The Lady of the Shroud - Bram Stoker (phonics reader txt) 📗

one part of Isaiah’s

prophecy:

 

“Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream

dreams.”

 

By the way, my dear, talking about dreams, I am sending you out some

boxes of books which were in your rooms. They are nearly all on odd

subjects that WE understand—Second Sight, Ghosts, Dreams (that was

what brought the matter to my mind just now), superstitions,

Vampires, Wehr-Wolves, and all such uncanny folk and things. I

looked over some of these books, and found your marks and underlining

and comments, so I fancy you will miss them in your new home. You

will, I am sure, feel more at ease with such old friends close to

you. I have taken the names and sent the list to London, so that

when you pay me a visit again you will be at home in all ways. If

you come to me altogether, you will be more welcome still—if

possible. But I am sure that Rupert, who I know loves you very much,

will try to make you so happy that you will not want to leave him.

So I will have to come out often to see you both, even at the cost of

leaving Croom for so long. Strange, is it not? that now, when,

through Roger Melton’s more than kind remembrance of me, I am able to

go where I will and do what I will, I want more and more to remain at

home by my own ingle. I don’t think that anyone but you or Rupert

could get me away from it. I am working very hard at my little

regiment, as I call it. They are simply fine, and will, I am sure,

do us credit. The uniforms are all made, and well made, too. There

is not a man of them that does not look like an officer. I tell you,

Janet, that when we turn out the Vissarion Guard we shall feel proud

of them. I dare say that a couple of months will do all that can be

done here. I shall come out with them myself. Rupert writes me that

he thinks it will be more comfortable to come out direct in a ship of

our own. So when I go up to London in a few weeks’ time I shall see

about chartering a suitable vessel. It will certainly save a lot of

trouble to us and anxiety to our people. Would it not be well when I

am getting the ship, if I charter one big enough to take out all your

lassies, too? It is not as if they were strangers. After all, my

dear, soldiers are soldiers and lassies are lassies. But these are

all kinsfolk, as well as clansmen and clanswomen, and I, their Chief,

shall be there. Let me know your views and wishes in this respect.

Mr. Trent, whom I saw before leaving London, asked me to “convey to

you his most respectful remembrances”—these were his very words, and

here they are. Trent is a nice fellow, and I like him. He has

promised to pay me a visit here before the month is up, and I look

forward to our both enjoying ourselves.

 

Good-bye, my dear, and the Lord watch over you and our dear boy.

 

Your affectionate Uncle,

COLIN ALEXANDER MACKELPIE.

 

BOOK III: THE COMING OF THE LADY

 

RUPERT SENT LEGER’S JOURNAL.

 

April 3, 1907.

 

I have waited till now—well into midday—before beginning to set

down the details of the strange episode of last night. I have spoken

with persons whom I know to be of normal type. I have breakfasted,

as usual heartily, and have every reason to consider myself in

perfect health and sanity. So that the record following may be

regarded as not only true in substance, but exact as to details. I

have investigated and reported on too many cases for the Psychical

Research Society to be ignorant of the necessity for absolute

accuracy in such matters of even the minutest detail.

 

Yesterday was Tuesday, the second day of April, 1907. I passed a day

of interest, with its fair amount of work of varying kinds. Aunt

Janet and I lunched together, had a stroll round the gardens after

tea—especially examining the site for the new Japanese garden, which

we shall call “Janet’s Garden.” We went in mackintoshes, for the

rainy season is in its full, the only sign of its not being a

repetition of the Deluge being that breaks in the continuance are

beginning. They are short at present but will doubtless enlarge

themselves as the season comes towards an end. We dined together at

seven. After dinner I had a cigar, and then joined Aunt Janet for an

hour in her drawing-room. I left her at half-past ten, when I went

to my own room and wrote some letters. At ten minutes past eleven I

wound my watch, so I know the time accurately. Having prepared for

bed, I drew back the heavy curtain in front of my window, which opens

on the marble steps into the Italian garden. I had put out my light

before drawing back the curtain, for I wanted to have a look at the

scene before turning in. Aunt Janet has always had an old-fashioned

idea of the need (or propriety, I hardly know which) of keeping

windows closed and curtains drawn. I am gradually getting her to

leave my room alone in this respect, but at present the change is in

its fitful stage, and of course I must not hurry matters or be too

persistent, as it would hurt her feelings. This night was one of

those under the old regime. It was a delight to look out, for the

scene was perfect of its own kind. The long spell of rain—the

ceaseless downpour which had for the time flooded everywhere—had

passed, and water in abnormal places rather trickled than ran. We

were now beginning to be in the sloppy rather than the deluged stage.

