The Lady of the Shroud by Bram Stoker (book series for 10 year olds .txt) 📕
"Sorry. But, of course, you don't understand such things." Then he went on talking before father had time to say a word.
"Let us get back to business. As you do not seem to follow me, let me explain that it is BECAUSE I do not forget that I wish to do this. I remember my dear mother's wish to make Aunt Janet happy, and would like to do as she did."
"AUNT Janet?" said father, very properly sneering at his ignorance. "She is not your aunt. Why, even her sister, who was married to your uncle, was only your aunt by courtesy." I could not help feeling that Rupert meant to be rude to my father, though his words were quite polite. If I had been as much bigger than him as he was than me, I should have flown at him; but he was a very big boy for his age. I am myself rather thin. Mother says thinness is an "appanage of birth."
"My Aunt Janet, sir, is an aunt by love. Courtesy is a small word to use in connection with such devoti
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o’ love was fine, an’ the garland o’ flowers was fresh-gathered,
underneath them a’ was nane ither than a ghastly shroud. As I looked
in my veesion—or maybe dream—I expectit to see the worms crawl
round the flagstane at her feet. If ‘twas not Death, laddie dear,
that stood by ye, it was the shadow o’ Death that made the darkness
round ye, that neither the light o’ candles nor the smoke o’ heathen
incense could pierce. Oh, laddie, laddie, wae is me that I hae seen
sic a veesion—waking or sleeping, it matters not! I was sair
distressed—so sair that I woke wi’ a shriek on my lips and bathed in
cold sweat. I would hae come doon to ye to see if you were hearty or
no—or even to listen at your door for any sound o’ yer being quick,
but that I feared to alarm ye till morn should come. I’ve counted
the hours and the minutes since midnight, when I saw the veesion,
till I came hither just the now.”
“Quite right, Aunt Janet,” I said, “and I thank you for your kind
thought for me in the matter, now and always.” Then I went on, for I
wanted to take precautions against the possibility of her discovery
of my secret. I could not bear to think that she might run my
precious secret to earth in any well-meant piece of bungling. That
would be to me disaster unbearable. She might frighten away
altogether my beautiful visitor, even whose name or origin I did not
know, and I might never see her again:
“You must never do that, Aunt Janet. You and I are too good friends
to have sense of distrust or annoyance come between us—which would
surely happen if I had to keep thinking that you or anyone else might
be watching me.”
RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.
April 27, 1907.
After a spell of loneliness which has seemed endless I have something
to write. When the void in my heart was becoming the receptacle for
many devils of suspicion and distrust I set myself a task which
might, I thought, keep my thoughts in part, at any rate, occupied—to
explore minutely the neighbourhood round the Castle. This might, I
hoped, serve as an anodyne to my pain of loneliness, which grew more
acute as the days, the hours, wore on, even if it should not
ultimately afford me some clue to the whereabouts of the woman whom I
had now grown to love so madly.
My exploration soon took a systematic form, as I intended that it
should be exhaustive. I would take every day a separate line of
advance from the Castle, beginning at the south and working round by
the east to the north. The first day only took me to the edge of the
creek, which I crossed in a boat, and landed at the base of the cliff
opposite. I found the cliffs alone worth a visit. Here and there
were openings to caves which I made up my mind to explore later. I
managed to climb up the cliff at a spot less beetling than the rest,
and continued my journey. It was, though very beautiful, not a
specially interesting place. I explored that spoke of the wheel of
which Vissarion was the hub, and got back just in time for dinner.
The next day I took a course slightly more to the eastward. I had no
difficulty in keeping a straight path, for, once I had rowed across
the creek, the old church of St. Sava rose before me in stately
gloom. This was the spot where many generations of the noblest of
the Land of the Blue Mountains had from time immemorial been laid to
rest, amongst them the Vissarions. Again, I found the opposite
cliffs pierced here and there with caves, some with wide openings,—
others the openings of which were partly above and partly below
water. I could, however, find no means of climbing the cliff at this
part, and had to make a long detour, following up the line of the
creek till further on I found a piece of beach from which ascent was
possible. Here I ascended, and found that I was on a line between
the Castle and the southern side of the mountains. I saw the church
of St. Sava away to my right, and not far from the edge of the cliff.
I made my way to it at once, for as yet I had never been near it.
Hitherto my excursions had been limited to the Castle and its many
gardens and surroundings. It was of a style with which I was not
familiar—with four wings to the points of the compass. The great
doorway, set in a magnificent frontage of carved stone of manifestly
ancient date, faced west, so that, when one entered, he went east.
To my surprise—for somehow I expected the contrary—I found the door
open. Not wide open, but what is called ajar—manifestly not locked
or barred, but not sufficiently open for one to look in. I entered,
and after passing through a wide vestibule, more like a section of a
corridor than an ostensible entrance, made my way through a spacious
doorway into the body of the church. The church itself was almost
circular, the openings of the four naves being spacious enough to
give the appearance of the interior as a whole, being a huge cross.
