University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE MYSTERY AT BEECHWOOD.

A DAY or two after Guy's return to New York there
came to Beechwood a tall, muscular-looking woman,
whom Alice called Mrs. Jenks, and for whom Magdalen
could see no possible use. She did not consort with the
family, nor with the servants, and Magdalen often met her in
the upper hall, and saw her disappearing through the green
baize door. It was about this time, too, that Mr. Grey left
home for Cincinnati, and the household settled down into a
state of quiet and loneliness, which, contrasting as it did with
the merry holidays when Guy Seymour was there, seemed to
both girls very hard to bear.

Alice was unusually restless, and when at last Guy wrote
telling of a famous singer who had just appeared in New York,
and asking them all to come down for a few days and hear for
themselves, she caught eagerly at it, and overruling every objection,
won her aunt's consent to going. Magdalen was to
accompany them, and she was anticipating the trip and what it
might bring about, for Hester Floyd had written that Roger was
in New York. But when the morning fixed upon for their journey
came she was suffering with a prevailing influenza which
made the trip impossible for her. She, however, insisted upon
Alice's going without her, and so for a few days she was left
alone in the house so far as congenial companionship was concerned.
Mrs. Jenks she never saw, though she knew she was
there; for as she grew better and able to be about the parlors
and library she heard the servants speak of the amount of wine
she ordered with her dinner, while one of them added in a whisper

“Suppose she should get drunk and there should be a row,
wouldn't we be in a pretty mess. Nobody could control
her.”

Magdalen was not timid, but after this she kept her door
locked at night, while during the day she frequently caught herself
listening intently as if expecting something to happen. But
nothing did happen until one night when she went as usual to
the parlor, where she sat down to the piano and tried a new
piece of music which Guy had sent to Alice. Finding it rather
difficult, she cast it aside and dashed off something more familiar
to her. On the music stand were piles and piles of songs,
some her own, some Alice's, and she looked them over, and selecting
one which had always been her favorite, she began to
sing, feeling much as an imprisoned bird must feel when it finds
itself free again, for since her first night at Beechwood she had
never been asked to sing with the piano. Now, however, she
was alone, and she sang on and on, her voice, which had been
out of practice so long, gathering strength and sweetness until
the whole house was full of the clear, liquid tones, and the
servants, still dawdling over their supper, commented upon the
music and held their breath to listen. One of them had brought
a lamp into the room before going to her tea, and this with the
fire in the grate was all the light there was; but it answered
every purpose for Magdalen, who enjoyed the dim twilight and
the flickering shadows on the wall, and kept on with her singing,
while through the upper hall there came stealing softly the
figure of a woman with her white night-dress trailing on the carpet,
and her bare feet giving back no echo to her stealthy footsteps.
She had come through the green baize door, and she
paused there a moment and turned her ear in the direction
whence she had come. But all was quiet. There was no one
watching her, and with a cunning gleam in her restless, black
eyes, she shut the door softly, then opened it again, and went
back down the long hall until she reached a door which was
partly ajar. This she also shut, and turning the key took it in
her hand and started again for the music which had set her

poor brain to throbbing, and quickened the blood in her veins
until every nerve was quivering with excitement.

“I am coming, oh, I'm coming. Don't you hear me as I
come?” sang Magdalen, while down the stairs and through the
hall came the unseen visitor until she reached the parlor door,
where she stood for a moment in the attitude of listening, while
her eyes were fixed upon Magdalen with a curious, inquiring look.

