The Pall Mall Magazine

A Danse-Macabre

A DANSE-MACABRE

BY BERNARD CAPES

WE had been talking fitfully, as the train sped on, of things suggested, perhaps, by that sense of volant instability with which a rapid journey in a third-class brake-van is wont to possess one—the mysteries of Life and Death, and the greater mystery of Life-in-Death, to wit. I had lately been reading Myers’s Human Personality, and my mind was full of Individualism, and Hypnotic Suggestion, and those fathomless strata of Subconsciousness which lie under a man as the forty mattresses lay under the True Princess, without obliterating the sensation of the single pea which, placed at the bottom, made its irritation felt through all. That was the rather frivolous vein in which I was disposed to discuss a weighty matter; but any mood that evokes antagonism, earns, if it can dissipate the monotony of a long railway journey, its own justification.

Carleon took it all much more seriously than I. He believed faithfully in the indestructibility of the Ego, and in its conscious continuance after Death. The something which ceased in one, he said, on the withdrawal of the vitalising principle, was that thing which, in life, not only directed our actions, functions and moods, but was our actions, functions and moods, so that for a body to die was merely for a body to become as meaningless as a steam-engine deprived of its steam. The essential influence had simply detached itself, like a crab from its shell, and gone elsewhere.

“When you come to work it out,” he said, “is not that steam pistons, boilers, cranks and all? The machinery is merely the inevitable expression of a force which is itself. Its parts are all made of steam, so to speak, and, when the steam goes, the parts constitute no more a steam-engine than they do a mouse-trap.”

“Rather a nullum simile, that, isn’t it?” I said. “It doesn’t seem quite to run on all fours.”

“Size is purely relative,” he answered. “Never forget that.”

“Are not you forgetting,” I said, “the fire that causes the steam?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I don’t undertake for a moment to define the living principle. Naturally, in all mundane philosophy we have to start from a given point. Who or what arbitrarily set that point it is idle to surmise. We know only that it was set this side of Chaos, by something that inhabited the other side.”

“Well, you say that the something in us is our functions. What happens to those? Must I continue to cough, sneeze, and the rest of it, in my disembodied state?”

“I see no reason to deny it. Yet other environments might very well induce other necessities.”

“But it is an external influence affecting certain bodily tissues that makes me sneeze?”

“Of course. Only the something is your bodily tissues. A dead man can’t sneeze.”

“How about people’s hair continuing to grow after death? Deprived of its Ego, you know, it cannot grow. It even ceases, according to your theory, to be hair at all.”

“I might challenge you to produce a single authentic instance of its having so grown. But grant that, on occasion, it does; is it not possible to conceive certain cells charged, not continuously but periodically, with the vital principle, and capable of surviving for an independent period on their last-acquired store.”

“M—well—yes, I suppose,” I said.

“Why, look here,” said Carleon. “You can charge a storage battery, can’t you, and detach it and work it until the charge is exhausted? Substitute hair-cells for the battery and the vital spark for the dynamo, and there you are. I don’t pretend to speak in terms of science, but only as an inquiring layman.”

“Very well,” I said. “Let’s touch upon another point—evolution.”

“Perfectly simple,” he answered. “The changes which occur in organic structure occur in obedience to the needs of the Ego. They are just as much the Ego after as before the change. Are you other than yourself because, being short-sighted, you stick an eyeglass in your eye?”

“I may stick it,” I said; “but no amount of pertinacity on my part will endow my myopic progeny with abnormal vision.”

I thought, honestly, that he talked a good deal of nonsense; yet I could find no better nonsense with which to floor him. Carleon was an odd, mystic creature, a little exotic, but magnetic. He perpetually attracted me, and only rarely repelled. Yet, as to that last, which of us has not a negative pole to his mind best left unturned towards his friends?

“Abnormal vision!” he repeated, somewhat abstractedly. “No. That is purely an accident of subconsciousness, not by any means a question of evolution.”

