The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 51

"He _must_ listen, and he must believe! How did I know that he was in my lady's house that night, and the moment of his leaving it? How did I know the very words he used in attempting to force the child from her?

No human being but himself and the poor lady, whose lips were cold within an hour, knew of anything that pa.s.sed between the husband and wife the last time they ever met on earth."

"But you might have overheard--no doubt were listening--if my lord was indeed in that place at all. This is no evidence, even if a woman, convicted by her own confession of a crime she now seeks to cast upon another, could bear witness."

Rachael Closs spoke out clearly now, and her eyes, s.h.i.+ning with the ferocity of a wild animal at bay, turned full upon the old woman who accused her.

The old woman put a hand into her bosom and drew out a small poniard.

Rachael Closs gave a sharp gasp, and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the poniard, but the old woman held it firmly.

"Lord Hope, this has been in your hands a hundred times. When did you part with it? To what person did you give it? Your crest is on the handle; her blood rusts the blade."

Lord Hope lifted both hands to conceal the horror that was on his face, to shut out the weapon from his sight.

"Oh! my G.o.d! my G.o.d! spare me more of this!"

The proud n.o.ble was shaking from head to foot. The veins swelled purple on his forehead. The sight of that slender weapon swept away his last doubt. Lady Hope shrank back from his side, but watched him keenly in her agony of guilt and dread. Her proud figure withered down, her features were locked and hard, but out of their pallor her great eyes shone with terrible brilliancy. Her husband's hands dropped at last, and he turned a look of such despairing anguish upon her that a cry broke from her lips.

"You--you condemn me?"

Lord Hope turned from her, shuddering.

"You know! you know!"

He remembered giving her this poniard on the very day of her crime. He had been in the habit of carrying it with him when travelling, and though sharp as a viper's tongue, it, with the daintily enamelled sheath, was a pretty table ornament, and she had begged it of him for a paper cutter. He had seen the sheath since, but never the poniard, and now the sight of it was a blow through the heart.

"I picked it up by her bed that morning, after the murder. There is a person in the castle who saw me take it from the place where it had fallen. If any one here doubts me, let them ask a person called Margaret Casey--let them ask her."

That moment the door of the room opened, and Hepworth Closs stood on the threshold. He had been informed of Lady Ca.r.s.et's illness, just as he was leaving the castle, and came back only to hear that she was gone. The scene upon which he looked was something worse than a death-chamber.

"Ask him if he did not see this poniard in her room while she lay unburied in the house."

Rachael turned her eyes upon her brother--those great, pleading eyes, which were fast taking an expression of pathetic agony, like those of a hunted doe.

"And you--and you!" she said, with a cry of pain that thrilled the heart of her wretched husband. "Has all the world turned against me? Old woman, what have I ever done to you that you should hunt me down so?"

Hepworth Closs came forward and threw an arm around his sister's waist.

"What is it, Rachael? Who is hunting you down?" he said, tenderly. "No one shall hurt you while I am near."

She turned, threw her arms around his neck, and covered his face with pa.s.sionate kisses. Then she turned to Lord Hope, held out her pale hands imploringly; and cried out in pathetic anguish:

"Oh, do not believe it! Do not believe it!"

But Lord Hope stepped back, and turned away his face. She knew that this motion was her doom.

"Let me look at the poniard," she said, with unnatural gentleness. "I have a right to examine the proofs brought against me."

Hannah Yates gave her the dagger. She looked at it earnestly a moment, laid one hand upon her heart, as if its beating stifled her, then lifted the other and struck.

"Now, my husband, will you kiss me? I have given them blood for blood, life for life!"

She fell in a heap at her husband's feet, and while death glazed over her eyes, reached up her arms to him.

He fell upon his knees, forgetting everything but the one dreadful fact that she was his wife, and dying. His face drooped to hers, for the lips were moving, and her eyes turned upon him with pathetic anxiety.

"It was love for you that led me to it--only that--Oh, believe--beli--"

"I do! I do!" he cried out, in fearful anguish. "G.o.d forgive me, and have mercy on you!"

She struggled, lifted up her arms, drew his lips close to hers, and over them floated the last icy breath that Rachael Closs ever drew.

Then the young girl, who had loved this woman better than anything on earth, sank to the floor, and took that pale head in her lap, moaning over it piteously.

