Ina second Pollie was across the room, through the door, and on the landing. Before I could stop her she was tearing down the stairs, crying,
“Now we’ll see who that is?”
I was in a dreadful position, not wanting to descend and be murdered as a result of seeing “who that is,” nor daring to remain behind alone. I did not even venture to call out and try to stay her, not knowing who might hear my voice below. She had gone off with our only piece of candle and left me in the dark. All I could do was to steal after her as quickly as possible, keeping as close to her as I was able. Pollie was at the bottom almost before I started; she had gone down with a hop, skip, and a jump; I had to struggle with the darkness and the rats. Leaning over what was left of the banisters I could see the gleam of her candle in the passage. I expected to hear her shriek, and sounds of a struggle. The candle flickered, as if she were moving here and there in an endeavour to discover the cause of the commotion. Presently her voice came up to me.
“Emily!”
“Yes?”
I spoke in a much lower tone than she had done.
“No one’s murdered, unless it’s you up there. In case you’re not, you might come down.”
I went. She appeared disgusted, rather than otherwise, that she had not been murdered. She was stamping up and down the passage, banging at the closed door with her clenched fist, peering into the kitchen, making as much disturbance as was in her power.
“The only thing alive, barring rats, seems to be blackbeetles. We must have slaughtered thousands when we came in. The kitchen’s black with them. Come and look.” I declined. “But they can hardly have opened that door and shut it with a bang. There’s no evidence to show which door it was, but I believe it was one which leads into Bluebeard’s chamber.”
“Pollie! How can you tell?”
“I can’t tell, but I can believe. Can’t I believe, my dear? I shall, anyhow. It is my belief”—she spoke with an emphasis which was meant for me—“that the mystery it conceals peeped out, then, fearing discovery, popped back again. It was its hurry to pop back which caused the bang. I wonder, by the way, if it was anyone who made a bolt into the street.”
She tried to open the front door, against my wish, and failed. We had opened it from within easily enough before, when we had gone out to interview her Tom; but now it appeared to be as hermetically sealed as the door leading into what she called “Bluebeard’s Chamber.” It was no use reasoning with her. So soon as she found that it would not open she made up her mind that it should. For a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes she tried everything she could to force it. In vain. By the time we returned to the bedroom she was not in the best of tempers. And I had resolved that nothing should induce me to stay any longer alone with her beneath that roof than I could possibly help.
We had something like a quarrel. She said some very cruel things to me, and, when I told her she was unkind, and that there were aspects in which she reminded me of her Uncle Benjamin, she said crueller things still. I announced my intention to spend the night—what was left of it—upon a chair. She flung herself upon the bed and laughed.
Never shall I forget the remainder of that night, not if I live to be as old as Methuselah. To begin with, that chair was horribly uncomfortable, to speak of physical discomfort only. It was a small, very slippery, wooden Windsor chair; every time I tried to get into an easy position I began to slip off. I wondered more and more how I could ever have been so Quixotic as to have volunteered to become Pollie Blyth’s companion. For one thing I had never suspected that she could have been so callous, so careless of the feelings of others, so indifferent to what they suffered on her behalf. Although I was tired out and out I could see that there would be no sleep for me, and no rest either, while I continued where I was. So far as I could judge, so soon as she threw herself upon the bed Pollie was asleep.
It was with quite a sense of shock I realised that this was the case. It seemed so selfish. The feeling of solitude it conveyed was frightful. I could hear her gentle breathing coming from the bed; I myself hardly dared to breathe at all. Half an inch of candle was guttering on the mantelpiece. By its light I could see that she lay on her left side, looking towards the wall, and that she did not appear to have moved since she had first lain down. I called to her:
“Pollie! Pollie! Pollie!” uttering each repetition of her name a little louder.
My voice seemed to ring out with such uncanny clearness I did not venture to really raise it. In consequence my modest tones did not serve to rouse her from her childlike slumber. So sound was her sleep that, all at once, the noise of her breathing ceased. It faded away. She was still, strangely still. So still that in the overwrought condition of my nerves I began to wonder if she was dead. I wished that she would move, do anything, to show she was alive. I tried, once more, to call upon her name. But, this time, my throat was parched; it came as an inarticulate murmur from between my tremulous lips.
I would have given much to have got up and shaken her back to life, and me. But it was as though I was glued to the seat, and that although I was continually slipping off. My body was stiff, my limbs cramped; it was only with an effort I could move them; of that effort I was not capable. I was conscious that I was passing into a waking nightmare. I closed my eyes because I was afraid to keep them open; then opened them again because I was still more afraid to keep them shut.
The house was full of noises. Pollie had not shut the door. It was ajar perhaps an inch or two. I wanted to put a chair in front, to shut it close. Apart, however, from my incapacity to move, I was oppressed by an uncomfortable fancy that someone, something, was peering through the interstice. This fancy became, by rapid degrees, a certainty. That I was overlooked I was sure. By whom, by what, I did not dare to think. How I knew I could not have told. I did know.
My eyes were fixed upon the door. For a moment, now and then, I moved them, with a flicker, to the right or to the left. Only for a moment. Back they went to the door. Once I saw it tremble. I started. It was motionless again. Then I heard a pattering. The rats were audible everywhere—under the floor at my feet, in the walls about me, above the ceiling over my head. The house was full of their clamour. But the pattering I heard was distinct from all the other sounds. It approached the room from without, pausing over the threshold as if in doubt. The door gave a little jerk, ever such a little one, but I saw it. A rat came in.
So it was a rat after all.
It stopped, just inside the door, peering round, as if surprised at the illumination which the candle gave. As if satisfied by what it saw it came in a little further. Close behind it was a second. This was of a more impatient breed; as soon as it appeared, with a little spring it ranged itself beside the other. Immediately there came two more. The four indulged themselves with a feast of observation, as though they were smelling out the land. After a while their eyes seemed to concentrate themselves on me, as if they could not make me out. Perhaps they thought that I was dead, or sleeping. I did not move, because I could not.
