Chapter 2

Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the
small events which, after the death of my parents, influenced my
life and made me unhappy. The grewsome forebodings of a Welsh
nurse, which chanced to be realized by an odd coincidence of
events, should not seem enough to change the nature of a child and
to direct the bent of his character in after years. The little
disappointments of schoolboy life, and the somewhat less childish
ones of an uneventful and undistinguished academic career, should
not have sufficed to turn me out at one-and-twenty years of age a
melancholic, listless idler. Some weakness of my own character may
have contributed to the result, but in a greater degree it was due
to my having a reputation for bad luck. However, I will not try to
analyze the causes of my state, for I should satisfy nobody, least
of all myself. Still less will I attempt to explain why I felt a
temporary revival of my spirits after my adventure in the garden.
It is certain that I was in love with the face I had seen, and that
I longed to see it again; that I gave up all hope of a second
visitation, grew more sad than ever, packed up my traps, and
finally went abroad. But in my dreams I went back to my home, and
it always appeared to me sunny and bright, as it had looked on that
summer’s morning after I had seen the woman by the fountain.

I went to Paris. I went farther, and wandered about Germany. I
tried to amuse myself, and I failed miserably. With the aimless
whims of an idle and useless man come all sorts of suggestions for
good resolutions. One day I made up my mind that I would go and
bury myself in a German university for a time, and live simply like
a poor student. I started with the intention of going to Leipzig,
determined to stay there until some event should direct my life or
change my humor, or make an end of me altogether. The express
train stopped at some station of which I did not know the name. It
was dusk on a winter’s afternoon, and I peered through the thick
glass from my seat. Suddenly another train came gliding in from
the opposite direction, and stopped alongside of ours. I looked at
the carriage which chanced to be abreast of mine, and idly read the
black letters painted on a white board swinging from the brass
handrail: BERLIN—COLOGNE—PARIS. Then I looked up at the window
above. I started violently, and the cold perspiration broke out
upon my forehead. In the dim light, not six feet from where I sat,
I saw the face of a woman, the face I loved, the straight, fine
features, the strange eyes, the wonderful mouth, the pale skin.
Her head-dress was a dark veil which seemed to be tied about her
head and passed over the shoulders under her chin. As I threw down
the window and knelt on the cushioned seat, leaning far out to get
a better view, a long whistle screamed through the station,
followed by a quick series of dull, clanking sounds; then there was
a slight jerk, and my train moved on. Luckily the window was
narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe
I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the
speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the
opposite direction from the thing I loved.

For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the
suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other
passengers, a large and gorgeous captain of the White Konigsberg
Cuirassiers, civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my
window, as the evening was cold. I did so, with an apology, and
relapsed into silence. The train ran swiftly on for a long time,
and it was already beginning to slacken speed before entering
another station, when I roused myself and made a sudden resolution.
As the carriage stopped before the brilliantly lighted platform, I
seized my belongings, saluted my fellow-passengers, and got out,
determined to take the first express back to Paris.

This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that
it did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face,
or about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain
to myself how the face, and the woman, could be traveling by a fast
train from Berlin to Paris on a winter’s afternoon, when both were
in my mind indelibly associated with the moonlight and the
fountains in my own English home. I certainly would not have
admitted that I had been mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what
I had seen a resemblance to my former vision which did not really
exist. There was not the slightest doubt in my mind, and I was
positively sure that I had again seen the face I loved. I did not
hesitate, and in a few hours I was on my way back to Paris. I
could not help reflecting on my ill luck. Wandering as I had been
for many months, it might as easily have chanced that I should be
traveling in the same train with that woman, instead of going the
other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a time.

I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal
hotels; I went to the theaters; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in
the morning, and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive
with me in the afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I
attended the services at the English Church. I hung about the
Louvre and Notre Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in
parading the Rue de Rivoli, in the neighborhood of Meurice’s
corner, where foreigners pass and repass from morning till night.
At last I received an invitation to a reception at the English
Embassy. I went, and I found what I had sought so long.

