For Love and Duty. A romance of the peerage

Chapter I. Murder

A CHAMBER OF HORRORS. As for my Lady she went home and sought her chamber, where she remained the greater part of the day, on the pretext of having a number of letters to write. She appeared at dinner, however, and Rhoda was proud and pleased to see how fresh and radiant she looked, how vivacious and sprightly she was, and how admirably she entertained with her sallies of wit the somewhat glum and crusty factor of the estate, who had been honoured with an invitation to their table on that occasion. They passed the evening as they usually did. They had tea. Then Rhoda played and sang, and they both worked, and read, aud chatted, until their short evening was over, and they went off to bed. All but her Ladyship, who, having dismissed her own maid and sent the rest of the household to bed, took up her position in that room in the tower called the library, to which Lord Glenalan had provided a private door for his own especial use.

Then she waited her expected guest. Time passed very slowly. The clock chimed the first quarter-past eleven. She listened — all was quiet in the house. She took a small hand lamp and left the room for awhile, using care not to make VOL. II. B the slightest noise. When she returned her face was flushed as if with violent exertion, and she was stru2sdinor to subdue a terrible excitement which moved her. She poured herself out a glass of wine, and drank it off ; and then another and another. The drink braced her nerves as she laughed, a silent, cruel, mocking laugh, and she surveyed herself in a mirror. "I dare not offer him wine," she muttered; "the brute would think I was trying to poison him. He does not half know me yet. Why to poison him and have an inquest would be tenfold worse than to let him live."

After a while she fidgeted and grew impatient. She looked at her watch frequently. She walked up and down the room with her arms folded behind her back, as we saw her once before walk up aud down her little drawing-room at Pentonville. A sudden fear seized her, and she cursed him silently as she thought to herself : Wiiat if he were to turn coward and not come ? There would never be a chance like the present. What if he suspected her, if he had made up his mind to betray her, and take his chance for the rest ? A sudden awe fell upon her, and she trembled in every limb as she felt how slender was the thread by which she guided this man who held her future destiny in his hand as completely as if she were a bit of fragile china which he could smash to atoms and grind into powder with his heel, or jealously guard and treasure just as the whim possessed him.

At length, before the great turret clock tolled twelve her agonising suspense was relieved by hearing the welcome sound of footsteps grinding along the gravelled walk outside. Her courage and strength returned, and with inward exultation she whispered to herself — " He comes, he comes. Now to strike a blow for freedom ! " She peered out of the window from behind the blind, and there sure enough she saw the man whom she waited for and hated with such an ex ceeding bitter hatred, that as he groped about for the door she cursed it as a misfortune that she was not behind him to be able to stab him in the dark. He at length reached the door, and gave the three gentle taps agreed on. In a moment she sprang out, noiselessly unfastened the door, and clutching him by the arm, dragged him through the short intervening distance of corridor into the library.

" Quick," she said, her eyes ablaze with a dangerous fire, and her whole frame quivering with excitement. " Quick, there's not a moment to be lost. I don't want you to be seen. The people would shoot you like a dog if they saw you, a stranger, in the house at this time of night." " Then," replied he, " you cannot be too quick in getting rid of me. By Jove, though, my dear, I never saw you look so handsome in your life. Venus, Juno, and all that party, are not in it." " Oh," she answered with an insolent laugh, tossing back her head, " if you fancy my beauty to-night, you had better take a good look at it, for it's the last time you'll ever see it." " Positively 9 " he asked in an irresolute tone. " I tell you, man, to take your last look at me to -night. Without a doubt it is the last. I have sworn it, whatever the consequences may be."

There was a strange thrill in her voice, and a stern gravity which affected him in a singular manner. As he had not time to search out hidden motives and underlying meanings, he did his best to turn it off with a laugh, and demanded that they should proceed to business. She handed him an order on Quibbetts to pay him three thousand pounds ; the other two thou sand was to be in cash. He watched her sign it, and then taking it from her hand, folded it up and placed it in his pocket-book. " Yes," said he with a grin, " that's all right so far. Now, where's the money ? " " It is in the safe," she answered in a whisper. " I dare not fetch it up here for fear of being observed. But I have packed it ready for you in a travelling bag, and you have only got to count it in the cellar and then be off with it."

