I SEE MYSELF, NOT KNOWING
But to the mind of a child the moment is everything. Had I been a man,
my inamorata would have driven me to solitude and cigars. Being what I
was, supper pushed her image to one side for the moment. Such a supper!
Served specially for the pair of us in a little room, once, I suppose,
some lady's boudoir, for the walls were hung with blue silk, and the
ceiling was painted with flowers and cupids.
"Where is Carl?" asked Eloise of the German woman who served us.
"Carl has been naughty," replied she. "Carl must remain in his room till
the Baron forgives him."
This woman, by name Gretel, was tall, angular, and hard of face. I did
not care for her; and I noticed that she watched me from the corners of
her eyes, somewhat in the same manner that the Baron had watched me as I
played on the hearthrug with Marengo in the hotel at Frankfort.
"Who is Carl?" said I.
"Carl von Lichtenberg?" replied Eloise. "Why, he is the Baron's son. He
is eight, and he tore my frock this morning right up here." She shifted
in her chair, and plucked up the hem of her tiny skirt to show me the
place. "But it was not for that Carl has been put in prison, for I never
told, did I, Gretel?"
Gretel grunted.
"Come," said she, "if you have finished supper you can have half an
hour's play before bed."
She took the lamp in her hand, and led us from the room down a corridor;
then, opening one side of a tall, double door, she led us into an
immense picture-gallery.
Portraits of dead-and-gone Lichtenbergs stared at us from the walls. Men
in armour, knights dressed for the chase, ladies whose beauty or
ugliness wore the veil of the centuries.
"Why, this is the picture-gallery!" cried Eloise.
"It is the shortest way to the playroom," grimly replied Gretel, as she
stalked before us with the light.
We followed her, walking hand-in-hand, as the babes in the wood walked
in that grim story, to which the pity of the robins is the sequel.
Suddenly Gretel halted. She stood lamp in hand before a picture.
"Ah, Toto!" cried Eloise.
I had seized her arm, I suppose roughly in my agitation, for the picture
before which Gretel had halted filled me with a sensation I can scarcely
describe. Terror!--yes, it was terror, but something else as well. The
feeling I had experienced in the carriage, the feeling--"I have been
here before"--held my heart.
It was the picture of a girl in the garb of many, oh, many years ago;
yet I knew her; and out of the past, far out of the past, came that
mysterious terror that filled my soul.
But for a moment this lasted, and then faded away, and things became
commonplace once more; and Gretel was Gretel, the picture a picture, and
in my hand lay the warm and charming hand of Eloise, which I had taken
again.
"That is the picture of Margaret von Lichtenberg," said Gretel, looking
at me as she spoke.
"How like she is to little Carl!" murmured Eloise. "Gretel, how like she
is to little Carl!"
"And this," said Gretel, holding the lamp to a small canvas under the
large one, "is a picture of an ancestor of yours, little boy, Philippe
de Saluce. He loved her, but it was many years ago. Eloise, come closer;
see, who is this little picture like?"
"Why, it is Toto!" cried Eloise, clapping her hands. "Toto, look!"
I looked. It was the picture of a boy, a picture of the Marquis Philippe
de Saluce, taken when he was quite young.
I looked, but the thing made little impression upon me. Few people can
recognise their likeness in another.
"Come," said Gretel, and she led us on to the playroom.
Now, here let me give you the dark and gloomy fact that Philippe de
Saluce had cruelly killed Margaret von Lichtenberg in a fit of madness
and rage. He had drowned her in the lake which lies in the woods of
Schloss Lichtenberg, one dark and sad day of December, in the year of
our Lord 1611. He had slain himself, too, "body and soul," said the old
chronicles. 'Alas, what man can slay his soul or save it from the
punishment of its crimes!
The playroom was full of toys, evidently Carl's, and we played till
bedtime, Eloise and I. Then I was marched off to the door of my bedroom,
where Joubert was waiting for me.
