“Next morning his door remained still locked. It was no unusual thing for him to work all night and far into the next day, so no one thought to be surprised. When, however, evening came, and yet he did not appear, his servants gathered outside the room and whispered, remembering what had happened once before.
“They listened, but could hear no sound. They shook the door and called to him, then beat with their fists upon the wooden panels. But still no sound came from the room.
“Becoming alarmed, they decided to burst open the door, and, after many blows, it gave way, and they crowded in.
He sat bolt upright in his high-backed chair. They thought at first he had died in his sleep. But when they drew nearer and the light fell upon him, they saw the livid marks of bony fingers round his throat; and in his eyes there was a terror such as is not often seen in human eyes.”
Brown was the first to break the silence that followed. He asked me if I had any brandy on board. He said he felt he should like just a nip of brandy before going to bed. That is one of the chief charms of Jephson’s stories: they always make you feel you want a little brandy.
WHAT DID MISS DARRINGTON SEE? by Emma B. Cobb
It was not so very long ago, for it was only about a year before the outbreak of the great rebellion, that Colonel Sibthorpe, living at Catalpa Grove, County, Kentucky, wrote to Mr. Allen, a merchant in Boston, with whom he had large dealings, to procure for him a governess. The correspondent was requested to look out for a young person capable of “finishing” the education of the colonel’s two motherless daughters, aged respectively eighteen and sixteen, and of preparing his younger son for admission to a Southern college.
Mr. Allen was at first not a little embarrassed by a commission so entirely out of the ordinary course of business; but as he had a strong desire to oblige his Kentucky friend and customer, he at once set about making inquiries for a suitable person to “fill the order.” Whether his search was attended with much or little difficulty I am unable to say; I only know that it resulted in the engagement, at a liberal salary, of Miss Elizabeth Darrington, from whom I have derived the chief incidents of the story I am about to relate, and who has reluctantly consented to my making them public.
Perhaps you have seen Miss Darrington? If so, I dare be sworn that you remember her more vividly than many a handsomer woman. At the time I speak of she was about twenty-four, a small figure, slight now, but promising fullness as time should go on; a face neither beautiful nor plain in feature, but showing intellect and esprit, and a manner unmistakably that of a gentlewoman. (It is a word little used now, but it expresses what I mean far more accurately than the flip pant term “lady.”) Sprung from one of the oldest and best families in Massachusetts—one which had produced governors and legislators in the early colonial time, and in nearly every generation since some man of shining mark—she had not only inherited a fair share of the family talent, but she had breathed an atmosphere of intellect and culture from her infancy. She had also been early forced by circumstances into a position of self-reliance, and had learned to think and act independently. The result was a character not so easily summed up as that of a woman of the model sort, made up after the ideal of newspaper homilists, and the reverend gentlemen who lecture on the “Woman Question.” Such as these would have found something of a paganism in the very virtues of Miss Darrington, without, perhaps, perceiving that there was a touch of nobility even in her faults. Proud, certainly—every thing about her, from the curve of her well-cut lip to the high-arched instep of a rather small foot, attested to that fact. Cold? I am not so sure. Her best friends said so; and at least the glance of her eye was cool and steady. Yet she had a keen physical organization, and enjoyed life with a zest unknown to duller and narrower natures. In short, she was one of those women, peculiarly the product of our later civilization, in whom the brain is uppermost, feeling in abeyance, and gifted with a power of self-rule which, if they do suffer, enables them to hide it as skillfully as a Mohican. She liked men, but they seldom got farther with her than the point of good-comradeship. Very young men, by the way, were inclined to fight a little shy of her; but she liked shrewd elderly ones, and these were always her admirers. Her manner, too, was not the modest violet manner of the model woman; there was just a touch of conscious power in it—a fine, well-bred self-assertion, which stood her in good stead in her peculiar position at Catalpa Grove, and enabled her to keep the young ladies of the house very much in order. In those days Northern governesses of the meek sort used often to fare a little dismally among those high-spirited and not over-cultivated Southern girls. But one glance into the level gray eyes of Miss Darrington would have convinced a duller than the Sibthorpes that this was a woman on whom it would be dangerous to play off any airs of superiority. They had a wholesome fear of her at the end of the first hour, but they cordially liked her by the end of the first week, and their respect and liking never diminished while she remained with them. The truth is, real New England “blue blood” is the very bluest in America, and the pride it engenders is more than a match for the haughtiest “F. F. V.”—a fact which our Southern friends did not know so well before the war as they do now, for the reason that in their isolated plantation life they were seldom brought in contact with the real thing. They had their estimate of the Northern spirit from second and third rate specimens. The Sibthorpes were fine girls, however, and when they found out the stuff the governess had in her they were ready enough to make Catalpa Grove a pleasant abode for her, and soon its gayeties were incomplete without her.
The grove was in a populous county, and within easy visiting distance of the city of L—. There was always open house, and a very delightful house at that. The colonel was a good specimen of the Kentucky gentleman, frank, hearty, hospitable, and well-bred, until you touched his prejudices. He greatly admired Miss Darrington, and, in deed, showed some disposition to give his feelings practical expression, but was skillfully checked by the lady before he had committed himself. It did not in the least suit her book to be made love to by her host. She had undertaken a profitable year’s task, and she wanted the salary. She did not choose either to resign the chance of earning it or to be made uncomfortable by the presence in the house of a rejected suitor.
