"THE exact time? Good God! my friend,
why do you insist? One would think-but what does it matter; it is easily
bedtime-isn't that near enough? But, here, if you must set your watch,
take mine and see for yourself.”
With that he detached his watch-a tremendously heavy, old-fashioned one-from
the chain, and handed it to me; then turned away, and walking across the
room to a shelf of books, began
an examination of their backs. His agitation and evident distress surprised
me; they appeared reasonless. Having set my watch by
his I stepped over to where he
stood and said, “Thank you.”
As he took his timepiece and reattached it to the guard I observed that
his hands were unsteady. With a tact upon which I greatly prided myself,
I
sauntered carelessly to the sideboard
and took some brandy and water; then, begging his pardon for my thoughtlessness,
asked him to have some and went back
to my seat by the fire, leaving
him to help himself, as was our custom. He did so and presently joined
me at the hearth, as tranquil as ever.
This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine was
passing an evening. We had dined together at the club, had come home in
a cab
and-in short, everything had been
done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon
the natural and established order of things to make
himself spectacular with a display
of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand.
The more I thought of it, while his brilliant
conversational gifts were commending
themselves to my inattention, the more curious I grew, and of course had
no difficulty in persuading myself that my
curiosity was friendly solicitude.
That is the disguise that curiosity usually assumes to evade resentment.
So I ruined one of the finest sentences of his disregarded
monologue by cutting it short without
ceremony.
“John Bartine,” I said, “you must try to forgive me if I am wrong, but
with the light that I have at present I cannot concede your right to go
all to pieces
when asked the time o' night. I
cannot admit that it is proper to experience a mysterious reluctance to
look your own watch in the face and to cherish in my
presence, without explanation,
painful emotions which are denied to me, and which are none of my business.”
To this ridiculous speech Bartine made no immediate reply, but sat looking
gravely into the fire. Fearing that I had offended I was about to apologize
and
beg him to think no more about
the matter, when looking me calmly in the eyes he said:
“My dear fellow, the levity of your manner does not at all disguise the
hideous impudence of your demand; but happily I had already decided to
tell you
what you wish to know, and no manifestation
of your unworthiness to hear it shall alter my decision. Be good enough
to give me your attention and you shall
hear all about the matter.
“This watch,” he said, “had been in my family for three generations before
it fell to me. Its original owner, for whom it was made, was my great-grand
father, Bramwell Olcott Bartine,
a wealthy planter of Colonial Virginia, and as staunch a Tory as ever lay
awake nights contriving new kinds of maledictions for
the head of Mr. Washington, and
new methods of aiding and abetting good King George. One day this worthy
gentleman had the deep misfortune to perform for
his cause a service of capital
importance which was not recognized as legitimate by those who suffered
its disadvantages. It does not matter what it was, but
among its minor consequences was
my excellent ancestor's arrest one night in his own house by a party of
Mr. Washington's rebels. He was permitted to say
farewell to his weeping family,
and was then marched away into the darkness which swallowed him up for
ever. Not the slenderest clue to his fate was ever
found. After the war the most diligent
inquiry and the offer of large rewards failed to turn up any of his captors
or any fact concerning his disappearance. He had
disappeared, and that was all.”
Something in Bartine's manner that was not in his words-I hardly knew what
it was-prompted me to ask:
“What is your view of the matter-of the justice of it?”
“My view of it,” he flamed out, bringing his clenched hand down upon the
table as if he had been in a public house dicing with blackguards-“my view
of it
is that it was a characteristically
dastardly assassination by that damned traitor, Washington, and his ragamuffin
rebels!”
For some minutes nothing was said: Bartine was recovering his temper, and
I waited. Then I said:
“Was that all?”
“No-there was something else. A few weeks after my great-grandfather's
arrest his watch was found lying on the porch at the front door of his
dwelling. It
was wrapped in a sheet of letter-paper
bearing the name of Rupert Bartine, his only son, my grandfather. I am
wearing that watch.”
Bartine paused. His usually restless black eyes were staring fixedly into
the grate, a point of red light in each, reflected from the glowing coals.
He seemed
to have forgotten me. A sudden
threshing of the branches of a tree outside one of the windows, and almost
at the same instant a rattle of rain against the glass,
recalled him to a sense of his
surroundings. A storm had risen, heralded by a single gust of wind, and
in a few moments the steady plash of the water on the
pavement was distinctly heard.
I hardly know why I relate this incident; it seemed somehow to have a certain
significance and relevancy which I am unable now
to discern. It at least added an
element of seriousness, almost solemnity. Bartine resumed:
“I have a singular feeling toward this watch-a kind of affection for it;
I like to have it about me, though partly from its weight, and partly for
a reason I
shall now explain, I seldom carry
it. The reason is this: Every evening when I have it with me I feel an
unaccountable desire to open and consult it, even if I can
think of no reason for wishing
to know the time. But if I yield to it, the moment my eyes rest upon the
dial I am filled with a mysterious apprehension-a sense of
imminent calamity. And this is
the more insupportable the nearer it is to eleven o'clock-by this watch,
no matter what the actual hour may be. After the hands
have registered eleven the desire
to look is gone; I am entirely indifferent. Then I can consult the thing
as often as I like, with no more emotion than you feel in
looking at your own. Naturally
I have trained myself not to look at that watch in the evening before eleven;
nothing could induce me. Your insistence this
evening upset me a trifle. I felt
very much as I suppose an opium-eater might feel if his yearning for his
special and particular kind of hell were reinforced by
opportunity and advice.