It was strangely dim, for the window openings were small and high-set, and were, moreover, filled with green or blue glass, each window
having a colour to itself. The glass was very old, being of the
thirteenth or fourteenth century. Such appointments as there were—
for it had a general air of desolation—were of great beauty and
richness,—especially so to be in a place—even a church—where the
door lay open, and no one was to be seen. It was strangely silent
even for an old church on a lonesome headland. There reigned a
dismal solemnity which seemed to chill me, accustomed as I have been
to strange and weird places. It seemed abandoned, though it had not
that air of having been neglected which is so often to be noticed in
old ‘churches. There was none of the everlasting accumulation of
dust which prevails in places of higher cultivation and larger and
more strenuous work.
In the church itself or its appending chambers I could find no clue
or suggestion which could guide me in any way in my search for the
Lady of the Shroud. Monuments there were in profusion—statues,
tablets, and all the customary memorials of the dead. The families
and dates represented were simply bewildering. Often the name of
Vissarion was given, and the inscription which it held I read through
carefully, looking to find some enlightenment of any kind. But all
in vain: there was nothing to see in the church itself. So I
determined to visit the crypt. I had no lantern or candle with me,
so had to go back to the Castle to secure one.
It was strange, coming in from the sunlight, here overwhelming to one
so recently accustomed to northern skies, to note the slender gleam
of the lantern which I carried, and which I had lit inside the door.
At my first entry to the church my mind had been so much taken up
with the strangeness of the place, together with the intensity of
wish for some sort of clue, that I had really no opportunity of
examining detail. But now detail became necessary, as I had to find
the entrance to the crypt. My puny light could not dissipate the
semi-Cimmerian gloom of the vast edifice; I had to throw the feeble
gleam into one after another of the dark corners.
At last I found, behind the great screen, a narrow stone staircase
which seemed to wind down into the rock. It was not in any way
secret, but being in the narrow space behind the great screen, was
not visible except when close to it. I knew I was now close to my
objective, and began to descend. Accustomed though I have been to
all sorts of mysteries and dangers, I felt awed and almost
overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness and desolation as I descended
the ancient winding steps. These were many in number, roughly hewn
of old in the solid rock on which the church was built.
I met a fresh surprise in finding that the door of the crypt was
open. After all, this was different from the church-door being open;
for in many places it is a custom to allow all comers at all times to
find rest and comfort in the sacred place. But I did expect that at
least the final resting-place of the historic dead would be held safe
against casual intrusion. Even I, on a quest which was very near my
heart, paused with an almost overwhelming sense of decorum before
passing through that open door. The crypt was a huge place,
strangely lofty for a vault. From its formation, however, I soon
came to the conclusion that it was originally a natural cavern
altered to its present purpose by the hand of man. I could hear
somewhere near the sound of running water, but I could not locate it.
Now and again at irregular intervals there was a prolonged booming,
which could only come from a wave breaking in a confined place. The
recollection then came to me of the proximity of the church to the
top of the beetling cliff, and of the half-sunk cavern entrances
which pierced it.
With the gleam of my lamp to guide me, I went through and round the
whole place. There were many massive tombs, mostly rough-hewn from
great slabs or blocks of stone. Some of them were marble, and the
cutting of all was ancient. So large and heavy were some of them
that it was a wonder to me how they could ever have been brought to
this place, to which the only entrance was seemingly the narrow,
tortuous stairway by which I had come. At last I saw near one end of
the crypt a great chain hanging. Turning the light upward, I found
that it depended from a ring set over a wide opening, evidently made
artificially. It must have been through this opening that the great
sarcophagi had been lowered.
Directly underneath the hanging chain, which did not come closer to
the ground than some eight or ten feet, was a huge tomb in the shape
of a rectangular coffer or sarcophagus. It was open, save for a huge
sheet of thick glass which rested above it on two thick balks of dark
oak, cut to exceeding smoothness, which lay across it, one at either
end. On the far side from where I stood each of these was joined to
another oak plank, also cut smooth, which sloped gently to the rocky
floor. Should it be necessary to open the tomb, the glass could be
made to slide along the supports and descend by the sloping planks.
Naturally curious to know what might be within such a strange
receptacle, I raised the lantern, depressing its lens so that the
light might fall within.
Then I started back with a cry, the lantern slipping from my
nerveless hand and falling with a ringing sound on the great sheet of
thick glass.
Within, pillowed on soft cushions, and covered with a mantle woven of
white natural fleece sprigged with tiny sprays of pine wrought in
gold, lay the body of a woman—none other than my beautiful visitor.
She was marble white, and her long black eyelashes lay on her white
cheeks as though she slept.
Without a word or a sound, save the sounds made by
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