We Compare Notes

Our guest raised her head from the pillow, her ruddy tresses bathed in firelight, her starry eyes moving from my own to the furnishings, drinking in her surroundings with bewilderment.

"Where am I? What is this place?" she asked in a very sweet voice.

I consoled her as best I could, assuring her that she was safe at Orchard Slope, and that her guardian would return anon.

At that moment, Mother reappeared and beckoned me to follow her to make up the spare room for our visitor. As I fluffed the pillows and turned back the quilts, I could not help but hope that Carmilla would appreciate the humble accommodations of our abode. After all, who knew what luxuries might be her ordinary fare before she arrived so precipitously on our doorstep? I wished with all my soul that our spare room were furnished with carved oak cabinets and cushions of crimson Utrecht velvet, with gold-framed tapestries on the walls instead of the yellowed picture of George Whitfield.

I need not have worried.

"Oh!" Carmilla exclaimed as Mother and I helped her through the parlor and into a spare nightdress. "To think that I should be afforded the honour of a spare room! Dear ladies, I shall be indebted to you forevermore for this thrill you have bestowed upon me in my hour of sorrow."

"Now, Anne," Mother said, tucking the quilt around Carmilla's delicate form, "you see that you get a good rest. You must be plain exhausted after the evening you've had."

In a sudden burst of inspiration, I nearly shouted. "Mother! May I stay here with Carmilla tonight? She may be lonely, all alone in a strange place without a friend."

Mother considered this for a moment and seemed on the point of refusal when Carmilla herself interceded. "Oh please, Mrs. Barry," she asked clasping her hands piteously under her chin. "I should so love to have Diana beside me."

By this time, my father had come to stand by the door. "If Anne wants Diana with her, let her stay," he said.

My mother agreed, and I could barely contain my squeal of delight. I raced to my room to retrieve my nightdress, flying up and down the stairs as if carried on wings.

Upon my return, I slowed in the parlor, stopping behind the mantel when I heard my parents conversing in low, earnest tones.

"There was something not right about that woman," Mother said.

"Yes," said Father. "I quite agree. I'll go into town tomorrow and see what I can find out about her."

"I dare say Anne can tell us about it tomorrow, if she is sufficiently recovered."

"I don't think she will," said my father, with a mysterious smile, and a little nod of his head, as if he knew more about it than he cared to tell.

This made me all the more inquisitive as to what had passed between him and Carmilla's guardian, in the brief but earnest interview that had immediately preceded her departure.

"What did she say to you, George?"

My father shrugged. "She apologized for troubling us with the care of her ward, saying she was in delicate health, and nervous, but not subject to any kind of seizure — she volunteered that — nor to any illusion; being, in fact, perfectly sane."

"How very odd to say all that!" Mother interpolated. "It was so unnecessary."

"She then said, 'I am making a long journey of vital importance — she emphasized the word — rapid and secret; I shall return for my child in three months; in the meantime, she will be silent as to who we are, whence we come, and whither we are traveling.' That is all she said."

This seemed very strange to me, but did nothing to lessen my delight. When my parents turned toward the spot where I was secreted, I stepped out of the shadows as if I had just then descended the stairs.

"Is our guest quite well, Father?" I asked.

"She is. Her pulse is regular now and she sustained no injury. The shock to her nerves seems to have passed quite harmlessly. I believe she is waiting for you."

I was longing to see and talk to her, and only waiting till my parents betook themselves to bed. Nevertheless, I must project an air of calm.

"Then I shall turn in for the night," I said.

My parents kissed my cheeks and bid me goodnight, ascending for their own chamber and leaving me to Carmilla.

At the spare room door, I felt unaccountably shy and knocked. "May I come in?" I asked.

"Nothing would delight me more," said the sweet voice from within the chamber.

There were candles at the bedside. She was sitting up; her slender, pretty figure enveloped in the soft cotton of my old nightgown, faded, but embroidered with flowers.

What was it that, as I reached the bedside and had just begun my little greeting, struck me dumb in a moment, and made me recoil a step or two from before her? I will tell you.

I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night, which remained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had for so many years so often ruminated with horror, when no one suspected of what I was thinking.

It was indeed the same beautiful, fine-featured face, with its changeable gray-green eyes and the seven adorable freckles scattered over the comely nose like stars of some enticing constellation. Carmilla stared at me for a long moment, her face gradually lightening into an expression of recognition.

"How wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Ten years ago, I saw your face in a dream, and it has haunted me ever since."

