Produced by Roger Frank, David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) DEATH THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ PIERROT 2s. net 'The story has an extraordinary charm, imagination, style. The descriptions of the German soldiers passing the park gates on their way to Paris, of the old Corporal of the Grand Army, drunken and broken-hearted, of the gentle figure of the poor young count, these belong to literature, and literature of a fine quality.'--_Academy._ 'It is a fascinating romance.'--_Punch._ 'Weird mystery and delicate fancy mingle in "Pierrot." Mr Stacpoole writes gracefully and his manner suits his dainty theme.'--_Black and White._ 'Mr Stacpoole has achieved a distinct success. He has managed to create just the atmosphere of poetic mystery that is required, and this it is which gives the book its charm.'--_National Observer._ 'If all the volumes of Mr John Lane's new "Pierrot Library" are to be of the same genus as the first one, "Pierrot," let us have a volume once a week and regularly as Sunday comes round.'--_Woman._ 'On the whole "Pierrot" is both unusual and refreshing.'--_Literary World._ 'The story is peculiarly fascinating. The writer has a deft touch and a rare command of apt language.'--_Dundee Advertiser._ JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD LONDON & NEW YORK DEATH THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY A GHOST STORY BY H. DE VERE STACPOOLE [Illustration] JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LONDON & NEW YORK MDCCCXCVII CONTENTS PAGE BALLAD OF THE ARRAS vii PROLOGUE 1 CHAP. I. I DESCRIBE MYSELF 11 II. JAMES WILDER 16 III. A SOUND WHICH REMINDS ME OF MY PAST 27 IV. INSTRUCTIONS PERFORMED 35 V. WE SAY GOOD-BYE 38 VI. --AND I START 42 VII. NORTH 44 VIII. THE DIMLY-PAINTED FACE 50 IX. GERALDINE 57 X. WE MEET 72 XI. THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK 78 XII. THE MORNING 89 XIII. "YOU WERE NOT DRESSED LIKE THIS" 102 XIV. THE BALLADE OF THE FALCON 109 XV. MY LETTER 112 XVI. THE BLACK HORSE AND THE WHITE 121 XVII. THE OLD OAK CHEST 126 XVIII. THE TRUMPETER 144 XIX. THE TRUMPETER 147 XX. THE RUBY WINE 151 XXI. "AND THEY LAID HIM TO HIS REST" 160 XXII. THE END 162 BALLAD OF THE ARRAS Lo! where are now these armoured hosts Mailed for the tourney _câp-a-pie_, These dames and damozelles whose ghosts Make of the past this pagentry? O sanguine book of History! Romance with perfume cloaks thy must, But he who shakes the page may see --Dust. Stiff hangs the arras in the gloom; I turn my head awhile to gaze: Here lordly stallions fret and fume, Here streams o'er briar and brake the chase. Here sounds a horn, here turns a face, How filled with fires of life and lust! Wind shakes the arras and betrays --Dust. Ephemeral hand inditing this Great hound that lolls against my knee, Lips pursed in thought as if to kiss Regret--full soon the time must be. When one shall search, but find not ye, For that dim moth whose labours rust All forms in time or tapestry --Dust. Forth offspring to the perch and then Clap wings--or fall, if find you must This saddest fate of books or men --Dust. DEATH THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY PROLOGUE I had almost forgotten James Wilder's existence, when, one night in June, I received an urgent message asking me to call upon him without delay. An hour later I was sitting in his library, and in the arm-chair opposite mine was sunk what seemed the spectre of my friend. During the ten months that had elapsed since our last meeting he had passed from middle life to premature old age. "I am glad you have come," he said, "I am in need of a friend, but do not speak to me yet, that is, for a moment, I wish to think." His eyes fell from me to the carpet, he seemed watching something, and his thin lips were curled in a ghostly smile. The room was hot and oppressive, flowers were heaped everywhere in profusion, and the large wood fire burning in the grate mixed its faint aromatic smell with the perfume of the roses and tube-roses lolling in their porcelain bowls. I sat watching the burning logs and thinking. I had known Wilder for some years, I had been his intimate friend, but how much did I know really about him? Not much. I had dined with him, talked with him, exchanged opinions; I knew that he was wealthy, that he owned a house somewhere in the country, to which he never invited friends, and of which I had heard rumours needless to set down here. That he was an opium eater I knew, and that was the extent of my knowledge of the man. Of the being who existed behind that careworn, weary face, I knew absolutely nothing, but I had always guessed it to be occupied with some secret trouble, pressed upon by some sin or sorrow of which it dared not speak; also, by some freak of imagination, I had always coupled this imaginary sorrow of Wilder's with that house in the country of which I had received so many mysterious hints. Suddenly I started from my reverie. Wilder was speaking. "Ah, my dear ----, I have been trying to brace myself for the effort, but I cannot, I cannot; what I have to ask of you, you will do without question if you are my friend, but to speak of it all, to go over that terrible ground, oh! impossible, impossible, impossible." His voice died away into a whisper, and he struck with his thin hand on the arm of his chair, as