EXTRACT FROM THE DIARY OF DR. HUGH PAULL.
_The Pinewood, October, 18—._
They say lookers-on see more of the game than the players. I shall write
down all that has happened, and review it as a third person might before
sending a brief statement to Helven. I do not think myself that when he
reads it he will retain any reasonable doubt of the reincarnation of
Lilia’s soul.
I know now who instigated _that paragraph_; but more of that in its
proper place.
Was I glad when my life was unexpectedly taken out of my own hands, and
my wild dream of entertaining Mercedes and inviting the Forwoods at the
same time, was suddenly realised? I cannot tell. I have felt emotions
called forth by an extraordinary position, therefore cannot classify
them.
My first step when I received a few words from Mercedes, that she and
her husband would come here, was to come down myself and see to things,
after sending off Ralph a few days in advance.
A surprise awaited me. I had certainly given mammy _carte blanche_ to
pledge my credit to any reasonable amount, but hardly considered how
thoroughly she would set to work. I scarcely recognised the old brougham
under its new paint and varnish, nor Andrew the groom in his brand-new
livery. As I drove through the wood, the roads were in capital
condition, the young trees were flourishing, the desolate look had gone.
The same with the garden—the beds bright with flowers, the turf close
shaven. The house? The house looked as when I first saw it—the veranda
and shutters bright green, the creepers carefully trailed.
Rover, poor old Nero’s descendant after I don’t know how many
generations, came leaping about me quite delighted at the change about
him; and there, at the hall-door, stood mammy in a very becoming cap,
quite the mistress of the mansion. Ralph came springing out more like
other lads than I have yet seen him. Poor boy! I felt a pang of remorse.
Has my barren life overshadowed his? Heaven forgive me if it has! I
thought I was doing my best.
The hall had been modernised, the billiard-table renovated. But the
drawing-room! Could it be the room where I saw Lilia leaning against the
piano? The brown draperies, the neutral tints had disappeared. It was
gold and white everywhere: the room had positively a bridal look, and
even the plants in the white flower-stands were white and yellow.
“This looks a thorough woman’s den,” I remarked. “If I were left to
myself, I should not set my foot across the threshold.”
“Don’t be churlish,” mammy said. “You have invited a princess, and you
must entertain her properly, especially as it is only for once.”
“Why only for once?” I asked.
Poor innocent mammy! how little she suspected _who_ it was she was to
play hostess to.
“I thought they lived in Spain?” she said, looking curiously at me.
I hurried her upstairs, where the arrangements for the guests were
wonderfully managed. Then I felt a sudden uneasiness. Coming down in the
train I had determined to give Lilia—God pardon me if I dare to call
Mercedes by her old name!—to give the one who is really my own darling
the opportunity of showing herself to me in gleams of recognition of her
old home. I had planned that some day she should come into the library
and find me seated at the table—those pistols before me—then, then, when
I am convinced of her soul’s identity, my love for her and hers for me
could not be sinful or even faulty, it would be the most natural thing
in the world. Now, her old home was changed, scarcely recognisable.
“You have not done anything to the library?” I cried, almost fiercely, I
fear; for poor mammy seemed dreadfully “upset,” as women call it, until
I pacified her.
The library furniture had been recovered and the position of the chairs
and tables altered, that was all. I soon had all the things back in
their places. The books were untouched. Standing at the door, the room
looked so much the same I could almost conjure up the figure of Sir
Roderick, seated in his chair, his long pipe in his mouth.
Oh the misery of recalling the past! Yet, yet, had they not died, would
Lilia’s soul and my soul have ever known each other as they do now?
I went to meet her at the station. They were all to have a saloon
carriage—the prince and princess, the Forwoods, and Lady Boisville. I
had invited the count, much against my wish, but in deference to Lady
Forwood’s advice. “If you did _not_, the prince might make an excuse at
the last moment, in which case it would hardly do for Mercedes to come,”
she said. And recognising that she was right in her suggestion, I wrote
to the fellow. Fortunately he had accepted an invitation to deer-stalk,
and was going to the Lakes on his way (or _said_ he was, which amounted
to the same thing).
Driving to the station in the brougham (the waggonette followed for the
men), I felt a dread that she would not come. It seemed too glorious a
crown to my wasted, weary life that she would live under my roof, that
every hour of each day I could look at her and listen to her voice, that
morning and night I should touch her hand.