"Wonderful indeed!" I repeated. "Ten years ago, in vision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. It has remained before my eyes ever since."

"Oh, Diana," Carmilla said, clasping her hands and speaking almost in a whisper, "oh, do you think you can like me a little — enough to be my bosom friend?"

I laughed. "Of course I will like you, dearest. Your coming is as a balm to my lonely soul, and has brought me all the happiness I had thought would ever be denied to me."

I took her hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, and blushed.

Carmilla threw back the quilt, beckoning me to climb into the wide spare room bed beside her. I did so, still wondering; and she recounted to me her own story of our first impossible meeting:

"I must tell you my vision about you; it is so very strange that you and I should have had, each of the other so vivid a dream, that each should have seen, I you and you me, looking as we do now, when of course we both were mere children. I was a child, about six years old, and I awoke from a confused and troubled dream, and found myself in a room, unlike my nursery, . . . I heard someone crying; and looking up, while I was still upon my knees, I saw you — most assuredly you — as I see you now; a beautiful girl, with black eyes and raven tresses, and lips — your lips — you as you are here.

I climbed on the bed and put my arms about you, and I think we both fell asleep. I was aroused by a scream; you were sitting up screaming. I was frightened, and slipped down upon the ground, and, it seemed to me, lost consciousness for a moment; and when I came to myself, I was again in my nursery at home. Your face I have never forgotten since."

Perhaps I should have been more astonished at this extraordinary speech, but Carmilla's story was so like my own that it had the savor of a memory, rather than a revelation. I related to her my corresponding vision, much to her undisguised wonder.

"Oh, Diana," she sighed, her fine gray-green eyes gazing into mine with a passion I had never before encountered. "Truly you are a kindred spirit. Indeed, I feel only that I have made your acquaintance ten years ago, and have already a right to your intimacy; at all events it does seem as if we were destined, from our earliest childhood, to be bosom friends. I wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me as I do to you; I have never had a friend — shall I find one now?"

"Darling Carmilla," I said with a laugh fore and aft, "I feel just as you do, that we are already bosom friends of long acquaintance. I will be your devoted friend forever and ever."

"Will you swear it?" she asked, starry eyes alight.

When I was younger, I would have thought that it was dreadfully wicked to swear, but now, older and wiser, I was indeed prepared to offer my new friend a solemn vow and promise.

We clasped hands, her slender fingers cool against my palms.

"It ought to be over running water," she said. "We'll just imagine that this bolster is a stream."

With that, she gave a grave nod and intoned, "I solemnly swear to be faithful to my bosom friend, Diana Barry, as long as the sun and moon shall endure. Now you say it and put my name in."

I did as I was bid. Not having any surname to append to Carmilla besides the prosaic falsehood her guardian had insisted upon, I spoke only her single name, as sweet to me as a tiny song. I felt a little shiver go through me as I pledged my undying love, and sealed my vow with a soft kiss upon her cheek.

I perceived now something of languor and exhaustion stealing over her, and hastened to bid her good night.

Yet, when I had lain my head upon the pillow, I found that Carmilla tossed and turned ceaselessly. Her discomfort was inescapable and I longed to do her some small service that might set her at her ease.

"Are you well, dearest?" I asked.

"I am well in body although considerably rumpled in spirit," she replied, sinking deep into the eiderdown pillows.

"How can I be of service to you?" I implored.

She hesitated a moment, than said, "You were so very kind to offer to stay by my side tonight, on my first night in a strange place. How honoured I am to be the object of such gallantry! But I fear that I am too accustomed to solitude to sleep soundly with you here. Will you be very hurt, dearest, if I wish to sleep alone behind a locked door?"

I was not a little surprised by this speech, to say nothing of disappointed. But if my friend's comfort required me to deny myself the pleasure of her company, it was perhaps the least I could do to ensure her happiness.

"Of course," I said, pulling back the quilt. "I shall retire to my own chamber and leave you to your slumber."

She held me close in her pretty arms for a moment and whispered in my ear, "Good night, darling, it is very hard to part with you, but good night; tomorrow, but not early, I shall see you again."

She sank back on the pillow with a sigh, and her fine eyes followed me with a fond and melancholy gaze, and she murmured again "Good night, dear friend."

Young people like, and even love, on impulse. I was flattered by the evident, though as yet undeserved, fondness she showed me. I liked the confidence with which she at once received me. We should be bosom friends from this day forward, whatever our sleeping arrangements.

Thus, I betook myself to bed to pore over the adventures of the day in remembrance and thrill to the promise of tomorrow.