“Have you the secret, my lord?”
“I have; the two boxes are in my study, but calm your agitation, for you know that Squire Hardpuller will soon be here, and should you bring yourself to think of giving up Gadzooks, why, he is rich, and I do not object to the idea of having him for a son-in-law.” So saying, the Marquis left Ermetta to her tears and lamentations.
Chapter II. THE SECRET DIES.
Now that she was alone, Lady Ermetta gave full vent to her grief. “I can never give him up,” she murmured, between her convulsive sobs; “I feel that he is entwined around the very tendrils of my existence. We were to have been married in the third chapter, and now—this is the second, and we are to be separated. And what separates us? A secret! A secret that sleeps. Sleeps, why should it awake, why should it not die:” and uttering these last words in the strange hissing tone used by people who have determined on perpetrating some crime, Ermetta raised her head and stared into vacancy, with a cold hard look stealing over her sweet face.
The tears soon ceased to flow, her hands clenched themselves tightly, and she who might but just now have stood for a statue of the weeping daughter of Tantalus, was transformed into Lady Macbeth, demanding the daggers. Muttering sternly, “It shall be so,” she left the apartment with a step befitting a representative of that strong-minded woman.
Let us watch her as she enters her father’s study, where the light falls but dimly through the deep-set windows, as though winking at the deed about to be done. Watch her as she kneels before two quaintly carved ebony boxes, and applies her ear to the keyhole of each in turn. Watch her as the look of gratification steals over her face on detecting, in one, a low but perfectly distinct and regular respiration, the ghost of a feeble snore. Watch her as she applies the key to the lock, lifts the lid, and takes out the secret—takes it out gently and carefully, with the tender touch of a woman, so as not to disturb the slumber that has lasted now so long. Watch her, the guilty thing, as she starts at hearing the sound of voices in the hall, and, concealing the secret in her pocket, passes from the room to hasten to receive her expected visitor. As yet the deed is not done. As yet she can gaze out of those clear blue eyes with a soul unstained by actual murder. But how long will her innocence last; even now as she stands by the window in the morning room where she intends to receive her would-be suitor, the weird, wild look that must have been ever on the faces of the Di Medici and Brinvilliers is visible. She has deposited the secret (still asleep) on a chair, and she abides her time.
He comes. The door opens, and Squire Hardpuller is announced. She greets him with a winning smile that makes his heart bound again; poor man, he little thinks that she is bent upon making him accessory to her deed of death. Skillfully she backs him on to the chair of doom. Blandly she bids him be seated. Cordially she welcomes him. Will he look behind him? Will he apologise, and remove the innocent secret slumbering upon the seat of the chair?
No, Ermetta, your eyes have him spell bound. What man could look away when you smilingly desired him to take a seat? You have—alas! for beauty, for youth, for guileless innocence, and sweet simplicity—you have made a murderer of him. He is a heavy man, and he sits down on the secret. It is done, and fiends may chuckle ha! ha! Now to keep him there.
Squire Hardpuller was a sporting character; he had been introduced into a great many novels, and was always looked upon as a great bore by the other characters, on account of his endless stories of horses, dogs, runs, and other sporting anecdotes. In the present case nobody could have answered Ermetta’s purpose better; once fairly started upon his favorite and only topics, he prosed on contentedly for over two hours; then, blushing to find that his visit had trespassed on her time to such a length, he rose and made his adieux. She beamed on him to the last with her siren-like smile, and then, when he had gone, the reaction set in, and she who had listened unmoved for two mortal hours to a lot of sporting anecdotes, quailed before a dead secret. But such is human nature. She went to the chair in which he had sat; she lifted up the tissue paper containing the secret; with one white hand she held it to her ear, and with the other held her breath.
Not a sound, not the faintest suspicion of sound was to be heard. For nearly ten minutes did that high-bred resolute girl strain every nerve tighter than wire in a sheep-fence, but all was still. The secret, then, was dead. For a moment the rush of feeling overpowered her, then curiosity came to her aid; she would open the paper and see the secret. She had never seen a secret; she had often heard one. Nay, she had read a book called the Dead Secret; now she held one in her hand, she would see it.
