House of the White Shadows — Book 4, Chapters 3-4

So it was arranged, and within half an hour all the other guests had taken their departure.

CHAPTER III THE WATCH ON THE HILL

For more than twenty years the House of White Shadows may be said to have been without a history.

Its last eventful chapter ended with the death of Christian Almer's father, the tragic story of whose life has been related by Mother Denise.

Then followed a blank--a dull uniformity of days and months and years, without the occurrence of a single event worthy of record in the annals of the family who had held the estate for four generations.

The doors and windows of the villa were but seldom opened, and on those rare occasions only by Mother Denise, who had too strict a regard for the faithful discharge of her duties to allow the costly furniture to fall into decay.

Suddenly all this was altered.

Light and life reigned again.

Startling was the transformation.

Within a few short weeks the House of White Shadows had become the centre of a chain of events, in which the affections which sway and the passions which dominate mankind were displayed in all their strangest variety.

At a short distance from the gate, on this dark night, upon the rise of a hill which commanded a view of the villa, sometimes stood and sometimes lay a man in the prime of life.

Not a well-looking man, nor a desirable man, and yet one who in his better days might have passed for a gentleman.

Even now, with the aid of fine feathers, he might have reached such a height in the judgment of those who were not given to close observation.

His feathers at the present time were anything but fine--a sad fall, for they have been once such as fine birds wear;

no barn-door fowl's, but of the partridge's quality.

So that, between the man and his garments, there was something of an affinity.

He was tall and fairly presentable, and he bore himself with a certain air which, in the eyes of the vulgar, would have passed for grace.

But his swagger spoilt him; and his sensual mouth, which had begot a coarseness from long and unrestrained indulgence, spoilt him; and the blotches on his face spoilt him.

His hands were white, and rings would have looked well on them, if rings ever looked well on the hands of a man--which may be doubted.

As he stood, or lay, his eyes were for the chief part of his time fixed on the House of White Shadows.

Following with precision his line of sight, it would have been discovered that the point which claimed his attention were the windows of the Advocate's study.

There was a light in them, but no movement.

"Yet he is there," muttered the man, whose name was John Vanbrugh, "for I see his shadow."

His sight unassisted would not have enabled him to speak with authority upon this, but he held in his hand a field-glass, and he saw by its aid what would otherwise have been hidden from him.

"His guests have gone," continued John Vanbrugh, "and he has time to attend to me.

I have that to sell, Edward, which it is worth your while to purchase--nay, which it is vital you should purchase.

Every hour's delay increases its price.

It must be near midnight, and still no sign.

Well, I can wait--I can wait."

He had no watch to take count of the time, which passed slowly; but he waited patiently nevertheless, until the sound of footsteps, approaching in his direction, diverted his attention.

They came nearer, nearer, until this other wanderer of the night was close upon him.

"Who," he thought, "has taken it into his head to come my way?

This is no time for honest men to be about."

And then he said aloud--for the intruder had paused within a yard of him: "What particular business brings you here, friend, and why do you not pass on?"

A sigh of intense relief escaped the breast of the newcomer, who was none other than Gautran.

With the cuff of his shirt he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and muttered in a grateful tone: "A man's voice!

That is something to be thankful for."

The sound of this muttering, but not the words, reached Vanbrugh's ears.

"Well, friend?"

said Vanbrugh, who, being unarmed, felt himself at a disadvantage.

"Well?"

repeated Gautran.

"Are you meditating an attack upon me?

I am not worth the risk, upon my honour.

If you are poor, behold in me a brother in misfortune.

Go to a more profitable market."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I'll take your word for it.

Pass on, then.

The way is clear for you."

He stepped aside, and observed that Gautran took step with him instead of from him.

"Are _you_ going to pass on?"

asked Gautran.

"Upon my soul this is getting amusing, and I should enjoy it if I were not angry.

Am I going to pass on?

No, I am not going to pass on."

"Neither am I." "In the name of all that is mischievous," cried Vanbrugh, "what is it you want?"

"Company," was the answer, "till daylight.

That is all.

