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!”
CHAPTER XXII.
Learmont at Home.—His Exultation.—The Smith.—The Plot.
Learmont, after committing the cold-blooded and brutal murder in the Bishop’s Walk, hastily wiped his blood-stained sword, and walked quickly onwards till he came to the further extremity of the avenue. He then darted down a narrow opening, which led him first away from, and then by a circuitous route, to the back of the river.
“Boat!—Boat!” he cried, impatiently, and from a mean habitation a boy immediately emerged.
“Can you row me across?” cried Learmont.
“Yes, your worship,” replied the boy. “This way, an’ it please your honour.”
He led the way to a wherry which was moored close to some little wooden steps, and Learmont, seating himself in the boat, said,—
“Quick!—Quick! I am in haste.”
The boy handled his skulls with dexterity, and the boat soon reached the Middlesex shore. Throwing him a piece of silver, Learmont strided over the boy, and was soon at his own house in Westminster. Without deigning the slightest notice to his servants at the hall of the mansion, who made obsequious way for him as he entered, he strode onwards till he came to the room in which he had sat the preceding evening, when his thoughts had been so great a torment to him, and, flinging himself into a chair, he began to think over the singular events of the night, and to arrange the plan that he had already conceived for the destruction of Gray, and the possession of his young charge.
“This is indeed a stroke of good fortune,” he said. “By Gray’s destruction I gain much. The dull-witted sot Britton is not half the annoyance that this Jacob Gray has proved to me. I hate—I abhor him. Let me consider how the case stands.—He lives in a solitary, miserable abode, out of the way of note or observation. Oh, Master Gray, you have outwitted yourself here! With him, of course, is the great object of all my fears. My worst enemy is that boy, whose existence I am so far sure of from the statement of the babbling fool who has paid with life for meddling with affairs beyond his comprehension. So far, so good. Those papers containing Gray’s written confession that he speaks of, let me consider well of them. The object of writing them was that they should be found, in case of his death—found where? In his home, of course, and easily found, too, most easily; because they were to fall into the hands of persons not searching for them; so they must be in some place easy of discovery; and most simple of access. How easy then will it be for me to find them, knowing that they are there, and determined to leave no nook or corner unsearched till I do find them. Good, good; and the result: Gray dead—the boy is in my power, and the confession, which was to preserve him so well to be my torment—in the flames. Yes, all is clear, quite clear; and now for the immediate means.”
For several minutes he paced the apartment in silent thought, then suddenly pausing, he exclaimed:—
“Certainly; who so proper as Britton? It is a great and important principle in all these matters to confine them to as few hands as possible. Britton already knows enough for mischief, and his knowledge being a little extended, cannot make him much more noxious. He shall aid me. He and I will storm your garrison, Master Jacob Gray! Cunning, clever, Jacob Gray! And then, why then, I have but one more object to accomplish, and that is the death of Britton! The boy, too—By Heavens, I always had my doubts if it were a boy! This drunken fool, who I have been compelled to put out of the way of mischief, saw him though, and doubt vanishes. He shall either die, or be rendered innoxious! Oh, clever, artful, Jacob Gray, I have you on the hip!”
A servant now opened the door slowly, and Learmont turning quickly on him with a frowning brow, cried,—
“How now, sirrah? Why this intrusion?”
“An’ it please your worship,” said the man, “there is one below who would have speech of your worship.”
“Speech of me?”
“Ay, truly; an’ it please your—”
“Pshaw!” cried Learmont. “Use fewer words! Who is it that waits to see me?”
“He says he brings a message from the Old Smithy; but I thought, your worship—”
“You thought,” cried Learmont, making two gigantic strides, and seizing the trembling domestic by the throat. “You thought! Wretch! If you dare to think about any of my visitors, I’d give your brains to a dog, and if your tongue but wags of aught you see or hear in this house, I’ll tear it out by the roots!”
