Act 5 — Scene II.—MASQUE

And let the Masquers, or any other, that are to come down from the Scene, have some motions, upon the Scene itself, before their comming down: For it drawes the Eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure, to desire to see that, it cannot perfectly discerne.—Bacon.

The squire of Kingsmore and the rector of Thorlund stood in the latter’s study. The clock pointed to forty minutes past seven. Mr. Price looked more solemn than usual, while his companion was haggard and agitated.

“I know now you have spoken the truth,” the scholar was saying. “All along you have maintained that the Strath was haunted by an unholy influence, and I would not believe, because I could not feel it. What has come to me now I do not know. I am afraid of the place.”

He turned and striding across the room snatched a volume of old English poetry from a shelf. “I was drawn there this afternoon. The house fought against me,” he went on. “I was punished there. I was warned that with the falling of the house I too must fall.”

“Berry,” muttered the old squire. “During all the years of our acquaintance you have strained your brain upon thankless work. I do not know what to say about the Strath. One time I am certain it is badly haunted. Another time I have my doubts. Nothing has frightened me when I have been there, so far as I know, but—and this is the point—after leaving the place it has been impossible to remember what has happened there.”

The scholar was not listening. He bent the book of poetry open, so roughly that the binding broke, and cried, “ ‘Go, bid the world with all its trash farewell.’ Do you hear that? She has deceived me, laughed at me, mocked me. ‘Leave it, I say, and bid the world farewell.’ I trusted her. Can you not tell me what happened in the Strath this afternoon?”

“I can tell you one thing,” said the squarson. “You are doing yourself a lot of harm. Leave your poetry and get out into the air. Why, man, you are shivering from head to foot.”

“I am going to the Strath,” Dr. Berry muttered.

“I don’t like it,” said Mr. Price. “I don’t want to go, and Flora does not want to go either. My sister has the excuse of rheumatism, and she is the best off. It’s a regular wild night, dark as pitch, with a howling wind. If there are phantoms at the Strath they will show themselves to-night. I’ll order the carriage and go home. Flora!” he called, going to the door. “Here, Flora! We will go back.”

The girl came out of the drawing-room with a mask dangling from her gloved hand.

“I want to go now, uncle,” she said firmly. “Besides we must. There will be nobody there except ourselves, and Maude—and Dr. Berry.” She added the scholar’s name as he revealed himself.

“He must not go,” said Mr. Price decidedly. “He is going to bed. I’ll tell Mr. Conway he is not well.”

“I am coming,” said the poet.

It was, as the old squire had said, a wild night, full of wind and strange cries. They groped through the churchyard, found the door in the wall, and entered the garden. A heavy beam of light fell from the house and guided their steps. The bridge across the moat swayed perceptibly. The hall door stood ajar. They passed in and saw candles glowing in the saloon. Nance was kneeling in the great hall, warming her hands by a fire of logs, and looking up met Flora’s eyes without flinching.

“The wind is rough,” said Mr. Price in a melodramatic voice, responding as far as his simple nature allowed to the dominant influence.

As he spoke a tall figure crossed the hall, passing from one room to another, clad in close-fitting black with ruffles of yellow lace at its wrists and throat, its face hidden behind a brown mask. This tragic figure went towards the saloon with a dejected step, casting furtive glances to right and left as it disappeared.

“Abandoned and accursed,” muttered Dr. Berry. He turned and strode away into the silence of the house.

“Come aside with me,” said Flora in a thrilling voice, seizing her uncle and drawing him back. “Put on your mask,” she whispered. “They must not suspect who we are. I can trust you? You are my relative. You will not fail me?”

“I will serve you as I can,” said the old gentleman, with a wild shiver. “But let us be discreet, let us be watchful. Methinks our plans may be overheard. We will go to some more secret place, but let us carry ourselves boldly, so that no one may suspect we have anything on hand.” He stepped away from her and bowed low. “Will it please you to walk with me and study the pictures?” he said; and when she had accepted his invitation they walked away into the gloom, two tragic puppets, like all the other beings who were to cross, or had crossed, the threshold of the house that night.

