The Ebony Frame

Being rich feels really good, especially when you’ve known what it’s like to be poor, working as a low-paid writer, a reporter, a journalist, jobs that didn’t really match with my family’s pride and our history as descendants of the Dukes of Picardy.

• descendants (noun) – People who come from a particular ancestor or family line.

When my Aunt Dorcas died and left me with a yearly income of seven hundred pounds and a house in Chelsea, I felt like I had everything I could ever want. Even my feelings for Mildred Mayhew, a girl I had cared for deeply, seemed less important. I wasn’t engaged to Mildred, but I lived with her mother, and we would sing songs together. I would give her gifts when I could afford it. I had always planned to marry her. It felt nice to have a kind, caring woman in your life—it gives you strength in your work, and it’s comforting to know that she would say “yes” if you asked her to marry you.

But with the money that I had inherited, I almost forgot about Mildred, especially because she was away visiting friends.

In the early days of my new wealth, I sat in my own house, in my aunt’s chair, in front of the fire. It was a great feeling, but also a bit lonely. I did think about Mildred at that moment.

The room was filled with comfortable, sturdy furniture made of oak and leather. There were some good paintings on the wall, but there was a very bad print above the fireplace. I got up to take a closer look. I had visited my aunt many times, but I didn’t remember seeing this print. The frame was meant for a painting, not a print. It was made of ebony and had beautiful carvings on it.

• sturdy (adjective) – Strong and solid, not easily broken.

When the housemaid—who worked for my aunt and now worked for me—came in with a lamp, I asked her about the print.

“Your aunt bought it just before she got sick,” she told me, “and she found the frame in the attic. She had lots of interesting things up there.”

• attic (noun) – The space or room just below the roof of a house, often used for storage.

“Has she had this frame for a long time?”

“Yes, sir. She had it long before I started working here, and I’ve been here for almost seven years. There used to be a different picture in it, but it was so dark and unattractive that it reminded me of the back of a fireplace.”

I wanted to see this picture. What if it was a valuable old painting that my aunt didn’t appreciate?

The next morning, after breakfast, I went to the attic. It was full of old furniture that could fill an antique shop. The rest of the house was decorated in an old-fashioned style, and everything that didn’t match that style was stored here. There were tables and chairs with faded cushions, screens with old designs, oak desks with brass handles, a small sewing table with its fabric hanging in tattered strips. The daylight shone on these dusty items as I opened the blinds. I looked forward to bringing these items down into the main part of the house and moving the old-fashioned furniture up here. But first, I had to find that dark picture. After a while, I found it hidden behind some ugly paintings.

Jane, the housemaid, recognized the picture immediately. I brought it downstairs to examine it. There was no clear image or color on it. There was a dark spot in the middle, but it could have been anything—a person, a tree, a house. The picture seemed to be painted on a very thick board that was covered with leather. I thought about sending it to someone who could clean it, using a gentle soap and water solution. But then I decided to try cleaning a small part of it myself.

I used my bath sponge, soap, and a nail brush to scrub a corner of the painting. To my surprise, there was no picture underneath the grime! I was just scrubbing plain oak. I tried the other side, with Jane watching me, and the same thing happened. Then I understood why the board was so thick. I pulled off the leather cover, and the board split into two pieces, creating a cloud of dust. There were two pictures—they had been attached back to back. I leaned them against the wall, and I had to lean against the wall myself when I saw what they were.

• grime (noun) – Dirt that covers a surface and is difficult to remove.
• scrubbing (verb) – Cleaning something by rubbing it hard.

One of the pictures was of me—a perfect portrait, with every detail of my face captured. I was dressed as a cavalier, with long, loose hair. When had this been painted? And how had it been done without me knowing? Was it a joke of my aunt’s?

• cavalier (noun) – A gentleman or knight, often seen in historical settings.

“Wow, sir!” Jane exclaimed, surprised. “What a nice picture! Was it from a costume party?”

“Yes,” I answered, a bit confused. “I don’t need anything else right now. You can go.”

When she left, I turned to the other picture. It was a woman who looked like the women in Burne Jones and Rossetti’s paintings—she had a straight nose, low eyebrows, full lips, thin hands, and large, bright eyes. She was wearing a black velvet dress. The picture showed her full body. She was sitting at a table with her head resting on her hands, looking directly at the viewer. There were tools, books, a cup, and papers and pens on the table. I noticed all of this later. At first, I couldn’t look away from her eyes. They were like no other eyes I’ve ever seen. They were both pleading and commanding, like a child’s or a dog’s, or an empress’s.

• velvet (noun) – A soft, smooth fabric with a thick pile.

