A Fortnight of Folly

by Maurice Thompson; Hugh Conway

IV.

That a man of Carriston’s rank, breeding and refinement should meet his fate within the walls of a lonely farm-house, beyond the Trossachs, seems incredible. One would scarcely expect to find among such humble surroundings a wife suitable to a man of his stamp. And yet when I saw the woman who had won him I neither wondered at the conquest nor did I blame him for weakness.

I made the great discovery on the morning after my arrival. Eager to taste the freshness of the morning air, I rose betimes and went for a short stroll. I returned, and whilst standing at the door of the house, was positively startled by the beauty of a girl who passed me and entered, as if she was a regular inhabitant of the place. Not a rosy Scotch lassie, such as one would expect to find indigenous to the soil; but a slim, graceful girl, with delicate classical features. A girl with a mass of knotted light hair, yet with the apparent anomaly, dark eyes, eyelashes, and eyebrows—a combination which, to my mind, makes a style of beauty rare, irresistible, and dangerous above all others. The features which filled the exquisite oval of her face were refined and faultless. Her complexion was pale, but its pallor in no way suggested anything save perfect health. To cut my enthusiastic description short, I may at once say it has never been my good fortune to cast my eyes on a lovelier creature than this young girl.

Although her dress was of the plainest and simplest description, no one could have mistaken her for a servant; and much as I admire the bonny, healthy Scotch country lassie, I felt sure that mountain air had never reared a being of this ethereally beautiful type. As she passed me I raised my hat instinctively. She gracefully bent her golden head, and bade me a quiet but unembarrassed good-morning. My eyes followed her until she vanished at the end of the dark passage which led to the back of the house.

Even during the brief glimpse I enjoyed of this fair unknown a strange idea occurred to me. There was a remarkable likeness between her delicate features and those, scarcely less delicate, of Carriston. This resemblance may have added to the interest the girl’s appearance awoke in my mind. Any way I entered our sitting-room, and, a prey to curiosity, and perhaps, hunger, awaited with much impatience the appearance of Carriston—and breakfast.

The former arrived first. Generally speaking he was afoot long before I was, but this morning we had reversed the usual order of things. As soon as I saw him I cried,

“Carriston! tell me at once who is the lovely girl I met outside? An angel with dark eyes and golden hair. Is she staying here like ourselves?”

A look of pleasure flashed into his eyes—a look which pretty well told me everything. Nevertheless he answered as carelessly as if such lovely young women were as common to the mountain side as rocks and brambles.

“I expect you mean Miss Rowan; a niece of our worthy landlady. She lives with her.”

“She cannot be Scotch, with such a face and eyes?”

“Half-and-half. Her father was called an Englishman; but was, I believe, of French extraction. They say the name was originally Rohan.”

Carriston seemed to have made close inquiries as to Miss Rowan’s parentage.

“But what brings her here?” I asked.

“She has nowhere else to go. Rowan was an artist. He married a sister of our hostess, and bore her away from her native land. Some years ago she died, leaving this one daughter. Last year the father died, penniless, they tell me, so the girl has since then lived with her only relative, her aunt.”

“Well,” I said, “as you seem to know all about her, you can introduce me by and by.”

“With the greatest pleasure, if Miss Rowan permits,” said Carriston. I was glad to hear him give the conditional promise with as much respect to the lady’s wishes as if she had been a duchess.

Then, with the liberty a close friend may take, I drew toward me a portfolio, full, I presumed, of sketches of surrounding scenery. To my surprise Carriston jumped up hastily and snatched it from me. “They are too bad to look at,” he said. As I struggled to regain possession, sundry strings broke, and, lo and behold! the floor was littered, not with delineations of rock, lake, and torrent, but with images of the young girl I had seen a few minutes before. Full face, profile, three quarter face, five, even seven eight face, all were there—each study perfectly executed by Carriston’s clever pencil. I threw myself into a chair and laughed aloud, whilst the young man, blushing and discomforted, quickly huddled the portraits between the covers, just as a genuine Scotch lassie bore in the plentiful and, to me, very welcome breakfast.

Carriston did favor me with his company during the whole of that day; but, in spite of my having come to Scotland to enjoy his society, that day, from easily-guessed reasons, was the only one in which I had undisputed possession of my friend.

