Chapter VII

Abigail had not quitted her bed-chamber long, on the morning heretofore specified, when Dame Shedlock, whom she had left in a deep sleep, awoke. Judging from the expression of her eyes, she awoke in the perfect possession of her senses; but, on being closely surveyed, her face still displayed certain traces of fever, which showed that her sleep had not been refreshing. The bright red spot, too, which has been described as capping her cheek, burned with unabated lustre; and in its contrast with her white forehead, and her parched and colourless lips, made the beauty of her complexion look truly terrible.

For some little time, she lay perfectly still, with her eyes, which seemed brighter than usual, turned towards heaven, and apparently rapt in prayer. As her eyes finally turned another way, the expression of her face changed, and became so radiant with patience, that it actually affected her complexion; and its traces of physical suffering, which have been pointed out above, were lost in the loveliness of its moral revelation.

After lying thus for some brief space longer, she suddenly altered her position; and by planting her two hands firmly on the bed, in the manner of props, raised herself up. The achievement cost her all her strength; and when she had gained a sitting posture, she was obliged to pause a while, and catch for breath as if she were stifling.

Several minutes elapsed before she recovered her breath. Even then, indeed, her respiration was not free, and was evidently effected with an effort. But her difficulty of breathing did not induce her to continue still. Once able to draw her breath, she slowly turned her feet over the side of the bed, and alighted on the floor. Then, supporting herself against the bed, and clinging with one hand to the contiguous post of the bedstead, she raised herself upright.

Her body felt very light, yet her knees and ankles were so weak and feeble, that, notwithstanding her personal buoyancy, she could hardly bring them to bear her up. A bright smile stole over her face as she noted their inefficiency; and while the smile was yet traceable, she raised her head, and once more turned her eyes towards heaven. Quickly dropping her glance again, she planted her left hand, which she had at liberty, steadily on the bed, and, relaxing her hold of the bed-post, stepped slowly forward, and thus moved along towards the chamber-door.

She was obliged to halt several times on her way; but, pausing only to recover her breath, she persevered in her purpose, and finally gained the door.

She appeared to hesitate somewhat as she drew the door open. But her indecision, if such it were, endured but a brief period; and, drawing a deep breath, she once more set forward, and passed into the passage without.

On the same side of the passage, a little way in her front, there was another door, opening into an adjoining bed-chamber. On her entry into the passage, her eye, without looking for any other object, turned straight here; and, leaning against the contiguous wall, she bent her steps thitherwards on the instant.

Passing slowly along, she ultimately arrived at the door. She then hesitated a moment; but, quickly recovering herself, raised her small hand, and threw the door open.

Right before the doorway, at a few paces distance, was a bedstead, which, like her own, had no drapery, and was every way open. It was occupied by a man, who, at the moment that Dame Shedlock made her appearance, had his face towards the door, and was lying perfectly awake. It was her husband.

Shedlock started up at this unexpected visit from his wife. The scowl, however, that mounted to his face, had hardly collected itself, when the ghost-like dame drew back, and disappeared.

Now more surprised than before, and more enraged, the furious Puritan sprang to the floor, determined to call her to an account for her intrusion. Assured of being able to avenge himself, however, his precipitation subsided when he gained his feet; and, previous to starting in pursuit of her, he tarried to put on his clothes. His toilet achieved, he set out for his wife’s chamber.

There was no one in the intermediate passage, and, passing quickly forward, he shortly gained the chamber-door. Trembling with rage, and muttering an indistinct execration, he threw the door violently open, and rushed into the room.

The heavy tread of his feet, in his progress towards the bed, for which he made directly, no way effected the disposition of his wife, although, strange to say, she was lying on her side in the bed, with her eyes fixed on his. As he came up to the bedside, he thought that her appearance of composure, though it was really and clearly unfeigned, had been put on to defy him; and, exasperated by this suspicion, he shook his clenched fist in her face. Still the dame was no way disturbed, and her glassy eyes, far from appealing for mercy, did not even flinch. The ruffian now grew furious, and, relaxing his fist, he seized her by the arm, and dragged her forcibly up. _She was dead!_

A thrill of horror shot through the bosom of Shedlock as he made this discovery. A sudden thought struck him, that she was dead when, a few moments previous, she had visited him in his chamber, and that what he had then seen in her form was not her mortal self, but her immortal and disembodied spirit.

The appalling surmise struck him to the soul. His face, always pale, became quite ghastly; his hair rose on end; and his frame was so agitated, that he could hardly bring his unnerved and trembling step to lend him obedience.

But his awe of his wife’s corpse quickly lent him sufficient vigour to flee. Still keeping his eye on the corpse, lest, in the course of his retreat, it should rise upon him unawares, he sprang to the chamber-door, and darted out into the adjoining passage. Thence, with unabated speed, he passed to the neighbouring stairs, and pursued his flight to the hall below.

The hall opened into a porch, leading into the park; but, at its lower end, there were two more doors, one of which, noticed in a former chapter, led to the chamber called the blue room; and the other, to the kitchen. It was to the latter door that Shedlock directed his steps; and, maintaining his original pace, he arrived thither speedily. Still overwhelmed with fear, he drew it open; and, with even increased impatience, passed through the aperture, and closed and bolted the door in his rear.

