CHAPTER V—“NOT IN THE DAYTIME, MA'AM”
MARY'S labors and mine did not last very long. At the end of a week, a promising couple applied for the position described in Mrs. Brane's advertisement. They drove up to the house in a hired hack one morning, and Mrs. Brane and I interviewed them in my little office. They were English people, and had one or two super-excellent references. These were rather antiquated, to be sure, dating to a time before the couple's marriage, but they explained that for a long while they had been living on their savings, but that now the higher cost of living had forced them to go into service again.
The woman would have been very handsome except for a defect in her proportions: her face was very much too large. Also, there was a lack of expression in the large, heavy-lidded eyes. The man was the most discreet type of English house servant imaginable, with side whiskers and a small, thin-lipped, slightly caved-in mouth. His eyes were so small that they were almost negligible in the long, narrow head. Their general appearance, however, was presentable, and their manner left nothing to be desired. To me, especially, they were so respectful, so docile, so eager to serve, that I found it almost disconcerting. They had the oddest way of fixing their eyes on me, as though waiting for some sort of signal. Sometimes, I fancied that, far down underneath the servility of those two pairs of eyes, there was a furtive expression of something I could not quite translate, fear, perhaps, or—how can I express it?—a sort of fearful awareness of secret understanding. Perhaps there is no better way to describe it than to say that I should not have been astonished if, looking up quickly into the woman's large, blank, handsome face, I should have surprised a wink. And she would have expected me to understand the wink.
Of course, I did not gather all these impressions at once. It was only as the days went by that I accumulated them. Once, and once only, Henry Lorrence, the new man, was guilty of a real impertinence. I had been busy in the bookroom with my interminable, but delightful, task of dusting and arranging Mr. Brane's books in Paul Dabney's company, and, hearing Mary's voice calling from the garden rather anxiously for “Miss Gale,” I came out suddenly into the hall. Henry was standing there near the door of the bookroom, doing nothing that I could see, though he certainly had a dust-cloth in his hand. He looked not at all abashed by my discovery of him; on the contrary, that indescribable look of mutual understanding or of an expectation of mutual understanding took strong possession of his face.
“I see you're keepin' your eyes on him, madam,” said he softly, jerking his head towards the room where I had left Mr. Dabney.
I was vexed, of course, and I suppose my face showed it. My reproof was not so severe, however, as to cause such a look of cowering fear. Henry turned pale, his thin, loose lips seemed to find themselves unable to fit together properly. He stammered out an abject apology, and melted away in the hall.
I stood for several minutes staring after him, I remember, and when, turning, I found that Mr. Dabney had followed me to the door and was watching both me and the departing man, I was distinctly and unreasonably annoyed with him.
He, too, melted away into the room, and I went out to see Mary in the garden. Truly I never thought myself a particularly awe-inspiring person, but, since I had come to “The Pines,” every one from Robbie to this young man, every one, that is, except Mary and Mrs. Brane, seemed to regard me with varying degrees of fear. It distressed me, but, at the same time, gave me a new feeling of power, and I believe it was a support to me in the difficult and terrifying days to come.
At the box hedge of the garden, Mary met me. As usual, she kept me at a distance from her charge.
“Miss Gale,” she said, “may I speak to you for a minute?”
“For as many minutes as you like,” I said cordially.
She moved to a little arbor near by where there was a rustic seat. I sat down upon it, and she stood before me, her strong, red hands folded on her apron. I saw that she was grave and anxious, though as steady As ever.
“Miss Gale, ''t is a queer matter,” she began.
My heart gave a sad jump. “Oh, Mary,” I begged her, “don't say anything, please, about ghosts or weird presences in the house.”
She tried to smile, but it was a half-hearted attempt.
“Miss Gale,” she said, “you know I aren't the one to make mountains out of mole-hills, and you know I ain't easy scairt. But, miss, for Robbie's sake, somethin' must be done.”
“What must be done, Mary?”
“Well, miss, I don't say as it mayn't be nerves; nerves is mysterious things as well I know, havin' lived in a haunted house in the old country where chains was dragged up and down the front stairs regular after dark, and such-like doin's which all of us took as a matter of course, but which was explained to the help when they was engaged. But I do think that Mrs. Brane had ought to move Robbie out of that wing. Yes'm, that I do.”
“Has anything more happened?” I asked blankly.
“Yes'm. That is to say, Robbie's nightmares has been gettin' worse than ever, and, last night, when I run into the nursery, jumpin' out of my bed as quick as I could and not even stoppin' for my slippers—you know, miss, I sleep right next to the nursery, and keeps a night light burnin', for I'm not one of the people that holds to discipline and lets a nervous child cry hisself into fits—when I come in I seen the nursery door close, and just a bit of a gown of some sort whiskin' round the edge. Robbie was most beside hisself, I did n't hardly dare to leave him, but I run to the door and I flung it wide open sudden, the way a body does when they're scairt-like but means to do the right thing, and, in course, the hall was dark, but miss,”—Mary swallowed,—“I heard a footstep far down the passage in the direction of your room.”
My blood chilled all along my veins. “In the direction of my room?”
“Yes, miss, so much so that I thought it must'a' been you, and I felt a bit easier like, but when I come back to Robbie—” here she turned her troubled eyes from my face—“why, he was yellin' and screamin' again about that woman with red hair.... Oh, Miss Gale, ma'am, don't you be angry with me. You know I'm your friend, but, miss, did you ever walk in your sleep?”
