I was treated like an invalid all that evening, and taken upstairs to bed, and Aunt Mary sat up in my room the whole night through. Whenever I opened my eyes she was always sitting there close to me, watching. And there never was in all my life so strange a night. When I would talk in my excitement, she kissed me and hushed me like a child. ‘Oh, honey, you are not the only one!’ she said. ‘Oh whisht, whisht, bairn! I should never have let you be there!’
‘Aunt Mary, Aunt Mary, you have seen him too?’
‘Oh whisht, whisht, honey!’ Aunt Mary said: her eyes were shining – there were tears in them. ‘Oh whisht, whisht! Put it out of your mind, and try to sleep. I will not speak another word,’ she cried.
But I had my arms round her, and my mouth at her ear. ‘Who is he there? – tell me that and I will ask no more—’
‘Oh honey, rest, and try to sleep! It is just – how can I tell you? – a dream, a dream! Did you not hear what Lady Carnbee said? – the women of our blood—’
‘What? what? Aunt Mary, oh Aunt Mary—’
‘I canna tell you,’ she cried in her agitation, ‘I canna tell you! How can I tell you, when I know just what you know and no more? It is a longing all your life after – it is a looking – for what never comes.’
‘He will come,’ I cried. ‘I shall see him to-morrow – that I know, I know!’
She kissed me and cried over me, her cheek hot and wet like mine. ‘My honey, try if you can sleep – try if you can sleep: and we’ll wait to see what to-morrow brings.’
‘I have no fear,’ said I; and then I suppose, though it is strange to think of, I must have fallen asleep – I was so worn-out, and young, and not used to lying in my bed awake. From time to time I opened my eyes, and sometimes jumped up remembering everything: but Aunt Mary was always there to soothe me, and I lay down again in her shelter like a bird in its nest.
But I would not let them keep me in bed next day. I was in a kind of fever, not knowing what I did. The window was quite opaque, without the least glimmer in it, flat and blank like a piece of wood. Never from the first day had I seen it so little like a window. ‘It cannot be wondered at,’ I said to myself, ‘that seeing it like that, and with eyes that are old, not so clear as mine, they should think what they do.’ And then I smiled to myself to think of the evening and the long light, and whether he would look out again, or only give me a signal with his hand. I decided I would like that best: not that he should take the trouble to come forward and open it again, but just a turn of his head and a wave of his hand. It would be more friendly and show more confidence, – not as if I wanted that kind of demonstration every night.
I did not come down in the afternoon, but kept at my own window up-stairs alone, till the tea-party should be over. I could hear them making a great talk; and I was sure they were all in the recess staring at the window, and laughing at the silly lassie. Let them laugh! I felt above all that now. At dinner I was very restless, hurrying to get it over; and I think Aunt Mary was restless too. I doubt whether she read her ‘Times’ when it came; she opened it up so as to shield her, and watched from a corner. And I settled myself in the recess, with my heart full of expectation. I wanted nothing more than to see him writing at his table, and to turn his head and give me a little wave of his hand, just to show that he knew I was there. I sat from half-past seven o’clock to ten o’clock: and the daylight grew softer and softer, till at last it was as if it was shining through a pearl, and not a shadow to be seen. But the window all the time was as black as night, and there was nothing, nothing there.
Well: but other nights it had been like that: he would not be there every night only to please me. There are other things in a man’s life, a great learned man like that. I said to myself I was not disappointed. Why should I be disappointed? There had been other nights when he was not there. Aunt Mary watched me, every movement I made, her eyes shining, often wet, with a pity in them that almost made me cry: but I felt as if I were more sorry for her than for myself. And then I flung myself upon her, and asked her, again and again, what it was, and who it was, imploring her to tell me if she knew? and when she had seen him, and what had happened? and what it meant about the women of our blood? She told me that how it was she could not tell, nor when: it was just at the time it had to be; and that we all saw him in our time – ‘that is,’ she said, ‘the ones that are like you and me.’ What was it that made her and me different from the rest? but she only shook her head and would not tell me. ‘They say,’ she said, and then stopped short. ‘Oh, honey, try and forget all about it – if I had but known you were of that kind! They say – that once there was one that was a Scholar, and liked his books more than any lady’s love. Honey, do not look at me like that. To think I should have brought all this on you!’
‘He was a Scholar?’ I cried.
‘And one of us, that must have been a light woman, not like you and me—But maybe it was just in innocence; for who can tell? She waved to him and waved to him to come over: and yon ring was the token: but he would not come. But still she sat at her window and waved and waved – till at last her brothers heard of it, that were stirring men; and then – oh, my honey, let us speak of it no more!’
‘They killed him!’ I cried, carried away. And then I grasped her with my hands, and gave her a shake, and flung away from her. ‘You tell me that to throw dust in my eyes – when I saw him only last night: and he as living as I am, and as young!’
‘My honey, my honey!’ Aunt Mary said.