“Impossible!” I said to myself. “It cannot happen, it will not happen;
something will prevent it all at the last moment.”
Shall I ever forget waiting on the platform that September evening? The
houses and trees growing dark against a yellow sunset, people coming out
of the booking-office and buying papers (travellers by the incoming
train), porters trundling the luggage to the end of the platform. How
could they all go on in this senseless, mechanical way when the one
great event of my life was happening—when Joy was coming for the first
time to my tired, thirsty soul?
Then came an awful minute. The signal was down. The electric bell had
sounded, “ding-dong, ding-dong” went the porter’s handbell. “Andrew!” I
shouted (it seemed to me a shill, frantic cry, but it can scarcely have
been, for he only said, “All right, sir,” and no one else looked round),
then I saw the steam-cloud and the black engine-front, and rattle-rattle
the train came slowly nearer and alongside, how slowly! Was tortoise
ever so abominably languid in its creepings?
No one there! That was my first belief. I went up and down by the
first-class carriages, then someone touched me on the shoulder—Sir
David.
“They put us at the wrong end,” he said. How jovial he looked in his
shooting suit! “Oh, yes, we’ve all come.” What more he said I don’t
know. I turned and saw _her_ wrapped up in a cloak, her face so pale,
sweet and wistful under a heavy black hat; just a little colour came to
her lips as our eyes met, and I took her hand upon my arm. Her touch
strengthened me. I cooled down and was able to behave decently,
respectably. Ralph appeared—Mrs. Mervyn had sent him, I suppose—and Mr.
Mervyn came out of the booking-office. I never was more delighted to see
them in my life; for Lady Forwood preferred the waggonette, and I gave
her and the prince and the other men over to Mervyn, and was thus able
to drive home opposite _her_ and Lady Boisville.
Lady Boisville, good-natured soul, was pleased with everything.
“What white sand, what purple heather, what very _majestic_ pines, Dr.
Paull!” she said, looking at the dear old trees through her eye-glass.
But, my _darling_, what did _she_ say, or think? Would she recognise?
Would some gleam of a soul-memory beyond our knowledge and power of
understanding show itself? I watched her narrowly, breathlessly. As the
shadows flitted across her face, I fancied I saw a troubled expression
in her eyes.
It vanished as she looked at me. She smiled. “Can I walk here, some
day?” she asked me.
I replied that “she must do exactly as she pleased.” I wished her to
understand that while she was in my domain, she was its queen.
She laughed—a laugh which chilled me, for it was Lilia’s laugh. Those
two women, so utterly unlike in outline, feature, colouring, laughed
alike. One physical detail in common—one only!
Arrived home, mammy welcomed her so warmly, in so motherly a way, I felt
grateful. The ladies disappeared to their rooms. A cloud obscured the
sunshine. Then came the prince, and Forwood, and the valets and maids,
and the rest of the inevitable paraphernalia. Well! if you have the
pearl, I suppose you must take the oystershell as well.
Was this my old bachelor, or rather widower domain, which used to look
so grim and forlorn, all echoes and musty odours, where Ralph and I used
to stroll about together in an aimless fashion, always, I fancy, feeling
a certain amount of relief when we got back to bustling London, which,
however noisy and grimy, is life-full? This pleasant, well-lighted
house, where, thanks to mammy’s arrangements, bright patches of colour
met the eye at every turn; deftly placed bits of china, or banks of
plants glowing with bloom. I felt self-reproach. No, I have not lived as
I ought to have lived. I have taught my boy to live beside a tomb.
I went down to the drawing-room. I was gazing at the fading sunset out
of the open window, after wondering at the pretty effects of light made
by lamps set about the room with coloured shades, when I started—it was
_Lilia’s_ laugh again.
_She_ came into the room; she was dressed in glistening white, with
lilies at her breast, and Rover was leaping about her.
“Your dog is very friendly,” she said, and she patted the obtrusive
animal, which was panting with pleasure.
“He is not generally so,” I said, with a scared sensation. In the dim
light it recalled Lilia and her Nero too forcibly. “He is mostly surly
to strangers.”
“He reminds me of some dog, but I cannot remember where I have seen the
dog,” she said, thoughtfully, coming to me at the window, but her
attention was arrested by the sunset. What happy minutes those were, as
we stood side by side gazing at the monarch of the sky sinking into his
purple bed! (Those were her words, not mine.)
