A Night on the Moor and Other Tales of Dread Page 4

  ‘Rafe!’ she muttered, ‘Rafe!’

  Mary came closer, and passed her arm around my waist. She was nearly fainting, and required all my strength to support her, but I was impotent as a new-born child, and could only grasp her elbow with nerveless fingers.

  ‘Is this the end?’ Rachel asked. Her voice was dull and monotonous. ‘Answer me quickly—don’t you know what a woman’s heart is? Is this the end of all I have prayed for—this refusal of my passion?’

  I strove to speak: my teeth chattered.

  ‘I am not an heroic woman, noble enough to wear the willow in peace, and to pass my prime in the doing of good deeds. God forgive me; my nature is small—so small that you have consumed its virtue! If only my love would change to hatred I could endure it better.’

  With this she moved rapidly away. Some minutes passed in silence.

  ‘Let us go in at once,’ Mary said. ‘I am afraid.’

  We returned to the castle. As we reached the postern door Rachel’s grey figure rose before us again. Her attitude was threatening now, and her voice clear and loud. She thrust out both hands to show that she had donned the skin gloves.

  ‘Am I attired for tragedy?’ she cried, ‘or is it because of the devilry in my soul that I desire evil things about me? See, they fit better now—my fingers are swollen—with bitterness if you like!’

  Nearer she came. Mary flung her arms around me, and despite my endeavours and entreaties that she should move, leaned closely on my breast.

  ‘She shall kill me first,’ she said quietly. ‘My body is yours.’

  Rachel’s eyes were flaming sullenly. ‘I am denied,’ she said. ‘Had you died before this moment I should have been a maid all my life; had you vowed celibacy, I would have loved you still, though the world lay between us. As it is——’

  With one powerful effort I forced Mary aside and stood facing Rachel. ‘How can I control my affection?’ I cried. ‘I had not the creating of it.’

  She shook her head ominously. ‘Since you are lost to me as the completion of myself,’ she murmured, ‘let us remain unwed, and choose poverty for the future. Who knows but we may rise to greater riches and state? I will be content with little—a pressure of the hand, nay to breathe the same air will be enough for me. Only give me your constancy! It is the thought that you will belong to another that hurts so cruelly now!’

  Strung to the highest tension, I replied, ‘It cannot be.’

  Rachel’s hand toyed at her breast for an instant, then making a sudden upward movement, curved in the air and came glittering towards my heart.

  A moan of horror was the only sound. Afterwards something bore down at my feet, and a fountain of hot blood gushed over the grass. Mary had sprung before me and saved my life. Forgetful of all else, I knelt, and lifting her in my arms, carried her to the house. Rachel was no longer in sight. As soon as the blow had fallen she fled.

  The bells rang from daybreak. It was a hot autumn morning, and the after-math of honeysuckle was very rich. I had gathered great clusters for my bride, and was in my lightest humour. That morning I was to wed her whom I had watched so long winning her way back to health.

  Together we walked to the damp old church: she in her simplest gown, I in my ordinary clothes. Mary had ever a fond belief that her sister would return to forgive her for her guiltless sin; and she would not agree to our leaving Furnivaux for even one day.

  So we were married. No wedding party accompanied us: the clerk gave Mary away, and although money had been dispensed amongst the villagers, there was no merry-making. A few girls cast roses on the path,—that was all.

  Home we went. Old Stephen was standing at the door. A senile resentment was on his face: he looked as if he hated us.

  ‘She’s come back,’ he said in a broken voice. ‘Poor lass! poor lass!’

  Mary ran forward, her face glowing with joy. She had never harboured an ill-feeling against her sister.

  ‘Where is she?’ she asked. ‘Did you tell her, Stephen?’

  ‘No, Miss Mary, I didn’t. She knew about it, though, I’ll be bound! Perhaps Mr. Eyre had best go alone to find her!’

  But my true love clasped my arm. ‘Let me come too,’ she said. ‘Stephen, tell us where she is.’

  ‘She’s sought you at th’ old stone dragon, where ye were always a-sitting in th’ old time. Ye’ll find her there right enow.’

