After we came to know her my judgment was warped, so that I am curious to recollect what my unbiased instincts were. It is hard, however, to eliminate the feelings which reason or prejudice afterwards raised in me.
It was at the opening of the Royal Scottish Academy in the spring of 1879. My poor friend was passionately attached to art in every form, and a pleasing chord in music or a delicate effect upon canvas would give exquisite pleasure to his highly-strung nature. We had gone together to see the pictures, and were standing in the grand central salon, when I noticed an extremely beautiful woman standing at the other side of the room.
In my whole life I have never seen such a classically perfect countenance. It was the real Greek type – the forehead broad, very low, and as white as marble, with a cloudlet of delicate locks wreathing round it, the nose straight and clean cut, the lips inclined to thinness, the chin and lower jaw beautifully rounded off, and yet sufficiently developed to promise unusual strength of character.
But those eyes – those wonderful eyes! If I could but give some faint idea of their varying moods, their steely hardness, their feminine softness, their power of command, their penetrating intensity suddenly melting away into an expression of womanly weakness – but I am speaking now of future impressions!
There was a tall, yellow-haired young man with this lady, whom I at once recognized as a law student with whom I had a slight acquaintance.
Archibald Reeves – for that was his name – was a dashing, handsome young fellow, and had at one time been a ringleader in every university escapade; but of late I had seen little of him, and the report was that he was engaged to be married. His companion was, then, I presumed, his fiancée. I seated myself upon the velvet settee in the centre of the room, and furtively watched the couple from behind my catalogue.
The more I looked at her the more her beauty grew upon me. She was somewhat short in stature, it is true; but her figure was perfection, and she bore herself in such a fashion that it was only by actual comparison that one would have known her to be under the medium height.
As I kept my eyes upon them, Reeves was called away for some reason, and the young lady was left alone. Turning her back to the pictures, she passed the time until the return of her escort in taking a deliberate survey of the company, without paying the least heed to the fact that a dozen pair of eyes, attracted by her elegance and beauty, were bent curiously upon her. With one of her hands holding the red silk cord which surrounded the pictures, she stood languidly moving her eyes from face to face with as little self-consciousness as if she were looking at the canvas creatures behind her. Suddenly, as I watched her, I saw her gaze become fixed and, as it were, intense. I followed the direction of her looks, wondering what could have attracted her so strongly.
John Barrington Cowles was standing before a picture – one, I think, by Noel Paton – I know that the subject was a noble and ethereal one. His profile was turned towards us, and never have I seen him to such advantage. I have said that he was a strikingly handsome man, but at that moment he looked absolutely magnificent. It was evident that he had momentarily forgotten his surroundings, and that his whole soul was in sympathy with the picture before him. His eyes sparkled, and a dusky pink shone through his clear olive cheeks. She continued to watch him fixedly, with a look of interest upon her face, until he came out of his reverie with a start, and turned abruptly round, so that his gaze met hers. She glanced away at once, but his eyes remained fixed upon her for some moments. The picture was forgotten already, and his soul had come down to earth once more.
We caught sight of her once or twice before we left, and each time I noticed my friend look after her. He made no remark, however, until we got out into the open air, and were walking arm-in-arm down Prince’s Street.
‘Did you notice that beautiful woman, in the dark dress, with the white fur?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I saw her,’ I answered.
‘Do you know her?’ he asked, eagerly. ‘Have you any idea who she is?’
‘I don’t know her personally,’ I replied. ‘But I have no doubt I could find out all about her, for I believe she is engaged to young Archie Reeves, and he and I have a lot of mutual friends.’
‘Engaged!’ ejaculated Cowles.
‘Why, my dear boy,’ I said, laughing, ‘you don’t mean to say you are so susceptible that the fact that a girl to whom you never spoke in your life is engaged is enough to upset you?’
‘Well, not exactly to upset me,’ he answered, forcing a laugh. ‘But I don’t mind telling you, Armitage, that I never was so taken by any one in my life. It wasn’t the mere beauty of the face – though that was perfect enough – but it was the character and the intellect upon it. I hope, if she is engaged, that it is to some man who will be worthy of her.’
