Best Horror Novels

Chapter 2 A Guest

Chapter 2 A

GuestI am now going to tell you something so strange that it will

require all your faith in my veracity to believe my story. It is

not only true, nevertheless, but truth of which I have been an

eyewitness.

It was a sweet summer evening, and my father asked me, as he

sometimes did, to take a little ramble with him along that

beautiful forest vista which I have mentioned as lying in front of

the schloss.

"General Spielsdorf cannot come to us so soon as I had hoped,"

said my father, as we pursued our walk.

He was to have paid us a visit of some weeks, and we had

expected his arrival next day. He was to have brought with him a

young lady, his niece and ward, Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt, whom I had

never seen, but whom I had heard described as a very charming girl,

and in whose society I had promised myself many happy days. I was

more disappointed than a young lady living in a town, or a bustling

neighborhood can possibly imagine. This visit, and the new

acquaintance it promised, had furnished my day dream for many

weeks.

"And how soon does he come?" I asked.

"Not till autumn. Not for two months, I dare say," he answered.

"And I am very glad now, dear, that you never knew Mademoiselle

Rheinfeldt."

"And why?" I asked, both mortified and curious.

"Because the poor young lady is dead," he replied. "I quite

forgot I had not told you, but you were not in the room when I

received the General's letter this evening."

I was very much shocked. General Spielsdorf had mentioned in his

first letter, six or seven weeks before, that she was not so well

as he would wish her, but there was nothing to suggest the remotest

suspicion of danger.

"Here is the General's letter," he said, handing it to me. "I am

afraid he is in great affliction; the letter appears to me to have

been written very nearly in distraction."

We sat down on a rude bench, under a group of magnificent lime

trees. The sun was setting with all its melancholy splendor behind

the sylvan horizon, and the stream that flows beside our home, and

passes under the steep old bridge I have mentioned, wound through

many a group of noble trees, almost at our feet, reflecting in its

current the fading crimson of the sky. General Spielsdorf's letter

was so extraordinary, so vehement, and in some places so

self-contradictory, that I read it twice over—the second time aloud

to my father—and was still unable to account for it, except by

supposing that grief had unsettled his mind.

It said "I have lost my darling daughter, for as such I loved

her. During the last days of dear Bertha's illness I was not able

to write to you.

"Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and

now learn all, too late. She died in the peace of

innocence, and in the glorious hope of a blessed futurity. The

fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. I

thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a charming

companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens! what a fool have I been!

"I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of

her sufferings. She is gone without so much as conjecturing the

nature of her illness, and the accursed passion of the agent of all

this misery. I devote my remaining days to tracking and

extinguishing a monster. I am told I may hope to accomplish my

righteous and merciful purpose. At present there is scarcely a

gleam of light to guide me. I curse my conceited incredulity, my

despicable affectation of superiority, my blindness, my

obstinacy—all—too late. I cannot write or talk collectedly now. I

am distracted. So soon as I shall have a little recovered, I mean

to devote myself for a time to enquiry, which may possibly lead me

as far as Vienna. Some time in the autumn, two months hence, or

earlier if I live, I will see you—that is, if you permit me; I will

then tell you all that I scarce dare put upon paper now. Farewell.

Pray for me, dear friend."

In these terms ended this strange letter. Though I had never

seen Bertha Rheinfeldt my eyes filled with tears at the sudden

intelligence; I was startled, as well as profoundly

disappointed.

The sun had now set, and it was twilight by the time I had

returned the General's letter to my father.

It was a soft clear evening, and we loitered, speculating upon

the possible meanings of the violent and incoherent sentences which

I had just been reading. We had nearly a mile to walk before

reaching the road that passes the schloss in front, and by that

time the moon was shining brilliantly. At the drawbridge we met

Madame Perrodon and Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, who had come out,

without their bonnets, to enjoy the exquisite moonlight.

We heard their voices gabbling in animated dialogue as we

approached. We joined them at the drawbridge, and turned about to

admire with them the beautiful scene.

The glade through which we had just walked lay before us. At our

left the narrow road wound away under clumps of lordly trees, and

was lost to sight amid the thickening forest. At the right the same

road crosses the steep and picturesque bridge, near which stands a

ruined tower which once guarded that pass; and beyond the bridge an

abrupt eminence rises, covered with trees, and showing in the

shadows some grey ivy-clustered rocks.

Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing

like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here

and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the

moonlight.

No softer, sweeter scene could be imagined. The news I had just

heard made it melancholy; but nothing could disturb its character

of profound serenity, and the enchanted glory and vagueness of the

prospect.

My father, who enjoyed the picturesque, and I, stood looking in

silence over the expanse beneath us. The two good governesses,

standing a little way behind us, discoursed upon the scene, and

were eloquent upon the moon.

Madame Perrodon was fat, middle-aged, and romantic, and talked

and sighed poetically. Mademoiselle De Lafontaine—in right of her

father who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical,

and something of a mystic—now declared that when the moon shone

with a light so intense it was well known that it indicated a

special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a

state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on

lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvelous physical

influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that her

cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck

on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light

on the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him

by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his

countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.

"The moon, this night," she said, "is full of idyllic and

magnetic influence—and see, when you look behind you at the front

of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that

silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to

receive fairy guests."

There are indolent styles of the spirits in which, indisposed to

talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless

ears; and I gazed on, pleased with the tinkle of the ladies'

conversation.

"I have got into one of my moping moods tonight," said my

father, after a silence, and quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of

keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he said:

"'In truth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me: you say it

wearies you; But how I got it—came by it.'

