brought to a standstill; the guard ran back with a light. He found Sir
Ferdinando still alive, but unconscious; blood was oozing from his mouth.
The back wheels of the coach had passed over his body, breaking most of
his ribs and both arms. His skull was fractured in two places. They
picked him up, but he was dead before they reached the next stage. So
perished Sir Ferdinando, a victim to his own patriotism. Lady Lapith did
not marry again, but determined to devote the rest of her life to the wellbeing
of her three children--Georgiana, now five years old, and Emmeline
and Caroline, twins of two."
Henry Wimbush paused, and once more put on his pince-nez. "So
much by way of introduction," he said. "Now I can begin to read about
my grandfather."
"One moment," said Mr. Scogan, "till I've refilled my pipe."
Mr. Wimbush waited. Seated apart in a corner of the room, Ivor was
showing Mary his sketches of Spirit Life. They spoke together in
whispers.
Mr. Scogan had lighted his pipe again. "Fire away," he said.
Henry Wimbush fired away.
"It was in the spring of 1833 that my grandfather, George Wimbush,
first made the acquaintance of the 'three lovely Lapiths,' as they were
always called. He was then a young man of twenty-two, with curly
yellow hair and a smooth pink face that was the mirror of his youthful and
ingenuous mind. He had been educated at Harrow and Christ Church, he
enjoyed hunting and all other field sports, and, though his circumstances
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were comfortable to the verge of affluence, his pleasures were temperate
and innocent. His father, an East Indian merchant, had destined him for a
political career, and had gone to considerable expense in acquiring a
pleasant little Cornish borough as a twenty-first birthday gift for his son.
He was justly indignant when, on the very eve of George's majority, the
Reform Bill of 1832 swept the borough out of existence. The
inauguration of George's political career had to be postponed. At the
time he got to know the lovely Lapiths he was waiting; he was not at all
impatient.
"The lovely Lapiths did not fail to impress him. Georgiana, the
eldest, with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile,
her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and the
twins, with their delicately turned- up noses, their blue eyes, and chestnut
hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers.
"Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so
forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their beauty,
George would never have had the courage to follow up the acquaintance.
The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of languid superiority,
asked him what he thought of the latest French poetry and whether he
liked the "Indiana" of George Sand. But what was almost worse was the
question with which Georgiana opened her conversation with him. 'In
music,' she asked, leaning forward and fixing him with her large dark eyes,
'are you a classicist or a transcendentalist?' George did not lose his
presence of mind. He had enough appreciation of music to know that he
hated anything classical, and so, with a promptitude which did him credit,
he replied, 'I am a transcendentalist.' Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. 'I
am glad,' she said; 'so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of
course. "The prayer of Moses"--ah!' She closed her eyes. 'Do you
know anything more transcendental than that?' 'No,' said George, 'I
don't.' He hesitated, was about to go on speaking, and then decided that
after all it would be wiser not to say-- what was in fact true--that he had
enjoyed above all Paganini's Farmyard Imitations. The man had made
his fiddle bray like an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh,
quack, bellow, and growl; that last item, in George's estimation, had
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almost compensated for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He
smiled with pleasure at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he was no
classicist in music; he was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist.
"George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the
young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small
but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith
made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George's financial
position, character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to
dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into the
peerage; but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to prepare
for all contingencies. George Wimbush, she thought, would make an
excellent second string for one of the twins.
"At this first dinner, George's partner was Emmeline. They talked of
Nature. Emmeline protested that to her high mountains were a feeling
and the hum of human cities torture. George agreed that the country was
very agreeable, but held that London during the season also had its charms.
He noticed with surprise and a certain solicitous distress that Miss
Emmeline's appetite was poor, that it didn't, in fact, exist. Two spoonfuls
of soup, a morsel of fish, no bird, no meat, and three grapes--that was her
whole dinner. He looked from time to time at her two sisters; Georgiana
and Caroline seemed to be quite as abstemious. They waved away
whatever was offered them with an expression of delicate disgust, shutting
their eyes and averting their faces from the proffered dish, as though the
lemon sole, the duck, the loin of veal, the trifle, were objects revolting to
the sight and smell. George, who thought the dinner capital, ventured to
comment on the sisters' lack of appetite.
"'Pray, don't talk to me of eating,' said Emmeline, drooping like a
sensitive plant. 'We find it so coarse, so unspiritual, my sisters and I.
One can't think of one's soul while one is eating.'
