CHAPTER XI

GARDEN AND HOUSE OF SHADOWS

The next morning the sensation of waking in such fine surroundings had lost all its charm. Rosalie awoke with a dull leaden pain at her heart, that gained rather than lost power as she recalled one by one the articles of furniture in this new home. The long mirror had lost its fascination; so had the silken bed-hangings. She did not jump out of bed, but rather lay there idly, with no wish to rise; oppressed with such a heaviness that to lie still seemed the only ease from all those aches and pains that twine around a heavy heart. As the grey light of early morning brightened and broadened, she curled in among the bed-clothes, and shut her eyes.

“If only they would let me lie here, and not disturb me! I would never disturb them, I’m sure. I feel so weary that the least exertion is the biggest effort.”

Then she lay very still for a long time, till at last Mariana knocked at the door and opened it, bringing the customary cup of tea.

“I feel so tired, Mariana,” Rosalie said, “and there’s nothing to do. Don’t you think I might spend the day in bed?”

“It is against the rules.”

“Who makes all the rules here?”

“The Master.”

“But he has gone away till to-morrow.”

“That does not excuse us.”

“But he would never know unless you told. I am tired, really, Mariana. I could just lie still, and never move an inch all day.”

“You must get up.”

“When I get up my heart aches.”

“That does not enter into the consideration of the rule. You must get up, or you will be shaken out when the bed is made.”

So very reluctantly Rosalie rose, with a day of nothingness and imprisonment before her. She was dressed in about the same time as yesterday, had breakfast served in the same room in the same way, and then walked out on to the corridor aimlessly and disconsolately.

Mariana had disappeared. Although Rosalie tried every door along the corridor she could not find her. Many of these were locked, and others she discovered to be bedrooms, furnished much as her own, with the exception of the little sitting-room and the room in which she had her meals.

At last, weary of this, she passed out to the high gallery overreaching the square central hall. She walked round it, and tried various doors leading off from it, but all were locked. Below, the dim hall lay in silence. Nothing of light or life was there, though it was not yet mid-day. She looked down over the high oaken balustrade, and sighed, and the echo brought her sigh back to her. She whispered “Rosalie”; the word ran round the arching dome, and then returned—a mocking, hollow voice within the silence. So the morning crept away, with no brightness to speed its dragging hours, no companionship, no occupation. Not a sound fell on her ear. So still was everything, the house might have been a City of the Dead.

At dinner-time she ate mechanically the food they placed before her. To refuse was simply to raise up insistence. Then she withdrew to the little sitting-room, to idle away what time would go, to find after endless waiting that scarcely an hour had passed. Then she got up and went back to the bedroom to bring her hat, and with the same difficulty as the day before, reached with safety the foot of the spiral staircase.

The doorkeeper was sitting not far away from it, reading a paper. She went towards him, and as she approached him he looked up, and then rose from his seat.

“Would you mind telling me which way I should go to find the garden?” she asked.

“Certainly. If you will come this way I will take you.”

Rosalie smiled sadly.

“Suppose somebody got out or in whilst you are away?”

“No one would wish to go out, and the door only opens from within,” he answered.

He walked across the hall, and she followed him to the glass door behind the staircase. This door likewise entered upon a corridor with doors leading from either side of it. The house seemed all doors, but at the farther end a spacious fernery opened out, the curtains (of deep red) which shut it off being now looped and drawn back, so that much beyond was visible. Through the magnificent fern-house he led her till they came to a door of glass leading down into the garden beyond.

The doorkeeper opened it, and let her pass through, himself following.

Outside, broad flights of steps descended by terraces to a lawn of smoothest grass. The terraces were paved in large squares of black and white marble, and from the central one a huge fountain was sending up showers of sparkling water to meet the brilliant sun. Beds of flowers, all of colours resembling scarlet geraniums, were laid out bordering the side walks. One magnificent bed of what looked like crimson gladioli ran up a steep bank bordering the left-hand wall. The high walls themselves were covered with creepers, all of brilliant red, just as autumn leaves are often found, and the only relief afforded was that of the dark foliage of the trees that clustered willow fashion in the rear portion of the garden. This was a kind of wooded avenue along which a carriage drive led from the big gates in the outer wall round to those stables where the Master’s favourite horses were.

“This is the garden,” said her companion, when he had brought her so far; “you will return any time before five. After that the doors are locked.”

When Rosalie was left alone she walked across the lawn slowly, taking in all the beauty and striking nature of the scene. The gardens were large. The avenue and shrubbery beyond were shaded, and provided with many rustic and artistic seats. Rosalie walked along the carriage drive as far as she could, and then a sudden and unaccountable gloom seemed to fall upon her and all things. Just then a sudden bend in the road brought her full in view of the stables. It seemed to her for one instant as if against the gloom surrounding her they shone out in flashing whiteness. They were flat-roofed, though high, and the strong pillars supporting and ornamenting the building were an exact fac-simile of those used in the decoration of the temple.

And standing there looking at it, Rosalie smiled.

“I wonder whose idea that was?” she thought. “A devout architect and designer would never have thought of such a thing. But perhaps I’m mistaken; this may be a private place of worship. I’ll go on and see.”

