_THE BECKONING HAND._
I.
I first met Cesarine Vivian in the stalls at the Ambiguities Theatre.
I had promised to take Mrs. Latham and Irene to see the French playswhich were then being acted by Marie Leroux's celebrated Palais Royalcompany. I wasn't at the time exactly engaged to poor Irene: it hasalways been a comfort to me that I wasn't engaged to her, though I knewIrene herself considered it practically equivalent to an understoodengagement. We had known one another intimately from childhood upward,for the Lathams were a sort of second cousins of ours, three timesremoved: and we had always called one another by our Christian names,and been very fond of one another in a simple girlish and boyish fashionas long as we could either of us remember. Still, I maintain, there wasno definite understanding between us; and if Mrs. Latham thought I hadbeen paying Irene attentions, she must have known that a young man oftwo and twenty, with a decent fortune and a nice estate down inDevonshire, was likely to look about him for a while before he thoughtof settling down and marrying quietly.
I had brought the yacht up to London Bridge, and was living on board inpicnic style, and running about town casually, when I took Irene andher mother to see "Faustine," at the Ambiguities. As soon as we had gotin and taken our places, Irene whispered to me, touching my hand lightlywith her fan, "Just look at the very dark girl on the other side of you,Harry! Did you ever in your life see anybody so perfectly beautiful?"
It has always been a great comfort to me, too, that Irene herself wasthe first person to call my attention to Cesarine Vivian's extraordinarybeauty.
I turned round, as if by accident, and gave a passing glance, whereIrene waved her fan, at the girl beside me. She was beautiful,certainly, in a terrible, grand, statuesque style of beauty; and I sawat a glimpse that she had Southern blood in her veins, perhaps Negro,perhaps Moorish, perhaps only Spanish, or Italian, or Provencal. Herfeatures were proud and somewhat Jewish-looking; her eyes large, dark,and haughty; her black hair waved slightly in sinuous undulations as itpassed across her high, broad forehead; her complexion, though a duskyolive in tone, was clear and rich, and daintily transparent; and herlips were thin and very slightly curled at the delicate corners, with apeculiarly imperious and almost scornful expression of fixed disdain. Ihad never before beheld anywhere such a magnificently repellent specimenof womanhood. For a second or so, as I looked, her eyes met mine with adefiant inquiry, and I was conscious that moment of some strange andweird fascination in her glance that seemed to draw me irresistiblytowards her, at the same time that I hardly dared to fix my gazesteadily upon the piercing eyes that looked through and through me withtheir keen penetration.
"She's very beautiful, no doubt," I whispered back to Irene in a lowundertone, "though I must confess I don't exactly like the look of her.She's a trifle too much of a tragedy queen for my taste: a Lady Macbeth,or a Beatrice Cenci, or a Clytemnestra. I prefer our simple littleEnglish prettiness to this southern splendour. It's more to our Englishliking than these tall and stately Italian enchantresses. Besides, Ifancy the girl looks as if she had a drop or two of black bloodsomewhere about her."
"Oh, no," Irene cried warmly. "Impossible, Harry. She's exquisite:exquisite. Italian, you know, or something of that sort. Italian girlshave always got that peculiar gipsy-like type of beauty."
Low as we spoke, the girl seemed to know by instinct we were talkingabout her; for she drew away the ends of her light wrap coldly, in asignificant fashion, and turned with her opera-glass in the oppositedirection, as if on purpose to avoid looking towards us.
A minute later the curtain rose, and the first act of Halevy's"Faustine" distracted my attention for the moment from the beautifulstranger.
Marie Leroux took the part of the great empress. She was grand, stately,imposing, no doubt, but somehow it seemed to me she didn't come up quiteso well as usual that evening to one's ideal picture of the terrible,audacious, superb Roman woman. I leant over and murmured so to Irene."Don't you know why?" Irene whispered back to me with a faint movementof the play-bill toward the beautiful stranger.
"No," I answered; "I haven't really the slightest conception."
"Why," she whispered, smiling; "just look beside you. Could anybody bearcomparison for a moment as a Faustine with that splendid creature in thestall next to you?"
I stole a glance sideways as she spoke. It was quite true. The girl bymy side was the real Faustine, the exact embodiment of the dramatist'screation; and Marie Leroux, with her stagey effects and her actress'spretences, could not in any way stand the contrast with the genuineempress who sat there eagerly watching her.
The girl saw me glance quickly from her towards the actress and fromthe actress back to her, and shrank aside, not with coquettish timidity,but half angrily and half as if flattered and pleased at the impliedcompliment. "Papa," she said to the very English-looking gentleman whosat beyond her, "ce monsieur-ci...." I couldn't catch the end of thesentence.
She was French, then, not Italian or Spanish; yet a more perfectEnglishman than the man she called "papa" it would be difficult todiscover on a long summer's day in all London.
"My dear," her father whispered back in English, "if I were you...." andthe rest of that sentence also was quite inaudible to me.
My interest was now fully roused in the beautiful stranger, who satevidently with her father and sister, and drank in every word of theplay as it proceeded with the intensest interest. As for me, I hardlycared to look at the actors, so absorbed was I in my queenly neighbour.I made a bare pretence of watching the stage every five minutes, andsaying a few words now and again to Irene or her mother; but my realattention was all the time furtively directed to the girl beside me. Notthat I was taken with her; quite the contrary; she distinctly repelledme; but she seemed to exercise over me for all that the same strange andindescribable fascination which is often possessed by some horriblesight that you would give worlds to avoid, and yet cannot for your lifehelp intently gazing upon.
Between the third and fourth acts Irene whispered to me again, "I can'tkeep my eyes off her, Harry. She's wonderfully beautiful. Confess now:aren't you over head and ears in love with her?"
I looked at Irene's sweet little peaceful English face, and I answeredtruthfully, "No, Irene. If I wanted to fall in love, I should findsomebody----"
"Nonsense, Harry," Irene cried, blushing a little, and holding up herfan before her nervously. "She's a thousand times prettier and handsomerin every way----"
"Prettier?"
"Than I am."
