“Never,” answered Carmichael. “He only spoke, as I remember, of your beauty and your brightness, and of the good times that you all had when this old house was in its prime.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, quickly and with strong feeling, “they were good times, and he was a man of honour. He never took an unfair advantage, never boasted of a woman’s favour, never tried to spare himself. He was an American man. I hope you are like him.”
The Baron, who had been leaning on the mantel, crossed the room impatiently and stood beside the bed. He spoke in French again, dragging the words in his insistent, masterful voice, as if they were something heavy which he laid upon his wife.
Her grey eyes grew darker, almost black, with enlarging pupils. She raised herself on the pillows as if about to get up. Then she sank back again and said, with an evident effort:
“Rene, I must beg you not to speak in French again. The doctor does not understand it. We must be more courteous. And now I will tell him about my sudden illness to-night. It was the first time—like a flash of lightning—an ice-cold hand of pain—”
Even as she spoke a swift and dreadful change passed over her face. Her colour vanished in a morbid pallor; a cold sweat lay like death-dew on her forehead; her eyes were fixed on some impending horror; her lips, blue and rigid, were strained with an unspeakable, intolerable anguish. Her left arm stiffened as if it were gripped in a vise of pain. Her right hand fluttered over her heart, plucking at an unseen weight. It seemed as if an invisible, silent death-wind were quenching the flame of her life. It flickered in an agony of strangulation.
“Be quick,” cried the doctor; “lay her head lower on the pillows, loosen her dress, warm her hands.”
He had caught up his satchel, and was looking for a little vial. He found it almost empty. But there were four or five drops of the yellowish, oily liquid. He poured them on his handkerchief and held it close to the lady’s mouth. She was still breathing regularly though slowly, and as she inhaled the pungent, fruity smell, like the odour of a jargonelle pear, a look of relief flowed over her face, her breathing deepened, her arm and her lips relaxed, the terror faded from her eyes.
He went to his satchel again and took out a bottle of white tablets marked “Nitroglycerin.” He gave her one of them, and when he saw her look of peace grow steadier, after a minute, he prepared the electric battery. Softly he passed the sponges charged with their mysterious current over her temples and her neck and down her slender arms and blue-veined wrists, holding them for a while in the palms of her hands, which grew rosy.
In all this the Baron had helped as he could, and watched closely, but without a word. He was certainly not indifferent; neither was he distressed; the expression of his black eyes and heavy, passionless face was that of presence of mind, self-control covering an intense curiosity. Carmichael conceived a vague sentiment of dislike for the man.
When the patient rested easily they stepped outside the room together for a moment.
“It is the angina, I suppose,” droned the Baron, “hein? That is of great inconvenience. But I think it is the false one, that is much less grave—not truly dangerous, hein?”
“My dear sir,” answered Carmichael, “who can tell the difference between a false and a true angina pectoris, except by a post-mortem? The symptoms are much alike, the result is sometimes identical, if the paroxysm is severe enough. But in this case I hope that you may be right. Your wife’s illness is severe, dangerous, but not necessarily fatal. This attack has passed and may not recur for months or even years.”
The lip-smile came back under the Baron’s sullen eyes.
“Those are the good news, my dear doctor,” said he, slowly. “Then we shall be able to travel soon, perhaps to-morrow or the next day. It is of an extreme importance. This place is insufferable to me. We have engagements in Washington—a gay season.”
Carmichael looked at him steadily and spoke with deliberation.
“Baron, you must understand me clearly. This is a serious case. If I had not come in time your wife might be dead now. She cannot possibly be moved for a week, perhaps it may take a month fully to restore her strength. After that she must have a winter of absolute quiet and repose.”
The Frenchman’s face hardened; his brows drew together in a black line, and he lifted his hand quickly with a gesture of irritation. Then he bowed.
“As you will, doctor! And for the present moment, what is it that I may have the honour to do for your patient?”
“Just now,” said the doctor, “she needs a stimulant—a glass of sherry or of brandy, if you have it—and a hot-water bag—you have none? Well, then, a couple of bottles filled with hot water and wrapped in a cloth to put at her feet. Can you get them?”
The Baron bowed again, and went down the stairs. As Carmichael returned to the bedroom he heard the droning, insistent voice below calling “Gaspard, Gaspard!”
The great grey eyes were open as he entered the room, and there was a sense of release from pain and fear in them that was like the deepest kind of pleasure.
“Yes, I am much better,” said she; “the attack has passed. Will it come again? No? Not soon, you mean. Well, that is good. You need not tell me what it is—time enough for that to-morrow. But come and sit by me. I want to talk to you. Your first name is—”
“Leroy,” he answered. “But you are weak; you must not talk much.”
“Only a little,” she replied, smiling; “it does me good. Leroy was your mother’s name—yes? It is not a Calvinton name. I wonder where your father met her. Perhaps in France when he came to look for me. But he did not find me—no, indeed—I was well hidden then—but he found your mother. You are young enough to be my son. Will you be a friend to me for your father’s sake?”
She spoke gently, in a tone of infinite kindness and tender grace, with pauses in which a hundred unspoken recollections and appeals were suggested. The young man was deeply moved. He took her hand in his firm clasp.
