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

by Marion Bryce

  “‘You see then, that your father understands,’ said I.

  “Her rich red lip curled mockingly, but she did not reply.

  “Naturally Mr. Holt answered to this communication in person. Jacqueline received him with a fitful coquetry that evidently puzzled him, for all the distinguishing charm which it added to a beauty apt to be too reserved and statue-like. She however took his ring which blazed on her finger like a drop of ice on congealed snow. ‘I am engaged,’ she murmured as she passed by my door, ‘and to a Holt!’ The words rang long in my ears; why?

  She desired no congratulations; she permitted nothing to be said about her engagement, among the neighbors. She had even taken off her ring which I found lying loose in one of her bureau drawers. And no one dared to remonstrate, not even her father, punctilious as he was in all matters of social etiquette. The fact is, Jacqueline was not the same girl she had been before she gave her promise to Mr. Holt. From the moment he bade her good-bye, with the remark that he was going away to get a golden cage for his bride, she began to reveal a change. The cold reserve gave way to feverish expectancy. She trod these rooms as if there were burning steels in the floors, she looked from the windows as it they were prison bars; night and day she gazed from them yet she never went out. The letters she received from him were barely read and tossed aside; it was his coming for which she hungered. Her father noticed her restless and eager gaze, and frequently sighed. I felt her strange removed manner and secretly wept. ‘If he does not amply return this passion,’ thought I, ‘my darling will find her life a hell!’

  “But he did return it; of that I felt sure. It was my only comfort.

  “Suddenly one day the restlessness vanished. Her beauty burst like a flame from smoke; she trod like a spirit that hears invisible airs. I watched her with amazement till she said ‘Mr. Holt comes to-night,’ then I thought all was explained and went smiling about my work. She came down in the afternoon clad as I had never seen her before. She wore one of her Boston dresses and she looked superb in it. From the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, she dazzled like a moving picture; but she lacked one adornment; there was no ring on her finger. ‘Jacqueline!’ cried I, ‘you have forgotten something.’ And I pointed towards her hand.

  “She glanced at it, blushed a trifle as I thought, and pulled it out of her pocket. ‘I have it,’ said she, ‘but it is too large,’ and she thrust it carelessly back.

  “At three o’clock the train came in. Then I saw her eye flash and her lip burn. In a few minutes later two gentlemen appeared at the gate.

  “‘Mr. Holt and his brother!’ were the words I heard whispered through the house. But I did not need that announcement to understand Jacqueline at last.

  XXVI. A MAN’S JUSTICE AND A WOMAN’S MERCY.

  “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”

  —MACBETH.

  “Have you ever seen a man whose instantaneous effect upon you was electrical; in whose expression, carriage, or manner, there was concealed a charm that attracted and interested you, apart from his actual worth and beauty? Such a one was Mr. Roger Holt, the gentleman I now discerned entering the gate with Jacqueline’s lover. It was not that he was handsome. He could not for one moment bear any comparison with his brother in substantial attraction, and yet when they were both in the room, you looked at him in preference to the other, and was vexed with yourself for doing so. He seemed to be the younger as he was certainly the smaller; yet he took the lead, even in coming up the walk. Why had he not taken it in the deeper and more important matter? Was it because he did not love her?

  “I was not present when Jacqueline greeted her guests and presented Mr. Roger Holt to her father. But later in the day I spent a half hour with them and saw enough to be able to satisfy myself as to the falsity of my last supposition. Never had I seen on a human countenance the evidences of a wilder passion than that which informed his features, as he sat in the further window of the parlor, presumably engaged in admiring the autumn landscape, but really occupied in casting short side-long glances at Jacqueline, who sat listening with a superb nonchalance, but with a restless gleam in her wandering eye, to the genial talk between her acknowledged lover and the Colonel. I half feared he would rise from his seat, and flinging himself before her, demand then and there an explanation of her engagement.

  “But beyond the impatience of those short burning glances, he controlled himself well, and it was Jacqueline who moved at last.

