Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1577 page)

I hastened round to the convent gate and rang impatiently at the bell — waited a little while and rang again — then heard footsteps.

In the middle of the gate, just opposite my face, there was a small sliding panel, not more than a few inches long; this was presently pushed aside from within. I saw, through a bit of iron grating, two dull, light gray eyes staring vacantly at me, and heard a feeble husky voice saying:

“What may you please to want?’

“I am a traveler — ” I began.

“We live in a miserable place. We have nothing to show travelers here.”

“I don’t come to see anything. I have an important question to ask, which I believe some one in this convent will be able to answer. If you are not willing to let me in, at least come out and speak to me here.”

“Are you alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“Are there no women with you?”

“None.”

The gate was slowly unbarred, and an old Capuchin, very infirm, very suspicious, and very dirty, stood before me. I was far too excited and impatient to waste any time in prefatory phrases; so, telling the monk at once how I had looked through the hole in the outhouse, and what I had seen inside, I asked him, in plain terms, who the man had been whose corpse I had beheld, and why the body was left unburied?

The old Capuchin listened to me with watery eyes that twinkled suspiciously. He had a battered tin snuff-box in his hand, and his finger and thumb slowly chased a few scattered grains of snuff round and round the inside of the box all the time I was speaking. When I had done, he shook his head and said: “That was certainly an ugly sight in their outhouse; one of the ugliest sights, he felt sure, that ever I had seen in all my life!”

“I don’t want to talk of the sight,” I rejoined, impatiently; “I want to know who the man was, how he died, and why he is not decently buried. Can you tell me?”

The monk’s finger and thumb having captured three or four grains of snuff at last, he slowly drew them into his nostrils, holding the box open under his nose the while, to prevent the possibility of wasting even one grain, sniffed once or twice luxuriously — closed the box — then looked at me again with his eyes watering and twinkling more suspiciously than before.

“Yes,” said the monk, “that’s an ugly sight in our outhouse — a very ugly sight, certainly!”

I never had more difficulty in keeping my temper in my life than at that moment. I succeeded, however, in repressing a very disrespectful expression on the subject of monks in general, which was on the tip of my tongue, and made another attempt to conquer the old man’s exasperating reserve. Fortunately for my chances of succeeding with him, I was a snuff-taker myself, and I had a box full of excellent English snuff in my pocket, which I now produced as a bribe. It was my last resource.

“I thought your box seemed empty just now,” said I; “will you try a pinch out of mine?”

The offer was accepted with an almost youthful alacrity of gesture. The Capuchin took the largest pinch I ever saw held between any man’s finger and thumb — inhaled it slowly without spilling a single grain — half closed his eyes — and, wagging his head gently, patted me paternally on the back.

“Oh, my son,” said the monk, “what delectable snuff! Oh, my son and amiable traveler, give the spiritual father who loves you yet another tiny, tiny pinch!”

“Let me fill your box for you. I shall have plenty left for myself.”

The battered tin snuff-box was given to me before I had done speaking; the paternal hand patted my back more approvingly than ever; the feeble, husky voice grew glib and eloquent in my praise. I had evidently found out the weak side of the old Capuchin, and, on returning him his box, I took instant advantage of the discovery.

“Excuse my troubling you on the subject again,” I said, “but I have particular reasons for wanting to hear all that you can tell me in explanation of that horrible sight in the outhouse.”

“Come in,” answered the monk.

He drew me inside the gate, closed it, and then leading the way across a grass-grown courtyard, looking out on a weedy kitchen-garden, showed me into a long room with a low ceiling, a dirty dresser, a few rudely-carved stall seats, and one or two grim, mildewed pictures for ornaments. This was the sacristy.

“There’s nobody here, and it’s nice and cool,” said the old Capuchin. It was so damp that I actually shivered. “Would you like to see the church?” said the monk; “a jewel of a church, if we could keep it in repair; but we can’t. Ah! malediction and misery, we are too poor to keep our church in repair!”

Here he shook his head and began fumbling with a large bunch of keys.

“Never mind the church now,” said I. “Can you, or can you not, tell me what I want to know?”

“Everything, from beginning to end — absolutely everything. Why, I answered the gate-bell — I always answer the gate-bell here,” said the Capuchin.

“What, in Heaven’s name, has the gate-bell to do with the unburied corpse in your house?”

“Listen, son of mine, and you shall know. Some time ago — some months — ah! me, I’m old; I’ve lost my memory; I don’t know how many months — ah! miserable me, what a very old, old monk I am!” Here he comforted himself with another pinch of snuff.

“Never mind the exact time,” said I. “I don’t care about that.”

“Good,” said the Capuchin. “Now I can go on. Well, let us say it is some months ago — we in this convent are all at breakfast — wretched, wretched breakfasts, son of mine, in this convent! — we are at breakfast, and we hear
bang! bang!
twice over. ‘Guns,’ says I. ‘What are they shooting for?’ says Brother Jeremy. ‘Game,’ says Brother Vincent. ‘Aha! game,’ says Brother Jeremy. ‘If I hear more, I shall send out and discover what it means,’ says the father superior. We hear no more, and we go on with our wretched breakfasts.”

“Where did the report of firearms come from?” I inquired.

“From down below — beyond the big trees at the back of the convent, where there’s some clear ground — nice ground, if it wasn’t for the pools and puddles. But, ah! misery, how damp we are in these parts! how very, very damp!”

“Well, what happened after the report of firearms?”

