Queen of Hearts — Chapter IV - Our Grand Project, part 2

I parried her questions by the best excuses I could offer; changed the conversation for the next five minutes, and then, making a sudden remembrance of business my apology for leaving her, hastily withdrew to devote myself to the new idea in the solitude of my own room.

A little quiet thinking convinced me that I had discovered a means not only of occupying her idle time, but of decoying her into staying on with us, evening by evening, until my son’s return.

The new project which she had herself unconsciously suggested involved nothing less than acting forthwith on her own chance hint, and appealing to her interest and curiosity by the recital of incidents and adventures drawn from my own personal experience and (if I could get them to help me) from the experience of my brothers as well.

Strange people and startling events had connected themselves with Owen’s past life as a clergyman, with Morgan’s past life as a doctor, and with my past life as a lawyer, which offered elements of interest of a strong and striking kind ready to our hands.

If these narratives were written plainly and unpretendingly; if one of them was read every evening, under circumstances that should pique the curiosity and impress the imagination of our young guest, the very occupation was found for her weary hours which would gratify her tastes, appeal to her natural interest in the early lives of my brothers and myself, and lure her insensibly into prolonging her visit by ten days without exciting a suspicion of our real motive for detaining her.

I sat down at my desk; I hid my face in my hands to keep out all impressions of external and present things; and I searched back through the mysterious labyrinth of the Past, through the dun, ever-deepening twilight of the years that were gone.

Slowly, out of the awful shadows, the Ghosts of Memory rose about me.

The dead population of a vanished world came back to life round me, a living man.

Men and women whose earthly pilgrimage had ended long since, returned upon me from the unknown spheres, and fond, familiar voices burst their way back to my ears through the heavy silence of the grave.

Moving by me in the nameless inner light, which no eye saw but mine, the dead procession of immaterial scenes and beings unrolled its silent length.

I saw once more the pleading face of a friend of early days, with the haunting vision that had tortured him through life by his side again—with the long-forgotten despair in his eyes which had once touched my heart, and bound me to him, till I had tracked his destiny through its darkest windings to the end.

I saw the figure of an innocent woman passing to and fro in an ancient country house, with the shadow of a strange suspicion stealing after her wherever she went.

I

saw a man worn by hardship and old age, stretched dreaming on the straw of a stable, and muttering in his dream the terrible secret of his life.

Other scenes and persons followed these, less vivid in their revival, but still always recognizable and distinct; a young girl alone by night, and in peril of her life, in a cottage on a dreary moor—an upper chamber of an inn, with two beds in it; the curtains of one bed closed, and a man standing by them, waiting, yet dreading to draw them back—a husband secretly following the first traces of a mystery which his wife’s anxious love had fatally hidden from him since the day when they first met; these, and other visions like them, shadowy reflections of the living beings and the real events that had been once, peopled the solitude and the emptiness around me.

They haunted me still when I tried to break the chain of thought which my own efforts had wound about my mind; they followed me to and fro in the room; and they came out with me when I left it.

I had lifted the veil from the Past for myself, and I was now to rest no more till I had lifted it for others.

I went at once to my eldest brother and showed him my son’s letter, and told him all that I have written here.

His kind heart was touched as mine had been.

He felt for my suspense; he shared my anxiety; he laid aside his own occupation on the spot.

“Only tell me,” he said, “how I can help, and I will give every hour in the day to you and to George.

” I had come to him with my mind almost as full of his past life as of my own; I recalled to his memory events in his experience as a working clergyman in London; I set him looking among papers which he had preserved for half his lifetime, and the very existence of which he had forgotten long since; I recalled to him the names of persons to whose necessities he had ministered in his sacred office, and whose stories he had heard from their own lips or received under their own handwriting.

When we parted he was certain of what he was wanted to do, and was resolute on that very day to begin the work.

I went to Morgan next, and appealed to him as I had already appealed to Owen.

It was only part of his odd character to start all sorts of eccentric objections in reply; to affect a cynical indifference, which he was far from really and truly feeling; and to indulge in plenty of quaint sarcasm on the subject of Jessie and his nephew George.

I waited till these little surface-ebullitions had all expended themselves, and then pressed my point again with the earnestness and anxiety that I really felt.

Evidently touched by the manner of my appeal to him even more than by the language in which it was expressed, Morgan took refuge in his customary abruptness, spread out his paper violently on the table, seized his pen and ink, and told me quite fiercely to give him his work and let him tackle it at once.

