The Forsaken Inn Part 18

"'You do not know where she is?' I repeated. 'How could you be so self-possessed through all these hours and all this maddened searching if you did not know she was safe?'

"'I did know she was safe. She swore to me before she set foot on your doorstep that she could so hide herself in these walls that no one could ever find her till she chose to reveal herself; and I believed her, and felt secure.'

"I did not know what to say.

"'But she is a stranger,' I murmured. 'What does she know about my house?'

"'She is a stranger to you,' he retorted, 'but she may not be a stranger to the house. How long have you lived here?'

"I could not say long. It was at the most but a year; so I merely shook my head, but I felt strangely nonplussed.

"This feeling, however, soon gave way to one much more serious as the moments fled by and presently the hours, and she did not come. We tried to curb our impatience, tried to believe that her delay was only owing to extra caution; but as morning waxed to noon, alarm took the place of satisfaction in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and we began to search the house ourselves, calling her name up and down the halls and through the empty rooms, till it seemed as if the very walls must open and reveal us the being so frantically desired.

"'She is not in the house,' I now a.s.serted to the almost frenzied bridegroom. 'Our lies have come back upon our heads, and it is in the river we must look for her.'

"But he would not agree with me in this, and repeated again and again: 'She said she would hide here. She would not deceive me, nor would she have sought death alone. Leave me to look for her another hour. I must, I can, I will find her yet!'

"But he never did. After that last fond look with which she turned down that very hall you see before you, we saw her no more; and if my house owns no ghost and never echoes to the sound of a banshee's warning, it is not because it does not own a mystery which is certainly thrilling enough to give us either."

"Oh!" cried out several voices, as I ceased, "is that all? And what became of the poor bridegroom? And did the father ever come back? And haven't you ever really found out where the poor thing went to? And do you think she died?"

For reply I rose. I had never taken my eye off madame, and the strain upon us both had been terrible; but I let my glance wander now, and smiling genially into the eager faces which had crowded around me, I remarked:

"I never spoil a good story by too many explanations. You have heard all you will from me to-night. So do not question me further. Am I not right, madame?"

"Perfectly," came in her even tones. "And I am sure we are all very much obliged to you."

I bowed and slipped away into the background. I was worn out.

An hour later I was pa.s.sing through the hall above on my way to my own room. As I pa.s.sed madame's door, I saw it open, and before I had taken three steps away I felt her soft hand on my arm.

"Your pardon, Mrs. Truax," were her words; "but my daughter has been peculiarly affected by the story you related to us below. She says it is worse than any ghost story, and that she cannot rid herself of the picture of the young wife flitting out of sight down the hall. I am really afraid it has produced a very bad effect upon her, and that she will not sleep. Is it--was it a true story, Mrs. Truax, or were you merely weaving fancies out of a too fertile brain?"

I smiled, for she was smiling, and shook my head, looking directly into her eyes.

"Your daughter need not lose her sleep," I said, "on account of any story of mine. I saw they wanted something blood-curdling, so I made up a tale to please them. It was all imagination, madame; all imagination.

I should not have told it if it had been otherwise. I think too much of my house."

"And you had nothing to found it upon? Just drew upon your fancy?"

I smiled. Her light tone did not deceive me as to the anxiety underlying all this; but it was not in my plan to betray my powers of penetration.

I preferred that she should think me her dupe.

"Oh," I returned, as ingenuously as if I had never had a suspicious thought, "I do not find it difficult to weave a tale. Of course such a story could not be true. Why, I should be afraid to stay in the inn myself if it were. I could never abide anything mysterious. Everything with me must be as open as the day."

"And with me," she laughed; but there was a false note in her mirth, though I did not appear to notice it. "I did not suppose the story was real, but I thought you must have some old tradition to found it upon; some old wife's tale or some secret history which is a part and parcel of the house, and came to you with it."

But I shook my head, still smiling, and answered, quite at my ease:

"No old wife's tale that I have ever heard amounts to much. I can make up a better story any day than those which come down with a house like this. It was all the work of my imagination, I a.s.sure you. I tried to please them, and I hope I did it."

Her face changed at once. It was as if a black veil had been drawn away from it.

"My daughter will be so relieved," she affirmed. "I don't mind such lugubrious tales myself, but she is young and sensitive, and so tender-hearted. I am sure I thank you, Mrs. Truax, for your consideration, and beg leave to wish you a good-night."

I returned her civility, and we pa.s.sed into our several rooms. Would I could know with what thoughts, for my own were as much a mystery to me as were hers.

OCTOBER 9, 1791.

Madame never addresses her daughter by her first name. Consequently we do not know it. This is a matter of surprise to the whole house, and many are the conjectures uttered by the young men as to what it can be.

I have no especial curiosity about it--I would much rather know the mother's, and yet I frequently wonder; for it seems unnatural for a mother always to address her child as mademoiselle. Is she her mother?

