The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories Part 19

Then he hurried to his own room. So bewildered and horrified he had become, and a prey to such superst.i.tious terrors, that he could not at that moment bring himself to the test of looking for the picture of the alleged Rosita, which might still be hanging in his aunt's room. If it were really the face of his mysterious visitant--in his present terror--he felt that his reason might not stand the shock. He would look at it to-morrow, when he was calmer! Until then he would believe that the story was some strange coincidence with what must have been his hallucination, or a vulgar trick to which he had fallen a credulous victim. Until then he would believe that Cecily's fright had been only the effect of Dona Felipa's story, acting upon a vivid imagination, and not a terrible confirmation of something she had herself seen. He threw himself, without undressing, upon his bed in a benumbing agony of doubt.

The gentle opening of his door and the slight rustle of a skirt started him to his feet with a feeling of new and overpowering repulsion. But it was a familiar figure that he saw in the long aisle of light which led from his recessed window, whose face was white enough to have been a spirit's, and whose finger was laid upon its pale lips, as it softly closed the door behind it.

"Cecily!"

"Hush!" she said, in a distracted whisper: "I felt I must see you to-night. I could not wait until day--no, not another hour! I could not speak to you before them. I could not go into that dreadful garden again, or beyond the walls of this house. d.i.c.k, I want to--I MUST tell you something! I would have kept it from every one--from you most of all! I know you will hate me, and despise me; but, d.i.c.k, listen!"--she caught his hand despairingly, drawing it towards her--"that girl's awful story was TRUE!" She threw his hand away.

"And you have seen HER!" said d.i.c.k, frantically. "Good G.o.d!"

The young girl's manner changed. "HER!" she said, half scornfully, "you don't suppose I believe THAT story? No. I--I--don't blame me, d.i.c.k,--I have seen HIM."

"Him?"

She pushed him nervously into a seat, and sat down beside him. In the half light of the moon, despite her pallor and distraction, she was still very human, womanly, and attractive in her disorder.

"Listen to me, d.i.c.k. Do you remember one afternoon, when we were riding together, I got ahead of you, and dashed off to the casa. I don't know what possessed me, or WHY I did it. I only know I wanted to get home quickly, and get away from you. No, I was not angry, d.i.c.k, at YOU; it did not seem to be THAT; I--well, I confess I was FRIGHTENED--at something, I don't know what. When I wheeled round into the lane, I saw--a man--a young gentleman standing by the garden-wall. He was very picturesque-looking, in his red sash, velvet jacket, and round silver b.u.t.tons; handsome, but oh, so pale and sad! He looked at me very eagerly, and then suddenly drew back, and I heard you on Chu Chu coming at my heels. You must have seen him and pa.s.sed him too, I thought: but when you said nothing of it, I--I don't know why, d.i.c.k, I said nothing of it too. Don't speak!" she added, with a hurried gesture: "I know NOW why you said nothing,--YOU had not seen him."

She stopped, and put back a wisp of her disordered chestnut hair.

"The next time was the night YOU were so queer, d.i.c.k, sitting on that stone bench. When I left you--I thought you didn't care to have me stay--I went to seek Aunt Viney at the bottom of the garden. I was very sad, but suddenly I found myself very gay, talking and laughing with her in a way I could not account for. All at once, looking up, I saw HIM standing by the little gate, looking at me very sadly. I think I would have spoken to Aunt Viney, but he put his finger to his lips--his hand was so slim and white, quite like a hand in one of those Spanish pictures--and moved slowly backwards into the lane, as if he wished to speak with ME only--out there. I know I ought to have spoken to Aunty; I knew it was wrong what I did, but he looked so earnest, so appealing, so awfully sad, d.i.c.k, that I slipped past Aunty and went out of the gate.

Just then she missed me, and called. He made a kind of despairing gesture, raising his hand Spanish fashion to his lips, as if to say good-night. You'll think me bold, d.i.c.k, but I was so anxious to know what it all meant, that I gave a glance behind to see if Aunty was following, before I should go right up to him and demand an explanation.

But when I faced round again, he was gone! I walked up and down the lane and out on the plain nearly half an hour, seeking him. It was strange, I know; but I was not a bit FRIGHTENED, d.i.c.k--that was so queer--but I was only amazed and curious."

The look of spiritual terror in d.i.c.k's face here seemed to give way to a less exalted disturbance, as he fixed his eyes on Cecily's.

