Cordelia Pierpont Buchanan’s face was flushed, her eyes moist with salt tears. Outside, beyond the patterned lace from the Continent which accented the windows of her comfortable home, rain from thick gray clouds hid the vista of bright-flowered Washington Square. She turned from the gloom and surveyed the sitting room. Fine sculpture, paintings, expensively-bound leather editions of poetry, furnishings worthy of the finest houses in Europe, servants, she was surrounded by fine amenities worthy of her class, but the hues of the room suggested only the dusky twilight of some bleak October.
She had money and property, her father’s swift dealings and her mother’s inheritance had seen to that. And she, befitting her station, attended luncheons and the theater, and the balls—
That’s where she met Denis. At a spring gala on the roof of Madison Square Garden. She well recalled the sprightly music, the dancers whirling; the champagne—an excellent year; the spiritualist, Eva C., and her mysterious mediumistic energy (Fakery, hocus pocus, many harshly stated after her demonstration, but Cordelia delighted in the romantic imagination at play.); the expensive, flamboyant costumes—Denis with his cigar and sword, in a Venetian mask of canary silk and matching cape, a Musketeer from the pages of some romantic fable; the risqué conversation with Evelyn Nesbit about Yvrain’s robust nudes, “And there is, Yvrain’s friend, Denis—Quite handsome and charming. He’s said to be quiet popular among the Bohemian young women of Paris.”
She should have stayed home and read the essays on Ibsen in Emma Goldman’s The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. But Cordelia attended, and drawn to him—instantly infatuated, she laughed and danced in his arms and fell under his spell. Some termed the liaison scandalous, but she cared not. Cordelia heard the whispers regarding his past—a libertine with a host of unscrupulous dealings on the Continent, one of Them. She knew what lay behind the polite smiles and sudden silences, but she listened only to her captured-heart. “Prudence and propriety be damned!” it cried.
Eight months later they were engaged to be married. And with the full force of her womanhood she loved him. Naked in his embraces, freely giving herself over to carnal sensation, she found no shame in the union. Naked before his eyes—blushing not, posing for his poetic strokes upon bold canvas she entertained only adoration for his genius. Their conversations were easy exchanges of promised bliss. And when he was gone from her she reveled in the hours spent in her boudoir delighting in thoughts of “Our happiness”.
And so it had gone for eleven ecstatic months. She, transformed, with her idyllic plans, and he, all artistic urges and impulses, creating beauty in his studio on the Lower East Side. Of course she visited, but never unannounced; to disturb him would be unthinkable. And when he found time he returned to her, those nights and afternoons, waltzes of uncontrollable desires, filled her heart with thrilling souvenirs. Color returned to her complexion and the nervous flutter over lost love passed. She felt young again.
When he was absent she whispered his name, and waited for to-morrow. Obsessed with the silken heat of his touch, she walked from room to room, wearing his promises like the rarest jewels.
But this? This?—Now?
Thirty-four—feeling centuries older—and still unmarried. And with this notice in her hand she feared she never would be.
Well, if She wanted him, she could have him. Let them be together. They planned to do away with her, to turn her mind with a yellow bound book he had given to her; a book said to drive all who read it into the maelstrom of madness, and many, to their death. Cordelia, who simply hadn’t the heart to spoil his birthday surprise for her by telling him she already owned the volume, saw Denis as he handed her the slim volume—“I am told it is fabulously delicious! It was banned in Paris—Every copy is said to have been confiscated, and promptly burned. They say this drama drives its readers into every manner of derangement. Imagine . . . Something banned in Paris? How delightfully curious.” The conspiring lovers hoped, besieged by the poetic lines of death and suffering, she would take her own life.
‘Be done with her as we planned . . .’
And a mere three months ago, she, without a living relative to survive her, had had a new will put in place, leaving him in possession of the totality of her very comfortable holdings.
