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diff --git a/40321-0.txt b/40321-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d4cc18 --- /dev/null +++ b/40321-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2866 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40321 *** + + GRIM TALES. + + BY E. NESBIT. + + + London: + A. D. INNES & CO., + 31 & 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. + 1893. + + + My thanks are due to the Editors of _Longman's Magazine_, _Temple + Bar_, the _Argosy_, _Home Chimes_, and the _Illustrated London + News_, in which periodicals these stories first appeared. + + E. NESBIT. + + [Handwritten note from author: + + 10/4/97. + + Will you just send me + a card to say if you + have any of these, & + if so which? In + great haste E. Nesbit + P.T.O. + + Songs of the Maid Skrine + The Rosetree of Hildesheim Weston + Songs without answer Putnam + Songs of love & death Armour + A Trip to Fairyland Morgan + Arrows of Song + The Pilgrim Jewitt + Flamma Vestalis Mason + Scintilloe Carminis Almy] + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + THE EBONY FRAME 9 + + JOHN CHARRINGTON'S WEDDING 37 + + UNCLE ABRAHAM'S ROMANCE 57 + + THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED 67 + + FROM THE DEAD 77 + + MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE 111 + + THE MASS FOR THE DEAD 145 + + + + +GRIM TALES. + + + + +_THE EBONY FRAME._ + + +To be rich is a luxurious sensation--the more so when you have plumbed +the depths of hard-up-ness as a Fleet Street hack, a picker-up of +unconsidered pars, a reporter, an unappreciated journalist--all callings +utterly inconsistent with one's family feeling and one's direct descent +from the Dukes of Picardy. + +When my Aunt Dorcas died and left me seven hundred a year and a +furnished house in Chelsea, I felt that life had nothing left to offer +except immediate possession of the legacy. Even Mildred Mayhew, whom I +had hitherto regarded as my life's light, became less luminous. I was +not engaged to Mildred, but I lodged with her mother, and I sang duets +with Mildred, and gave her gloves when it would run to it, which was +seldom. She was a dear good girl, and I meant to marry her some day. It +is very nice to feel that a good little woman is thinking of you--it +helps you in your work--and it is pleasant to know she will say "Yes" +when you say "Will you?" + +But, as I say, my legacy almost put Mildred out of my head, especially +as she was staying with friends in the country just then. + +Before the first gloss was off my new mourning I was seated in my aunt's +own armchair in front of the fire in the dining-room of my own house. My +own house! It was grand, but rather lonely. I _did_ think of Mildred +just then. + +The room was comfortably furnished with oak and leather. On the walls +hung a few fairly good oil-paintings, but the space above the +mantelpiece was disfigured by an exceedingly bad print, "The Trial of +Lord William Russell," framed in a dark frame. I got up to look at it. +I had visited my aunt with dutiful regularity, but I never remembered +seeing this frame before. It was not intended for a print, but for an +oil-painting. It was of fine ebony, beautifully and curiously carved. + +I looked at it with growing interest, and when my aunt's housemaid--I +had retained her modest staff of servants--came in with the lamp, I +asked her how long the print had been there. + +"Mistress only bought it two days afore she was took ill," she said; +"but the frame--she didn't want to buy a new one--so she got this out of +the attic. There's lots of curious old things there, sir." + +"Had my aunt had this frame long?" + +"Oh yes, sir. It come long afore I did, and I've been here seven years +come Christmas. There was a picture in it--that's upstairs too--but it's +that black and ugly it might as well be a chimley-back." + +I felt a desire to see this picture. What if it were some priceless old +master in which my aunt's eyes had only seen rubbish? + +Directly after breakfast next morning I paid a visit to the lumber-room. + +It was crammed with old furniture enough to stock a curiosity shop. All +the house was furnished solidly in the early Victorian style, and in +this room everything not in keeping with the "drawing-room suite" ideal +was stowed away. Tables of papier-maché and mother-of-pearl, +straight-backed chairs with twisted feet and faded needlework cushions, +firescreens of old-world design, oak bureaux with brass handles, a +little work-table with its faded moth-eaten silk flutings hanging in +disconsolate shreds: on these and the dust that covered them blazed the +full daylight as I drew up the blinds. I promised myself a good time in +re-enshrining these household gods in my parlour, and promoting the +Victorian suite to the attic. But at present my business was to find the +picture as "black as the chimley-back;" and presently, behind a heap of +hideous still-life studies, I found it. + +Jane the housemaid identified it at once. I took it downstairs carefully +and examined it. No subject, no colour were distinguishable. There was a +splodge of a darker tint in the middle, but whether it was figure or +tree or house no man could have told. It seemed to be painted on a very +thick panel bound with leather. I decided to send it to one of those +persons who pour on rotting family portraits the water of eternal +youth--mere soap and water Mr. Besant tells us it is; but even as I did +so the thought occurred to me to try my own restorative hand at a corner +of it. + +My bath-sponge, soap, and nailbrush vigorously applied for a few seconds +showed me that there was no picture to clean! Bare oak presented itself +to my persevering brush. I tried the other side, Jane watching me with +indulgent interest. The same result. Then the truth dawned on me. Why +was the panel so thick? I tore off the leather binding, and the panel +divided and fell to the ground in a cloud of dust. There were two +pictures--they had been nailed face to face. I leaned them against the +wall, and the next moment I was leaning against it myself. + +For one of the pictures was myself--a perfect portrait--no shade of +expression or turn of feature wanting. Myself--in a cavalier dress, +"love-locks and all!" When had this been done? And how, without my +knowledge? Was this some whim of my aunt's? + +"Lor', sir!" the shrill surprise of Jane at my elbow; "what a lovely +photo it is! Was it a fancy ball, sir?" + +"Yes," I stammered. "I--I don't think I want anything more now. You can +go." + +She went; and I turned, still with my heart beating violently, to the +other picture. This was a woman of the type of beauty beloved of Burne +Jones and Rossetti--straight nose, low brows, full lips, thin hands, +large deep luminous eyes. She wore a black velvet gown. It was a +full-length portrait. Her arms rested on a table beside her, and her +head on her hands; but her face was turned full forward, and her eyes +met those of the spectator bewilderingly. On the table by her were +compasses and instruments whose uses I did not know, books, a goblet, +and a miscellaneous heap of papers and pens. I saw all this afterwards. +I believe it was a quarter of an hour before I could turn my eyes away +from hers. I have never seen any other eyes like hers. They appealed, as +a child's or a dog's do; they commanded, as might those of an empress. + +"Shall I sweep up the dust, sir?" Curiosity had brought Jane back. I +acceded. I turned from her my portrait. I kept between her and the woman +in the black velvet. When I was alone again I tore down "The Trial of +Lord William Russell," and I put the picture of the woman in its strong +ebony frame. + +Then I wrote to a frame-maker for a frame for my portrait. It had so +long lived face to face with this beautiful witch that I had not the +heart to banish it from her presence; from which, it will be perceived +that I am by nature a somewhat sentimental person. + +The new frame came home, and I hung it opposite the fireplace. An +exhaustive search among my aunt's papers showed no explanation of the +portrait of myself, no history of the portrait of the woman with the +wonderful eyes. I only learned that all the old furniture together had +come to my aunt at the death of my great-uncle, the head of the family; +and I should have concluded that the resemblance was only a family one, +if every one who came in had not exclaimed at the "speaking likeness." I +adopted Jane's "fancy ball" explanation. + +And there, one might suppose, the matter of the portraits ended. One +might suppose it, that is, if there were not evidently a good deal more +written here about it. However, to me, then, the matter seemed ended. + +I went to see Mildred; I invited her and her mother to come and stay +with me. I rather avoided glancing at the picture in the ebony frame. I +could not forget, nor remember without singular emotion, the look in +the eyes of that woman when mine first met them. I shrank from meeting +that look again. + +I reorganized the house somewhat, preparing for Mildred's visit. I +turned the dining-room into a drawing-room. I brought down much of the +old-fashioned furniture, and, after a long day of arranging and +re-arranging, I sat down before the fire, and, lying back in a pleasant +languor, I idly raised my eyes to the picture. I met her dark, deep +hazel eyes, and once more my gaze was held fixed as by a strong +magic--the kind of fascination that keeps one sometimes staring for +whole minutes into one's own eyes in the glass. I gazed into her eyes, +and felt my own dilate, pricked with a smart like the smart of tears. + +"I wish," I said, "oh, how I wish you were a woman, and not a picture! +Come down! Ah, come down!" + +I laughed at myself as I spoke; but even as I laughed I held out my +arms. + +I was not sleepy; I was not drunk. I was as wide awake and as sober as +ever was a man in this world. And yet, as I held out my arms, I saw the +eyes of the picture dilate, her lips tremble--if I were to be hanged for +saying it, it is true. Her hands moved slightly, and a sort of flicker +of a smile passed over her face. + +I sprang to my feet. "This won't do," I said, still aloud. "Firelight +does play strange tricks. I'll have the lamp." + +I pulled myself together and made for the bell. My hand was on it, when +I heard a sound behind me, and turned--the bell still unrung. The fire +had burned low, and the corners of the room were deeply shadowed; but, +surely, there--behind the tall worked chair--was something darker than a +shadow. + +"I must face this out," I said, "or I shall never be able to face myself +again." I left the bell, I seized the poker, and battered the dull coals +to a blaze. Then I stepped back resolutely, and looked up at the +picture. The ebony frame was empty! From the shadow of the worked chair +came a silken rustle, and out of the shadow the woman of the picture +was coming--coming towards me. + +I hope I shall never again know a moment of terror so blank and +absolute. I could not have moved or spoken to save my life. Either all +the known laws of nature were nothing, or I was mad. I stood trembling, +but, I am thankful to remember, I stood still, while the black velvet +gown swept across the hearthrug towards me. + +Next moment a hand touched me--a hand soft, warm, and human--and a low +voice said, "You called me. I am here." + +At that touch and that voice the world seemed to give a sort of +bewildering half-turn. I hardly know how to express it, but at once it +seemed not awful--not even unusual--for portraits to become flesh--only +most natural, most right, most unspeakably fortunate. + +I laid my hand on hers. I looked from her to my portrait. I could not +see it in the firelight. + +"We are not strangers," I said. + +"Oh no, not strangers." Those luminous eyes were looking up into +mine--those red lips were near me. With a passionate cry--a sense of +having suddenly recovered life's one great good, that had seemed wholly +lost--I clasped her in my arms. She was no ghost--she was a woman--the +only woman in the world. + +"How long," I said, "O love--how long since I lost you?" + +She leaned back, hanging her full weight on the hands that were clasped +behind my head. + +"How can I tell how long? There is no time in hell," she answered. + +It was not a dream. Ah, no--there are no such dreams. I wish to God +there could be. When in dreams do I see her eyes, hear her voice, feel +her lips against my cheek, hold her hands to my lips, as I did that +night--the supreme night of my life? At first we hardly spoke. It seemed +enough-- + + "... after long grief and pain, + To feel the arms of my true love + Round me once again." + + * * * * * + +It is very difficult to tell this story. There are no words to express +the sense of glad reunion, the complete realization of every hope and +dream of a life, that came upon me as I sat with my hand in hers and +looked into her eyes. + +How could it have been a dream, when I left her sitting in the +straight-backed chair, and went down to the kitchen to tell the maids I +should want nothing more--that I was busy, and did not wish to be +disturbed; when I fetched wood for the fire with my own hands, and, +bringing it in, found her still sitting there--saw the little brown head +turn as I entered, saw the love in her dear eyes; when I threw myself at +her feet and blessed the day I was born, since life had given me this? + +Not a thought of Mildred: all the other things in my life were a +dream--this, its one splendid reality. + +"I am wondering," she said after a while, when we had made such cheer +each of the other as true lovers may after long parting--"I am +wondering how much you remember of our past." + +"I remember nothing," I said. "Oh, my dear lady, my dear sweetheart--I +remember nothing but that I love you--that I have loved you all my +life." + +"You remember nothing--really nothing?" + +"Only that I am yours; that we have both suffered; that----Tell me, my +mistress dear, all that you remember. Explain it all to me. Make me +understand. And yet----No, I don't want to understand. It is enough that +we are together." + +If it was a dream, why have I never dreamed it again? + +She leaned down towards me, her arm lay on my neck, and drew my head +till it rested on her shoulder. "I am a ghost, I suppose," she said, +laughing softly; and her laughter stirred memories which I just grasped +at, and just missed. "But you and I know better, don't we? I will tell +you everything you have forgotten. We loved each other--ah! no, you have +not forgotten that--and when you came back from the war we were to be +married. Our pictures were painted before you went away. You know I was +more learned than women of that day. Dear one, when you were gone they +said I was a witch. They tried me. They said I should be burned. Just +because I had looked at the stars and had gained more knowledge than +they, they must needs bind me to a stake and let me be eaten by the +fire. And you far away!" + +Her whole body trembled and shrank. O love, what dream would have told +me that my kisses would soothe even that memory? + +"The night before," she went on, "the devil did come to me. I was +innocent before--you know it, don't you? And even then my sin was for +you--for you--because of the exceeding love I bore you. The devil came, +and I sold my soul to eternal flame. But I got a good price. I got the +right to come back, through my picture (if any one looking at it wished +for me), as long as my picture stayed in its ebony frame. That frame +was not carved by man's hand. I got the right to come back to you. Oh, +my heart's heart, and another thing I won, which you shall hear anon. +They burned me for a witch, they made me suffer hell on earth. Those +faces, all crowding round, the crackling wood and the smell of the +smoke----" + +"O love! no more--no more." + +"When my mother sat that night before my picture she wept, and cried, +'Come back, my poor lost child!' And I went to her, with glad leaps of +heart. Dear, she shrank from me, she fled, she shrieked and moaned of +ghosts. She had our pictures covered from sight and put again in the +ebony frame. She had promised me my picture should stay always there. +Ah, through all these years your face was against mine." + +She paused. + +"But the man you loved?" + +"You came home. My picture was gone. They lied to you, and you married +another woman; but some day I knew you would walk the world again and +that I should find you." + +"The other gain?" I asked. + +"The other gain," she said slowly, "I gave my soul for. It is this. If +you also will give up your hopes of heaven I can remain a woman, I can +move in your world--I can be your wife. Oh, my dear, after all these +years, at last--at last." + +"If I sacrifice my soul," I said slowly, with no thought of the +imbecility of such talk in our "so-called nineteenth century"--"if I +sacrifice my soul, I win you? Why, love, it's a contradiction in terms. +You _are_ my soul." + +Her eyes looked straight into mine. Whatever might happen, whatever did +happen, whatever may happen, our two souls in that moment met, and +became one. + +"Then you choose--you deliberately choose--to give up your hopes of +heaven for me, as I gave up mine for you?" + +"I decline," I said, "to give up my hope of heaven on any terms. Tell me +what I must do, that you and I may make our heaven here--as now, my dear +love." + +"I will tell you to-morrow," she said. "Be alone here to-morrow +night--twelve is ghost's time, isn't it?