looking up, I saw Chlorine, a pale, slight form, standing framed in the
archway which connected the two rooms.
'Go back to your piano, my child,' said the baronet; 'Augustus and I
have much to talk about which is not for your ears.'
'But why not?' she said; 'oh, why not? Papa! dearest mother! Augustus! I
can bear it no longer! I have often felt of late that we are living this
strange life under the shadow of some fearful Thing, which would chase
all cheerfulness from any home. More than this I did not seek to know; I
dared not ask. But now, when I know that Augustus, whom I love with my
whole heart, must shortly face this ghastly presence, you cannot wonder
if I seek to learn the real extent of the danger that awaits him! Tell
me all. I can bear the worst--for it cannot be more horrible than my own
fears!'
Lady Catafalque had roused herself and was wringing her long mittened
hands and moaning feebly. 'Paul,' she said, 'you must not tell her; it
will kill her; she is not strong!' Her husband seemed undecided, and I
myself began to feel exquisitely uncomfortable. Chlorine's words pointed
to something infinitely more terrible than a mere solicitor.
'Poor girl,' said Sir Paul at last, 'it was for your own good that the
whole truth has been thus concealed from you; but now, perhaps, the time
has come when the truest kindness will be to reveal all. What do _you_
say, Augustus?'
'I--I agree with you,' I replied faintly; 'she ought to be told.'
'Precisely!' he said. 'Break to her, then, the nature of the ordeal
which lies before you.'
It was the very thing which I wanted to be broken to _me_! I would have
given the world to know all about it myself, and so I stared at his
gloomy old face with eyes that must have betrayed my helpless dismay. At
last I saved myself by suggesting that such a story would come less
harshly from a parent's lips.
'Well, so be it,' he said. 'Chlorine, compose yourself, dearest one; sit
down there, and summon up all your fortitude to hear what I am about to
tell you. You must know, then--I think you had better let your mother
give you a cup of tea before I begin; it will steady your nerves.'
During the delay which followed--for Sir Paul did not consider his
daughter sufficiently fortified until she had taken at least three
cups--I suffered tortures of suspense, which I dared not betray.
They never thought of offering _me_ any tea, though the merest observer
might have noticed how very badly I wanted it.
At last the baronet was satisfied, and not without a sort of gloomy
enjoyment and a proud relish of the distinction implied in his
exceptional affliction, he began his weird and almost incredible tale.
'It is now,' said he, 'some centuries since our ill-fated house was
first afflicted with the family curse which still attends it. A certain
Humfrey de Catafalque, by his acquaintance with the black art, as it
was said, had procured the services of a species of familiar, a dread
and supernatural being. For some reason he had conceived a bitter enmity
towards his nearest relations, whom he hated with a virulence that not
even death could soften. For, by a refinement of malice, he bequeathed
this baleful thing to his descendants for ever, as an inalienable
heirloom! And to this day it follows the title--and the head of the
family for the time being is bound to provide it with a secret apartment
under his own roof. But that is not the worst: as each member of our
house succeeds to the ancestral rank and honours, he must seek an
interview with 'The Curse,' as it has been styled for generations. And,
in that interview, it is decided whether the spell is to be broken and
the Curse depart from us for ever--or whether it is to continue its
blighting influence, and hold yet another life in miserable thraldom.'
'And are you one of its thralls then, papa?' faltered Chlorine.
'I am, indeed,' he said. 'I failed to quell it, as every Catafalque,
however brave and resolute, has failed yet. It checks all my accounts,
and woe to me if that cold, withering eye discovers the slightest
error--even in the pence column! I could not describe the extent of my
bondage to you, my daughter, or the humiliation of having to go and
tremble monthly before that awful presence. Not even yet, old as I am,
have I grown quite accustomed to it!'
Never, in my wildest imaginings, had I anticipated anything one quarter
so dreadful as _this_; but still I clung to the hope that it was
impossible to bring _me_ into the affair.
'But, Sir Paul,' I said--'Sir Paul, you--you mustn't stop there, or
you'll alarm Chlorine more than there's any need to do. She--ha,
ha!--don't you see, she has got some idea into her head that _I_ have to
go through much the same sort of thing. Just explain that to her. _I'm_
not a Catafalque, Chlorine, so it--it can't interfere with me. That is
so, _isn't_ it, Sir Paul? Good heavens, sir, don't torture her like
this!' I cried, as he was silent. 'Speak out!'
