Even as I uttered this hopeless cry within my soul, there came a quick step along the corridor, and a knock at my door.
27
Raleigh’s Revolt
At this sound Towner half raised himself from the arm-chair, where he sat, cowering. “Don’t let him in! Don’t let anybody in!” he breathed, in an alarmed whisper.
The knock was repeated urgently. I stepped to the door and opened it a crack. Raleigh was without,—the man about town, of noble instincts and unworthy courses, who has already passed across these pages.
“Pray, drop in again, Raleigh,” said I; “I have some people here on business.”
“I must see you now. It may be life and death.”
“To whom?” I asked, eagerly. He too had been a friend of Densdeth’s. He might have knowledge of these mysteries.
“To one worth saving.”
I observed him more particularly. All his usual nonchalance had departed. He was pale and anxious; but withal, his face expressed his better self, the nobler man I had always recognized in him.
“What is it?” said I, stepping out into the corridor.
“Not here!” said Raleigh in a whisper. And he pointed to the door of Densdeth’s dark room.
“What?” I also whispered, with an irrepressible dread stealing over me, “Densdeth again!”
“Come in then,” I continued; “we are already trying and condemning him.”
“Who are these?” said Raleigh, bowing slightly to Churm, and pointing to Locksley and Towner. The latter sat with his face covered by his hands.
“Foes of Densdeth, both! Sufferers by him!”
“Mr. Churm,” said Raleigh, “I know you do not trust me much. But I came here to find you and Byng. Meeting you saves precious time. I have wasted hours already, struggling in my heart to throw off the base empire of Densdeth. I have done it. I am free of him forever. I can speak. I have seen your ward, Clara Denman!”
“Speak! speak!” cried Churm, seizing his arm.
“Alive, and in danger! I was riding home this morning before dawn, from Bushley,—never mind on what unworthy errand I had been. Going down a hill, my horse slipped on the ice, and fell badly. I was getting him on his legs again, when a carriage came slowly climbing up the slope beside me. You know what a night it was,—stormy, with bursts of moonlight. There was light enough to give me a view of the people in the carriage. Two women, one a hag I well know, the other veiled. Two men, Densdeth and that black rascal, his servant. I knew them. They could not recognize me kneeling behind my horse. ‘Mischief!’ I thought. It was none of my business, but I got my horse up, and followed. Do you know Huffmire’s Asylum?”
“Locksley!” said Churm, “quick! Run to my stable, and have the bays put to the double wagon! Quick, now! Have them here in five minutes!”
Locksley hurried off.
“Right!” said Raleigh, “you understand me. Yes, Densdeth had Clara Denman in that carriage.”
“My poor child!” said Churm. “Her innocent life bears all the burden of others’ sins.”
“I rode after the carriage until I saw it stop at Huffmire’s gate. Then I dismounted, let my horse go, and ran up in the shelter of some cedars by the road-side. I knew that Huffmire’s Insane Asylum is no better than a private prison for whoever dares to use it. No one was stirring at that early hour, and it was some time before the bell was answered. At last, Huffmire himself came to the gate. Densdeth got out to parley with him. While they talked, the veiled lady managed, by a rapid movement with her tied hands, to strike aside her veil and look out. I saw her. I cannot be deceived. It was Clara Denman!”
“Is Locksley never coming with those horses?” muttered Churm.
“It was she, strangely dressed, altered, and pale, but firm and resolute as ever. I had but a glimpse. The hag and Densdeth’s servant dragged her back. Huffmire undid the gate. They drove in. I caught my horse and rode off.”
“Why did you not tear her away from that villain?” said Churm, fiercely.
“Mr. Churm, hear me through! I said to myself, ‘This is none of my business. Clara Denman, whom the world thought dead, has come to light, mad, and Densdeth, the friend of the family, her betrothed, has very naturally been selected to put her into a madhouse.’ ”
“But the hour, the place! And Densdeth!”
“Yes; these excited my suspicions. I remembered the impression that Miss Denman had committed suicide rather than be forced into a marriage with Densdeth. Intimate as I have been with him, I can comprehend how to a nature like hers he would be a horror.”
