Chapter 5. The Dagger And The Man

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_ CHAPTER V. THE DAGGER AND THE MAN

Rosetta Rosa and I threaded through the crowd towards the Embankment entrance of the Gold Rooms. She had spoken for a few moments with Emmeline, who went pale with satisfaction at the candid friendliness of her tone, and she had chatted quite gaily with Sullivan himself; and we had all been tremendously impressed by her beauty and fine grace--I certainly not the least. And then she had asked me, with a quality of mysteriousness in her voice, to see her to her carriage.

And, with her arm in mine, it was impossible for me to believe that she could influence, in any evil way, my future career. That she might be the cause of danger to my life seemed ridiculous. She was the incarnation of kindliness and simplicity. She had nothing about her of the sinister, and further, with all her transcendent beauty and charm, she was also the incarnation of the matter-of-fact. I am obliged to say this, though I fear that it may impair for some people the vision of her loveliness and her unique personality. She was the incarnation of the matter-of-fact, because she appeared to be invariably quite unconscious of the supremacy of her talents. She was not weighed down by them, as many artists of distinction are weighed down. She carried them lightly, seemingly unaware that they existed. Thus no one could have guessed that that very night she had left the stage of the Opera after an extraordinary triumph in her greatest role--that of Isolde in "Tristan."

And so her presence by my side soothed away almost at once the excitation and the spiritual disturbance of the scene through which I had just passed with Emmeline; and I was disposed, if not to laugh at the whole thing, at any rate to regard it calmly, dispassionately, as one of the various inexplicable matters with which one meets in a world absurdly called prosaic. I was sure that no trick had been played upon me. I was sure that I had actually seen in the crystal what I had described to Emmeline, and that she, too, had seen it. But then, I argued, such an experience might be the result of hypnotic suggestion, or of thought transference, or of some other imperfectly understood agency.... Rosetta Rosa an instrument of misfortune! No!

When I looked at her I comprehended how men have stopped at nothing for the sake of love, and how a woman, if only she be beautiful enough, may wield a power compared to which the sway of a Tsar, even a Tsar unhampered by Dumas, is impotence itself. Even at that early stage I had begun to be a captive to her. But I did not believe that her rule was malign.

"Mr. Foster," she said, "I have asked you to see me to my carriage, but really I want you to do more than that. I want you to go with me to poor Alresca's. He is progressing satisfactorily, so far as I can judge, but the dear fellow is thoroughly depressed. I saw him this afternoon, and he wished, if I met you here to-night, that I should bring you to him. He has a proposition to make to you, and I hope you will accept it."

"I shall accept it, then," I said.

She pulled out a tiny gold watch, glistening with diamonds.

"It is half-past one," she said. "We might be there in ten minutes. You don't mind it being late, I suppose. We singers, you know, have our own hours."

In the foyer we had to wait while the carriage was called. I stood silent, and perhaps abstracted, at her elbow, absorbed in the pride and happiness of being so close to her, and looking forward with a tremulous pleasure to the drive through London at her side. She was dressed in gray, with a large ermine-lined cloak, and she wore no ornaments except a thin jewelled dagger in her lovely hair.

All at once I saw that she flushed, and, following the direction of her eyes, I beheld Sir Cyril Smart, with a startled gaze fixed immovably on her face. Except the footmen and the attendants attached to the hotel, there were not half a dozen people in the entrance-hall at this moment. Sir Cyril was nearly as white as the marble floor. He made a step forward, and then stood still. She, too, moved towards him, as it seemed, involuntarily.

"Good evening, Miss Rosa," he said at length, with a stiff inclination. She responded, and once more they stared at each other. I wondered whether they had quarrelled again, or whether both were by some mischance simultaneously indisposed. Surely they must have already met during the evening at the Opera!

Then Rosa, with strange deliberation, put her hand to her hair and pulled out the jewelled dagger.

"Sir Cyril," she said, "you seem fascinated by this little weapon. Do you recognize it?"

He made no answer, nor moved, but I noticed that his hands were tightly clenched.

"You do recognize it, Sir Cyril?"

At last he nodded.

"Then take it. The dagger shall be yours. To-night, within the last minute, I think I have suddenly discovered that, next to myself, you have the best right to it."

