From the abyss, p.3
From the Abyss, page 3
We were only too pleased to stay, and though I fancied the housekeeper was not so pleased, and that I heard vociferations from the kitchen, we had an excellent little déjeuner. The old priest was so charming a mixture of shrewdness and naïveté, of humility and knowledge of the world, that his conversation was wholly delightful. After the meal we went into the little walled garden, and sat under a pear-tree, where our coffee was brought out to us, after we had assisted the Curé to hunt a fowl out of his bed of seedling wallflowers. ‘I think the blessed St Francis must have omitted to preach to the basse-cour,’ he said ruefully, as we came back. ‘For my part I often feel most unchristian to my sister the hen.’
When we had finished our coffee he drew the book out of the pocket of his cassock. ‘I must warn you that this is a story for the fireside in winter, and not for all this’ – he waved his hand to include the little green garden, the warm and fragrant air, the stocks and wallflowers, flagging a trifle in the sun, and the drowsy cooing from an unseen dovecot – ‘but it does not matter.
‘This book, then, was given to a member of my family by its owner, Mr Fane, an English gentleman of great gifts both of mind and body, a very noble person – une âme d’élite, as we say – whose good qualities were like to suffer ruin through a disaster which befell him in early manhood. This calamity, brought about through no fault of his own, plunged him into circumstances which were leading him in a direction very different from the path wherein he had early set his steps, and to which, by the mercy of God, he afterwards returned, through what strange agency you shall hear.
‘About the end of the year 1629 Mr Fane, then a little more than thirty years of age, was visiting Paris on his return from a foreign tour, when he had the misfortune to incur the enmity of a certain Chevalier de Crussol, a man of notoriously evil life. They had met but a few times when a violent quarrel took place between them, in which Mr Fane, so far as human judgment goes, had undoubted right upon his side. As a result of this disagreement Mr Fane held himself in readiness to receive a challenge from the Chevalier. The expected cartel was never sent, but M de Crussol took other means to avenge himself. As the Englishman was returning alone at night from a ball he was set upon by the Chevalier and several of his lackeys, who, after a brief struggle, left him for dead in the street.
‘The door at which Mr Fane fell, with half a score of wounds upon him, was that of the house which Carl’ Egidio, the Grand Duke of Parenza, was making his residence during a private sojourn in Paris. By the Grand Duke’s domestics, then, Mr Fane was found in the early morning, and, being carried within, was there cared for during the space of two or three months. For many weeks of this time his life was despaired of, and he was unable to give any account of himself. However, the Grand Duke, seeing that he had to do with a gentleman of condition, whose appearance, moreover, had from the first attracted him, spared nothing of his hospitality and care. It so chanced that Mr Fane had despatched his servant to England before he entered Paris, and that none of his acquaintance in the city was aware of his presence there, nor, in consequence, of the disaster which had befallen him. There was no person therefore to make enquiries concerning him, nor to reveal his identity, which he, lying for weeks unconscious, was equally unable to disclose. The result of this general ignorance, when he returned at last to sense and life, was not long in reaching Mr Fane’s ears. His friends, in England and France alike, believed him dead, slipt out of life by some such door, perhaps, as that through which he had so nearly passed; and in England the lady whom he had hopes of winning was married to another.
‘Mr Fane now fell into a great despair and blackness of soul. So much did he feel the faithlessness of her whom a few short months’ silence could so alienate, that the idea of a return to England was abhorrent to him. Nor to his disordered mind did it appear to signify that he had, after all, escaped the sword of his enemy. He persuaded himself that his friends had forgotten him, and when the Grand Duke, who had conceived a violent attachment for his company, implored him to return with him to Italy, Mr Fane consented with a sort of indifferent pleasure, saying bitterly that a dead man had no right to come to life again. He accordingly left Paris in the train of the Grand Duke.