On a sudden the four gave a little forward scamper, as if they had been hustled from behind. The door was opened another half-dozen inches. More than a score came in. All at once I became conscious that rats were peeping at me from all about the room; out of holes and crannies of whose existence I had not been aware; above, below, on every side. And I knew that an army waited on the landing, as if waiting for a signal to make a rush. On whom? On me? Or on Pollie, asleep upon the bed? I was paralysed. I wanted to shriek and warn Pollie of what was coming; to let her know that in a second’s time the room would be a pandemonium of rats, all of them in search of food. My tongue was tied. I could not speak. I could only wait and watch.
The house was not yet still. Not all had gathered without the door, many were observing me, with teeth sharp set, from hidden cavities. There was continually the clamour of their scurrying to and fro. But some instinct told me that their numbers increased upon the landing. I could hear their squeals, as if they snapped at each other in the press. Another score had harried the first score farther forward. They were so close that where they stood they hid the floor. It seemed so strange to see so many, all with their eyes on me. Yet what were they to those who were without? Something told me that those who watched me in the room had come further out of their holes! that in another instant they would spring down; and that then the rush would come. I think that my heart had nearly ceased to beat; that the blood had turned to water in my veins. I was cold; a chill sweat was on my face. The hand of death had come quite close.
I but waited for its actual touch; for whose approach the rushing of the rats should be the signal; when—what was it fell upon my ear? What sound, coming from below? Not rats? No, not rats. Mechanically I drew breath; I verily believe it was the first time I had breathed for I know not how long. The inflation of my lungs roused me. I listened with keener ears. I knew that what I had heard the rats had also heard; that it was because of it that the rush had not begun; that they attended what was next to come with a sense of expectancy; of doubt; of hesitation.
Moments passed; the sound was not repeated. Had it been a trick of our imagination; mine and the rats’? All was still, even the scurrying of their friends below. If I heard nothing, they did; they retreated. There were fewer within the room; I had not noticed their going, but they had gone. I felt that their unseen comrades, who were about me, had drawn back again into their holes. What was it caused that noise? There was a board that creaked. No rat’s foot had caused that. Again. Was that a step upon the stairs?
Someone, something, was ascending from below? Who—what—could it be? An inmate of the Bluebeard’s Chamber? What shape of horror would it take? Why did Pollie sleep so soundly? In my awful helplessness inwardly I raged. The rats heard; already they were flying for their lives. Why did she not hear? Would nothing rouse her from her slumbers? Danger, the danger she had herself foretold, was stealing on us. She had boasted of her courage. Why did she not come out of sleep to prove she was no braggart? What was it bound my limbs with chains, and kept me from stretching out my arm to touch her where she lay? What was the choking in my throat, so that when I tried to speak I seemed to strangle?
Silence again. This seemed to be a jest that someone played: the sound, then silence; still silence, long drawn out, then again the sound. If something came, why did it not come quickly? I should not be so fearful of a thing I saw as of a thing that I did not; I could not be.
The steps had reached the staircase which led directly to our room. There were fewer intervals of silence; though, yet, between each, there was a pause, as if to listen. They were very soft; as if someone walked velvet footed, being most unwilling to be heard. If I had sprung to my feet, roused Pollie, rushed to the door, defying all comers to come on, I wondered what would happen; and should have dearly liked to see.
But I was a craven through and through.
The footsteps gained the landing: moved towards the door; stayed without, while their owner listened. It might have been my fancy, but, so acutely was I listening, that I could have declared that I heard a hand placed gently against the panel. An interval. Pollie remained quiet on the bed. She had not moved since first she had lain down. What kind of sleep was this of hers? Did no warning come to her in dreams to tell her that there was something strange without? It was not fair that she should be so utterly at peace, while I had to bear the burden all alone. She was stronger than I. Why did she not wake up?
The door came a little forward; perhaps another half-dozen inches. Again a pause; as if to ascertain if the movement had been observed. Whoever was without was cautious. Then——
Then something appeared at the opening.
What I had expected to see I could not for the life of me have told. Some shape of horror, some monster born of the terror I was in; a diseased imagining of my mental, moral, physical paralysis; a creature, neither human nor inhuman, but wholly horrible, which should come stealing, resistless, in, to force me, in my agony, to welcome death.
What it was I actually saw, at first, I could not tell. It was not what I expected; that I knew. Something more commonplace; yet, considering the hour and the place, almost as strange.
When the mist had cleared from before my vision, I perceived it was a face. What kind of face even yet I could not see; the shock of the unexpected added to my confusion. It was only after it had remained quiescent for perhaps the better part of a minute that I realised it was a woman’s.
A woman’s face!
But not like any woman’s face that I had seen before. As I gazed my fear began to fade; a sense of wonder came instead. Was I asleep or waking? I asked myself the question. Were these things happening to me in a dream? Glancing at me through the partly open door was the kind of face one reads and dreams about; not the kind one meets in daily life. At least, in the daily life which I have led. I was vaguely conscious that it was beautiful; beautiful in so strange a sort; but most clearly present to my mind was the bewildering fact that it had a more wonderful pair of eyes than any I had supposed a woman could have had. It was not only that they were large, nor that they were lovely. They had in them so odd a lustre. It was as though some living thing were in them, which kept coming and going, breaking into light, fading into darkness. They were wild eyes; such as no Englishwoman ever could have had. This face was brown.
For at any rate some minutes it stayed motionless, watching me. Only by degrees did it dawn upon me that possibly its owner was nearly as much startled as I was; that whatever she had anticipated seeing she had not expected to find me sitting on that chair. She kept her glance fixed upon my features; only for a second did it wander towards Pollie sleeping on the bed. I fancy she was endeavouring to determine what it was that I was doing there; why I was on the chair instead of on the bed; whether I was asleep or waking, or even dead. I was so huddled up upon the chair, and remained so very still, that it was quite possible for her, taken unawares, to suppose that I was dead.
“You sleep?”
She spoke to me; in English, which had a quaintly foreign sound; in a bell-like whisper, it was so soft and yet so clear.
I did not answer; the knot in my tongue had not yet come untied. I felt that she did not understand my silence, or the cause of it; and wondered, hesitated too. Presently she ventured on an assertion, uttered with a little cadence of doubt, as if it were a question.
“You do not sleep.” Apparently as if still in doubt as to the correctness of the statement, she endeavoured to fortify herself with reasons. “Your eyes are open; you do not sleep. We do not sleep when our eyes are open. Speak to me. Are you afraid?”
