Doctor Grimshawe's Secret — A Romance - free ebook by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Doctor Grimshawe's Secret — A Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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To Mr. And Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop, The Son-In-Law And Daughter Of Nathaniel Hawthorne, This Romance Is Dedicated By The Editor.

To Mr. And Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop, The Son-In-Law And Daughter Of Nathaniel Hawthorne, This Romance Is Dedicated By The Editor.

CONTENTS PREFACE DOCTOR GRIMSHAWE’S SECRET CHAPTER I CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. APPENDIX A preface generally begins with a truism; and I may set out with the admission that it is not always expedient to bring to light

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JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

NEW YORK, November 21, 1882....

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CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

A long time ago, [Endnote: 1] in a town with which I used to be familiarly acquainted, there dwelt an elderly person of grim aspect, known by the name and title of Doctor Grimshawe,[Endnote: 2] whose household consisted of a remarkably pretty and vivacious boy, and a perfect rosebud of a girl, two or three years younger than he, and an old maid-of-all-work, of strangely mixed breed, crusty in temper and wonderfully sluttish in attire. [Endnote: 3] It might be partly owing to this handmaiden’s ch

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CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.

Considering that Doctor Grimshawe, when we first look upon him, had dwelt only a few years in the house by the graveyard, it is wonderful what an appearance he, and his furniture, and his cobwebs, and their unweariable spinners, and crusty old Hannah, all had of having permanently attached themselves to the locality. For a century, at least, it might be fancied that the study in particular had existed just as it was now; with those dusky festoons of spider-silk hanging along the walls, those boo

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CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.

Doctor Grimshawe, after the foregone scene, began a practice of conversing more with the children than formerly; directing his discourse chiefly to Ned, although Elsie’s vivacity and more outspoken and demonstrative character made her take quite as large a share in the conversation as he. The Doctor’s communications referred chiefly to a village, or neighborhood, or locality in England, which he chose to call Newnham; although he told the children that this was not the real name, which, for reas

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CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV.

[Endnote: 1] The children, after this conversation, often introduced the old English mansion into their dreams and little romances, which all imaginative children are continually mixing up with their lives, making the commonplace day of grown people a rich, misty, glancing orb of fairy-land to themselves. Ned, forgetting or not realizing the long lapse of time, used to fancy the true heir wandering all this while in America, and leaving a long track of bloody footsteps behind him; until the peri

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CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER V.

Doctor Grim [Endnote: 1] had the English faith in open air and daily acquaintance with the weather, whatever it might be; and it was his habit, not only to send the two children to play, for lack of a better place, in the graveyard, but to take them himself on long rambles, of which the vicinity of the town afforded a rich variety. It may be that the Doctor’s excursions had the wider scope, because both he and the children were objects of curiosity in the town, and very much the subject of its g

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CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VI.

About an hour thereafter there lay on a couch that had been hastily prepared in the study a person of singularly impressive presence: a thin, mild-looking man, with a peculiar look of delicacy and natural refinement about him, although he scarcely appeared to be technically and as to worldly position what we call a gentleman; plain in dress and simple in manner, not giving the idea of remarkable intellectual gifts, but with a kind of spiritual aspect, fair, clear complexion, gentle eyes, still s

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CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VII.

“A print of blood!” said the grim Doctor, breaking his pipe-stem by some sudden spasm in his gripe of it. “Pooh! the devil take the pipe! A very strange story that! Pray how was it?” [Endnote: 1.] “Nay, it is but a very dim legend,” answered the schoolmaster: “although there are old yellow papers and parchments, I remember, in my father’s possession, that had some reference to this man, too, though there was nothing in them about the bloody footprints. But our family legend is, that this man was

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CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

At the breakfast-table the next morning, however, appeared Doctor Grimshawe, wearing very much the same aspect of an uncombed, unshorn, unbrushed, odd sort of a pagan as at other times, and making no difference in his breakfast, except that he poured a pretty large dose of brandy into his cup of tea; a thing, however, by no means unexampled or very unusual in his history. There were also the two children, fresher than the morning itself, rosy creatures, with newly scrubbed cheeks, made over agai

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CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER IX.