“Now that is my story, and I have told it in the interest of your trumpery
science; but if on any evening hereafter you observe me wearing this damnable
watch, and you have the thoughtfulness
to ask me the hour, I shall beg leave to put you to the inconvenience of
being knocked down.”
His humour did not amuse me. I could see that in relating his delusion
he was again somewhat disturbed. His concluding smile was positively ghastly,
and
his eyes had resumed something
more than their old restlessness; they shifted hither and thither about
the room with apparent aimlessness and I fancied had taken
on a wild expression, such as is
sometimes observed in cases of dementia. Perhaps this was my own imagination,
but at any rate I was now persuaded that my
friend was afflicted with a most
singular and interesting monomania. Without, I trust, any abatement of
my affectionate solicitude for him as a friend, I began to
regard him as a patient, rich in
possibilities of profitable study. Why not? Had he not described his delusion
in the interest of science? Ah, poor fellow, he was
doing more for science than he
knew: not only his story but himself was in evidence. I should cure him
if I could, of course, but first I should make a little
experiment in psychology-nay, the
experiment itself might be a step in his restoration.
“That is very frank and friendly of you, Bartine,” I said cordially, “and
I'm rather proud of your confidence. It is all very odd, certainly. Do
you mind
showing me the watch?”
He detached it from his waistcoat, chain and all, and passed it to me without
a word. The case was of gold, very thick and strong, and singularly engraved.
After closely examining the dial
and observing that it was nearly twelve o'clock, I opened it at the back
and was interested to observe an inner case of ivory, upon
which was painted a miniature portrait
in that exquisite and delicate manner which was in vogue during the eighteenth
century.
“Why, bless my soul!” I exclaimed, feeling a sharp artistic delight-“how
under the sun did you get that done? I thought miniature painting on ivory
was a
lost art.”
“That,” he replied, gravely smiling, “is not I; it is my excellent great-grandfather,
the late Bramwell Olcott Bartine, Esquire, of Virginia. He was younger
then than later-about my age, in
fact. It is said to resemble me; do you think so?”
“Resemble you? I should say so! Barring the costume, which I supposed you
to have assumed out of compliment to the art-or for vraisemblance, so to
say-and the no moustache, that
portrait is you in every feature, line, and expression.”
No more was said at that time. Bartine took a book from the table and began
reading. I heard outside the incessant plash of the rain in the street.
There
were occasional hurried footfalls
on the sidewalks; and once a slower, heavier tread seemed to cease at my
door-a policeman, I thought, seeking shelter in the
doorway. The boughs of the trees
tapped significantly on the window panes, as if asking for admittance.
I remember it all through these years and years of a
wiser, graver life.
Seeing myself unobserved, I took the old-fashioned key that dangled from
the chain and quickly turned back the hands of the watch a full hour; then,
closing the case, I handed Bartine
his property and saw him replace it on his person.
“I think you said,” I began, with assumed carelessness, “that after eleven
the sight of the dial no longer affects you. As it is now nearly twelve”
looking at
my own timepiece-“perhaps, if you
don't resent my pursuit of proof, you will look at it now.”
He smiled good-humouredly, pulled out the watch again, opened it, and instantly
sprang to his feet with a cry that Heaven has not had the mercy to permit
me to forget! His eyes, their blackness
strikingly intensified by the pallor of his face, were fixed upon the watch,
which he clutched in both hands. For some time
he remained in that attitude without
uttering another sound; then, in a voice that I should not have recognized
as his, he said:
“Damn you! it is two minutes to eleven!”
I was not unprepared for some such outbreak, and without rising replied,
calmly enough:
“I beg your pardon; I must have misread your watch in setting my own by
it.”
He shut the case with a sharp snap and put the watch in his pocket. He
looked at me and made an attempt to smile, but his lower lip quivered and
he
seemed unable to close his mouth.
His hands, also, were shaking, and he thrust them, clenched, into the pockets
of his sackcoat. The courageous spirit was
manifestly endeavouring to subdue
the coward body. The effort was too great; he began to sway from side to
side, as from vertigo, and before I could spring
from my chair to support him his
knees gave way and he pitched awkwardly forward and fell upon his face.
I sprang to assist him to rise; but when John Bartine
rises we shall all rise.
The post-mortem examination disclosed nothing; every organ was normal and
sound. But when the body had been prepared for burial a faint dark circle
was seen to have developed around
the neck; at least I was so assured by several persons who said they saw
it, but of my own knowledge I cannot say if that was
true.
Nor can I set limitations to the law of heredity. I do not know that in
the spiritual world a sentiment or emotion may not survive the heart that
held it, and
seek expression in a kindred life,
ages removed. Surely, if I were to guess at the fate of Bramwell Olcott
Bartine, I should guess that he was hanged at eleven
o'clock in the evening, and that
he had been allowed several hours in which to prepare for the change.
As to John Bartine, my friend, my patient for five minutes, and-Heaven
forgive me!-my victim for eternity, there is no more to say. He is buried,
and his
watch with him-I saw to that. May
God rest his soul in Paradise, and the soul of his Virginian ancestor,
if, indeed, they are two souls.
The End
