IN THE DEATH CHAMBER
A dark, silent chamber. A room magnificent and lofty in which the far
corners were shrouded in shadowy gloom.
Edward lay in a half consciousness, staring up at the ceiling. It
caused him no wonderment that the ceiling was strange to him, and
unlike any ceiling he had ever known, or that it should be carved and
painted and rich with gilding.
There was a faint, elusive perfume in the air that set him thinking of
cathedrals, and from somewhere near him there came a droning monotone.
He felt no definite pain now, only a sensation of lassitude and
detachment. There was a strange tightness in the region of his heart
and he felt a little cold. Turning his head he tried to rise upon his
elbow, but a sharp pain took him in the shoulder as he moved, and he
was glad to sink back again upon the pillow.
The movement, however, slight as it had been, had left him in a
position from which he could get a better view of his surroundings, and
as he took these in he gave a little gasp and felt the beads of
moisture pricking out upon his forehead.
In the centre of the room there was a bed, the four posts of which,
richly carved, upheld a fluted canopy of dull red silk from which
depended heavy curtains looped up with tasselled cords. Upon the panel
above the pillow an escutcheon was blazoned out in dull gold.
Edward closed his eyes for a moment before he could make up his mind to
let them rest on the figure which he knew he would see lying beneath
the crimson canopy. He asked himself what could have been the cause of
his, Edward Povey's, presence in the death chamber of the king of San
Pietro. Then he opened his eyes and looked.
Enrico was lying stiff in the centre of the bed, the sharp points of
his knees and feet showing rigidly through the white sheet which
covered his body. The thin hands were folded peacefully upon the
breast, and between the stiffening fingers had been thrust a crucifix
of ebony, bearing a silver image of the Christ. Below the hands, too,
Edward noticed that some one had placed a single bloom, a rose. The
little flower stood out eloquently among the sombre pageantry of death,
"all the purer for its oneness," and he wondered idly whether it spoke
of at least one who had truly sorrowed at the passing of the king, at
one real regret.
On the bed, at the feet of the dead monarch, were two cushions on which
were pinned the several orders and medals which had belonged to Enrico;
his sword, too, lay between them, together with his plumed hat and his
field-marshal's staff.
On either side of the bed there knelt a Sister of Mercy, and it was the
monotone of their prayers that Edward had heard when he first awoke.
In an alcove by the great carved fire-place a thin spiral of scented
smoke rose from a censer. Four tall candles in silver holders made the
space round the body an oasis of light, and in the cavern of shadow
beyond loomed the strange shapes of massive furniture, and the dull
gleam of mirrors. The heavy curtains had been drawn across the
windows, and there was no sound but the murmur of the women at prayer
and the occasional fall of a cinder on the stone flags of the hearth.
The scene was eerie in the extreme, and Edward gazed in fascinated
interest at the rigid figure on the bed. Enrico had been a handsome
man in life, and with the passing of his evil soul his earthly dignity
of aspect had increased. The head was lying well back and showed the
noble sweep of the brow and the clean-cut profile of the high-bridged
nose. A full beard, raven black and threaded here and there with grey,
rested spread out like a pall upon his breast and reached to the
clasped hands. Upon the sunken wax-like cheeks the firelight flickered
and played ghastly shadow tricks in the hollows of the deep-set eyes.
One of the nuns rose silently from her knees to attend to a candle at
the head of the bed which had been guttering in a little draught that
had found its way into the still room. As the woman turned to resume
her prayers she saw that Edward, upon his pile of rugs in the corner,
was awake, and she came with noiseless steps over to him. She laid a
cool hand upon his brow and spoke to him in a whisper.
"You are not to talk, senor; I have orders to fetch the Queen to you
when you awoke."
"The Queen!--you call her that already! But she will be asleep,
she----" He ceased speaking as the white hand was pressed over his
lips, and he watched the sister as she glided noiselessly to a door
that was concealed behind a curtain near him.
In a few moments she had returned, and behind her, Edward saw Galva,
and a smile lit up his rather tired-looking eyes as she crept and knelt
down by the side of the made-up couch.
Very adorable looked the young Queen of San Pietro as she bent her
lovely head over Edward Povey. Her hair, parted in the centre, fell
over her shoulders in two long plaits, showing their dark richness
against the steel blue of the wrapper the girl had put on. Her face
was a little pale and there were dusky rings showing under the
eyes--eyes which still held a suspicion of tears.
The nun who had fetched her crossed the room and touched her fellow
watcher on the arm, and together they left the room.
When they were alone Galva bent lower over towards Edward and he put
out his hands and took her little ones between them, and as he did so
something warm fell upon them.