He made no reply, but followed her stealthily out of the room to the end of the short corridor, andthen down a flight of stone stairs into a range of underground apartments, formerly in use as the Castle dungeons, but now employed for the more harmless purposes of storing useless lumber. The flickering lamp which they carried cast weird, un earthly shadows all around, and the air struck chill and musty on them. The man shivered and shook as if the cold had penetrated his very marrow. "Phew," muttered he, "I don't like this in fernally dark, chilly hole." " Ah, we are on alevel with the old moat," replied the lady, " and it is a trifle trying to anyone who is a bit afraid. But I won't keep you long." The place they were in was a long apartment with several doors opening on either side into what had once been dungeons, but now were empty and dusty.

They passed by all these until they reached the very end of the place. " Where are we going ? " asked the man, who now showed signs of trepidation. " Why, bless my life, what an old woman you are," replied the lady with a fine air of scorn. " Do you see that ? There is the door of the ancient strong room, where no thieves can pene trate, and where I have prepared the gold that is to get me rid of you." As she finished speaking she stopped before another door, hitherto unobserved, for it was con structed so cunningly that it could not have been detected by a stranger in the dim, uncertain light. It was at the farthest end of the apartment, and was fitted into the solid masonry with so exact and cunning an imitation that it was difficult at first sight to tell which was the door and which the wall.

The man gazed in wonder, not unmixed with admiration and anxiety, while his companion, groping with her hand carefully along the surface of the wall, at length came upon the spring, which being touched allowed her to slide back a panel which had covered the keyhole. She produced a big key, and putting it into the lock attempted to turn it, but could not. " Here," said she, taking back the lamp which she had handed to him to hold, " this lock is rather stiff ; I cannot turn it." The man did as he was commanded, with a sly laugh at the weakness of her Ladyship's wrist. To his vast surprise, the key turned easily and smoothly. While the foolish fellow's back was turned he could not see that the woman just behind him stealthily seized in her right hand a bar of iron which had been left in the very spot where it was now required.

Was it left there by accident, or was it placed there as part of a foul and murderous design ? Oh angels of mercy and light, is there none who will whisper a warning in the ears of that vain, confident, doomed man ? Oh, devils of hell, raging in murderous mastery within that cruel, crafty bosom, is there no room for pity and mercy with you ? No tender reminis cences to stay the hand now lifted high to strike ? No visions of future remorse and a life of terror to arrest that murderous blow ? The lock turned, the door swung slowly open on its creaking hinges, and revealed beyond a dark, gloomy abyss. In the dread silence of that moment the scurrying of rats disturbed at their nocturnal gambols could be heard, and a gentle plash as of dropping water. A chilly, moist, earthly and grave-like current of air rushed up.

He recoiled with dismay and horror from the foul effluvia that enveloped him. As he stepped backward he half turned his head, and a terrible cry burst from him. The dreadful iron bar was lifted up and swiftly it descended, beating aside the arm he had raised to guard himself, and crash ing heavily on his temple. He fell forward and disappeared through the open doorway. There was a thumping, grating sound as of a heavy body falling and rolling down a flight of steps, and then there was silence — the stillness of the grave. The murderess stood for a moment entranced. Her great eyes, glaring with murder and hatred, had for an instant met the appealing, terror stricken gaze of her victim in that awful moment when he saw his doom descending on him. Those pitiful eyes pierced her through. They would never leave her.

Sleeping or waking they would continue relentlessly searching her face to see if there was one drop of pity left in her. But this woman's courage was more than mas culine. It was sustained by pitiless cruelty, and, in pursuit of the object of the moment, was un limited. For a moment she was dismayed by the awful success of her murderous plot, and scared by the haunting eyes of her victim. Then the instinct of self-preservation came to her aid, and she knew that no time was to be lost to complete her bloody task and secure to herself its fruits. She glanced at her iron bar, and held it away from her with a nervous shake when she saw it was stained with bloood. Nevertheless she kept a firm hold of it as she moved forward and cautiously descended the steep, narrow stairs, winding, but utterly unprotected, which led down into the dismal region where something heavy and lumpish had just fallen.

Holding her lamp steadily before her to illuminate the dull darkness, and stopping every few steps to listen, she at last reached the bottom without more disturbance than was caused by the scampering of scared night creatures. At the bottom, lying in the dark loathsomeness of the place, was the shattered body of he whom, but a few moments before, she had struck in the pride of his vigour and manhood. Blood was trickling from a wound in his temple. He was lying in a tumbled heap, motionless. She had raised her arm with the murderous weapon to strike him again. Was it a ray of selfish pity that glimmered in her mind for the instant, and caused her to drop her arm without delivering the blow? " Why should I be wantonly brutal ? " she murmured to herself. " He's dead, and if he were not dead, he soon would die in this hole.