“No, Mary, no,” I said, and, to my surprise, I had no more of a voice than a whisper to say it in.
After a pause, “You must lock me in at night after this, Mary,” I added more firmly.
“Or, better still, after Robbie is sound asleep, let me come into your bedroom. You can make me up some sort of a bed there, and we will keep watch over Robbie. I am sure it is just a dream of his—the woman with red hair bending over him—and I am sure, too, that the closing door, and the gown, and the footstep were the result of a nervous and excited imagination. You had been waked suddenly out of a sound sleep.”
“I was broad awake, ma'am,” said Mary, in the voice of one who would like to be convinced.
I sat there cold in the warm sun, thinking of that woman with long, red hair who visited Robbie. That it might be myself, prompted by some ghoulish influence of sleep and night, made my very heart sick.
“Mary,” I asked pitifully enough, “didn't Robbie ever see the woman with red hair before I came to 'The Pines'?”
Unwillingly she shook her head. “No, miss. The first time he woke up screamin' about her was the night before Delia and Jane and Annie gave notice.”
“But he was afraid of red-haired women before, Mary, because, as soon as I took off my hat downstairs in the drawing-room the afternoon I arrived, he pointed at me and cried, 'It's her hair!'”
“Is that so, miss?” said Mary, much impressed. “Well, that does point to his havin' been scairt by some red-haired person before you come here.”
“Surely Robbie could tell you something that would explain the whole thing,” I said irritably. “Haven't you questioned him?”
Mary flung up her hands. “Have n't I? As long as I dared, Miss Gale, it's as much as his life is worth. Dr. Haverstock has forbidden it absolutely.”
“That's strange, I think, for I know that the first way to be rid of some nervous terror is to confess its cause.”
“Yes, miss.” Mary was evidently impressed by my knowledge. “And that's just what Dr. Haverstock said hisself. But he says it has got to be drawn out of Robbie by what he calls the indirect method. He has asked Mr. Dabney to win the child's confidence; that is, it was Mr. Dabney's own suggestion, I believe. Mr. Dabney was with Mrs. Brane and the doctor when they was discussing Robbie and he says he likes children and they likes him, as, indeed, they do, miss. Robbie and him are like two kiddies together, a-playin' at railroads and such in the gravel yesterday—”
“Did he ask Robbie about the red-haired woman yesterday, because that may have brought on the nightmare last night?”
“I don't know, miss. I was n't in earshot of them. Mr. Dabney, he always coaxes Robbie a bit away from the bench where I set and sew out here.”
“I think I'll ask Mr. Dabney,” I said. I began to move away; then, with an afterthought I turned back to Mary. She was studying me with a dubious air.
“I think we had better try the plan of watching closely over Robbie before we say anything to alarm Mrs. Brane,” I said. “It would distress her very much to move Robbie out of his nursery, and she has been very tired and languid lately. She has been doing too much, I think. This new woman, Sara Lorrence, is a terror for house-cleaning, and she's urged Mrs. Brane to let her give the old part of the house a thorough cleaning. Mrs. Brane simply won't keep away. She works almost as hard as Sara, and goes into every crack and cranny and digs out old rubbish—nothing's more exhausting.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Mary agreed, “she's sure a wonder at cleaning, that Sara. She's straightened out our kitchen closet somethin' wonderful, miss.”
“She has?” I wondered if Sara, too, had discovered that queer opening in the back of the closet. I had almost forgotten it, but now I decided, absurd as such action probably was, to investigate the black hole into which I had fallen when I tried to move the lawn roller.
I chose a time when Sara Lorrence was out of the kitchen, cutting lettuces in the kitchen-garden. For several minutes I watched her broad, well-corseted body at its task, then, singing softly to myself,—for some reason I had a feeling that I was in danger,—I walked across the clean board floor and stepped into the closet to which my attention had first been drawn by Mary. It was indeed a renovated spot, sweet and garnished like the abode of devils in the parable; pots scoured and arranged on shelves, rubbish cleared out, the lawn-mower removed, the roller taken to some more appropriate place. But it was, in its further recesses, as dark as ever. I moved in, bending down my head and feeling before me with my hand. My fingers came presently against a wall. I felt about, in front, on either side, up and down; there was no break anywhere. Either I had imagined an opening or my hole had been boarded up.
I went out, lighted a candle, and returned. The closet was entirely normal,—just a kitchen closet with a sloping roof; it lay under the back stairs, one small, narrow wall, and three high, wide ones. The low, narrow wall stood where I had imagined my hole. I went close and examined it by the light of my candle. There was only one peculiarity about this wall; it had a temporary look, and was made of odd, old boards, which, it seemed to me, showed signs of recent workmanship. Perhaps Henry had made repairs. I blew out my candle and stepped from the closet.
Sara had come back from the garden. She greeted my appearance with a low, quavering cry of fear. “Oh, my God!” Then, recovering herself, though her large face remained ashen, “Excuse me, ma'am,” she said timidly, “I wasn't expectin' to see you there”—and she added incomprehensibly—“not in the daytime, ma'am.”
