Cord and Creese

J >> James de Mille >> Cord and Creese

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"I suppose you have given up visiting the Grange forever. I don't call
your coming to take me to the church _visits_. I suppose I may as
well give you up. It is as difficult to get you here as if you were the
Grand Lama of Thibet.

"Amidst all my stupidities I have two or three ideas which may be useful
in our music, if I can only put them in practice. Bear with me, and deal
gently with

"Yours, despondingly,

"T. T."

To this Despard replied in a note which he gave her at their next
meeting, calling her "Dear Seraph," and signing himself "Grand Lama."
After this they always called each other by these names. Grand Lama was
an odd name, but it became the sweetest of sounds to Despard since it
was uttered by her lips--the sweetest, the most musical, and the
tenderest. As to himself he knew not what to call this dear companion of
his youth, but the name Seraph came into use, and grew to be associated
with her, until at last he never called her any thing else.

Yet after this he used to go to the Grange more frequently. He could not
stay away. His steps wandered there irresistibly. An uncontrollable
impulse forced him there. She was always alone awaiting him, generally
with a sweet confusion of face and a tenderness of greeting which made
him feel ready to fall on his knees before her. How else could he feel?
Was she not always in his thoughts? Were not all his sleeping hours one
long dream of her? Were not all his waiting thoughts filled with her
radiant presence?

"How is it under our control
To love or not to love?"

Did he know what it was that he felt for her? He never thought. Enough
that he felt. And that feeling was one long agony of intense longing and
yearning after her. Had not all his life been filled by that one bright
image?

Youth gave it to him. After-years could not efface it. The impress of
her face was upon his heart. Her voice was always in his ears. Every
word that she had ever spoken to him was treasured up in his memory and
heart with an avarice of love which prevented any one word from even
being forgotten.

At church and at home, during service and out of it, in the street or in
the study, he saw only one face, and heard only one voice. Amidst the
bustle of committee meetings he was conscious of her image--a sweet face
smiling on him, a tender voice saying "Lama." Was there ever so musical
and so dear a word as "Lama?" For him, never.

The hunger of his longing grew stronger every day. That strong, proud,
self-secluded nature of his was most intense in all its feelings, and
dwelt with concentrated passion upon this one object of its idolatry. He
had never had any other object but this one.

A happy boyhood passed in the society of this sweet playmate, then a
young girl of his own age; a happy boyhood here in Holby, where they had
always been inseparable, wandering hand in hand along the shore or over
the hills; a happy boyhood where she was the one and only companion whom
he knew or cared for--this was the sole legacy of his early life.
Leaving Holby he had left her, but had never forgotten her. He had
carried with him the tender memory of this bright being, and cherished
his undying fondness, not knowing what that fondness meant. He had
returned to find her married, and severed from him forever, at least in
this life. When he found that he had lost her he began to understand how
dear she was. All life stood before him aimless, pointless, and
meaningless without her. He came back, but the old intercourse could not
be renewed; she could not be his, and he could only live, and love, and
endure. Perhaps it would have been wiser if he had at once left Holby
and sought out some other abode. But the discovery of his love was
gradual; it came through suffering and anguish; and when he knew that
his love was so intense it was then impossible to leave. To be near her,
to breathe the same air, to see her face occasionally, to nurse his old
memories, to hoard up new remembrances of her words and looks--these
now became the chief occupation of his hours of solitude, and the only
happiness left him in his life.

One day he went up with a stronger sense of desolation in his heart than
usual, going up to see her in order to get consolation from the sight of
her face and the sound of her voice. Their former levity had given place
to a seriousness of manner which was very different. A deep, intense joy
shone in the eyes of each at meeting, but that quick repartee and light
badinage which they had used of old had been dropped.

Music was the one thing of which they could speak without fear. Despard
could talk of his Byzantine poets, and the chants of the Eastern Church,
without being in danger of reawakening painful memories. The piano stood
close by, and always afforded a convenient mode of distracting attention
when it became too absorbed in one another.

