Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  So strong was the spell on me that I had no longer any count of time. I had no consciousness whether the period was long or short that I stood there near the door, heedless of all the throng that passed, gazing on vacancy. The fiercest of policemen might have told me to “move on,” and I should not have stirred, spite of all the terrors of the “station.” The individual came forth. He paid no heed to me. Why should he? What was I to him? This time I needed no warning voice to bid me follow. I was a madman, and I could not resist the impulses of my madness. It was thus, at least I reasoned with myself. I followed into Regent Street. The object of my insensate observation lingered, and looked around as if in expectation. Presently a fine-looking woman, somewhat extravagantly dressed, and obviously not a lady, advanced toward him on the pavement. At the sight of her he quickened his step, and joined her rapidly. I shuddered again, but this time a sort of dread was mingled with that strange shivering. I knew what was coming, and it came. Again that voice in my ear. “Look and remember!” it said. I passed the man and woman as they stopped at their first meeting!

  “Is all right, George?” said the female.

  “All right, my girl,” was the reply.

  I looked. An evil smile, as if of wicked triumph, was on the man’s face, I thought. And on the woman’s? I looked at her, and I remembered. I could not be mistaken. Spite of her change in manner, dress, and appearance, it was Mary Simms. This woman some years before, when she was still very young, had been a sort of humble companion to my mother. A simple-minded, honest girl, we thought her. Sometimes I had fancied that she had paid me, in a sly way, a marked attention. I had been foolish enough to be flattered by her stealthy glances and her sighs. But I had treated these little demonstrations of partiality as due only to a silly girlish fancy. Mary Simms, however, had come to grief in our household. She had been detected in the abstraction of sundry jewels and petty ornaments. The morning after discovery she had left the house, and we had heard of her no more. As these recollections passed rapidly through my mind I looked behind me. The couple had turned back. I turned to follow again; and spite of carriages and cabs, and shouts and oaths of drivers, I took the middle of the street in order to pass the man and woman at a little distance unobserved. No; I was not mistaken. The woman was Mary Simms, though without any trace of all her former simple-minded airs; Mary Simms, no longer in her humble attire, but flaunting in all the finery of overdone fashion. She wore an air of reckless joyousness in her face; and yet, spite of that, I pitied her. It was clear she had fallen on the evil ways of bettered fortune — bettered, alas! for the worse.

  I had an excuse now, in my own mind, for my continued pursuit, without deeming myself an utter madman — the excuse of curiosity to know the destiny of one with whom I had been formerly familiar, and in whom I had taken an interest. Presently the game I was hunting down stopped at the door of the Grand Café. After a little discussion they entered. It was a public place of entertainment; there was no reason why I should not enter also. I found my way to the first floor. They were already seated at a table, Mary holding the carte in her hand. They were about to dine. Why should not I dine there too? There was but one little objection, — I had an engagement to dinner. But the strange impulse which overpowered me, and seemed leading me on step by step, spite of myself, quickly overruled all the dictates of propriety toward my intended hosts. Could I not send a prettily devised apology? I glided past the couple, with my head averted, seeking a table, and I was unobserved by my old acquaintance. I was too agitated to eat, but I made a semblance, and little heeded the air of surprise and almost disgust on the bewildered face of the waiter as he bore away the barely touched dishes. I was in a very fever of impatience and doubt what next to do. They still sat on, in evident enjoyment of their meal and their constant draughts of sparkling wine. My impatience was becoming almost unbearable when the man at last rose. The woman seemed to have uttered some expostulation, for he turned at the door and said somewhat harshly aloud, “Nonsense; only one game and I shall be back. The waiter will give you a paper — a magazine — something to while away the time.” And he left the room for the billiard-table, as I surmised.

  Now was my opportunity. After a little hesitation, I rose, and planted myself abruptly on the vacant seat before the woman.

  “Mary,” I said.

  She started, with a little exclamation of alarm, and dropped the paper she had held. She knew me at once.

