Chương Chương 18 · The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the

. The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the

time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet

indifferent to life itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared,

tracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the tapestry did but

tremble in the wind, he shook. The dead leaves that were blown against

the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild

regrets. When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor’s face

peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to

lay its hand upon his heart.

But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of

the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. Actual

life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the

imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of

sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen

brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor

the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon

the weak. That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling round

the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the keepers. Had

any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the gardeners would have

reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy. Sibyl Vane’s brother had

not come back to kill him. He had sailed away in his ship to founder in

some winter sea. From him, at any rate, he was safe. Why, the man did

not know who he was, could not know who he was. The mask of youth had

saved him.

And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think

that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them

visible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would

his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from

silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear

as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep!

As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and

the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. Oh! in what a

wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere

memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came back

to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible and

swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry came in

at six o’clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will break.

It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. There was

something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that

seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But it

was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had caused

the change. His own nature had revolted against the excess of anguish

that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm. With subtle

and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. Their strong passions

must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man, or themselves

die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows

that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude. Besides, he had

convinced himself that he had been the victim of a terror-stricken

imagination, and looked back now on his fears with something of pity

and not a little of contempt.

After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden

and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp

frost lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of blue

metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake.

At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey

Clouston, the duchess’s brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of

his gun. He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take the

mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered bracken

and rough undergrowth.

“Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?” he asked.

“Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the

open. I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new

ground.”

Dorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, the brown and

red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the beaters

ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns that

followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful

freedom. He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the high

indifference of joy.

Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front

of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it

forward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. Sir

Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the

animal’s grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he

cried out at once, “Don’t shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live.”

“What nonsense, Dorian!” laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded

into the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, the cry of a

hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is

worse.

“Good heavens! I have hit a beater!” exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. “What an

ass the man was to get in front of the guns! Stop shooting there!” he

called out at the top of his voice. “A man is hurt.”

The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand.

“Where, sir? Where is he?” he shouted. At the same time, the firing

ceased along the line.

“Here,” answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket.

“Why on earth don’t you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for the

day.”

Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the

lithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging

a body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It

seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir

Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of

the keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with

faces. There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of

voices. A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the

boughs overhead.

After a few moments—that were to him, in his perturbed state, like

endless hours of pain—he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He started

and looked round.

“Dorian,” said Lord Henry, “I had better tell them that the shooting is

stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on.”

“I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry,” he answered bitterly. “The

whole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ...?”

He could not finish the sentence.

“I am afraid so,” rejoined Lord Henry. “He got the whole charge of shot

in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come; let us go

home.”

They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly

fifty yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and

said, with a heavy sigh, “It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen.”

“What is?” asked Lord Henry. “Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear

fellow, it can’t be helped. It was the man’s own fault. Why did he get

in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather

awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It

makes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not; he

shoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter.”

Dorian shook his head. “It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if something

horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, perhaps,” he

added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of pain.

The elder man laughed. “The only horrible thing in the world is

_ennui_, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.

But we are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep

chattering about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the

subject is to be tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an

omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel

for that. Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have

everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would

not be delighted to change places with you.”

“There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don’t

laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who

has just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It is

the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to

wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don’t you see a man

moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?”

Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand

was pointing. “Yes,” he said, smiling, “I see the gardener waiting for

you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on the

table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You must

come and see my doctor, when we get back to town.”

Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. The

man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating

manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master. “Her

Grace told me to wait for an answer,” he murmured.

Dorian put the letter into his pocket. “Tell her Grace that I am coming

in,” he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in the

direction of the house.

“How fond women are of doing dangerous things!” laughed Lord Henry. “It

is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will flirt

with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.”

“How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present

instance, you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I

don’t love her.”

“And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you

are excellently matched.”

“You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for

scandal.”

“The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty,” said Lord Henry,

lighting a cigarette.

“You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram.”

“The world goes to the altar of its own accord,” was the answer.

