Hauntings
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From that moment I noticed a change in William Oke; or rather, a changethat had probably been coming on for some time got to the stage of beingnoticeable.
I don't know whether he had any words with his wife about her masquerade ofthat unlucky evening. On the whole I decidedly think not. Oke was withevery one a diffident and reserved man, and most of all so with his wife;besides, I can fancy that he would experience a positive impossibility ofputting into words any strong feeling of disapprobation towards her, thathis disgust would necessarily be silent. But be this as it may, I perceivedvery soon that the relations between my host and hostess had becomeexceedingly strained. Mrs. Oke, indeed, had never paid much attention toher husband, and seemed merely a trifle more indifferent to his presencethan she had been before. But Oke himself, although he affected to addressher at meals from a desire to conceal his feeling, and a fear of making theposition disagreeable to me, very clearly could scarcely bear to speak toor even see his wife. The poor fellow's honest soul was quite brimful ofpain, which he was determined not to allow to overflow, and which seemed tofilter into his whole nature and poison it. This woman had shocked andpained him more than was possible to say, and yet it was evident that hecould neither cease loving her nor commence comprehending her real nature.I sometimes felt, as we took our long walks through the monotonous country,across the oak-dotted grazing-grounds, and by the brink of the dull-green,serried hop-rows, talking at rare intervals about the value of the crops,the drainage of the estate, the village schools, the Primrose League, andthe iniquities of Mr. Gladstone, while Oke of Okehurst carefully cut downevery tall thistle that caught his eye--I sometimes felt, I say, an intenseand impotent desire to enlighten this man about his wife's character. Iseemed to understand it so well, and to understand it well seemed to implysuch a comfortable acquiescence; and it seemed so unfair that just heshould be condemned to puzzle for ever over this enigma, and wear out hissoul trying to comprehend what now seemed so plain to me. But how would itever be possible to get this serious, conscientious, slow-brainedrepresentative of English simplicity and honesty and thoroughness tounderstand the mixture of self-engrossed vanity, of shallowness, of poeticvision, of love of morbid excitement, that walked this earth under the nameof Alice Oke?
So Oke of Okehurst was condemned never to understand; but he was condemnedalso to suffer from his inability to do so. The poor fellow was constantlystraining after an explanation of his wife's peculiarities; and althoughthe effort was probably unconscious, it caused him a great deal of pain.The gash--the maniac-frown, as my friend calls it--between his eyebrows,seemed to have grown a permanent feature of his face.
Mrs. Oke, on her side, was making the very worst of the situation. Perhapsshe resented her husband's tacit reproval of that masquerade night's freak,and determined to make him swallow more of the same stuff, for she clearlythought that one of William's peculiarities, and one for which she despisedhim, was that he could never be goaded into an outspoken expression ofdisapprobation; that from her he would swallow any amount of bitternesswithout complaining. At any rate she now adopted a perfect policy ofteasing and shocking her husband about the murder of Lovelock. She wasperpetually alluding to it in her conversation, discussing in his presencewhat had or had not been the feelings of the various actors in the tragedyof 1626, and insisting upon her resemblance and almost identity with theoriginal Alice Oke. Something had suggested to her eccentric mind that itwould be delightful to perform in the garden at Okehurst, under the hugeilexes and elms, a little masque which she had discovered among ChristopherLovelock's works; and she began to scour the country and enter into vastcorrespondence for the purpose of effectuating this scheme. Letters arrivedevery other day from the theatrical cousin, whose only objection was thatOkehurst was too remote a locality for an entertainment in which he foresawgreat glory to himself. And every now and then there would arrive someyoung gentleman or lady, whom Alice Oke had sent for to see whether theywould do.