Presently a little lady in Arcadian costume appeared, and beside her a stout man closely muffled. They were the Juxons. They had been called and could not refuse to come. Strange had been the feeling between husband and wife during the drive homeward after that remarkable meeting at the Strath. On Maude’s side there was a novel content; upon Juxon’s a sense of happiness. He understood that his wife had changed. While they rattled through the wind she talked, with none of the empty vivaciousness of former days; and had never a scolding word, nor any impatient frown. She inquired after his health with genuine solicitude, and asked fondly after Peggy, stating her intention of returning forthwith to devote herself to her child. And he, jealous of this new-found happiness, did not venture to confess that he had no home, that his business was almost ruined.

She had gained in beauty, he thought, with that pale seriousness. As he felt the wind sweeping in life-giving strength across the hills, he made for the hundredth time the resolution of another effort for her sake. His pretty little wife should have all that she had been accustomed to. As for the scene which had so recently closed it was gone from them both; but Maude knew that Dr. Berry would never fascinate her again. Juxon was not aware that he had been put to the ordeal, that his nature had triumphed, that his character had stood firm for his wife’s defence. He only knew that he had gone to the Strath, in obedience to the message, and that his wife had been restored to him there.

The group of tragic characters made a sombre party. The actors were six in number, for the two wearers of the brown masks had ceased to be human entities. They had become conflicting influences. The guests, who had been led to the house under the pretext of a dance, found themselves playing the part of conspirators. They instinctively mistrusted one another. In the saloon Mr. Price was gambling with the figure of tragedy. Upstairs Dr. Berry paced the corridors, biting his fingers, and planning vengeance. Juxon, the object of his hatred, stood with his dazed wife near the fireplace in the hall.

He had told her everything, and to his story of defeat and failure added the words:

“I have played my last card. There is nothing left with which to start afresh. I understand it all now,” he went on firmly. “No man can struggle against destiny. It was never intended that I should be wealthy, and though riches were for the time forced upon me it was only that they might be taken away. I am a poor man now, with only these hands, a clear conscience, and a strong head left to aid me in the struggle for existence.”

“And I have been a hindrance to you,” said Maude gently.

“If we have failed to agree perfectly in the past it was the fault of neither of us,” said Juxon. “Riches have been a curse, both to you and to me. For the future there will be no barrier to hold us apart.”

“Herbert,” she whispered, with a shudder. “You must go your way alone. The warning comes to me now that I have not much longer to live. I am to be punished for my heartlessness.”

“Hush,” said the man, almost fiercely.

“Only stay with me,” Maude entreated. “There is danger here for you, as well as for me.”

“There is horror in the very air,” Juxon shivered. “Let us go into the light.”

They crossed the hall with stealthy movements, and crept into the saloon, there to discover Mr. Price upon his knees, playing his cards madly, while the tragic figure opposite shook with laughter as it won again and again. The squire of Kingsmore had never gambled in his life before, and now he was losing everything he possessed, his invested capital, house, farm, and lands. The perspiration stood upon his face.

“I have an assignation which I must not fail to keep,” he cried. “But I will beat you first.”

Maude seated herself at the harpsichord, and drew from its loose keys and clogged wires some fantastic sounds, while her husband leaned beside her, watching and listening, all his faculties keenly alert.

As Mr. Price sent up his defiant cry Flora rushed into the supper room. Filling a glass with wine, she searched in all the cabinets, then snatching up the glass turned to the door. A figure appeared before her with a jingling of bells, a short figure clad in many colours, with a cap like a cock’s comb upon its head, a flute in its hand, and the leering mask of Comedy enveloping its face.

“Let me pass,” she screamed.

“What do you seek?” demanded the motley figure.

“Poison,” she cried.

With his flute he struck the glass from her hand. “You are one of my enemies,” he laughed. “You have set before your mind unnatural ideas, and sought to follow them. You have a friend who has been heartless, but she has submitted of her own free-will and shall be happy. You continue to resist and shall be broken. You shall harm no one while I am near.”

Flora could not recognise the voice of Drayton beneath the comic mask; but when the figure turned, and the light of the candles fell across the brown face, she shrank from the shape. Was that a mask? If so, it was a mask controlled by muscles, trembling with life, heated by blood: a mask that had grown upon the face like skin, moulding the features that bore it into its own grinning shape.

