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Title: The Lost Stradivarius

Author: John Meade Falkner

Release Date: November 21, 2004  [eBook #14107]

Language: English

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THE LOST STRADIVARIUS

by

J. MEADE FALKNER

1895

Penguin Books
Harmondsworth Middlesex, England
245 Fifth Avenue, New York, U.S.A.







THE AUTHOR


John Meade Falkner was a remarkable character, as he was not only a
scholar and a writer, but a captain of industry as well. Born in 1858,
the son of a clergyman in Wiltshire, he was educated at Marlborough and
Hertford College, Oxford. On leaving the university, he became tutor to
the sons of Sir Andrew Noble, then vice-chairman of the
Armstrong-Whitworth Company; and his ability so much impressed his
employer that in 1885 he was offered a post in the firm. Without
connections or influence in industrial circles, and solely by his
intellect, he rose to be a director in 1901, and finally, in 1915,
chairman of this enormous business. He was actually chairman during the
important years 1915-1920, and remained a director until 1926.

His intellectual energy was so great that throughout his life he found
time for scholarship as well as business. He travelled for his firm in
Europe and South America; and in the intervals of negotiating with
foreign governments studied manuscripts wherever he found a library. His
researches in the Vatican Library were of special importance, and in
connection with them he received a gold medal from the Pope; he was also
decorated by the Italian, Turkish and Japanese governments.

His scholastic interests included archæology, folklore, palæography,
mediæval history, architecture and church music; and he was a collector
of missals. Towards the end of his life he was made an Honorary Fellow
of Hertford College, Oxford, Honorary Reader in Palæography to Durham
University, and Honorary Librarian to the Chapter Library of Durham
Cathedral, which he left one of the best cathedral libraries in Europe.
He died at Durham in 1932.

Apart from _The Lost Stradivarius_, Falkner was the author of two other
novels, _The Nebuly Coat_ (1903--also published in Penguin Books) and
_Moonfleet_ (1898). He also wrote a History of Oxfordshire, handbooks to
that county and to Berkshire, historical short stories, and some
mediævalist verse.






THE LOST STRADIVARIUS





  Letter from MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS
  to her Nephew, SIR EDWARD MALTRAVERS,
  then a Student at Christ Church, Oxford.

  13 Pauncefort Buildings, Bath,
  Oct. 21, 1867.

  MY DEAR EDWARD,

  It was your late father's dying request that certain events which
  occurred in his last years should be communicated to you on your coming
  of age. I have reduced them to writing, partly from my own recollection,
  which is, alas! still too vivid, and partly with the aid of notes taken
  at the time of my brother's death. As you are now of full age, I submit
  the narrative to you. Much of it has necessarily been exceedingly
  painful to me to write, but at the same time I feel it is better that
  you should hear the truth from me than garbled stories from others who
  did not love your father as I did.

  Your loving Aunt,
  SOPHIA MALTRAVERS


To Sir Edward Maltravers, Bart.




  "A tale out of season is as music in mourning."
  --ECCLESIASTICUS xxii. 6.




MISS SOPHIA MALTRAVERS' STORY

CHAPTER I


Your father, John Maltravers, was born in 1820 at Worth, and succeeded
his father and mine, who died when we were still young children. John
was sent to Eton in due course, and in 1839, when he was nineteen years
of age, it was determined that he should go to Oxford. It was intended
at first to enter him at Christ Church; but Dr. Sarsdell, who visited us
at Worth in the summer of 1839, persuaded Mr. Thoresby, our guardian, to
send him instead to Magdalen Hall. Dr. Sarsdell was himself Principal of
that institution, and represented that John, who then exhibited some
symptoms of delicacy, would meet with more personal attention under his
care than he could hope to do in so large a college as Christ Church.
Mr. Thoresby, ever solicitous for his ward's welfare, readily waived
other considerations in favour of an arrangement which he considered
conducive to John's health, and he was accordingly matriculated at
Magdalen Hall in the autumn of 1839.

Dr. Sarsdell had not been unmindful of his promise to look after my
brother, and had secured him an excellent first-floor sitting-room, with
a bedroom adjoining, having an aspect towards New College Lane.

I shall pass over the first two years of my brother's residence at
Oxford, because they have nothing to do with the present story. They
were spent, no doubt, in the ordinary routine of work and recreation
common in Oxford at that period.

From his earliest boyhood he had been passionately devoted to music,
and had attained a considerable proficiency on the violin. In the autumn
term of 1841 he made the acquaintance of Mr. William Gaskell, a very
talented student at New College, and also a more than tolerable
musician. The practice of music was then very much less common at Oxford
than it has since become, and there were none of those societies
existing which now do so much to promote its study among undergraduates.
It was therefore a cause of much gratification to the two young men, and
it afterwards became a strong bond of friendship, to discover that one
was as devoted to the pianoforte as was the other to the violin. Mr.
Gaskell, though in easy circumstances, had not a pianoforte in his
rooms, and was pleased to use a fine instrument by D'Almaine that John
had that term received as a birthday present from his guardian.

From that time the two students were thrown much together, and in the
autumn term of 1841 and Easter term of 1842 practised a variety of music
in John's rooms, he taking the violin part and Mr. Gaskell that for the
pianoforte.

It was, I think, in March 1842 that John purchased for his rooms a piece
of furniture which was destined afterwards to play no unimportant part
in the story I am narrating. This was a very large and low wicker chair
of a form then coming into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told,
become a familiar object of most college rooms. It was cushioned with a
gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought for new of an upholsterer at the
bottom of the High Street.

Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle to spend Easter in Rome, and
obtaining special leave from his college to prolong his travels; did not
return to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were passed and May
was well advanced. So impatient was he to see his friend that he would
not let even the first evening of his return pass without coming round
to John's rooms. The two young men sat without lights until the night
was late; and Mr. Gaskell had much to narrate of his travels, and spoke
specially of the beautiful music which he had heard at Easter in the
Roman churches. He had also had lessons on the piano from a celebrated
professor of the Italian style, but seemed to have been particularly
delighted with the music of the seventeenth-century composers, of whose
works he had brought back some specimens set for piano and violin.

It was past eleven o'clock when Mr. Gaskell left to return to New
College; but the night was unusually warm, with a moon near the full,
and John sat for some time in a cushioned window-seat before the open
sash thinking over what he had heard about the music of Italy. Feeling
still disinclined for sleep, he lit a single candle and began to turn
over some of the musical works which Mr. Gaskell had left on the table.
His attention was especially attracted to an oblong book, bound in
soiled vellum, with a coat of arms stamped in gilt upon the side. It was
a manuscript copy of some early suites by Graziani for violin and
harpsichord, and was apparently written at Naples in the year 1744, many
years after the death of that composer. Though the ink was yellow and
faded, the transcript had been accurately made, and could be read with
tolerable comfort by an advanced musician in spite of the antiquated
notation.

Perhaps by accident, or perhaps by some mysterious direction which our
minds are incapable of appreciating, his eye was arrested by a suite of
four movements with a _basso continuo_, or figured bass, for the
harpsichord. The other suites in the book were only distinguished by
numbers, but this one the composer had dignified with the name of
"l'Areopagita." Almost mechanically John put the book on his
music-stand, took his violin from its case, and after a moment's tuning
stood up and played the first movement, a lively _Coranto_. The light of
the single candle burning on the table was scarcely sufficient to
illumine the page; the shadows hung in the creases of the leaves, which
had grown into those wavy folds sometimes observable in books made of
thick paper and remaining long shut; and it was with difficulty that he
could read what he was playing. But he felt the strange impulse of the
old-world music urging him forward, and did not even pause to light the
candles which stood ready in their sconces on either side of the desk.
The _Coranto_ was followed by a _Sarabanda_, and the _Sarabanda_ by a
_Gagliarda_. My brother stood playing, with his face turned to the
window, with the room and the large wicker chair of which I have spoken
behind him. The _Gagliarda_ began with a bold and lively air, and as he
played the opening bars, he heard behind him a creaking of the wicker
chair. The sound was a perfectly familiar one--as of some person placing
a hand on either arm of the chair preparatory to lowering himself into
it, followed by another as of the same person being leisurely seated.
But for the tones of the violin, all was silent, and the creaking of the
chair was strangely distinct. The illusion was so complete that my
brother stopped playing suddenly, and turned round expecting that some
late friend of his had slipped in unawares, being attracted by the sound
of the violin, or that Mr. Gaskell himself had returned. With the
cessation of the music an absolute stillness fell upon all; the light of
the single candle scarcely reached the darker corners of the room, but
fell directly on the wicker chair and showed it to be perfectly empty.
Half amused, half vexed with himself at having without reason
interrupted his music, my brother returned to the _Gagliarda_; but some
impulse induced him to light the candles in the sconces, which gave an
illumination more adequate to the occasion. The _Gagliarda_ and the last
movement, a _Minuetto_, were finished, and John closed the book,
intending, as it was now late, to seek his bed. As he shut the pages a
creaking of the wicker chair again attracted his attention, and he heard
distinctly sounds such as would be made by a person raising himself from
a sitting posture. This time, being less surprised, he could more aptly
consider the probable causes of such a circumstance, and easily arrived
at the conclusion that there must be in the wicker chair osiers
responsive to certain notes of the violin, as panes of glass in church
windows are observed to vibrate in sympathy with certain tones of the
organ. But while this argument approved itself to his reason, his
imagination was but half convinced; and he could not but be impressed
with the fact that the second creaking of the chair had been coincident
with his shutting the music-book; and, unconsciously, pictured to
himself some strange visitor waiting until the termination of the music,
and then taking his departure.

His conjectures did not, however, either rob him of sleep or even
disturb it with dreams, and he woke the next morning with a cooler mind
and one less inclined to fantastic imagination. If the strange episode
of the previous evening had not entirely vanished from his mind, it
seemed at least fully accounted for by the acoustic explanation to which
I have alluded above. Although he saw Mr. Gaskell in the course of the
morning, he did not think it necessary to mention to him so trivial a
circumstance, but made with him an appointment to sup together in his
own rooms that evening, and to amuse themselves afterwards by essaying
some of the Italian music.

It was shortly after nine that night when, supper being finished, Mr.
Gaskell seated himself at the piano and John tuned his violin. The
evening was closing in; there had been heavy thunder-rain in the
afternoon, and the moist air hung now heavy and steaming, while across
it there throbbed the distant vibrations of the tenor bell at Christ
Church. It was tolling the customary 101 strokes, which are rung every
night in term-time as a signal for closing the college gates. The two
young men enjoyed themselves for some while, playing first a suite by
Cesti, and then two early sonatas by Buononcini. Both of them were
sufficiently expert musicians to make reading at sight a pleasure rather
than an effort; and Mr. Gaskell especially was well versed in the theory
of music, and in the correct rendering of the _basso continuo_. After
the Buononcini Mr. Gaskell took up the oblong copy of Graziani, and
turning over its leaves, proposed that they should play the same suite
which John had performed by himself the previous evening. His selection
was apparently perfectly fortuitous, as my brother had purposely
refrained from directing his attention in any way to that piece of
music. They played the _Coranto_ and the _Sarabanda_, and in the
singular fascination of the music John had entirely forgotten the
episode of the previous evening, when, as the bold air of the
_Gagliarda_ commenced, he suddenly became aware of the same strange
creaking of the wicker chair that he had noticed on the first occasion.
The sound was identical, and so exact was its resemblance to that of a
person sitting down that he stared at the chair, almost wondering that
it still appeared empty. Beyond turning his head sharply for a moment to
look round, Mr. Gaskell took no notice of the sound; and my brother,
ashamed to betray any foolish interest or excitement, continued the
_Gagliarda_, with its repeat. At its conclusion Mr. Gaskell stopped
before proceeding to the minuet, and turning the stool on which he was
sitting round towards the room, observed, "How very strange,
Johnnie,"--for these young men were on terms of sufficient intimacy to
address each other in a familiar style,--"How very strange! I thought I
heard some one sit down in that chair when we began the _Gagliarda_. I
looked round quite expecting to see some one had come in. Did you hear
nothing?"

"It was only the chair creaking," my brother answered, feigning an
indifference which he scarcely felt. "Certain parts of the wicker-work
seem to be in accord with musical notes and respond to them; let us
continue with the _Minuetto_."

Thus they finished the suite, Mr. Gaskell demanding a repetition of the
_Gagliarda_, with the air of which he was much pleased. As the clocks
had already struck eleven, they determined not to play more that night;
and Mr. Gaskell rose, blew out the sconces, shut the piano, and put the
music aside. My brother has often assured me that he was quite prepared
for what followed, and had been almost expecting it; for as the books
were put away, a creaking of the wicker chair was audible, exactly
similar to that which he had heard when he stopped playing on the
previous night. There was a moment's silence; the young men looked
involuntarily at one another, and then Mr. Gaskell said, "I cannot
understand the creaking of that chair; it has never done so before, with
all the music we have played. I am perhaps imaginative and excited with
the fine airs we have heard to-night, but I have an impression that I
cannot dispel that something has been sitting listening to us all this
time, and that now when the concert is ended it has got up and gone."
There was a spirit of raillery in his words, but his tone was not so
light as it would ordinarily have been, and he was evidently ill at
ease.

"Let us try the _Gagliarda_ again," said my brother; "it is the
vibration of the opening notes which affects the wicker-work, and we
shall see if the noise is repeated." But Mr. Gaskell excused himself
from trying the experiment, and after some desultory conversation, to
which it was evident that neither was giving any serious attention, he
took his leave and returned to New College.




CHAPTER II


I shall not weary you, my dear Edward, by recounting similar experiences
which occurred on nearly every occasion that the young men met in the
evenings for music. The repetition of the phenomenon had accustomed them
to expect it. Both professed to be quite satisfied that it was to be
attributed to acoustical affinities of vibration between the wicker-work
and certain of the piano wires, and indeed this seemed the only
explanation possible. But, at the same time, the resemblance of the
noises to those caused by a person sitting down in or rising from a
chair was so marked, that even their frequent recurrence never failed to
make a strange impression on them. They felt a reluctance to mention the
matter to their friends, partly from a fear of being themselves laughed
at, and partly to spare from ridicule a circumstance to which each
perhaps, in spite of himself, attached some degree of importance.
Experience soon convinced them that the first noise as of one sitting
down never occurred unless the _Gagliarda_ of the "Areopagita" was
played, and that this noise being once heard, the second only followed
it when they ceased playing for the evening. They met every night,
sitting later with the lengthening summer evenings, and every night,
as by some tacit understanding, played the "Areopagita" suite before
parting. At the opening bars of the _Gagliarda_ the creaking of the
chair occurred spontaneously with the utmost regularity. They seldom
spoke even to one another of the subject; but one night, when John was
putting away his violin after a long evening's music without having
played the "Areopagita," Mr. Gaskell, who had risen from the pianoforte,
sat down again as by a sudden impulse and said--

"Johnnie, do not put away your violin yet. It is near twelve o'clock
and I shall get shut out, but I cannot stop to-night without playing the
_Gagliarda_. Suppose that all our theories of vibration and affinity are
wrong, suppose that there really comes here night by night some strange
visitant to hear us, some poor creature whose heart is bound up in that
tune; would it not be unkind to send him away without the hearing of
that piece which he seems most to relish? Let us not be ill-mannered,
but humour his whim; let us play the _Gagliarda_."

They played it with more vigour and precision than usual, and the now
customary sound of one taking his seat at once ensued. It was that night
that my brother, looking steadfastly at the chair, saw, or thought he
saw, there some slight obscuration, some penumbra, mist, or subtle
vapour which, as he gazed, seemed to struggle to take human form. He
ceased playing for a moment and rubbed his eyes, but as he did so all
dimness vanished and he saw the chair perfectly empty. The pianist
stopped also at the cessation of the violin, and asked what ailed him.

"It is only that my eyes were dim," he answered.

"We have had enough for to-night," said Mr. Gaskell; "let us stop.
I shall be locked out." He shut the piano, and as he did so the clock
in New College tower struck twelve. He left the room running, but was
late enough at his college door to be reported, admonished with a fine
against such late hours, and confined for a week to college; for being
out after midnight was considered, at that time at least, a somewhat
serious offence.

Thus for some days the musical practice was compulsorily intermitted,
but resumed on the first evening after Mr. Gaskell's term of confinement
was expired. After they had performed several suites of Graziani, and
finished as usual with the "Areopagita," Mr. Gaskell sat for a time
silent at the instrument, as though thinking with himself, and then
said--

"I cannot say how deeply this old-fashioned music affects me. Some would
try to persuade us that these suites, of which the airs bear the names
of different dances, were always written rather as a musical essay and
for purposes of performance than for persons to dance to, as their names
would more naturally imply. But I think these critics are wrong at least
in some instances. It is to me impossible to believe that such a melody,
for instance, as the _Giga_ of Corelli which we have played, was not
written for actual purposes of dancing. One can almost hear the beat
of feet upon the floor, and I imagine that in the time of Corelli the
practice of dancing, while not a whit inferior in grace, had more of the
tripudistic or beating character than is now esteemed consistent with a
correct ball-room performance. The _Gagliarda_ too, which we play now so
constantly, possesses a singular power of assisting the imagination to
picture or reproduce such scenes as those which it no doubt formerly
enlivened. I know not why, but it is constantly identified in my mind
with some revel which I have perhaps seen in a picture, where several
couples are dancing a licentious measure in a long room lit by a number
of silver sconces of the debased model common at the end of the
seventeenth century. It is probably a reminiscence of my late excursion
that gives to these dancers in my fancy the olive skin, dark hair, and
bright eyes of the Italian type; and they wear dresses of exceedingly
rich fabric and elaborate design. Imagination is whimsical enough to
paint for me the character of the room itself, as having an arcade of
arches running down one side alone, of the fantastic and paganised
Gothic of the Renaissance. At the end is a gallery or balcony for the
musicians, which on its coved front has a florid coat of arms of foreign
heraldry. The shield bears, on a field _or_, a cherub's head blowing on
three lilies--a blazon I have no doubt seen somewhere in my travels,
though I cannot recollect where. This scene, I say, is so nearly
connected in my brain with the _Gagliarda_, that scarcely are its first
notes sounded ere it presents itself to my eyes with a vividness which
increases every day. The couples advance, set, and recede, using free
and licentious gestures which my imagination should be ashamed to
recall. Amongst so many foreigners, fancy pictures, I know not in the
least why, the presence of a young man of an English type of face, whose
features, however, always elude my mind's attempt to fix them. I think
that the opening subject of this _Gagliarda_ is a superior composition
to the rest of it, for it is only during the first sixteen bars that the
vision of bygone revelry presents itself to me. With the last note of
the sixteenth bar a veil is drawn suddenly across the scene, and with a
sense almost of some catastrophe it vanishes. This I attribute to the
fact that the second subject must be inferior in conception to the
first, and by some sense of incongruity destroys the fabric which the
fascination of the preceding one built up."

My brother, though he had listened with interest to what Mr. Gaskell had
said, did not reply, and the subject was allowed to drop.




CHAPTER III


It was in the same summer of 1842, and near the middle of June, that my
brother John wrote inviting me to come to Oxford for the Commemoration
festivities. I had been spending some weeks with Mrs. Temple, a distant
cousin of ours, at their house of Royston in Derbyshire, and John was
desirous that Mrs. Temple should come up to Oxford and chaperone
her daughter Constance and myself at the balls and various other
entertainments which take place at the close of the summer term. Owing
to Royston being some two hundred miles from Worth Maltravers, our
families had hitherto seen little of one another, but during my present
visit I had learned to love Mrs. Temple, a lady of singular sweetness of
disposition, and had contracted a devoted attachment to her daughter
Constance. Constance Temple was then eighteen years of age, and to great
beauty united such mental graces and excellent traits of character as
must ever appear to reasoning persons more enduringly valuable than even
the highest personal attractions. She was well read and witty, and had
been trained in those principles of true religion which she afterwards
followed with devoted consistency in the self-sacrifice and resigned
piety of her too short life. In person, I may remind you, my dear
Edward, since death removed her ere you were of years to appreciate
either her appearance or her qualities, she was tall, with a somewhat
long and oval face, with brown hair and eyes.

Mrs. Temple readily accepted Sir John Maltravers' invitation. She had
never seen Oxford herself, and was pleased to afford us the pleasure of
so delightful an excursion. John had secured convenient rooms for us
above the shop of a well-known printseller in High Street, and we
arrived in Oxford on Friday evening, June 18, 1842. I shall not dilate
to you on the various Commemoration festivities, which have probably
altered little since those days, and with which you are familiar.
Suffice it to say that my brother had secured us admission to every
entertainment, and that we enjoyed our visit as only youth with its keen
sensibilities and uncloyed pleasures can. I could not help observing
that John was very much struck by the attractions of Miss Constance
Temple, and that she for her part, while exhibiting no unbecoming
forwardness, certainly betrayed no aversion to him. I was greatly
pleased both with my own powers of observation which had enabled me to
discover so important a fact, and also with the circumstance itself.
To a romantic girl of nineteen it appeared high time that a brother of
twenty-two should be at least preparing some matrimonial project; and my
friend was so good and beautiful that it seemed impossible that I should
ever obtain a more lovable sister or my brother a better wife. Mrs.
Temple could not refuse her sanction to such a scheme; for while their
mental qualities seemed eminently compatible, John was in his own right
master of Worth Maltravers, and her daughter sole heiress of the Royston
estates.

The Commemoration festivities terminated on Wednesday night with a grand
ball at the Music-Room in Holywell Street. This was given by a Lodge of
University Freemasons, and John was there with Mr. Gaskell--whose
acquaintance we had made with much gratification--both wearing blue silk
scarves and small white aprons. They introduced us to many other of
their friends similarly adorned, and these important and mysterious
insignia sat not amiss with their youthful figures and boyish faces.
After a long and pleasurable programme, it was decided that we should
prolong our visit till the next evening, leaving Oxford at half-past
ten o'clock at night and driving to Didcot, there to join the mail for
the west. We rose late the next morning and spent the day rambling among
the old colleges and gardens of the most beautiful of English cities.
At seven o'clock we dined together for the last time at our lodgings
in High Street, and my brother proposed that before parting we should
enjoy the fine evening in the gardens of St. John's College. This was
at once agreed to, and we proceeded thither, John walking on in front
with Constance and Mrs. Temple, and I following with Mr. Gaskell. My
companion explained that these gardens were esteemed the most beautiful
in the University, but that under ordinary circumstances it was not
permitted to strangers to walk there of an evening. Here he quoted some
Latin about "aurum per medios ire satellites," which I smilingly made as
if I understood, and did indeed gather from it that John had bribed the
porter to admit us. It was a warm and very still night, without a moon,
but with enough of fading light to show the outlines of the garden
front. This long low line of buildings built in Charles I's reign looked
so exquisitely beautiful that I shall never forget it, though I have not
since seen its oriel windows and creeper-covered walls. There was a very
heavy dew on the broad lawn, and we walked at first only on the paths.
No one spoke, for we were oppressed by the very beauty of the scene, and
by the sadness which an imminent parting from friends and from so sweet
a place combined to cause. John had been silent and depressed the whole
day, nor did Mr. Gaskell himself seem inclined to conversation.
Constance and my brother fell a little way behind, and Mr. Gaskell asked
me to cross the lawn if I was not afraid of the dew, that I might see
the garden front to better advantage from the corner. Mrs. Temple waited
for us on the path, not wishing to wet her feet. Mr. Gaskell pointed out
the beauties of the perspective as seen from his vantage-point, and we
were fortunate in hearing the sweet descant of nightingales for which
this garden has ever been famous. As we stood silent and listening, a
candle was lit in a small oriel at the end, and the light showing the
tracery of the window added to the picturesqueness of the scene.

Within an hour we were in a landau driving through the still warm lanes
to Didcot. I had seen that Constance's parting with my brother had been
tender, and I am not sure that she was not in tears during some part at
least of our drive; but I did not observe her closely, having my
thoughts elsewhere.

Though we were thus being carried every moment further from the sleeping
city, where I believe that both our hearts were busy, I feel as if I had
been a personal witness of the incidents I am about to narrate, so often
have I heard them from my brother's lips. The two young men, after
parting with us in the High Street, returned to their respective
colleges. John reached his rooms shortly before eleven o'clock. He was
at once sad and happy--sad at our departure, but happy in a new-found
world of delight which his admiration for Constance Temple opened to
him. He was, in fact, deeply in love with her, and the full flood of a
hitherto unknown passion filled him with an emotion so overwhelming that
his ordinary life seemed transfigured. He moved, as it were, in an ether
superior to our mortal atmosphere, and a new region of high resolves and
noble possibilities spread itself before his eyes. He slammed his heavy
outside door (called an "oak") to prevent anyone entering and flung
himself into the window-seat. Here he sat for a long time, the sash
thrown up and his head outside, for he was excited and feverish. His
mental exaltation was so great and his thoughts of so absorbing an
interest that he took no notice of time, and only remembered afterwards
that the scent of a syringa-bush was borne up to him from a little
garden-patch opposite, and that a bat had circled slowly up and down the
lane, until he heard the clocks striking three. At the same time the
faint light of dawn made itself felt almost imperceptibly; the classic
statues on the roof of the schools began to stand out against the white
sky, and a faint glimmer to penetrate the darkened room. It glistened on
the varnished top of his violin-case lying on the table, and on a jug of
toast-and-water placed there by his college servant or scout every night
before he left. He drank a glass of this mixture, and was moving towards
his bedroom door when a sudden thought struck him. He turned back, took
the violin from its case, tuned it, and began to play the "Areopagita"
suite. He was conscious of that mental clearness and vigour which not
unfrequently comes with the dawn to those who have sat watching or
reading through the night: and his thoughts were exalted by the effect
which the first consciousness of a deep passion causes in imaginative
minds. He had never played the suite with more power; and the airs,
even without the piano part, seemed fraught with a meaning hitherto
unrealised. As he began the _Gagliarda_ he heard the wicker chair creak;
but he had his back towards it, and the sound was now too familiar to
him to cause him even to look round. It was not till he was playing
the repeat that he became aware of a new and overpowering sensation.
At first it was a vague feeling, so often experienced by us all, of
not being alone. He did not stop playing, and in a few seconds the
impression of a presence in the room other than his own became so strong
that he was actually afraid to look round. But in another moment he felt
that at all hazards he must see what or who this presence was. Without
stopping he partly turned and partly looked over his shoulder. The
silver light of early morning was filling the room, making the various
objects appear of less bright colour than usual, and giving to
everything a pearl-grey neutral tint. In this cold but clear light he
saw seated in the wicker chair the figure of a man.

In the first violent shock of so terrifying a discovery, he could not
appreciate such details as those of features, dress, or appearance. He
was merely conscious that with him, in a locked room of which he knew
himself to be the only human inmate, there sat something which bore a
human form. He looked at it for a moment with a hope, which he felt
to be vain, that it might vanish and prove a phantom of his excited
imagination, but still it sat there. Then my brother put down his
violin, and he used to assure me that a horror overwhelmed him of an
intensity which he had previously believed impossible. Whether the image
which he saw was subjective or objective, I cannot pretend to say: you
will be in a position to judge for yourself when you have finished this
narrative. Our limited experience would lead us to believe that it was a
phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we
are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena
such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden
purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those
who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of
their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our
judgment on such matters; but in this instance the subsequent course of
events is very difficult to explain, except on the supposition that
there was then presented to my brother's view the actual bodily form of
one long deceased. The dread which took possession of him was due, he
has more than once told me when analysing his feelings long afterwards,
to two predominant causes. Firstly, he felt that mental dislocation
which accompanies the sudden subversion of preconceived theories,
the sudden alteration of long habit, or even the occurrence of any
circumstance beyond the walk of our daily experience. This I have
observed myself in the perturbing effect which a sudden death, a
grievous accident, or in recent years the declaration of war, has
exercised upon all except the most lethargic or the most determined
minds. Secondly, he experienced the profound self-abasement or mental
annihilation caused by the near conception of a being of a superior
order. In the presence of an existence wearing, indeed, the human form,
but of attributes widely different from and superior to his own, he felt
the combined reverence and revulsion which even the noblest wild animals
exhibit when brought for the first time face to face with man. The shock
was so great that I feel persuaded it exerted an effect on him from
which he never wholly recovered.

After an interval which seemed to him interminable, though it was only
of a second's duration, he turned his eyes again to the occupant of the
wicker chair. His faculties had so far recovered from the first shock
as to enable him to see that the figure was that of a man perhaps
thirty-five years of age and still youthful in appearance. The face was
long and oval, the hair brown, and brushed straight off an exceptionally
high forehead. His complexion was very pale or bloodless. He was clean
shaven, and his finely cut mouth, with compressed lips, wore something
of a sneering smile. His general expression was unpleasing, and from the
first my brother felt as by intuition that there was present some malign
and wicked influence. His eyes were not visible, as he kept them cast
down, resting his head on his hand in the attitude of one listening. His
face and even his dress were impressed so vividly upon John's mind, that
he never had any difficulty in recalling them to his imagination; and he
and I had afterwards an opportunity of verifying them in a remarkable
manner. He wore a long cut-away coat of green cloth with an edge of gold
embroidery, and a white satin waistcoat figured with rose-sprigs, a
full cravat of rich lace, knee-breeches of buff silk, and stockings of
the same. His shoes were of polished black leather with heavy silver
buckles, and his costume in general recalled that worn a century ago.
As my brother gazed at him, he got up, putting his hands on the arms
of the chair to raise himself, and causing the creaking so often heard
before. The hands forced themselves on my brother's notice: they were
very white, with the long delicate fingers of a musician. He showed a
considerable height; and still keeping his eyes on the floor, walked
with an ordinary gait towards the end of the bookcase at the side of the
room farthest from the window. He reached the bookcase, and then John
suddenly lost sight of him. The figure did not fade gradually, but went
out, as it were, like the flame of a suddenly extinguished candle.

The room was now filled with the clear light of the summer morning: the
whole vision had lasted but a few seconds, but my brother knew that
there was no possibility of his having been mistaken, that the mystery
of the creaking chair was solved, that he had seen the man who had come
evening by evening for a month past to listen to the rhythm of the
_Gagliarda_. Terribly disturbed, he sat for some time half dreading and
half expecting a return of the figure; but all remained unchanged: he
saw nothing, nor did he dare to challenge its reappearance by playing
again the _Gagliarda_, which seemed to have so strange an attraction for
it. At last, in the full sunlight of a late June morning at Oxford, he
heard the steps of early pedestrians on the pavement below his windows,
the cry of a milkman, and other sounds which showed the world was awake.
It was after six o'clock, and going to his bedroom he flung himself on
the outside of the bed for an hour's troubled slumber.




CHAPTER IV


When his servant called him about eight o'clock my brother sent a note
to Mr. Gaskell at New College, begging him to come round to Magdalen
Hall as soon as might be in the course of the morning. His summons was
at once obeyed, and Mr. Gaskell was with him before he had finished
breakfast. My brother was still much agitated, and at once told him what
had happened the night before, detailing the various circumstances with
minuteness, and not even concealing from him the sentiments which he
entertained towards Miss Constance Temple. In narrating the appearance
which he had seen in the chair, his agitation was still so excessive
that he had difficulty in controlling his voice.

Mr. Gaskell heard him with much attention, and did not at once reply
when John had finished his narration. At length he said, "I suppose many
friends would think it right to affect, even if they did not feel, an
incredulity as to what you have just told me. They might consider it
more prudent to attempt to allay your distress by persuading you that
what you have seen has no objective reality, but is merely the phantasm
of an excited imagination; that if you had not been in love, had not sat
up all night, and had not thus overtaxed your physical powers, you would
have seen no vision. I shall not argue thus, for I am as certainly
convinced as of the fact that we sit here, that on all the nights when
we have played this suite called the 'Areopagita,' there has been some
one listening to us, and that you have at length been fortunate or
unfortunate enough to see him."

"Do not say fortunate," said my brother; "for I feel as though I shall
never recover from last night's shock."

"That is likely enough," Mr. Gaskell answered, coolly; "for as in the
history of the race or individual, increased culture and a finer mental
susceptibility necessarily impair the brute courage and powers of
endurance which we note in savages, so any supernatural vision such
as you have seen must be purchased at the cost of physical reaction.
From the first evening that we played this music, and heard the noises
mimicking so closely the sitting down and rising up of some person, I
have felt convinced that causes other than those which we usually call
natural were at work, and that we were very near the manifestation of
some extraordinary phenomenon."

"I do not quite apprehend your meaning."

"I mean this," he continued, "that this man or spirit of a man has been
sitting here night after night, and that we have not been able to see
him, because our minds are dull and obtuse. Last night the elevating
force of a strong passion, such as that which you have confided to me,
combined with the power of fine music, so exalted your mind that you
became endowed, as it were, with a sixth sense, and suddenly were
enabled to see that which had previously been invisible. To this sixth
sense music gives, I believe, the key. We are at present only on the
threshold of such a knowledge of that art as will enable us to use it
eventually as the greatest of all humanising and educational agents.
Music will prove a ladder to the loftier regions of thought; indeed I
have long found for myself that I cannot attain to the highest range of
my intellectual power except when hearing good music. All poets, and
most writers of prose, will say that their thought is never so exalted,
their sense of beauty and proportion never so just, as when they are
listening either to the artificial music made by man, or to some of the
grander tones of nature, such as the roar of a western ocean, or the
sighing of wind in a clump of firs. Though I have often felt on such
occasions on the very verge of some high mental discovery, and though
a hand has been stretched forward as it were to rend the veil, yet it
has never been vouchsafed me to see behind it. This you no doubt were
allowed in a measure to do last night. You probably played the music
with a deeper intuition than usual, and this, combined with the
excitement under which you were already labouring, raised you for a
moment to the required pitch of mental exaltation."

"It is true," John said, "that I never felt the melody so deeply as when
I played it last night."

"Just so," answered his friend; "and there is probably some link between
this air and the history of the man whom you saw last night; some fatal
power in it which enables it to exert an attraction on him even after
death. For we must remember that the influence of music, though always
powerful, is not always for good. We can scarcely doubt that as certain
forms of music tend to raise us above the sensuality of the animal, or
the more degrading passion of material gain, and to transport us into
the ether of higher thought, so other forms are directly calculated to
awaken in us luxurious emotions, and to whet those sensual appetites
which it is the business of a philosopher not indeed to annihilate or to
be ashamed of, but to keep rigidly in check. This possibility of music
to effect evil as well as good I have seen recognised, and very aptly
expressed in some beautiful verses by Mr. Keble which I have just
read:--

  "'Cease, stranger, cease those witching notes,
      The art of syren choirs;
    Hush the seductive voice that floats
      Across the trembling wires.

  "'Music's ethereal power was given
      Not to dissolve our clay,
    But draw Promethean beams from heaven
      To purge the dross away.'"


"They are fine lines," said my brother, "but I do not see how you apply
your argument to the present instance."

"I mean," Mr. Gaskell answered, "that I have little doubt that the
melody of this _Gagliarda_ has been connected in some manner with the
life of the man you saw last night. It is not unlikely, either, that it
was a favourite air of his whilst in the flesh, or even that it was
played by himself or others at the moment of some crisis in his history.
It is possible that such connection may be due merely to the innocent
pleasure the melody gave him in life; but the nature of the music
itself, and a peculiar effect it has upon my own thoughts, induce me to
believe that it was associated with some occasion when he either fell
into great sin or when some evil fate, perhaps even death itself,
overtook him. You will remember I have told you that this air calls up
to my mind a certain scene of Italian revelry in which an Englishman
takes part. It is true that I have never been able to fix his features
in my mind, nor even to say exactly how he was dressed. Yet now some
instinct tells me that it is this very man whom you saw last night. It
is not for us to attempt to pierce the mystery which veils from our eyes
the secrets of an after-death existence; but I can scarcely suppose that
a spirit entirely at rest would feel so deeply the power of a certain
melody as to be called back by it to his old haunts like a dog by his
master's whistle. It is more probable that there is some evil history
connected with the matter, and this, I think, we ought to consider if it
be possible to unravel."

My brother assenting, he continued, "When this man left you, Johnnie,
did he walk to the door?"

"No; he made for the side wall, and when he reached the end of the
bookcase I lost sight of him."

Mr. Gaskell went to the bookcase and looked for a moment at the titles
of the books, as though expecting to see something in them to assist
his inquiries; but finding apparently no clue, he said--

"This is the last time we shall meet for three months or more; let us
play the _Gagliarda_ and see if there be any response."

My brother at first would not hear of this, showing a lively dread of
challenging any reappearance of the figure he had seen: indeed he felt
that such an event would probably fling him into a state of serious
physical disorder. Mr. Gaskell, however, continued to press him,
assuring him that the fact of his now being no longer alone should
largely allay any fear on his part, and urging that this would be the
last opportunity they would have of playing together for some months.

At last, being overborne, my brother took his violin, and Mr. Gaskell
seated himself at the pianoforte. John was very agitated, and as he
commenced the _Gagliarda_ his hands trembled so that he could scarcely
play the air. Mr. Gaskell also exhibited some nervousness, not
performing with his customary correctness. But for the first time the
charm failed: no noise accompanied the music, nor did anything of an
unusual character occur. They repeated the whole suite, but with a
similar result.

Both were surprised, but neither, had any explanation to offer. My
brother, who at first dreaded intensely a repetition of the vision, was
now almost disappointed that nothing had occurred; so quickly does the
mood of man change.

After some further conversation the young men parted for the Long
Vacation--John returning to Worth Maltravers and Mr. Gaskell going to
London, where he was to pass a few days before he proceeded to his home
in Westmorland.




CHAPTER V


John spent nearly the whole of this summer vacation at Worth Maltravers.
He had been anxious to pay a visit to Royston; but the continued and
serious illness of Mrs. Temple's sister had called her and Constance to
Scotland, where they remained until the death of their relative allowed
them to return to Derbyshire in the late autumn. John and I had been
brought up together from childhood. When he was at Eton we had always
spent the holidays at Worth, and after my dear mother's death, when we
were left quite alone, the bonds of our love were naturally drawn still
closer. Even after my brother went to Oxford, at a time when most young
men are anxious to enjoy a new-found liberty, and to travel or to visit
friends in their vacation, John's ardent affection for me and for Worth
Maltravers kept him at home; and he was pleased on most occasions to
make me the partner of his thoughts and of his pleasures. This long
vacation of 1842 was, I think, the happiest of our lives. In my case I
know it was so, and I think it was happy also for him; for none could
guess that the small cloud seen in the distance like a man's hand was
afterwards to rise and darken all his later days. It was a summer of
brilliant and continued sunshine; many of the old people said that they
could never recollect so fine a season, and both fruit and crops were
alike abundant. John hired a small cutter-yacht, the _Palestine_, which
he kept in our little harbour of Encombe, and in which he and I made
many excursions, visiting Weymouth, Lyme Regis, and other places of
interest on the south coast.

In this summer my brother confided to me two secrets,--his love
for Constance Temple, which indeed was after all no secret, and the
history of the apparition which he had seen. This last filled me with
inexpressible dread and distress. It seemed cruel and unnatural that any
influence so dark and mysterious should thus intrude on our bright life,
and from the first I had an impression which I could not entirely shake
off, that any such appearance or converse of a disembodied spirit must
portend misfortune, if not worse, to him who saw or heard it. It never
occurred to me to combat or to doubt the reality of the vision; he
believed that he had seen it, and his conviction was enough to convince
me. He had meant, he said, to tell no one, and had given a promise to
Mr. Gaskell to that effect; but I think that he could not bear to keep
such a matter in his own breast, and within the first week of his
return he made me his confidant. I remember, my dear Edward, the look
everything wore on that sad night when he first told me what afterwards
proved so terrible a secret. We had dined quite alone, and he had been
moody and depressed all the evening. It was a chilly night, with some
fret blowing up from the sea. The moon showed that blunted and deformed
appearance which she assumes a day or two past the full, and the
moisture in the air encircled her with a stormy-looking halo. We had
stepped out of the dining-room windows on to the little terrace looking
down towards Smedmore and Encombe. The glaucous shrubs that grow in
between the balusters were wet and dripping with the salt breath of the
sea, and we could hear the waves coming into the cove from the west.
After standing a minute I felt chill, and proposed that we should go
back to the billiard-room, where a fire was lit on all except the
warmest nights. "No," John said, "I want to tell you something, Sophy,"
and then we walked on to the old boat summer-house. There he told me
everything. I cannot describe to you my feelings of anguish and horror
when he told me of the appearance of the man. The interest of the tale
was so absorbing to me that I took no note of time, nor of the cold
night air, and it was only when it was all finished that I felt how
deadly chill it had become. "Let us go in, John," I said; "I am cold and
feel benumbed."

But youth is hopeful and strong, and in another week the impression had
faded from our minds, and we were enjoying the full glory of midsummer
weather, which I think only those know who have watched the blue sea
come rippling in at the foot of the white chalk cliffs of Dorset.

I had felt a reluctance even so much as to hear the air of the
_Gagliarda_, and though he had spoken to me of the subject on more than
one occasion, my brother had never offered to play it to me. I knew that
he had the copy of Graziani's suites with him at Worth Maltravers,
because he had told me that he had brought it from Oxford; but I had
never seen the book, and fancied that he kept it intentionally locked
up. He did not, however, neglect the violin, and during the summer
mornings, as I sat reading or working on the terrace, I often heard him
playing to himself in the library. Though he had never even given me any
description of the melody of the _Gagliarda_, yet I felt certain that he
not infrequently played it. I cannot say how it was; but from the moment
that I heard him one morning in the library performing an air set in a
curiously low key, it forced itself upon my attention, and I knew, as it
were by instinct, that it must be the _Gagliarda_ of the "Areopagita."
He was using a _sordino_ and playing it very softly; but I was not
mistaken. One wet afternoon in October, only a week before the time of
his leaving us to return to Oxford for the autumn term, he walked into
the drawing-room where I was sitting, and proposed that we should play
some music together. To this I readily agreed. Though but a mediocre
performer, I have always taken much pleasure in the use of the
pianoforte, and esteemed it an honour whenever he asked me to play with
him, since my powers as a musician were so very much inferior to his.
After we had played several pieces, he took up an oblong music-book
bound in white vellum, placed it upon the desk of the pianoforte, and
proposed that we should play a suite by Graziani. I knew that he meant
the "Areopagita," and begged him at once not to ask me to play it. He
rallied me lightly on my fears, and said it would much please him to
play it, as he had not heard the pianoforte part since he had left
Oxford three months ago. I saw that he was eager to perform it, and
being loath to disoblige so kind a brother during the last week of his
stay at home, I at length overcame my scruples and set out to play it.
But I was so alarmed at the possibility of any evil consequences
ensuing, that when we commenced the _Gagliarda_ I could scarcely find
my notes. Nothing in any way unusual, however, occurred; and being
reassured by this, and feeling an irresistible charm in the music, I
finished the suite with more appearance of ease. My brother, however,
was, I fear, not satisfied with my performance, and compared it, very
possibly, with that of Mr. Gaskell, to which it was necessarily much
inferior, both through weakness of execution and from my insufficient
knowledge of the principles of the _basso continuo_. We stopped playing,
and John stood looking out of the window across the sea, where the sky
was clearing low down under the clouds. The sun went down behind
Portland in a fiery glow which cheered us after a long day's rain. I had
taken the copy of Graziani's suites off the desk, and was holding it on
my lap turning over the old foxed and yellow pages. As I closed it a
streak of evening sunlight fell across the room and lighted up a coat
of arms stamped in gilt on the cover. It was much faded and would
ordinarily have been hard to make out; but the ray of strong light
illumined it, and in an instant I recognised the same shield which Mr.
Gaskell had pictured to himself as hanging on the musicians' gallery of
his phantasmal dancing-room. My brother had often recounted to me this
effort of his friend's imagination, and here I saw before me the same
florid foreign blazon, a cherub's head blowing on three lilies on a gold
field. This discovery was not only of interest, but afforded me much
actual relief; for it accounted rationally for at least one item of the
strange story. Mr. Gaskell had no doubt noticed at some time this shield
stamped on the outside of the book, and bearing the impression of it
unconsciously in his mind, had reproduced it in his imagined revels.
I said as much to my brother, and he was greatly interested, and after
examining the shield agreed that this was certainly a probable solution
of that part of the mystery. On the 12th of October John returned to
Oxford.




CHAPTER VI


My brother told me afterwards that more than once during the summer
vacation he had seriously considered with himself the propriety of
changing his rooms at Magdalen Hall. He had thought that it might thus
be possible for him to get rid at once of the memory of the apparition,
and of the fear of any reappearance of it. He could either have moved
into another set of rooms in the Hall itself, or else gone into lodgings
in the town--a usual proceeding, I am told, for gentlemen near the end
of their course at Oxford. Would to God that he had indeed done so! but
with the supineness which has, I fear, my dear Edward, been too
frequently a characteristic of our family, he shrank from the trouble
such a course would involve, and the opening of the autumn term found
him still in his old rooms. You will forgive me for entering here on a
very brief description of your father's sitting-room. It is, I think,
necessary for the proper understanding of the incidents that follow. It
was not a large room, though probably the finest in the small buildings
of Magdalen Hall, and panelled from floor to ceiling with oak which
successive generations had obscured by numerous coats of paint. On one
side were two windows having an aspect on to New College Lane, and
fitted with deep cushioned seats in the recesses. Outside these windows
there were boxes of flowers, the brightness of which formed in the
summer term a pretty contrast to the grey and crumbling stone, and
afforded pleasure at once to the inmate and to passers-by. Along nearly
the whole length of the wall opposite to the windows, some tenant in
years long past had had mahogany book-shelves placed, reaching to a
height of perhaps five feet from the floor. They were handsomely made
in the style of the eighteenth century and pleased my brother's taste.
He had always exhibited a partiality for books, and the fine library at
Worth Maltravers had no doubt contributed to foster his tastes in that
direction. At the time of which I write he had formed a small collection
for himself at Oxford, paying particular attention to the bindings, and
acquiring many excellent specimens of that art, principally I think,
from Messrs. Payne & Foss, the celebrated London booksellers.

Towards the end of the autumn term, having occasion one cold day to take
down a volume of Plato from its shelf, he found to his surprise that the
book was quite warm. A closer examination easily explained to him the
reason--namely, that the flue of a chimney, passing behind one end of
the bookcase, sensibly heated not only the wall itself, but also the
books in the shelves. Although he had been in his rooms now near three
years, he had never before observed this fact; partly, no doubt, because
the books in these shelves were seldom handled, being more for show as
specimens of bindings than for practical use. He was somewhat annoyed
at this discovery, fearing lest such a heat, which in moderation is
beneficial to books, might through its excess warp the leather or
otherwise injure the bindings. Mr. Gaskell was sitting with him at the
time of the discovery, and indeed it was for his use that my brother had
taken down the volume of Plato. He strongly advised that the bookcase
should be moved, and suggested that it would be better to place it
across that end of the room where the pianoforte then stood. They
examined it and found that it would easily admit of removal, being, in
fact, only the frame of a bookcase, and showing at the back the painted
panelling of the wall. Mr. Gaskell noted it as curious that all the
shelves were fixed and immovable except one at the end, which had been
fitted with the ordinary arrangement allowing its position to be altered
at will. My brother thought that the change would improve the appearance
of his rooms, besides being advantageous for the books, and gave
instructions to the college upholsterer to have the necessary work
carried out at once.

The two young men had resumed their musical studies, and had often
played the "Areopagita" and other music of Graziani since their return
to Oxford in the Autumn. They remarked, however, that the chair no
longer creaked during the _Gagliarda_--and, in fact, that no unusual
occurrence whatever attended its performance. At times they were almost
tempted to doubt the accuracy of their own remembrances, and to consider
as entirely mythical the mystery which had so much disturbed them in the
summer term. My brother had also pointed out to Mr. Gaskell my discovery
that the coat of arms on the outside of the music-book was identical
with that which his fancy portrayed on the musicians' gallery. He
readily admitted that he must at some time have noticed and afterwards
forgotten the blazon on the book, and that an unconscious reminiscence
of it had no doubt inspired his imagination in this instance. He rebuked
my brother for having agitated me unnecessarily by telling me at all of
so idle a tale; and was pleased to write a few lines to me at Worth
Maltravers, felicitating me on my shrewdness of perception, but speaking
banteringly of the whole matter.

On the evening of the 14th of November my brother and his friend were
sitting talking in the former's room. The position of the bookcase had
been changed on the morning of that day, and Mr. Gaskell had come round
to see how the books looked when placed at the end instead of at the
side of the room. He had applauded the new arrangement, and the young
men sat long over the fire, with a bottle of college port and a dish of
medlars which I had sent my brother from our famous tree in the Upper
Croft at Worth Maltravers. Later on they fell to music, and played a
variety of pieces, performing also the "Areopagita" suite. Mr. Gaskell
before he left complimented John on the improvement which the alteration
in the place of the bookcase had made in his room, saying, "Not only
do the books in their present place very much enhance the general
appearance of the room, but the change seems to me to have affected also
a marked acoustical improvement. The oak panelling now exposed on the
side of the room has given a resonant property to the wall which is
peculiarly responsive to the tones of your violin. While you were
playing the _Gagliarda_ to-night, I could almost have imagined that
someone in an adjacent room was playing the same air with a _sordino_,
so distinct was the echo."

Shortly after this he left.

My brother partly undressed himself in his bedroom, which adjoined, and
then returning to his sitting-room, pulled the large wicker chair in
front of the fire, and sat there looking at the glowing coals, and
thinking perhaps of Miss Constance Temple. The night promised to be very
cold, and the wind whistled down the chimney, increasing the comfortable
sensation of the clear fire. He sat watching the ruddy reflection of the
firelight dancing on the panelled wall, when he noticed that a picture
placed where the end of the bookcase formerly stood was not truly hung,
and needed adjustment. A picture hung askew was particularly offensive
to his eyes, and he got up at once to alter it. He remembered as he went
up to it that at this precise spot four months ago he had lost sight
of the man's figure which he saw rise from the wicker chair, and at
the memory felt an involuntary shudder. This reminiscence probably
influenced his fancy also in another direction; for it seemed to him
that very faintly, as though played far off, and with the _sordino_,
he could hear the air of the _Gagliarda_. He put one hand behind the
picture to steady it, and as he did so his finger struck a very slight
projection in the wall. He pulled the picture a little to one side, and
saw that what he had touched was the back of a small hinge sunk in the
wall, and almost obliterated with many coats of paint. His curiosity
was excited, and he took a candle from the table and examined the wall
carefully. Inspection soon showed him another hinge a little further up,
and by degrees he perceived that one of the panels had been made at some
time in the past to open, and serve probably as the door of a cupboard.
At this point he assured me that a feverish anxiety to re-open this
cupboard door took possession of him, and that the intense excitement
filled his mind which we experience on the eve of a discovery which
we fancy may produce important results. He loosened the paint in the
cracks with a penknife, and attempted to press open the door; but his
instrument was not adequate to such a purpose, and all his efforts
remained ineffective. His excitement had now reached an overmastering
pitch; for he anticipated, though he knew not why, some strange
discovery to be made in this sealed cupboard. He looked round the room
for some weapon with which to force the door, and at length with his
penknife cut away sufficient wood at the joint to enable him to insert
the end of the poker in the hole. The clock in the New College Tower
struck one at the exact moment when with a sharp effort he thus forced
open the door. It appeared never to have had a fastening, but merely to
have been stuck fast by the accumulation of paint. As he bent it slowly
back upon the rusted hinges his heart beat so fast that he could
scarcely catch his breath, though he was conscious all the while of a
ludicrous aspect of his position, knowing that it was most probable
that the cavity within would be found empty. The cupboard was small but
very deep, and in the obscure light seemed at first to contain nothing
except a small heap of dust and cobwebs. His sense of disappointment was
keen as he thrust his hand into it, but changed again in a moment to
breathless interest on feeling something solid in what he had imagined
to be only an accumulation of mould and dirt. He snatched up a candle,
and holding this in one hand, with the other pulled out an object from
the cupboard and put it on the table, covered as it was with the curious
drapery of black and clinging cobwebs which I have seen adhering to
bottles of old wine. It lay there between the dish of medlars and the
decanter, veiled indeed with thick dust as with a mantle, but revealing
beneath it the shape and contour of a violin.




CHAPTER VII

John was excited at his discovery, and felt his thoughts confused in a
manner that I have often experienced myself on the unexpected receipt of
news interesting me deeply, whether for pleasure or pain. Yet at the
same time he was half amused at his own excitement, feeling that it
was childish to be moved over an event so simple as the finding of a
violin in an old cupboard. He soon collected himself and took up the
instrument, using great care, as he feared lest age should have rendered
the wood brittle or rotten. With some vigorous puffs of breath and a
little dusting with a handkerchief he removed the heavy outer coating
of cobwebs, and began to see more clearly the delicate curves of the
body and of the scroll. A few minutes' more gentle handling left the
instrument sufficiently clean to enable him to appreciate its chief
points. Its seclusion from the outer world, which the heavy accumulation
of dust proved to have been for many years, did not seem to have damaged
it in the least; and the fact of a chimney-flue passing through the wall
at no great distance had no doubt conduced to maintain the air in the
cupboard at an equable temperature. So far as he was able to judge, the
wood was as sound as when it left the maker's hands; but the strings
were of course broken, and curled up in little tangled knots. The body
was of a light-red colour, with a varnish of peculiar lustre and
softness. The neck seemed rather longer than ordinary, and the scroll
was remarkably bold and free.

The violin which my brother was in the habit of using was a fine
_Pressenda_, given to him on his fifteenth birthday by Mr. Thoresby, his
guardian. It was of that maker's later and best period, and a copy of
the Stradivarius model. John took this from its case and laid it side by
side with his new discovery, meaning to compare them for size and form.
He perceived at once that while the model of both was identical, the
superiority of the older violin in every detail was so marked as to
convince him that it was undoubtedly an instrument of exceptional value.
The extreme beauty of its varnish impressed him vividly, and though he
had never seen a genuine Stradivarius, he felt a conviction gradually
gaining on him that he stood in the presence of a masterpiece of that
great maker. On looking into the interior he found that surprisingly
little dust had penetrated into it, and by blowing through the
sound-holes he soon cleared it sufficiently to enable him to discern a
label. He put the candle close to him, and held the violin up so that
a little patch of light fell through the sound-hole on to the label.
His heart leapt with a violent pulsation as he read the characters,
"_Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis faciebat_, 1704." Under ordinary
circumstances it would naturally be concluded that such a label was
a forgery, but the conditions were entirely altered in the case of a
violin found in a forgotten cupboard, with proof so evident of its
having remained there for a very long period.