  “Master John!” she exclaimed, using the familiar term still given me when I was long past boyhood; and then, after a lengthened gaze, she turned away her head. I was embarrassed at first how to address her.

  “Mary,” I said at last, “I am grieved to see you thus.”

  “Why should you be grieved for me?” she retorted, looking at me sharply, and speaking in a tone of impatient anger. “I am happy as I am.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I replied.

  She again turned away her head.

  “Mary,” I pursued, “can you doubt, that, spite of all, I have still a strong interest in the companion of my youth?”

  She looked at me almost mournfully, but did not speak. At that moment I probably grew pale; for suddenly that chilly fit seized me again, and my forehead became clammy. That voice sounded again in my ear: “Speak of him!” were the words it uttered. Mary gazed on me with surprise, and yet I was assured that she had not heard that voice, so plain to me. She evidently mistook the nature of my visible emotion.

  “O Master John!” she stammered, with tears gathering in her eyes, reverting again to that name of bygone times, “if you had loved me then — if you had consoled my true affection with one word of hope, one look of loving-kindness — if you had not spurned and crushed me, I should not have been what I am now.”

  I was about to make some answer to this burst of unforgotten passion, when the voice came again: “Speak of him!”

  “You have loved others since,” I remarked, with a coldness which seemed cruel to myself. “You love him now.” And I nodded my head toward the door by which the man had disappeared.

  “Do I?” she said, with a bitter smile. “Perhaps; who knows?”

  “And yet no good can come to you from a connection with that man,” I pursued.

  “Why not? He adores me, and he is free,” was her answer, given with a little triumphant air.

  “Yes,” I said, “I know he is free: he has lately lost his wife. He has made good his claim to the sum for which he insured her life.”

  Mary grew deadly pale. “How did you learn this? what do you know of him?” she stammered.

  I had no reply to give. She scanned my face anxiously for some time; then in a low voice she added, “What do you suspect?”

  I was still silent, and only looked at her fixedly.

  “You do not speak,” she pursued nervously. “Why do you not speak? Ah, you know more than you would say! Master John, Master John, you might set my tortured mind at rest, and clear or confirm those doubts which will come into my poor head, spite of myself. Speak out — O, do speak out!”

  “Not here; it is impossible,” I replied, looking around. The room as the hour advanced, was becoming more thronged with guests, and the full tables gave a pretext for my reticence, when in truth I had nothing to say.

  “Will you come and see me — will you?” she asked with earnest entreaty.

  I nodded my head.

  “Have you a pocketbook? I will write you my address; and you will come — yes, I am sure you will come!” she said in an agitated way.

  I handed her my pocketbook and pencil; she wrote rapidly.

  “Between the hours of three and five,” she whispered, looking uneasily at the door; “he is sure not to be at home.”

  I rose; Mary held out her hand to me, then withdrew it hastily with an air of shame, and the tears sprang into her eyes again. I left the room hurriedly, and met her companion on the stairs.

  That same evening, in the solitude of my own room, I pondered over the lit
tle event of the day. I had calmed down from my state of excitement. The living apparition of Mary Simms occupied my mind almost to the exclusion of the terrors of the ghostly voice which had haunted me, and my own fears of coming insanity. In truth, what was that man to me? Nothing. What did his doings matter to such a perfect stranger as myself? Nothing. His connection with Mary Simms was our only link; and in what should that affect me? Nothing again. I debated with myself whether it were not foolish of me to comply with my youthful companion’s request to visit her; whether it were not imprudent in me to take any further interest in the lost woman; whether there were not even danger in seeking to penetrate mysteries which were no concern of mine. The resolution to which I came pleased me, and I said aloud, “No, I will not go!”

  At the same moment came again the voice like an awful echo to my words— “Go!” It came so suddenly and so imperatively, almost without any previous warning of the usual shudder, that the shock was more than I could bear. I believe I fainted; I know I found myself, when I came to consciousness, in my armchair, cold and numb, and my candles had almost burned down into their sockets.

  The next morning I was really ill. A sort of low fever seemed to have prostrated me, and I would have willingly seized so valid a reason for disobeying, at least for that day — for some days, perhaps — the injunction of that ghostly voice. But all that morning it never left me. My fearful chilly fit was of constant recurrence, and the words “Go! go! go!” were murmured so perpetually in my ears — the sound was one of such urgent entreaty — that all force of will gave way completely. Had I remained in that lone room, I should have gone wholly mad. As yet, to my own feelings, I was but partially out of my senses.

  I dressed hastily; and, I scarce know how — by no effort of my own will, it seemed to me — I was in the open air. The address of Mary Simms was in a street not far from my own suburb. Without any power of reasoning, I found myself before the door of the house. I knocked, and asked a slipshod girl who opened the door to me for “Miss Simms.” She knew no such person, held a brief shrill colloquy with some female in the back-parlor, and, on coming back, was about to shut the door in my face, when a voice from above — the voice of her I sought — called down the stairs, “Let the gentleman come up!”

  I was allowed to pass. In the front drawingroom I found Mary Simms.

  “They do not know me under that name,” she said with a mournful smile, and again extended, then withdrew, her hand.

  “Sit down,” she went on to say, after a nervous pause. “I am alone now; told I adjure you, if you have still one latent feeling of old kindness for me, explain your words of yesterday to me.”

  I muttered something to the effect that I had no explanation to give. No words could be truer; I had not the slightest conception what to say.

  “Yes, I am sure you have; you must, you will,” pursued Mary excitedly; “you have some knowledge of that matter.”

  “What matter?” I asked.

  “Why, the insurance,” she replied impatiently. “You know well what I mean. My mind has been distracted about it. Spite of myself, terrible suspicions have forced themselves on me. No; I don’t mean that,” she cried, suddenly checking herself and changing her tone; “don’t heed what I said; it was madness in me to say what I did. But do, do, do tell me all you know.”

  The request was a difficult one to comply with, for I knew nothing. It is impossible to say what might have been the end of this strange interview, in which I began to feel myself an unwilling impostor; but suddenly Mary started.

  “The noise of the latchkey in the lock!” she cried, alarmed; “He has returned; he must not see you; you must come another time. Here, here, be quick! I’ll manage him.”

  And before I could utter another word she had pushed me into the back drawingroom and closed the door. A man’s step on the stairs; then voices. The man was begging Mary to come out with him, as the day was so fine. She excused herself; he would hear no refusal. At last she appeared to consent, on condition that the man would assist at her toilet. There was a little laughter, almost hysterical on the part of Mary, whose voice evidently quivered with trepidation.

  Presently both mounted the upper stairs. Then the thought stuck me that I had left my hat in the front room — a sufficient cause for the woman’s alarm. I opened the door cautiously, seized my hat, and was about to steal down the stairs, when I was again spellbound by that numb cold.

  “Stay!” said the voice. I staggered back to the other room with my hat, and closed the door.

  Presently the couple came down. Mary was probably relieved by discovering that my hat was no longer there, and surmised that I had departed; for I heard her laughing as they went down the lower flight. Then I heard them leave the house.

  I was alone in that back drawingroom. Why? what did I want there? I was soon to learn. I felt the chill invisible presence near me; and the voice said, “Search!”

  The room belonged to the common representative class of back drawingrooms in “apartments” of the better kind. The only one unfamiliar piece of furniture was an old Indian cabinet; and my eye naturally fell on that. As I stood and looked at it with a strange unaccountable feeling of fascination, again came the voice— “Search!”

  I shuddered and obeyed. The cabinet was firmly locked; there was no power of opening it except by burglarious infraction; but still the voice said, “Search!”

  A thought suddenly struck me, and I turned the cabinet from its position against the wall. Behind, the woodwork had rotted, and in many portions fallen away, so that the inner drawers were visible. What could my ghostly monitor mean — that I should open those drawers? I would not do such a deed of petty treachery. I turned defiantly, and addressing myself to the invisible as if it were a living creature by my side, I cried, “I must not, will not, do such an act of baseness.”

  The voice replied, “Search!”

  I might have known that, in my state of what I deemed insanity, resistance was in vain. I grasped the most accessible drawer from behind, and pulled it toward me. Uppermost within it lay letters: they were addressed to “Captain Cameron,”— “Captain George Cameron.” That name! — the name of Julia’s husband, the man with whom she had eloped; for it was he who was the object of my pursuit.

  My shuddering fit became so strong that I could scarce hold the papers; and “Search!” was repeated in my ear.

  Below the letters lay a small book in a limp black cover. I opened this book with trembling hand; it was filled with manuscript — Julia’s well-known handwriting.

  “Read!” muttered the voice. I read. There were long entries by poor Julia of her daily life; complaints of her husband’s unkindness, neglect, then cruelty. I turned to the last pages: her hand had grown very feeble now, and she was very ill. “George seems kinder now,” she wrote; “he brings me all my medicines with his own hand.” Later on: “I am dying; I know I am dying: he has poisoned me. I saw him last night through the curtains pour something in my cup; I saw it in his evil eye. I would not drink; I will drink no more; but I feel that I must die.”

  These were the last words. Below were written, in a man’s bold hand, the words “Poor fool!”

  This sudden revelation of poor Julia’s death and dying thoughts unnerved me quite. I grew colder in my whole frame than ever.

  “Take it!” said her voice. I took the book, pushed back the cabinet into its place against the wall, and, leaving that fearful room, stole down the stairs with trembling limbs, and left the house with all the feelings of a guilty thief.

  For some days I perused my poor lost Julia’s diary again and again. The whole revelation of her sad life and sudden death led but to one conclusion, — she had died of poison by the hands of her unworthy husband. He had insured her life, and then ——

  It seemed evident to me that Mary Simms had vaguely shared suspicions of the same foul deed. On my own mind came conviction. But what could I do next? how bring this evil man to justice? what proof would be deemed to ex
ist in those writings? I was bewildered, weak, irresolute. Like Hamlet, I shrank back and temporized. But I was not feigning madness; my madness seemed but all too real for me. During all this period the wailing of that wretched voice in my ear was almost incessant. O, I must have been mad!

  I wandered about restlessly, like the haunted thing I had become. One day I had come unconsciously and without purpose into Oxford Street. My troubled thoughts were suddenly broken in upon by the solicitations of a beggar. With a heart hardened against begging impostors, and under the influence of the shock rudely given to my absorbing dreams, I answered more hardly than was my wont. The man heaved a heavy sigh, and sobbed forth, “Then Heaven help me!” I caught sight of him before he turned away. He was a ghastly object, with fever in his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, and fever on his dry, chapped lips. But I knew, or fancied I knew, the tricks of the trade, and I was obdurate. Why, I asked myself, should the cold shudder come over me at such a moment? But it was so strong on me as to make me shake all over. It came — that maddening voice. “Succor!” it said now. I had become so accustomed already to address the ghostly voice that I cried aloud, “Why, Julia, why?” I saw people laughing in my face at this strange cry, and I turned in the direction in which the beggar had gone. I just caught sight of him as he was tottering down a street toward Soho. I determined to have pity for this once, and followed the poor man. He led me on through I know not what streets. His steps was hurried now. In one street I lost sight of him; but I felt convinced he must have turned into a dingy court. I made inquiries, but for a time received only rude jeering answers from the rough men and women whom I questioned. At last a little girl informed me that I must mean the strange man who lodged in the garret of a house she pointed out to me. It was an old dilapidated building, and I had much repugnance on entering it. But again I was no master of my will. I mounted some creaking stairs to the top of the house, until I could go no further. A shattered door was open; I entered a wretched garret; the object of my search lay now on a bundle of rags on the bare floor. He opened his wild eyes as I approached.