“You take me seriously,” I said. “Well, seriously, how do you dispose of your disembodied Ego? What becomes of him?”

“Ah!” Carleon shrugged his shoulders with a little deprecating smile. “He may be all around us in multitudes. It needs, as I say, the rare subconscious accident, the chance contact of subconscious affinities, to perceive him. Among all the æons, and all the once-living billions populating them, such meetings cannot be frequent. But they occur, when some part of you impinges upon some part of an ancient impression, inhabiting an Ego or Egos, which was once common to you both or all. If you do see what is called a ghost, you may be sure that some remote sympathy was shared between you and that apparition in a former existence.”

We had entered into a long, deep-sunk valley. It was nearing sunset time, and the ridges were all crested with a running fire of rays, as in some Titanic battle. One could have read in the hanging mists the drifting smoke from their guns. Carleon swept his hand through the sunbeam which came in at the window, thereby setting its motes gyrating as if they boiled.

“Accepting size as immaterial,” he said, “how do you not know that every one of these prismatic atoms is an Ego?”

I did not answer. Something in the twilight peace of the valley was beginning to hypnotise me. The slope of it on which I looked went up in a luminous haze, through which the purple swell of trees, the dim gold of quarries, the milky greenness of the grass showed all distinct but subdued to a phantasmal loveliness. Somehow there stole into my spirit a strange sense, born of that dreamy mental detachment, of its all being antiquely familiar to me—not in the local meaning alone. I might or might not have travelled that way before; the impression was borrowed from infinitely remoter distances. Absorbed by it, absorbed into it, I passed beyond my surroundings—forgot myself, forgot Carleon. I was roused by feeling the quick touch of his hand on my knee.

“Look!” he said.

He was gazing fixedly from his window; I turned to gaze from mine. We were running at the moment past a scattered line of trees—slender birches inter-thronged with darker thorns—which stood on the hillside; and, wreathing themselves around and about the congregated trunks in a glimmering fantastic dance, were a number of pallid forms. Mystic, infinitely graceful, but at first indeterminate, they took shape to my enthralled imagination as I stared—and were spirit-girls, beckoning, alluring, with white arms raised, and white robes shot with dim iridescences, clinging and floating.

I tried to murmur, “School-feast!” or some such monstrous explanation; the words stuck in my throat like a blasphemy.

And still, as we passed, the white shapes wove their paces, in and out, in and out, in silent loveliness. Like roses seen through mist, I began, I thought, to distinguish the unearthly sweetness of their faces—a gleam of smiling teeth, a flush of faint pink, the phantom blue of eyes that laughed and faded. But as they came they went, witcheries proffered only to be withdrawn. I seemed to hear old music sounding in my brain; somehow I was approaching a bourne of hills and mists long foundered in the deeps of memory; there was wonder in my heart and a great ecstasy of expectation—the train ran beyond the trees, and in an instant the dancers were gone.

Ceased; snatched out of being. I sat as if stunned for a moment; and then, as before, Carleon’s voice awakened me: “Look there!”

I flung myself beside him, and stared back the way we had come. A little darkling church stood on the hillside and all between it and the lower belt of trees was a crowded graveyard. The stones stood up or leaned awry in every fantastic pose—erect and sharp white, or tumbled and moss-grown—hundreds of them, and each stiffened to ‘attention,’ after that danse-macabre, at the ghostly word of command. It was the tree-trunks and those innumerable memento-moris which had woven between them, as we sped past, that fantastic optical illusion.

At least, so we were bound to suppose.

Or one may suppose, if one prefers it, that Imagination is the source of all being, and the true secret of the vitalising principle.

B. C.

A Doll's Dress

A DOLL'S DRESS.

BY OWEN OLIVER

JANE is a good girl, but she has no sense. She is always telling people that I am "out" when I am "in," and "in" when I have told her that I am "out." That was what made the trouble about the bazaar.