Then they rolled restlessly about the room, and took in every
thing from the picture on the wall to the fire in the grate, and
then went back again to the young girl, still singing her song of
summer. The music evidently had a soothing effect upon the
poor, crazed creature, and her eyes were soft and pleasant and
moist with tears as she drew near to Magdalen, who at last felt
the hot breath upon her neck, and knew there was some one
behind her. There was a violent start, then a sudden crash
among the keys, as Magdalen felt not only the breath, but the
touch of the long, white fingers, which clasped her shoulder so
firmly. She could see the fingers as they held to her dress, but
only the outline of a human form was visible, and so she did not
scream until she turned her head and saw the white-robed
woman, with the long hair falling down her back, the peculiar
look of insanity in every feature. Then a shriek, loud and unearthly,
rang through the house, followed by another and still
another, as she felt the woman's arm twining itself around her
neck, and heard the woman's voice saying to her, “What are
you, angel or devil, that you can move me so?”

Roused by the terrific shrieks, the servants came rushing to
the parlor, where they found Magdalen fainted entirely away,
with the maniac bending over her and peering into her face.
When Magdalen came to herself, she was in her own room,
and the girl, Honora, who waited on her in the absence of
Pauline, was sitting by and caring for her. She did not seem
inclined to talk, and to Magdalen's inquiries, “Oh, what was
it, and shall I see it again?” she merely replied, “You'll not
be troubled any more. It was the fault of Mrs. Jenks. She
drank half a bottle of wine since noon and is drunk as a beast.”

That was all the explanation Magdalen could get, and as she
recovered rapidly from the effects of her fainting fit, she signified
her wish to be left alone; but she did not venture to the
parlor again that night, and she saw that both the doors leading
from her room and Alice's into the hall were locked, and bolted,
too. Then she tried to reason herself into a tolerable degree
of calmness and quiet, as she thought over the events of the
evening and wondered who the maniac was.

“Alice's mother, most likely,” she said, and a great throb of
pity swept over her for the young girl whose life had been so
darkened and who had possibly never known a mother's love
any more than she herself had done.

And then her thoughts went out after her own mother, with
a longing desire such as she had seldom felt. Where was she
that wintry night? Was she far from or was she near to the
daughter who had never seen her face to remember it? Was
she living still, or was the snow piled upon her grave, and would
not Magdalen rather have her thus than like the babbling maniac
who had startled her so in the parlor? She believed she
would. In one sense Alice was more to be pitied than herself,
and she sat thinking of the young girl and the shadow on her
life until the fire burned out upon the hearth, and she crept
shivering to bed. But not to sleep. She could not do that for
the peculiar cry, half human, half unearthly, which from time
to time kept coming to her ears, and in which she recognized
tones like the voice heard an instant in the parlor before
consciousness forsook her. There was evidently a great
commotion throughout the house, the servants running to and
fro; but no one came near her until the early dawn was stealing
into the room, and giving definite shapes and forms to the objects
about her. Then there was a tap at her door, and Honora's
voice said:

“Miss Lennox, will you come with me and see what you can
do to quiet her? She's kept screeching for you all night, and
Mrs. Jenks, who is in her senses now, says maybe you can influence
her. Strangers sometimes do. I'll wait outside till you

are ready. You needn't be afraid, — she never hurt anybody.”

Magdalen trembled in every joint, and her teeth fairly chattered
as she hastened to dress herself.

“It's because I'm cold; there certainly is nothing to fear,”
she thought, as she bound her hair under a net and knotted
her dressing-gown around her waist.

She had never been through the baize door, and as Honora
held it for her to pass she felt for a moment as if trespassing
upon forbidden ground. But the door swung to behind her.
She was shut into a narrow hall, with two doors on the right
hand side, and one of them ajar. The mystery she was going
to confront was beyond that door, she knew, for a moaning cry
of “Let me go to her, I tell you,” met her ear, and made her
draw a little closer to Honora, who said to her, reassuringly,
“There is nothing to fear; she is perfectly harmless.”

“Yes; but tell me, please, who it is,” Magdalen said, clutching
the arm of the girl, who replied:

“Oh, I supposed you knew. It is Mrs. Grey.”

Magdalen's conjectures were correct, and she went fearlessly
up to the door, which Honora opened wide and then shut behind
her, leaving her standing just across the threshold in the room
which held the Mystery at Beechwood.