Doctor Grimshawe's Secret Part 24

"You are probably aware," continued Mountford,--"for I understand you have been some time in this neighborhood,--that there is a pretended claim, a contesting claim, to the present possession of the estate of Braithwaite, and a long dormant t.i.tle. Possibly--who knows?--you yourself might have a claim to one or the other. Would not that be a singular coincidence? Have you ever had the curiosity to investigate your parentage with a view to this point?"

"The t.i.tle," replied Redclyffe, "ought not to be a very strong consideration with an American. One of us would be ashamed, I verily believe, to a.s.sume any distinction, except such as may be supposed to indicate personal, not hereditary merit. We have in some measure, I think, lost the feeling of the past, and even of the future, as regards our own lines of descent; and even as to wealth, it seems to me that the idea of heaping up a pile of gold, or acc.u.mulating a broad estate for our children and remoter descendants, is dying out. We wish to enjoy the fulness of our success in life ourselves, and leave to those who descend from us the task of providing for themselves. This tendency is seen in our lavish expenditure, and the whole arrangement of our lives; and it is slowly--yet not very slowly, either--effecting a change in the whole economy of American life."

"Still," rejoined Mr. Mountford, with a smile that Redclyffe fancied was dark and subtle, "still, I should imagine that even an American might recall so much of hereditary prejudice as to be sensible of some earthly advantages in the possession of an ancient t.i.tle and hereditary estate like this. Personal distinction may suit you better,--to be an Amba.s.sador by your own talent; to have a future for yourself, involving the possibility of ranking (though it were only for four years) among the acknowledged sovereigns of the earth;--this is very good. But if the silver key would open the shut up secret to-day, it might be possible that you would relinquish these advantages."

Before Redclyffe could reply, (and, indeed, there seemed to be an allusion at the close of Mountford's speech which, whether intended or not, he knew not how to reply to,) a young lady entered the hall, whom he was at no loss, by the colored light of a painted window that fell upon her, translating her out of the common daylight, to recognize as the relative of the pensioner. She seemed to have come to give her fanciful superintendence to some of the decorations of the hall; such as required woman's taste, rather than the st.u.r.dy English judgment and antiquarian knowledge of the Warden. Slowly following after her came the pensioner himself, leaning on his staff and looking up at the old roof and around him with a benign composure, and himself a fitting figure by his antique and venerable appearance to walk in that old hall.

"Ah!" said Mountford, to Redclyffe's surprise, "here is an acquaintance--two acquaintances of mine."

He moved along the hall to accost them; and as he appeared to expect that Redclyffe would still keep him company, and as the latter had no reason for not doing so, they both advanced to the pensioner, who was now leaning on the young woman's arm. The incident, too, was not unacceptable to the American, as promising to bring him into a more available relation with her--whom he half fancied to be his old American acquaintance--than he had yet succeeded in obtaining.

"Well, my old friend," said Mountford, after bowing with a certain measured respect to the young woman, "how wears life with you? Rather, perhaps, it does not wear at all; you being so well suited to the life around you, you grow by it like a lichen on a wall. I could fancy now that you have walked here for three hundred years, and remember when King James of blessed memory was entertained in this hall, and could marshal out all the ceremonies just as they were then."

"An old man," said the pensioner, quietly, "grows dreamy as he wanes away; and I, too, am sometimes at a loss to know whether I am living in the past or the present, or whereabouts in time I am,--or whether there is any time at all. But I should think it hardly worth while to call up one of my s.h.i.+fting dreams more than another."

"I confess," said Redclyffe, "I shall find it impossible to call up this scene--any of these scenes--hereafter, without the venerable figure of this, whom I may truly call my benefactor, among them. I fancy him among them from the foundation,--young then, but keeping just the equal step with their age and decay,--and still doing good and hospitable deeds to those who need them."

The old man seemed not to like to hear these remarks and expressions of grat.i.tude from Mountford and the American; at any rate, he moved away with his slow and light motion of infirmity, but then came uneasily back, displaying a certain quiet restlessness, which Redclyffe was sympathetic enough to perceive. Not so the st.u.r.dier, more heavily moulded Englishman, who continued to direct the conversation upon the pensioner, or at least to make him a part of it, thereby bringing out more of his strange characteristics. In truth, it is not quite easy for an Englishman to know how to adapt himself to the line feelings of those below him in point of station, whatever gentlemanly deference he may have for his equals or superiors.

"I should like now, father pensioner," said he, "to know how many steps you may have taken in life before your path led into this hole, and whence your course started."

"Do not let him speak thus to the old man," said the young woman, in a low, earnest tone, to Redclyffe. He was surprised and startled; it seemed like a voice that has spoken to his boyhood.

_Note 2. Author's note_.--"Redclyffe's place is next to that of the proprietor at table."

