She Painted Her Face

by Dornford Yates

  Some thirteen feet up I made out what looked like a cage, sticking out of the wall. Straining my eyes, I counted four vertical bars, not flush with the wall, but projecting, which meant, of course, that the casement which they were guarding was made to open outwards into the air. This was so much to the good, for while a cage offers a foothold which an ordinary grating denies, its bars are more open to violence than such as pass directly from lintel to sill.

  “Hopeless,” said Elizabeth, quietly. “I thought it was lower than that.”

  “I think I can make it,” I said. “From Herrick’s shoulders, of course. And if there’s nothing doing, I’ve only to drop.” I took off my knapsack and jacket, and rolled up my sleeves. “Can I use a torch with safety, to look at the bars?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “But do be careful,” she said.

  Herrick spoke out of the darkness.

  “I’m prepared to contribute,” he said. “Be sure of that. But I’m not an acrobat. I’m willing to try and carry your fifteen stone, but as soon as you feel me going, you’d better jump. And how d’you propose to begin? Are you going to run up me, or something?”

  I made him take off his knapsack and stand to the wall, and I begged him to hold his peace, because if he made me laugh, we might both come down. Then I turned again to my lady.

  “Once I’m up there,” I said, “we shan’t be able to talk: yet there may be something I find that I want to say: in that case I’ll drop my handkerchief. If I do that, will you climb on to Herrick’s shoulders? And I’ll lean down and tell you whatever it is.”

  “Yes, indeed. But, Richard, you will be careful? Supposing those bars aren’t sound.”

  “I promise to test them,” I said, “before I go up.”

  She was wearing the clothes in which I had seen her first, and she looked very slight and fragile against the bulk of the stronghold by which we stood. I suddenly found it outrageous that she who was the Countess should be standing without her gates, hoping to force an entry, like a thief in the night. And this, I think, made me determined that, somehow or other, I would break into that tower.

  A moment later I was standing on Herrick’s shoulders, with my chisel and a torch in my pockets and both of my hands on the bars.

  These were in good condition, and when I had tried them once, I drew myself up by inches until I had a foot in the cage…

  Within this the window was open. If I could displace but one bar, the trick would be done.

  As I have said, the cage was made of four bars. All four were sunk in the stone above and below the window they were to protect: but the outer two were also tied by crossbars to the window’s jambs. It was, of course, hopeless to try to move either of these, for each was held at six points: but the two middle bars were held at two points only, where top and bottom were bedded into the stone.

  Holding my torch in my teeth, I inspected the four beddings carefully, one by one. There was nothing to choose between them: all were apparently sound. I put my torch away, and tested the bars themselves. The first was not rock-steady: the second, however, might have been a part of the tower.

  Clinging to the cage like some ape, I fought to loosen the first, and when I stopped to take breath, I could move it an eighth of an inch.

  But for the cage, I could never have done what I did. As it was, I could work with freedom, and when I was tired, I could rest: and this without the dragging, deadly oppression of what I will call self-support. Never at any time was I holding my own weight up.

  Without the mallet, the chisel was of no use, and I could not have used them together, because I had to hold on: but by working the bar to and fro, I gradually crushed the cement which was lying within the sockets between the bar and the stone.

  After nearly half an hour this bedding was gone, and I could move the bar sideways a full two inches each way: but wrench it out, I could not, and after a little I knew that its ends had been purposely bent – to defeat the very object I had in view. I could loosen, but I could not displace it, unless I had the strength to pull a stone from the tower.

  Now the bars had been set in the wall four inches apart. By holding my bar to one side I now had a space of six inches between that bar and the next. But that was not wide enough… After a moment or two I began to try to loosen the second bar.

  As well try to shake a statue – or so it seemed. As I have said, the thing was a part of the tower. But after ten frantic minutes I felt it stir.

  I stopped for a moment to rip off my tie and collar and let them drop. Then I fell upon the bar, like a man possessed.

  Herrick told me later that the sweat of my body kept falling as rain-water falls from a tree. If it did, I never knew it. I only knew that the tower was loosing its grip on the second bar. It did so sullenly. Twenty-five minutes went by before I had the sockets clear of cement.

  If I moved the two bars I had loosened as far apart as I could, I now had a space of eight inches through which to pass: but, short of displacing a bar, I could have no more, for the iron of which they were wrought was not to be bent.

  I have sometimes heard said that where a man’s head will enter, there his body can pass. On that exacting night I proved that saying untrue. I could put my head into the cage, but, do what I would, I could not pass my body between the bars.

  God knows I did my best to fight my way in. My shirt was in ribbons about me, my chest and my shoulders were bleeding before I rested for breath – for, now that their chance was come, the bars showed me no mercy, as I had shown them none in the hour that was past.

  Breathing hard and desperate, I shook the sweat from my eyes. To be beaten by a quarter of an inch, after all I had done! Such a thing was unfair and monstrous, not to be borne. And the open window mocked me – my torch had shown me the lavatory basin within, all ready for me to bathe in: the thought of the cool, running water had helped me to launch my frantic attack on the bars. And then Elizabeth Virgil…

  Since I had gained the cage, I had never looked down. She was there below, in the darkness, waiting for me to bring her into her home. I had sworn to myself to do it. I had sworn that I would not look down – until I looked out of the window I could not reach.

