The House of the White Shadows

CHAPTER VII

MISTRESS AND MAID

"Dionetta?"

"Yes, my lady."

The maid and her mistress were in Adelaide's dressing-room, and Dionetta was brushing her lady's hair, which hung down in rich, heavy waves.

She smiled at herself in the glass before which she was sitting, and her mood became more joyous as she noted the whiteness of her teeth and the beautiful expression of her mouth when she smiled. There was an irresistible fascination in her smile; it flashed into all her features, like a laughing sunrise.

She was never tired of admiring her beauty; it was to her a most precious possession of which nothing but time could rob her. "To-day is mine," she frequently said to herself, and she wished with all her heart that there were no to-morrow.

Yes, to-day was hers, and she was beautiful, and, gazing at the reflection of her fair self, she thought that she did not look more than eighteen.

"Do you think I do, child?" she asked of Dionetta.

"Think you do what, my lady?" inquired Dionetta.

Adelaide laughed, a musical, child-like laugh which any man, hearing, would have judged to be an expression of pure innocent delight. She derived pleasure even from this pleasant sound.

"I was thinking to myself, and I believed I was speaking aloud. Do you think I look twenty-five?"

"No, indeed, my lady, not by many years. You look younger than I do."

"And you are not eighteen, Dionetta."

"Not yet, my lady."

Adelaide's eyes sparkled. It was indeed true that she looked younger than her maid, who was in herself a beauty and young-looking.

"Dionetta," she said, presently, after a pause, "I have had a curious dream."

"I saw you close your eyes for a moment, my lady."

"I dreamt I was the most beautiful woman in all this wide world."

"You are, my lady."

The words were uttered in perfect honesty and simplicity. Her mistress was truly the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.

"Nonsense, child, nonsense-there are others as fair, although I should not fear to stand beside them. It was only a dream, and this but the commencement of it. I was the most beautiful woman in the world. I had the handsomest features, the loveliest figure, and a shape that sculptors would have called perfection. I had the most exquisite dresses that ever were worn, and everything in that way a woman's heart could desire."

"A happy dream, my lady!"

"Wait. I had a palace to live in, in a land where it was summer the whole year through. Such gardens, Dionetta, and such flowers as one only sees in dreams. I had rings enough to cover my fingers a dozen times over; diamonds in profusion for my hair, and neck, and arms, – trunks full of them, and of old lace, and of the most wonderful jewels the mind can conceive. Would you believe it, child, in spite of all this, I was the most miserable woman in the universe?"

"It is hard to believe, my lady."

"Not when I tell you the reason. Dionetta, I was absolutely alone. There was not a single person near me, old or young-not one to look at me, to envy me, to admire me, to love me. What was the use of beauty, diamonds, flowers, dresses? The brightest eyes, the loveliest complexion, the whitest skin-all were thrown away. It would have been just as well if I had been dressed in rags, and were old and wrinkled as Pierre Lamont. Now, what I learn from my dream is this-that beauty is not worth having unless it is admired and loved, and unless other people can see it as well as yourself."

"Everybody sees that you are beautiful, my lady; it is spoken of everywhere."

"Is it, Dionetta, really, now, is it?"

"Yes, my lady. And you are admired and loved."

"I think I am, child; I know I am. So that my dream goes for nothing. A foolish fancy, was it not, Dionetta? – but women are never satisfied. I should never be tired-never, never, of hearing the man I love say, 'I love you, I love you! You are the most beautiful, the dearest, the sweetest!'"

She leant forward and looked closely at herself in the glass, and then sank back in her chair and smiled, and half-closed her eyes.

"Dionetta," she said presently, "what makes you so pale?"

"It is the Shadow, my lady, that was seen to-night," replied Dionetta in a whisper; "I cannot get it out of my mind."

"But you did not see it?"

"No, my lady; but it was there."

"You believe in ghosts?"

"Yes, my lady."

"You would not have the courage to go where one was to be seen?"

"Not for all the gold in the world, my lady."

"But the other servants are more courageous?"

"They may be, but they would not dare to go; they said so to-night, all of them."

"They have been speaking of it, then?"

"Oh, yes; of scarcely anything else. Grandmother said to-night that if you had not come to the villa, the belief in the shadows would have died away altogether."

"That is too ridiculous," interrupted Adelaide. "What can I have to do with them?"

