CHAPTER II
THE WOMAN WHO CAME THROUGH THE WINDOW
I held my breath, staring in amazement. The figure was real, that was obvious. And yet, how could a woman have gained my window from without? Where had she come from at that hour of the night? What did she want, now that she was here?
A vague wonder passed through my mind as to whether her object might not be felony. She had left the window open—I could feel the cool night-air—and stood inside it, as if listening. Was she endeavouring to discover if her entrance had been discovered? She had but to use her eyes, and look straight in front of her, to see me sitting up in bed, staring. I was as visible as she was. So far as I could judge she remained motionless, looking neither to right nor left. Presently she sighed, as some tired child might do, a long-drawn sigh, as if the action brought relief to her breast. Then I was persuaded that she was at any rate no thief—there was something in the sound of that sustained respiration which was incompatible with the notion of a feminine burglar.
She came a little forward into the room, doubtfully, as if uncertain of her surroundings. She stumbled against a chair, the contact seeming to startle her. I saw her put her hand up to her head, with the gesture of one who was trying to collect her thoughts.
"I can't think where I am."
The words broke the silence in the oddest manner. The voice was sweet, soft, clear—unmistakably a lady's. It thrilled me strangely. Nothing which had gone before had disconcerted me so much—it was an utterance of such extreme simplicity. Was it possible that the lady was a somnambulist, who, held in the thraldom of that curious disease, had woke to find herself in a stranger's bedroom? If that was the case, what was I to do? How could I explain the situation, without unduly startling her?
The question was answered for me. I must unconsciously have fidgeted. All at once her face was turned towards me. She exclaimed:
"Who's that?"
I arrived at an instant resolution—replying with the most matter-of-fact air of which I was capable.
"Do not be alarmed—it is I, John Ferguson. If you will allow me, I will turn on the light, so that we may see each other better.'
I switched on the electric light. What it revealed again amazed me into speechlessness. At the foot of my bed stood the most beautiful woman I had ever seen; I thought so in that first astounded moment—I think so still. She was tall and she was slight. She looked at me out of the biggest and the sweetest pair of eyes I ever saw. But there was something in them which I did not understand. It was not only bewilderment, it was as if she was looking at the world out of a dream. She regarded me, as I sat, with my touzled head of hair, not, as I had feared, with signs of agitation and alarm, but rather with a curious sort of wonderment.
"I don't know who you are. Where am I? Have I ever seen you before?"
It was spoken as a child might speak, with a little tremulous intonation, as if she were on the verge of tears.
"I don't think you have. But don't be alarmed—you are quite safe. I think you have been walking in your sleep."
"Walking in my sleep?"
"I fancy you must have been."
"But—do I walk in my sleep?"
In spite of myself, I smiled at the simplicity of the inquiry.
"That is a matter on which you should know more than I do."
"But—where can I have walked from?"
"That also is a question to which you should be able to supply an answer. Do you live in the Mansions?"
"The Mansions?"
"These are the Imperial Mansions. Is your home here?"
"My home?" She shook her head solemnly. "I don't know where my home is."
"Not know? But you must know where your home is. Who are you? What is your name?"
"I don't know who I am or what is my name."
Was she an imbecile? She did not look it. I never saw intellect more clearly marked upon a woman's face. But the more attentively I regarded her the more distinctly I began to realise that there was something peculiar in her expression. She seemed mazed, as if she had recently been roused from sleep and had not yet had time to acquire consciousness of her surroundings. My original surmise was correct; she had been walking in her sleep, and had not yet recovered sufficient consciousness to enable her to recognise the actualities of existence, and comprehend what it was she had been doing.
While I told myself this I had never removed my glance from off her. And now my gaze fastened on something which had for me a dreadful fascination.
She was covered from head to foot in a voluminous garment, which set off her face and figure to perfection. I took it to be some sort of opera-cloak, though, more than anything else, it resembled a domino buttoned down the front It was made of some bright plum-coloured material, which I afterwards learned was alpaca. A hood, which was attached to the garment, was half off, half on, her dainty head. The whole affair, cloak and hood, was lined with green silk. The front of the cloak was decorated with voluminous green ribbons; one of these caught my eye. It was a broad sash-ribbon, some six or eight inches wide, reaching from her neck almost to her toes.
