Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish Part 7

The nurse felt herself drawn along by Berta; she walked mechanically; a power stronger than her terror impelled her.

In this way they crossed the garden and reached the door of the pavilion.

There Berta stopped, and called softly:

"Adrian!"

But there was no response to her call.

Then they entered the pavilion.

Juana caught hold of Berta to keep from falling, and closed her eyes.

The light of the lamp illumined the pavilion, whose solitude seemed startled by this unexpected visit; the piano was open and mute.

"No one!" exclaimed Berta, sighing.

"No one," repeated Juana, opening her eyes.

And so it was; the pavilion was empty.

It is beyond a doubt that Berta's piano has the marvellous quality of making its strings sound without the intervention of the human hand. And this being the case, it must be admitted that this marvellous instrument is, in addition, a consummate musician, for it plays with the skill attained only by great artists.

But since Nurse Juana cannot conceive how a piano can play of itself, without a hand moving the keys, she has decided that in this diabolical affair an invisible hand, the ghostly hand of some spirit from the other world, has intervened.

This supposition is not altogether admissible, for it seems to have been sufficiently proved that spirits do not possess hands. But the nurse does not stop for such fine distinctions, and she firmly believes that the spirit of Adrian Baker is wandering about the villa. Condemned perhaps to eternal torment, he takes pleasure in torturing the living even after his death.

And it is indeed a diabolical amus.e.m.e.nt, for the serenade is repeated nightly; the family are aroused from sleep; they hasten to the pavilion and the piano becomes silent; they enter it and they find no one. They have observed that the airs played by Berta in the morning are repeated by the piano at night.

Juana is a.s.sailed by continual terrors; there is no peace in the house.

Berta's father is unable to explain the mystery, and his mind is filled with confusion and his heart is a prey to sudden alarms. The light of day dissipates the agitation of their minds, they fancy themselves the victims of vain hallucinations, and, arming themselves with heroic valor, they make plans for unravelling the awesome mystery.

The most courageous among them would hide in the pavilion, and there await in concealment the hour of the strange occurrence; in this way they would discover what fingers drew those sounds from the piano.

Strong in this purpose they awaited the first shades of night; but then the courage of the strongest failed. The air became filled with fearful shadows, the silence with mysterious noises, and no one ventured to leave the house. They spent the nights in vigil and the terror by which all were possessed made them seem interminable.

And for Berta, on the other hand, the days were interminable, and she awaited the nights with eager impatience.

One afternoon she expressed a desire to visit the ruins of the monastery, and she showed so much eagerness in the matter that there was no resource but to accede to her wish. Her father and her nurse resolved to accompany her, and the three set out.

The distance between the villa and the monastery was not great, but the party walked slowly. In the winding path the ruins disappeared suddenly behind a hill, as if the earth had swallowed them; a few steps further on they suddenly reappeared; and the travellers stood before the ruined portico.

From this point the eye could contemplate the ruined walls, the broken part.i.tions, the ceilings fallen in, and between the loose stones the solitary flowers of the ruin. Only the arches which supported the vaulted roof of the chapel had resisted the corroding influence of time.

The nurse would have now willingly returned to the villa, and Berta's father had no desire to go any further, but Berta pa.s.sed through the ruined portico, and they were obliged to follow her.

She made her way into the chapel, pa.s.sing under the crumbling arches which threatened at every moment to fall down and crush her, and she emerged at what must have been the centre of the monastery, for the remains of the wall and some broken and unsteady pilasters showed four paths which, uniting at their extremities, formed a square. This must have been the cloister, in the middle were vestiges of a choked-up cistern.

Here Berta sat down on a piece of cornice which was imbedded in the rubbish. She seemed pleased in the midst of this desolation. Her father and the nurse joined her with terror depicted on their countenances; they had heard the noise of footsteps in the chapel; more, Juana had seen a shadow glide away; how or where she did not know, but she was sure that she had seen it.

Berta smiled and said:

"The noise of footsteps and a shadow? Very well; what harm can those footsteps or that shadow do us? They are perhaps the footsteps of Adrian Baker following us; it is his shade that accompanies us. What is there strange in that? Do you not know that I carry him in my heart? Do you not know that I am waiting for him, that I am always waiting for him?"

At the name of Adrian Baker, Berta's father and the nurse shuddered.

"Yes, my child," said the former, "but we are far from the villa, the sun is setting--it is growing late."

"Yes, yes," said Juana, "let us go back."

Berta drew her father affectionately toward her and said:

"Dear father, I am not mad. Juana, I am not mad. Adrian promised me that he would return, and he will return. I am waiting for him. Why should that be madness? I know that I grieve you, and I do not wish to grieve you. I have begged G.o.d a thousand times on my knees to tear his image from my heart and his memory from my mind; but G.o.d, who sees all things, from whom nothing is hidden, to whom all things are possible, has not wished to do it. Why? He alone knows."

The father's eyes filled with tears, and the nurse hid her face in her hands to keep back the sobs that rose in her throat.

Berta continued:

"Yes, it is growing late. But I am very tired. Let us wait a moment."

They had nothing to say in answer to her words, nor could they have said anything, for their voices failed them.

All three remained silent.

Suddenly they looked at one another with indescribable anxiety, for all three had heard a sigh, a human sigh that seemed exhaled by the ruins around them.

Could it have been the wind, moaning as it swept through the sharp points of the broken walls?

Berta rose to her feet, and cried twice in a loud voice:

"Adrian! Adrian!"

Her voice was borne away on the breeze, losing itself in the distance. But before the last notes died away, another voice resounded among the ruins, saying:

"Berta! Berta!"

The sun had just set, and the twilight shadows gathered swiftly, as if they had sprung up from among the ruins, hiding the broken pillars and the crumbling walls.

In one of the angles of the cloister appeared a moving shadow. This shadow advanced slowly until it reached the middle of the court where the remains of the disused cistern were seen. There it stopped, and in a soft clear voice uttered the words:

"It is I, Berta; it is I."

"He!" she cried, extending her arms in the air.

Juana uttered a cry of terror and caught hold of Berta with all the strength left her; the father tried to rise, but, unable to sustain himself, fell on his knees beside his daughter.

It was not possible to reject the evidence of their senses. Whatever might be the hidden cause of the marvel, the dark key of the mystery, the shadow which had just appeared in the angle of the cloister was clearly the authentic image, the _vera effigies_, the very person of Adrian Baker. The astonished eyes of Berta, of her father, and of the nurse could not refuse to believe it.

His fair curls, his pale brow, the outlines of his figure, his air, his glance, his voice--all were there before the amazed eyes of Berta, her father, and the nurse.