She was about to unfold the covering of tissue paper, when a shadow fell across her, and somebody knocked at the window. She looked up startled. The car of a balloon was dangling in front of the glass, and seated in it was her father. She went to the window and opened it.
“Come, my child,” he said, “the third chapter is at hand, and we must be at the appointed place. Step in.” Putting her hand on the sill, Ermetta sprang lightly into the car of the balloon, which immediately commenced to ascend. She at once communicated the important event that had just taken place to her father, and carrying them with it the balloon soon became a mere speck in the blue regions of the infinite.
But a close observer, one of unequalled vision, might have detected a small minute object come fluttering down from the empyreal vastness. Down it descended, gyrating hither and thither, the sport of every wandering zephyr. They tossed it mockingly about, played with it, then let it fall lower and lower, until the broad bosom of the pitying earth received and sheltered it. It was the corpse of the poor murdered secret. And the shadow of the rock, on the sands of Plimlivon, is darker, and deeper than ever.
Chapter III. BARON GADZOOKS
Baron Gadzooks was walking up and down on the sands of Plimlivon. He looked out to sea, and tapped his teeth with the top of his pencil; in his hand he held a note-book. He was composing a poem. Presently he commenced to read it over.
Exsuffolating memory, get thee hence,
Nor seek to melodise the scathful past;
When rampant Ruin, drunk at my expense,
Rose, and the empty bottle at me cast.
“That’s rather good,” he said, thoughtfully; “the simile in the last line particularly, the empty bottle, stands for the dregs of life.”
That rounded throat, that wealth of tumbled hair:
That mouth so rose-like, kissable, and tender,
She’d glue to mine, as if she didn’t care
If suffocation should ensue and end her.
“Hem! that ought to fetch her,” he went on; “quite in the modern style; now for some thing hot and strong.”
Must I forget all these; if so, then let me
Be chained within a sea of fire volcanic.
“What will rhyme with ‘let me’? Let’s see. Wet me, pet me, bet me, get me, net me”; and the Baron cast his eyes upwards, for inspiration, and caught sight of a speck in the canopy of heaven overhead that made him shout “Ball-o-o-n!” Then suddenly remembering that he was one of the principal characters in a novel, and as such bound to act with propriety, he blushed, sat down, and commenced to pick his teeth with one of his gilt spurs. On second thought, however, he started up again, frowned fiercely, and in deep tragedy tones said: “Ha! ha! they come.” Then he picked up a telescope that had been left behind by a party of excursionists, because they knew that it would be wanted for my plot, and, applying it to his eye, gazed at the rapidly increasing speck.
“Ah!” he muttered, “I see her, there—now she winks; now—yes, she’s about to blow her nose. Angelic being! But hold! What’s this?”
The noise of horses galloping at top speed had struck upon his listening ear. Nearer they came, and two horsemen appeared tearing along the level sand. And hark! the beat of paddles. Over the surface of the hitherto tenantless deep glided a mighty steamer, with crowded decks, the captain standing on the bridge, and shouting, “Full speed ahead! full speed astern
!” alternately. A shrill whistle drew the Baron’s attention again inland. A traction engine, dragging a long string of carriages, appeared, full of characters out of all sorts of novels, who had got in for the sake of a ride. Amazement held the Baron dumb, so he said nothing. Nearer and nearer everything came, everybody cheering and waving another man’s hat. At once the occupants of the balloon stepped upon terra firma; the two horsemen, one being Squire Hardpuller, alighted from their panting steeds; the train disgorged its occupants, and the people from the steamer sprang into the sea and waded on shore.
They all approached and surrounded the Baron; they waited for him to speak, but he was silent.
“Read the will,” said a tall man who looked like a lawyer.
“I have no will,” said the Baron, “or I should not be here.”
“Then reveal the secret,” said another.
“Unfold the plot,” exclaimed a third.
