Part 10

“What; you have been here before? I had no idea of that,” said Mrs Tremaine.

For more than a moment Madge was confused.

Luckily for her, however, the lamps had not been lighted in the hall, and the sudden flush that came over her face was unobserved by her friends.

She gave a laugh.

“What a good shot I made!” she cried. “Isn’t this just the sort of house to have an old-panelled dining-room and a tapestry chamber beside it? I think we should have tea here. What sort of prehistoric creature is that on the wall?”

“I believe it is a skull that was found when they were digging the foundations of one of the lodges,” said Mrs Tremaine.

“I seem to have read some description of this very place,” said Charlie, standing in front of the great skull.

Madge wondered if he would remember enough of her account of the house of her dreams to enable him to recognise the details before him.

“It is fully described in Hall’s History, and in every guide-book of the district. The animal that that skull belonged to lived some thousands of years before the Flood, I understand.”

“What is the exact date b.c. carved on it?” laughed Charlie. “Yes, I daresay I came upon a paragraph or an illustration of the place. No house is safe from the depredations of the magazines nowadays.”

Tea was served in the hall to give Madge’s maid time to unpack; and then the girl was shown to her room. She ran up the broad, shallow staircase to the lobby; she had made up her mind to sit, if only for a moment, on the carved settee; but a surprise awaited her,--no carved settee was there. The painted window was there, but no settee was beneath it.

She was so surprised that she stood for some moments gazing at the vacant place.

“That lobby looks quite bare without the settee, Miss Craven,” said the housekeeper, who was beside her. “It’s a fine bit of carving--all ebony.”

“Was there a settee here?” asked Madge innocently.

“It was only taken away to-day to be in a better light for Mrs Tremaine to photograph it,” said the housekeeper. “Mrs Tremaine has done most of the rare pieces in the house. This is your room, Miss Craven. It’s called the Dauphin’s chamber, for it was here he slept fifty years ago when he was in Dorsetshire.”

Madge entered the room, remarking that it was beautifully furnished and that it seemed extremely comfortable. When the door was closed she threw herself into a chair and had a good think.

What could it all mean? she asked herself. Why should this house become so associated with her life? Was she going to die here? Was something going to happen to her? Was she to meet here the man who had upon five different occasions come to her side, telling her that he had been waiting for her?

For ten days she remained in the house, looking forward day by day to some occurrence that would cause her to realise what her dream meant; but she returned with her brother to Craven Court in disappointment. Nothing particular happened all the time, and she came to the conclusion that her dream was as meaningless as her brother had said it was.

Madge Craven and her brother were staying with the Tremaines at their own place during the pheasant shooting the following October, and one morning their hostess mentioned that her husband’s cousin, Mrs Clifford, had returned to England from South America and was expected to join their party that day.

She arrived before the shooters had come back from their day’s sport, and she and Mrs Tremaine had a long chat in front of the fire before tea. Mrs Clifford was a handsome old lady of the _grande dame_ type; and being a close observer and an admirable describer of all that she observed, she was able to entertain Mrs Tremaine with an account of the adventures of her son and herself in South America.

“I hope Rawdon’s health is more satisfactory now than it was,” said Mrs Tremaine when her guest had declared that there was no more to be told.

“I can only hope for the best,” said Mrs Clifford, becoming grave. “Rawdon is gone across the mountains to Chili, and will not be at home until the middle of January.”

“He must be pretty robust to be able to undertake such a journey,” said Mrs Tremaine.

“He is not wanting in strength,” said Mrs Clifford. “Only--poor boy!”

“‘Poor boy!’ ‘Why poor boy’?” asked the other.

There was a pause before the elder lady said--

“It is rather difficult to explain. By the way, did any of your party at the Manor House see the ghost?”

“Heavens! I did not know that your family was blessed with a ghost,” laughed Mrs Tremaine. “No, I can assure you, we were not so lucky. What sort of a ghost is it? A ghastly figure with rattling chains? Have you seen it?”

“Yes, I have seen it,” said Mrs Clifford in a low voice.

“How interesting! Do tell me what it is like!” cried the other.

