Читать книгу The Day the World Ended - Arthur Henry Ward - Страница 10

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Watching, all but breathlessly, as she passed my hiding place, my first feeling was one of intense relief. It was almost immediately succeeded, however, by another, by a mood of horrible doubt. Taking all the facts into consideration, what was this woman doing in such a place, at night? Where had she been hidden during my tour of inspection? Above all—why did she hold the cemetery keys?

Ghastly theories, belonging to the realm of black magic, flocked to my brain. Had she been to meet, in Coleridge’s words, “her demon lover”? Or was she, herself ...

These ideas were insane. I shook my mind free of them.

When the sound of Madame’s footsteps was no longer audible, and I judged that she had passed a bend in the steep road which I remembered, I came out from the sheltering orchard and followed, very slowly.

An owl hooted, high up in a tree. But no other sound disturbed the serene night.

By a bend in the path where a flight of steps offered a short cut to the town, there was a seat. Owing to the position of the moon and the screening trees, this seat was mantled in darkness.

But as I passed it, intent upon descending the steps:

“Good-evening, Mr. Woodville,” said a voice out of the shadows.

I knew the voice—nor was it unmusical. But its music turned me cold. I stopped dead in my tracks, as though Medusa’s head had been thrust in front of me. I twisted about, staring.

Mme. Yburg rose from the seat and came toward me!

Conflicting emotions threatened to make me dumb. But I forced a remark.

“Why!” said I—“this is a surprise! Are you, also, addicted to lonely rambles?”

“I am,” she replied simply, and walked out into the moonlight.

She wore a frock of some material which appeared black except where moonrays touched it, when it displayed a serpentine sheen. Dark eyes regarded me sombrely. Her slender body was grotesquely, horribly like the body of that flying thing which had alighted in the cemetery. Or so it seemed to me at this moment.

“A taste,” I went on, desperately forcing conversation, “which one can’t share. Were you returning, or have I broken in on the journey?”

“I’m going back,” she answered, resting her hand on my arm. “Those steps are so steep.”

I found myself clenching my teeth. Mme. Yburg’s long, psychic hand looked waxen white in the moonlight, which also lent the narrow, burnished nails an unnatural purple tint. She wore a large emerald, which I had noticed before. Against the black of my sleeve it gleamed evilly—like the eye of a nocturnal thing.... Silently I cursed myself for a coward and a fool. There was—there must be—a rational explanation of her presence in the cemetery that night. And, as if she had read my thoughts:

“My lonely ramble was not without an object,” she said as we went down the steps. “It may sound odd, but I had been up to the cemetery on the hill.”

Her English was faultless, her poise perfect. If my ghastly theories had any foundation in fact, she was a great actress. The pressure of her thin white fingers was intensely vital.

“Good heavens! Very odd—at night!”

“Yes, I know it is.” We were on a straight highroad, now, and Mme. Yburg removed her hand and adjusted the scarf which she wore. “But someone lies there, you see—a member of my family; and in the middle of all the gaiety I suddenly thought of him, and it seemed quite natural to go.”

Her composure, which made me think of snow on a sleeping volcano, was more exciting than some women’s hysteria. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she spoke of husband, father, brother, when those former, uncanny ideas came flooding back to my mind.

Was she, secretly, laughing at me? Had she seen me from the first? Had she waited there knowing I must presently come that way? And why did she hold the keys of the cemetery gate? So my thoughts ran, wildly, feverishly. The night was perfect, lacking those treacherous chills of the Riviera and reminding one of nights in the Canary Islands.

She had a manner of walking which must have marked her anywhere. She seemed to glide along beside me. There was a deep note in her voice, strangely like sincerity; and indeed she was undeniably a very charming companion.

Presently, we were among the trees of Lichtenthaler Allee, the little stream bubbling beside us, lights dancing over the water from the hotels and the Casino.

We walked across to the Regal. And there on the steps stood Mr. Kluster.

“Oh, dear!” Madame whispered to me. “There was a party to-night, and I had promised to go!”

Then, as we came up:

“I had such a dreadful headache and I hoped that the night air would cure it. Mr. Woodville found me wandering.”

“Cured?” said Kluster.

“Quite,” Madame replied, and an amused smile, which softened the line of her thin lips, was oddly fascinating.

I saw white, glittering teeth against the blood-red of her mouth ... and I remembered ...

“Here’s the French boy-friend,” remarked Kluster. “Now we’re all set.”

M. Paul came bounding down the steps. “Bounding” is the only word to describe his animated approach.

“My dear Mme. Yburg!” he exclaimed, and grasped both her hands. “Ah! but I have been inconsolable! So also”—he turned to the American—“has poor Mr. Kluster! We have cried together, Mr. Woodville”—he now included me in his oration—“until the bar has nearly run dry!”

Then he laughed, and we all laughed with him—Kluster excepted—for he was indeed a joyous creature.

“Very true,” said Kluster. “Suppose we start.” He nodded to me. “I wish you good-night, sir.”

The others having also bidden me good-night, the party set out, M. Paul waving farewell in his gay fashion. I recalled that the M. Paul who had passed me earlier in the evening had been far from gay.