The two children approached, and stood before the Doctor and his guest, the latter of whom had not hitherto taken particular notice of them. He now looked from one to the other, with the pleasant, genial expression of a person gifted with a natural liking for children, and the freemasonry requisite to bring him acquainted with them; and it lighted up his face with a pleasant surprise to see two such beautiful specimens of boyhood and girlhood in this dismal, spider-haunted house, and under the g

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CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER X.

It is very remarkable that Ned had so much good in him as we find there; in the first place, born as he seemed to be of a wild, vagrant stock, a seedling sown by the breezes, and falling among the rocks and sands; the growing up without a mother to cultivate his tenderness with kisses and the inestimable, inevitable love of love breaking out on all little occasions, without reference to merit or demerit, unfailing whether or no; mother’s faith in excellences, the buds which were yet invisible to

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CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XI.

There is—or there was, now many years ago, and a few years also it was still extant—a chamber, which when I think of, it seems to me like entering a deep recess of my own consciousness, a deep cave of my nature; so much have I thought of it and its inmate, through a considerable period of my life. After I had seen it long in fancy, then I saw it in reality, with my waking eyes; and questioned with myself whether I was really awake. Not that it was a picturesque or stately chamber; not in the lea

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CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.

A traveller with a knapsack on his shoulders comes out of the duskiness of vague, unchronicled times, throwing his shadow before him in the morning sunshine along a well-trodden, though solitary path. It was early summer, or perhaps latter spring, and the most genial weather that either spring or summer ever brought, possessing a character, indeed, as if both seasons had done their utmost to create an atmosphere and temperature most suitable for the enjoyment and exercise of life. To one accusto

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CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIII.

The patient [Endnote: 1] had a favorable night, and awoke with a much clearer head, though still considerably feverish and in a state of great exhaustion from loss of blood, which kept down the fever. The events of the preceding day shimmered as it were and shifted illusively in his recollection; nor could he yet account for the situation in which he found himself, the antique chamber, the old man of mediæval garb, nor even for the wound which seemed to have been the occasion of bringing him thi

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CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XIV.

The next day he called for his clothes, and, with the assistance of the pensioner, managed to be dressed, and awaited the arrival of the surgeon, sitting in a great easy-chair, with not much except his pale, thin cheeks, dark, thoughtful eyes, and his arm in a sling, to show the pain and danger through which he had passed. Soon after the departure of the professional gentleman, a step somewhat louder than ordinary was heard on the staircase, and in the corridor leading to the sick-chamber; the s

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CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XV.

After lunch, the Warden showed a good degree of kind anxiety about his guest, and ensconced him in a most comfortable chair in his study, where he gave him his choice of books old and new, and was somewhat surprised, as well as amused, to see that Redclyffe seemed most attracted towards a department of the library filled with books of English antiquities, and genealogies, and heraldry; the two latter, indeed, having the preference over the others. “This is very remarkable,” said he, smiling. “By

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CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVI.

On entering the old palmer’s apartment, they found him looking over some ancient papers, yellow and crabbedly written, and on one of them a large old seal, all of which he did up in a bundle and enclosed in a parchment cover, so that, before they were well in the room, the documents were removed from view. “Those papers and parchments have a fine old yellow tint, Colcord,” said the Warden, “very satisfactory to an antiquary.” “There is nothing in them,” said the old man, “of general interest. So

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CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVII.