--and then I will come out of +the picture and never go back to it. I shall live with you, and die, and +be buried, and there will be an end of me. But we shall live first, my +heart's heart." + +I laid my head on her knee. A strange drowsiness overcame me. Holding +her hand against my cheek, I lost consciousness. When I awoke the grey +November dawn was glimmering, ghost-like, through the uncurtained +window. My head was pillowed on my arm, which rested--I raised my head +quickly--ah! not on my lady's knee, but on the needle-worked cushion of +the straight-backed chair. I sprang to my feet. I was stiff with cold, +and dazed with dreams, but I turned my eyes on the picture. There she +sat, my lady, my dear love. I held out my arms, but the passionate cry I +would have uttered died on my lips. She had said twelve o'clock. Her +lightest word was my law. So I only stood in front of the picture and +gazed into those grey-green eyes till tears of passionate happiness +filled my own. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear, how shall I pass the hours till I hold you +again?" + +No thought, then, of my whole life's completion and consummation being a +dream. + +I staggered up to my room, fell across my bed, and slept heavily and +dreamlessly. When I awoke it was high noon. Mildred and her mother were +coming to lunch. + +I remembered, at one shock, Mildred's coming and her existence. + +Now, indeed, the dream began. + +With a penetrating sense of the futility of any action apart from _her_, +I gave the necessary orders for the reception of my guests. When Mildred +and her mother came I received them with cordiality; but my genial +phrases all seemed to be some one else's. My voice sounded like an echo; +my heart was other where. + +Still, the situation was not intolerable until the hour when afternoon +tea was served in the drawing-room. Mildred and her mother kept the +conversational pot boiling with a profusion of genteel commonplaces, and +I bore it, as one can bear mild purgatories when one is in sight of +heaven. I looked up at my sweetheart in the ebony frame, and I felt that +anything that might happen, any irresponsible imbecility, any bathos of +boredom, was nothing, if, after it all, _she_ came to me again. + +And yet, when Mildred, too, looked at the portrait, and said, "What a +fine lady! One of your flames, Mr. Devigne?" I had a sickening sense of +impotent irritation, which became absolute torture when Mildred--how +could I ever have admired that chocolate-box barmaid style of +prettiness?--threw herself into the high-backed chair, covering the +needlework with her ridiculous flounces, and added, "Silence gives +consent! Who is it, Mr. Devigne? Tell us all about her: I am sure she +has a story." + +Poor little Mildred, sitting there smiling, serene in her confidence +that her every word charmed me--sitting there with her rather pinched +waist, her rather tight boots, her rather vulgar voice--sitting in the +chair where my dear lady had sat when she told me her story! I could not +bear it. + +"Don't sit there," I said; "it's not comfortable!" + +But the girl would not be warned. With a laugh that set every nerve in +my body vibrating with annoyance, she said, "Oh, dear! mustn't I even +sit in the same chair as your black-velvet woman?" + +I looked at the chair in the picture. It _was_ the same; and in her +chair Mildred was sitting. Then a horrible sense of the reality of +Mildred came upon me. Was all this a reality after all? But for +fortunate chance might Mildred have occupied, not only her chair, but +her place in my life? I rose. + +"I hope you won't think me very rude," I said; "but I am obliged to go +out." + +I forget what appointment I alleged. The lie came readily enough. + +I faced Mildred's pouts with the hope that she and her mother would not +wait dinner for me. I fled. In another minute I was safe, alone, under +the chill, cloudy autumn sky--free to think, think, think of my dear +lady. + +I walked for hours along streets and squares; I lived over again and +again every look, word, and hand-touch--every kiss; I was completely, +unspeakably happy. + +Mildred was utterly forgotten: my lady of the ebony frame filled my +heart and soul and spirit. + +As I heard eleven boom through the fog, I turned, and went home. + +When I got to my street, I found a crowd surging through it, a strong +red light filling the air. + +A house was on fire. Mine. + +I elbowed my way through the crowd. + +The picture of my lady--that, at least, I could save! + +As I sprang up the steps, I saw, as in a dream--yes, all this was +_really_ dream-like--I saw Mildred leaning out of the first-floor +window, wringing her hands. + +"Come back, sir," cried a fireman; "we'll get the young lady out right +enough." + +But _my_ lady? I went on up the stairs, cracking, smoking, and as hot +as hell, to the room where her picture was. Strange to say, I only felt +that the picture was a thing we should like to look on through the long +glad wedded life that was to be ours. I never thought of it as being one +with her. + +As I reached the first floor I felt arms round my neck. The smoke was +too thick for me to distinguish features. + +"Save me!" a voice whispered. I clasped a figure in my arms, and, with a +strange dis-ease, bore it down the shaking stairs and out into safety. +It was Mildred. I knew _that_ directly I clasped her. + +"Stand back," cried the crowd. + +"Every one's safe," cried a fireman. + +The flames leaped from every window. The sky grew redder and redder. I +sprang from the hands that would have held me. I leaped up the steps. I +crawled up the stairs. Suddenly the whole horror of the situation came +on me. "_As long as my picture remains in the ebony frame._" What if +picture and frame perished together? + +I fought with the fire, and with my own choking inability to fight with +it. I pushed on. I must save my picture. I reached the drawing-room. + +As I sprang in I saw my lady--I swear it--through the smoke and the +flames, hold out her arms to me--to me--who came too late to save her, +and to save my own life's joy. I never saw her again. + +Before I could reach her, or cry out to her, I felt the floor yield +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. Every stick of my aunt's furniture was destroyed. +My friends pointed out that, as the furniture was heavily insured, the +carelessness of a nightly-studious housemaid had done me no harm. + +No harm! + +That was how I won and lost my only love. + +I deny, with all my soul in the denial, that it was a dream. There are +no such dreams. Dreams of longing and pain there are in plenty, but +dreams of complete, of unspeakable happiness--ah, no--it is the rest of +life that is the dream. + +But if I think that, why have I married Mildred, and grown stout and +dull and prosperous? + +I tell you it is all _this_ that is the dream; my dear lady only is the +reality. And what does it matter what one does in a dream? + + + + +JOHN CHARRINGTON'S WEDDING. + + +No one ever thought that May Forster would marry John Charrington; but +he thought differently, and things which John Charrington intended had a +queer way of coming to pass. He asked her to marry him before he went up +to Oxford. She laughed and refused him. He asked her again next time he +came home. Again she laughed, tossed her dainty blonde head, and again +refused. A third time he asked her; she said it was becoming a confirmed +bad habit, and laughed at him more than ever. + +John was not the only man who wanted to marry her: she was the belle of +our village _coterie,_ and we were all in love with her more or less; +it was a sort of fashion, like heliotrope ties or Inverness capes. +Therefore we were as much annoyed as surprised when John Charrington +walked into our little local Club--we held it in a loft over the +saddler's, I remember--and invited us all to his wedding. + +"Your wedding?" + +"You don't mean it?" + +"Who's the happy fair? When's it to be?" + +John Charrington filled his pipe and lighted it before he replied. Then +he said-- + +"I'm sorry to deprive you fellows of your only joke--but Miss Forster +and I are to be married in September." + +"You don't mean it?" + +"He's got the mitten again, and it's turned his head." + +"No," I said, rising, "I see it's true. Lend me a pistol some one--or a +first-class fare to the other end of Nowhere. Charrington has bewitched +the only pretty girl in our twenty-mile radius. Was it mesmerism, or a +love-potion, Jack?" + +"Neither, sir, but a gift you'll never have--perseverance--and the best +luck a man ever had in this world." + +There was something in his voice that silenced me, and all chaff of the +other fellows failed to draw him further. + +The queer thing about it was that when we congratulated Miss Forster, +she blushed and smiled and dimpled, for all the world as though she were +in love with him, and had been in love with him all the time. Upon my +word, I think she had. Women are strange creatures. + +We were all asked to the wedding. In Brixham every one who was anybody +knew everybody else who was any one. My sisters were, I truly believe, +more interested in the _trousseau_ than the bride herself, and I was to +be best man. The coming marriage was much canvassed at afternoon +tea-tables, and at our little Club over the saddler's, and the question +was always asked: "Does she care for him?" + +I used to ask that question myself in the early days of their +engagement, but after a certain evening in August I never asked it +again. I was coming home from the Club through the churchyard. Our +church is on a thyme-grown hill, and the turf about it is so thick and +soft that one's footsteps are noiseless. + +I made no sound as I vaulted the low lichened wall, and threaded my way +between the tombstones. It was at the same instant that I heard John +Charrington's voice, and saw Her. May was sitting on a low flat +gravestone, her face turned towards the full splendour of the western +sun. Its expression ended, at once and for ever, any question of love +for him; it was transfigured to a beauty I should not have believed +possible, even to that beautiful little face. + +John lay at her feet, and it was his voice that broke the stillness of +the golden August evening. + +"My dear, my dear, I believe I should come back from the dead if you +wanted me!" + +I coughed at once to indicate my presence, and passed on into the shadow +fully enlightened. + +The wedding was to be early in September. Two days before I had to run +up to town on business. The train was late, of course, for we are on the +South-Eastern, and as I stood grumbling with my watch in my hand, whom +should I see but John Charrington and May Forster. They were walking up +and down the unfrequented end of the platform, arm in arm, looking into +each other's eyes, careless of the sympathetic interest of the porters. + +Of course I knew better than to hesitate a moment before burying myself +in the booking-office, and it was not till the train drew up at the +platform, that I obtrusively passed the pair with my Gladstone, and took +the corner in a first-class smoking-carriage. I did this with as good an +air of not seeing them as I could assume. I pride myself on my +discretion, but if John were travelling alone I wanted his company. I +had it. + +"Hullo, old man," came his cheery voice as he swung his bag into my +carriage; "here's luck; I was expecting a dull journey!" + +"Where are you off to?" I asked, discretion still bidding me turn my +eyes away, though I saw, without looking, that hers were red-rimmed. + +"To old Branbridge's," he answered, shutting the door and leaning out +for a last word with his sweetheart. + +"Oh, I wish you wouldn't go, John," she was saying in a low, earnest +voice. "I feel certain something will happen." + +"Do you think I should let anything happen to keep me, and the day after +to-morrow our wedding-day?" + +"Don't go," she answered, with a pleading intensity which would have +sent my Gladstone on to the platform and me after it. But she wasn't +speaking to me. John Charrington was made differently; he rarely changed +his opinions, never his resolutions. + +He only stroked the little ungloved hands that lay on the carriage +door. + +"I must, May. The old boy's been awfully good to me, and now he's dying +I must go and see him, but I shall come home in time for----" the rest +of the parting was lost in a whisper and in the rattling lurch of the +starting train. + +"You're sure to come?" she spoke as the train moved. + +"Nothing shall keep me," he answered; and we steamed out. After he had +seen the last of the little figure on the platform he leaned back in his +corner and kept silence for a minute. + +When he spoke it was to explain to me that his godfather, whose heir he +was, lay dying at Peasmarsh Place, some fifty miles away, and had sent +for John, and John had felt bound to go. + +"I shall be surely back to-morrow," he said, "or, if not, the day after, +in heaps of time. Thank Heaven, one hasn't to get up in the middle of +the night to get married nowadays!" + +"And suppose Mr. Branbridge dies?" + +"Alive or dead I mean to be married on Thursday!" John answered, +lighting a cigar and unfolding the _Times_. + +At Peasmarsh station we said "good-bye," and he got out, and I saw him +ride off; I went on to London, where I stayed the night. + +When I got home the next afternoon, a very wet one, by the way, my +sister greeted me with-- + +"Where's Mr. Charrington?" + +"Goodness knows," I answered testily. Every man, since Cain, has +resented that kind of question. + +"I thought you might have heard from him," she went on, "as you're to +give him away to-morrow." + +"Isn't he back?" I asked, for I had confidently expected to find him at +home. + +"No, Geoffrey,"--my sister Fanny always had a way of jumping to +conclusions, especially such conclusions as were least favourable to her +fellow-creatures--"he has not returned, and, what is more, you may +depend upon it he won't. You mark my words, there'll be no wedding +to-morrow." + +My sister Fanny has a power of annoying me which no other human being +possesses. + +"You mark my words," I retorted with asperity, "you had better give up +making such a thundering idiot of yourself. There'll be more wedding +to-morrow than ever you'll take the first part in." A prophecy which, by +the way, came true. + +But though I could snarl confidently to my sister, I did not feel so +comfortable when, late that night, I, standing on the doorstep of John's +house, heard that he had not returned. I went home gloomily through the +rain. Next morning