Chapter 4

"It was Lotte that kept the cordial-room," she said vaguely, but with speaking her mind cleared and she came to herself again.

"Was I--was it for long?" she asked.

"It was longer than we liked," said the nurse; "of course, you had no idea of what was happening to you. We tried everything."

"I know that a great deal happened," she said; "let me see the doctor before I go."

The Last Lesson

THE CASTLE ON THE DUNES

I saw much of my friend as the years hurried by us; years in which I seemed to myself to lag shamefully, sometimes, and win nothing new out of life, but from which she drew fresh vigour of spirit with every season.

Many things she taught me, and of them all I best remember the one she told me last, when I had known her twenty years. She was at that time fully sixty, with a fine crown of silver hair, a tall, full figure and piercing dark eyes, for as she grew older her whole regard grew, as it seemed to me, keener and more commanding, and not, as with some women, softer and less powerful.

I had been with her all the white winter evening, on one of those errands of discerning charity that occupied so many of her hours and thoughts--dangerously many, as we who loved her would often say, considering that she spent herself unnecessarily upon much for which others might well have acted deputy. The sun had set early, for it was midwinter, and white points of winter stars were pricking through the frozen sky. The snow, iced over with a glistening crust, sent back pale reflections to the bars of cold green and thin rosy glows that stood for sunset, and a threatening wind began to rise, that shook down little icicles from the window ledge and made the stiff, chill branches of the oaks and beeches creak warningly.

I shivered to myself with pleasure and thanked sincerely the slender girl that brought hot tea to me and unwrapped my long furs. It was not my friend's daughter--the youngest of these was now happily married, and she would have been alone, were it not for the girls that she kept with her, training and guiding them into some of the wisdom and charm that distinguished her gracious self--a sort of unchartered school, where less gifted mothers sought eagerly to install their daughters.

As she accepted the services of two of these, and dispatched by a messenger some comforts to be sent to the suffering creature we had just returned from visiting, I lingered by the window and saw the first shadowy flakes of a new storm. The wind rose quickly to a howl, an icy branch tapped at the pane; we had narrowly escaped a dangerous home-coming. I could not resist a somewhat pettish complaint.

"Don't you think," I began, "that you have earned a rest from these expeditions, these insistent girls of yours, this constant responsibility? You are magnificently strong and well--yes; but even your vitality has its limits and too many people hang upon you, my dear! Do you shake us all off for a while and do something for yourself, your own pleasure and relaxation. Surely at your age you deserve rest! Your own have ceased to need you--why invite others?"

She looked strangely at me and in the dusk I saw her face white.

"There!" I went on, "you have harrowed yourself unnecessarily with that poor creature's pain and want--surely you could have sent money? There are people whose sole business it is to attend to such cases, and their nerves are coarser than yours--they are not so wrung by what is daily work to them."

At that moment a great fall of snow slid from one of the sloping roofs, so that the air was white before us. It swept to the ground with a dense, rushing crash and heaped itself into fantastic towers and walls; close by a red lantern shone out; the wind moaned sadly.

"Look! look!" she cried, one hand at her side, "the Dunes again! Surely you see that Castle, too? Or is it the sign--Oh, I am ready! Believe me, I am ready!"

I caught her hand.

"Those are no dunes, my dear friend, only black shadows on the snow of your own lands," I assured her, "and it is one of your own men with a lantern going on your own errand. It is the fallen snow that takes those strange spire-like shapes--no castle. This wind wails too much for your nerves. Look in, at the fire and the warm hall."

"No, no," she said quietly, "I love to look out--I am not afraid. I never know when I may see the Castle. And what you said about my rest.... Well, it seems to open my lips. It was on just such a night ... how cold the stars were! And I had nearly lost myself--hunting for my rest! When the moon rises I will tell you."

