Complete Works of Bram Stoker (441 page)

In the morning he made no allusion to the previous night, and she was afraid to ask any question.

From that day there seemed some shadow over Geoffrey Brent. He neither ate nor slept as he had been accustomed, and his former habit of turning suddenly as though someone were speaking from behind him revived. The old hall seemed to have some kind of fascination for him. He used to go there many times in the day, but grew impatient if anyone, even his wife, entered it. When the builder’s foreman came to inquire about continuing his work Geoffrey was out driving; the man went into the hall, and when Geoffrey returned the servant told him of his arrival and where he was. With a frightful oath he pushed the servant aside and hurried up to the old hall. The workman met him almost at the door; and as Geoffrey burst into the room he ran against him. The man apologised:

‘Beg pardon, sir, but I was just going out to make some enquiries. I directed twelve sacks of lime to be sent here, but I see there are only ten.’

‘Damn the ten sacks and the twelve too!’ was the ungracious and incomprehensible rejoinder.

The workman looked surprised, and tried to turn the conversation.

‘I see, sir, there is a little matter which our people must have done; but the governor will of course see it set right at his own cost.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That ‘ere ‘arth-stone, sir: Some idiot must have put a scaffold pole on it and cracked it right down the middle, and it’s thick enough you’d think to stand hanythink.’ Geoffrey was silent for quite a minute, and then said in a constrained voice and with much gentler manner:

‘Tell your people that I am not going on with the work in the hall at present. I want to leave it as it is for a while longer.’

‘All right sir. I’ll send up a few of our chaps to take away these poles and lime bags and tidy the place up a bit.’

‘No! No!’ said Geoffrey, ‘leave them where they are. I shall send and tell you when you are to get on with the work.’ So the foreman went away, and his comment to his master was:

‘I’d send in the bill, sir, for the work already done. ‘Pears to me that money’s a little shaky in that quarter.’

Once or twice Delandre tried to stop Brent on the road, and, at last, finding that he could not attain his object rode after the carriage, calling out:

‘What has become of my sister, your wife?’ Geoffrey lashed his horses into a gallop, and the other, seeing from his white face and from his wife’s collapse almost into a faint that his object was attained, rode away with a scowl and a laugh.

That night when Geoffrey went into the hall he passed over to the great fireplace, and all at once started back with a smothered cry. Then with an effort he pulled himself together and went away, returning with a light. He bent down over the broken hearth-stone to see if the moonlight falling through the storied window had in any way deceived him. Then with a groan of anguish he sank to his knees.

There, sure enough, through the crack in the broken stone were protruding a multitude of threads of golden hair just tinged with grey!

He was disturbed by a noise at the door, and looking round, saw his wife standing in the doorway. In the desperation of the moment he took action to prevent discovery, and lighting a match at the lamp, stooped down and burned away the hair that rose through the broken stone. Then rising nonchalantly as he could, he pretended surprise at seeing his wife beside him.

For the next week he lived in an agony; for, whether by accident or design, he could not find himself alone in the hall for any length of time. At each visit the hair had grown afresh through the crack, and he had to watch it carefully lest his terrible secret should be discovered. He tried to find a receptacle for the body of the murdered woman outside the house, but someone always interrupted him; and once, when he was coming out of the private doorway, he was met by his wife, who began to question him about it, and manifested surprise that she should not have before noticed the key which he now reluctantly showed her. Geoffrey dearly and passionately loved his wife, so that any possibility of her discovering his dread secrets, or even of doubting him, filled him with anguish; and after a couple of days had passed, he could not help coming to the conclusion that, at least, she suspected something.

That very evening she came into the hall after her drive and found him there sitting moodily by the deserted fireplace. She spoke to him directly.

‘Geoffrey, I have been spoken to by that fellow Delandre, and he says horrible things. He tells to me that a week ago his sister returned to his house, the wreck and ruin of her former self, with only her golden hair as of old, and announced some fell intention. He asked me where she is  —  and oh, Geoffrey, she is dead, she is dead! So how can she have returned? Oh! I am in dread, and I know not where to turn!’

