Dracula's Guest
she added, looking at him saucily. The girls giggled again, and the
young men guffawed. They thought it was the snub that touched him so
that he became as white as a sheet as he turned away. But Sarah, who
knew more than they did, laughed, for she saw triumph through the spasm
of pain that overspread his face.
The week passed uneventfully; however, as Saturday drew nigh Sarah had
occasional moments of anxiety, and as to Eric he went about at
night-time like a man possessed. He restrained himself when others were
by, but now and again he went down amongst the rocks and caves and
shouted aloud. This seemed to relieve him somewhat, and he was better
able to restrain himself for some time after. All Saturday he stayed in
his own house and never left it. As he was to be married on the morrow,
the neighbours thought it was shyness on his part, and did not trouble
or notice him. Only once was he disturbed, and that was when the chief
boatman came to him and sat down, and after a pause said:
“Eric, I was over in Bristol yesterday. I was in the ropemaker’s
getting a coil to replace the one you lost the night of the storm, and
there I saw Michael Heavens of this place, who is a salesman there. He
told me that Abel Behenna had come home the week ere last on the _Star
of the Sea_ from Canton, and that he had lodged a sight of money in the
Bristol Bank in the name of Sarah Behenna. He told Michael so
himself—and that he had taken passage on the _Lovely Alice_ to
Pencastle. “Bear up, man,” for Eric had with a groan dropped his head
on his knees, with his face between his hands. “He was your old
comrade, I know, but you couldn’t help him. He must have gone down with
the rest that awful night. I thought I’d better tell you, lest it might
come some other way, and you might keep Sarah Trefusis from being
frightened. They were good friends once, and women take these things to
heart. It would not do to let her be pained with such a thing on her
wedding day!” Then he rose and went away, leaving Eric still sitting
disconsolately with his head on his knees.
“Poor fellow!” murmured the chief boatman to himself; “he takes it to
heart. Well, well! right enough! They were true comrades once, and Abel
saved him!”
The afternoon of that day, when the children had left school, they
strayed as usual on half-holidays along the quay and the paths by the
cliffs. Presently some of them came running in a state of great
excitement to the harbour, where a few men were unloading a coal ketch,
and a great many were superintending the operation. One of the children
called out:
“There is a porpoise in the harbour mouth! We saw it come through the
blow-hole! It had a long tail, and was deep under the water!”
“It was no porpoise,” said another; “it was a seal; but it had a long
tail! It came out of the seal cave!” The other children bore various
testimony, but on two points they were unanimous—it, whatever “it” was,
had come through the blow-hole deep under the water, and had a long,
thin tail—a tail so long that they could not see the end of it. There
was much unmerciful chaffing of the children by the men on this point,
but as it was evident that they had seen something, quite a number of
persons, young and old, male and female, went along the high paths on
either side of the harbour mouth to catch a glimpse of this new
addition to the fauna of the sea, a long-tailed porpoise or seal. The
tide was now coming in. There was a slight breeze, and the surface of
the water was rippled so that it was only at moments that anyone could
see clearly into the deep water. After a spell of watching a woman
called out that she saw something moving up the channel, just below
where she was standing. There was a stampede to the spot, but by the
time the crowd had gathered the breeze had freshened, and it was
impossible to see with any distinctness below the surface of the water.
On being questioned the woman described what she had seen, but in such
an incoherent way that the whole thing was put down as an effect of
imagination; had it not been for the children’s report she would not
have been credited at all. Her semi-hysterical statement that what she
saw was “like a pig with the entrails out” was only thought anything of
by an old coastguard, who shook his head but did not make any remark.
For the remainder of the daylight this man was seen always on the bank,
looking into the water, but always with disappointment manifest on his
face.
Eric arose early on the next morning—he had not slept all night, and it
was a relief to him to move about in the light. He shaved himself with
a hand that did not tremble, and dressed himself in his wedding
clothes. There was a haggard look on his face, and he seemed as though
he had grown years older in the last few days. Still there was a wild,
uneasy light of triumph in his eyes, and he kept murmuring to himself
over and over again:
“This is my wedding-day! Abel cannot claim her now—living or
dead!—living or dead! Living or dead!” He sat in his arm-chair, waiting
with an uncanny quietness for the church hour to arrive. When the bell
began to ring he arose and passed out of his house, closing the door
behind him. He looked at the river and saw the tide had just turned. In
the church he sat with Sarah and her mother, holding Sarah’s hand
tightly in his all the time, as though he feared to lose her. When the
service was over they stood up together, and were married in the
presence of the entire congregation; for no one left the church. Both
made the responses clearly—Eric’s being even on the defiant side. When
the wedding was over Sarah took her husband’s arm, and they walked away
together, the boys and younger girls being cuffed by their elders into
a decorous behaviour, for they would fain have followed close behind
their heels.
The way from the church led down to the back of Eric’s cottage, a
narrow passage being between it and that of his next neighbour. When
the bridal couple had passed through this the remainder of the
congregation, who had followed them at a little distance, were startled
by a long, shrill scream from the bride. They rushed through the
passage and found her on the bank with wild eyes, pointing to the river
bed opposite Eric Sanson’s door.
The falling tide had deposited there the body of Abel Behenna stark
upon the broken rocks. The rope trailing from its waist had been
twisted by the current round the mooring post, and had held it back
whilst the tide had ebbed away from it. The right elbow had fallen in a
chink in the rock, leaving the hand outstretched toward Sarah, with the
open palm upward as though it were extended to receive hers, the pale
drooping fingers open to the clasp.
All that happened afterwards was never quite known to Sarah Sanson.
Whenever she would try to recollect there would become a buzzing in her
ears and a dimness in her eyes, and all would pass away. The only thing
that she could remember of it all—and this she never forgot—was Eric’s
breathing heavily, with his face whiter than that of the dead man, as
he muttered under his breath:
“Devil’s help! Devil’s faith! Devil’s price!”
The Burial of the Rats
Leaving Paris by the Orleans road, cross the Enceinte, and, turning to
the right, you find yourself in a somewhat wild and not at all savoury
district. Right and left, before and behind, on every side rise great
heaps of dust and waste accumulated by the process of time.
Paris has its night as well as its day life, and the sojourner who
enters his hotel in the Rue de Rivoli or the Rue St. Honore late at
night or leaves it early in the morning, can guess, in coming near
Montrouge—if he has not done so already—the purpose of those great
waggons that look like boilers on wheels which he finds halting
everywhere as he passes.
Every city has its peculiar institutions created out of its own needs;
and one of the most notable institutions of Paris is its rag-picking
population. In the early morning—and Parisian life commences at an
early hour—may be seen in most streets standing on the pathway opposite
every court and alley and between every few houses, as still in some
American cities, even in parts of New York, large wooden boxes into
which the domestics or tenement-holders empty the accumulated dust of
the past day. Round these boxes gather and pass on, when the work is
done, to fresh fields of labour and pastures new, squalid
hungry-looking men and women, the implements of whose craft consist of
a coarse bag or basket slung over the shoulder and a little rake with
which they turn over and probe and examine in the minutest manner the
dustbins. They pick up and deposit in their baskets, by aid of their
rakes, whatever they may find, with the same facility as a Chinaman
uses his chopsticks.
Paris is a city of centralisation—and centralisation and classification
are closely allied. In the early times, when centralisation is becoming
a fact, its forerunner is classification. All things which are similar
or analogous become grouped together, and from the grouping of groups
rises one whole or central point. We see radiating many long arms with
innumerable tentaculae, and in the centre rises a gigantic head with a
comprehensive brain and keen eyes to look on every side and ears
sensitive to hear—and a voracious mouth to swallow.
Other cities resemble all the birds and beasts and fishes whose
appetites and digestions are normal. Paris alone is the analogical
apotheosis of the octopus. Product of centralisation carried to an _ad
absurdum_, it fairly represents the devil fish; and in no respects is
the resemblance more curious than in the similarity of the digestive
apparatus.
Those intelligent tourists who, having surrendered their individuality
into the hands of Messrs. Cook or Gaze, “do” Paris in three days, are
often puzzled to know how it is that the dinner which in London would
cost about six shillings, can be had for three francs in a café in the
Palais Royal. They need have no more wonder if they will but consider
the classification which is a theoretic speciality of Parisian life,
and adopt all round the fact from which the chiffonier has his genesis.
The Paris of 1850 was not like the Paris of to-day, and those who see
the Paris of Napoleon and Baron Hausseman can hardly realise the
existence of the state of things forty-five years ago.
Amongst other things, however, which have not changed are those
districts where the waste is gathered. Dust is dust all the world over,
in every age, and the family likeness of dust-heaps is perfect. The
traveller, therefore, who visits the environs of Montrouge can go go
back in fancy without difficulty to the year 1850.
In this year I was making a prolonged stay in Paris. I was very much in
love with a young lady who, though she returned my passion, so far
yielded to the wishes of her parents that she had promised not to see
me or to correspond with me for a year. I, too, had been compelled to
accede to these conditions under a vague hope of parental approval.
During the term of probation I had promised to remain out of the
country and not to write to my dear one until the expiration of the
year.
Naturally the time went heavily with me. There was not one of my own
family or circle who could tell me of Alice, and none of her own folk
had, I am sorry to say, sufficient generosity to send me even an
occasional word of comfort regarding her health and well-being. I spent
six months wandering about Europe, but as I could find no satisfactory
distraction in travel, I determined to come to Paris, where, at least,
I would be within easy hail of London in case any good fortune should
call me thither before the appointed time. That “hope deferred maketh