Well, it had all vastly interested me once: the fond, comical incongruity; the unexpected soul of my Nimrod revealing itself through suffering. He did not, dear simpleton, in the least understand his own inconsistency: how, loving all birds and beasts, as he professed to do, and so claiming affinity with Nature, he could use and approve the latest engines of civilisation for their slaughter. He called the red deer “the spirit of the antlered tree,” and went to shoot it with a gun. He made me a pretty waistcoat of squirrel skins (I went sweetly befurred, indeed, throughout the cold winters), and dwelt lovingly on the primeval romance of woodlands, meaning, in fact, that rapture of flight and pursuit of visible things which alone appeals to the unredeemed barbarian. In the end, to speak truth, his mad rhapsodies came to remind me, only too uncomfortably, of the dead astrologer; and I looked askance on what seemed a common derivation from a crazy stock.
But now, lest it appear that I attach too much importance to these minor discords, let me relate of the much darker and more formidable shadow which had arisen between us, and which, as the months but added to its density, grew at last to be the insuperable barrier to our reconciliation.
It was the secret dividing us—the secret which I had once half surprised, and to the existence of which he had virtually confessed, only, it seemed, to torture me by withholding it. This much alone I knew: that he went somehow practising, in his banishment, to be revenged on the society which he held responsible for it. Often, at first, I tried to coax the truth from him. He was not, for all his love, to be beguiled. There were others concerned, he said, who by no means shared his faith in my discretion; with whom, in fact, he had come to open dispute on the subject of my continued sojourn in the cottage, and whom, in the end, he had had to propitiate—seeing his safety lay in their hands—by a vow to reveal nothing to me.
I had no doubt, in my heart, but that these unknown were the “merry men” of his boasting—woodmen, verderers, perhaps, who—treacherous to the earl their master—were aiding and abetting the exile in those very malpractices he concealed from me. I was right as to that, it appeared; but what I could never understand was the nature of my reputation with them: how they had so learned to misapprehend my character for faith and loyalty. However, mistaken as they were, they had nothing to complain of their leader’s constancy to his oath—a constancy, alas! which I can only not commend because of its miserable sequel. If he had only had the strength to trust me, neither would he have lost his liberty, nor I been condemned to the torments of a quite unmerited remorse. At this date of time, I can insist, with a clear but sorrowful conscience, that the poor infatuated fool brought what happened upon his own head.
When I recognised at last that he was adamant to my pleadings, I waived the subject, but not by any means my private concern in it. The secret, I was naturally enough convinced, lay to be revealed behind the locked door of that Bluebeard Chamber; and one night—after my friend had gone out—I took a taper and my courage in hand, and descended softly through the trap to investigate.
After he had gone out, I say; and therein lay the key to my growing apprehensions. For not many days had I been in hiding before I discovered that my comrade was a night-walker. He would wait, soft-shut into his room, until he fancied I was drowned in sleep, then list-footed creep out and by the screen—which he had put up to protect me—and either descend by way of the trap, or, less often, mounting the ladder which communicated with the hidden gully, disappear, and pull his means of exit after him. Then I would wait, shivering and wondering through the whole gamut of formless fears, till stupor overtook me, or perhaps by and by, after long hours, a terrified half-consciousness of his stealthy return.
Where did he thus nightly go? To what dark business or witches’ frolic? I tormented my brain for the solution, and of my love and loyalty could find none. But the poison of a yet-unrealised fear was working in me early.
Now, on this night, waking out of tormented dreams, I was on the instant desperate to solve the mystery. But hardly had I crossed the little cellar when a warning rumble from Portlock, seated in the room beyond, told me that I was discovered. So this vast creature was in the conspiracy! Quite panic-struck, I fled, and, mounting to my room—found George there. He had returned, descending by the ladder, during the minute of my absence.
He made no allusion whatever to my escapade; but just laughed softly, and took my cold hand in his, as I stood trembling and aghast before him.
“Poor little maid,” he said; “she has been dreaming”—and he led me to my bed, and tucked me in warm, and left me with a kiss.