These details respecting the mutual relation in which the two families stood, it was necessary to state, for the purpose of making what follows perfectly clear. The young people had now reached the further gate, at which they were to part. Charles Marston, with a heart beating happily in the anticipation of many a pleasant meeting, bid him farewell for the present, and in a few minutes more was riding up the broad, straight avenue, towards the gloomy mansion which closed in the hazy and somber perspective. As he moved onward, he passed a laborer, with whose face, from his childhood, he had been familiar.
“How do you do, Tom?” he cried.
“At your service, sir,” replied the man, uncovering, “and welcome home, sir.”
There was something dark and anxious in the man’s looks, which ill-accorded with the welcome he spoke, and which suggested some undefined alarm.
“The master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda — are all well?” he asked eagerly.
“All well, sir, thank God,” replied the man.
Young Marston spurred on, filled with vague apprehensions, and observing the man still leaning upon his spade, and watching his progress with the same gloomy and curious eye.
At the hall-door he met with one of the servants, booted and spurred.
“Well, Daly,” he said, as he dismounted, “how are all at home?”
This man, like the former, met his smile with a troubled countenance, and stammered —
“All, sir — that is, the master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda — quite well, sir; but— “
“Well, well,” said Charles, eagerly, “speak on — what is it?”
“Bad work, sir,” replied the man, lowering his voice. “I am going off this minute for— “
“For what?” urged the young gentleman.
“Why, sir, for the coroner,” replied he.
“The coroner — the coroner! Why, good God, what has happened?” cried
Charles, aghast with horror.
“Sir Wynston,” commenced the man, and hesitated.
“Well?” pursued Charles, pale and breathless.
“Sir Wynston — he — it is he,” said the man.
“He? Sir Wynston? Is he dead, or who is? — Who is dead?” demanded the young man, almost fiercely.
“Sir Wynston, sir; it is he that is dead. There is bad work, sir — very bad, I’m afraid,” replied the man.
Charles did not wait to inquire further, but, with a feeling of mingled horror and curiosity, entered the house.
He hurried up the stairs, and entered his mother’s sitting room. She was there, perfectly alone, and so deadly pale, that she scarcely looked like a living being. In an instant they were locked in one another’s arms.
“Mother — my dear mother, you are ill,” said the young man, anxiously.
“Oh, no, no, dear Charles, but frightened, horrified;” and as she said this, the poor lady burst into tears.
“What is this horrible affair? Something about Sir Wynston. He is dead, I know, but is it — is it suicide?” he asked.
“Oh, no, not suicide,” said Mrs. Marston, greatly agitated.
“Good God! Then he is murdered,” whispered the young man, growing very pale.
“Yes, Charles — horrible — dreadful! I can scarcely believe it,” replied she, shuddering while she wept.
“Where is my father?” inquired the young man, after a pause.
“Why, why, Charles, darling — why do you ask for him?” she said, wildly, grasping him by the arm, as she looked into his face with a terrified expression.
“Why — why, he could tell me the particulars of this horrible tragedy,” answered he, meeting her agonized look with one of alarm and surprise, “as far as they have been as yet collected. How is he, mother — is he well?”
“Oh, yes, quite well, thank God,” she answered, more collectedly— “quite well, but, of course, greatly, dreadfully shocked.”
“I will go to him, mother; I will see him,” said he, turning towards the door.
“He has been wretchedly depressed and excited for some days,” said Mrs. Marston, dejectedly, “and this dreadful occurrence will, I fear, affect him most deplorably.”
The young man kissed her tenderly and affectionately, and hurried down to the library, where his father usually sat when he desired to be alone, or was engaged in business. He opened the door softly. His father was standing at one of the windows, his face haggard as from a night’s watching, unkempt and unshorn, and with his hands thrust into his pockets. At the sound of the revolving door he started, and seeing his son, first recoiled a little, with a strange, doubtful expression, and then rallying, walked quickly towards him with a smile, which had in it something still more painful.
