"Oh! well enough, though too grave perhaps, and fond of what is far off--I mean stars," she added hurriedly.
"Stars! Pish! It is but because there is nothing nearer. At his age--stars!--well of a sort, perhaps."
She paused while Juliette still looked provokingly innocent. So her mother took a long step forward, for in truth she grew impatient with all this obtuseness in which, for reasons of her own, she did not believe.
"If I were a girl of your age," mused Madame as though to herself, "I do not think that ring would go to England."
"How, Mamma, would you steal it?"
"No, but I would make sure that it was given to me."
Now Juliette could no longer feign not to understand. She said nothing, but turned as red as G.o.dfrey had done a little while before and stood waiting.
"I find him charming," repeated Madame, "though he is so young, which is a fault that will mend," and she fixed her eyes upon her daughter"s face with a look of interrogation.
Then Juliette gave a little sigh and answered:
"Good. If you will make me say it, so do I also, at least, sometimes I think so, when he is not dull," and turning she fled from the room.
Madame smiled as the door closed behind her.
"That goes well, and should go better," she said to herself. "Only, for whom is the ring? There must be some girl in England, although of her he says nothing. _Peste!_ There are so many girls. Still, she is far away, and this one is near. But it could be wished that she were more experienced, for then, since she likes him well enough, all would be sure. What does a man count in such a case--especially when he is so young? Pish! nothing at all," and Madame snapped her fingers at the empty air. "It is the woman who holds the cards, if only she knows how to play them."
Now all these things happened on a Wednesday. When G.o.dfrey went to bed that night uncomfortable memories of Madame Riennes, and of the chaste embrace which she had forced him to impress upon her expansive forehead, haunted him for a while, also fears for the future. However, Sunday was still a long way off, so he went to sleep and dreamed that he was buying presents at every shop in Lucerne and giving them all to Madame Riennes.
On Thursday he was quite happy. On Friday he began to suffer from uneasiness, which on Sat.u.r.day became very p.r.o.nounced. It seemed to him that already waves of influence were creeping towards him like the fringes of some miasmic mist. Doubtless it was imagination, but he could feel their first frail tentacles wrapping themselves around his will, and drawing him towards Lucerne. As the day went on the tentacles grew stronger, till by evening there might have been a very octopus behind them. If this were so that night, he wondered what would happen on the following day, when the octopus began to pull. On one point he was determined. He would not go; never would he allow Madame Riennes to put him to sleep again, and what was much worse to make him kiss her.
At any rate that spirit, Eleanor, was beautiful and attractive--but Madame Riennes! Rather than forgather with her again in this affectionate manner, much as he dreaded it--or her--he would have compounded with the ghost called Eleanor.
Now, although like most young people, G.o.dfrey was indolent and evasive of difficulties, fearful of facing troubles also, he had a bedrock of character. There were points beyond which he would not go, even for the sake of peace. But here a trouble came in; he was well aware that although he would not go--to Madame Riennes to wit--there was something stronger than himself which would make him go. It was the old story over again set out by St. Paul once and for ever, that of the two laws which make a shuttlec.o.c.k of man so that he must do what he wills not.
Having once given way to Madame Riennes, who was to him a kind of sin incarnate, he had become her servant, and if she wished to put him to sleep, or to do anything else with him, well, however much he hated it, he must obey.
The thought terrified him. What could he do? He had tried prayers, never before had he prayed so hard in all his life; but they did not seem to be of the slightest use. No guardian angel, not even Eleanor, appeared to protect him from Madame Riennes, and meanwhile, the fog was creeping on, and the octopus tentacles were gripping tighter. In his emergency there rose the countenance of Miss Ogilvy"s dying counsel, welcome and unexpected as light of the moon to a lost traveller on a cloud-clothed night. What had she told him to do? To resist Madame Riennes. He had tried that with lamentable results. To invoke the help of religion. He had tried that with strictly negative results; the Powers above did not seem inclined to intervene in this private affair.
To appeal to the Pasteur. That he had not tried but, unpromising as the venture seemed to be, by Jove! he would. In his imminent peril there was nothing to which he would have appealed, even Mumbo-Jumbo itself if it gave him the slightest hope of protection from Madame Riennes.
Accordingly, when they went to the observatory that night, instead of applying his eye to the telescope in the accustomed fashion, G.o.dfrey rushed at the business like a bull at a gate. At first the Pasteur was entirely confused, especially as G.o.dfrey spoke in English, which the preceptor must translate into French in his own mind. By degrees, however, he became extraordinarily interested, so much so that he let the new pipe go out, and what was very rare with him, except in the most moving pa.s.sages of his own sermons, pushed the blue spectacles from his high nose upwards, till they caught upon the patch of grizzled hair which remained upon his bald head.
"Ah!" he said, answering in French, which by now G.o.dfrey understood fairly well, "this is truly exciting; at last I come in touch with the thing. Know, G.o.dfrey, that you furnish me with a great occasion. Long have I studied this, what you call it--demonology. Of it I know much, though not from actual touch therewith."
Then he began to talk of gnosticism, and witchcraft, and _Incubi_, and _Succubi_, and the developments of modern spiritualism, till G.o.dfrey was quite bewildered. At length he paused, relit the new pipe, and said:
"These matters we will study afterwards; they are, I a.s.sure you, most entertaining. Meanwhile, we have to deal with your Madame Riennes. All right, oh! quite all right. I will be her match. She will not make _me_ kiss her, no, not at all, not at all! Be tranquil, young friend, if to-morrow you feel the impulse to go, go you shall, but I will go with you. Then we will see. Now to bed and sleep well. For me, I must study; I have many books on this subject, and there are points whereon I would refresh myself. Be not afraid. I know much of Madame Riennes and I will leave her flat as that," and with surprising alacrity he jumped on a large black beetle which, unhappily for itself, just then ran across the observatory floor to enjoy the warmth of the stove. "Wait," he added, as G.o.dfrey was leaving. "First kneel down, I have memory of the ancient prayer, or if I forget bits, I can fill in the holes."
G.o.dfrey obeyed in a rather abject fashion, whereon the old Pasteur, waving the pipe above his head, from which emerged lines of blue smoke such as might have been accessory to an incantation, repeated over him something in Latin, that, owing to the foreign accent, he could not in the least understand. It ended, however, with the sign of the cross made with the bowl of the pipe, which the Pasteur forgot still remained in his hand.
Fortified by the accession of this new ally, G.o.dfrey slept fairly well, till within a little while of dawn, when he was awakened by a sound of rapping. At first he thought that these raps, which seemed very loud and distinct, were made by someone knocking on the door, perhaps to tell him there was a fire, and faintly murmured "_Entrez_." Then to his horror he became aware that they proceeded, not from the door, but from the back of his wooden bedstead, immediately above him, and at the same time recollected that he had heard similar noises while sitting at the little table in the Villa Ogilvy, which the mystics gathered there declared were produced by spirits.
His hair rose upon his head, a cold perspiration trickled down him; he shook in every limb. He thought of lighting a candle, but reflected that it was on the chest of drawers at the other side of the room, also that he did not know where he had put the matches. He thought of flying to the Pasteur, but remembered that to do so, first he must get out of bed, and perhaps expose his bare legs to the a.s.sault of ghostly hands, and next that, to reach the chamber of Monsieur and Madame Boiset, he must pa.s.s through the sanctuary of the room occupied by Juliette. So he compromised by retiring under the clothes, much as a tortoise draws its head into its sh.e.l.l.
This expedient proved quite useless, for there beneath the blankets the raps sounded louder than ever. Moreover, of a sudden the bed seemed to be filled with a cold and unnatural air, which blew all about him, especially upon his hands, though he tried to protect these by placing them under his back. Now G.o.dfrey knew something of the inadequate and clumsy methods affected by alleged communicating spirits, and half automatically began to repeat the alphabet. When he got to the letter I, there was a loud rap. He began again, and at A came another rap.
Once more he tried, for something seemed to make him do so, and was stopped at M.
"I am," he murmured, and recommenced until the word "here" was spelt out, after which came three rapid raps to signify a full stop.
"Who is here?" he asked in his own mind, at the same time determining that he would leave it at that. It was of no use at all, for the other party evidently intended to go on.
There was a perfect rain of raps, on the bed, off the bed, on the floor, even on the jug by the washstand; indeed, he thought that this and other articles were being moved about the room. To stop this multiform a.s.sault once more he took refuge in the alphabet, with the result that the raps unmistakably spelt the word "Eleanor."
"Great Heavens!" he thought to himself, "that dreadful spirit girl here, in my bedroom! How can she? It is most improper, but I don"t suppose she cares a sou for that."
In his despair and alarm he tucked the clothes tightly round him, and thrusting out his head, said in trembling accents:
"Please go away. You know I never asked you to come, and really it isn"t right," remarks which he thought, though, like all the rest, this may have been fancy, were followed by a sound of ghostly laughter. What was more, the bedclothes suddenly slipped off him, or--oh horror!
perhaps they were pulled off. At any rate, they went, and when next he saw them they were lying in a heap by the side of the bed.
Then it would seem that he fainted, overcome by these terrors, real or imaginary. At any rate, when he opened his eyes again it was to see the daylight creeping into the room (never before had he appreciated so thoroughly the beauties of the dawn) and to find himself lying half frozen on the bed with the pillow, which he was clasping affectionately, for his sole covering.
At breakfast that morning he looked so peculiar and dilapidated, that Madame and Juliette made tender inquiries as to his health, to which he replied that his bedclothes had come off in the night and the cold had given him a chill "in the middle." They were very sympathetic, and dosed him with hot _cafe-au-lait_, but the Pasteur, studying him through the blue spectacles, said, "Ah, is it so?" in a kind of triumphant tone which Madame designated as "_bete_." Indeed, to those unacquainted with what was pa.s.sing in M. Boiset"s mind, it must have seemed particularly stupid.
When breakfast was over he possessed himself of G.o.dfrey, and led him to the observatory, where the stove was already lit, though this was not usual in the daytime, especially on Sundays.
"Now, my boy, tell me all about it," he said, and G.o.dfrey told him, feebly suggesting that it might have been a nightmare.
"Nightmare! Nonsense. The witch Riennes has sent her demon to torment you, that is all. I thought she would. It is quite according to rule, a most clear and excellent case. Indeed, I _am_ a lucky student."
"I don"t believe in witches," said G.o.dfrey, "I always heard they were rubbish."
"Ah! I don"t know. Here in the mountains these Swiss people believe in them, and tell strange stories, some of which I have heard as their Pasteur, especially when I held office among the High Alps. Also the Bible speaks of them often, does it not, and what was, is, and shall be, as Solomon says. Oh! why hesitate? Without doubt this woman is a witch who poses as an innocent modern spiritualist. But she shall not send her pretty female devil after you again, for I will make that room impossible to her."
"Please do," said G.o.dfrey. "And as for Madame Riennes, it is certainly strange that she should have known about the things I had in my pocket the other day, although of course, she may have followed me into the shops."
"Yes, yes, she followed you into the shops, she or her demon, though perhaps you would not see her there. What did you tell me? That in the villa you thought that the dead Mademoiselle was warning you against something? Well, perhaps she was, for she was a good woman, though weak and foolish to trust to spiritualism, and now, without doubt, she sees all, and would protect you of whom she is fond."
"Then I wish she had done it a little better," said G.o.dfrey. "Oh!
listen, there"s a rap!"
A rap there was certainly, on the hot iron of the stove, a resonant, ringing rap. The Pasteur advanced and made an examination, and while he was doing so there came another. What is more, in a most inexplicable fashion his blue spectacles flew from his nose. Very solemnly he found and replaced them and then, with the utmost dignity, addressing himself to the stove, he cursed and exorcised that article of domestic furniture in his best mediaeval Latin. Apparently the effort was successful, for there were no more manifestations.
"Listen, my boy. You do not part from me this day. Presently we go to church, and you sit under me where I can keep my eye on you. If you make one movement towards the door, I descend from the desk or the pulpit, and take you back there with me."
"I don"t want to move," said G.o.dfrey.
"No, but there are others who may want to move you. Then after church we dine, and after dinner we take a nice walk through the woods arm in arm. Yes, perhaps we go as far as Lucerne and pay a little visit there, since this afternoon I have arranged that there is no service."
So G.o.dfrey went to church and sat under the cold, blue glare of the Pasteur"s spectacles, listening to a really eloquent sermon, for his preaching was excellent. He took his text from the story of Saul and the witch of Endor, and after dwelling on it and its moral, opened up the whole problem of the hidden influences which may, and probably do, affect the human soul. He gave a short but learned account of the history of demonology throughout the ages, which evidently he had at his fingers" ends. He distinguished between good and evil spirits, and while not denying the lawfulness of such research, pointed out the peril that the seeker ran, since in his quest for the good he might find the evil. Finally, he demonstrated that there was a sure refuge from all such demoniacal attacks, which those who suffered from them had but to seek.
Madame dozed during this sermon. Juliette wondered what had sent her father down that road, and the little congregation, those of them who understood, thought it a pleasant change from his usual discourse upon their sins, since they at least had never practised demonology. But to G.o.dfrey, to whom, indeed, it was addressed, it brought much comfort, for in the Pasteur and his pure and beautiful doctrine, he saw a rock on which he might stand secure, defying Madame Riennes and Eleanor, and all the hosts of h.e.l.l behind them.
Then came dinner. It was towards the middle of this meal that G.o.dfrey began to feel very ill at ease. He fidgeted, he looked towards the door, he half rose and sat down again.