Afternoon Tea Mysteries, Volume Two: A Collection of Cozy Mysteries (Four thrilling novels in one volume!)

by Marion Bryce

  It was near the top of the staircase and was fully as musty, faded and dismal as the rest. Yet there was an air of expectancy about too, that touched Paula deeply. From between the dingy hangings of the bed, looked forth a pair of downy pillows, edged with yellowed lace, and beneath them a neatly spread counterpane carefully turned back over comfortable-looking blankets, as one sees in a bed that only awaits its occupant; while on the ancient hearth, a pile of logs stood heaped and ready for the kindling match.

  “It is all waiting you see,” said the old lady in a trembling voice, “like everything else, just waiting.”

  There was an embroidery frame in one corner of the room, from which looked a piece of faded and half completed work. The needle was hanging from it by a thread, and a skein of green worsted hung over the top, Paula glanced at it inquiringly.

  “It is just as she left it! He never entered the room after she went and I would never let it be touched. It is just the same with the piano below. The last piece she played is still standing open on the rack. I loved her so, and I thought then that a few months would bring her back! See, here is her bible. She never used to read it, but she prized it because it was her mother’s. I have placed it on the pillow where she will see it when she comes to lay her poor tired head down to rest.” And with a reverent hand the aged matron drew the curtains back from the open bed, and disclosed the little bible lying thick with dust in the centre of the nearest pillow.

  “O who was this you loved so well? And why did she leave you?” cried Paula with the tears in her eyes, at sight of this humble token.

  The aged lady seized her hand and hurried her back into the room below. “I will tell you where I have waited and watched so long. Only be patient till I light the lamp. It is getting late and any chance wanderer going by and seeing all dark, might think I had forgotten my promise and was not here.”

  XXV. JACQUELINE.

  “The cold in clime are told in blood,

  And love as scarce deserves the name,

  But mine is like the lava flood

  That burns in Etna’s breast of flame.”

  —BYRON.

  “There are some men that have the appearance of being devoid of family affection, who in reality cherish it in the deepest and most passionate degree. Such a man was Colonel Japha. You have doubtless heard from your cradle what the neighbors thought of this stately, old fashioned gentleman. he was too handsome in his youth, too proudly reticent in his manhood, too self-contained and unrelenting in his age, not to be the talk of any town that numbered him among its inhabitants. But only from myself, a relative of the family and his housekeeper for years, can you learn with what undeviating faith and love he clung to the few upon whom he allowed his heart to fasten in affection. When he married Miss Carey, the world said, “he has chosen a beauty, because fine manners and a pretty face look well behind the Japha coffee-urn!” But we, that is, this same young wife and myself, knew that in marrying her he had taken unto himself his other half, the one sweet woman for whom his proud heart could beat and before whom his stately head could bow. When she died, the world exclaimed, ‘He will soon fill her place!’ But he who watched the last look that passed between them in the valley of the shadow of that death, knew that the years would come and the years would go without seeing Colonel Japha marry again.

  The little babe whom she left to his care, took all the love which he had left. From the moment it began to speak, he centered in its tiny life all the hope and all the pride of his solitary heart. And the Japha pride was nearly as great as the Japha heart. She was a pretty child; not a beauty like her mother or like you, my dear, who however so nearly resemble her. But for all that, pretty enough to satisfy the eyes of her secretly doting father, and her openly doting nurse and cousin. I say secretly doting father. I do not mean by that that he regarded her with an affection which he never displayed, but that it was his way to lavish his caresses at home and in the privacy of her little nursery. He never made a parade of anything but his pride. If he loved her, it was enough for her to know it. In the street and the houses of their friends, he was the strict, somewhat severe father, to whom her childish eyes lifted at first with awe, but afterwards with a quiet defiance, that when I first saw it, made my heart stand still with unreasoning alarm.

  “She was so reserved a child and yet so deeply passionate. From the beginning I felt that I did not understand her. I loved her, I have never loved any mortal as I did her—and do; but I could not follow her impulses or judge of her feelings by her looks.