“The—the—Lord have—m—mercy upon us!” groaned the servant. “I—I—I’ll never think again, your worship, as long as I—I live!”
“Begone! And show him who asks for me to this room.”
The terrified man made haste from the apartment, and in three or four minutes Britton, the smith, staggered into the room with an air of the most insolent and independent familiarity.
His face was bloated and swollen from his deep debauch of the previous night, and his eyes looked sleepy and blood-shot. His attire hung loosely on his huge form, and he was altogether the picture of ferocity, and sensuality.
“Good morning to you, squire,” he said, as he threw himself into a chair. “By G—you are well lodged here. You haven’t a spare room, have you?”
Learmont stood with his back to the light, so that he was not in a favourable position for the smith to notice the working of his countenance, where indignation, hatred and policy were battling for pre-eminence.
“Away with this nonsense,” cried Learmont. “What brings you here?”
“What brings me here? Why, my legs, to be sure. It’s too short a distance to think of riding.”
“Your errand?” cried Learmont.
“Money!” bellowed Britton, in a still louder voice.
“Money! Again so soon?”
“Ay; so soon. I have found a mine, and I don’t see why I should not work it, as that infernal Jacob Gray says.”
“Oh! Jacob Gray says that, does he?” sneered Learmont.
“On my faith he does. ’Tis a shrewd knave, but I hate him. I hate him, I say!”
“Indeed!” says Learmont. “He says you are a beastly sot, good Britton.”
“Does he?”
“Ay, does he. A thick skulled, drunken idiot.”
“Ha! He says that of me?”
“Even so; a mere lump of brutality—savage beast!”
“Now curses on him!” muttered Britton.
“How much money do you want?” said Learmont, very suddenly.
“Twenty pieces.”
“Twenty? Pshaw, make them forty or fifty, provided you have likewise your revenge on Jacob Gray.”
“Revenge on Jacob Gray? I tell you, squire, I’d go to hell to have revenge on Jacob Gray.“
“Have you traced his abode?”
“No—no—curses on him. I watched him, but he doubled on me, and I lost him.”
“Indeed! Then you know not where he lives, or rather, hides?”
“No; but I will though. I—”
“I will show you.”
“You—show—me—squire—”
“Yes. I will take you to his house, where he hides alone; with, at least, none but the boy.”
“You—you can, squire?”
“I can, and will, to give you revenge, Britton; and when you have killed him—when you see his heart’s blood flowing—then—then, Britton, come to me and ask for unbounded wealth.”
Britton sprang to his feet—
“I will tear his heart out,” he cried. “Kill him? I will torture him.”
“To call you a muddle-headed beast,” said Learmont; “a thick-skulled sot! A brute! A savage! A drivelling drunkard!”
“Enough! Enough!” cried Britton; “he dies—had he a hundred lives I’d take them all.”
“Now that’s brave,” cried Learmont; “that’s gallant, and like you, Britton. He shall die.”
“Die! Of course he shall,” roared Britton. “When shall I seek him? Tell me when?”
“To-night.”
“To-night? Shall it be to-night?”
“Ay, shall it. Meet me on the bridge at midnight, and I will take you to the bedside of Jacob Gray; you shall have your revenge.”
“On the bridge, hard by?”
“Yes, Britton. At the hour of midnight. Do you not fail. I shall be there.”
“Fail! I would be there, squire, if ten thousand devils held me back.”
“Away then, now. Drink nothing till that is accomplished. Speak to no one—brood only over your revenge; and when it is done, come to me for any sum you wish. It shall be yours. Jacob Gray now robs you of what you ought to have, Britton.”
“I know it, curses on him! But he shall do so no longer.”
“He kept you poor for years at the smithy.”
“He did.”
“And now calls you a drivelling idiot.”
“Oh, he dies! He dies!”
“Away then now with you; be careful, sober, and trust no one.”
“At midnight, squire, on Westminster-bridge.”
“Yes; midnight.”
