Chapter 1
CHAPTER I. OF HER DARK INHERITANCE This is a Levervox recording. All Levervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Levervox.org.
Recording by Sharon Kilmer, Rio Medina, Texas. HER DARK INHERITANCE by E. Burke Collins A DARK NIGHT'S SECRET A night of storm and tempest, the wind blowing a perfect gale, and above its mad shrieking the sullen roar of the ocean, as it beat against the shore in angry vehemence, recoiling with
wrathful force as though to gather strength for a fresh onslaught. The little town of Chester, Massachusetts, near the beach, lay wrapped in gloom and darkness. under the lowering midnight sky while the rains descended and the floods came. It was a terrible night that 10th of November. One man was destined to remember that night as long as he lived. Alone in his dingy little office, Dr. Frederick Lynn sat absorbed in the
contents of a medical journal. His grave face bent over the printed page upon which his eyes were fixed with eager interest, while the moments came and went unnoticed. He closed the journal at last with an impatient gesture, and pushed it aside. Arising slowly to his feet, a tall, dark, elderly man with a troubled, anxious expression, he went slowly over to the bright wood fire which burned upon the broad hearth, and stood
gazing down into the bed of rosy coals. The anxious look deepening in his eyes. A poor country physician, with a wife and child depending upon his exertions, he found the struggle for subsistence growing harder every day. Ugh! What a night! he muttered. I dread to start home. I believe I will wait until the storm subsides a little. Heigh-ho! flasping his hands behind his head with a weary little gesture.
If only the struggle were not quite so hard, so desperate! If only I need not slave as I do. Hard work and poor pay. It is enough to make a man discouraged. Especially a man with a wife like mine. She is always longing and wishing for fine clothes and a better home and all the luxuries that only money can supply. It drives me nearly mad at times. And there's no way of escape only to come down here to the office and lock myself in. Heavens, I wish I were rich. I would do almost
anything in the world for money. Anything. Almost. Tap, tap, tap at the outer door of the office. The entire building consisted of two rooms, a private consulting room and the office proper, which opened out upon the long, straight village street, with its sleepy-looking stores, and the great, bare, unpainted hotel, which seemed periminally empty. At sound of that unexpected summons, Dr. Lynn started in surprise.
For five long years he had occupied that office, whose weather-beaten shingle told the passers-by that Frederick Lynn, M.D., might be found within. But never before within memory had he been summoned upon a night like this. Sickness was at a discount in healthy Chester, where people usually died of old age. But as he stood there, staring vacantly about him, trying to persuade himself that it had been only a freak of the imagination, once more that ghostly tapping sounded upon the stout oaken panels of the office door. It is someone, ejaculated the astonished physician, going swiftly to the door and unbolting it.
you'd better be all night about it growled a voice from the doorstep and lynn saw before him a tall man wrapped in a long dark cloak the high collar turned up about his ears a broad-brimmed sombrero pulled down over his brows so that no feature of the face was visible save a pair of flashing dark eyes and a predominant nose dr lynn i presume queried the stranger the physician bowed i am dr lynn sir he returned simply are my services required yes wait a minute the physician stood there in the open door through which the wind swept madly nearly extinguishing the dim light of the little oil lamp upon the reading table his astonished eyes fixed upon an unwanted spectacle a closed carriage which stood without its driver enveloped in an oilskin coat sitting like a statue upon the box the stranger walked swiftly to the carriage door and opened it
a pause ensued during which dr lynn began to feel strangely uncomfortable then to his relief the stranger reappeared at the office door bearing in his arms the slight figure of a woman "'Have you any brandy or other stimulant?' he asked as he placed the limp, unresisting figure upon the old-fashioned sofa which stood in a corner. "'Certainly. Shall I administer some?' "'The lady is—ill?'
"'Very ill. Will you kindly take charge of her while I go to the hotel and make arrangements for our reception there?' "'This lady is my wife. She was taken suddenly ill on the road, and I am a stranger here.' Dr. Lynn was hurriedly searching the old-fashioned corner cupboard for Brandy and other restoratives. I will do all in my power, certainly, he returned. Have you come far?
He turned swiftly as he spoke and found that the stranger had disappeared. The physician rushed to the door and peered out into the night and storm. The carriage had disappeared also. There was no one to be seen. A strange oppression settled slowly down upon Dr. Lynn's spirits. He closed the door and went back to the fire.
The silent figure upon the sofa had neither moved nor stirred. The face was hidden from view by a thick veil. But as the doctor paused before the fire to measure some brandy into the glass in his hand, the silence of the room was broken by an unexpected sound. The cry of a little child.
With a start of surprise, Dr. Lynn hastened to the sofa and saw for the first time that the sick woman held a child in her arms. He stooped and attempted to remove it. A lovely, smiling little creature of some nine or ten months. Allow me, madam, he began gently. The babe is too heavy, and you are ill.
What is the trouble? No answer. No sound to break the silence of the stormy night. Only, off in the distance the shriek of an engine as the downed express, having halted as usual at the station, the brief pause which was considered long enough for a dead-and-alive place like Chester, dashed madly on its way once more. Dr. Lynn's eyes sought the silent recumbent form of the woman, and something in her attitude and
the strange and inexplicable silence that she maintained struck to his heart with an uneasy sensation. Madam, he repeated, venturing to lay his hand upon her shoulder, you are ill, suffering tell me where is the pain no answer something in that awful silence made his heart grow faint and cold he lifted his hand and swiftly reverently removed the veil from the woman's face with a cry of horror he recoiled from
the sight the woman was dead dead and cold and had been for hours he rushed to the door and opening it glared wildly out into the night and darkness. There was no sign of any living creature. Dr. Lynn closed the door once more and went back to the silent figure upon the sofa. The face before him was very beautiful, a woman of some five-and-twenty years. The body was attired in handsome garments, and in one hand, a beautiful white hand with a plain gold ring upon
the third finger, grasped, even in death, a tiny vial. The vial was empty, but it bore the hideous skull and crossbones, together with the significant legend, laudanum, poison. Clasped in the death-cold arms lay the child, a lovely little girl. While pinned to its dainty white slip was a folded paper addressed to Dr. Frederick Lynn. Bewildered at the strange occurrences, the physician hurriedly opened the folded paper and read these words.
Dr. Frederick Lynn, you have wished many a time for wealth. The chance to acquire a competence is now in your grasp. Keep this child and rear it as your own, and every year a sum of money sufficient for her support and that of your entire family shall be forwarded to you, on condition that you make no effort to discover the child's parents or antecedents. Should you attempt such a discovery, the remittance will cease. But remember this, she is of good family, well-born,
and legitimate. You may call her Beatrix Dane. Accompanying the letter was a crisp $1,000 bill. This was all, but surely it was enough to make the worthy physician stare in surprise. inquiry the next morning elicited the information that a strange man had suddenly appeared at the station the night previous and boarded the down express the carriage had disappeared as mysteriously as it had come no one knew whither the whole affair was shrouded in mystery the coroner's inquest resulted in the verdict of death from laudanum administered by some person unknown the body was buried away in the village graveyard and dr lynn took the infant to his humble home it was received unwillingly enough by mrs lynn a hard-featured high-tempered woman who ruled her husband and household with a rod of iron but for the sake of the money she consented reluctantly to receive the child
and so beatrix dane grew up to womanhood but before she reached her seventeenth year the remittances ceased and the black shadow of poverty brooded over the cheerless home of the lynns troubles never come singly so just at this juncture dr lynn was stricken with partial paralysis of the limbs which would render him an invalid for life all the future looked gloomy and threatening and the gaunt wolf hovered at the door of the lynn's humble home chapter one
