Читать книгу The Door of Death - Samuel Shellabarger - Страница 4

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Looking back, it seems to me that even my first arrival at Greyhouse was shadowed by subterfuge, secrecy, and double-dealing, as if, at its threshold, I had been forced to assume a new and equivocal attitude. I recall the misgiving or rather timidity I felt on that autumn night, as I dressed for dinner in the stately guest-room assigned me. Numerous scruples and questions presented themselves, and the more I considered the nature of my position the less I liked it. Had it not been for my friendship with Eleanor Graham, I would have escaped even then—indeed, except for her and Carl Ballion, I should not have been there at all.

Night-time, together with silence and uncertainty, formed a cheerless prelude to the errand on which I had been summoned. I asked myself of what kind was the mental disorder of Celia Ballion, about which her sister wanted my opinion. To what obsession had Eleanor’s letter referred? The vastness and country seclusion of the house, its hushed and shadowy spaces, seemed to render the presence of insanity here more ill-omened and sinister than in usual surroundings, as if its chill were spread along stairway and corridor. But used as I was by profession to various forms of psychopathy, it was not so much this that disturbed me, as the consciousness of being at Greyhouse under false pretenses.

Though ostensibly Eleanor’s guest, I was actually an intruder. It did not set me at ease to reflect that I had been invited here in the absence of Celia’s husband, Francis Ballion, and precisely because he was absent; nor to remember that, considering his wife’s vagaries of no moment, he had refused bluntly to call in medical advice. It seemed to me that some reflection of him appeared in this house of his, in its remoteness and somber elegance, which implied a character aloof, self-complete, and intolerant of interference. On the other hand, his wife, of course, believed in the reality of her delusions, and would resent the scrutiny of a stranger. But finally, if there existed, as I had been led to believe, an estrangement between husband and wife, to which her condition might possibly be ascribed, here was I dabbling unbidden in family matters, a course that might easily lead to deserved unpleasantness.

On dubious authority, then—namely that of Mrs. Ballion’s sister and her brother-in-law, Carl Ballion—I formed part of an innocent conspiracy. But however praiseworthy the motive, I could have wished for a less ambiguous introduction to a strange household, and looked forward to the evening with considerable uneasiness.

To this, no doubt, my surroundings in part contributed. Although not as a rule impressionable, I felt, and I believe no one could have helped feeling, the individuality of Greyhouse, as distinguished from other places of the kind. It produced an almost haunting sense of the unusual, but for what reason was at first difficult to determine. The house was a modern American building, and I had seen other interiors arranged with a like regard for space and solidity of furnishing, indeed decorated in the same fashion of the cold and splendid Renaissance. The difference here was in what might be termed a discordance between the house and myself. Elsewhere, however slavishly a given period had been copied, I felt no actual illusion of the past. But here I stood, clearly alien and incongruous. It was in the completeness of this impression, free from any sense of the artificial, that I found the distinction of Greyhouse to consist; and because it was so complete, I felt lost, oppressed, overawed. The gilded pillars of the bed with its valance, the comfortable but solitary chairs, seemed scornfully impassive, as if they admitted no conceivable reason for intrusion. I might have been dressing for dinner in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican.

Eleanor Graham met me at the foot of the great stairs as I came down, and I could not help noting that what was true of me in my relation to the house did not seem to apply to her. I remained out of place in the brilliant spaciousness of the hall, while she seemed one with it.

Perhaps a sense of this difference, perhaps that I had forgotten how striking she was both in beauty and charm of presence, rendered our meeting a little more formal than in the past.

“I’m glad you are here,” she said, “you can hardly realize how glad.”

But at the same time her manner showed plainly that it was the physician rather than the friend she welcomed, and there remained for me nothing but to express the desire of being of service.

She drew me a little breathlessly toward the tall fireplace of carved gray marble.

“We have a few moments before Celia comes down. I should like to tell you what I know; then you can judge for yourself, but something must be done quickly. The last six months have made a marked difference.”

“Have you any idea,” I asked, “about the cause of your sister’s illness?”

But she countered with another question: “Did you see Carl Ballion, as I suggested in my letter? What did he say?”

“He was naturally reticent; but I gathered that his brother and sister-in-law have been on strained terms of late. He told me that Mr. Ballion is highly temperamental, at times inconsiderate, and that he has been in the habit of more or less frequent absences from Greyhouse.”

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Just as to-night—otherwise I could hardly have dared invite you. He ridicules Celia’s moods. Was that all Carl said?”

“Yes, except that he showed uneasiness about Mrs. Ballion’s condition. And so you think,” I went on, “that these relations with her husband are the cause of what you fear?”

She turned, holding out her hands toward the flames that curved around the logs before us.

“I believe so; but Celia does not. In his better moments, no one can be as devoted as Francis Ballion. Look at that painting there—did you ever see a more gallant man?”