  As I turned again to the battle, I heard her voice.

  “Richard, Richard, I beg of you…”

  Three feet below me, I saw her upturned face. She was standing on Herrick’s shoulders, leaning against the wall.

  “What is it?” I whispered. “What is it?”

  “Leave it, Richard. You must. No man could do any more, but it can’t be done.”

  It was the phrase she used that opened my eyes.

  ‘No man could do any more.’ Perhaps. But a woman could.

  “Listen,” I said, “you’ve come in the nick of time. Can you see these bars? The two middle ones are splayed: but I can’t move them farther apart, and I’m too big to get through. But you can pass easily – and the window is open beyond… Very well. In a minute I’m going to lean down and pick you up, but not by your hands – by your belt. Put your hands above your head, as though you were going to dive, and when you come up to the bars just wriggle your way between them and get a knee on the sill.”

  Without a word, she put up her hands, as I said, and I disposed myself as well as I could.

  Had I stayed to reflect, I might not have taken the risk, for if anything had gone wrong, she might have been badly hurt. But I think I was past reflection: to see any way was to take it without a thought.

  Holding fast with my left to a cross-bar, I reached my right hand down until I touched the small of her back. Then I took her by the belt of her breeches and lifted her up.

  She could not have played her part better, if we had rehearsed the manoeuvre a score of times. As she came to the bars, she turned sideways, her back to me: and before I knew where I was, she had taken her weight.

  And then it was all over, and she was within the tower – standing, looking out of the window, with her delicate hands
on the sill.

  For a moment we regarded one another, she as unearthly fair as I was foul.

  Then —

  “What can’t you do?” she said quietly.

  I shall never forget that moment.

  The iron bars were between us, the bars which I could not pass. Like some beast, I was peering between them at a beauty which was not of my world. Corruption surveyed incorruption – and found it his heart’s desire.

  I think it was the bars between us that showed me the startling truth. Any way, in that instant I knew that the service I had offered was worship and that I had been in love with the Countess from the moment, four days before, when she had lain still in the bracken, with her wonderful eyes upon mine. And in that same instant I knew that she was not for me. I had no illusions at all. The gulf between us was so great that it could not be bridged. Tradition, lineage, standing rose up about their mistress, to look me down. And decency tapped my shoulder…

  I knew as well as did she that she could never repay me for all I had done. I had succoured her father and I had saved her life. I wanted no repayment: but that was beside the point – which was that whatever I asked, she was bound to give. I use the word ‘bound’ deliberately. Elizabeth Virgil threw back. To discharge a debt of honour, she would have sold her soul.

  “What can’t you do?” she repeated.

  “When you talk like that,” I said hoarsely, “you make me feel rich.”

  Elizabeth smiled.

  “That was the idea,” she said gently. “Be careful how you get down.”

  5: Rats in a Trap

  I shall not set down in detail the search we made for the ‘doorway which no one would ever find’, for, for one thing, we went about it as any one else would have done, and, for another, almost the whole of our labour was thrown away. But that, I suppose, was inevitable.

  There was the winding stairway, scaling the wall of the tower, and within its coils were the chambers which made the suite. From top to bottom its walls and its steps were of stone, and the flight rose without interruption, except for four landings so slight as scarce to deserve that name. It was very simply built and served or was served by five doorways, not one of which was hidden in any way; and since its form was that of the ordinary winding stair, it was hard to see how any other doorway could really be there, and harder still to divine where such another doorway could possibly lead – for on one hand you had the chambers and, on the other, the wall of the tower itself.

  The door from the courtyard gave to a miniature hall which just accepted the oak when Elizabeth swung it back. This hall was but four feet square and might, in days gone by, have been held by one man against fifty who strove to pass. As you entered the hall, the stairway rose on your right, and, before you, another doorway led to the first of the chambers within the tower. These were three in number, and all would have had the same shape, but for the demands which lavatories and a bathroom had made.

  Hall and apartments were panelled with old black oak, which might have belonged to the chancel of some cathedral church. I never saw woodwork so rich laid up against stone, for it was by no means a skin, as panelling usually is, but was wealthy and massive enough to have made a wall of itself. What with this and the hangings and carpets, which were of crimson throughout, the tower was like the king’s daughter, ‘all glorious within’, and as I passed through the bedroom, to make myself clean, I felt as pretenders must feel when first they assume the purple in which they have not been born.

  Before we did anything else, we bolted the door between the tower and the castle, as well, of course, as the door by which we came in: if the former were found to be fast, whoever tried it would know that somebody was or had been within the tower; but we felt we must take that risk, for otherwise we must keep continual watch and, even though watch were kept, whoever came in might very well come upon us before we were able to profit by the alarm.