He opened his lips to speak, but made no sound.

"See," she said. "It is a real dagger, sharp and pointed."

Throwing back her cloak with a quick gesture, she was about to prick the skin of her left arm between the top of her long glove and the sleeve of her low-cut dress. But Sir Cyril, and I also, jumped to stop her.

"Don't do that," I said. "You might hurt yourself."

She glanced at me, angry for the instant; but her anger dissolved in an icy smile.

"Take it, Sir Cyril, to please me."

Her intonation was decidedly peculiar.

And Sir Cyril took the dagger.

"Miss Rosa's carriage," a commissionaire shouted, and, beckoning to me, the girl moved imperiously down the steps to the courtyard. There was no longer a smile on her face, which had a musing and withdrawn expression. Sir Cyril stood stock-still, holding the dagger. What the surrounding lackeys thought of this singular episode I will not guess. Indeed, the longer I live, the less I care to meditate upon what lackeys do think. But that the adventures of their employers provide them with ample food for thought there can be no doubt.

Rosa's horses drew us swiftly away from the Grand Babylon Hotel, and it seemed that she wished to forget or to ignore the remarkable incident. For some moments she sat silent, her head slightly bent, her cloak still thrown back, but showing no sign of agitation beyond a slightly hurried heaving of the bosom.

I was discreet enough not to break in upon her reflections by any attempt at conversation, for it seemed to me that what I had just witnessed had been a sudden and terrible crisis, not only in the life of Sir Cyril, but also in that of the girl whose loveliness was dimly revealed to me in the obscurity of the vehicle.

We had got no further than Trafalgar Square when she aroused herself, looked at me, and gave a short laugh.

"I suppose," she remarked, "that a doctor can't cure every disease?"

"Scarcely," I replied.

"Not even a young doctor?" she said with comical gravity.

"Not even a young doctor," I gravely answered.

Then we both laughed.

"You must excuse my fun," she said. "I can't help it, especially when my mind is disturbed."

"Why do you ask me?" I inquired. "Was it just a general observation caused by the seriousness of my countenance, or were you thinking of something in particular?"

"I was thinking of Alresca," she murmured, "my poor Alresca. He is the rarest gentleman and the finest artist in Europe, and he is suffering."

"Well," I said, "one can't break one's thigh for nothing."

"It is not his thigh. It is something else."

"What?"

She shook her head, to indicate her inability to answer.

Here I must explain that, on the morning after the accident, I had taken a hansom to the Devonshire Mansion with the intention of paying a professional visit to Alresca. I was not altogether certain that I ought to regard the case as mine, but I went. Immediately before my hansom, however, there had drawn up another hansom in front of the portals of the Devonshire, and out of that other hansom had stepped the famous Toddy MacWhister. Great man as Toddy was, he had an eye on "saxpences," and it was evident that, in spite of the instructions which he had given me as to the disposal of Alresca, Toddy was claiming the patient for his own. I retired. It was the only thing I could do. Two doctors were not needed, and I did not see myself, a young man scarcely yet escaped from the fear of examinations, disputing cases with the redoubtable Toddy. I heard afterwards that he had prolonged his stay in London in order to attend Alresca. So that I had not seen the tenor since his accident.

"What does Monsieur Alresca want to see me about?" I demanded cautiously.

"He will tell you," said Rosa, equally cautious.

A silence followed.

"Do you think I upset him--that night?" she asked.

"You wish me to be frank?"

"If I had thought you would not be frank I would not have asked you. Do you imagine it is my habit to go about putting awkward questions like that?"

"I think you did upset him very much."

"You think I was wrong?"

"I do."

"Perhaps you are right," she admitted.

I had been bold. A desire took me to be still bolder. She was in the carriage with me. She was not older than I. And were she Rosetta Rosa, or a mere miss taken at hazard out of a drawing-room, she was feminine and I was masculine. In short--Well, I have fits of rashness sometimes.

"You say he is depressed," I addressed her firmly. "And I will venture to inform you that I am not in the least surprised."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "And why?"

"After what you said to him that night in the dressing-room. If I had been in Alresca's place I know that I should be depressed, and very much depressed, too."