Cordelia had suffered in the past—Denis was well aware of her agonies; the wicked tribulations, the infamy of betrayal and the unconscionable lies heaped upon her by other lovers. Denis knew, for she had told him, holding nothing of herself back, she had lingered in the delirium of denial and those moments like a coma of melancholia, until her lurking suspicions of treachery were confirmed. There had been a writer, then a poet, each drawn to her beauty, and she was later to discover, the money left her by her father. Each in their time, drifted from her, and finding themselves suffering delusions unchecked, although she hired prominent alienists to attend them, took their own lives.
Her head down, her distress turned to anger—
‘Be done with her as we planned . . .’
Cordelia saw the words. They were a threatening knife. A change of fortunes would have to be fashioned.
With the letter in hand, she climbed the flights of stairs to the attic. At the far end she knelt before a heavy chest which had once belonged to her father. Setting the letter on the floor in a sliver of sunlight, Cordelia removed a key from its hiding place beneath the carpet and opened the chest.
Had it come to this?
There was a shadow in the corner beside her. Thin and long and bent, a wicked mockery of a man. The true silhouette of her lover, or the manifestation of some miserable curse? she wondered. The ghastly impulses which had possessed her parents—bringing them to a bloody murder/suicide—had been unrestrained evil, and this continuing affliction of unfaithful lovers she suffered, was this family cursed?
She took the object of onyx and gold from its velvet-lined case. Rising from her knees she stepped to a small bookcase which held a dozen copies of Le Roi en Jaune. Her finger caressed the spine of one copy. Denis and his trollop would have her where reason ebbs—and dead . . . “Never!” she shouted to the mocking shadow as she rushed from the attic.
~*~
They had spent an hour in each other’s arms. He rose kissed her brow, and without looking at her, promptly left the room. Denis was more than quite content with Cordelia’s distance as they lay together. He believed the lack of unbridled vigor in her lovemaking was caused by the play beginning its work upon her.
Denis stood to the side of the doorway. With his heart pounding and a conspirator’s hot blood rushing through him, he listened to her read from the outlawed drama. First, her voice soft and weary, then sharp, almost shrill, as if terrified. He smiled to himself and thought of his beloved, E——. Soon they would be here together. Soon all this, and more, would be theirs.
Cordelia knew he lurked, as darkly as Poe’s demented murderer in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, just beyond the casement. So she performed for him, just as she had in bed, thought it took little in the way of acting to dim the flames of her carnal appetites. It was all too easy to feint some degree of derangement. She was confident she had adequately concealed her design and he now believed her to be succumbing to the poison text he had given her on her recent birthday.
But as he listened, the strange, monstrous words began to vex him and he dashed from his post. Although he had only heard a scant few lines, he understood why the French authorities had declared the drama unwholesome and vile. Two glasses of scotch to quiet his nerves and he still could not drive the chilling words from his mind. Denis was more certain than ever their plan would work; no one could possibly confront the whole of Le Roi en Jaune and retain their mental balance. And if she did not—would not—do way with herself, he could always push her from an upstairs window and claim she jumped. With the book as evidence who would doubt her derangement. Cordelia’s housekeeper and serving maid would testify to her having read it, and he knew she had told at least two friends she owned a copy.
It was obvious to him she was on the path; all he need do was wait.
~*~
The afternoon was suitably cold and windy under gray skies. She quietly laughed to herself, thinking only fog and drizzle could appoint her stage more fittingly. Cordelia stepped from the cab and looked at the flourish of tattered urchins darting along Delancey Street. She was seeking just the right messenger. A few curious young girls spattered in dirt passed and stared, but she quickly waved them away. Cordelia surveyed the faces of those without means. There he was, a boy, deathly-thin and skin paled by lack of nutrition. Cordelia hailed him and he approached.
“I have a task for you.”
The boy nodded his interest.
“You will take these to the following address and give them to Mister Denis ——. You will say to him, This is a gift from your beloved, Cassilda, who waits for you in dim Carcosa. You will then reveal this object and say, Behold the Yellow Sign. You will leave it and then depart. Can you do this?”
