The Lair of the White Worm, Bram Stoker [novels to read .TXT] 📗

at intervals, as if she feared to be followed.  This gave Mimi an idea that she was up to no good, so she determined to seize the occasion for watching her in more detail.

Hastily putting on a dark cloak and hat, she ran downstairs and out into the avenue.  Lady Arabella had moved, but the sheen of her white dress was still to be seen among the young oaks around the gateway.  Keeping in shadow, Mimi followed, taking care not to come so close as to awake the other’s suspicion, and watched her quarry pass along the road in the direction of Castra Regis.

She followed on steadily through the gloom of the trees, depending on the glint of the white dress to keep her right.  The wood began to thicken, and presently, when the road widened and the trees grew farther back, she lost sight of any indication of her whereabouts.  Under the present conditions it was impossible for her to do any more, so, after waiting for a while, still hidden in the shadow to see if she could catch another glimpse of the white frock, she determined to go on slowly towards Castra Regis, and trust to the chapter of accidents to pick up the trail again.  She went on slowly, taking advantage of every obstacle and shadow to keep herself concealed.

At last she entered on the grounds of the Castle, at a spot from which the windows of the turret were dimly visible, without having seen again any sign of Lady Arabella.

Meanwhile, during most of the time that Mimi Salton had been moving warily along in the gloom, she was in reality being followed by Lady Arabella, who had caught sight of her leaving the house and had never again lost touch with her.  It was a case of the hunter being hunted.  For a time Mimi’s many turnings, with the natural obstacles that were perpetually intervening, caused Lady Arabella some trouble; but when she was close to Castra Regis, there was no more possibility of concealment, and the strange double following went swiftly on.

When she saw Mimi close to the hall door of Castra Regis and ascending the steps, she followed.  When Mimi entered the dark hall and felt her way up the staircase, still, as she believed, following Lady Arabella, the latter kept on her way.  When they reached the lobby of the turret-rooms, Mimi believed that the object of her search was ahead of her.

Edgar Caswall sat in the gloom of the great room, occasionally stirred to curiosity when the drifting clouds allowed a little light to fall from the storm-swept sky.  But nothing really interested him now.  Since he had heard of Lilla’s death, the gloom of his remorse, emphasised by Mimi’s upbraiding, had made more hopeless his cruel, selfish, saturnine nature.  He heard no sound, for his normal faculties seemed benumbed.

Mimi, when she came to the door, which stood ajar, gave a light tap.  So light was it that it did not reach Caswall’s ears.  Then, taking her courage in both hands, she boldly pushed the door and entered.  As she did so, her heart sank, for now she was face to face with a difficulty which had not, in her state of mental perturbation, occurred to her.

CHAPTER XXVII—ON THE TURRET ROOF

The storm which was coming was already making itself manifest, not only in the wide scope of nature, but in the hearts and natures of human beings.  Electrical disturbance in the sky and the air is reproduced in animals of all kinds, and particularly in the highest type of them all—the most receptive—the most electrical.  So it was with Edgar Caswall, despite his selfish nature and coldness of blood.  So it was with Mimi Salton, despite her unselfish, unchanging devotion for those she loved.  So it was even with Lady Arabella, who, under the instincts of a primeval serpent, carried the ever-varying wishes and customs of womanhood, which is always old—and always new.

Edgar, after he had turned his eyes on Mimi, resumed his apathetic position and sullen silence.  Mimi quietly took a seat a little way apart, whence she could look on the progress of the coming storm and study its appearance throughout the whole visible circle of the neighbourhood.  She was in brighter and better spirits than she had been for many days past.  Lady Arabella tried to efface herself behind the now open door.

Without, the clouds grew thicker and blacker as the storm-centre came closer.  As yet the forces, from whose linking the lightning springs, were held apart, and the silence of nature proclaimed the calm before the storm.  Caswall felt the effect of the gathering electric force.  A sort of wild exultation grew upon him, such as he had sometimes felt just before the breaking of a tropical storm.  As he became conscious of this, he raised his head and caught sight of Mimi.  He was in the grip of an emotion greater than himself; in the mood in which he was he felt the need upon him of doing some desperate deed.  He was now absolutely reckless, and as Mimi was associated with him in the memory which drove him on, he wished that she too should be engaged in this enterprise.  He had no knowledge of the proximity of Lady Arabella, and thought that he was far removed from all he knew and whose interests he shared—alone with the wild elements, which were being lashed to fury, and with the woman who had struggled with him and vanquished him, and on whom he would shower the full measure of his hate.

The fact was that Edgar Caswall was, if not mad, close to the border-line.  Madness in its first stage—monomania—is a lack of proportion.  So long as this is general, it is not always noticeable, for the uninspired onlooker is without the necessary means of comparison.  But in monomania the errant faculty protrudes itself in a way that may not be denied.  It puts aside, obscures, or takes the place of something else—just as the head of a pin placed before the centre of the iris will block out the whole scope of vision.  The most usual form of monomania has commonly the same beginning as that from which Edgar Caswall suffered—an over-large idea of self-importance.  Alienists, who study the matter exactly, probably know more of human vanity and its effects than do ordinary men.  Caswall’s mental disturbance was not hard to identify.  Every asylum is full of such cases—men and women, who, naturally selfish and egotistical, so appraise to themselves their own importance that every other circumstance in life becomes subservient to it.  The disease supplies in itself the material for self-magnification.  When the decadence attacks a nature naturally proud and selfish and vain, and lacking both the aptitude and habit of self-restraint, the development of the disease is more swift, and ranges to farther limits.  It is such persons who become imbued with the idea that they have the attributes of the Almighty—even that they themselves are the Almighty.

