III.
_May 12th, Wednesday_.--Middleton found his abode here becoming daily
more interesting; and he sometimes thought that it was the sympathies
with the place and people, buried under the supergrowth of so many ages,
but now coming forth with the life and vigor of a fountain, that, long
hidden beneath earth and ruins, gushes out singing into the sunshine, as
soon as these are removed. He wandered about the neighborhood with
insatiable interest; sometimes, and often, lying on a hill-side and
gazing at the gray tower of the church; sometimes coming into the village
clustered round that same church, and looking at the old timber and
plaster houses, the same, except that the thatch had probably been often
renewed, that they used to be in his ancestor's days. In those old
cottages still dwelt the families, the ----s, the Prices, the Hopnorts,
the Copleys, that had dwelt there when America was a scattered progeny of
infant colonies; and in the churchyard were the graves of all the
generations since--including the dust of those who had seen his
ancestor's face before his departure.
The graves, outside the church walls indeed, bore no marks of this
antiquity; for it seems not to have been an early practice in England to
put stones over such graves; and where it has been done, the climate
causes the inscriptions soon to become obliterated and unintelligible.
But, within the church, there were rich words of the personages and times
with whom Middleton's musings held so much converse.
But one of his greatest employments and pastimes was to ramble through
the grounds of Smithell's, making himself as well acquainted with its
wood paths, its glens, its woods, its venerable trees, as if he had been
bred up there from infancy. Some of those old oaks his ancestor might
have been acquainted with, while they were already sturdy and well-grown
trees; might have climbed them in boyhood; might have mused beneath them
as a lover; might have flung himself at full length on the turf beneath
them, in the bitter anguish that must have preceded his departure forever
from the home of his forefathers. In order to secure an uninterrupted
enjoyment of his rambles here, Middleton had secured the good-will of the
game-keepers and other underlings whom he was likely to meet about the
grounds, by giving them a shilling or a half-crown; and he was now free
to wander where he would, with only the advice rather than the caution,
to keep out of the way of their old master,--for there might be trouble,
if he should meet a stranger on the grounds, in any of his tantrums. But,
in fact, Mr. Eldredge was not much in the habit of walking about the
grounds; and there were hours of every day, during which it was
altogether improbable that he would have emerged from his own apartments
in the manor-house. These were the hours, therefore, when Middleton most
frequented the estate; although, to say the truth, he would gladly have
so timed his visits as to meet and form an acquaintance with the lonely
lord of this beautiful property, his own kinsman, though with so many
ages of dark oblivion between. For Middleton had not that feeling of
infinite distance in the relationship, which he would have had if his
branch of the family had continued in England, and had not intermarried
with the other branch, through such a long waste of years; he rather felt
as if he were the original emigrant who, long resident on a foreign
shore, had now returned, with a heart brimful of tenderness, to revisit
the scenes of his youth, and renew his tender relations with those who
shared his own blood.
There was not, however, much in what he heard of the character of the
present possessor of the estate--or indeed in the strong family
characteristic that had become hereditary--to encourage him to attempt
any advances. It is very probable that the religion of Mr. Eldredge, as a
Catholic, may have excited a prejudice against him, as it certainly had
insulated the family, in a great degree, from the sympathies of the
neighborhood. Mr. Eldredge, moreover, had resided long on the Continent;
long in Italy; and had come back with habits that little accorded with
those of the gentry of the neighborhood; so that, in fact, he was almost
as much of a stranger, and perhaps quite as little of a real Englishman,
as Middleton himself. Be that as it might, Middleton, when he sought to
learn something about him, heard the strangest stories of his habits of
life, of his temper, and of his employments, from the people with whom he
conversed. The old legend, turning upon the monomania of the family, was
revived in full force in reference to this poor gentleman; and many a
time Middleton's interlocutors shook their wise heads, saying with a
knowing look and under their breath that the old gentleman was looking
for the track of the Bloody Footstep. They fabled--or said, for it might
not have been a false story--that every descendant of this house had a
certain portion of his life, during which he sought the track of that
footstep which was left on the threshold of the mansion; that he sought
it far and wide, over every foot of the estate; not only on the estate,
but throughout the neighborhood; not only in the neighborhood but all
over England; not only throughout England but all about the world. It was
the belief of the neighborhood--at least of some old men and women in
it--that the long period of Mr. Eldredge's absence from England had been
spent in the search for some trace of those departing footsteps that had
never returned. It is very possible--probable, indeed--that there may
have been some ground for this remarkable legend; not that it is to be
credited that the family of Eldredge, being reckoned among sane men,
would seriously have sought, years and generations after the fact, for
the first track of those bloody footsteps which the first rain of drippy
England must have washed away; to say nothing of the leaves that had
fallen and the growth and decay of so many seasons, that covered all
traces of them since. But nothing is more probable than that the
continual recurrence to the family genealogy, which had been necessitated
by the matter of the dormant peerage, had caused the Eldredges, from
father to son, to keep alive an interest in that ancestor who had
disappeared, and who had been supposed to carry some of the most
important family papers with him. But yet it gave Middleton a strange
thrill of pleasure, that had something fearful in it, to think that all
through these ages he had been waited for, sought for, anxiously
expected, as it were; it seemed as if the very ghosts of his kindred, a
long shadowy line, held forth their dim arms to welcome him; a line
stretching back to the ghosts of those who had flourished in the old, old
times; the doubletted and beruffled knightly shades of Queen Elizabeth's
time; a long line, stretching from the mediaeval ages, and their
duskiness, downward, downward, with only one vacant space, that of him
who had left the Bloody Footstep. There was an inexpressible pleasure
(airy and evanescent, gone in a moment if he dwelt upon it too
thoughtfully, but very sweet) to Middleton's imagination, in this idea.
When he reflected, however, that his revelations, if they had any effect
at all, might serve only to quench the hopes of these long expectants, it
of course made him hesitate to declare himself.
