After Dark

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER I.

  One night, during the period of the first French Revolution, the familyof Francois Sarzeau, a fisherman of Brittany, were all waking andwatching at a late hour in their cottage on the peninsula of Quiberon.Francois had gone out in his boat that evening, as usual, to fish.Shortly after his departure, the wind had risen, the clouds hadgathered; and the storm, which had been threatening at intervalsthroughout the whole day, burst forth furiously about nine o'clock.It was now eleven; and the raging of the wind over the barren, heathypeninsula still seemed to increase with each fresh blast that tore itsway out upon the open sea; the crashing of the waves on the beach wasawful to hear; the dreary blackness of the sky terrible to behold. Thelonger they listened to the storm, the oftener they looked out at it,the fainter grew the hopes which the fisherman's family still strove tocherish for the safety of Francois Sarzeau and of his younger son whohad gone with him in the boat.

  There was something impressive in the simplicity of the scene that wasnow passing within the cottage.

  On one side of the great, rugged, black fire-place crouched two littlegirls; the younger half asleep, with her head in her sister's lap. Thesewere the daughters of the fisherman; and opposite to them sat theireldest brother, Gabriel. His right arm had been badly wounded in arecent encounter at the national game of the _Soule_, a sport resemblingour English foot-ball; but played on both sides in such savage earnestby the people of Brittany as to end always in bloodshed, often inmutilation, sometimes even in loss of life. On the same bench withGabriel sat his betrothed wife--a girl of eighteen--clothed in theplain, almost monastic black-and-white costume of her native district.She was the daughter of a small farmer living at some little distancefrom the coast. Between the groups formed on either side of thefire-place, the vacant space was occupied by the foot of a truckle-bed.In this bed lay a very old man, the father of Francois Sarzeau. Hishaggard face was covered with deep wrinkles; his long white hair flowedover the coarse lump of sacking which served him for a pillow, andhis light gray eyes wandered incessantly, with a strange expression ofterror and suspicion, from person to person, and from object to object,in all parts of the room. Whenever the wind and sea whistled and roaredat their loudest, he muttered to himself and tossed his hands fretfullyon his wretched coverlet. On these occasions his eyes always fixedthemselves intently on a little delf image of the Virgin placed ina niche over the fire-place. Every time they saw him look in thisdirection Gabriel and the young girls shuddered and crossed themselves;and even the child, who still kept awake, imitated their example.There was one bond of feeling at least between the old man and hisgrandchildren, which connected his age and their youth unnaturally andclosely together. This feeling was reverence for the superstitionswhich had been handed down to them by their ancestors from centuriesand centuries back, as far even as the age of the Druids. The spiritwarnings of disaster and death which the old man heard in the wailingof the wind, in the crashing of the waves, in the dreary, monotonousrattling of the casement, the young man and his affianced wife and thelittle child who cowered by the fireside heard too. All differences insex, in temperament, in years, superstition was strong enough to strikedown to its own dread level, in the fisherman's cottage, on that stormynight.

  Besides the benches by the fireside and the bed, the only piece offurniture in the room was a coarse wooden table, with a loaf of blackbread, a knife, and a pitcher of cider placed on it. Old nets, coilsof rope, tattered sails, hung, about the walls and over the woodenpartition which separated the room into two compartments. Wisps of strawand ears of barley drooped down through the rotten rafters and gapingboards that made the floor of the granary above.

  These different objects, and the persons in the cottage, who composedthe only surviving members of the fisherman's family, were strangely andwildly lit up by the blaze of the fire and by the still brighter glareof a resin torch stuck into a block of wood in the chimney-corner. Thered and yellow light played full on the weird face of the old man ashe lay opposite to it, and glanced fitfully on the figures of the younggirl, Gabriel, and the two children; the great, gloomy shadows roseand fell, and grew and lessened in bulk about the walls like visionsof darkness, animated by a supernatural specter-life, while the denseobscurity outside spreading before the curtainless window seemed as awall of solid darkness that had closed in forever around the fisherman'shouse. The night scene within the cottage was almost as wild and asdreary to look upon as the night scene without.

  For a long time the different persons in the room sat together withoutspeaking, even without looking at each other. At last the girl turnedand whispered something into Gabriel's ear:

  "Perrine, what were you saying to Gabriel?" asked the child opposite,seizing the first opportunity of breaking the desolate silence--doublydesolate at her age--which was preserved by all around her.