brought a brilliant blue sky, gold sun, and all such +softness of air and beauty of cloud as go to make up a perfect day. I +woke with a vague feeling of having gone to bed anxious, and of being +rather averse to facing that anxiety in the light of full wakefulness. + +But with my shaving-water came a note from John which relieved my mind +and sent me up to the Forsters' with a light heart. + +May was in the garden. I saw her blue gown through the hollyhocks as the +lodge gates swung to behind me. So I did not go up to the house, but +turned aside down the turfed path. + +"He's written to you too," she said, without preliminary greeting, when +I reached her side. + +"Yes, I'm to meet him at the station at three, and come straight on to +the church." + +Her face looked pale, but there was a brightness in her eyes, and a +tender quiver about the mouth that spoke of renewed happiness. + +"Mr. Branbridge begged him so to stay another night that he had not the +heart to refuse," she went on. "He is so kind, but I wish he hadn't +stayed." + +I was at the station at half-past two. I felt rather annoyed with John. +It seemed a sort of slight to the beautiful girl who loved him, that he +should come as it were out of breath, and with the dust of travel upon +him, to take her hand, which some of us would have given the best years +of our lives to take. + +But when the three o'clock train glided in, and glided out again having +brought no passengers to our little station, I was more than annoyed. +There was no other train for thirty-five minutes; I calculated that, +with much hurry, we might just get to the church in time for the +ceremony; but, oh, what a fool to miss that first train! What other man +could have done it? + +That thirty-five minutes seemed a year, as I wandered round the station +reading the advertisements and the time-tables, and the company's +bye-laws, and getting more and more angry with John Charrington. This +confidence in his own power of getting everything he wanted the minute +he wanted it was leading him too far. I hate waiting. Every one does, +but I believe I hate it more than any one else. The three thirty-five +was late, of course. + +I ground my pipe between my teeth and stamped with impatience as I +watched the signals. Click. The signal went down. Five minutes later I +flung myself into the carriage that I had brought for John. + +"Drive to the church!" I said, as some one shut the door. "Mr. +Charrington hasn't come by this train." + +Anxiety now replaced anger. What had become of the man? Could he have +been taken suddenly ill? I had never known him have a day's illness in +his life. And even so he might have telegraphed. Some awful accident +must have happened to him. The thought that he had played her false +never--no, not for a moment--entered my head. Yes, something terrible +had happened to him, and on me lay the task of telling his bride. I +almost wished the carriage would upset and break my head so that some +one else might tell her, not I, who--but that's nothing to do with his +story. + +It was five minutes to four as we drew up at the churchyard gate. A +double row of eager on-lookers lined the path from lychgate to porch. I +sprang from the carriage and passed up between them. Our gardener had a +good front place near the door. I stopped. + +"Are they waiting still, Byles?" I asked, simply to gain time, for of +course I knew they were by the waiting crowd's attentive attitude. + +"Waiting, sir? No, no, sir; why, it must be over by now." + +"Over! Then Mr. Charrington's come?" + +"To the minute, sir; must have missed you somehow, and, I say, sir," +lowering his voice, "I never see Mr. John the least bit so afore, but my +opinion is he's been drinking pretty free. His clothes was all dusty and +his face like a sheet. I tell you I didn't like the looks of him at all, +and the folks inside are saying all sorts of things. You'll see, +something's gone very wrong with Mr. John, and he's tried liquor. He +looked like a ghost, and in he went with his eyes straight before him, +with never a look or a word for none of us; him that was always such a +gentleman!" + +I had never heard Byles make so long a speech. The crowd in the +churchyard were talking in whispers and getting ready rice and slippers +to throw at the bride and bridegroom. The ringers were ready with their +hands on the ropes to ring out the merry peal as the bride and +bridegroom should come out. + +A murmur from the church announced them; out they came. Byles was right. +John Charrington did not look himself. There was dust on his coat, his +hair was disarranged. He seemed to have been in some row, for there was +a black mark above his eyebrow. He was deathly pale. But his pallor was +not greater than that of the bride, who might have been carved in +ivory--dress, veil, orange blossoms, face and all. + +As they passed out the ringers stooped--there were six of them--and +then, on the ears expecting the gay wedding peal, came the slow tolling +of the passing bell. + +A thrill of horror at so foolish a jest from the ringers passed through +us all. But the ringers themselves dropped the ropes and fled like +rabbits out into the sunlight. The bride shuddered, and grey shadows +came about her mouth, but the bridegroom led her on down the path where +the people stood with the handfuls of rice; but the handfuls were never +thrown, and the wedding-bells never rang. In vain the ringers were urged +to remedy their mistake: they protested with many whispered expletives +that they would see themselves further first. + +In a hush like the hush in the chamber of death the bridal pair passed +into their carriage and its door slammed behind them. + +Then the tongues were loosed. A babel of anger, wonder, conjecture from +the guests and the spectators. + +"If I'd seen his condition, sir," said old Forster to me as we drove +off, "I would have stretched him on the floor of the church, sir, by +Heaven I would, before I'd have let him marry my daughter!" + +Then he put his head out of the window. + +"Drive like hell," he cried to the coachman; "don't spare the horses." + +He was obeyed. We passed the bride's carriage. I forebore to look at it, +and old Forster turned his head away and swore. We reached home before +it. + +We stood in the hall doorway, in the blazing afternoon sun, and in about +half a minute we heard wheels crunching the gravel. When the carriage +stopped in front of the steps old Forster and I ran down. + +"Great Heaven, the carriage is empty! And yet----" + +I had the door open in a minute, and this is what I saw-- + +No sign of John Charrington; and of May, his wife, only a huddled heap +of white satin lying half on the floor of the carriage and half on the +seat. + +"I drove straight here, sir," said the coachman, as the bride's father +lifted her out; "and I'll swear no one got out of the carriage." + +We carried her into the house in her bridal dress and drew back her +veil. I saw her face. Shall I ever forget it? White, white and drawn +with agony and horror, bearing such a look of terror as I have never +seen since except in dreams. And her hair, her radiant blonde hair, I +tell you it was white like snow. + +As we stood, her father and I, half mad with the horror and mystery of +it, a boy came up the avenue--a telegraph boy. They brought the orange +envelope to me. I tore it open. + +"_Mr. Charrington was thrown from the dogcart on his way to the station +at half-past one. Killed on the spot!_" + +And he was married to May Forster in our parish church at _half-past +three_, in presence of half the parish. + +"_I shall be married, dead or alive!_" + +What had passed in that carriage on the homeward drive? No one knows--no +one will ever know. Oh, May! oh, my dear! + +Before a week was over they laid her beside her husband in our little +churchyard on the thyme-covered hill--the churchyard where they had kept +their love-trysts. + +Thus was accomplished John Charrington's wedding. + + + + +_UNCLE ABRAHAM'S ROMANCE._ + + +"No, my dear," my Uncle Abraham answered me, "no--nothing romantic ever +happened to me--unless--but no: that wasn't romantic either----" + +I was. To me, I being eighteen, romance was the world. My Uncle Abraham +was old and lame. I followed the gaze of his faded eyes, and my own +rested on a miniature that hung at his elbow-chair's right hand, a +portrait of a woman, whose loveliness even the miniature-painter's art +had been powerless to disguise--a woman with large lustrous eyes and +perfect oval face. + +I rose to look at it. I had looked at it a hundred times. Often enough +in my baby days I had asked, "Who's that, uncle?" always receiving the +same answer: "A lady who died long ago, my dear." + +As I looked again at the picture, I asked, "Was she like this?" + +"Who?" + +"Your--your romance!" + +Uncle Abraham looked hard at me. "Yes," he said at last. "Very--very +like." + +I sat down on the floor by him. "Won't you tell me about her?" + +"There's nothing to tell," he said. "I think it was fancy, mostly, and +folly; but it's the realest thing in my long life, my dear." + +A long pause. I kept silence. "Hurry no man's cattle" is a good motto, +especially with old people. + +"I remember," he said in the dreamy tone always promising so well to the +ear that a story delighteth--"I remember, when I was a young man, I was +very lonely indeed. I never had a sweetheart. I was always lame, my +dear, from quite a boy; and the girls used to laugh at me." + +He sighed. Presently he went on-- + +"And so I got into the way of mooning off by myself in lonely places, +and one of my favourite walks was up through our churchyard, which was +set high on a hill in the middle of the marsh country. I liked that +because I never met any one there. It's all over, years ago. I was a +silly lad; but I couldn't bear of a summer evening to hear a rustle and +a whisper from the other side of the hedge, or maybe a kiss as I went +by. + +"Well, I used to go and sit all by myself in the churchyard, which was +always sweet with thyme, and quite light (on account of its being so +high) long after the marshes were dark. I used to watch the bats +flitting about in the red light, and wonder why God didn't make every +one's legs straight and strong, and wicked follies like that. But by the +time the light was gone I had always worked it off, so to speak, and +could go home quietly and say my prayers without any bitterness. + +"Well, one hot night in August, when I had watched the sunset fade and +the crescent moon grow golden, I was just stepping over the low stone +wall of the churchyard when I heard a rustle behind me. I turned round, +expecting it to be a rabbit or a bird. It was a woman." + +He looked at the portrait. So did I. + +"Yes," he said, "that was her very face. I was a bit scared and said +something--I don't know what--and she laughed and said, 'Did I think she +was a ghost?' and I answered back, and I stayed talking to her over the +churchyard wall till 'twas quite dark, and the glowworms were out in the +wet grass all along the way home. + +"Next night I saw her again; and the next night and the next. Always at +twilight time; and if I passed any lovers leaning on the stiles in the +marshes it was nothing to me now." + +Again my uncle paused. "It's very long ago," he said slowly, "and I'm an +old man; but I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was +always lame, and the girls used to laugh at me. I don't know how long it +went on--you don't measure time in dreams--but at last your grandfather +said I looked as if I had one foot in the grave, and he would be sending +me to stay with our kin at Bath and take the waters. I had to go. I +could not tell my father why I would rather had died than go." + +"What was her name, uncle?" I asked. + +"She never would tell me her name, and why should she? I had names +enough in my heart to call her by. Marriage? My dear, even then I knew +marriage was not for me. But I met her night after night, always in our +churchyard where the yew-trees were and the lichened gravestones. It was +there we always met and always parted. The last time was the night +before I went away. She was very sad, and dearer than life itself. And +she said-- + +"'If you come back before the new moon I shall meet you here just as +usual. But if the new moon shines on this grave and you are not +here--you will never see me again any more.' + +"She laid her hand on the yellow lichened tomb against which we had been +leaning. It was an old weather-worn stone, and bore on it the +inscription-- + + 'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, + _Ob._ 1713.' + +"'I shall be here.' I said. + +"'I mean it,' she said, with deep and sudden seriousness, 'it is no +fancy. You will be here when the new moon shines?'" + +"I promised, and after a while we parted. + +"I had been with my kinsfolk at Bath nearly a month. I was to go home on +the next day, when, turning over a case in the parlour, I came upon that +miniature. I could not speak for a minute. At last I said, with dry +tongue, and heart beating to the tune of heaven and hell-- + +"'Who is this?' + +"'That?' said my aunt. 'Oh! she was betrothed to one of our family many +years ago, but she died before the wedding. They say she was a bit of a +witch. A handsome one, wasn't she?' + +"I looked again at the face, the lips, the eyes of my dear and lovely +love, whom I was to meet to-morrow night when the new moon shone on that +tomb in our churchyard. + +"'Did you say she was dead?' I asked, and I hardly knew my own voice. + +"'Years and years ago! Her name's on the back and her date----' + +"I took the portrait from its faded red-velvet bed, and read on the +back--'SUSANNAH KINGSNORTH, _Ob._ 1713.' + +"That was in 1813." My uncle stopped short. + +"What happened?" I asked breathlessly. + +"I believe I had a fit," my uncle answered slowly; "at any rate, I was +very ill." + +"And you missed the new moon on the grave?" + +"I missed the new moon on the grave." + +"And you never saw her again?" + +"I never saw her again----" + +"But, uncle, do you really believe?--Can the dead?