The Best Horrors by F. Marion Crawford. Francis Marion Crawford
her years. Gwendoline was a woman who thought much and who generally decided beforehand exactly what she wanted. When she had decided, she proceeded to obtain her wish, and when she had got it, she was perfectly satisfied. These qualities placed her entirely beyond the pale of ordinary humanity. Her feelings were strong and deep, and her nature was noble and elevated; her wishes were therefore good, and for good things. Though young, she had travelled much and had seen much that was interesting. Gwendoline's principal taste was for music, an art in which she attained to great excellence, for her playing was original, passionate and artistic. As has been said, she worshipped her husband, who in his turn adored her. She could not deny that he held highly original views upon most points, and that his ideas about things in general were a trifle startling, but he had a way of making himself appear to be right which was very convincing to any one who was already disposed to be of his opinion. Lady Brenda was very fond of Augustus Chard, but considered him more than half a visionary; Gwendoline on the other hand was willing to spend her time in helping him to demonstrate that all existing things and conditions of things, with the exception of domestic felicity, were arrant humbug.
Augustus used to say that the taste for the visionary ran in his family. His sister, who had joined the party, illustrated the truth of his statement. Diana Chard had the temperament of a poet with the mind of a lawyer. Philosophy may be defined to mean the poetry of logic, and accordingly Diana's nature had led her to the study of philosophy. She had read enormously, and she argued keenly with a profound knowledge of her subject. But the hypothesis generally belonged to the transcendental region of thought, where, as the problems proposed are beyond the sphere of all possible experience, the discussion also may be prolonged beyond the bounds of all possible time. She enjoyed the pleasure of argument much more than the hope of solution; and life never seemed dull when she could discuss the immortality of the soul with an unbeliever, or the existence of the supernatural with a well-trained and thoroughly prejudiced materialist. She was moreover a musician, and an accomplished one, like her sister-in-law, but her playing differed so entirely from Gwendoline's that no one thought of comparing the two. Each was perfect in her own way; but each raised entirely different trains of thought in her hearers.
Of the three ladies Diana was the tallest. She was very slender and very graceful, slow and even languid in her movements, but animated in her speech. Her skin was very dark and pale, her hair abundant and of a dark brown colour, her eyes, a deep grey with strongly marked eyebrows and black lashes; her mouth large and expressive, smiling, easily and showing very beautiful teeth.
Last of the four to be described is Augustus Chard. Imagine a big, well-knit man of bronzed complexion, with colourless hair, neither fair nor brown, averagesized blue eyes set very deep under an overhanging forehead, possessed of a remarkable constitution and of unusual physical strength. That was all there was to be seen, and from the exterior no one would have been likely to guess at the man's queer mental tendencies. It would not have struck the observer that Augustus Chard's mind was a mixture of revolutionary and of conservative ideas, leavened with an absurd taste for mysticism and magic, tempered by a considerable experience of more serious science, in which his immense wealth has permitted him to make experiments beyond the reach of ordinary men — a man in love with his wife, and to some extent in love with existence; active in mind and body, but seemingly under the influence of some strange planet which causes him to think differently from other people, and sometimes not very wisely either. Augustus either talked not at all, or talked excessively. Habitually a silent man, when roused in discussion his naturally combative temper showed itself, and, though patient in argument, he could not bear to abandon his point and would prolong a discussion for hours rather than own himself vanquished. Lady Brenda knew this and took a fantastic delight in combating his visionary ideas. Nevertheless they were very fond of each other, as people must be if they can discuss without quarreling. Augustus Chard would say lie believed in astrology and declare his intention of having the baby's horoscope cast, without further hesitation. Lady Brenda would reply for the twentieth time that she could not see how the stars could possibly have any influence upon human beings, and thereupon the discussion would begin again. In the course of an hour Augustus would demonstrate that Lady Brenda could not decide upon taking an extra cup of tea without the direct influence of Jupiter and that the appearance of beings from another world was not a whit more remarkable than the production of the electric light, nor more incomprehensible than the causes of attraction. He easily showed that nobody knew anything and that, consequently, no one had the right to deny anything; and he ended by prophesying such dreadful and extraordinary things, which must occur in the world in the course of a few years, that Lady Brenda felt her breath taken away. But a quarter of an hour later, when it was discovered to be twelve o'clock, they all laughed and remarked that they had had a most delightful evening, as they separated and went to bed.