You need not be afraid of me."

"Company!"

exclaimed Vanbrugh.

"My company?"

"Yours or any man's. Something human--something living.

And you must talk to me.

I'm not going to be driven mad by silence."

"You are a cool customer, with your this and that.

Are you aware that you are robbing me?"

"I don't want to rob you."

"But you are--of solitude.

And you appropriate it!

No further fooling.

Leave me."

"Not till daylight."

"There is something strange in your resolve.

Let me have a better look at you."

He laid his hand upon Gautran's shoulder, and the man did not resent the movement.

In the evening, when he had arrived in Geneva, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the court-house; therefore, Gautran being otherwise a stranger to him, he did not recognise in the face of the man he was now looking into, and which he could but dimly see in consequence of the darkness of the night, the prisoner whose trial for murder had caused so great an excitement.

"If I am any judge of human nature," he said, "you are in a bad way.

I

can see sufficient of you to discern that from a social point of view you are a ruin, a very wreck of respectability, if your lines ever crossed in that direction.

In which respect I, who was once a gentleman, and am still, cannot deny that there is something of moral kinship between us.

This confers distinction upon you--upon me, a touch of obloquy.

But I am old enough not to be squeamish.

We must take the world as we find it--a villainous world!

What say you?"

"A villainous world!

Go on talking."

Vanbrugh stood with his face towards the House of White Shadows, watching for the signal he had asked the Advocate to give him.

Gautran, facing the man upon whom he had forced his company, stood, therefore, with his back to the villa, the lights in which he had not yet seen.

"Our condition may be borne," continued Vanbrugh, "with greater or lesser equanimity, so long as we feed the body--the quality of our food being really of no great importance, so far as the tissues are concerned; but when the mind is thrown off its balance, as I see by your eyes is the case with you, the condition of the man becomes serious.

What is it you fear?"

"Nothing human."

"Yet you are at war with society."

"I was; but I am a free man now."

"You have been in peril, then--plainly speaking, a gaol-bird.

What matters?

The world is apt to be too censorious; I find no fault with you for your misfortune.

Such things happen to the best of us.

But you are free now, you say, and you fear nothing in human shape.

What is it, then, you do fear?"

"Were you ever followed by a spirit?"

asked Gautran, in a hoarse whisper.

"A moment," said Vanbrugh.

"Your question startles me.

I have about me two mouthfuls of an elixir without which life would not be worth the living.

Share and share alike."

He produced a bottle containing about a quarter of a pint of brandy, and saying, "Your health, friend," put it to his lips.

Gautran watched him greedily, and, when he received the bottle, drained it with a gasp of savage satisfaction.

"That is fine, that is fine!"

he said; "I wish there were more of it."

"To echo your wish is the extent of my power in the direction of fulfilment.

Now we can continue.

Was I ever followed by a spirit?

Of what kind?"

"Of a woman," replied Gautran with a shudder.

"Being a spirit, necessarily a dead woman!"

"Aye, a dead woman--one who was murdered."

A look of sudden and newly-awakened intelligence flashed into Vanbrugh's face.

He placed his hand again upon Gautran's shoulder.

"A young woman?"

he said.

"Aye," responded Gautran.

"Fair and beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Who met her death in the river Rhone?'

"Aye--it is known to all the world."

"One who sold flowers in the streets of Geneva--whose name was Madeline?"

The utterance of the name conjured up the phantom of the murdered girl, and Gautran, with violent shudders, gazed upon the spectre.

"She is there--she is there!"

he muttered, in a voice of agony.

"Will she never, never leave me?"

These words confirmed Vanbrugh's suspicion.

It was Gautran who stood before him.

"Another winning card," he said, in a tone of triumph, and with a strange smile.

"The man is guilty, else why should he fear?

Vanbrugh, a life of ease is yours once more.

Away with these rags, this money-pinch which has nipped you for years.

Days of pleasure, of luxury, are yours to enjoy.

You step once more into the ranks of gentlemen.

What would the great Advocate in yonder study think of this chance encounter, knowing--what he has yet to learn--that I hold in my hands what he prizes most--his fame and honour?"

