Magdalen was not timid, but after this she kept her door locked at night, while during the day she frequently caught herself listening intently as if expecting something to happen. But nothing did happen until one night when she went as usual to the parlor, where she sat down to the piano and tried a new piece of music which Guy had sent to Alice. Finding it rather difficult, she cast it aside and dashed off something more familiar to her. On the music stand were piles and piles of songs, some her own, some Alice’s, and she looked them over, and selecting one which had always been her favorite, she began to sing, feeling much as an imprisoned bird must feel when it finds itself free again, for since her first night at Beechwood she had never been asked to sing with the piano. Now, however, she was alone, and she sang on and on, her voice, which had been out of practice so long, gathering strength and sweetness until the whole house was full of the clear, liquid tones, and the servants, still dawdling over their supper, commented upon the music and held their breath to listen. One of them had brought a lamp into the room before going to her tea, and this with the fire in the grate was all the light there was; but it answered every purpose for Magdalen, who enjoyed the dim twilight and the flickering shadows on the wall, and kept on with her singing, while through the upper hall there came stealing softly the figure of a woman with her white night dress trailing on the carpet, and her bare feet giving back no echo to her stealthy footsteps. She had come through the green baize door, and she paused there a moment and turned her ear in the direction whence she had come. But all was quiet. There was no one watching her, and with a cunning gleam in her restless, black eyes, she shut the door softly, then opened it again, and went back down the long hall until she reached a door which was partly ajar. This she also shut, and turning the key took it in her hand and started again for the music which had set her poor brain to throbbing, and quickened the blood in her veins until every nerve was quivering with excitement.
“I am coming, oh, I’m coming. Don’t you hear me as I come?” sang Magdalen, while down the stairs and through the hall came the unseen visitor until she reached the parlor door, where she stood for a moment in the attitude of listening, while her eyes were fixed upon Magdalen with a curious, inquiring look.
Then they rolled restlessly about the room, and took in every thing from the picture on the wall to the fire in the grate, and then went back again to the young girl, still singing her song of summer. The music evidently had a soothing effect upon the poor, crazed creature, and her eyes were soft and pleasant and moist with tears as she drew near to Magdalen, who at last felt the hot breath upon her neck, and knew there was some one behind her. There was a violent start, then a sudden crash among the keys, as Magdalen felt not only the breath, but the touch of the long, white fingers, which clasped her shoulder so firmly. She could see the fingers as they held to her dress, but only the outline of a human form was visible, and so she did not scream until she turned her head and saw the white-robed woman, with the long hair falling down her back, the peculiar look of insanity in every feature. Then a shriek, loud and unearthly, rang through the house, followed by another and still another, as she felt the woman’s arm twining itself around her neck, and heard the woman’s voice saying to her, “What are you, angel or devil, that you can move me so?”
Roused by the terrific shrieks, the servants came rushing to the parlor, where they found Magdalen fainted entirely away, with the maniac bending over her and peering into her face. When Magdalen came to herself, she was in her own room, and the girl, Honora, who waited on her in the absence of Pauline, was sitting by and caring for her. She did not seem inclined to talk, and to Magdalen’s inquiries, “Oh, what was it, and shall I see it again?” she merely replied, “You’ll not be troubled any more. It was the fault of Mrs. Jenks. She drank half a bottle of wine since noon and is drunk as a beast.”
That was all the explanation Magdalen could get, and as she recovered rapidly from the effects of her fainting fit, she signified her wish to be left alone; but she did not venture to the parlor again that night, and she saw that both the doors leading from her room and Alice’s into the hall were locked, and bolted, too. Then she tried to reason herself into a tolerable degree of calmness and quiet, as she thought over the events of the evening and wondered who the maniac was.
“Alice’s mother, most likely,” she said, and a great throb of pity swept over her for the young girl whose life had been so darkened and who had possibly never known a mother’s love any more than she herself had done.
And then her thoughts went out after her own mother, with a longing desire such as she had seldom felt. Where was she that wintry night? Was she far from or was she near to the daughter who had never seen her face to remember it? Was she living still, or was the snow piled upon her grave, and would not Magdalen rather have her thus than like the babbling maniac who had startled her so in the parlor? She believed she would. In one sense Alice was more to be pitied than herself, and she sat thinking of the young girl and the shadow on her life until the fire burned out upon the hearth, and she crept shivering to bed. But not to sleep. She could not do that for the peculiar cry, half human, half unearthly, which from time to time kept coming to her ears, and in which she recognized tones like the voice heard an instant in the parlor before consciousness forsook her. There was evidently a great commotion throughout the house, the servants running to and fro; but no one came near her until the early dawn was stealing into the room, and giving definite shapes and forms to the objects about her. Then there was a tap at her door, and Honora’s voice said:
“Miss Lennox, will you come with me and see what you can do to quiet her? She’s kept screeching for you all night, and Mrs. Jenks, who is in her senses now, says maybe you can influence her. Strangers sometimes do. I’ll wait outside till you are ready. You needn’t be afraid,—she never hurt any body.”
Magdalen trembled in every joint, and her teeth fairly chattered as she hastened to dress herself.
“It’s because I’m cold; there certainly is nothing to fear,” she thought, as she bound her hair under a net and knotted her dressing-gown around her waist.