The spectre's secret. A novel

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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Chapter I. A Shadow Upon Ingleside

HE principal incidents of the following story are yet within the memory of many living, and some are living who acted parts therein. One of the chief incidents of the sea came under the writer’s own observation, as did the most important of the closing scenes. Hence, the reader may not find our Ingleside, nor our Oxington upon the map as we locate them, though, be sure, they had an existence, if not in latitude and in name, yet all the same.

There was a shadow upon Ingleside. The master lay dead in the grand old mansion, and people mourned. Of relatives by blood, there were few, very few, to note the departure of the good old man, but his goodness had endeared him to many, and he had been a Christian neighbor to the multitude.

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Walter Hargrave died on Wednesday, the ninth of December, 1840, and as a few circumstances of the time anterior are necessary to an understanding of our story, we will briefly give them.

The family at Ingleside had consisted of Walter Hargrave, aged sixty ; of an adopted son, named Horace Moore, aged twenty-one ; of a housekeeper, named Edith Somerby, aged thirty; and of a few faithful house-servants and farm-hands. Hargrave had never married. In his youth he had plighted his faith and given his love to Clara Edgarton. Later he went to sea with an uncle, promising Clara that they would be married when he returned. Two years passed, and word came that the ship had been lost, and then Clara, in answer to the entreaties of her parents, gave her hand, without her heart, to a man of means, named Moore.

Three years after her marriage Walter Hargrave came home to tell the story of shipwreck and disaster upon a far-away desert island. When he knew all he could not in his heart blame Clara ; and yet, from that time they were not happy.

Years, long years, passed away, and Hargrave, grown wealthy and retired from business, was on his way home from England. On board the same steamer was a widow and her son. With the son, Hargrave formed an accidental acquaintance and liked him. He was a youth of not more than eighteen, singularly beautiful and manly, with a clear, healthful skin, and a face beaming with intelligence. He gave his name as Horace Moore. By and by Mr. Hargrave asked for the young man's mother. She was sick, and confined to her state-room, so Horace reported ; and his look told that he was anxious. The old gentleman’s sympathies were excited, and he gained an introduction to the invalid, and found her to be the Clara of other years.

A Shadow Upon Ingle side.

A little while, and the long season of shadow was forgotten, and the twain returned to the love-light and warmth of the time agone. Clara’s husband had been dead three years, and she was now dependent almost entirely upon her true and faithful son for support. Young as he was, he had already gained an enviable official position at sea, and was now only on a short vacation, his own shipowners having obtained free passage for himself and mother on the present trip.

Bright hours they were. Love’s young dream had not forgotten a single one of the tender memories, nor was a single strain of the old music warped from its sweet harmony. Tenderly, lovingly they talked of the far-away times, shutting up their thoughts entirely to the passages of cloud intervening. It was a space of ecstatic joy. In those few short days Clara lived a life that gave glorious light of love on the road to heaven, and Walter Hargrave felt that the bliss of a lifetime had been crowded into the golden moments.

But the blow was to fall. One day Clara’s face grew very pale, as though done with earth, and her eye grew preternaturally bright, as though taking light from the angels. Walter held her to his bosom, and asked her why she breathed so quickly and so weakly.

“Oh, my darling !” he said, “ go with me, and be the light and life of Ingleside.”

“ My only love,” she answered, with a smile, “ I will be your light and life in heaven if I can.”

But Walter Hargrave felt that he could not have it so. With all his power of sympathy and of love he nursed the failing woman, and with all his power of faith he prayed to God. But the saving of the earth -life was hot to be. The angel host had come, and awaited the new member.

The shadows of evening had fallen, and only the

IO throbbing of the seething heart of the great ship broke the stillness ; and even that throbbing had become of such use, and was of such consonance of rhythm, tha* its ceasing would have crushed the harmony of the hour. Clara’s head lay upon Walter’s bosom, and his strong arms were around her.

Talk of youthful love ! There is one great love of a lifetime, and when this love lasts into the evening, it is great and holy, coming nearer to the warmth of the love eternal. The true heart of youth never grows old. The brow may become seamed and shadowed ; the head may become silvered like snow ; and the limbs may forget their strength and their cunning ; but the heart of such as truly and righteously grow old is fitted, in the last hour, as the heart of a little child, for birth into the kingdom where love and goodness are ever present and eternal.

