Chapter V
We were left delightfully to ourselves in this pretentious countrymansion with the soul of a villa. Frances took up her painting again,and, the weather being propitious, spent hours out of doors, sketchingflowers, trees and nooks of woodland, garden, even the house itselfwhere bits of it peered suggestively across the orchards. Mrs. Franklynseemed always busy about something or other, and never interfered withus except to propose motoring, tea in another part of the lawn, and soforth. She flitted everywhere, preoccupied, yet apparently doingnothing. The house engulfed her rather. No visitor called. For onething, she was not supposed to be back from abroad yet; and for another,I think, the neighborhood--her husband's neighborhood--was puzzled byher sudden cessation from good works. Brigades and temperance societiesdid not ask to hold their meetings in the big hall, and the vicararranged the school-treats in another's field without explanation. Thefull-length portrait in the dining room, and the presence of thehousekeeper with the "burnt" back hair, indeed, were the only remindersof the man who once had lived here. Mrs. Marsh retained her place insilence, well-paid sinecure as it doubtless was, yet with no hint ofthat suppressed disapproval one might have expected from her. Indeedthere was nothing positive to disapprove, since nothing "worldly"entered grounds or building. In her master's lifetime she had beenanother "brand snatched from the burning," and it had then been hercustom to give vociferous "testimony" at the revival meetings where headorned the platform and led in streams of prayer. I saw her sometimeson the stairs, hovering, wandering, half-watching and half-listening,and the idea came to me once that this woman somehow formed a link withthe departed influence of her bigoted employer. She, alone among us,belonged to the house, and looked at home there. When I saw her talking--oh, with such correct and respectful mien--to Mrs. Franklyn, I had thefeeling that for all her unaggressive attitude, she yet exerted someinfluence that sought to make her mistress stay in the building forever--live there. She would prevent her escape, prevent "getting it straightagain," thwart somehow her will to freedom, if she could. The idea in mewas of the most fleeting kind. But another time, when I came down lateat night to get a book from the library antechamber, and found hersitting in the hall--alone--the impression left upon me was the reverseof fleeting. I can never forget the vivid, disagreeable effect itproduced upon me. What was she doing there at half-past eleven at night,all alone in the darkness? She was sitting upright, stiff, in a bigchair below the clock. It gave me a turn. It was so incongruous and odd.She rose quietly as I turned the corner of the stairs, and asked merespectfully, her eyes cast down as usual, whether I had finished withthe library, so that she might lock up. There was no more to it thanthat; but the picture stayed with me--unpleasantly.
These various impressions came to me at odd moments, of course, and notin a single sequence as I now relate them. I was hard at work beforethree days were past, not writing, as explained, but reading, makingnotes, and gathering material from the library for future use. It was inchance moments that these curious flashes came, catching me unawareswith a touch of surprise that sometimes made me start. For they provedthat my under-mind was still conscious of the Shadow, and that far awayout of sight lay the cause of it that left me with a vague unrest,unsettled, seeking to "nest" in a place that did not want me. Only whenthis deeper part knows harmony, perhaps, can good brainwork result, andmy inability to write was thus explained.
Certainly, I was always seeking for something here I could not find--anexplanation that continually evaded me. Nothing but these trivial hintsoffered themselves. Lumped together, however, they had the effect ofdefining the Shadow a little. I became more and more aware of its veryreal existence. And, if I have made little mention of Frances and myhostess in this connection, it is because they contributed at firstlittle or nothing towards the discovery of what this story tries totell. Our life was wholly external, normal, quiet, and uneventful;conversation banal--Mrs. Franklyn's conversation in particular. Theysaid nothing that suggested revelation.
Both were in this Shadow, and both knew that they were in it, butneither betrayed by word or act a hint of interpretation. They talkedprivately, no doubt, but of that I can report no details.
And so it was that, after ten days of a very commonplace visit, I foundmyself looking straight into the face of a Strangeness that defiedcapture at close quarters. "There's something here that never happens,"were the words that rose in my mind, "and that's why none of us canspeak of it."
And as I looked out of the window and watched the vulgar blackbirds,with toes turned in, boring out their worms, I realized sharply thateven they, as indeed everything large and small in the house andgrounds, shared this strangeness, and were twisted out of normalappearance because of it. Life, as expressed in the entire place, wascrumpled, dwarfed, emasculated. God's meanings here were crippled, Hislove of joy was stunted. Nothing in the garden danced or sang.
