04 - PD Goth by Various

Immerse yourself in a chilling collection of eerie tales carefully selected from the vast library of Project Gutenberg, brought to life through the captivating narration of BellonaTimes.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four of p D. Goth. This is a LibriVox recording.
All liberyvox recordings were in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please contact libriyvox dot org. Recording
by Algie pug kierfol by Edith Wharton. One. You ought

(00:25):
to buy it, said my host. It's just the place
for solitary minded devil like you, and it would be
rather worth while to earn the most dramatic house in Brittany.
The present people are dead broke. It is going for
a song. You ought to buy it. It was not
with the least idea of living up to the character
my friend l'enlevan ascribed to me, as a matter of fact,

(00:48):
under my unsoarciable exterior, I have always had secret yearnings
for domesticity that I took his hint one autumn afternoon
and went to Carefoyd, my friend was meurting over to
compare on business. He dropped me on the way at
a cross road on a heath and said, first turn
to the right, and second to the left, then straight
on till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants,

(01:11):
don't ask your way. They don't understand French, and they
would pretend they did and mix you up. I'll be
back for you here by sunset, and don't forget the
tombs in the chapel. I followed Laurevard's directions with a
hesitation occasioned by the usual difficulty of remembering whether he
had said the first turn to the right and second

(01:31):
to the left, or the contrary. If I met a peasant,
I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray.
But I had the desert landscape to myself, and so
stumbled on the right turn and walked on across the
heath till I came to an avenue. It was so
unlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I
instantly knew it must be the avenue. The gray trunk

(01:54):
trees sprang straight up to a great height, and then
interwove their pale gray branches in a long timeunnel, through
which the autumn light felled faintly. I know most trees
by name, but I haven't to this day been able
to decide what those trees were. They had the tall
curve of elms, the annuity of poplars, the ashen color
of olives under a rainy sky, and they stretched ahead

(02:17):
of me for half a mile or so without a
break in their arch if Ever, I saw an avenue
that unmistakably led to something. It was the avenue at Caerful.
My heart beat a little as I began to walk
down it. Presently, the trees ended, and I came to
a fortified gate in a long wall. Between me and
the wall was an open space of grass, with other

(02:39):
gray avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall
slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top
of a keep. A mot filled with wild shrubs and
brambles surrounded the place. The drawbridge had been replaced by
a stern arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate.
I stood for a long time on hither side of

(02:59):
the mood, gazing about me and letting the influence of
the place sink in. I said to myself, if I
wait long enough, the guardian will turn up and show
me the terms, and I rather hoped he wouldn't turn
up too soon. I sat down on a stone and
lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it,
it struck me as a puerile, and portents thing to

(03:20):
do with that great blind house looking down at me,
and all the empty avenues converging on me. It may
be in the depth of the silence that may be
so conscious of my gesture. The squeak of my match
sounded as loud as the scraping of a break, and
I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed
it on to the grass. But there was more than that,

(03:40):
a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, of childish bravado in
sitting there, puffing my cigarette smoke into the face of
such a past. I knew nothing of the history of Careful.
I was new to Brittany, and Laurevan had never mentioned
the name to me till the day before. But one
couldn't as much as glance at that pile without feeling

(04:01):
in it a long accumulation of history. What kind of
history I was not prepared to guess. Perhaps only the
sheer weight of many associated lives and deaths, which gives
a kind of majesty to all old houses. But the
aspect of Careful suggested something more, a perspective of stern
and cruel memories, stretching away, like its own gray avenues

(04:23):
into a blur of darkness. Certainly no house had ever
more completely and finally broken with the present. As it
stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the sky,
it might have been its earned funeral monument. Terms in
the chapel, the whole place is a tomb, I reflected.
I hoped more and more that the guardian would not come.

(04:45):
The details of the place, however striking, would seem trivial
compared with its collective impressiveness. And I wanted only to
sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence.
It's the very place for you, l'ondrevand had said. And
I was overcome by the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting
to any living being that Careful was a place for him.

(05:08):
Is it possible that any one would not see, I wondered.
I did not finish the thought. What I meant was undefinable.
I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I was
beginning to want to know more, not to see more.
I was by now so sure it was not a
question of seeing, but to feel more. Feel all the

(05:29):
place had to communicate, But to get in one would
have to rout out the keeper. I thought reluctantly and hesitated.
Finally I crossed the bridge and tried the iron gate.
It yielded, and I walked under the tunnel formed by
the thickness of the shimandernd At the farther end, a
wooden barricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond

(05:50):
it I saw a court enclosed in noble architecture. The
main building faced me, and now I discovered that one
half of it was a mere ruined front with gaping windows,
through which the wild growths of the moat and the
trees of the park were visible. The rest of the
house was still in its robust beauty. One end butted
on the round tower, the other on the small trace

(06:12):
of his chapel, And in an angle of the building
stood a graceful well head adorned with mossy urns. A
few roses grew against the walls, and on an upper
window sill I remember noticing a pot of fuches. My
sense of the pressure of the invisible began to yield
to my architectural interest. The building was so fine that

(06:33):
I felt a desire to explore it for its own sake.
I looked about the court, wondering in which corner the
guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier and went in.
As I did so, a little dog barred my way.
He was such a remarkably beautiful little dog that for
a moment he made me forget the splendid place he
was defending. I was not sure of his breed at

