CHAPTER THREE.
The discovery of the beautiful daughter of Mynheer Poots had made astrong impression upon Philip Vanderdecken, and now he had anotherexcitement to combine with those which already overcharged his bosom.He arrived at his own house, went upstairs, and threw himself on the bedfrom which he had been roused by Mynheer Poots. At first, he recalledto his mind the scene we have just described, painted in his imaginationthe portrait of the fair girl, her eyes, her expression, her silvervoice, and the words which she had uttered; but her pleasing image wassoon chased away by the recollection that his mother's corpse lay in theadjoining chamber, and that his father's secret was hidden in the roombelow.
The funeral was to take place the next morning, and Philip, who, sincehis meeting with the daughter of Mynheer Poots, appeared even to himselfnot so anxious for immediate examination of the room, resolved that hewould not open it until after the melancholy ceremony. With thisresolution he fell asleep; and, exhausted with bodily and mentalexcitement, he did not wake until the next morning, when he was summonedby the priest to assist at the funeral rites. In an hour all was over;the crowd dispersed, and Philip, returning to the cottage, bolted thedoor that he might not be interrupted, and felt happy that he was alone.
There is a feeling in our nature which will arise when we again findourselves in the tenement where death has been, and all traces of ithave been removed. It is a feeling of satisfaction and relief at havingrid ourselves of the memento of mortality, the silent evidence of thefutility of our pursuits and anticipations. We know that we must oneday die, but we always wish to forget it. The continual remembrancewould be too great a check upon our mundane desires and wishes; and,although we are told that we ever should have futurity in our thoughts,we find that life is not to be enjoyed if we are not permittedoccasional forgetfulness. For who would plan what rarely he ispermitted to execute, if each moment of the day he thought of death? Weeither hope that we may live longer than others, or we forget that wemay not.
If this buoyant feeling had not been planted in our nature, how littlewould the world have been improved even from the Deluge! Philip walkedinto the room where his mother had lain one short hour before, andunwittingly felt relief. Taking down the cabinet, he now recommencedhis task; the back panel was soon removed, and a secret drawerdiscovered; he drew it out, and it contained what he presumed to be theobject of his search,--a large key with a slight coat of rust upon it,which came off upon its being handled. Under the key was a paper, thewriting on which was somewhat discoloured; it was in his mother's hand,and ran as follows:--
"It is now two nights since a horrible event took place which hasinduced me to close the lower chamber, and my brain is still burstingwith terror. Should I not, during my lifetime, reveal what occurred,still this key will be required, as at my death the room will be opened.When I rushed from it I hastened upstairs, and remained that night withmy child; the next morning I summoned up sufficient courage, to go down,turn the key and bring it up into my chamber. It is now closed till Iclose my eyes in death. No privation, no suffering, shall induce me toopen it, although in the iron cupboard under the buffet farthest fromthe window, there is money sufficient for all my wants; that money willremain there for my child, to whom, if I do not impart the fatal secret,he must be satisfied that it is one which it were better should beconcealed,--one so horrible as to induce me to take the steps which Inow do. The keys of the cupboards and buffets were, I think, lying onthe table, or in my work-box, when I quitted the room. There is aletter on the table--at least I think so. It is sealed. Let not theseal be broken but by my son, and not by him unless he knows the secret.Let it be burnt by the priest,--for it is cursed;--and even should myson know all that I do, oh, let him pause,--let him reflect well beforehe breaks the seal,--for 'twere better he should know NO MORE!"
"Not know more!" thought Philip, as his eyes were still fixed upon thepaper. "Yes, but I must and will know more, so forgive me dearestmother, if I waste no time in reflection. It would be but time thrownaway, when one is resolved as I am."
Philip pressed his lips to his mother's signature, folded up the paperand put it into his pocket; then taking the key, he proceededdownstairs.
It was about noon when Philip descended to open the chamber; the sunshone bright, the sky was clear, and all without was cheerful andjoyous. The front door of the cottage being closed, there was not muchlight in the passage when Philip put the key into the lock of thelong-closed door, and with some difficulty turned it round. To say thatwhen he pushed open the door he felt no alarm would not be correct; hedid feel alarm, and his heart palpitated; but he felt more than wasrequisite of determination to conquer that alarm, and to conquer more,should more be created by what he should behold. He opened the door,but did not immediately enter the room: he paused where he stood, for hefelt as if he was about to intrude into the retreat of a disembodiedspirit, and that that spirit might reappear. He waited a minute, forthe effort of opening the door had taken away his breath, and, as herecovered himself, he looked within.
