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

long before the

fire had been alight. I could only guess. Perhaps the mountaineers

might be able to tell or even to guess better than I could. But I am

not so sure of this. I am a mountaineer myself, and with larger and

more varied experience than any of them. For myself, though I could

not be certain, I came to the conclusion that whoever had used the

place had done so not many days before. It could not have been quite

recently; but it may not have been very long ago. Whoever had used

it had covered up his tracks well. Even the ashes had been carefully

removed, and the place where they had lain was cleaned or swept in

some way, so that there was no trace on the spot. I applied some of

my West African experience, and looked on the rough bark of the trees

to leeward, to where the agitated air, however directed, must have

come, unless it was wanted to call attention to the place by the

scattered wood-ashes, however fine. I found traces of it, but they

were faint. There had not been rain for several days; so the dust

must have been blown there since the rain had fallen, for it was

still dry.

 

The place was a tiny gorge, with but one entrance, which was hidden

behind a barren spur of rock—just a sort of long fissure, jagged and

curving, in the rock, like a fault in the stratification. I could

just struggle through it with considerable effort, holding my breath

here and there, so as to reduce my depth of chest. Within it was

tree-clad, and full of possibilities of concealment.

 

As I came away I marked well its direction and approaches, noting any

guiding mark which might aid in finding it by day or night. I

explored every foot of ground around it—in front, on each side, and

above. But from nowhere could I see an indication of its existence.

It was a veritable secret chamber wrought by the hand of Nature

itself. I did not return home till I was familiar with every detail

near and around it. This new knowledge added distinctly to my sense

of security.

 

Later in the day I tried to find the Vladika or any mountaineer of

importance, for I thought that such a hiding-place which had been

used so recently might be dangerous, and especially at a time when,

as I had learned at the meeting where they did NOT fire their guns

that there may have been spies about or a traitor in the land.

 

Even before I came to my own room to-night I had fully made up my

mind to go out early in the morning and find some proper person to

whom to impart the information, so that a watch might be kept on the

place. It is now getting on for midnight, and when I have had my

usual last look at the garden I shall turn in. Aunt Janet was uneasy

all day, and especially so this evening. I think it must have been

my absence at the usual breakfast-hour which got on her nerves; and

that unsatisfied mental or psychical irritation increased as the day

wore on.

 

RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

May 20, 1907.

 

The clock on the mantelpiece in my room, which chimes on the notes of

the clock at St. James’s Palace, was striking midnight when I opened

the glass door on the terrace. I had put out my lights before I drew

the curtain, as I wished to see the full effect of the moonlight.

Now that the rainy season is over, the moon is quite as beautiful as

it was in the wet, and a great deal more comfortable. I was in

evening dress, with a smoking-jacket in lieu of a coat, and I felt

the air mild and mellow on the warm side, as I stood on the terrace.

 

But even in that bright moonlight the further corners of the great

garden were full of mysterious shadows. I peered into them as well

as I could—and my eyes are pretty good naturally, and are well

trained. There was not the least movement. The air was as still as

death, the foliage as still as though wrought in stone.

 

I looked for quite a long time in the hope of seeing something of my

Lady. The quarters chimed several times, but I stood on unheeding.

At last I thought I saw far off in the very corner of the old

defending wall a flicker of white. It was but momentary, and could

hardly have accounted in itself for the way my heart beat. I

controlled myself, and stood as though I, too, were a graven image.

I was rewarded by seeing presently another gleam of white. And then

an unspeakable rapture stole over me as I realized that my Lady was

coming as she had come before. I would have hurried out to meet her,

but that I knew well that this would not be in accord with her

wishes. So, thinking to please her, I drew back into the room. I

was glad I had done so when, from the dark corner where I stood, I

saw her steal up the marble steps and stand timidly looking in at the

door. Then, after a long pause, came a whisper as faint and sweet as

the music of a distant AEolian harp:

 

“Are you there? May I come in? Answer me! I am lonely and in

fear!” For answer I emerged from my dim corner so swiftly that she

was startled. I could hear from the quivering intake of her breath

that she was striving—happily with success—to suppress a shriek.

 

“Come in,” I said quietly. “I was waiting for you, for I felt that

you would come. I only came in from the terrace when I saw you

coming, lest you might fear that anyone might see us. That is not

possible, but I thought you wished that I should be careful.”

 

“I did—I do,” she answered in a low, sweet voice, but very firmly.

