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MAN AND MAID
BY
E. NESBIT
[Illustration: Publisher's Logo]
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
ADELPHI TERRACE
MCMVI
[_All rights reserved._]
TO
ADA BREAKELL
MY DEAREST AND OLDEST FRIEND
MAN AND MAID
By the same Author.
_Illustrated. Crown 8vo. Cloth, 6s._
The Treasure Seekers.
Five Children and It.
Nine Unlikely Tales for Children.
The Would-be-Goods.
New Treasure Seekers.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE HAUNTED INHERITANCE 1
II. THE POWER OF DARKNESS 32
III. THE STRANGER WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN OBSERVED 60
IV. RACK AND THUMBSCREW 84
V. THE MILLIONAIRESS 103
VI. THE HERMIT OF "THE YEWS" 134
VII. THE AUNT AND THE EDITOR 158
VIII. MISS MOUSE 178
IX. THE OLD WIFE 201
X. THE HOUSE OF SILENCE 224
XI. THE GIRL AT THE TOBACCONIST'S 245
XII. WHILE IT IS YET DAY 268
XIII. ALCIBIADES 287
MAN AND MAID
I
THE HAUNTED INHERITANCE
The most extraordinary thing that ever happened to me was my going back
to town on that day. I am a reasonable being; I do not do such things. I
was on a bicycling tour with another man. We were far from the mean
cares of an unremunerative profession; we were men not fettered by any
given address, any pledged date, any preconcerted route. I went to bed
weary and cheerful, fell asleep a mere animal--a tired dog after a day's
hunting--and awoke at four in the morning that creature of nerves and
fancies which is my other self, and which has driven me to all the
follies I have ever kept company with. But even that second self of
mine, whining beast and traitor as it is, has never played me such a
trick as it played then. Indeed, something in the result of that day's
rash act sets me wondering whether after all it could have been I, or
even my other self, who moved in the adventure; whether it was not
rather some power outside both of us ... but this is a speculation as
idle in me as uninteresting to you, and so enough of it.
From four to seven I lay awake, the prey of a growing detestation of
bicycling tours, friends, scenery, physical exertion, holidays. By seven
o'clock I felt that I would rather perish than spend another day in the
society of the other man--an excellent fellow, by the way, and the best
of company.
At half-past seven the post came. I saw the postman through my window as
I shaved. I went down to get my letters--there were none, naturally.
At breakfast I said: "Edmundson, my dear fellow, I am extremely sorry;
but my letters this morning compel me to return to town at once."
"But I thought," said Edmundson--then he stopped, and I saw that he had
perceived in time that this was no moment for reminding me that, having
left no address, I could have had no letters.
He looked sympathetic, and gave me what there was left of the bacon. I
suppose he thought that it was a love affair or some such folly. I let
him think so; after all, no love affair but would have seemed wise
compared with the blank idiocy of this sudden determination to cut short
a delightful holiday and go back to those dusty, stuffy rooms in Gray's
Inn.
After that first and almost pardonable lapse, Edmundson behaved
beautifully. I caught the 9.17 train, and by half-past eleven I was
climbing my dirty staircase.
I let myself in and waded through a heap of envelopes and wrappered
circulars that had drifted in through the letter-box, as dead leaves
drift into the areas of houses in squares. All the windows were shut.
Dust lay thick on everything. My laundress had evidently chosen this as
a good time for her holiday. I wondered idly where she spent it. And now
the close, musty smell of the rooms caught at my senses, and I
remembered with a positive pang the sweet scent of the earth and the
dead leaves in that wood through which, at this very moment, the
sensible and fortunate Edmundson would be riding.
The thought of dead leaves reminded me of the heap of correspondence. I
glanced through it. Only one of all those letters interested me in the
least. It was from my mother:--
"ELLIOT'S BAY, NORFOLK,
_17th August_.
"DEAR LAWRENCE,--I have wonderful news for you. Your
great-uncle Sefton has died, and left you half his immense
property. The other half is left to your second cousin Selwyn.
You must come home at once. There are heaps of letters here for
you, but I dare not send them on, as goodness only knows where
you may be. I do wish you would remember to leave an address. I
send this to your rooms, in case you have had the forethought
to instruct your charwoman to send your letters on to you. It
is a most handsome fortune, and I am too happy about your
accession to it to scold you as you deserve, but I hope this
will be a lesson to you to leave an address when next you go
away. Come home at once.--Your loving Mother,
"MARGARET SEFTON.
"_P.S._--It is the maddest will; everything divided evenly
between you two except the house and estate. The will says you
and your cousin Selwyn are to meet there on the 1st September
following his death, in presence of the family, and decide
which of you is to have the house. If you can't agree, it's to
be presented to the county for a lunatic asylum. I should think
so! He was always so eccentric. The one who doesn't have the
house, etc., gets L20,000 extra. Of course you will choose
_that_.
"_P.P.S._--Be sure to bring your under-shirts with you--the air
here is very keen of an evening."
I opened both the windows and lit a pipe. Sefton Manor, that gorgeous
old place,--I knew its picture in Hasted, cradle of our race, and so
on--and a big fortune. I hoped my cousin Selwyn would want the L20,000
more than he wanted the house. If he didn't--well, perhaps my fortune
might be large enough to increase that L20,000 to a sum that he _would_
want.
