# The Shadow on the House

Extracted from The Pall Mall Magazine, Oct. 1901, pp. 210–224. Title illustration may be omitted.
THE SHADOW ON THE HOUSE
By ALBERT KINROSS
CHAPTER I.
THAT there was an unexplained shadow, a something joyless and persistent, brooding over that household, I was already half aware. But in what way the morrow's wedding would affect them and it, I was at a loss to discover. Here I stopped short, here I stood blankly, as though brought up before some sudden and impassable fear. I could see nothing, or nothing in reason, no single point of light in all this gloom. To-morrow? To-morrow could but add to it—give it a new life to darken and torment! But they saw it otherwise—this nightmare, now held at bay, now crowding in at each unguarded moment.
They had left us alone together in the smoke-room, me and Colin Fonnereau. He was to be married the next day, while I was to do best man. He had written to me a month or so ago, and I had consented, a trifle surprised, a trifle curious; for I had seen next to nothing of Colin Fonnereau since the old days in St. John's Wood, and, as for his people—I knew hardly anything about his people, but I had often wondered.
We had been at school together, and then I had missed him, till he turned up at St. John's Wood. I discovered him one morning in the barrack-yard—my bedroom window overlooks it. I knew his walk, and that he was soldiering: “Of course that fellow over there is Colin Fonnereau!” said I. The club Army List confirmed this verdict; so I went over to Ordnance Road next morning, and we fell round each other's necks.
For three years afterwards V Battery was stationed near my rooms. The whole turnout passed my windows every other morning, Colin, a useful-looking subaltern, bobbing in his saddle beside the lumbering guns; on Sundays, with a plume a foot long in his busby and a chest gorgeous with gold braid, he would often go by leading his men to church.
During those three years Colin and I saw much of one another—nearly as much as at school. I liked him. I never quite understood him, I admit; but we were very friendly all the same. He was one of those men whose people only exist on paper. He had a father and a mother; their place, Fonnereau Hall, was somewhere in Hampshire. He used to go down there occasion-ally, but he never spoke about the place and only very seldom about his people. I took him to see my own; he used to dine at Manchester Square with us once, or twice a week. I knew all there was to know of him in town, but outside—well, outside, Colin Fonnereau did not exist; and I never asked questions. Once he did say, just before leaving: “I'm going down to my people's; I'd ask you as well, but it isn't any fun—none at all.” And then the peculiar look in his eyes, that peculiar look which we could never account for, deepened. He seemed distressed, so I changed the subject at the double; but all the same, he might have spoken out. He had known me long enough and well enough. Again I caught his eyes, and I felt sorry for him.
Colin had always had those eyes, even at school. We never quite agreed about them. The boys used to call him Stowaway—there was a picture of one in a book, with eyes something like—till he made ninety-four against Repton: then we called him Slogaway; but Colin didn't seem to care. He had other peculiarities as well. Looking-glasses appeared to worry him: the one in his study was never hung, and only used when really necessary. In his last term, young Heslop declared that Fonnereau was going grey, so four of us sat on him and extracted white hairs. There were at least a dozen—he had very dark hair, and so they showed up. Colin let us please ourselves. I was alone with him afterwards, and he was smiling patiently about it. A queer smile he had with those eyes—they always seemed to be contradicting his mouth. “It's all right,” he said. I had just “hoped he didn't mind.” When Fonnereau went home that term I wondered whether I should ever see him again. I wanted to; but it was no good inviting him—he never accepted.
Notwithstanding, he was unaffectedly glad when, six years later, I turned up at the barracks to renew. There was a fair sprinkling of grey in his dark hair now, but the old look in his eyes was scarcely so marked. Otherwise, he was little changed. We saw a great deal of one another in St. John's Wood, met almost daily the whole time, except when Colin got leave and went down to his people's. One thing in particular struck me about these absences: that, always just before and after, the old “Stowaway” look seemed to come back, and that a week or two of work with the battery sufficed to reduce this look to its previous unobtrusiveness. I also noticed that, as at school, no looking-glass was hung in Colin Fonnereau's quarters. I noticed these things, but said nothing; and Colin, frankness itself in all other directions, offered no explanation.
V Battery had at last gone abroad, to Umballa, and for years I had seen nothing of Colin Fonnereau. We had exchanged a letter or two, and my people got cards at Christmas. That was all, till a note arrived telling me that he was shortly to be married, that he regarded me as his oldest and most intimate friend, and would I, therefore, hie me to Fonnereau Hall for the wedding and assist thereat as groomsman? Of course I had accepted.
By special request I set out some days in advance of the actual ceremony. Colin met me at the station and drove me over. His greeting was of the warmest, his spirits high.
“I'm awfully glad you could manage it, he said, as we stepped into the cart. “I've been slack about writing—a soldier's life's rather unsettled,” he explained.
I replied that my present dignities were proof sufficient that he had not forgotten me.
“There's a dance to-night. We're going over after dinner, and so's Madge. You'll like her,” he said, alluding to his fiancée.
She was uppermost in what followed. His eyes were quite clear, no trace whatsoever of the old trouble in them, as he rattled on about the future—lightheartedly, hopefully, just as any other man of his years and prospects might have done. Colin Fonnereau, like the rest of them, had become commonplace, monotonously happy.
Four miles of country road and bare lanes under a pale January sky, and we reached the Hall: a grey old house standing in a deal of ground, and built round the four sides of an inner court. The main entry to this formidable pile was reached through an arched gateway surmounted by an ivy-covered clock tower. 'The place was Tudor-Gothic and heartily picturesque.
“You don't know my people,” said Colin soberly, as the wheels ground over the gravelled quadrangle. We pulled up, and he jumped out and passed the reins on to a groom.
I was presented to his father and mother. Mrs. Fonnereau, a stately and handsome woman well into the fifties, welcomed me as an old and valued friend; and tempering her cordiality was a certain high-bred grace of courtesy, that, besides putting me completely at my ease, instantly won for her my whole-hearted devotion. I felt quite indignant with Colin for having delayed this meeting by so many years. Her face, one I shall always admire, was strong, even masterful, despite its manifest womanliness: authority, patience unending, and the settled tension of habitual watchfulness mingled, were written unmistakably amid its smoother lines—the face of a woman who had suffered much, but, unshaken, still hoped on.
Old Fonnereau, my host, came in later. He was very much like Colin—tall, well set-up, and dark complexioned; but quite grey, and his eyes—well, Colin's had a peculiar look in them, but, compared with his father's, they were ordinary, almost ordinary. Old Fonnereau's eyes were strange, disquietingly so. During those first days I often tried to hit upon their exact expression, but never quite succeeded. When he looked at you, it seemed as though something were dangling between, and that he was looking at it and not at you. It wasn't quite that, but, just then, I could get no nearer.
My baggage had been taken up to a room next to Colin's.
