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Doctor Grimshawe\'s Secret

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> Doctor Grimshawe\'s Secret




Redclyffe smiled to himself, as he thus gave expression to what he
really half fancied were Lord Braithwaite's feelings and purposes
towards him, and he felt them in the kindness and sweetness of his
demeanor, and his evident wish to make him happy, combined with his own
subtile suspicion of some design with which he had been invited here,
or which had grown up since he came.

Whoever has read Italian history must have seen such instances of this
poisoning without malice or personal ill-feeling.

His own pleasant, companionable, perhaps noble traits and qualities,
may have made a favorable impression on Lord Braithwaite, and perhaps
he regretted the necessity of acting as he was about to do, but could
not therefore weakly relinquish his deliberately formed design. And, on
his part, Redclyffe bore no malice towards Lord Braithwaite, but felt
really a kindly interest in him, and could he have made him happy at
any less cost than his own life, or dearest interests, would perhaps
have been glad to do so. He sometimes felt inclined to remonstrate with
him in a friendly way; to tell him that his intended course was not
likely to lead to a good result; that they had better try to arrange
the matter on some other basis, and perhaps he would not find the
American so unreasonable as he supposed.

All this, it will be understood, were the mere dreamy suppositions of
Redclyffe, in the idleness and languor of the old mansion, letting his
mind run at will, and following it into dim caves, whither it tended.
He did not actually believe anything of all this; unless it be a
lawyer, or a policeman, or some very vulgar natural order of mind, no
man really suspects another of crime. It is the hardest thing in the
world for a noble nature--the hardest and the most shocking--to be
convinced that a fellow-being is going to do a wrong thing, and the
consciousness of one's own inviolability renders it still more
difficult to believe that one's self is to be the object of the wrong.
What he had been fancying looked to him like a romance. The strange
part of the matter was, what suggested such a romance in regard to his
kind and hospitable host, who seemed to exercise the hospitality of
England with a kind of refinement and pleasant piquancy that came from
his Italian mixture of blood? Was there no spiritual whisper here?

So the time wore on; and Redclyffe began to be sensible that he must
soon decide upon the course that he was to take; for his diplomatic
position waited for him, and he could not loiter many days more away in
this half delicious, half painful reverie and quiet in the midst of his
struggling life. He was yet as undetermined what to do as ever; or, if
we may come down to the truth, he was perhaps loath to acknowledge to
himself the determination that he had actually formed.

One day, at dinner, which now came on after candle-light, he and Lord
Braithwaite sat together at table, as usual, while Omskirk waited at
the sideboard. It was a wild, gusty night, in which an autumnal breeze
of later autumn seemed to have gone astray, and come into September
intrusively. The two friends--for such we may call them--had spent a
pleasant day together, wandering in the grounds, looking at the old
house at all points, going to the church, and examining the cross-
legged stone statues; they had ridden, too, and taken a great deal of
healthful exercise, and had now that pleasant sense of just weariness
enough which it is the boon of the climate of England to incite and
permit men to take. Redclyffe was in one of his most genial moods, and
Lord Braithwaite seemed to be the same; so kindly they were both
disposed to one another, that the American felt that he might not
longer refrain from giving his friend some light upon the character in
which he appeared, or in which, at least, he had it at his option to
appear. Lord Braithwaite might or might not know it already; but at all
events it was his duty to tell him, or to take his leave, having thus
far neither gained nor sought anything from their connection which
would tend to forward his pursuit--should he decide to undertake it.

When the cheerful fire, the rare wine, and the good fare had put them
both into a good physical state, Redclyffe said to Lord Braithwaite,--

"There is a matter upon which I have been some time intending to speak
to you."

Braithwaite nodded.

"A subject," continued he, "of interest to both of us. Has it ever
occurred to you, from the identity of name, that I may be really, what
we have jokingly assumed me to be,--a relation?"

"It has," said Lord Braithwaite, readily enough. "The family would be
proud to acknowledge such a kinsman, whose abilities and political rank
would add a public lustre that it has long wanted."

Redclyffe bowed and smiled.

"You know, I suppose, the annals of your house," he continued, "and
have heard how, two centuries ago, or somewhat less, there was an
ancestor who mysteriously disappeared. He was never seen again. There
were tales of private murder, out of which a hundred legends have come
down to these days, as I have myself found, though most of them in so
strange a shape that I should hardly know them, had I not myself a
clue."