For quite half its length the vivid green was obscured by what seemed to be a stain of another colour. The stain was apparently of such recent occurrence that the ribbon was still sopping wet. But it was not the broad ribbon only which was stained; I perceived that, here and there, the bright hues of the knots of narrower ribbon were also dimmed. More, there were splashes on the cloak itself. She had her hand up to her head. I glanced at it. How could the fact have previously escaped my notice? There were stains upon her uplifted hand, and upon the other hand which dangled loosely at her side. They were half covered with something red—and wet.
All at once there came back to me the extraordinary vision I had had of the strange happening in Lawrence's room. I recalled the frenzied figure, clad in the woman's robe, with the whirling skirts. Woman's robe? Why, here it was in front of me, upon this woman, the very robe which I had seen. And here, too, now sufficiently quiescent, were the whirling skirts. I put my hand up to my eyes to shut out the horrid thought which seemed to rush at me; and I cried—
"Tell me who you are, and from where you come!"
There was silence. I repeated my inquiry. She answered with another.
"Why do you speak so strangely? And why do you put your hand before your eyes?"
The mere sound of her speaking soothed me. To my mind, one of the greatest charms of a woman should be her voice. Never did I hear a more comfortable voice than hers. It was impossible to imagine that a voice in which, to my ears, rang so unmistakably the accents of truth, could belong to one who was false. Removing my hands, I looked at her again.
She had smeared her countenance with her fingers; all down one side of her face was a crimson stain.
"Look," I cried, "at what you've done!"
"What have I done?"
"What's on your hands?"
"My hands? What is on my hands?"
She held out her hands in front of her, staring at them with the most innocent air in the world.
"It's blood."
"Blood? Where has it come from?"
She asked the question as a child might do. In spite of her blood-stained face, the ring of truth which was in her voice, the unspoken appeal which was in her eyes, went to my heart.
"Try to think where you've come from, and what you have been doing?"
"Think? I can't think."
"But you must! Don't you see you're all covered with blood?"
"All covered with blood? Why, so I am! Oh!"
She gave a little cry which was more than half a sob. She swayed to and fro. Before I could reach her she had fallen to the ground. I found her lying as if she were dead. She had swooned.
This was a pretty plight which I was in. I have had but little experience of feminine society. My life, for the most part, has been lived in places where women are not. I knew as little of them as of the cuneiform character—perhaps less. I, of course, had heard of women fainting, but never before had I seen one in such a pitiful predicament. What was I to do? I thought of Mrs. Peddar. She was the housekeeper at the Mansions—an excellent woman. Everything under her rule went by clockwork: she had been of more assistance to me in various matters than I had supposed that a person in her position could have been. But I scarcely felt that this was a case in which her interference might be altogether desirable.
As I looked at the lovely creature lying there so still, I felt this more and more. Her utter helplessness filled me with a curious sense of pity. A resolve was growing up within me to constitute myself her champion, if she would only avail herself of my services, in whatever circumstances of doubt and danger she might find herself. If she had something to conceal, by no action of mine should it be blazed to the world. Without her express sanction, neither Mrs. Peddar nor any one else, should be informed of her presence there. Yet how was I to restore her to consciousness?
While I hesitated I perceived that something was lying beside her on the floor. Where it had come from I could not tell; it was hardly the kind of thing to have fallen from a woman's pocket. I picked it up. It was a photograph of Edwin Lawrence; I could not help but recognise the likeness directly I raised it. Back and front it was smeared with blood. Actuated by an impulse for which I did not attempt to account, rising, I thrust it between the leaves of a book which was on the mantelshelf. She moved. Turning, I found that she had raised herself a little and was looking at me with her eyes wide open.
"What is the matter with me? Have I been asleep?"
Her frank, fearless gaze, with, in it, that strange look of bewilderment, filled me with a sudden sense of confusion. I stammered a reply.
"You have not been very well. But you are better now. Let me help you to get up."
