The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins – Chapter 20

‘Shall I see you again?’ she asked, as she held out her hand to take leave. ‘It is quite understood between us, I suppose, about the play?’

Francis recalled his extraordinary experience of that evening in the re-numbered room. ‘My stay in Venice is uncertain,’ he replied. ‘If you have anything more to say about this dramatic venture of yours, it may be as well to say it now. Have you decided on a subject already? I know the public taste in England better than you do—I might save you some waste of time and trouble, if you have not chosen your subject wisely.’

‘I don’t care what subject I write about, so long as I write,’ she answered carelessly. ‘If you have got a subject in your head, give it to me. I answer for the characters and the dialogue.’

‘You answer for the characters and the dialogue,’ Francis repeated. ‘That’s a bold way of speaking for a beginner! I wonder if I should shake your sublime confidence in yourself, if I suggested the most ticklish subject to handle which is known to the stage? What do you say, Countess, to entering the lists with Shakespeare, and trying a drama with a ghost in it? A true story, mind! founded on events in this very city in which you and I are interested.’

She caught him by the arm, and drew him away from the crowded colonnade into the solitary middle space of the square. ‘Now tell me!’ she said eagerly. ‘Here, where nobody is near us. How am I interested in it? How? how?’

Still holding his arm, she shook him in her impatience to hear the coming disclosure. For a moment he hesitated. Thus far, amused by her ignorant belief in herself, he had merely spoken in jest. Now, for the first time, impressed by her irresistible earnestness, he began to consider what he was about from a more serious point of view. With her knowledge of all that had passed in the old palace, before its transformation into an hotel, it was surely possible that she might suggest some explanation of what had happened to his brother, and sister, and himself. Or, failing to do this, she might accidentally reveal some event in her own experience which, acting as a hint to a competent dramatist, might prove to be the making of a play. The prosperity of his theatre was his one serious object in life. ‘I may be on the trace of another “Corsican Brothers,”‘ he thought. ‘A new piece of that sort would be ten thousand pounds in my pocket, at least.’

With these motives (worthy of the single-hearted devotion to dramatic business which made Francis a successful manager) he related, without further hesitation, what his own experience had been, and what the experience of his relatives had been, in the haunted hotel. He even described the outbreak of superstitious terror which had escaped Mrs. Norbury’s ignorant maid. ‘Sad stuff, if you look at it reasonably,’ he remarked. ‘But there is something dramatic in the notion of the ghostly influence making itself felt by the relations in succession, as they one after another enter the fatal room—until the one chosen relative comes who will see the Unearthly Creature, and know the terrible truth. Material for a play, Countess—first-rate material for a play!’

There he paused. She neither moved nor spoke. He stooped and looked closer at her.

What impression had he produced? It was an impression which his utmost ingenuity had failed to anticipate. She stood by his side—just as she had stood before Agnes when her question about Ferrari was plainly answered at last—like a woman turned to stone. Her eyes were vacant and rigid; all the life in her face had faded out of it. Francis took her by the hand. Her hand was as cold as the pavement that they were standing on. He asked her if she was ill.

Not a muscle in her moved. He might as well have spoken to the dead.

‘Surely,’ he said, ‘you are not foolish enough to take what I have been telling you seriously?’

Her lips moved slowly. As it seemed, she was making an effort to speak to him.

‘Louder,’ he said. ‘I can’t hear you.’

She struggled to recover possession of herself. A faint light began to soften the dull cold stare of her eyes. In a moment more she spoke so that he could hear her.

‘I never thought of the other world,’ she murmured, in low dull tones, like a woman talking in her sleep.

Her mind had gone back to the day of her last memorable interview with Agnes; she was slowly recalling the confession that had escaped her, the warning words which she had spoken at that past time. Necessarily incapable of understanding this, Francis looked at her in perplexity. She went on in the same dull vacant tone, steadily following out her own train of thought, with her heedless eyes on his face, and her wandering mind far away from him.

‘I said some trifling event would bring us together the next time. I was wrong. No trifling event will bring us together. I said I might be the person who told her what had become of Ferrari, if she forced me to it. Shall I feel some other influence than hers? Will he force me to it? When she sees him, shall I see him too?’

Her head sank a little; her heavy eyelids dropped slowly; she heaved a long low weary sigh. Francis put her arm in his, and made an attempt to rouse her.

‘Come, Countess, you are weary and over-wrought. We have had enough talking to-night. Let me see you safe back to your hotel. Is it far from here?’

She started when he moved, and obliged her to move with him, as if he had suddenly awakened her out of a deep sleep.

