Winter that year had quite set in when Sainteville found itself honoured
with rather a remarkable visitor; one Signor Talcke, who descended, one
morning at the beginning of December, at the Hôtel des Princes. Though
he called himself "Signor," it seemed uncertain to what country he
owed his birth. He spoke five or six languages as a native, including
Hindustani. Signor Talcke was a professor of occult sciences; he was
a great astronomer; astrology he had at his fingers' ends. He was a
powerful mesmerist; he would foretell the events of your life by your
hands, or your fortune by the cards.
For a fee of twenty-five francs, he would attend an evening party, and
exhibit some of his powers. Amidst others who engaged him were the Miss
Bosanquets, in the Rue Lamartine. A relative of theirs, Sir George
Bosanquet, K.C.B., had come over with his wife to spend Christmas with
them. Sir George laughed at what he heard of Signor Talcke's powers of
reading the future, and said he should much like to witness a specimen
of it. So Miss Bosanquet and her sisters hastily arranged an evening
entertainment, engaged the mystical man, and invited their friends and
acquaintances, those of the Petite Maison Rouge included.
It took place on the Friday after Christmas-Day. Something that occurred
during the evening was rather remarkable. Miss Preen's diary gives a
full account of it, and that shall be transcribed here. And I, Johnny
Ludlow, take this opportunity of assuring the reader that what she
wrote was in faithful accordance with the facts of the case.
_From Miss Preen's Diary._
_Saturday morning._--I feel very tired; fit for nothing. Nancy has
undertaken to do the marketing, and is gone out for that purpose with
her husband. It is to be hoped she will be moderate, and not attempt to
buy up half the market.
I lay awake all night, after the evening at Miss Bosanquet's, thinking
how foolish Ann was to have had her "future cast," as that Italian
(if he is Italian) called it, and how worse than foolish I was to let
what he said worry me. "As if there could be anything in it!" laughed
Ann, as we were coming home; fortunately she is not as I am in
temperament--nervously anxious. "It is only nonsense," said Miss Anna
Bosanquet to me when the signor's predictions were at an end; "he will
tell some one else just the same next time." But _I_ did not think
so. Of course, one is at a loss how to trust this kind of man. Take
him for all in all, I rather like him; and he appears to believe
implicitly in what he says: or, rather, in what he tell us the cards
say.
They are charming women, these three sisters--Grace, Rose, and Anna
Bosanquet; good, considerate, high-bred ladies. I wonder how it is they
have lived to middle life without any one of them marrying? And I often
wonder how they came to take up their residence at Sainteville, for they
are very well off, and have great connections. I remember, though, Anna
once said to me that the dry, pure air of the place suited her sister
Rose, who has bad health, better than any other they had tried.
When seven o'clock struck, the hour named, Nancy and I appeared together
in the sitting-room, ready to start, for we observe punctuality at
Sainteville. I wore my black satin, handsome yet, trimmed with the rich
white lace that Mrs. Selby gave me. Nancy looked very nice and young in
her lilac silk. She wore a white rose in her hair, and her gold chain
and locket round her neck. Captain Fennel surprised us by saying he was
not going--his neuralgia had come on. I fancied it was an excuse--that
he did not wish to meet Sir George Bosanquet. He had complained of the
same thing on Christmas-Day, so it might be true. Ann and I set off
together, leaving him nursing his cheek at the table.
It was a large gathering for Sainteville--forty guests, I should think;
but the rooms are large. Professor Talcke exhibited some wonderful feats
in--what shall I call it?--necromancy?--as good a word, perhaps, as any
other. He mesmerized some people, and put one of them into a state of
clairvoyance, and her revelations took my breath away. Signor Talcke
assured us that what she said would be found minutely true. I think he
has the strangest eyes I ever saw: grey eyes, with a sort of light in
their depths. His features are fair and delicate, his voice is gentle as
a woman's, his manner retiring; Sir George seemed much taken with him.
Later, when the evening was passing, he asked if any one present would
like to have their future cast, for he had cards which would do it.