“Open the red box,” said a fourth.
“Produce the real heir,” said a fifth.
“Bless you, my children,” said a sixth.
“Last dying speech and confession,” said a seventh.
Then spake the Lady Ermetta: “Baron, papa has consented; the Bishop is ready, and here are the witnesses.”
“Hurrah for the witnesses!” shouted everybody.
“Good heavens!” said the astounded Baron, “I know now what you mean. I was only introduced in this chapter; how the deuce am I to know what’s been done in the other two chapters?”
“He jibs!” said the Lady Ermetta, “and I have sinned in vain.” She would have fainted, but nobody seemed inclined to catch her, so she didn’t.
The Marquis then advanced, and in his usual dignified tone said, “Are there any bad characters present?”
Nobody was fool enough to answer yes.
“Then,” said the Marquis, turning to the Baron, “I am afraid that you must be the bad character of this story, and if so, Poetical Justice demands that you must be punished.”
“This is hard,” said the Baron, whose high bred composure did not desert him under these trying circumstances. “I came out here simply because I was informed that I was wanted for the proper completion of the plot, and now I am to be made a scapegoat of.”
“There is some show of reason in what you say,” said the Marquis; “so one more chance shall be given you.”
“Are there any bad characters present?” he again asked in a louder voice. As before, nobody was fool enough to answer yea.
“If there are any bad characters present,” he went on, “let them step forward and be hung instead of this innocent nobleman.”
At these awful words three bad characters, who had been hiding behind the big rock, waiting for a chance to commit a murder, or some thing of that sort, tried to sneak away unseen.
Squire Hardpuller, who had been anxiously looking out for an opportunity to cry tally-ho! and thereby identify himself as a sporting character, saw them, and immediately cried, “Stole away! yoicks! yoicks! away!”
With one consent the whole assemblage joined in the cry, and rushed in pursuit, with the exception of the Marquis and his daughter.
The Lady Ermetta had big feet and thick ankles, which she was frightened of showing if she ran, and the Marquis thought it beneath his dignity to go out of a walk.
“Ermetta,” said the Marquis gravely; “we are flummoxed.”
“Perhaps they’ll come back,” said Ermetta.
“I’m afraid not,” said the Marquis, looking after the fast vanishing multitude.
He was deceived, however. Nerved by despair, the three bad characters ran well, and now doubled back and came once more to the isolated rock on the sands.
Instantly new life seemed to enter into Ermetta; she whispered something to her father, who shook his head, and said, “too late,” but suffered his daughter to lead him behind the rock.
Breathing heavily—with their pursuers, headed by Hardpuller and Gadzooks, close upon their heels—the three bad characters approached;—they passed and made for the sea. As Gadzooks, in hot haste, pressed after them, running close by the fatal rock, a foot clad in a French kid boot, and a very substantial white-stockinged ankle, was thrust forth from behind it, right in front of him; he tripped, he fell; and the next moment the Marquis was holding him down.
“Poetical Justice!” he cried. “Poetical Justice!” echoed Ermetta, who limped a little, for the Baron in falling had inadvertently kicked her on the shin, and she didn’t like to rub it before so many people.
Everybody halted, glad of a spell, and the bad characters swam out to sea.
“Where’s the Bishop?” said the Marquis.
“Here,” cried his lordship, coming forward hot and perspiring.
“Look sharp, or the end of the chapter will be here,” said the Marquis.
Gadzooks was dragged to his feet, and held firmly, in spite of his struggles and protestations.
“Quick, or we shall be too late,” reiterated the Marquis.
“Never mind, papa, we have got him fast, and I can be married in the Epilogue.”
“Nonsense, my child, epilogues are only to tell the reader what he knows already.”
The Bishop gabbled over the service—“keep-thee-only-unto-her-as-long-as-ye-both shall-live?”
“I will!” yelled everybody, drowning the voice of the wretched Gadzooks, who said, “I won’t.”
Away went the Bishop again, etc, etc.
“I will!” said Ermetta; and she meant it.
