The Lady of the Shroud, Bram Stoker [most life changing books .txt] 📗
- Author: Bram Stoker
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passionate love which surged through my every vein as I strained her
dear body to mine. But yet this embrace was not selfish; it was not
all an expression of my own passion. It was based on pity—the pity
which is twin-born with true love. Breathless from our kisses, when
presently we released each other, she stood in a glorious rapture,
like a white spirit in the moonlight, and as her lovely, starlit eyes
seemed to devour me, she spoke in a languorous ecstasy:
“Oh, how you love me! how you love me! It is worth all I have gone
through for this, even to wearing this terrible drapery.” And again
she pointed to her shroud.
Here was my chance to speak of what I knew, and I took it. “I know,
I know. Moreover, I know that awful resting-place.”
I was interrupted, cut short in the midst of my sentence, not by any
word, but by the frightened look in her eyes and the fear-mastered
way in which she shrank away from me. I suppose in reality she could
not be paler than she looked when the colour-absorbing moonlight fell
on her; but on the instant all semblance of living seemed to shrink
and fall away, and she looked with eyes of dread as if in I some
awful way held in thrall. But for the movement of the pitiful
glance, she would have seemed of soulless marble, so deadly cold did
she look.
The moments that dragged themselves out whilst I waited for her to
speak seemed endless. At length her words came in an awed whisper,
so faint that even in that stilly night I could hardly hear it:
“You know—you know my resting-place! How—when was that?” There
was nothing to do now but to speak out the truth:
“I was in the crypt of St. Sava. It was all by accident. I was
exploring all around the Castle, and I went there in my course. I
found the winding stair in the rock behind the screen, and went down.
Dear, I loved you well before that awful moment, but then, even as
the lantern fell tingling on the glass, my love multiplied itself,
with pity as a factor.” She was silent for a few seconds. When she
spoke, there was a new tone in her voice:
“But were you not shocked?”
“Of course I was,” I answered on the spur of the moment, and I now
think wisely. “Shocked is hardly the word. I was horrified beyond
anything that words can convey that you—YOU should have to so
endure! I did not like to return, for I feared lest my doing so
might set some barrier between us. But in due time I did return on
another day.”
“Well?” Her voice was like sweet music.
“I had another shock that time, worse than before, for you were not
there. Then indeed it was that I knew to myself how dear you were—
how dear you are to me. Whilst I live, you—living or dead—shall
always be in my heart.” She breathed hard. The elation in her eyes
made them outshine the moonlight, but she said no word. I went on:
“My dear, I had come into the crypt full of courage and hope, though
I knew what dreadful sight should sear my eyes once again. But we
little know what may be in store for us, no matter what we expect. I
went out with a heart like water from that dreadful desolation.”
“Oh, how you love me, dear!” Cheered by her words, and even more by
her tone, I went on with renewed courage. There was no halting, no
faltering in my intention now:
“You and I, my dear, were ordained for each other. I cannot help it
that you had already suffered before I knew you. It may be that
there may be for you still suffering that I may not prevent,
endurance that I may not shorten; but what a man can do is yours.
Not Hell itself will stop me, if it be possible that I may win
through its torments with you in my arms!”
“Will nothing stop you, then?” Her question was breathed as softly
as the strain of an AEolian harp.
“Nothing!” I said, and I heard my own teeth snap together. There was
something speaking within me stronger than I had ever known myself to
be. Again came a query, trembling, quavering, quivering, as though
the issue was of more than life or death:
“Not this?” She held up a corner of the shroud, and as she saw my
face and realized the answer before I spoke, went on: “With all it
implies?”
“Not if it were wrought of the cerecloths of the damned!” There was
a long pause. Her voice was more resolute when she spoke again. It
rang. Moreover, there was in it a joyous note, as of one who feels
new hope:
“But do you know what men say? Some of them, that I am dead and
buried; others, that I am not only dead and buried, but that I am one
of those unhappy beings that may not die the common death of man.
Who live on a fearful life-in-death, whereby they are harmful to all.
Those unhappy Un-dead whom men call Vampires—who live on the blood
of the living, and bring eternal damnation as well as death with the
poison of their dreadful kisses!
