In the month of February, 1864, a chance newspaper paragraph informed
whom it might concern that Major Laurence Laughton, having three
weeks' leave of absence from his regiment, was at the Astor House. In
consequence of this advertisement of his whereabouts, Major Laughton
received many cheerful circulars and letters, in most of which his
attention was claimed for the artificial limb made by the advertiser.
He also received a letter from Colonel John Manning urgently bidding
him to come out for a day at least to his little place on the Hudson,
where he was lying sick, and, as he feared, sick unto death. On the
receipt of this Larry cut short a promising flirtation with a
war-widow who sat next him at table and took the first train up the
river. It was a bleak day, and there was at least a foot of snow on
the ground, as hard and as dry as though it had clean forgot that it
was made of water. As Larry left the little station, to which the
train had slowly struggled at last, an hour behind time, the wind
sprang up again and began to moan around his feet and to sting his
face with icy shot; and as he trudged across the desolate path which
led to Manning's lonely house he discovered that Rude Boreas could be
as keen a sharpshooter as any in the rifle-pits around Richmond. A
hard walk up-hill for a quarter of an hour brought him to the brow of
the cliff on which stood the forlorn and wind-swept house where John
Manning lay. An unkempt and hideous old crone as black as night opened
the door for him. He left in the hall his hat and overcoat and a
little square box he had brought in his hand; and then he followed the
ebony hag up-stairs to Colonel Manning's room. Here at the door she
left him, after giving a sharp knock. A weak voice said, "Come in!"
Laurence Laughton entered the room with a quick step, but the
light-hearted words with which he had meant to encourage his friend
died on his lips as soon as he saw how grievously that friend had
changed. John Manning had faded to a shadow of his former self; the
light of his eye was quenched, and the spirit within him seemed
broken; the fine, sensitive, noble face lay white against the pillow,
looking weary and wan and hopeless. The effort to greet his friend
exhausted him and brought on a hard cough, and he pressed his hand to
his breast as though some hidden malady were gnawing and burning
within.
"Well, John," said Larry, as he took a seat by the bedside, "why
didn't you let me know before now that you were laid up? I could have
got away a month ago."
"Time enough yet," said John Manning slowly; "time enough yet. I
shall not die for another week, I fear."
"Why, man, you must not talk like that. You are as good as a dozen
dead men yet," said Larry, trying to look as cheerful as might be.
"I am as good as dead myself," said the sick man seriously, as
befitted a man under the shadow of death; "and I have no wish to live.
The sooner I am out of this pain and powerlessness the better I shall
like it."
"I say, John, old man, this is no way for you to talk. Brace up, and
you will soon be another man!"
"I shall soon be in another world, I hope," and the helpless misery of
the tone in which these few words were said smote Laurence Laughton to
the heart.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked with as lively an air as he
could attain, for the ominous and inexplicable sadness of the
situation was fast taking hold on him.
"I have a bullet through the lungs and a pain in the heart."
"But men do not die of a bullet in the lungs and a pain in the heart,"
was Larry's encouraging response.
"I shall."
"Why should you more than others?"
"Because there is something else--something mysterious, some unknown
malady--which bears me down and burns me up. There is no use trying
to deceive me, Larry. My papers are made out, and I shall get my
discharge from the Army of the Living in a very few days now. But I
must not waste the little breath I have left in talking about myself.
I sent for you to ask a favor."
Larry held out his hand, and John Manning took it and seemed to gain
strength from the firm clasp.
"I knew I could rely on you," he said, "for much or for little. And
this is not much, for I have not much to leave. This worn old house,
which belonged to my grandmother, and in which I spent the happiest
hours of my boyhood, this and a few shares of stock here and there,
are all I have to leave. I do not know what the house is worth--and I
shall be glad when I am gone from it. If I had not come here, I think
I might perhaps have got well. There seems to be something deadly
about the place." The sick man's voice sank to a wavering whisper, as
though borne down by a sudden weight of impending danger against which
he might struggle in vain; he gave a fearful glance about the room as
though seeking a mystic foe, hidden and unknown. "The very first day
we were here the cat lapped its milk by the fire and then stretched
itself out and died without a sign. And I had not been here two days
before I felt the fatal influence: the trouble from my wound came on
again, and this awful burning in my breast began to torture me. As a
boy, I thought that heaven must be like this house; and now I should
not want to die if I thought hell could be worse!"
"Why don't you leave the place, since you hate it so?" asked Larry,
with what scant cheeriness he could muster; he was yielding himself
slowly to the place, though he fought bravely against his
superstitious weakness.
"Am I fit to be moved?" was the sick man's query in reply.
"But you will be better soon, and then--"
"I shall be worse before I am better, and I shall never be better in
this life or in this place. No, no, I must die in my hole like a dog.
Like a dog!" and John Manning repeated the words with a wistful face.
"Do you remember the faithful beast who always welcomed me here when
we came up before we went to Europe?"
"Of course I do," said Larry, glad to get the sick man away from his
sickness, and to ease his mind by talk on a healthy topic; "he was a
splendid fellow, too. Cesar, that was his name, wasn't it?"
