The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker (book series for 10 year olds .txt) 📕
"Sorry. But, of course, you don't understand such things." Then he went on talking before father had time to say a word.
"Let us get back to business. As you do not seem to follow me, let me explain that it is BECAUSE I do not forget that I wish to do this. I remember my dear mother's wish to make Aunt Janet happy, and would like to do as she did."
"AUNT Janet?" said father, very properly sneering at his ignorance. "She is not your aunt. Why, even her sister, who was married to your uncle, was only your aunt by courtesy." I could not help feeling that Rupert meant to be rude to my father, though his words were quite polite. If I had been as much bigger than him as he was than me, I should have flown at him; but he was a very big boy for his age. I am myself rather thin. Mother says thinness is an "appanage of birth."
"My Aunt Janet, sir, is an aunt by love. Courtesy is a small word to use in connection with such devoti
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When I got home I wrote down, whilst it was fresh in my memory, all
they told me. This script I studied until I had it so thoroughly by
heart that I COULD not forget it. Then I burned the paper. However,
there is now one gain at least: with my semaphore I can send through
the Blue Mountains from side to side, with expedition, secrecy, and
exactness, a message comprehensible to all.
RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.
June 6, 1907.
Last night I had a new experience of my Lady of the Shroud—in so far
as form was concerned, at any rate. I was in bed, and just falling
asleep, when I heard a queer kind of scratching at the glass door of
the terrace. I listened acutely, my heart beating hard. The sound
seemed to come from low down, close to the floor. I jumped out of
bed, ran to the window, and, pulling aside the heavy curtains, looked
out.
The garden looked, as usual, ghostly in the moonlight, but there was
not the faintest sign of movement anywhere, and no one was on or near
the terrace. I looked eagerly down to where the sound had seemed to
come from.
There, just inside the glass door, as though it had been pushed under
the door, lay a paper closely folded in several laps. I picked it up
and opened it. I was all in a tumult, for my heart told me whence it
came. Inside was written in English, in a large, sprawling hand,
such as might be from an English child of seven or eight:
“Meet me at the Flagstaff on the Rock!”
I knew the place, of course. On the farthermost point of the rock on
which the Castle stands is set a high flagstaff, whereon in old time
the banner of the Vissarion family flew. At some far-off time, when
the Castle had been liable to attack, this point had been strongly
fortified. Indeed, in the days when the bow was a martial weapon it
must have been quite impregnable.
A covered gallery, with loopholes for arrows, had been cut in the
solid rock, running right round the point, quite surrounding the
flagstaff and the great boss of rock on whose centre it was reared.
A narrow drawbridge of immense strength had connected—in peaceful
times, and still remained—the outer point of rock with an entrance
formed in the outer wall, and guarded with flanking towers and a
portcullis. Its use was manifestly to guard against surprise. From
this point only could be seen the line of the rocks all round the
point. Thus, any secret attack by boats could be made impossible.
Having hurriedly dressed myself, and taking with me both hunting-knife and revolver, I went out on the terrace, taking the precaution,
unusual to me, of drawing the grille behind me and locking it.
Matters around the Castle are in far too disturbed a condition to
allow the taking of any foolish chances, either in the way of being
unarmed or of leaving the private entrance to the Castle open. I
found my way through the rocky passage, and climbed by the Jacob’s
ladder fixed on the rock—a device of convenience in time of peace—
to the foot of the flagstaff.
I was all on fire with expectation, and the time of going seemed
exceeding long; so I was additionally disappointed by the contrast
when I did not see my Lady there when I arrived. However, my heart
beat freely again—perhaps more freely than ever—when I saw her
crouching in the shadow of the Castle wall. From where she was she
could not be seen from any point save that alone which I occupied;
even from there it was only her white shroud that was conspicuous
through the deep gloom of the shadow. The moonlight was so bright
that the shadows were almost unnaturally black.
I rushed over towards her, and when close was about to say
impulsively, “Why did you leave your tomb?” when it suddenly struck
me that the question would be malapropos and embarrassing in many
ways. So, better judgment prevailing, I said instead:
“It has been so long since I saw you! It has seemed an eternity to
me!” Her answer came as quickly as even I could have wished; she
spoke impulsively and without thought:
“It has been long to me too! Oh, so long! so long! I have asked you
to come out here because I wanted to see you so much that I could not
wait any longer. I have been heart-hungry for a sight of you!”
Her words, her eager attitude, the ineffable something which conveys
the messages of the heart, the longing expression in her eyes as the
full moonlight fell on her face, showing the stars as living gold—
for in her eagerness she had stepped out towards me from the shadow—
all set me on fire. Without a thought or a word—for it was Nature
speaking in the language of Love, which is a silent tongue—I stepped
towards her and took her in my arms. She yielded with that sweet
unconsciousness which is the perfection of Love, as if it was in
obedience to some command uttered before the beginning of the world.