Now, for some reason, these words gave me the most horrible chill of fear. My mind simply turned away from them. I could not question Sara of their meaning. Subconsciously, I must have refused to understand them. It is always difficult to describe such psychological phenomena, but this is one that I am sure many people have experienced. It is akin to the paralysis which attacks one in frightening dreams and sometimes in real life, and prevents escape. The sort of shock it gave me absolutely forbade my taking any notice of it. I spoke to Sara in a strained, hard voice.
“You have been putting the closet in order,” I said. “Has Henry been repairing it? I mean has he been mending up that—hole?”
“Yes, ma'am,” she said half sullenly, “accordin' to your orders.” And she glanced around as though she were afraid some one might be listening to us.
“My orders? I gave no orders whatever about this closet!” My voice was almost shrill, and sounded angry, though I was not angry, only terribly and quite unreasonably frightened.
“Just as you please, ma'am,” said Sara with that curious submissiveness and its undercurrent of something else,—“just as you say. Of course you did n't give no such orders. Not you. I just had Henry nail it up myself”—? here she fixed those expressionless eyes upon me and the lid of one, or I imagined it, just drooped—“on account of sleuths.”
“Sleuths?” I echoed.
“A kitchen name for rats, ma'am,” said Sara, and came as near to laughing as I ever saw her come. “Rats, ma'am, that comes about old houses such as this.” And here she glanced in a meaning way over her shoulder out of the window.
My glance followed hers; in fact, my whole body followed. I went and stood near the window. The kitchen was on a lower level than the garden, so that I looked up to the gravel path. Here Mr. Dabney was walking with Robbie's hand in his. Robbie was chattering like a bird, and Paul Dabney was smiling down at him. It was a pretty picture in the pale November sunshine, a prettier picture than Sara's face. But, as I looked at them gratefully, feeling that the very sight of those two was bringing me back from a queer attack of dementia, Robbie, looking by chance my way, threw himself against his companion, stiffening and pointing. I heard his shrill cry, “There she is! I wisht they'd take her away!”
I flinched out of his sight, covering my face with my hands and hurrying towards the inner door which led to the kitchen stairs. I did not want to look again at Sara, but something forced me to do so. She was watching me with a look of fearful amusement, a most disgusting look. I rushed through the door and stumbled up the stairs. I was shaking with anger, and fear, and pain of heart, and, yet, this last feeling was the only one whose cause I could fully explain to myself. Paul Dabney had seen a child turn pale and stiff with fear at the mere sight of me, and I could not forget the grim, stern look with which he followed Robbie's little pitiful, pointing finger. And I had fancied that this man was falling in love with me!
Truly my nerves should have been in no condition to face the dreadful ordeal of the time that was to come, but, truly, too, and very mercifully, those nerves are made of steel. They bend often, and with agonizing pain, but they do not break. I know now that they never will. They have been tested supremely, and have stood the test.
CHAPTER VI—A STRAND OF RED-GOLD HAIR
I WENT to bed early that night, and, partially undressing myself, I put on a wrapper and sat on my bed reading till Mary should come to tell me that Robbie had fallen asleep, and that it was time for our night-watch to begin. I had not spoken to Mary again on the subject, for soon after my investigations in the kitchen, Mrs. Brane had asked me to help her in her work of going over the old, long-closed drawers and wardrobes in the north wing, and I had had a very busy and tiring afternoon. It was a relief, however, to find that Sara dropped her labors when I appeared. Mrs. Brane looked almost as relieved as I felt.
“That is the most indefatigable worker I ever met, Miss Gale,” she said in her listless, nervous way; “she's been glued to my side ever since we began this interminable piece of work.”
“I wish you'd give it up, dear Mrs. Brane,” I said, “and let the indefatigable Sara tire out her own energy. I'm sure that you have none to spare, and this going over of old letters, and papers, and books and clothes is very tiring and depressing work for you.”
She gave a tormented sigh. “Oh, isn't it? It's aging me.” She stood before a great, old highboy, its drawers pulled out, and she looked so tiny and helpless, as small almost as Robbie. All the rest of the furniture was as massive as the highboy, the four-poster and the marble-topped bureau, and the tall mirror with its tarnished frame. I liked the mirror, and rather admired its reflection of myself.
Mrs. Brane looked wistfully about the room, and her eyes, like mine, stopped at the mirror. “How young you look beside me,” she said, “and so bright, with that wonderful hair! I wish you'd let me know you better, dear; I am really very fond of you, you know, and you must have something of a history with your beauty and your 'grand air,' and that halo of tragedy Mr. Dabney talks about.” She smiled teasingly, but I was too sad to smile back.
“My history is not romantic,” I said bitterly; “it is dull and sordid. You are very good to me, dear Mrs. Brane.” I was close to tears. “I wish I could do more for you.”
“More! Why, child, if it wasn't for you, I'd run away from 'The Pines' and never come back. No inducement, no consideration of any kind would keep me in this place.”
She certainly spoke as though she had in mind some very weighty inducement and consideration.
“Why do you stay, Mrs. Brane.” I asked impulsively. “At least, why don't you go away for a change? It would do you so much good, and it would be wonderful for Robbie. Why, Mrs. Brane, you have n't left this place for a day, have you, since your husband died?”
“No, dear,” said the little lady sorrowfully, “hardly for an hour. It's my prison.” She looked about the room again, and added as though she were talking to herself, “I don't dare to leave it.”
“Dare?” I repeated.
