The Ancestral Footstep (fragment)

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Nevertheless, he did sleep; and it may be that his dreams went on, and
grew vivid, and perhaps became truer in proportion to their vividness.
When he awoke he had a perception, an intuition, that he had been
dreaming about the cabinet, which, in his sleeping imagination, had again
assumed the magnitude and proportions of a stately mansion, even as he
had seen it afar from the other side of the Atlantic. Some dim
associations remained lingering behind, the dying shadows of very vivid
ones which had just filled his mind; but as he looked at the cabinet,
there was some idea that still seemed to come so near his consciousness
that, every moment, he felt on the point of grasping it. During the
process of dressing, he still kept his eyes turned involuntarily towards
the cabinet, and at last he approached it, and looked within the mimic
portal, still endeavoring to recollect what it was that he had heard or
dreamed about it,--what half obliterated remembrance from childhood, what
fragmentary last night's dream it was, that thus haunted him. It must
have been some association of one or the other nature that led him to
press his finger on one particular square of the mosaic pavement; and as
he did so, the thin plate of polished marble slipt aside. It disclosed,
indeed, no hollow receptacle, but only another leaf of marble, in the
midst of which appeared to be a key-hole: to this Middleton applied the
little antique key to which we have several times alluded, and found it
fit precisely. The instant it was turned, the whole mimic floor of the
hall rose, by the action of a secret spring, and discovered a shallow
recess beneath. Middleton looked eagerly in, and saw that it contained
documents, with antique seals of wax appended; he took but one glance at
them, and closed the receptacle as it was before.

Why did he do so? He felt that there would be a meanness and wrong in
inspecting these family papers, coming to the knowledge of them, as he
had, through the opportunities offered by the hospitality of the owner of
the estate; nor, on the other hand, did he feel such confidence in his
host, as to make him willing to trust these papers in his hands, with any
certainty that they would be put to an honorable use. The case was one
demanding consideration, and he put a strong curb upon his impatient
curiosity, conscious that, at all events, his first impulsive feeling was
that he ought not to examine these papers without the presence of his
host or some other authorized witness. Had he exercised any casuistry
about the point, however, he might have argued that these papers,
according to all appearance, dated from a period to which his own
hereditary claims ascended, and to circumstances in which his own
rightful interest was as strong as that of Mr. Eldredge. But he had acted
on his first impulse, closed the secret receptacle, and hastening his
toilet descended from his room; and, it being still too early for
breakfast, resolved to ramble about the immediate vicinity of the house.
As he passed the little chapel, he heard within the voice of the priest
performing mass, and felt how strange was this sign of mediaeval religion
and foreign manners in homely England.

As the story looks now: Eldredge, bred, and perhaps born, in Italy, and a
Catholic, with views to the church before he inherited the estate, has
not the English moral sense and simple honor; can scarcely be called an
Englishman at all. Dark suspicions of past crime, and of the possibility
of future crime, may be thrown around him; an atmosphere of doubt shall
envelop him, though, as regards manners, he may be highly refined.
Middleton shall find in the house a priest; and at his first visit he
shall have seen a small chapel, adorned with the richness, as to marbles,
pictures, and frescoes, of those that we see in the churches at Rome; and
here the Catholic forms of worship shall be kept up. Eldredge shall have
had an Italian mother, and shall have the personal characteristics of an
Italian. There shall be something sinister about him, the more apparent
when Middleton's visit draws to a conclusion; and the latter shall feel
convinced that they part in enmity, so far as Eldredge is concerned. He
shall not speak of his discovery in the cabinet.