Faugh, how it sickens me ! But what must it be when it is sealed up, as it will be to-morrow. I was bound to do it ; he should not have crossed me and pushed me to desperation. He might have known that I would crush him out of my way as I do this horrid creature." With that she shook off her sleeve a slimy, bulky beetle that had fastened thereon, and ground it under her heel into the floor. She stayed a moment or two to glance around the place. It was large and lofty, but wretchedly damp and full of evil odours. It was a long way below the Castle, and the surface water seemed to drain into it, and here and there trickled down the waUs, standing out in big clammy drops on the ceiling, and gathering in little muddy pools on the floor. There were curious-looking rusty iron machines, knives, and pieces of wood, rotting heaps of rope, which might have been the rem nants of whips and bonds, rusty links of chains, and, horror of horrors, a heap of bones near an upright post, with chains hanging down from it, just as if the skeleton had dropped down after the rats had picked all the flesh off the body of some unfortunate who had perished while chained to that post.

Her Ladyship felt faint and ill, and shook as if stricken with the ague when she saw these horrors, for she knew full well what they meant. She had discovered this chamber of horrors by reading in some of the family records a description of it as the torture dungeon of the Castle, so low and deep within the earth that the cries of its victims never penetrated to the upper region. It had long fallen out of memory and knowledge, but guided by what she had read, she searched for and found the secret entrance to it, and the key also. The door was rusty and fast with disuse, but by patiently oiling the hinges and the lock she got it to open quite easily. Then, as she peered down into the pitchy darkness below, the half -planned schemes of murder, which had been suggested to her evil heart by what she had read of this place, and which had caused her to search it out so patiently and diligently, took definite form, and she vowed to herself that they should be forthwith executed.

She had performed her foul deed, and stood alone on the scene of a successful murder, in presence of her victim. Even now a revulsion had seized upon her, and a strange, awful longing came upon her that she could undo this night's work. " Be still, be still ! coward heart ! " she muttered. " I have got rid of the only obstacle to my future ; now I must take care of myself." Bracing herself to her task, she flung her blood stained iron bar among the heap of cruel instru ments of execution. With an intense physical and mental effort, under which she almost broke down, she seizediiold of the body of her victim and dragged it aside into a dark corner, so that it would not be seen by anyone casually peeping down from the stairs. It happened to be a dry spot to which she changed it, and she heaved a sigh of relief when she felt herself out of the slimy mud.

Was that sigh a mere ebullition of selfish instinct, or was it a token of the return of affrighted womanhood to her dark and evil mind ? Swiftly she glided upstairs, locked the door after her, slid on the lock the secret panel, and left the place as much concealed as it was possible. Then she returned to the library, and starting back in affright from the scowling, white, ghastly, murderous face that presented itself to her in the mirror, stretched forth her hand to the wine and drank off glass after glass till the bottle was empty. " Ha ! ha ! he's safe to-night, locked up and buried from sight for ever," she cried, softly and fiercely to herself. " I shall never see him again. Ah ! but those eyes, those agonised, beseeching eyes, they pierce me through like knives. I can not shut them out.

They follow me. They are on the wall, in the glass, they burst through my closed lids. I cannot get rid of them. Oh, my God, mercy ; is this to be my eternal damnation ? " She clasped her hands and then felt the fatal key which she had been cariying unconsciously all this time. " Yes, the key, the key, what shall I do with it? Where shall I conceal it? If any body were to see the key and make search and find it?" In her panic of terror she thrust the big rusty key inside her dress, but the instant the cold iron happened to touch her flesh she drew it forth and hurled it madly away from her, crying — " It burns me, it freezes my blood, then it boils in my veins. It stings, and burns, and stabs, and freezes all at once. Away with it. Oh, merciful God, am I going mad ? " In a paroxysm of horror she uttered one sharp cry, and fell to the ground senseless. For the moment the tempest of her soul was stilled in oblivion.

Chapter II

A CONTEST WITH CONSCIENCE. Lady Glenalan's swoon lasted for some time. How long she did not know, and did not care to consider. She was inclined to the belief that it would have been much better for her had she never awakened out of it. The ruddy morning was already breaking. Faint and weary, and gasping for breath, she struggled to her feet and staggered across the room, opened the window and put her hot head out into a delicious, cool, breezy bath of fresh morning air. The rising sun was streaking with golden tints the glowing eastern sky, and the canopy of night clouds was rolled away almost out of sight. But what were these glorious early morning joys to my Lady ? They can only be claimed by a pure and healthy soul. Her diseased and sin blackened mind could see no beauty in the bud ding daybreak.

