When I was dead by vincent O'Sullivan. And yet my heart will not confess.
He owes the malady that doth my life besiege. All's well that ends
well. That was the worst of Ravenal Hall. The passages were long and
gloomy, the rooms were musty and dull. Even the pictures were somber and
their subjects dire. On an autumn evening, when the wind soft and wailed
to the trees in the park, and the dead leaves whistled and chattered,
while the rain clambered at the windows, small wonder that folks would gentle nerves
when a straying in their wits. An acute nervous system is a grievous burthen
on the deck of a yacht under sunlit skies. At Ravenal, the chain
of nerves was prone to clash and jangle a funeral march. Nerves must be
pampered in a tea drinking community. And the ghosts that your grandfather with a
skinful of port could face and never tremble sets you in your sobriety, sweating
and shivering, or becoming scared, poor ghost of your bold styes and dropping
jaw. He quenches expectation by not appearing at all. So I am left
to conclude that it was tea which made my acquaintance afraid to stay at Ravenal.
Even Wilburn gave over, and as he is in the guards and apolo
player, his nerves ought to be strong enough. On the night before he
went, I was explaining to him my theory that if you play some drops
of human blood near you, and then concentrate your thoughts, you will after
a while see before you a man or a woman who will stay with you
during the long hours of the night, and even meet you at unexpected places
during the day. I was explaining this theory, I repeat, when he
interrupted me with words senseless enough, which sent me fencing and parrying strangers on
my guard. I say, alistir, my dear chap, he began,
you ought to get out of this place and go up to town and knock
about a bit. You really ought, you know, yes, I replied,
and get poisoned at the hotels by bad food and at the clubs by
bad talk. I suppose no, thank you, and let me say that
your care for my health enervates me. Well. You can do as you
like, says he wrapping with his feet on the floor. I'm hanged.
If I stay here after tomorrow, I'll be staring mad if I do.
He was my last visitor. Some weeks after his departure, I was sitting
in the library with my drops of blood by me. I had got my
theory nearly perfect by this time, but there was one difficulty. The figure,
which I had ever before me, was the figure of an old woman,
with her hair divided in the middle, and her hair fell to her
shoulders. White on one side and black on the other. She was a
very complete old woman, but alas she was eyeless, and when I tried
to construct the eyes, she would shrivel and rot in my sight. But
tonight I was thinking, thinking as I had never thought before, and the
eyes were just creeping into the head, when I heard a terrible crash outside,
as if some heavy substance had fallen of a sudden. The door was
flung open, and two maid servants entered. They glanced at the rug under
my chair, and at that they turned a sick white cried on God,
and huddled out, how dare you entered the library in this manner? I
demanded sternly. No answer came back from them, so I started in pursuit.
I found all the servants in the house gathered in a knot at the
end of the passage. Missus Pebble I said smartly to the housekeeper, I
want those two women discharged tomorrow. It's an outrage. You ought to be
more careful. But she was not attending to me. Her face was distorted
with terror. Ah dear, ah dear, She went, We had all
better go to the library together, says she to the others. Am I
master of my own house, Missus Pebble, I inquired, bringing my knuckles
down with a bang on the table. None of them seemed to see me
or hear me. I might as well have been shrieking in a desert.
I followed them down the passage and forbade them to enter the library. But
they trooped past me and stood with a clutter around the hearth rug. Then
three or four of them began dragging and lifting, as if they were lifting
a helpless body, and stumbled with their imaginary burthen over to a sofa.
Old Solmes, the butler stood near poor young gentleman. He said, with
a sob I've known him since he was a baby, and to think of
him being dead like this, and so young too. I crossed the room.
What is all this, Solmes, I cried, shaking him roughly by
the shoulders. I am not dead. I am here here. As he
did not stir, I got a little scared, soalms, old friend,
I called, don't you know me? Don't you know the little boy you
used to play with? Say I am not head, Solmes, Please Solmes.
He stooped down and kissed the sofa. I think one of the men
ought to ride over to the village for the doctor, mister Solmes, says
Missus Pebble, and he shuffled out to give the order. Now this doctor
was an ignorant dog whom I had been forced to exclude from the house because
he went about proclaiming his belief in a saving God at the same time that
he proclaimed himself a man of science. He I was resolved should never cross
my threshold. And I followed Missus Pebble through the house, screaming out prohibition.
But I did not even catch a groan from her, not a nod
of the head nor cast of the eye to show that she had heard.
I met the doctor at the door of the library. Well, I sneered,
throwing my hand in his face. Have you come to teach me some
new prayers? He brushed past me as if he had not felt the blow,
and knelt down by the sofa. Rupture of a vessel on the brain,
I think, he says to Solmes and Missus Pebble, after a short
moment. He has been dead some hours, Poor fellow, you had better
telegraph for his sister, and I will send up the undertaker to arrange the
body. You liar, I yelled, you, whining liar. Have you
the insolence to tell my servants that I am dead when you see me here
face to face? He was far in the passage, with Holmes and Missus
Pebble at his heels. Ere I had ended, and not one of the
three turned round. All that night I sat in the library. Strangely enough,
I had no wish to sleep, nor during the time that followed,
had I any craving to eat. In the morning, the men came,
and although I ordered them out, they proceeded to minister about something I could
not see. So all day I stayed in the library or wandered about the
house, and at night the men came again, bringing with them a coffin.
Then, in my humor, thinking its shame that so fine a coffin
and should be empty, I lay the night in it and slept as soft,
dreamless sleep, the softest sleep I have ever slept. And when the
men came the next day, I rested still, and the undertaker shaped me
a strange valet. On the evening after that, I was coming downstairs when
I noted some luggage in the hall, and so learned that my sister had
arrived. I had not seen this woman since her marriage, and I loathed
her more than I loathed any creature in this ill organized world. She was
very beautiful, I think, tall and dark and straight as a ramrod,
and she had an unruly passion for scandal and dress. I suppose the reason
I disliked her so intensely was that she had a habit of making one aware
of her presence when she was several yards off. At half past nine o'clock,
my sister came down to the library and a very charming wrap, and
I soon found that she was as insensible to my presence as the others.
I trembled with rage to see him kneel down by the coffin, my coffin.
But when she had bent over to kiss the pillow, I threw away
control. A knife, which had been used to cut string, was laying
upon a table. I seized it and drove it into her neck. She
fled from the room, screaming, Come, Come, she cried, her
voice quivering with anguish. The corpse is bleating from the nose. Then I
cursed her. On the evening of the third day, there was a heavy
fall of snow. About eleven o'clock, I observed the house was filled with
blacks and mutes, and folk of the country who came for the obsequies.
I went into the library and sat still and waited. Soon came the men,
and they closed the lid of the coffin and bore it out on their
shoulders. And yet I sat, peeling rather sadly that something of mine had
been taken away. I could not quite think what for half an hour,
perhaps dreaming, dreaming, And then I glided to the hall door. There
was no trace left of the funeral, but after a while I sighted a
black thread winding slowly across the white plain. I am not dead, I
moaned, and rubbed my face in the pure snow and tossed it on my
neck and hair. Sweet God, I am not dead. End of when
I was dead.