Perhaps the suspicion increased in strength that, if I was not stupefied with fear, there was at least something curious in my condition. She opened the door nearly to the full, and she came into the room. I saw that she seemed but a girl, tall above the common, clad in a gown which, while it was loose and seemingly shapeless, and made in a fashion which was altogether strange to me, yet draped itself in graceful folds about her figure. It was made of some stuff which looked to me like silk alpaca; in colour a most assertive, and indeed trying, shade of electric blue. It positively warmed one’s eyes to look at it. And it was covered with what looked more like sequins than anything else I could think of; though, with every movement of her body, they gleamed and glittered like no sequins I had ever seen before. Her hair, of which there was an extraordinary quantity, as black as jet, was most beautifully done. Even in my condition of semi-stupor I wondered how she did it. It formed a perfect halo about her face. And on the top was stuck what seemed to be the very double of that queer little thing which Pollie said she found in the scrap of paper which the man had given her. Only, to me, the creature in her hair seemed alive. Its eyes gleamed; its body inclined this way then that, as she stood in the open doorway.
She was covered with jewels; at least, I suppose they were jewels. Though, regarded as ornaments, they were as queer as everything else about her. Her fingers were loaded with rings; funny looking ones they seemed. She stood, bending slightly forward, with her hands in front, so that I could not help but notice them. Bracelets were twined about her arms; of the oddest design. A jewelled snake was about her throat. Another, not only a monster, but a monstrosity, was twisted, girdle fashion, three or four times around her waist. It looked as if it were alive.
When, having, apparently, sufficiently considered the situation, she began to advance towards me, to my amazement and abject horror this creature was set in motion too. It stretched out its evil-looking head in my direction, with an ugly glitter in its eyes; it opened its jaws; its fangs shot out. As they seemed to be extending themselves as far as possible, in order to reach my face, thank God, the guttering half-inch of candle went out upon the mantelpiece. With it my senses seemed to go out too. As they were leaving me I was conscious of the unpleasant odour of a smouldering wick.
I waslying on the floor. There was a light in the room. A woman was bending over me; the woman with the snake about the waist. The memory of it recurring with a sudden sense of shock, I started up.
“Where is it?”
She looked as if she did not understand.
“Where is what?”
“The snake.”
She smiled; why, I do not know.
“The snake? Oh, it is gone.”
Apparently it had. In its place was a plain broad band of what seemed gold. I wondered if it was gold. If so, it was worth a great deal. Still wondering, I sank back upon the floor. I saw that beside me was a queer-shaped lamp, which also seemed to be of gold. It was fashioned something like a covered butter-boat, with a handle, the flame coming from the lip. I felt drowsy; the hair seemed to be heavy with perfume; one which was new to me, having a pleasantly soothing effect upon one’s nerves. Had it not been for the strangeness of my position I believe that I should then and there have fallen asleep. Turning, I stared at the stranger, who, kneeling on my left, regarded me in turn. Silence; which she broke.
“Are many Englishwomen as beautiful as you?”
I was thinking, lazily, how beautiful she was. The appositeness of the question took me aback; it startled some of the heaviness from my eyelids. I did not know what to reply. My hesitation did not please her. A sudden gleam came into her eyes; as if the wild creature which inhabited them had all at once come to the front.
“Why do you not answer? I am used to being answered. Are many Englishwomen as beautiful as you?”
“They are much more beautiful. I am not beautiful at all.”
“You are beautiful. You are a liar.”
The plain directness of her speech brought the blood into my cheeks. She marked my change of colour, as if surprised.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
My tone was meek as meek could be.
“You have gone red.” I went still redder. “How do you do it? Is it a trick? It becomes you very well; it makes you still more beautiful. Is it the blood shining through your skin? You are so white, the least thing shows. To be white I would give all that I am, all that I have.”
She uttered the last words with a simple earnestness which, if she had only known it, became her much more than my blush did me. I ventured on an inquiry.
“Who are you?”
She knelt straight up. There came to her an air of dignity which lent to her a weird and thrilling fascination.
“I am she who inhabits the inner sanctuary of the temple; to whom all men and women bring their supplications, that I may lay them at the feet of the Most High Joss.”
I had not the faintest notion what she meant; but her words and manner impressed me none the less on that account. Which fact she observing was good enough not to allow it to displease her. She went on, with the same quaint, yet awe-inspiring simplicity.
“I am she who holds joy and sorrow in the hollow of my hand; ay, life and death. When I lift it the prayers of the faithful may hope for answer; when I do not lift it, their petitions are offered up in vain, for the Great Joss is sleeping; and, when he sleeps, he attends to no one’s prayers.”
She stopped. I should have liked her to have gone on; or, at least, to have been a trifle more explicit. But, possibly, she was under the impression that she had vouchsafed sufficient information, and, in exchange, would like a little out of me. She put a point blank question.
“Are you Miss Mary Blyth?”
I motioned with my hand towards the bed.
“That’s Pollie. She’s asleep.”
“Pollie? Who is Pollie? I ask, are you Miss Mary Blyth?”
“That is Mary Blyth upon the bed. I’m a friend of hers, so I call her Pollie. She’s known to all her friends as Pollie.”
She considered, knitting her brows. I half expected her to again roundly call me liar; but, instead, she asked a question, the meaning of which I scarcely grasped.
“Is Susie a name by which one is known unto one’s friends?”
“Susie? Isn’t that the pet name for Susan?”
For some reason my answer seemed to afford her a singular amount of pleasure. She broke into a soft ripple of laughter; for sheer music I had never heard anything like it before. The sound was so infectious that it actually nearly made me smile—even then! She put her hands before her face, in the enjoyment of some joke which was altogether beyond my comprehension; then, holding out her arms, extended them on either side of her as wide as she possibly could.
“It is a pet name; Susie, a pet name! It is the pet name by which one is known to one’s—friends!”
There was a slight pause before “friends”; as if she hesitated whether or not to substitute another word. I should have liked to have inquired what the jest was, but there was something in her bearing which suggested that it was so personal to herself that I did not dare. When she had got out of it what perhaps occurred to her as being sufficient enjoyment, quitting the kneeling posture which she had occupied till then, she rose to her feet and went to the bed.