(06:55):
the time, but have since learned that it was Chinese,
and that he was of a rare vari called the
sleeve dog. He was very small and golden brown, with
large brown eyes and a ruffled throat. He looked rather
like a large tawny chrysanthemum. I said to myself, these
little beasts away, snap and scream, and somebody will be

(07:16):
out in a minute. The little animal stood before me forbidding,
almost menacing. There was anger in his large brown eyes,
but he made no sound. He came no nearer. Instead,
as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticed
that another dog, a vague, rough brindled thing, had limped up.
There'll be a hubbub, now, I thought, And at the

(07:38):
same moment a third dog, a long haired white mongrel,
stepped out of a doorway and joined the others. All
three stood looking at me with grave eyes, but not
a sound came from them. As I advanced. They continued
to fall back on muffled paws, still watching me. At
a given point, they'll all charge at my ankles. It's
one of those dodges the dog who lived together put

(08:01):
up on one. I thought I was not much alarmed,
for they were neither large nor formidable. But they let
me wander through the courts as I pleased, following at
a little distance, always the same distance, and always keeping
their eyes on me. Presently, I looked across at the
ruin facade and saw that in one of its window
frames another dog stood, a large white pointer with one

(08:24):
brown ear. He was an old grave dog, much more
experienced than the others, and he seemed to be observing
me with a deeper intentness. I'ld hear from him, I
said to myself. But he stood in the empty window
frame against the trees of the park and continued to
watch me without moving. I looked back at him for
a time to see if the sense that he was

(08:45):
being watched would not rouse him. Half the widths of
the court lay between us, and we stared at each
other silently across it, but he did not stir, and
at last I turned away. Behind me, I found the
rest of the pack with a newcomer added, a small
black greyhound with pale eggate colored eyes. He was shivering

(09:06):
a little, and his expression was more timid than that
of the others. I noticed that he kept a little
behind them, and still there was not a sound. I
stood there for fully five minutes, the circle around me,
waiting as they seemed to be waiting. At last, I
went up to the little golden brown dog and stooped
to pat him. As I did so, I heard myself laugh.

(09:30):
The little dog did not start, or growl or take
his eyes from me. He simply slipped back about a
yard and then paused and continued to look at me.
Oh hang it, I exclaimed aloud, and walked a crossed
the court towards the well. As I advanced, the dogs
separated and stood away into different corners of the court.
I examined the urns on the well, tried a locked

(09:52):
door or two, and up and down the dumb facade.
Then I faced about toward the chapel. When I turned,
I perceived that all the dogs had DISSI appeared, except
the old pointer, who still watched me from the empty
window frame. It was rather a relief to be rid
of that cloud of witnesses, and I began to look
about me for a way to the back of the house.
Perhaps there'll be somebody in the garden, I thought. I

(10:14):
found away across the moat, scrambled over a wall smothered
in brambles, and got into the garden. A few lean
hyder ranges and geraniums pined in flower beds, and the
ancient house looked down on them indifferently. Its garden sabers,
plainer and severer than the other. The long granite front,
with its few windows and steep roof, looked like a

(10:35):
fortress prison. I walked around the farther wing, went up
some disjointed steps, and entered the deep twilight of a
narrow and incredibly old box walk. The walk was just
wide enough for one person to slip through, and as
branches met overhead, it was like the ghost of a
box walk, its lustrous green all turning to the shadowy

(10:56):
greenness of the avenues. I walked on and on, the
branches hitting me in the face and springing back with
a dry rattle, and at length I came out on
the grassy top of the Shaman d'rnd. I walked along
it to the gate tower, looking down into the court,
which was just below me. Not a human being was
in sight, and neither were the dogs. I found a

(11:17):
flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and
went down them. When I emerged again into the court,
there stood the circle of dogs, the golden brown one
a little ahead of the others, the black greyhound shivering
in the rear. Oh hang it, you uncomfortable beasts, you,
I exclaimed, my voice, startling me with a sudden echo.

(11:37):
The dog stood motionless, watching me. I knew by this
time that they would not try to prevent my approaching
the house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them.
I had a feeling that they must be hrribly cowed
to be so silent and inert. Yet they did not
look hungry or ill treated. Their coats were smooth, and
they were not thin, except the shivering greyhound. It was

(12:00):
more as if they had lived a long time with
people who never spoke to them or looked at them,
as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed
their busy, inquisitive natures, and this strange passivity, this almost
human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of
starved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse
them for a minute, to coax them into a game

(12:20):
or a scamper. But the longer I looked into their
fixed and weary eyes, the more preposterous the idea became.
With the windows of that house looking down on us,
how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs
knew better. They knew what the house would tolerate and
what it would not. I even fancied that they knew
it was passing through my mind and pitied me for

(12:42):
my frivolity. But even that feeling probably reached them through
a thick fog of listlessness. I had an idea that
their distance from me was as nothing to my remoteness
from them. In the last analysis, the impression they produced
was that of having in common one memory so deep
and dark that nothing that happened since was worth either
a growl or a wag. I say, I broke out abruptly,