“Charles, I am glad to see you,” he said, shaking him with an agitated pressure by both hands, “Charles, this is a great calamity, and what makes it still worse, is that the murderer has escaped; it looks badly, you know.”
He fixed his gaze for a few moments upon his son, turned abruptly, and walked a little way into the room then, in a disconcerted manner, he added, hastily turning back —
“Not that it signifies to us, of course — but I would fain have justice satisfied.”
“And who is the wretch — the murderer?” inquired Charles.
“Who? Why, everyone knows! — that scoundrel, Merton,” answered Marston, in an irritated tone— “Merton murdered him in his bed, and fled last night; he is gone — escaped — and I suspect Sir Wynston’s man of being an accessory.”
“Which was Sir Wynston’s bedroom?” asked the young man.
“The room that old Lady Mostyn had — the room with the portrait of Grace
Hamilton in it.”
“I know — I know,” said the young man, much excited. “I should wish to see it.”
“Stay,” said Marston; “the door from the passage is bolted on the inside, and I have locked the other; here is the key, if you choose to go, but you must bring Hughes with you, and do not disturb anything; leave all as it is; the jury ought to see, and examine for themselves.”
Charles took the key, and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he made his way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room, which, as we have said, intervened between the valet’s chamber and Sir Wynston’s. After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key in the door, and stood.
“In the dark chamber of white death.”
The shutters lay partly open, as the valet had left them some hours before, on making the astounding discovery, which the partially admitted light revealed. The corpse lay in the silk-embroidered dressing gown, and other habiliments, which Sir Wynston had worn, while taking his ease in his chamber, on the preceding night. The coverlet was partially dragged over it. The mouth was gaping, and filled with clotted blood; a wide gash was also visible in the neck, under the ear; and there was a thickening pool of blood at the bedside, and quantities of blood, doubtless from other wounds, had saturated the bedclothes under the body. There lay Sir Wynston, stiffened in the attitude in which the struggle of death had left him, with his stern, stony face, and dim, terrible gaze turned up.
Charles looked breathlessly for more than a minute upon this mute and unchanging spectacle, and then silently suffered the curtain to fall back again, and stepped, with the light tread of awe, again to the door. There he turned back, and pausing for a minute, said, in a whisper, to the attendant —
“And Merton did this?”
“Troth, I’m afeard he did, sir,” answered the man, gloomily.
“And has made his escape?” continued Charles.
“Yes, sir; he stole away in the night-time,” replied the servant, “after the murder was done” (and he glanced fearfully toward the bed); “God knows where he’s gone.”
“The villain!” muttered Charles; “but what was his motive? why did he do all this — what does it mean?”
“I don’t know exactly, sir, but he was very queer for a week and more before it,” replied th
e man; “there was something bad over him for a long time.”
“It is a terrible thing,” said Charles, with a profound sigh; “a terrible and shocking occurrence.”
He hesitated again at the door, but his feelings had sustained a terrible revulsion at sight of the corpse, and he was no longer disposed to prosecute his purposed examination of the chamber and its contents; with a view to conjecturing the probable circumstances of the murder.
“Observe, Hughes, that I have moved nothing in the chamber from the place it occupied when we entered,” he said to the servant, as they withdrew.
He locked the door, and as he passed through the hall, on his return, he encountered his father, and, restoring the key, said —
“I could not stay there; I am almost sorry I have seen it; I am overpowered; what a determined, ferocious murder it was; the place is all in a pool of gore; he must have received many wounds.”
“I can’t say; the particulars will be elicited soon enough; those details are for the inquest; as for me, I hate such spectacles,” said Marston, gloomily; “go now, and see your sister; you will find her there.”
He pointed to the small room where we have first seen her and her fair governess; Charles obeyed the direction, and Marston proceeded himself to his wife’s sitting room.
The young man, dispirited and horrified by the awful spectacle he had just contemplated, hurried to the little study occupied by his sister. Marston himself ascended, as we have said, the great staircase leading to his wife’s private sitting room.