"My poor mamma! my darling mother! Speak to me! Open your eyes! It is Clara--your own, own child! Her eyelids close--her lips are falling apart! Oh! my G.o.d, is she dead?"

She looked piteously in the face of Hepworth Closs, who had knelt by her side, and asked this question over and over again:

"Is she dead? Oh, tell me, is she dead?"

Hepworth Closs bent down, and touched his lips to the cold forehead of his sister; then he lifted Clara from the floor, and half led her, half carried her, from the room.

Then Lord Hope stood up and turned, with a shudder, to the old woman, who had been to him and his a fearful Nemesis.

"Hannah Yates," he said, "you have suffered much, concealed much, and, from your own confession, are not without sin."

"True, true," murmured the old woman. "I have sinned grievously."

"Therefore, you should have shown more mercy to this unhappy woman. But the suffering and the wrong was done to s.h.i.+eld this girl from what you thought an evil influence, and save from reproach two n.o.ble houses, to which she belongs--for her face tells me that your story is true. Spare the memory of this most unfortunate, if sinful woman. Spare the high name and n.o.ble pride of the old countess, who beseeches you--her very face seems to change as I speak--for silence and forgetfulness. That which you have done in love, continue in mercy. Let this miserable scene, with all that led to it, rest in sacred silence among us. The persons who have suffered most are now before a tribunal where no evidence of yours is wanted. Look on your old mistress," he continued, pointing toward the death couch, "and let her sweet face plead with you.

Had she lived--"

"Had she lived," said the old woman, "I should not have spoken. Death itself would not have wrung from me one word of what her daughter suffered. But the woman who murdered her came suddenly before me. It was a power beyond my poor will that made me speak; but hereafter no word of this shall ever pa.s.s my lips. No evil story of suffering or bloodshed shall ever go forth about a lady of Houghton while I can prevent it."

Lord Hope bent his head, and made an effort to thank her, but he could not speak.

"Leave me now," said the old woman. "Let no servants come near these apartments, save two that can be trusted here with me. Some one send Margaret Casey and Eliza, her sister, here. Now leave me, Lord Hope, and you, Lady Ca.r.s.et. You can trust the old woman alone with these two."

Before noon, that day, it was known in all the country around that the old countess, Lady Ca.r.s.et, lay in funeral state in the royal guest-chamber at Houghton Castle, for the long red flag was floating half-way down its staff, and a hatchment hung in mournful gorgeousness over the princ.i.p.al entrance between those two ma.s.sive towers.

But farther than the flag could be seen, and swift as the wind that stirred it, went the strange story that the beautiful Lady Hope had been seized with a violent hemorrhage of the lungs while standing by the death couch of the old countess, and had died before help could be obtained.

After this, another wild rumor took wing. The young lady who had been some weeks at the castle was only an adopted daughter of Lord Hope, and, consequently could not become heiress of Houghton under the will or by entail. The daughter and heiress was at the castle, stricken down with grief at the double loss that had fallen upon her since her arrival from abroad, where she had been educated. With a feeling of delicacy that did her honor she had declined to appear as the acknowledged heiress at the festival given to Lady Hope, feeling that it might interfere with her grandmother's independent action with regard to the vast property at her disposal, if she allowed herself to be proclaimed thus early as the chosen heiress, which she now undoubtedly was. The will had been read, and, with the exception of a considerable legacy to Caroline Brown, the adopted daughter, and provisions for the servants, young Lady Ca.r.s.et came in for everything.

Alderman Stacy took this story back to America, and described his reception at Houghton Castle with such glowing colors--when the a.s.sembled board were at supper one night, in a pleasant, social way--that one of the fathers proposed forthwith to draw up a resolution of thanks to young Lady Ca.r.s.et for the hospitality extended to their ill.u.s.trious compeer, and forward it, with "the liberty of the city, under the great seal of New York." At the next meeting of the board this resolution was carried unanimously--in fact, with acclamation.

Months went by, twelve or more, and then the trees around that grand old stronghold blazed out with lights again. Two fountains shot their liquid brightness over the stone terrace, at which the people from far and near came to drink. One sent up crystal, and rained down diamonds, as it had done that night when the old countess died. The other, being of wine, shot up a column of luminous red into the air, and came down in a storm of rubies.

The people, who caught the red drops on their lips, and dipped the sparkling liquid up with silver ladles, knew that a double wedding was going on in the castle, and clamored loudly for a sight of their lady and her bridegroom.