Rather did it seem to her as if the sun had spelt in letters of fire the burning words — " Murder will out." She was fevered and ill, and happily her senses were so dulled for the time that the knowledge of what she had done was present to her mind only as the recollection of a very dreadful dream. But the blurred figures in that dismal tragedy, not yet four hours old, gradually assumed shape and form in her imagination, and as the naked truth rushed in with overpowering force upon her tortured soul, and she felt the hellish pangs of murder done seai-ing into her desperate heart, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed and groaned in agony. Was it penitence? Was it a pitiful appeal for the mercy to herself which she had denied to another ? No ; it was the agony of selfish horror ; it was the self-inflicted punishment which every murderer bears Avithin him in the constant and unquenchable horror of his crime.

As she staggered across the room she had stumbled against the fatal key, stained and sole surviving witness of her guilt, which, in her earlier frenzy, she had hurled from her in reckless passion. With a shudder and a cry of anger and disgust she again spurned it from her with her foot. After a while she bethought her that the key must not be left about with its Cain-like mark of blood, and its dread power of unlocking her im prisoned ghastly secret. Verily, if it were to fall into curious hands it might be made to bear fatal witness against her. All this rising clearly through the blurred mist of blood and black guilt which enshrouded her benumbed senses, she closed the window, and clutching the dreaded key with a reluctant des peration, as if it were a red-hot weapon burning her as she grasped it, or a stinging scorpion which bit and scarred her flesh and poured bubbling poison into her veins, she hurried quietly into the Castle yard.

The Castle and its offices and buildings formed a quadrilateral, leaving a square enclosed court yard in the centre. Here was a deep draw-well, originally sunk for the service of a garrison in time of siege. The Avater still flowed in it though the household supply was obtained from another source. But it was useful for the stables and other purposes, and, therefore, was kept open. Into the still depths of this well the guilty woman cast from her the key. As it bounded downward, striking against the sides, the hollow echoing rattle sounded unto her guilty soul as a knell of doom. Yet the instinct of self-preservation predominating, as she turned away she heaved a sigh of relief, and she hugged to herself the thought that now all traces, all possible know ledge of her guilt were buried safe from human kin.

Rash, thoughtless, ignorant woman ! Know ye not that there is One above whose dread eye misseth nought, whose strong hand, even uplifted to strike, yet falls not swiftly on guilty heads like thine, solely because " He is slow to anger and of great mercy ? " So she went to her chamber with all this raging guilt consuming her soul, and she sought her couch, but not to rest. The weary hours dragged on, but she could not coax affrighted sleep to her aching eyes. Those other staring and terrible eyes never left her. When she put her head under the bedclothes they pierced through the covering; when she closed her own eyes in a vain endeavour to shut them out, they still were piercing her through and through. They were imprinted on her vision, and she could not get away from their condemning glare.

Neither would her miserable brain take rest. It was tortured with the numberless risks of dis covery. The staring eyes seemed to lead her incessantly back to gaze on the scene of the crime. Do what she would she could not drag herself away from it. It Avas at this time she first began to reppnt that she had not dealt that second blow when with uplifted weapon she stood over the body as it lay at the bottom of the dungeon stairs. He might not have been killed outright by that first blow and that heavy fall. Oh ! horror of horrors ! What if he were to come to life again, to crawl up those stone stairs, to knock and cry at that closed door until the people of the Castle would burst it open, and she would be dragged forth to meet those dreadful accusing eyes face to face, and to be driven to a future of shame and misery, with perchance a felon's death as the end of it.

Oh, fool that sbe was that she had not battered him until it was impossible for life to remain within his mangled remains ! Nevertheless this strong woman's courage was not quite gone from her. To sooth herself she tried to think that if he survived that fierce, frenzied blow and that terrible fall, during which she heard his head clatter against the steps all the way down, he must, indeed, bear a charmed life. Why, it would be next to a miracle if he had not broken his neck. Of a surety her blow with the iron bar must have fractured his skull. Even if she had left a little life in him the noxious poisonous fumes of the closed chamber would soon stifle him. Oh, how she longed for the passage of time when she might make assurance doubly sure by seeing to the execution of a plan which would without a doubt effectually seal up her guilty secret.

