“The Mass for the Dead” is a gothic romance by the English writer and poet Edith Nesbit (1858–1924), first published in the April 1892 edition of The Argosy,[1] and included in her Grim Tales
Collection of short stories by Edith Nesbit, first published in 1893. (1893) collection of short stories.
The story is told as a first-person narrative by Jasper, who has just returned from a three-year-stay in Germany to discover that his love since childhood, Kate, is about to marry a wealthy Spaniard named Benoliel.
Synopsis
Jasper arrives home after three years studying music in Germany to discover that his childhood sweetheart, Kate, is about to marry a rich Spaniard named Benoliel. Kate admits that she still loves Jasper, but says that she must marry Benoliel to save her father from imminent financial ruin; Benoliel has agreed to advance her father a large sum of money once he and Kate are married.
The night before the wedding, lying in bed unable to sleep, Jasper hears the music of a funeral mass outside his bedroom. He leaps to the window, but sees nothing. The following morning he visits Kate for what he thinks is one last time.
Kate tells him that she fears she may be going mad, as she had heard the singing of a mass for the dead outside her bedroom the previous night. Jasper persuades her that it is a warning that she should not marry Benoliel. The couple run away together and get married.
Over their wedding breakfast, Kate suggests that they go to Devonshire, where she and Benoliel had arranged to go after their wedding, as he would be unlikely to be there after their marriage had not taken place.
Jasper and Kate’s first few days in Devonshire are blissfully happy, until Jasper reveals to Kate that he had heard the same music of the funeral mass outside his own bedroom. She believes that they are cursed. Jasper persuades Kate to visit a Catholic church, to seek advice. As they open the church door a funeral service is in progress, and they hear the music that they had both heard the night before Kate’s intended wedding to Benoliel.
The sacristan tells them that the service is for Benoliel, who decided to make the tour he had planned for his wedding trip, but had been killed in a railway accident: “Lucky for the young lady she was off with somebody else”.
External links
- Full text of “The Mass for the Dead” at Project Gutenberg