At that moment the curtain rose, and Marie Leroux came forward once morewith her imperial diadem, in the very act of defying and bearding theenraged emperor.
It was a great scene. The whole theatre hung upon her words for twentyminutes. The effect was sublime. Even I myself felt my interest arousedat last in the consummate spectacle. I glanced round to observe myneighbour. She sat there, straining her gaze upon the stage, and heavingher bosom with suppressed emotion. In a second, the spell was brokenagain. Beside that tall, dark southern girl, in her queenly beauty, withher flashing eyes and quivering nostrils, intensely moved by the passionof the play, the mere actress who mouthed and gesticulated before us bythe footlights was as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. My companionin the stalls was the genuine Faustine: the player on the stage was buta false pretender.
As I looked a cry arose from the wings: a hushed cry at first, a buzz orhum; rising louder and ever louder still, as a red glare burst upon thescene from the background. Then a voice from the side boxes rang outsuddenly above the confused murmur and the ranting of the actors "Fire!Fire!"
Almost before I knew what had happened, the mob in the stalls, like themob in the gallery, was surging and swaying wildly towards the exits, ina general struggle for life of the fierce old selfish barbaric pattern.Dense clouds of smoke rolled from the stage and filled the length andbreadth of the auditorium; tongues of flame licked up the pasteboardscenes and hangings, like so much paper; women screamed, and f
ought, andfainted; men pushed one another aside and hustled and elbowed, in onewild effort to make for the doors at all hazards to the lives of theirneighbours. Never before had I so vividly realized how near the savagelies to the surface in our best and highest civilized society. I had torealize it still more vividly and more terribly afterwards.
One person alone I observed calm and erect, resisting quietly all pushesand thrusts, and moving with slow deliberateness to the door, as ifwholly unconcerned at the universal noise and hubbub and tumult aroundher. It was the dark girl from the stalls beside me.
For myself, my one thought of course was for poor Irene and Mrs. Latham.Fortunately, I am a strong and well-built man, and by keeping the twowomen in front of me, and thrusting hard with my elbows on either sideto keep off the crush, I managed to make a tolerably clear road for themdown the central row of stalls and out on to the big external staircase.The dark girl, now separated from her father and sister by the rush, wasclose in front of me. By a careful side movement, I managed to includeher also in our party. She looked up to me gratefully with her big eyes,and her mouth broke into a charming smile as she turned and said inperfect English, "I am much obliged to you for your kind assistance."Irene's cheek was pale as death; but through the strange young lady'solive skin the bright blood still burned and glowed amid that franticpanic as calmly as ever.
We had reached the bottom of the steps, and were out into the front,when suddenly the strange lady turned around and gave a little cry ofdisappointment. "Mes lorgnettes! Mes lorgnettes!" she said. Thenglancing round carelessly to me she went on in English: "I have left myopera-glasses inside on the vacant seat. I think, if you will excuse me,I'll go back and fetch them."
"It's impossible," I cried, "my dear madam. Utterly impossible. They'llcrush you underfoot. They'll tear you to pieces."
She smiled a strange haughty smile, as if amused at the idea, but merelyanswered, "I think not," and tried to pass lightly by me.
I held her arm. I didn't know then she was as strong as I was. "Don'tgo," I said imploringly. "They will certainly kill you. It would beimpossible to stem a mob like this one."
She smiled again, and darted back in silence before I could stop her.
Irene and Mrs. Latham were now fairly out of all danger. "Go on, Irene,"I said loosing her arm. "Policeman, get these ladies safely out. I mustgo back and take care of that mad woman."
"Go, go quick," Irene cried. "If you don't go, she'll be killed, Harry."
I rushed back wildly after her, battling as well as I was able againstthe frantic rush of panic-stricken fugitives, and found my companionstruggling still upon the main staircase. I helped her to make her wayback into the burning theatre, and she ran lightly through the densesmoke to the stall she had occupied, and took the opera-glasses from thevacant place. Then she turned to me once more with a smile of triumph."People lose their heads so," she said, "in all these crushes. I cameback on purpose to show papa I wasn't going to be frightened intoleaving my opera-glasses. I should have been eternally ashamed of myselfif I had come away and left them in the theatre."
"Quick," I answered, gasping for breath. "If you don't make haste, weshall be choked to death, or the roof itself will fall in upon us andcrush us!"
She looked up where I pointed with a hasty glance, and then made her wayback again quickly to the staircase. As we hurried out, the timbers ofthe stage were beginning to fall in, and the engines were alreadyplaying fiercely upon the raging flames. I took her hand and almostdragged her out into the open. When we reached the Strand, we were bothwet through, and terribly blackened with smoke and ashes. Pushing ourway through the dense crowd, I called a hansom. She jumped in lightly."Thank you so much," she said, quite carelessly. "Will you kindly tellhim where to drive? Twenty-seven, Seymour Crescent."
"I'll see you home, if you'll allow me," I answered. "Under thesecircumstances, I trust I may be permitted."
"As you like," she said, smiling enchantingly. "You are very good. Myname is Cesarine Vivian. Papa will be very much obliged to you for yourkind assistance."
I drove round to the Lathams' after dropping Miss Vivian at her father'sdoor, to assure myself of Irene's safety, and to let them know of my ownreturn unhurt from my perilous adventure. Irene met me on the doorstep,pale as death still. "Thank heaven," she cried, "Harry, you're safe backagain! And that poor girl? What has become of her?"
"I left her," I said, "at Seymour Crescent."
Irene burst into a flood of tears. "Oh, Harry," she cried, "I thoughtshe would have been killed there. It was brave of you, indeed, to helpher through with it."
II.