He was not at that time as familiar with the history of the fiddles of
the great maker as he, and indeed I also, afterwards became. Thus he
was unable to decide how far the exact year of its manufacture would
determine its value as compared with other specimens of Stradivarius.
But although the Pressenda he had been used to play on was always
considered a very fine instrument both in make and varnish, his new
discovery so far excelled it in both points as to assure him that it
must be one of the Cremonese master's greatest productions.

He examined the violin minutely, scrutinising each separate feature,
and finding each in turn to be of the utmost perfection, so far as his
knowledge of the instrument would enable him to judge. He lit more
candles that he might be able better to see it, and holding it on his
knees, sat still admiring it until the dying fire and increasing cold
warned him that the night was now far advanced. At last, carrying it to
his bedroom, he locked it carefully into a drawer and retired for the
night.

He woke next morning with that pleasurable consciousness of there
being some reason for gladness, which we feel on waking in seasons of
happiness, even before our reason, locating it, reminds us what the
actual source of our joy may be. He was at first afraid lest his
excitement, working on the imagination, should have led him on the
previous night to overestimate the fineness of the instrument, and he
took it from the drawer half expecting to be disappointed with its
daylight appearance. But a glance sufficed to convince him of the
unfounded nature of his suspicions. The various beauties which he had
before observed were enhanced a hundredfold by the light of day, and he
realised more fully than ever that the instrument was one of altogether
exceptional value.

And now, my dear Edward, I shall ask your forgiveness if in the history
I have to relate any observation of mine should seem to reflect on the
character of your late father, Sir John Maltravers. And I beg you to
consider that your father was also my dear and only brother, and that it
is inexpressibly painful to me to recount any actions of his which may
not seem becoming to a noble gentleman, as he surely was. I only now
proceed because, when very near his end, he most strictly enjoined me to
narrate these circumstances to you fully when you should come of age.
We must humbly remember that to God alone belongs judgment, and that
it is not for poor mortals to decide what is right or wrong in certain
instances for their fellows, but that each should strive most earnestly
to do his own duty.

Your father entirely concealed from me the discovery he had made. It
was not till long afterwards that I had it narrated to me, and I only
obtained a knowledge of this and many other of the facts which I am now
telling you at a date much subsequent to their actual occurrence.

He explained to his servant that he had discovered and opened an old
cupboard in the panelling, without mentioning the fact of his having
found anything in it, but merely asking him to give instructions for the
paint to be mended and the cupboard put into a usable state. Before he
had finished a very late breakfast Mr. Gaskell was with him, and it has
been a source of lasting regret to me that my brother concealed also
from his most intimate and trusted friend the discovery of the previous
night. He did, indeed, tell him that he had found and opened an old
cupboard in the panelling, but made no mention of there having been
anything within. I cannot say what prompted him to this action; for the
two young men had for long been on such intimate terms that the one
shared almost as a matter of course with the other any pleasure or pain
which might fall to his lot. Mr. Gaskell looked at the cupboard with
some interest, saying afterwards, "I know now, Johnnie, why the one
shelf of the bookcase which stood there was made movable when all the
others were fixed. Some former occupant used the cupboard, no doubt,
as a secret receptacle for his treasures, and masked it with the
book-shelves in front. Who knows what he kept in here, or who he was! I
should not be surprised if he were that very man who used to come here
so often to hear us play the 'Areopagita,' and whom you saw that night
last June. He had the one shelf made, you see, to move so as to give him
access to this cavity on occasion: then when he left Oxford, or perhaps
died, the mystery was forgotten, and with a few times of painting the
cracks closed up."

Mr. Gaskell shortly afterwards took his leave as he had a lecture
to attend, and my brother was left alone to the contemplation of his
new-found treasure. After some consideration he determined that he would
take the instrument to London, and obtain the opinion of an expert as
to its authenticity and value. He was well acquainted with the late Mr.
George Smart, the celebrated London dealer, from whom his guardian, Mr.
Thoresby, had purchased the Pressenda violin which John commonly used.
Besides being a dealer in valuable instruments, Mr. Smart was a famous
collector of Stradivarius fiddles, esteemed one of the first authorities
in Europe in that domain of art, and author of a valuable work of
reference in connection with it. It was to him, therefore, that my
brother decided to submit the violin, and he wrote a letter to Mr. Smart
saying that he should give himself the pleasure of waiting on him the
next day on a matter of business. He then called on his tutor, and with
some excuse obtained leave to journey to London the next morning. He
spent the rest of the day in very carefully cleaning the violin, and
noon of the next saw him with it, securely packed, in Mr. Smart's
establishment in Bond Street.

Mr. Smart received Sir John Maltravers with deference, demanded in what
way he could serve him; and on hearing that his opinion was required on
the authenticity of a violin, smiled somewhat dubiously and led the way
into a back parlour.

"My dear Sir John," he said, "I hope you have not been led into buying
any instrument by a faith in its antiquity. So many good copies of
instruments by famous makers and bearing their labels are now afloat,
that the chances of obtaining a genuine fiddle from an unrecognised
source are quite remote; of hundreds of violins submitted to me for
opinion, I find that scarce one in fifty is actually that which it
represents itself to be. In fact the only safe rule," he added as a
professional commentary, "is never to buy a violin unless you obtain it
from a dealer with a reputation to lose, and are prepared to pay a
reasonable price for it."

My brother had meanwhile unpacked the violin and laid it on the table.
As he took from it the last leaf of silver paper he saw Mr. Smart's
smile of condescension fade, and assuming a look of interest and
excitement, he stepped forward, took the violin in his hands, and
scrutinised it minutely. He turned it over in silence for some moments,
looking narrowly at each feature, and even applying the test of a
magnifying-glass. At last he said with an altered tone, "Sir John, I
have had in my hands nearly all the finest productions of Stradivarius,
and thought myself acquainted with every instrument of note that ever
left his workshop; but I confess myself mistaken, and apologise to you
for the doubt which I expressed as to the instrument you had brought me.
This violin is of the great master's golden period, is incontestably
genuine, and finer in some respects than any Stradivarius that I have
ever seen, not even excepting the famous _Dolphin_ itself. You need be
under no apprehension as to its authenticity: no connoisseur could hold
it in his hand for a second and entertain a doubt on the point."

My brother was greatly pleased at so favourable a verdict, and Mr. Smart
continued--

"The varnish is of that rich red which Stradivarius used in his best
period after he had abandoned the yellow tint copied by him at first
from his master Amati. I have never seen a varnish thicker or more
lustrous, and it shows on the back that peculiar shading to imitate wear
which we term 'breaking up.' The purfling also is of an unsurpassable
excellence. Its execution is so fine that I should recommend you to use
a magnifying-glass for its examination."

So he ran on, finding from moment to moment some new beauties to
admire.

My brother was at first anxious lest Mr. Smart should ask him whence so
extraordinary an instrument came, but he saw that the expert had already
jumped to a conclusion in the matter. He knew that John had recently
come of age, and evidently supposed that he had found the violin among
the heirlooms of Worth Maltravers. John allowed Mr. Smart to continue in
this misconception, merely saying that he had discovered the instrument
in an old cupboard, where he had reason to think it had remained hidden
for many years.

"Are there no records attached to so splendid an instrument?" asked Mr.
Smart. "I suppose it has been with your family a number of years. Do you
not know how it came into their possession?"

I believe this was the first occasion on which it had occurred to John
to consider what right he had to the possession of the instrument. He
had been so excited by its discovery that the question of ownership had
never hitherto crossed his mind. The unwelcome suggestion that it was
not his after all, that the College might rightfully prefer a claim to
it, presented itself to him for a moment; but he set it instantly aside,
quieting his conscience with the reflection that this at least was not
the moment to make such a disclosure.

He fenced with Mr. Smart's inquiry as best he could, saying that he was
ignorant of the history of the instrument, but not contradicting the
assumption that it had been a long time in his family's possession.

"It is indeed singular," Mr. Smart continued, "that so magnificent
an instrument should have lain buried so long; that even those best
acquainted with such matters should be in perfect ignorance of its
existence. I shall have to revise the list of famous instruments in the
next edition of my 'History of the Violin,' and to write," he added
smiling, "a special paragraph on the 'Worth Maltravers Stradivarius.'"

After much more, which I need not narrate, Mr. Smart suggested that
the violin should be left with him that he might examine it more at
leisure, and that my brother should return in a week's time, when he
would have the instrument opened, an operation which would be in any
case advisable. "The interior," he added, "appears to be in a strictly
original state, and this I shall be able to ascertain when opened. The
label is perfect, but if I am not mistaken I can see something higher up
on the back which appears like a second label. This excites my interest,
as I know of no instance of an instrument bearing two labels."

To this proposal my brother readily assented, being anxious to enjoy
alone the pleasure of so gratifying a discovery as that of the undoubted
authenticity of the instrument.

As he thought over the matter more at leisure, he grew anxious as to
what might be the import of the second label in the violin of which Mr.
Smart had spoken. I blush to say that he feared lest it might bear some
owner's name or other inscription proving that the instrument had not
been so long in the Maltravers family as he had allowed Mr. Smart to
suppose. So within so short a time it was possible that Sir John
Maltravers of Worth should dread being detected, if not in an absolute
falsehood, at least in having by his silence assented to one.

During the ensuing week John remained in an excited and anxious
condition. He did little work, and neglected his friends, having his
thoughts continually occupied with the strange discovery he had made.
I know also that his sense of honour troubled him, and that he was not
satisfied with the course he was pursuing. The evening of his return
from London he went to Mr. Gaskell's rooms at New College, and spent an
hour conversing with him on indifferent subjects. In the course of their
talk he proposed to his friend as a moral problem the question of the
course of action to be taken were one to find some article of value
concealed in his room. Mr. Gaskell answered unhesitatingly that he
should feel bound to disclose it to the authorities. He saw that my
brother was ill at ease, and with a clearness of judgment which he
always exhibited, guessed that he had actually made some discovery of
this sort in the old cupboard in his rooms. He could not divine, of
course, the exact nature of the object found, and thought it might
probably relate to a hoard of gold; but insisted with much urgency on
the obligation to at once disclose anything of this kind. My brother,
however, misled, I fear, by that feeling of inalienable right which the
treasure-hunter experiences over the treasure, paid no more attention to
the advice of his friend than to the promptings of his own conscience,
and went his way.

From that day, my dear Edward, he began to exhibit a spirit of
secretiveness and reserve entirely alien to his own open and honourable
disposition, and also saw less of Mr. Gaskell. His friend tried, indeed,
to win his confidence and affection in every way in his power; but in
spite of this the rift between them widened insensibly, and my brother
lost the fellowship and counsel of a true friend at a time when he could
ill afford to be without them.

He returned to London the ensuing week, and met Mr. George Smart by
appointment in Bond Street. If the expert had been enthusiastic on a
former occasion, he was ten times more so on this. He spoke in terms
almost of rapture about the violin. He had compared it with two
magnificent instruments in the collection of the late Mr. James Loding,
then the finest in Europe; and it was admittedly superior to either,
both in the delicate markings of its wood and singularly fine varnish.
"Of its tone," he said, "we cannot, of course, yet pronounce with
certainty, but I am very sure that its voice will not belie its splendid
exterior. It has been carefully opened, and is in a strangely perfect
condition. Several persons eminently qualified to judge unite with me
in considering that it has been exceedingly little played upon, and
admit that never has so intact an interior been seen. The scroll is
exceptionally bold and original. Although undoubtedly from the hand of
the great master, this is of a pattern entirely different and distinct
from any that have ever come under my observation."

He then pointed out to my brother that the side lines of the scroll were
unusually deeply cut, and that the front of it projected far more than
is common with such instruments.

"The most remarkable feature," he concluded, "is that the instrument
bears a double label. Besides the label which you have already seen
bearing '_Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis faciebat_,' with the date of
his most splendid period, 1704, so clearly that the ink seems scarcely
dry, there is another smaller one higher up on the back which I will
show you."

He took the violin apart and showed him a small label with characters
written in faded ink. "That is the writing of Antonio Stradivarius
himself, and is easily recognisable, though it is much firmer than
a specimen which I once saw, written in extreme old age, and giving
his name and the date 1736. He was then ninety-two, and died in the
following year. But this, as you will see, does not give his name, but
merely the two words '_Porphyrius philosophus_.' What this may refer
to I cannot say: it is beyond my experience. My friend Mr. Calvert has
suggested that Stradivarius may have dedicated this violin to the pagan
philosopher, or named it after him; but this seems improbable. I have,
indeed, heard of two famous violins being called 'Peter' and 'Paul,'
but the instances of such naming are very rare; and I believe it to be
altogether without precedent to find a name attached thus on a label.

"In any case, I must leave this matter to your ingenuity to decipher.
Neither the sound-post nor the bass-bar have ever been moved, and you
see here a Stradivarius violin wearing exactly the same appearance as
it once wore in the great master's workshop, and in exactly the same
condition; yet I think the belly is sufficiently strong to stand modern
stringing. I should advise you to leave the instrument with me for some
little while, that I may give it due care and attention and ensure its
being properly strung."

My brother thanked him and left the violin with him, saying that he
would instruct him later by letter to what address he wished it sent.




CHAPTER VIII


Within a few days after this the autumn term came to an end, and in
the second week of December John returned to Worth Maltravers for
the Christmas vacation. His advent was always a very great pleasure
to me, and on this occasion I had looked forward to his company with
anticipation keener than usual, as I had been disappointed of the visit
of a friend and had spent the last month alone. After the joy of our
first meeting had somewhat sobered, it was not long before I remarked a
change in his manner, which puzzled me. It was not that he was less kind
to me, for I think he was even more tenderly forbearing and gentle than
I had ever known him, but I had an uneasy feeling that some shadow had
crept in between us. It was the small cloud rising in the distance that
afterwards darkened his horizon and mine. I missed the old candour and
open-hearted frankness that he had always shown; and there seemed to be
always something in the background which he was trying to keep from me.
It was obvious that his thoughts were constantly elsewhere, so much so
that on more than one occasion he returned vague and incoherent answers
to my questions. At times I was content to believe that he was in love,
and that his thoughts were with Miss Constance Temple; but even so,
I could not persuade myself that his altered manner was to be thus
entirely accounted for. At other times a dazed air, entirely foreign to
his bright disposition, which I observed particularly in the morning,
raised in my mind the terrible suspicion that he was in the habit of
taking some secret narcotic or other deleterious drug.

We had never spent a Christmas away from Worth Maltravers, and it had
always been a season of quiet joy for both of us. But under these
altered circumstances it was a great relief and cause of thankfulness
to me to receive a letter from Mrs. Temple inviting us both to spend
Christmas and New Year at Royston. This invitation had upon my brother
precisely the effect that I had hoped for. It roused him from his moody
condition, and he professed much pleasure in accepting it, especially as
he had never hitherto been in Derbyshire.

There was a small but very agreeable party at Royston, and we passed a
most enjoyable fortnight. My brother seemed thoroughly to have shaken
off his indisposition; and I saw my fondest hopes realised in the warm
attachment which was evidently springing up between him and Miss
Constance Temple.

Our visit drew near its close, and it was within a week of John's return
to Oxford. Mrs. Temple celebrated the termination of the Christmas
festivities by giving a ball on Twelfth-night, at which a large party
were present, including most of the county families. Royston was
admirably adapted for such entertainments, from the number and great
size of its reception-rooms. Though Elizabethan in date and external
appearance, succeeding generations had much modified and enlarged the
house; and an ancestor in the middle of the last century had built at
the back an enormous hall after the classic model, and covered it with a
dome or cupola. In this room the dancing went forward. Supper was served
in the older hall in the front, and it was while this was in progress
that a thunderstorm began. The rarity of such a phenomenon in the depth
of winter formed the subject of general remark; but though the lightning
was extremely brilliant, being seen distinctly through the curtained
windows, the storm appeared to be at some distance, and, except for one
peal, the thunder was not loud. After supper dancing was resumed, and
I was taking part in a polka (called, I remember, the "_King Pippin_"),
when my partner pointed out that one of the footmen wished to speak with
me. I begged him to lead me to one side, and the servant then informed
me that my brother was ill. Sir John, he said, had been seized with a
fainting fit, but had been got to bed, and was being attended by Dr.
Empson, a physician who chanced to be present among the visitors.

I at once left the hall and hurried to my brother's room. On the way
I met Mrs. Temple and Constance, the latter much agitated and in tears.
Mrs. Temple assured me that Dr. Empson reported favourably of my
brother's condition, attributing his faintness to over-exertion in the
dancing-room. The medical man had got him to bed with the assistance of
Sir John's valet, had given him a quieting draught, and ordered that he
should not be disturbed for the present. It was better that I should not
enter the room; she begged that I would kindly comfort and reassure
Constance, who was much upset, while she herself returned to her guests.

I led Constance to my bedroom, where there was a bright fire burning,
and calmed her as best I could. Her interest in my brother was evidently
very real and unaffected, and while not admitting her partiality for him
in words, she made no effort to conceal her sentiments from me. I kissed
her tenderly, and bade her narrate the circumstances of John's attack.

It seemed that after supper they had gone upstairs into the music-room,
and he had himself proposed that they should walk thence into the
picture-gallery, where they would better he able to see the lightning,
which was then particularly vivid. The picture-gallery at Royston is a
very long, narrow, and rather low room, running the whole length of the
south wing, and terminating in a large Tudor oriel or flat bay window
looking east. In this oriel they had sat for some time watching the
flashes, and the wintry landscape revealed for an instant and then
plunged into outer blackness. The gallery itself was not illuminated,
and the effect of the lightning was very fine.

There had been an unusually bright flash accompanied by that single
reverberating peal of thunder which I had previously noticed. Constance
had spoken to my brother, but he had not replied, and in a moment she
saw that he had swooned. She summoned aid without delay, but it was some
short time before consciousness had been restored to him.

She had concluded this narrative, and sat holding my hand in hers. We
were speculating on the cause of my brother's illness, thinking it might
be due to over-exertion, or to sitting in a chilly atmosphere as the
picture-gallery was not warmed, when Mrs. Temple knocked at the door and
said that John was now more composed and desired earnestly to see me.

On entering my brother's bedroom I found him sitting up in bed wearing a
dressing-gown. Parnham, his valet, who was arranging the fire, left the
room as I came in. A chair stood at the head of the bed and I sat down
by him. He took my hand in his and without a word burst into tears.
"Sophy," he said, "I am so unhappy, and I have sent for you to tell you
of my trouble, because I know you will be forbearing to me. An hour
ago all seemed so bright. I was sitting in the picture-gallery with
Constance, whom I love dearly. We had been watching the lightning, till
the thunder had grown fainter and the storm seemed past. I was just
about to ask her to become my wife when a brighter flash than all the
rest burst on us, and I saw--I saw, Sophy, standing in the gallery as
close to me as you are now--I saw--that man I told you about at Oxford;
and then this faintness came on me."

"Whom do you mean?" I said, not understanding what he spoke of, and
thinking for a moment he referred to someone else. "Did you see Mr.
Gaskell?"

"No, it was not he; but that dead man whom I saw rising from my wicker
chair the night you went away from Oxford."

You will perhaps smile at my weakness, my dear Edward, and indeed I had
at that time no justification for it; but I assure you that I have not
yet forgotten, and never shall forget, the impression of overwhelming
horror which his words produced upon me. It seemed as though a fear
which had hitherto stood vague and shadowy in the background, began now
to advance towards me, gathering more distinctness as it approached.
There was to me something morbidly terrible about the apparition of this
man at such a momentous crisis in my brother's life, and I at once
recognised that unknown form as being the shadow which was gradually
stealing between John and myself. Though I feigned incredulity as best
I might, and employed those arguments or platitudes which will always be
used on such occasions, urging that such a phantom could only exist in a
mind disordered by physical weakness, my brother was not deceived by my
words, and perceived in a moment that I did not even believe in them
myself.

"Dearest Sophy," he said, with a much calmer air, "let us put aside all
dissimulation. I _know_ that what I have to-night seen, and that what I
saw last summer at Oxford, are _not_ phantoms of my brain; and I believe
that you too in your inmost soul are convinced of this truth. Do not,
therefore, endeavour to persuade me to the contrary. If I am not to
believe the evidence of my senses, it were better at once to admit my
madness--and I know that I am not mad. Let us rather consider what such
an appearance can portend, and who the man is who is thus presented.
I cannot explain to you why this appearance inspires me with so great
a revulsion. I can only say that in its presence I seem to be brought
face to face with some abysmal and repellent wickedness. It is not that
the form he wears is hideous. Last night I saw him exactly as I saw him
at Oxford--his face waxen pale, with a sneering mouth, the same lofty
forehead, and hair brushed straight up so as almost to appear standing
on end. He wore the same long coat of green cloth and white waistcoat.
He seemed as if he had been standing listening to what we said, though
we had not seen him till this bright flash of lightning made him
manifest. You will remember that when I saw him at Oxford his eyes were
always cast down, so that I never knew their colour. This time they were
wide open; indeed he was looking full at us, and they were a light brown
and very brilliant."

I saw that my brother was exciting himself, and was still weak from his
recent swoon. I knew, too, that any ordinary person of strong mind would
say at once that his brain wandered, and yet I had a dreadful conviction
all the while that what he told me was the truth. All I could do was to
beg him to calm himself, and to reflect how vain such fancies must be.
"We must trust, dear John," I said, "in God. I am sure that so long as
we are not living in conscious sin, we shall never be given over to any
evil power; and I know my brother too well to think that he is doing
anything he knows to be evil. If there be evil spirits, as we are taught
there are, we are taught also that there are good spirits stronger than
they, who will protect us."

So I spoke with him a little while, until he grew calmer; and then we
talked of Constance and of his love for her. He was deeply pleased to
hear from me how she had shown such obvious, signs of interest in his
illness, and sincere affection for him. In any case, he made me promise
that I would never mention to her either what he had seen this night or
last summer at Oxford.

It had grown late, and the undulating beat of the dances, which had
been distinctly sensible in his room--even though we could not hear
any definite noise--had now ceased. Mrs. Temple knocked at the door as
she went to bed and inquired how he did, giving him at the same time
a kind message of sympathy from Constance, which afforded him much
gratification. After she had left I prepared also to retire; but before
going he begged me to take a prayer-book lying on the table, and to read
aloud a collect which he pointed out. It was that for the second Sunday
in Lent, and evidently well known to him. As I read it the words seemed
to bear a new and deeper significance, and my heart repeated with
fervour the petition for protection from those "evil thoughts which may
assault and hurt the soul." I bade him good night and went away very
sorrowful. Parnham, at John's request, had arranged to sleep on a sofa
in his master's bedroom.

I rose betimes the next morning and inquired at my brother's room how
he was. Parnham reported that he had passed a restless night, and on
entering a little later I found him in a high fever, slightly delirious,
and evidently not so well as when I saw him last. Mrs. Temple, with much
kindness and forethought, had begged Dr. Empson to remain at Royston for
the night, and he was soon in attendance on his patient. His verdict
was sufficiently grave: John was suffering from a sharp access of
brain-fever; his condition afforded cause for alarm; he could not answer
for any turn his sickness might take. You will easily imagine how much
this intelligence affected me; and Mrs. Temple and Constance shared my
anxiety and solicitude. Constance and I talked much with one another
that morning. Unaffected anxiety had largely removed her reserve, and
she spoke openly of her feelings towards my brother, not concealing her
partiality for him. I on my part let her understand how welcome to me
would be any union between her and John, and how sincerely I should
value her as a sister.

It was a wild winter's morning, with some snow falling and a high wind.
The house was in the disordered condition which is generally observable
on the day following a ball or other important festivity. I roamed
restlessly about, and at last found my way to the picture-gallery,
which had formed the scene of John's adventure on the previous night.
I had never been in this part of the house before, as it contained no
facilities for heating, and so often remained shut in the winter months.
I found a listless pleasure in admiring the pictures which lined the
walls, most of them being portraits of former members of the family,
including the famous picture of Sir Ralph Temple and his family,
attributed to Holbein. I had reached the end of the gallery and sat
down in the oriel watching the snow-flakes falling sparsely, and the
evergreens below me waving wildly in the sudden rushes of the wind. My
thoughts were busy with the events of the previous evening,--with John's
illness, with the ball,--and I found myself humming the air of a waltz
that had caught my fancy. At last I turned away from the garden scene
towards the gallery, and as I did so my eyes fell on a remarkable
picture just opposite to me.

It was a full-length portrait of a young man, life-size, and I had
barely time to appreciate even its main features when I knew that I had
before me the painted counterfeit of my brother's vision. The discovery
caused me a violent shock, and it was with an infinite repulsion that
I recognised at once the features and dress of the man whom John had
seen rising from the chair at Oxford. So accurately had my brother's
imagination described him to me, that it seemed as if I had myself seen
him often before. I noted each feature, comparing them with my brother's
description, and finding them all familiar and corresponding exactly.
He was a man still in the prime of life. His features were regular and
beautifully modelled; yet there was something in his face that inspired
me with a deep aversion, though his brown eyes were open and brilliant.
His mouth was sharply cut, with a slight sneer on the lips, and his
complexion of that extreme pallor which had impressed itself deeply on
my brother's imagination and my own.

After the first intense surprise had somewhat subsided, I experienced
a feeling of great relief, for here was an extraordinary explanation
of my brother's vision of last night. It was certain that the flash
of lightning had lit up this ill-starred picture, and that to his
predisposed fancy the painted figure had stood forth as an actual
embodiment. That such an incident, however startling, should have been
able to fling John into a brain-fever, showed that he must already have
been in a very low and reduced state, on which excitement would act much
more powerfully than on a more robust condition of health. A similar
state of weakness, perturbed by the excitement of his passion for
Constance Temple, might surely also have conjured up the vision which
he thought he saw the night of our leaving Oxford in the summer.
These thoughts, my dear Edward, gave me great relief; for it seemed
a comparatively trivial matter that my brother should be ill, even
seriously ill, if only his physical indisposition could explain away the
supernatural dread which had haunted us for the past six months. The
clouds were breaking up. It was evident that John had been seriously
unwell for some months; his physical weakness had acted on his brain;
and I had lent colour to his wandering fancies by being alarmed by them,
instead of rejecting them at once or gently laughing them away as I
should have done. But these glad thoughts took me too far, and I was
suddenly brought up by a reflection that did not admit of so simple an
explanation. If the man's form my brother saw at Oxford were merely an
effort of disordered imagination, how was it that he had been able to
describe it exactly like that represented in this picture? He had never
in his life been to Royston, therefore he could have no image of the
picture impressed unconsciously on or hidden away in his mind. Yet his
description had never varied. It had been so close as to enable me to
produce in my fancy a vivid representation of the man he had seen; and
here I had before me the features and dress exactly reproduced. In the
presence of a coincidence so extraordinary reason stood confounded, and
I knew not what to think. I walked nearer to the picture and scrutinised
it closely.

The dress corresponded in every detail with that which my brother had
described the figure as wearing at Oxford: a long cut-away coat of green
cloth with an edge of gold embroidery, a white satin waistcoat with
sprigs of embroidered roses, gold-lace at the pocket-holes, buff silk
knee-breeches, and low down on the finely modelled neck a full cravat
of rich lace. The figure was posed negligently against a fluted stone
pedestal or short column on which the left elbow leant, and the right
foot was crossed lightly over the left. His shoes were of polished
black leather with heavy silver buckles, and the whole costume was very
old-fashioned, and such as I had only seen worn at fancy dress balls. On
the foot of the pedestal was the painter's name, "BATTONI pinxit, Romæ,
1750." On the top of the pedestal, and under his left elbow, was a long
roll apparently of music, of which one end, unfolded, hung over the
edge.

