The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 9

and she said, with her eyes sparkling: 'Yes, I am the thrall of the locket; the giver may lead me in triumph where he will!' Just as the words pa.s.sed her lips, Drayton, I felt a sensation of coldness and depression; I gave an involuntary shudder, and looking quickly in Edna's eyes, I saw there the very reflection of my own feeling! We were alone, and yet there seemed to be a third person present--cold, hateful, malevolent. He seemed to be between us--to be pressing us irresistibly apart; and I felt powerless to contend against the insidious influence; and so was she. For an instant or two we gazed fearfully and strangely at each other; then she said faintly: 'Come to me--take me!' and half held out her arms, her face and lips all pale. Drayton, I cannot tell you what a desperate struggle I had with myself then! My whole soul leapt out towards her with a pa.s.sion such as I had never known before; and yet my body seemed paralysed. I had felt something similar to it in dreams before then; but the dream pain was nothing to the real pain. A cold dead hand was on my heart, dragging it backward, deadening it; and another at my throat, stifling me. But I fought against it--it seemed to me I sweated drops of blood--but I overcame. I put my arm round her waist--I kissed her; and yet, though I seemed to hold her--though our lips seemed to meet--still that Thing was between us--we did not really touch each other! With all our love, we were like lifeless clay to one another's caress. It was a mockery--our souls could meet no more." Here Calbot covered his eyes with his hand for a short time. "It was the last time I ever kissed her," said he.

I said nothing; my sympathy with my hapless friend was keen. Yet I must confess to a secret sensation of relief that there was to be no more kissing. It was natural, under the circ.u.mstances, that Calbot--poor fellow!--should speak recklessly; but I am a bachelor, a confirmed bachelor, and such descriptions distress me; they make me restless, wakeful, and unhappy. Yes, I was glad we had had the last of them.

"It all pa.s.sed very quickly, and a third person would perhaps have seen no change in us; probably the change was more inward than outward, after all. It was peculiar that we, both of us, by a tacit understanding, forbore to speak to each other of this dismal mystery that had so suddenly grown up between us. It was too real, and at the same time too hopeless; but to have acknowledged it would have been to p.r.o.nounce it hopeless indeed. We would not do that yet. We sat apart, quietly and conventionally making observations on ordinary topics, as though we had been newly introduced. And yet my betrothal gift was round her neck, moving as she breathed; and we loved each other, and our hearts were breaking. Oh, it is cruel!"

In exclaiming thus, my friend (being at the farther end of the room at the time) struck his foot sharp against the leg of a small antique table which stood against the wall. Like many other valuable things, the table was fragile, and the leg broke. The table tipped over, and a vase (the ancestral vase, containing the elixir of life), fell off to the floor.

Calbot--I think it was much to his credit--found room amidst his proper anguish to be sincerely distressed at this accident. On picking up the vase, however, he immediately exclaimed that it was unbroken. This was fortunate: the table could be mended, but the vase, not to speak of its contents, would have been irreplaceable. Calbot put it carefully on the study table, beside the MS.; set the invalid table in a corner; and then, to my great satisfaction, drew up a chair to the fire, and continued his sad story in a civilised posture.

VII.

"I did not stay long after this; and ours was a strange parting that evening, if our hearts could have been seen. We felt it a relief to separate, and yet the very relief was a finer kind of pain. We knew not what had befallen us; but, perhaps, we both had a hope, then, that another day would somehow set things right.

"I only took her hand in saying good-bye; but again it seemed as if her soft fingers were not actually in contact with mine--as if some rival hand were interposed. And I noticed (as I had done once or twice before during our latter conversation) that, even while the farewell words were being spoken, she turned her head abruptly with a startled, listening expression, as though another voice had spoken close at her ear. I could hear nothing, nor understand the dimly terrified look in her eyes--a look appealing and yet shrinking. But afterwards I understood it all.

When I reached the street, I turned back and caught a glimpse of Edna at the window. Beside her I fancied I distinguished the half-defined outlines of a strange figure--that of a man who appeared to be gesticulating in an extravagant manner. But before I could decide whether it were a shadow or a reality, Edna had turned away, and the apparition vanished with her."

"Her father, of course," I threw in, with a glance over my shoulder; "or perhaps it was the footman." Calbot made no reply.

