by Saki
‘I was thinking of the spiriting away of human beings rather than pictures. In particular I was thinking of the case of my aunt, Crispina Umberleigh.’
‘I remember hearing something of the affair,’ said the Journalist, ‘but I was away from England at the time. I never quite knew what was supposed to have happened.’
‘You may hear what really happened if you will respect it as a confidence,’ said the Wine Merchant. ‘In the first place I may say that the disappearance of Mrs Umberleigh was not regarded by the family entirely as a bereavement. My uncle, Edward Umberleigh, was not by any means a weak-kneed individual, in fact in the world of politics he had to be reckoned with more or less as a strong man, but he was unmistakably dominated by Crispina; indeed I never met any human being who was not frozen into subjection when brought into prolonged contact with her. Some people are born to command; Crispina Mrs Umberleigh was born to legislate, codify, administrate, censor, license, ban, execute, and sit in judgment generally. If she was not born with that destiny she adopted it at an early age. From the kitchen regions upwards every one in the household came under her despotic sway and stayed there with the submissiveness of molluscs involved in a glacial epoch. As a nephew on a footing of only occasional visits she affected me merely as an epidemic, disagreeable while it lasted, but without any permanent effect; but her own sons and daughters stood in mortal awe of her; their studies, friendships, diet, amusements, religious observances, and way of doing their hair were all regulated and ordained according to the august lady’s will and pleasure. This will help you to understand the sensation of stupefaction which was caused in the family when she unobtrusively and inexplicably vanished. It was as though St Paul’s Cathedral or the Piccadilly Hotel had disappeared in the night, leaving nothing but an open space to mark where it had stood. As far as was known nothing was troubling her; in fact there was much before her to make life particularly well worth living. The youngest boy had come back from school with an unsatisfactory report, and she was to have sat in judgment on him the very afternoon of the day she disappeared – if it had been he who had vanished in a hurry one could have supplied the motive. Then she was in the middle of a newspaper correspondence with a rural dean in which she had already proved him guilty of heresy, inconsistency, and unworthy quibbling, and no ordinary consideration would have induced her to discontinue the controversy. Of course the matter was put in the hands of the police, but as far as possible it was kept out of the papers, and the generally accepted explanation of her withdrawal from her social circle was that she had gone into a nursing home.’
‘And what was the immediate effect on the home circle?’ asked the Journalist.
‘All the girls bought themselves bicycles; the feminine cycling craze was still in existence, and Crispina had rigidly vetoed any participation in it among the members of her household. The youngest boy let himself go to such an extent during his next term that it had to be his last as far as that particular establishment was concerned. The elder boys propounded a theory that their mother might be wandering somewhere abroad, and searched for her assiduously, chiefly, it must be admitted, in a class of Montmartre resort where it was extremely improbable that she would he found.’
‘And all this while couldn’t your uncle get hold of the least clue?’
‘As a matter of fact he had received some information, though of course I did not know of it at the time. He got a message one day telling him that his wife had been kidnapped and smuggled out of the country; she was said to be hidden away, in one of the islands off the coast of Norway I think it was, in comfortable surroundings and well cared for. And with the information came a demand for money; a lump sum was to be handed over to her kidnappers and a further sum of £2,000 was to be paid yearly. Failing this she would be immediately restored to her family.’
The Journalist was silent for a moment, and then began to laugh quietly.
‘It was certainly an inverted form of holding to ransom,’ he said.
‘If you had known my aunt,’ said the Wine Merchant, ‘you would have wondered that they didn’t put the figure higher.’
‘I realise the temptation. Did your uncle succumb to it?’
‘Well, you see, he had to think of others as well as himself. For the family to have gone back into the Crispina thraldom after having tasted the delights of liberty would have been a tragedy, and there were even wider considerations to be taken into account. Since his bereavement he had unconsciously taken up a far bolder and more initiatory line in public affairs, and his popularity and influence had increased correspondingly. From being merely a strong man in the political world he began to be spoken of as the strong man. All this he knew would be jeopardised if he once more dropped into the social position of the husband of Mrs Umberleigh. He was a rich man, and the £2,000 a year, though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price to pay for the boarding-out of Crispina. Of course, he had severe qualms of conscience about the arrangement. Later on, when he took me into his confidence, he told me that in paying the ransom, or hush-money as I should have called it, he was partly influenced by the fear that if he refused it the kidnappers might have vented their rage and disappointment on their captive. It was better, he said, to think of her being well cared for as a highly valued paying-guest in one of the Lofoden Islands than to have her struggling miserably home in a maimed and mutilated condition. Anyway he paid the yearly instalment as punctually as one pays a fire insurance, and with equal promptitude there would come an acknowledgment of the money and a brief statement to the effect that Crispina was in good health and fairly cheerful spirits. One report even mentioned that she was busying herself with a scheme for proposed reforms in Church management to be pressed on the local pastorate. Another spoke of a rheumatic attack and a journey to a “cure” on the mainland, and on that occasion an additional eighty pounds was demanded and conceded. Of course it was to the interest of the kidnappers to keep their charge in good health, but the secrecy with which they managed to shroud their arrangements argued a really wonderful organisation. If my uncle was paying a rather high price, at least he could console himself with the reflection that he was paying specialists’ fees.’
