THE DAGGER AND THE MAN
Rosetta Rosa and I threaded through the crowd towards the Embankment
entrance of the Gold Rooms. She had spoken for a few moments with
Emmeline, who went pale with satisfaction at the candid friendliness
of her tone, and she had chatted quite gaily with Sullivan himself;
and we had all been tremendously impressed by her beauty and fine
grace--I certainly not the least. And then she had asked me, with a
quality of mysteriousness in her voice, to see her to her carriage.
And, with her arm in mine, it was impossible for me to believe that
she could influence, in any evil way, my future career. That she might
be the cause of danger to my life seemed ridiculous. She was the
incarnation of kindliness and simplicity. She had nothing about her of
the sinister, and further, with all her transcendent beauty and charm,
she was also the incarnation of the matter-of-fact. I am obliged to
say this, though I fear that it may impair for some people the vision
of her loveliness and her unique personality. She was the incarnation
of the matter-of-fact, because she appeared to be invariably quite
unconscious of the supremacy of her talents. She was not weighed down
by them, as many artists of distinction are weighed down. She carried
them lightly, seemingly unaware that they existed. Thus no one could
have guessed that that very night she had left the stage of the Opera
after an extraordinary triumph in her greatest rôle--that of Isolde in
"Tristan."
And so her presence by my side soothed away almost at once the
excitation and the spiritual disturbance of the scene through which I
had just passed with Emmeline; and I was disposed, if not to laugh at
the whole thing, at any rate to regard it calmly, dispassionately, as
one of the various inexplicable matters with which one meets in a
world absurdly called prosaic. I was sure that no trick had been
played upon me. I was sure that I had actually seen in the crystal
what I had described to Emmeline, and that she, too, had seen it. But
then, I argued, such an experience might be the result of hypnotic
suggestion, or of thought transference, or of some other imperfectly
understood agency.... Rosetta Rosa an instrument of misfortune! No!
When I looked at her I comprehended how men have stopped at nothing
for the sake of love, and how a woman, if only she be beautiful
enough, may wield a power compared to which the sway of a Tsar, even a
Tsar unhampered by Dumas, is impotence itself. Even at that early
stage I had begun to be a captive to her. But I did not believe that
her rule was malign.
"Mr. Foster," she said, "I have asked you to see me to my carriage,
but really I want you to do more than that. I want you to go with me
to poor Alresca's. He is progressing satisfactorily, so far as I can
judge, but the dear fellow is thoroughly depressed. I saw him this
afternoon, and he wished, if I met you here to-night, that I should
bring you to him. He has a proposition to make to you, and I hope you
will accept it."
"I shall accept it, then," I said.
She pulled out a tiny gold watch, glistening with diamonds.
"It is half-past one," she said. "We might be there in ten minutes.
You don't mind it being late, I suppose. We singers, you know, have
our own hours."
In the foyer we had to wait while the carriage was called. I stood
silent, and perhaps abstracted, at her elbow, absorbed in the pride
and happiness of being so close to her, and looking forward with a
tremulous pleasure to the drive through London at her side. She was
dressed in gray, with a large ermine-lined cloak, and she wore no
ornaments except a thin jewelled dagger in her lovely hair.
All at once I saw that she flushed, and, following the direction of
her eyes, I beheld Sir Cyril Smart, with a startled gaze fixed
immovably on her face. Except the footmen and the attendants attached
to the hotel, there were not half a dozen people in the entrance-hall
at this moment. Sir Cyril was nearly as white as the marble floor. He
made a step forward, and then stood still. She, too, moved towards
him, as it seemed, involuntarily.
"Good evening, Miss Rosa," he said at length, with a stiff
inclination. She responded, and once more they stared at each other. I
wondered whether they had quarrelled again, or whether both were by
some mischance simultaneously indisposed. Surely they must have
already met during the evening at the Opera!
Then Rosa, with strange deliberation, put her hand to her hair and
pulled out the jewelled dagger.
"Sir Cyril," she said, "you seem fascinated by this little weapon. Do
you recognize it?"
He made no answer, nor moved, but I noticed that his hands were
tightly clenched.
"You do recognize it, Sir Cyril?"
At last he nodded.
"Then take it. The dagger shall be yours. To-night, within the last
minute, I think I have suddenly discovered that, next to myself, you
have the best right to it."
