Cord and Creese

J >> James de Mille >> Cord and Creese

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"Come here," said I, "three times a day. I will pay you well for this."

The woman left. All night long I watched. She lay unmoved and unchanged.
Where was her spirit wandering? Soared it among the splendors of some
far-off world? Lingered it amidst the sunshine of heavenly glory? Did
her seraphic soul move amidst her peers in the assemblage of the holy?
Was she straying amidst the trackless paths of ether with those whom she
had loved in life, and who had gone before?

All night long I watched her as she lay with her marble face and her
changeless smile. There seemed to be communicated to me an influence
from her which opened the eyes of my spiritual sense; and my spirit
sought to force itself upon her far-off perceptions, that so it might
catch her notice and bring her back to earth.

The morning dawned. There was no change. Mid-day came, and still there
was no change. I know not how it was, but the superintendent had heard
about the grave being opened, and found me in the hut. He tried to
induce me to give back to the grave the one whom I had rescued. The
horror of that request was so tremendous that it force me into
passionless calm. When I refused he threatened. At his menace I rejoined
in such language that he turned pale.

"Murderer!" said I, sternly, "is it not enough that you have sent to the
grave many wretches who were not dead? Do you seek to send back to death
this single one whom I have rescued? Do you want all Canada and all the
world to ring with the account of the horrors done here, where people
are buried alive? See, she is not dead. She is only sleeping. And yet
you put her in the grave."

"She is dead!" he cried, in mingled fear and anger--"and she must be
buried."

"She is not dead," said I, sternly, as I glared on him out of my
intensity of anguish--"she is not dead: and if you try to send her to
death again you must first send me. She shall not pass to the grave
except over my corpse, and over the corpse of the first murderer that
dares to lay hands on her."

He started back--he and those who were with him. "The man is mad," they
said.

They left me in peace. I grow excited as I write. My hand trembles. Let
me be calm.

She awoke that night. It was midnight, and all was still. She opened her
eyes suddenly, and looked full at me with an earnest and steadfast
stare. At last a long, deep-drawn sigh broke the stillness of that lone
chamber.

"Back again"--she murmured, in a scarce audible voice--"among men, and
to earth. O friends of the Realm of Light, must I be severed from your
lofty communion!"

As she spoke thus the anguish which I had felt at the grave was renewed.
"You have brought me back," said she, mournfully.

"No," I returned, sadly--"not I. It was not God's will that you should
leave this life. He did not send death to you. You were sleeping, and I
brought you to this place."

"I know all," she murmured, closing her eyes. "I heard all while my
spirit was away. I know where you found me."

"I am weary," she said, after a silence. Her eyes closed again. But this
time the trance was broken. She slept with long, deep breathing,
interrupted by frequent sighs. I watched her through the long night. At
first fever came. Then it passed. Her sleep became calm, and she
slumbered like a weary child.

Early in the morning the superintendent came, followed by a dozen armed
men. He entered with a frown. I met him with my hand upraised to hush
him, and led him gently to the bedside.

"See," I whispered--"but for me she would have been BURIED ALIVE!"

The man seemed frozen into dumbness. He stood ghastly white with horror,
thick drops started from his forehead, his teeth chattered, he staggered
away. He looked at me with a haunted face, such as belongs to one who
thinks he has seen a spirit.

"Spare me," he faltered; "do not ruin me. God knows I have tried to do
my best!"

I waved him off. "Leave me. You have nothing to fear." He turned away
with his white face, and departed in silence with his men.

After a long sleep Edith waked again. She said nothing. I did not wish
her to speak. She lay awake, yet with closed eyes, thinking such
thoughts as belong to one, and to one alone, who had known what she had
known.

I did not speak to her, for she was to me a holy being, not to be
addressed lightly. Yet she did not refuse nourishment, and grew
stronger, until at last I was able to have her moved to Quebec. There I
obtained proper accommodations for her and good nurses.

I have told you what she was before this. Subsequently there came a
change. The nurses and the doctors called it a stupor.