“Like? What is it like?” Mrs Clifford rose slowly from her chair, and walked to another chair. She only remained seated for a moment, however: with a sigh she began pacing the room slowly.

“I fear I have touched upon a forbidden topic,” said Mrs Tremaine. “I had no idea that you were serious.”

“Serious--serious,” said Mrs Clifford. She was still pacing the room, and had just reached the window when she spoke. The next moment she had uttered a cry. Mrs Tremaine saw that she was staring out of the window, her hands grasping the back of a chair.

She was by her side in a moment.

“Pray, what is the matter?” she said.

“You are weak--overcome by-------Let me ring for brandy.”

Mrs Clifford clutched her suddenly by the arm.

“Who is that--that--on the terrace?” she said in a fearful whisper.

“Who? Why, that is our cousin, Madge Craven,” replied Mrs Tremaine.

Madge was standing on the terrace bareheaded, tossing grain to the peacocks.

“She was with you when you were at the Manor House,” said Mrs Clifford. “She was there, and yet you did not see the ‘ghost’?”

“What on earth do you mean?” said Mrs Tremaine.

“I mean this: that girl out there is the ghost that appears at the Manor House every Christmas Eve, and it is because my poor boy, as well as I myself, saw it, that his mind has become unhinged.”

“Heavens! You mean to say----”

“The poor boy has fallen, in love with a shadow--a phantom! It comes every Christmas Eve and walks from room to room. It comes up the stairs--I tell you that I have seen it--and sits on the old carved settee, and then suddenly vanishes into the air whence it came.... And that ghost is as surely that girl as I am I.”

“This is terrible--quite uncanny! Are you quite sure?”

“Sure--sure!”

“It is awful to think upon. But--but--listen to me--I have an idea. If Madge is the ghost, why not ask her down again to your place, and give Rawdon a thing of flesh and blood to transfer his affections to?”

“What do you say?”

“Madge is the best girl in the world. Every eligible man in her county, and quite as many ineligible, have wanted to marry her. You will find out how nice she is.”

Mrs Clifford sank into the chair.

“Oh that it were possible!” she whispered. “He is everything to me, my dearest boy, and until this fancy--------Oh, if it were only possible!”

And at this point Madge entered the room, and was duly presented to Mrs Clifford.

*****

If Madge was at first under the impression that the manner of Mrs Clifford in regard to her was somewhat formal and constrained, before a week had passed she had good reason to change her opinion on this point. The fact was that Mrs Clifford had formed an attachment for her which she could sincerely return; and that was why the girl was delighted to accept her invitation to spend Christmas in Dorsetshire. It suited her brother’s arrangements for her to do so, for he was anxious to join a big-game expedition which was starting for India early in December.

Mrs Clifford said she was delighted to be able to have Madge all to herself for at least a fortnight.

“My son cannot possibly be home until the middle of January,” said she, “and then we shall probably have a large party at the Manor. But meantime you and I shall be together.”

“I do not think that we shall quarrel,” said Madge.

“Alas! alas!” said Mrs Clifford to Mrs Tremaine, after one of the many whispered colloquies which they had together during the week. “Alas! Rawdon cannot be home for Christmas. It was I who took the greatest pains to arrange matters to prevent his spending another Christmas Eve at home until he should have completely recovered from the effects of his strange attachment, and yet now I would give worlds to be able to have him with us on Christmas Eve.”

“Could you not send a cable?” suggested Mrs Tremaine.

“I might send a dozen without being able to find him. Besides, it would be impossible for me to tell him what has occurred.”

“I suppose you could hardly cable him ‘Come home at once. Ghost found,” laughed Mrs Tremaine. “Never mind. He should be all the better pleased when the Ghost of Christmas Eve becomes a creature of flesh and blood by the middle of January.”

*****

It was Christmas Eve at the Manor House. Madge’s maid had just left her for the night, but the girl showed no inclination to go to bed. She remained sitting by her fire thinking how strange it was that she should be on this Christmas Eve in the flesh at the house which she had visited in her dreams. And while she sat thinking over this, she found herself overcome by that strange longing which she had had just a year ago, to be again by the side of the man who had come to her side in her dream.