"I have heard some of these legends," said Lord Braithwaite.

"But did you ever hear, among them," asked Redclyffe, "that the lost
ancestor did not really die,--was not murdered,--but lived long, though
in another hemisphere,--lived long, and left heirs behind him?"

"There is such a legend," said Lord Braithwaite.

"Left posterity," continued Redclyffe,--"a representative of whom is
alive at this day."

"That I have not known, though I might conjecture something like it,"
said Braithwaite.

The coolness with which he took this perplexed Redclyffe. He resolved
to make trial at once whether it were possible to move him.

"And I have reason to believe," he added, "that that representative is
myself."

"Should that prove to be the case, you are welcome back to your own,"
said Lord Braithwaite, quietly. "It will be a very remarkable case, if
the proofs for two hundred years, or thereabouts, can be so distinctly
made out as to nullify the claim of one whose descent is undoubted. Yet
it is certainly not impossible. I suppose it would hardly be fair in me
to ask what are your proofs, and whether I may see them."

"The documents are in the hands of my agents in London," replied
Redclyffe; "and seem to be ample, among them being a certified
genealogy from the first emigrant downward, without a break. A
declaration of two men of note among the first settlers, certifying
that they knew the first emigrant, under a change of name, to be the
eldest son of the house of Braithwaite; full proofs, at least on that
head."

"You are a lawyer, I believe," said Braithwaite, "and know better than
I what may be necessary to prove your claim. I will frankly own to you,
that I have heard, long ago,--as long as when my connection with this
hereditary property first began,--that there was supposed to be an heir
extant for a long course of years, and that there, was no proof that
that main line of the descent had ever become extinct. If these things
had come fairly before me, and been represented to me with whatever
force belongs to them, before my accession to the estate,--these and
other facts which I have since become acquainted with,--I might have
deliberated on the expediency of coming to such a doubtful possession.
The property, I assure you, is not so desirable that, taking all things
into consideration, it has much increased my happiness. But, now, here
I am, having paid a price in a certain way,--which you will understand,
if you ever come into the property,--a price of a nature that cannot
possibly be refunded. It can hardly be presumed that I shall see your
right a moment sooner than you make it manifest by law."

"I neither expect nor wish it," replied Redclyffe, "nor, to speak
frankly, am I quite sure that you will ever have occasion to defend
your title, or to question mine. When I came hither, to be your guest,
it was almost with the settled purpose never to mention my proofs, nor
to seek to make them manifest. That purpose is not, I may say, yet
relinquished."

"Yet I am to infer from your words that it is shaken?" said
Braithwaite. "You find the estate, then, so delightful,--this life of
the old manor-house so exquisitely agreeable,--this air so cheering,--
this moral atmosphere so invigorating,--that your scruples are about
coming to an end. You think this life of an Englishman, this fair
prospect of a title, so irresistibly enticing as to be worth more than
your claim, in behalf of your American birthright, to a possible
Presidency."

There was a sort of sneer in this, which Redclyffe did not well know
how to understand; and there was a look on Braithwaite's face, as he
said it, that made him think of a condemned soul, who should be dressed
in magnificent robes, and surrounded with the mockery of state,
splendor, and happiness, who, if he should be congratulated on his
fortunate and blissful situation, would probably wear just such a look,
and speak in just that tone. He looked a moment in Braithwaite's face.

"No," he replied. "I do not think that there is much happiness in it. A
brighter, healthier, more useful, far more satisfactory, though
tumultuous life would await me in my own country. But there is about
this place a strange, deep, sad, brooding interest, which possesses me,
and draws me to it, and will not let me go. I feel as if, in spite of
myself and my most earnest efforts, I were fascinated by something in
the spot, and must needs linger here, and make it my home if I can."

"You shall be welcome; the old hereditary chair will be filled at
last," said Braithwaite, pointing to the vacant chair. "Come, we will
drink to you in a cup of welcome. Take the old chair now."

In half-frolic Redclyffe took the chair.

He called to Omskirk to bring a bottle of a particularly exquisite
Italian wine, known only to the most deeply skilled in the vintages of
that country, and which, he said, was oftener heard of than seen,--
oftener seen than tasted. Omskirk put it on the table in its original
glass, and Braithwaite filled Redclyffe's glass and his own, and raised
the latter to his lips, with a frank expression of his mobile
countenance.

