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

their united action.

 

When I got home I wrote down, whilst it was fresh in my memory, all

they told me. This script I studied until I had it so thoroughly by

heart that I COULD not forget it. Then I burned the paper. However,

there is now one gain at least: with my semaphore I can send through

the Blue Mountains from side to side, with expedition, secrecy, and

exactness, a message comprehensible to all.

 

RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

June 6, 1907.

 

Last night I had a new experience of my Lady of the Shroud—in so far

as form was concerned, at any rate. I was in bed, and just falling

asleep, when I heard a queer kind of scratching at the glass door of

the terrace. I listened acutely, my heart beating hard. The sound

seemed to come from low down, close to the floor. I jumped out of

bed, ran to the window, and, pulling aside the heavy curtains, looked

out.

 

The garden looked, as usual, ghostly in the moonlight, but there was

not the faintest sign of movement anywhere, and no one was on or near

the terrace. I looked eagerly down to where the sound had seemed to

come from.

 

There, just inside the glass door, as though it had been pushed under

the door, lay a paper closely folded in several laps. I picked it up

and opened it. I was all in a tumult, for my heart told me whence it

came. Inside was written in English, in a large, sprawling hand,

such as might be from an English child of seven or eight:

 

“Meet me at the Flagstaff on the Rock!”

 

I knew the place, of course. On the farthermost point of the rock on

which the Castle stands is set a high flagstaff, whereon in old time

the banner of the Vissarion family flew. At some far-off time, when

the Castle had been liable to attack, this point had been strongly

fortified. Indeed, in the days when the bow was a martial weapon it

must have been quite impregnable.

 

A covered gallery, with loopholes for arrows, had been cut in the

solid rock, running right round the point, quite surrounding the

flagstaff and the great boss of rock on whose centre it was reared.

A narrow drawbridge of immense strength had connected—in peaceful

times, and still remained—the outer point of rock with an entrance

formed in the outer wall, and guarded with flanking towers and a

portcullis. Its use was manifestly to guard against surprise. From

this point only could be seen the line of the rocks all round the

point. Thus, any secret attack by boats could be made impossible.

 

Having hurriedly dressed myself, and taking with me both hunting-knife and revolver, I went out on the terrace, taking the precaution,

unusual to me, of drawing the grille behind me and locking it.

Matters around the Castle are in far too disturbed a condition to

allow the taking of any foolish chances, either in the way of being

unarmed or of leaving the private entrance to the Castle open. I

found my way through the rocky passage, and climbed by the Jacob’s

ladder fixed on the rock—a device of convenience in time of peace—

to the foot of the flagstaff.

 

I was all on fire with expectation, and the time of going seemed

exceeding long; so I was additionally disappointed by the contrast

when I did not see my Lady there when I arrived. However, my heart

beat freely again—perhaps more freely than ever—when I saw her

crouching in the shadow of the Castle wall. From where she was she

could not be seen from any point save that alone which I occupied;

even from there it was only her white shroud that was conspicuous

through the deep gloom of the shadow. The moonlight was so bright

that the shadows were almost unnaturally black.

 

I rushed over towards her, and when close was about to say

impulsively, “Why did you leave your tomb?” when it suddenly struck

me that the question would be malapropos and embarrassing in many

ways. So, better judgment prevailing, I said instead:

 

“It has been so long since I saw you! It has seemed an eternity to

me!” Her answer came as quickly as even I could have wished; she

spoke impulsively and without thought:

 

“It has been long to me too! Oh, so long! so long! I have asked you

to come out here because I wanted to see you so much that I could not

wait any longer. I have been heart-hungry for a sight of you!”

 

Her words, her eager attitude, the ineffable something which conveys

the messages of the heart, the longing expression in her eyes as the

full moonlight fell on her face, showing the stars as living gold—

for in her eagerness she had stepped out towards me from the shadow—

all set me on fire. Without a thought or a word—for it was Nature

speaking in the language of Love, which is a silent tongue—I stepped

towards her and took her in my arms. She yielded with that sweet

unconsciousness which is the perfection of Love, as if it was in

obedience to some command uttered before the beginning of the world.

Probably without any conscious effort on either side—I know there

was none on mine—our mouths met in the first kiss of love.

 

At the time nothing in the meeting struck me as out of the common.

But later in the night, when I was alone and in darkness, whenever I

thought of it all—its strangeness and its stranger rapture—I could

not but be sensible of the bizarre conditions for a love meeting.

