These are her last words.
There was very little else to be found; only a portmanteau filled with singularly fine underclothing and one or two very plain black dresses. In the pocket of the portmanteau was a will, or rather it was not a will, as it was anonymous and not duly attested. It simply says:—
‘In case of my death I bequeath everything of which I am possessed to the Duchesse de Morlaix.’ Signed simply, ‘La Girandola’, and two of the members of her company have signed their names as witnesses.
Then wrapped in a gold broidered silken cloth, a photograph of La Cagliari, in classical costume, with the words of Shelley written on the back:
‘False friend, wilt thou smile or weep
When my life is laid asleep?
Little cares for a smile or a tear
The clay-cold corpse upon the bier:
Farewell! Heigh ho!
What is this whispers low?
There is a snake in thy smile, my dear,
And bitter poison within thy tear.’
After much search, a considerable number of thousand franc notes were found ingeniously sewn up in her dress.
The Viennese doctors put in an appeal to have the corpse given to them for dissection as it was an undoubted case of felo de se. And indeed it would have interested me much to have investigated the conformation of the brain of this abnormal creature.
Before the matter could be decided the Duchesse de Morlaix calmly appropriated the body and had it promptly cremated. So the last resting place of La Girandola is in the garden of the villa of Naples. The urn, containing her ashes, made of solid silver with a Greek design of dancing Bacchantes, stands on a pedestal of serpentine, in a charming classical shrine of alabaster, which gives the effect of extraordinary lightness. The shrine is decorated inside with frescoes, copying the Three Graces from Siena, and a memorial tablet containing the following inscription: in paraphrase from the well-known epigram in the Greek anthology:
‘The earth need not press upon thee,
Who scarcely pressed the earth at all.’
And that is all: no name, no date.
It is very difficult to classify these kinds of cases. Was she insane? No, certainly not, in the ordinary sense of the word. No doctor could say that she ought to have been placed under control. But then at the same time was she wholly responsible for her actions?
I think certainly not.
These cases of morbid pathology are more frequent than most people at all think. For one that comes to light there may be twenty, a hundred perhaps, which excite no one's attention at all. Many people are condemned as criminals and monsters who really cannot help themselves; but then the abnormal is their nature: and indeed, it may be said paradoxically, what is normal and germane to the average healthy person would be to them unnatural.
It may be thought that I have treated this case too much at length: but to myself it seemed particularly interesting as a study of what I have termed before ‘morbid pathology’.
In the first place, her strangeness is ingrained in her: she has not been depraved or corrupted by anyone: nor as will be seen from her diary has she ever dabbled in, or been familiar with, morbid literature.
Then there is also a curious mixture of extreme sensitiveness with a strong will power. Her resolutions are sudden, but they are not spasmodic. She carries them out with all the marvellous cunning of the sane lunatic. She is not ‘stage struck’ and merely kicking over the traces of a too severe education, but without anything previous that might lead up to it, she casts everything to the winds for the sake of one strange passion; and this passion is unique. It burns like a red, fixed star. She has had, and has, no others. To call her a ‘felo de se’ is perhaps unjust: but then if she is not, who is? One could not bring a verdict against her of ‘suicide during temporary insanity.’
No, perhaps it is truer to say, she has been insane all her life. And the same fatality which led her to one thing, led her to another. It may be dreadful to say so, but some people seem actually born to die by their own hand. Her life was a flash and the flame, and would have burnt itself to ashes anyhow, in whatever position she had been placed.
Let us therefore not condemn her. For my part, I have the feeling of profound pity.
(Conversation overheard in a railway carriage.) How I came to eavesdrop or drop-eaves, as the expression may be, is wholly immaterial to this story. I need only say that there are great facilities for observation in an adjoining compartment of a first class railway carriage.
The train was not an express. Indeed, it stopped at every station: that is perhaps why I, being weary of the journey, took to observing my fellow-travellers. But, as I have already said, my personality has no connection with the story. I will proceed at once to describe the occupants of the next compartment.
On the left was seated (back to the engine) a man I suppose quite thirty, but one who would like to look younger. How shall I describe his physiognomy? It was certainly of what is generally called the aristocratic type, but there I am rather doing him an injustice, as the so called aristocratic type is not beautiful: steel grey, hawklike eyes, finely chiselled features, a face that must have been charming in youth; it was not perceptibly modified by wrinkles that looked premature.—I omitted to mention the time was 7 a.m. and it was a slow train on a Belgian railway, which terminated at Brussels.—He was clean shaven, the mouth had, or had developed—I should say had developed—a certain cynical expression particularly disagreeable, yet there was some blue left in the steel grey eyes that showed, if they lighted up, there might still be something of the candour of youth about them. He was reading a local paper called the Ostraekse Antieken, also called Journal de Croix des Petits Champs, written in a mixture of French and Flemish as some Belgian local journals are. He was evidently amused at the advertisements in two languages, obviously understanding the French and making out, from his knowledge of German and kindred tongues, the Flemish.
On the other side of the carriage (forwards to the engine) was seated a lady, so muffled up in furs and a thick veil as to be quite invisible: she was still asleep.