  “I saw the purpose growing in her eyes long before she stirred. The face which had been a mystery to me from her cradle, was in the presence of this man, like an open page which all might read. Its letters were flame, but that did not make them any less clear. I felt her swaying towards him, before an eyelash trembled or a quiver shook her tall form. He may have understood her purpose also, for his eye wandered towards the open piano. She rose like a queen. ‘Mr. Roger Holt is a singer,’ said she in passing her father, ‘I am going to ask him to give us one of the old ballads you profess to like so much.’

  “The conversation at once ceased. The Colonel who made no secret of his fondness for music, turned at once towards the stranger, with an expression of great courtesy. Instantly that gentleman rose, and meeting the request of his hostess with a profound bow, proceeded at once to the piano. ‘He will not leave it till he has spoken to her,’ thought I. Nor did he, for that very moment as they stood turning her music over, I perceived his lips move in a hurried question, to which she as briefly responded, whereupon he caught up a sheet of music from the pile, and flinging back his head with a victorious smile, began to sing.

  “Had I known what lay behind his words, I would have braved everything rather than have allowed him to utter a note in that room which had once rung with the carols of Jacqueline’s mother. But what could I guess of the possible evil underlying the natural ebullition of unrestrained passion that from some cause of pride or pique, had met with a strange inexplicable check. So I sat still, shuddering perhaps, but quiet in my corner; while the haunting tones of his strange and thrilling voice, rose and fell in the most uncanny of Scottish love songs. Nor did I do more than wonder with all my agitated soul, when at the conclusion Jacqueline came back, and pausing beside the man to whom she had given her troth, looked down in his beaming face and smiled with that overflow of delight, which she dared not bestow upon his brother.

  “Another little incident of that hour remains engraven upon my memory. She had been showing to the gentlemen a rare plant that stood in the front parlor window, and was dilating upon its marvels, when Mr. Robert Holt, her accepted lover, took in his clasp the small white hand wandering so invitingly among the leaves of the huge palm, and glancing at the finger which should have worn his ring, looked inquiringly into her face.

  “‘O,’ said she, interrupting her little speech to draw away her hand, ‘you miss your diamond? I have it, sir. It lies very safe in my pocket; it is a beautiful gem, but your ring does not fit me.’

  “The way she said those words and the air with which she tossed back her head, must have made one heart in that room beat joyously, but it did not reassure me or subdue my secret apprehension.

  “‘Not fit!’ her lover responded; and begged her to allow him to try it on and see, but she shook her head with wilful coquetry, and turning to the piano, commenced singing a gay little song that was like silver bells, shaken by a sudden and mighty tempest.

  “Even the Colonel felt the change in his daughter, though he never guessed the cause, and came and went during the evening that followed, with certain odd sighs that made my heart ache with strange forebodings. Only her lover was unconscious, or if he felt the new and wayward force and fire in her manner, attributed it to his own presence and unspeakable devotion. Mr. Roger Holt, on the contrary, thoroughly understood it. Though he was strangely calm, as calm now as he had previously been alert and fiery, he never lost a gleam of her eye in his direction, or a turn of her form towards the chair where he sat. But the smile with which he
contemplated her was not pleasant to me. It was informed with .self-consciousness, and a certain hard triumph, that made it almost sinister. ‘She has given her hand to the true man,’ I mused, ‘wherever her heart may be. But had she given it?’ I began to doubt as I began to muse. With that uncontrollable will of hers, she was capable of anything; did she intend to break with Robert, now that she had seen Roger? I detected no signs of it beyond the evident delight they took in each other’s presence. They were guilty of no further conversation of a secret or intimate character, and when with the striking of the clock at ten, Mr. Robert Holt rose to leave, his brother followed without any demur, even preceding him in his departure and limiting his farewell to a short brotherly pressure of Jacqueline’s fair hand.

