The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

38 chamber gleaming through the key-hole The young girl, now no longer afraid, thereupon extinguished the candle; and, approaching the door, she held her breath to listen. Almost immediately afterwards, some one came hurrying up the staircase; and Caroline knew by her step, hasty though it were, that it was Mrs. Lindley. The midwife passed by the young woman’s door, but stopped short at the next on the right hand; and Caroline heard her enter the adjoining apartment. That was the chamber occupied by the lady con- cerning whom the utmost precaution and secrecy were requisite,—the young lady of high birth, who never quitted her room! The wind had experienced some degree of abate- ment in its violence—andits gusts were less frequent than during the earlier part of the evening. But still it gushed along the bosom of the Thames and swept at intervals over the house: and soon those sounds without were mingled with moans of female anguish within. Trembling from head to foot with new and undefined alarms, and experiencing a boundless sym- pathy for the young lady whom she supposed to be in the agonies of maternity, but whom to her know- ledge she had never seen,— Caroline Walters began to feel her Spanish blood boiling with the excitement of an intense loathing in regard to that house of ter- rible mystery whither shame repaired to hide its head—where children were born heaven only knew now to be disposed of—and where a vile woman throve upon the dark and sinister practice which, as she herself had boasted to Mrs. Brace, never left her chambers untenanted! For nearly half-an-hour did the moans, varied by occasional subdued screams, continue in the next room;—and all that time Miss Walters remained still and motionless in her own chamber,—but witha fearful excitement rapidly increasing upon her. At iength, so heated grew her brain, that she felt she must either have fresh air or be suffocated. The room seemed to have become a coffin: the atmos- phere was to her senses as sultry as the torrid glow of the tropics. Nevertheless, it was—as the reader remembers—in the depth of winter; and the blast was blowing without as if it had come laden with tke ice-chill of far-off Labrador Approaching the window, Caroline opened it as noiselessly as she could; and the cutting wind’s in- tensity of cold was lost upon her. It seemed but a gentle breeze that fanned her feverish cheeks and blew back the hair from her countenance. Dark as pitch was the night without: black asa funereal pall did that darkness seem to hang upon the river and against the house. Not a star peeped forth from above: not even an outline of the tem- pestuous clouds that were piled one upon another, could be seen;—for it was the very air itself that seemed to be a flood of jet but impalpable ink. The young girl could hear the rush of the river and its ‘constant plashings against the piles below: but there was not a gleam upon its surface—not a mitigated shade to show that it was water running there. All was black—densely, profoundly black, like the in- terior of a vast cavern whither the light of day pene- trated not, and where no lamp illumed the scene. Yes: it was a night which crime would revel in for THE MYSTERIES. and which at the same time would impel the poor to curse the existence that was doomed to be dragged on in those cold and cheerless garrets where not even a mattress protected the shivering limbs from the hard floor ! For upwards of five minutes had Caroline Walters stood at the window, courting as it were the nipping chill of the wind to cool her brain which seemed to be on fire, and her blood which appeared to circulate like lightning in her veins; when, at the expiration of that brief interval, she heard a neighbouring win- dow gently and slowly open. Scarcely had this sound fallen upon her ear, when the conviction flashed to her mind that it was the casement of the adjacent room —the young lady's chamber—which was thus opening,—and while she was still listening with breathless attention, the faint, feeble, and half-stifled cry of a new-born child was wafted to her through the air. In the next moment that cry was heard the least thing louder; and immediately afterwards it rose into a smi] shrill shriek: then there was a plash in the ¥aters beneath,—a sound distinct from the ripplings against the piles, and which seemed as if something had been thrown into the river;—and at the same instant the window of the next room was shut down! If a scorpion had suddenly twined itself about the neck of Caroline Walters, a more horrible feeling could not have come over her than the sensation which now seized upon her brain—her heart—her entire being. For to her startled soul rushed the ap- palling conviction that a foul and atrocious murder - had just been perpetrated—the murder of a babe whose eyes had scarcely opened in this world ere they were closed again in the night of death,—and that death inflicted, perhaps—nay, most probably—with the cognizance of the victim’s own mother! Staggering away from the window, the young wo- man fell upon her knees by the side of her bed; and yielding to the deep agony of feelings so intensely wrung, she buried her face in her hands and endea- voured to pray. But her thoughts grew bewildered —her ideas became confused—and a frightful con- sternation seized upon her. Rising slowly, she me- chanically closed the window, and began to lay aside her clothing ;—and had the candle been still burning and she could have caught a glimpse of her features in the mirror, she would have shrunk back in dismay from the reflection of the ghastly pallor of her coun- tenance, the strange unnatural vacancy of her eyes, and the ashy whiteness of her quivering lips. Butit was dark now within that chamber,—dark as the air without,—dark, too, as the deed which characterised this night-of terror! Caroline Walters sought her couch—and sleep soon fell upon her eyes: for she was worn out and ex- hausted with the overwhelming fatigues which the body had sustained from the mind’s incessant work- ings and convulsive agitations during the last hour. But though slumber thus sealed her heavy lids,—yet to her bosom there came no rest; for even in her dreams was she pursued by the horrors that had appalled her soul ere she lay down to repose. Yes—and even in her visions, too, it seemed as if an oath of vengeance sprang from her very heart’s core,—of vengeance against him who had seduced its own vile purposes,—a night from which conscience | and betrayed her—and against that old demoness in would shrink appalled, when remorse was present,— | female shape who had perpetrated the tremendous a night that would make the rich rejoice in the pos- | tragedy of this foul night. session of their warm rooms and their downy beds, <—a—_— com ElOoOOKS. COR