--was she--did +you----" + +My uncle took out his pipe and filled it. + +"It's a long time ago," he said, "a many, many years. Old man's tales, +my dear! Old man's tales! Don't you take any notice of them." + +He lighted the pipe, puffed silently a moment or two, and then added: +"But I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was lame, and the +girls used to laugh at me." + + + + +_THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED._ + + +He was waiting for her; he had been waiting an hour and a half in a +dusty suburban lane, with a row of big elms on one side and some +eligible building sites on the other--and far away to the south-west the +twinkling yellow lights of the Crystal Palace. It was not quite like a +country lane, for it had a pavement and lamp-posts, but it was not a bad +place for a meeting all the same; and farther up, towards the cemetery, +it was really quite rural, and almost pretty, especially in twilight. +But twilight had long deepened into night, and still he waited. He loved +her, and he was engaged to be married to her, with the complete +disapproval of every reasonable person who had been consulted. And this +half-clandestine meeting was to-night to take the place of the +grudgingly sanctioned weekly interview--because a certain rich uncle was +visiting at her house, and her mother was not the woman to acknowledge +to a moneyed uncle, who might "go off" any day, a match so deeply +ineligible as hers with him. + +So he waited for her, and the chill of an unusually severe May evening +entered into his bones. + +The policeman passed him with but a surly response to his "Good night." +The bicyclists went by him like grey ghosts with fog-horns; and it was +nearly ten o'clock, and she had not come. + +He shrugged his shoulders and turned towards his lodgings. His road led +him by her house--desirable, commodious, semi-detached--and he walked +slowly as he neared it. She might, even now, be coming out. But she was +not. There was no sign of movement about the house, no sign of life, no +lights even in the windows. And her people were not early people. + +He paused by the gate, wondering. + +Then he noticed that the front door was open--wide open--and the street +lamp shone a little way into the dark hall. There was something about +all this that did not please him--that scared him a little, indeed. The +house had a gloomy and deserted air. It was obviously impossible that it +harboured a rich uncle. The old man must have left early. In which +case---- + +He walked up the path of patent-glazed tiles, and listened. No sign of +life. He passed into the hall. There was no light anywhere. Where was +everybody, and why was the front door open? There was no one in the +drawing-room, the dining-room and the study (nine feet by seven) were +equally blank. Every one was out, evidently. But the unpleasant sense +that he was, perhaps, not the first casual visitor to walk through that +open door impelled him to look through the house before he went away +and closed it after him. So he went upstairs, and at the door of the +first bedroom he came to he struck a wax match, as he had done in the +sitting-rooms. Even as he did so he felt that he was not alone. And he +was prepared to see _something_; but for what he saw he was not +prepared. For what he saw lay on the bed, in a white loose gown--and it +was his sweetheart, and its throat was cut from ear to ear. He doesn't +know what happened then, nor how he got downstairs and into the street; +but he got out somehow, and the policeman found him in a fit, under the +lamp-post at the corner of the street. He couldn't speak when they +picked him up, and he passed the night in the police-cells, because the +policeman had seen plenty of drunken men before, but never one in a fit. + +The next morning he was better, though still very white and shaky. But +the tale he told the magistrate was convincing, and they sent a couple +of constables with him to her house. + +There was no crowd about it as he had fancied there would be, and the +blinds were not down. + +As he stood, dazed, in front of the door, it opened, and she came out. + +He held on to the door-post for support. + +"_She's_ all right, you see," said the constable, who had found him +under the lamp. "I told you you was drunk, but you _would_ know +best----" + +When he was alone with her he told her--not all--for that would not bear +telling--but how he had come into the commodious semi-detached, and how +he had found the door open and the lights out, and that he had been into +that long back room facing the stairs, and had seen something--in even +trying to hint at which he turned sick and broke down and had to have +brandy given him. + +"But, my dearest," she said, "I dare say the house was dark, for we were +all at the Crystal Palace with my uncle, and no doubt the door was open, +for the maids _will_ run out if they're left. But you could not have +been in that room, because I locked it when I came away, and the key was +in my pocket. I dressed in a hurry and I left all my odds and ends lying +about." + +"I know," he said; "I saw a green scarf on a chair, and some long brown +gloves, and a lot of hairpins and ribbons, and a prayer-book, and a lace +handkerchief on the dressing-table. Why, I even noticed the almanack on +the mantelpiece--October 21. At least it couldn't be that, because this +is May. And yet it was. Your almanac is at October 21, isn't it?" + +"No, of course it isn't," she said, smiling rather anxiously; "but all +the other things were just as you say. You must have had a dream, or a +vision, or something." + +He was a very ordinary, commonplace, City young man, and he didn't +believe in visions, but he never rested day or night till he got his +sweetheart and her mother away from that commodious semi-detached, and +settled them in a quite distant suburb. In the course of the removal he +incidentally married her, and the mother went on living with them. + +His nerves must have been a good bit shaken, because he was very queer +for a long time, and was always inquiring if any one had taken the +desirable semi-detached; and when an old stockbroker with a family took +it, he went the length of calling on the old gentleman and imploring him +by all that he held dear, not to live in that fatal house. + +"Why?" said the stockbroker, not unnaturally. + +And then he got so vague and confused, between trying to tell why and +trying not to tell why, that the stockbroker showed him out, and thanked +his God he was not such a fool as to allow a lunatic to stand in the way +of his taking that really remarkably cheap and desirable semi-detached +residence. + +Now the curious and quite inexplicable part of this story is that when +she came down to breakfast on the morning of the 22nd of October she +found him looking like death, with the morning paper in his hand. He +caught hers--he couldn't speak, and pointed to the paper. And there she +read that on the night of the 21st a young lady, the stockbroker's +daughter, had been found, with her throat cut from ear to ear, on the +bed in the long back bedroom facing the stairs of that desirable +semi-detached. + + + + +_FROM THE DEAD._ + + +I. + +"But true or not true, your brother is a scoundrel. No man--no decent +man--tells such things." + +"He did not tell me. How dare you suppose it? I found the letter in his +desk; and she being my friend and you being her lover, I never thought +there could be any harm in my reading her letter to my brother. Give me +back the letter. I was a fool to tell you." + +Ida Helmont held out her hand for the letter. + +"Not yet," I said, and I went to the window. The dull red of a London +sunset burned on the paper, as I read in the quaint, dainty handwriting +I knew so well and had kissed so often-- + + "Dear, I do--I do love you; but it's impossible. I must marry + Arthur. My honour is engaged. If he would only set me free--but he + never will. He loves me so foolishly. But as for me, it is you I + love--body, soul, and spirit. There is no one in my heart but you. I + think of you all day, and dream of you all night. And we must part. + And that is the way of the world. Good-bye!--Yours, yours, yours, + + ELVIRE." + +I had seen the handwriting, indeed, often enough. But the passion +written there was new to me. That I had not seen. + +I turned from the window wearily. My sitting-room looked strange to me. +There were my books, my reading-lamp, my untasted dinner still on the +table, as I had left it when I rose to dissemble my surprise at Ida +Helmont's visit--Ida Helmont, who now sat in my easy-chair looking at me +quietly. + +"Well--do you give me no thanks?" + +"You put a knife in my heart, and then ask for thanks?" + +"Pardon me," she said, throwing up her chin. "I have done nothing but +show you the truth. For that one should expect no gratitude--may I ask, +out of mere curiosity, what you intend to do?" + +"Your brother will tell you----" + +She rose suddenly, pale to the lips. + +"You will not tell my brother?" she began. + +"That you have read his private letters? Certainly not!" + +She came towards me--her gold hair flaming in the sunset light. + +"Why are you so angry with me?" she said. "Be reasonable. What else +could I do?" + +"I don't know." + +"Would it have been right not to tell you?" + +"I don't know. I only know that you've put the sun out, and I haven't +got used to the dark yet." + +"Believe me," she said, coming still nearer to me, and laying her hands +in the lightest light touch on my shoulders, "believe me, she never +loved you." + +There was a softness in her tone that irritated and stimulated me. I +moved gently back, and her hands fell by her sides. + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "I have behaved very badly. You were quite +right to come, and I am not ungrateful. Will you post a letter for me?" + +I sat down and wrote-- + + "I give you back your freedom. The only gift of mine that can + please you now. + + "ARTHUR." + +I held the sheet out to Miss Helmont, and, when she had glanced at it, I +sealed, stamped, and addressed it. + +"Good-bye," I said then, and gave her the letter. As the door closed +behind her I sank into my chair, and I am not ashamed to say that I +cried like a child or a fool over my lost plaything--the little +dark-haired woman who loved some one else with "body, soul, and +spirit." + +I did not hear the door open or any foot on the floor, and therefore I +started when a voice behind me said-- + +"Are you so very unhappy? Oh, Arthur, don't think I am not sorry for +you!" + +"I don't want any one to be sorry for me, Miss Helmont," I said. + +She was silent a moment. Then, with a quick, sudden, gentle movement she +leaned down and kissed my forehead--and I heard the door softly close. +Then I knew that the beautiful Miss Helmont loved me. + +At first that thought only fleeted by--a light cloud against a grey +sky--but the next day reason woke, and said-- + +"Was Miss Helmont speaking the truth? Was it possible that----?" + +I determined to see Elvire, to know from her own lips whether by happy +fortune this blow came, not from her, but from a woman in whom love +might have killed honesty. + +I walked from Hampstead to Gower Street. As I trod its long length, I +saw a figure in pink come out of one of the houses. It was Elvire. She +walked in front of me to the corner of Store Street. There she met Oscar +Helmont. They turned and met me face to face, and I saw all I needed to +see. They loved each other. Ida Helmont had spoken the truth. I bowed +and passed on. Before six months were gone they were married, and before +a year was over I had married Ida Helmont. + +What did it I don't know. Whether it was remorse for having, even for +half a day, dreamed that she could be so base as to forge a lie to gain +a lover, or whether it was her beauty, or the sweet flattery of the +preference of a woman who had half her acquaintances at her feet, I +don't know; anyhow, my thoughts turned to her as to their natural home. +My heart, too, took that road, and before very long I loved her as I had +never loved Elvire. Let no one doubt that I loved her--as I shall never +love again, please God! + +There never was any one like her. She was brave and beautiful, witty and +wise, and beyond all measure adorable. She was the only woman in the +world. There was a frankness--a largeness of heart--about her that made +all other women seem small and contemptible. She loved me and I +worshipped her. I married her, I stayed with her for three golden weeks, +and then I left her. Why? + +Because she told me the truth. It was one night--late--we had sat all +the evening in the verandah of our seaside lodging watching the +moonlight on the water and listening to the soft sound of the sea on the +sand. I have never been so happy; I never shall be happy any more, I +hope. + +"Heart's heart," she said, leaning her gold head against my shoulder, +"how much do you love me?" + +"How much?" + +"Yes--how much? I want to know what place it is I hold in your heart. Am +I more to you than any one else?" + +"My love!" + +"More than yourself?" + +"More than my life!" + +"I believe you," she said. Then she drew a long breath, and took my +hands in hers. "It can make no difference. Nothing in heaven or earth +can come between us now." + +"Nothing," I said. "But, sweet, my wife, what is it?" + +For she was deathly pale. + +"I must tell you," she said; "I cannot hide anything now from you, +because I am yours--body, soul, and spirit." + +The phrase was an echo that stung me. + +The moonlight shone on her gold hair, her warm, soft, gold hair, and on +her pale face. + +"Arthur," she said, "you remember my coming to you at Hampstead with +that letter?" + +"Yes, my sweet, and I remember how you----" + +"Arthur!"--she spoke fast and low--"Arthur, that letter was a forgery. +She never wrote it. I----" + +She stopped, for I had risen and flung her hands from me, and stood +looking at her. God help me! I thought it was anger at the lie I felt. I +know now it was only wounded vanity that smarted in me. That _I_ should +have been tricked, that _I_ should have been deceived, that _I_ should +have been led on to make a fool of myself! That _I_ should have married +the woman who had befooled me! At that moment she was no longer the wife +I adored--she was only a woman who had forged a letter and tricked me +into marrying her. + +I spoke; I denounced her; I said I would never speak to her again. I +felt it was rather creditable in me to be so angry. I said I would have +no more to do with a liar and forger. + +I don't know whether I expected her to creep to my knees and implore +forgiveness. I think I had some vague idea that I could by-and-by +consent with dignity to forgive and forget. I did not mean what I said. +No, no; I did not mean a word of it. While I was saying it I was longing +for her to weep and fall at my feet, that I might raise her and hold her +in my arms again. + +But she did not fall at my feet; she stood quietly looking at me. + +"Arthur," she said, as I paused for breath, "let me explain--she--I----" + +"There is nothing to explain," I said hotly, still with that foolish +sense of there being something rather noble in my indignation, as one +feels when one calls one's self a miserable sinner. "You are a liar and +forger, and that is enough for me. I will never speak to you again. You +have wrecked my life----" + +"Do you mean that?" she said, interrupting me, and leaning forward to +look at me. Tears lay on her cheeks, but she was not crying now. + +I hesitated. I longed to take her in my arms and say--"Lay your head +here, my darling, and cry here, and know how I love you." + +But instead I kept silence. + +"_Do_ you mean it?" she persisted. + +Then she put her hand on my arm. I longed to clasp it and draw her to +me. + +Instead, I shook it off, and said-- + +"Mean it? Yes--of course I mean it. Don't touch me, please! You have +ruined my life." + +She turned away without a word, went into our room, and shut the door. + +I longed to follow her, to tell her that if there was anything to +forgive I forgave it. + +Instead, I went out on the beach, and walked away under the cliffs. + +The moonlight and the solitude, however, presently brought me to a +better mind. Whatever she had done had been done for love of me--I knew +that. I would go home and tell her so--tell her that whatever she had +done she was my dearest life, my heart's one treasure. True, my ideal of +her was shattered, but, even as she was, what was the whole world of +women compared to her? I hurried back, but in my resentment and evil +temper I had walked far, and the way back was very long. I had been +parted from her for three hours by the time I opened the door of the +little house where we lodged. The house was dark and very still. I +slipped off my shoes and crept up the narrow stairs, and opened the door +of our room quite softly. Perhaps she would have cried herself to sleep, +and I would lean over her and waken her with my kisses and beg her to +forgive me. Yes, it had come to that now. + +I went into the room--I went towards the bed. She was not there. She was +not in the room, as one glance showed me. She was not in the house, as I +knew in two minutes. When I had wasted a priceless hour in searching the +town for her, I found a note on the dressing-table-- + +"Good-bye! Make the best of what is left of your life. I will spoil it +no more." + +She was gone, utterly gone. I rushed to town by the earliest morning +train, only to find that her people knew nothing of her. Advertisement +failed. Only a tramp said he had met a white lady on the cliff, and a +fisherman brought me a handkerchief marked with her name that he had +found on the beach. + +I searched the country far and wide, but I had to go back to London at +last, and the months went by. I won't say much about those months, +because even the memory of that suffering turns me faint and sick at +heart. The police and detectives and the Press failed me utterly. Her +friends could not help me, and were, moreover, wildly indignant with me, +especially her brother, now living very happily with my first love. + +I don't know how I got through those long weeks and months. I tried to +write; I tried to read; I tried to live the life of a reasonable human +being. But it was impossible. I could not endure the companionship of my +kind. Day and night I almost saw her face--almost heard her voice. I +took long walks in the country, and her figure was always just round +the next turn of the road--in the next glade of the wood. But I never +quite saw her--never quite heard her. I believe I was not altogether +sane at that time. At last, one morning as I was setting out for one of +those long walks that had no goal but weariness, I met a telegraph boy, +and took the red envelope from his hand. + +On the pink paper inside was written-- + + "Come to me at once. I am dying. You must come.