The smith shook his clenched hand as he left the room, muttering,—
“I shall have my revenge! I shall have my revenge!”
Fortune now, indeed, appeared to have favoured the Squire of Learmont, beyond his most sanguine expectations. What was there to stay his progress up the slippery steep of his ambition?
Who was there to say to him, “Thus far shalt thou go and no further?” Did not every circumstance conspire to favour his greatest—his most arrogant wishes? Nay, even the very fear and disquiet of the last ten years of his life had unconsciously, as it were, conspired to place him on the proud height he so much panted for, and fancied he should enjoy so truly, for by such circumstances the revenues of the broad estates of Learmont had accumulated to the vast sum which he now had in his hands; a sum so large, that, in a country like England, where even crime has its price, there was no refinement of luxury or vice that he could not command.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Projected Murder.—The Unconscious Sleeper.—A Night of Horror.
It wanted but one hour of midnight, and silence reigned about the ruined and deserted street in which Jacob Gray resided. Heavy clouds hung in the sky, and not a star peeped forth to look with shining beauty on the darkened world. A misty vapour, betokening the breaking of the frost, arose from the surface of the Thames, and occasionally a gust of wind from the south-west brought with it a dashing shower of mingled rain and sleet. A clammy dampness was upon every thing both within doors and without; the fires and lights in the barges on the river burnt through the damp vapour with a sickly glare. It was a night of discomfort, such as frequently occur in the winter seasons of our variable and inconstant climate. It was a night to enjoy the comforts of warm fire-sides and smiling faces; a night on which domestic joys and social happiness became still more dear and precious from contrast with the chilling prospect of Nature in the open air.
In the room which has already been described to the reader as the one in which Jacob Gray usually sat in his lone and ruinous habitation, he now stood by the window listening to the various clocks of the city as they struck the hour of eleven.
A bright fire was blazing on the hearth, but still Jacob Gray trembled and his teeth chattered as he counted the solemn strokes of some distant church bell, the sound of which came slowly, and with a muffled tone, through the thick murky air.
In a few minutes all was still again. The sounds had ceased. Nothing met the ear of Jacob Gray but the low moaning of the gathering wind as it swept around his dilapidated dwelling. Then he turned from the window and faced the fire-light, but even with its ruddy glow upon his face, he looked ill and ghastly. His step was unsteady, he drew his breath short and thick, and it was evident from the whole aspect and demeanour of the man that his mind was under the influence of some excitement of an extraordinary nature.
In vain he strove to warm the blood that crept rather than flowed in healthy currents through his veins. He held his trembling hands close to the fire. He strove to assume attitudes of careless ease. He even tried to smile, but produced nothing but a cold and ghastly distortion of the features of his face.
“Surely,” he muttered, “the—the night must be very cold. Yes, that is it. It is a chilling night. Eleven—eleven o’clock. I—I—meant to do it at eleven; at—at least before twelve. Yes, before twelve—there is time, ample time. ’Tis very—very cold.”
With a shaking hand, he poured from a flask, that was upon the table, a quantity of raw spirit, and quaffed it off at a single draught. How strange it is that the mind can, under peculiar circumstances so entirely conquer the body and subvert, as it were, the ordinary laws of nature! Such, was the frightful state of excitement which Jacob Gray had worked himself up to, that he might as well have swallowed an equal quantity of water, for all the effect that the strong spirit had upon him. Still he trembled, still his teeth chattered in his head, and his very heart appeared to him to be cold and lifeless in his breast. He heaped fuel upon the fire, he paced the room, he strove to think of something else than the one subject that filled his brain, but all was in vain. He had determined that night to murder the hapless girl whom he had wronged so much, and he had passed a day and evening of unspeakable agony in working up his mind to do the deed calmly and surely.
Ten o’clock he had pitched upon as the hour, then half-past ten, then eleven, and still he trembled with dismay, and could not for his life command his nerves to do the dreadful deed.