When the hour of rising came, and she met her daughter at .the breakfast table, her haggard face and the deep dark lines around her eyes excited the alarm of Rhoda, who insisted upon it that her mother was seriously ill, and must at once have skilled advice. But her Ladyship was pettish and ill-tempered, declaring that there was little the matter with her. She had sat up too long on the previous night reading an exciting French novel, and she had passed a sleepless night, which had left her languid and with a splitting headache. VOL. II. G Rhoda was fain to assume a satisfaction which she did not feel at this explanation, but her un easiness increased when she saw that after her mother had made a vain attempt to swallow food she pushed away her breakfast untasted. It was not until she drank a cup of tea, strongly laced with brandy, that the colour returned to her cheeks, that the chill which Avas freezing her whole system was driven away, that her heart began to beat naturally, that she walked firmly and spoke boldly, as if no weight of crime was crush ing her soul down into the very depths of hell.

Still, her manner was so strange, her avoidance of the servants' eyes so unusual (she felt that most difficult sensation of all criminals, that everyone knew secretly of her guilt and would presently accuse her publicly), her startled and impassioned replies to the simplest questions, so unlike her usual self, that poor Rhoda felt satisfied that some thing was seriously wrong with her mother. She went further, and felt convinced she knew what was the cause. Two empty wine-bottles and an overturned glass which she had found in the library too plainly told the tale. With shame and sorrow Rhoda had noticed her mother's increasing appetite for drink. She felt positive that this morning's strange looks and stranger manners Avere the result of an over-night orgie and the brandied tea was evidence corroborative of her fears.

Rest in thy delusions, unhappy Rhoda ! It is a sad thing for a pure young girl to believe of her mother, but oh, how much better it is to believe that than to know the full fell truth ! Under the present trying circumstances my Lady displayed a remarkable aptitude for busi ness. So discovered the foreman builder, who immediately after breakfast was sent for to her presence, and directed to leave the job on which he was then engaged in order that he might im mediately execute some alterations which were to be made in the cellars. She explained that the cellars, having been hitherto unused except as a receptacle for rubbish, were now to be fitted up as store-rooms, the rooms in the tower at present used for that purpose being required for habitation. " I know the servants dislike this underground place," said she, " because they have some stupid superstition about it being haunted, but they must overcome that.

The feeling arises, I believe, prin cipally because these cellars are the old Castle dungeons, and there is a place below them which in very old times was used as a place of torture. Tradition has it that the cries of the victims still haunt the place, and that at night their bloody and distorted ghosts walk about. There is a secret door to that lower chamber, but I believe it has not been opened for many years. As there is no use for the lower chamber, I propose to have a strong wall built right across the end of the dungeon floor that communicates with it, to cut it off entirely, so that our foolish servants may venture down to the store-rooms with less alarm." The foreman of the job listened to her Lady ship's condescending description with respectful interest, and accompanied her to the cellar to be shown the end of the apartment containing the secret door, which was to be cut off.

Nay, she had bravado enough left in her to walk boldly up to the wall with a light in her hand, and show him actually where the doorway was situated. But she Avas careful to explain that it could not be opened because the key was lost, and that it was not to be burst open because no good could be obtained by exploring the damp and fœtid region underneath. The man gazed at her admiringly as he humbly remarked — " I doot not yer Ladyship has been doon and seen how mucky it is ? " " Haven't I told you the key is lost ? " returned the lady angrily. " Of course I know the place is damp and unAvholesome, because such places always are." The foreman, who had a curious interest in such matters, and dearly loved a good story of blood and bones, was for opening out the place and building up a fresh wall.

But my Lady was peremptory on the point. " I want as little bother as possible, and I want the work done quickly," said she, " because I can not have the present store-rooms altered until these new ones are ready. All you have to do is to build a strong wall right across this end. Con crete it so that any damp which may come from below may be shut off." The man struck the wall a swinging blow with his hammer, remarking learnedly — " It wad tak' a lot o' pulling doon, this wad. They were guid builders in the day when this was reared." He again hit the wall stoutly. This time he happened to strike the spring of the secret panel. Shattered with the force of the blow it flew back, disclosing a view of the lock. " A varra cunning arrangement," said the fore man. He put his head to the keyhole to examine it minutely, but immediately stepped back, exclaiming— " A varra nasty foul air comes up here, en' I think your Leddyship has judged well to make it snug and tight."