‘Dead he was, in another and a more real sense – not, indeed, so dead as the majority of those with whom he now consorted, but with scarcely a trace remaining of that interior life which had once been to him the only existence worthy of the name. Carl’ Egidio, a prince of cultured vices, called him saint and recluse, and strove to draw him more intimately into the circle of his own pleasures, but that Mr Fane was of a different fashion from most of the grand-ducal associates did not, after all, confer on him any real title to those names. Yet the pleasures of the court held little savour for him, and sometimes, on his knees with the others at the sumptuous masses which they all attended (for Carl’ Egidio was extremely orthodox), faint and bitter memories of better days broke into his soul. And the shy little Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena, the poor little bride who regretted her convent, talked to him at times on themes which had once been more than a name to him; and these conversations, he could not but know it, were almost all she had to prevent their becoming names to her also. It was for her sake that he suffered the mention of things once dear, now inexpressibly alien to him, and perhaps a little for her sake too that he kept himself clean of the grosser forms of vice.
‘But these could not fail, in time, to close upon him. The ladies of the court were none too difficult, and he had every gift to commend him to a woman. Before the winter was come Donna Flavia Ranuccini, a married kinswoman of the Duke’s, had lured him along a perilous path of intimacy to a disastrous end. He did not love her, but she had wrested from him as much as he had in those days to give to any woman; and to an intimacy of such a kind, at that time and in such surroundings, there could be but one conclusion. Mr Fane was only fulfilling, alas! what his world expected of a gentleman of fashion, when after a year’s residence in Parenza he made preparations for becoming Donna Flavia’s acknowledged lover.
‘It was ten o’clock on the second evening in November. October, so lately fled, had carried off few leaves from the trees in the Duke’s beautiful gardens, into which Mr Fane sat looking from a window-seat of his apartment in the palace. A half-moon, sometimes obscured by light fingers of cloud, shone on the statues among the trees, the dryads and fauns, and the Silenus in the middle of the nearest plot, and through the open casement came now and then the shiver of the leaves. Half lying on the deep seat the Englishman propped his chin on his hand and looked out. Something in the tall cypresses reminded him of a graveyard, and the white and silent statues of monuments – or ghosts. Ghosts might well walk in the palace gardens, the ghosts of those who had played out their lives there, on the lawns and terraces in summer, or in winter in the apartments on the other side, now alight with revelry from which he had withdrawn himself – for what? Donna Flavia’s letter was in his pocket – in a few years she, too, would be a ghost of the garden – and he? But he was already dead, and had a right to walk already. And then he remembered – what indeed he had forgotten merely for an hour or two – that it was All Souls’ Day.
‘Even as he remembered it the heavy window-curtain swayed slowly out from its place, as a curtain by an open window will do either with a gust of wind or with the opening of a door. But the wind was nothing save an occasional light shudder in the garden, and the door at the end of the long dimly-lit room had in truth been opened, for, turning his head on the instant, Mr Fane heard it softly closed. Looking down the room he discerned the figure of a man coming towards him, and with some vexation wondered who entered unannounced at such an hour. But as the intruder came nearer he started from the window with his hand on his sword. It was the Chevalier de Crussol.
‘He was dressed, as always, with some elaboration, in rich and pale satins, with his dark lovelocks falling over Venice point, a jewel in his ear, and a medal, or an order, on a broad ribbon about his neck. Bare-headed, with his left hand, sparkling with rings, resting lightly on his sword-hilt, he came slowly down the room towards his foe, and his short velvet cloak swung from his shoulder as he walked. But when he was within a couple of yards from Mr Fane he suddenly halted, and stood looking at him with an air of extraordinary seriousness. Mr Fane’s last recollection of him was very different, and of the wild passions and vindictive triumph which had then been imprinted on his countenance there was now no trace, nor indeed of any other emotion. All expression seemed to have been wiped, as with a sponge, from his face, which yet bore everything by which a man may recognise one whom he has loved, or hated.
‘“What do you want here?” asked Mr Fane, finding his voice at last under his amazement.
‘The Chevalier made no answer, nor moved, but continued to look at him with eyes of a strange flickering greyness.
‘“Speak, in God’s name!” cried Fane. “What are you here for? Are you mad?” And indeed there could scarcely be any other explanation of his audacity.
‘“Do you not know,” said the Chevalier in a low tone, speaking French, “that it is the jour des morts?”
‘The sound of his voice carried Mr Fane back in an instant to the dark street in Paris, the torches, and the swords. “I know it,” he returned in the same tongue. “And you have, perhaps, a fancy to join them?”