And then I knew that I was to hear one of those strange experiences of hers. As always, she spoke quickly, often halting for long between swift gushes of narrative, now as one who reads from an old book about a stranger, now like the adventurer himself. She did not always or steadily employ the style into which I have thrown her words, but she wrapped me in an atmosphere, and from that and the remembrance of a rising winter moon and a still, cold night, I write.

* * * * *

Her old friend the great physician, who now, in the evening of his busy life, attended only upon those whose necessities baffled the less experienced, pursed his lips and stared at her out of a grizzle of white hair.

"And what will you do," he asked abruptly, "when I have convinced them that you are unable to keep up these various relations that have been so many years a-building? Where will you go for this great rest?"

"Somewhere where I can be alone," she answered him, firmly, "where I can fold my hands by some quiet, lonely river, and think, where I can realize what I am; a widow, lonely for her best and life-long friend, a mother whose children need her no longer, a woman who has tasted life long enough and paid her debt to the world, and would slip out of it quietly. Surely that is little to ask?"

"I should say that the fact of your living showed you had not yet paid your debt to life," he said drily, "and I confess that I cannot see any great value in realizing these things you speak of. If they are so, they are so. Let them be."

"Oh, you are a man!" she cried bitterly.

"And I know, therefore, what a woman needs," he said, "and you, especially, who have many gifts denied, mostly, to your sex. Believe me, there is only one river for you--it is, literally, the River of Life."

"It is Lethe," she said obstinately, "and you shall not deny it to me. I tell you I am weary of my thoughts, and all the business of this River of yours. I have gained the bank; it is philosophy. Before I am driven far Inland--where even you cannot come and get me--and lose it altogether, I claim the right to begin the journey of my own accord. I want you to give me again that delicious, soothing treatment, that electric whirring, that takes away my thoughts--will you?"

He mused a while, seemed to have forgotten her.

"No, I will not," he said at length. And it was in vain that she urged him for he held to the refusal.

"Ours is no time of life to soothe away thought, dear friend," he said, "you need no treatment of mine."

While she begged him there came an urgent call from an inner office and he left the room quickly, asking her to wait. And as she sat there, baffled and a little resentful, the sight of the bright, mysterious machine so obedient there and always ready with its delicious oblivion, put a wild idea into her brain.

"We are old friends," she said to herself, "I know how he does it--why not? He will soon be here!"

And she pressed the well-known knob and watched the great discs begin to whir softly around under their glass dome. At the familiar sound her hunger for the coming comfort mounted fiercely, and she seized the long, supple, silk-wrapped cords and pressed the bulbs to either temple. A slight shock ran through her blood and with the realization of her folly came the knowledge that she could not take down her hands. The whirring grew, doubled, multiplied in volume; the room seemed to sway and rock; a low rumbling, like thunder, filled the air. Blind terror seized her, and shame for what she had done and could not undo, and as the office door flew open and a sharp, angry exclamation rose above the roaring, she summoned all her strength of will, tore away her hands, and fled, sick with fear, through a door covered by a velvet curtain. Through a small passage she stumbled, and then, as hurrying feet sounded behind her, and the roaring and whirring grew momently, she wove her way among a network of back stairs and halls and fell upon a small door under some steps, thinking it must lead to a cellar and stupidly remembering the safety of such spots in explosions and earthquakes--for now the whole house was quivering with the throbs of the terrible force she had set in motion. Down the narrow stair she plunged and hurried through the dim, earthy cellar, past bins of coal and great coiling pipes and drains. The jar seemed lessened here, but her humiliation and fright were no less.

"I can never meet his eyes again!" she murmured. "Will he ever forgive me? I must find a way out, down here."

But in the dim light and her utter ignorance of that part of the house, she could find no way out, though she went steadily away, during many minutes, from the stair she had descended. A great rat whisked across her foot and with a shriek of disgust she pressed the knob of a low door, forced it open, and found herself at the head of another flight of steps, of heavy stone. This would be a sub-cellar, she reasoned, and drew back, but the clattering feet of the rat behind her scared away all judgment and she plunged downward; the door closed heavily behind her.

