“...You have some influence over Agnes. Try what you can do, Henry, to
make her take a sensible view of the matter. There is really nothing to
make a fuss about. My wife’s maid knocked at her door early in the
morning, with the customary cup of tea. Getting no answer, she went
round to the dressing-room—found the door on that side unlocked—and
discovered Agnes on the bed in a fainting fit. With my wife’s help,
they brought her to herself again; and she told the extraordinary story
which I have just repeated to you. You must have seen for yourself that
she has been over-fatigued, poor thing, by our long railway journeys:
her nerves are out of order—and she is just the person to be easily
terrified by a dream. She obstinately refuses, however, to accept this
rational view. Don’t suppose that I have been severe with her! All that
a man can do to humour her I have done. I have written to the Countess
(in her assumed name) offering to restore the room to her. She writes
back, positively declining to return to it. I have accordingly arranged
(so as not to have the thing known in the hotel) to occupy the room for
one or two nights, and to leave Agnes to recover her spirits under my
wife’s care. Is there anything more that I can do? Whatever questions
Agnes has asked of me I have answered to the best of my ability; she
knows all that you told me about Francis and the Countess last night.
But try as I may I can’t quiet her mind. I have given up the attempt in
despair, and left her in the drawing-room. Go, like a good fellow, and
try what you can do to compose her.”
In those words, Lord Montbarry stated the case to his brother from the
rational point of view. Henry made no remark, he went straight to the
drawing-room.
He found Agnes walking rapidly backwards and forwards, flushed and
excited. “If you come here to say what your brother has been saying to
me,” she broke out, before he could speak, “spare yourself the trouble.
I don’t want common sense—I want a true friend who will believe in me.”
“I am that friend, Agnes,” Henry answered quietly, “and you know it.”
“You really believe that I am not deluded by a dream?”
I know that you are not deluded—in one particular, at least.”
“In what particular?”
“In what you have said of the Countess. It is perfectly true—”
Agnes stopped him there. “Why do I only hear this morning that the
Countess and Mrs. James are one and the same person?” she asked
distrustfully. “Why was I not told of it last night?”
“You forget that you had accepted the exchange of rooms before I
reached Venice,” Henry replied. “I felt strongly tempted to tell you,
even then—but your sleeping arrangements for the night were all made; I
should only have inconvenienced and alarmed you. I waited till the
morning, after hearing from my brother that you had yourself seen to
your security from any intrusion. How that intrusion was accomplished
it is impossible to say. I can only declare that the Countess’s
presence by your bedside last night was no dream of yours. On her own
authority I can testify that it was a reality.”
“On her own authority?” Agnes repeated eagerly. “Have you seen her this
morning?”
“I have seen her not ten minutes since.”
“What was she doing?”
“She was busily engaged in writing. I could not even get her to look at
me until I thought of mentioning your name.”
“She remembered me, of course?”
“She remembered you with some difficulty. Finding that she wouldn’t
answer me on any other terms, I questioned her as if I had come direct
from you. Then she spoke. She not only admitted that she had the same
superstitious motive for placing you in that room which she had
acknowledged to Francis—she even owned that she had been by your
bedside, watching through the night, ‘to see what you saw,’ as she
expressed it. Hearing this, I tried to persuade her to tell me how she
got into the room. Unluckily, her manuscript on the table caught her
eye; she returned to her writing. ‘The Baron wants money,’ she said; ‘I
must get on with my play.’ What she saw or dreamed while she was in
your room last night, it is at present impossible to discover. But
judging by my brother’s account of her, as well as by what I remember
of her myself, some recent influence has been at work which has
produced a marked change in this wretched woman for the worse. Her mind
(since last night, perhaps) is partially deranged. One proof of it is
that she spoke to me of the Baron as if he were still a living man.
When Francis saw her, she declared that the Baron was dead, which is
the truth. The United States Consul at Milan showed us the announcement
of the death in an American newspaper. So far as I can see, such sense
as she still possesses seems to be entirely absorbed in one absurd
idea—the idea of writing a play for Francis to bring out at his
theatre. He admits that he encouraged her to hope she might get money
in this way. I think he did wrong. Don’t you agree with me?”
Without heeding the question, Agnes rose abruptly from her chair.
“Do me one more kindness, Henry,” she said. “Take me to the Countess at
once.”
Henry hesitated. “Are you composed enough to see her, after the shock
that you have suffered?” he asked.
She trembled, the flush on her face died away, and left it deadly pale.
But she held to her resolution. “You have heard of what I saw last
night?” she said faintly.
“Don’t speak of it!” Henry interposed. “Don’t uselessly agitate
yourself.”
“I must speak! My mind is full of horrid questions about it. I know I
can’t identify it—and yet I ask myself over and over again, in whose
likeness did it appear? Was it in the likeness of Ferrari? or was it—?”
she stopped, shuddering. “The Countess knows, I must see the Countess!”
she resumed vehemently. “Whether my courage fails me or not, I must
make the attempt. Take me to her before I have time to feel afraid of
it!”
Henry looked at her anxiously. “If you are really sure of your own
resolution,” he said, “I agree with you—the sooner you see her the
better. You remember how strangely she talked of your influence over
her, when she forced her way into your room in London?”
“I remember it perfectly. Why do you ask?”
“For this reason. In the present state of her mind, I doubt if she will
be much longer capable of realizing her wild idea of you as the
avenging angel who is to bring her to a reckoning for her evil deeds.
It may be well to try what your influence can do while she is still
capable of feeling it.”
He waited to hear what Agnes would say. She took his arm and led him in
silence to the door.
They ascended to the second floor, and, after knocking, entered the
Countess’s room.