‘His visitor paid no heed, but continuing to look at Mr Fane with the same indescribable calm, said gravely: “I am come to warn you of peril.”
‘“Another assassination!” exclaimed the Englishman bitterly. ‘“Rather self-murder,” replied the Chevalier, with not the faintest sign of blenching at the taunt.
‘His composure, but still more the reference to his own private affairs, was too much for Mr Fane. “Now, by Him that made me,” he began, springing towards him. The Chevalier retreated a step and put up a hand to stay him; but Mr Fane never touched him. In afteryears, I believe, he could never satisfactorily account for the reason of sudden enlightenment; the figure, even in the subdued light, was so distinct, so real, with all the visible attributes of breathing humanity about it. But on his closer advance he knew.
‘He recoiled very slowly, crossing himself almost mechanically, and the dead murderer and his living victim stood looking at each other across the riven veil. There was no fear in Mr Fane’s heart, but awe certainly, and a great wonder. Why had the creature come – to ask his forgiveness? No, for as the thought shot through his mind (he forgetting for the moment what had already passed between them) the apparition answered it. “I am beyond the reach of human pardon, Mr Fane; but I entreat you, by Him you named just now, not to do this thing.”
‘The strange dead eyes were full upon him, passionless and yet compelling. Fane was shaken, but to be brought to book by one whom he could not but know to be infinitely worse than himself touched his sore and haughty soul too sharply. The human passion swept away with it the sense (which one might have supposed overpowering) that he was speaking to no living man. “Enough,” he said shortly, and added: “You find yourself, surely, on a strange errand, Monsieur de Crussol!”
‘“The messenger,” returned his visitor almost inaudibly, “is not accounted of – And you will not listen, nor stay your steps before it be too late?”
‘Mr Fane, without replying in words, made a gesture of negation, and a clock in some recess of the room struck the quarter. It was the hour at which he had ordered his chair to await him. The figure of his visitant stood between him and the door through which he must pass to gain the courtyard, not that door at the end of the room by which the Chevalier had entered, but a porte de dégagement on the left of the window. He looked towards it impatiently, in a way that would have been plain to an earthly guest.
‘“Mr Fane,” said the figure, holding up his hand, while for the first time a trace of emotion thrilled in his low and even voice, “Mr Fane, I will call another to stay you. You shall not dare to pass that door.”
‘And with that he turned on his heel, as naturally as a living man might turn. On the wall, not far from the door, there hung a beautifully carved crucifix of ivory and silver, Carl’ Egidio’s gift to his favourite. Before Fane had time to interpose, the spirit of his enemy had it in his left hand, and in his right, the light glinting dully upon it, a little dagger which he drew from his breast. Now he was at the door, and put the crucifix high up against the central panel, and, holding it thus, drove the stiletto through the ring deep into the wood. Then he half turned, looked round at Fane, and – was gone.
‘Mildmay Fane wiped the sweat from his forehead. The room was empty, just as it had been a few minutes ago, save for the white Christ hanging over against him, nailed to the wood by an assassin’s dagger. The sense of having dealt with the unseen was a thousandfold more potent now than when he had spoken with the phantom. Great God, what did it mean? – and yet he knew.
‘Then he told himself that he was dreaming. But the crucifix upon the door – was it real, or was it not? He went slowly up to it, not daring to touch it. Yes, surely, it was as real as sight could prove it, and the little dagger, with the ruby in the hilt – the dagger which he knew, which had once had his own blood upon it – was fast in the panel. He put out his hand and drew it back again. “I will leave the Christ there until I return, and if it be there still I shall know that I am not dreaming. I am not afraid of ghosts,” he thought to himself. But he stood for a moment looking fixedly at the Figure so strangely suspended in his path.
The clock struck the half-hour, and he turned away to get his cloak from the window-seat. When he had his back to the barred door he thought with a smile of his visitor’s defiance, “You shall not dare to pass that door!” He put the cloak about him and walked steadily to it again.