One afternoon, when he was in the midst of musings such as this, he saw
at a distance through the park, in the direction of the manor-house, a
person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the
ground. He was a long way off when Middleton first perceived him; and
there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts
of sunny lawn, between them. The person, whoever he was, kept on, and
plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the
ground, as if intensely searching for something. When he emerged from the
concealment of the first clump of shrubbery, Middleton saw that he was a
tall, thin person, in a dark dress; and this was the chief observation
that the distance enabled him to make, as the figure kept slowly onward,
in a somewhat wavering line, and plunged into the second clump of
shrubbery. From that, too, he emerged; and soon appeared to be a thin
elderly figure, of a dark man with gray hair, bent, as it seemed to
Middleton, with infirmity, for his figure still stooped even in the
intervals when he did not appear to be tracking the ground. But Middleton
could not but be surprised at the singular appearance the figure had of
setting its foot, at every step, just where a previous footstep had been
made, as if he wanted to measure his whole pathway in the track of
somebody who had recently gone over the ground in advance of him.
Middleton was sitting at the foot of an oak; and he began to feel some
awkwardness in the consideration of what he would do if Mr. Eldredge--for
he could not doubt that it was he--were to be led just to this spot, in
pursuit of his singular occupation. And even so it proved.
Middleton could not feel it manly to fly and hide himself, like a guilty
thing; and indeed the hospitality of the English country gentleman in
many cases gives the neighborhood and the stranger a certain degree of
freedom in the use of the broad expanse of ground in which they and their
forefathers have loved to sequester their residences. The figure kept on,
showing more and more distinctly the tall, meagre, not unvenerable
features of a gentleman in the decline of life, apparently in ill-health;
with a dark face, that might once have been full of energy, but now
seemed enfeebled by time, passion, and perhaps sorrow. But it was strange
to see the earnestness with which he looked on the ground, and the
accuracy with which he at last set his foot, apparently adjusting it
exactly to some footprint before him; and Middleton doubted not that,
having studied and re-studied the family records and the judicial
examinations which described exactly the track that was seen the day
after the memorable disappearance of his ancestor, Mr. Eldredge was now,
in some freak, or for some purpose best known to himself, practically
following it out. And follow it out he did, until at last he lifted up
his eyes, muttering to himself: "At this point the footsteps wholly
disappear."
Lifting his eyes, as we have said, while thus regretfully and
despairingly muttering these words, he saw Middleton against the oak,
within three paces of him.
_May 13th, Thursday_.--Mr. Eldredge (for it was he) first kept his eyes
fixed full on Middleton's face, with an expression as if he saw him not;
but gradually--slowly, at first--he seemed to become aware of his
presence; then, with a sudden flush, he took in the idea that he was
encountered by a stranger in his secret mood. A flush of anger or shame,
perhaps both, reddened over his face; his eyes gleamed; and he spoke
hastily and roughly.
"Who are you?" he said. "How come you here? I allow no intruders in my
park. Begone, fellow!"
"Really, sir, I did not mean to intrude upon you," said Middleton
blandly. "I am aware that I owe you an apology; but the beauties of your
park must plead my excuse; and the constant kindness of [the] English
gentleman, which admits a stranger to the privilege of enjoying so much
of the beauty in which he himself dwells as the stranger's taste permits
him to enjoy."
"An artist, perhaps," said Mr. Eldredge, somewhat less uncourteously. "I
am told that they love to come here and sketch those old oaks and their
vistas, and the old mansion yonder. But you are an intrusive set, you
artists, and think that a pencil and a sheet of paper may be your
passport anywhere. You are mistaken, sir. My park is not open to
strangers."
"I am sorry, then, to have intruded upon you," said Middleton, still in
good humor; for in truth he felt a sort of kindness, a sentiment,
ridiculous as it may appear, of kindred towards the old gentleman, and
besides was not unwilling in any way to prolong a conversation in which
he found a singular interest. "I am sorry, especially as I have not even
the excuse you kindly suggest for me. I am not an artist, only an
American, who have strayed hither to enjoy this gentle, cultivated, tamed
nature which I find in English parks, so contrasting with the wild,
rugged nature of my native land. I beg your pardon, and will retire."
"An American," repeated Mr. Eldredge, looking curiously at him. "Ah, you
are wild men in that country, I suppose, and cannot conceive that an
English gentleman encloses his grounds--or that his ancestors have done
so before him--for his own pleasure and convenience, and does not
calculate on having it infringed upon by everybody, like your own
forests, as you say. It is a curious country, that of yours; and in Italy
I have seen curious people from it."
"True, sir," said Middleton, smiling. "We send queer specimens abroad;
but Englishmen should consider that we spring from them, and that we
present after all only a picture of their own characteristics, a little
varied by climate and in situation."
Mr. Eldredge looked at him with a certain kind of interest, and it seemed
to Middleton that he was not unwilling to continue the conversation, if a
fair way to do so could only be offered to him. A secluded man often
grasps at any opportunity of communicating with his kind, when it is
casually offered to him, and for the nonce is surprisingly familiar,
running out towards his chance-companion with the gush of a dammed-up
torrent, suddenly unlocked. As Middleton made a motion to retire, he put
out his hand with an air of authority to restrain him.
"Stay," said he. "Now that you are here, the mischief is done, and you
cannot repair it by hastening away. You have interrupted me in my mood of
thought, and must pay the penalty by suggesting other thoughts. I am a
lonely man here, having spent most of my life abroad, and am separated
from my neighbors by various circumstances. You seem to be an intelligent
man. I should like to ask you a few questions about your country."
He looked at Middleton as he spoke, and seemed to be considering in what
rank of life he should place him; his dress being such as suited a humble
rank. He seemed not to have come to any very certain decision on this
point.
"I remember," said he, "you have no distinctions of rank in your country;
a convenient thing enough, in some respects. When there are no gentlemen,
all are gentlemen. So let it be. You speak of being Englishmen; and it
has often occurred to me that Englishmen have left this country and been
much missed and sought after, who might perhaps be sought there
successfully."