‘Why,’ I remarked, ‘you speak quite feelingly. It is a clear case of love at first sight, Jack. However, to put your perturbed spirit at rest, I’ll make a point of finding out all about her whenever I meet any fellow who is likely to know.’
Barrington Cowles thanked me, and the conversation drifted off into other channels. For several days neither of us made any allusion to the subject, though my companion was perhaps a little more dreamy and distraught than usual. The incident had almost vanished from my remembrance, when one day young Brodie, who is a second cousin of mine, came up to me on the university steps with the face of a bearer of tidings.
‘I say,’ he began, ‘you know Reeves, don’t you?’
‘Yes. What of him?’
‘His engagement is off.’
‘Off!’ I cried. ‘Why, I only learned the other day that it was on.’
‘Oh, yes – it’s all off. His brother told me so. Deucedly mean of Reeves, you know, if he has backed out of it, for she was an uncommonly nice girl.’
‘I’ve seen her,’ I said; ‘but I don’t know her name.’
‘She is a Miss Northcott, and lives with an old aunt of hers in Abercrombie Place. Nobody knows anything about her people, or where she comes from. Anyhow, she is about the most unlucky girl in the world, poor soul!’
‘Why unlucky?’
‘Well, you know, this was her second engagement,’ said young Brodie, who had a marvellous knack of knowing everything about everybody. ‘She was engaged to Prescott – William Prescott, who died. That was a very sad affair. The wedding day was fixed, and the whole thing looked as straight as a die when the smash came.’
‘What smash?’ I asked, with some dim recollection of the circumstances.
‘Why, Prescott’s death. He came to Abercrombie Place one night, and stayed very late. No one knows exactly when he left, but about one in the morning a fellow who knew him met him walking rapidly in the direction of the Queen’s Park. He bade him goodnight, but Prescott hurried on without heeding him, and that was the last time he was ever seen alive. Three days afterwards his body was found floating in St Margaret’s Loch, under St Anthony’s Chapel. No one could ever understand it, but of course the coroner brought it in as temporary insanity.’
‘It was very strange,’ I remarked.
‘Yes, and deucedly rough on the poor girl,’ said Brodie. ‘Now that this other blow has come it will quite crush her. So gentle and ladylike she is, too!’
‘You know her personally, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes, I know her. I have met her several times. I could easily manage that you should be introduced to her.’
‘Well,’ I answered, ‘it’s not so much for my own sake as for a friend of mine. However, I don’t suppose she will go out much for some little time after this. When she does I will take advantage of your offer.’
We shook hands on this, and I thought no more of the matter for some time.
The next incident which I have to relate as bearing at all upon the question of Miss Northcott is an unpleasant one. Yet I must detail it as accurately as possible, since it may throw some light upon the sequel. One cold night, several months after the conversation with my second c
ousin which I have quoted above, I was walking down one of the lowest streets in the city on my way back from a case which I had been attending. It was very late, and I was picking my way among the dirty loungers who were clustering round the doors of a great gin-palace, when a man staggered out from among them, and held out his hand to me with a drunken leer. The gaslight fell full upon his face, and, to my intense astonishment, I recognized in the degraded creature before me my former acquaintance, young Archibald Reeves, who had once been famous as one of the most dressy and particular men in the whole college. I was so utterly surprised that for a moment I almost doubted the evidence of my own senses; but there was no mistaking those features, which, though bloated with drink, still retained something of their former comeliness. I was determined to rescue him, for one night at least, from the company into which he had fallen.
‘Holloa, Reeves!’ I said. ‘Come along with me. I’m going in your direction.’
He muttered some incoherent apology for his condition, and took my arm. As I supported him towards his lodgings I could see that he was not only suffering from the effects of a recent debauch, but that a long course of intemperance had affected his nerves and his brain. His hand when I touched it was dry and feverish, and he started from every shadow which fell upon the pavement. He rambled in his speech, too, in a manner which suggested the delirium of disease rather than the talk of a drunkard.