I held out my hand. Putting hers into it, she rose to her feet with a little spring. When she took her hand away, on mine there was a ruddy smirch. The condition of her plum-coloured garment, and of the bright green ribbons, seemed to have become more conspicuous even than before.
"Hadn't you better take off your cloak?"
She looked at me as if amazed.
"Take off my cloak? Why should I?"
"You will be more comfortable without it"
"Do you think so? Then of course I'll take it off."
She removed her cloak, with my assistance. I flung it over the back of a chair.
"You will find water there with which to wash your hands and face."
Again she eyed me with that suggestion of surprise.
"Why should I wash my hands and face?"
"There is blood upon them."
"Blood?" She held out her hands with her former gesture. "So there is. I had forgotten. I cannot think how it came there." Her cheeks assumed an added tinge of pallor. "Will it come off if I wash them?"
It seemed impossible to doubt that it was seriously asked; yet the apparent puerility of the question stung me to a brusque response.
"We will hope that soap and water will at least, remove the outward and visible stain."
Turning, I went into my dressing-room, she following me with her eyes. There I hastily donned some more conventional attire. Thence, passing into the dining-room, I called to her through the bedroom door.
"When you are ready, may I ask you to come in here. We shall be more at our ease."
She did not keep me waiting, but appeared upon the instant, coming towards me holding out her hands as a child might do.
"I'm clean now. Aren't I clean?"
Her close propinquity filled with me wholly unreasonable agitation. I drew back. The removal of the cloak had disclosed a dark blue silk dress which fitted her, to my thinking, with the most marvellous perfection. There was a touch of white about her neck and wrists. Her beauty struck me more even than at first—it awed me. Yet at the back of my mind was born a dim fancy that somewhere in the flesh I had seen this enchanting vision before. I was at a loss as to the words with which I ought to address her, speaking at last, blunderingly enough.
"Have you any reason why you should wish to conceal your name?" She shook her head. "Then tell me what it is."
"But I don't know. Have I a name?"
"I presume that, with the rest of the world, you have. Pray do not suppose, however, that I wish to force myself into your confidence. I would only suggest that I think it might be better, for both our sakes, if you could give me some idea of where you came from before you entered my room."
"Did I enter your room? Oh yes, I remember; but—I don't remember anything more." She put her hand up to her head with the gesture which had previously struck me. "Where did I come from?"
"I don't know if you are intentionally trifling, but if you are unable to supply the information, I certainly cannot."
Something in my manner seemed to occasion her distress. She moved towards me anxiously, like a timid child who stands in fear of admonition.
"Why do you look like that? Are you angry?"
I knew not what to think or what to feel; but, at least, I was not angry. If she was playing a part, which I for one was disposed to doubt, she acted with such plausibility that I was conscious of my incapacity to discover in what the trick consisted. I perceived that, after all, this was a case for Mrs. Peddar.
"The housekeeper is a most superior person—a Mrs. Peddar. She will be of more assistance to you than I can be. Will you allow me to tell her that you are here?"
"Why not? Of course you can tell her—if you like."
This was said with such an air of innocence, and with such an entire absence of suspicion that there could be anything dubious in her position, that I myself was conscious of a sense of shame at the thoughts which filled my mind. I moved towards the door. She stopped me.
"Who are you going to tell?"
"The housekeeper—Mrs. Peddar."
"Oh." This was with a little touch of doubt "She's a woman. You're a man. I'm a woman." She said this with the utmost gravity, as if she were giving utterance to portentous facts which she had just discovered. She seemed to shiver. "Is she—nice? Will she—be kind to me?"
I registered a mental vow that she should be kind to her, or I would know the reason why; I said as much, though with less emphasis of language. Then I left the room.
But, before I actually went in search of Mrs. Peddar I returned into the bedroom, through the door which opened out of the passage. Using that plum-coloured cloak with scant ceremony, I rolled it up into a bundle and thrust it into a wardrobe behind a heap of clothes. Then, opening the window, I stood on the balcony and threw the water in which my visitor had washed her hands and face, as far as I could out into the street I heard it fall with a splash on to the road below.