"It is certainly so, Mr. Eldredge," said Middleton, lifting his eyes to
his face as he spoke, and then turning them aside. "Many footsteps, the
track of which is lost in England, might be found reappearing on the
other side of the Atlantic; ay, though it be hundreds of years since the
track was lost here."
Middleton, though he had refrained from looking full at Mr. Eldredge as
he spoke, was conscious that he gave a great start; and he remained
silent for a moment or two, and when he spoke there was the tremor in his
voice of a nerve that had been struck and still vibrated.
"That is a singular idea of yours," he at length said; "not singular in
itself, but strangely coincident with something that happened to be
occupying my mind. Have you ever heard any such instances as you speak
of?"
"Yes," replied Middleton. "I have had pointed out to me the rightful heir
to a Scottish earldom, in the person of an American farmer, in his
shirt-sleeves. There are many Americans who believe themselves to hold
similar claims. And I have known one family, at least, who had in their
possession, and had had for two centuries, a secret that might have been
worth wealth and honors if known in England. Indeed, being kindred as we
are, it cannot but be the case."
Mr. Eldredge appeared to be much struck by these last words, and gazed
wistfully, almost wildly, at Middleton, as if debating with himself
whether to say more. He made a step or two aside; then returned abruptly,
and spoke.
"Can you tell me the name of the family in which this secret was kept?"
said he; "and the nature of the secret?"
"The nature of the secret," said Middleton, smiling, "was not likely to
be extended to any one out of the family. The name borne by the family
was Middleton. There is no member of it, so far as I am aware, at this
moment remaining in America."
"And has the secret died with them?" asked Mr. Eldredge.
"They communicated it to none," said Middleton.
"It is a pity! It was a villainous wrong," said Mr. Eldredge. "And so, it
may be, some ancient line, in the old country, is defrauded of its rights
for want of what might have been obtained from this Yankee, whose
democracy has demoralized them to the perception of what is due to the
antiquity of descent, and of the bounden duty that there is, in all
ranks, to keep up the honor of a family that has had potence enough to
preserve itself in distinction for a thousand years."
"Yes," said Middleton, quietly, "we have sympathy with what is strong and
vivacious to-day; none with what was so yesterday."
The remark seemed not to please Mr. Eldredge; he frowned, and muttered
something to himself; but recovering himself, addressed Middleton with
more courtesy than at the commencement of their interview; and, with this
graciousness, his face and manner grew very agreeable, almost
fascinating: he [was] still haughty, however.
"Well, sir," said he, "I am not sorry to have met you. I am a solitary
man, as I have said, and a little communication with a stranger is a
refreshment, which I enjoy seldom enough to be sensible of it. Pray, are
you staying hereabouts?"
Middleton signified to him that he might probably spend some little time
in the village.
"Then, during your stay," said Mr. Eldredge, "make free use of the walks
in these grounds; and though it is not probable that you will meet me in
them again, you need apprehend no second questioning of your right to be
here. My house has many points of curiosity that may be of interest to a
stranger from a new country. Perhaps you have heard of some of them."
"I have heard some wild legend about a Bloody Footstep," answered
Middleton; "indeed, I think I remember hearing something about it in my
own country; and having a fanciful sort of interest in such things, I
took advantage of the hospitable custom which opens the doors of curious
old houses to strangers, to go to see it. It seemed to me, I confess,
only a natural stain in the old stone that forms the doorstep."
"There, sir," said Mr. Eldredge, "let me say that you came to a very
foolish conclusion; and so, good-by, sir."
And without further ceremony, he cast an angry glance at Middleton, who
perceived that the old gentleman reckoned the Bloody Footstep among his
ancestral honors, and would probably have parted with his claim to the
peerage almost as soon as have given up the legend.
Present aspect of the story: Middleton on his arrival becomes acquainted
with the old Hospitaller, and is familiarized at the Hospital. He pays a
visit in his company to the manor-house, but merely glimpses at its
remarkable things, at this visit, among others at the old cabinet, which
does not, at first view, strike him very strongly. But, on musing about
his visit afterwards, he finds the recollection of the cabinet strangely
identifying itself with his previous imaginary picture of the palatial
mansion; so that at last he begins to conceive the mistake he has made.
At this first [visit], he does not have a personal interview with the
possessor of the estate; but, as the Hospitaller and himself go from room
to room, he finds that the owner is preceding them, shyly flitting like a
ghost, so as to avoid them. Then there is a chapter about the character
of the Eldredge of the day, a Catholic, a morbid, shy man, representing
all the peculiarities of an old family, and generally thought to be
insane. And then comes the interview between him and Middleton, where the
latter excites such an interest that he dwells upon the old man's mind,
and the latter probably takes pains to obtain further intercourse with
him, and perhaps invites him to dinner, and [to] spend a night in his
house. If so, this second meeting must lead to the examination of the
cabinet, and the discovery of some family documents in it. Perhaps the
cabinet may be in Middleton's sleeping-chamber, and he examines it by
himself, before going to bed; and finds out a secret which will perplex
him how to deal with it.
_May 14th, Friday_.--We have spoken several times already of a young
girl, who was seen at this period about the little antiquated village of
Smithells; a girl in manners and in aspect unlike those of the cottages
amid which she dwelt. Middleton had now so often met her, and in solitary
places, that an acquaintance had inevitably established itself between
them. He had ascertained that she had lodgings at a farm-house near by,
and that she was connected in some way with the old Hospitaller, whose
acquaintance had proved of such interest to him; but more than this he
could not learn either from her or others. But he was greatly attracted
and interested by the free spirit and fearlessness of this young woman;
nor could he conceive where, in staid and formal England, she had grown
up to be such as she was, so without manner, so without art, yet so
capable of doing and thinking for herself. She had no reserve,
apparently, yet never seemed to sin against decorum; it never appeared to
restrain her that anything she might wish to do was contrary to custom;
she had nothing of what could be called shyness in her intercourse with
him; and yet he was conscious of an unapproachableness in Alice. Often,
in the old man's presence, she mingled in the conversation that went on
between him and Middleton, and with an acuteness that betokened a sphere
of thought much beyond what could be customary with young English
maidens; and Middleton was often reminded of the theories of those in our
own country, who believe that the amelioration of society depends greatly
on the part that women shall hereafter take, according to their
individual capacity, in all the various pursuits of life. These deeper
thoughts, these higher qualities, surprised him as they showed
themselves, whenever occasion called them forth, under the light, gay,
and frivolous exterior which she had at first seemed to present.