He now flung himself into a chair by the fire-side, and covering his face with his hands he rocked to and fro, in agonising thoughts. In a low tone then he held unholy communion with himself.
“I—I must do it,” he said. “I must do it. I always thought it would come to this. When she became of age to inquire I was sure to be tortured by question upon question. What resource have I? I dare not do her justice, and tell her who she is. No—no. She has been my safeguard hitherto, she may now be my destruction; should she leave me she may either fall into the hands of Learmont, in which case I lose my chief hold upon him, or, what is worse, she tells her strange tale to some one, who may hunt me to force an explanation of her birth. There is but one resource; she—she must die. Yes, she must die. Learmont still fancying ’tis a boy, must still be tortured by the idea that such an enemy lives, and requires but a word from me to topple him from his height of grandeur to a felon’s cell. Yes—yes. That must be the course. There is no other—none—none. Then I will accumulate what sum of money I can, and leave England for ever—for—for well I know the savage smith thirsts for my blood, and—and—should he discover my place of concealment, my death were easy, and the packet containing my confession, which, while I live, is equally dangerous to me as to Learmont and Britton, would fall into their hands.”
He rose and paced the room again for several minutes in silence; then taking from the table a small-hand lamp, he lit it, and clutching it with a nervous grasp in his left hand, he muttered,—
“Now—now. It is—time. Ada, you will not see another sun rise. You must die. ’Tis self-preservation, which even divines tell us is the first great law of nature, that forces me to do this act. I—I do not want to kill thee. No—no; but I—I must—I must do it; I cannot help the deed. Ada, you must die—die—die.”
He placed the lamp again upon the table, and approaching with a stealthy step a cupboard in the room, he took from it a double-edged poniard. With a trembling hand he placed the weapon conveniently within his vest, and then casting around him a hurried and scared glance, as if he expected to find some eyes fixed upon him, he walked to the door of the room.
There he paused, and, divested himself of his shoes, after which, with a slow, stealthy movement, he began ascending the stairs to the chamber in which reposed, in innocence and peace, the unconscious Ada.
Suddenly he paused, and staggered against the wall, as a new thought struck his mind.
“The hound! the hound!” he gasped. “I—I had forgotten the dog.”
Here seemed at once an insurmountable obstacle to the execution of his murderous intention, and for several minutes Jacob Gray sat down on the staircase in deep thought, while his face was distorted by contending passions of hate—fear—and rage.
“Curses—curses on the dog!” he muttered, as he ground his teeth together and clenched his hands in impotent malice. “To be foiled by a half-starved hound! I, Jacob Gray, with my life hanging as it were by a single thread, to be prevented from taking the secret means of preserving myself by this hateful dog. Curses! Curses! I—I—yes—yes. There is a chance—one chance, the poison that Learmont placed in my hands for the purpose of drugging Britton’s wine cup! That—yes, that may rid me of the dog! I will try. Let me recollect. The animal sleeps by the door, sometimes on the mat on the outside, and sometimes within the chamber. We shall see—we shall see—the poison! Ay, the poison!”
Cautiously he descended the few steps he had gained, and going to a drawer in the table, which he had the key of, and which stood close to the blazing fire, in the room he had so recently left, he took from it the phial of poison which he, Learmont, had given to him. After a moment’s thought, he repaired to the cupboard, and taking from it the remains of some meat, upon which he had dined, he poured at least one-half the contents of the small bottle of poison over it.
“This deadly liquid,” he said, “has a grateful smell. If I can induce the hound to fasten on this meat, his death is certain and quick, for Learmont is not a man to do this by halves. Poison from him I should assume to be deadly indeed! Ay, deadly indeed!”
Jacob Gray’s hatred for the dog seemed to have got in some degree over his extreme nervousness, and it was with a firmer step now than he could command before, that he cautiously again ascended the narrow staircase conducting to Ada’s chamber.