Three of his listeners pressed forward at once; two of them with gay
laughter, the other pale and awestruck. The signor went into the recess
in the small room, and sat down behind the little table there, and as
many as could crowd round to look on, did so. I don't know what passed;
there was no room for me; or whether the "Futures" he disclosed were
good or bad. I had sat on the sofa at a distance, talking with Anna
Bosanquet and Madame Carimon.
Suddenly, as we were for a moment silent, Ann's voice was heard, eager
and laughing:
"Will you tell my fortune, Signor Talcke? I should like to have mine
revealed."
"With pleasure, madame," he answered.
We got up and drew near. I felt vexed that Ann should put herself
forward in any such matter, and whispered to her; but she only shook her
curls, laughed at me, and persisted. Signor Talcke put the cards in her
hands, telling her to shuffle them.
"It is all fun, Lavinia," she whispered to me. "Did you hear him tell
Miss Peet she was going to have money left her?"
After Ann had shuffled the cards, he made her cut them into three
divisions, and he then turned them up on the table himself, faces
upwards, and laid them out in three rows. They were not like the cards
we play with; quite different from those; nearly all were picture-cards,
and the plain ones bore cabalistic characters. We stood looking on with
two or three other people; the rest had dispersed, and had gone into the
next room to listen to the singing.
At first Signor Talcke never spoke a word. He looked at the cards, and
looked at Nancy; looked, and looked again. "They are not propitious," he
said in low tones, and picked them up, and asked Nancy to shuffle and
cut them again. Then he laid them as before, and we stood waiting in
silence.
Chancing at that moment to look at Signor Talcke, his face startled me.
He was frowning at the cards in so painful a manner as to quite alter
its expression. But he did not speak. He still only gazed at the cards
with bent eyes, and glanced up at Ann occasionally. Then, with an
impatient sweep of the hand, he pushed the cards together.
"I must trouble you to shuffle and cut them once more, madame," he said.
"Shuffle them well."
"Are they still unpropitious?" asked a jesting voice at my elbow.
Turning, I saw Charley Palliser's smiling face. He must have been
standing there, and heard Signor Talcke's previous remark.
"Yes, sir, they are," replied the signor, with marked emphasis. "I never
saw the cards so unpropitious in my life."
Nancy took up the cards, shuffled them well, and cut them three times.
Signor Talcke laid them out as before, bent his head, and looked
attentively at them. He did not speak, but there was no mistaking the
vexed, pained, and puzzled look on his face.
I do not think he knew Nancy, even by name. I do not think he knew me,
or had the least notion that we were related. Neither of us had ever met
him before. He put his hand to his brow, still gazing at the cards.
"But when are you going to begin my fortune, sir?" broke in Nancy.
"I would rather not tell it at all, madame," he answered.
"_Cannot_ you tell it?--have your powers of forecasting inconveniently
run away?" said she incautiously, her tone mocking in her
disappointment.
"I could tell it, all too surely; but you might not like to hear it,"
returned he.
"Our magician has lost his divining-rod just when he needed it,"
observed a gentleman with a grey beard, a stranger to me, who was
standing opposite, speaking in a tone of ill-natured satire; and a laugh
went round.
"It is not that," said the signor, keeping his temper perfectly. "I
could tell what the cards say, all too certainly; but it would not give
satisfaction."
"Oh yes, it would," returned Nancy. "I should like to hear it, every bit
of it. Please do begin."
"The cards are dark, very dark indeed," he said; "I don't remember ever
to have seen them like it. Each time they have been turned the darkness
has increased. _Nothing_ can show worse than they do now."
"Never mind that," gaily returned Ann. "You undertook to tell my
fortune, sir; and you ought not to make excuses in the middle of it.
Let the cards be as dark as night, we must hear what they say."
He drew in his thin lips for a moment, and then spoke, his tone quiet,
calm, unemotional.
"Some great evil threatens you," he began; "you seem to be living in
the midst of it. It is not only you that it threatens; there is another
also----"
"Oh, my goodness!" interrupted Nancy, in her childish way. "I hope it
does not threaten Edwin. What _is_ the evil?--sickness?"
"Worse than that. It--is----" Signor Talcke's attention was so absorbed
by the aspect of the cards that, as it struck me, he appeared hardly to
heed what he was saying. He had a long, thin black pencil in his long,
thin fingers, and kept pointing to different cards as if in accordance
with his thoughts, but not touching them. "There is some peculiar form
of terror here," he went on. "I cannot make it out; it is very unusual.