“ Walter, since you have made me believe that my living might give joy to you, I would fain live a little while longer. But it may not be. The hand of transition is upon me, even now. My son, whom I dearly love, and who will have no near relative living when I am gone, must continue on to America. You will help him if you can, and see him safely on his way back to England, where he will again go on board his ship. He is a good boy, and has already a fair start in his profession.”

“ Clara, leave the boy with me. I will do by him as though he were my own son. But of yourself — is there not something we can do ? Oh ! I must not lose you.”

“ It will not be for long, Walter. You were my first — have been my only love. And in this there has been no falsehood. Farnell Moore knew from the first where my heart was, and he never spoke harshly in relation thereto. In the world to come, I know God will let the first true love of a life be the leading light of earthly

A Shadow Upon Ingleside .

II memory. Oh ! it will not be for long, Walter — not for long.”

And the grey-haired man sat there, and held the dying woman in his arms, and upon his bosom she fell asleep — fell into the peaceful sleep that is to know no more shock of earthly waking.

They were within four days’ sail of New York, and Walter Hargrave preserved the body of the deceased, and had it sacredly interred at Ingleside. And he asked Horace Moore to remain with him. He had conceived a strong love for the youth, and could not give him up.

Finally, Horace consented, if Mr. Hargrave would obtain his discharge from the British East India service, to live with him as a son, provided he was allowed to make himself useful. The discharge was obtained, and after a time, the young man, at his own urgent request, was allowed to enter the office of Asher Merton, Esq., of Oxington, to study law.

“You can do as you please in this respect,” said Hargrave. “ I suppose a knowledge of law will not be amiss in your care for the property which I shall leave in your charge.”

“ My dear friend,” said Horace on one occasion — and he spoke with a heartiness which lasted for all time, — “ I will set forth in life to steer my own ship, and work her sailing. If, in the time to come, your love and confidence shall fall upon me in a golden shower, I would have my life so attuned that the deed shall be more to my heart than the gold. I would have the deeper treasure in the memory of the giver, rather than in the gift.”

On which occasion Walter Hargrave threw his arms around the youth, and kissed him, and said :

“ Dear boy, you don’t know how like your mother jmu are. Bless her sainted spirit ! and bless you ! I love

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you, Horace, and I only ask, for the rest of my days on earth, that your love may be my warmth and my joy !”

And Horace tried that it should be so. No, he did not try, his life so naturally, in love and reverence, ran its course, that it could not have been otherwise.

One day in autumn, when Horace Moore had been three years an inmate of Ingleside mansion, Edith Somerby came to him and told him that she feared Mr. Hargrave was dangerously sick.

“ It cannot be,” said Horace. u He has only a cold, which your kind nursing ought soon to overcome.”

Horace was upon the point of starting for New York, where he had business in court to attend to for Mr. Merton. Edith advised him to let Mr. Merton go and attend to it himself. But the youth saw Mr. Hargrave, and was assured, with gushing and hearty confidence, that he might go to New York with safety. And the old man poo-pooh’d excessively at the idea of his being really sick.

And so Horace Moore went to New York. He was less than four hours running down the seventy miles on the Hudson ; but the case he had in charge was a chancery suit, and he had to wait his turn, so he was gone over a week. When he got back the first snow of winter had fallen, and he found Mr. Hargrave very sick.

Edith Somerby was the daughter of a poor farmer whom Walter Hargrave had materially assisted, and one who had been robbed by death of an early love, and hence the faith and strength of her prime were given to the master who had been kind to her and hers. She loved Mr. Hargrave, and understood him thoroughly ; and she loved and esteemed the youth whom her master had adopted ; and if she had one aim of life paramount to another, it was to serve these two.

“ Horace/’ she said to the young man, when he

A Shadow Upon Ingle side.

returned — it was in the evening, and Edith was much excited, “ you must go at once to your guardian, and leave him not again. He is very low, and during the last three days Lyon Hargrave has been with him most

of the xi£) 3{ j jon bltsoo ti osswoo aft-'

“ You speak, Edith, as though I had some great interest at stake of which I might be robbed.”

The woman caught him by the arm, and fairly hissed into his ear, so concentrated was her feeling:

“You do not know Lyon Hargrave as I know him. In all New York city I doubt if there is a den of iniquity in which he is not acquainted and well known. He went down to New York last night, and came back this

“ But, Edith, Mr. Hargrave knows Lyon as well as

“ Aye, but Walter Hargrave has been dying, and Lyon has engaged his weakening moments. Go at once, and see your guardian, and leave him not again, save to call

Horace went, and found his friend very low indeed. “ My boy ! is it you ?”