He opened his lips to speak, but made no sound.
"See," she said. "It is a real dagger, sharp and pointed."
Throwing back her cloak with a quick gesture, she was about to prick
the skin of her left arm between the top of her long glove and the
sleeve of her low-cut dress. But Sir Cyril, and I also, jumped to stop
her.
"Don't do that," I said. "You might hurt yourself."
She glanced at me, angry for the instant; but her anger dissolved in
an icy smile.
"Take it, Sir Cyril, to please me."
Her intonation was decidedly peculiar.
And Sir Cyril took the dagger.
"Miss Rosa's carriage," a commissionaire shouted, and, beckoning to
me, the girl moved imperiously down the steps to the courtyard. There
was no longer a smile on her face, which had a musing and withdrawn
expression. Sir Cyril stood stock-still, holding the dagger. What the
surrounding lackeys thought of this singular episode I will not guess.
Indeed, the longer I live, the less I care to meditate upon what
lackeys do think. But that the adventures of their employers provide
them with ample food for thought there can be no doubt.
Rosa's horses drew us swiftly away from the Grand Babylon Hotel, and
it seemed that she wished to forget or to ignore the remarkable
incident. For some moments she sat silent, her head slightly bent, her
cloak still thrown back, but showing no sign of agitation beyond a
slightly hurried heaving of the bosom.
I was discreet enough not to break in upon her reflections by any
attempt at conversation, for it seemed to me that what I had just
witnessed had been a sudden and terrible crisis, not only in the life
of Sir Cyril, but also in that of the girl whose loveliness was dimly
revealed to me in the obscurity of the vehicle.
We had got no further than Trafalgar Square when she aroused herself,
looked at me, and gave a short laugh.
"I suppose," she remarked, "that a doctor can't cure every disease?"
"Scarcely," I replied.
"Not even a young doctor?" she said with comical gravity.
"Not even a young doctor," I gravely answered.
Then we both laughed.
"You must excuse my fun," she said. "I can't help it, especially when
my mind is disturbed."
"Why do you ask me?" I inquired. "Was it just a general observation
caused by the seriousness of my countenance, or were you thinking of
something in particular?"
"I was thinking of Alresca," she murmured, "my poor Alresca. He is the
rarest gentleman and the finest artist in Europe, and he is
suffering."
"Well," I said, "one can't break one's thigh for nothing."
"It is not his thigh. It is something else."
"What?"
She shook her head, to indicate her inability to answer.
Here I must explain that, on the morning after the accident, I had
taken a hansom to the Devonshire Mansion with the intention of paying
a professional visit to Alresca. I was not altogether certain that I
ought to regard the case as mine, but I went. Immediately before my
hansom, however, there had drawn up another hansom in front of the
portals of the Devonshire, and out of that other hansom had stepped
the famous Toddy MacWhister. Great man as Toddy was, he had an eye on
"saxpences," and it was evident that, in spite of the instructions
which he had given me as to the disposal of Alresca, Toddy was
claiming the patient for his own. I retired. It was the only thing I
could do. Two doctors were not needed, and I did not see myself, a
young man scarcely yet escaped from the fear of examinations,
disputing cases with the redoubtable Toddy. I heard afterwards that he
had prolonged his stay in London in order to attend Alresca. So that
I had not seen the tenor since his accident.
"What does Monsieur Alresca want to see me about?" I demanded
cautiously.
"He will tell you," said Rosa, equally cautious.
A silence followed.
"Do you think I upset him--that night?" she asked.
"You wish me to be frank?"
"If I had thought you would not be frank I would not have asked you.
Do you imagine it is my habit to go about putting awkward questions
like that?"
"I think you did upset him very much."
"You think I was wrong?"
"I do."
"Perhaps you are right," she admitted.
I had been bold. A desire took me to be still bolder. She was in the
carriage with me. She was not older than I. And were she Rosetta Rosa,
or a mere miss taken at hazard out of a drawing-room, she was feminine
and I was masculine. In short--Well, I have fits of rashness
sometimes.
"You say he is depressed," I addressed her firmly. "And I will
venture to inform you that I am not in the least surprised."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "And why?"
"After what you said to him that night in the dressing-room. If I had
been in Alresca's place I know that I should be depressed, and very
much depressed, too."