“But,” said I, “this seems almost incredible, this audacious abduction of a young lady.”
“Densdeth knew that she had no friends,” said Churm, bitterly. “He knew that the manner and place of her hiding would favor his charge.”
“It is audacious,” said Raleigh, “and so is Densdeth. Success has made the man overweening. If it is true that Clara Denman baffled him for a time, I believe she is the only one, woman or man, who has done so, when he had fairly tried to conquer. Who knows but he feels that, once beaten, his prestige to himself is gone? He no doubt considers himself safe against Denman, and supposes, too, that the lady’s flight and concealment have put her out of the pale of society.”
“But what does he intend?” said I, looking at them both by turns.
“Will Locksley never come?” said Churm, striding to the window. “Towner has told us what he intends.”
“Basely, I fear,” replied Raleigh. “At least to compel her to a hateful marriage, if no worse. At least to have her where he can insult and scoff at her, and beat down her resistance. He means to master her, soul and body, and take some cruel revenge, such as only a fiend could devise.”
“Your eyes seem to be opened, Mr. Raleigh,” said Churm, “to the character of your bosom friend.”
“They are opened, thank God! It has cost me a great and bitter struggle, this day, to tear that man out of my heart, to overcome my pride and inertia, and come and tell you, Mr. Churm, that I miserably despise myself; yes, and to say that I need the help and countenance of men like you to aid me to be a true man again,—to abandon Densdeth, and set myself forever against him and all his kind.”
“Is that your purpose? My poor help you shall have,” said Churm.
“Yes; I have been all day resisting my impulse to come and betray the man,—if this is treachery. But the remembrance of Miss Denman’s pale face, as she looked friendlessly out of the carriage, has been shaming me all day, commanding me to break my fealty to sin, and obey my manly nature,—what there is left of it. I have obeyed at last.”
“You have done well and honorably, Mr. Raleigh,” said Churm, grasping his hand.
“Yes,” said I, “Raleigh, I knew it was in you, and would come out.”
“Thank you, Byng. Thank you, Mr. Churm,” said he, gravely. “And now to help the lady! What are you going to do?”
“I am going to drive straight to Huffmire’s, and demand her.”
“Will he give her up without legal proceedings?”
“Probably not. I must take them, in time. I am convinced that Denman does not know of this. He still believes his daughter dead. But he would act with Densdeth. I mean to-day to let Huffmire know that the lady has friends, who are not to be trifled with, and that he is held responsible for her safety. Perhaps I shall set Byng sentinel over the house, to see that she is not spirited away again.”
“Are we to be rough or smooth?” said I. “Do we want arms?”
And I glanced toward the table, where, at Towner’s elbow, lay a long, keen, antique dagger, out of Stillfleet’s collection. Its present peaceful use was to cut the leaves of novels, or the paper edges of a cigar-box.
“No arms!” said Churm, following my eye. “We might meet a wrong-doer, and be tempted to anticipate the vengeance of God.”
I had forgotten, and did forget, in this excitement, to ask Towner what use Densdeth made of his dark room.
28
Densdeth’s Farewell
“The carriage is here,” said Locksley, at the door. What with indignation at Densdeth, the janitor had got far beyond his usual bristly porcupine condition. He presented a spiky aspect. I hope no boy of the Chrysalids tried a tussle with him that day.
“Will you allow me to join your party?” Raleigh asked. “I may make myself of use.”
“Certainly. Well, Towner, we leave you with friend Locksley. But, man!” continued Churm, in surprise, “what have you been doing to yourself?”
Well he might be astonished! Towner had risen, and was standing erect and vigorous. His manner was eager, almost to wildness. His little, unmeaning eyes were open wide, as if he saw something that made him young and unwrinkled again. There was a hot, hectic spot in his cheek, just now mere pale parchment.
“Embers ablaze at last!” thought I. “The man has struck a blow for freedom, and now he begins to hunger for vengeance. He has shaken off Densdeth; he looks as if he could turn and tear him.”