"May you have a secure possession of your estate," said he, "and live
long in the midst of your possessions. To me, on the whole, it seems
better than your American prospects."

Redclyffe thanked him, and drank off the glass of wine, which was not
very much to his taste; as new varieties of wine are apt not to be. All
the conversation that had passed had been in a free, careless sort of
way, without apparently much earnestness in it; for they were both men
who knew how to keep their more serious parts within them. But
Redclyffe was glad that the explanation was over, and that he might now
remain at Braithwaite's table, under his roof, without that uneasy
feeling of treachery which, whether rightly or not, had haunted him
hitherto. He felt joyous, and stretched his hand out for the bottle
which Braithwaite kept near himself, instead of passing it.

"You do not yourself do justice to your own favorite wine," observed
Redclyffe, seeing his host's full glass standing before him.

"I have filled again," said Braithwaite, carelessly; "but I know not
that I shall venture to drink a second glass. It is a wine that does
not bear mixture with other vintages, though of most genial and
admirable qualities when taken by itself. Drink your own, however, for
it will be a rare occasion indeed that would induce me to offer you
another bottle of this rare stock."

Redclyffe sipped his second glass, endeavoring to find out what was
this subtile and peculiar flavor that hid itself so, and yet seemed on
the point of revealing itself. It had, he thought, a singular effect
upon his faculties, quickening and making them active, and causing him
to feel as if he were on the point of penetrating rare mysteries, such
as men's thoughts are always hovering round, and always returning from.
Some strange, vast, sombre, mysterious truth, which he seemed to have
searched for long, appeared to be on the point of being revealed to
him; a sense of something to come; something to happen that had been
waiting long, long to happen; an opening of doors, a drawing away of
veils; a lifting of heavy, magnificent curtains, whose dark folds hung
before a spectacle of awe;--it was like the verge of the grave. Whether
it was the exquisite wine of Braithwaite, or whatever it might be, the
American felt a strange influence upon him, as if he were passing
through the gates of eternity, and finding on the other side the
revelation of some secret that had greatly perplexed him on this side.
He thought that Braithwaite's face assumed a strange, subtile smile,--
not malicious, yet crafty, triumphant, and at the same time terribly
sad, and with that perception his senses, his life, welled away; and
left him in the deep ancestral chair at the board of Braithwaite.




CHAPTER XXIV.


When awake [Endnote: 1], or beginning to awake, he lay for some time in
a maze; not a disagreeable one, but thoughts were running to and fro in
his mind, all mixed and jumbled together. Reminiscences of early days,
even those that were Preadamite; referring, we mean, to those times in
the almshouse, which he could not at ordinary times remember at all;
but now there seemed to be visions of old women and men, and pallid
girls, and little dirty boys, which could only be referred to that
epoch. Also, and most vividly, there was the old Doctor, with his
sternness, his fierceness, his mystery; and all that happened since,
playing phantasmagoria before his yet unclosed eyes; nor, so mysterious
was his state, did he know, when he should unclose those lids, where he
should find himself. He was content to let the world go on in this way,
as long as it would, and therefore did not hurry, but rather kept back
the proofs of awakening; willing to look at the scenes that were
unrolling for his amusement, as it seemed; and willing, too, to keep it
uncertain whether he were not back in America, and in his boyhood, and
all other subsequent impressions a dream or a prophetic vision. But at
length something stirring near him,--or whether it stirred, or whether
he dreamed it, he could not quite tell,--but the uncertainty impelled
him, at last, to open his eyes, and see whereabouts he was.

Even then he continued in as much uncertainty as he was before, and lay
with marvellous quietude in it, trying sluggishly to make the mystery
out. It was in a dim, twilight place, wherever it might be; a place of
half-awakeness, where the outlines of things were not well defined; but
it seemed to be a chamber, antique and vaulted, narrow and high, hung
round with old tapestry. Whether it were morning or midday he could not
tell, such was the character of the light, nor even where it came from;
for there appeared to be no windows, and yet it was not apparently
artificial light; nor light at all, indeed, but a gray dimness. It was
so like his own half-awake state that he lay in it a longer time, not
incited to finish his awaking, but in a languor, not disagreeable, yet
hanging heavily, heavily upon him, like a dark pall. It was, in fact,
as if he had been asleep for years, or centuries, or till the last day
was dawning, and then was collecting his thoughts in such slow fashion
as would then be likely.