“Not the haunted room, is it?” I asked, as he led me through corridors to our corner of the building.
“No, not this one,” returned Colin, with half a laugh.
“Thanks,” said I, with a fervour not entirely assumed. For an air of depression, of unuse and neglect, seemed to pervade these long and empty galleries through which we passed; a sullen lifelessness that hung, gathered and brooding, shadowlike and portentous, over room on room, passage on passage of that huge place. The very servants eyed me as though my presence here were something unknown and abnormal, and yet as though pleased at sight of a new face. My room, the house, everything, everybody in it, except perhaps Mrs. Fonnereau, had succumbed, seemed weighted and oppressed by this overpowering and unnatural vacancy. Small wonder that Colin had always gone and come from here with an added trouble in his eyes.
We reached my room, and Colin sat on the bed and smoked a cigarette while I dressed. He too seemed pleased to have me there. The old look had come back again; even when we were downstairs chatting I had noticed it.
My transformation was three parts effected, when I missed something.
Colin saw me hesitate.
“You've some sort of a looking-glass in your dressing-bag,” said he, “or shall I get you one?”
I produced the article. “No dashed vanity about you, Fonnereau,” I said lightly. The old aversion!—as before, at school and in barracks.
Afterwards we went across to his quarters. He had brought his man down with him. His mess-kit was laid out, spick and span. The man helped him, while we two talked about the dance we were bound for, one given by the local hunt.
In the dining-room we were far gayer than might have been expected, thanks to Mrs. Fonnereau. She made most of the conversation, putting all she could in the way of Old Fonnereau. They spoke mostly of school and the times Colin and I had had in St. John's Wood before V Battery moved out to India. They were good enough to inquire after my people and to thank them for dinners Colin had eaten several years back. They knew us so well that things went more or less family-party-like. And for all this we had to thank Mrs. Fonnereau. Old Fonnereau certainly did join in in his half-hearted way, trying to look straight across at us. But always the Thing, or whatever it was, that I had imagined, seemed to get between and fill his eyes with that strange, shrinking terror that the look in Colin's but barely hinted at. He would have been a handsome enough man but for this joyless and unceasing preoccupation, with his white hair, fine figure, dark complexion and accurate features.
At last it was time for us to join the waiting carriage; nor, I must confess, was I entirely sorry to be out of that house, and once more alone with Colin in the crisp winter air. As we drove he told me more about himself and Madge Harewood, though guardedly it seemed to me. “The marriage would be a godsend for the whole family, didn't I think so?” he admitted. But before I had time to reply, he reverted to the dance and to Miss Harewood's people.
The particular hunt ball at which we were due was held in one of the public buildings of a neighbouring market town. Brushes, grinning masks, and neatly arranged crops decorated the staircase and ante-room; the whole place was gay with the movement of pretty frocks, men in pink, and uniforms that had come in from all over the county. Colin presented me to a few of the women and to a man who presented me to some more; so that when I came back, and helped him hang about the ball-room door, I was possessed of quite a moderate programme. He had shown me photographs of Madge Harewood, so I knew her at once—no need to go by Colin's face—when she came in between Lady Harewood and a sister. I liked her better than the photographs.
Madge Harewood was fond of Colin, anybody could see it; and he was devoted—too devoted, I thought. “Was the girl good enough?” and I looked the future Mrs. Colin over, somewhat doubtfully. Her eyes met mine, and she seemed to read the question and answer it with a defiant “Yes!”
“Small, but plucky,” was my inward comment as I begged Miss Harewood, the sister, for a couple of waltzes and the supper-dance.
Madge Harewood had turned to Colin. He was looking very well in his regimentals, the usual gunner outfit, blue and red and lots of gold braid, the slip of striped ribbon on his breast lending a finishing touch of the heroic to what otherwise had been but mere barbarous ornament. The girl was on his arm, and, as they moved away, I noticed that again the old look had gone clean out of his eyes, swamped by a light of happiness that I considered excessive—just as when, in the cart that afternoon, he had held forth about Madge Harewood. Till supper-time I saw next to nothing of the couple—only once overtook them, and then they were facing, most obviously coquetting with, a full-length mirror. The girl had just dragged Colin up to it, and there he was, laughing at her opposite: Colin, to whom all looking-glass was ordinarily as poison! Then they had gone on to a sitting-out room.
Lady Harewood we had deposited at the far end of the ball-room, where she sat with other mothers and discussed the company. When I was not dancing I joined her, and was asked questions about Colin; rather nicely, but still questions. I replied with superlatives, and, as our conversation progressed, we discovered that a second cousin of Lady Harewood's had married the sister-in-law of one of my aunts. Miss Harewood and I went over similar ground together, and exchanged views upon the bicycle. She was a tall and rather striking-looking girl, and, though she did not seem to be very enthusiastic about the wedding, she admitted, tersely and correctly enough, no doubt, that her sister was making—I quote the description—“a good match.”
At supper Colin and I did our best to be amusing, not unsuccessfully. We had a table to ourselves, the whole five of us, and were noticeably cheerful. My toasting of the happy couple was listened to with profound attention. Madge Harewood was very kind to me. She had evidently forgiven our opening passade; for which, and more, I doubtless had to thank Colin and the sitting-out room. Miss Harewood's appetite was good, and Lady Harewood reminded Colin that he and his people were coming over to dine the next day, and that I was of course to be included in the party.
After supper the lovers resumed their old tactics, Lady Harewood rejoined the other mothers, and Miss Harewood was romped off by a spurred and brand-new subaltern, who had danced every dance and eaten of every dish with a zest and relish manifestly Etonian. I, for my part, made inquiries which led to a room marked “Mayor's Parlour,” and cigarettes with a talkative man in pink who was placidly enjoying a whisky and soda.
Amid much that is irrelevant, the man in pink mentioned the Harewood girls.
“Captain Fonnereau's goin' to marry the littl'un; why doesn't he take the big'un?” demanded the man in pink. “She's a fine girl—Miss Harewood's a fine girl!” he insisted; wherein I cordially agreed, although with Colin I preferred the smaller and less effective of the two Harewood girls.
The man went out, and I was left alone in the Mayor's Parlour.
