Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  I parted most gratefully from the good-natured Dane and a little before ten left his house to return to my hotel. But, whether the change was due to the gloomy aspect of the unlighted streets through which I passed or was merely the effect of reaction, I had not covered half the distance before I felt my spirits sink.

  I had been successful beyond my hopes with Davout; I had wrung from him the chance, however desperate, of rehabilitating myself in the eyes of those at home; I had before me an enterprise which I ardently desired to undertake. And yet, with all this, I fell within the length of a street into a black depth of depression.

  Instead of anticipating with zest the early start I was to make, and facing with confidence the chances and changes of the road, I felt a dark despondency envelop me. Young, armed, with Davout’s credentials in my pocket, and authorized, Englishman as I was, to lord it in a hostile land, I yet felt in this hour no hope. On the contrary I felt a kind of horror of the desolate leagues across the Mark to which I must commit myself.

  I pictured the lonely road winding over the flat heavy sands, now buried in pinewoods, now lapped by lonely water-pools, and I found it an ill-omened road, a road beset by perils, and perils the worse because I could not guess at them. And at the end of the road I had a vision, through what accursed illusion I cannot say, of Ellis’s livid distorted face, of his blood-bedabbled breast, of his hair, unkempt and mingled with soil.

  It was a strange mood — a strange and unusual mood for me, who am no more superstitious than other men of the world; and I have never been able to explain it. Long afterwards, looking back on it, I remembered that when the fit possessed me most completely I was walking at the heels of two people, who going my way, loitered in talk, and whom I eventually passed.

  At the moment I noticed them so little that had I been asked five minutes later whether they were men or women I could not have said; but the time was to come when I not only recalled them with something of the horror of that night, but suspected who they were. If I was right, then some strange thing passed from them to me, some emanation of evil that found in the darkness power and in the night a medium. But to believe this — no, in the daylight I do not believe it.

  Nevertheless I certainly breathed more freely when I had crossed the threshold of the “Russie.”

  For here, though the house was very quiet, and I do not believe that there were a dozen guests in the hotel, at any rate the normal and the commonplace reigned. I lit my candle at the taper in the hall, and went thoughtfully up the shadowy staircase, telling myself that what I needed was a good night’s rest, and that in the morning things would wear a more cheerful aspect. I reached the first floor, the echo of my footsteps on the bare boards going before me, and I turned into my bedroom.

  I closed the door, and set down my candle on the table. Then, after making some preparations, I put off my boots, and I opened the door to place them outside for the valet to clean. As I did this I glanced down the dark corridor, my mind recurring for a moment to the Mackay girl and the odd episode of the afternoon. Could I have made a mistake, familiar as I was with the portrait? Or, if I had not, and the girl I had seen was Norma Mackay, the Duchess’s governess, what was she doing here? With that woman? And when she was already overdue at Zerbst?

  I was not expecting anything as I stood there; of that I am certain. But it may be that under the influence of my thoughts my gaze dwelt a moment longer than was necessary on the corridor’s end — dwelt long enough for me to grasp that all was darkness in that direction, and that then on that darkness there fell, as I looked, a thin upright shaft of light. I stared, arrested by the sight, and saw the light slowly, very slowly, broaden.

  Someone was opening, in that narrow entry at the end of the corridor, a door; was opening it silently, very silently, for the house was as still as death and I caught no sound — and equally slowly, for it seemed to me that a whole long minute elapsed before there shone on the floor and on the opposite wall a patch of light equal to the width of the entry. Then for a moment nothing more happened. Silence reigned. The light shone steadily on the wall.

  I waited, my boots in my hand, gazing that way, arrested not so much by the light as by the death-like stillness that attended its appearance. I listened with all my ears, and still not a sound reached me.

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE SHADOW ON THE WALL

  BUT now my eyes detected a change. Gradually, at what precise moment I could not say, the lower half of the patch of light, the half which lay across the floor, was broken by a round blur. A few seconds, and as silently, as stealthily as the light had grown, this shadow within it began to grow.

