Haunted! a novel

Front matter

HAUNTED! % gobxl BY DORA VERE AUTH03 OP " MY TE*C7E KNIGHT " ETC. " Silent streams run deepest, True love never dies " LONDON JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL MILTON H0US3. SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET AND £5 ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C. [All rights re.erved] CONTENTS CHAP. FAGP prologue " Ah, CHE LA MORTE !" I &_t gforg i. Five Years After . . . . . .11 11. A Dead Face . . . . . . .18 in. "The Bells" . . . . . -27 iv. A Fish out of Water . . . . -37 v. The New Arrival 43 vi. " She shall Speak to me To-night " . . 51 vii. " It was a Perfect Day " . . . .60 viii. " I have Nothing to Forgive " . . -73 ix. " O, for the Touch of a Vanished Hand !" . 81 x. The Irony of Fate . . . . -99 xi. " Go to the Triumph which awaits You " . 10S xii. Too Late . . . . . . . 115 xiii. Maxwell Lyndern 123 xiv. " He is a Gentleman " ..... 132 xv.

In the Fens ....... 136 xvi. " Where's the Master V . . . -144 xvii. The First Step . . . . . -152 xviii. A Long Day 158 xix. Wallace's Master 168 xx. " Enid, I Understand You " .... 176 xxi. A Bunch of Poppies . . . . .180 xxii. " You will Never Come Back," he said . .186 xxiii. Alone in the Black Night . . . .190 xxiv. Peril 19& CONTENTS CHAr. taoe xxv. Help! Help! • 2o1 xxvi. " Ten Times Better than my own Soul" . 208 xxvii. A Ghost of the Past . . . • .214 xxviii. A Willing Slave . . • • .217 xxix. " The Pleasure that's almost Pain " . . 222 xxx. Face to Face at Last ..... 235 xxxi. " She need not have done that " . . 244 xxxii. A Bitter Eevenge ..... 248 xxxiii. The Die is Cast . . . . . -256 xxxiv. One Step More . . . . . . .267 xxxv. A Fatal Secret . : . . . -275 xxxvi. Laurence Yanlyn's Wife *. . . . 284 xxxvii.

" I dare not Forget" : . . . . 290 xxxviii. An Invitation from a Friend . . . 294 xxxix. Eetribution ...... 304 xl. Deserted . . . *. . . .308 xli. " Don't Pity Me " . . . . -311 xlii. " My Work is Done " . .... 317 (Epilogue Years After . . . . . -323 HAUNTED! prologue "AH, CHE LA MORTE !" It was being played on a violin, and sounded intensely pathetic, this sad plaintive melody, as it rose and fell, and rose again ; it was the only sound which broke the silence of the moonlit evening. The Queen of Night, wrapped in her glistening robe, was shining brightly in an Italian sky : her light filled the long low room with shadows, and by it the violin and violin-player were plainly visible. The room was quaintly furnished : neither richly nor poorly, but with infinite taste. It seemed to belong in every detail to the tall, slight girl who moved about it so gracefully — the girl whose soul seemed filled by a deathless poem, which found utterance in the sobbing and sighing of the music.

Chapter I. Five Years After

Vanlyn ! is it possible ?" The scene, the Row ; the month, July ; the time, one o'clock. The man who thus accosted Mr. Vanlyn looked somewhat of a Bohemian. Mr. Vanlyn did not. The latter was a tall, thin man, with finely cut fea tures, and a broad, high forehead ; his moustache, which covered a hard mouth, was very thick and long. There was generally a bitter cynical look on his face, as if he had found life a disappointment ; but having dispensed with its weaknesses, or rather permanently overcome them, he smiled with mingled pity and con tempt upon those of his fellow-creatures who had not attained to his own exalted height, and were still struggling with their loves and hates, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows ; in a word, those who were not experienced philosophers like himself. He was dressed very carefully and very well : in stinctively you would have known him to be a " man about town," a man who was probably sought after in society, and who accepted invitations condescend ingly and carelessly, and received a large number in consequence.

