The Strong Room at the Abey.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXX, Issue 1799, 8 April 1904, Page 7

The Strong Room at the Abey.

By C. E. M. Vaughan.

' You don't know what a wicked woman I am," she murmured, in the soft tones that were like nothing so much as the cooing of the wood-pig-eons iii the trees outside the window. The colour leapt into the young man's face. Edna, tall, lithe, and beautiful, had thrown her toils over him until he was almost—not quite— in her power ; until he had come to look for such stolen interviews as this, while her pupils the Vicarage children ran wild in the Abbey grounds, and to feel aggrieved when she chose some other direction for her daily walk. Did he love her ? - Did he guess that the mere fact that he could ask himself the question was in itself sufficient answer. Moreover his manly British heart was stirred—not to pity, for so craven a word was an insult to the beautiful woman beside him —but to a noble and chivalrous wish to help her. " You couldn't do wrong," he murmured, fervenely, "you are too beautiful." Shj? made, a gesture of dissent, one of those winning gestures of which she was the mistress. For months he had lingered 011 the brink of the Rubicon ; would he cross it now ?

" Edna "- he paused ; voices interrupted him; little footsteps pattered ruder the window ; they passed, and the voices died away. The woman was trembling. "Do I look like a poor governess she demanded hotly. •' Was I meant for poverty ? Do 1 "—she laughed bitterly—" 1 >ok the part." Never," he answered passionately. "You were meant for the lap of luxury ; the Fates h ave been making a huge mistake, but we will be even with them yet." The fatal words were said, the stream crossed. But he did not see the Hash of tiiuniph in her eyes, for she suddenly and discreetly veiled them.

" 1 am so tired of the old life," she said, plaintively; and he swore by the broad acres and the wealth he had so lately inheiited, that the fairy piin?e had come; that she should never again slave for her daily bread, never again wear old and shabby clothes. ' You shall dress like a fairy queen, Edna, with silks and all the things pio.ty women love . . .' ' Shall 1 have diamonds ?' She asked the question playfully, like a child, lie laughed aloud.

' Diamonds ? There are diamonds downstairs that would make any Eastern princess turn in her grave for envy.' ' Downstairs ? she queried, innoceni'Jy. Sel who had not heard of the famous strong-room at the Abbey ? Either she was fooling him, or she—this beautiful creature, whose brilliant eyes transfixed the honest fellow with a boyish adoration—was a fool herself.

She played with a button of his coat. ' Will you show me them some day ?' It was like a child asking for a new toy. 'Why not at once, this minute? Stay, I have not the key, it must be with my father's papers,' and while he stood thinking, the woman tried hard to sti:l the violent throbbing of her heart—it was coming, this moment for which she had waited, of which she had dreamed day and night, for which too, she had prayed with all the ardour of which a passionate nature is capable. ,

Ihe little footsteps cunie pattering 1 back ; they were c limbiuy the winding stair from the terrace : another moment. and Ldna would be betrayed. 'Quick !' she cried, •'send them round to the front of the house, I must go,' but still she lingered in the shadow of the curtain, while Douglas called to the little girls through .tin* window. The footsteps went down the winding stair. She tore herself away. ' Tonight,' she whispered, 'we will go down to the strong-room, I will slip out when the children go the draw-ing-room—wait for me here.' ' Where have you been, i\lisy Ellis ?' her pupils demanded when, with flaming cheeks, she rejoined them. Looting at the Abbey pictures,' she answered readily, and they were satisfied. ]n the dusk, a closely-veiled figure stole out from .the Vicarage garden, crossed the road, and entered the Abbey grounds by a door in the ivycovered wall. The xre<s looked darkly mysterious against a grey sky. wheie angry clouds scudded past tiie moon ; the veiled figure, however, had no eve.s for the beauty of the night ; it s;>ed .swiftly along the tortuous pathways—past ghostly white statues of nymphs and fauns—battling with the wind and the tumult of passions wjthin .... a moment later it was leaning against the handrail of the winding stair under the window ; a solitary iamp in the great drawingroom threw a warm glow out upon the darkness ; a man's figure came between the window and the lamp and stood looking out. ' The diamonds,' she muttered, 'they are worth the scheming and plotting —worth the drudgery of these last few months.' She laughed at the boy's innocence, and when she laugljcd the goddess left liftr face—it became the face of a woman possessed. » * * * #