Of course I bantered him a great deal on the portfolio episode. He took it in good part, attempting little or no defence. Indeed, before night he had told me, with all a boy’s fervor, how he had loved Madeline Rowan at first sight, how in the short space of time which had elapsed since that meeting he had wooed her and won her; how good and beautiful she was; how he worshipped her; how happy he felt; how, when I went south, he should accompany me; and, after making a few necessary arrangements, return at once and bear his bride away.

I could only listen to him, and congratulate him. It was not my place to act the elder, and advise him either for or against the marriage. Carriston had only himself to please, and, if he made a rash step, only himself to blame for the consequences. And why should I have dissuaded? I who, in two days, envied the boy’s good fortune.

I saw a great deal of Madeline Rowan. How strange and out-of-place her name and face seemed amid our surroundings. If at first somewhat shy and retiring, she soon, if only for Carriston’s sake, consented to look upon me as a friend, and talked to me freely and unreservedly. Then I found that her nature was as sweet as her face. Such a conquest did she make of me that, save for one chimerical reason, I should have felt quite certain that Carriston had chosen well, and would be happy in wedding the girl of his choice, heedless of her humble position in the world, and absence of fitting wealth. When once his wife, I felt sure that if he cared for her to win social success her looks and bearing would insure it, and from the great improvement which, as I have already said, I noticed in his health and spirits, I believed that his marriage would make his life longer, happier, and better.

Now for my objection, which seems almost a laughable one. I objected on the score of the extraordinary resemblance which, so far as a man may resemble a woman, existed between Charles Carriston and Madeline Rowan. The more I saw them together, the more I was struck by it. A stranger might well have taken them for twin brother and sister. The same delicate features, drawn in the same lines; the same soft, dark, dreamy eyes; even the same shaped heads. Comparing the two, it needed no phrenologist or physiognomist to tell you that where one excelled the other excelled; where one failed, the other was wanting. Now, could I have selected a wife for my friend, I would have chosen one with habits and constitution entirely different from his own. She should have been a bright, bustling woman, with lots of energy and common-sense—one who would have rattled him about and kept him going—not a lovely, dark-eyed, dreamy girl, who could for hours at a stretch make herself supremely happy if only sitting at her lover’s feet and speaking no word. Yet they were a handsome couple, and never have I seen two people so utterly devoted to each other as those two seemed to be during those autumn days which I spent with them.

I soon had a clear proof of the closeness of their mental resemblance. One evening Carriston, Madeline, and I were sitting out-of-doors, watching the gray mist deepening in the valley at our feet. Two of the party were, of course, hand-in-hand, the third seated at a discreet distance—not so far away as to preclude conversation, but far enough off to be able to pretend that he saw and heard only what was intended for his eyes and ears.

How certain topics, which I would have avoided discussing with Carriston, were started I hardly remember. Probably some strange tale had been passed down from wilder and even more solitary regions than ours—some ridiculous tale of Highland superstition, no doubt embellished and augmented by each one who repeated it to his fellows. From her awed talk I soon found that Madeline Rowan, perhaps by reason of the Scotch blood in her veins, was as firm a believer in things visionary and beyond nature as ever Charles Carriston in his silliest moments could be. As soon as I could I stopped the talk, and the next day, finding the girl for a few minutes alone, told her plainly that subjects of this kind should be kept as far as possible from her future husband’s thoughts. She promised obedience, with dreamy eyes which looked as far away and full of visions as Carriston’s.

“By the by,” I said, “has he ever spoken to you about seeing strange things?”

“Yes; he has hinted at it.”

“And you believe him?”

“Of course I do; he told me so.”

This was unanswerable. “A pretty pair they will make,” I muttered, as Madeline slipped from me to welcome her lover who was approaching. “They will see ghosts in every corner, and goblins behind every curtain.”

Nevertheless, the young people had no doubts about their coming bliss. Everything was going smoothly and pleasantly for them. Carriston had at once spoken to Madeline’s aunt, and obtained the old Scotchwoman’s ready consent to their union. I was rather vexed at his still keeping to his absurd whim, and concealing his true name. He said he was afraid of alarming her aunt by telling her he was passing under an alias, whilst if he gave Madeline his true reason for so doing she would be miserable. Moreover, I found he had formed the romantic plan of marrying her without telling her in what an enviable position she would be placed so far as worldly gear went. A kind of Lord Burleigh surprise no doubt commended itself to his imaginative brain.