'You mean well, Augustus,' he said, 'but the time for deceiving her has
gone by; she must know the worst. Yes, my poor child,' he continued to
Chlorine, whose eyes were wide with terror--though I fancy mine were
even wider--'unhappily, though our beloved Augustus is not a Catafalque
himself, he has of his own free will brought himself within the
influence of the Curse, and he, too, at the appointed hour, must keep
the awful assignation, and brave all that the most fiendish malevolence
can do to shake his resolution.'
I could not say a single word; the horror of the idea was altogether too
much for me, and I fell back on my chair in a state of speechless
collapse.
'You see,' Sir Paul went on explaining, 'it is not only all new
baronets, but every one who would seek an alliance with the females of
our race, who must, by the terms of that strange bequest, also undergo
this trial. It may be in some degree owing to this necessity that, ever
since Humfrey de Catafalque's diabolical testament first took effect,
every maiden of our House has died a spinster.' (Here Chlorine hid her
face with a low wail.) 'In 1770, it is true, one solitary suitor was
emboldened by love and daring to face the ordeal. He went calmly and
resolutely to the chamber where the Curse was then lodged, and the next
morning they found him outside the door--a gibbering maniac!'
I writhed on my chair. 'Augustus!' cried Chlorine wildly, 'promise me
you will not permit the Curse to turn you into a gibbering maniac. I
think if I saw you gibber I should die!'
I was on the verge of gibbering then; I dared not trust myself to speak.
'Nay, Chlorine,' said Sir Paul more cheerfully, 'there is no cause for
alarm; all has been made smooth for Augustus.' (I began to brighten a
little at this.) 'His Aunt Petronia had made a special study of the
old-world science of incantation, and had undoubtedly succeeded at last
in discovering the master-word which, employed according to her
directions, would almost certainly break the unhallowed spell. In her
compassionate attachment to us, she formed the design of persuading a
youth of blameless life and antecedents to present himself as our
champion, and the reports she had been given of our dear Augustus'
irreproachable character led her to select him as a likely instrument.
And her confidence in his generosity and courage was indeed
well-founded, for he responded at once to the appeal of his departed
aunt, and, with her instructions for his safeguard, and the
consciousness of his virtue as an additional protection, there is hope,
my child, strong hope, that, though the struggle may be a long and
bitter one, yet Augustus will emerge a victor!'
I saw very little ground for expecting to emerge as anything of the
kind, or for that matter to emerge at all, except in instalments,--for
the master-word which was to abash the demon was probably inside the
packet of instructions, and that was certainly somewhere at the bottom
of the sea, outside Melbourne, fathoms below the surface.
I could bear no more. 'It's simply astonishing to me,' I said, 'that in
the nineteenth century, hardly six miles from Charing Cross, you can
calmly allow this hideous "Curse," or whatever you call it, to have
things all its own way like this.'
'What can I do, Augustus?' he asked helplessly.
'Do? _Anything!_' I retorted wildly (for I scarcely knew what I said).
'Take it out for an airing (it must want an airing by this time); take
it out--and lose it! Or get both the archbishops to step in and lay it
for you. Sell the house, and make the purchaser take it at a valuation,
with the other fixtures. I certainly would not live under the same roof
with it. And I want you to understand one thing--I was never told all
this; I have been kept in the dark about it. Of course I knew there was
some kind of a curse in the family--but I never dreamed of anything so
bad as this, and I never had any intention of being boxed up alone with
it either. I shall not go _near_ the Grey Chamber!'
'Not go near it!' they all cried aghast.
'Not on any account,' I said, for I felt firmer and easier now that I
had taken up this position. 'If the Curse has any business with me, let
it come down and settle it here before you all in a plain
straightforward manner. Let us go about it in a business-like way. On
second thoughts,' I added, fearing lest they should find means of
carrying out this suggestion. 'I won't meet it anywhere!'
'And why--_why_ won't you meet it?' they asked breathlessly.
'Because,' I explained desperately, 'because I'm--I'm a materialist.' (I
had not been previously aware that I had any decided opinions on the
question, but I could not stay then to consider the point.) 'How can I
have any dealings with a preposterous supernatural something which my
reason forbids me to believe in? You see my difficulty? It would be
inconsistent, to begin with, and--and extremely painful to both sides.'