I was reckoning up the butcher's book when she came bustling into the room. I have to be careful about the books, because father does not get so much money for his tales as they are worth. He is Mr. Marchant, the great author. My name is Molly, and I have kept house for him and the boys ever since I was a child. Now I am fourteen.

"What have you come bothering about now, Jane?" I asked. The bill was five shillings more than the month before, so I was rather cross.

"Mrs. Cattley to see you, miss."

"Of course you told her I was out?"

Jane jerked her thumb in the direction of the door, and I heard a rustle outside. Mrs. Cattley is the sort of woman that always wears crackling skirts.

"No," she called, in a loud voice. "Jane told me that you were in."

I gave Jane such a look! Then I slipped the butcher's book under something, and got up with my best smile.

"Jane generally does the wrong thing," I explained. "I was so afraid that she had sent you away. Do sit down."

"Umph!" she said. Of course I knew that she did not believe me, and she knew that I knew.

"Bring some tea, please," I told Jane. She walked out, grinning all over her face, and I made up my mind to speak to her when Mrs. Cattley was gone. "Put your cap straight before you come in again." She shut the door with a bang. "You've no idea what a trial servants are."

"I was keeping house before you were born." She shut her mouth with a snap.

"Long before," I agreed. She turned red, and I looked innocent. "So, of course, you know exactly how to manage them." She can never get a servant to stop.

"Things were very different when I was a girl." I hoped that she was different in those days; but I did not tell her so. I have a good deal of tact, father says.

"You never had any trouble with servants, I suppose?" (I have heard that they did not keep any.)

"None whatever." She put up her eyeglasses and stared at me as if she wanted to be contradicted. Fortunately, Jane knocked at the door.

"Come in," I called; but she only opened it a little way and beckoned.

"We ain't got no loaf sugar," she whispered. Her whisper is rather loud.

"Hush!" I shut the door hastily. "You must go to Scales' for a pound."

She shuffled from one foot to the other. She always does that when she is uneasy in her mind.

"'E said as 'e wouldn't let us 'ave nothink more till we settled for wot we'd 'ad." It was only a few little things; but he is a surly man.

"Then go to the new shop round the corner. He doesn't know us, but2"

"'E'll let us 'ave it," said Jane promptly; and off she went.

I beg your pardon for leaving you," I apologised, when I returned. "Jane requires so much telling."

"I should not keep her a month."

"I am sure you would not," I agreed.

Mrs. Cattley pursed her lips and looked at me very hard. Then she sighed, as if she thought me too bad for words.

"I came to see you about the bazaar," she said; "but perhaps I had better speak to your father."

"Oh, no!" I said hastily. "You can tell me." Anybody can persuade father into anything.

"The Rector insisted upon my being on the committee." She seemed very proud about it. "They have unanimously elected me collector."

"Oh!" I made up my mind not to give anything.

"I have come to see what you will subscribe."

"I will ask father," I promised. Of course I did not mean to do anything of the sort!

"Why don't you make something yourself," she said unpleasantly, "instead of troubling poor Mr. Marchant? He must have expenses enough already."

"If you think that," I suggested, "there is no need to trouble him."

"I do not ask my husband for money when—er2"

"I am sure you don't." I am afraid I smiled a little. Every one knows that he has to ask her!

She looked as if she were going to fly at me; but she changed her mind and pretended not to understand.

"I suppose you can make fancy things? When I was your age2"

"I hate making fancy things," I interrupted. I like making them really; but they cost such a lot for material.

"I presume you can sew?" she inquired sarcastically.

"I never do sewing." I do nearly all the mending of the house really; but it wasn't likely I was going to tell her.

"I am afraid that the wish is lacking," she said severely. "Of course, if you choose to be the only persons who do not give anything, you must please yourselves. At the same time I think it my duty to warn you that people will talk."

"It doesn't matter."

"Perhaps not"—she sniffed—"to you. If I were in your place I should study my poor father."

I should have said something rude if I had answered her, so I held my tongue. I don't suppose I manage very well, but I do study father. I promised mother that I would, the last thing of all.