For Mrs. Thornton did not repel him; she did not resent his longing; she
did not seem forgetful of what he so well remembered. How was it with
her who had given her hand to another?

"What she felt the while
Dare he think?"

Yet there were times when he thought it possible that she might feel as
he did. The thought brought joy, but it also brought fear. For, if the
struggle against this feeling needed all the strength of his nature,
what must it cost her? If she had such a struggle as he, how could she
endure it? Then, as he considered this, he thought to himself that he
would rather she would not love him than love him at such a cost. He was
willing to sacrifice his own heart. He wished only to adore her, and was
content that she should receive, and permit, and accept his adoration,
herself unmoved--a passionless divinity.

In their intercourse it was strange how frequently there were long
pauses of perfect silence, during which neither spoke a word. Sometimes
each sat looking at the floor; sometimes they looked at one another, as
though they could read each other's thoughts, and by the mere gaze of
their earnest eyes could hold ample spiritual communion.

On one such occasion they stood by the window looking out upon the lawn,
but seeing nothing in that abstracted gaze. Despard stood facing her,
close to her. Her hand was hanging by her side. He stooped and took that
little slender hand in his. As he did so he trembled from head to foot.
As he did so a faint flush passed over her face. Her head fell forward.
Despard held her hand and she did not withdraw it. Despard drew her
slightly toward him. She looked up into his face with large, eloquent
eyes, sad beyond all description, yet speaking things which thrilled his
soul. He looked down upon her with eyes that told her all that was in
his heart. She turned her head away.

Despard clung to her hand as though that hand were his life, his hope,
his joy--as though that alone could save him from some abyss of despair
into which he was falling. His lips moved. In vain. No audible sound
broke that intense stillness in which the beating and throbbing of those
two forlorn hearts could be heard. His lips moved, but all sound died
away upon them.

At last a stronger effort broke the silence.

"Teresa!"

It was a strange tone, a tone of longing unutterable, a tone like that
which a dying man might use in calling before him one most dear. And all
the pent-up feeling of years rushed forth in concentrated energy, and
was borne to her ears in the sound of that one word. She looked up with
the same glance as before.

"Little playmate," said he, in a tone of infinite sweetness, "have you
ever forgotten the old days? Do you remember when you and I last stood
hand in hand?"

His voice sounded like the utterance of tears, as though, if he could
have wept, he would then have wept as no man wept before, but his eyes
were dry through his manhood, and all that tears can express were shown
forth in his tone.

As he began to speak her head fell again. As he ended she looked up as
before. Her lips moved. She whispered but one word:

"Courtenay!"

She burst into a flood of tears and sank into a chair. And Despard
stood, not daring even to soothe her, for fear lest in that vehement
convulsion of his soul all his self-command should give way utterly.

At length Mrs. Thornton rose. "Lama," said she, at last, in a low, sad
voice, "let us go to the piano."

"Will you sing the _Ave Maria_" he asked, mournfully.

"I dare not," said she, hastily. "No, anything but that. I will sing
Rossini's _Cujus Animam_."

Then followed those words which tell in lofty strains of a broken
heart:

Cujus animam gementem
Contristatam et flebentem
Pertransivit gladius!

CHAPTER XXVII.

JOURNAL OF PAOLO LANGHETTI.

When Mrs. Thornton saw Despard next she showed him a short note which
she had just received from her brother, accompanying his journal. Nearly
two years had elapsed since she had last heard from him.

His journal was written as before at long intervals, and was as follows:

Halifax, April 10, 1847.--I exist here, but nothing more. Nothing is
offered by this small colonial town that can afford interest. Life goes
on monotonously. The officers and their families are what they are every
where. They are amiable and pleasant, and try to get the best out of
life. The townspeople are hospitable, and there is much refinement among
them.

But I live for the most part in a cottage outside of the town, where I
can be secluded and free from observation. Near my house is the
Northwest Arm. I cross it in a boat, and am at once in a savage
wilderness. From the summit of a hill, appropriately named Mount Misery,
I can look down upon this city which is bordered by such a wilderness.

