The Lady of the Shroud, Bram Stoker [most life changing books .txt] 📗

though the marriage veil

o’ love was fine, an’ the garland o’ flowers was fresh-gathered,

underneath them a’ was nane ither than a ghastly shroud. As I looked

in my veesion—or maybe dream—I expectit to see the worms crawl

round the flagstane at her feet. If ‘twas not Death, laddie dear,

that stood by ye, it was the shadow o’ Death that made the darkness

round ye, that neither the light o’ candles nor the smoke o’ heathen

incense could pierce. Oh, laddie, laddie, wae is me that I hae seen

sic a veesion—waking or sleeping, it matters not! I was sair

distressed—so sair that I woke wi’ a shriek on my lips and bathed in

cold sweat. I would hae come doon to ye to see if you were hearty or

no—or even to listen at your door for any sound o’ yer being quick,

but that I feared to alarm ye till morn should come. I’ve counted

the hours and the minutes since midnight, when I saw the veesion,

till I came hither just the now.”

 

“Quite right, Aunt Janet,” I said, “and I thank you for your kind

thought for me in the matter, now and always.” Then I went on, for I

wanted to take precautions against the possibility of her discovery

of my secret. I could not bear to think that she might run my

precious secret to earth in any well-meant piece of bungling. That

would be to me disaster unbearable. She might frighten away

altogether my beautiful visitor, even whose name or origin I did not

know, and I might never see her again:

 

“You must never do that, Aunt Janet. You and I are too good friends

to have sense of distrust or annoyance come between us—which would

surely happen if I had to keep thinking that you or anyone else might

be watching me.”

 

RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.

April 27, 1907.

 

After a spell of loneliness which has seemed endless I have something

to write. When the void in my heart was becoming the receptacle for

many devils of suspicion and distrust I set myself a task which

might, I thought, keep my thoughts in part, at any rate, occupied—to

explore minutely the neighbourhood round the Castle. This might, I

hoped, serve as an anodyne to my pain of loneliness, which grew more

acute as the days, the hours, wore on, even if it should not

ultimately afford me some clue to the whereabouts of the woman whom I

had now grown to love so madly.

 

My exploration soon took a systematic form, as I intended that it

should be exhaustive. I would take every day a separate line of

advance from the Castle, beginning at the south and working round by

the east to the north. The first day only took me to the edge of the

creek, which I crossed in a boat, and landed at the base of the cliff

opposite. I found the cliffs alone worth a visit. Here and there

were openings to caves which I made up my mind to explore later. I

managed to climb up the cliff at a spot less beetling than the rest,

and continued my journey. It was, though very beautiful, not a

specially interesting place. I explored that spoke of the wheel of

which Vissarion was the hub, and got back just in time for dinner.

 

The next day I took a course slightly more to the eastward. I had no

difficulty in keeping a straight path, for, once I had rowed across

the creek, the old church of St. Sava rose before me in stately

gloom. This was the spot where many generations of the noblest of

the Land of the Blue Mountains had from time immemorial been laid to

rest, amongst them the Vissarions. Again, I found the opposite

cliffs pierced here and there with caves, some with wide openings,—

others the openings of which were partly above and partly below

water. I could, however, find no means of climbing the cliff at this

part, and had to make a long detour, following up the line of the

creek till further on I found a piece of beach from which ascent was

possible. Here I ascended, and found that I was on a line between

the Castle and the southern side of the mountains. I saw the church

of St. Sava away to my right, and not far from the edge of the cliff.

I made my way to it at once, for as yet I had never been near it.

Hitherto my excursions had been limited to the Castle and its many

gardens and surroundings. It was of a style with which I was not

familiar—with four wings to the points of the compass. The great

doorway, set in a magnificent frontage of carved stone of manifestly

ancient date, faced west, so that, when one entered, he went east.

To my surprise—for somehow I expected the contrary—I found the door

open. Not wide open, but what is called ajar—manifestly not locked

or barred, but not sufficiently open for one to look in. I entered,

and after passing through a wide vestibule, more like a section of a

corridor than an ostensible entrance, made my way through a spacious

doorway into the body of the church. The church itself was almost

circular, the openings of the four naves being spacious enough to

give the appearance of the interior as a whole, being a huge cross.

