University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

She was not suffered to remain long in suspense. The
first accents of the strange voice, addressing her husband
at the door, and which reached her ears in her chamber,
proved the speaker to be no stranger. Fearfully her heart
sank within her as she heard it. The voice was that of
Alfred Stevens! Five years had elapsed since she had
heard it last, yet its every tone was intelligible; clear as
then; distinct, unaltered;—in every syllable the same
utterance of the same wily assassin of innocence and love!
What were her emotions? It were in vain to attempt to
describe them—there is no need of analysis. There was
nothing compounded in them—there was no mystery!
The pang and the feeling were alike simple. Her sensations
were those of unmitigated horror. “One stupid
moment, motionless, she stood,” then sunk upon her
knees! Her hands were clasped—her eyes lifted to heaven—but
she could not pray. “God be with me!” was
her only broken ejaculation, and the words choked her.
The trial had come! Her head throbbed almost to bursting.
She clasped it with her cold hands. It felt as if the
bony mansion could not much longer contain the fermenting
and striving mass within. Yet she had to struggle.
It was necessary that the firm soul should not yield, and
hers was really no feeble one. Striving and struggling to
suppress the feeling of horror which every moment threatened
to burst, she could readily comprehend the relief
that nature could afford her—could she only break forth
in hysterical convulsions. But these convulsions would
be fatal—not to herself—not to life, perhaps, for that was
not now a subject of apprehension. It would endanger
her secret! That was now her fear. To preserve her
equilibrium—to suppress the torments and the troubles of
her soul—to keep Beauchampe from the knowledge that
the man he had sworn to slay was his friend, and was
even now a guest upon his threshold—this was the important
necessity. It was this necessity that made the
struggle so terrible. She shook like an aspen in the wind.

Her breast heaved with spasmodic efforts that were only
not convulsions—her limbs trembled—she could not well
walk—yet she could not remain where she knelt. To
kneel without submission—while her soul still struggled
with divided impulses—was to kneel in vain. The consolation
of prayer can only follow the calmness of the
soul. That was not hers—could not be. Yet it was necessary
that she should appear so. Terrible trial! she
tottered across the room to the mirror, and gazed upon its
placid surface. It was no longer placid while she gazed.
What a convulsion prompted each muscle of her face! The
dilation of those orbs, how could that be subdued? Yet it
must be done.

“Thy hand is upon me now!—God be merciful!”
she exclaimed once more sinking to her knees. “Bitterly
now do I feel, how much I have offended. Had these
five years been passed in prayers of penitence rather than
of pride—in prayers for grace rather than of vengeance, it
had not been hard to pray now. Thy hand had not been
so heavy! Spare me, Father. Let this trial be light.
Let me recover strength—give me composure for this
fearful meeting!”

She started to her feet. She heard a movement in her
mother's apartment. That restless old lady, apprised of
the arrival of the expected visiters, was preparing to make
her appearance below. It was necessary that she should
be forewarned, else she might endanger every thing.
With this new fear, she acquired strength. She hurried
to her mother's apartment and found her at the threshold.
The impatient old lady, agog with all the curiosity of age,
was preparing to descend the stairs.

“Come back with me an instant,” said the daughter, as
she passed into the chamber.

“What's the matter with you, Margaret?—you look as if
your old fits were come back to you!”

“It is likely; there is occasion for them. Know you
who is below?”

“To be sure I do. Col. Sharpe and Mr. Barnabas.
Who but them?”

“Alfred Stevens is below! Col. Sharpe and Alfred
Stevens are the same persons.”

“You don't say so! Lord, if Beauchampe only knew!”
exclaimed the old lady in accents of terror.

“And if you rush down as you are, he will know;”
said the daughter sternly. “For this purpose I came to
prepare you. You must take time and compose yourself.
It is no easy task for either of us, mother, but it must be
done. You do not know, for I have not thought it worth
while to tell you, that, before I consented to marry Beauchampe,
I told him all—I kept no secrets from him.”

“You didn't sure, Margaret?”

“As I live I did!”

“But that was very foolish, Margaret.”

“No!—it was right—it was necessary. Nothing less
could have justified me—nothing less could have given me
safety.”

“I don't see—I think 'twas very foolish.”

“Be it so, mother—it is done; and I must tell you
more, the better to make you feel the necessity of keeping
your countenance. Before I became the wife of Beauchampe,
he swore to revenge my wrong. He pledged
himself before Heaven to slay my betrayer whenever they
should meet. They have met—they are below together.”

“Lord have mercy, what a madness was this!” cried
the old lady with uplifted hands and sinking into a chair.
Her anxiety to get below was effectually quieted.

“It was no madness to declare the truth;” said the
daughter gloomily—“perhaps it was not even a madness
to demand such a pledge.”

“And you're going to tell Beauchampe that his intimate
friend and Alfred Stevens are the same—you're going to
have blood shed in the house?”

“No! not if I can help it! When I swore Beauchampe
to slay this villain, I was not the woman that I am
now. I knew not then his worth. I did not then do justice
to his love which was honourable. My purpose now
is to keep this secret from him, if you do not betray it;
and if the criminal himself can have the prudence to say
nothing. From his honour, were that my only security,
I should have no hope. I feel that he would manifest no
forbearance, were he not restrained by the wholesome fear
of vengeance. Even in this respect I have my doubts.
There is sometimes such a recklessness in villany that it
grows rash in spite of caution. I must only hope and
pray for the best;—ah! could I pray!”