--IDA.--Apinshaw + Farm, Mellor, Derbyshire." + +There was a train at twelve to Marple, the nearest station. I took it. I +tell you there are some things that cannot be written about. My life for +those long months was one of them, that journey was another. What had +her life been for those months? That question troubled me, as one is +troubled in every nerve at the sight of a surgical operation or a wound +inflicted on a being dear to one. But the overmastering sensation was +joy--intense, unspeakable joy. She was alive! I should see her again. I +took out the telegram and looked at it: "I am dying." I simply did not +believe it. She could not die till she had seen me. And if she had lived +all those months without me, she could live now, when I was with her +again, when she knew of the hell I had endured apart from her, and the +heaven of our meeting. She must live. I would not let her die. + +There was a long drive over bleak hills. Dark, jolting, infinitely +wearisome. At last we stopped before a long, low building, where one or +two lights gleamed faintly. I sprang out. + +The door opened. A blaze of light made me blink and draw back. A woman +was standing in the doorway. + +"Art thee Arthur Marsh?" she said. + +"Yes." + +"Then, th'art ower late. She's dead." + + +II. + +I went into the house, walked to the fire, and held out my hands to it +mechanically, for, though the night was May, I was cold to the bone. +There were some folks standing round the fire and lights flickering. +Then an old woman came forward with the northern instinct of +hospitality. + +"Thou'rt tired," she said, "and mazed-like. Have a sup o' tea." + +I burst out laughing. It was too funny. I had travelled two hundred +miles to see _her_; and she was dead, and they offered me tea. They drew +back from me as if I had been a wild beast, but I could not stop +laughing. Then a hand was laid on my shoulder, and some one led me into +a dark room, lighted a lamp, set me in a chair, and sat down opposite +me. It was a bare parlour, coldly furnished with rush chairs and +much-polished tables and presses. I caught my breath, and grew suddenly +grave, and looked at the woman who sat opposite me. + +"I was Miss Ida's nurse," said she; "and she told me to send for you. +Who are you?" + +"Her husband----" + +The woman looked at me with hard eyes, where intense surprise struggled +with resentment. "Then, may God forgive you!" she said. "What you've +done I don't know; but it'll be 'ard work forgivin' _you_--even for +_Him_!" + +"Tell me," I said, "my wife----" + +"Tell you?" The bitter contempt in the woman's tone did not hurt me; +what was it to the self-contempt that had gnawed my heart all these +months? "Tell you? Yes, I'll tell you. Your wife was that ashamed of +you, she never so much as told me she was married. She let me think +anything I pleased sooner than that. She just come 'ere an' she said, +'Nurse, take care of me, for I am in mortal trouble. And don't let them +know where I am,' says she. An' me bein' well married to an honest man, +and well-to-do here, I was able to do it, by the blessing." + +"Why didn't you send for me before?" It was a cry of anguish wrung from +me. + +"I'd _never_ 'a sent for you--it was _her_ doin'. Oh, to think as God +A'mighty's made men able to measure out such-like pecks o' trouble for +us womenfolk! Young man, I dunno what you did to 'er to make 'er leave +you; but it muster bin something cruel, for she loved the ground you +walked on. She useter sit day after day, a-lookin' at your picture an' +talkin' to it an' kissin' of it, when she thought I wasn't takin' no +notice, and cryin' till she made me cry too. She useter cry all night +'most. An' one day, when I tells 'er to pray to God to 'elp 'er through +'er trouble, she outs with _your_ putty face on a card, she doez, an', +says she, with her poor little smile, 'That's my god, Nursey,' she +says." + +"Don't!" I said feebly, putting out my hands to keep off the torture; +"not any more, not now." + +"_Don't?_" she repeated. She had risen and was walking up and down the +room with clasped hands--"don't, indeed! No, I won't; but I shan't +forget you! I tell you I've had you in my prayers time and again, when I +thought you'd made a light-o'-love o' my darling. I shan't drop you +outer them now I know she was your own wedded wife as you chucked away +when you'd tired of her, and left 'er to eat 'er 'art out with longin' +for you. Oh! I pray to God above us to pay you scot and lot for all you +done to 'er! You killed my pretty. The price will be required of you, +young man, even to the uttermost farthing! O God in heaven, make him +suffer! Make him feel it!" + +She stamped her foot as she passed me. I stood quite still; I bit my lip +till I tasted the blood hot and salt on my tongue. + +"She was nothing to you!" cried the woman, walking faster up and down +between the rush chairs and the table; "any fool can see that with half +an eye. You didn't love her, so you don't feel nothin' now; but some day +you'll care for some one, and then you shall know what she felt--if +there's any justice in heaven!" + +I, too, rose, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall. I +heard her words without understanding them. + +"Can't you feel _nothin'_? Are you mader stone? Come an' look at 'er +lyin' there so quiet. She don't fret arter the likes o' you no more now. +She won't sit no more a-lookin' outer winder an' sayin' nothin'--only +droppin' 'er tears one by one, slow, slow on her lap. Come an' see 'er; +come an' see what you done to my pretty--an' then ye can go. Nobody +wants you 'ere. _She_ don't want you now. But p'r'aps you'd like to see +'er safe underground fust? I'll be bound you'll put a big slab on +'er--to make sure _she_ don't rise again." + +I turned on her. Her thin face was white with grief and impotent rage. +Her claw-like hands were clenched. + +"Woman," I said, "have mercy!" + +She paused, and looked at me. + +"Eh?" she said. + +"Have mercy!" I said again. + +"Mercy? You should 'a thought o' that before. You 'adn't no mercy on +'er. She loved you--she died lovin' you. An' if I wasn't a Christian +woman, I'd kill you for it--like the rat you are! That I would, though I +'ad to swing for it arterwards." + +I caught the woman's hands and held them fast, in spite of her +resistance. + +"Don't you understand?" I said savagely. "We loved each other. She died +loving me. I have to live loving her. And it's _her_ you pity. I tell +you it was all a mistake--a stupid, stupid mistake. Take me to her, and +for pity's sake let me be left alone with her." + +She hesitated; then said in a voice only a shade less hard-- + +"Well, come along, then." + +We moved towards the door. As she opened it a faint, weak cry fell on my +ear. My heart stood still. + +"What's that?" I asked, stopping on the threshold. + +"Your child," she said shortly. + +That, too! Oh, my love! oh, my poor love! All these long months! + +"She allus said she'd send for you when she'd got over her trouble," the +woman said as we climbed the stairs. "'I'd like him to see his little +baby, nurse,' she says; 'our little baby. It'll be all right when the +baby's born,' she says. 'I know he'll come to me then. You'll see.' And +I never said nothin'--not thinkin' you'd come if she was your leavins, +and not dreamin' as you could be 'er husband an' could stay away from +'er a hour--her bein' as she was. Hush!" + +She drew a key from her pocket and fitted it to the lock. She opened the +door and I followed her in. It was a large, dark room, full of +old-fashioned furniture. There were wax candles in brass candlesticks +and a smell of lavender. + +The big four-post bed was covered with white. + +"My lamb--my poor pretty lamb!" said the woman, beginning to cry for the +first time as she drew back the sheet. "Don't she look beautiful?" + +I stood by the bedside. I looked down on my wife's face. Just so I had +seen it lie on the pillow beside me in the early morning when the wind +and the dawn came up from beyond the sea. She did not look like one +dead. Her lips were still red, and it seemed to me that a tinge of +colour lay on her cheek. It seemed to me, too, that if I kissed her she +would wake, and put her slight hand on my neck, and lay her cheek +against mine--and that we should tell each other everything, and weep +together, and understand and be comforted. + +So I stooped and laid my lips to hers as the old nurse stole from the +room. + +But the red lips were like marble, and she did not wake. She will not +wake now ever any more. + +I tell you again there are some things that cannot be written. + + +III. + +I lay that night in a big room filled with heavy, dark furniture, in a +great four-poster hung with heavy, dark curtains--a bed the counterpart +of that other bed from whose side they had dragged me at last. + +They fed me, I believe, and the old nurse was kind to me. I think she +saw now that it is not the dead who are to be pitied most. + +I lay at last in the big, roomy bed, and heard the household noises grow +fewer and die out, the little wail of my child sounding latest. They had +brought the child to me, and I had held it in my arms, and bowed my head +over its tiny face and frail fingers. I did not love it then. I told +myself it had cost me her life. But my heart told me that it was I who +had done that. The tall clock at the stairhead sounded the +hours--eleven, twelve, one, and still I could not sleep. The room was +dark and very still. + +I had not been able to look at my life quietly. I had been full of the +intoxication of grief--a real drunkenness, more merciful than the calm +that comes after. + +Now I lay still as the dead woman in the next room, and looked at what +was left of my life. I lay still, and thought, and thought, and thought. +And in those hours I tasted the bitterness of death. It must have been +about two that I first became aware of a slight sound that was not the +ticking of the clock. I say I first became aware, and yet I knew +perfectly that I had heard that sound more than once before, and had yet +determined not to hear it, _because it came from the next room_--the +room where the corpse lay. + +And I did not wish to hear that sound, because I knew it meant that I +was nervous--miserably nervous--a coward and a brute. It meant that I, +having killed my wife as surely as though I had put a knife in her +breast, had now sunk so low as to be afraid of her dead body--the dead +body that lay in the room next to mine. The heads of the beds were +placed against the same wall; and from that wall I had fancied I heard +slight, slight, almost inaudible sounds. So when I say that I became +aware of them I mean that I at last heard a sound so distinct as to +leave no room for doubt or question. It brought me to a sitting position +in the bed, and the drops of sweat gathered heavily on my forehead and +fell on my cold hands as I held my breath and listened. + +I don't know how long I sat there--there was no further sound--and at +last my tense muscles relaxed, and I fell back on the pillow. + +"You fool!" I said to myself; "dead or alive, is she not your darling, +your heart's heart? Would you not go near to die of joy if she came to +you? Pray God to let her spirit come back and tell you she forgives +you!" + +"I wish she would come," myself answered in words, while every fibre of +my body and mind shrank and quivered in denial. + +I struck a match, lighted a candle, and breathed more freely as I looked +at the polished furniture--the commonplace details of an ordinary room. +Then I thought of her, lying alone, so near me, so quiet under the white +sheet. She was dead; she would not wake or move. But suppose she did +move? Suppose she turned back the sheet and got up, and walked across +the floor and turned the door-handle? + +As I thought it, I heard--plainly, unmistakably heard--the door of the +chamber of death open slowly--I heard slow steps in the passage, slow, +heavy steps--I heard the touch of hands on my door outside, uncertain +hands, that felt for the latch. + +Sick with terror, I lay clenching the sheet in my hands. + +I knew well enough what would come in when that door opened--that door +on which my eyes were fixed. I dreaded to look, yet I dared not turn +away my eyes. The door opened slowly, slowly, slowly, and the figure of +my dead wife came in. It came straight towards the bed, and stood at the +bed-foot in its white grave-clothes, with the white bandage under its +chin. There was a scent of lavender. Its eyes were wide open and looked +at me with love unspeakable. + +I could have shrieked aloud. + +My wife spoke. It was the same dear voice that I had loved so to hear, +but it was very weak and faint now; and now I trembled as I listened. + +"You aren't afraid of me, darling, are you, though I am dead? I heard +all you said to me when you came, but I couldn't answer. But now I've +come back from the dead to tell you. I wasn't really so bad as you +thought me. Elvire had told me she loved Oscar. I only wrote the letter +to make it easier for you. I was too proud to tell you when you were so +angry, but I am not proud any more now. You'll love me again now, won't +you, now I'm dead? One always forgives dead people." + +The poor ghost's voice was hollow and faint. Abject terror paralyzed me. +I could answer nothing. + +"Say you forgive me," the thin, monotonous voice went on; "say you love +me again." + +I had to speak. Coward as I was, I did manage to stammer-- + +"Yes; I love you. I have always loved you, God help me!" + +The sound of my own voice reassured me, and I ended more firmly than I +began. The figure by the bed swayed a little unsteadily. + +"I suppose," she said wearily, "you would be afraid, now I am dead, if I +came round to you and kissed you?" + +She made a movement as though she would have come to me. + +Then I did shriek aloud, again and again, and covered my face with the +sheet, and wound it round my head and body, and held it with all my +force. + +There was a moment's silence. Then I heard my door close, and then a +sound of feet and of voices, and I heard something heavy fall. I +disentangled my head from the sheet. My room was empty. Then reason came +back to me. I leaped from the bed. + +"Ida, my darling, come back! I am not afraid! I love you! Come back! +Come back!" + +I sprang to my door and flung it open. Some one was bringing a light +along the passage. On the floor, outside the door of the death-chamber, +was a huddled heap--the corpse, in its grave-clothes. Dead, dead, dead. + + * * * * * + +She is buried in Mellor churchyard, and there is no stone over her. + +Now, whether it was catalepsy--as the doctors said--or whether my love +came back even from the dead to me who loved her, I shall never know; +but this I know--that, if I had held out my arms to her as she stood at +my bed-foot--if I had said, "Yes, even from the grave, my darling--from +hell itself, come back, come back to me!"