The Master of Stair 31

The Master of Stair 31

In these pleasant thoughts he was disturbed by the sound of the opening

door and the slow entry of Lady Dalrymple.

 

At sight of him she hesitated.

 

“Where is Sir John?” she asked.

 

The Viscount pointed to the folding door. “In there, with my Lord

Breadalbane.”

 

She shrank away from the door as if she saw the man behind it.

 

“What do they talk of?” she asked heavily.

 

“Why, madam,” he answered dryly, “what business is that of yours?”

 

She shook her head drearily and crossed to the window; in the gray

light of the winter afternoon her face and figure showed one dull

whiteness; her pale hair, her white dress and her pallor made her

appear ghostlike in the somber room. A few flakes of snow were falling

across the leaden sky; Lady Dalrymple stared out at the bleak square

and the bare trees.

 

“Madam, have you no occupation?” asked the Viscount suavely.

 

“No,” she answered, without looking round.

 

“There are pleasanter ways of doing nothing,” he observed, “than

contemplating a dreariness.”

 

“My lord—I see nothing else—wherever I look.” She turned her head and

her dim blue eyes rested on him.

 

“An unfortunate disposition,” he remarked.

 

She came down the room restlessly, her head hanging a little.

 

“Did you want to see my son?” questioned the Viscount, eying her.

 

“No,” she answered dully.

 

“You merely questioned, madam, that you might avoid him?”

 

Lady Dalrymple lifted her head.

 

“Perhaps,” she said, with trembling lips.

 

The Viscount smiled.

 

“Will you, madam, do me a like service?”

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“Avoid me, madam; the house is large enough.”

 

A faint flush came into her face.

 

“I strive, my lord, not to trouble you.”

 

“Madam, you are hardly successful.”

 

“Forgive me,” she said, very white again. “It is not of my doing that I

am your son’s wife.”

 

The Viscount shrugged his shoulders. “I am not responsible for my son’s

domestic affairs—”

 

She turned and faced him.

 

“Your son is your son,” she said bitterly, “and what you made him.

Between you, you have goaded me into something near craziness—but you

shall not dare to judge me—you who know what your son is—without pity,

or charity, or any tenderness—violent beyond reason—mad!”

 

The Viscount looked at her straightly and smiled, and at his smile she

gave him a wild look and turned hastily, as if frightened, from the

room.

 

As the door closed behind her she shuddered, then began slowly

ascending the great stairs.

 

So lonely, so utterly lonely! The vast house was certainly haunted; she

continually glanced over her shoulder at the ghosts catching her skirts.

 

So lonely, so intolerably lonely! the dark pictures on the walls looked

ominous and threatening; heavy shadows lurked in every corner; she

began to hurry like a guilty thing, starting before every open door

with a frightened glance into the empty room beyond. She came to the

very top of the house; the low attics under the roof.

 

One of these she entered, catching her breath at her own footsteps. It

was dusty, empty, this garret, yet it would seem as if some one had

recently been there, for a candle in a silver stick stood on the

window-ledge and a broken chair was drawn up under it; in one corner

was a pile of boxes and some old pictures with their faces to the wall.

 

Lady Dalrymple shut the door and glided softly across the floor; her

face wore a look of expectancy. She lit the candle; it cast a dim

light, showing the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and the broken

plaster of the walls and throwing great shadows from the boxes in the

corner.

 

It was bitterly cold here, but she did not seem to heed it; carefully

she placed the candle so that it did not gutter in the draught, then,

sinking on her knees beside them, she opened the topmost box.

 

Out of it with infinite care she took a large jointed doll, the waxen

face beautifully modeled. It was the size of a child and was elegantly

dressed in velvet and lace; Lady Dalrymple set it on the chair and

smoothed out the collar with loving fingers.

 

In this uncertain light the doll had a ghastly semblance of humanity;

like a dumb and motionless child, its glass eyes stared at the woman

kneeling at its side; the draught from the window blew its black curls

to and fro in lifelike manner.

 

Lady Dalrymple smiled to herself and stroked the velvet coat

half-timidly, then returning to the box she brought from it a

work-basket and a little shirt and with these she seated herself beside

the chair and began to mend the shirt where the wrist ruffle was torn.

 

Her delicate hand flew swiftly to and fro; for all the ill-light and

the cold, her face was absorbed, almost contented. When the light task

was completed, she held the garment up before the candle with a little

smile; she was shuddering in the bitter draught that crept round the

attic; but she did not know it; her lips moved as if she spoke to

herself; she drew the doll down and removing its coat, carefully fitted

on the shirt; it was too large and hung stiffly on the unbending

figure; but Lady Dalrymple held the doll out at arm’s length with a

wistful face; then caught it to her poor empty heart and rocked it to

and fro with passionate hands clasping the inanimate rag.

 

“Harry,” her cold lips murmured, “so you used to sit—it feels like

you—so—then your arms would go round my neck—slowly.”

 

She quivered into a smile at the recollection.

 

“Then you would lift your face up—all soft and warm—ah, my dear—my

dear—”

 

Her great moist eyes turned to the thing in her arms; she saw the

staring glassy eyes, the hard wax face and rose, setting it aside.

 

“It is a lie,” she said with the quiet of agony. “You are dead.”

 

She laid her face against the wall and woe shook her whole body.

 

“God!—are these things just?” she said with clenched hands. “Is it

right these things should be?—that I should live to think upon his

grave?”

 

Her voice echoed through the bare rafters; a sudden gust of wind blew

the window open and the candle out; she gave a cry of terror and rushed

from the room, shutting the door behind her. At a swift regardless pace

she came down the stairs till she reached a landing where a dim lamp

hung.

 

She paused there a moment as if she had forgotten where she would go,

and while she hesitated a door was opened and the Master of Stair

stepped out. His wife shrank back against the wall, but he stopped and

their eyes met.

 

He noticed her face, her fallen hair, the dust upon her dress.

 

“Who are you? Where have you been?” he asked, starting back.

 

Her side she drew herself still further away; her lips formed a

half-smile; very foolish, very tragic.

 

He swept past her down the stairs, fiercely as though the Furies were

after him; the clatter of his sword on the marble echoed through the

empty house.

 

His wife had reminded him of his sister Janet, with her blank blue

eyes, her soft white face and her curious crouching attitude, like an

animal expecting the whip.

 

He gave a wild laugh; for that one startled moment he had thought it

was his sister, and she dead twenty years! His thoughts were wandering;

he laughed again recklessly and flinging his head back, looked up.

 

Lady Dalrymple had come to the head of the stairs and was peering down,

her hands clasped behind her—surely it was his sister—and the house was

haunted as he had known—known—

 

So strong was the feeling that the man felt the word forming on his

lips, “Janet!”