‘Not far,’ she said faintly. ‘The old hotel on the quay. My mind’s in a strange state; I have forgotten the name.’

‘Danieli’s?’

‘Yes!’

He led her on slowly. She accompanied him in silence as far as the end of the Piazzetta. There, when the full view of the moonlit Lagoon revealed itself, she stopped him as he turned towards the Riva degli Schiavoni. ‘I have something to ask you. I want to wait and think.’

She recovered her lost idea, after a long pause.

‘Are you going to sleep in the room to-night?’ she asked.

He told her that another traveller was in possession of the room that night. ‘But the manager has reserved it for me to-morrow,’ he added, ‘if I wish to have it.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You must give it up.’

‘To whom?’

‘To me!’

He started. ‘After what I have told you, do you really wish to sleep in that room to-morrow night?’

‘I must sleep in it.’

‘Are you not afraid?’

‘I am horribly afraid.’

‘So I should have thought, after what I have observed in you to-night. Why should you take the room? You are not obliged to occupy it, unless you like.’

‘I was not obliged to go to Venice, when I left America,’ she answered. ‘And yet I came here. I must take the room, and keep the room, until—’ She broke off at those words. ‘Never mind the rest,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t interest you.’

It was useless to dispute with her. Francis changed the subject. ‘We can do nothing to-night,’ he said. ‘I will call on you to-morrow morning, and hear what you think of it then.’

They moved on again to the hotel. As they approached the door, Francis asked if she was staying in Venice under her own name.

She shook her head. ‘As your brother’s widow, I am known here. As Countess Narona, I am known here. I want to be unknown, this time, to strangers in Venice; I am travelling under a common English name.’ She hesitated, and stood still. ‘What has come to me?’ she muttered to herself. ‘Some things I remember; and some I forget. I forgot Danieli’s—and now I forget my English name.’ She drew him hurriedly into the hall of the hotel, on the wall of which hung a list of visitors’ names. Running her finger slowly down the list, she pointed to the English name that she had assumed:—’Mrs. James.’

‘Remember that when you call to-morrow,’ she said. ‘My head is heavy. Good night.’

Francis went back to his own hotel, wondering what the events of the next day would bring forth. A new turn in his affairs had taken place in his absence. As he crossed the hall, he was requested by one of the servants to walk into the private office. The manager was waiting there with a gravely pre-occupied manner, as if he had something serious to say. He regretted to hear that Mr. Francis Westwick had, like other members of the family, discovered serious sources of discomfort in the new hotel. He had been informed in strict confidence of Mr. Westwick’s extraordinary objection to the atmosphere of the bedroom upstairs. Without presuming to discuss the matter, he must beg to be excused from reserving the room for Mr. Westwick after what had happened.

Francis answered sharply, a little ruffled by the tone in which the manager had spoken to him. ‘I might, very possibly, have declined to sleep in the room, if you had reserved it,’ he said. ‘Do you wish me to leave the hotel?’

The manager saw the error that he had committed, and hastened to repair it. ‘Certainly not, sir! We will do our best to make you comfortable while you stay with us. I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to offend you. The reputation of an establishment like this is a matter of very serious importance. May I hope that you will do us the great favour to say nothing about what has happened upstairs? The two French gentlemen have kindly promised to keep it a secret.’

This apology left Francis no polite alternative but to grant the manager’s request. ‘There is an end to the Countess’s wild scheme,’ he thought to himself, as he retired for the night. ‘So much the better for the Countess!’

He rose late the next morning. Inquiring for his Parisian friends, he was informed that both the French gentlemen had left for Milan. As he crossed the hall, on his way to the restaurant, he noticed the head porter chalking the numbers of the rooms on some articles of luggage which were waiting to go upstairs. One trunk attracted his attention by the extraordinary number of old travelling labels left on it. The porter was marking it at the moment—and the number was, ’13 A.’ Francis instantly looked at the card fastened on the lid. It bore the common English name, ‘Mrs. James’! He at once inquired about the lady. She had arrived early that morning, and she was then in the Reading Room. Looking into the room, he discovered a lady in it alone. Advancing a little nearer, he found himself face to face with the Countess.

She was seated in a dark corner, with her head down and her arms crossed over her bosom. ‘Yes,’ she said, in a tone of weary impatience, before Francis could speak to her. ‘I thought it best not to wait for you—I determined to get here before anybody else could take the room.’

‘Have you taken it for long?’ Francis asked.

‘You told me Miss Lockwood would be here in a week’s time. I have taken it for a week.’

‘What has Miss Lockwood to do with it?’

‘She has everything to do with it—she must sleep in the room. I shall give the room up to her when she comes here.’