She clasped her hands, saying in a whisper--“Come to me. Come to me again and tell me that you have been waiting for me.”

She began to undress with feverish haste, when suddenly her hands dropped by her sides, for the terrible thought occurred to her--

“What if my dream will not come to me this year because I happen to be in the midst of the real scene where it took place?”

The thought that it might be as capricious as other dreams oppressed her. She now felt sorry that she had agreed to visit the place. She should have remained at Craven Court, where her dream had always been faithful to her.

A sudden idea occurred to her: she would leave her room and sit in reality on the carved settee under the painted window, and then, going to bed immediately after, she might sink unconsciously into the kind embrace of her dream.

She opened her door very gently and went along the silent corridor until she reached the head of the staircase, and saw the moonlight streaming through the coloured glass to the lobby beneath. She stole down, and in another instant she was in the seat, the moonlight streaming over her and throwing the coloured pattern of the glass upon her white dress. She closed her eyes, feeling that perhaps she might fall asleep and find herself in the midst of her dream.

Suddenly she opened her eyes. She fancied that she heard the sound of a footstep in the hall below. Yes, there could be no doubt about it. Some one was in the hall--some one was coming up the stairs. She sprang to her feet, and was about to rush up to her room, when she heard a voice--the voice that she had heard so often in that dream of hers, saying--

“Ah, do not go now. You cannot go now that I have come to you--now that I have been waiting for you for five years.”

She could not move from where she was standing. She saw a tall man with a bronzed face coming up the stairs. She somehow had never seen his face in her dream, but she recognised it from the photograph which his mother had shown her: she knew that the man was Rawdon Clifford.

He stood before her on the lobby.

“They thought to separate us,” he said. “They thought that my love for you was a form of madness. But I tell you, as I told them, I would rather stand by your side for a few minutes once a-year than be for ever by the side of another--a more real creature. That is why I have come over land and sea to be here in time for your visit this Christmas Eve. I promised my mother to stay away; but I could not--I could not keep my promise, and I came to England a fortnight sooner than I expected, and entered the house only this moment--like a burglar. But I am rewarded.”

“I do not understand. I am Mrs Clifford’s guest. Madge Craven is my name,” said Madge.

The man sprang back and raised his hands in surprise.

“Great heavens! She is flesh and blood--at last--at last!” he cried.

He put out his hand slowly--doubtfully. Madge put out hers to it. A cry of delight came from him as he felt her warm hand, and he made it still warmer by his kisses. She could not stop him. She made no attempt to do so.

“Tell me that I was not mad--that I am not mad now,” he said in a loving whisper.

“Oh no--only--is it not strange?--For five years I have this dream--this very dream--and yet I never was in this house until last January,” said Madge.

“You have been with me every Christmas Eve for five years, and you will remain here for ever,” said he. “Do not tell me that we have not met before--do not tell me that you have not loved me as I have loved you all these years. What did that dream of yours mean?”

“I think I know now--now,” whispered the girl.

*****

Mrs Tremaine considers, herself the only survivor of the people who professed to exorcise the ghosts in whom our grandfathers were foolish enough to believe.

THE BLOOD ORANGES

Ah, my friend,” said the Marchesa, “you Englishmen are like to our mountain which we see smoking over there.” She threw herself into the attitude of the ‘_prima donna assoluta_ in an impassioned moment preceding the singing of the romanza, as she pointed across the blue Bay of Naples to where Vesuvius was sending forth a delicate hazy fume.

“I don’t know anything about Englishmen,” said Sir Percival morosely; “but I know that when you are near me my heart is a volcano--my soul----”

The lady’s laugh interrupted him--one cannot make use of similes with a poetical flavour about them when a violet-eyed lady is leaning back her head in laughter, even though the action displays a beautiful throat and the curves of a superb neck. The Marchesa del Grippo displayed a marvellous throat and neck, and was fully aware of this fact. Her laugh rang out like a soprano dwelling with delight on a high note and producing it _tremolo_.