The usual portrait leaves merely a blur on the mind; but even now after long years I can still recall vividly the one that Eleanor indicated at this moment—the bold, imperious face of Francis Ballion, the compelling eyes, the leonine head lifted in a sort of inalienable haughtiness, the dark, waving hair. His lips, however, were parted in a smile so gracious as to be lovable. I looked and the figure seemed to dilate, fill and give character to the hall, rendering its massiveness significant. He, at least, was at home and native here; in some mysterious sense, the room appeared an emanation of the painting.

“If he could only forget his pleasures,” she went on, “his studies, and collections, and remember his wife, that is, remember her a little more. But I repeat Celia does not connect her delusions with his change of temper or even with their disputes, although somehow I’m sure they center in him.”

“Of what nature,” I asked, “are these delusions?”

She glanced at the stairway before answering.

“Perhaps you would hardly call them so. She has the feeling that what you and I would consider solid, fixed—this wall, for instance, the things about us—is merely a figment, a veil shutting out the unknown. She imagines this veil to be parting, feels what she calls a breath from beyond, a tide closing in. She speaks of a phantom near us; and when I ask what phantom, tells me to look for myself.”

It is curious that Eleanor’s words had the effect of making the hall seem more silent, more brilliant, more oppressive. The light sound of a footstep in the corridor above startled me, as if it were a signal.

“Remember,” she whispered, “remember that you were invited as my guest. Do not let her suspect you of watching her. She believes in her delusions.”

With an odd thrill, I saw the figure of a woman descending the stairs; or, from our point of observation, it might well have seemed the figure of a child. That was my first impression of Celia Ballion; it has become the enduring one. She appeared so frail against her background. She instilled somehow the sense of aloneness, of being astray in an unfamiliar place. Her footstep was almost inaudible. Her hand fluttered along the heavy balustrade. I realized that I was not the only one incongruous here: the mistress of Greyhouse herself was still further removed from any personal connection with her environment.

From the outset, I could understand without sharing whatever indifference toward his wife existed on the part of Francis Ballion. I could understand because of his portrait which emphasized his abundant vitality. The woman before me, slight as porcelain, recalled an opposed breed, one of the race whose blood, grown thin, flows in disciplined channels, who is capable of devotion or sacrifice, but always with an after-sense of duty. One could imagine her voice becoming shrill, but never passionate. She exhibited, I thought, exactly those qualities of reserve which have become associated with New England tradition.

And yet, while admitting this, I was equally aware of her unusual charm. She exhaled, as it were, the fine aroma of distinguished manner, which accorded with the delicate chiseling of her features and exquisite grace of movement. I realized that one could love Celia Ballion as one loves the perfection of elegance, the nuance of a color, a remembered echo of music. She belonged to the domain of lovely and evasive perceptions.

We stood for a moment chatting, when doors at the end of the hall opened, and dinner was announced by a suave, handsome servant in dark livery. The dining-room, in keeping with the rest of the house, was of large dimensions and decorated in Venetian style. But the place, though warm, seemed cold. Our voices sounded thin and ineffectual. The rattle of fork or knife served, as it were, to punctuate habitual silence. And behind us flitted the attendant, lithe and noiseless, like a detached shadow.

At first, I could discover nothing strange in Mrs. Ballion’s conversation. She talked easily on a number of topics, nor was it until I asked the apparently harmless question as to when Greyhouse had been built, that her answer unfolded what I had been led to expect.

“Hundreds of years ago,” she said, “in evil days when there was no God.”

She had spoken in a calm, emotionless voice. Without turning I felt the chill of Eleanor Graham’s distress.

“Of course,” she went on, “these walls were set up recently. But they are not Greyhouse. They are only the mask of Greyhouse, don’t you understand?”

I made a rejoinder of some kind. We changed the subject; but gradually I became aware that as long as nothing connected with Greyhouse or the name of Ballion was mentioned, she spoke rationally, indeed charmingly; a single reference, however, to her husband or surroundings drew, as it were, a mental curtain between us. Even her brother-in-law, Carl Ballion, whom I knew and admired, seemed included in the same ban. I mentioned him with enthusiasm. For an instant she smiled.

“You know him? What do you think he is?”

“A gifted journalist,” I answered, “a leader in politics, a man with a future.”

“You forget his past.” She broke into strange laughter. “How blind you are!” Then more calmly, “Oh, I admit his attractiveness, with that blood and name—but ask Eleanor rather than me to sing his praises.”

At this, I saw that Eleanor Graham looked down, and there came to me the first twinge of disappointment, which proved clearly enough that last summer’s friendship with her had ripened into something more. She spoke loyally now in defense of Carl Ballion as one who had been a friend to them both, and even put in a word for the house itself, which for her part she found beautiful and reproached her sister for undervaluing.