(13:06):
addressing myself to the dumb circle. Do you know what
you look like? The whole lot of you. You look
as if you'd seen a ghost. That's how you look.
I wonder if there is a grost here and nobody
but you left for it to appear too. The dogs
continued to gaze at me without moving. It was dark
when I saw Lareva's motor lamps at the cross roads,

(13:26):
and I wasn't exactly sorry to see them. I had
the sense having escaped from the loneout place in the
whole world, and of not liking loneliness to that degree
as much as I had imagined I should. My friend
had brought his solicitor back from Compei for the night,
and seated beside a fat and affable stranger, I felt
no inclination to talk of Careful. But that evening, when

(13:48):
laur Rivain and the solicitor were closeted in the study,
Madame de Laurnyva began to question me in the drawing room.
Well are you going to buy Kerful, she asked, tilting
up her gay chin from her embroidery. I haven't decided yet.
The fact is I couldn't get into the house, I said,
as if I had simply postponed my decision and meant

(14:10):
to go back for another look you could not get in.
Why what happened the family? I'm mad to send the place,
and the old guardian has orders. Very likely, but the
old guardian wasn't there. What a pity. He must have
gone to market, but his daughter. There was nobody about
at least I saw nobody, how extraordinary, literally nobody, nobody

(14:35):
but a pack of dogs, A whole pack of them,
who seemed to have the place to themselves. Madame de
lord Levant let the embroidery slip to her knee and
folded her hands on it for several minutes. She looked
at me thoughtfully. A pack of dogs, you'll saw them?
Saw them? I saw nothing else? How many? She dropped

(14:56):
her voice a little, I've always wondered, I looked at
her with surprise. I suppose the place to be familiar
to her. Have you never been too careful? I asked, Oh, yes, often,
but never on that day? What day? I'd quite forgot then,
and so has help. I'm sure if we remembered, we

(15:17):
never should have sent you to day. But then, after all,
one doesn't half believe that sort of thing, does one?
What sort of thing? I asked, involuntarily, sinking my voice
to the level of hers. Inwardly, I was thinking I
knew there was something. Madame de Lunyvac cleared her throat
and produced a reassuring smile. Didn't he tell you the

(15:39):
story of Careful? An ansest of his was mixed up
in it? You know, every Breton house has his ghost story,
and some of them are rather unpleasant. Yes, but those dogs,
I insisted, Well, those dogs are the ghosts OF's Careful.
At least the peasants say there's one on year when
a lot of dogs appears there, and that day they

(16:02):
keep out of his daughter, go after Molais and get drunk.
The women in Brittany drink it dreadfully. She stooped to
match her silk, and then she lifted her charming, inquisitive
Partisian face. Did you really see a lot of dugs?
There isn't one at Caffel, she said. Two Lareva the
next day hunted out a shabby calf volume from the

(16:25):
back of the upper shelf of his library. Yes, here
it is. What does it call itself? Her History of
the Sizes of the Duchy of Brittany Compere seventeen o two.
The book was written about a hundred years later than
the Careful Affair. But I believe the account is transcribed
pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it's queer reading,

(16:49):
and there's a hell delor riva mixed up in it.
Not exactly my style, as you see, But then he's
only a collateral here. Take the book up to bed
with you. I didn't exactly remember the details, but after
you've read it or bit anything, you leave your light
burning old night. I left my light burning all night,

(17:11):
as he had predicted, but it was chiefly because till
near dawn I was absorbed in my reading. The account
of the trial of Anne de Cournant, wife of the
Lord of Caerfall, was long and closely printed. It was,
as my friend had said, probably an almost literal transcription
of what took place in the court room, and the

(17:31):
trial lasted for nearly a month. Besides, the type of
the book was detestable. At first, I thought of translating
the old record literally, but it is full of wearisome reputations,
and the main lines of the story I forever straying
off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangle

(17:51):
it and gibbet here in a simpler form. At times, however,
I have reverted to the text, because no other words
could have conveyed so exactly the sense of what I
felt at careful and Therewhere else have I added anything
of my own. Three. It was in the year sixteen

(18:12):
that Eve de Coronat, lord of the domain of Caerfol,
went to the pardon of L'antrenan to perform his religious duties.
He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his
sixty second year, but hale and sturdy, a great horseman
and hunter, and a pious man, so all his neighbors attested.

(18:33):
In appearance, he seems to have been short and broad,
with a swarthy face, legs slightly burned from the saddle,
a hanging nose, and broad hands with black hairs on them.
He had married young, and lost his wife and sons
soon after, and since then had lived alone at Kilfall.
Twice a year he went to Morlais, where he had

(18:55):
a handsome house by the river, and spent a week
or ten days there, occasionally wrote to rein on business.
Witnesses were found to declare that during his absences he
led a life different from the mine. He was known
to lead it careful, where he busied himself with his estate,
attended Mass daily, and found his only amusement in hunting

(19:16):
the wild boar and waterfowl. But these rumors are not
particularly relevant, and it is certain that among people of
his own class in the neighborhood he passed for a
stern an, even austere man, observant of his religious obligations
and keeping strictly to himself. There was no talk of
any familiarity with the women on his estate, though at