"I forget the rest. But I feel as if some great misfortune were

hanging over us. I suppose the poor General's afflicted letter has

had something to do with it."

At this moment the unwonted sound of carriage wheels and many

hoofs upon the road, arrested our attention.

They seemed to be approaching from the high ground overlooking

the bridge, and very soon the equipage emerged from that point. Two

horsemen first crossed the bridge, then came a carriage drawn by

four horses, and two men rode behind.

It seemed to be the traveling carriage of a person of rank; and

we were all immediately absorbed in watching that very unusual

spectacle. It became, in a few moments, greatly more interesting,

for just as the carriage had passed the summit of the steep bridge,

one of the leaders, taking fright, communicated his panic to the

rest, and after a plunge or two, the whole team broke into a wild

gallop together, and dashing between the horsemen who rode in

front, came thundering along the road towards us with the speed of

a hurricane.

The excitement of the scene was made more painful by the clear,

long-drawn screams of a female voice from the carriage window.

We all advanced in curiosity and horror; me rather in silence,

the rest with various ejaculations of terror.

Our suspense did not last long. Just before you reach the castle

drawbridge, on the route they were coming, there stands by the

roadside a magnificent lime tree, on the other stands an ancient

stone cross, at sight of which the horses, now going at a pace that

was perfectly frightful, swerved so as to bring the wheel over the

projecting roots of the tree.

I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out,

and turned my head away; at the same moment I heard a cry from my

lady friends, who had gone on a little.

Curiosity opened my eyes, and I saw a scene of utter confusion.

Two of the horses were on the ground, the carriage lay upon its

side with two wheels in the air; the men were busy removing the

traces, and a lady with a commanding air and figure had got out,

and stood with clasped hands, raising the handkerchief that was in

them every now and then to her eyes.

Through the carriage door was now lifted a young lady, who

appeared to be lifeless. My dear old father was already beside the

elder lady, with his hat in his hand, evidently tendering his aid

and the resources of his schloss. The lady did not appear to hear

him, or to have eyes for anything but the slender girl who was

being placed against the slope of the bank.

I approached; the young lady was apparently stunned, but she was

certainly not dead. My father, who piqued himself on being

something of a physician, had just had his fingers on her wrist and

assured the lady, who declared herself her mother, that her pulse,

though faint and irregular, was undoubtedly still distinguishable.

The lady clasped her hands and looked upward, as if in a momentary

transport of gratitude; but immediately she broke out again in that

theatrical way which is, I believe, natural to some people.

She was what is called a fine looking woman for her time of

life, and must have been handsome; she was tall, but not thin, and

dressed in black velvet, and looked rather pale, but with a proud

and commanding countenance, though now agitated strangely.

"Who was ever being so born to calamity?" I heard her say, with

clasped hands, as I came up. "Here am I, on a journey of life and

death, in prosecuting which to lose an hour is possibly to lose

all. My child will not have recovered sufficiently to resume her

route for who can say how long. I must leave her: I cannot, dare

not, delay. How far on, sir, can you tell, is the nearest village?

I must leave her there; and shall not see my darling, or even hear

of her till my return, three months hence."

I plucked my father by the coat, and whispered earnestly in his

ear: "Oh! papa, pray ask her to let her stay with us—it would be so

delightful. Do, pray."

"If Madame will entrust her child to the care of my daughter,

and of her good gouvernante, Madame Perrodon, and permit her to

remain as our guest, under my charge, until her return, it will

confer a distinction and an obligation upon us, and we shall treat

her with all the care and devotion which so sacred a trust

deserves."

"I cannot do that, sir, it would be to task your kindness and

chivalry too cruelly," said the lady, distractedly.

"It would, on the contrary, be to confer on us a very great

kindness at the moment when we most need it. My daughter has just

been disappointed by a cruel misfortune, in a visit from which she

had long anticipated a great deal of happiness. If you confide this

young lady to our care it will be her best consolation. The nearest

village on your route is distant, and affords no such inn as you

could think of placing your daughter at; you cannot allow her to

continue her journey for any considerable distance without danger.

If, as you say, you cannot suspend your journey, you must part with

her tonight, and nowhere could you do so with more honest

assurances of care and tenderness than here."

There was something in this lady's air and appearance so

distinguished and even imposing, and in her manner so engaging, as

to impress one, quite apart from the dignity of her equipage, with

a conviction that she was a person of consequence.

By this time the carriage was replaced in its upright position,

and the horses, quite tractable, in the traces again.

The lady threw on her daughter a glance which I fancied was not

quite so affectionate as one might have anticipated from the

beginning of the scene; then she beckoned slightly to my father,

and withdrew two or three steps with him out of hearing; and talked

to him with a fixed and stern countenance, not at all like that

with which she had hitherto spoken.

I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive

the change, and also unspeakably curious to learn what it could be

that she was speaking, almost in his ear, with so much earnestness

and rapidity.

Two or three minutes at most I think she remained thus employed,

then she turned, and a few steps brought her to where her daughter

lay, supported by Madame Perrodon. She kneeled beside her for a

moment and whispered, as Madame supposed, a little benediction in

her ear; then hastily kissing her she stepped into her carriage,

the door was closed, the footmen in stately liveries jumped up

behind, the outriders spurred on, the postilions cracked their

whips, the horses plunged and broke suddenly into a furious canter

that threatened soon again to become a gallop, and the carriage

whirled away, followed at the same rapid pace by the two horsemen

in the rear.