“But never avoid precaution. There is nothing that may not happen

here. There may be eyes where we least expect—or suspect them.” As

she spoke the last words solemnly and in a low whisper, she was

entering the room. I closed the glass door and bolted it, rolled

back the steel grille, and pulled the heavy curtain. Then, when I

had lit a candle, I went over and put a light to the fire. In a few

seconds the dry wood had caught, and the flames were beginning to

rise and crackle. She had not objected to my closing the window and

drawing the curtain; neither did she make any comment on my lighting

the fire. She simply acquiesced in it, as though it was now a matter

of course. When I made the pile of cushions before it as on the

occasion of her last visit, she sank down on them, and held out her

white, trembling hands to the warmth.

 

She was different to-night from what she had been on either of the

two former visits. From her present bearing I arrived at some gauge

of her self-concern, her self-respect. Now that she was dry, and not

overmastered by wet and cold, a sweet and gracious dignity seemed to

shine from her, enwrapping her, as it were, with a luminous veil. It

was not that she was by this made or shown as cold or distant, or in

any way harsh or forbidding. On the contrary, protected by this

dignity, she seemed much more sweet and genial than before. It was

as though she felt that she could afford to stoop now that her

loftiness was realized—that her position was recognized and secure.

If her inherent dignity made an impenetrable nimbus round her, this

was against others; she herself was not bound by it, or to be bound.

So marked was this, so entirely and sweetly womanly did she appear,

that I caught myself wondering in flashes of thought, which came as

sharp periods of doubting judgment between spells of unconscious

fascination, how I had ever come to think she was aught but perfect

woman. As she rested, half sitting and half lying on the pile of

cushions, she was all grace, and beauty, and charm, and sweetness—

the veritable perfect woman of the dreams of a man, be he young or

old. To have such a woman sit by his hearth and hold her holy of

holies in his heart might well be a rapture to any man. Even an hour

of such entrancing joy might be well won by a lifetime of pain, by

the balance of a long life sacrificed, by the extinction of life

itself. Quick behind the record of such thoughts came the answer to

the doubt they challenged: if it should turn out that she was not

living at all, but one of the doomed and pitiful Un-Dead, then so

much more on account of her very sweetness and beauty would be the

winning of her back to Life and Heaven—even were it that she might

find happiness in the heart and in the arms of another man.

 

Once, when I leaned over the hearth to put fresh logs on the fire, my

face was so close to hers that I felt her breath on my cheek. It

thrilled me to feel even the suggestion of that ineffable contact.

Her breath was sweet—sweet as the breath of a calf, sweet as the

whiff of a summer breeze across beds of mignonette. How could anyone

believe for a moment that such sweet breath could come from the lips

of the dead—the dead in esse or in posse—that corruption could send

forth fragrance so sweet and pure? It was with satisfied happiness

that, as I looked at her from my stool, I saw the dancing of the

flames from the beech-logs reflected in her glorious black eyes, and

the stars that were hidden in them shine out with new colours and new

lustre as they gleamed, rising and falling like hopes and fears. As

the light leaped, so did smiles of quiet happiness flit over her

beautiful face, the merriment of the joyous flames being reflected in

ever-changing dimples.

 

At first I was a little disconcerted whenever my eyes took note of

her shroud, and there came a momentary regret that the weather had

not been again bad, so that there might have been compulsion for her

putting on another garment—anything lacking the loathsomeness of

that pitiful wrapping. Little by little, however, this feeling

disappeared, and I found no matter for even dissatisfaction in her

wrapping. Indeed, my thoughts found inward voice before the subject

was dismissed from my mind:

 

“One becomes accustomed to anything—even a shroud!” But the thought

was followed by a submerging wave of pity that she should have had

such a dreadful experience.

 

By-and-by we seemed both to forget everything—I know I did—except

that we were man and woman, and close together. The strangeness of

the situation and the circumstances did not seem of moment—not worth

even a passing thought. We still sat apart and said little, if

anything. I cannot recall a single word that either of us spoke

whilst we sat before the fire, but other language than speech came

into play; the eyes told their own story, as eyes can do, and more

eloquently than lips whilst exercising their function of speech.

Question and answer followed each other in this satisfying language,

and with an unspeakable rapture I began to realize that my affection

was returned. Under these circumstances it was unrealizable that

there should be any incongruity in the whole affair. I was not

myself in the mood of questioning. I was diffident with that

diffidence which