Under Lock and Key: A Story. Volume 3 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

Lady Pollexfen had named the date a month beforehand which was fixed for the removal of Sir John.

At length the last midnight arrived. Janet had been reading to her ladyship, and when the clock pointed to five minutes to twelve she shut the book and rose to go.

"I will go with you to-night," said her ladyship, who to all appearance had been dozing for the last half hour, although Janet had not on that account been allowed to lay down her book.

So arm-in-arm the two went slowly up the long staircases with many a halt to gather breath. At length the door of the Black Room was reached and opened. Preceded by her ladyship Janet went in. While she went about her customary duty, Lady Pollexfen stood sternly erect, resting her crossed hands on the head of her cane, and gazing with hard unmoved countenance on the coffin of her dead husband.

Janet in her twilight walk through the garden a few hours previously had found a couple of late roses. These she had plucked and had fastened them into the bosom of her dress: she now took them out of her dress, and laid them reverently on the coffin.

"What are you about, child?" cried Lady Pollexfen in her most imperious tones. "Flowers are not for such as he. Take them away. For him you should bring the deadly nightshade and hemlock, and all plants that are hurtful to human life. There are some men, child, that, like the fatal upas tree, have power to blight and poison all who come within their influence. Such a man was he who is nailed up in that box. He blighted my life; he poisoned my son's life, and drove him abroad to die in a strange land; he withered the lives of my two daughters, and not content with the evil which he did while living, he left his dead body as a curse that should haunt my life for twenty wretched years. That term is now at an end, and after to-morrow I shall grow twenty years younger, feeling and knowing that neither in time nor in eternity will his baneful presence ever haunt me again."

Suddenly she clutched Janet by the arm, and drew the girl closer to her. "He is there!" she said--"there, behind the black curtains, watching me, listening to every word that I say--as he used to watch and listen when he was alive. There is the same meanness, the same low trickery about him now that he is dead that marked him when he was living. He often visits me--often talks to me--and although he will not acknowledge it, I know that when once his body shall be laid in the vault at Dene Folly, I shall have seen and spoken with him for the last time. To-night, child, you must sit by my bedside all night long, and read aloud from some godly book. Then he will have no power to come near me or harm me. But you must not go to sleep nor cease your reading till you see the first streaks of daylight in the east: after that we are safe. I said he was there. See how yonder curtain stirs and flutters. He will not show himself because you are here. It is only I, I who was his miserable wife for twenty-three long years, that he cares to torment. But come. Let us tarry here no longer. This is his last night, thank heaven! beneath the roof of Dupley Walls."

They went downstairs together as they had come, arm-in-arm, her ladyship shaking her head and mumbling to herself all the way as she went. Then she got into bed, and Janet sat by her side all night, reading aloud from a "godly book," while the old woman lay without stirring, with wide-staring solemn eyes that seemed to be gazing on some far-away picture, the subject of which was known to herself alone.

To Mr. Madgin was entrusted the charge of conveying the body of Sir John Pollexfen to its final resting-place at Dene Folly, forty miles away; and Mr. Madgin was to be the sole "mourner" on the occasion. So Lady Pollexfen willed it. The body was to leave Dupley Walls at midnight, and be conveyed to the nearest railway station. After a journey of thirty miles by rail it would be met by another hearse and mourning-coach by means of which the third and last stage of the journey would be accomplished.

At a quarter to twelve precisely a hearse and mourning-coach drew up before the main entrance to Dupley Walls. The door was thrown open, and Mr. Madgin--solemn, dignified--glided in, followed by a number of familiars in black. Still led by Mr. Madgin, they trooped up the grand staircase like so many birds of evil omen hastening to some unholy feast. Not long were they away. Presently they reappeared, carrying on their shoulders the burden for which they had come. Slowly and carefully they descended the stairs, and were just crossing the hall on their way out, when an imperious voice commanded, them to halt.