The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 48

As she was walking thus wildly, a footstep, not her own, disturbed her.

She stopped to listen--made sure that it was some one advancing, and drew slowly back toward the wall, hoping to shelter herself among the low-hanging pictures.

The moonlight, from a neighboring window, lay full upon her as she retreated across the room, with her face turned down the gallery, and her breath hushed in fear. She saw, coming toward her, now in shadow, now in broader light, a lady, in garments of rustling silk, sweeping far back on the oaken floor, and gleaming duskily, amber-hued in the imperfect light of a small silver lamp which she carried in her hand--a beautiful lady, with rubies on her neck and in her hair. The lamplight, for a moment, concentrated on a face whose weariness was overborne by slumbering triumph, which poised her head like that of a newly crowned empress.

Caroline stood for the moment fascinated, then made a swift retreat, for she saw those great, black eyes turned full upon her, and fled in a panic.

A shriek--the crash of a falling lamp, and a ma.s.s of dusky drapery huddled together on the floor, brought the girl out of her covert.

Something must have happened--the lady had hurt herself--perhaps could not arise from want of help. She went down the gallery, pa.s.sing first one window then another, taking the moonlight from each, when the fallen lady uttered another cry, sprang to her feet and fled down the gallery, leaving her lamp overturned, with the wick still burning.

Caroline took up the lamp, and placing it on a bracket, left the gallery, vexed with herself for the fright she had occasioned this strange lady by wandering about so heedlessly in the dark. Still she could not sleep, but went to her own room and sat waiting there for the morning to dawn.

Perhaps an hour after Caroline left the picture gallery, a figure clothed in white from head to foot, came through an end door, walking firmly through the darkness, and touching the floor with the noiseless tread of her naked feet. She walked straight to the silver lamp and took it from the bracket. Now her face was revealed. It was Lady Hope.

She held the lamp before her, and moved on very slowly, looking ahead through the darkness with those wide open, staring eyes.

After that, when all the fires of that vivid illumination had burned out in the park, and were quenched in the castle, a bright star seemed wandering up and down the vast building; now at one window, then at another, lighting it up with fitful gleams, then leaving it in darkness, and appearing again in some far off cas.e.m.e.nt.

Once or twice the form of a woman in white cast its cloudy outline across the plate gla.s.s of an unshuttered window; but no person was in the park to observe her, and she wandered on with a lamp in her firm hand, which brightened over the pallid outlines of her face, and kindled up her night drapery like sunshine over drifted snow. Up and down along the corridors, and through the long drawing-room, the figure swept, carrying her lamp, and moving noiselessly over the floor with her white, naked feet.

Upon that unconscious face a look of deep pain had stamped itself in place of haughty triumph, and the wide open black eyes had a far-off look, as if their glance could penetrate the walls and the very sky beyond.

On and on the woman wandered, till she came to a closed door in one of the corridors. Here she paused, laid her right hand on the silver k.n.o.b, and turned it so noiselessly that, when the door opened, it seemed like the action of a ghost.

The room was darkened from even the faint light of the stars by sweeping draperies of silk, which glowed out redly as the lamp light fell upon it in flashes, as if suddenly drenched with wine.

A high ebony bedstead stood in the centre of this n.o.ble room, canopied half way over, and draped like the windows, so that a red gleam fell upon the whiteness of the counterpane as the light of that lamp fell upon it.

A man lay profoundly sleeping on this bed--a handsome, middle-aged man, whose thick brown beard showed soft gleams of silver in it, and whose hair, though waving and bright, was growing thin on the top of his head.

The man appeared to sleep heavily, and a smile lay on his lips; but a look of habitual care had written itself on his forehead, and his mouth was surrounded by stern, hard lines, that seemed graven there with steel.

The woman stood by this sleeping man, gazing on him with the far-off look of a ghost. She turned at last, and set the light down on a console, where it fell less distinctly on the pillow where that head was lying. Then she crept back and sat down on the side of the bed, so close to the unconscious sleeper that her shadow fell across him. Slowly, as if she had been touching a serpent, her hand crept stealthily toward that which lay in the supine carelessness of sleep on the white counterpane. She touched it at last, but started back. A blood-red stain from the curtain fell across it as her bending form let the light stream through the silk.