“Please!” interrupted the latter tensely. “You don’t understand, I hope, what its beauty means!”

Curious, I thought, the resemblance and the contrast between Mrs. Ballion and her sister. At first glance, they appeared totally unlike. Eleanor Graham’s hair was dark, her features bolder. She was tall and, though slender, every movement showed the development that comes with exercise and health. In all this Celia was the direct contrary. It was in an accent of speech or perhaps of thought, something quaint and gracious, that similarity began—in this, and the shade of Eleanor’s eyes, which were light as Celia Ballion’s, abnormally light in contrast to her hair, and recalled the uncertain color of aquamarine. But in hers burned youth at its height, whereas upon meeting the glance of Celia, there recurred strangely the thought of twilight in winter.

Afterward, we gathered once more about the fire, and at a nod from her sister Eleanor turned down the lights, so that we sat half in darkness, half facing the tumult of the flames.

“You see, I like it better this way,” remarked Celia. “A fire might be anywhere; it might be in our room at home when we were children. Besides, it’s a kind of magic circle where one feels safe.”

Impressed by her voice, I was unprepared for its excitement when she whispered suddenly: “If only that were not here! If I didn’t have to see that and remember...!”

Following her glance, I noticed for the first time an object to which she apparently referred. It was nothing more than a coat of arms carved in the slanting stone of the mantel above us, whereon was depicted a falcon poised at the zenith of his flight. The workmanship seemed to me peculiarly beautiful.

I should have done well to follow Eleanor’s lead implicitly, but badly inspired and in momentary forgetfulness a little later, I happened to inquire into what part of the house the doors opposite us at the far end of the hall opened. A reproachful glance warned me too late.

“They are locked,” replied Celia. “It’s the room where Francis keeps his library and collections. He has appropriate tastes. You will find there what he calls ‘the aids to eloquence’ ”—and when I looked a question—“Oh, I’d rather not explain. I heard him explain them once.” Her thin hands twisted about each other. After what seemed a long pause, she added, “You will find there also a Door of Death.”

Eleanor interrupted: “Remember, Celia, we have a guest. Won’t you try, dear, to avoid these subjects? It can’t be very pleasant for him.”

Fearing some kind of outburst, I hastened to affirm my interest—that, on the contrary, I was glad to hear of Mr. Ballion’s collection. But I was surprised at the docility with which my hostess accepted Eleanor’s rebuke.

“Of course,” she said. “And I wish Dr. Ames might find Greyhouse less triste. To-morrow,” she went on, “you will motor together. Then Carl will be here for lunch. Even Francis may be back,”—and in a slightly altered voice, “they know how to be pleasant!”

But do what we might, conversation languished. The silence that seemed native here asserted itself in ever longer pauses. And meanwhile from without—it seemed far off—we heard the howling of the autumn wind. It came in gusts, beating with spectral fingers on the panes. It called through emptiness, hurrying from the void to the void. Then suddenly I remembered it was Hallowe’en. They also had forgotten it.

Leaning toward me, Celia Ballion laid her hand on my knee.

“It’s the night of evil spirits. Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked earnestly, as a child might have asked.

I answered with a certain tremor that I did not, that I considered it a superstition long outlived.

“And I agree with you,” she said. “I do not believe in them, but in something else. The French have a better word: revenants, the ones who return.” Aware of Eleanor’s eyes, she stood up. “I’m going to my room. A good night, I hope, for all. No, I’ll find my way. You needn’t come.” For a moment she put her arms about Eleanor; then gave me her hand in a manner of simple, yet old-fashioned, courtesy; and afterward, stood looking at the fire before she turned away. I shall always remember her best as she moved slowly toward the stairs, a dim figure in the twilight of the hall.

For a while Eleanor Graham and I stood without speaking. Then in a small, dry voice she asked for my opinion.

“Doubtless I could find words,” I said, “to describe her ailment, but that wouldn’t explain its cause. She is clearly in mortal fear of something connected with her husband and this place. Therefore she must leave Greyhouse at once. It’s impossible to tell if this condition is permanent except on observation somewhere else.”

“But Francis might object. He has so little patience with weakness of any sort.”

I found it difficult to answer calmly, “Carl Ballion and I will persuade him.”

She made a gesture of despair.

“It’s incomprehensible. I find this house wonderful. It seemed strange at first, but I have grown to love it. And after all there are a number of men more thoughtless and quick-tempered than Francis Ballion. At heart, I’m sure he loves her. What is there to fear! Tell me, do you think her already insane?”

How easily in my office could I have found an answer! Here instead, in these strange surroundings, I was at a curious loss. What is insanity? The abnormal. But the difficulty consists in fixing a norm, the degree of variance permissible in drawing sharp the frontiers of sanity. At the moment I felt myself oddly on the defensive, resisting a thought that impugned my own soundness, an idea which intruded and returned: the absurd conviction, namely, that Celia Ballion was somehow peculiarly sane, that we instead were, as she insisted, blind. Topsyturvydom! An effect of this haunted night, an emergence of ancestral credulity which, of course, I rejected.

