The Allen House Part 8

"Am I dreaming?" said I to myself, as I kept on my way, after witnessing this new incident in the series of strange events that were half-bewildering me. But it was in vain that I rubbed my eyes; I could not wake up to a different reality.

It was late when I got home from my round of calls, and found tea awaiting my arrival.

"Any one been here?" I asked--my usual question.

"No one.' The answer pleased me for I had many things on my mind, and I wished to have a good long evening with my wife. Baby Mary and Louis were asleep: but we had the sweet, gentle face of Agnes, our first born, to brighten the meal-time. After she was in dream-land, guarded by the loving angels who watch with children in sleep, and Constance was through with her household cares for the evening, I came into the sitting-room from my office, and taking the large rocking-chair, leaned my head back, mind and body enjoying a sense of rest and comfort.

"You are not the only one," said my wife, looking up from the basket of work through which she had been searching for some article, "who noticed lights in the Allen House last evening."

"Who else saw them?" I asked.

"Mrs. Dean says she heard two or three people say that the house was lit up all over--a perfect illumination."

"Stories lose nothing in being re-told. The illumination was confined to the room in which Captain Allen died. I am witness to that. But I have something more for your ears. This afternoon, as I rode past, I saw an old-fashioned English coach, with a liveried driver and footman, turn into the gate. From this two ladies alighted and went into the house; when the coach was driven to the stables. Now, what do you think of that?"

"We are to have a romance enacted in our very midst, it would seem,"

replied my wife, in her unimpa.s.sioned way. "Other eyes have seen this also, and the strange fact is buzzing through the town. I was only waiting until we were alone to tell you that these two ladies whom you saw, arrived at the Allen House in their carriage near about daylight, on the day before yesterday. But no one knows who they are, or from whence they came. It is said that they made themselves as completely at home as if they were in their own house; selected the north-west chamber as their sleeping apartment; and ordered the old servants about with an air of authority that subdued them to obedience."

"But what of Mrs. Allen?" I asked, in astonishment at all this.

"The stories about her reception of the strangers do not agree.

According to one, the old lady was all resistance and indignation at this intrusion; according to another, she gave way, pa.s.sively, as if she were no longer sole mistress of the house."

Constance ceased speaking, for there came the usual interruption to our evening _tete-a-tete_--the ringing of my office bell.

"You are wanted up at the Allen House, Doctor, said my boy, coming in from the office a few moments afterwards.

"Who is sick?" I asked.

"The old lady."

"Any thing serious?"

"I don't know, sir. But I should think there was from the way old Aunty looked. She says, come up as quickly as you can."

"Is she in the office?"

"No, sir. She just said that, and then went out in a hurry."

"The plot thickens," said I, looking at Constance.

"Poor old lady!" There was a shade of pity in her tones.

"You have not seen her for many years?"

"No."

"Poor old witch of Endor! were better said."

"Oh!" answered my wife, smiling, "you know that the painter's idea of this celebrated individual has been reversed by some, who affirm that she was young and handsome instead of old and ugly like modern witches."

"I don't know how that may be, but if you could see Mrs. Allen, you would say that 'hag' were a better term for her than woman. If the good grow beautiful as they grow old, the loving spirit shining like a lamp through the wasted and failing walls of flesh, so do the evil grow ugly and repulsive. Ah, Constance, the lesson is for all of us. If we live true lives, our countenances will grow radiant from within, as we advance in years; if selfish, worldly, discontented lives, they will grow cold, hard, and repulsive."

I drew on my boots and coat, and started on my visit to the Allen House.

The night was in perfect contrast with the previous one. There was no moon, but every star shone with its highest brilliancy, while the galaxy threw its white scarf gracefully across the sky, veiling millions of suns in their own excessive brightness. I paused several times in my walk, as broader expanses opened between the great elms that gave to our town a sylvan beauty, and repeated, with a rapt feeling of awe and admiration, the opening stanza of a familiar hymn:--

"The s.p.a.cious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim."

How the beauty and grandeur of nature move the heart, as if it recognized something of its own in every changing aspect. The sun and moon and stars--the grand old mountains lifting themselves upwards into serene heights--the limitless expanse of ocean, girdling the whole earth--rivers, valleys, and plains--trees, flowers, the infinite forms of life--to all the soul gives some response, as if they were akin.

I half forgot my interest in old Mrs. Allen, as my heart beat responsive to the pulsings of nature, and my thoughts flew upwards and away as on the wings of eagles. But my faithful feet had borne me steadily onwards, and I was at the gate opening to the grounds of the Allen House, before I was conscious of having pa.s.sed over half the distance that lay between that and my home. I looked up, and saw a light in the north-west chamber, but the curtains were down.

On entering the house, I was shown by the servant who admitted me, into the small office or reception room opening from the hall. I had scarcely seated myself, when a tall woman, dressed in black, came in, and said, with a graceful, but rather stately manner--

"The Doctor, I believe?"

How familiar the voice sounded! And yet I did not recognise it as the voice of any one whom I had known, but rather as a voice heard in dreams. Nor was the calm, dignified countenance on which my eyes rested, strange in every lineament. The lady was, to all appearance, somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty, and, for an elderly lady, handsome. I thought of my remark to Constance about the beauty and deformity of age, and said to myself, "Here is one who has not lived in vain."

I arose as she spoke, and answered in the affirmative.

"You have come too late," she said, with a touch of feeling in her voice.

"Not dead?" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Yes, dead. Will you walk up stairs and see her?"

I followed in silence, ascending to the chamber which had been occupied by Mrs. Allen since the old Captain's death. It was true as she had said; a ghastly corpse was before me. I use the word ghastly, for it fully expresses the ugliness of that lifeless face, withered, marred, almost shorn of every true aspect of humanity. I laid my hand upon her--the skin was cold. I felt for her pulse, but there was no sign of motion in the arteries.

"It is over," I said, lifting myself from my brief examination, "and may G.o.d have mercy upon her soul!" The last part of the sentence was involuntary.

"Amen!"

I felt that this response was no idle e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"How was she affected?" I asked. "Has she been sick for any time? Or did life go out suddenly?"

"It went out suddenly," replied the lady--"as suddenly as a lamp in the wind."

"Was she excited from any cause?"

"She has been in an excited state ever since our arrival, although every thing that lay in our power has been done to quiet her mind and give it confidence and repose."

She spoke calmly, as one, who held a controlling position there, and of right. I looked into her serene face, almost cla.s.sic in its outlines, with an expression of blended inquiry and surprise, that it was evident did not escape her observation, although she offered no explanation in regard to herself.

I turned again to the corpse, and examined it with some care. There was nothing in its appearance that gave me any clue to the cause which had produced this sudden extinguishment of life.

"In what way was she excited?" I asked, looking at the stranger as I stepped back from the couch on which the dead body was lying.