'No more of this ribaldry,' said Sir Paul sternly. 'It may be terribly
remembered against you when the hour comes. Keep a guard over your
tongue, for all our sakes, and more especially your own. Recollect that
the Curse knows all that passes beneath this roof. And do not forget,
too, that you are pledged--irrevocably pledged. You _must_ confront the
Curse!'
Only a short hour ago, and I had counted Chlorine's fortune and Chlorine
as virtually mine; and now I saw my golden dreams roughly shattered for
ever! And, oh, what a wrench it was to tear myself from them! what it
cost me to speak the words that barred my Paradise to me for ever!
But if I wished to avoid confronting the Curse--and I _did_ wish this
very much--I had no other course. 'I had no right to pledge myself,' I
said, with quivering lips, 'under all the circumstances.'
'Why not,' they demanded again; 'what circumstances?'
'Well, in the first place,' I assured them earnestly, 'I'm a base
impostor. I am indeed. I'm not Augustus McFadden at all. My real name is
of no consequence--but it's a prettier one than that. As for McFadden,
he, I regret to say, is now no more.'
Why on earth I could not have told the plain truth here has always been
a mystery to me. I suppose I had been lying so long that it was
difficult to break myself of this occasionally inconvenient trick at so
short a notice, but I certainly mixed things up to a hopeless extent.
'Yes,' I continued mournfully, 'McFadden is dead; I will tell you how he
died if you would care to know. During his voyage here he fell
overboard, and was almost instantly appropriated by a gigantic shark,
when, as I happened to be present, I enjoyed the melancholy privilege of
seeing him pass away. For one brief moment I beheld him between the jaws
of the creature, so pale but so composed (I refer to McFadden, you
understand--not the shark), he threw just one glance up at me, and with
a smile, the sad sweetness of which I shall never forget (it was
McFadden's smile, I mean, of course--not the shark's), he, courteous and
considerate to the last, requested me to break the news and remember him
very kindly to you all. And, in the same instant, he abruptly vanished
within the monster--and I saw neither of them again!'
Of course in bringing the shark in at all I was acting directly contrary
to my instructions, but I quite forgot them in my anxiety to escape the
acquaintance of the Curse of the Catafalques.
'If this is true, sir,' said the baronet haughtily when I had finished,
'you have indeed deceived us basely.'
'That,' I replied, 'is what I was endeavouring to bring out. You see, it
puts it quite out of my power to meet your family Curse. I should not
feel justified in intruding upon it. So, if you will kindly let some one
fetch a fly or a cab in half an hour----'
'Stop!' cried Chlorine. 'Augustus, as I will call you still, you must
not go like this. If you have stooped to deceit, it was for love of me,
and--and Mr. McFadden is dead. If he had been alive, I should have felt
it my duty to allow him an opportunity of winning my affection, but he
is lying in his silent tomb, and--and I have learnt to love _you_. Stay,
then; stay and brave the Curse; we may yet be happy!'
I saw how foolish I had been not to tell the truth at first, and I
hastened to repair this error. 'When I described McFadden as dead,' I
said hoarsely, 'it was a loose way of putting the facts--because, to be
quite accurate, he isn't dead. We found out afterwards that it was
another fellow the shark had swallowed, and, in fact, another shark
altogether. So he is alive and well now, at Melbourne, but when he came
to know about the Curse, he was too much frightened to come across, and
he asked me to call and make his excuses. I have now done so, and will
trespass no further on your kindness--if you will tell somebody to bring
a vehicle of any sort in a quarter of an hour.'
'Pardon me,' said the baronet, 'but we cannot part in this way. I feared
when first I saw you that your resolution might give way under the
strain; it is only natural, I admit. But you deceive yourself if you
think we cannot see that these extraordinary and utterly contradictory
stories are prompted by sudden panic. I quite understand it, Augustus; I
cannot blame you; but to allow you to withdraw now would be worse than
weakness on my part. The panic will pass, you will forget these fears
to-morrow, you _must_ forget them; remember, you have promised. For your
own sake, I shall take care that you do not forfeit that solemn bond,
for I dare not let you run the danger of exciting the Curse by a
deliberate insult.'