“At all events,” I told her, “your sister is not yet critically deranged. The crisis, however, must not come. If we can remove at once any danger of it, I believe surely that everything will be well.”

Vain predictions—more vain than that wind between the trees of Greyhouse, wailing and distraught, at its phantom chase of pursuer and pursued!

We retired early, but I found sleep difficult. Between snatches of slumber I woke for increasingly longer periods. Doubtless the gale blowing outside instilled something of its own unrest; but above all, I could not free myself from memories of the evening which continued to drift and pass again.

It was strange, I thought, that the problem of Celia Ballion should have taken such strong possession of me—a case, after all, among hundreds not dissimilar. If I could only rid myself of the impression that some truth, as yet concealed, lurked behind her apparent derangement—the instinctive sense of a solution almost within grasp. It was this that prevented sleep. It seemed to the overwrought alertness of fancy that here about me in the darkness hovered, could I but understand it, a token, an intimation, some vague meaning incumbent on me to decipher.

The very luxuriousness of my bed gave rise to reflections upon Celia Ballion’s position. Doubtless she slept in as spacious a room, on a bed as soft. That was all wealth could do; it could not shut out neglect or fear or madness. She and Eleanor had inherited a fortune; Francis Ballion had acquired another; and the result was Greyhouse, a monument to intelligence, art, and power, with space for every beauty save tenderness.

Tired of this medley of thought and aware that sleep was impossible, I got up at length and turned on the reading-lamp. It threw a dim light upon the room’s grandeur; but this served rather to increase than lessen my cheerlessness; I felt lost in this uncompromising magnificence. A high mirror at the end of the room reflected me vaguely, spectrally. But movement was better than lying awake, and so I paced here and there, having thrown on a dressing-gown, for the night was turning cold.

And what a night—of wind that seemed to pass long-drawn, followed by silence; then again a cry, the swoop and surge of another blast. Parting the curtains, I caught sight of tree-tops bent grotesquely, like skeletons charged with a load. Somewhere below, a clock struck one. More wide awake than ever, I took up a book and read, but to this day I am unable to recall its subject. The clock struck two.

It must have been shortly after that, when of a sudden I leaned forward listening. There came in a lull between gusts of wind the sound, or rather shadow of a sound—which to faculties less abnormally intent would have remained inaudible—of footsteps outside my door, a soft tread heard rather by weight than impact, not unlike the padding of a beast. Simply a measured pace or two—then lost by reason of the storm outside.

So brief was the sound that I had difficulty in judging of its direction. My impression, however, was that it tended toward the left, an unfamiliar section of the house, where I vaguely imagined a back stairway. I listened carefully, but heard nothing further. It was presumably a servant entering late, or indeed I might have been mistaken as to hearing anything at all.

I had returned to my reading, when I became conscious, beyond doubt this time, that some one was astir. A door opened, a knob turned somewhere, then silence, and suddenly a rustle along the corridor. I was already opening when a sharp knock rang out on the other side of the panel, and I found myself face to face with Eleanor. Her dark dressing-gown and the obscurity of the hallway outlined her features sharply.

“Quick!” she said. “I thought I heard something ... I went to Celia’s room...”

I was already outside and a moment later we stood on the threshold of a brilliantly lighted door. Upon the white expanse of the bed, under its great canopy, Celia Ballion looked so small and amazingly childlike. It needed only a glance to know that the figure outstretched before us was dead. She lay half on her side, so that we could not immediately see the face; but as we turned it, I heard a low cry from Eleanor Graham; and indeed it was scarcely credible that what last evening I had compared to the delicacy of a miniature should have become this mask. I whispered to Eleanor that she should leave the room for a while, she could do nothing, but she only moved back a few steps and stood leaning against the wall with wide, unseeing eyes.

The bedclothes had been a trifle disturbed, as if Celia had attempted to rise before sinking back, so that she was but half covered.

“Did you find her like this?” I asked.

Eleanor nodded.

“Did you notice anything unusual upon entering the room?”

“Nothing—except that it was fully lighted as it is now. As a rule Celia used only the bed-lamp.”

I looked up at a central chandelier which cast a rather harsh brilliance. It gave, however, excellent light for the examination I now made, and I asked again, “Was your sister in the habit of wearing a collar or necklace?”

“No—but what do you mean? Wasn’t it fear—perhaps a dream? You saw her condition.”

“Yes, there was fear,” I muttered. I felt at a loss for an answer. “You know, I may be wrong—it seems a strange thing to say—but I believe your sister died violently.”

“You mean...”

“Yes. She was murdered by strangling not two hours ago.”