“ It is I, my more than father. I could not come sooner. The case did not come on until yesterday. But how is it with you ?”

“ It is well, Horace. Sit down by my side. I want to tell you how they tried to make me believe that you were — But why should I tattle ? Sit down, my

Horace drew a chair to the bedside, and sat down.

“ My dear boy, tell them to be easy with Asher Merton. I think he means well enough, but he is not strong. If I lived I should never press him. He is the father of Lily, and she is a blessed girl. Ah ! my boy, you know her ! Well, you both have my blessing !

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Come nearer, Horace, You remember your mother ? But you do not remember, for you do not know, the days when she and I were young. But you know what she told me with her dying speech, my boy, that she would be mine, and only mine, in the world to come ? You remember ?”

“ Yes, dear guardian, I remember very well.”

“ Bless you, my boy. Draw your seat nearer. Ah, my boy, I see shadows on your face. They flit across like clouds. But never mind. I doubt if my eyes are as good as they once were. Those same dark spots look all light now.”

The sick man called for drink, and then asked Horace to g;o and call Edith.

“ I have business,” he said, “and I want Edith present. I have great confidence in Edith. And you will confide in her, Horace — both you and Lily. She is a true woman, is Edith Somerby.”

“ I know she is true and loyal to you, sir,” said the youth, warmly. “ She loves and reveres you.”

“ Aye. She is a good girl. Go and call her. Say to her that I would see her at once.”

Horace went as directed, and having found Edith, they returned together to the sick man’s chamber, where the housekeeper trimmed the lamp, and replenished the fire. Then she went to the bedside, and reported :

“ I am here, good master.”

“ Is it you, Edith ?”

“Yes.”

“ Why do you leave me in the dark ?”

“ Do you find it dark ?”

“ Of course I do. Is it not night ?”

“Yes.”

“ Then light the lamps.”

Edith lighted two more lamps, and then asked Hargrave if he could see. He did not answer her at once, but after a time he put out his hands with a convulsive movement, and said :

“ It is finished. Tell Clara I am coming !”

And those were the last words he spoke. He passed away with a smile upon his face, as though he had smiled gratefully and lovingly upon some seraphic visitor.

Both Edith and Horace were too stricken to do more than send for Mr. Merton, and then to keep order in the house.

Mr. Asher Merton, with whom Horace had studied, and who was a lawyer of considerable ability, had been for years Mr. Hargrave’s attorney, and he came in on this evening to take charge of the papers, and put certain books and documents under lock and key.

It was after ten o’clock when the lawyer went away, and he left a young man named Stephen Cahill to watch in the library, through the night.

“ I don’t know as there is any need of it,” he said to Edith, before he left, “ but it is well enough to have a watcher, and I didn’t think any of your folks would be in just the mood to do it. Stephen is not so bright as some, but he is faithful, and may be depended upon for keeping awake.”

Edith afterwards remarked to Horace that she should have preferred a different watcher, but since Stephen Cahill had been set to the work, she did not care to object.

It was midnight before Edith and Horace retired. Shortly before the midnight hour, while the young man was engaged in writing letters of the sad event to numerous friends of the deceased, his attention was called by his companion to a sound in the rear yard.

i6

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a I have heard it twice before,” she said, “ and this time I heard it very plainly. Some one seems to be walking in the yard.”

Horace got up and went to the window. Then he went to the back door, and stepped out upon the stoop. He saw nothing out of the way, and he heard nothing. He came back, and told Edith she must have heard the horses in the barn. But she did not think so. She fancied she had been long enough used to the sounds from the barn not to mistake them thus. Thereupon Horace smilingly replied that he would go out with a lantern after he had finished his letters, and take a careful survey.

“ I will go out now, if you say so, Edith.”

“ No,” she said, with a slight touch of doggedness in her tone. “ Don’t let my instincts influence you against your better judgment.”

How slight a thing, how light a breath, will influence a man to turn the cold shoulder to the known good-will of his best friend. Had Edith hinted by even a smile that she would go out then and there with Horace Moore, he would have forsaken all else for the time required; but she showed a little pique, and he straightway, fool for the moment, answered with pique in his own bosom. And thus the light of the lantern was not brought to bear upon the darkness without at all that night. Had Horace gone out, as Edith had evidently wished, he might have found something that could have gone no further under that light, but which, in the permitted gloom, went on to a length which only uninterrupted villainy could have foreseen.

