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These things happened a year ago. The law laid hands on the men who had robbed me; but from that time to this, the law has failed completely to find a trace of my wife.
My story is told. When I had paid the creditors and paid the legal expenses, I had barely five pounds left out of the sale of my house; and I had the world to begin over again. Some months since – drifting here and there – I found my way to Underbridge. The landlord of the i
The Third Narrative
The story continued by Percy Fairbank
XIV
We took leave of Francis Raven at the door of Farleigh Hall, with the understanding that he might expect to hear from us again.
The same night Mrs. Fairbank and I had a discussion in the sanctuary of our own room. The topic was ‘The Hostler’s Story’; and the question in dispute between us turned on the measure of charitable duty that we owed to the hostler himself.
The view I took of the man’s narrative was of the purely matter-of-fact kind. Francis Raven had, in my opinion, brooded over the misty co
Confronted with this sensible view of the matter, Mrs. Fairbank’s romantic temperament rushed, as usual, into extremes. ‘I should no more think of losing sight of Francis Raven when his next birthday comes round,’ says my wife, ‘than I should think of laying down a good story with the last chapters unread. I am positively determined, Percy, to take him back with us when we return to France, in the capacity of groom. What does one man more or less among the horses matter to people as rich as we are?’ In this strain the partner of my joys and sorrows ran on, perfectly impenetrable to everything that I could say on the side of common sense. Need I tell my married brethren how it ended? Of course I allowed my wife to irritate me, and spoke to her sharply.
Of course my wife turned her face away indignantly on the conjugal pillow, and burst into tears. Of course upon that, ‘Mr.’ made his excuses, and ‘Mrs.’ had her own way.
Before the week was out we rode over to Underbridge, and duly offered to Francis Raven a place in our service as supernumerary groom.
At first the poor fellow seemed hardly able to realize his own extraordinary good fortune. Recovering himself, he expressed his gratitude modestly and becomingly. Mrs. Fairbank’s ready sympathies overflowed, as usual, at her lips. She talked to him about our home in France, as if the worn, gray-headed hostler had been a child. ‘Such a dear old house, Francis; and such pretty gardens! Stables! Stables ten times as big as your stables here – quite a choice of rooms for you. You must learn the name of our house – Maison Rouge. Our nearest town is Metz[48]. We are within a walk of the beautiful River Moselle[49]. And when we want a change we have only to take the railway to the frontier, and find ourselves in Germany.’
Listening, so far, with a very bewildered face, Francis started and changed color when my wife reached the end of her last sentence. ‘Germany?’ he repeated.
‘Yes. Does Germany remind you of anything?’
The hostler’s eyes looked down sadly on the ground. ‘Germany reminds me of my wife,’ he replied.
‘Indeed! How?’
‘She once told me she had lived in Germany – long before I knew her – in the time when she was a young girl.’
‘Was she living with relations or friends?’
‘She was living as governess in a foreign family.’
‘In what part of Germany?’
‘I don’t remember, ma’am. I doubt if she told me.’
‘Did she tell you the name of the family?’
‘Yes, ma’am. It was a foreign name, and it has slipped my memory long since. The head of the family was a wine grower in a large way of business – I remember that.’
‘Did you hear what sort of wine he grew? There are wine growers in our neighborhood. Was it Moselle wine[50]?’
‘I couldn’t say, ma’am, I doubt if I ever heard.’
There the conversation dropped. We engaged to communicate with Francis Raven before we left England, and took our leave. I had made arrangements to pay our round of visits to English friends, and to return to Maison Rouge in the summer. On the eve of departure, certain difficulties in co
Before long, some of the objections to taking him into our employment, which I had foreseen and had vainly mentioned to my wife, forced themselves on our attention in no very agreeable form. Francis Raven failed (as I had feared he would) to get on smoothly with his fellow-servants. They were all French; and not one of them understood English. Francis, on his side, was equally ignorant of French. His reserved ma
He was attended to by our own surgeon, in his comfortable bedroom at the stables. As the date of his birthday drew near, he was still confined to his bed.
Physically speaking, he was doing very well. Morally speaking, the surgeon was not satisfied. Francis Raven was suffering under some mysterious mental disturbance, which interfered seriously with his rest at night. Hearing this, I thought it my duty to tell the medical attendant what was preying on the patient’s mind. As a practical man, he shared my opinion that the hostler was in a state of delusion on the subject of his Wife and his Dream. ‘Curable delusion, in my opinion,’ the surgeon added, ‘if the experiment could be fairly tried.’
‘How can it be tried?’ I asked. Instead of replying, the surgeon put a question to me, on his side.
47
delusion – a false opinion that may be a symptom of madness
48
Metz – a city in northeastern France; it was founded by a Gallic tribe and later fortified by the Romans
49
the River Moselle – a river in northeastern France and western Germany, a tributary of the Rhine River
50
Moselle wine – famous wine produced in Germany from the vineyards on the banks of the Moselle River