Gautran heard the words; he turned, and followed the direction of Vanbrugh's gaze.

"There is but one great Advocate, the man who set me free.

He lives yonder, then?"

"You know it, rogue," replied Vanbrugh.

"There are the lights in his study window.

Gautran, you and I must be better acquainted."

But he was compelled to submit to a postponement of his wish, for the next moment he was alone.

Gautran had disappeared.

CHAPTER IV THE SILENT VOICE

Alone in his study the Advocate had time to review his position.

His first feeling, when he listened to Gautran's confession, had been one of unutterable horror, and this feeling was upon him when he entered the villa.

From his outward demeanour no person could have guessed how terrible was his inward agitation.

Self-repression was in him a second nature.

The habit of concealing his thoughts had been of incalculable value in his profession, and had materially assisted in many of his great victories.

But now he was alone, and when he had locked the study-door, he threw off the mask.

He had been proud of this victory; it was the greatest he had ever achieved.

He knew that it would increase his fame, and that it was an important step in the ladder it had been the delight of his life to climb.

Cold as he appeared, and apparently indifferent to success, his ambition was vast, overpowering.

His one great aim had been not only to achieve the highest distinction while he lived, but to leave behind him a name which should be placed at the head of all his class--a clear and unsullied name which men in after times would quote as a symbol of the triumph of intellect.

It was the sublimity of egoism, contemptible when allied with intellectual inferiority and weakness of character, but justifiable in his case because it was in association with a force of mental gifts little short of marvellous.

In the exercise of his public duties he had been careful never to take a false step.

Before he committed himself to a task he invariably made a study of its minutest detail; conned it over and over, stripped it of its outward coverings, probed it to its very heart, added facets to it which lay not only within the region of probability, but possibility; and the result had been that his triumphs were spoken of with wonderment, as something almost higher than human, and within the capacity of no other man.

It had sometimes occurred that the public voice was against a prisoner whose defence he had undertaken, but it was never raised against himself, and perhaps the sweetest reward which was ever bestowed upon him was when, in an unpopular cause which he had conducted to victory, it was afterwards proved that the man he had championed--whose very name was an offence--was in honest truth a victim instead of a wronger.

It had grown into a fashion to say, "He must have right on his side, or the Advocate would not defend him."

Here, then, was a triple alliance of justice, truth, and humanity--and he, their champion and the vindicator and upholder of right.

In another sphere of life, and in times when the dragon of oppression was weighing heavily upon a people's liberties, such achievements as his would have caused the champion to be worshipped as a saint--certainly as a hero imbued with kingly qualities.

No man really deserves this altitude, though it be sometimes reached.

Human nature is too imperfect, its undercurrents are not sufficiently translucent for truth's face to be reflected as in a crystal.

But we judge the deed, not the doer, and the man is frequently crowned, the working of whose inner life, were it laid bare, would shock and disgust.

It was when he was at the height of his fame that the Advocate met Adelaide.

Hitherto he had seen but little of women, or, seeing them, had passed them lightly by, but there comes a time in the lives of most men, even of the greatest, when they are abruptly arrested by an influence which insensibly masters them.

Only once in his life had the Advocate wandered from the path he had formed for himself; but it was an idle wandering, partly prompted by a small and unworthy desire to prove himself of two men, the superior, and he had swiftly and effectually thrown the folly aside, never again to be indulged in or renewed.

That was many years ago, and had been long forgotten, when Adelaide appeared to him, a star of loveliness, which proved, what few would have believed, that he had a heart.

The new revelation was to him at first a source of infinite gladness, and he yielded to the enchantment.

But after a time he questioned himself as to the wisdom of this infatuation.

It was then, however, too late.

The spell was upon him, and it did not lay in his power to remove it.

And when he found that this sweet pleasure did not--as it would have done with most men--interfere with his active duties, nay, that it seemed to infuse a keener relish into their fulfilment, he asked himself the question, "Why not?"

In the simple prompting of the question lay the answer.

He possessed an immense power of concentration.