For some minutes I stood still gazing at this portrait which so much
astonished me, but turned on hearing footsteps in the gallery, and saw
Constance, who had come to seek for me.

"Constance," I said, "whose portrait is this? It is a very striking
picture, is it not?"

"Yes, it is a splendid painting, though of a very bad man. His name was
Adrian Temple, and he once owned Royston. I do not know much about him,
but I believe he was very wicked and very clever. My mother would be
able to tell you more. It is a picture we none of us like, although so
finely painted; and perhaps because he was always pointed out to me from
childhood as a bad man, I have myself an aversion to it. It is singular
that when the very bright flash of lightning came last night while your
brother John and I were sitting here, it lit this picture with a
dazzling glare that made the figure stand out so strangely as to seem
almost alive. It was just after that I found that John had fainted."

The memory was not a pleasant one for either of us and we changed the
subject. "Come," I said, "let us leave the gallery, it is very cold
here."

Though I said nothing more at the time, her words had made a great
impression on me. It was so strange that, even with the little she knew
of this Adrian Temple, she should speak at once of his notoriously evil
life, and of her personal dislike to the picture. Remembering what my
brother had said on the previous night, that in the presence of this man
he felt himself brought face to face with some indescribable wickedness,
I could not but be surprised at the coincidence. The whole story seemed
to me now to resemble one of those puzzle pictures or maps which I have
played with as a child, where each bit fits into some other until the
outline is complete. It was as if I were finding the pieces one by one
of a bygone history, and fitting them to one another until some terrible
whole should be gradually built up and stand out in its complete
deformity.

Dr. Empson spoke gravely of John's illness, and entertained without
reluctance the proposal of Mrs. Temple, that Dr. Dobie, a celebrated
physician in Derby, should be summoned to a consultation. Dr. Dobie came
more than once, and was at last able to report an amendment in John's
condition, though both the doctors absolutely forbade anyone to visit
him, and said that under the most favourable circumstances a period of
some weeks must elapse before he could be moved.

Mrs. Temple invited me to remain at Royston until my brother should be
sufficiently convalescent to be moved; and both she and Constance, while
regretting the cause, were good enough to express themselves pleased
that accident should detain me so long with them.

As the reports of the doctors became gradually more favourable, and our
minds were in consequence more free to turn to other subjects, I spoke
to Mrs. Temple one day about the picture, saying that it interested me,
and asking for some particulars as to the life of Adrian Temple.

"My dear child," she said, "I had rather that you should not exhibit
any curiosity as to this man, whom I wish that we had not to call an
ancestor. I know little of him myself, and indeed his life was of such
a nature as no woman, much less a young girl, would desire to be well
acquainted with. He was, I believe, a man of remarkable talent, and
spent most of his time between Oxford and Italy, though he visited
Royston occasionally, and built the large hall here, which we use as a
dancing-room. Before he was twenty wild stories were prevalent as to his
licentious life, and by thirty his name was a by-word among sober and
upright people. He had constantly with him at Oxford and on his travels
a boon companion called Jocelyn, who aided him in his wickednesses,
until on one of their Italian tours Jocelyn left him suddenly and became
a Trappist monk. It was currently reported that some wild deed of Adrian
Temple had shocked even him, and so outraged his surviving instincts of
common humanity that he was snatched as a brand from the burning and
enabled to turn back even in the full tide of his wickedness. However
that may be, Adrian went on in his evil course without him, and about
four years after disappeared. He was last heard of in Naples, and it is
believed that he succumbed during a violent outbreak of the plague which
took place in Italy in the autumn of 1752. That is all I shall tell you
of him, and indeed I know little more myself. The only good trait that
has been handed down concerning him is that he was a masterly musician,
performing admirably upon the violin, which he had studied under the
illustrious Tartini himself. Yet even his art of music, if tradition
speaks the truth, was put by him to the basest of uses."

I apologised for my indiscretion in asking her about an unpleasant
subject, and at the same time thanked her for what she had seen fit to
tell me, professing myself much interested, as indeed I really was.

"Was he a handsome man?"

"That is a girl's question," she answered, smiling. "He is said to
have been very handsome; and indeed his picture, painted after his
first youth was past, would still lead one to suppose so. But his
complexion was spoiled, it is said, and turned to deadly white by
certain experiments, which it is neither possible nor seemly for us to
understand. His face is of that long oval shape of which all the Temples
are proud, and he had brown eyes: we sometimes tease Constance, saying
she is like Adrian."

It was indeed true, as I remembered after Mrs. Temple had pointed it
out, that Constance had a peculiarly long and oval face. It gave her, I
think, an air of staid and placid beauty, which formed in my eyes, and
perhaps in John's also, one of her greatest attractions.

"I do not like even his picture," Mrs. Temple continued, "and strange
tales have been narrated of it by idle servants which are not worth
repeating. I have sometimes thought of destroying it; but my late
husband, being a Temple, would never hear of this, or even of removing
it from its present place in the gallery; and I should be loath to do
anything now contrary to his wishes, once so strongly expressed. It is,
besides, very perfect from an artistic point of view, being painted by
Battoni, and in his happiest manner."

I could never glean more from Mrs. Temple; but what she told me
interested me deeply. It seemed another link in the chain, though
I could scarcely tell why, that Adrian Temple should be so great a
musician and violinist. I had, I fancy, a dim idea of that malign and
outlawed spirit sitting alone in darkness for a hundred years, until he
was called back by the sweet tones of the Italian music, and the lilt of
the "Areopagita" that he had loved so long ago.




CHAPTER IX


John's recovery, though continuous and satisfactory, was but slow;
and it was not until Easter, which fell early, that his health was
pronounced to be entirely re-established. The last few weeks of his
convalescence had proved to all of us a time of thankful and tranquil
enjoyment. If I may judge from my own experience, there are few epochs
in our life more favourable to the growth of sentiments of affection
and piety, or more full of pleasurable content, than is the period of
gradual recovery from serious illness. The chastening effect of our
recent sickness has not yet passed away, and we are at once grateful to
our Creator for preserving us, and to our friends for the countless acts
of watchful kindness which it is the peculiar property of illness to
evoke.

No mother ever nursed a son more tenderly than did Mrs. Temple nurse
my brother, and before his restoration to health was complete the
attachment between him and Constance had ripened into a formal
betrothal. Such an alliance was, as I have before explained,
particularly suitable, and its prospect afforded the most lively
pleasure to all those concerned. The month of March had been unusually
mild, and Royston being situated in a valley, as is the case with most
houses of that date, was well sheltered from cold winds. It had,
moreover, a south aspect, and as my brother gradually gathered strength,
Constance and he and I would often sit out of doors in the soft spring
mornings. We put an easy-chair with many cushions for him on the gravel
by the front door, where the warmth of the sun was reflected from the
red brick walls, and he would at times read aloud to us while we were
engaged with our crochet-work. Mr. Tennyson had just published
anonymously a first volume of poems, and the sober dignity of his verse
well suited our frame of mind at that time. The memory of those pleasant
spring mornings, my dear Edward, has not yet passed away, and I can
still smell the sweet moist scent of the violets, and see the bright
colours of the crocus-flowers in the parterres in front of us.

John's mind seemed to be gathering strength with his body. He had
apparently flung off the cloud which had overshadowed him before his
illness, and avoided entirely any reference to those unpleasant events
which had been previously so constantly in his thoughts. I had, indeed,
taken an early opportunity of telling him of my discovery of the picture
of Adrian Temple, as I thought it would tend to show him that at least
the last appearance of this ghostly form admitted of a rational
explanation. He seemed glad to hear of this, but did not exhibit the
same interest in the matter that I had expected, and allowed it at once
to drop. Whether through lack of interest, or from a lingering dislike
to revisit the spot where he was seized with illness, he did not, I
believe, once enter the picture-gallery before he left Royston.

I cannot say as much for myself. The picture of Adrian Temple exerted
a curious fascination over me, and I constantly took an opportunity of
studying it. It was, indeed, a beautiful work; and perhaps because
John's recovery gave a more cheerful tone to my thoughts, or perhaps
from the power of custom to dull even the keenest antipathies, I
gradually got to lose much of the feeling of aversion which it had at
first inspired. In time the unpleasant look grew less unpleasing, and
I noticed more the beautiful oval of the face, the brown eyes, and the
fine chiselling of the features. Sometimes, too, I felt a deep pity for
so clever a gentleman who had died young, and whose life, were it ever
so wicked, must often have been also lonely and bitter. More than once
I had been discovered by Mrs. Temple or Constance sitting looking at the
picture, and they had gently laughed at me, saying that I had fallen in
love with Adrian Temple.

One morning in early April, when the sun was streaming brightly through
the oriel, and the picture received a fuller light than usual, it
occurred to me to examine closely the scroll of music painted as hanging
over the top of the pedestal on which the figure leant. I had hitherto
thought that the signs depicted on it were merely such as painters might
conventionally use to represent a piece of musical notation. This has
generally been the case, I think, in such pictures as I have ever seen
in which a piece of music has been introduced. I mean that while the
painting gives a general representation of the musical staves, no
attempt is ever made to paint any definite notes such as would enable an
actual piece to be identified. Though, as I write this, I do remember
that on the monument to Handel in Westminster Abbey there is represented
a musical scroll similar to that in Adrian Temple's picture, but
actually sculptured with the opening phrase of the majestic melody,
"I know that my Redeemer liveth."

On this morning, then, at Royston I thought I perceived that there were
painted on the scroll actual musical staves, bars, and notes; and my
interest being excited, I stood upon a chair so as better to examine
them. Though time had somewhat obscured this portion of the picture as
with a veil or film, yet I made out that the painter had intended to
depict some definite piece of music. In another moment I saw that the
air represented consisted of the opening bars of the _Gagliarda_ in the
suite by Graziani with which my brother and I were so well acquainted.
Though I believe that I had not seen the volume of music in which that
piece was contained more than twice, yet the melody was very familiar
to me, and I had no difficulty whatever in making myself sure that I had
here before me the air of the _Gagliarda_ and none other. It was true
that it was only roughly painted, but to one who knew the tune there was
no room left for doubt.

Here was a new cause, I will not say for surprise, but for reflection.
It might, of course, have been merely a coincidence that the artist
should have chosen to paint in this picture this particular piece of
music; but it seemed more probable that it had actually been a favourite
air of Adrian Temple, and that he had chosen deliberately to have it
represented with him. This discovery I kept entirely to myself, not
thinking it wise to communicate it to my brother, lest by doing so I
might reawaken his interest in a subject which I hoped he had finally
dismissed from his thoughts.

In the second week of April the happy party at Royston was dispersed,
John returning to Oxford for the summer term, Mrs. Temple making a short
visit to Scotland, and Constance coming to Worth Maltravers to keep me
company for a time.

It was John's last term at Oxford. He expected to take his degree in
June, and his marriage with Constance Temple had been provisionally
arranged for the September following. He returned to Magdalen Hall
in the best of spirits, and found his rooms looking cheerful with
well-filled flower-boxes in the windows. I shall not detain you with any
long narration of the events of the term, as they have no relation to
the present history. I will only say that I believe my brother applied
himself diligently to his studies, and took his amusement mostly on
horseback, riding two horses which he had had sent to him from Worth
Maltravers.

About the second week after his return he received a letter from Mr.
George Smart to the effect that the Stradivarius violin was now in
complete order. Subsequent examination, Mr. Smart wrote, and the
unanimous verdict of connoisseurs whom he had consulted, had merely
confirmed the views he had at first expressed--namely, that the violin
was of the finest quality, and that my brother had in his possession a
unique and intact example of Stradivarius's best period. He had had it
properly strung; and as the bass-bar had never been moved, and was of
a stronger nature than that usual at the period of its manufacture, he
had considered it unnecessary to replace it. If any signs should become
visible of its being inadequate to support the tension of modern
stringing, another could be easily substituted for it at a later date.
He had allowed a young German _virtuoso_ to play on it, and though this
gentleman was one of the first living performers, and had had an
opportunity of handling many splendid instruments, he assured Mr. Smart
that he had never performed on one that could in any way compare with
this. My brother wrote in reply thanking him, and begging that the
violin might be sent to Magdalen Hall.

The pleasant musical evenings, however, which John had formerly
been used to spend in the company of Mr. Gaskell were now entirely
pretermitted. For though there was no cause for any diminution of
friendship between them, and though on Mr. Gaskell's part there was an
ardent desire to maintain their former intimacy, yet the two young men
saw less and less of one another, until their intercourse was confined
to an accidental greeting in the street. I believe that during all this
time my brother played very frequently on the Stradivarius violin,
but always alone. Its very possession seemed to have engendered from
the first in his mind a secretive tendency which, as I have already
observed, was entirely alien to his real disposition. As he had
concealed its discovery from his sister, so he had also from his friend,
and Mr. Gaskell remained in complete ignorance of the existence of such
an instrument.

On the evening of its arrival from London, John seems to have carefully
unpacked the violin and tried it with a new bow of Tourte's make which
he had purchased of Mr. Smart. He had shut the heavy outside door of his
room before beginning to play, so that no one might enter unawares; and
he told me afterwards that though he had naturally expected from the
instrument a very fine tone, yet its actual merits so far exceeded his
anticipations as entirely to overwhelm him. The sound issued from it
in a volume of such depth and purity as to give an impression of the
passages being chorded, or even of another violin being played at the
same time. He had had, of course, no opportunity of practising during
his illness, and so expected to find his skill with the bow somewhat
diminished; but he perceived, on the contrary, that his performance was
greatly improved, and that he was playing with a mastery and feeling
of which he had never before been conscious. While attributing this
improvement very largely to the beauty of the instrument on which he was
performing, yet he could not but believe that by his illness, or in some
other unexplained way, he had actually acquired a greater freedom of
wrist and fluency of expression, with which reflection he was not a
little elated. He had had a lock fixed on the cupboard in which he had
originally found the violin, and here he carefully deposited it on each
occasion after playing, before he opened the outer door of his room.

So the summer term passed away. The examinations had come in their due
time, and were now over. Both the young men had submitted themselves
to the ordeal, and while neither would of course have admitted as
much to anyone else, both felt secretly that they had no reason to be
dissatisfied with their performance. The results would not be published
for some weeks to come. The last night of the term had arrived, the last
night too of John's Oxford career. It was near nine o'clock, but still
quite light, and the rich orange glow of sunset had not yet left the
sky. The air was warm and sultry, as on that eventful evening when just
a year ago he had for the first time seen the figure or the illusion
of the figure of Adrian Temple. Since that time he had played the
"Areopagita" many, many times; but there had never been any reappearance
of that form, nor even had the once familiar creaking of the wicker
chair ever made itself heard. As he sat alone in his room, thinking with
a natural melancholy that he had seen the sun set for the last time on
his student life, and reflecting on the possibilities of the future
and perhaps on opportunities wasted in the past, the memory of that
evening last June recurred strongly to his imagination, and he felt an
irresistible impulse to play once more the "Areopagita." He unlocked
the now familiar cupboard and took out the violin, and never had the
exquisite gradations of colour in its varnish appeared to greater
advantage than in the soft mellow light of the fading day. As he began
the _Gagliarda_ he looked at the wicker chair, half expecting to see a
form he well knew seated in it; but nothing of the kind ensued, and he
concluded the "Areopagita" without the occurrence of any unusual
phenomenon.

It was just at its close that he heard some one knocking at the outer
door. He hurriedly locked away the violin and opened the "oak." It was
Mr. Gaskell. He came in rather awkwardly, as though not sure whether he
would be welcomed.

"Johnnie," he began, and stopped.

The force of ancient habit sometimes, dear nephew, leads us unwittingly
to accost those who were once our friends by a familiar or nick-name
long "after the intimacy that formerly justified it has vanished. But
sometimes we intentionally revert to the use of such a name, not wishing
to proclaim openly, as it were, by a more formal address that we are no
longer the friends we once were. I think this latter was the case with
Mr. Gaskell as he repeated the familiar name.

"Johnnie, I was passing down New College Lane, and heard the violin from
your open windows. You were playing the 'Areopagita,' and it all sounded
so familiar to me that I thought I must come up. I am not interrupting
you, am I?"

"No, not at all," John answered.

"It is the last night of our undergraduate life, the last night we shall
meet in Oxford as students. To-morrow we make our bow to youth and
become men. We have not seen much of each other this term at any rate,
and I daresay that is my fault. But at least let us part as friends.
Surely our friends are not so many that we can afford to fling them
lightly away."

He held out his hand frankly, and his voice trembled a little as he
spoke--partly perhaps from real emotion, but more probably from the
feeling of reluctance which I have noticed men always exhibit to
discovering any sentiment deeper than those usually deemed conventional
in correct society. My brother was moved by his obvious wish to renew
their former friendship, and grasped the proffered hand.

There was a minute's pause, and then the conversation was resumed, a
little stiffly at first, but more freely afterwards. They spoke on many
indifferent subjects, and Mr. Gaskell congratulated John on the prospect
of his marriage, of which he had heard. As he at length rose up to take
his departure, he said, "You must have practised the violin diligently
of late, for I never knew anyone make so rapid progress with it as you
have done. As I came along I was spellbound by your music. I never
before heard you bring from the instrument so exquisite a tone: the
chorded passages were so powerful that I believed there had been
another person playing with you. Your Pressenda is certainly a finer
instrument than I ever imagined."

My brother was pleased with Mr. Gaskell's compliment, and the latter
continued, "Let me enjoy the pleasure of playing with you once more in
Oxford; let us play the 'Areopagita.'"

And so saying he opened the pianoforte and sat down.

John was turning to take out the Stradivarius when he remembered that he
had never even revealed its existence to Mr. Gaskell, and that if he now
produced it an explanation must follow. In a moment his mood changed,
and with less geniality he excused himself, somewhat awkwardly, from
complying with the request, saying that he was fatigued.

Mr. Gaskell was evidently hurt at his friend's altered manner, and
without renewing his petition rose at once from the pianoforte, and
after a little forced conversation took his departure. On leaving he
shook my brother by the hand, wished him all prosperity in his marriage
and after-life, and said, "Do not entirely forget your old comrade, and
remember that if at any time you should stand in need of a true friend,
you know where to find him!"

John heard his footsteps echoing down the passage and made a
half-involuntary motion towards the door as if to call him back, but did
not do so, though he thought over his last words then and on a
subsequent occasion.




CHAPTER X


The summer was spent by us in the company of Mrs. Temple and Constance,
partly at Royston and partly at Worth Maltravers. John had again
hired the cutter-yacht _Palestine_, and the whole party made several
expeditions in her. Constance was entirely devoted to her lover; her
life seemed wrapped up in his; she appeared to have no existence except
in his presence.

I can scarcely enumerate the reasons which prompted such thoughts, but
during these months I sometimes found myself wondering if John still
returned her affection as ardently as I knew had once been the case.
I can certainly call to mind no single circumstance which could justify
me in such a suspicion. He performed punctiliously all those thousand
little acts of devotion which are expected of an accepted lover; he
seemed to take pleasure in perfecting any scheme of enjoyment to amuse
her; and yet the impression grew in my mind that he no longer felt the
same heart-whole love to her that she bore him, and that he had himself
shown six months earlier. I cannot say, my dear Edward, how lively was
the grief that even the suspicion of such a fact caused me, and I
continually rebuked myself for entertaining for a moment a thought so
unworthy, and dismissed it from my mind with reprobation. Alas! ere long
it was sure again to make itself felt. We had all seen the Stradivarius
violin; indeed it was impossible for my brother longer to conceal it
from us, as he now played continually on it. He did not recount to us
the story of its discovery, contenting himself with saying that he had
become possessed of it at Oxford. We imagined naturally that he had
purchased it; and for this I was sorry, as I feared Mr. Thoresby, his
guardian, who had given him some years previously an excellent violin by
Pressenda, might feel hurt at seeing his present so unceremoniously laid
aside. None of us were at all intimately acquainted with the fancies of
fiddle-collectors, and were consequently quite ignorant of the enormous
value that fashion attached to so splendid an instrument. Even had
we known, I do not think that we should have been surprised at John
purchasing it; for he had recently come of age, and was in possession of
so large a fortune as would amply justify him in such an indulgence had
he wished to gratify it. No one, however, could remain unaware of the
wonderful musical qualities of the instrument. Its rich and melodious
tones would commend themselves even to the most unmusical ear, and
formed a subject of constant remark. I noticed also that my brother's
knowledge of the violin had improved in a very perceptible manner, for
it was impossible to attribute the great beauty and power of his present
performance entirely to the excellence of the instrument he was using.
He appeared more than ever devoted to the art, and would shut himself
up in his room alone for two or more hours together for the purpose of
playing the violin--a habit which was a source of sorrow to Constance,
for he would never allow her to sit with him on such occasions, as she
naturally wished to do.

So the summer fled. I should have mentioned that in July, after going up
to complete the _viva-voce_ part of their examination, both Mr. Gaskell
and John received information that they had obtained "first-classes."
The young men had, it appears, done excellently well, and both had
secured a place in that envied division of the first-class which was
called "above the line." John's success proved a source of much pleasure
to us all, and mutual congratulations were freely exchanged. We were
pleased also at Mr. Gaskell's high place, remembering the kindness which
he had shown us at Oxford in the previous year. I desired to send him
my compliments and felicitations when he should next be writing to him.
I did not doubt that my brother would return Mr. Gaskell's
congratulations, which he had already received: he said, however, that
his friend had given no address to which he could write, and so the
matter dropped.

On the 1st of September John and Constance Temple were married. The
wedding took place at Royston, and by John's special desire (with which
Constance fully agreed) the ceremony was of a strictly private and
unpretentious nature. The newly married pair had determined to spend
their honeymoon in Italy, and left for the Continent in the forenoon.

Mrs. Temple invited me to remain with her for the present at Royston,
which I was very glad to do, feeling deeply the loss of a favourite
brother, and looking forward with dismay to six weeks of loneliness
which must elapse before I should again see him and my dearest
Constance.

We received news of our travellers about a fortnight afterwards, and
then heard from them at frequent intervals. Constance wrote in the best
of spirits, and with the keenest appreciation. She had never travelled
in Switzerland or Italy before and all was enchantingly novel to her.
They had journeyed through Basle to Lucerne, spending a few days in that
delightful spot, and thence proceeding by the Simplon Pass to Lugano and
the Italian lakes. Then we heard that they had gone further south than
had been at first contemplated; they had reached Rome, and were
intending to go on to Naples.

After the first few weeks we neither of us received any more letters
from John. It was always Constance who wrote, and even her letters
grew very much less frequent than had at first been the case. This was
perhaps natural, as the business of travel no doubt engrossed their
thoughts. But ere long we both perceived that the letters of our dear
girl were more constrained and formal than before. It was as if she was
writing now rather to comply with a sense of duty than to give vent to
the light-hearted gaiety and naïve enjoyment which breathed in every
line of her earlier communications. So at least it seemed to us, and
again the old suspicion presented itself to my mind, and I feared that
all was not as it should be.

Naples was to be the turning-point of their travels, and we expected
them to return to England by the end of October. November had arrived,
however, and we still had no intimation that their return journey had
commenced or was even decided on. From John there was no word, and
Constance wrote less often than ever. John, she said, was enraptured
with Naples and its surroundings; he devoted himself much to the violin,
and though she did not say so, this meant, I knew, that she was often
left alone. For her own part, she did not think that a continued
residence in Italy would suit her health; the sudden changes of
temperature tried her, and people said that the airs rising in the
evening from the bay were unwholesome.

Then we received a letter from her which much alarmed us. It was written
from Naples and dated October 25. John, she said, had been ailing of
late with nervousness and insomnia. On Wednesday, two days before the
date of her letter, he had suffered all day from a strange restlessness,
which increased after they had retired for the evening. He could not
sleep and had dressed again, telling her he would walk a little in the
night air to compose himself. He had not returned till near six in the
morning, and then was so deadly pale and seemed so exhausted that she
insisted on his keeping to his bed till she could get medical advice.
The doctors feared that he had been attacked by some strange form of
malarial fever, and said he needed much care. Our anxiety was, however,
at least temporarily relieved by the receipt of later tidings which
spoke of John's recovery; but November drew to a close without any
definite mention of their return having reached us.

That month is always, I think, a dreary one in the country. It has
neither the brilliant tints of October, nor the cosy jollity of
mid-winter with its Christmas joys to alleviate it. This year it was
more gloomy than usual. Incessant rain had marked its close, and the
Roy, a little brook which skirted the gardens not far from the house,
had swollen to unusual proportions. At last one wild night the flood
rose so high as to completely cover the garden terraces, working havoc
in the parterres, and covering the lawns with a thick coat of mud.
Perhaps this gloominess of nature's outer face impressed itself in a
sense of apprehension on our spirits, and it was with a feeling of more
than ordinary pleasure and relief that early in December we received a
letter dated from Laon, saying that our travellers were already well
advanced on their return journey, and expected to be in England a week
after the receipt by us of this advice. It was, as usual, Constance who
wrote. John begged, she said, that Christmas might be spent at Worth
Maltravers, and that we would at once proceed thither to see that all
was in order against their return. They reached Worth about the middle
of the month, and were, I need not say, received with the utmost
affection by Mrs. Temple and myself.

In reply to our inquiries John professed that his health was completely
restored; but though we could indeed discern no other signs of any
special weakness, we were much shocked by his changed appearance. He had
completely lost his old healthy and sunburnt complexion, and his face,
though not thin or sunken, was strangely pale. Constance assured us
that though in other respects he had apparently recovered, he had never
regained his old colour from the night of his attack of fever at Naples.

I soon perceived that her own spirits were not so bright as was
ordinarily the case with her; and she exhibited none of the eagerness to
narrate to others the incidents of travel which is generally observable
in those who have recently returned from a journey. The cause of this
depression was, alas! not difficult to discover, for John's former
abstraction and moodiness seemed to have returned with an increased
force. It was a source of infinite pain to Mrs. Temple, and perhaps
even more so to me, to observe this sad state of things. Constance
never complained, and her affection towards her husband seemed only to
increase in the face of difficulties. Yet the matter was one which could
not be hid from the anxious eyes of loving kinswomen, and I believe that
it was the consciousness that these altered circumstances could not
but force themselves upon our notice that added poignancy to my poor
sister's grief. While not markedly neglecting her, my brother had
evidently ceased to take that pleasure in her company which might
reasonably have been expected in any case under the circumstances of
a recent marriage, and a thousand times more so when his wife was so
loving and beautiful a creature as Constance Temple. He appeared little
except at meals, and not even always at lunch, shutting himself up for
the most part in his morning-room or study and playing continually on
the violin. It was in vain that we attempted even by means of his music
to win him back to a sweeter mood. Again and again I begged him to allow
me to accompany him on the pianoforte, but he would never do so, always
putting me off with some excuse. Even when he sat with us in the
evening, he spoke little, devoting himself for the most part to reading.
His books were almost always Greek or Latin, so that I am ignorant of
the subjects of his study; but he was content that either Constance or
I should play on the pianoforte, saying that the melody, so far from
distracting his attention, helped him rather to appreciate what he was
reading. Constance always begged me to allow her to take her place at
the instrument on these occasions, and would play to him sometimes for
hours without receiving a word of thanks, being eager even in this
unreciprocated manner to testify her love and devotion to him.

