The Evil Guest Read online

a heart beating happily inthe anticipation of many a pleasant meeting, bid him farewell for thepresent, and in a few minutes more was riding up the broad, straightavenue, towards the gloomy mansion which closed in the hazy and somberperspective. As he moved onward, he passed a laborer, with whose face,from his childhood, he had been familiar.

  "How do you do, Tom?" he cried.

  "At your service, sir," replied the man, uncovering, "and welcomehome, sir."

  There was something dark and anxious in the man's looks, whichill-accorded with the welcome he spoke, and which suggested someundefined alarm.

  "The master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--are all well?" he askedeagerly.

  "All well, sir, thank God," replied the man.

  Young Marston spurred on, filled with vague apprehensions, and observingthe man still leaning upon his spade, and watching his progress with thesame gloomy and curious eye.

  At the hall-door he met with one of the servants, booted and spurred.

  "Well, Daly," he said, as he dismounted, "how are all at home?"

  This man, like the former, met his smile with a troubled countenance, andstammered--

  "All, sir--that is, the master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--quite well,sir; but--"

  "Well, well," said Charles, eagerly, "speak on--what is it?"

  "Bad work, sir," replied the man, lowering his voice. "I am going offthis minute for--"

  "For what?" urged the young gentleman.

  "Why, sir, for the coroner," replied he.

  "The coroner--the coroner! Why, good God, what has happened?" criedCharles, aghast with horror.

  "Sir Wynston," commenced the man, and hesitated.

  "Well?" pursued Charles, pale and breathless.

  "Sir Wynston--he--it is he," said the man.

  "He? Sir Wynston? Is he dead, or who is?--Who is dead?" demanded theyoung man, almost fiercely.

  "Sir Wynston, sir; it is he that is dead. There is bad work, sir--verybad, I'm afraid," replied the man.

  Charles did not wait to inquire further, but, with a feeling of mingledhorror and curiosity, entered the house.

  He hurried up the stairs, and entered his mother's sitting room. She wasthere, perfectly alone, and so deadly pale, that she scarcely looked likea living being. In an instant they were locked in one another's arms.

  "Mother--my dear mother, you are ill," said the young man, anxiously.

  "Oh, no, no, dear Charles, but frightened, horrified;" and as she saidthis, the poor lady burst into tears.

  "What is this horrible affair? Something about Sir Wynston. He is dead, Iknow, but is it--is it suicide?" he asked.

  "Oh, no, not suicide," said Mrs. Marston, greatly agitated.

  "Good God! Then he is murdered," whispered the young man, growingvery pale.

  "Yes, Charles--horrible--dreadful! I can scarcely believe it," repliedshe, shuddering while she wept.

  "Where is my father?" inquired the young man, after a pause.

  "Why, why, Charles, darling--why do you ask for him?" she said, wildly,grasping him by the arm, as she looked into his face with a terrifiedexpression.

  "Why--why, he could tell me the particulars of this horribletragedy," answered he, meeting her agonized look with one of alarmand surprise, "as far as they have been as yet collected. How is he,mother--is he well?"

  "Oh, yes, quite well, thank God," she answered, more collectedly--"quitewell, but, of course, greatly, dreadfully shocked."

  "I will go to him, mother; I will see him," said he, turningtowards the door.

  "He has been wretchedly depressed and excited for some days," said Mrs.Marston, dejectedly, "and this dreadful occurrence will, I fear, affecthim most deplorably."

  The young man kissed her tenderly and affectionately, and hurried down tothe library, where his father usually sat when he desired to be alone, orwas engaged in business. He opened the door softly. His father wasstanding at one of the windows, his face haggard as from a night'swatching, unkempt and unshorn, and with his hands thrust into hispockets. At the sound of the revolving door he started, and seeing hisson, first recoiled a little, with a strange, doubtful expression, andthen rallying, walked quickly towards him with a smile, which had in itsomething still more painful.

  "Charles, I am glad to see you," he said, shaking him with an agitatedpressure by both hands, "Charles, this is a great calamity, and whatmakes it still worse, is that the murderer has escaped; it looks badly,you know."

  He fixed his gaze for a few moments upon his son, turned abruptly, andwalked a little way into the room then, in a disconcerted manner, headded, hastily turning back--

  "Not that it signifies to us, of course--but I would fain have justicesatisfied."

  "And who is the wretch--the murderer?" inquired Charles.

  "Who? Why, everyone knows!--that scoundrel, Merton," answered Marston, inan irritated tone--"Merton murdered him in his bed, and fled last night;he is gone--escaped--and I suspect Sir Wynston's man of being anaccessory."

  "Which was Sir Wynston's bedroom?" asked the young man.

  "The room that old Lady Mostyn had--the room with the portrait of GraceHamilton in it."

  "I know--I know," said the young man, much excited. "I should wishto see it."

  "Stay," said Marston; "the door from the passage is bolted on the inside,and I have locked the other; here is the key, if you choose to go, butyou must bring Hughes with you, and do not disturb anything; leave all asit is; the jury ought to see, and examine for themselves."

  Charles took the key, and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he madehis way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room,which, as we have said, intervened between the valet's chamber and SirWynston's. After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key in thedoor, and stood.

  "In the dark chamber of white death."

  The shutters lay partly open, as the valet had left them some hoursbefore, on making the astounding discovery, which the partially admittedlight revealed. The corpse lay in the silk-embroidered dressing gown, andother habiliments, which Sir Wynston had worn, while taking his ease inhis chamber, on the preceding night. The coverlet was partially draggedover it. The mouth was gaping, and filled with clotted blood; a wide gashwas also visible in the neck, under the ear; and there was a thickeningpool of blood at the bedside, and quantities of blood, doubtless fromother wounds, had saturated the bedclothes under the body. There lay SirWynston, stiffened in the attitude in which the struggle of death hadleft him, with his stern, stony face, and dim, terrible gaze turned up.

  Charles looked breathlessly for more than a minute upon this mute andunchanging spectacle, and then silently suffered the curtain to fall backagain, and stepped, with the light tread of awe, again to the door. Therehe turned back, and pausing for a minute, said, in a whisper, to theattendant--

  "And Merton did this?"

  "Troth, I'm afeard he did, sir," answered the man, gloomily.

  "And has made his escape?" continued Charles.

  "Yes, sir; he stole away in the night-time," replied the servant, "afterthe murder was done" (and he glanced fearfully toward the bed); "Godknows where he's gone."

  "The villain!" muttered Charles; "but what was his motive? why did he doall this--what does it mean?"

  "I don't know exactly, sir, but he was very queer for a week and morebefore it," replied the man; "there was something bad over him for along time."

  "It is a terrible thing," said Charles, with a profound sigh; "a terribleand shocking occurrence."

  He hesitated again at the door, but his feelings had sustained a terriblerevulsion at sight of the corpse, and he was no longer disposed toprosecute his purposed examination of the chamber and its contents; witha view to conjecturing the probable circumstances of the murder.

  "Observe, Hughes, that I have moved nothing in the chamber from the placeit occupied when we entered," he said to the servant, as they withdrew.

  He locked the door, and as he passed through the hall, on his return, heencounter
ed his father, and, restoring the key, said--

  "I could not stay there; I am almost sorry I have seen it; I amoverpowered; what a determined, ferocious murder it was; the place is allin a pool of gore; he must have received many wounds."

  "I can't say; the particulars will be elicited soon enough; those detailsare for the inquest; as for me, I hate such spectacles," said Marston,gloomily; "go now, and see your sister; you will find her there."

  He pointed to the small room where we have first seen her and her fairgoverness; Charles obeyed the direction, and Marston proceeded himself tohis wife's