For answer, Geoffrey burst into a torrent of blasphemy which made her shudder. He cursed Delandre and his sister and all their kind, and in especial he hurled curse after curse on her golden hair.

‘Oh, hush! hush!’ she said, and was then silent, for she feared her husband when she saw the evil effect of his humour. Geoffrey in the torrent of his anger stood up and moved away from the hearth; but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of terror in his wife’s eyes. He followed their glance, and then he too, shuddered  —  for there on the broken hearth-stone lay a golden streak as the point of the hair rose though the crack.

‘Look, look!’ she shrieked. ‘Is it some ghost of the dead! Come away  —  come away!’ and seizing her husband by the wrist with the frenzy of madness, she pulled him from the room.

That night she was in a raging fever. The doctor of the district attended her at once, and special aid was telegraphed for to London. Geoffrey was in despair, and in his anguish at the danger of his young wife almost forgot his own crime and its consequences. In the evening the doctor had to leave to attend to others; but he left Geoffrey in charge of his wife. His last words were:

‘Remember, you must humour her till I come in the morning, or till some other doctor has her case in hand. What you have to dread is another attack of emotion. See that she is kept warm. Nothing more can be done.’

Late in the evening, when the rest of the household had retired, Geoffrey’s wife got up from her bed and called to her husband.

‘Come!’ she said. ‘Come to the old hall! I know where the gold comes from! I want to see it grow!’

Geoffrey would fain have stopped her, but he feared for her life or reason on the one hand, and lest in a paroxysm she should shriek out her terrible suspicion, and seeing that it was useless to try to prevent her, wrapped a warm rug around her and went with her to the old hall. When they entered, she turned and shut the door and locked it.

‘We want no strangers amongst us three tonight!’ she whispered with a wan smile.

‘We three! nay we are but two,’ said Geoffrey with a shudder; he feared to say more.

‘Sit here,’ said his wife as she put out the light. ‘Sit here by the hearth and watch the gold growing. The silver moonlight is jealous! See, it steals along the floor towards the gold  —  our gold!’ Geoffrey looked with growing horror, and saw that during the hours that had passed the golden hair had protruded further through the broken hearth-stone. He tried to hide it by placing his feet over the broken place; and his wife, drawing her chair beside him, leant over and laid her head on his shoulder.

‘Now do not stir, dear,’ she said; ‘let us sit still and watch. We shall find the secret of the growing gold!’ He passed his arm round her and sat silent; and as the moonlight stole along the floor she sank to sleep.

He feared to wake her; and so sat silent and miserable as the hours stole away.

Before his horror-struck eyes the golden-hair from the broken stone grew and grew; and as it increased, so his heart got colder and colder, till at last he had not power to stir, and sat with eyes full of terror watching his doom.

In the morning when the London doctor came, neither Geoffrey nor his wife could be found. Search was made in all the rooms, but without avail. As a last resource the great door of the old hall was broken open, and those who entered saw a grim and sorry sight.

There by the deserted hearth Geoffrey Brent and his young wife sat cold and white and dead. Her face was peaceful, and her eyes were closed in sleep; but his face was a sight that made all who saw it shudder, for there was on it a look of unutterable horror. The eyes were open and stared glassily at his feet, which were twined with tresses of golden hair, streaked with grey, which came through the broken hearth-stone.

THE GIPSY PROPHECY

‘I really think,’ said the Doctor, ‘that, at any rate, one of us should go and try whether or not the thing is an imposture.’

‘Good!’ said Considine. ‘After dinner we will take our cigars and stroll over to the camp.’

Accordingly, when the dinner was over, and the
La Tour
finished, Joshua Considine and his friend, Dr Burleigh, went over to the east side of the moor, where the gipsy encampment lay. As they were leaving, Mary Considine, who had walked as far as the end of the garden where it opened into the laneway, called after her husband:

‘Mind, Joshua, you are to give them a fair chance, but don’t give them any clue to a fortune  —  and don’t you get flirting with any of the gipsy maidens  —  and take care to keep Gerald out of harm.’

