David Poindexter\'s Disappearance and Other Tales by Julian Hawthorne

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"Considering that it had been rather a wet evening in-doors, I was in a
remarkably good state of preservation, and I therefore ascribed it
rather to the roughness of the road than to the smoothness of the
liquor, when, after advancing a few rods, I stumbled and fell. As I
picked myself up I fancied I had heard a laugh, and supposed that the
lieutenant, who had accompanied me to the gate, was making merry over
my mishap; but on looking round I saw that the gate was closed and no
one was visible. The laugh, moreover, had seemed to be close at hand,
and to be even pitched in a key that was rather feminine than
masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my
imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than
poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of
disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble
is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I
remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I
was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my way
immediately.

"But the path was singularly difficult to find, or rather the path I
was following did not seem to be the right one. I did not recognize it;
I could have sworn (except I knew the contrary) that I had never seen
it before. The moon had risen, though her light was as yet obscured by
clouds, but neither my immediate surroundings nor the general aspect of
the region appeared familiar. Dark, silent hill-sides mounted up on
either hand, and the road, for the most part, plunged downward, as if
to conduct me into the bowels of the earth. The place was alive with
strange echoes, so that at times I seemed to be walking through the
midst of muttering voices and mysterious whispers, and a wild, faint
sound of laughter seemed ever and anon to reverberate among the passes
of the hills. Currents of colder air sighing up through narrow defiles
and dark crevices touched my face as with airy fingers. A certain
feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to take possession of me,
though there was no definable cause for it, unless that I might be
belated in getting home. With the perverse instinct of those who are
lost I hastened my steps, but was impelled now and then to glance back
over my shoulder, with a sensation of being pursued. But no living
creature was in sight. The moon, however, had now risen higher, and the
clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked
valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked
like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms.

"How long I had been hurrying onward I know not, when, with a kind of
suddenness, I found myself approaching a graveyard. It was situated on
the spur of a hill, and there was no fence around it, nor anything to
protect it from the incursions of passers-by. There was something in
the general appearance of this spot that made me half fancy I had seen
it before; and I should have taken it to be the same that I had often
noticed on my way to the fort, but that the latter was only a few
hundred yards distant therefrom, whereas I must have traversed several
miles at least. As I drew near, moreover, I observed that the head-
stones did not appear so ancient and decayed as those of the other. But
what chiefly attracted my attention was the figure that was leaning or
half sitting upon one of the largest of the upright slabs near the
road. It was a female figure draped in black, and a closer inspection--
for I was soon within a few yards of her--showed that she wore the
calla, or long hooded cloak, the most common as well as the most
ancient garment of Irish women, and doubtless of Spanish origin.

"I was a trifle startled by this apparition, so unexpected as it was,
and so strange did it seem that any human creature should be at that
hour of the night in so desolate and sinister a place. Involuntarily I
paused as I came opposite her, and gazed at her intently. But the
moonlight fell behind her, and the deep hood of her cloak so completely
shadowed her face that I was unable to discern anything but the sparkle
of a pair of eyes, which appeared to be returning my gaze with much
vivacity.

"'You seem to be at home here,' I said, at length. 'Can you tell me
where I am?'

"Hereupon the mysterious personage broke into a light laugh, which,
though in itself musical and agreeable, was of a timbre and intonation
that caused my heart to beat rather faster than my late pedestrian
exertions warranted; for it was the identical laugh (or so my
imagination persuaded me) that had echoed in my ears as I arose from my
tumble an hour or two ago. For the rest, it was the laugh of a young
woman, and presumably of a pretty one; and yet it had a wild, airy,
mocking quality, that seemed hardly human at all, or not, at any rate,
characteristic of a being of affections and limitations like unto ours.
But this impression of mine was fostered, no doubt, by the unusual and
uncanny circumstances of the occasion.

"'Sure, sir,' said she, 'you're at the grave of Ethelind Fionguala.'

