The Damned | Page 9

though some portentous
thing were under discussion. It had come of itself--indefinite as a
gradual change of temperature. Yet neither of us knew its nature, for
apparently neither of us could state it plainly. Nothing happened, even
in our words.
"That was my impression," she said, "--that if she yields to it she
encourages it. And a habit forms so easily. Just think," she added with a
faint smile that was the first sign of lightness she had yet betrayed,
"what a nuisance it would be--everywhere--if everybody was afraid of
being alone--like that."
I snatched readily at the chance. We laughed a little, though it was a
quiet kind of laughter that seemed wrong. I took her arm and led her
towards the door.
"Disastrous, in fact," I agreed.
She raised her voice to its normal pitch again, as I had done. "No doubt
it will pass," she said, "now that you have come. Of course, it's chiefly
my imagination." Her tone was lighter, though nothing could convince
me that the matter itself was light--just then. "And in any case,"
tightening her grip on my arm as we passed into the bright enormous
corridor and caught sight of Mrs. Franklyn waiting in the cheerless hall
below, "I'm very glad you're here, Bill, and Mabel, I know, is too."
"If it doesn't pass," I just had time to whisper with a feeble attempt at
jollity, "I'll come at night and snore outside your door. After that you'll
be so glad to get rid of me that you won't mind being alone."
"That's a bargain," said Frances.

I shook my hostess by the hand, made a banal remark about the long
interval since last we met, and walked behind them into the great
dining room, dimly lit by candles, wondering in my heart how long my
sister and I should stay, and why in the world we had ever left our cozy
little flat to enter this desolation of riches and false luxury at all. The
unsightly picture of the late Samuel Franklyn, Esq., stared down upon
me from the farther end of the room above the mighty mantelpiece.
He looked, I thought, like some pompous Heavenly Butler who denied
to all the world, and to us in particular, the right of entry without
presentation cards signed by his hand as proof that we belonged to his
own exclusive set. The majority, to his deep grief, and in spite of all his
prayers on their behalf, must burn and "perish everlastingly."


Chapter IV
With the instinct of the healthy bachelor I always try to make myself a
nest in the place I live in, be it for long or short. Whether visiting, in
lodging-house, or in hotel, the first essential is this nest--one's own
things built into the walls as a bird builds in its feathers. It may look
desolate and uncomfortable enough to others, because the central detail
is neither bed nor wardrobe, sofa nor armchair, but a good solid
writing-table that does not wriggle, and that has wide elbowroom.
And The Towers is vividly described for me by the single fact that I
could not "nest" there.
I took several days to discover this, but the first impression of
impermanence was truer than I knew. The feathers of the mind refused
here to lie one way. They ruffled, pointed, and grew wild.
Luxurious furniture does not mean comfort; I might as well have tried
to settle down in the sofa and armchair department of a big shop. My
bedroom was easily managed; it was the private workroom, prepared

especially for my reception, that made me feel alien and outcast.
Externally, it was all one could desire: an antechamber to the great
library, with not one, but two generous oak tables, to say nothing of
smaller ones against the walls with capacious drawers.
There were reading desks, mechanical devices for holding books,
perfect light, quiet as in a church, and no approach but across the huge
adjoining room. Yet it did not invite.
"I hope you'll be able to work here," said my little hostess the next
morning, as she took me in--her only visit to it while I stayed in the
house--and showed me the ten-volume Catalogue.
"It's absolutely quiet and no one will disturb you."
"If you can't, Bill, you're not much good," laughed Frances, who was
on her arm. "Even I could write in a study like this!"
I glanced with pleasure at the ample tables, the sheets of thick blotting
paper, the rulers, sealing wax, paper knives, and all the other
immaculate paraphernalia. "It's perfect," I answered with a secret thrill,
yet feeling a little foolish. This was for Gibbon or Carlyle, rather than
for my potboiling insignificancies. "If I can't write masterpieces here,
it's certainly not