In White Raiment

“Oh, I recognised her from your descriptions, you know.”

Frankly I did not believe it. Whether he had a personal acquaintance with her or not, it was nevertheless manifest that she was actually in London at a time when she was believed to be at Atworth; and further, that not knowing of my change of address, had been in search of me.

Why had she not rung the bell and inquired? There seemed but a single answer to that question; because she feared to meet Bob!

I scented suspicion. In our conversation that followed I detected, on his part, a strenuous determination to evade any explanation. That he was actually acquainted with Beryl was apparent. Perhaps, even, he knew the truth regarding my strange marriage, and, from motives of his own, refused to tell me.

Anger arose within me, but I preserved a diplomatic calm, striving to worm his secret from him. Either he would not or could not tell me anything. In that hour of affluence, after all the penury of past years, I was perhaps a trifle egotistical, as men who suddenly receive an unexpected legacy are apt to be. Money has a greater influence upon our temperament or disposition than even love. A few paltry pounds can transform this earth of ours from a hell into a paradise.

I drained my glass, flung my cigarette end into the empty grate, and left my friend with a rather abrupt farewell.

“You’ll let me know if you elicit anything further?” he urged.

“Of course,” I answered, although such was not my intention. Then I went forth walking out to the Hammersmith Road.

The noon was stifling – one of those hot, close, oven-cast days of the London summer – when I was shown into the drawing-room of Gloucester Square, and, after the lapse of a few minutes, my love came forward gladly to meet me.

“It’s awfully kind of you to call, Doctor,” she exclaimed, offering her thin little hand – that hand that on the previous night had been so stiff and cold. “Nora is out, but I expect her in again every moment. She’s gone to the Stores to order things to be sent up to Atworth.”

“And how do you feel?” I inquired, as she seated herself upon a low silken lounge-chair and stretched out her tiny foot, neat in its patent leather slipper with large steel buckle.

She looked cool and fresh in a gown of white muslin relieved with a dash of Nile-green silk at the throat and waist.

“Oh, I am so much better,” she declared. “Except for a slight headache, I feel no ill effects of last night’s extraordinary attack.”

I asked permission to feel her pulse, and found it beating with the regularity of a person in normal health.

As I held her white wrist, her deep clear eyes met mine. In her pure white clinging drapery, with her gold-brown hair making the half-darkened room bright, with her red lips parted in a tender and solemn smile, with something like a halo about her of youth and ardour, she was a vision so entrancing that, as I gazed at her, my heart grew heavy with an aching consciousness of her perfection. And yet she was actually my wife!

I stammered satisfaction that she had recovered so entirely from the strange seizure, and her eyes opened widely, as though in wonder at my inarticulate words.

“Yes,” she said, “the affair was most extraordinary. I cannot imagine what horrid mystery is concealed within that room.”

“Nor I,” I responded. “Has Doctor Hoefer been here yet?”

“Oh yes,” she laughed; “he came at nine o’clock, opened the room, entered, and was seized again, but only slightly. He used the same drug as last night, and quickly recovered. For about an hour he remained, and then left. He’s such a queer old fellow,” she added, with a laugh; “I don’t think he uttered a dozen words during the whole time.”

“No,” I said; “his habit is to give vent to those expressive grunts. When interested his mind seems always so actively centred upon the matter under investigation that to speak is an effort. But tell me,” I urged, glancing into those pure, honest eyes, “have you ever experienced before such a seizure as that last night?”

She turned rather pale, I thought: this direct question seemed not easy to answer.

“I was ill once,” she responded, with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness. “One day, some little time ago, I suddenly fell unconscious, and seemed to dream all sorts of absurd and grotesque things.”

Did she refer to the fateful day of our marriage?

“Were you quite unconscious on that occasion?” I asked quickly, “or were you aware, in a hazy manner, of what was going on around you, as you were last night?”

A wild hope sprang up in my heart. Was it possible that she would reveal to me her secret?

“I think,” she answered, “that my condition then was very similar to that of last night; I recollect quite well being unable to move my limbs or to lift a finger. Every muscle seemed paralysed, while, at the same time, I went as cold as ice, just as though I were frozen to death. Indeed, a horrible dread took possession of me lest my friends should allow me to be buried alive.”

“You were in a kind of cataleptic state,” I remarked. “Who were these friends?”

Her great eyes were lifted. They were full of depths unfathomable even to my intense love.

“I was practically unconscious, therefore I do not know who was present; I only heard voices.”

“Of whom?”

“Of men talking.”

“Could you not recognise them?”

“No,” she answered, in a low tone; “they were dream-voices, strange and weird – sounding afar off.”

“What did they say?”

“I cannot tell, only I recollect that I thought I was in church; I had a curious dream.”

Again she hesitated. Her voice had suddenly fallen so that I could scarcely make out the sound of the last word.

“What did you dream? The vagaries of the brain sometimes give us a clue to the nature of such seizures.”

“I dreamed that I was wedded,” she responded, in a low, unnatural voice.

The next instant she seemed to realise what she had said. With a start of terror she drew herself away from me.

“Wedded? To whom?”

“I do not know,” she replied, with a queer laugh. “Of course, it was a mere dream; I saw no one.”

“But you heard voices?”

“They were so distorted as to be indistinguishable,” she replied readily.

“Are you absolutely certain that the marriage was only a dream?” I asked, looking her straight in the face.

A flash of indignant surprise passed across her features, now pale as marble; her lips were slightly parted, her large full eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, and her fingers pressed themselves into the palms of her hands.

“I don’t understand you, Doctor!” she said at length, after a pause of the most awkward duration. “Of course I am not married?”

“I regret if you take my words as an insinuation,” I said hastily.

“It was a kind of dream,” she declared. “Indeed, I think that I was in a sort of delirium and imagined it all, for when I recovered completely I found myself here, in my own room, with Nora at my side.”

“And where were you when you were taken ill?”

“In the house of a friend.”