I
AN OPEN DOOR
It was a night to drive any man indoors. Not only was the darknessimpenetrable, but the raw mist enveloping hill and valley made the openroad anything but desirable to a belated wayfarer like myself.
Being young, untrammeled, and naturally indifferent to danger, I was notaverse to adventure; and having my fortune to make, was always on thelookout for El Dorado, which, to ardent souls, lies ever beyond the nextturning. Consequently, when I saw a light shimmering through the mist atmy right, I resolved to make for it and the shelter it so opportunelyoffered.
But I did not realize then, as I do now, that shelter does notnecessarily imply refuge, or I might not have undertaken this adventurewith so light a heart. Yet, who knows? The impulses of an unfetteredspirit lean toward daring, and youth, as I have said, seeks the strange,the unknown and, sometimes, the terrible.
My path toward this light was by no means an easy one. After confusedwanderings through tangled hedges, and a struggle with obstacles ofwhose nature I received the most curious impression in the surroundingmurk, I arrived in front of a long, low building which, to myastonishment, I found standing with doors and windows open to thepervading mist, save for one square casement through which the lightshone from a row of candles placed on a long mahogany table.
The quiet and seeming emptiness of this odd and picturesque buildingmade me pause. I am not much affected by visible danger, but this silentroom, with its air of sinister expectancy, struck me most unpleasantly,and I was about to reconsider my first impulse and withdraw again to theroad, when a second look, thrown back upon the comfortable interior Iwas leaving, convinced me of my folly and sent me straight toward thedoor which stood so invitingly open.
But half-way up the path, my progress was again stayed by the sight of aman issuing from the house I had so rashly looked upon as devoid of allhuman presence. He seemed in haste and, at the moment my eye first fellon him, was engaged in replacing his watch in his pocket.
But he did not shut the door behind him, which I thought odd, especiallyas his final glance had been a backward one, and seemed to take in allthe appointments of the place he was so hurriedly leaving.
As we met, he raised his hat. This likewise struck me as peculiar, forthe deference he displayed was more marked than that usually bestowed onstrangers, while his lack of surprise at an encounter more or lessstartling in such a mist was calculated to puzzle an ordinary man likemyself. Indeed, he was so little impressed by my presence there that hewas for passing me without a word or any other hint of good fellowship,save the bow of which I have spoken. But this did not suit me. I washungry, cold, and eager for creature comforts, and the house before megave forth not only heat, but a savory odor which in itself was aninvitation hard to ignore. I therefore accosted the man.
"Will bed and supper be provided me here?" I asked. "I am tired out witha long tramp over the hills, and hungry enough to pay anything inreason--"
I stopped, for the man had disappeared. He had not paused at my appealand the mist had swallowed him. But at the break in my sentence, hisvoice came back in good-natured tones and I heard:
"Supper will be ready at nine, and there are beds for all. Enter, sir;you are the first to arrive, but the others can not be far behind."
A queer greeting, certainly. But when I strove to question him as to itsmeaning, his voice returned to me from such a distance that I doubted ifmy words had reached him with any more distinctness than his answerreached me.
"Well!" thought I, "it isn't as if a lodging had been denied me. Heinvited me to enter, and enter I will."
The house, to which I now naturally directed a glance of much morecareful scrutiny than before, was no ordinary farm-building, but arambling old mansion, made conspicuously larger here and there byjutting porches and more than one convenient lean-to. Though furnished,warmed and lighted with candles, as I have previously described, it hadabout it an air of disuse which made me feel myself an intruder, inspite of the welcome I had received. But I was not in a position tostand upon ceremony, and ere long I found myself inside the great roomand before the blazing logs whose glow had lighted up the doorway andadded its own attraction to the other allurements of the inviting place.
Though the open door made a draft which was anything but pleasant, I didnot feel like closing it, and was astonished to observe the effect ofthe mist through the square thus left open to the night. It was not anagreeable one, and, instinctively turning my back upon that quarter ofthe room, I let my eyes roam over the wainscoted walls and the oddpieces of furniture which gave such an air of old-fashioned richness tothe place. As nothing of the kind had ever fallen under my eyes before,I should have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity of gratifying my tastefor the curious and the beautiful, if the quaint old chairs I sawstanding about me on every side had not all been empty. But the solitudeof the place, so much more oppressive than the solitude of the road Ihad left, struck cold to my heart, and I missed the cheer rightfullybelonging to such attractive surroundings. Suddenly I bethought me ofthe many other apartments likely to be found in so spacious a dwelling,and, going to the nearest door, I opened it and called out for themaster of the house. But only an echo came back, and, returning to thefire, I sat down before the cheering blaze, in quiet acceptance of asituation too lonely for comfort, yet not without a certain piquantinterest for a man of free mind and adventurous disposition like myself.