"If you had not come," said Dionetta, "grandmother said our young master would not be here. It is because he is in the house, sleeping here for the first night for so many, many years, that the spirit of his mother appeared to him."

"But your grandmother has told me she did not believe in the shadows."

"My lady, I think she is changing her opinion-else she would never have said what she did. It is long since I have seen her so disturbed."

Adelaide rose from her chair, the fairest picture of womanhood eyes ever gazed upon. A picture an artist would have contemplated with delight. She stood still for a few moments, her hand resting on her writing-desk.

"Your grandmother does not like me, Dionetta."

"She has not said so, my lady," said Dionetta after an awkward pause.

"Not directly, child," said Adelaide, "and I have no reason to complain of want of respect in her. But one always knows whether one is really liked or not."

"She is growing old," murmured Dionetta apologetically, "and has seen very little of ladies."

"Neither have you, child. Yet you do not dislike me."

"My lady, if I dare to say it, I love you."

"There is no daring in it, child. I love to be loved-and I would sooner be loved by the young than the old. Come here, pretty one. Your ears are like little pink shells, and deserve something better than those common rings in them. Put these in their place."

She took from a jewel-case a pair of earrings, turquoise and small diamonds, and with her own hands made the exchange.

"Oh, my lady," sighed Dionetta with a rose-light in her face. "They are too grand for me! What shall I say when people see them?"

The girl's heart was beating quick with ecstasy. She looked at herself in the glass, and uttered a cry of joy.

"Say that I gave them to you because I love you. I never had a maid who pleased me half as much. Does this prove it?" and she put her lips to Dionetta's face. The girl's eyes filled with tears, and she kissed Adelaide's hand in a passion of gratitude.

"I love you, Dionetta, because you love me, and because I can trust you."

"You can, my lady. I will serve you with all my heart and soul. But I have done nothing for you that any other girl could not have done."

"Would you like to do something for me that I would trust no other to do?"

"Yes, my lady," eagerly answered Dionetta. "I should be proud."

"And you will tell no one?'

"Not a soul, my lady, if you command me."

"I do command you. It is easy to do-merely to deliver a note, and to say: 'This is from my mistress.'"

"Oh, my lady, that is no task at all. It is so simple."

"Simple as it is, I do not wish even your grandmother to hear of it."

"She shall not-nor any person. I swear it."

In the extravagance of her gratitude and joy, she kissed a little cross that hung from her neck.

"You have made me your friend for life," said Adelaide, "the best friend you ever had, or ever will have."

She sat down to her desk, and on a sheet of note-paper wrote these words:

"Dear Christian:

"I cannot sleep until I wish you good-night, with no horrid people around us. Let me see you for one minute only.

Placing the sheet of note-paper in an envelope, she gave it to Dionetta, saying:

"Take this to Mr. Almer's room, and give it to him. It is nothing of any importance, but he will be pleased to receive it."

Dionetta, marvelling why her lady should place any value upon so slight a service, went upstairs with the note, and returned with the information that Christian Almer was not in his room.

"But his door is open, my lady," she said, "and the lamps are burning."

"Go then, again," said Adelaide, "and place the note on his desk. There is no harm, child; he cannot see you, as he is not there, and if he were, he would not be angry."

Dionetta obeyed without fear, and when she told her mistress that the note was placed where Christian Almer was sure to see it, Adelaide kissed her again, and wished her "Good-night."

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE HOME OF HIS CHILDHOOD

Upon no person had the supposed appearance of a phantom in the grounds of the House of White Shadows produced so profound an impression as upon Christian Almer. This was but natural. Even supposing him not to have been a man of susceptibility, the young lady's terror, as she gazed at the shadow, could not have failed to make an impression upon him.

It was the first night of his return, after an absence of many years, to the house in which he had been born and had passed his unhappy childhood's life: and the origin of the belief in these white shadows which were said to haunt his estate was so closely woven into his personal history as almost to form a part of himself. He had never submitted his mind to a rigid test of belief or disbelief in these signs; one of the principal aims of his life had been, not only to avoid the villa, but to shut out all thought of the tragic events which had led to the death of his parents.

He loved them both with an equal love. When he thought of his mother he saw a woman patient in suffering, of a temper exquisitely sweet, whose every word and act towards her child was fraught with tenderness. When he thought of his father he saw a man high-principled and just, inflexible in matters of right and conscience, patient also in suffering, and bearing in silence, as his mother did, a grief which had poisoned his life and hers.