Strange—a strange world! And I puffed at my cigarette and marvelled; marvelled mostly at the seeming indifference of Life, of the larger drama, to all smaller drama, to the drama of the individual, play within a play—the individual, participant in both, super on the one stage, starring it on the other. Here we were, here we had been all the evening, behaving in more or less humdrum fashion at a more or less humdrum dance. Here we were, full of the rote of the commonplace and a dinner-party that Lady Harewood had arranged for the next day: Colin, too, just the same as we others—Colin who must be implicated, Colin who must know. And he merrily sharing in the performance, no thought apparently beyond the girl at his side—as if over the old house from which we had lately driven, to which we must shortly return, hung no silent presage, dumb forebodings of impending calamity; as if over yonder were crowded no fateful and. pervasive shadows, no sullen malignance of threats that had driven light out of faces, youth out of hearts. Here was Colin, cloudless, buoyant, sunk in his imperceptible rôle, lost in the slow unravellings of the universal drama—as though concurrent with this ran no play of his own, as though behind him he had left no intent and ever-watchful mother, no prematurely stricken man, eyes wide with apprehension.... And all this medley of Terror and Love, this to-and-fro of Time and Fate, this journeying through the trivial and the immanent, the sublime and the necessary, was Life; and Life was Art in bulk—and I artist. No wonder, then, that the theme had given me much to ponder on.
Other men came into the Mayor's Parlour and lit cigarettes and mixed spirits with soda-water; and I went downstairs again, to dance and to chatter till it was time to say good-night. The drive home was sleepy, though blissful.
CHAPTER II.
Next morning Colin's eyes reassumed their old look of trouble. We had sat down to breakfast with his people. Mrs. Fonnereau made us tell her all about the dance, while Old Fonnereau listened—always with that invisible object dangling between. Sometimes, as we sat there, I fancied that he was looking across at me, as though, for reasons of his own, he were trying his hardest to fix his attention upon some detail of my face; and then a gesture seemed to declare the effort unsuccessful. He left us after a while, quitting the room without a word of explanation; still possessed, still distracted by that unseen and interloping memory, familiar, or what it might be, that strove so perpetually with his unwilling sight. Mrs. Fonnereau then said some very nice things about Madge Harewood; and Colin, whom every movement of his father's seemed beyond measure to depress, brightened a little.
Afterwards, he and I rode over to the meet. Most of last night's company was there as well; Lady Harewood and Miss Harewood had turned out in a dog-cart, while the fiancée, looking very fresh and tailor-made, was mounted. We detached her from the main body, and bore her home to lunch. Colin had set out looking not altogether happy; now he grew clear-eyed and hopeful again—according to precedent.
Mrs. Fonnereau was very sweet with the girl, and, when Old Fonnereau came in, embarrassed as ever, and took his seat at table, he too did his best to show his appreciation of their visitor. As in the morning, he seemed to try his hardest to get an undisturbed view of my face; of Madge Harewood's as well, judging by the stealthy glances that I from time to time intercepted; and, as in the morning, he rose and left the room as soon as the meal was ended.
Later, Colin begged and was graciously accorded my permission to escort his bride homewards; and the two rode off together, leaving me alone with Mrs, Fonnereau and some letters I had to write. At first I felt ill at ease remaining in that house without Colin; but Mrs. Fonnereau proved herself an admirable substitute, speedily laying my doubts, and interesting me, moreover, in her own indomitable personality, with whose strength and tenderness I was glad to make closer acquaintance. Of Old Fonnereau I saw nothing during the afternoon, save for a chance encounter in one of the galleries that led to my room. He was wearing an old linen coat, smeared and smudged with oil-paint, and besides, had several brushes in his hand. To my intense surprise, he passed me by without any recognition—almost as though bent on avoiding me. What ailed the man?
I finished my letters, and Mrs. Fonnereau and I sat together over the tea-things and the red fire till Colin came back. I was glad to see him again. Mrs. Fonnereau, too, seemed pleased. He was ruddy and smiling; all trace of the morning's trouble had vanished.
When next I saw Old Fonnereau he was dressed ready to leave with us for the Harewoods'. The evening was pleasant, if a trifle formal. The parson who was to officiate and his wife had been invited, and there was plenty of not very engrossing conversation with a little music to follow.
The day after, things went on pretty much as before. Old Fonnereau disappeared immediately after breakfast.
“Your guv'nor paints?” I said to Colin.
“A little,” he answered nervously, and I dropped the subject. Old Fonnereau himself made no allusion to any such recreation.
Colin and I were lunching with the parson, and so were the Harewood girls. The time went fast enough. We arrived home ready for an hour or two's gossip with Mrs, Fonnereau; and, in the evening, Madge and her mother came over to dine. The wedding was fixed for the next day but one.
After our cigarettes we left the seniors in the drawing-room, and Fonnereau, the girl and I, went round the house. Colin had had the candles lit; and now, more than ever, the place seemed vast, hauntingly still, and empty. The yellow light by which we moved but made visible a gloom which it deepened but never plumbed. We would cross passages that had neither end nor beginning, while above were ceilings found and folded again in a fluid darkness.
The room we had dined in was not the dining-hall proper, and it was this especial chamber that Madge Harewood wished to see. Colin humoured her, and we passed through the long corridors, endless in the candle-light, to the very spot where I had met Old Fonnereau in his paint-smeared coat on the yesterday. A few paces further and Colin halted, throwing open the door of a large and formal apartment. This hall was hung with family portraits, and was mainly remarkable for its size and an atmosphere sickly with the smell of wet oil-paint. Here too the candles burnt, but brighter and in greater number than outside. Madge Harewood slipped a hand through Colin's arm, and he smiled. He had not smiled before.
There were quite a dozen Fonnereaus on the walls and over the gallery at the end, and all were pleasant enough fellows till we came to the more recent ones; and here we paused. Madge Harewood paused and I paused, and Colin faced them—and in his eyes! I understood. All those men in bygone fashions had the same look, the same premature grey hair, and their eyes were worse, infinitely worse than Old Fonnereau's—filled with the same nerveless dread of some spectral object dangling in mid-air.
“We'd better go,” said Colin.
But the girl stood her ground bravely, and stared those old faces out of countenance. “No, we won't, dear,” she said, her hand still on his arm.
All those later Fonnereaus had the same strange eyes. It was not exactly a look of horror that filled them, but a lost look, as though they had seen—ah, that was just it! I could not quite say what they had seen; but it was always with them, always present and unforgotten and inescapable—something that not even the dark could bar out, or closed eyelids banish.
We turned away at last, Madge still brave and unflinching. Colin would have made for the door, but she sprang gaily from his side, paused over the table in the middle, examined the old-fashioned chairs, and finally drew up at an easel whose back was towards us, and wheeled it to the light. A half-finished canvas was on it, a copy of one of the portraits, with the same eyes—and against the wall were stacked dozens and dozens of canvases, the same eyes on all. So this was what Old Fonnereau had been doing with his mornings and afternoons!
Madge played when we returned to the drawing-room.
“Have you been exploring?” asked Old Fonnereau nervously, as she sat down.
She smiled up at the old gentleman, and the anxious look left him.