Dr. Berry was creeping cat-like about the house. He heard a sound of music and the wild ejaculations of the man who believed himself ruined. A smile crossed his face, and he murmured cunningly, “Extreme circumspection is necessary. I will hide in the ante-room, and behold what is taking place.” Stealthily descending the stairs he passed through a side door. An antique lamp was burning low upon a table which was littered with sheets of manuscript. The curtains which divided this room from the saloon were closed. The poet halted on the threshold. It seemed to him that he was standing upon the brink of an open grave.

Four of the rotten planks which comprised the flooring had been broken away. Taking the lamp he went to his knees, and lowering the light perceived a small cellar bricked in like a vault. The damp walls shone when the light flashed across them. The lamp-bearer saw two iron hooks driven into the crumbling cement; and to one of them clung a twisted fragment of what might have been leather, or rope, or even muscle.

“The grave is prepared,” he said craftily. “It remains with me to supply an occupant.”

He replaced the lamp, and sat in wild thought beside the table. Some sheets of manuscript lay beneath his eyes. Recognising a portion of Drayton’s Tragedy, he bent his head to read a fragment, which had been marked by the author’s hand, “Written when Comedy was in the ascendant, and therefore worthless.” The fragment ran thus:—

St. James’s. A room in the palace. Enter the King, led by a page, singing, and beating time with a roll of music.

Exit Page. King goes to a harpsichord and sings a hymn, accompanying himself.

The Queen enters, kneels at his side, and sings with him. A cheer from the palace yard, and shouts, God save the King.

An uproar in the street. Loud cries of “Victory” and “Wellington.” Queen closes the window.

Bursts into tears and falls, fainting. The Queen bears him up. Enter an officer noisily.

Officer goes out sneering. Queen goes to window and opens it.

The curtains were drawn apart. The reader started up to behold a fearful face with drooping mouth, cruel and thin-lipped, narrow forehead and sunken checks, quivering and palpitating with all the passions of evil. It was the figure of Conway; but the face was the face of Tragedy.

“I have ruined the old man yonder,” he mouthed. “Hear him howl! I have won everything that he possessed, and now all he asks for is a pistol that he may shoot himself. Tell me, friend, where I may find that young woman who lately entered this house. I would decoy her outside to a lonely part of this garden, and there—nay, but I was ever too free with my tongue.”

“I need your assistance,” muttered the scholar.

“It is yours,” came the answer. “I see you are a brave fellow, accustomed to use the knife.”

“See that man!” exclaimed the other, pointing out Juxon through a rent in the curtain. “He has made me a laughing-stock.”

“Trust in me, friend. We will despatch him together. Do you go into the long corridor and conceal yourself, while I engage the man in conversation. Presently I will bring him that way, and as we pass do you leap out upon him. I will have him held. He shall not have time to shout.”

“I will procure a knife,” the poet chuckled.

The garden of the Strath was plunged in total darkness outside the shafts of light proceeding from the windows. There was no rain, but the wind howled and worked havoc among the trees and shrubs. The few labourers of the hamlet, safe inside their shuttered cottages, were convinced that the Strath had never been so noisy before.

October blasts had howled as fiercely over Thorlund; but the grim influence of the house had never predominated as upon that night when all the ways were shaded.

The miserable squire of Kingsmore rushed into the hall, shouting the one word, “Ruined!” He saw himself a dishonoured man, deprived of the lands and house which his family had held for generations. He was half-mad to know that he should have come to this in his old age. True there were rumours in his family of an ancestor upon whose career the gambling element had been plainly marked; but even he was never so deeply dipped as to have forfeited the estate. He hung to Juxon and implored him for a loan upon easy terms, and when refused sought Dr. Berry with a like request. The scholar pushed him back with a curse. When Flora came to him, the miserable old man snatched her hand and tried to drag the bracelet from her wrist. She caught his hand and whispered a fierce reminder into his ear.

“Ha! I had forgotten,” he gasped. “Say, child, has she money? Let us go in search of the trollop.”

A sound of flute-playing entered their ears. They looked up to see Comedy descending the stairs. Recognising an enemy they shrank back against the draperies. He cast his grinning eyes upon them and cried, “Do your will. Do your worst. You shall find me near.”

That instant Tragedy came out and stopped, shivering with fear and fury, when it saw the motley. During that moment, while the two masks were glaring at each other, the hearts of the watchers seemed to cease. Then the fiend slunk abjectly away, and the merry flute piped onwards like a bird.