if beating time to some dreary tune heard by him alone. "What I ask of you is this, to start as soon as possible for my place in Yorkshire, and to see carried out after the fashion I desire, the obsequies of a man--I mean, a woman--who is lying there dead." Again his voice sank to a whisper, his eyes turned from mine evasively, and he covered them with one of his thin white hands. A man--I mean a woman--what _did_ he mean? "Will you do this?" "Yes, I will do as you ask; it seems strange, no matter, I will do it." "You take a load from me. Ah, my dear ----, if you could only guess what I have suffered, the terrors, the tortures, the _nameless_ misery. I ought to be at the grave side when this terrible burial--Oh, how my head wanders, I have scarcely the power of thought, but say it once again, you will do what I ask, promise me that again." "Yes, yes, I promise, set your mind at rest--I will do what you require." "You will start, then, at once?" "To-morrow." "Yes, to-morrow early, to-morrow early; and now as to what you are to do. Listen, at Ashworth, near my place, there lives a man who works in granite, you will get him to cut a memorial tablet. These words are to be upon it, they are written on this piece of paper, take it; the body is to be buried in the vault of the little church in the park; remember it is to be interred dressed exactly as I have ordered it to be dressed, this is my chief reason for asking you to attend the last ceremonies. I dare not leave this matter to the hands of servants, and I--may not go myself, I am broken down with ill-health and sorrow, and the journey would kill me, though, indeed, I am dying fast enough." His eyes were wandering again, as if following some imaginary spectre about the room. I looked at the piece of paper, on it was written-- "SIR GERALD WILDER, Knt. _Rest in Peace_." Sir Gerald Wilder! why, a moment ago he said "a woman." What mystery was in this? And then, "Rest in Peace," it sounded like a command. "The coffin is ordered," broke out Wilder, suddenly seeming to return to this world from the world of his imagination. "The coffin is made, promise me again, you will go." "I will go." The next morning I started for Ashworth, in Yorkshire, to fulfil my strange mission. I had asked no more of Wilder, content to act without question, which is the first office of friendship. I started early, and arrived at Ashworth shortly after three o'clock. A carriage was waiting to take me to the Gables. The weather was exquisite, and the moors over which the white road led us stretched on either side, far as the eye could reach, like a rolling sea under the blue summer sky and hot June sun. The rocking motion sent me to sleep. When I woke the wheels were crashing on gravel, and the carriage was passing swiftly through a long, dark avenue. This was, then, the Gables, this great old-fashioned gloomy house, with a broad portico supported on fluted granite pillars, facing the broad park dotted with clumps of trees, so broad and so far-reaching that the deer in the furthermost parts were reduced to moving specks. The door was opened by an ill-looking servant-maid, whose sour and crabbed face struck an unpleasant note against the old-fashioned and romantic surroundings. The great hall, oak-panelled, and lit by stained glass windows, hid amongst its other treasures an echo, whose dreamy voice repeated my footsteps with a sound like the pattering of a ghost. I stood for a moment, my heart absorbing the silence of this place, so far removed from the spirit of to-day. The air held something, I know not what, it seemed like an odour left from the perfumed robes of Romance. I heard a sound behind me, and turning, I saw an old servant man with silvery white hair. He showed me to my room, and I kept him whilst I explained fully my business. He listened respectfully, but like a person who had ceased to take any interest in life. When I had finished, I asked him to take me to the room where the dead person lay. He led the way down a corridor, opened a door, and stood aside whilst I entered. I found myself in a bedroom hung with rose-coloured silk; the window was open, and through it came the warm evening breeze and the far-off cawing of rooks. On the bed I saw a form, but I could scarcely believe that what I saw was real. Stretched upon the snow-white coverlet lay the body of a cavalier, full-dressed in amber satin doublet and long buff-coloured riding-boots, his hair long, curling, and black as night, surrounded a face pale as marble and beautiful as a woman's. His white right hand, peeping from its lace ruffle, grasped the hilt of a sword, his left hand grasped a silver trumpet. Attached to the trumpet a crimson silk cord streaked the coverlet like a thin and tortuous stream of blood. He seemed to have stepped from the pages of romance, and to have laid himself down here to rest. I trembled as I looked, feared to stir lest he should wake, yet I well knew him to be dead. I might have fancied myself in a dream but for the far-off clamour of the rooks coming through the evening sky outside and the sound of my own heart beating. Was it a man? was it a woman? the face might have done for either, yet it was the most beautiful face I had ever beheld, the most romantic, the most pathetic. Then recollection woke up, and I shuddered. This, then, was Sir Gerald Wilder. This