A lion in his way, who condescended to roar for the public edification, and was profnsely thanked for doing so. " Ah ! how do you do, Talbot ?" he said. " Glad to see you back again." His companion glanced from his own somewhat unconventional attire to his friend's faultless get up, and smiled. "It is quite pleasant to see old England again," he said, "quite pleasant to meet one's friends and return to civilisation, after five years of a Bohemian existence in half the cities of the habitable globe." " Have you really been away for so long ?" asked Mr. Vanlyn. " Really, and now I have returned I am naturally burning with the desire to hear what has been hap pening to this great Babylon, and the inhabitants thereof, in my absence. I knowT no man more likely to be up in the latest intelligence than yourself.

If you have nothing better to do, come and lunch with me to-day." One of Mr. Vanlyn 's characteristics was that he never did anything in a hurry. He looked at his watch before he replied to his companion. " What time do you lunch ?" he said. " Whenever I chance to get home." " Thanks. I shall be happy to join you." Did I say that Mr. Vanlyn's manner, although it conveyed a suspicion of patronage, was, when he chose, so pleasant as to amount almost to fascination ? If I did not, I will do so now. This circumstance was accounted for by the fact that his heaven was popu larity, and no devoted anchorite ever studied his path more closely, or strove to walk therein more carefully, than did Mr. Vanlyn in his. Most of the women of his acquaintance, young and old, married and single, were attracted by him, and he smiled down upon them from the little pedestal upon which they had placed him.

"Five years !" said Mr. Talbot meditatively; "let me see, when I went away you were daily expected home from Italy to see the last of your uncle, and marry your cousin. I suppose by this time the poor old fellow is dead and buried, and you have blossomed into a family man ?" " My uncle was dead when I returned to England," said Mr. Vanlyn. " My cousin did the most sensible thing she could do, and married some one else; she is now in Australia, and I am supporting existence in the capacity of an unencumbered, and consequently unhappy, bachelor." "You seem to support it tolerably well," said Mr. Talbot. "I am still in sixes and sevens," he con tinued. " I came home rather suddenly, so told my servants to prepare only the study and my bedroom. You will put up with things as they are, won't you ?"

All through luncheon Mr. Talbot entertained his guest with the account of his travels ; after luncheon he handed him a cigar. "Take the easy-chair," he said; "from my recollection of you, I know you to be a man of artistic taste and ideas. I am possessed with a great desire to submit to your critical judgment some of my sketches. I have not been idle during my five years' absence." He unlocked a portfolio as he spoke, and held up one of the drawings. "You get a peep of Mont Blanc in that," he said; "you recognise it, of course?" " 0 yes, unmistakably." They went through most of the paintings, Mr. Vanlyn criticising or praising, as the case might be. The last picture in the portfolio was turned face downwards. At the same moment that Mr. Vanlyn took it in his hand, his host rose from his chair.

" Have another glass of claret ?" he said. When he turned round again, the ghastly pallor on his visitor's face both startled and alarmed him. "Good Lord, Vanlyn!" he exclaimed, "what is the matter?" " It is really nothing," returned Mr. Vanlyn faintly ; "I am subject to these attacks : pray don't disturb yourself on my account." Talbot clashed the bell. " Bring some brandy," he said to the servant. Vanlyn was leaning back in the easy-chair, with his eyes closed ; the cigar, which he had a second before been smoking, lay on the floor ; the pictures scattered about, some on the table and chairs, one or two lay on the floor ; everything was in precisely the same state as when Mr. Talbot turned his back to pour out the claret, even down to the picture face downwards in the portfolio. The only change was the ghastly and almost instantaneous change in the man before him.