With many subjects claiming close attention he could dismiss them all but the one to which it was necessary he should devote himself, and after much self-communing he satisfied himself that love would be no block to ambition.

And indeed so it proved.

Adelaide, dazzled by the attentions of a man who stood so high, accepted his worship, and, warned by friends not to be exigent, made no demands upon his time which interfered with his duties.

He was a devoted but not a passionate lover.

On all sides she was congratulated--it gratified her.

By many she was envied--it delighted her; and she took pleasure in showing how easily she could lead this man, who to all other women was cold as ice.

In those days it was out of her own vanity and thirst for conquest that she evolved pleasure from the association of her name with his.

After their marriage he strove to interest her in the cases upon which he was engaged, but, discovering that her taste did not lie in that direction, he did not persist in his endeavour.

It did not lessen his love for her, nor her hold upon him.

She was to him on this night as she had ever been, a sweet, affectionate, pure woman, who gave him as much love and honour as a man so much older than herself could reasonably expect.

Something of what has been here expressed passed through his mind as he reflected upon the events of the day.

How should he deal with Gautran's confession?

That was the point he debated.

When he undertook the defence he had a firm belief in the man's innocence.

He had drawn the picture of Gautran exactly as he had conceived it.

Vile, degraded, brutal, without a redeeming feature--but not the murderer of Madeline the flower-girl.

He reviewed the case again carefully, to see whether he could have arrived at any other conclusion.

He could not perceive a single defect in his theory.

He was justified in his own eyes.

He knew that the entire public sentiment was against him, and that he had convinced men against their will.

He knew that there was imported into this matter a feeling of resentment at his successful efforts to set Gautran free.

What, then, had induced him to come forward voluntarily in defence of this monster?

He asked the question of himself aloud, and he answered it aloud: A reverence for justice.

He had not indulged in self-deception when he declared to Gautran's judges that the leading principle of his life had been a desire for justice in small matters as well as great, for the meanest equally with the loftiest of his fellow-creatures.

That it did not clash with his ambition was his good fortune.

It was not tainted because of this human coincidence.

So far, then, he was justified in his own estimation.

Rut he must be justified also in the eyes of the world.

And here intruded the torturing doubt whether this were possible.

If he made it known to the world that Gautran was guilty, the answer would be: "We know it, and knew it, as we believe you yourself did while you were working to set him free.

Why did you prevent justice being done upon a murderer?"

"But I believed him innocent," he would say.

"Only now do I know him to be guilty!"

"Upon what grounds?"

would be asked.

"Upon Gautran's own confession, given to me, alone, on a lonely road, within an hour after the delivery of the verdict."

He saw the incredulous looks with which this would be received.

He put himself in the place of the public, and he asked: "Why, at such a time, in such a spot, did Gautran confess to you?

What motive had he?

You are not a priest, and the high road is not a confessional."

He could supply to this question no answer which common-sense would accept.

And say that Gautran were questioned, as he would assuredly be.

He would deny the statement point-blank.

Liberty is sweet to all men.

Then it would be one man's statement against another's; he would be on an equality with Gautran, reduced to his level; and in the judgment of numbers of people Gautran would have the advantage over him.

Sides would be taken; he himself, in a certain sense, would be placed upon his trial, and public resentment, which now was smothered and would soon be quite hushed, would break out against him.

Was he strong enough to withstand this?

Could he arrest the furious torrent and stand unwounded on the shore, pure and scatheless in the eyes of men?

He doubted.

He was too profound a student of human nature not to know that his fair fame would be blotted, and that there would be a stain upon his reputation which would cling to him to the last day of his life.

Still he questioned himself.

Should he dare it, and brave it, and bow his head?

Who humbles himself lays himself open to the blow--and men are not merciful when the chance is offered to them.

But he would stand clear in his own eyes; his conscience would approve.

To none but himself would this be known.

Inward approval would be his sole reward, his sole compensation.

A hero's work, however.

For a moment or two he glowed at the contemplation.

He soon cooled down, and with a smile, partly of self-pity, partly of self-contempt, proceeded to the calmer consideration of the matter.