There was something in her face which inspired awe among all who saw
her. If it is the soul of man that gives expression to the features,
then her soul must have been familiar with things unknown to us. How
often have I seen her in walking across the room stop suddenly and stand
fixed on the spot, musing and sad! She commonly moved about as though
she saw nothing, as though she walked in a dream, with eyes half closed,
and sometimes murmuring inaudible words. The nurses half loved and half
feared her. Yet there were some little children in the house who felt
all love and no fear, for I have seen her smiling on them with a smile
so sweet that it seemed to me as if they stood in the presence of their
guardian angel. Strange, sad spirit, what thoughts, what memories are
these which make her life one long reverie, and have taken from her all
power to enjoy the beautiful that dwells on earth! She fills all my
thoughts with her loneliness, her tears, and her spiritual face, bearing
the marks of scenes that can never be forgotten. She lives and moves
amidst her recollections. What is it that so overwhelms all her
thoughts? That face of hers appears as though it had bathed itself in
the atmosphere of some diviner world than this: and her eyes seem as if
they may have gazed upon the Infinite Mystery.

Now from the few words which she has casually dropped I gather this to
be her own belief. That when she fell into the state of trance her soul
was parted from her body, though still by an inexplicable sympathy she
was aware of what was passing around her lifeless form. Yet her soul had
gone forth into that spiritual world toward which we look from this
earth with such eager wonder. It had mingled there with the souls of
others. It had put forth new powers, and learned the use of new
faculties. Then that soul was called back to its body.

This maiden--this wonder among mortals--is not a mortal, she is an
exiled soul. I have seen her sit with tears streaming down her face,
tears such as men shed in exile. For she is like a banished man who has
only one feeling, a longing, yearning homesickness. She has been once in
that radiant world for a time which we call three days in our human
calculations, but which to her seems indefinite; for as she once said--
and it is a pregnant thought, full of meaning--there is no time there,
all is infinite duration. The soul has illimitable powers; in an instant
it can live years, and she in those three days had the life of ages. Her
former life on earth has now but a faint hold upon her memory in
comparison with that life among the stars. The sorrow that her loved
ones endured has become eclipsed by the knowledge of the blessedness in
which she found them.

Alas! it is a blessing to die, and it is only a curse to rise from the
dead. And now she endures this exile with an aching heart, with memories
that are irrepressible, with longings unutterable, and yearnings that
cannot be expressed for that starry world and that bright companionship
from which she has been recalled. So she sometimes speaks. And little
else can she say amidst her tears. Oh, sublime and mysterious exile,
could I but know what you know, and have but a small part of that secret
which you can not explain!

For she can not tell what she witnessed _there_. She sometimes
wishes to do so, but can not. When asked directly, she sinks into
herself and is lost in thought. She finds no words. It is as when we try
to explain to a man who has been always blind the scenes before our
eyes. We can not explain them to such a man. And so with her. She finds
in her memory things which no human language has been made to express.
These languages were made for the earth, not for heaven. In order to
tell me what she knows, she would need the language of that world, and
then she could not explain it, for I could not understand it.

Only once I saw her smile, and that was when one of the nurses casually
mentioned, with horror, the death of some acquaintance. "Death!" she
murmured, and her eyes lighted up with a kind of ecstasy. "Oh, that I
might die!" She knows no blessing on earth except that which we consider
a curse, and to her the object of all her wishes is this one thing--
Death. I shall not soon forget that smile. It seemed of itself to give a
new meaning to death.

Do I believe this, so wild a theory, the very mention of which has
carried me beyond myself? I do not know. All my reason rebels. It scouts
the monstrous idea. But here she stands before me, with her memories and
thoughts, and her wonderful words, few, but full of deepest meaning--
words which I shall never forget--and I recognize something before which
Reason falters. Whence this deep longing of hers? Why when she thinks of
death does her face grow thus radiant, and her eyes kindle with hope?
Why does she so pine and grow sick with desire? Why does her heart thus
ache as day succeeds to day, and she finds herself still under the
sunlight, with the landscapes and the music of this fair earth still
around her?

Once, in some speculations of mine, which I think I mentioned to you,
Teresina, I thought that if a man could reach that spiritual world he
would look with contempt upon the highest charms that belong to this.
Here is one who believes that she has gone through this experience, and
all this earth, with all its beauty, is now an object of indifference to
her. Perhaps you may ask, Is she sane? Yes, dear, as sane as I am, but
with a profounder experience and a diviner knowledge.