The winter has passed since my last entry, and nothing has occurred. I
have learned to skate. I went out on a moose-hunt with Colonel Despard.
The gigantic horns of a moose which I killed are now over the door of my
studio. I have joined in some festivities, and have done the honors of
my house. It is an old-fashioned wooden structure which they call the
Priory.

So the winter has passed, and April is now here. In this country there
is no spring. Snow is yet on the ground. Winter is transformed gradually
till summer. I must keep up my fires till June, they say.

During the winter I have guarded my treasure well. I took a house on
purpose to have a home for her. But her melancholy continued, and the
state of mind in which I found her still endures. Will it ever change? I
gave out here that she was a relative who was in ill health. But the
winter has passed, and she remains precisely the same. Can she live on
long in this mood?

At length I have decided to try a change for her. The Holy Sisterhood of
Mercy have a convent here, where she may find a higher and purer
atmosphere than any where else. There I have placed her. I have told
nothing of her story. They think she is in grief for the death of
friends. They have received her with that warm sympathy and holy love
which it is the aim of their life to cherish.

O mater alma Christ! carissima,
Te nunc flagitant devota corda et ora,
Ora pro nobis!

August 5, 1847.--The summer goes on pleasantly. A bracing climate, a
cool sea-breeze, fishing and hunting in the forests, sailing in the
harbor--these are the amusements which one can find if he has the
leisure.

She has been among the Sisterhood of Mercy for some months. The deep
calm of that holy retreat has soothed her, but only this much, that her
melancholy has not lessened but grown more placid. She is in the midst
of those whose thoughts are habitually directed to that work which she
longs after. The home from which she has been exiled is the desire of
their hearts. They aim after that place for which she longs with so deep
a longing. There is sympathy in all those hearts with one another. She
hears in their chants and prayers those hopes and desires, and these are
but the utterances of what she feels.

Here they sing the matchless Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix, and in these
words she finds the highest expression that human words can give of the
thoughts and desires of her soul. They tell me that the first time they
sang it, as they came to this passage she burst into tears and sank down
almost senseless:

O bona patria! lumina sobria te speculantur,
Ad tua nomina sobria lumina collacrimantur:
Et tua mentio pectoris unctis, cura doloris,
Concipientibus aethers mentibus ignis amoris.

November 17.--The winter must soon be here again.

My treasure is well guarded by the Holy Sisterhood. They revere her and
look upon her as a saint. They tell me wonderful things about her which
have sunk into my soul. They think that she is another Saint Cecilia, or
rather Saint Teresa, the Saint of Love and Longing.

She told them once that she was not a Catholic, but that any form of
worship was sweet and precious to her--most of all, the lofty utterances
of the prayers and hymns of the Church. She will not listen to dogmas,
but says that God wishes only love and praise. Yet she joins in all
their rites, and in this House, where Love is chiefly adored, she
surpasses all in the deep love of her heart.

January 2, 1848.--I have seen her for the first time in many months. She
smiled. I never saw her smile before, except once in the ship, when I
told my name and made her mother take my place in the cabin.

She smiled. It was as if an angel from heaven had smiled on me. Do I not
believe that she is one?

They all say that she is unchanged. Her sadness has had no abatement. On
that meeting she made an effort for my sake to stoop to me. Perhaps she
saw how my very soul entreated her to speak. So she spoke of the
Sisterhood, and said she loved them all. I asked her if she was happier
here than at my house. She said "No." I did not know whether to feel
rejoiced or sorrowful. Then she told me something which has filled me
with wonder ever since.

She asked me if I had been making inquiries about her family, for I had
said that I would. I told her that I had. She asked what I had heard. I
hesitated for a moment, and at last, seeing that she was superior to any
sorrow of bereavement; I told her all about the sad fate of her brother
Louis, which your old friend Courtenay Despard had communicated to his
uncle here. She listened without emotion, and at last, looking earnestly
at me, said,

"_He is not dead!_"

I stood amazed. I had seen the very newspapers which contained an
account of his death, I had read the letters of Courtenay Despard, which
showed how painstaking his search had been. Had he not traveled to every
place where he could hear any thing of the Brandons? Had he not written
at the very outset wherever he could hope to hear any thing? I did not
know what to say.

