Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “There’s one thing,” she said, “ I’ve thought of. That tar — it gave way — do you think rubber-solution?”

  “The very thing,” he acquiesced with careful, alert alacrity.

  It was not a pretty scene. She looked out of the window while he did it. But she was only gaining strength to look at the finished work.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I meant — How clever you are. Put it away — while I go to see how he is.”

  He put it away, but not in the cabinet. Then he went out — to get food and the evening papers — whose first edition, by a charming irony, is published at eleven in the morning.

  When he came back she said:

  “I’m glad you’re going to be here. You’ll be here to-night when I have to go up into that room to dress. It’s all right now, you know — it’s all right now, of course, and I don’t suppose I shall feel differently then. But I might. I might. You see it’ll be dark then — and — I haven’t been into that room again. Would you mind going in now — into my room, I mean, and taking those roses away? And taking the quilt off the bed? Put it away somewhere — anywhere, in one of the attics. I’m sorry to be so silly — but I don’t want to give myself the chance of being sillier still to-night, that’s all.”

  “You are very wonderful,” he said.

  “I’m a silly coward,” she said bitterly.

  “You’re the bravest woman in the world,” he said, — and went up to her room as to a sanctuary. He put the roses where he had put something else, — and so Uncle Mosenthal’s romantic dream of the Head among red roses was realised in a dusty attic, with no one to see.

  * * * * *

  The Management at the Hilarity was in despair. Sylvia had announced her intention of altering the Salome dance, and had declined, on that evening, to dance any other dance than the Salome. Pan had hurt his hand, she said, and she would not dance the Forest dance to any other piping.

  “Besides,” she insisted, “I am over-tired. If I do anything besides Salome I am afraid I shall break down altogether — and how: would you like that?”

  Her eyes told the Management that her pale lips spoke the truth — she was ill. And her voice told him that argument or persuasion would be equally useless. Besides, he had learned to recognise that Sylvia, unlike most of the women he had known, always meant exactly what she said — to him. Also he had seen the papers, knew that a headless body with its name conveniently on a card in its pocket had been identified as her husband — and he thought himself lucky that she would dance at all.

  “Heartless little beast,” he said. “All women are. But I thought she was different.”

  He embodied her plea of illness in a clever little speech — which predisposed the audience to be lenient to the Salome dance if it should fall below its usual level, and if it should rise above that level, to be enthusiastic. He mentioned her bereavement, adding: “They had been long separated. But I am sure you will appreciate our Sylvia’s courage in keeping at least one of her engagements in such circumstances.”

  The orchestra tuned up; the conductor collected eyes like a hostess at a dinner party, and the music began. It was the last movement of Denny’s Love Symphony, to which again the curtain rose.

  The alteration which Sylvia had announced to the Management was a singular one. Salome crouched in the middle of the scene surrounded, as usual, by Herod and his court. She crouched, huddled up on the ground, her veil wound about her in fold on fold of cobweb-colour, and, crouched there, she swayed slightly to the rhythm of the opening theme. And the lights lessened and the grey veil of twilight descended. With the first change in the temper of the music the twilight awakened to moonlight, the music increased in complexity and in volume, and on a crash of the drums and cymbals, Salome rose to her full stature, holding high above her, in outstretched arms, the Head.

  The effect was electric. Through the still house ran audibly the almost hiss of a breath quickly indrawn between teeth. She paused on the attitude — a long pause. And the orchestra paused, too. Then with the leap of the music to the magnificent insistence of its tragic theme the dance began.

  You will have noted that each time I have had occasion to speak of Sylvia’s dancing at the Hilarity, I have indicated that she did, on each occasion, surpass herself. I have indicated this because it was what happened. I want you to see her popularity increasing day by day, the magic of her charm rising, little by little, to its zenith.

  And this dance to-night marked, indeed, the zenith of her fame. It was the dance of love and death — as the composer of the symphony had dreamed it.

  Her other dances had been already dances that no other woman had imagined or could have executed. But this dance did not merely appeal as a work of art. It appealed as the work of Nature. It was the thing that hitherto the Salome dance had represented. Plainly to be seen, and comprehended by the poorest critic in the gallery, the meanest enthusiast in the stalls, it was the Dance of Love and Death. The music seemed to uphold rather than to accompany her movements, and when the triumphant tragic finale had thundered forth and the Court of Herod sprang out from the darkness of dreams into the sudden light of reality Salome reeled wildly, — the head dropped from her hands and rolled bumping to the footlights. The curtain slid down quickly.

  The conductor spoke a quick sharp word and the orchestra dashed brilliantly into the March from Faust. Two attendants came on to change the numbers, and a third, a very young man, sauntered along between footlights and curtain to pick up the head. He stooped over it, touched it, and went back without it — not sauntering. An attendant of maturer years came in and took it away.

  That was the last that any audience ever saw of Salome and the Head.

  Behind the curtain the Management, fussing round a limp, insensible girl, found himself touched on the arm.

