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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Archibald Malmaison, by Julian Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Archibald Malmaison
+
+Author: Julian Hawthorne
+
+Posting Date: October 8, 2012 [EBook #7344]
+Release Date: January, 2005
+First Posted: April 17, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARCHIBALD MALMAISON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Curtis Weyant, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Archibald Malmaison
+
+by Julian Hawthorne
+
+Author of "Garth," "Sebastian Strome," "Dust," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+
+When I was a child, I used to hope my fairy-stories were true. Since
+reaching years of discretion, I have preferred acknowledged fiction. This
+inconsistency, however, is probably rather apparent than real. Experience
+has taught me that the greater the fairy-story the less the truth; and
+contrariwise, that the greater the truth the less the fairy-story. In
+other words, the artistic graces of romance are irreconcilable with the
+crude straightforwardness of fact. The idealism of childhood, believing
+that all that is most beautiful must on that very account be most true,
+clamors accordingly for truth. The knowledge of maturity, which has
+discovered that nothing that is true (in the sense of being existent) can
+be beautiful, deprecates truth beyond everything. What happens, we find,
+is never what ought to happen; nor does it happen in the right way or
+season. In palliation of this hardship, the sublime irony of fate grants
+us our imagination, wherewith we create little pet worlds of poetry and
+romance, in which everything is arranged in neat harmonies and surprises,
+to gratify the scope of our little vision. The actual world, the real
+universe, may, indeed, be picturesque and perfect beyond the grandest of
+our imaginative miniatures; but since the former can be revealed to us
+only in comparatively infinitesimal portions, the miniatures still have
+the best of it.
+
+To preface a story with the information that it is true, is not, therefore,
+the way to recommend it. Your hearer's life, and those of his friends, are
+enough true stories for him; what he wants of you is merciful fiction.
+Destiny, to his apprehension, is always either vapid, or clumsy, or
+brutal; and he feels certain that, do your worst, you can never rival the
+brutality, the clumsiness, or the vapidity of destiny. If you are silly,
+he can at least laugh at you; if you are clumsy or brutal, he has his
+remedy; and meanwhile there is always the chance that you may turn out to
+be graceful and entertaining. But to bully him with facts is like asking
+him to live his life over again; and the civilized human being has yet to
+be found who would not rather die than do that.
+
+No; we are all spontaneously sure that no story-teller, though he were a
+Timon of Athens double distilled, can ever be so unsympathetic and
+unnatural as destiny, who tells the only story that never winds up. We
+cannot understand destiny; we never know to what lengths she may go: but
+the story-teller we know inside and out; he is only a possible ourself,
+and we defy him to do us any serious harm. I trust I am rendering my
+meaning clear, and that no one will suppose that in making this onslaught
+upon truth, I have anything else in view than truth as applied to what are
+called stories. With truth scientific, moral, religious, I am at present
+in nowise concerned. Only, I have no respect for the weakness that will
+outrage a promising bit of narrative for the sake of keeping to the facts.
+Imbecile! the facts are given you, like the block of marble or the
+elements of a landscape, as material for the construction of a work of
+art. Which would you rather be, a photographer or Michael Angelo? "_Non
+vero ma ben trovato_" should be your motto; and if you refuse to kill
+your heroine on the Saturday night because, forsooth, she really did,
+despite all dramatic propriety, survive till Monday morning--why, please
+yourself; but do not bring your inanities to me!
+
+I have now to reconcile this profession of faith with the incongruous fact
+that the following story is a true one. True it is, in whole and in part;
+furthermore, the events took place in the present century, and within a
+hundred miles of London. But let me observe, in the first place, that,
+although a true tale, it is nevertheless strange and interesting to an
+unusual degree; and, secondly, that this interest and strangeness mainly
+depend, not upon the succession of incidents, but upon the subjective
+condition--character it cannot be termed--of Archibald Malmaison himself.
+This being the case, it follows that the greater part of the objections
+above insisted upon fall to the ground. What goes on inside a man must
+needs be accepted as it is revealed to us: to invent psychological
+attributes does not lie within the province of a romancer. His skill and
+power are confined to so selecting and arranging the incidents as to
+provide his psychological data with the freest possible development. In
+the present case I might easily have devised a stage and a series of
+events for Malmaison, which would have brought his mysterious affection
+into somewhat more prominent and picturesque relief. But that affection is
+itself so absorbing a problem, that the fashion of its statement becomes
+of comparatively small import; and I may add that the setting furnished by
+nature happens on this occasion to answer all practical purposes tolerably
+well. Moreover, I am not altogether a free agent in the matter. The friend
+by whose permission I tell the tale is of opinion that no liberties ought
+to be taken with its form, any more than with what he is pleased to call
+its "physiological characteristics." The main significance of the
+narrative being, according to him, of a scientific or pathological kind,
+it would be hostile to scientific interests to depart from historical
+accuracy in its presentation. From the professional dictum of a man like
+Dr. Forbes Rollinson there can, of course, be no appeal, and if I am to
+write the account at all, it is but fair that in so doing I should respect
+the wishes of him who is the lawful proprietor of it. I have thought it
+but fair to myself, however, to begin by offering this explanation. I feel
+more or less hampered by the conditions enjoined upon me, and, besides, I
+do not agree with Dr. Rollinson's theory of the phenomena. In the present
+state of our knowledge, no theory on such subjects can pretend to be more
+than hypothetically correct; and my prejudices are opposed to what is
+known as the materialistic explanation of the universe. With, all respect
+for the validity of science within its proper sphere, I do not conceive
+that its judgments are entitled to paramount consideration when they
+attempt to settle the problems of psychology. There are mysteries which no
+process of inductive reasoning can reach.--The reader, however, will not
+be decoyed blindfold into accepting as final either the Doctor's view or
+mine; but, after possessing himself of the facts, will be left free to
+draw what conclusions he may please.
+
+As regards the matter of names, dates, and localities, Dr. Rollinson holds
+that they had better be given at full length; and here I am not disposed
+to differ from him. The system of blanks and initial letters was always
+distasteful to me; and to use fictitious names in a true story seems like
+taking away with one hand what you give with another. Besides, every one
+of the actors in the drama is now dead: Dr. Rollinson [1] himself being
+the only living person who is cognizant, directly, of all the
+circumstances, from beginning to end. In his capacity of physician, he was
+the intimate and trusted friend of the ill-fated Malmaison household
+during upward of twenty years, and he inherited this confidential position
+from his father. He has kindly placed at my disposal a number of his
+professional note-books and journals, and in various places I have
+incorporated with the narrative some of the information which they
+contain. At other times I have inserted minor details of conversation and
+incident, and have endeavored to throw over the whole as "fictitious" an
+air as was consistent with the conscientious observance of my compact with
+the Doctor. And now, without further preface, I will proceed to business.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+
+Archibald Malmaison was the second son of Sir Clarence Butt Malmaison, of
+Malmaison, Sussex. He had the odd distinction of being born on the 29th of
+February, 1800. His elder brother, Edward, born 1798, died before him, as
+will be hereinafter shown. There were no other brothers, but four girls
+appeared after Archibald, two of whom died in childhood of scarlet fever,
+while the other two grew up to be married. They have nothing to do with
+the story, and will not be mentioned again.
+
+The Malmaisons, as their name denotes, were of French descent--Huguenots.
+Like many other emigrants, they yielded, in the course of a generation or
+two, to a barbarous mispronunciation of their patronymic, which came to be
+spoken of as if spelt "Malmsey."
+
+How it happened that the chateau of the Empress Josephine was christened by
+the same name, I know not; at all events, the Sussex Malmaisons have prior
+claim to the title. The estate, which embraced between seven and eight
+hundred acres, lay in that portion of the county which borders upon the
+junction line of Kent and Surrey. Colonel Battledown, the Peninsular
+soldier, owned the adjoining estate in Kent; while the Surrey corner was
+occupied, at the epoch of this story, by the Honorable Richard
+Pennroyal--he whose father, Lord Epsom, is said to have won ninety
+thousand pounds from Fox in a single night's play. The three families had
+been on a friendly footing with each other ever since the early part of
+the reign of George III.
+
+Sir Clarence had been an ally of the father of the Honorable Richard in
+Parliament (they were both Whigs), and Colonel Battledown, though a Tory,
+was such capital company as not only to compensate for his political
+derelictions, but even to render them a matter for mutual
+congratulation--they so enlivened the conversation! In truth, I suppose
+the three gentlemen must have had many a boisterous discussion over their
+nightly three or four bottles apiece of claret, and after their hard day
+across country.
+
+The Honorable Richard, by the by, was by far the youngest of the three; at
+the time of Archibald's birth he was not much over twenty; but he had a
+cool, strong brain, and quite as much gravity as his seniors, over whom,
+in fact, he seems to have exercised a species of ascendency. Possibly he
+inherited something of his noble father's ability--that of playing quietly
+for big stakes when all the odds were in his favor. At all events, in the
+year 1801 he married Miss Jane Malmaison, the baronet's sister, who was
+fifteen years older than he, but who brought him fifty thousand pounds--a
+not unimportant consideration to him at that time.
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal has one claim upon our notice, and only one; seven years
+after her marriage, at the age of forty-two, she completely lost her
+memory, and became rather idiotic, and a few years later contrived to fall
+into an ornamental fish-pond, and drowned there before her attendants
+missed her. She was buried with much stateliness; but it is to be feared
+that few persons missed her even then. She left no children.
+
+Was poor old Jane the first member of the Malmaison line who had shown any
+special weakness or peculiarity in the upper story? There was a hoary
+tradition to the effect that the son or grandson of the first emigrant had
+made some compact or other with the Evil One, the terms of which were that
+he (the grandson) was to prolong his terrestrial existence for one hundred
+and forty years by the ingenious device of living only every alternate
+seven years, the intervening periods to be passed in a sort of
+hibernation. In return for this accommodation he was, of course, to make
+H.S.M. the usual acknowledgment!
+
+The final upshot of this bargain--as is usually the way in these cases--is
+not known. Did the worthy gentleman work his way into his third half
+century? And had he, by that time, acquired astuteness sufficient to cheat
+the other party to the contract of his due? History is silent; the only
+thing asserted with any appearance of confidence is that Sir Eustace de
+Malmaison possessed the power of vanishing at will from the eyes of men.
+Nay, he would seem to have bequeathed this useful accomplishment to
+certain of his descendants; for there is among the family documents a
+curious narrative, signed and witnessed, describing how a member of the
+family, in the time (I think) of the Second Pretender, did, being hard
+pressed by the minions of the German Prince, and pursued by them into the
+extreme eastern chamber of his house of Malmaison, suddenly and without
+warning render himself invisible, insomuch that nothing of him remained
+save his dagger, and the plume which he bore in his cap. This eastern
+chamber had, at the time, but one outlet, and that was into a room already
+guarded by the soldiery.
+
+The chronicle goes on to say that the disappearance was not final: the
+mysterious fugitive reappeared on the third day, in the same spot where he
+had vanished, but apparently rather the worse for wear. He was at first
+taken for a spirit, and all fled before him; but he, going hastily forward
+to the dining hall, and finding a great sirloin of beef set out upon the
+board, forthwith fell to, and, in a wondrous short time, devoured the
+whole thereof, drinking also a gallon and a half of the wine of Burgundy.
+This exploit restored the belief of the household in the material
+consistency of their master, and thereupon was much thanksgiving,
+feasting, and rejoicing. But the secret of the disappearance never was
+revealed.
+
+I give these musty old details for what they are worth; they may perhaps be
+construed as an indication that the race of Malmaison had some
+peculiarities of its own.
+
+As for Archibald, he was rather neglected than otherwise. He was a dull and
+stolid baby, neither crying nor crowing much: he would sit all day over a
+single toy, not playing with it, but holding it idly in his hands or
+between his knees. He could neither crawl, walk, nor talk till long after
+the usual time for such accomplishments. It seemed as if he had made up
+his mind to live according to his birthdays--that is, four times as slow
+as other people. The only things he did do well were eating and sleeping:
+he never appeared to be thoroughly awake, nor was his appetite ever
+entirely satisfied. As might be supposed, therefore, his body grew apace;
+and at seven years old (or one and three quarters, as the facetious
+Baronet would have it) he weighed twelve good pounds more than his brother
+Edward, who was two years his senior, though, to be sure, not a specially
+robust child.
+
+For the rest, poor Archibald seemed to be affectionate, in a dim,
+inarticulate way, though his sympathies were confined within somewhat
+narrow limits. He loved a certain brindled cat that he had more than
+anything else: next to her, his little baby sister; and oddly enough, he
+conceived a sort of dog-like admiration for the Honorable Richard
+Pennroyal--a compliment which that personage did nothing to deserve, and
+which he probably did not desire. He had also a distinct feeling for
+localities; he was never quite at his ease except in the nursery-room
+where he slept; and, on the other hand, he never failed to exhibit
+symptoms of distrust and aversion when he was carried into the East
+chamber--that in which his great-grandfather had effected his mysterious
+self-effacement. But the only thing that was certain to make him cry was
+to be brought into the company of little Kate Battledown, the colonel's
+only child, a year or two younger than Archibald, and universally admitted
+to be the prettiest and most graceful baby in the neighborhood. But
+Archibald, up to his seventh year, would do anything to get away from
+her--short of walking.
+
+In a word, he exhibited such symptoms of a deficient and perverted
+understanding as would have gained him--had he been of humbler
+birth--the descriptive title of "natural." Being a son of Sir Clarence
+Butt Malmaison, he was considered to be peculiar only. The old wives of
+the village maintained that he was the sort that could see elves, and
+that, if one but knew how, he might be induced to reveal valuable secrets,
+and to confer magic favors. But, looking the other way, he was to be
+dreaded as a possible (though involuntary) agent of evil; especially
+perilous was it, these venerable dames would affirm, to become the object
+of his affection or caresses--a dogma which received appalling
+confirmation in the fate of the brindled cat, who, after having been
+caught by the leg in a trap intended for a less respectable robber of
+hen-roosts, was finished by a bull-terrier, who took advantage of her
+embarrassed circumstances to pay off upon her a grudge of long standing.
+This tragedy occurred in January of the year 1807, and produced a
+noticeable effect upon Master Archibald Malmaison. He neither wept nor
+tore his hair, but took the far more serious course of losing his
+appetite.
+
+The most remarkable part of the story is yet to come. No one had told him
+that the cat was dead, and the cat, having adventurous propensities, had
+often been away from home for days at a time without leave or warning.
+Nevertheless, Archibald was immediately aware of her fate, and even seemed
+(judging from some expressions that escaped him) to have divined the
+manner of it. He then gave intimation of an earnest desire to view the
+remains; but in this he could not be gratified, for they had already been
+secretly interred in an obscure corner of the back garden. Will it be
+believed that the "peculiar" child hereupon got upon his fat legs, and,
+without either haste or hesitation, deliberately ambled out of the
+nursery, along the corridor, down the stairs, across the hall, through the
+door, and so round to the back garden and to the very identical spot where
+poor Tabby had been deposited!
+
+The fact is sufficiently well attested; I am not aware that it has ever
+been accounted for. The boy had never in his life walked so far before,
+although his limbs were perfectly developed and able for much longer
+pilgrimages. He did not resist being led away; but, as has been said, he
+neglected his bread and milk, and every few days returned to the back
+garden, and stood beside the grave in the cold, looking fixedly at it, but
+making no active demonstration whatever. This went on for about six weeks,
+and attracted a good deal of curiosity in the neighborhood. At length, in
+the latter part of February, Archibald had a sort of fit, apparently of an
+epileptic nature. On recovering from it, he called for a glass of milk,
+and drank it with avidity; he then fell asleep, and did not awake again
+for thirty-six hours.
+
+By this time he was a personage of more importance at Malmaison than he had
+ever yet been in his small life. The wise folk who stood around his crib
+hazarded various predictions as to the issue of his unnatural slumber.
+Some said he would lose what little wit he had; others, that he would
+become an acknowledged wizard; others again, that he would never wake up
+at all. In short, like other prophets, they foretold everything except
+that which was actually to happen; and they would have foretold that too,
+if they had thought of it in time.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Archibald awoke at length, and sat up in bed. He opened his mouth,
+apparently for the purpose of saying something, but his tongue refused to
+articulate any recognizable words. An irregular, disjointed sound made
+itself heard, like the vague outcry of an infant; and then, as if angry at
+his own failure, he set up a loud and indignant wail, muffled from time to
+time by the cramming of his fingers into his mouth.
+
+Whatever else was the matter with the child, it was evident that he was
+hungry--as, indeed, he well might be. Some bread and milk was brought to
+him, that being his favorite food; but to the general astonishment and
+dismay, he did not seem to know what it was, although he continued to
+exhibit every symptom of a ravenous and constantly augmenting appetite.
+They tried him with every imaginable viand, but in vain; they even put
+morsels into his mouth, but he had lost the power of mastication, and
+could not retain them. The more they labored, the greater became his
+exasperation, until at last there was such a hubbub and confusion on the
+score of Master Archibald as that hitherto rather insignificant little
+personage should have felt proud to occasion.
+
+Among the anxious and bewildered people who thronged the nursery at this
+juncture was a young woman who acted as wet-nurse to the latest born of
+the Malmaisons, a baby-girl three months old.
+
+She was a healthy and full-bodied peasant, and as she pressed forward to
+have her look at the now frantic Archibald, she held the nursing
+infant--the only serene and complacent member of the assemblage--to her
+open breast. Archibald caught sight of her, and immediately reached toward
+her, arms, mouth and all, accompanying the action by an outcry so eager,
+impatient, and gluttonous that it was capable of only one interpretation.
+An incredible interpretation, certainly, but that made no difference;
+there was nothing else to be done. Honest Maggie, giggling and rubicund,
+put aside her complacent nursling (who thereupon became anything but
+complacent) and took to her kind bosom this strapping and unreasonable
+young gentleman, who had already got many of his second teeth. That did
+not prevent him from making an unconscionably good supper, and thenceforth
+the only person likely to be disturbed by his new departure in
+gormandizing was Maggie herself. Everything being thus happily arranged,
+the household dispersed about its business, the Baronet declaring, with a
+great laugh, that he had always said Archie was but a babe in arms, and
+this proved it!
+
+Dr. Rollinson, however (the elder doctor, that is--father of the present
+[2] distinguished bearer of the name), had witnessed this scene with
+something more than ordinary wonder or amusement; it had puzzled, but also
+interested him extremely. He was less of a conservative than many of his
+profession; he kept his mind open, and was not disinclined to examine into
+odd theories, and even, perhaps, to originate a few such himself upon
+occasion. The question that now confronted him and challenged his
+ingenuity was, What was the matter with Archibald? Why had the boy
+suddenly gone back to the primitive source of nourishment, not from mere
+childish whim, but from actual ignorance--as it seemed--that nourishment
+was obtainable in any other way? An obvious reply would be that the boy
+had become wholly, idiotic; but the more Dr. Rollinson revolved this rough
+and ready explanation, the less satisfactory did he find it. He wisely
+decided to study the symptoms and weigh the evidence before committing
+himself one way or the other.
+
+The first result of his observations was to confirm his impression that
+Archibald was not idiotic. There was a certain sort of vacancy in the
+child's expression, but it was the vacancy of ignorance rather than of
+foolishness. And ignorant to a surprising degree he was. He had at no time
+been regarded as a boy of large attainments; but what he knew before his
+strange seizure was, to what he knew after it, as Bacon to a ploughman.
+Had he been newly born into the world, he could not have shown less
+acquaintance with it, so far as intellectual comprehension went; his
+father, mother, sister--all were alike strangers to him; he gazed at them
+with intent but unrecognizing eyes; he never looked up when his name was
+spoken, nor did he betray any sign of understanding the talk that went on
+around him. His own thoughts and wants were expressed by inarticulate
+sounds and by gestures; but the mystery of speech evidently interested
+him, and he studied the movements of the lips of those who spoke to him
+with a keen, grave scrutiny to them highly amusing--except in the case of
+his poor old Aunt Jane, who turned quite pale under his inquisition, and
+declared that he must be bewitched, for although he seemed to know
+nothing, yet he had the knowingest look of any child she ever saw. Herein
+Aunt Jane gave utterance to a fact that was beginning to be generally
+acknowledged. Whatever Archibald had lost, it was beyond dispute that he
+had somehow come into possession of a fund of native intelligence (the
+term "mother wit" seems inappropriate under the circumstances) to which he
+had heretofore been a stranger. He might have forgotten his own name, and
+the mother that bore him; but he had learned how to learn, and was for the
+first time in his life wide awake. This was very much like saying that he
+was a new boy in the old skin; and this, again, was little better than a
+euphemism for changeling. Was he a changeling after all? The sage old
+woman whom we have already quoted asserted confidently that he was, and
+that, however much he pretended to ignorance, he really knew vastly more
+than any plain human child did or ought to know. And as a warrant for this
+opinion they brought forward evidence that Master Archibald, having been
+left alone one day in the nursery, had been overheard humming to himself
+the words of a certain song--a thing, it was argued, which he could not
+have done had he known no words at all; and therefore he was a changeling.