These steps seemed interminable, twisted like a tower, and wearied the muscles of her legs terribly. At last they ended, and she found herself in a great arched vault like some ancient catacomb, empty, so far as she could see, but for cobwebs and dust. At least it was utterly silent; there was no more of that throbbing, and her eyes had by now accustomed themselves to the dimness. How broad this cellar might be she dared not adventure to find out, for a few paces from the wall the darkness swallowed everything.

"It must be that all the houses are connected at this depth," she thought, her mind still so confused from the shock she had sustained and all her hurry and fright, that she did not perceive the folly of her wandering farther, "for I have certainly gone far beyond the length of a city block, even. Perhaps I am in the heart of a great aqueduct system--it is all walled and ceiled with stone."

At last the dim glow faded and she was in the utter dark. But she dared not go back, for she had no clew to the stone stairs and had lost all her reckoning.

A piercing chill grew in the dead air; the silence was terrifying. But just as her brain cleared and fear began to creep into her blood, such fatigue had laid hold on her that the fear could not choke her--she was too far spent.

"To die like a rat in a drain!" she whimpered. "To stifle underground! Oh, I am too old for it! He might have let me die in my bed!"

Just then she saw ahead of her--she could not say if it were far or near--an arch, the outline of a low door, lighted through the cracks of it, and she drove her weary feet toward this and bent upon it, but uselessly, for it was thick stone. With her last remnant of strength she set her mouth to the crack and screamed, and it seemed to her that three loud knocks upon the other side answered her in some sort. She screamed again. Again came the three knocks and close against the crack a voice whispered.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I adjure you, wandering soul, be quiet!"

The voice was shaking with a fear as great as her own, and this gave her courage. She put her lips to the crack and cried:

"I am no wandering soul, but a poor woman! I am lost in this great vault--open, and let me out!"

"Do you swear this by the Holy Trinity, the Wounds of Christ and--and the Sorrows of Mary?"

"I swear it by anything you wish," she called, "if you will open the door and see how little you have to fear from me! But I shall soon be as dead as you think me, unless you make haste, for I am nearly frozen."

Now a rusty key grated, and after much tugging and panting from the other side, the door opened a little way and the scared head of a brown friar, such as one sees in the old countries, hooded and tonsured, peeped out.

"Mother of us all!" he cried fearfully, "and what--who art thou, then?"

"Only a woman, father," she said gently, for he was clearly ready to shut her back into the dark. "I am here by mistake. I only ask to be put on my way again, and I will not trouble your monastery."

For she had travelled much abroad and though she supposed herself to have entered through the cellar some church-school or cathedral establishment, of which there were not a few in her city, unconsciously she spoke of a monastery, as if she had met this holy brother in such a place.

"Monastery!" he repeated, but more assured now and opening the door wider, "why do you speak of that, my daughter? Who looks for a monastery on the Dunes?"

So simple and sincere he seemed that she could not doubt him and stared around her, to see herself in a rich, if small chapel, of rough stone, with coloured windows and a carved altar. The candles were but half alight; her cries had stopped this friar in his pious task, evidently. Holly was twined about among the carvings, and the effigy of a knight in full armour, his crossed feet upon a crouched hound, had candles on either side and the choicest berries and glossiest leaves upon his breastplate, but she did not stop to look at these but rushed to the only door she saw besides the one she had entered, the monk watching her curiously the while.

This door led to a narrow passage, that in turn to a broader, hung with rich tapestry, lighted with torches, set alternately with branching deer horns. This would never take her out, certainly, and she turned in confusion to the waiting friar.

"Is there no door to the street?" she said, impatiently.

He stared curiously at her.

"The street? The street," he repeated, "my daughter, what are you thinking of? Look through this pane and recollect your whereabouts."

He pointed to an empty pane among the coloured pieces of the window through which, now and then, the wind blew powdery snow. She put her eyes to it and looked out upon a great bare moorland, white under a cold winter moon. Here and there sprang a fir tree, but for the most part the land stretched away to the horizon, empty as death--and as chill. So close to her eye that she must hold her head back in order to see it, rose a great square tower with stretches of tiled roof, mostly snow-covered, spreading out below it; this chapel was the end of the building, it was plain.