Again that noise,--a little, low, quiet sound, as of one breathing
somewhere near him. The whole thing was very much like that incident
which introduced him to the Hospital, and his first coming to his
senses there; and he almost fancied that some such accident must again
have happened to him, and that when his sight cleared he should again
behold the venerable figure of the pensioner. With this idea he let his
head steady itself; and it seemed to him that its dizziness must needs
be the result of very long and deep sleep. What if it were the sleep of
a century? What if all things that were extant when he went to sleep
had passed away, and he was waking now in another epoch of time? Where
was America, and the republic in which he hoped for such great things?
Where England? had she stood it better than the republic? Was the old
Hospital still in being,--although the good Warden must long since have
passed out of his warm and pleasant life? And himself, how came he to
be preserved? In what musty old nook had he been put away, where Time
neglected and Death forgot him, until now he was to get up friendless,
helpless,--when new heirs had come to the estate he was on the point of
laying claim to,--and go onward through what remained of life? Would it
not have been better to have lived with his contemporaries, and to be
now dead and dust with them? Poor, petty interests of a day, how
slight!

Again the noise, a little stir, a sort of quiet moan, or something that
he could not quite define; but it seemed, whenever he heard it, as if
some fact thrust itself through the dream-work with which he was
circumfused; something alien to his fantasies, yet not powerful enough
to dispel them. It began to be irksome to him, this little sound of
something near him; and he thought, in the space of another hundred
years, if it continued, he should have to arouse himself and see what
it was. But, indeed, there was something so cheering in this long
repose,--this rest from all the troubles of earth, which it sometimes
seems as if only a churchyard bed would give us,--that he wished the
noise would let him alone. But his thoughts were gradually getting too
busy for this slumberous state. He begun, perforce, to come nearer
actuality. The strange question occurred to him, Had any time at all
passed? Was he not still sitting at Lord Braithwaite's table, having
just now quaffed a second glass of that rare and curious Italian wine?
Was it not affecting his head very strangely,--so that he was put out
of time as it were? He would rally himself, and try to set his head
right with another glass. He must be still at table, for now he
remembered he had not gone to bed at all. [Endnote: 2.]

Ah, the noise! He could not bear it, he would awake now, now!--silence
it, and then to sleep again. In fact, he started up; started to his
feet, in puzzle and perplexity, and stood gazing around him, with
swimming brain. It was an antique room, which he did not at all
recognize, and, indeed, in that dim twilight--which how it came he
could not tell--he could scarcely discern what were its distinguishing
marks. But he seemed to be sensible, that, in a high-backed chair, at a
little distance from him, sat a figure in a long robe; a figure of a
man with snow-white hair and a long beard, who seemed to be gazing at
him, quietly, as if he had been gazing a hundred years. I know not what
it was, but there was an influence as if this old man belonged to some
other age and category of man than he was now amongst. He remembered
the old family legend of the existence of an ancestor two or three
centuries in age.

"It is the old family personified," thought he.

The old figure made no sign, but continued to sit gazing at him in so
strangely still a manner that it made Redclyffe shiver with something
that seemed like affright. There was an aspect of long, long time about
him; as if he had never been young, or so long ago as when the world
was young along with him. He might be the demon of this old house; the
representative of all that happened in it, the grief, the long languor
and weariness of life, the deaths, gathering them all into himself, and
figuring them in furrows, wrinkles, and white hairs,--a being that
might have been young, when those old Saxon timbers were put together,
with the oaks that were saplings when Caesar landed, and was in his
maturity when the Conqueror came, and was now lapsing into extreme age
when the nineteenth century was elderly. His garb might have been of
any time, that long, loose robe that enveloped him. Redclyffe remained
in this way, gazing at this aged figure; at first without the least
wonder, but calmly, as we feel in dreams, when, being in a land of
enchantment, we take everything as if it were a matter of course, and
feel, by the right of our own marvellous nature, on terms of equal
kindred with all other marvels. So it was with him when he first became
aware of the old man, sitting there with that age-long regard directed
towards him.