To return from this long discussion, the Warden took kindly, as we have said, to Redclyffe, and thought him a miraculously good fellow, to have come from the rude American republic. Hitherto, in the little time that he had been in England, Redclyffe had received civil and even kind treatment from the English with whom he had come casually in contact; but still—perhaps partly from our Yankee narrowness and reserve—he had felt, in the closest coming together, as if there were a naked sword between

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CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

After the two friends had parted from the young lady, they passed through the village, and entered the park gate of Braithwaite Hall, pursuing a winding road through its beautiful scenery, which realized all that Redclyffe had read or dreamed about the perfect beauty of these sylvan creations, with the clumps of trees, or sylvan oaks, picturesquely disposed. To heighten the charm, they saw a herd of deer reposing, who, on their appearance, rose from their recumbent position, and began to gaze wa

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CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XIX.

High up in the old carved roof, meanwhile, the spiders of centuries still hung their flaunting webs with a profusion that old Doctor Grimshawe would have been ravished to see; but even this was to be remedied, for one day, on looking in, Redclyffe found the great hall dim with floating dust, and down through it came great floating masses of cobweb, out of which the old Doctor would have undertaken to regenerate the world; and he saw, dimly aloft, men on ladders sweeping away these accumulations

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CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XX.

The guests were now rapidly taking their departure, and the Warden and Redclyffe were soon left alone in the antique hall, which now, in its solitude, presented an aspect far different from the gay festivity of an hour before; the duskiness up in the carved oaken beams seemed to descend and fill the hall; and the remembrance of the feast was like one of those that had taken place centuries ago, with which this was now numbered, and growing ghostly, and faded, and sad, even as they had long been.

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CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXI.

So Redclyffe left the Hospital, where he had spent many weeks of strange and not unhappy life, and went to accept the invitation of the lord of Braithwaite Hall. It was with a thrill of strange delight, poignant almost to pain, that he found himself driving up to the door of the Hall, and actually passing the threshold of the house. He looked, as he stept over it, for the Bloody Footstep, with which the house had so long been associated in his imagination; but could nowhere see it. The footman u

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CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXII.

Lord Braithwaite came into the principal door of the library as the priest was speaking, and stood a moment just upon the threshold, looking keenly out of the stronger light into this dull and darksome apartment, as if unable to see perfectly what was within; or rather, as Redclyffe fancied, trying to discover what was passing between those two. And, indeed, as when a third person comes suddenly upon two who are talking of him, the two generally evince in their manner some consciousness of the f

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CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Redclyffe was now established in the great house which had been so long and so singularly an object of interest with him. With his customary impressibility by the influences around him, he begun to take in the circumstances, and to understand them by more subtile tokens than he could well explain to himself. There was the steward, [Endnote: 1] or whatever was his precise office; so quiet, so subdued, so nervous, so strange! What had been this man’s history? What was now the secret of his daily l

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CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXIV.

When awake [Endnote: 1], or beginning to awake, he lay for some time in a maze; not a disagreeable one, but thoughts were running to and fro in his mind, all mixed and jumbled together. Reminiscences of early days, even those that were Preadamite; referring, we mean, to those times in the almshouse, which he could not at ordinary times remember at all; but now there seemed to be visions of old women and men, and pallid girls, and little dirty boys, which could only be referred to that epoch. Als

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CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXV.

Redclyffe, apparently, had not communicated to his agent in London his change of address, when he left the Warden’s residence to avail himself of the hospitality of Braithwaite Hall; for letters arrived for him, from his own country, both private and with the seal of state upon them; one among the rest that bore on the envelope the name of the President of the United States. The good Warden was impressed with great respect for so distinguished a signature, and, not knowing but that the welfare o

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CHAP. I.

CHAP. I.

Note 1. The MS. gives the following alternative openings: “Early in the present century”; “Soon after the Revolution”; “Many years ago.” Note 2. Throughout the first four pages of the MS. the Doctor is called “Ormskirk,” and in an earlier draft of this portion of the romance, “Etheredge.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“Crusty Hannah is a mixture of Indian and negro.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“It is understood from the first that the children are not brother and sister.—Describe the children with really

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CHAP. II.