And then, suddenly, I became aware that this was the 31st of August, and
that to-morrow was the day on which I was to meet my cousin Selwyn and
"the family," and come to a decision about the house. I had never, to my
knowledge, heard of my cousin Selwyn. We were a family rich in
collateral branches. I hoped he would be a reasonable young man. Also,
I had never seen Sefton Manor House, except in a print. It occurred to
me that I would rather see the house before I saw the cousin.
I caught the next train to Sefton.
"It's but a mile by the field way," said the railway porter. "You take
the stile--the first on the left--and follow the path till you come to
the wood. Then skirt along the left of it, cater across the meadow at
the end, and you'll see the place right below you in the vale."
"It's a fine old place, I hear," said I.
"All to pieces, though," said he. "I shouldn't wonder if it cost a
couple o' hundred to put it to rights. Water coming through the roof and
all."
"But surely the owner----"
"Oh, he never lived there; not since his son was taken. He lived in the
lodge; it's on the brow of the hill looking down on the Manor House."
"Is the house empty?"
"As empty as a rotten nutshell, except for the old sticks o' furniture.
Any one who likes," added the porter, "can lie there o' nights. But it
wouldn't be me!"
"Do you mean there's a ghost?" I hope I kept any note of undue elation
out of my voice.
"I don't hold with ghosts," said the porter firmly, "but my aunt was in
service at the lodge, and there's no doubt but _something_ walks there."
"Come," I said, "this is very interesting. Can't you leave the station,
and come across to where beer is?"
"I don't mind if I do," said he. "That is so far as your standing a drop
goes. But I can't leave the station, so if you pour my beer you must
pour it dry, sir, as the saying is."
So I gave the man a shilling, and he told me about the ghost at Sefton
Manor House. Indeed, about the ghosts, for there were, it seemed, two; a
lady in white, and a gentleman in a slouch hat and black riding cloak.
"They do say," said my porter, "as how one of the young ladies once on a
time was wishful to elope, and started so to do--not getting further
than the hall door; her father, thinking it to be burglars, fired out of
the window, and the happy pair fell on the doorstep, corpses."
"Is it true, do you think?"
The porter did not know. At any rate there was a tablet in the church
to Maria Sefton and George Ballard--"and something about in their death
them not being divided."
I took the stile, I skirted the wood, I "catered" across the meadow--and
so I came out on a chalky ridge held in a net of pine roots, where dog
violets grew. Below stretched the green park, dotted with trees. The
lodge, stuccoed but solid, lay below me. Smoke came from its chimneys.
Lower still lay the Manor House--red brick with grey lichened mullions,
a house in a thousand, Elizabethan--and from its twisted beautiful
chimneys no smoke arose. I hurried across the short turf towards the
Manor House.
I had no difficulty in getting into the great garden. The bricks of the
wall were everywhere displaced or crumbling. The ivy had forced the
coping stones away; each red buttress offered a dozen spots for
foothold. I climbed the wall and found myself in a garden--oh! but such
a garden. There are not half a dozen such in England--ancient box
hedges, rosaries, fountains, yew tree avenues, bowers of clematis (now
feathery in its seeding time), great trees, grey-grown marble
balustrades and steps, terraces, green lawns, one green lawn, in
especial, girt round with a sweet briar hedge, and in the middle of
this lawn a sundial. All this was mine, or, to be more exact, might be
mine, should my cousin Selwyn prove to be a person of sense. How I
prayed that he might not be a person of taste! That he might be a person
who liked yachts or racehorses or diamonds, or motor-cars, or anything
that money can buy, not a person who liked beautiful Elizabethan houses,
and gardens old beyond belief.
The sundial stood on a mass of masonry, too low and wide to be called a
pillar. I mounted the two brick steps and leaned over to read the date
and the motto:
"Tempus fugit manet amor."
The date was 1617, the initials S. S. surmounted it. The face of the
dial was unusually ornate--a wreath of stiffly drawn roses was traced
outside the circle of the numbers. As I leaned there a sudden movement
on the other side of the pedestal compelled my attention. I leaned over
a little further to see what had rustled--a rat--a rabbit? A flash of
pink struck at my eyes. A lady in a pink dress was sitting on the step
at the other side of the sundial.
I suppose some exclamation escaped me--the lady looked up. Her hair was
dark, and her eyes; her face was pink and white, with a few little
gold-coloured freckles on nose and on cheek bones. Her dress was of pink
cotton stuff, thin and soft. She looked like a beautiful pink rose.
Our eyes met.
"I beg your pardon," said I, "I had no idea----" there I stopped and
tried to crawl back to firm ground. Graceful explanations are not best
given by one sprawling on his stomach across a sundial.
By the time I was once more on my feet she too was standing.
"It is a beautiful old place," she said gently, and, as it seemed, with
a kindly wish to relieve my embarrassment. She made a movement as if to
turn away.
"Quite a show place," said I stupidly enough, but I was still a little
embarrassed, and I wanted to say something--anything--to arrest her
departure. You have no idea how pretty she was. She had a straw hat
in her hand, dangling by soft black ribbons. Her hair was all
fluffy-soft--like a child's. "I suppose you have seen the house?" I
asked.
She paused, one foot still on the lower step of the sundial, and her
face seemed to brighten at the touch of some idea as sudden as welcome.
"Well--no," she said. "The fact is--I wanted frightfully to see the
house; in fact, I've come miles and miles on purpose, but there's no one
to let me in."
"The people at the lodge?" I suggested.
"Oh no," she said. "I--the fact is I--I don't want to be shown round. I
want to explore!"