_May 17th, Monday_.--Unquestionably, the appointment of Middleton as
minister to one of the minor Continental courts must take place in the
interval between Eldredge's meeting him in the park, and his inviting him
to his house. After Middleton's appointment, the two encounter each other
at the Mayor's dinner in St. Mary's Hall, and Eldredge, startled at
meeting the vagrant, as he deemed him, under such a character, remembers
the hints of some secret knowledge of the family history, which Middleton
had thrown out. He endeavors, both in person and by the priest, to make
out what Middleton really is, and what he knows, and what he intends; but
Middleton is on his guard, yet cannot help arousing Eldredge's suspicions
that he has views upon the estate and title. It is possible, too, that
Middleton may have come to the knowledge--may have had some knowledge--of
some shameful or criminal fact connected with Mr. Eldredge's life on the
Continent; the old Hospitaller, possibly, may have told him this, from
some secret malignity hereafter to be accounted for. Supposing Eldredge
to attempt his murder, by poison for instance, bringing back into modern
life his old hereditary Italian plots; and into English life a sort of
crime which does not belong to it,--which did not, at least, although at
this very period there have been fresh and numerous instances of it.
There might be a scene in which Middleton and Eldredge come to a fierce
and bitter explanation; for in Eldredge's character there must be the
English surly boldness as well as the Italian subtlety; and here,
Middleton shall tell him what he knows of his past character and life,
and also what he knows of his own hereditary claims. Eldredge might have
committed a murder in Italy; might have been a patriot, and betrayed his
friends to death for a bribe, bearing another name than his own in Italy;
indeed, he might have joined them only as an informer. All this he had
tried to sink, when he came to England in the character of a gentleman of
ancient name and large estate. But this infamy of his previous character
must be foreboded from the first by the manner in which Eldredge is
introduced; and it must make his evil designs on Middleton appear natural
and probable. It may be, that Middleton has learned Eldredge's previous
character, through some Italian patriot who had taken refuge in America,
and there become intimate with him; and it should be a piece of secret
history, not known to the world in general, so that Middleton might seem
to Eldredge the sole depositary of the secret then in England. He feels a
necessity of getting rid of him; and thenceforth Middleton's path lies
always among pitfalls; indeed, the first attempt should follow promptly
and immediately on his rupture with Eldredge. The utmost pains must be
taken with this incident to give it an air of reality; or else it must be
quite removed out of the sphere of reality by an intensified atmosphere
of romance. I think the old Hospitaller must interfere to prevent the
success of this attempt, perhaps through the means of Alice.

The result of Eldredge's criminal and treacherous designs is, somehow or
other, that he comes to his death; and Middleton and Alice are left to
administer on the remains of the story; perhaps, the Mayor being his
friend, he may be brought into play here. The foreign ecclesiastic shall
likewise come forward, and he shall prove to be a man of subtile policy
perhaps, yet a man of religion and honor; with a Jesuit's principles, but
a Jesuit's devotion and self-sacrifice. The old Hospitaller must die in
his bed, or some other how; or perhaps not--we shall see. He may just as
well be left in the Hospital. Eldredge's attempt on Middleton must be in
some way peculiar to Italy, and which he shall have learned there; and,
by the way, at his dinner-table there shall be a Venice glass, one of the
kind that were supposed to be shattered when poison was put into them.
When Eldredge produces his rare wine, he shall pour it into this, with a
jesting allusion to the legend. Perhaps the mode of Eldredge's attempt on
Middleton's life shall be a reproduction of the attempt made two hundred
years before; and Middleton's knowledge of that incident shall be the
means of his salvation. That would be a good idea; in fact, I think it
must be done so and no otherwise. It is not to be forgotten that there is
a taint of insanity in Eldredge's blood, accounting for much that is wild
and absurd, at the same time that it must be subtile, in his conduct; one
of those perplexing mad people, whose lunacy you are continually
mistaking for wickedness or _vice versa_. This shall be the priest's
explanation and apology for him, after his death. I wish I could get hold
of the Newgate Calendar, the older volumes, or any other book of
murders--the Causes Celebres, for instance. The legendary murder, or
attempt at it, will bring its own imaginative probability with it, when
repeated by Eldredge; and at the same time it will have a dreamlike
effect; so that Middleton shall hardly know whether he is awake or not.
This incident is very essential towards bringing together the past time
and the present, and the two ends of the story.

_May 18th, Tuesday._--All down through the ages since Edward had
disappeared from home, leaving that bloody footstep on the threshold,
there had been legends and strange stories of the murder and the manner
of it. These legends differed very much among themselves. According to
some, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on the
threshold. According to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, and
dragged out. A third story told, that he was escaping with his lady love,
when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain. It
was impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of these
legends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion of
truth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from that
night, and that it never was certainly known to the public that any
intelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. Now, Middleton
may have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as,
for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was
still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that will
not do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, an
artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man as
Eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to be
applied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not at present see in
the least how this is to be wrought out. There shall be everything to
make Eldredge look with the utmost horror and alarm at any chance that he
may be superseded and ousted from his possession of the estate; for he
shall only recently have established his claim to it, tracing out his
pedigree, when the family was supposed to be extinct. And he is come to
these comfortable quarters after a life of poverty, uncertainty,
difficulty, hanging loose on society; and therefore he shall be willing
to risk soul and body both, rather than return to his former state.
Perhaps his daughter shall be introduced as a young Italian girl, to whom
Middleton shall decide to leave the estate.