  The man burst out sobbing as we hurried down the staircase. To me there came a terrible fear, but Mary had a bride’s blitheness.

  We reached the Italian garden. A travel-stained form lay beside the dragon. The face was buried in the thick wild thyme, but a bright web of red-golden hair was spread over the lichened stone.

  Mary knelt and strove to turn her. ‘My darling,’ she said. ‘How much I have missed you. It was tender of you to come to-day. Though I love Rafe so, you were always most dear and wonderful to me!’

  After much effort she raised Rachel’s head to her lap. The beautiful features had sharpened strangely and the skin was ashen grey.

  ‘O my God! O Rafe!’ my wife shrieked. ‘She is cold; she is dead.’

  The Lover’s Ordeal

  Mary Padley stood near the leaden statue of Diana on the terrace at Calton Dovecote, gazing towards the stone-arched gate that barred the avenue of limes – sweet-scented, with their newly opened bloom -from the dusty high-road.

  She wore white – a mantua of thin silk, a stiff petticoat spread over a great hoop, and a quaint stomacher, lilac in colour, and embroidered with silver beads.

  Her hair was cushioned and powdered, Madam Padley, her grandmother and guardian, insisting that, since she would probably soon change her estate, she must cease playing the hoyden, and devote herself to a careful study of such fashions as leaked from town to the Peak Country.

  It may be stated, however, that the dame, in calling her a hoyden, spoke tenderly enough, since she knew that her sole living descendant had sterling and admirable qualities, combined with a physical loveliness that promised to make her a reigning toast after her union with Mr Endymion Eyre, heir-presumptive to my Lord Newburgh.

  Madam, herself being high-spirited, doted upon – though she outwardly condemned – the maid’s too fervent love of the romantic and uncommon.

  But, at the present moment, Madam Padley had very kindly fallen asleep beside her embroidery-frame, and Mary had stolen from the house to watch for Mr Eyre’s coming.

  She held in her right hand a folded sheet. A ray of the westering sun touched the words: ‘The Spectator, No. 557. Wednesday, June 23, 1714.’

  The minutes dragged. She opened the first page, and began to peruse, for the twentieth time, a letter which her lover, who was gifted with some literary power, had addressed to Addison, partly for the sake of eliciting one of that master’s wise disquisitions.

  ‘Mr Spectator,’ she read softly - ‘Since the decline of chivalry, a man has no opportunity of proving his devotion to the lady of his choice. Why not permit her to name some ordeal through which he must pass, and by whose performance he might win from her the fullest trust and faith, without which a true marriage is impossible - ’

  She read no more, for she heard the sound of his mare’s hoofs in the distance. A bright smile lighted her face; her colour rose faintly. ‘Here comes my author,’ she said, ‘speeding to hear my yea or nay. Heigho! I wish my heart would not beat so wildly! For all the world ’tis as if I’d stolen a fledgling and prisoned it in my bosom!’

  He dismounted at the foot of a mossy staircase. A groom came forward to take the bridle. Mary curtsied her prettiest, then gave him her hand to lift to his lips.

  ‘This evening,’ he said laughingly, ‘this evening you promised to tell me whether you’d marry me or no. Of course, the asking’s but a formality, for I’m fully resolved to make you.’

  ‘Alack,’ she cried, ‘you’ve a pretty fashion of showing me that I’ve met my master! Well, good Mr Eyre, you have courted me for a full year, and I’ve known you all my lif
e, and, as you are aware, I’ve no aversion for your person. Yes – yes, I’ll marry you – on one condition.’

  ‘And that - ’ he began.

  ‘You’ve set my heart upon making you pass through an ordeal. Don’t suspect for a moment that I’m ignorant as to who wrote this.’ She held her Spectator aloft. ‘You’ve asked to be tested - ’

  ‘The deuce upon my scribblings!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, mistress, whatever you wish I’ll do with the utmost expedition, on one condition – that being that it does not take me long from you. Tell me the ordeal, sweet. I’m eager to pass through it – to have you sw ear that I’m a worthy man.’

  Their eyes met fondly.

  ‘I ne’er doubted that,’ she said; ‘but all girls have their whimsies. Come down into the park. Htis a night made for lovers.’

