The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katharine Green (best novels for beginners txt) 📕

Her door was shut and when I went to open it I found it locked. Calling her name, I said that I was tired and would be glad to say good night. She did not answer at once. When she did, her voice was strange, though what she said was very simple. I was to please myself; she was going to retire, too. And then she tried to say good night, but she only half said it, like one who is choked with tears or some other dreadful emotion. I cannot tell you how this made me feel—but you don't care for that. You want to know what I did—what Adelaide did. I will tell you, but I cannot hurry. Every act of the evening was so crowded with purpose; all meant so much. I can see the end, but the steps leading to it are not so clear."

"Take your time, Miss Cumberland; we have no wish to hurry you."

"I can go on now. The next thing I did was to knock at Arthur's door. I heard him getting ready to go out, and I wanted to speak to him before he went. When he heard me, he opened the door and let me in. He began at once on his grievances, but I could not listen to them. I wanted him to harness the grey mare for me and leave it standing in the stable. I explained the request by saying that it was necessary for me to see a certain friend of mine immediately, and that no one would notice me in the cutter under the bear-skins. He didn't approve, but I persuaded him. I even persuaded him to wait till Zadok was gone, so that Adelaide would know nothing about it. He looked glum, but he promised.

"He was going away when I heard Adelaide's steps in the adjoining room. This frightened me. The partition is very thin between these two rooms, and I was afraid she had heard me ask Arthur for the grey mare and cutter. I could hear her rattling the bottles in the medicine cabinet hanging on this very wall. Looking back at Arthur, I asked him how long Adelaide had been there. He said, 'For some time.' This sent me flying from the room. I would join her, and find out if she had heard. But I was too late. As I stepped into the hall I saw her disappearing round the corner leading to her own room. This convinced me that she had heard nothing, and, light of heart once more, I went back to my own room, where I collected such little articles as I needed for the expedition before me.

"I had hardly done this when I heard the servants on the walk outside, then Arthur going down. The impulse to see and speak to him again was irresistible. I flew after him and caught him in the lower hall. 'Arthur,' I cried, 'look at me, look at me well, and then—kiss me!' And he did kiss me—I'm glad when I think of it, though he did say, next minute: 'What is the matter with you? What are you going to do? To meet that villain?'

"I looked straight into his face. I waited till I saw I had his whole attention; then I said, as slowly and emphatically as I could: 'If you mean Elwood—no! I shall never meet him again, except in Adelaide's presence. He will not want to meet me. You may be at ease about that. To-morrow all will be well, and Adelaide very happy,'

"He shrugged his shoulders, and reached for his coat and hat. As he was putting them on, I said, 'Don't forget to harness up Jenny.' Jenny is the grey mare. 'And leave off the bells,' I urged. 'I don't want Adelaide to hear me go out.'

"He swung about at this. 'You and Adelaide are not very good friends it seems.' 'As good as you and she are,' I answered. Then I flung my arms about him. 'Don't go down street to-night,' I prayed. 'Stay home for this one night. Stay in the house with Adelaide; stay till I come home.' He stared, and I saw his colour change. Then he flung me off, but not rudely. 'Why don't you stay?' he asked. Then he laughed, and added, 'I'll go harness the mare.'

"'The key's in the kitchen,' I said. 'I'll go get it for you. I heard Zadok bring it in.' He did not answer, and I went for the key. I found two on the nail, and I brought them both; but I only handed him one, the key to the stable-door. 'Which way are you going?' I asked, as he looked at the key, then back towards the kitchen. 'The short way, of course,' 'Then here's the key to the Fulton grounds,'

"As he took the key, I prayed again, 'Don't do what's in your mind,
Arthur. Don't drink to-night. He only laughed, and I said my last word:
'If you do, it will be for the last time. You'll never drink again after
to-morrow.'

"He made no answer to this, and I went slowly upstairs. Everything was quiet—quiet as death—in the whole house. If Adelaide had heard us, she made no sign. Going to my own room, I waited until I heard Arthur come out of the stable and go away by the door in the rear wall. Then I stole out again. I carried a small bag with me, but no coat or hat.

"Pausing and listening again and again, I crept downstairs and halted at the table under the rack. The keys were still there. Putting them in my bag, I searched the rack for one of my brother's warm coats. But I took none I saw. I remembered an old one which Adelaide had put away in the closet under the stairs. Getting this, I put it on, and, finding a hat there too, I took that also; and when I had pulled it over my forehead and drawn up the collar of the coat, I was quite unrecognisable. I was going out, when I remembered there would be no light in the club-house. I had put a box of matches in my bag while I was upstairs, but I needed a candle. Slipping back, I took a candlestick and candle from the dining-room mantel, and finding that the bag would not hold them, thrust them into the pocket of the coat I wore, and quickly left the house. Jenny was in the stable, all harnessed; and hesitating no longer, I got in among the bear-skins and drove swiftly away."

