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

had been about to cross and thwart and blast my own.

The men hammered and heaved and chopped and sawed, and while they were in the midst of the work some one took me by the sleeve and asked me to go and attend to the engine-driver and stoker, who were being carried into a waiting-room at the station. It is symptomatic of the extraordinary confusion which reigns in these affairs that till that moment the question of the fate of the men in charge of the train had not even entered my mind, though I had of course noticed that the engine was overturned. In the waiting-room it was discovered that two local doctors had already arrived. I preferred to leave the engine-driver to them. He was unconscious as he lay on a table. The stoker, by his side, kept murmuring in a sort of delirium:

"Bill, 'e was all dazed like—'e was all dazed like. I told him the signal wasn't off. I shouted to him. But 'e was all dazed like."

I returned to the train full of a horrible desire to see with my own eyes a certain corpse. Bit by bit the breakdown gang had removed the whole of the centre part of the shattered carriage. I thrust myself into the group, and—we all looked at each other. Nobody, alive or dead, was to be found.

"He, too, must have got out at Sittingbourne," I said at length.

"Ay!" said the guard.

My heard swam, dizzy with dark imaginings and unspeakable suspicions. "He has escaped; he is alive!" I muttered savagely, hopelessly. It was as if a doom had closed inevitably over me. But if my thoughts had been legible and I had been asked to explain this attitude of mine towards a person who had never spoken to me, whom I had seen but thrice, and whose identity was utterly unknown, I could not have done so. I had no reasons. It was intuition.

Abruptly I straightened myself, and surveying the men and the background of ruin lighted by the fitful gleams of lanterns and the pale glitter of a moon half-hidden by flying clouds, I shouted out:

"I want a cab. I have to catch the Calais boat. Will somebody please direct me!"

No one appeared even to hear me. The mental phenomena which accompany a railway accident, even a minor one such as this, are of the most singular description. I felt that I was growing angry again. I had a grievance because not a soul there seemed to care whether I caught the Calais boat or not. That, under the unusual circumstances, the steamer would probably wait did not occur to me. Nor did I perceive that there was no real necessity for me to catch the steamer. I might just as well have spent the night at the Lord Warden, and proceeded on my journey in the morning. But no! I must hurry away instantly!

Then I thought of the jewel-box.

"Where's my jewel-box?" I demanded vehemently from the guard, as though he had stolen it.

He turned to me.

"What's that you're carrying?" he replied.

All the time I had been carrying the jewel-box. At the moment of the collision I must have instinctively clutched it, and my grasp had not slackened. I had carried it to the waiting-room and back without knowing that I was doing so!

This sobered me once more. But I would not stay on the scene. I was still obsessed by the desire to catch the steamer. And abruptly I set off walking down the line. I left the crowd and the confusion and the ruin, and hastened away bearing the box.

I think that I must have had no notion of time, and very little notion of space. For I arrived at the harbour without the least recollection of the details of my journey thither. I had no memory of having been accosted by any official of the railway, or even of having encountered any person at all. Fortunately it had ceased to rain, and the wind, though still strong, was falling rapidly.

Except for a gatekeeper, the bleak, exposed pier had the air of being deserted. The lights of the town flickered in the distance, and above them rose dimly the gaunt outlines of the fortified hills. In front was the intemperate and restless sea. I felt that I was at the extremity of England, and on the verge of unguessed things. Now, I had traversed about half the length of the lonely pier, which seems to curve right out into the unknown, when I saw a woman approaching me in the opposite direction. My faculties were fatigued with the crowded sensations of that evening, and I took no notice of her. Even when she stopped to peer into my face I thought nothing of it, and put her gently aside, supposing her to be some dubious character of the night hours. But she insisted on speaking to me.

"You are Carl Foster," she said abruptly. The voice was harsh, trembling, excited, yet distinguished.

"Suppose I am?" I answered wearily. How tired I was!

"I advise you not to go to Paris."

I began to arouse my wits, and I became aware that the woman was speaking with a strong French accent. I searched her face, but she wore a thick veil, and in the gloom of the pier I could only make out that she had striking features, and was probably some forty years of age. I stared at her in silence.

"I advise you not to go to Paris," she repeated.

"Who are you?"

"Never mind. Take my advice."

"Why? Shall I be robbed?"

"Robbed!" she exclaimed, as if that was a new idea to her. "Yes," she said hurriedly. "Those jewels might be stolen."

"How do you know that I have jewels?"

"Ah! I—I saw the case."

"Don't trouble yourself, madam; I shall take particular care not to be robbed. But may I ask how you have got hold of my name?"

I had vague ideas of an ingenious plan for robbing me, the particulars of which this woman was ready to reveal for a consideration.

She ignored my question.