It does not come close to you; not yet, at any rate; and it seems to
surround you. It seems to be in the house. May I ask"--quickly lifting
his eyes to Ann--"whether you are given to superstitious fears?"
"Do you mean ghosts?" cried Ann, and Charley Palliser burst out
laughing. "Not at all, sir; I don't believe in ghosts. I'm sure there
are none in our house."
Remembering my own terror in regard to the house, and the nervous fancy
of having seen Captain Fennel in it when he was miles away, a curious
impression came over me that he must surely be reading my fortune as
well as Nancy's. But I was not prepared for her next words. Truly she
has no more reticence than a child.
"My sister has a feeling that the house is lonely. She shivers when she
has to go into it after night-fall."
Signor Talcke let his hands fall on the table, and lifted his face.
Apparently, he was digesting this revelation. I do not think he knew the
"sister" was present. For my part, disliking publicity, I slipped behind
Anna Bosanquet, and stood by Charley Palliser.
"Shivers?" repeated the Italian.
"Shivers and trembles, and turns sick at having to go in," affirmed
Nancy. "So she told me when I arrived home from England."
"If a feeling of that sort assailed me, I should never go into the house
again," said the signor.
"But how could you help it, if it were your home?" she argued.
"All the same. I should regard that feeling as a warning against the
house, and never enter it. Then you are not yourself troubled with
superstitious fears?" he broke off, returning to the business in hand,
and looking at the cards. "Well--at present--it does not seem to touch
you, this curious terror which is assuredly in the house----"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Ann. "Why do you say 'at present'? Is
it to touch me later?"
"I cannot say. Each time that the cards have been spread it has
shown itself nearer to you. It is not yet very near. Apart from that
terror--or perhaps remotely connected with it--I see evil threatening
you--great evil."
"Is it in the house?"
"Yes; hovering about it. It is not only yourself it seems to threaten.
There is some one else. And it is nearer to that person than it is to
you."
"But who is that person?--man or woman?"
"It is a woman. See this ugly card," continued he, pointing with his
pencil; "it will not be got rid of, shuffle as you will; it has come
nearer to that woman each time."
The card he pointed to was more curious-looking than any other in the
pack. It was not unlike the nine of spades, but crowded with devices.
The gentleman opposite, whom I did not know, leaned forward and touched
the card with the tip of his forefinger.
"Le cercueil, n'est-ce-pas?" said he.
"My!" whispered an English lad's voice behind me. "Cercueil? that means
coffin."
"How did you know?" asked Signor Talcke of the grey-bearded man.
"I was at the Sous-Préfect's soirée on Sunday evening when you were
exhibiting. I heard you tell him in French that that was the ugliest
card in the pack: indicating death."
"Well, it is not this lady the card is pursuing," said the signor,
smiling at Ann to reassure her. "Not yet awhile, at least. And we must
all be pursued by it in our turn, whenever that shall come," he added,
bending over the cards again. "Pardon me, madame--may I ask whether
there has not been some unpleasantness in the house concerning money?"
Nancy's face turned red. "Not--exactly," she answered with hesitation.
"We are like a great many more people--not as rich as we should wish to
be."
"It does not appear to lie precisely in the want of money: but certainly
money is in some way connected with the evil," he was beginning to say,
his eyes fixed dreamily on the cards, when Ann interrupted him.
"That is too strong a word--evil. Why do you use it?"
"I use it because the evil is there. No lighter word would be
appropriate. There is some evil element pervading your house, very
grave and formidable; it is most threatening; likely to go on
to--to--darkness. I mean that it looks as if there would be some great
break-up," he corrected swiftly, as if to soften the other word.
"That the house would be broken up?" questioned Ann.
He stole a glance at her. "Something of that sort," he said carelessly.
"Do you mean that the evil comes from an enemy?" she went on.
"Assuredly."
"But we have no enemy. I'm sure we have not one in all the world."
He slightly shook his head. "You may not suspect it yet, though I should
have said"--waving the pencil thoughtfully over some of the cards--"that
he was already suspected--doubted."
