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The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy, a fiction by Arnold Bennett |
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Chapter 7. The Vigil By The Bier |
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_ CHAPTER VII. THE VIGIL BY THE BIER We looked at each other, Rosa and I, across the couch of Alresca. All the vague and terrible apprehensions, disquietudes, misgivings, which the gradual improvement in Alresca's condition had lulled to sleep, aroused themselves again in my mind, coming, as it were, boldly out into the open from the dark, unexplored grottos wherein they had crouched and hidden. And I went back in memory to those sinister days in London before I had brought Alresca to Bruges, days over which a mysterious horror had seemed to brood. I felt myself adrift in a sea of frightful suspicions. I remembered Alresca's delirium on the night of his accident, and his final hallucination concerning the blank wall in the dressing-room (if hallucination it was), also on that night. I remembered his outburst against Rosetta Rosa. I remembered Emmeline Smith's outburst against Rosetta Rosa. I remembered the vision in the crystal, and Rosa's sudden and astoundingly apt breaking in upon that vision. I remembered the scene between Rosa and Sir Cyril Smart, and her almost hysterical impulse to pierce her own arm with the little jewelled dagger. I remembered the glint of the dagger which drew my attention to it on the curb of an Oxford Street pavement afterwards. I remembered the disappearance of Sir Cyril Smart. I remembered all the inexplicable circumstances of Alresca's strange decay, and his equally strange recovery. I remembered that his recovery had coincided with an entire absence of communication between himself and Rosa.... And then she comes! And within an hour he is dead! "I love her. He has come again. This time it is--" How had Alresca meant to finish that sentence? "He has come again." Who had come again? Was there, then, another man involved in the enigma of this tragedy? Was it the man I had seen opposite the Devonshire Mansion on the night when I had found the dagger? Or was "he" merely an error for "she"? "I love her. She has come again." That would surely make better sense than what Alresca had actually written? And he must have been mentally perturbed. Such a slip was possible. No, no! When a man, even a dying man, is writing a message which he has torn out of his heart, he does not put "he" for "she" ... "I love her...." Then, had he misjudged her heart when he confided in me during the early part of the evening? Or had the sudden apparition of Rosa created his love anew? Why had she once refused him? She seemed to be sufficiently fond of him. But she had killed him. Directly or indirectly she had been the cause of his death. And as I looked at her, my profound grief for Alresca made me her judge. I forgot for the instant the feelings with which she had once inspired me, and which, indeed, had never died in my soul. "How do you explain this?" I demanded of her in a calm and judicial and yet slightly hostile tone. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "How sad it is! How terribly sad!" And her voice was so pure and kind, and her glance so innocent, and her grief so pitiful, that I dismissed forever any shade of a suspicion that I might have cherished against her. Although she had avoided my question, although she had ignored its tone, I knew with the certainty of absolute knowledge that she had no more concern in Alresca's death than I had. She came forward, and regarded the corpse steadily, and took the lifeless hand in her hand. But she did not cry. Then she went abruptly out of the room and out of the house. And for several days I did not see her. A superb wreath arrived with her card, and that was all. But the positive assurance that she was entirely unconnected with the riddle did nothing to help me to solve it. I had, however, to solve it for the Belgian authorities, and I did so by giving a certificate that Alresca had died of "failure of the heart's action." A convenient phrase, whose convenience imposes perhaps oftener than may be imagined on persons of an unsuspecting turn of mind! And having accounted for Alresca's death to the Belgian authorities, I had no leisure (save during the night) to cogitate much upon the mystery. For I was made immediately to realize, to an extent to which I had not realized before, how great a man Alresca was, and how large he bulked in the world's eye. The first announcement of his demise appeared in the "Etoile Belgi," the well-known Brussels daily, and from the moment of its appearance letters, telegrams, and callers descended upon Alresca's house in an unending stream. As his companion I naturally gave the whole of my attention to his affairs, especially as he seemed to have no relatives whatever. Correspondents of English, French, and German newspapers flung themselves upon me in the race for information. They seemed to scent a mystery, but I made it my business to discourage such an idea. Nay, I went further, and deliberately stated to them, with a false air of perfect candor, that there was no foundation of any sort for such an idea. Had not Alresca been indisposed for months? Had he not died from failure of the heart's action? There was no reason why I should have misled these excellent journalists in their search for the sensational truth, except that I preferred to keep the mystery wholly to myself. Those days after the death recur to me now as a sort of breathless nightmare, in which, aided by the admirable Alexis, I was forever despatching messages and uttering polite phrases to people I had never seen before. I had two surprises, one greater and one less. In the first place, the Anglo-Belgian lawyer whom I had summoned informed me, after Alresca's papers had been examined and certain effects sealed in the presence of an official, that my friend had made a will, bearing a date immediately before our arrival in Bruges, leaving the whole of his property to me, and appointing me sole executor. I have never understood why Alresca did this, and I have always thought that it was a mere kind caprice on his part. The second surprise was a visit from the Burgomaster