I was awake; though what I saw was so astonishing that I thought it must be another nightmare. There really was a strong light pouring into my eyes. What it came from I don't know to this day, but probably an electric torch. Anyhow, the ray was so powerful that, though directed upon my face, it faintly lit another face close to mine, as I suddenly sat up in bed.
Instantly that face drew back, and then – as if on a second thought, after a surprise – out went the light. By contrast, the darkness was black as a bath of ink, though I'd pulled back the curtains before going to bed, and the sky was sequined with stars. But on my retina was photographed a pale, illumined circle with a face looking out of it – looking straight at me. You know how quickly these light-pictures begin to fade, but, before this dimmed I had time to verify my first waking impression.
The face was a woman's face – beautiful and hideous at the same time, like Medusa. It was young, yet old. It had deep-set, long eyes that slanted slightly up to the corners. It was thin and hollow-cheeked, with a pointed chin cleft in the middle; and was framed with bright auburn hair of a curiously unreal colour.
When the blackness closed in, and I heard in the dark scrambling sounds like a rat running amok in the wainscot, I gave a cry. In my horror and bewilderment I wasn't sure yet whether I were awake or asleep; but someone answered. Dazed as I was, I recognized Shelagh's sweet young voice, and at the same instant her electric bed-lamp was switched on in the next room. "Coming! – coming!" she cried, and appeared in the doorway, her hair gold against the light.
By this time I had the sense to switch on my own lamp, and, comforted by it and my pal's presence, I told Shelagh in a few words what had happened. "Why, how weird! I dreamed the same dream!" she broke in. "At least, I dreamed about a light, and a face."
Hastily we compared notes, and realized that Shelagh had not dreamed: that the woman of mystery had visited us both; only, she had gone to Shelagh first, and had not been scared away as by me, because Shelagh hadn't thoroughly waked up.
We decided that our vision was no ghost, but that, for once, rumour was right. In some amazing way a spy had concealed herself in the rambling old Abbey (the house has several secret rooms of which we know; and there might be others, long forgotten), and probably she had been signalling until warned of danger by that visit from the police. We resolved to rise at daybreak, and walk to Courtenay Coombe to let the police know what had happened to us; but, as it turned out, a great deal more was to happen before dawn.
We felt pretty sure that the spy would cease her activities for the night, after the shock of finding our rooms occupied. Still it would be cowardly – we thought – to lie in bed. We slipped on dressing-gowns, therefore, and with candles (only our wing was furnished with electric light, for which dear Grandmother had never paid) we descended fearsomely to the Barlows' quarters. Having roused the old couple and got them to put on some clothes, a search-party of four perambulated the house. So far as we could see, however, the place was innocent of spies; and at length we crept into bed again.
We didn't mean or expect to sleep, of course, but we must all have "dropped off," otherwise we should have smelt the smoke long before we did smell it. As it was, the great hall slowly burned until Barlow's usual getting-up hour. Shelagh and I knew nothing until Barl came pounding at my door. Then the stinging of our nostrils and eyelids was a fire alarm!
It's wonderful how quickly you can do things when you have to! Ten minutes later I was running as fast as I could go to the village, and might have earned a prize for a two-mile sprint if I hadn't raced alone. By the time the fire-engines reached the Abbey it was too late to save a whole side of the glorious old "linen fold" panelling of the hall. The celebrated staircase was injured, too, and several suits of historic armour, as well as a number of antique weapons.
Fortunately the portraits were all in the picture gallery, and the fire was stopped before it had swept beyond the hall. Where it had started was soon learned, but "how" remained a mystery, for shavings and oil-tins had apparently been stuffed behind the panelling. The theory of the police was, that the spy (no one doubted the spy's existence now!) had seen that the "game was up," since the place would be strictly watched from that night on. Out of sheer spite, the female Hun had attempted to burn down the famous old house before she lost her chance; or had perhaps already made preparations to destroy it when her other work should be ended.
There was a hue and cry over the county in pursuit of the fugitive, which echoed as far as London; but the woman had escaped, and not even a trace of her was found.
Grandmother openly claimed that her inspiration in sending for some dust-sheets had not only saved the Abbey, but England. It was most agreeable to bask in self-respect and the praise of friends. When, however, we were bombarded by newspaper men, who took revenge for Grandmother's snubs by publishing interviews with Sir "Jim" (by this time Major Courtenaye, D. S. O., M. C., unluckily at home with a "Blighty" wound), the haughty lady lost her temper.
It was bad enough, she complained, to have the Abbey turned prematurely into a ruin, but for That Fellow to proclaim that it wouldn't have happened had he been the owner was too much! The democratic and socialist papers ("rags," according to Grandmother) stood up for the self-made cowboy baronet, and blamed the great lady who had "thrown away in selfish extravagance" what should have paid the upkeep of an historic monument. This, to a woman who directed the most patriotic ouvroir in London! And to pile Ossa on Pelion, our Grosvenor Square landlord was cad enough to tell his friends (who told theirs, etc., etc.) that he had never received his rent! Which statement, by the way, was all the more of a libel because it was true.
Now you understand how Sir James Courtenaye was responsible for driving us to Italy, and indirectly bringing about my marriage; for Grandmother wiped the dust of Grosvenor Square from our feet with Italian passports, and swept me off to new activities in Rome.
Here was Mr. Carstairs' moment to say, "I told you so! If only you had left the Abbey when I advised you that it was best, all would have been well. Now, with the central hall in ruins, nobody would be found dead in the place, not even a munition millionaire." But being a particularly kind man he said nothing of the sort. He merely implored Grandmother to live economically in Rome: and of course (being Grandmother!) she did nothing of the sort.
We lived at the most expensive hotel, and whenever we had any money, gave it to the Croce Rossa, running up bills for ourselves. But we mixed much joy with a little charity, and my descriptive letters to Shelagh were so attractive that she persuaded Mr. and Mrs. Pollen, her guardians (uncle and aunt; sickening snobs!), to bring her to Rome; pretext, Red Cross work, which covered so much frivolling in the war! Then, not long after, the cowboy's friend, Roger Fane, appeared on the scene, in the American Expeditionary Force; a thrilling, handsome, and mysteriously tragic person. James Courtenaye also turned up, having been ordered to the Italian Front; but Grandmother and I contrived never to meet him. And when our financial affairs began to rumble like an earthquake, Mr. Carstairs decided to see Grandmother in person.
It was when she received his telegram, "Coming at once," that she decided I must accept Prince di Miramare. She had wanted an Englishman for me; but a Prince is a Prince, and though Paolo was far from rich at the moment, he had the prospect of an immediate million – liras, alas! not pounds. An enormously rich Greek offered him that sum for the fourteenth-century Castello di Miramare on a mountain all its own, some miles from Rome. In consideration of a large sum paid to Paolo's younger brother Carlo, the two Miramare princes would break the entail; and this quick solution of our difficulties was to be a surprise for Mr. Carstairs.
Paolo and I were married as hastily as such matters can be arranged abroad, between persons of different nations; and it was true (as those cynics outside the arbour said) that my soldier prince went back to the Front an hour after the wedding. It was just after we were safely spliced that Grandmother ceased to fight a temperature of a hundred and three, and gave up to an attack of 'flu. She gave up quite quietly, for she thought