She smiled deprecatingly. “That was a silly word to use, was n't it?” Again that tormented little sigh. “You see, I'm a silly little person. I'm not fit to carry the weight of other people's secrets.”
Again I repeated like some brainless parrot, “Secrets?”
“Of course there are secrets, child,” she said impatiently. “Every one has secrets, their own or other people's. You have secrets, without doubt?”
I had. She had successfully silenced me. After that we worked steadily, and there was no further attempt at confidence.
Nevertheless, as I lay on my bed trying to read and waiting for Mary's summons, I decided that I would make a strong effort to get Mrs. Brane and Robbie out of the house. I had come to the conclusion that my employer was the victim of a mild sort of mania, one symptom of which was a fear of leaving her home. I thought I would consult with Dr. Haverstock and get him to order Robbie and Robbie's mother a change of air. It might cure the little fellow of his nervous terrors. How I wish I had thought of this plan a few days sooner! What dreadful reason I have for regretting my delay!
Mary was a long time in coming. I must have fallen asleep, for a while later, I became aware that I had slipped down on my pillows and that my book had fallen to the floor. I got up, feeling rather startled, and looked at my clock. It was already half-past twelve, and Mary had not called me. I went to my door and found that it was locked. I remembered that it had been my alternate plan for Mary to lock me in, and I supposed that she had forgotten that our final decision was in favor of the other scheme, or she had preferred to watch over Robbie alone. I was a little hurt, but I acquiesced in my imprisonment and went back to bed. I put out the light, and was very soon asleep again.
I was waked by a dreadful sound of screaming. I sat up in bed, stiff with fear, my heart leaping. Then I ran towards the door, remembered that it was locked, and stood in the middle of the room, pressing my hands together.
The screaming stopped. Robbie had had his nightmare, and it was over. Thank God! this time my alibi was established without doubt. I was enormously relieved, for I had begun myself to fear that I had been walking in my sleep, and, perhaps, influenced by the description of Robbie's favorite nightmare, had unconsciously acted out the horror beside his bed. After a while, the house being fairly quiet, though I thought I would hear Mary moving about, I went back to my bed. When she could leave her charge I knew that she would come to me with her story. I tried to be calm and patient, but of course I was anything but that.
It was nearly morning, a faint, greenish light spread in the sky, opening fanlike fingers through the slats of my shutter. After a while, it seemed interminable, a step came down the hall. It was not Mary's padded, nurselike tread, it was the quick, resolute footstep of a man. It stopped outside my door. There was no ceremony of knocking, no key turned. The handle was sharply moved, and, to my utter amazement, the door opened.
There stood Paul Dabney, fully dressed, his face pale and grim.
“Come out,” he said. “Come with me and see what has been done.” I noticed that he kept one hand in his pocket, and that the pocket bulged.
I got up, still in my wrapper, my hair hanging in two long, dishevelled braids, and came, in a dazed way, towards him. He took me by the wrist, using his left hand, the other still in his pocket. His fingers were as cold and hard as steel. I shrunk a little from them, and he gave my wrist a queer, cruel little shake.
“What does it feel like, eh?” he snarled.
I merely looked at him. His unexpected appearance, his terrible manner, the opening of that locked door without the use of any key, above all, a dull sense of some overwhelming tragedy for which I was to be held responsible,—all these things held me dumb and powerless. I let him keep his grasp on my wrist, and I walked beside him along the passage-way as though I were indeed a somnambulist. So we came to the nursery door. Inside, I saw Mary kneeling beside Robbie's little bed, and heard her sobbing as though her heart would break.
“What is it?” I whispered, looking at Paul Dabney and pulling back.
My look must have made some impression on him. A queer sort of gleam of doubt seemed to pass across his face. He drew me towards the cot, keeping his eyes riveted upon me.
There lay the little boy who had never allowed me to come so near to him before, passive and still—a white little face, a body like a broken flower. I saw at once that he was dead.
“Oh, miss,” sobbed Mary, keeping her face hidden, “why didn't you keep to your plan? Oh, God have mercy on us, we have killed the poor soul!”
“Mary,” I whispered, “you locked me in.”
“Oh, indeed, Miss Gale, no. I thought you said you'd come and spend the night with me. I had a couch made up. I waited for you, and I must have fallen asleep...” Here she got to her feet, drying her eyes. We were both talking in whispers, Dabney still held my wrist, the little corpse lay silent there before us as though he were asleep. “I was waked by Robbie. Oh, my lamb! My lamb!” Again she wept and tears poured down my own face.
“I heard him,” I choked. “I would have come. But the door was locked.”
Here Mr. Dabney's fingers tightened perceptibly, almost painfully upon my wrist.
“I opened your locked door,” he sneered. “Remember that.”
Mary looked at me with bewildered eyes. “I did n't lock your door, miss.”
We stared at each other in dumb and tragic mystification.
“I came to Robbie as fast as I could,” she went on. “I was too late to see any one go out. He was in convulsions, the pitiful baby! In my arms, he died before ever I could call for help. Mr. Dabney come in almost at once and and—Oh, miss, who's to tell his mother?”
I made a move. “I must—” I began, but that cold, steel grip on my wrist coerced me.
“You go, Mary,” said Dabney, “and break it to her carefully. Send for Dr. Haverstock. This—sleep-walker will stay here with me,” he added between his teeth.