For answer Considine held up his hand, as if taking a stage oath, and whistled the air of the old song, ‘The Gipsy Countess.’ Gerald joined in the strain, and then, breaking into merry laughter, the two men passed along the laneway to the common, turning now and then to wave their hands to Mary, who leaned over the gate, in the twilight, looking after them.

It was a lovely evening in the summer; the very air was full of rest and quiet happiness, as though an outward type of the peacefulness and joy which made a heaven of the home of the young married folk. Considine’s life had not been an eventful one. The only disturbing element which he had ever known was in his wooing of Mary Winston, and the long-continued objection of her ambitious parents, who expected a brilliant match for their only daughter. When Mr. and Mrs. Winston had discovered the attachment of the young barrister, they had tried to keep the young people apart by sending their daughter away for a long round of visits, having made her promise not to correspond with her lover during her absence. Love, however, had stood the test. Neither absence nor neglect seemed to cool the passion of the young man, and jealousy seemed a thing unknown to his sanguine nature; so, after a long period of waiting, the parents had given in, and the young folk were married.

They had been living in the cottage a few months, and were just beginning to feel at home. Gerald Burleigh, Joshua’s old college chum, and himself a sometime victim of Mary’s beauty, had arrived a week before, to stay with them for as long a time as he could tear himself away from his work in London.

When her husband had quite disappeared Mary went into the house, and, sitting down at the piano, gave an hour to Mendelssohn.

It was but a short walk across the common, and before the cigars required renewing the two men had reached the gipsy camp. The place was as picturesque as gipsy camps  —  when in villages and when business is good  —  usually are. There were some few persons round the fire, investing their money in prophecy, and a large number of others, poorer or more parsimonious, who stayed just outside the bounds but near enough to see all that went on.

As the two gentlemen approached, the villagers, who knew Joshua, made way a little, and a pretty, keen-eyed gipsy girl tripped up and asked to tell their fortunes. Joshua held out his hand, but the girl, without seeming to see it, stared at his face in a very odd manner. Gerald nudged him:

‘You must cross her hand with silver,’ he said. ‘It is one of the most important parts of the mystery.’ Joshua took from his pocket a half-crown and held it out to her, but, without looking at it, she answered:

‘You have to cross the gipsy’s hand with gold.’

Gerald laughed. ‘You are at a premium as a subject,’ he said. Joshua was of the kind of man  —  the universal kind  —  who can tolerate being stared at by a pretty girl; so, with some little deliberation, he answered:

‘All right; here you are, my pretty girl; but you must give me a real good fortune for it,’ and he handed her a half sovereign, which she took, saying:

‘It is not for me to give good fortune or bad, but only to read what the Stars have said.’ She took his right hand and turned it palm upward; but the instant her eyes met it she dropped it as though it had been red hot, and, with a startled look, glided swiftly away. Lifting the curtain of the large tent, which occupied the centre of the camp, she disappeared within.

‘Sold again!’ said the cynical Gerald. Joshua stood a little amazed, and not altogether satisfied. They both watched the large tent. In a few moments there emerged from the opening not the young girl, but a stately looking woman of middle age and commanding presence.

The instant she appeared the whole camp seemed to stand still. The clamour of tongues, the laughter and noise of the work were, for a second or two, arrested, and every man or woman who sat, or crouched, or lay, stood up and faced the imperial looking gipsy.

‘The Queen, of course,’ murmured Gerald. ‘We are in luck tonight.’ The gipsy Queen threw a searching glance around the camp, and then, without hesitating an instant, came straight over and stood before Joshua.

‘Hold out your hand,’ she said in a commanding tone.

Again Gerald spoke,
sotto voce
: ‘I have not been spoken to in that way since I was at school.’

‘Your hand must be crossed with gold.’

‘A hundred per cent. at this game,’ whispered Gerald, as Joshua laid another half sovereign on his upturned palm.

The gipsy looked at the hand with knitted brows; then suddenly looking up into his face, said:

‘Have you a strong will  —  have you a true heart that can be brave for one you love?’