She looked at me critically. Her eyes dwelt on my right hand, which lay
on the sundial. I have always taken reasonable care of my hands, and I
wore a good ring, a sapphire, cut with the Sefton arms: an heirloom, by
the way. Her glance at my hand preluded a longer glance at my face. Then
she shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"Oh well," she said, and it was as if she had said plainly, "I see that
you are a gentleman and a decent fellow. Why should I not look over the
house in your company? Introductions? Bah!"
All this her shrug said without ambiguity as without words.
"Perhaps," I hazarded, "I could get the keys."
"Do you really care very much for old houses?"
"I do," said I; "and you?"
"I care so much that I nearly broke into this one. I should have done it
quite if the windows had been an inch or two lower."
"I am an inch or two higher," said I, standing squarely so as to make
the most of my six-feet beside her five-feet-five or thereabouts.
"Oh--if you only would!" said she.
"Why not?" said I.
She led the way past the marble basin of the fountain, and along the
historic yew avenue, planted, like all old yew avenues, by that
industrious gardener our Eighth Henry. Then across a lawn, through a
winding, grassy, shrubbery path, that ended at a green door in the
garden wall.
"You can lift this latch with a hairpin," said she, and therewith lifted
it.
We walked into a courtyard. Young grass grew green between the grey
flags on which our steps echoed.
"This is the window," said she. "You see there's a pane broken. If you
could get on to the window-sill, you could get your hand in and undo
the hasp, and----"
"And you?"
"Oh, you'll let me in by the kitchen door."
I did it. My conscience called me a burglar--in vain. Was it not my own,
or as good as my own house?
I let her in at the back door. We walked through the big dark kitchen
where the old three-legged pot towered large on the hearth, and the old
spits and firedogs still kept their ancient place. Then through another
kitchen where red rust was making its full meal of a comparatively
modern range.
Then into the great hall, where the old armour and the buff-coats and
round-caps hang on the walls, and where the carved stone staircases run
at each side up to the gallery above.
The long tables in the middle of the hall were scored by the knives of
the many who had eaten meat there--initials and dates were cut into
them. The roof was groined, the windows low-arched.
"Oh, but what a place!" said she; "this must be much older than the rest
of it----"
"Evidently. About 1300, I should say."
"Oh, let us explore the rest," she cried; "it is really a comfort not to
have a guide, but only a person like you who just guesses comfortably at
dates. I should hate to be told _exactly_ when this hall was built."
We explored ball-room and picture gallery, white parlour and library.
Most of the rooms were furnished--all heavily, some magnificently--but
everything was dusty and faded.
It was in the white parlour, a spacious panelled room on the first
floor, that she told me the ghost story, substantially the same as my
porter's tale, only in one respect different.
"And so, just as she was leaving this very room--yes, I'm sure it's this
room, because the woman at the inn pointed out this double window and
told me so--just as the poor lovers were creeping out of the door, the
cruel father came quickly out of some dark place and killed them both.
So now they haunt it."
"It is a terrible thought," said I gravely. "How would you like to live
in a haunted house?"
"I couldn't," she said quickly.
"Nor I; it would be too----" my speech would have ended flippantly, but
for the grave set of her features.
"I wonder who _will_ live here?" she said. "The owner is just dead. They
say it is an awful house, full of ghosts. Of course one is not afraid
now"--the sunlight lay golden and soft on the dusty parquet of the
floor--"but at night, when the wind wails, and the doors creak, and the
things rustle, oh, it must be awful!"
"I hear the house has been left to two people, or rather one is to have
the house, and the other a sum of money," said I. "It's a beautiful
house, full of beautiful things, but I should think at least one of the
heirs would rather have the money."
"Oh yes, I should think so. I wonder whether the heirs know about the
ghost? The lights can be seen from the inn, you know, at twelve o'clock,
and they see the ghost in white at the window."
"Never the black one?"
"Oh yes, I suppose so."
"The ghosts don't appear together?"
"No."
"I suppose," said I, "whoever it is that manages such things knows that
the poor ghosts would like to be together, so it won't let them."
She shivered.
"Come," she said, "we have seen all over the house; let us get back into
the sunshine. Now I will go out, and you shall bolt the door after me,
and then you can come out by the window. Thank you so much for all the
trouble you have taken. It has really been quite an adventure...."
I rather liked that expression, and she hastened to spoil it.
"... Quite an adventure going all over this glorious old place, and
looking at everything one wanted to see, and not just at what the
housekeeper didn't mind one's looking at."
She passed through the door, but when I had closed it and prepared to
lock it, I found that the key was no longer in the lock. I looked on the
floor--I felt in my pockets, and at last, wandering back into the
kitchen, discovered it on the table, where I swear I never put it.
When I had fitted that key into the lock and turned it, and got out of
the window and made that fast, I dropped into the yard. No one shared
its solitude with me. I searched garden and pleasure grounds, but never
a glimpse of pink rewarded my anxious eyes. I found the sundial again,
and stretched myself along the warm brick of the wide step where she had
sat: and called myself a fool.
I had let her go. I did not know her name; I did not know where she
lived; she had been at the inn, but probably only for lunch. I should
never see her again, and certainly in that event I should never see
again such dark, soft eyes, such hair, such a contour of cheek and chin,
such a frank smile--in a word, a girl with whom it would be so
delightfully natural for me to fall in love. For all the time she had
been talking to me of architecture and archaeology, of dates and periods,
of carvings and mouldings, I had been recklessly falling in love with
the idea of falling in love with her. I had cherished and adored this
delightful possibility, and now my chance was over. Even I could not
definitely fall in love after one interview with a girl I was never to
see again! And falling in love is so pleasant! I cursed my lost chance,
and went back to the inn. I talked to the waiter.