Nancy took up the personal pronoun briskly. "He!--then the evil enemy
must be a man? I assure you we do not know any man likely to be our
enemy or to wish us harm. No, nor woman either. Perhaps your cards don't
tell true to-night, Signor Talcke?"
"Perhaps not, madame; we will let it be so if you will," he quietly
said, and shuffled all the cards together.
That ended the séance. As if determined not to tell any more fortunes,
the signor hurriedly put up the cards and disappeared from the recess.
Nancy did not appear to be in the least impressed.
"What a curious 'future' it was!" she exclaimed lightly to Mary Carimon.
"I might as well not have had it cast. He told me nothing."
They walked away together. I went back to the sofa and Anna Bosanquet
followed me.
"Mrs. Fennel calls it 'curious,'" I said to her. "I call it more than
that--strange; ominous. I wish I had not heard it."
"Dear Miss Preen, it is only nonsense," she answered. "He will tell some
one else the same next time." But she only so spoke to console me.
A wild wish flashed into my mind--that I should ask the man to tell
_my_ future. But had I not heard enough? Mine was blended with this of
Ann's. _I_ was the other woman whom the dark fate was more relentlessly
pursuing. There could be no doubt of that. There could be as little
doubt that it was I who already suspected the author of the "evil." What
can the "dark fate" be that we are threatened with? Debt? Will his debts
spring upon us and break up our home, and turn us out of it? Or will it
be something worse? That card which followed me meant a coffin, they
said. Ah me! Perhaps I am foolish to dwell upon such ideas. Certainly
they are more fitting for the world's dark ages than for this
enlightened nineteenth century of it.
Charley Palliser gallantly offered to see us home. I said no; as if we
were not old enough to go by ourselves; but he would come with us. As we
went along Ann began talking of the party, criticizing the dresses, and
so on. Charley seemed to be unusually silent.
"Was not mine a grand fortune?" she presently said with a laugh, as we
crossed the Place Ronde.
"Stunning," said he.
"As if there could be anything in it, you know! Does the man think we
believe him, I wonder?"
"Oh, these conjurers like to fancy they impose on us," remarked
Charley, shaking hands as we halted before the house of Madame Sauvage.
And I have had a wretched night, for somehow the thing has frightened
me. I never was superstitious; never; and I'm sure I never believed in
conjurers, as Charles had it. If I should come across Signor Talcke
again while he stays here, I would ask him---- Here comes Nancy! and
Flore behind her with the marketings. I'll put up my diary.
* * * * *
"I've bought such a lovely capon," began Nancy, as Lavinia went into the
kitchen. "Show it to madame, Flore."
It was one that even Lavinia could praise; they both understood poultry.
"It really is a beauty," said Lavinia. "And did you remember the
salsifis? And, Ann, where have you left your husband?"
"Oh, we met old Mr. Griffin, and Edwin has gone up to Drecques with him.
My opinion is, Lavinia, that that poor old Griffin dare not go about
far by himself since his attack. He had to see his landlord at Drecques
to-day, and he asked Edwin to accompany him. They went by the
eleven-o'clock train."
Lavinia felt it a relief. Even that little absence, part of a day, she
felt thankful for, so much had she grown to dislike the presence in the
house of Edwin Fennel.
"Did you tell your husband about your 'fortune' Nancy?"
"No; I was too sleepy last night to talk, and I was late in getting up
this morning. I'm not sure that I shall tell him," added Mrs. Fennel
thoughtfully; "he might be angry with me for having had it done."
"That is more than likely," replied Lavinia.
Late in the afternoon, as they were sitting together in the salon, they
saw the postman come marching up the yard. He brought two letters--one
for Miss Preen, the other for her sister.
"It is the remittance from William Selby," said Lavinia as she opened
hers. "He has sent it a day or two earlier than usual; it is not really
due until Monday or Tuesday."
Seventeen pounds ten shillings each. Nancy, in a hasty sort of manner,
put her cheque into the hands of Lavinia, almost as if she feared it
would burn her own fingers. "You had better take it from me whilst you
can," she said in low tones.
"Yes; for I must have it, Ann," was the answer. "We are in debt--as you
may readily conceive--with only half the usual amount to spend last
quarter."