"You mean--" she faltered.
"Yes," I said, "I mean that."
I thought I had gone pretty far, and my heart was beating. I could not
justly have protested had she stopped the carriage and deposited me on
the pavement by the railings of Green Park. But her character was
angelic. She accepted my treatment of her with the most astounding
meekness.
"You mean," she said, "that he is in love with me, and I chose just
that night to--refuse him."
I nodded.
"That is emotional cause enough, isn't it, to account for any
mysterious depression that any man is ever likely to have?"
"You are mistaken," she said softly. "You don't know Alresca. You
don't know his strength of mind. I can assure you that it is
something more than unreturned love that is destroying him."
"Destroying him?"
"Yes, destroying him. Alresca is capable of killing a futile passion.
His soul is too far removed from his body, and even from his mind, to
be seriously influenced by the mistakes and misfortunes of his mind
and body. Do you understand me?"
"I think so."
"What is the matter with Alresca is something in his most secret
soul."
"And you can form no idea of what it is?"
She made no reply.
"Doctors certainly can't cure such diseases as that," I said.
"They can try," said Rosetta Rosa.
"You wish me to try?" I faced her.
She inclined her head.
"Then I will," I said with sudden passionateness, forgetting even that
I was not Alresca's doctor.
The carriage stopped. In the space of less than a quarter of an hour,
so it seemed to me, we had grown almost intimate--she and I.
Alresca's man was awaiting us in the portico of the Devonshire, and
without a word he led us to his master. Alresca lay on his back on a
couch in a large and luxuriously littered drawing-room. The pallor of
his face and the soft brilliance of his eyes were infinitely pathetic,
and again he reminded me of the tragic and gloomy third act of
"Tristan." He greeted us kindly in his quiet voice.
"I have brought the young man," said Rosa, "and now, after I have
inquired about your health, I must go. It is late. Are you better,
Alresca?"
"I am better now that you are here," he smiled. "But you must not go
yet. It is many days since I heard a note of music. Sing to me before
you go."
"To-night?"
"Yes, to-night."
"What shall I sing?"
"Anything, so that I hear your voice."
"I will sing 'Elsa's Dream.' But who will accompany? You know I simply
can't play to my own singing."
I gathered together all my courage.
"I'm an awful player," I said, "but I know the whole score of
'Lohengrin.'"
"How clever of you!" Rosa laughed. "I'm sure you play beautifully."
Alresca rewarded me with a look, and, trembling, I sat down to the
piano. I was despicably nervous. Before the song was finished I had
lost everything but honor; but I played that accompaniment to the most
marvellous soprano in the world.
And what singing! Rosa stood close beside me. I caught the golden
voice at its birth. Every vibration, every shade of expression, every
subtlety of feeling was mine; and the experience was unforgettable.
Many times since then have I heard Rosa sing, many times in my hearing
has she excited a vast audience to overwhelming enthusiasm; but never,
to my mind, has she sung so finely as on that night. She was
profoundly moved, she had in Alresca the ideal listener, and she sang
with the magic power of a goddess. It was the summit of her career.
"There is none like you," Alresca said, and the praise of Alresca
brought the crimson to her cheek. He was probably the one person
living who had the right to praise her, for an artist can only be
properly estimated by his equals.
"Come to me, Rosa," he murmured, as he took her hand in his and kissed
it. "You are in exquisite voice to-night," he said.
"Am I?"
"Yes. You have been excited; and I notice that you always sing best
under excitement."
"Perhaps," she replied. "The fact is, I have just met--met some one
whom I never expected to meet. That is all. Good night, dear friend."
"Good night."
She passed her hand soothingly over his forehead.
When we were alone Alresca seemed to be overtaken by lassitude.
"Surely," I said, "it is not by Toddy--I mean Dr. Todhunter
MacWhister's advice that you keep these hours. The clocks are striking
two!"
"Ah, my friend," he replied wearily, in his precise and rather
elaborate English, "ill or well, I must live as I have been accustomed
to live. For twenty years I have gone to bed promptly at three o'clock
and risen at eleven o'clock. Must I change because of a broken thigh?
In an hour's time, and not before, my people will carry this couch and
its burden to my bedroom. Then I shall pretend to sleep; but I shall
not sleep. Somehow of late the habit of sleep has left me. Hitherto, I
have scorned opiates, which are the refuge of the weak-minded, yet I
fear I may be compelled to ask you for one. There was a time when I
could will myself to sleep. But not now, not now!"