Christmas Day, usually so happy a season, brought no alleviation of
our gloom. My brother's reserve continually increased, and even his
longest-established habits appeared changed. He had been always most
observant of his religious duties, attending divine service with the
utmost regularity whatever the weather might be, and saying that it was
a duty a landed proprietor owed as much to his tenantry as himself to
set a good example in such matters. Ever since our earliest years he
and I had gone morning and afternoon on Sundays to the little church of
Worth, and there sat together in the Maltravers chapel where so many of
our name had sat before us. Here their monuments and achievements stood
about us on every side, and it had always seemed to me that with their
name and property we had inherited also the obligation to continue those
acts of piety, in the practice of which so many of them had lived and
died. It was, therefore, a source of surprise and great grief to me
when on the Sunday after his return my brother omitted all religious
observances, and did not once attend the parish church. He was not
present with us at breakfast, ordering coffee and a roll to be taken to
his private sitting-room. At the hour at which we usually set out for
church I went to his room to tell him that we were all dressed and
waiting for him. I tapped at the door, but on trying to enter found it
locked. In reply to my message he did not open the door, but merely
begged us to go on to church, saying he would possibly follow us later.
We went alone, and I sat anxiously in our seat with my eyes fixed on the
door, hoping against hope that each late comer might be John, but he
never came. Perhaps this will appear to you, Edward, a comparatively
trivial circumstance (though I hope it may not), but I assure you that
it brought tears to my eyes. When I sat in the Maltravers chapel and
thought that for the first time my dear brother had preferred in an open
way his convenience or his whim to his duty, and had of set purpose
neglected to come to the house of God, I felt a bitter grief that seemed
to rise up in my throat and choke me. I could not think of the meaning
of the prayers nor join in the singing: and all the time that Mr.
Butler, our clergyman, was preaching, a verse of a little piece of
poetry which I learnt as a girl was running in my head:--

  "How easy are the paths of ill;
     How steep and hard the upward ways;
  A child can roll the stone down hill
    That breaks a giant's arm to raise."


It seemed to me that our loved one had set his foot upon the downward
slope, and that not all the efforts of those who would have given their
lives to save him could now hold him back.

It was even worse on Christmas Day. Ever since we had been confirmed
John and I had always taken the Sacrament on that happy morning, and
after service he had distributed the Maltravers dole in our chapel.
There are given, as you know, on that day to each of twelve old men £5
and a green coat, and a like sum of money with a blue cloth dress to as
many old women. These articles of dress are placed on the altar-tomb of
Sir Esmoun de Maltravers, and have been thence distributed from days
immemorial by the head of our house. Ever since he was twelve years old
it had been my pride to watch my handsome brother doing this deed of
noble charity, and to hear the kindly words he added with each gift.

Alas! alas! it was all different this Christmas. Even on this holy day
my brother did not approach either the altar or the house of God. Till
then Christmas had always seemed to me to be a day given us from above,
that we might see even while on earth a faint glimpse of that serenity
and peaceful love which will hereafter gild all days in heaven. Then
covetous men lay aside their greed and enemies their rancour, then warm
hearts grow warmer, and Christians feel their common brotherhood. I can
scarcely imagine any man so lost or guilty as not to experience on that
day some desire to turn back to the good once more, as not to recognise
some far-off possibility of better things. It was thoughts free and
happy such as these that had previously come into my heart in the
service of Christmas Day, and been particularly associated with the
familiar words that we all love so much. But that morning the harmonies
were all jangled: it seemed as though some evil spirit was pouring
wicked thoughts into my ear; and even while children sang "Hark the
herald angels," I thought I could hear through it all a melody which
I had learnt to loathe, the _Gagliarda_ of the "Areopagita."

Poor Constance! Though her veil was down, I could see her tears, and
knew her thoughts must be sadder even than mine: I drew her hand towards
me, and held it as I would a child's. After the service was over a new
trial awaited us. John had made no arrangement for the distribution of
the dole. The coats and dresses were all piled ready on Sir Esmoun's
tomb, and there lay the little leather pouches of money, but there was
no one to give them away. Mr. Butler looked puzzled, and approaching
us, said he feared Sir John was ill--had he made no provision for the
distribution? Pride kept back the tears which were rising fast, and
I said my brother was indeed unwell, that it would be better for Mr.
Butler to give away the dole, and that Sir John would himself visit the
recipients during the week. Then we hurried away, not daring to watch
the distribution of the dole, lest we should no longer be able to master
our feelings, and should openly betray our agitation.

From one another we no longer attempted to conceal our grief. It seemed
as though we had all at once resolved to abandon the farce of pretending
not to notice John's estrangement from his wife, or of explaining away
his neglectful and unaccountable treatment of her.

I do not think that three poor women were ever so sad on Christmas Day
before as were we on our return from church that morning. None of us had
seen my brother, but about five in the afternoon Constance went to his
room, and through the locked door begged piteously to see him. After a
few minutes he complied with her request and opened the door. The exact
circumstances of that interview she never revealed to me, but I knew
from her manner when she returned that something she had seen or heard
had both grieved and frightened her. She told me only that she had flung
herself in an agony of tears at his feet, and kneeling there, weary and
broken-hearted, had begged him to tell her if she had done aught amiss,
had prayed him to give her back his love. To all this he answered
little, but her entreaties had at least such an effect as to induce him
to take his dinner with us that evening. At that meal we tried to put
aside our gloom, and with feigned smiles and cheerful voices, from which
the tears were hardly banished, sustained a weary show of conversation
and tried to wile away his evil mood. But he spoke little; and when
Foster, my father's butler, put on the table the three-handled
Maltravers' loving-cup that he had brought up Christmas by Christmas for
thirty years, my brother merely passed it by without a taste. I saw by
Foster's face that the master's malady was no longer a secret even from
the servants.

I shall not harass my own feelings nor yours, my dear Edward, by
entering into further details of your father's illness, for such it was
obvious his indisposition had become. It was the only consolation, and
that was a sorry one, that we could use with Constance, to persuade her
that John's estrangement from her was merely the result or manifestation
of some physical infirmity. He obviously grew worse from week to week,
and his treatment of his wife became colder and more callous. We had
used all efforts to persuade him to take a change of air--to go to
Royston for a month, and place himself under the care of Dr. Dobie. Mrs.
Temple had even gone so far as to write privately to this physician,
telling him as much of the ease as was prudent, and asking his advice.
Not being aware of the darker sides of my brother's ailment, Dr. Dobie
replied in a less serious strain than seemed to us convenient, but
recommended in any case a complete change of air and scene.

It was, therefore, with no ordinary pleasure and relief that we
heard my brother announce quite unexpectedly one morning in March that
he had made up his mind to seek change, and was going to leave almost
immediately for the Continent. He took his valet Parnham with him, and
quitted Worth one morning before lunch, bidding us an unceremonious
adieu, though he kissed Constance with some apparent tenderness. It was
the first time for three months, she confessed to me afterwards, that
he had shown her even so ordinary a mark of affection; and her wounded
heart treasured up what she hoped would prove a token of returning love.
He had not proposed to take her with him, and even had he done so, we
should have been reluctant to assent, as signs were not wanting that it
might have been imprudent for her to undertake foreign travel at that
period.

For nearly a month we had no word of him. Then he wrote a short note to
Constance from Naples, giving no news, and indeed, scarce speaking of
himself at all, but mentioning as an address to which she might write if
she wished, the Villa de Angelis at Posilipo. Though his letter was cold
and empty, yet Constance was delighted to get it, and wrote henceforth
herself nearly every day, pouring out her heart to him, and retailing
such news as she thought would cheer him.




CHAPTER XI


A month later Mrs. Temple wrote to John warning him of the state in
which Constance now found herself, and begging him to return at least
for a few weeks in order that he might be present at the time of her
confinement. Though it would have been in the last degree unkind, or
even inhuman, that a request of this sort should have been refused, yet
I will confess to you that my brother's recent strangeness had prepared
me for behaviour on his part however wild; and it was with a feeling of
extreme relief that I heard from Mrs. Temple a little later that she had
received a short note from John to say that he was already on his return
journey. I believe Mrs. Temple herself felt as I did in the matter,
though she said nothing.

When he returned we were all at Royston, whither Mrs. Temple had taken
Constance to be under Dr. Dobie's care. We found John's physical
appearance changed for the worse. His pallor was as remarkable as
before, but he was visibly thinner; and his strange mental abstraction
and moodiness seemed little if any abated. At first, indeed, he greeted
Constance kindly or even affectionately. She had been in a terrible
state of anxiety as to the attitude he would assume towards her, and
this mental strain affected prejudicially her very delicate bodily
condition. His kindness, of an ordinary enough nature indeed, seemed
to her yearning heart a miracle of condescending love, and she was
transported with the idea that his affection to her, once so sincere,
was indeed returning. But I grieve to say that his manner thawed only
for a very short time, and ere long he relapsed into an attitude of
complete indifference. It was as if his real, true, honest, and loving
character had made one more vigorous effort to assert itself,--as
though it had for a moment broken through the hard and selfish crust
that was forming around him; but the blighting influence which was at
work proved seemingly too strong for him to struggle against, and
riveted its chains again upon him with a weight heavier than before.
That there was some malefic influence, mental or physical, thus working
on him, no one who had known him before could for a moment doubt. But
while Mrs. Temple and I readily admitted this much, we were entirely
unable even to form a conjecture as to its nature. It is true that
Mrs. Temple's fancy suggested that Constance had some rival in his
affections; but we rejected such a theory almost before it was proposed,
feeling that it was inherently improbable, and that, had it been true,
we could not have remained entirely unaware of the circumstances which
had conduced to such a state of things. It was this inexplicable nature
of my brother's affliction that added immeasurably to our grief. If we
could only have ascertained its cause we might have combated it; but
as it was, we were fighting in the dark, as against some enemy who was
assaulting us from an obscurity so thick that we could not see his form.
Of any mental trouble we thus knew nothing, nor could we say that my
brother was suffering from any definite physical ailment, except that
he was certainly growing thinner.

Your birth, my dear Edward, followed very shortly. Your poor mother
rallied in an unusually short time, and was filled with rapture at the
new treasure which was thus given as a solace to her afflictions. Your
father exhibited little interest at the event, though he sat nearly half
an hour with her one evening, and allowed her even to stroke his hair
and caress him as in time long past. Although it was now the height of
summer he seldom left the house, sitting much and sleeping in his own
room, where he had a field-bed provided for him, and continually
devoting himself to the violin.

One evening near the end of July we were sitting after dinner in the
drawing-room at Royston, having the French windows looking on to the
lawn open, as the air was still oppressively warm. Though things were
proceeding as indifferently as before, we were perhaps less cast down
than usual, for John had taken his dinner with us that evening. This was
a circumstance now, alas! sufficiently uncommon, for he had nearly all
his meals served for him in his own rooms. Constance, who was once more
downstairs, sat playing at the pianoforte, performing chiefly melodies
by Scarlatti or Bach, of which old-fashioned music she knew her husband
to be most fond. A later fashion, as you know, has revived the
cultivation of these composers, but at the time of which I write their
works were much less commonly known. Though she was more than a passable
musician, he would not allow her to accompany him; indeed he never now
performed at all on the violin before us, reserving his practice
entirely for his own chamber. There was a pause in the music while
coffee was served. My brother had been sitting in an easy-chair apart
reading some classical work during his wife's performance, and taking
little notice of us. But after a while he put down his book and said,
"Constance, if you will accompany me, I will get my violin and play a
little while." I cannot say how much his words astonished us. It was
so simple a matter for him to say, and yet it filled us all with an
unspeakable joy. We concealed our emotion till he had left the room to
get his instrument, then Constance showed how deeply she was gratified
by kissing first her mother and then me, squeezing my hand but saying
nothing. In a minute he returned, bringing his violin and a music-book.
By the soiled vellum cover and the shape I perceived instantly that it
was the book containing the "Areopagita." I had not seen it for near
two years, and was not even aware that it was in the house, but I
knew at once that he intended to play that suite. I entertained an
unreasoning but profound aversion to its melodies, but at that moment
I would have welcomed warmly that or any other music, so that he would
only choose once more to show some thought for his neglected wife. He
put the book open at the "Areopagita" on the desk of the pianoforte,
and asked her to play it with him. She had never seen the music before,
though I believe she was not unacquainted with the melody, as she had
heard him playing it by himself, and once heard, it was not easily
forgotten.

They began the "Areopagita" suite, and at first all went well. The
tone of the violin, and also, I may say with no undue partiality,
my brother's performance, were so marvellously fine that though our
thoughts were elsewhere when, the music commenced, in a few seconds they
were wholly engrossed in the melody, and we sat spellbound. It was as
if the violin had become suddenly endowed with life, and was singing
to us in a mystical language more deep and awful than any human words.
Constance was comparatively unused to the figuring of the _basso
continuo_, and found some trouble in reading it accurately, especially
in manuscript; but she was able to mask any difficulty she may have had
until she came to the _Gagliarda_. Here she confessed to me her thoughts
seemed against her will to wander, and her attention became too deeply
riveted on her husband's performance to allow her to watch her own.
She made first one slight fault, and then growing nervous, another, and
another. Suddenly John stopped and said brusquely, "Let Sophy play,
I cannot keep time with you." Poor Constance! The tears came swiftly
to my own eyes when I heard him speak so thoughtlessly to her, and I was
almost provoked to rebuke him openly. She was still weak from her recent
illness; her nerves were excited by the unusual pleasure she felt in
playing once more with her husband, and this sudden shattering of her
hopes of a renewed tenderness proved more than she could bear: she put
her head between her hands upon the keyboard and broke into a paroxysm
of tears.

We both ran to her; but while we were attempting to assuage her grief,
John shut his violin into its case, took the music-book under his arm,
and left the room without saying a word to any of us, not even to the
weeping girl, whose sobs seemed as though they would break her heart.

We got her put to bed at once, but it was some hours before her
convulsive sobbing ceased. Mrs. Temple had administered to her a
soothing draught of proved efficacy, and after sitting with her till
after one o'clock, I left her at last dozing off to sleep, and myself
sought repose. I was quite wearied out with the weight of my anxiety,
and with the crushing bitterness of seeing my dearest Constance's
feelings so wounded. Yet in spite, or rather perhaps on account of my
trouble, my head had scarcely touched my pillow ere I fell into a deep
sleep.

A room in the south wing had been converted for the nonce into a
nursery, and for the convenience of being near her infant Constance now
slept in a room adjoining. As this portion of the house was somewhat
isolated, Mrs. Temple had suggested that I should keep her daughter
company, and occupy a room in the same passage, only removed a few
doors, and this I had accordingly done. I was aroused from my sleep that
night by some one knocking gently on the door of my bedroom; but it was
some seconds before my thoughts became sufficiently awake to allow me to
remember where I was. There was some moonlight, but I lighted a candle,
and looking at my watch saw that it was two o'clock. I concluded that
either Constance or her baby was unwell, and that the nurse needed my
assistance. So I left my bed, and moving to the door, asked softly who
was there. It was, to my surprise, the voice of Constance that replied,
"O Sophy, let me in."

In a second I had opened the door, and found my poor sister wearing only
her night-dress, and standing in the moonlight before me.

She looked frightened and unusually pale in her white dress and with the
cold gleam of the moon upon her. At first I thought she was walking in
her sleep, and perhaps rehearsing again in her dreams the troubles which
dogged her waking footsteps. I took her gently by the arm, saying,
"Dearest Constance, come back at once to bed; you will take cold."

She was not asleep, however, but made a motion of silence, and said in
a terrified whisper, "Hush; do you hear nothing?" There was something
so vague and yet so mysterious in the question and in her evident
perturbation that I was infected too by her alarm. I felt myself shiver,
as I strained my ear to catch if possible the slightest sound. But a
complete silence pervaded everything: I could hear nothing.

"Can you hear it?" she said again. All sorts of images of ill presented
themselves to my imagination: I thought the baby must be ill with croup,
and that she was listening for some stertorous breath of anguish; and
then the dread came over me that perhaps her sorrows had been too much
for her, and that reason had left her seat. At that thought the marrow
froze in my bones.

"Hush," she said again; and just at that moment, as I strained my ears,
I thought I caught upon the sleeping air a distant and very faint
murmur.

"Oh, what is it, Constance?" I said. "You will drive me mad;" and while
I spoke the murmur seemed to resolve itself into the vibration, felt
almost rather than heard, of some distant musical instrument. I stepped
past her into the passage. All was deadly still, but I could perceive
that music was being played somewhere far away; and almost at the same
minute my ears recognised faintly but unmistakably the _Gagliarda_ of
the "Areopagita."

I have already mentioned that for some reason which I can scarcely
explain, this melody was very repugnant to me. It seemed associated in
some strange and intimate way with my brother's indisposition and moral
decline. Almost at the moment that I had heard it first two years ago,
peace seemed to have risen up and left our house, gathering her skirts
about her, as we read that the angels left the Temple at the siege of
Jerusalem. And now it was even more detestable to my ears, recalling as
it did too vividly the cruel events of the preceding evening.

"John must be sitting up playing," I said.

"Yes," she answered; "but why is he in this part of the house, and why
does he always play _that_ tune?"

It was if some irresistible attraction drew us towards the music.
Constance took my hand in hers and we moved together slowly down the
passage. The wind had risen, and though there was a bright moon, her
beams were constantly eclipsed by driving clouds. Still there was light
enough to guide us, and I extinguished the candle. As we reached the end
of the passage the air of the _Gagliarda_ grew more and more distinct.

Our passage opened on to a broad landing with a balustrade, and from one
side of it ran out the picture-gallery which you know.

I looked at Constance significantly. It was evident that John was
playing in this gallery. We crossed the landing, treading carefully and
making no noise with our naked feet, for both of us had been too excited
even to think of putting on shoes.

We could now see the whole length of the gallery. My poor brother sat in
the oriel window of which I have before spoken. He was sitting so as to
face the picture of Adrian Temple, and the great windows of the oriel
flung a strong light on him. At times a cloud hid the moon, and all was
plunged in darkness; but in a moment the cold light fell full on him,
and we could trace every feature as in a picture. He had evidently not
been to bed, for he was fully dressed, exactly as he had left us in the
drawing-room five hours earlier when Constance was weeping over his
thoughtless words. He was playing the violin, playing with a passion and
reckless energy which I had never seen, and hope never to see again.
Perhaps he remembered that this spot was far removed from the rest
of the house, or perhaps he was careless whether any were awake and
listening to him or not; but it seemed to me that he was playing with
a sonorous strength greater than I had thought possible for a single
violin. There came from his instrument such a volume and torrent of
melody as to fill the gallery so full, as it were, of sound that it
throbbed and vibrated again. He kept his eyes fixed on something at the
opposite side of the gallery; we could not indeed see on what, but I
have no doubt at all that it was the portrait of Adrian Temple. His gaze
was eager and expectant, as though he were waiting for something to
occur which did not.

I knew that he had been growing thin of late, but this was the first
time I had realised how sunk were the hollows of his eyes and how
haggard his features had become. It may have been some effect of
moonlight which I do not well understand, but his fine-cut face, once so
handsome, looked on this night worn and thin like that of an old man.
He never for a moment ceased playing. It was always one same dreadful
melody, the _Gagliarda_ of the "Areopagita," and he repeated it time
after time with the perseverance and apparent aimlessness of an
automaton.

He did not see us, and we made no sign, standing afar off in silent
horror at that nocturnal sight. Constance clutched me by the arm: she
was so pale that I perceived it even in the moonlight. "Sophy," she
said, "he is sitting in the same place as on the first night when he
told me how he loved me." I could answer nothing, my voice was frozen
in me. I could only stare at my brother's poor withered face, realising
then for the first time that he must be mad, and that it was the
haunting of the _Gagliarda_ that had made him so.

We stood there I believe for half an hour without speech or motion, and
all the time that sad figure at the end of the gallery continued its
performance. Suddenly he stopped, and an expression of frantic despair
came over his face as he laid down the violin and buried his head in his
hands. I could bear it no longer. "Constance," I said, "come back to
bed. We can do nothing," So we turned and crept away silently as we had
come. Only as we crossed the landing Constance stopped, and looked back
for a minute with a heart-broken yearning at the man she loved. He had
taken his hands from his head, and she saw the profile of his face clear
cut and hard in the white moonlight.

It was the last time her eyes ever looked upon it.

She made for a moment as if she would turn back and go to him, but her
courage failed her, and we went on. Before we reached her room we heard
in the distance, faintly but distinctly, the burden of the _Gagliarda_.




CHAPTER XII


The next morning, my maid brought me a hurried note written in pencil by
my brother. It contained only a few lines, saying that he found that his
continued sojourn at Royston was not beneficial to his health, and had
determined to return to Italy. If we wished to write, letters would
reach him at the Villa de Angelis: his valet Parnham was to follow him
thither with his baggage as soon as it could be got together. This was
all; there was no word of adieu even to his wife.

We found that he had never gone to bed that night. But in the early
morning he had himself saddled his horse _Sentinel_ and ridden in to
Derby, taking the early mail thence to London. His resolve to leave
Royston had apparently been arrived at very suddenly, for so far as we
could discover, he had carried no luggage of any kind. I could not help
looking somewhat carefully round his room to see if he had taken the
Stradivarius violin. No trace of it or even of its case was to be seen,
though it was difficult to imagine how he could have carried it with him
on horseback. There was, indeed, a locked travelling-trunk which Parnham
was to bring with him later, and the instrument might, of course, have
been in that; but I felt convinced that he had actually taken it with
him in some way or other, and this proved afterwards to have been the
case.

I shall draw a veil, my dear Edward, over the events which immediately
followed your father's departure. Even at this distance of time the
memory is too inexpressibly bitter to allow me to do more than briefly
allude to them.

A fortnight after John's departure, we left Royston and removed to
Worth, wishing to get some sea-air, and to enjoy the late summer of the
south coast. Your mother seemed entirely to have recovered from her
confinement, and to be enjoying as good health as could be reasonably
expected under the circumstances of her husband's indisposition. But
suddenly one of those insidious maladies which are incidental to women
in her condition seized upon her. We had hoped and believed that all
such period of danger was already happily past; but, alas! it was not
so, and within a few hours of her first seizure all realised how serious
was her case. Everything that human skill can do under such conditions
was done, but without avail. Symptoms of blood-poisoning showed
themselves, accompanied with high fever, and within a week she was in
her coffin.

Though her delirium was terrible to watch, yet I thank God to this
day, that if she was to die, it pleased Him to take her while in an
unconscious condition. For two days before her death she recognised
no one, and was thus spared at least the sadness of passing from life
without one word of kindness or even of reconciliation from her unhappy
husband.

The communication with a place so distant as Naples was not then to be
made under fifteen or twenty days, and all was over before we could hope
that the intelligence even of his wife's illness had reached John. Both
Mrs. Temple and I remained at Worth in a state of complete prostration,
awaiting his return. When more than a month had passed without his
arrival, or even a letter to say that he was on his way, our anxiety
took a new turn, as we feared that some accident had befallen him, or
that the news of his wife's death, which would then be in his hands,
had so seriously affected him as to render him incapable of taking any
action. To repeated subsequent communications we received no answer;
but at last, to a letter which I wrote to Parnham, the servant replied,
stating that his master was still at the Villa de Angelis, and in a
condition of health little differing from that in which he left Royston,
except that he was now slightly paler if possible and thinner. It was
not till the end of November that any word came from him, and then he
wrote only one page of a sheet of note-paper to me in pencil, making no
reference whatever to his wife's death, but saying that he should not
return for Christmas, and instructing me to draw on his bankers for any
moneys that I might require for household purposes at Worth.

I need not tell you the effect that such conduct produced on Mrs.
Temple and myself; you can easily imagine what would have been your own
feelings in such a case. Nor will I relate any other circumstances which
occurred at this period, as they would have no direct bearing upon my
narrative. Though I still wrote to my brother at frequent intervals, as
not wishing to neglect a duty, no word from him ever came in reply.

About the end of March, indeed, Parnham returned to Worth Maltravers,
saying that his master had paid him a half-year's wages in advance,
and then dispensed with his services. He had always been an excellent
servant, and attached to the family, and I was glad to be able to offer
him a suitable position with us at Worth until his master should return.
He brought disquieting reports of John's health, saying that he was
growing visibly weaker. Though I was sorely tempted to ask him many
questions as to his master's habits and way of life, my pride forbade me
to do so. But I heard incidentally from my maid that Parnham had told
her Sir John was spending money freely in alterations at the Villa de
Angelis, and had engaged Italians to attend him, with which his English
valet was naturally much dissatisfied.

So the spring passed and the summer was well advanced.

On the last morning of July I found waiting for me on the
breakfast-table an envelope addressed in my brother's hand. I opened
it hastily. It only contained a few words, which I have before me as I
write now. The ink is a little faded and yellow, but the impression it
made is yet vivid as on that summer morning.

  "MY DEAREST SOPHY," it began,--"Come to me here at once, if possible,
  or it may be too late. I want to see you. They say that I am ill, and
  too weak to travel to England.

    "Your loving brother,

    "JOHN."


There was a great change in the style, from the cold and conventional
notes that he had hitherto sent at such long intervals; from the stiff
"Dear Sophia" and "Sincerely yours" to which, I grieve to say, I had
grown accustomed. Even the writing itself was altered. It was more the
bold boyish hand he wrote when first he went to Oxford, than the smaller
cramped and classic character of his later years. Though it was a little
matter enough, God knows, in comparison with his grievous conduct, yet
it touched me much that he should use again the once familiar "Dearest
Sophy," and sign himself "my loving brother." I felt my heart go out
towards him; and so strong is woman's affection for her own kin, that I
had already forgotten any resentment and reprobation in my great pity
for the poor wanderer, lying sick perhaps unto death and alone in a
foreign land.

I took his note at once to Mrs. Temple. She read it twice or thrice,
trying to take in the meaning of it. Then she drew me to her and,
kissing me, said, "Go to him at once, Sophy. Bring him back to Worth;
try to bring him back to the right way."

I ordered my things to be packed, determining to drive to Southampton
and take train thence to London; and at the same time Mrs. Temple gave
instructions that all should be prepared for her own return to Royston
within a few days. I knew she did not dare to see John after her
daughter's death.

I took my maid with me, and Parnham to act as courier. At London we
hired a carriage for the whole journey, and from Calais posted direct to
Naples. We took the short route by Marseilles and Genoa, and travelled
for seventeen days without intermission, as my brother's note made me
desirous of losing no time on the way. I had never been in Italy before;
but my anxiety was such that my mind was unable to appreciate either
the beauty of the scenery or the incidents of travel. I can, in fact,
remember nothing of our journey now, except the wearisome and
interminable jolting over bad roads and the insufferable heat. It was
the middle of August in an exceptionally warm summer, and after passing
Genoa the heat became almost tropical. There was no relief even at
night, for the warm air hung stagnant and suffocating, and the inside of
my travelling coach was often like a furnace.