  “But much may be conveyed in a pressure, or so I began to think as I heard the low laugh that rippled from Jacqueline’s lips as she turned to go up to her room; and if I had been her mother—

  “But that is not what you want to hear. Enough that I did not follow her, that I did not even acquaint Colonel Japha with my fears, that indeed I did nothing but lie awake, praying and asking what I ought to do. There had been so little said; there had been so little done. A word, a sentence between them, the interchange of a couple of songs, and—What else that I could communicate to another?

  “A week, two weeks passed, and her look of wilful happiness did not fly. She was flooded with notes from her accepted lover, whose handwriting I had learned by this time to distinguish, but not one, so far as I could learn, from any other source; yet her feet tripped lightly through the house, and her form had a rich grace in its every movement, that bespoke a mind settled in some deep joy or quiet determination. I felt the impenetrability of a secretly cherished hope, whenever I looked at her. If I had not known to the contrary, I should have said that her prospective marriage had become to her a dream of unfathomable delight. “Whence then came this rapture? Through what communication was born this secret hope? I could not guess, I could only watch and wait.

  “Meanwhile some random guesses at the truth had been made by the neighbors. Jacqueline had a lover. That lover was a gentleman; but the Colonel was critical; he had refused his consent and the young people had parted. Such was the talk, begotten perhaps by the persistency with which Jacqueline remained in the house, and the almost severe look with which Colonel Japha trod the streets of his native village, which he soon felt would lose all their charm in the departure of his only child. I scarcely ventured cut more than Jacqueline; for I have but little control over my feelings and did not know what I would do, if any one should closely press me with questions.

  “The unexpected discovery that our pretty young servant girl was in the habit of stealing into Jacqueline’s room late at night, was the first thing that startled me into asking whether or not my supposition was true, that Jacqueline received no messages from Mr. Robert Holt. And scarcely had I become certain that a clandestine correspondence was being carried on between them through the medium of this girl, than the climax came, and knowledge on my part and secrecy on hers availed no longer.

  “It was a day in October. The stoves had been put up in the house, and seeing Jacqueline roaming about the halls, in a renewed fit of that strange restlessness which had affected her the day before Mr. Roger Holt’s visit, I went into her room to light a fire, and make everything look cheerful before dusk. I found the atmosphere warm, and going to the stove, discovered that a fire had been already kindled there, but had gone out for want of fuel. I at once commenced to rake away the ashes, in order to make preparations for a new one, when I came upon several scraps of half burned paper.

  “Jacqueline had been burning letters. Do you blame me for picking out those scraps and hastening with them to another room, when I tell you they were written in a marked and characteristic hand that bore little or no resemblance to that of her accepted lover, and that the words which flashed first upon my eye were those ominous ones of my wife!

  “They were three in number, and while more or less discolored and irregular, were still legible. Think child with what a thrill of horror and sharp motherly anguish, I read such words as ‘Love you! I would press you in my arms if you were plague-stricken! The least turn of your head makes my blood cringe, as if a flame had touched me. I would follow you on my knees, if you led me round the world. Let me see Robert take your hand again and I will—’

  “‘Forget you! Do we forget the dagger that has struck us? I am another man since—’

  “‘I will have you if Robert goes mad and your father kills me. That I am burdened with a wife, is nothing. What is a wife that I do not—’

  “‘You shall be my true wife, my—’

  “‘To-night then, be ready; I will wait for you at the gate. A little resolution on your part, and then—’

  “I could read no further. The living, burning truth had forced itself upon me, that Jacqueline, our darling, our pride, the soul of our life, stood tottering upon the brink of a gulf horrible as the mouth of hell. For I never doubted for an instant what her answer would be to this entreaty. In all her past life, God pity us, there had been no tokens of that immovable hold on virtue, that would save her in such an extremity as this. Nevertheless, to make all sure, I flew back to her room, and tearing open bureau drawers and closet doors, discovered that her prettiest things had been sent away. She was going, then, and on that very night! and her father did not even know she was untrue to her betrothed lover. The horror of the situation was too much for me; I faltered as I left her room, her dainty, maidenly room, and actually crouched against the wall like a guilty thing, as I heard the sound of her voice singing some maddening strain in the parlors below. What should I do? Appeal to her, or warn her father of the frightful peril in which his honor and happiness stood? Alas, any appeal to her would be useless. In the glare of this awful revelation I had come to a full comprehension of her nature. But her father was a man; he could command as well as entreat, could even force obedience if all other methods failed. To him, then, must I go; but I had rather have gone to the rack. He was so proud a man! Had owned to such undeviating trust in his daughter’s honor, as a Japha and his child! The blow would kill him; or daze him so, he might better have been killed. My knees shook under me, as I traversed the hall to his little study over the parlor, and when I came to the door, I rather fell against it than knocked, so great was my own anguish, and so deep my terror of his. He was a ready man and he came to the door at once, but upon seeing me, drew back as it his eye had fallen upon a phantom.