Next day, Mr. Vivian called on me at the Oxford and Cambridge, theaddress on the card I had given his daughter. I was in the club when hecalled, and I found him a pleasant, good-natured Cornishman, with verylittle that was strange or romantic in any way about him. He thanked meheartily, but not too effusively, for the care I had taken of MissVivian overnight; and he was not so overcome with parental emotion asnot to smoke a very good Havana, or to refuse my offer of a brandy andseltzer. We got on very well together, and I soon gathered from what mynew acquaintance said that, though he belonged to one of the bestfamilies in Cornwall, he had been an English merchant in Haiti, and hadmade his money chiefly in the coffee trade. He was a widower, I learnedincidentally, and his daughters had been brought up for some years inEngland, though at their mother's request they had also passed part oftheir lives in convent schools in Paris and Rouen. "Mrs. Vivian was aHaitian, you know," he said casually: "Catholic of course. The girls areCatholics. They're good girls, though they're my own daughters; andCesarine, your friend of last night, is supposed to be clever. I'm nojudge myself: I don't know about it. Oh, by the way, Cesarine said shehadn't thanked you half enough herself yesterday, and I was to be sureand bring you round this afternoon to a cup of tea with us at SeymourCrescent."
In spite of the impression Mdlle. Cesarine had made upon me the nightbefore, I somehow didn't feel at all desirous of meeting her again. Iwas impressed, it is true, but not favourably. There seemed to mesomething uncanny and weird about her which made me shrink from seeinganything more of her if I could possibly avoid it. And as it happened, Iwas luckily engaged that very afternoon to tea at Irene's. I made theexcuse, and added somewhat pointedly--on purpose that it might berepeated to Mdlle. Cesarine--"Miss Latham is a very old and particularfriend of mine--a friend whom I couldn't for worlds think ofdisappointing."
Mr. Vivian laughed the matter off. "I shall catch it from Cesarine," hesaid good-humouredly, "for not bringing her cavalier to receive herformal thanks in person. Our West-Indian born girls, you know, are veryimperious. But if you can't, you can't, of course, so there's an end ofit, and it's no use talking any more about it."
I can't say why, but at that moment, in spite of my intense desire notto meet Cesarine again, I felt I would have given whole worlds if hewould have pressed me to come in spite of myself. But, as it happened,he didn't.
At five o'clock, I drove round in a hansom as arranged, to Irene's,having almost made up my mind, if I found her alone, to come to adefinite understanding with her and call it an engagement. She wasn'talone, however. As I entered the drawing-room, I saw a tall and gracefullady sitting opposite her, holding a cup of tea, and with her backtowards me. The lady rose, moved round, and bowed. To my immensesurprise, I found it was Cesarine.
I noted to myself at the moment, too, that in my heart, though I hadseen her but once before, I thought of her already simply as Cesarine.And I was pleased to see her: fascinated: spell-bound.
Cesarine smiled at my evident surprise. "Papa and I met Miss Latham thisafternoon in Bond Street," she said gaily, in answer to my mute inquiry,"and we stopped and spoke to one another, of course, about last night;and papa said you couldn't come round to tea with us in the Crescent,because you were engaged already to Miss Latham. And Miss Latham verykindly asked me to drive over and take tea with her, as I was so anxiousto thank you once more for your great kindnes
s to me yesterday."
"And Miss Vivian was good enough to waive all ceremony," Irene put in,"and come round to us as you see, without further introduction."
I stopped and talked all the time I was there to Irene; but, somehow,whatever I said, Cesarine managed to intercept it, and I caught myselfquite guiltily looking at her from time to time, with an inexpressibleattraction that I could not account for.
By-and-by, Mr. Vivian's carriage called for Cesarine, and I was left afew minutes alone with Irene.
"Well, what do you think of her?" Irene asked me simply.
I turned my eyes away: I dare not meet hers. "I think she's veryhandsome," I replied evasively.
"Handsome! I should think so. She's wonderful. She's splendid. Anddoesn't she talk magnificently, too, Harry?"
"She's clever, certainly," I answered shuffling. "But I don't know why,I mistrust her, Irene."
I rose and stood by the door with my hat in my hand, hesitating andtrembling. I felt as if I had something to say to Irene, and yet I washalf afraid to venture upon saying it. My fingers quivered, a thing veryunusual with me. At last I came closer to her, after a long pause, andsaid, "Irene."
Irene started, and the colour flushed suddenly into her cheeks. "Yes,Harry," she answered tremulously.
I don't know why, but I couldn't utter it. It was but to say "I loveyou," yet I hadn't the courage. I stood there like a fool, looking ather irresolutely, and then--
The door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Latham entered and interrupted us.
III.
I didn't speak again to Irene. The reason was that three days later Ireceived a little note of invitation to lunch at Seymour Crescent fromCesarine Vivian.
I didn't want to accept it, and yet I didn't know how to help myself. Iwent, determined beforehand as soon as ever lunch was over to take awaythe yacht to the Scotch islands, and leave Cesarine and all herenchantments for ever behind me. I was afraid of her, that's the fact,positively afraid of her. I couldn't look her in the face withoutfeeling at once that she exerted a terrible influence over me.
The lunch went off quietly enough, however. We talked about Haiti andthe West Indies; about the beautiful foliage and the lovely flowers;about the moonlight nights and the tropical sunsets; and Cesarine grewquite enthusiastic over them all. "You should take your yacht out theresome day, Mr. Tristram," she said softly. "There is no place on earth sowild and glorious as our own beautiful neglected Haiti."
She lifted her eyes full upon me as she spoke. I stammered out, like onespell-bound, "I must certainly go, on your recommendation, Mdlle.Cesarine."
"Why Mademoiselle?" she asked quickly. Then, perceiving I misunderstoodher by the start I gave, she added with a blush, "I mean, why not 'MissVivian' in plain English?"
"Because you aren't English," I said confusedly. "You're Haitian, inreality. Nobody could ever for a moment take you for a mereEnglishwoman."
I meant it for a compliment, but Cesarine frowned. I saw I had hurt her,and why; but I did not apologize. Yet I was conscious of having donesomething very wrong, and I knew I must try my best at once to regain mylost favour with her.
"You will take some coffee after lunch?" Cesarine said, as the disheswere removed.
"Oh, certainly, my dear," her father put in. "You must show Mr. Tristramhow we make coffee in the West Indian fashion."
