The Third Macabre Megapack (3 page)

That evening one would have said that, from out of the depths of the darkness, the Countess Vera was striving (and striving how adorably!) to come back to this room, whose every corner was impregnate with her own self! She had left behind so much of herself there! Everything that had gone to make up her existence was drawing her back thither. Her charm hung suspended in its air. The prolonged force sprung from her husband’s impassioned will must have loosened the vague bonds of the Invisible about her…

She was necessitated there. All that she loved was there.

She must have longed, surely, to come and smile to herself in that mysterious mirror wherein so often she had admired the lilies of her countenance. Yes, down there amid the violets, there beneath the cold and darkened lamps in the vault, in her loneliness, she had started, the lovely one, the dead one; she had shuddered, the divine one, shuddered as she gazed on the silver key flung upon the slabs. She longed to come to him, she in her turn! And her will vanished in the idea of the incense and the isolation. Death is a final and binding term only for those who cherish hopes from the heavens; but for her was not the final term the embrace of Death and the Heavens and Life? And there, in the gloom, the solitary kiss of her husband was drawing forth her own lips. And the vanished sound of the melodies, the intoxicating words of days gone by, the stuffs which had covered her body and still held its perfume, those magical jewels which still in their obscure sympathy longed for her, and above all the overwhelming and absolute impression of her presence, a feeling shared in the end even by the things themselves—everything had been calling, had been drawing her thither for so long now, and by such insensible degrees, that, cured at last of somnolent Death, there was lacking nothing, save only Her alone.

Ah, Ideas are living beings! The Count had hollowed out in the air the shape of his love, and necessity demanded that into this void should pour the only being that was homogeneous to it, for otherwise the Universe would have crashed into chaos. And at that instant the impression came, final, simple, absolute, that She must be there, there in the room! Of this he was as calmly certain as of his own existence, and all the objects about him were saturated with this conviction. One saw it there! And now, since nothing was lacking save only Vera herself, outwardly and tangibly there, it was inevitably ordained that there she should be, and that for an instant the great Dream of Life and Death should set its infinite gates ajar! By faith the pathway of resurrection had been driven right to her! Joyfully a clear burst of musical laughter lit up the nuptial bed. The Count turned round. And there, before his eyes, creature of memory and of will, ethereal, an elbow leaning on the lace of the pillow, one hand buried in her thick black hair, her lips deliciously parted in a smile that held a paradise of rare delights, lovely with the beauty that breaks the heart, there at last the Countess Vera was gazing on him, and sleep still lingering within her eyes.

“Roger!” spoke the distant voice.

He came over to her side. In joy, in divine, oblivious, deathless joy, their lips were united!

And then they perceived, then, that they were in reality but one single being.

The hours flew by in their strange flight, brushing with the tips of their wings this ecstasy wherein heaven and earth for the first time were mingled.

Suddenly, as if struck by some fatal memory, the Count d’Athol started.

“Ah, I remember!” he cried.” I remember now! What am I doing? You, you are dead!”

And at that moment, when that word was spoken, the mystic lamp before the ikon was extinguished. The pale, thin light of morning—a dreary, grey, raining morning—filtered through the gaps of the curtain into the room. The candles grew pale and went out, and there was only the acrid smoke from their glowing wicks; beneath a layer of chilling ashes the fire disappeared; within a few minutes the flowers faded and shrivelled up; and little by little the pendulum of the clock slowed down once more into immobility. The certitude of all the objects took sudden flight. The opal stone, turned dead, gleamed no longer; the stains of blood upon the cambric by her side had faded likewise; and the vision, in all its ardent whiteness, effacing itself between those despairing arms which sought in vain to clasp it still, returned into thin air. It was lost. One far faint sigh of farewell, distinct, reached even to the soul of the Count. He rose. He had just perceived that he was alone. His dream had melted away at one single touch. With one single word he had snapped the magnetic thread of his glittering pattern. And the atmosphere now was that of the dead.

Like those tear-shaped drops of glass, of chance formation, so solid that a hammer-blow on their thick part will not shatter them, yet such that they will crumble instantly into an impalpable dust if the narrow end, finer than a needle’s point, be broken—all had vanished.