"I am not your medical adviser," I said, mindful of professional
etiquette, "and I could not think of administering an opiate without
the express permission of Dr. MacWhister."
"Pardon me," he said, his eyes resting on me with a quiet satisfaction
that touched me to the heart, "but you are my medical adviser, if you
will honor me so far. I have not forgotten your neat hand and skilful
treatment of me at the time of my accident. To-day the little
Scotchman told me that my thigh was progressing quite admirably, and
that all I needed was nursing. I suggested to him that you should
finish the case. He had, in fact, praised your skill. And so, Mr.
Foster, will you be my doctor? I want you to examine me thoroughly,
for, unless I deceive myself, I am suffering from some mysterious
complaint."
I was enormously, ineffably flattered and delighted, and all the boy
in me wanted to caper around the room and then to fall on Alresca's
neck and dissolve in gratitude to him. But instead of these feats, I
put on a vast seriousness (which must really have been very funny to
behold), and then I thanked Alresca in formal phrases, and then, quite
in the correct professional style, I began to make gentle fun of his
idea of a mysterious complaint, and I asked him for a catalogue of his
symptoms. I perceived that he and Rosa must have previously arranged
that I should be requested to become his doctor.
"There are no symptoms," he replied, "except a gradual loss of
vitality. But examine me."
I did so most carefully, testing the main organs, and subjecting him
to a severe cross-examination.
"Well?" he said, as, after I had finished, I sat down to cogitate.
"Well, Monsieur Alresca, all I can say is that your fancy is too
lively. That is what you suffer from, an excitable fan--"
"Stay, my friend," he interrupted me with a firm gesture. "Before you
go any further, let me entreat you to be frank. Without absolute
candor nothing can be done. I think I am a tolerable judge of faces,
and I can read in yours the fact that my condition has puzzled you."
I paused, taken aback. It had puzzled me. I thought of all that
Rosetta Rosa had said, and I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.
"I yield," I responded. "You are not an ordinary man, and it was
absurd of me to treat you as one. Absolute candor is, as you say,
essential, and so I'll confess that your case does puzzle me. There is
no organic disease, but there is a quite unaccountable organic
weakness--a weakness which fifty broken thighs would not explain. I
must observe, and endeavor to discover the cause. In the meantime I
have only one piece of advice. You know that in certain cases we have
to tell women patients that a successful issue depends on their own
willpower: I say the same thing to you."
"Receive my thanks," he said. "You have acted as I hoped. As for the
willpower, that is another matter," and a faint smile crossed his
handsome, melancholy face.
I rose to leave. It was nearly three o'clock.
"Give me a few moments longer. I have a favor to ask."
After speaking these words he closed his eyes, as though to recall the
opening sentences of a carefully prepared speech.
"I am entirely at your service," I murmured.
"Mr. Foster," he began, "you are a young man of brilliant
accomplishments, at the commencement of your career. Doubtless you
have made your plans for the immediate future, and I feel quite sure
that those plans do not include any special attendance upon myself,
whom until the other day you had never met. I am a stranger to you,
and on the part of a stranger it would be presumptuous to ask you to
alter your plans. Nevertheless, I am at this moment capable of that
presumption. In my life I have not often made requests, but such
requests as I have made have never been refused. I hope that my good
fortune in this respect may continue. Mr. Foster, I wish to leave
England. I wish to die in my own place--"
I shrugged my shoulders in protest against the word "die."
"If you prefer it, I wish to live in my own place. Will you accompany
me as companion? I am convinced that we should suit each other--that I
should derive benefit from your skill and pleasure from your society,
while you--you would tolerate the whims and eccentricities of my
middle age. We need not discuss terms; you would merely name your
fee."
There was, as a matter of fact, no reason in the world why I should
have agreed to this suggestion of Alresca's. As he himself had said,
we were strangers, and I was under no obligation to him of any kind.
Yet at once I felt an impulse to accept his proposal. Whence that
impulse sprang I cannot say. Perhaps from the aspect of an adventure
that the affair had. Perhaps from the vague idea that by attaching
myself to Alresca I should be brought again into contact with Rosetta
Rosa. Certainly I admired him immensely. None who knew him could avoid
doing so. Already, indeed, I had for him a feeling akin to affection.