By now I was wide awake, my perceptions were well on the alert. The sense of terror which had so nearly brought me to a condition of paralysis had grown considerably less. I do not pretend that fear had altogether vanished, nor that with but a little provocation it would not have returned with all its former force. But, for the moment, certainly, curiosity was to the front. My chief anxiety was not to allow one of my mysterious visitor’s movements, no matter how insignificant, to escape my notice. I observed with what suppleness she rose to her feet; how, in the noiseless way in which she passed to the bed, there was something which reminded me of wild animals I had seen at the Zoological Gardens. When she bent over the sleeping Pollie there was something in her pose which recalled them again. For some seconds she was still; I had a peculiar feeling, as I watched her from behind, that with those extraordinary eyes of hers she was scorching the sleeper’s countenance.
“She is not beautiful. No, she is not beautiful, like you. But there is that in her face which reminds me of another I have seen. She is clever, strong bodied, strong willed, she knows no fear. When she is brought face to face with fear she laughs at it. She sleeps sound. It is like her to sleep sound when no one else could sleep at all.” Although I could not see the speaker’s face I knew she smiled. “It is funny it should have been given to her. She will never do as she is told; it is because she is told that she will never do it. Obedience is not for her, it is for those with whom she lives to obey.” She glanced round. “It is for you.”
There was a sting in the little air of malice with which it was said, although the thing was true. It nettled me to think how soon she had found me out. She returned to Pollie without deigning to notice how her words had been received.
“Let her sleep on. So sound a sleep should know no sudden waking.” Again there was malice in her tone. She passed her hand two or three times in front of Pollie’s face. “Now she’ll have no evil dreams. It is funny it should have been given to her; very funny. It should have been given to you; you are different. But it is like that: things happen; the world is crooked.”
She had returned towards me.
“Have you a lover?”
Her trick of asking the most delicate questions in the abruptest and baldest fashion I found more than a little disconcerting. Although I tried to keep it back, again the blood flamed to my cheeks, all the more because I half expected to have her repeat her enquiry as to how I got it there. For some ridiculous reason I thought of Mr. Frank Paine. It was too absurd. Of course I had only seen him once, and then I had scarcely looked at him, although I could not help noticing that, though he had not bad eyes, in other respects he was positively ugly, and most stilted in his manners. I might never see the man again, probably never should. I was sure I did not want to. And, anyhow, he was absolutely nothing to me, nor, under any possible circumstances, ever could be. It made me wild to think that I should think of him, especially when I was asked such a question as that.
“No,” I stammered.
“No? That is strange. Since you are so beautiful.”
“I am not beautiful. Why do you say that I am beautiful?”
“Is it possible that you do not know that you are beautiful? You must be very silly. I knew all about myself long before I was as old as you. You have the kind of face which, when a man sees, he desires; you also have the shape. You are not like her.” She jerked her shoulder towards the bed. “You are a woman; and a fool.”
I did not like the way she spoke to me at all. She might be a walking mystery—and she certainly was—but that was no reason why she should be impertinent as well.
“Why do you say such things to me? Is a woman of necessity a fool?”
“If she is wise she is. It is a fool that a man desires; if she is a fool she will rule him when he has her. The greater fool is governed by the lesser.”
She had a most astonishing way of talking. Considering her age, and, in years, I felt convinced that she was the merest slip of a girl, she professed to have a knowledge of the world which was amazing. I did not know what to say; not being used to carry on a conversation on the lines which she seemed to favour. So she asked another question, with another jerk of her shoulder towards the bed.
“Has she a lover?”
“She has.”
“No! That is stranger still! A real lover? What sort of a man is he?”
“He’s not a bad sort.”
“Not a bad sort? What is that? Is he rich?”
“Rich!” I smiled at the idea of Tom Cooper being rich. “He is very far from being rich, unfortunately for him, and for Pollie too. He is an assistant in a shop.”
“A shop? What kind of shop?”
“A draper’s.”
“A draper’s? Isn’t that where they sell things for women to wear? What kind of a man is he who is in a shop in which they sell things for women to cover their bodies? Is it his life which he lives there? But, after all, that is the kind of lover one would have supposed she would have had. It is he who must obey.” I felt that she was hard on Pollie, and on Mr. Cooper. It seemed to be her way to be hard on everyone. “But you—why have you no lover?”
I really did not know what to answer. It was such a difficult question, to say nothing of its delicacy. Of course I had had lovers, of a sort. One need not give a list, but there had been incidents. At the same time it was not easy to enter into particulars, at a moment’s notice, to a perfect stranger, under such conditions as obtained just then.
“I hardly know what to say to you. I suppose I am not too old to have one yet.”
It was a silly remark to make. But it was either that or silence. And she did not seem to like me not to answer her.
“One should have a lover when one is still a little young.”
“What’s your idea of a little young? Are you inferring that I’m a trifle old?”
“The day passes; a lover should come in the morning; when the sun is just lighting the sky.”
There was an air of superiority about her which I did not altogether relish. She might be somebody wonderful, and I was quite willing to admit that she was; but one does not care to be snubbed. So far as I could see she was snubbing me all the time. So I asked her a question in my turn.
“You speak as if you had had a great deal of experience. May I ask if you have a lover?”
“Can you not see it in my eyes?”
I could not. Hers were wonderful eyes, especially when the blaze came into them as it did as she spoke. But one required remarkable powers of observation to know that she had a lover merely by looking at her eyes. I hesitated, however, to say as much; and luckily she went on without rendering it necessary for me to say anything at all.
“Can you not see it in my face? my smile? the way I breathe? the joy of life that’s in me? Is it that, although you’re white, you’re stupid? I thought it was plain to all the world; to another woman most of all. One morning I woke; I was what I was; he had not come. He came before the sun set; I was what I am now; there were no shadows that night for me; the sun has not set since.”
Her language was really a little above my head. Though I confess that I liked the way in which she spoke. It set my heart all beating. And her words rang like silver trumpets in my ears. And she looked so lovely as she stood with her beautiful head thrown a little back, and her hands held out in front as if her heart was in them. Yet, at the same time, if she had expressed herself in a somewhat different manner, I should have gathered more exactly what it was she meant. She had stopped, as if she thought that it was time for me to speak. So I blundered.
“Was the gentleman a—a countryman of yours?”
“A countryman of mine? What do you mean by a countryman of mine? How do you know what my country is?”