When I got him to his lodgings I partially undressed him and laid him upon his bed. His pulse at this time was very high, and he was evidently extremely feverish. He seemed to have sunk into a doze; and I was about to steal out of the room to warn his landlady of his condition, when he started up and caught me by the sleeve of my coat.
‘Don’t go!’ he cried. ‘I feel better when you are here. I am safe from her then.’
‘From her!’ I said. ‘From whom?’
‘Her! her!’ he answered, peevishly, ‘Ah! you don’t know her. She is the devil! Beautiful – beautiful; but the devil!’
‘You are feverish and excited,’ I said. ‘Try and get a little sleep. You will wake better.’
‘Sleep!’ he groaned. ‘How am I to sleep when I see her sitting down yonder at the foot of the bed with her great eyes watching and watching hour after hour? I tell you it saps all the strength and manhood out of me. That’s what makes me drink. God help me – I’m half drunk now!’
‘You are very ill,’ I said, putting some vinegar to his temples; ‘and you are delirious. You don’t know what you say.’
‘Yes, I do,’ he interrupted sharply, looking up at me. ‘I know very well what I say. I brought it upon myself. It is my own choice. But I couldn’t – no, by heaven, I couldn’t – accept the alternative. I couldn’t keep my faith to her. It was more than man could do.’
I sat by the side of the bed, holding one of his burning hands in mine, and wondering over his strange words. He lay still for some time, and then, raising his eyes to me, said, in a most plaintive voice—
‘Why did she not give me warning sooner? Why did she wait until I had learned to love her so?’
He repeated this question several times, rolling his feverish head from side to side, and then he dropped into a troubled sleep. I crept out of the room, and, having seen that he would be properly cared for, left the house. His words, however, rang in my ears for days afterwards, and assumed a deeper significance when taken with what was to come.
My friend, Barrington Cowles, had been away for his summer holidays, and I had heard nothing of him for several months. When the winter session came on, however, I received a telegram from him asking me to secure the old rooms in Northumberland Street for him, and telling me the train by which he would arrive. I went down to meet him, and was delighted to find him looking wonderfully hearty and well.
‘By the way,’ he said suddenly, that night, as we sat in our chairs by the fire, talking over the events of the holidays, ‘you have never congratulated me yet!’
‘On what, my boy?’ I asked.
‘What? Do you mean to say you have not heard of my engagement?’
‘Engagement! No!’ I answered. ‘However, I am delighted to hear it, and congratulate you with all my heart.’
‘I wonder it didn’t come to your ears,’ he said. ‘It was the queerest thing. You remember that girl whom we both admired so much at the academy?’
‘What!’ I cried, with a vague feeling of apprehension at my heart. ‘You don’t mean to say that you are engaged to her?’
‘I thought you would be surprised,’ he answered. ‘When I was staying with an old aunt of mine in Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, the Northcotts happened to come there on a visit, and as we had mutual friends we soon met. I found out that it was a false alarm about her being engaged, and then – well, you know what it is when you are thrown into the society of such a girl in a place like Peterhead. Not, mind you,’ he added, ‘that I consider I did a foolish or hasty thing. I have never regretted it for a moment. The more I know Kate the more I admire her and love her. However, you must be introduced to her, and then you will form your own opinion.’
I expressed my pleasure at the prospect, and endeavoured to speak as lightly as I could to Cowles upon the subject, but I felt depressed and anxious at heart. The words of Reeves and the unhappy fate of young Prescott recurred to my recollection, and, though I could assign no tangible reason for it, a vague, dim fear and distrust of the woman took possession of me. It may be that this was foolish prejudice and superstition upon my part, and that I involuntarily contorted her future doings and sayings to fit into some half-formed wild theory of my own. This has been suggested to me by others as an explanation of my narrative. They are welcome to their opinion if they can reconcile it with the facts which I have to tell.
