Andrew Lang

“ You see, things were so very mixed, because Philippa’s memory was so curiously constructed that she had entirely forgotten the murder which she had committed; and even if I proved to her by documentary evidence that she had only murdered her own husband, it might not help to relieve her burdened conscience as much as I had hoped. There are times when I almost give up this story in despair. To introduce a heroine who is mad in and out, so to speak, and forgets and remembers things exactly at the right moment, seems a delightfully simple artifice. ”

“ But, upon my word, I am constantly forgetting what it is that Philippa should remember, and on the point of making her remember the very things she forgets!
So puzzled had I become that I consoled myself by cursing Sir Runan’s memory. De mortuis nil nisi bonum!
What a lot of trouble a single little murder, of which one thinks little enough at the time, often gives a fellow. ”

“ My mother had an idea.
‘Basil,’ she said, ‘you speak of Spain. You long to steep yourself in local colour. You sigh for hidalgos, sombreros, carbonados, and carboncillos, why not combine business with pleasure?
‘Why not take the Alhambra?’
This was an idea!
Where could we be safer than under the old Moorish flag?
Philippa readily fell in with my mother’s proposal. When woman has once tasted of public admiration, when once she has stepped on the boards, she retires without enthusiasm, even at the age of forty. ”

“ It was already obvious that the frost would not last for ever. Once the snow melted, once the crushed mass that had been a baronet was discovered, circumstantial evidence would point to Philippa. True, there was no one save myself who could positively swear that Philippa had killed Sir Runan. Again, though I could positively swear it, my knowledge was only an inference of my own. Philippa herself had completely forgotten the circumstance. But the suspicions of the Bearded Woman and of the White Groom were sure to be aroused, and the Soudan I resolved to seek without an hour’s delay. ”

“ But, in that case, what pleasure or profit could I derive from the society of an insane Philippa? Supposing, on the other hand, she was sane, then was I not an ‘accessory after the fact,’ and liable to all the pains and penalties of such a crime?
Here the final question arose and shook its ghostly finger at me: ‘Can a sane man be an accessory after the fact in a murder committed by an insane woman?’
So far as I know, there is no monograph on this subject, or certainly I would have consulted it for the purpose of this Christmas Annual. ”

“ One day as my dear patient was creeping about the patio, she asked me if I saw all the papers?
I said I saw most of them.
‘Well, look at them all, for who knows how many may be boycotted by the present Government? In a boycotted print you don’t know but you may miss an account of how some fellow was hanged for what I did. I believe two people can’t be executed for the same crime. Now, if any one swings for Sir Runan, I am safe; but it might happen, and you never know it.’
Dear Philippa, ever thoughtful for others! ”

“ Trust this man (William Evans, late the Sphynx) to the vaunted array of justice!
Let him have a run for his money.
Nay, more.
Go down and see the fun!
Why hesitate? You cannot possibly be implicated in the deed. You will enjoy a position nearly unique in human history. You will see the man, of whose murder you thought you were guilty, tried for the offence which you know was committed by your wife.
Every sin is not easy. My sense of honour arose against this temptation. I struggled, but I was mastered. I would go and see the trial. Home I went and broached the subject to Philippa. ”

“ Once she asked me ‘How she came to my home that night?’
‘You came out of the whirling snow, and in a high state of delirium,’ I answered, epigrammatically.
‘I thought I came on foot,’ she replied, dreamily.
‘But, Basil,’ she went on, ‘what afterwards? What’s the next move, my noble sportsman?’
What, indeed! Philippa had me there.
Clearly it was time to move.
In order to avert suspicion, I thought it was better not to shut up my house.
For the same purpose, I did a little in crime on my own account.
A man tires of only being an accessory. ”

“ Under the exasperating circumstances, Philippa remained as well as could be expected. She spoke little, but ate and drank a good deal. Day after day the brave black frost lasted, and the snowy grave hid all that it would have been highly inconvenient for me to have discovered. The heavens themselves seemed to be shielding us and working for us. Do the heavens generally shield accessories after the fact, and ladies who have shortened the careers of their lords? ”