+
+
+Dr. Rollinson happened to hear this argument, and thought it worth while to
+inquire further into the matter. Such testimony as he could collect went
+to confirm the truth of the story. Not only so, but the song itself, if
+the witnesses were to be believed, so far from being an ordinary childish
+ditty, was some matter of pretty maids and foaming wine-cups that Tom
+Moore might have written, and that gentlemen sometimes trolled out, an
+hour or two after dinner. Now this looked very black for Archibald.
+Further investigation, however, put a somewhat different face upon the
+affair. It transpired that the song had been often sung in Archibald's
+hearing, and before his fit, by the Honorable Richard, for whom, as has
+been said, the boy had taken a queer fancy.
+
+And, perhaps because affection is a good teacher, the boy had acquired the
+power of repeating some of the verses to himself, of course without
+understanding a syllable of them, and very likely without himself being
+conscious of what he was doing, he hummed them over, in short, exactly as
+a preoccupied parrot might do; and always at a certain time, namely, after
+he had been put to bed, and was staring up at the darkening ceiling
+previous to falling asleep. This, by itself, was nothing very remarkable;
+the puzzle was, how could he do it now? Out of all the wreck of his small
+memory, why was this song, the meaning of which he had never understood,
+the sole survivor? Was it that his affection for Mr. Pennroyal had kept it
+alive? So might a sentimentalist have concluded; but the Doctor was a man
+of sense. Was it that the boy was shamming? Impossible on all accounts.
+But then, what was it?
+
+The Doctor had by this time worked himself up to believe that the solution
+of this problem would help largely toward the clearing up of the whole
+mystery. So he took notes, and continued to observe and to consider.
+
+He found, in the first place, that the song-singing took place under
+exactly the same circumstances as before the fit, and at no other time or
+place.
+
+Hereupon, he devised experiments to discover whether Archibald was
+conscious that he was singing, or whether it was an act performed
+mechanically, while the mind was otherwise engaged. After the child was in
+bed, he quietly arranged a lamp so as to cast a circular space of light
+upon the ceiling above the bed, the rest of the room being left in shadow.
+Not a word of any song was heard that night; and the test was tried twice
+more during the week, with a like result. At another time he got the
+Honorable Richard to come into a room adjoining the nursery, and sing the
+song so that Archibald might hear it. Archibald heard it, but gave no sign
+of being affected thereby. He was then brought into Mr. Richard's
+presence; it was the first time they had met since the change. Now, if
+ever, was an opportunity for the imperishable quality of the affections to
+be vindicated. But no such vindication occurred. On the contrary, after
+having stared his uncle almost out of countenance for some minutes, he
+turned from him with a marked expression of disapproval, and could never
+afterward be induced voluntarily to go near him. The affection had become
+an antipathy.
+
+"No, madam; set your mind at rest," said the bluff Doctor to Lady Malmaison
+over a cup of tea that evening. "The child's no changeling; but he's
+changed, and changed for the better, too, by Gad! He can tell a bad egg
+from a good one now," continued the Doctor, with a significant chuckle,
+the significance of which, however, Lady Malmaison perhaps failed to
+perceive. But the fact was, the Honorable Richard Pennroyal had never been
+an especial favorite with Dr. Rollinson.
+
+The next day was a new excitement. Archibald had walked, and that, too, as
+well as the best-grown boy of seven that you would want to see.
+
+"Ay, and where did he walk to?" demanded the Doctor.
+
+It was explained that it was at the time for nursing him, and he was
+sitting in his little chair at one end of the nursery, when Maggie had
+entered at the other. As soon as he clapped eyes on her, he had set up his
+usual impatient outcries; but Maggie, instead of going directly to him,
+had stopped to exchange a few words with the head-nurse, unfastening the
+front of her dress the while, however, so that Master Archibald's
+impatience was carried to the point of intolerance by the glimpse thus
+afforded of the good things in store for him. And then, before you had
+time to think, he had got up from his chair, and trotted across the floor,
+bellowing all the time, and had tugged at Maggie's dress.
+
+"Bellowing all the time, eh?" said the Doctor.
+
+"And walking all the same like he was ten year old, sir: and it did give us
+all a turn; and if you please, sir, what do you say to _that_?"
+
+"What do I say to that?--why, that it's just what I should have
+expected--that's what I say!" replied Dr. Rollinson, who had apparently
+begun to divine some clew to the grand mystery. But he vouchsafed no
+explanations as yet.
+
+Archibald did not repeat the walking miracle, although, within the space of
+a few weeks only, he passed through the regular gradations of crawling,
+tottering, and toddling, to normal pedestrianism of the most active kind.
+His progress in other accomplishments was almost parallel with this. From
+inarticulate gabble he trained his tongue to definite speech; his
+vocabulary expanded with astonishing rapidity, and, contrary to his
+previous habit, he made incessant use of it. He was now as remarkable for
+loquacity as formerly for the opposite characteristic; and his keenness of
+observation and retentive memory were a theme of general admiration. In a
+word, he used his five senses to ten times better effect than had ever
+been expected of him in the old days; and no one who had not seen him for
+a year from the time of his fit would have recognized him as the same
+child. He was not only making up for lost time--he was incomparably
+outstripping his earlier self; he seemed to have emerged from a mental and
+physical cocoon--to have cast aside an incrustation of deterrent
+clumsiness, and to be hastening onward with the airy case and accuracy of
+perfect self-possession. At the end of a year he was to all intents and
+purposes ten years old; and what was most remarkable about this swift
+advance lay in the fact that a year had seen the whole of it. Though he
+had been eight years in the world, the first seven had furnished none of
+the mental or moral material for the last: it stood alone and
+disconnectedly. Of those seven years it is certain that he retained not
+the smallest recollection; they were to him as if they had never been. The
+only thing they did provide him with was a well-fed and sound body; in
+other respects Archibald was positively new. He had to make the
+acquaintance of his family and friends over again; but it was done with
+modifications. In other cases besides that of his uncle, it was observed
+that he felt antipathies where formerly he loved, and _vice versa_.
+
+A minor instance, but interesting as must be all evidence in a case so
+strange as this, is that of the brindled cat that was buried in the
+garden. Archibald was brought to the grave, which he had so pathetically
+haunted before his metamorphosis, not many weeks after the metamorphosis
+occurred; and every means was used to revive in him some recollection of
+the bereavement; they even went so far as to uncover poor pussy's
+remains.... Archibald was first unconscious and indifferent, then curious,
+finally disgusted. His feelings were not otherwise touched. All
+associations connected with this whilom pet of his, grief for whose loss
+was supposed to have been the impelling cause of the fit itself, were as
+utterly expunged from his mind as if they had never existed there.
+Moreover, aversion from all cats was from this time forth so marked in him
+as almost to amount to horror; while dogs, whose presence had been wont to
+fill him with dismay, were now his favorite companions. It was the same in
+other things; the boy formed independent opinions and prejudices in all
+the relations of life--independent, that is, of his past. His temper, too,
+was changed; no longer timid, appealing and docile, it was now determined,
+enterprising, and bold. It was manifest even thus early that here was a
+character fitted to make its way in the world.
+
+"No, I protest, Doctor, I can never believe it's the same child," said Lady
+Malmaison, with a sigh. "That noisy, self-willed boy is never my quiet,
+affectionate little Archie. And yesterday he beat his brother Edward, that
+is two years older than he. Heigho! Pray, dear Doctor, what is your
+opinion?"
+
+"My opinion, Lady Malmaison, is that women will never be content," answered
+the bluff old physician. "I can remember the time when you thought your
+quiet little Archie was a nincompoop--and quite right too. And now because
+a monstrous piece of good luck has made a Crichton of him, you begin to
+regret the nincompoop! It ain't logical;" and the Doctor took snuff.
+
+"But who ever heard of a child changing his whole nature all in a moment?"
+persisted Lady Malmaison.
+
+"Why, isn't all in a moment better than inch by inch? The thing is no such
+mighty matter as some folks try to make it out. The boy went to sleep as
+soon as he was born, and has but just waked up--that's my notion about it.
+So now, instead of starting, the way most of us do, at the point of
+helplessness, he begins life with a body full of seven years' pith, and
+faculties sharp set as a new watch. Till now he has but dreamed; now he's
+going to exist, with so much the more extra impetus. He don't recollect
+what he's been dreaming--why should he?"
+
+"But he did recollect some things, Doctor; that song.... And then, his
+walking across the room."
+
+"Purely physical--purely automatic," replied the Doctor, tapping his
+snuff-box, and pleased with Lady Malmaison's awe at the strange word. "If
+he had stopped to think what he was doing he couldn't have done it. The
+body, I tell you, grows under all circumstances--as much when you're
+asleep as when you're awake; and the body has a memory of its own,
+distinct from the mental memory. Have you never hummed a song when you
+were doing your embroidery, and thinking about--about Lady Snaffle's
+elopement with the captain?"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!"
+
+"Yes; and if I'd come in at the moment and asked you what you were singing,
+could you have told me? Of course you couldn't! You could have told me
+all about the elopement. Well, then, that's clear now, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes," said Lady Malmaison, meaning, it must be supposed, "as clear as
+mud." Dr. Rollinson chuckled to himself, and they continued their game of
+piquet.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Possibly the reader, though, understanding the force of the Doctor's
+illustration better than good stupid Lady Malmaison could do, is still of
+opinion that that eminent practitioner's exposition of the real nucleus of
+the mystery might have been more explicit. It is all very well to say that
+the boy was asleep for seven years and then woke up; but what does such a
+statement mean? Are such prolonged slumbers an ordinary occurrence? And if
+so, might not the slumberer, after a longer or shorter interval of
+wakefulness, fall asleep again? It is to be feared that the old physician
+was not quite so well satisfied in his secret mind as he pretended to be,
+and that his learned dissertation upon automatic action was little better
+than a device to avoid being pressed upon the real point at issue. But it
+is always a delicate matter to fathom the depth of a medical man's
+sagaciousness.
+
+Mention has already been made of little Kate Battledown, the effect of
+whose society on Archibald had been so strangely ungenial. A year or two
+after his "awakening" the little maiden was again thrown in his way, and
+this time with very different results. There is extant among the family
+papers a letter containing a very pretty account of the relations which
+were soon established between these small personages. They seem to have
+taken to one another at once, and exercised over each other a mutual
+fascination. Archibald, keen and domineering with his brother and
+sisters, and, so far as his power went, with everybody else--was as sweet
+as milk to his childish enchantress; and no doubt his manners, if not his
+general character, greatly benefited by her companionship. There is a
+picture of the two children painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence and now hanging
+in the present Dr. Rollinson's parlor (where, doubtless, thousands of his
+patients have beheld it, ignorant of its history), which is perhaps as
+beautiful an example of English youth and maidenhood at eleven and nine
+years of age as could be found in the three kingdoms. The boy, black-eyed
+and black-haired, seems to step forward daringly, with his glance fixed
+defiantly upon the spectator; but his left hand, extended behind him,
+clasps that of little Kate with a protecting gesture; and her great brown
+eyes rest on his face, with a look half of apprehension, half of admiring
+confidence. There is a second portrait of her, taken ten years later; but
+of Archibald no other authentic likeness exists. Report affirms, however,
+that in 1823 and thereabout he was esteemed one of the handsomest young
+fellows of his day.
+
+The devotion of the two to each other grew with their growth. She, even at
+that early age, must have given occasional foretastes of the wayward,
+impulsive, and yet calculating character that was developed in her later
+life; but there can be little doubt that she felt a genuine attachment to
+Archibald; and he laid himself at her feet with a chivalric
+single-heartedness more characteristic of the fifteenth century than of
+the early nineteenth. Indeed, his jealous guardianship of her excited not
+a little amusement among his seniors; and it is related that in his
+twelfth year he actually commissioned Colonel Battledown to carry a formal
+"message" on his behalf to the Honorable Richard Pennroyal; the latter's
+offence consisting in his having taken Miss Battledown on his knee and
+kissed her. The matter was, however, happily arranged on the Hon.
+gentleman's expressing his regret for his indiscretion, and the Colonel
+and Sir Clarence becoming answerable for his good behavior in future. But
+the children's preference for each other now began to suggest other
+thoughts than those of mere passing entertainment to the paternal minds.
+There seemed to be no good reason why they should not ultimately make a
+match of it. It was true that Kate might well expect to find a more
+brilliant mate than the second son of a baronet; but, personal feeling and
+the friendship of the families aside, she might do much worse than with
+Archibald. The second son of Sir Clarence stood a fair chance of hereafter
+making a favorable entry into politics; and as for fortune, his aunt on
+the mother's side, a Miss Tremont, of Cornwall, an old maid without nearer
+relatives than her nephew, was in a fair way to bequeath him seventy
+thousand pounds. And furthermore (this was an aspect of the case which
+Colonel Battledown probably kept to himself), it was not beyond the bounds
+of possibility that Archibald might finally inherit Malmaison in spite of
+the accident of his birth. Edward Malmaison had always been a delicate
+child, and years were not making him stronger. He was very studious, and
+disinclined to those active exercises in which his brother was already
+beginning to excel: his eyes were weak and his cheeks pale; and in short,
+unless his constitution should presently undergo a favorable change, the
+chances were fairly against his surviving Archibald, to say the least of
+it. "Archie thrashed him at fisticuffs," said the old man of war to
+himself, "and why shouldn't he get the better of him in other ways as
+well? Of course we wish no harm to happen to poor Edward, who is a good
+little snipe enough; but one must conduct one's campaign to an eye to what
+may happen, as well as to what is."
+
+So this matrimonial arrangement, without being definitely resolved upon
+(except possibly in the hearts of the two young persons principally
+concerned), was allowed to remain in a state of favorable suspense. Kate
+and Archibald saw one another as much as was good for them--although, by
+way of keeping up the chivalric conditions, they used to pretend that all
+manner of portentous obstacles intervened between them and the
+consummation of their desires; and exhausted their ingenuity in the
+devising of secret meetings, of elopements across the garden wall, and of
+heart-rending separations, when imaginary heartless parents tore them
+ruthlessly from one another's arms. In a letter written by Sir Clarence to
+Dr. Rollinson, under date December 27th, 1811, the jolly Baronet says:
+"Our Xmas festivities were for a time interupted by another Romantic
+Event. Catherine, onely daughter of Colonel Battledown eloped with Mr.
+Archibald Malmaison of Malmaison. The Fugitives escaped by the pantry
+dore, and before they could be overtaken, had been maid man and wife by
+the under Gardner in the tool house in the corner of the yard. An
+application will be made to Parlement to dissolve the marriage untill the
+parties are out of the Nursrie." By this it may appear that Sir Clarence
+had even more humor than orthography.
+
+It was a few weeks after this event that poor old Aunt Jane left the world
+by way of the ornamental fish-pond. The pond in question lay on the
+boundary-line between the Malmaison estate and that of the Pennroyals; and
+the ornamentation consisted of two flights of steps leading down to the
+water, and of half a dozen willows whose twisted trunks bent over the
+surface. Although of no great area, this pond was startlingly deep, and
+the bottom, when you got to it, was of the softest and most unfathomable
+mud. Had not Aunt Jane been seen just as she was sinking for the third
+time, therefore, the chances are that she would never have been seen till
+doomsday; there was room, and to spare, for all the Malmaison line in the
+slimy depths of that pool. After the catastrophe, Mr. Pennroyal caused a
+handsome iron railing to be erected round the scene of it. This act caused
+it to be said that he might have done it before. Did he expect his future
+wives to go the road of the first one? And was it not criminal negligence
+in him to have suffered her to escape from her attendants? How could such
+a thing have happened? Did Mr. Pennroyal consider that people might say
+that the death of his wife was no loss to him, but the contrary? because
+that fifty thousand pounds of hers, of which, during her lifetime, he
+could touch only the interest, became, at her decease, his absolute
+property, to do with as he liked. Under such circumstances, a gentleman
+careful of his reputation should have guarded her as the apple of his eye.
+It was certainly very odd that a poor frail crazy creature should have
+been able to elude all pursuit, and then have gone straight to the
+pool--in midwinter, too--and deliberately jumped in. And there she might
+have lain, and no one the wiser, had not young Archibald Malmaison
+happened to see her, and given the alarm. If he had been a few minutes
+earlier, who can tell but he might have seen something--that nobody
+suspected!
+
+All this random talk proved nothing more than that the Honorable Mr.
+Pennroyal was not a favorite with his neighbors; and that was a fact of
+which no proof was needed. Some men, who are good fellows enough at bottom
+and even capable of inspiring genuine attachment in particular cases,
+never become generally popular. When Mr. Pennroyal was accused of
+stinginess, it was not considered that he had a great many liabilities to
+meet, and perhaps some big debts to pay off. When it was said that he was
+unsocial and cynical, it was forgotten that these very remarks were enough
+to make him so. And when he was blamed for neglecting his wife, and
+profiting by her demise--well, now, how is a gentleman to pay attentions
+to an idiot, or to be inconsolable when Providence gives him fifty
+thousand down in exchange for her? Besides, he gave her an imposing
+funeral, and put himself and all his household into strict mourning. As
+for the iron railing, it might be looked upon as a sort of monument to the
+departed, in which practical usefulness and a becoming sentiment were
+ingeniously combined.
+
+The incident had its effect upon Archibald--in rather a curious fashion. He
+was, as has been intimated, the one to give the alarm. He had been passing
+that way, it seemed, and had caught sight of a struggling something in the
+water; and his shouts had speedily drawn the gamekeeper and a couple of
+villagers to the spot. The boy had watched the recapture of the lifeless
+body in solemn silence, a red flush of color in either cheek. He had been
+rather fond of Aunt Jane after her insanity became confirmed, and he was
+the only human being whom the poor woman had seemed to recognize, and in
+whose company she felt some dull gleams of pleasure. He now shed no tears,
+seeming more angry than grieved, and continued to maintain a marked
+taciturnity for several days; and, concerning the catastrophe itself, he
+could never be induced to speak at all. The power of keeping his own
+counsel had always characterized him: in the present instance he was as
+gloomily reserved as though he had buried a secret of state in his breast.
+Toward the widower his manner became, from hostile, almost insolent. It
+was a curious spectacle to see the lad, scarcely out of the nursery,
+either ignoring his tall relative, as if the latter were a caitiff
+unworthy the notice of a gentleman, or else staring him haughtily in the
+face, and staring him down, too! for it was remarked that the Honorable
+Richard exhibited an admirable forbearance, not to say meekness, toward
+his rude little kinsman. And yet, before this time, he had occasionally
+given the boy harsh words and looks.... It must have been that his
+bereavement had softened his heart.
+
+However, time went on, and by degrees the poignancy of the widower's grief
+was blunted, and Aunt Jane's name was seldom mentioned by any one; after
+all she had not done herself, or anybody connected with her, much credit.
+And other changes occurred: the stout old Colonel found it incumbent upon
+him to join Sir Arthur Wellesley in the Peninsula; and Kate began to take
+the lead in household affairs (her mother was a good deal of an invalid),
+and stayed more at home than she used to do, and consequently did not see
+so much of Archibald; she gave him to understand that it was more genteel
+for him to come and call on her, as Mr. Pennroyal and other gentlemen did.
+The young lady was already coming into her heritage of beauty, and
+possessed more than her share of maidenly dignity, considering that she
+was barely thirteen. And when, at that mention of Pennroyal, Archibald
+said:
+
+"Indeed, Kate, you must not class me with him, or with any man. Remember
+that we were married two Christmases ago--" she answered:
+
+"You foolish boy! that was not a real marriage: a real marriage is done in
+a church, by a parson, and I wear a white veil."
+
+"But ours was an elopement," objected Archibald, disturbed.
+
+"An elopement without a carriage-and-four and a blacksmith? What an idea!"
+
+
+"Do you mean to say you are not my wife, Kate?" demanded the boy, turning
+pale.
+
+"Neither yours nor anybody's, Mr. Archibald."
+
+"Kate!" he broke out passionately, the blood leaping to his face, "take
+care you never let yourself be any body else's wife than mine! And I don't
+see what difference a blacksmith or a veil makes. And if you do, they
+shall die! I know how to use a sword, and a pistol too!"
+
+"O Archie, how wicked you are! and how cruel to me, when you know that I
+can never love any man but you, though cruel fate may separate us for a
+season!" The young lady was quoting from "Evelina," as Archibald well
+knew, but they had got so much in the habit of applying the phraseology of
+that work to the requirements of their own private romance, that it came
+without their thinking of it.
+
+"But say that you will be my own at last!" cries Archibald, carrying on the
+scene in all seriousness.
+
+"Nay, my lord, 'tis ungenerous thus to press me--Oh, no, you must not do
+so, Archie; the book says that Lord Orville only kisses her hand--"
+
+"I am not Lord Orville, and I will kiss you where I like; and I don't care
+for the book when I feel as I do now! I only care for you."
+
+"Bravo, young gentleman! that's the way to talk to 'em!" cried Dr.
+Rollinson, who had overheard the whole of this conversation, and who now
+appeared with his broad figure, his gouty legs, and his gruff chuckle.
+"Books are very well for make-believe, but when it comes to downright
+earnest, use a tongue of your own--eh?" and he clapped the boy kindly on
+the shoulder. "Yes, yes, she'll marry you fast enough when she sees you
+making eyes at some other pretty girl! Don't tell me! there's plenty of
+'em, go where you will, and when you start on the grand tour, as you'll be
+doing one of these days, you'll see for yourself!" Such were the cynical
+blasphemies which this man was not ashamed to instil into the ear of his
+young friend; and then he led him away somewhere, still chuckling, and
+left Miss Battledown to digest her slight the best way she could. The
+Doctor fancied he knew a thing or two about the sex. If so, he was very
+knowing!
