7. CHAPTER VII.
THE HOUSEKEEPER'S HAND.
The next morning dawned clear and cold. Mr. Gillies, arising at his usual
early hour, approached the window with some curiosity, and very few preconceived
ideas either of the situation of Bonniemeer or of scenery in general, his
experiences in this direction having been limited to half a dozen ascents to the
cupola of the State House of his native city.
Fancy the revelation to such a man of a view like that lying now beneath
his eyes!
At the right, miles of evergreen forest “clothed the wold and met the sky,”
its dense green flecked with the snow clinging to the level branches, and softened
by the snake-like tracery of the naked birches fringing its margin. To the left
abruptly rose a rocky headland, crag piled upon crag in majestic outline, tossing
scornfully from its broad shoulders the snow which gently sought to cover it, and
raising its fearless crest to meet the morning sun that paused to crown it brother
monarch, while yet the valley lay in twilight.
Across the front swept the ocean, curving broadly to the horizon line, and
giving the idea of limitless extent, the satisfaction of soul only to be obtained by
the introduction of ocean into a picture.
The satisfaction of soul! for if the horizon closes with a mountain, a plain, a
broken country, who has not felt the impulse to place himself just at the vanishing-point
and see what lies beyond? It is an unfinished continuity, and excites more
craving than content. But the gaze, which after traversing leagues and leagues
of shining water, broken only by the grand curve of the globe itself, sinks at last
into the vague brightness of the horizon line, the dissolving-point where sea is
sky and sky is sea, lingers there content. Beyond lies space, eternity, God, and
humanity quails from the encounter.
Behind that crag at the left hand, although Mr. Gillies did not know it, lay
his future home. The wood at the right sheltered the hamlet of Carrick, and the
beach lay glistening a mile from the window whence the post-office clerk took
his first look at Nature.
A servant presently summoned him to breakfast. At the head of the table
sat Mrs. Rhee, and John Gillies's first impression in looking at her was, that she
had shrunk farther into herself since he saw her last. Surely her eyes were not
so hollow, her lips so thin, her temples so sunken, the night before. Even the
hands, busy among the teacups, looked withered and pinched, and the observer
noted that a ring upon the first finger, which he had watched sparkling in the
lamplight at dinner-time, was now slipped round by the weight of the stone, as
if it suddenly had grown too large.
The table was laid for two only, and the housekeeper, motioning Mr. Gillies
to the vacant place, said, in a low voice,
“Mr. Vaughn will not come to breakfast, and the doctor has gone.”
“And Mrs. Vaughn—”
“She died at midnight.”
Mrs. Rhee turned away her face as she spoke, but Gillies could see the deadly
pallor that overspread even the slender throat and little ear, the quiver of suppressed
anguish that trembled through every curve of the graceful form, and
while he looked and wondered, the phrase of the night before went sighing
through his mind like the burden of a half-forgotten song.
“A terrible night to leave a happy home and go out all alone into the storm.”
The meal was a silent and a slight one, Mrs. Rhee merely performing the
duties of the table, while her guest, naturally abstemious, found his appetite materially
lessened not only by his situation, but by the absence of his accustomed
viands.
As they rose from the table, a servant entered with a message from Mr.
Vaughn, desiring the housekeeper to attend him, and Gillies, awaiting her return,
strode impatiently up and down the room, asking himself again and again, what
concern of his was the grief and loss oppressing this household, and how or why
it should become his own so much as it had done.
The servant quietly cleared the table, and he was left alone. Throwing himself
into a chair beside the window, he sat drumming upon the sash, when the
door opened noiselessly, and Mrs. Rhee entered. Gillies's quick glance involuntarily
searched her face for the result of her interview with her master, and
found it in a renewal of the strange expression he had noticed at their first interview.
The same concentrated firmness about the mouth, the same painful constraint
upon the brow, while the secret of the dilated eyes looked from them so
eagerly, lay so close beneath the surface that John Gillies bent his brow and held
his breath, waiting to see it fully revealed. But, conscious of his observation,
the woman turned hastily away, and approaching the fire, held her hands so close
to the blaze that it caught upon the lace about her wrists. She neither started
nor made any exclamation, and when Gillies, springing toward her, caught and
wrapped her hands in a cloth snatched from the table, she only murmured indifferent
thanks as for a courtesy that might as well have been omitted. But the
incident had diverted those searching eyes from her face, and, conscious of the
relief, she spoke hastily:
“Mr. Vaughn desires me to apologize for him. He does not feel able to see
any one, but hopes that you will make use of the house, the servants, and the
horses at your pleasure.”
“I am much obliged to Mr. Vaughn, and I should be glad of a conveyance
and a guide to my own house as soon as possible, if you will order it,” said Gillies,
with undisguised satisfaction.
Mrs. Rhee rang the bell and gave orders that James and two horses should
attend Mr. Gillies immediately.
“You will be obliged to ride, sir,” said she. “The roads are not broken for
a sleigh yet.”
“Very well, ma'am. I came here on a horse and I presume it will not be
more dangerous or disagreeable to ride to-day than it was last night. I do not
like it, but can endure it,” replied Gillies, reflectively.
“Mrs. Vaughn's funeral will be the day after to-morrow,” continued the housekeeper,
in a voice whose measured coldness betrayed the emotion it covered but
did not conceal. “The woman who was found on the beach will be buried at
the same time, and Mr. Vaughn will be gratified by your presence.”
“By no means!” exclaimed Gillies, hastily. “I never went to a funeral in
my life, and I probably never shall.”
The housekeeper replied by a look of some displeasure, and Gillies abruptly
inquired,
“Did the child die, also?”
The look of displeasure changed to one of surprise as Mrs. Rhee coldly
inquired:
“Do you refer, sir, to Mr. Vaughn's daughter?”
“Good Heavens, no!” exclaimed Gillies. “I thought—that is to say, ma'am,
I have been informed that Mr. Vaughn had no children. I was asking about the
dead woman's baby.”
“Mrs. Vaughn died in giving birth to an infant,” said the housekeeper, fixing
her ominous eyes upon him, and dropping the words from her white lips as if
they had frozen them.
“But, the other child,” persisted Gillies.
“Mr. Vaughn will keep it to be educated with his own daughter—he says.”
And with the last words the speaker's voice dropped to an accent of bitter scorn
and jealousy, as incomprehensible to her listener's ear as any other of the mysteries
surrounding this strange house and its inmates. He stood for a moment
looking her steadily in the face, and then, glancing out of the window,
said, abruptly:
“I see the man and the horses. Good morning, ma'am.”
“Good morning, sir,” replied the housekeeper, coldly, and with no more
leave-taking, Mr. Gillies hastened to the outer air, and in reply to James's respectful
salutation and remark upon the coldness of the weather, he muttered,
“Cold enough, but better than in there. Two dead women, two babies, and
a witch for a housekeeper. Ugh!”