of the city. He came clothed in his official robes. It was a call of the most rigid ceremony. Having condoled with me and also complimented me upon my succession to the dead man's estate, he intimated that the city desired a public funeral. For a moment I was averse to this, but as I could advance no argument against it I concurred in the proposal. There was a lying-in-state of the body at the cathedral, and the whole city seemed to go in mourning. On the second day a priest called at the house on the Quai des Augustins, and said that he had been sent by the Bishop to ask if I cared to witness the lying-in-state from some private vantage-ground. I went to the cathedral, and the Bishop himself escorted me to the organ-loft, whence I could see the silent crowds move slowly in pairs past Alresca's bier, which lay in the chancel. It was an impressive sight, and one which I shall not forget. On the afternoon of the day preceding the funeral the same priest came to me again, and I received him in the drawing-room, where I was writing a letter to Totnes. He was an old man, a very old man, with a quavering voice, but he would not sit down. "It has occurred to the Lord Bishop," he piped, "that monsieur has not been offered the privilege of watching by the bier." The idea startled me, and I was at a loss what to say. "The Lord Bishop presents his profound regrets, and will monsieur care to watch?" I saw at once that a refusal would have horrified the ecclesiastic. "I shall regard it as an honor," I said. "When?" "From midnight to two o'clock," answered the priest. "The later watches are arranged." "It is understood," I said, after a pause. And the priest departed, charged with my compliments to the Lord Bishop. I had a horror of the duty which had been thrust upon me. It went against not merely my inclinations but my instincts. However, there was only one thing to do, and of course I did it. At five minutes to twelve I was knocking at the north door of the cathedral. A sacristan, who carried in his hand a long lighted taper, admitted me at once. Save for this taper and four candles which stood at the four corners of the bier, the vast interior was in darkness. The sacristan silently pointed to the chancel, and I walked hesitatingly across the gloomy intervening space, my footsteps echoing formidably in the silence. Two young priests stood, one at either side of the lofty bier. One of them bowed to me, and I took his place. He disappeared into the ambulatory. The other priest was praying for the dead, a slight frown on his narrow white brow. His back was half-turned towards the corpse, and he did not seem to notice me in any way. I folded my arms, and as some relief from the uncanny and troublous thoughts which ran in my head I looked about me. I could not bring myself to gaze on the purple cloth which covered the remains of Alresca. We were alone--the priest, Alresca, and I--and I felt afraid. In vain I glanced round, in order to reassure myself, at the stained-glass windows, now illumined by September starlight, at the beautiful carving of the choir-stalls, at the ugly rococo screen. I was afraid, and there was no disguising my fear. Suddenly the clock chimes of the belfry rang forth with startling resonance, and twelve o'clock struck upon the stillness. Then followed upon the bells a solemn and funereal melody. "How comes that?" I asked the priest, without stopping to consider whether I had the right to speak during my vigil. "It is the carilloneur," my fellow watcher said, interrupting his whispered and sibilant devotions, and turning to me, as it seemed, unwillingly. "Have you not heard it before? Every evening since the death he has played it at midnight in memory of Alresca." Then he resumed his office. The minutes passed, or rather crawled by, and, if anything, my uneasiness increased. I suffered all the anxieties and tremors which those suffer who pass wakeful nights, imagining every conceivable ill, and victimized by the most dreadful forebodings. Through it all I was conscious of the cold of the stone floor penetrating my boots and chilling my feet.... The third quarter after one struck, and I began to congratulate myself that the ordeal by the bier was coming to an end. I looked with a sort of bravado into the dark, shadowed distances of the fane, and smiled at my nameless trepidations. And then, as my glance sought to penetrate the gloom of the great western porch, I grew aware that a man stood there. I wished to call the attention of the priest to this man, but I could not--I could not. He came very quietly out of the porch, and walked with hushed footfall up the nave; he mounted the five steps to the chancel; he approached us; he stood at the foot of the bier; he was within a yard of me. The priest had his back to him. The man seemed to ignore me; he looked fixedly at the bier. But I knew him. I knew that fine, hard, haughty face, that stiff bearing, that implacable eye. It was the man whom I had seen standing under the trees opposite the Devonshire Mansion in London. For a few moments his countenance showed no emotion. Then the features broke into an expression of indescribable malice. With gestures of demoniac triumph he mocked the solemnity of the bier, and showered upon it every scornful indignity that the human face can convey. I admit that I was spellbound with astonishment and horror. I ought to have seized the author of the infamous sacrilege--I ought, at any rate, to have called to the priest--but I could do neither. I trembled before this mysterious man. My frame literally shook. I knew what fear was. I was a coward. At length he turned away, casting at me as he did so one indefinable look, and with slow dignity passed again down the length of the nave and disappeared. Then, and not till then, I found my voice and my courage. I pulled the priest by the sleeve of his cassock. "Some one has just been in the cathedral," I said huskily. And I told him what I had seen. "Impossible! Retro me, Sathanas! It was imagination." His tone was dry, harsh. "No, no," I said eagerly. "I assure you...." He smiled incredulously, and repeated the word "Imagination!" But I well knew that it was not imagination, that I had actually seen this man enter and go forth. _ |
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