“You shall hear. We are still at breakfast, all silent — for what have we to talk about here? What have we but our devotions, our kitchen-garden, and our wretched, wretched bits of breakfasts and dinners? I say we are all silent, when there comes suddenly such a ring at the bell as never was heard before — a very devil of a ring — a ring that caught us all with our bits — our wretched, wretched bits! — in our mouths, and stopped us before we could swallow them. ‘Go, brother of mine,’ says the father superior to me, ‘go; it is your duty — go to the gate.’ I am brave — a very lion of a Capuchin. I slip out on tiptoe — I wait — I listen — I pull back our little shutter in the gate — I wait, I listen again — I peep through the hole — nothing, absolutely nothing that I can see. I am brave — I am not to be daunted. What do I do next? I open the gate. Ah! sacred Mother of Heaven, what do I behold lying all along our threshold? A man — dead! — a big man; bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than anybody in this convent — buttoned up tight in a fine coat, with black eyes, staring, staring up at the sky, and blood soaking through and through the front of his shirt. What do I do? I scream once — I scream twice — and run back to the father superior!”

All the particulars of the fatal duel which I had gleaned from the French newspaper in Monkton’s room at Naples recurred vividly to my memory. The suspicion that I had felt when I looked into the outhouse became a certainty as I listened to the old monk’s last words.

“So far I understand,” said I. “The corpse I have just seen in the outhouse is the corpse of the man whom you found dead outside your gate. Now tell me why you have not given the remains decent burial.”

“Wait — wait — wait,” answered the Capuchin. “The father superior hears me scream and comes out; we all run together to the gate; we lift up the big man and look at him close. Dead! dead as this (smacking the dresser with his hand). We look again, and see a bit of paper pinned to the collar of his coat. Aha! son of mine, you start at that. I thought I should make you start at last.”

I had started, indeed. That paper was doubtless the leaf mentioned in the second’s unfinished narrative as having been torn out of his pocketbook, and inscribed with the statement of how the dead man had lost his life. If proof positive were wanted to identify the dead body, here was such proof found.

“What do you think was written on the bit of paper?” continued the Capuchin “We read and shudder. This dead man has been killed in a duel — he, the desperate, the miserable, has died in the commission of mortal sin; and the men who saw the killing of him ask us Capuchins, holy men, servants of Heaven, children of our lord the Pope — they ask
us
to give him burial! Oh! but we are outraged when we read that; we groan, we wring our hands, we turn away, we tear our beards, we — ”

“Wait one moment,” said I, seeing that the old man was heating himself with his narrative, and was likely, unless I stopped him, to talk more and more fluently to less and less purpose — ”wait a moment. Have you preserved the paper that was pinned to the dead man’s coat; and can I look at it?”

The Capuchin seemed on the point of giving me an answer, when he suddenly checked himself. I saw his eyes wander away from my face, and at the same moment heard a door softly opened and closed again behind me.

Looking round immediately, I observed another monk in the sacristy — a tall, lean, black-bearded man, in whose presence my old friend with the snuff-box suddenly became quite decorous and devotional to look at. I suspected I was in the presence of the father superior, and I found that I was right the moment he addressed me.

“I am the father superior of this convent,” he said, in quiet, clear tones, and looking me straight in the face while he spoke, with coldly attentive eyes. “I have heard the latter part of your conversation, and I wish to know why you are so particularly anxious to see the piece of paper that was pinned to the dead man’s coat?”

The coolness with which he avowed that he had been listening, and the quietly imperative manner in which he put his concluding question, perplexed and startled me. I hardly knew at first what tone I ought to take in answering him. He observed my hesitation, and attributing it to the wrong cause, signed to the old Capuchin to retire. Humbly stroking his long gray beard, and furtively consoling himself with a private pinch of the “delectable snuff,” my venerable friend shuffled out of the room, making a profound obeisance at the door just before he disappeared.

“Now,” said the father superior, as coldly as ever, “I am waiting, sir, for your reply.”

“You shall have it in the fewest possible words,” said I, answering him in his own tone. “I find, to my disgust and horror, that there is an unburied corpse in an outhouse attached to your convent. I believe that corpse to be the body of an English gentleman of rank and fortune, who was killed in a duel. I have come into this neighbourhood with the nephew and only relation of the slain man, for the express purpose of recovering his remains; and I wish to see the paper found on the body, because I believe that paper will identify it to the satisfaction of the relative to whom I have referred. Do you find my reply sufficiently straightforward? And do you mean to give me permission to look at the paper?”

“I am satisfied with your reply, and see no reason for refusing you a sight of the paper,” said the father superior; “but I have something to say first. In speaking of the impression produced on you by beholding the corpse, you used the words ‘disgust’ and ‘horror.’ This license of expression in relation to what you have seen in the precincts of a convent proves to me that you are out of the pale of the Holy Catholic Church. You have no right, therefore, to expect any explanation; but I will give you one, nevertheless, as a favor. The slain man died, unabsolved, in the commission of mortal sin. We infer so much from the paper which we found on his body; and we know, by the evidence of our own eyes and ears, that he was killed on the territories of the Church, and in the act of committing direct violation of those special laws against the crime of dueling, the strict enforcement of which the holy father himself has urged on the faithful throughout his dominions by letters signed with his own hand. Inside this convent the ground is consecrated, and we Catholics are not accustomed to bury the outlaws of our religion, the enemies of our holy father, and the violators of our most sacred laws in consecrated ground. Outside this convent we have no rights and no power; and, if we had both, we should remember that we are monks, not grave-diggers, and that the only burial with which
we
can have any concern is burial with the prayers of the Church. That is all the explanation I think it necessary to give. Wait for me here, and you shall see the paper.” With those words the father superior left the room as quietly as he had entered it.