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

the floor, with Rosa standing upon it, swiftly descended into the room where we were. The thing was as startling as a stage illusion; yes, a thousand-fold more startling than any trick I ever saw. I may state here, what I learnt afterwards, that the room above was originally a dining-room, and the arrangement of the trap had been designed to cause a table to disappear and reappear as tables were wont to do at the notorious banquets of King Louis in the Petit Trianon. The glass observatory enabled the kitchen attendants to watch the progress of the meals. Sir Cyril knew of the contrivance, and, rushing to the upright pillar, had worked it most opportunely.

The kitchen, as I may now call it, was illuminated with light from the room above. I hastened to Rosa, who on seeing Sir Cyril and myself gave a little cry, and fell forward fainting. She was a brave girl, but one may have too many astonishments. I caught her, and laid her gently on the floor. Meanwhile Deschamps (the dying Deschamps!) stood on the edge of the upper floor, stamping and shouting in a high fever of foiled revenge. She was mad. When I say that she was mad, I mean that she was merely and simply insane. I could perceive it instantly, and I foresaw that we should have trouble with her.

Without the slightest warning, she jumped down into the midst of us. The distance was a good ten feet, but with a lunatic's luck she did not hurt herself. She faced Sir Cyril, shaking in every limb with passion, and he, calm, determined, unhurried, raised his dagger to defend himself against this terrible lioness should the need arise.

But as he lifted the weapon his eye fell on it; he saw what it was; he had not observed it before, since we had been in darkness. And as he looked his composure seemed to desert him. He paled, and his hand trembled and hung loosely. The mad woman, seizing her chance, snatched the dagger from him, and like a flash of lightning drove it into his left breast. Sir Cyril sank down, the dagger sticking out from his light overcoat.

The deed was over before I could move. I sprang forward. Deschamps laughed, and turned to me. I closed with her. She scratched and bit, and she was by no means a weak woman. At first I feared that in her fury she would overpower me. At length, however, I managed to master her; but her strength was far from exhausted, and she would not yield. She was mad; time was passing. I could not afford to be nice in my methods, so I contrived to stun her, and proceeded to tie her hands with my handkerchief. Then, panting, I stood up to survey the floor.

I may be forgiven, perhaps, if at that frightful crisis I was not perfectly cool, and could not decide on the instant upon the wisest course of action to pursue. Sir Cyril was insensible, and a little circle of blood was forming round the dagger; Deschamps was insensible, with a dark bruise on her forehead, inflicted during our struggle; Rosa was insensible—I presumed from excess of emotion at the sudden fright.

I gazed at the three prone forms, pondering over my handiwork and that of Chance. What should be the next step? Save for my own breathing, there was a deathlike silence. The light from the empty room above rained down upon us through the trap, illuminating the still faces with its yellow glare. Was any other person in the house? From what Sir Cyril had said, and from my own surmises, I thought not. Whatever people Deschamps might have employed to carry messages, she had doubtless dismissed them. She and Rosa had been alone in the building. I can understand now that there was something peculiarly attractive to the diseased imagination of Deschamps in the prospect of inviting her victim to the snare, and working vengeance upon a rival unaided, unseen, solitary in that echoing and deserted mansion. I was horribly perplexed. It struck me that I ought to be gloomily sorrowful, but I was not. At the bottom of my soul I felt happy, for Rosa was saved.

It was Rosa who first recovered consciousness, and her movement in sitting up recalled me to my duty. I ran to Sir Cyril, and, kneeling down so as to screen his body from her sight, I drew the dagger from its sheath, and began hastily, with such implements as I could contrive on the spur of the moment, to attend to his wound.

"What has happened?" Rosa inquired feebly.

I considered my reply, and then, without turning towards her, I spoke in a slow, matter-of-fact voice.

"Listen carefully to what I say. There has been a plot to—to do you injury. But you are not hurt. You are, in fact, quite well—don't imagine anything else. Sir Cyril Smart is here; he's hurt; Deschamps has wounded him. Deschamps is harmless for the moment, but she may recover and break out again. So I can't leave to get help. You must go. You have fainted, but I am sure you can walk quite well. Go up the stairs here, and walk along the hall till you come to the front door; it is not fastened. Go out into the street, and bring back two gendarmes—two, mind—and a cab, if you can. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but how—"

"Now, please go at once!" I insisted grimly and coldly. "We can talk afterwards. Just do as you're told."

Cowed by the roughness of my tone, she rose and went. I heard her light, hesitating step pass through the hall, and so out of the house.