"I got up yesterday morning," said he, "convinced that the whole thing was a delusion. I took a brisk walk round Hyde Park, ate a good breakfast, and by eleven o'clock was on my way to her house, sure that I should find her as cheerfully disposed to laugh at our dolorous behaviour the night before as I myself was. I went down Piccadilly in the best of spirits; but on turning the corner of Park Lane, I very plainly saw three persons coming down towards me."

Here Calbot paused so long that I could hardly refrain from springing out of my chair. I had never heard him argue a case before a jury; but had I been the presiding judge himself, I was convinced that Calbot could have moulded my opinions to whatsoever issue he had pleased. But, on the other hand, I doubt whether he was aware of his own best powers.

The effect he was now producing on me was certainly not the result of any premeditated artifice.

"I saw Edna," he finally went on, speaking in a husky labouring tone, and gazing intently over my shoulder, as if he saw her _there_. "She was walking in the centre, with a weary lifeless step, her head bent downwards: on her right was her father, as jolly and portly as ever; and on her left, Drayton, was the same strange figure of which I fancied I had caught a glimpse the night before. It was no shadow now, however, but looked as real and palpable as General Burleigh himself. It appeared to be diligently addressing itself to Edna, occasionally even stooping to speak in her ear; and once I saw it put its arm round her waist, and apparently press its bearded cheek to her own."

"Why, in Heaven's name, Calbot, didn't you----" But there was something in my friend's eyes, as he turned them on me, which made me break off just there.

"When I first turned the corner the three were sixty or seventy yards distant. It struck me at once that Edna seemed to have no direct consciousness of the stranger's presence. That is, she did not act as if he were visible to her; though, at the same time, I could hardly doubt that the _idea_ of him was present to her mind; and from her manner of involuntary shrinking and starting when the Thing became particularly demonstrative in its manner, I fancied that the words which it appeared to address to her insinuated themselves into her brain under the form of dismal and hateful thoughts. Perhaps, Drayton, the base or wicked notions that sometimes creep into our minds unawares, a.s.serting themselves our own, are whispered to us by some evil spirit, invisible to our sight, but capable of impressing the immaterial part of us all the more effectively.

"As they drew near, I could no longer doubt that the Thing was viewless, not only to Edna, but to everyone else besides myself alone. Had it been otherwise, the figure's remarkable costume, no less than its many eccentricities, would have drawn a great crowd in a few moments. It was a tall fantastic apparition, clad in a black velvet cloak and doublet, silk hose, and high-heeled shoes. On its head was a broad-brimmed hat, with heavy plumes; there were lace ruffles at its wrists and round its throat. A long rapier dangled by its side; its beard was gray and peaked, but a copious powdered wig flowed out beneath the hat and rested on the shoulders.

"Its gait, as it stalked along the pavement, was mincing and affected, and under other circ.u.mstances I might have laughed at it. Its manner and gestures were absurdly exaggerated and fantastic. It was continually bowing and sc.r.a.ping to Edna, and seemingly making hot love to her; but as often as she winced or shrank from it, it appeared hugely delighted, throwing up its arms, wagging its head, and contorting its body, as if carried away by an immoderate fit of laughter.

"The sun was shining broadly, but none of its rays seemed to fall on the sable garments of this singular personage. In fact, though I saw him as plainly as I now see you, Drayton, I was, nevertheless, well aware that here was something more or less than flesh and blood. It was a being of another state than this mortal one of ours. I say I saw him; and yet I do not believe that it was with my natural eyesight. A deeper sense of vision had been temporarily opened within me, and this spectre came within its scope.

"For a spectre it was. General Burleigh, striding bluffly along by the other side of his daughter, swinging his cane, twisting his moustaches, and ever and anon smiling and bowing to a pa.s.sing friend, was ludicrously unconscious of there being anything supernatural in his vicinity. Moreover, I saw at least twenty persons pa.s.s the apparition shoulder to shoulder, evidently without seeing it; though they would often shiver, and wrap their top-coats or shawls more closely round them, as if a sudden blast of icy air had penetrated them. All this time the three were approaching slowly, and were now but little more than twenty paces distant. I had not moved a step since first coming in view of them, and had kept my eyes fixed point-blank upon the apparition.