Once more did the unhappy woman sink upon her

knees. She was now more composed. Her feelings had
become fixed. The necessity of concentrating her strength
and composing her countenance for the approaching trial
was sufficiently strong to bring about, to a certain extent,
the desired results; and the previous necessity of restraining
her mother, or at least, of preparing her for a meeting,
which, otherwise, might have provoked a very suspicious
show of feeling or excitement, had greatly helped to increase
her own fortitude and confirm her will. But, from
prayer she got no strength. Still she could not pray. The
empty words came from the lips only. The soul was
still wandering elsewhere—still striving, struggling in a
moral chaos where, if all was neither void nor formless, all
was dark, indistinct and threatening.

But little time was suffered even for this effort. The
voices from below became louder. Laughter, and occasionally
the words and topics of conversation reached their
ears. That Alfred Stevens should laugh at such a moment,
while she struggled in the throes of mortal apprehension
on account of him, served to strengthen her pride, and
renew and warm her sense of hostility. What a pang it
was to hear, distinctly uttered by his lips, an inquiry,
addressed to her husband, on the subject of his wife.
What feelings of pain, and apprehension were awakened
in her bosom by the simple sounds—

“But where's your wife, Beauchampe? we must see
her, you know. You forget the commission which we
bear—the authority conferred by the club. Unless we
approve, you know—”

What more was said escaped her, but a few moments
more elapsed when Beauchampe was heard ascending
the stairs. She rose from where she knelt, and bracing
herself to the utmost, she advanced and met him at the
head of the stairs.

“Come,” said he, “and show yourself. My friends
wonder at your absence. They inquire for you. Where's
your mother?”

“I will inform her, and she will probably follow me
down.”

“Very good—come as soon as possible, for we must
get them supper. They have had none.”

He returned to his guests, and she to her chamber. Her
mother was weeping.

“If you do not feel strong enough, mother, to face
these visiters to-night, do not come down. I will see to
giving them supper. At all events, remember how much
depends on your firmness. I feel now that I shall be
strong enough; but I tremble when I think of you. Perhaps,
you had better not be seen at all. I can plead
indisposition for you while they remain, which I suppose
will only be to-night.”

The mother was undecided what to do. She could only
articulate—the usual lamentation of imbecility,—that things
were as they were.

“It was so foolish, to tell him any thing.”

The daughter looked at her in silence and sorrow. But
the remark rather lifted her forehead. It was, indeed,
with the pride of a high and honourable soul that she exulted
in the consciousness that she had revealed the truth
—that she had concealed nothing of her cruel secret from
the husband who had the right to know. With this
strengthening conviction that, if the worst came, she at
least had no concealments which could do her harm, she
descended to the fearful encounter. Never was the rigid
purpose of a severe will, in circumstances most trying,
impressed upon any nature with more inflexibility than
upon hers. Every nerve and sensibility was corded up to
the fullest tension. She felt that she might fall in sudden
convulsion—that the ligatures which her will had put upon
brain and impulse might occasion apoplexy; but she felt,
at the same time, that every muscle would do its duty—
that her step should not falter,—that her eye should not
shrink,—that no emotion of face,—no agitation of frame
should effect the development of her fearful secret, or rouse
the suspicions of her husband that there was a secret.

She achieved her purpose! She entered the apartment
with the easy dignity of one wholly unconscious of wrong,
or of any of those feelings which denote the memory of
wrong. But she did not succeed, nor did she try, to impart
to her countenance and manner the appearance of
indifference. On the contrary, the solemnity of her looks
amounted to intensity. She could not divest her face of
the tension which she felt. The tremendous earnestness
of the encounter—the awful seriousness of that meeting
on which so much depended—if not clearly expressed on
her countenance, at least, left there the language of an impressiveness

which had its effect upon the company. Beauchampe
was aware of enough, to be at no loss to account
for the grave severity of her aspect. Mr. Barnabas, without
knowing any thing, at least felt the presence of much
and solemn character in the eyes that met his own. As
for Col. Sharpe, he was too much surprised at meeting
so unexpectedly with the woman he had wronged, to be at
all observant of the particular feelings which her features
seemed to express. He started at her entrance. Looking,
just then, at his wife, Beauchampe failed to note the movement
of his guest. He started, his face became suddenly
pale, then red, and his eyes involuntarily turned to Beauchampe
as if in doubt and inquiry. His congé, if he made
any, was the result of habit only. Never was guilty
spirit more suddenly confounded, though, perhaps, never
could guilty spirit more rapidly recover from his consternation.
In ten minutes after, Col. Sharpe, alias Alfred Stevens,
was as talkative as ever,—as if he had no mortifications
to apprehend, no conscience to quiet;—but, when the
eyes of Beauchampe and Barnabas were averted, his
might be seen to wander to the spot where sat the woman
he had wronged! What was the expression in that
glance? What was the secret thought in the dishonourable
mind of the criminal? Though momentary only, that
glance was full of intelligence; but the recognition which
it conveyed found no response from hers;—though, not
unfrequently, at such moments,—as if there were some
fascination in his eyes, they encountered those of the
person whom they sought, keenly fixed upon them!