The End of Her Honeymoon by Marie Belloc Lowndes (books to read now .TXT) đź“•
Madame Poulain, turning a key, revealed a large roomy space now fitted upas a cupboard. "It's a way through into our bedroom, monsieur," she saidsmiling. "We could not of course allow our daughter to be far fromourselves."
And Dampier nodded. He knew the ways of French people and sympathised withthose ways.
He stepped up into the cupboard, curious to see if this too had been apowdering closet, and if that were so if the old panelling andornamentation had remained in their original condition.
Thus for a moment was Dampier concealed from those in the room. And duringthat moment there came the sound of footsteps on the staircase, followed bythe sudden appearance on the landing outside the open door of the curiouslittle apartment of two tall figures--a girl in a lace opera cloak, and ayoung man in evening dress.
Nancy Dampier, gazing at them, a little surprised at the abrupt apparition,told herself that they must be
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His companion had also marked the absence of any sign of the Christian’s hope in this house of death, and through her mind there ran the confused recollection of holy words:—
“It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory.
“Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep….
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Comfortable words! They seemed, merely by their flight through the tense ganglia of her brain, to break into the awful loneliness of these recent tabernacles of the spirit, and bestow on them the benison denied them in its pride by the human family from whose bosom they had been torn.
Then swiftly her mind turned to the thought of those who were still watching and waiting, in that misery of suspense of which she now knew each pang. Every one—surely every one—of these dead who now surrounded her,—silent, solitary, had been loved—for love comes in some guise to all poor human creatures. Those mouths, cheeks, eyes, those rippling waves of woman’s hair, had been kissed—ah, how often. The perishing flesh had been clasped heart to heart….
There came over her soul a great rush of pity for those others, the vast and scattered company, mourning, mourning, and yet reaching out in wild hope and desire for their loved ones, whose bodies were all the while here. They did not know, yet hither came winging unerringly, like flights of homing doves, their myriad prayers, their passionate loving thoughts and wistful thirsty longing for one word, one kiss, one touch of the hand…. Surely such thoughts and prayers sanctified this charnel-house.
She herself was of that company—that company who were not sure. Some, doubtless, obstinate, refused to believe that death in any form had overtaken the missing; others feared to come here and look. She had not feared….
The janitor spoke to her, and she started violently.
“You are quite convinced, madame, that Number 4 is not he whom you seek?”
These words, that question, evidently embodied a formula the man was bound to use.
Mrs. Dampier bent her head.
“You, monsieur, also have no doubt?”
“None at all,” said Gerald briefly.
With a sudden movement the man put the sinister carriage in motion, but when he had got it close to the door of the mortuary, he stopped a moment:—“We have many compliments on our brancard,” he said cheerfully. “It is very ingenious, is it not? You see the wheels are so large that a mere touch pushes it backwards and forwards. It is quite easy to wheel back into place again.”
Gerald Burton took out a five-franc piece. He left Nancy Dampier standing, an infinitely pathetic, forlorn little figure, in the sunlit portion of the yard, and approached the man.
“We must go now,” he said hurriedly. “I suppose it is quite easy to leave by the way we came in—through the engine-room?”
“One moment, monsieur, one moment! Before showing you out I must put Number 4 back with his other companions. There is no fear of his being lonely, poor man! We had five brought in this morning.”
They had not long to wait before the concierge joined them again.
“Won’t monsieur and madame stay and just see everything else there is to be seen?” he asked eagerly. “We have the most interesting relics of great criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there—” he pointed with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled Number 4—“ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their hotel who recognised the poor creatures.”
He was now preceding his two visitors through the operating theatre where are held the post-mortems. From thence he led them into the hall where they had first gained admission. “Well, monsieur, if you really do not care to see our relics—?” He opened the great door through which so few living men and women ever pass.
Gerald Burton and Nancy Dampier walked out into the sunlight, and the last thing they saw of the Morgue was the smiling face of the concierge—it was not often that he received ten francs for doing his simple duty.
“Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!” he said gaily. And as the courteous old French mode of adieu fell upon their ears, Gerald Burton felt an awful sensation of horror, of oppression, yes and of dread, steal over him.
Nancy Dampier, looking up at her companion, suddenly forgot herself. “Mr. Burton,” she exclaimed, her voice full of concern, “I’m afraid this has made you feel ill? I oughtn’t to have let you come here!” And it was she who in her clear, low voice told the cabman the address of the Hôtel Saint Ange.
Gerald Burton muttered a word of half-angry excuse. He was keenly ashamed of what he took to be his lack of manliness.
But during the weeks, aye and the months that followed he found himself constantly haunted by the gentle, ironic words of farewell uttered by the concierge of the Morgue: “Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!”
The American abroad has a touching faith, first, in the might and power of his country to redress all wrongs, and secondly, in the personal prestige of his Ambassador.