"Yes, a lady in pink had lunched there with a party. Had gone on to the
Castle. A party from Tonbridge it was."
Barnhurst Castle is close to Sefton Manor. The inn lays itself out to
entertain persons who come in brakes and carve their names on the walls
of the Castle keep. The inn has a visitors' book. I examined it. Some
twenty feminine names. Any one might be hers. The waiter looked over my
shoulder. I turned the pages.
"Only parties staying in the house in this part of the book," said the
waiter.
My eye caught one name. "Selwyn Sefton," in a clear, round, black
hand-writing.
"Staying here?" I pointed to the name.
"Yes, sir; came to-day, sir."
"Can I have a private sitting-room?"
I had one. I ordered my dinner to be served in it, and I sat down and
considered my course of action. Should I invite my cousin Selwyn to
dinner, ply him with wine, and exact promises? Honour forbade. Should I
seek him out and try to establish friendly relations? To what end?
Then I saw from my window a young man in a light-checked suit, with a
face at once pallid and coarse. He strolled along the gravel path, and
a woman's voice in the garden called "Selwyn."
He disappeared in the direction of the voice. I don't think I ever
disliked a man so much at first sight.
"Brute," said I, "why should he have the house? He'd stucco it all over
as likely as not; perhaps let it! He'd never stand the ghosts,
either----"
Then the inexcusable, daring idea of my life came to me, striking me
rigid--a blow from my other self. It must have been a minute or two
before my muscles relaxed and my arms fell at my sides.
"I'll do it," I said.
I dined. I told the people of the house not to sit up for me. I was
going to see friends in the neighbourhood, and might stay the night with
them. I took my Inverness cape with me on my arm and my soft felt hat in
my pocket. I wore a light suit and a straw hat.
Before I started I leaned cautiously from my window. The lamp at the bow
window next to mine showed me the pallid young man, smoking a fat,
reeking cigar. I hoped he would continue to sit there smoking. His
window looked the right way; and if he didn't see what I wanted him to
see some one else in the inn would. The landlady had assured me that I
should disturb no one if I came in at half-past twelve.
"We hardly keep country hours here, sir," she said, "on account of so
much excursionist business."
I bought candles in the village, and, as I went down across the park in
the soft darkness, I turned again and again to be sure that the light
and the pallid young man were still at that window. It was now past
eleven.
I got into the house and lighted a candle, and crept through the dark
kitchens, whose windows, I knew, did not look towards the inn. When I
came to the hall I blew out my candle. I dared not show light
prematurely, and in the unhaunted part of the house.
I gave myself a nasty knock against one of the long tables, but it
helped me to get my bearings, and presently I laid my hand on the stone
balustrade of the great staircase. You would hardly believe me if I were
to tell you truly of my sensations as I began to go up these stairs. I
am not a coward--at least, I had never thought so till then--but the
absolute darkness unnerved me. I had to go slowly, or I should have lost
my head and blundered up the stairs three at a time, so strong was the
feeling of something--something uncanny--just behind me.
I set my teeth. I reached the top of the stairs, felt along the walls,
and after a false start, which landed me in the great picture gallery, I
found the white parlour, entered it, closed the door, and felt my way to
a little room without a window, which we had decided must have been a
powdering-room.
Here I ventured to re-light my candle.
The white parlour, I remembered, was fully furnished. Returning to it I
struck one match, and by its flash determined the way to the
mantelpiece.
Then I closed the powdering-room door behind me. I felt my way to the
mantelpiece and took down the two brass twenty-lighted candelabra. I
placed these on a table a yard or two from the window, and in them set
up my candles. It is astonishingly difficult in the dark to do anything,
even a thing so simple as the setting up of a candle.
Then I went back into my little room, put on the Inverness cape and the
slouch hat, and looked at my watch. Eleven-thirty. I must wait. I sat
down and waited. I thought how rich I was--the thought fell flat; I
wanted this house. I thought of my beautiful pink lady; but I put that
thought aside; I had an inward consciousness that my conduct, more
heroic than enough in one sense, would seem mean and crafty in her eyes.
Only ten minutes had passed. I could not wait till twelve. The chill of
the night and of the damp, unused house, and, perhaps, some less
material influence, made me shiver.
I opened the door, crept on hands and knees to the table, and, carefully
keeping myself below the level of the window, I reached up a trembling
arm, and lighted, one by one, my forty candles. The room was a blaze of
light. My courage came back to me with the retreat of the darkness. I
was far too excited to know what a fool I was making of myself. I rose
boldly, and struck an attitude over against the window, where the
candle-light shone upon as well as behind me. My Inverness was flung
jauntily over my shoulder, my soft, black felt twisted and slouched over
my eyes.
There I stood for the world, and particularly for my cousin Selwyn, to
see, the very image of the ghost that haunted that chamber. And from my
window I could see the light in that other window, and indistinctly the
lounging figure there. Oh, my cousin Selwyn, I wished many things to
your address in that moment! For it was only a moment that I had to feel
brave and daring in. Then I heard, deep down in the house, a sound, very
slight, very faint. Then came silence. I drew a deep breath. The silence
endured. And I stood by my lighted window.
After a very long time, as it seemed, I heard a board crack, and then a
soft rustling sound that drew near and seemed to pause outside the very
door of my parlour.