' Be careful in going down,' said Douglas, as tliev descended the stone stairs leading from the entrance to the rervauts' quarters to the ancient monastic building under the modern house. ' The stairs are worn, and one false step would bet fatal.' Sounds of laughter and the clatter of plates and knives came fiom the other end of the corridor ; but soon they left all signs of life behind them, and Kdna shivered as the air struck damp and chill through the thin dinner gowji in whie h she had come. She drew her wrap more closely round her shoulders, A strange presentment of corning evil made her set her teeth to stop their chattering, Was it the ghos'.ly army of departed monks, haunting 'the scene of their earthly life, that gave the place that strange and otherwise unaccountable feeling of mystery ? The light from the .lantern carried by her companion fell fitfully, cutting weird uud uiaVuig

fantastic shapes out of the pillars of the cloister through which he was con- ! ducting her. ' It's so long since I've been down here/ lie said, his voice echoing along the cloisters, ' that I've almost forgotten which is the right turning. Ah, j here it is ; my ancestors meant to run ! no risk of losing their property, at ! any rate.' He set down the lantern, ! and tried to lit the tiny key into the lock, or rather one of them, for there ' were several, and it was some time before he found the clue ; each lock revealed another. At last, lending all his weight to the task, he pulled back the massive door, and they entered the strong-room. Douglas struck a match and lighted the two small gas jets that hung from the ceiling. The room was oblong ; along three sides were cases with glass doors, through which could be seen gold and silver plate in great variety and profusion, trays, salvers, candlesticks, snufi-boxl's given by kings to former Douglasses, trinkets and ornaments, the gifts of queens and princesses. Edna's dark eye -glistened ; but her gaze roved restlessly round. ' The diamonds,' she murmured, under her breath. She was quivering with impatience ; every minute seemed an hour until the precious things appeared. The wrap had fallen from her shoulders, leaving her throat bare; the black gauzy material of her dress, cut square at the throat, fell in soft diaphanous folds over her slim figure; her dark eyes Hashed with an unnatural radiance.

Douglas was reaching down a case from one of the shelves ; he put it on the deal table which ran the length of the room, and touched a spring. The I'd llew back, and a sigh that was almost a sob broke from Kdna's lips.

The diamonds ! They flashed and scintillated in the gas-light, each tiny facet seeming to contain a separate colour of its own. belonging intrinsically to it ; sin; grasped the edge of the tablo to steady herself. He lifted the tray ; below there were more, and more again below these ... it seemed as if the number and brilliance of them were unending . . . and there were rubies, sapphires, opals, turquoises .... ' Pretty tiling.-:, aren't they ?' said the man. carelessly picking out a priceless necklace of all sorts and colours, each stone a consummate piece of workmanship, and letting it run through his I'ngers. The woman was 01 J;re, burning to snatch them from hi-; sacriligeous hands ;if she had loVed the diamonds before, at this moment she worshipped tgem. ' Ah, the tiara,' she breathed, exultingly, as he opened yet another case, and showed a coronet of diamond birds and sprays, set in a dainty bed of blue velvet ; he held it over her head, nnd she stooped to receive it like one taking a blessing.

' Hark ! What sound was that ?' He paused with the glittering bauble in his hands and stood listening.

' Ah ! That bell !' she echoed. She stepped back a pace ; her eyes dilated with a sudden terror. From far away, somewhere in the upper wo. Id, mysterious, but unmistakably clear, a bell was tolling ; it seemed to come from high up among the Abbey towers ; it fell on the women's eais like a summons to judgment ; the hot blood rushed to the man's cheek ; his eye glistened. Muttering some hasty words lie rushed from the room, and his footsteps echoed alcng the cloister. The tolling bell had ceased, a profound silence fell. In that moment of silence seven devi's entered into her, a new solution of the problem of existence flashed up(11 her; she had schemed and plotted for the diamonds with the man, and lr>, a kind and merciful Providence had given the diamonds into her hand 1111.'onditionallv. ' Mine ! mine !' she cried in a smothered shriek, and fell to work gathering up the glittering heap, pressing her god to her bosom. . . She paused, listening; was that his returning step ? With trembling f'ngers she unfastened her bodice ; on her bare llesh she hung the great necklace, she clasped bracelets round her arms, unmindful that they tore the skin . . . again, was that his step ? With a rapid movement she ran to the door and pulled it with all her mightit would take time to open it. and in the meantime the precious seconds were hers : her body was' still' with jewels, the bracelets in dieted excruciating agonies, and the great necklace seemed as if it would stop the beating of her heart. At last her task was finished ; she had upon her person all the jewels it was possible to carry, and the rest wen; put back in their cases, and the cases replaced on their shelves. She would twit him with his absence of mind in leaving the strongroom in her lower, suddenly discover the. lateness