"There are people enough already," she went on, "who speak disparagingly of him, because he is an author."

I laughed. It is called ironical, I believe, the way that I did it.

"Your friends are jealous, because they have not the brains to write," I said. Father has often told me that this is the reason that people run down authors.

"My friends are not people who are in the habit of—er2"

"'Ere's the tea, miss," said Jane, coming in suddenly. "An' the loaf sugar. An' the grocer says will yer be sure an'2"

"That will do, Jane. Put it here, please. How many lumps will you have, Mrs. Cattley?" Jane was beginning again, but I frowned at her so that she went. "Jane is always forgetting to tell me what things have got low."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Cattley. "You can't expect a girl to think of everything!"

Of course she meant that we were always running short; but I pretended not to understand.

"Father has been very successful with his tales lately," I said in a confidential way. "He looks for the postman to come every evening regularly." He says he only goes into the drawing-room to pull down the blinds. "To bring a cheque, you know." Unfortunately it doesn't often come.

"They don't pay very well, I suppose?"

"It depends upon the quality. Father gets a very high rate, of course."

"Then no doubt he will be pleased to subscribe handsomely, if I ask him." She looked very determined.

I did not know what to do. Father cannot bear people to think we are poor; and when he is asked to give he never refuses. I felt sure he would subscribe a sovereign; and the tradesmen were worrying me so about the books.

"You need not trouble," I told her. "I will get something, or make it." I meant to make something—an excuse!

"Thank you, dear." She was quite polite. "Any little thing will do."

"Will it?" I thought at once of some small scarves in Tape and Drape's. They were one and eleven-three.

"So long as it is suitable to your father's position, of course. People naturally expect that every one will give according to his means. I mention these things because you are so young, my dear." She got up.

"It is very thoughtful of you. Thank you so much. Must you really go?"

She said she must. So we embraced one another, and she went. When I embrace Mrs. Cattley, we put our cheeks alongside and a little way off, and kiss the air. It is the proper way—with her!

"I won't give her a thing," I said to myself, as soon as she had gone. The horrible, spiteful old creature!"

I said the same thing to Mrs. Serplis, the new curate's wife, when she called next day. They are no better off than we are; but she is a dear. "I shall say I forgot," I told her; but she shook her head.

"You don't know the artfulness of that woman, Molly."

"What has she done?"

"She is telling everybody that, according to your account, your father is 'getting over his difficulties.' That is how she puts it. She doesn't believe it, she says; but they'll see what sort of a present he gives to the bazaar."

"The hateful woman!" I cried. "She is2"

"She was talking about it in Joynt's, the butcher's, when I passed this morning. Of course I did not listen2"

"Of course not," I agreed.

"But I could not help hearing what she said. Old Mrs. Wilkins heard her say the same thing in Staize's, the costumier's; and Mr. Cattley asked Charlie about it, and said he did so hope it was true."

"I don't think he is to blame," I said.

"My dear, he is to be pitied—poor fellow! But anyhow you see2" she shrugged her shoulders and held up her hands.

"You mean they'll say nasty things if father doesn't give something expensive?"

"That's what I'm afraid of, dear." I drew a long breath. "They shan't. I will give something good somehow. I don't know how I'm going to do it." I felt like crying, but Mrs. Serplis stroked my shoulder.

"Couldn't you get some fancy materials? I'd soon run you up something."

"They cost such a lot."

"I know they do," she sympathised. "I wish we had something to—lend you. But there's the doctor's bill—where we came from: he's been waiting such a time—and the rates just come in." She sighed. "I hardly know what we shall do ourselves, Molly."

I sighed too, and we did not say anything for a few minutes; then she found it was time to go, and we said good-bye. When she says good-bye, I put my arms right round her. It is the proper way—for her!

After I had thought the matter over, I made up my mind to save the money out of the housekeeping, by giving up jam and things that are not really necessary; but the boys grumbled dreadfully. Boys want such a lot to eat, and they don't know any better, poor little chaps! They said something about it too, when father was playing with them, and he gave me four shillings extra.