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Malmaison House was partly destroyed by fire a number of years ago, [3] and
+two years later the portion still standing was taken down to make way for
+the proposed branch of the London and South-Coast Railway. The branch is
+still unbuilt, but only some heaps of grass-grown rubbish remain to mark
+the site of the venerable edifice. But at the period of which I am now
+writing it was an imposing pile of gray-stone, standing on a slight
+elevation, with a sloping lawn in front, and many large trees surrounding
+it. The centre and the right wing were of Elizabethan date; the left wing
+was constructed by Sir Christopher Wren, or by some architect of his
+school, and, though outwardly corresponding with the rest of the building,
+was interiorly both more commodious and less massive. The walls of the old
+part were in some places over four feet in thickness, and even the
+partitions between the rooms were two feet of solid masonry. Many of the
+rooms were hung with tapestry; and in taking down the house several traces
+were discovered of secret passages hollowed out within the walls
+themselves, and communicating by means of sliding panels from room to
+room. The plan of the building comprised two floors and an attic; but the
+attic was not coextensive with the lower areas; and there was often a
+difference of level between the apartments on the latter floors of from
+one to four steps. An irregular corridor on the first floor, badly
+lighted, and in some places perfectly dark, extended from the centre into
+the right wing, affording entrance to the rooms front and back.
+
+At the end of the right wing was situated the east chamber, of which
+mention has already been made. Originally, the only access to it was by
+way of a larger chamber adjoining, which, again, could only be entered
+through the dark corridor. This was the condition of things at the time of
+the famous magic disappearance of Sir Charles Malmaison, in 1745. But, at
+the beginning of the present century, a door was cut through the outside
+wall, whence a covered flight of stone steps led down into an enclosed
+courtyard. The room was thus rendered independent, so to speak, of the
+rest of the house. The occupant might lock the door communicating with the
+adjoining chamber, and go and come by the other as he pleased. As for the
+courtyard, part of it had formerly been used as a stable, with stalls for
+three horses; these were now transferred to the other end of the mansion,
+though the stable, of course, remained; and it was necessary to go through
+the stable in order to get to the covered flight of steps.
+
+It may be remembered that Archibald, in what we may term his soporific
+period, had manifested a strong, although entirely irrational, repugnance
+to this east chamber. Perhaps he had been conscious of presences there
+which were imperceptible to normal and healthy senses! Be that as it may,
+he got bravely over his folly afterward, and in his twelfth year (his
+third, Sir Clarence would have called it) he permanently took up his
+quarters there, and would admit no "women" except as a special favor. In
+those days, when people were still, more or less, prone to superstition,
+it was not every boy who would have enjoyed the sensation of spending his
+nights in so isolated a situation; for the right wing was almost entirely
+unoccupied on this floor. But Archibald appears to have been singularly
+free from fear, whether of the natural or of the supernatural. He
+collected together all his boyish _penates_--his gun, his sword, his
+fishing-rods, and his riding-whips, and arranged them about the walls. He
+swept down the cobwebs from windows and ceiling; turned out of doors a lot
+of miscellaneous lumber that had insensibly collected there during the
+last half century; lugged in a few comfortable broad-bottomed chairs and
+stanch old tables; set up a bookshelf containing Walton's "Complete
+Angler," "Dialogues of Devils," "Arabian Nights," Miss Burney's "Evelina,"
+and other equally fashionable and ingenious works; kindled a great fire on
+the broad hearth; and, upon the whole, rendered the aspect of things more
+comfortable than would have been anticipated. The room itself was long,
+narrow, and comparatively low; the latticed windows were sunk several feet
+into the massive walls; lengths of brownish-green and yellow tapestry,
+none the fresher for its two centuries and more of existence, still
+protested against the modern heresy of wallpaper; and in a panel-frame
+over the fireplace was seen the portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, of the
+Jacobite baronet. It was a half-length, in officer's uniform; one hand
+holding the hilt of a sword against the breast, while the forefinger of
+the other hand pointed diagonally downward, as much as to say, "I vanished
+in that direction!" The fireplace, it should be noted, was built on the
+side of the room opposite to the windows; that is to say, in one of the
+partition walls. And what was on the other side of this partition? Not the
+large chamber opening into the corridor--that lay at right angles to the
+east chamber, along the southern front of the wing. Not the corridor
+either, though it ran for some distance parallel to the east chamber, and
+had a door on the east side. But this door led into a great dark closet,
+as big as an ordinary room, and used as a receptacle for rubbish. Was it
+the dark closet, then, that adjoined the east chamber on the other side of
+the partition? No, once more. Had a window been opened through the closet
+wall, it would have looked--not into Archibald's room, but--into a narrow
+blind court or well, entirely enclosed between four stone walls, and of no
+apparent use, save as a somewhat clumsy architectural expedient. There was
+no present way of getting into this well, or even of looking into it,
+unless one had been at the pains to mount on the roof of the house and
+peer down. As a matter of fact, its existence was only made known by the
+reports of an occasional workman engaged in renewing the tiles, or mending
+a decayed chimney. An accurate survey of the building would, of course,
+have revealed it at once; but nothing of the kind had been thought of
+within the memory of man. Such a survey would also have revealed what no
+one in the least suspected, but which was, nevertheless, a fact of
+startling significance--namely, that the blind court was, at least,
+fifteen feet shorter, and twenty-five feet narrower, _than it ought to
+have been_!
+
+Archibald was as far from suspecting it as anybody; indeed, he most likely
+never troubled his head about builders' plans in his life. But he thought
+a great deal of his great-grandfather's portrait; and since it was so
+placed as to be in view of the most comfortable chair before the fire, he
+spent many hours of every week gazing at it. What was Sir Charles pointing
+at with that left forefinger? And what meant that peculiarly intent and
+slightly frowning glance which the painted eyes forever bent upon his own?
+Archibald probably had a few of Mrs. Radcliffe's romances along with the
+other valuable books on his shelves, and he may have cherished a notion
+that a treasure, or an important secret of some sort, was concealed in the
+vicinity. Following down the direction of the pointing finger, he found
+that it intersected the floor at a spot about five feet to the right of
+the side of the fireplace. The floor of the chamber was of solid oak
+planking, blackened by age; and it appeared to be no less solid at this
+point than at any other. Nevertheless, he thought it would be good fun,
+and at all events would do no harm, to cut a hole there, and see what was
+underneath. Accordingly, he quietly procured a saw and a hammer and
+chisel, and one day, when the family were away from home, he locked
+himself into his room, and went to work. The job was not an easy one, the
+tough oak wood being almost enough to turn the edge of his chisel, and
+there being no purchase at all for the saw. After quarter of an hour's
+chipping and hammering, with very little result, he paused to rest. The
+board at which he had been working, and which met the wall at right
+angles, was very short, not more than eighteen inches long, indeed, being
+inserted merely to fill up the gap caused by a deficiency in length of the
+plank of which it was the continuation. Between the two adjoining ends was
+a crack of some width, and into that crack did Archibald idly stick his
+chisel. It seemed to him that the crack widened, so that he was able to
+press the blade of the chisel down to its thickest part. He now worked it
+eagerly backward and forward, and, to his delight, the crack rapidly
+widened still further; in fact, the short board was sliding back
+underneath the wainscot. A small oblong cavity was thus revealed, into
+which the young discoverer glowered with beating heart and vast
+anticipations.
+
+What he found could scarcely be said to do those anticipations justice; it
+was neither a casket of precious stones, nor a document establishing the
+family right of ownership of the whole county of Sussex. It was nothing
+more than a tarnished rod of silver, about nine inches in length, and
+twisted into an irregular sort of corkscrew shape. One end terminated in a
+broad flat button; the other in a blunted point. There was nothing else in
+the hole--nothing to show what the rod was meant for, or why it was so
+ingeniously hidden there. And yet, reflected Archibald, could it have been
+so hidden, and its place of concealment so mysteriously indicated, without
+any ulterior purpose whatever? It was incredible! Why, the whole portrait
+was evidently painted with no other object than that of indicating the
+rod's whereabouts. Either, then, there was or had been something else in
+the cavity in addition to the rod, or the rod was intended to be used in
+some way still unexplained. So much was beyond question.
+
+Thus cogitated Archibald--that is to say, thus he might have cogitated, for
+there is no direct evidence of what passed through his mind. And, in the
+first place, he made an exhaustive examination of the cavity, and
+convinced himself not only that there was nothing else except dust to be
+got out of it, but also that it opened into no other cavity which might
+prove more fruitful. His next step was to study the silver rod, in the
+hope that scrutiny or inspiration might suggest to him what it was good
+for. His pains were rewarded by finding on the flat head the nearly
+obliterated figures 3 and 5, inscribed one above the other, in the manner
+of a vulgar fraction, thus, 3/5; and by the conviction that the spiral
+conformation of the rod was not the result of accident, as he had at first
+supposed, but had been communicated to it intentionally, for some purpose
+unknown. These conclusions naturally stimulated his curiosity more than
+ever, but nothing came of it. The boy was a clever boy, but he was not a
+detective trained in this species of research, and the problem was beyond
+his ingenuity. He made every application of the figures 3 and 5 that
+imagination could suggest; he took them in feet, in inches, in yards; he
+added them together, and he subtracted one from the other: all in vain.
+The only thing he did not do was to take any one else into his confidence;
+he said not a word about the affair even to Kate; being resolved that if
+there were a mystery, it should be revealed, at least in the first
+instance, to no one else besides himself. At length, after several days
+spent in fruitless experiments and loss of temper, he returned the rod to
+its hiding-place, with the determination to give himself a rest for
+awhile, and see what time and accident would do for him. This plan, though
+undoubtedly prudent, seemed likely to effect no more than the others; and
+over a year passed away without the rod's being again disturbed. By
+degrees his thoughts ceased to dwell so persistently upon the unsolved
+puzzle, and other interests took possession of his mind. The tragedy of
+his aunt's death, his love for Kate, his studies, his prospects--a hundred
+things gave him occupation, until the silver rod was half forgotten.
+
+In the latter part of 1813, however, he accidentally made a rather
+remarkable discovery.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+He had for the first time been out hunting with his father and the
+neighboring country gentlemen in the autumn of this year, and it appears
+that on two occasions he had the brush awarded to him. At his request the
+heads of the two foxes were mounted for him, and he proposed to put them
+up on either side his fireplace.
+
+The wall, above and for a few inches to the right and left of the
+mantelpiece, was bare of tapestry; the first-named place being occupied by
+the portrait, while the sides were four feet up the oaken wainscot which
+surrounded the whole room behind the tapestry, and from thence to the
+ceiling, plaster. The mantelpiece and fireplace were of a dark slaty
+stone, and of brick, respectively.
+
+Archibald fixed upon what he considered the most effective positions for
+his heads--just above the level of the wainscot, and near enough to the
+mantelpiece not to be interfered with by the tapestry. He nailed up one of
+them on the left-hand side, the nails penetrating with just sufficient
+resistance in the firm plaster; and then, measuring carefully to the
+corresponding point on the right-hand side, he proceeded to affix the
+other head there. But the nail, on this occasion, could not be made to go
+in; and on his attempting to force it with a heavier stroke of the hammer,
+it bent beneath the blow, and the hammer came sharply into contact with
+the white surface of the wall, producing a clinking sound as from an
+impact on metal.
+
+A brief investigation now revealed the fact that a circular disk of iron,
+about three inches in diameter, and painted white to match the plaster,
+was here let into the wall. What could be the object of it? With a fresh
+nail the boy began to scratch off the paint from the surface of the disk,
+in order to determine whether it were actually iron, or some other metal;
+in so doing a small movable lid, like the screen of a keyhole, was pushed
+aside, disclosing a little round aperture underneath. Archibald pushed the
+nail into it, thereby informing himself that the hole went straight into
+the wall, for a distance greater than the length of the nail; but how much
+greater, and what was at the end of it, he could only conjecture.
+
+We must imagine him now standing upon a chair, with the nail in his hand,
+casting about in his mind for some means of probing this mysterious and
+unexpected hole to the bottom. At this juncture he happens to glance
+upward, and meets the intent regard of his pictured ancestor, who seems to
+have been silently watching him all this time, and only to be prevented by
+unavoidable circumstances from speaking out and telling him what to do
+next. And there is that constant forefinger pointing--at what? At the
+cavity in the floor, of course; but not of that alone; for if you observe,
+this same new-found hole in the wall is a third point in the straight line
+between the end of the forefinger and the hiding-place of the silver rod;
+furthermore, the hole is, as nearly as can be estimated without actual
+measurement, three feet distant from the forefinger, and five feet from
+the rod; the problem of three above and five below has solved itself in
+the twinkling of an eye, and it only remains to act accordingly!
+
+Archibald sprang to the floor in no small excitement; but the first thing
+he did was to see that both his doors were securely fastened. Then he
+advanced upon the mystery with heightened color and beating heart, his
+imagination revelling in the wildest forecasts of what might be in store;
+and anon turning him cold with sickening apprehension lest it should prove
+to be nothing after all! But no--something there must be, some buried
+secret, now to live once more for him, and for him only: the secret,
+whereof dim legends had come down through the obscurity of two hundred
+years; the secret, too, of old Sir Charles in the frame yonder, the man of
+magic repute. What could it be? Some talisman--some volume of the Black
+Art perhaps--which would enable him to vanish at will into thin air, and
+to travel with the speed of a wish from place to place--to become a
+veritable enchanter, endowed with all supernatural powers. With hands
+slightly tremulous from eagerness he pushed back the bit of plank and drew
+forth the silver rod; then mounted on the chair and applied it to the
+hole, which it fitted accurately. Before pushing it home he paused a
+moment.
+
+In all the stories he had read, the possessors of magic secrets had
+acquired the same, only in exchange for something supposed to be equally
+valuable, namely, their own souls. It was not to be expected that
+Archibald would be able to modify the terms of the bargain in his own
+case: was he, then, prepared to pay the price? Every human being,
+probably, is called upon to give a more or less direct answer to this
+question at some epoch of their lives: and were it not for curiosity and
+scepticism, and an unwillingness to profit by the experience of others,
+very likely that answer might be more often favorable to virtue than it
+actually is. Archibald did not hesitate long. Whether he decided to
+disbelieve in any danger; whether he resolved to brave it whatever it
+might be; or whether, having got thus far, he had not sufficient control
+over his inclinations to resist going further--at all events he drew in
+his breath, set his boyish lips, and drove the silver rod into the
+aperture with right good will.
+
+It turned slowly as it entered, the curve of its spiral evidently following
+the corresponding windings of the hole. Inward it twisted like a snake,
+until only some two inches still projected. As the searcher after
+forbidden mysteries continued to press, something seemed to give way
+within; and at the same instant an odd, shuffling sound caused him to
+glance sharply over his left shoulder.
+
+What was the matter with the mantelpiece? The whole of the right jamb
+seemed to have started forward nearly a foot, while the left jamb had
+retired by a corresponding distance into the wall; the hearth, with the
+fire burning upon it, remained meanwhile undisturbed. At first Archibald
+imagined that the mantelpiece was going to fall, perhaps bringing down the
+whole partition with it; but when he had got over the first shock of
+surprise sufficiently to make an examination, he found that the entire
+structure of massive gray-stone was swung upon a concealed pivot, round
+which it turned independently of the brickwork of the fireplace. The
+silver rod had released the spring by which the mechanism was held in
+check, and an unsuspected doorway was thus revealed, opening into the very
+substance of the apparently solid wall. On getting down from his chair he
+had no difficulty in pulling forward the jamb far enough to satisfy
+himself that there was a cavity of unknown extent behind. And from out of
+this cavity breathed a strange dry air, like the sigh of a mummy. As for
+the darkness in there, it was almost substantial as of the central chamber
+in the great pyramid.
+
+Archibald may well have had some misgivings, for he was only a boy, and
+this happened more than sixty years ago, when ghosts and goblins had not
+come to be considered such indefensible humbugs as they are now.
+Nevertheless, he was of a singularly intrepid temperament, and besides he
+had passed the turning point in this adventure a few minutes ago. Nothing,
+therefore, would have turned him back now. Come what might of it, he would
+see this business to an end.
+
+It was, however, impossible to see anything without a light; it would be
+necessary to fetch one of the rush candles from the table in the corridor.
+It was a matter of half a minute for the boy to go and return; then he
+edged himself through the opening, and was standing in a kind of vaulted
+tunnel, directly behind the fireplace, the warmth of which he could feel
+when he laid his hand on the bricks on that side. The tunnel, which
+extended along the interior of the wall toward the left, was about six
+feet in height by two and a half in width. Archibald could walk in it
+quite easily.
+
+But, in the first place, he scrutinized the mechanism of the revolving
+mantelpiece. It was an extremely ingenious and yet simple device, and so
+accurately fitted in all its parts that, after so many years, they still
+worked together almost as smoothly as when new. After Archibald had poured
+a little of his gun-oil into the joints of the hinges, and along the
+grooves, he found that heavy stone structure would open and close as
+noiselessly and easily as his own jaws. It could be opened from the inside
+by using the silver rod in a hole corresponding to that on the outside;
+and, having practised this opening and shutting until he was satisfied
+that he was thoroughly master of the process, he put the rod in his
+pocket, pulled the jamb gently together behind him, and, candle in hand,
+set forth along the tunnel.
+
+After walking ten paces, he came face-up against a wall lying at right
+angles to the direction in which he had been moving. Peering cautiously
+round the corner, he saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous
+door of dark wood, braced with iron, standing partly open, with a key in
+the keyhole, as if some one had just come out, and, in his haste, had
+forgotten to shut and lock the door behind him. Archibald now slowly
+opened it to its full extent; it creaked as it moved, and the draught of
+air made his candle flicker, and caused strange shadows to dance for a
+moment in the unexplored void beyond. In another breath Archibald had
+crossed the threshold and arrived at the goal of his pilgrimage.
+
+At first he could see very little; but there could be no doubt that he was
+in a room which seemed to be of large extent, and for the existence of
+which he could by no means account. The reader, who has been better
+informed, will already have assigned it its true place in that unexplained
+region mentioned some pages back, between the blind court and the east
+chamber. Groping his way cautiously about, Archibald presently discerned a
+burnished sconce affixed to the wall, in which having placed his candle,
+the light was reflected over the room, so that the objects it contained
+stood dimly forth. It was a room of fair extent and considerable height,
+and was, apparently, furnished in a style of quaint and sombre
+magnificence, such as no other apartment in Malmaison could show. The
+arched ceiling was supported by vast oaken beams; the floor was inlaid
+with polished marbles. The walls, instead of being hung with tapestry,
+were painted in distemper with life-size figure subjects, representing, as
+far as the boy could make out, some weird incantation scene. At one end of
+the room stood a heavy cabinet, the shelves of which were piled with gold
+and silver plate, richly chased, and evidently of great value. Here, in
+fact, seemed to have been deposited many of the precious heirlooms of the
+family, which had disappeared during the Jacobite rebellions, and were
+supposed to have been lost. The cabinet was made of ebony inlaid with
+ivory, as was also a broad round table in the centre of the room. In a
+niche opposite the cabinet gleamed a complete suit of sixteenth century
+armor; and so dry was the atmosphere of the apartment, that scarce a spot
+of rust appeared upon the polished surface, which, however, like every
+other object in the room, was overlaid with fine dust. A bed, with
+embroidered coverlet and heavy silken curtains, stood in a deep recess to
+the left of the cabinet. Upon the table lay a number of papers and
+parchments, some tied up in bundles, others lying about in disorder. One
+was spread open, with a pen thrown down upon it, and an antique ink-horn
+standing near; and upon a stand beside the bed was a gold-enamelled
+snuff-box, with its lid up, and containing, doubtless, the dusty remnant
+of some George II. rappee.
+
+At all these things Archibald gazed in thoughtful silence. This room had
+been left, at a moment's warning, generations ago; since then this strange
+dry air had been breathed by no human nostrils, these various objects had
+remained untouched and motionless; nothing but time had dwelt in the
+chamber; and yet what a change, subtle but mighty, had been wrought! Mere
+stillness--mere absence of life--was an appalling thing, the boy thought.
+And why had this secret been suffered to pass into oblivion? And why had
+fate selected him to discover it? And now, what use would he make of it?
+"At all events," said the boy to himself, "it has become my secret, and
+shall remain mine; and no fear but the occasion will come when I shall
+know what use to make of it." He felt that meanwhile it would give him
+power, security, wealth also if he should ever have occasion for it; and
+with a curious sentiment of pride he saw himself thus mystically
+designated as the true heir of Malmaison--the only one of his age and
+generation who had been permitted to stand on an equality with those
+historic and legendary ancestors, to whom the secret of this chamber had
+given the name and fame of wizards. Henceforth Archibald was as much a
+wizard as they.
+
+Or, might there after all be a power in necromancy that he yet dreamed not
+of? Was it possible that even now those old enchanters held their meetings
+here, and would question his right to force his way among them?