  Then she gave him her hand again; and they went together through the narrow walk of the rosery, where the beautiful flowers were all wet with dew, to a knoll about half a mile from the Dovecote, whence one could see almost forty miles of rough moorland and wood passing upwards towards the North Country.

  A crescent moon hung overhead. There was no sound save the sighing of the wind and the churring of the moth-hawks.

  Mary paused when they reached the summit, and pointed to another hill about three miles away – a strange conical place covered with great trees, from whose tops rose several stacks of twisted chimneys.

  ‘You wish, then, to pass through the ordeal?’ she said. ‘You are no coward, and that which I set you to do needs a brave spirit. *Tis - ’tis to spend a night at Calton Hall, where no living creature has been after dark since my folk left it eighty years ago. The place is haunted – or so ’tis said – and ’twill require all your courage to pass the midnight hours in those deserted suites.’

  He interrupted her by taking her into his arms, quite in an informal fashion, and silencing her lips by the pressure of his own.

  ‘May it be done tonight?’ he asked. ‘Let me perform this valorous deed at once, and so become a hero in your eyes.’

  ‘Ay,’ responded Mary. ‘I have the key of the door – I took it unseen from my grandmother’s basket. If I had asked for it, be sure she’d not have consented. There’s none has a keener belief than she in the mystery that haunts the place o’ nights. So, since you sup with us, I’d have you say naught concerning the ordeal, or she’d at once forbid it.’

  They returned to the house now. Madam Padley, who had awakened some minutes before, met them in the hall.

  She was a stately old woman, still comely despite her seventy years. In youth she had been a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of York; and her manner still suggested the atmosphere of a Court. As she possessed both fine wit and intuition, she read aright the radiance of the lovers’ faces.

  ‘I offer my profound congratulations,’ she said. ‘Mr Eyre, I’m vastly proud that you’re to enter our family. In short, there’s no gentleman I’ve e’er met whom I’d liefer receive as grandson. But, putting the blind god aside, supper is already served; and I am amazingly hungry. Your arm, Endymion. Young miss shall walk behind.’

  Throughout the elaborate meal she talked incessantly, preaching a dainty homily on the duties of married folk.

  Afterwards Mary and Endymion confessed to each other that they remembered nothing of what she had said, their own thoughts being engaged in rosy pictures of the future.

  When the meal was over, they passed to the withdrawing-room, where Mary sat to the new harpsichord and played sweet songs from Purcell’s operas.

  At ten o’clock Madam Padley rose from her chair and signified courteously that ’twas time for the gentleman to retire, but cordially invited him to spend the following evening in the same fashion.

  Mary accompanied him to the courtyard, where a groom waited with his mare. Now that he was starting for the ordeal, the girl’s heart failed of a sudden; and she begged him to forget her words. He laughed merrily, and shook his head.

  ‘Too late,’ he said. ‘I go now to Calton. Not for the world would I renounce the adventure. When I see you again, I shall have wonderful stories of ghosts for your ear alone. If they be harmless things, why, you and I’ll go together afterwards to pay ’em a visit of ceremony! Now, adieu, mistress. Sleep well, and dream pretty dreams.’

  He turned thrice in his saddle, and waved his hand. She stood watching until he was out of sight. Then she went back very sadly to the house, and, finding that her grandmother had already retired, sought her own chamber, where, instead of undressing, she sat in a deep window-recess, peering through an open casement at the moonlit chimneys of the distant house.

  Meanwhile, Eyre rode on leisurely over moor and through copse until he reached the neglected pleasaunce, where the undergrowth had matted together until there was scarce space to reach the stairs leading to the colonnade.

  He left the mare in a small courtyard, where dock and nettles had covered the stones with a thick carpet; then, making his way to the front, opened the door and entered the musty hall.

  There he took out his tinder-box, and struck a light, finding, much to his relief, a tall wax candle standing in a sconce near the mantel. This he lighted, and, holding it high above his head, made his way up the oaken stairs, and through a long gallery, at whose further end stood an open doorway that led to the suite of staterooms. These were hung with moth-eaten tapestry. In places the decayed canvases of ancient portraits trailed from their frames to the floor. The movement of the light brought around him clouds of evil-smelling bats; two owls on the sill of a broken oriel hooted loudly, and then fluttered out into the night.