_Note 3. Author's note_.--"Dwell upon the antique liveried servants somewhat."

_Note 4. Author's note_.--"The rose-water must precede the toasts."

_Note 5. Author's note_.--"The jollity of the Warden at the feast to be noticed; and afterwards explain that he had drunk nothing."

_Note 6. Author's note_.--"Mention the old silver snuffbox which I saw at the Liverpool Mayor's dinner."

CHAPTER XX.

_Note 1._ This is not the version of the story as indicated in the earlier portion of the romance. It is there implied that Elsie is the Doctor's granddaughter, her mother having been the Doctor's daughter, who was ruined by the then possessor of the Braithwaite estates, and who died in consequence. That the Doctor's scheme of revenge was far deeper and more terrible than simply to oust the family from its possessions, will appear further on.

_Note 2._ The foregoing pa.s.sage was evidently experimental, and the author expresses his estimate of its value in the following words,--"What unimaginable nonsense!" He then goes on to make the following memoranda as to the plot. It should be remembered, however, that all this part of the romance was written before the American part.

"Half of a secret is preserved in England; that is to say, in the particular part of the mansion in which an old coffer is hidden; the other part is carried to America. One key of an elaborate lock is retained in England, among some old curiosities of forgotten purpose; the other is the silver key that Redclyffe found beside the grave. A treasure of gold is what they expect; they find a treasure of golden locks. This lady, the beloved of the b.l.o.o.d.y Footstep, had been murdered and hidden in the coffer on account of jealousy. Elsie must know the baselessness of Redclyffe's claims, and be loath to tell him, because she sees that he is so much interested in them. She has a paper of the old Doctor's revealing the whole plot,--a death-bed confession; Redclyffe having been absent at the time."

The reader will recollect that this latter suggestion was not adopted: there was no death-bed confession. As regards the coffer full of golden locks, it was suggested by an incident recorded in the "English Note-Books," 1854. "The grandmother of Mrs. O'Sullivan died fifty years ago, at the age of twenty-eight. She had great personal charms, and among them a head of beautiful chestnut hair. After her burial in a family tomb, the coffin of one of her children was laid on her own, so that the lid seems to have decayed, or been broken from this cause; at any rate, this was the case when the tomb was opened, about a year ago.

The grandmother's coffin was then found to be filled with beautiful, glossy, living chestnut ringlets, into which her whole substance seems to have been transformed, for there was nothing else but these s.h.i.+ning curls, the growth of half a century, in the tomb. An old man, with a ringlet of his youthful mistress treasured in his heart, might be supposed to witness this wonderful thing."

CHAPTER XXIII.

_Note 1._ In a study of the plot, too long to insert here, this new character of the steward is introduced and described. It must suffice to say, in this place, that he was intimately connected with Dr. Grimshawe, who had resuscitated him after he had been hanged, and had thus gained his grat.i.tude and secured his implicit obedience to his wishes, even twenty years after his (Grimshawe's) death. The use the Doctor made of him was to establish him in Braithwaite Hall as the perpetual confidential servant of the owners thereof. Of course, the latter are not aware that the steward is acting in Grimshawe's interest, and therefore in deadly opposition to their own. Precisely what the steward's mission in life was, will appear here-after.

The study above alluded to, with others, amounting to about a hundred pages, will be published as a supplement to a future edition of this work.

CHAPTER XXIV.

_Note 1. Author's note_.--"Redclyffe lies in a dreamy state, thinking fantastically, as if he were one of the seven sleepers. He does not yet open his eyes, but lies there in a maze."

_Note 2. Author's note_.--"Redclyffe must look at the old man quietly and dreamily, and without surprise, for a long while."

_Note 3._ Presumably the true name of Doctor Grimshawe.

_Note 4._ This mysterious prisoner, Sir Edward Redclyffe, is not, of course, the Sir Edward who founded the Hospital, but a descendant of that man, who ruined Doctor Grimshawe's daughter, and is the father of Elsie. He had been confined in this chamber, by the Doctor's contrivance, ever since, Omskirk being his jailer, as is foreshadowed in Chapter XL He has been kept in the belief that he killed Grimshawe, in a struggle that took place between them; and that his confinement in the secret chamber is voluntary on his own part,--a measure of precaution to prevent arrest and execution for murder. In this miserable delusion he has cowered there for five and thirty years. This, and various other dusky points, are partly elucidated in the notes hereafter to be appended to this volume.

CHAPTER XXV.

_Note 1._ At this point, the author, for what reason I will not venture to surmise, chooses to append this gloss: "Bubble-and-Squeak!"

_Note 2. Author's note_.--"They found him in the hall, about to go out."

_Note 3._ Elsie appears to have joined the party.