  "I was telling him," answered Perrine, simply, "that it was time tochange the bandages on his arm; and I also said to him, what I haveoften said before, that he must never play at that terrible game of the_Soule_ again."

  The old man had been looking intently at Perrine and his grandchild asthey spoke. His harsh, hollow voice mingled with the last soft tones ofthe young girl, repeating over and over again the same terrible words,"Drowned! drowned! Son and grandson, both drowned! both drowned!"

  "Hush, grandfather," said Gabriel, "we must not lose all hope for themyet. God and the Blessed Virgin protect them!" He looked at the littledelf image, and crossed himself; the others imitated him, except the oldman. He still tossed his hands over the coverlet, and still repeated,"Drowned! drowned!"

  "Oh, that accursed _Soule!_" groaned the young man. "But for this woundI should have been with my father. The poor boy's life might at leasthave been saved; for we should then have left him here."

  "Silence!" exclaimed the harsh voice from the bed. "The wail of dyingmen rises louder than the loud sea; the devil's psalm-singing roarshigher than the roaring wind! Be silent, and listen! Francois drowned!Pierre drowned! Hark! Hark!"

  A terrific blast of wind burst over the house as he spoke, shaking it toits center, overpowering all other sounds, even to the deafening crashof the waves. The slumbering child awoke, and uttered a scream offear. Perrine, who had been kneeling before her lover binding the freshbandages on his wounded arm, paused in her occupation, trembling fromhead to foot. Gabriel looked toward the window; his experience told himwhat must be the hurricane fury of that blast of wind out at sea, andhe sighed bitterly as he murmured to himself, "God help them both--man'shelp will be as nothing to them now!"

  "Gabriel!" cried the voice from the bed in altered tones--very faint andtrembling.

  He did not hear or did not attend to the old man. He was trying tosoothe and encourage the young girl at his feet.

  "Don't be frightened, love," he said, kissing her very gently andtenderly on the forehead. "You are as safe here as anywhere. Was I notright in saying that it would be madness to attempt taking you back tothe farmhouse this evening? You can sleep in that room, Perrine, whenyou are tired--you can sleep with the two girls."

  "Gabriel! brother Gabriel!" cried one of the children. "Oh, look atgrandfather!"

  Gabriel ran to the bedside. The old man had raised himself into asitting position; his eyes were dilated, his whole face was rigid withterror, his hands were stretched out convulsively toward his grandson."The White Women!" he screamed. "The White Women; the grave-diggers ofthe drowned are out on the sea!"

  The children, with cries of terror, flung themselves into Perrine'sarms; even Gabriel uttered an exclamation of horror, and started backfrom the bedside.

  Still the old man reiterated, "The White Women! The White Women! Openthe door, Gabriel! look-out westward, where the ebb-tide has left thesand dry. You'll see them bright as lightning in the darkness, mightyas the angels in stature, sweeping like the wind over the sea, in theirlong white garments, with their white hair trailing far behind them!Open the door, Gabriel! You'll see them stop and hover over the placewhe
re your father and your brother have been drowned; you'll see themcome on till they reach the sand, you'll see them dig in it with theirnaked feet and beckon awfully to the raging sea to give up its dead.Open the door, Gabriel--or, though it should be the death of me, I willget up and open it myself!"

  Gabriel's face whitened even to his lips, but he made a sign that hewould obey. It required the exertion of his whole strength to keep thedoor open against the wind while he looked out.

  "Do you see them, grandson Gabriel? Speak the truth, and tell me if yousee them," cried the old man.

  "I see nothing but darkness--pitch darkness," answered Gabriel, lettingthe door close again.

  "Ah! woe! woe!" groaned his grandfather, sinking back exhausted on thepillow. "Darkness to _you;_ but bright as lightning to the eyes thatare allowed to see them. Drowned! drowned! Pray for their souls,Gabriel--_I_ see the White Women even where I lie, and dare not pray forthem. Son and grandson drowned! both drowned!"

  The young man went back to Perrine and the children.

  "Grandfather is very ill to-night," he whispered. "You had better all gointo the bedroom, and leave me alone to watch by him."

  They rose as he spoke, crossed themselves before the image of theVirgin, kissed him one by one, and, without uttering a word, softlyentered the little room on the other side of the partition. Gabriellooked at his grandfather, and saw that he lay quiet now, with his eyesclosed as if he were already dropping asleep. The young man then heapedsome fresh logs on the fire, and sat down by it to watch till morning.

  Very dreary was the moaning of the night storm; but it was notmore dreary than the thoughts which now occupied him in hissolitude--thoughts darkened and distorted by the terrible superstitionsof his country and his race. Ever since the period of his mother's deathhe had been oppressed by the conviction that some curse hung over thefamily. At first they had been prosperous, they had got money, a littlelegacy had been left them. But this good fortune had availed only fora time; disaster on disaster strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses,misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them; his father'stemper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of Francois Sarzeaudeclared he was changed beyond recognition. And now, all this pastmisfortune--the steady, withering, household blight of many years--hadended in the last, worst misery of all--in death. The fate of hisfather and his brother admitted no longer of a doubt; he knew it, as helistened to the storm, as he reflected on his grandfather's words, ashe called to mind his own experience of the perils of the sea. And thisdouble bereavement had fallen on him just as the time was approachingfor his marriage with Perrine; just when misfortune was most ominous ofevil, just when it was hardest to bear! Forebodings, which he dared notrealize, began now to mingle with the bitterness of his grief, wheneverhis thoughts wandered from the present to the future; and as he sat bythe lonely fireside, murmuring from time to time the Church prayer forthe repose of the dead, he almost involuntarily mingled with it anotherprayer, expressed only in his own simple words, for the safety of theliving--for the young girl whose love was his sole earthly treasure; forthe motherless children who must now look for protection to him alone.

  He had sat by the hearth a long, long time, absorbed in his thoughts,not once looking round toward the bed, when he was startled by hearingthe sound of his grandfather's voice once more.

  "Gabriel," whispered the old man, trembling and shrinking as he spoke,"Gabriel, do you hear a dripping of water--now slow, now quick again--onthe floor at the foot of my bed?"

  "I hear nothing, grandfather, but the crackling of the fire, and theroaring of the storm outside."

  "Drip, drip, drip! Faster and faster; plainer and plainer. Take thetorch, Gabriel; look down on the floor--look with all your eyes. Is theplace wet there? Is it the rain from heaven that is dropping through theroof?"

  Gabriel took the torch with trembling fingers and knelt down on thefloor to examine it closely. He started back from the place, as he sawthat it was quite dry--the torch dropped upon the hearth--he fell on hisknees before the statue of the Virgin and hid his face.

  "Is the floor wet? Answer me, I command you--is the floor wet?" askedthe old man, quickly and breathlessly.

  Gabriel rose, went back to the bedside, and whispered to him that nodrop of rain had fallen inside the cottage. As he spoke the words, hesaw a change pass over his grandfather's face--the sharp featuresseemed to wither up on a sudden; the eager expression to grow vacantand death-like in an instant. The voice, too, altered; it was harsh andquerulous no more; its tones became strangely soft, slow, and solemn,when the old man spoke again.

  "I hear it still," he said, "drip! drip! faster and plainer than ever.That ghostly dropping of water is the last and the surest of thefatal signs which have told of your father's and your brother's deathsto-night, and I know from the place where I hear it--the foot of thebed I lie on--that it is a warning to me of my own approaching end. I amcalled where my son and my grandson have gone before me; my weary timein this world is over at last. Don't let Perrine and the children comein here, if they should awake--they are too young to look at death."

  Gabriel's blood curdled when he heard these words--when he touched hisgrandfather's hand, and felt the chill that it struck to his own--whenhe listened to the raging wind, and knew that all help was miles andmiles away from the cottage. Still, in spite of the storm, the darkness,and the distance, he thought not for a moment of neglecting the dutythat had been taught him from his childhood--the duty of summoning thepriest to the bedside of the dying. "I must call Perrine," he said, "towatch by you while I am away."

  "Stop!" cried the old man. "Stop, Gabriel; I implore, I command you notto leave me!"

  "The priest, grandfather--your confession--"

  "It must be made to you. In this darkness and this hurricane no man cankeep the path across the heath. Gabriel, I am dying--I should be deadbefore you got back. Gabriel, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, stophere with me till I die--my time is short--I have a terrible secret thatI must tell to somebody before I draw my last breath! Your ear to mymouth--quick! quick!"

  As he spoke the last words, a slight noise was audible on the otherside of the partition, the door half opened, and Perrine appeared atit, looking affrightedly into the room. The vigilant eyes of the oldman--suspicious even in death--caught sight of her directly.

  "Go back!" he exclaimed faintly, before she could utter a word; "goback--push her back, Gabriel, and nail down the latch in the door, ifshe won't shut it of herself!"

  "Dear Perrine! go in again," implored Gabriel. "Go in, and keep thechildren from disturbing us. You will only make him worse--you can be ofno use here!"

  She obeyed without speaking, and shut the door again.

  While the old man clutched him by the arm, and repeated, "Quick! quick!your ear close to my mouth," Gabriel heard her say to the children (whowere both awake), "Let us pray for grandfather." And as he knelt downby the bedside, there stole on his ear the sweet, childish tones of hislittle sisters, and the soft, subdued voice of the young girl who wasteaching them the prayer, mingling divinely with the solemn wailingof wind and sea, rising in a still and awful purity over the hoarse,gasping whispers of the dying man.

  "I took an oath not to tell it, Gabriel--lean down closer! I'm weak, andthey mustn't hear a word in that room--I took an oath not to tell it;but death is a warrant to all men for breaking such an oath as that.Listen; don't lose a word I'm saying! Don't look away into the room: thestain of blood-guilt has defiled it forever! Hush! hush! hush! Let mespeak. Now your father's dead, I can't carry the horrid secret with meinto the grave. Just remember, Gabriel--try if you can't remember thetime before I was bedridden, ten years ago and more--it was about sixweeks, you know, before your mother's death; you can remember it bythat. You and all the children were in that room with your mother; youwere asleep, I think; it was night, not very late--only nine o'clock.Your father and I were standing at the door, looking out at the heath inthe moonlight. He was so poor at that time, he h
ad been obliged to sellhis own boat, and none of the neighbors would take him out fishing withthem--your father wasn't liked by any of the neighbors. Well; we sawa stranger coming toward us; a very young man, with a knapsack on hisback. He looked like a gentleman, though he was but poorly dressed. Hecame up, and told us he was dead tired, and didn't think he could reachthe town that night and asked if we would give him shelter till morning.And your father said yes, if he would make no noise, because the wifewas ill, and the children were asleep. So he said all he wanted wasto go to sleep himself before the fire. We had nothing to give himbut black bread. He had better food with him than that, and undid hisknapsack to get at it, and--and--Gabriel! I'm sinking--drink! somethingto drink--I'm parched with thirst."

  Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from thepitcher on the table into a drinking-cup, and gave it to the old man.Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almost instantaneous.His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whisperingtones as before:

  "He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that someof the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was apocketbook, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he putit in his coat-pocket--there was a tear in one of the sides of the book,and through the hole some bank-notes bulged out. I saw them, and so didyour father (don't move away, Gabriel; keep close, there's nothing in meto shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like an honest fellow,with us; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or fivelivres, and then lay down before the fire to go to sleep. As he shuthis eyes, your father looked at me in a way I didn't like. He'd beenbehaving very bitterly and desperately toward us for some time past,being soured about poverty, and your mother's illness, and the constantcrying out of you children for more to eat. So when he told me to go andbuy some wood, some bread, and some wine with money I had got, Ididn't like, somehow, to leave him alone with the stranger; and so madeexcuses, saying (which was true) that it was too late to buy things inthe village that night. But he told me in a rage to go and do as he bidme, and knock the people up if the shop was shut. So I went out,being dreadfully afraid of your father--as indeed we all were at thattime--but I couldn't make up my mind to go far from the house; I wasafraid of something happening, though I didn't dare to think what. Idon't know how it was, but I stole back in about ten minutes on tiptoeto the cottage; I looked in at the window, and saw--O God! forgive him!O God! forgive me!--I saw--I--more to drink, Gabriel! I can't speakagain--more to drink!"

  The voices in the next room had ceased; but in the minute of silencewhich now ensued, Gabriel heard his sisters kissing Perrine, and wishingher good-night. They were all three trying to go asleep again.

  "Gabriel, pray yourself, and teach your children after you to pray,that your father may find forgiveness where he is now gone. I saw him asplainly as I now see you, kneeling with his knife in one hand over thesleeping man. He was taking the little book with the notes in it out ofthe stranger's pocket. He got the book into his possession, and held itquite still in his hand for an instant, thinking. I believe--oh no! no!I'm sure--he was repenting; I'm sure he was going to put the book back;but just at that moment the stranger moved, and raised one of his arms,as if he was waking up. Then the temptation of the devil grew too strongfor your father--I saw him lift the hand with the knife in it--but sawnothing more. I couldn't look in at the window--I couldn't moveaway--I couldn't cry out; I stood with my back turned toward the house,shivering all over, though it was a warm summer-time, and hearing nocries, no noises at all, from the room behind me. I was too frightenedto know how long it was before the opening of the cottage door made meturn round; but when I did, I saw your father standing before me in theyellow moonlight, carrying in his arms the bleeding body of the poorlad who had shared his food with us and slept on our hearth. Hush! hush!Don't groan and sob in that way! Stifle it with the bedclothes. Hush!you'll wake them in the next room!"

  "Gabriel--Gabriel!" exclaimed a voice from behind the partition. "Whathas happened? Gabriel! let me come out and be with you!"

  "No! no!" cried the old man, collecting the last remains of his strengthin the attempt to speak above the wind, which was just then howling atthe loudest; "stay where you are--don't speak, don't come out--I commandyou! Gabriel" (his voice dropped to a faint whisper), "raise me up inbed--you must hear the whole of it now; raise me; I'm choking so thatI can hardly speak. Keep close and listen--I can't say much more. Wherewas I?--Ah, your father! He threatened to kill me if I didn't swear tokeep it secret; and in terror of my life I swore. He made me help him tocarry the body--we took it all across the heath--oh! horrible, horrible,under the bright moon--(lift me higher, Gabriel). You know the greatstones yonder, set up by the heathens; you know the hollow place underthe stones they call 'The Merchant's Table'; we had plenty of room tolay him in that, and hide him so; and then we ran back to the cottage. Inever dared to go near the place afterward; no, nor your father either!(Higher, Gabriel! I'm choking again.) We burned the pocket-book and theknapsack--never knew his name--we kept the money to spend. (You're notlifting me; you're not listening close enough!) Your father said it wasa legacy, when you and your mother asked about the money. (You hurt me,you shake me to pieces, Gabriel, when you sob like that.) It broughta curse on us, the money; the curse has drowned your father and yourbrother; the curse is killing me; but I've confessed--tell the priest Iconfessed before I died. Stop her; stop Perrine! I hear her getting up.Take his bones away from the Merchant's Table, and bury them for thelove of God! and tell the priest (lift me higher, lift me till I amon my knees)--if your father was alive, he'd murder me; but tell thepriest--because of my guilty soul--to pray, and--remember the Merchant'sTable--to bury, and to pray--to pray always for--"

  As long as Perrine heard faintly the whispering of the old man, thoughno word that he said reached her ear, she shrank from opening the doorin the partition. But, when the whispering sounds, which terrified hershe knew not how or why, first faltered, then ceased altogether; whenshe heard the sobs that followed them; and when her heart told her whowas weeping in the next room--then, she began to be influenced by a newfeeling which was stronger than the strongest fear, and she opened thedoor without hesitation, almost without trembling.

  The coverlet was drawn up over the old man; Gabriel was kneeling bythe bedside, with his face hidden. When she spoke to him, he neitheranswered nor looked at her. After a while the sobs that shook himceased; but still he never moved, except once when she touched him, andthen he shuddered--shuddered under _her_ hand! She called in his littlesisters, and they spoke to him, and still he uttered no word in reply.They wept. One by one, often and often, they entreated him with lovingwords; but the stupor of grief which held him speechless and motionlesswas beyond the power of human tears, stronger even than the strength ofhuman love.

  It was near daybreak, and the storm was lulling, but still no changeoccurred at the bedside. Once or twice, as Perrine knelt near Gabriel,still vainly endeavoring to arouse him to a sense of her presence, shethought she heard the old man breathing feebly, and stretched out herhand toward the coverlet; but she could not summon courage to touch himor to look at him. This was the first time she had ever been present ata death-bed; the stillness in the room, the stupor of despair that hadseized on Gabriel, so horrified her, that she was almost as helpless asthe two children by her side. It was not till the dawn looked in at thecottage window--so coldly, so drearily, and yet so re-assuringly--thatshe began to recover her self-possession at all. Then she knew that herbest resource would be to summon assistance immediately from the nearesthouse. While she was trying to persuade the two children to remainalone in the cottage with Gabriel during her temporary absence, she wasstartled by the sound of footsteps outside the door. It opened, and aman appeared on the threshold, standing still there for a moment in thedim, uncertain light.

  She looked closer--looked intently at him. It was Francois Sarzeauhimself.