"Listen!" she said quickly. "You are going to meet a lady in Paris. Is it not so?"

"I must really—"

"Take advice. Move no further in that affair."

I attempted to pass her, but she held me by the sleeve. She went on with emphasis:

"Rosetta Rosa will never be allowed to sing in 'Carmen' at the Opéra Comique. Do you understand?"

"Great Scott!" I said, "I believe you must be Carlotta Deschamps."

It was a half-humorous inspiration on my part, but the remark produced an immediate effect on the woman, for she walked away with a highly theatrical scowl and toss of the head. I recalled what Marie Deschamps had said in the train about her stepsister, and also my suspicion that Rosa's maid was not entirely faithful to her mistress—spied on her, in fact; and putting the two things together, it occurred to me that this strange lady might actually be Carlotta.

Many women of the stage acquire a habitual staginess and theatricality, and it was quite conceivable that Carlotta had relations with Yvette, and that, ridden by the old jealousy which had been aroused through the announcement of Rosa's return to the Opéra Comique, she was setting herself in an indefinite, clumsy, stealthy, and melodramatic manner to prevent Rosa's appearance in "Carmen."

No doubt she had been informed of Rosa's conference with me in the church of St. Gilles, and, impelled by some vague, obscure motive, had travelled to London to discover me, and having succeeded, was determined by some means to prevent me from getting into touch with Rosa in Paris. So I conjectured roughly, and subsequent events indicated that I was not too far wrong.

I laughed. The notion of the middle-aged prima donna going about in waste places at dead of night to work mischief against a rival was indubitably comic. I would make a facetious narrative of the meeting for the amusement of Rosa at breakfast to-morrow in Paris. Then, feeling all at once at the end of my physical powers, I continued my way, and descended the steps to the Calais boat.

All was excitement there. Had I heard of the railway accident? Yes, I had. I had been in it. Instantly I was surrounded by individuals who raked me fore and aft with questions. I could not endure it; my nervous energy, I realized, was exhausted, and having given a brief outline of the disaster, I fled down the saloon stairs.

My sole desire was to rest; the need of unconsciousness, of forgetfulness, was imperious upon me; I had had too many experiences during the last few hours. I stretched myself on the saloon cushions, making a pillow of the jewel-box.

"Shall we start soon?" I murmured to a steward.

"Yes, sir, in another five minutes. Weather's moderating, sir."

Other passengers were in the saloon, and more followed. As this would be the first steamer to leave Dover that day, there was a good number of voyagers on board, in spite of adverse conditions. I heard people talking, and the splash of waves against the vessel's sides, and then I went to sleep. Nothing could have kept me awake.

CHAPTER X THE STEAMER

I awoke with a start, and with wavering eyes looked at the saloon clock. I had slept for one hour only, but it appeared to me that I was quite refreshed. My mind was strangely clear, every sense preternaturally alert. I began to wonder what had aroused me. Suddenly the ship shuddered through the very heart of her, and I knew that it was this shuddering, which must have occurred before, that had wakened me.

"Good God! We're sinking!" a man cried. He was in the next berth to me, and he sat up, staring wildly.

"Rubbish!" I answered.

The electric lights went out, and we were left with the miserable illumination of one little swinging oil-lamp. Immediately the score or so persons in the saloon were afoot and rushing about, grasping their goods and chattels. The awful shuddering of the ship continued. Scarcely a word was spoken.

A man flew, or rather, tumbled, down the saloon stairs, shouting: "Where's my wife? Where's my wife?" No one took the slightest notice of him, nor did he seem to expect any answer. Even in the semi-darkness of the single lamp I distinctly saw that with both hands he was tearing handfuls of hair from his head. I had heard the phrase "tearing one's hair" some thousands of time in my life, but never till that moment had I witnessed the action itself. Somehow it made an impression on me. The man raced round the saloon still shouting, and raced away again up-stairs and out of sight. Everyone followed him pell-mell, helter-skelter, and almost in a second I found myself alone. I put on my overcoat, and my mackintosh over that, and seizing Rosa's jewel-box, I followed the crowd.

As I emerged on deck a Bengal light flared red and dazzling on the bridge, and I saw some sailors trying to lower a boat from its davits. Then I knew that the man who had cried "We're sinking!" even if he was not speaking the exact truth, had at any rate some grounds for his assertion.

A rather pretty girl, pale with agitation, seized me by the buttonhole.

"Where are we going?" she questioned earnestly.

"Don't know, madam," I replied; and then a young man dragged her off by the arm.

"Come this way, Lottie," I heard him say to her, "and keep calm."

I was left staring at the place where the girl's head had been. Then the head of an old man filled that place. I saw his mouth and all his features working in frantic endeavor to speak to me, but he could not articulate. I stepped aside; I could not bear to look at him.

"Carl," I said