Cesarine smiled, and poured it out--black coffee, very strong, and intoeach cup she poured a little glass of excellent pale neat cognac. Itseemed to me that she poured the cognac like a conjuror's trick; buteverything about her was so strange and lurid that I took very littlenotice of the matter at that particular moment. It certainly wasdelicious coffee: I never tasted anything like it.
After lunch, we went into the drawing-room, and thence Cesarine took mealone into the pretty conservatory. She wanted to show me some of herbeautiful Haitian orchids, she said; she had brought the orchids herselfyears ago from Haiti. How long we stood there I could never tell. Iseemed as if intoxicated with her presence. I had forgotten now allabout my distrust of her: I had forgotten all about Irene and what Iwished to say to her: I was conscious only of Cesarine's great darkeyes, looking through and through me with their piercing glance, andCesarine's figure, tall and stately, but very voluptuous, standing closebeside me, and heaving regularly as we looked at the orchids. She talkedto me in a low and dreamy voice; and whether the Chateau Larose at lunchhad got into my head, or whatever it might be, I felt only dimly andfaintly aware of what was passing around me. I was unmanned with love, Isuppose: but, however it may have been, I certainly moved and spoke thatafternoon like a man in a trance from which he cannot by any effort ofhis own possibly awake himself.
"Yes, yes," I overheard Cesarine saying at last, as through a mist ofemotion, "you must go some day and see our beautiful mountainous Haiti.I must go myself. I long to go again. I don't care for this gloomy,dull, sunless England. A hand seems always to be beckoning me there. Ishall obey it some day, for Haiti--our lovely Haiti, is too beautiful."
Her voice was low and marvellously musical. "Mademoiselle Cesarine," Ibegan timidly.
She pouted and looked at me. "Mademoiselle again," she said in a pettishway. "I told you not to call me so, didn't I?"
"Well, then, Cesarine," I went on boldly. She laughed low, a littlelaugh of triumph, but did not correct or check me in any way.
"Cesarine," I continued, lingering I know not why over the syllables ofthe name, "I will go, as you say. I shall see Haiti. Why should we notboth go together?"
She looked up at me eagerly with a sudden look of hushed inquiry. "Youmean it?" she asked, trembling visibly. "You mean it, Mr. Tristram? Youknow what you are saying?"
"Cesarine," I answered, "I mean it. I know it. I cannot go away from youand leave you. Something seems to tie me. I am not my own master....Cesarine, I love you."
My head whirled as I said the words, but I meant them at the time, andheaven knows I tried ever after to live up to them.
She clutched my arm convulsively for a moment. Her face was aglow with awonderful light, and her eyes burned like a pair of diamonds. "But theother girl!" she cried. "Her! Miss Latham! The one you call Irene! Youare ... in love with her! Are you not? Tell me!"
"I have never proposed to Irene," I replied slowly. "I have never askedany other woman but you to marry me, Cesarine."
She answered me nothing, but my face was very near hers, and I bentforward and kissed her suddenly. To my immense surprise, instead ofstruggling or drawing away, she kissed me back a fervent kiss, with lipshard pressed to mine, and the tears trickled slowly down her cheeks in astrange fashion. "You are mine," she cried. "Mine for ever. I have wonyou. She shall not have you. I knew you were mine the moment I lookedupon you. The hand beckoned me. I knew I should get you."
"Come up into my den, Mr. Tristram, and have a smoke," my hostinterrupted in his bluff voice, putting his head in unexpectedly at theconservatory door. "I think I can offer you a capital Manilla."
The sound woke me as if from some terrible dream, and I followed himstill in a sort of stupor up to the smoking room.
IV.
That very evening I went to see Irene. My brain was whirling even yet,and I hardly knew what I was doing; but the cool air revived me alittle, and by the time I reached the Lathams' I almost felt myselfagain.
Irene came down to the drawing-room to see me alone. I saw what sheexpected, and the shame of my duplicity overcame me utterly.
I took both her hands in mine and stood opposite her, ashamed to lookher in the face, and with the terrible confession weighing me down likea burden of guilt. "Irene," I blurted out, without preface or comment,"I have just proposed to Cesarine Vivian."
Irene drew back a moment and took a long breath. Then she said, with atremor in her voice, but without a tear or a cry, "I expected it, Harry.I thought you meant it. I saw you were terribly, horribly in love withher."
"Irene," I cried, passionately and remorsefully flinging myself upon thesofa in an agony of
repentance, "I do not love her. I have never caredfor her. I'm afraid of her, fascinated by her. I love you, Irene, youand you only. The moment I'm away from her, I hate her, I hate her. Forheaven's sake, tell me what am I to do! I do not love her. I hate her,Irene."
Irene came up to me and soothed my hair tenderly with her hand. "Don't,Harry," she said, with sisterly kindliness. "Don't speak so. Don't giveway to it. I know what you feel. I know what you think. But I am notangry with you. You mustn't talk like that. If she has accepted you, youmust go and marry her. I have nothing to reproach you with: nothing,nothing. Never say such words to me again. Let us be as we have alwaysbeen, friends only."
"Irene," I cried, lifting up my head and looking at her wildly, "it isthe truth: I do not love her, except when I am with her: and then, somestrange enchantment seems to come over me. I don't know what it is, butI can't escape it. In my heart, Irene, in my heart of hearts, I loveyou, and you only. I can never love her as I love you, Irene. Mydarling, my darling, tell me how to get myself away from her."
"Hush," Irene said, laying her hand on mine persuasively. "You'reexcited to-night, Harry. You are flushed and feverish. You don't knowwhat you're saying. You mustn't talk so. If you do, you'll make me hateyou and despise you. You must keep your word now, and marry MissVivian."
V.
The next six weeks seem to me still like a vague dream: everythinghappened so hastily and strangely. I got a note next day from Irene. Itwas very short. "Dearest Harry,--Mamma and I think, under thecircumstances, it would be best for us to leave London for a few weeks.I am not angry with you. With best love, ever yours affectionately,Irene."
I was wild when I received it. I couldn't bear to part so with Irene. Iwould find out where they were going and follow them immediately. Iwould write a note and break off my mad engagement with Cesarine. I musthave been drunk or insane when I made it. I couldn't imagine what Icould have been doing.