Madge Harewood played extremely well, avoiding anything in the least degree painful. She made Colin take up his violin, and they went through the first movement of Schubert's “Unfinished Symphony” together. It was soothing, and Old Fonnereau appeared more like Colin than ever before when it was over. A rhapsodie of Liszt, and then it was time for the Harewoods to go home. The break-up was a trifle solemn. We all felt its significance. Our next meeting would be in Ticehurst Church, to wedding bells. Mrs. Fonnereau kissed the girl, and the girl kissed Mrs. Fonnereau. It was a moment. Madge put up her fresh young face, and Old Fonnereau kissed her on the cheek. And then—wonder of wonders—for an instant his eyes grew normal, living, unclouded—the same as ours. Mrs. Fonnereau saw it, and so did Colin and I. The old lady stood by in a tremble, turning from one to the other of us, but never spoke. And so the Harewoods left us.
A pipe, a whisky and soda with Colin, and I went to bed. Somehow the house seemed to have lost much of its depressing emptiness as he and I again passed through the long galleries that led to our rooms. Even the very servants were more cheerful and alacrious.
Next day, the last before the wedding, was a quiet one. Colin packed his boxes, and they were sent down to the station to be picked up later on. Mrs. Fonnereau hovered round him as he gave his orders, and helped put the things in place; and Old Fonnereau, too, found his way to our quarters. He was in evidence most of that day, and had, it seemed, deferred his usual work in the dining-hall. At meals he sat opposite, the old look in his eyes, yet not quite the old distress; and sometimes I fancied that the unseen object which always confronted him was giving him less pain to-day than ordinarily.
And so the time wore on. A note came over from Barrow Hill, the Harewoods' place, evidently from the girl; and Colin sent one back, apparently of the same complexion. The evening was quiet. The old people retired early, Old Fonnereau saying good-night with a fulness of meaning that escaped me till Mrs. Fonnereau startled us by departing from all ordinary rules, taking Colin to her in a very storm of frenzied tenderness —she whom, until now, I had regarded as the embodiment of restraint, vigilance, and self-mastery! And yet she was not going to lose him; his battery was on home service—and, as for his marriage, what had his marriage to do with the rest? With those family portraits, with Old Fonnereau's eyes and white hair; with that silent, inarticulate, cloaked dread which enwrapt and overshadowed and stifled this old house and its occupants! In what way could Colin's marriage affect all that—save as a temporary alleviation, a fugitive occasion for rejoicing, a passing respite! Or would it bring a new face into that vile atmosphere, to dull, to lose its freshness and its youth—perhaps to suffer as Mrs. Fonnereau had suffered through years of silence and repression, to burst out at last as she had burst out just now? Surely Colin would never bring Madge Harewood back there! Never! Never! Let that house perish, with all it held of dire! Why did they not desert it now!
And Colin, standing beside me, lit another cigarette. We were alone at last. “Have one?” and he offered me the case. “It's nearly over,” he said, dropping into a chair. “Thank God for that! I fancy we've come to the end now. A light?” and he passed his own cigarette across. “Madge has been a brick through it all.”
I smoked in silence, waiting for him to resume. He was looking his best, his eyes quite clear—strange only with the fire that warmed his speech.
“You know nothing about us?” he now asked.
“Only what you've shown me.”
“We've a distaste for looking-glasses, our hair is greyer than other people's, and we've peculiar eyes?”
I nodded.
“And my father copies unpleasant portraits, and my mother takes life too seriously, and I'm secretive? And the house seems cursed, and the old Fonnereaus seem to have been much the same as we are, eh?”
I nodded again.
“What would you describe our eyes as—mine and the guv'nor's and those other fellows'? Come on; we'll say good-night to them!” He rose as he spoke, and lit candles. “Come on!” he cried; and I went after him through the dark passages, where the shadows followed and fled and returned and circled, to the old dining-hall. And there he lit every candlestick and all the twelve brackets, and, pulling one of these from its socket, climbed to the great chandelier with the lustres, and fired this, so that the place was one blaze of light. Then he stepped back. There were mirrors on mirrors—curtained these; and he pulled the silks aside, and the room grew into countless rooms all flaring and bright, with the lights that burnt in endless rows and clusters. The old portraits looked down on us, and we upwards.
“What would you describe our eyes as—the guv'nor's and mine and these men's?” asked Colin, with a sweep of the arm.
“Well, old chap, they look as though they'd seen something—seen something,” and I hesitated.
“Seen what?” asked Colin.
“Well, that's just where I'm beaten.”
“We all look as though we'd seen ourselves—is that it?”
Some seconds passed before I replied. “I hadn't thought of that,” I said at last. “But you're right.” The full content of his question had come home to me.
“As though we'd seen ourselves—not our faces and the cut of our clothes and the lay of our hair, but inside all that—inside!” he repeated. “As though we'd stood by and watched our own souls dying—not the going from bad to worse of each of us—not the slow decline of evil living or poor health, but as though we'd looked on at the physical, actual, material murder of ourselves, at the sudden wrench from life—looked on at it as some other could, as some one who survived might have done-—and our own souls, our own bodies, each time!”
That was the look. I had it now.
But Colin had not done. “Please God,” he cried, “I shall be the last, the last of the Fonnereaus to stare like that! Now do you understand my mother's excitement, and mine, and hers—Madge's?”
I held my peace.
He came over to me. “Old pal,” he said, “I'm a bit heady. I was going to give you something cool—cooler than this. But I got out of hand just now. You'll see it all when I've done. Can you listen for an hour—two hours?”
“Till noon if you like.”
We were seated in that dazzling room, the old portraits looking doubly sober in their brilliant setting; and, if the story he now unfolded was wild and horrible, a thing to shudder at, it must have been the lights, the security born of so much radiance, that nerved me through the terrors of those hours.
“I must go back,” Colin began, “to him.” He pointed to the first of the later Fonnereaus as he spoke. “He is bad enough, and he is only the son! The other is not here; he was never painted. Downstairs there is a miniature of him, as a young man, done before he went away. Good-looking he must have been, and there's a touch of the dare-devil in his dark face. He was a soldier in the East India Company's service, and exceptionally able, I believe; was at Plassey with Clive, at Wandewash with Coote, and when there was no fighting to be had, he would get leave and work for the Company outside their territories, disappearing into Berar or Oude and coming back with valuable information. The French and the native princes feared him; but, knowing many languages, and possessing a genius for disguise, he came through unhurt. An account of three of these excursions may yet be read among the Company's reports. His last journey was to the north, into the strange countries that enclose the Himalayas; and when they found him again he was like that.” Again Colin pointed to the stricken man's son. “He was like that—only worse, far worse! He had set out young, vigorous, alert; he came back bowed as if with age, his hair white, his face sunken and furrowed, his mind disordered, and peculiarly horrible must have been the expression of his eyes, for the lids had been slit across the middle, and were now but half healed. He is said to have tottered into the station without knowing it for what it was, as though he had been led to a point in the road and left to take his chance. Thus he returned again, and no one knew where he had been or what great trials had so changed him, for he had no answer to the questions they put, and he was alone. He knew nothing; his memory, and with it his whole past, seemed lost to him; nor did he even recognise the friends into whose care he had come. They sent him home, after a while, to this house, and here he was won back to some semblance of life by the devoted woman whom, later on, he married—the mother of his son. He lived here quietly for a number of years, he and his wife and the boy; and then one night he blew his brains out.
