The butler received a note from Lord Newhaven the morning after his
death, mentioning the train by which he should return to Westhope that
day, and ordering a carriage to meet him. A great doctor made public the
fact that Lord Newhaven had consulted him the day before about the
attacks of vertigo from which it appeared he had suffered of late. A
similar attack seemed to have seized upon him while waiting at Clapham
Junction when the down express thundered past. The few who saw him said
that, as he was pacing the empty platform, he staggered suddenly as the
train was sweeping up behind him, put his hand to his head, and stumbled
over the edge on to the line. Death was instantaneous. Only his wife and
one other woman knew that it was premeditated.
"The only thing I cannot understand about it," said Rachel to herself,
"is why a man, who from first to last could act with such caution, and
with such deliberate determination, should have been two days late. The
twenty-ninth of November was the last day of the five months, and he
died on the afternoon of December the first. Why did he wait two days
after he left Westhope? I should have thought he would have been the
last man in the world to overstep the allotted time by so much as an
hour. Yet, nevertheless, he waited two whole days. I don't understand
it."
After an interminable interval Lord Newhaven's luggage returned, the
familiar portmanteau and dressing-bag, and even the novel which he was
reading when he left Westhope, with the mark still in it. All came back.
And a coffin came back, too, and was laid before the little altar in the
disused chapel.
"I will go and pray for him in the chapel as soon as the lid is fastened
down," said Lady Newhaven to Rachel, "but I dare not before. I can't
believe he is really dead. And they say somebody ought to look, just to
verify. I know it is always done. Dear Rachel, would you mind?"
So Rachel, familiar with death, as all are who have known poverty or who
have loved their fellows, went alone into the chapel, and stood a long
time looking down upon the muffled figure, the garment of flesh which
the soul had so deliberately rent and flung aside.
The face was fixed in a grave attention, as of one who sees that which
he awaits. The sarcasm, the weariness, the indifference, the impatient
patience, these were gone, these were indeed dead. The sharp, thin face
knew them no more. It looked intently, unflinchingly through its
half-closed eyes into the beyond which some call death, which some call
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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