Again I held my breath, and now I thought of the most horrible story Poe
ever wrote--"The Fall of the House of Usher"--and I fancied I saw the
handle of that door move. I fixed my eyes on it. The fancy passed: and
returned.
Then again there was silence. And then the door opened with a soft,
silent suddenness, and I saw in the doorway a figure in trailing white.
Its eyes blazed in a death-white face. It made two ghostly, gliding
steps forward, and my heart stood still. I had not thought it possible
for a man to experience so sharp a pang of sheer terror. I had
masqueraded as one of the ghosts in this accursed house. Well, the other
ghost--the real one--had come to meet me. I do not like to dwell on that
moment. The only thing which it pleases me to remember is that I did not
scream or go mad. I think I stood on the verge of both.
The ghost, I say, took two steps forward; then it threw up its arms, the
lighted taper it carried fell on the floor, and it reeled back against
the door with its arms across its face.
The fall of the candle woke me as from a nightmare. It fell solidly, and
rolled away under the table.
I perceived that my ghost was human. I cried incoherently: "Don't, for
Heaven's sake--it's all right."
The ghost dropped its hands and turned agonised eyes on me. I tore off
my cloak and hat.
"I--didn't--scream," she said, and with that I sprang forward and caught
her in my arms--my poor, pink lady--white now as a white rose.
I carried her into the powdering-room, and left one candle with her,
extinguishing the others hastily, for now I saw what in my extravagant
folly had escaped me before, that my ghost exhibition might bring the
whole village down on the house. I tore down the long corridor and
double locked the doors leading from it to the staircase, then back to
the powdering-room and the prone white rose. How, in the madness of that
night's folly, I had thought to bring a brandy-flask passes my
understanding. But I had done it. Now I rubbed her hands with the
spirit. I rubbed her temples, I tried to force it between her lips, and
at last she sighed and opened her eyes.
"Oh--thank God--thank God!" I cried, for indeed I had almost feared that
my mad trick had killed her. "Are you better? oh, poor little lady, are
you better?"
She moved her head a little on my arm.
Again she sighed, and her eyes closed. I gave her more brandy. She took
it, choked, raised herself against my shoulder.
"I'm all right now," she said faintly. "It served me right. How silly it
all is!" Then she began to laugh, and then she began to cry.
It was at this moment that we heard voices on the terrace below. She
clutched at my arm in a frenzy of terror, the bright tears glistening on
her cheeks.
"Oh! not any more, not any more," she cried. "I can't bear it."
"Hush," I said, taking her hands strongly in mine. "I've played the
fool; so have you. We must play the man now. The people in the village
have seen the lights--that's all. They think we're burglars. They can't
get in. Keep quiet, and they'll go away."
But when they did go away they left the local constable on guard. He
kept guard like a man till daylight began to creep over the hill, and
then he crawled into the hayloft and fell asleep, small blame to him.
But through those long hours I sat beside her and held her hand. At
first she clung to me as a frightened child clings, and her tears were
the prettiest, saddest things to see. As we grew calmer we talked.
"I did it to frighten my cousin," I owned. "I meant to have told you
to-day, I mean yesterday, only you went away. I am Lawrence Sefton, and
the place is to go either to me or to my cousin Selwyn. And I wanted to
frighten him off it. But you, why did you----?"
Even then I couldn't see. She looked at me.
"I don't know how I ever could have thought I was brave enough to do it,
but I did want the house so, and I wanted to frighten you----"
"To frighten _me_. Why?"
"Because I am your cousin Selwyn," she said, hiding her face in her
hands.
"And you knew me?" I asked.
"By your ring," she said. "I saw your father wear it when I was a little
girl. Can't we get back to the inn now?"
"Not unless you want every one to know how silly we have been."
"I wish you'd forgive me," she said when we had talked awhile, and she
had even laughed at the description of the pallid young man on whom I
had bestowed, in my mind, her name.
"The wrong is mutual," I said; "we will exchange forgivenesses."
"Oh, but it isn't," she said eagerly. "Because I knew it was you, and
you didn't know it was me: you wouldn't have tried to frighten _me_."
"You know I wouldn't." My voice was tenderer than I meant it to be.
She was silent.
"And who is to have the house?" she said.
"Why you, of course."
"I never will."
"Why?"
"Oh, because!"
"Can't we put off the decision?" I asked.
"Impossible. We must decide to-morrow--to-day I mean."
"Well, when we meet to-morrow--I mean to-day--with lawyers and chaperones
and mothers and relations, give me one word alone with you."
"Yes," she answered, with docility.
* * * * *
"Do you know," she said presently, "I can never respect myself again? To
undertake a thing like that, and then be so horribly frightened. Oh! I
thought you really _were_ the other ghost."
"I will tell you a secret," said I. "I thought _you_ were, and I was
much more frightened than you."
"Oh well," she said, leaning against my shoulder as a tired child might
have done, "if you were frightened too, Cousin Lawrence, I don't mind so
very, very much."
It was soon afterwards that, cautiously looking out of the parlour
window for the twentieth time, I had the happiness of seeing the local
policeman disappear into the stable rubbing his eyes.
We got out of the window on the other side of the house, and went back
to the inn across the dewy park. The French window of the sitting-room
which had let her out let us both in. No one was stirring, so no one
save she and I were any the wiser as to that night's work.
* * * * *
It was like a garden party next day, when lawyers and executors and
aunts and relations met on the terrace in front of Sefton Manor House.