Francis began to understand the superstitious purpose that she had in view. ‘Are you (an educated woman) really of the same opinion as my sister’s maid!’ he exclaimed. ‘Assuming your absurd superstition to be a serious thing, you are taking the wrong means to prove it true. If I and my brother and sister have seen nothing, how should Agnes Lockwood discover what was not revealed to us? She is only distantly related to the Montbarrys—she is only our cousin.’

‘She was nearer to the heart of the Montbarry who is dead than any of you,’ the Countess answered sternly. ‘To the last day of his life, my miserable husband repented his desertion of her. She will see what none of you have seen—she shall have the room.’

Francis listened, utterly at a loss to account for the motives that animated her. ‘I don’t see what interest you have in trying this extraordinary experiment,’ he said.

‘It is my interest not to try it! It is my interest to fly from Venice, and never set eyes on Agnes Lockwood or any of your family again!’

‘What prevents you from doing that?’

She started to her feet and looked at him wildly. ‘I know no more what prevents me than you do!’ she burst out. ‘Some will that is stronger than mine drives me on to my destruction, in spite of my own self!’ She suddenly sat down again, and waved her hand for him to go. ‘Leave me,’ she said. ‘Leave me to my thoughts.’

Francis left her, firmly persuaded by this time that she was out of her senses. For the rest of the day, he saw nothing of her. The night, so far as he knew, passed quietly. The next morning he breakfasted early, determining to wait in the restaurant for the appearance of the Countess. She came in and ordered her breakfast quietly, looking dull and worn and self-absorbed, as she had looked when he last saw her. He hastened to her table, and asked if anything had happened in the night.

‘Nothing,’ she answered.

‘You have rested as well as usual?’

‘Quite as well as usual. Have you had any letters this morning? Have you heard when she is coming?’

‘I have had no letters. Are you really going to stay here? Has your experience of last night not altered the opinion which you expressed to me yesterday?’

‘Not in the least.’

The momentary gleam of animation which had crossed her face when she questioned him about Agnes, died out of it again when he answered her. She looked, she spoke, she ate her breakfast, with a vacant resignation, like a woman who had done with hopes, done with interests, done with everything but the mechanical movements and instincts of life.

Francis went out, on the customary travellers’ pilgrimage to the shrines of Titian and Tintoret. After some hours of absence, he found a letter waiting for him when he got back to the hotel. It was written by his brother Henry, and it recommended him to return to Milan immediately. The proprietor of a French theatre, recently arrived from Venice, was trying to induce the famous dancer whom Francis had engaged to break faith with him and accept a higher salary.

Having made this startling announcement, Henry proceeded to inform his brother that Lord and Lady Montbarry, with Agnes and the children, would arrive in Venice in three days more. ‘They know nothing of our adventures at the hotel,’ Henry wrote; ‘and they have telegraphed to the manager for the accommodation that they want. There would be something absurdly superstitious in our giving them a warning which would frighten the ladies and children out of the best hotel in Venice. We shall be a strong party this time—too strong a party for ghosts! I shall meet the travellers on their arrival, of course, and try my luck again at what you call the Haunted Hotel. Arthur Barville and his wife have already got as far on their way as Trent; and two of the lady’s relations have arranged to accompany them on the journey to Venice.’

Naturally indignant at the conduct of his Parisian colleague, Francis made his preparations for returning to Milan by the train of that day.

On his way out, he asked the manager if his brother’s telegram had been received. The telegram had arrived, and, to the surprise of Francis, the rooms were already reserved. ‘I thought you would refuse to let any more of the family into the house,’ he said satirically. The manager answered (with the due dash of respect) in the same tone. ‘Number 13 A is safe, sir, in the occupation of a stranger. I am the servant of the Company; and I dare not turn money out of the hotel.’

Hearing this, Francis said good-bye—and said nothing more. He was ashamed to acknowledge it to himself, but he felt an irresistible curiosity to know what would happen when Agnes arrived at the hotel. Besides, ‘Mrs. James’ had reposed a confidence in him. He got into his gondola, respecting the confidence of ‘Mrs. James.’

 

Towards evening on the third day, Lord Montbarry and his travelling companions arrived, punctual to their appointment.

‘Mrs. James,’ sitting at the window of her room watching for them, saw the new Lord land from the gondola first. He handed his wife to the steps. The three children were next committed to his care. Last of all, Agnes appeared in the little black doorway of the gondola cabin, and, taking Lord Montbarry’s hand, passed in her turn to the steps. She wore no veil. As she ascended to the door of the hotel, the Countess (eyeing her through an opera-glass) noticed that she paused to look at the outside of the building, and that her face was very pale.

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