“I should like to go with you, Mr. Churm, if you please,” said Towner. “The drive will do me good. Huffmire knows me. He might open his doors to me, as Densdeth’s friend, when he would exclude you.”
“Very well,” said Churm; “come, if you feel strong enough. But you must let Locksley fit you out with clothes.”
Towner hurried off with the janitor. He had skulked into my room, at the beginning of the interview, like a condemned spy; he moved away like a brave and a victor.
“I take him,” said Churm, “because I doubt his resolution. The old allegiance might prove too strong. He might confess to Densdeth that he had confessed to us. That would baffle us. We must not lose sight of him.”
“Churm,” said I, “I go with you, of course, through thick and thin. But Cecil Dreeme,—I feel that my first duty is to seek and succor him. I long to aid the young lady. But she is a stranger, and has you. Dreeme is part of my heart, and has no one.”
“Patience, Robert! One thing at a time. Let us but run Densdeth to earth, and I dare promise you will find your friend. You for yours, and I for mine, and both against the common foe, we must prevail. If I doubted one moment of my child’s safety, I should not be searching for her now, but chasing him.”
“Not to impose upon him the mild sentence you spoke of long ago? Not to condemn him to bless as many lives as he has cursed?”
“I fear it is too late for such gentle treatment. Do you suppose Towner, a life so cursed as his, will be contented with that indirect application of the lex talionis? No; Densdeth must be stopped and punished.”
The boys of Chrysalis, the College, were swarming in the corridor and upon the staircase under the plaster fan-tracery as we passed. Little enough of the honey of learning had they sucked from their mullein-stalk of a professor that day, and they buzzed indignantly or bumbled surlily about. Far different was the kind of education and discipline I was getting in the same cloisters. The great book of sin and sorrow, that time-worn, tear-marked, blood-stained volume, had been opened to me here, and I was reading it by the light of my own experience. And as I read, I felt that there were pages awaiting my record,—pages that I could already fill, and others that the future would sternly teach me to fill, before my story ended.
At the great western door we found Churm’s drag, with the bays. Towner came out, muffled in an old blue camlet cloak,—a garment that the moths had disdained for a score of years, when in Locksley’s prosperity they had choice pasturage of broadcloth to graze over. This queer figure and the elegant Raleigh took the back seat. Churm and I were on the box.
Churm’s bays are not known to the Racing Calendar; but there are teams of renown that always pull up on the road, when they hear the accurate cadence of their coming hoofs, and recognize Churm’s peculiar whistle as he signals, “More seconds out of that mile!” We drove fast through town to the nearest ferry, crossed, and presently, off the stones across the water, bowled along the Bushley turnpike, as merrily as if we were on our way to a country wedding festival. Little was said. We knew the past, and that was too painful to talk of. We did not know the future, and could not interpret its omens.
From time to time I turned to glance at Towner. He sat erect and alert, with cheeks burning and eyes aflame. The inner fire had kindled up his manhood again. “I would not give much for Densdeth’s life,” thought I, “if his late serf should meet him now. The man is capable of one spasm of vengeance. He looks, with his twitching face and uneasy fingers, as if he could rend the being that has debased him, and then die.”
So we drove on, mile after mile, in the chilly March afternoon, and at last pulled up at a door, in a white stuccoed wall,—a whited wall, edging the road like a bank of stale snow. Within we could see an ugly, dismal house, equally stuccoed white, peering suspiciously at us over the top of the enclosure, from its sinister grated windows of the upper story.
A boy was walking up and down the road at a little distance a fine black horse, all in a lather with hard riding, and cut with the spurs. The animal plunged about furiously, almost dragging the lad off his feet.
“You will see Huffmire, Towner,” said Churm, “and tell him that I want to talk with him.”
“Yes,” cried Towner, eagerly, “let me manage it!”
He shook off his cloak, sprang down with energetic step, and rang the bell. A man looked through a small shutter in the door, and asked his business, gruffly enough.
“Tell Dr. Huffmire that Mr. Towner wishes to see him.”
The porter presently returned, and said that Dr. Huffmire would see the gentleman, alone.
“Huffmire will know my name. Send him out here to me, Towner, if he will come; if not, do you make the necessary inquiries,” said Churm.
