The Return Of The Soul

by Robert Hichens

scene beautiful, the wind life-giving, the flatsand-banks, the shining levels, even the dry, spiky grass that flutteredin the breeze, fascinating and refreshing.

  "I feel near the heart of Nature in a place like this," she said,looking up at a seagull that hovered over the little platform, crying tothe wind on which it hung.

  The train stole off along the edge of the sands, till we could see onlythe white streamer of its smoke trailing towards the sun. We turned awayfrom the sea, got into the carriage that was waiting for us, and setour faces inland. The ocean was blotted out by the low grass andheather-covered banks that divided the fields. Presently we plunged intowoods. The road descended sharply. A village, an abruptly winding riversprang into sight.

  We were on my land. We passed the inn, the Rainwood Arms, named aftermy grandfather's family. The people whom we met stared curiously andsaluted in rustic fashion.

  Margot was full of excitement and pleasure, and talked incessantly,holding my hand tightly in hers and asking a thousand questions. Passingthrough the village, we mounted a hill towards a thick grove of trees.

  "The house stands among them," I said, pointing.

  She sprang up eagerly in the carriage to find it, but it was hidden.

  We dashed through the gate into the momentary darkness of the drive,emerged between great green lawns, and drew up before the big doorway ofthe hall. I looked into her eyes, and said "Welcome!"

  She only smiled in answer.

  I would not let her enter the house immediately, but made her come withme to the terrace above the river, to see the view over the Cumbrianmountains and the moors of Eskdale.

  The sky was very clear and pale, but over Styhead the clouds wereboiling up. The Screes that guard ebon Wastwater looked grim and sad.

  Margot stood beside me on the terrace, but her chatter had beensucceeded by silence. And I, too, was silent for the moment, absorbed incontemplation. But presently I turned to her, wishing to see how she wasimpressed by her new domain.

  She was not looking towards the river and the hills, but at the terracewalk itself, the band of emerald turf that bordered it, the stone potsfull of flowers, the winding way that led into the shrubbery.

  She was looking at these intently, and with a strangely puzzled, almoststartled expression.

  "Hush! Don't speak to me for a moment," she said, as I opened my lips."Don't; I want to---- How odd this is!"

  And she gazed up at the windows of the house, at the creepers thatclimbed its walls, at the sloping roof and the irregular chimney-stacks.

  Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were full of an inwardexpression that told me she was struggling with forgetfulness anddesired recollection.

  I was silent, wondering.

  At last she said: "Ronald, I have never been in the North of Englandbefore, never set foot in Cumberland; yet I seem to know this terracewalk, those very flower-pots, the garden, the look of that roof, thosechimneys, even the slanting way in which that great creeper climbs. Isit not--is it not very strange?"

  She gazed up at me, and in her blue eyes there was an expression almostof fear.

  I smiled down on her. "It must be your fancy," I said.

  "It does not seem so," she replied. "I feel as if I had been herebefore, and often, or for a long time." She paused; then she said: "Dolet me go into the house. There ought to be a room there--a room--I seemalmost to see it. Come! Let us go in."

  She took my hand and drew me towards the hall door. The servants werecarrying in the luggage, and there was a certain amount of confusion andnoise, but she did not seem to notice it. She was intent on something; Icould not tell what.

  "Do show me the house, Ronald--the drawing-room, and--and--there isanother room I wish to see."

  "You shall see them all, dear," I said. "You are excited. It is naturalenough. This is the drawing-room."

  She glanced round it hastily.

  "And now the others!" she exclaimed.

  I took her to the dining-room, the library, and the various apartmentson the ground-floor.

  She scarcely looked at them. When we had finished exploring, "Are theseall?" she asked, with a wavering accent of disappointment.

  "All," I answered.

  "Then--show me the rooms upstairs."

  We ascended the shallow oak steps, and passed first into the apartmentin which my grandmother had died.

  It had been done up since then, refurnished, and almost completelyaltered. Only the wide fireplace, with its brass dogs and its heavyoaken mantelpiece, had been left untouched.

  Margot glanced hastily round. Then she walked up to the fireplace, anddrew a long breath.

  "There ought to be a fire here," she said.

  "But it is summer," I answered, wondering.

  "And a chair there," she went on, in a curious low voice, indicating--Ithink now, or is it my imagination?--the very spot where my grandmotherwas wont to sit. "Yes--I seem to remember, and yet not to remember."

  She looked at me, and her white brows were knit.

  Suddenly she said: "Ronald, I don't think I like this room. There issomething--I don't know--I don't think I could sit here; and I seem toremember--something about it, as I did about the terrace. What can itmean?"

