CHAPTER XXXI.
The Interview.—Jacob Gray’s Meditations.—The Slip of Paper.—The Nail.—The Guilty Conscience.—The Departure.
For perhaps the space of a minute, Ada lost the power of action; but the stern necessity of doing something to save the poor creature from the death which Jacob Gray’s fears would, she doubted not, induce him to put her to, braced the nerves of the young girl.
She took Maud by the arm, and looking her earnestly in the face, she said,—
“What was the name of him you loved?”
Maud pressed her hand upon her brow for a moment as if striving to comprehend the question; then she replied,—
“His name was William Heriot.”
“Then follow me, and speak not for his sake, as you hold his memory dear.”
“To the world’s end! To the world’s end!” said Maud.
Ada heard the outer door now close, and she was sure that Gray was in the passage. He might, or he might not, enter the room in which she and Maud were, the door of which was within a few paces of the steps. Oh, how dreadful to poor Ada were the few short, but to her awful moments that elapsed before she felt convinced that Gray had passed the door, he always trod slowly and stealthily even in that lone house, for caution and suspicion had grown so habitual with him, that even in security he could not shake off the actions which rendered those feelings manifest.
It was difficult, therefore, for Ada to trace his footsteps, or come to any positive conclusion as to what part of the house he had proceeded towards.
One thing only she could feel certain of from the duration of time, and that was, that the immediate danger of his entering the room in which she and Maud were was past, unless he were lingering in the passage, which she had never yet known him to do.
A few more minutes of great anxiety now passed, during which Maud did not speak, but rocked to and fro in her chair, sighing deeply, as if the sound of her murdered lover’s name had affected her deeply.
“Maud,” said Ada. “Maud, attend to me.”
“I hear the voice,” said Maud, “the voice of the angel that has come from Heaven to speak words of kindness to poor Mad Maud.”
“By the memory of William Heriot,” said Ada, “do not speak or move till I come to you again.”
Ada then left the room for the purpose of ascertaining in what room Jacob Gray was staying. With an assumed carelessness of step and manner she walked into the rooms on the ground floor, but in none of them was Jacob Gray; she then ascended the staircase, and as she neared the top of the crazy flight, a door was suddenly opened upon the landing, and Gray appeared.
Ada paused, and they regarded each other for a few moments in silence. Then Gray said, in a low tone,—
“Nothing has happened, Ada? No alarm?”
“No alarm,” said Ada, answering his last question; “wait for me below, we must have some talk to-day.”
“To-day?”
“Yes, I promise but from month to month—to-day the month expires,” said Ada.
“It does, but the promise will be renewed.”
“Stay where you are,” said Ada, “I will come to you in a short time.”
“Nay, not here,” said Gray, “go to the room below. I will be with you shortly.”
“I am even now proceeding to my own chamber,” said Ada; “in a quarter of an hour I will meet you here.”
Without waiting for a reply, Ada ascended to her own room.
Gray stood for a minute with the door in his hand, muttering to himself,—
“She braves me thus ever—if I were to remark that the sun shone, she would declare ’twas very cold—sometimes I doubt if I hate her or Learmont most; yet I must spare her to be revenged on him! Curses on them all!”
He flung the door to, which shut with a bang that Ada heard with thankfulness. Gray then unlocked a cupboard in the room, and proceeded to deposit, in a sacred place he had constructed at the back of it, the last sum of money he had wrung from the fears of Learmont.
In the same place of safety, likewise, was the written confession addressed to Sir Francis Hartleton, but that was not concealed; it lay openly in the cupboard, a prominent object to any one who should force the door. A smile of self-satisfaction came across Jacob Gray’s face as he took the paper in his hand, and fixed his keen eyes upon its superscription to the magistrate.
“It would, indeed, be a glorious revenge,” he mattered, “on both Britton and Learmont to accumulate an ample fortune first, and then, when my foot was on the very deck of the vessel that was to bear me from England for ever, to hail some idle lounger on the quay, and bid him take this to Sir Francis Hartleton, and ask his own reward. Yes, if I had half a million, that would be worth as much again. The time will come—yes—it will—it must come—when I have got enough money first, and then my revenge. Ye taunt me, Squire Learmont, and you, Britton, too, with my cunning—Ha! Ha! I am cunning, it is true—I am too cunning for your dull wits. Jacob Gray will be too much for you both when he has enough money!”
Suddenly then he now dropped the paper, and started; a slight noise outside his door met his ears, and his guilty soul trembled.