  “When she grew older it was still worse. She never contradicted her father, or appeared in any open way to disobey his commands, or thwart him in his plans. Yet she always did what she pleased, and that so quietly, he frequently did not observe that matters had taken any other direction, than that which he had himself ordained. ‘It is her mother’s tact,’ he used to say. Alas it was something more than that; it was her father’s will united to the unscrupulousness of some forgotten ancestor.

  “But with the glamour of her eighteen years upon me, I did not recognize this then, any more than he. I saw her through the magic glasses of my own absorbing love, and tremble as I frequently would in the still scorn of her unfathomable passion, I never dreamed she could do anything that would seriously offend her father’s affection or mortify his pride. The truth is, that Jacqueline did not love us. Say what you will of the claims of kindred, and the right of every father to his children’s’ regard, Jacqueline Japha accepted the devotion that was lavished upon her, but she gave none in return. She could not, perhaps. Her father was too cold in public and too warm in his home-bursts of affection. I was plain and a widow; no mate for her in age, condition or estate. She could neither look up to me nor lean upon me. I had been her nurse in childhood and though a relative, was still a dependent; what was there in all that to love! If her mother had lived—But we will not dwell on possibilities. Jacqueline had no mother and no friend that was dear enough to her, to teach her unwilling soul the great lesson of self-control and sacrifice.

  “You will say that is strange. That situated as she was, she ought to have found friends both dear and congenial; but that would be to declare that Jacqueline was like others of her age and class, whereas she was single and alone; a dark-browed girl, who allured the gaze of both men and women, but who cared but little for any one till—But wait, child. I shall have to speak of matters that will cause your cheeks to blush. Lay your head down on my knee, for I cannot bear the sight of blushes upon a cheek more innocent than hers.”

  With a gentle movement she urged Paula to sit upon a little stool at her feet, pressed the young girl’s head down upon her lap, and burying the lovely brow beneath her aged hands, went hurriedly on.

  “You are young, dear, and may not know what it is to love a man. Jacqueline was young also, but from the moment she returned home to us from a visit she had been making in Boston, I perceived that something had entered her life that was destined to make a great change in her; and when a few weeks later, young Robert Holt from Boston, came to pay his respects to her in her father’s house, I knew, or thought I did, what that something was. We were sitting in this room I remember, when the servant-girl came in, and announced that Mr. Holt was in the parlor. Jacqueline was lying on the sofa, and her father was in his usual chair by the table. At the name, Holt, the girl rose as if it had suddenly thundered, or the lightning had flashed. I see her now. She was dressed in white—though it was early fall she still clung to her summer dresses—her dark hair was piled high, and caught here and there with old-fashioned gold pins, a splendid red rose burned on her bosom, and another flashed crimson as blood from her folded hands.

  “‘Holt?’ repeated the Colonel without turning his head, ‘I know no such man.’

  “‘He said he wished to see Miss Jacqueline,’ simpered the servant.

  “‘Oh,’ returned the Colonel indifferently. He never showed surprise before the servants—and went on with his book, still without tu
rning his head.

  “I thought if he had turned it, he would scarcely sit there reading so quietly; for Jacqueline who had not stirred from her alert and upright position, was looking at him in a way no father, least of all a father who loved his child as he did her, could have beheld without agitation. It was the glance of a tigress waiting for the sight of an inconsiderate move, in order to spring. It was wild unconstrainable joy, eyeing a possible check and madly defying it. I shuddered as I looked at her eye, and sickened as I perceived a huge drop of blood ooze from her white fingers, where they unconsciously clutched a thorn, and drop dark and disfiguring upon her virgin garments. At the indifferent exclamation of her father, her features relaxed, and she turned haughtily towards the girl, with a veiling of her secret delight that already bespoke the woman of the world.

  “‘Tell Mr. Holt that I will see him presently,’ said she, and was about to follow the girl from the room when I caught her by the sleeve.