  "It means that you are tired and overexcited, darling. Your nerves aretoo highly strung, and nerves play us strange tricks. Come to your ownroom and take off your things, and when you have had some tea, you willbe all right again."

  Yes, I was fool enough to believe that tea was the panacea for anundreamed-of, a then unimaginable, evil.

  I thought Margot was simply an overtired and imaginative child thatevening. If I could believe so now!

  We went up into her boudoir and had tea, and she grew more likeherself; but several times that night I observed her looking puzzled andthoughtful, and a certain expression of anxiety shone in her blue eyesthat was new to them then.

  But I thought nothing of it, and I was-happy. Two or three dayspassed, and Mar-got did not again refer to her curious sensation ofpre-knowledge of the house and garden. I fancied there was a slightalteration in her manner; that was all. She seemed a little restless.Her vivacity flagged now and then. She was more willing to be alone thanshe had been. But we were old married folk now, and could not be alwaysin each other's sight. I had a great many people connected with theestate to see, and had to gather up the tangled threads of many affairs.

  The honeymoon was over. Of course we could not always be together.

  Still, I should have wished Margot to desire it, and I could not hidefrom myself that now and then she scarcely concealed a slight impatienceto be left in solitude. This troubled me, but only a little, for she wasgenerally as fond as ever. That evening, however, an incident occurredwhich rendered me decidedly uneasy, and made me wonder if my wife werenot inclined to that curse of highly-strung women--hysteria!

  I had been riding over the moors to visit a tenant-farmer who lived atsome distance, and did not return until twilight. Dismounting, I letmyself into the house, traversed the hall, and ascended the stairs. As Iwore spurs, and the steps were of polished oak and uncarpeted, I walkednoisily enough to warn anyone of my approach. I was passing the doorof the room that had been my grandmother's sitting-room, when I noticedthat it stood open. The house was rather dark, and the interior was dimenough, but I could see a figure in a white dress moving about inside.I recognised Margot, and wondered what she was doing, but her movementswere so singular that, instead of speaking to her, I stood in thedoorway and watched her.

  She was walking, with a very peculiar, stealthy step, around the room,not as if she were looking for anything, but merely as if she wererestless or ill at ease. But what struck me forcibly was this, thatthere was something curiously animal in her movements, seen thus in adim half-light that only partially revealed her to me. I had neverseen a woman walk in that strangely wild yet soft way before. There wassomething uncanny about it, that rendered me extremely discomforted; yetI was quite fascinated, and rooted to the ground.
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br />   I cannot tell how long I stood there. I was so completely absorbed inthe passion of the gazer that the passage of time did not concern mein the least. I was as one assisting at a strange spectacle. This whitething moving in the dark did not suggest my wife to me, although itwas she. I might have been watching an animal, vague, yet purposeful ofmind, tracing out some hidden thing, following out some instinct quiteforeign to humanity. I remember that presently I involuntarily claspedmy hands together, and felt that they were very cold. Perspiration brokeout on my face. I was painfully, unnaturally moved, and a violent desireto be away from this white moving thing came over me. Walking as softlyas I could, I went to my dressing-room, shut the door, and sat down on achair. I never remember to have felt thoroughly unnerved before, but nowI found myself actually shaken, palsied. I could understand how deadlya thing fear is. I lit a candle hastily, and as I did so a knock came tothe door.

  Margot's voice said, "May I come in?" I felt unable to reply, so I gotup and admitted her.

  She entered smiling, and looking such a child, so innocent, so tender,that I almost laughed aloud. That I, a man, should have been frightenedby a child in a white dress, just because the twilight cast a phantomatmosphere around her! I held her in my arms, and I gazed into her blueeyes.

  She looked down, but still smiled.

  "Where have you been, and what have you been doing?" I asked gaily.

  She answered that she had been in the drawing-room since tea-time.

  "You came here straight from the drawing-room?" I said.

  She replied, "Yes."

  Then, with an indifferent air which hid real anxiety, I said:

  "By the way, Margot, have you been into that room again--the room youfancied you recollected?"

  "No, never," she answered, withdrawing herself from my arms. "Idon't wish to go there. Make haste, Ronald, and dress. It is nearlydinner-time, and I am ready." And she turned and left me.

  She had told me a lie. All my feelings of uneasiness and discomfortreturned tenfold.

  That evening was the most wretched one, the only wretched one, I hadever spent with her.

  *****

  I am tired of writing. I will continue my task to-morrow. It takes melonger than I anticipated. Yet even to tell everything to myself bringsme some comfort. Man must express himself; and despair must find avoice.