"I see by your face," he said, "that you are not altogether unwilling.
You accept?"
"With pleasure;" and I smiled with the pleasure I felt.
But it seemed to me that I gave the answer independently of my own
volition. The words were uttered almost before I knew.
"It is very good of you."
"Not at all," I said. "I have made no plans, and therefore nothing
will be disarranged. Further, I count it an honor; and, moreover, your
'case'--pardon the word--interests me deeply. Where do you wish to
go?"
"To Bruges, of course."
He seemed a little surprised that I should ask the question.
"Bruges," he went on, "that dear and wonderful old city of Flanders,
is the place of my birth. You have visited it?"
"No," I said, "but I have often heard that it is the most picturesque
city in Europe, and I should like to see it awfully."
"There is nothing in the world like Bruges," he said. "Bruges the Dead
they call it; a fit spot in which to die."
"If you talk like that I shall reconsider my decision."
"Pardon, pardon!" he laughed, suddenly wearing an appearance of
gaiety. "I am happier now. When can we go? To-morrow? Let it be
to-morrow."
"Impossible," I said. "The idea of a man whose thigh was broken less
than a fortnight since taking a sea voyage to-morrow! Do you know that
under the most favorable circumstances it will be another five or six
weeks before the bone unites, and that even then the greatest care
will be necessary?"
His gaiety passed.
"Five more weeks here?"
"I fear so."
"But our agreement shall come into operation at once. You will visit
me daily? Rather, you will live here?"
"If it pleases you. I am sure I shall be charmed to live here."
"Let the time go quickly--let it fly! Ah, Mr. Foster, you will like
Bruges. It is the most dignified of cities. It has the picturesqueness
of Nuremburg, the waterways of Amsterdam, the squares of Turin, the
monuments of Perugia, the cafés of Florence, and the smells of
Cologne. I have an old house there of the seventeenth century; it is
on the Quai des Augustins."
"A family affair?" I questioned.
"No; I bought it only a few years ago from a friend. I fear I cannot
boast of much family. My mother made lace, my father was a
schoolmaster. They are both dead, and I have no relatives."
Somewhere in the building a clock struck three, and at that instant
there was a tap at the door, and Alresca's valet discreetly entered.
"Monsieur rang?"
"No, Alexis. Leave us."
Comprehending that it was at last Alresca's hour for retiring, I rose
to leave, and called the man back.
"Good night, dear friend," said Alresca, pressing my hand. "I shall
expect you to-morrow, and in the meantime a room shall be prepared for
you. Au revoir."
Alexis conducted me to the door. As he opened it he made a civil
remark about the beauty of the night. I glanced at his face.
"You are English, aren't you?" I asked him.
"Yes, sir."
"I only ask because Alexis is such a peculiar name for an Englishman."
"It is merely a name given to me by Monsieur Alresca when I entered
his service several years ago. My name is John Smedley."
"Well, Mr. Smedley," I said, putting half a sovereign into his hand,
"I perceive that you are a man of intelligence."
"Hope so, sir."
"I am a doctor, and to-morrow, as I dare say you heard, I am coming to
live here with your master in order to attend him medically."
"Yes, sir."
"He says he is suffering from some mysterious complaint, Smedley."
"He told me as much, sir."
"Do you know what that complaint is?"
"Haven't the least idea, sir. But he always seems low like, and he
gets lower, especially during the nights. What might the complaint be,
sir?"
"I wish I could tell you. By the way, haven't you had trained nurses
there?"
"Yes, sir. The other doctor sent two. But the governor dismissed 'em
yesterday. He told me they worried him. Me and the butler does what's
necessary."
"You say he is more depressed during the nights--you mean he shows the
effects of that depression in the mornings?"
"Just so, sir."
"I am going to be confidential, Smedley. Are you aware if your master
has any secret trouble on his mind, any worry that he reveals to no
one?"
"No, sir, I am not."
"Thank you, Smedley. Good night."
"Good night, sir, and thank you."