+
+As this thought passed through the boy's mind, he was moving slowly
+forward, his eyes glancing now here, now there, when all at once the roots
+of his hair were stirred with an emotion which, if not fear, was certainly
+far removed from tranquillity. From the darkest corner of the room he had
+seen a human figure silently and stealthily creeping toward him. Now, as
+he fixed his eyes upon it, it stopped, and seemed to return his stare. His
+senses did not deceive him; there it stood, distinctly outlined, though
+its features were indistinguishable by reason of the shadow that fell upon
+them. But what living thing--living with mortal life at least--could
+exist in a room that had been closed for sixty years?
+
+Now certainly this Archibald, who had not yet completed his fourteenth
+year, possessed a valiant soul. That all his flesh yearned for instant
+flight does not admit of a doubt; and had he fled, this record would never
+have been written. Fly, however, he would not, but would step forward
+rather, and be resolved what manner of goblin confronted him. Forward,
+therefore, he stepped; and behold, the goblin was but the reflection of
+himself in a tall mirror, which the obscurity and his own agitation had
+prevented him from discerning. The revulsion of feeling thus occasioned
+was so strong that for a moment all strength forsook the boy's knees; he
+stumbled and fell, and his forehead struck the corner of the ebony
+cabinet. He was on his feet again in a moment, but his forehead was
+bleeding, and he felt strangely giddy. The candle, too, was getting near
+its end; it was time to bring this first visit to a close. He took the
+candle from the sconce, passed out through the door, traversed the tunnel,
+and thrust the silver key into the keyhole. The stone door yielded before
+him; he dropped what was left of the candle, and slipped through the
+opening into broad daylight. The first object his dazzled eyes rested upon
+was the figure of Miss Kate Battledown. In returning from his visit to the
+corridor he must have forgotten to lock the room door after him. She was
+standing with her back toward him, looking out of the window, and was
+apparently making signs to some one outside.
+
+Noiselessly Archibald pushed the mantelpiece back into place; thanks to the
+oiling he had given the hinges, no sound betrayed the movement. The next
+moment Kate turned round, and seeing him, started and cried "Oh!"
+
+"Good-morning, Mistress Kate," said Archibald.
+
+"Archibald!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You were not here a moment ago!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Then how did you get here?"
+
+Archibald made a gesture toward the door leading to the covered stairway.
+
+"No--no!" said Kate; "it is locked, and the key is on this side." She had
+been coming toward him, but now stopped and regarded him with terror in
+her looks.
+
+"What is the matter, Kate?"
+
+"You are all over blood, Archibald! What has happened? Are you ... oh, what
+are you?" She was ready to believe him a ghost.
+
+"What am I?" repeated the boy, sluggishly. That odd giddiness was
+increasing, and he scarcely knew whether he were asleep or awake. Who was
+he, indeed? What had happened? Who was that young woman in front of him?
+What....
+
+"Archibald! Archie! Speak to me! Why do you look so strangely?"
+
+"Me not know oo!" said Archie, and began to cry.
+
+Mistress Kate turned pale, and began to back toward the door.
+
+"Me want my Kittie!" blubbered Archie.
+
+Kate stopped. "You want me?"
+
+"Me want my 'ittle Kittie--my 'ittle b'indled Kittie! Dey put my Kittie in
+de hole in de darden! Me want her to p'ay wiz!" And with this, and with
+the tears streaming down his cheeks, poor Archie toddled forward with the
+uncertain step and outstretched arms of a little child. But Kate had
+already gained the door, and was running screaming across the next room,
+and so down the long corridor.
+
+Poor Archie toddled after, his baby heart filled with mourning for the
+brindled cat that had been buried in the back garden seven years before.
+Seven years?--or was it only yesterday?
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+
+Miss Kate Battledown's screams, as she ran down the corridor, must speedily
+have summoned the household; and then the dreadful news was told, not
+losing anything of its horror, we may be sure, in the recital; and then
+appeared poor Archie in confirmation. The greatest confusion and
+bewilderment prevailed. No one comprehended anything. It was not known
+what had happened. What was this story about Archie's having suddenly
+appeared, where before there had been only empty air--just as his great
+grandfather, Sir Charles, had done before him? Kate, to whom we may pardon
+a little incorrectness or exaggeration under the circumstances, solemnly
+asseverated that she had been looking straight at the centre of the room,
+and that nobody was there; and that all at once "Archie grew together out
+of nothing!" Such is the version of her words given by Lady Malmaison in a
+letter to her sister, Miss Tremount, of Cornwall, soon after the
+occurrence. Miss Tremount, it may be remembered, had intimated years ago
+her intention of making Archibald her heir; and Lady Malmaison's letter is
+an amusing and rather ingenious attempt to convey the information about
+poor Archie, in such a way as not to frighten off this inheritance. Doctor
+Rollinson, she wrote, had seen dear Archie, and had said that what had
+happened was only what might have been expected; and that the dear child's
+health would certainly not suffer, but, on the contrary, be strengthened,
+and his life prolonged. For that there could be no doubt that poor Archie
+had been laboring under an almost unnatural excitement, or tension of the
+nerves, during the last few years, which had caused Lady Malmaison the
+greatest anxiety; and she was truly thankful, for her part, that things
+had come out no worse than they had. She could feel secure, now, that her
+darling Archie would live to be a quiet, good, sensible English gentleman,
+fitted to discharge efficiently, and conscientiously, an English
+gentleman's duties, whether it were to manage an estate, or--or in fact
+whatever it might be. And then came the little story about the mysterious
+apparition of Archie out of vacancy, which Lady Malmaison treated
+humorously; though in her own heart she was very much scared at it, and
+was moreover privately convinced that Archie was, and would remain, very
+little better than an idiot all his life long. Now, it is well known that
+English country gentlemen are never idiotic.
+
+What was the elder Dr. Rollinson's real opinion about Archie's relapse? The
+only direct evidence worth having on this point--his own--is unfortunately
+not forthcoming, and we are obliged to depend on such inaccurate or
+interested hearsay as has just been quoted above. It seems likely that he
+came to the conclusion that stupidity was the boy's normal condition and
+that his seven years of brilliance had been something essentially abnormal
+and temporary, and important only from a pathological point of view.
+Indeed, there was nothing in the transmuted Archibald's condition that was
+susceptible of being treated as a disease. He was as healthy as the
+average of boys of fourteen (if he were a boy of fourteen, and not a child
+of seven). He knew nothing, and had retained nothing, of his other life;
+he had to be taught his letters--and a terrible job that was, by all
+accounts; he occasionally expressed a desire to see his nurse Maggie--who,
+the charitable reader will rejoice to hear, had been honestly married
+since we last heard of her. He was greatly puzzled to find himself so much
+taller than when he last knew himself; and it was a long time before he
+could be induced to recognize his own reflection in the looking-glass.
+Needless to say that everything connected with the secret chamber and the
+silver rod was completely erased from his mind; and though he had been
+found with the rod in his hand, he could not tell what it was or where he
+got it.
+
+In this connection, however, I will mention something which, if it be true,
+throws a new and strange light upon his psychological condition. There is
+reason to believe that he visited the secret chamber in a somnambulistic
+state. The evidence on which this supposition is founded appears, at this
+distance of time, rather imperfect; but it is certain that a few weeks
+after the boy's entrance upon his unintelligent state, the silver rod was
+lost sight of; and it is almost certain that during the time of its
+disappearance it was lying in its hidden receptacle under the floor beside
+the mantelpiece. But in that case, who but Archibald could have put it
+there? and when could he have put it there save in his sleep? It is known
+that he was a somnambulist during his unenlightened period, though never
+in his alternate state; and if he, as a somnambulist, remembered the
+hiding-place of the rod, it follows that he must also have remembered the
+rod's use, and visited the secret chamber. Thus it would seem that only in
+the boy's waking hours was he oblivious and stupid; in his dreams he
+truly lived and was awake! Here, then, is a complication of absorbing
+interest, which I will leave for physicians and metaphysicians to fight
+out between themselves. For my part, I can only look on in respectful
+bewilderment.
+
+But we must leave Archibald for the present, and occupy our minds with the
+proceedings of the other personages of this drama. An era of disaster was
+in store for most of them. It is curious to note how the proverb that
+misfortunes never come single was illustrated in the case of these people.
+Fate seems to have launched its thunderbolts at them all at once, as if
+making up for lost time; or like a playwright, who clears his stage of all
+secondary and superfluous characters, and leaves a free field wherein the
+two or three principal people may meet and work out their destiny
+unimpeded.
+
+Colonel Battledown fought under Wellington against Soult at Orthez; and in
+a charge of the French cavalry the gallant officer and genial gentleman
+was cut in the head by a sabre-stroke and ridden down; and when picked up
+after the battle he was dead. He was buried on the spot; the practice of
+sending the corpses of heroes and others careering over the face of the
+earth, in search of a spot of loam worthy to receive them, was not at that
+time so fashionable as it has since become. But the news of his death came
+home, and put his friends in mourning, and made Mistress Kate the heiress
+of a great property at the age of fourteen. But she was older than her
+years, and was generally considered to be "just the sort of person to be
+an heiress," whatever that may be. I suppose she was exceedingly handsome,
+with a proper sense of her importance, and a capacity of keeping an eye
+upon what she considered her interests. At the same time many actions of
+hers indicate that she was occasionally liable to ungovernable impulses,
+and that her temper was fitful and wayward. Such a woman would make a
+capital heroine for a modern novel; she would stand a lot of analyzing.
+
+The tender relations which had subsisted between her and Archibald were
+perforce broken off. What can you do with a lover who suddenly ceases to
+have the most distant recollection of you, who does not believe you when
+you tell him your name, and whose only associations with that name date
+seven years back and are disagreeable? Nobody can blame Kate for giving
+Archibald up; she would have been more than human if she could have
+intrusted her heart to the keeping of a half-witted wizard, whose
+mysterious likeness to, or connection with, a charming young gentleman
+rendered him only the more undesirable. Poor Kate! If she gave her heart
+to Archibald, and then Archibald became somebody else, what shall we say
+became of her heart? Must it not have been irretrievably lost, and shall
+we be surprised if we hereafter detect in her a tendency to heartlessness?
+
+
+The next one to drop was Sir Clarence Butt Malmaison. The jolly baronet was
+never the same man after the relapse of his second son, whom he had grown
+to love more than his first-born, and to whose future he had looked
+forward with much ambitious anticipation. He used to sit for hours at a
+time sadly watching the child's sluggish gambols about the nursery floor;
+ever and anon trying to arouse in his darkened mind some sparks of the
+former brightness, and, when the effort failed, sighing heavily, sometimes
+with tears trickling down his ruddy old cheeks. If Archibald had never
+passed through that period of deceptive promise, it is probable that he
+would have received a fair amount of affection as he was, and he would at
+all events not have committed the unpardonable offence of inspiring hopes
+which were not destined to be fulfilled. Sir Clarence felt like the man in
+the fairy tale who received from the fairy a purse of gold, but on opening
+the purse to handle the money, found nothing in his grasp but a bunch of
+yellow autumn leaves. The heroic end of his friend the Colonel served to
+augment the baronet's depression of spirits; nor was his gloom lightened
+by the reflection that Kate's inheritance of the estate would now in no
+way advantage Archibald. So, what with one thing and another, it must be
+confessed that Sir Clarence ended by taking too much wine after dinner.
+And the more wine he drank, the less inclination did he feel to keep up
+his hardy outdoor habits of riding and shooting; and, consequently, the
+more moody and plethoric he became. At length he nearly quarrelled with
+Dr. Rollinson because the latter told him plainly that the bottle would be
+his coffin; and a few days later he did quarrel, and very violently too,
+with the Honorable Richard Pennroyal. This gentleman, it seems, had ridden
+over to Malmaison and stayed to dinner; and at dessert the conversation
+got round to the present melancholy condition of local affairs.
+
+"Everything's going to the dogs!" cried poor Sir Clarence, with an oath;
+"and no gentleman, by ---, ought to condescend to exist!"
+
+"Come, Malmaison," said Pennroyal, smiling and cracking filberts, "you're
+going too far. Things are not so bad. And there are compensations!"
+
+"Compensations? What compensations? What the devil do you mean?"
+
+"Ha, ha! Well, for instance, about the poor Colonel. Of course, we're all
+dooced sorry to lose the Colonel; fine old chap, and a good hand at
+piquet. But after all he had to go some time; and then what happens? The
+fair Miss Battledown becomes the richest heiress in the three counties."
+
+"Ay, and what's the compensation in that? What good does her being an
+heiress do me? Can my boy marry her? Answer me that!"
+
+"Well, I should fancy not; but somebody else can."
+
+"Somebody else? Who, I'd like to know?" bawled Sir Clarence. "Let me see
+the scoundrel who'll dare to marry Kate Battledown--let me see him!"
+
+"I hear you quite plainly, Malmaison; and I wouldn't exert myself so much
+if I were you--you know what the doctor said. As for Miss Battledown,
+surely she has a right to marry whom she pleases, hasn't she?"
+
+"No, she has not!" returned the baronet, getting angrier than ever. "She
+belongs to my Archibald; and if any scoundrel--"
+
+"Really, you are intolerable, Sir Clarence," interrupted Pennroyal, still
+smiling, but not a pleasant smile. "A man whose temper is faulty at the
+best of times should be more careful to avoid whatever tends to make it
+worse;" and as Pennroyal said this he glanced significantly at the
+decanter--of which, to do him justice, he was very sparing himself.
+
+"Pennroyal!" said the old baronet, drawing himself up with a good deal of
+dignity, "your father and I were friends before you were born, and you're
+my brother-in-law; but if you were not sitting at my table, I'd teach you
+better manners than to lecture your elders. I said I should like to see
+the scoundrel who would dare to marry Kate Battledown--and--and what is
+that to you?"
+
+"Well, it's just this," returned Pennroyal, quietly; "I'm going to marry
+her myself!"
+
+Sir Clarence started up from his chair with a tremendous oath--and sat down
+again. He was putting a terrible restraint upon himself. Not for his life
+would he outrage the guest who was beneath his roof. His face became dark
+red, and the veins on his forehead and in his neck stood out and throbbed
+visibly. His eyes were fixed staringly upon the impassable visage of the
+Honorable Richard, and he drew his breath with difficulty. There was a
+pause of some duration, broken only by this stertorous breathing, and by
+the deliberate cracking of the guest's filberts. At last, with a tragic
+effort of courtesy that was almost grotesque, the poor gentleman pushed
+the decanter toward his brother-in-law and deadly enemy, accompanying the
+act by a rattling sound in the throat, probably intended as an invitation
+to help himself. But the struggle was too severe. The next moment the
+baronet's eyes rolled wildly, a gasping noise broke from him, and he fell
+forward with his head on the table.
+
+Mr. Pennroyal promptly arose and rang the bell. "Send for the doctor at
+once," he said to the servant who appeared. "Sir Clarence has overdrunk
+himself, or overeaten himself, I fancy. And help me to put him on the sofa
+and loosen his neckcloth. There--very distressing. Apply the usual
+remedies, while I step up-stairs and speak to Lady Malmaison."
+
+The usual remedies availed little, and when Dr. Rollinson arrived, four
+hours afterward, it was already evident that even he could be of no use.
+Sir Clarence never fully regained consciousness, and two days later he
+ceased to breathe. There was an inquest, resulting in a verdict of death
+by apoplexy, and followed by a handsome funeral. The widow of the
+deceased, who was a lady of easily-stirred emotions and limited intellect,
+wept at short intervals during several weeks thereafter, and assured the
+Honorable Richard that she had no one in the world to depend on besides
+him. Archibald, who had moved about the house during this season of
+mourning with handsome vacant face and aimless steps, betrayed little
+grief at the family loss or comprehension of it; but whenever Pennroyal
+was in the way, he followed him round with a dog-like fondness in strange
+contrast with the vivid antipathy which he had manifested toward him in
+his other phase of being. As for Archibald's brother, now a pale and
+slender but dignified youth of nineteen, he assumed the title of Sir
+Edward, and the headship of the house, with a grave propriety of bearing
+that surprised those who had only looked upon him as a moping scholar.
+Undemonstratively, but surely, he gave evidence that he understood the
+responsibilities of his position, and that he knew how to make himself
+respected. He did not encourage his mother in her unrestrained dependence
+upon Pennroyal; and between the latter and him there appears to have
+arisen a coolness more or less marked. Certainly, Pennroyal was far from
+loving the ceremonious and punctilious young baronet, who would neither
+drink nor play cards. Toward Archibald, on the other hand, he exhibited a
+cynical and contemptuous sort of good-humor; often amusing himself by
+asking the poor dull-witted youth all sorts of questions about events
+which had occurred in his enlightened period, and concerning which, of
+course, Archibald was unfathomably ignorant. The Honorable Richard
+Pennroyal was not the first man who has failed to see whence his greatest
+danger was to be expected.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+
+That piece of news with which Mr. Pennroyal had killed Sir Clarence was no
+more than the truth. He was the betrothed husband of the beautiful
+heiress, Miss Battledown; and the three counties, on the whole, approved
+the match. It would consolidate two great contiguous estates, and add one
+considerable fortune to another. There was a rather wide discrepancy in
+ages, Pennroyal being about forty, while Miss Battledown was only in her
+nineteenth year; but that mattered little so that they agreed in other
+respects. Miss Battledown was generally believed to have very proper ideas
+as to her duties and responsibilities as an heiress. Since poor Archibald
+Malmaison lost his wits, she had received more than one offer which a
+young lady who was weak-minded enough to regard only personal attractions
+might have been tempted to accept; but she had needed no elder person to
+counsel her to refuse them. In fact, she had at one time allowed it to be
+inferred that she deprecated the idea of being married to any one; and
+this demonstrated a commendable maidenly reserve; but it was neither to be
+expected nor desired that she should adhere to such a resolution in the
+face of good reasons for changing it. And Mr. Pennroyal was an excellent
+reason. He had passed through the unsteady period of his life; he had
+lived down the vaguely discreditable reports which had once been
+circulated at his expense; he had shown himself a thrifty landlord; and
+the very fact of his being a widower invested him with a certain
+respectability not always appertaining to unmarried gentlemen of his age.
+Finally, he belonged to a noble and distinguished family, and though there
+was no likelihood of his acceding to the title, who was better qualified
+than he to illustrate the substantial virtues of an English country
+gentleman?
+
+We are without detailed records of the early progress of this charming love
+affair. The inference is that it proceeded upon orthodox and unexceptional
+lines. Mr. Pennroyal would make known to the widow of the late Colonel the
+aspirations of his heart, and would receive from her permission to address
+himself to the lady of his choice. After the lapse of a few weeks or
+months (as the case might be) of mutually complimentary interviews and
+correspondence, the swain would entreat the maid to name the day which was
+to make him the happiest of men. She would delay and hesitate for a
+becoming while; but at length, with a blush and a smile, would indicate a
+date too distant for the lover's impatience, yet as near as a respect for
+the _convenances_ of wealthy virginity could permit. And now, all
+preliminaries being settled, the preparations would go forward with
+liberality and despatch.
+
+It had been at first arranged that the wedding should be solemnized at the
+house of the bride; but, for some reason or other, this plan was
+subsequently changed, and Malmaison was fixed upon as the scene of the
+ceremony. The great dining-hall, which had more than once been put to
+similar uses in years gone by, was made ready for the occasion. It was a
+vast and stately apartment, sixty feet in length by forty in breadth, and
+its lofty ceiling was richly carved in oak; while around the walls were
+arranged suits of historic armor, and swords, pikes, and banners, the
+relics of ancestral valor. It was on the ground-floor of the most ancient
+part of the house, immediately below that suite of rooms of which the east
+chamber was one. It had not been used as a dining-hall since the old times
+when retainers fed at the same table with their lords; but family
+celebrations had been held there; and at the coming of age of the late Sir
+Clarence, in 1775, it had been the scene of a grand banquet to the
+neighboring nobility and gentry. The floor at the eastern end of the room
+was raised some eight inches above the level of the rest; and it was here
+that the bride and bridegroom were to stand. A very reverend dean was
+secured to pronounce the service; and there were to be eight bridesmaids
+and a best man; the latter being none other than poor beclouded Archibald
+himself.
+
+This choice created a good deal of surprise and comment. The fact appears
+to have been that the post of "best man" had, in the first instance, been
+offered to young Sir Edward Malmaison, who, however, declined it. His
+reason for so doing was, in the first place, disapproval of the match; he
+holding the opinion that the widower of his aunt might as well have
+refrained from a second nuptials, and that, at all events, he should have
+selected any one rather than her who was to have been the wife of
+Archibald. His second objection was a personal dislike to the Honorable
+Richard, and an indisposition to encourage his intimacy with the family.
+But Sir Edward could not so far oppose his mother's wishes as to forbid
+the marriage being celebrated at Malmaison; and being obliged to concede
+so much, he wisely deemed it most consistent with his dignity to adopt a
+manner as outwardly gracious as was compatible with self-respect.
