The House of Dr. Edwardes

by Francis Beeding

  “Why, of course, Mr. Hickett. I quite understand.”

  Constance, drinking her tea, was struck by their unexpected unanimity. Usually they were intent on their own proceedings and ideas, and paid little heed to one another except to get at cross purposes. She had never known Miss Truelow to be so friendly with Mr. Clearwater.

  She became aware that they were all observing her without appearing to do so. She caught, in particular, the eye of Mr. Curtis gazing at her over the edge of his teacup, but his glance shifted uneasily as she looked at him.

  Indeed, they were all making obvious efforts to appear unconcerned, except Miss Collett, who was gazing at her fixedly, her mouth slightly open and her eyes round with expectation.

  Feeling embarrassed, she started a conversation with the Colonel, asking when next he would like a game of golf. But she found it difficult to make progress. The Colonel was so very deferential.

  “Entirely at your service, Madam,” he said. “It’s really most good of you to think of it—a very great honor, Madam, I assure you.”

  And now Mr. Curtis was at her elbow. With a low bow he offered her the dish of macaroons.

  “Thank you, Mr. Curtis,” she said.

  “Not at all,” said Mr. Curtis, “a privilege, Madam, a very great privilege indeed.”

  Constance, refusing the dish with a smile, stole a further glance at the company. They were all looking at her in that curiously expectant manner which she had already noticed.

  Suddenly it became intolerable, and she rose to her feet and faced them.

  “Look at me, all of you,” she commanded.

  They did so with reluctance.

  “Tell me,” she went on, “why are you all behaving like this?”

  “Speak, some of you,” she continued after a pause, “for they still gazed at her silently.

  “Mr. Clearwater, what’s the matter with them all this afternoon?”

  She had appealed to Mr. Clearwater instinctively as an ally. She never thought of him as being quite as mad as the rest. He looked at her now with an expression which she could not understand, but he glanced away, almost at once, to the Reverend Mark Hickett whose burning eyes were fixed upon him with a menacing regard, and to Mr. Curtis who had the appearance of a dog about to spring.

  “Alas, fair lady,” he said.

  He came swiftly round the table till he stood beside her.

  “Tonight,” he went on, “I shall sit in the moonlight under your window and write a hymn to Persephone: how I gathered flowers with her on the plains of Enna till she was rapt away to become—”

  He paused suddenly, threw a startled look over his shoulder, and then, falling on one knee, raised the hem of her frock and pressed it to his lips.

  “My queen,” he murmured, “the queen of us all.”

  “Upon my word, Clearwater,” said the Colonel heartily, “you put it very well. Madam, your humble servant to the death,” and he bowed across the chessboard.

  “I also perhaps shall be of service,” whispered Miss Truelow. “My mother was a lady-in-waiting to the old Queen.”

  “Me, too, me too,” piped Miss Collett. “I will pick some pretty flowers for you every morning and put them in your room.”

  Mr. Curtis bent to her in confidence.

  “Miss Sedgwick,” he said, “if you should think of making any little investment, don’t hesitate to come to me. I would count it an honor.”

  “Madam,” said the Colonel, “there isn’t much that an old soldier can do, but I shall never be far away. Sentry go, by George, and no one shall pass, not while I live.”

  They were all crowding about her now. She put her hand to her head. Were they all mad? But, of course, they were. But this was somehow different.

  She looked hastily about her, as though looking for a way of escape, and saw, to her infinite relief, Mr. Deeling coming slowly down the path towards them.

  “Why, here’s Mr. Deeling,” she said, “and the tea is nearly cold. Miss Collett, do you think you could—”

  But already Miss Collett had anticipated her request and was running away to the servants.

  The others fell back a little and watched Mr. Deeling as he came, with faces which were now expressionless.

  Mr. Curtis pulled out a large gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and consulted it. He turned to the Reverend Mark Hickett.

  “Still three quarters of an hour,” he muttered. “But perhaps I had better be getting ready.”

  The Reverend Mark Hickett glanced furtively to right and left.

  “I’ll come with you, Mr. Curtis,” he said.

  II

  Miss Archer stood for a moment at her window watching the sun sink in majesty behind the rocks.

  For days past she had been blind to her surroundings. All had been dark, and her spirit oppressed with a weight of iniquity, so that at times she had felt it almost more than she could bear. But today the heaviness had lifted. It had not been removed, but had been, so to speak, drawn up a little and suspended above her, so that it had become at once less menacing and more measurable.

  Or she had been as one that lay in a black room for an unknown length of time, and then suddenly, after she had abandoned all hope, someone had passed outside with a lighted candle and the rays had shone beneath the door.

  She knew well that from what she was suffering. She had read it a thousand times. She had been passing now for weeks through that dark night of the soul of which St. John of the Cross spoke, the state in which all seems lost and life a greater horror than death; when God withdraws himself, and the holy angels hide their faces. She had cried in vain to her patron saints, but no one had heard her, not even St. Theresa, who had felt it all hundreds of years before, and who had told it all so minutely.