“Oh!” he murmured, “then all is over! She is lost…and all alone! What path can bring me to you now? Show me the road that can lead me to you!”

Suddenly, as if in reply, a shining object fell with a metallic ring from off the nuptial bed, onto the black fur: a ray of that hateful, earthly day lit it up. Stooping down, the forsaken one seized it, and, as he recognized the object, his face was illumined with a sublime smile. It was the key of the tomb.

A LOST D
AY, by Edgar Fawcett

“My Family,” John Dalrymple would say, “have the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of—”

And then somebody would always try to interrupt him. At the Gramercy, the small but charming club of which he had been for years an honored member, they made a point of interrupting him when he began on his family failing. Not a few of them held to the belief that it was a myth of Dalrymple’s imagination. Still, others argued, all of the clan except John himself had been a queer lot; there was no real certainty that they had not done extraordinary acts. Meanwhile, apart from his desire to delve among ancestral records and repeat tales which had been told many times before, he was a genuine favorite with his friends. But that series of family anecdotes remained a standing joke.

They all pitied him when it became known that his engagement to the pretty winsome widow, Mrs. Carrington, was definitely broken. He was past forty now, and had not been known to pay serious court to any woman before in at least ten years. Of course Mrs. Carrington was rich. But then her money could not have attracted Dalrymple, for he was rich himself, in spite of his plain way of living there in that small Twenty-second Street basement house.

But the widow’s money had doubtless lured to her side the gentleman who had cut poor Dalrymple out. A number of years ago, when this little occurrence which we are chronicling took place, it was not so easy as it is now to make sure of a foreigner’s credentials and antecedents. The Count de Pommereul, a reputed French nobleman of high position, had managed to get into the Gramercy as a six-months’ member, and had managed also to cross the thresholds of numerous select New York drawing-rooms. At the very period of his introduction to Mrs. Carrington her engagement with Dalrymple had already become publicly announced. Then, in a few weeks, society received a shock. Dalrymple was thrown over, and it transpired that the brilliant young widow was betrothed to the Count.

Dalrymple, calm and self-contained, had nothing to say on the subject of why he had received such shabby treatment, and nobody ventured to interrogate him. Some people believed in the Count, others thought that there was a ring of falsity about him, for all his frame was so elegantly slender and supple, for all his mustache was so glossily dark, and his eyes so richly lustrous. Dalrymple meanwhile hid his wound, met the Count constantly at the Club, though no longer even exchanging bows with him, and—worked at his revenge in secret as a beaver works at the building of his winter ranch. He succeeded, too, in getting superb materials for that revenge. They surprised even himself when a few relatives and friends in Paris mailed him appalling documentary evidence as to what sort of a character this Count really was. There is no doubt that he now held in his hand a thunderbolt, and had only to hurl it when he pleased.

He did not tell a single soul what he had learned. The thought of just how he should act haunted him for several days. One evening he went home from the club a little earlier than usual, and tossed restlessly for a good while after going to bed. When sleep came it found him still irresolute as to what course he should take.

It seemed to him that he had now a succession of dreams, but he could recall none of them on awaking. And he awoke in a peculiar way. There was yet no hint of dawn in the room, and only the light from his gas, turned down to a very dim star. He was sitting bolt upright in bed, and feverish, fatigued sensations oppressed him. “What have I been dreaming?” he asked himself again and again. But as only a confused jumble of memories answered him, he sank back upon the pillows, and was soon buried in slumber.

It was past nine o’clock in the morning when he next awoke. He felt decidedly better. Both the feverishness and the fatigue had left him. He went to the club and breakfasted there. It was almost empty of members, as small clubs are apt to be at that hour of the morning. But in the hall he met his old friend Langworth and bowed to him. Langworth, who was rather near-sighted, gave a sudden start and a stare. “How odd,” thought Dalrymple, as he passed on into the reading-room, “I hope there’s nothing unexpected about my personal appearance.” Just at the doorway of the room he met another old friend, Summerson, a man extremely strict about all matters of propriety. Summerson saw him and then plainly made believe that he had not seen. As they moved by one another Dalrymple said lightly, “Good-morning, old chap. How’s your gout?”

