Cruel As the Grave 27 – Southworth · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 27Fearful Waiting
18
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 27
Fearful Waiting
SouthworthEnglish
Still the wood is dim and lonely,
Still the plashing fountains play,
But the past with all its beauty,
Whither has it fled away?
Hark! the mournful echoes say,
Fled away!--A.A. PROCTOR.
"And the apparition that we both saw was like that of the gipsy girl in the ghostly legend," said Sybil, musingly.
"Yes; in the matter of the red cloak--a very common garment, dear Sybil. Such a resemblance reminds us of Paganini's portrait which the child said was like him, 'about the fiddle,'" replied Lyon Berners, with an effort towards pleasantry, which was very far indeed from his heart; for he was oppressed with grief and dread. He was anxiously looking forward to the arrival of Captain Pendleton; and fearing for the effect his disclosures must have upon his beloved Sybil, who seemed still so utterly unable to realize her position. She seemed almost satisfied now, so that Lyon was near her, and she was the only object of his care. So disengaged was her mind, at this hour, from all real appreciation of her situation, that she had leisure to feel interested in the tale that Lyon had told her. She again reverted to it.
"But the likeness was not only in the red cloak, it was in the whole gipsy style. I spoke of that, even before you had told me anything about the gipsy girl," persisted Sybil.
Before Lyon could answer her, steps were heard approaching.
"There is Pendleton," exclaimed Mr. Berners, and he arose and hurried forward to meet the visitor.
"Hush! come out here a moment," he whispered, drawing Captain Pendleton outside the chapel. "Sybil knows nothing of that verdict as yet. I wish to keep it from her knowledge as long as possible--for ever, if possible. So if you have any more bad news to tell, tell it now, and here, to me," he added.
"Berners," began the Captain--but then he paused in pity.
"Go on," said Lyon.
"My friend, the flight of your wife and yourself if not absolutely ascertained, is strongly suspected. An officer watches your closed chamber door. Two others have been dispatched to Blackville, to watch the ferry. By to-morrow morning the flight, so strongly suspected now, will be fully discovered. This is all I have to say in private. And now, perhaps we had better not linger any longer here, lest Mrs. Berners may suspect something, if possible, even more alarming than the truth," said Captain Pendleton.
"You are quite right," admitted Lyon Berners, and they entered the chapel together.
Sybil sprang up to meet them.
"What news, Captain? Is the murderer discovered? May we return home?" she eagerly inquired.
"No, madam; the murderer has not yet been discovered, nor do I think it would be prudent in you yet to return home," replied the Captain, feeling relieved that her questions had taken forms that enabled him to reply truly to them without divulging the alarming intelligence of the verdict of the coroner's jury.
He unstrapped a portmanteau from his shoulders and threw it down near the fire, and seated himself upon it. Then turning to Mr. Berners, he said:
"I have made arrangements with your faithful Joe to bring certain necessaries to this place to-night. They cannot, you know, be brought to this spot by the same direct route that we took in coming here. But as soon as the moon goes down, which will be about one o'clock, Joe will launch a boat just below Black Hall and come across the river with all that is most needed. There he will find a cart and horse waiting for him. He will load the cart and drive it up here to the entrance of the thicket."
"But that cart, Pendleton?"
"Yes! you will wonder how I got it there without exciting suspicion. It was done in this way. I ordered Joe to bring it boldly up in front of the house, and to put in it the boxes containing my own and my sister's masquerade dresses, and to take them over to our place. Joe understood and obeyed me, and drove the cart to Blackville, and crossed the river at the ferry, under the very eyes of the constable stationed there to watch. He brought the cart down this bank, and left it concealed in a clearing of the wood. He will watch his opportunity, as soon as it is dark enough to swim across the river, and launch the boat and fill it with the necessaries that he will secretly obtain from Black Hall. It is a business that will require considerable tact and discretion; or at least, great secretiveness and cautiousness," added Captain Pendleton.
"And these, Joe, like all his race, possesses in excess," observed Lyon Berners.
"Are the guests all gone away from the house?" inquired Sybil.
"Nearly all. My sister remains there for the present to watch your interests, Mrs. Berners. The old Judge also, to superintend legal processes; but even he will go away in the morning, I think."
While they spoke, a loud sneeze and then a cough was heard outside, and then Joe walked in, with a doubled up mattress on his head.
"This here is moving under difficulties, Master," he panted, as he laid the mattress down on the stone floor.
