CHAPTER LXXXIII.
Gray’s Peril.—A Peep into Domestic Affairs.—The Corpulent Lady.—The Man who Was Hung on Monday.
Jacob Gray was so horrified at the awful sight that met his eyes, upon opening the cupboard in the old attic, that for some moments he could neither think, move, nor speak; and it was only the strong present dread of some one coming upon him suddenly from the lower part of the house and taking his life, upon finding he was aware of the murdered man being in the cupboard, that aroused him from the absolute lethargy of fear he was rapidly falling into.
The body lay on its face at his feet, and it appeared to have been propped up in the cupboard, merely by the shutting of the door quickly, so that it had fallen out the moment Gray had, by opening the door, removed the support.
He felt that there was no chance for him but putting the loathsome object back again into its receptacle, and our readers may imagine what a terrible job it was to such a man as Jacob Gray to raise that hideous mass of death, and replace it in the cupboard. He stooped and laid his trembling hands upon the neck. He dragged it up—the head hung about in that strange loose manner which indicates a certain stage in the progress of decomposition.
Gray shuddered, and bungled much over what he had to do, because his object was to get the dead body into the cupboard without looking at the face; and he, therefore, sedulously turned his head away.
The weight was very great, and after many fruitless efforts, Gray found it impossible to get the body fixed for one instant, so as to allow him to close the door. Once he caught one of the ghastly bands between the door and the side-post. Then, by not being quick enough, the body leaned forward, and he caught the hideous distorted face in the same way.
A cry of horror burst from his lips, as his eyes inadvertently fell upon the horrible visage, and now that he had once looked he could not turn his eyes away, had he been offered a world for the effort.
“Horrible! Horrible!” he moaned, and then letting go the door, the body fell as at first, with a heavy lump upon its face, at his feet.
“I shall be murdered here,” thought Gray, “and must leave at all hazards. I—I had better risk being again seen, and hooted by the mob, than remain here to certain death.”
He approached the window as he spoke; but to his horror, he found by the shout that at once greeted him, that his tormentors were still there.
“What can save me now?” he groaned, “I am lost—lost.”
He sunk upon the miserable chair that was in the room, and groaned aloud in the bitterness of his despair.
Then he began to wonder that no one came to the attic, and from that he thought it just possible there might be nobody in the house, and that his own fears had converted some casual noise into the sounds of footsteps on the stairs.
There was hope in this conjecture, and he crept cautiously to the door, and standing at the stair-head, he listened attentively, but could hear no noise.
“I wonder,” he muttered to himself, “if I could venture down stairs. There might be no one between me and the street-door, and possibly I might not be recognised by the gaping crowd outside, and so escape my present most dangerous situation.”
It was some minutes more before he could make up his mind to venture down the stairs; and when, at length, he did, he went step by step with such extreme slowness and caution, that it was a long time before he reached the bottom of the first flight. The least creaking sent the blood to his heart with a frightful gush, and by the time he had reached the floor below the attic, he was in a state of terror and nervousness that would have alarmed any one to behold.
He sat down upon the bottom stair, and as far as he was able to command them, he bent all his faculties to discover if there was any one in the rooms opening from the landing.
One door was ajar, and he now felt satisfied there was no one there, but another door was close shut, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could command his nerves to crawl past it. His foot now was upon the first stair from the top of the next flight of stairs, when he nearly fell headlong from top to bottom, as he heard a man’s voice below say,—
“Thomas—I shall want you in your attic, presently.”
Then a step sounded up the stairs, and Jacob Gray had just time to crawl backwards into the room with the door ajar, before he must have been seen.
But he thought whoever is coming here, may enter this room, and he glanced hastily around him for some place to hide in.
A large handsome bed was in the room with the curtains drawn, and Jacob Gray advancing cautiously, peered in between them, when to his horror and consternation, he found the bed occupied.
An elderly female, with a red termagant face, who by the mountain she made of the bed clothes, must have been of most ample proportions, lay sleeping in the bed.
The slight noise he made, appeared to have disturbed the lady, for a long-drawn snore proclaimed that her easy slumbers were about being disturbed.
Gray heard two or three hard blows given to the bed, and then the lady muttered,—
“Take that, you wretch—you’ll disturb me, will you, again,” and then evidently fancying she had silenced her supposed bed-fellow, the corpulent lady, with a singular imitation of a bassoon by means of her olfactory organ, she again resigned herself to sleep.
The same man’s name that Gray had heard already, now said at the door,—
“You’re asleep yet, are you! Oh, you are a beauty—well, there is some peace in the house early in the morning, for all who like to get up, and enjoy—because you are too lazy to be among us so early, if ever a man was cursed—ah, well, it’s no use complaining.”
“Oh, you disagreeable beast!” shrieked the lady, who had only been in what is termed a dog-sleep, and had heard the remarks of the man at the door.
“You wretch—you varmint. So that’s the way you goes on, is it? You ugly lump of wretchedness?”
“What do you say, my dear?” remarked the man in so altered and humble a voice that Jacob Gray could scarcely believe it came from the same individual.
“What did I say, you unnatural villain—I say I heard you talking about peace in the house.”
“Really my love, I—”
“Don’t try to escape out of it, you wretched little villain—wait till I get up, that’s all.”
With a sigh the unhappy husband, for nobody but a husband ever puts up with a woman’s tongue, and by some strange fatality, he who is the only person having a legal right to control it’s wagging, never, or very rarely, does so—turned away.
“Who’s down stairs?” cried the lady, peremptorily.
“Only Thomas, my dear.”
“Isn’t that lazy slut, Deborah, up yet?”
“Oh dear yes, my love.”
“Oh dear yes, indeed,” answered the lady; “I’ll box your ears and hers too when I get up. You’ve been winking at her again—I’ll be bound you have.”
“Really, my love—”
“Go away, sir, and don’t aggravate me. It would make folk’s hair stand on end to know what I suffer—it would.”
The lady now turned round on the bed with such a bounce that Jacob Gray thought for a moment it must eventually come down on the top of him.
“What shall I do now?” thought Gray; “this is a strange house. They do not seem at all the kind of persons I suspected. How could that dead body have come into the cupboard in the attic? Perhaps they don’t know it’s there at all, and if I should be seen, it will in some way be laid to my charge.”
He now remained for some moments in painful thought. Then he came at length to a conclusion that he must venture down stairs before the lady got up, as his only chance of getting out of the house.
“Only Thomas down stairs,” he repeated to himself, “and a servant girl I presume? I must make the attempt as circumstances direct me—at the back or the front of the house, I may be able to leave it.”
He made now a very slight movement in an endeavour to crawl from under the bed, and make towards the door, but the corpulent virago heard him, and cried,—
“I thought I heard somebody a moving. I shall get up and ring for Deborah. Lor a mighty—I’m all of a tremble.”
“If I let her get up and have assistance here, I am lost,” said Gray.
It took him a moment or two more to screw up his courage, and then he suddenly rose up at the side of the bed, and said,—
“If you stir or speak for the next half hour, I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear.”
The corpulent lady gave a loud scream, and Jacob Gray sneaked under the bed again.
“Beware,” he said, “beware!”
“Oh! Mr. Murderer, spare my life,” she gasped.
“What’s the matter?” said the husband, who had come scuffling down stairs, upon hearing the scream.
“Beware!” whispered Gray.
“N—n—,” gasped the corpulent lady, with the fear of having her throat cut, “nothing—only a—a dream.”