Summerson, who was very tall and excessively dignified, gave a comic squirm. Then his eyelids fluttered and with the tips of his lips he murmured, “Better,” as he glided along.

“Pooh,” said Dalrymple to himself. “Getting touchy, I suppose, in his old age. How longevity disagrees with some of us mortals.”

He nearly always took a bottle of seltzer before breakfast, and this morning old Andrew (a servant who had been in the club many years) poured it out for him.

“I hope you’re all right again this mornin’, sorr,” said Andrew with his Celtic accent and in an affable half whisper.

“All right, Andrew,” was the reply. “Why, you must be thinking of someone else. I haven’t been ill. My health has been excellent for a long time past.”

“Yes, sorr,” said Andrew, lowering his eyes and respectfully retiring.

That last “Yes, sorr,” had a dubious note about its delivery that almost made Dalrymple call the faithful old fellow back and further question him. “All right again?” As if he had ever been all wrong! Oh, well, poor Andrew was ageing; others had remarked that fact months ago.

A different servant came to announce breakfast. There were only about five men in the dining-room as Dalrymple entered it. All of them gazed at him in an unusual way, or had late events led him to think that they did so? At the table nearest him sat Everdell, one of the jolliest men in the club, a person whose face was nearly always wreathed in smiles.

“Good-morning!” said Dalrymple, as he caught Everdell’s eye!

“Good-morning!” The tones were replete with mild consternation, and the look that went with them was smileless to the degree of actual gloom. Then Everdell, who had just finished his breakfast, rose and drew near to Dalrymple.

“’Pon my word,” he said, “I’m delighted to see you all right again so soon.”

“All right again so soon?” was the reply. “What in mercy’s name do you mean?”

“Oh, my dear old fellow,” began Everdell, fumbling with his watch-chain, “it was pretty bad, you know, yesterday.”

“Pretty—bad—yesterday?”

“I saw you in the morning, and for an hour or so in the afternoon. Perhaps no one would have noticed it if you hadn’t stayed here all day, and poured those confidences into people’s ears about De Pommereul. You didn’t appear to have drank a drop in the club; there’s the funny part of it. You went out several times, though, and came back again. All that you had to drink (except some wine here at dinner, you remember) you must have got outside. I wasn’t here at ten o’clock when De Pommereul came in. I’m glad I wasn’t. You must have been dreadful. If Summerson and Joyce hadn’t rushed in between you and the Count, heaven knows what would have happened. As it is—”

At this point Dalrymple broke in with cold harshness: “Look here, Everdell, I always disliked practical jokes, and I’ve known for a number of years that you’re given to them. You’ve never attempted to make me your butt before, however, and you’ll have the kindness to discontinue any such proceeding now.”

Everdell drew back for a moment, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and then muttering, “Oh, if you’re going to put it in that way,” strode quickly out of the dining-room.

Dalrymple scarcely ate a morsel of breakfast. After he had gulped down some hot coffee he repaired to the reading-room. As he re-entered it a waiter handed him several letters. One, which he opened first, was marked “immediate,” and had been sent him from his own house by an intelligent and devoted woman servant there, who had been for a long period in his employ. This letter made poor Dalrymple’s head swim as he read it. Written and signed by Mr. Summerson himself, as chairman of the house committee of the club, it ordered him to appear that same evening before a meeting of the governors and answer to a charge of disorderly conduct on the previous night. Then it went on to state that he (Dalrymple) had been seen throughout the previous day at the club in a state of evident intoxication, and had, finally, between the hours of 10 and 11 P. M., accosted and grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul in the main drawing-room of the Gramercy.

“Disorderly conduct,” “evident intoxication,” “grossly insulted the Count de Pommereul.” These words were trembling on Dalrymple’s lips as he presently approached Summerson himself, the very gentleman who had signed the letter, and who stood in the hall, arrayed for the street.