Mary, with a little moan, obeyed and went out and slowly away. Paul Dabney and I stood in silence, linked together strangely in that room of death. This was the man I loved. I looked at him.
“You look as innocent as a flower,” he said painfully. “Perhaps this will move you.”
He drew me close to Robbie. He lifted one of the little hands and laid it, still warm, in mine. The small fingers were clenched into a fist, and about two of them was wrapped a strand of red-gold hair.
I fell down at Paul Dabney's feet.
The consciousness of his grip on my wrist, which kept me from measuring my length on the floor, stayed with me through a strange, short journey into forgetfulness.
“Ah!” said Paul Dabney, as I came back and raised my head; “I thought that would cut the ground from under you.”
He quietly untwisted the hairs from the child's clutch, and, still keeping his hold of me, he put the lock into his pocket-book and replaced it in an inner pocket.
“Stand up!” he said.
I obeyed. The blood was beginning to return to my brain, and with it an intolerable sense of outrage. I returned him look for look.
“If I am unfortunate enough to walk in my sleep,” I said quiveringly, “and if, through this misfortune, I have been so terribly unhappy as to cause the death of this poor delicate child, is that any reason, Paul Dabney, that you should hold me by the wrist and threaten me and treat me like a murderess?”
I was standing at my full height, and my eyes were fixed on his. To my inexpressible relief, the expression of his face changed. His eyes faltered from their implacable judgment, his lips relaxed, his fingers slowly slipped from my wrist. I caught his arm in both my hands.
“Paul! Paul!” I gasped. Not for long afterwards did I realize that I had used his name. “How can you, how can you put me through such agony? As though this were not enough! O God! God!”
I broke down utterly. I shook and wept. He held me in his arms. I could feel him tremble.
“Go back to your room,” he said at last, in a low, guilty sort of voice. “Try to command yourself.”
I faltered away, trying pitifully as a punished child, to be obedient, to be good, to merit trust. He looked after me with such a face of doubt and despair that, had it not been for Robbie's small, wax-like countenance, I must have been haunted by the look.
I got somehow to my room and lay down on my bed. I was broken in body, mind, and spirit. For the time being there was no strength or courage left in me. But they came back.
CHAPTER VII—THE RUSSIAN BOOK-SHELVES
IT was fortunate for us all, especially for poor Mary, that, after Robbie's death, Mrs. Brane needed every care and attention that we could give her. For myself, I had expected prompt dismissal, but, as it turned out, Mrs. Brane more than ever insisted upon my staying on as housekeeper. Neither Mary, because of her loyalty to me, nor Paul Dabney, for some less friendly reason, had told the poor little woman of the cause of Robbie's death, nor of their suspicions concerning my complicity, unconscious or otherwise.
It may seem strange to the reader that I should not have left “The Pines.” It seems strange to me now. But there was more than one reason for my courage or my obstinacy. First, I felt that after Dabney's extraordinary treatment of me, treatment which he made no attempt to explain and for which he made no apology, my honor demanded that I should stay in the house and clear up the double mystery of the locked door that opened, and of the strand of red-gold hair that was wrapped around poor little Robbie's fingers. Of course I may have dreamed that the door was locked; I may have, that time when I fancied myself broad awake, been really in a state of trance, and, instead of finding a locked door and going back to bed, I may then have gone through the door and down the hall to Robbie's nursery, coming to myself only, when, being again in bed, I had awakened to the sound of his screams. This explanation, I know, was the one adopted by Mary. Mr. Dabney had other and darker suspicions. I realized that in some mysterious fashion he had constituted himself my judge. I realized, too, by degrees, and here, if you like, was the chief reason for my not leaving “The Pines,” that Paul Dabney simply would not have let me go. Unobtrusively, quietly, more, almost loathfully, he kept me under a strict surveillance. I became conscious of it slowly. If I had to leave the place on an errand he accompanied me or he sent Mary to accompany me. At about this time Mrs. Brane, without asking any advice from me, engaged two outdoor men. They were to tidy up the grounds, she told me, and to do some repairing within and without. They were certainly the most inefficient workmen I have ever seen. They were always pottering about the house or grounds. I grew weary of the very sight of them. It seemed to me that one was always in my sight, whatever I did, wherever I went.
Mrs. Brane felt Robbie's death terribly, of course; she suffered not only from the natural grief of a mother, but from a morbid fancy that, in some way, the tragedy was her own fault. “I should have taken him away. I should not have let him live in this dreary, dreadful house. What was anything worth compared to his dear life! What is anything worth to me now!” There was again the suggestion that living in this house was worth something. I should have discussed all these matters with Mr. Dabney. Indeed, I should have made him my confidant on all these mysteries which confronted me, had it not been for his harshness on that dreadful night. As it was, I could hardly bear to look at him, hardly bear to speak to him. And, yet, poor, wretched, lonely-hearted girl that I was, I loved him more than ever. I kept on with my work of dusting books, and he kept on with his everlasting notes on Russian literature, so we were as much as ever in each other's company. But what a sad change in our intercourse! The shadow of sorrow and discomfort that lay upon “The Pines” lay heaviest of all in that sunny, peaceful bookroom where we had had such happy hours. And I could not help being glad of his presence, and, sometimes, I found his eyes fixed upon me with such a look of doubt, of dumb and miserable feeling. I was trying to make up my mind to speak to him in those days. I think that in the end I should have done so, with what result I cannot even now imagine, had it not been, first, for the episode of the Russian Baron, and, second, for another matter, infinitely and incomparably more dreadful than any other experience of my life.
