Doctor Vandyke :: :: University of Virginia Library

Ten days after the scenes just described,
Lady Brand and Dr. Vandyke
were seated alone in the library at a late
hour of the night, engaged in earnest
conversation.

Colonel Brand had retired some time
before, and no sound was heard throughout
the great mansion, save the ticking
of the tall clock in its corner in the hall,
and the sighing of the autumn wind in
the trees without.

Dr. Vandyke was half-buried in a
large arm-chair, whose yielding cushions
made him resemble more than ever a cut-off
giant; and his pipe-stem legs were
supported on a velvet footstool, in the
full light of the wax-candles in silver candelabra—the
light, soft but clear, bringing
out in grand relief the enormous feet
in their huge buckled shoes. The gray
hair was pushed back for once from his
forehead; his eyes were animated; he
seemed to concentrate all the faculties of
his mind upon the communication being
made to him by Lady Brand, who, seated
opposite him, spoke in a rapid and somewhat
agitated voice, rising erect occasionally
in her seat, and then leaning
back again.

“I have obeyed your instructions,”
she said. “This evening Honoria was
so composed that I ventured to question
her upon the occurrences of that unfortunate
night.”

“Ah!” came in a low voice from Dr.
Vandyke.

“I was most anxious to do so,” continued
Lady Brand, “for what you predicted
has duly come to pass. My child
is nearly well of her mere physical disease,
but the terrible melancholy and
nervous prostration, which you foretold,
have come to torture me and fill me with
foreboding. She starts at the least noise;
never smiles, or seems at rest even;
there is a constant tendency to shudder
observable in her; and once or twice at
the least trifle—the movement of a shadow—my
suddenly rising from my chair
—she has half screamed.”

Dr. Vandyke said, quickly:

“A shadow? — rising from your
chair?”

“Yes, the shadow of any object
thrown upon the curtains or wall by
the firelight—the lights are often put
out, to avoid the glare.”

“Ah! shadows, then, affright her.
Hum!—well. And rising from your
chair? What chair?”

“The large one, in which I sit when
not at the bedside.”

“The invalid - chair, with a high
back?”

“Yes.”

“It remains in its former position?”

“Yes; 'tis really too heavy to be
moved easily, and stands, you know, facing
the fire, with the back to the bureau.”

“Upon which is the mirror, is it
not?”

“Yes, doctor; but pray what importance
can attach to—”

“I will return to that point. Shadows!—rising
from the chair!—hum!—
Will you be good enough to continue,
madam? You this evening questioned
Honoria: tell me in detail what you have
discovered.”

“I shall be able to do so in a few
words. The subject seemed to agitate
her fearfully, and nothing but your express
injunction could have induced me
to press my questions.”

“Right; but my injunctions were
necessary. The mental disease has supervened.
The physical has yielded to
treatment; the mental must be treated,
too, unless you wish a corpse in your
house. What does the child say?”

“I will tell you succinctly the result
of the conversation; that is, all that I
discovered. You know what preceded
the attack, and caused it. The young
ladies on a visit to us determined to perform
the superstitious ceremony of eating
the dumb-cake, as it is called—of
looking into a mirror to see their future
husbands—all absurd, but an old pastime
—and Honoria was chosen to undergo
the ordeal. She acquiesced with great
reluctance, but was persuaded to comply,
and courageously went through the
ceremony of going in person for a bucket
of water to the spot where three streams
met, and bearing it to her chamber. It
is probable that this agitated her, as the
night was dark, and a fearful storm was
in progress. She went, however, to the
point, a few hundred yards from the
house, returned hastily, and, at nearly
midnight, gained her chamber.”

Dr. Vandyke listened with absorbed
attention.

“Well,” he said, briefly.

“Having reached her apartment,
Honoria proceeded to perform the other
ceremonies dictated by this absurd super
stition, of removing the under-garment
next to her body, and dipping one of its
sleeves into the bucket.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Vandyke.

“During the performance of all this
—I mean during the process of undressing,
and preparing to retire—Honoria
declares that her agitation was very
great. It is probable that loss of rest,
arising from the late hours kept during
the visit of her young guests, may have
predisposed her nerves to be thus affected;
but it is possible that the storm had
been chiefly instrumental in exciting her.
Whatever the cause may have been, it is
plain, from her statement, that her agitation
was excessive, and that every object
around her assumed a threatening
and terrifying character. The curtains
of the bed took the shape, she declares,
of a shroud; the shadows were terrifying,
and a low breathing issued from the
bed, behind which something, she knew
not what, seemed to be moving.”