After Vanlyn had swallowed a small quantity of brandy the colour began slowly to return to his face. He passed his handkerchief across his forehead and smiled at his companion. " I am awfully sorry to have alarmed you," he said ; " oblige me by forgetting it as soon as you can ; as I told you, I am subject to sudden faintness. This attack is probably the result of indigestion occasioned by your lobster-salad." He spoke lightly, but Mr. Talbot still regarded him uneasily. " Have you consulted a doctor?" he asked. Vanlyn finished the brandy in his glass and rose from his chair. "I don't believe in doctors," he said. "If there is anything serious the matter with me, I would rather not know it ; and if there is not, I don't require a doctor ; as I said before, oblige me by forgetting all about it and blame the lobster-salad.

I know you will not think me rude if I run away ; I promised to meet a man at my club at half-past three." " You will come again ?" said Mr. Talbot ; " I have another portfolio full of paintings to show you." " You are very good, but I am really no judge of pictures ; show them to some one who is more capable of criticising them." The words, and the tone in which they were uttered, astonished Mr. Talbot. " If Vanlyn were bored with looking at the pictures," he thought, " he might have had the civility to conceal it." After his guest had gone Talbot replaced them in the portfolios, lighted another cigar, and sat down to think. It is possible Mr. Vanlyn's sudden attack of faintness might have passed entirely from his mind but for a circumstance which reminded him of it some hours later in the clay.

An old friend named Dr. Froom had been dining with him. In his youth Dr. Froom had travelled a great deal, and consequently took considerable interest in the relation of his host's adventures and reminiscences of the various places which he had himself, in bygone days, visited. For the second time Talbot produced his portfolio. The sight of it brought Vanlyn back to his mind. " By the bye," he said, " Laurence Vanlyn lunched with me to-day. He strikes me as being a good deal altered since I saw him last." Dr. Froom smiled. " That is more than probable," he returned; " six years alter us all. Vanlyn is no exception to the rule." Talbot left the paintings and relighted his pipe. " You have seen something of him of late years, I suppose?" he said. " Has it ever struck you he inherit ed his uncle's complaint as well as his uncle's fortune ?"

"Heart-disease ?" "Yes.' Dr. Froom laughed. " I am in a position to answer that question with great certainty. My answer is, certainly not. Only two months ago I had to extract a piece of glass from one of Vanlyn's hands. The operation was a painful one, and he particularly wished to have chloroform. I positively declined to administer it unless I first ascertained that I could do so with safety. Vanlyn placed himself unreservedly in my hands, provided he might have the chloroform. I made the necessary examination, and afterwards administered it with per fect confidence and success." Talbot returned to the portfolio. " Vanlyn was taken suddenly faint this afternoon," he said. " The only possible way I could account for the attack was that his heart was affected." Dr. Froom's answer was given in a few words, and was eminently to the point.

"Vanlyn has no more heart-disease than I have," he said. " If you want to find out the cause of his sudden attack of faintness, you must look somewhere else." He had scarcely finished speaking when the door opened, and the butler announced, " Mr. Vanlyn." c

Chapter II

A DEAD FACE It is needless to say the announcement profoundly surprised both gentlemen. Talbot concealed his astonishment with well-bred tact. "We were just talking of you," he said. "It is friendly of you to make up for your flying visit this after noon by giving us the pleasure of your society this evening." "You are very kind," returned Vanlyn, with com plete self-possession. " Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to spend the evening with you, but unfortunately I am engaged. I only called in on my way to ask if you cared to go with me to-morrow to the house of a friend of mine, who is possessed of a very fine collection of pictures. In my poor judgment it is well worth your while to give them an hour or two, if you have that amount of spare time at your disposal." He spoke easily and pleasantly, and had obviously recovered so completely from his indisposition of the afternoon that both gentlemen for the time forgot the occurrence.

