagh are not well enough at present to entertain visitors."

"You are no doubt right," returned Huckins with his meekest and most treacherous aspect. "It is odd now, isn't it, but I was just going to say that it was time I left them, much as I love the poor dears. They seem so happy now, and their prospects are so bright, eh?"

"I hope so; they have had trouble enough."

"Um, um, they will go to Flatbush, I suppose, and I – poor old outcast that I am – may rub my hands in poverty."

He looked so cringing, and yet so saturnine, that Frank was tempted to turn on his heel and leave him with his innuendoes unanswered. But his better spirit prevailing, he said, after a moment's pregnant silence:

"Yes; the young ladies will go to Flatbush, and the extent of the poverty you endure will depend upon your good behavior. I do not think either of your nieces would wish to see you starve."

"No, no, poor dears, they are very kind, and the least I can do is to leave them. Old age and misery are not fit companions for youth and hope, are they, Mr. Etheridge?"

"I have already intimated what I thought about that."

"So you have, so you have. You are such a lawyer, Mr. Etheridge, such an admirable lawyer!"

Frank, disgusted, attempted to walk on, but Huckins followed close after him.

"You do not like me," he said. "You think because I was violent once that I envy these sweet girls their rights. But you don't know me, Mr. Etheridge; you don't know my good heart. Since I have seen them I have felt very willing to give up my claims, they are such nice girls, and will be so kind to their poor old uncle."

Frank gave him a look as much as to say he would see about that, but he said nothing beyond a short "What train do you take?"

As Huckins had not thought seriously of taking any, he faltered for a moment and then blurted out:

"I shall get off at eight. I must say good-by to the young ladies, you know."

Frank, who did not recognize this must, looked at his watch and said:

"You have just a half hour to get the train with me; you had better take it."

Huckins, a little startled, looked doubtfully at the lawyer and hesitated. He did not wish to arouse his antagonism or to add to his suspicion; indeed it was necessary to allay both. He therefore, after a moment of silent contemplation of the severe and inscrutable face before him, broke into a short wheedling laugh, and saying, "I had no idea my company was so agreeable," promised to make what haste he could and catch the six o'clock train if possible.

But of course it was not possible. He had his second interview with Doris to hold, and after that was over there were the young ladies to see and impress with the disinterested state of his feelings. So that it was eight o'clock before he was ready to leave the town. But he did leave it at that hour, though it must have been with some intention of returning, or why did he carry away with him the key of the side-door of the old Cavanagh mansion?

XXX.
THE FINAL TERROR

A week went by and Frank returned to Marston full of hope and definite intention. He had notified the Surrogate of the discovery of the real heirs to the Wakeham estate, and he had engaged workmen to put in order the old house in Flatbush against the arrival of the youthful claimants. All that there now remained to do was to induce the young ladies to leave the accursed walls within which they had so long immured themselves.

Edgar was awaiting him at the station, and together they walked up the street.

"Is it all right?" asked Frank. "Have you seen them daily?"

"Every day but to-day. You would hardly know Emma."

"And – and Hermione?"

"She shows her feelings less, but she is evidently happier than she has been for a year."

"And her health?"

"Is completely re-established."

"Have you kept your word? Have you talked of everything but what we propose to do?"

"I never break my word."

"And they? Have they said anything about leaving the house, or of going to Flatbush, or – or – "

"No; they have preserved as close a silence as ourselves. I imagine they do not think it proper to speak till we have spoken first."

"It may be; but I should have been pleased if you could have told me that Hermione had been seen walking outside the gate."

"You would?"

"Yes. I dread the struggle which I now see before me. It is the first step which costs, and I was in hopes she would have taken this in my absence."

"Yes, it would have prevented argument. But perhaps you will not have to argue. She may be merely waiting for the support of your arm."

"Whatever she is waiting for, she takes her first step down the street to-night. What a new world it will open before her!" And Frank unconsciously quickened his pace.

Edgar followed with a less impatient step but with fully as much determination. Pride was mingled with his love, and pride demanded that his future wife should not be held in any bonds forged by the obstinacy or the superstitious fears of a wayward sister.

They expected to see the girls at the windows, but they found the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. Indeed, the whole house had a funereal look which staggered Frank and made even Edgar stare in astonishment. "It was not like this yesterday," he declared. "Do they not expect you?"

"Yes, if my telegram was delivered."

"Let us see at once what is the matter."

It was Doris who came to the door. When her eyes fell upon the two young men, especially upon Frank, her whole countenance changed.

"Oh, Mr. Etheridge, is it you?" she cried. "I thought – I understood – " She did not say what, but her relieved manner made quite an impression on Frank, although it was, of course, impossible for him to suspect what a dangerous deed she had been contemplating at that very moment.

"Are the young ladies well?" he asked, in his haste to be relieved from his anxiety.

"Oh, yes, quite well," she admitted, somewhat mysteriously. "They are in there," she added, pointing to the parlor on the left.

Frank and Edgar looked at each other. They had always before this been received in the cheerful sitting-room.

"If something is not soon done to make Miss Hermione leave the house," Doris whispered passionately to Frank as she passed him, "there will be worse trouble here than there has ever been before."

"What do you mean?" he demanded, gliding swiftly after her and catching her by the arm just as she reached the back hall.

"Go in and see," said she, "and when you come out tell me what success you have had. For if you fail, then – "

"Then what – "

"Providence must interpose to help you."

She was looking straight at him, but that glance told him nothing. He thought her words strange and her conduct strange, but everything was strange in this house, and not having the key to her thoughts, the word Providence did not greatly startle him.