"You mean--" she faltered.

"Yes," I said, "I mean that."

I thought I had gone pretty far, and my heart was beating. I could not justly have protested had she stopped the carriage and deposited me on the pavement by the railings of Green Park. But her character was angelic. She accepted my treatment of her with the most astounding meekness.

"You mean," she said, "that he is in love with me, and I chose just that night to--refuse him."

I nodded.

"That is emotional cause enough, isn't it, to account for any mysterious depression that any man is ever likely to have?"

"You are mistaken," she said softly. "You don't know Alresca. You don't know his strength of mind. I can assure you that it is something more than unreturned love that is destroying him."

"Destroying him?"

"Yes, destroying him. Alresca is capable of killing a futile passion. His soul is too far removed from his body, and even from his mind, to be seriously influenced by the mistakes and misfortunes of his mind and body. Do you understand me?"

"I think so."

"What is the matter with Alresca is something in his most secret soul."

"And you can form no idea of what it is?"

She made no reply.

"Doctors certainly can't cure such diseases as that," I said.

"They can try," said Rosetta Rosa.

"You wish me to try?" I faced her.

She inclined her head.

"Then I will," I said with sudden passionateness, forgetting even that I was not Alresca's doctor.

The carriage stopped. In the space of less than a quarter of an hour, so it seemed to me, we had grown almost intimate--she and I.

Alresca's man was awaiting us in the portico of the Devonshire, and without a word he led us to his master. Alresca lay on his back on a couch in a large and luxuriously littered drawing-room. The pallor of his face and the soft brilliance of his eyes were infinitely pathetic, and again he reminded me of the tragic and gloomy third act of "Tristan." He greeted us kindly in his quiet voice.

"I have brought the young man," said Rosa, "and now, after I have inquired about your health, I must go. It is late. Are you better, Alresca?"

"I am better now that you are here," he smiled. "But you must not go yet. It is many days since I heard a note of music. Sing to me before you go."

"To-night?"

"Yes, to-night."

"What shall I sing?"

"Anything, so that I hear your voice."

"I will sing 'Elsa's Dream.' But who will accompany? You know I simply can't play to my own singing."

I gathered together all my courage.

"I'm an awful player," I said, "but I know the whole score of 'Lohengrin.'"

"How clever of you!" Rosa laughed. "I'm sure you play beautifully."

Alresca rewarded me with a look, and, trembling, I sat down to the piano. I was despicably nervous. Before the song was finished I had lost everything but honor; but I played that accompaniment to the most marvellous soprano in the world.

And what singing! Rosa stood close beside me. I caught the golden voice at its birth. Every vibration, every shade of expression, every subtlety of feeling was mine; and the experience was unforgettable. Many times since then have I heard Rosa sing, many times in my hearing has she excited a vast audience to overwhelming enthusiasm; but never, to my mind, has she sung so finely as on that night. She was profoundly moved, she had in Alresca the ideal listener, and she sang with the magic power of a goddess. It was the summit of her career.

"There is none like you," Alresca said, and the praise of Alresca brought the crimson to her cheek. He was probably the one person living who had the right to praise her, for an artist can only be properly estimated by his equals.

"Come to me, Rosa," he murmured, as he took her hand in his and kissed it. "You are in exquisite voice to-night," he said.

"Am I?"

"Yes. You have been excited; and I notice that you always sing best under excitement."

"Perhaps," she replied. "The fact is, I have just met--met some one whom I never expected to meet. That is all. Good night, dear friend."

"Good night."

She passed her hand soothingly over his forehead.

When we were alone Alresca seemed to be overtaken by lassitude.

"Surely," I said, "it is not by Toddy--I mean Dr. Todhunter MacWhister's advice that you keep these hours. The clocks are striking two!"

"Ah, my friend," he replied wearily, in his precise and rather elaborate English, "ill or well, I must live as I have been accustomed to live. For twenty years I have gone to bed promptly at three o'clock and risen at eleven o'clock. Must I change because of a broken thigh? In an hour's time, and not before, my people will carry this couch and its burden to my bedroom. Then I shall pretend to sleep; but I shall not sleep. Somehow of late the habit of sleep has left me. Hitherto, I have scorned opiates, which are the refuge of the weak-minded, yet I fear I may be compelled to ask you for one. There was a time when I could will myself to sleep. But not now, not now!"