There was hate in it. "The Shadow," my thought hurried on to completion,"is a manifestation of hate; and hate is the Devil." And then I sat backfrightened in my chair, for I knew that I had partly found the truth.
Leaving my books I went out into the open. The sky was overcast, yet theday by no means gloomy, for a soft, diffused light oozed through theclouds and turned all things warm and almost summery. But I saw thegrounds now in their nakedness because I understood. Hate means strife,and the two together weave the robe that terror wears. Having noso-called religious beliefs myself, nor belonging to any set of dogmascalled a creed, I could stand outside these feelings and observe. Yetthey soaked into me sufficiently for me to grasp sympathetically whatothers, with more cabined souls (I flattered myself), might feel. Thatpicture in the dining room stalked everywhere, hid behind every tree,peered down upon me from the peaked ugliness of the bourgeois towers,and left the impress of its powerful hand upon every bed of flowers."You must not do this, you must not do that," went past me through theair. "You must not leave these narrow paths," said the rigid ironrailings of black. "You shall not walk here," was written on the lawns."Keep to the steps," "Don't pick the flowers; make no noise of laughter,singing, dancing," was placarded all over the rose-garden, and"Trespassers will be--not prosecuted but--destroyed" hung from the crestof monkey tree and holly. Guarding the ends of each artificial terracestood gaunt, implacable policemen, warders, jailers. "Come with us,"they chanted, "or be damned eternally."
I remember feeling quite pleased with myself that I had discovered thisobvious explanation of the prison feeling the place breathed out. Thatthe posthumous influence of heavy old Samuel Franklyn might be aninadequate solution did not occur to me. By "getting the place straightagain," his widow, of course, meant forgetting the glamour of fear andforeboding his depressing creed had temporarily forced upon her; andFrances, delicately minded being, did not speak of it because it was theinfluence of the man her friend had loved. I felt lighter; a load waslifted from me. "To trace the unfamiliar to the familiar," came back asentence I had read somewhere, "is to understand." It was a real relief.I could talk with Frances now, even with my hostess, no danger oftreading clumsily. For the key was in my hands. I might even help todissipate the Shadow, "to get it straight again." It seemed, perhaps,our long invitation was explained!
I went into the house laughing--at myself a little. "Perhaps after allthe artist's outlook, with no hard and fast dogmas, is as narrow as theothers! How small humanity is! And why is there no possible and truecombination of all outlooks?"
The feeling of "unsettling" was very strong in me just then, in spite ofmy big discovery which was to clear everything up. And at the moment Iran into Frances on the stairs, with a portfolio of sketches under herarm.
It came across me then abruptly that, although she had worked a greatdeal since we came, she had shown me nothing. It struck me suddenly asodd, unnatural. The way she tried to pass me now confirmed my newbornsuspicion that--well, that her results were hardly what they ought tobe.
"Stand and deliver!" I laughed, stepping in front of her. "I've seenn
othing you've done since you've been here, and as a rule you show meall your things. I believe they are atrocious and degrading!" Then mylaughter froze.
She made a sly gesture to slip past me, and I almost decided to let hergo, for the expression that flashed across her face shocked me. Shelooked uncomfortable and ashamed; the color came and went a moment in hecheeks, making me think of a child detected in some secret naughtiness.It was almost fear.
"It's because they're not finished then?" I said, dropping the tone ofbanter, "or because they're too good for me to understand?" For mycriticism of painting, she told me, was crude and ignorant sometimes."But you'll let me see them later, won't you?"
Frances, however, did not take the way of escape I offered. She changedher mind. She drew the portfolio from beneath her arm instead. "You cansee them if you really want to, Bill," she said quietly, and her tonereminded me of a nurse who says to a boy just grown out of childhood,"you are old enough now to look upon horror and ugliness--only I don'tadvise it."
"I do want to," I said, and made to go downstairs with her. But,instead, she said in the same low voice as before, "Come up to my room,we shall be undisturbed there." So I guessed that she had been on herway to show the paintings to our hostess, but did not care for us allthree to see them together. My mind worked furiously.
"Mabel asked me to do them," she explained in a tone of submissivehorror, once the door was shut, "in fact, she begged it of me. You knowhow persistent she is in her quiet way. I--er--had to."