"You know my weakness," said Talbot, smiling; "it is good of you to indulge it. The sight of your friend's pictures will give me infinite pleasure." " May I inquire what magnetic attraction is strong enough to draw you away from our delightful society ?" asked Dr. Froom. " A feminine one, I conclude ?" Vanlyn laughed. "You are wrong," he said; "it is nothing more exciting than a game of whist with a few kindred spirits." " Then let them get on without you for a short time, and have a cigar with us," urged Talbot, handing him the box. Mr. Vanlyn magnanimously acceded to the request with the air of a man who is conferring a favour rather than partaking of hospitality. His next remark surprised Talbot almost more than his reappearance had done. It took the form of a request to see the contents of the second portfolio.

"If I stay," he said, "you must reward me by a view of the remainder of your paintings. You told me this afternoon you had some more. If they are as clever and interesting as the others, Froom will have as great a treat as I shall." " I was afraid I bored you with them this after noon," said Talbot. "Say rather you filled me with envy ; it would be nearer the mark." Talbot was flattered ; his pictures were his weakness, their commendation his delight. " They are in the other room," he said. " Pray help yourself to some brandy-and-soda while I fetch them." Vanlyn availed himself of the suggestion, and then addressed Dr. Froom. " You have seen the contents of that portfolio, of course ?" he said. " I havo seen nothing at present," was the answer. " We were about to look at it when you came in."

" I owe you my best apologies for delaying anything so pleasant," he returned, with a laugh. He seemed in the best of spirits and full of hearty appreciation, making comments upon the pictures which left no doubt that he was well up in the subject of art. By this time Dr. Froom had arrived at a conclusion : to-morrow's invitation was not the object, but the excuse, of Mr. Vanlyn's visit. "Froom tells me he has not seen your other pictures," said Vanlyn, knocking the ashes off the end of his cigar with the extreme end of his little finger, and blowing a thin cloud of blue smoke from his lips. " Show them now, there's a good fellow, and give me another chance of feasting my artistic soul upon a second glimpse of ' Lake Leman by moonlight.' " Talbot was in his element, Dr. Froom silent and appreciative, Laurence Vanlyn the most high-spirited and merry of the three.

" Let me be showman," he said, going to the pictures. " I am as good as a descriptive catalogue. Froom, oblige me by considering yourself for the time a ' Cook's tourist.' If my eloquence and Talbot's brush do not succeed in transporting you into the land of dreams, poetry, and music, it will be your loss, not our fault." Talbot lighted a fresh pipe and smiled amusedly. " It is a fair division of labour," he said. " I have done my part ; let me be lazy while you do yours." Vanlyn did his remarkably well. He described very pleasantly some of the phases of Italian life ; he spoke of sunsets and sunrises, of blue skys and bluer lakes, of the songs of birds and the charm of moonlight nights. He interspersed his description with soft musical lines of Italian poetry, and concluded with a graphic account of a service at St. Peter's, that grand cathedral in a grand city, till both his hearers felt something of awe and reverence creeping over them.

They had come to the last picture in the portfolio. Vanlyn took it in his hand, looked at it, and broke into a merry laugh. "What have we here, Talbot?" he exclaimed; " why did you not show it to me this afternoon? Have I surprised a secret about which I must be as silent as the grave ?" Talbot did not join in the laugh. The awe which had to some extent crept over him was not dispelled by the sight of the picture. "Ah, poor child!" he said. "Is it not a lovely face ? so pure and innocent, full of such intense pathos, capable of so much suffering." Vanlyn was still holding the picture in his hand, contemplating it with a smile on his face. "I am afraid you were rather hard hit," he said. " If it is not an impertinent question, may I ask why you speak of the young lady in such compassionate terms ?"

He handed the sketch to Dr. Froom, and helped himself to another cigar. " I never spoke to her in my life," said Talbot musingly, aud relapsed into silence once more. " That was an act of folly of which I imagined you incapable," said Vanlyn ; " if you will oblige me with her address, I shall certainly make better use of my opportunities than you did of yours." He looked sharply at Talbot. There was just a shade more eagerness in his tone than was quite to be accounted for by the casual sight of a pretty face sketched on a piece of drawing-paper. For the third time Talbot avoided a direct reply. " She played the violin divinely," he said, still musingly; "no music ever touched my heart in the same way." Vanlyn stuck to his point. He tried another direct question. "She has altered a good deal since that sketch was made, perhaps," he said : " may I ask how long it is since you saw her ?"