"At this moment I was puzzled to observe that the black-garmented figure was a good deal less distinctly discernible than when it had been farther off. The sun was still as bright as ever, the air as clear, but the outline of the shape was blurred and undefined, as though seen out of focus through a telescope. General Burleigh now caught sight of me for the first time, and his cordial gesture of salute caused Edna quickly to raise her eyes. We saw despair in each other's looks, and then she dropped her eyes again, and moved wearily onward.

Simultaneously with her glance the spectre (which appeared to be as unconscious of everything save Edna and myself, as everyone except us was of it)--the spectre also directed its gaze at me. I can never forget that face, Drayton. I seemed to grow older and more miserable as I confronted it. And all the while it was getting less and less perceptible; now it was magnified, clouded, and distorted; but the devilish expression of it was still recognisable. Now it faded or expanded into vagueness; only a foggy shadow seemed gliding by Edna's side; and when she was within ten paces, and her father's voice was speaking out its hearty welcome to me, every trace even of the shadow had disappeared; nothing was left but that chilliness and horror of the heart which I had felt the night previous, but now vastly intensified, because I was no longer ignorant of the cause of it. Edna and I would never again be alone together. This devil was to haunt us henceforth, mocking our love by its hideous mimicry and derision, marring and polluting our most sacred secrets, sickening our hearts and paralysing our hope and reliance in each other. We could neither escape it nor resist it; and its invisibility when we were together was not the least fearful thing about it. To see it, awful as it was, must be less unendurable than to imagine it, unseen; and the certainty that, so often as I left Edna, I should leave this devil in her company, visible once more the moment he was out of my reach, but never to be met and grappled with hand to hand--this was hard to bear! Had ever mortal man before such a rival?

"All this, of course, was but dimly apprehended by my mind at the time; but I had sufficient opportunity to muse upon it afterwards. General Burleigh seized my hand, and shook the head of his cane at me.

"'Shall be obliged to court-martial you, young man! What have you been doing to my daughter, sir? Why, no one can get a word or a smile out of her, since you came with your tomfooleries! She keeps all her good humour for you, confound you! It's witchcraft--you've bewitched my little girl with your lockets and your necklaces and your tomfooleries!

You've bewitched her--and I'll have you court-martialed, and executed for witchcraft, by Jove! Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!' And with that he gripped my hand again, and vowing that the club was the only place for him since I had appeared with my tomfooleries and witchcraft, he swung round on his heel and strode away, his broad military shoulders shaking with jollity; and left Edna alone with me--and my rival!

"We strolled off along Piccadilly, and I daresay every man we met was envying me from the bottom of his heart. But though her arm was in mine, I knew I might as well have been miles away from her. And we both were reticent of our words on all matters lying near our hearts, as if that third presence had been as palpable and visible as it was otherwise real. We spoke constrainedly and coldly; nay, we even tried not to _think_ of our love or of our misery, lest it might possess power to see our thoughts as well as hear our voices. We walked on, seldom looking at one another, for fear of catching a glimpse of it in each other's eyes.

I saw, however, that Edna still wore her locket--indeed, she had told me, the night before, that she would never take it off, until I bade her do so.

"'So your father thinks you bewitched, Edna,' I said at length, trying to throw off the incubus a little.

"'I am not very well, I think.'

"'He seemed to fancy the spell was connected with that old locket,' I continued; my very disinclination to the subject driving me to tamper with it.

"'Perhaps it is,' returned Edna listlessly, lifting her hand for a moment to her throat. 'I am not quite used to it yet.'

"'To witchcraft, do you mean? You have seen no phantoms, have you?'

"I felt her little hand clutch my arm with an involuntary start. I looked down, and she met my eye with a blush, and at the same time with a terrified shrinking expression that was bitter to behold.

"'I see nothing with my open eyes,' she said, scarcely above a whisper; 'but at night--I cannot help my dreams; and they follow me into the day.'

"It was as I had thought, therefore; the spectre was not objectively visible to her. She could not get away from her own self, and hence could gain no point of vantage whence her persecutor could be seen.