“He had remembered. He left papers behind him, the ink almost wet on the last sheets; and then those others knew his story—our story—the nightmare that has made us what we are. He had lived in a merciful darkness for ten years, and suddenly his memory had come back to him. But this is what he wrote——”
Colin had sprung from my side to the tiny escritoire that stood almost lost in a corner of the dining-hall. He had the key by him, I followed close, watched him unlock the panel that dropped forward, then saw him grope for the spring that opened the secret drawer beyond. At last he found it, and now the pair of us were stooping over a bundle of papers, time-stained and worn with use. He brought these back with him, loosened the ribbons that held them together, and began his pitiful story afresh, reading aloud from the faded manuscript on his knee.
CHAPTER III.
“I know his words almost by heart. 'I was looking into our boy's face,' the story begins; 'our boy's face that is so like your own, my poor wife, my dearest; that has your tender eyes and the sweet air I love so well.”
Colin's voice was now fallen to an even monotone, as though he were repeating some narrative pored over till the sentences had become his own, had sunk into the fibre and flesh of him, overpowering his natural personality with their superimposed passion.
“'I was looking into our boy's face. He had come into the old dining-hall with the mirrors. For a moment he stopped short, gleefully regarding himself the while, and then he cried for you, and dropped to the ground in a swoon. You know so much; but not the reason of his terror. Only I—it is only I who know that. I was looking into his face. I marked how his eyes changed, growing wide and fearful with apprehension. There was something familiar in this discovery—in the cause of it as well. I wondered, I tried to recall, tried with all my might; and then the mists—the mists that these many years have barred me out from life, melted away,and I remembered. I too was looking into a mirror—endless mirrors that would not leave me—not here in the white light of day, but in the red light of hell! The boy swooned, and you came to him. I watched you bathe his face, and, when he opened his eyes, saw how he drew back and fled the room. “I will not stay with these,” he cried, “I will not see myself—never, never!” And after that all the mirrors were curtained.
“'They were curtained, but no one knew why this was done, why the boy had fallen to the ground, and why now had come into his eyes the strange look that all feared. None knew but I, who have been dead these many years, and who am once more living—I, who have cheated Death! For did I not die that far-away day when they, the red lamas, led me through their hideous temples, through their thrice-cursed city that they call holy—led me up to the temple-palace of Potala, that is hewn out of the live rock and stands high above the city? They led me to the gilded roof with the giant Buddha, so that they might fling me into the pit where I died slowly. My eyelids were slit and nailed back, so that I should see all. It was like a dream, but it was no dream; for my eyelids are scarred, and I have been dead for ten years, and I am bowed and old and white.
“'But this is what I remember. We had gone north from Patna into the mountains of Bhutan, and yet farther north into the bleak and arctic country of the lamas. I had heard much of their temples and the mysterious wonders of their sacred city, and was eager to learn more. At first we came to monasteries, I and my servants; and there they prayed us to return, urging that the country was bare and difficult, and full of dangers from roving bands of armed outlaws. But the more they prayed, the greater waxed my curiosity, and, feeling that I could fare no worse than I had already fared in their inclement country, I thanked them for their warnings, yet pressed onwards. We passed the great lake which they call Yandok-Chu, and came afterwards to the town of Chetang, where I crossed a broad river. Here my Indian servants, more prudent than myself, turned back, and neither threats nor silver could move them to continue. For the people we sojourned amongst no longer prayed us to return, but threatened all manner of punishment should we persist in our ends,
“'Left to myself, I asked assistance of two pilgrim priests, who likewise were faring to the holy city. These were well versed in Sanskrit, a tongue I too was familiar with, and, by their aid, I procured fresh servants, long-haired yaks for my baggage, and was soon on the road again. The one priest had hastened on ahead, impatient to reach the end of his pilgrimage, but the other was more phlegmatic: a jolly fellow to all seeming, who had noted my stock of provision, and who laughingly declared that where I went there too would he go, for with me he would run no risk of famine. He cheerily led the way as our small party progressed slowly through the mountains until at last we reached the flank of Gokhar-La, the mighty peak that overlooks the sacred city of Lhasa. I was for pressing forward, but the priest demurred. “The night is falling,” said he; “and the distance is far greater than it seems. We will sleep first,” and he gave orders for a halt. “At sunrise we will descend,” said he, “and to-night we will have pleasant dreams; for to-morrow will be a festival.” Smilingly he made this answer, and smilingly he brewed the tea for our meal—curses on his false face! And the rest, that is shaped like a dream, but is no dream, must now be written.
“'When I awoke, I was no longer on the mountain-side with my servants and the priest, but down below in the city of the lamas. I rubbed my eyes, and fancied that I still slept; and even now it seems as though what passed was a dream, but when I think and reason with myself, my doubts are gone and my bitterness wells up two-folded.
“'I was below in the city, and the hour was close to noon. 'The air of the temple was heavy; I looked about me at the stone pillars that were clad with garments topped by hideous masks, at the grinning faces that were suspended from the rafters, at the silks covered with strange paintings that hung on the walls. Silent figures were moving to and fro, and when they saw me stir they came forward and made me welcome. I rose, and the lamas followed me into the courtyard outside. The sun was high in the sky, and therefore I knew that it must be midday; also by my hunger I could tell that it was later far than my usual hour of waking. They brought me meat and drink with much show of civility, giving a courteous answer to my many questions, and asking in their turn whence I came and the nature of my journey. They were of the red brotherhood of which I had already heard so much, uncomely and cunning in appearance, with their yellow skins, small eyes, and sparse beards; but so eager did they seem and generous in their hospitality, that I lost my natural feelings of distrust, and secretly wondered how I had come there and why I was so honoured.
“'I asked for Sherab Gyatso, the priest with whom I had lain down to rest the night before; and at this they wagged their heads and questioned one another. They did not know of such an one, they said. Then I asked how I had come into the temple, seeing that I was many miles distant at nightfall, and, so far as I knew, had not left my camp. Again they consulted together, agreeing at last that they had certainly found me slumbering in their temple that morning, nor had any one of them seen me enter, all of which caused me great astonishment. But as I was in the sacred city, the goal of my wanderings, and about to penetrate its many mysteries, I had small concern. Here, at last, were rest and ease after my long weeks of hardship, and I had eaten and drunk in plenty. The world seemed very good. For certain my servants and baggage were wanting, and for these I made inquiry. But here again the red lamas failed me, repeating their assurances. They knew nothing and had seen nothing save what had already passed. Then I told them that I had lain down to sleep on the roadside, below the crest of Gokhar-La—I, with the priest Sherab Gyatso, my beasts and my servants—and that [ had awakened to find myself in their midst and without my companions.