"Cesar Borgia I called him," was Manning's sad reply. "I knew you
could not have forgotten him. He is dead. Cesar Borgia is dead. He was
the last living thing that loved me--except you, Larry, I know--and he
is dead. He died this morning. He came to my bedside as usual, and he
licked my hand gently and looked up in my face and laid him down
alongside of me on the carpet here and died. Poor Cesar Borgia--he
loved me, and he is dead! And you, Larry, you must not stay here. The
air is fatal. Every breath may be your last. When you have heard what
I want, you must be off at once. If you like, you may come up again to
the funeral before your leave is up. I saw you had three weeks."
Laurence Laughton moved uneasily in his chair and swallowed with
difficulty. "John," he managed to say after an effort, "if you talk to
me like that, I shall go at once. Tell me what it is you want me to do
for you."
"I want you to take care of my wife and of my child, if there be one
born to me after my death."
"Your wife?" repeated Larry, in staring surprise.
"You did not know I was married? I knew it at the time, as the boy
said," and John Manning smiled bitterly.
"Where is she?" was Larry's second query.
"Here."
"Here?"
"In this house. You shall see her before you go. And after the funeral
I want you to get her away from here with what speed you can. Sell
this house for what it will bring, and put the money into government
bonds. You may find it hard to persuade her to move, for she seems to
have a strange liking for this place. She breathes freely in the
deadly air that suffocates me. But you must not let her remain here;
this is no place for her now that a new life and new duties are before
her."
"How was it I did not know of your marriage?" asked Larry.
"I knew nothing about it myself twenty-four hours before it happened,"
answered John Manning. "You need not look surprised. It is a simple
story. I had this shot through the breast at Gettysburg last Fourth of
July. I lay on the hill-side a day and a night before relief came.
Then a farmer took me into his house. A military surgeon dressed my
wounds, but I owed my life to the nursing and care and unceasing
attention of a young lady who was staying with the farmer's daughter.
She had been doing her duty as a nurse as near to the field as she
could go ever since the first Bull Run. She saved my life, and I gave
it to her--what there was of it. She was a beautiful woman, indeed I
never saw a more beautiful--and she has a strange likeness to--but
that you shall see for yourself when you see her. She is getting a
little rest now, for she has been up all night attending to me. She
_will_ wait on me in spite of all I say; of course I know there is no
use wasting effort on me now. She is the most devoted nurse in the
world; and we shall part as we met--she taking care of me at the last
as she did at the first. Would God our relation had never been other
than patient and nurse! It would have been better for both had we
never been husband and wife!" And John Manning turned his face to the
wall with a weary sigh; then he coughed harshly and raised his hand to
his breast as though to stifle the burning within him.
"It seems to me, John, that you ought not to talk like that of the
woman you loved," said Laurence Laughton, with unusual seriousness.
"I never loved her," answered Manning, coldly. Then he turned and
asked hastily, "Do you think I should want to die, if I loved her?"
"But she loves you," said Laurence.
"She never loved me!" was Manning's impatient retort.
"Then why were you married?"
"That's what I would like to know. It was fate, I suppose. What is to
be, is. I never used to believe in predestination, but I know that of
my own free will I could never have done what I did."
"I confess I do not understand you," said Larry.
"I do not understand myself. There is so much in this world that is
mysterious--I hope the next will be different. I was under the charm,
I fancy, when I married her. She is a beautiful woman, as I told you,
and I was a man, and I was weak, and I had hope. Why she married me
that early September evening, I do not know. It was not long before we
both found out our mistake. And it was too late then. We were man and
wife. Don't suppose I blame her--I do not. I have no cause of
complaint. She is a good wife to me, as I have tried to be a good
husband to her. We made a mistake in marrying each other, and we know
it--that's all!"
Before Laurence Laughton could answer, the door opened gently and
Mrs. Manning entered the room. Laurence rose to greet his friend's
wife, but the act was none the less a homage to her resplendent
beauty. In spite of the worn look of her face, she was the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had tawny tigress hair
and hungry tigress eyes. The eyes indeed were fathomless and
indescribable, and their fitful glance had something uncanny about
it. The hair was nearly of the true Venetian color, and she had the
true Venetian sumptuousness of appearance, simple as was her attire.
She seemed as though she had just risen from the couch whereon she
reclined before Titian or Tintoretto, and, having clothed herself, had
walked forth in this nineteenth century and these United States. She
was a strange and striking figure, and Laurence found it impossible to
analyze exactly the curious and weird impression she produced on him.
Her voice, as she greeted him, gave him a peculiar thrill; and when he
shook hands with her he seemed to feel himself face to face with some
strange being from another land and another century. She inspired him
with a supernatural awe he was not wont to feel in the presence of
woman. He had a dim consciousness that there lingered in his memory
the glimmering image of some woman seen somewhere, he knew not when,
who was like unto the woman before him.
As she took her seat by the side of the bed, she gave Laurence
Laughton a look that seemed to peer into his soul. Laurence felt
himself quiver under it. It was a look to make a man fearful. Then
John Manning, who had moved uneasily as his wife entered, said,
"Laurence, can you see any resemblance in my wife to any one you ever
saw before?"
