CHAPTER I.
FIVE YEARS AFTER.
At the most northern apex of Great Britain there is a quaint village called Dunscansby Head. The turbulent waters of Pentland Firth wash the beach, along which are scattered a few simple huts inhabited principally by fishermen’s families. No more wild or lonely spot could well be imagined. It seems almost shut off from the entire world, and a place which none but those who wished to escape from all society would have chosen. One would be as completely hidden as though buried forever, and here Victoria had brought Roger accompanied by Adam, and a stout Scotch woman whom she had picked up as she passed through Scotland.
Why Victoria had chosen this particular spot she could not have explained if she had been questioned. When it had been decided that she should take Roger away—that she must separate from Andrew perhaps for all time—she had a desire to seek some place far removed from her home—and those who were so dear to her—a place where she might live unknown, and where nobody knew her. The doctor had said that a sea-voyage might be beneficial to Roger. Victoria grasped at the suggestion with eagerness. With the ocean between her and her love, she might find peace, so hurriedly gathering a few necessary articles together, she set out for New York, bound upon a journey to where she knew not. The doctor accompanied her at Andrew’s urgent request. The idea of the tenderly-nurtured woman—whose every wish had been gratified almost before it was spoken—going out into the world with an imbecile, and a tongueless servant as her only companions, was gall and wormwood to the man who knew that his sin was the cause of her banishment. As his bodily health improved his mind became stronger and more active, and he would sit by the window looking out over his fair lands—fair no longer to him because the one who had made them enjoyable was about to leave them, and perhaps forever. If Victoria entered the room his eyes followed her about hungrily. Often when she passed near him he would secretly catch her gown and press it to his lips. If she turned suddenly toward him as if about to speak, she only saw him stolidly gazing out the window, seemingly unconscious of her presence.
This, too, was a bitter, trying time for her. Another burden had been laid upon her already overtaxed shoulders. The doctor objected to little Mary accompanying her. Much as she rebelled at the thought of parting with her child, she acknowledged the doctor’s superior wisdom in ordering Mary’s detention. The child was old beyond her years, her memory was wonderfully retentive. If Victoria persisted in taking her she must expect to be asked very embarrassing questions as the child grew. Now, if left behind, and the subject never referred to, the old man she had seen in the gabled room would soon fade from her memory. Not so if she was brought into daily contact with him as she must necessarily be if she accompanied Victoria.
Another thing the doctor argued—and here he showed fine diplomacy—was Andrew’s loneliness if bereft of all his loved ones. The doctor pictured the long winter days when Andrew would see no cheering faces. The still longer nights when his chamber would be empty, and no restless little figure tumbling in its crib, or a sweet, shrill voice shouting for a drink of water. Victoria could not withstand this last plea. The thought of brightening Andrew’s loneliness by sacrificing her own pleasure tempered her keen anguish at leaving this dear bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh, and so one day when Andrew had come in from his first short walk, she said with a smile in which there was no shadow of the fierce pain at her heart: “I am going to leave our sunbeam with you, Andrew. She is such a chatterbox, and will enliven the long winter days, and the little crib beside your bed will not be empty when you waken in the night.”
Andrew stretched out his hands and drew Victoria to him. “God bless you,” he said reverently. “God watch over and protect you, but He will. You are of His chosen ones. No harm can ever come to such as you. I have longed to keep Mary, but I would not broach the subject and ask this sacrifice of you. It would have been too presuming on my part, but now, now that you have offered how gladly do I accept. The touch of her baby fingers will keep me from all sin. The sound of her sweet voice will heal the canker which seems eating into my heart. Again I say God bless you Victoria.”
He had put her from him without a caress. She had been sacred to him from the day when against his will he had chosen liberty without her, to prison bars with the occasional light of her face to cheer him; and then he slowly ascended the stairs to the gabled room where Roger sat laughing at the queer antics of Adam, who was creeping about the room on all fours, making noises in imitation of a dog, cat, sheep, cow, or anything he happened to think of.
“Good, Adam,” cried the imbecile clapping his hands, “nice Adam, do it again, my Adam.” He turned when he heard Andrew’s footsteps, and a troubled look came over his face. “Go away,” he whined. “You will make Adam stop. Go away, I tell you, you ain’t wanted here.”
Andrew stood sadly gazing at the mental wreck before him. How gladly now would he welcome the light of returning reason in that face which he had so hated. With what joy would he bring light to those darkened eyes if he only had the power.
Roger was beating the air with his hands. His hearing was most acute, and he knew that Andrew still lingered. “Adam,” he called, “put that thing out. I can hear it breathe; it annoys me.”