  And now it was changed. The relief had come just before sundown. She had been lying on her bed, her arms outstretched in the form of a cross, as she had taught herself to do, and suddenly, like some perfume from a garden of spice, peace had entered. She had walked to the window, and there she had seen the sun, and it had seemed to her as though it were a hole pierced in the high wall of heaven to let out the blinding light of the glory within.

  She was gazing upon it now, though her eyes saw nothing, till her withered body, battered with the mortifications of forty years, felt light as summer air, frail as an eggshell, translucent as pearl. No longer, as in her darkest moments, did she feel an old broken woman of sixty, a failure and a fool, a mystic who could not contemplate, one who prayed unheeded prayers, a victim in search of an altar.

  She drew a great breath, and began to pray wordlessly as she had been taught, driving, deliberately, her conscious self down into the depths, out of sight and of memory, where it should lie bound, and thus set free her spirit to commune directly with eternal things.

  She began one or two pious ejaculations, but left them half unsaid, while her spirit fluttered and struggled, and then suddenly broke free, so that at one moment the world swooped out of sight like a shallow dipping below the horizon, and she was alone—a fervid soul that waited and yearned.

  A succession of images drifted across her vision—the colored pavements of heaven and the great seraphim, with their burnished wings, walking two by two down streets of ivory and topaz. She, too, walked with them towards the garden, where the Mother of God sat in her white robe, among her tall lilies with their golden mouths, and the little angels floated about her, singing among the black cypresses and the rose-colored clouds. That for the moment was as far as she could go. Not yet could she turn from the garden and mount the hill where dwelt the living radiance, or steep herself in the water of life which she knew to be flowing there. But the time would come. She had only to perfect herself, to cleanse her soul of iniquity, to make pure her heart. She was nearer now than when she had started.

  She did not hear the key turned in the lock, nor the sudden creak of the door as it opened, nor the footsteps that approached from behind. Even when a cord was flung round her arms
, and they were dragged to her side, she scarcely moved to show that she knew what was happening, and she uttered no sound when she was carried out. Her mind was filled with the vision. She had lost all knowledge of earthly things. Time had ceased. She knew nothing of the long road through the forest by which they carried her, or of the hours in the clearing beside the white stone while they were busy about her. She stood in a garden absorbed in a happiness such as she had never known, and it seemed that the Mother of God smiled at her and beckoned, while about her the colored angels moved in a stately pageant. She could hear thin voices like the murmur of a far-off sea. They were the voices of those who prayed unceasingly to the Mother of God, for the comfort of the afflicted, for the help of Christians.

  And then it seemed to her that a hand was laid on her head and the sweet face smiled down at her and told her to go.

  And she was filled with fear, and asked whither.

  The mouth smiled, and the voice said, “Go, St. Theresa will lead you to my Son.”

  And at these words her heart leapt, and she cried out for joy, and all the angels about her clapped their hands and said, “At last she is worthy. She is going. She will soon be there.”

  And it seemed that she walked beside St. Theresa, the friend of Jesus, in her soiled nun’s robe, with her white face and her burning eyes. And they left the garden and walked hand in hand up the hill towards the Radiance that was burning on the other side of the crest—

  It was then that she was laid upon the white stone. But now she had left the world far behind. Her eyes were closed, her breathing scarcely perceptible. She was now so near the crest. She trembled, but St. Theresa would not let her falter or turn back. She encouraged her with loving words.

  “Soon you shall see Him face to face,” she said. “He is not terrible, the Prince of Light.” …And at that moment the knife fell, and the blood spurted, and her spirit passed to prove the truth of her vision.

  III

  Constance awoke with a start. The blood was drumming in her ears, or so it seemed. Then, for a moment she thought she was on board ship with throbbing engines. She even went so far as to sit up gingerly, as though she was going to hit her head against the top bunk.

  It was stiflingly hot, like a furnace. The bedclothes were intolerable. She swept them off, then sat up and abruptly realized where she was. She was in her own room in Château Landry, in a wide comfortable bed. And there was the moon peering through the window, his round face almost at the full. Why had she woken up? She had been sleeping so soundly too; the first time she had slept decently for nights.

  Her mind switched back to the events of the evening. Doctor Murchison had not appeared at dinner. A message had come from him to the effect that he was too busy, and would Constance—he had called her Constance in the note—have some sandwiches and whisky put out for him on the table in the study. So she had dined alone with Mr. Deeling, and, indeed, she had been very much alone, for he had not spoken a word except occasionally when passing her vegetables or salt. He had sat calmly at the other end of the table, his geometrical features in profound repose. Well, if he liked to behave like that, he must. In his dull way he was altogether too odious for words. She was not, however, going to let herself be put out by Mr. Deeling.

  His attitude was especially annoying, as now she would need, more than ever, his cooperation, Nurse Webster having gone on leave that afternoon. Constance, watching the broad capable back of the nurse as she climbed into the Citroen to be driven down to Thonon, knew that her departure would mean extra work, and yet, oddly enough, she had felt a sense of relief. She was getting more into the swim of things, beginning to feel that she was of some use in Château Landry.

