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

class="calibre2">she did. Why, at this very moment she was within my own gates.

Locks and bars, even the very seal of death itself, seemed unable to

make for her a prison-house. With such freedom of action and

movement, going when she would into secret places, what might she not

know that was known to others? How could anyone keep secret from

such an one even an ill intent? Such thoughts, such surmises, had

often flashed through my mind in moments of excitement rather than of

reflection, but never long enough to become fixed into belief. But

yet the consequences, the convictions, of them were with me, though

unconsciously, though the thoughts themselves were perhaps forgotten

or withered before development.

 

“And you?” I asked her earnestly. “What about danger to you?” She

smiled, her little pearl-white teeth gleaming in the moonlight, as

she spoke:

 

“There is no danger for me. I am safe. I am the safest person,

perhaps the only safe person, in all this land.” The full

significance of her words did not seem to come to me all at once.

Some base for understanding such an assertion seemed to be wanting.

It was not that I did not trust or believe her, but that I thought

she might be mistaken. I wanted to reassure myself, so in my

distress I asked unthinkingly:

 

“How the safest? What is your protection?” For several moments that

spun themselves out endlessly she looked me straight in the face, the

stars in her eyes seeming to glow like fire; then, lowering her head,

she took a fold of her shroud and held it up to me.

 

“This!”

 

The meaning was complete and understandable now. I could not speak

at once for the wave of emotion which choked me. I dropped on my

knees, and taking her in my arms, held her close to me. She saw that

I was moved, and tenderly stroked my hair, and with delicate touch

pressed down my head on her bosom, as a mother might have done to

comfort a frightened child.

 

Presently we got back to the realities of life again. I murmured:

 

“Your safety, your life, your happiness are all-in-all to me. When

will you let them be my care?” She trembled in my arms, nestling

even closer to me. Her own arms seemed to quiver with delight as she

said:

 

“Would you indeed like me to be always with you? To me it would be a

happiness unspeakable; and to you, what would it be?”

 

I thought that she wished to hear me speak my love to her, and that,

woman-like, she had led me to the utterance, and so I spoke again of

the passion that now raged in me, she listening eagerly as we

strained each other tight in our arms. At last there came a pause, a

long, long pause, and our hearts beat consciously in unison as we

stood together. Presently she said in a sweet, low, intense whisper,

as soft as the sighing of summer wind:

 

“It shall be as you wish; but oh, my dear, you will have to first go

through an ordeal which may try you terribly! Do not ask me

anything! You must not ask, because I may not answer, and it would

be pain to me to deny you anything. Marriage with such an one as I

am has its own ritual, which may not be foregone. It may … ” I

broke passionately into her speaking:

 

“There is no ritual that I fear, so long as it be that it is for your

good, and your lasting happiness. And if the end of it be that I may

call you mine, there is no horror in life or death that I shall not

gladly face. Dear, I ask you nothing. I am content to leave myself

in your hands. You shall advise me when the time comes, and I shall

be satisfied, content to obey. Content! It is but a poor word to

express what I long for! I shall shirk nothing which may come to me

from this or any other world, so long as it is to make you mine!”

Once again her murmured happiness was music to my ears:

 

“Oh, how you love me! how you love me, dear, dear!” She took me in

her arms, and for a few seconds we hung together. Suddenly she tore

herself apart from me, and stood drawn up to the full height, with a

dignity I cannot describe or express. Her voice had a new dominance,

as with firm utterance and in staccato manner she said:

 

“Rupert Sent Leger, before we go a step further I must say something

to you, ask you something, and I charge you, on your most sacred

honour and belief, to answer me truly. Do you believe me to be one

of those unhappy beings who may not die, but have to live in shameful

existence between earth and the nether world, and whose hellish

mission is to destroy, body and soul, those who love them till they

fall to their level? You are a gentleman, and a brave one. I have

found you fearless. Answer me in sternest truth, no matter what the

issue may be!”

 

She stood there in the glamorous moonlight with a commanding dignity

which seemed more than human. In that mystic light her white shroud

seemed diaphanous, and she appeared like a spirit of power. What was

I to say? How could I admit to such a being that I had actually had

at moments, if not a belief, a passing doubt? It was a conviction

with me that if I spoke wrongly I should lose her for ever. I was in

a desperate strait. In such a case there is but one solid ground

which one may rest on—the Truth.