Mimi had a suspicion—or rather, perhaps, an intuition—of the true state of things when she heard him speak, and at the same time noticed the abnormal flush on his face, and his rolling eyes.  There was a certain want of fixedness of purpose which she had certainly not noticed before—a quick, spasmodic utterance which belongs rather to the insane than to those of intellectual equilibrium.  She was a little frightened, not only by his thoughts, but by his staccato way of expressing them.

Caswall moved to the door leading to the turret stair by which the roof was reached, and spoke in a peremptory way, whose tone alone made her feel defiant.

“Come!  I want you.”

She instinctively drew back—she was not accustomed to such words, more especially to such a tone.  Her answer was indicative of a new contest.

“Why should I go?  What for?”

He did not at once reply—another indication of his overwhelming egotism.  She repeated her questions; habit reasserted itself, and he spoke without thinking the words which were in his heart.

“I want you, if you will be so good, to come with me to the turret roof.  I am much interested in certain experiments with the kite, which would be, if not a pleasure, at least a novel experience to you.  You would see something not easily seen otherwise.”

“I will come,” she answered simply; Edgar moved in the direction of the stair, she following close behind him.

She did not like to be left alone at such a height, in such a place, in the darkness, with a storm about to break.  Of himself she had no fear; all that had been seemed to have passed away with her two victories over him in the struggle of wills.  Moreover, the more recent apprehension—that of his madness—had also ceased.  In the conversation of the last few minutes he seemed so rational, so clear, so unaggressive, that she no longer saw reason for doubt.  So satisfied was she that even when he put out a hand to guide her to the steep, narrow stairway, she took it without thought in the most conventional way.

Lady Arabella, crouching in the lobby behind the door, heard every word that had been said, and formed her own opinion of it.  It seemed evident to her that there had been some rapprochement between the two who had so lately been hostile to each other, and that made her furiously angry.  Mimi was interfering with her plans!  She had made certain of her capture of Edgar Caswall, and she could not tolerate even the lightest and most contemptuous fancy on his part which might divert him from the main issue.  When she became aware that he wished Mimi to come with him to the roof and that she had acquiesced, her rage got beyond bounds.  She became oblivious to any danger there might be in a visit to such an exposed place at such a time, and to all lesser considerations, and made up her mind to forestall them.  She stealthily and noiselessly crept through the wicket, and, ascending the stair, stepped out on the roof.  It was bitterly cold, for the fierce gusts of the storm which swept round the turret drove in through every unimpeded way, whistling at the sharp corners and singing round the trembling flagstaff.  The kite-string and the wire which controlled the runners made a concourse of weird sounds which somehow, perhaps from the violence which surrounded them, acting on their length, resolved themselves into some kind of harmony—a fitting accompaniment to the tragedy which seemed about to begin.

Mimi’s heart beat heavily.  Just before leaving the turret-chamber she had a shock which she could not shake off.  The lights of the room had momentarily revealed to her, as they passed out, Edgar’s face, concentrated as it was whenever he intended to use his mesmeric power.  Now the black eyebrows made a thick line across his face, under which his eyes shone and glittered ominously.  Mimi recognised the danger, and assumed the defiant attitude that had twice already served her so well.  She had a fear that the circumstances and the place were against her, and she wanted to be forearmed.

The sky was now somewhat lighter than it had been.  Either there was lightning afar off, whose reflections were carried by the rolling clouds, or else the gathered force, though not yet breaking into lightning, had an incipient power of light.  It seemed to affect both the man and the woman.  Edgar seemed altogether under its influence.  His spirits were boisterous, his mind exalted.  He was now at his worst; madder than he had been earlier in the night.

Mimi, trying to keep as far from him as possible, moved across the stone floor of the turret roof, and found a niche which concealed her.  It was not far from Lady Arabella’s place of hiding.

Edgar, left thus alone on the centre of the turret roof, found himself altogether his own master in a way which tended to increase his madness.  He knew that Mimi was close at hand, though he had lost sight of her.  He spoke loudly, and the sound of his own voice, though it was carried from him on the sweeping wind as fast as the words were spoken, seemed to exalt him still more.  Even the raging of the elements round him appeared to add to his exaltation.  To him it seemed that these manifestations were obedient to his own will.  He had reached the sublime of his madness; he was now in his own mind actually the Almighty, and whatever might happen would be the direct carrying out of his own commands.  As he could not see Mimi, nor fix whereabout she was, he shouted loudly:

“Come to me!  You shall see now what you are despising, what you are warring against.  All that you see is mine—the darkness as well as the light.  I tell you that I am greater than any other who is, or