You think I am describing a hard and selfish woman. What do you think she was down there governessing for, that finely trained, thorough-bred creature, among those free-and-easy, not over intellectual Kentuckians? She was the eldest of four children. Her father was dead, and her mother a delicate, fine lady, as lovely and as helpless as a baby or a flower. Elizabeth was the support of the family. She kept the children at school, and wrote every week to her mother a long letter, full of fun and nonsense and merry rattle, to make that dear woman believe she had not a care in the world. But, trust me, she had plenty.
Miss Darrington had been about six months at the grove when, one morning in March, the household was thrown into a little cheerful commotion by a letter from Tom Sibthorpe, the colonel’s eldest son, announcing his return home. He wrote to say that he should bring with him a friend, a young Cuban, with whom he had been traveling, and whom—for I am compelled to give him a fictitious name—I shall call Raphael Aldama. The expected advent of this stranger caused not a little excitement to the. young ladies of the grove. He was of Spanish birth, but his family had lived for years in Havana, and he had formerly been at school with Tom Sibthorpe in New Orleans. The girls had never seen him; but they told Miss Darrington the most remarkable stories about him, of his wonderful personal beauty, his astonishing strength, his terrible temper and reckless daring, his duels and scrapes. He was very rich, very haughty, very magnificent. They were wild to see him, but rather inclined to be afraid of him. He was said to be as irresistible with women as he was dangerous with men. Miss Darrington did not find their picture of the expected guest particularly attractive. She laughed to herself, mentally decided that the romantic Cuban was probably a very or
dinary young savage, and thought no more about him.
The travelers reached Catalpa Grove on the day expected. It was in the afternoon that they arrived; and his imperial highness, Signor Raphael, was pleased to retire immediately to bed, where he spent the night and the whole of the next day. All day long the two Sibthorpe girls were in a little fever of excitement, and were not above showing it. Alice could not practice her music lesson, and Rosalie had more trouble than usual with French verbs. They laid out their prettiest toilets for the evening, and teased Tom Sibthorpe with all sorts of questions about his friend. Miss Darrington listened, a little ennuyée, checked a satirical smile, and yawned behind her fan. When they had fluttered away she arrayed herself in the plain white dress which was her ordinary evening wear, with no ornament, except some scarlet blossoms of the Japan quince in her dark braids, and went down to play gallops and waltzes for the others to dance.
The evening was well-nigh spent, her fingers were getting tired, and she was playing half mechanically, her thoughts carried far away, when Alice Sibthorpe came toward her, leaning on the arm of a gentleman, and begged to present the Signor Aldama, who desired the pleasure of her acquaintance. She looked up, indifferently, and met the glance of an eye before whose fiery and intolerable splendor her own for an instant fell—for an instant only. She was quite too practiced a woman of the world to lose her self-possession, though for a moment compelled to acknowledge the force of a magnetism more powerful than her own. A voice peculiarly soft and melodious addressed her, and the sweet, measured tones in which she replied betrayed no disturbance. Alice took her place at the piano, and she moved to a sofa, the stranger placing himself at her side; and she found herself studying curiously the face before her.
It was a very handsome face. She acknowledged that instantly. A white forehead, smooth as a boy’s, over which the black hair clustered in heavy rings; an arched nose, the wide delicate nostril of which had a quiver of pride in it, like what one sees in fiery young horses; lips full yet firm, a strange sweetness in their smile, yet a fierceness in their passionate curve which suggested possibilities of cruelty. The eye was large and looked like black velvet, with the flash of a diamond in its centre. With all this a figure strong yet slender, a springing, cat-like tread, and a manner full of lazy grace, yet marred by something of haughty indifference.
Miss Darrington looked now steadily into the eyes whose bold, strong glance had at first beaten down her own, and recognized the nature of the soul that looked out from them. “It is a case for Van Amburgh,” she said to herself, “or Girard, the lion-tamer. What jungle can have reared a wild animal like this?” But the low musical voice in which he addressed her did not accord with his harsh impression, and his manner at the moment was almost reverent in its gentle respect.
