Introductory Note
The original version of this story was published, many
years since, in Household Words, and was afterwards
printed in the collection of my shorter stories called The
Queen of Hearts. In the present version – written for my
public readings in the United States – new characters and
new incidents are introduced; and a new beginning and
ending have been written. Indeed, the whole complexion
of the narrative differs so essentially from the older and
shorter version, as to justify me in believing that the reader
will find in these pages what is, to all practical intents and
purposes, a new story.
– W.C.
,
*Persons of the Mystery
*Francis Raven Ostler
*Mrs Raven His mother
*Mrs Chance His aunt
*Percy Fairbank
*Mrs Fairbank His master and mistress
*joseph rigobert His fellow servant
*Alicia Warlock His wife
*Period – The Present Time
*Scene – Partly in England,
*partly in France
The First Narrative
Introductory Statement of the Facts.
By Percy Fairbank.
1
Hullo, there! Ostler! Hullo-o-o!"
"My dear! Why don't you look for the bell?"
"I have looked – there is no bell."
"And nobody in the yard. How very extraordinary! Call
again, dear."
"Ostler! Hullo, there! Ostler-r-r!"
My second call echoes through empty space, and rouses
nobody – produces, in short, no visible result. I am at
the end of my resources – I don't know what to say or
what to do next. Here I stand in the solitary inn yard of
a strange town, with two horses to hold, and a lady to
take care of. By way of adding to my responsibilities, it
so happens that one of the horses is dead lame, and that
the lady is my wife.
Who am I? – you will ask.
"
the dream woman
There is plenty of time to answer the question. Nothing
happens; and nobody appears to receive us. Let me introduce myself and my wife.
I am Percy Fairbank – English gentleman – age (let us
say) forty – no profession – moderate politics – middle
height – fair complexion – easy character – plenty of
money.
My wife is a French lady. She was Mademoiselle Clotilde
Delorge – when I was first presented to her at her father's
house in France. I fell in love with her – I really don't know
why. It might have been because I was perfectly idle, and
had nothing else to do at the time. Or it might have been
because all my friends said she was the very last woman
whom I ought to think of marrying. On the surface, I
must own, there is nothing in common between Mrs
Fairbank and me. She is tall; she is dark; she is nervous,
excitable, romantic; in all her opinions she proceeds to
extremes. What could such a woman see in me? What
could I see in her? I know no more than you do. In some
mysterious manner we exactly suit each other. We have
been man and wife for ten years, and our only regret is
that we have no children. I don't know what you may
think; I call that – upon the whole – a happy marriage.
the first narrative
So much for ourselves. The next question is – what has
brought us into the inn yard? And why am I obliged to
turn groom, and hold the horses?
We live for the most part in France – at the country
house in which my wife and I first met. Occasionally, by
way of variety, we pay visits to my friends in England.
We are paying one of those visits now. Our host is an
old college friend of mine, possessed of a fine estate in
Somersetshire; and we have arrived at his house – called
Farleigh Hall – towards the close of the hunting season.
On the day of which I am now writing – destined to be
a memorable day in our calendar – the hounds meet at
Farleigh Hall. Mrs Fairbank and I are mounted on two
of the best horses in my friend's stables. We are quite
unworthy of that distinction; for we know nothing, and
care nothing, about hunting. On the other hand, we
delight in riding, and we enjoy the breezy spring morning
and the fair and fertile English landscape surrounding
us on every side. While the hunt prospers, we follow the
hunt. But when a check occurs – when time passes and
patience is sorely tried; when the bewildered dogs run
hither and thither and strong language falls from the lips
of exasperated sportsmen – we fail to take any further
the dream woman
interest in the proceedings. We turn our horses' heads in
the direction of a grassy lane, delightfully shaded by trees.
We trot merrily along the lane, and find ourselves on an
open common. We gallop across the common, and follow
the windings of a second lane. We cross a brook, we
pass through a village, we emerge into pastoral solitude
among the hills. The horses toss their heads, and neigh
to each other, and enjoy it as much as we do. The hunt
is forgotten. We are as happy as a couple of children; we
are actually singing a French song – when in one moment
our merriment comes to an end. My wife's horse sets one
of his forefeet on a loose stone, and stumbles. His rider's
ready hand saves him from falling. But, at the first attempt
he makes to go on, the sad truth shows itself – a tendon
is strained; the horse is lame.
What is to be done? We are strangers in a lonely part
of the country. Look where we may, we see no signs of
a human habitation. There is nothing for it but to take
the bridle road up the hill, and try what we can discover
on the other side. I transfer the saddles, and mount my
wife on my own horse. He is not used to carry a lady;
he misses the familiar pressure of a man's legs on either
side of him; he fidgets, and starts, and kicks up the dust.
the first narrative
I follow on foot, at a respectful distance from his heels,
leading the lame horse. Is there a more miserable object
on the face of creation than a lame horse? I have seen
lame men and lame dogs who were cheerful creatures; but
I never yet saw a lame horse who didn't look heartbroken
over his own misfortune.