  “‘Hush!’ said I, scarcely knowing what I uttered; and going in, I closed the door and latched it firmly behind me. ‘I have come,’ said I in a voice that made him start, ‘to ask you to save your daughter. She is in deadly peril; she—’ a strain of her song came in at that moment from the staircase. She was ascending to her room. He looked at me in a doubt of my sanity.

  “‘Not physical peril,’ I stammered, ‘but moral. She loves madly, unreasonably, and with a headlong passion that laughs at every obstacle, a man whom neither you nor heaven can look upon with aught but execration. She—’

  “‘Mrs Hamlin!’—How well I remember his cool, calm voice, so deliberate in his impressive moments, so deliberate now, when perhaps she was donning hat and shawl for her elopement—‘You are laboring under a great mistake. Instead of execrating Mr. Holt, I admire him most profoundly. Since the time has come for me to give up my daughter, I know of no one to whom I would rather surrender her.’

  “‘But Mr. Holt is not the man,’ I cried, half wild in my fear and desperation. ‘Do you remember the gentleman who came with him on his last visit? He called him his brother, and he is I believe, but—’

  “The way he turned his grand white forehead towards me at that, made every fibre in my being quiver. ‘Jacqueline does not love him!’ exclaimed he. How sharp his voice, how changed his eye! I shrank back, trembling as I bowed my head, thinking of the word yet to be said.

  “‘But he won’t compar
e—’ he went on with a severe intonation. ‘Besides her honor is engaged. You are dealing in fancies, Mrs. Hamlin.’

  “I tore out of my breast the scraps of paper which had enlightened me so horribly, and held them towards him; then bethought myself, and drew back. ‘I have proof,’ said I; ‘but first I must tell you that Jacqueline is not as good a girl as you have thought her. She is not her mother’s child in the qualities of love and honor. She is destined to bring a great woe upon your head. In her passion for this man, she has forgotten your trust in her, the incorruptibility of your name, the honor of your house. Be strong, sir, for God is about to smite you in your tenderest spot.’

  “Ah, with what pride he towered upon me! this white-haired, stately gentleman before whom I had hitherto held my breath in admiring awe; towered upon me though his fare was ghostly pale and his hand trembled like an aspen as he held it out!

  “‘Give me the papers you hold there,’ cried he. ‘Hither you are gone mad, or else—Who wrote these lines?’ he demanded, glancing down upon the hard, firm scrawl that blackened the bits of paper I had given him.

  “‘Mr. Roger Holt,’ I returned unhesitatingly. ‘I found those bits in Jacqueline’s stove. Her clothes have been sent away, sir,’ I continued as I saw his face grow fixed above the scraps he consulted. ‘Twilight is coming on and—Mr. Roger Holt is a married man!’

  “‘What!’

  “I never saw such a look flash from a human face as that which darted from his at that terrible moment. I thought he would have fallen, but he only dropped the papers out of his hand. ‘Heaven forgive us!’ murmured I, calmed by a sight of his misery, into some semblance of self-control, ‘but we have never understood Jacqueline. She is not to be led, sir, by principles or duty. She loves this man, and love with her is a stormy wind, capable of sweeping her into any abyss of contumely or suffering. If you would save her, kill her love; the death of her lover would only transform her into a demon.’