After that I would not speak to her for a long time; but she kept close to me, never leaving me when she could help it, and always with that pity in her eyes. For the next night it was the same; and the third night. That third night I thought I could not bear it any longer. I would have to do something if only I knew what to do! If it would ever get dark, quite dark, there might be something to be done. I had wild dreams of stealing out of the house and getting a ladder, and mounting up to try if I could not open that window, in the middle of the night – if perhaps I could get the baker’s boy to help me; and then my mind got into a whirl, and it was as if I had done it; and I could almost see the boy put the ladder to the window, and hear him cry out that there was nothing there. Oh, how slow it was, the night! and how light it was, and everything so clear – no darkness to cover you, no shadow, whether on one side of the street or on the other side! I could not sleep, though I was forced to go to bed. And in the deep midnight, when it is dark dark in every other place, I slipped very softly down-stairs, though there was one board on the landing-place that creaked – and opened the door and stepped out. There was not a soul to be seen, up or down, from the Abbey to the West Port: and the trees stood like ghosts, and the silence was terrible, and everything as clear as day. You don’t know what silence is till you find it in the light like that, not morning but night, no sunrising, no shadow, but everything as clear as the day.
It did not make any difference as the slow minutes went on: one o’clock, two o’clock. How strange it was to hear the clocks striking in that dead light when there was nobody to hear them! But it made no difference. The window was quite blank; even the marking of the panes seemed to have melted away. I stole up again after a long time, through the silent house, in the clear light, cold and trembling, with despair in my heart.
I am sure Aunt Mary must have watched and seen me coming back, for after a while I heard faint sounds in the house; and very early, when there had come a little sunshine into the air, she came to my bedside with a cup of tea in her hand; and she, too, was looking like a ghost. ‘Are you warm, honey – are you comfortable?’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said I. I did not feel as if anything mattered; unless if one could get into the dark somewhere – the soft, deep dark that would cover you over and hide you – but I could not tell from what. The dreadful thing was that there was nothing, nothing to look for, nothing to hide from – only the silence and the light.
That day my mother came and took me home. I had not heard s
he was coming; she arrived quite unexpectedly, and said she had no time to stay, but must start the same evening so as to be in London next day, papa having settled to go abroad. At first I had a wild thought I would not go. But how can a girl say I will not, when her mother has come for her, and there is no reason, no reason in the world, to resist, and no right! I had to go, whatever I might wish or any one might say. Aunt Mary’s dear eyes were wet; she went about the house drying them quietly with her handkerchief, but she always said, ‘It is the best thing for you, honey – the best thing for you!’ Oh, how I hated to hear it said that it was the best thing, as if anything mattered, one more than another! The old ladies were all there in the afternoon, Lady Carnbee looking at me from under her black lace, and the diamond lurking, sending out darts from under her finger. She patted me on the shoulder, and told me to be a good bairn. ‘And never lippen to what you see from the window,’ she said. ‘The eye is deceitful as well as the heart.’ She kept patting me on the shoulder, and I felt again as if that sharp wicked stone stung me. Was that what Aunt Mary meant when she said yon ring was the token? I thought afterwards I saw the mark on my shoulder. You will say why? How can I tell why? If I had known, I should have been contented, and it would not have mattered any more.
I never went back to St Rule’s, and for years of my life I never again looked out of a window when any other window was in sight. You ask me did I ever see him again? I cannot tell: the imagination is a great deceiver, as Lady Carnbee said: and if he stayed there so long, only to punish the race that had wronged him, why should I ever have seen him again? for I had received my share. But who can tell what happens in a heart that often, often, and so long as that, comes back to do its errand? If it was he whom I have seen again, the anger is gone from him, and he means good and no longer harm to the house of the woman that loved him. I have seen his face looking at me from a crowd. There was one time when I came home a widow from India, very sad, with my little children: I am certain I saw him there among all the people coming to welcome their friends. There was nobody to welcome me, – for I was not expected: and very sad was I, without a face I knew: when all at once I saw him, and he waved his hand to me. My heart leaped up again: I had forgotten who he was, but only that it was a face I knew, and I landed almost cheerfully, thinking here was some one who would help me. But he had disappeared, as he did from the window, with that one wave of his hand.
And again I was reminded of it all when old Lady Carnbee died – an old, old woman – and it was found in her will that she had left me that diamond ring. I am afraid of it still. It is locked up in an old sandal-wood box in the lumber-room in the little old country-house which belongs to me, but where I never live. If any one would steal it, it would be a relief to my mind. Yet I never knew what Aunt Mary meant when she said, ‘Yon ring was the token,’ nor what it could have to do with that strange window in the old College Library of St Rule’s.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Body Snatcher
Every night in the year, four of us sat together in the small parlour of the George, at Debenham; the undertaker, and the landlord, and Fettes, and myself. Sometimes there would be more; but blow high, blow low, come rain, or snow, or frost, we four would be each planted in his own particular armchair. Fettes was an old drunken Scotchman, a man of education obviously, and a man of some property; since he lived in idleness. He had come to Debenham years ago, while still young; and by mere continuance of living had grown to be an adopted townsman. His blue camlet cloak was a local antiquity, like the church spire. His place in the parlour at the George, his absence from church, his old, crapulous, disreputable vices, were all things of course in Debenham. He had some vague Radical opinions and some fleeting infidelities, which he would now and again set forth and emphasize with tottering slaps upon the table. He drank rum – five glasses regularly every evening; and for the greater portion of his nightly visit to the George sat, with his glass in his right hand, in a state of melancholy, alcoholic saturation. We called him the Doctor; for he was supposed to have some special knowledge of medicine, and had been known, upon a pinch, to set a fracture or reduce a dislocation; but beyond these slight particulars, we had no knowledge of his character and antecedents.