"How ever did you get that along the narrow path through the thicket, Joe?" inquired Sybil.
"You may well ax that, Missis. I had to lay it down endways, and drag it. Howsever, I has got all the things through the worst part of the way now, and they's all out in the church-yard," answered Joe, recovering his breath, and starting for the remaining goods.
He soon returned, bringing in a small assortment of bedding, clothing, and so forth. And in another trip he brought in a small supply of food and a few cooking utensils.
"That's all. And now, Miss Sybil, if you would only let me live here along o' you and Marse Lyon, and wait on to you bofe, I could make myself very much satisfied into my own mind," he said, as he laid down the last articles, and stood to rest himself.
"But you know, Joe, that you can serve us better by remaining at Black Hall," said Sybil, kindly.
"Now, Marser Capping Pendulum, I hope them there fineries in the boxes, as you told me to bring away, for a blind from our place, won't take no harm along of being left out in the woods all night, for it was there underneaf of a pile of leaves and bushes as I was obligated for to leave them."
"They'll not take cold, at all events, Joe," said Captain Pendleton, good-naturedly.
By this time, the fire on the stone floor had become so low that it was quite dark in the chapel. But among the little necessities of life brought by Joe, was a small silver candlestick and a few slim wax candles. One of these was lighted, and gleamed faintly around, striking strangely upon the faces of the group gathered near the smouldering fire.
The friends sat and talked together, and arranged as far as they could their plans for future movements. It was not until near day that Captain Pendleton arose to depart, saying:
"Well, Berners, I do dislike to leave you and Mrs. Berners here alone again, especially as I fear that you will not go to sleep, as you ought to do. I see that Mrs. Berners' eyes are still wide open--"
"I slept so long in the afternoon," put in Sybil.
"But, at all events, I am forced to leave you before light. It is not quite safe now to be seen in open daylight, travelling this road so often. To-night I will come again, and bring you further news, and perhaps more comfort. Come, Joe."
Joe, who had fallen asleep over the fire, now slowly woke up and lifted himself from the floor.
The Captain shook hands with his friends, and followed by Joe, left the Chapel.
Sybil then went and spread out the mattress, and put the pillows and covering upon it, and persuaded Lyon to lie down and try to sleep, as he had not slept for two nights past. She said that she herself could not sleep, but that she would sit close by him, so as to be ready to arouse him, on the slightest indication of danger.
Very reluctantly he yielded to her pleadings, and stretched himself upon the mattress. She went and gathered the smouldering coals and brands together, so that the fire might not go entirely out, and then she returned and sat down beside her husband.
He took her hand in his, and clasping it protectingly, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.
She sat watching the little fire, and brooding almost to insanity over the strange revolution that a few hours had made in her life, driving her so suddenly from her own hereditary manor-house, her home of wealth and honor and safety, out into the perilous wilderness, a fugitive from the law.
Yet not once did Sybil's imagination take in the extreme horror of her position. She thought that she had been brought away by her husband to be saved from the affront of an arrest, and the humiliation of a few days imprisonment. That anything worse than this could happen to her, she never even dreamed. But even this to the pure, proud Sybil would have been almost insupportable mortification and misery. To escape all this she was almost willing to incur the charge of having fled from justice, and to endure the hardships of a fugitive's life.
And oh! through all there was one consolation so great, that it was enough to compensate for all the wretchedness of her position. She was assured of her husband's love, beyond all possibility of future doubt. He was by her side, never to leave her more!
This was enough! She closed her hand around the beloved hand that held hers, and felt a strange peace and joy, even in the midst of her exile and danger.
Perhaps in this stillness she slumbered a while, for when she lifted her head, the chapel, that had been dark before, but for the gleaming of the little fire, was now dimly filled with the gray light of dawn.
She saw the shapes of the pointed windows against the background of heavy shadows and pale lights, and she knew that day was coming. She did not stir from the spot, lest she should wake her husband, whose hand held hers. All was still in the chapel, so still that even the faint sweet sounds of wakening nature could be heard--the stirring of the partridge in her cover, the creeping of the squirrel from her hole, the murmur of the little brook, the rustle of the leaves, and, farther off, the deep thunder of the cascade, and the detonating echoes of the mountains.