Her eyes were downcast. She followed her Aunt demurely over the house
and the grounds.
"Your decision," said my great-uncle's solicitor, "has to be given
within the hour."
"My cousin and I will announce it within that time," I said and I at
once gave her my arm.
Arrived at the sundial we stopped.
"This is my proposal," I said: "we will say that we decide that the
house is yours--we will spend the L20,000 in restoring it and the
grounds. By the time that's done we can decide who is to have it."
"But how?"
"Oh, we'll draw lots, or toss a halfpenny, or anything you like."
"I'd rather decide now," she said; "_you_ take it."
"No, _you_ shall."
"I'd rather you had it. I--I don't feel so greedy as I did yesterday,"
she said.
"Neither do I. Or at any rate not in the same way."
"Do--do take the house," she said very earnestly.
Then I said: "My cousin Selwyn, unless you take the house, I shall make
you an offer of marriage."
"_Oh!_" she breathed.
"And when you have declined it, on the very proper ground of our too
slight acquaintance, I will take my turn at declining. I will decline
the house. Then, if you are obdurate, it will become an asylum. Don't be
obdurate. Pretend to take the house and----"
She looked at me rather piteously.
"Very well," she said, "I will pretend to take the house, and when it is
restored----"
"We'll spin the penny."
So before the waiting relations the house was adjudged to my cousin
Selwyn. When the restoration was complete I met Selwyn at the sundial.
We had met there often in the course of the restoration, in which
business we both took an extravagant interest.
"Now," I said, "we'll spin the penny. Heads you take the house, tails it
comes to me."
I spun the coin--it fell on the brick steps of the sundial, and stuck
upright there, wedged between two bricks. She laughed; I laughed.
"It's not _my_ house," I said.
"It's not _my_ house," said she.
"Dear," said I, and we were neither of us laughing then, "can't it be
_our_ house?"
And, thank God, our house it is.
II
THE POWER OF DARKNESS
It was an enthusiastic send-off. Half the students from her Atelier were
there, and twice as many more from other studios. She had been the belle
of the Artists' Quarter in Montparnasse for three golden months. Now she
was off to the Riviera to meet her people, and every one she knew was at
the Gare de Lyons to catch the pretty last glimpse of her. And, as had
been more than once said late of an evening, "to see her was to love
her." She was one of those agitating blondes, with the naturally rippled
hair, the rounded rose-leaf cheeks, the large violet-blue eyes that look
all things and mean Heaven alone knows how little. She held her court
like a queen, leaning out of the carriage window and receiving bouquets,
books, journals, long last words, and last longing looks. All eyes were
on her, and her eyes were for all--and her smile. For all but one, that
is. Not a single glance went Edward's way, and Edward, tall, lean,
gaunt, with big eyes, straight nose, and mouth somewhat too small, too
beautiful, seemed to grow thinner and paler before one's eyes. One pair
of eyes at least saw the miracle worked, the paling of what had seemed
absolute pallor, the revelation of the bones of a face that seemed
already covered but by the thinnest possible veil of flesh.
And the man whose eyes saw this rejoiced, for he loved her, like the
rest, or not like the rest; and he had had Edward's face before him for
the last month, in that secret shrine where we set the loved and the
hated, the shrine that is lighted by a million lamps kindled at the
soul's flame, the shrine that leaps into dazzling glow when the candles
are out and one lies alone on hot pillows to outface the night and the
light as best one may.
"Oh, good-bye, good-bye, all of you," said Rose. "I shall miss you--oh,
you don't know how I shall miss you all!"
She gathered the glances of her friends and her worshippers on her own
glance, as one gathers jewels on a silken string. The eyes of Edward
alone seemed to escape her.
"Em voiture, messieurs et dames."
Folk drew back from the train. There was a whistle. And then at the very
last little moment of all, as the train pulled itself together for the
start, her eyes met Edward's eyes. And the other man saw the meeting,
and he knew--which was more than Edward did.
So, when the light of life having been borne away in the retreating
train, the broken-hearted group dispersed, the other man, whose name by
the way was Vincent, linked his arm in Edward's and asked cheerily:
"Whither away, sweet nymph?"
"I'm off home," said Edward. "The 7.20 to Calais."
"Sick of Paris?"
"One has to see one's people sometimes, don't you know, hang it all!"
was Edward's way of expressing the longing that tore him for the old
house among the brown woods of Kent.
"No attraction here now, eh?"
"The chief attraction has gone, certainly," Edward made himself say.
"But there are as good fish in the sea----?"
"Fishing isn't my trade," said Edward.
"The beautiful Rose!----" said Vincent.
Edward raised hurriedly the only shield he could find. It happened to be
the truth as he saw it.
"Oh," he said, "of course, we're all in love with her--and all
hopelessly."
Vincent perceived that this was truth, as Edward saw it.
"What are you going to do till your train goes?" he asked.
"I don't know. Cafe, I suppose, and a vilely early dinner."
"Let's look in at the Musee Grevin," said Vincent.
The two were friends. They had been school-fellows, and this is a link
that survives many a strain too strong to be resisted by more intimate
and vital bonds. And they were fellow-students, though that counts for
little or much--as you take it. Besides, Vincent knew something about
Edward that no one else of their age and standing even guessed. He knew
that Edward was afraid of the dark, and why. He had found it out that
Christmas that the two had spent at an English country house. The house
was full: there was a dance. There were to be theatricals. Early in the
new year the hostess meant to "move house" to an old convent, built in
Tudor times, a beautiful place with terraces and clipped yew trees,
castellated battlements, a moat, swans, and a ghost story.
