Cruel as the grave
county, and that Gentiliska, or Iska, as she was more commonly called,
wept and raved and tore her black hair by turns.
"It is the old sad tale, dear Sybil. At length the cultivated scholar
and unprincipled villain grew tired of his beautiful but ignorant gipsy
wife, who was a wife only in justice and not in law. He frequently left
home for long absences. He spent his winters in the cities, and his
summers in a round of visits to hospitable country houses, leaving her
at all seasons to pine and weep, or rage and tear her hair in the gloomy
solitude of Shut-up Dubarry. But for all this, whenever he did
condescend to visit his home, she received him with an eagerness of
welcome--a perfect self-abandonment to joy, that knew no bounds. And
when he left her again, her despair was but the deeper, her anguish the
fiercer. And all this was duly reported by that indefatigable corps of
reporters, the domestics of the house.
"At last came the crisis. Philip Dubarry sent down an agent who opened
the doors of Shut-up Dubarry, and brought into it an army of workmen, to
repair, refurnish and decorate the mansion-house. In vain Gentiliska
asked questions; the workmen either could not or would not give her any
satisfaction. 'It was the master's orders,' they said, and nothing more.
To no one in the world were 'the master's' orders more sacred than to
his loyal gipsy wife. She bowed in submission, and let the workmen do
their will. All the summer season was occupied with the work. But by the
first of October the house was thoroughly renewed, within and without,
so that it seemed like a palace in the midst of Paradise; and the gipsy
wife wandered through the house and grounds in a delight that was only
damped by the long-continued absence of her husband.
"At length, near the middle of the month, at the height of the hunting
season, Philip Dubarry arrived. But the eager welcome of his wife was
met with coldness and petulance, that wounded and enraged her. She gave
way to a storm of grief and fury. She wept and raved and tore her hair,
as was her way when fiercely excited. But now he had not the least
patience with her, or the least mercy on her. He had ceased to love her
and to want her, and so, in acting out his selfish and demoniac nature,
he did not hesitate to treat her with cruel scorn and ignominy. He told
her that she was not his wife, and never had been so. He called her ill
names, and bade her pack up and go, he cared not where, so it was out of
his sight, for he hated her; and out of his house also, for she
dishonored it; and that, after being repaired and refurnished, it must
also be purified of _her_ presence, before he could bring into it the
fair maiden whom he was about to make his wife.
"Then all her fury suddenly subsided, and she became calm and resolute
unto death. She assured him that she never would leave the house; that
she was his wife, and the house's mistress; and she had the right to
remain, and would remain. Whereupon he broke out into furious oaths,
swearing that if she did not go, he would put her out by force. Then she
answered, in these memorable words, that have come down to us in
tradition:
"'My body you may thrust forth from my home, but my spirit never! Living
or dead, in the flesh or the spirit, I will stay in this house as long
as its walls shall stand! Nay, though you were to pull this house down
to eject me, in the flesh or the spirit, I would enter in and possess
the next house you should build! And should you venture to bring here,
or there, a bride to supplant me, in the flesh or the spirit I will
blast and destroy her. So help me the gods of my people.'
"For a moment the ruthless and dauntless man stood appalled by the awful
spirit he had raised in that slight form. But when he did recover
himself it was to fall into a transport of fury, in which he seized the
girl and hurled her violently through the open window. Fortunately they
were on the ground floor, so the fall was not great, and she was,
besides, light in form and agile as a cat. She fell on her hands and
feet upon a thick carpet of the dead leaves that strewed the lawn.
"For a moment she lay where she had fallen, breathless from the shock;
then she lifted herself slowly up. One arm hung useless by her side; it
was dislocated at the shoulder joint; but the other was raised to
heaven, and she muttered some words in her native tongue, and then
turned and walked away until she disappeared in the woods.
"'I hope she'll drown herself according to rule, and there will be an
end,' the fiendish wretch was heard to mutter. No one was allowed to
follow her. She probably _did_ drown herself, but that was by no means
the end. Well, the gipsy girl is said to have kept her word.
"The third day thereafter, as a boy in search of eagle's eggs was
climbing the highest fastnesses of the Black Mountain, his eyes were
attracted by the glow of something scarlet lying on a ledge of rocks
about half way down the course of the Black Torrent. Agile as any
chamois hunter of the Alps, the boy let himself down, from point to
point, until he reached the ledge, upon which the dead body of the gipsy
girl was found. It was crushed by the fall, and sodden by the white foam
of the cascade that continually rolled over it.
"The boy hastened away to spread the news. With the greatest difficulty
the body was recovered, and conveyed to Shut-up Dubarry. The inquest
that sat upon it rendered the simple verdict, 'Found Dead'; for whether
the death were accidental or suicidal, or whether it resulted from the
fall upon the rocks, or from the waters of the cascade, the Dogberries
of that jury could not decide.