She flushed and opened the portfolio on the little table by the window,standing behind me as I turned the sketches over--sketches of thegrounds and trees and garden. In the first moment of inspection,however, I did not take in clearly why my sister's sense of modesty hadbeen offended. For my attention flashed a second elsewhere. Another bitof the puzzle had dropped into place, defining still further the natureof what I called "the Shadow." Mrs. Franklyn, I now remembered, hadsuggested to me in the library that I might perhaps write somethingabout the place, and I had taken it for one of her banal sentences andpaid no further attention. I realized now that it was said in earnest.She wanted our interpretations, as expressed in our respective"talents," painting and writing. Her invitation was explained. She leftus to ourselves on purpose.
"I should like to tear them up," Frances was whispering behind me with ashudder, "only I promised--" She hesitated a moment.
"Promised not to?" I asked with a queer feeling of distress, my eyesglued to the papers.
"Promised always to show them to her first," she finished so low Ibarely caught it.
I have no intuitive, immediate grasp of the value of paintings; resultscome to me slowly, and though every one believes his own judgment to begood, I dare not claim that mine is worth more than that of any otherlayman, Frances had too often convicted me of gross ignorance and error.I can only say that I examined these sketches with a feeling ofamazement that contained revulsion, if not actually horror and disgust.They were outrageous. I felt hot for my sister, and it was a relief toknow she had moved across the room on some pretence or other, and didnot examine them with me. Her talent, of course, is mediocre, yet shehas her moments of inspiration--moments, that is to say, when a view ofBeauty not normally her own flames divinely through her. And theseinterpretations struck me forcibly as being thus "inspired"--not herown. They were uncommonly well done; they were also atrocious. Themeaning in them, however, was never more than hinted. There the unholyskill and power came in: they suggested so abominably, leaving most tothe imagination. To find such significance in a bourgeois villa garden,and to interpret it with such delicate yet legible certainty, was a kindof symbolism that was sinister, even diabolical. The delicacy was herown, but the point of view was another's.
And the word that rose in my mind was not the gross description of"impure," but the more fundamental qualification--"un-pure."
In silence I turned the sketches over one by one, as a boy hurriesthrough the pages of an evil book lest he be caught.
"What does Mabel do with them?" I asked presently in a low tone, as Ineared the end. "Does she keep them?"
"She makes notes about them in a book and then destroys them," was thereply from the end of the room. I heard a sigh of relief. "I'm gladyou've seen them, Bill. I wanted you to--but was afraid to show them.You understand?"
"I understand," was my reply, though it was not a question intended tobe answered. All I understood really was that Mabel's mind was as sweetand pure as my sister's, and that she had some good reason for what shedid. She destroyed the sketches, but first made notes! It was aninterpretation of the place she sought. Brother-like, I felt resentment,though, that Frances should waste her time and talent, when she might bedoing work that she could sell. Naturally, I felt other things aswell....
"Mabel pays me five guineas for each one," I heard. "Absolutelyinsists."
I stared at her stupidly a moment, bereft of speech or wit. "I musteither accept, or go away," she went on calmly, but a little white."I've tried everything. There was a scene the third day I was here--whenI showed her my first result. I wanted to write to you, but hesitated--"
"It's unintentional, then, on your part--forgive my asking it, Frances,dear?" I blundered, hardly knowing what to think or say. "Between thelines" of her letter came back to me. "I mean, you make the sketches inyour ordinary way and--the result comes out of itself, so to speak?"
She nodded, throwing her hands out like a Frenchman. "We needn't keepthe money for ourselves, Bill. We can give it away, but--I must eitheraccept or leave," and she repeated the shrugging gesture. She sat downon the chair facing me, staring helplessly at the carpet.
"You say there was a scene?" I went on presently, "She insisted?"
"She begged me to continue," my sister replied very quietly. "Shethinks--that is, she has an idea or theory that there's something aboutthe place--something she can't get at quite." Frances stammered badly.She knew I did not encourage her wild theories.
"Something she feels--yes," I helped her, more than curious.
"Oh, you know what I mean, Bill," she said desperately. "That the placeis saturated with some influence that she is herself too positive or toostupid to interpret. She's trying to make herself negative andreceptive, as she calls it, but can't, of course, succeed. Haven't younoticed how dull and impersonal and insipid she seems, as though she hadno personality? She thinks impressions will come to her that way. Butthey don't--"
"Naturally."
"So she's trying me--us--what she calls the sensitive and impressionableartistic temperament. She says that until she is sure exactly what thisinfluence is, she can't fight it, turn it out, 'get the house straight',as she phrases it."