There she was, sitting by an old lady in gray satin and diamonds,
who had a wrinkled but kindly face and keen gray eyes that seemed
to take in everything they saw, with very little inclination to
give much in return. But I did not notice the chaperon. I saw
only the face that had haunted me for months, and in the excitement
of the moment I walked quickly toward the pair, forgetting such a
trifle as the necessity for an introduction.

She was far more beautiful than I had thought, but I never doubted
that it was she herself and no other. Vision or no vision before,
this was the reality, and I knew it. Twice her hair had been
covered, now at last I saw it, and the added beauty of its
magnificence glorified the whole woman. It was rich hair, fine and
abundant, golden, with deep ruddy tints in it like red bronze spun
fine. There was no ornament in it, not a rose, not a thread of
gold, and I felt that it needed nothing to enhance its splendor;
nothing but her pale face, her dark strange eyes, and her heavy
eyebrows. I could see that she was slender too, but strong withal,
as she sat there quietly gazing at the moving scene in the midst of
the brilliant lights and the hum of perpetual conversation.

I recollected the detail of introduction in time, and turned aside
to look for my host. I found him at last. I begged him to present
me to the two ladies, pointing them out to him at the same time.

“Yes—uh—by all means—uh,” replied his Excellency with a pleasant
smile. He evidently had no idea of my name, which was not to be
wondered at.

“I am Lord Cairngorm,” I observed.

“Oh—by all means,” answered the Ambassador with the same
hospitable smile. “Yes—uh—the fact is, I must try and find out
who they are; such lots of people, you know.”

“Oh, if you will present me, I will try and find out for you,” said
I, laughing.

“Ah, yes—so kind of you—come along,” said my host. We threaded
the crowd, and in a few minutes we stood before the two ladies.

“’Lowmintrduce L’d Cairngorm,” he said; then, adding quickly to me,
“Come and dine to-morrow, won’t you?” he glided away with his
pleasant smile and disappeared in the crowd.

I sat down beside the beautiful girl, conscious that the eyes of
the duenna were upon me.

“I think we have been very near meeting before,” I remarked, by way
of opening the conversation.

My companion turned her eyes full upon me with an air of inquiry.
She evidently did not recall my face, if she had ever seen me.

“Really—I cannot remember,” she observed, in a low and musical
voice. “When?”

“In the first place, you came down from Berlin by the express ten
days ago. I was going the other way, and our carriages stopped
opposite each other. I saw you at the window.”

“Yes—we came that way, but I do not remember—” She hesitated.

“Secondly,” I continued, “I was sitting alone in my garden last
summer—near the end of July—do you remember? You must have
wandered in there through the park; you came up to the house and
looked at me—”

“Was that you?” she asked, in evident surprise. Then she broke
into a laugh. “I told everybody I had seen a ghost; there had
never been any Cairngorms in the place since the memory of man. We
left the next day, and never heard that you had come there; indeed,
I did not know the castle belonged to you.”

“Where were you staying?” I asked.

“Where? Why, with my aunt, where I always stay. She is your
neighbor, since it IS you.”

“I—beg your pardon—but then—is your aunt Lady Bluebell? I did
not quite catch—”

“Don’t be afraid. She is amazingly deaf. Yes. She is the relict
of my beloved uncle, the sixteenth or seventeenth Baron Bluebell—I
forget exactly how many of them there have been. And I—do you
know who I am?” She laughed, well knowing that I did not.

“No,” I answered frankly. “I have not the least idea. I asked to
be introduced because I recognized you. Perhaps—perhaps you are a
Miss Bluebell?”

“Considering that you are a neighbor, I will tell you who I am,”
she answered. “No; I am of the tribe of Bluebells, but my name is
Lammas, and I have been given to understand that I was christened
Margaret. Being a floral family, they call me Daisy. A dreadful
American man once told me that my aunt was a Bluebell and that I
was a Harebell—with two l’s and an e—because my hair is so thick.
I warn you, so that you may avoid making such a bad pun.”

“Do I look like a man who makes puns?” I asked, being very
conscious of my melancholy face and sad looks.

Miss Lammas eyed me critically.

“No; you have a mournful temperament. I think I can trust you,”
she answered. “Do you think you could communicate to my aunt the
fact that you are a Cairngorm and a neighbor? I am sure she would
like to know.”