On the failure of his design, Eldredge may commit suicide, and be found
dead in the wood; at any rate, some suitable end shall be contrived,
adapted to his wants. This character must not be so represented as to
shut him out completely from the reader's sympathies; he shall have
taste, sentiment, even a capacity for affection, nor, I think, ought he
to have any hatred or bitter feeling against the man whom he resolves to
murder. In the closing scenes, when he thinks the fate of Middleton
approaching, there might even be a certain tenderness towards him, a
desire to make the last drops of life delightful; if well done, this
would produce a certain sort of horror, that I do not remember to have
seen effected in literature. Possibly the ancient emigrant might be
supposed to have fallen into an ancient mine, down a precipice, into some
pitfall; no, not so. Into a river; into a moat. As Middleton's
pretensions to birth are not publicly known, there will be no reason why,
at his sudden death, suspicion should fix on Eldredge as the murderer;
and it shall be his object so to contrive his death as that it shall
appear the result of accident. Having failed in effecting Middleton's
death by this excellent way, he shall perhaps think that he cannot do
better than to make his own exit in precisely the same manner. It might
be easy, and as delightful as any death could be; no ugliness in it, no
blood; for the Bloody Footstep of old times might be the result of the
failure of the old plot, not of its success. Poison seems to be the only
elegant method; but poison is vulgar, and in many respects unfit for my
purpose. It won't do. Whatever it may be, it must not come upon the
reader as a sudden and new thing, but as one that might have been
foreseen from afar, though he shall not actually have foreseen it until
it is about to happen. It must be prevented through the agency of Alice.
Alice may have been an artist in Rome, and there have known Eldredge and
his daughter, and thus she may have become their guest in England; or he
may be patronizing her now--at all events she shall be the friend of the
daughter, and shall have a just appreciation of the father's character.
It shall be partly due to her high counsel that Middleton foregoes his
claim to the estate, and prefers the life of an American, with its lofty
possibilities for himself and his race, to the position of an Englishman
of property and title; and she, for her part, shall choose the condition
and prospects of woman in America, to the emptiness of the life of a
woman of rank in England. So they shall depart, lofty and poor, out of
the home which might be their own, if they would stoop to make it so.
Possibly the daughter of Eldredge may be a girl not yet in her teens, for
whom Alice has the affection of an elder sister.

It should be a very carefully and highly wrought scene, occurring just
before Eldredge's actual attempt on Middleton's life, in which all the
brilliancy of his character--which shall before have gleamed upon the
reader--shall come out, with pathos, with wit, with insight, with
knowledge of life. Middleton shall be inspired by this, and shall vie
with him in exhilaration of spirits; but the ecclesiastic shall look on
with singular attention, and some appearance of alarm; and the suspicion
of Alice shall likewise be aroused. The old Hospitaller may have gained
his situation partly by proving himself a man of the neighborhood, by
right of descent; so that he, too, shall have a hereditary claim to be in
the Romance.

Eldredge's own position as a foreigner in the midst of English home life,
insulated and dreary, shall represent to Middleton, in some degree, what
his own would be, were he to accept the estate. But Middleton shall not
come to the decision to resign it, without having to repress a deep
yearning for that sense of long, long rest in an age-consecrated home,
which he had felt so deeply to be the happy lot of Englishmen. But this
ought to be rejected, as not belonging to his country, nor to the age,
nor any longer possible.

