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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
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RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
WE were on our way from Northern Germany to Paris, my wife and I.
The day's journey had proved so fatiguing that the thought of its continuance through the night was unbearable to us both, so we decided to stop at the next town, seek better conveniences for repose than our railway coach afforded, and again pursue our journey in the morning.
"But where shall we stop?" asked my wife, for our travelled friends in bequeathing us the legacy of their European experience had left us the address of no lodging in this little town.
"Perhaps the guide-book will help us out," I suggested.
Somewhat to my surprise, the guide-book mentioned our out-of-the-way town and named its dozen of hotels and pensions. One of the latter we chose.
It was still light when we reached the border of France and drew into our station.
Here there were several liveried men, with the names of their respective hotels lettered across the fronts of their caps, and throwing open the doors of their conveyances with great flourish of hospitality.
There were more unliveried men who thronged about us, each manifesting the utmost eagerness to relieve us of our luggage.
To one of these I surrendered our bags and gave him the address to which he should take them.
We had not far to follow him. He took us through a turn in the road and soon deposited our bags upon the threshold of our lodging.
Here we were beamingly received by the proprietor of the pension, much, indeed, as if we were long-looked-for guests.
Madame wore an old black silk dress, which still bore the stamp of its Parisian origin. She carried a bunch of keys which she jingled as she talked.
Yes, madame had rooms—two of them—there was a large one with a smaller one adjoining. She would show them to us.
Very modest-appearing apartments they were that we were shown into, yet upon the subject of their paperings and unstable upholstery madame was eloquent. I managed to understand the drift of her discourse, madame's expressive gestures explaining much of her fluent French, but what was this about "les cheveux blonde, le clair de la lune," and "le parfum des fleurs"?
"What does she say?" asked my wife.
"Oh, something about yellow hair and moonlight and flowers," I somewhat confusedly interpreted.
What could madame mean? But that lady was now bowing herself away before her admiring audience, and a small boy bearing our baggage entered and left it on the floor.
I looked at my wife.
"Evidently, they mean us to have these rooms," I said.
My wife did not answer. Suddenly she began:
"'Long ago a beautiful maiden occupied this chamber; and here her lover was in the habit of visiting her, bringing with him bouquets of heliotrope, the maiden's favourite flower. One day, as she rested upon a couch awaiting his arrival her lover stole in and presented her with a bouquet. As the maiden bent her head to inhale the fragrance, her false lover thrust a dagger in her neck and fled, pulling down her long hair over the wound.
"'The room is said to be still the scene of the maiden's visitation.'"
In the course of our travels I had become used to my wife's random readings from the guide-book.
She now looked up from the book.
"This room!" she explained with enthusiasm.
"She must have been a young woman of uncommonly bad taste to have occupied this room," I remarked. "I should judge it to have been the cause of her death, but for the contrary evidence of history."
But the romantic tale in connection with our chamber must have excited my wife's imagination, for she sat upon the little lounge and gazed out on the gathering dusk until the moonlight began to cast faint shadows upon the lawn below.
"How delightful it would be to meet a ghost," mused my wife.
I did not want to seem unsympathetic, so I stifled a yawn, and, with all the interest I could summon, responded. "Yes."
"If you should display such animation on meeting one I'm sure the ghost would cut you immediately after the introduction."
With this rejoinder my wife took one of the candles I had lit and carried it to her room.
I was soon asleep.
IN the night I woke and found my room flooded with moonlight. A ray from the moon had probably fallen upon my face and wakened me; that, or something else.
What?
I turned uneasily in my bed. My mind seemed possessed with a strange idea; someone was in the room.
I was conscious of a subtle fragrance permeating the air; it was the odour of heliotrope. I recalled the story of the guide-book, and I instinctively turned my eyes to the couch by the window.
It was a woman!
A woman resting on the couch, the moonlight falling upon her white dress and on her long light hair that hung on the floor.
I tried to take my eyes from the strange sight, half-believing that if I did so it would fade away, and by an effort I managed to turn from it to the wall.
But I could not remain so. My eyes again sought the sight that had startled them; yes, still that moonlit mass of hair, still the white drapery trailing on the floor.
I had just nerved myself to rise when I sunk back again on my bed, for there was a movement upon the couch. The figure stood for a moment as if in hesitancy, and then softly and rapidly moved towards my wife's room.
I sprang up, though without a thought to my proceedings.
With a curious revulsion of feeling I realised that I was not afraid.
I gazed in passive confusion at the figure entering my wife's room.
I seemed to be awaiting some climax. My mind struggled with an indefinable idea I had conceived. I waited in expectancy.
I kept my eyes upon the phantom all the time; it had now reached my wife's bed.
But my wife did not lie there.
The idea that had so feebly chained my thought now seized me with conviction; my eyes at once travelled from the empty pillow to the figure beside the bed—none other than my wife!
As she turned to take her place among the covers her eyes gazed straight ahead, but seemed to see nothing.
The truth flashed upon me—my wife was asleep. Leaving her quietly I went back to my bed.
THE next morning I stood by the little couch, the sun's rays mercilessly exposing every rip and threadbare spot.
How different do things appear in the daylight of common-sense than in the moonlight of imagination.
My wife came in and I told her the story.
"I am certain, though," said I, when I had done, "that I distinctly smelled heliotrope in the room."
"So you did, undoubtedly, and shall again," said my wife, meaningly, as we left our rooms, followed by the man with our bags.
In the garden below was madame watering her flowers. I smiled at my wife's knowingness, as my eye fell upon the bed of heliotrope, flourishing near the window of the room I had occupied.
The night dews had made their odour stronger, and it was the flowers I had smelled.
Half an hour later we had resumed our journey, my wife with a bit of heliotrope between the leaves of her guide-book.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.