(19:38):
that time the nobility were very free with their peasants.
Some people said that he had never looked at a
woman since his wife's death, but such things are hard
to prove, and the evidence on this point was not
worth much. Well. In his sixty second year, Eve de
Coroner went to the pardon at L'ancrenand and saw there

(19:58):
a young lady of Dawnin, who had ridden a repillion
behind her father to do her duty to the saint.
Her name was Anne de Bargain, and she came of
good old Breton stock, but much less great and powerful
than that of Eve de Coronau, and her father had
squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a

(20:19):
peasant in his little granite manner on the moors. I
have said I would add nothing in my own to
this bold statement of a strange case. But I must
interrupt myself here to describe the young lady who rode
up to the leech gate of L'ancrenard at the very
moment when Baron de Corney was also dismounting there. I
take my description from a rather rare thing, I faded

(20:42):
drawing in red crayon, saber and truthful enough to be
by a late pupil of the clue, which hangs in
laud of NT's study, and is said to be a
portrait of Anne de Barregin. It is unsigned and has
no mark of identity but the initials A B and
the date sixty, the year after her marriage. It represents

(21:03):
a young woman with a small oval face, almost pointed,
it wide enough for a full mouth, with a tender
depression at the corners. The nose are small, and the
eyebrows are set rather high, far apart, and as lightly
penciled as the eyebrows in a Chinese painting. The forehead
is high and serious, and the hair, which one feels
to be fine and thick and fair, drawn off it

(21:26):
and lying close like a cap. The eyes are neither
large nor small, hazeled, probably with a look once shy
and steady, a pair of beautiful long hands across below
the lady's breast. The Chaplain of Careful and other witnesses
of air that when the baron came back from Lonqurena,
he jumped from his horse, ordered another to be instantly

(21:49):
saddled cold to young page come with him, and rode
away that same evening to the south. His steward followed
the next morning with coffers of laden on a pair
out of pack mules. The following week, Ive de Corona
read back to carefol sent for his vassals and tenants,
and told them he was to be married at All

(22:10):
Saints to and Barregad of Dournnet, and on all Saints' Day.
The marriage took place. As to the next few years,
the evidence on both sides seemed to show that they
passed happily for the couple. No one was found to
say that Eve de Corona had been unkind to his wife,
and was plain to all that he was content with

(22:31):
his bargain. Indeed, it was admitted by the chaplain and
other witnesses for the prosecution that the young lady had
a softening influence on her husband, and that he became
less exacting with his tenants, less harsh to peasants and dependence,
and less subject to the pits of gloomy silence which
had darkened his widowhood. As to his wife, the only

(22:51):
grievance her champions should call up in her behalf was
that carefol was a lonely place, and that when her
husband was away on business a drain or morley whither,
she was never taken. She was not allowed so much
as to walk in the park and accompanied. But no
one asserted that she was unhappy, though once havant woman
said that she surprised her crying and had heard her

(23:14):
say that she was a woman a curse to have
no child and nothing in life to call her own.
But that was a natural enough feeling in a wife
attached to her husband, and certainly it must have been
a great grief to eve to go or know that
she gave him no son. Yet he never made her
feel her childlessness as a reproach. She herself admits this

(23:35):
in her evidence, but seemed to try to make her
forget it by sharing gifts and favors on her. Rich
though he was, he had never been open handed. But
nothing was too fine for his wife in a way
of silks or gems, or linen, or whatever else she fancied.
Every wandering merchant was welcome and careful, and when the

(23:56):
master was called away, he never came back without bringing
his wife a hand and present something curious and particular
from Morlas, or Rain or Compei. One of the waiting
women gave in cross examination an interesting list of one
year's gifts, which I copy from Morlaix a carved ivory
junk with chinamen at the oars that a strange sailor

(24:18):
had brought back as avate of offering for Notre Dame
de la Clark above Promenaque from Compei. An embroidered gown
worked by the nuns of the Assumption from Rehne. A
silver rose that opened and shared, an amber vergin with
a crown of garnets from Morlais. Again, a length of
Damascus velvet shot with gold bought of a jew from Syria,

(24:42):
and for Michaelmas that same year from Ren a necklet
or bracelet of round stone, emeralds and pearls and rabies
strung like beads on a gold wire. This was the
present that pleased the lady best, the woman said later on,
as it happened, it was produced the trial, and it
appears to restruct the judges and the public as a

(25:03):
curious and valuable jewel. The very same winter, the baron
absented himself again, this time as far as Bordeaux, and
on his return he brought his wife something even odder
and prettier than the bracelet. It was in a winter
evening when he rode up to Careful, and walking into
the hall, found her sitting listlessly by the fire, her

(25:25):
chin on her hand, looking into the fire. He carried
a velvet box in his hand, and setting it down
on the hearth, lifted the lid and let out a
little golden brown dog, and de Colnot exclaimed with pleasure
as the little creature bounded towards her. No, it looks
like a bird or butterfly, she cried as she picked

(25:48):
it up, and the dog put its paws on her
shoulders and looked at her with eyes like Christians. After
that she would never have it out of her sight,
and petted and talked to it as if it had
been a child, as indeed it was the dearest thing
to a child. She was to know. Eve to Conneaux
was much pleased with his purchase. The dog had been

