Cruel As The Grave Part 44

"The Dubarrys," he began, "were a French Roman Catholic family of distinction. A cadet of that family came over to Virginia among the earliest English settlers of the colony.

"As in the case of the more important among his anglican comrades, he obtained a very large tract of land by Royal patent. He built his hut and fixed his abode here, not a hundred yards from the spot where this church now stands.

"He took an Indian girl for a wife, and continued to live a wild huntsman sort of life in the wilderness; only breaking it sometimes by going down to Jamestown, twice a year, to buy such necessaries of civilized life as the wilderness could not furnish, and to hear news from any ship that might have come in from the old country; and above all, to take a holiday among civilized pleasure-seekers--for such existed even in the primitive settlement of Jamestown.

"In due course of time, a family of half-breed sons and daughters grew up around him, and the little primitive hut gave place to a substantial stone lodge.

"And the country around was becoming settled. The Berners had got a grant of the Black Valley, and had built the first part of Black Hall, which has since been added to in every generation, until it has grown to its present dimensions.

"About this time also, Charles Dubarry was inspired with a certain ambition for his eldest son, a densely ignorant, half-Indian youth of nineteen; and hearing that the two young sons of Richard Berners of Black Hall were to be sent to England to be educated, he proposed that his own 'black boy,' as he called his handsome dark-eyed heir, should go with them. And as the three lads had been forest companions for some years, the proposal of old Dubarry was gladly accepted, and the three young men sailed in company for England.

"They spent ten years in the old world, and returned, as as they had set out, together. It was after their return that the close friendship of a young lifetime was turned to the deadliest enmity. It happened in this manner:

"The country, during their absence, had grown a great deal in population. Every rich valley among these mountains had its white proprietor. In the Valley of the Roses--so named, because at the time it was taken possession of by its first proprietor, it was fairly carpeted and festooned all around and about with the wild-rose vine--dwelt one Gabriel Mayo, a gentleman of fortune, taste, and culture. He had a family of fair daughters, of whom old Charles Dubarry, with his national gallantry and p.r.o.neness to exaggeration, had said, that 'they were all the most beautiful girls in the world, and each one more beautiful than all the others.'

"Be that as it may, it is certain that there were five lovely maidens, ranging from fifteen years to twenty-one, to choose from. Yet who can account for human caprice, especially in such matters? The three young men--Louis Dubarry, and John and William Berners--all fixed their affections upon Florette Mayo, the youngest beauty.

"Fierce and bitter was the rivalry between the lovers. But the young girl returned the love of John Berners, and married him, and became your ancestress, as you know, Sybil.

"And from that time to the time of the extinction of the American branch of the Dubarry family, a feud, as fierce and bitter, if not as warlike, as any that ever raged between rival barons of the middle ages, prevailed between the Berners and the Dubarrys.

"I come now to the period just before the breaking out of the Old French War, when the first rude stone lodges in these valleys had given place to handsome and s.p.a.cious manor houses, and when the then proprietor of the Dubarry estate had erected a magnificent dwelling on the site of his first rough cottage. He called the mansion the Chateau Dubarry, a name which the country people quickly changed into Shut-up Dubarry.

"The last name was not inappropriate, for a more morose, solitary, and misanthropical man never lived than Henry Dubarry, the builder of that house. He neither visited nor received visits, but remained selfishly 'shut-up' in the paradise of art and letters that he had created within his dwelling.

"He had a wife, a son, and two daughters, all of whom suffered more or less from this isolation from their fellow-beings. So it was a great relief to the son when he was sent, first to the William and Mary College of Williamsburg for five years, and afterwards to Oxford for five more.

"After the departure of the son and brother, the mother and sisters suffered more and more seriously from the gloom and horror of their isolation, and in the course of years utterly succ.u.mbed to it. First the mother died, then the elder sister; and then the younger sister, left alone with her recluse father in that awful house, became a maniac.

"Under these circ.u.mstances, the father wrote to his son to come home.

But selfishness, not love, ruled that young man, as it had ruled his fathers. He had graduated with honors, and won a 'fellowship' at the University, and he was about to start for the fashionable European tour.

He wrote home to this effect, and went on his farther way.

"He remained abroad until summoned home by two events--the deaths of his father and sister, and the necessity of raising money for himself.