There was plenty of light to see by, for the moon had begun to show

out fitfully through the masses of flying clouds. The uncertain

light made weird shadows with the shrubs and statues in the garden.

The long straight walk which leads from the marble steps is strewn

with fine sand white from the quartz strand in the nook to the south

of the Castle. Tall shrubs of white holly, yew, juniper, cypress,

and variegated maple and spiraea, which stood at intervals along the

walk and its branches, appeared ghost-like in the fitful moonlight.

The many vases and statues and urns, always like phantoms in a half-light, were more than ever weird. Last night the moonlight was

unusually effective, and showed not only the gardens down to the

defending wall, but the deep gloom of the great forest-trees beyond;

and beyond that, again, to where the mountain chain began, the forest

running up their silvered slopes flamelike in form, deviated here and

there by great crags and the outcropping rocky sinews of the vast

mountains.

 

Whilst I was looking at this lovely prospect, I thought I saw

something white flit, like a modified white flash, at odd moments

from one to another of the shrubs or statues—anything which would

afford cover from observation. At first I was not sure whether I

really saw anything or did not. This was in itself a little

disturbing to me, for I have been so long trained to minute

observation of facts surrounding me, on which often depend not only

my own life, but the lives of others, that I have become accustomed

to trust my eyes; and anything creating the faintest doubt in this

respect is a cause of more or less anxiety to me. Now, however, that

my attention was called to myself, I looked more keenly, and in a

very short time was satisfied that something was moving—something

clad in white. It was natural enough that my thoughts should tend

towards something uncanny—the belief that this place is haunted,

conveyed in a thousand ways of speech and inference. Aunt Janet’s

eerie beliefs, fortified by her books on occult subjects—and of

late, in our isolation from the rest of the world, the subject of

daily conversations—helped to this end. No wonder, then, that,

fully awake and with senses all on edge, I waited for some further

manifestation from this ghostly visitor—as in my mind I took it to

be. It must surely be a ghost or spiritual manifestation of some

kind which moved in this silent way. In order to see and hear

better, I softly moved back the folding grille, opened the French

window, and stepped out, barefooted and pyjama-clad as I was, on the

marble terrace. How cold the wet marble was! How heavy smelled the

rain-laden garden! It was as though the night and the damp, and even

the moonlight, were drawing the aroma from all the flowers that

blossomed. The whole night seemed to exhale heavy, half-intoxicating

odours! I stood at the head of the marble steps, and all immediately

before me was ghostly in the extreme—the white marble terrace and

steps, the white walks of quartz-sand glistening under the fitful

moonlight; the shrubs of white or pale green or yellow,—all looking

dim and ghostly in the glamorous light; the white statues and vases.

And amongst them, still flitting noiselessly, that mysterious elusive

figure which I could not say was based on fact or imagination. I

held my breath, listening intently for every sound; but sound there

was none, save those of the night and its denizens. Owls hooted in

the forest; bats, taking advantage of the cessation of the rain,

flitted about silently, like shadows in the air. But there was no

more sign of moving ghost or phantom, or whatever I had seen might

have been—if, indeed, there had been anything except imagination.

 

So, after waiting awhile, I returned to my room, closed the window,

drew the grille across again, and dragged the heavy curtain before

the opening; then, having extinguished my candles, went to bed in the

dark. In a few minutes I must have been asleep.

 

“What was that?” I almost heard the words of my own thought as I sat

up in bed wide awake. To memory rather than present hearing the

disturbing sound had seemed like the faint tapping at the window.

For some seconds I listened, mechanically but intently, with bated

breath and that quick beating of the heart which in a timorous person

speaks for fear, and for expectation in another. In the stillness

the sound came again—this time a very, very faint but unmistakable

tapping at the glass door.

 

I jumped up, drew back the curtain, and for a moment stood appalled.

 

There, outside on the balcony, in the now brilliant moonlight, stood

a woman, wrapped in white grave-clothes saturated with water, which

dripped on the marble floor, making a pool which trickled slowly down

the wet steps. Attitude and dress and circumstance all conveyed the

idea that, though she moved and spoke, she was not quick, but dead.

She was young and very beautiful, but pale, like the grey pallor of

death. Through the still white of her face, which made her look as

cold as the wet marble she stood on, her dark eyes seemed to gleam

with a strange but enticing lustre. Even in the unsearching

moonlight, which is after all rather deceptive than illuminative, I

could not but notice one rare quality of her eyes. Each had some

quality of refraction which made it look as though it contained a

star. At every movement she made, the stars exhibited new beauties,

of more rare and radiant force. She looked at me imploringly as the

heavy curtain rolled back, and in eloquent gestures implored me to

admit her. Instinctively I obeyed; I rolled back the steel