"George agreed; one couldn't. 'But one must live,' he said.
"'Alas!' Emmeline sighed. 'One must. Death is very beautiful, don't
you think?' She broke a corner off a piece of toast and began to nibble at
it languidly. 'But since, as you say, one must live...' She made a little
gesture of resignation. 'Luckily a very little suffices to keep one alive.'
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She put down her corner of toast half eaten.
"George regarded her with some surprise. She was pale, but she
looked extraordinarily healthy, he thought; so did her sisters. Perhaps if
you were really spiritual you needed less food. He, clearly, was not
spiritual.
"After this he saw them frequently. They all liked him, from Lady
Lapith downwards. True, he was not very romantic or poetical; but he
was such a pleasant, unpretentious, kind-hearted young man, that one
couldn't help liking him. For his part, he thought them wonderful,
wonderful, especially Georgiana. He enveloped them all in a warm,
protective affection. For they needed protection; they were altogether
too frail, too spiritual for this world. They never ate, they were always
pale, they often complained of fever, they talked much and lovingly of
death, they frequently swooned. Georgiana was the most ethereal of all;
of the three she ate least, swooned most often, talked most of death, and
was the palest--with a pallor that was so startling as to appear positively
artificial. At any moment, it seemed, she might loose her precarious hold
on this material world and become all spirit. To George the thought was
a continual agony. If she were to die...
"She contrived, however, to live through the season, and that in spite
of the numerous balls, routs, and other parties of pleasure which, in
company with the rest of the lovely trio, she never failed to attend. In the
middle of July the whole household moved down to the country. George
was invited to spend the month of August at Crome.
"The house-party was distinguished; in the list of visitors figured the
names of two marriageable young men of title. George had hoped that
country air, repose, and natural surroundings might have restored to the
three sisters their appetites and the roses of their cheeks. He was
mistaken. For dinner, the first evening, Georgiana ate only an olive, two
or three salted almonds, and half a peach. She was as pale as ever.
During the meal she spoke of love.
"'True love,' she said, 'being infinite and eternal, can only be
consummated in eternity. Indiana and Sir Rodolphe celebrated the
mystic wedding of their souls by jumping into Niagara. Love is
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incompatible with life. The wish of two people who truly love one
another is not to live together but to die together.'
"'Come, come, my dear,' said Lady Lapith, stout and practical. 'What
would become of the next generation, pray, if all the world acted on your
principles?'
"'Mamma!...' Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes.
"'In my young days,' Lady Lapith went on, 'I should have been laughed
out of countenance if I'd said a thing like that. But then in my young
days souls weren't as fashionable as they are now and we didn't think
death was at all poetical. It was just unpleasant.'
"'Mamma!...' Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison.
"'In my young days--' Lady Lapith was launched into her subject;
nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. 'In my young days, if you didn't
eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays...'
"There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord
Timpany's shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful.
Lady Lapith was stopped.
"The days passed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay
party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to
Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received.
George looked on, and his soul was a hell of jealousy and despair. The
boisterous company of the young men became intolerable to him; he
shrank from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having
broken away from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house
alone. The young men were bathing in the pool below; their cries and
laughter floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more
silent. The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; they
did not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male
guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and
abandoned himself to thought.
"At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become
Lady Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die
too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady
Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not be so simple.
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If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then
suppose she were in love with Timpany--though it seemed incredible that
anyone could be in love with Timpany-- suppose her life depended on
Timpany, suppose she couldn't live without him? He was fumbling his
way along this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck
twelve. On the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning
clockwork, a little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the
door that led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep armchair
George watched her (himself, it was evident, unobserved) with an
idle curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of
what seemed a blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and,
to George's extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the
foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her tray
through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid crab-like
motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute later it
opened again and the maid, without her tray, hurried back across the hall
and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George tried to
recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his mind towards
the hidden door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told
himself that the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets
of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would be a piece
of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion. It was in vain; for five
minutes he struggled heroically with his curiosity, but at the end of that
time he found himself standing in front of the innocent sheet of panelling
through which the little maid had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show
him the position of the secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who
looked with a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with
the panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an
unobtrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was
astonished that he had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was so
obvious, almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its
lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch
and peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not of
stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight. A slit-like
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window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the central tower, and
the little window looked out over the terrace; they were still shouting and
splashing in the pool below.
"George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity
was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted its
appetite. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the little