"He came home, but not alone. He brought with him a gipsy girl of singular beauty, who seemed to be pa.s.sionately attached to him, and whom he loved as much as it was in his selfish nature to love anything.

"He placed her at the head of his household, and his simple servants obeyed her as their mistress; and his sociable neighbors, willing to forgive old rebuffs, called upon the young pair.

"But their visits were not kindly received, and not in any case returned. And the report went around the neighborhood, that Philip Dubarry was as morose and selfish as his father had been before him. And so the house was abandoned, as it had been in the days of the old man and the idiot girl.

"But by and by other rumors, darker and more dishonorable to the master and mistress of Shut-up Dubarry, crept out among the people. These rumors were started by the Dubarry servants, in their gossipping with other family servants in the chance meeting in church or village. They were to the effect that Philip Dubarry often quarrelled fiercely with his gipsy wife, and even threatened to send her back to her native county, and that Gentiliska, or Iska, as she was more commonly called, wept and raved and tore her black hair by turns.

"It is the old sad tale, dear Sybil. At length the cultivated scholar and unprincipled villain grew tired of his beautiful but ignorant gipsy wife, who was a wife only in justice and not in law. He frequently left home for long absences. He spent his winters in the cities, and his summers in a round of visits to hospitable country houses, leaving her at all seasons to pine and weep, or rage and tear her hair in the gloomy solitude of Shut-up Dubarry. But for all this, whenever he did condescend to visit his home, she received him with an eagerness of welcome--a perfect self-abandonment to joy, that knew no bounds. And when he left her again, her despair was but the deeper, her anguish the fiercer. And all this was duly reported by that indefatigable corps of reporters, the domestics of the house.

"At last came the crisis. Philip Dubarry sent down an agent who opened the doors of Shut-up Dubarry, and brought into it an army of workmen, to repair, refurnish and decorate the mansion-house. In vain Gentiliska asked questions; the workmen either could not or would not give her any satisfaction. 'It was the master's orders,' they said, and nothing more.

To no one in the world were 'the master's' orders more sacred than to his loyal gipsy wife. She bowed in submission, and let the workmen do their will. All the summer season was occupied with the work. But by the first of October the house was thoroughly renewed, within and without, so that it seemed like a palace in the midst of Paradise; and the gipsy wife wandered through the house and grounds in a delight that was only damped by the long-continued absence of her husband.

"At length, near the middle of the month, at the height of the hunting season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair, as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He had ceased to love her and to want her, and so, in acting out his selfish and demoniac nature, he did not hesitate to treat her with cruel scorn and ignominy. He told her that she was not his wife, and never had been so. He called her ill names, and bade her pack up and go, he cared not where, so it was out of his sight, for he hated her; and out of his house also, for she dishonored it; and that, after being repaired and refurnished, it must also be purified of _her_ presence, before he could bring into it the fair maiden whom he was about to make his wife.

"Then all her fury suddenly subsided, and she became calm and resolute unto death. She a.s.sured him that she never would leave the house; that she was his wife, and the house's mistress; and she had the right to remain, and would remain. Whereupon he broke out into furious oaths, swearing that if she did not go, he would put her out by force. Then she answered, in these memorable words, that have come down to us in tradition:

"'My body you may thrust forth from my home, but my spirit never! Living or dead, in the flesh or the spirit, I will stay in this house as long as its walls shall stand! Nay, though you were to pull this house down to eject me, in the flesh or the spirit, I would enter in and possess the next house you should build! And should you venture to bring here, or there, a bride to supplant me, in the flesh or the spirit I will blast and destroy her. So help me the G.o.ds of my people.'

"For a moment the ruthless and dauntless man stood appalled by the awful spirit he had raised in that slight form. But when he did recover himself it was to fall into a transport of fury, in which he seized the girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was, besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and feet upon a thick carpet of the dead leaves that strewed the lawn.

"For a moment she lay where she had fallen, breathless from the shock; then she lifted herself slowly up. One arm hung useless by her side; it was dislocated at the shoulder joint; but the other was raised to heaven, and she muttered some words in her native tongue, and then turned and walked away until she disappeared in the woods.

"'I hope she'll drown herself according to rule, and there will be an end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to follow her. She probably _did_ drown herself, but that was by no means the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to have kept her word.