--if I had had room in my +coward's heart for anything but the unreasoning terror that killed love +in that hour, I should not now be here alone. I shrank from her--I +feared her--I would not take her to my heart. And now she will not come +to me any more. + +Why do I go on living? + +You see, there is the child. It is four years old now, and it has never +spoken and never smiled. + + + + +_MAN-SIZE IN MARBLE._ + + +Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I do not expect +people to believe it. Nowadays a "rational explanation" is required +before belief is possible. Let me then, at once, offer the "rational +explanation" which finds most favour among those who have heard the tale +of my life's tragedy. It is held that we were "under a delusion," Laura +and I, on that 31st of October; and that this supposition places the +whole matter on a satisfactory and believable basis. The reader can +judge, when he, too, has heard my story, how far this is an +"explanation," and in what sense it is "rational." There were three who +took part in this: Laura and I and another man. The other man still +lives, and can speak to the truth of the least credible part of my +story. + + * * * * * + +I never in my life knew what it was to have as much money as I required +to supply the most ordinary needs--good colours, books, and +cab-fares--and when we were married we knew quite well that we should +only be able to live at all by "strict punctuality and attention to +business." I used to paint in those days, and Laura used to write, and +we felt sure we could keep the pot at least simmering. Living in town +was out of the question, so we went to look for a cottage in the +country, which should be at once sanitary and picturesque. So rarely do +these two qualities meet in one cottage that our search was for some +time quite fruitless. We tried advertisements, but most of the desirable +rural residences which we did look at proved to be lacking in both +essentials, and when a cottage chanced to have drains it always had +stucco as well and was shaped like a tea-caddy. And if we found a vine +or rose-covered porch, corruption invariably lurked within. Our minds +got so befogged by the eloquence of house-agents and the rival +disadvantages of the fever-traps and outrages to beauty which we had +seen and scorned, that I very much doubt whether either of us, on our +wedding morning, knew the difference between a house and a haystack. But +when we got away from friends and house-agents, on our honeymoon, our +wits grew clear again, and we knew a pretty cottage when at last we saw +one. It was at Brenzett--a little village set on a hill over against the +southern marshes. We had gone there, from the seaside village where we +were staying, to see the church, and two fields from the church we found +this cottage. It stood quite by itself, about two miles from the +village. It was a long, low building, with rooms sticking out in +unexpected places. There was a bit of stone-work--ivy-covered and +moss-grown, just two old rooms, all that was left of a big house that +had once stood there--and round this stone-work the house had grown up. +Stripped of its roses and jasmine it would have been hideous. As it +stood it was charming, and after a brief examination we took it. It was +absurdly cheap. The rest of our honeymoon we spent in grubbing about in +second-hand shops in the county town, picking up bits of old oak and +Chippendale chairs for our furnishing. We wound up with a run up to town +and a visit to Liberty's, and soon the low oak-beamed lattice-windowed +rooms began to be home. There was a jolly old-fashioned garden, with +grass paths, and no end of hollyhocks and sunflowers, and big lilies. +From the window you could see the marsh-pastures, and beyond them the +blue, thin line of the sea. We were as happy as the summer was glorious, +and settled down into work sooner than we ourselves expected. I was +never tired of sketching the view and the wonderful cloud effects from +the open lattice, and Laura would sit at the table and write verses +about them, in which I mostly played the part of foreground. + +We got a tall old peasant woman to do for us. Her face and figure were +good, though her cooking was of the homeliest; but she understood all +about gardening, and told us all the old names of the coppices and +cornfields, and the stories of the smugglers and highwaymen, and, better +still, of the "things that walked," and of the "sights" which met one in +lonely glens of a starlight night. She was a great comfort to us, +because Laura hated housekeeping as much as I loved folklore, and we +soon came to leave all the domestic business to Mrs. Dorman, and to use +her legends in little magazine stories which brought in the jingling +guinea. + +We had three months of married happiness, and did not have a single +quarrel. One October evening I had been down to smoke a pipe with the +doctor--our only neighbour--a pleasant young Irishman. Laura had stayed +at home to finish a comic sketch of a village episode for the _Monthly +Marplot_. I left her laughing over her own jokes, and came in to find +her a crumpled heap of pale muslin weeping on the window seat. + +"Good heavens, my darling, what's the matter?" I cried, taking her in my +arms. She leaned her little dark head against my shoulder and went on +crying. I had never seen her cry before--we had always been so happy, +you see--and I felt sure some frightful misfortune had happened. + +"What _is_ the matter? Do speak." + +"It's Mrs. Dorman," she sobbed. + +"What has she done?" I inquired, immensely relieved. + +"She says she must go before the end of the month, and she says her +niece is ill; she's gone down to see her now, but I don't believe that's +the reason, because her niece is always ill. I believe some one has been +setting her against us. Her manner was so queer----" + +"Never mind, Pussy," I said; "whatever you do, don't cry, or I shall +have to cry too, to keep you in countenance, and then you'll never +respect your man again!" + +She dried her eyes obediently on my handkerchief, and even smiled +faintly. + +"But you see," she went on, "it is really serious, because these village +people are so sheepy, and if one won't do a thing you may be quite sure +none of the others will. And I shall have to cook the dinners, and wash +up the hateful greasy plates; and you'll have to carry cans of water +about, and clean the boots and knives--and we shall never have any time +for work, or earn any money, or anything. We shall have to work all day, +and only be able to rest when we are waiting for the kettle to boil!" + +I represented to her that even if we had to perform these duties, the +day would still present some margin for other toils and recreations. But +she refused to see the matter in any but the greyest light. She was very +unreasonable, my Laura, but I could not have loved her any more if she +had been as reasonable as Whately. + +"I'll speak to Mrs. Dorman when she comes back, and see if I can't come +to terms with her," I said. "Perhaps she wants a rise in her screw. It +will be all right. Let's walk up to the church." + +The church was a large and lonely one, and we loved to go there, +especially upon bright nights. The path skirted a wood, cut through it +once, and ran along the crest of the hill through two meadows, and round +the churchyard wall, over which the old yews loomed in black masses of +shadow. This path, which was partly paved, was called "the bier-balk," +for it had long been the way by which the corpses had been carried to +burial. The churchyard was richly treed, and was shaded by great elms +which stood just outside and stretched their majestic arms in +benediction over the happy dead. A large, low porch let one into the +building by a Norman doorway and a heavy oak door studded with iron. +Inside, the arches rose into darkness, and between them the reticulated +windows, which stood out white in the moonlight. In the chancel, the +windows were of rich glass, which showed in faint light their noble +colouring, and made the black oak of the choir pews hardly more solid +than the shadows. But on each side of the altar lay a grey marble figure +of a knight in full plate armour lying upon a low slab, with hands held +up in everlasting prayer, and these figures, oddly enough, were always +to be seen if there was any glimmer of light in the church. Their names +were lost, but the peasants told of them that they had been fierce and +wicked men, marauders by land and sea, who had been the scourge of their +time, and had been guilty of deeds so foul that the house they had lived +in--the big house, by the way, that had stood on the site of our +cottage--had been stricken by lightning and the vengeance of Heaven. But +for all that, the gold of their heirs had bought them a place in the +church. Looking at the bad hard faces reproduced in the marble, this +story was easily believed. + +The church looked at its best and weirdest on that night, for the +shadows of the yew trees fell through the windows upon the floor of the +nave and touched the pillars with tattered shade. We sat down together +without speaking, and watched the solemn beauty of the old church, with +some of that awe which inspired its early builders. We walked to the +chancel and looked at the sleeping warriors. Then we rested some time on +the stone seat in the porch, looking out over the stretch of quiet +moonlit meadows, feeling in every fibre of our being the peace of the +night and of our happy love; and came away at last with a sense that +even scrubbing and blackleading were but small troubles at their worst. + +Mrs. Dorman had come back from the village, and I at once invited her to +a _tête-à-tête_. + +"Now, Mrs. Dorman," I said, when I had got her into my painting room, +"what's all this about your not staying with us?" + +"I should be glad to get away, sir, before the end of the month," she +answered, with her usual placid dignity. + +"Have you any fault to find, Mrs. Dorman?" + +"None at all, sir; you and your lady have always been most kind, I'm +sure----" + +"Well, what is it? Are your wages not high enough?" + +"No, sir, I gets quite enough." + +"Then why not stay?" + +"I'd rather not"--with some hesitation--"my niece is ill." + +"But your niece has been ill ever since we came." + +No answer. There was a long and awkward silence. I broke it. + +"Can't you stay for another month?" I asked. + +"No, sir. I'm bound to go by Thursday." + +And this was Monday! + +"Well, I must say, I think you might have let us know before. There's no +time now to get any one else, and your mistress is not fit to do heavy +housework. Can't you stay till next week?" + +"I might be able to come back next week." + +I was now convinced that all she wanted was a brief holiday, which we +should have been willing enough to let her have, as soon as we could +get a substitute. + +"But why must you go this week?" I persisted. "Come, out with it." + +Mrs. Dorman drew the little shawl, which she always wore, tightly across +her bosom, as though she were cold. Then she said, with a sort of +effort-- + +"They say, sir, as this was a big house in Catholic times, and there was +a many deeds done here." + +The nature of the "deeds" might be vaguely inferred from the inflection +of Mrs. Dorman's voice--which was enough to make one's blood run cold. I +was glad that Laura was not in the room. She was always nervous, as +highly-strung natures are, and I felt that these tales about our house, +told by this old peasant woman, with her impressive manner and +contagious credulity, might have made our home less dear to my wife. + +"Tell me all about it, Mrs. Dorman," I said; "you needn't mind about +telling me. I'm not like the young people who make fun of such things." + +Which was partly true. + +"Well, sir"--she sank her voice--"you may have seen in the church, +beside the altar, two shapes." + +"You mean the effigies of the knights in armour," I said cheerfully. + +"I mean them two bodies, drawed out man-size in marble," she returned, +and I had to admit that her description was a thousand times more +graphic than mine, to say nothing of a certain weird force and +uncanniness about the phrase "drawed out man-size in marble." + +"They do say, as on All Saints' Eve them two bodies sits up on their +slabs, and gets off of them, and then walks down the aisle, _in their +marble"_--(another good phrase, Mrs. Dorman)--"and as the church clock +strikes eleven they walks out of the church door, and over the graves, +and along the bier-balk, and if it's a wet night there's the marks of +their feet in the morning." + +"And where do they go?" I asked, rather fascinated. + +"They comes back here to their home, sir, and if any one meets them----" + +"Well, what then?" I asked. + +But no--not another word could I get from her, save that her niece was +ill and she must go. After what I had heard I scorned to discuss the +niece, and tried to get from Mrs. Dorman more details of the legend. I +could get nothing but warnings. + +"Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on All Saints' Eve, and make +the cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows." + +"But has any one ever seen these things?" I persisted. + +"That's not for me to say. I know what I know, sir." + +"Well, who was here last year?" + +"No one, sir; the lady as owned the house only stayed here in summer, +and she always went to London a full month afore _the_ night. And I'm +sorry to inconvenience you and your lady, but my niece is ill and I +must go on Thursday." + +I could have shaken her for her absurd reiteration of that obvious +fiction, after she had told me her real reasons. + +She was determined to go, nor could our united entreaties move her in +the least. + +I did not tell Laura the legend of the shapes that "walked in their +marble," partly because a legend concerning our house might perhaps +trouble my wife, and partly, I think, from some more occult reason. This +was not quite the same to me as any other story, and I did not want to +talk about it till the day was over. I had very soon ceased to think of +the legend, however. I was painting a portrait of Laura, against the +lattice window, and I could not think of much else. I had got a splendid +background of yellow and grey sunset, and was working away with +enthusiasm at her face. On Thursday Mrs. Dorman went. She relented, at +parting, so far as to say-- + +"Don't you put yourself about too much, ma'am, and if there's any +little thing I can do next week, I'm sure I shan't mind." + +From which I inferred that she wished to come back to us after +Halloween. Up to the last she adhered to the fiction of the niece with +touching fidelity. + +Thursday passed off pretty well. Laura showed marked ability in the +matter of steak and potatoes, and I confess that my knives, and the +plates, which I insisted upon washing, were better done than I had dared +to expect. + +Friday came. It is about what happened on that Friday that this is +written. I wonder if I should have believed it, if any one had told it +to me. I will write the story of it as quickly and plainly as I can. +Everything that happened on that day is burnt into my brain. I shall not +forget anything, nor leave anything out. + +I got up early, I remember, and lighted the kitchen fire, and had just +achieved a smoky success, when my little wife came running down, as +sunny and sweet as the clear October morning itself. We prepared +breakfast together, and found it very good fun. The housework was soon +done, and when brushes and brooms and pails were quiet again, the house +was still indeed. It is wonderful what a difference one makes in a +house. We really missed Mrs. Dorman, quite apart from considerations +concerning pots and pans. We spent the day in dusting our books and +putting them straight, and dined gaily on cold steak and coffee. Laura +was, if possible, brighter and gayer and sweeter than usual, and I began +to think that a little domestic toil was really good for her. We had +never been so merry since we were married, and the walk we had that +afternoon was, I think, the happiest time of all my life. When we had +watched the deep scarlet clouds slowly pale into leaden grey against a +pale-green sky, and saw the white mists curl up along the hedgerows