Authors: Sheridan Le Fanu
"Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you;
a great deal that will astonish you. But I had better relate everything
in the order in which it occurred," said the General. "You saw my dear
ward—my child, I may call her. No creature could have been more
beautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming."
"Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely,"
said my father. "I was grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, my
dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you."
He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tears
gathered in the old soldier's eyes. He did not seek to conceal them.
He said:
"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless
as I am. She had become an object of very near interest to me, and
repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life
happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be
very long; but by God's mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankind
before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends
who have murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes and beauty!"
"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it
occurred," said my father. "Pray do; I assure you that it is not mere
curiosity that prompts me."
By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by
which the General had come, diverges from the road which we were
traveling to Karnstein.
"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously
forward.
"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story
you were so good as to promise."
"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short
pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest
narratives I ever heard.
"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you
had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter." Here
he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an
invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about
six leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series
of fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honor of his
illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles."
"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father.
"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin's
lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent
masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with colored
lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never
witnessed. And such music—music, you know, is my weakness—such
ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world,
and the finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas
in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated
grounds, the moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its long
rows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing
from the silence of some grove, or rising from boats upon the lake. I
felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance and
poetry of my early youth.
"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to
the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked
ball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of
the kind I never saw before.
"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only
'nobody' present.
"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her
excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features,
always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but
wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with
extraordinary interest. I had seen her, earlier in the evening, in the
great hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the
terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, also
masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a
person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.
"Had the young lady not worn a mask, I could, of course, have been much
more certain upon the question whether she was really watching my
poor darling.
"I am now well assured that she was.
"We were now in one of the salons. My poor dear child had been dancing,
and was resting a little in one of the chairs near the door; I was
standing near. The two ladies I have mentioned had approached and the
younger took the chair next my ward; while her companion stood beside
me, and for a little time addressed herself, in a low tone, to
her charge.
"Availing herself of the privilege of her mask, she turned to me, and in
the tone of an old friend, and calling me by my name, opened a
conversation with me, which piqued my curiosity a good deal. She
referred to many scenes where she had met me—at Court, and at
distinguished houses. She alluded to little incidents which I had long
ceased to think of, but which, I found, had only lain in abeyance in my
memory, for they instantly started into life at her touch.
"I became more and more curious to ascertain who she was, every moment.
She parried my attempts to discover very adroitly and pleasantly. The
knowledge she showed of many passages in my life seemed to me all but
unaccountable; and she appeared to take a not unnatural pleasure in
foiling my curiosity, and in seeing me flounder in my eager perplexity,
from one conjecture to another.
"In the meantime the young lady, whom her mother called by the odd name
of Millarca, when she once or twice addressed her, had, with the same
ease and grace, got into conversation with my ward.
"She introduced herself by saying that her mother was a very old
acquaintance of mine. She spoke of the agreeable audacity which a mask
rendered practicable; she talked like a friend; she admired her dress,
and insinuated very prettily her admiration of her beauty. She amused
her with laughing criticisms upon the people who crowded the ballroom,
and laughed at my poor child's fun. She was very witty and lively when
she pleased, and after a time they had grown very good friends, and the
young stranger lowered her mask, displaying a remarkably beautiful face.
I had never seen it before, neither had my dear child. But though it was
new to us, the features were so engaging, as well as lovely, that it
was impossible not to feel the attraction powerfully. My poor girl did
so. I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless,
indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her
heart to her.
"In the meantime, availing myself of the license of a masquerade, I put
not a few questions to the elder lady.
"'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said, laughing. 'Is that not enough?
Won't you, now, consent to stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness
to remove your mask?'
"'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady to
yield an advantage! Beside, how do you know you should recognize me?
Years make changes.'
"'As you see,' I said, with a bow, and, I suppose, a rather melancholy
little laugh.
"'As philosophers tell us,' she said; 'and how do you know that a sight
of my face would help you?'
"'I should take chance for that,' I answered. 'It is vain trying to make
yourself out an old woman; your figure betrays you.'
"'Years, nevertheless, have passed since I saw you, rather since you saw
me, for that is what I am considering. Millarca, there, is my daughter;
I cannot then be young, even in the opinion of people whom time has
taught to be indulgent, and I may not like to be compared with what you
remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in
exchange.'
"'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.'
"'And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied.
"'Well, then, at least you will tell me whether you are French or
German; you speak both languages so perfectly.'
"'I don't think I shall tell you that, General; you intend a surprise,
and are meditating the particular point of attack.'