After all, if supper was to be served at nine, someone must be expectedto eat it: I should surely not be left much longer without companions.
Meanwhile ample amusement awaited me in the contemplation of a picturewhich, next to the large fireplace, was the most prominent object in theroom. This picture was a portrait, and a remarkable one. The countenanceit portrayed was both characteristic and forcible, and so interested methat in studying it I quite forgot both hunger and weariness. Indeed itseffect upon me was such that, after gazing at it uninterruptedly for afew minutes, I discovered that its various features--the narrow eyes inwhich a hint of craft gave a strange gleam to their native intelligence;the steadfast chin, strong as the rock of the hills I had wearilytramped all day; the cunning wrinkles which yet did not interfere witha latent great-heartedness that made the face as attractive as it waspuzzling--had so established themselves in my mind that I continued tosee them before me whichever way I turned, and found it impossible toshake off their influence even after I had resolutely set my mind inanother direction by endeavoring to recall what I knew of the town intowhich I had strayed.
I had come from Scranton and was now, according to my best judgment, inone of those rural districts of western Pennsylvania which breed suchstrange and sturdy characters. But of this special neighborhood, itsinhabitants and its industries, I knew nothing nor was likely to, solong as I remained in the solitude I have endeavored to describe.
But these impressions and these thoughts--if thoughts theywere--presently received a check. A loud "Halloo" rose from somewhere inthe mist, followed by a string of muttered imprecations, which convincedme that the person now attempting to approach the house was encounteringsome of the many difficulties which had beset me in the sameundertaking a few minutes before.
I therefore raised my voice and shouted out, "Here! this way!" afterwhich I sat still and awaited developments.
There was a huge clock in one of the corners, whose loud tick filled upevery interval of silence. By this clock it was just ten minutes toeight when two gentlemen (I should say men, and coarse men at that)crossed the open threshold and entered the house.
Their appearance was more or less note-worthy--unpleasantly so, I amobliged to add. One was red-faced and obese, the other was tall, thinand wiry and showed as many seams in his face as a blighted apple.Neither of the two had anything to recommend him either in appearance oraddress, save a certain veneer of polite assumption as transparent as itwas offensive. As I listened to the forced sallies of the one and thehollow laugh of the other, I was glad that I was large of fra
me andstrong of arm and used to all kinds of men and--brutes.
As these two new-comers seemed no more astonished at my presence thanthe man I had met at the gate, I checked the question whichinstinctively rose to my lips and with a simple bow,--responded to by amore or less familiar nod from either,--accepted the situation with allthe _sang-froid_ the occasion seemed to demand. Perhaps this was wise,perhaps it was not; there was little opportunity to judge, for the startthey both gave as they encountered the eyes of the picture beforementioned drew my attention to a consideration of the different ways inwhich men, however similar in other respects, express sudden andunlooked-for emotion. The big man simply allowed his astonishment,dread, or whatever the feeling was which moved him, to ooze forth in acold and deathly perspiration which robbed his cheeks of color and casta bluish shadow over his narrow and retreating temples; while the thinand waspish man, caught in the same trap (for trap I saw it was),shouted aloud in his ill-timed mirth, the false and cruel character ofwhich would have made me shudder, if all expression of feeling on mypart had not been held in check by the interest I immediatelyexperienced in the display of open bravado with which, in anothermoment, these two tried to carry off their mutual embarrassment.
"Good likeness, eh?" laughed the seamy-faced man. "Quite an idea, that!Makes him one of us again! Well, he's welcome--in oils. Can't say muchto us from canvas, eh?" And the rafters above him vibrated, as hisviolent efforts at joviality went up in loud and louder assertion fromhis thin throat.
A nudge from the other's elbow stopped him and I saw them both casthalf-lowering, half-inquisitive glances in my direction.
"One of the Witherspoon boys?" queried one.
"Perhaps," snarled the other. "I never saw but one of them. There arefive, aren't there? Eustace believed in marrying off his gals young."
"Damn him, yes. And he'd have married them off younger if he had knownhow numbers were going to count some day among the Westonhaughs." And helaughed again in a way I should certainly have felt it my business toresent, if my indignation as well as the ill-timed allusions which hadcalled it forth had not been put to an end by a fresh arrival throughthe veiling mist which hung like a shroud at the doorway.
