My School-Days | Page 9

the one yon
see at the doctor's, but skeletons with the flesh hardened on their bones,
with their long dry hair hanging on each side of their brown faces,
where the skin in drying had drawn itself back from their gleaming
teeth and empty eye-sockets. Skeletons draped in mouldering shreds of
shrouds and grave-clothes, their lean fingers still clothed with dry skin,
seemed to reach out towards me. There they stood, men, women, and
children, knee-deep in loose bones collected from the other vaults of
the church, and heaped round them. On the wall near the door I saw the
dried body of a little child hung up by its hair.
I don't think I screamed or cried, or even said a word. I think I was
paralysed with horror, but I remember presently going back up those
stairs, holding tightly to that kindly hand, and not daring to turn my
head lest one of those charnel-house faces should peep out at me from
some niche in the damp wall.
It must have been late afternoon, and in the hurry of dressing for the
table d'hote my stupor of fright must have passed unnoticed, for the
next thing I remember is being alone in a large room, waiting as usual
for my supper to be sent up. For my mother did not approve of late
dinners for little people, and I was accustomed to have bread-and-milk
alone while she and my sisters dined.
It was a large room, and very imperfectly lighted by the two wax
candles in silver candlesticks. There were two windows and a curtained
alcove, where the beds were. Suddenly my blood ran cold. What was
behind that curtain? Beds. "Yes," whispered something that was I, and
yet not I; "but suppose there are no beds there now. Only mummies,
mummies, mummies!"
A sudden noise; I screamed with terror. It was only the door opening to
let the waiter in. He was a young waiter. hardly more than a boy, and
had always smiled kindly at me when we met, though hitherto our

intercourse had not gone farther. Now I rushed to him and flung my
arms round him, to his immense amazement and the near ruin of my
bread and milk. He spoke no English and I no French, but somehow he
managed to understand that I was afraid, and afraid of that curtained
alcove.
He set down the bread and milk, and be took me in his arms and
together we fetched more candles, and then he drew back the awful
curtain, and showed me the beds lying white and quiet. If 1 could have
spoken French I should have said
"Yes; but how do I know it was all like that just now, before you drew
the curtain back?"
As it was I said nothing, only clung to his neck.
I hope he did not get into any trouble that night for neglected duties, for
he did not attempt to leave me till my mother came bade. He sat down
with me on his knee and petted me and sang to me under his breath,
and fed me with the bread and milk, when by-and-by I grew calm
enough to take it. All good things be with him wherever he is! I like
best to think of him in a little hotel of his own, a quiet little country inn
standing back from a straight road bordered with apple trees and
poplars. There are wooden benches outside the door, and within a
whitewashed kitchen, where a plump rosy-faced woman is busy with
many cares--never busy enough, however, to pass the master of the
house without a loving word or a loving look. I like to believe that now
he has little children of his own, who hold out their arms when he
opens the door, and who climb upon his knees clamouring for those
same songs which be sang, out of the kindness of his boyish heart, to
the little frightened English child, such a long, long time ago.
* * *
The mummies of Bordeaux were the crowning horror of my childish
life; it is to them, I think, more than to any other thing, that I owe
nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and
dread. All the other fears could have been effaced but the shock of that

sight branded it on my brain, and I never forgot it. For many years I
could not bring myself to go about any house in the dark, and long after
I was a grown woman I was tortured, in the dark watches, by
imagination and memory, who rose strong and united, overpowering
my will and my reason as utterly as in my baby days.
It was not till I had