Middleton often amused himself with surmises in what rank of life Alice
could have been bred, being so free of all conventional rule, yet so nice
and delicate in her perception of the true proprieties that she never
shocked him.
One morning, when they had met in one of Middleton's rambles about the
neighborhood, they began to talk of America; and Middleton described to
Alice the stir that was being made in behalf of women's rights; and he
said that whatever cause was generous and disinterested always, in that
country, derived much of its power from the sympathy of women, and that
the advocates of every such cause were in favor of yielding the whole
field of human effort to be shared with women.
"I have been surprised," said he, "in the little I have seen and heard of
English women, to discover what a difference there is between them and my
own countrywomen."
"I have heard," said Alice, with a smile, "that your countrywomen are a
far more delicate and fragile race than Englishwomen; pale, feeble
hot-house plants, unfit for the wear and tear of life, without energy of
character, or any slightest degree of physical strength to base it upon.
If, now, you had these large-framed Englishwomen, you might, I should
imagine, with better hopes, set about changing the system of society, so
as to allow them to struggle in the strife of politics, or any other
strife, hand to hand, or side by side with men."
"If any countryman of mine has said this of our women," exclaimed
Middleton, indignantly, "he is a slanderous villain, unworthy to have
been borne by an American mother; if an Englishman has said it--as I know
many of them have and do--let it pass as one of the many prejudices only
half believed, with which they strive to console themselves for the
inevitable sense that the American race is destined to higher purposes
than their own. But pardon me; I forgot that I was speaking to an
Englishwoman, for indeed you do not remind me of them. But, I assure you,
the world has not seen such women as make up, I had almost said the mass
of womanhood in my own country; slight in aspect, slender in frame, as
you suggest, but yet capable of bringing forth stalwart men; they
themselves being of inexhaustible courage, patience, energy; soft and
tender, deep of heart, but high of purpose. Gentle, refined, but bold in
every good cause."
"Oh, yea have said quite enough," replied Alice, who had seemed ready to
laugh outright, during this encomium. "I think I see one of these
paragons now, in a Bloomer, I think you call it, swaggering along with a
Bowie knife at her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt, and tippling
sherry-cobblers and mint-juleps. It must be a pleasant life."
"I should think you, at least, might form a more just idea of what women
become," said Middleton, considerably piqued, "in a country where the
rules of conventionalism are somewhat relaxed; where woman, whatever you
may think, is far more profoundly educated than in England, where a few
ill-taught accomplishments, a little geography, a catechism of science,
make up the sum, under the superintendence of a governess; the mind being
kept entirely inert as to any capacity for thought. They are cowards,
except within certain rules and forms; they spend a life of old
proprieties, and die, and if their souls do not die with them, it is
Heaven's mercy."
Alice did not appear in the least moved to anger, though considerably to
mirth, by this description of the character of English females. She
laughed as she replied, "I see there is little danger of your leaving
your heart in England." She added more seriously, "And permit me to say,
I trust, Mr. Middleton, that you remain as much American in other
respects as in your preference of your own race of women. The American
who comes hither and persuades himself that he is one with Englishmen, it
seems to me, makes a great mistake; at least, if he is correct in such an
idea he is not worthy of his own country, and the high development that
awaits it. There is much that is seductive in our life, but I think it is
not upon the higher impulses of our nature that such seductions act. I
should think ill of the American who, for any causes of ambition,--any
hope of wealth or rank,--or even for the sake of any of those old,
delightful ideas of the past, the associations of ancestry, the
loveliness of an age-long home,--the old poetry and romance that haunt
these ancient villages and estates of England,--would give up the chance
of acting upon the unmoulded future of America."
"And you, an Englishwoman, speak thus!" exclaimed Middleton. "You perhaps
speak truly; and it may be that your words go to a point where they are
especially applicable at this moment. But where have you learned these
ideas? And how is it that you know how to awake these sympathies, that
have slept perhaps too long?"
"Think only if what I have said be truth," replied Alice. "It is no
matter who or what I am that speak it."
"Do you speak," asked Middleton, from a sudden impulse, "with any secret
knowledge affecting a matter now in my mind?"
Alice shook her head, as she turned away; but Middleton could not
determine whether the gesture was meant as a negative to his question, or
merely as declining to answer it. She left him; and he found himself
strangely disturbed with thoughts of his own country, of the life that he
ought to be leading there, the struggles in which he ought to be taking
part; and, with these motives in his impressible mind, the motives that
had hitherto kept him in England seemed unworthy to influence him.
_May 15th, Saturday_.--It was not long after Middleton's meeting with Mr.
Eldredge in the park of Smithells, that he received--what it is precisely
the most common thing to receive--an invitation to dine at the
manor-house and spend the night. The note was written with much
appearance of cordiality, as well as in a respectful style; and Middleton
could not but perceive that Mr. Eldredge must have been making some
inquiries as to his social status, in order to feel him justified in
putting him on this footing of equality. He had no hesitation in
accepting the invitation, and on the appointed day was received in the
old house of his forefathers as a guest. The owner met him, not quite on
the frank and friendly footing expressed in his note, but still with a
perfect and polished courtesy, which however could not hide from the
sensitive Middleton a certain coldness, a something that seemed to him
Italian rather than English; a symbol of a condition of things between
them, undecided, suspicious, doubtful very likely. Middleton's own manner
corresponded to that of his host, and they made few advances towards more
intimate acquaintance. Middleton was however recompensed for his host's
unapproachableness by the society of his daughter, a young lady born
indeed in Italy, but who had been educated in a Catholic family in
England; so that here was another relation--the first female one--to whom
he had been introduced. She was a quiet, shy, undemonstrative young
woman, with a fine bloom and other charms which she kept as much in the
background as possible, with maiden reserve. (There is a Catholic priest
at table.)