“Ah,” she cried, “you are at pains to prove to me that I am right in the way I judge you Englishmen: to-day you are volcanic, to-morrow we find not the blaze and the thunder but only--_ecco!_ a puff of smoke.”

Once again she pointed--but this time carelessly--in the direction of the mountain.

The man frowned.

“For heaven’s sake do not say ‘You Englishmen’ when I am by!” he cried. “I have nothing in common with Englishmen.”

“I have never met an Englishman who did not try to impress upon me that he was not as other Englishmen,” said the Marchesa. “The last one to say so to me was your wicked young Lord Byron. The Guicciola presented him to me at Genoa. Heavens! the old Count is more like an Englishman than Lord Byron! He can keep his eyes fast shut when it suits him. Enough; I said ‘You Englishmen,’ and he became red with anger. Droll! I had to ask forgiveness for having accused his lordship of being English. Oh, you are a nation of patriots.”

“You do not mean to keep up the acquaintance of Lord Byron, I would fain hope,” said Sir Percival with another frown.

Again the lady laughed.

“After that do not tell me that you are not an Englishman,” she said. “It is so very English to frown when the name of Lord Byron is mentioned--to give a young woman with a husband a solemn warning to beware of that wicked young noble, while all the time the one that utters the warning is doing his best to earn the reputation of the disreputable Byron. The English detest Byron; but if you want to flatter an Englishman to the farthest point, all you have to do is to tell him that you believe him to be a second Lord Byron. Never mind: I like the Lord Byron, and I like--yes, a little--another of his countrymen, though he is, I fear, very wicked.”

“Wicked?--wicked?” cried Sir Percival--he was plainly flattered. “What is it to be wicked?”

“Ah, do not ask me to give it a definition: I might say that it was to be you--you yourself.”

“If it is wicked to love--madly--blindly--then indeed I admit that----”

“That you are _aut Diabolus, aut Byron?_ I know not which of the two the English regard as the worse. Well, suppose I do not admit your right to tell me of your love: I suppose I dare not dispute your right to love, but I can dispute your right to tell me of it--that is, if it exists.”

“If it exists? Heavens! my beloved creature, would I have followed you here from England if I did not love you to distraction?”

“It needs such extraordinary self-sacrifice on the part of an Englishman to leave England for Italy! I think you were glad to make some excuse--even so feeble a one as that of being in love with an Italian woman--to make a journey to Naples. But I forgot; you were in Italy once before, were you not?”

“Yes; I was in some parts,--the north--Tuscany--Florence--never here--no, never here.”

“Never here? ah, yes; now I remember well. You said you had never been to Sorrento. I wonder did I hold out any inducement to you to come to Sorrento?--you must have been studying a map of our bay, for you knew by name every landmark, every island, when I tried to be your cicerone just now.”

The glance that he cast at her after giving a little start had something of suspicion in it.

“Everyone knows the landmarks of the lovely Bay of Naples,” said he; “but I--ah, my beloved, did you not tell me all its beauties when we first met in London six months ago? Had you no idea that every word which fell from your lips--even the words in which you described the scenery around your home--should be burnt into my memory for evermore? Ah, sweet one, will you never listen to me? Does my devotion count for nothing with you?”

“My husband,” she whispered with a tremulous downward glance--the glance of love’s surrender--he knew it well: he was a man of considerable experience of woman in all her phases. He knew that he had not been fooled by the Marchesa.

“Did not you tell me that you detested him?” he cried. “If a husband treats a wife cruelly, as he has treated you, he has wilfully forfeited all claim to her devotion. There are some acts so atrocious that it is impossible to find an adequate punishment for them.”

“You think that even if the punishment were a crime in the eyes of the world it would be sanctified by heaven if it were meted out to a monster of cruelty?” The Marchesa was looking at him through half-closed eyes. He saw that her hands were clenched tightly, and he did not fail to notice how tumultuously her bosom was heaving. He was exultant. He had conquered. That opportune word which he had thrown in regarding her husband’s cruelty had overcome her last scruple.

She was his.

“My beloved--my beloved,” he whispered, “cruelty to such a woman as you makes sacred the mission of avenging it. You will leave him--with me you will never know aught save happiness.”