The last day of my holiday came. I bade a long and sad farewell to lake and mountain, and, accompanied by Carriston, started for home. I did not see the parting proper between the young people—that was far too sacred a thing to be intruded upon—but even when that protracted affair was over, I waited many, many minutes whilst Carriston stood hand-in-hand with Madeline, comforting himself and her by reiterating “Only six weeks—six short weeks! And then—and then!” It was the girl who at last tore herself away, and then Carriston mounted reluctantly by my side on the rough vehicle.

From Edinburgh we travelled by the night train. The greater part of the way we had the compartment to ourselves. Carriston, as a lover will, talked of nothing but coming bliss and his plans for the future. After a while I grew quite weary of the monotony of the subject, and at last dozed off, and for some little time slept. The shrill whistle which told us a tunnel was at hand aroused me. My companion was sitting opposite to me, and as I glanced across at him my attention was arrested by the same strange intense look which I had on a previous occasion at Bettws-y-Coed noticed in his eyes—the same fixed stare—the same obliviousness to all that was passing. Remembering his request, I shook him, somewhat roughly, back to his senses. He regarded me for a moment vacantly, then said:

“Now I have found out what was wanting to make the power I told you of complete. I could see her if I wished.”

“Of course you can see her—in your mind’s eye. All lovers can do that.”

“If I tried I could see her bodily—know exactly what she is doing.” He spoke with an air of complete conviction.

“Then I hope, for the sake of modesty, you won’t try. It is now nearly three o’clock. She ought to be in bed and asleep.”

I spoke lightly, thinking it better to try and laugh him out of his folly. He took no notice of my sorry joke.

“No,” he said, quietly, “I am not going to try. But I know now what was wanting. Love—such love as mine—such love as hers—makes the connecting link, and enables sight or some other sense to cross over space, and pass through every material obstacle.”

“Look here, Carriston,” I said seriously, “you are talking as a madman talks. I don’t want to frighten you, but I am bound both as a doctor and your sincere friend to tell you that unless you cure yourself of these absurd delusions they will grow upon you, develop fresh forms, and you will probably end your days under restraint. Ask any doctor, he will tell you the same.”

“Doctors are a clever race,” answered my strange young friend, “but they don’t know everything.”

So saying he closed his eyes and appeared to sleep.

We parted upon reaching London. Many kind words and wishes passed between us, and I gave him some well-meant, and, I believed, needed warnings. He was going down to see his uncle, the baronet. Then he had some matters to arrange with his lawyers, and above all, had to select a residence for himself and his wife. He would, no doubt, be in London for a short time. If possible he would come and see me. Any way he would write and let me know the exact date of his approaching marriage. If I could manage to come to it, so much the better. If not he would try, as they passed through town, to bring his bride to pay me a flying and friendly visit. He left me in the best of spirits, and I went back to my patients and worked hard to make up lost ground, and counteract whatever errors had been committed by my substitute.

Some six weeks afterward—late at night—whilst I was deep in a new and clever treatise on zymotics, a man, haggard, wild, unshorn, and unkempt, rushed past my startled servant, and entered the room in which I sat. He threw himself into a chair, and I was horrified to recognize in the intruder my clever and brilliant friend, Charles Carriston!

V.

“The end has come sooner than I expected.” These were the sad words I muttered to myself as waving my frightened servant away I closed the door, and stood alone with the supposed maniac. He rose and wrung my hand, then without a word sank back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. A sort of nervous trembling seemed to run through his frame. Deeply distressed I drew his hands from his face.

“Now, Carriston,” I said, as firmly as I could, “look up, and tell me what all this means. Look up, I say, man, and speak to me.”

He raised his eyes to mine, and kept them there, whilst a ghastly smile—a phantom humor—flickered across his white face. No doubt his native quickness told him what I suspected, so he looked me full and steadily in the face.

“No,” he said, “not as you think. But let there be no mistake. Question me. Talk to me. Put me to any test. Satisfy yourself, once for all, that I am as sane as you are.”

He spoke so rationally, his eyes met mine so unflinchingly, that I was rejoiced to know that my fears were as yet ungrounded. There was grief, excitement, want of rest in his appearance, but his general manner told me he was, as he said, as sane as I was.

“Thank heaven you can speak to me and look at me like this,” I exclaimed.

“You are satisfied then?” he said.

“On this point, yes. Now tell me what is wrong?”

Now that he had set my doubts at rest his agitation and excitement seemed to return. He grasped my hand convulsively.