"Buy the little beggars some goodies, Molly," he said. "Yes, yes, dear! I know you do your best; and a wonderfully good best it is. But you get too much for me, dear. I really don't want bacon for breakfast, and2" I put my hand over his mouth.

"Don't," I said. "Oh, daddy, don't!" Mother always saw that he had things.

However, I promised that they should have some nice cakes. Mrs. Serplis helped me to make them one afternoon, so they came rather cheap. You see, she was one of a large family. I saved one-and-three out of the four shillings. That made five-and-six altogether.

I expected to make it up to nearly half a sovereign the next week; but father was worried because he had not quite enough for the gas bill. It will run up, though I am ever so careful. So I gave him part of my housekeeping money toward it, and tried to put off some of the bills; but the tradespeople were not very nice.

"Seein' as ev'ryone sez as 'ow yer father's doin' better," the butcher told me, "I was expectin' as 'e'd pay orf some of the back owin's. I'm a man wot's got to live, I am." I suppose he has; but he need not do it so disagreeably.

Then there were the boys' boots. Bob's were right out at the toes, and they'd been capped twice and soled half a dozen times. Tommy's were nearly dropping off his feet. He came home crying because the boys at school teased him about them. Boys do not mean to be unkind, but they never think. The shoemaker was very pleasant, and said if I paid for one pair I might owe for the other. I could not expect more than that, because he has a large family, and they are very poor. If we had a lot of money I should like to help them.

A few days before the bazaar Mrs. Cattley sent a printed circular. It was addressed to father, but I opened it. There was a list in it of "Donors who had given handsome presents." In the list I found: "Mr. and Miss Marchant."

I really did not know what to do, so I consulted Jane. Jane is not much use to consult, but Mrs. Serplis was not well, and I felt I must talk to somebody.

"Yer carn't give nothink, w'en yer ain't got nothink to give," Jane said, when she had nearly bitten the end off her apron.

"You always put things so clearly!" I told her. It was ineant to be sarcastic, but she took it for a compliment.

"An' if yer ain't got nothink to give, yer carn't git nothink."

"That is exactly my difficulty."

"The question is, ain't yer got nothink?" She looked at me meaningly.

"What?" I asked. She fidgeted about.

"I've got three-an'-six."

I wouldn't dream of such a thing."

"I don't see2"

I couldn't, Jane. Really I couldn't; though it is very very kind of you." It really was. "Besides, it is not nearly enough."

"No," she agreed. "I don't suppose it ain't. Well, yer'll 'ave to do it out of the 'ousekeepin'."

I shook my head.

"Wot does them boys want with treacle, an' suet puddings, an'2"

"Oh, Jane! They must have something, poor little fellows."

"Greedy little pigs, I call 'em!" Jane does not get on with the boys, because they say her hair is red. It is not red really, but carroty.

"It you cannot speak properly of them, Jane," I said, "you had better hold your tongue."

"Alwus goin' without things for 'em," she grumbled, "you an' the master; stuff an' rubbidge, I call it. Wot I don't 'old with, an'2"

"Last Saturday," I pointed out, "when I had no pennies for sweets, you made them some toffee; and2"

"More fool me!" She bit her apron savagely. "'Owsomever, that ain't neither 'ere nor there."

"No; but you said there was something I could give."

"I didn't say no sich thing."

"Well, you looked it."

"Wot if I did?"

Jane can be very obstinate. I am not obstinate; but I am firm.

"What did you mean?" I insisted. She fidgeted about more than ever. "For goodness' sake, stand still!"

"I was thinkin' of—the doll's dress."

I sank down on a chair. "The doll's dress! Oh, Jane!"

"In course I didn't suppose as 'ow yer would, but2 Don't look like that, Miss Molly. Don't, there's a dear!"

"I—I shall be all right in a minute. It—it isn't that I mind, only—oh, Jane!"