I leaned toward the old lady, inflating my lungs for a yell. But
Miss Lammas stopped me.

“That is not of the slightest use,” she remarked. “You can write
it on a bit of paper. She is utterly deaf.”

“I have a pencil,” I answered; “but I have no paper. Would my cuff
do, do you think?”

“Oh, yes!” replied Miss Lammas, with alacrity; “men often do that.”

I wrote on my cuff: “Miss Lammas wishes me to explain that I am
your neighbor, Cairngorm.” Then I held out my arm before the old
lady’s nose. She seemed perfectly accustomed to the proceeding,
put up her glasses, read the words, smiled, nodded, and addressed
me in the unearthly voice peculiar to people who hear nothing.

“I knew your grandfather very well,” she said. Then she smiled and
nodded to me again, and to her niece, and relapsed into silence.

“It is all right,” remarked Miss Lammas. “Aunt Bluebell knows she
is deaf, and does not say much, like the parrot. You see, she knew
your grandfather. How odd that we should be neighbors! Why have
we never met before?”

“If you had told me you knew my grandfather when you appeared in
the garden, I should not have been in the least surprised,” I
answered rather irrelevantly. “I really thought you were the ghost
of the old fountain. How in the world did you come there at that
hour?”

“We were a large party and we went out for a walk. Then we thought
we should like to see what your park was like in the moonlight, and
so we trespassed. I got separated from the rest, and came upon you
by accident, just as I was admiring the extremely ghostly look of
your house, and wondering whether anybody would ever come and live
there again. It looks like the castle of Macbeth, or a scene from
the opera. Do you know anybody here?”

“Hardly a soul! Do you?”

“No. Aunt Bluebell said it was our duty to come. It is easy for
her to go out; she does not bear the burden of the conversation.”

“I am sorry you find it a burden,” said I. “Shall I go away?”

Miss Lammas looked at me with a sudden gravity in her beautiful
eyes, and there was a sort of hesitation about the lines of her
full, soft mouth.

“No,” she said at last, quite simply, “don’t go away. We may like
each other, if you stay a little longer—and we ought to, because
we are neighbors in the country.”

I suppose I ought to have thought Miss Lammas a very odd girl.
There is, indeed, a sort of freemasonry between people who discover
that they live near each other and that they ought to have known
each other before. But there was a sort of unexpected frankness
and simplicity in the girl’s amusing manner which would have struck
anyone else as being singular, to say the least of it. To me,
however, it all seemed natural enough. I had dreamed of her face
too long not to be utterly happy when I met her at last and could
talk to her as much as I pleased. To me, the man of ill luck in
everything, the whole meeting seemed too good to be true. I felt
again that strange sensation of lightness which I had experienced
after I had seen her face in the garden. The great rooms seemed
brighter, life seemed worth living; my sluggish, melancholy blood
ran faster, and filled me with a new sense of strength. I said to
myself that without this woman I was but an imperfect being, but
that with her I could accomplish everything to which I should set
my hand. Like the great Doctor, when he thought he had cheated
Mephistopheles at last, I could have cried aloud to the fleeting
moment, Verweile doch, du bist so schon!

“Are you always gay?” I asked, suddenly. “How happy you must be!”

“The days would sometimes seem very long if I were gloomy,” she
answered, thoughtfully. “Yes, I think I find life very pleasant,
and I tell it so.”

“How can you ‘tell life’ anything?” I inquired. “If I could catch
my life and talk to it, I would abuse it prodigiously, I assure
you.”

“I dare say. You have a melancholy temper. You ought to live out-
of-doors, dig potatoes, make hay, shoot, hunt, tumble into ditches,
and come home muddy and hungry for dinner. It would be much better
for you than moping in your rook tower and hating everything.”

“It is rather lonely down there,” I murmured, apologetically,
feeling that Miss Lammas was quite right.

“Then marry, and quarrel with your wife,” she laughed. “Anything
is better than being alone.”

“I am a very peaceable person. I never quarrel with anybody. You
can try it. You will find it quite impossible.”

“Will you let me try?” she asked, still smiling.

