CHAPTER XXI.
A Sunny Morning.—The Chamber in the Old House.
The morning gathered each moment strength and beauty, for it was beautiful, although the trees were stripped of their summer verdure, and the earth no longer sent forth sweet flowers to—
Load with perfumes
The soft dreaming idle air
That steeped in sunshines.
Music, and all dear delight,
Hung, tranquilly ’twixt heaven and earth.
The sun, however, was bright, and the air, although the soft voluptuous warmth of summer, was full of health and life. The little waves on the river sparkled like silver broken into fragments and strewed upon the surface of the stream. For miles the clear cloudless sky reflected nothing but pure sunshine, beautiful although cold; it shone upon the palaces, the churches, and the bridges, and upon the meanest hovels pregnant with squalid poverty; it shone upon all alike. It found its way in floods of beauty, softened by rich colouring of glass and drapery, into the chambers of the rich and great, and it struggled through the dingy panes of the cottage windows, making, perchance, more happiness there than in the lordly mansion, which more frequently is the habitation of an aching heart.
There was one small room into which that clear morning sun shone in all its dearly-welcomed beauty, and there was one heart that was cheered by its presence, and smiled gladly in its radiant light; that room into which it shone was the sleeping chamber of the young boy, Harry, and that heart that welcomed its rays was his—a heart that ever beat in unison with all that was good—all that was beautiful.
The apartment was a small one adjoining a spacious room that was on the second floor of the house, and communicating with it by folding doors. It contained little else than a small couch and a few necessary articles of the toilette. A large mat lay at the door, on which reposed the dog, which was poor Harry’s only companion—his only friend.
The boy was up and leaning upon the window-sill, gazing earnestly through a small chink that was left in the beading (for the window was blocked up from without) which enabled him to see, and without danger of being observed by any one in the street, and likewise was quite of sufficient width to allow the morning sun to stream into the little room.
With a deep sigh he turned from the window, and the dog at the same moment rose, and with grateful gestures approached its kind master.
“The sun is shining, my poor Joy,” said Harry, mournfully; “but you and I may not gambol in its beams. The world without this gloomy house seems bright and beautiful, but we are prisoners, ’tis very, very strange; Gray tells me he is my uncle, and that there is a fearful secret connected with the family that forces him to shut himself and me up in this mysterious manner. Uncle Gray, I doubt you. Such a tale might suit the ears of a child, but—I—I am one no longer. Can this man be my uncle? His behaviour is so strange to me, alternately harsh and kind, affectionate and cruel. Alas! I know not what to think. Oh, how my heart yearns for the bright sunshine, the open sky, and the green fields! How long am I to be thus immured? Heaven only knows. I—will—I must seek some other explanation. I know he fears me, I have seen him shrink before my eyes. I have marked him tremble and turn pale at a chance word I uttered, and yet I had no clue to such feelings, because I knew not which word it was that moved him so; and this disguise, too, which he persuades, begs, implores of me to wear, as he says, for my life’s sake; ’tis very strange. These are not the garments of a young maiden as I am. What have I done that I should, thus forswear sex, liberty, sunshine, joy, all that makes life rich, and beautiful to the young? Alas! Alas! What have I done to be a dreary prisoner? In all my weary years, short, but oh, how long to me! But one face beamed with kindness on me, that face was Albert Seyton’s; but one voice spoke to me in accents of love and pity—that voice was Albert Seyton’s; but one heart seemed ever to really feel for me a pang of sorrow, and—and—that heart was Albert Seyton’s.”
The young girl, for such she was, sunk into a chair and wept bitterly. Then suddenly dashing aside the tears that obscured her beautiful eyes, she said,—
“No—no, I will not weep. No, Uncle Gray, if such you be, you shall not wring another tear from me. You have made me a lonely being; you have been harsh, unkindly—nay, you have struck me; but you shall not see me weep, no—no, I will not let you see a tear. You have torn me from the young heart that in my solitude found me and loved me as an orphan boy, supposing me such. Oh, Uncle—Uncle, you are cruel! Another day shall not pass without an explanation with you, Uncle Gray. I—I—will have reasons—ample reasons—full explanations from thee. And he wanted to kill my poor dog, too, because it loved me—because I had found some living thing that looked fondly in my face. Oh, Uncle! Uncle! you have raised a spirit in my breast—a spirit of resistance and opposition, that in happier circumstances would have slumbered for ever.”