On my way round to inquire at the Latham's, a carriage came suddenlyupon me at a sharp corner. A lady bowed to me from it. It was Cesarinewith her father. They pulled up and spoke to me. From that moment mydoom was sealed. The old fascination came back at once, and I followedCesarine blindly home to her house to luncheon, her accepted lover.
In six weeks more we were really married.
The first seven or eight months of our married life passed away happilyenough. As soon as I was actually married to Cesarine, that strangefeeling I had at first experienced about her slowly wore off in thecloser, commonplace, daily intercourse of married life. I almost smiledat myself for ever having felt it. Cesarine was so beautiful and soqueenly a person, that when I took her down home to Devonshire, andintroduced her to the old manor, I really found myself immensely proudof her. Everybody at Teignbury was delighted and struck with her; and,what was a great deal more to the point, I began to discover that I waspositively in love with her myself, into the bargain. She softened andmelted immensely on nearer acquaintance; the Faustina air faded slowlyaway, when one saw her in her own home among her own occupations; and Icame to look on her as a beautiful, simple, innocent girl, delightedwith all our country pleasures, fond of a breezy canter on the slopes ofDartmoor, and taking an affectionate interest in the ducks and chickens,which I could hardly ever have conceived even as possible when I firstsaw her in Seymour Crescent. The imperious, mysterious, terribleCesarine disappeared entirely, and I found in her place, to my immenserelief, that I had married a graceful, gentle, tender-hearted Englishgirl, with just a pleasant occasional touch of southern fire andimpetuosity.
As winter came round again, however, Cesarine's cheeks began to look alittle thinner than usual, and she had such a constant, troublesomecough, that I began to be a trifle alarmed at her strange symptoms.Cesarine herself laughed off my fears. "It's nothing, Harry," she wouldsay; "nothing at all, I assure you, dear. A few good rides on the moorwill set me right again. It's all the result of that horrid London. I'ma country-born girl, and I hate big towns. I never want to live in townagain, Harry."
I called in our best Exeter doctor, and he largely confirmed Cesarine'sown simple view of the situation. "There's nothing organically wrongwith Mrs. Tristram's constitution," he said confidently. "No weakness ofthe lungs or heart in any way. She has merely run down--outlived herstrength a little. A winter in some warm, genial climate would set herup again, I haven't the least hesitation in saying."
"Let us go to Algeria with the yacht, Reeney," I suggested, muchreassured.
"Why Algeria?" Cesarine replied, with brightening eyes. "Oh, Harry, whynot dear old Haiti? You said once you would go there with me--youremember when, darling; why not keep your promise now, and go there? Iwant to go there, Harry: I'm longing to go there." And she held out herdelicately moulded hand in front of her, as if beckoning me, and drawingme on to Haiti after her.
"Ah, yes; why not the West Indies?" the Exeter doctor answeredmeditatively. "I think I understood you that Mrs. Tristram is WestIndian born. Quite so. Quite so. Her native air. Depend upon it, that'sthe best place for her. By all means, I should say, try Haiti."
I don't know why, but the notion for some reason displeased meimmensely. There was something about Cesarine's eyes, somehow, when shebeckoned with her hand in that strange fashion, which reminded meexactly of the weird, uncanny, indescribable impression she had madeupon me when I first knew her. Still I was very fond of Cesarine, and ifshe and the doctor were both agreed that Haiti would be the very bestplace for her, it would be foolish and wrong for me to interfere withtheir joint wisdom. Depend upon it, a woman often knows what is thematter with her better than any man, even her husband, can possibly tellher.
The end of it all was, that in less than a month from that day, we wereout in the yacht on the broad Atlantic, with the cliffs of Falmouth andthe Lizard Point fading slowly behind us in the distance, and the whitespray dashing in front of us, like fingers beckoning us on to Haiti.
VI.
The bay of Port-au-Prince is hot and simmering, a deep basin enclosed ina ringing semicircle of mountains, with scarce a breath blowing on theharbour, and with tall cocoa-nut palms rising unmoved into the still airabove on the low sand-spits that close it in to seaward. The town itselfis wretched, squalid, and hopelessly ramshackled, a despondentcollection of tumbledown wooden houses, interspersed with indescribablenegro huts, mere human rabbit-hutches, where parents and children herdtogether, in one higgledy-piggledy, tropical confusion. I had never inmy days seen anything more painfully desolate and dreary, and I fearedthat Cesarine, who had not been here since she was a girl of fourteen,would be somewhat depressed at the horrid actuality, after her exaltedfanciful ideals of the remembered Haiti. But, to my immense surprise, asit turned out, Cesarine did not appear at all shocked or taken aback atthe squalor and wretchedness all around her. On the contrary, the veryair of the place seemed to inspire her from the first with fresh vigour;her cough disappeared at once as if by magic; and the colour returnedforthwith to her cheeks, almost as soon as we had fairly cast anchor inHaitian waters.
The very first day we arrived at Port-au-Prince, Cesarine said to me,with more shyness than I had ever yet seen her exhibit, "If youwouldn't mind it, Harry, I should like to go at once, this morning--andsee my grandmother."
I started with astonishment. "Your grandmother, Cesarine!" I criedincredulously. "My darling! I didn't know you had a grandmother living."
"Yes, I have," she answered, with some slight hesitation, "and I thinkif you wouldn't object to it, Harry, I'd rather go and see her alone,the first time at least, please dearest."
In a moment, the obvious truth, which I had always known in a vague sortof fashion, but never thoroughly realized, flashed across my mind in itsfull vividness, and I merely bowed my head in silence. It was naturalshe should not wish me to see her meeting with her Haitian grandmother.