“Do you want me to clean up the dust, sir?” Jane asked, coming back into the room. I agreed. I hid my portrait from her and kept the woman’s picture out of her sight. When she left, I took down the bad print above the fireplace and put the woman’s picture in its beautiful ebony frame.

Then I ordered a new frame for my portrait. I didn’t want to separate it from the beautiful woman’s picture. You can tell from this that I’m a bit of a romantic.

When the new frame arrived, I hung it across from the fireplace. I looked through all of my aunt’s papers, but I couldn’t find any information about the portrait of me or the portrait of the woman with the wonderful eyes.

I found out that all the old furniture had been given to my aunt when my great-uncle, the oldest member of our family, died. I would have thought that the portrait just looked like me because of our family connection. But everyone who saw it said it looked exactly like me. I went along with Jane’s idea that it was from a costume party.

You might think that’s all there is to the story of the portraits. But obviously, there’s more, since I’m still writing about it. At the time, though, I thought that was the end of it.

I went to visit Mildred, and I invited her and her mother to stay at my house. I tried not to look at the portrait in the ebony frame. I couldn’t forget the look in the woman’s eyes the first time I saw it. I didn’t want to see that look again.

I made some changes to the house to get ready for Mildred’s visit. I moved some things around and brought out some of the old furniture. After a long day of moving things, I sat down in front of the fire. I was feeling tired and relaxed, and I looked up at the picture. I saw the woman’s dark hazel eyes, and I couldn’t look away. It was like when you look into your own eyes in a mirror for a long time. I stared into her eyes, and I felt a strange feeling in my own eyes, like I was about to cry.

“I wish,” I said, “I wish you were a real woman, not a picture! Come down! Please, come down!”

I laughed at myself for saying this. But even as I laughed, I reached out my arms.

I wasn’t tired or drunk. I was fully awake and completely sober. But as I reached out my arms, I saw the woman’s eyes in the picture get bigger, and her lips tremble. I know this sounds impossible, but it’s true. Her hands moved a little, and she seemed to smile.

I stood up quickly. “This is crazy,” I said out loud. “The firelight must be playing tricks on me. I’ll turn on the lamp.”

I was about to ring the bell for Jane, but then I heard a noise behind me. I turned around. The fire was almost out, and the room was mostly in shadow. But in one corner, behind a tall chair, there was something that was darker than a shadow.

“I have to face this,” I said to myself, “or I’ll never be able to look at myself again.” I didn’t ring the bell. Instead, I used the poker to stir up the coals in the fire and make it brighter. Then I took a deep breath, stepped back, and looked up at the picture. The ebony frame was empty! I heard a rustling sound, like silk, from behind the chair. The woman from the picture was coming out of the shadows and moving towards me.

• rustling (verb) – Making a soft, light sound like leaves moving in the wind.
• stir up (phrasal verb) – To mix or move something to make it more active, like stirring coals in a fire.
• poker (noun) – A metal rod used to move coals or wood in a fire.

I was terrified. I couldn’t move or speak. Either everything I knew about the world was wrong, or I was going crazy. I was shaking, but I stood still as the woman in the black velvet dress moved across the room towards me.

Then I felt a hand touch me—a hand that was soft, warm, and human—and I heard a quiet voice say, “You called me. I am here.”

When she touched me and spoke to me, everything seemed to change. I can’t really explain it, but it didn’t feel strange or scary that a picture had turned into a person. It felt natural, right, and very lucky.

I put my hand on hers. I looked at my portrait, but I couldn’t see it well in the dim light from the fire.

• dim (adjective) – Not bright; having little light.

“We know each other,” I said.

“Oh yes, we know each other.” I could see her bright eyes looking into mine. Her red lips were close to me. I felt a rush of strong feelings, like I had found something very important that I thought I had lost forever. I hugged her. She was not a ghost. She was a woman—the only woman for me.

“How long,” I asked, “my love, how long since I lost you?”

She leaned back, holding onto my neck.

“I don’t know how long. There is no time in hell,” she replied.

It was not a dream. I wish it could have been. In my dreams, I never see her eyes, hear her voice, feel her lips on my face, or kiss her hands like I did that night—the best night of my life. At first, we didn’t talk much. It felt enough just to be together again.

It’s hard to tell this story. There are no words to describe how happy I felt to be with her again, and how it felt like all my hopes and dreams had come true.

How could it have been a dream when I left her sitting in the chair and went to the kitchen to tell the maids that I didn’t need anything more and didn’t want to be disturbed? When I brought wood for the fire myself and saw her still sitting there when I came back? When I saw her turn her head to look at me, saw the love in her eyes, and fell at her feet, thanking God for my life because it had led me to her?