We were at last approaching the conclusion of our journey, and had left
Rome behind us. The day that we set out from Aversa was the hottest that
I have ever felt, the sun beating down with an astonishing power even
in the early hours, and the road being thick with a white and blinding
dust. It was soon after midnight that our carriage began rattling over
the great stone blocks with which the streets of Naples are paved. The
suburbs that we at first passed through were, I remember, in darkness
and perfect quiet; but after traversing the heart of the city and
reaching the western side, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst
of an enormous and very dense crowd. There were lanterns everywhere,
and interminable lanes of booths, whose proprietors were praising
their wares with loud shouts; and here acrobats, jugglers, minstrels,
black-vested priests, and blue-coated soldiers mingled with a vast crowd
whose numbers at once arrested the progress of the carriage. Though it
was so late of a Sunday night, all seemed here awake and busy as at
noonday. Oil-lamps with reeking fumes of black smoke flung a glare over
the scene, and the discordant cries and chattering conversation united
in so deafening a noise as to make me turn faint and giddy, wearied as I
already was with long travelling. Though I felt that intense eagerness
and expectation which the approaching termination of a tedious journey
inspires, and was desirous of pushing forward with all imaginable
despatch, yet here our course was sadly delayed. The horses could only
proceed at the slowest of foot-paces, and we were constantly brought
to a complete stop for some minutes before the post-boy could force
a passage through the unwilling crowd. This produced a feeling of
irritation, and despair of ever reaching my destination; and the mirth
and careless hilarity of the people round us chafed with bitter contrast
on my depressed spirits. I inquired from the post-boy what was the
origin of so great a commotion, and understood him to say in reply that
it was a religious festival held annually in honour of "Our Lady of
the Grotto." I cannot, however, conceive of any truly religious person
countenancing such a gathering, which seemed to me rather like the
unclean orgies of a heathen deity than an act of faith of Christian
people. This disturbance occasioned us so serious a delay, that as we
were climbing the steep slope leading up to Posilipo it was already
three in the morning and the dawn was at hand.

After mounting steadily for a long time we began to rapidly descend, and
just as the sun came up over the sea we arrived at the Villa de Angelis.
I sprang from the carriage, and passing through a trellis of vines,
reached the house. A man-servant was in waiting, and held the door open
for me; but he was an Italian, and did not understand me when I asked
in English where Sir John Maltravers was. He had evidently, however,
received instructions to take me at once to my brother, and led the way
to an inner part of the house. As we proceeded I heard the sound of a
rich alto voice singing very sweetly to a mandoline some soothing or
religious melody. The servant pulled aside a heavy curtain and I found
myself in my brother's room. An Italian youth sat on a stool near the
door, and it was he who had been singing. At a few words from John,
addressed to him in his own language, he set down his mandoline and left
the room, pulling to the curtain and shutting a door behind it.

The room looked directly on to the sea: the villa was, in fact, built
upon rocks at the foot of which the waves lapped. Through two folding
windows which opened on to a balcony the early light of the summer
morning streamed in with a rosy flush. My brother sat on a low couch
or sofa, propped up against a heap of pillows, with a rug of brilliant
colours flung across his feet and legs. He held out his arms to me, and
I ran to him; but even in so brief an interval I had perceived that he
was terribly weak and wasted.

All my memories of his past faults had vanished and were dead in that
sad aspect of his worn features, and in the conviction which I felt,
even from the first moment, that he had but little time longer to remain
with us. I knelt by him on the floor, and with my arms round his neck,
embraced him tenderly, not finding any place for words, but only sobbing
in great anguish. Neither of us spoke, and my weariness from long travel
and the strangeness of the situation caused me to feel that paralysing
sensation of doubt as to the reality of the scene, and even of my own
existence, which all, I believe, have experienced at times of severe
mental tension. That I, a plain English girl, should be kneeling here
beside my brother in the Italian dawn; that I should read, as I
believed, on his young face the unmistakable image and superscription
of death; and reflect that within so few months he had married, had
wrecked his home, that my poor Constance was no more;--these things
seemed so unrealisable that for a minute I felt that it must all be a
nightmare, that I should immediately wake with the fresh salt air of
the Channel blowing through my bedroom window at Worth, and find I had
been dreaming. But it was not so; the light of day grew stronger and
brighter, and even in my sorrow the panorama of the most beautiful spot
on earth, the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius lying on the far side, as
seen then from these windows, stamped itself for ever on my mind. It was
unreal as a scene in some brilliant dramatic spectacle, but, alas! no
unreality was here. The flames of the candles in their silver sconces
waxed paler and paler, the lines and shadows on my brother's face grew
darker, and the pallor of his wasted features showed more striking in
the bright rays of the morning sun.




CHAPTER XIII


I had spent near a week at the Villa de Angelis. John's manner to me
was most tender and affectionate; but he showed no wish to refer to the
tragedy of his wife's death and the sad events which had preceded it, or
to attempt to explain in any way his own conduct in the past. Nor did
I ever lead the conversation to these topics; for I felt that even if
there were no other reason, his great weakness rendered it inadvisable
to introduce such subjects at present, or even to lead him to speak at
all more than was actually necessary. I was content to minister to him
in quiet, and infinitely happy in his restored affection. He seemed
desirous of banishing from his mind all thoughts of the last few months,
but spoke much of the years before he had gone to Oxford, and of happy
days which we had spent together in our childhood at Worth Maltravers.
His weakness was extreme, but he complained of no particular malady
except a short cough which troubled him at night.

I had spoken to him of his health, for I could see that his state was
such as to inspire anxiety, and begged that he would allow me to see if
there was an English doctor at Naples who could visit him. This he would
not assent to, saying that he was quite content with the care of an
Italian doctor who visited him almost daily, and that he hoped to be
able, under my escort, to return within a very short time to England.

"I shall never be much better, dear Sophy," he said one day. "The doctor
tells me that I am suffering from some sort of consumption, and that I
must not expect to live long. Yet I yearn to see Worth once more, and to
feel again the west winds blowing in the evening across from Portland,
and smell the thyme on the Dorset downs. In a few days I hope perhaps to
be a little stronger, and I then wish to show you a discovery which I
have made in Naples. After that you may order them to harness the
horses, and carry me back to Worth Maltravers."

I endeavoured to ascertain from Signor Baravelli, the doctor, something
as to the actual state of his patient; but my knowledge of Italian was
so slight that I could neither make him understand what I would be at,
nor comprehend in turn what he replied, so that this attempt was
relinquished. From my brother himself I gathered that he had begun to
feel his health much impaired as far back as the early spring, but
though his strength had since then gradually failed him, he had not been
confined to the house until a month past. He spent the day and often
the night reclining on his sofa and speaking little. He had apparently
lost the taste for the violin which had once absorbed so much of his
attention; indeed I think the bodily strength necessary for its
performance had probably now failed him. The Stradivarius instrument
lay near his couch in its case; but I only saw the latter open on one
occasion, I think, and was deeply thankful that John no longer took
the same delight as heretofore in the practice of this art,--not only
because the mere sound of his violin was now fraught to me with such
bitter memories, but also because I felt sure that its performance had
in some way which I could not explain a deleterious effect upon himself.
He exhibited that absence of vitality which is so often noticeable in
those who have not long to live, and on some days lay in a state of
semi-lethargy from which it was difficult to rouse him. But at other
times he suffered from a distressing restlessness which forbade him to
sit still even for a few minutes, and which was more painful to watch
than his lethargic stupor. The Italian boy, of whom I have already
spoken, exhibited an untiring devotion to his master which won my heart.
His name was Raffaelle Carotenuto, and he often sang to us in the
evening, accompanying himself on the mandoline. At nights, too, when
John could not sleep, Raffaelle would read for hours till at last
his master dozed off. He was well educated, and though I could not
understand the subject he read, I often sat by and listened, being
charmed with his evident attachment to my brother and with the melodious
intonation of a sweet voice.

My brother was nervous apparently in some respects, and would never be
left alone even for a few minutes; but in the intervals while Raffaelle
was with him I had ample opportunity to examine and appreciate the
beauties of the Villa de Angelis. It was built, as I have said, on some
rocks jutting into the sea, just before coming to the Capo di Posilipo
as you proceed from Naples. The earlier foundations were, I believe,
originally Roman, and upon them a modern villa had been constructed
in the eighteenth century, and to this again John had made important
additions in the past two years. Looking down upon the sea from the
windows of the villa, one could on calm days easily discern the remains
of Roman piers and moles lying below the surface of the transparent
water; and the tufa-rock on which the house was built was burrowed with
those unintelligible excavations of a classic date so common in the
neighbourhood. These subterraneous rooms and passages, while they
aroused my curiosity, seemed at the same time so gloomy and repellent
that I never explored them. But on one sunny morning, as I walked at
the foot of the rocks by the sea, I ventured into one of the larger of
these chambers, and saw that it had at the far end an opening leading
apparently to an inner room. I had walking with me an old Italian female
servant who took a motherly interest in my proceedings, and who, relying
principally upon a very slight knowledge of English, had constituted
herself my body-guard. Encouraged by her presence, I penetrated this
inner room and found that it again opened in turn into another, and so
on until we had passed through no less than four chambers.

They were all lighted after a fashion through vent-holes which somewhere
or other reached the outer air, but the fourth room opened into a fifth
which was unlighted. My companion, who had been showing signs of alarm
and an evident reluctance to proceed further, now stopped abruptly and
begged me to return. It may have been that her fear communicated itself
to me also, for on attempting to cross the threshold and explore the
darkness of the fifth cell, I was seized by an unreasoning panic and by
the feeling of undefined horror experienced in a nightmare. I hesitated
for an instant, but my fear became suddenly more intense, and springing
back, I followed my companion, who had set out to run back to the outer
air. We never paused until we stood panting in the full sunlight by the
sea. As soon as the maid had found her breath, she begged me never to go
there again, explaining in broken English that the caves were known in
the neighbourhood as the "Cells of Isis," and were reputed to be haunted
by demons. This episode, trifling as it may appear, had so great an
effect upon me that I never again ventured on to the lower walk which
ran at the foot of the rocks by the sea.

In the house above, my brother had built a large hall after the ancient
Roman style, and this, with a dining-room and many other chambers, were
decorated in the fashion of those discovered at Pompeii. They had been
furnished with the utmost luxury, and the beauty of the paintings,
furniture, carpets, and hangings was enhanced by statues in bronze and
marble. The villa, indeed, and its fittings were of a kind to which
I was little used, and at the same time of such beauty that I never
ceased to regard all as a creation of an enchanter's wand, or as the
drop-scene to some drama which might suddenly be raised and disappear
from my sight. The house, in short, together with its furniture, was,
I believe, intended to be a reproduction of an ancient Roman villa,
and had something about it repellent to my rustic and insular ideas.
In the contemplation of its perfection I experienced a curious mental
sensation, which I can only compare to the physical oppression produced
on some persons by the heavy and cloying perfume of a bouquet of
gardenias or other too highly scented exotics.

In my brother's room was a medieval reproduction in mellow alabaster of
a classic group of a dolphin encircling a Cupid. It was, I think, the
fairest work of art I ever saw, but it jarred upon my sense of propriety
that close by it should hang an ivory crucifix. I would rather, I think,
have seen all things material and pagan entirely, with every view of
the future life shut out, than have found a medley of things sacred and
profane, where the emblems of our highest hopes and aspirations were
placed in insulting indifference side by side with the embodied forms of
sensuality. Here, in this scene of magical beauty, it seemed to me for
a moment that the years had rolled back, that Christianity had still to
fight with a _living_ Paganism, and that the battle was not yet won. It
was the same all through the house; and there were many other matters
which filled me with regret, mingled with vague and apprehensive
surmises which I shall not here repeat.

At one end of the house was a small library, but it contained few works
except Latin and Greek classics. I had gone thither one day to look for
a book that John had asked for, when in turning out some drawers I found
a number of letters written from Worth by my lost Constance to her
husband. The shock of being brought suddenly face to face with a
handwriting that evoked memories at once so dear and sad was in itself
a sharp one; but its bitterness was immeasurably increased by the
discovery that not one of these envelopes had ever been opened. While
that dear heart, now at rest, was pouring forth her love and sorrow to
the ears that should have been above all others ready to receive them,
her letters, as they arrived, were flung uncared for, unread, even
unopened, into any haphazard receptacle.

The days passed one by one at the Villa de Angelis with but little
incident, nor did my brother's health either visibly improve or decline.
Though the weather was still more than usually warm, a grateful breeze
came morning and evening from the sea and tempered the heat so much as
to render it always supportable. John would sometimes in the evening sit
propped up with cushions on the trellised balcony looking towards Baia,
and watch the fishermen setting their nets. We could hear the melody
of their deep-voiced songs carried up on the night air. "It was here,
Sophy," my brother said, as we sat one evening looking on a scene like
this,--"It was here that the great epicure Pollio built himself a famous
house, and called it by two Greek words meaning a 'truce to care,' from
which our name of Posilipo is derived. It was his _sans-souci_, and here
he cast aside his vexations; but they were lighter than mine. Posilipo
has brought no cessation of care to me. I do not think I shall find any
truce this side the grave; and beyond, who knows?"

This was the first time John had spoken in this strain, and he seemed
stirred to an unusual activity, as though his own words had suddenly
reminded him how frail was his state. He called Raffaelle to him and
despatched him on an errand to Naples. The next morning he sent for me
earlier than usual, and begged that a carriage might be ready by six in
the evening, as he desired to drive into the city. I tried at first to
dissuade him from his project, urging him to consider his weak state of
health. He replied that he felt somewhat stronger, and had something
that he particularly wished me to see in Naples. This done, it would be
better to return at once to England: he could, he thought, bear the
journey if we travelled by very short stages.




CHAPTER XIV


Shortly after six o'clock in the evening we left the Villa de Angelis.
The day had been as usual cloudlessly serene; but a gentle sea-breeze,
of which I have spoken, rose in the afternoon and brought with it a
refreshing coolness. We had arranged a sort of couch in the landau with
many cushions for my brother, and he mounted into the carriage with more
ease than I had expected. I sat beside him, with Raffaelle facing me
on the opposite seat. We drove down the hill of Posilipo through the
ilex-trees and tamarisk-bushes that then skirted the sea, and so into
the town. John spoke little except to remark that the carriage was an
easy one. As we were passing through one of the principal streets he
bent over to me and said, "You must not be alarmed if I show you to-day
a strange sight. Some women might perhaps be frightened at what We are
going to see; but my poor sister has known already so much of trouble
that a light thing like this will not affect her." In spite of his
encomiums upon my supposed courage, I felt alarmed and agitated by his
words. There was a vagueness in them which frightened me, and bred that
indefinite apprehension which is often infinitely more terrifying than
the actual object which inspires it. To my inquiries he would give no
further response than to say that he had whilst at Posilipo made some
investigations in Naples leading to a strange discovery, which he was
anxious to communicate to me. After traversing a considerable distance,
we had penetrated apparently into the heart of the town. The streets
grew narrower and more densely thronged; the houses were more dirty and
tumbledown, and the appearance of the people themselves suggested that
we had reached some of the lower quarters of the city. Here we passed
through a further network of small streets of the name of which I took
no note, and found ourselves at last in a very dark and narrow lane
called the _Via del Giardino_. Although my brother had, so far as I had
observed, given no orders to the coachman, the latter seemed to have
no difficulty in finding his Way, driving rapidly in the Neapolitan
fashion, and proceeding direct as to a place with which he was already
familiar.

In the Via del Giardino the houses were of great height, and overhung
the street so as nearly to touch one another. It seemed that this
quarter had been formerly inhabited, if not by the aristocracy, at least
by a class very much superior to that which now lived there; and many
of the houses were large and dignified, though long since parcelled
out into smaller tenements. It was before such a house that we at last
brought up. Here must have been at one time a house or palace of some
person of distinction, having a long and fine façade adorned with
delicate pilasters, and much florid ornamentation of the Renaissance
period. The ground-floor was divided into a series of small shops, and
its upper storeys were evidently peopled by sordid families of the
lowest class. Before one of these little shops, now closed and having
its windows carefully blocked with boards, our carriage stopped.
Raffaelle alighted, and taking a key from his pocket unlocked the door,
and assisted John to leave the carriage. I followed, and directly we had
crossed the threshold, the boy locked the door behind us, and I heard
the carriage drive away.

We found ourselves in a narrow and dark passage, and as soon as my eyes
grew accustomed to the gloom I perceived there was at the end of it a
low staircase leading to some upper room, and on the right a door which
opened into the closed shop. My brother moved slowly along the passage,
and began to ascend the stairs. He leant with one hand on Raffaelle's
arm, taking hold of the balusters with the other. But I could see
that to mount the stairs cost him considerable effort, and he paused
frequently to cough and get his breath again. So we reached a landing
at the top, and found ourselves in a small chamber or magazine directly
over the shop. It was quite empty except for a few broken chairs, and
appeared to be a small loft formed by dividing what had once been a
high room into two storeys, of which the shop formed the lower. A long
window, which had no doubt once formed one of several in the walls of
this large room, was now divided across its width by the flooring, and
with its upper part served to light the loft, while its lower panes
opened into the shop. The ceiling was, in consequence of these
alterations, comparatively low, but though much mutilated, retained
evident traces of having been at one time richly decorated, with the
raised mouldings and pendants common in the sixteenth century. At one
end of the loft was a species of coved and elaborately carved dado, of
which the former use was not obvious; but the large original room had
without doubt been divided in length as Well as in height, as the
lath-and-plaster walls at either end of the loft had evidently been no
part of the ancient structure.

My brother sat down in one of the old chairs, and seemed to be
collecting his strength before speaking. My anxiety was momentarily
increasing, and it was a great relief when he began, talking in a low
voice as one that had much to say and wished to husband his strength.

"I do not know whether you will recollect my having told you of
something Mr. Gaskell once said about the music of Graziani's
'Areopagita' suite. It had always, he used to say, a curious effect upon
his imagination, and the melody of the _Gagliarda_ especially called up
to his thoughts in some strange way a picture of a certain hall where
people were dancing. He even went so far as to describe the general
appearance of the room itself, and of the persons who were dancing
there."

"Yes," I answered, "I remember your telling me of this;" and indeed my
memory had in times past so often rehearsed Mr. Gaskell's description
that, although I had not recently thought of it, its chief features
immediately returned to my mind.

"He described it," my brother continued, "as a long hall with an arcade
of arches running down one side, of the fantastic Gothic of the
Renaissance. At the end was a gallery or balcony for the musicians,
which on its front carried a coat of arms."

I remembered this perfectly and told John so, adding that the shield
bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a golden field.

"It is strange," John went on, "that the description of a scene which
our friend thought a mere effort of his own imagination has impressed
itself so deeply on both our minds. But the picture which he drew was
more than a fancy, for we are at this minute in the very hall of his
dream."

I could not gather what my brother meant, and thought his reason was
failing him; but he continued, "This miserable floor on which we stand
has of course been afterwards built in; but you see above you the old
ceiling, and here at the end was the musicians' gallery with the shield
upon its front."

He pointed to the carved and whitewashed dado which had hitherto so
puzzled me. I stepped up to it, and although the lath-and-plaster
partition wall was now built around it, it was clear that its curved
outline might very easily, as John said, have formed part of the front
of a coved gallery. I looked closet at the relief-work which had adorned
it. Though the edges were all rubbed off, and the mouldings in some
cases entirely removed, I could trace without difficulty a shield
in the midst; and a more narrow inspection revealed underneath the
whitewash, which had partly peeled away, enough remnants of colour to
show that it had certainly been once painted gold and borne a cherub's
head with three lilies.

"That is the shield of the old Neapolitan house of Doma-Cavalli," my
brother continued; "they bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a
shield or. It was in the balcony behind this shield, long since blocked
up as you see, that the musicians sat on that ball night of which
Gaskell dreamt. From it they looked down on the hall below where dancing
was going forward, and I will now take you downstairs that you may see
if the description tallies."

So saying, he raised himself, and descending the stairs with much less
difficulty than he had shown in mounting them, flung open the door
which I had seen in the passage and ushered us into the shop on the
ground-floor. The evening light had now faded so much that we could
scarcely see even in the passage, and the shop having its windows
barricaded with shutters, was in complete darkness. Raffaelle, however,
struck a match and lit three half-burnt candles in a tarnished sconce
upon the wall.

The shop had evidently been lately in the occupation of a wine-seller,
and there were still several empty wooden wine-butts, and some broken
flasks on shelves. In one corner I noticed that the earth which formed
the floor had been turned up with spades. There was a small heap of
mould, and a large flat stone was thus exposed below the surface. This
stone had an iron ring attached to it, and seemed to cover the aperture
of a well, or perhaps a vault. At the back of the shop, and furthest
from the street, were two lofty arches separated by a column in the
middle, from which the outside casing had been stripped.

To these arches John pointed and said, "That is a part of the arcade
which once ran down the whole length of the hall. Only these two arches
are now left, and the fine marbles which doubtless coated the outside of
this dividing pillar have been stripped off. On a summer's night about
one hundred years ago dancing was going on in this hall. There were a
dozen couples dancing a wild step such as is never seen now. The tune
that the musicians were playing in the gallery above was taken from the
'Areopagita' suite of Graziani. Gaskell has often told me that when
he played it the music brought with it to his mind a sense of some
impending catastrophe, which culminated at the end of the first movement
of the _Gagliarda_. It was just at that moment, Sophy, that an
Englishman who was dancing here was stabbed in the back and foully
murdered."

I had scarcely heard all that John had said, and had certainly not been
able to take in its import; but without waiting to hear if I should say
anything, he moved across to the uncovered stone with the ring in it.
Exerting a strength which I should have believed entirely impossible in
his weak condition, he applied to the stone a lever which lay ready at
hand. Raffaelle at the same time seized the ring, and so they were able
between them to move the covering to one side sufficiently to allow
access to a small staircase which thus appeared to view. The stair
was a winding one, and once led no doubt to some vaults below the
ground-floor. Raffaelle descended first, taking in his hand the sconce
of three candles, which he held above his head so as to fling a light
down the steps. John went next, and then I followed, trying to support
my brother if possible with my hand. The stairs were very dry, and
on the walls there was none of the damp or mould which fancy usually
associates with a subterraneous vault. I do not know what it was I
expected to see, but I had an uneasy feeling that I was on the brink of
some evil and distressing discovery. After we had descended about twenty
steps we could see the entry to some vault or underground room, and it
was just at the foot of the stairs that I saw something lying, as the
light from the candles fell on it from above. At first I thought it was
a heap of dust or refuse, but on looking closer it seemed rather a
bundle of rags. As my eyes penetrated the gloom, I saw there was about
it some tattered cloth of a faded green tint, and almost at the same
minute I seemed to trace under the clothes the lines or dimensions of a
human figure. For a moment I imagined it was some poor man lying face
downwards and bent up against the wall. The idea of a man or of a dead
body being there shocked me violently, and I cried to my brother, "Tell
me, what is it?" At that instant the light from. Raffaelle's candles
fell in a somewhat different direction. It lighted up the white bowl
of a human skull, and I saw that what I had taken for a man's form was
instead that of a clothed skeleton. I turned faint and sick for an
instant, and should have fallen had it not been for John, who put his
arm about me and sustained me with an unexpected strength.

"God help us!" I exclaimed, "let us go. I cannot bear this; there are
foul vapours here; let us get back to the outer air."

He took me by the arm, and pointing at the huddled heap, said, "Do you
know whose bones those are? That is Adrian Temple. After it was all
over, they flung his body down the steps, dressed in the clothes he
wore."

At that name, uttered in so ill-omened a place, I felt a fresh access of
terror. It seemed as though the soul of that wicked man must be still
hovering over his unburied remains, and boding evil to us all. A chill
crept over me, the light, the walls, my brother, and Raffaelle all swam
round, and I sank swooning on the stairs.

When I returned fully to my senses we were in the landau again making
our way back to the Villa de Angelis.




CHAPTER XV


The next morning my health and strength were entirely restored to me,
but my brother, on the contrary, seemed weak and exhausted from his
efforts of the previous night. Our return journey to the Villa de
Angelis had passed in complete silence. I had been too much perturbed
to question him on the many points relating to the strange events as to
which I was still completely in the dark, and he on his side had shown
no desire to afford me any further information. When I saw him the next
morning he exhibited signs of great weakness, and in response to an
effort on my part to obtain some explanation of the discovery of Adrian
Temple's body, avoided an immediate reply, promising to tell me all he
knew after our return to Worth Maltravers.

I pondered over the last terrifying episode very frequently in my own
mind, and as I thought more deeply of it all, it seemed to me that the
outlines of some evil history were piece by piece developing themselves,
that I had almost within my grasp the clue that would make all plain,
and that had eluded me so long. In that dim story Adrian Temple, the
music of the _Gagliarda_, my brother's fatal passion for the violin,
all seemed to have some mysterious connection, and to have conspired in
working John's mental and physical ruin. Even the Stradivarius violin
bore a part in the tragedy, becoming, as it were, an actively malignant
spirit, though I could not explain how, and was yet entirely unaware of
the manner in which it had come into my brother's possession.

I found that John was still resolved on an immediate return to England.
His weakness, it is true, led me to entertain doubts as to how he would
support so long a journey; but at the same time I did not feel justified
in using any strong efforts to dissuade him from his purpose. I
reflected that the more wholesome air and associations of England would
certainly re-invigorate both body and mind, and that any extra strain
brought about by the journey would soon be repaired by the comforts and
watchful care with which we could surround him at Worth Maltravers.

So the first week in October saw us once more with our faces set towards
England. A very comfortable swinging-bed or hammock had been arranged
for John in the travelling carriage, and we determined to avoid fatigue
as much as possible by dividing our journey into very short stages. My
brother seemed to have no intention of giving up the Villa de Angelis.
It was left complete with its luxurious furniture, and with all his
servants, under the care of an Italian _maggior-duomo_. I felt that as
John's state of health forbade his entertaining any hope of an immediate
return thither, it would have been much better to close entirely his
Italian house. But his great weakness made it impossible for him to
undertake the effort such a course would involve, and even if my own
ignorance of the Italian tongue had not stood in the way, I was far too
eager to get my invalid back to Worth to feel inclined to import any
further delay, while I should myself adjust matters which were after all
comparatively trifling. As Parnham was now ready to discharge his usual
duties of valet, and as my brother seemed quite content that he should
do so, Raffaelle was of course to be left behind. The boy had quite won
my heart by his sweet manners, combined with his evident affection to
his master, and in making him understand that he was now to leave us,
I offered him a present of a few pounds as a token of my esteem. He
refused, however, to touch this money, and shed tears when he learnt
that he was to be left in Italy, and begged with many protestations of
devotion that he might be allowed to accompany us to England. My heart
was not proof against his entreaties, supported by so many signs of
attachment, and it was agreed, therefore, that he should at least attend
us as far as Worth Maltravers. John showed no surprise at the boy being
with us; indeed I never thought it necessary to explain that I had
originally purposed to leave him behind.

Our journey, though necessarily prolonged by the shortness of its
stages, was safely accomplished. John bore it as well as I could have
hoped, and though his body showed no signs of increased vigour, his
mind, I think, improved in tone, at any rate for a time. From the
evening on which he had shown me the terrible discovery in the Via
del Giardino he seemed to have laid aside something of his care and
depression. He now exhibited little trace of the moroseness and
selfishness which had of late so marred his character; and though he
naturally felt severely at times the fatigue of travel, yet we had no
longer to dread any relapse into that state of lethargy or stupor which
had so often baffled every effort to counteract it at Posilipo. Some
feeling of superstitious aversion had prompted me to give orders that
the Stradivarius violin should be left behind at Posilipo. But before
parting my brother asked for it, and insisted that it should be brought
with him, though I had never heard him play a note on it for many weeks.
He took an interest in all the petty episodes of travel, and certainly
appeared to derive more entertainment from the journey than was to have
been anticipated in his feeble state of health.

