Death the Knight and the Lady/Chapter 9

, suppose I was once a man, suppose I was Gerald Wilder," I said to myself as I went into the library and music room, where a fire was lit, "Oh, bosh—and yet"

I shut the library door and looked round. Thousands of books, a grand piano standing open, cigar boxes, cigarette boxes, easy chairs, turkey carpet. I lit a cigarette, and turned to the piano. I play well, but I am always too weak to play now. Here was Schuman, Chopin, everything in a classical way.

I like Chopin.

As I played I sometimes stopped to think and knock the ashes from my cigarette. The wind had risen and was blowing in gusts—oh that wind of autumn, how melancholy it sounds.

As I was playing I caught the sounds of horses' feet, then the crash of wheels upon gravel. It stopped, a carriage had drawn up at the hall door, "Could it be Wilder?"

I listened. Someone was let in. I heard the sound of voices, then everything was still. I rose from the piano and went to the door. I opened the door softly about an inch, and peeped through the crack. I saw a girl, but, as her back was towards me, I could not see her face. She was unwinding herself from a huge cloak of furs. The sallow-faced housemaid was standing waiting—I suppose for the cloak. Then I closed the door as softly as I had opened it, and sat down in one of the armchairs by the fire. I felt excited, why, I could not tell.

I was staring into the fire point blank, just as an owl stares at the sun, but I did not see the fire, I could only see the long slit-like picture, the strip of shining oak floor, the figure of the girl with her head thrown back, and her body, with its snake-like movement, winding free of the cloak.

Who was she? this girl. She had come in that carriage. She had been let in out of the autumn night. I had seen her taking off her cloak. I knew nothing more about her, so why—why did my heart become all of a sudden so fussy and fluttering like a bird disturbed in its nest, why—ah, it seemed to me that with her had been let in the far-off sound of that ghostly horn, with her had been let in the unseen falcon whose claws were now again resting upon my wrist—moving, moving, as the body they supported balanced itself uneasily, tightening now as the balance was nearly lost, loosening now as it was regained.

I sat listening. Not a sound. These great oak doors were so thick that a person might walk about in the hall and not be heard in the library. The clock on the mantel gave the little hiccup it always makes at five minutes to the hour; I looked up at the dial, it pointed to five minutes to nine.

Then a knock came to the door. I started and turned round. It was only the old butler. I felt just as if a bucket of lukewarm water had been emptied on me,—deep disappointment, why I felt so I can't tell. He wanted to know if I required anything more to eat—supper.

No, I required nothing to eat.

He stood shuffling at the door as if he wanted to say something, his dismal old face looked more troubled than ever. I thought for a moment he was going to cry. Then suddenly he shut the door and came across the room. He stood before me, twiddling a book that lay on a little table. He looked at the carpet, then at the fire, then at me, then he spoke—

"I have been in the service of the family forty and nine years, ma'am."

"Have you?" I answered, I didn't know what else to say.

"Forty and nine years come next October. Oh, ma'am, I've seen strange things in those years, and—the world's a strange place."

"It is."

"Ma'am, Miss Geraldine knows you are here, and she will come in to see you presently."

"Miss Geraldine—was—was that the young lady—I mean, was it she who arrived in the carriage just now?"

"It was, ma'am, and that's why I want to tell you. Mr James told me to tell you; it's only beknownst to Mr James and I—God help me—God help us all—Miss Geraldine—is a boy."

"A boy," I said, half rising out of my chair; "what do you say—how—how can a girl be a boy?"

"Hush, ma'am, for the love of God don't speak above your breath. People may be listening, and no one knows it, not even Miss Geraldine herself."

I was sitting now with my mouth hanging open like a trap; I must have looked the picture of a fool.

"Not even herself, God bless her sweet face, not even herself, and that's not the worst, ma'am,—she is a girl, though she's been born a boy."

The old fellow had suddenly collapsed into the easy chair opposite to me; he had taken his face between his scraggy old hands, his head was bent between his knees, the light of the lamp fell on the shiny black back of his coat. I shall never forget him as he sat there, speaking between his legs as if to someone under the chair.