"As she spoke she rose to her feet, and pointed to the inscription on
the stone. I bent forward, and was able, without much difficulty, to
decipher the name, and a date which indicated that the occupant of the
grave must have entered the disembodied state between two and three
centuries ago.

"'And who are you?' was my next question.

"'I'm called Elsie,' she replied. 'But where would your honor be going
November-eve?'

"I mentioned my destination, and asked her whether she could direct me
thither.

"'Indeed, then, 'tis there I'm going myself,' Elsie replied; 'and if
your honor'll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument,
'tisn't long we'll be on the road.'

"She pointed to the banjo which I carried wrapped up under my arm. How
she knew that it was a musical instrument I could not imagine;
possibly, I thought, she may have seen me playing on it as I strolled
about the environs of the town. Be that as it may, I offered no
opposition to the bargain, and further intimated that I would reward
her more substantially on our arrival. At that she laughed again, and
made a peculiar gesture with her hand above her head. I uncovered my
banjo, swept my fingers across the strings, and struck into a fantastic
dance-measure, to the music of which we proceeded along the path, Elsie
slightly in advance, her feet keeping time to the airy measure. In
fact, she trod so lightly, with an elastic, undulating movement, that
with a little more it seemed as if she might float onward like a
spirit. The extreme whiteness of her feet attracted my eye, and I was
surprised to find that instead of being bare, as I had supposed, these
were incased in white satin slippers quaintly embroidered with gold
thread.

"'Elsie,' said I, lengthening my steps so as to come up with her,
'where do you live, and what do you do for a living?'

"'Sure, I live by myself,' she answered; 'and if you'd be after knowing
how, you must come and see for yourself.'

"'Are you in the habit of walking over the hills at night in shoes like
that?'

"'And why would I not?' she asked, in her turn. 'And where did your
honor get the pretty gold ring on your finger?'

"The ring, which was of no great intrinsic value, had struck my eye in
an old curiosity-shop in Cork. It was an antique of very old-fashioned
design, and might have belonged (as the vender assured me was the case)
to one of the early kings or queens of Ireland.

"'Do you like it?' said I.

"'Will your honor be after making a present of it to Elsie?' she
returned, with an insinuating tone and turn of the head.

"'Maybe I will, Elsie, on one condition. I am an artist; I make
pictures of people. If you will promise to come to my studio and let me
paint your portrait, I'll give you the ring, and some money besides.'

"'And will you give me the ring now?' said Elsie.

"'Yes, if you'll promise.'

"'And will you play the music to me?' she continued.

"'As much as you like.'

"'But maybe I'll not be handsome enough for ye,' said she, with a
glance of her eyes beneath the dark hood.

"'I'll take the risk of that,' I answered, laughing, 'though, all the
same, I don't mind taking a peep beforehand to remember you by.' So
saying, I put forth a hand to draw back the concealing hood. But Elsie
eluded me, I scarce know how, and laughed a third time, with the same
airy, mocking cadence.

"'Give me the ring first, and then you shall see me,' she said,
coaxingly.

"'Stretch out your hand, then,' returned I, removing the ring from my
finger. 'When we are better acquainted, Elsie, you won't be so
suspicious.'

"She held out a slender, delicate hand, on the forefinger of which I
slipped the ring. As I did so, the folds of her cloak fell a little
apart, affording me a glimpse of a white shoulder and of a dress that
seemed in that deceptive semi-darkness to be wrought of rich and costly
material; and I caught, too, or so I fancied, the frosty sparkle of
precious stones.

"'Arrah, mind where ye tread!' said Elsie, in a sudden, sharp tone.

"I looked round, and became aware for the first time that we were
standing near the middle of a ruined bridge which spanned a rapid
stream that flowed at a considerable depth below. The parapet of the
bridge on one side was broken down, and I must have been, in fact, in
imminent danger of stepping over into empty air. I made my way
cautiously across the decaying structure; but, when I turned to assist
Elsie, she was nowhere to be seen.