He could but imperfectly distinguish the objects in the chamber, butthrough the joints of the shutters there were three brilliant beams ofsunshine forcing their way across the room, which at first induced himto recoil as if from something supernatural; but a little reflectionreassured him. After about a minute's pause, Philip went into thekitchen, lighted a candle, and, sighing deeply two or three times as ifto relieve his heart, he summoned his resolution, and walked towards thefatal room. He first stopped at the threshold, and, by the light of thecandle, took a hasty survey. All was still: and the table on which theletter had been left, being behind the door, was concealed by its beingopened. It must be done, thought Philip: and why not at once? continuedhe, resuming his courage; and, with a firm step, he walked into the roomand went to unfasten the shutters. If his hand trembled a little whenhe called to mind how supernaturally they had last been opened, it isnot surprising. We are but mortal, and we shrink from contact withaught beyond this life. When the fastenings were removed and theshutters unfolded, a stream of light poured into the room so vivid as todazzle his eyesight; strange to say, this very light of a brilliant dayoverthrew the resolution of Philip more than the previous gloom anddarkness had done; and with the candle in his hand, he retreated hastilyinto the kitchen to re-summon his courage, and there he remained forsome minutes with his face covered, and in deep thought.
It is singular that his reveries at last ended by reverting to the fairdaughter of Mynheer Poots, and her first appearance at the window; andhe felt as if the flood of light which had just driven him from the one,was not more impressive and startling than her enchanting form at theother. His mind dwelling upon this beauteous vision appeared to restorePhilip's confidence; he now rose and boldly walked into the room. Weshall not describe the objects it contained as they chanced to meet theeyes of Philip, but attempt a more lucid arrangement.
The room was about twelve or fourteen feet square, with but one window;opposite to the door stood the chimney and fireplace, with a high buffetof dark wood on each side. The floor of the room was not dirty,although about its upper parts spiders had run their cobwebs in everydirection. In the centre of the ceiling hung a quicksilver globe, acommon ornament in those days, but the major part of it had lost itsbrilliancy, the spiders' webs enclosing it like a shroud. Over thechimney-piece were hung two or three drawings, framed and glazed, but adusty mildew was spotted over the glass, so that little of them could bedistinguished. In the centre of the mantelpiece was an image of theVirgin Mary, of pure silver, in a shrine of the same metal, but it wastarnished to the colour of bronze or iron; some Indian figures stood oneach side of it. The glass doors of the buffets on each side of thechimney-piece were also so dimmed that little of what was within couldbe distinguished: the light and heat which had been poured into theroom, even for so short a time, had already gathered up the damp of manyyears, and it lay as a mist, and mingled with the dust upon the panes ofglass
: still here and there a glittering of silver vessels could bediscerned, for the glass doors had protected them from turning black,although much dimmed in lustre.
On the wall facing the window were other prints, in frames equallyveiled in damp and cobwebs and also two bird-cages. The bird-cagesPhilip approached, and looked into them. The occupants, of course, hadlong been dead; but at the bottom of the cages was a small heap ofyellow feathers, through which the little white bones of the skeletonswere to be seen, proving that they had been brought from the CanaryIsles; and, at that period, such birds were highly valued. Philipappeared to wish to examine everything before he sought that which hemost dreaded, yet most wished, to find. There were several chairs roundthe room: on one of them was some linen; he took it up. It was somethat must have belonged to him when he was yet a child. At last, Philipturned his eyes to the wall not yet examined (that opposite the chimneypiece), through which the door was pierced, and behind the door as itlay open, he was to find the table, the couch, the work-box, and theFATAL LETTER. As he turned round, his pulse, which had graduallyrecovered its regular motion, beat more quickly, but he made the effort,and it was over. At first he examined the walls, against which werehung swords and pistols of various sorts but chiefly Asiatic bows andarrows, and other implements of destruction. Philip's eyes graduallydescended upon the table and little couch behind it, where his motherstated herself to have been seated when his father made his awful visit.The work-box and all its implements were on the table, just as she hadleft them. The keys she mentioned were also lying there, but Philiplooked, and looked again; there was no letter, he now advanced nearer,examined closely--there was none that he could perceive, either on thecouch or on the table--or on the floor. He lifted up the work-box toascertain if it was beneath--but no. He examined among its contents,but no letter was there. He turned over the pillows of the couch, butstill there was no letter to be found. And Philip felt as if there hadbeen a heavy load removed from his panting chest. "Surely, then,"thought he, as he leant against the wall, "this must have been thevision of a heated imagination. My poor mother must have fallen asleep,and dreamt this horrid tale. I thought it was impossible, at least Ihoped so. It must have been as I suppose; the dream was too powerful,too like a fearful reality,--partially unseated my poor mother'sreason." Philip reflected again, and was then satisfied that hissuppositions were correct.