I saw very plainly that the performance would never take place, and thatMrs. Oke herself had no intention that it ever should. She was one of thosecreatures to whom realisation of a project is nothing, and who enjoyplan-making almost the more for knowing that all will stop short at theplan. Meanwhile, this perpetual talk about the pastoral, about Lovelock,this continual attitudinising as the wife of Nicholas Oke, had the furtherattraction to Mrs. Oke of putting her husband into a condition of frightfulthough suppressed irritation, which she enjoyed with the enjoyment of aperverse child. You must not think that I looked on indifferent, although Iadmit that this was a perfect treat to an amateur student of character likemyself. I really did feel most sorry for poor Oke, and frequently quiteindignant with his wife. I was several times on the point of begging her tohave more consideration for him, even of suggesting that this kind ofbehavior, particularly before a comparative stranger like me, was very poortaste. But there was something elusive about Mrs. Oke, which made it nextto impossible to speak seriously with her; and besides, I was by no meanssure that any interference on my part would not merely animate herperversity.
One evening a curious incident took place. We had just sat down to dinner,the Okes, the theatrical cousin, who was down for a couple of days, andthree or four neighbours. It was dusk, and the yellow light of the candlesmingled charmingly with the greyness of the evening. Mrs. Oke was not well,and had been remarkably quiet all day, more diaphanous, strange, andfar-away than ever; and her husband seemed to have felt a sudden return oftenderness, almost of compassion, for this delicate, fragile creature. Wehad been talking of quite indifferent matters, when I saw Mr. Oke suddenlyturn very white, and look fixedly for a moment at the window opposite tohis seat.
"Who's that fellow looking in at the window, and making signs to you,Alice? Damn his impudence!" he cried, and jumping up, ran to the window,opened it, and passed out into the twilight. We all looked at each other insurprise; some of the party remarked upon the carelessness of servants inletting nasty-looking fellows hang about the kitchen, others told storiesof tramps and burglars. Mrs. Oke did not speak; but I noticed the curious,distant-looking smile in her thin cheeks.
After a minute William Oke came in, his napkin in his hand. He shut thewindow behind him and silently resumed his place.
"Well, who was it?" we all asked.
"Nobody. I--I must have made a mistake," he answered, and turned crimson,while he busily peeled a pear.
"It was probably Lovelock," remarked Mrs. Oke, just as she might have said,"It was probably the gardener," but with that faint smile of pleasure stillin her face. Except the theatrical cousin, who burst into a loud laugh,none of the company had ever heard Lovelock's name, and, doubtlessimagining him to be some natural appanage of the Oke family, groom orfarmer, said nothing, so the subject dropped.
From that evening onwards things began to assume a different aspect. Thatincident was the beginning of a perfect system--a system of what? Iscarcely know how to call it. A system of grim jokes on the part of Mrs.Oke, of superstitious fancies on the part of her husband--a system ofmysterious persecutions on the part of some less earthly tenant ofOkehurst. Well, yes, after all, why not? We have all heard of ghosts, haduncles, cousins, grandmothers, nurses, who have seen them; we are all a bitafraid of them at the bottom of our soul; so why shouldn't they be? I amtoo sceptical to believe in the impossibility of anything, for my part!
Besides, when a man has lived throughout a summer in the same house with awoman like Mrs. Oke of Okehurst, he gets to believe in the possibility of agreat many improbable things, I assure you, as a mere result of believingin her. And when you come to think of it, why not? That a weird creature,visibly not of this earth, a reincarnation of a woman who murdered herlover two centuries and a half ago, that such a creature should have thepower of attracting about her (being altogether superior to earthly lovers)the man who loved her in that previous existence, whose love for her washis death--what is there astonishing in that? Mrs. Oke herself, I feelquite persuaded, bel
ieved or half believed it; indeed she very seriouslyadmitted the possibility thereof, one day that I made the suggestion halfin jest. At all events, it rather pleased me to think so; it fitted in sowell with the woman's whole personality; it explained those hours and hoursspent all alone in the yellow room, where the very air, with its scent ofheady flowers and old perfumed stuffs, seemed redolent of ghosts. Itexplained that strange smile which was not for any of us, and yet was notmerely for herself--that strange, far-off look in the wide pale eyes. Iliked the idea, and I liked to tease, or rather to delight her with it. Howshould I know that the wretched husband would take such matters seriously?