I was sorry I had asked the question directly the words had passed my lips, though I never dreamt that she would take it up in the way she did. She flew at me in a way which gave me quite a start. The wild animal which was in her eyes came to the front with a sudden rush, as if it would spring right out at me.
“I’m sure no offence was intended, and I beg your pardon if any has been given. Because, as you say, I have not the faintest notion what your country is.”
“England is my country. I am English—all of me!—to there!”
As she put her hands behind her I suppose she meant that she was English to the backbone. All I could say was that she did not look it, and she did not sound it either. But not for worlds would I have mentioned the fact at that moment. She came closer, eyeing me as if she would have pierced me through and through.
“You think that he is black? You think it? You insult me, the daughter of the gods, in whose hands are life and death! Shall I tear the heart out of your body? Shall I kill you? Tell me!—yes or no!”
“No.”
It seemed an unnecessary answer to give, but I felt that I might as well give expression to my sentiments since she was so insistent. Though I thought it quite likely that she might at any moment commence, as she called it, to tear the heart out of my body, while I waited for the moment to arrive I could not but own that, even in her rage, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. But it seemed that she decided that, after all, it would be scarcely worth her while to soil her fingers just for the sake of tearing me to pieces; so she emptied the vials of her scorn on me instead.
“Bah! You are a fool—of the fools! That is all you are. You know nothing, not even what you say. Why should I attend to the witless when they babble? Listen to me—fool!”
She held her finger up close to my nose. I listened with might and main. She spoke as if she intended to lay emphasis upon her every word.
“He is English, my lover, of the English; of the flower of the nation. He is not one who lives in shops which pretend to help ugly women to hide their ugliness; he is not that kind. His home is the wide world. He is tall, and brave, and strong; a ruler of men; handsome beyond any of his fellows.” She made that last statement as if she dared me to question it by so much as a movement of my eyelids. “Were you but to see his picture you would faint for love of him.” I wondered. “With all women it is so. But, beware! Hide yourself when he is coming; if he but deigns to look on you I’ll tear you into pieces. I suffer no woman to stand in his presence, save only I.”
Words and manner suggested not only that she was not by any means too sure of the gentleman’s affection, but, also, that there was a lively time in store for him. If she wished to be taken literally, and really did mean that no woman was to be allowed to stand in his presence except herself, then the sooner she returned to the particular parts from which, in spite of all that she might say to the contrary, I felt sure she came, then the pleasanter it would be for everyone concerned. I should like to see the man in whose presence I was not to be allowed to stand.
I said nothing when she stopped; I had nothing to say. Or, rather, if I had been allowed a moment or two to think it over, and been given time to get back a little of my breath again, I should have had such a quantity to say that I should have been at a loss as to which end I had better begin. Nor do I fancy that her temper would have been improved wherever I had started.
While she was still glaring as if she would like to eat me, her finger-nails within an inch or two of my face, and I was thinking, in spite of my natural indignation, not to speak of other things, that being in a rage positively suited her, for the second time that night, there came from below what sounded like the opening of a door. On the instant she stood up straight. She looked more than ever like one of the beautiful wild creatures at the Zoo; poised so lightly on her feet, with every sense on the alert, listening as if she did not intend to allow the dropping of a pin to escape her. Suddenly she stooped; waved her hands before my face; caught up the lamp from the floor; vanished from the room.
Whathad happened I could not think, nor where I was. It was pitch dark. I had been roused from sound sleep, as it seemed, by someone falling over me, who was making vigorous efforts at my expense to regain a footing. I remonstrated.
“Who is it? what are you doing?”
“Emily!” returned a voice, in accents of unmistakable surprise.
It was Pollie. She was lying right across me, and, with sundry ejaculations, was using my body as a sort of lever to assist her in regaining her perpendicular. She was plainly as much astonished to find that it was me as I was to find it was her.
“You’ve been lying on the floor. Why have you been doing that?”
“Because I happen to have been lying on the floor that is no reason why you should tumble over me.”
“That’s good. How was I to see you in the middle of this brilliant illumination? I called out to you; as you did not answer I was beginning to be half afraid that the black bogies had swallowed you up. Have you been there all night?”
“I don’t know.” I wondered myself. “I suppose so.”
Raising myself to a sitting posture I found that I was stiff all over. I had not been accustomed to quite so hard a mattress. “Have you any idea what time it is?”
“I wish I had. So far as light is concerned all hours seem the same in here, but I’ll have that altered before another night comes on. I feel as if I had slept my sleep right out, so I expect that anyhow it’s morning.”
Her feelings were not mine. My eyelids were heavy. I felt generally dull and stupid, unrefreshed. She gave a little exclamation.
“I touched something with my foot. I believe it’s the matches. I thought I put them in my pocket; if so, they’ve dropped out since; they’re not there. Well found! It is!” She struck one. “Hallo, where’s the candle?”
I remembered that the one she had left alight had burned right out. But there had been others, three or four pieces of varying length. Every trace of them had vanished.
“Rats,” I suggested.
“That’s it; the little wretches have devoured them, wicks and tallow and all. When I got off the bed I heard them scurrying in all directions. Did we leave any ends downstairs?”
“I don’t think so. We brought up all there was to bring.”
“Then that’s real nice. For the present we shall have to live by matchlight.” As she spoke the one she held went out. “They don’t burn long; just long enough to scorch the tips of your fingers. Where’s the door?” She moved towards it by the glimmer of a flickering match. She tried the handle. “Why, it seems——” There was a pause. “It does seem——” The match went out, “Emily, it’s locked.”
“Locked!” I echoed the word.
“Yes, locked; I said locked, or—something. And it wasn’t anything last night.”
“No; I don’t believe it was.”
“You don’t believe! Don’t you remember that because there wasn’t a key, and the hasp wouldn’t catch, you suggested piling up the furniture to keep it close? What do you mean, then, by saying that you don’t believe? you know it wasn’t.”
“Yes; I do know.”
“Well, it’s fastened now.” I could hear her, in the darkness, trying the handle again. “Sure enough, it’s locked; and, from the feel, it’s bolted too. Emily, we’re locked in.”
She was silent. I was silent, too, turning things over in my mind. It seemed, when she spoke again, as if she had been doing the same.