“Madeline!” he whispered; “Madeline—my love—she is gone.”

“Gone!” I repeated. “Gone where?”

“She is gone, I say—stolen from me by some black-hearted traitor—perhaps forever. Who can tell?”

“But, Carriston, surely, in so short a time her love cannot have been won by another. If so, all I can say is—”

“What!” he shouted. “You have seen her! You in your wildest dreams to imagine that Madeline Rowan would leave me of her own free-will! No, sir; she has been stolen from me—entrapped—carried away—hidden. But I will find her, or I will kill the black-hearted villain who has done this.”

He rose and paced the room. His face was distorted with rage. He clinched and unclinched his long slender hands.

“My dear fellow,” I said; “you are talking riddles. Sit down and tell me calmly what has happened. But, first of all, as you look utterly worn out, I will ring for my man to get you some food.”

“No,” he said; “I want nothing. Weary I am, for I have been to Scotland and back as fast as man can travel. I reached London a short time ago, and after seeing one man have come straight to you, my only friend, for help—it may be for protection. But I have eaten and I have drank, knowing I must keep my health and strength.”

However, I insisted on some wine being brought. He drank a glass, and then with a strange enforced calm, told me what had taken place. His tale was this:

After we had parted company on our return from Scotland, Carriston went down to the family seat in Oxfordshire, and informed his uncle of the impending change in his life. The baronet, an extremely old man, infirm and all but childish, troubled little about the matter. Every acre of his large property was strictly entailed, so his pleasure or displeasure could make but little alteration in his nephew’s prospects. Still, he was the head of the family, and Carriston was in duty bound to make the important news known to him. The young man made no secret of his approaching marriage, so in a very short time every member of the family was aware that the heir and future head was about to ally himself to a nobody. Knowing nothing of Madeline Rowan’s rare beauty and sweet nature Carriston’s kinsmen and kinswomen were sparing with their congratulations. Indeed, Mr. Ralph Carriston, the cousin whose name was coupled with such absurd suspicions, went so far as to write a bitter, sarcastic letter, full of ironical felicitations. This, and Charles Carriston’s haughty reply, did not make the affection between the cousins any stronger. Moreover, shortly afterward the younger man heard that inquiries were being made in the neighborhood of Madeline’s home as to her position and parentage. Feeling sure that only his cousin Ralph could have had the curiosity to institute such inquiries, he wrote and thanked him for the keen interest he was manifesting in his future welfare, but begged that hereafter Mr. Carriston would apply to him direct for any information he wanted. The two men were now no longer on speaking terms.

Charles Carriston in his present frame of mind cared little whether his relatives wished to bless or forbid the banns. He was passionately in love, and at once set about making arrangements for a speedy marriage. Although Madeline was still ignorant of the exalted position held by her lover—although she came to him absolutely penniless—he was resolved in the matter of money to treat her as generously as he would have treated the most eligible damsel in the country. There were several legal questions to be set at rest concerning certain property he wished to settle upon her. This of course caused delay. As soon as they were adjusted to his own, or rather to his lawyer’s satisfaction, he purposed going to Scotland and carrying away his beautiful bride. In the meantime he cast about for a residence.

Somewhat Bohemian in his nature, Carriston had no intention of settling down just yet to live the life of an ordinary moneyed Englishman. His intention was to take Madeline abroad for some months. He had fixed upon Cannes as a desirable place at which to winter, but having grown somewhat tired of hotel life, wished to rent a furnished house. He had received from an agent to whom he had been advised to apply the refusal of a house, which, from the glowing description given, seemed the one above all others he wanted. As an early decision was insisted upon, my impulsive young friend thought nothing of crossing the Channel and running down to the south of France to see, with his own eyes, that the much-lauded place was worthy of the fair being who was to be its temporary mistress.

He wrote to Madeline, and told her he was going from home for a few days. He said he should be travelling the greater part of the time, so it should be no use her writing to him until his return. He did not reveal the object of his journey. Were Madeline to know it was to choose a winter residence at Cannes she would be filled with amazement, and the innocent deception he was still keeping up would not be carried through to the romantic end which he pictured to himself.

The day before he started for France Madeline wrote that her aunt was very unwell, but said nothing as to her malady causing any alarm. Perhaps Carriston thought less about the old Scotch widow than her relationship and kindness to Miss Rowan merited. He started on his travels without any forebodings of evil.

