Ghost Stories and Mysteries (10 page)

The spell was broken by the girl rising from her knees. She gathered her cloak about her, as though cold, and stooping over the corpse, put her left hand on one of the lifeless ones, and resting her right one on the edge of the coffin, bent down as if about to impress a farewell kiss upon the cold lips.

In the very act she started back with a quick cry of pain and terror; a cry that seemed to the astonished doctor to be mockingly re-echoed throughout the building. “My hand! My hand!” she gasped, in horror-stricken accents.

Startled and astonished, Cranstone saw that the dead hand had closed upon the living one the girl had laid upon it. No other change or motion was visible in the body; the set face showed no signs of returning life; but the bony hand had grasped the delicate one that had rested on it, and was crushing it in a fell grasp that made the sufferer wince with pain and terror.

Recovering to a certain extent his presence of mind, Cranstone caught hold of the wrist of the corpse with one hand, and with then other tried to disengage Madame Varillon’s hand. But he failed in releasing the hold of the fingers in the slightest. Again he essayed, putting forth all his strength, and using both hands in his endeavours to wrench the hand open, but still in vain. Excited and incensed by the sight of the girl’s suffering, Cranstone strained every muscle, throwing his whole will and energy into the endeavour to free the imprisoned hand. This time he seemed to have made some impression on the iron clasp; but it required the exertion of all his strength to retain the slight advantage he had gained. Suddenly the thought of Mesmerism as applied to cases of trance occurred to him; and, concentrating every wish and thought of his mind on the completion of his object, he continued the struggle mentally as well as physically. He felt that a mind of equal power and determination was opposed to his, and the combative faculty on either side was so equally balanced that one supreme effort must give the victory.

The horrible notion that a dread being of another world was in the once-living form and fighting him for possession of the tortured hand, made him almost shudder at the contact of the cold dead flesh; and he at once felt the fingers closing with renewed tenacity. Enraged by his own weakness, he strove to banish from his mind every feeling of terror at supernatural influence, and threw his utmost vigour into his tired and strained muscles. He felt, to his joy, that now he was succeeding, and that the rigid hold was failing beneath his desperate clasp. Animated at this, he essayed his utmost to accomplish his object, when the clock in the neighbourhood church struck three. At the first stroke, and with a suddenness that—coming so unexpectedly—almost caused him to lose his balance, the dead hand opened, and the girl, with a low shuddering moan, dropped fainting on the floor.

Cranstone raised her at once, and looked vainly round the room for some water. Noticing a door other than the one he had entered at, he went and opened it, and looked in. It was evidently a dressing room, and in it he saw the water he sought. A low couch was also there, and thinking that his patient when she recovered would be better out of the presence of the dead body, he carried her in and laid her upon it. After bathing her temples with the cold water, he got one of the candles, and examined her hand.

So ever had been the grasp to which it had been subjected, that the blood was oozing from beneath the finger-nails, two of the bones of the palm of the hand were broken, and the rings she wore were bent, and pressed into the flesh. After dressing the injured member as well as he could, he went to inspect the dead man.

Here he was entirely at a loss; no trace of life could he discover. Every test that his professional knowledge suggested he put into practice—but without result. The man was dead, and had evidently been so for some time.

Just as he finished his inspection of the dead body, the noise of the door through which he had first entered being opened attracted his attention. Holding the remaining candle high above his head, he turned round. The door opened slowly, and a woman came in and advanced to the side of the bed. She was robed in a loose dressing gown, her long hair hanging disordered down her back. Two dark wistful eyes looked out of a pale handsome face—eyes solemn, sad, and holding in their depths some haunting secret horror that gave them the fixed and glassy stare almost of insanity.