(26:10):
brought to him by a sailor from an East Indian merchantman,
and the sailor had bought it of a pilgrim in
a Bazarre Jaffa, who had stlen it from a nobleman's
wife in China, a perfectly permissible thing to do, since
the pilgrim was a Christian and a nobleman a heathen
doomed to hell fire. Eve to Conneau had paid a
long price for the dog, for they were beginning to

(26:31):
be in demand at the French court, and the sailor
knew that he had got hold of a good thing.
But Anne's pleasure was so great that to see her
laugh and play with the little animal, her husband would
have doubtless given twice the sum. So far, all the
evidence is at man and the narrative plain sailing. But
now the steering becomes difficult. I would try and keep

(26:53):
as nearly as possible to Anne's own statements, though towards
the end a poor thing. Well, well to go back
the very year after the little brown dog was brought
to care fall eve to Collneux. One winter night, was
found dead at the head of a narrow flight of
stairs leading down from his wife's rooms to a door

(27:13):
opening on the court. It was his wife who found
him and gave the alarm, so distracted poor wretch with
fear and horror, for his blood was all over her
that at first the roused household could not make out
what she was saying, and thought she had gone suddenly mad.
But there, sure enough, at the top of the stairs
lay her husband, staying dead and head foremast, the blood

(27:37):
from his wounds dripping down to the steps below him.
He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about the face
and throat, as if with a dull weapon, and one
of his legs had a deep tear in it which
had cut an artery and probably caused his death. But
how did he come there? And who had murdered him?
His wife declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and,

(28:00):
hearing his cry, rushed out to find him lie on
the stairs, But this was immediately questioned. In the first place,
it was proved that from her room she could not
have heard the struggle on the stairs, owing to the
thickness of the walls and the length of the intervening passage.
Then it was evident that she had not been in
bed and asleep, since she was dressed when she roused

(28:21):
the house, and her bed had not been slept in. Moreover,
the door at the bottom of the stairs was ajar,
and the key was in the lock, and it was
noticed by the chaplain an observant man that the dress
she wore was stained with blood about the knees, and
that there were traces of small blood stained hands lay
down on the staircase walls, so that it was conjectured

(28:44):
that she had really been to the posten door when
her husband fell, and feeling her way up to him
in the darkness, on her hands and knees had been
stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course,
it was argued on the other side that the blood
marked on her dress might been caused by her kneeling
down by her husband when she rushed out of her room,

(29:05):
But there was the open door below, and the fact
that the finger marks in the staircase all pointed upward.
The accused held to her statement for the first two days,
in spite of its improbability. But on the third day
word was brought to her that held De land Rivin,
a young nobleman of the neighborhood, had been arrested for
complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereupon came

(29:28):
forward to say that it was known throughout the country
that land Rivin had formerly been on good terms with
the lady of Corner, but that he had been absent
from Brittany for over a year and people had ceased
to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement
were not of a very reputable sort. One was an
old herb gatherer suspected of witchcraft, another a drunken clerk

(29:52):
from a neighboring parish, the third a half witted shepherd
who could be made to say anything. And it was
clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with its case
and would have liked to find more definite proof of
Lanrivan's complicity than the statement of the herb gatherer who
swore to having seen him climbing the walls of the
park on the night of the murder. One way of

(30:13):
patching out incomplete proofs in those days was to put
some sort of pressure, moral or physical on the accused person.
It is not clear what sort of pressure was put
on Anne to Corne, but on the third day, when
she was brought into court, she appeared weak and wandering,
and after being encouraged to collect herself and speak the

(30:33):
truth on her honor and the wounds of her blessed redeemer,
she confessed that he had in fact gone down the
stairs to speak with v de Landrevan, who denied everything,
and had been surprised there by the sound of her
husband's fall. That was better, and the prosecution rubbed its
hands with satisfaction. The satisfaction increased when the various dependence

(30:55):
libent careful were induced to say with the parent's sincerity.
Though during the year or two preceding his death, their
master had once more grown uncertain and irascible, and subject
to the fits of breeding silence which his household had
learned to dread before his second marriage. This seemed to
show that things had not been going well at Caerfol,

(31:17):
although no one could be found to say that there
had been any signs of urb and disagreement between husband
and wife, and to Coronel, one question as to her
reason for going down at night to open the door
to l of de L'enrevan made an answer which must
have sent a smile round the court. She said it
was because she was lonely and wanted to talk with

(31:38):
the young man. Was this the only reason? She was asked,
and replied, yes, by the cross over your lordship's heads.
But why at midnight, the court asked, because I could
see him in no other way. I can see the
exchange of glances across the ermine collars under the crucifix.