For half an hour my wife capers and curvets sideways
along the bridle road. I trudge on behind her, and the
heartbroken horse halts behind me. Hard by the top of
the hill, our melancholy procession passes a Somersetshire
peasant at work in a field. I summon the man to approach
us; and the man looks at me stolidly, from the middle of
the field, without stirring a step. I ask at the top of my
voice how far it is to Farleigh Hall. The Somersetshire
peasant answers at the top of his voice:
"Vourteen mile. Gi' oi a drap o' zyder."
I translate (for my wife's benefit) from the Somersetshire
language into the English language. We are fourteen
miles from Farleigh Hall, and our friend in the field
desires to be rewarded for giving us that information,
with a drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by
himself! Quite a bit of character, my dear! Quite a bit
of character!
the dream woman
Mrs Fairbank doesn't view the study of agricultural human
nature with my relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her
a moment's repose; she is beginning to lose her temper.
"We can't go fourteen miles in this way," she says.
"Where is the nearest inn? Ask that brute in the field!"
I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the
sun. The shilling exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling
draws the peasant slowly towards me from the middle of
the field. I inform him that we want to put up the horses,
and to hire a carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall.
Where can we do that? The peasant answers (with his
eye on the shilling):
"At Oonderbridge, to be zure." (At Underbridge, to
be sure.)
"Is it far to Underbridge?"
The peasant repeats, "Var to Oonderbridge?' – and
laughs at the question. "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" (Underbridge
is evidently close by – if we could only find it.)
"Will you show us the way, my man?"
"Will you gi' oi a drap o' zyder?"
I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy procession. My wife is a fine
the first narrative
woman, but he never once looks at my wife – and, more
extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses. His
eyes are with his mind – and his mind is on the shilling.
We reach the top of the hill – and behold, on the other
side, nestling in a valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage,
the town of Underbridge! Here our guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for ourselves. I am
constitutionally a polite man. I say "Good morning" at
parting. The guide looks at me with the shilling between
his teeth to make sure that it is a good one. "Marnin'!"
he says savagely – and turns his back on us, as if we had
offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth of
civilization. If I didn't see a church spire at Underbridge,
I might suppose that we had lost ourselves on a savage
island.
2
Arriving at the town, we have no difficulty in
finding the inn. The town is composed of one desolate street, and midway in that street stands the inn – an
ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting
on the signboard is obliterated. The shutters over the long
range of front windows are all closed. A cock and his hens
the dream woman
are the only living creatures at the door. Plainly, this is one
of the old inns of the stagecoach period, ruined by the
railway. We pass through the open arched doorway, and
find no one to welcome us. We advance into the stable yard
behind; I assist my wife to dismount – and there we are
in the position already disclosed to view at the opening
of this narrative. No bell to ring. No human creature to
answer when I call. I stand helpless, with the bridles of
the horses in my hand. Mrs Fairbank saunters gracefully
down the length of the yard, and does – what all women
do when they find themselves in a strange place. She
opens every door as she passes it, and peeps in. On my
side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the point of
shouting for the ostler for the third and last time, when
I hear Mrs Fairbank suddenly call to me.
"Percy! Come here!"
Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened a last
door at the end of the yard, and has started back from
some sight which has suddenly met her view. I hitch the
horses' bridles on a rusty nail in the wall near me, and
join my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.
"Good Heavens!" she cries. "Look at that!"
the first narrative
I look – and what do I see?
I see a dingy little stable, containing two stalls. In one
stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is
lying asleep on the litter.
A worn, withered, woebegone man in an ostler's
dress. His hollow wrinkled cheeks, his scanty grizzled
hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale of past
sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his
eyebrows – there is a painful nervous contraction on
one side of his mouth. I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and sighs in
his sleep. It is not a pleasant sight to see, and I turn
round instinctively to the bright sunlight in the yard.
My wife turns me back again in the direction of the
stable door.
"Wait!" she says. "Wait! He may do it again."
"Do what again?"
"He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked
in. He was dreaming some dreadful dream. Hush! He's
beginning again."
I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed.
The man speaks, in a quick fierce whisper, through his
clenched teeth. "Wake up! Wake up, there! Murder!"
the dream woman
There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm
slowly until it rests over his throat; he shudders, and turns
on his straw; he raises his arm from his throat, and feebly
stretches it out; his hand clutches at the straw on the side
towards which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is
grasping at the edge of something; I see his lips begin to
move again; I step softly into the stable; my wife follows
me, with her hand fast clasped in mine. We both bend
over him. He is talking once more in his sleep – strange
talk, mad talk, this time.
"Light-grey eyes" (we hear him say) "and a droop in
the left eyelid – flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in
it – all right, mother! Fair, white arms with a down on
them – little, lady's hand, with a reddish look round the
fingernails – the knife – the cursed knife – first on one
side, then on the other – aha, you she-devil! Where is
the knife?"
He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him
writhing on the straw. He throws up both his hands and
gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes open suddenly.
For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in them – then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he
dreaming still? Yes, but the dream seems to have taken