The Russian Baron came to “The Pines” one morning about ten days after little Robbie's death. Mrs. Brane received him in the drawing-room, and presently rang the bell and sent Sara upstairs with a message for me.
I came down at once. The Baron sat opposite to Mrs. Brane before the small coal fire. He was a heavy, high-shouldered, bearded man, with that look of having too many and too white teeth which a full black beard gives. His figure reminded me of a dressed-up bolster. It was round and narrow, and without any shape, and it looked soft. His plump hands were buttoned into light-colored gloves, which he had not removed, and his feet were encased in extravagantly long, pointed, very light tan shoes. He kept his eyebrows raised, and his eyes opened so wide that the whites showed above the iris, and this with no sense of effort and for no reason whatever. It disguised every possible expression except one of entirely unwarranted, extreme surprise. At first, when I came into the room, I thought that in some way I must have caused the look, but I soon found that it was habitual to him. Mrs. Brane looked at once nervous, and faintly amused.
“Miss Gale,” she said, “this is Baron Borff.” She consulted the card on her lap. “He was a friend of my husband's when my husband was in Europe, and he, too, like Mr. Dabney, wants to see my husband's collection of Russian books.”
The Baron stood up, and made me a bow so deep that I discovered his hair was parted down the back.
“Mees Gale,” said the Baron, looking up at me while he bowed. He suggested the contortions of a trained sea-animal of some kind.
“I shall have to ask you to show him the books, Miss Gale,” went on Mrs. Brane. “It seems to be one of your principal duties in the house, does n't it! And I certainly did not engage you for a librarian. But I have not been very well since my little boy died—” Her lips quivered and the Baron gave a magnificent, deep, organ-like murmur of sympathy, his unreasonably astonished eyes being fixed meanwhile upon me. In fact, he had stared at me without deviation since my entrance, and I was thoroughly out of countenance.
“It ees true that I should not have intruded myself at this so tragic time into your house of mourning,” he said, “but, unfortunately, my time in your country is so very short that unless I come at this juncture I should not be able to come at all, and so—”
“I understand, of course,” said Mrs. Brane, rising and twisting the Baron's card in her hand. “I am very glad you came. Will you not take dinner with us this evening?”
The Baron looked at me as if for consent or advice, and, thinking that he was considering his hostess's health I made a motion of my lips of “no,” at which he promptly but very politely and effusively declined her hospitality, and followed me out of the room.
Young Dabney met us in the hall. I introduced him to the Baron, who turned very pale, quite green, in fact. I was astonished at this loss of color on his part, especially as Mr. Dabney was extremely polite and gentle with him in his demure way, and strolled beside him into the bookroom chatting in the most friendly fashion, and reminding me of his manner to me on the first afternoon of our acquaintance. The Baron stood in the middle of the bookroom peeling off his gloves as though his hands were wet. His forehead certainly was, and he stayed green and kept those astonished eyes fixed upon me so that I felt like screaming at him to remove them.
Paul Dabney sat on the window seat and took up a book.
“I shall be perfectly quiet, Baron,” he said, “and not disturb your investigations.”
He was admirably quiet, but I could not help but see that he did very little reading. He did not turn a page, but sat with one hand in his pocket. I remembered that he had held his hand just that way on the night of Robbie's death. One of the outdoors men came across the lawn, and began to trim the vine beside one of the open windows. I thought the Baron could not complain of any too much privacy for his researches.
“This is the Russian library,” I said, and led the way to the shelves. He followed me so closely that I could feel his breath on my neck. He was breathing fast, and rather unevenly.
“Thank you so much,” he said. He took out a volume, and rustled the pages. At last, “I wonder if I might be allowed to pursue my studies with no other assistance than yours, Miss Gale,” he asked irritably. He wiped his forehead. “I am a student, a recluse. It is a folly, but these presences”—he pointed towards Mr. Dabney and the man at the window—“disturb me.”
I glanced at Paul Dabney, who smiled and came down from his window seat, moving towards the door, the book under his arm, his hand still in his pocket. He did not say anything, but went out quietly and nearly closed the door. I shut it quite. A second later I heard him speaking to the man outside, and he, too, removed himself. The Baron gave a great whistling sigh of relief, ran to each of the windows in turn, then came back to me and spoke in a low, muttering voice.
“You are incomparable, madame,” he said.
I was perfectly astonished, both at the speech and the manner. But this was my first specimen of the Russian nobility, and supposing that it was the aristocratic Russian method of compliment, I bowed, and was going to follow Mr. Dabney out, when the Baron, kneeling by the bookcase, clutched my skirt in his hand.
“You will not leave me?”
I withdrew my skirt from his grasp. “Not if I can be of any help to you, Baron,” I said and could not restrain a smile, he was so absurd.
“Help? Boje moe! Da!”
He turned from me, and began rapidly to remove all the books from the bookcase. I thought this a peculiar way to pursue studies, especially as he was so frightfully quick about it; I have never seen any one so marvellously quick with his hands, tumbling the books down one after the other. When the case was entirely empty, and I knew that I should have the work of filling it again, he very calmly removed a shelf and began feeling with his fingers along the back of the case. I stared at him, silent and fascinated. I thought him harmlessly insane. He was evidently very much excited. He tapped with his fingers. Perspiration streamed down his face. He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“You see,” he said. “It is back there. Don't you hear?”