For a few minutes the young girl stood in deep thought, then, with a remarkable alteration of tone and manner, she said, suddenly,—
“Come, Joy, come; we will go to Uncle Gray, our breakfast should be waiting.”
She opened the door which led into the larger room, and crossing that, closely followed by the dog, passed out of it by another door that opened upon the staircase. Slowly then, she descended the creaking, time-worn steps and pushing open a small door at their feet, entered the room which has already been described to the reader, and in which we last left Jacob Gray.
Gray was in the room, and he cast a suspicious glance at the young creature who entered the room, as if he would read from her countenance in what mood she was in that morning.
“Oh,” he said, “you have risen early, Harry, and—and Joy, too, is with you—poor dog!”
Joy’s only answer to this hypocritical pity was a low growl, and getting under a chair, he exhibited a formidable mouthful of teeth as a warning to Jacob Gray not to attempt any familiarity.
“Do not call me Harry,” cried the girl, “you know it is not a fitting name for me, Uncle.”
Gray’s face assumed a paler shade, as he replied in a low tone,—
“Wherefore this sudden passion—eh?”
“Uncle Gray, I have been thinking—”
“Thinking of what, child?”
“Call me child no more,” replied the girl, pushing the dark ringlets from her brow, and gazing steadily at Gray. “Call me child no more, Uncle Gray, and to prove to you that I am something more, I tell you now that the poor tale that frightened the child will not now do for me.”
“W—w—what do you mean?” gasped Gray, his lips trembling with ghastly fear.
“I mean,” continued the other, “that the time has come when I must know all. Who am I—my name—my lineage—my friends—kindred—where, and who are they? Why am I here an innocent victim to the crimes, perchance of others? The reasons of this solitary confinement, its duration, the circumstances that would rescue me from it—this—all this I want to know fully—amply, and I must know it, Uncle Gray.”
To describe the wild stare of astonishment and dismay that sat upon the face of Jacob, as the fragile and beautiful creature before him poured forth with earnest firmness this torrent of questions, would be impossible: rage, fear, dismay, all seemed struggling for mastery in Gray’s countenance, and the girl had done, and stood in an attitude that a sculptor might have envied, bending half forward with a flush of excitement upon her cheeks, awaiting the answer of the panic-stricken man before her. It was several minutes before that answer came. Once, twice, thrice, did Jacob Gray try to speak in vain, and when he did produce an articulate sound, his voice was hollow and awful to hear.
“W—what devil,” he said, “has prompted you to this? What busy fiend has whispered in your ears? Speak—speak!”
“I have spoken,” said the girl. “I ask but that I have the right to know.”
“The right! How know you that?”
“How know I that! My heart tells me. ’Tis a right of nature, born with the lowest, and no greater with the highest.”
“Then—you would destroy me!”
“No, I would destroy no one; give no one even a passing pang; but oh! Uncle, I am young, and life is new and precious. I have read of sunny skies, and smiling happy flowers; I have read of music’s witchery, until my heart has sighed to create its own dear melody. I have read of love, pure, holy love, such as could knit together young hearts for ever in a sweet companionship; and oh! How my heart has yearned for the sunlight, the flowers, the music, the sweet murmuring sound of moving waters, the dear love that gilds them all with more than earthly beauty, because it, and it alone, is the one gift that clings yet to man from Heaven! How my heart has leaped upwards, like a living thing, to read of kind words softly spoken, of purest vows breathed from heart to heart, making as it were sweet music, and its still sweeter echo! Oh! How I have clasped my hands an cried aloud for music filling the sunny air width a mild embroidery of tones! I have asked of Heaven to send me warm hearts to love me; to place me on the mountains, that I may look around me and adore the God that made the valleys look so beautiful! I have prayed to wander through the verdant valleys, that I might look up to the mountains, so lifting my thoughts to the great Creator. I have wept—sobbed aloud for all the dear companionships of youth—the thousand sparkling, glowing charms that lend life its romance, and make the world an Eden, Heaven a dear inheritance! The dreary echo of my own voice alone has answered me! My own deep sobs have come back to my ears in endless mockery, and I was alone; a chill would then gather round my heart, for I was alone. The smile of a father never—never gladdened my heart! A mother’s gentle kiss never rested on my brow! I—I am a lonely thing; a blight and a desolation is around me; no—no one loves me!”