“I know what men say sometimes,” I answered. “But I know also what
my own heart says; and I rather choose to obey its calling than all
the voices of the living or the dead. Come what may, I am pledged to
you. If it be that your old life has to be rewon for you out of the
very jaws of Death and Hell, I shall keep the faith I have pledged,
and that here I pledge again!” As I finished speaking I sank on my
knees at her feet, and, putting my arms round her, drew her close to
me. Her tears rained down on my face as she stroked my hair with her
soft, strong hand and whispered to me:
“This is indeed to be one. What more holy marriage can God give to
any of His creatures?” We were both silent for a time.
I think I was the first to recover my senses. That I did so was
manifest by my asking her: “When may we meet again?”—a thing I had
never remembered doing at any of our former partings. She answered
with a rising and falling of the voice that was just above a whisper,
as soft and cooing as the voice of a pigeon:
“That will be soon—as soon as I can manage it, be sure. My dear, my
dear!” The last four words of endearment she spoke in a low but
prolonged and piercing tone which made me thrill with delight.
“Give me some token,” I said, “that I may have always close to me to
ease my aching heart till we meet again, and ever after, for love’s
sake!” Her mind seemed to leap to understanding, and with a purpose
all her own. Stooping for an instant, she tore off with swift,
strong fingers a fragment of her shroud. This, having kissed it, she
handed to me, whispering:
“It is time that we part. You must leave me now. Take this, and
keep it for ever. I shall be less unhappy in my terrible loneliness
whilst it lasts if I know that this my gift, which for good or ill is
a part of me as you know me, is close to you. It may be, my very
dear, that some day you may be glad and even proud of this hour, as I
am.” She kissed me as I took it.
“For life or death, I care not which, so long as I am with you!” I
said, as I moved off. Descending the Jacob’s ladder, I made my way
down the rock-hewn passage.
The last thing I saw was the beautiful face of my Lady of the Shroud
as she leaned over the edge of the opening. Her eyes were like
glowing stars as her looks followed me. That look shall never fade
from my memory.
After a few agitating moments of thought I half mechanically took my
way down to the garden. Opening the grille, I entered my lonely
room, which looked all the more lonely for the memory of the
rapturous moments under the Flagstaff. I went to bed as one in a
dream. There I lay till sunrise—awake and thinking.
RUPERT’S JOURNAL—Continued.
June 20, 1907.
The time has gone as quickly as work can effect since I saw my Lady.
As I told the mountaineers, Rooke, whom I had sent on the service,
had made a contract for fifty thousand Ingis-Malbron rifles, and as
many tons of ammunition as the French experts calculated to be a full
supply for a year of warfare. I heard from him by our secret
telegraph code that the order had been completed, and that the goods
were already on the way. The morning after the meeting at the
Flagstaff I had word that at night the vessel—one chartered by Rooke
for the purpose—would arrive at Vissarion during the night. We were
all expectation. I had always now in the Castle a signalling party,
the signals being renewed as fast as the men were sufficiently expert
to proceed with their practice alone or in groups. We hoped that
every fighting-man in the country would in time become an expert
signaller. Beyond these, again, we have always a few priests. The
Church of the country is a militant Church; its priests are soldiers,
its Bishops commanders. But they all serve wherever the battle most
needs them. Naturally they, as men of brains, are quicker at
learning than the average mountaineers; with the result that they
learnt the code and the signalling almost by instinct. We have now
at least one such expert in each community of them, and shortly the
priests alone will be able to signal, if need be, for the nation;
thus releasing for active service the merely fighting-man. The men
at present with me I took into confidence as to the vessel’s arrival,
and we were all ready for work when the man on the lookout at the
Flagstaff sent word that a vessel without lights was creeping in
towards shore. We all assembled on the rocky edge of the creek, and
saw her steal up the creek and gain the shelter of the harbour. When
this had been effected, we ran out the boom which protects the
opening, and after that the great armoured sliding-gates which Uncle
Roger had himself had made so as to protect the harbour in case of
need.
We then came within and assisted in warping the steamer to the side
of the dock.
Rooke looked fit, and was full of fire and vigour. His
responsibility and the mere thought of warlike action seemed to have
renewed his youth.
When we had arranged for the unloading of the cases of arms and
ammunition, I took Rooke into the room which we call my “office,”
where he gave me an account of his doings. He had not only secured
the rifles and the ammunition for them, but he had purchased from one
of the small American Republics an armoured yacht which had been
especially built for war service. He grew quite enthusiastic, even
excited, as he told me of her:
“She is the last word in naval construction—a torpedo yacht. A
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