"I am not your medical adviser," I said, mindful of professional etiquette, "and I could not think of administering an opiate without the express permission of Dr. MacWhister."

"Pardon me," he said, his eyes resting on me with a quiet satisfaction that touched me to the heart, "but you are my medical adviser, if you will honor me so far. I have not forgotten your neat hand and skilful treatment of me at the time of my accident. To-day the little Scotchman told me that my thigh was progressing quite admirably, and that all I needed was nursing. I suggested to him that you should finish the case. He had, in fact, praised your skill. And so, Mr. Foster, will you be my doctor? I want you to examine me thoroughly, for, unless I deceive myself, I am suffering from some mysterious complaint."

I was enormously, ineffably flattered and delighted, and all the boy in me wanted to caper around the room and then to fall on Alresca's neck and dissolve in gratitude to him. But instead of these feats, I put on a vast seriousness (which must really have been very funny to behold), and then I thanked Alresca in formal phrases, and then, quite in the correct professional style, I began to make gentle fun of his idea of a mysterious complaint, and I asked him for a catalogue of his symptoms. I perceived that he and Rosa must have previously arranged that I should be requested to become his doctor.

"There are no symptoms," he replied, "except a gradual loss of vitality. But examine me."

I did so most carefully, testing the main organs, and subjecting him to a severe cross-examination.

"Well?" he said, as, after I had finished, I sat down to cogitate.

"Well, Monsieur Alresca, all I can say is that your fancy is too lively. That is what you suffer from, an excitable fan--"

"Stay, my friend," he interrupted me with a firm gesture. "Before you go any further, let me entreat you to be frank. Without absolute candor nothing can be done. I think I am a tolerable judge of faces, and I can read in yours the fact that my condition has puzzled you."

I paused, taken aback. It had puzzled me. I thought of all that Rosetta Rosa had said, and I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.

"I yield," I responded. "You are not an ordinary man, and it was absurd of me to treat you as one. Absolute candor is, as you say, essential, and so I'll confess that your case does puzzle me. There is no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic weakness--a weakness which fifty broken thighs would not explain. I must observe, and endeavor to discover the cause. In the meantime I have only one piece of advice. You know that in certain cases we have to tell women patients that a successful issue depends on their own willpower: I say the same thing to you."

"Receive my thanks," he said. "You have acted as I hoped. As for the willpower, that is another matter," and a faint smile crossed his handsome, melancholy face.

I rose to leave. It was nearly three o'clock.

"Give me a few moments longer. I have a favor to ask."

After speaking these words he closed his eyes, as though to recall the opening sentences of a carefully prepared speech.

"I am entirely at your service," I murmured.

"Mr. Foster," he began, "you are a young man of brilliant accomplishments, at the commencement of your career. Doubtless you have made your plans for the immediate future, and I feel quite sure that those plans do not include any special attendance upon myself, whom until the other day you had never met. I am a stranger to you, and on the part of a stranger it would be presumptuous to ask you to alter your plans. Nevertheless, I am at this moment capable of that presumption. In my life I have not often made requests, but such requests as I have made have never been refused. I hope that my good fortune in this respect may continue. Mr. Foster, I wish to leave England. I wish to die in my own place--"

I shrugged my shoulders in protest against the word "die."

"If you prefer it, I wish to live in my own place. Will you accompany me as companion? I am convinced that we should suit each other--that I should derive benefit from your skill and pleasure from your society, while you--you would tolerate the whims and eccentricities of my middle age. We need not discuss terms; you would merely name your fee."

There was, as a matter of fact, no reason in the world why I should have agreed to this suggestion of Alresca's. As he himself had said, we were strangers, and I was under no obligation to him of any kind.

Yet at once I felt an impulse to accept his proposal. Whence that impulse sprang I cannot say. Perhaps from the aspect of an adventure that the affair had. Perhaps from the vague idea that by attaching myself to Alresca I should be brought again into contact with Rosetta Rosa. Certainly I admired him immensely. None who knew him could avoid doing so. Already, indeed, I had for him a feeling akin to affection.