  But what was this drumming in her ears? Was it the height? Surely not, for she must have got used to that by now. There it was again. It was intermittent. She put a finger into her ear and it instantly grew fainter. So the sound was not in her own brain, but came from somewhere outside. She got out of bed and walked with bare feet to the window. It was flung wide and, kneeling on the window seat, she leaned out as far as she could. Yes, there was no doubt of it now. She heard it distinctly, a low monotonous drumming somewhere out in the forest, out in the belt of firs. It was monotonous, and yet not soothing. On the contrary. She felt that, if it went on, she would never sleep again.

  She began to count the beats—nine in rapid succession, then a pause. Then eleven more, more slowly, then five, then nine, and then the whole thing over again. What on earth was it? She had never heard it before. She gazed in the direction of the sound. She could see little except the broad meadow bathed in the moonlight, and, beyond it, the black shadow of the firs. Everything was utterly still. There was not a breath of wind and nothing moved. She might have been upon a dead planet, the last living creature of an arid world, except for that throbbing in the heart of the wood.

  And then, even as she strained her eyes in a vain effort, the drumming ceased abruptly, as if someone had torn the drum from the drummer, or struck him down from behind, and there was utter silence.

  Constance remained at the window, staring. It was not quite still, there was something moving there on the edge of the belt of shadows, something which gradually took form and shape in the moonlight. It was a man, dressed in something long and black, and he moved across the moonlit grass like an unclean shadow.

  Once he stopped, and Constance saw the white flash of his face as he lifted it to the sky, but he was too far off for her to see who it was. He paused, stretched out his arms a moment and gave a single cry, meaningless, without any human note in it, like the mechanical noise of a machine. Then he dropped his head and started towards the castle, moving with a long, slow stride. There was something in one of his hands.

  Constance turned and left the window abruptly. She threw on a dressing gown and, thrusting her feet into slippers, opened her door and moved quickly into the passage. Who could be prowling round the castle at this time of night? She would go downstairs and see. She moved along the passage, her dressing gown rustling about her. She turned a corner and stood in the other corridor which ran at right angles to the one off which her room was situated. This was the corridor in which most of the patients had their rooms.

  Constance moved down it towards the staircase.

  As she passed the door of Mr. Curtis’ room she had a sudden shock, for the door stood ajar. She paused, then, making up her mind, seized the handle, and, pushing the door gently open, looked inside.

  The room was empty.

  She paused again, bewildered for a moment by her discovery. How on earth could Mr. Curtis have got out?

  She moved on again towards the staircase, repeating to herself: “I locked all the doors, I know I did. I could swear to it.”

  She was at the head of the staircase now, peering over the banisters into the blackness, while she fumbled with the switch which controlled the electric alarm bells beneath each stair. To her astonishment she found that someone had switched them off before she had got there. Who could have done that?

  She went on again down the stairs into the darkness below, her feet in their soft slippers making no noise on the broad oak boards. Not a creak betrayed her presence. At last she was in the hall. She did not pause, but went straight towards the main door of the castle, feeling her way gingerly, with her hands stretched out in front of her, for it was very dark, and in her haste she had forgotten to bring a candle.

  It seemed to her that the hall would never end. What was she doing? She felt like an insect enclosed in a great wooden box, where everything was black. The darkness was solid about her. Nowhere would it ever break. It was like a wall, so that she wondered how it was possible to move so easily through it.

  And then it gave way. Just ahead there was a thin slip of light not five yards in front of her. It grew broader, a beam of moonlight, admitting the silver world outside and the peace of the upland meadow surrounding this fever spot of a castle.

  The door was opening slowly. Consta
nce came to an abrupt stop. Then, as the door continued to open, she moved instinctively to the side, crouching against the wall.

  A figure stood in the patch of moonlight. It was the figure she had seen out in the meadow a few minutes before. It was dressed in a long, black sleeveless robe, and on its head was a cap, fitting close to the skull, covering the ears and the back of the neck and blazoned with signs which she could not read. In its hand was a knife. It stopped a moment in the opening of the door, then began to move forward stealthily. She could hear its suppressed breathing. It was now right inside, and, as it turned to close the door behind it, she saw its face in profile. It was Mr. Curtis. His eyes in the light of the moon had a sated, drowsy look.

  Then the door was shut, and she was in darkness again. At that moment the heel of one of her slippers, swinging loosely from her foot, tapped once upon the floor. The sound seemed louder than it was, but loud or soft it was enough.

  “Is that you, Stimson?” said a voice from where she had last seen Mr. Curtis.

  She heard him move in the darkness and the sound of his heavy breathing.

  “Stimson, I told you to remain in your room. What are you doing there?

  “Answer me, damn you. I know what it is. You’ve been spying on me, Stimson, and I’m going to cut your treacherous throat for you.”

  The darkness broke again. There was a slip of silver that widened under her eyes. He was opening the door so that he might see.

  The moonlight streamed into the hall again, and he saw her at once, where she crouched, a white figure with dark hair. For a moment she was numb with terror. Then, with a supreme effort, she checked the cry which rose to her lips.

  She drew herself up, and, stepping forward, stretched out a hand.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Curtis?” she said, trying to assume a note of authority.

  Mr. Curtis paused, the knife in his hand upraised, his eyes blazing. Constance, with a violent effort, stilled the quivering of her mouth.