This time it was for me to experience a shock of something like fear.Yet the personage who called up this unlooked-for sensation in mynaturally hardy nature was old and, to all appearance, harmless fromdisability, if not from good will. His form was bent over upon itselflike a bow; and only from the glances he shot from his upturned eyes wasthe fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force andmalignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room alreadyoverflowing with dangerous and menacing passions.
As this old wretch, either from the feebleness of age or from theinfirmity I have mentioned, had great difficulty in walking, he hadbrought with him a small boy, whose business it was to direct histottering steps as best he could.
But once settled in his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointedoak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse andbeing on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As thislittle shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, withgasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and didtheir share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then,with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyesagain into view, he remarked:
"Haven't ye a word for kinsman Luke, you two? It isn't often I get outamong ye. Shakee, nephew! Shakee, Hector! And now who's the boy in thewindow? My eyes aren't what they used to be, but he don't seem to favorthe Westonhaughs over-much. One of Salmon's four grandchildren, think'e? Or a shoot from Eustace's gnarled old trunk? His gals all marriedAmericans, and one of them, I've been told, was a yellow-haired giantlike this fellow."
As this description pointed directly toward me, I was about to venture aresponse on my own account, when my attention, as well as theirs, wasfreshly attracted by a loud "Whoa!" at the gate, followed by the hastybut assured entrance of a dapper, wizen, but perfectly preserved littleold gentleman with a bag in his hand. Looking askance with eyes thatwere like two beads, first at the two men who were now elbowing eachother for the best place before the fire, and then at the revoltingfigure in the chair, he bestowed his greeting, which consisted of anelaborate bow, not on them, but upon the picture hanging soconspicuously on the open wall before him; and then, taking me withinthe scope of his quick, circling glance, cried out with an assumption ofgreat cordiality:
"Good evening, gentlemen; good evening one, good evening all. Nothinglike being on the tick. I'm sorry the night has turned out so badly.Some may find it too thick for travel. That would be bad, eh? verybad--for _them_."
As none of the men he openly addressed saw fit to answer, save by thehitch of a shoulder or a leer quickly suppressed, I kept silent also.But this reticence, marked as it was, did not seem to offend thenew-comer. Shaking the wet from the umbrella he held, he stood thedripping article up in a corner and then came and placed his feet on thefender. To do this he had to crowd between the two men already occupyingthe best part of the hearth. But he showed no concern at incommodingthem, and bore their cross looks and threatening gestures withprofessional equanimity.
"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look overhis shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. (Did I say that Ihad risen when the latter sat?) "I'm no Westonhaugh, I; nor yet aWitherspoon nor a Clapsaddle. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. AnthonyWestonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognitionin the direction of the picture. "I drew up his last will and testament,and, until all of his wishes have been duly carried out, am entitled bythe terms of that will to be regarded both legally and socially as hisrepresentative. This you all know, but it is my way to make everythingclear as I proceed. A lawyer's trick, no doubt. I do not pretend to beentirely exempt from such."
A grumble from the large man, who seemed to have been disturbed in someabsorbing calculation he was carrying on, mingled with a few mutteredwords of forced acknowledgment from the restless old sinner in thechair, made it unnecessary for me to reply, even if the last comer hadgiven me the opportunity.
"It's getting late!" he cried, with an easy garrulity rather amusing,under the circumstances. "Two more trains came in as I left the depot.If old Phil was on hand with his wagon, several more members of thisinteresting family may be here before the clock strikes; if not, theassemblage is like to be small. Too small," I heard him grumble a minuteafter, under his breath.
"I wish it were a matter of one," spoke up the big man, striking hisbreast in a way to make it perfectly apparent whom he meant by that word_one_. And having (if I may judge by the mingled laugh and growl of hiscompanions) thus shown his hand both figuratively and literally, herelapsed into the calculation which seemed to absorb all of hisunoccupied moments.
"Generous, very!" commented the lawyer in a murmur which was more thanaudible. "Pity that sentiments of such broad benevolence should gounrewarded."
This, because at that very instant wheels were heard in front, also ajangle of voices, in some controversy about fares, which promisedanything but a pleasing addition to the already none too desirablecompany.
"I suppose that's sister Janet," snarled out the one addressed asHector. There was no love in his voice, despite the relationship hintedat, and I awaited the entrance of this woman with some curiosity.