Now a strange, uncertain doubt fell over her, and forgetting the terrors of the dark cellar and the long vaults, she turned to the little door again.

"Open that," she said, "and I will try my luck at getting back. For I have come farther than I knew, it seems."

The friar crossed himself. "Back!" he cried, "back through those ancient tombs, Christ knows where? Never dream of it, my daughter! Besides," as she rushed to the door, "it would be impossible. The old key broke in the lock even as I laboured over it, and ten men could not stir it now."

"Tombs?" she murmured, fearfully, "what do you mean by tombs? I came through a cellar...."

"My daughter in Christ," said the friar, advancing firmly toward her and holding out with shaking hands an ivory crucifix so that it touched her breast, "if thou art a mad-woman only, God pity thee, but if thou art more--and worse--then know this sign, before Whom all devils tremble, and vanish! For thou art covered inches deep with the dust of tombs so old that they are forgotten utterly of us who tend the ashes of their descendants, and the cobweb that drapes thy body like a shawl so that I cannot tell for my life the fashion of thy garments, or if thou art young or old, maid or widow, has been a-thickening these hundred years and more!"

At this the moon struck sharply through the empty pane and she saw herself for what he had said and swooned with the cold and her deadly fear.

She came to herself in a soft whispering and rustling of skirts, and knew that women were moving around her.

"What will happen to her?" said one voice, "I had not thought such things possible, hadst thou, Alys?"

"I know that old Ursula who was here in the old Countess's day told of something like it, and that the old Countess ordered a bath made ready, _such_, she said, _as her grandmother had ordered_. It seems they are always prepared."

"Be still, girls, she is stirring at the eyelids! How is it with you, madam?"

She opened her eyes and saw three or four young women in fanciful dresses looped up with chains, with jewelled nets upon their heads, and seed pearls braided into their hair. Their gowns of brocaded silk clung closely to the body and left the neck and shoulders bare.

"This is evidently no monastery," she said, and then, "where am I? I am so cold!"

"Soon you will be warm, madam," said the tallest of the girls, with two long braids of dark hair over her shoulders and a wine-red gown trimmed with black fur; "could you find it possible to walk between two of us, think you? Come, Mawdlyn, your arm!"

But little Mawdlyn shrank back. "I am in great fear of all that cobweb, cousin Alys," she whimpered, and no scowls availed to move her.

"Let me help you, Mistress Alys," said, very gravely, a young boy, stepping forward with a plumed cap in his hand and a short hunting knife at his leather girdle.

The tired woman leaned heavily on his arm, and it was he that led her gently and carefully along the great hall between the moving tapestries. Before a curtained door he paused.

"I can go no farther, madam, but if I may ever serve you, which is my true hope, call for me. You will see me on the instant," he said softly, and Alys led her behind the curtain.

Upon a daïs sat a very beautiful young woman with deep eyes like brown stars and two great braids of hair like the inner side of chestnuts when they fall apart. She was all in shot-gold silk and on her dark hair lay a twisted golden coronet with rubies studded in it. A big ruby hung on a golden chain around her warm white neck. Below her lay a great silver bath full to the brim of steaming water, and as the two entered, she rose, took a carved ivory box from an old serving woman beside her, and sprinkled a handful of what looked to be white sea sand from it into the bath, which bubbled and clouded and turned milky like an opal.

"Quickly, quickly, Alys!" she cried, "give her to me!"

And as the woman tottered and drew back from the steamy clouds, she of the coronet hastened toward her, took her in her young powerful arms as if she had been an infant, and lifted her over the silver edge. Now the warmth restored her a little and she resisted feebly and protested.

"But I am dressed--I am not ready for a bath--who are you that expect me here and masquerade so strangely? Let me see----"

For she perceived that she was being held so as to prevent her looking into the bath.