The meaner qualities came into play.

The world did not know; what reason was there that it should be enlightened--that he should enlighten it, to his own injury?

The secret belonged to two men--to himself and Gautran.

It was not likely that Gautran would blurt it out to others; he valued his liberty too highly.

So that it was as safe as though it were buried in a deep grave.

As for the wrong done, it was a silent wrong.

To ruin one's self for a sentiment would be madness; no one really suffered.

The unfortunate girl was at rest.

She was a stranger; no person knew her, or was interested in her except for her beauty; she left no family, no father, mother, or sisters, to mourn her cruel death.

There was certainly the woman spoken of as Pauline, but she had disappeared, and was probably in no way related to Madeline.

What more likely than that the elder woman's association with the younger arose out of a desire to trade upon the girl's beauty, and appropriate the profits to her own use?

A base view of the matter, but natural, human.

And having reaped a certain profit out of their trade in flowers, larger than was suspected, the crafty woman of the world had deliberately deserted Madeline and left her to her fate.

Why, then, should he step forward as her avenger, to the destruction of the great name he had spent the best fruits of his mind and the best years of his life to build up?

To think of such a thing was Quixotism run mad.

One of the threads of these reflections--that which forced itself upon him as the toughest and the most prominent--was contempt of himself for permitting his thoughts to wander into currents so base.

But that was his concern; it affected no other person, so long as he chose to hold his own counsel.

The difficulty into which he was plunged was not of his seeking.

Fate had dealt him a hard stroke; he received it on his shield instead of on his body.

Who would say that that was not wise?

What other man, having the option, would not have done as he was about to do?

"Cunning sophist, cunning sophist!"

his conscience whispered to him;

"think not that, wandering in these crooked paths of reasoning, you can find the talisman which will transform wrong into right, or remove the stain which will rest upon your soul."

He answered his conscience: "To none but myself is my soul visible.

Who, then, can see the stain?"

His conscience replied: "God!"

"I will confess to Him."

he said, "but not to man."

"There is but one right course," his conscience said; "juggle as you may, you know that there is but one right course."

"I know it," he said boldly, "but I am cast in human mould, and am not heroic enough for the sacrifice you would impose upon me."

"Listen," said his conscience, "a voice from the grave is calling to you."

He heard the voice: "Blood for Blood."

He stood transfixed.

The images raised by that, silent voice were appalling.

They culminated in the impalpable shape of a girl, with pallid face, gazing sadly at him, over whose form seemed to be traced in the air the lurid words, "Blood For Blood!"

Heaven's decree.

The vision lasted but for a brief space.

In the light of his strong will such airy terrors could not long exist.

Blood for blood!

It once held undisputed sway, but there are great and good men who look upon the fulfilment of the stern decree as a crime.

Mercy, humanity, and all the higher laws of civilisation were on their side.

But he could not quite stifle the voice.

He took another view.

Say that he yielded to the whisperings of his conscience--say that, braving all the consequences of his action, he denounced Gautran.

The man had already been tried for murder, and could not be tried again.

Set this aside.

Say that a way was discovered to bring Gautran again to the bar of earthly justice, of what value was the new evidence that could be brought against him?

His own bare word--his recital of an interview of which he held no proof, and which Gautran's simple denial would be sufficient to destroy.

Place this new evidence against the evidence he himself had established in proof of Gautran's innocence, and it became a feather-weight.

A lawyer of mediocre attainments would blow away such evidence with a breath.

It would injure only him who brought it forward.

He decided.

The matter must rest where it was.

In silence lay safety.

There was still another argument in favour of this conclusion.

The time for making public the horrible knowledge of which he had become possessed was passed.

After he had received Gautran's confession he should not have lost a moment in communicating with the authorities.

Not only had he allowed the hours to slip by without taking action, but in the conversation initiated that evening by Pierre Lamont, in which he had joined, he had tacitly committed himself to the continuance of a belief in Gautran's innocence.

He saw no way out of the fatal construction which all who knew him, as well as all who knew him not, would place upon this line of conduct.