At last he came to read this advertisement, put among the theatrical advertisements, as ecclesiastical ones in Belgium usually are; it read something like this:—
—de 31e Augustus in de Kerk van Onze Lieve Vrouw—
—Solemnele Hoogmis met uitmuntende muziek voor de ziel van Lord Kilcoran.
—demain matin à onze heures aura lieu le Requiem solonnel pour l’anniversaire de la mort tant regrettée du Lord Kilcoran.
—Sans doute plusieurs de nos concitoyens y assisteront, si non pour memoire du trépassé, au moins pour avoir encore l’occasion d’entendre le célebré Requiem de notre compatriote Sybrandt von den Velden, exécuté par l’orchestre excellente de notre ville.
‘By Jove!’ he said aloud, ‘this is the anniversary of Henry's death: and I actually forgot it, passing by the place.’
The woman suddenly unmuffled herself, startled as one hearing a familiar voice: she drew up her veil and dismantled herself somewhat of her sables. She was dressed in deep mourning, very elegant nevertheless, a decidedly good looking, refined woman of about thirty, chiefly remarkable for her really golden hair, and eyes that were a distinct blue.
She said, ‘Alfred!’
He said, ‘Margaret!’—I forget which spoke first. Then she said, ‘Have you really forgotten that it was the anniversary of Henry's death? Then, why are you here?’
He answered, ‘Yes, my dear, I am ashamed to say I had actually forgotten it, only this wretched paper reminded me of it.’
Then she said, ‘How is it you are in this train going to Ostraeke?’
‘Well, my dear, I think you might remember we were going to meet at Brussels,’ and he smiled somewhat cynically and disagreeably, ‘where, if my memory does not fail me, we had the laudable intention of being married. I came by this train to Brussels, with the expectation of finding you there.’
‘Yes,’ s
he said, ‘I am on my way to Brussels too.’ Here she also tried to smile cynically, but failed in the attempt; her whole face wore an expression of pain, but she tried nevertheless to say in a frivolous manner, ‘in common decency it is at least incumbent on me to visit Henry's grave.’
‘You appear to treat the matter as a mere accessory to the elegance of your toilet, as even now on the eve of our nuptials you are dressed in very superior deep mourning.’ This he said with some bitterness, but nevertheless there was an expression of real sorrow on his face.
‘Good heavens! Alfred, what do you mean? Do you think I did not love Henry?’
‘Well considering—’
‘No. I had better tell you frankly at once, I never loved anyone but Henry, my husband, and—’ this she said almost solemnly—‘I have come to see my child.’
Then he said, with a kindly expression which from first sight of his face I should have hardly expected, ‘Yes, of course,—little Siboo; he must come and live with us when we are married. He can't be left any longer with Elizabeth.’
Then there came to her face an expression almost of agony. She took from her neck a locket, in which there was a lock of golden hair, finer and more beautiful than her own; she kissed it, and said,
‘Have you heard about Siboo?’
‘No, what?’ Then, looking disagreeably cynical again, he continued, ‘As you loved your husband I suppose you will naturally love your child also. You are indeed the typical British matron.’
But from the entirely different and almost tender expression of his face, it was not difficult to see that he regretted what he had said. Then he continued in a very soft voice.
‘At least Siboo did not care very much for either of us. He only loved his father.’
Then she said, almost in monotone: ‘Then you did not know,’ (here she smiled somewhat faintly) ‘and how should you, seeing the few letters I have written to you have been nearly all about absolutely common-place matters?’ and then in the same monotonous voice she said, ‘Siboo has become idiotic, ever since the day of Henry's funeral.’
‘Idiotic!’ he said, ‘he was always such a bright little chap. But all the same, that is no reason to neglect him; rather the reverse. I think we should take him out of this Belgian fog to Kilcoran, where he certainly ought to live in any case, since the place is his own.’ His face then looked simply British and commonplace; she said bitterly—with a kind of quinine-like bitterness, I might say—and also very softly, ‘Of course, that is also a thing you do not know.’
‘Really, Margaret, you are too intolerable! What on earth do you mean? Surely it is degrading enough that I, who have so much less riches than you, should be married to you. Do you suppose I wish to cheat the child out of his inheritance? Anyhow,’ he added laughing, ‘I could not if I would, since there can be no doubt Kilcoran belongs to him.’
‘Kilcoran,’ she said in the same monotone, ‘neither belongs to him nor to me; more indeed to me than to him.’
‘What are you talking about? To whom does it belong I should like to know?’ He had then that brutally fierce expression, which men have so frequently towards women, with whom they are familiar. I disliked him again.
But she continued, ‘I suppose we are sort of going to be married, indeed legally married?’
‘It's time we were married,
Too long we have tarried.’
She laughed rather nastily as she said this.
‘I might as well tell you Siboo is not Kilcoran's son.’
‘Not Kilcoran's son? Then whose son is he?’
Certainly, in this case, his face expressed genuine amazement.
‘Again, what do you mean? Henry was devoted to the child, and the child adored Henry, and as you say became idiotic at his funeral. Again I must ask you what the blazes you mean?’
