The Ghost by Arnold Bennett (most popular novels of all time txt) 📖

hints at have not already arisen? Who can say"—I uttered the words with an emphasis the daring of which astounded even myself—"that I am not already the heir of more than Alresca's goods?"

I imagined, after achieving this piece of audacity, that I was perfectly calm, but within me there must have raged such a tumult of love and dark foreboding that in reality I could scarcely have known what I was about.

Rosa's eyes fixed themselves upon me, but I sustained that gaze. She stretched forth a hand as if to take the packet.

"You shall decide," I said. "Am I to open it, or am I not to open it?"

"Open it," she whispered. "He will forgive us."

I began to break the seal.

"No, no!" she screamed, standing up again with clenched hands. "I was wrong. Leave it, for God's sake! I could not bear to know the truth."

I, too, sprang up, electrified by that terrible outburst. Grasping tight the envelope, I walked to and fro in the room, stamping on the carpet, and wondering all the time (in one part of my brain) why I should be making such a noise with my feet. At length I faced her. She had not moved. She stood like a statue, her black tea-gown falling about her, and her two hands under her white drawn face.

"It shall be as you wish," I said. "I won't open it."

And I put the envelope back into my pocket.

We both sat down.

"Let us have some tea, eh?" said Rosa. She had resumed her self-control more quickly than I could. I was unable to answer her matter-of-fact remark. She rang the bell, and the maid entered with tea. The girl's features struck me; they showed both wit and cunning.

"What splendid tea!" I said, when the refection was in progress. We had both found it convenient to shelter our feelings behind small talk. "I'd no idea you could get tea like this in Bruges."

"You can't," Rosa smiled. "I never travel without my own brand. It is one of Yvette's special cares not to forget it."

"Your maid?"

"Yes."

"She seems not quite the ordinary maid," I ventured.

"Yvette? No! I should think not. She has served half the sopranos in Europe—she won't go to contraltos. I possess her because I outbid all rivals for her services. As a hairdresser she is unequalled. And it's so much nicer not being forced to call in a coiffeur in every town! It was she who invented my 'Elsa' coiffure. Perhaps you remember it?"

"Perfectly. By the way, when do you recommence your engagements?"

She smiled nervously. "I—I haven't decided."

Nothing with any particle of significance passed during the remainder of our interview. Telling her that I was leaving for England the next day, I bade good-by to Rosa. She did not express the hope of seeing me again, and for some obscure reason, buried in the mysteries of love's psychology, I dared not express the hope to her. And so we parted, with a thousand things unsaid, on a note of ineffectuality, of suspense, of vague indefiniteness.

And the next morning I received from her this brief missive, which threw me into a wild condition of joyous expectancy: "If you could meet me in the Church of St. Gilles at eleven o'clock this morning, I should like to have your advice upon a certain matter. —Rosa."

Seventy-seven years elapsed before eleven o'clock.

St. Gilles is a large church in a small deserted square at the back of the town. I waited for Rosa in the western porch, and at five minutes past the hour she arrived, looking better in health, at once more composed and vivacious. We sat down in a corner at the far end of one of the aisles. Except ourselves and a couple of cleaners, there seemed to be no one in the church.

"You asked me yesterday about my engagements," she began.

"Yes," I said, "and I had a reason. As a doctor, I will take leave to tell you that it is advisable for you to throw yourself into your work as soon as possible, and as completely as possible." And I remembered the similar advice which, out of the plenitude of my youthful wisdom, I had offered to Alresca only a few days before.

"The fact is that I have signed a contract to sing 'Carmen' at the Paris Opéra Comique in a fortnight's time. I have never sung the rôle there before, and I am, or rather I was, very anxious to do so. This morning I had a telegram from the manager urging me to go to Paris without delay for the rehearsals."

"And are you going?"

"That is the question. I may tell you that one of my objects in calling on poor Alresca was to consult him about the point. The truth is, I am threatened with trouble if I appear at the Opéra Comique, particularly in 'Carmen.' The whole matter is paltry beyond words, but really I am a little afraid."

"May I hear the story?"

"You know Carlotta Deschamps, who always takes Carmen at the Comique?"

"I've heard her sing."

"By the way, that is her half-sister, Marie Deschamps, who sings in your cousin's operas at the London Diana."

"I have made the acquaintance of Marie—a harmless little thing!"

"Her half-sister isn't quite so harmless. She is the daughter of a Spanish mother, while Marie is the daughter of an English mother, a Cockney woman. As to Carlotta, when I was younger"—oh, the deliciously aged air with which this creature of twenty-three referred to her youth—"I was singing at the Opéra Comique in Paris, where Carlotta was starring, and I had the misfortune to arouse her jealousy. She is frightfully jealous, and get worse as she gets older. She swore to me that if I ever dared to appear at the Comique again she would have me killed. I laughed. I forgot the affair, but it happens that I never have sung at the Comique since that time. And now that I am not merely to appear at the Comique, but am going to sing 'Carmen' there, her own particular rôle, Deschamps is furious. I firmly believe she means harm. Twice she has written to me the most formidable threats. It seems strange that I should stand in awe of a woman like Carlotta Deschamps, but so it is. I am half-inclined to throw up the engagement."