Still, however, in his heart, he quailed at the murder—the deliberate, cold-blooded murder of that innocent and beautiful girl, and he presented the ghastly appearance of a resuscitated corpse, rather than a human being who had not passed the portals of the grave. The feeling of honourable humanity was a stranger to the bosom of Jacob Gray. He did not shrink from the murder of the poor and persecuted Ada, because it was a murder—no, it was because he, Jacob Gray, had to do it, unaided and un-cheered in the unholy deed, by aught save his own shivering and alarmed imagination. Jacob Gray had no compunction for the deed; his only terror arose from the fact that he could not shift its consummation on to some one else’s shoulders.
He would gladly have held a light to guide the dagger of another assassin, but he did shrink from the personal danger and the personal consequences of doing it himself. He was one of those who would watch the door while the murder was doing—hold a vessel to catch the blood—anything but do the deed himself.
His little accession of strength and confidence now only arose from the fact that owing to the intervention of the circumstance of the dog, the murder was, as it were, put off for a little time; he must first dispose of the dog, then the murder itself, with all its damning train of fears and agonies, would take its former prominent place in his mind, and again would Jacob Gray tremble to his very heart’s core.
Stealthily he moved his way up the staircase, his great object being to ascertain if the dog was within or without the chamber of Ada.
His doubts were soon resolved, for suddenly a low growl from the faithful animal smote his ears.
Jacob Gray gave a malignant smile, as he said in a low whisper, “The dog is outside the door.”
The growl of the hound now deepened to a louder note, and just as that again was shaping itself to a short angry bark, Jacob Gray threw up the piece of poisoned meat on to the landing on the top of the staircase.
Folding his lamp then under the lappels of his coat, Jacob Gray sat down on the staircase, with a feeling of gratification on his mind, that, in all human probability he was at length revenged on the poor animal, whose only crime had been too much affection and fidelity towards the hand that fed and caressed him, and the voice that spoke to him in kindly tones.
All was as still as the grave after the meat had been thrown, and after several minutes of suspense, Jacob Gray began to feel anxious for some indication of the success of his scheme. Cautiously, he then ascended a step or two, and paused—no sound met his ears. A few steps more were gained—then a few more and finally, by stretching out his arm with the light, he could command a view of the landing-place, but he looked in vain for the dog: the animal was nowhere to be seen. Jacob Gray now stood fairly upon the landing, and peered carefully around him, with the hope of seeing the body of his foe, but such was not the case.
The open door of the outer room which led to Ada’s smaller sleeping chamber now caught his eyes, and at once afforded a clue to the retreat of the dog.
With a soft footfall that could not have possibly disturbed the lightest sleeper, Gray entered that room, and moving his hand slowly round him, so as to illuminate by turns all parts of the apartment, he saw, at length, the object of his search.
Close up to the door leading to Ada’s room was the hound quite dead. The faithful creature had evidently made an effort to awaken, its gentle and kind mistress, for its paws were clenched against the bottom of the door, where there was a crevice left.
For a moment Jacob Gray glanced at the fixed eyes of the dog, then he spurned it from the door with his foot, as he muttered,—
“Humph! So far successful and now for—for—”
“The murder,” he would have said, but in one moment, as if paralysed by the touch of some enchanter’s wand, all his old fears returned upon him, and now that there was no obstacle between him and the commission of the awful deed he meditated, he leaned against the wall for support, and the perspiration of fear rolled down his face in heavy drops, and gave his countenance an awful appearance of horror and death-like paleness.
“What—what,” he stammered, “what if she should scream? God of Heaven, if she should scream!”
So terrified was he at the supposition that his victim might, in her death-struggle, find breath to scream, that for a moment he gave up his purpose, and retreated slowly backwards from the room.
Suddenly now the silence that reigned without was broken by the various churches striking twelve.
Gray started as the sounds met his ear.