+
+Accordingly, when Pennroyal--whether maliciously, or from honest good-will
+toward one who manifested an almost child-like attachment to
+himself--chose Sir Edward's brother in his default, Sir Edward offered no
+open opposition. If he remonstrated privately with Archibald, his
+arguments were void of effect, and would have been, besides, counteracted
+by Lady Malmaison's influence. It is needless to say that Archibald was
+immensely proud of the compliment (as he considered it), and took care to
+celebrate his distinction at all times and places, opportune or
+otherwise--seeming, indeed, to think and talk of little else. It is not
+probable that he fully comprehended the significance of the matter, as he
+was certainly far from perceiving its ironic aspect; nevertheless, his
+dull brain received more stimulus from the prospect than from any other
+thing that had befallen him, thereby furnishing sardonic humorists with
+the criticism, that if the Honorable Richard Pennroyal would keep on
+burying his wives, and choosing Archibald as best man for the new-comer,
+the youth might in time become approximately intellectual.
+
+The wedding-day was fixed for the 5th of March, 1821--a date which was long
+remembered in the neighborhood. Fortunately we have ample accounts of
+everything that occurred--the testimony of many eye-witnesses, which,
+through varying in some unimportant details (as is inevitable), agree
+nevertheless upon all essential points. I shall give the gist of the
+narrative as concisely as a proper attention to its more important phases
+will allow.
+
+Miss Kate Battledown, with her mother, came to Malmaison on the evening of
+the 4th, and spent the night, the ceremony being appointed at eleven the
+next forenoon. The young lady spent an hour or so, before going to bed, in
+conversation with Archibald, who, in his pleasurable excitement over the
+forthcoming event, was much more lively and conversable than usual. As
+they walked side by side up and down the great hall, at one end of which
+some workmen were still engaged in arranging the decorations for the
+morrow, they must have made a handsome picture. Kate was at this time a
+lithe and graceful figure, slightly above the medium height, and
+possessing a great deal of "style;" in fact, young as she was, she had
+been for some time regarded as a model of fashion and deportment by all
+the aspiring young women within a radius of twenty miles. She was dressed
+on this evening in a gown of some thin, white material, the frilled hem of
+which failed by at least six inches to reach the floor, thereby displaying
+a pair of arched feet and slender ankles, clothed in open-work silk
+stockings. The skirt of this gown began immediately beneath the arms, and
+every contour of the wearer's form could be traced through its
+close-fitting and diaphanous folds. Miss Battledown's arms were bare, save
+for the black silk netted mittens that she wore; her dark curling hair was
+gathered pyramidally on the top of her head, and fastened with a black
+ribbon; a black velvet band encircled her white throat, and there was a
+row of black bows down the front of her dress. Her forehead was narrow and
+compact, her large brown eyes were perhaps a trifle closer together than
+they should have been, her nose was delicate, her lips blunt-cornered and
+rather full than thin; the whole expression of her face spirited and
+commanding. As for Archibald, he was a handsome vacancy, so to speak; a
+fine physical man wasted for lack of a spiritual man to carry him about
+and use him. His regular, finely moulded face, with its healthy pallor and
+its black eyes and hair, always had a dim, pathetic look of having
+forgotten something. His figure, symmetrical and full of strength, moved
+itself awkwardly and unmeaningly, as though ignorant of its own
+capabilities, and rather encumbered than otherwise by their redundance.
+His smile, which drew his features into their handsomest attitude, was
+nevertheless rather silly, and seemed to last on after he himself had
+forgotten what he was smiling for. His hands--strong, well-formed hands of
+the slender and long-fingered type--hung helplessly at the end of his
+arms; or, if he attempted to use them, each finger appeared to have a
+different idea of what was to be done, and one and all fumbled drowsily
+and shiftlessly at their task. The young man wore the high-collared coat,
+short waistcoat, and clinging pantaloons of the period; and his black hair
+hung down on his shoulders in natural luxuriance of curls. Poor Archibald
+accepted meekly whatever was given him to put on; but he would not let his
+hair be cut, or even anointed with the incomparable oil of Macassar.
+
+"And so you are glad, Archie?" said Mistress Kate, continuing their talk.
+
+"Oh, glad! yes, glad!" replied Archie, nodding his head slowly and
+solemnly.
+
+"You don't regret me, then, at all?"
+
+"Oh, regret, no!" said Archie, shaking his head with the same sapience and
+gravity.
+
+"Why do you always repeat what a person says, without seeming to know what
+it is? There used to be a time, sir, when regret would have been far too
+mild a word for you. Have you forgotten all that? Have you forgotten Lord
+Orville and Evelina?"
+
+"Forgotten, yes; all forgotten!"
+
+"Come, now, I wish you to remember. You understand that I am to be married
+to Richard Pennroyal tomorrow--to Richard Pennroyal!"
+
+"Uncle Richard, dear Uncle Richard. I love Uncle Richard!"
+
+"Do you love no one beside him? don't you love me?"
+
+"Don't love you, oh, no!"
+
+"Archie, have you forgotten how we were married in the back garden, and how
+you used to say I was your little wife; and you wanted to fight a duel
+with Richard because he had taken me on his knee and kissed me?"
+
+"See how pretty!" exclaimed Archie, whose attention had been fixed during
+this speech upon two of the workmen who were unrolling between them a
+piece of crimson cloth appertaining to the hangings.
+
+"What a creature!" muttered Kate to herself. To have her romantic souvenirs
+ignored even by this simpleton vexed her a little. Perhaps, too, she had
+another reason for regretting her companion's witlessness. She could
+remember when she had cared for him--or for something called him--more
+than she cared now for the man she would wed to-morrow. Why was he not the
+same now as then? His face, his hands, his figure--these were the same, or
+rather they were handsomer and more manlike than formerly. Why could not
+the soul, or whatever may be that mysterious invisible motive-power in a
+man--why could it not have stuck to its fortress during these seven years
+past? Here were five feet eleven of well-sculptured living clay, that had
+been growing and improving for more than one and twenty years; and for an
+inhabitant, nothing but a soft foolish child, destitute of memory,
+intelligence, and passion. Such reflections may have passed through the
+mind of the young heiress; and then she may have thought, glancing at him,
+"If my Archibald were here, to-morrow might see another spectacle than
+that put down in the programme." She might have thought this; she did not
+and of course would not on any account have uttered such a sentiment
+aloud. But it would be unjust to her taste and sensibility to suppose
+that, apart from worldly and politic considerations, she should have
+really preferred a sharp-featured, thin-haired, close-fisted gentleman of
+forty to a conceivable hero of half that age, dowered with every grace and
+beauty, not to mention Miss Tremount's seventy thousand pounds. Is she to
+be blamed if she sighed with a passing regret at that hero's mysterious
+disappearance? Yes, he had disappeared, more mysteriously and more
+irrevocably than old Sir Charles seventy years ago. Where in the heavens
+or the earth or under the earth, indeed, was he? Did he still exist
+anywhere? Might she dream of ever meeting him again--that hero?...! Bah!
+what nonsense!
+
+"Pretty!" repeated Archie, who, in the subsidence of his other faculties,
+had retained an appreciation of color.
+
+"Poor boy--poor thing!" said Kate; "you lost a great deal when you lost
+your wits; between being a groomsman and a bridegroom there is a very wide
+difference. And you don't even care--perhaps that's your greatest loss of
+all--ha, ha! Come, Archie, it's time for little fellows like you to be
+asleep."
+
+"Kate--" began Archie; and paused.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Do you love anybody?"
+
+She met his look of dull yet earnest inquiry with a contemptuous smile at
+first, but afterward her smile died away and she answered soberly:
+
+"I did once."
+
+"I did once, too!" rejoined Archie, with a sort of sluggish eagerness.
+
+"You did--when?" demanded she, with the beginning of a heart-beat.
+
+"I think I did--once--when I was asleep."
+
+She laughed shortly and turned away. "Yes, sleep is the best thing for you,
+Archie; you had better sleep all the time now; it will be too late to wake
+up to-morrow. Good-night, Archie."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+
+Old Miss Tremount had come up from Cornwall for the occasion, accompanied
+by her poodle, her female toady, and her father confessor. The good lady
+had altered her will some years before, on hearing of her favorite
+nephew's changed condition, and it was feared she would leave her money to
+the Church of Rome, of which she was a member. But on receiving the
+announcement of her intended visit, Lady Malmaison had begun to entertain
+hopes that Sir Edward might succeed in so favorably impressing his aunt as
+to induce her to divert at least some portion of her thousands in his
+direction. But it is not likely that Miss Tremount had come to Malmaison
+with any such views; in fact, her reason for coming had little or no
+connection with the late baronet's family. It was not generally known
+that, between forty and fifty years previously, there had been tender
+passages between Colonel Battledown and this snuffy old maid, whose soul
+was now divided between her cards and her psalter. So it was, however;
+they were even betrothed to one another, though the betrothal was kept a
+secret, the Colonel then being a comparatively penniless young lieutenant,
+and as such by no means a desirable son-in-law from the parental point of
+view. An elopement was contemplated so soon as the young lady should be of
+age; and it would be difficult to explain the occasion of the trumpery
+quarrel between the lovers, which ended in the lady taunting the
+gentleman with caring only about her money, and resulted in the rupture of
+the engagement. Doubtless it might have been renewed; but at this
+juncture the lieutenant was ordered away on active service to the American
+Colonies, where he remained for some years. Later, he was stationed in
+India; and the next time he met his old love, in London, he was twenty
+years older than when she had last seen him, and a major, and with ribbons
+on his breast, and a wife on his arm. Miss Tremount never betrayed any
+grief or disappointment, except in so far as she remained single all her
+life, and latterly waxed religious and became a convert to the Jesuits.
+But when the Colonel was dead, and she heard that his daughter was about
+to be married, she resolved to make a journey to Malmaison; and who can
+tell whether in the bottom of her heart, hidden even from her father
+confessor, she may not have cherished a secret purpose of making Mistress
+Kate her heir? It is certain at all events that she brought her will with
+her in her trunk.
+
+This romance, I say, was known to but few, and as Miss Battledown did not
+happen to be among the number, she was less cordial in her behavior to the
+old lady than she might otherwise have been. Kate was not constitutionally
+a lover of old women, and not herself old enough to be aware that no truly
+charitable person should ever be inattentive to seventy thousand pounds,
+no matter to how unprepossessing a human being the money might be
+attached. Her manner, therefore, was tolerant and patronizing rather than
+flattering; and honest Lady Malmaison, though she liked Kate very much,
+and would have been delighted to see her inherit seventy thousand pounds
+from the Shah of Persia or the President of the United States, was not
+quite so unnatural an idiot as to recommend to the young lady a more
+conciliating behavior. As for Miss Tremount, she preserved her composure
+and kept her counsel perfectly, and never referred to her will even in her
+most unguarded moments. She was courteous and complimentary to Sir Edward,
+indulgent to Archibald, kind and sisterly to Lady Malmaison, and quietly
+observant of everything and everybody. On the wedding morning she
+criticised and admired the bride's toilet with a taste and appreciation
+that caused the proud young beauty's eyes to sparkle; and just before the
+party entered the hall, she pressed Kate's hand affectionately, and said,
+in her gentlest tones, that she hoped she would be happy. "I have always
+looked upon your mother as one of the happiest of women, my dear," she
+added. "May your fortune equal hers!" This good-natured benediction caused
+Lady Malmaison a good deal of anxiety; Sir Edward smiled aside at what he
+fancied was a subtle stroke of irony; and Kate herself became thoughtful,
+and regretted that it was rather late in the day to begin to show Miss
+Tremount what a charming elderly lady she thought her.
+
+The great hall looked its stateliest that morning. The March sunshine came
+slanting through the tall windows, and lay in bright patches upon the
+broad floor, or gleamed upon the ancient swords and breastplates, or
+glowed in the festal hangings. Quite a large number of titled and
+fashionable persons were collected at the upper end of the room,
+whispering and rustling, and dressed in what we should now consider very
+wonderful costumes, though they were all the mode then. A few minutes
+before eleven the very reverend dean, and an assistant divine, together
+with the bridegroom and Archibald, entered and took their places in great
+pomp and dignity beneath the canopy which had been constructed for the
+occasion, and which, was covered with fresh flowers, whose fragrance
+breathed over the gay assemblage like a sacred incense. At eleven o'clock
+there was a general hush of expectation; and presently the door at the
+bottom of the hall was thrown open, and the bridal procession came in.
+Very pretty they looked as they paced, up the long stretch of carpeting
+which had been laid down for them to walk upon, and which had been
+scattered over with a profusion of flowers. The bride, with her veil and
+her orange-blossoms, was supported on the arm of Sir Henry Rollinson (the
+good Doctor had been knighted the year before by an appreciative
+sovereign), who was to give her away. She looked calm, pale, and
+exceedingly handsome. The widow of Colonel Battledown was escorted by Lord
+Epsom, the Honorable Richard's elder brother, and wore a very splendid
+pink turban, and red eyes. But all these details, and many more, may be
+read in the _Morning Post_ of March 7th, 1821, to which I refer the
+curious.
+
+The service commenced. As Sir Henry Rollinson was in the act of giving the
+bride away, he happened to glance at Archibald, and observed that the
+latter wore a very strange expression on his face; and a moment afterward
+the young man dropped into a chair that happened to be near him, pressing
+his head between his hands, and breathing heavily. No one else noticed
+this incident; and Sir Henry, who supposed the youth was going to faint,
+was of course unable at the time to afford any assistance. The service
+went on. Richard Pennroyal and Catherine Battledown were pronounced man
+and wife; and man was warned not to put asunder those whom God had joined
+together. The ring shone on the new-made wife's finger. The very reverend
+dean gave the pair his blessing. All this time Archibald remained with
+his head between his hands, the physician watching him not without
+apprehensions, and inwardly cursing the folly of those who were
+responsible for the poor half-witted creature's appearance in such a
+scene.
+
+The register was now brought forth, in which the happy couple and their
+friends were to inscribe their names. The principal personages signed
+first. It came to Archibald's turn. It had previously been ascertained
+that he knew how to string together the requisite letters upon paper.
+There he sat, with his head in his hands. Sir Henry touched him on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Now, then, lad--Archie! wake up! Come! you're wanted!" He spoke sharply
+and imperatively, in the hope of rousing the young fellow out of his
+stupor, and at least getting him decently out of the room.
+
+Archibald raised his face, which was deadly pale and covered with sweat,
+and looked at the persons around him with a kind of amazed defiance. He
+started to his feet, oversetting his chair as he did so, which rolled down
+the steps of the dais and fell with a crash on the stone floor below.
+
+"I came in by the staircase door!" he said in an excited voice, which
+startled every one who heard it, so different was it from his usual tones.
+"If you thought it locked, you were wrong. How else could I have come?...
+When did you bring me here? This is the great hall! What have you been
+doing? How came _you_ here?"
+
+There was a dead silence. Every one felt that some ugly thing was about to
+happen. Several women began to laugh hysterically. It seems to have been
+supposed, at first, that Archibald had exchanged his inoffensive idiocy
+for a condition of raving madness. The old physician was probably the only
+one present who had a glimmering of what might be the truth. The
+Honorable Richard Pennroyal had none. He pushed between the venerable
+knight and his "best man," and relying upon his oft-proved and established
+influence over the latter, he took him firmly by the arm, and looked in
+his face.
+
+"Don't make a fool of yourself, Archie," said he, in a low distinct voice,
+in which was a subdued ring of menace. "It's all right. You're my best
+man, you know. You are to sign your name as one of the witnesses of the
+marriage--that's all."
+
+"I have witnessed no marriage," replied Archibald, returning with surprise
+Richard's look. "Who are you?" he continued, after a moment. Then he
+exclaimed, "You are Richard Pennroyal--I didn't know you at first, you
+look so old!"
+
+"Oh, the fellow's quite mad!" muttered Richard, turning away with a shrug
+of the shoulders. "I should have known better than to run the risk of
+having such a lunatic here. We must have him moved out of the room at
+once."
+
+Young Sir Edward overheard this latter sentence. "Pardon me for reminding
+you that my brother is at home in Malmaison," he said gravely.
+
+"Oh, as you please, of course," returned Richard, frowning.
+
+Meanwhile Archibald had caught sight of Kate, and recognized her at once;
+and breaking away from his mother and Sir Henry Rollinson, who were
+endeavoring to quiet him, he came up to her and planted himself in front
+of her, just as Richard was approaching to take her off. Archibald took
+both her hands in his.
+
+"Kate, I have never seen you look so beautiful," he said. "But why have you
+got this white veil on?--and orange blossoms! It's like a wedding. What
+were they saying about a wedding? ... is it to be our wedding?"
+
+"The wedding has already taken place, my dear Archie," interposed the
+bridegroom, offering his arm to the bride, and smiling with no very good
+grace. "This lady is now Mrs. Pennroyal. Stand aside, like a good boy--"
+
+Archibald grasped Richard by the padded sleeve of his coat, and with an
+angry movement of his powerful arm threw him backward into the embrace of
+his new mother-in-law, who happened to be coming up from behind.
+
+"You are under my father's roof, or I would tell you that you are a liar,"
+said the young man, grimly. Then turning to the bride, who had said not a
+word since this scene began, but had kept her eyes constantly fixed upon
+the chief actor in it, "He shall not insult you again, my dear. But all
+this is very strange. What does it mean?"
+
+"It means.... It is too late!" replied the girl, in a low, bitter voice.
+What could she have meant by that?
+
+Richard, white with fury, came up again. There was a general murmur and
+movement in the surrounding assemblage, who expected to see some deed of
+violence committed.
+
+"Mrs. Pennroyal," said he between his teeth, "I am obliged to request you
+peremptorily to take my arm and--and leave this house where guests are
+insulted and outraged!"
+
+Archibald turned, his face darkening. But Kate held up her hand
+entreatingly; and Archibald caught the gleam of the plain gold ring on her
+finger. At that sight he stopped abruptly, and his arms fell to his sides.
+
+"Is it true?" He asked in a tone of bewilderment.
+
+Here Sir Edward interposed again, with, his cool courtesy: "Mr. Pennroyal,
+and my friends, I trust you will find it possible to overlook the behavior
+of my brother. You may see that he is not himself. When he has had time to
+recover himself, he will ask pardon of each and all of you. Mr. Pennroyal,
+I entreat you and your wife to forget what has passed, and to reconsider
+the heavy imputation which has been cast upon my house. Let the shadow
+pass away which has threatened for a moment this--most auspicious
+occasion!"
+
+If the last words were ironical, the irony was too grave and ceremonious to
+be obtrusive, Pennroyal was fain to return Sir Edward's bow with the best
+grace he could muster. The rest of the company accepted the apology, as at
+least a formal way out of the difficulty. An effort was made to resume
+indifferent conversation, and to act as if nothing had happened. Sir
+Edward, with admirable self-possession and smiling courtesy, marshalled
+the guests out of the hall, to a neighboring room in which the wedding
+breakfast had been set out. Archibald remained behind, and the Doctor and
+old Miss Tremount remained with him. He stood still, with his arms at his
+sides, his glance fixed upon the floor. The Doctor and Miss Tremount
+exchanged a look, and then the latter went up to him, and took one of his
+hands between hers.
+
+"Do you know me, my dear?" she said.
+
+Archibald looked at her, and shook his head.
+
+"I am your aunt, Ruth Tremount. My dear, I am so sorry for you."
+
+"Can you tell me what is the matter with me? Am I mad?"
+
+"On the contrary," put in the Doctor, "you are yourself for the second time
+in your life. You've overslept yourself, my lad, that's all!"
+
+Archibald cast his eyes round the hall, as if searching for some one.
+"Where is my father?" he asked at length.
+
+There was an awkward pause. Finally Miss Tremount said, "My dear, your
+sleep has lasted seven years. Much may happen in such a length of time."
+
+"But my father--where is he? I want to see him; I will see him!" and he
+made some steps toward the door.
+
+"My poor lad, you cannot see him now--he ... he--"
+
+"Where is he?" cried Archibald, stamping his foot.
+
+"He has been for five years in his grave."
+
+Archibald stared at the Doctor a moment, and then burst out laughing.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+
+But Archibald had come into possession of his intelligent soul once more;
+or he was awake again; or the pressure of the skull upon the cerebrum had
+yet another time been relieved; at all events there was now a brilliant
+youth in the flesh-and-blood envelope which, an hour before, had contained
+only a half-witted boy. When the first crash of the restoration was over,
+the new man began to accommodate himself with wonderful rapidity and
+keenness to the strange environment. He knew of nothing that had happened
+since that afternoon when he spoke with Kate in the east chamber, while
+the blood oozed from the cut on his forehead; but he accepted the facts
+with more than a youth's resolution and stoicism. The world had been
+turning round while he had been absent--somewhere! Well, then, by the
+force of his will and his splendid faculties he would get on even terms
+with it again--and more. Injury had been done him; irreparable injury,
+perhaps, but which still might be avenged. He was not discouraged; his
+spirit seemed to come upon life with all the freshness of a seven years'
+rest, and it reckoned nothing impossible.
+
+Of course his fresh metamorphosis created plenty of comment among the
+neighbors; Archibald Malmaison was the most talked-of man in that part of
+the country for several weeks, the impossibility of arriving at any
+satisfactory conclusion regarding his condition or conditions prolonging
+the wonder so far beyond the proverbial nine days. One party were
+vehemently of the opinion that he was mad; another party opposed this view
+with equal energy and just as much foundation. Both sides put forward
+plenty of arguments, and when they were refuted, appealed to Sir Henry
+Rollinson, who confirmed them both with equally sagacious shakes of the
+head.
