XV
THE PICTURE
NIGHT! and Deborah Scoville waiting anxiously for Reuther to sleep, thatshe might brood undisturbed over a new and disturbing event which forthe whole day had shaken her out of her wonted poise, and given, as itwere, a new phase to her life in this house.
Already had she stepped several times to her daughter's room and lookedin, only to meet Reuther's unquiet eye turned towards hers in silentinquiry. Was her own uneasiness infectious? Was the child determined toshare her vigil? She would wait a little longer this time and see.
Their rooms were over the parlour and thus as far removed as possiblefrom the judge's den. In her own, which was front, she felt at perfectease, and it was without any fear of disturbing either him or Reutherthat she finally raised her window and allowed the cool wind to sootheher heated cheeks.
How calm the aspect of the lawn and its clustering shrubs. Dimly seenthough they were through the leaves of the vines she had but partiallyclipped, she felt the element of peace which comes with perfect quiet,and was fain to forget for awhile the terrors it so frequently conceals.The moon, which had been invisible up to this moment, emerged fromskurrying clouds as she quietly watched the scene; and in an instant herpeace was gone and all the thronging difficulties of her position camerushing back upon her in full force, as all the details of the scene, somercifully hidden just now, flashed again upon her vision.
Perched, as she was, in a window overlooking the lane, she had but tolift her eyes from the double fence (that symbol of sad seclusion) tolight on the trees rising above that unspeakable ravine, black withmemories she felt strangely like forgetting to-night. Beyond ... how itstood out on the bluff! it had never seemed to stand out morethreateningly!... the bifurcated mass of dismal ruin from which men hadturned their eyes these many years now! But the moon loved it; caressedit; dallied with it, lighting up its toppling chimney and empty, staringgable. There, where the black streak could be seen, she had stood withthe judge in that struggle of wills which had left its scars upon themboth to this very day. There, hidden but always seen by those whoremembered the traditions of the place, mouldered away the walls of thatold closet where the timorous, God-stricken suicide had breathed out hissoul. She had stood in it only the other day, penned from outsiders'view by the judge's outstretched arms. Then, she had no mind for bygonehorrors, her own tragedy weighed too heavily upon her; but to-night, asshe gazed, fascinated, anxious to forget herself, anxious to indulge inany thought which would relieve her from dwelling on the question shemust settle before she slept, she allowed her wonder and her revulsionto have free course. Instead of ignoring, she would recall the story ofthe place as it had been told her when she first came to settle in itsneighbourhood.
Spencer's Folly! Well, it had been that, and Spencer's den ofdissipation too! There were great tales--but it was not of these she wasthinking, but of the night of storm--(of the greatest storm of which anyrecord remained in Shelby) when the wind tore down branches and toppleddown chimneys; when cattle were smitten in the field and men on thehighway; when the old bridge, since replaced, buckled up and sank in theroaring flood it could no longer span, and the bluff towering overhead,flared into flame, and the house which was its glory, was smitten apartby the descending bolt as by a Titan sword, and blazed like a beacon tothe sky.
This was long before she herself had come to Shelby; but she had beentold the story so often that it was quite as vivid to her as if she hadbeen one of the innumerable men and women who had crowded theglistening, swimming streets to view this spectacle of destruction. Thefamily had been gone for months, and so no pity mingled with theexcitement. Not till the following day did the awful nature of the eventbreak in its full horror upon the town. Among the ruins, in a closetwhich the flames had spared, they found hunched up in one corner, thebody of a man, in whose seared throat a wound appeared which had notbeen made by lightning or fire. Spencer! Spencer himself, returned theyknew not how, to die of this self-inflicted wound, in the dark corner ofhis grand but neglected dwelling.
And this was what made the horror of the place till the tragedy of theopposite hollow added crime to crime, and the spot became outlawed toall sensitive citizens. Folly and madness and the vengeance of highheaven upon unhallowed walls, spoke to her from that towering mass,bathed though it was just now in liquid light under the impartial moon.
But as she continued to survey it, the clouds came trooping up oncemore, and the vision was wiped out and with it all memories save thoseof a nearer trouble--a more pressing necessity.
Withdrawing from the window, she crept again to Reuther's room andpeered carefully in. Innocence was asleep at last. Not a movementdisturbed the closed lids on the wax-like cheek. Even the breath came sosoftly that it hardly lifted the youthful breast. Repose the mostperfect and in the form of all others the sweetest to a tender mother,lay before her and touched her already yearning heart to tears. Lightinga candle and shielding it with her hand, she gazed long and earnestly atReuther's sweet face. Yes, she was right. Sorrow was slowly sapping thefountain of her darling's youth. If Reuther was to be saved, hope mustcome soon. With a sob and a prayer, the mother left the room, andlocking herself into her own, sat down at last to face the newperplexity, the monstrous enigma which had come into her life.