form, more beautiful than a picture, was the sorrow of James Wilder, the thing that had driven him to opium, the thing that had broken his heart and crowned him with premature old age. How? Why? I dared scarcely think. I stole from the room. In the passage I found the old man-servant waiting for me; he shut the door softly, and I followed him back to my own room. There I took his arm and looked in his face. "What is the meaning of this?" "I dursn't tell you, sir; oh, sir, my heart be gone with the sorrow of it all, but if you wish, I will bring the book that he was always a-writing in for these months past." "Yes, get the book, please, at once: no thank you, nothing to eat yet, I wish to see the book first." He went, and returned with a large, old-fashioned common-place book, the leaves of which were covered with writing. It was a woman's hand. I took it down stairs, and went with it into the garden. There, on a seat in the middle of an old Dutch garden, very prim, very silent, where the sunlight fell upon the faces of the amber and purple pansies, and the great white carnations shook their ruffles to the wind with a dreamy and seventeenth century air, I sat and read this story, written by the hand of a dead cavalier who craves, through me, your sympathy for his deathless sorrow. THE BOOK CHAPTER I I DESCRIBE MYSELF I cannot tell you my story unless I tell you who I am and what I am. Oh, it is not for pleasure that I am writing all this down, but just because I--must. My name is Beatrice Sinclair, and I am the last representative of an old and ruined family. There were Sinclairs in the time of King Charles who were great people at Court--you must accept the statement, for I cannot write much about this family of mine, the very thought of it fills me with a kind of horror. What would all those men with long flowing hair, those women with patches on their faces,--what would they say if they could see me, the last of their race, and could know what I have been? Perhaps you guess what I mean, perhaps you are sneering at me; you can do so if you please, for I am so very ill that I care for nothing now, and they say I am dying. I know now, oh, I know well why an animal crawls away and hides itself to die: though I am only twenty-three I know more about death than those Egyptians who have been shut up in pyramids alone with him for a thousand years. From the window where I am sitting now, wrapped up in shawls, I can see the garden; the frost has gone, and I can see a yellow crocus that has pushed its head up through the dark, stiff mould. If it knew what I know of life, it would draw that head back. You must think me a very gloomy person, and indeed just now I am, for I am thinking of a part of my history of which I shall not speak, but only hint. Some time, no matter how long ago, I was living at the Bath Hotel. I had plenty of clothes and money, and I thought I was in love. Well, one day I found myself deserted, I found a letter on the breakfast table enclosing a blue strip of paper--a cheque for two hundred pounds. I did not scream and tear my hair as a girl I know said she did when she was deserted, I believe I laughed. I went to the theatre that night alone, and everybody stared at me. I was beautiful then, I am nearly as beautiful now, but it was only on that night that I first fully recognised how beautiful I was, I could see it in the faces of the men who looked at me, and in the manner of the women,--how women hate one another! and yet some women have been very good to me. Well, when I got home I found supper waiting for me, and after supper I looked at myself again in the long pier glass opposite the fireplace; then a strange feeling came over me that I had never felt before, I felt a thirst to be admired, I say thirst, for it was so, it was really in the back of my throat that this feeling came, but it was in my head as well; it was not the admiration of ordinary people that I wanted; I craved to see some being as lovely as myself turn its head to gaze at me. Oh! my beautiful face, how I loved you, oh! the nights I have woken up shivering to think of the dissecting rooms where they take the bodies of the people who have no friends. At the end of six months my two hundred pounds were nearly gone. I lived innocently, I lived in a kind of dream. Men filled me with a kind of horror, when they looked at me in the streets I shuddered; I shudder still, and I wonder why God ever made such a blind and cruel thing as man. I moved into furnished rooms: all this is misty now in my mind. If I had died then I might never have gone to heaven, but I would never have seen hell. I got typhoid fever; my rings lay on the dressing table, hoops of sapphires and emeralds; each fortnight a ring went to pay for my rooms and the doctor, who seemed never able to cure me. I cannot tell you much after this, I can only say that I struggled, mad with pride and mad with hatred. I starved, but why should I pain you, and make more sad a story that is already sad enough? CHAPTER II JAMES WILDER It is about six months ago. I was in a very bad way. I was walking along the south side of Russell Square one day--the 17th of September I remember now--and thinking to myself how I should pay my landlady the three weeks' rent owing to her. Deeply as I was trying to think I could not help noticing a man coming towards