She went alone through the streets of Port-au-Prince, without inquiry,like one who knew them familiarly of old, and I dogged her footsteps ata distance unperceived, impelled by th
e same strange fascination whichhad so often driven me to follow Cesarine wherever she led me. After afew hundred yards, she turned out of the chief business place, and downa tumbledown alley of scattered negro cottages, till she came at last toa rather better house that stood by itself in a little dusty garden ofguava-trees and cocoa-nuts. A rude paling, built negro-wise of brokenbarrel-staves, nailed rudely together, separated the garden from thecompound next to it. I slipped into the compound before Cesarineobserved me, beckoned the lazy negro from the door of the hut, with onefinger placed as a token of silence upon my lips, dropped a dollar intohis open palm, and stood behind the paling, looking out into the gardenbeside me through a hole made by a knot in one of the barrel staves.
Cesarine knocked with her hand at the door, and in a moment was answeredby an old negress, tall and bony, dressed in a loose sack-like gown ofcoarse cotton print, with a big red bandanna tied around her short greyhair, and a huge silver cross dangling carelessly upon her bare andwrinkled black neck. She wore no sleeves, and bracelets of strange beadshung loosely around her shrunken and skinny wrists. A more hideous oldhag I had never in my life beheld before; and yet I saw, without waitingto observe it, that she had Cesarine's great dark eyes and even whiteteeth, and something of Cesarine's figure lingered still in her litheand sinuous yet erect carriage.
"Grand'mere!" Cesarine said convulsively, flinging her arms with wilddelight around that grim and withered gaunt black woman. It seemed to meshe had never since our marriage embraced me with half the fervour shebestowed upon this hideous old African witch creature.
"He, Cesarine, it is thee, then, my little one," the old negress criedout suddenly, in her thin high voice and her muffled Haitian _patois_."I did not expect thee so soon, my cabbage. Thou hast come early. Be thewelcome one, my granddaughter."
I reeled with horror as I saw the wrinkled and haggard African kissingonce more my beautiful Cesarine. It seemed to me a horrible desecration.I had always known, of course, since Cesarine was a quadroon, that hergrandmother on one side must necessarily have been a full-bloodednegress, but I had never yet suspected the reality could be so hideous,so terrible as this.
I crouched down speechless against the paling in my disgust andastonishment, and motioned with my hand to the negro in the hut toremain perfectly quiet. The door of the house closed, and Cesarinedisappeared: but I waited there, as if chained to the spot, under a hotand burning tropical sun, for fully an hour, unconscious of anything inheaven or earth, save the shock and surprise of that unexpecteddisclosure.
At last the door opened again, and Cesarine apparently came out oncemore into the neighbouring garden. The gaunt negress followed her close,with one arm thrown caressingly about her beautiful neck and shoulders.In London, Cesarine would not have permitted anybody but a great lady totake such a liberty with her; but here in Haiti, she submitted to theold negress's horrid embraces with perfect calmness. Why should she not,indeed! It was her own grandmother.
They came close up to the spot where I was crouching in the thickdrifted dust behind the low fence, and then I heard rather than saw thatCesarine had flung herself passionately down upon her knees on theground, and was pouring forth a muttered prayer, in a tongue unknown tome, and full of harsh and uncouth gutturals. It was not Latin; it wasnot even the coarse Creole French, the negro _patois_ in which I heardthe people jabbering to one another loudly in the streets around me: itwas some still more hideous and barbaric language, a mass of clicks andinarticulate noises, such as I could never have believed might possiblyproceed from Cesarine's thin and scornful lips.
At last she finished, and I heard her speaking again to her grandmotherin the Creole dialect. "Grandmother, you will pray and get me one. Youwill not forget me. A boy. A pretty one; an heir to my husband!" It wassaid wistfully, with an infinite longing. I knew then why she had grownso pale and thin and haggard before we sailed away from England.
The old hag answered in the same tongue, but in her shrill witherednote, "You will bring him up to the religion, my little one, will you?"
Cesarine seemed to bow her head. "I will," she said. "He shall followthe religion. Mr. Tristram shall never know anything about it."
They went back once more into the house, and I crept away, afraid ofbeing discovered, and returned to the yacht, sick at heart, not knowinghow I should ever venture again to meet Cesarine.
But when I got back, and had helped myself to a glass of sherry tosteady my nerves, from the little flask on Cesarine's dressing-table, Ithought to myself, hideous as it all seemed, it was very naturalCesarine should wish to see her grandmother. After all, was it notbetter, that proud and haughty as she was, she should not disown her ownflesh and blood? And yet, the memory of my beautiful Cesarine wrapped inthat hideous old black woman's arms made the blood curdle in my veryveins.
As soon as Cesarine returned, however, gayer and brighter than I hadever seen her, the old fascination overcame me once more, and Idetermined in my heart to stifle the horror I could not possibly helpfeeling. And that evening, as I sat alone in the cabin with my wife, Isaid to her, "Cesarine, we have never spoken about the religiousquestion before: but if it should be ordained we are ever to have anylittle ones of our own, I should wish them to be brought up in theirmother's creed. You could make them better Catholics, I take it, than Icould ever make them Christians of any sort."
Cesarine answered never a word, but to my intense surprise she burstsuddenly into a flood of tears, and flung herself sobbing on the cabinfloor at my feet in an agony of tempestuous cries and writhings.
VII.
A few days later, when we had settled down for a three months' stay at alittle bungalow on the green hills behind Port-au-Prince, Cesarine saidto me early in the day, "I want to go away to-day, Harry, up into themountains, to the chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours."
I bowed my head in acquiescence. "I can guess why you want to go,Reeney," I answered gently. "You want to pray there about somethingthat's troubling you. And if I'm not mistaken, it's the same thing thatmade you cry the other evening when I spoke to you down yonder in thecabin."
The tears rose hastily once more into Cesarine's eyes, and she cried ina low distressed voice, "Harry, Harry, don't talk to me so. You are toogood to me. You will kill me. You will kill me."
I lifted her head from the table, where she had buried it in her arms,and kissed her tenderly. "Reeney," I said, "I know how you feel, and Ihope Notre Dame will listen to your prayers, and send you what you askof her. But if not, you need never be afraid that I shall love you anythe less than I do at present."
Cesarine burst into a fresh flood of tears. "No, Harry," she said, "youdon't know about it. You can't imagine it. To us, you know, who have theblood of Africa running in our veins, it is not a mere matter of fancy.It is an eternal disgrace for any woman of our race and descent not tobe a mother. I cannot help it. It is the instinct of my people. We areall born so: we cannot feel otherwise."