in +the distant marsh, we came back to the house, silently, hand in hand. + +"You are sad, my darling," I said, half-jestingly, as we sat down +together in our little parlour. I expected a disclaimer, for my own +silence had been the silence of complete happiness. To my surprise she +said-- + +"Yes. I think I am sad, or rather I am uneasy. I don't think I'm very +well. I have shivered three or four times since we came in, and it is +not cold, is it?" + +"No," I said, and hoped it was not a chill caught from the treacherous +mists that roll up from the marshes in the dying light. No--she said, +she did not think so. Then, after a silence, she spoke suddenly-- + +"Do you ever have presentiments of evil?" + +"No," I said, smiling, "and I shouldn't believe in them if I had." + +"I do," she went on; "the night my father died I knew it, though he was +right away in the north of Scotland." I did not answer in words. + +She sat looking at the fire for some time in silence, gently stroking my +hand. At last she sprang up, came behind me, and, drawing my head back, +kissed me. + +"There, it's over now," she said. "What a baby I am! Come, light the +candles, and we'll have some of these new Rubinstein duets." + +And we spent a happy hour or two at the piano. + +At about half-past ten I began to long for the good-night pipe, but +Laura looked so white that I felt it would be brutal of me to fill our +sitting-room with the fumes of strong cavendish. + +"I'll take my pipe outside," I said. + +"Let me come, too." + +"No, sweetheart, not to-night; you're much too tired. I shan't be long. +Get to bed, or I shall have an invalid to nurse to-morrow as well as the +boots to clean." + +I kissed her and was turning to go, when she flung her arms round my +neck, and held me as if she would never let me go again. I stroked her +hair. + +"Come, Pussy, you're over-tired. The housework has been too much for +you." + +She loosened her clasp a little and drew a deep breath. + +"No. We've been very happy to-day, Jack, haven't we? Don't stay out too +long." + +"I won't, my dearie." + +I strolled out of the front door, leaving it unlatched. What a night it +was! The jagged masses of heavy dark cloud were rolling at intervals +from horizon to horizon, and thin white wreaths covered the stars. +Through all the rush of the cloud river, the moon swam, breasting the +waves and disappearing again in the darkness. When now and again her +light reached the woodlands they seemed to be slowly and noiselessly +waving in time to the swing of the clouds above them. There was a +strange grey light over all the earth; the fields had that shadowy bloom +over them which only comes from the marriage of dew and moonshine, or +frost and starlight. + +I walked up and down, drinking in the beauty of the quiet earth and the +changing sky. The night was absolutely silent. Nothing seemed to be +abroad. There was no skurrying of rabbits, or twitter of the half-asleep +birds. And though the clouds went sailing across the sky, the wind that +drove them never came low enough to rustle the dead leaves in the +woodland paths. Across the meadows I could see the church tower standing +out black and grey against the sky. I walked there thinking over our +three months of happiness--and of my wife, her dear eyes, her loving +ways. Oh, my little girl! my own little girl; what a vision came then of +a long, glad life for you and me together! + +I heard a bell-beat from the church. Eleven already! I turned to go in, +but the night held me. I could not go back into our little warm rooms +yet. I would go up to the church. I felt vaguely that it would be good +to carry my love and thankfulness to the sanctuary whither so many loads +of sorrow and gladness had been borne by the men and women of the dead +years. + +I looked in at the low window as I went by. Laura was half lying on her +chair in front of the fire. I could not see her face, only her little +head showed dark against the pale blue wall. She was quite still. +Asleep, no doubt. My heart reached out to her, as I went on. There must +be a God, I thought, and a God who was good. How otherwise could +anything so sweet and dear as she have ever been imagined? + +I walked slowly along the edge of the wood. A sound broke the stillness +of the night, it was a rustling in the wood. I stopped and listened. The +sound stopped too. I went on, and now distinctly heard another step than +mine answer mine like an echo. It was a poacher or a wood-stealer, most +likely, for these were not unknown in our Arcadian neighbourhood. But +whoever it was, he was a fool not to step more lightly. I turned into +the wood, and now the footstep seemed to come from the path I had just +left. It must be an echo, I thought. The wood looked perfect in the +moonlight. The large dying ferns and the brushwood showed where through +thinning foliage the pale light came down. The tree trunks stood up +like Gothic columns all around me. They reminded me of the church, and I +turned into the bier-balk, and passed through the corpse-gate between +the graves to the low porch. I paused for a moment on the stone seat +where Laura and I had watched the fading landscape. Then I noticed that +the door of the church was open, and I blamed myself for having left it +unlatched the other night. We were the only people who ever cared to +come to the church except on Sundays, and I was vexed to think that +through our carelessness the damp autumn airs had had a chance of +getting in and injuring the old fabric. I went in. It will seem strange, +perhaps, that I should have gone half-way up the aisle before I +remembered--with a sudden chill, followed by as sudden a rush of +self-contempt--that this was the very day and hour when, according to +tradition, the "shapes drawed out man-size in marble" began to walk. + +Having thus remembered the legend, and remembered it with a shiver, of +which I was ashamed, I could not do otherwise than walk up towards the +altar, just to look at the figures--as I said to myself; really what I +wanted was to assure myself, first, that I did not believe the legend, +and, secondly, that it was not true. I was rather glad that I had come. +I thought now I could tell Mrs. Dorman how vain her fancies were, and +how peacefully the marble figures slept on through the ghastly hour. +With my hands in my pockets I passed up the aisle. In the grey dim light +the eastern end of the church looked larger than usual, and the arches +above the two tombs looked larger too. The moon came out and showed me +the reason. I stopped short, my heart gave a leap that nearly choked me, +and then sank sickeningly. + +The "bodies drawed out man-size" _were gone_, and their marble slabs lay +wide and bare in the vague moonlight that slanted through the east +window. + +Were they really gone? or was I mad? Clenching my nerves, I stooped and +passed my hand over the smooth slabs, and felt their flat unbroken +surface. Had some one taken the things away? Was it some vile practical +joke? I would make sure, anyway. In an instant I had made a torch of a +newspaper, which happened to be in my pocket, and lighting it held it +high above my head. Its yellow glare illumined the dark arches and those +slabs. The figures _were_ gone. And I was alone in the church; or was I +alone? + +And then a horror seized me, a horror indefinable and indescribable--an +overwhelming certainty of supreme and accomplished calamity. I flung +down the torch and tore along the aisle and out through the porch, +biting my lips as I ran to keep myself from shrieking aloud. Oh, was I +mad--or what was this that possessed me? I leaped the churchyard wall +and took the straight cut across the fields, led by the light from our +windows. Just as I got over the first stile, a dark figure seemed to +spring out of the ground. Mad still with that certainty of misfortune, I +made for the thing that stood in my path, shouting, "Get out of the +way, can't you!" + +But my push met with a more vigorous resistance than I had expected. My +arms were caught just above the elbow and held as in a vice, and the +raw-boned Irish doctor actually shook me. + +"Would ye?" he cried, in his own unmistakable accents--"would ye, then?" + +"Let me go, you fool," I gasped. "The marble figures have gone from the +church; I tell you they've gone." + +He broke into a ringing laugh. "I'll have to give ye a draught +to-morrow, I see. Ye've bin smoking too much and listening to old wives' +tales." + +"I tell you, I've seen the bare slabs." + +"Well, come back with me. I'm going up to old Palmer's--his daughter's +ill; we'll look in at the church and let me see the bare slabs." + +"You go, if you like," I said, a little less frantic for his laughter; +"I'm going home to my wife." + +"Rubbish, man," said he; "d'ye think I'll permit of that? Are ye to go +saying all yer life that ye've seen solid marble endowed with vitality, +and me to go all me life saying ye were a coward? No, sir--ye shan't do +ut." + +The night air--a human voice--and I think also the physical contact with +this six feet of solid common sense, brought me back a little to my +ordinary self, and the word "coward" was a mental shower-bath. + +"Come on, then," I said sullenly; "perhaps you're right." + +He still held my arm tightly. We got over the stile and back to the +church. All was still as death. The place smelt very damp and earthy. We +walked up the aisle. I am not ashamed to confess that I shut my eyes: I +knew the figures would not be there. I heard Kelly strike a match. + +"Here they are, ye see, right enough; ye've been dreaming or drinking, +asking yer pardon for the imputation." + +I opened my eyes. By Kelly's expiring vesta I saw two shapes lying "in +their marble" on their slabs. I drew a deep breath, and caught his +hand. + +"I'm awfully indebted to you," I said. "It must have been some trick of +light, or I have been working rather hard, perhaps that's it. Do you +know, I was quite convinced they were gone." + +"I'm aware of that," he answered rather grimly; "ye'll have to be +careful of that brain of yours, my friend, I assure ye." + +He was leaning over and looking at the right-hand figure, whose stony +face was the most villainous and deadly in expression. + +"By Jove," he said, "something has been afoot here--this hand is +broken." + +And so it was. I was certain that it had been perfect the last time +Laura and I had been there. + +"Perhaps some one has _tried_ to remove them," said the young doctor. + +"That won't account for my impression," I objected. + +"Too much painting and tobacco will account for that, well enough." + +"Come along," I said, "or my wife will be getting anxious. You'll come +in and have a drop of whisky and drink confusion to ghosts and better +sense to me." + +"I ought to go up to Palmer's, but it's so late now I'd best leave it +till the morning," he replied. "I was kept late at the Union, and I've +had to see a lot of people since. All right, I'll come back with ye." + +I think he fancied I needed him more than did Palmer's girl, so, +discussing how such an illusion could have been possible, and deducing +from this experience large generalities concerning ghostly apparitions, +we walked up to our cottage. We saw, as we walked up the garden-path, +that bright light streamed out of the front door, and presently saw that +the parlour door was open too. Had she gone out? + +"Come in," I said, and Dr. Kelly followed me into the parlour. It was +all ablaze with candles, not only the wax ones, but at least a dozen +guttering, glaring tallow dips, stuck in vases and ornaments in unlikely +places. Light, I knew, was Laura's remedy for nervousness. Poor child! +Why had I left her? Brute that I was. + +We glanced round the room, and at first we did not see her. The window +was open, and the draught set all the candles flaring one way. Her chair +was empty and her handkerchief and book lay on the floor. I turned to +the window. There, in the recess of the window, I saw her. Oh, my child, +my love, had she gone to that window to watch for me? And what had come +into the room behind her? To what had she turned with that look of +frantic fear and horror? Oh, my little one, had she thought that it was +I whose step she heard, and turned to meet--what? + +She had fallen back across a table in the window, and her body lay half +on it and half on the window-seat, and her head hung down over the +table, the brown hair loosened and fallen to the carpet. Her lips were +drawn back, and her eyes wide, wide open. They saw nothing now. What had +they seen last? + +The doctor moved towards her, but I pushed him aside and sprang to her; +caught her in my arms and cried-- + +"It's all right, Laura! I've got you safe, wifie." + +She fell into my arms in a heap. I clasped her and kissed her, and +called her by all her pet names, but I think I knew all the time that +she was dead. Her hands were tightly clenched. In one of them she held +something fast. When I was quite sure that she was dead, and that +nothing mattered at all any more, I let him open her hand to see what +she held. + +It was a grey marble finger. + + + + +_THE MASS FOR THE DEAD_. + + +I was awake--widely, cruelly awake. I had been awake all night; what +sleep could there be for me when the woman I loved was to be married +next morning--married, and not to me? + +I went to my room early; the family party in the drawing-room maddened +me. Grouped about the round table with the stamped plush cover, each was +busy with work, or book, or newspaper, but not too busy to stab my heart +through and through with their talk of the wedding. + +Her people were near neighbours of mine, so why should her marriage not +be canvassed in my home circle? + +They did not mean to be cruel; they did not know that I loved her; but +she knew it. I told her, but she knew it before that. She knew it from +the moment when I came back from three years of musical study in +Germany--came back and met her in the wood where we used to go nutting +when we were children. + +I looked into her eyes, and my whole soul trembled with thankfulness +that I was living in a world that held her also. I turned and walked by +her side, through the tangled green wood, and we talked of the long-ago +days, and it was, "Have you forgotten?" and "Do you remember?" till we +reached her garden gate. Then I said-- + +"Good-bye; no, _auf wiedersehn_, and in a very little time, I hope." + +And she answered-- + +"Good-bye. By the way, you haven't congratulated me yet." + +"Congratulated you?" + +"Yes, did I not tell you I am to marry Mr. Benoliel next month?" + +And she turned away, and went up the garden slowly. + +I asked my people, and they said it was true. Kate, my dear playfellow, +was to marry this Spaniard, rich, wilful, accustomed to win, polished in +manners and base in life. Why was she to marry him? + +"No one knows," said my father, "but her father is talked about in the +city, and Benoliel, the Spaniard, is rich. Perhaps that's it." + +That was it. She told me so when, after two weeks spent with her and +near her, I implored her to break so vile a chain and to come to me, who +loved her--whom she loved. + +"You are quite right," she said calmly. We were sitting in the +window-seat of the oak parlour in her father's desolate old house. "I do +love you, and I shall marry Mr. Benoliel." + +"Why?" + +"Look around you and ask me why, if you can." + +I looked around--on the shabby, bare room, with its faded hangings of +sage-green moreen, its threadbare carpet, its patched, washed-out chintz +chair-covers. I looked out through the square, latticed window at the +ragged, unkempt lawn, at her own gown--of poor material, though she wore +it as queens might desire to wear ermine--and I understood. + +Kate is obstinate; it is her one fault; I knew how vain would be my +entreaties, yet I offered them; how unavailing my arguments, yet they +were set forth; how useless my love and my sorrow, yet I showed them to +her. + +"No," she answered, but she flung her arms round my neck as she spoke, +and held me as one may hold one's best