Probably without any conscious effort on either side—I know there
was none on mine—our mouths met in the first kiss of love.
At the time nothing in the meeting struck me as out of the common.
But later in the night, when I was alone and in darkness, whenever I
thought of it all—its strangeness and its stranger rapture—I could
not but be sensible of the bizarre conditions for a love meeting.
The place lonely, the time night, the man young and strong, and full
of life and hope and ambition; the woman, beautiful and ardent though
she was, a woman seemingly dead, clothed in the shroud in which she
had been wrapped when lying in her tomb in the crypt of the old
church.
Whilst we were together, anyhow, there was little thought of the
kind; no reasoning of any kind on my part. Love has its own laws and
its own logic. Under the flagstaff, where the Vissarion banner was
wont to flap in the breeze, she was in my arms; her sweet breath was
on my face; her heart was beating against my own. What need was
there for reason at all? Inter arma silent leges—the voice of
reason is silent in the stress of passion. Dead she may be, or Undead—a Vampire with one foot in Hell and one on earth. But I love
her; and come what may, here or hereafter, she is mine. As my mate,
we shall fare along together, whatsoever the end may be, or
wheresoever our path may lead. If she is indeed to be won from the
nethermost Hell, then be mine the task!
But to go back to the record. When I had once started speaking to
her in words of passion I could not stop. I did not want to—if I
could; and she did not appear to wish it either. Can there be a
woman—alive or dead—who would not want to hear the rapture of her
lover expressed to her whilst she is enclosed in his arms?
There was no attempt at reticence on my part now; I took it for
granted that she knew all that I surmised, and, as she made neither
protest nor comment, that she accepted my belief as to her
indeterminate existence. Sometimes her eyes would be closed, but
even then the rapture of her face was almost beyond belief. Then,
when the beautiful eyes would open and gaze on me, the stars that
were in them would shine and scintillate as though they were formed
of living fire. She said little, very little; but though the words
were few, every syllable was fraught with love, and went straight to
the very core of my heart.
By-and-by, when our transport had calmed to joy, I asked when I might
next see her, and how and where I might find her when I should want
to. She did not reply directly, but, holding me close in her arms,
whispered in my ear with that breathless softness which is a lover’s
rapture of speech:
“I have come here under terrible difficulties, not only because I
love you—and that would be enough—but because, as well as the joy
of seeing you, I wanted to warn you.”
“To warn me! Why?” I queried. Her reply came with a bashful
hesitation, with something of a struggle in it, as of one who for
some ulterior reason had to pick her words:
“There are difficulties and dangers ahead of you. You are beset with
them; and they are all the greater because they are, of grim
necessity, hidden from you. You cannot go anywhere, look in any
direction, do anything, say anything, but it may be a signal for
danger. My dear, it lurks everywhere—in the light as well as in the
darkness; in the open as well as in the secret places; from friends
as well as foes; when you are least prepared; when you may least
expect it. Oh, I know it, and what it is to endure; for I share it
for you—for your dear sake!”
“My darling!” was all I could say, as I drew her again closer to me
and kissed her. After a bit she was calmer; seeing this, I came back
to the subject that she had—in part, at all events—come to me to
speak about:
“But if difficulty and danger hedge me in so everlastingly, and if I
am to have no indication whatever of its kind or purpose, what can I
do? God knows I would willingly guard myself—not on my own account,
but for your dear sake. I have now a cause to live and be strong,
and to keep all my faculties, since it may mean much to you. If you
may not tell me details, may you not indicate to me some line of
conduct, of action, that would be most in accord with your wishes—
or, rather, with your idea of what would be best?
She looked at me fixedly before speaking—a long, purposeful, loving
look which no man born of woman could misunderstand. Then she spoke
slowly, deliberately, emphatically:
“Be bold, and fear not. Be true to yourself, to me—it is the same
thing. These are the best guards you can use. Your safety does not
rest with me. Ah, I wish it did! I wish to God it did!” In my
inner heart it thrilled me not merely to hear the expression of her
wish, but to hear her use the name of God as she did. I understand
now, in the calm of this place and with the sunlight before me, that
my belief as to her being all woman—living woman—was not quite
dead: but though at the moment my heart did not recognize the doubt,
my brain did. And I made up my mind that we should not part this
time until she knew that I had seen her, and where; but, despite my
own thoughts, my outer ears listened greedily as she went on.
“As for me, you may not find ME, but I shall find YOU, be sure!
And now we must say ‘Good-night,’ my dear, my dear! Tell me once
again that you love me, for it is a sweetness that one does not wish
to forego—even one who wears such a garment as this—and rests where
I must rest.” As she spoke she held up part of her cerements for me
to see. What could I do but take her once again in my arms and hold
her
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