I went round with my friend a few days afterwards to call upon Miss Northcott. I remember that, as we went down Abercrombie Place, our attention was attracted by the shrill yelping of a dog – which noise proved eventually to come from the house to which we were bound. We were shown upstairs, where I was introduced to old Mrs Merton, Miss Northcott’s aunt, and to the young lady herself. She looked as beautiful as ever, and I could not wonder at my friend’s infatuation. Her face was a little more flushed than usual, and she held in her hand a heavy dog-whip, with which she had been chastising a small Scotch terrier, whose cries we had heard in the street. The poor brute was cringing up against the wall, whining piteously, and evidently completely cowed.
‘So, Kate,’ said my friend, after we had taken our seats, ‘you have been falling out with Carlo again.’
‘Only a very little quarrel this time,’ she said, smiling charmingly. ‘He is a dear, good old fellow, but he needs correction now and then.’ Then, turning to me, ‘We all do that, Mr Armitage, don’t we? What a capital thing if, instead of receiving a collective punishment at the end of our lives, we were to have one at once, as the dogs do, when we did anything wicked. It would make us more careful, wouldn’t it?’
I acknowledged that it would.
‘Supposing that every time a man misbehaved himself a gigantic hand were to seize him, and he were lashed with a whip until he fainted’ – she clenched her white fingers as she spoke, and cut out viciously with the dog-whip – ‘it would do more to keep him good than any number of high-minded theories of morality.’
‘Why, Kate,’ said my friend, ‘you are quite savage today.’
‘No, Jack,’ she laughed. ‘I’m only propounding a theory for Mr Armitage’s consideration.’
The two began to chat together about some Aberdeenshire reminiscence, and I had time to observe Mrs Merton, who had remained silent during our short conversation. She was a very strange-looking old lady. What attracted attention most in her appearance was the utter want of colour which she exhibited. Her hair was snow-white, and her face extremely pale. Her lips were bloodless, and even her eyes were of such a light tinge of blue that they hardly relieved the general pallor. Her dress was a grey silk, which harmonized with
her general appearance. She had a peculiar expression of countenance, which I was unable at the moment to refer to its proper cause.
She was working at some old-fashioned piece of ornamental needlework, and as she moved her arms her dress gave forth a dry, melancholy rustling, like the sound of leaves in the autumn. There was something mournful and depressing in the sight of her. I moved my chair a little nearer, and asked her how she liked Edinburgh, and whether she had been there long.
When I spoke to her she started and looked up at me with a scared look on her face. Then I saw in a moment what the expression was which I had observed there. It was one of fear – intense and overpowering fear. It was so marked that I could have staked my life on the woman before me having at some period of her life been subjected to some terrible experience or dreadful misfortune.
‘Oh, yes, I like it,’ she said, in a soft, timid voice; ‘and we have been here long – that is, not very long. We move about a great deal.’ She spoke with hesitation, as if afraid of committing herself.
‘You are a native of Scotland, I presume?’ I said.
‘No – that is, not entirely. We are not natives of any place. We are cosmopolitan, you know.’ She glanced round in the direction of Miss Northcott as she spoke, but the two were still chatting together near the window. Then she suddenly bent forward to me, with a look of intense earnestness upon her face, and said—
‘Don’t talk to me any more, please. She does not like it, and I shall suffer for it afterwards. Please, don’t do it.’
I was about to ask her the reason for this strange request, but when she saw I was going to address her, she rose and walked slowly out of the room. As she did so I perceived that the lovers had ceased to talk, and that Miss Northcott was looking at me with her keen, grey eyes.
‘You must excuse my aunt, Mr Armitage,’ she said; ‘she is old, and easily fatigued. Come over and look at my album.’
We spent some time examining the portraits. Miss Northcott’s father and mother were apparently ordinary mortals enough, and I could not detect in either of them any traces of the character which showed itself in their daughter’s face. There was one old daguerreotype, however, which arrested my attention. It represented a man of about the age of forty, and strikingly handsome. He was clean shaven, and extraordinary power was expressed upon his prominent lower jaw and firm, straight mouth. His eyes were somewhat deeply set in his head, however, and there was a snake-like flattening at the upper part of his forehead, which detracted from his appearance. I almost involuntarily, when I saw the head, pointed to it, and exclaimed—
Dracula’s Brethren Page 19