(32:00):
And to Coronel further question, said that her married life
had been extremely lonely. Desolate was the word she used.
It was true that her husband seldom spoke harshly to her,
but there were days when he did not speak at all.
It was true that he had never struck or threatened her,
but he kept her like a prisoner at careful and
when he rode away to Morlais, or Compei or Rain,

(32:23):
he sat so close a watch on her that she
could not pick a flower in the garden without having
a waiting woman at her heels. I am no queen
to need such ornolds, she once said to him, And
he had answered that a man who has a treasure
does not leave a key in the lock when he
goes out, then take me with you, she urged. But

(32:43):
to this he said, the towns were pernicious places, and
young wives better off at their own firesides. But what
did you say to him of de Lanlevan, the court asked,
and she answered, to ask him to take me away. Ah,
you confess that you went to him with the doubterous thoughts. No, then,

(33:03):
why did you want me to take you away? Because
I was afraid for my life of hearing? Were you
afraid of my husband? Why were you afraid of your
husband because he had struggled with my little dog? Another
smile must have passed around the court room. In days
when any nobleman had right to hang his peasants, and

(33:25):
most of them exercised it, pinching a pet animal's windpipe
was nothing to make a fuss about. At this point,
one of the judges, who appears to have had a
certain sympathy for the accused, suggested that she should be
allowed to explain herself in her own way, and she
thereupon made the following statement. The first years of her
marriage had been learnely, but her husband had not been

(33:47):
unkind to her. If she had had a child. She
would not have been unhappy, but the days were long
and it rained too much. It was true that her husband,
whenever he went away and left her, brought her a
handsome present on his return, but this did not make
up for the learnliness. At least, nothing had till he
brought her the little brown dog from the east. After

(34:10):
that she was much less unhappy. Her husband seemed pleased
that she was so fond of the dog. He gave
her leave to put her jured bracelet around his neck
and to keep it always with her. One day, she
had fallen sleep in her room with a dog at
her feet, as his habit was. Her feet were bare
and resting on his back. Suddenly she was waked by

(34:32):
her husband. He stood beside her, smiling, not unkindly, you
look like my great grandmother Julian de Cornaud, laying the
chapel with her feet on a little dog. He said.
The analogy sent it shill through her. But she laughed
and answered, well, when Dame did, you must put me
beside her captain Marble, with my dog at my feet. Oho,

(34:56):
We'll wait and see, he said, laughing also, but with
his black brows close together. The dog is an amblem
of fidelity. And do you don't my right to lie
with mine at my feet when I'm in doubt I
find out, he answered. I am an old man, he added,
and people say I make you lead a lonely life.

(35:18):
But I swear you shall have your monument if you
earn it, and I swear to be feastful. She returned,
if only for the sake of having my little dog
at my feet. Not long afterwards he went on business
to the compere Assizes, and while he was away, his aunt,
the widow of a great nobleman of the Duchy, came
to spend a night at Careful, on her way to

(35:40):
the pardon of Saint Bob. She was a woman of
great piety in consequence, and much respected by Eve the coroner,
and when she proposed to Anne to go with her
to Saint Bob, no one could objay, and even the
chaplain declared himself in favor of the pilgrimage. So Anne
sent out for Saint Bob, and there for the first
time she took with alb de l'enlevan. He had come

(36:02):
once or twice to care Fold with his father, but
she had never before exchanged a dozen words with him.
They did not talk for more than five minutes. Now
it was under the chestnuts, the procession was coming out
of the chapel. He said, I pity you, and she
was surprised, for she had not supposed that anymon thought
her an object of pity. He added, call for me

(36:25):
when you need me, and she smiled a little, but
was glad afterwards, and thought often to the meeting. She
confessed to having seen him three times afterwards, not more.
How or where she would not say. One had the
impression that she feared to implicate some one. Their meetings
had been rare and brief, and at the last he
had told her that he was starting the next day

(36:47):
for a foreign country on a mission which was not
without peril and might keep him for many months absent.
He asked her for a remembrance, and she had none
to give him but the collar about the little dog's neck.
She was sorry afterwards that she had given it, but
he was so unhappy at yewing that she had not
had the courage to refuse. Her husband was away at

(37:08):
the time. When he returned a few days later, he
picked up the little dog, depetted and noticed that his
collar was missing. His wife told him that the dog
had lost it in the undergrowth of the park, and
that she and her maids had hunted a whole day
for it. It was true. She explained to the court
that she had made the maid search for the necklet.
They all believed the dog had lost it in the park.

(37:31):
Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper
he was in his usual mood, between good and bad,
you could never tell which. He talked a great deal
describing what he had seen and done at ren But
now and then he stopped and looked hard at her.
And when she went to bed, she found her little
dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing was dead,

(37:53):
but still warm. She stooped to lift it, and her
distress turned to horror when she discovered that it had
been strangled by twisting twice round his throat the necklet
she had given to Lorrevan. The next morning, at dawn,
she bathed the dog in the garden and hid the
necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband
then or later, and he said nothing to her. But

(38:16):
that day he had a present hang for stealing a
faggot in the park, and the next day he nearly
beat to death a young horse he was breaking. Winter
set in, and the short days passed and the long
nights one by one, and she heard nothing of ev
the Laureva. It might be that her husband had killed him,
or merely that he had been robbed the necklet day

(38:39):
after day by the hearth among the spinning maids, night
after night to learn. On her bed, she wondered and trembled.
Sometimes at table. Her husband looked across at her and smiled,
And then she felt sure that Lorrevan was dead. She
dared not try to get news of him, for she
was sure her husband would find out she did. She

(39:01):
had an idea that he could find out anything, even
when a witch woman who was a noted seer and
could show you the whole world in her crystal, came
to the castle for a night shelter, and the maids
flocked to her and held back. The winter was long
and black and rainy. One day in eve, to Corner's absence,