“Twelve! Twelve!” he exclaimed. “It—it—should have been done ere this. To-morrow. The to-morrow that she looks for is come. I—I thought not ’twas so late. It must be done! It must be done!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Attempted Assassination.—A Surprise.—Ada’s Surmises.—The Agony of Gray.
The last faint echo from the slowest clock had died away upon the midnight air, when Jacob Gray started from his position of deep attention, and placing his small lamp on one of the window sills, he drew from his breast the knife with which he intended to take the life of the hapless Ada.
“She—she surely sleeps sound,” he muttered through his clenched teeth, “or all these clocks with their solemn and prolonged echoes must have awakened her. Yes; I—I—hope she sleeps sound. I—would not have a struggle—a struggle. Oh, no, no, not for worlds. I—can fancy her clinging to the knife and screaming—shrieking even as—as—her—father did—when he had his death wound. That would be horrible. Oh, most horrible—and yet I must kill her. I must kill her. Did she not brave me to my face? Did she not tell me that she suspected me and my motives, and that no more would she keep herself immured for my sake? I—she—she did, and more than this, far more, she taunted me with. Yes—I—I am quite justified—she must die!”
The door which led into the inner chamber was in two compartments, and when Gray gently pushed against them, they both opened slightly, and the dim, sickly light of a lamp from the interior room, to his surprise, gleamed through the crevice, meeting the kindred ray of the one which Jacob Gray had placed so carefully out of the way of, as he thought, the eyes of the sleeping girl.
He crept into the room, and stood motionless for many minutes, regarding the sight that met his eyes. Seated by a small table, on which was the lamp dimly burning and near its expiration, was Ada, completely dressed, but fast asleep. Her face rested partially upon an open book, which she had evidently been reading before retiring to rest, when sleep must have come upon her unawares, and sealed her eyelids in forgetfulness.
Her long hair fell in beautiful disorder upon the table, and the one eyelash that was visible hung upon her fair cheek wet with tears. She had been weeping, but whether from some vision that crossed her slumbers, or from lonesome and unhappy thoughts previous to dropping into that temporary oblivion of sorrow, could not be known.
Jacob Gray stood like one spell-bound by some horrible apparition, for to the wicked can there be a more horrible apparition than youth, beauty, and innocence?
“She—she sleeps,” he gasped; “but by some strange fatality has not retired to bed. My—my task is now ten times more difficult. I—I know not what to do.”
The knife trembled in his grasp, and he shook vehemently; then, as a low murmuring sound escaped the lips of Ada, he sunk slowly down, first crouchingly, then on his knees, and lastly he grovelled on the ground at her feet in mortal agony, lest she should awaken and see him there, with those starting eyes, those livid lips and that knife, which he came to bury in her innocent and gentle heart.
Some fearful vision was passing over the imagination of the sleeping girl. Fancy was busy in the narrow chambers of the brain, and pictured to her some scene of sorrow or terror; deep sobs burst from the breast—then she spoke, and her words thrilled through Jacob Gary like liquid fire.
“Spare, oh, spare him!” she said; “he is my father—my own father. Spare him; oh, spare—spare—”
She awoke not even in her agony of spirit, but wept bitterly; then the tears decreased and sobs only were heard; the vision, like a thunder-storm, was passing away, low moans succeeded, and finally all was still again.
It was, however, many minutes before Jacob Gray again rose from his crouching position of abject fear, but at length he did so, and with the glittering knife in his hand, he stood within a pace of his innocent victim.
Then arose in his mind the awful question of where should he strike? And, like a vulture, he hovered for a time over his prey, with the fatal steel uplifted, doubting where he should make the sudden swoop.
By an accidental parting of the silken curls that floated upon Ada’s neck and shoulders, he saw a small portion of her breast; it was there then he determined to strike. He glanced at the blade of the knife, and he thought it long enough to reach even to her heart.
“Now—now!” he groaned through his clenched teeth. “Now!”