I heard that his tapping produced a hollow sound.
“What are you about?” I asked him sternly.
At that he began tumbling the books back in their places as feverishly as he had taken them out. In an incredibly short time they were arranged.
“Yes, yes, you are quite right,” he said as though my bewildered question had been a piece of advice. “Now you see for yourself.” He got up and dusted his knees. “It is much safer for you, but I did not dare to trust it to writing. You have, however, much better opportunities than I knew. It will be in Russian, of course, but that, too, will give you no trouble. I meant to contrive a meeting with Maida, but this is much better.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed, the jargon made no sense at all.
He took my hand and raised it to his lips.
“You are extraordinary, astonishing! Such youth! Such innocence! Bo je moe! How is it done?” He put his mouth close to my ear, and muttered something in Russian, the spitting, purring tongue which I detest. What he said, for I was able to translate it, sent me back, white and shaking into the nearest chair.
“It will not be long, eh?” the Baron had sputtered into my ear, “before the young man, too, is found with three of those golden hairs about his fingers, eh?”
I sat down and covered my eyes with my hands, an action that seemed to throw him into a convulsion of mirth. When I looked up, the abominable, grotesque figure was gone.
I went over to the window. He was walking rapidly down the driveway. As he turned the corner I saw a man step from the side of the road and saunter after him. It was one of the outside men engaged by Mrs. Brane.
I ran upstairs to my own room, and sat down at random in the chair before my dressing-table and rested my head in my hands. I sat there for a long, long time, and I felt that I was fighting against a mist. Just so must some victim dragonfly struggle with the dreadful stickiness of the spider's web. I was blinded mentally by the very meshes that were beginning to wrap round me. I knew now that I was in great danger of some kind, that I was being played with by sinister and evil forces, that, perhaps purposely, I was being terrified and bewildered and mystified. There was none whom I could surely count for a friend, no one except Mary, and how could she or any one else understand the undefined, dreamlike, grotesque forms my experiences had taken. Mrs. Brane, perhaps, was the person for me to take into my confidence, and yet, was it fair to frighten her when she was so delicate? Already one person too many had been frightened in that house. Mr. Dabney was my enemy. No matter what the feeling that possessed his heart, his brain was pitted against me. I was being made a victim, a cat's-paw. But how and by whom? This Baron had treated me as an accomplice. He had showed me a secret. He had made to me a horrible suggestion. The power that had frightened away the three housekeepers, the power that had scared Delia and Jane and Annie from their home, the power that had thrown little Robbie into the convulsions that caused his death, the power that had taken every one but me and the Lorrences—for Mary now slept near Mrs. Brane—out of the northern wing—this power was threatening Paul Dabney and, from the Baron's whispered words, I understood that it was threatening Paul Dabney through me. Was it not a supernatural evil? Was I not perhaps possessed? Could I be driven to commit crimes and to leave as evidence against myself those strands of hair? Flesh and blood could not bear the horror of all this. I would go to Mr. Dabney at once.
With this resolution to comfort me, I rose and made myself ready for dinner. It was too late to change my dress, but Mrs. Brane was not particular as to our dressing for dinner; besides, my frock was neat and fresh, a soft gray crêpe with wide white collar and cuffs. My working dresses were all made alike and trimmed in this Quaker style which I had found becoming. I thought that, in spite of extreme pallor and shadows under my eyes, I looked rather pretty. I believe that was the last evening when I took any particular pleasure in my own looks. I was rather nervous over my impending interview with Paul Dabney and it was with a certain relief that I heard from Mrs. Brane in the diningroom that our guest had gone out and would not be back that night.
“How queer it seems to be alone again!” she said, but I thought she looked more alarmed than relieved.
That night, however, in spite of her timidity, she was in better spirits than I had seen her since Robbie's death. Her listlessness was not quite so extreme as usual, she even chatted about her youth and dances she used to go to. She must have been as pretty as a fairy and she had evidently been something of a belle, though I have noticed that all Southern women see themselves in retrospect as the center of a little throng of suitors. Mary waited on us, for Henry had the toothache and had gone to bed. It was quite a cozy and cheerful meal. In spite of myself, the disagreeable impression produced by the Baron faded a little from my mind and, as it faded, another feeling began to strengthen. In other words, I began to be acutely curious about the hollow sound produced by tapping on the back of that bookcase.
“I think you made a great impression on the Baron, Miss Gale,” said Mrs. Brane teasingly as we sat at our coffee in the drawing-room; “he really seemed unable to take his eyes off you. I don't wonder. You are really extraordinarily pretty in an odd way.”
“In an odd way?” I could n't help asking.
“Why, yes, you are the strangest-looking pretty girl I've ever seen. You know, my dear, if I should catalogue your features no one would think it the portrait of an angelic-looking creature. It would sound like a vixen. Now, stiffen up your vanity and listen.” She looked me over and gave me this description. “You have fiery hair, in the first place, which is the right color for a vixen, you know, and you have a long, slender, pale face, and green-blue eyes, though they do look black at night and gray sometimes, but still they are the real Becky Sharp color and no mistake. You have very thin, red lips, and, if their expression was not so unmistakably sweet, I should say they were frightfully capable of looking cruel and—well, yes—mean.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brane, what a dreadful portrait!”