I set myself to recall to his memory some very remarkable experiences of his own in his professional days, but he stopped me before I had half done.

“I understand,” he said, taking a savage dip at the ink, “I’m to make her flesh creep, and to frighten her out of her wits.

I’ll do it with a vengeance!

” Reserving to myself privately an editorial right of supervision over Morgan’s contributions, I returned to my own room to begin my share—by far the largest one—of the task before us.

The stimulus applied to my mind by my son’s letter must have been a strong one indeed, for I had hardly been more than an hour at my desk before I found the old literary facility of my youthful days, when I was a writer for the magazines, returning to me as if by magic.

I worked on unremittingly till dinner-time, and then resumed the pen after we had all separated for the night.

At two o’clock the next morning I found myself—God help me!

—masquerading, as it were, in my own long-lost character of a hard-writing young man, with the old familiar cup of strong tea by my side, and the old familiar wet towel tied round my head.

My review of the progress I had made, when I looked back at my pages of manuscript, yielded all the encouragement I wanted to drive me on.

It is only just, however, to add to the record of this first day’s attempt, that the literary labor which it involved was by no means of the most trying kind.

The great strain on the intellect—the strain of invention—was spared me by my having real characters and events ready to my hand.

If I had been called on to create, I should, in all probability, have suffered severely by contrast with the very worst of those unfortunate novelists whom Jessie had so rashly and so thoughtlessly condemned.

It is not wonderful that the public should rarely know how to estimate the vast service which is done to them by the production of a good book, seeing that they are, for the most part, utterly ignorant of the immense difficulty of writing even a bad one.

The next day was fine, to my great relief; and our visitor, while we were at work, enjoyed her customary scamper on the pony, and her customary rambles afterward in the neighborhood of the house.

Although I had interruptions to contend with on the part of Owen and Morgan, neither of whom possessed my experience in the production of what heavy people call “light literature,” and both of whom consequently wanted assistance, still I made great progress, and earned my hours of repose on the evening of the second day.

On that evening I risked the worst, and opened my negotiations for the future with “The Queen of Hearts.

” About an hour after the tea had been removed, and when I happened to be left alone in the room with her, I noticed that she rose suddenly and went to the writing-table.

My suspicions were aroused directly, and I entered on the dangerous subject by inquiring if she intended to write to her aunt.

“Yes,” she said.

“I promised to write when the last week came.

If you had paid me the compliment of asking me to stay a little longer, I should have returned it by telling you I was sorry to go.

As it is, I mean to be sulky and say nothing.

” With those words she took up her pen to begin the letter.

“Wait a minute,” I remonstrated.

“I was just on the point of begging you to stay when I spoke.

” “Were you, indeed?

” she returned.

“I never believed in coincidences of that sort before, but now, of course, I put the most unlimited faith in them!

” “Will you believe in plain proofs?

” I asked, adopting her humor.

“How do you think I and my brothers have been employing ourselves all day to-day and all day yesterday?

Guess what we have been about.

” “Congratulating yourselves in secret on my approaching departure,” she answered, tapping her chin saucily with the feather-end of her pen.

I seized the opportunity of astonishing her, and forthwith told her the truth.

She started up from the table, and approached me with the eagerness of a child, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks flushed.

“Do you really mean it?

” she said.

I assured her that I was in earnest.

She thereupon not only expressed an interest in our undertaking, which was evidently sincere, but, with characteristic impatience, wanted to begin the first evening’s reading on that very night.

I disappointed her sadly by explaining that we required time to prepare ourselves, and by assuring her that we should not be ready for the next five days.

On the sixth day, I added, we should be able to begin, and to go on, without missing an evening, for probably ten days more.

“The next five days?

” she replied.

“Why, that will just bring us to the end of my six weeks’ visit.

I suppose you are not setting a trap to catch me?

This is not a trick of you three cunning old gentlemen to make me stay on, is it?

” I quailed inwardly as that dangerously close guess at the truth passed her lips.

“You forget,” I said, “that the idea only occurred to me after what you said yesterday.

If it had struck me earlier, we should have been ready earlier, and then where would your suspicions have been?

” “I am ashamed of having felt them,” she said, in her frank, hearty way.

“I retract the word ‘trap,’ and I beg pardon for calling you ‘three cunning old gentlemen.

’ But what am I to say to my aunt?

” She moved back to the writing-table as she spoke.