  Slowly it lengthened, slowly it rose; it crept inch by inch up the screen of light, until it broke upon me that that at which I was staring, that which I was watching, was the shadow of a woman who was creeping with infinite care and precaution along the passage, her back to the lighted room from which she had issued. As yet she, or rather her shadow, was visible only from the waist upwards, but her head, her shoulders and her figure were sufficiently defined for me to judge of her sex; and the more easily as she presently steadied herself by stretching out an arm and placing her hand against the wall.

  In that posture — and I could fancy her listening with all her ears before she crept farther — she remained motionless for, as it seemed to me, an age. Then, her arm still extended, she came on again. The shadow began once more to steal up the screen of light, and slowly to develop the lower part of the girl’s form.

  The slow movement, the silence, the darkness which reigned everywhere save where the lighted space held and absorbed the eyes, wrought strongly on the nerves, and I watched, fascinated. Now, surely now, the girl must show herself! She must appear in the corridor! But no, at the moment when her shadow from the waist upwards darkened the wall, while the lower part fell on the floor, she ceased to move.

  I divined that she was again pausing to listen, standing just within the doorway of the passage. But not a sound, not a breath reached me. There might have been no living thing within a hundred miles of me. The hotel about us, with its two score bare, deserted rooms, was as silent as the tomb.

  And still her shadow did not alter; she did not appear. She was still listening. And I cannot say why, much less can I describe the degree to which this last pause spoke to me of fear. But it did, and so eloquently, that if I had heard the wild beating of the girl’s heart or seen the stare frozen on her face, I could not have been more sure of the fact. Something, I was certain, some movement, some sound, possibly from the room behind, had arrested her, paralysed her limbs, taken from her even the power to cry out.

  I was so certain of this, though not a sigh reached me, nor a board creaked, that I could not bear the suspense any longer. I had my boots in my hand, I was in my stockinged feet, and I started to creep along the corridor towards the light. At all costs I would see what was passing in that passage. Something very strange, I was certain.

  I suppose that I had taken half a dozen steps when I stopped. For on a sudden and without a sound the girl’s profile underwent a change. It became blurred — thickened. Her head and neck still remained clear and defined, but from her waist downwards she was now a thing without form, as if someone had crept up behind her and obscured the light.

  Then, as I checked myself, taking in the change, I saw on a level with the girl’s neck a grim addition — the dark shape of a huge hand, that with open clutching fingers hovered and groped, as if about to close upon her neck. I gasped — this was more than I could stand! And flinging caution aside, I sprang forward.

  But as I did so, the figures on the screen wavered, changed, melted. A second the shadows danced, the next they flitted downwards, vanished! The light narrowed, leapt, it too was gone. A door slammed, and I was left, brought up by the darkness, and still a pace or two from the threshold of the passage.

  I hesitated. I had seen an ugly thing, and my first impulse was to go through with the matter, to grope my way down
the entry, to knock at the door and demand an explanation. But of what? I paused, considering.

  Darkness and silence have a sobering effect, and that which I had seen might, I began to perceive, mean nothing. I might have mistaken the import of it, that which had passed might have passed in jest, and if I acted on my mistake I should be laughed at. Then the girl — surely if the girl had been frightened or had feared harm, she would have cried out or run out. She would have roused the house.

  And what after all had I seen? I found it difficult to understand, but the door remained closed, the passage dark, no sound, no cry came from the room. And it was no business of mine. No appeal had been made to me. Presently I went slowly back to my bedroom. I began to undress.

  But so strong was the impression left on my mind, so abiding the remembrance of that clutching, claw-like hand, so disturbed was I by the whole thing, that five minutes later I paused in my undressing, half-minded to go out, late as it was, and knock the people up. I went so far, indeed, as to open my door. But before I had crossed the threshold I heard footsteps approaching, and looking in the direction of the staircase I saw two people emerging from it, bearing candles.

  This touch of reality, this contact with the commonplace of life, reassured me, and once more I told myself that I had let my fancy run away with me, and had made much out of nothing. I retreated unseen, closed my door and heard the two go by, on their way to the end of the corridor.

  At any rate the matter was out of my hands now, and shaking off the spell I undressed and plunged thankfully into bed. I was weary and I fell asleep at once, but though my mind, before I lost consciousness, reverted to my own affairs, or rather to poor Perceval’s fate, I must have harked back during sleep to the incident, for at some time in the night I had an ugly dream — a dream of clutching hands and cloaked shapes, and I awoke heated and with bursting temples, to fancy that I heard a cry for help.

  I stumbled out of bed and groped my way to the door and opened it. But all was still outside, and after assuring myself of this I went back to bed, and, thank Heaven, when I opened my eyes again a man was hammering at my door, and the world was awake and afoot — the blessed workaday world! It was half after six — would I take coffee in my room, the man asked, or in the sitting room? A wet morning, Excellency, he was sorry to say. The carriage at seven? Yes, Excellency, all was prepared. Herr Jager had seen to it.

  It was barely light, the sun had not yet risen, and it had turned cold; autumn, and almost winter had come in the night, as I learned when I opened the window. A steady rain, too, was falling. But, thank God, the sick fancies of darkness had passed with the night, and Francis Cartwright was his own man again.

  I dressed in high spirits — I had furnished myself in Berlin with what I needed for the journey — and I took my coffee and rolls standing at the table, anticipating with a pleasure, which even thoughts of poor Ellis could not quite damp, the movement of the day and the adventures it might embrace. At seven I descended and found Herr Jager on the doorstep in the act of despatching another party. My carriage was in waiting behind them, and as they drove away, it drew up to the door.

  The good Herr turned to me with a smiling greeting. “ I am afraid, Jager,” I said, “that you are losing all your guests at once.”

  He threw out his hands. “No great loss — those!” with a shrug. “They go also for Hamburg — the Waechters. The young lady — His Excellency learned from her what he wanted, I trust?”

  I laughed, “No,” I answered. “Unfortunately she was not the lady I took her for. If she had been she would be travelling the other way.”

  “Ah!” nodding. “I was a little surprised, I confess, at His Excellency knowing them. I did not think them quite of his condition, and we who keep inns are judges, mein Herr. But,” lowering his voice, “His Excellency may like to know that inquiry was made — at the back this morning — at what hour he was leaving.”

  “Indeed!” I smiled — I could afford to smile with that little slip of Davout’s in my pocket. “By the police, I suppose?”

  “Well — probably. Most probably. His Excellency’s position, if I may be forgiven for referring to it, is of course—”

  “Delicate?” I nodded. “To be sure, Herr Jager, it is. And I am the more grateful to you for taking me in so kindly. Be sure the circumstances shall be reported to my Foreign Office, and when we return, your house shall be specially recommended to English travellers. As for me, have no fear. I am easy — all is in order.” And I shook the good fellow by the hand.

  “You have no servant? I am afraid—” He looked at the carriage.

  “Ah, I see,” I said. “ You have provided a double caleche. No matter. I will take what small baggage I have inside, as the front seat is open to the weather.” And a moment later, this arrangement having been made, I left the door and my bowing host, and was on my way, driving through the bald, grey streets towards the Unter den Linden. It was broad daylight by now, and the sun had risen, but for all we could see of it there might have been no sun.

  As we passed the Brandenburg Thor, I noticed for the first time the absence of the Chariot of Victory which Napoleon had carried off to Paris, and it brought to my mind the French quip on him, “Le Char l’attend” for Le Charlatan, and I laughed. Even the rain did not damp me, but for the poor postboys it was another matter. They rode with humped shoulders, little rivulets streaming from their black glazed hats, their drenched woollen tassels sticking out in ludicrous fashion from the collars of their rain-cloaks.

  It was the 2nd of November when I thus left Berlin, just fifteen weeks after our start from Iglau. But something was still to happen before I was clear of the town. At the barrier I had to wait. There were half a dozen carriages and Eilwagens before me, taking their turn to pass the examination — it seemed to be strict that morning — and among the waiting travellers I identified the four persons who had left the hotel before me.

  Their presence recalled the foolish stew into which I had permitted an over-wrought imagination to cast me the previous night, but I don’t know that I should have remarked them particularly but for an altercation which arose, while we waited, between them and a man who, though he had not the look of one of the beggars that haunt such places, appeared to be plaguing them with some petition. Apparently they had repulsed him once, but he continued to plead with desperate insistence.

  “If it is only a stage!” I heard him whine. “If it is only a stage! For God’s sake, lady, just a stage!”

  “Curse you!” one of the party flung at him. “Begone! Can’t you see, you fool, that we have no room, Schapkopf? And if we had, I’d—”

  “I’ll sit on the step!” the man persisted. “On the step or anywhere! Mein Gott, just a stage, High-born!

  If my wife were not dying—”

  “D — n her,” the man retorted coarsely. “Let her die! Whip him off! Whip him off, boy! We’ve no room, I tell you, you rascal!”

  One of the officials in moving down the line reached me at this moment. Idly, I asked him what the trouble was.

  He looked back. “Oh, that?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s a man wants a lift for nothing — to Hamburg. Wish he may get it, mein Herr! But I think he’s silly! He’s been here this half hour plaguing every carriage that’s passed through with his nonsense. Says his wife’s dying in Hamburg and he’s penniless. Lies, I’m thinking! An old story! This all you’ve got, mein Herr?”

  “It’s enough,” I said, but at the same moment I slipped a double thaler into his palm. I had no mind to produce Davout’s safe conduct in such places, and to avoid the necessity I had begged one of the Baron’s official cards, which Gruner had countersigned above the words, “The bearer is known to me. Let him pass.” The man took the money. “Well, I suppose it should do,” he grumbled. “ It is irregular, but — very well.” He passed on, for by this time there were others behind me, and my carriage moved up the line. It was now my turn to be importuned by the man with the dying wife, a
nd very pat he was with his story, which would have moved me more if I had not seen him apply to others. Even as it was, his appeal and his desperate offer to travel anywhere, anywhere, pole or step, if the Wohlgeboren would only take him, made me look him over.

  He certainly had not the air of an habitual beggar. The wrap-rascal that covered him, from his coarse rig-and-furrow stockings to a hat broken but decent, was white at the seams, but still was whole, and the man looked clean, with the pale pinched face of an indoor artisan. His story might be true, and in that case he was to be pitied; and by and by, whether it was this that moved me, or only the desire to be rid of his importunity, I found myself in doubt.

  After all, the fellow’s company would not do me any harm. The seat before me was empty, he would not incommode me. So at the last moment, as my carriage moved forward to the barrier, “Well, get in! Get in in front, man,” I said, “if it’s really as bad as that with you. But for heaven’s sake, no more words! You may come a stage.”

  “Gott sei dank, wohledelgeborener Herr!” he cried, and hat in hand, making himself as small as possible, he slid in at the front. “I have asked many, but until now—”

  “There, enough! No more words!” I cried impatiently, ashamed of my weakness. And a moment later, reflecting that I might have been more than weak in accepting a stranger’s company, I doubted. However, there the man was, I had not the heart to turn him out again, and as he took the hint and fell silent, I said no more. A moment later we left the barrier behind us and trundled away on the Spandau road.

  The rain fell, the postboys bobbed up and down in their saddles, we left the Charlottenburg quarter behind us, we rumbled on a boarded track, again we plunged off it into bottomless depths of mud. The lads had all they could do, poor wretches, to keep their nags on their feet, and if this was a sample of the road within a league of Berlin I suspected that its state farther on would more than bear out the Baron’s account.