"She's Beatrice Sinclair, that's who she is, and they must be blind who don't see it. Beatrice Sinclair, Beatrice Sinclair, she, the one that was killed long and ages ago by Sir Gerald. Beatrice Sinclair, whose picture is in the gallery, and that's who she is, that's who she is."

He was rocking about and droning this out like a dirge. I can tell you I felt shivering and fascinated. Then all at once he sat up and seemed to remember himself. I saw tears on his poor old face. He seemed trying to rise out of the arm chair.

"Sit down, don't get up," I said. "Tell me, for I must know, tell me exactly what you know, tell me all about it, and how it is that Miss Geraldine is—what she is."

"It was done to avoid the evil chance, ma'am."

"What do you mean?"

"You must know, ma'am, that the two houses of Sinclair and Wilder"

"Yes, I think I know what you are going to say; you mean that the Sinclairs have always killed the eldest sons of the Wilders,—it's a kind of fate. Mr James Wilder told me all about it."

"Yes, mam, that's it. Well, when this child was born Mrs Wilder only survived the birth some two hours, and Mr James, almost mad with grief at her death, seemed like a thing gone silly; then, after some weeks, he quieted down, and all the love he had for his wife seemed to settle on this his only child. It was a boy, and that, mam, was the trouble; if it had been a girl! but no, it was a boy, and the eldest and only boy, and doomed, that was Mr James' word, I've heard him speaking it to himself as he has stood looking out of the window at the park, the one word, 'doomed—doomed.' He took me into his confidence, he said to me once, 'The Sinclairs ride through my dreams, their ghosts are round me, but they shall not have my child.' He would have gone mad, I do believe he would, only that he thought of a plan. He took me into his confidence, and between us we did it. The child's name was changed from Gerald to Geraldine, and the child was brought up as a girl. No one in the house knew; all the servants were dismissed but me, 'We are safe now,' said Mr James. Ma'am, do you know that from the lodge gates this park is surrounded by a stone wall, sixteen miles long and six feet high? it cost a mine of money, but it was built. Do you know that Miss Geraldine has never been beyond that wall? There are sixty and more miles of drives all through the park, and there the horses that draw her carriage can go at a gallop and go all day without crossing the same ground twice over. There are lakes, and fountains, and imitation rivers, and that's the world she's only known. It cost two hundred thousand pounds a-doing, but it was done. Well, ma'am, things went like a marriage bell till Miss Geraldine was past fourteen; then one day Mr James came out of the picture gallery with his face like a ghost, and he caught me by the arm so that I thought I'd have screeched with the pain of it, and he says, 'James, James, the Sinclairs have got us.' Those were his very words, and with that he led me into the gallery, right to the ebony frame with Mr Gerald's picture and the picture of Beatrice Sinclair, and there, sure enough, was the likeness. Miss Geraldine had grown the living image of Miss Beatrice Sinclair; we hadn't noticed the likeness before, but it was there, sure and sorrowful.

"After that Mr James fell away, like. He took to the opium, and took to it awful. He followed Miss Geraldine like a dog. He had it in his head that he was doomed to kill her, till, it was three years ago now, ma'am, Mr James, who had taken to spiritualism, got a message saying that the last of the Sinclairs was alive and doomed to kill the last of the Wilders, that the only chance was to bring them together and leave them to fate.

"Then Mr James began to search for this—this last of the Sinclairs. He searched the world, that he did; his agents went to all foreign parts, to India and everywhere, till a few days ago, and I got telegram after telegram from him to prepare the house, that he had found the person he wanted. Oh, I was glad, that I was, when I saw you, ma'am, I nearly fell on the ground."

"You think I am like Mr Gerald?"

The old fellow made no answer for a moment, then he got up off his chair to go.

"Ma'am, you'll excuse my sitting in your presence, you'll excuse my talking so free, but I am old, and I have grown to love that child as if it was my own, it's that sweet and that innocent, and, saving your presence, ma'am, doesn't know what a man is, or a woman is neither. I've heard talk of angels, but there never was an angel more innocent, no, nor more sweet; and to think of harm coming to it, it that is so unharmful. It wrings my heart, the thought of it do; many's the night, ma'am, I've woke in a sweat thinking I've heard the trumpeter, but it's been only ringing in my ears"

"The trumpeter, what do you mean?" I asked.