me, striding along with his hat tilted back from his forehead, his head in the air, and looking just like a person walking in his sleep. I made way to let him pass, then suddenly I felt him grasp me by the arm and I heard him say "Ah!" I knew at once--how shall I put it--that he only wanted to speak to me, that he had mistaken me for someone he knew, and as I looked in his face I did not feel a bit afraid, although his face was strange enough, goodness knows. "What is your name?" he asked. "Jane Seymour," I replied, for it was my name, at least the name I went under. "Ah!" he said, and his hand fell from my arm. I never saw a person look so disappointed as he looked just then; I heard him muttering something like "always the same, disappointment, death," then he turned to go, and I broke into tears. I was hungry and I had no money; he had seemed almost friendly, and now he was going--I could scarcely speak, I leaned up against the railings, I remember trying to hide a hole in my glove, for I had determined on telling him my real name. "Well?" he said, "Well?" "My name is Beatrice Sinclair," I answered; "that is my real name." Then I stopped crying, for I was absolutely frightened, _such_ a change came over this strange man; two large tears ran down his face, he clasped his hands together with the fingers across the backs of each hand, and I thought for one moment that he was a lunatic, then somehow I _knew_ that he was not. "Beatrice Sinclair," he muttered to me in a low voice, as if afraid of someone else hearing him, "Beatrice Sinclair, oh, Beatrice! the time I have been searching for you, the three weary years, the nights of terror; but it is over now, thank God! thank God." I felt very strange as he said all this. I knew well that this man was not in love with me; I had no relations, so he could not be a relation, and yet I knew in a horribly certain kind of manner that he knew me, that he had been searching for me, and--had found me. A hansom cab was passing, he hailed it and we both got in, then I heard him giving directions to the driver, "No.--Berkeley Square," he said, "and drive quick." "You look pale and sick," that was the only thing he said during our drive. But the way in which he said it was very queer. He did not seem in the least to care whether I was pale or sick, and yet he had seemed so glad to find me, "Can he be mad after all?" thought I. The cab stopped at a large house in Berkeley Square, and we got out; he gave the driver half-a-sovereign, and without waiting for the change went up the steps, and opened the door with a latch-key; "Come on," he said, beckoning to me, and I followed. We entered a great hall with a floor of polished oak; I saw jars of flowers standing here and there, and idols half hidden by palms and long feathery grasses. He opened a door and motioned me to enter a room, and I went in, feeling horrible in my shabby clothes amongst all this splendour. It was a library. He told me to sit down, and I sat in a great easy-chair, looking about me whilst he went to a window, and stood for nearly a minute looking out, jingling money in his pocket, but not speaking a word. --Oh, this writing makes my head ache so, and this cough, cough, cough, that tears me from morning till night!-- Well, he stood at the window without speaking, and I kept trying to hide my boots under my skirt; but I looked about me, and noticed everything in the room at the same time. The books were all set in narrow bookcases, and between the bookcases there were spaces occupied by pictures, and I never had seen such strange pictures before. They were just like pictures of ghosts, beautiful faces nearly all of them, but they seemed like faces made out of mist, if you understand me. Over the mantelpiece stood a portrait of an old man with grey hair, and on the gold frame of this picture was written in black letters the name, "Swedenborg." At last my companion turned from the window, wheeled a chair close to me, and sat down. "Now," he said, "I want you to tell me all you know about your family. I want to make perfectly sure that you _are_ the person for whom I have been seeking. Tell me unreservedly, it will be to your advantage." He had taken his gloves off now, and I saw that his hands, very white and delicate-looking, were absolutely covered with the most exquisite rings. "Mine is a very old family," I said. "We lived once in a castle in the North of England, Castle Sinclair." "Yes, yes." "My father was an officer. He was very extravagant. He died in India. I was sent to school in England, then I became a governess--then--then--" "You need not tell me the rest," he said, "I know it. Yes, you are indeed Beatrice Sinclair." He looked at me in a gloomy manner. Then "You have spoken frankly," he said, "and I shall do the same. My name is James Wilder." He paused, and looked at me hard, but I said nothing. "Ah!" he continued, "you know nothing of the past, then? Perhaps it is better so, but I must tell you some of it, so that you may do what I require you to do. Listen. In the reign of King Charles the First a terrible tragedy happened. A member of the Wilder family did a fearful wrong upon a member of the Sinclair family. No family feud took place, because Gerald Wilder, who had committed this wrong, expiated it by suicide, but a blind, reasonless, unintentional feud has been going on between the two houses ever since. The house of Sinclair has warred with our family in a strange and fearful manner. All the eldest sons of our house have been slain before the age of twenty by--a Sinclair. My eldest brother was slain by your father's brother." "My father's brother?" "Yes, they were out shooting together. My brother was shot dead by your uncle. It was an accident; no one was to blame, but fate. Now the fortunes of the two families have been altering during all these years. The house of Wilder is at its zenith. Speaking in a worldly sense, I am worth at least fifty thousand a year, at _least_, and the house of Sinclair?