He became day by day more silent and perplexed-looking; and, as a result,worked harder, and probably with less effect, at his land-improving schemesand political canvassing. It seemed to me that he was perpetuallylistening, watching, waiting for something to happen: a word spokensuddenly, the sharp opening of a door, would make him start, turn crimson,and almost tremble; the mention of Lovelock brought a helpless look, half aconvulsion, like that of a man overcome by great heat, into his face. Andhis wife, so far from taking any interest in his altered looks, went onirritating him more and more. Every time that the poor fellow gave one ofthose starts of his, or turned crimson at the sudden sound of a footstep,Mrs. Oke would ask him, with her contemptuous indifference, whether he hadseen Lovelock. I soon began to perceive that my host was getting perfectlyill. He would sit at meals never saying a word, with his eyes fixedscrutinisingly on his wife, as if vainly trying to solve some dreadfulmystery; while his wife, ethereal, exquisite, went on talking in herlistless way about the masque, about Lovelock, always about Lovelock.During our walks and rides, which we continued pretty regularly, he wouldstart whenever in the roads or lanes surrounding Okehurst, or in itsgrounds, we perceived a figure in the distance. I have seen him tremble atwhat, on nearer approach, I could scarcely restrain my laughter ondiscovering to be some well-known farmer or neighbour or servant. Once, aswe were returning home at dusk, he suddenly caught my arm and pointedacross the oak-dotted pastures in the direction of the garden, then startedoff almost at a run, with his dog behind him, as if in pursuit of someintruder.
"Who was it?" I asked. And Mr. Oke merely shook his head mournfully.Sometimes in the early autumn twilights, when the white mists rose from thepark-land, and the rooks formed long black lines on the palings, I almostfancied I saw him start at the very trees and bushes, the outlines of thedistant oast-houses, with their conical roofs and projecting vanes, likegibing fingers in the half light.
"Your husband is ill," I once ventured to remark to Mrs. Oke, as she satfor the hundred-and-thirtieth of my preparatory sketches (I somehow couldnever get beyond preparatory sketches with her). She raised her beautiful,wide, pale eyes, making as she did so that exquisite curve of shoulders andneck and delicate pale head that I so vainly longed to reproduce.
"I don't see it," she answered quietly. "If he is, why doesn't he go up totown and see the doctor? It's merely one of his glum fits."
"You should not tease him about Lovelock," I added, very seriously. "Hewill get to believe in him."
"Why not? If he sees him, why he sees him. He would not be the only personthat has done so"; and she smiled faintly and half perversely, as her eyessought that usual distant indefinable something.
But Oke got worse. He was growing perfectly unstrung, like a hystericalwoman. One evening that we were sitting alone in the smoking-room, he beganunexpectedly a rambling discourse about his wife; how he had first knownher when they were children, and they had gone to the same dancing-schoolnear Portland Place; how her mother, his aunt-in-law, had brought her forChristmas to Okehurst while he was on his holidays; how finally, thirteenyears ago, when he was twenty-three and she was eighteen, they had beenmarried; how terribly he had suffered when they had been disappointed oftheir baby, and she had nearly died of the illness.
"I did not mind about the child, you know," he said in an excited voice;"although there will be an end of us now, and Okehurst will go to theCurtises. I minded only about Alice." It was next to inconceivable thatthis poor excited creature, speaking almost with tears in his voice and inhis eyes, was the quiet, well-got-up, irreproachable young ex-Guardsman whohad walked into my studio a couple of months before.
Oke was silent for a moment, looking fixedly at the rug at his feet, whenhe suddenly burst out in a scarce audible voice--
"If you knew how I cared for Alice--how I still care for her. I could kissthe ground she walks upon. I would give anything--my life any day--if onlyshe would look for two minutes as if she liked me a little--as if shedidn't utterly despise me"; and the poor fellow burst into a hystericallaugh, which was almost a sob. Then he suddenly began to laugh outright,exclaiming, with a sort of vulgarity of intonation which was extremelyforeign to him--
"Damn it, old fellow, this is a queer world we live in!" and rang for morebrandy and soda, which he was beginning, I noticed, to take pretty freelynow, although he had been almost a blue-ribbon man--as much so as ispossible for a hospitable country gentleman--when I first arrived.