It was near day, when, overcome with watching, I fell asleep, and then, as upon the night previous, I had a vision or dream (as you please to call it). Methought the sound of a deep sigh awoke me, when looking up, I saw, standing in the middle of the room, the fearful woman of my dream, her finger pointed downward to the same spot, and, still pointing thus, she receded backward until she disappeared through the open door.
I started up to call or stop her, and with the violence of my effort, awoke! awoke to see the morning light shining in through the shutters that I had neglected to close, and to hear little Jet letting herself in at the hall door, to come up and light my fire.
Again on entering and seeing the open door, she cast an uneasy, suspicious, frightened look around her, and said: "Yer allus gets up an"
opens dis door when yer hears me a comin", don"t yer, Miss Agnes, ma"am?"
"Yes, I heard you coming Jet," I replied, evasively, but the answer satisfied my simple little maid, who went cheerfully about her tasks.
As it was not early, I hastened to my toilet and descended to the dining-room, not to keep my kind hostess waiting breakfast.
They were all ready to sit down when I joined them, and we immediately took our seats at the table.
Upon my plate I found a letter from my brother, which I asked and obtained permission to open and read. It was a regretful refusal of my invitation to him to join me at Wolfbrake to spend the holidays, upon the ground that he had brought home with him a friend whom he could not leave.
"Pooh! pooh! let him bring his friend along! Tell him so! Any friend of your brother will be welcome here, Agnes!" said Mr. Legare, to whom I communicated the contents of my letter.
I acted upon this permission, and wrote for my brother to come and bring his friend. After I had finished and dispatched my letter, I joined a party who were going out to dine. The dinner was followed by a dance, and the dance by a moonlight sleighride home. But through all the excitements of the day the image of the dark woman haunted my mind. And again it was very late when I retired to bed.
As usual, Mrs. Legare and Mathilde saw me to my room, and, as before, I locked the door behind them, and listened until I heard them leave the house and secure the hall entrance. Then I hastened my preparations, got into bed, and, thoroughly worn out with fatigue and loss of rest, soon fell into a deep sleep. And a third time the dream or vision pa.s.sed before me. Methought I was awakened by a voice calling my name. I opened my eyes, and saw--first the door stretched wide open, and then, standing in the middle of the floor, the beautiful and majestic woman of my former visions, but this time more sad and stern in aspect than before.
Fixing those wild, mournful eyes upon mine, and holding my gaze as it were by a mesmeric spell, she slowly and severely pointed to the spot beneath her feet, and saying, as it were, "Look!" pa.s.sed in measured steps from the room.
Once more in an agony I started up to call and stay her, but with the effort awoke. The door that I had carefully locked stood wide open as before. It was the same hour as that of my awakening upon the two previous mornings. The day was flushing redly up the eastern horizon beyond the mountains, and nature was awakening everywhere.
I could not now so readily shake off the influence of my dream. There was something that I wished to ascertain before my little maid should interrupt me; the reiterated gesture by the woman of my dream, determined me to examine the spot upon which she had stood and pointed, to see if, really, her action had any meaning. So I arose from my bed, and, first securing the door, and turning the key straight in the lock, that my little maid, should she come, might not spy my doings, I removed the hearthrug took a pair of strong scissors and drew out the tacks, turned up the carpet.
Reader! I had an attraction to the supernatural, but a mortal antagonism to the horrible, and nearly swooned on seeing the spot to which the dark woman of my vision had pointed deeply marked with a sanguine-crimson stain! The very heart in my bosom seemed frozen with horror, and I felt myself, as it were, turning to stone, when a loud knocking at my chamber door aroused me. It was my little maid, whose coming, I, in my deep and fearful abstractions, had not heard. I hurriedly replaced the carpet and the rug, and went and opened the door.
"Yer sleeped soun" dis mornin", Miss Agnes, ma"am," said little Jet, smiling as she entered. "I feared I scared you out"n your dream," she added, noticing, I suppose, my horror-stricken face.
"You certainly startled me, Jet," I said, evasively. And while she lighted the fire, I returned to bed to try to compose my nerves.
Between the horror I felt at the idea of sleeping another night alone in an accursed room, where, it seemed, a crime had been committed, and my intense desire to elucidate the mystery, I was at a loss how to act.
