The Greatest Supernatural Tales of Sheridan Le Fanu (70+ Titles in One Edition). M. R. James

The cold, dull touch that met his was not to be mistaken, and he gazed fixedly with that awful curiosity with which in death the well-known features of a familiar face are looked on. There lay the being whose fierce passions had been to him from his earliest days a source of habitual fear—in childhood, even of terror—henceforth to be no more to him than a thing which had never been. There lay the scheming, busy head, but what availed all its calculations and its cunning now! No more thought or power has it than the cushion on which it stiffly rests. There lies the proud, worldly, unforgiving, violent man, a senseless effigy of cold clay—a grim, impassive monument of the recent presence of the unearthly visitant.

      "It's a beautiful corpse, if the eyes were only shut," observed one of the crones, approaching; "a purty corpse as ever was stretched."

      "The hands is very handsome entirely," observed another of them, "and so small, like a lady's."

      "It's himself was the good master," observed the old nurse, with a slow shake of the head; "the likes of him did not thread in shoe leather. Oh! but my heart's sore for you this day, Misther Harry."

      Thus speaking, with a good deal of screwing and puckering, she succeeded in squeezing a tear from one eye, like the last drop from an exhausted lemon, and suffering it to rest upon her cheek, that it might not escape observation, she looked round with a most pity-moving visage upon her companions, and an expression of face which said as plainly as words, "What a faithful, attached, old creature I am, and how well I deserve any little token of regard which Sir Richard's will may have bequeathed me."

      "Ah! then, look at him," said the matron of the saucepan, gazing with the most touching commiseration upon Henry Ashwoode, "see how he looks at it. Oh, but it's he that adored him! Oh, the crathur, what will he do this day? Look at him there—he's an orphan now—God help him."

      "Be off with yourselves, and leave me here," said Henry (now Sir Henry) Ashwoode, turning sharply upon them. "Send me some one that can speak a word of sense: call Parucci here, and get out of the room every one of you—away!"

      With abundance of muttering and grumbling, and many an indignant toss of the head, and many a dignified sniff, the old women hobbled from the room; and Henry Ashwoode had hardly been left alone, when the small private door communicating with Parucci's apartment, opened, and the valet peeped in.

      "Come in—come in, Jacopo," said the young man; "come in, and close the door. When did this happen?"

      The Neapolitan recounted briefly the events which we have already recorded.

      "It was a fit—some sudden seizure," said the young man, glancing at the features of the corpse.

      "Yes, vary like, vary like," said Parucci; "he used to complain sometimes that his head was sweeming round, and pains and aches; but there was something more—something more."

      "What do you mean?—don't speak riddles," said Ashwoode.

      "I mean this, then," replied the Italian; "something came to him—something was in the room when he died."

      "How do you know that?" inquired the young man.

      "I heard him talking loudly with it," replied he—"talking and praying it to go away from him."

      "Why did you not come into the room yourself?" asked Ashwoode.

      "So I did, Diamine, so I did," replied he.

      "Well, what saw you?"

      "Nothing bote Sir Richard, dead—quite dead; and the far door was bolted inside, just so as he always used to do; and when the candle went out, the thing was here again. I heard it myself, as sure as I am leeving man—I heard it—close up with me—by the body."

      "Tut, tut, man; speak sense. Do you mean to say that anyone talked with you?" said Ashwoode.

      "I mean this, that something was in the chamber with me beside the dead man," replied the valet, doggedly. "I heard it with my own ears. Zucche! I moste 'av been deaf, if I did not hear it. It said 'hish,' and then again, close up to my face, it said it—'hish, hish,' and laughed below its breath. Pah! the place smelt of brimstone."

      "In plain terms, then, you believe that the devil was in the room; is that it?" said Ashwoode, with a ghastly smile of contempt.

      "Oh! no," replied the servant, with a sneer as ghastly; "it was an angel, of course—an angel from heaven."

      "No more of this folly, sirrah," said Ashwoode, sharply. "Your own d——d cowardice fills your brain with these fancies. Here, give me the keys, and show me where the papers are laid. I shall first examine the cabinets here, and then in the library. Now open this one; and do you hear, Parucci, not one word of this cock-and-bull story of yours to the servants. Good God! my brain's unsettled. I can scarcely believe my father dead—dead," and again he stood by the bedside, and looked upon the still face of the corpse.

      "We must send for Craven at once," said Ashwoode, turning from the bed; "I must confer with him; he knows better than anyone else how all my father's affairs stand. There are some d——d bills out, I believe, but we'll soon know."

      Having despatched an urgent note to Craven, the insinuating attorney, to whom we have already introduced the reader, Sir Henry Ashwoode proceeded roughly to examine the contents of boxes, escritoires, and cabinets filled with dusty papers, and accompanied and directed in his search by the Italian.

      "You never heard him mention a will, did you?" inquired the young man.

      The Neapolitan shook his head.

      "You did not know of his making one?" he resumed.

      "No, no, I cannot remember," said the Italian, reflectively; "but," he added quickly, while a peculiar meaning lit up the piercing eyes which he turned upon the interrogator—"but do you weesh to find one? Maybe I could help you to find one."

      "Pshaw! folly; what do you take me for?" retorted Ashwoode, slightly colouring, in spite of his habitual insensibility, for Parucci was too intimate with his principles for him to assume ignorance of his meaning. "Why the devil should I wish to find a will, since I inherit everything without it?"

      "Signor," said the little man, after an interval of silence, during which he seemed absorbed in deep reflection, "I have moche to say about what I shall do with myself, and some things to ask from you. I will begin and end it here and now—it is best over at once. I have served Sir Richard there for thirty-four years. I have served him well—vary well. I have taught him great secrets. I have won great abundance of good moneys for him; if he was not reech it is not my fault. I attend him through his sickness; and 'av been his companion for the half of a long life. What else I 'av done for him I need not count up, but most of it you know well. Sir Richard is there—dead and gone—the service is ended, and now I 'av resolved I will go back again to Italy—to Naples—where I was born. You shall never hear of me any more if you will do for me one little thing."

      "What is it?—speak out. You want to extort money—is it so?" said Ashwoode, slowly and sternly.

      "I want," continued the man, with equal distinctness and deliberateness, "I want one thousand pounds. I do not ask a penny more, and I will not take a penny less; and if you give me that, I will never trouble you more with word of mine—you will never hear or see honest Jacopo Parucci any more."

      "Come, come, Jacopo, that were paying a little too dear, even for such a luxury," replied Ashwoode. "A thousand pounds! Ha! ha! A modest request, truly. I half suspect your brain is a little crazed."

      "Remember what I have done—all I have done for him." rejoined the Italian, coolly. "And above all, remember what I have not done for him. I could have had him hanged up by the neck—hanged like a dog—but I never did. Oh! no, never—though not a day went by that I might not 'av brought the house full of officers, and have him away to jail and get him hanged. Remember all that, signor, and say is it in conscience too moche?—rotta di collo! It is not half—no, nor quarter so moche as I ought to ask. No, nor as you ought to give, signor, without me to ask at all."

      "Parucci, you are either mad or drunk, or take me to be