It was delightful to see her look bright as she sat by my side at
dinner. In the evening she played her guitar, and sang to it. It was a
peep into the country of her birth. I could imagine the hidalgos and
donnas pacing amid the picturesque buildings, and many other things.
When Mercedes, during this visit to me, was purely Spanish, I almost
ceased to believe in the identity I so firmly hold in my own mind as
hers.
Next morning I took my guests about the place; carefully avoiding the
terrace. I had a plan about the terrace.
In the afternoon Mercedes and I, Lady Forwood and the prince, drove in
the waggonette. I took them to see the ruins of an ancient abbey. Lady
Forwood absorbed the prince’s attention—(for such a born boor as he is,
I must say he behaved very decently)—and I was able to tell my love the
old tales of the bygone monastery, and to watch the changing expressions
that flit across her pure face, like the clouds across a summer sky.
What intense reverence this child-woman has for all that is holy! As we
walked through the ruins of the monkish chapel I was shamed by her
hushed, almost awestruck manner.
“_God_ has lived here,” she said, casting a longing look back as I
removed the hurdle, placed to keep out the sheep, for her to pass out.
“And it is a ruin!”
“God is everywhere,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “But it makes me sad that those monks, they are all
gone from your land.”
Then she told me of all that the nuns had been to her in her haunted
childhood; of their cheerfulness, their patience with the child who was
unlike other children. I did not wonder she reverenced religious orders.
For my part, realising as I did that Lilia’s love for me was the cause
of Mercedes’ sad life, I blessed them.
Returning home, my chastened mood was roughly dispelled by a significant
incident.
A fine barouche and pair drove past us: in it sat Colonel Roderick Pym,
his wife, Lady Carnwood—(how objectionable is that fashion of re-married
widows retaining their late husband’s name!)—and his pretty
stepdaughters. I cut him dead, as I have steadily done. To my
astonishment he bowed low, raising his hat, and the prince did the same.
I looked at Mrs. Mervyn. She got very red. The prince explained.
“Who is that gentilman?” he asked me. “I see him with my fren, the
count. I not know at all that he live here.”
This explained the paragraph in the paper. Roderick Pym and the count in
league! Without absolute confirmation I would swear those two are our
enemies.
_Our_ enemies? How natural it has been to class myself with my twin
soul; but to what will it lead? How will our spiritual union end? That
spiritual union which came about this-wise.
First of all, after some bright days spent almost entirely with her—days
made up of long strolls in the part of the garden which had been best
kept up since Lilia’s death (the flower-gardens in the Pinewood,
including the terrace, I had let go; it would have been useless expense
to keep them trim and fair as in Sir Roderick’s time)—after our drives,
our chats at dinner, rendered livelier by little sparrings between Lady
Forwood and Mrs. Mervyn, and our talks in the softly lighted
drawing-room, peace was disturbed by a telegram which arrived one day at
luncheon for the prince.
He turned a yellowish white, and a remarkably nasty expression changed
his face from moderately pleasant to cowardly hang-dog. Still, he was
well-bred enough to conceal further emotion.
I saw Mercedes look uneasy. After luncheon he evidently asked her for a
_tête-à-tête_, quite an event between those two. I was sitting in the
library, anxious, when a tap came at the door, and enter Sir David and
the prince.
“The prince, not feeling his English equal to the occasion, Paull,
wishes me to explain to you that some bad news about a recent
speculation obliges him to return to town at once,” said Sir David;
then, evidently noticing my dismayed look, he added, hurriedly: “He asks
a continuance of your hospitality for the princess.”
Of course, I said I should be delighted. I was not sorry to be rid of
the man; but somehow I augured ill for Mercedes for the future. Heaven
avert the evil, whatever it may be!
No drive that afternoon. The prince departed, luggage, valet, and all. I
did not see Mercedes till just before dinner. She looked pale, but not
unhappy. As I took her in to dinner, she said:
“Can I see you, alone, this evening?”
During dinner the wild idea flashed across me to take her to the spot
she had dreamed of, the spot where I had seen her in that strange vision
twenty years ago.
The very thought of it exhilarated me. I was excited. I felt as if each
moment that passed a year was slipping from my shoulders. I was
rejuvenating. I hurried the men over their wine. Then I went into the
drawing-room and got mammy away into a corner.