But, by degrees, a sense of wonder had its will, and grew, slowly at
first, in Redclyffe's mind; and almost twin-born with it, and growing
piece by piece, there was a sense of awful fear, as his waking senses
came slowly back to him. In the dreamy state, he had felt no fear; but,
as a waking man, it was fearful to discover that the shadowy forms did
not fly from his awaking eyes. He started at last to his feet from the
low couch on which he had all this time been lying.

"What are you?" he exclaimed. "Where am I?"

The old figure made no answer; nor could Redclyffe be quite sure that
his voice had any effect upon it, though he fancied that it was shaken
a little, as if his voice came to it from afar. But it continued to
gaze at him, or at least to have its aged face turned towards him in
the dim light; and this strange composure, and unapproachableness, were
very frightful. As his manhood gathered about his heart, however, the
American endeavored to shake off this besetting fear, or awe, or
whatever it was; and to bring himself to a sense of waking things,--to
burst through the mist and delusive shows that bewildered him, and
catch hold of a reality. He stamped upon the floor; it was solid stone,
the pavement, or oak so old and stanch that it resembled it. There was
one firm thing, therefore. But the contrast between this and the
slipperiness, the unaccountableness, of the rest of his position, made
him the more sensible of the latter. He made a step towards the old
figure; another; another. He was face to face with him, within a yard
of distance. He saw the faint movement of the old man's breath; he
sought, through the twilight of the room, some glimmer of perception in
his eyes.

"Are you a living man?" asked Redclyffe, faintly and doubtfully.

He mumbled, the old figure, some faint moaning sound, that, if it were
language at all, had all the edges and angles worn off it by decay,--
unintelligible, except that it seemed to signify a faint mournfulness
and complainingness of mood; and then held his peace, continuing to
gaze as before. Redclyffe could not bear the awe that filled him, while
he kept at a distance, and, coming desperately forward, he stood close
to the old figure; he touched his robe, to see if it were real; he laid
his hand upon the withered hand that held the staff, in which he now
recognized the very staff of the Doctor's legend. His fingers touched a
real hand, though, bony and dry, as if it had been in the grave.

"Then you are real?" said Redclyffe doubtfully.

The old figure seemed to have exhausted itself--its energies, what
there were of them--in the effort of making the unintelligible
communication already vouchsafed. Then he seemed to lapse out of
consciousness, and not to know what was passing, or to be sensible that
any person was near him. But Redclyffe was now resuming his firmness
and daylight consciousness even in the dimness. He ran over all that he
had heard of the legend of the old house, rapidly considering whether
there might not be something of fact in the legend of the undying old
man; whether, as told or whispered in the chimney-corners, it might not
be an instance of the mysterious, the half-spiritual mode, in which
actual truths communicate themselves imperfectly through a medium that
gives them the aspect of falsehood. Something in the atmosphere of the
house made its inhabitants and neighbors dimly aware that there was a
secret resident; it was by a language not audible, but of impression;
there could not be such a secret in its recesses, without making itself
sensible. This legend of the undying one translated it to vulgar
apprehension. He remembered those early legends, told by the Doctor, in
his childhood; he seemed imperfectly and doubtfully to see what was
their true meaning, and how, taken aright, they had a reality, and were
the craftily concealed history of his own wrongs, sufferings, and
revenge. And this old man! who was he? He joined the Warden's account
of the family to the Doctor's legends. He could not believe, or take
thoroughly in, the strange surmise to which they led him; but, by an
irresistible impulse, he acted on it.

"Sir Edward Redclyffe!" he exclaimed.

"Ha! who speaks to me?" exclaimed the old man, in a startled voice,
like one who hears himself called at an unexpected moment.

"Sir Edward Redclyffe," repeated Redclyffe, "I bring you news of Norman
Oglethorpe!" [Endnote: 3.]

"The villain! the tyrant! mercy! mercy! save me!" cried the old man, in
most violent emotion of terror and rage intermixed, that shook his old
frame as if it would be shaken asunder. He stood erect, the picture of
ghastly horror, as if he saw before him that stern face that had thrown
a blight over his life, and so fearfully avenged, from youth to age,
the crime that he had committed. The effect, the passion, was too
much,--the terror with which it smote, the rage that accompanied it,
blazed up for a moment with a fierce flame, then flickered and went
out. He stood tottering; Redclyffe put out his hand to support him; but
he sank down in a heap on the floor, as if a thing of dry bones had
been suddenly loosened at the joints, and fell in a rattling heap.
[Endnote: 4.]

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