“What—what noise was that?” he whispered. “Ada—yes—Ada,—Ah! It must be Ada!”
In order to explain the sound that disturbed the gleeful cogitations of Jacob Gray, we must follow Ada to her chamber, whither, as the reader will recollect, she repaired after her very brief conversation with her gaoler Gray.
The moment Ada found herself in the privacy of her own room she burst into tears, and a fervent “thank Heaven!” burst from her lips.
The necessity of instant action and self-possession, however, rushed simultaneously across her mind, and dashing away the tears with the brief exclamation of,—
“My promise no longer binds me—I am free to act,” she hastily wrote on a slip of paper, the following words:—
“To Albert Seyton,—Ada is betrayed—seek her in a Lone House by the river.”
She then concealed the paper in her bosom, and, commending herself to Heaven, with a beating heart she descended the staircase.
Her object now was to pass the door of the room in which was Gray, without arousing his attention; but this was a matter of no ordinary difficulty in that old house, for the staircase was so ancient and dilapidated that it creaked and groaned under the slightest pressure.
Taking, however, as much of her weight off the stairs as possible, by clinging to a stout rail, which was supported firmly by the wall, Ada slowly descended.
She reached the landing, from which opened the door of the room in which was Gray, in safety. To pass that door was dreadful, and Ada thought each moment that her strength would desert her, and all would be discovered. The life of poor Maud, she felt certain, hung upon the slightest thread, and this thought nerved Ada more than any consciousness of personal danger would have done.
Creeping cautiously along, she reached the door—one moment, then she paused, and the sound of Jacob Gray’s voice, as he muttered his unholy thoughts came clearly upon her overstrained senses.
With her hands pressing upon her heart to still its wild tumultuous beating, she passed the door; now the flight of stairs leading to the house was gained in safety. She laid her trembling hands upon the banisters, and at that moment it was that Gray heard the creaking sound that alarmed him in the midst of his wicked rejoicing over the treachery he meditated.
Ada turned slowly round, and faced the door. To fly she knew would tempt pursuit; and without, in her confusion, being able to reflect further than that, the best plan would be to face Jacob Gray should he come from the room, Ada stood for several minutes enduring the most torturing and agonising suspense.
All remained still; Gray did not appear, and once more Ada turned to descend the staircase; one step she had taken downwards, when a loose nail from the crazy banisters fell into the passage below, making, in the solemn silence that reigned in the house, an alarming noise.
Ada paused.
“Now, now,” she thought, “I shall need all my firmness. Heaven help me now!”
The door of Gray’s room opened, and he stood in the entrance with a pale and anxious face: Ada turned as before, and met his gaze. It would have been difficult that moment to have decided which face bore the palest hue—the beautiful and innocent one of Ada, contrasted as it was with, her long jetty ringlets, to the disturbed, haggard countenance of the man of crimes and blood.
“There—there was—a noise!” said Gray.
“I heard it,” replied Ada.
“W—where was it?”
“Above.”
“’Twas nothing, Ada—nothing—I suppose quite accidental, Ada; you are going down—I—I’ll follow you—I’ll follow you.”
He closed the door behind him with a trembling hand, and made a step towards the staircase.
“Jacob Gray,” cried Ada, “stop.”
He paused, for there was an awful earnestness in her manner that greatly added to his alarm. Yet Ada knew not what to do or how to act. The words she uttered were almost involuntary. Then it might be that Heaven whispered to her mind a course of action; but it came across her mind that Gray might be alarmed still more, knowing the lurking superstition of his character, and she suddenly said,—
“Did you not tell me once this house was haunted?”
“Haunted!” echoed Gray, suddenly descending several stairs, and showing by his rapid changes of colour the craven fear that was at his heart’s inmost core.
His fears, however, had prompted him to the very course which Ada so much dreaded, namely, to descend to the lower part of the house, and on the impulse of the moment she laid her hand on Jacob Gray’s arm, and said,—
“I was following it—it has gone down!”
“It!—Who?—What?” cried Gray, as he sprung back again to the door of his room in an instant, trembling exceedingly.
Ada’s pure and innocent heart detested all kinds of duplicity; but if ever such was justifiable, it was surely then; and to save the life of the poor creature who had sought shelter with her, and had suffered so much wrong and unmerited persecution, was a justification which, with the rapidity of thought, came to Ada’s relief.
“There is some one below,” she said.
“You—you saw—it?”
“I did.”
“And—and—followed it?”