She gave a little laugh, and then put her hand in his, not doubtfully, but with an expression of the amplest trustfulness.

“My last scruple is gone,” said she in the same low tone that he had employed. “What you have said has made my mind easy.”

“You will come to me?”

“Till one of us dies.”

She spoke the words with the fire flashing from her eyes as she gazed into his face. The force of that gaze of hers gave him a little shock. It was only a momentary sensation, however; in a second he recollected that he was talking to an Italian, not an Englishwoman.

“Till one of us dies--till one of us dies,” he whispered, poorly imitating her intensity. “Ah, I knew that it would come, my darling. Would I have travelled from England if I had not been certain of you--certain of my own love for you, I mean? And you will come with me--you will leave him? It is his punishment--his righteous punishment.”

“I shall leave him with you, I swear to you,” cried the Marchesa.

For a moment he failed to catch her exact meaning. He did not want the Marchese to be left with him; but of course he perceived the next instant that she meant to say that she would leave her husband and go with him, her lover; and there was no tremor in his voice as he said--

“You will never repent it! Ah, what happiness will be ours, my soul! Shall it be tomorrow? I can hire a vessel to take us to Malta,--there we shall be safe.”

“Nay, it is too sudden,” said she. “My husband could not fail to have his suspicions aroused. Nay, we shall have to await our opportunity. If he asks you to pay us a visit you must come. He will be going to Rome in a day or two, and I shall contrive to be left behind.”

“Ah, that will be our chance,” he cried. “Fate is on our side, my dear one.”

“Yes, Fate is on our side,” she said in a low tone that could not possibly reach the ear of the tall and straight man who approached them as they stood at the balustrade of the Villa Galeotto overlooking the lovely Bay of Naples.

“It is such a great pleasure to me to meet you once again, Sir Percival Cleave,” said the Marchese, with a smile. “I hope that the Marchesa has offered you the hospitality of our humble home?”

“The Marchesa has been so very kind as suggest that I should visit your castle for an hour or two before I leave this lovely neighbourhood,” said Sir Percival.

“Nay, surely she made you name the day,” said the Marchese, turning to his wife. “Is it possible, my dear, that you failed to be more specific?” he asked with great gravity.

The lady gave a shrug in response, and her husband became still more grave.

“The hospitality which I received in England can never be forgotten by me, though my mission was an unpleasant one,” said he. “The King of Naples--but we will avoid politics, as people must if they mean to remain good friends. Enough; you will honour us by paying us a visit--but when? What day will suit your convenience?”

“I am only remaining in this neighbourhood for a day or two,” said Sir Percival. “I have, alas! some important business that will take me northward; but--well, I have no engagement to-morrow, if that day would suit your Excellency.”

“It will suit me better than any other day,” replied the Marchese. “I have myself to go to Rome almost at once. I shall never cease to be thankful to Fate for having so delayed my departure as to enable me to have the pleasure of meeting Sir Percival Cleave. You will come in the afternoon and eat a simple dinner at our table. You are already acquainted with the road to the Castle?”

“Oh yes--that is, no; I do not know the road, but I do not suppose I shall have any difficulty in finding it out.”

“What!” the Marchese had turned once more to his wife and had assumed the tone of a reproof. “What! you did not make Sir Percival aware of the direction to the Castle?”

“Sir Percival has been studying a map of the Bay,” said she. “Though he has never before been here he shows a remarkable acquaintance with the neighbourhood.”

“It is not right to take so much for granted,” said the Marchese. “Allow me to repair the negligence of the Marchesa, Sir Percival.”

He then pointed out to the Englishman the direction to take in order to reach the road leading to the cliffs a mile beyond Sorrento, where the Castello del Grippo stood in the centre of its olive-groves. Sir Percival thanked him, and said that having received such plain directions he would not now carry out his intention of driving to the castle; he would ride there instead.

Before the Marchese and his wife took their departure, the latter had managed to whisper in the ear of Sir Percival as she returned the pressure of his hand--

“Without fail.”

“Till one of us dies,” he replied.