“But—who can have done it? It appears that I was right, that there was someone in those Bluebeard’s chambers—perhaps in both, for all we know. If someone could come and lock this door without waking us up, we ran a good risk of having our throats cut, or worse.” She lit another match. Apparently my continued silence struck her as peculiar. “Why don’t you say something—what’s the matter? Don’t you understand that we’re locked in; prisoners, my dear? Or are you too stupefied with terror to be able to utter a word?”
She held the match in front of her face. It gleamed on something white.
“What’s that upon your bodice?”
“My bodice?” She put up her hand. “Why——it’s a piece of paper——pinned to my bodice! Where on earth——!” Once more the match went out. “This truly is delightful. Never before did I realise how much we owe to candles. The thing is pinned as if it had been meant never to be unpinned. Where can it have come from? It can’t have fallen from the skies. It’s plain that there are ghosts about. It’s not easy to do a little job like this in the dark, my dear; but I’ve managed. I’ve also managed to jab my finger in half-a-dozen places with the pin. Emily, come here; light a match and hold it while I examine this mysterious paper. I can’t do everything; and you don’t seem disposed to do anything at all.”
In endeavouring to do as she requested, I stumbled against her in the darkness.
“That’s right; knock me over; you’ve made me run the pin into my other finger. There, my love, are the matches; what you’re grabbing at is my back hair.”
Taking a match from the box which she thrust into my hand, I tried to light it at the wrong end; turning it round, a spark leaped into my eye. I dropped it, to rub my eye.
“Clever, aren’t you? Just the helpful sort of person one likes to be able to count upon when one is in a bit of a hole. Try again; if at first you don’t succeed, perhaps you will next time.”
I did. I held the flaming match as conveniently for her as possible; but, at best, it was not much of a light. Every few moments it went out; I had to light another. As I fumbled with them now and then, I was not always so expeditious, perhaps, as I should have been. Pollie grumbled all the while.
“Can’t you hold it steady? Who do you suppose can see if your hand keeps shaking?” It was not my hand which shook, it was the flame which flickered. “It’s queer paper; sort of cigarette paper, it seems to be; I never saw any like it—at least, so far as I can judge by the light of that match which you won’t hold steady. I wonder where it came from, and who it’s from. Emily, someone’s been playing pranks on us this night; I should like to know just what pranks they were. That’s right, let the match go out; can’t you keep it alight a little longer?”
“Thank you; it has burned my fingers as it is.”
I lit another.
“There is writing on it; I thought there was; I can see it now. Hold that match of yours closer.”
In my anxiety to obey her, I gave it too sudden a jerk, the flame was extinguished.
“There! I suppose you’ll say that you burned that to an end. If you go on wasting them at this rate we shall be in a fix indeed. How do you know that those aren’t all the matches we have got?”
“There are some more upon the mantelpiece—I saw them.”
“You saw the boxes; you didn’t see the matches; they may be empty. For all you can tell rats may be as fond of matches as they are of candles. Now, do be careful; don’t let that go out. Nearer; the way you shiver and shake is trying, my love. I never knew there was so much flicker in a match before. What’s it say? Someone’s been writing with the point of a pin; you want a microscope to read it. Of course! Let it go out just as I was beginning to see. You are a treasure! This time do try to let us have a light on the subject as long as you can.”
She held the paper within an inch of the tip of her nose, and I held a match as close as I dared. She began to decipher the writing.
“‘Put the key to the front and the key to the back under the door, and you shall be released. Until you do you will be kept a prisoner. And the fate of the doomed shall be yours. You child of disobedience!’ This is pretty; very pretty, on my word. There’s a style about the get-up of the thing which suggests that the person who got it up wasn’t taught writing in England; but if it wasn’t written by a woman, I’m a Dutchman.”
“Then it was she.”
“She? What do you mean? That’s right! By all means let the light go out at the moment it’s most wanted. Perhaps you’ll tell me what you mean by ‘she’ in the dark.”
“Pollie, after you had gone to sleep I had a visitor.”
“A visitor! Emily! And you’re alive to tell the tale! And let me sleep on! And never tried to wake me!”
“At the beginning I was too much afraid, and afterwards I couldn’t.”
“Who was the visitor?”
“Well, that’s more than I can tell you, except that it was a woman.”
“A woman—Emily—came in here after I had gone to sleep! Don’t you see, or if you can’t see, can’t you feel that I’m on tenterhooks? Will you go on, or must I take you by the shoulders and shake it out of you?”
I told her what there was to tell, in the dark. She stood close up to me. As she said, I could feel she was on tenterhooks. She gripped me with her hands, as if she were unwilling to let there be so much as an inch of space between us, for fear of losing a syllable of what I had to say. As the interest increased her grasp tightened. Yet when I had to stop and tell her that she was pinching me black and blue, she resented my remonstrance as if it had been an unnecessary interruption of my narration. She could not have been more unreasonable had she tried. And to crown it all, so soon as I had finished she professed to doubt me.
“You’re sure you’ve been telling me just exactly what took place. I know your taste for the romantic.”
“I’ve been telling you nothing but the sober facts.”
“Sober, you call them? Staggering facts they seem to me. But why didn’t you ask the creature who she was?”
“Don’t I tell you that I did? And she replied that she was a daughter of the gods, and held life and death in her hand.”
“Is that so? She must have been a oner. Emily, I’ll never forgive you as long as I live for letting me sleep on.”
“Don’t! I wish you wouldn’t pinch. If you’d been in my place, I don’t believe you’d have done anything different—it’s all very well for you to talk. Why didn’t you wake up on your own accord? Anyone else in your place would have done—I should. The truth is, Pollie, you were sleeping like a grampus.”