Andrew put out his hand and touched his brother. “My poor Roger,” he said. “Don’t you know my voice? cannot you remember brother Andrew?”
Again the troubled expression crossed the imbecile’s face, but only for a moment; then he raised his hand as if to strike at something. “Go away,” he cried. “Adam won’t be a cat so long as you stay. Cry like a cat, again, Adam,” and as Adam set up a series of meows which made Roger shout with glee, Andrew turned sadly and left the room. As he entered his study he saw his chair in its accustomed place before the writingdesk. He threw himself into it and bowing his head upon the desk he wept long and sorrowfully. No need for this man to go before a jury to receive sentence. Every hour his punishment hung heavier upon him; every moment his conscience lashed him with greater fury, until, as now, he was prone to cry: “Enough, my God! enough!”
As the time came for Victoria’s departure he tried to cast aside the gloom which depressed him, and appear cheerful so as not to add one straw to the brave woman’s burden. He assisted the doctor to remove Roger from the house at night when all was quiet. The doctor had given his patient a strong opiate, so that he would not attract notice by crying out, and himself acting as driver, with Andrew and Adam caring for Roger, he drove twenty miles to an out of the way station, there to await the coming of Victoria.
The next night Andrew drove home alone, and when Victoria bade him good-bye at the station the following day, the lookers on had not a suspicion of the tragedy overshadowing the fair, self-possessed woman, who shook her husband’s hand so calmly, and who pressed only one kiss on the soft cheek of her baby girl with an almost indifferent air. Nor had these same people any thought save that of envy, for the sad-eyed, stern-faced man, who stood watching the train bearing out of his sight perhaps forever, the being who had been all the world to him for so many years. To those about him he was the richest man for miles around; he had just recovered from an illness which would have killed any ordinary man, and therefore, as one person said—looking after Andrew as he strode from the station with Mary perched upon his shoulder: “That’s the luckiest man in Virginia. Everything he touches turns to gold. He has had more positions of trust offered him than any other man in the country. A word from him carries more weight than as if the Governor had spoken. Everybody envies him.” But if that man could have seen the object of his envy a few moments later, when, after escaping from the prying eyes of people, he was slowly driving homeward, there would have been nothing but pity in his heart for the wretched man. He had taken Mary upon his knee, and had buried his face in her sunny curls. For a few moments he said nothing; his grief was too deep for words; while Mary, with a grave air far beyond her years, patted his head with her soft hand. She had not shed a tear at parting with her mother. Victoria had had a long talk with her the night before, and Mary felt the importance of her charge. Mamma had told her she must not cry because if she did papa would get sick again. That everything funny she saw during the day she must tell papa at night so as to cheer him. That she must never do anything to annoy him. That she must try to be his little comfort until mamma returned, which Mary reasoned would be to-morrow. She stroked the hair back from her father’s hot throbbing temple, and her touch soothed him. He hugged her closer, and thought how wise Victoria had been to leave him this jewel; this priceless pearl.
“Love me hard, little one,” he said, trying to master his emotion. “Papa has need of all your love. He is sick unto death.”
“But you won’t get any sicker if I don’t cry, will you?” queried Mary, peering anxiously in her father’s face. “I did want to cry awful bad when mamma kissed me, and a heap of gullops came up in my throat, and I thought I’d never get ’em all down again. What makes gullops come up in my throat, papa? Do you have them?”
“Sometimes, dear child,” replied Andrew, smiling at Mary’s quaint question. “Where did you hear that expression?”
“Oh, from old Chloe, papa. Whenever any of the pickininys gets choked or anything, she always goes for them with her shoes, and cracks them on the back, and says: ‘Dere’s dat chile gullopin’ again. Some day he’ll snuffocate, suah.’”
Andrew laughed and kissed the bright winsome face of his child, while again he thought of Victoria’s wisdom in leaving to him her treasure. Ah, what watchful care would he take of her, so that when the right time should come, he might place her in Victoria’s arms and say: “This link, which has bound us, has not been broken, only unclasped. Take it, that once more may we be united.”