That a girl of Rosa's spirit should have hesitated for an instant about fulfilling her engagement showed most plainly, I thought, that she was not herself. I assured her that her fears were groundless, that we lived in the nineteenth century, and that Deschamps' fury would spend itself in nothing worse than threats. In the end she said she would reconsider the matter.

"Don't wait to reconsider," I urged, "but set off for Paris at once. Go to-day. Act. It will do you good."

"But there are a hundred things to be thought of first," she said, laughing at my earnestness.

"For example?"

"Well, my jewels are with my London bankers."

"Can't you sing without jewels?"

"Not in Paris. Who ever heard of such a thing?"

"You can write to your bankers to send them by registered post."

"Post! They are worth thousands and thousands of pounds. I ought really to fetch them, but there would scarcely be time."

"Let me bring them to you in Paris," I said. "Give me a letter to your bankers, and I will undertake to deliver the jewels safely into your hands."

"I could not dream of putting you to so much trouble."

The notion of doing something for her had, however, laid hold of me. At that moment I felt that to serve even as her jewel-carrier would be for me the supreme happiness in the world.

"But," I said, "I ask it as a favor."

"Do you?" She gave me a divine smile, and yielded.

At her request we did not leave the church together. She preceded me. I waited a few minutes, and then walked slowly out. Happening to look back as I passed along the square, I saw a woman's figure which was familiar to me, and, dominated by a sudden impulse, I returned quickly on my steps. The woman was Yvette, and she was obviously a little startled when I approached her.

"Are you waiting for your mistress?" I said sharply. "Because...."

She flashed me a look.

"Did monsieur by any chance imagine that I was waiting for himself?"

There was a calm insolence about the girl which induced me to retire from that parley.

In two hours I was on my way to London.

CHAPTER IX THE TRAIN

The boat-train was due to leave in ten minutes, and the platform at Victoria Station (how changed since then!) showed that scene of discreet and haughty excitement which it was wont to exhibit about nine o'clock every evening in those days. The weather was wild. It had been wet all day, and the rain came smashing down, driven by the great gusts of a genuine westerly gale. Consequently there were fewer passengers than usual, and those people who by choice or compulsion had resolved to front the terrors of the Channel passage had a preoccupied look as they hurried importantly to and fro amid piles of luggage and groups of loungers on the wind-swept platform beneath the flickering gas-lamps. But the porters, and the friends engaged in the ceremony of seeing-off, and the loungers, and the bookstall clerks—these individuals were not preoccupied by thoughts of intimate inconveniences before midnight. As for me, I was quite alone with my thoughts. At least, I began by being alone.

As I was registering a particularly heavy and overfed portmanteau to Paris, a young woman put her head close to mine at the window of the baggage-office.

"Mr. Foster? I thought it was. My cab set down immediately after yours, and I have been trying to catch your eye on the platform. Of course it was no go!"

The speech was thrown at me in a light, airy tone from a tiny, pert mouth which glistened red behind a muslin veil.

"Miss Deschamps!" I exclaimed.

"Glad you remember my name. As handsome and supercilious as ever, I observe. I haven't seen you since that night at Sullivan's reception. Why didn't you call on me one Sunday? You know I asked you to."

"Did you ask me?" I demanded, secretly flattered in the extremity of my youthfulness because she had called me supercilious.

"Well, rather. I'm going to Paris—and in this weather!"

"I am, too."

"Then, let's go together, eh?"

"Delighted. But why have you chosen such a night?"

"I haven't chosen it. You see, I open to-morrow at the Casino de Paris for fourteen nights, and I suppose I've got to be there. You wouldn't believe what they're paying me. The Diana company is touring in the provinces while the theatre is getting itself decorated. I hate the provinces. Leeds and Liverpool and Glasgow—fancy dancing there! And so my half-sister—Carlotta, y'know—got me this engagement, and I'm going to stay with her. Have you met Carlotta?"

"No—not yet." I did not add that I had had reason to think a good deal about her.

"Well, Carlotta is—Carlotta. A terrific swell, and a bit of a Tartar. We quarrel every time we meet, which isn't often. She tries to play the elder sister game on me, and I won't have it. Though she is elder—very much elder, you now. But I think her worst point is that she's so frightfully mysterious. You can never tell what she's up to. Now, a man I met at supper last night told me he thought he had seen Carlotta in Bloomsbury yesterday. However, I didn't believe that, because she is expecting me in Paris; we happen to be as thick as thieves just now, and if she had been in London, she would have looked me up."

"Just so," I replied, wondering whether I should endeavor to obtain from Marie Deschamps information which would be