"The gipsy girl was buried; and her brutal protector coarsely professed
himself to be greatly relieved by her death. And he assembled all his
servants before him, and forbade them, under the penalty of his heaviest
displeasure, ever to mention the name of Gentiliska to the lady he was
about to bring home as his wife. These slaves knew their master, and in
great fear and trembling they each and all solemnly promised to obey
him. Then he left home for the eastern part of the State from which he
was to bring his bride. On this occasion he was gone a month.
"It was in the middle of the month of November that he returned to
Shut-up Dubarry, bringing with him his fair young bride. She was a
Fairfax, from the county that was named after her family. She was
unquestionably a lady of the highest and purest order, and the
neighboring gentry, ever pleased to welcome such an one among them,
called on her, invited her to their houses, and gave dinner or supper
parties in her honor.
"Philip Dubarry, who had recently fretted at the galling 'ban' under
which, for the transient love of the gipsy girl, he had voluntarily
placed himself, now rejoiced at being delivered from it, and entered
with all the zest of novelty into the social pleasures of the place. He
loved his beautiful and high-born wife with both passion and pride, and
she loved some imaginary hero in his form, and was happy in the
illusion. Thus all went merry as a marriage bell until one dark and
dismal day in December, when the rain fell in floods and the wind raved
around the house, and the state of the weather kept the newly married
couple closely confined within doors, his bride turned to him, and
inquired quietly:
"'Who is that little dark-haired girl with the piercing black eyes, and
in the short red cloak, that I see so often around the house?'
"'What did you say?' inquired Philip Dubarry, in a quavering voice.
"'Who is that little girl in the red cloak, who seems so much at home in
the house? Is she deaf and dumb? I speak to her, but she never answers
me; generally indeed, she goes away as soon as she perceives that I
notice her. Who is she, Phil?' and the young wife looked at her husband
for an answer. But his face was that of a corpse, and his form was
shaking with an ague fit, for the guilty are ever cowardly.
"But his wife mistook the cause of his agitation. Forgotten in an
instant was the question she had asked, and upon which, she had placed
no sort of importance; and she went to her husband and took his hand,
and gazed into his face, and asked him, for Heaven's sake, to tell her
what was the matter.
"He told her a lie. He faltered out between his chattering teeth, that
he feared he was struck with a congestive chill; that the sudden and
severe change in the weather had affected him;--and more to the same
effect.
"She hurried out and prepared a hot drink of brandy, boiling water, and
spices, and she brought it to him and made him drink it.
"Under this powerful stimulant he revived. But she had, in the fear and
excitement of the hour, utterly forgotten the inquiry she had put to
him, and no more would have been said of it, had not he, in fearful
interest, resumed the subject.
"'You were asking me about--one of the servants, were you not?' he
inquired.
"'Oh, yes. But never mind! sit still, and keep your feet to the fire
until you get warm. Never mind about gratifying my foolish curiosity
now,' she answered, thoughtfully.
"'My chill is already gone, thanks to your skilful nursing! What chill
could resist your warm draughts? But now about your question. What was
it?'
"'Oh, nothing much! I only asked you who was the little girl with the
red cloak, who is so silent and shy that she never answers me when I
speak to her, and always shrinks away whenever she finds herself
observed.'
"The trembling wretch was ready with his falsehood. He answered:
"'Oh! she is the child of a poor couple on the mountain, and comes to
the house for cold victuals; but she is as you have observed, very shy;
so I think you had better leave her to herself.'
"'Yes, but are you sure she is to be trusted? For shy as she is in
other matters, she is bold enough to intrude into the most private parts
of the house, and at the most untimely hours of the night,' remarked the
lady.
"'Indeed!' muttered the guilty man, in a sepulchral tone.
"'Indeed and indeed! Why, only last night, when we came home at
midnight, from Mrs. Judge Mayo's ball, when you lingered below stairs to
speak to the butler, and I ran up into my own room alone, I saw this
strange looking little creature, with the streaming black hair and the
red cloak, standing before my dressing-glass! Now what do you think of
that?'
"'She--she--she has been a sort of a pet of the family, and has had the
run of the house, coming in and out of all the rooms at all hours, like
any little dog,' answered the conscious criminal, in a quavering voice.
"'_That_ must be reformed at once!' said the Fairfax bride, drawing
herself up with much dignity, and also perhaps with some jealous
suspicion.
"'It shall, by my soul! I will give orders to that effect,' quavered
Philip Dubarry.
"'Nay, do not take that trouble. It is _my_ prerogative to order my
household, and I shall do it,' proudly answered the lady.
"And here the matter might have ended, but for that interest Philip
Dubarry felt in the subject. He remembered the most awful threat of his
betrayed gipsy wife: 'In the flesh or in the spirit, to dwell in the
house as long as its walls should stand! In the flesh or in the spirit,
to blast and destroy the bride he should bring there to take her place.'
Up to this time he had never had any reason to suppose that the gipsy
girl had kept her word. He had never seen nor heard of anything unusual
about the house. But now when his wife spoke of this silent inmate in
the red cloak, he recognized the portrait all but too well, and his
guilty soul quaked with fear. And yet he was not superstitious. He was a
son of the eighteenth century, which was much more incredulous of the