Mr. Eldredge talked chiefly, during dinner, of art, with which his long
residence in Italy had made him thoroughly acquainted, and for which he
seemed to have a genuine taste and enjoyment. It was a subject on which
Middleton knew little; but he felt the interest in it which appears to be
not uncharacteristic of Americans, among the earliest of their
developments of cultivation; nor had he failed to use such few
opportunities as the English public or private galleries offered him to
acquire the rudiments of a taste. He was surprised at the depth of some
of Mr. Eldredge's remarks on the topics thus brought up, and at the
sensibility which appeared to be disclosed by his delicate appreciation
of some of the excellences of those great masters who wrote their epics,
their tender sonnets, or their simple ballads, upon canvas; and Middleton
conceived a respect for him which he had not hitherto felt, and which
possibly Mr. Eldredge did not quite deserve. Taste seems to be a
department of moral sense; and yet it is so little identical with it, and
so little implies conscience, that some of the worst men in the world
have been the most refined.
After Miss Eldredge had retired, the host appeared to desire to make the
dinner a little more social than it had hitherto been; he called for a
peculiar species of wine from Southern Italy, which he said was the most
delicious production of the grape, and had very seldom, if ever before
been imported pure into England. A delicious perfume came from the
cradled bottle, and bore an ethereal, evanescent testimony to the truth
of what he said: and the taste, though too delicate for wine quaffed in
England, was nevertheless delicious, when minutely dwelt upon.
"It gives me pleasure to drink your health, Mr. Middleton," said the
host. "We might well meet as friends in England, for I am hardly more an
Englishman than yourself; bred up, as I have been, in Italy, and coming
back hither at my age, unaccustomed to the manners of the country, with
few friends, and insulated from society by a faith which makes most
people regard me as an enemy. I seldom welcome people here, Mr.
Middleton; but you are welcome."
"I thank you, Mr. Eldredge, and may fairly say that the circumstances to
which you allude make me accept your hospitality with a warmer feeling
than I otherwise might. Strangers, meeting in a strange land, have a sort
of tie in their foreignness to those around them, though there be no
positive relation between themselves."
"We are friends, then?" said Mr. Eldredge, looking keenly at Middleton,
as if to discover exactly how much was meant by the compact. He
continued, "You know, I suppose, Mr. Middleton, the situation in which I
find myself on returning to my hereditary estate, which has devolved to
me somewhat unexpectedly by the death of a younger man than myself. There
is an old flaw here, as perhaps you have been told, which keeps me out of
a property long kept in the guardianship of the crown, and of a barony,
one of the oldest in England. There is an idea--a tradition--a legend,
founded, however, on evidence of some weight, that there is still in
existence the possibility of rinding the proof which we need, to confirm
our cause."
"I am most happy to hear it, Mr. Eldredge," said Middleton.
"But," continued his host, "I am bound to remember and to consider that
for several generations there seems to have been the same idea, and the
same expectation; whereas nothing has ever come of it. Now, among other
suppositions--perhaps wild ones--it has occurred to me that this
testimony, the desirable proof, may exist on your side of the Atlantic;
for it has long enough been sought here in vain."
"As I said in our meeting in your park, Mr. Eldredge," replied Middleton,
"such a suggestion may very possibly be true; yet let me point out that
the long lapse of years, and the continual melting and dissolving of
family institutions--the consequent scattering of family documents, and
the annihilation of traditions from memory, all conspire against its
probability."
"And yet, Mr. Middleton," said his host, "when we talked together at our
first singular interview, you made use of an expression--of one
remarkable phrase--which dwelt upon my memory and now recurs to it."
"And what was that, Mr. Eldredge?" asked Middleton.
"You spoke," replied his host, "of the Bloody Footstep reappearing on the
threshold of the old palace of S------. Now where, let me ask you, did
you ever hear this strange name, which you then spoke, and which I have
since spoken?"
"From my father's lips, when a child, in America," responded Middleton.
"It is very strange," said Mr. Eldredge, in a hasty, dissatisfied tone.
"I do not see my way through this."
_May 16, Sunday._--Middleton had been put into a chamber in the oldest
part of the house, the furniture of which was of antique splendor, well
befitting to have come down for ages, well befitting the hospitality
shown to noble and even royal guests. It was the same room in which, at
his first visit to the house, Middleton's attention had been drawn to the
cabinet, which he had subsequently remembered as the palatial residence
in which he had harbored so many dreams. It still stood in the chamber,
making the principal object in it, indeed; and when Middleton was left
alone, he contemplated it not without a certain awe, which at the same
time he felt to be ridiculous. He advanced towards it, and stood
contemplating the mimic façade, wondering at the singular fact of this
piece of furniture having been preserved in traditionary history, when so
much had been forgotten,--when even the features and architectural
characteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece of
furniture had been forgotten. And, as he gazed at it, he half thought
himself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have been
surprised--at least, he would have taken it with the composure of a
dream--if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty had
appeared within, beckoning him to enter and find the revelation of what
had so long perplexed him. The key of the cabinet was in the lock, and
knowing that it was not now the receptacle of anything in the shape of
family papers, he threw it open; and there appeared the mosaic floor, the
representation of a stately, pillared hall, with the doors on either
side, opening, as would seem, into various apartments. And here should
have stood the visionary figures of his ancestry, waiting to welcome the
descendant of their race, who had so long delayed his coming. After
looking and musing a considerable time,--even till the old clock from the
turret of the house told twelve, he turned away with a sigh, and went to
bed. The wind moaned through the ancestral trees; the old house creaked
as with ghostly footsteps; the curtains of his bed seemed to waver. He
was now at home; yes, he had found his home, and was sheltered at last
under the ancestral roof after all those long, long wanderings,--after
the little log-built hut of the early settlement, after the straight roof
of the American house, after all the many roofs of two hundred years,
here he was at last under the one which he had left, on that fatal night,
when the Bloody Footstep was so mysteriously impressed on the threshold.