+
+But this good gentleman was now getting near the end of his days, and, in
+fact, ceased living in the world before the close of the year. He did not
+depart without leaving a successor, however, and one who bade fair to do
+credit to his ancestry. This was Mr. E. Forbes Rollinson, his son, who had
+concluded a course of study at Vienna and Paris, and who returned to his
+native land with the highest diplomas that continental schools could give
+him. He was at this time a young man of about five and twenty, with a
+great square head and a short, compact figure. The wild jungle of beard
+and the terribly penetrating eye-glass which distinguished him in later
+times had not then made their appearance. Well, the new Dr. Rollinson had
+known something of Archibald as a boy, and was of course much interested
+(apart from his friendly feelings) in so remarkable a case. His theory
+upon the matter, in so far as he had formed one, did not on all points
+coincide with his father's; he belonged to a somewhat more recent
+school--more critical and less dogmatic. Still, it would be hazardous to
+assert that young Dr. Rollinson knew exactly what was the matter with
+Archibald--especially as he has seen reason to modify his first
+impressions more than once during the last fifty years. It is enough to
+remark here that he thought the affection was of a rhythmic or regularly
+recurrent character, a notion which its previous history went far to
+justify; and he consequently looked with interest to see whether the
+lapse of another seven years would bring about another change. To have
+discovered the orbit, so to speak, of a malady, is not, indeed, to have
+explained it; but it is always something. It would be more interesting to
+know what Archibald thought of himself; and were I, in this instance, a
+novelist dealing with a creation of my own, I might not shrink from an
+attempt to analyze his mental state. As it is, I can do no more than point
+to the curious field of conjecture which it here afforded: the young man
+left no confessions or self-analytic diaries; still less did he discuss
+his peculiarities with other people. With excellent good sense and no
+small courage, he accepted things as they were; he felt his individuality
+in no way diminished by the circumstance that it was intermittent or
+exchangeable; and perhaps it seemed no more strange to him than the
+nightly falling asleep of all mankind does to them. The one mystery is
+quite as strange as the other, only the sleep of seven hours is common to
+all, while that of seven years is probably unprecedented.
+
+One grotesque question suggests itself--or may do so shortly--and that is
+whether Archibald would be responsible in one phase of his being for a
+crime committed in another--for a crime, or any other act involving the
+welfare or condition of other people. The analogy with sleep does not here
+seem altogether satisfactory; for in ordinary sleep, or even somnambulism,
+we are not in active relations with our fellow-beings, and consequently
+our lawgivers have not devised a code to control our doings while in that
+state. A jury, in delivering its verdict, would be embarrassed by the
+reflection that although only one half of the culprit before them was
+guilty, they could not give that half its just punishment without at the
+same time unjustly punishing the half that was guiltless. A consistent
+individuality, therefore, though often a burden and a weariness, is still
+not without its advantages.
+
+Meanwhile an important change had taken place in the relations between the
+family of Malmaison and the Honorable Richard Pennroyal. The latter
+conceived himself to have been affronted by the former on the occasion of
+his marriage, and refused a reconciliation--which, to tell the truth,
+neither Sir Edward nor his younger brother were too anxious to force upon
+him. Lady Malmaison was still for peace, but her opinion had ceased to
+have much weight in the family counsels. At length matters came to a head
+somewhat in the following manner.
+
+Sir Edward Malmaison and Pennroyal happened to meet at the table of a
+common friend, and after the ladies had withdrawn, Pennroyal, who had
+taken more wine than was usual with him, began to talk at Sir Edward in an
+unnecessarily audible and offensive tone. Sir Edward kept his temper, and
+made no reply, not having as yet been personally addressed. Pennroyal
+after a while came round to where he was sitting, and the two gentlemen
+presently fell into conversation. Pennroyal finally declared that he had
+been insulted by a man who retained his present title and estates solely
+by his (Pennroyal's) permission and kindness. Sir Edward was constrained
+to ask him what he meant. Pennroyal thereupon began to utter disparaging
+reflections upon the late Sir Clarence, who, he intimated, was not legally
+entitled to his name. This brought on a dead silence, and all eyes were
+turned upon Sir Edward, whose pale countenance became yet paler as he
+said, with his imperturbable courteousness of phrase:
+
+"I must entreat Mr. Pennroyal not to indulge in innuendos, but to state
+explicitly whether he intends anything dishonorable to my father."
+
+"To a man of the world a word is enough," responded the Honorable Richard,
+insolently. "I am not here to tutor schoolboys in the comprehension of the
+English tongue."
+
+"I cannot allow you to evade my question," rejoined Sir Edward, with a
+gleam in his eye, though without an alteration in his voice. "You must
+explain what you have seen fit to insinuate before these gentlemen, one
+way or the other."
+
+Pennroyal laughed. "When you have lived a few years longer, young
+gentleman," said he, "you will learn to be cautious how you ask for too
+explicit information regarding the morals of your grandparents."
+
+At this brutal remark there was a general expression of indignation among
+the hearers; but Pennroyal, in no way abashed, added, "Let him disprove it
+if he can. Since he provokes me to it, I affirm it--his father had no
+right to the title. Let him prove the contrary if he can. I didn't force
+on the discussion, but I will tell young Sir Edward Malmaison, as he calls
+himself, that he holds property to which he has no claim, and that it
+depends upon my good-will and pleasure how long he holds it."
+
+The host--he was Francis Hastings Kent, Esq. and M. P., the same who
+afterward became famous in the Corn-law controversy--here interposed, and
+"spoke the sense of the meeting." "Egad, Pennroyal," cried he, "you are
+drunk, and you have insulted a gentleman at my table. I'll trouble you to
+make him an apology. I have no doubt that Sir Edward Malmaison's titles
+are just as good as yours or mine, and, begad, they sha'n't be called in
+question here at all events. I say you shall make Sir Edward an apology!"
+
+
+There was only one man in the room who evinced any disagreement with this
+speech, and that one was Major Bolingbroke, a retired officer of good
+family but of not altogether unexceptionable personal repute; he was
+believed to have fought more duels than are usually considered desirable;
+and he had for some months past been a constant inmate at the house of Mr.
+Pennroyal.
+
+"It's no affair of mine, of course," said this gallant warrior, "if Sir
+Edward chooses to put up with such language from a man, on the ground that
+he was drunk when he used it. Only, if there's going to be an apology, I
+should advise Sir Edward to exact a very full one, and lose no time about
+it."
+
+Sir Edward, however, rose carelessly, and said with a smile that he could
+not think of contributing any further to the unfortunate interruption of
+the social harmony; and adding that he had no doubt Mr. Pennroyal would,
+as soon as he had had time to recollect himself, make every explanation
+that the case demanded, he bowed and left the room.
+
+It was afterward suspected that Pennroyal's intoxication had been assumed
+for the purpose of insulting the heir of Malmaison with the more impunity;
+and that the Major was present expressly to aid and abet him. What, then,
+was the object, and what the grounds, of the charge which Pennroyal made?
+With respect to the latter, nothing was known until later; but the
+immediate result was this. Sir Edward went home, and appeared more
+cheerful and in better spirits than usual. He spent the next forenoon in
+his chamber, apparently engaged in looking over some papers. In the
+afternoon he mentioned to his mother and Archibald that he should be
+obliged to run up to London for a few days on business, and that he must
+start that evening. He had made no allusion to the affair at Francis
+Kent's house, and neither Archibald nor Lady Malmaison knew anything about
+it. That evening, accordingly, he bade them good-by, and departed
+seemingly with a light heart, bidding his brother act as his accredited
+plenipotentiary while he was away, and promising his mother to bring her
+the latest fashion in turbans when he returned.
+
+He was absent five days. The Honorable Richard Pennroyal, who had happened
+to be likewise called away on business at the same time, returned to his
+house some twenty-four hours before Sir Edward was brought in a carriage
+to Malmaison, with a bullet-hole just beneath the collar-bone. The fact
+is, the two gentlemen had travelled to Belgium instead of to London, and
+had there shot at each other in the presence of Major Bolingbroke (who
+gave the word) and of a friend of Sir Edward's whose name has not come
+down to us. Pennroyal had escaped untouched; Sir Edward, under the care of
+Dr. Rollinson the younger, lay for several weeks in a critical condition;
+but, when the bullet had been extracted, he rallied, and was able before
+long to rise from his bed and walk about the house. But though his
+strength had improved, he appeared to be harassed in mind; he carried on a
+considerable correspondence with the family lawyers in London, and was
+continually searching for something--what, no one could tell. Whatever it
+was he did not find it, and his anxiety did not diminish.
+
+Archibald had of course asked him about the particulars of the duel, and
+what led to it; but his brother had sought to make light of the affair,
+saying merely that Pennroyal had been very rude, and had failed to make a
+suitable apology; and that the insult having been public, he was forced to
+resent it. In answer to Archibald's question as to the subject of his
+present correspondence with the lawyers, he replied that it related to
+some old family traditions, and possessed only an antiquarian interest.
+Archibald accepted these answers in silence, but with entire incredulity.
+The brothers were fond of each other, but the strange conditions of the
+younger's life had prevented their attaining really intimate and
+confidential relations. Archibald was too proud either to demand further
+particulars from Sir Edward, or to make inquiries elsewhere. Moreover,
+there was perhaps less need of information on his side than on that of his
+brother, had the latter but known it. Archibald had secrets of his own.
+
+Pennroyal, meanwhile, kept quiet, waiting for the affair to blow over.
+Whether he had intended to kill Sir Edward, or whether he was glad that
+the duel had not resulted fatally, I cannot tell. Of course, neither he
+nor his wife were seen again at Malmaison. The neighbors were for some
+time disposed to give him the cold shoulder; but when his antagonist
+recovered, and the matter had lost its first freshness, there appeared to
+be little more against him than that he had committed an indiscretion
+while under the influence of liquor, and had afterward atoned for it in
+accordance with a code of honor which had not, at that epoch, fallen
+entirely into disuse. And, after all, what business was it of theirs?
+Pennroyal, however objectionable in himself, owned a large property and
+belonged to a good family. In short, society received the honorable
+prodigal in its bosom once more, and Mrs. Pennroyal reigned the undisputed
+toast for a while longer.
+
+But at the end of six or seven months a new order of events began. Sir
+Edward, either from anxiety, or from some imprudent exposure, fell ill
+again, and his wound opened afresh and became inflamed. His constitution
+had never been good for much, and the chances were all against its being
+able to survive this trial. Dr. Rollinson did all that could be done; but
+one morning Sir Edward asked to see his brother, and when the two were
+left alone together, he said:
+
+"Well, Archie, how shall you like to be Sir Archibald?"
+
+For a minute they looked at one another in silence.
+
+"Do you think so?" then said the younger, frowning a little.
+
+"I am certain of it."
+
+"Ned, we are brothers," said Archibald.
+
+The young men grasped hands, and Archibald half sat on the edge of the bed,
+looking down at the invalid, whose face was now bony in its emaciation,
+and his eyes sunken and bright.
+
+"Archie, I have something to tell you."
+
+"I feared so."
+
+"It is not anything that you could expect. That quarrel between Richard and
+me was about our father. Richard said he was--that is--"
+
+"Don't fear. Say it!"
+
+"That his mother was not Lady Malmaison."
+
+"He lied!"
+
+"So I told him. But that's not the end of it, unfortunately. He defied me
+to prove the contrary. Ever since I first got up after the duel, I have
+been looking for the papers relating to Sir Clarence's birth. They're not
+to be found. There is no record that our grandmother had any son at all.
+On the other hand, there is indirect evidence that our grandfather had an
+affair with some woman.... The amount of it is, I have not been able to
+establish Sir Clarence's legitimacy. And the worst is still to tell."
+
+"I know the rest; I know it all! Why didn't you say all this to me at
+first, brother? You have been harassing yourself with the idea that
+because you couldn't vindicate father, Malmaison might be claimed by
+Richard, under that old agreement of Sir Charles's time."
+
+"How did you know--"
+
+"I know everything. I know where the papers are that you have been looking
+for. Set your mind at rest, Ned. Sir Clarence was the legitimate heir.
+There was also a son by the other woman, but he died in infancy. Ned, why
+weren't you open with me? Richard has no more hold on our estates than my
+groom has. Blame him! I only hope he'll think otherwise! We'll ruin him
+first and kill him afterward."
+
+"If I had only known...." said the sick man, after a pause. "But you are
+certain? You have the proof? Where did you find the papers?"
+
+"I have them. Get well, and you shall know all about it. I have a good many
+curious things to tell you, and to show you, too."
+
+"Well, God be thanked! whatever becomes of me. It is late, Archie, but I'm
+beginning to get acquainted with you at last. It is my fault that I did
+not know you before. You are better fitted to bear the title than I."
+
+"No. If I thought so, I would not deny it; but if I inherit Malmaison, our
+family will--perish off the earth! I can foresee some things, Ned. The
+hope of the house lies in you; I shall bring only calamity. You must get
+well."
+
+Again the brothers grasped hands, looked in one another's eyes for a moment
+or two, and then Archibald went out; the day passed, and the evening fell.
+At midnight he was Sir Archibald of Malmaison.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+
+It was not long before the new baronet--the last of his line--began to make
+his influence felt. His temper was resolute, secret, and domineering; he
+bore himself haughtily among the neighboring squires, never seeking to
+please a friend or to conciliate an enemy. Few people liked him; many
+stood in awe of him. He seemed to be out of sympathy with his race; his
+strange, ambiguous history invested him with an atmosphere of doubt and
+mystery; his nature was not like other men's; it was even whispered that
+he had powers transcending those of ordinary humanity. It is probable that
+his remarkable personal beauty, which in moments of anger or energy
+gleamed out with an almost satanic intensity, may have lent substance to
+this impression; men shrunk from meeting the stern inquisition of his
+black eyes; and for women his glance possessed a sort of fascination,
+unconnected with his beauty. But there were other indications more direct
+than these. A century, or even half a century, previous to this time Sir
+Archibald might have found it difficult to avoid the imputation of
+witchcraft. After all, was not he the descendant of his forefathers? and
+what had some of them been? "Were there not people in the neighboring
+village of Grinstead who were willing to take affidavit that the handsome
+young baronet had the power to make himself invisible when he pleased?
+Nay, had not Mrs. Pennroyal herself, while she was yet a young maid,
+borne testimony to the fact--that he had suddenly stood before her, in
+broad daylight, in a room which had the instant before been empty? That
+room had always had a queer reputation; it was there, or thereabouts, that
+most of these strange goings-on took place. A servant, who had once
+wandered in there to announce to Sir Archibald that one of his lawyers had
+arrived, and was waiting to see him, had found the room vacant, though he
+had seen his master enter it only ten minutes before. Thinking that he
+must have gone out by the other entrance, through the stable, he was about
+to follow, when he noticed that this door was bolted on the inside. In
+some bewilderment, he was on the point of retiring, when he was startled
+by a burst of laughter which continued for near a minute, and which,
+though it echoed almost in his ears, and came apparently from the very air
+round about him, yet sounded faint and unsubstantial as if a vast distance
+nevertheless intervened. Whether near or far, it was unmistakably the
+laughter of Sir Archibald, but wilder and more scornful than had ever been
+heard from his lips. The honest footman was now thoroughly frightened, and
+made the best of his way out of the chamber; but before he could cross the
+next room and reach the passage-way beyond, the living and peremptory
+tones of Sir Archibald himself overtook him, and brought him back with
+failing knees and pallid cheeks to where the black-haired baronet was
+standing in the doorway. There he stood in flesh and blood, but cloaked,
+booted, and spurred, as if just returned from a journey.
+
+"What were you doing in this room?" demanded the baronet.
+
+The man faltered out his errand.
+
+"Hear this, once for all, and remember it," said the baronet, nor sternly
+nor roughly, but with a concentration of purpose in his mellow voice that
+seemed to stamp the words into the hearer's soul. "No one may enter this
+chamber except I open the door. Else harm may happen which I could not
+prevent. That is all. Now send Mr. Mawgage to me."
+
+That was all, but it was quite enough; in fact, the difficulty thereafter
+was to induce any one to venture into the room on any terms. It was
+believed to be haunted, and that Sir Archibald was either himself the
+ghost, or was in some way responsible for there being one.
+
+I have mentioned this story, to which the reader already possesses the
+clew, only by way of showing that Sir Archibald was making use, at that
+time, of the secret which he had discovered, and was taking the surest
+means of keeping it to himself. He had occupations in the inner chamber at
+which he did not wish to be disturbed. What those occupations were he
+confided to no living soul--indeed, there was no one who could have served
+him as a confidant. His life was a lonely one, if ever a lonely life there
+were. Whom had he to love, or to love him? Even his mother, now enfeebled
+both in body and mind, felt fear of him rather than fondness for him. She
+spent much of her time playing cards with her female companion, and in
+worrying over the health of her pet spaniels. But did Sir Archibald love
+no one?--at all events he hated somebody, and that heartily. He held
+Richard Pennroyal responsible for all the ills that had fallen upon
+Malmaison and upon himself; and he was evidently not the man to suffer a
+grudge to go unrequited.
+
+Pennroyal, on the other hand, was not disposed to wait quietly to be
+attacked; he came out to meet the enemy half way. In the spring of the
+year 1824--about nine months after Sir Edward's death--it was known in
+every mansion and public house for twenty miles round that a great lawsuit
+would by-and-by be commenced between Malmaison and Pennroyal, the question
+to be decided being nothing less than the ownership of the Malmaison
+estates, which Richard Pennroyal claimed, in the alleged failure of any
+legitimate heir of Sir John Malmaison, deceased--the father of Sir
+Clarence--but, as Pennroyal alleged, by a left-handed marriage. I have not
+gone into the details of this case, and should not detain the reader over
+it if I had; he may, if it pleases him, read it at full length elsewhere.
+It is enough to observe that Pennroyal brought forward evidence to show
+that he, and his father before him, had always had cognizance of the will
+or other document which entitled him to the property in dispute in the
+event provided for; and had only been withheld from putting in their claim
+thereto by the repeated and solemn assurances of Sir Clarence that no such
+irregularity as was suspected regarding his birth had in fact occurred.
+Latterly, however, from fresh information accidentally received, it
+appeared that Sir Clarence had either been guilty of a wilful and criminal
+misstatement, or that he had been deceived. In confirmation whereof, the
+Honorable Richard produced documents of undoubted genuineness, showing
+that an illegitimate son had been born to Sir John; and now called upon
+the defendant to prove that this son had died in childhood, or that he had
+not grown up to be Sir Clarence; and furthermore, having disposed of this
+difficulty, to show the certificate of birth of a legitimate heir to Sir
+John Malmaison, and to identify that heir with Sir Clarence.
+
+Now, there were certainly some awkward circumstances in respect of this
+illegitimacy question. Sir Clarence had known that he had had a brother
+born out of wedlock; and it is possible he also knew that the documents
+relating to his own birth were not where he could put his hands upon them.
+He may even have been aware that, were his title to be challenged, there
+would be serious technical difficulties in the way of vindicating it. At
+the same time, Sir Clarence was entirely and justly convinced that his
+title was good. The history of the illegitimate son was familiar to him,
+and to the rest of the family, in all its details. It was not, of course,
+an ordinary topic of conversation, but it was an acknowledged piece of
+family history. Sir John had been wild in his youth, and had made a good
+many loose connections before acceding to the baronetcy--his father, Sir
+Charles, the same who ate the venison pasty, having lived to see his heir
+a man of thirty. One of these connections had been with the daughter of a
+tenant; during its progress a marriage had been arranged between John
+Malmaison and a neighboring heiress. About the time that the marriage took
+place, the tenant's daughter had a child; Clarence himself was born about
+a year later. The child had lived five or six years only; after its death
+its mother had gone up to London, and had not since been heard of. This
+was all simple enough; the only trouble being that no one could tell what
+had become of the certificate of Clarence's birth, or of the other's
+decease. Consequently there was an opening for an evil-disposed person to
+assert what the Honorable Richard was now asserting.
+
+Where had the Honorable Richard got his information?--of the absence,
+that is to say, of these papers. It was never spoken of outside the
+family. It is only proper to observe that his brother, Lord Epsom, would
+have nothing to do with the affair, but explicitly and emphatically washed
+his hands of it. But this did not deter Richard; he had got his materials,
+he had decided upon his plan of action, and he was bound to go through
+with it. He entertained no doubts of his success, and he probably
+anticipated from it not only solid worldly advantage, but the
+gratification of an undisguised enmity. It would give him peculiar
+pleasure to augment his prosperity at the expense of Sir Archibald
+Malmaison.
+
+Considering that the outlook was so bad for him, the young baronet faced it
+with commendable fortitude. People who met him regarded him with
+curiosity, expecting him to appear disturbed, if not desperate. But he
+wore an aspect of satisfied composure, tempered only by his habitual
+haughtiness. He had interviews with his lawyers, seemed neither flurried
+nor helpless, and altogether behaved as if his victory over his opponent
+was placed beyond the possibility of a doubt. And yet, what could be his
+defence? Was he going to rely upon the title having remained so long
+unquestioned? Did he build his hopes upon a possible break in the chain of
+Pennroyal's evidence? The on-lookers could only conjecture. And now the
+time when conjectures would be exchanged for certainty was at hand.