“What—what does it all mean?” gasped Dalrymple. “I—I never was intoxicated in my life, Lawrence Summerson; you ought to know that! I played euchre last night, up in the card-room, from nine o’clock till twelve, with Ogden and Folsom and yourself. If there’s any practical joke being got up against me, for God’s sake—”

“Wait a minute, please,” said Summerson. He went back into the coat-room, disarrayed himself of his street wraps, and finally joined Dalrymple. His first words, low and grave, ran thus: “Can it be possible you don’t recollect that our game of euchre was played the night before last and not last night?” Then he went with Dalrymple into a corner of the reading room, and they talked together for a good while.

Dalrymple went back to his home that day in a mental whirl. It still wanted a number of hours before the Governing Committee would meet. He had lost a day out of his life—there could be no doubt of that. If he had moved about the Club at all yesterday with a drunken manner, reviling De Pommereul to everybody who would lend him an ear—if he had afterward met De Pommereul in the Club and directed toward him in loud and furious tones a perfect torrent of accusation—he himself was completely, blankly ignorant.

For a good while he sat quite still and thought. Then he summoned Ann, the elderly and very trustworthy Ann, who had been his dear mother’s maid, and was now his housekeeper. He questioned Ann, and after dismissing her he pondered her answers. Three times yesterday she had seen him, and regarding his appearance Ann had her distinct opinions.

Suddenly a light flashed upon Dalrymple while he sat alone and brooded. He sprang up and a cry, half of awe, half of gladness, left his lips. The baffling problem had been solved!

That evening he presented himself before the Governing Committee. All assembled were sorry for him. Of course, punishment must be dealt, but for an old and popular member like Dalrymple it must not be expulsion. The general feeling of the Club had indeed already been gauged, and it was in favor of suspension for six months or a year at the farthest.

Dalrymple, however, was determined that he should be visited with no punishment at all. And he meant to state why.

The judges, as he faced them, all looked politely grim. The President, after a few suave preliminaries, asked Dalrymple if he had anything to say concerning the charges preferred against him. Dalrymple then proceeded to speak with a clear voice and composed demeanor.

His first sentences electrified his hearers. “I have no possible recollection of yesterday,” he began, “and it is precisely as much of a lost day to me as though I had lain chloroformed for twenty-four hours. On Wednesday night I returned home from this club and went to rest. I never really woke until Friday, possibly a little while after midnight, and then within my own bed. On Thursday morning I must have risen in a state of somnambulism, hypnotism, mental aberration, whatever you please, and not come to myself until Thursday had passed, and I had once more retired. Of what yesterday occurred I therefore claim to have been the irresponsible agent, and to have become so through no fault of my own. I am completely innocent of the misdemeanors charged against me, and I now solemnly swear this, on my word of honor as a gentleman.”

Here Dalrymple paused. The members of the committee interchanged glances amid profound silence. On some faces doubt could be read, but on others its veriest opposite. The intense stillness had become painful when Dalrymple spoke again.

“I had hoped that I should escape throughout my own lifetime all visitations of this distressing kind. My grandfather and two of my uncles not only walked in their sleep to an alarming degree, but were each subject to strange conditions of mind, in which acts were performed by them that they could not possibly remember afterward.” Here the speaker paused, soon continuing, however, in a lower and more reflective tone:

“Yes, my family have had the strange failing (that is, nearly all of them except myself, on the paternal side) of—”

But he said no more. The tension was loosened, and a great roar of laughter rose from the whole committee. How often every man there had joked him about that marvelous budget of stories which he infallibly began one way and one way only! And when the familiar formula sounded forth, it was all the funnier to those who heard it because of the solemn, judicial circumstances in which it again met their hearing.

The plaintiff was honorably acquitted. As for De Pommereul, as every word that Dalrymple had said concerning his past life in France happened to be perfectly true, the Count never reappeared at the Gramercy. His engagement with Mrs. Carrington was soon afterward broken off by the lady herself, and for a good while it was rumored that this lady had repentantly made it optional with Dalrymple whether he should once more become her accepted sweetheart.

But Dalrymple remained a bachelor. He is quite an old man now, yet he may be found in the card-room of the Gramercy nearly every evening. He is very willing to tell you the story of his “lost day” if you ask him courteously for it, and not in any strain of fun-poking; but he attempts no more voluntary recitals on the subject of his “family’s” maladies or mishaps.