From that evening an intimacy singularly close and confidential existed between these two. I say existed, for it was a thing which had no growth; it seemed to spring up, “full-statured, in an hour.” But whether it were of the nature of love or friendship the lookers-on were puzzled to decide. But, at least, he seemed never willingly absent from her company, and she had an evident pleasure in having him near her. Yet she certainly made no effort to attract him. So much was admitted, even by the two Sibthorpe girls, who, having, perhaps, anticipated an admirer in their brother’s friend may have felt a twinge of resentment at seeing him immediately carried off by the governess. But they were not ill natured, and they had no lack of admirers; so they soon accepted the situation, wondering a little, too, for it was not vanity in them to think that, in point of beauty as well as youth, they had the advantage. But Raphael had known plenty of beautiful women—had enjoyed to the full the incense of their admiration—while a woman with brains was a new revelation to him. The spell of intellect and culture he found irresistible. This was the more strange as he was the last man whom a superficial judgment would have supposed likely to be attracted by such qualities. He had very little culture himself, little education, indeed, in the ordinary sense of the word. But he had seen a great deal of life in his five-and-twenty years—a life of vivid impressions and keen emotions. He had always been his own master, knowing from boyhood no law but his own will. The result was a character fixed in its mould, yet giving the impression of immaturity. Though really older than Miss Darrington, he seemed to her like a grown-up child. His nature showed a tinge of barbarism, a certain antique simplicity, which seemed to be long to a past age. She could not fail to see that intellectually she was vastly his superior; and it is good evidence of the natural nobility of the man’s nature that he, too, recognized that fact without resenting it. He had worshiped passionately at many a lovely shrine, but never quite free from the haughty feeling that his homage honored her on whom it lighted. Now, for the first time in his life, his boldness had become timidity, his audacity respect. The story of “Undine” may repeat itself in more forms than one. The soul in this half-savage breast sprang into conscious life with the first pure, unselfish love which had ever dwelt there. Unselfish, for he knew from the very first that it was hopeless. She was honest with him all through. She let him see that truly as she liked him, frankly as she admired him, she had only friendship to give him. Not that she told him so in words—a woman is a blunderer to whom such words are necessary—but he did not fail to perceive the truth.
Yet it must be confessed that she found in his companionship a wonderful charm, the secret of which she could never fully analyze. It might lie partly in his remarkable beauty—always a spell to any woman—or the intense personal magnetism by which he affected all who came near him. It might be the very contrast between her own complex but balanced nature and this romantic and ardent, though untutored soul. Then, too, he adored her, and what woman ever lived who did not love to be worshiped? His honest affection must have been inexpressibly soothing to her often-wearied spirit. I think she might even have loved him but for the recollection of—but that is her secret, and has nothing to do with my story.
So, though on the frankest terms of intimacy, they never talked of love. Without surrounding herself with any apparent defenses, she compelled him to a complete reserve in that direction. A coquette might have refused to listen to him; she assumed that he had nothing to say, and so persistently ignored the possibility of any thing else that he could not escape the position she assigned him.
Of course it was not to be expected that this sudden and close intimacy could escape comment in the little circle at the Grove. But after the first dash of surprise they treated the matter with indifference, good naturedly, willing that the parties should please themselves. Only Tom Sibthorpe, gifted with a somewhat more acute observation than the rest, watched the pair with a puzzled interest.
“By Jove!” he said to his sister Alice, “I did not think the woman had lived who could so tame the tiger in Raphael Aldama. Can you tell me the secret of her power7 It is not coquetry; she never throws out a lure; yet the very soul of the man is on its knees before her. It can not be beauty; she is not so pretty as you, or Rose; though in the real air de grande dame she beats you both out of the field—that little thing, not over five feet high! I don’t know but it is in her pride, after all. For the first time in his life Raphael has found some one prouder than he is. Do you believe she will marry him?”
“I should think so, certainly,” replied Alice, rather surprised at the doubt.
“Possibly you are right. Women should know women. But I am not sure that she is one to say, ‘all for love, and a world well lost.’”
“How can you be so censorious, Tom?” cried Alice, indignantly. “Miss Darrington is no more cold-hearted than you are. Besides, if it is a question of worldly advantage, she has every thing to gain from such a marriage.”
“You think so, my dear, but she knows better. To her the losses might outweigh the gains.”
“What would she lose?”
“The whole world in which she has hit
herto lived and moved and had her being. Don’t you see how opposite they are in character, in education, in ideas of life? She has been reared in the stimulating mental atmosphere of the North, and is, to say truth, a very fine specimen of its culture; has grown up in sympathy with the living forces of thought which move the modern world. He is like the child of some past civilization, who does not even known himself out of harmony with this thinking nineteenth century. There can be no spiritual kinship between the two. If she were to marry him she would lose the freedom she prizes beyond every thing, and gain, not a mute, but merely an adorer. And such an adorer! A woman might as well trust herself to a typhoon.”
“Don’t you think his love for her would last?”
“How can I tell? He has loved a hundred times before; though, to speak the truth, I never saw him in such earnest as now. But if he did not weary, she would. His passion is too exigeante; it would bore her in a little while.”
“You seem to think she does not care for him.”
“Nay; that is where I am wholly at sea. She is not one to wear her heart on her sleeve for such daws as we to peck at. But, after all, what does it matter? These things are always unequal. Il y a toujours l’un qui baise, et l’autre qui tend le joue.”
“You are a horrid old cynic, Tom.”
“Yes, dear; and a stupid one at that; so let us talk of something else.”
So the warm spring days flew swiftly by, and the old house rang with the gayety of that careless Southern life; and these two floated on with the stream, enjoying the present, but knowing well that their plea sure could not last. At least she knew this. She understood that there could be no permanent tie between them. They had drifted together from opposite poles; they would soon drift apart again, and that would be the end. But it was not easy to keep him to this view.
The Ghost Story Megapack Page 37