The woman drew back and pa.s.sed her left hand quickly over that which had touched the sleeping man. Again and again she rubbed one hand over the other, muttering to herself.

Then a look of pa.s.sionate distress came to that dark face, and, going to a marble table, on which a silver bowl and pitcher stood, she poured some water into the bowl, and plunged the hand with which she had touched that sleeping man into it. The splash of the water aroused him, and its icy coldness shocked the woman out of her unnatural sleep. She turned around wildly, with the water dripping from her hands--turned to find herself in her husband's chamber, with his astonished eyes fixed upon her as he sat up in bed.

"Rachael!"

She did not answer him, but stood gazing around the room in wild bewilderment. How came she standing there? By what spirit of love or hate had she been sent to that silver basin?

"Rachael, is anything wrong? Are you ill?"

The woman began to shiver. Perhaps the ice cold water had chilled her.

She looked down upon her hands as if the red shadow haunted her yet, but all she saw were drops of pure water rolling down her slender fingers, and falling one by one to the floor.

"I do not know!" she answered, in cold bewilderment. "Something drove me out from the bed, and sent me wandering, wandering, wandering! But how I came here, alas! Norton, I cannot tell you."

Rachael shivered all over as she spoke, and, as if drawn that way by some unseen force, came close to Lord Hope's bed, and sat down upon it.

"Oh, I am so cold--so dreary cold!"

An eider down quilt lay across the foot of the bed. Lord Hope reached forward and folded it around her, very gently, murmuring:

"My poor wife! poor Rachael! You have been dreaming."

"No; it was not all dreaming, Norton. I did see--no matter what; but it was something that terrified me out of all the joy and glory of this night. I must have been fearfully worn out to sleep after that; but the lamp, which I left behind me, is burning there, and my hands were in the cold water, trying to wash themselves, when you awoke me. I must have been in that fearful picture gallery again."

"You have courage to go there at all, Rachael!"

"I got there without knowing it. The rooms have been so changed I lost my way, and took the wrong corridor, and there I saw--"

"_Her_ picture."

"Was it that? Oh! was it only that?"

"It is there--her picture--life size; and so like that I would not look on it for the world."

"But what carried me there, Norton? On this night, too, when I have been honored, as your wife should be for the first time! when her mother has taken me by the hand and lifted the cloud from my name! Ah, Norton!

Norton! it was glory to me when I saw your eyes kindle, and answer back to mine, as the n.o.blest of the land crowded round to do me homage. Then I knew that the old love was perfect yet. Oh, Destiny is cruel, that it will not let me have one perfect day!"

"After all, it was but a picture. Why allow it to distress you so?"

Lord Hope took her hands in his. She did not shrink from his touch now, as she had in her abnormal sleep; but he felt her palms growing warm, and saw the light coming back to her eyes, where it had seemed frozen at first.

"And you love me? I was sure of it to-night. That was my chiefest glory.

Lacking that, what would the homage of all the world be to Rachael Closs? I was thinking this, when _that_ seemed to start up before me, and whispering to myself, 'He loves me! he loves me! he loves me!' like a young girl; for I have seemed very young to-night. Why not? A glorious life lies before us. You will now step more fearlessly forward, and take your place among the great men of the earth,--while I--I will be anything; charm stones, work miracles, to win popularity and lay it at your feet.

"Say that you love me once more, Norton, and then I will creep back to my pillow, the proudest and happiest woman on earth--for, after all, it was only a picture!"

Rachael Closs had hardly done speaking when a cry of distress rang through the neighboring corridor, the door of Lord Hope's chamber was flung open, and a pallid face looked in.

"Come--come at once! My lady is dying!"

Round to other rooms came that cry of terror, arousing those two girls--the one from her sleep, the other from her mournful vigil--and drawing the family together, in pale groups, into the tower-chamber.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

DEATH IN THE TOWER-CHAMBER.

The old countess was not dying, but dead. Hannah Yates, who had watched her faithfully, did not know when the last faint breath left her lips; but she became conscious of a solemn stillness which settled upon the room, and bending forward, saw that soft gray shadows had crept over that gentle face, up to the hair of silky snow, and down to the slender throat, till it was lost in the purple splendor of that festive robe.

There she lay, tranquil as a sleeping child, with a calm, holy smile breaking through the shadows, and her little hands meekly folded over the gossamer lace on her bosom.