  After that, I made for the window whose bars I had forced aside, and roughly replaced the sockets from which the cement was gone; and since before we came in, we had gathered the scraps which had fallen whilst I was at work, there now was nothing to show that the cage had been tampered with.

  Then I joined my lady and Herrick, who were surveying the stair.

  If this was dark by night, it was dim by day, and we could do nothing useful without the help of a torch: so, though we had not brought Brenda with that idea; she had very soon come to Elizabeth’s aid: together they shed the light, whilst Herrick and I conducted the actual search.

  That the work would require great patience was presently clear, for the walls seemed to be as blank as an untouched page, yet we could not believe that a doorway could be concealed in the steps. The panelling could have been hiding a host of openings, and we were naturally tempted to turn our attention to that: but the staircase was not panelled, and we were concerned with the staircase, and not with the rooms.

  You must go up, counting your steps…

  Not until that time did I at all understand the portion confronting the prisoner of ancient days, who set himself to discover a way to break out of this hold: but now I know some of the trials those men endured, for though our case was different, we did as they must have done. The constant chill and the rudeness of naked stone, the furtive light, the anxious fingering of masonry, the whispered consultation, the sudden shock of unfamiliar sounds – of such was our two-day tenure of the great tower of Brief. And indeed I cannot believe that four persons, good or evil, were ever so queerly placed, living and moving in the midst of a country house whose lawful tenants were going about their business, never dreaming of the presence of strangers within their gates.

  (Here perhaps I should say that we had by no means forgotten ‘the son of the house’: but, if Percy Virgil meant mischief, we could scarcely have been in a better or safer place, for, though he should seek us ‘until the cows came home’, it never would enter his head that we were about our business under his father’s roof.)

  It was five o’clock on the Wednesday afternoon when Elizabeth straightened her back and led the way to the bedroom where Brenda had set out some tea.

  We had now been within the tower for thirty-nine hours, for more than thirty of which we had striven to find the doorway with all our might. And we were no nearer our goal than when we had bolted the doors and begun our search. At most, ten hours were left us, for by three on the following morning we must be gone.

  As I stumbled into the bedroom, Herrick opened his mouth.

  “I think we should face the fact that we’re up against Time. We’ve eight hours net before us, and then we must go – for good. I mean, to return would be futile. What we can’t find in fifty hours, we shan’t find in fifty years; and to go on smearing these walls would be wasting valuable time. Besides, there’s the spiritual side. If we did come back, we should come back without our hearts. We should know that our efforts were doomed before we set out. And so we have now eight hours in which to discover a secret we know is there. Myself, I think we should do it: in fact, if we don’t, I shall think the less of myself. When all’s said and done, it’s a question of using one’s brain. And that’s where I think we’ve gone wrong. When our eyes and our hands had failed us, we ought to have let them be: to go on using them was only distracting our brains…Well, I’m going to give mine a show now – before it’s too late.”

  With that he walked into the bathroom, to lave his head and his hands, and I sank down on the bed and did my best to marshal my weary wits.

  “He’s right,” said Elizabeth, slowly. “One always begins the wrong way. Once we’d been over the ground, we ought to have sat down quietly and let our minds play upon the puzzle. You know. Like doing a crossword.”

  “That’s all very well,” said I, accepting some tea from Brenda, who showed no signs of fatigue. “But who could do a crossword without any clues?”

  “We’ve got two clues. We know that a doorway exists: and we know that, to reach that doorway, we’ve got to
go up the stair. If—”

  “My God,” said I, starting up.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  Then —

  “Go on,” said Elizabeth, quietly. “What do you know?”

  “Your father said that there was in the tower a doorway which no one would ever find. And then he used the words ‘You must go up, counting your steps.’ But he never said that the doorway was on the staircase. He said it was in the tower.”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean that we have been looking for a doorway which we can reach from the stair: but we ought to have been looking for something upon the stair which, when we have found it, will disclose where the doorway is.”

  “That’s right,” said Herrick’s voice. “And the stairway bears him out. There is no doorway there – I think we can swear to that. But there is a spring or something which, when we can touch it off, will open some hidden door in another part of the tower.”

  The case was now greatly altered, for though we had sought high and low, when you are looking for a doorway, you naturally do not probe places which could not be hiding a hole more than two inches square. Then again we were now released from the heart-breaking duty of striving with Reason herself, for Reason had continually insisted that, because of its shape and construction, such a stair could not be concealing the kind of opening we sought. Indeed, to say our hopes rose conveys nothing at all. All our weariness left us, and all our anxiety fled. We simply knew that the path we were on was the right one and very soon would bring us up to our goal.

  And so it did.

  Not more than an hour had gone by when I found on the thirty-sixth step a nick which might have belonged to the lid of a pencil box. It was cut in the tread of the step, close to the edge and close to the outer wall. It was choked with a cake of dirt which I had to cut out with my knife, and an obstinate film of dirt was encrusting that side of the tread; but when I had used a wet cloth to rub the stone clean, there were the parallel cracks which I had expected to see. In a word, I had found a panel – a tiny, sliding panel which, if I could draw it towards me, would discover a slot in the tread, three inches by two.