"'At all events, you won't deny this,' I said, 'that being honored by
your permission to converse, I ought to know how to address you. Shall I
say Madame la Comtesse?'
"She laughed, and she would, no doubt, have met me with another
evasion—if, indeed, I can treat any occurrence in an interview every
circumstance of which was prearranged, as I now believe, with the
profoundest cunning, as liable to be modified by accident.
"'As to that,' she began; but she was interrupted, almost as she opened
her lips, by a gentleman, dressed in black, who looked particularly
elegant and distinguished, with this drawback, that his face was the
most deadly pale I ever saw, except in death. He was in no
masquerade—in the plain evening dress of a gentleman; and he said,
without a smile, but with a courtly and unusually low bow:—
"'Will Madame la Comtesse permit me to say a very few words which may
interest her?'
"The lady turned quickly to him, and touched her lip in token of
silence; she then said to me, 'Keep my place for me, General; I shall
return when I have said a few words.'
"And with this injunction, playfully given, she walked a little aside
with the gentleman in black, and talked for some minutes, apparently
very earnestly. They then walked away slowly together in the crowd, and
I lost them for some minutes.
"I spent the interval in cudgeling my brains for a conjecture as to the
identity of the lady who seemed to remember me so kindly, and I was
thinking of turning about and joining in the conversation between my
pretty ward and the Countess's daughter, and trying whether, by the time
she returned, I might not have a surprise in store for her, by having
her name, title, chateau, and estates at my fingers' ends. But at this
moment she returned, accompanied by the pale man in black, who said:
"'I shall return and inform Madame la Comtesse when her carriage is at
the door.'
"He withdrew with a bow."
"'Then we are to lose Madame la Comtesse, but I hope only for a few
hours,' I said, with a low bow.
"'It may be that only, or it may be a few weeks. It was very unlucky his
speaking to me just now as he did. Do you now know me?'
"I assured her I did not.
"'You shall know me,' she said, 'but not at present. We are older and
better friends than, perhaps, you suspect. I cannot yet declare myself.
I shall in three weeks pass your beautiful schloss, about which I have
been making enquiries. I shall then look in upon you for an hour or two,
and renew a friendship which I never think of without a thousand
pleasant recollections. This moment a piece of news has reached me like
a thunderbolt. I must set out now, and travel by a devious route, nearly
a hundred miles, with all the dispatch I can possibly make. My
perplexities multiply. I am only deterred by the compulsory reserve I
practice as to my name from making a very singular request of you. My
poor child has not quite recovered her strength. Her horse fell with
her, at a hunt which she had ridden out to witness, her nerves have not
yet recovered the shock, and our physician says that she must on no
account exert herself for some time to come. We came here, in
consequence, by very easy stages—hardly six leagues a day. I must now
travel day and night, on a mission of life and death—a mission the
critical and momentous nature of which I shall be able to explain to you
when we meet, as I hope we shall, in a few weeks, without the necessity
of any concealment.'
"She went on to make her petition, and it was in the tone of a person
from whom such a request amounted to conferring, rather than seeking
a favor.
"This was only in manner, and, as it seemed, quite unconsciously. Than
the terms in which it was expressed, nothing could be more deprecatory.
It was simply that I would consent to take charge of her daughter during
her absence.
"This was, all things considered, a strange, not to say, an audacious
request. She in some sort disarmed me, by stating and admitting
everything that could be urged against it, and throwing herself entirely
upon my chivalry. At the same moment, by a fatality that seems to have
predetermined all that happened, my poor child came to my side, and, in
an undertone, besought me to invite her new friend, Millarca, to pay us
a visit. She had just been sounding her, and thought, if her mamma would
allow her, she would like it extremely.
"At another time I should have told her to wait a little, until, at
least, we knew who they were. But I had not a moment to think in. The
two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and
beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was something
extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth,
determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted, and undertook, too
easily, the care of the young lady, whom her mother called Millarca.
"The Countess beckoned to her daughter, who listened with grave
attention while she told her, in general terms, how suddenly and
peremptorily she had been summoned, and also of the arrangement she had
made for her under my care, adding that I was one of her earliest and
most valued friends.
"I made, of course, such speeches as the case seemed to call for, and
found myself, on reflection, in a position which I did not half like.
"The gentleman in black returned, and very ceremoniously conducted the
lady from the room.
"The demeanor of this gentleman was such as to impress me with the
conviction that the Countess was a lady of very much more importance
than her modest title alone might have led me to assume.