“Though in this family it’s been like a fate, or a doom, or whatever you might please to term it,� said Mrs. Ansdey, “that the course of true love, the deeper it was and the truer it was, was always to be broken—not by change or faithlessness of one that loved, but by the hand of death. There was Sir Geoffrey and Lady Euphrasia—hundreds of years back—that were drowned crossing the ford on the ride home from their baby’s christening and the baby lived to be Sir Launcelot, whose bride was carried off by the Black Death before the roses on her wedding garland were withered.... And then there were Sir Alan and Sir Guy, who were both killed in battle within a year of their weddings, and Sir Vivian’s great-grandfather, old Sir Vivian, found his young wife dead at her tapestry-frame when he’d crept up quiet to surprise her with his unexpected return from the Embassy to Rome. And Sir Vivian’s own dear mother lived but a very few years after the dear child came to comfort her for his father’s early loss. But time goes by, and the curse—if it be a curse, as they say it is, brought upon the founder of the family for some secret deed of evil—the curse may have passed over, or worn itself out. What’s that?�
“What’s what, ma’am?� asked the butler, as Mrs. Ansdey rose in her rustling silks and made a sign for silence.
“I fancied I heard a timid kind of tap on the hall door,� said the housekeeper.
“A robin blew against it, perhaps,� said the butler. “They’re stupid with the frost.�
“There was a footstep too,� said Mrs. Ansdey, holding up her hand and making her old-fashioned rings gleam and twinkle in the firelight. “At least, if there wasn’t, Mr. Cradell, I admit I’ve been deceived!�
“We’ll see, we’ll see!� said Cradell, moving to the great oaken door. “It may be a tramp.� The handle turned, the massive oak door moved inward. The fog had thinned, it had grown clearer beyond doors. Within the frame of the massive lintels appeared the glimmering stone steps, a segment of the formal garden, with its black Irish yews, pale marble urns, and cartwheel beds of late flowers, enclosed within borders of box. Beyond the trees reared a somber barrier, shutting out the sky, and the chill wind of winter drove the dead leaves in swirls and drifts across the melancholy picture. The Rector’s wife, thinking of her walk across the park to the Rectory, sniffed and shivered, and the housekeeper motioned to the butler to shut the door.
“For I was mistaken, as you see, and there’s not a living soul about, unless it’s skulking in the shadow of the trees,� she said. “Another cup of tea, or a drop of cherry-brandy, ma’am, to keep the bitter air out as you walk home? Though there’s no reason you should walk when there’s the pony-chair.... Or perhaps you would rather——� She started. “Call me nervous, or finical, or what you like,� she said, peering anxiously through her gold-rimmed spectacles in the direction of the door. “But, if I spoke with my dying breath, there was a tap, and then a pause, and then another tap, as plain as plain could be!�
“Dear me!� The Rector’s wife, alarm in her eyes and crumbs on her chin, rose from her chair, dropping her imitation sable boa. “I really believe I heard it too!... Had you not better——?�
Cradell shook his old head and clucked softly with his tongue. “The ladies must always have their way!� he said, shuffling on his neatly polished shoes toward the hall-door. He opened it, and both the housekeeper and the Rector’s wife uttered a simultaneous exclamation of surprise.
For a woman was standing in the moonlight outside. She was of slight form, and wore a wide-brimmed feathered hat, and the heavy shadow of the portico fell blackly over her, so that she seemed no more than a silhouette with a pale glimmering background. But a delicate perfume stole upon the senses of those who, from within, looked out at her, and when she moved there was the unmistakable frou-frou of silken linings.