“Thank you, my pet. I don’t quite know how a grampus sleeps, and I don’t believe you do either; but I’m obliged for the compliment all the same. I suppose it’s meant for a compliment. Of course the thing’s as plain as a pikestaff. Your daughter of the gods sneaked out of one of Bluebeard’s chambers, where, no doubt, she is at this identical moment. Shouldn’t I like to get at her! I will before I’m done. It seems as if she—or somebody—is discontented with the way I’ve behaved since I came into my fortune, though it’s early days to be dissatisfied. And the idea apparently is to get hold of the keys, and then to get rid of me; on the supposition that when I’m once outside I shan’t be able, without the keys, to get in again. But I’m not quite so simple as I look. When she went I expect you fell asleep, though why you didn’t wake me up, and help chivy her downstairs, is more than I can understand. I’d have daughter-of-the-gods her! Then she sneaked back, searched for the keys. Fortunately, the intricacies of a Christian woman’s costume were too many for her. So she jumped to the conclusion that they were concealed in some mysterious hiding-place, quite beyond her finding out, daughter of the gods though she is. She pinned the piece of paper to my bodice, and she locked the door, supposing that we’d the spirits of mice, and that we’d give her what she’s no more right to than the man in the moon, just to unlock it again. But you’re mistaken, you daughter of the gods! Emily, I can’t see your face, and you can’t see mine. If you could you’d see determination written on it, and you’d know she was. I don’t mean to be kept shut up like a rat in a trap, not much, I don’t. Outside there! Are you going to open this door, or am I to open it for you?”
Bang, bang she went with her fists against the panels. The noise she made shook the room.
“One thing’s certain, this door’s not protected with sheet iron, or any pretty stuff of that kind. If it’s not unlocked it won’t be long before I’m through it, anyhow. Do you hear, you daughter of the gods?”
Smash, crash went the fists again.
I did not know what to say, still less what to do. It was useless proffering advice. She never was amenable to that. I was sure she would resent it hotly then. Yet what she proposed to gain by going on was beyond my comprehension.
It was becoming pretty plain to me that whatever object her Uncle Benjamin had in view when he made his will it was not his niece’s benefit. It seemed as if he had died as he had lived, true to the character which Pollie gave of him. I was beginning to think that he had meant to use her as a catspaw, though why, or in what way, I confess I did not understand. That the house was not a good house I was sure; that it harboured some dreadful characters I felt convinced; perhaps coiners, or forgers, or abandoned creatures of some kind. Pollie might be meant to serve as a sort of cover. Her occupation of the place might be intended to avert suspicion. People seeing her going in and out, and being aware she lived there, would think there was nothing strange about the house. It need not be generally known that she had only access to a part of it. The prohibition against allowing anybody but another girl to cross the threshold was evidently meant as a precaution against allowing that fact to become discovered. Oh yes! nothing could be plainer than that, so far from Pollie’s being the lucky heritor of a handsome fortune, she was only the tool of her wicked old uncle; and that, consciously or unconsciously, as such she was to hide from the world some one or other of his nefarious schemes which had to be kept hidden even after he was in his grave.
As such thoughts kept chasing each other through my brain I could keep them to myself no longer.
“Pollie, do you know what I should do if I were you?”
“Break open the door with a chair, or the leg of the bedstead, my dear?”
“I should leave the house this moment.”
“Would you indeed? And then?”
“I should go straight to Mr. Paine, and I should renounce the fortune which your wicked old uncle has pretended to leave you, and refuse to fall into the trap which he had laid.”
“Emily! Are you insane?”
“No, I’m not insane, and it’s because I’m not that I’m advising you. I feel sure that your Uncle Benjamin never meant to do you any good when he made that will of his.”
“So far I’m with you. But it’s just possible that the niece may prove a match for the uncle; she means to try. This is my house, at present. I’m mistress here, and I mean to play the mistress; not act as if I were afraid to raise my voice above a whisper. So don’t you forget it, or we shall quarrel; and, even if things are as bad as you seem to think, I don’t see how you’ll be better off for that. Light a match, and keep on lighting one till I tell you to stop.”
She ordered me as if I were a servant: I obeyed because I could not see my way to refuse. In the match-light she marched to the mantelpiece.
“Here’s three boxes of matches for you; I’ll take care of the rest. The matches are in them, luckily. Now the question is what is the handiest little article by whose help I can get soonest on the other side of that door. Ah! here’s the poker. It is not much use against sheet iron, but I fancy it will work wonders with plain wood.”
Brandishing the poker above her head—exactly in the wild way she had done the night before—she strode towards the door. As she did so someone addressed her from without; in a deep rumbling bass, which was more like a growl than a human voice.
“Beware, you fool, beware! Your life’s at stake, more than your life. Obey, before it is too late.”
In my most natural surprise and agitation, the match, dropping from my fingers, was extinguished as it reached the floor. The room was plunged into darkness. Pollie behaved as if the fault were mine.
“You idiot! Did you do that on purpose?”
She caught me by the arm as if she meant to break it. In her unreasoning rage I quite expected her to strike me with the poker. As I waited for it to fall the voice came again.
“Be warned!—for the last time!—obey!”
Smash, crash, smash! Pollie had thrust me aside. She was battering at the door with her poker, issuing, as she did so, her instructions to me.
“Light a match, you idiot! light a match!”
I did. She paused to enable her to learn, by the aid of its uncertain flicker, what effect her blows had had upon the door.
“Give it to me. Light another! Do as I tell you, keep on lighting one. I’ll do all that there is to do; all you have to do is to keep a light upon the scene. Do you hear?—I thought that poker would be equal to a wooden door.”
She had broken in one of the panels, leaving a hole almost large enough for her to put her hand through.
“Give me another match; as many as you can; as fast as you can!”
I gave her them as quickly as I could get them lighted. She held half a dozen between her fingers at at a time. Keeping her face close to the break in the panel she endeavoured, by their light, to see what was without.
“Now, Mr. Bogey-man, where are you? Step to the front, don’t be shy! Let’s see what kind of an article you are. It’s only Pollie Blyth, you pretty thing; you’re not afraid of Pollie Blyth? Perhaps you’re the father of the daughter of the gods; if so, I’m sure I should like to have a peep at you, you must be so good-looking. You see that I’m obeying. When I reach you I’ll show you how to do some obeying on your own. I’ll thank you properly for treating the mistress of the house as if she were the dirt beneath your feet. Emily, my dear, there’s nothing and no one to be seen; move faster with those matches do! I’m afraid Mr. Bogey-man is a cur and a coward. He has a big voice, but that’s all that’s big about him. Perhaps he suspects that this poker is harder than his head; and, between you, I, and the door post, I shouldn’t be surprised if he finds he’s right. Keep lively with those matches. I don’t fancy there’ll be much trouble in dealing with this curiosity in locks; but I should like to have some idea of what I’m doing. Now then, stand clear! Here’s to you, Mr. Bogey-man.”
