Her first inquiries on this mysterious point were addressed to Berta--and Berta answered simply that he had entered without knocking because the door was open. This the nurse found impossible to believe.
She remained thoughtful, then, for this demon of a man, it seemed, could in truth enter the house even if the door were barred.
The conspirators did not get beyond these two courses of action: to fly or to defend themselves. To fly was impossible, and to defend themselves was impracticable. Berta"s father and the housekeeper discussed these two points daily without seeing light on any side. And must they resign themselves to living under the diabolical yoke of that man? Both found themselves in a situation that would be difficult to describe. They lived in constant trepidation, fearing they knew not what.
And who, then, is this man who rules them with his presence and who has made himself master of Berta"s heart? His name is Adrian Baker, he lives alone, and he possesses a large fortune. This is all that is known about him.
For the rest, he is young, tall, graceful in figure, with hair like gold and a complexion as fair as snow; ardent and impa.s.sioned in speech, and with steadfast, searching, and melancholy eyes, blue as the blue of deep waters.
His manners could not be more natural, affectionate, and simple than they are. He enters the house and runs up the stairs, two steps at a time.
Nothing stops him. If he meets Berta"s father, he rushes to him and embraces him, and the good man trembles from head to foot in the pressure of those affectionate embraces. If it is the housekeeper who comes to meet him, he lays his hand affectionately on her shoulder, and he always has some pleasant remark to make, some cunning flattery which awakens in the nurse a strange emotion. She feels as if the sap of youth were, of a sudden, flowing through her veins.
There is no way of escaping the magic of his words, the spell of his voice, the charm of his presence. Juana has observed that when he looks at Berta his eyes shine with a light like that which the eyes of cats emit in the dark; she has observed also that Berta turns pale under the power of his glance, and that she bows her head under it as if yielding to the influence of an irresistible will.
She has observed still more: she has observed that this mysterious man at times sits lost in thought, his chin resting on his hand and a frown on his brows, as if he saw some dreadful vision before him, and that presently, as if awakening from a dream, he talks and smiles and laughs as before. Berta"s father has observed, on his side, that he knows something about everything, understands something of everything, has an explanation for everything, comprehends and divines everything, as if he possessed the secret of all things. And these observations they communicate to each other, filled with wonder and amazement.
Sometimes, sitting beside Berta, he amuses himself winding the linen floss or the silks with which she is embroidering, or in cutting fantastic figures out of any sc.r.a.p of paper that may be at hand. Then he is like a child. At other times he speaks of the world and of men, of foreign countries and of remote ages, with so much gravity and judgment that he seems like an old man who has retired from the world laden with wisdom and experience.
But when he seats himself at the piano, then one can only yield one"s self unresistingly to the caprices of his will. The keys, touched by his fingers, produce melodies so sparkling, so joyous, that the soul is filled with gayety; but suddenly he changes to another key and the piano moans and sighs like a human voice, and the heart is moved and the eyes fill with tears. But this is not all; for, when one least expects it, thunder low and deep seems to roll through the instrument; and strains are heard, now near, now distant, that thrill the heart, and tones that fill the soul with terror; through the vibrating chords all the spirits of the other world seem to be speaking in an unknown tongue.
It is all very well for the housekeeper to regard Adrian Baker as the devil in person, or as a man possessed by the devil, or at least as an extraordinary being, who possesses the diabolical secret of some wonder-working philtre. It is all very well for Berta"s father to see in him a masterful mind and an eccentric nature. And who knows--he has sometimes heard of mysterious fluids, of subtle forces which attract arid repel, of dominating influences, of marvels of magnetism; and although he has never given a great deal of thought to any of those matters, he thinks about them since he has felt himself dominated by this singular personage, and Adrian Baker has become, in fact, his fixed idea, his absorbing thought, his unceasing preoccupation, his constant monomania. Berta"s father and the housekeeper may very well attribute to him marvellous powers, suggested by their own excited imaginations; but we must not share in those hallucinations, nor are we to conclude from them that Adrian Baker is outside the common law to which ordinary mortals are subject.
This is evident; but, still, who is Adrian Baker?
We shall present here all the information that we have been able to gather about him, and let each one draw from it the conclusion he pleases.
It is not yet quite two years since one of the carriages which transport pa.s.sengers from the railway station to the city which is the scene of our story, drove rapidly from the station; the energy with which the coachman whipped up his horses showed the haste or the importance of the travellers it carried.
This carriage entered the city and stopped before the door of the best hotel of the place; there the solitary traveller it carried alighted from it, and this traveller was Adrian Baker. He was enveloped in a travelling great-coat lined with costly fur. The eagerness with which the waiters of the hotel hastened to meet him showed that they had discovered in the new guest a mine of tips. The coachman took his leave of him, hat in hand, and as he turned away looked around at the bystanders, displaying to them a gold coin in his left eye.
Nothing more was needed to cause the luggage of the guest to be whisked off to the most sumptuous room in the hotel. Seven cities of Greece disputed with one another the honor of having been the birthplace of Homer; more than seven waiters disputed with one another the honor of carrying Adrian Baker"s valise. He was like a king entering his palace.
For several days he was to be seen alone and on foot, traversing the streets and visiting the most noteworthy buildings; then, alone also, but in a carriage, he was to be seen viewing the wildest and most picturesque spots in the neighborhood, with the attention of an artist, a philosopher, or a poet.
He was affable and easy in his manners; and he soon had many friends who talked admiringly of his eccentricities, of his riches, and of his learning; so that he was for some time the lion of the day, and therefore the favorite subject of every conversation. To win his friendship would have been for the men a triumph; and to win his heart would have been for the haughtiest woman more than a triumph; but Adrian Baker kept his inmost heart closed alike to friendship and to love; so that only three things were known about him--that he was young, that he was rich, and that he had travelled over half the world.
He was supposed to be an Englishman, a German, or an American; in the first place, because he was fair, and in the second place, because, although he spoke Spanish as if it were his native tongue, a certain foreign flavor was to be noticed in his accent, which each one interpreted according to his fancy.
For the rest, he seemed pleased with the beauty of the sky and the gayety of the landscape, and although he had told no one whether he intended to remain there long or not, the fact was that he did not go away. Doubtless he grew tired of the life at the hotel, for one day he suddenly bought a fine house and established himself in it like a prince. This edifice, venerable from its antiquity, had the grandiose aspect of a palace, and one of its angles fronted Berta"s house.
This is all that was known about Adrian Baker. We now know, therefore, that the mysterious Adrian Baker was neither more nor less than Berta"s neighbor himself.
One night, returning from his daily visit to Berta, he entered the house, crossed the hall, and shut himself up in his own apartments. Shortly afterwards the great door of the palace, creaking harshly on its hinges, was closed; the lights were extinguished one by one, and everything remained in profound silence. Adrian Baker, however, was not asleep.
At the further end of the room, which was lighted by the soft light of a lamp, he sat with his elbows resting on a mahogany table and his face buried in his hands, seemingly lost in thought. And his thoughts could not be of a pleasant nature, for the stern frown upon his brow showed that some storm was raging behind that forehead smooth as a child"s and pale as death. The light of the lamp, reflected from his golden hair, seemed to envelop his head in fantastic lights and shadows.
After many moments of immobility and silence, he struck the table violently with the palm of his hand, exclaiming:
"Accursed riches! Odious learning! Cruel experience!"
Then he rose to his feet, and striding up and down the room like a madman, he cried in smothered accents:
"Faith! Faith! Doubt is killing me!"
A moment later he shook his beautiful head and burst into a terrible laugh.
"Very well," he said. "The proof is a terrible one, but I require this proof. I must descend into the tomb to obtain it: well, then, I will descend into the tomb. I must consult the sombre oracle of death concerning the mysteries of life: well, then, I will consult it."
At this moment the gla.s.s chimney of the lamp burst, falling to the floor in a thousand fragments; the lurid flame sent forth a black smoke that filled the room with shadows which crept along the walls, mingled together on the ceiling, and crossed one another on the floor; the furniture seemed to be moving, the ceiling sinking down, and the walls receding.
In the midst of this demon dance of lights and shadows, the flame of the lamp went out, as if in obedience to an invisible breath, and in the darkness that followed all was silence.
Something extraordinary must have occurred in Berta"s house, for the nurse seemed to have been seized by a sudden fit of restlessness that would not let her sit still for a moment. She went to and fro, upstairs and down, out and in, with the mechanical movement of an automaton. It was a sort of nervous attack that had in a moment increased twofold the housekeeper"s domestic activity. Suddenly she would stand still, and placing her forefinger on her upper lip she would remain motionless, as if she were seeking in her mind the explanation of some mystery or the key to some riddle, gesticulating with expressive eloquence, and, so to say, thinking in gestures.
But the cause of the agitation which we observe in her could not be a very alarming one, for in the midst of it all there was apparent something like joy, a secret joy which in spite of herself was perceptible through her restlessness and her gesticulations. In our poor human nature, joy and sorrow often manifest themselves by the same symptoms; and a piece of good news will agitate us in the same way as a piece of bad news.
Be this as it may, what is certain is that the housekeeper seemed to be excited by some secret thought which she turned over and over in her mind, and that she was waiting for something with impatience, for from time to time she stood still, stretched out her neck, and listened.
Suddenly the door-bell rang twice; slowly, deliberately, producing on the nurse the effect of an electric shock. She threw down some house-linen which she had in her hands, overturned a chair or two that stood in her way, and tore a curtain that opposed her progress, leaving devastation and destruction in her wake, like a storm.
She pulled the cord which opened the door, and she pulled it so violently that the door sprang wide open, giving admittance to Berta"s father, who entered slowly, leaning on his cane like a man whose vitality is beginning to fail. As he entered, he raised his eyes with a look of melancholy discouragement, and at the head of the stairs he saw the housekeeper, who seemed to be trying to tell him something, gesticulating violently and waving her arms like the apparatus of a semaph.o.r.e. The good man did not understand a word of this telegraphic language, and he stopped at the foot of the stairs, endeavoring to comprehend the meaning of the signs which the housekeeper was excitedly making above his head. But, naturally, he was not very skilful in this kind of investigation, and his not very vivid imagination was at this moment paralyzed. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders with a sort of resigned and patient desperation, as if to say, "What are you trying to tell me?" The housekeeper folded her arms and shook her head three times; this meant: "Stupid! stupid! stupid!" The good man bent his head under the triple accusation, and proceeded to ascend the stairs. At the head Nurse Juana was waiting for him, and without further ceremony she took him by the hand and drew him into his room; and there, after a.s.suring herself that no one was within hearing, she put her mouth close to the ear of Berta"s father, and in a mysterious voice, and with an air of profound mystery, she said to him:
"He is going away!"
"He is going away!" repeated Berta"s father, exhaling a profound sigh.
"Yes," she added; "we are going to be free."
"Free!" repeated the good man, shaking his head with an air of incredulity. Then he asked:
"And where is he going?"
"He is going very far away," answered the nurse. "That is certain. He is going very far away, to some place, I don"t know where, at the other end of the earth. It is a sudden journey."
The good man sighed again despondently; Nurse Juana looked at him with amazement, saying:
"Any one would suppose that I had just given you a piece of bad news. Can that man have bewitched you to the extent--"
"Yes," he interrupted, "for if he goes he will not go alone; he will take Berta with him, and then what is to become of us?"
"Nothing of the kind," replied Juana. "He will go alone--entirely alone."
"Worse and worse," said the father, "for then, what is to become of Berta?"
"Nothing," said the nurse. "Out of sight, out of mind. The absent are forgotten; the dead are buried. That is the way of the world. Berta knows all about it; she told me herself, and she is as calm and as cool as possible. Bah, she won"t need any cordial to keep her up when she is bidding him good-bye."
As she uttered the last word she turned her head and she could not restrain the cry that rose to her lips as she saw Adrian Baker, who had just entered--Adrian Baker, in person, paler than ever, dressed in a handsome travelling suit. His eyes shone with a strange l.u.s.tre, and a smile, half sad, half mocking, curved his lips.