--you are its last representative, how much are you worth?" "Less than nothing." "Let us be friends then, let us be friends," said Wilder, in a voice full of supplication. How strange it sounded to hear a man like this, wealthy and great, asking for _my_ friendship. "Let us be friends,--the two last representatives of these great houses must forgive each other. Love can heal this awful wound, and the house of Wilder shall not be extinct. Oh, God is great and good, he will sanction this love even though you are what you are." He was walking up and down the room as he spoke. "Does he want me to love _him_?" I thought. Then he stopped. "You have no money?" "None." He went to a desk and drew out a cheque-book, scribbled for a moment, tore off a cheque, and brought it to me. I looked at it: it was a cheque on the British Linen Company's Bank for five hundred pounds. I felt just as if I were drunk, the books in the cases seemed to dance. "This can't be for me," I remember saying; "or do you want me to do some dreadful thing, that you offer me all this money----" I stopped, for he was smiling at me such a melancholy, kind smile, it told me at once that I had nothing to fear from him. He called me "child," and took my hand and kissed it--I felt so ashamed of my glove, but he did not seem to notice the holes in it, nor how old it was. "Yes," he said, "the money is for you; you must buy yourself beautiful clothes and some jewellery. I am going to send you to the north of England, to do what has to be done. You must start on the day after to-morrow; have no fear, I wish you to do nothing sinful or wrong, but rather the best work mortal ever did; you shall be provided for. I will set aside a fund for you under trustees; it is an act of piety, not charity, for in saving the last of the Sinclairs from want I am doing an act which may expiate the sin our house committed. Beatrice Sinclair, you shall never want again, never be cold or hungry." I was crying like a child. When I could cry no more he began speaking again. "You must stay in this house until you start, that is, if you please. My carriage shall take you to all the shops you require to visit; by the way, spend _all_ that money on clothes. I will give you a note to the jewellers with whom I deal in Bond Street, and you can supply yourself with all the jewellery you require; don't think about the expense. You are beautiful by nature, but I wish you to be as beautiful as art can make you. Then, again, you will require dressing-bags and portmanteaux, and such things. I will give you a note to the best firm in London. I need not speak to you on matters of taste; you are a lady--I only say this, spare no expense. Is that cheque sufficient?" "More than sufficient." I felt dazed and strange. Did he intend to marry me? Why was he sending me to the north of England? But it was delightful, I could not describe my feelings. "Now you must have some food," he said, getting up and moving to the door as he spoke. "Come with me to the dining-room." CHAPTER III A SOUND WHICH REMINDS ME OF MY PAST The table was laid for luncheon in the dining-room, and as I took my seat at a place he pointed out, he went to a speaking tube and whistled down it. Then I heard him ordering the carriage to be ready in an hour. "Will that suit you?" he asked, looking at me. "Yes," I replied. I was laughing now. Oh, life had turned so in a moment from awfulness to loveliness. I never pinched myself to feel if I were in a dream or not. I have read about that in stories, and I think it's stupid, besides, I did not want to wake up if it was a dream. I did not want to talk either, I was too happy. I thought of the dinner I had yesterday. I could not remember what it was, then I remembered I had not dined yesterday at all; I had lent my last shilling to Jessie, who lives in the room below mine; she had sworn to pay me back in the evening if she was lucky, and then she came back drunk at twelve o'clock, swearing like a soldier, poor Jessie---- Wilder ate very little and spoke scarcely at all, I think the only thing he said in the way of conversation was "I never have servants in the room when I am eating;" and I said to myself, "Thank goodness." Just imagine how I would have felt if one of those dreadful men-servants had been gliding about the room,--my wristbands all frayed, my hands not very clean, for those cheap gloves dye one's hands, and my collar crumpled. Wilder wanted to open me some champagne, but I said no. I thought he looked pleased. He had a decanter before him, and he poured himself out a glass from it. "I don't ask you to take this," he said in an apologetic sort of manner; "because it would--well a glass of it would kill you, it's