"I see by your face," he said, "that you are not altogether unwilling. You accept?"

"With pleasure;" and I smiled with the pleasure I felt.

But it seemed to me that I gave the answer independently of my own volition. The words were uttered almost before I knew.

"It is very good of you."

"Not at all," I said. "I have made no plans, and therefore nothing will be disarranged. Further, I count it an honor; and, moreover, your 'case'--pardon the word--interests me deeply. Where do you wish to go?"

"To Bruges, of course."

He seemed a little surprised that I should ask the question.

"Bruges," he went on, "that dear and wonderful old city of Flanders, is the place of my birth. You have visited it?"

"No," I said, "but I have often heard that it is the most picturesque city in Europe, and I should like to see it awfully."

"There is nothing in the world like Bruges," he said. "Bruges the Dead they call it; a fit spot in which to die."

"If you talk like that I shall reconsider my decision."

"Pardon, pardon!" he laughed, suddenly wearing an appearance of gaiety. "I am happier now. When can we go? To-morrow? Let it be to-morrow."

"Impossible," I said. "The idea of a man whose thigh was broken less than a fortnight since taking a sea voyage to-morrow! Do you know that under the most favorable circumstances it will be another five or six weeks before the bone unites, and that even then the greatest care will be necessary?"

His gaiety passed.

"Five more weeks here?"

"I fear so."

"But our agreement shall come into operation at once. You will visit me daily? Rather, you will live here?"

"If it pleases you. I am sure I shall be charmed to live here."

"Let the time go quickly--let it fly! Ah, Mr. Foster, you will like Bruges. It is the most dignified of cities. It has the picturesqueness of Nuremburg, the waterways of Amsterdam, the squares of Turin, the monuments of Perugia, the cafes of Florence, and the smells of Cologne. I have an old house there of the seventeenth century; it is on the Quai des Augustins."

"A family affair?" I questioned.

"No; I bought it only a few years ago from a friend. I fear I cannot boast of much family. My mother made lace, my father was a schoolmaster. They are both dead, and I have no relatives."

Somewhere in the building a clock struck three, and at that instant there was a tap at the door, and Alresca's valet discreetly entered.

"Monsieur rang?"

"No, Alexis. Leave us."

Comprehending that it was at last Alresca's hour for retiring, I rose to leave, and called the man back.

"Good night, dear friend," said Alresca, pressing my hand. "I shall expect you to-morrow, and in the meantime a room shall be prepared for you. Au revoir."

Alexis conducted me to the door. As he opened it he made a civil remark about the beauty of the night. I glanced at his face.

"You are English, aren't you?" I asked him.

"Yes, sir."

"I only ask because Alexis is such a peculiar name for an Englishman."

"It is merely a name given to me by Monsieur Alresca when I entered his service several years ago. My name is John Smedley."

"Well, Mr. Smedley," I said, putting half a sovereign into his hand, "I perceive that you are a man of intelligence."

"Hope so, sir."

"I am a doctor, and to-morrow, as I dare say you heard, I am coming to live here with your master in order to attend him medically."

"Yes, sir."

"He says he is suffering from some mysterious complaint, Smedley."

"He told me as much, sir."

"Do you know what that complaint is?"

"Haven't the least idea, sir. But he always seems low like, and he gets lower, especially during the nights. What might the complaint be, sir?"

"I wish I could tell you. By the way, haven't you had trained nurses there?"

"Yes, sir. The other doctor sent two. But the governor dismissed 'em yesterday. He told me they worried him. Me and the butler does what's necessary."

"You say he is more depressed during the nights--you mean he shows the effects of that depression in the mornings?"

"Just so, sir."

"I am going to be confidential, Smedley. Are you aware if your master has any secret trouble on his mind, any worry that he reveals to no one?"

"No, sir, I am not."

"Thank you, Smedley. Good night."

"Good night, sir, and thank you."

I had obtained no light from Alexis, and I sought in vain for an explanation of my patient's condition. Of course, it was plausible enough to argue that his passion for Rosa was at the root of the evil; but I remembered Rosa's words to me in the carriage, and I was disposed to agree with them. To me, as to her, it seemed that, though Alresca was the sort of man to love deeply, he was not the sort of man to allow an attachment, however profound or unfortunate, to make a wreck of his existence. No. If Alresca was dying, he was not dying of love.