(39:21):
some gypsies came to give full with a trip of
performing dogs and bought the smallest and cleverest, a white
dog with a feathery coat and one blue and one
brown eye. It seemed to have been ill treated by
the gypsies, and clung to her plaintively when she took
it from them. That evening her husband came back, and
when she went to bed she found the dog strangled

(39:43):
on her pillow. After that she said to herself that
she would never have another dog. But one bitter cold evening,
a poor lean greyhound was found whining at the castle gate,
and she took him in and forbade the maids to
speak of him to her husband. She hid him in
a room that no one went to, smuggled food to
him from her own plate, made him a warm bed

(40:06):
to lie on, and petted him like a child. Eve
the Corner came home, and the next day she found
the greyhound strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret,
but said nothing, and resolved that even she met a
dog die of hunger, she would never bring him into
the castle. But one day she found a young sheep dog,
a brindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a

(40:28):
broken leg in the snow of the park. Eve de
Corneaux was at rend, and she brought the dog in,
warmed and fed it, tied up its leg, and hid
it in the castle till her husband's return. The day before,
she gave it to a peasant woman who lived a
long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for
it and say nothing. But that night she heard a

(40:49):
whining and scratching at her door. When she opened it,
the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped up on her
with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed.
The next morning was about to have him taken back
to the peasant woman when she heard her husband ride
into the court. She shut the dog in a chest
and went down to receive him. An hour or two later,

(41:11):
when she returned to her room, the pappy lace strangled
on her pillow. After that she dared not make a
pair of any other dog, and her learniness became almost unendurable. Sometimes,
when she crossed the court of the castle and thought
no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old
point at the gate. But one day she was caressing him,

(41:33):
her husband came out of the chapel, and the next
day the old dog was gone. This curious narrative was
not told him on sitting of the court, or received
without impatience an incredulous comment. It was plain that the
judges was surprised by its purility and that it did
not help the accused in the eyes of the public.

(41:53):
It was an odd tale, certainly, but what did it
prove that eve de Corneau disliked dogs and that his wife,
to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. As
for pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her relations,
whatever their nature, with her supposed accomplice, the argument was

(42:14):
so absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having let
her make use of it, and tried several times to
cut short her story, But she went on to the
end with a kind of hypnotized insistence, as though the
scenes she evoked were so real to her that she
had forgotten where she was and imagined herself to be

(42:34):
reliving them. At length, the judge, who had previously shown
a certain kindness to hers, said, leaning forward, a little
one may suppose from his row of dozing colleagues, then
you would have us believe that you murdered your husband
because he would not let you keep a pet dog.
I did not murder my husband, Who then did erb

(42:57):
de lanerevan No, who then can you tell us, Yes,
I can tell you the dogs. At that point she
was carried out of the court in a swoon. It
was evident that her lawyers had tried to get her
to abandon this line of defense. Possibly her explanation, whatever

(43:18):
it was, had seemed convincing enough when she poured it
out to him in the heat of their first private colloquy,
But now that it was exposed to the cold daylight
of judicial scrutiny and the banter of the town, he
was thoroughly ashamed of it. Would have sacrificed her without
a scruple to save his professional reputation. But the obbsinate judge,

(43:38):
who perhaps after all was more inquisitive than kindly, evidently
wanted to hear the story out, and she was ordered
the next day to continue her deposition. She said that
after the disappearance of the old watchdog, nothing particular happened
for a month or two. Her husband was much as usual.
She did not remember any special incident. For one evening,

(44:01):
a pedlar woman came to the castle and was selling
trinkets to the maids. She had no heart for trinkets,
but she stood looking on while the women made their choice,
and then she did not know how, but the peddler
coaxed her into buying for herself an odd pear shiped
pomander with a strong scent in it. She had once
seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. She

(44:22):
had no desire for the pomander and did not know
why she had bought it. The pedlar said that whoever
wore it had the power to read the future, but
she did not really believe that or care much either. However,
she bought the thing and took it up to her room,
where she sat turning it about in her hand. Then
the strange scent attracted her, and she began to wonder

(44:43):
what kind of spice was in the box. She opened
it and found a great bean rolled in a strip
of paper, And on the paper she saw a sign
she knew, and a message from herve de Lanrivant, saying
that he was home again and would be at the
door in the court that night after the moon had set.
She burned the paper and then sat down to think.

(45:04):
It was nightfall that her husband was at home. She
had no way of warning Lanrevant, and it was nothing
to do but to wait. At this point, I fancy
the drowsy court room begining to wake up. Even to
the oldest hand on the bench, there must have been
a certain esthetic relish in picturing the feelings of a
woman on receiving such a message at nightfall from a

(45:27):
man living twenty miles away, to whom she had no
means of sending a warning. She was not a clever woman,
I imagine, and as a first result of her cogitation,
she appears to have made the mistake of being that
evening too kind to her husband. She could not apply
him with wine according to the traditional expedient, For though

(45:49):
he drank heavily at times, she had a strong head,
and when he drank beyond its strength, it was because
he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him.
Not his wife. At any rate, she was an old
story by now. As I read the case, I fancied
there was no feeling for her left in him, but
the hatred occasioned by his supposed dishonor. At any rate,

(46:13):
she tried to call up her old graces, But early
in the evening he complained of pains and fever and
left the hall to go up to his room. Her
servant carried him a cup of hot wine and brought
back word that he was sleeping and not to be disturbed.
And an hour later, when Anne lifted the tapestry and
listened at his door, she heard his loud, regular breathing.

