King of the Castle

Volume Two—Chapter Four.

In the Shadow.

“Don’t you think papa seems much better, Sarah?” said Claude one day.

She was busy in the store-room, playing the part of mistress at the Fort, and giving out sundry and domestic necessaries to the old servant, who was watching her intently, and leaning over her with a singularly intent look in her eyes which seemed to soften her hard countenance.

“Yes, my dear; it is some time since he has had a fit.”

“Let me see; you will want rice and more coffee.”

“And maccaroni,” said Sarah quietly.

“No; don’t have rice and maccaroni. Tell cook not to send up two farinaceous puddings the same day. It annoys papa.”

“Because they are good for him,” said Sarah drily.

“Ah!” said Claude, turning upon her sharply, but with a playful manner; “you must not censure sick people. Why, Sarah, what makes you watch me so intently?”

There were tears in the woman’s eyes, as, with a hysterical catching of the breath, she took hold of the hand which was passing her a package, and pressed it passionately to her lips, kissing it again and again.

“Sarah!”

“Don’t be angry with me, my dear. I’m not the same as I used to be. Trouble has changed me; I couldn’t help it. When I see you grown up into such a beautiful woman, so calm and quiet and ladylike, quite the mistress of the house, and talking as you do, it gives me a catching in the throat.”

“You are not well.”

“Yes, my dear, quite well; but it makes me think of the tiny girl who used to love me so, and whose pretty little arms were thrown about my neck, and who kissed me every night when she went to bed.”

“Yes; but I was a little girl then.”

“You were, my dear; and don’t you remember, when I heard you say your prayers, it was always, ‘Pray God, bless Sarah,’ as well as those whom it was your duty to pray for. Ah, Miss Claude, you used to love me then.”

“And how do you know that I do not love you now?”

“Ah, that’s all changed, my dear. You are no longer a little girl.”

“But I do love you now.”

“No, no, my dear; not as you used to.”

“And keep still to the simple old form of prayer I was taught as a child, with a word for the poor, stricken old friend who was always so tender and loving to me.”

“No,” said the woman sadly.

“Sarah!”

“Yes, yes, yes; you do, my own darling,” she cried, as she sank upon her knees and pressed Claude’s hand to her cheek. “You do, you must, and you have shown it to me by what you have done. I’m a wicked, ungrateful wretch.”

“No, no, no; be calm, be calm,” whispered Claude soothingly.

“No, my dear, there is no more happiness and rest for me. You do not know—you do not know.”

“I know my poor old nurse is in sad trouble, and that there must be times when she feels all the past cruelly. But do you forget what we are taught about patience under affliction? Do you ever pray for help to bear all this as you should?”

“No, no,” cried the woman fiercely; “I feel sometimes as if I dare not pray.”

“There, there,” said Claude, laying her hand tenderly upon the woman’s arm, “you must not talk like that. You are ill and upset to-day. Try and be patient. Come, you are not quite alone in the world, Sarah. I am your friend.”

The woman kissed her hand again passionately, as she moaned to herself in the agony of her spirit, for there before her she seemed to see her husband’s reproachful eyes, and to hear his voice as he bade her be strong, and keep down all weak feelings of love for others till she had accomplished the terrible revenge.

“Come, come, come,” said Claude gently. “I was in hopes that you were growing happier and more contented. Try to be. Time will soften all this pain. I know how terribly you have suffered, and that my words must sound very weak and commonplace to you; but you will be more patient, and bear all this.”

The agonising emotion seemed to choke all utterance, for a fierce battle was going on within the woman’s breast. Love for her young mistress strove with the feeling of duty to the dead, and the superstitious horror of breaking that vow voluntarily; and at last, excusing herself, she hurried away to her room to lock herself in, and throw herself upon her knees to pray for help—to pray that she might be forgiven, and spared from the terrible task placed upon her as a duty to fulfil.

But no comfort came, only a hard sensation of fate drawing her on till she grew feverish and restless. Red spots burned in her sallow cheeks, and she rose from her knees at last with a heavy, lowering look in her eyes, as she muttered to herself—

“Yes, it must be done. It is fate. He knew better than I, and saw with dying eyes what was right. Yes, I cannot go back now.”

That night Sarah Woodham lay long awake, suffering a mental agony such as comes to the lot of few. Her woman’s nature rebelled against her fate, for beneath the hard, morose shell there was an abundance of the gentle milk of human kindness; but her long married training in the hard letter of the sect to which her husband belonged had placed her self-styled duty so to the front that it had become an idol—a stern, tyrannical idol, who must at all costs be obeyed, and she shrank with horror, as at a sin of the most terrible nature, from daring to disobey the injunction laid upon her by the dead.

Religion belief and superstitious dread joined hand in hand to force her onward, and she lay shivering in her bed, reproaching herself for striving to escape from the fulfilment of her husband’s last command.

Night after night she suffered a martyrdom; but upon this particular occasion it seemed to her that she was in close communication with the unseen, and, with eyes wild and strained, she kept trying to pierce the darkness, lying in anticipation of some severe reproof for tarrying so long.

Hours had passed, but sleep would not come; and at last, in a desponding voice, she moaned—

“It is too much. I am only a poor weak woman. Isaac, Isaac, husband, my burden is greater than I can bear.”

The words she had uttered aloud startled her, and she lay trembling, but they seemed to have relieved her over-burdened heart, and a feeling of calm restfulness gradually stole over her, and she slept, with the tears slowly stealing from beneath her closed lids.

“Isaac, husband, for her sake don’t ask me to do this thing.”

The words came in a hurried whisper, telling too plainly that, even in sleep, the rest had not quite calmed her tortured brain, for the task was there, and she moaned again and again piteously, as if continuing her appeal for mercy.

But in her imagination there was none. Her eyes had hardly closed before she seemed to be back in the cottage listening to the dying man’s utterances, full of bigoted intolerance and hate, bidding her avenge him; and at last she started up in bed with a cry of horror, to sit there pressing her wet dark hair back from her brow, and staring wildly into the darkest corner of the room.

“Yes, I hear,” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “I have tried indeed; but you don’t know. I am only a poor, weak creature, and it is so hard—so hard, but I will—I will.”

She sat there for fully two hours rocking herself to and fro, weeping, praying, but finding no relief. She threw herself down at last, and for a few moments the cool pillow relieved the agony of her throbbing temples; but only for the time, and then it was as hot as her fevered head.

“If I could only sleep,” she groaned; “if I could only sleep and forget.”

But the sleep that gathers up the ravelled sleeve of care would not come; and at last in despair she rose, bathed her burning temples, and then hurriedly began to dress.

“I cannot bear it longer,” she muttered; “I cannot bear it.”

Drawing the curtain aside, she saw that it was still night, and that her sleep, with its agonising dreams, must have been of the briefest kind, and going to her dressing-table she took her watch—the heavy silver watch that had been her husband’s—from the stand where it hung to act as a little timepiece; but though she held it in various positions close to the window, the reflection of the moonlight which bathed the farther side of the house was not sufficient, and she opened the watch and trusted to her sense of touch.

Here she was more successful, for, passing her forefinger lightly over the dial, she arrived at a fairly accurate knowledge of the time—half-past two.

Setting her teeth hard, she went on dressing, muttering the while, a word from time to time being perfectly audible, and telling the direction of her thoughts.

“I must—fought against it. Maddening—wrong or right—must—poor master—must—I must.”

Each word was uttered in company with a jerk given to every button or string; and at last she stood thinking by the door, not hesitating but making up her mind as to her course.

The dread and its accompanying trembling were gone now. In their place was active determination as to the course she meant to take, and with a long-drawn breath she unfastened her door, and passed out into the utter darkness of the passage and landing.

There was something weird and spiritualised about her appearance as she passed on to the stairs, and descended, the faint light shed by the glimmering stars through a skylight just making it evident that something was moving slowly down the steps, while the faint brushing sound of her dress seemed more like the whispering of the wind than a noise made by some one passing down the hard granite flight.

She paused for a few moments by the door of Claude’s room, as if listening; and again a sigh escaped her as she went on silently, awake to the fact that the slightest noise might arouse her master, who would, if not plunged in a drug-contrived stupor, be lying sleepless listening to every sound.

But she passed on down the last flight of steps, across the hall, and without hesitation laid her hand upon the handle of the study door.

“Locked!” she said to herself, the thought occurring directly that the reason was hers, for she recalled fastening the door.

There was a slight grating sound and a sharp crack as she turned the key; but they had no effect upon the woman who, now that she had determined upon her course, seemed as if she would stop at nothing.

The darkness in the study was profound; not even a gleam from the stars passing through the window, which was shuttered, and the curtains drawn. But, as if light were not needed in her mission, the woman went on across the room, avoiding the various articles of furniture in a way that was marvellous, and hardly making a sound till she turned the key of the oak cabinet, which creaked sharply as the door was thrown open.

Then came the clink of bottle against bottle, and the squeaking sound of a cork, followed by the gurgling of a liquid being poured out. The noise of the cork, the tap of the bottom of the bottle on being replaced, and then the closing and locking of the door followed.

Sarah Woodham was about to cross the room back to the door, satisfied with the successful issue of her mission, which would have been thwarted had there been no key in the lock, when the sound of the handle of the door being moved made her start towards the window. Her first idea was to throw one of the curtains round her, but there was no time, and she stood motionless in the dark, listening, under the impression that Claude had heard her come down, and had followed.

A low cough undeceived her, and a chill of horror ran through her frame as she realised the fact that it was her master.

He must have been awake and watchful, and she stood there trying to stop the beating of her heart, as she felt that she had been discovered.

But Gartram slowly crossed the room, and in imagination she saw his hands outstretched as he felt his way to avoid coming in contact with the table. The next moment her spirits began to rise, for she understood why he had come down. There was no doubt about it, for she heard his hands touch the cabinet, the lock snap, and then there was a sharp, clicking sound, and she knew that he had knocked over a bottle on the shelf.

“Confoundedly dark!” he muttered; and Sarah Woodham held her breath as she heard him move, and another sound.

She knew well enough what it meant. He had gone to a side table, and was feeling for the silver match-box which always stood beside the inkstand.

Sarah stretched out a hand behind her as she took a step backward. Then she paused, for a sudden silence in the room warned her that Gartram was listening. But the next moment the rattling of the matches was heard, and crick, crick, crack, the striking of one upon a metallic box, and a line of faint sparks threw up for the moment the figure of Gartram, with his back to her bending over the table—a black silhouette seen for a moment, and then all profound darkness once more.

Crick, crick, crack! two bright points of light, then a flash, but the curtain was drawn aside, and fell back in front of the woman as the match blazed up; and, though she could not see, Sarah Woodham felt that Gartram had turned sharply and was holding up the burning wax match to give a hasty glance round the room, before he applied it to a candle standing in the bronze inkstand.

The perspiration oozed out upon her brow, for she felt that her master must have seen the curtain quivering, and be coming to drag it aside.

“What shall I say?” she thought.

But Gartram did not come to the curtain; and, gaining courage, Sarah peered cautiously, but with her heart beating wildly, through the narrow opening between the two curtains, to see him go back to the cabinet, pick up the fallen bottle, remove the cork, pour a certain amount into a medicine glass, set it down, after he had tossed off the liquid, and then close the cabinet.

“Hah!” he ejaculated, with a sigh of satisfaction; and Sarah Woodham shivered again as the cold dank moisture gathered together, first in dew, then in the great drops of agony upon her face, and slowly trickled down.

It did not seem as if Gartram was suspicious, and likely to come toward the window; but the terror from which she suffered became so acute that she felt as if she must cry out in her alarm; for it seemed as if fate was now working with her, and that now she would be able to sleep without the haunting horror of her husband’s presence always near her, always upbraiding her for the task she had left undone.

“Hah!” ejaculated Gartram again; and she heard him move, but she did not dare to stir to see if he were coming toward the curtain.

It appeared like an hour before the light was suddenly extinguished, and a heavy, dull sound of steps going over the carpet was heard; then the door handle rattled, and she felt that she was safe. But it was only for a moment; a low muttering arose, and the steps came back into the room; then there was a heavy creaking noise of springs and of stiff leather, and she knew that Gartram had thrown himself into the big easy-chair.

There was a pause, during which the listener could count the heavy, slow beating of her heart, which seemed to stop directly, as Gartram spoke aloud—

“The very sight of a bed seems to drive it away. As if there was no more rest. Rich beyond my wildest dreams, and what is it but a curse! If I could only sleep—if I could only sleep!”

There was a long, low, piteous sigh, followed by mutterings, some slow and gently uttered, others quick and angry. Then a long pause, during which, with heavily-beating heart, the woman stood listening for her masters next utterances, and thinking of how this man prayed for sleep. What then if it came now? He took these drugs for sleep; suppose that sleep were to come—the long, long, restful sleep from which there is no waking here?

Her eyes seemed to pierce the heavy cloth which hung between them, and she saw him going off into a deeper and deeper sleep, saw the day come stealing in through the cracks, and a faint and ghastly ray fall athwart the hard, stern face of the sleeping man, which she felt, as in a nightmare, compelled to watch, as it grew more grey and hard and fixed. Then there were sounds without—in the hall. She knew the step, it was Claude’s, and there was a tap at the door, and a voice calling gently,—

“Father—papa. Father, dear, are you there? Are you asleep?”

“Claude, my darling,” she moaned, as the girl entered and went softly to the chair to lay her hand gently upon his brow; and then there was a sigh as she bent down, kissed him, and then went softly out.

Sarah Woodham’s heart seemed still and frozen within her, and the horrible feeling of dread and despair increased, so real had all this seemed. But it was a vision conjured up by a guilty brain, for it was still dark, and there was no sound in the room but a regular, heavy breathing, telling that Gartram had found at last the sleep that refused to obey him in his chamber.

Sarah listened. He was asleep, and the trembling and dread came upon her again, to be horribly emphasised, but to be followed by a sensation full of resentment, as Gartram turned suddenly in his chair, and said loudly,—

“Curse him! It was no fault of mine. He seems to haunt me. Is there never to be any peace?”

Sarah Woodham had clutched the curtain, and held it tightly in her hand as he spoke, and she stood there in the darkness gazing in the direction of the chair, resentful and fierce now; the feelings of remorse were all swept away, and the cold, stern determination with which she had received her husband’s commands came back.

An hour must have passed before she attempted to move; then her hand went slowly to a bottle thrust into her breast, and she stepped slowly out from the embayment of the window to stand close by the sleeping man, listening to his heavy, stertorous breathing for some time before silently crossing the study, and passing out into the hall.

A few minutes later she was in her own room, heaving a piteous sigh as she gazed out at the faint light in the east before throwing herself, dressed, upon the bed, and sleeping heavily at once.