The steel was uplifted; nay, it was upon the point of descending, when one heavy knock upon the outer door of the lone house echoed through the dreary pile, and arrested the arm of the murderer, while the blood rushed in terror like a gush of cold water to his heart.
There was then an awful silent pause, when again that solemn heavy knock awakened the echoes of the empty house.
Slowly, inch by inch, as if his arm worked by some machinery, Jacob Gray brought the knife by his side, and still bending over the unconscious Ada, he listened for a repetition of that knock, as if each melancholy blow was struck upon his own heart.
Again it came, and then again more rapidly, and Jacob Gray trembled so violently that he was fain to lean upon the table at which Ada slept for support.
That movement awakened Ada, and starting from her position of rest, she suddenly, with a cry of surprise, confronted the man who had sought her chamber with so fell and horrible a purpose. One glance at the knife which Jacob Gray held in his hand, and then a searching look at his face, told her all. She clasped her hands in terror as she exclaimed—
“You—you—come to kill me?”
“No—no,” stammered Gray, trying to smile, and producing his usual painful distortion of features. “No—no—I did—not—no—no! Ada, I did not.”
“That knife?” said Ada, pointing to it as she spoke.
“The knife,” repeated Gray. “Hark, some one knocks, Ada, at our lonely home.”
“Those looks of terror,” continued the young girl, “those blanched cheeks, those trembling hands, all convince me that I have escaped death at your hands.”
“No; I say no,” gasped Gray.
“And my hound too,” added Ada: “my fond, faithful dog, where is he, uncle Gray?”
“Yes; the dog,” cried Gray, eagerly catching at the hope of persuading her that it was solely to compass the destruction of the hound he had thus stolen to her room. “I admit I did seek the dog’s life; you vexed me about the animal.”
The knocking at the door sounded now more loudly than before, and the knocker was evidently plied by an impatient hand.
“Hark, hark!” cried Gray. ”Ada, hear me; whoever knocks without can be no friend of ours.”
“Indeed?” said Ada.
“’Tis true; I am the only friend you have in the wide world.”
“You mean, I suppose, since you have killed my poor dog,” said Ada, pointing through the open doorway to the inanimate body of the animal.
“The dog is dead,” said Gray.
“Uncle,” replied Ada, mildly, but firmly; “now hear me. You have broken the compact. Let those who knock so loudly for admission enter, I will not avoid them. Were they ten times my enemies they could not be more cruel than thou art.”
“Ada, you know not what you say,” cried Gray. “They cannot be friends, and, they may be foes. ’Tis light enough for me to note them from a lower window. Yes, I will see, I will see. Remain thou here, Ada. Stir not—speak not.”
“I promise nothing,” said Ada. “You shall no longer prescribe rules of conduct for me, uncle Gray. I tell you I will promise nothing.”
Gray made an impatient gesture with his hands, and quitted the room. He repaired to a window on the ground floor, in one corner of which he had made a clear spot for the express purpose of reconnoitering the doorway, and applying his eye now close to this, he could by the dim light trace the forms of two men upon his threshold. Too well were those forms engraven on his memory. It needed not a second glance to tell him that the savage smith, Britton, and Squire Learmont were his unwelcome and most clamorous visitors.
Now, indeed, the measure of Jacob Gray’s agony appeared to be full. For a moment he completely surrendered himself to despair; and had Learmont then forced the door, he would scarcely have made an effort to escape the sword of the man of blood.
“Ha! Ha!” he heard the smith say; “I like to knock thus, it alarms poor, clever, cunning Jacob. It shatters his nerves. Oh, oh, oh!”
“Can you depend on the men you have placed at the back of the house to intercept his escape that way?” said Learmont.
“Depend upon them?” replied Britton. “Of course. They ain’t paid, and are quite sober, as you see; they are ready for any cut-throat business. Let’s knock again. Oh, oh, how Jacob Gray must be shaking!”