"The third day thereafter, as a boy in search of eagle's eggs was climbing the highest fastnesses of the Black Mountain, his eyes were attracted by the glow of something scarlet lying on a ledge of rocks about half way down the course of the Black Torrent. Agile as any chamois hunter of the Alps, the boy let himself down, from point to point, until he reached the ledge, upon which the dead body of the gipsy girl was found. It was crushed by the fall, and sodden by the white foam of the cascade that continually rolled over it.

"The boy hastened away to spread the news. With the greatest difficulty the body was recovered, and conveyed to Shut-up Dubarry. The inquest that sat upon it rendered the simple verdict, 'Found Dead'; for whether the death were accidental or suicidal, or whether it resulted from the fall upon the rocks, or from the waters of the cascade, the Dogberries of that jury could not decide.

"The gipsy girl was buried; and her brutal protector coa.r.s.ely professed himself to be greatly relieved by her death. And he a.s.sembled all his servants before him, and forbade them, under the penalty of his heaviest displeasure, ever to mention the name of Gentiliska to the lady he was about to bring home as his wife. These slaves knew their master, and in great fear and trembling they each and all solemnly promised to obey him. Then he left home for the eastern part of the State from which he was to bring his bride. On this occasion he was gone a month.

"It was in the middle of the month of November that he returned to Shut-up Dubarry, bringing with him his fair young bride. She was a Fairfax, from the county that was named after her family. She was unquestionably a lady of the highest and purest order, and the neighboring gentry, ever pleased to welcome such an one among them, called on her, invited her to their houses, and gave dinner or supper parties in her honor.

"Philip Dubarry, who had recently fretted at the galling 'ban' under which, for the transient love of the gipsy girl, he had voluntarily placed himself, now rejoiced at being delivered from it, and entered with all the zest of novelty into the social pleasures of the place. He loved his beautiful and high-born wife with both pa.s.sion and pride, and she loved some imaginary hero in his form, and was happy in the illusion. Thus all went merry as a marriage bell until one dark and dismal day in December, when the rain fell in floods and the wind raved around the house, and the state of the weather kept the newly married couple closely confined within doors, his bride turned to him, and inquired quietly:

"'Who is that little dark-haired girl with the piercing black eyes, and in the short red cloak, that I see so often around the house?'

"'What did you say?' inquired Philip Dubarry, in a quavering voice.

"'Who is that little girl in the red cloak, who seems so much at home in the house? Is she deaf and dumb? I speak to her, but she never answers me; generally indeed, she goes away as soon as she perceives that I notice her. Who is she, Phil?' and the young wife looked at her husband for an answer. But his face was that of a corpse, and his form was shaking with an ague fit, for the guilty are ever cowardly.

"But his wife mistook the cause of his agitation. Forgotten in an instant was the question she had asked, and upon which, she had placed no sort of importance; and she went to her husband and took his hand, and gazed into his face, and asked him, for Heaven's sake, to tell her what was the matter.

"He told her a lie. He faltered out between his chattering teeth, that he feared he was struck with a congestive chill; that the sudden and severe change in the weather had affected him;--and more to the same effect.

"She hurried out and prepared a hot drink of brandy, boiling water, and spices, and she brought it to him and made him drink it.

"Under this powerful stimulant he revived. But she had, in the fear and excitement of the hour, utterly forgotten the inquiry she had put to him, and no more would have been said of it, had not he, in fearful interest, resumed the subject.

"'You were asking me about--one of the servants, were you not?' he inquired.

"'Oh, yes. But never mind! sit still, and keep your feet to the fire until you get warm. Never mind about gratifying my foolish curiosity now,' she answered, thoughtfully.

"'My chill is already gone, thanks to your skilful nursing! What chill could resist your warm draughts? But now about your question. What was it?'

"'Oh, nothing much! I only asked you who was the little girl with the red cloak, who is so silent and shy that she never answers me when I speak to her, and always shrinks away whenever she finds herself observed.'

"The trembling wretch was ready with his falsehood. He answered:

"'Oh! she is the child of a poor couple on the mountain, and comes to the house for cold victuals; but she is as you have observed, very shy; so I think you had better leave her to herself.'

"'Yes, but are you sure she is to be trusted? For shy as she is in other matters, she is bold enough to intrude into the most private parts of the house, and at the most untimely hours of the night,' remarked the lady.