I sometimes think she is not. If the interest in the oak parlor is what I think it is, then she cannot be, for what mother would wish to bring peril to her child? And peril lies at the bottom of all interest there; peril to the helpless, the trusting and the ignorant. But is she as interested there as I thought her? I have observed nothing lately to a.s.sure me of it. Perhaps, after all, I have been mistaken.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN THE HALLS AT MIDNIGHT.

OCTOBER 10, 1791.

I was not mistaken. Madame is not only interested in, but has serious designs upon the oak parlor. Not content with roaming up and down the hallway leading to it, she was detected yesterday morning trying to open its door, and when politely questioned as to whom she was seeking, answered that she was looking for the sitting room, which, by the way, is on the other side of the house. And this is not all. As I lay in my bed last night resting as only a weary woman can rest, I heard a light tap at my door. Rising, I opened it, and was astonished to see standing before me the light figure of mademoiselle.

"Excuse me for troubling you," said she, in her pure English--they both speak good English, though with a foreign accent--"I am sorry to wake you, but I am so anxious about my mother. She went to bed with me, and we fell asleep; but when I woke a little while ago she was missing, and though I have waited for her a long time, she does not return. I am not well, and easily frightened! Oh, how cold it is."

I drew her in, wrapped a shawl about her, and led her back to her room.

"Your mother will return speedily," I promised. "Doubtless she felt restless, and is taking a turn or two up and down the hall."

"Perhaps; for her dressing gown and slippers are gone. But she never did anything like this before, and in a strange house--"

A slight trembling stopped the young lady from continuing.

Urging her to get into bed, I spoke one or two further words of a comforting nature, at which the lovely girl seemed to forget her pride, for she threw her arms about my neck with a low sigh, and then, pushing me softly from her, observed:

"You are a kind woman; you make me feel happier whenever you speak to me."

Touched, I made some loving reply, and withdrew. I longed to linger, longed to tell her how truly I was her friend; but I feared the mother's return--feared to miss the knowledge of madame's whereabouts, which my secret suspicion made important; so I subdued my feelings and hastened quickly to my room, where I wrapped myself in a long, dark cloak. Thus equipped, I stole back again to the hall, and gliding with as noiseless a step as possible, found my way to the back stairs, down which I crept, holding my breath, and listening intently.

To many who read these words the situation of those back stairs is well known; but there may be others who will not understand that they lead directly, after a couple of turns, to that hall upon which opens the oak parlor. Five steps from the lower floor there is a landing, and upon this landing there is a tall Dutch clock, so placed as to offer a very good hiding place behind it to any one anxious to gaze un.o.bserved down the hall. But to reach the clock one has to pa.s.s a window, and as this looks south, and was upon this night open to the moonlight, I felt that the situation demanded circ.u.mspection.

I, therefore, paused when I reached the last step above the platform, and listened intently before proceeding further. There was no noise; all was quiet, as a respectable house should be at two o'clock in the morning. Yet from the hall below came an undefinable something which made me feel that she was there; a breathing influence that woke every nervous sensibility within me, and made my heart-beats so irregular that I tried to stop them lest my own presence should be betrayed. She was there, a creeping, baleful figure, blotting the moonshine with her tall shadow, as she pa.s.sed, panther-like, to and fro before that closed door, or crouched against the wall in the same att.i.tude of listening which I myself a.s.sumed. Or so I pictured her as I clung to the bal.u.s.trade above, asking myself how I could cross that strip of moonlight separating me from that vantage-point I longed to gain. For that I knew her to be there was not enough. I must see her, and learn, if possible, what the attraction was which drew her to this fatal door. But how, how, how? If she were watching, as secrecy ever watches, I could not take a step upon that platform without being discerned. Not even if a friendly cloud came to obscure the brightness of the moon, could I hope to project my dark figure into that belt of light without discovery. I must see what was to be seen from the step where I stood, and to do this I knew but one way.

Taking up the end of my long cloak, I advanced it the merest trifle beyond the edge of the part.i.tion that separated me from the hall below.

Then I listened again. No sound, no stir. I breathed deeply and thrust my arm still further, the long cloak hanging from it dark and impenetrable to the floor below. Then I waited. The moonlight was not quite as bright as it had been; surely that was a cloud I saw careering over the face of the sky above me, and in another moment, if I could wait for it, the hall would be almost dark. I let my arm advance an inch or so further, and satisfied now that I had got the slit which answers for an arm-hole into a position that would afford me full opportunity of looking through the black wall I had thus improvised, I watched the cloud for the moment of comparative darkness which I so confidently expected. It came, and with it a sound--the first I had heard. It was from far down the hall, and was, as near as I could judge, of a jingling nature, which for an instant I found it hard to understand. Then the quick suspicion came as to what it was, and unable to restrain myself longer I separated the slit I have spoken of with the fingers of my right hand, and looked through.