I didn’t think about Mildred at all. Everything else in my life felt like a dream—this was the only real thing.

“I’m wondering,” she said after a while, “how much you remember about our past.”

“I don’t remember anything,” I said. “My dear lady, my sweetheart—I only remember that I love you and that I’ve loved you all my life.”

“You don’t remember anything? Really nothing?”

“Only that I belong to you, that we’ve both had hard times, that… Please, my dear, tell me everything you remember. Help me understand. But actually, no, I don’t need to understand. It’s enough that we’re together.”

If it was a dream, why haven’t I dreamed it again?

She leaned down towards me and put her arm around my neck, pulling my head onto her shoulder. “I guess I’m a ghost,” she said, laughing softly. Her laugh reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite remember what.

“But we know the truth, don’t we? I’ll tell you everything you’ve forgotten. We loved each other—ah, you haven’t forgotten that—and when you came back from the war, we were going to get married. Our pictures were painted before you left. I knew more than most women of that time. My love, when you were away, they called me a witch. They accused me. They said I should be burned. Just because I looked at the stars and knew more than them, they tied me to a stake and set me on fire. And you were far away!”

• stake (noun) – A wooden post to which people were tied to be burned in old times.

She shook and looked scared. Oh, love, who would have thought that my kisses could help her forget that terrible memory?

“The night before,” she continued, “the devil came to me. I was innocent before—you know that, right? And even then, what I did, I did for you—because I loved you so much. The devil came, and I sold my soul to him. But I asked for something in return. I got the right to come back, through my picture (if anyone looking at it wished for me), as long as my picture was in its black frame. That frame wasn’t made by human hands. I got the right to come back to you. Oh, my love, and I got another thing, which you’ll find out soon. They burned me for being a witch, they made me suffer a terrible pain. Those faces, all looking at me, the sound of the wood cracking and the smell of the smoke——”

• cracking (verb) – Making a sharp sound as something breaks or splits.

“Love! Please, no more.”

“When my mother sat in front of my picture that night, she cried, ‘Come back, my poor lost child!’ And I went to her, feeling very happy. But, my love, she was scared of me, she ran away, she screamed and talked about ghosts. She covered our pictures and put them back in the black frame. She had promised me my picture would always stay there. Ah, all those years, your face was next to mine.”

She stopped.

“But the man you loved?”

“You came home. My picture was gone. They lied to you, and you married another woman. But I knew that one day you would be back in the world and I would find you.”

“The other thing you got?” I asked.

“The other thing,” she said slowly, “I gave my soul for. It’s this. If you also give up your hope of going to heaven, I can stay a woman, I can live in your world—I can be your wife. Oh, my love, after all these years, finally—at last.”

“If I give up my soul,” I said slowly, not caring how silly it sounded—”if I give up my soul, I get you? But, love, that doesn’t make sense. You are my soul.”

She looked straight into my eyes. No matter what might happen, what did happen, what may happen, our souls met in that moment and became one.

“So you choose—you really choose—to give up your hope of going to heaven for me, like I gave up mine for you?”

“I refuse,” I said, “to give up my hope of heaven for anything. Tell me what I have to do, so you and I can make our heaven here—like now, my dear love.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said. “Be alone here tomorrow night—midnight is the ghost’s time, right?—and then I’ll come out of the picture and never go back. I’ll live with you, and die, and be buried, and that will be the end of me. But we’ll live first, my love.”

I put my head on her knee. I started to feel very sleepy. Holding her hand against my face, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was the beginning of a grey November day. I could see the morning light through the window without curtains. My head was on my arm, which was resting—I lifted my head quickly—ah, not on my lady’s knee, but on the cushion of the chair. I got up quickly. I was cold and confused from my dreams, but I looked at the picture. There she was, my lady, my true love. I reached out my arms, but I didn’t say the passionate cry I wanted to say. She had said twelve o’clock. I would do anything she said. So I only stood in front of the picture and looked into her eyes until my own eyes were full of happy tears.

“Oh, my dear, my dear, how will I wait the hours until I see you again?”

I didn’t think then that my whole life’s happiness was a dream.

I went to my room, fell onto my bed, and slept deeply and without dreams. When I woke up it was midday. Mildred and her mother were coming for lunch.

I remembered, all at once, Mildred’s coming and her being alive.

Now, really, the dream started.

With a strong feeling of the uselessness of anything without her, I gave the necessary orders for my guests. When Mildred and her mother came, I welcomed them warmly; but my friendly words all seemed to be someone else’s. My voice sounded like an echo; my heart was elsewhere.