“Mrs. Marston,” he said, entering, “this is a hateful occurrence, a dreadful thing to have taken place here; I don’t mean to affect grief which I don’t feel; but the thing is very shocking, and particularly so, as having occurred under my roof; but that cannot now be helped. I have resolved to spare no exertions, and no influence, to bring the assassin to justice; and a coroner’s jury will, within a few hours, sift the evidence which we have succeeded in collecting. But my purpose in seeking you now is, to recur to the conversation we yesterday had, respecting a member of this establishment.”
“Mademoiselle de Barras?” suggested the lady.
“Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras,” echoed Marston; “I wish to say, that, having reconsidered the circumstances affecting her, I am absolutely resolved that she shall not continue to be an inmate of this house.”
He paused, and Mrs. Marston said —
“Well, Richard, I am sorry, very sorry for it; but your decision shall never be disputed by me.”
“Of course,” said Marston, drily; “and, therefore, the sooner you acquaint her with it, and let her know that she must go, the better.”
Having said this, he left her, and went to his own chamber, where he proceeded to make his toilet with elaborate propriety, in preparation for the scene which was about to take place under his roof.
Mrs. Marston, meanwhile, suffered from a horrible uncertainty. She never harbored, it is true, one doubt as to her husband’s perfect innocence of the ghastly crime which filled their house with fear and gloom; but at the same time that she thoroughly and indignantly scouted the possibility of his, under any circumstances, being accessory to such a crime, she experienced a nervous and agonizing anxiety lest anyone else should possibly suspect him, however obliquely and faintly, of any participation whatever in the foul deed. This vague fear tortured her; it had taken possession of her mind; and it was the more acutely painful, because it was of a kind which precluded the possibility of her dispelling it, as morbid fears so often are dispelled, by taking counsel upon its suggestions with a friend.
The day wore on, and strange faces began to fill the great parlor. The coroner, accompanied by a physician, had arrived. Several of the gentry in the immediate vicinity had been summoned as jurors, and now began to arrive in succession. Marston, in a handsome and sober suit, received these visitors with a stately and melancholy courtesy, befitting the occasion. Mervyn and his son had both been summoned, and, of course, were in attendance. There being now a sufficient number to form a jury, they were sworn, and immediately proceeded to the chamber where the body of the murdered man was lying.
Marston accompanied them, and with a pale and stern countenance, and in a clear and subdued tone, called their attention successively to every particular detail which he conceived important to be noted. Having thus employed some minutes, the jury again returned to the parlor, and the examination of the witnesses commenced.
Marston, at his own request, was first sworn and examined. He deposed merely to the circumstance of his parting, on the night previous, with Sir Wynston, and to the state in which he had seen the room and the body in the morning. He mentioned also the fact, that on hearing the alarm in the morning, he had hastened from his own chamber to Sir Wynston’s, and found, on trying to enter, that the door opening upon the passage was secured on the inside. This circumstance showed that the murderer must have made his egress at least through the valet’s chamber, and by the backstairs. Marston’s evidence went no further.
The next witness sworn was Edward Smith, the servant of the late Sir Wynston Berkley. His evidence was a narrative of the occurrences we have already stated. He described the sounds which he had overheard from his master’s room, the subsequent appearance of Merton, and the conversation which had passed between them. He then proceeded to mention, that it was his master’s custom to have himself called at seven o’clock, at which hour he usually took some medicine, which it was the valet’s duty to bring to him; after which he either settled again to rest, or rose in a short time, if unable to sleep. Having measured and prepared the dose in the dressing room, the servant went on to say, he had knocked at his master’s door, and receiving no answer, had entered the room, and partly unclosed the shutters. He perceived the blood on the carpet, and on opening the curtains, saw his master lying with his mouth and eyes open, perfectly dead, and weltering in gore. He had stretched out his hand, and seized that of the dead man, which was quite stiff and cold; then, losing heart, he had run to the door communicating with the passage, but found it locked, and turned to the other entrance, and ran down the backstairs, crying “murder.” Mr. Hughes, the butler, and James Carney, another servant, came immediately, and they all three went back into the room. The key was in the outer door, upon the inside, but they did not unlock it until they had viewed the body. There was a great pool of blood in the bed, and in it was lying a red-handled case knife, which was produced, and identified by the witness. Just then they heard Mr. Marston calling for admission, and they opened the door with some difficulty, for the lock was rusty. Mr. Marston had ordered them to leave the things as they were, and had used very stern language to the witness. They had then left the room, securing both doors.