“Say nothing,” I replied, “till you have heard the first story.

Shut up the paper-case till that time, and then decide when you will open it again to write to your aunt.

” She hesitated and smiled.

That terribly close guess of hers was not out of her mind yet.

“I rather fancy,” she said, slyly, “that the story will turn out to be the best of the whole series.

” “Wrong again,” I retorted.

“I have a plan for letting chance decide which of the stories the first one shall be.

They shall be all numbered as they are done; corresponding numbers shall be written inside folded pieces of card and well mixed together; you shall pick out any one card you like; you shall declare the number written within; and, good or bad, the story that answers to that number shall be the story that is read.

Is that fair?

” “Fair!

” she exclaimed; “it’s better than fair; it makes _me_ of some importance; and I must be more or less than woman not to appreciate that.

” “Then you consent to wait patiently for the next five days?

” “As patiently as I can.

” “And you engage to decide nothing about writing to your aunt until you have heard the first story?

” “I do,” she said, returning to the writing-table.

“Behold the proof of it.

” She raised her hand with theatrical solemnity, and closed the paper-case with an impressive bang.

I leaned back in my chair with my mind at ease for the first time since the receipt of my son’s letter.

“Only let George return by the first of November,” I thought to myself, “and all the aunts in Christendom shall not prevent Jessie Yelverton from being here to meet him.

” THE TEN DAYS.

THE FIRST DAY.

Showery and unsettled.

In spite of the weather, Jessie put on my Mackintosh cloak and rode off over the hills to one of Owen’s outlying farms.

She was already too impatient to wait quietly for the evening’s reading in the house, or to enjoy any amusement less exhilarating than a gallop in the open air.

I was, on my side, as anxious and as uneasy as our guest.

Now that the six weeks of her stay had expired—now that the day had really arrived, on the evening of which the first story was to be read, I began to calculate the chances of failure as well as the chances of success.

What if my own estimate of the interest of the stories turned out to be a false one?

What if some unforeseen accident occurred to delay my son’s return beyond ten days?

The arrival of the newspaper had already become an event of the deepest importance to me.

Unreasonable as it was to expect any tidings of George at so early a date, I began, nevertheless, on this first of our days of suspense, to look for the name of his ship in the columns of telegraphic news.

The mere mechanical act of looking was some relief to my overstrained feelings, although I might have known, and did know, that the search, for the present, could lead to no satisfactory result.

Toward noon I shut myself up with my collection of manuscripts to revise them for the last time.

Our exertions had thus far produced but six of the necessary ten stories.

As they were only, however, to be read, one by one, on six successive evenings, and as we could therefore count on plenty of leisure in the daytime, I was in no fear of our failing to finish the little series.

Of the six completed stories I had written two, and had found a third in the form of a collection of letters among my papers.

Morgan had only written one, and this solitary contribution of his had given me more trouble than both my own put together, in consequence of the perpetual intrusion of my brother’s eccentricities in every part of his narrative.

The process of removing these quaint turns and frisks of Morgan’s humor—which, however amusing they might have been in an essay, were utterly out of place in a story appealing to suspended interest for its effect—certainly tried my patience and my critical faculty (such as it is) more severely than any other part of our literary enterprise which had fallen my share.

Owen’s investigations among his papers had supplied us with the two remaining narratives.

One was contained in a letter, and the other in the form of a diary, and both had been received by him directly from the writers.

Besides these contributions, he had undertaken to help us by some work of his own, and had been engaged for the last four days in molding certain events which had happened within his personal knowledge into the form of a story.

His extreme fastidiousness as a writer interfered, however, so seriously with his progress that he was still sadly behindhand, and was likely, though less heavily burdened than Morgan or myself, to be the last to complete his allotted task.

Such was our position, and such the resources at our command, when the first of the Ten Days dawned upon us.

Shortly after four in the afternoon I completed my work of revision, numbered the manuscripts from one to six exactly as they happened to lie under my hand, and inclosed them all in a portfolio, covered with purple morocco, which became known from that time by the imposing title of The Purple Volume.

Miss Jessie returned from her expedition just as I was tying the strings of the portfolio, and, womanlike, instantly asked leave to peep inside, which favor I, manlike, positively declined to grant.

As soon as dinner was over our guest retired to array herself in magnificent evening costume.

It had been arranged that the readings were to take place in her own sitting-room; and she was so enthusiastically desirous to do honor to the occasion, that she regretted not having brought with her from London the dress in which she had been presented at court the year before, and not having borrowed certain materials for additional splendor which she briefly described as “aunt’s diamonds.

