Carmilla (8 page)

"It may have been; I think it was."

"Ay, you see?" he added, turning to my father. "Shall I say a word to
Madame?"

"Certainly," said my father.

He called Madame to him, and said:

"I find my young friend here far from well. It won't be of any great
consequence, I hope; but it will be necessary that some steps be taken,
which I will explain by-and-by; but in the meantime, Madame, you will
be so good as not to let Miss Laura be alone for one moment. That is the
only direction I need give for the present. It is indispensable."

"We may rely upon your kindness, Madame, I know," added my father.

Madame satisfied him eagerly.

"And you, dear Laura, I know you will observe the doctor's direction."

"I shall have to ask your opinion upon another patient, whose symptoms
slightly resemble those of my daughter, that have just been detailed to
you—very much milder in degree, but I believe quite of the same sort.
She is a young lady—our guest; but as you say you will be passing this
way again this evening, you can't do better than take your supper here,
and you can then see her. She does not come down till the afternoon."

"I thank you," said the doctor. "I shall be with you, then, at about
seven this evening."

And then they repeated their directions to me and to Madame, and with
this parting charge my father left us, and walked out with the doctor;
and I saw them pacing together up and down between the road and the
moat, on the grassy platform in front of the castle, evidently absorbed
in earnest conversation.

The doctor did not return. I saw him mount his horse there, take his
leave, and ride away eastward through the forest.

Nearly at the same time I saw the man arrive from Dranfield with the
letters, and dismount and hand the bag to my father.

In the meantime, Madame and I were both busy, lost in conjecture as to
the reasons of the singular and earnest direction which the doctor and
my father had concurred in imposing. Madame, as she afterwards told me,
was afraid the doctor apprehended a sudden seizure, and that, without
prompt assistance, I might either lose my life in a fit, or at least be
seriously hurt.

The interpretation did not strike me; and I fancied, perhaps luckily for
my nerves, that the arrangement was prescribed simply to secure a
companion, who would prevent my taking too much exercise, or eating
unripe fruit, or doing any of the fifty foolish things to which young
people are supposed to be prone.

About half an hour after my father came in—he had a letter in his
hand—and said:

"This letter had been delayed; it is from General Spielsdorf. He might
have been here yesterday, he may not come till tomorrow or he may be
here today."

He put the open letter into my hand; but he did not look pleased, as he
used when a guest, especially one so much loved as the General,
was coming.

On the contrary, he looked as if he wished him at the bottom of the Red
Sea. There was plainly something on his mind which he did not choose
to divulge.

"Papa, darling, will you tell me this?" said I, suddenly laying my hand
on his arm, and looking, I am sure, imploringly in his face.

"Perhaps," he answered, smoothing my hair caressingly over my eyes.

"Does the doctor think me very ill?"

"No, dear; he thinks, if right steps are taken, you will be quite well
again, at least, on the high road to a complete recovery, in a day or
two," he answered, a little dryly. "I wish our good friend, the General,
had chosen any other time; that is, I wish you had been perfectly well
to receive him."

"But do tell me, papa," I insisted, "what does he think is the matter
with me?"

"Nothing; you must not plague me with questions," he answered, with more
irritation than I ever remember him to have displayed before; and seeing
that I looked wounded, I suppose, he kissed me, and added, "You shall
know all about it in a day or two; that is, all that I know. In the
meantime you are not to trouble your head about it."

He turned and left the room, but came back before I had done wondering
and puzzling over the oddity of all this; it was merely to say that he
was going to Karnstein, and had ordered the carriage to be ready at
twelve, and that I and Madame should accompany him; he was going to see the
priest who lived near those picturesque grounds, upon business, and as
Carmilla had never seen them, she could follow, when she came down, with
Mademoiselle, who would bring materials for what you call a picnic,
which might be laid for us in the ruined castle.

At twelve o'clock, accordingly, I was ready, and not long after, my
father, Madame and I set out upon our projected drive.

Passing the drawbridge we turn to the right, and follow the road over
the steep Gothic bridge, westward, to reach the deserted village and
ruined castle of Karnstein.

No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The ground breaks into gentle
hills and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute of
the comparative formality which artificial planting and early culture
and pruning impart.

The irregularities of the ground often lead the road out of its course,
and cause it to wind beautifully round the sides of broken hollows and
the steeper sides of the hills, among varieties of ground almost
inexhaustible.

Turning one of these points, we suddenly encountered our old friend, the
General, riding towards us, attended by a mounted servant. His
portmanteaus were following in a hired wagon, such as we term a cart.

The General dismounted as we pulled up, and, after the usual greetings,
was easily persuaded to accept the vacant seat in the carriage and send
his horse on with his servant to the schloss.

It was about ten months since we had last seen him: but that time had
sufficed to make an alteration of years in his appearance. He had grown
thinner; something of gloom and anxiety had taken the place of that
cordial serenity which used to characterize his features. His dark blue
eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner light from under
his shaggy grey eyebrows. It was not such a change as grief alone
usually induces, and angrier passions seemed to have had their share in
bringing it about.

We had not long resumed our drive, when the General began to talk, with
his usual soldierly directness, of the bereavement, as he termed it,
which he had sustained in the death of his beloved niece and ward; and
he then broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing
against the "hellish arts" to which she had fallen a victim, and
expressing, with more exasperation than piety, his wonder that Heaven
should tolerate so monstrous an indulgence of the lusts and malignity
of hell.