As he drew nearer and nearer towards sleep, it seemed more and more to
him as if he were the very individual--the self-same one throughout the
whole--who had done, seen, suffered, all these long toils and
vicissitudes, and were now come back to rest, and found his weariness so
great that there could he no rest.
Nevertheless, he did sleep; and it may be that his dreams went on, and
grew vivid, and perhaps became truer in proportion to their vividness.
When he awoke he had a perception, an intuition, that he had been
dreaming about the cabinet, which, in his sleeping imagination, had again
assumed the magnitude and proportions of a stately mansion, even as he
had seen it afar from the other side of the Atlantic. Some dim
associations remained lingering behind, the dying shadows of very vivid
ones which had just filled his mind; but as he looked at the cabinet,
there was some idea that still seemed to come so near his consciousness
that, every moment, he felt on the point of grasping it. During the
process of dressing, he still kept his eyes turned involuntarily towards
the cabinet, and at last he approached it, and looked within the mimic
portal, still endeavoring to recollect what it was that he had heard or
dreamed about it,--what half obliterated remembrance from childhood, what
fragmentary last night's dream it was, that thus haunted him. It must
have been some association of one or the other nature that led him to
press his finger on one particular square of the mosaic pavement; and as
he did so, the thin plate of polished marble slipt aside. It disclosed,
indeed, no hollow receptacle, but only another leaf of marble, in the
midst of which appeared to be a key-hole: to this Middleton applied the
little antique key to which we have several times alluded, and found it
fit precisely. The instant it was turned, the whole mimic floor of the
hall rose, by the action of a secret spring, and discovered a shallow
recess beneath. Middleton looked eagerly in, and saw that it contained
documents, with antique seals of wax appended; he took but one glance at
them, and closed the receptacle as it was before.
Why did he do so? He felt that there would be a meanness and wrong in
inspecting these family papers, coming to the knowledge of them, as he
had, through the opportunities offered by the hospitality of the owner of
the estate; nor, on the other hand, did he feel such confidence in his
host, as to make him willing to trust these papers in his hands, with any
certainty that they would be put to an honorable use. The case was one
demanding consideration, and he put a strong curb upon his impatient
curiosity, conscious that, at all events, his first impulsive feeling was
that he ought not to examine these papers without the presence of his
host or some other authorized witness. Had he exercised any casuistry
about the point, however, he might have argued that these papers,
according to all appearance, dated from a period to which his own
hereditary claims ascended, and to circumstances in which his own
rightful interest was as strong as that of Mr. Eldredge. But he had acted
on his first impulse, closed the secret receptacle, and hastening his
toilet descended from his room; and, it being still too early for
breakfast, resolved to ramble about the immediate vicinity of the house.
As he passed the little chapel, he heard within the voice of the priest
performing mass, and felt how strange was this sign of mediaeval religion
and foreign manners in homely England.
As the story looks now: Eldredge, bred, and perhaps born, in Italy, and a
Catholic, with views to the church before he inherited the estate, has
not the English moral sense and simple honor; can scarcely be called an
Englishman at all. Dark suspicions of past crime, and of the possibility
of future crime, may be thrown around him; an atmosphere of doubt shall
envelop him, though, as regards manners, he may be highly refined.
Middleton shall find in the house a priest; and at his first visit he
shall have seen a small chapel, adorned with the richness, as to marbles,
pictures, and frescoes, of those that we see in the churches at Rome; and
here the Catholic forms of worship shall be kept up. Eldredge shall have
had an Italian mother, and shall have the personal characteristics of an
Italian. There shall be something sinister about him, the more apparent
when Middleton's visit draws to a conclusion; and the latter shall feel
convinced that they part in enmity, so far as Eldredge is concerned. He
shall not speak of his discovery in the cabinet.
_May 17th, Monday_.--Unquestionably, the appointment of Middleton as
minister to one of the minor Continental courts must take place in the
interval between Eldredge's meeting him in the park, and his inviting him
to his house. After Middleton's appointment, the two encounter each other
at the Mayor's dinner in St. Mary's Hall, and Eldredge, startled at
meeting the vagrant, as he deemed him, under such a character, remembers
the hints of some secret knowledge of the family history, which Middleton
had thrown out. He endeavors, both in person and by the priest, to make
out what Middleton really is, and what he knows, and what he intends; but
Middleton is on his guard, yet cannot help arousing Eldredge's suspicions
that he has views upon the estate and title. It is possible, too, that
Middleton may have come to the knowledge--may have had some knowledge--of
some shameful or criminal fact connected with Mr. Eldredge's life on the
Continent; the old Hospitaller, possibly, may have told him this, from
some secret malignity hereafter to be accounted for. Supposing Eldredge
to attempt his murder, by poison for instance, bringing back into modern
life his old hereditary Italian plots; and into English life a sort of
crime which does not belong to it,--which did not, at least, although at
this very period there have been fresh and numerous instances of it.