CHAP. II.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Read the whole paragraph before copying any of it.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Crusty Hannah teaches Elsie curious needlework, etc.” Note 3. These two children are described as follows in an early note of the author’s: “The boy had all the qualities fitted to excite tenderness in those who had the care of him; in the first and most evident place, on account of his personal beauty, which was very remarkable,—the most intelligent and expressive face that can be conceived, ch

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CHAP. III.

CHAP. III.

Note 1. An English church spire, evidently the prototype of this, and concerning which the same legend is told, is mentioned in the author’s “English Mote-Books.” Note 2. Leicester Hospital, in Warwick, described in “Our Old Home,” is the original of this charity. Note 3. Author’s note .—“The children find a gravestone with something like a footprint on it.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“Put into the Doctor’s character a continual enmity against somebody, breaking out in curses of which nobody can un

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CHAP. IV.

CHAP. IV.

Note 1. The Doctor’s propensity for cobwebs is amplified in the following note for an earlier and somewhat milder version of the character: “According to him, all science was to be renewed and established on a sure ground by no other means than cobwebs. The cobweb was the magic clue by which mankind was to be rescued from all its errors, and guided safely back to the right. And so he cherished spiders above all things, and kept them spinning, spinning away; the only textile factory that existed

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CHAP. V.

CHAP. V.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Make the following scene emblematic of the world’s treatment of a dissenter.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Yankee characteristics should be shown in the schoolmaster’s manners.”...

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CHAP. VI.

CHAP. VI.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“He had a sort of horror of violence, and of the strangeness that it should be done to him; this affected him more than the blow.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Jokes occasionally about the schoolmaster’s thinness and lightness,—how he might suspend himself from the spider’s web and swing, etc.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“The Doctor and the Schoolmaster should have much talk about England.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“The children were at play in the churchyard.” Note 5. Author’s n

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CHAP. VII.

CHAP. VII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Perhaps put this narratively, not as spoken.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“He was privately married to the heiress, if she were an heiress. They meant to kill him in the wood, but, by contrivance, he was kidnapped.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“They were privately married.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“Old descriptive letters, referring to localities as they existed.” Note 5. Author’s note .—“There should be symbols and tokens, hinting at the schoolmaster’s disappearance, from the f

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CHAP. VIII.

CHAP. VIII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“They had got up in remarkably good case that morning.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“The stranger may be the future master of the Hospital.—Describe the winter day.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“Describe him as clerical.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“Represent him as a refined, agreeable, genial young man, of frank, kindly, gentlemanly manners.” Note 5. Alternative reading: “A clergyman.”...

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CHAP. IX.

CHAP. IX.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Make the old grave-digger a laudator temporis acti ,—especially as to burial customs.” Note 2. Instead of “written,” as in the text, the author probably meant to write “read.” Note 3. The MS. has “delight,” but “a light” is evidently intended. Note 4. Author’s note .—“He aims a blow, perhaps with his pipe, at the boy, which Ned wards off.”...

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CHAP. X.

CHAP. X.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“No longer could play at quarter-staff with Ned.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Referring to places and people in England: the Bloody Footstep sometimes.” Note 3. In the original the following occurs, but marked to indicate that it was to be omitted: “And kissed his hand to her, and laughed feebly; and that was the last that she or anybody, the last glimpse they had of Doctor Grimshawe alive.” Note 4. Author’s notes .—“A great deal must be made out of the spiders, and their gl

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CHAP. XI.

CHAP. XI.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Compare it with Spenser’s Cave of Despair. Put instruments of suicide there.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Once, in looking at the mansion, Redclyffe is struck by the appearance of a marble inserted into the wall, and kept clear of lichens.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“Describe, in rich poetry, all shapes of deadly things.”...

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CHAP. XII.

CHAP. XII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Conferred their best qualities”: an alternative phrase for “done their utmost.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Let the old man have a beard as part of the costume.”...

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CHAP. XIII.

