Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

Charnock drew a breath and leaned forward, his hands clasped, his elbows on his knees. It seemed he had been waiting for just that one sentence. As he sat now his face was in the light, and Miranda remarked a certain timidity upon it, as though now that he had heard the expected words, he dared not after all reply to them. He did not look towards her. He stared at the dancers, but with vacant eyes. He saw nothing of their jewels, or their coloured robes, or the flash of their silver feet, and the noise of their chatter sounded very dimly in his ears. He was quite occupied, indeed, with the hardihood of what he had it on his tongue's tip to say--when he had gained sufficient courage.

Miranda moved restlessly, unbuttoned a glove, drew it off her wrist unconsciously, and then was still as Charnock began to speak.

"Is there no explanation?" he asked. "I imagined one. You know how fancies come to one in the dark. That night I imagined one. I laughed at it the next morning, but now, since I have talked with you, I have been wondering whether by any miracle, it might be true. And if there's an infinitesimal chance that it's true, I think that I ought to tell you it, even though it may seem merely ridiculous, even though it may offend you. But I have lived for the most part of my time, since I was a man, in the waste places of the earth, and what may well be an impertinence--for we are only these few minutes acquainted--you will perhaps pardon on that account."

He received no encouragement to continue; on the other hand he received no warning to stop, for Miranda neither spoke nor moved. He did not look at her face lest he should read the warning there; but from the tail of his eye, he could see the fan, the white glove lying idle upon the black satin of her dress. The skirt hung from her knee to her foot without a stir in its folds, nor did her foot stir where it showed beneath the hem. She remained in a pose of most enigmatical quietude.

"The face which my mirror showed to me," he went on, "was your face, as I said; but in expression it was not your face as I see it to-night. It was very troubled, it was very pale; the eyes haunted me because of the pain in them, and because of--something else beside. It was a tortured face I saw, and the eyes seemed to ask--but to ask proudly--for help. Is it plain, the explanation which occurred to me?" His voice sank; he went on, slowly choosing every word with care, and speaking it with hesitation. "I imagined that out of all the millions of women in the world, here was one who needed help--my help, who was allowed to appeal to me for it, without, if you understand, making any appeal at all, and the explanation was not ... unpleasant ... to a man who lives much alone. In fact it has been so pleasant, and has become so familiar during this last week, that when I saw you to-night without a care, just as I saw you that night at Monte Carlo," and indeed it seemed to Charnock that the black dress she wore alone marked the passage of those six years,--"I am ashamed to say that I was disappointed."

"Yes," said Miranda. "I noticed the disappointment, but there's a simpler explanation of the troubled face than yours. You had been to Macbeth that evening; Lady Macbeth played a part in your dreams. What if Lady Macbeth lent her pallor and her distress to the face which you saw in your mirror?"

Charnock swung abruptly round towards her. It was not the explanation which surprised him, but the altered voice she used. And if her voice surprised him, he was shocked and startled by her looks. She was still leaning back in the shadow of the alcove, and her head rested against the dark wood-panels. She did not move when he looked towards her.

"My God," he said in a hushed and trembling whisper, and she gave no sign that she heard. She might have fainted, but that her eyes glittered out of the shadow straight and steadily into his. She might be dead from the whiteness of her face against the panels, but that her bosom rose and fell.

"What can I do?" he exclaimed.

"Hush!" she replied, and rose to her feet. "Here is Lady Donnisthorpe." She walked abruptly past him across the room to the open window. Charnock remained nailed to the ground, following her with his eyes. For in that alcove, leaning against the dark panels, he had seen not merely the features, but the expression on the features, he had seen exact in every detail the face which he had seen in the polished darkness of his mirror. The sheen of the dark polished panels helped the illusion. His fancy had come true, was transmuted into fact. Somewhere, somehow, he was to meet that woman. He had met her here and in this way, and her eyes and her face uttered her distress as with a piercing cry. Her eyes! The resemblance was perfect to the last detail. For Charnock ventured to surmise in them the same involuntary appeal which he had seen in the eyes that had looked out from his mirror. What then if the rest were true? What if his explanation was as true as the true facts which it explained? What if it was given to him and to her to stand apart from their fellows in this mysterious relation?...