As it was, Horace wrote on until after midnight, and then went out with his lantern. But he found nothing, and told Edith she might retire and sleep with assurance of safety. She bade him good- night in the old

A Shadow Upon Ingleside.

i/ pleasant way, but it was plain from her face that she was not easy. Upon the chamber stairs, as she afterward confessed, she had more than half a mind to go back and bid Horace sit up himself and watch, but she thought better (or worse) of it, and went on.

During the night strange noises were heard by other inmates of the house, and in the morning there was much questioning. And the groom and the cow-boy found heavy tracks in the yard and around the house — tracks which they could not legitimately account for ; but many people had come and gone on honest business during the night, and nothing could be made of it. On this morning Edith appeared sad and careworn ; but she said she had not been disturbed after she retired. Neither had Horace.

Since the papers of the deceased were all under seal of a recognized attorney, no settlement of business was attempted until after the funeral.

The funeral was held on Sunday, and great was the concourse attending. Many came up from New York, and many came down from Albany and Troy. And there were sincere mourners. Truly, a shadow was upon Ingleside — a darker shadow, in fact, than was generally thought. Not only was the good master dead, but many bright hopes were stricken in the event.

On the following day, Monday, Mr. Merton summoned all interested to attend in the library of the mansion, he himself being accompanied by proper official witnesses. Horace Moore and Edith Somerby were there, and most of the household servants were present, as it was generally understood that all had been remembered in the dead man’s will.

And also present was Lyon Hargrave, son and only child of Walter Hargrave’s brother, Thomas.

IS

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Thomas had been a younger brother, and had died away from home. Walter had taken the orphan nephew so far under his charge as to send him to school, and pay all his expenses until he was twenty-one ; and after that he had set the young man up in business, promising to help him still further if he would help himself. But Lyon Hargrave would help himself only in the way of evil. His uncle having learned that his life in New York was simply the life of an abandoned gamester, and having sought in vain to reclaim him, let him go his way. Lyon was now five-and-twenty ; rather below the medium height and size ; with black hair and black eyes, and a sallow face inherited from an Italian mother, but possessing much grace and beauty of form and feature. But there was evil in his beauty, and there was danger in his grace. His eyes and his face were beautiful like the eyes and the gleaming face of the snake, and his bodily movements were not unlike the sinuous movements of the python.

And when those immediately interested had been assembled, Mr. Merton removed his locks from the doors and the drawers of the deceased ; and when it is understood that property, real and personal, to the amount of a million dollars, hung in the balance, we shall not wonder that there was anxiety.

Chapter II. Outgrowings Of The Shadow

Of those present in the library of Ingleside while the attorney overhauled the private papers of the dead master, none were more nervous and eager than was Edith Somerby. There had been a cloud upon her from the first — a premonition of evil — which she could not shake off. Was it that she had, individually, great interests at stake, or was it from some cause more extraneous ? None could tell. She sat like a statue carved from marble, her hands closely clasped, and her lips bloodless from compression.

So was Lyon Hargrave eager and anxious ; but he was not pale like Edith Somerby. He flushed and paled by turns, as though the blow which was to annihilate him might be suspended unseen. His hands were clasped and unclasped, and he sat like a hare watchful of the bay of the hounds, starting at a sound, and anon endeavoring to appear self-possessed.

Horace Moore was nervous, but not as others were nervous. He seemed like one who felt out of place. In fact, he said to Edith, before entering, that he wished he could be legitimately and properly away. He felt like an interloper. Could he have been placed back one short month, and allowed to express his wish to his

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guardian, he would have said : “ Forget no one else in memory of me. Let not your bounty make me a mark for the scandal of the heartless and the thoughtless. Let me be self-sustaining.” He would have given up wealth ; but there was one thing he could not have so readily given up ; and because this latter thing became, unwillingly, a concomitant of the wealth, an influence was to operate upon his after-life which he might not otherwise have felt.

Other eager faces were there — the faces of servants who had served long and faithfully, and who felt sure they would be remembered. To such, a small sum would have been doubly a blessing — a blessing of memory from one whom they had loved and honored, and a blessing, indeed, upon the hard pathway of their toilsome life.

At the end of half an hour spent by the attorney, with two of his assistants, he turned from his labors and spoke :

“ My friends, I do not find a will. I doubt if Mr. Hargrave made one.”