“'They listened to my strange story with incredulous gestures, but promised that they would send men down the road in search of my party. This offer quieted my misgivings, and I sipped my tea, the group squatting round me, each a cup before him. Occasionally one would mumble his devotions or break off to swing his praying-wheel or to tell the beads on his rosary.
“'The news of my waking spread, and soon more lamas came into the courtyard, which now grew crowded. I recalled the promise that had been made to me, and two men were despatched in search of my baggage and servants. For the present therefore, I was free to wander round the sacred city as I listed.
“To me this place rather than holy seemed a fine medley of filth and devil-worship. The temples were numerous, and with no great difference between any one and any other of them. Each enclosed some Buddhist shrine, round which moved the many pilgrims who had come from far and near bearing their offerings. Yet to none of these was shown the same deference as to myself, an unbeliever and empty-handed. The red lamas conducted me from place to place, each one with an improving story on his lips; yet everywhere I saw the same tawdry ornament and rude carving, the same monotonous inscriptions, the same greed for tribute, the same mocking lip-service of an unworthy priesthood. And everywhere was filth and the unclean odour of garbage. In the narrow streets the people came and went; and chiefly conspicuous were the soldiery, carrying matchlocks for weapons with forked rests of wood bound to them, as did our arquebusiers of old. They were a motley crew, with pebbles in their pouches for bullets and black powder from China.
“It was thus that I visited the holy city, lacking neither in guidance nor company; yet, anon, I tired of its sameness, albeit too politic to let these others know of my weariness. A poor reward, after the many hardships I had suffered, seemed what they had shown me; and heartily glad was I when the first part of my pilgrimage was ended. There remained yet the famous temple-palace of Potala, which is hewn out of the live rock whereon it stands; and here, I was told, the Grand Lama himself awaited me and would give me audience. They spoke much of the splendours of this palace, and, indeed, they had been lavish in their praises of all I had already seen; for these people regarded their poor buildings as of an extreme grandeur, nor was it fitting that I should undeceive them, though sorely tempted.
“'We now left the heart of the city and reached the foot of that rocky eminence whose crown is the stone temple of the Dalai Lama. The narrow pathway was worn smooth by the feet of the many pilgrims who make this journey. One behind the other we ascended till we were joined by a party from above, who, after the proper salutations, returned to the great gateway that opens on to an inner court. More like a small city than aught else is the temple of the Grand Lama. He himself stood there to receive me, in robes of yellow silk, richly jewelled and embroidered; and, amidst the crowd of many-coloured lamas that was about him, I fancied I saw the grinning face of Sherab Gyatso, and the face of that other priest who had hurried forward from Chetang. But for these I had no eyes, seeing that the great man whose life has no end was before me, the Pope of this heathen race. He was very old in appearance, yet erect in despite of his years, and taller by a head than any around him, his loose robes making of him a majestic figure. Yet was he not so tall as I.
“'The Dalai Lama's greeting was of a dignity in keeping with his great station. He himself led the way to an apartment where tea was served to us, and where discordant music was made. There he asked me many questions, displaying a great subtlety in the wording, and drew from me a confession of the wanton curiosity that had drawn me to his holy city, where the white man was unknown. Nor was this all; for he asked much of the English and the French, of our battles, and of the Company's spoliation of the Indian princes. He listened, his face heavy with thought, as, half consenting, half betrayed by the cunning form of his inquiries, I told him what I knew. His private information, however, must have exceeded the few sources to which I had access; for often he pressed me on matters that I had never approached, nor hitherto regarded as harbouring the lightest political significance. At his instigation, I was forced to admit that the Company traded largely, yet plundered even more; that it scrupled little so long as the directors and stockholders divided large profits. “And you are one of its servants?” he asked at last. “A very humble one,” I replied. Then he left me.
“'There was little in that vast palace, few of its many courts and shrines, that I did not visit; wandering for several hours with my guides the red lamas, among those massive images in bronze, the rude carvings, and gaudy decorations of this city within a city. Yet what interested me more than all else was the skill, the titanic labour which had cut these walls, these terraces, chambers and courts, these roofs and pillars and smooth floors, out of the solid stone. There was no doubting this origin. Often the waters of some deep-set spring had forced their way through the discoloured rock and worn a shallow channel for themselves to the artificial loophole by which they escaped; often I found myself wondering at the carved pillars that seemed to have grown up out of the soil and were again rooted in the mother-stone overhead; or again, at the metallic glitter of some block of ore or crystal, that, harder than its fellows, had resisted the cunning of these mighty burrowers. This palace was indeed a monument, and vaster even than those ruins of Greece and Syria that I had lingered amidst on my journeyings of long ago. I followed its windings with nothing but amazement, and never for a moment was I filled with the weariness that had assailed me during the earlier half of this tour.
“'As a last surprise they had reserved for me the gilded roof of the innermost temple, with its gigantic image of Buddha and the wide outlook over the city and the plain below. There I was again to meet the Grand Lama and his train, tender him my thanks, and make my farewells. I reached the roof, and he was before me, surrounded. by his sword-bearers. These carried long blades of Chinese steel and short knives of the same fine metal. The spectacle, as the sunlight shone on the golden floor, on the dull bronze of the image, on the naked weapons of the bodyguard, was barbaric and memorable beyond telling. Far below lay the city and the bare plain that stretches to the foot of Gokhar-La, the mountain on whose rugged flank I had lain down to rest the night before with Sherab Gyatso the priest, my servants, and baggage-yaks, and where perchance I still lay; for, try as I might, I yet had some doubt as to whether or no I were dreaming, and the Dalai Lama, Lhasa, the palace itself, part of my dream? But too solid for any dream and too perfect in its order was this spectacle, the last my eyes were ever to dwell on save with terror and the glaze of death. For now, as I stood smiling in the face of the Grand Lama, the soldiers closed round me of a sudden and bound me with leathern thongs.
“'I asked for an explanation of this violence, and the Grand Lama answered me. He was no longer the suave prelate, but dark, and threatening, as he replied: “You have come to report on my land and its riches; you have come here with no pious purpose—you, the servant of the Chelingi-pa, of a brigand Company, boundless in its greed and knowing neither law nor pity. You have seen all; we have been generous, granting your desires down to the most holy places of my sacred palace. These too we have shown you; but what you have seen and learnt shall be lost to you, for presently you will die. And listen: it was Sherab Gyatso, your friend, who is now here, and Phuntshog, the red lama that was with him, and whom you also met on the road, that told me of your coming—and now you are trapped. Say, are we not as cunning as the Chelingi-pa?”