“Gladly,” he said, “and for your sake too. But now I want you to rest.”
“Oh,” she answered, “I am resting now. But let me talk a little more. It will not harm me. I have been through so much! Twice married—a great fortune to spend—all that the big world can give. But now I am very tired of the whirl. There is only one thing I want—to stay here in Calvinton. I rebelled against it once; but it draws me back. There is a strange magic in the place. Haven’t you felt it? How do you explain it?”
“Yes,” he said, “I have felt it surely, but I can’t explain it, unless it is a kind of ancient peace that makes you wish to be at home here even while you rebel.”
She nodded her head and smiled softly.
“That is it,” she said, hesitating for a moment. “But my husband—you see he is a very strong man, and he loves the world, the whirling life—he took a dislike to this place at once. No wonder, with the house in such a state! But I have plenty of money—it will be easy to restore the house. Only, sometimes I think he cares more for the money than—but no matter what I think. He wishes to go on at once—to-morrow, if we can. I hate the thought of it. Is it possible for me to stay? Can you help me?”
“Dear lady,” he answered, lifting her hand to his lips, “set your mind at rest. I have already told him that it is impossible for you to go for many days. You can arrange to move to the inn to-morrow, and stay there while you direct the putting of your house in order.”
A sound in the hallway announced the return of the Baron and Gaspard with the hot-water bottles and the cognac. The doctor made his patient as comfortable as possible for the night, prepared a sleeping-draught, and gave directions for the use of the tablets in an emergency.
“Good night,” he said, bending over her. “I will see you in the morning. You may count upon me.”
“I do,” she said, with her eyes resting on his; �
�thank you for all. I shall expect you—au revoir.”
As they went down the stairs he said to the Baron, “Remember, absolute repose is necessary. With that you are safe enough for to-night. But you may possibly need more of the nitrite of amyl. My vial is empty. I will write the prescription, if you will allow me.”
“In the dining-room,” said the Baron, taking up the lamp and throwing open the door of the back room on the right. The floor had been hastily swept and the rubbish shoved into the fireplace. The heavy chairs stood along the wall. But two of them were drawn up at the head of the long mahogany table, and dishes and table utensils from a travelling-basket were lying there, as if a late supper had been served.
“You see,” said the Baron, drawling, “our banquet-hall! Madame and I have dined in this splendour to-night. Is it possible that you write here?”
His secret irritation, his insolence, his contempt spoke clearly enough in his tone. The remark was almost like an intentional insult. For a second Carmichael hesitated. “No,” he thought, “why should I quarrel with him? He is only sullen. He can do no harm.”
He pulled a chair to the foot of the table, took out his tablet and his fountain-pen, and wrote the prescription. Tearing off the leaf, he folded it crosswise and left it on the table.
In the hall, as he put on his coat he remembered the paper.
“My prescription,” he said, “I must take it to the druggist to-night.”
“Permit me,” said the Baron, “the room is dark. I will take the paper, and procure the drug as I return from escorting the doctor to his residence.”
He went into the dark room, groped about for a moment, and returned, closing the door behind him.
“Come, Monsieur,” he said, “your work at the Chateau Gordon is finished for this night. I shall leave you with yourself—at home, as you say—in a few moments. Gaspard—Gaspard, fermez la porte a cle!”
The strong nasal voice echoed through the house, and the servant ran lightly down the stairs. His master muttered a few sentences to him, holding up his right hand as he did so, with the five fingers extended, as if to impress something on the man’s mind.
“Pardon,” he said, turning to Carmichael, “that I speak always French, after the rebuke. But this time it is of necessity. I repeat the instruction for the pilules. One at each hour until eight o’clock—five, not more—it is correct? Come, then, our equipage is always harnessed, always ready, how convenient!”
The two men did not speak as the car rolled through the brumous night. A rising wind was sifting the fog. The moon had set. The loosened leaves came whirling, fluttering, sinking through the darkness like a flight of huge dying moths. Now and then they brushed the faces of the travellers with limp, moist wings.
The red night-lamp in the drug-store was still burning. Carmichael called the other’s attention to it.
“You have the prescription?”
“Without doubt!” he answered. “After I have escorted you, I shall procure the drug.”
The doctor’s front door was lit up as he had left it. The light streamed out rather brightly and illumined the Baron’s sullen black eyes and smiling lips as he leaned from the car, lifting his cap.
“A thousand thanks, my dear doctor, you have been excessively kind; yes, truly of an excessive goodness for us. It is a great pleasure—how do you tell it in English?—it is a great pleasure to have met you. Adieu.”
“Till to-morrow morning!” said Carmichael, cheerfully, waving his hand.
The Baron stared at him curiously, and lifted his cap again.
“Adieu!” droned the insistent voice, and the great car slid into the dark.
IV
The next morning was of crystal. It was after nine when Carmichael drove his electric-phaeton down the leaf-littered street, where the country wagons and the decrepit hacks were already meandering placidly, and out along the highroad, between the still green fields. It seemed to him as if the experience of the past night were “such stuff as dreams are made of.” Yet the impression of what he had seen and heard in that firelit chamber—of the eyes, the voice, the hand of that strangely lovely lady—of her vision of sudden death, her essentially lonely struggle with it, her touching words to him when she came back to life—all this was so vivid and unforgettable that he drove straight to Castle Gordon.