“ Your wife commits a murder.
You become an accessory after the fact.
You take steps to destroy one of the two people who suspect the truth.
And then you find that the man on whom you committed murder is accused of the murder which you and your wife committed.
The sound of my mother’s voice scolding Philippa wakened me from my stupor. They were coming. ”

“ Struggling violently, Philippa was dragged away by the minions of the law.
I notice one visitor turn round, and gaze at the commotion.
It is Mrs. Thompson, the Bearded Woman.
Silence has scarcely been restored, when it is again broken.
A manly form rises. A deep voice exclaims:—
‘My lord, the prisoner is innocent. I am the person whom he is said to have murdered.’
The form, the voice—it is Sir Runan Errand! ”

“ First, I reflected with solemn pride that Philippa was more than an honest woman; that she really was a baronet’s lady! After we were married she should keep her title. Many people do. How well it would sound when we entered a room together—’ Dr. South and Lady Errand!’ Yet, on second thoughts, would not this conjunction of names rather set people asking questions?
Yes, disagreeable associations might be revived.
My second thought was that, if Mrs. Thompson kept her word, we might as well go home at once, without bothering about the Soudan. ”

“ I looked at Philippa. She had heard all. I saw her dark brow contract in anguish. She was beating her breast furiously—her habit in moments of agitation.
Then I seem to remember that I and the two hidalgos bore Philippa to a couch in the patio, while I smiled and smiled and talked of the heat of the weather!
When Philippa came back to herself, she looked at me with her wondrous eyes and said,—
‘Basil; tell me the square truth, honest Injun! What had I been up to that night?’
CHAPTER X.—Not Too Mad, But Just Mad Enough. ”

“ NEXT morning came, chill and grey, and reminded me that I had two duties. I was to wait at home till Philippa came over from Mrs. Thompson’s, and I was also to hang about the road from the station, and challenge Sir Runan to mortal combat. Can duties clash? They can. They did! The hours lagged slowly by, while I read Sir Runan’s letter, read and re-read it, registered and re-registered (a pretty term of my own invention) this vow of vengeance. ”

“ My mother at first demurred.
‘You certainly don’t look well, Basil. But why the Soudan?’
‘A whim, a sick man’s fancy. Perhaps because it is not so very remote from Old Calabar, the country of Philippa’s own father. Mother, tell me, how do you like her?’
‘She is the woman you love, and however shady her antecedents, however peculiar her style of conversation, she is, she must be, blameless. To say more, after so short an acquaintance, might savour of haste and exaggeration.’
A woman’s logic! ”

“ It is a temptation to which I dare think poor human nature has rarely been subjected.
The temptation to go and see a man, a fellow-creature, tried for a crime which one’s wife committed, and to which one is an accessory after the fact. ”

“ Far in the deeps of the country, near the little town of Roding, on a lonely highway, where no man ever came, I took a ‘pike. Here I dwelt like a hermit, refusing to give change to the rare passers-by in carts and gigs, and attended by a handy fellow, William Evans, stolid as the Sphynx, which word, for reasons that may or may not appear later in this narrative, I prefer to spell with a y, contrary to the best authorities and usual custom.
It was midwinter, and midnight. My room lay in darkness. Heavy snow was falling. ”

“ Regaining my presence of mind, I asked, ‘What brings you here?’
‘Oh, to see the fun,’ he replied. ‘Fellow being tried for killing me. The morbid interest excited round here is very great. Doubt your getting front seats.’
‘Can’t you manage it for me?’ I asked imploringly.
‘Daresay I can. Here, take my card, and just mention my name, and they’ll let you in. Case for the prosecution, by the way, most feeble.’
Here the appearance, handing me a card, nodded, and vanished in the crowd.
I returned to Philippa, where I had left her in the four-wheeler. ”