Remembering my own singular impressions, I felt more lenient than Imight otherwise have done. I tried to keep impatience out of my voice.
"And this influence, what--whose is it?"
We used the pronoun that followed in the same breath, for I answered myown question at the same moment as she did:
"His." Our heads nodded involuntarily towards the floor, the dining roombeing directly underneath.
And my heart sank, my curiosity died away on the instant; I felt bored.A commonplace haunted house was the last thing in the world to amuse orinterest me. The mere thought exasperated, with its suggestions ofimagination, overwrought nerves, hysteria, and the rest.
Mingled with my other feelings was certainly disappointment. To see afigure or feel a "presence," and report from day to day strangeincidents to each other would be a form of weariness I could nevertolerate.
"But really, Frances," I said firmly, after a moment's pause, "it's toofar-fetched, this explanation. A curse, you know, belongs to the ghoststories of early Victorian days." And only my positive conviction thatthere was something after all worth discovering, and that it mostcertainly was not this, prevented my suggesting that we terminate ourvisit forthwith, or as soon as we decently could. "This is not a hauntedhouse, whatever it is," I concluded somewhat vehemently,
bringing myhand down upon her odious portfolio.
My sister's reply revived my curiosity sharply.
"I was waiting for you to say that. Mabel says exactly the same. He isin it--but it's something more than that alone, something far bigger andmore complicated." Her sentence seemed to indicate the sketches, andthough I caught the inference I did not take it up, having no desire todiscuss them with her just them indeed, if ever.
I merely stared at her and listened. Questions, I felt sure, would be oflittle use. It was better she should say her thought in her own way.
"He is one influence, the most recent," she went on slowly, and alwaysvery calmly, "but there are others--deeper layers, as it were--underneath. If his were the only one, something would happen. Butnothing ever does happen. The others hinder and prevent--as though eachwere struggling to predominate."
I had felt it already myself. The idea was rather horrible. I shivered.
"That's what is so ugly about it--that nothing ever happens," she said."There is this endless anticipation--always on the dry edge of a resultthat never materializes. It is torture. Mabel is at her wits' end, yousee. And when she begged me--what I felt about my sketches--I mean--"
She stammered badly as before.
I stopped her. I had judged too hastily. That queer symbolism in herpaintings, pagan and yet not innocent, was, I understood, the result ofmixture. I did not pretend to understand, but at least I could bepatient. I consequently held my peace. We did talk on a little longer,but it was more general talk that avoided successfully our hostess, thepaintings, wild theories, and him--until at length the emotion Franceshad hitherto so successfully kept under burst vehemently forth again.
It had hidden between her calm sentences, as it had hidden between thelines of her letter. It swept her now from head to foot, packed tight inthe thing she then said.
"Then, Bill, if it is not an ordinary haunted house," she asked, "whatis it?"
The words were commonplace enough. The emotion was in the tone of hervoice that trembled; in the gesture she made, leaning forward andclasping both hands upon her knees, and in the slight blanching of hercheeks as her brave eyes asked the question and searched my own withanxiety that bordered upon panic. In that moment she put herself undermy protection. I winced.
"And why," she added, lowering her voice to a still and furtive whisper,"does nothing ever happen? If only,"--this with great emphasis--"something would happen--break this awful tension--bring relief. It'sthe waiting I cannot stand." And she shivered all over as she said it, atouch of wildness in her eyes.
I would have given much to have made a true and satisfactory answer. Mymind searched frantically for a moment, but in vain. There lay nosufficient answer in me. I felt what she felt, though with differences.No conclusive explanation lay within reach. Nothing happened. Eager as Iwas to shoot the entire business into the rubbish heap where ignoranceand superstition discharge their poisonous weeds, I could not honestlyaccomplish this. To treat Frances as a child, and merely "explain away"would be to strain her confidence in my protection, so affectionatelyclaimed. It would further be dishonest to myself--weak, besides--to denythat I had also felt the strain and tension even as she did. While mymind continued searching, I returned her stare in silence; and Francesthen, with more honesty and insight than my own, gave suddenly theanswer herself--an answer whose truth and adequacy, so far as they went,I could not readily gainsay:
"I think, Bill, because it is too big to happen here--to happenanywhere, indeed, all at once--and too awful!"