It had followed in natural sequence from a proposal made by the judgethat some attention should be given his long-neglected rooms. He hadsaid on rising from the breakfast table--(the words are more or lessimportant):
"I am really sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Scoville; but if you have timethis morning, will you clean up my study before I leave? The carriage isordered for half-past nine."
The task was one she had long desired to perform, and would have urgedupon him daily had she dared, but the limitations he set for itsaccomplishment struck her aghast.
"Do you mean that you wish to remain there while I work? You will bechoked, Judge."
"No more than I have been for the last two days. You may enter anytime." And going in, he left the door open behind him.
"He will lock it when he goes out," she commented to herself. "I hadbetter hasten."
Giving Reuther the rest of the work to do, she presently appeared beforehim with pail and broom and a pile of fresh linen. Nothing morecommonplace could be imagined, but to her, if not to him, there underlaythis especial act of ordinary housewifery a possible enlightenment on asubject which had held the whole community in a state of curiosity foryears. She was going to enter the room which had been barred from publicsight by poor Bela's dying body. She was going to see--or had he onlymeant that she was to have her way with the library--the room where shehad already been and much of which she remembered. The doubt gave atremulous eagerness to her step and caused her eye to wander immediatelyto that forbidden corner soon as she had stepped over the threshold.
The bedroom door was open;--proof that she was expected to enter there.Meanwhile, she felt the eye of the judge upon her and endeavoured topreserve a perfect composure and to sink the curious and inquiring womanin the diligent housekeeper.
But she could not, quite. Two facts of which she immediately becamecognisant, prevented this. First, the great room before her presented abare floor, whereas on her first visit it had been very decently, if notcheerfully, covered by a huge carpet rug. Secondly, the judge's chair,which had once looked immovable, had been dragged forward into such aposition that he could keep his own eye on the bedroom door. Manifestlyshe was not to be allowed to pursue her duties unwatched. Certainly shehad to take more than one look at the every-day implements she carried toretain that balance of judgment which should prevent her from becomingthe dupe of her own expectations.
"I do not expect you to clean up here as thoroughly as you have your ownrooms up stairs," he remarked, as she passed him. "You haven't the time,or I the patience for too many strokes of the broom. And Mrs. Scoville,"he called out as she slipped through the doorway, "leave the door openand keep away as much as possible from the side of the room whe
re I havenailed up the curtain. I had rather not have that touched."
She turned with a smile and nodded. She felt that she had been set towork with a string tied round her feet. Not touch the curtain! Why, thatwas the one thing in the room she wanted to touch; for in it she notonly saw the carpet which had been taken up from the floor of the study,but a possible screen behind which anything might lurk--even hisredoubtable secret.
Or had it another and much simpler explanation? Might it not have beenhung there merely as a shield to the window. The room must have a windowand there was none to be seen elsewhere. It would be like him to shutout light and air. She would ask.
"There is no window," she observed, looking back at the judge.
"No," was his short reply.
Slowly she set down her pail. One thing was settled. It was Bela's cotshe saw before her--a cot without any sheets. These had been left behindin the dead negro's room, and the judge had been sleeping just as shehad feared, wrapped in a rug and with uncovered pillow. This pillow washis own; it had not been brought down with the bed. She hastily slippeda cover on it, and without calling any further attention to her act,began to make up the bed.
Conscious that the papers he made a feint of reading were but a coverfor his watchfulness, she moved about in a matter-of-fact way and didnot spare him the clouds of dust which presently rose before her broom.She could have managed it more deftly,--would have done so at anothertime, but it was her express intention just now to make him move backout of her way, if only to give her an opportunity to disturb by abackward stroke of her broom the folds of the carpet-rug and learn ifshe could what lay hidden behind it.
But the judge was impervious to discomfort. He coughed and shook hishead, but did not budge an inch. Before she had begun to put things inorder, the clock struck the half-hour.
"Oh!" she protested, with a pleading glance his way, "I'm not halfdone."
"There's another day to follow," he dryly remarked, rising and taking akey from his pocket.
The act expressed his wishes; and she was proceeding to carry out herthings when a quick sliding noise from the wall she was passing, drewher attention and caused her to spring forward in an involuntary effortto catch a picture which had slipped its cord and was falling to thefloor.
A shout from the judge of "Stand aside, let me come!" reached her toolate. She had grasped and lifted the picture and seen--
But first, let me explain. This picture was not like the others hangingabout. It was a veiled one. From some motive of precaution orcharacteristic desire for concealment on the part of the judge, it hadbeen closely wrapped about in heavy brown paper before being hung, andin the encounter which ensued between the falling picture and the spearof an image standing on a table underneath, this paper had received aslit through which Deborah had been given a glimpse of the canvasbeneath.
The shock of what she saw would have unnerved a less courageous woman.
IT WAS A HIGHLY FINISHED PORTRAIT OF OLIVER IN HIS YOUTH, WITH A BROADBAND OF BLACK PAINTED DIRECTLY ACROSS THE EYES.