After I had been in Quebec about a month I learned that one of the
regiments stationed here was commanded by Colonel Henry Despard. I
called on him, and he received me with unbounded delight. He made me
tell him all about myself, and I imparted to him as much of the events
of the voyage and quarantine as was advisable. I did not go into
particulars to any extent, of course. I mentioned nothing about _the
grave_. That, dearest sister, is a secret between you, and me, and
her. For if it should be possible that she should ever be restored to
ordinary human sympathy and feeling, it will not be well that all the
world should know what has happened to her.

His regiment was ordered to Halifax, and I concluded to comply with his
urgent solicitations and accompany him. It is better for _her_ at
any rate that there should be more friends than one to protect her.
Despard, like the doctors, supposes that she is in a stupor.

The journey here exercised a favorable influence over her. Her strength
increased to a marked degree, and she has once or twice spoken about the
past. She told me that her father wrote to his son Louis in Australia
some weeks before his death, and urged him to come home. She thinks that
he is on his way to England. The Colonel and I at once thought that he
ought to be sought after without delay, and he promised to write to his
nephew, your old playmate, who, he tells me, is to be a neighbor of
yours.

If he is still the one whom I remember--intellectual yet spiritual,
with sound reason, yet a strong heart, if he is still the Courtenay
Despard who, when a boy, seemed to me to look out upon the world before
him with such lofty poetic enthusiasm--then, Teresella, you should show
him this diary, for it will cause him to understand things which he
ought to know. I suppose it would be unintelligible to Mr. Thornton, who
is a most estimable man, but who, from the nature of his mind, if he
read this, would only conclude that the writer was insane.

At any rate, Mr. Thornton should be informed of the leading facts, so
that he may see if something can be done to alleviate the distress, or
to avenge the wrongs of one whose father was the earliest benefactor of
his family.

CHAPTER XVI.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

"It is now the middle of February," said Despard, after a long pause, in
which he had given himself up to the strange reflections which the diary
was calculated to excite. "If Louis Brandon left Australia when he was
called he must be in England now."

"You are calm," said Mrs. Thornton. "Have you nothing more to say than
that?"

Despard looked at her earnestly. "Do you ask me such a question? It is a
story so full of anguish that the heart might break out of pure
sympathy, but what words could be found? I have nothing to say. I am
speechless. My God! what horror thou dost permit!"

"But something must be done," said Mrs. Thornton, impetuously.

"Yes," said Despard, slowly, "but what? If we could reach our hands over
the grave and bring back those who have passed away, then the soul of
Edith might find peace; but now--now--we can give her no peace. She only
wishes to die. Yet something must be done, and the first thing is to
find Louis Brandon. I will start for London to-night. I will go and seek
him, not for Edith's sake but for his own, that I may save one at least
of this family. For her there is no comfort. Our efforts are useless
there. If we could give her the greatest earthly happiness it would be
poor and mean, and still she would sigh after that starry companionship
from which her soul has been withdrawn."

"Then you believe it."

"Don't you?"

"Of course; but I did not know that you would."

"Why not? and if I did not believe it this at least would be plain, that
she herself believes it. And even if it be a hallucination, it is a
sublime one, and so vivid that it is the same to her as a reality. Let
it be only a dream that has taken place--still that dream has made all
other things dim, indistinct, and indifferent to her."

"No one but you would read Paolo's diary without thinking him insane."

Despard smiled. "Even that would be nothing to me. Some people think
that a great genius must be insane.

'Great wits are sure to madness near allied,'

you know. For my part, I consider Paolo the sublimest of men. When I saw
him last I was only a boy, and he came with his seraphic face and his
divine music to give me an inspiration which has biased my life ever
since. I have only known one spirit like his among those whom I have
met."

An indescribable sadness passed over his face. "But now," he continued,
suddenly, "I suppose Thornton must see my uncle's letter. His legal mind
may discern some things which the law may do in this case. Edith is
beyond all consolation from human beings, and still farther beyond all
help from English law. But if Louis Brandon can be found the law may
exert itself in his favor. In this respect be may be useful, and I have
no doubt he would take up the case earnestly, out of his strong sense of
justice."

When Thornton came in to dinner Despard handed him his uncle's letter.
The lawyer read it with deep attention, and without a word.

Mrs. Thornton looked agitated--sometimes resting her head on her hand,
at others looking fixedly at her husband. As soon as he had finished she
said, in a calm, measured tone:

"I did not know before that Brandon of Brandon Hall and all his family
had perished so miserably."