To have tossed the sentence aside as nonsense, argued it away, provedthat it was really meaningless, would have been easy--at any other timeor in any other place; and, had the past week brought me none of thevivid impressions it had brought me, this is doubtless what I shouldhave done. My narrowness again was proved. We understand in others onlywhat we have in ourselves. But her explanation, in a measure, I knew wastrue. It hinted at the strife and struggle that my notion of a Shadowhad seemed to cover thinly.
"Perhaps," I murmured lamely, waiting in vain for her to say more. "Butyou said just now that you felt the thing was 'in layers', as it were.Do you mean each one--each influence--fighting for the upper hand?"
I used her phraseology to conceal my own poverty. Terminology, afterall, was nothing, provided we could reach the idea itself.
Her eyes said yes. She had her clear conception, arrived atindependently, as was her way.
And, unlike her sex, she kept it clear, unsmothered by too many words.
"One set of influences gets at me, another gets at you. It's accordingto our temperaments, I think." She glanced significantly at the vileportfolio. "Sometimes they are mixed--and therefore false. There hasalways been in me, more than in you, the pagan thing, perhaps, thoughnever, thank God, like that."
The frank confession of course invited my own, as it was meant to do.Yet it was difficult to find the words.
"What I have felt in this place, Frances, I honestly can hardly tellyou, because--er--my impressions have not arranged themselves in anydefinite form I can describe. The strife, the agony of vainly-soughtescape, and the unrest--a sort of prison atmosphere--this I have felt atdifferent times and with varying degrees of strength. But I find, asyet, no final label to attach. I couldn't say pagan, Christian, oranything like that, I mean, as you do. As with the blind and deaf, youmay have an intensification of certain senses denied to me, or evenanother sense altogether in embryo--"
"Perhaps," she stopped me, anxious to keep to the point, "you feel it asMabel does. She feels the whole thing complete."
"That also is possible," I said very slowly. I was thinking behind mywords. Her odd remark that it was "big and awful" came back upon me astrue. A vast sensation of distress and discomfort swept me suddenly.Pity was in it, and a fierce contempt, a savage, bitter anger as well.Fury against some sham authority was part of it.
"Frances," I said, caught unawares, and dropping all pretence, "what inthe world can it be?" I looked hard at her. For some minutes neither ofus spoke.
"Have you felt no desire to interpret it?" she asked presently, "Mabeldid suggest my writing something about the house," was my reply, "butI've felt nothing imperative. That sort of writing is not my line, youknow. My only feeling," I added, noticing that she waited for more, "isthe impulse to explain, discover, get it out of me somehow, and so getrid of it. Not by writing, though--as yet." And again I repeated myformer question:
"What in the world do you think it is?" My voice had becomeinvoluntarily hushed. There was awe in it. Her answer, given with slowemphasis, brought back all my reserve: the phraseology provoked merather:--"Whatever it is, Bill, it is not of God."
I got up to go downstairs. I believe I shrugged my shoulders. "Would youlike to leave, Frances? Shall we go back to town?" I suggested this atthe door, and hearing no immediate reply, I turned back to look. Franceswas sitting with her head bowed over and buried in her hands. Theattitude horribly suggested tears. No woman, I realized, can keep backthe pressure of strong emotion as long as Frances had done, withoutending in a fluid collapse. I waited a moment uneasily, longing tocomfort, yet afraid to act--and in this way discovered the existence ofthe appalling emotion in myself, hitherto but half guessed. At all costsa scene must be prevented: it would involve such exaggeration andoverstatement. Brutally, such is the weakness of the ordinary man, Iturned the handle to go out, but my sister then raised her head. Thesunlight caught her face, framed untidily in its auburn hair, and I sawher wonderful expression with a start. Pity, tenderness, and sympathyshone in it like a flame. It was undeniable. There shone through all herfeatures the imperishable love and yearning to sacrifice self for otherswhich I have seen in only one type of human being. It was the greatmother look.
"We must stay by Mabel and help her get it straight," she whispered,making the decision for us both.
I murmured agreement. Abashed and half ashamed, I stole softly from theroom and went out into the grounds. And the first thing clearly realize
dwhen alone was this: that the long scene between us was without definiteresult. The exchange of confidence was really nothing but hints andvague suggestion. We had decided to stay, but it was a negative decisionnot to leave rather than a positive action. All our words and questions,our guesses, inferences, explanations, our most subtle allusions andinsinuations, even the odious paintings themselves, were withoutdefinite result. Nothing had happened.