I saw clearly that his conduct was dictated by a deliberate and most
repulsive selfishness; he did not entirely believe me, but he was
determined that if there was any chance that I, whoever I might be,
could free him from his present thraldom, he would not let it escape
him.
I raved, I protested, I implored--all in vain; they would not believe a
single word I said, they positively refused to release me, and insisted
upon my performing my engagement.
And at last Chlorine and her mother left the room, with a little
contempt for my unworthiness mingled with their evident compassion; and
a little later Sir Paul conducted me to my room, and locked me in
'till,' as he said, 'I had returned to my senses.'
IV.
What a night I passed, as I tossed sleeplessly from side to side under
the canopy of my old-fashioned bedstead, torturing my fevered brain with
vain speculations as to the fate the morrow was to bring me.
I felt myself perfectly helpless; I saw no way out of it; they seemed
bent upon offering me up as a sacrifice to this private Moloch of
theirs. The baronet was quite capable of keeping me locked up all the
next day and pushing me into the Grey Chamber to take my chance when the
hour came.
If I had only some idea what the Curse was like to look at, I thought I
might not feel quite so afraid of it; the vague and impalpable awfulness
of the thing was intolerable, and the very thought of it caused me to
fling myself about in an ecstasy of horror.
By degrees, however, as daybreak came near, I grew calmer--until at
length I arrived at a decision. It seemed evident to me that, as I could
not avoid my fate, the wisest course was to go forth to meet it with as
good a grace as possible. Then, should I by some fortunate accident come
well out of it, my fortune was ensured.
But if I went on repudiating my assumed self to the very last, I should
surely arouse a suspicion which the most signal rout of the Curse would
not serve to dispel.
And after all, as I began to think, the whole thing had probably been
much exaggerated; if I could only keep my head, and exercise all my
powers of cool impudence, I might contrive to hoodwink this formidable
relic of mediaeval days, which must have fallen rather behind the age by
this time. It might even turn out to be (although I was hardly sanguine
as to this) as big a humbug as I was myself, and we should meet with
confidential winks, like the two augurs.
But, at all events, I resolved to see this mysterious affair out, and
trust to my customary good luck to bring me safely through, and so,
having found the door unlocked, I came down to breakfast something like
my usual self, and set myself to remove the unfavourable impression I
had made on the previous night.
They did it from consideration for me, but still it _was_ mistaken
kindness for them all to leave me entirely to my own thoughts during the
whole of the day, for I was driven to mope alone about the gloom-laden
building, until by dinner-time I was very low indeed from nervous
depression.
We dined in almost unbroken silence; now and then, as Sir Paul saw my
hand approaching a decanter, he would open his lips to observe that I
should need the clearest head and the firmest nerve ere long, and warn
me solemnly against the brown sherry; from time to time, too, Chlorine
and her mother stole apprehensive glances at me, and sighed heavily
between every course. I never remember eating a dinner with so little
enjoyment.
The meal came to an end at last; the ladies rose, and Sir Paul and I
were left to brood over the dessert. I fancy both of us felt a delicacy
in starting a conversation, and before I could hit upon a safe remark,
Lady Catafalque and her daughter returned, dressed, to my unspeakable
horror, in readiness to go out. Worse than that even, Sir Paul
apparently intended to accompany them, for he rose at their entrance.
'It is now time for us to bid you a solemn farewell, Augustus,' he said,
in his hollow old voice. 'You have three hours before you yet, and if
you are wise, you will spend them in earnest self-preparation. At
midnight, punctually, for you must not dare to delay, you will go to the
Grey Chamber--the way thither you know, and you will find the Curse
prepared for you. Good-bye, then, brave and devoted boy; stand firm, and
no harm can befall you!'
'You are going away, all of you!' I cried. They were not what you might
call a gay family to sit up with, but even their society was better than
my own.
'Upon these dread occasions,' he explained, 'it is absolutely forbidden
for any human being but one to remain in the house. All the servants
have already left, and we are about to take our departure for a private
hotel near the Strand. We shall just have time, if we start at once, to
inspect the Soane Museum on our way thither, which will serve as some
distraction from the terrible anxiety we shall be feeling.'
At this I believe I positively howled with terror; all my old panic came
back with a rush. 'Don't leave me all alone with _It_!' I cried; 'I
shall go mad if you do!'