The taunts of the smith seemed to act as a stimulant to the sickened energies of Gray. He roused himself and muttered, as he shook his clenched hand in the direction of the door—
“Indeed, Master Britton. Do not even yet make too sure of cunning Jacob Gray. He may yet prove too cunning for the sot, Britton. You think you have me so safely that you can afford to tantalize me by knocking, when a small effort of your united strength would burst yon frail door from its frailer hinges. We shall see—we shall see.”
He bounded up the staircase to the room in which he had left Ada. She was standing by the body of the dog with the lamp in her hand.
“Ada! Ada!” cried Gray; “we are lost—lost. We shall be murdered, if you will not be guided by me.”
Ada only pointed to the door.
Gray was thoroughly alarmed at her decisive manner, and another loud knock at the door at that moment did not tend to pacify his nervous tremors.
“There are those at the door who come purposely to seek your life!”
“Your life, most probably, Uncle Gray.”
“Ada! Ada!” cried Gray. “Each minute—nay, each moment is precious. There is no escape, none—none!”
“You are alarmed, Uncle Gray,” said Ada.
The perspiration of fear—intense fear, was standing upon the brow of Gray, as he felt that each fleeting moment might be his last. From exultation at the thought of still deceiving Britton and Learmont, he dropped to a state of the most trembling, abject terror.
“God of Heaven!” he cried; “you—you will not, cannot refuse to save me!”
“Our compact is broken,” said Ada. “I do not believe that I have so much to fear from those who seek admittance here as from him who but a few minutes since stood over me as I slept—”
“No—no!” shrieked Gray. “It was not I—”
“It was you,” said Ada.
“I did not mean to—to kill you.”
“The knife was in your hand, uncle; you had destroyed my faithful guard; you trembled; your guilt shone forth with an unholy and hideous lustre from your eyes. Uncle Gray, God can alone see into the hearts of men, but, as I hope for heaven, and—and to meet there my dear father, whom I never knew, I do suspect you much, Uncle Gray.”
“Mercy!—Have mercy on me, Ada.”
“Ask that of Heaven.”
“In your chamber, you have clothing befitting your sex; for such an emergency as this I provided it. Go, oh, go at once, and you may escape as a girl from those who come here to murder a boy.”
Ada glanced at the trembling man, who, with clasped hands and trembling limbs, stood before her, and then with a firm voice she said,—
“No, no, I cannot.”
With a loud crash at this moment the street-door was burst from its hinges.
Gray gave one frantic scream, and threw himself at the feet of Ada.
“Save—oh, save my life!” he cried. “Have mercy on me, Ada! You shall do with me as you please; I will be your slave,—will watch for you when you sleep,—tend upon you, discover your wishes ever by a look. But oh, save me—save me. I cannot—dare not die!”
Ada shuddered at the wild frantic passion of Gray. She struggled to free herself from his grasp, for he clung to her with a desperate clutch.
“Mercy! Mercy!” he shrieked.
In vain she retreated backwards from him; he crawled after her on his knees, shrieking “Mercy! Mercy!”
Now Ada had gained the door of her own room, and with loathing and horror, she tried in vain to disengage herself from Gray.
“They come! Ah, they come!” suddenly cried Gray, springing to his feet. “Now, Ada, hear the secret you pine to know!”
“The secret?” cried Ada.
“Yes, I am your father. These men will apprehend me for murder; but I am your father.”
For an instant Ada passed her hands upon her eyes, as if to shut out the hideous phantasma of a dreadful dream, and then, with a cry of exquisite anguish, she rushed through the folding doors and closed them immediately after her.
“That—that will succeed,” gasped Gray, wiping from his brow the cold perspiration that hung there in bead-like drops. “The lie is effective; she may not believe it, but now she has not time to think. She will save me now!”
He rushed to the door of the room which led to the staircase, and in a moment locked it. Then he stood with his arms folded, and an awful demoniac smile played upon his pale and ghastly face, awaiting the issue of the next few minutes, which comprised to him the fearful question of life or death.