This witness underwent a severe and searching examination, but his evidence was clear and consistent.
In conclusion, Marston produced a dagger, which was stained with blood, and asked the man whether he recognized it.
Smith at once stated this to have been the property of his late master, who, when traveling, carried it, together with his pistols, along with him. Since his arrival at Gray Forest, it had lain upon the chimneypiece in his bedroom, where he believed it to have been upon the previous night.
James Carney, one of Marston’s servants, was next sworn and examined. He had, he said, observed a strange and unaccountable agitation and depression in Merton’s manner for some days past; he had also been several times disturbed at night by his talking aloud to himself, and walking to and fro in his room. Their bedrooms were separated by a thin partition, in which was a window, through which Carney had, on the night of the murder, observed a light in Merton’s room, and, on looking in, had seen him dressing hastily. He also saw him twice take up, and again lay down, the red-hafted knife which had been found in the bed of the murdered man. He knew it by the handle being broken near the end. He had no suspicion of Merton having any mischievous intentions, and lay down again to rest. He afterwards heard him pass out of his r
oom, and go slowly up the backstairs leading to the upper story. Shortly after this he had fallen asleep, and did not hear or see him return. He then described, as Smith had already done, the scene which presented itself in the morning, on his accompanying him into Sir Wynston’s bedchamber.
The next witness examined was a little Irish boy, who described himself as “a poor scholar.” His testimony was somewhat singular. He deposed that he had come to the house on the preceding evening, and had been given some supper, and was afterwards permitted to sleep among the hay in one of the lofts. He had, however, discovered what he considered a snugger berth. This was an unused stable, in the further end of which lay a quantity of hay. Among this he had lain down, and gone to sleep. He was, however, awakened in the course of the night by the entrance of a man, whom he saw with perfect distinctness in the moonlight, and his description of his dress and appearance tallied exactly with those of Merton. This man occupied himself for sometime in washing his hands and face in a stable bucket, which happened to stand by the door; and, during the whole of this process, he continued to moan and mutter, like one in woeful perturbation. He said, distinctly, twice or thrice, “by —— , I am done for;” and every now and then he muttered, “and nothing for it, after all.” When he had done washing his hands, he took something from his coatpocket, and looked at it, shaking his head; at this time he was standing with his back turned toward the boy, so that he could not see what this object might be. The man, however, put it into his breast, and then began to search hurriedly, as it seemed, for some hiding place for it. After looking at the pavement, and poking at the chinks of the wall, he suddenly went to the window, and forced up the stone which formed the sill. Under this he threw the object which the boy had seen him examine with so much perplexity, and then he readjusted the stone, and removed the evidences of its having been recently stirred. The boy was a little frightened, but very curious about all that he saw; and when the man left the stable in which he lay, he got up, and following to the door, peeped after him. He saw him putting on an outside-coat and hat, near the yard gate; and then, with great caution, unbolt the wicket, constantly looking back towards the house, and so let himself out. The boy was uneasy, and sat in the hay, wideawake, until morning. He then told the servants what he had seen, and one of the men having raised the stone, which he had not strength to lift, they found the dagger, which Smith had identified as belonging to his master. This weapon was stained with blood; and some hair, which was found to correspond in color with Sir Wynston’s, was sticking in the crevice between the blade and the handle.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 705