My father, who saw at once that something very extraordinary had
befallen, asked him, if not too painful to him, to detail the
circumstances which he thought justified the strong terms in which he
expressed himself.

"I should tell you all with pleasure," said the General, "but you would
not believe me."

"Why should I not?" he asked.

"Because," he answered testily, "you believe in nothing but what
consists with your own prejudices and illusions. I remember when I was
like you, but I have learned better."

"Try me," said my father; "I am not such a dogmatist as you suppose.
Besides which, I very well know that you generally require proof for
what you believe, and am, therefore, very strongly predisposed to
respect your conclusions."

"You are right in supposing that I have not been led lightly into a
belief in the marvelous—for what I have experienced is marvelous—and I
have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which ran
counter, diametrically, to all my theories. I have been made the dupe of
a preternatural conspiracy."

Notwithstanding his professions of confidence in the General's
penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the General,
with, as I thought, a marked suspicion of his sanity.

The General did not see it, luckily. He was looking gloomily and
curiously into the glades and vistas of the woods that were opening
before us.

"You are going to the Ruins of Karnstein?" he said. "Yes, it is a lucky
coincidence; do you know I was going to ask you to bring me there to
inspect them. I have a special object in exploring. There is a ruined
chapel, ain't there, with a great many tombs of that extinct family?"

"So there are—highly interesting," said my father. "I hope you are
thinking of claiming the title and estates?"

My father said this gaily, but the General did not recollect the laugh,
or even the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend's joke; on the
contrary, he looked grave and even fierce, ruminating on a matter that
stirred his anger and horror.

"Something very different," he said, gruffly. "I mean to unearth some of
those fine people. I hope, by God's blessing, to accomplish a pious
sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters, and
enable honest people to sleep in their beds without being assailed by
murderers. I have strange things to tell you, my dear friend, such as I
myself would have scouted as incredible a few months since."

My father looked at him again, but this time not with a glance of
suspicion—with an eye, rather, of keen intelligence and alarm.

"The house of Karnstein," he said, "has been long extinct: a hundred
years at least. My dear wife was maternally descended from the
Karnsteins. But the name and title have long ceased to exist. The castle
is a ruin; the very village is deserted; it is fifty years since the
smoke of a chimney was seen there; not a roof left."

"Quite true. I have heard a great deal about that since I last saw you;
a great deal that will astonish you. But I had better relate everything
in the order in which it occurred," said the General. "You saw my dear
ward—my child, I may call her. No creature could have been more
beautiful, and only three months ago none more blooming."

"Yes, poor thing! when I saw her last she certainly was quite lovely,"
said my father. "I was grieved and shocked more than I can tell you, my
dear friend; I knew what a blow it was to you."

He took the General's hand, and they exchanged a kind pressure. Tears
gathered in the old soldier's eyes. He did not seek to conceal them.
He said:

"We have been very old friends; I knew you would feel for me, childless
as I am. She had become an object of very near interest to me, and
repaid my care by an affection that cheered my home and made my life
happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be
very long; but by God's mercy I hope to accomplish a service to mankind
before I die, and to subserve the vengeance of Heaven upon the fiends
who have murdered my poor child in the spring of her hopes and beauty!"

"You said, just now, that you intended relating everything as it
occurred," said my father. "Pray do; I assure you that it is not mere
curiosity that prompts me."

By this time we had reached the point at which the Drunstall road, by
which the General had come, diverges from the road which we were
traveling to Karnstein.

"How far is it to the ruins?" inquired the General, looking anxiously
forward.

"About half a league," answered my father. "Pray let us hear the story
you were so good as to promise."

"With all my heart," said the General, with an effort; and after a short
pause in which to arrange his subject, he commenced one of the strangest
narratives I ever heard.

"My dear child was looking forward with great pleasure to the visit you
had been so good as to arrange for her to your charming daughter." Here
he made me a gallant but melancholy bow. "In the meantime we had an
invitation to my old friend the Count Carlsfeld, whose schloss is about
six leagues to the other side of Karnstein. It was to attend the series
of fetes which, you remember, were given by him in honor of his
illustrious visitor, the Grand Duke Charles."

"Yes; and very splendid, I believe, they were," said my father.

"Princely! But then his hospitalities are quite regal. He has Aladdin's
lamp. The night from which my sorrow dates was devoted to a magnificent
masquerade. The grounds were thrown open, the trees hung with colored
lamps. There was such a display of fireworks as Paris itself had never
witnessed. And such music—music, you know, is my weakness—such
ravishing music! The finest instrumental band, perhaps, in the world,
and the finest singers who could be collected from all the great operas
in Europe. As you wandered through these fantastically illuminated
grounds, the moon-lighted chateau throwing a rosy light from its long
rows of windows, you would suddenly hear these ravishing voices stealing
from the silence of some grove, or rising from boats upon the lake. I
felt myself, as I looked and listened, carried back into the romance and
poetry of my early youth.

"When the fireworks were ended, and the ball beginning, we returned to
the noble suite of rooms that were thrown open to the dancers. A masked
ball, you know, is a beautiful sight; but so brilliant a spectacle of
the kind I never saw before.

"It was a very aristocratic assembly. I was myself almost the only
'nobody' present.

"My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her
excitement and delight added an unspeakable charm to her features,
always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressed magnificently, but
wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward with
extraordinary interest. I had seen her, earlier in the evening, in the
great hall, and again, for a few minutes, walking near us, on the
terrace under the castle windows, similarly employed. A lady, also
masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a stately air, like a
person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.