His journey to Cannes and back was hurried; he wasted no time on the road, but was delayed for two days at the place itself before he could make final arrangements with the owner and the present occupier of the house. Thinking he was going to start every moment, he did not write to Madeline—at the rate at which he meant to return, a letter posted in England would reach her almost as quickly as if posted at Cannes.

He reached his home, which for the last few weeks had been Oxford, and found two letters waiting for him. The first, dated on the day he left England, was from Madeline. It told him that her aunt’s illness had suddenly taken a fatal turn—that she had died that day, almost without warning. The second letter was anonymous.

It was written apparently by a woman, and advised Mr. Carr to look sharply after his lady-love or he would find himself left in the lurch. The writer would not be surprised to hear some fine day that she had eloped with a certain gentleman who should be nameless. This precious epistle, probably an emanation of feminine spite, Carriston treated as it deserved—he tore it up and threw the pieces to the wind.

But the thought of Madeline being alone at that lonely house troubled him greatly. The dead woman had no sons or daughters; all the anxiety and responsibility connected with her affairs would fall on the poor girl. The next day he threw himself into the Scotch Express and started for her far-away home.

On arriving there he found it occupied only by the rough farm servants. They seemed in a state of wonderment, and volubly questioned Carriston as to the whereabouts of Madeline. The question sent a chill of fear to his heart. He answered their questions by others, and soon learned all they had to communicate.

Little enough it was. On the morning after the old woman’s funeral Madeline had gone to Callendar to ask the advice of an old friend of her aunt’s as to what steps should now be taken. She had neither been to this friend, nor had she returned home. She had, however, sent a message that she must go to London at once, and would write from there. That was the last heard of her—all that was known about her.

Upon hearing this news Carriston became a prey to the acutest terror—an emotion which was quite inexplicable to the honest people, his informants. The girl had gone, but she had sent word whither she had gone. True, they did not know the reason for her departure, so sudden and without luggage of any description; true, she had not written as promised, but no doubt they would hear from her to-morrow. Carriston knew better. Without revealing the extent of his fears he flew back to Callendar. Inquiries at the railway station informed him that she had gone, or had purposed going, to London; but whether she ever reached it, or whether any trace of her could be found there, was at least a matter of doubt. No good could be gained by remaining in Scotland, so he travelled back at once to town, half-distracted, sleepless, and racking his brain to know where to look for her.

“She has been decoyed away,” he said in conclusion. “She is hidden, imprisoned somewhere. And I know, as well as if he told me, who has done this thing. I can trace Ralph Carriston’s cursed hand through it all.”

I glanced at him askance. This morbid suspicion of his cousin amounted almost to monomania. He had told the tale of Madeline’s disappearance clearly and tersely; but when he began to account for it his theory was a wild and untenable one. However much he suspected Ralph Carriston of longing to stand in his shoes, I could see no object for the crime of which he accused him, that of decoying away Madeline Rowan.

“But why should he have done this?” I asked. “To prevent your marriage? You are young; he must have foreseen that you would marry some day.”

Carriston leaned toward me, and dropped his voice to a whisper.

“This is his reason,” he said; “this is why I come to you. You are not the only one who has entirely misread my nature, and seen a strong tendency to insanity in it. Of course I know that you are all wrong, but I know that Ralph Carriston has stolen my love—stolen her because he thinks and hopes that her loss will drive me mad—perhaps drive me to kill myself. I went straight to him—I have just come from him. Brand, I tell you that when I taxed him with the crime—when I raved at him—when I threatened to tear the life out of him—his cold, wicked eyes leaped with joy. I heard him mutter between his teeth, ‘Men have been put in strait-waistcoats for less than this.’ Then I knew why he had done this. I curbed myself and left him. Most likely he will try to shut me up as a lunatic; but I count upon your protection—count upon your help to find my love.”

That any man could be guilty of such a subtle refinement of crime as that of which he accused his cousin seemed to me, if not impossible, at least improbable. But as at present there was no doubt about my friend’s sanity I promised my aid readily.

“And now,” I said, “my dear boy, I won’t hear another word to-night. Nothing can be done until to-morrow; then we will consult as to what steps should be taken. Drink this and go to bed; yes, you are as sane as I am, but, remember, insomnia soon drives the strongest man out of his senses.”

I poured out an opiate. He drank it obediently. Before I left him for the night I saw him in bed and sleeping a heavy sleep.