She took no notice of Cranstone, who had put down the light and stood silent and fascinated—a creeping sensation of awful overwhelming fear almost overmastering him as this ghostly figure came to the side of the bed. She stood regarding the dead body for some time, her eyes never losing their set stare, her hands clasped loosely in front of her. And Cranstone noticed with a fresh accession of horror, that a hideous gash was across one of her wrists, nearly severing it to the bone. The blood was slowly dripping on the floor, with a perfectly audible splash. The doctor tried to move or speak, but was powerless.

The silent figure then turned and went into the room where lay the still insensible girl. She paused, as before, beside the couch—still visible to Cranstone through the open door. Presently she lifted her wounded arm, and holding it over the prostrate form on the couch, let the blood trickle on to Madame Varillon’s face.

Breaking the charm that held him by a mighty effort, the doctor sprang forward, uttering an expression of disgust. He saw the woman look menacingly at him as he advanced, he saw the girl’s face with the disfiguring blood-stain upon it; and then to his astonishment the standing figure disappeared, and when he reached the side of the couch, the insensible face on the pillow was as fair and pure as it had been before.

Doubting the evidence of his own faculties, and utterly mystified, the doctor stood bewildered for a few minutes. Then he recalled his coolness, took one of the candles, and minutely examined both rooms, but failed in discovering any mode of egress save the door he had entered at.

He stepped out on to the dark landing, leaving the light behind, and closing the door, listened patiently and motionless for some time, but could not detect the slightest sound in any part of the house. Dense darkness and absolute silence seemed to reign everywhere.

He returned to the room, and tried to reason himself into the belief that it was all an illusion. It was the creation of his own imagination, the premonitory symptom of illness, perhaps; such things had been in his experience. But when he looked at the bruised hand of his patient (who was beginning to recover), he had to confess that something had happened that was beyond him. It was some time before Madame Varillon was sufficiently restored to return to the old nurse’s cottage; and as the slightest allusion to the scene through which they had passed seemed to excite her, the doctor forbore to press for any explanation—even if she could have given any.

He deemed it his duty, however, to look up the doctor who had attended Monsieur Varillon during his illness, and see if any symptoms of trance had shown themselves.

Doctor Buvert proved very communicative, and did not seem to trouble himself about his confrere’s motives for making the inquiries. Without much diplomacy he was led to talk of Carillon’s past life.

“He was married before,” he said, “to a woman whose heart and soul were given to another.” She was forced by her parents to marry Varillon, a cold, stern, abstracted man; you can fancy how happy she was. Well, the result was inevitable: the lovers met again, and he heard of it. He gave no sign, but bided his time.

Her lover—his name was d’Heristal—ventured into the house to bid her a last farewell. They reckoned on his absence. They were deceived. When about to separate, his step was heard coming slowly and deliberately towards the room.

There was no escape; from the ground to the window was over forty feet at least; there was but one door—that by which the husband would directly enter. Anxious to screen her from disgrace, and not to save himself—for all stories unite in giving him the character of a bold young fellow—d’Heristal got out of the window, and standing upon the precarious footing afforded by the ornamental portion of the façade beneath the old-fashioned window, stooped down low, sustaining himself with one hand on the window-sill.

Varillon came into the room, and his quick eye must at once have seen the hand on the window-sill; for, in her alarm, Madame Varillon never thought of diminishing the light in the room.

He said nothing of what he suspected, but, after a few ordinary remarks to the trembling woman, he caught her by the hand, and tried to lead her to the window.

She read at once that all was known, and concluding that his intention was to hurl her lover into the street before her eyes, struggled, and prayed for mercy. Silently ignoring her entreaties, he dragged her towards the window. A slight scuffling noise was heard. D’Heristal, doubtless in an attempt to get back into the room, hearing what was going on, had dislodged with his weight the old bricks, and the unfortunate man was suspended by one hand over the pavement—fifty feet below.

Varillon must have guessed what had happened, for with renewed persistence he strove to drag his wife to the window to witness the fall that must take place; and she, in despair, caught up a knife from the supper-table, and in insane desperation, drew it across her wrist, as if to try and cut herself free from his relentless grasp.