of the hour, and lly. There was just time to catch a train to London, tmd then .... the night boat for Franco.. » . . - How long lie was ! Surely lie must come soon. She looked at her watch ! one hour, two hours, since she had slipped out through the Vicarage gate. She paced the room trying to silence the horrible thought that pressed itself upon her. Return ? Of course, he would return ; she must wait, but the train would go without her ; it was too late to catch it now. Voices of hope and despair rang in her cars suddenly she sprang to tlio door -and tried it—it was fast shut, and all her strength could not avail against it. Great beads of moisture broke out uponher brow ; her whole body throbbed and tingled with agitation and physical pain : a horrible dread was upon her, and the terror of those spirit presences, that bell of judgment, returned ill tenfold force. And then a shriek rang out in the silence— the shriek of frenzy.

But 110 li\ing soul heard it, and the sound returned upon the silence.

"To -the font ! To the front !" rang in Douglas's ears and hammered in his brain. The heart of England was torn in pieces by the awfulness of war ; white men were mowing one another down like so many ninepins; and still the country called for more men—always more.

For weeks past Douglas had lived in hourly expectation of the summons to join his regiment ; it had come at last end in the excitement of the rapid preparations—for the notice was very short, and there was much to be done —all else went completely from his mind. The old butler, himself a soldier with the lighting spirit strong in liim, was beside himself with joy. Unable to lind his master anywhere in the house or grounds, he had hit upon the expedient of tolling the great bell, which was only rung, according to anusnt custom, when some extraordinaryevent required the presence of the villagers for a mi!c away. They came Hocking to the Abbey, and Douglas departed amid ringing cheers.

'To the front ! To the front !' And now the magic words were coupled with names of the soldier's heroesRoberts, Kitchener—and in the bril--1 r.nt y lighted streets of London, plathe soldier's brain on lire. In that strange and terrible war fever, a man does not question the rights or wrong of a cause, he only knows there is work to be done, and Douglas lived for 21 hours in total forgctfulness oi the woman he had left in the strongroom. On the steamer's deck, well away from land, the accidental touch in his pocket of a tiny key sent him reeling to the captain.

'Where do we touch ? How soon can I telegraph V 'Madeira.' He sought the P.M.O. 'How long does it take for a woman to die of starvation ?' And the guarded reply only maddened him. How those days passed he never knew ; he neither ate nor slept ; and to atone for his forgctfulness, if any thing could, the thought of Edna never left him. And the doubt as to whether or not he had shut the stro-ng-room door, drove him almost to frenzy. When, on receiving his master's telegram, the old butler, accompanied by the \icar, who was distracted by the mysterious disappearance of the children's governess, broke open the strongroom door, a terrible sight awaited them. Edna was dead, but not from starvation. Her god had killed her. She lay,in a corner of the room ; the tiara, which she had so much coveted, was clasped to her breast. It had at some former time been made into detachable brooches, and these "'ere secured to the frame-work by an ingenious system of pins. One of the pins had become loosened, and the point had entered her heart. It was several years before Douglas could make up his mind to return to the Abbey, When he did, lie was accompanied by a beautiful woman, of Edna's type of loveliness, but entirely free from the demon of possession that had bein Edna's ruin, She wore the fateful diamonds on her wedding-day, and then t,h«v were stowed safely aWay in the strong-room. An evil inlliunee seemed to cling about 'them, and this was intensified by the story that grew up, of a tall black figure that on gusty nights haunted .the Abbey grounds, wearing a wealth of diamonds, and crowned with a gorgeous tiara. But there came to Douglas a merciful moment in which he knew for a certainty that it was not lie who had shut the strong-room door ; the unhappy woman had brought her terrible fate upon herself, The End.