Rutledge Part 47

"What is the matter? Are you ill?"

"It is not at all strange that she should be shocked at hearing such a thing so suddenly," answered Mr. Rutledge for me. "You must remember, Miss Grace, we all had it more gradually: first my suspicions, then Thomas' report, then the morning paper; which is very different from hearing it all at a breath, and without any warning."

Mr. Rutledge tried to divert them from the theme, and save me from the faintness which his quick eye detected at each new disclosure or conjecture, but in vain. Nothing else could be thought or spoken of. How the murderer should be hunted down, what blood-thirsty and revengeful men were already on the track, how impossible was his escape; these were the pleasant topics of the morning Within those two hours I learned more self-command than all my previous life had taught me, for I had an awful dread at my heart, and I had to listen to these things, as if I were very indifferent to them.

Phil said, for the honor of the county, he supposed, Mr. Rutledge would do all in his power to ferret the thing out; and Mr. Rutledge rather reluctantly a.s.sented, and said he supposed it was his duty.

"And," added the captain, "from what you've said of some slight clue you thought you had to guide you, I suppose you may be of great service, and it's every man's duty to bring the perpetrator of such a deed to justice. By Jove! I wish I could help it along!"

"I suppose you are right," said Mr. Rutledge, with a sigh. "I am going to ride over to the court-house now. Thomas, has my horse been brought around?"

"He is at the door now, sir," said Thomas.

Mr. Rutledge, with a brief good-morning, left the room, and after a moment in the library, repa.s.sed the dining-room door with his riding-whip and hat in his hand.

I listened to his retreating footsteps in a kind of nightmare; I must speak to him before he started on his cruel errand; I must speak, and yet a spell sealed my lips, a horrible tyranny chained me motionless.

That clue--what did it mean?--why did he look at me so strangely?--I knew but too well. I heard him pa.s.s down the hall slowly and pause at the door; in another moment he would be gone. I started from the room.

"Mr. Rutledge!"

He turned as I stood before him, white and trembling.

"What is it?" he said, regarding me with a kind of compa.s.sion. "What do you want to say?"

"I want to say--I want to ask you if you have no pity--if you have the cruelty to want another murder--if there is not blood enough already shed. Don't listen to what those men tell you," I hurried on, "don't believe them, when they say it is your duty. It is not! It is your duty to be merciful. It is your duty to leave vengeance to G.o.d. It is your duty to leave the miserable and the sinful to His justice, and not to hurry them before man's!"

He looked down at me with a pity in his eyes that was almost divine.

"You need not fear me," he said, turning from me; and descending the steps mounted his horse and rode slowly away.

"There are a few things," I overheard Kitty say to Frances outside my door, "in which I should be glad if my young lady was more like yours.

Now there must be some comfort in dressing Miss Josephine, she cares about things; but all my work is thrown away, sometimes I think. My young lady has no heart for anything, never looks in the gla.s.s after I've taken all the pains in the world with her, and is just as likely to throw herself on the bed after her hair is fixed for dinner, as if she had a nightcap on. For the last two days," Kitty went on in a low tone, for Frances and she were very good friends now, "for the last two days she has been so miserable, it makes my heart ache to see her. And as for the masquerade to-night! she don't care _that_ for it. I've worked my fingers to the bone to get her dress ready, and like as not, she won't stay downstairs ten minutes after she gets it on. The whole house is thinking about nothing else, everybody is in such spirits about it, the young ladies are just crazy with their dresses and the fun they're going to have, while she, poor young thing, hardly knows or cares what she's to wear, and stays moping in her room all day by herself."

"It's a hard thing to have one's young man away," said Frances in her soft voice, and with a little sigh that told she knew just how hard it was. Kitty didn't answer. I was afraid she would, and would tell her how inexplicable she found her mistress's moods. But Kitty was true to me, though she did love a little gossip, and let my _douleur_ pa.s.s for what she very shrewdly suspected it was not, and soon reverted to the all-absorbing subject of the masquerade.

"Would you ever know the house!" she said, looking admiringly up and down the hall. "And doesn't the piazza look beautiful, and the hall. And just think how all those colored lamps will look when they're lighted.

Really, I can't think what's got into master to take all this trouble, and turn the house inside out, to please a lot of young ladies that he doesn't care a straw for!"

Frances opened her eyes as if this were heresy. Kitty went on with energy: "Miss Josephine Churchill needn't flatter herself that she's ever going to be more at home at Rutledge than she is now. I don't know a great deal, but I know enough to know that."

"And I could tell you something perhaps," said Frances, "that might make you change your mind."

"I'd like to hear it!"

"Oh, but it wouldn't be right. I never talk about my young lady's secrets."

"But you might tell _me_," urged Kitty, artfully, "I've been so open with you."