+
+It was the autumn of the year 1825. One cool, clear, gray afternoon Sir
+Archibald had his horse saddled, and mounting him, rode out upon his
+estate. In the course of an hour or so he found himself approaching the
+pond, which, as has been already stated, lay on the border-line between
+Malmaison and the lands of Richard Pennroyal. As he drew near the spot, he
+saw at a distance the figure of a woman, also on horseback. It was
+Kate--Mrs. Pennroyal. She was riding slowly in a direction nearly opposite
+to his own, so that if they kept on they would meet on the borders of the
+pond.
+
+Sir Archibald had not met this lady for many months; and when he recognized
+her, his first impulse was perhaps to draw rein. Then he looked to see
+whether that were her impulse likewise. But she held on her course; and
+he, smiling in a defiant way, shook his bridle, and in a few moments they
+were but half a dozen yards apart. There they paused, as it seemed, by
+mutual consent.
+
+How lovely she looked! Sir Archibald saw it, and ground his teeth with a
+kind of silent rage. She should have been his.
+
+"Good-day, Mrs. Richard Pennroyal!"
+
+"Good-day, Archibald!"
+
+His name, coming with such gentleness and sweet familiarity from her lips,
+made his blood tingle. He had expected coldness and formality.
+
+"I had not looked forward to the honor of meeting you here," he said.
+
+"But we have met here before, I think." And so they had, in days upon which
+Archibald now looked back as does an exile upon home. His horse moved
+forward a few steps, and his rider only stopped him when he was within
+arm's length.
+
+"That seems long ago; and yet, when I look at you, I could almost believe
+it was but yesterday."
+
+"You have changed more than I," replied the lady, letting her eyes rest
+upon him with a certain intentness. This was true enough, physically
+speaking; the handsome boy was now a superb young man; but Archibald chose
+to interpret her words figuratively, and he answered bitterly:
+
+"You may have changed little; but that little in you has caused whatever
+change you find in me."
+
+"It is true, then, that you are angry with me? I had hoped otherwise,"
+said Mrs. Pennroyal, with a sad dignity that sat well upon her.
+
+"Angry with you!" broke out Archibald, his face flushing. "Has it been a
+desire to keep my--my friendship that has caused you to--"
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal interrupted him, drawing herself up proudly. "Pardon me,
+sir, I had no intention of forcing your good-will. If you will be my
+enemy, please yourself, and perhaps I may learn to become yours." And she
+turned her horse as she spoke. But Archibald, thus seemingly put in the
+wrong, and unwilling now to terminate the interview so abruptly, pressed
+his heel against his horse's side, and was again beside her.
+
+"You misunderstand me," said he. "What could I think? You will not deny
+that your--that Richard Pennroyal has shown himself no friend of mine."
+
+"I shall deny nothing that you see fit to charge against me, sir," rejoined
+the lady, still hurt and indignant, and the more irresistible.
+
+Archibald reflected that she was not, perhaps, justly responsible for the
+malevolence of another person, even though that person were her husband;
+and from this thought to thinking that she might, perhaps, be inclined to
+sympathize against her husband and with himself, was an easy transition.
+This perilous fancy made his pulses throb and his eyes gleam. He caught
+her horse's bridle.
+
+"Do not go yet! Let us talk a little, since we are met."
+
+"What has Sir Archibald Malmaison to say to me?"
+
+"You called me 'Archibald' just now."
+
+"You called me 'Mrs. Richard Pennroyal'!"
+
+"Well--and so you are!" said he, between his teeth.
+
+"Do you think of me by that name?" she asked, turning her brown eyes on him
+for a moment, and then looking away.
+
+"Kate!"
+
+She put out her beautiful hand, and he took it and carried it to his lips.
+Thoughts fierce and sweet flew through his mind. But Mrs. Pennroyal,
+having gained her immediate end (which, to do her justice, was probably
+nothing worse than the gratification of a coquettish whim), knew how to
+take care of herself. She drew her hand away.
+
+"There--well--you have been very unkind, Archibald. Have we not been
+friends--have we not been together from the first? How could you believe
+that I could wish you any harm?"
+
+"Ah, Kate, but you married him!"
+
+"Well, sir, I as good as asked you to marry me first, and you would not do
+it."
+
+"You asked me!"
+
+"Yes; you have forgotten. It has all been so strange, you see. I hardly
+know, even now, whether you are the Archibald I used to know."
+
+"But I know, very well," returned he, grimly. "And you are the wife of my
+enemy, the man who is trying to ruin me. Kate," he broke off suddenly,
+"how did Richard know that those papers were missing in our family? I told
+you once--do you remember that day? And no one knew it except you."
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal would perhaps have preferred not to be asked this question.
+But since it was asked, she was bound to make the best answer she could.
+
+"It was for that I wanted to see you to-day," she said, after a pause. "I
+have been to blame, Archibald; but it was ignorantly. It was long
+ago--before all these troubles began to occur: while we were yet on good
+terms. Ah me! would we were so again!"
+
+"You told him, then?"
+
+"I did not know that I was betraying a secret. From what Richard said, I
+thought that he knew it, or at least suspected it; and I merely added my
+confirmation. Afterward, when I found how things were going, I begged him
+not to use that knowledge. But it was too late. I could not be at rest
+until I had told you, and asked you to forgive me."
+
+Archibald would not have believed this speech, if his head only had been
+concerned in the matter. Unfortunately, such was not the case. He believed
+it because he ardently wished to do so; and he forgave her the more
+easily, because that implied having her hand in his again for a few
+moments.
+
+"If I could only see you and Richard at peace again, I should be happy,"
+resumed Mrs. Pennroyal, with a sigh.
+
+"Is it for him you fear, or for me?" inquired Archibald, smiling.
+
+"The danger is yours," she answered, diplomatically.
+
+He shook his head, still smiling: "Dismiss your anxiety, Kate. There is no
+danger for me or mine. Let Richard look to himself!"
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal was startled. She had looked upon the Malmaison case as
+virtually hopeless. This hint of the contrary gave her a strong sensation,
+not altogether unpleasurable. Richard was her husband, but he was not
+nearly so young as Archibald, and as to looks!--there there was no
+comparison. Archibald was simply the finest man in England. Perhaps Mrs.
+Pennroyal tad never been passionately fond of her husband; and, on the
+other hand, she had certainly liked Archibald very much. In the present
+quarrel she had felt that the propriety of being on the winning side was
+not diminished by the fact that it happened to be her husband's; but if it
+should turn out that her husband's was not the winning side after
+all--then there was matter for consideration. Of course, strictly
+speaking, her husband's misfortunes must be her own; but in this instance
+the nominal misfortune would be his failure to ruin Archibald, and Mrs.
+Pennroyal thought she could sustain that. No, the sensation was certainly
+not unpleasurable. But was it certain that Archibald was not mistaken?
+
+"I am very glad, for both our sakes," said she, at last. "I could never
+have endured to take your name and estates away from you. Then that notion
+that the papers were lost was a mistake?"
+
+"I can tell you nothing more," replied Archibald, looking at her.
+
+"Ah, you have not forgiven me--you do not trust me!"
+
+He checked his horse and hers, and turned full upon her: "Kate, you are the
+wife of my enemy, I must remember that! If I found you playing a double
+part between him and me, I should hate you more than I hate him; and then
+... I should be capable of any crime. Well, I will not put it in your
+power. You will know all soon enough. Meantime, I trust you in this--to
+keep silence on what I have said to-day. Let him believe that he will
+succeed until he knows that he has failed. Will you promise that?"
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal saw no harm in making this promise, but she did not see why
+she should not make as great a favor as she could of granting it.
+
+"A wife should have no secrets from her husband, Archibald."
+
+"Have you never had a secret from him, Kate?"
+
+"You have no right to ask that!"
+
+Archibald laughed. "Are you as happy with him as the day is long?"
+
+She looked up for a moment, and their eyes met. "The days seem very long
+sometimes," she said, almost beneath her breath.
+
+"This day?" he demanded, bending toward her.
+
+"Autumn days are short, you know," she said, smiling a little, with averted
+face.
+
+"Do you often ride out in autumn?"
+
+"What else can I do, when my husband is away from home? I must go now--it
+is late."
+
+"And your promise?"
+
+For the third time that afternoon she gave him her hand. Her color was
+higher than usual, and her breathing somewhat uneven. She had not passed
+unscathed through this interview. Archibald's was the stronger spirit, and
+she felt his power--felt it, and liked to feel it! And he, as he held her
+warm and delicate hand in his own, was conscious of a strange tumult in
+his heart. Was fate, which he had hitherto found so adverse, going to
+change at last, and yield him everything at once--revenge and love in the
+same breath? A revenge consummated through love were sweet indeed.
+
+They parted at length, and rode away in opposite directions. This was their
+first meeting, but it was not their last by many.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+
+Meanwhile the lawyers were keeping at work with commendable diligence, and
+Mr. Pennroyal was counting his chickens as hatched, and was as far as
+possible from suspecting the underplot which was going on around him. On
+the contrary, it seemed to him that he was becoming at last the assured
+favorite of fortune. For this gentleman's life had not been, in all
+respects, so prosperous as it appeared. To begin with, he had had a
+deplorable weakness for dicing and card-playing, which had frequently
+brought him in large sums, but which had ended by costing twenty times as
+much as they had won for him. He gave up these forms of diversion,
+therefore, and resolved to amass a fortune in a more regular manner. He
+studied the stock-market profoundly, until he felt himself sufficiently
+master of the situation, and when he entered the lists as a financier. He
+bought and sold, and did his very best to buy cheap and to sell dear. He
+made several lucky hits; but in the long run he found that the balance was
+setting steadily against him. All his ready money was gone, and mortgages
+began to settle down like birds of ill-omen upon his house and lands. It
+was at this period that he married Kate Battledown; and with the money
+that she brought him he began to retrieve his losses, and again the
+horizon brightened. Alas! the improvement was only temporary. Ill-luck set
+in once more, and more inveterately than ever. Kate's good money went
+after his bad money, and neither returned. A good deal of it is said to
+have found its way into the pockets of Major Bolingbroke, his second in
+the duel. The ill-omened birds settled down once more, until they covered
+the roof and disfigured all the landscape.
+
+To add to his troubles, he did not find that comfort and consolation in his
+matrimonial relations which he would fain have had. It is true that he
+married his wife first of all for her money; but he was far from
+insensible to her other attractions, and, so far from wearying of them,
+they took a stronger and stronger hold upon him, until this cold,
+sarcastic, and unsocial man grew to be nothing less than uxorious. But his
+wife recompensed his devotion but shabbily; her position had not fulfilled
+her anticipations, she was angry at the loss of her money, and upon the
+whole she repented having taken an irrevocable step too hastily. She felt
+herself to be the intellectual equal of her husband, and she was not long
+in improving the advantage she possessed of not caring anything about him.
+In a word, she bullied the unfortunate gentleman unmercifully, and he
+kissed the rod with infatuation.
+
+This state of things was in force up to the time of Mrs. Pennroyal's
+meeting with Archibald, as above described. After that there was a marked
+and most enchanting alteration in Mrs. Pennroyal's demeanor toward her
+husband. She became all at once affectionate and sympathetic. She
+flattered him, she deferred to him, she consulted him, and drew him on
+with delicate encouragements to consult her, to confide in her all the
+private details of his affairs, which he had never done before, and to
+intrust to her safekeeping every inmost fear and aspiration of his mind.
+At every point she met him with soothing agreement and ingenuous
+suggestion; and in particular did she echo and foster his enmity against
+Sir Archibald Malmaison, and urged him forward in his suit, bidding him
+spare no expense, since success was assured, and affirming her readiness
+to mortgage her very jewels, if need were, to pay the eminent legal
+gentlemen who were to conduct the case.
+
+This behavior of hers afforded her husband especial gratification, for he
+had always been a little jealous of Sir Archibald, and indeed one of the
+impelling motives to the present action had been a desire to pay his
+grudge in this respect. But the discovery that Mrs. Pennroyal hated the
+young baronet quite as much as he did, filled his soul with balm; so that
+it only needed the successful termination of the lawsuit to render his
+bliss complete and overflowing.
+
+Well, the great case came on; and all the nobility and gentry of the three
+counties, and others besides, were there to see and hear. There were bets
+that the trial would not be over in seven days, and odds were taken
+against its lasting seven weeks. Society forgot its ennui and settled
+itself complacently to listen to a piquant story of scandal, intrigue,
+imposition, and robbery in high life.
+
+The reader knows the sequel. Never was there such a disappointment. The
+learned brethren of the law opened their mouths only to shut them again.
+
+For after the famous Mr. Adolphus, counsel for the plaintiff, had
+eloquently and ingeniously stated his case and given a picturesque and
+appetizing outline of the evidence that he was going to call, and the
+facts that he was going to prove; after this preliminary flourish was
+over, behold, up got Mr. Sergeant Runnington, who appeared on behalf of
+the defendant, and let fall some remarks which, though given in a
+sufficiently matter-of-fact and every-day tone, fell like a thunder-clap
+upon the ears of all present, save two persons; and produced upon the
+Honorable Richard Pennroyal an effect as if a hand-grenade had been let
+off within his head, and his spine drawn neatly out through the back of
+his neck.
+
+I cannot give the learned Sergeant's speech here, but the upshot of it was
+that the plaintiff had no case; inasmuch as he relied, to make good his
+claim, on the absence of any direct evidence establishing the identity of
+the late Sir Clarence Butt Malmaison, and the decease of that illegitimate
+personage whom the plaintiffs sought to confound with him.
+
+What could have induced the plaintiff to imagine that such direct evidence
+was not forthcoming, Sergeant Runnington confessed himself at a loss to
+understand. He had cherished hopes, for the sake of common decency, for
+the sake of the respect due to the Bench, for the sake of human nature,
+that his learned brother on the other side would have been able to hold
+forth a challenge which it would be, in some degree, worth his while to
+answer; he regretted sincerely to say that those hopes had not been by any
+means fulfilled.
+
+Had he been previously made aware of the course of attack which the
+plaintiff had had the audacity to adopt, he could have saved him and other
+persons much trouble, and the Court some hours of its valuable time, by
+the utterance of a single word, or, indeed, without the necessity for any
+words at all. Really, this affair, about which so much noise had been
+made, was so ridiculously simple and empty that he almost felt inclined to
+apologize to the Court and to the gentlemen of the jury for showing them
+how empty and simple it was. But, indeed, he feared that the apology, if
+there was to be one, was not due from his side.
+
+It was not for him to decide upon the motives which had prompted the
+plaintiff to bring this action. He should be sorry to charge any one with
+malice, with unconscionable greed, with treacherous and impudent rapacity.
+It belonged to the plaintiff to explain why he had carried this case into
+court, and what were his grounds for supposing that it could be made to
+issue to his credit and advantage.
+
+For his own part, he should content himself with producing the documents
+which the learned counsel on the other side had professed himself so
+anxious to get a sight of, and to humbly request that the plaintiff be
+nonsuited with costs.
+
+Thus ended the great trial. People could hardly, at first, believe their
+own ears and eyes; but when the documents were acknowledged to be
+perfectly genuine and correct, when the learned Mr. Adolphus relinquished
+the case, not without disgust, and when the Court, after some very severe
+remarks upon the conduct of the plaintiff, had concluded a short address
+by adopting the learned Sergeant Runnington's suggestion as to the
+costs--when all was settled, in short, in the utterly absurd space of two
+hours and three quarters, then at last did society awake to a perception
+of the fact that it had been most egregiously and outrageously swindled,
+and that the Honorable Richard Pennroyal was the swindler.
+
+Nobody was at the pains to conceal these sentiments from the honorable
+gentleman, and he left the court with as little sympathy as ever
+disappointed suitor had.
+
+Poor man! he suffered enough, in more ways than one, on that disastrous
+day, yet one shame and agony, the sharpest of all, was spared him--he did
+not see the look and the smile that were exchanged between his wife and
+Sir Archibald Malmaison, when the decision of the Court was made known.
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+We are now drawing near the last scene of this strange and sinister
+history. The action confines itself almost entirely to the three chief
+figures.
+
+If Pennroyal had been twenty years younger when this catastrophe fell upon
+him, it might merely have had the effect of enraging him; but he was near
+fifty years of age, and old for his years, and it seems to have
+overwhelmed and cowed him. The cat still in his house, like a rat in his
+hole, saying nothing, and noticing nothing, but drinking a great deal of
+brandy. The fiery stuff did not excite him; it merely had the effect of
+keeping him from sinking into unconsciousness of his misery. He knew that
+he was a ruined man, and that it was too late to retrieve his ruin. Means
+and energy were alike lacking, and could never be supplied. He sat in his
+chair, and brooded over all his life, and realized the utterness of his
+failure; and nothing could rouse him--not even the intelligence that his
+enemy, Sir Archibald, having by the death of his aunt, Miss Tremount, come
+into an inheritance of upward of seventy thousand pounds, was buying up
+the mortgages, and would probably foreclose on him when he got him
+thoroughly in his power. Archibald had beaten him, and he would fight no
+more. Let him enjoy his triumph, and push it to the utmost. There was one
+point, at all events, on which Richard had the better of him, and this
+thought brought with it the sole spark of comfort that these evil days
+afforded him. He had his wife--the woman to win whom Sir Archibald would
+have given all his lands and fortune, and his soul into the bargain. Yes,
+Kate was his, and his only; and it was the resolve to keep her his, and
+thus spite his enemy as long as possible, that withheld Richard from
+seeking relief in suicide at this juncture. So Providence leads men from
+agony to worse agony, with intent, doubtless, to torture out of them the
+evil which they will not voluntarily relinquish.
+
+One winter evening, Richard sitting brooding and sipping brandy as usual,
+with a lamp burning on the table beside him, and the embers of the fire
+flickering on the broad hearth at his feet, there came a light, measured
+step and the rustle of a dress, and he knew that his wife was in the room.
+He raised his haggard visage and looked at her. What a goddess of beauty
+she seemed! How young, graceful, lovely! How pure and clear were the tints
+of her face, how lustrous dark her eyes, how soft her ample hair! How
+peerless she was! and all she was--all this treasure of fragrant
+womanhood--was his, and not another's. Ay, and his willingly; she really
+loved him, he thought; she had shown it of late; she cared for him, old,
+ruined, and degraded though he was. It was a strange thing; it was a
+pleasant thing. Perhaps, he thought, if he had had such a creature to love
+him in earlier days, he might not have been where he was now. But then, in
+earlier days, he was not a ruined and wasted man.
+
+"Kate!"
+
+"Yes, Richard."
+
+"Oh, never speak so formally! Am I not Dick, thy own dear old Dick--eh?"
+
+"I did not mean to be formal."
+
+"Come and sit here beside me--no, here, on the arm of my chair. It was good
+of you to come in here. I was getting lonesome. I wanted my Kate to tell
+me she loved me--eh?"
+
+"I only came in to say good-night. It is late."
+
+"Late?--pooh! It's not nine o'clock. Stay and be sociable a bit. There, I
+won't touch another drop if you'll stay."
+
+"I'm tired; I have a headache. You don't want me."
+
+"Not want you! Ay, but I do though! Without you, Kate, I should have been a
+dead man weeks ago. Not want you!"
+
+"Nonsense! what do you mean? You have drunk too much already, I fear."
+
+"I mean that, but for you, I'd have blown my brains out the day of the
+trial--after I'd blown out his, the scoundrel! But since I have you, I
+know a way to worry him better than by blowing his brains out. To know
+that you are mine is hell to him. And in that hell I'll keep him, as long
+as my body and soul will hang together!"
+
+"What should he care whether I am yours or not?"
+
+"Because he loves you--that's why he cares! Ay, you needn't start. He loves
+you, and it's hell to him to feel that another man has you. How many
+thousand pounds do you think he'd give to kiss this little hand as I kiss
+it now? I wish he could see me do it!"
+
+"Nonsense, you are crazy.... And so you only care for me to spite him?"
+
+"No, not that. God knows--if there is a God--I love you, Kate, with all
+there is left of me--except what hates him! That's my life--love for you
+and hate for him. And I believe I hate him less than I love you, though
+that's saying a great deal!"
+
+"Oh, I think you love that brandy better than you do me."
+
+"You do? If you say so, I'll never touch it again!"
+
+"Oh, I don't care. I don't want you to give up anything that makes you
+comfortable."
+
+"Ay, you do love me, don't you, Kate?"
+
+"Come, Richard, our courting days are over. And I must go. Good-by!"
+
+"No, don't go! I feel, somehow, as if I couldn't spare you to-night."
+
+"Shall I pour you out another glass?"
+
+"Yes--no! I'll drink no more to-night. Kate...."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'm getting old. In the natural course of things I should die long before
+you. I sha'n't die yet a while--but some time, you know. Will you promise
+something?"
+
+"I'll promise nothing to-night. I dare say you'll outlive me."
+
+"Promise, come what will, you'll never marry him; eh, Kate?"
+
+"Really, Richard, I--I never heard anything so foolish! I can't stay to
+hear any more such talk. You are not your right self. There--let me go!"