“By all means—especially if it is to be only a preliminary
canter,” I answered, rashly.

“What do you mean?” she inquired, turning quickly upon me.

“Oh—nothing. You might try my paces with a view to quarreling in
the future. I cannot imagine how you are going to do it. You will
have to resort to immediate and direct abuse.”

“No. I will only say that if you do not like your life, it is your
own fault. How can a man of your age talk of being melancholy, or
of the hollowness of existence? Are you consumptive? Are you
subject to hereditary insanity? Are you deaf, like Aunt Bluebell?
Are you poor, like—lots of people? Have you been crossed in love?
Have you lost the world for a woman, or any particular woman for
the sake of the world? Are you feeble-minded, a cripple, an
outcast? Are you—repulsively ugly?” She laughed again. “Is
there any reason in the world why you should not enjoy all you have
got in life?”

“No. There is no reason whatever, except that I am dreadfully
unlucky, especially in small things.”

“Then try big things, just for a change,” suggested Miss Lammas.
“Try and get married, for instance, and see how it turns out.”

“If it turned out badly it would be rather serious.”

“Not half so serious as it is to abuse everything unreasonably. If
abuse is your particular talent, abuse something that ought to be
abused. Abuse the Conservatives—or the Liberals—it does not
matter which, since they are always abusing each other. Make
yourself felt by other people. You will like it, if they don’t.
It will make a man of you. Fill your mouth with pebbles, and howl
at the sea, if you cannot do anything else. It did Demosthenes no
end of good, you know. You will have the satisfaction of imitating
a great man.”

“Really, Miss Lammas, I think the list of innocent exercises you
propose—”

“Very well—if you don’t care for that sort of thing, care for some
other sort of thing. Care for something, or hate something. Don’t
be idle. Life is short, and though art may be long, plenty of
noise answers nearly as well.”

“I do care for something—I mean, somebody,” I said.

“A woman? Then marry her. Don’t hesitate.”

“I do not know whether she would marry me,” I replied. “I have
never asked her.”

“Then ask her at once,” answered Miss Lammas. “I shall die happy
if I feel I have persuaded a melancholy fellow creature to rouse
himself to action. Ask her, by all means, and see what she says.
If she does not accept you at once, she may take you the next time.
Meanwhile, you will have entered for the race. If you lose, there
are the ‘All-aged Trial Stakes,’ and the ‘Consolation Race.’”

“And plenty of selling races into the bargain. Shall I take you at
your word, Miss Lammas?”

“I hope you will,” she answered.

“Since you yourself advise me, I will. Miss Lammas, will you do me
the honor to marry me?”

For the first time in my life the blood rushed to my head and my
sight swam. I cannot tell why I said it. It would be useless to
try to explain the extraordinary fascination the girl exercised
over me, or the still more extraordinary feeling of intimacy with
her which had grown in me during that half hour. Lonely, sad,
unlucky as I had been all my life, I was certainly not timid, nor
even shy. But to propose to marry a woman after half an hour’s
acquaintance was a piece of madness of which I never believed
myself capable, and of which I should never be capable again, could
I be placed in the same situation. It was as though my whole being
had been changed in a moment by magic—by the white magic of her
nature brought into contact with mine. The blood sank back to my
heart, and a moment later I found myself staring at her with
anxious eyes. To my amazement she was as calm as ever, but her
beautiful mouth smiled, and there was a mischievous light in her
dark-brown eyes.

“Fairly caught,” she answered. “For an individual who pretends to
be listless and sad you are not lacking in humor. I had really not
the least idea what you were going to say. Wouldn’t it be
singularly awkward for you if I had said ‘Yes’? I never saw
anybody begin to practice so sharply what was preached to him—with
so very little loss of time!”

“You probably never met a man who had dreamed of you for seven
months before being introduced.”

“No, I never did,” she answered gayly. “It smacks of the romantic.
Perhaps you are a romantic character, after all. I should think
you were if I believed you. Very well; you have taken my advice,
entered for a Stranger’s Race and lost it. Try the All-aged Trial
Stakes. You have another cuff, and a pencil. Propose to Aunt
Bluebell; she would dance with astonishment, and she might recover
her hearing.”