Sir Paul simply turned on his heel in silent contempt, and his wife
followed him; but Chlorine remained behind for one instant, and somehow,
as she gazed at me with a yearning pity in her sad eyes, I thought I had
never seen her looking so pretty before.
'Augustus,' she said, 'get up.' (I suppose I must have been on the floor
somewhere.) 'Be a man; show us we were not mistaken in you. You know I
would spare you this if I could; but we are powerless. Oh, be brave, or
I shall lose you for ever!'
Her appeal did seem to put a little courage into me, I staggered up and
kissed her slender hand and vowed sincerely to be worthy of her.
And then she too passed out, and the heavy hall door slammed behind the
three, and the rusty old gate screeched like a banshee as it swung back
and closed with a clang.
I heard the carriage-wheels grind the slush, and the next moment I knew
that I was shut up on Christmas Eve in that sombre mansion--with the
Curse of the Catafalques as my sole companion!
* * * * *
I don't think the generous ardour with which Chlorine's last words had
inspired me lasted very long, for I caught myself shivering before the
clock struck nine, and, drawing up a clumsy leathern arm-chair close to
the fire, I piled on the logs and tried to get rid of a certain horrible
sensation of internal vacancy which was beginning to afflict me.
I tried to look my situation fairly in the face; whatever reason and
common sense had to say about it, there seemed no possible doubt that
_something_ of a supernatural order was shut up in that great chamber
down the corridor, and also that, if I meant to win Chlorine, I must go
up and have some kind of an interview with it. Once more I wished I had
some definite idea to go upon; what description of being should I find
this Curse? Would it be aggressively ugly, like the bogie of my infancy,
or should I see a lank and unsubstantial shape, draped in clinging
black, with nothing visible beneath it but a pair of burning hollow eyes
and one long pale bony hand? Really I could not decide which would be
the more trying of the two.
By-and-by I began to recollect unwillingly all the frightful stories I
had ever read; one in particular came back to me,--the adventure of a
foreign marshal who, after much industry, succeeded in invoking an evil
spirit, which came bouncing into the room shaped like a gigantic ball,
with, I _think_, a hideous face in the middle of it, and would not be
got rid of until the horrified marshal had spent hours in hard praying
and persistent exorcism!
What should I do if the Curse was a globular one and came rolling all
round the room after me?
Then there was another appalling tale I had read in some magazine,--a
tale of a secret chamber, too, and in some respects a very similar case
to my own, for there the heir of some great house had to go in and meet
a mysterious aged person with strange eyes and an evil smile, who kept
attempting to shake hands with him.
Nothing should induce me to shake hands with the Curse of the
Catafalques, however apparently friendly I might find it.
But it was not very likely to be friendly, for it was one of those
mystic powers of darkness which know nearly everything--it would detect
me as an impostor directly, and what would become of me? I declare I
almost resolved to confess all and sob out my deceit upon its bosom, and
the only thing which made me pause was the reflection that probably the
Curse did not possess a bosom.
By this time I had worked myself up to such a pitch of terror that I
found it absolutely necessary to brace my nerves, and I did brace them.
I emptied all the three decanters, but as Sir Paul's cellar was none of
the best, the only result was that, while my courage and daring were not
perceptibly heightened, I was conscious of feeling exceedingly unwell.
Tobacco, no doubt, would have calmed and soothed me, but I did not dare
to smoke. For the Curse, being old-fashioned, might object to the smell
of it, and I was anxious to avoid exciting its prejudices unnecessarily.
And so I simply sat in my chair and shook. Every now and then I heard
steps on the frosty path outside: sometimes a rapid tread, as of some
happy person bound to scenes of Christmas revelry, and little dreaming
of the miserable wretch he was passing; sometimes the slow creaking
tramp of the Fulham policeman on his beat.
What if I called him in and gave the Curse into custody--either for
putting me in bodily fear (as it was undeniably doing), or for being
found on the premises under suspicious circumstances?
There was a certain audacity about this means of cutting the knot that
fascinated me at first, but still I did not venture to adopt it,
thinking it most probable that the stolid constable would decline to
interfere as soon as he knew the facts; and even if he did, it would
certainly annoy Sir Paul extremely to hear of his Family Curse spending
its Christmas in a police-cell, and I felt instinctively that he would
consider it a piece of unpardonable bad taste on my part.