Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Оскар Уайльд
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you dropped anything, sir?’ said a voice behind him suddenly.
He turned round, and saw a policeman with a bull’s-eye lantern.
‘Nothing of importance, sergeant,’ he answered, smiling, and hailing a passing hansom, he jumped in, and told the man to drive to Belgrave Square.
For the next few days he alternated between hope and fear. There were moments when he almost expected Mr. Podgers to walk into the room, and yet at other times he felt that Fate could not be so unjust to him. Twice he went to the chiromantist’s address in West Moon Street, but he could not bring himself to ring the bell. He longed for certainty, and was afraid of it.
Finally it came. He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club having tea, and listening rather wearily to Surbiton’s account of the last comic song at the Gaiety, when the waiter came in with the evening papers. He took up the St. James’s, and was listlessly turning over its pages, when this strange heading caught his eye:
‘SUICIDE OF A CHIROMANTIST.’
He turned pale with excitement, and began to read. The paragraph ran as follows:
‘Yesterday morning, at seven o’clock, the body of Mr. Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent chiromantist, was washed on shore at Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman had been missing for some days, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in chiromantic circles. It is supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork, and a verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner’s jury. Mr. Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age, and does not seem to have left any relations.’
Lord Arthur rushed out of the club with the paper still in his hand, to the immense amazement of the hall-porter, who tried in vain to stop him, and drove at once to Park Lane. Sybil saw him from the window, and something told her that he was the bearer of good news. She ran down to meet him, and, when she saw his face, she knew that all was well.
‘My dear Sybil,’ cried Lord Arthur, ‘let us be married to-morrow!’
‘You foolish boy! Why, the cake is not even ordered!’ said Sybil, laughing through her tears.
6
WHEN the wedding took place, some three weeks later, St. Peter’s was crowded with a perfect mob of smart people. The service was read in the most impressive manner by the Dean of Chichester, and everybody agreed that they had never seen a handsomer couple than the bride and bridegroom. They were more than handsome, however – they were happy. Never for a single moment did Lord Arthur regret all that he had suffered for Sybil’s sake, while she, on her side, gave him the best things a woman can give to any man – worship, tenderness, and love. For them romance was not killed by reality. They always felt young.
Some years afterwards, when two beautiful children had been born to them, Lady Windermere came down on a visit to Alton Priory, a lovely old place, that had been the Duke’s wedding present to his son; and one afternoon as she was sitting with Lady Arthur under a lime-tree in the garden, watching the little boy and girl as they played up and down the rose-walk, like fitful sunbeams, she suddenly took her hostess’s hand in hers, and said, ‘Are you happy, Sybil?’
‘Dear Lady Windermere, of course I am happy. Aren’t you?’
‘I have no time to be happy, Sybil. I always like the last person who is introduced to me; but, as a rule, as soon as I know people I get tired of them.’
‘Don’t your lions satisfy you, Lady Windermere?’
‘Oh dear, no! lions are only good for one season. As soon as their manes are cut, they are the dullest creatures going. Besides, they behave very badly, if you are really nice to them. Do you remember that horrid Mr. Podgers? He was a dreadful impostor. Of course, I didn’t mind that at all, and even when he wanted to borrow money I forgave him, but I could not stand his making love to me. He has really made me hate chiromancy. I go in for telepathy now. It is much more amusing.’
‘You mustn’t say anything against chiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is quite serious over it.’
‘You don’t mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil?’
‘Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is’; and Lord Arthur came up the garden with a large bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two children dancing round him.
‘Lord Arthur?’
‘Yes, Lady Windermere.’
‘You don’t mean to say that you believe in chiromancy?’
‘Of course I do,’ said the young man, smiling.
‘But why?’
‘Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,’ he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker chair.
‘My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?’
‘Sybil,’ he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into her violet eyes.
‘What nonsense!’ cried Lady Windermere. ‘I never heard such nonsense in all my life.’
A Hylo-Idealistic Romance
1
WHEN Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis, when they came to discuss terms.
‘We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,’ said Lord Canterville, ‘since my grand-aunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered, by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as well as by the rector of the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who is a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. After the unfortunate accident to the Duchess, none of our younger servants would stay with us, and Lady Canterville often got very little sleep at night, in consequence of the mysterious noises that came from the corridor and the library.’
‘My lord,’ answered the Minister, ‘I will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation. I come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actresses and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we’d have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road as a show.’
‘I fear that the ghost exists,’ said Lord Canterville, smiling, ‘though it may have resisted the overtures of your enterprising impresarios. It has been well known for three centuries, since 1584 in fact, and always makes its appearance before the death of any member of our family.’
‘Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of nature are not going to be suspended for the British aristocracy.’
‘You are certainly very natural in America,’ answered Lord Canterville, who did not quite understand Mr. Otis’s last observation, ‘and if you don’t mind a ghost in the house, it is all right. Only you must remember I warned you.’
A few weeks after this, the purchase was completed, and