In a few minutes I had done all that could be done for Sir Cyril, as he lay there. The wound was deep, having regard to the small size of the dagger, and I could only partially stop the extravasation of blood, which was profuse. I doubted if he would recover. It was not long, however, before he regained his senses. He spoke, and I remember vividly now how pathetic to me was the wagging of his short gray beard as his jaw moved.

"Foster," he said—"your name is Foster, isn't it? Where did you find that dagger?"

"You must keep quiet," I said. "I have sent for assistance."

"Don't be a fool, man. You know I'm done for. Tell me how you got the dagger."

So I told him.

"Ah!" he murmured. "It's my luck!" he sighed. Then in little detached sentences, with many pauses, he began to relate a history of what happened after Rosa and I had left him on the night of Sullivan's reception. Much of it was incomprehensible to me; sometimes I could not make out the words. But it seemed that he had followed us in his carriage, had somehow met Rosa again, and then, in a sudden frenzy of remorse, had attempted to kill himself with the dagger in the street. His reason for this I did not gather. His coachman and footman had taken him home, and the affair had been kept quiet.

Remorse for what? I burned to ask a hundred questions, but, fearing to excite him, I shut my lips.

"You are in love with her?" he asked.

I nodded. It was a reply as abrupt as his demand. At that moment Deschamps laughed quietly behind me. I turned round quickly, but she lay still; though she had come to, the fire in her eyes was quenched, and I anticipated no immediate difficulty with her.

"I knew that night that you were in love with her," Sir Cyril continued. "Has she told you about—about me?"

"No," I said.

"I have done her a wrong, Foster—her and another. But she will tell you. I can't talk now. I'm going—going. Tell her that I died in trying to protect her; say that—Foster—say—" He relapsed into unconsciousness.

I heard firm, rapid steps in the hall, and in another instant the representatives of French law had taken charge of the house. Rosa followed them in. She looked wistfully at Sir Cyril, and then, flinging herself down by his side, burst into wild tears.

CHAPTER XVI THE THING IN THE CHAIR

On the following night I sat once more in the salon of Rosa's flat. She had had Sir Cyril removed thither. He was dying; I had done my best, but his case was quite hopeless, and at Rosa's urgent entreaty I had at last left her alone by his bedside.

I need not recount all the rush of incidents that had happened since the tragedy at the Villa des Hortensias on the previous evening. Most people will remember the tremendous sensation caused by the judicial inquiry—an inquiry which ended in the tragical Deschamps being incarcerated in the Charenton Asylum. For aught I know, the poor woman, once one of the foremost figures in the gaudy world of theatrical Paris, is still there consuming her heart with a futile hate.

Rosa would never refer in any way to the interview between Deschamps and herself; it was as if she had hidden the memory of it in some secret chamber of her soul, which nothing could induce her to open again. But there can be no doubt that Deschamps had intended to murder her, and, indeed, would have murdered her had it not been for the marvellously opportune arrival of Sir Cyril. With the door of the room locked as it was, I should assuredly have been condemned, lacking Sir Cyril's special knowledge of the house, to the anguish of witnessing a frightful crime without being able to succor the victim. To this day I can scarcely think of that possibility and remain calm.

As for Sir Cyril's dramatic appearance in the villa, when I had learnt all the facts, that was perhaps less extraordinary than it had seemed to me from our hasty dialogue in the underground kitchen of Deschamps' house. Although neither Rosa nor I was aware of it, operatic circles had been full of gossip concerning Deschamps' anger and jealousy, of which she made no secret. One or two artists of the Opéra Comique had decided to interfere, or at any rate seriously to warn Rosa, when Sir Cyril arrived, on his way to London from the German watering-place where he had been staying. All Paris knew Sir Cyril, and Sir Cyril knew all Paris; he was made acquainted with the facts directly, and the matter was left to him. A man of singular resolution, originality, and courage, he had gone straight to the Rue Thiers, having caught a rumor, doubtless started by the indiscreet Deschamps herself, that Rosa would be decoyed there. The rest was mere good fortune.

In regard to the mysterious connection between Sir Cyril and Rosa, I had at present no clue to it; nor had there been much opportunity for conversation between Rosa and myself. We had not even spoken to each other alone, and, moreover, I was uncertain whether she would care to enlighten me on that particular matter; assuredly I had no right to ask her to do so. Further, I was far more interested in another, and to me vastly more important, question, the question of Lord Clarenceux and his supposed death.

I was gloomily meditating upon the tangle of events, when the door of the salon opened, and Rosa entered. She walked stiffly to a chair, and, sitting down opposite to me, looked into my face with hard, glittering eyes. For a few moments she did not speak, and I could not break the silence. Then I saw the tears slowly welling up, and I was glad for that. She was intensely moved, and less agonizing experiences than she had gone through might easily have led to brain fever in a woman of her