“What did I tell you? It is true, too, line by line, and yet you are quite the loveliest-looking woman I have ever seen. Miss Gale, come, now, you must see the impression you make. Are you not concerned over the condition of poor Paul Dabney?”
“I have not noticed his condition,” said I bitterly.
She shook her head at me. “Fibs!” she said. “The poor boy is as restless as a hawk. He is getting pale and thin and gaunt. He eats nothing. He can't let you out of his sight.”
“If he is consumed by love of me,” I said, “it is strange that he has never confided to me as to his sufferings.”
“But has n't he really, Janice?—I am just going to call you by your first name, may I?” I was so grateful to her for the pretty way she said it and for the sweet look she gave me, that I kissed the hand she held out.
“Has n't he really made love to you, Janice? I could have sworn that, during all those hours you two have spent in the bookroom, something of the sort was going on.”
“Nothing of the sort at all. In fact, Mrs. Brane, I think that Paul Dabney dislikes me very much.”
She thought this over, stirring her coffee absently and staring into the coalfire. “It is rather mysterious, but, sometimes, I have thought that too. At least, his feeling for you is very strong, one way or the other. Sometimes it has seemed to me that he both hates and loves you. How do you treat him, Janice?”
I tried to avoid her eyes. “Not any way at all,” I stammered. “That is, just the way I feel, with polite indifference.”
Mrs. Brane gave a little trill of sad laughter. “Oh, how I am enjoying this nonsense, Janice! I have n't talked such delicious stuff for years. No, dear, you don't treat him with polite indifference at all. You treat him with the most dreadful and crushing and stately hauteur imaginable. Now, you were much more affable with the Baron.”
I gave a little involuntary shiver.
“How ridiculous that creature was, was n't he?” laughed Mrs. Brane. “I could hardly keep my face straight as I looked at him. He was like a make-up of some kind. He did n't seem real, do you know what I mean? I wish he had stayed to dinner. He would have amused me.”
“He did n't amuse me,” I said positively; “I thought he was detestable.”
“Poor Baron Borff! And he was so enamoured. You have a very hard heart, Janice. Never mind, when I get rich, I'll set you up like a queen. You must not be a housekeeper always even if you do refuse to be a baroness. You did n't know I had hopes of wealth, did you?” She looked rather sly as she put this question.
“I had fancied it, Mrs. Brane,” I said.
She looked about the room nervously and lowered her voice.
“It is so queer, Janice,” she said; then she moved over to the sofa where I sat and spoke very low indeed: “It is so queer to have a fortune and—not to know where it is.”
I, too, looked anxiously about me, even behind me where there was no possible space for a listener.
“If you would only tell me, Mrs. Brane,” I began earnestly,—“if you would only tell me something, about this fortune of yours, I feel that I might be able to help you. Mrs. Brane, does any one know? Mr. Dabney, for instance?”
“No,” she murmured. “I have never told any one; I ought not to tell you.—Oh, Mary, is that you? How you made me jump! I suppose it's bedtime.”
“Yes'm,” said Mary, “and past bedtime. Don't you want to get strong and well, Mrs. Brane?”
She laughed and stood up obediently, gave me a look that said “Hush,” and followed Mary out. I took up a book and began to read.
After an hour or two, oppressed by the dead stillness of the house, I went upstairs to my own room.
But I did not undress. The most overwhelming desire possessed me suddenly to go down to the bookroom and to discover, if I could, the secret of the bookcase. There is no doubt about it, there is the blood of adventurers in my veins. Danger is a real temptation to me, danger and the devious way. I would rather, I believe, be playing with peril than not.
The house was very silent. I was alone in the old wing. My nerves had been badly shaken only that afternoon, but I was keen for adventure. Curiosity was far stronger than my fears. I took off my shoes and opened the door. A faint light shone at the far end of the passage, the night light that Mrs. Brane had been burning there since Robbie's death. I walked along the hallway to the stairs. I had never realized before how noiseless one may be in stocking feet, nor how noisy an old floor is of itself under the quietest step. Boards snapped under me like pistol shots. But no one in the sleeping house seemed the wiser for my stealthy passing. I got down the stairs and found my way into the bookroom, saw that the shutters were all tightly fastened and the shades drawn down. Then I lighted the gas-jet near the Russian collection and knelt before it on the floor.
I began quietly to take out the books, as I had seen the Baron take them. I had removed perhaps half a dozen from the middle shelf when the strangest feeling made me look around.
The door of the bookroom was open and I had left it shut. I rose to my feet. At the same instant something just outside the threshold of the door seemed to rise to its feet. I looked at it. It was myself.
There is no way of describing the horror of such a sight.
This figure wore my dress of gray with its Quaker collar and cuffs, its long, slender face was framed in fiery hair, its green-blue eyes, narrow and long-lashed, were fixed on mine. There was no mirror outside of that door; besides, no mirror could have reflected the look of white damnation that possessed this face. Haggard and hard and vile, with a wicked, stony leer in the eyes, with a wicked, tight smile on the lips, with a blasted, devastated look too dreadful to describe, it faced me. And it was myself, as I might have been after a lifetime of crime and cruelty.
I stood and looked at it till a black cloud seemed to roll up over it, from which for a second its evil countenance smiled imperturbably at me. Then the face, too, was blotted out and I fell down on the floor.