As a rule this faith is justified by works, but in the special and very peculiar case of John Dampier, Senator Burton was destined to meet with disappointment.
With keen vexation he learnt that the distinguished and genial individual who just then represented the great sister Republic in Paris, and on whom he himself had absolutely counted for advice and help, for they were old friends and allies, had taken sick leave for three months.
Paris, during an Exhibition Year, seems mysteriously to lose the wonderful climate which a certain British Minister for Foreign Affairs once declared to be the only one that suited every diplomat’s constitution!
The Senator and his daughter drove on from the American Embassy to the American Consulate, and it was with a feeling of considerable satisfaction that they were shown by a courteous janitor into the pleasant, airy waiting-room where a large engraving of Christopher Columbus, and a huge photograph of the Washington Monument, welcome the wandering American.
Even in this waiting-room there was an air of cheerful activity, a constant coming and going, which showed that whatever might be the case with the Embassy, the Consulate, at any rate, was very much alive.
“Mr. Senator Burton? Glad to see you, sir! What can we do for you?” The words fell with a cheering, refreshing sound on the Senator’s ears, though the speaker went on a trifle less cordially, “We are simply overwhelmed with business just now! You can imagine—but no, no one could imagine, the length, the breadth, the scope of what people think to be our duties in an Exhibition Year!”
The distinguished visitor and his daughter were being shown into the Consul’s own pleasant study. Now this spacious, comfortable apartment is hung with fine engravings of the White House and of the Capitol, and Senator Burton felt a thrill of yearning as well as of pride when he gazed at these familiar, stately buildings which looked so homelike and dear when seen amid alien surroundings.
And as he sat down, and prepared to state his business, there suddenly came over this kindly American a curious feeling of misgiving, of self-rebuke. Had he remained at home in Washington, content with all his familiar duties and pleasures, he would never have been brought into this association with a strange, unpleasant life-story.
But he soon shook off this feeling of misgiving, and as the curious tale he had to tell was being listened to, kindly and patiently, he felt glad indeed that he had at last found a fellow-countryman in whom to confide, and on whose advice he could rely.
But when Senator Burton had finished speaking, the American Consul shook his head. “I only wish we could help you!” he exclaimed. “But we can do nothing where a British subject is concerned. We’ve quite enough to do looking after those of our own people who disappear in Paris! Would you be surprised to learn, Mr. Senator, that four of our countrymen have completely vanished within the last two days?” And as Daisy uttered a little exclamation of incredulous dismay, “Don’t feel so badly about it, my dear young lady, I quite expect all four of them to turn up again, after having given us and their friends a great deal of useless, expensive worry.”
“What I really want,” said the Senator earnestly, “is not your official assistance, but a word of practical advice. What is it this unfortunate young lady, Mrs. Dampier, ought to do? We’ve tried the Commissaire de Police of the quarter, and he’s perfectly useless: in fact my son, who’s seen him twice, doesn’t believe a word he says.”
The Consul gave what Senator Burton felt to be a very French shrug of the shoulders.
“That don’t surprise me! As regards the lower branch of the service the police here is very understaffed. The only thing for you to do is to take this poor lady to the British Consulate. They are driven to death there, just as we are here, and they’ll naturally snatch at any excuse to avoid an extra job. But of course if this Mrs. Dampier is, as you say, a British subject—well, they’re bound to do something for her. But you may believe me when I say, Mr. Senator, that there’s probably nothing really mysterious about the case. You may find this Mr. Dampier at the hotel when you return there. It may interest you to learn”—he hesitated, and glanced at his young countrywoman—“that among our countrymen who vanish, I mean in a temporary way, there are more married men than bachelors.”
And with that enigmatic pronouncement the genial Consul courteously and smilingly dismissed Senator Burton and his daughter.
The same afternoon saw the Senator and Mrs. Dampier on their way to the British Consulate.
The day before Nancy had been unwilling to leave the hotel for even the shortest space of time, now she seemed sunk into apathetic despair—and yet, as they drove along together, the Senator still doubted, still wondered in the depths of his heart, whether the lovely young woman now sitting silent by his side, was not making a fool of him, as she had certainly done of his two children.
He caught himself again and again thinking of her as “Nancy;” already his daughter and she were on Christian-name terms with one another; and as for Gerald, he had put everything else aside to devote himself entirely to solving the mystery of John Dampier’s disappearance.
At last they reached the British Consulate, and the American could not help feeling a thrill of pride as he mentally compared the Office where he had been that morning and that which represented, in this shabby side street, the commercial might and weight of the British Empire.
The waiting-room into which they were shown was a gloomy apartment looking on to an inner courtyard, and Senator Burton’s card did not produce the magic effect it had done at the American Consulate; in fact he and his companion had to take their turn with a crowd of other people, and the time they were kept waiting seemed very long.
At last, however, they were ushered into
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