opium, I am used to it--all the worry I have had----" His head sunk on his breast, and I felt sorry for him, though he was so rich and lived in such a beautiful house. After a moment he looked up--we had finished eating. "Gerald," he said, "I want you to be happy; poor soul, you have suffered too, but perhaps it is for the best." "Why do you call me Gerald?" I asked, staring at him. A dreamy look had come over his strange face, perhaps it was the opium. "Did I call you Gerald?" he said, "well, you will know why soon, I want you to be happy." He rose from the table. "Come," he said, "I will show you to your room." I followed him into the hall, then up a great broad staircase carpeted with soft fleecy carpet; on the first landing he opened a door. "This is your room," he said, "you will find everything you require; when you are ready come downstairs and you will find the carriage waiting." He shut the door on me, and I found myself alone. It was a small, but beautifully furnished bedroom. A fire was burning in the grate; on the bed lay a great sealskin cloak, perfectly new. It was evidently intended for me, I tried it on before the glass, it reached to my feet, hiding all my shabby clothes. Then I took it off and laid it on the bed again. I looked at the floor beside the fireplace. There, in a row, stood a number of ladies' boots and shoes, different sizes; a wardrobe stood open, I looked in, dresses of dark silk and satin, bonnets, hats; on the dressing-table great ivory hair brushes, gloves, handkerchiefs, scent bottles of cut glass, a curling tongs and spirit lamp which was lit, a little strip of paper on which was written, "Help yourself to whatever you require." I could have cried again, but somehow I didn't. I looked all round, and then I remember lifting up my arms to stretch myself, why I did so I don't know. Then, as I began undressing, I laughed, I spoke to the things in the room just like a child, I asked questions of the little silver clock on the mantelpiece--oh, those hideous old boots I had worn so long, they seemed to make faces at me as I took them off. I flung them in a corner. In an alcove stood a great bath; I turned the tap, shaped like a dragon's head, and the water roared and foamed into the bath through the dragon's mouth; I smelt the water, I tasted it, it was sea water; in a minute the bath was full. The luxury of it! the warm briny water that let one's limbs float loose like seaweed. I pretended to drown myself for fun, then I turned over on my face, floating, and seized the dragon's head in both hands. Then, as I lay floating, I listened to the far away sound I knew so well--the distant roar of carts and cabs in the streets. I sprang out of the bath in a fury. I had never thought of it before like this, now I saw all the wretchedness that I had gone through, saw it all a million times more clearly than I had ever done when I was in it. Oh, the vile world, I could have eaten it, eaten it. Then I caught a glimpse of my naked figure in the long glass. I was beautiful as ever, my limbs were white as snow. I whirled round, and my long black hair flew out in a mist, scattering drops of water everywhere. Yes, I was even more beautiful than before, my troubles had given my face more expression; my teeth were perfect--Jessie's teeth were broken--_Jessie_. I would be revenged yet. I leaned on my side before the great glass, gazing at myself as gloomily as a thunder-cloud. I would be revenged on this world. Why had God created such a place, and the clergymen whining about heaven, and the doctors who took a poor girl's rings, and--I smelt a subtle perfume, and turning, I saw a great bunch of violets standing in a little bowl in the corner. I don't know why, but they made me feel choky, and I remember taking them to me and kissing them, and putting them back. Then I dried myself in a huge towel, and dressed. I laughed at the curling tongs, and blew the little lamp out--my hair did not want curling tongs. I laughed to think of the frights of women going about with their noses in the air, who had to curl their heads. One of the bonnets in the wardrobe fitted me perfectly. I could have chosen a hat, but I preferred this bonnet. I put on the sealskin cloak. Then, taking the bunch of violets with the stalks all dripping, I put it in my breast. Wilder was standing in the hall as I came down the great staircase. He smiled at the violets as if he were pleased. "You look very well," he said, passing, as he spoke, into the library, where I followed him. "Now, here are three letters I have written--one to the jewellers, this one to the portmanteau people, and this to Coutts' bank. Drive first to Coutts', give them this letter and my cheque on the British Linen Company. They will open an account with you, small as the sum is, because they know me very well; they will give you a cheque book, and you can give cheques to your milliners and people--poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy." I felt horrible for a moment as he said this. It was said in such a supplicatory tone, as if he wanted to propitiate me, as if I were some evil thing he feared, and he had said it before just in the same voice, "Poor Beatrice, I want you to be happy." How this story is lengthening out. I thought I could have told it all in three or four pages, and now look, thirty pages--and yet