“Thank goodness!” said the Marquis; “she’s off my hands!”
* * * *
Years have passed, and the rising tide has washed away the footsteps that were imprinted that morning on the sands of Plimlivon. But that lonely rock still holds its steadfast watch, and the shadow it casts is deeper and darker than ever. But the shadow on the heart of the stricken Gadzooks is deeper and darker still.
EPILOGUE
Now, during the reading of the latter portion of the foregoing story, a gleam of hope had shot across my brain. As soon, therefore, as the Spirit had finished, I proceeded to put it into practice.
“What do you think of that!” said the Spirit.
“I like it immensely,” I replied; “really you can’t think what a jolly year I anticipate; it will be all beer and skittles.”
The Spirit, I thought, looked slightly crest fallen.
“You’ve no idea,” I went on, “how dull it is up here; and now to have you to read these charming little stories to me—really, old fellow, it will be delightful.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” he answered. But I fancied that he seemed staggered.
“Now,” he said, opening his book again; “for the next, one of the real old sort—“How the King got his own again.”
“’Twas Christmas Eve, and a bitter cold one to boot. What of that? It but made the crackling log fire seem the warmer and snugger. ‘Be-shrew me!’ said mine host of the Holly Bush, as he stood with his back to it, warming his portly calves; ‘but if sad-colored garments and cropped heads are to be the fashion of the day, we shall scarce know Merry England.’”
He had got thus far before I could well stop him; then I interrupted him as blandly and politely as I could, “Excuse me; one moment. That promises to be a most interesting tale, but you will be tired and hoarse if you go on reading without pause. Now just to give you a spell I’ll sing you a song.”
“A what!” he said.
“A song—a carol. A Christmas carol.”
“You daren’t,” he said; but the blow had gone home I could see.
“No trouble at all, my dear fellow, just the reverse, and it’s one of my own composing too,” I added boldly, for I thought that I could see victory ahead.
I have no more voice than an alligator with a cold in its head, and scarcely know one tune from another, but without more ado I struck up:
Come, your hands entwine, for this toast is mine,
A health to Christmas
bold.
Round his head the leaves of the holly shine,
In his arms he does earth enfold.
“Patience! Grant me patience,” muttered the Spirit; but he seemed to clench his teeth firmly, as if with a determination to sit it out. I went on, and hurled the next verse at him like a boomerang:
When over the ground he spreads around
The snow that he so does love,
The robin comes out, and he looks about—
With one wild yell of anguish that made every sheet of iron in the roof ring like a bullock bell, the Spirit of Christmas started from the chair.
“Man! man! You have conquered. I forego my revenge. That robin is too much for me. Live unharmed by me; but,” and here his voice softened into a tone of beseeching pathos, “as you have some charity in your disposition, as you may stand in need of consideration and forbearance yourself some day, do not add to the heavy woes of a tortured Spirit by casting your additional stone. Do not ever again attempt to write a Christmas story.”
I was deeply touched, there was such a look of heartfelt anguish on his face.
“You promise?” he asked.
“I do.”
“Then, we part friends; but, ah! that robin,” and, waving me a parting salute, he stepped out into the glaring sunshine, and passed away.
MR. KRIS KRINGLE: A CHRISTMAS TALE, by S. Weir Mitchell
It was Christmas Eve. The snow had clad the rolling hills in white, as if in preparation for the sacred morrow. The winds, boisterous all day long, at fall of night ceased to roar amidst the naked forest, and now, the silent industry of the falling flakes made of pine and spruce tall white tents. At last, as the darkness grew, a deepening stillness came on hill and valley, and all nature seemed to wait expectant of the coming of the Christmas time.
Above the broad river a long, gray stone house lay quiet; its vine and roof heavy with the softly-falling snow, and showing no sign of light or life except in a feeble, red glow through the Venetian blinds of the many windows of one large room. Within, a huge fire of mighty logs lit up with distinctness only the middle space, and fell with variable illumination on a silent group about the hearth.
The Second Christmas Megapack Page 21