“Don’t look surprised at what I am going to say,” I said in an
undertone. “And don’t exclaim, or look round. You must do something for
me.”
She stared at me. I must have looked wild, but very quietly she said:
“If I can.”
“It is the merest trifle,” I said. “I wish to show the princess a
certain spot in the grounds by moonlight. Keep them all amused till we
come back.”
She said something, but I did not listen. I left her at once. I made
Lady Forwood sit down at the piano, and when everyone was attentive (she
plays well) I told Mercedes to slip away, quietly, soon after I left the
room, and I went into the hall.
It was a glorious night, with a brilliant golden moon that bathed
everything in a warm light. Presently she came gliding into the hall and
up to me like a ghost, and would have seated herself on the divan, but I
said, “No, the garden,” and wrapping her light cloak, which was hanging
near, round her shoulders, I took her out.
Out into the stillness. It was so still, we could hear the voices of the
people in the drawing-room, and the sound of our footsteps on the gravel
was so loud I fancied that it must be audible in the house.
We walked on for some time, side by side, in silence. Presently we came
to the pine grove. The light fell through the straight rows of slender
trunks as the sunlight falls by day, only it was a yellowish white that
silvered the sandy water tracks, glimmered upon the pebbles, and made
fairy dells of the clumps of bracken. By common accord we halted here.
As we stood still, a soft night wind arose and went sighing among the
pine-tops; the feathered crests of the slim trees nodded to one another
as if, so it seemed to me, they mourned my folly.
And she? She drew a long breath.
“This beautiful scent!” she said. “How I love it!”
“Have you pinewoods in Spain?” I asked.
“Such as this? No,” she said, beginning to walk again. There was not a
shadow of embarrassment at being alone with me, in almost a forest, at
this hour. She is too simple-minded for that. “But this perfume, it is
like a room in our (I mean my father’s) castle in the country in Spain.”
She explained that the Duque’s drawing-rooms, as we call them, were each
furnished in some luxurious material. One was all malachite, from the
doors to the table furniture; another was silver, another cedar.
“In the cedar room I was most happy,” she said; “it seemed that I knew
that odour, it was like _home_, and this scent of your pines is the
same.”
Then I asked her what she wished to say to me. She hesitated for a few
moments. Then she put her hand on my arm with the childlike _abandon_ so
peculiarly hers.
“Tell me what I must do,” she said. “The prince he has gone away to see,
someone else he should not go to see.”
_She_ asked _me_ such a question! Anger, jealousy! I have been angry
often, too often—but jealousy? I have condemned others for that meanest
passion in human nature, and now I am punished. I know what it is!
“What do you mean?” I said. “I do not understand.”
“Ah!” (It was a sob rather than a sigh.) “Monsieur, I am sure you do not
understand,” she said, once more standing still, but this time
confronting me. “You were good to your wife, I know that!”
“I was _not_ good to my wife,” I said, bitterly. “You must not come to
me for advice. Ask Lady Forwood, Mrs. Mervyn, anyone, not me!”
At that moment I forgot my theory, that Mercedes’ soul and Lilia’s are
one and the same; this was the wife of the Prince Andriocchi, and I,
daring to love her as no man should dare to love another man’s wife, was
burning with jealousy, and was false to Lilia’s memory.
“Never tell me you are not good,” she said; “I know better.”
The words were ordinary enough. But at the end of her speech she gave a
little satisfied laugh—_Lilia’s_ laugh.
I felt less human—the ghostly, creepy sensation reasserted itself.
“How can you know better?” I said.
“I know you are good,” she said. “You are an angel among other men: and
I ask you what I am to do. I should feel sorry, should I not, when the
prince does wrong?”
I felt my breath go—as after a blow.
“Certainly,” I said.
“Do not think me wicked,” she said, her voice trembling. “Oh, I knew I
ought to be sorry when he was going away—and I knew well that he would
see someone that he ought not to see while he is away—but I did not feel
sorry, I am glad!”
“_Glad?_” I said, assuming as shocked a tone as I
could—(sinner—liar—when I was transported with joy and relief!). “Surely
not _glad_?”
“Yes, _glad_,” she said. “Because I should be glad if everyone would go
and leave me alone—with you.”
“This is foolish,” I said, chidingly. “You will know better when you
have seen more of me.”
Then I changed the conversation to the subject of her dreams. We were
nearing the spot where I meant to test her identity.