"What had become of the girl? I called, but no answer came. I gazed
about on every side, but no trace of her was visible. Unless she had
plunged into the narrow abyss at my feet, there was no place where she
could have concealed herself--none at least that I could discover. She
had vanished, nevertheless; and since her disappearance must have been
premeditated, I finally came to the conclusion that it was useless to
attempt to find her. She would present herself again in her own good
time, or not at all. She had given me the slip very cleverly, and I
must make the best of it. The adventure was perhaps worth the ring.

"On resuming my way, I was not a little relieved to find that I once
more knew where I was. The bridge that I had just crossed was none
other than the one I mentioned some time back; I was within a mile of
the town, and my way lay clear before me. The moon, moreover, had now
quite dispersed the clouds, and shone down with exquisite brilliance.
Whatever her other failings, Elsie had been a trustworthy guide; she
had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world
again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it
with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming
snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what
light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie
was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred
several times before I reached the outskirts of the town--the tread of
an airy foot behind or beside my own. The fancy did not make me
nervous; on the contrary, I was pleased with the notion of being thus
haunted, and gave myself up to a romantic and genial vein of reverie.

"After passing one or two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered
the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This
street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the
wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the
northern side. The house was built of stone, and in a noble style of
architecture; it reminded me somewhat of certain palaces of the old
Italian nobility that I had seen on the Continent, and it may very
probably have been built by one of the Italian or Spanish immigrants of
the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The molding of the projecting
windows and arched doorway was richly carved, and upon the front of the
building was an escutcheon wrought in high relief, though I could not
make out the purport of the device. The moonlight falling upon this
picturesque pile enhanced all its beauties, and at the same time made
it seem like a vision that might dissolve away when the light ceased to
shine. I must often have seen the house before, and yet I retained no
definite recollection of it; I had never until now examined it with my
eyes open, so to speak. Leaning against the wall on the opposite side
of the street, I contemplated it for a long while at my leisure. The
window at the corner was really a very fine and massive affair. It
projected over the pavement below, throwing a heavy shadow aslant; the
frames of the diamond-paned lattices were heavily mullioned. How often
in past ages had that lattice been pushed open by some fair hand,
revealing to a lover waiting beneath in the moonlight the charming
countenance of his high-born mistress! Those were brave days. They had
passed away long since. The great house had stood empty for who could
tell how many years; only bats and vermin were its inhabitants. Where
now were those who had built it? and who were they? Probably the very
name of them was forgotten.

"As I continued to stare upward, however, a conjecture presented itself
to my mind which rapidly ripened into a conviction. Was not this the
house that Dr. Dudeen had described that very evening as having been
formerly the abode of the Kern of Querin and his mysterious bride?
There was the projecting window, the arched doorway. Yes, beyond a
doubt this was the very house. I emitted a low exclamation of renewed
interest and pleasure, and my speculations took a still more
imaginative, but also a more definite turn.

"What had been the fate of that lovely lady after the Kern had brought
her home insensible in his arms? Did she recover, and were they married
and made happy ever after; or had the sequel been a tragic one? I
remembered to have read that the victims of vampires generally became
vampires themselves. Then my thoughts went back to that grave on the
hill-side. Surely that was unconsecrated ground. Why had they buried
her there? Ethelind of the white shoulder! Ah! why had not I lived in
those days; or why might not some magic cause them to live again for
me? Then would I seek this street at midnight, and standing here
beneath her window, I would lightly touch the strings of my bandore
until the casement opened cautiously and she looked down. A sweet
vision indeed! And what prevented my realizing it? Only a matter of a
couple of centuries or so. And was time, then, at which poets and
philosophers sneer, so rigid and real a matter that a little faith and
imagination might not overcome it? At all events, I had my banjo, the
bandore's legitimate and lineal descendant, and the memory of Fionguala
should have the love-ditty.