As Alexis had remarked, it was a lovely summer night, and after quitting the Devonshire I stood idly on the pavement, and gazed about me in simple enjoyment of the scene.

The finest trees in Hyde Park towered darkly in front of me, and above them was spread the star-strewn sky, with a gibbous moon just showing over the housetops to the left. I could not see a soul, but faintly from the distance came the tramp of a policeman on his beat. The hour, to my busy fancy, seemed full of fate. But it was favorable to meditation, and I thought, and thought, and thought. Was I at the beginning of an adventure, or would the business, so strangely initiated, resolve itself into something prosaic and mediocre? I had a suspicion--indeed, I had a hope--that adventures were in store for me. Perhaps peril also. For the sinister impression originally made upon me by that ridiculous crystal-gazing scene into which I had been entrapped by Emmeline had returned, and do what I would I could not dismiss it.

My cousin's wife was sincere, with all her vulgarity and inborn snobbishness. And that being assumed, how did I stand with regard to Rosetta Rosa? Was the thing a coincidence, or had I indeed crossed her path pursuant to some strange decree of Fate--a decree which Emmeline had divined or guessed or presaged? There was a certain weirdness about Emmeline that was rather puzzling.

I had seen Rosa but twice, and her image, to use the old phrase, was stamped on my heart. True! Yet the heart of any young man who had talked with Rosa twice would in all probability have been similarly affected. Rosa was not the ordinary pretty and clever girl. She was such a creature as grows in this world not often in a century. She was an angel out of Paradise--an angel who might pass across Europe and leave behind her a trail of broken hearts to mark the transit. And if angels could sing as she did, then no wonder that the heavenly choirs were happy in nothing but song. (You are to remember that it was three o'clock in the morning.) No, the fact that I was already half in love with Rosa proved nothing.

On the other hand, might not the manner in which she and Alresca had sought me out be held to prove something? Why should such exalted personages think twice about a mere student of medicine who had had the good fortune once to make himself useful at a critical juncture? Surely, I could argue that here was the hand of Fate.

Rubbish! I was an ass to stand there at that unearthly hour, robbing myself of sleep in order to pursue such trains of thought. Besides, supposing that Rosa and myself were, in fact, drawn together by chance or fate, or whatever you like to call it, had not disaster been prophesied in that event? It would be best to leave the future alone. My aim should be to cure Alresca, and then go soberly to Totnes and join my brother in practice.

I turned down Oxford Street, whose perspective of gas-lamps stretched east and west to distances apparent infinite, and as I did so I suddenly knew that some one was standing by the railings opposite, under the shadow of the great trees. I had been so sure that I was alone that this discovery startled me a little, and I began to whistle tunelessly.

I could make out no details of the figure, except that it was a man who stood there, and to satisfy my curiosity I went across to inspect him. To my astonishment he was very well, though very quietly, dressed, and had the appearance of being a gentleman of the highest distinction. His face was clean-shaven, and I noticed the fine, firm chin, and the clear, unblinking eyes. He stood quite still, and as I approached looked me full in the face. It was a terrible gaze, and I do not mind confessing that, secretly, I quailed under it; there was malice and a dangerous hate in that gaze. Nevertheless I was young, careless, and enterprising.

"Can you tell me if I am likely to get a cab at this time of night?" I asked as lightly as I could. I wanted to hear his voice.

But he returned no answer, merely gazing at me as before, without a movement.

"Strange!" I said, half to myself. "The fellow must be deaf, or mad, or a foreigner."

The man smiled slightly, his lips drooping to a sneer. I retreated, and as I stepped back on the curb my foot touched some small object. I looked down, and in the dim light, for the dawn was already heralded, I saw the glitter of jewels. I stooped and picked the thing up. It was the same little dagger which but a few hours before I had seen Rosa present with so much formality to Sir Cyril Smart. But there was this difference--the tiny blade was covered with blood! _

Read next: Chapter 6. Alresca's Fate

Read previous: Chapter 4. Rosa's Summons

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