“And what was the end?” asked Cranstone, as the other paused.

“D’Heristal, when his strength gave way, fell into the street, and was killed instantly. She bled to death, and he had almost crushed her hand in his attempt to drag her to the window. Some of the metacarpal bones were broken, and the rings of her fingers bent, and squeezed into the flesh.

“And at what time did this happen?”

“The servant, who was watching and listening at the door, and through whom the facts transpired, says that, at the instant she drew the knife across her wrist, the clock of Saint Marguerite struck three.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“About five years ago. There was some talk about it, as you may imagine; and Varillon went to live in England. When he returned, about twelve months ago, he brought your pretty countrywoman back with him—having wisely gone to some outlandish place where he was unknown for another wife. How she was induced to marry him I cannot think. Doubtless her parents were poor, and she had just left a boarding-school, and did not know her own mind. However, she is a rich widow now—a better fate than she would have had as his wife. I wonder he allowed her to bring her old nurse with her.”

Buvert, having once started, seemed inclined to gossip on forever; but Cranstone, having heard all he wanted to know, managed to escape as soon as he could consistent with politeness.

It was more than a month before Madame Varillon was strong enough to leave for England. Cranstone escorted her to Paris, and turned from watching the departing train with the settled conviction in his mind that he was head over heels in love; that he was a poor man, and she was rich, and that the best thing he could do was to forget all about her as speedily as possible. Easier said than done—three or four years hard work in his profession did not do it. Then came the war with Prussia, the siege of Paris; the outbreak of the Commune, and the second siege by the Versailles troops.

Cranstone saw it all through; and in the hospitals amongst the wounded, or doing his voluntary work under the Prussian guns, he could not banish the remembrance of those soft brown eyes. An unwilling member of the Commune, he still tended their wounded, inwardly hoping for the incoming of the Versailles troops. The day of vengeance came at last, when the streets of Paris became the battle field.

Like a good many more, trusting to the cross of Geneva for protection from both sides, Cranstone sallied out to see how things were going. He had gained a comparatively quiet street, when the scarlet facings of a band of Communists appeared at the head of it coming towards him. Knowing that he would probably be shot out of mere wantonness, he tried to gain entrance into the nearest house until they passed. The assurance that he was a doctor procured him admittance from the porter. An old woman came to the door of the porter’s room and looked in; he stood talking to the man about the fighting going on. She gave vent to an exclamation of joy on beholding Cranstone, and caught him by the hand.

It was Madame Varillon’s old nurse. Not waiting to answer the doctor’s rapid questions, but dragging him frantically by the hand, she led him upstairs. All the doctor could understand amid her incoherence was a reproach directed against himself for never having communicated with her mistress. And then said the garrulous old dame, assimilating herself with her mistress:

“We couldn’t live out of Paris where you might be, for we knew you left Souviers; and so we got shut up in this wicked place where they are always killing one another, and have been nearly starved.”

By this time they had reached a door of a room on the first floor, and the doctor with a beating heart followed the impetuous old woman, who burst in, crying, “I have got him, I have found him!” And there was the love he had tried to forget. They did not enter into explanations, they were unnecessary, but perhaps the crash of firearms in the street beneath the window frightened her so, that she had to take shelter in the doctor’s arms. But that was a noise that she should have been accustomed to. Be that as it may she was there, and in the street a body of Versailles troops had met the Communists and were having it out with them. As she lifted her face to meet her lover’s caress she fell on to his breast with a wild gasp of pain. A random ball had found its way through the ill-barricaded window and taken her life. The agonised doctor laid her on the couch. Yes, even as he had seen her in the haunted room with the ghastly blood stain on her white forehead, she lay with the death wound in the same place. The omen was accomplished; he had found his love and lost her. And above the shots and shouts of the combatants, rang out the hour of three. For a few moments he stood motionless and speechless. Then, after one long kiss on the lifeless lips, he turned and sought the street.