"Hereupon, having retuned the instrument, I launched forth into an old
Spanish love-song, which I had met with in some moldy library during my
travels, and had set to music of my own. I sang low, for the deserted
street re-echoed the lightest sound, and what I sang must reach only my
lady's ears. The words were warm with the fire of the ancient Spanish
chivalry, and I threw into their expression all the passion of the
lovers of romance. Surely Fionguala, the white-shouldered, would hear,
and awaken from her sleep of centuries, and come to the latticed
casement and look down! Hist! see yonder! What light--what shadow is
that that seems to flit from room to room within the abandoned house,
and now approaches the mullioned window? Are my eyes dazzled by the
play of the moonlight, or does the casement move--does it open? Nay,
this is no delusion; there is no error of the senses here. There is
simply a woman, young, beautiful, and richly attired, bending forward
from the window, and silently beckoning me to approach.

"Too much amazed to be conscious of amazement, I advanced until I stood
directly beneath the casement, and the lady's face, as she stooped
toward me, was not more than twice a man's height from my own. She
smiled and kissed her finger-tips; something white fluttered in her
hand, then fell through the air to the ground at my feet. The next
moment she had withdrawn, and I heard the lattice close. I picked up
what she had let fall; it was a delicate lace handkerchief,
tied to the handle of an elaborately wrought bronze key. It was
evidently the key of the house, and invited me to enter. I loosened it
from the handkerchief, which bore a faint, delicious perfume, like the
aroma of flowers in an ancient garden, and turned to the arched
doorway. I felt no misgiving, and scarcely any sense of strangeness.
All was as I had wished it to be, and as it should be; the mediaeval
age was alive once more, and as for myself, I almost felt the velvet
cloak hanging from my shoulder and the long rapier dangling at my belt.
Standing in front of the door I thrust the key into the lock, turned
it, and felt the bolt yield. The next instant the door was opened,
apparently from within; I stepped across the threshold, the door closed
again, and I was alone in the house, and in darkness.

"Not alone, however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met
by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself
gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath;
the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a
dress close to me, and the same delicious perfume that had emanated
from the handkerchief enriched the air that I breathed, while the
little hand that clasped and was clasped by my own alternately
tightened and half relaxed the hold of its soft cold fingers. In this
manner, and treading lightly, we traversed what I presumed to be a
long, irregular passageway, and ascended a staircase. Then another
corridor, until finally we paused, a door opened, emitting a flood of
soft light, into which we entered, still hand in hand. The darkness and
the doubt were at an end.

"The room was of imposing dimensions, and was furnished and decorated
in a style of antique splendor. The walls were draped with mellow hues
of tapestry; clusters of candles burned in polished silver sconces, and
were reflected and multiplied in tall mirrors placed in the four
corners of the room. The heavy beams of the dark oaken ceiling crossed
each other in squares, and were laboriously carved; the curtains and
the drapery of the chairs were of heavy-figured damask. At one end of
the room was a broad ottoman, and in front of it a table, on which was
set forth, in massive silver dishes, a sumptuous repast, with wines in
crystal beakers. At the side was a vast and deep fire-place, with space
enough on the broad hearth to burn whole trunks of trees. No fire,
however, was there, but only a great heap of dead embers; and the room,
for all its magnificence, was cold--cold as a tomb, or as my lady's
hand--and it sent a subtle chill creeping to my heart.

"But my lady! how fair she was! I gave but a passing glance at the
room; my eyes and my thoughts were all for her. She was dressed in
white, like a bride; diamonds sparkled in her dark hair and on her
snowy bosom; her lovely face and slender lips were pale, and all the
paler for the dusky glow of her eyes. She gazed at me with a strange,
elusive smile; and yet there was, in her aspect and bearing, something
familiar in the midst of strangeness, like the burden of a song heard
long ago and recalled among other conditions and surroundings. It
seemed to me that something in me recognized her and knew her, had
known her always. She was the woman of whom I had dreamed, whom I had
beheld in visions, whose voice and face had haunted me from boyhood up.
Whether we had ever met before, as human beings meet, I knew not;
perhaps I had been blindly seeking her all over the world, and she had
been awaiting me in this splendid room, sitting by those dead embers
until all the warmth had gone out of her blood, only to be restored by
the heat with which my love might supply her.