There was little doubt, nevertheless, that her mental picture of him agreed with my ocular experience. It seemed to me, on the whole, that her burden must be far harder to bear than mine. There is a kind of relief in being able to face a horror; and my own feelings, since seeing this evil spirit which was haunting us, had been in a certain sense more tolerable, if more hopeless, than the night before. But how did I know what agony she might suffer? Even her innocent sleep was not sacred from this evil thing; all her maiden reserve and delicacy were outraged; she could be safe nowhere--no one could protect her; and with me, who would have given my life to please a whim of hers, her suffering and exposure must be less endurable than anywhere else. I could well understand her blush, poor girl--poor girl!"

Not for many years--not since, in fact, certain sad experiences of my own early days--had I been so deeply stirred as by this recital of Calbot's. His voice had great compa.s.s and expression, and the needs of his profession had given its natural powers every cultivation. He had a way of dwelling on certain words, and of occasionally pausing, or appearing to hesitate, which greatly added to the effect of his narrative. All this might be acquired by art, but not so the ever and anon recurring falterings and breaks, into which, as now, he was unexpectedly betrayed. I felt that it was unwise in me to listen to him, to sympathise with him, as I was doing; yet could I not find it in my heart to stop him. All fears of violence on his part had been for some time past allayed. I was well aware that my encouragement of his confidences could only result in my pa.s.sing a feverish uncomfortable night, and a listless dismal morrow; and yet I forbore to interrupt him.

Ah! it is we old bachelors who have hearts after all.

I blew my nose, Calbot cleared his throat, and continued.

VIII.

"Well, Drayton, I shan't keep you much longer. From Piccadilly we turned into Bond Street, and were walking up the side-walk on the left-hand side, when suddenly Edna stopped, and clasped both her hands round my arm. She uttered a low exclamation, and trembled perceptibly. Her face, as I looked at it, was quite rigid and colourless. I did not know what was the matter, but fearing she was about to swoon, I looked round for a cab. In so doing my eye caught my own reflection in a mirror, fixed at a shop entrance on the other side of the street. It was in this direction that Edna also was gazing, and the next moment I no longer wondered at her ghastly aspect. Close by her shoulder appeared the fantastic black-garmented figure which I had seen awhile before in Park Lane. He was making the wildest and most absurd gestures--grinning, throwing about his arms, making profound mock obeisances, and evidently in an ecstasy of enjoyment. I looked suddenly round, but the place which should have been occupied by the original of the reflection appeared entirely empty. Looking back to the mirror, however, there was the spectre again, actually capering with ugly glee.

"Meantime people were beginning to notice the strange behaviour of Edna and myself, and I was thankful when a pa.s.sing cab enabled me to shield her from their scrutiny. No sooner were we seated than she fainted away, and only recovered a few moments before we stopped at her door. As I helped her out she looked me sadly in the face, and said:

"'Come to me to-morrow afternoon--for the last time.'

"I could say nothing against her decision, Drayton; I felt we should be really more united, living apart, than were we to force ourselves to outward a.s.sociation. Our calamity was too strong for us; separation might appease the mysterious malice of the phantom, and cause him to return whither he belonged. The persecution of our long-dead ancestors now recurred to me, as I had read it a few months before in those dusty old doc.u.ments, and I could not help seeing a strange similarity between their fate and ours. Yet we had an advantage in not being married, and in having the warning of their history before us. You see," observed Calbot, somewhat bitterly, "even I can talk of advantages!

"I went to her house to-day and had a short interview. I cannot tell you in detail what we said, but it seems to me as though the memory of it would gradually oust all other memories from my mind. I told her that pa.s.sage of history. We agreed to part--for ever in this world. I took back the chain and locket which I had given her but so short a time before. We said good-bye, in cold and distant words. We could not gratify the evil spirit, which we knew was watching us, by any embrace or show of grief and pa.s.sion. We could be proud in our despair."

"One moment, Calbot," said I, interrupting him at this point; "you say she gave you back the locket?"

"Yes."

"Is it in your possession now?"

"It is at the bottom of the Thames."

"Good! And have you or Miss Burleigh seen anything of your phantom since then?"

"You forget that we parted only this afternoon. But I understand your question. No, Drayton, it is there that the fate of our ancestors gives us timely warning. We must never meet again."

"I don't consider the cases parallel; and besides," I added, with a glance at my MS., "there is perhaps another point to be considered.

However, finish your story, if there be any more to tell."