‘Ah, God! how the Christ looked at him, under the thorn- crowned brows! And as Mildmay Fane stood with his hand upon the handle, in the act to turn the latch, he suddenly drew back trembling. Not knowing why, but as one dreaming, he put out his hand instead to the Chevalier’s poignard. His fingers encountered nothing but the panel of the door, but the crucifix, as though its support were removed, slipped instantly down the polished wood. He caught it as it fell, and, as his fingers closed on the symbol which an incredible act of divine mercy had placed to bar his way, the temptation dropped dead in his breast like a shot bird, and with an overmastering sense of awe and gratitude he sank upon his knees with the crucifix pressed to his lips.
‘A week later he had left Parenza for ever. Of all the Grand Duke’s gifts he carried away with him but one, and left nothing behind of permanency but his memory to the little Grand Duchess.
‘So you see, my children,’ said the old priest, smiling upon us, ‘that even if on All Souls’ Day you met the ghost of one who had been your enemy – though I hope that neither of you has such a thing – you would not need to think he came to do you harm.’
‘But, Father,’ said I, infinitely touched by the sweetness of his tone, ‘why should it have been his enemy that was sent to Mr Fane? Do you think it was in expiation of his crime?’
The priest shook his head. ‘That is not for me to say. Let us hope so. I think that when Mr Fane prayed before the altar for the repose of the Chevalier’s soul, as he did to the end of his life – as he here asked his friend to pray’ – he lifted the book – ‘that must have been a hope with him … when he prayed also (as I am sure he did) that he himself, to whom so great a mercy had been given – misericordia non obliviscenda – might not be found wanting in the day of the Lord.’
2 Fils D’Émigré (1913)
1
‘Grandpapa,’ said Anne-Hilarion, please to tell me what is ‘ven-al-ity’?’
Mr Elphinstone looked up. ‘Eh, what, child?’
‘I read in this great book,’ proceeded Anne-Hilarion, in his clear, precise, and oddly stressed English, ‘This ven-al-ity co- in-cid-ing with the spirit of in-de-pend-ence and en-cro-ach- ment com-mon to all the Pol-y-gars pro-cur-ed them – ’
‘God bless my soul, what book have you got hold of?’ demanded the old man, but before he could finish pulling himself out of his arm-chair by the fire there was a knock at the library door, which, opening, revealed an elderly woman in a cap.
‘Master Anne’s bedtime,’ said she, in a Scotch accent and severely, and stood waiting. Almost at the same moment there appeared by her side an old man of obviously Continental nationality. In his hands was a salver; on the salver, a china bowl. ‘M le Comte mangera-t-il ici avant de monter, ou dans sa chambre?’ he inquired.
The little Franco-Scottish boy who was both ‘Master Anne’ and ‘M le Comte’ looked from his retainers to his grandfather. What he desired was so clearly visible in his expression that Mr Elphinstone, whipping off his spectacles, said, ‘He will have his bread-and-milk down here, Baptiste. I will ring for you, Elspeth, a little later.’
The housekeeper retired, with a tightening of her tight lips, and Baptiste, advancing victoriously, placed the steaming bowl on the table, beside the volume of Orme’s British India which had been engaging the child’s attention. Anne- Hilarion, who had screwed himself round in his chair, turned his dangling legs once more table-wards.
For a few minutes nothing was heard in the large book- lined room but the noise of a spoon stirring the contents of a bowl, while the old gentleman by the fire resumed his reading. But presently the spoon grew slower in its rounds, and Mr Elphinstone, looking up, beheld a large silent tear on its way to join the bread-and-milk.
‘My child, what is the matter?’ he exclaimed in dismay. ‘Is it too hot?’
M le Comte produced a handkerchief, ‘I think,’ he said falteringly, ‘that I want my papa.’
‘My poor lamb,’ murmured the old man, ‘I wish to God I could give him to you! See now, my bairn, if you were to bring your bowl here, and sit on grandpapa’s knee?’ He held out his arms, and the small boy slipped from his chair, went to him, and, climbing to his lap, wept a little, silently, while his bread- and-milk steamed neglected on the table. Mr Elphinstone’s faded apple cheek was pressed tightly on the top of the brown, silky head, and the deep frilled muslin collar round Anne- Hilarion’s throat was crumpled, unregarded, against his breast.