One dark winter night, it had struck nine some time before the landlord joined us. There was a sick man in the George, a great neighbouring proprietor suddenly struck down with apoplexy on his way to Parliament; and the great man’s still greater London doctor had been telegraphed to his bedside. It was the first time such a thing had happened in Debenham, for the railway was but newly open, and we were all proportionately moved by the occurrence.
‘He’s come,’ said the landlord, after he had filled and lighted his pipe.
‘He?’ said I. ‘Who? – not the doctor?’
‘Himself,’ replied our host.
‘What is his name?’
‘Dr Macfarlane,’ said the landlord.
Fettes was far through his third tumbler, stupidly fuddled, now nodding over, now staring mazily around him; but at the last word he seemed to awaken, and repeated the name ‘Macfarlane’ twice, quietly enough the first time, but with a sudden emotion at the second.
‘Yes,’ said the landlord, ‘that’s his name, Doctor Wolfe Macfarlane.’
Fettes became instantly sober; his eyes awoke, his voice became clear, loud, and steady, his language forcible and earnest; we were all startled by the transformation, as if a man had risen from the dead.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said; ‘I am afraid I have not been paying much attention to your talk. Who is this Wolfe Macfarlane?’ And then, when he had heard the landlord out, ‘It cannot be, it cannot be,’ he added; ‘and yet I would like well to see him face to face.’
‘Do you know him, Doctor?’ asked the undertaker, with a gasp.
‘God forbid,’ was the reply. ‘And yet the name is a strange one; it were too much to fancy two. Tell me, landlord, is he old?’
‘Well,’ said the host, ‘he’s not a young man, to be sure, and his hair is white; but he looks younger than you.’
‘He is older, though; years older. But’ – with a slap upon the table – ‘it’s the rum you see in my face, rum and sin. This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good digestion. Conscience! hear me speak. You would think I was some good, old, decent Christian; would you not? But no, not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he’d stood in my shoes; but the brains’ – with a rattling fillip on his bald head – ‘the brains were clear and active; and I saw and I made no deductions.’
‘If you know this doctor,’ I ventured to remark after a somewhat awful pause, ‘I should gather that you do not share the landlord’s good opinion.’
Fettes paid no regard to me. ‘Yes,’ he said, with sudden decision, ‘I must see him face to face.’
There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather sharply on the first floor and a step was heard upon the stair.
‘That’s the doctor,’ cried the landlord; ‘look sharp, and you can catch him.’
It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of the old George inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing more between the threshold and the last round of the descent; but this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not only by the light upon the stair and the great signal lamp below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-room window. The George thus brightly advertised itself to passers-by in the cold street. Fettes walked steadily to the spot, and we, who were hanging behind, beheld the two men meet, as one of them had phrased it, face to face. Dr Macfarlane was alert and vigorous. His white hair set off his pale and placid although energetic countenance; he was richly dressed in the finest of broadcloth and the whitest of linen, with a great gold watch chain and studs and spectacles of the same precious material; he wore a broad folded tie, white and speckled with lilac, and he carried on his arm a comfortable driving-coat of fur
. There was no doubt but he became his years, breathing, as he did, of wealth and consideration; and it was a surprising contrast to see our parlour sot, bald, dirty, pimpled, and robed in his old camlet cloak, confront him at the bottom of the stairs.
‘Macfarlane,’ he said, somewhat loudly, more like a herald than a friend.
The great doctor pulled up short on the fourth step, as though the familiarity of the address surprised and somewhat shocked his dignity.
‘Toddy Macfarlane,’ repeated Fettes.
The London man almost staggered; he stared for the swiftest of seconds at the man before him, glanced behind him with a sort of scare, and then in a startled whisper, ‘Fettes!’ he said, ‘you!’
‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘me. Did you think I was dead, too? We are not so easy shot of our acquaintance.’
‘Hush, hush!’ exclaimed the Doctor. ‘Hush, hush! this meeting is so unexpected – I can see you are unmanned. I hardly knew you, I confess, at first; but I am overjoyed, overjoyed, to have this opportunity. For the present it must be how-d’ye-do and good-bye in one; for my fly is waiting, and I must not fail the train; but you shall – let me see – yes – you shall give me your address, and you can count on early news of me. We must do something for you, Fettes; I fear you are out at elbows; but we must see to that – for auld lang syne, as once we sang at suppers.’
‘Money!’ cried Fettes; ‘money from you! The money that I had of you is lying where I cast it in the rain.’
Dr Macfarlane had talked himself into some measure of superiority and confidence; but the uncommon energy of this refusal cast him back into his first confusion. A horrible, ugly look came and went across his almost venerable countenance. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘be it as you please; my last thought is to offend you. I would intrude on none. I will leave you my address, however—’
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 42