"Come down to the laundry then, while I press out these flounces," and the two maids flitted downstairs to whisper over the secrets that their respective mistresses had fondly fancied were buried in the recesses of their own hearts.

And so each way I turned, there was a new dagger to stab me. No wonder that as Kitty said, I had no heart for anything, and only longed to be away and be at rest. Anxiety was added to the remorse and regret that I had first thought insupportable, and such an anxiety as made my nights sleepless, and my days a misery. No wonder that my white face, and the dark ring around my eyes bore hourly witness to the heaviness of my heart.

"Why so sad and pale, young sinner?" called out Grace that evening, as about an hour after tea we were dispersing to our rooms to dress for the all-important occasion. "I think you ought to appear as Mariana, and sing 'I am aweary, aweary;' don't you think so, Mr. Rutledge?"

"Miss Grace, I haven't given the subject enough thought."

"I would give worlds to know what you are going to wear, Mr. Rutledge!"

exclaimed Josephine. "But I _know_ I shall detect you instantly. I should know your step and carriage under twenty dominoes, and among a thousand people."

"Pretty high figures those, Joseph! Phil, I shall know you by your stride, and you couldn't disguise your voice if you practised a year, and that bow is 'Philip Arbuthnot, His Mark,' all the world over!"

"The best way to disguise our voices," said Capt. McGuffy, "is to speak French. I think we had all better agree to do it."

"Ella will not object," said Grace, "now Mr. Viennet is not here to criticise."

"Hush, Grace!" cried her sister maliciously. "How can you be so thoughtless? Why do you continually harrow up your cousin's feelings. By the way, this is the day the steamer sails, is it not?"

"No, yesterday," said Ellerton. "The list of pa.s.sengers will be in to-day's papers. Has the mail come yet, Mr. Rutledge?"

"There is Thomas with it now."

Thomas deposited the package on the hall table and withdrew. I was standing nearest of the group to it, and putting out my hand, took up the "Times."

The others approached and with great interest examined the letters. "Why my dear!" said Josephine pleasantly, "I'm astonished that there's none for you! Not a word since he went away. That doesn't look devoted!"

The color went and came in my face, but it wasn't the taunt that I minded.

"Never mind!" cried Grace, "don't break its heart about him! It shall have another lover, it shall have the big Mason, so it shall!"

"May I trouble you for the 'Times' one moment?" asked Ellerton Wynkar, "I want to look over the departures."

"According to my cousin," I said, tightening my grasp upon the paper, "I have the greatest interest in them, and I must beg the privilege of reading the list first."

"That's not fair!" cried Grace. "How do you know but we have lovers sailing in the 'Arago' as well as you? I must have that paper," and, springing forward, she grasped my wrists.

She could have overcome me in a moment, for just then I was as weak as a child; but Mr. Rutledge, in his firm, quiet way, released my hands, and, holding Grace's tightly in his own, said:

"You had better make your escape with it to your room; I cannot insure you if you stay."

With a grateful look and a forced laugh I ran upstairs, locked myself in my room, and, tearing open the paper, glanced hurriedly up and down the columns for the list of the "Arago's" pa.s.sengers. At last I found it, and skimmed eagerly through it. It was as I expected; I was not disappointed nor shocked; but my hand trembled so I could hardly cut the paragraph out. Ringing for Kitty, I sent the paper down, with my compliments to Mr. Wynkar.

It was nearly nine o'clock before Kitty came back to dress me. I had rung twice, but received no answer. When she did come, I saw in a moment that the delay had been caused by some unusual and exciting cause. She was nervous and uneasy, and started at every sound. Whenever I caught her eye, it dropped quickly before mine, and she hurried on with less than her usual care, the dress on which she had bestowed so much pains and regarded with so much pride. When I was dressed, I looked at myself with some surprise; I was, indeed, effectually disguised. Over my white tarletan ball-dress, I wore a domino of white silk, trimmed with heavy white fringe, and instead of the ordinary hideous black satin mask, a silver gauze before the upper part of my face, and a fall of white lace concealed my features entirely. The heels of my white kid boots were made very high, and that, together with the long sweeping dress, made me appear so much taller than usual, that that one circ.u.mstance would of itself have deceived almost any one. I noticed, after I was all dressed, and ready to go down, that Kitty was a long time in adjusting, to her entire satisfaction, the cord and ta.s.sel that confined the domino at the waist. Just as I was leaving the room, I chanced to look down, and saw that there was a narrow blue ribbon knotted to one of the ta.s.sels.

"What's this, Kitty? Take it off, please."

"That? O, it's nothing, Miss. The ta.s.sel was a little loose, and I fastened it up."

"But all the rest of my dress is white--this spoils the effect. You'd better take a piece of white ribbon."