The place lonely, the time night, the man young and strong, and full

of life and hope and ambition; the woman, beautiful and ardent though

she was, a woman seemingly dead, clothed in the shroud in which she

had been wrapped when lying in her tomb in the crypt of the old

church.

 

Whilst we were together, anyhow, there was little thought of the

kind; no reasoning of any kind on my part. Love has its own laws and

its own logic. Under the flagstaff, where the Vissarion banner was

wont to flap in the breeze, she was in my arms; her sweet breath was

on my face; her heart was beating against my own. What need was

there for reason at all? Inter arma silent leges—the voice of

reason is silent in the stress of passion. Dead she may be, or Undead—a Vampire with one foot in Hell and one on earth. But I love

her; and come what may, here or hereafter, she is mine. As my mate,

we shall fare along together, whatsoever the end may be, or

wheresoever our path may lead. If she is indeed to be won from the

nethermost Hell, then be mine the task!

 

But to go back to the record. When I had once started speaking to

her in words of passion I could not stop. I did not want to—if I

could; and she did not appear to wish it either. Can there be a

woman—alive or dead—who would not want to hear the rapture of her

lover expressed to her whilst she is enclosed in his arms?

 

There was no attempt at reticence on my part now; I took it for

granted that she knew all that I surmised, and, as she made neither

protest nor comment, that she accepted my belief as to her

indeterminate existence. Sometimes her eyes would be closed, but

even then the rapture of her face was almost beyond belief. Then,

when the beautiful eyes would open and gaze on me, the stars that

were in them would shine and scintillate as though they were formed

of living fire. She said little, very little; but though the words

were few, every syllable was fraught with love, and went straight to

the very core of my heart.

 

By-and-by, when our transport had calmed to joy, I asked when I might

next see her, and how and where I might find her when I should want

to. She did not reply directly, but, holding me close in her arms,

whispered in my ear with that breathless softness which is a lover’s

rapture of speech:

 

“I have come here under terrible difficulties, not only because I

love you—and that would be enough—but because, as well as the joy

of seeing you, I wanted to warn you.”

 

“To warn me! Why?” I queried. Her reply came with a bashful

hesitation, with something of a struggle in it, as of one who for

some ulterior reason had to pick her words:

 

“There are difficulties and dangers ahead of you. You are beset with

them; and they are all the greater because they are, of grim

necessity, hidden from you. You cannot go anywhere, look in any

direction, do anything, say anything, but it may be a signal for

danger. My dear, it lurks everywhere—in the light as well as in the

darkness; in the open as well as in the secret places; from friends

as well as foes; when you are least prepared; when you may least

expect it. Oh, I know it, and what it is to endure; for I share it

for you—for your dear sake!”

 

“My darling!” was all I could say, as I drew her again closer to me

and kissed her. After a bit she was calmer; seeing this, I came back

to the subject that she had—in part, at all events—come to me to

speak about:

 

“But if difficulty and danger hedge me in so everlastingly, and if I

am to have no indication whatever of its kind or purpose, what can I

do? God knows I would willingly guard myself—not on my own account,

but for your dear sake. I have now a cause to live and be strong,

and to keep all my faculties, since it may mean much to you. If you

may not tell me details, may you not indicate to me some line of

conduct, of action, that would be most in accord with your wishes—

or, rather, with your idea of what would be best?

 

She looked at me fixedly before speaking—a long, purposeful, loving

look which no man born of woman could misunderstand. Then she spoke

slowly, deliberately, emphatically:

 

“Be bold, and fear not. Be true to yourself, to me—it is the same

thing. These are the best guards you can use. Your safety does not

rest with me. Ah, I wish it did! I wish to God it did!” In my

inner heart it thrilled me not merely to hear the expression of her

wish, but to hear her use the name of God as she did. I understand

now, in the calm of this place and with the sunlight before me, that

my belief as to her being all woman—living woman—was not quite

dead: but though at the moment my heart did not recognize the doubt,

my brain did. And I made up my mind that we should not part this

time until she knew that I had seen her, and where; but, despite my

own thoughts, my outer ears listened greedily as she went on.

 

“As for me, you may not find ME, but I shall find YOU, be sure!

And now we must say ‘Good-night,’ my dear, my dear! Tell me once

again that you love me, for it is a sweetness that one does not wish

to forego—even one who wears such a garment as this—and rests where

I must rest.” As she spoke she held up part of her cerements for me

to see. What could I do but take her once again in my arms and hold

her