Towner passed in. The porter closed the outer door upon him, and then looked through the shutter at us, with a truculent stare, as if he were accustomed to inquisitive visitors, and liked to baffle them. He had but one eye, and his effect, as he grinned through the square porthole in the gate, was singularly Cyclopean and ogre-ish. He probably regarded men merely as food, sooner or later, for insane asylums,—as morsels to be quietly swallowed or forcibly choked down by the jaws of Retreats.
“What!” whispered Raleigh to me, as the boy led the snorting and curvetting black horse by us. “That fellow at the eye-hole magnetized me at first. I did not notice that horse. Do you know it?”
“No,” said I. “I have never seen him. A splendid fellow! His rider must have been in hot haste to get here. Perhaps some errand like our own!”
“Densdeth,” again whispered Raleigh, “Densdeth told me he had been looking at a new black horse.”
We glanced at each other. All felt that Densdeth’s appearance here, at this moment, might be harmful. Churm’s name brought Huffmire speedily to the door. Churm, the philanthropist, was too powerful a man to offend. Huffmire opened the door, and stood just within, defending the entrance. He was a large man, with a large face,—large in every feature, and exaggerated where for proportion it should have been small. He suffered under a general rush of coarseness to the face. He had a rush of lymphatic puffiness to the cheeks, a rush of blubber to the lips, a rush of gristle to his clumsy nose, a rush of lappel to the ears, a rush of dewlap to the throat. A disgusting person,—the very type of man for a vulgar tyrant. His straight black hair was brushed back and combed behind the ears. He was in the sheep’s clothing of a deacon.
“You have a young lady here, lately arrived?” said Churm, bowing slightly, in return to the other’s cringing reverence.
“I have several, sir. Neither youth nor beauty is exempt, alas! from the dreadful curse of insanity, which I devote myself, in my humble way, to eradicate. To e-rad-i-cate,” he repeated, dwelling on the syllables of his word, as if he were tugging, with brute force, at something that came up hard,—as if madness were a stump, and he were a cogwheel machine extracting it.
“I wish to know,” said Churm, in his briefest and sternest mann
er, “if a young lady named Denman was brought here yesterday.”
“Denman, sir! No sir. I am happy to be able to state to you, sir, that there is no unfortunate of that name among my patients,—no one of that name,—I rejoice to satisfy you.”
“I suppose you know who I am,” said Churm. I saw his fingers clutch his whip-handle.
A rush of oiliness seemed to suffuse the man’s coarse face. “It is the well-known Mr. Churm,” said he. “The fame of his benevolence is coextensive with our country, sir. Who does not love him?—the friend of the widow and the orphan! I am proud, sir, to make your acquaintance. This is a privilege, indeed,—indeed, a most in-es-ti-ma-ble pri-vile-age.”
“Do you think me a safe man to lie to?” said Churm, abruptly.
“I confess that I do not take your meaning, sir,” said Huffmire, in the same soft manner, but stepping back a little.
“Do you think it safe to lie to me?”
“I, sir! lie, sir!” stammered Huffmire. The oiliness seemed to coagulate in his muddy skin, and with his alarm his complexion took the texture and color of soggy leather.
“Yes; the lady is here. I wish to see her.”
As Churm was silent, looking sternly at the pretended doctor, there rose suddenly within the building a strange and horrible cry.
A strange and horrible cry! Two voices mingled in its discord. One was a well-known mocking tone, now smitten with despair; and yet the change that gave it its horror was so slight, that I doubted if the old mockery had not all the while been despair, suppressed and disguised. The other voice, mingling with this, rising with it up into silence that grew stiller as they climbed, and then, disentangling itself, over-topping its companion, and beating it slowly down until it had ceased to be,—this other voice was like the exulting cry of one defeated and trampled under foot, who yet has saved a stab for his victor.
They had met—Towner and Densdeth!
We three sprang from the carriage, thrust aside the Doctor, and, following our memories of the dead sound for a clew, ran across the court and through a half-open door into the hall of the Asylum.
Cecil Dreeme Page 22