The great house was shut up like a tomb: every door and window was closed, except where half of one of the shutters had broken loose and hung by a single hinge. He drove around to the back. It was the same there. A cobweb was spun across the lower corner of the door and tiny drops of moisture jewelled it. Perhaps it had been made in the early morning. If so, no one had come out of the door since night.
Carmichael knocked, and knocked again. No answer. He called. No reply. Then he drove around to the portico with the tall white pillars and tried the front door. It was locked. He peered through the half-open window into the drawing-room. The glass was crusted with dirt and the room was dark. He was trying to make out the outlines of the huddled furniture when he heard a step behind him. It was the old farmer from the nearest cottage on the road.
“Mornin’, doctor! I seen ye comin’ in, and tho’t ye might want to see the house.”
“Good morning, Scudder! I do, if you’ll let me in. But first tell me about these automobile tracks in the drive.”
The old man gazed at him with a kind of dull surprise as if the question were foolish.
“Why, ye made ’em yerself, comin’ up, didn’t ye?”
“I mean those larger tracks—they were made by a much heavier car than mine.”
“Oh,” said the old man, nodding, “them was made by a big machine that come in here las’ week. You see this house’s bin shet up ’bout ten years, ever sence ol’ Jedge Gordon died. B’longs to Miss Jean—her that run off with the Eye-talyin. She kinder wants to sell it, and kinder not—ye see—”
“Yes,” interrupted Carmichael, “but about that big machine—when did you say it was here?”
“P’raps four or five days ago; I think it was a We’nsday. Two fellers from Philadelfy—said they wanted to look at the house, tho’t of buyin’ it. So I bro’t ’em in, but when they seen the outside of it they said they didn’t want to look at it no more—too big and too crumbly!”
“And since then no one has been here?”
“Not a soul—leastways nobody that I seen. I don’t s’pose you think o’ buyin’ the house, doc’! It’s too lonely for an office, ain’t it?”
“You’re right, Scudder, much too lonely. But I’d like to look through the old place, if you will take me in.”
The hall, with the two chairs and the table, on which a kitchen lamp with a half-inch of oil in it was standing, gave no sign of recent habitation. Carmichael glanced around him and hurried up the stairway to the bedroom. A tall four-poster stood in one corner, with a coverlet apparently hiding a mattress and some pillows. A dressing-table stood against the wall, and in the middle of the floor there were a few chairs. A half-open closet door showed a pile of yellow linen. The daylight sifted dimly into the room through the cracks of the shutters.
“Scudder,” said Carmichael, “I want you to look around carefully and tell me whether you see any signs of any one having been here lately.”
The old man stared, and turned his eyes slowly about the room. Then he shook his head.
“Can’t say as I do. Looks pretty much as it did when me and my wife breshed it up in October. Ye see it’s kinder clean fer an old house—not much dust from the road here. That linen and that bed’s bin here sence I c’n remember. Them burnt logs mus’ be left over from old Jedge Gordon’s time. He died in here. But what’s the matter, doc’? Ye think tramps or burglers—”
“No,” said Carmichael, “but what would you say if I told you that I was called here last night to
see a patient, and that the patient was the Miss Jean Gordon of whom you have just told me?”
“What d’ye mean?” said the old man, gaping. Then he gazed at the doctor pityingly, and shook his head. “I know ye ain’t a drinkin’ man, doc’, so I wouldn’t say nothin’. But I guess ye bin dreamin’. Why, las’ time Miss Jean writ to me—her name’s Mortimer now, and her husband’s a kinder Barrin or some sorter furrin noble,—she was in Paris, not mor’n two weeks ago! Said she was dyin’ to come back to the ol’ place agin, but she wa’n’t none too well, and didn’t guess she c’d manage it. Ef ye said ye seen her here las’ night—why—well, I’d jest think ye’d bin dreamin’. P’raps ye’re a little under the weather—bin workin’ too hard?”
“I never was better, Scudder, but sometimes curious notions come to me. I wanted to see how you would take this one. Now we’ll go downstairs again.”
The old man laughed, but doubtfully, as if he was still puzzled by the talk, and they descended the creaking, dusty stairs. Carmichael turned at once into the dining-room.
The rubbish was still in the fireplace, the chairs ranged along the wall. There were no dishes on the long table; but at the head of it two chairs; and at the foot, one; and in front of that, lying on the table, a folded bit of paper. Carmichael picked it up and opened it.
It was his prescription for the nitrite of amyl.
He hesitated a moment; then refolded the paper and put it in his vest-pocket.
Seated in his car, with his hand on the lever, he turned to Scudder, who was watching him with curious eyes.
“I’m very much obliged to you, Scudder, for taking me through the house. And I’ll be more obliged to you if you’ll just keep it to yourself—what I said to you about last night.”
The Fourth Ghost Story MEGAPACK: 25 Classic Haunts! Page 8