So she advanced as far as the building; but whether it were stable or chapel she could not tell, for it possessed no doorway. She walked around it as far as she could on either side, till prevented by a wall of great height, but found nothing to serve as a clue as to the nature of its use. No sound came from within—none of the odour that generally characterises such places, either of sanctity or horses—and for the third time Rosalie walked round with growing curiosity. Marble, marble, all was marble, cold and hard and lifeless.

“I really think granite would be a welcome change,” she said, and sighed and walked away.

But it was really pleasant and enjoyable to be in the open air. To be able to look up at a sky that belonged in common to prisoners and free men, there was some little consolation in that.

As she emerged once more from the wooded avenue, her eye fell full on the house. She was surprised and startled at its beauty, viewed thus from the back. Whereas looking at it from the street it showed as nothing but a large square mansion, almost ugly in its plainness, it was from here one of the most graceful and artistic buildings she had ever seen. It was turreted and towered, with polished oriel windows, shining with a lustre all their own against the dusky background of dark marble. The windows on the basement all opened on the ground.

“I believe this is the front, and the front is the back,” thought she. “A kind of topsy-turvy, like the rest of things. What a magnificent door!”

This last expression escaped her involuntarily and aloud.

The door from which she had come was a small side one leading from the conservatory of palms and ferns, but in the centre of this huge construction of glass was a double door of thick carved glass, or some substance very like it, of fine workmanship and execution.

Rosalie went up the many steps towards it, passing the silver fountain that fell with almost a merry sound into the marble basin. Both leaves of the door were shut, and the carving represented was that of a temple, the inner portion, with arched aisles and fluted pillars, and in the centre an altar, with above it the image of a toad. Below it, on the steps outside the customary railing, bowed figures knelt in bare feet, their shoes and stockings at some considerable distance. The representation was comprehensive. Each figure and detail was drawn with great exactness and clearness. The curious polish it possessed was its most striking feature, especially that brilliancy radiating from the toad. Rosalie bent her eyes closer to it, shuddered to find that there was something horribly repulsive in such an animal, and then found herself attracted by the light shining from its head. Its eyes were meaningless and staring, even in the carved picture, but from its head, and this she only discovered after steady looking, the light shone very curiously. Instead of the white light of the rest, this was almost red. Just a faint tinge of red! All the rest, carved as it were from blocks of ice, was utterly lifeless. Yet it was this tinge of colour, so subtly introduced, which made the whole great difference between an uninteresting and an interesting thing. At last she left it and looked down once more into the garden. She saw that several narrow paths led into the shrubberies at the sides. But what struck her attention most was that glorious rising bank of scarlet lilies and harebells and gladioli, that extended right down one side to the wooded avenue beyond, and reached almost to the height of the wall.

She perceived a narrow winding path led up this bank to its summit, and there a garden seat was placed. This was the highest point of vantage in the garden.

“I believe if I could only get up there I should be able to see away over the opposite wall, for it’s lower!” she cried excitedly. “Oh, how glorious to be able to see the city and everything! I’ll go.”

But alas! from the times of Cinderella downwards, clocks have often had a knack of striking at an awkward time. And now there came the sound of chimes, the silver warning, and then the five plain strokes that told the closing hour of fettered liberty.

Rosalie re-entered the house. In the central hall she met Mariana coming from the entrance door in hat and jacket, and carrying a muff.

“Where have you been?” she cried, running across to her.

“Out for a walk.”

“Oh, Mariana! What a shame never to tell me, and never to take me!” And she took hold of her hands hungrily, and kissed her on either cheek.

“Why do you kiss me?” the other asked, smiling.

“To try to get some real fresh air into my lips.”

“It is not very fresh. There is quite a fog coming on.”

“Ah! But it’s free air. I feel all the better just for kissing you. But why do you never take me?”

“It is against the rules.”

“But why can you go, and not I?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. See, I have brought you some sweets,” and Mariana held out a very pretty box containing a delicious assortment of chocolates.

Rosalie took it, somehow more touched than she liked to show by this simple little act of graciousness.

“Come and sit with me after tea, and let us eat them together.”

“I am afraid I cannot. I am always busy in the evening.”

“What are you doing?”

“Making a wedding-dress.”

“Are you going to marry, then?”

“Oh, no; I’m not making it for myself. I don’t know that it is a wedding-dress either. However, I am making it very beautifully, and so I am ambitious for it.”

“Who is going to wear it?”

Here Mariana’s brow puckered, and a puzzled, tired look came on to her face.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I expect if I finish it, and no one applies for it or wants it, it will shrivel up again. For there is no wardrobe but what is overrun with moths; and the moths here eat away all colours except red and black.”

“Then how can you preserve it till it’s done?”

“By steeping the silk I sew it with in tears. But when the last stitch is in the effect has gone. The moths cannot perceive the bitterness afterwards. They eat it all away.”

Rosalie stared at her, as well she might.

“Won’t you let me see it?” she asked at length; but Mariana shook her head.

“It would be no pleasure to you.”

“Indeed it would. Let me see it, Mariana, just for one minute. There can be possibly no harm in that.”

“The room I sew in is very damp for such as you.”

“But I’m stronger than you. I’m accustomed to hard work.”

The other looked at her and smiled, with more sadness than mirth in her expression.

“What strange ideas you get about things, Rosalie. The work I do would kill you in a month.”

“But you will let me come with you, will you not?”

“Yes, if you wish it very much. After tea at six o’clock I will come for you.”