A pretty chambermaid scuttled away at my approach. I will say for
Joubert that, judging from my childish recollections, this cat-whiskered
old fire-eater had an attraction for ladies of his own class quite
incommensurate with his age and personal charms.
My bedroom was a little room opening off my father's.
When Joubert had tucked me up I fell asleep, and must have slept several
hours, when I was awakened by the sound of voices.
Joubert was assisting my father to undress. They were talking.
No man, I think, ever saw Count Mahon drunk. I have seen him myself
consume two bottles of port without turning a hair. They built men
differently in those days. But he was the soul of good-fellowship; and
how much he and Bismarck had consumed together that night the butler of
Schloss Lichtenberg alone knew.
"Joubert," said my father, "this relation of mine, Baron Lichtenberg, of
the Schloss Lichtenberg, in the province of What-do-you-call-it--put my
coat on that chair--strikes me as being a German, and, more than
that--mark you, Joubert, madness lies in the eyes of a man. I say
nothing, but I am glad the blood of the Lichtenbergs does not run in the
veins of the Mahons." Then, just before he fell asleep, and I could hear
Joubert giving the bedclothes a tuck at his back: "Ireland for ever!"
said my father. Yet he was a Frenchman, a Commander of the Legion of
Honour, a soldier of the Emperor. IN VINO VERITAS!
Then I fell asleep, and scarcely had sleep touched me than I entered
dreamland. I was in the pine forest, standing just where the carriage
had stopped and where the sound of the distant horn had come to us from
the depths of the trees. I was lost, and someone was calling to me. It
was very dark.
In this tragic dream, the terror and mystery of which even still haunts
me, I could see nothing save the outlines of the trees dimly visible;
and I followed the voice through the increasing gloom till at last the
darkness complete and absolute ringed me round like an iron band, and I
knew that the trees had ceased to be, and before me lay water.
A gasping and bubbling sound came from the invisible water, and I knew
that it was the sound of a person drowning.
Drowning in the dark.
Then I awoke, and there were people in the room.
The room was lit by a nightlight dimly burning in a little dish. I,
still possessed by the terror of the dream, lay very quiet. From the
next room came the deep and stertorous breathing of my father. The
people in my room, as though knowing him to be under the influence of
drugs or wine, seemed quite oblivious of his presence so close to them.
Baron Lichtenberg was standing by the foot of my bed; beside him stood
the woman Gretel. They were gazing upon me and talking about me, and I
was chill with terror.
Peeping under my lids, I could see them, but in the dim light they could
not tell that I was awake as they gazed at me and talked in a
half-whisper.
"It is horrible," said the man, "but it was prophesied. Look at him. Can
you doubt?"
"Yes," said the woman; "it is he, as surely as she is Margaret."
"And you say he recognised her picture?"
"Surely," replied the woman, "by his face, which I watched narrowly."
Now, the face of the man seen in the dim light was the face of Baron
Carl von Lichtenberg with the veil removed, the veil which every man
wears whilst playing his part in the social comedy. The face that was
looking down at me was both merciless and mad. Child though I was, I
dimly felt that this man was at enmity with me, and that he not only
feared me, but hated me.
"And now," said the woman in the same half-whisper, "what is to do? Will
you bring them together?"
"To-morrow," said the Baron.
During this conversation, which had lasted some minutes, the Baron had
never once taken his eyes from my face. I could support it no longer. I
opened my eyes, tossed my arms, and, like a pair of evil spectres, my
visitors vanished from the room.
Now that I was free of their presence, my terror became tinged with
curiosity. Who was Margaret? Who was the person they referred to as
being me? _The other person?_
In those questions lay the mystery and tragedy of my life. I was to have
the answer to them terribly soon.
I listened to the turret clock striking the hours. This clock was of
very antique make. The figure of a man in armour, larger than life,
struck a ponderous bell with a mallet. You could see him in the turret,
and my father had pointed him out to me as we drove up to the house.
As I listened, I pictured him standing there alone. A figure from
another age and a far-distant time.