“'I listened with what courage I could as he pronounced this sentence; and, as his words fell, I knew for certain that the day's work was no dream, but the end of a well-laid plot. For I understood now the haste of Phuntshog, that other priest who had hurried forward from Chetang to give notice of my coming; I understood now why my false friend, Sherab Gyatso, had ordered a rest last night instead of pressing forward; saw how he had brewed and handed to me tea that was drugged, and how, while I slept deep, he and my men had conveyed me to the temple below, wherein I had awakened. I knew now that those other priests had fooled me with their pretended ignorance and an empty promise to send messengers down the road in search of my recreant servants. I knew all this—saw it clear and full. And there was I, bound, and before me the yellow faces of the two pilgrim priests who had led me into this trap. For they had lost their backwardness, and now stood hugely content in the forefront of my captors.
“'The hatred that filled me as I marked them gave me new strength. I held my head proudly, and looked fair into the eyes of the Dalai Lama, crying, “You will do as you will. But if it become known that I have suffered, for the one man you have slain there will come ten thousand.” “Aye, and glad of the pretext,” he answered mockingly; and then he raised his voice. “They will not know,” said he, “for you will die alone and in a far-off land, and with no witness but yourself—yourself who will perforce keep silent. You will die the Other Death, which is two deaths, the death of the soul and the death of the body, and the one you will see with your eyes and the other will have no meaning.” He turned from me, and, as I stood wondering at his strange words, two of his officers stepped out with drawn knives. I was bound and defenceless, and they slit my eyelids through the middle and pinned the four curtains back against the flesh of my brow; and then one came to me with a hot iron and a cloth, so that there was little blood. He it also was that cut my bonds. I would have sprung forward then with clenched fists, but the ground under my feet fell away; and, they forcing me, I dropped downwards, clutching wildly at the air, at the brink of this sudden pit into which I had been thrust. Too late! Pain and surprise had delayed my nimbleness, and, though my hands were flung wide about me, they but met the dark, relentless stone by which I was encircled.
“'Past walls, now chill, now the more cruel for slime, I fell; with here and there a projection of hard rock to beat at with my feet, to strain at with my hands; and then this place narrowed. I could once more think. There had been flashing pictures before, of life, of death, of battle, of England my home. Now there was hope. This chimney narrowed, my descent grew slower. More than once my feet had rested for a moment on some outstanding hump of stone, my torn fingers closed over some rasping stay; and then the weight of my body had dragged me on and on, yet ever slackening, till at last I stopped short, breathless, my heart-beats shaking me as with arms and legs thrust out I held my place. How long—how long could I fight thus! I looked up. Far above, in the disc of light overhead, were dim faces. God, how cruel they seemed! And for this punishment I had to thank the Company and its repute! Would none rescue me? My strength was little enough: I could stay here, how long—how long? Presently my thoughts grew less wild. I might descend; aye, use what force remained to me for this purpose. It was better than dropping—whither? Into death and darkness. I shook the cold terror of such an end from me. I would act. While this prison of mine was narrow and of rough stone, it was not difficult to move foot by foot lower and lower. And so I descended. But soon my progress became more difficult, the chimney widened, and again I came to a standstill, pressing outward with all my strength. Not for long, however, could I remain in such a position; for my body grew leaden, dragging me away at last, and I began to slip—to slip slowly as I still struggled. “Whither—whither?” I cried. Hands and feet did their best, but they could do little. “Heaven help me!” I prayed, as the walls went by. But now their nature changed: they were no longer of hard stone, but of some other substance, smooth and polished and flat, so that I slid now rather than dropped. Thus I went onward, my face cold and dewed with fear and terror, till at last my one hand lit on a ring, a thick ring and heavy, that hung from the wall, and which I eagerly clasped, stopping stock-still and marvelling at its presence.
“'Again I rested and looked back. Above, where the trap through which I had fallen was still open, giving a small circle of light, I fancied that I yet discerned the heads of those that were watching my distress, and below them were the moist walls of stone against which my limbs had beaten, and these merged into a semi-darkness that grew dim and more dim; yet there was still enough light to see that where I hung by my supporting ring was no stone, but, let into the wall and square with it, some polished surface of reddish metal.
“'I looked downwards now, and the distance seemed endless and pitchy black but for a point of light that shone white and clear below. “If I could reach that!” thought I; and no sooner had the words passed me than the trap above closed and the point below vanished. I was in the dark, an inky darkness, clutching at my ring and wondering how long—how long could I hold without dropping! And again the cold terror of my plight seized on me.
“But I was not long to shiver through this awful solitude, for presently came light—light from below, light from above—how thrown I could not tell. Reddish it burnt, yet very steadily; and then I saw where I was. This pit might be some natural chimney leading downward from the temple-roof to the foot of the eminence upon which stood the Dalai Lama's Palace. It might be natural, but so diabolic were the contrivances that had been added that soon I understood how exquisite an instrument of torture now had me for its victim. I could see the slimy space above, the cold rock cut and fashioned so that those bosses and lumps projected which had gradually stayed me as I fell, its widths and narrowings. There was nothing that could support one for any length of time, but just a succession of uncertain protrusions that did their work of arresting the descent of whosoever fought for his life against them: so that by degrees he would come to where I now rested: to those polished walls that four-folded my disfigured face, and from whence depended rings like the one that I now gripped with both my hands, seeing myself the whole while with my large eyes that I could not close, the wherewithal to close them being lacking.
“'Yes, the four walls of my cage were of copper, and so rarely burnished as to be like mirrors; and there was I regarding myself whichever way I turned, and powerless to to look elsewhere or to escape the sight of my own face. As I marked this, making my discoveries in the red light which the copper mirrors made more red—as I looked about me in this hellish light, I say—I knew at last the full purport of all these preparations. I was to die here miserably, and, perforce, was to see myself die; I was to watch—I could not but watch with my uncovered eyes—and wheresoever I looked would be that other self. And below me was death—death that I shrank from, though, heaven knows, it had been wiser to have met it straightway; aye, and a milder ending than the one prepared for me.
“'I looked about me more carefully. There were rings like my own in plenty on the near walls, but anon they ceased, and the naked copper reached down endlessly. I might have lowered myself by several ells, but why waste my strength with this bottomless pit as sole outlet? I would be able to hold on where I now hung for long minutes—a few long minutes, till I grew faint and fainter; and all the while my own face would be looking into mine, would be watching me, would confront me—all the while. I could not escape from it. And at the last, my eyes and those eyes would call to one another; my eyes and those eyes would fail and grow dim. together, would together grow void and lifeless. He—this other man—and I would do everything together: he and I—for he was I, and I he—and we were both of us dying the self-same death.