treasure. "No, no; you are poor, +and he is rich. You wouldn't have me break my father's heart: he's so +proud, and if he doesn't get some money next month, he will be ruined. +I'm not deceiving any one. Mr. Benoliel knows I don't care for him; and +if I marry him, he is going to advance my father a large sum of money. +Oh, I assure you that everything has been talked over and settled. There +is no going from it." + +"Child! child!" I cried, "how calmly you speak of it! Don't you see that +you are selling your soul and throwing mine away?" + +"Father Fabian says I am doing right," she answered, unclasping her +hands, but holding mine in them, and looking at me with those clear, +grey eyes of hers. "Are we to be unselfish in everything else, and in +love to think only of our own happiness? I love you, and I shall marry +him. Would you rather the positions were reversed?" + +"Yes," I said, "for then I would make you love me." + +"Perhaps _he_ will," she said bitterly. Even in that moment her mouth +trembled with the ghost of a smile. She always loved to tease. She goes +through more moods in a day than most other women in a year. Drowning +the smile came tears, but she controlled them, and she said-- + +"Good-bye; you see I am right, don't you? Oh, Jasper, I wish I hadn't +told you I loved you. It will only make you more unhappy." + +"It makes my one happiness," I answered; "nothing can take that from me. +And that happiness _he_ will never have. Say again that you love me!" + +"I love you! I love you! I love you!" + +With further folly of tears and mad loving words we parted, and I bore +my heartache away, leaving her to bear hers into her new life. + +And now she was to be married to-morrow, and I could not sleep. + +When the darkness became unbearable I lighted a candle, and then lay +staring vacantly at the roses on the wall-paper, or following with my +eyes the lines and curves of the heavy mahogany furniture. + +The solidity of my surroundings oppressed me. In the dull light the +wardrobe loomed like a hearse, and my violin case looked like a child's +coffin. + +I reached a book and read till my eyes ached and the letters danced a +_pas fantastique_ up and down the page. + +I got up and had ten minutes with the dumbbells. I sponged my face and +hands with cold water and tried again to sleep--vainly. I lay there, +miserably wide awake. + +I tried to say poetry, the half-forgotten tasks of my school days even, +but through everything ran the refrain-- + +"Kate is to be married to-morrow, and not to me, not to me!" + +I tried counting up to a thousand. I tried to imagine sheep in a lane, +and to count them as they jumped through a gap in an imaginary +hedge--all the time-honoured spells with which sleep is wooed--vainly. + +Then the Waits came, and a torture to the nerves was superadded to the +torture of the heart. After fifteen minutes of carols every fibre of me +seemed vibrating in an agony of physical misery. + +To banish the echo of "The Mistletoe Bough," I hummed softly to myself +a melody of Palestrina's, and felt more awake than ever. + +Then the thing happened which nothing will ever explain. As I lay there +I heard, breaking through and gradually overpowering the air I was +suggesting, a harmony which I had never heard before, beautiful beyond +description, and as distinct and definite as any song man's ears have +ever listened to. + +My first half-formed thought was, "more Waits," but the music was choral +music, true and sweet; with it mingled an organ's notes, and with every +note the music grew in volume. It is absurd to suggest that I dreamed +it, for, still hearing the music, I leaped out of bed and opened the +window. The music grew fainter. There was no one to be seen in the snowy +garden below. Shivering, I shut the window. The music grew more +distinct, and I became aware that I was listening to a mass--a funeral +mass, and one which I had never heard before. I lay in my bed and +followed the whole course of the office. + +The music ceased. + +I was sitting up in bed, my candle alight, and myself as wide awake as +ever, and more than ever possessed by the thought of _her_. + +But with a difference. Before, I had only mourned the loss of her: now, +my thoughts of her were mingled with an indescribable dread. The sense +of death and decay that had come to me with that strange, beautiful +music, coloured all my thoughts. I was filled with fancies of hushed +houses, black garments, rooms where white flowers and white linen lay in +a deathly stillness. I heard echoes of tears, and of dim-voiced bells +tolling monotonously. I shivered, as it were on the brink of irreparable +woe, and in its contemplation I watched the dull dawn slowly overcome +the pale flame of my candle, now burnt down into its socket. + +I felt that I must see Kate once again before she gave herself away. +Before ten o'clock I was in the oak parlour. She came to me. As she +entered the room, her pallor, her swollen eyelids and the misery in her +eyes wrung my heart as even that night of agony had not done. I +literally could not speak. I held out my hands. + +Would she reproach me for coming to her again, for forcing upon her a +second time the anguish of parting? + +She did not. She laid her hands in mine, and said-- + +"I am thankful you have come; do you know, I think I am going mad? Don't +let me go mad, Jasper." + +The look in her eyes underlined her words. + +I stammered something and kissed her hands. I was with her again, and +joy fought again with grief. + +"I must tell some one. If I am mad, don't lock me up. Take care of me, +won't you?" + +Would I not? + +"Understand," she went on, "it was not a dream. I was wide awake, +thinking of you. The Waits had not long gone, and I--I was looking at +your likeness. I was not asleep." + +I shivered as I held her fast. + +"As Heaven sees us, I did not dream it. I heard a mass sung, and, +Jasper, it was a mass for the dead. I followed the office. You are not a +Catholic, but I thought--I feared--oh, I don't know what I thought. I am +thankful there is nothing wrong with you." + +I felt a sudden certainty, and complete sense of power possess me. Now, +in this her moment of weakness, while she was so completely under the +influence of a strong emotion, I could and would save her from Benoliel, +and myself from life-long pain. + +"Kate," I said, "I believe it is a warning. You shall not marry this +man. You shall marry me, and none other." + +She leaned her head against my shoulder; she seemed to have forgotten +her father and all the reasons for her marriage with Benoliel. + +"You don't think I'm mad? No? Then take care of me; take me away; I +feel safe with you." + +Thus all obstacles vanished in less time than the length of a lover's +kiss. I dared not stop to consider the coincidence of supernatural +warning--nor what it might mean. Face to face with crowned hope, I am +proud to remember that common sense held her own. The room in which we +were had a French window. I fetched her garden hat and a shawl from the +hall, and we went out through the still, white garden. We did not meet a +soul. When we reached my father's garden I took her in by the back way, +to the summer-house, and left her, though I was half afraid to leave +her, while I went into the house. I snatched my violin and cheque book, +took all my spare money, scrawled a line to my father and rejoined her. + +Still no one had seen us. + +We walked to a station five miles away; and by the time Benoliel would +reach the church, I was leaving Doctors' Commons with a special licence +in my pocket. Two hours later Kate was my wife, and we were quietly and +prosaically eating our wedding-breakfast in the dining-room of the Grand +Hotel. + +"And where shall we go?" I said. + +"I don't know," she answered, smiling; "you have not much money, have +you?" + +"Oh dear me, yes. I'm not rich, but I'm not absolutely a church mouse." + +"Could we go to Devonshire?" she asked, twisting her new ring round and +round. + +"Devonshire! Why, that is where----" + +"Yes, I know: Benoliel arranged to go there. Jasper, I am afraid of +Benoliel." + +"Then why----" + +"Foolish person," she answered. "Do you think that Benoliel will be +likely to go to Devonshire _now_?" + +We went to Devonshire--I had had a small legacy a few months earlier, +and I did not permit money cares to trouble my new and beautiful +happiness. My only fear was that she would be saddened by thoughts of +her father; but I am thankful to remember that in those first days she, +too, was happy--so happy that there seemed to be hardly room in her +mind for any thought but of me. And every hour of every day I said to my +soul-- + +"But for that portent, whatever it boded, she might have been not my +wife but his." + +The first four or five days of our marriage are flowers that memory +keeps always fresh. Kate's face had recovered its wild-rose bloom, and +she laughed and sang and jested and enjoyed all our little daily +adventures with the fullest, freest-hearted gaiety. Then I committed the +supreme imbecility of my life--one of those acts of folly on which one +looks back all one's life with a half stamp of the foot, and the +unanswerable question, "How on earth could I have been such a fool?" + +We were sitting in a little sitting-room, hideous in intention, but +redeemed by blazing fire and the fact that two were there, sitting +hand-in-hand, gazing into the fire and talking of their future and of +their love. There was nothing to trouble us; no one had discovered our +whereabouts, and my wife's fear of Benoliel's revenge seemed to have +dissolved before the flame of our happiness. + +And as we sat there, peaceful and untroubled, the Imp of the Perverse +jogged my elbow, as, alas! he does so often, and I was moved to tell my +wife that I, too, had heard that unearthly midnight music--that her +hearing of it was not, as she had grown to think, a mere nightmare--a +strange dream--but something more strange, more significant. I told her +how I had heard the mass for the dead, and all the tale of that night. +She listened silently, and I thought her strangely indifferent. When I +had finished, she took her hand from mine and covered her face. + +"I believe it was a warning to us to flee temptation. We ought never to +have married. Oh, my poor father!" + +Her tone was one that I had never heard before. Its hopeless misery +appalled me. And justly. For no arguments, no entreaties, no caresses, +could win my wife back to the mood of an hour before. + +She tried to be cheerful, but her gaiety was forced, and her laughter +stung my heart. + +She spoke no more about the music, and when I tried to reason with her +about it she smiled a gloomy little smile, and said-- + +"I cannot be happy. I will not be happy. It is wrong. I have been very +selfish and wicked. You think me very idiotic, I know, but I believe +there is a curse on us. We shall never be happy again." + +"Don't you love me any more?" I asked like a fool. + +"Love you?" She only repeated my words, but I was satisfied on that +score. But those were miserable days. We loved each other passionately, +yet our hours were spent like those of lovers on the eve of parting. +Long, long silences took the place of foolish little jokes and childish +talk which happy lovers know. And more than once, waking in the night, I +heard my wife sobbing, and feigned sleep, with the bitter knowledge that +I had no power to comfort her. I knew that the thought of her father +was with her always, and that her anxiety about him grew, day by day. I +wore myself out in trying to think of some way to divert her thoughts +from him. I could not, indeed, pay his debts, but I could have him to +live with us, a much greater sacrifice; and having a good connection, +both as a musician and composer, I did not doubt that I could support +her and him in comfort. + +But Kate had made up her mind that the disgrace of bankruptcy would +break her father's heart; and my Kate is not easy to convince or +persuade. + +At Torquay it occurred to me that perhaps it would be well for her to +see a priest. True, Father Fabian had counselled her to marry Benoliel, +but I could hardly believe that most priests would advise a girl to +marry a bad man, whom she did not love, for the sake of any worldly gain +whatsoever. + +She received the suggestion with favour, but without enthusiasm, and we +sought out a Catholic church to make inquiries. As we opened the outer +door of the church we heard music, and as we stood in the entrance and +I laid my hand on the heavy inner door, my other hand was caught by +Kate. + +"Jasper," she whispered, "it is the same!" + +Some person opening the door behind us compelled us to move forward. In +another moment we stood in the dusky church--stood hand-in-hand in dim +daylight, listening to the same music that each had heard in the lonely +night on the eve of our wedding. + +I put my arm round my wife and drew her back. + +"Come away, my darling," I whispered; "it is a funeral service." + +She turned her eyes on me. "I _must_ understand, I must see who it is. I +shall go mad if you take me away now. I cannot bear any more." + +We walked up the aisle, and placed ourselves as near as possible to the +spot where the coffin lay, covered with flowers and with tapers burning +about it. And we heard that music again, every note of it the same that +each had heard before. And when the service was over I whispered to the +sacristan-- + +"Whose music was that?" + +"Our organist's," he answered; "it is the first time they've had it. +Fine, wasn't it?" + +"Who is the--who was--who is being buried?" + +"A foreign gentleman, sir; they do say as his lady as was to be gave him +the slip on his wedding day, and he'd given her father thousands they +say, if the truth was known." + +"But what was he doing here?" + +"Well, that's the curious part, sir. To show his independence, what does +he do but go the same tour he'd planned for his wedding trip. And there +was a railway accident, and him and every one in his carriage killed in +a twinkling, so to speak. Lucky for the young lady she was off with +somebody else." + +The sacristan laughed softly to himself. + +Kate's fingers gripped my arm. + +"What was his name?" she asked. + +I would not have asked: I did not wish to hear it. + +"Benoliel," said the sacristan. "Curious name and curious tale. Every +one's talking of it." + +Every one had something else to talk of when it was found that +Benoliel's pride, which had permitted him to buy a wife, had shrunk from +reclaiming the purchase money when the purchase was lost to him. And to +the man who had been willing to sell his daughter, the retention of her +price seemed perfectly natural. + +From the moment when she heard Benoliel's name on the sacristan's lips, +all Kate's gaiety and happiness returned. She loved me, and she hated +Benoliel. She was married to me, and he was dead; and his death was far +more of a shock to me than to her. Women are curiously kind and +curiously cruel. And she never could see why her father should not have +kept the money. It is noteworthy that women, even the cleverest and the +best of them, have no perception of what men mean by honour. + +How do I account for the music? My good critic, my business is to tell +my story--not to account for it. + +And do I not pity Benoliel? Yes. I can afford, now, to pity most men, +alive or dead. + +THE END. + + * * * * * + +LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND +CHARING CROSS. + + * * * * * + +UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. + +SPORT ROYAL. + +BY ANTHONY HOPE, + +AUTHOR OF "MR. WITT'S WIDOW." + +1s. + + * * * * * + +TWO POPULAR 3s. 6d. NOVELS. + +MR. WITT'S WIDOW. BY ANTHONY HOPE. + +AMETHYST. BY C. R. COLERIDGE. + + * * * * * + +NEW NOVELS IN PREPARATION. + +WAYNFLETE. By C. R. COLERIDGE, author of "Amethyst." 2 vols. Crown 8vo, +£1 1s. + +THE VOICE OF A FLOWER. BY EMILY GERARD. 1 vol. Crown 8vo, 6s. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Grim Tales, by Edith Nesbit + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40321 *** |