He nodded rapidly and smiled at the bill in her hand. Cordelia handed him five dollars and the address. His eyes flashed and he bowed deeply to her.
The boy knocked and waited. After a time he knocked again.
A fleshy young woman, resembling one of the parading whores who lustily cooed and offered their charms when the streets were darkened, opened the door. “Yes,” she hissed.
“I have a delivery for Mr. Denis ——.”
“I’ll take it,” she snapped.
“Sorry, Miss, but I was told I have to give to himself.”
E—— admitted the boy into the studio. Denis was standing over an unmade cot and buttoning his shirt. His feet were bare.
“Who is this!”
“A delivery for you, Sir. A fine lady paid me to bring it.”
Denis looked at E——. She looked at him and shrugged.
“What lady? Her name boy?”
“She didn’t say, Sir. She was thin, she was—like my mother, and dressed very fine. Had light hair like sunlight, and soft brown eyes.”
Denis knew it was Cordelia.
“She said to tell you, ‘This is a gift from your beloved, Cassilda, who waits for you in dim Carcosa.’”
“Waste no more of my time, boy. Give me what she sent and be gone!” His hand was out.
The boy uncovered the onyx and yellow gold ring Cordelia had given him to deliver and thrust it into Denis’ hand. “‘Behold the Yellow Sign.’” Handing a parcel wrapped in brown paper, which appeared to be a book, to E—— the boy dashed from the studio.
Denis looked at the ring. “The Yellow Sign?” He turned the ring in his fingers and looked at the scorpion-like engraving in the onyx face. “She’s sent me the Yellow Sign.” He laughed and showed E—— the ring.
She looked at him and smiled. “It’s working. She sent you this! The play begins to exact its toll.”
Denis had to agree, the proof of Cordelia’s blooming derangement rested in his hand. “Cassilda,” he murmured before breaking into quiet laughter. He knew the name was one from the play. Listening outside of Cordelia’s bedroom he’d heard her speak some of the character’s lines.
After unwrapping the copy of Le Roi en Jaune and showing it to E——, the pair discussed their future. Their manipulation had taken hold, Cordelia thought she was Cassilda. Denis put the ring and the play on a shelf and sweeping E—— up in his arms carried her to the cot to finish what the boy had interrupted.
~*~
Timing the appearance of her episodes, Cordelia performed for Denis over the next two weeks. She quoted passages from the play, and called him Thale once when they lay together. At odd moments she seemed gripped by inexplicable compulsions. Twice at the breakfast table she asked if he knew how many of the great talents who had committed suicide had used knives. “I should think poison is less of a bother,” she stated flatly before he could reply. In the library one afternoon she stood by the window for nearly an hour, waiting, she claimed, to watch a wondrous parade of furies led by Hecate and Thanatos pass by. She played at being bemused and forgetful, mumbled abominable vagaries—naming dead Carcosa and the ebon light of the Hyades, and during supper one evening threw a quizzical tantrum before falling into a deep melancholia which lasted for three days.
Denis was delighted, but began to express what he felt was the appropriate amount of concern for her to the servants. He worked hard to distance himself from culpability.
Seeing his plan working so well and so quickly he returned to his studio and E——, only to find her sobbing. The book he had placed on the shelf lay open on the cot, and E——, naked, smeared in painted distortions of the foul symbol on the ring, lay in shallow ponds of spilled paint on the floor of the razed studio. At the sound of his entrance she wheeled, wide-eyed and raving.
“You’ve been with Her! Admit it! You’ve been fucking her!”
She flew to him, fists battering his chest and shoulders.
“Admit it! Admit it.”
Her fists were at her sides. She seemed to be struggling with herself. Her eyes darted from him to the cot and she mumbled, “You were mine. Only mine.” Then her gaze caught the unhinging curves of the Yellow Sign on the ring she wore and her offensive resumed.