To the incidents of the evening spent in the Via del Giardino he made no
allusion of any kind, nor did I for my part wish to renew memories of
so unpleasant a nature. His only reference occurred one Sunday evening
as we were passing a small graveyard near Genoa. The scene apparently
turned his thoughts to that subject, and he told me that he had taken
measures before leaving Naples to ensure that the remains of Adrian
Temple should be decently interred in the cemetery of Santa Bibiana.
His words set me thinking again, and unsatisfied curiosity prompted
me strongly to inquire of him how he had convinced himself that the
skeleton at the foot of the stairs was indeed that of Adrian Temple. But
I restrained myself, partly from a reliance on his promise that he would
one day explain the whole story to me, and partly being very reluctant
to mar the enjoyment of the peaceful scenes through which we were
passing, by the introduction of any subjects so jarring and painful as
those to which I have alluded.

We reached London at last, and here we stopped a few days to make some
necessary arrangements before going down to Worth Maltravers. I had
urged upon John during the journey that immediately on his arrival in
London he should obtain the best English medical advice as to his own
health. Though he at first demurred, saying that nothing more was to be
done, and that he was perfectly satisfied with the medicine given him by
Dr. Baravelli, which he continued to take, yet by constant entreaty I
prevailed upon him to accede to so reasonable a request. Dr. Frobisher,
considered at that time the first living authority on diseases of the
brain and nerves, saw him on the morning after our arrival. He was good
enough to speak with me at some length after seeing my brother, and to
give me many hints and recipes whereby I might be better enabled to
nurse the invalid.

Sir John's condition, he said, was such as to excite serious anxiety.
There was, indeed, no brain mischief of any kind to be discovered, but
his lungs were in a state of advanced disease, and there were signs of
grave heart affection. Yet he did not bid me to despair, but said that
with careful nursing life might certainly be prolonged, and even some
measure of health in time restored. He asked me more than once if I knew
of any trouble or worry that preyed upon Sir John's mind. Were there
financial difficulties; had he been subjected to any mental shock; had
he received any severe fright? To all this I could only reply in the
negative. At the same time I told Dr. Frobisher as much of John's
history as I considered pertinent to the question. He shook his head
gravely, and recommended that Sir John should remain for the present in
London, under his own constant supervision. To this course my brother
would by no means consent. He was eager to proceed at once to his own
house, saying that if necessary we could return again to London for
Christmas. It was therefore agreed that we should go down to Worth
Maltravers at the end of the week.

Parnham had already left us for Worth in order that he might have
everything ready against his master's return, and when we arrived we
found all in perfect order for our reception. A small morning-room next
to the library, with a pleasant south aspect and opening on to the
terrace, had been prepared for my brother's use, so that he might avoid
the fatigue of mounting stairs, which Dr. Frobisher considered very
prejudicial in his present condition. We had also purchased in London a
chair fitted with wheels, which enabled him to be moved, or, if he were
feeling equal to the exertion, to move himself, without difficulty, from
room to room.

His health, I think, improved; very gradually, it is true, but still
sufficiently to inspire me with hope that he might yet be spared to us.
Of the state of his mind or thoughts I knew little, but I could see that
he was at times a prey to nervous anxiety. This showed itself in the
harassed look which his pale face often wore, and in his marked dislike
to being left alone. He derived, I think, a certain pleasure from the
quietude and monotony of his life at Worth, and perhaps also from the
consciousness that he had about him loving and devoted hearts. I say
hearts, for every servant at Worth was attached to him, remembering the
great consideration and courtesy of his earlier years, and grieving to
see his youthful and once vigorous frame reduced to so sad a strait.
Books he never read himself, and even the charm of Raffaelle's reading
seemed to have lost its power; though he never tired of hearing the boy
sing, and liked to have him sit by his chair even when his eyes were
shut and he was apparently asleep. His general health seemed to me to
change but little either for better or worse. Dr. Frobisher had led me
to expect some such a sequel. I had not concealed from him that I had
at times entertained suspicions as to my brother's sanity; but he had
assured me that they were totally unfounded, that Sir John's brain was
as clear as his own. At the same time he confessed that he could not
account for the exhausted vitality of his patient,--a condition which he
would under ordinary circumstances have attributed to excessive study or
severe trouble. He had urged upon me the pressing necessity for complete
rest, and for much sleep. My brother never even incidentally referred to
his wife, his child, or to Mrs. Temple, who constantly wrote to me from
Royston, sending kind messages to John, and asking how he did. These
messages I never dared to give him, fearing to agitate him, or retard
his recovery by diverting his thoughts into channels which must
necessarily be of a painful character. That he should never even mention
her name, or that of Lady Maltravers, led me to wonder sometimes if one
of those curious freaks of memory which occasionally accompany a severe
illness had not entirely blotted out from his mind the recollection of
his marriage and of his wife's death. He was unable to consider any
affairs of business, and the management of the estate remained as it
had done for the last two years in the hands of our excellent agent,
Mr. Baker.

But one evening in the early part of December he sent Raffaelle about
nine o'clock, saying he wished to speak to me. I went to his room, and
without any warning he began at once, "You never show me my boy now,
Sophy; he must be grown a big child, and I should like to see him."
Much startled by so unexpected a remark, I replied that the child was
at Royston under the care of Mrs. Temple, but that I knew that if it
pleased him to see Edward she would be glad to bring him down to Worth.
He seemed gratified with this idea, and begged me to ask her to do so,
desiring that his respects should be at the same time conveyed to her. I
almost ventured at that moment to recall his lost wife to his thoughts,
by saying that his child resembled her strongly; for your likeness at
that time, and even now, my dear Edward, to your poor mother was very
marked. But my courage failed me, and his talk soon reverted to an
earlier period, comparing the mildness of the month to that of the first
winter which he spent at Eton. His thoughts, however, must, I fancy,
have returned for a moment to the days when he first met your mother,
for he suddenly asked, "Where is Gaskell? Why does he never come to see
me?" This brought quite a new idea to my mind. I fancied it might do my
brother much good to have by him so sensible and true a friend as I knew
Mr. Gaskell to be. The latter's address had fortunately not slipped from
my memory, and I put all scruples aside and wrote by the next mail to
him, setting forth my brother's sad condition, saying that I had heard
John mention his name, and begging him on my own account to be so good
as to help us if possible and come to us in this hour of trial. Though
he was so far off as Westmorland, Mr. Gaskell's generosity brought
him at once to our aid, and within a week he was installed at Worth
Maltravers, sleeping, in the library, where we had arranged a bed at
his own desire, so that he might be near his sick friend.

His presence was of the utmost assistance to us all. He treated John
at once with the tenderness of a woman and the firmness of a clever
and strong man. They sat constantly together in the mornings, and Mr.
Gaskell told me John had not shown with him the same reluctance to talk
freely of his married life as he had discovered with me. The tenor of
his communications I cannot guess, nor did I ever ask; but I knew that
Mr. Gaskell was much affected by them.

John even amused himself now at times by having Mr. Baker into his rooms
of a morning, that the management of the estate might be discussed with
his friend; and he also expressed his wish to see the family solicitor,
as he desired to draw his will. Thinking that any diversion of this
nature could not but be beneficial to him, we sent to Dorchester for our
solicitor, Mr. Jeffreys, who together with his clerk spent three nights
at Worth, and drew up a testament for my brother.

So time went on, and the year was drawing to a close.

It was Christmas Eve, and I had gone to bed shortly after twelve
o'clock, having an hour earlier bid good night to John and Mr. Gaskell.
The long habit of watching with, or being in charge of an invalid at
night, had made my ears extraordinarily quick to apprehend even the
slightest murmur. It must have been, I think, near three in the morning
when I found myself awake and conscious of some unusual sound. It was
low and far off, but I knew instantly what it was, and felt a choking
sensation of fear and horror, as if an icy hand had gripped my throat,
on recognising the air of the _Gagliarda_. It was being played on the
violin, and a long way off, but I knew that tune too well to permit of
my having any doubt on the subject.

Any trouble or fear becomes, as you will some day learn, my dear nephew,
immensely intensified and exaggerated at night. It is so, I suppose,
because our nerves are in an excited condition, and our brain not
sufficiently awake to give a due account of our foolish imaginations. I
have myself many times lain awake wrestling in thought with difficulties
which in the hours of darkness seemed insurmountable, but with the dawn
resolved themselves into merely trivial inconveniences. So on this
night, as I sat up in bed looking into the dark, with the sound of that
melody in my ears, it seemed as if something too terrible for words had
happened; as though the evil spirit, which we had hoped was exorcised,
had returned with others sevenfold more wicked than himself, and taken
up his abode again with my lost brother. The memory of another night
rushed to my mind when Constance had called me from my bed at Royston,
and we had stolen together down the moonlit passages with the lilt of
that wicked music vibrating on the still summer air. Poor Constance! She
was in her grave now; yet _her_ troubles at least were over, but here,
as by some bitter irony, instead of carol or sweet symphony, it was the
_Gagliarda_ that woke me from my sleep on Christmas morning.

I flung my dressing-gown about me, and hurried through the corridor and
down the stairs which led to the lower storey and my brother's room.
As I opened my bedroom door the violin ceased suddenly in the middle
of a bar. Its last sound was not a musical note, but rather a horrible
scream, such as I pray I may never hear again. It was a sound such as a
wounded beast might utter. There is a picture I have seen of Blake's,
showing the soul of a strong wicked man leaving his body at death. The
spirit is flying out through the window with awful staring eyes, aghast
at the desolation into which it is going. If in the agony of dissolution
such a lost soul could utter a cry, it would, I think, sound like the
wail which I heard from the violin that night.

Instantly all was in absolute stillness. The passages were silent and
ghostly in the faint light of my candle; but as I reached the bottom
of the stairs I heard the sound of other footsteps, and Mr. Gaskell met
me. He was fully dressed, and had evidently not been to bed. He took me
kindly by the hand and said, "I feared you might be alarmed by the sound
of music. John has been walking in his sleep; he had taken out his
violin and was playing on it in a trance. Just as I reached him
something in it gave way, and the discord caused by the slackened
strings roused him at once. He is awake now and has returned to bed.
Control your alarm for his sake and your own. It is better that he
should not know you have been awakened."

He pressed my hand and spoke a few more reassuring words, and I went
back to my room still much agitated, and yet feeling half ashamed for
having shown so much anxiety with so little reason.

That Christmas morning was one of the most beautiful that I ever
remember. It seemed as though summer was so loath to leave our sunny
Dorset coast that she came back on this day to bid us adieu before her
final departure. I had risen early and had partaken of the Sacrament
at our little church. Dr. Butler had recently introduced this early
service, and though any alteration of time-honoured customs in such
matters might not otherwise have met with my approval, I was glad to
avail myself of the privilege on this occasion, as I wished in any case
to spend the later morning with my brother. The singular beauty of the
early hours, and the tranquillising effect of the solemn service brought
back serenity to my mind, and effectually banished from it all memories
of the preceding night. Mr. Gaskell met me in the hall on my return, and
after greeting me kindly with the established compliments of the day,
inquired after my health, and hoped that the disturbance of my slumber
on the previous night had not affected me injuriously. He had good news
for me: John seemed decidedly better, was already dressed, and desired,
as it was Christmas morning, that we would take our breakfast with him
in his room.

To this, as you may imagine, I readily assented. Our breakfast party
passed off with much content, and even with some quiet humour, John
sitting in his easy-chair at the head of the table and wishing us the
compliments of the season. I found laid in my place a letter from Mrs.
Temple greeting us all (for she knew Mr. Gaskell was at Worth), and
saying that she hoped to bring little Edward to us at the New Year.
My brother seemed much pleased at the prospect of seeing his son, and
though perhaps it was only imagination, I fancied he was particularly
gratified that Mrs. Temple herself was to pay us a visit. She had not
been to Worth since the death of Lady Maltravers.

Before we had finished breakfast the sun beat on the panes with an
unusual strength and brightness. His rays cheered us all, and it was so
warm that John first opened the windows, and then wheeled his chair on
to the walk outside. Mr. Gaskell brought him a hat and mufflers, and we
sat with him on the terrace basking in the sun. The sea was still and
glassy as a mirror, and the Channel lay stretched before us like a floor
of moving gold. A rose or two still hung against the house, and the
sun's rays reflected from the red sandstone gave us a December morning
more mild and genial than many June days that I have known in the north.
We sat for some minutes without speaking, immersed in our own
reflections and in the exquisite beauty of the scene.

The stillness was broken by the bells of the parish church ringing for
the morning service. There were two of them, and their sound, familiar
to us from childhood, seemed like the voices of old friends. John looked
at me and said with a sigh, "I should like to go to church. It is long
since I was there. You and I have always been on Christmas mornings,
Sophy, and Constance would have wished it had she been with us."

His words, so unexpected and tender, filled my eyes with tears; not
tears of grief, but of deep thankfulness to see my loved one turning
once more to the old ways. It was the first time I had heard him speak
of Constance, and that sweet name, with the infinite pathos of her
death, and of the spectacle of my brother's weakness, so overcame me
that I could not speak. I only pressed his hand and nodded. Mr. Gaskell,
who had turned away for a minute, said he thought John would take no
harm in attending the morning service provided the church were warm.
On this point I could reassure him, having found it properly heated
even in the early morning.

Mr. Gaskell was to push John's chair, and I ran off to put on my cloak,
with my heart full of profound thankfulness for the signs of returning
grace so mercifully vouchsafed to our dear sufferer on this happy day.
I was ready dressed and had just entered the library when Mr. Gaskell
stepped hurriedly through the window from the terrace. "John has
fainted!" he said. "Run for some smelling salts and call Parnham!"

There was a scene of hurried alarm, giving place ere long to terrified
despair. Parnham mounted a horse and set off at a wild gallop to Swanage
to fetch Dr. Bruton; but an hour before he returned we knew the worst.
My brother was beyond the aid of the physician: his wrecked life had
reached a sudden term!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have now, dear Edward, completed the brief narrative of some of the
facts attending the latter years of your father's life. The motive which
has induced me to commit them to writing has been a double one. I am
anxious to give effect as far as may be to the desire expressed most
strongly to Mr. Gaskell by your father, that you should be put in
possession of these facts on your coming of age. And for my. own part I
think it better that you should thus hear the plain truth from me, lest
you should be at the mercy of haphazard reports, which might at any time
reach you from ignorant or interested sources. Some of the circumstances
were so remarkable that it is scarcely possible to suppose that they
were not known, and most probably frequently discussed, in so large an
establishment as that of Worth Maltravers. I even have reason to believe
that exaggerated and absurd stories were current at the time of Sir
John's death, and I should be grieved to think that such foolish tales
might by any chance reach your ear without your having any sure means of
discovering where the truth lay. God knows how grievous it has been to
me to set down on paper some of the facts that I have here narrated. You
as a dutiful son will reverence the name even of a father whom you never
knew; but you must remember that his sister did more; she loved him with
a single-hearted devotion, and it still grieves her to the quick to
write anything which may seem to detract from his memory. Only, above
all things, let us speak the truth. Much of what I have told you needs,
I feel, further explanation, but this I cannot give, for I do not
understand the circumstances. Mr. Gaskell, your guardian, will, I
believe, add to this account a few notes of his own, which may tend to
elucidate some points, as he is in possession of certain facts of which
I am still ignorant.




MR. GASKELL'S NOTE


I have read what Miss Maltravers has written, and have but little to add
to it. I can give no explanation that will tally with all the facts or
meet all the difficulties involved in her narrative. The most obvious
solution of some points would be, of course, to suppose that Sir John
Maltravers was insane. But to anyone who knew him as intimately as I
did, such an hypothesis is untenable; nor, if admitted, would it explain
some of the strangest incidents. Moreover, it was strongly negatived by
Dr. Frobisher, from whose verdict in such matters there was at the time
no appeal, by Dr. Dobie, and by Dr. Bruton, who had known Sir John from
his infancy. It is possible that towards the close of his life he
suffered occasionally from hallucination, though I could not positively
affirm even so much; but this was only when his health had been
completely undermined by causes which are very difficult to analyse.

When I first knew him at Oxford he was a strong man physically as
well as mentally; open-hearted, and of a merry and genial temperament.
At the same time he was, like most cultured persons--and especially
musicians,--highly strung and excitable. But at a certain point in his
career his very nature seemed to change; he became reserved, secretive,
and saturnine. On this moral metamorphosis followed an equally startling
physical change. His robust health began to fail him, and although there
was no definite malady which doctors could combat, he went gradually
from bad to worse until the end came.

The commencement of this extraordinary change coincided, I believe,
almost exactly with his discovery of the Stradivarius violin; and
whether this was, after all, a mere coincidence or something more it is
not easy to say. Until a very short time before his death neither Miss
Maltravers nor I had any idea how that instrument had come into his
possession, or I think something might perhaps have been done to save
him.

Though towards the end of his life he spoke freely to his sister of the
finding of the violin, he only told her half the story, for he concealed
from her entirely that there was anything else in the hidden cupboard at
Oxford. But as a matter of fact, he had found there also two manuscript
books containing an elaborate diary of some years of a man's life. That
man was Adrian Temple, and I believe that in the perusal of this diary
must be sought the origin of John Maltravers's ruin. The manuscript was
beautifully written in a clear but cramped eighteenth century hand,
and gave the idea of a man writing with deliberation, and wishing to
transcribe his impressions with accuracy for further reference. The
style was excellent, and the minute details given were often of high
antiquarian interest; but the record throughout was marred by gross
licence. Adrian Temple's life had undoubtedly so definite an influence
on Sir John's that a brief outline of it, as gathered from his diaries,
is necessary for the understanding of what followed.

Temple went up to Oxford in 1737. He was seventeen years old, without
parents, brothers, or sisters; and he possessed the Royston estates
in Derbyshire, which were then, as now, a most valuable property.
With the year 1738 his diaries begin, and though then little more than
a boy, he had tasted every illicit pleasure that Oxford had to offer.
His temptations were no doubt great; for besides being wealthy he was
handsome, and had probably never known any proper control, as both his
parents had died when he was still very young. But in spite of other
failings, he was a brilliant scholar, and on taking his degree, was
made at once a fellow of St. John's. He took up his abode in that
College in a fine set of rooms looking on to the gardens, and from this
period seems to have used Royston but little, living always either at
Oxford or on the Continent. He formed at this time the acquaintance of
one Jocelyn, whom he engaged as companion and amanuensis. Jocelyn was a
man of talent, but of irregular life, and was no doubt an accomplice in
many of Temple's excesses. In 1743 they both undertook the so-called
"grand tour," and though it was not his first visit, it was then
probably that Temple first felt the fascination of pagan Italy,--a
fascination which increased with every year of his after-life.

On his return from foreign travel he found himself among the stirring
events of 1745. He was an ardent supporter of the Pretender, and made no
attempt to conceal his views. Jacobite tendencies were indeed generally
prevalent in the College at the time, and had this been the sum of his
offending, it is probable that little notice would have been taken by
the College authorities. But his notoriously wild life told against the
young man, and certain dark suspicions were not easily passed over.
After the _fiasco_ of the Rebellion Dr. Holmes, then President of the
College, seems to have made a scapegoat of Temple. He was deprived of
his fellowship, and though not formally expelled, such pressure was put
upon him as resulted in his leaving St. John's and removing to Magdalen
Hall. There his great wealth evidently secured him consideration, and he
was given the best rooms in the Hall, that very set looking on to New
College Lane which Sir John Maltravers afterwards occupied.

In the first half of the eighteenth century the romance of the middle
ages, though dying, was not dead, and the occult sciences still found
followers among the Oxford towers. From his early years Temple's mind
seems to have been set strongly towards mysticism of all kinds, and he
and Jocelyn were versed in the jargon of the alchemist and astrologer,
and practised according to the ancient rules. It was his reputation as
a necromancer, and the stories current of illicit rites performed in
the garden-rooms at St. John's, that contributed largely to his being
dismissed from that College. He had also become acquainted with Francis
Dashwood, the notorious Lord le Despencer, and many a winter's night
saw him riding through the misty Thames meadows to the door of the sham
Franciscan abbey. In his diaries were more notices than one of the
"Franciscans" and the nameless orgies of Medmenham.

He was devoted to music. It was a rare enough accomplishment then, and a
rarer thing still to find a wealthy landowner performing on the violin.
Yet so he did, though he kept his passion very much to himself, as
fiddling was thought lightly of in those days. His musical skill
was altogether exceptional, and he was the first possessor of the
Stradivarius violin which afterwards fell so unfortunately into Sir
John's hands. This violin Temple bought in the autumn of 1738, on the
occasion of a first visit to Italy. In that year died the nonagenarian
Antonius Stradivarius, the greatest violin-maker the world has ever
seen. After Stradivarius's death the stock of fiddles in his shop was
sold by auction. Temple happened to be travelling in Cremona at the time
with a tutor, and at the auction he bought that very instrument which we
afterwards had cause to know so well. A note in his diary gave its cost
at four louis, and said that a curious history attached to it. Though
it was of his golden period, and probably the finest instrument he ever
made, Stradivarius would never sell it, and it had hung for more than
thirty years in his shop. It was said that from some whim as he lay
dying he had given orders that it should be burnt; but if that were so,
the instructions were neglected, and after his death it came under the
hammer. Adrian Temple from the first recognised the great value of the
instrument. His notes show that he only used it on certain special
occasions, and it was no doubt for its better protection that he devised
the; hidden cupboard where Sir John eventually found it.

The later years of Temple's life were spent for the most part in Italy.
On the Scoglio di Venere, near Naples, he built the Villa de Angelis,
and there henceforth passed all except the hottest months of the year.
Shortly after the completion of the villa Jocelyn left him suddenly, and
became a Carthusian monk. A caustic note in his diary hinted that even
this foul parasite was shocked into the austerest form of religion by
something he had seen going forward. At Naples Temple's dark life became
still darker. He dallied, it is true, with Neo-Platonism, and boasts
that he, like Plotinus, had twice passed the circle of the _nous_ and
enjoyed the fruition of the deity; but the ideals of even that easy
doctrine grew in his evil life still more miserably debased. More than
once in the manuscript he made mention by name of the _Gagliarda_
of Graziani as having been played at pagan mysteries which these
enthusiasts revived at Naples, and the air had evidently impressed
itself deeply on his memory. The last entry in his diary is made on
the 16th of December, 1752. He was then in Oxford for a few days, but
shortly afterwards returned to Naples. The accident of his having just
completed a second volume, induced him, no doubt, to leave it behind him
in the secret cupboard. It is probable that he commenced a third, but if
so it was never found.

In reading the manuscript I was struck with the author's clear and easy
style, and found the interest of the narrative increase rather than
diminish. At the same time its study was inexpressibly painful to me.
Nothing could have supported me in my determination to thoroughly
master it but the conviction that if I was to be of any real assistance
to my poor friend Maltravers, I must know as far as possible every
circumstance connected with his malady. As it was, I felt myself
breathing an atmosphere of moral contagion during the perusal of the
manuscript, and certain passages have since returned at times to haunt
me in spite of all efforts to dislodge them from my memory. When I came
to Worth at Miss Maltravers's urgent invitation, I found my friend Sir
John terribly altered. It was not only that he was ill and physically
weak, but he had entirely lost the manner of youth, which, though
indefinable, is yet so appreciable, and draws so sharp a distinction
between the first period of life and middle age. But the most striking
feature of his illness was the extraordinary pallor of his complexion,
which made his face resemble a subtle counterfeit of white wax rather
than that of a living man. He welcomed me undemonstratively, but with
evident sincerity; and there was an entire absence of the constraint
which often accompanies the meeting again of friends whose cordial
relations have suffered interruption. From the time of my arrival at
Worth until his death we were constantly together; indeed I was much
struck by the almost childish dislike which he showed to be left alone
even for a few moments. As night approached this feeling became
intensified. Parnham slept always in his master's room; but if anything
called the servant away even for a minute, he would send for Carotenuto
or myself to be with him until his return. His nerves were weak; he
started violently at any unexpected noise, and above all, he dreaded
being in the dark. When night fell he had additional lamps brought into
his room, and even when he composed himself to sleep, insisted on a
strong light being kept by his bedside.

I had often read in books of people wearing a "hunted" expression, and
had laughed at the phrase as conventional and unmeaning. But when I
came to Worth I knew its truth; for if any face ever wore a hunted--I
had almost written a haunted--look, it was the white face of Sir John
Maltravers. His air seemed that of a man who was constantly expecting
the arrival of some evil tidings, and at times reminded me painfully of
the guilty expectation of a felon who knows that a warrant is issued for
his arrest.

During my visit he spoke to me frequently about his past life, and
instead of showing any reluctance to discuss the subject, seemed glad of
the opportunity of disburdening his mind. I gathered from him that the
reading of Adrian Temple's memoirs had made a deep impression on his
mind, which was no doubt intensified by the vision which he thought he
saw in his rooms at Oxford, and by the discovery of the portrait at
Royston. Of those singular phenomena I have no explanation to offer.

The romantic element in his disposition rendered him peculiarly
susceptible to the fascination of that mysticism which breathed through
Temple's narrative. He told me that almost from the first time he read
it he was filled with a longing to visit the places and to revive the
strange life of which it spoke. This inclination he kept at first in
check, but by degrees it gathered strength enough to master him.

There is no doubt in my mind that the music of the _Gagliarda_ of
Graziani helped materially in this process of mental degradation. It is
curious that Michael Prætorius in the "Syntagma musicum" should speak of
the Galliard generally as an "invention of the devil, full of shameful
and licentious gestures and immodest movements," and the singular melody
of the _Gagliarda_ in the "Areopagita" suite certainly exercised from
the first a strange influence over me. I shall not do more than touch
on the question here, because I see Miss Maltravers has spoken of it
at length, and will only say, that though since the day of Sir John's
death I have never heard a note of it, the air is still fresh in my
mind, and has at times presented itself to me unexpectedly, and always
with an unwholesome effect. This I have found happen generally in times
of physical depression, and the same air no doubt exerted a similar
influence on Sir John, which his impressionable nature rendered from the
first more deleterious to him.

I say this advisedly, because I am sure that if some music is good for
man and elevates him, other melodies are equally bad and enervating. An
experience far wider than any we yet possess is necessary to enable us
to say how far this influence is capable of extension. How far, that
is, the mind may be directed on the one hand to ascetic abnegation by
the systematic use of certain music, or on the other to illicit and
dangerous pleasures by melodies of an opposite tendency. But this much
is, I think, certain, that after a comparatively advanced standard of
culture has once been attained, music is the readiest if not the only
key which admits to the yet narrower circle of the highest imaginative
thought.

On the occasion for travel afforded him by his honeymoon, an impulse
which he could not at the time explain, but which after-events have
convinced me was the haunting suggestion of the _Gagliarda_, drove him
to visit the scenes mentioned so often in Temple's diary. He had always
been an excellent scholar, and a classic of more than ordinary ability.
Rome and Southern Italy filled him with a strange delight. His education
enabled him to appreciate to the full what he saw; he peopled the stage
with the figures of the original actors, and tried to assimilate his
thought to theirs. He began reading classical literature widely, no
longer from the scholarly but the literary standpoint. In Rome he
spent much time in the librarians' shops, and there met with copies
of the numerous authors of the later empire and of those Alexandrine
philosophers which are rarely seen in England. In these he found a new
delight and fresh food for his mysticism.