She brought down the poker with a force of which I had never supposed her capable; this was a new Pollie, whose existence was becoming for the first time known to me. I wondered what they would have thought of her at Cardew and Slaughter’s! The rotten old lock started from its fastenings; the door itself was shaken to its foundations.
“That’s one. There’s not much about this job to try your strength on. I think we shall manage it in three. Here’s to our early meeting, Mr. Bogey-man.”
She managed it in three. At the third blow the door was open. I had not expected it so soon. Taken unawares, before I had time to shield the light the draught had blown it out. Of course Pollie turned to rend me.
“That’s you all over; such a sensible thing to do. Don’t let us have a light when we want it most. How do you suppose that we are going to see Mr. Bogey-man when we can’t see anything?”
As it happened, her reproach was premature. Just then we could see a good deal; all that there was to see. As the door swung open the landing was illumined by a faint white light, which was yet strong enough to throw all objects into distinct relief. It seemed to ascend from below. Pollie rushed to the banisters; to discover nothing.
“More tricks, I suppose. What a box of tricks somebody seems to have. Reminds you of the Egyptian Hall, doesn’t it, my dear? Thank you, whoever you are, for this magic lantern effect; and for allowing us to see that there is nothing to be seen. It’s so good of you to show a trifle of light upon the situation; isn’t it, my sweet?”
She paused; as if for an answer. None came. The light continued. She turned to me, speaking at the top of her voice, with the obvious intention of making her words audible to whomsoever the house might contain.
“Tell me, Emily, what you would advise me to do. Shall I go straight away to a police station; say that in two rooms in this house are hidden a pack of thieves; return with an adequate police force, have the rooms broken open and their inmates arrested? or shall I address myself to the persons whom we know are in concealment; tell them that I am Pollie Blyth, the rightful owner of this house; appeal to their better natures; assuring them that if they will trust in me they shall not have cause to complain of misplaced confidence; and that I will do all that an honest woman may to shield them from the consequences of any offences of which they have been guilty. Which of these two courses would you advise me to take?”
I hesitated before replying. When I spoke it was in a voice which was very many tones lower than hers. She objected to its gentleness.
“I would suggest——”
“Speak up. You’re not afraid of being overheard.”
I was, though I was not disposed to admit as much. Clearing my throat, I tried to speak a little louder. Although the loudness of my voice startled me, it did not come within miles of her stentorian utterances.
“I think you had better go straight away to the police station; I feel sure you had.”
“I believe you are right. But as that would probably mean that anyone found hiding on my premises would be sent to prison for life; and I do not wish to have even the worst characters hauled into jail without giving them a chance to clear themselves, I will listen to the dictates of mercy first of all. Do you understand?”
Going to the closed door which adjoined the bedroom we had just quitted she beat a tattoo on it with the end of the poker.
“You may be sure that what I say I mean, so if you are wise you will be warned in time. Come out, and make a clean breast of why you have been trying to hide in such a ridiculous manner from the rightful owner of these premises, and all may yet be well with you. I’m a forgiving sort of person when I’m taken in the right way. But if you won’t come out, I’ll have you dragged out by the head and heels, and then all will be ill with you, very ill indeed. For I’m the hardest nut you ever cracked if I’m taken in the wrong way. Do you hear, you daughter of the gods, or whoever you are?”
The inquiry was emphasised by another tattoo with the end of the poker. At its close she paused for a reply. None came. She was evidently dissatisfied that her eloquence should have met with so bald a result.
“Very well, Emily, you will bear me witness that I gave them due and proper warning. It will be all nonsense for them to pretend that they haven’t heard. They couldn’t help but hear. See how I’ve shouted. Oh yes, they’ve all heard right enough! Now they must take the consequences of their own stupidity. Their blood will be on their own heads. They’ll have to suffer. Oh, won’t you just have to suffer!”
Another salute from the end of the poker. While she was still hammering at the door, the mysterious light which had continued hitherto to illumine the staircase, without any sort of notice died away.
“Emily!—a match!—quick! I think I hear someone moving.”
I also had thought that I heard a movement; which was not rats. I struck a light as rapidly as my blundering fingers would permit.
“Come to the banisters, hurry! If anyone is going to act upon my excellent advice, and is coming up the stairs, let’s have a chance of seeing who it is.”
In my anxiety not to baulk her impatience I hastened towards her before the match had properly ignited; as a result, with a little splutter, it went out.
“You idiot! Don’t you know that life and death may hang upon your being able to keep a match alight?”
I knew it as well as she did. The knowledge did not lend to steady my nerves; especially when it was emphasised in such a fashion. I made several ineffectual efforts to induce a match to burn; with one accord they refused to do anything. Uttering an angry ejaculation Pollie struck one of her own.
“Emily, there is someone moving; but they’re not coming up, they’re going down. Then if they won’t come to me I must go to them, that’s all. Mr. Bogey-man, or Miss Daughter-of-the-gods, or whoever you are, if you please, I want a word with you.”
Without giving me a hint of what she intended to do she rushed down the stairs, half-a-dozen at a time. Of course the match she carried was immediately extinguished. I could hear her, undeterred by its extinction, plunging blindly down through the darkness. I succeeded in getting one of my matches to burn. I leaned over the banisters to let her have the benefit of any radiance it might afford. I could see nothing of her. She was on the flight below.
“Pollie! Pollie!” I cried. “Do be careful what you’re doing.”
I could not tell if she heard me. The warning went unheeded if she did. My match went out. Before I could strike another there arose, through the darkness, from the passage below, the most dreadful tumult I had ever heard. Shriek after shriek from Pollie; shrieks as of mortal terror. A growling noise, as of some wild animal in sudden rage. The din of a furious struggle. How long the uproar lasted I cannot say. On a sudden there came a wilder, more piercing scream from Pollie than any which had gone before; the growling grew more furious; there was the sound of a closing door, and all was still.
The death-like silence which followed was of evil omen. The contrast to the discord of a moment back was frightfully significant. I clung to the banisters to help me stand. What had happened to Pollie? What, shortly—at any second! might happen to me? I did not dare to try and think. I felt the handrail slipping from my grasp. Merciful oblivion swept over me. I was conscious of nothing more.