"I will see what I can do," said he, and returning to Edgar, who had remained standing by the parlor-door, he preceded him into that gloomy apartment.

The girls were both there, seated, as Frank perceived with a certain sinking of the heart, in the farthest and dimmest corner of this most forbidding place. Emma was looking towards them, but Hermione sat with downcast eyes and an air of discouragement about her Frank found it hard to behold unmoved.

"Hermione," said he, advancing into the middle of the room, "have you no welcome for me?"

Trembling with sudden feeling, she rose slowly to her feet; and her eyes lifted themselves painfully to his.

"Forgive me," she entreated, "I have had such a shock."

"Shock?"

"Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!"

She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before.

"The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain."

And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular and ran in a distinct circle about her head.

"Hermione," he cried, "has your imagination carried you so far? Ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?"

"I believe in anything now," she murmured.

Frightened by her shudders and dazed by words he found it impossible to treat lightly with those mysterious marks before him, Frank turned for relief to Emma, who had risen also and stood a few steps behind them, with her face bent downward though the Doctor pressed close at her side.

"Do you understand her?" said Frank.

With an effort Emma moved forward. "It has frightened me," she whispered.

"What has? Let us hear all about it," demanded the Doctor, speaking for the first time.

Hermione gave him a wistful glance. "We are wretched girls," said she. "If you expected to relieve us from the curse, it is impossible; my father will not have it so."

"Your father!" quoth both of the young men, appalled not at the superstition thus evinced, but at the effect they saw it was likely to have upon her mind.

"Did you think you saw him?" added Frank. "When? Where?"

"In the laboratory – last night. I did not see him but I felt him; felt him strike my head with his fingers and drag me back. It was worse than death! I shall never get over it."

"Tell me the particulars; explain the whole matter to me. Imagination plays us ghastly tricks sometimes. Were you alone? Was it late?"

"Why didn't I come here this morning?" cried Edgar.

"It was long after midnight. I had received your letter and could not sleep, so I went into the laboratory, as we often do, to walk. It was the first time I had been there since I was ill, and it made me tremble to cross its hated threshold, but I had a question to decide, and I thought I ought to decide it there. But I trembled, as I say, and my hand shook so as I opened the door that I was more disturbed than astonished when my light went suddenly out, leaving me in total darkness. As I was by this time inside the laboratory I did not turn back to relight my candle, for the breeze I presently felt blowing through the room convinced me that this would be idle, and that till the window was shut, which let in such a stream of air, any attempt to bring a light into the room would be attended by the same results. I therefore moved rapidly across the room to the window, and was about to close it when I was suddenly arrested, and my arms were paralyzed by the feeling of a presence in the room behind my back. It was so vivid, so clear to my thoughts, that I seemed to see it, though I did not turn from the window. It was that of an old man – my father's, – and the menace with which the arms were lifted froze the blood in my veins.

"I had merited it; I had been near to breaking his command. I had meditated, if I had not decided, upon a sudden breaking away from the bondage he had imposed upon me; I had been on the point of daring his curse, and now it was to fall upon me. I felt the justice of his presence and fell, as if stricken, on my knees.

"The silence that followed may have been short, and it may have been long. I was almost unconscious from fright, remorse, and apprehension. But when I did rouse and did summon courage to turn and crawl from the room, I was conscious of the thing following me, and would have screamed, but that I had no voice. Suddenly I gave a rush; but the moment I started forward I felt those fingers fall upon my head and draw me back, and when I did escape it was with a force that carried me beyond the door and then laid me senseless on the floor; for I am no longer strong, Mr. Etheridge, and the hatred of the dead is worse than that of the living."

"You had a dream, a fearful dream, and these marks prove its vividness," declared Edgar. "You must not let your life be ruined by any such fantasies."

"Oh, that it had been a dream," moaned Hermione, "but it was more than that, as we can prove."

"Prove?"

"Come to the laboratory," cried Emma, suddenly. "There is something we want to show you there; something which I saw early this morning when I went in to close the window Hermione did not shut."

The young men, startled, did not wait for a second bidding; they followed the two girls immediately up-stairs.

"No one has been up these stairs but Doris and ourselves since you went down them a week ago," declared Hermione, as they entered the laboratory. "Now look at the lid of the mahogany desk – my father's desk."

They all went over to it, and Emma, pointing, seemed to ask what they thought of it. They did not know what to think, for there on its even surface they beheld words written with the point of a finger in the thick dust which covered it; and the words were legible and ran thus:

"In your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone, and my curse shall be upon you."

"My father's words to me in the dreadful hour of his death," whispered Hermione. "You may remember them, Mr. Etheridge; they were in the letter I wrote you."

Frank did remember them quite well, and for a moment he, like Edgar, stood a little dazed and shaken by a mystery he could not immediately fathom. But only for a moment. He was too vigorous, and his determination was too great, for him to be daunted long by even an appearance of the supernatural. So leaping forward, with a bright laugh, he drew his hand across the menacing words, and, effacing them at once, cried with a confident look at Hermione:

"So will I erase them from your heart if you only will let me, Hermione."

But she pointed with an awful look at her hair.

"Can you take these spots out also? Till you can, do not expect me to follow the beck of any hand which would lead me to defy my father's curse by leaving this house."

At this declaration both men turned pale, and unconsciously moved towards each other with a single thought. Had they looked at the door, they would have seen the inquisitive face of Doris disappear towards the staircase, with that air of determination which only ends in action. But they only saw each other and the purpose which was slowly developing in each of their minds.