Their eyes met again, and again Laurence had a vague remembrance as
though he and she had stood face to face before in some earlier
existence. Then his wandering recollections took shape, and he
remembered the face and the form and the haunting mystery of the
expression, and he felt for a moment as though he had been permitted
to peer into the cabalistic darkness of an awful mystery, though he
failed wholly to perceive its occult significance--if significance
there were of any sort.
"I think I do remember," he said at last. "It was in Venice--at the
church of Santa Maria Madalena--the picture there that--"
"You remember aright!" interrupted John Manning. "My wife is the
living image of the Venetian woman for whose beauty Marco Manin was
one day stabbed in the back with a glass stiletto and Giovanni Manin
fled from the place of his birth and never saw it again. It is idle to
fight against the stars in their courses. We met here in the New
World, she and I, as they met in the Old World so long ago--and the
end is the same. It was to be ... it was to be!"
Laurence Laughton gave a swift glance at his friend's wife to see what
effect these words might have on her, and he was startled to detect
on her face the same enigmatic smile which was the chief memory he had
retained of the Venetian picture. Truly, the likeness between the
painting and the wife of his friend was marvellous; and Laurence tried
to shake off a morbid wonder whether there might be any obscure and
inscrutable survival from one generation to another across the seas
and across the years.
"If you remember the picture," said John Manning, "perhaps you
remember the quaint goblet of Venetian glass I bought the same day?"
"Of course I do," said Larry, glad to get Manning started on a topic
of talk a little less personal.
"Perhaps you know what has become of it?" asked Manning.
"I can answer 'of course' to that, too," replied Larry, "because I
have it here."
"Here?"
"Here--in a little square box, in the hall," answered Larry. "I had it
in my trunk, you know, when we took passage on the _Vanderbilt_ at
Havre that May morning. I forgot to give it to you in the hurry of
landing, and I haven't had a chance since. This is the first time I
have seen you for nearly three years. I found the box this morning,
and I thought you might like to have it again, so I brought it up."
John Manning rang the bell at the head of his bed. The black crone
answered it, and soon returned with the little square box. Manning
impatiently broke the seals and cords that bound its cover and began
eagerly to release the goblet from the cotton and tissue paper in
which it had been carefully swathed and bandaged. Mrs. Manning, though
her moods were subtler and more intense, showed an anxiety to see the
goblet quite as feverish as her husband's. In a minute the last
wrapping was twisted off and the full beauty of the Venetian glass was
revealed to them. Assuredly no praise was too loud for its delicate
and exquisite workmanship.
"Does Mrs. Manning know the story of the goblet?" asked Larry; "has
she been told of the peculiar virtue ascribed to it?"
"She has too great a fondness for the horrible and the fantastic not
to have heard the story in its smallest details," said Manning.
Mrs. Manning had taken the glass in her fine, thin hands. Evidently it
and its mystic legend had a morbid fascination for her. A strange
light gleamed in her wondrous eyes, and Laughton was startled again to
see the extraordinary resemblance between her and the picture they had
looked at on the day the goblet had been bought.
"When the poison was poured into it," she said at last, with quick and
restless glances at the two men, "the glass broke--then the tale was
true?"
"It was a coincidence only, I'm afraid," said her husband, who had
rallied and regained strength under the unwonted excitement.
Just then the old-fashioned clock on the stairs struck five. Mrs.
Manning started up, holding the goblet in her hand.
"It is time for your medicine," she said.
"As you please," answered her husband wearily, sinking back on his
pillow. "My wife insists on giving me every drop of my potions with
her own hands. I shall not trouble her much longer, and I doubt if it
is any use for her to trouble me now."
"I shall give you everything in this glass after this," she said.
"In the Venetian glass?" asked Larry.
"Yes," she said, turning on him fiercely; "why not?"
"Do you think the doctor is trying to poison me?" asked her husband.
"No, I do not think the doctor is trying to poison you," she repeated
mechanically as she moved toward a little sideboard in a corner of the
room. "But I shall give you all your medicines in this hereafter."
She stood at the little sideboard, with her back toward them, and she
mingled the contents of various phials in the Venetian goblet. Then
she turned to cross the room to her husband. As she walked with the
glass in her hand there was a rift in the clouds high over the other
side of the river, and the rays of the setting sun thrust themselves
through the window and lighted up the glory of her hair and showed the
strange gleam in her staring eyes. Another step, and the red rays fell
on the Venetian glass, and it burned and glowed, and the green
serpents twined about its ruby stem seemed to twist and crawl with
malignant life, while their scorching eyes shot fire. Another step,
and she stood by the bedside. As John Manning reached out his hand for
the goblet, a tremor passed through her, her fingers clinched the
fragile stem, and the glass fell on the floor and was shattered to
shivers as its fellow had been shattered three centuries ago and more.
She still stared steadily before her; then her lips parted, and she
said, "The glass broke--the glass broke--then the tale is true!" And
with one hysteric shriek she fell forward amid the fragments of the
Venetian goblet, unconscious thereafter of all things.