_May 19th, Wednesday_.--The connection of the old Hospitaller with the
story is not at all clear. He is an American by birth, but deriving his
English origin from the neighborhood of the Hospital, where he has
finally established himself. Some one of his ancestors may have been
somehow connected with the ancient portion of the story. He has been a
friend of Middleton's father, who reposed entire confidence in him,
trusting him with all his fortune, which the Hospitaller risked in his
enormous speculations, and lost it all. His fame had been great in the
financial world. There were circumstances that made it dangerous for his
whereabouts to be known, and so he had come hither and found refuge in
this institution, where Middleton finds him, but does not know who he is.
In the vacancy of a mind formerly so active, he has taken to the study of
local antiquities; and from his former intimacy with Middleton's father,
he has a knowledge of the American part of the story, which he connects
with the English portion, disclosed by his researches here; so that he is
quite aware that Middleton has claims to the estate, which might be urged
successfully against the present possessor. He is kindly disposed towards
the son of his friend, whom he had so greatly injured; but he is now very
old, and----. Middleton has been directed to this old man by a friend in
America, as one likely to afford him all possible assistance in his
researches; and so he seeks him out and forms an acquaintance with him,
which the old man encourages to a certain extent, taking an evident
interest in him, but does not disclose himself; nor does Middleton
suspect him to be an American. The characteristic life of the Hospital is
brought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetating
here after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpid
with the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish,
wavering; sometimes shining out with a wisdom resulting from originally
bright faculties, ripened by experience. The character must not be
allowed to get vague, but, with gleams of romance, must yet be kept
homely and natural by little touches of his daily life.

As for Alice, I see no necessity for her being anywise related to or
connected with the old Hospitaller. As originally conceived, I think she
may be an artist--a sculptress--whom Eldredge had known in Rome. No; she
might be a granddaughter of the old Hospitaller, born and bred in
America, but who had resided two or three years in Rome in the study of
her art, and have there acquired a knowledge of the Eldredges and have
become fond of the little Italian girl his daughter. She has lodgings in
the village, and of course is often at the Hospital, and often at the
Hall; she makes busts and little statues, and is free, wild, tender,
proud, domestic, strange, natural, artistic; and has at bottom the
characteristics of the American woman, with the principles of the
strong-minded sect; and Middleton shall be continually puzzled at meeting
such a phenomenon in England. By and by, the internal influence
[evidence?] of her sentiments (though there shall be nothing to confirm
it in her manner) shall lead him to charge her with being an American.

Now, as to the arrangement of the Romance;--it begins as an integral and
essential part, with my introduction, giving a pleasant and familiar
summary of my life in the Consulate at Liverpool; the strange species of
Americans, with strange purposes, in England, whom I used to meet there;
and, especially, how my countrymen used to be put out of their senses by
the idea of inheritances of English property. Then I shall particularly
instance one gentleman who called on me on first coming over; a
description of him must be given, with touches that shall puzzle the
reader to decide whether it is not an actual portrait. And then this
Romance shall be offered, half seriously, as the account of the fortunes
that he met with in his search for his hereditary home. Enough of his
ancestral story may be given to explain what is to follow in the Romance;
or perhaps this may be left to the scenes of his intercourse with the old
Hospitaller.

The Romance proper opens with Middleton's arrival at what he has reason
to think is the neighborhood of his ancestral home, and here he makes
application to the old Hospitaller. Middleton shall be described as
approaching the Hospital, which shall be pretty literally copied after
Leicester's, although the surrounding village must be on a much smaller
scale of course. Much elaborateness may be given to this portion of the
book. Middleton shall have assumed a plain dress, and shall seek to make
no acquaintances except that of the old Hospitaller; the acquaintance of
Alice naturally following. The old Hospitaller and he go together to the
old Hall, where, as they pass through the rooms, they find that the
proprietor is flitting like a ghost before them from chamber to chamber;
they catch his reflection in a glass, &c., &c. When these have been
wrought up sufficiently, shall come the scene in the wood, where Eldredge
is seen yielding to the superstition that he has inherited, respecting
the old secret of the family, on the discovery of which depends the
enforcement of his claim to a title. All this while, Middleton has
appeared in the character of a man of no note; and now, through some
political change, not necessarily told, he receives a packet addressed to
him as an ambassador, and containing a notice of his appointment to that
dignity. A paragraph in the "Times" confirms the fact, and makes it known
in the neighborhood. Middleton immediately becomes an object of
attention; the gentry call upon him; the Mayor of the neighboring
county-town invites him to dinner, which shall be described with all its
antique formalities. Here he meets Eldredge, who is surprised,
remembering the encounter in the wood; but passes it all off, like a man
of the world, makes his acquaintance, and invites him to the Hall.
Perhaps he may make a visit of some time here, and become intimate, to a
certain degree, with all parties; and here things shall ripen themselves
for Eldredge's attempt upon his life.

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