Gray licked his parched lips, as after a pause he added.—
“Ada—a—what manner of appearance was it?”
“Will you follow it with me?”
“Not for worlds—not for worlds,” cried Gray. “Tell me, Ada, was—was—was it a man of—tall stature.”
“It was,” said Ada.
“Of—of noble bearing—hair—slightly silvered?”
“Even so.”
“I—I thought—’twas he. I—I saw him once at the door—in that—that smithy. Yes, that has begun now. I—shall be haunted now—for ever. Oh, horror! Horror!”
The word “smithy” struck upon Ada’s ears, and for one moment she could not recollect why it came as if it were an old recollection to her. Then she remembered that Mad Maud had spoken of a murder at an Old Smithy, and she asked herself, can there be any connection between all these dark hints of things long past and my own fate? There must be—I will probe your heart, Jacob Gray.
“I will tell you,” she said, turning suddenly to Gray. “Listen! A wild bleeding form has appeared in this house.”
“Bleeding?” gasped Gray.
“Yes, bleeding.”
“And—and—it is—” Gray pointed down the staircase.
“It is there,” said Ada.
Gray shuddered, as he said,—
“Can you—look on it, and live?”
“I can.”
“God help me!”
“Come with me, and we will together question it further,” said Ada.
“No! No! No!” cried Gray. “The sight would blast me forever. Ada! Ada! If you have one spark of pity, one yearning of heavenly mercy in your heart, you will pray for—me—pray for me!”
“For you—my persecutor?”
“Implore that hideous form to visit here no more. I shall go mad!—Mad!—Mad!”
Gray hid his face in his hands, and groaned bitterly.
“In his anguish he may confess all,” thought Ada, and hastily calling to her memory the words spoken by Maud, she said in a solemn whisper,—
“Jacob Gray, the bleeding form that has visited is not terrible to me.”
“No, no,” said Gray, “because—”
“Because what?”
“Nothing—nothing—I have said nothing.”
“Then hear me,” added Ada. “Strange things have been spoken to me.”
“By—it?”
“Yes. Do you recollect an Old Smithy?”
Gray removed his hands from before his face, and sinking on his knees, he crawled towards Ada.
“Mercy! Mercy!” he said, in a husky whisper.
“There was a murder,” continued Ada.
“Ada! Ada!” shrieked Gray. “Child of the dead, spare me! Oh, spare me!”
“Child of the dead!” cried Ada. “Speak, Jacob Gray. Am I that child? Tell all now that conscience is awakened, and soothe the pangs of your own seared heart by relieving mine of worlds of agony. Speak, Jacob Gray—oh, speak. Tell me who I am now at this moment of awful and bitter repentance. I will forgive all—I will, as you ask, pray for you, Jacob Gray. Heaven will pardon you. Speak—speak to me. Tell me, am I that child?”
“Bid—bid—him go!” crawling towards the room.
“And then—”
“Then—you shall hear—all—all. The sight of him would overturn my reason! Even now my brain reels. Bid him go—implore him not to haunt me—not to drive me mad by a glance!”
Ada’s object was more than accomplished.
“Wait for me,” she cried, and glided down the staircase, leaving Gray crouched up by the door of the room, with his glowing eyes fixed upon the staircase, in awful expectation of seeing each moment a dreadful form, that would drive him to insanity by one look from its glazed eye.
The period of trembling and nervousness was now passed with Ada, and with the lightness and speed of a young fawn, she bounded into the room where sat poor Maud.
The poor creature’s eyes brightened as Ada approached, and she said,—
“I have not stirred—I have not spoken.”
“Hush! Hush,” said Ada. “Speak not now. Here, take this paper. Fly across the fields. Look not back, but get away from this place.”
“Yes, yes,” said Maud.
“Moments are precious,” continued Ada. “Wherever you go, I conjure you by the remembrance of him you loved, and who you will meet again in the presence of God, to show that paper—but never, never part with it.”
“Never, never!” cried Maud. “Oh, never!”
“Now follow me. Heaven speed you on your way!”
Maud, thrust the paper into her bosom, and allowed herself to be led by Ada to the door.
“God bless and help you,” cried the girl.
Maud kissed her hand and sobbed bitterly.
“Away—away!” said Ada. “Oh, pause not a moment. For my sake hasten.”
Like a hunted deer. Mad Maud flew from the Lone House. Ada watched her for a few minutes across the swampy waste, then, the excitement being over, she burst into a passion of tears, and dropped into a state of half insensibility in the passage of the old house.