CHAP. XIII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Describe him as delirious, and the scene as adopted into his delirium.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Make the whole scene very dreamlike and feverish.” Note 3. Author’s note .—“There should be a slight wildness in the patient’s remark to the surgeon, which he cannot prevent, though he is conscious of it.” Note 4. Author’s note .—“Notice the peculiar depth and intelligence of his eyes, on account of his pain and sickness.” Note 5. Author’s note .—“Perhaps the recognition of t

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CHAP. XIV.

CHAP. XIV.

Note 1. This paragraph is left incomplete in the original MS. Note 2. The words “Rich old bindings” are interlined here, indicating, perhaps, a purpose to give a more detailed description of the library and its contents....

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CHAP. XV.

CHAP. XV.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“I think it shall be built of stone, however.” Note 2. This probably refers to some incident which the author intended to incorporate in the former portion of the romance, on a final revision....

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CHAP. XVI.

CHAP. XVI.

Note 1. Several passages, which are essentially reproductions of what had been previously treated, are omitted from this chapter. It belongs to an earlier version of the romance....

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CHAP. XVII.

CHAP. XVII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Redclyffe shows how to find, under the surface of the village green, an old cross.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“A circular seat around the tree.” Note 3. The reader now hears for the first time what Redclyffe recollected....

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CHAP. XVIII.

CHAP. XVIII.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“The dinner is given to the pensioners, as well as to the gentry, I think.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“For example, a story of three brothers, who had a deadly quarrel among them more than two hundred years ago for the affections of a young lady, their cousin, who gave her reciprocal love to one of them, who immediately became the object of the deadly hatred of the two others. There seemed to be madness in their love; perhaps madness in the love of all three; for the result

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CHAP. XIX.

CHAP. XIX.

Note 1. The following passage, though it seems to fit in here chronologically, is concerned with a side issue which was not followed up. The author was experimenting for a character to act as the accomplice of Lord Braithwaite at the Hall; and he makes trial of the present personage, Mountford; of an Italian priest, Father Angelo; and finally of the steward, Omskirk, who is adopted. It will be noticed that Mountford is here endowed (for the moment) with the birthright of good Doctor Hammond, the

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CHAP. XX.

CHAP. XX.

Note 1. This is not the version of the story as indicated in the earlier portion of the romance. It is there implied that Elsie is the Doctor’s granddaughter, her mother having been the Doctor’s daughter, who was ruined by the then possessor of the Braithwaite estates, and who died in consequence. That the Doctor’s scheme of revenge was far deeper and more terrible than simply to oust the family from its possessions, will appear further on. Note 2. The foregoing passage was evidently experimenta

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CHAP. XXIII.

CHAP. XXIII.

Note 1. In a study of the plot, too long to insert here, this new character of the steward is introduced and described. It must suffice to say, in this place, that he was intimately connected with Dr. Grimshawe, who had resuscitated him after he had been hanged, and had thus gained his gratitude and secured his implicit obedience to his wishes, even twenty years after his (Grimshawe’s) death. The use the Doctor made of him was to establish him in Braithwaite Hall as the perpetual confidential se

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CHAP. XXIV.

CHAP. XXIV.

Note 1. Author’s note .—“Redclyffe lies in a dreamy state, thinking fantastically, as if he were one of the seven sleepers. He does not yet open his eyes, but lies there in a maze.” Note 2. Author’s note .—“Redclyffe must look at the old man quietly and dreamily, and without surprise, for a long while.” Note 3. Presumably the true name of Doctor Grimshawe. Note 4. This mysterious prisoner, Sir Edward Redclyffe, is not, of course, the Sir Edward who founded the Hospital, but a descendant of that

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CHAP. XXV.

CHAP. XXV.

Note 1. At this point, the author, for what reason I will not venture to surmise, chooses to append this gloss: “Bubble-and-Squeak!” Note 2. Author’s note .—“They found him in the hall, about to go out.” Note 3. Elsie appears to have joined the party....

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