University of Virginia Library

59. LIX.
THE BRIDAL CHAMBER.

It was now eleven o'clock, as all
could see by the minute-hand of the
great ghostly clock ticking in the hall,
and the wedding-guests began to take
their departure with many congratulations,
addressed to Lord Ruthven and
his bride, who stood beside colonel and
Lady Brand in the middle of the drawing-room.

Lord Ruthven was fearfully pale, and
the strange glitter of his eyes had not
disappeared. He had gained his chamber
by the door in the rear, divested himself
of his cloak, and descended just as
Dr. Vandyke disappeared through a door
leading to Meta's chamber, whither he
had been summoned hastily by intelligence
that the child had been taken suddenly
ill.

A terrible smile passed across Ruthven's
pale lips, as the physician disappeared,
and he hastened to join the
company. The leave - taking was gone
through with, and the guests entered
their coaches awaiting them in front of
the portico. A quarter of an hour afterward
the last chariot had rolled away
from the door; the members of the
household retired; and the great mansion,
lately so noisy and brilliant, was

as still and dark as a haunted house,
from which all human occupants have
fled, leaving it to the mysterious tenants
of the darkness.

In this profound and almost painful
silence, no sound was heard but the subdued
murmur of the river beyond the
pine-clad hill, and the measured ticking
of the tall clock in the hall; no light
was visible but the spectral gleam of the
setting moon, which, passing through a
narrow window in front of the great
door, lit up the white dial-plate of the
clock, making it resemble a ghost.

Slowly the “tick—tick,” resounded
with a dull, monotonous sound, through
the deserted hall—slowly the black hand
moved over the white face, second after
second, minute after minute.

“Tick, tick!—tick, tick!”

It was ten minutes of midnight now.

The hand crawled slowly, the monotonous
sound went on, never faster, never
slower, like a metallic fate, careless of
what was near at hand.

“Tick, tick!—tick! tick!”

It was five minutes of midnight now
—four minutes—three minutes—

The last rays of the moon, dim, mysterious,
bloody, were on the ghostly
face: the black hand was on the stroke
of midnight, when a door opened violently
in the direction of Meta's chamber,
and Dr. Vandyke rushed into the vacant
hall.

At the same instant, a sudden and terrible
scream issued from the chamber of
Lady Ruthven.

The clock struck midnight. As the
hammer fell, the door of the bride's
chamber opened violently, a dark figure
rushed down the staircase nearly overturning
the physician, who vainly attempted
to grapple with and arrest it—
the great door opened and closed with a
clash; and past the window of the bridal
chamber—past the delicate footprints in
the snow—past the oak where a dusky
object was stiffening in the freezing
winter night—past tree and rock, lit up
by the bloody light of the sinking moon—
the dark figure, followed headlong now
by another figure, disappeared in the
gloomy night.

The second figure was that of Fergus,
who, issuing forth from the side-door of
the mansion, had hastened with the
speed of a deer upon the track of his
master.

The fearful scream from Lady Ruthven's
chamber had aroused the entire
household. In a few minutes, the upper
hall was filled with trembling figures
in night - dresses uttering cries,
and demanding the origin of the alarm.
Through the agitated group, Lady Brand,
wrapped in her dressing - robe, hurried
to Honoria's chamber, her heart throbbing
violently, her cheeks as pale as
ashes.

Through the door-way came a hollow
moan. She hastened into the chamber,
only illumined by a few chance gleams
of the dying fire, and the last red rays
of the moon; and, as she did so, heard
the low words—

“Mother! mother!”

Suddenly she felt her bare feet—for
in her haste she had not put on her slippers—touch
something moist.

She stooped—touched the floor—and
held up her finger.

It was blood.

With a wild, awful cry, she called for
lights. They were all ready at the door
in the hands of the affrighted household;
and a spectacle of unspeakable horror
was revealed to all eyes.

Lady Ruthven was extended upon
the couch, which it was obvious she only
had occupied — her head hanging back
like a wounded bird's, the bosom of her
snowy night-dress stained with blood—
and the flow of blood had been so profuse
that, lying as she did upon the edge
of the bed, it had reached the floor, and
extended in a long, narrow stream toward
the chair before the fire, upon which

the young lady had deposited her garments
when she retired.

The awful climax to this scene of horror
was the hilt of a Highland dirk clearly
relieved against the white night-dress,
and buried apparently in the young lady's
bosom.

Beneath the head of the young lady
was passed the arm of Dr. Vandyke, who,
divining in an instant, as Ruthven darted
by him, what had happened, had hastened
to the chamber and the bedside.

“O doctor!—what is this?” cried
Lady Brand.

“Murder, madam!” was the hoarse
reply.

Lady Brand, with a low cry, extended
her arms toward her child, tottered,
and would have fallen, had not Colonel
Brand, who hastily entered at the moment,
caught her in his arms.

Such was the spectacle in the bridal
chamber. But the family were destined
on this night to sup full on horror.

Colonel Brand, nearly unmanned,
bore his wife to a couch, and had just
deposited the apparently lifeless form
thereon, when violent knocking was
heard at the great door of the mansion,
and voices loudly demanded admittance.