“ OF course when I woke next morning my first thought was of Philippa; my second was of the weather. Always interesting, meteorological observation becomes peculiarly absorbing when it entirely depends on the thermometer whether you shall, or shall not, be arrested as an accessory after the fact, or (as lawyers say) post-mortem. My heart sank into my boots, or rather (for I had not yet dressed) into my slippers, when I found that, for the first time during sixteen days, the snow had ceased falling. ”

“ PHILIPPA was another’s! Life was no longer worth living. Hope was evaluated; ambition was blunted. The interest which I had hitherto felt in my profession vanished. All the spring, the elasticity seemed taken out of my two Bounding Brothers from the Gutta Percha coast. For months I did my work in a perfunctory manner. I added a Tattooed Man to my exhibition and a Two-headed Snake, also a White-eyed Botocudo, who played the guitar, and a pair of Siamese Twins, who were fired out of a double-barrelled cannon, and then did the lofty trapeze business. ”

“ When we remember what women are, the latter instance of obliviousness appears the more probable.
CHAPTER V.—The White Groom.
I SHALL, I am sure, scarcely be credited when I say that Philippa’s unconsciousness lasted for sixteen days. I had wished her to sleep so long that the memory of her deeds on the awful night should fade from her memory. She seemed likely to do so.
All the time she slept I felt more and more secure, because the snow never ceased falling. It must have been thirty feet deep above all that was mortal of Sir Runan Errand. The deeper the better. ”

“ Basil South.’ Speaking thus, Philippa wept afresh, and refused to be comforted.
Her remarks were not flattering to my self-esteem.
At this time I felt, with peculiar bitterness, the blanks in Philippa’s memory. Nothing is more difficult than to make your heroine not too mad, but just mad enough.
Had Philippa been a trifle saner, or less under the influence of luncheon, at first, she would either never have murdered Sir Runan at all (which perhaps would have been the best course) , or she would have known how she murdered him. ”

“ The clerk reads the indictment that ‘he, William Evans, did feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought, kill and murder Sir Runan Errand, Baronet.’
As the reading goes on Philippa is strangely moved.
‘Basil,’ she whispered, ‘don’t you see the splendid, unequalled chance for an advertisement! I’ll get up and make a speech, and say I did it. Of course they can’t prove it, but it will set every one talking, and bring hundreds of pounds into the house every night.’
I now observed that Philippa had half slipped off her mantle and bonnet. ”

“ One day, on the steps of the Aquarium, I saw the man whom I suspected of not being Philippa’s husband.
‘Who is that cove?’ I asked.
‘Him with the gardenia?’ replied a friend, idiomatically. ‘That is Sir Runan Errand, the amateur showman—him that runs the Live Mermaid, the Missing Link, and Koot Hoomi, the Mahatma of the Mountain.’
‘What kind of man is he?’
‘Just about the usual kind of man you see generally here. Just about as hot as they make them. Mad about having a show of his own ”

“ He is doing well in the United States, and has been elected to the Legislature. I have given up the freak of dabbling in the show business, and merely keep a private theatre at such a distance from human abodes that no one can complain of it as a nuisance. Since the disappearance of my valet I have been travelling in my own yacht. I reached England the day before the trial. ‘No. I never read the newspapers. Thank goodness I am no bookworm.’
The Confession of Philippa South, calling herself Lady Errand. ”

“ Shake off black gloom, Basil South, and make things skip.
You have conquered Fate!
CHAPTER IX.—Saved! Saved!
GLORIOUS, wonderful Alhambra! Magical Cuadrado de Leicestero! Philippa and I were as happy as children, and the house was full every night.
We called everything by Spanish names, and played perpetually at being Spaniards.
The foyer we named a patio—a space fragrant with the perfume of oranges, which the public were always sucking, and perilous with peel. Add to this a refreshment-room, refectorio, full of the rarest old cigarros, and redolent of aqua de soda and aguardiente. ”

“ A belief that modern Christmas fiction is too cheerful in tone, too artistic in construction, and too original in motive, has inspired the author of this tale of middle-class life. He trusts that he has escaped, at least, the errors he deplores, and has set an example of a more seasonable and sensational style of narrative. ”