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The Millionaire Baby, a novel by Anna Katharine Green |
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Chapter 10. Temptation |
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_ CHAPTER X. TEMPTATION The sharp rustle of her dress as she suddenly rose struck upon my ear. "Then let us go," she cried, with just a slight quiver of eagerness in her wonderful voice. I comprehended its culture now. "The place is ghostly at this hour of the night. I believe that I am really afraid." With a muttered reassurance, I allowed the full light of the lantern to fall directly on her face. She _was_ afraid. There was no other explanation possible for her wild staring eyes and blue quivering lips. For the instant I hardly knew her; then her glance rose to mine and she smiled and it was with difficulty I refrained from acknowledging in words my appreciation of her wonderful flexibility of expression. "You are astonished to see me so affected," she said. "It is not so strange as you think--it is superstition--the horror of what once happened here--the reason for that partition--I know the whole story, for all my attempts to deny it just now. The hour, too, is unfortunate--the darkness--your shifting, mysterious light. It was late like this--and dark--with just the moon to illumine the scene, when she--Mr. Trevitt, do you want to know the story of this place?--the old, much guessed-at, never-really-understood story which led first to its complete abandonment, then to the building of that dividing wall and finally to the restoration of this portion and of this alone? Do you?" Her eagerness, in such startling contrast to the reticence she had shown on this very subject a few minutes before, affected me peculiarly. I wanted to hear the story--any one would who had listened to the gossip of this neighborhood for years, but-- She evidently did not mean to give me time to understand my own hesitation. "I have the whole history--the touching, hardly-to-be-believed history--up at my house at this very moment. It was written by--no, I will let you guess." The naivete of her smile made me forget the force of its late expression. "Mr. Ocumpaugh?" I ventured. "Which Mr. Ocumpaugh? There have been so many." She began slowly, naturally, to move toward the door. "I can not guess." "Then I shall have to tell you. It was written by the one who--Come! I will tell you outside. I haven't any courage here." "But I have." "You haven't read the story." "Never mind; tell me who the writer was." "Mr. Ocumpaugh's father; he, by whose orders this partition was put up." "Oh, you have _his_ story--written--and by himself! You are fortunate, Mrs. Carew." I had turned the lantern from her face, but not so far that I did not detect the deep flush which dyed her whole countenance at these words. "I am," she emphatically returned, meeting my eyes with a steady look I was not sufficiently expert with women's ways, or at all events with this woman's ways, to understand. "Seldom has such a tale been written--seldom, let us thank God, has there been an equal occasion for it." "You interest me," I said. And she did. Little as this history might have to do with the finding of Gwendolen, I felt an almost imperative necessity of satisfying my curiosity in regard to it, though I knew she had deliberately roused this curiosity for a purpose which, if not comprehensible to me, was of marked importance to her and not altogether for the reason she had been pleased to give me. Possibly it was on account of this last mentioned conviction that I allowed myself to be so interested. "It is late," she murmured with a final glance towards those dismal hangings which in my present mood I should not have been so greatly surprised to see stir under her look. "However, if you will pardon the hour and accept a seat in my small library, I will show you what only one other person has seen besides myself." It was a temptation; for several reasons it was a temptation; yet-- "I want you to see why I am frightened of this place," she said, flashing her eyes upon me with an almost girlish appeal. "I will go," said I; and following her quickly out, I locked the bungalow door, and ignoring the hand she extended toward me, dropped the key into my pocket. I thought I heard a little gasp--the least, the smallest of sounds possible. But if so, the feeling which prompted it was not apparent in her manner or her voice as she led the way back to her house, and ushered me into a hall full of packing-boxes and the general litter accompanying an approaching departure. "You will excuse the disorder," she cried as she piloted me through these various encumbrances to a small but exquisitely furnished room still glorying in its full complement of ornaments and pictures. "This trouble which has come to one I love has made it very hard for me to do anything. I feel helpless, at times, completely helpless." The dejection she expressed was but momentary, however. In another instant she was pointing out a chair and begging me to make myself comfortable while she went for the letter (I think she called it a letter) which I had come there to read. What was I to think of her? What was I to think of myself? And what would the story tell me to warrant the loss of what might have proved a most valuable hour? I had not answered these questions when she reentered with a bundle in her hand of discolored--I should almost call them mouldered--sheets of much crumpled paper. "These--" she began; then, seeing me look at them with something like suspicion, she paused until she caught my eye, when she added gravely, "these came to me from Mrs. Ocumpaugh. How she got them you will have to ask her. I should say, judging from appearances--" Here she took a seat opposite me at a small table near which I had been placed--"that they must have been found in some old chest or possibly in some hidden drawer of one of those curious antique desks of which more than one was discovered in the garrets of the old house when it was pulled down to give place to the new one." "Is this letter, as you call it, so old?" I asked. "It is dated thirty-five years ago." "The garret must have been a damp one," I remarked. She flashed me a look--I thought of it more than once afterward--and asked if she should do the reading or I. "You," I rejoined, all afire with the prospect of listening to her remarkable voice in what I had every reason to believe would call forth its full expression. "Only let me look at those sheets first, and understand as perfectly as I may, just what it is you are going to read to me." "It's an explanation written for his heirs by Mr. Ocumpaugh. The story itself," she went on, handing me over the papers she held, "begins abruptly. From the way the sheet is torn across at the top, I judge that the narrative itself was preceded by some introductory words now lacking. When I have read it to you, I will tell you what I think those introductory words were." I handed back the sheets. There seemed to be a spell in the air--possibly it arose from her manner, which was one to rouse expectation even in one whose imagination had not already been stirred by a visit at night and in more than commonly bewildering company to the place whose dark and hitherto unknown secret I was about to hear. "I am ready," I said, feeling my strange position, but not anxious to change it just then for any other conceivable one. She drew a deep breath; again fixed me with her strange, compelling eyes, and with the final remark: "The present no longer exists, we are back in the seventies--" began this enthralling tale. I did not move till the last line dropped from her lips. _ |
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