But her appearance, heralded by many a puff and pant which the damp airexaggerated in a prodigious way, did not seem to warrant the interest Ihad shown in it. As she stepped into the room, I saw only a big frowsywoman, who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hatin the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed, owing to theslouchiness of her figure and some misadventure by which her hat hadbeen set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, Inoted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times ofnecessity and distress.
She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on thewall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one ofthe ill-lighted corners.
The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as shepassed him, emitted one short sentence.
"Almost late," said he.
Her answer was a sputter of words.
"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken onedrop more at the half-way house, I might really not have got here atall. That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge Iwould have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fistat the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival withintwo short strokes of the clock!"
"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But beforethe words were well out of his mouth, we all became aware of a newpresence--a woman, whose somber grace and quiet bearing gave distinctionto her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like aweto follow the first sight of her cold features and deep, heavily-fringedeyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment awakened by thesoft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching femininity. Shewore a long loose garment which fell without a fold from chin to foot,and in her arms she seemed to carry something.
Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplatingher, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quitesuppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to noticethat the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that wastoward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.Whenever any one entered,--and there were one or two additional arrivalsduring the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour,--a frownsettled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similarlook, for the interpretation of which I lacked the key. Yet not on everybrow either. There was one which remained undisturbed and showed only agrand patience.
As the hands of the big clock neared the point of eight, a furtivesmile appeared on more than one face; and when the hour rang out, a sighof satisfaction swept through the room, to which the little old lawyerresponded with a worldly-wise grunt, as he moved from his place andproceeded to the door.
This he had scarcely shut when a chorus of voices rose from without.Three or four lingerers had pushed their way as far as the gate, only tosee the door of the house shut in their faces.
"Too late!" growled old man Luke from between the locks of his longbeard.
"Too late!" shrieked the woman who had come so near being late herself.
"Too late!" smoothly acquiesced the lawyer, locking and bolting the doorwith a deft and assured hand.
But the four or five persons who thus found themselves barred out didnot accept without a struggle the decision of the more fortunate onesassembled within. More than one hand began pounding on the door, and wecould hear cries of, "The train was behind time!" "Your clock is fast!""You are cheating us; you want it all for yourselves!" "We will have thelaw on you!" and other bitter adjurations unintelligible to me from myignorance of the circumstances which called them forth.
But the wary old lawyer simply shook his head and answered nothing;whereat a murmur of gratification rose from within, and a howl of almostfrenzied dismay from without, which latter presently received point froma startling vision which now appeared at the casement where the lightsburned. A man's face looked in, and behind it, that of a woman, so wildand maddened by some sort of heart-break that I found my sympathiesaroused in spite of the glare of evil passions which made both of thesecountenances something less than human.
But the lawyer met the stare of these four eyes with a quiet chuckle,which found its echo in the ill-advised mirth of those about him; andmoving over to the window where they still peered in, he drew togetherthe two heavy shutters which hitherto had stood back against the wall,and, fastening them with a bar, shut out the sight of this despair, ifhe could not shut out the protests which ever and anon were shoutedthrough the keyhole.
Meanwhile, one form had sat through this whole incident without agesture; and on the quiet brow, from which I could not keep my eyes, noshadows appeared save the perpetual one of native melancholy, which wasat once the source of its attraction and the secret of its power.
Into what sort of gathering had I stumbled? And why did I prefer toawait developments rather than ask the simplest question of any oneabout me?
Meantime the lawyer had proceeded to make certain preparations. With thehelp of one or two willing hands, he had drawn the great table into themiddle of the room and, having seen the candles restored to theirplaces, began to open his small bag and take from it a roll of paper andseveral flat documents. Laying the latter in the center of the table andslowly unrolling the former, he consulted, with his foxy eyes, the facessurrounding him, and smiled with secret malevolence, as he noted thatevery chair and every form were turned away from the picture beforewhich he had bent with such obvious courtesy, on entering. I alone stooderect, and this possibly was why a gleam of curiosity was noticeable inhis glance, as he ended his scrutiny of my countenance and bent his gazeagain upon the paper he held.
"Heavens!" thought I. "What shall I answer this man if he asks me why Icontinued to remain in a spot where I have so little business." Theimpulse came to go. But such was the effect of this strange convocationof persons, at night and in a mist which was itself a nightmare, that Ifailed to take action and remained riveted to my place, while Mr. Smeadconsulted his roll and finally asked in a business-like tone, quiteunlike his previous sarcastic speech, the names of those whom he had thepleasure of seeing before him.
The old man in the chair spoke up first.
"Luke Westonhaugh," he announced.
"Very good!" responded the lawyer.
"Hector Westonhaugh," came from the thin man.