Of Augustus Chard it is only necessary to say that he had considerable powers of organisation, in spite of some eccentricities of mind, and that he generally succeeded in what he undertook. When, therefore, he suggested to his wife, his sister and his mother-in-law, that it would be very amusing to buy a half-ruined castle perched upon the wild rocks and overlooking the isles of the Sirens, to furnish the place luxuriously and to pass the summer in a pleasant round of discussion, music and semi-mystic literary amusement, varied by a few experiments on the electric phenomena of the Mediterranean, it did not strike those amiable ladies that the scheme was wholly mad. They agreed that it would be very novel and interesting and that if they did not like it they could go away — which is the peculiar blessing of the rich. The poor man sometimes finds it necessary to cut his throat in order to go away; the rich man orders his butler to examine the time-tables, and his valet to pack his belongings, dines comfortably and changes his surroundings as he would change his coat.
Augustus proposed his plan in January. Before the end of April the castle was bought, repaired and luxuriously furnished, the beds were made, the French chef had ordered the kitchen fires to be lighted and had established a donkey post over the mountains to the market in Castellamare; the great halls and drawing-rooms looked thoroughly habitable, and everything was ready for the new-comers, who were to arrive in the evening. Augustus Chard congratulated himself with the reflection that his whim had been gratified at a trifling cost of ten thousand pounds, and he subsequently discovered that a ducal title had been thrown into the bargain. He immediately determined to bestow the title upon the captain of his yacht, for the sake of being able to order a real Duke to "go about"; but Lady Brenda, whose mind took a practical turn, suggested that as times and governments change rather quickly nowadays it would be as well to keep the parchment and see what came of it.
The party arrived at the appointed hour and proceeded to survey their new dwelling. Augustus Chard had come over from Naples several times and had personally directed most of the repairs and improvements. The result did not fall short of his intentions. The huge, irregular mass of building had been made perfectly habitable. The tiled roofs shone red above the rugged stones of the towers and walls; great polished doors moved noiselessly in the old marble doorways; plate-glass panes filled the high Moorish windows; pleasantly coloured glazed tiles cunningly arranged in patterns upon the floor had taken the place of the worn-out bricks; soft stuffs and tapestries covered the walls and rich Oriental carpets were spread under the tables and before the deep easy chairs; massive furniture was disposed comfortably in the hall and drawing-room, while each of the ladies found a boudoir fitted up for her especial use, furnished in the colours she loved best; Vienna cane lounges stood upon the tented terraces and hammocks were hung in shady corners overlooking the sea; the newest books lay by vases of roses upon low reading-tables, shades of the latest patterns covered the still unlighted lamps, writing paper marked "Castello del Gaudio, Amalfi" was ready in the boxes in every room, and Lady Brenda remarked with pleasure that there was ink in the inkstands. Bimbam, Chard's butler, a Swiss, watched his mistress's face with anxiety as Gwendoline passed from room to room, examining everything with the critical eye of a practised housekeeper. For Gwendoline believed that the bigger a house was, the more keeping it needed, and Bimbam stood in awe of her rebuke; but if Augustus ventured to make a remark concerning anything outside of his own rooms, Bimbam smiled a soft and pitying smile, as much as to say that amiable lunatics like Augustus should mind their own business.
The great hall of the house opened upon a wide terrace, by a row of tall windows which stood open on the sunny April afternoon when the party arrived. Earthenware pots of flowers