“I wish I could love,” cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in

his voice. “But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the

desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has

become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget. It was

silly of me to come down here at all. I think I shall send a wire to

Harvey to have the yacht got ready. On a yacht one is safe.”

“Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell me what

it is? You know I would help you.”

“I can’t tell you, Harry,” he answered sadly. “And I dare say it is

only a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have a

horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me.”

“What nonsense!”

“I hope it is, but I can’t help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess,

looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. You see we have come back,

Duchess.”

“I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray,” she answered. “Poor Geoffrey is

terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare.

How curious!”

“Yes, it was very curious. I don’t know what made me say it. Some whim,

I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little live things. But I am

sorry they told you about the man. It is a hideous subject.”

“It is an annoying subject,” broke in Lord Henry. “It has no

psychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on

purpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one

who had committed a real murder.”

“How horrid of you, Harry!” cried the duchess. “Isn’t it, Mr. Gray?

Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint.”

Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. “It is nothing,

Duchess,” he murmured; “my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is

all. I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn’t hear what

Harry said. Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I think

I must go and lie down. You will excuse me, won’t you?”

They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the

conservatory on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind Dorian,

Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous eyes.

“Are you very much in love with him?” he asked.

She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. “I

wish I knew,” she said at last.

He shook his head. “Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty

that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.”

“One may lose one’s way.”

“All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys.”

“What is that?”

“Disillusion.”

“It was my _début_ in life,” she sighed.

“It came to you crowned.”

“I am tired of strawberry leaves.”

“They become you.”

“Only in public.”

“You would miss them,” said Lord Henry.

“I will not part with a petal.”

“Monmouth has ears.”

“Old age is dull of hearing.”

“Has he never been jealous?”

“I wish he had been.”

He glanced about as if in search of something. “What are you looking

for?” she inquired.

“The button from your foil,” he answered. “You have dropped it.”

She laughed. “I have still the mask.”

“It makes your eyes lovelier,” was his reply.

She laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet

fruit.

Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror

in every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly become too

hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky

beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to

pre-figure death for himself also. He had nearly swooned at what Lord

Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting.

At five o’clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to

pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham

at the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another

night at Selby Royal. It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there in

the sunlight. The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood.

Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to

town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in

his absence. As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to

the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see

him. He frowned and bit his lip. “Send him in,” he muttered, after some

moments’ hesitation.

As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a

drawer and spread it out before him.

“I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this

morning, Thornton?” he said, taking up a pen.

“Yes, sir,” answered the gamekeeper.

“Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him?”

asked Dorian, looking bored. “If so, I should not like them to be left

in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary.”

“We don’t know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of

coming to you about.”

“Don’t know who he is?” said Dorian, listlessly. “What do you mean?

Wasn’t he one of your men?”

“No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir.”

The pen dropped from Dorian Gray’s hand, and he felt as if his heart

had suddenly stopped beating. “A sailor?” he cried out. “Did you say a

sailor?”

“Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on

both arms, and that kind of thing.”

“Was there anything found on him?” said Dorian, leaning forward and

looking at the man with startled eyes. “Anything that would tell his

name?”

“Some money, sir—not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any

kind. A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we

think.”

Dorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. He

clutched at it madly. “Where is the body?” he exclaimed. “Quick! I must

see it at once.”

“It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk don’t like to

have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings bad

luck.”

“The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms to

bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I’ll go to the stables myself. It

will save time.”

In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the

long avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him

in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his

path. Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him.

He lashed her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air

like an arrow. The stones flew from her hoofs.

At last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard.

He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. In the

farthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed to tell him

that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand

upon the latch.

There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a

discovery that would either make or mar his life. Then he thrust the

door open and entered.

On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man

dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. A spotted

handkerchief had been placed over the face. A coarse candle, stuck in a

bottle, sputtered beside it.

Dorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take

the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to

come to him.

“Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it,” he said, clutching at

the door-post for support.

When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward. A cry of joy

broke from his lips. The man who had been shot in the thicket was James

Vane.

He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. As he rode

home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe.