The End of Her Honeymoon Part 13

The fine, well-cut face was that of a man about Gerald Burton's own age.

The features were stilled in the awful immobility of death: but for that immobility, the dead man lying there before them might have been asleep.

"An Englishman," said the janitor thoughtfully, "or perchance an American?

A finely built fellow, monsieur. A true athlete. Not a wound, not a touch!

Just dropped dead yesterday afternoon in a public gymnasium."

"How extraordinary it is," observed Gerald Burton in a low voice, "that he has not yet been claimed by his friends--"

"Oh no, monsieur, not extraordinary at all! We in this country write to our children every day when we are separated from them--that is if we can afford the stamps. Not so English or American people. They think their children are sure to be all right. In about a fortnight we shall have enquiries for Number 4, hardly before then."

"And by that time," said Gerald slowly, "I suppose the poor fellow will have been buried."

"Oh no, monsieur--" the man laughed, as if the other's remark struck him as being really very funny. "Why, we keep some of them as long as fifteen months! Those drawers are full of them--" he pointed to the long black chests which lined one side of the shed. "Would monsieur like to see some of my pensioners? I have men, women, ay, and children too, cosily tucked away in there."

A low exclamation of horror escaped from Nancy Dampier's lips. She turned ashily pale. At last she understood what it was the janitor was saying....

The man looked at her with kindly concern. "Tiens!" he said, "isn't that strange? It happens again and again! People like madame come here--quite quiet, quite brave; and then, though overjoyed at not finding the person they came to seek--they suddenly shudder and turn pale; sometimes I have known them faint!"

"Kindly let us out by the shortest and quickest way," said Gerald quickly.

"Pardon, monsieur, the law exacts that Number 4 must remain in your presence for a quarter of an hour." The man shrugged his shoulders. "You see some people, especially ladies, are apt to think afterwards that they may have made a mistake: that their sight was at fault, and so on. That is why this tiresome regulation is now in force. I should like to oblige monsieur, but to do so would get me into trouble."

He stopped speaking, and stood waiting, at attention.

And then, as they stood there in silence, Gerald, looking beyond the still, swathed figure stretched out before him, allowed his eyes to rest on these black boxes, each containing one poor tenantless sh.e.l.l of humanity, from which the unquenchable spirit of man had been suddenly, violently expelled: and as he looked, he missed something that should have been there--the sign, the symbol, of the cross.

A flood of memories came surging through his mind--memories of childish prayers learnt at his mother's knee, of certain revisions which time had brought to his first innocent, unquestioning faith. And with those memories came anger and a sense of humiliation. For there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to show that these boxes before him held what had once been the dwelling-place of that daily miracle, the sentient soul of man. These defenceless dead had been subjected to a last, continuous, intolerable insult; in their flesh he felt that his own humanity was degraded. Here was nothing to separate the human dead from the beasts of the field; these boxes would have looked the same had they held merely the bodies of animals prepared for the inquisitive, probing research of science.

His young imagination, strung to the highest pitch, penetrated those shuttered receptacles and showed him on the face of each occupant that strange ironic smile with which the dead husk of man seems often to betray the full knowledge now possessed by the spirit which has fled. That riddle of existence, of which through the ages philosophers and kings had sought the key, was now an open book to all those who lay here in the still majesty of death. Yes, they could well afford to smile--to smile at the littleness which denied to their tenements of flesh the smallest symbol of belief that death was not the end of all.

His companion had also marked the absence of any sign of the Christian's hope in this house of death, and through her mind there ran the confused recollection of holy words:--

"It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory.

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep....

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

Comfortable words! They seemed, merely by their flight through the tense ganglia of her brain, to break into the awful loneliness of these recent tabernacles of the spirit, and bestow on them the benison denied them in its pride by the human family from whose bosom they had been torn.

Then swiftly her mind turned to the thought of those who were still watching and waiting, in that misery of suspense of which she now knew each pang. Every one--surely every one--of these dead who now surrounded her,--silent, solitary, had been loved--for love comes in some guise to all poor human creatures. Those mouths, cheeks, eyes, those rippling waves of woman's hair, had been kissed--ah, how often. The perishing flesh had been clasped heart to heart....

There came over her soul a great rush of pity for those others, the vast and scattered company, mourning, mourning, and yet reaching out in wild hope and desire for their loved ones, whose bodies were all the while here.

They did not know, yet hither came winging unerringly, like flights of homing doves, their myriad prayers, their pa.s.sionate loving thoughts and wistful thirsty longing for one word, one kiss, one touch of the hand....

Surely such thoughts and prayers sanctified this charnel-house.

She herself was of that company--that company who were not sure. Some, doubtless, obstinate, refused to believe that death in any form had overtaken the missing; others feared to come here and look. She had not feared....

The janitor spoke to her, and she started violently.

"You are quite convinced, madame, that Number 4 is not he whom you seek?"

These words, that question, evidently embodied a formula the man was bound to use.

Mrs. Dampier bent her head.

"You, monsieur, also have no doubt?"

"None at all," said Gerald briefly.

With a sudden movement the man put the sinister carriage in motion, but when he had got it close to the door of the mortuary, he stopped a moment:--"We have many compliments on our brancard," he said cheerfully.

"It is very ingenious, is it not? You see the wheels are so large that a mere touch pushes it backwards and forwards. It is quite easy to wheel back into place again."

Gerald Burton took out a five-franc piece. He left Nancy Dampier standing, an infinitely pathetic, forlorn little figure, in the sunlit portion of the yard, and approached the man.

"We must go now," he said hurriedly. "I suppose it is quite easy to leave by the way we came in--through the engine-room?"

"One moment, monsieur, one moment! Before showing you out I must put Number 4 back with his other companions. There is no fear of his being lonely, poor man! We had five brought in this morning."

They had not long to wait before the concierge joined them again.

"Won't monsieur and madame stay and just see everything else there is to be seen?" he asked eagerly. "We have the most interesting relics of great criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there--" he pointed with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled Number 4--"ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their hotel who recognised the poor creatures."

He was now preceding his two visitors through the operating theatre where are held the post-mortems. From thence he led them into the hall where they had first gained admission. "Well, monsieur, if you really do not care to see our relics--?" He opened the great door through which so few living men and women ever pa.s.s.

Gerald Burton and Nancy Dampier walked out into the sunlight, and the last thing they saw of the Morgue was the smiling face of the concierge--it was not often that he received ten francs for doing his simple duty.

"Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!"

he said gaily. And as the courteous old French mode of adieu fell upon their ears, Gerald Burton felt an awful sensation of horror, of oppression, yes and of dread, steal over him.

Nancy Dampier, looking up at her companion, suddenly forgot herself. "Mr.

Burton," she exclaimed, her voice full of concern, "I'm afraid this has made you feel ill? I oughtn't to have let you come here!" And it was she who in her clear, low voice told the cabman the address of the Hotel Saint Ange.

Gerald Burton muttered a word of half-angry excuse. He was keenly ashamed of what he took to be his lack of manliness.

But during the weeks, aye and the months that followed he found himself constantly haunted by the gentle, ironic words of farewell uttered by the concierge of the Morgue: "Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur, madame: au plaisir de vous revoir!"

CHAPTER VII

The American abroad has a touching faith, first, in the might and power of his country to redress all wrongs, and secondly, in the personal prestige of his Amba.s.sador.

As a rule this faith is justified by works, but in the special and very peculiar case of John Dampier, Senator Burton was destined to meet with disappointment.

With keen vexation he learnt that the distinguished and genial individual who just then represented the great sister Republic in Paris, and on whom he himself had absolutely counted for advice and help, for they were old friends and allies, had taken sick leave for three months.

Paris, during an Exhibition Year, seems mysteriously to lose the wonderful climate which a certain British Minister for Foreign Affairs once declared to be the only one that suited every diplomat's const.i.tution!