I laid my head down on my arms, and Jane put her hand on my shoulder. It may not be a soft hand, but it is a very kind one.

"I know, dear," she said—and I think she was crying—"I know as yer mother made it, an' no one couldn't 'ave done it lovelier; but2"

What would she think, if—if2"

Jane wiped her eyes fiercely. "She'd rather yer done it a thousand times than she'd 'ave people look down on the master."

I got up from my chair quickly. "You are quite right, Jane. I shall send it to-morrow; and—thank you."

Then I ran upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom. I bathed my eyes before I came down, so that no one should notice. Jane was very nice, and did not grumble, even when I gave the boys a penny each to spend. I thought it would please mother if she knew.

The next morning I took out the doll's dress, and did it up very quickly, and sent Jane round with it. It was a very beautiful dress—white satin worked all over with tiny little silk flowers and leaves. It must have taken mother a long, long time; and I know that she would never have done it if she had not been very fond of me. Even Mrs. Cattley could not find any fault with it, and she wrote to say that she should be surprised if it did not fetch at least a couple of pounds. People could not say things of father after that; so I was glad.

At least, I tried to be glad; but I did not seem very bright somehow. Father asked several times if anything was the matter. He always notices. I told him "Nothing"; but I was afraid that he did not believe me. So I tried my hardest to be cheerful, because he is so quick at guessing anything, and I did not want him to be worried about the dress.

I played with the boys more than usual; and Mrs. Serplis helped me to make them some soldiers' clothes. They were very pleased with them; and when they caught me moping, I said it was only toothache, and they must not tell father, because I did not want to go to the dentist and have it pulled out. So they did not say anything. They are good little fellows, if they are tiresome sometimes, like all boys are.

When the day of the bazaar came, however, I was right down miserable. Of course I would not go to it; and in the afternoon I went to sleep. When I woke up, Jane told me that father had been home, and dressed himself, and gone out again.

"Rare an' smart 'e looked," she said. "I 'ope as 'e ain't got one in 'is eye, wot wouldn't never do for 'im wot you done."

I was so cross that I stamped my foot at her.

"You are a bad, impudent, foolish girl, Jane; and you can take a month's notice."

She stared at me. "No fear, I don't do no sich thing. I know when yer well off, if yer don't yerself."

"It is not your business whether I am well off or not," I told her. "Please leave the room."

She stared at me again. "Lie down on the sofa, Miss Molly," she suggested, "an' let me bring yer some tea. It'll do yer 'ead good. Yer know I didn't mean nothink, an'—there! there! "

"If Jane does silly things sometimes, she never means any harm. That is why I like her, and will not let the boys tease her about her hair.

After I had had some tea, I went to sleep again upon the sofa. At least I should have gone to sleep, only the boys came in from school and jumped on me. They were playing that I was an elephant, when father came in. Then they made believe that he was a tram-car, and climbed up on his shoulders. He said they might have tea with us, if they were extra good. After tea he read two chapters of Robinson Crusoe aloud. Then he gave them some chocolates that he had bought, and Jane took them up to bed.

When they had gone he came and sat beside me. "What is wrong?" he asked, "dear little girl?"

"Nothing, daddy," I said.

He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he came back and put his arm round me. "Tell me, little mother?" he begged.

So I told him. He blew his nose very hard several times; but he did not speak till I had done.

"I am glad you have told me, dear," he said at last, "but I knew."

"You knew?" I cried. "Who? When?"

"It was Cattley. He—he is a good fellow."

I nodded.

"He came to me this morning and told me about it. He wanted his wife to let him buy it and send it back to you, but she would not. That woman2!" He kicked the footstool suddenly. "I can't say things about a woman, but2"

"I can." I sat up on the sofa. "She is2"

Father held up his hand. "We should pity her, Molly," he said, "for being—what she is! Anyhow, Cattley begged me to accept a couple of sovereigns and buy it for you. He dared not buy it himself, he said, and he was set on your having it. He is a good man."