The Millionaire Baby
Page 10
X
TEMPTATION
The sharp rustle of her dress as she suddenly rose struck upon my ear.
"Then let us go," she cried, with just a slight quiver of eagerness inher wonderful voice. I comprehended its culture now. "The place isghostly at this hour of the night. I believe that I am really afraid."
With a muttered reassurance, I allowed the full light of the lantern tofall directly on her face. She _was_ afraid. There was no otherexplanation possible for her wild staring eyes and blue quivering lips.For the instant I hardly knew her; then her glance rose to mine and shesmiled and it was with difficulty I refrained from acknowledging inwords my appreciation of her wonderful flexibility of expression.
"You are astonished to see me so affected," she said. "It is not sostrange as you think--it is superstition--the horror of what oncehappened here--the reason for that partition--I know the whole story,for all my attempts to deny it just now. The hour, too, isunfortunate--the darkness--your shifting, mysterious light. It was latelike this--and dark--with just the moon to illumine the scene, whenshe--Mr. Trevitt, do you want to know the story of this place?--the old,much guessed-at, never-really-understood story which led first to itscomplete abandonment, then to the building of that dividing wall andfinally to the restoration of this portion and of this alone? Do you?"
Her eagerness, in such startling contrast to the reticence she had shownon this very subject a few minutes before, affected me peculiarly. Iwanted to hear the story--any one would who had listened to the gossipof this neighborhood for years, but--
She evidently did not mean to give me time to understand my ownhesitation.
"I have the whole history--the touching, hardly-to-be-believedhistory--up at my house at this very moment. It was written by--no, Iwill let you guess."
The naivete of her smile made me forget the force of its lateexpression.
"Mr. Ocumpaugh?" I ventured.
"Which Mr. Ocumpaugh? There have been so many." She began slowly,naturally, to move toward the door.
"I can not guess."
"Then I shall have to tell you. It was written by the one who--Come! Iwill tell you outside. I haven't any courage here."
"But I have."
"You haven't read the story."
"Never mind; tell me who the writer was."
"Mr. Ocumpaugh's father; he, by whose orders this partition was put up."
"Oh, you have _his_ story--written--and by himself! You are fortunate,Mrs. Carew."
I had turned the lantern from her face, but not so far that I did notdetect the deep flush which dyed her whole countenance at these words.
"I am," she emphatically returned, meeting my eyes with a steady look Iwas not sufficiently expert with women's ways, or at all events withthis woman's ways, to understand. "Seldom has such a tale beenwritten--seldom, let us thank God, has there been an equal occasion forit."
"You interest me," I said.
And she did. Little as this history might have to do with the finding ofGwendolen, I felt an almost imperative necessity of satisfying mycuriosity in regard to it, though I knew she had deliberately rousedthis curiosity for a purpose which, if not comprehensible to me, was ofmarked importance to her and not altogether for the reason she had beenpleased to give me. Possibly it was on account of this last mentionedconviction that I allowed myself to be so interested.
"It is late," she murmured with a final glance towards those dismalhangings which in my present mood I should not have been so greatlysurprised to see stir under her look. "However, if you will pardon thehour and accept a seat in my small library, I will show you what onlyone other person has seen besides myself."
It was a temptation; for several reasons it was a temptation; yet--
"I want you to see why I am frightened of this place," she said,flashing her eyes upon me with an almost girlish appeal.
"I will go," said I; and following her quickly out, I locked thebungalow door, and ignoring the hand she extended toward me, dropped thekey into my pocket.
I thought I heard a little gasp--the least, the smallest of soundspossible. But if so, the feeling which prompted it was not apparent inher manner or her voice as she led the way back to her house, andushered me into a hall full of packing-boxes and the general litteraccompanying an approaching departure.
"You will excuse the disorder," she cried as she piloted me throughthese various encumbrances to a small but exquisitely furnished roomstill glorying in its full complement of ornaments and pictures. "Thistrouble which has come to one I love has made it very hard for me to doanything. I feel helpless, at times, completely helpless."
The dejection she expressed was but momentary, however. In anotherinstant she was pointing out a chair and begging me to make myselfcomfortable while she went for the letter (I think she called it aletter) which I had come there to read.
What was I to think of her? What was I to think of myself? And whatwould the story tell me to warrant the loss of what might have proved amost valuable hour? I had not answered these questions when shereentered with a bundle in her hand of discolored--I should almost callthem mouldered--sheets of much crumpled paper.
"These--" she began; then, seeing me look at them with something likesuspicion, she paused until she caught my eye, when she added gravely,"these came to me from Mrs. Ocumpaugh. How she got them you will have toask her. I should say, judging from appearances--" Here she took a seatopposite me at a small table near which I had been placed--"that theymust have been found in some old chest or possibly in some hidden drawerof one of those curious antique desks of which more than one wasdiscovered in the garrets of the old house when it was pulled down togive place to the new one."
"Is this letter, as you call it, so old?" I asked.
"It is dated thirty-five years ago."
"The garret must have been a damp one," I remarked.
She flashed me a look--I thought of it more than once afterward--andasked if she should do the reading or I.
"You," I rejoined, all afire with the prospect of listening to herremarkable voice in what I had every reason to believe would call forthits full expression. "Only let me look at those sheets first, andunderstand as perfectly as I may, just what it is you are going to readto me."
"It's an explanation written for his heirs by Mr. Ocumpaugh. The storyitself," she went on, handing me over the papers she held, "beginsabruptly. From the way the sheet is torn across at the top, I judge thatthe narrative itself was preceded by some introductory words nowlacking. When I have read it to you, I will tell you what I think thoseintroductory words were."
I handed back the sheets. There seemed to be a spell in theair--possibly it arose from her manner, which was one to rouseexpectation even in one whose imagination had not already been stirredby a visit at night and in more than commonly bewildering company to theplace whose dark and hitherto unknown secret I was about to hear.
"I am ready," I said, feeling my strange position, but not anxious tochange it just then for any other conceivable one.
She drew a deep breath; again fixed me with her strange, compellingeyes, and with the final remark:
"The present no longer exists, we are back in the seventies--" beganthis enthralling tale.
I did not move till the last line dropped from her lips.