CHAPTER XLI.
A Human Voice.—The Departure.—An Unexpected Meeting.—The Reception.
The dim, cold, uncertain light of morning was faintly gleaming in long sickly streaks in the eastern sky, and the trembling, half-maddened Jacob Gray crawled to the window of his room, and hastily tearing down some paper that patched a broken pane of glass, he placed his scorched and dry lips against the opening, and drank in the cool morning’s air as one who had crossed a desert would quaff from the first spring he met after the horrors and thirst of the wilderness.
On his knees the wretched man remained for some time, until the mad fever of his blood subsided, and calmer reflection came to his aid.
“I cannot sleep,” he said, “I cannot sleep—’tis madness to attempt it; my waking thoughts are bad enough, but when reason sleeps, and the imagination, unshackled by probability commences its reign, then all the wildest fancies become realities and I live in a world of horrors, such as the damned alone can endure, endurance must constitute a portion of their suffering, for if they felt so acutely as to decrease sensation, they would be happy. Alas! What can I do, I must rest sometimes. Exhausted nature will not be defrauded of her rights; but while the body rests, the mind seems to take a flight to hell! Oh, horrible! Horrible! I—I—wonder if Ada be awake—methinks now the sound of a human voice would be music to my ears, I will creep to her chamber door, and speak to her the slightest word in answer will be a blessing. Yes, I will go—I will go.” Jacob Gray then, with a slow and stealthy step, left his chamber, and as he glided along the dim corridor of that ancient house, he might, with his haggard looks and straining eyes, have well been taken for the perturbed spirit that popular superstition said had been seen about the ill-omened residence of crime and death.
He reached Ada’s door, and after a pause, he knocked nervously and timidly upon the panel. There was no answer, Ada slept—she was dreaming of happiness, of joy, that brought pearly tears to her eyes—those eyes that are the blissful overflowings of a heart too full of grateful feeling. Again Jacob Gray knocked, and he cried “Ada!” in a voice that was too low and tremulous to reach the ears of the sleeping girl, but which startled Gray himself by the hollow echoes it awakened in the silence of the gloomy house.
Again he knocked, and this time Ada started from her sleep—Gray heard the slight movement of the girl.
“Ada!” he said, “Ada, speak!”
“Jacob Gray!” said Ada.
“Ada—I—I am going forth—speak Ada, again.”
“Wherefore am I summoned thus early?” said Ada—“what has happened?”
“Nothing, nothing!” replied Gray. “Be cautious, Ada; I shall not return till night.”
He waited several minutes, but Ada made no reply. Then he crept slowly from the door muttering,—
“She has spoken—I think there is some magic in her voice, for I am better now, and the air in this place does not seem so thick and damp. It may be that there are evil spirits that, at the sound of the voice of one so pure and innocent as she, are forced to fly, and no more load the air with their bad presence. I am relieved now, for I have heard a human voice.”
Gray then proceeded to a lower room of the house, and enveloping himself closely in an ample cloak, he cautiously opened the door and went forth secure in the dim and uncertain light of the early morning.
The air was cold and piercing, but to Jacob Gray it was grateful, for it came like balm upon his heated blood, and the thick teeming fancies of his guilty brain gradually assumed a calmer complexion, subsiding into that gnawing of the heart which he was scarcely ever without, and which he knew would follow him to the grave.
He skirted the hedges, concealing himself with extreme caution, until he was some distance from Forest’s house, for notwithstanding the great improbability of his being seen at so early an hour, Jacob Gray was one of those who, to use his own words to Learmont, always wished safety to be doubly assured.
Walking rapidly now, along a pathway by the river’s side, he soon neared Lambeth, and the sun was just commencing to gild faintly the highest spires of the great city, when he arrived near the spot which is now occupied by the road leading over Vauxhall-bridge.