There was a moment's silence. Carmel had paused, and was sitting with her hand on her heart, looking past judge, past jury, upon the lonely and desolate scene in which she at this moment moved and suffered. An inexpressible fatality had entered into her tones, always rich and resonant with feeling. No one who listened could fail to share the dread by which she was moved.

District Attorney Fox fumbled with his papers, and endeavoured to maintain his equanimity and show an indifference which his stern but fascinated glances at the youthful witness amply belied. He was biding his time, but biding it in decided perturbation of mind. Neither he nor any one else, unless it were Moffat, could tell whither this tale tended. While she held the straight course which had probably been laid out for her, he failed to object; but he could not prevent the subtle influence of her voice, her manner, and her supreme beauty on the entranced jury. Nevertheless, his pencil was busy; he was still sufficiently master of himself for that.

Mr. Moffat, quite aware of the effect which was being produced on every side, but equally careful to make no show of it, put in a commonplace question at this point, possibly to rouse the witness from her own abstraction, possibly to restore the judicial tone of the inquiry.

"How did you leave the stable-door?"

"Open."

"Can you tell us what time it was when you started?"

"No. I did not look. Time meant nothing to me. I drove as fast as I could, straight down the hill, and out towards The Whispering Pines. I had seen Adelaide in her window as I went flying by the house, but not a soul on the road, nor a sign of life, near or far. The whistle of a train blew as I stopped in the thicket near the club-house door. If it was the express train, you can tell—"

"Never mind the if" said Mr. Moffat. "It is enough that you heard the whistle. Go on with what you did."

"I tied up my horse; then I went into the house. I had used Mr. Ranelagh's key to open the door and for some reason I took it out of the lock when I got in, and put the whole bunch back into my satchel. But I did not lock the door. Then I lit my candle and then—I went upstairs."

Fainter and fainter the words fell, and slower and slower heaved the youthful breast under her heavily pressing palm. Mr. Moffat made a sign across the court-room, and I saw Dr. Carpenter get up and move nearer to the witness stand. But she stood in no need of his help. In an instant her cheek flushed; the eye I watched with such intensity of wonder that apprehension unconsciously left me, rose, glowed, and fixed itself at last—not on the judge, not on the prisoner, not even on that prisoner's counsel—but on me; and as the soft light filled my soul and awoke awe, where it had hitherto awakened passion, she quietly said:

"There is a room upstairs, in the club-house, where I have often been with Adelaide. It has a fireplace in it, and I had seen a box there, half filled with wood the day before. This is the room I went to, and here I built a fire. When it was quite bright, I took out something I had brought in my satchel, and thrust it into the flame. Then I got up and walked away. I—I did not feel very strong, and sank on my knees when I got to the couch, and buried my face in my arms. But I felt better when I came back to the fire again, and very brave till I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That—that unnerved me, and I think I screamed. Some one screamed, and I think it was I. I know my hands went out—I saw them in the glass; then they fell straight down at my side, and I looked and looked at myself till I saw all the terror go out of my face, and when it was quite calm again, I stooped down and pulled out the little tongs I had been heating in the fire, and laid them quick—quick, before I could be sorry again—right across my cheek, and then—"

Uproar in the court. If she had screamed when she said she did, so some one cried out loudly now. I think that pitiful person was myself. They say I had been standing straight up in my place for the last two minutes.

XXX "CHOOSE"

Let me have
A dram of poison; such soon speeding geer
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead.

Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.

Romeo and Juliet

"I have not finished," were the first words we heard, when order was restored, and we were all in a condition to listen again.

"I had to relate what you have just heard, that you might understand what happened next. I was not used to pain, and I could never have kept on pressing those irons to my cheek if I had not had the strength given me by my own reflection in the glass. When I thought the burn was quite deep enough, I tore the tongs away, and was lifting them to the other cheek when I saw the door behind me open, inch by inch, as thought pushed by hesitating touches.

"Instantly, I forgot my pain, almost my purpose, watching that door. I saw it slowly swing to its full width, and disclose my sister standing in the gap, with a look and in an attitude which terrified me more than the fire had done. Dropping the tongs, I turned and faced her, covering my cheek instinctively with my hand.

"I saw her eyes run over my elaborate dinner dress—my