By What Authority?

by Robert Hugh Benson

That same morning Lady Maxwell in her room in the Hall at Great Keynes awoke early before dawn with a start. She had had a dream but could not remember what it was, except that her son James was in it, and seemed to be in trouble. He was calling on her to save him, she thought, and awoke at the sound of his voice. She often dreamt of him at this time; for the life of a seminary priest was laid with snares and dangers. But this dream seemed worse than all.

She struck a light, and looked timidly round the room; it seemed still ringing with his voice. A great tapestry in a frame hung over the mantelpiece, Actæon followed by his hounds; the hunter panted as he ran, and was looking back over his shoulder; and the long-jawed dogs streamed behind him down a little hill.

So strong was the dream upon the old lady that she felt restless, and presently got up and went to the window and opened a shutter to look out. A white statue or two beyond the terrace glimmered in the dusk, and the stars were bright in the clear frosty night overhead. She closed the shutter and went back again to bed; but could not sleep. Again and again as she was dozing off, something would startle her wide awake again: sometimes it was a glimpse of James’ face; sometimes he seemed to be hurrying away from her down an endless passage with closed doors; he was dressed in something crimson. She tried to cry out, her voice would not rise above a whisper. Sometimes it was the dream of his voice; and once she started up crying out, “I am coming, my son.” Then at last she awoke again at the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor outside; and stared fearfully at the door to see what would enter. But it was only the maid come to call her mistress. Lady Maxwell watched her as she opened the shutters that now glimmered through their cracks, and let a great flood of light into the room from the clear shining morning outside.

“It is a frosty morning, my lady,” said the maid.

“Send one of the men down to Mistress Torridon,” said Lady Maxwell, “and ask her to come here as soon as it is convenient. Say I am well; but would like to see her when she can come.”

There was no priest in the house that Sunday, so there could be no mass; and on these occasions Mistress Margaret usually stayed at the Dower House until after dinner; but this morning she came up within half an hour of receiving the message.

She did not pretend to despise her sister’s terror, or call it superstitious.

“Mary,” she said, taking her sister’s jewelled old fingers into her own two hands, “we must leave all this to the good God. It may mean much, or little, or nothing. He only knows; but at least we may pray. Let me tell Isabel; a child’s prayers are mighty with Him; and she has the soul of a little child still.”

So Isabel was told; and after church she came up to dine at the Hall and spend the day there; for Lady Maxwell was thoroughly nervous and upset: she trembled at the sound of footsteps, and cried out when one of the men came into the room suddenly.

Isabel went again to evening prayer at three o’clock; but could not keep her thoughts off the strange nervous horror at the Hall, though it seemed to rest on no better foundation than the waking dreams of an old lady—and her mind strayed away continually from the darkening chapel in which she sat, so near where Sir Nicholas himself lay, to the upstairs parlour where the widow sat shaken and trembling at her own curious fancies about her dear son.