" More than six years," answered Talbot. " I shall never see her again. She is dead." As he mentioned the number of years Dr. Froom fancied a look of relief crossed Vanlyn's face. "Dead!" he cried; "how very sad! You might have spared me a disappointment by mentioning the fact before." Dr. Froom silently laid the sketch on the table, and glanced again at Vanlyn. " What did she die of?" he asked : "I could not imagine any commonplace disease carrying her off, she looks too spiritual. One would expect to hear that she gradually evaporated into thin air, or floated away some misty morning into the clouds on the wings of her wonderful music." " She had a story," said Talbot : " Iheard it two years ago when I wasin Italy. If you care to hear it, you shall.' Vanlyn rose, replaced the sketch in the portfolio, and sat clown again in the armchair.

" Is it very affecting?" he asked, smiling. " Shall I require another dose of brandy-and-soda to help me through it?" The gaiety of his manner struck Dr. Froom as being excessive. If Laurence Vanlyn had been acting, he would have pronounced the performance a trifle over done. Instantly Vanlyn divined his thoughts. "Pray help yourself," said Talbot. "No, no, my dear fellow, it was only my joke; get on with the story of your enchanting violinist, or I shall have to go away in the middle, leaving it at the most thrilling part, like the serials, ' To be continued in our next.' " " Well, about six years ago I chanced to be in Rome. One evening I had nothing particular to do, and having heard that a concert was going to take place, I determined to go to it. It was not a very grand one, and was given in aid of some charitable object.

I sat there listening to the, music, thinking more of my own con cerns than anything else, listening in a sort of dream, from which I was aroused by a nudge from my next door neighbour. " ' Here she is,' he said—' this is her first appearance in public. These music-loving people will go mad about her, if her playing is as exquisite as her face.' "He was an Englishman. I have often wondered since if he had any influence over her after life. The applause of the audience was mild but encouraging. " I looked at Signora Gitana. I can no more de scribe her to you than that faint sketch can give you even the faintest idea of her beauty. She was an in spiration, the ideal of a dream. She began to play, and the applause ceased : the audience were spell bound, enchanted. When at last it came to an end we all knew that Signora Gitana's reputation as a musician was established.

As for me, I cannot describe the effect the playing had upon me, except that I could not stay to hear other performers ; the tears were in my eyes. I watched her leave the platform, and then I left also. Half the night I walked about Rome with that divine music ringing in my heart. I often heard her play afterwards, but the music never lost its influence over me. I took that sketch of her the second time I saw her, and added finishing touches on each occasion afterwards. Then I left Rome. Two years ago I re visited it, and inquired for the Signora : they told me she was dead. " It seems that soon after I left she also left Rome, and went to a quiet little place beside the sea. From time to time an English gentleman went to see her, and with him she ultimately came to her death. She was an orphan, and lived quite alone with a little boy as friendless as herself, whom she had rescued from starvation, and taken to live with her.

The child loved her devotedly in the passionate way Italians can and do love. There seems to be no doubt that she was married to the Englishman. The end of the story I heard from an old boatman. He said one bright moonlight night he was smoking his pipe upon the beach beside his boat, when he saw the English gentleman coming towards him with some rugs on his arm, and the Signora by his side. They engaged the boat for a row, got into it, and put off. The boatman stood watching them, and he says he heard wild, wonderful music coming to him across the water. He stood watching till he could see and hear them no longer, and then sat down to smoke again. It must have been half an hour afterwards he went to look for them, and thought he saw something struggling in the water. It was the Englishman swimming towards shore; he ap peared very much exhausted and agitated.

