Part 17 (1/2)
”Read this note,” answered the clergyman, placing one at the same time in his young visitor's hand.
Charles read as follows:
”My Dear Sir,
”I have a singular communication to make to you, but in the strictest privacy, with reference to a subject which, merely to name, is to awaken feelings of doubt and horror; I mean the confession of Merton, with respect to the murder of Wynston Berkley. I will call upon you this evening after dark; for I have certain reasons for not caring to meet old acquaintances about town; and if you can afford me half an hour, I promise to complete my intended disclosure within that time. Let us be strictly private; this is my only proviso.
”Yours with much respect,
”Richard Marston”
”Your father has been sorely troubled in mind,” said Doctor Danvers, as soon as the young man had read this communication; ”he has told me as much; it may be that the discovery he has now made may possibly have relieved him from certain galling anxieties. The fear that unjust suspicion should light upon himself, or those connected with him, has, I dare say, tormented him sorely. G.o.d grant, that as the providential unfolding of all the details of this mysterious crime comes about, he maybe brought to recognize, in the just and terrible process, the hand of heaven. G.o.d grant, that at last his heart may be softened, and his spirit illuminated by the blessed influence he has so long and so sternly rejected.”
As the old man thus spake--as if in symbolic answering to his prayer--a sudden glory from the setting sun streamed through the funereal pile of clouds which filled the western horizon, and flooded the chamber where they were.
After a silence, Charles Marston said, with some little embarra.s.sment--”It may be a strange confession to make, though, indeed, hardly so to you--for you know but too well the gloomy reserve with which my father has uniformly treated me--that the exact nature of Merton's confession never reached my ears; and once or twice, when I approached the subject, in conversation with you, it seemed to me that the subject was one which, for some reason, it was painful to you to enter upon.”
”And so it was, in truth, my young friend--so it was; for that confession left behind it many fearful doubts, proving, indeed, nothing but the one fact, that, morally, the wretched man was guilty of the murder.”
Charles, urged by a feeling of the keenest interest, requested Dr.
Danvers to detail to him the particulars of the dying man's narration.
”Willingly,” answered Dr. Danvers, with a look of gloom, and heaving a profound sigh--”willingly, for you have now come to an age when you may safely be entrusted with secrets affecting your own family, and which, although, thank G.o.d, as I believe they in no respect involve the honor of anyone of its members, yet might deeply involve its peace and its security against the a.s.saults of vague and horrible slander. Here, then, is the narrative: Merton, when he was conscious of the approach of death, qualified, by a circ.u.mstantial and detailed statement, the absolute confession of guilt which he had at first sullenly made. In this he declared that the guilt of design and intention only was his--that in the act itself he had been antic.i.p.ated. He stated, that from the moment when Sir Wynston's servant had casually mentioned the circ.u.mstance of his master's usually sleeping with his watch and pocketbook under his pillow, the idea of robbing him had taken possession of his mind. With the idea of robbing him (under the peculiar circ.u.mstances, his servant sleeping in the apartment close by, and the slightest alarm being, in all probability, sufficient to call him to the spot) the idea of antic.i.p.ating resistance by murder had a.s.sociated itself. He had contended against these haunting and growing solicitations of Satan, with an earnest agony.
He had intended to leave his place, and fly from the mysterious temptation which he felt he wanted power to combat, but accident or fate prevented him. In a state of ghastly excitement he had, on the memorable night of Sir Wynston's murder, proceeded, as had afterwards appeared in evidence, by the back stair to the baronet's chamber; he had softly stolen into it, and gone to the bedside, with the weapon in his hand. He drew his breath for the decisive stroke, which was to bereave the (supposedly) sleeping man of life, and when stretching his left hand under the clothes, it rested upon a dull, cold corpse, and, at the same moment, his right hand was immersed in a pool of blood. He dropped the knife, recoiled a pace or so. With a painful effort, however, he again grasped with his hand to recover the weapon he had suffered to escape, and secured, as it afterwards turned out, not the knife with which he had meditated the commission of his crime, but the dagger which was afterwards found where he had concealed it. He was now fully alive to the horror of his situation; he was compromised as fully as if he had in very deed driven home the weapon. To be found under such circ.u.mstances, would convict him as surely as if fifty eyes had seen him strike the blow. He had nothing now for it but flight; and in order to guard himself against the contingency of being surprised from the door opening upon the corridor, he bolted it; then groped under the murdered man's pillow for the booty which had so fatally fascinated his imagination. Here he was disappointed. What further happened you already know.”
