Timothy Arthur - The Allen House; Or, Twenty Years Ago and Now

“His father died of apoplexy,” said she in a hoarse whisper, looking at me with a side-long, almost stealthy glance, not full and open-eyed.

“This is something more than apoplexy,” I remarked; still observing her closely.

“The fall may have injured him,” she suggested.

“The blow on his temple has done the fearful work,” said I.

There was a perceptible start, and another look of fear-almost terror.

“For heaven’s sake, doctor,” she said, rousing herself, and speaking half imperatively, “do something! Don’t stand speculating about the cause; but do something if you have any skill.”

Thus prompted, I set myself to work, in good earnest, with my patient. The result was in no way flattering to my skill, for he passed to his account in less than an hour, dying without a sign.

I shall never forget the wild screams which rang awfully through the old mansion, when it was announced to Mrs. Allen that the Captain was dead. She flung herself upon his body, tore her hair, and committed other extravagances. All the slumbering passions of her undisciplined nature seemed quickened into sudden life, overmastering her in their strong excitement. So it would have seemed to a less suspicious observer; but I thought that I could detect the overacting of pretence. I may have done her wrong; but the impression still remains. At the funeral, this extravagant role of grief was re-enacted, and the impression was left on many minds that she was half mad with grief.

Occasionally, after this event, I was summoned to the Allen House to see its unhappy mistress. I say unhappy, for no human being ever had a face written all over with the characters you might read in hers, that was not miserable. I used to study it, sometimes, to see if I could get anything like a true revelation of her inner life. The sudden lighting up of her countenance at times, as you observed its rapidly varying expression, made you almost shudder, for the gleam which shot across it looked like a reflection from hell. I know no other word to express what I mean. Remorse, at times, I could plainly read.

One thing I soon noticed; the room in which Captain Allen died—the north-west chamber before mentioned—remained shut up; and an old servant told me, years afterwards, that Mrs. Allen had never been inside of it since the fatal day on which I attended him in his last moments.

At the time when this story opens the old lady was verging on to sixty. The five years which had passed since she was left alone had bent her form considerably, and the diseased state of mind which I noticed when first called in to visit the family as a physician, was now but a little way removed from insanity. She was haunted by many strange hallucinations; and the old servant above alluded to, informed me, that she was required to sleep in the room with her mistress, as she never would be alone after dark. Often, through the night, she would start up in terror, her diseased imagination building up terrible phantoms in the land of dreams, alarming the house with her cries.

I rarely visited her that I did not see new evidences of waning reason. In the beginning I was fearful that she might do some violence to herself or her servants, but her insanity began to assume a less excitable form; and at last she sank into a condition of torpor, both of mind and body, from which I saw little prospect of her ever rising.

“It is well,” I said to myself. “Life had better wane slowly away than to go out in lurid gleams like the flashes of a dying volcano.”

And now, reader, after this long digression, you can understand my surprise at seeing broad gleams of light reaching out into the darkness from the windows of that north-west chamber, as I breasted the storm on my way to visit the sick child of Mary Jones. No wonder that I stood still and looked up at those windows, though the rain beat into my face, half blinding me. The shutters were thrown open, and the curtains drawn partly aside. I plainly saw shadows on the ceiling and walls as of persons moving about the room. Did my eyes deceive me? Was not that the figure of a young girl that stood for a moment at the window trying to pierce with her eyes the thick veil of night? I was still in doubt when the figure turned away, and only gave me a shadow on the wall.

I lingered in front of the old house for some minutes, but gaining no intelligence of what was passing within, I kept on my way to the humbler dwelling of Mary Jones. I found her child quite ill, and needing attention. After doing what, in my judgment, the case required, I turned my steps towards the house of Mrs. Wallingford to look into the case of her son Henry, who, according to her account, was in a very unhappy condition.

I went a little out of my way so as to go past the Allen House again. As I approached, my eyes were directed to the chamber windows at the north-west corner, and while yet some distance away, as the old elms tossed their great limbs about in struggling with the storm, I saw glancing out between them the same cheery light that met my astonished gaze a little while before. As then, I saw shadows moving on the walls, and once the same slender, graceful figure—evidently that of a young girl—came to the window and tried to look out into the deep darkness.

As there was nothing to be gained by standing there in the drenching storm, I moved onward, taking the way to Mrs. Wallingford’s dwelling. I had scarcely touched the knocker when the door was opened, and by Mrs. Wallingford herself.

“Oh, Doctor, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said in a low, troubled voice.

I stepped in out of the rain, gave her my dripping umbrella, and laid off my overcoat.

“How is Henry now?” I asked.

She put her finger to her lip, and said, in a whisper,

“Just the same, Doctor—just the same. Listen! Don’t you hear him walking the floor overhead? I’ve tried to get him to take a cup of tea, but he won’t touch any thing. All I can get out of him is—‘Mother—dear mother—leave me to myself. I shall come right again. Only leave me to myself now.’ But, how can I let him go on in this way? Oh, Doctor, I am almost beside myself! What can it all mean? Something dreadful has happened.”

I sat listening and reflecting for something like ten minutes. Steadily, from one side the room overhead to the other, went the noise of feet; now slowly, now with a quicker motion: and now with a sudden tramp, that sent the listener’s blood with a start along its courses.

“Won’t you see him, doctor?”

I did not answer at once, for I was in the dark as to what was best to be done. If I had known the origin of his trouble, I could have acted understandingly. As it was, any intrusion upon the young man might do harm rather than good.

“He has asked to be let alone,” I replied, “and it may be best to let him alone. He says that he will come out right. Give him a little more time. Wait, at least, until to-morrow. Then, if there is no change, I will see him.”

Still the mother urged. At last I said—

“Go to your son. Suggest to him a visit from me, and mark the effect.”

I listened as she went up stairs. On entering his room, I noticed that he ceased walking. Soon came to my ears the murmur of voices, which rose to a sudden loudness on his part, and I distinctly heard the words:

“Mother! you will drive me mad! If you talk of that, I will go from the house. I must be left alone!”

Then all was silent. Soon Mrs. Wallingford came down. She looked even more distressed than when she left the room.

“I’m afraid it might do harm,” she said doubtingly.

“So am I. It will, I am sure, be best to let him have his way for the present. Something has disturbed him fearfully; but he is struggling hard for the mastery over himself, and you may be sure, madam, that he will gain it. Your son is a young man of no light stamp of character; and he will come out of this ordeal, as gold from the crucible.”