"You boys," she said, "must put up with a shake-down in the new house. I
hope the ghost won't worry you. She's a nun with a bunch of keys and no
eyes. Comes and breathes softly on the back of your neck when you're
shaving. Then you see her in the glass, and, as often as not, you cut
your throat." She laughed. So did Edward and Vincent, and the other
young men; there were seven or eight of them.
But that night, when sparse candles had lighted "the boys" to their
rooms, when the last pipe had been smoked, the last good-night said,
there came a fumbling with the handle of Vincent's door. Edward entered
an unwieldy figure clasping pillows, trailing blankets.
"What the deuce?" queried Vincent in natural amazement.
"I'll turn in here on the floor, if you don't mind," said Edward. "I
know it's beastly rot, but I can't stand it. The room they've put me
into, it's an attic as big as a barn--and there's a great door at the
end, eight feet high--raw oak it is--and it leads into a sort of
horror-hole--bare beams and rafters, and black as Hell. I know I'm an
abject duffer, but there it is--I can't face it."
Vincent was sympathetic, though he had never known a night-terror that
could not be exorcised by pipe, book, and candle.
"I know, old chap. There's no reasoning about these things," said he,
and so on.
"You can't despise me more than I despise myself," Edward said. "I feel
a crawling hound. But it is so. I had a scare when I was a kid, and it
seems to have left a sort of brand on me. I'm branded 'coward,' old man,
and the feel of it's not nice."
Again Vincent was sympathetic, and the poor little tale came out. How
Edward, eight years old, and greedy as became his little years, had
sneaked down, night-clad, to pick among the outcomings of a
dinner-party, and how, in the hall, dark with the light of an "artistic"
coloured glass lantern, a white figure had suddenly faced him--leaned
towards him it seemed, pointed lead-white hands at his heart. That next
day, finding him weak from his fainting fit, had shown the horror to be
but a statue, a new purchase of his father's, had mattered not one
whit.
Edward had shared Vincent's room, and Vincent, alone of all men, shared
Edward's secret.
And now, in Paris, Rose speeding away towards Cannes, Vincent said:
"Let's look in at the Musee Grevin."
The Musee Grevin is a wax-work show. Your mind, at the word, flies
instantly to the excellent exhibition founded by the worthy Madame
Tussaud, and you think you know what wax-works mean. But you are wrong.
The exhibition of Madame Tussaud--in these days, at any rate--is the
work of _bourgeois_ for a _bourgeois_ class. The Musee Grevin contains
the work of artists for a nation of artists. Wax, modelled and retouched
till it seems as near life as death is: this is what one sees at the
Musee Grevin.
"Let's look in at the Musee Grevin," said Vincent. He remembered the
pleasant thrill the Musee had given him, and wondered what sort of a
thrill it would give his friend.
"I hate museums," said Edward.
"This isn't a museum," Vincent said, and truly; "it's just wax-works."
"All right," said Edward indifferently. And they went. They reached the
doors of the Musee in the grey-brown dusk of a February evening.
One walks along a bare, narrow corridor, much like the entrance to the
stalls of the Standard Theatre, and such daylight as there may be fades
away behind one, and one finds oneself in a square hall, heavily
decorated, and displaying with its electric lights Loie Fuller in her
accordion-pleated skirts, and one or two other figures not designed to
quicken the pulse.
"It's very like Madame Tussaud's," said Edward.
"Yes," Vincent said; "isn't it?"
Then they passed through an arch, and behold, a long room with waxen
groups life-like behind glass--the _coulisses_ of the Opera, Kitchener
at Fashoda--this last with a desert background lit by something
convincingly like desert sunlight.
"By Jove!" said Edward, "that's jolly good."
"Yes," said Vincent again; "isn't it?"
Edward's interest grew. The things were so convincing, so very nearly
alive. Given the right angle, their glass eyes met one's own, and
seemed to exchange with one meaning glances.
Vincent led the way to an arched door labelled: "Gallerie de la
Revolution."
There one saw, almost in the living, suffering body, poor Marie
Antoinette in prison in the Temple, her little son on his couch of rags,
the rats eating from his platter, the brutal Simon calling to him from
the grated window; one almost heard the words, "Ho la, little Capet--are
you asleep?"
One saw Marat bleeding in his bath--the brave Charlotte eyeing him--the
very tiles of the bath-room, the glass of the windows with, outside, the
very sunlight, as it seemed, of 1793 on that "yellow July evening, the
thirteenth of the month."
The spectators did not move in a public place among wax-work figures.
They peeped through open doors into rooms where history seemed to be
re-lived. The rooms were lighted each by its own sun, or lamp, or
candle. The spectators walked among shadows that might have oppressed a
nervous person.
"Fine, eh?" said Vincent.
"Yes," said Edward; "it's wonderful."
A turn of a corner brought them to a room. Marie Antoinette fainting,
supported by her ladies; poor fat Louis by the window looking literally
sick.
"What's the matter with them all?" said Edward.
"Look at the window," said Vincent.
There was a window to the room. Outside was sunshine--the sunshine of
1792--and, gleaming in it, blonde hair flowing, red mouth half open,
what seemed the just-severed head of a beautiful woman. It was raised on
a pike, so that it seemed to be looking in at the window.
"I say!" said Edward, and the head on the pike seemed to sway before his
eyes.