Meanwhile Victoria sat like a statue, her dry eyes looking out upon the bleak hills, and gray overcast sky, as the train sped swiftly on. To her excited fancy all nature mourned at her departure, and somehow the thought comforted her. If the sun had smiled, and the birds had sung, she could not have borne it. She had drained her cup of sorrow to the last dregs. One more drop, and she would have succumbed. She had a wild longing at the last moment to throw her arms around Andrew’s neck before all the crowd, and beg him to confess right there and then, so that she might not leave him, but stay and defy the world for his sake. Anything, however dreadful, was better than this separation, which seemed to be tearing her heart from her body; but she looked at Mary and forbore. “For her dear name,” she whispered, and then her face, wearing a smile, her heart burning like a volcano, she stepped aboard the car, and was borne away from those she loved so passionately to where stern duty awaited her.
Upon meeting the doctor and his companions she was the same self-possessed woman who had parted from Andrew. No tears, no mention of regrets. She fixed the pillows for Roger with a deft hand which did not shake or tremble. The doctor marveled as he watched her. “Made to endure,” he murmured, “made to endure.”
The party traveled leisurely until they reached New York, and after the doctor had placed them upon the best packet-ship bound for England, he turned his face toward home.
“Be good to my loved ones,” were Victoria’s parting words. “Make your home with Andrew. It will cheer him.”
“I will,” replied the doctor. “Keep a brave heart, Mrs. Willing. Remember the same God watches over us all.”
Upon reaching England Victoria sought a quiet villa in the suburbs of London, where she hoped to be free from prying eyes. She engaged two maid servants, who seemed to be quite steady, and not inclined to gossip; and a man of all work, deaf apparently to anything going on around him, but alert to every order given him by his mistress. A model English servant. Here Victoria lived in absolute retirement for nearly a year. She was not unhappy. The consciousness of having done her duty toward the poor imbecile—who now clung to her more tenaciously than he had ever done to Adam—served to sweeten her life. Then she did not forget the poor and unhappy beings who were all about her. Her health demanded exercise, and every day, rain or shine, she drove about the city. Usually she took Roger with her, for although he could not see, he delighted in the rapid motion of the carriage, and was never so quiet or tractable as when riding with his hand clasping Victoria’s.
In her drives Victoria saw much of the squalid misery existing among the poor of London. Her heart often bled as she looked upon these scenes, and she resolved that in some way she must contribute her share toward helping her lowly, unfortunate sisters. Especially was she interested in the little children, whose wan poverty-lined faces, made prematurely old looking by hunger, appealed to her heart, and carried her memory back to old Virginia, and a sweet, happy face which had never known hunger or care. To think with Victoria was to act. When her plans became settled in her mind she went to her bankers, and told them that she wished to draw on Mr. Andrew Willing for ten thousand pounds. It was a large amount, and naturally they refused to accommodate her until they had first heard from Mr. Willing. “Communicate with him at once,” she said, with a smile. “I will call for the answer in a month.” She had no fears as to what the answer would be. She knew well that Andrew would send her the last penny of his fortune, and never ask what disposal she meant to make of it; so at the expiration of a month she walked into the bank with a confident air, and smiled as the banker deferentially handed her a letter which read: “Honor a draft for any sum of money Mrs. Willing chooses to ask for.”
A week from that time a site had been chosen, and ground broken for destitute, crippled and orphaned children.
It had been agreed between Andrew and herself that they would not correspond. Both felt that such a barrier was needed. So much might be said on paper; but every day Victoria wrote a few words to Mary, sometimes enclosing a line to the doctor; and the foreign mail which left England twice a month, never failed to have among its letters a bulky package addressed to Andrew Willing. Victoria thought best to address all letters in Andrew’s name, so as to allay all suspicion which might arise in the mind of the village postmaster.
Of course, every gossip in the town had his or her opinion as to the queer doings at “The Five Gables.” Some of the more fertile minded averred that Andrew’s illness had made him mildly insane, except at times, when he would become furious, and in one of these spells he had tried to kill his wife, therefore fearing for her life she had fled to England where she was living in close retirement with her mother. What more natural, but why had she left her child behind to be perhaps killed by the maniac in one of his spells? This question was a puzzler to the good people, who felt as if some secret was being withheld from them which if told would make a dainty morsel to chew upon and roll about on their tongues until thoroughly masticated; and naturally Andrew’s neighbors—if they could be called such, the nearest house being a full half-mile away—agreed that they were shamefully imposed upon. The fact of the doctor having taken up his residence at “The Five Gables,” lent still further credence to the story of Andrew’s insanity, and he was looked upon as a dangerous man.
The doctor was obliged to parry many skillfully worded questions from his patients, who suddenly evinced a warm interest in his well-being, asking him “if he were not afraid to live in the same house with Mr. Willing, whom rumor said was becoming more dangerous every day, and who had actually thrown a plate at Pete’s head just because the soup was not hot enough.”