‘Meanwhile had the police given up all attempts to track the missing lady?’ asked the Journalist.
‘Not entirely; they came to my uncle from time to time to report on clues which they thought might yield some elucidation as to her fate or whereabouts, but I think they had their suspicions that he was possessed of more information than he had put at their disposal. And then, after a disappearance of more than eight years, Crispina returned with dramatic suddenness to the home she had left so mysteriously.’
‘She had given her captors the slip?’
‘She had never been captured. Her wandering away had been caused by a sudden and complete loss of memory. She usually dressed in the style of a superior kind of charwoman, and it was not so very surprising that she should have imagined that she was one, and still less that people should accept her statement and help her to get work. She had wandered as far afield as Birmingham, and found fairly steady employment there, her energy and enthusiasm in putting people’s rooms in order counter-balancing her obstinate and domineering characteristics. It was the shock of being patronisingly addressed as “my good woman” by a curate, who was disputing with her where the stove should be placed in a parish concert hall, that led to the sudden restoration of her memory. “I think you forget who you are speaking to,” she observed crushingly, which was rather unduly severe, considering she had only just remembered it herself.’
‘But,’ exclaimed the Journalist, ‘the Lofoden Island people! Who had they got hold of?’
‘A purely mythical prisoner. It was an attempt in the first place by some one who knew something of the domestic situation, probably a discharged valet, to bluff a lump sum out of Edward Umberleigh before the missing woman turned up; the subsequent yearly instalments were an unlooked-for increment to the original
haul.
‘Crispina found that the eight years’ interregnum had materially weakened her ascendency over her now grown-up offspring. Her husband, however, never accomplished anything great in the political world after her return; the strain of trying to account satisfactorily for an unspecified expenditure of sixteen thousand pounds spread over eight years sufficiently occupied his mental energies. Here is Belgrad and another Custom house.’
The Wolves of Cernogratz
‘Are there any old legends attached to the castle?’ asked Conrad of his sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical family.
The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders.
‘There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are not difficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there is a story that when any one dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and the wild beasts in the forest howl the night long. It would not be pleasant to listen to, would it?’
‘It would be weird and romantic,’ said the Hamburg merchant.
‘Anyhow, it isn’t true,’ said the Baroness complacently; ‘since we bought the place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. When the old mother-in-law died last spring-time we all listened, but there was no howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the place without costing anything.’
‘The story is not as you have told it,’ said Amalie, the grey old governess. Every one turned and looked at her in astonishment. She was wont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, never speaking unless some one spoke to her, and there were few who troubled themselves to make conversation with her. Today a sudden volubility had descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, looking straight in front of her and seeming to address no one in particular.
‘It is not when any one dies in the castle that the howling is heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves came from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before the death hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their lairs in this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers say there would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling in chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village and all the farms round would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as the soul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But for a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would fall. Oh, no.’
There was a note of defiance, almost of contempt, in her voice as she said the last words. The well-fed, much-too-well-dressed Baroness stared angrily at the dowdy old woman who had come forth from her usual and seemly position of effacement to speak so disrespectfully.
‘You seem to know quite a lot about the von Cernogratz legends, Fräulein Schmidt,’ she said sharply; ‘I did not know that family histories were among the subjects you are supposed to be proficient in.’
The answer to her taunt was even more unexpected and astonishing than the conversational outbreak which had provoked it.
‘I am a von Cernogratz myself,’ said the old woman, ‘that is why I know the family history.’
‘You a von Cernogratz? You?’ came in an incredulous chorus.
‘When we became very poor,’ she explained, ‘and I had to go out and give teaching lessons, I took another name; I thought it would be more in keeping. But my grandfather spent much of his time as a boy in this castle, and my father used to tell me many stories about it, and, of course, I knew all the family legends and stories. When one has nothing left to one but memories, one guards and dusts them with especial care. I little thought when I took service with you that I should one day come with you to the old home of my family. I could wish it had been anywhere else.’
There was silence when she finished speaking, and then the Baroness turned the conversation to a less embarrassing topic than family histories. But afterwards, when the old governess had slipped away quietly to her duties, there arose a clamour of derision and disbelief.
‘It was an impertinence,’ snapped out the Baron, his protruding eyes taking on a scandalised expression; ‘fancy the woman talking like that at our table. She almost told us we were nobodies, and I don’t believe a word of it. She is just Schmidt and nothing more. She has been talking to some of the peasants about the old Cernogratz family, and raked up their history and their stories.’