At the same moment that he thus disappeared, the door at the upper end of the hall, leading into the porch, was cautiously pushed open, and another man presented himself. On coming into the doorway, he halted a while, and looked eagerly round. Seemingly assured by his survey, he ventured to pass in; and with a stealthy step, yet hasty withal, proceeded towards the doorway by which Shedlock had just made his egress. It was Bernard Gray.

He shortly arrived at the lower door, and, raising his hand to the latch, sought to draw it open. To his surprise, however, it resisted his efforts, and he found that it was secured on the other side.

“’Tis fast!” he muttered, at length. “Yet the paper must be secured. I will even venture to her chamber.”

With these words, he turned to the contiguous stairs; and after listening a moment, and again looking round, passed quickly up to the floor above. Breathless with his haste, he halted before the chamber which, from having been conducted there on the preceding day, he conceived to be occupied by Dame Shedlock.

Though so anxious to avoid observation, he was afraid to enter the chamber unannounced, or without some previous warning, lest his sudden appearance should cause the dame alarm; and, to prevent any ill effect, he knocked two or three times on the panel of the door. But no answer was rendered; and, after a short interval, he cautiously opened the door, and stepped into the chamber.

Having once crossed the threshold, Bernard paused only to close the door, and then, with a light but hasty step, made straight for the bed. His first glance at its inmate told him she was a corpse.

He gazed in her face for a full minute; and when, at the last, he withdrew his glance, his eyes were filled with tears.

“Who shall question thy ways, O, thou most Highest?” he said, clasping his wrinkled hands. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the name of the Lord!”

When he ceased speaking, a thought struck him that, as he had found her alone, the dame might have died unattended, and might be supposed to be yet living by the inattentive household. Impressed with this belief, he determined to give the alarm, and took a step towards the door, which was only a few paces distant, with that view. But he quickly changed his resolution, and, retracing his step, turned to the bedside again. Here he looked once more at the corpse, and then, with a tenderness which his rugged appearance would hardly have prepared one to expect, placed his fingers on the dead matron’s eyelids, and fulfilled the last sad office of closing them.

He seemed now to recollect, for the first time since he had entered the chamber, what was the business that had brought him thither, and the recollection was certainly not calculated to soothe or console him. He had come in search of the paper which was to establish the legitimacy of Hildebrand Clifford; but the demise of Dame Shedlock, who alone could furnish him with that paper, and who had promised to place it in his hands, rendered the prospect of his achieving such an acquisition quite hopeless. What clue had he to the place in which it had been deposited? With his forefinger pressed against his forehead, he proceeded to recall, word by word, all that had passed at their last meeting, between him and the dame; and pondered deliberately on each syllable. At length, he recollected that, as she concluded her disclosures, she had seemed to point at something over her shoulders. Hastily glancing over the head of the bed, his eye fell on the wardrobe, with which, it may be borne in mind, the course of our history has shown him to have been connected heretofore. With a beating heart, he sprang a pace or two forward, and drew the wardrobe-door open. It revealed a small recess, having no shelves, but a row of pegs, some four or five in number, just below the ceiling, from which dangled several articles of female apparel. Bernard examined these separately, but, on the most searching investigation, they afforded him no clue, in any one particular, to the document he so earnestly sought.

Though he had scarcely expected a more favourable result, the conviction that further search would be fruitless, however closely he might pursue it, depressed him severely. Yet he felt thoroughly assured that the document was somewhere in the wardrobe. He was speculating where it could be concealed, when, happening to look downwards, he perceived that the floor of the wardrobe, from the door to the wall, was covered with a rush matting; and it suddenly occurred to him that the paper might be hidden beneath. On surveying it closer, he found that the matting was nailed down; but this circumstance, as may be supposed, offered him but a trifling obstacle. Once possessed of the idea that the paper was hidden under the matting, he stooped down; and, with the aid of a small clasp-knife (which, as he wore it at his girdle, was probably used generally for eating purposes), cut away the matting round the nails, and raised it up. There, indeed, was the paper, covered with dust, yet more precious to him than tissue of gold.

It was a leaf of the parish register; and was written over, in characters not very distinct, on both sides. Several marriages were recorded on it, but that which principally interested Bernard, and most concerned our history, was the first of all, and testified to the marriage of “Hildebrand Clifford, Esquire, and Mistress Philippa Gray.” But even the testimony to the other marriages was not unimportant, as many of the parties it referred to, Bernard well knew, were yet living, and their evidence to the fact of their having been married at the times set forth, while no record of the marriages could be found in the parish register (though they would be able to swear that it _was_ so recorded), would establish the truth and authenticity of the whole document.

Bernard was overjoyed at its acquisition. Having glanced over it, he folded it carefully up, and placed it, with a circumspection commensurate with its value, within his vest, buttoning his jerkin above. He then replaced the matting, and turned to retire.

He lingered a moment at the side of the bed; but he was too anxious to get clear off, now that he held such an invaluable possession, to protract his pause. After one farewell glance at his deceased friend, he hastened on to the door, and thence passed to the outer passage.

No one was about; and, with a light and hasty step, he proceeded to the hall below, and onward to the porch. Thus he made his egress unobserved.