“'The longer I clung there the more this other self possessed me, till at last I was no self of my own, but stayed, intent, wrapt up in him, marking his every movement, wondering what next he would do, and what were the words on his twitching lips—reading the terror, the pitiful terror and agony that filled him. His face grew into a book that was written with my heart's blood. It had no secrets from me; it was bare, bare as the soul that looked out from it! I knew each line—and every quiver and tightening of its flesh was some new page that he read loud to me—and when he fell and struggled and fought madly with the smooth walls —when open-mouthed and frantic he cried to me as he gained another resting-place,—and fell again, I saw it all with my wide-open eyes till my brain failed me——”
Colin was speaking in quick gasps. “Enough! enough!” I had cried when he stopped short; and now he held his breath, his head bent forward on his shaking hands.
Thus we sat mutely for awhile.
“He remembered,” said Colin at last, breaking in on our silence, and calm once more with thought of the morrow,—“he remembered, and blew his brains out. And those ”—his movement embraced the portraits that began with the suicide's son—“all those others died by their own hand: my father's father and his father, and again this one and the son. Now do you understand why my mother watches and waits?—why her life has so far been one long martyrdom, is one of apprehension—and hope? Why——”
For a second time he broke off, arrested, not by any cry of mine, but by something more distant. There was a sound at the door, as though hands were fumbling against the panels in the dark outside. We both heard it, and started from our seats; waiting, wondering. Who could it be that sought this chamber at so unearthly an hour? The handle turned, slowly the door opened; and, fully dressed, his eyes eager and unclouded, there entered Old Fonnereau. Colin and I stood upright in our places, and neither of us spoke. Apparently he did not see us; and yet the room was clear as day and more brilliant, with its many lights.
Calmly, and quite unconscious of our interest, Old Fonnereau found his palette, his colour-box and brushes. Then, wheeling the table to the portraits and mounting it, he set to work. First of all he went to his own father's face, busying himself only with the eyes; and, when he stepped back, he had painted the old look out of them, and now they gazed down on us frank and untroubled. From one to the other he went, working rapidly and with great excitement, till at last there was no picture of all that group which was not pleasant and even spirited in its expression. Then, as silently as he had come in, Old Fonnereau put his brushes and paint away, wheeled the table back to its place, went to the door and disappeared. We watched him as he walked slowly up the corridors that led to his room.
“Strange!” said Colin; “and yet this is Madge's doing!”
“He was walking in his sleep,” said I.
“Yes—yes,” answered Colin impatiently; “and do you know this means the end—the beginning of the end—for all of us? I am sure of it now.”
We went back to our chairs.
“He has been trying to paint those eyes right for years,” said Colin; “not like this, straight away, but on odd canvases, on those Madge turned out the other night. He was never certain before. You have seen him looking at you and at Madge—at your eyes?”
“Yes,” and I remembered how his stealthy persistence had several times puzzled me.
“He was trying to carry their expression away with him—he knew they were clear—so that he might do this.”
“But Madge?” I asked, keeping him to his point, “where does she come in?”
Colin moved closer. “You'll see presently,” he explained. “I had often suspected something of the sort, brooding as I did. We all had, but when I was out in India I made sure. You remember the battery was stationed at Umballa? Sometimes I got leave and went up there. I could not help it. The old ground drew me—Nepaul and British Sikkhim—the frontiers of Lamaism, that's all I saw of it. I learnt the language; I could even read some of the sacred books. But little resulted from my pains, till the day I came to Ghoom. I had been over the monastery, had explored the temple—the place, as you may imagine, interested me. However, these are details. It was on my way back to Darjeeling, and outside the village, that I came across a very old woman, who is spoken of by the Europeans of the district as the Witch of Ghoom. I had often heard of her, for she seems to have been planted there from time immemorial, but this was our first meeting.
“It was one of my bad days. I was tired and depressed. The monastery, with its all too familiar images, masks, and tinsel, had reopened the old sore. They were still there, no penny the worse, while I——! The Witch had come out to me with her usual cry of 'Salaam, Sahib! backsheesh!' but when she caught my face, her whole manner changed. She spoke a dozen words, and I saw that she knew me—knew who it was that was riding by, so sick and desperate. 'Child of the Dead!' she called after me. 'Child of the Dead!' she croaked, 'Spirit more sad than the Eagle, more sad than the White Mountains!'—these Buddhists are fond of hyperbole.
“I dismounted and offered her money, which she refused. 'From the Dead I ask nothing,' she said. And then she ran on, never turning from my face: 'It was long ago, and the Sahib died. He fell, and where he fell was water, though that he did not know; and then he was dead. His soul was dead, only his body was alive; for he had died the Other Death. His body they brought back here; his silent body they led back to his friends. It is the custom of the holy city, for they would guard their secrets. But the Sahib did not die. He had a son, and you are of his race. Do I not speak the truth?'
“So she began, and,” continued Colin, “she knew the story word for word: how, instead of going to his death, my ancestor's fall had been broken, and how he had come back, not alive but only animate. I told her how he had been tended. 'The love of a woman,' she said. 'It is that alone can give life again to such as you—the love of a woman!'
“I had often thought as much. I had often' noted how the faces here changed. My great-grandfather married without love, and his son suffered as he did, they say, till near his wedding-day. The son was wiser; and my father, you know. Each wife that has come to our house with love in her breast has taken one half of the burden from us; has helped rebuild the soul that we have lost with her soul—till now we are whole again. The witch was right: 'Let them marry where they desire,' were her words, 'and each time their pain will be less. And you that are nearly as other men, if you take a wife whose heart is your heart, no longer will you be sad, and your children will be as the children of other men.' And that,” concluded Colin, “is why we are near the end, and why it is Madge, Madge alone, who has given us our freedom!”
The candles were burning low now. One flamed in its socket and expired. Another guttered and mumbled. Colin folded the faded papers on his knee, and, candlestick in hand, went over to the empty grate. The ashes drove up the chimney or fell powdered between the bars. The story I had listened to would never be told again—never as I had heard it that winter's night, in all its naked horror.
“To bed,” said Colin,—“we must sleep! The lights can burn.” And thus we left that brilliant room, from whose walls the portraits no longer looked down on us with unseeing eyes. Through the chill house we went, and as my head sank into my pillow a great peace filled me. Perhaps I was tired; perhaps it was that a great weight had that night fallen from us.
It was late when I awoke, and Colin's wedding-day. He himself aroused me, fresh and smiling. The sun shone brightly as we made our way down to the morning- room. And there, as we sat at breakfast, Mrs. Fonnereau, Colin, and I, the old man burst in, his face aglow and flushed with pleasure, his eyes radiant—hardly to be recognised for the Old Fonnereau I had hitherto known. “The portraits!” he cried,—“the portraits! See! See!” and he dragged us all off to the old dining-hall; and, true enough, the portraits looked serenely down on us, and we as serenely looked back at them.
“It is over,” said Old Fonnereau.
Mrs. Fonnereau placed a hand in his. “Amen,” she said.
And then we all made ready for church.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1929, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 94 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse