Certain that Death would not arrive until midnight, she moved among her guests, attempting to calm them, not with her words, which she knew they would not hear, but with the tone of her voice as if they were so many frightened horses. But little by little, she herself was infected by their nervousness: whenever she sat down she stood up again immediately, she tasted a dozen glasses of wine without finishing any of them, and she glanced constantly at her jeweled watch, at first wanting to hurry the midnight along and end the waiting, later scratching at the watch face with her forefinger, as if she would push away the night and drag the sun backward into the sky. When midnight came, she was standing with the rest of them, breathing through her mouth, shifting from foot to foot, listening for the sound of carriage wheels turning in gravel.
When the clock began to strike midnight, everyone, even Lady Neville and the brave Captain Compson, gave one startled little cry and then was silent again, listening to the tolling of the clock. The smaller clocks upstairs began to chime. Lady Neville’s ears hurt. She caught sight of herself in the ballroom mirror, one gray face turned up toward the ceiling as if she were gasping for air, and she thought, “Death will be a woman, a hideous, filthy old crone as tall and strong as a man. And the most terrible thing of all will be that she will have my face.” All the clocks stopped striking, and Lady Neville closed her eyes.
She opened them again only when she heard the whispering around her take on a different tone, one in which fear was fused with relief and a certain chagrin. For no new carriage stood in the driveway. Death had not come.
The noise grew slowly louder; here and there people were beginning to laugh. Near her, Lady Neville heard young Lord Torrance say to his wife, “There, my darling, I told you there was nothing to be afraid of. It was all a joke.”
“I am ruined,” Lady Neville thought. The laughter was increasing; it pounded against her ears in strokes, like the chiming of the clocks. “I wanted to give a ball so grand that those who were not invited would be shamed in front of the whole city, and this is my reward. I am ruined, and I deserve it.”
Turning to the poet Lorimond, she said, “Dance with me, David.” She signaled to the musicians, who at once began to play. When Lorimond hesitated, she said, “Dance with me now. You will not have another chance. I shall never give a party again.”
Lorimond bowed and led her onto the dance floor. The guests parted for them, and the laughter died down for a moment, but Lady Neville knew that it would soon begin again. “Well, let them laugh,” she thought. “I did not fear Death when they were all trembling. Why should I fear their laughter?” But she could feel a stinging at the thin lids of her eyes, and she closed them once more as she began to dance with Lorimond.
And then, quite suddenly, all the carriage horses outside the house whinnied loudly, just once, as the guests had cried out at midnight. There were a great many horses, and their one salute was so loud that everyone in the room became instantly silent. They heard the heavy steps of the footman as he went to open the door, and they shivered as if they felt the cool breeze that drifted into the house. Then they heard a light voice saying, “Am I late? Oh, I am so sorry. The horses were tired,” and before the footman could reenter to announce her, a lovely young girl in a white dress stepped gracefully into the ballroom doorway and stood there smiling.
She could not have been more than nineteen. Her hair was yellow, and she wore it long. It fell thickly upon her bare shoulders that gleamed warmly through it, two limestone islands rising out of a dark golden sea. Her face was wide at the forehead and cheekbones, and narrow at the chin, and her skin was so clear that many of the ladies there—Lady Neville among them—touched their own faces wonderingly, and instantly drew their hands away as though their own skin had rasped their fingers. Her mouth was pale, where the mouths of other women were red and orange and even purple. Her eyebrows, thicker and straighter than was fashionable, met over dark, calm eyes that were set so deep in her young face and were so black, so uncompromisingly black, that the middle-aged wife of a middle-aged lord murmured, “Touch of a gypsy there, I think.”
“Or something worse,” suggested her husband’s mistress.
“Be silent!” Lady Neville spoke louder than she had intended, and the girl turned to look at her. She smiled, and Lady Neville tried to smile back, but her mouth seemed very stiff. “Welcome,” she said. “Welcome, my lady Death.”
A sigh rustled among the lords and ladies as the girl took the old woman’s hand and curtsied to her, sinking and rising in one motion, like a wave. “You are Lady Neville,” she said. “Thank you so much for inviting me.” Her accent was as faint and almost familiar as her perfume.
“Please excuse me for being late,” she said earnestly. “I had to come from a long way off, and my horses are so tired.”
“The groom will rub them down,” Lady Neville said, “and feed them if you wish.”
“Oh, no,” the girl answered quickly. “Tell him not to go near the horses, please. They are not really horses, and they are very fierce.”
She accepted a glass of wine from a servant and drank it slowly, sighing softly and contentedly. “What good wine,” she said. “And what a beautiful house you have.”
“Thank you,” said Lady Neville. Without turning, she could feel every woman in the room envying her, sensing it as she could always sense the approach of rain.
“I wish I lived here,” Death said in her low, sweet voice. “I will, one day.”
Then, seeing Lady Neville become as still as if she had turned to ice, she put her hand on the old woman’s arm and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I am so cruel, but I never mean to be. Please forgive me, Lady Neville. I am not used to company, and I do such stupid things. Please forgive me.”
Her hand felt as light and warm on Lady Neville’s arm as the hand of any other young girl, and her eyes were so appealing that Lady Neville replied, “You have said nothing wrong. While you are my guest, my house is yours.”
“Thank you,” said Death, and she smile so radiantly that the musicians began to play quite by themselves, and with no sign from Lady Neville. She would have stopped them, but Death said, “Oh, what lovely music! Let them play, please.”
So the musicians played a gavotte, and Death, unabashed by eyes that stared at her in greedy terror, sang softly to herself without words, lifted her white gown slightly with both hands, and made hesitant little patting steps with her small feet. “I have not danced in so long,” she said wistfully. “I’m quite sure I’ve forgotten how.”
She was shy; she would not look up to embarrass the young lords, not one of whom stepped forward to dance with her. Lady Neville felt a flood of shame and sympathy, emotions she thought had withered in her years ago. “Is she to be humiliated at my own ball?” she thought angrily. “It is because she is Death; if she were the ugliest, foulest hag in all the world they would clamor to dance with her, because they are gentlemen and they know what is expected of them. But no gentleman will dance with Death, no matter how beautiful she is.” She glance sideways at David Lorimond. His face was flushed, and his hands were clasped so tightly as he stared at Death that his fingers were like glass, but when Lady Neville touched his arm he did not turn, and when she hissed, “David!”, he pretended not to hear her.
Then Captain Compson, gray-haired and handsome in his uniform, stepped out of the crowd and bowed gracefully before Death. “If I may have the honor,” he said.
“Captain Compson,” said Death, smiling. She put her arm in his. “I was hoping you would ask me.”
This brought a frown from the older women, who did not consider it a proper thing to say, but for that Death cared not a rap. Captain Compson led her to the center of the floor, and there they danced. Death was curiously graceless at first—she was too anxious to please her partner, and she seemed to have no notion of rhythm. The Captain himself moved with the mixture of dignity and humor that Lady Neville had never seen in another man, but when he looked at h
er over Death’s shoulder, she saw something that no one else appeared to notice: that his face and eyes were immobile with fear, and that, though he offered Death his hand with easy gallantry, he flinched slightly when she took it. And yet he danced as well as Lady Neville had ever seen him.
“Ah, that’s what comes of having a reputation to maintain,” she thought. “Captain Compson too must do what is expected of him. I hope someone else will dance with her soon.”
But no one did. Little by little, other couples overcame their fear and slipped hurriedly out on the floor when Death was looking the other way, but nobody sought to relieve Captain Compson of his beautiful partner. They danced every dance together. In time, some of the men present began to look at her with more appreciation than terror, but when she returned their glances and smiled at them, they clung to their partners as if a cold wind were threatening to blow them away.
One of the few who stared at her frankly and with pleasure was young Lord Torrance, who usually danced only with his wife. Another was the poet Lorimond. Dancing with Lady Neville, he remarked to her, “If she is Death, what do these frightened fools think they are? If she is ugliness, what must they be? I hate their fear. It is obscene.”
Death and the Captain danced past them at that moment, and they heard him say to her, “But if that was truly you that I saw in the battle, how can you have changed so? How can you have become so lovely?”
Death’s laughter was gay and soft. “I thought that among so many beautiful people it might be better to be beautiful. I was afraid of frightening everyone and spoiling the party.”
“They all thought she would be ugly,” said Lorimond to Lady Neville. “I—I knew she would be beautiful.”
“Then why have you not danced with her?” Lady Neville asked him. “Are you also afraid?”
“No, oh, no,” the poet answered quickly and passionately. “I will ask her to dance very soon. I only want to look at her a little longer.”
The musicians played on and on. The dancing wore away the night as slowly as falling water wears down a cliff. It seemed to Lady Neville that no night had ever endured longer, and yet she was neither tired nor bored. She danced with every man there, except with Lord Torrance, who was dancing with his wife as if they had just met that night, and, of course, with Captain Compson. Once he lifted his hand and touched Death’s golden hair very lightly. He was a striking man still, a fit partner for so beautiful a girl, but Lady Neville looked at his face each time she passed him and realized that he was older than anyone knew.
Death herself seemed younger than the youngest there. No woman at the ball danced better than she now, though it was hard for Lady Neville to remember at what point her awkwardness had given way to the liquid sweetness of her movements. She smiled and called to everyone who caught her eye—and she knew them all by name; she sang constantly, making up words to the dance tunes, nonsense words, sounds without meaning, and yet everyone strained to hear her soft voice without knowing why. And when, during a waltz, she caught up the trailing end of her gown to give her more freedom as she danced, she seemed to Lady Neville to move like a little sailing boat over a still evening sea.
Lady Neville heard Lady Torrance arguing angrily with the Contessa della Candini. “I don’t care if she is Death, she’s no older than I am, she can’t be!”
“Nonsense,” said the Contessa, who could not afford to be generous to any other woman. “She is twenty-eight, thirty, if she is an hour. And that dress, that bridal gown she wears—really!”
“Vile,” said the woman who had come to the ball as Captain Compson’s freely acknowledged mistress. “Tasteless. But one should know better than to expect taste from Death, I suppose.” Lady Torrance looked as if she were going to cry.
“They are jealous of Death,” Lady Neville said to herself. “How strange. I am not jealous of her, not in the least. And I do not fear her at all.” She was very proud of herself.
Then, as unbiddenly as they had begun to play, the musicians stopped. They began to put away their instruments. In the sudden shrill silence, Death pulled away from Captain Compson and ran to look out of one of the tall windows, pushing the curtains apart with both hands. “Look!” she said, with her back turned to them. “Come and look. The night is almost gone.”
The summer sky was still dark, and the eastern horizon was only a shade lighter than the rest of the sky, but the stars had vanished and the trees near the house were gradually becoming distinct. Death pressed her face against the window and said, so softly that the other guests could barely hear her, “I must go now.”
“No,” Lady Neville said, and was not immediately aware that she had spoken. “You must stay a while longer. The ball was in your honor. Please stay.”
Death held out both hands to her, and Lady Neville came and took them in her own. “I’ve had a wonderful time,” she said gently. “You cannot possibly imagine how it feels to be actually invited to such a ball as this, because you have given them and gone to them all your life. One is like another to you, but for me it is different. Do you understand me?” Lady Neville nodded silently. “I will remember this night forever,” Death said.
“Stay,” Captain Compson said. “Stay just a little longer.” He put his hand on Death’s shoulder, and she smiled and leaned her cheek against it. “Dear Captain Compson,” she said. “My first real gallant. Aren’t you tired of me yet?”
“Never,” he said. “Please stay.”
“Stay,” said Lorimond, and he too seemed about to touch her. “Stay. I want to talk to you. I want to look at you. I will dance with you if you stay.”
“How many followers I have,” Death said in wonder. She stretched her hand toward Lorimond, but he drew back from her and then flushed in shame. “A soldier and a poet. How wonderful it is to be a woman. But why did you not speak to me earlier, both of you? Now it is too late. I must go.”
“Please, stay,” Lady Torrance whispered. She held on to her husband’s hand for courage. “We think you are so beautiful, both of us do.”
“Gracious Lady Torrance,” the girl said kindly. She turned back to the window, touched it lightly, and it flew open. The cool dawn air rushed into the ballroom, fresh with rain but already smelling faintly of the London streets over which it had passed. They heard birdsong and the strange, harsh nickering of Death’s horses.
“Do you want me to stay?” she asked. The question was put, not to Lady Neville, nor to Captain Compson, nor to any of her admirers, but to the Contessa della Candini, who stood well back from them all, hugging her flowers to herself and humming a little song of irritation. She did not in the least want Death to stay, but she was afraid that all the other women would think her envious of Death’s beauty, and so she said, “Yes. Of course I do.”
“Ah,” said Death. She was almost whispering. “And you,” she said to another woman, “do you want me to stay? Do you want me to be one of your friends?”
“Yes,” said the woman, “because you are beautiful and a true lady.”
“And you,” said Death to a man, “and you,” to a woman, “and you,” to another man, “do you want me to stay?” And they all answered, “Yes, Lady Death, we do.”
“Do you want me, then?” she cried at last to all them. “Do you want me to live among you and to be one of you, and not to be Death anymore? Do you want me to visit your houses and come to all your parties? Do you want me to ride horses like yours instead of mine, do you want me to wear the kind of dresses you wear, and say the things you would say? Would one of you marry me, and would the rest of you dance at my wedding and bring gifts to my children? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” said Lady Neville. “Stay here, stay with me, stay with us.”
Death’s voice, without becoming louder, had become clearer and older; too old a voice, thought Lady Neville, for such a young girl. “Be sure,” said Death. “Be sure of what you want, be very sure. Do all of you want me to stay? For if one of you says to me, no, go away, then I mu
st leave at once and never return. Be sure. Do you all want me?”
And everyone there cried with one voice, “Yes! Yes, you must stay with us. You are so beautiful that we cannot let you go.”
“We are tired,” said Captain Compson.
“We are blind,” said Lorimond, adding, “especially to poetry.”
“We are afraid,” said Lord Torrance quietly, and his wife took his arm and said, “Both of us.”
“We are dull and stupid,” said Lady Neville, “and growing old uselessly. Stay with us, Lady Death.”
And then Death smiled sweetly and radiantly and took a step forward, and it was as though she had come down among them from a very great height. “Very well,” she said. “I will stay with you. I will be Death no more. I will be a woman.”
The room was full of a deep sigh, although no one was seen to open his mouth. No one moved, for the golden-haired girl was Death still, and her horses still whinnied for her outside. No one could look at her for long, although she was the most beautiful girl anyone there had ever seen.
“There is a price to pay,” she said. “There is always a price. Some one of you must become Death in my place, for there must forever be Death in the world. Will anyone choose? Will anyone here become Death of his own free will? For only thus can I become a human girl.”
No one spoke, no one spoke at all. But they backed slowly away from her, like waves slipping back down a beach to the sea when you try to catch them. The Contessa della Candini and her friends would have crept quietly out of the door, but Death smiled at them and they stood where they were. Captain Compson opened his mouth as though he were going to declare himself, but he said nothing. Lady Neville did not move.
“No one,” said Death. She touched a flower with her finger, and it seemed to crouch and flex itself like a pleased cat. “No one at all,” she said. “Then I must choose, and that is just, for that is the way I became Death. I never wanted to be Death, and it makes me so happy that you want me to become one of yourselves. I have searched a long time for people who would want me. Now I have only to choose someone to replace me and it is done. I will choose very carefully.”
Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle Page 7