There was a narrow path between clumps of laurels. This was the path I
had traversed alone in my dream years ago—when I emerged into the open I
had seen this very woman—this woman I loved—seated on the stone seat
opposite to me.
Now—she was by my side. As we came across the grass plat I summoned all
my courage. I did not know whether I wished to be convinced that she was
Lilia—or that she was not. I only felt abject fear—for the first time in
my life I was an entire coward: I sickened, I was in a cold sweat.
“Will you sit here a minute?” I asked. “I want to see what time it is. I
must strike a match under the bushes—there is too much wind here.”
I slipped away, and going round came slowly into the moonlight opposite
to her. Ah! it was terrible to see her seated there, then to see her
spring up and come to me—for once in my life, to experience a realised
dream.
“Let us go,” she said, passionately—I had never seen her so disturbed.
“I remember—come—!”
I accompanied her, passively. She went along the path between the
laurels, then, after but a moment’s hesitation, she took the path
leading to the terrace.
A few swift steps and she turned back to see if I followed.
“Come!” she said, in a voice of pain. “Come!”
Then, after one more poise—like a bird before it takes flight—she
hurried up the slope and was at the end of the terrace. The wide, grassy
avenue was before us.
I joined her. It was a long time since I had visited the spot. The long
grass was rank and weedy, the beds were unkempt—I could see that much in
this light. The scene by moonlight, that light which chastens and
beautifies, was desolate—what would it be by the light of day?
The shame that I had neglected this favourite resort of Lilia’s
partially levelled emotions, brought me back in some degree to ordinary
common sense. But my practical mood did not last long. I followed
Mercedes across the grass, blaming myself that I had let her come here,
to a spot which was a disgrace to its proprietor in its neglected
state—when to my astonishment she flung her arm about the stone fountain
and turned upon me.
Her face, in the moonlight, looked drawn—I should scarcely have
recognised her, nor indeed should I have recognised her sweet, dear
voice.
Oh! what was it she said, in those hard, shrill tones? I was so
unnerved, I can hardly recall those terrible words.
But she spoke with reproach.
“Where is the water here?” she asked. “There were fish—gold fish, silver
fish—where are _they_? Where are the _flowers_? There were roses, red
roses there,” and, pointing to a bed where Sir Roderick by careful
expenditure had cultivated some hardy rose trees, she fell prone at my
feet.
I had my token—she knew the place as it was of old, before she had
awakened in this world.
Perhaps the greatest mystery among these many mysteries is this—I can
write it all down, just as it happened, calmly, coolly, as I should
record an exceptional case in medicine.
I took her in my arms and carried her back through the wood into the
flower garden of the house. She was a dead weight, but I was impervious
to ordinary impressions. Then I laid her upon a wide wooden bench in the
Italian garden, and by slow degrees she recovered. Before the clock
struck ten, she was able to join them all in the drawing-room.
I have a great power over her. I found that when I had sufficiently
rallied from my emotions to exercise my will, that _willing_ her to be
her ordinary self (while her hands were in mine and my eyes fixed upon
her face) “brought her to,” as the nurses say, at once.
This had opened up another aspect of affairs. If I have this power over
her, may not that possibly be the cause of her liking for me—even of her
impressions of her dreams? I must investigate, search, leave no stone
unturned to unearth the truth. Too much is at stake.
Next day, I willed her to be cheerful and happy, and she was so.
(Another symptom, which I duly recorded.)
I found she had not as perfectly clear a recollection of that terrible
evening as I have myself. I was thankful for this. I was as commonplace
as I could possibly be during those days before the prince’s return. I
took care she should have no time to meditate, and mammy, Lady Forwood,
and good Lady Boisville helped me. I don’t know what they have thought
of it all, but they have consciously or unconsciously abetted me with
that woman’s own gift of tact which is worth a king’s—no, an
emperor’s—ransom, aye, and far more!
The prince returned, unexpectedly, one rainy afternoon. He came in a
station fly. When he entered the hall we men were playing billiards.
I fancied he looked sulky, but during the short time that followed
before the general departure he was amiability itself, and has declared
his intention of remaining in England the winter, also to look out for a
country house near here for the——
* * * * *
Dr. Paull was seated in his library a misty autumn morning writing the
above, when a tap at his door disturbed him.
The servant brought him a telegram:
“_Come at once to London. This evening at half-past nine I will be at
your house_.
“_Mercedes._”