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Read Ebook: The Deceased Wife's Sister and My Beautiful Neighbour v. 3 by Russell William Clark
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Ebook has 958 lines and 35987 words, and 20 pages
a sequestered life. I visit nowhere. I receive no visits. Is it because I am a Roman Catholic that you are curious?"
"Do you take me for a missionary, Mrs. Fraser? I assure you I was ignorant of your faith. Of your habits I know only from the information of my housekeeper. A fellow-feeling makes us kind. I, too, am a recluse, loving solitude as well as yourself."
"Impossible!" she exclaimed impetuously, "or you would not have called here."
I could have told her that I loved beauty more than solitude. But I held my tongue.
"Where did you meet me?" she asked.
"I met you in the fields outside our respective grounds."
"Never!" she cried. "Never have I passed the gate that leads into those fields."
There was something singular in her vehemence. But it made her beauty more remarkable by the life it imparted to it.
"But this has been told me before," she continued rapidly. "Yes, I remember. Your housekeeper asked my servant if I were not in the habit of taking midnight rambles. Oh, how can you justify the rudeness of such questions?"
"They were asked unknown to myself. Be sure, I should never have sanctioned them, if I had questions to ask, I should be bold, and interrogate you, not your domestic."
"Questions to ask! What are you to me that you should question me?"
"Nothing. I am to you no more than your servant is to me. But you are something to me. Is it possible, do you think, that I could look upon your face without interest?"
"How should I know--why should I care?" she replied, her nostrils dilated, her lips curved, her eyes radiant with the light of anger qualified by surprise--of resentment tempered by curiosity. "You say you met me--you are long in telling your story."
"It was one moonlight night. I walked to the fields, and had seated myself, when I saw you pacing the walk by the hedge. Twice you went the length of it--then disappeared."
She seated herself in a chair facing mine, leaned her chin upon her small white hand, and gazed at me with a look of earnestness that was embarrassing in its intensity. The pressure upon her chin made her speak through her teeth as she said,
"You must have dreamed this?"
"Indeed I did not. But I own I dreamt of you before. I dreamt that you looked upon me in a vision. I saw your eyes. They were not more wonderful in that vision than they are in life. Your face was paler than it is now."
She did not alter her position.
"How strange!" she muttered. She had dropped her forehead upon her hand and her deep eyes shone upon me through their long lashes.
"When I met you last night," I continued, "I was not alone. A companion was with me. You appeared to us as you had appeared to me. He saw you, and if you doubt the truth of what I say, will bear testimony. You stood at the gate; your eyes were fixed and your countenance turned towards us."
A look of distress entered her face.
"I did not know that I still walked in my sleep," she said.
"It is a dangerous habit, Mrs. Fraser."
"Indeed?" I answered; "your candour is too charming to require excuses. You must believe that such ingenuousness is very refreshing to one who, like myself, has wasted the best part of his days amid sophisticated and conventional society, where truth is never possible because it must always be offensive."
"Don't you find it dull at Elmore Court?"
"No; I spend the greater portion of my time in reading. Besides, I have a companion--a gentleman accomplished enough to be of great use to me in my studies."
"You are a young man," she said, eyeing me intently, "and it is unusual for young men to banish themselves from life and its pleasures, especially if they have money."
"I admire your incredulity," I answered, laughing, "for it gives me an excuse to tell you more of myself than I could otherwise have done. I mean, that a voluntary confession would have smacked rather egotistic."
She left her chair and began to pace up and down the room. I was fascinated by her form, the beautiful curve of her breast, the proportioned waist, her erect stature, and the unconscious grace of her movements. When her face was towards me her eyes were invariably on mine; there was in them an unsmiling sparkle, a grave glow, that gave unreality to their gaze, a spectral beauty to their depths.
"I took Elmore Court," I continued, "not because I was tired of, but because I wanted to enjoy, life."
"You thought that abstinence would create appetite?"
"I wished to learn the art of living; and this, I saw, was only to be accomplished by study, by thought, and by awakening aspirations which should be lofty enough to make their achievement laborious."
"What do you hope to do?"
"Much."
"You will do little. Ah! you think I mean that you have no talent? I have not said so. How should I know your gifts and deficiencies? But life itself is one huge disappointment. The more laborious the effort the more dreadful the failure. Pray don't fancy I think only of books, or art, or science. I know nothing of these things; and they make but a very small portion of life. I have the passions in my mind--love, hope, patience and the like--all these things end in regret."
"Your logic is very dispiriting," said I, watching her with increasing admiration. "It would leave life nerveless, and make death its only aspiration."
"Do you think life ends in death?"
"The life of the flesh, certainly."
"The flesh has nothing to do with life. It is the spirit that lives. My flesh might have been dead last night when you saw me: for I heard and felt nothing. No! it was all as blank to me as my sight when I shut my eyes so;" she closed her eyes like a child would have done. "I might have been dead, and to myself was as dead as ever I shall be when I am in the grave."
I was about to speak, when she suddenly said, "Mr. Thorburn, you are making a long call."
"I must plead you as my excuse," I answered, rising, hardly knowing whether to look grave or smile, so bewildered was I by her manners and conversation: her brusquerie, of which her beauty qualified the rudeness; her severity, tempered by a childishness which made all her moods but new points of view of her charms.
I took my hat: she opened the door.
"I hope, Mrs. Fraser," said I, "that you will not deny me the pleasure of meeting you again?"
"I have not come to Cliffegate for society, Mr. Thorburn."
"What privilege?"
"The privilege of knowing you and meeting you. It was, at least, promised me in a dream. You will not set aside a promise so mysterious?"
"If we are to be friends, I shall become a fatalist. A creed made tempting by such a reward is irresistible. I have your permission to call again?"
"You are your own master."
The reply was sufficient. I extended my hand; she gave me hers. I held it for a moment, and we separated.
Martelli was in the library when I entered. He sat deep in an arm-chair, his legs crossed, his face hid behind a folio.
"I have seen my apparition," said I cheerfully.
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