I had obtained no light from Alexis, and I sought in vain for an
explanation of my patient's condition. Of course, it was plausible
enough to argue that his passion for Rosa was at the root of the evil;
but I remembered Rosa's words to me in the carriage, and I was
disposed to agree with them. To me, as to her, it seemed that, though
Alresca was the sort of man to love deeply, he was not the sort of man
to allow an attachment, however profound or unfortunate, to make a
wreck of his existence. No. If Alresca was dying, he was not dying of
love.
As Alexis had remarked, it was a lovely summer night, and after
quitting the Devonshire I stood idly on the pavement, and gazed about
me in simple enjoyment of the scene.
The finest trees in Hyde Park towered darkly in front of me, and above
them was spread the star-strewn sky, with a gibbous moon just showing
over the housetops to the left. I could not see a soul, but faintly
from the distance came the tramp of a policeman on his beat. The
hour, to my busy fancy, seemed full of fate. But it was favorable to
meditation, and I thought, and thought, and thought. Was I at the
beginning of an adventure, or would the business, so strangely
initiated, resolve itself into something prosaic and mediocre? I had a
suspicion--indeed, I had a hope--that adventures were in store for me.
Perhaps peril also. For the sinister impression originally made upon
me by that ridiculous crystal-gazing scene into which I had been
entrapped by Emmeline had returned, and do what I would I could not
dismiss it.
My cousin's wife was sincere, with all her vulgarity and inborn
snobbishness. And that being assumed, how did I stand with regard to
Rosetta Rosa? Was the thing a coincidence, or had I indeed crossed her
path pursuant to some strange decree of Fate--a decree which Emmeline
had divined or guessed or presaged? There was a certain weirdness
about Emmeline that was rather puzzling.
I had seen Rosa but twice, and her image, to use the old phrase, was
stamped on my heart. True! Yet the heart of any young man who had
talked with Rosa twice would in all probability have been similarly
affected. Rosa was not the ordinary pretty and clever girl. She was
such a creature as grows in this world not often in a century. She was
an angel out of Paradise--an angel who might pass across Europe and
leave behind her a trail of broken hearts to mark the transit. And if
angels could sing as she did, then no wonder that the heavenly choirs
were happy in nothing but song. (You are to remember that it was three
o'clock in the morning.) No, the fact that I was already half in love
with Rosa proved nothing.
On the other hand, might not the manner in which she and Alresca had
sought me out be held to prove something? Why should such exalted
personages think twice about a mere student of medicine who had had
the good fortune once to make himself useful at a critical juncture?
Surely, I could argue that here was the hand of Fate.
Rubbish! I was an ass to stand there at that unearthly hour, robbing
myself of sleep in order to pursue such trains of thought. Besides,
supposing that Rosa and myself were, in fact, drawn together by chance
or fate, or whatever you like to call it, had not disaster been
prophesied in that event? It would be best to leave the future alone.
My aim should be to cure Alresca, and then go soberly to Totnes and
join my brother in practice.
I turned down Oxford Street, whose perspective of gas-lamps stretched
east and west to distances apparent infinite, and as I did so I
suddenly knew that some one was standing by the railings opposite,
under the shadow of the great trees. I had been so sure that I was
alone that this discovery startled me a little, and I began to whistle
tunelessly.
I could make out no details of the figure, except that it was a man
who stood there, and to satisfy my curiosity I went across to inspect
him. To my astonishment he was very well, though very quietly,
dressed, and had the appearance of being a gentleman of the highest
distinction. His face was clean-shaven, and I noticed the fine, firm
chin, and the clear, unblinking eyes. He stood quite still, and as I
approached looked me full in the face. It was a terrible gaze, and I
do not mind confessing that, secretly, I quailed under it; there was
malice and a dangerous hate in that gaze. Nevertheless I was young,
careless, and enterprising.
"Can you tell me if I am likely to get a cab at this time of night?" I
asked as lightly as I could. I wanted to hear his voice.
But he returned no answer, merely gazing at me as before, without a
movement.
"Strange!" I said, half to myself. "The fellow must be deaf, or mad,
or a foreigner."
The man smiled slightly, his lips drooping to a sneer. I retreated,
and as I stepped back on the curb my foot touched some small object. I
looked down, and in the dim light, for the dawn was already heralded,
I saw the glitter of jewels. I stooped and picked the thing up. It was
the same little dagger which but a few hours before I had seen Rosa
present with so much formality to Sir Cyril Smart. But there was this
difference--the tiny blade was covered with blood!