 

I really felt I was between the devil and the deep sea. There was no

avoiding the issue, and so, out of this all-embracing, all-compelling

conviction of truth, I spoke.

 

For a fleeting moment I felt that my tone was truculent, and almost

hesitated; but as I saw no anger or indignation on my Lady’s face,

but rather an eager approval, I was reassured. A woman, after all,

is glad to see a man strong, for all belief in him must be based on

that.

 

“I shall speak the truth. Remember that I have no wish to hurt your

feelings, but as you conjure me by my honour, you must forgive me if

I pain. It is true that I had at first—ay, and later, when I came

to think matters over after you had gone, when reason came to the aid

of impression—a passing belief that you are a Vampire. How can I

fail to have, even now, though I love you with all my soul, though I

have held you in my arms and kissed you on the mouth, a doubt, when

all the evidences seem to point to one thing? Remember that I have

only seen you at night, except that bitter moment when, in the broad

noonday of the upper world, I saw you, clad as ever in a shroud,

lying seemingly dead in a tomb in the crypt of St. Sava’s Church . .

. But let that pass. Such belief as I have is all in you. Be you

woman or Vampire, it is all the same to me. It is YOU whom I love!

Should it be that you are—you are not woman, which I cannot believe,

then it will be my glory to break your fetters, to open your prison,

and set you free. To that I consecrate my life.” For a few seconds

I stood silent, vibrating with the passion which had been awakened in

me. She had by now lost the measure of her haughty isolation, and

had softened into womanhood again. It was really like a realization

of the old theme of Pygmalion’s statue. It was with rather a

pleading than a commanding voice that she said:

 

“And shall you always be true to me?”

 

“Always—so help me, God!” I answered, and I felt that there could be

no lack of conviction in my voice.

 

Indeed, there was no cause for such lack. She also stood for a

little while stone-still, and I was beginning to expand to the

rapture which was in store for me when she should take me again in

her arms.

 

But there was no such moment of softness. All at once she started as

if she had suddenly wakened from a dream, and on the spur of the

moment said:

 

“Now go, go!” I felt the conviction of necessity to obey, and turned

at once. As I moved towards the door by which I had entered, I

asked:

 

“When shall I see you again?”

 

“Soon!” came her answer. “I shall let you know soon—when and where.

Oh, go, go!” She almost pushed me from her.

 

When I had passed through the low doorway and locked and barred it

behind me, I felt a pang that I should have had to shut her out like

that; but I feared lest there should arise some embarrassing

suspicion if the door should be found open. Later came the

comforting thought that, as she had got to the roof though the door

had been shut, she would be able to get away by the same means. She

had evidently knowledge of some secret way into the Castle. The

alternative was that she must have some supernatural quality or

faculty which gave her strange powers. I did not wish to pursue that

train of thought, and so, after an effort, shut it out from my mind.

 

When I got back to my room I locked the door behind me, and went to

sleep in the dark. I did not want light just then—could not bear

it.

 

This morning I woke, a little later than usual, with a kind of

apprehension which I could not at once understand. Presently,

however, when my faculties became fully awake and in working order, I

realized that I feared, half expected, that Aunt Janet would come to

me in a worse state of alarm than ever apropos of some new Second-Sight experience of more than usual ferocity.

 

But, strange to say, I had no such visit. Later on in the morning,

when, after breakfast, we walked together through the garden, I asked

her how she had slept, and if she had dreamt. She answered me that

she had slept without waking, and if she had had any dreams, they

must have been pleasant ones, for she did not remember them. “And

you know, Rupert,” she added, “that if there be anything bad or

fearsome or warning in dreams, I always remember them.”

 

Later still, when I was by myself on the cliff beyond the creek, I

could not help commenting on the absence of her power of Second Sight

on the occasion. Surely, if ever there was a time when she might

have had cause of apprehension, it might well have been when I asked

the Lady whom she did not know to marry me—the Lady of whose

identity I knew nothing, even whose name I did not know—whom I loved

with all my heart and soul—my Lady of the Shroud.

 

I have lost faith in Second Sight.

 

RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

July 1, 1907.

 

Another week gone. I have waited patiently, and I am at last

rewarded by another letter. I was preparing for bed a little while

ago, when I heard the same mysterious sound at the door as on the

last two occasions. I hurried to the glass door, and there found

another close-folded letter. But I could see no sign of my Lady,