Upstairs in his bedroom that poor old lonely man—lonely save for his
wife (and how grateful he was for her having treated him as she just
had done, and for her last look at him as he painfully climbed the
stairs)—sat waiting to recover from the ascent. Stairs tried him a
great deal now ... his health was breaking ... he thought. Perhaps
that’s what accounted for what he had been feeling ... what he thought
he had been hearing; and he huddled his shoulders together. He wouldn’t
undress at once—he would rest awhile ... rest awhile ... rest awhile.
He would get steadier then.
A knock somewhere?... It might have been downstairs, but in his
condition he thought it was at his own door, and it made him jump.
“Come in!” he said.
There was no reply; and he went a little white. He steadied himself and
leaned forward painfully to take up the poker and stir the fire. But he
dropped it with a loud clatter that startled him again.
“Foolishness!” he muttered.
He heard the knock once again. This time he did not say “Come in!” He
nerved himself to rise painfully from his chair, and threw the door
wide open. There was nothing but empty darkness outside. He shut the
door again and fell rather than sank into the place he had just left.
“George,” he said to himself, half aloud, “George, pull yerself
together. This’ll never do! You’re ’igh-strung, George, that’s what you
are; remember what the doctor said about yer blood pressing. Wot was it
’e said? He said, ‘No whisky,’ ’e said. Well, I don’t know wot’s right
about that, but I know it steadies me.” He stretched out his arm to
the table by his side, and took up his flask from where it lay on the
table—a large flask with a silver cup, and his coat of arms—supporters
talbots, three mancuses quartered chevron and the devil and all on a
field azure—engraved thereon. It shone under the electric shaded light
on the table and the warmer glow of the fire. Other light in the room
there was none.
He slowly poured out the strong drink into the silver.
“It’ll calm yer, George,” he said.
Below, he heard the noise of many voices. Too many, he thought, for the
few guests. But it was company like. Then he heard people moving across
the lawn. Perhaps some neighbours had come in, and gone again. Then the
voices quieted down. He took his first sip of the whisky, pre-war.
“That’s better, George,” he said. “That’ll put yer right.”
His back, as he sat in the deep chair facing the fire, was to the side
door which led to the little box-room. It opened so noiselessly that he
heard no sound, tense though his nerves were.
He waited a moment, less unmanned, raising the silver cup again for
a second sip—when there came, whether within his mind or from the
air without he could not tell, a hint of rustling, a suspicion of a
Presence in the room—near the bed. The start stopped the cup as he
still held it in his hand, and he poised it in mid-air, staring—there
came the pleading words from very far away:
“Not again, George! Oh, not again! It’s yer pison!”
“It’s me mother’s voice,” groaned the old man in a dreadful whisper.
He let the cup fall to the floor at his feet, careless of the liquor
running out upon the rug. His hand shook, as did his whole body.
“’Er voice,” he said again, frozen with fear.
A hand came out from behind the head of the bed—a hand the wrist of
which was draped in black. Lord Mere de Beaurivage did not see it—he
was staring into the air before him—it was Her Voice.
The hand found the switch, and all was suddenly dark, save for the glow
of the fire. He had heard but the slightest of sounds—he looked round
into that darkness—and there he saw, dreadfully distinct in the half
light which the glowing coals threw upon the dull red damask and the
tapestry—what he had seen too often that day in his unhappy mind. There
IT stood, for the half second in which he still retained his sanity.
He was on his gouty feet groping towards it, his mouth open and giving
small inarticular sounds. IT was there by the side of the bed against
the wall, agleam on the sword-hilt, tall, black, too vague, but the
white ruff standing out glaring—and above that ruff nothing: only the
wall. Even as he looked he saw a hand which appeared from beneath the
cloak slowly moving. He gave a loud shriek and crashed to the ground.
[Illustration: _Unaffected emotion of George, First Baron de Beaurivage
on the appearance of an historic figure_]
In a flash the figure had passed the fallen man, and was through the
door into the side room, and had turned the key. But quick as the
motion was, even as he turned the key in the lock the great swirl of
feet was running up the sounding wood of the staircase, the main door
of the bedroom was thrown open, all the lights were turned on, and the
hubbub of guests and servants flocked to what might be the living or
the dead.
Amathea was the first of them, kneeling by her husband, trying to lift
him up in her arms, calling him by his name, and sobbing loudly.
Three of the menservants hoisted the motionless form and got it on to
the bed. He was breathing. His eyes opened for a moment, but he stared
vacantly, seeing no one, and with yet another loud cry and a shudder
his head fell back upon the pillow.