"Ah, madam, be guided, be guided! The Countess would not have you look!" cried Alys, but she turned in the strong arms that held her and peered into the milky waves, that smelt of roses, and her heart turned in her, for the bath had no bottom at all, and below the waves were the rocks of the sea itself, white and ribbed, stretching out endlessly! Great masts of ships were there and huge fishes oaring their way, and as the water touched her she did not feel it warm, but cold and salt. She struggled, but it reached her lips and she felt the Countess thrust her down, down.

"Push her, push her, Alys!" cried this cruel Countess, "press down her feet!" and she sank, gasping.

The water drew through her nostrils and the air was full of deep, tolling bells and at last a steady hum, as of bees. She knew nothing more.

At last, as one might waken after death, she breathed again, and felt herself being lifted from a warm, sweet bath and held, naked as a new child, on the knees of one who dried her softly with a towel of finest linen that smelt of roses.

"See how clean, my lady! Everything has gone!" She heard the voice of Alys, and peeped beneath her lids at where she had been plunged: it was but a great silver bath, clear, now, to the bottom, and quite empty.

"Where are my clothes?" she whispered, feeling strangely light and strong, "I am not cold any more; I can go on."

"Surely, if you will," said she whom they called the Countess, "but not till you have eaten and drunk and had of us new wear in the stead of that my bath has washed away."

And so, almost before she knew it, Alys and the old serving woman had put on her soft, fine linen and a shot-silver robe, looped up with a silver chain, and dressed her hair nobly. Over her neck and shoulders, no longer smoothly full like her own, this countess fastened a sort of cape of lace and silver, and on her feet the old woman fitted pointed velvet shoes. She watched them gravely, tingling still from that strange bath, trying to shape out in her mind what she would say to lead them to explain to her the place she had fallen upon, and why they played this pretty jest, and spoke and dressed so quaintly.

Now the Countess touched a silver bell and the old woman drew a heavy curtain before the bath and the daïs and placed a carved chair, and when Alys had led her to it, the same youth appeared with a tray in his hand, holding fine wheat bread and a graceful flagon of rosy wine and a fragment of honeycomb. He knelt before her, seriously, with eyes never raised above his silken knees, but his very presence moved her strangely and she put her hand softly on his head when he said, "Will you eat, madam, and refresh yourself?" and hastened to taste of all on his tray before he could be offended.

"And now, Alys, where is your mistress?" she said, when her strength was stayed and her eyes and voice bright again with the comforting wine, "for I must talk with her."

"Presently, madam, presently," said the girl, "none may speak with her at the moment, for she is gone to Mass--'tis the Count's name-day and the night, too, when God and St. Michael took him, fighting, and we have been out all day for holly for the chapel. We are all to go--will you come with us?"

"No," she said, thinking to make her way out when they were all gone and find out where this wild tract could be, "no, I will wait here. I am not of your religion, Alys."

The girl sprang back from her with frightened eyes and crossed herself.

"Madam!" she cried, "never speak so! If they thought a Moslem here--and to-night--hush, there go the men!"

There was a great tramping, and along the tapestries, before the drawn curtain, came a company of men-at-arms, clanking in full armour, with set, hard faces under the helmets.

She grasped at the arms of her oak chair wildly; these harsh men sent a chill through her--was some horrid treachery thus hinted to her? Then as Alys sped along behind them she felt her hand kissed softly and the little page-boy was there.

"There is none to hurt you--if you stay quiet here," he said softly, and she knew she dared not move or spy about.

Now arose a low chanting and then murmured prayers, and soon a smell of incense reached them. Then at last the mystic bell struck mellow on the night air and she knew that God was made and that men, maids, and Countess-widow were bowed before this mystery. The page bent low and crossed himself and a strange jealousy rushed over her that he should be of this sort, when she was not, for she loved the boy unreasonably.

"Your mother is a good Catholic, I see," she said, when the chant grew louder and covered her voice.