"'I thought you had forgotten me,' she said, nodding as if in answer to
my thought. 'The night was so late--our one night of the year! How my
heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so
well! Kiss me--my lips are cold!'

"Cold indeed they were--cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my
own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and
in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller
breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that
was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table
and pointed to the viands and the wine.

"'Eat and drink,' she said. 'You have traveled far, and you need food.'

"'Will you eat and drink with me?' said I, pouring out the wine.

"'You are the only nourishment I want,' was her answer.' This wine is
thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I
will drain a goblet to the dregs.'

"At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She
seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of
the great room struck into me more and more.

"She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and
dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was
she mocking mo when she implied that we had belonged to each other of
old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her
breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an
antique ring.

"'Where did you get that ring?' I demanded.

"She shook her head and laughed. 'Have you been faithful?' she asked.
'It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave
me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern--the fairy ring,
and I am your Ethelind--Ethelind Fionguala.'

"'So be it,' I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding
myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips.
'You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours
last.'

"'You are mine, and I am yours,' she repeated, nodding her head with an
elfish smile. 'Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again
that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.'

"We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously
among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the
music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing
echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind
Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes.
She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame
within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the
last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can
never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken,
the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like
the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself
lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white
shoulder."

Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log
upon the fire, and then continued:

"I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in
a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls,
and heavy festoons of spiders' webs gray with dust covered the windows,
which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with
rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted
through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly
draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement,
detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me,
and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering
noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily
from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying,
something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with
a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo--as you see it
now.

"Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired;
all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and
haggard, and the chill--Ah, that chill," murmured Keningale, drawing
nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth--"
I shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave."

"WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE."

"What a beautiful girl!" said Mr. Ambrose Drayton to himself; "and how
much she looks like--" He cut the comparison short, and turned his eyes
seaward, pulling at his mustache meditatively the while.

"This American atmosphere, fresh and pure as it is in the nostrils, is
heavy-laden with reminiscences," his thoughts ran on. "Reminiscences,
but always with differences, the chief difference being, no doubt, in
myself. And no wonder. Nineteen years; yes, it's positively nineteen
years since I stood here and gazed out through yonder gap between the
headlands. Nineteen years of foreign lands, foreign men and manners,
the courts, the camps, the schools; adventure, business, and pleasure--
if I may lightly use so mysterious a word. Nineteen and twenty are
thirty-nine; in my case say sixty at least. Why, a girl like that
lovely young thing walking away there with her light step and her
innocent heart would take me to be sixty to a dead certainty. A rather
well-preserved man of sixty--that's how she'd describe me to the young
fellow she's given her heart to. Well, sixty or forty, what difference?
When a man has passed the age at which he falls in love, he is the peer
of Methuselah from that time forth. But what a fiery season that of
love is while it lasts! Ay, and it burns something out of the soul that
never grows again. And well that it should do so: a susceptible heart
is a troublesome burden to lug round the world. Curious that I should
be even thinking of such things: association, I suppose. Here it was
that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then!
A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky
headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old
farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with
its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago,
and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but
meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and plank
walks, and bridges, and bathing-houses, and pleasure-boats! And what an
admirable concourse of well-dressed and pleasurably inclined men and
women! After all, my countrymen are the finest-looking and most
prosperous-appearing people on the globe. They have traveled a little
faster than I have, and on a somewhat different track; but I would
rather be among them than anywhere else. Yes, I won't go back to
London, nor yet to Paris, or Calcutta, or Cairo. I'll buy a cottage
here at Squittig Point, and live and die here and in New York. I wonder
whether Mary is alive and mother of a dozen children, or--not!"

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