To describe the exquisite intonation of voice with which these words were uttered would be impossible. The gushing tenderness, the deep pathos, the glowing tones! Oh, what must be the construction of that heart that could listen unmoved to such an appeal? Gray trembled like an aspen leaf, his eyes glared from their sockets, and he stretched out his hands before him as he would keep off some spectre that blasted his sight, and seared his very brain.
“Peace! Peace!” he shrieked; “peace! You want to—kill me, to drive me mad; but that voice—that manner—those speaking eyes!—Peace, Ada; peace, I say!”
“Ada!” cried the girl; “that, then, is my name?”
“No, no, no, no!” cried Gray. “God of Heaven!—no, no, no, no!—I—did not say Ada?”
“You did, and something tells me that it is my name—the name you have concealed from me so long. I am Ada. Uncle, some strong passion, some awful fear at your heart overcame your caution. I am Ada; but Ada what? Tell me, for the love of Heaven, all, and if you have done me wrong, Uncle, I will, forgive you, as I live!”
Jacob Gray’s voice trembled and the perspiration stood in cold drops upon his brow, as he said, faintly,—
“Water! Water! Water!—I—I am faint!”
Ada, for henceforward we will call her by that name, filled a glass with sparkling cold water, and handed it in silence to the trembling man. With a shaking hand he raised it to his lips, and drank deeply of it; the glass dropped from his nervous grasp, and lay in fragments on the floor.
“I—I am better now,” said Gray.
Ada stood before him—her dark eyes bent on his with a scrutinising glance, beneath which he shrunk abashed.
“Now then, Uncle Gray,” she said, “now that you are better, will you answer me?”
Gray looked at her for a moment or two in silence before he replied; then he said slowly,—
“What if I refuse to answer the question you ask?”
“Then is our compact broken,” cried Ada.
“And—and—what will you do? What, can you do?”
“What can I do? I can toil, work, attend upon those who may perchance repay my service with a smile, ample and dear wages to the poor, desolate child of harshness and misfortune. I will leave you and this gloomy abode for ever, and trust to the mercy of that Providence that finds food for the merest insect that buzzes in the evening time!”
“Humph!” muttered Gray. “I never knew Providence to feed anything yet. Providence will let you die on a door-step, and rot in a kennel!”
“Peace,” cried Ada, “and profane nor that you cannot comprehend. I repeat I will leave you, without sufficient reason for my stay be given me. Blind obedience to you is past. There was a plan which would have ensured its continuance.”
“Indeed! What plan?”
“A simple one,” said Ada, mournfully: “Uncle Gray, you might have bound me to you by the ties of such dear affection that I should have smiled upon my bondage, and obedience without inquiry would have seemed to me a pleasant virtue.”
“I—I have used you well,” stammered Gray.
“Well!” cried Ada; “Uncle, you have scoffed at my childish tears. I have felt even your blows: you would kill even my poor dog. Used me well?”
Gray looked down for a few moments; then he said,—
“To-night—or—or—say to-morrow morning. Yes, let it be to-morrow morning, and I will tell you all.”
“To-morrow morning? Well, be it so!”
“Yes,” continued Gray, “give me but till to morrow morning, and you shall ask me no more questions.”
“Tell me, though, now,” said the girl, kindly, “is Ada my name?”
“It is.”
“And what more?”
“Wait—wait till to-morrow. I—I have breakfasted—take yours. I have business abroad.”
Jacob Gray rose, and keeping his small, keen, grey eyes fixed on Ada, he left the room. Outside the door he paused, and, raising his clenched hand, while his face was distorted with passion, he muttered, “To-morrow, to-morrow, you shall be a stiffened corpse!”