Charles listened with breathless attention to this recital, and, after a painful interval, said--
”Then the actual murderer is, after all, unascertained. This is, indeed, horrible; it was very natural that my father should have felt the danger to which such a disclosure would have exposed the reputation of our family, yet I should have preferred encountering it, were it ten times as great, to the equivocal prudence of suppressing the truth with respect to a murder committed under my own roof.”
”He has, however, it would seem, arrived at some new conclusions,” said Dr. Danvers, ”and is now prepared to throw some unantic.i.p.ated light upon the whole transaction.”
Even as they were talking, a knocking was heard at the hall-door, and after a brief and hurried consultation, it was agreed, that, considering the strict condition of privacy attached to this visit by Mr. Marston himself, as well as his reserved and wayward temper, it might be better for Charles to avoid presenting himself to his father on this occasion. A few seconds afterwards the door opened, and Mr. Marston entered the apartment. It was now dark, and the servant, unbidden, placed candles upon the table. Without answering one word to Dr. Danvers' greeting, Marston sat down, as it seemed, in agitated abstraction. Removing his hat suddenly (for he had not even made this slight homage to the laws of courtesy), he looked round with a care-worn, fiery eye, and a pale countenance, and said--
”We are quite alone, Dr. Danvers--no one anywhere near?”
Dr. Danvers a.s.sured him that all was secure. After a long and agitated pause, Marston said--
”You remember Merton's confession. He admitted his intention to kill Berkley, but denied that he was the actual murderer. He spoke truth--no one knew it better than I; for I am the murderer.”
Dr. Danvers was so shocked and overwhelmed that he was utterly unable to speak.
”Aye, sir, in point of law and of morals, literally and honestly, the murderer of Wynston Berkley. I am resolved you shall know it all. Make what use of it you will--I care for nothing now, but to get rid of the d----d, unsustainable secret, and that is done. I did not intend to kill the scoundrel when I went to his room; but with the just feelings of exasperation with which I regarded him, it would have been wiser had I avoided the interview; and I meant to have done so. But his candle was burning; I saw the light through the door, and went in. It was his evil fortune to indulge in his old strain of sardonic impertinence. He provoked me; I struck him--he struck me again--and with his own dagger I stabbed him three times. I did not know what I had done; I could not believe it. I felt neither remorse nor sorrow--why should I?--but the thing was horrible, astounding. There he sat in the corner of his cus.h.i.+oned chair, with the old fiendish smile on still. Sir, I never thought that any human shape could look so dreadful. I don't know how long I stayed there, freezing with horror and detestation, and yet unable to take my eyes from the face. Did you see it in the coffin? Sir, there was a sneer of triumph on it that was diabolic and prophetic.”
Marston was fearfully agitated as he spoke, and repeatedly wiped from his face the cold sweat that gathered there.
”I could not leave the room by the back stairs,” he resumed, ”for the valet slept in the intervening chamber. I felt such an appalled antipathy to the body, that I could scarcely muster courage to pa.s.s it. But, sir, I am not easily cowed--I mastered this repugnance in a few minutes--or, rather, I acted spite of it, I knew not how; but instinctively it seemed to me that it was better to lay the body in the bed, than leave it where it was, shewing, as its position might, that the thing occurred in an altercation. So, sir, I raised it, and bore it softly across the room, and laid it in the bed; and, while I was carrying it, it swayed forward, the arms glided round my neck, and the head rested against my cheek--that was a parody upon a brotherly embrace!
”I do not know at what moment it was, but some time when I was carrying Wynston, or laying him in the bed,” continued Marston, who spoke rather like one pursuing a horrible reverie, than as a man relating facts to a listener, ”I heard a light tread, and soft breathing in the lobby. A thunderclap would have stunned me less that minute. I moved softly, holding my breath, to the door. I believe, in moments of strong excitement, men hear more acutely than at other times; but I thought I heard the rustling of a gown, going from the door again. I waited--it ceased; I waited until all was quiet. I then extinguished the candle, and groped my way to the door; there was a faint light in the corridor, and I thought I saw a head projected from the chamber-door, next to the Frenchwoman's--mademoiselle's. As I came on, it was softly withdrawn, and the door not quite noiselessly closed. I could not be absolutely certain, but I learned all afterward. And now, sir, you have the story of Sir Wynston's murder.”
Dr. Danvers groaned in spirit, being wrung alike with fear and sorrow.