  “Beg pardon, sir — there’s something odd”

  There were whispers — the kindly people of Herod’s court — king, slaves, and courtiers, surrounding the unconscious Salome, sympathetic for her courage in attempting the dance on that night of all nights, heard words:

  “That discovery — the headless body — her husband.” “ The head is alive — dead, I mean.” “Police.” “Get ourselves into trouble.”

  Herodias, who was a little deaf, but handsome and kindly, looked about for some practical service that she might do for the sufferer.

  “The head,” she said, with a born actress’s solicitude for a valuable ‘property,’ “wax scratches so easily. Where’s the head?”

  “Hush,” said the group that was whispering, — and so loudly that even Herodias heard.

  “She’s mad, you know,” said Herod,—”must be.”

  “The more reason she should he looked after,” said the Management. “My dear boy, it’s got to be done. You don’t want us all to be lagged for accessories after the fact, do you? It must be found out. She must be quite off her chump, poor girl. They won’t do anything to her. It was her husband, the body, you know. They’ll look after her quite kindly. And now here’s the head. Mad as a hatter, not a doubt of it. And anyway her dancing career is over.”

  “Well, look here,” said Herod: “wait till she comes to, and then send for the police if you must. But do let her get to her dressing-room and get her outdoor things on. You’re not bound to have the poor child carted away dressed up like that.”

  “My dear Vandeleur, I can’t do it,” said the haggard Management, “not at any price, dear boy. What’s that you say, Somerville? Her chauffeur wants to speak to her. Ah, she’s coming to. Let him come along. That can’t do any harm, can it?”

  So the first face she saw when she came out of the black sea where she had been drowning was the that of John Smith.

  “I’m all right now,” she said; “let’s go home. Ah, where is it? The head — Where’s the Head.”

  She sat up, looking round her.

  “Dying, the doctor says,” the chauffeur spoke low. “ Oh — the Head’s
all right, don’t worry about that.”

  She reached for his hand and pulled herself up by it, and the others watched as folk watch a play. “ Says he may last till morning, but probably not more than a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll come now.” She suddenly let go his hand, turned and made for her dressing-room. No one stopped her. The Management reflected that Vandeleur’s suggestion, after all, had something in it. The girl must get her clothes on.

  “It’s no use your waiting,” he said to the chauffeur. “ She won’t be coming yet awhile.”

  The chauffeur went down to his motor and waited. The Management posted a sentinel in the way by which Sandra would come out of the dressing-room.

  To Sandra’s confused brain the fact that the Head had passed from her hands meant only danger — vague but terrible danger and not to her. Also that people might stop her, ask questions, questions that would keep her from the side of the beloved. And now. Instinctively she put on the wig and the clothes of Miss Gertrude Steinhart.

  Her dresser was below, drinking in the details of the horror. Sylvia was engaged to be married — and her husband was murdered. And she had gone mad for love — killed him. . . . danced with the Head. It was a pretty topic and confession.

  The sentinel let Miss Steinhart pass. Quite unnoticed by the few understrappers whom she met she went out of the stage-door. No one bothered about a shabby old lady; no one had time even to look at her.

  She took no notice of the chauffeur, who followed her, accommodating his machine to her pace. In the next street he caught her up, stopped, and opened the door of the motor for her.

  When they stood in the vaulted passage, she turned to him, tearing off the white wig and the shabby mantle.

  “Remember,” she said, “whatever happens, you know nothing, nothing. You did not know it was in the cabinet. You never saw it. Remember that — not just for your own sake, but for mine.”

  “You .... but what you danced with was not really the Head.”

  “Of course it was — look at my hands — it came through the rubber after all — it was the only safe thing to do — to take it to the theatre and dance with it. I told you I meant to do that. And you see I did it. How could I know I should faint or drop it? I never did before. It would never have done to have left it here — when the secret of the house might be found out at any moment. But now it’s all up.”

  “Look here,” he said, and frowned. “ This is serious. When you were upstairs to-day I took that head out, and put the wax head in its place. I thought you would not notice till you got to the theatre, and perhaps not then. Are you sure it was the real Head?”

  “Yes,” she said: and shuddered, rubbing her hands together.

  “Then someone must have moved the wax head and put the real one back.”

  “Where did you put the Head — the real one?”

  “In the attic. When you were upstairs with — when you were upstairs I took the head up and put it with the roses — and put the wax one in the cabinet. Somebody changed it. And now we shall have the police here in about half an hour.”

  “Can’t you stop them?”

  “I can try,” he said, “ but to leave you alone . . . . “ There really was a singular1 sameness in this man’s utterances.

  “I shan’t be alone, you know,” she said. “ But if you could keep the police away — for a little while — just a little while for me to be with him — it won’t be for long.”

  “Is it so much to you,” he said, “ to keep them away to-night?”

  “It’s everything,” he said.

  “Then it’s done,” said he. “ Don’t be in the least anxious. I’ll keep the police away.”

  He hesitated.

  “I wish,” he said, “ that there had been more than that I could do for you.”

  “You’ve done everything,” she said, “everything.”

  “May I kiss your hand?” he asked, in the tones one uses who asks another to pass the salt. “I may not see you again for some time”

  She looked at him, and in his eyes saw the light of the fire that burns on altars.

  “Oh, don’t,” she said; “oh, don’t be unhappy!”

  “I don’t intend to be,” he said, “but just now .... I have a fancy that I should like to tell you something. May I tell you ....?”

  “Yes,” she said, and she said it in a whisper, and she knew that she ought not to have said it in a whisper. But when he spoke the thing he said was not what she had half-feared, half-wished, to hear. He said:

  “You’ve heard of sudden conversion, and a change of heart — haven’t you? Well, I want you to know that that’s what you’ve given me. You’ve changed the values of all the things in the world. Nothing looks as it used to do. I’ve thrown away everything that’s worth having in life — and I didn’t know that I wasn’t throwing away rubbish. But you’ve changed all that. I know now exactly what the things I’ve thrown away were worth. And I shan’t throw anything more away. ‘The Converted Chauffeur: a tract for the lost,’” he added, and smiled. “Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” she said. And in that moment of gratitude to him for what he had not said, she loved him. She looked at him a little wildly — and held out her hands. He took them — kissed them gently, and gently let them fall. It was then that she suddenly put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

  “Dear child — dear foolish child,” he said, “ that was good of you. I shall remember that — as long as I live. You’re very brave, very fine, very generous. You’re sure you love that man?” he said. “I’ve no right to ask, but I must ask.”

  “Yes,” she said, “Oh — of course I love him. Oh, I am sorry. Oh, I wish there were two of me,” said she, “for then I should love you, too.”

  He stood a moment awkwardly. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “ I’d rather love you than not — though I know it’s no good.”

  “God bless you — dear.”

  He came back again to say yet once again: “ It’s all right, don’t you worry. I know well enough,” said John Smith. “ I know how she loves him. And now to embrace the adventure in the true Sidney Carton manner and risk all that there is left to risk — to keep a life she loves beside her!” So he went out into the street, made a brief call at a certain address, then found a policeman, asked him the time, offered him a cigar, remarked on the fineness of the night, and added carelessly:

  “By the way, who’s the proper person to give yourself up to if you happen to have murdered anyone?”

  “Ha,” said the policeman acutely, “you want it to put in a book. We’re often applied to for information by you literary characters. You’d be surprised. Your villain, sir, when overcome with remorse for ‘is crime, could make a statement to a constable on duty, as it might be me, who would then blow his whistle to acquaint his mate with something being up. On his mate arriving on the scene the constable would conduct the criminal to the nearest station, where he would report the confession to his inspector, who would then take down the prisoner’s statement. The prisoner would pass the night in the cells and be brought before the magistrate in the morning. Habeas Corpus Act, sir, in case you wish to seem auto-dafé with the subject in the book you’re writing.”

  “Thank you,” said the chauffeur. “You put it with admirable clearness. And now you’d better blow your whistle.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I give myself up for the murder of Isidore Saccage.”

  “Eh?” said the policeman.

  “It was I who killed that man Saccage. An old quarrel, and I was delighted to get the matter finally settled.”

  “You will ‘ave your joke, sir,” said the policeman, laughing heartily and fingering the cigar in his pocket, “ and you did it well. But you didn’t take me in, sir. Not for a moment you didn’t.”

  “I am not joking, my excellent friend,” said the chauffeur. “ I am the man you want.”

  “But we’ve arrested the real murderer.”
/>   “Whoever you’ve got, you’ve got the wrong

  man.”

  “Not us. You can’t come that game on me, sir,” said the constable finally.

  “Your faith in me is most affecting,” said the chauffeur with a touch of exasperation. “If you’ll kindly direct me to the police station I will see whether your inspector shares it.”

  “You’re kidding,” said the policeman suspiciously.

  “I should have thought it might be advantageous to you — lead to a rise in your profession if you were to be the one to place me face to face with the outraged majesty of the law. But you know best, of course.”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” said the constable, shaken, “that you murdered the deceased and cut his head off?”

  “And presented it to Madame Sylvia at the theatre.”

  “Lord!” said the policeman, “you don’t mean it?”

  “I mean exactly what I’ve said. Blow your whistle.”

  The man blew it.

  “They’ll bring it in of unsound mind, sir,” he said consolingly. “ I’m certain of that from what I’ve heard of your conversation. It’ll be during the King’s pleasure .... Unless,” he added doubtfully, “ unless it’s all a hoax.”

  “Shall I show you how I did it?” said the chauffeur, coming a step nearer. “I could easily show you — one man’s throat’s very like another’s.”

  “Steady on, sir,” said the constable. “ I hope I haven’t said anything to annoy you.” He backed, and blew the whistle again with considerable access of fervour.

  “Did you ever,” the chauffeur went on conversationally, “take a man’s throat in your hands, and feel the life go slowly out of it, as your fingers went in deeper and deeper. I assure you it’s a sport that’s too much neglected.”