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 intro￾duce 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 shil￾ling. The agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peas￾ant 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 shil￾ling, 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 deso￾late 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 nerv￾ously 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 convul￾sively 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 glit￾ter in them – then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he

dreaming still? Yes, but the dream seems to have taken