There might be a scene in which Middleton and Eldredge come to a fierce
and bitter explanation; for in Eldredge's character there must be the
English surly boldness as well as the Italian subtlety; and here,
Middleton shall tell him what he knows of his past character and life,
and also what he knows of his own hereditary claims. Eldredge might have
committed a murder in Italy; might have been a patriot, and betrayed his
friends to death for a bribe, bearing another name than his own in Italy;
indeed, he might have joined them only as an informer. All this he had
tried to sink, when he came to England in the character of a gentleman of
ancient name and large estate. But this infamy of his previous character
must be foreboded from the first by the manner in which Eldredge is
introduced; and it must make his evil designs on Middleton appear natural
and probable. It may be, that Middleton has learned Eldredge's previous
character, through some Italian patriot who had taken refuge in America,
and there become intimate with him; and it should be a piece of secret
history, not known to the world in general, so that Middleton might seem
to Eldredge the sole depositary of the secret then in England. He feels a
necessity of getting rid of him; and thenceforth Middleton's path lies
always among pitfalls; indeed, the first attempt should follow promptly
and immediately on his rupture with Eldredge. The utmost pains must be
taken with this incident to give it an air of reality; or else it must be
quite removed out of the sphere of reality by an intensified atmosphere
of romance. I think the old Hospitaller must interfere to prevent the
success of this attempt, perhaps through the means of Alice.
The result of Eldredge's criminal and treacherous designs is, somehow or
other, that he comes to his death; and Middleton and Alice are left to
administer on the remains of the story; perhaps, the Mayor being his
friend, he may be brought into play here. The foreign ecclesiastic shall
likewise come forward, and he shall prove to be a man of subtile policy
perhaps, yet a man of religion and honor; with a Jesuit's principles, but
a Jesuit's devotion and self-sacrifice. The old Hospitaller must die in
his bed, or some other how; or perhaps not--we shall see. He may just as
well be left in the Hospital. Eldredge's attempt on Middleton must be in
some way peculiar to Italy, and which he shall have learned there; and,
by the way, at his dinner-table there shall be a Venice glass, one of the
kind that were supposed to be shattered when poison was put into them.
When Eldredge produces his rare wine, he shall pour it into this, with a
jesting allusion to the legend. Perhaps the mode of Eldredge's attempt on
Middleton's life shall be a reproduction of the attempt made two hundred
years before; and Middleton's knowledge of that incident shall be the
means of his salvation. That would be a good idea; in fact, I think it
must be done so and no otherwise. It is not to be forgotten that there is
a taint of insanity in Eldredge's blood, accounting for much that is wild
and absurd, at the same time that it must be subtile, in his conduct; one
of those perplexing mad people, whose lunacy you are continually
mistaking for wickedness or _vice versa_. This shall be the priest's
explanation and apology for him, after his death. I wish I could get hold
of the Newgate Calendar, the older volumes, or any other book of
murders--the Causes Celébrès, for instance. The legendary murder, or
attempt at it, will bring its own imaginative probability with it, when
repeated by Eldredge; and at the same time it will have a dreamlike
effect; so that Middleton shall hardly know whether he is awake or not.
This incident is very essential towards bringing together the past time
and the present, and the two ends of the story.
_May 18th, Tuesday._--All down through the ages since Edward had
disappeared from home, leaving that bloody footstep on the threshold,
there had been legends and strange stories of the murder and the manner
of it. These legends differed very much among themselves. According to
some, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on the
threshold. According to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, and
dragged out. A third story told, that he was escaping with his lady love,
when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain. It
was impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of these
legends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion of
truth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from that
night, and that it never was certainly known to the public that any
intelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. Now, Middleton
may have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as,
for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was
still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that will
not do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, an
artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man as
Eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to be
applied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not at present see in
the least how this is to be wrought out. There shall be everything to
make Eldredge look with the utmost horror and alarm at any chance that he
may be superseded and ousted from his possession of the estate; for he
shall only recently have established his claim to it, tracing out his
pedigree, when the family was supposed to be extinct. And he is come to
these comfortable quarters after a life of poverty, uncertainty,
difficulty, hanging loose on society; and therefore he shall be willing
to risk soul and body both, rather than return to his former state.
Perhaps his daughter shall be introduced as a young Italian girl, to whom
Middleton shall decide to leave the estate.
On the failure of his design, Eldredge may commit suicide, and be found
dead in the wood; at any rate, some suitable end shall be contrived,
adapted to his wants. This character must not be so represented as to
shut him out completely from the reader's sympathies; he shall have
taste, sentiment, even a capacity for affection, nor, I think, ought he
to have any hatred or bitter feeling against the man whom he resolves to
murder. In the closing scenes, when he thinks the fate of Middleton
approaching, there might even be a certain tenderness towards him, a
desire to make the last drops of life delightful; if well done, this
would produce a certain sort of horror, that I do not remember to have
seen effected in literature. Possibly the ancient emigrant might be
supposed to have fallen into an ancient mine, down a precipice, into some
pitfall; no, not so. Into a river; into a moat. As Middleton's
pretensions to birth are not publicly known, there will be no reason why,
at his sudden death, suspicion should fix on Eldredge as the murderer;
and it shall be his object so to contrive his death as that it shall
appear the result of accident. Having failed in effecting Middleton's
death by this excellent way, he shall perhaps think that he cannot do
better than to make his own exit in precisely the same manner. It might
be easy, and as delightful as any death could be; no ugliness in it, no
blood; for the Bloody Footstep of old times might be the result of the
failure of the old plot, not of its success. Poison seems to be the only
elegant method; but poison is vulgar, and in many respects unfit for my
purpose. It won't do. Whatever it may be, it must not come upon the
reader as a sudden and new thing, but as one that might have been
foreseen from afar, though he shall not actually have foreseen it until
it is about to happen. It must be prevented through the agency of Alice.
Alice may have been an artist in Rome, and there have known Eldredge and
his daughter, and thus she may have become their guest in England; or he
may be patronizing her now--at all events she shall be the friend of the
daughter, and shall have a just appreciation of the father's character.
It shall be partly due to her high counsel that Middleton foregoes his
claim to the estate, and prefers the life of an American, with its lofty
possibilities for himself and his race, to the position of an Englishman
of property and title; and she, for her part, shall choose the condition
and prospects of woman in America, to the emptiness of the life of a
woman of rank in England. So they shall depart, lofty and poor, out of
the home which might be their own, if they would stoop to make it so.
Possibly the daughter of Eldredge may be a girl not yet in her teens, for
whom Alice has the affection of an elder sister.