Still, the situation was not too bad until the time when we had afternoon tea in the living room. Mildred and her mother kept talking about ordinary things, and I tolerated it, because one can tolerate small sufferings when one can see heaven. I looked at my sweetheart in the black frame, and I felt that anything that might happen, any silly behaviour, any boring situation, was nothing, if, after it all, she came to me again.

And yet, when Mildred also looked at the portrait and said, “What a fine lady! One of your girlfriends, Mr. Devigne?” I felt a frustrating annoyance, which became absolute pain when Mildred—how could I ever have thought her prettiness was attractive?—sat in the high-backed chair, covering the needlework with her silly dress, and added, “Silence means yes! Who is it, Mr. Devigne? Tell us all about her: I am sure she has a story.”

Poor little Mildred, sitting there smiling, sure that every word she said pleased me—sitting there with her tight waist, her tight boots, her loud voice—sitting in the chair where my dear lady had sat when she told me her story! I couldn’t stand it.

“Don’t sit there,” I said, “it’s not comfortable!”

But the girl didn’t listen. With a laugh that annoyed me, she said, “Oh, dear! am I not allowed to sit in the same chair as your woman in black velvet?”

I looked at the chair in the picture. It was the same; and Mildred was sitting in her chair. Then I felt a terrible sense of Mildred being real. Was all this real after all? Could Mildred have taken, not only her chair, but her place in my life, if things had been different? I got up.

“I hope you won’t think I’m very rude,” I said, “but I have to go out.”

I can’t remember what excuse I gave. The lie came out easily.

I faced Mildred’s unhappy face, hoping that she and her mother wouldn’t wait for me to have dinner. I left quickly. In another moment, I was safe, alone, under the cold, cloudy autumn sky—free to think, think, think about my dear lady.

I walked for hours along streets and squares; I remembered again and again every look, word, and touch—every kiss; I was extremely, unbelievably happy.

I totally forgot about Mildred: my lady of the black frame filled my heart and mind.

When I heard eleven o’clock in the fog, I turned and went home.

When I got to my street, I saw a crowd moving through it, a strong red light in the air.

A house was on fire. My house.

I made my way through the crowd.

The picture of my lady—I could save that at least!

As I rushed up the steps, I saw, as if in a dream—yes, all this was like a dream—I saw Mildred hanging out of the window on the first floor, wringing her hands.

• wringing (verb) – Twisting hands together, usually because of worry or stress.

“Come back, sir,” a firefighter shouted, “we’ll get the young lady out safely.”

But my lady? I continued up the stairs, which were cracking, smoking, and very hot, to the room where her picture was. Strangely, I only thought that the picture was something we would like to look at during our happy married life that was to come. I didn’t think of it as being one with her.

As I reached the first floor, I felt arms around my neck. The smoke was too thick to see faces.

“Save me!” a voice whispered. I held a figure in my arms, and, with a strange discomfort, carried it down the shaky stairs and out to safety. It was Mildred. I knew that as soon as I held her.

• figure (noun) – A shape or form of a person.

“Step back,” the crowd shouted.

“Everyone’s safe,” a firefighter shouted.

The flames jumped out of every window. The sky became redder and redder. I broke free from the hands that tried to hold me. I jumped up the steps. I crawled up the stairs. Suddenly, the whole horror of the situation hit me. “As long as my picture remains in the black frame.” What if the picture and frame were destroyed together?

• crawled (past verb) – Moved slowly on hands and knees.

I fought with the fire, and with my own difficulty to fight with it. I pushed on. I had to save my picture. I reached the living room.

As I rushed in, I saw my lady—I swear it—through the smoke and the flames, reaching out her arms to me—to me—who arrived too late to save her, and to save my own happiness. I never saw her again.

Before I could get to her, or shout to her, I felt the floor give way beneath my feet, and I fell into the fiery hell below.

How did they save me? What does that matter? They saved me somehow—curse them. All of my aunt’s furniture was destroyed. My friends pointed out that, since the furniture was insured, the carelessness of a maid who liked to read at night had done me no harm.

No harm!

That was how I found and lost my only love.

I say, with all my heart, that it was not a dream. There are no dreams like that. There are plenty of dreams of longing and pain, but dreams of complete, unspeakable happiness—ah, no—it’s the rest of life that’s the dream.

• unspeakable (adjective) – Too bad or extreme to be expressed in words.

But if I think that, why did I marry Mildred, and become fat and boring and rich?

I tell you, all of this is a dream; only my dear lady is real. And what does it matter what one does in a dream?

THE END