Devereux's Dream Page #3

"Devereux's Dream" is a supernatural mystery by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu, published in 1853. The novel follows the titular character, Edward Devereux, who confronts his own past and emerging fears through a series of haunting dreams. As Devereux navigates his nightmares, he becomes entwined in a web of intrigue, love, and spectral encounters, exploring themes of memory, identity, and the uncanny. Le Fanu's atmospheric prose and psychological depth make this work a notable example of Victorian Gothic fiction.

• Mystery

								

and minutely, as though I had been going to paint a portrait that I
wanted to make lifelike. I think at the time I had some such intention.
If I had, I never fulfilled it. But I made the sketch, as I say,
carefully; and then I forgot all about it.

"Time passed--three years nearly. I was wintering in the south of France
that year. There it was that I met her--Lucille. Old D'Avray, her
father, and I had met before in Algeria. He was dying now. He left the
child on his death-bed to me. The end was I married her.

"Poor little thing! I think I might have made her happy--who knows? She
used to tell me often she was happy with me. Poor little thing!

"Well, we were to come straight to London. That was Lucille's notion.
She wanted to go to my London first--nowhere else. Now I would rather
have gone anywhere else; but, naturally, I let the child have her way.
She seemed nervously eager about it, I remembered afterward; seemed to
have a nervous objection to every other place I proposed. But I saw or
suspected nothing to make me question her very closely, or the reasons
for her preference for our grimy old Pandemonium. What could I suspect?
Not the truth. If I only had! If I had only guessed what it was that
made her, as she said, long to be safe there already. Safe? What had she
to fear with me? Ah, what indeed!

"So we started on our journey to England. It was a cold, dark night,
early in March. We reached Lyons somewhere about seven. I should have
stayed there that night but for Lucille. She entreated me so earnestly
and with such strange vehemence to go on by the night-mail to Paris,
that at last, to satisfy her, I consented; though it struck me
unpleasantly at the time that I had let her travel too long already, and
that this feverishness was the consequence of over-fatigue. But she
became pacified at once when I told her it should be as she wanted; and
declared she should sleep perfectly well in the carriage with me beside
her. She should feel quite safe then, she said.

"Safe! Where safer? you might ask. Nowhere, I believe. Alone with
me--surely nowhere safer. The Paris express was a short train that
night; but I managed to secure a compartment for ourselves. I left
Lucille in her corner there while I went across to the buffet to fill
a flask. I was gone barely five minutes; but when I came back the change
in the child's face fairly startled me. I had seen it last with the
smile it always wore for me on it, looking so childishly happy in the
lamp-light. Now it was all gray-pale and distorted; and the great blue
eyes told me directly with what.

"Fear--sudden, terrible fear--I thought. But fear? Fear of what? I
asked her. She clung close to me half-sobbing awhile before she could
answer; and then she told me--nothing. There was nothing the matter;
only she had felt a pain--a cruel pain--at her heart; and it had
frightened her. Yes, that was it; it had frightened her, but it had
passed; and she was well, quite well again now.

"All this time her eyes seemed to be telling me another story; but I
said nothing; she was obviously too excited already. I did my best to
soothe her, and I succeeded. She told me she felt quite well once more
before we started. No, she had rather, much rather go on to Paris, as I
had promised her she should. She should sleep all the way, if no one
came into the carriage to disturb her. No one could come in? Then
nothing could be better.

"And so it was that she and I started that night by the Paris mail.

"I made her up a bed of rugs and wraps upon the cushions; but she had
rather rest her head upon my shoulder, she said, and feel my arm about
her; nothing could hurt her then. Ah, strange how she harped on that.

"She lay there, then, as she loved best--with her head resting on my
shoulder, not sleeping much or soundly; uneasily, with sudden waking
starts, and with glances round her; till I would speak to her. And then
she would look up into my face and smile; and so drop into that uneasy
sleep again. And I would think she was over-tired, that was all; and
reproach myself with having let her come on. And three or four hours
passed like this; and then we had got as far as Dijon.

"But the child was fairly worn out now; and she offered no opposition
when I asked her to let me pillow her head on something softer than my
shoulder. So I folded, a great thick shawl she was too well cloaked to
need, and she made that her pillow.

"We were rushing full swing through the wild, dark night, when she
lifted up her face and bade me kiss her and bid her sleep well. And I
put my arm round her, and kissed the child's loving lips--for the last
time while she lived. Then I flung myself on the seat opposite her; and,
watching her till she slept soundly and peacefully, slept at last myself
also. I had drawn the blind across the lamp in the roof, and the light
in the carriage was very dim.

"How long I slept I don't know; it couldn't have been more than an hour
and a half, because the express was slackening speed for its first halt
beyond Dijon. I had slept heavily I knew; but I woke with a sudden,
sharp sense of danger that made me broad awake, and strung every nerve
in a moment. The sort of feeling you have when you wake on a prairie,
where you have come across 'Indian sign;' on outpost-duty, when your
feldwebel plucks gently at your cloak. You know what I mean.

"I was on my feet at once. As I said, the light in the carriage was very
dim, and the shadow was deepest where Lucille lay. I looked there
instinctively. She must have moved in her sleep, for her face was turned
away from me; and the cloak I had put so carefully about her had partly
fallen off. But she slept on still. Only soundly, very soundly; she
scarcely seemed to breathe. And--did she breathe?

"A ghastly fear ran through my blood, and froze it. I understood why I
had wakened. In my nostrils was an awful odor that I knew well enough. I
bent over her; I touched her. Her face was very cold; her eyes glared
glassily at me; my hands were wet with something. My hands were wet with
blood--her blood!

"I tore away the blind from the lamp, and then I could see that my wife
of a week lay there stabbed straight to the heart--dead--dead beyond
doubting; murdered in her sleep."

Devereux's stern, low voice shook ever so little as he spoke those last
words; and we both sat very silent after them for a good while. Only
when he could trust his utterance again he went on.

"A curious piece of devilry, wasn't it? That child--whom had she ever
harmed? Who could hate her like this? I remember I thought that, in a
dull, confused sort of way, when I found myself alone in that carriage
with her lying dead on the cushions before me. Alone with her--you
understand? It was confusing.

"I pass over what immediately followed. The express came duly to a halt;

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