It was the only time either of us ever alluded in speaking with oneanother to the sinister half of Cesarine's pedigree.
"You will let me go with you to the mountains, Reeney?" I asked,ignoring her remark. "You mustn't go so far by yourself, darling."
"No, Harry, you can't come with me. It would make my prayersineffectual, dearest. You are a heretic, you know, Harry. You are notCatholic. Notre Dame won't listen to my prayer if I take you with me onmy pilgrimage, my darling."
I saw her mind was set upon it, and I didn't interfere. She would beaway all night, she said. There was a rest-house for pilgrims attachedto the chapel, and she would be back again at Maisonette (our bungalow)the morning after.
That afternoon she started on her way on a mountain pony I had justbought for her, accompanied only by a negro maid. I couldn't let her goquite unattended through those lawless paths, beset by cottages of halfsavage Africans; so I followed at a distance, aided by a black groom,and tracked her road along the endless hill-sides up to a fork in theway where the narrow bridle-path divided into tw
o, one of which boreaway to leftward, leading, my guide told me, to the chapel of Notre Damede Bon Secours.
At that point the guide halted. He peered with hand across his eyebrowsamong the tangled brake of tree-ferns with a terrified look; then heshook his woolly black head ominously. "I can't go on, Monsieur," hesaid, turning to me with an unfeigned shudder. "Madame has not taken thepath of Our Lady. She has gone to the left along the other road, whichleads at last to the Vaudoux temple."
I looked at him incredulously. I had heard before of Vaudoux. It is thehideous African canibalistic witchcraft of the relapsing half-heathenHaitian negroes. But Cesarine a Vaudoux worshipper! It was tooridiculous. The man must be mistaken: or else Cesarine had taken thewrong road by some slight accident.
Next moment, a horrible unspeakable doubt seized upon me irresistibly.What was the unknown shrine in her grandmother's garden at whichCesarine had prayed in those awful gutturals? Whatever it was, I wouldprobe this mystery to the very bottom. I would know the truth, come whatmight of it.
"Go, you coward!" I said to the negro. "I have no further need of you. Iwill make my way alone to the Vaudoux temple."
"Monsieur," the man cried, trembling visibly in every limb, "they willtear you to pieces. If they ever discover you near the temple, they willoffer you up as a victim to the Vaudoux."
"Pooh," I answered, contemptuous of the fellow's slavish terror. "WhereMadame, a woman, dares to go, I, her husband, am certainly not afraid tofollow her."
"Monsieur," he replied, throwing himself submissively in the dust on thepath before me, "Madame is Creole; she has the blood of the Vaudouxworshippers flowing in her veins. Nobody will hurt her. She is free ofthe craft. But Monsieur is a pure white and uninitiated.... If theVaudoux people catch him at their rites, they will rend him in pieces,and offer his blood as an expiation to the Unspeakable One."
"Go," I said, with a smile, turning my horse's head up the right-handpath toward the Vaudoux temple. "I am not afraid. I will come back againto Maisonette to-morrow."
I followed the path through a tortuous maze, beset with prickly cactus,agave, and fern-brake, till I came at last to a spur of the hill, wherea white wooden building gleamed in front of me, in the full slantingrays of tropical sunset. A skull was fastened to the lintel of the door.I knew at once it was the Vaudoux temple.
I dismounted at once, and led my horse aside into the brake, though Itore his legs and my own as I went with the spines of the cactus plants;and tying him by the bridle to a mountain cabbage palm, in a spot wherethe thick underbrush completely hid us from view, I lay down and waitedpatiently for the shades of evening.
It was a moonless night, according to the Vaudoux fashion; and I knewfrom what I had already read in West Indian books that the orgies wouldnot commence till midnight.
From time to time, I rubbed a fusee against my hand without lightingit, and by the faint glimmer of the phosphorus on my palm, I was able toread the figures of my watch dial without exciting the attention of theneighbouring Vaudoux worshippers.
Hour after hour went slowly by, and I crouched there still unseen amongthe agave thicket. At last, as the hands of the watch reached togetherthe point of twelve, I heard a low but deep rumbling noise comingominously from the Vaudoux temple. I recognized at once the familiarsound. It was the note of the bull-roarer, that mystic instrument ofpointed wood, whirled by a string round the head of the hierophant, bywhose aid savages in their secret rites summon to their shrines theirgods and spirits. I had often made one myself for a toy when I was a boyin England.
I crept out through the tangled brake, and cautiously approached theback of the building. A sentinel was standing by the door in front, apowerful negro, armed with revolver and cutlas. I skulked roundnoiselessly to the rear, and lifting myself by my hands to the level ofthe one tiny window, I peered in through a slight scratch on the whitepaint, with which the glass was covered internally.
I only saw the sight within for a second. Then my brain reeled, and myfingers refused any longer to hold me. But in that second, I had readthe whole terrible, incredible truth: I knew what sort of a woman shereally was whom I had blindly taken as the wife of my bosom.
Before a rude stone altar covered with stuffed alligator skins, humanbones, live snakes, and hideous sorts of African superstition, a talland withered black woman stood erect, naked as she came from hermother's womb, one skinny arm raised aloft, and the other holding belowsome dark object, that writhed and struggled awfully in her hand on theslab of the altar, even as she held it. I saw in a flash of the torchesbehind it was the black hag I had watched before at the Port-au-Princecottage.
Beside her, whiter of skin, and faultless of figure, stood a youngerwoman, beautiful to behold, imperious and haughty still, like a Greekstatue, unmoved before that surging horrid background of naked black andcringing savages. Her head was bent, and her hand pressed convulsivelyagainst the swollen veins in her throbbing brow; and I saw at once itwas my own wife--a Vaudoux worshipper--Cesarine Tristram.
In another flash, I knew the black woman had a sharp flint knife in heruplifted hand; and the dark object in the other hand I recognized with athrill of unspeakable horror as a negro girl of four years old orthereabouts, gagged and bound, and lying on the altar.