“`Something,' you say—`something'
is vague,” said Dr. Vandyke; “did Honoria
describe in any manner this something?”

“She could not. I laughed, of course
—told her 'twas nothing—had she seen
any thing?—to which her agitated response
was, that she had seen nothing at
all, but saw the curtains move, and heard
the breathing.”

“The breathing? Ah! the breathing!”
said Dr. Vandyke, in a low voice;
“this is so persistently alluded to, first
in delirium, now in a lucid condition of
mind—well, decidedly, I begin to think
—but continue, madam. Honoria heard
this low breathing from the bed whose
curtains were shroud-like—started at the
shadows—aught more?”

“But one circumstance, preceding the
real terror of the night, which occurred
an hour later.”

“That is to say, at about one in the
morning?”

“Yes.”

“And this circumstance, coming at
twelve, to add its effect to the breathing
and the shadows?”

“It was more singular than agitating.
I should have enumerated, among the
causes of Honoria's agitation, the strange
idea that a portrait hanging over the
fireplace followed her with its eyes, enjoyed
her terror, and, at last, stretched
out its hand to seize her.”

“The poor child must indeed have
labored under nervous excitement. What
portrait was it? I did not note it.”

“That of Lord Ruthven—father, I
believe, of the young nobleman now in
Williamsburg.”

“Ah! How does it chance that this
portrait is here?”

“Lord Ruthven the elder was a
friend of Colonel Brand's, and presented
him, after the European fashion, with
his picture.”

“Well; but 'twas singular that it
should adorn your daughter's chamber,
was it not?”

“That is not the least strange incident.
Another portrait hung there until
within a day or two of the time of
this unhappy incident—a portrait of my
grandfather, the elder Colonel Seaton.
By some means the cord attaching the
picture to the hook in the wall broke,
from age and moths, perchance; the
picture fell—the fall broke the frame to
pieces, and thus the portrait could not
conveniently be rehung in its former
position.”

Dr. Vandyke nodded.

“So you replaced it with another?”

“Yes, the space on the wall covered
by the picture was clearly defined from
the rest of the wall, and unsightly. I
therefore removed from Colonel Brand's
dressing - room the portrait of Lord
Ruthven, and hung it in the place of the
former.”

“Well; and this picture was one of
the sources of Honoria's terror?”

“Yes, it seemed to follow her with
its eyes, and attempt to seize her; and,
added to her other causes of agitation,
this nearly unstrung her nerves.”

“Yes.”

“She rose to her feet, from the chair
on which she sat, and, kneeling before
which, she had performed her devotions.”

“The great chair?”

“Yes.”

“Continue, madam.”

“And then it was that, having performed
the ceremony of dipping the
sleeve of her under-garment in the bucket,
she turned to the mirror, just as the
clock struck midnight, to see her future
husband.”

“Ah!—and she saw—?”

“The portrait of Lord Ruthven.”

“The portrait!”

“Yes, doctor. It hung above the
fireplace; and the mirror, you know,
stands against the opposite wall, the bed
being on the right as you go toward it,
and the large double window on the left.”

“Yes, yes!”

“Thus, in looking into the mirror,
Honoria saw the reflection of the portrait
behind her.”

“Simple and absurd! So the dead
Lord Ruthven was to be her future
husband, since 'twas him she saw in the
magic mirror?”

Dr. Vandyke uttered a grunt.

“We will talk of this at another
time,” he said. “It is unimportant now.
This did not cause Honoria to shriek and
faint?”

“Oh, no! It simply made her more
nervous, but the reflection of the object
in the mirror was obviously so natural
that it impressed her instantly.”

“Her next proceeding?”

“She retired quickly to the great
bed, from which the breathing was no
longer heard; and it was about an hour
afterward, when she had been asleep for
a brief space of time, that the horror of
the night came.”

Dr. Vandyke made a slight movement
with his head, and said:

“We come now to the point of most
importance in the case. What was this
horror? Relate, as minutely as possible,
what occurred.”