Such study, if carried to any extent, is probably dangerous to the
English character, and certainly was to a man of Maltravers's romantic
sympathies. This reading produced in time so real an effect upon his
mind that if he did not definitely abandon Christianity, as I fear he
did, he at least adulterated it with other doctrines till it became to
him Neo-Platonism. That most seductive of philosophies, which has
enthralled so many minds from Proclus and Julian to Augustine and the
Renaissancists, found an easy convert in John Maltravers. Its passionate
longing for the vague and undefined good, its tolerance of æsthetic
impressions, the pleasant superstitions of its dynamic pantheism, all
touched responsive chords in his nature. His mind, he told me, became
filled with a measureless yearning for the old culture of pagan
philosophy, and as the past became clearer and more real, so the present
grew dimmer, and his thoughts were gradually weaned entirely from all
the natural objects of affection and interest which should otherwise
have occupied them. To what a terrible extent this process went on, Miss
Maltravers's narrative shows. Soon after reaching Naples he visited the
Villa de Angelis, which Temple had built on the ruins of a sea-house of
Pomponius. The later building had in its turn become dismantled and
ruinous, and Sir John found no difficulty in buying the site outright.
He afterwards rebuilt it on an elaborate scale, endeavouring to
reproduce in its equipment the luxury of the later empire. I had
occasion to visit the house more than once in my capacity of executor,
and found it full of priceless works of art, which, though neither so
difficult to procure at that time nor so costly as they would be now,
were yet sufficiently valuable to have necessitated an unjustifiable
outlay.

The situation of the building fostered his infatuation for the past. It
lay between the Bay of Naples and the Bay of Baia, and from its windows
commanded the same exquisite view which had charmed Cicero and Lucullus,
Severus and the Antonines. Hard by stood Baia, the princely seaside
resort of the empire. That most luxurious and wanton of all cities of
antiquity survived the cataclysms of ages, and only lost its civic
continuity and became the ruined village of to-day in the sack of the
fifteenth century. But a continuity of wickedness is not so easily
broken, and those who know the spot best say that it is still instinct
with memories of a shameful past.

For miles along that haunted coast the foot cannot be put down except on
the ruins of some splendid villa, and over all there broods a spirit of
corruption and debasement actually sensible and oppressive. Of the dawns
and sunsets, of the noonday sun tempered by the sea-breeze and the shade
of scented groves, those who have been there know the charm, and to
those who have not no words can describe it. But there are malefic
vapours rising from the corpse of a past not altogether buried, and most
cultivated Englishmen who tarry there long feel their influence as did
John Maltravers. Like so many _decepti deceptores_ of the Neo-Platonic
school, he did not practise the abnegation enjoined by the very cult he
professed to follow. Though his nature was far too refined, I believe,
ever to sink into the sensualism revealed in Temple's diaries, yet it
was through the gratification of corporeal tastes that he endeavoured
to achieve the divine _extasis_; and there were constantly lavish and
sumptuous entertainments at the villa, at which strange guests were
present.

In such a nightmare of a life it was not to be expected that any mind
would find repose, and Maltravers certainly found none. All those cares
which usually occupy men's minds, all thoughts of wife, child, and home
were, it is true, abandoned; but a wild unrest had hold of him, and
never suffered him to be at ease. Though he never told me as much, yet
I believe he was under the impression that the form which he had seen
at Oxford and Royston had reappeared to him on more than one subsequent
occasion. It must have been, I fancy, with a vague hope of "laying" this
spectre that he now set himself with eagerness to discover where or
how Temple had died. He remembered that Royston tradition said he had
succumbed at Naples in the plague of 1752, but an idea seized him that
this was not the case; indeed I half suspect his fancy unconsciously
pictured that evil man as still alive. The methods by which he
eventually discovered the skeleton, or learnt the episodes which
preceded Temple's death, I do not know. He promised to tell me some
day at length, but a sudden death prevented his ever doing so. The
facts as he narrated them, and as I have little doubt they actually
occurred, were these: Adrian Temple, after Jocelyn's departure, had
made a confidant of one Palamede Domacavalli, a scion of a splendid
Parthenopean family of that name. Palamede had a palace in the heart of
Naples, and was Temple's equal in age and also in his great wealth. The
two men became boon companions, associated in all kinds of wickedness
and excess. At length Palamede married a beautiful girl named Olimpia
Aldobrandini, who was also of the noblest lineage; but the intimacy
between him and Temple was not interrupted. About a year subsequent to
this marriage dancing was going on after a splendid banquet in the great
hall of the Palazzo Domacavalli. Adrian, who was a favoured guest,
called to the musicians in the gallery to play the "Areopagita" suite,
and danced it with Olimpia, the wife of his host. The _Gagliarda_ was
reached but never finished, for near the end of the second movement
Palamede from behind drove a stiletto into his friend's heart. He had
found out that day that Adrian had not spared even Olimpia's honour.

I have endeavoured to condense into a connected story the facts learnt
piecemeal from Sir John in conversation. To a certain extent they
supplied, if not an explanation, at least an account of the change
that had come over my friend. But only to a certain extent; there the
explanation broke down and I was left baffled. I could imagine that a
life of unwholesome surroundings and disordered studies might in time
produce such a loss of mental tone as would lead in turn to moral
_acolasia_, sensual excess, and physical ruin. But in Sir John's case
the cause was not adequate; he had, so far as I know, never wholly given
the reins to sensuality, and the change was too abrupt and the breakdown
of body and mind too complete to be accounted for by such events as
those of which he had spoken.

I had, too, an uneasy feeling, which grew upon me the more I saw of him,
that while he spoke freely enough on certain topics, and obviously meant
to give a complete history of his past life, there was in reality
something in the background which he always kept from my view. He was,
it seemed, like a young man asked by an indulgent father to disclose
his debts in order that they may be discharged, who, although he knows
his parent's leniency, and that any debt not now disclosed will be
afterwards but a weight upon his own neck, yet hesitates for very shame
to tell the full amount, and keeps some items back. So poor Sir John
kept something back from me his friend, whose only aim was to afford him
consolation and relief, and whose compassion would have made me listen
without rebuke to the narration of the blackest crimes. I cannot say how
much this conviction grieved me. I would most willingly have given my
all, my very life, to save my friend and Miss Maltravers's brother; but
my efforts were paralysed by the feeling that I did not know what I had
to combat, that some evil influence was at work on him which continually
evaded my grasp. Once or twice it seemed as though he were within an
ace of telling me all; once or twice, I believe, he had definitely made
up his mind to do so; but then the mood changed, or more probably his
courage failed him.

It was on one of these occasions that he asked me, somewhat suddenly,
whether I thought that a man could by any conscious act committed in the
flesh take away from himself all possibility of repentance and ultimate
salvation. Though, I trust, a sincere Christian, I am nothing of a
theologian, and the question touching on a topic which had not occurred
to my mind since childhood, and which seemed to savour rather of
medieval romance than of practical religion, took me for a moment aback.
I hesitated for an instant, and then replied that the means of salvation
offered man were undoubtedly so sufficient as to remove from one truly
penitent the guilt of any crime however dark. My hesitation had been but
momentary; but Sir John seemed to have noticed it, and sealed his lips
to any confession, if he had indeed intended to make any, by changing
the subject abruptly. This question naturally gave me food for serious
reflection and anxiety. It was the first occasion on which he appeared
to me to be undoubtedly suffering from definite hallucination, and I was
aware that any illusions connected with religion are generally most
difficult to remove. At the same time, anything of this sort was the
more remarkable in Sir John's case, as he had, so far as I knew, for a
considerable time entirely abandoned the Christian belief.

Unable to elicit any further information from him, and being thus thrown
entirely upon my own resources, I determined that I would read through
again the whole of Temple's diaries. The task was a very distasteful
one, as I have already explained, but I hoped that a second reading
might perhaps throw some light on the dark misgiving that was troubling
Sir John. I read the manuscript again with the closest attention.
Nothing, however, of any importance seemed to have escaped me on the
former occasions, and I had reached nearly the end of the second volume
when a comparatively slight matter arrested my attention. I have said
that the pages were all carefully numbered, and the events of each day
recorded separately; even where Temple had found nothing of moment to
notice on a given day, he had still inserted the date with the word
_nil_ written against it. But as I sat one evening in the library at
Worth after Sir John had gone to bed, and was finally glancing through
the days of the months in Temple's diary to make sure that all were
complete, I found one day was missing. It was towards the end of the
second volume, and the day was the 23d of October in the year 1752. A
glance at the numbering of the pages revealed the fact that three leaves
had been entirely removed, and that the pages numbered 349 to 354 were
not to be found. Again I ran through the diaries to see whether there
were any leaves removed in other places, but found no other single page
missing. All was complete except at this one place, the manuscript
beautifully written, with scarcely an error or erasure throughout. A
closer examination showed that these leaves had been cut out close to
the back, and the cut edges of the paper appeared too fresh to admit of
this being done a century ago. A very short reflection convinced me, in
fact, that the excision was not likely to have been Temple's, and that
it must have been made by Sir John.

My first intention was to ask him at once what the lost pages had
contained, and why they had been cut out. The matter might be a mere
triviality which he could explain in a moment. But on softly opening his
bedroom door I found him sleeping, and Parnham (whom the strong light
always burnt in the room rendered more wakeful) informed me that his
master had been in a deep sleep for more than an hour. I knew how
sorely his wasted energies needed such repose, and stepped back to the
library without awaking him. A few minutes before, I had been feeling
sleepy at the conclusion of my task, but now all wish for sleep was
suddenly banished and a painful wakefulness took its place. I was under
a species of mental excitement which reminded me of my feelings some
years before at Oxford on the first occasion of our ever playing the
_Gagliarda_ together, and an idea struck me with the force of intuition
that in these three lost leaves lay the secret of my friend's ruin.

I turned to the context to see whether there was anything in the entries
preceding or following the lacuna that would afford a clue to the
missing passage. The record of the few days immediately preceding the
23d of October was short and contained nothing of any moment whatever.
Adrian and Jocelyn were alone together at the Villa de Angelis. The
entry on the 22d was very unimportant and apparently quite complete,
ending at the bottom of page 348. Of the 23d there was, as I have said,
no record at all, and the entry for the 24th began at the top of page
355. This last memorandum was also brief, and written when the author
was annoyed by Jocelyn leaving him.

The defection of his companion had been apparently entirely unexpected.
There was at least no previous hint of any such intention. Temple wrote
that Jocelyn had left the Villa de Angelis that day and taken up his
abode with the Carthusians of San Martino. No reason for such an
extraordinary change was given; but there was a hint that Jocelyn had
professed himself shocked at something that had happened. The entry
concluded with a few bitter remarks: _"So farewell to my holy anchoret;
and if I cannot speed him with a leprosie as one Elisha did his servant,
yet at least he went out from my presence with a face as white as
snow."_

I had read this sentence more than once before without its attracting
other than a passing attention. The curious expression, that Jocelyn had
gone out from his presence with a face as white as snow, had hitherto
seemed to me to mean nothing more than that the two men had parted in
violent anger, and that Temple had abused or bullied his companion. But
as I sat alone that night in the library the words seemed to assume an
entirely new force, and a strange suspicion began to creep over me.

I have said that one of the most remarkable features of Sir John's
illness was his deadly pallor. Though I had now spent some time at
Worth, and had been daily struck by this lack of colour, I had never
before remembered in this connection that a strange paleness had also
been an attribute of Adrian Temple, and was indeed very clearly marked
in the picture painted of him by Battoni. In Sir John's account,
moreover, of the vision which he thought he had seen in his rooms at
Oxford, he had always spoken of the white and waxen face of his spectral
visitant. The family tradition of Royston said that Temple had lost his
colour in some deadly magical experiment, and a conviction now flashed
upon me that Jocelyn's face "as white as snow" could refer only to this
same unnatural pallor, and that he too had been smitten with it as with
the mark of the beast.

In a drawer of my despatch-box, I kept by me all the letters which the
late Lady Maltravers had written home during her ill-fated honeymoon.
Miss Maltravers had placed them in my hands in order that I might be
acquainted with every fact that could at all elucidate the progress of
Sir John's malady. I remembered that in one of these letters mention was
made of a sharp attack of fever in Naples, and of her noticing in him
for the first time this singular pallor. I found the letter again
without difficulty and read it with a new light. Every line breathed of
surprise and alarm. Lady Maltravers feared that her husband was very
seriously ill. On the Wednesday, two days before she wrote, he had
suffered all day from a strange restlessness, which had increased after
they had retired in the evening. He could not sleep and had dressed
again, saying he would walk a little in the night air to compose
himself. He had not returned till near six in the morning, and then
seemed so exhausted that he had since been confined to his bed. He was
terribly pale, and the doctors feared he had been attacked by some
strange fever.

The date of the letter was the 25th of October, fixing the night of the
23d as the time of Sir John's first attack. The coincidence of the date
with that of the day missing in Temple's diary was significant, but it
was not needed now to convince me that Sir John's ruin was due to
something that occurred on that fatal night at Naples.

The question that Dr. Frobisher had asked Miss Maltravers when he was
first called to see her brother in London returned to my memory with an
overwhelming force. "Had Sir John been subjected to any mental shock;
had he received any severe fright?" I knew now that the question should
have been answered in the affirmative, for I felt as certain as if
Sir John had told me himself that he _had_ received a violent shock,
probably some terrible fright, on the night of the 23d of October. What
the nature of that shock could have been my imagination was powerless to
conceive, only I knew that whatever Sir John had done or seen, Adrian
Temple and Jocelyn had done or seen also a century before and at the
same place. That horror which had blanched the face of all three men
for life had fallen perhaps with a less overwhelming force on Temple's
seasoned wickedness, but had driven the worthless Jocelyn to the
cloister, and was driving Sir John to the grave.

These thoughts as they passed through my mind filled me with a vague
alarm. The lateness of the hour, the stillness and the subdued light,
made the library in which I sat seem so vast and lonely that I began to
feel the same dread of being alone that I had observed so often in my
friend. Though only a door separated me from his bedroom, and I could
hear his deep and regular breathing, I felt as though I must go in
and waken him or Parnham to keep me company and save me from my own
reflections. By a strong effort I restrained myself, and sat down to
think the matter over and endeavour to frame some hypothesis that might
explain the mystery. But it was all to no purpose. I merely wearied
myself without being able to arrive at even a plausible conjecture,
except that it seemed as though the strange coincidence of date might
point to some ghastly charm or incantation which could only be carried
out on one certain night of the year.

It must have been near morning when, quite exhausted, I fell into an
uneasy slumber in the arm-chair where I sat. My sleep, however brief,
was peopled with a succession of fantastic visions, in which I
continually saw Sir John, not ill and wasted as now, but vigorous and
handsome as I had known him at Oxford, standing beside a glowing brazier
and reciting words I could not understand, while another man with a
sneering white face sat in a corner playing the air of the _Gagliarda_
on a violin. Parnham woke me in my chair at seven o'clock; his master,
he said, was still sleeping easily.

I had made up my mind that as soon as he awoke I would inquire of Sir
John as to the pages missing from the diary; but though my expectation
and excitement were at a high pitch, I was forced to restrain my
curiosity, for Sir John's slumber continued late into the day. Dr.
Bruton called in the morning, and said that this sleep was what the
patient's condition most required, and was a distinctly favourable
symptom; he was on no account to be disturbed. Sir John did not leave
his bed, but continued dozing all day till the evening. When at last he
shook off his drowsiness, the hour was already so late that, in spite of
my anxiety, I hesitated to talk with him about the diaries, lest I
should unduly excite him before the night.

As the evening advanced he became very uneasy, and rose more than once
from his bed. This restlessness, following on the repose of the day,
ought perhaps to have made me anxious, for I have since observed that
when death is very near an apprehensive unrest often sets in both with
men and animals. It seems as if they dreaded to resign themselves to
sleep, lest as they slumber the last enemy should seize them unawares.
They try to fling off the bedclothes, they sometimes must leave their
beds and walk. So it was with poor John Maltravers on his last Christmas
Eve. I had sat with him grieving for his disquiet until he seemed to
grow more tranquil, and at length fell asleep. I was sleeping that night
in his room instead of Parnham, and tired with sitting up through the
previous night, I flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed. I had
scarcely dozed off, I think, before the sound of his violin awoke me.
I found he had risen from his bed, had taken his favourite instrument,
and was playing in his sleep. The air was the _Gagliarda_ of the
"Areopagita" suite, which I had not heard since we had played it last
together at Oxford, and it brought back with it a crowd of far-off
memories and infinite regrets. I cursed the sleepiness which had
overcome me at my watchman's post, and allowed Sir John to play once
more that melody which had always been fraught with such evil for him;
and I was about to wake him gently when he was startled from sleep by a
strange accident. As I walked towards him the violin seemed entirely to
collapse in his hands, and, as a matter of fact, the belly then gave way
and broke under the strain of the strings. As the strings slackened, the
last note became an unearthly discord. If I were superstitious I should
say that some evil spirit then went out of the violin, and broke in his
parting throes the wooden tabernacle which had so long sheltered him. It
was the last time the instrument was ever used, and that hideous chord
was the last that Maltravers ever played.

I had feared that the shock of waking thus suddenly from sleep would
have a very prejudicial effect upon the sleep-walker, but this seemed
not to be the case. I persuaded him to go back at once to bed, and in a
few minutes he fell asleep again. In the morning he seemed for the first
time distinctly better; there was indeed something of his old self in
his manner. It seemed as though the breaking of the violin had been an
actual relief to him; and I believe that on that Christmas morning his
better instincts woke, and that his old religious training and the
associations of his boyhood then made their last appeal. I was pleased
at such a change, however temporary it might prove. He wished to go to
church, and I determined that again I would subdue my curiosity and
defer the questions I was burning to put till after our return from
the morning service. Miss Maltravers had gone indoors to make some
preparation, Sir John was in his wheel-chair on the terrace, and I was
sitting by him in the sun. For a few moments he appeared immersed in
silent thought, and then bent over towards me till his head was close
to mine, and said, "Dear William, there is something I must tell you.
I feel I cannot even go to church till I have told you all." His manner
shocked me beyond expression. I knew that he was going to tell me the
secret of the lost pages, but instead of wishing any longer to have my
curiosity satisfied, I felt a horrible dread of what he might say next.
He took my hand in his and held it tightly, as a man who was about to
undergo severe physical pain and sought the consolation of a friend's
support. Then he went on--"You will be shocked at what I am going to
tell you; but listen, and do not give me up: You must stand by me and
comfort me and help me to turn again." He paused for a moment and
continued--"It was one night in October, when Constance and I were at
Naples. I took that violin and went by myself to the ruined villa on
the Scoglio di Venere." He had been speaking with difficulty. His hand
clutched mine convulsively, but still I felt it trembling, and I could
see the moisture standing thick on his forehead. At this point the
effort seemed too much for him and he broke off. "I cannot go on, I
cannot tell you, but you can read it for yourself. In that diary which
I gave you there are some pages missing." The suspense was becoming
intolerable to me, and I broke in, "Yes, yes, I know; you cut them out.
Tell me where they are," He went on--"Yes, I cut them out lest they
should possibly fall into anyone's hands unaware. But before you read
them you must swear, as you hope for salvation, that you will never try
to do what is written in them. Swear this to me now, or I never can
let you see them." My eagerness was too great to stop now to discuss
trifles, and to humour him I swore as desired. He had been speaking with
a continual increasing effort; he cast a hurried and fearful glance
round as though he expected to see someone listening, and it was almost
in a whisper that he went on, "You will find them in--" His agitation
had become most painful to watch, and as he spoke the last words a
convulsion passed over his face, and speech failing him, he sank back on
his pillow. A strange fear took hold of me. For a moment I thought there
were others on the terrace beside myself, and turned round expecting to
see Miss Maltravers returned; but we were still alone. I even fancied
that just as Sir John spoke his last words I felt something brush
swiftly by me. He put up his hands, beating the air with a most painful
gesture, as though he were trying to keep off an antagonist who had
gripped him by the throat, and made a final struggle to speak. But the
spasm was too strong for him; a dreadful stillness followed, and he was
gone.

There is little more to add; for Sir John's guilty secret, perished with
him. Though I was sure from his manner that the missing leaves were
concealed somewhere at Worth, and though as executor I caused the most
diligent search to be made, no trace of them was afterwards found; nor
did any circumstance ever transpire to fling further light upon the
matter. I must confess that I should have felt the discovery of these
pages as a relief; for though I dreaded what I might have had to read,
yet I was more anxious lest, being found at a later period and falling
into other hands, they should cause a recrudescence of that plague which
had blighted Sir John's life.

Of the nature of the events which took place on that night at Naples
I can form no conjecture. But as certain physical sights have ere now
proved so revolting as to unhinge the intellect, so I can imagine that
the mind may in a state of extreme tension conjure up to itself some
form of moral evil so hideous as metaphysically to sear it: and this,
I believe, happened in the case both of Adrian Temple and of Sir John
Maltravers.

It is difficult to imagine the accessories used to produce the mental
excitation in which alone such a presentment of evil could become
imaginable. Fancy and legend, which have combined to represent as
possible appearances of the supernatural, agree also in considering them
as more likely to occur at certain times and places than at others; and
it is possible that the missing pages of the diary contained an account
of the time, place, and other conditions chosen by Temple for some
deadly experiment. Sir John most probably re-enacted the scene under
precisely similar conditions, and the effect on his overwrought
imagination was so vivid as to upset the balance of his mind. The time
chosen was no doubt the night of the 23d of October, and I cannot help
thinking that the place was one of those evil-looking and ruinous
sea-rooms which had so terrifying an effect on Miss Maltravers. Temple
may have used on that night one of the medieval incantations, or
possibly the more ancient invocation of the Isiac rite with which a
man of his knowledge and proclivities would certainly be familiar. The
accessories of either are sufficiently hideous to weaken the mind by
terror, and so prepare it for a belief in some frightful apparition. But
whatever was done, I feel sure that the music of the _Gagliarda_ formed
part of the ceremonial.

Medieval philosophers and theologians held that evil is in its essence
so horrible that the human mind, if it could realise it, must perish at
its contemplation. Such realisation was by mercy ordinarily withheld,
but its possibility was hinted in the legend of the _Visio malefica_.
The _Visio Beatifica_ was, as is well known, that vision of the Deity
or realisation of the perfect Good which was to form the happiness of
heaven, and the reward of the sanctified in the next world. Tradition
says that this vision was accorded also to some specially elect spirits
even in this life, as to Enoch, Elijah, Stephen, and Jerome. But there
was a converse to the Beatific Vision in the _Visio malefica_, or
presentation of absolute Evil, which was to be the chief torture of the
damned, and which, like the Beatific Vision, had been made visible in
life to certain desperate men. It visited Esau, as was said, when he
found no place for repentance, and Judas, whom it drove to suicide.
Cain saw it when he murdered his brother, and legend relates that in his
case, and in that of others, it left a physical brand to be borne by
the body to the grave. It was supposed that the Malefic Vision, besides
being thus spontaneously presented to typically abandoned men, had
actually been purposely called up by some few great adepts, and used by
them to blast their enemies. But to do so was considered equivalent to a
conscious surrender to the powers of evil, as the vision once seen took
away all hope of final salvation.

Adrian Temple would undoubtedly be cognisant of this legend, and the
lost experiment may have been an attempt to call up the Malefic Vision.
It is but a vague conjecture at the best, for the tree of the knowledge
of Evil bears many sorts of poisonous fruit, and no one can give full
account of the extravagances of a wayward fancy.

Conjointly with Miss Sophia, Sir John appointed me his executor and
guardian of his only son. Two months later we had lit a great fire
in the library at Worth. In it, after the servants were gone to bed,
we burnt the book containing the "Areopagita" of Graziani, and the
Stradivarius fiddle. The diaries of Temple I had already destroyed, and
wish that I could as easily blot out their foul and debasing memories
from my mind. I shall probably be blamed by those who would exalt
art at the expense of everything else, for burning a unique violin.
This reproach I am content to bear. Though I am not unreasonably
superstitious, and have no sympathy for that potential pantheism to
which Sir John Maltravers surrendered his intellect, yet I felt so great
an aversion to this violin that I would neither suffer it to remain at
Worth, nor pass into other hands. Miss Sophia was entirely at one with
me on this point. It was the same feeling which restrains any except
fools or braggarts from wishing to sleep in "haunted" rooms, or to live
in houses polluted with the memory of a revolting crime. No sane mind
believes in foolish apparitions, but fancy may at times bewitch the best
of us. So the Stradivarius was burnt. It was, after all, perhaps not so
serious a matter, for, as I have said, the bass-bar had given way. There
had always been a question whether it was strong enough to resist the
strain of modern stringing. Experience showed at last that it was not.
With the failure of the bass-bar the belly collapsed, and the wood broke
across the grain in so extraordinary a manner as to put the fiddle
beyond repair, except as a curiosity. Its loss, therefore, is not to be
so much regretted. Sir Edward has been brought up to think more of a
cricket-bat than of a violin-bow; but if he wishes at any time to buy a
Stradivarius, the fortunes of Worth and Royston, nursed through two long
minorities, will certainly justify his doing so.

Miss Sophia and I stood by and watched the holocaust. My heart misgave
me for a moment when I saw the mellow red varnish blistering off the
back, but I put my regret resolutely aside. As the bright flames jumped
up and lapped it round, they flung a red glow on the scroll. It was
wonderfully wrought, and differed, as I think Miss Maltravers has
already said, from any known example of Stradivarius. As we watched it,
the scroll took form, and we saw what we had never seen before, that it
was cut so that the deep lines in a certain light showed as the profile
of a man. It was a wizened little paganish face, with sharp-cut features
and a bald head. As I looked at it I knew at once (and a cameo has since
confirmed the fact) that it was a head of Porphyry. Thus the second
label found in the violin was explained and Sir John's view confirmed,
that Stradivarius had made the instrument for some Neo-Platonist
enthusiast who had dedicated it to his master Porphyrius.

       *       *       *       *       *

A year after Sir John's death I went with Miss Maltravers to Worth
church to see a plain slab of slate which we had placed over her
brother's grave. We stood in bright sunlight in the Maltravers chapel,
with the monuments of that splendid family about us. Among them were the
altar-tomb of Sir Esmoun, and the effigies of more than one Crusader.
As I looked on their knightly forms, with their heads resting on their
tilting helms, their faces set firm, and their hands joined in prayer,
I could not help envying them that full and unwavering faith for which
they had fought and died. It seemed to stand out in such sharp contrast
with our latter-day sciolism and half-believed creeds, and to be flung
into higher relief by the dark shadow of John Maltravers's ruined life.
At our feet was the great brass of one Sir Roger de Maltravers. I
pointed out the end of the inscription to my companion--"CVIVS ANIMÆ,
ATQVE ANIMABVS OMNIVM FIDELIVM DEFVNCTORVM, ATQVE NOSTRIS ANIMABVS QVVM
EX HAC LVCE TRANSIVERIMVS, PROPITIETVR DEVS." Though no Catholic, I
could not refuse to add a sincere Amen. Miss Sophia, who is not ignorant
of Latin, read the inscription after me. "Ex hac luce," she said, as
though speaking to herself, "out of this light; alas! alas! for some the
light is darkness."



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