"The ghost, ma'am, Sir—Sir Gerald's ghost, it comes through the passages at midnight blowing a trumpet always before the eldest son is killed. Oh, ma'am, it's a fearful sound and a fearful sight."

"When was it heard last?"

"Twenty-three years ago, ma'am, the night before Mr Reginald was killed by Mr Wilfred Sinclair."

Twenty-three years, that was exactly my age.

"It has not been heard since, not even at Mrs Wilder's death?"

"No, ma'am, that trumpet never sounds for the death of women, not for no one, only the eldest son who is about to die."

"Did anyone hear or see this trumpeter the last time he came?"

"I did, ma'am, see him, and hear him both."

"Tell me about it. Did you see his face?"

"No, ma'am." Somehow I knew the old fellow was telling a lie, and that he had seen the trumpeter's face, but I said nothing.

"No, ma'am, not distinctly so to say. I was a young servant then, an under-butler, and in the night, when I was sound asleep, I suddenly woke and sat up to listen. The house was as still as death, and there was nothing to hear, yet I sat listening and listening and straining my ears, waiting to hear something that I knew would come. Oh, ma'am, I needn't have strained my ears, for suddenly the most awful blast of a trumpet shook the house, I sickened, and thought I'd have died, for though I knew nothing of the ghost, or the history of the house, I knew that the sound of that trumpet was not right; it stopped for a moment after the first blast, and then it came again, louder and louder. I rushed out of my room into the dark passage, then, ma'am, I ran down the passage and down the servants' staircase until I found the first floor. I ran down the corridor till I came to the great staircase overlooking the hall, and there I saw him. There was no light, but I saw him, for there was light all round him. He was crossing the great hall when I caught a glimpse of him. His long black hair was tossed back, and he had to his mouth a great, glittering, silvern trumpet, and I could see his cheeks puffed out as he blew. He was dressed like the portrait of Sir Gerald."

"You think it was Sir Gerald's ghost?"

"Yes, ma'am, he has been recognised over and over again."

"Did anyone else hear him?"

"No, ma'am, only me. I told the master about it next day. No one had heard it but me. Then the message came to say Mr Reginald was dead."

I sat silent for a moment, listening to the wind as it sighed outside, then I said—

"Do you expect to hear the trumpeter again?"

"No, ma'am, not since you've come."

"How is that?"

The old fellow hung his head.

"Come now," I said; "tell me this. Don't you think you see the ghost in the flesh? I am exactly twenty-three, and it is twenty-three years since the trumpeter has been. Do you not think that my coming is the return of the trumpeter—without the trumpet?"

I shall never forget the old man's face as I said this; it absolutely became glorified with—what—I don't know, perhaps hope.

"Oh, ma'am," said he, "I did see the trumpeter's face, despite the lie I told you; it was your face, line for line. But you will never hurt the child, that I know, for the good God has sent you into the flesh, and it's as much as if He had said the trumpet shall never be heard again, which is saying the eldest son will never be killed again by the Sinclairs."

Then the old fellow left the room and shut the door.

And I sat brooding over the fire, half-pleased, half-frightened, half-dazed. The old butler's manner all through his conversation had been just like James Wilder's in London. They both seemed to consider me as something to be feared and propitiated.

And this Geraldine, this extraordinary being whose fate seemed wound up in mine, why should they fear any hurt to this Geraldine from me? I could not hurt a fly, much less this creature whom I had begun to like instinctively already.

Did anyone ever hear of such a thing as to bring up a boy as a girl? Only that weird looking James Wilder, with his round back and his opium decanter, could have thought of such a thing; she—he—she, what shall I call him or her? She was going to pay me a visit to-night; when would she come? What was she doing now? at supper perhaps, what was she having for supper?

A tap at the door.

The handle turned, and the door opened.