A nod and a look toward the next.
"John Westonhaugh."
"Nephew?" asked the lawyer.
"Yes."
"Go on, and be quick; supper will be ready at nine."
"Eunice Westonhaugh," spoke up a soft voice.
I felt my heart bound as if some inner echo responded to that name.
"Daughter of whom?"
"Hudson Westonhaugh," she gently faltered. "My father is dead--died lastnight;--I am his only heir."
A grumble of dissatisfaction and a glint of unrelieved hate came fromthe doubled-up figure, whose malevolence had so revolted me.
But the lawyer was not to be shaken.
"Very good! It is fortunate you trusted your feet rather than thetrain. And now you! What is your name?"
He was looking, not at me as I had at first feared, but at the man nextto me, a slim but slippery youth, whose small red eyes made me shudder.
"William Witherspoon."
"Barbara's son?"
"Yes."
"Where are your brothers?"
"One of them, I think, is outside"--here he laughed;--"the otheris--_sick_."
The way he uttered this word made me set him down as one to beespecially wary of when he smiled. But then I had already passedjudgment on him at my first view.
"And you, madam?"--this to the large, dowdy woman with the uncertaineye, a contrast to the young and melancholy Eunice.
"Janet Clapsaddle," she replied, waddling hungrily forward and gettingunpleasantly near the speaker, for he moved off as she approached, andtook his stand in the clear place at the head of the table.
"Very good, Mistress Clapsaddle. You were a Westonhaugh, I believe?"
"You _believe_, sneak-faced hypocrite that you are!" she blurted out. "Idon't understand your lawyer ways. I like plain speaking myself. Don'tyou know me, and Luke and Hector, and--and most of us indeed, exceptthat puny, white-faced girl yonder, whom, having been brought up on theother side of the Ridge, we have none of us seen since she was ascreaming baby in Hildegarde's arms. And the young gentleman overthere,"--here she indicated me--"who sh
ows so little likeness to therest of the family. He will have to make it pretty plain who his fatherwas before we shall feel like acknowledging him, either as the son ofone of Eustace's girls, or a chip from brother Salmon's hard old block."
As this caused all eyes to turn upon me, even _hers_, I smiled as Istepped forward. The lawyer did not return that smile.
"What is your name?" he asked shortly and sharply, as if he distrustedme.
"Hugh Austin," was my quiet reply.
"There is no such name on the list," snapped old Smead, with anauthoritative gesture toward those who seemed anxious to enter aprotest.
"Probably not," I returned, "for I am neither a Witherspoon, aWestonhaugh nor a Clapsaddle. I am merely a chance wayfarer passingthrough the town on my way west. I thought this house was a tavern, orat least a place I could lodge in. The man I met in the doorway told meas much, and so I am here. If my company is not agreeable, or if youwish this room to yourselves, let me go into the kitchen. I promise notto meddle with the supper, hungry as I am. Or perhaps you wish me tojoin the crowd outside; it seems to be increasing."
"No, no," came from all parts of the room. "Don't let the door beopened. Nothing could keep Lemuel and his crowd out if they once gotfoot over the threshold."
The lawyer rubbed his chin. He seemed to be in some sort of quandary.First he scrutinized me from under his shaggy brows with a sharp gleamof suspicion; then his features softened and, with a side glance at theyoung woman who called herself Eunice, (perhaps, because she was worthlooking at, perhaps because she had partly risen at my words), heslipped toward a door I had before observed in the wainscoting on theleft of the mantelpiece, and softly opened it upon what looked like anarrow staircase.
"We can not let you go out," said he; "and we can not let you have afinger in our viands before the hour comes for serving them; so if youwill be so good as to follow this staircase to the top, you will find itends in a room comfortable enough for the wayfarer you call yourself. Inthat room you can rest till the way is clear for you to continue yourtravels. Better, we can not do for you. This house is not a tavern, butthe somewhat valuable property of--" He turned with a bow and smile, asevery one there drew a deep breath; but no one ventured to end thatsentence.
I would have given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were notvery great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; themystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; theeagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; themalevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and,above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the oneoff-set to the general tone of villainy with which the room was charged,filled me with curiosity, if I might call it by no other name, that mademy acquiescence in the demand thus made upon me positively heroic. Butthere seemed no other course for me to follow, and with a last lingeringglance at the genial fire and a quick look about me, which happilyencountered hers, I stooped my head to suit the low and narrow doorwayopened for my accommodation, and instantly found myself in darkness. Thedoor had been immediately closed by the lawyer's impatient hand.