For a little time the silence of death reigned in the apartment. Edith Somerby was the first to speak. She did not rise, but sat erect and pale, with only the intense light of her eyes to reveal how deep were her feelings.

“ Mr. Merton,” she said, “ do you not know that Walter Hargrave made a will ?”

“ I know that he made several, Miss Somerby.”

“ But he has made one within a year ?”

“ Perhaps so.”

“ And the witnesses thereto were men of your own selection ?”

“ I had to call the witnesses, Miss, seeing that all the

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testator’s immediate friends were directly interested in the instrument.’*

“ You have made no will for Mr. Hargrave since that time ?”

“ I have not.’*

“And you do not know that said will has been destroyed ?”

“I know nothing about it. Mr. Hargrave was not in the habit of consulting me except he required my aid. The destroying of a will was very simple. There was no copy, and our friend had only to do what he pleased with his own.”

“ But, sir, I ask you,” pursued Edith, a little color coming to her face, “would Walter Hargrave have willingly died intestate ?”

“ That is a question I cannot answer, Miss Somerby.”

“ But you should know, sir — you who did all his legal business. Had he not particular reasons for not wishing to pass away without leaving a will behind him ?”

“ I certainly know of no such reasons,” answered the lawyer, crisply.

Edith flushed to the eyes.

“ You do know of such reasons, Mr. Merton. You know liow, in the absence of a will, all this property must go, and you know that Walter Hargrave had most particular reasons for not wishing it thus to go.”

“ Miss Somerby,” said Merton, with judicial dignity, “ you are beside yourself. Perhaps,” he added, with an abortive attempt at a smile, “you dwell reluctantly upon your own loss.”

Edith arose to her feet, and spoke with forced calmness ; though with deep and bitter feeling :

. “ Mr Merton, you have no right to make that remark. If Walter Hargrave’s will is found, be sure my name will be found in it ; but I have not thought of myself

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on this occasion. I have thought of others here around me. Of our good master’s bounty I have largely shared. Not so these true and faithful toilers who have borne the burden and heat of the day in his service. How will they be left ?”

At this point Lyon Hargrave arose. Thus far he had sat like one who combats a foe he cannot see. As he arose he grasped the back of his chair for support, and a fierce wrath, arising from a cause long and deeply seated, gave him strength and steadiness. Ordinarily he was not weak, and only contending emotions of great power had now for the time unnerved him.

“ Pending further search for my uncle’s will,” he said, “ let this matter rest as it should, in the hands of my uncle’s attorney. It has been asked if Mr. Hargrave would not have surely left a will could he have had his own way. I am not sure of that. We can afford, I think, to speak plainly. The whole thing hinges upon this single proposition : Would Walter Hargrave have left his wealth to his own flesh and blood, to the son of his own brother, or would he have set at defiance all known laws of consanguinity, and left his property to the offspring of a mere adventuress — a woman who tricked and betrayed him in his youth only to succeed in fooling him in his childish old age ? I know that the heart of the poor old man did for a season warm toward this interloper ; but I have reason to believe that he came at length to realize what an imbecile part he was acting. If you ask me how, when the shadow of death gave solemn import to his actions, Walter Hargrave would have knowingly and willingly acted, I tell you plainly he would have answered to the calls of those ties of blood which had been dear to him from his cradle. And you will permit me to say one thing more : Should fortune place this estate in my possession, let

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- o the long-tried and faithful servants of Ingleside rest assured that generous remembrance shall be theirs. My uncle could not possibly have done more for them than I will do.”

At this point Horace Moore, who had paled and flushed by turns, started to his feet, now pale as death, with his hands and his teeth firmly shut. But before he could speak Edith grasped him by the arm and pulled him back, and whispered something into his ear. What she whispered was simply a reminder to the youth that he was at present an utterly powerless nobody in the presence of august Law ; and she told him that his passions were more powerless than was he in his proper self. She advised him to remain silent.

Lyon Hargrave, seeing the movement, assumed a smile, and addressed the assembled servants.

“ My friends — you who have served my uncle — I may say to you that in the absence of a will the law will put me in charge of Ingleside, and I take this occasion, seeing that you are all together, to notify you that, so far as I have power, I retain you in service agreeably to my uncle’s later provisions, and in addition thereto I shall claim the privilege of making you each a present of from three to five hundred dollars. Mr. Merton will understand and second my plan.”