The Second Macabre MEGAPACK®. Эдит НесбитЧитать онлайн книгу.
are you one of its thralls then, papa?” faltered Chlorine.
“I am, indeed,” he said. “I failed to quell it, as every Catafalque, however brave and resolute, has failed yet. It checks all my accounts, and woe to me if that cold, withering eye discovers the slightest error—even in the pence column! I could not describe the extent of my bondage to you, my daughter, or the humiliation of having to go and tremble monthly before that awful presence. Not even yet, old as I am, have I grown quite accustomed to it!”
Never, in my wildest imaginings, had I anticipated anything one quarter so dreadful as this; but still I clung to the hope that it was impossible to bring me into the affair.
“But, Sir Paul,” I said—“Sir Paul, you—you mustn’t stop there, or you’ll alarm Chlorine more than there’s any need to do. She—ha, ha!—don’t you see, she has got some idea into her head that I have to go through much the same sort of thing. Just explain that to her. I’m not a Catafalque, Chlorine, so it—it can’t interfere with me. That is so, isn’t it, Sir Paul? Good heavens, sir, don’t torture her like this!” I cried, as he was silent. “Speak out!”
“You mean well, Augustus,” he said, “but the time for deceiving her has gone by; she must know the worst. Yes, my poor child,” he continued to Chlorine, whose eyes were wide with terror—though I fancy mine were even wider—“unhappily, though our beloved Augustus is not a Catafalque himself, he has of his own free will brought himself within the influence of the Curse, and he, too, at the appointed hour, must keep the awful assignation, and brave all that the most fiendish malevolence can do to shake his resolution.”
I could not say a single word; the horror of the idea was altogether too much for me, and I fell back on my chair in a state of speechless collapse.
“You see,” Sir Paul went on explaining, “it is not only all new baronets, but every one who would seek an alliance with the females of our race, who must, by the terms of that strange bequest, also undergo this trial. It may be in some degree owing to this necessity that, ever since Humfrey de Catafalque’s diabolical testament first took effect, every maiden of our House has died a spinster.” (Here Chlorine hid her face with a low wail.) “In 1770, it is true, one solitary suitor was emboldened by love and daring to face the ordeal. He went calmly and resolutely to the chamber where the Curse was then lodged, and the next morning they found him outside the door—a gibbering maniac!”
I writhed on my chair. “Augustus!” cried Chlorine wildly, “promise me you will not permit the Curse to turn you into a gibbering maniac. I think if I saw you gibber I should die!”
I was on the verge of gibbering then; I dared not trust myself to speak.
“Nay, Chlorine,” said Sir Paul more cheerfully, “there is no cause for alarm; all has been made smooth for Augustus.” (I began to brighten a little at this.) “His Aunt Petronia had made a special study of the old-world science of incantation, and had undoubtedly succeeded at last in discovering the master-word which, employed according to her directions, would almost certainly break the unhallowed spell. In her compassionate attachment to us, she formed the design of persuading a youth of blameless life and antecedents to present himself as our champion, and the reports she had been given of our dear Augustus’ irreproachable character led her to select him as a likely instrument. And her confidence in his generosity and courage was indeed well-founded, for he responded at once to the appeal of his departed aunt, and, with her instructions for his safeguard, and the consciousness of his virtue as an additional protection, there is hope, my child, strong hope, that, though the struggle may be a long and bitter one, yet Augustus will emerge a victor!”
I saw very little ground for expecting to emerge as anything of the kind, or for that matter to emerge at all, except in instalments—for the master-word which was to abash the demon was probably inside the packet of instructions, and that was certainly somewhere at the bottom of the sea, outside Melbourne, fathoms below the surface.
I could bear no more. “It’s simply astonishing to me,” I said, “that in the nineteenth century, hardly six miles from Charing Cross, you can calmly allow this hideous “Curse,” or whatever you call it, to have things all its own way like this.”
“What can I do, Augustus?” he asked helplessly.
“Do? Anything!” I retorted wildly (for I scarcely knew what I said). “Take it out for an airing (it must want an airing by this time); take it out—and lose it! Or get both the archbishops to step in and lay it for you. Sell the house, and make the purchaser take it at a valuation, with the other fixtures. I certainly would not live under the same roof with it. And I want you to understand one thing—I was never told all this; I have been kept in the dark about it. Of course I knew there was some kind of a curse in the family—but I never dreamed of anything so bad as this, and I never had any intention of being boxed up alone with it either. I shall not go near the Grey Chamber!”
“Not go near it!” they all cried aghast.
“Not on any account,” I said, for I felt firmer and easier now that I had taken up this position. “If the Curse has any business with me, let it come down and settle it here before you all in a plain straightforward manner. Let us go about it in a business-like way. On second thoughts,” I added, fearing lest they should find means of carrying out this suggestion. “I won’t meet it anywhere!”
“And why—why won’t you meet it?” they asked breathlessly.
“Because,” I explained desperately, “because I’m—I’m a materialist.” (I had not been previously aware that I had any decided opinions on the question, but I could not stay then to consider the point.) “How can I have any dealings with a preposterous supernatural something which my reason forbids me to believe in? You see my difficulty? It would be inconsistent, to begin with, and—and extremely painful to both sides.”
“No more of this ribaldry,” said Sir Paul sternly. “It may be terribly remembered against you when the hour comes. Keep a guard over your tongue, for all our sakes, and more especially your own. Recollect that the Curse knows all that passes beneath this roof. And do not forget, too, that you are pledged—irrevocably pledged. You must confront the Curse!”
Only a short hour ago, and I had counted Chlorine’s fortune and Chlorine as virtually mine; and now I saw my golden dreams roughly shattered for ever! And, oh, what a wrench it was to tear myself from them! what it cost me to speak the words that barred my Paradise to me for ever!
But if I wished to avoid confronting the Curse—and I did wish this very much—I had no other course. “I had no right to pledge myself,” I said, with quivering lips, “under all the circumstances.”
“Why not,” they demanded again; “what circumstances?”
“Well, in the first place,” I assured them earnestly, “I’m a base impostor. I am indeed. I’m not Augustus McFadden at all. My real name is of no consequence—but it’s a prettier one than that. As for McFadden, he, I regret to say, is now no more.”
Why on earth I could not have told the plain truth here has always been a mystery to me. I suppose I had been lying so long that it was difficult to break myself of this occasionally inconvenient trick at so short a notice, but I certainly mixed things up to a hopeless extent.
“Yes,” I continued mournfully, “McFadden is dead; I will tell you how he died if you would care to know. During his voyage here he fell overboard, and was almost instantly appropriated by a gigantic shark, when, as I happened to be present, I enjoyed the melancholy privilege of seeing him pass away. For one brief moment I beheld him between the jaws of the creature, so pale but so composed (I refer to McFadden, you understand—not the shark), he threw just one glance up at me, and with a smile, the sad sweetness of which I shall never forget (it was McFadden’s smile, I mean, of course—not the shark’s), he, courteous and considerate to the last, requested me to break the news and remember him very kindly to you all. And, in the same instant, he abruptly vanished within the monster—and I saw neither of them again!”
Of course in bringing the shark in