A shudder ran through the crowd,
and every one listened. The violent
knocking continued — there was in its
very sound something urgent and terrible
— and, seizing a flambeau, Colonel
Brand, ashy pale and with compressed
lips, hastened down the staircase, threw
open the door, and, holding the flambeau
aloft, demanded the occasion of
the outcry.

No reply was necessary. Borne in
the arms of two servants, he saw the
body of Edmund Innis—the face deadly
pale, the eyes closed, the bosom covered
with blood. The servants, chancing to
pass by the great oak, on their way to
the quarters, had been startled by a
groan — fled with superstitious fear at
first; but, summoning courage, had re
turned to the spot, and discovered Innis
stretched in a pool of blood upon the
snow. They had hastily raised him—
borne him between them to the “great
house,” and knocked loudly at the door
to summon assistance.

Colonel Brand uttered a low groan,
as the servants explained in hurried
words how and where they had found
the body. He could only gasp out an
order that the dying man should be
brought in. He then went back, wellnigh
broken-hearted, to his daughter's chamber.

As he crossed the threshold, he staggered
in his gait, but all at once his eyes
expanded with a sort of joy. Lady
Brand was holding the head of Honoria
upon her bosom, and the young lady was
sobbing. Dr. Vandyke, crouching down,
was rapidly applying bandages to the
wound. On the floor, whither he had
hurled it, lay a hideous object — the
bloody weapon drawn by the physician
from the body of the girl.

It had not entered her bosom, toward
which the murderous hand had no doubt
directed it—it slipped, or the hand was
unsteady; the point had only pierced
the white arm beneath the shoulder. A
profuse flow of blood had taken place,
but the wound was merely dangerous,
not necessarily mortal; and, under the
skilful hand of Dr. Vandyke, the blood
soon ceased to flow.

In a few words, Colonel Brand informed
Dr. Vandyke of the discovery of
Innis's body. A start and a strange
glance greeted the intelligence of this
additional tragedy.

“The devil is let loose, then!” he muttered,
in his harsh metallic voice—“both
fulfilled to the letter!”

And, with these singular words, the
physician turned and said:

“Honoria is easy for the present.
Where is he—Edmund Innis?”

He was conducted to the chamber,
where the young man had been laid upon

a bed, nearly but not quite insensible.
“A hideous business, truly!” muttered
the physician, tearing away the clothes
from the young man's breast, and examining
the wound, around which the
blood had coagulated in the intensely
cold night. “This one will die, I think
—the lung pierced—”

He called for hot water, washed the
wound, bandaged it, and, giving directions
to an old nurse to remain with Innis,
went back to Honoria's chamber.
All eyes were turned toward him, including
Honoria's, who breathed regularly
now.

“A bad wound, but not mortal,” he
said; “and now this young lady must
go to sleep. All will please leave this
chamber but Lady Brand.”

The agitated group disappeared, Dr.
Vandyke going out last with Colonel
Brand.

As the door closed, their eyes met.

“The meaning of all this! the meaning,
doctor?” groaned the colonel,
ghastly pale.

“Simple,” was the reply. “Your
daughter married, as I told you, a madman.”

“Good Heavens! — and — this poor
boy—?”

“They fought, or the madman struck
him in the dark.”

“And—?”

“Will he die, you mean?”

“Yes, yes!”

“In three days. Honoria's hurt is
slight, comparatively. The boy's is mortal.
I give him three days!”

An hour afterward, a further discovery
was made, which put the finishing
touch to this night of horrors. What
had become of Lord Ruthven and his
body-servant? Dr. Vandyke recalled
the violent collision with Lord Ruthven
on the staircase, as he rushed toward
the front-door; and the servants who
had discovered the body of Innis, reported
that they had seen two dark fig
ures—one apparently in pursuit of the
other—hastening in the direction of the
hills skirting the river. This intelligence
left little doubt that Lord Ruthven had
attempted or committed suicide; and a
party, supplied with torches, followed the
footsteps, plain in the snow, toward the
point in question. The steps were evidently
those of Lord Ruthven and his
servant, whose ponderous boots had left
very different traces from those of his
master.

The double footprints crossed the
snow-covered expanse of the lawn—led
by the oak where the combat had taken
place — were traced on the other side
of the enclosure around the grounds,
through the melancholy wilderness of
evergreens beyond, and ceased abruptly
upon the summit of a rock, beneath
which the river — hemmed in between
high banks—rushed with great rapidity
through its deep and narrow channel.
Here, on the brink of the awful precipice
—to use the very words of Lord Ruthven,
uttered to Fergus at Williamsburg
—were found the traces apparently of a
violent struggle. The snow was trampled
and the footprints of master and servant
were clearly distinguishable, intermingled
in such a manner as to leave little doubt
that they had grappled with each other.
The fact was plain that both had fallen
or thrown themselves into the stream;
and this proved to be the truth. Two
hundred yards down the bank, the bodies
of Lord Ruthven and Fergus were discovered—both
were dead—the arms of
the clansman clasping his chieftain, as
though he had died in the effort to save
him.

This was all that was ever known.
Had the two committed suicide? Or, in
the struggle, had they fallen into the
rushing stream, and been drowned?
There was no means of determining the
question.

The bodies were borne back to Rivanna.
On the next day they were interred

side by side in the graveyard attached
to the parish church some miles
distant. Death had thus not separated
them, and Fergus lay where he would
have chosen, beside his master.