"You remember I met YOU coming in: you seemed so queer then that I did not say anything to you, for I thought you would laugh at me, or reproach me for my boldness; and I thought, d.i.c.k, that--that--that--this person wished to speak only to ME." She hesitated.

"Go on," said d.i.c.k, in a voice that had also undergone a singular change.

The chestnut head was bent a little lower, as the young girl nervously twisted her fingers in her lap.

"Then I saw him again--and--again," she went on hesitatingly. "Of course I spoke to him, to--to--find out what he wanted; but you know, d.i.c.k, I cannot speak Spanish, and of course he didn't understand me, and didn't reply."

"But his manner, his appearance, gave you some idea of his meaning?"

said d.i.c.k suddenly.

Cecily's head drooped a little lower. "I thought--that is, I fancied I knew what he meant."

"No doubt," said d.i.c.k, in a voice which, but for the superst.i.tious horror of the situation, might have impressed a casual listener as indicating a trace of human irony.

But Cecily did not seem to notice it. "Perhaps I was excited that night, perhaps I was bolder because I knew you were near me; but I went up to him and touched him! And then, d.i.c.k!--oh, d.i.c.k! think how awful--"

Again d.i.c.k felt the thrill of superst.i.tious terror creep over him. "And he vanished!" he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"No--not at once," stammered Cecily, with her head almost buried in her lap; "for he--he--he took me in his arms and--"

"And kissed you?" said d.i.c.k, springing to his feet, with every trace of his superst.i.tious agony gone from his indignant face. But Cecily, without raising her head, caught at his gesticulating hand.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k! do you think he really did it? The horror of it, d.i.c.k!

to be kissed by a--a--man who has been dead a hundred years!"

"A hundred fiddlesticks!" said d.i.c.k furiously. "We have been deceived!

No," he stammered, "I mean YOU have been deceived--insulted!"

"Hush! Aunty will hear you," murmured the girl despairingly.

d.i.c.k, who had thrown away his cousin's hand, caught it again, and dragged her along the aisle of light to the window. The moon shone upon his flushed and angry face.

"Listen!" he said; "you have been fooled, tricked--infamously tricked by these people, and some confederate, whom--whom I shall horsewhip if I catch. The whole story is a lie!"

"But you looked as if you believed it--about the girl," said Cecily; "you acted so strangely. I even thought, d.i.c.k,--sometimes--you had seen HIM."

d.i.c.k shuddered, trembled; but it is to be feared that the lower, more natural human element in him triumphed.

"Nonsense!" he stammered; "the girl was a foolish farrago of absurdities, improbable on the face of things, and impossible to prove.

But that infernal, sneaking rascal was flesh and blood."

It seemed to him to relieve the situation and establish his own sanity to combat one illusion with another. Cecily had already been deceived--another lie wouldn't hurt her. But, strangely enough, he was satisfied that Cecily's visitant was real, although he still had doubts about his own.

"Then you think, d.i.c.k, it was actually some real man?" she said piteously. "Oh, d.i.c.k, I have been so foolish!"

Foolish she no doubt had been; pretty she certainly was, sitting there in her loosened hair, and pathetic, appealing earnestness. Surely the ghostly Rosita's glances were never so pleading as these actual honest eyes behind their curving lashes. d.i.c.k felt a strange, new-born sympathy of suffering, mingled tantalizingly with a new doubt and jealousy, that was human and stimulating.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, what are WE to do?"

The plural struck him as deliciously sweet and subtle. Had they really been singled out for this strange experience, or still stranger hallucination? His arm crept around her; she gently withdrew from it.

"I must go now," she murmured; "but I couldn't sleep until I told you all. You know, d.i.c.k, I have no one else to come to, and it seemed to me that YOU ought to know it first. I feel better for telling you. You will tell me to-morrow what you think we ought to do."

They reached the door, opening it softly. She lingered for a moment on the threshold.

"Tell me, d.i.c.k" (she hesitated), "if that--that really were a spirit, and not a real man,--you don't think that--that kiss" (she shuddered) "could do me harm!"

He shuddered too, with a strange and sympathetic consciousness that, happily, she did not even suspect. But he quickly recovered himself and said, with something of bitterness in his voice, "I should be more afraid if it really were a man."

"Oh, thank you, d.i.c.k!"

Her lips parted in a smile of relief; the color came faintly back to her cheek.

A wild thought crossed his fancy that seemed an inspiration. They would share the risks alike. He leaned towards her: their lips met in their first kiss.

"Oh, d.i.c.k!"

"Dearest!"

"I think--we are saved."

"Why?"