The Juxons were alone in the saloon. Maude was clinging to her husband, still haunted by the terrible prospect of death by violence. Beside them the table was overturned and the cards were scattered about the floor. While Juxon was attempting to calm her fears with words of consolation Nance fled into the saloon pale with terror, and screaming for help. Flora and Mr. Price pursued her with murder upon their faces. They caught the girl as she reached the Juxons and bore her to the floor; but as the old gentleman, whom his own sister could not then have recognised, hissed out, “Strangle her!” a tinkling of bells was heard, and Comedy jumped through the curtains with his mocking laugh. The tragic characters fell back. The figure in motley lifted the girl and led her away, leering upon the baulked couple and saying, “Did I not promise I would follow you?”

“We are foiled, child,” muttered the old gentleman with a ghastly smile. “But no matter. We can bide our time.”

The atmosphere of the Strath was charged like the thunder-cloud which is about to break. The two forces, through which destiny works her will, were fighting for supremacy. In the presence of Comedy, Tragedy had so far been powerless. Wherever the spirit of destruction went with its frown, the spirit of protection followed with its laugh. It was a battle between despair and happiness. It did not occur to any of the characters that safety might be found in flight. By the laws of the drama, they were compelled to remain upon the scene, until the entry of the final character and the exodic march.

A dark figure glided into the saloon. Taking its stand beside the Juxons, it engaged them in conversation with the subtility of Mephistopheles. Its tongue was full of flattery, and they yielded to it. There was a picture in the corridor above which deserved their attention, and he, the soft speaker, sought the privilege of conducting them there, having some poor knowledge of the arts, that he might point out its merits and its beauty. They went with him, and as the figure stopped in the dimly-lighted corridor and pointed with a horrible laugh towards a dark copy of The Plague at Athens, Juxon was held and a cry of exultation rang down the house.

“Blunderer! The knife,” hissed Tragedy.

But the bells again jingled. Through the gloom of the house danced Comedy, to strike down their hands with his flute and to hunt his enemy before him; and with the dark figure fled the scholar hand in hand.

For the greater part of another hour the struggle continued. Maude and her husband were also absorbed into the maelstrom and sought to be avenged. The Strath was occupied with conspiracies and stealthily moving creatures filled with the lust of slaughter. The dark spirit of tragedy hounded them on. And whenever the blow appeared certain to fall the bells jingled. Amid the frowns and screams and muttered words sounded the laugh of the flute-player. And the wind howled and beat upon the house in a wild chorus heralding the approach of the final character.

Apart from that final entry the supremacy of one of the opposing powers was inevitable. Although Tragedy feared its rival, the time came when repeated defeats goaded it to fury; until it dared to attack the motley figure, and the characters drew round to watch the fight.

The wind fell and there was silence throughout the garden. The old house seemed to be aware that its last hour had come. A stranger had passed through the gates, one who was able for a time to resist the influence, because he understood the secret of the power and his mind was not open to receive impressions but resolutely set upon the removal of the cause. This was the final character, who came in ignorance as to what was taking place at the crucial moment ordained by the dramatic laws.

The spectators of the struggle between the rival powers marvelled at the courage displayed by the last principal character of the drama when he entered and drove them aside to pass and fling himself upon the figure of Tragedy. The stranger’s body seemed to them a mere frame of bones, and his arms were like wire-ropes for strength and thickness. He held the dark shape upon the floor, one hand clutching its throat, the fingers of the other tearing at the hot palpitating mask, raising it by the edges where it adhered less powerfully to the skin, dragging and peeling it away. Off came the limp horrible face; and the stranger pressed it upon the fire and held it down, until the room was full of odours and a nauseous soot, and all its occupants shivered and grew sick, and the house seemed to thrill with groans. Then came the turn of comedy; and with the consigning of that mask also to the flames the power fled from the house, the influence came to an end; and the two men who had been controlled that night by those rival influences, which beat with fierce activity upon actors on and off the stage, were lying unconscious upon the floor, their faces blistered and their limbs rigid.

Then the wind arose and with it came a noise of thunder. A portion of the roof had fallen in. The Strath was a rotten carcase. It had lost its power of evil and its power of good. Biron, for he it was who had reached Thorlund at the time appointed, turned to the astounded guests, introduced himself, and briefly explained why he was there, and how he had served them.

“Destroyed the masks!” exclaimed Mr. Price feebly. “What masks? God bless my soul! what has been happening?”