  “‘You will have to change your dress,’ said I, and I pointed to the ominous blot disfiguring its otherwise spotless white.

  “She started and gave me a quick glance.

  “‘I have a skin like a spider’s web,” cried she. ‘I should never meddle with roses.’ But I noticed she did not toss the blossom away.

  “‘Who is this Mr. Holt?’ now asked the Colonel suddenly turning, the servant having left the room.

  “‘He is a gentleman I met in Boston,’ came from his daughter’s lips, in her usual light and easy tones. ‘He is probably passing through our town on his way to Providence, where I was told he did business. His call is no more than a formality, I presume.’ And with an indifferent little smile and nod, she vanished from the room, that a moment before had been filled with the threat of her silent passion. The Colonel gave a short sigh but returned undisturbed to his book.

  “In the course of a few minutes Jacqueline came back. She had changed her dress for one as summerlike as the other, but still finer and more elaborate. She looked elegant, imperious, but the joy had died out from her eyes, and in its place was another expression incomprehensible to me, but fully as alarming as any that had gone before. ‘Mr. Holt finds himself obliged to remain in town overnight, and would like to pay his respects to you,’ said she to her father.

  “The Colonel immediately rose, looking very grand as he turned and surveyed his daughter with his clear penetrating eye.

  “‘You have a lover, have you not?’ he asked, laying his hand on her bare and beautifully polished shoulder.

  “An odd little smile crossed her lip. She looked at her hands on which never a ring shone, and coquettishly tossed her head. ‘Let the gentleman speak for himself,’ said she, ‘I give no man his title until he has earned it.’

  “Her father laughed. A lover was not such a dreadful thing in his eyes provided he were worthy. And Jacqueline would not choose unworthily of course—a Japha and his daughter! ‘Well then,’ said he, ‘let us see if he can make good his title; Holt is not a bad name and Boston is not a poor place to hail from.’ And without more ado, they hurried from the room. But the light had all died out from her face! What did it mean?

  “At tea time I met the gentleman. He had evidently made his title good. I was not only favorably impressed with him but actually struck. Of all the high-bred, clear-eyed, polished and kindly gentlemen who had sat about the board since I first came into the family in Mrs. Japha’s lifetime, here was surely the finest, the handsomest and the best; and surprised in more ways than one, I was giving full play to my relief and exhilaration, when I caught sight of Jacqueline’s eye, and felt again the cold shudders of secret doubt and apprehension. Smile upon him as she would, coquet with him as she did, the flame and the glory that drew her like an inspiration to her feet when his name was announced, had fled, and left not a shadow behind. Had he failed in his expressions of devotion? Was he hard or cold or severe, under all that pleasant and charming manner? Had the hot soul of our motherless child rushed upon ice, and in the shock of the dreadful chill, fallen inert? No, his looks bespake no coldness; they dwelt upon Jacqueline’s lovely but inscrutable face, with honest fervor and boundless regard. He evidently loved her most passionately, but she—If it had not been for that first moment of unconscious betrayal, I should have decided that she cared for him no more than she did for the few others who had adored her, in the short space of her incomprehensible life.

  “The mystery was not cleared up when she came to me that night with a short, ‘How do you like my lover, Margery?’ I was forty years her senior, but she always called me Margery.

  “‘I think he is the finest, most agreeable man I ever met,’ said I. ‘Is he your lover, Jacqueline? Are you going to marry him?’

  “She turned about from the vase which she was denuding of its flowers, and gave me one of her sphinx-like looks. ‘You must ask papa,’ said she. ‘He holds the destinies of the Japhas in his hand, does he not?’

  “‘Does he?’ I involuntarily whispered to myself; following the steady poise of her head and the assured movements of her graceful form, with a glance of doubt, but loving her all the same, O loving her all and ever the same!

  “‘Your father is not the man to cross you when the object of your affections is as worthy as this gentleman. He loved your mother too fondly.’