Before I could see the sharp flint descend upon the naked breast of thewrithing victim, my fingers in mercy refused to bear me, and I fell halffainting on the ground below, too shocked and unmanned even to crawlaway at once out of reach of the awful unrealizable horror.
But by the sounds within, I knew they had completed their hideoussacrifice, and that they were smearing over Cesarine--my own wife--thewoman of my choice--with the warm blood of the human victim.
Sick and faint, I crept away slowly through the tangled underbrush,tearing my skin as I went with the piercing cactus spines; untied myhorse from the spot where I had fastened him; and rode him down withoutdrawing rein, cantering round sharp angles and down horrible ledges,till he stood at last, white with foam, by the grey dawn, in front ofthe little piazza at Maisonette.
VIII.
That night, the thunder roared and the lightning played with tropicalfierceness round the tall hilltops away in the direction of the Vaudouxtemple. The rain came down in fearful sheets, and the torrents roaredand foamed in cataracts, and tore away great gaps in the rough paths onthe steep hill-sides. But at eight o'clock in the morning Cesarinereturned, drenched with wet, and with a strange frown upon her haughtyforehead.
I did not know how to look at her or how to meet her.
"My prayers are useless," she muttered angrily as she entered. "Someheretic must have followed me unseen to the chapel of Notre Dame de BonSecours. The pilgrimage is a failure."
"You are wet," I said, trembling. "Change your things, Cesarine." Icould not pretend to speak gently to her.
She turned upon me with a fierce look in her big black eyes. Herinstinct showed her at once I had discovered her secret. "Tell them, andhang me," she cried fiercely.
It was what the law required me to do. I was otherwise the accomplice ofmurder and cannibalism. But I could not do it. Profoundly as I loathedher and hated her presence, now, I couldn't find it in my heart to giveher up to justice, as I knew I ought to do.
I turned away and answered nothing.
Presently, she came out again from her bedroom, with her wet thingsstill dripping around her. "Smoke that," she said, handing me a tinycigarette rolled round in a leaf of fresh tobacco.
"I will not," I answered with a vague surmise, taking it from herfingers. "I know the smell. It is manchineal. You cannot any longerdeceive me."
She went back to her bedroom once more. I sat, dazed and stupefied, inthe bamboo chair on the front piazza. What to do, I knew not, and carednot. I was tied to her for life, and there was no help for it, save bydenouncing her to the rude Haitian justice.
In an hour or more, our English maid came out to speak to me. "I'mafraid, sir," she said, "Mrs. Tristram is getting delirious. She seemsto be i
n a high fever. Shall I ask one of these poor black bodies to goout and get the English doctor?"
I went into my wife's bedroom. Cesarine lay moaning piteously on thebed, in her wet clothes still; her cheeks were hot, and her pulse washigh and thin and feverish. I knew without asking what was the matterwith her. It was yellow fever.
The night's exposure in that terrible climate, and the ghastly scene shehad gone through so intrepidly, had broken down even Cesarine's ironconstitution.
I sent for the doctor and had her put to bed immediately. The blacknurse and I undressed her between us. We found next her bosom, tied by asmall red silken thread, a tiny bone, fresh and ruddy-looking. I knewwhat it was, and so did the negress. It was a human finger-bone--thelast joint of a small child's fourth finger. The negress shuddered andhid her head. "It is Vaudoux, Monsieur!" she said. "I have seen it onothers. Madame has been paying a visit, I suppose, to her grandmother."
For six long endless days and nights I watched and nursed that doomedcriminal, doing everything for her that skill could direct or care couldsuggest to me: yet all the time fearing and dreading that she might yetrecover, and not knowing in my heart what either of our lives could everbe like if she did live through it.
A merciful Providence willed it otherwise.
On the sixth day, the fatal _vomito negro_ set in--the symptom of thelast incurable stage of yellow fever--and I knew for certain thatCesarine would die. She had brought her own punishment upon her. Atmidnight that evening she died delirious.
Thank God, she had left no child of mine behind her to inherit the curseher mother's blood had handed down to her!
IX.
On my return to London, whither I went by mail direct, leaving the yachtto follow after me, I drove straight to the Lathams' from WaterlooStation. Mrs. Latham was out, the servant said, but Miss Irene was inthe drawing-room.
Irene was sitting at the window by herself, working quietly at a pieceof crewel work. She rose to meet me with her sweet simple little Englishsmile. I took her hand and pressed it like a brother.
"I got your telegram," she said simply. "Harry, I know she is dead; butI know something terrible besides has happened. Tell me all. Don't beafraid to speak of it before me. I am not afraid, for my part, tolisten."
I sat down on the sofa beside her, and told her all, without one word ofexcuse or concealment, from our last parting to the day of Cesarine'sdeath in Haiti: and she held my hand and listened all the while withbreathless wonderment to my strange story.
At the end I said, "Irene, it has all come and gone between us like ahideous nightmare. I cannot imagine even now how that terrible woman,with all her power, could ever for one moment have bewitched me awayfrom you, my beloved, my queen, my own heart's darling."
Irene did not try to hush me or to stop me in any way. She merely satand looked at me steadily, and said nothing.
"It was fascination," I cried. "Infatuation, madness, delirium,enchantment."
"It was worse than that, Harry," Irene answered, rising quietly. "It waspoison; it was witchcraft; it was sheer African devilry."
In a flash of thought, I remembered the cup of coffee at SeymourCrescent, the curious sherry at Port-au-Prince, the cigarette with themanchineal she had given me on the mountains, and I saw forthwith thatIrene with her woman's quickness had divined rightly. It was more thaninfatuation; it was intoxication with African charms and West Indianpoisons.
"What a man does in such a woman's hands is not his own doing," Irenesaid slowly. "He has no more control of himself in such circumstancesthan if she had drugged him with chloroform or opium."
"Then you forgive me, Irene?"
"I have nothing to forgive, Harry. I am grieved for you. I amfrightened." Then bursting into tears, "My darling, my darling; I loveyou, I love you!"