It was strangely dim, for the window openings were small and high-set, and were, moreover, filled with green or blue glass, each window

having a colour to itself. The glass was very old, being of the

thirteenth or fourteenth century. Such appointments as there were—

for it had a general air of desolation—were of great beauty and

richness,—especially so to be in a place—even a church—where the

door lay open, and no one was to be seen. It was strangely silent

even for an old church on a lonesome headland. There reigned a

dismal solemnity which seemed to chill me, accustomed as I have been

to strange and weird places. It seemed abandoned, though it had not

that air of having been neglected which is so often to be noticed in

old ‘churches. There was none of the everlasting accumulation of

dust which prevails in places of higher cultivation and larger and

more strenuous work.

 

In the church itself or its appending chambers I could find no clue

or suggestion which could guide me in any way in my search for the

Lady of the Shroud. Monuments there were in profusion—statues,

tablets, and all the customary memorials of the dead. The families

and dates represented were simply bewildering. Often the name of

Vissarion was given, and the inscription which it held I read through

carefully, looking to find some enlightenment of any kind. But all

in vain: there was nothing to see in the church itself. So I

determined to visit the crypt. I had no lantern or candle with me,

so had to go back to the Castle to secure one.

 

It was strange, coming in from the sunlight, here overwhelming to one

so recently accustomed to northern skies, to note the slender gleam

of the lantern which I carried, and which I had lit inside the door.

At my first entry to the church my mind had been so much taken up

with the strangeness of the place, together with the intensity of

wish for some sort of clue, that I had really no opportunity of

examining detail. But now detail became necessary, as I had to find

the entrance to the crypt. My puny light could not dissipate the

semi-Cimmerian gloom of the vast edifice; I had to throw the feeble

gleam into one after another of the dark corners.

 

At last I found, behind the great screen, a narrow stone staircase

which seemed to wind down into the rock. It was not in any way

secret, but being in the narrow space behind the great screen, was

not visible except when close to it. I knew I was now close to my

objective, and began to descend. Accustomed though I have been to

all sorts of mysteries and dangers, I felt awed and almost

overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness and desolation as I descended

the ancient winding steps. These were many in number, roughly hewn

of old in the solid rock on which the church was built.

 

I met a fresh surprise in finding that the door of the crypt was

open. After all, this was different from the church-door being open;

for in many places it is a custom to allow all comers at all times to

find rest and comfort in the sacred place. But I did expect that at

least the final resting-place of the historic dead would be held safe

against casual intrusion. Even I, on a quest which was very near my

heart, paused with an almost overwhelming sense of decorum before

passing through that open door. The crypt was a huge place,

strangely lofty for a vault. From its formation, however, I soon

came to the conclusion that it was originally a natural cavern

altered to its present purpose by the hand of man. I could hear

somewhere near the sound of running water, but I could not locate it.

Now and again at irregular intervals there was a prolonged booming,

which could only come from a wave breaking in a confined place. The

recollection then came to me of the proximity of the church to the

top of the beetling cliff, and of the half-sunk cavern entrances

which pierced it.

 

With the gleam of my lamp to guide me, I went through and round the

whole place. There were many massive tombs, mostly rough-hewn from

great slabs or blocks of stone. Some of them were marble, and the

cutting of all was ancient. So large and heavy were some of them

that it was a wonder to me how they could ever have been brought to

this place, to which the only entrance was seemingly the narrow,

tortuous stairway by which I had come. At last I saw near one end of

the crypt a great chain hanging. Turning the light upward, I found

that it depended from a ring set over a wide opening, evidently made

artificially. It must have been through this opening that the great

sarcophagi had been lowered.

 

Directly underneath the hanging chain, which did not come closer to

the ground than some eight or ten feet, was a huge tomb in the shape

of a rectangular coffer or sarcophagus. It was open, save for a huge

sheet of thick glass which rested above it on two thick balks of dark

oak, cut to exceeding smoothness, which lay across it, one at either

end. On the far side from where I stood each of these was joined to

another oak plank, also cut smooth, which sloped gently to the rocky

floor. Should it be necessary to open the tomb, the glass could be

made to slide along the supports and descend by the sloping planks.

 

Naturally curious to know what might be within such a strange

receptacle, I raised the lantern, depressing its lens so that the

light might fall within.

 

Then I started back with a cry, the lantern slipping from my

nerveless hand and falling with a ringing sound on the great sheet of

thick glass.

 

Within, pillowed on soft cushions, and covered with a mantle woven of

white natural fleece sprigged with tiny sprays of pine wrought in

gold, lay the body of a woman—none other than my beautiful visitor.

She was marble white, and her long black eyelashes lay on her white

cheeks as though she slept.

 

Without a word or a sound, save the sounds made by