Thornton started, and looked at her earnestly. She returned his gaze
with unutterable sadness in her eyes.

"He saved my father's life," said she. "He benefited him greatly. Your
father also was under slight obligations to him. I thought that things
like these constituted a faint claim on one's gratitude, so that if one
were exposed to misfortune he might not be altogether destitute of
friends."

Thornton looked uneasy as his wife spoke.

"My dear," said he, "you do not understand."

"True," she answered; "for this thing is almost incredible. If my
father's friend has died in misery, unpitied and unwept, forsaken by
all, do I not share the guilt of ingratitude? How can I absolve myself
from blame?"

"Set your mind at rest. You never knew any thing about it. I told you
nothing on the subject."

"Then you knew it!"

"Stop! You can not understand this unless I explain it. You are stating
bald facts; but these facts, painful as they are, are very much modified
by circumstances."

"Well, then, I hope you will tell me all, without reserve, for I wish to
know how it is that this horror has happened, and I have stood idly and
coldly aloof. My God!" she cried, in Italian; "did _he_ not--did
_they_ not in their last moments think of me, and wonder how they
could have been betrayed by Langhetti's daughter!"

"My dear, be calm, I pray. You are blaming yourself unjustly, I assure
you."

Despard was ghastly pale as this conversation went on. He turned his
face away.

"Ralph Brandon," began Thornton, "was a man of many high qualities, but
of unbounded pride, and utterly impracticable. He was no judge of
character, and therefore was easily deceived. He was utterly
inexperienced in business, and he was always liable to be led astray by
any sudden impulse. Somehow or other a man named Potts excited his
interest about twelve or fifteen years ago. He was a mere vulgar
adventurer; but Brandon became infatuated with him, and actually
believed that this man was worthy to be intrusted with the management of
large business transactions. The thing went on for years. His friends
all remonstrated with him. I, in particular, went there to explain to
him that the speculation in which he was engaged could not result in any
thing except loss. But he resented all interference, and I had to leave
him to himself.

"His son Louis was a boy full of energy and fire. The family were all
indignant at the confidence which Ralph Brandon put in this Potts--Louis
most of all. One day he met Potts. Words passed between them, and Louis
struck the scoundrel. Potts complained. Brandon had his son up on the
spot; and after listening to his explanations gave him the alternative
either to apologise to Potts or to leave the house forever. Louis
indignantly denounced Potts to his father as a swindler. Brandon ordered
him to his room, and gave him a week to decide.

"The servants whispered till the matter was noised abroad. The county
gentry had a meeting about it, and felt so strongly that they did an
unparalleled thing. They actually waited on him to assure him that Potts
was unworthy of trust, and to urge him not to treat his son so harshly.
All Brandon's pride was roused at this. He said words to the deputation
which cut him off forever from their sympathy, and they left in a rage.
Mrs. Brandon wrote to me, and I went there. I found Brandon inflexible.
I urged him to give his son a longer time, to send him to the army for a
while, to do any thing rather than eject him. He refused to change his
sentence. Then I pointed out the character of Potts, and told him many
things that I had heard. At this he hinted that I wished to have the
management of his business, and was actuated by mercenary motive. Of
course, after this insult, nothing more was to be said. I went home and
tried to forget all about the Brandons. At the end of the week Louis
refused to apologize, and left his father forever."

"Did you see Louis?"

"I saw him before that insult to ask if he would apologize."

"Did you try to make him apologize?" asked Mrs. Thornton, coldly.

"Yes. But he looked at me with such an air that I had to apologize
myself for hinting at such a thing. He was as inflexible as his father."

"How else could he have been?"

"Well, each might have yielded a little. It does not do to be so
inflexible if one would succeed in life."

"No," said Mrs. Thornton. "Success must be gained by flexibility. The
martyrs were all inflexible, and they were all unsuccessful."

Thornton looked at his wife hastily. Despard's hand trembled, and his
face grew paler still with a more livid pallor.

"Did you try to do any thing for the ruined son?"

"How could I, after that insult?"

"Could you not have got him a government office, or purchased a
commission for him in the army?"

"He would not have taken it from me."

"You could have co-operated with his mother, and done it in her name."