"Madame de Lamballe. Good thing, isn't it?" said Vincent.
"It's altogether too much of a good thing," said Edward. "Look
here--I've had enough of this."
"Oh, you must just see the Catacombs," said Vincent; "nothing bloody,
you know. Only Early Christians being married and baptized, and all
that."
He led the way, down some clumsy steps to the cellars which the genius
of a great artist has transformed into the exact semblance of the old
Catacombs at Rome. The same rough hewing of rock, the same sacred
tokens engraved strongly and simply; and among the arches of these
subterranean burrowings the life of the Early Christians, their
sacraments, their joys, their sorrows--all expressed in groups of
wax-work as like life as Death is.
"But this is very fine, you know," said Edward, getting his breath again
after Madame de Lamballe, and his imagination loved the thought of the
noble sufferings and refrainings of these first lovers of the Crucified
Christ.
"Yes," said Vincent for the third time; "isn't it?"
They passed the baptism and the burying and the marriage. The tableaux
were sufficiently lighted, but little light strayed to the narrow
passage where the two men walked, and the darkness seemed to press,
tangible as a bodily presence, against Edward's shoulder. He glanced
backward.
"Come," he said, "I've had enough."
"Come on, then," said Vincent.
They turned the corner--and a blaze of Italian sunlight struck at their
eyes with positive dazzlement. There lay the Coliseum--tier on tier of
eager faces under the blue sky of Italy. They were level with the
arena. In the arena were crosses; from them drooped bleeding figures. On
the sand beasts prowled, bodies lay. They saw it all through bars. They
seemed to be in the place where the chosen victims waited their turn,
waited for the lions and the crosses, the palm and the crown. Close by
Edward was a group--an old man, a woman--children. He could have touched
them with his hand. The woman and the man stared in an agony of terror
straight in the eyes of a snarling tiger, ten feet long, that stood up
on its hind feet and clawed through the bars at them. The youngest
child, only, unconscious of the horror, laughed in the very face of it.
Roman soldiers, unmoved in military vigilance, guarded the group of
martyrs. In a low cage to the left more wild beasts cringed and seemed
to growl, unfed. Within the grating on the wide circle of yellow sand
lions and tigers drank the blood of Christians. Close against the bars a
great lion sucked the chest of a corpse on whose blood-stained face the
horror of the death-agony was printed plain.
"Good God!" said Edward. Vincent took his arm suddenly, and he started
with what was almost a shriek.
"What a nervous chap you are!" said Vincent complacently, as they
regained the street where the lights were, and the sound of voices and
the movement of live human beings--all that warms and awakens nerves
almost paralysed by the life in death of waxen immobility.
"I don't know," said Edward. "Let's have a vermouth, shall we? There's
something uncanny about those wax things. They're like life--but they're
much more like death. Suppose they moved? I don't feel at all sure that
they don't move, when the lights are all out, and there's no one there."
He laughed. "I suppose you were never frightened, Vincent?"
"Yes, I was once," said Vincent, sipping his absinthe. "Three other men
and I were taking turns by twos to watch a dead man. It was a fancy of
his mother's. Our time was up, and the other watch hadn't come. So my
chap--the one who was watching with me, I mean--went to fetch them. I
didn't think I should mind. But it was just like you say."
"How?"
"Why, I kept thinking: suppose it should move--it was so like life. And
if it did move, of course it would have been because it _was_ alive,
and I ought to have been glad, because the man was my friend. But all
the same, if it had moved I should have gone mad."
"Yes," said Edward; "that's just exactly it."
Vincent called for a second absinthe.
"But a dead body's different to wax-works," he said. "I can't understand
any one being frightened of _them_."
"Oh, can't you?" The contempt in the other's tone stung him. "I bet you
wouldn't spend a night alone in that place."
"I bet you five pounds I do!"
"Done!" said Edward briskly. "At least, I would if you'd got five
pounds."
"But I have. I'm simply rolling. I've sold my Dejanira, didn't you know?
I shall win your money, though, anyway. But _you_ couldn't do it, old
man. I suppose you'll never outgrow that childish scare."
"You might shut up about that," said Edward shortly.
"Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of; some women are afraid of mice or
spiders. I say, does Rose know you're a coward?"
"Vincent!"
"No offence, old boy. One may as well call a spade a spade. Of course,
you've got tons of moral courage, and all that. But you _are_ afraid of
the dark--and wax-works!"
"Are you trying to quarrel with me?"
"Heaven in its mercy forbid; but I bet _you_ wouldn't spend a night in
the Musee Grevin and keep your senses."
"What's the stake?"
"Anything you like."
"Make it, that if I do, you'll never speak to Rose again--and what's
more, that you'll never speak to me," said Edward, white-hot, knocking
down a chair as he rose.
"Done!" said Vincent; "but you'll never do it. Keep your hair on.
Besides, you're off home."
"I shall be back in ten days. I'll do it then," said Edward, and was off
before the other could answer.
Then Vincent, left alone, sat still, and over his third absinthe
remembered how, before she had known Edward, Rose had smiled on him;
more than on the others, he had thought. He thought of her wide, lovely
eyes, her wild-rose cheeks, the scented curves of her hair, and then and
there the devil entered into him.
In ten days Edward would undoubtedly try to win his wager. He would try
to spend the night in the Musee Grevin. Perhaps something could be
arranged before that. If one knew the place thoroughly! A little scare
would serve Edward right for being the man to whom that last glance of
Rose's had been given.