"It was not my fault; I was very sorry," said Ann humbly; and she rose
hastily to go to the kitchen, saying she was thirsty, and wanted a glass
of water. But Lavinia thought she went to avoid being questioned.
Lavinia carried the two cheques to her room and locked them up. After
their five-o'clock dinner, each sister wrote a note to Colonel Selby,
enclosing her receipt. Flore took them out to post when she left. The
evening passed on. Lavinia worked; Nancy nodded over the fire: she was
very sleepy, and went to bed early.
It was past eleven o'clock when Captain Fennel came in, a little the
worse for something or other. After returning from Drecques by the last
train, he had gone home with Mr. Griffin to supper. He told Lavinia,
in words running into one another, that the jolting train had made him
giddy. Of course she believed as much of that as she liked, but did not
contradict it. He went to the cupboard in the recess, unlocked it to get
out the cognac, and then sat down with his pipe by the embers of the
dying fire. Lavinia, unasked, brought in a decanter of water, put it on
the table with a glass, and wished him good-night.
All next day Captain Fennel lay in bed with a racking headache. His wife
carried up a choice bit of the capon when they were dining after morning
service, but he could not so much as look at it. Being a fairly cautious
man as a rule, he had to pay for--for the jolting of the train.
He was better on Monday morning, but not well, still shaky, and did not
come down to breakfast. It was bitterly cold--a sort of black frost; but
Lavinia, wrapping herself up warmly, went out as soon as breakfast was
over.
Her first errand was to the bank, where she paid in the cheques and
received French money for them. Then she visited sundry shops; the
butcher's, the grocer's, and others, settling the accounts due. Last of
all, she made a call upon Madame Veuve Sauvage, and paid the rent for
the past quarter. All this left her with exactly nineteen pounds, which
was all the money she had to go on with for every purpose until the end
of March--three whole months.
Lunch was ready when she returned. Taking off her things upstairs and
locking up her cash, she went down to it. Flore had made some delicious
soupe maigre. Only those who have tried it know how good it is on a
sharp winter's day. Captain Fennel seemed to relish it much, though his
appetite had not quite come back to him, and he turned from the dish of
scrambled eggs which supplemented the soup. In the evening they went, by
appointment, to dine at Madame Carimon's, the other guests being
Monsieur Henri Dupuis with his recently married wife, and Charles
Palliser.
After dinner, over the coffee, Monsieur Henri Dupuis suddenly spoke of
the soirée at Miss Bosanquet's the previous Friday, regretting that he
and his wife had been unable to attend it. He was engaged the whole
evening with a patient dangerously ill, and his wife did not like to
appear at it without him. Nancy--Nancy!--then began to tell about the
"fortune" which had been forecast for her by Signor Talcke, thinking
possibly that her husband could not reproach her for it before company.
She was very gay over it; a proof that it had left no bad impression on
her mind.
"What's that, Nancy?" cried Captain Fennel, who had listened as if he
disbelieved his ears. "The fellow told you we had something evil in our
house?"
"Yes, he did," assented Nancy. "An evil influence, he said, which was
destined to bring forth something dark and dreadful."
"I am sorry you did not tell this before," returned the captain stiffly.
"I should have requested you not again to allude to such folly. It was
downright insolence."
"I--you--you were out on Saturday, you know, Edwin, and in bed with your
headache all Sunday; and to-day I forgot it," said Nancy in less brave
tones.
"Suppose we have a game at wholesome card-playing," interposed Mary
Carimon, bringing forth a new pack. "Open them, will you, Jules? Do
you remember, mon ami, having your fortune told once by a gipsy woman
when we were in Sir John Whitney's coppice with the two Peckham girls?
She told you you would fall into a rich inheritance and marry a
Frenchwoman."
"Neither of which agreeable promises is yet fulfilled," said little
Monsieur Carimon with his happy smile. Monsieur Carimon had heard the
account of Nancy's "forecast" from his wife; he was not himself present,
but taking a hand at whist in the card-room.
They sat down to a round game--spin. Monsieur Henri Dupuis and his
pretty young wife had never played it before, but they soon learned
it and liked it much. Both of them spoke English well; she with the
prettiest accent imaginable. Thus the evening passed, and no more
allusion was made to the fortune-telling at Miss Bosanquet's.