"Yes, it must have been so, poor dear mother! how much thou hastsuffered; but thou art now rewarded, and with thy God."
After a few minutes (during which he surveyed the room again and againwith more coolness, and perhaps some indifference, now that he regardedthe supernatural history as not true), Philip took out of his pocket thewritten paper found with the key, and read it over,--"The iron cupboardunder the buffet farthest from the window."
"'Tis well." He took the bunch of keys from off the table, and soonfitted one to the outside wooden doors which concealed the iron safe. Asecond key on the bunch opened the iron doors; and Philip found himselfin possession of a considerable sum of money, amounting, as near as hecould reckon, to ten thousand guilders, in little yellow sacks.
"My poor mother!" thought he; "and has a mere dream scared thee topenury and want, with all this wealth in thy possession?" Philipreplaced the sacks, and locked up the cupboards, after having taken outof one, already half emptied, a few pieces for his immediate wants. Hisattention was next directed to the buffets above, which with one of thekeys, he opened; he found that they contained china, and silver flagons,and cups of considerable value. The locks were again turned, and thebunch of keys thrown upon the table.
The sudden possession of so much wealth added to the conviction, towhich Philip had now arrived that there had been no supernaturalappearance, as supposed, by his mother, naturally revived and composedhis spirits; and he felt a reaction which amounted almost to hilarity.Seating himself on the couch, he was soon in a reverie, and, as beforereverted to the lovely daughter of Mynheer Poots indulging in variouscastle-buildings, all ending, as usual, when we choose for ourselves, incompetence and felicity. In this pleasing occupation he remained formore than two hours, when his thoughts again reverted to his poor motherand her fearful death.
"Dearest, kindest mother!" apostrophised Philip aloud, as he rose fromhis leaning position, "here thou wert, tired with watching over myinfant slumbers, thinking of my absent father and his dangers, workingup thy mind and anticipating evil, till thy fevered sleep conjured upthis apparition. Yes, it must have been so; for see here, lying on thefloor, is the embroidery, as it fell from thy unconscious hands, andwith that labour ceased thy happiness in this life. Dear, dear mother!"continued he; a tear rolling down his cheek as he stooped to pick up thepiece of muslin, "how much hast thou suffered when--God of Heaven!"exclaimed Philip, as he lifted up the embroidery, starting back withviolence, and overturning the table, "God of Heaven, and of Judgment,there is--there _is_," and Philip clasped his hands, and bowed his headin awe and anguish, as in a changed and fearful tone he mutteredforth--"the LETTER!"
It was but too true,--underneath the embroidery on the floor had lainthe fatal letter of Vanderdecken. Had Philip seen it on the table whenhe first went into the room, and was prepared to find it, he would havetaken it up with some degree of composure: but to find it now, when hehad persuaded himself that it was all an illusion on the part of hismother; when he had made up his mind that there had been no supernaturalagency; after he had been indulging in visions of future bliss andrepose, was a shock that transfixed him where he stood and for some timehe remained in his attitude of surprise and terror. Down at once fellthe airy fabric of happiness which he had built up during the last twohours; and as he gradually recovered from his alarm, his heart filledwith melancholy forebodings. At last he dashed forward, seized theletter, and burst out of the fatal room.
"I cannot, dare not, read it here," exclaimed he: "no, no, it must beunder the vault of high and offended Heaven, that the message must bereceived." Philip took his hat, and went out of the house; in calmdespair he locked the door, took out the key, and walked he knew notwhither.