Then she answered quietly with intense bitterness, ‘Do you suppose you have the monopoly of adultery?’
There followed a long silence between them.
At length he said, ‘I will get out at Ostraeke too.’
Just then the train drew up at Ostraeke. He silently helped her out of the carriage. On the platform he said, ‘One thing at least you must tell me. Did Henry know?’
She answered, with still more intense bitterness, ‘Yes.’
PART II
Historical Chronicle
The grandfather of the late Earl Kilcoran left two sons, Michael and Patrick. This was at the time when the penal laws were still in vogue.
The younger brother, Patrick, declaring himself a Protestant, laid claim to the Kilcoran estate.—But there was found a document written in parchment at the time of Queen Elizabeth, to the effect that, as a reward for the Kilcorans having sheltered some Protestant refugees, thenceforward no member of the family by declaring himself a Protestant could claim succession. Naturally there ensued a breach between the two brothers. Michael remained at Kilcoran; and Patrick settled in Ulster, married somewhat late in life, and had one daughter, Elizabeth, who was afterwards married to that well known physician, Sir Joseph Randall, and had one daughter, Dorothy.
Michael also married somewhat late in life, and had one son, Henry; who married Lady Margaret Tremaine, and left one son behind him, named Sybrandt.
PART III
Chapter I
(A little more than one year previously)
Narrative Of Lady Randall
I must begin this narrative by introducing myself. I am a woman; my exact age does not concern the public. It suffices to say that I have a daughter aged about 18, and I was married very early: I am what would be called comely, and also, tho’ it does not concern this story very much, I am the widow of that somewhat famous doctor, Sir Joseph Randall. My name is Elizabeth, as anyone who saw me would guess.—But to begin:
I was staying with my daughter, who was in delicate health at an Hotel in Ostraeke (of all places): first of all because we wanted particularly a quiet place—though I cannot call Ostraeke exactly quiet, as one child in sabots makes more noise than a dozen omnibuses in one town—and secondly because the Hotel was specially recommended to us, and not on the whole undeservedly, I must say, (my allusion to my husband was not wholly irrelevant, as it was from him I acquired habits of observation: indeed I myself am of a very inquisitive turn of mind.) But in this small place there was nothing interesting at all. Yes, the Hotel was certainly good: the table d’hôte was excellent: but we were the table d’hôte—the only people there; with the exception of one other person who never appeared at meals. Consequently my interest was focussed on that particular person: a strange pale faced man, with a settled look of melancholy on his face, whom we frequently saw going out and in. Dorothy—that by the way is my daughter's name—suggested that we might look in the stranger's book to find out who he was; but I thought that sort of thing unfair, tho’ wholly tempted to do so myself. So I severely reprimanded my daughter for her inordinate curiosity. Imagine what a surprise and delight to us to see the person in question at the table d’hôte.
I have already said there was something of strangeness about him. His features bore the traces of his having been extremely handsome at some time. What his age was I could not tell: he might have perhaps been forty, but rather had the look of one prematurely aged; and he possibly might have been less. (Of course I am recording my initial impressions, since I know all about him now, or quite enough.) But to continue.
He was seated at the table d’hôte, where three places were laid: instead of the settled melancholy usual to him his eyes had a look of eager expectation. He was evidently waiting for someone. Just then there entered a woman and a man. How shall I describe them? The woman was, to begin with, dressed in a light blue dress, very well made—for these things a woman always regards first. She was certainly pretty—by saying pretty I mean more than that; the grace of her form and movement struck me at once. But that which sautait aux yeux, as the French say, about her was that she had really golden hair, bound in thick tresses of rather a pe
culiar fashion. The man was tall, and certainly good looking. She came to him, I mean the man I was talking about in my last remark but one: in fact, to avoid all confusion, the melancholy man. She kissed him, and he clapped him on the shoulder amicably, I might almost say tenderly, and made the somewhat common-place remark, ‘How are you, old chap?’
But his only reply was, ‘Where is Siboo?’
And she said, ‘Siboo is upstairs, of course with the nurse.’
Then there was an expression of excessive anxiety on his face: and they took their places at the table d’hôte, and soup was served. I became now still more inquisitive and interested in him than I was before.
Suddenly, the face changed: the face, which I have said had traces of once being handsome, became now almost beautiful; and a child rushed into the room: a child of about 8 or 9 years old. I must attempt to describe him to make my narrative clear; although at first I had hardly the opportunity of seeing his face. A vision of absolute loveliness. I can hardly do justice to him: he had long golden hair (from which I concluded the woman was probably his mother) though the peculiar spun silk texture of his hair was lovelier by far than that of her golden tresses. His eyes were, strange to say, actually violet, with very long curled lashes: with the expression of an adoring angel by Luini. But, as I was saying, he rushed into the room: and I had no time for observation just then. At least I observed that he flew or skated through the room rather than ran, and with one exclamation—‘Papa!’—he threw himself passionately into the arms of the aforesaid melancholy man.
The woman said, ‘You know, Siboo, I told you not to come downstairs: Papa will see you presently.’
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