  On and on, through countless chambers whose antique magnificence was veiled with dust and cobwebs, until he came to another and greater door, which stood slightly ajar. And as he pressed the panel with his palm he saw that the place beyond was lighted with a curious radiance – greenish, cold – not unlike the moonlight on a frosty evening.

  The door fell back easily. He found himself in a great chamber, the walls adorned with coloured bas-reliefs; the ceiling, still bright and vivid, covered with a gorgeous fresco wherein one saw the gods at play. On the two hearths fires burned – inaudible fires with greedy, lambent flames whose tongues licked the mantel-stone.

  ‘By the Lord!’ he exclaimed, ‘there are folk living here! This is no place for ghosts! As handsome a - ’ His voice died, for something had moved at the further end -something hidden in the shadow of a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold thread.

  The muscles of his heart tightened. He moved forw ard, almost unsteadily, holding the candle at arm’s length, until he came to the lowest step of a low platform, whereon, in a lacquered chair, rested a form shrouded in a veil of black gauze. And, as he paused there, this veil stirred again, disclosing the figure of a young woman, whose long, white hands moved slowly from her face.

  Her eyes opened. They were large and luminous, gleaming as if a steady fire burned behind the pupils. She was wondrously beautiful; her loveliness was greater than that of any woman he had ever dreamed of – greater even than that of the maiden to whom he had given his heart. She was strangely pale, the only colour – a vivid scarlet – being in the plump, curved lips.

  ‘I bid you welcome, signor,’ she said. ‘The long, long sleep has not been wasted since you are the awakener. Your hand! Weariness is still in my body. I’d fain rise and walk.’

  Her voice was exquisitely soft, exquisitely glad. ’Twas not the voice of an Englishwoman. There was a quaint accent, as if she had come from a Southern country. And the hand Endymion took was cold and damp at first – as cold and damp as the hand of one prepared for burial; but, as it lay lightly in his own, it became warm, and the fingers closed tenderly upon his own.

  ‘Your name, signor of whom I have dreamed?’ she said.

  The blood began to run quickly through his veins. ‘Endymion, madam, at your service,’ he replied.

  ‘And mine shall be Diana,’ she said. ‘Diana, who kissed Endymion in the night. P
rythee, now, your arm. I’ll lean upon you, being but a weak creature. Ah me, but your country’s sad! I’d give all for the warm skies of Tuscany – for the vineyards under the hot sun! I like not the moonlight.’

  Something impelled him to talk foolishly. ‘ Tis not the warmth of skies or the sight of vineyards that makes for perfect happiness,’ he said. ‘There’s a rarer warmth – the warmth of love.’

  She laid her right palm upon his lips. ‘Hush!’ she said. ‘At this our first meeting why should you talk of love? Doubtless there’s some cold, pretty girl living for you alone in the world – some green creature who dotes upon you – who looks to the day when she may call you spouse, unless ’tds so already.’

  Then, with a swift movement of the left arm, she drew aside the tapestry from a great window that stretched from floor to pargeting. Beyond, through glass clear as crystal, he could see the moor, white in the moonlight, as if covered with hoar-frost.

  ‘Behold the winter!’ said the lady. ‘Behold the cruelty of your country! Alas, I am outdone with the cold! Let’s to yonder fire for warmth.’

  The curtain fell back again. Together they went across the chamber.

  Not once in all that time did he bestow one thought upon the girl he loved – the girl whose promise he had won that very night. Past and future were blotted from his mind. He lived solely in the present.

  The beauty chose a great chair, covered with crimson silk – a chair with carved arms and legs and padded face-screens.

  ‘I sit here, my cavalier,’ she said; ‘and you rest at my feet. Yonder’s a stool. Your head shall lie upon my knee.’

  She drew from a tissue bag that hung from her girdle a handful of dried petals, and flung them between the andirons. The fire engulfed them silently. A blood-coloured flame rose high up the chimney.