I want to make it as long as possible. Can you guess what I say to the old doctor who comes to see me every day? I ask him, does he know how long I will live? and he shakes his head and says something about "the hands of Providence." No, I answer, not the hands of Providence, but these hands--when they have finished writing what they have to write I shall die. I know it. CHAPTER IV INSTRUCTIONS PERFORMED Then Wilder opened the hall door and I saw a splendid carriage and pair drawn up, the horses champing and flinging white foam about from their mouths. Wilder came down the steps and helped me in, the tall footman shut the door, and I heard Wilder's voice saying to the coachman, "Coutts'." Gracious! all the things I thought of as the carriage drove into Oxford Street. It was an open landau, and I wondered that everyone did not stop to stare at me. How strange all the people that were walking seemed, just like mean things that had no business with life; how sweet the violets smelt in my bosom. How nice Wilder was, not a bit good looking, but so different from the men I had mostly known. He was a gentleman, one could tell that just by his easy and languid voice; and what a hold I had upon him. And this journey to the north, I had a presentiment that it was to be strange, but how could I have told how strange, how beautiful it was to be? Then the carriage stopped at Coutts', and the tall footman opened the door and touched his hat as I got out. I gave them Wilder's letter and my cheque, and they gave me in return a cheque book. The next place we stopped at was the Bond Street jewellers. These are the rings I bought, see, they are on my fingers now. I never cared for diamonds. I love colour. My rings are mostly half hoops of sapphires, emeralds, and rubies; they would be vulgar only they are so glorious, and then my hands are so beautiful that you scarcely notice the rings: that was what Geraldine said. Good God! these tears will choke me: if I could only cry, but I can't, it all comes at the back of my throat, like a dull, heavy pain. Then we drove to the other shop in Bond Street, where they sell travelling bags. I chose the most expensive I could find, a hundred and ten pounds I think it was. All the bottles had heavy gold tops, and I ordered my initials to be put on them. I ordered portmanteaux as well, and the man said everything would be ready next day by six in the evening, initials and all. It was dark when we got to Redfern's, but that did not matter, for I had no colours to choose; funny, wasn't it, everything I got was either white or black or grey--mourning or half-mourning. I don't know that it was so funny after all, for this kind of dress suits me. I only spent two hundred pounds on dresses; some were to be made and sent after me when I knew the address I was going to, the others were to be sent next morning to Berkeley Square. I could have died laughing at the civility of these people at Redfern's, they thought I was some great lady--and so I was. It was eight o'clock before I got back to Berkeley Square that evening. CHAPTER V WE SAY GOOD-BYE All the next day I spent in the house, most of the time in the room with Wilder. How that man depressed me. A great fire was lit in the library, and he sat over it with his hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the burning coals; the decanter of opium was standing on the mantelpiece, a wine glass beside it, and every now and then he would pour himself out a thimbleful and sip it. That was a pleasant sight to have to sit and watch, but I didn't much care. I sat in an armchair looking at my rings and the tips of my beautiful new shoes; it was so delightful to have all these things again; and sometimes I would look at Wilder's rounded back and his shiny old coat, thinking how funny it was that he had given me all these things. Sometimes I spoke to him and he always answered, speaking in a dreamy sort of voice. I found out that he was a spiritualist, and all the pictures about the room were "spirit faces,"--that is what he called them, all except the picture with "Swedenborg" written on it. Then, after dinner, at about nine o'clock, he said that he must take leave of me. He took me by the hand, and the whole time he was speaking he held it, wringing it now and then till I could almost have cried out with pain. This is what he said as well as I can remember-- "I must take leave of you now. I want you to start early in the morning for Yorkshire; you will go to my country house at Ashworth,"--a long pause, and I saw the drops of sweat stand out on his forehead. "'The Gables,' that is the name of my house. You will change at Leeds and get on a branch line; it's only an hour's journey from Leeds." He spoke with difficulty, and caught at his breath. "I have telegraphed for the carriage to meet you at the station." Another pause, then speaking like a maniac, he seized both my hands. "I am putting in your grasp the only thing I love, I am stealing a march on Fate, boldly and desperately I commit this act, if the end is mutual love all will be right. I shall pray without ceasing till we meet again, good-bye, good-bye." He was devouring my hands with kisses; then he rushed from the room. I was almost sure now that he was mad, those spirit faces and that opium--oh, there could scarcely be a doubt. The thought pleased me somehow, it