It should be a very carefully and highly wrought scene, occurring just
before Eldredge's actual attempt on Middleton's life, in which all the
brilliancy of his character--which shall before have gleamed upon the
reader--shall come out, with pathos, with wit, with insight, with
knowledge of life. Middleton shall be inspired by this, and shall vie
with him in exhilaration of spirits; but the ecclesiastic shall look on
with singular attention, and some appearance of alarm; and the suspicion
of Alice shall likewise be aroused. The old Hospitaller may have gained
his situation partly by proving himself a man of the neighborhood, by
right of descent; so that he, too, shall have a hereditary claim to be in
the Romance.
Eldredge's own position as a foreigner in the midst of English home life,
insulated and dreary, shall represent to Middleton, in some degree, what
his own would be, were he to accept the estate. But Middleton shall not
come to the decision to resign it, without having to repress a deep
yearning for that sense of long, long rest in an age-consecrated home,
which he had felt so deeply to be the happy lot of Englishmen. But this
ought to be rejected, as not belonging to his country, nor to the age,
nor any longer possible.
_May 19th, Wednesday_.--The connection of the old Hospitaller with the
story is not at all clear. He is an American by birth, but deriving his
English origin from the neighborhood of the Hospital, where he has
finally established himself. Some one of his ancestors may have been
somehow connected with the ancient portion of the story. He has been a
friend of Middleton's father, who reposed entire confidence in him,
trusting him with all his fortune, which the Hospitaller risked in his
enormous speculations, and lost it all. His fame had been great in the
financial world. There were circumstances that made it dangerous for his
whereabouts to be known, and so he had come hither and found refuge in
this institution, where Middleton finds him, but does not know who he is.
In the vacancy of a mind formerly so active, he has taken to the study of
local antiquities; and from his former intimacy with Middleton's father,
he has a knowledge of the American part of the story, which he connects
with the English portion, disclosed by his researches here; so that he is
quite aware that Middleton has claims to the estate, which might be urged
successfully against the present possessor. He is kindly disposed towards
the son of his friend, whom he had so greatly injured; but he is now very
old, and----. Middleton has been directed to this old man by a friend in
America, as one likely to afford him all possible assistance in his
researches; and so he seeks him out and forms an acquaintance with him,
which the old man encourages to a certain extent, taking an evident
interest in him, but does not disclose himself; nor does Middleton
suspect him to be an American. The characteristic life of the Hospital is
brought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetating
here after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpid
with the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish,
wavering; sometimes shining out with a wisdom resulting from originally
bright faculties, ripened by experience. The character must not be
allowed to get vague, but, with gleams of romance, must yet be kept
homely and natural by little touches of his daily life.
As for Alice, I see no necessity for her being anywise related to or
connected with the old Hospitaller. As originally conceived, I think she
may be an artist--a sculptress--whom Eldredge had known in Rome. No; she
might be a granddaughter of the old Hospitaller, born and bred in
America, but who had resided two or three years in Rome in the study of
her art, and have there acquired a knowledge of the Eldredges and have
become fond of the little Italian girl his daughter. She has lodgings in
the village, and of course is often at the Hospital, and often at the
Hall; she makes busts and little statues, and is free, wild, tender,
proud, domestic, strange, natural, artistic; and has at bottom the
characteristics of the American woman, with the principles of the
strong-minded sect; and Middleton shall be continually puzzled at meeting
such a phenomenon in England. By and by, the internal influence
[evidence?] of her sentiments (though there shall be nothing to confirm
it in her manner) shall lead him to charge her with being an American.
Now, as to the arrangement of the Romance;--it begins as an integral and
essential part, with my introduction, giving a pleasant and familiar
summary of my life in the Consulate at Liverpool; the strange species of
Americans, with strange purposes, in England, whom I used to meet there;
and, especially, how my countrymen used to be put out of their senses by
the idea of inheritances of English property. Then I shall particularly
instance one gentleman who called on me on first coming over; a
description of him must be given, with touches that shall puzzle the
reader to decide whether it is not an actual portrait. And then this
Romance shall be offered, half seriously, as the account of the fortunes
that he met with in his search for his hereditary home. Enough of his
ancestral story may be given to explain what is to follow in the Romance;
or perhaps this may be left to the scenes of his intercourse with the old
Hospitaller.
The Romance proper opens with Middleton's arrival at what he has reason
to think is the neighborhood of his ancestral home, and here he makes
application to the old Hospitaller. Middleton shall be described as
approaching the Hospital, which shall be pretty literally copied after
Leicester's, although the surrounding village must be on a much smaller
scale of course. Much elaborateness may be given to this portion of the
book. Middleton shall have assumed a plain dress, and shall seek to make
no acquaintances except that of the old Hospitaller; the acquaintance of
Alice naturally following. The old Hospitaller and he go together to the
old Hall, where, as they pass through the rooms, they find that the
proprietor is flitting like a ghost before them from chamber to chamber;
they catch his reflection in a glass, &c., &c. When these have been
wrought up sufficiently, shall come the scene in the wood, where Eldredge
is seen yielding to the superstition that he has inherited, respecting
the old secret of the family, on the discovery of which depends the
enforcement of his claim to a title. All this while, Middleton has
appeared in the character of a man of no note; and now, through some
political change, not necessarily told, he receives a packet addressed to
him as an ambassador, and containing a notice of his appointment to that
dignity. A paragraph in the "Times" confirms the fact, and makes it known
in the neighborhood. Middleton immediately becomes an object of
attention; the gentry call upon him; the Mayor of the neighboring
county-town invites him to dinner, which shall be described with all its
antique formalities. Here he meets Eldredge, who is surprised,
remembering the encounter in the wood; but passes it all off, like a man
of the world, makes his acquaintance, and invites him to the Hall.
Perhaps he may make a visit of some time here, and become intimate, to a
certain degree, with all parties; and here things shall ripen themselves
for Eldredge's attempt upon his life.