(46:36):
She thought it might be a faint, and stayed a
long time, barefooted in the cold passage, her ear to
the crack, But the breathing went on too steadily and
naturally to be other than that of a man in
a sound sleep. She crept back to her room, reassured,
and stood in a window watching the moon set through
the trees of the park. The sky was misty and starless,

(46:58):
and after the moon went down, the night was pitch black.
She knew the time had come, and stirred along the passage,
passed her husband's door, where she stopped again to listen
to his breathing, to the top of the stairs. There
she paused a moment and assured herself that no one
was following her. Then she began to go down the
stairs in the darkness. They were so steep and winding

(47:21):
that she had to go very slowly for fear of stumbling.
Her one thought was to get the door unbolted, tell
lanerevand to make his escape and hasten back to her room.
She had tried the boat earlier in the evening and
managed to put a little grease on it, but nevertheless,
when she drew it, it gave a squeak, not loud,

(47:42):
but it made her heart stop. And the next minute
overhead she had a noise. What news? The prosecution interposed
my husband's voice calling out my name and curssing me.
What did you hear? After that? A terrible scream and
a fold? Where was there of de Landrevin at this time?

(48:03):
He was standing outside in the court and made him
out in the darkness. He told him, for God's seke
to go, and then I pushed the door shut. What
did you do next? I stood at the foot of
the stairs and listened. What did you hear? He heard
dogs snalling and panting, visible discouragement of the bench, boredom
of the public, and exasperation of the lawyer for the defense.

(48:27):
Dogs again, but the inquisitive judge insisted what dogs. She
bent her head and spoke so low that she had
to be told to repeat her answer. I don't know,
how do you mean? You don't know? I don't know
what dogs. The judge again intervened, tried to tell us
exactly what happened. How long did you remain at the

(48:49):
foot of the stairs, only a few minutes? And what
was going on? Meanwhile? Overhead the dogs kept on snally
and panting. Once or twice he cried out, I think
he moaned once, then he was quiet. Learn what happened?
Then I heard a sound like the noise of a
pack when the wolf was thrown to them, gulping and lapping.

(49:14):
There was a grain of disgust and repulsion through the court,
and another attempted intervention by the distracted lawyer. But the
inquisitive judge was still inquisitive, and all the while you
did not give up. Yes, I went up then to
dry them off, the dogs. Yes, well, when I got

(49:35):
there it was quite dark. I found my husband's flint
and steel and struck a spark. I saw him lying.
He was dead, and the dogs, the dogs were gone,
gone where to I don't know. There was no way out,
and there were no dogs at careful he strained herself

(49:57):
to her full hide through her arm above her head
and fell down on the stern floor with a long scream.
There was a moment of confusion in the court room.
Someone on the bench was heard to say, this is
clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities, and the prisoner's
lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion. After this, the child

(50:19):
loses itself in a maze of cross questioning and squabbling.
Every witness who was called corroborated under Corneau's statement that
there were no dogs. Careful had been none for several months.
The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs.
There was no denying it. But on the other hand,
at the inquest there had been long and bitter discussion

(50:41):
as to the nature of the dead man's wounds. One
of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that
looked like bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and
the imposing lawyers hurled tombs of necromancy at each other.
At last, Ander Corneau was brought back into court at
the instance of the same judge and asked if she

(51:02):
knew where the dog she spoke of could have come
from on the body of her redeemer. She swore that
she did not. Then the judge put his final question,
if the dogs you think you heard had been known
to you. Do you think you would have recognized them
by their barking? Yes? Did you recognize them? Yes? What dogs?

(51:23):
Do you take them to have been? My dead dogs?
She said in a whisper. She was taken out of court,
not to reappear there again. There was some kind of
ecclesiastical investigation, and the end of the business was that
the judges disagreed with each other and with the ecclesiastical committee,
and that Anne de Corda was finally handed over to

(51:44):
the keeping of her husband's family, who shut her up
in the keeper of Careful, where she is said to
have died many years later, a harmless mad woman. So
in her story, as for that of elve de Landrevan,
I had only to apply to his collateral descendant for
its subsequent details. The evidence against the young man being insufficient,

(52:04):
and his family influenced in the Duchy considerable, he was
set free and left soon afterwards for Paris. He was
probably in no mood for a worldly life, and he
appears to have come almost immediately under the influence of
the famous m Arnault d'n delis and the gentleman of
Port Royal. A year or two later he was received
into their order, and without achieving any particular distinction, he

(52:28):
followed its good and evil fortunes till his death. Some
twenty years later, Lanrevin shaded me a portrait of him
by people of Philippe de Champagne. Sad eyes, an impulsive mouth,
and a narrow brow port Heir of de Landrevin. It
was a great ending. Yet as I looked at his
stiff and sallow effigy in the dark dress of the Jansenists,

(52:50):
I found myself almost envying his fate. After all, in
the course of his life two great things had happened
to him. He had loved dramatically, and he must have
talked with Pascal. End of section four, care full by
Edith Wharton