Gray began now to look about him for some place in which to breakfast, for such was his suspicious nature and constant fear, that he never from choice entered the same house twice. As chance would have it now, he paused opposite the doorway of the public-house called the King’s Bounty, and while he was deliberating with himself whether he should enter or not, he started and trembled with apprehension as the figure of Sir Frederick Hartleton passed out.
Jacob Gray had made himself well acquainted with the magistrate by sight, for curiosity had often impelled him to take means of seeing the man to whom he had addressed the packet containing his confession, and, from whom he expected his revenge against Learmont and Britton, and at the same time that, he, Gray, had personally to dread Sir Frederick most, of all men, while he should remain in England.
Gray drew back as the magistrate advanced, although a moment’s thought convinced him of the extreme improbability of his being known even to the vigilant eye of Hartleton, who had almost grown proverbial for his skill and tact in discovering who any person was, and for recollecting faces that he had only once in his life seen.
Gray was so near the doorway that he had to move in order to allow Sir Frederick to pass, and at that moment their eyes met.
The magistrate looked earnestly at Gray for a moment, and then passed on. During that brief look the blood appeared to Jacob Gray to be almost congealing at his heart, so full of fear was he that some distant reminiscence of his countenance might still live in the remembrance of Sir Frederick Hartleton. Such, however, appeared not to be the case, for the magistrate passed on, nor once looked behind him, to the immense relief of Gray, who now made up his mind on the moment to enter the house from a feeling of intense curiosity; to know what business his greatest foe could have there at such an early hour.
When he reached the small sanded parlour of the little hostel, he found several persons engaged in earnest discourse, among whom he had no difficulty in selecting the landlord, who was talking earnestly and loudly.
“Ah, my masters,” cried the landlord, “he’s a brave gentleman and a liberal one, I can tell you. He said to me—‘Landlord,’ says he—‘let her have of the best your house affords, and send your bill to me’—that’s what he said—and it’s no joke, I can tell you, for a publican to be on good terms with a magistrate. Oh, dear me! Then you should have seen how cold and wet he was; and when I offered him my Sunday garments, he took them with a thank ye, landlord, that was worth a Jew’s eye—coming as it did from a magistrate, mind you.”
“Bring me a measure of your best wine,” said Gray, “and whatever you have in the house that I may make a breakfast on.”
This liberal order immediately arrested the landlord’s attention, as Gray fully intended it should, and mine host of the King’s Bounty turned instantly all his attention to a visitor who ordered refreshments on so magnificent a scale for the house.
“Di—rectly, sir!” cried he, “your worship shall have some wine such as the bishop has not better in his cellars and they do say that he keeps his Canary cool in an excavation that goes from his palace some feet under the bed of the Thames.”
“I wish for the best of everything in your house,” said Gray. “By-the-by, was not that Sir Frederick Hartleton whom I saw leave your house a few minutes since?”
“An it please your honour, it was,” said the landlord. “Mayhap your worship is a friend of his, and comes to speak to the poor creature above?”
“Eh?—a—yes—yes.”
“By my faith, I thought as much.”
“Yet, stay,” said Gray, for he was cautious to the extreme. “Do you know when Sir Frederick will be here again?”
“Not till to-morrow, sir.”
“Humph! Then I will see the poor creature you mention.”
“Certainly, sir. This way, sir. Your breakfast will be ready by the time your worship comes down stairs again.”
“Who can this be that he calls the poor creature?” thought Gray, as he followed the landlord up stairs.
“This way, sir,” exclaimed the loquacious host. “It was touch and go with her, poor thing, they say; but Sir Frederick saved her. I dare say, however, your honour knows all about it. That room, sir, if you please.”
The landlord now opened a door, and, popping his head in, cried in a very different tone to that in which he addressed Gray, upon the supposition of his acquaintance with Sir Frederick Hartleton,—
“Hilloa! Here’s a gentleman come to see you, old ’un.”
Gray had not hear the reply; but he entered the room at once, and confronted Mad Maud, who was sitting in a chair, looking more like a corpse than a human being.