  “‘He did?’ She had turned quick as a flash and was looking me straight in the eyes.

  “‘I never saw such union!’ I exclaimed, vaguely remembering that her mother’s name had always seemed to have power to move her. ‘There was no parade of it before the world; but here at their own fireside, it was heart to heart and soul to soul. It was not love—it was assimilation.’

  “The young girl rose upon me like a flame; her very eyes seemed to dart fire; her lips looked like living coals; she was almost appalling in her terrible beauty and superhuman passion. ‘Not love!’ she exclaimed, her every word falling like a burning spark, ‘not love but assimilation! Yet do you suppose if I told my father that my soul had found its mate; my heart its other half; that this, this nature,’ here she struck her breast as she would a stone, ‘had at last found its master; that the wayward spirit of which you have sometimes been afraid, was become a part of another’s life, another’s soul, another’s hope, do you suppose he would listen? Hush!’ she cried, seeing me about to speak. ‘You talk of love, what do you know of it, what does he know of it, who saw his young wife die, yet himself consented to live? Is love a sitting by the fire with hand locked in hand while the winter winds rage and the droning kettle sings? Love is a going through the fire, a braving of the winter winds, a scattering of the soul in sparks that the night and the tempest lick up without putting out the germ of the eternal flame. Love!’ she half laughed; ‘O, it takes a soul that has never squandered its treasure upon every passing beggar, to know how to love! Do you see that star?’ It was night as I have said and we were standing near an open window. ‘It has lost its moorings and is falling; when it descries the ocean it will plunge into it; so with some natures, they soar high and keep their orbit well, till an invisible hand turns them from their course and they fall, to be swallowed up, aye swallowed up, lost and buried in the great sea that has awaited them so long.’

  “‘And you love—like this—’ I murmured, quailing before the power of her passion.

  “‘Would it not be strange if I did not,’ she asked in an altered voice. ‘You say he is everything noble, handsome and attractive.’

  “Yes, yes,’ I murmured, ‘but—’

  “She did not wait to hear what lay behind that but. Picking up her flowers, she hastily crossed the room. ‘Did my young mother shriek from joy, when my father’s horses ran away with them along that deadly precipice at the side of the Southmore road? To lie for a few maddening moments on the breast of the man you love, earth reeling beneath you, heaven swimming above you, and then with a cry of bliss to fall heart to heart, down the hideous gap of some awful gulf, and be dashed into eternity with the cry still on y
our lips, that is what I call love and that is what I—’

  “She paused, turned upon me the whole splendor of her face, seemed to realize to what an extent her impetuosity had lifted the veil with which she usually shrouded her bitterly suppressed nature, and calling herself with a sudden quick movement, gave me a short mocking courtesy and left the room.

  “Do you wonder that for half the night I sat up brooding and alive to the faintest sounds!’

  “Next day Mr. Holt called again, and a couple of weeks after—long enough to enable Colonel Japha to make whatever inquiries he chose as to his claims as a gentleman of means and position—sent a formal entreaty for Jacqueline’s hand. I had never seen Colonel Japha more moved. His admiration for the young man was hearty and sincere. From a worldly point of view, as well as from all higher standpoints, the match was one of which he could be proud; and yet to speak the word that would separate from him the only creature that he loved, was hard as the cutting off an arm or the plucking out of an eye. ‘Do you think she loves him?’ asked he of me with a rare condescension of which he was not often guilty. ‘You are a woman and ought to understand her better than I. Do you think she loves him?’

  “After the words I had heard her speak, what could I reply but, ‘Yes, sir; she is of a reserved nature and controls her feelings in his presence, but she loves him for all that, with the intensest fervor and passion.’

  “He repeated again, ‘You are a woman and you ought to know.’ And then called his daughter to him.

  “I cannot tell what passed between them, but the upshot of it was, that the Colonel despatched an answer to the effect that the father’s consent would not be lacking, provided the daughter’s could be obtained. I learned this from Jacqueline herself who brought me the letter to post.