That was Monday. On Tuesday, Miss Preen was dispensing the coffee at
breakfast in the Petite Maison Rouge to her sister and Mr. Fennel, when
Flore came bustling in with a letter in her hand.
"Tenez, madame," she said, putting it beside Mrs. Fennel. "I laid it
down in the kitchen when the facteur brought it, whilst I was preparing
the déjeûner, and forgot it afterwards."
Before Nancy could touch the letter, her husband caught it up. He gazed
at the address, at the postmark, and turned it about to look at the
seal. The letters of gentlefolk were generally fastened with a seal in
those days: this had one in transparent bronze wax.
Mr. Fennel put the letter down with a remark peevishly uttered. "It is
not from London; it is from Buttermead."
"And from your old friend, Jane Peckham, Nancy," struck in Lavinia. "I
recognize her handwriting."
"I _am_ glad," exclaimed Nancy. "I have not heard from them for ages.
Why now--is it not odd?--that Madame Carimon should mention the Peckhams
last night, and I receive a letter from them this morning?"
"I supposed it might be from London, with your remittance," said Mr.
Fennel to his wife. "It is due, is it not?"
"Oh, that came on Saturday, Edwin," she said, as she opened her letter.
"Came on Saturday!" echoed Captain Fennel ungraciously, as if disputing
the assertion.
"By the afternoon post; you were at Drecques, you know."
"The _money_ came? _Your_ money?"
"Yes," said Nancy, who had stepped to the window to read her letter, for
it was a dark day, and stood there with her back to the room.
"And where is it?" demanded he.
"I gave it to Lavinia. I always give it to her."
Captain Fennel glared at his wife for a moment, then smoothed his face
to its ordinary placidity, and turned to Lavinia.
"Will you be good enough to hand over to me my wife's money, Miss
Preen?"
"No," she answered quietly.
"I must trouble you to do so, when breakfast shall be finished."
"I cannot," pursued Lavinia. "I have paid it away."
"That I do not believe. I claim it from you in right of my wife; and I
shall enforce the claim."
"The money is Nancy's, not yours," said Lavinia. "In consequence of your
having stopped her share last quarter in London, I was plunged here into
debt and great inconvenience. Yesterday morning I went out to settle the
debts--and it has taken the whole of her money to do it. That is the
state of things, Captain Fennel."
"I am in debt here myself," retorted he, but not angrily. "I owe money
to my tailor and bootmaker; I owe an account at the chemist's; I want
money in my pockets--and I must indeed have it."
"Not from me," returned Lavinia.
Edwin Fennel broke into a little access of temper. He dashed his
serviette on the table, strode to the window, and roughly caught his
wife by the arm. She cried out.
"How dared you hand your money to any one but me?" he asked in a low
voice of passion.
"But how are we to live if I don't give it to Lavinia for the
housekeeping?" returned Nancy, bursting into tears. "It takes all we
have; her share and mine; every farthing of it."
"Let my sister alone, Mr. Fennel," spoke up Lavinia with authority. "She
is responsible for the debts we contract in this house, just as much
as I am, and she must contribute her part to pay them. You ought to be
aware that the expenses are now increased by nearly a third; I assure
you I hardly like to face the difficulties I see before me."
"Do you suppose I can stop in the place without some loose cash to keep
me going?" he asked calmly. "Is that reasonable, Miss Lavinia?"
"And do you suppose I can keep you and Ann here without her money to
help me to do it?" she rejoined. "Perhaps the better plan will be for me
to take up my abode elsewhere, and leave the house to you and Ann to do
as you please in it."
Captain Fennel dropped his argument, returned to the table, and went on
with his breakfast. The last words had startled him. Without Lavinia,
which meant without her money, they could not live in the house at all.
Matters were partly patched up in the course of the day. Nancy came
upstairs to Lavinia, begging and praying, as if she were praying for her
life, for a little ready money for her husband--just a hundred francs.
Trembling and sobbing, she confessed that she dared not return to him
without it; she should be too frightened at his anger.
And Lavinia gave it to her.