Dara by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous
Language: eng
Format: epub

PART FOUR. WEDDED BUT NOT BEDDED

Shortly after my arrival in New York I was sitting in Pfaff's Beer-Cellar pondering idly whether to have another beer or move on to a theatre when a young girl approached my table and flopped into a chair opposite me. She was obviously ill and in a state of extreme distress. Although all types of people frequented Pfaff's, they were mostly representatives of the arts and the theatre. In other words, a motley crew of cultured and well-educated idiots, living under the illusion that they had within them that spark of genius which would make them famous some day.

The girl intrigued me. She was respectably dressed, pretty, obviously without a male escort and afraid. But of what, I asked myself, as she sipped the brandy I had given her. I introduced myself and she in turn informed me that her name was Dara Tully. Although she spoke with a slight American accent, she proclaimed that England was her native land. The brandy loosened her tongue and upon discovering that I was a fellow countryman she unburdened the cause of her distress. Troubled by some experience which had shaken her somewhat, she was almost incoherent on occasions as she gave an account of her journey from Chicago accompanied by a doctor dying from consumption. From what I could gather she had sat in a darkened room listening to this man talking to his dead relatives until something had snapped inside her and she had fled from his bedchamber.

It sounded a very eerie affair to me-not the sort of thing to be inflicted on a delicate, sensitive young lady. I offered to accompany her back to the hotel when she became agitated at the thought that she had deserted this doctor when he most needed her.

When we arrived at the hotel, Dara was very reluctant to enter the building but I insisted on her showing me which room the doctor was occupying. It was in total darkness. Pioneering my way with outstretched hands and following Dara's directions, I managed to locate the gas jet to bring some light to the bedchamber. I must confess it was a bit of a shock for me, seeing the head of the recumbent man slouched down on the pillow, jaws agape, and staring straight at me with unseeing eyes. I am always nervous in the presence of the sick or the dead. Trying to move him onto his back brought forth from him a loud, stinking belch of wind which sent me scuttling back in haste to the, door and Dara.

She asked in a hoarse whisper, 'Is he dead?'

'I don't know,' I said doubtfully.

Ashamed of my sudden loss of nerve I straightened my shoulders and walked back to the bed, determined to find out whether the man was dead or alive. The body was still warm but, after putting my hand on his chest and feeling no movement or heartbeat, I decided the good doctor was indeed dead.

I had heard somewhere

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