‘She wants to make herself out of some consequence,’ said the Baroness; ‘she knows she will soon be past work and she wants to appeal to our sympathies. Her grandfather, indeed!’
The Baroness had the usual number of grandfathers, but she never, never boasted about them.
‘I dare say her grandfather was a pantry boy or something of the sort in the castle,’ sniggered the Baron; ‘that part of the story may be true.’
The merchant from Hamburg said nothing; he had seen tears in the old woman’s eyes when she spoke of guarding her memories – or, being of an imaginative disposition, he thought he had.
‘I shall give her notice to go as soon as the New Year festivities are over,’ said the Baroness; ‘till then I shall be too busy to manage without her.’
But she had to manage without her all the same, for in the cold biting weather after Christmas, the old governess fell ill and kept to her room.
‘It is most provoking,’ said the Baroness, as her guests sat round the fire on one of the last evenings of the dying year; ‘all the time that she has been with us I cannot remember that she was ever seriously ill, too ill to go about and do her work, I mean. And now, when I have the house full, and she could be useful in so many ways, she goes and breaks down. One is sorry for her, of course, she looks so withered and shrunken, but it is intensely annoying all the same.’
‘Most annoying,’ agreed the banker’s wife sympathetically; ‘it is the intense cold, I expect, it breaks the old people up. It has been unusually cold this year.’
‘The frost is the sharpest that has been known in December for many years,’ said the Baron.
‘And, of course, she is quite old,’ said the Baroness; ‘I wish I had given her notice some weeks ago, then she would have left before this happened to her. Why, Wappi, what is the matter with you?’
The small, woolly lapdog had leapt suddenly down from its cushion and crept shivering under the sofa. At the same moment an outburst of angry barking came from the dogs in the castle-yard, and other dogs could be heard yapping and barking in the distance.
‘What is disturbing the animals?’ asked the Baron.
And then the humans, listening intently, heard the sound that had roused the dogs to their demonstrations of fear and rage; heard a long-drawn whining howl, rising and falling, seeming at one moment leagues away, at others sweeping across the snow until it appeared to come from the foot of the castle walls. All the starved, cold misery of a frozen world, all the relentless hunger-fury of the wild, blended with other forlorn and haunting melodies to which one could give no name, seemed concentrated in that wailing cry.
‘Wolves!’ cried the Baron.
Their music broke forth in one raging burst, seeming to come from everywhere.
‘Hundreds of wolves,’ said the Hamburg merchant, who was a man of strong imagination.
Moved by some impulse which she could not have explained, the Baroness left her guests and made her way to the narrow, cheerless room where the old governess lay watching the hours of the dying year slip by. In spite of the biting cold of the winter night, the window stood open. With a scandalised exclamation on her lips, the Baroness rushed forward to close it.
‘Leave it open,’ said the old woman in a voice that for all its weakness carried an air of command such as the Baroness had never heard before from her lips.
‘But you will die of cold!’ she expostulated.
‘I am dying in any case,’ said the voice, ‘and
I want to hear their music. They have come from far and wide to sing the death-music of my family. It is beautiful that they have come; I am the last von Cernogratz that will die in our old castle, and they have come to sing to me. Hark, how loud they are calling!’
The cry of the wolves rose on the still winter air and floated round the castle walls in long-drawn piercing wails; the old woman lay back on her couch with a look of long-delayed happiness on her face.
‘Go away,’ she said to the Baroness; ‘I am not lonely any more. I am one of a great old family…’
‘I think she is dying,’ said the Baroness when she had rejoined her guests; ‘I suppose we must send for a doctor. And that terrible howling! Not for much money would I have such death-music.’
‘That music is not to be bought for any amount of money,’ said Conrad.
‘Hark! What is that other sound?’ asked the Baron, as a noise of splitting and crashing was heard.
It was a tree falling in the park.
There was a moment of constrained silence, and then the banker’s wife spoke.
‘It is the intense cold that is splitting the trees. It is also the cold that has brought the wolves out in such numbers. It is many years since we have had such a cold winter.’
The Baroness eagerly agreed that the cold was responsible for these things. It was the cold of the open window, too, which caused the heart failure that made the doctor’s ministrations unnecessary for the old Fräulein. But the notice in the newspapers looked very well –
‘On December 29th, at Schloss Cernogratz, Amalie von Cernogratz, for many years the valued friend of Baron and Baroness Gruebel.’
Louis
‘It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year,’ said Strudwarden, ‘and look up some of my old friends there. It’s about the jolliest place I know of to be at for Easter –’
‘I thought we had made up our minds to spend Easter at Brighton,’ interrupted Lena Strudwarden, with an air of aggrieved surprise.