+
+"Go?--go where? Gad, I've a mind to say you sha'n't go! Well, yes, I didn't
+mean it; forgive me, Kate! Only you're my wife, you know, and I'm your
+husband; and I love you; and somehow I feel afraid to let you out of my
+sight--as if I might not see you again. Well, then.... But one thing you
+shall do--you shall give me a kiss before you go! Else you sha'n't go at
+all!"
+
+Thus compelled, Mrs. Pennroyal kissed her husband, or let herself be kissed
+by him; and then she escaped from the room, with a shudder and a sinking
+of the heart.
+
+Richard Pennroyal sat there alone; the embers of the fire were now gray and
+lifeless. He stirred them with his foot, and they fell into ashes. He felt
+cold. How still the house was; how lonely! And he had no pleasant thoughts
+to keep him company now that his wife had left him; but many thoughts,
+many memories that were far from pleasant, were lying in wait for him in
+the dark corners of his mind, ready to leap out upon him if he gave them a
+chance. Among them, why did the foolish face of crazy old Jane, his wife
+of many years ago, persist in obtruding itself? Why did it wear that look
+of stupid, unreasonable reproach? yes, unreasonable; for how was he to
+blame? He had but let things take their course; no more than that ... well,
+scarcely more! And yet that face, that silly old face, that dull,
+lifeless, drowned old face, kept meeting his in the dark corners, turn
+where he would. If he closed his eyes, it was still visible through the
+eyelids, and seemed nearer than ever.
+
+So he opened his eyes; and there hovered the face, in the gloom beyond the
+lamp. What an expression! Was it signalling him to come away? Was it
+mocking him for fearing to come? Fearing? He was not afraid. He was a
+Pennroyal; he had noble blood in his veins; though he was now a bit old
+and shaky, and had, perhaps, been taking a little too much brandy of late.
+But--afraid! not he. Why, he would follow the thing, if it came to that;
+follow it to....
+
+He rose slowly from his chair, still keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon
+it, and moved toward it, with his hands outstretched. He did not get any
+nearer to it; it was retreating before him, like a will-o'-the-wisp. He
+kept on, crossing the length of the room; it seemed to pass through the
+substance of the door, and yet he saw it beyond. He opened the door
+softly; yes, there it was in the hall. A pistol was lying on the little
+table beside the door, which Richard knew to be loaded. Mechanically, and
+without looking at it, he took it up as he passed. Then down the hall on
+tiptoe, the shadowy, unmeaning face marshalling him the way, and leering
+at him if he hesitated. Ay, he would follow it to the end, now.
+Fortunately, the house-door stood open; there would be no noise in getting
+out. Out they glided, pursuer and pursued, into the cold stillness of the
+night. There was a moon, but it was dim and low down. The shadows seemed
+more real than the light. There was no snow to betray footprints. But
+whither would this chase lead? It seemed to be heading toward the
+northwest--toward Malmaison; ay, and toward the pool that lay on the
+borders of the estate. Richard shuddered when he thought of that pool, and
+of the grisly significance of his being led thither by this witless,
+idiotic old phantom of his dead wife's face. Stay, the face seemed to have
+got itself a body within the last few moments: it was a gray figure that
+now flitted on before him; gray and indistinct in the dim moonlight, with
+noiseless, waving drapery. It was going the very path that old Jane had
+gone that day, many years ago--her last day on earth; and yet, was she not
+here again to-night? And she was leading him to the pool; and what then?
+
+Swiftly she flitted onward, some seventy paces in advance apparently, now
+lost in shadow, now reappearing in the light. She never turned nor
+beckoned, but kept straight on, and Richard had much ado to keep pace with
+her. At length he caught the gleam of the dark pool some little distance
+beyond. He set his teeth, and came on. The gray phantom had paused at
+last. But was that Jane after all? Not Jane's was that tall and graceful
+figure. This must be some other woman's ghost. Was it a ghost? And if so,
+was that another--that man who issued from behind a clump of bushes, and
+came toward her? The two figures met; the man took the woman in his arms,
+and kissed her many times on the lips and eyes. Kisses! ay, those were
+kisses indeed! Now they seemed to be conversing together; his arms were
+round her waist. The moonlight revealed his features; it was the enemy--it
+was Archibald Malmaison! And the woman was not the dead wife, but the
+living one.
+
+"We are perfectly safe, my darling," Archibald was saying. "The room was
+all prepared for you, and there is no possibility of discovery. There will
+be a great outcry and confusion for a week or so, and they will search for
+you, dead and alive; and I along with the rest, the better to disarm
+suspicion. It will be settled, at last, that you must have escaped to some
+foreign country; or, maybe, Richard himself will fall under suspicion of
+having made away with you, as he did with his first wife. Sooner or later,
+at any rate, they will give up the search; and, whether or not, we shall
+always be free to each other. You could not persuade any one at Malmaison
+to so much as put his nose into the east chamber, and as to the other, you
+and I are the only living creatures who even dream of its existence.
+Darling, you will not mind being a prisoner for a little while, since love
+will be a prisoner with you?"
+
+The woman clung to him tremulously. "I did not know it would be so hard to
+leave him," she murmured. "I hate him, and yet it was hard. He is so
+wretched; and he is all alone. What will he do now? He kept saying that he
+loved me and asking me to love him, and to call him Dick; and ... he made
+me kiss him. Oh, Archie, I feel that kiss beneath all yours. I shall
+always feel it!"
+
+"No, this shall make you forget it--"
+
+"Hush! I hear something!"
+
+"You are nervous--"
+
+"Ah! look! It is he. Now God have mercy!"
+
+Sir Archibald looked; and there, indeed, stood the tall figure of the
+Honorable Richard Pennroyal, without his hat, and with an expression on
+his face that was a living curse to behold. And yet that face smiled and
+bowed with a hideous politeness.
+
+"Good-evening, Sir Archibald. Will you permit me to inquire whether you are
+armed?"
+
+Sir Archibald put his hand within his vest, and drew out a pistol.
+
+"Ah, that comes in very conveniently. Now, let us see. Mrs. Pennroyal,
+since you are my wife, perhaps you will be good enough to give us the
+word?--No, she insists upon fainting. Well, then, we must manage the best
+way we can. But let me entreat you to take your aim carefully, my dear Sir
+Archibald, for if you miss it will involve unpleasant consequences for
+Mrs. Pennroyal as well as for yourself. Now, I will toss up this pebble,
+and when it strikes the surface of the water we will fire. Is it agreed?
+Here goes, then."
+
+He had the pebble in his hand, and was in act to toss it, when the baronet,
+breaking silence for the first time, said:
+
+"Mr. Pennroyal, I am willing that this should go no further."
+
+"Scoundrel and coward!" snarled the other, his deadly fury breaking in a
+moment through the thin mockery of courtesy; "come up then, and be shot
+like the cur you are!"
+
+There could be no more words. Sir Archibald raised his pistol; his
+antagonist threw the pebble high in the air, and as it smote the smooth
+surface of the pool in its descent, both pulled trigger. Richard
+Pennroyal's weapon missed fire; Sir Archibald's bullet passed through his
+enemy's heart; he swayed backward and forward for a moment, and then fell
+on his face, hurling his pistol as he fell at the prostrate figure of his
+wife, who lay huddled on the ground; but it flew wide, and struck Sir
+Archibald on the temple. Before the ripples caused by the pebble's fall
+had died away, Pennroyal had ceased to live.
+
+Mrs. Pennroyal was still apparently insensible, but as Sir Archibald
+approached her she partly raised herself up, and looked first at him and
+then at the dead body.
+
+"It was not worth while," she said.
+
+"It's done," he murmured. "Are you hurt?"
+
+"What shall we do?"
+
+"We must get back to Malmaison."
+
+"We cannot leave him here."
+
+Sir Archibald bent over the body of his enemy, and turned the face upward.
+It wore a calm and happy expression.
+
+"I will sink him in the pool," he said. "His will not be the first dead
+body that has lain there."
+
+He stooped accordingly, and getting his hands beneath the arms of the
+corpse, dragged it to one of the flights of steps that led down to the
+water. Kate sat watching him with her hands clasped in her lap. She heard
+a splashing sound and a ripple. Sir Archibald came back, picked up the
+pistol, and flung it also into the pool.
+
+"The water will freeze to-night," he said, "and the fishes will do the
+rest. Now, come!"
+
+In a secret chamber at Malmaison lamps were burning softly in a dozen
+sconces of burnished silver round the walls. Their light fell on luxurious
+furniture, fit for the boudoir of a lovely and noble lady. The
+broad-backed ebony chairs were upholstered in delicate blue damask; clips
+and salvers of chased gold stood on the inlaid cabinet; the floor was
+covered with richly-tinted Persian rugs and soft-dressed furs; a warm fire
+glowed on the hearth, and upon the table was set out a supper such as
+might have awakened an appetite in a Roman epicure. A tall mirror, at the
+farther end of the room, reflected back the lights and the color and the
+sparkle, while in a niche at one side stood rigidly upright an antique
+suit of armor, its gauntlets seeming to rest meditatively upon the hilt of
+its sword, while from between the closed bars of the helmet one might
+fancy that the dark spirit of its former inmate was gazing grimly forth
+upon all this splendor and luxury, and passing a ghastly jest thereon. But
+it was as fair and comfortable a scene as perhaps this world can show, and
+well calculated to make the sternest ascetic in love with life.
+
+Through the massive oaken door, clamped with polished steel bands, entered
+now two pallid and haggard persons--a man and a woman. The light striking
+on their eyes made them blink and look aside. The man led the woman to the
+fire, and seated her upon a low chair; and taking a blue satin coverlid
+from the bed in the recess, he folded it tenderly round her shoulders. She
+scarcely seemed to notice where she was, or what was being done; she sat
+with her eyes and face fixed, shivering now and then, and with her mind
+apparently preoccupied with some ugly recollection. The man then went to
+the table and poured out a glass of wine, and held it to the woman's lips,
+and after a little resistance she drank some of it.
+
+"You are as safe here," said he, "as if you were in an island of the South
+Sea. I will see that you want for nothing while you have to remain here."
+
+
+"What is the use?" she asked, with a kind of apathetic peevishness.
+
+"Before long we shall be able to go away," he continued. "My darling, don't
+be disheartened. All our happiness is to come."
+
+"I can never forget it," she said, with a shiver. "What is the use? I can
+never get away from him now. Do you think the water is frozen yet?"
+
+"You must not think of that at all. When you are warm, and have drunk some
+wine, you will not feel this nervousness. Nothing has been done that is
+worth regretting, or that could have been helped. Kate, I love you more
+than ever."
+
+"What is the use?" she repeated, in a dull tone. "It was not worth while."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"I must leave you for a few minutes," he said gently. "It is necessary that
+I should show myself to Lady Malmaison and to the servants. No one knows
+that I have left the house. By the time I come back you will have got
+warm, and we will sup together. Don't be downhearted, my darling."
+
+He bent forward to kiss her. With a sudden gesture of aversion she pushed
+him back. "There is blood upon your forehead!" she said, in a sharp
+whisper.
+
+"Only a scratch--I had forgotten it," he answered, trying to smile. "Well,
+then, in half an hour, at the utmost, we will meet again."
+
+She made no rejoinder; and, after standing a moment looking down at her, he
+turned and went out. He closed the oaken door behind him, and locked it,
+then felt his way along the stone passage, and let himself out by the
+concealed entrance. He put the silver rod in its receptacle beneath the
+floor, and walked toward the room adjoining. On the threshold of that room
+he paused a moment, leaning against the door-post. A sensation of sluggish
+weariness had come over him; his head felt full and heavy. He roused
+himself presently, and went on trying to remember whither he was going. By
+the time he had reached the top of the great staircase, the idea that he
+was in search of seemed to have come to him. He descended the stairs and
+went directly to Lady Malmaison's room. It was then about eleven o'clock.
+The good lady was playing cards with her companion, her spaniel sleeping
+on her knees. She looked up in astonishment, for Sir Archibald seldom
+honored her with a visit.
+
+"Mamma," said he, going up to her chair, and standing there awkwardly,
+"where is Kate?"
+
+"My son! what has happened?"
+
+"Was she married to-day?" pursued the baronet, in an aggrieved tone.
+
+Lady Malmaison and the companion exchanged a terrified glance.
+
+"I think it is very unkind, then," declared the young man, reproachfully;
+"for Richard promised me I should be groomsman--and now they have gone and
+got married while I was asleep. It was unkind of Kate, and I don't love
+her; but I don't believe it was Richard's fault, because he is good, and I
+love him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Ring the bell, Simpson," said Lady Malmaison, in a broken voice, "and tell
+them to send for Dr. Rollinson."
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+During all the months of consternation, speculation, and vague hue-and-cry
+that followed the mysterious disappearance of the Honorable Mr. and Mrs.
+Pennroyal, it never for one moment occurred to any one to suggest any
+connection between that unexplained circumstance and the equally curious
+but unpertinent fact that poor Sir Archibald had "gone daft" once more.
+
+How should it? It was known that Sir Archibald had been in his room all
+that day and evening up to the time when he came into his mother's chamber
+without his wits. It was true that there had been no love lost of late
+between the houses of Malmaison and Pennroyal, but that was neither here
+nor there.
+
+The notion that the vanished persons had met with foul play was never
+seriously entertained, it being generally agreed that Mr. Pennroyal had
+ample reasons for not wishing to remain in a place where his credit and
+his welcome were alike worn out. In all likelihood, therefore, the pair
+had slunk away to foreign parts, and were living under an assumed name
+somewhere on the Continent, or in America.
+
+It was not surprising that they had gone together, for it was known that
+they were on very good terms with each other, especially during the last
+year. An idle story of a groom, who affirmed that he had been present at
+an interview between Mrs. Pennroyal and Sir Archibald, on horseback, a few
+weeks before the trial, when, according to this narrator, they had
+appeared to be rather friendly than otherwise, was not thought to be in
+any way to the point.
+
+So the months passed away, and the years followed the months; the house and
+the lands of the Pennroyals were sold, and their very name began to be
+forgotten. The daft baronet and his aged mother went on living at
+Malmaison in a quiet and uneventful manner, seeing very few people, and
+doing nothing except allow their large property to grow larger. Yet, in
+spite of their retiring inoffensiveness, a shadow seemed to brood over the
+ancient house.
+
+The old story of Sir Archibald's past exploits in the magical line, and of
+his ancestors before him, were still revived occasionally round evening
+firesides; and it was submitted whether his present condition were not a
+judgment upon him for having tampered with forbidden mysteries.
+
+In the opinion of these fireside juries, there was a curse upon Malmaison,
+especially upon that part of it which contained the east chamber. That
+room was haunted, and had never been haunted so badly as during the few
+days immediately following Sir Archibald's loss of memory.
+
+It may have been a demon's carousal over the sad plight of the poor,
+foolish young baronet. At all events shrieks had been heard, faint and
+muffled, but unmistakable, proceeding from that region, when everybody
+knew that no living soul was there or could be there; but all the servants
+at Malmaison could swear to the sounds. Ay, the place was accursed.
+
+Late on the night of the 22d of January, 1833, Sir Archibald found himself
+mounting the staircase of Malmaison, with but an indistinct idea of how he
+came to be doing so. He could not recollect whether he had seen his mother
+and the servants or not. No wonder if his thoughts had been a little
+absent, with such a dark and burdensome secret as that which lay upon his
+soul. But, of course, he must have seen them. He had left Kate with the
+intention of doing so, within this very hour; and how should he be coming
+up-stairs, unless from the execution of that purpose? His mind was busy
+with many projects. It would probably be thought that Mr. and Mrs.
+Pennroyal had left the country to escape creditors. If only the pond
+froze, and the cold weather held on for a week or two, there would be no
+trace that could lead to a suspicion of anything else. For himself, he
+would find no difficulty in proving an alibi, if it came to that. And
+after all, he had but acted upon compulsion, and in self-defence, and upon
+equal terms. He was guilty of no crime, except--well, call it a crime; he
+was willing to bear the brunt of that. So they would be able to get away
+soon, and in Italy, Spain, somewhere, anywhere, they could live and be
+happy many years. Perhaps after a time they could venture to marry and
+return openly to England. There were numberless and indefinite
+possibilities in their favor. Life was all they wanted, and life they had.
+They were both young; the gloom of this unlucky tragedy would soon be
+dispelled. Kate had been nervous and distraught when he left her, and no
+wonder, poor love! but wine, and food, and warmth would soon bring the
+color back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes. Lovely Kate! sweet,
+wayward, tender, haughty, but his own at last--his own in spite of earth
+and heaven! Yes, he and she would have their will and take their pleasure
+in spite of God and man; and if God would kill them, then, at any rate,
+they would die together, and in each other's arms.
+
+With these and many like thoughts flying through his mind, Sir Archibald
+Malmaison reached the east chamber struck a light, and lit the candle that
+stood on the table beside the door. He looked at his watch--half-past
+eleven; he was within his time then; he had been absent less than half an
+hour. What was Kate doing, he wondered? He stopped a moment, picturing her
+to himself in some luxurious attitude; but his impatience would not suffer
+him to delay. He quickly got the silver rod from its receptacle, opened
+the concealed door, and went in, carrying the lighted candle in his hand.
+In a moment he was at the inner oaken door; it resisted his attempt to
+open it. Then he recollected that he had locked it for additional
+security. The key was in the lock; he turned it, and entered.
+
+An involuntary cry of surprise escaped him. Instead of the soft blaze of
+light that he had expected, the room was full of a heavy darkness, that
+seemed to rush out to meet him, and almost overwhelmed the feeble glimmer
+of his wretched candle. And why was it so deadly cold? Where had gone that
+cheerful fire which was burning so ardently on the hearth half an hour
+ago? Could Kate have put out the lights and gone off? Impossible, since
+the doors were fastened. Ah, there she was!
+
+She was kneeling with her face bowed forward on her arms, which rested on
+the seat of one of the low chairs. Her attitude was that of passionate
+prayer. Her thick brown hair was unfastened, and fell over her shoulders.
+
+She made no movement. It was strange! Was she praying? Could she be asleep?
+
+He took a step or two, and then stopped. Still no movement.
+
+"Kate!" he said in a hushed voice; and as she did not answer, he spoke more
+loudly: "Kate, I have come back; and I've a mind to scold you for letting
+the fire go out, and startling me with this darkness. What are you doing
+on your knees? Come, my darling, we want no prayers to-night. Kate ...
+will you give me a kiss now?
+
+"Perhaps she may have fainted. Poor darling, she must have fainted!"
+
+He went close up to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder: he seemed to
+grasp nothing but the empty stuff of the dress. With a terrified,
+convulsive motion, he pulled her round, so that the head was disturbed
+from its position on the arms, and the ghastly mystery was revealed to his
+starting eyeballs. The spectacle was not one to be described. He uttered a
+weak, wavering scream, and stood there, unable to turn away his gaze.
+
+I must confess that I do not care to pursue this narrative any farther:
+though it is just at this point, according to my venerable friend Dr.
+Rollinson, that the real scientific interest begins. He was constantly
+with Sir Archibald during the eight or nine months that he remained in
+life after this episode; and made some highly important and edifying notes
+on his "case," besides writing down the unhappy baronet's confessions, as
+given from time to time. After his death, the Doctor made an autopsy of
+the brain, and discovered--I care not what! It was not the mystery of the
+man's soul, I am convinced.
+
+I have adhered strictly to the facts throughout. Of course some of the
+conversations have been imagined, but always on an adequate foundation of
+truth or logical inference. All the dates and "coincidences" are genuine.
+But, indeed, I prefer fiction, and am resolved never in future to make an
+excursion into the crude and improbable regions of reality.
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+
+1. Dr. Forbes Rollinson's death occurred while these pages were in
+preparation. This is not the place to add my tribute of affection and
+appreciation to the many memoirs of him which have appeared in the public
+prints. My first acquaintance with him dates but little more than three
+years prior to his death; but the impression he produced upon me of
+cordiality, culture, and ability will remain with me while I live. He was
+a grand old gentleman of a school that is now bygone; a scholar of vast
+attainments, and a Christian in heart and life, if not in profession.
+Although he had far exceeded the ordinary span of life--he was born, I
+believe, in the last century--he showed few signs of physical, and none of
+mental infirmity; and his sudden and painless decease was quite
+unexpected.
+
+I subjoin extracts from a letter written to me on the subject of the
+present narrative:
+
+"WELLESLEY HOUSE, QUEEN'S GATE, W.
+
+"MY DEAR H.: I must say I fail to perceive the force of your objections.
+What is fiction, at best, but an imitation of truth--and a pretty poor
+imitation, too, as a general thing?... You ought to be glad to be saved
+the trouble of inventing.... In the matter of love-making and adventure I
+have nothing to say, but scientific truths are not lightly to be tampered
+with. 'Round off the corners' by all means, if you think fit, but do not
+suffer your artistic proclivities to lead you into a misrepresentation of
+the essential facts.... The people are all dead, and the estate is broken
+up, so you need have no hesitation regarding names. Literary value aside,
+the thing would be worth nothing if the means of verifying it were
+withheld....
+
+"Ever faithfully yours,
+
+"June 3d, 1878. E. FORBES ROLLINSON."
+
+2. Now also the late: _vide supra_.
+
+3. 3. In July, 1867.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Archibald Malmaison, by Julian Hawthorne
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