made me less afraid of something--something, I don't exactly know what, a kind of horror had been haunting me all day, a foreboding of strange and terrible things to come. We old families have these powers of second sight, at least the north country families have. "We old families," perhaps you are laughing at those words from _my_ mouth; well--laugh. I went up to my bedroom, and there I found the dressing bag and the portmanteaux all standing open and waiting to be packed. I felt just like a robber as I put my silks and satins, bonnets and hats, boots and shoes, in their proper places. Then I undressed and sprang into bed. I was almost tired already of my new life, my old dreams came back to me, would I meet someone nice to-morrow? Then I thought of Wilder and his spirit faces, and his round back, and his opium decanter, and I laughed till the bed shook. And yet I liked him, this Wilder, with his strange, weary-looking face, and his cheques and carriages and horses. I fell asleep. CHAPTER VI --AND I START I was wakened next morning by a knock at the door and a voice telling me that it was eight o'clock. As I jumped out of bed the very first thought that struck me was, "Shall I meet someone to-day?" It was what I was thinking when I fell asleep. I was dressed in an hour. All my portmanteaux were packed, they only wanted strapping; and I said to myself, "The butler can do that." I was not going to spoil my hands strapping them. Then I came down stairs to the breakfast room where the butler was waiting, a grave looking man of whom I had caught a glimpse last night. When I had finished he said the carriage was in waiting, and I asked him to have my things brought down; he said that was done already. And behold, when I reached the hall door, a carriage stood there, closed, with a basket arrangement on the top, and all my portmanteaux piled upon it. My travelling bag was inside. The footman shut the door with a snap, touched his hat again, jumped on the box, and we drove off. I began to think whether I was a fool or not to leave Wilder. I had such a hold upon him, and now I was going I didn't know where. His country house, "The Gables," that sounded very fine, but for all that, I felt nervous at going off like this, away up to the north of England--to do what? But it was too late to turn back now, for the carriage was entering St Pancras station. CHAPTER VII NORTH! The footman got all my luggage together, and bought me a first-class ticket, and whilst he was getting me the ticket I went into the refreshment room and bought half a dozen packets of cigarettes and a little box of matches; smoking soothes my nerves. Then I walked to the B platform, if I remember right, where the Leeds express was standing, the footman following with my dressing bag. Gracious! how civil the guard was: he made me get into a saloon carriage, and called me "my lady," and told me I could have a luncheon basket or tea if I liked, he would telegraph on to Normanton about it. I began wondering, was it my face or the footman that made him so civil, perhaps it was both--heigh-ho. I write a fearful hand. I was never intended for an author. I'm so lazy and so weak just now, that it's almost too much trouble to dip the pen in the ink pot; however, on I must go. There was a great fat man and a great fat woman in the saloon carriage, immensely rich, I suppose--cotton spinners or something of that sort. How these idiots stared at me out of the corners of their eyes; they had heard the old guard calling me "my lady." They would have licked my boots, those people would. I spoke to them, asked them did they object to smoking, and they said "no," both together, so I lit a cigarette. That made them certain I was a duchess. They got out at Normanton, and the guard brought me a luncheon basket, and a little tea tray, teapot and all, which he said I could take on in the carriage to Leeds; so I had luncheon, and then I had tea, and then I smoked cigarettes and dreamed, whilst the train whirled away north, north, north. Oh this north, why did I ever come here? It was late in the day when we reached Leeds, the air was chill; it was like finding oneself in a new world. Women were standing about the platform with their heads covered with shawls; they had clogs on their feet, and one could hear them go click, clack. I gave the old guard a sovereign. I felt sorry to part with him, he seemed the last thing connecting me with the south. I felt like a lost dog. I had never felt so all that horrible time in London: that is strange, is not it? Now, when I was rich and bowed down to, I felt like a lost dog. I had to wait two hours for the branch train, and as it left Leeds I looked out of the window. It was a vile place, all manufactories, long chimneys, furnaces, smoke. Then, after a bit, I saw the country, all hills and twilight, dark stone walls, desolate-looking fields, and then--a shiver ran through me--I had seen this country before. Where? Never in this life. It was the first time I had ever been north. We stopped at little tiny stations, and I felt tired as death when at last we drew up at a station with "Ashworth" on the lamps. I put my head out of the window, and I saw a tall footman standing
{'title': 'Death, the Knight, and the Lady: A Ghost Story by H. De Vere Stacpoole', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}