” Toward eight o’clock we assembled in the sitting-room, and a strangely assorted company we were.

At the head of the table, radiant in silk and jewelry, flowers and furbelows, sat The Queen of Hearts, looking so handsome and so happy that I secretly congratulated my absent son on the excellent taste he had shown in falling in love with her.

Round this bright young creature (Owen, at the foot of the table, and Morgan and I on either side) sat her three wrinkled, gray-headed, dingily-attired hosts, and just behind her, in still more inappropriate companionship, towered the spectral figure of the man in armor, which had so unaccountably attracted her on her arrival.

This strange scene was lighted up by candles in high and heavy brass sconces.

Before Jessie stood a mighty china punch-bowl of the olden time, containing the folded pieces of card, inside which were written the numbers to be drawn, and before Owen reposed the Purple Volume from which one of us was to read.

The walls of the room were hung all round with faded tapestry; the clumsy furniture was black with age; and, in spite of the light from the sconces, the lofty ceiling was almost lost in gloom.

If Rembrandt could have painted our background, Reynolds our guest, and Hogarth ourselves, the picture of the scene would have been complete.

When the old clock over the tower gateway had chimed eight, I rose to inaugurate the proceedings by requesting Jessie to take one of the pieces of card out of the punch-bowl, and to declare the number.

She laughed; then suddenly became frightened and serious; then looked at me, and said, “It was dreadfully like business;” and then entreated Morgan not to stare at her, or, in the present state of her nerves, she should upset the punch-bowl.

At last she summoned resolution enough to take out one of the pieces of card and to unfold it.

“Declare the number, my dear,” said Owen.

“Number Four,” answered Jessie, making a magnificent courtesy, and beginning to look like herself again.

Owen opened the Purple Volume, searched through the manuscripts, and suddenly changed color.

The cause of his discomposure was soon explained.

Malicious fate had assigned to the most diffident individual in the company the trying responsibility of leading the way.

Number Four was one of the two narratives which Owen had found among his own papers.

“I am almost sorry,” began my eldest brother, confusedly, “that it has fallen to my turn to read first.

I hardly know which I distrust most, myself or my story.

” “Try and fancy you are in the pulpit again,” said Morgan, sarcastically.

“Gentlemen of your cloth, Owen, seldom seem to distrust themselves or their manuscripts when they get into that position.

” “The fact is,” continued Owen, mildly impenetrable to his brother’s cynical remark, “that the little thing I am going to try and read is hardly a story at all.

I am afraid it is only an anecdote.

I became possessed of the letter which contains my narrative under these circumstances.

At the time when I was a clergyman in London, my church was attended for some months by a lady who was the wife of a large farmer in the country.

She had been obliged to come to town, and to remain there for the sake of one of her children, a little boy, who required the best medical advice.

” At the words “medical advice” Morgan shook his head and growled to himself contemptuously.

Owen went on: “While she was attending in this way to one child, his share in her love was unexpectedly disputed by another, who came into the world rather before his time.

I baptized the baby, and was asked to the little christening party afterward.

This was my first introduction to the lady, and I was very favorably impressed by her; not so much on account of her personal appearance, for she was but a little woman and had no pretensions to beauty, as on account of a certain simplicity, and hearty, downright kindness in her manner, as well as of an excellent frankness and good sense in her conversation.

One of the guests present, who saw how she had interested me, and who spoke of her in the highest terms, surprised me by inquiring if I should ever have supposed that quiet, good-humored little woman to be capable of performing an act of courage which would have tried the nerves of the boldest man in England?

I naturally enough begged for an explanation;

but my neighbor at the table only smiled and said, ‘If you can find an opportunity, ask her what happened at The Black Cottage, and you will hear something that will astonish you.

’ I acted on the hint as soon as I had an opportunity of speaking to her privately.

The lady answered that it was too long a story to tell then, and explained, on my suggesting that she should relate it on some future day, that she was about to start for her country home the next morning.

‘But,’ she was good enough to add, ‘as I have been under great obligations to you for many Sundays past, and as you seem interested in this matter, I will employ my first leisure time after my return in telling you by writing, instead of by word of mouth, what really happened to me on one memorable night of my life in The Black Cottage.

’ “She faithfully performed her promise.

In a fortnight afterward I received from her the narrative which I am now about to read.

”