"I could not enter the house after being insulted."

"You could have written. From what I have heard of Brandon, he was just
the man who would have blessed any one who would interpose to save his
son."

"His son did not wish to be saved. He has all his father's
inflexibility, but an intellect as clear as that of the most practical
man. He has a will of iron, dauntless resolution, and an implacable
temper. At the same time he has the open generosity and the tender heart
of his father."

"Had his father a tender heart?"

"So tender and affectionate that this sacrifice of his son must have
overwhelmed him with the deepest sorrow."

"Did you ever after make any advances to any of them?"

"No, never. I never went near the house."

"Did you ever visit any of the county gentry to see if something could
be done?"

"No. It would have been useless. Besides, the very mention of his name
would have been resented. I should have had to fling myself headlong
against the feelings of the whole public. And no man has any right to do
that."

"No," said Mrs. Thornton. "No man has. That was another mistake that the
martyrs made. They would fling themselves against public opinion."

"All men can not be martyrs. Besides, the cases are not analogous."

Thornton spoke calmly and dispassionately.

"True. It is absurd in me; but I admire one who has for a moment
forgotten his own interests or safety in thinking of others."

"That does very well for poetry, but not in real life."

"In _real life_, such as that on board the _Tecumseh_?"
murmured Mrs. Thornton, with drooping eyelids.

"You are getting excited, my dear," said Thornton, patiently, with the
air of a wise father who overlooks the petulance of his child. "I will
go on. I had business on the Continent when poor Brandon's ruin
occurred. You were with me, my dear, at Berlin when I heard about it. I
felt shocked, but not surprised. I feared that it would come to that."

"You showed no emotion in particular."

"No; I was careful not to trouble you."

"You were in Berlin three months. Was it at the beginning or end of your
stay?"

"At the beginning."

"And you staid?"

"I had business which I could not leave."

"Would you have been ruined if you had left?"

"Well, no--not exactly ruined, but it would have entailed serious
consequences."

"Would those consequences have been as serious as the _Tecumseh_
tragedy?"

"My dear, in business there are rules which a man is not permitted to
neglect. There are duties and obligations which are imperative. The code
of honor there is as delicate, yet as rigid, as elsewhere."

"And yet there are times when all obligations of this sort are weakened.
When friends die, this is recognized. Why should it not be so when they
are in danger of a fate worse than death?"

Thornton elevated his eyebrows, and made no reply.

"You must have heard about it in March, then?"

"Yes, at the end of January. His ruin took place in December, 1845. It
was the middle of May before I got home. I then, toward the end of the
month, sent my clerk to Brandon village to make inquiries. He brought
word of the death of Brandon, and the departure of his family to parts
unknown."

[Illustration: "THEN, COVERING HER FACE WITH HER HANDS, SHE BURST INTO
AN AGONY OF TEARS."]

"Did he make no particular inquiries?"

"No."

"And you said not a word to me!"

"I was afraid of agitating you, my dear."

"And therefore you have secured for me unending self-reproach."

"Why so? Surely you are blaming yourself without a shadow of a cause."

"I will tell you why. I dare say I feel unnecessarily on the subject,
but I can not help it. It is a fact that Brandon was always impulsive
and culpably careless about himself. It is to this quality, strangely
enough, that I owe my father's life, and my own comfort for many years.
Paolo also owes as much as I. Mr. Brandon, with a friend of his, was
sailing through the Mediterranean in his own yacht, making occasional
tours into the country at every place where they happened to land, and
at last they came to Girgenti, with the intention of examining the ruins
of Agrigentum. This was in 1818, four years before I was born. My father
was stopping at Girgenti, with his wife and Paolo, who was then six
years old. My father had been very active under the reign of Murat, and
had held a high post in his government. This made him suspected after
Murat's overthrow.

"On the day that these Englishmen visited Girgenti, a woman in deep
distress came to see them, along with a little boy. It was my mother and
Paolo. She flung herself on the floor at their feet, and prayed them to
try and help her husband, who had been arrested on a charge of treason
and was now in prison. He was suspected of belonging to the Carbonari,
who were just beginning to resume their secret plots, and were showing
great activity. My father belonged to the innermost degree, and had been
betrayed by a villain named Cigole. My mother did not tell them all
this, but merely informed them of his danger.

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