Sybil sat motionless, and almost breathless, lest she should disturb her beloved sleeper. But the next moment she could scarcely forbear screaming aloud; for there passed along the wall before her a figure that, even in the dim light, she recognized as the strange visitant of the preceding day. It came from the direction of the altar, and glided past each of the four windows and vanished through the door. When Sybil had repressed her first impulse to scream, self-control was easy, so she sat quietly holding her husband's hand, though much amazed by what she had again seen.
Day broadened, and soon the rays of the rising sun, striking through the east windows, and lighting on the face of the sleeper, awoke him.
He looked into the face of his wife, and then along the walls of the chapel, with a bewildered expression of countenance. This had been his first sleep for two nights, and it had been so deep that he had utterly forgotten the terrible drama of the two last preceding days, and could not at once remember what had happened, or where he was. But as he again turned and looked into Sybil's face, full memory of all flashed back upon him. But he did not allude to the past; he merely said to Sybil:
"You have not slept, love."
"I have not wished to do so," she answered.
"This is a very primitive sort of life we are living, love," he said, with a smile, as he arose from the mattress.
"But it is not at all an unhappy one," answered Sybil; "for, oh, since you are with me, I do not care much about anything else. Destiny may do what she pleases, so that she does not part us. I can bear exile, hunger, cold, fatigue, pain--anything but parting, Lyon!"
"Do not fear that, love; we will never part for a single day, if I can help it."
"Then let anything else come. I can bear it cheerfully," smiled Sybil. While they talked they were working also. Sybil was folding up the bedclothes, and Lyon was looking about for a bucket, to fetch water from the fountain. He soon found one, and went upon his errand.
Sybil followed him with two towels. They washed their hands and faces in the stream, and dried them on the towels. And then they went higher up the glen, and caught a bucketful of delightful water from the crystal spring that issued from the rocks.
They returned to the chapel, and together they made the fire and prepared the breakfast.
It was not until they were seated at their primitively arranged breakfast, which was laid upon the flagstones of the chapel floor--it was not, in fact, until they had nearly finished their simple meal, that Sybil told Lyon of the apparition she had seen in the early dawn, to come up as if from the floor to the right of the altar, and glide along the east wall of the chapel, past the four gothic windows, and disappear through the door.
"It was a morning dream, dear Sybil; nothing more," said Lyon, sententiously; for in the broad daylight he believed in nothing supernatural, even upon the evidence of his own senses.
"If that were a morning dream, then the sight that we saw together yesterday was but a dream, and you are but a dream, and life itself is but a dream," replied Sybil, earnestly.
"Well, at all events, what we have both, either separately or together, seen and experienced, must be something perfectly natural and commonplace, although we may not either of us be able to understand or explain it. My private opinion and worse misgiving is, that there is some woman concealed about the place. If ever I find myself in arm's length of that little gipsy, I shall intercept her, even at the risk of receiving such a spiritual-shock as that which struck Mrs. Alicia Dubarry to the ground," said Lyon, facetiously; for he might well make a jest of this lighter affair of the chapel mystery to veil the deep anxiety he felt in the heavy matter of their affliction.
The husband and wife passed this second day of hiding tediously enough. She made the little housekeeping corner of the chapel tidy, by folding up and putting aside all their bedclothes and garments, and by washing and arranging their few cooking utensils. He brought in wood and brush, which he broke up and piled in another corner, to have it near at hand to replenish the fire. Also, he brought water from the spring; and then with no other instrument than his pocket-knife, he made a trap and set it to catch rabbits.
Then they rambled together through the wilderness around the chapel, and the better they grew acquainted with the wild neighborhood, the surer they felt of their safety in its profound solitude.
Their only anxiety connected with their security in this place, was upon the subject of the mysterious visitant. It was incomprehensible by any known law of nature.
They talked of this mystery. They reverted to all the so-called "authenticated ghost stories" that they had ever read or heard, and that they had hitherto set down to be either impostures or delusions.
But now here was a fact in their own experience that utterly confounded their judgment, and the end of their discussion on the subject left them just where they had been at its commencement. They resolved, however, to divulge the whole matter to Captain Pendleton, to whom they had not yet even hinted it, and to ask his counsel; and they looked forward with impatience to the evening visit of this devoted friend.
As it was growing cold towards the setting of the sun they turned their steps again towards the chapel. It was quite dark when they reached it. Their fire had nearly gone out, but he replenished it, and she began to prepare the evening meal.
While she was still engaged in this work, the sound of approaching footsteps warned them that Captain Pendleton was near. Lyon Berners went out to meet him.