The boat had capsized, and, but for his being able to swim, he would have shared the terrible fate of the unfortunate girl. Even now the boatmen fancy they can hear the wild sad music coming across the water, when the moon shines brightest." " And the little lad," said Dr. Froom — " what be came of him ?" " Curiously enough, he disappeared also. Some say that the Signora spirited him away by her playing ; others, that he threw himself into the sea after her. Another theory is that he found out she was going on the water, and, in his fierce jealousy and adoration, con cealed himself in the boat — so was drowned with her." " Concealed himself in the boat !" repeated Vanlyn ; "then of course he was drowned, he must have been." " Or rescued," said Dr. Froom. Mr. Vanlyn only said said one word, and he said it sharply and irritably—" Impossible !"

" That is the end of my story," said Talbot. " What do people say about the Englishman ?" in quired Vanlyn. " What became of him ?" " He left the next day, and has not been there since." "Poor fellow! I should think not: after such a horrible accident his recollections would be too painful to induce him to visit the place again." The doctor's eyes were fixed keenly on Vanlyn. "It was a narrow escape for him," he remarked; " if the boatman had not chanced to see him, he might have been drowned." " What was his name ?" asked Vanlyn "If it was ever known by the people there, they have forgotten it," returned Talbot; "but I more than suspect, under the circumstances, the gentleman would not be too communicative upon the subject : the chances are, any name by which he was known was a fictitious one."

"I wonder if it was the fellow you sat next to at the concert ?" said Vanlyn. He rose and looked at his watch as he spoke. " A quarter to ten !" he cried, in astonishment. " What will my friends say to me ? I must not stay another minute. May your servant call me a cab ?" When he had gone Talbot returned to his remain ing guest. " Nice fellow Vanlyn," he said reflectively. " I am glad I happened to run across him. It was good of him coming out of his way like that to ask me to go and see his friend's pictures." "Very," returned Dr. Froom dryly.

Chapter III

" THE BELLS " Mr. Vanlyn was looking very ill ; upon that subject there could be no possible doubt. His friends com passionated him, and sent him invitations, all of which he accepted. The worse he looked the more he went out ; indeed, the one thing which appeared impossible to him was to stay at home alone. A month of extra excitement and sleepless nights brought him to Dr. Froom. " I can't stand it any longer," he said irritably, " and I won't ; give me some chloral, and let me have a good night's rest. Sleep is the one thing I want, and the more I -want it the farther I seem off getting it." Dr. Froom looked at his patient critically. " Your nerves are thoroughly unstrung," he said, " and in consequence you have been racketing about from morning to night in the hope of curing yourself. Your treatment has proved a dead failure, and now you come to me, and ask for something which will make you ten times worse."

Vanlyn's nerves were in that delightful condition that he yearned to quarrel with his own shadow, there fore he embraced this favourable opportunity of being uncomplimentary to a more substantial object. " You doctors are no good at all," he said ; " I was a fool to come to you. What is the use of telling a man he is a bundle of nerves, and had better go home and eat half a leg of mutton, when he has no more appe tite than a mummy ; or to go to bed at ten every night, and sleep till ten the next morning, when he is as restless as the bears at the Zoo ? Don't you think it would be about as sensible to tell the lions in Trafalgar Square to roar at intervals ?" The doctor walked to the hearthrug, put his hands under his coat-tails, looked at his boots, and smiled. " Quite as sensible," he said, with provoking cool ness.

" I should be as likely to do one as the other. You have lost your appetite and are unable to sleep ; consequently you profess to come to me for advice, and proceed to order your own medicine, give your own opinion, and make yourself ill in your own way. Have your experiments been successful so far ?" Mr. Vanlyn was obliged to admit they had not. " Very well. Now answer me a few questions. Have you anything on your mind which comes to you in your solitary hours, and robs you of appetite and sleep ?" A look of profound astonishment came into Mr. Vanlyn's eyes ; then he laughed heartily. " What iu the world are you knocking your head against now?" he asked; "do I strike you as a likely fellow to convey about with him a skeleton? I am glad to say I do not possess anything so inconvenient or romantic.