The doctor felt a keen pleasure in mystifying his questioners, who concluded after a time that they had made no headway in solving the secret; so like all other mysteries this too sank into the background, and gave place to the latest scandal, until one day it was suddenly revived by a person whose veracity had never been questioned, and who swore that having occasion to pass “The Five Gables” at the solemn midnight hour, he had been astonished, almost paralyzed, when he saw the western gable brilliantly lighted up and forms passing to and fro, while the weird sound of a violin—“played by no human hand he could swear”—floated out to his ears on the still evening air.
This story caused the wildest excitement among the villagers, who gathered in little knots at the street corners, or sat around on sugar barrels in the principal grocery, discussing this new feature which was the most startling of anything so far connected with the mystery of “The House of Five Gables.” Night was welcomed eagerly, and for hours after darkness fell, the eyes of the whole population were turned toward the house way up on the high cliff. Even the huge comet which was then visible, and which was an object of fear and terror to most of the villiagers, sank into insignificance beside this ghostly inhabitant of the western gable, in the house where so many mysteries were being concealed.
The story of the beautiful slave girl who had held court in that same gable more than fifty years ago, was again revived by old residents, who shook their gray heads and wagged their toothless jaws, while they predicted that some dreadful evil was about to befall the present owner, when ghosts which had lain quiet for half a century came back to revel in the haunts they had once inhabited. Several lights could be seen in the lower part of the house, but the western gable was still shrouded in darkness. As the night wore on the lights gradually disappeared, usually heralded by some urchin more vigilant than the rest, who would shout: “There goes one. Only three more now to be put out,” and finally as the last one disappeared, everybody watched with bated breath, as they waited to see what would happen next. At last a brilliant light shown out like a meteor from the western gable. A sigh went up from the watching people, interrupted for one brief moment by a diminutive urchin of an enquiring turn of mind, who had climbed a tall post to be nearer the exciting spectacle, and who, as the bright light shot out—his footing being insecure—fell with a howl upon the heads of those beneath him, where he was caught by his enraged father, and after a spanking—administered heartily and accompanied by the satisfied grunts of those most interested—was thrust out of sight behind his mother’s skirts, where smothered sobs and surreptitious kicks, told of the spirit not having been entirely quelled, while between sobs could be heard a small voice crying piteously “to be let to see the ghost.”
Superstition had thoroughly taken hold of every one present, and the women would clutch each other by the arm as a form passed between the window and the light, while they whispered: “There she is now! Can’t you see her long black hair?”
As they were standing fully fifty rods from the house, the question would seem rather superfluous unless one was gifted with eyesight of telescopic power, but to their excited fancy the form of Bella, as they had heard of her, was now reproduced by this specter, and one person described her as being dressed in white loose garments, waving her arms wildly as she passed back and forth; while another solemnly averred that the ghost had simply a blanket wound around her in Indian fashion, and wore feathers in her hair.
At last a man stepped out from the excited mass, and boldly declared, “Ghost, or no ghost,” he would volunteer to go up to “The Gables,” and arouse its inmates and offer his services to allay the specter. A low rumble of approval greeted this brave declaration, but suddenly a woman darted from the crowd and threw herself upon him. “Thou art daft, mon,” she cried. “Wou’dst thee leave the childer wi’out a faäther, and me a widdy? Let Maister Willin’ tak’ care o’ his spooks, hissen, and thee abide here wi’ we uns. If thou goo’st I’ll never see thee mo’ore.”
“Shut up thine idle croakin’, woman,” rejoined the man, angrily unclasping her clinging arms. “I war a fighter i’ Lancashire, afraid o’ nothin’, an’ wi’ anither gude mon to help, I’ll doon tha spook.”
“I’m with you,” spoke a voice, and a brawny fellow with muscles like iron, and sledge-hammer fists, joined the bragging Englishman.
The crowd watched these two as they slowly climbed the cliff, until the darkness hid their forms, and then in groups of three or four they discussed the probability of their companions’ safe return; while the wife of the Englishman was sobbing bitterly a little way apart, and was looked upon as already a widow, and the two mites clinging to her skirts as orphans.
“I mind Tom Butts, who chased a wild cat into the mountains,” said a woman in a sepulchral whisper, which was plainly heard by “the widow.” “It led him on and on, till finally it turned into a giant man, over seven feet tall, and Tom never come back.”
A prolonged wail from the weeping “widow” stopped further reminiscences, and the woman failed to enlighten her hearers, how it became known if Tom had not returned, that the wild cat had turned into a giant man.