Only one thing I decided upon--to keep my own counsel for the present.
"De fire is burnin" fus-rate now, Miss Agnes, so you can get up an"
dress, if you likes, as break"as" is mos" ready," said my little attendant. And taking her hint, I arose and hastened my toilet, in order to be punctual at the morning meal of my hostess.
As I descended the stairs, I heard Mrs. Legare speaking to her daughter in the parlor, where a fire was kindled every morning while there were visitors in the house. She was saying:
"I tell you, Mathilde, it is all a delusion. Those who have never heard the story, never see, or hear, or fancy anything unusual. You know now Agnes has not been disturbed, and it is because she has heard nothing.
Whereas, if you had told her this history, she would have imagined, Heaven knows what! all sorts of horrors! that is the reason I wished her to hear nothing of it. She has slept undisturbed in that room. Let that be known. Others will then not object to do so, and the report will die out."
She spoke in a quick, low tone, and, seeing me coming, instantly changed the subject. But my sense of hearing, always acute, was quickened by intense interest, and I had heard more than she could have wished me to know. She turned to me with a smile, and said:
"I hope that you have rested well, my dear Agnes."
I said, "As well as usual," and receiving Mathilde"s morning kiss, took her arm, and accompanied them into the breakfast-room.
It was some hours after breakfast, that day, when I went up into my chamber to write letters. While thus engaged, I heard Mathilde coming up, singing, and enter a chamber corresponding to mine, but separated from it by the front hall.
"Are you there, Agnes?" she asked.
"Yes, dear. Shall I come to you?"
"_Si vous plait, mademoiselle_," she answered, gayly.
I went into the room, where I found Mathilde directing Jet in her work of preparing the chamber for guests.
"I shall have to put your brother and his friend here together to sleep, my dear Agnes, as we are so full. But, by the way, who is his friend?"
"That is just what I cannot tell you. John, in his wild, careless way, simply said that he had a friend with him, as a reason why he could not at once accept your father"s invitation, and Mr. Legare as carelessly and frankly wrote back for him to bring his "friend" along with him."
"_Eh bien! cette l"ami inconnu_ must be content to lodge with John; we can do no better."
"Since your house is not so large as your heart, _chere_ Mathilde."
Little Jet was engaged in removing the firescreen, preparatory to lighting the fire to air the room. As she set this board down before my eyes, I could scarcely repress the cry that arose to my lips. It was an old, faded family portrait that had been put to this use. That was not much; but--it was the portrait of the dark woman of my dream.
The same midnight eyes and hair, the same proud, stern, sad brow!
"Whose likeness is that, Mathilde?" I asked, when I had in some degree recovered my composure.
"Oh! I don"t know; it is a portrait of some member of the family of the former proprietors, I suppose! We found it here with other rubbish, considered, I suppose, of too little value to remove after the Van Der Vaughans left; I washed its face and set it up for a firescreen. "To such vile uses," etc. By the way, look at it! It is a very remarkable countenance! Such expression might have been that of Semiramis when ordering the execution of Ninus."
"No! I do not think so, there is no wickedness in this face! There is strength, sternness, perhaps cruelty (if necessary)," I replied, still studying the portrait. "Who could it have been?"
"I know not indeed! some old, old member of the Vaughan family."
"Nay, I do not think the portrait is of such ancient date! To be sure it is dilapidated; but that seems to be more from abuse than from time.
And observe! the costume is modern."
"So it is!"
"I had not thought of that before! Well now since you said so, I begin to surmise that this may be the portrait of Madeleine Van Der Vaughan."
"And who was she?" I inquired, with as much indifference as I could a.s.sume.
"Oh! the last lineal descendant of the elder branch of the family and the last heiress of this old estate; she married her first cousin, Wolfgang Van Der Vaughan."
"And what was her history and her fate?" I inquired, striving to restrain the betrayal of the intense interest I felt.
"Oh, her history was as painful as her fate was tragic."
"And--well?"
"Hush! there is some one coming! I will tell you another time!"
It was Mrs. Legare who entered, and smiling a sort of salutation to me, and opening a letter she held in her hand, said: