The Black Poodle, and Other Tales

'I will steel my nerves,' I said grimly (for I was annoyed with her); 'and, after all, Chlorine, the ceremony is not invariably fatal; I have heard of the victim surviving it – occasionally.'

'How brave you are!' she said earnestly. 'I will imitate you, Augustus; I too will hope.'

I really thought her insane, which alarmed me for the validity of the marriage. 'Yes, I am weak, foolish, I know,' she continued; 'but oh, I shudder so when I think of you, away in that gloomy Grey Chamber, going through it all alone!'

This confirmed my worst fears. No wonder her parents felt grateful to me for relieving them of such a responsibility! 'May I ask where you intend to be at the time?' I inquired very quietly.

'You will not think us unfeeling,' she replied, 'but dear papa considered that such anxiety as ours would be scarcely endurable did we not seek some distraction from it; and so, as a special favour, he has procured evening orders for Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where we shall drive immediately after dinner.'

I knew that the proper way to treat the insane was by reasoning with them gently, so as to place their own absurdity clearly before them. 'If you are forgetting your anxiety in Sir John Soane's Museum, while I cool my heels in the Grey Chamber,' I said, 'is it probable that any clergyman will be induced to perform the marriage ceremony? Did you really think two people can be united separately?'

She was astonished this time. 'You are joking!' she cried; 'you cannot really believe that we are to be married in – in the Grey Chamber?'

'Then will you tell me where we are to be married?' I asked. 'I think I have the right to know – it can hardly be at the Museum!'

She turned upon me with a sudden misgiving; 'I could almost fancy,' she said anxiously, 'that this is no feigned ignorance. Augustus, your aunt sent you a message – tell me, have you read it?'

Now, owing to McFadden's want of consideration, this was my one weak point – I had not read it, and thus I felt myself upon delicate ground. The message evidently related to business of importance which was to be transacted in this Grey Chamber, and as the genuine McFadden clearly knew all about it, it would have been simply suicidal to confess my own ignorance.

'Why of course, darling, of course,' I said hastily. 'You must think no more of my silly joke; there is something I have to arrange in the Grey Chamber before I can call you mine. But, tell me, why does it make you so uneasy?' I added, thinking it might be prudent to find out beforehand what formality was expected from me.

'I cannot help it – no, I cannot!' she cried, 'the test is so searching – are you sure that you are prepared at all points? I overheard my father say that no precaution could safely be neglected. I have such a terrible foreboding that, after all, this may come between us.'

It was clear enough to me now; the baronet was by no means so simple and confiding in his choice of a son-in-law as I had imagined, and had no intention, after all, of accepting me without some inquiry into my past life, my habits, and my prospects.

That he should seek to make this examination more impressive by appointing this ridiculous midnight interview for it, was only what might have been expected from an old man of his confirmed eccentricity.

But I knew I could easily contrive to satisfy the baronet, and with the idea of consoling Chlorine, I said as much. 'Why will you persist in treating me like a child, Augustus?' she broke out almost petulantly. 'They have tried to hide it all from me, but do you suppose I do not know that in the Grey Chamber you will have to encounter one far more formidable, far more difficult to satisfy, than poor dear papa?'

'I see you know more than I – more than I thought you did,' I said. 'Let us understand one another, Chlorine – tell me exactly how much you know.'

'I have told you all I know,' she said; 'it is your turn to confide in me.'

'Not even for your sweet sake, my dearest,' I was obliged to say, 'can I break the seal that is set upon my tongue. You must not press me. Come, let us talk of other things.'

But I now saw that matters were worse than I had thought; instead of the feeble old baronet I should have to deal with a stranger, some exacting and officious friend or relation perhaps, or, more probably, a keen family solicitor who would put questions I should not care about answering, and even be capable of insisting upon strict settlements.

It was that, of course; they would try to tie my hands by a strict settlement, with a brace of cautious trustees; unless I was very careful, all I should get by my marriage would be a paltry life-interest, contingent upon my surviving my wife.

This revolted me; it seems to me that when law comes in with its offensively suspicious restraints upon the husband and its indelicately premature provisions for the offspring, all the poetry of love is gone at once. By allowing the wife to receive the income 'for her separate use and free from the control of her husband,' as the phrase runs, you infallibly brush the bloom from the peach, and implant the 'little speck within the fruit' which, as Tennyson beautifully says, will widen by-and-by and make the music mute.

This may be overstrained on my part, but it represents my honest conviction; I was determined to have nothing to do with law. If it was necessary, I felt quite sure enough of Chlorine to defy Sir Paul. I would refuse to meet a family solicitor anywhere, and I intended to say so plainly at the first convenient opportunity.

III

The opportunity came after dinner that evening when we were all in the drawing-room, Lady Catafalque dozing uneasily in her arm-chair behind a firescreen, and Chlorine, in the further room, playing funereal dirges in the darkness, and pressing the stiff keys of the old piano with a languid uncertain touch.

Drawing a chair up to Sir Paul's, I began to broach the subject calmly and temperately. 'I find,' I said, 'that we have not quite understood one another over this affair in the Grey Chamber. When I agreed to an appointment there, I thought – well, it doesn't matter what I thought, I was a little too premature. What I want to say now is, that while I have no objection to you, as Chlorine's father, asking me any questions (in reason) about myself, I feel a delicacy in discussing my private affairs with a perfect stranger.'

His burning eyes looked me through and through; 'I don't understand,' he said. 'Tell me what you are talking about.'

I began all over again, telling him exactly what I felt about solicitors and settlements. 'Are you well?' he asked sternly. 'What have I ever said about settlements or solicitors?

I saw that I was wrong again, and could only stammer something to the effect that a remark of Chlorine's had given me this impression.

'What she could have said to convey such an idea passes my comprehension,' he said gravely; 'but she knows nothing – she's a mere child. I have felt from the first, my boy, that your aunt's intention was to benefit you quite as much as my own daughter. Believe me, I shall not attempt to restrict you in any way; I shall be too rejoiced to see you come forth in safety from the Grey Chamber.'

All the relief I had begun to feel respecting the settlements was poisoned by these last words. Why did he talk of that confounded Grey Chamber as if it were a fiery furnace, or a cage of lions? What mystery was there concealed beneath all this, and how, since I was obviously supposed to be thoroughly acquainted with it, could I manage to penetrate the secret of this perplexing appointment?

While he had been speaking, the faint, mournful music died away, and, looking up, I saw Chlorine, a pale, slight form, standing framed in the archway which connected the two rooms.

'Go back to your piano, my child,' said the baronet; 'Augustus and I have much to talk about which is not for your ears.'

'But why not?' she said; 'oh, why not? Papa! dearest mother! Augustus! I can bear it no longer! I have often felt of late that we are living this strange life under the shadow of some fearful Thing, which would chase all cheerfulness from any home. More than this I did not seek to know; I dared not ask. But now, when I know that Augustus, whom I love with my whole heart, must shortly face this ghastly presence, you cannot wonder if I seek to learn the real extent of the danger that awaits him! Tell me all. I can bear the worst – for it cannot be more horrible than my own fears!'

Lady Catafalque had roused herself and was wringing her long mittened hands and moaning feebly. 'Paul,' she said, 'you must not tell her; it will kill her; she is not strong!' Her husband seemed undecided, and I myself began to feel exquisitely uncomfortable. Chlorine's words pointed to something infinitely more terrible than a mere solicitor.

'Poor girl,' said Sir Paul at last, 'it was for your own good that the whole truth has been thus concealed from you; but now, perhaps, the time has come when the truest kindness will be to reveal all. What do you say, Augustus?'

'I – I agree with you,' I replied faintly; 'she ought to be told.'

'Precisely!' he said. 'Break to her, then, the nature of the ordeal which lies before you.'

It was the very thing which I wanted to be broken to me! I would have given the world to know all about it myself, and so I stared at his gloomy old face with eyes that must have betrayed my helpless dismay. At last I saved myself by suggesting that such a story would come less harshly from a parent's lips.

'Well, so be it,' he said. 'Chlorine, compose yourself, dearest one; sit down there, and summon up all your fortitude to hear what I am about to tell you. You must know, then – I think you had better let your mother give you a cup of tea before I begin; it will steady your nerves.'

During the delay which followed – for Sir Paul did not consider his daughter sufficiently fortified until she had taken at least three cups – I suffered tortures of suspense, which I dared not betray.

They never thought of offering me any tea, though the merest observer might have noticed how very badly I wanted it.

At last the baronet was satisfied, and not without a sort of gloomy enjoyment and a proud relish of the distinction implied in his exceptional affliction, he began his weird and almost incredible tale.

'It is now,' said he, 'some centuries since our ill-fated house was first afflicted with the family curse which still attends it. A certain Humfrey de Catafalque, by his acquaintance with the black art, as it was said, had procured the services of a species of familiar, a dread and supernatural being. For some reason he had conceived a bitter enmity towards his nearest relations, whom he hated with a virulence that not even death could soften. For, by a refinement of malice, he bequeathed this baleful thing to his descendants for ever, as an inalienable heirloom! And to this day it follows the title – and the head of the family for the time being is bound to provide it with a secret apartment under his own roof. But that is not the worst: as each member of our house succeeds to the ancestral rank and honours, he must seek an interview with 'The Curse,' as it has been styled for generations. And, in that interview, it is decided whether the spell is to be broken and the Curse depart from us for ever – or whether it is to continue its blighting influence, and hold yet another life in miserable thraldom.'

'And 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!'