Denis was quick to attempt to arrest her aggression with a bear hug and a calming denial, but E—— was utterly possessed. With a knee to his groin, she freed herself from his hold. She stood before him and screamed, “You’ve been fucking her! How could you betray me?”
Without warning E—— picked up a chisel and slashed his chest. Astounded by the attack Denis stood there in shock as she plunged the instrument into his abdomen. Only when he lay bleeding on the floor did he recover enough to attempt to crawl away. But now a feral beast was upon him, repeatedly plunging the instrument into his back.
Denis lay there, bleeding and battered he felt himself slipping away.
Then she stood above him with a knife he sometimes used for whittling. Tears were in his lover’s eyes as she slit his throat, and severed his genitals. “This was mine! You gave it to Her! How could you? It was mine!”
As his body cooled afternoon passed into evening. E—— sat on the floor beside him and rocked like an exaggeration of a frightened, angry child—arms tightly crossed, hands upon her shoulders, chin to chest. She shook and shivered, and sometimes lay in a tight ball, her nails digging into her upper arms. Many were the low-toned moans that sounded like the distant whining of a wounded dog. Minutes would pass in silence then she would suddenly whisper long commentaries spiked with protests of disbelief and cruelty. At times E—— rose and paced circles around him, cursing his infidelity. She hurled paintbrushes and palette knives at him and poked him with broken pieces of canvas frames. She spat upon him, and kicked his lifeless shell, and then would lie beside him, holding him tightly, and cry.
Some hours passed before her demented outbursts subsided. E—— looked upon that which her rage had wrought and screamed. Shocked and confused she examined her bloody hands and the ring she wore. In a moment overcome with horror and grief she rushed to the window and jumped.
~*~
The wind in the cemetery sounded like a choir of solemn mourners passing the earthen temples of those dissolved. Cordelia walked along the manicured promenades, from fiancé’s grave to fiancé’s grave to fiancé’s grave, placing a single, wilted yellow rose upon each marker. They, gone from her, were now and forever death’s true companions. With word and line and stroke they had sought to uncover beauty and expose truth. She wondered what pageants their talents had discovered in doom’s yard.
In the failing light of late afternoon, smiling, gratified by her ability to uncover and deal with fabrications, she sat on a bench which overlooked the valley the perfidious trio, once, each in his time, her beloved, resided in. As if they were favored children just put to bed, Cordelia began to read to them from a well-worn copy of her favorite drama, Le Roi en Jaune.
“‘We have not any secrets
anymore,
For schemes and plots and plans and all device
Have now worn old and thin, till time hath stopped.’”
The current of her quiet laughter echoed softly in death’s garden. Three disloyal beaus and their adulterous harlots justly dispatched, and to-morrow was another gala . . .
Perhaps—
Cordelia’s Song (Unpublished poem)
Cordelia, now alone, deceived.
So in love,
a moment ago,
so ready to leave behind madness and strife,
a moment ago,
so ready for life . . .
But THESE love-lies uncovered—
Her bold Denis, in the arms of another?
He and his willing whore, planning to steal her soul
With the madness of the King’s play . . .
Yet another dream broken. Yet another lover unfaithful.
Matters of the heart, how they play on the mind.
They have sent her the Yellow Sign,
hoping to infect her mind.
They’ve unmasked,
hoping to make her death’s quarry.
But she knows the Dark One,
His flame is her flame
For she has already seen the Yellow Sign;
breathed in all the grief and shame;
sent it;
knows its shifts of light, its silence;
walked along Carcosa’s cold, lonely shores.
Yet another dream broken. Yet another lover unfaithful.
Matters of the heart, how they play on the mind.
She will not be broken. She will not fade.
She will send THEM the Sign wrapped in words!
They, not she,
shall find the agony in shadows.
They, not she,
shall spend their hours in death revealed.
The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1 Page 10