Neither of his parents had ever spoken a word against the other; the mystery which kept this tender, loving woman, and this just, high-principled man, apart, was never disclosed to their child. On this subject they entrenched themselves behind a barrier of silence which the child's love and winning ways could not penetrate. Only when his mother's eyes were closed and her lips sealed by death was he privileged to witness how deeply his father had loved her.

Much of what had been disclosed to the Advocate's wife by Mother Denise was absolutely unknown to him. Doubtless he could have learned every particular of the circumstances which had led to the separation of his parents, had his wish lain in that direction; but a delicate instinct whispered to him not to lift the veil, and he would permit no person to approach the subject in his presence.

The bright appearance of his sitting-room cheered him when he entered it, after bidding the Advocate good-night. But this pleasurable sense was not unalloyed. His heart and his conscience were disturbed, and as he took up a handful of roses which had been thrown loose into a bowl and inhaled their fragrance, a guilty thrill shot through his veins.

With the roses in his hand he stood before the picture of Adelaide, which she had hung above his desk. How bright and beautiful was the face, how lovely the smile with which she greeted him! It was almost as if she were speaking to him, telling him that she loved him, and asking him to assure her once more that her love was returned.

For a moment the fancy came upon him that Adelaide and he were like two stars wandering through a dark and dangerous path, and that before them lay death, and worse than death-dishonour and irretrievable ruin; and that she, the brighter star, holding him tightly by the hand, was whispering:

"I will guide you safely; only love me!"

There was one means of escape-death! A coward's refuge, which might not even afford him a release from dishonour, for Adelaide in her despair might let their secret escape her.

Why, then, should he torture himself unnecessarily? It was not in his power to avert the inevitable. He had not deliberately chosen his course. Fate had driven him into it. Was it not best, after all, to do as he had said to the Advocate that night, to submit without a struggle? Men were not masters, but slaves.

When the image of the Advocate, of his friend, presented itself to him, he thrust it sadly from him. But it came again and again, like the ghost of Banquo; conscience refused to be tricked.

Crumbling the roses in his hand, and strewing the floor with the leaves, he turned, and saw, gazing wistfully at him, the eyes of his mother.

The artist who had painted her picture had not chosen to depict her in her most joyous mood. In his heart also, as she sat before him, love's fever was burning, and he knew, while his brush was fixing her beauty on the canvas, that his love was returned, though treachery had parted them. He had striven, not unsuccessfully, to portray in her features the expression of one who loved and to whom love was denied. The look in her eyes was wistful rather than hopeless, and conveyed, to those who knew her history, the idea of one who hoped to find in another world the happiness she had lost in this.

Sad and tender reminiscences of the years he had lived with his mother in these very rooms stole into Christian Almer's mind, and he allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the question, "Why had she been unhappy?" She was young, beautiful, amiable, rich; her husband was a man honoured and esteemed, with a character above reproach. What secret would be revealed if the heart of this mystery were laid bare to his sight? If it were in his power to ascertain the truth, might not the revelation cause him additional sorrow? Better, then, to let the matter rest. No good purpose could be served by raking up the ashes of a melancholy past. His parents were dead-

And here occurred a sudden revulsion. His mother was dead-and, but a few short minutes since, her spirit was supposed to have appeared in the grounds of the villa. Almost upon the thought, he hurriedly left the room, and made his way into the gardens.

"My neighbour, and master of this house," said Pierre Lamont, who was lying wide awake in the adjoining room, "does not seem inclined to rest. Something disturbs him."

Pierre Lamont was alone; Fritz the Fool had left him for the night, and the old lawyer, himself in no mood for sleep, was reading and listening to the movements around him. There was little to hear, only an occasional muffled sound which the listener interpreted as best he could; but Christian Almer, when he left his room, had to pass Pierre Lamont's door in his progress to the grounds, and it was the clearer sound of his footsteps which led Pierre Lamont to his correct conclusion.

"He is going out of the house," continued Pierre Lamont. "For what? To look for his mother's ghost, perhaps. Fool Fritz, in raising this particular ghost, did not foresee what it might lead to. Ghosts! And fools still live who believe in them! Well, well, but for the world's delusions there would be little work for busy minds to accomplish. As a fantastic piece of imagery I might conjure up an army of men sweeping the world with brooms made of brains-of knavery, folly, trickery, and delusion. What is that? A footstep! Human? No. Too light for any but the feet of a cat!"