She was still busily engaged in writing. When she looked up from the
paper, and saw Agnes, a vacant expression of doubt was the only
expression in her wild black eyes. After a few moments, the lost
remembrances and associations appeared to return slowly to her mind.
The pen dropped from her hand. Haggard and trembling, she looked closer
at Agnes, and recognised her at last. “Has the time come already?” she
said in low awe-struck tones. “Give me a little longer respite, I
haven’t done my writing yet!”
She dropped on her knees, and held out her clasped hands entreatingly.
Agnes was far from having recovered, after the shock that she had
suffered in the night: her nerves were far from being equal to the
strain that was now laid on them. She was so startled by the change in
the Countess, that she was at a loss what to say or to do next. Henry
was obliged to speak to her. “Put your questions while you have the
chance,” he said, lowering his voice. “See! the vacant look is coming
over her face again.”
Agnes tried to rally her courage. “You were in my room last night—” she
began. Before she could add a word more, the Countess lifted her hands,
and wrung them above her head with a low moan of horror. Agnes shrank
back, and turned as if to leave the room. Henry stopped her, and
whispered to her to try again. She obeyed him after an effort. “I slept
last night in the room that you gave up to me,” she resumed. “I saw—”
The Countess suddenly rose to her feet. “No more of that,” she cried.
“Oh, Jesu Maria! do you think I want to be told what you saw? Do you
think I don’t know what it means for you and for me? Decide for
yourself, Miss. Examine your own mind. Are you well assured that the
day of reckoning has come at last? Are you ready to follow me back,
through the crimes of the past, to the secrets of the dead?”
She returned again to the writing-table, without waiting to be
answered. Her eyes flashed; she looked like her old self once more as
she spoke. It was only for a moment. The old ardour and impetuosity
were nearly worn out. Her head sank; she sighed heavily as she unlocked
a desk which stood on the table. Opening a drawer in the desk, she took
out a leaf of vellum, covered with faded writing. Some ragged ends of
silken thread were still attached to the leaf, as if it had been torn
out of a book.
“Can you read Italian?” she asked, handing the leaf to Agnes.
Agnes answered silently by an inclination of her head.
“The leaf,” the Countess proceeded, “once belonged to a book in the old
library of the palace, while this building was still a palace. By whom
it was torn out you have no need to know. For what purpose it was torn
out you may discover for yourself, if you will. Read it first—at the
fifth line from the top of the page.”
Agnes felt the serious necessity of composing herself. “Give me a
chair,” she said to Henry; “and I will do my best.” He placed himself
behind her chair so that he could look over her shoulder and help her
to understand the writing on the leaf. Rendered into English, it ran as
follows:—
I have now completed my literary survey of the first floor of the
palace. At the desire of my noble and gracious patron, the lord of this
glorious edifice, I next ascend to the second floor, and continue my
catalogue or description of the pictures, decorations, and other
treasures of art therein contained. Let me begin with the corner room
at the western extremity of the palace, called the Room of the
Caryatides, from the statues which support the mantel-piece. This work
is of comparatively recent execution: it dates from the eighteenth
century only, and reveals the corrupt taste of the period in every part
of it. Still, there is a certain interest which attaches to the
mantel-piece: it conceals a cleverly constructed hiding-place, between
the floor of the room and the ceiling of the room beneath, which was
made during the last evil days of the Inquisition in Venice, and which
is reported to have saved an ancestor of my gracious lord pursued by
that terrible tribunal. The machinery of this curious place of
concealment has been kept in good order by the present lord, as a
species of curiosity. He condescended to show me the method of working
it. Approaching the two Caryatides, rest your hand on the forehead
(midway between the eyebrows) of the figure which is on your left as
you stand opposite to the fireplace, then press the head inwards as if
you were pushing it against the wall behind. By doing this, you set in
motion the hidden machinery in the wall which turns the hearthstone on
a pivot, and discloses the hollow place below. There is room enough in
it for a man to lie easily at full length. The method of closing the
cavity again is equally simple. Place both your hands on the temples of
the figures; pull as if you were pulling it towards you—and the
hearthstone will revolve into its proper position again.
“You need read no farther,” said the Countess. “Be careful to remember
what you have read.”
She put back the page of vellum in her writing-desk, locked it, and led
the way to the door.
“Come!” she said; “and see what the mocking Frenchman called ‘The
beginning of the end.’”
Agnes was barely able to rise from her chair; she trembled from head to
foot. Henry gave her his arm to support her. “Fear nothing,” he
whispered; “I shall be with you.”
The Countess proceeded along the westward corridor, and stopped at the
door numbered Thirty-eight. This was the room which had been inhabited
by Baron Rivar in the old days of the palace: it was situated
immediately over the bedchamber in which Agnes had passed the night.
For the last two days the room had been empty. The absence of luggage
in it, when they opened the door, showed that it had not yet been let.
“You see?” said the Countess, pointing to the carved figure at the
fire-place; “and you know what to do. Have I deserved that you should
temper justice with mercy?” she went on in lower tones. “Give me a few
hours more to myself. The Baron wants money—I must get on with my
play.”
She smiled vacantly, and imitated the action of writing with her right
hand as she pronounced the last words. The effort of concentrating her
weakened mind on other and less familiar topics than the constant want
of money in the Baron’s lifetime, and the vague prospect of gain from
the still unfinished play, had evidently exhausted her poor reserves of
strength. When her request had been granted, she addressed no
expressions of gratitude to Agnes; she only said, “Feel no fear, miss,
of my attempting to escape you. Where you are, there I must be till the
end comes.”
Her eyes wandered round the room with a last weary and stupefied look.
She returned to her writing with slow and feeble steps, like the steps
of an old woman.