"Why, Galva--what's all this--tears? Why----"
"Oh, guardy, you are hurt--and I can't bear it. I would never forgive
myself--never, if anything were to happen to you. It is my
fault--it----"
"I don't know, Galva, whether I'm badly hurt or not--sometimes I think
I am. I don't feel much pain now--but there is a tightness here. Why
was I put in this room, into the presence of death? Enrico in all his
glory is hardly the best of company for an invalid." And he smiled a
little.
"It was the doctor, guardy, the man who had been attending the king.
He had you brought here as it was nearest, and he won't let them move
you. He tried to find the bullet, but he couldn't. He is coming again
in the morning. Who shot you, guardy?"
"Never mind that now, dear. I want to ask you something. I want you
to tell me if----if----I have been of use to you, if I have helped ever
so little to put you where you are now--to make you Queen of San
Pietro."
Galva raised her head.
"Why, Mr. Sydney, what a strange question--of course----"
"Not so strange, dear, not so strange. Don't call me Mr. Sydney, just
Edward. And so I have really helped a little? I'm glad. I'm--do you
know, Galva, that I have always thought that in this life we are given
our chance to combat the evil we do with good, to balance our account,
as it were; that for every sin we commit, every wrong we do, we are
given a whitewash brush, to use if we will."
"I think so too, guardy--but you have done no wrong. I won't believe
any evil of you--you are all that is noble and good."
Edward shook his head.
"But you don't know everything, there are one or two little things
which one of these days, when I am better, I will explain to you. Now
go to bed, dear; this wrapper of yours is as thin as paper. In the
morning I will explain--yes, explain. Good-night. Oh, by the bye,
that is your rose, I expect, isn't it?" and he pointed to the bed, and
Galva nodded. "I thought so, you little saint; I don't know any one
else who would have put it there. Now run away, dear---in the morning
I will explain."
The girl rose and leant over the wounded man.
"Good-night, guardy dear, and God bless you," she said, and kissed him
on the lips.
She turned at the door and sent him a little smile, and as she went
from sight behind the curtain, a sense of desolation came over Edward
Povey.
He thought it would be good to die like this--and perhaps it were
better that there should be no explanation. He had taken on the
mission of a man who was unable to act for himself, and he had carried
it to a successful issue. All was right with the world, and he told
himself that his own account was with God in His heaven.
He became mildly delirious and asked himself what more could he desire
of the Romance he craved, than to pass out of life here in this chamber
which might have been lifted bodily from a classic of the Middle Ages?
What fitter surroundings than the tall sombre candlesticks, the praying
women, the silence, and the shrouded figure on the bed? He turned his
eyes to Enrico and felt a strange sense of companionship.
The pain in his chest seemed easier now, and the spasms were becoming
less frequent. He lay between sleeping and waking, in a delicious
state of ease. He thought tenderly of Charlotte, and wondered if she
would miss him very much if she were never to see him any more.
There had been little love, little real love, between them for the past
few years, but in his light-headedness Edward thought of her as he saw
her that day years ago, decked out in the tawdry white finery of their
wedding morning, trembling beside him at the altar of the shabby little
Barnsbury church. He called to mind the girlish, shrinking figure
standing on the threshold of life, and he remembered that there were
tears shining through the cheap little net veil.
Then he went on through the years, through the hopefulness of it all,
and the disappointments, through the troubled waters with their
sun-kissed moments, to the dull tinged sea of matrimonial failure. He
could not really blame Charlotte; her lot had been perhaps a harder one
than his, after all.
Even the journey to and from the City, the noisy companionship of the
second-class smoker, the life of the gloomy counting-house, the snack
of lunch followed by the grateful pipe smoked on the sunny side of
Gracechurch Street--these had all been his, and he knew now how they
had all helped him to endure those years in the little villa at Brixton.
He wondered idly why God had not sent them any children. Little ones
were so necessary to life. Charlotte and he would never have drifted
apart if the wondering eyes of a child had been there to see--if there
had been tiny roseleaf hands to hold them to each other. It would all
have been so different then.
The blind at one of the windows had become disarranged, and through the
aperture Edward saw the first sweet flush of the dawning. It was only
a little glimpse, but he could see an inch or two of the horizon.
Above the silver edge of a bank of stormy clouds that lay low over the
sea, the coming day had barred the sky with green and gold and shell
pink and glory. Gradually the light in the room increased, and the
candles grew ghostlike, and the shadows lifted unexpectedly from the
corners.
The two nuns had re-entered the room, and one of them crept softly over
to his couch and gazed down at the white face. Then she tiptoed back
and touched her companion on the arm.
"We will whisper our prayers, sister; our little friend is in a
delicious sleep. He'll do now. We must think of the living before the
dead."