For Louis Brandon is known to have fallen overboard from the ship Java,
during a tremendous monsoon, several hundred miles away from any land.
How could he possibly have escaped death? The Captain, whom Courtenay
Despard found out and questioned, said he threw over a hen-coop and a
pail. These could not save him. Despard also inquired for months from
every ship that arrived from those parts, but could learn nothing. The
next ship that came from New South Wales foundered off the coast of
Africa. Three passengers escaped to Sierra Leone, and thence to England.
Despard learned their names, but they were not Brandon. The information
which one of them, named Wheeler, gave to the ship-owners afforded no
hope of his having been found by this ship, even if it had been
possible. It was simply impossible, however, for the _Falcon_ did
not pass the spot where poor Brandon fell overboard till months had
elapsed.

All these things I knew, and they came to my mind. She did not notice my
emotion, but after a pause she looked at me again with the same
earnestness, and said,

"_My brother Frank is not dead._"

This surprised me as much as the other.

"Are you sure?" said I, reverently.

"I am."

"How did you learn this? All who have inquired say that both of your
brothers are dead."

"They told me," said she, "many times. _They_ said that my brothers
had not come among them to their own place, as they would have had to
come if they had left the earth."

She spoke solemnly and with mysterious emphasis. I said nothing, for I
knew not what to say.

On going home and thinking over this, I saw that she believed herself to
have the power of communicating with the departed. I did not know
whether this intelligence, which she believed she had received, had been
gained in her trance, or whether she thought that she had recent
interviews with those on high. I went to see her again, and asked this.
She told me that once since her recovery she had fallen into that state,
and had been, as she called it, "in her home."

I ventured to ask her more about what she considered a communion with
the departed. She tried to speak, but looked like one who could not find
words. It was still the same as before. She has in her mind thoughts
which can not be expressed by any human language. She will not be able
to express them till such a language is obtained. Yet she gave me one
idea, which has been in my mind ever since.

She said that the language of those among whom she has been has nothing
on earth which is like it except music. If our music could be developed
to an indefinite extent it might at last begin to resemble it. Yet she
said that she sometimes heard strains here in the Holy Mass which
reminded her of that language, and might be intelligible to an immortal.

This is the idea which she imparted to me, and I have thought of it ever
since.

August 23--Great things have happened.

When I last wrote I had gained the idea of transforming music into a
language. The thought came to me that I, who thirst for music, and love
it and cherish it above all things--to whom it is an hourly comfort and
solace--that I might rise to utter forth to her sounds which she might
hear. I had already seen enough of her spiritual tone to know what
sympathies and emotions might best be acted upon. I saw her several
times, so as to stimulate myself to a higher and purer exercise of
whatever genius I may have.

I was encouraged by the thought that from my earliest childhood, as I
began to learn to speak so I began to learn to sing. As I learned to
read printed type so I read printed music. The thoughts of composers in
music thus became as legible to me as those of composers in words. So
all my life my knowledge has widened, and with that knowledge my love
has increased. This has been my one aim in life--my joy and my delight.
Thus it came to pass that at last, when alone with my Cremona, I could
utter all my own thoughts, and pour forth every feeling that was in my
heart. This was a language with me. I spoke it, yet there was no one who
could understand it fully. Only one had I ever met with to whom I told
this besides yourself--she could accompany me--she could understand and
follow me wherever I led. I could speak this language to her, and she
could hear and comprehend. This one was my Bice.

Now that she had told me this I grasped at the thought. Never before had
the idea entered my mind of trying upon her the effect of my music. I
had given it up for her sake while she was with me, not liking to cause
any sound to disturb her rapt and melancholy mood.

But now I began to understand how it was with her. She had learned the
language of the highest places and had heard the New Song. She stood far
above me, and if she could not understand my music it would be from the
same reason that a grown man can not comprehend the words of a lisping,
stammering child. She had that language in its fullness. I had it only
in its crudest rudiments.

Now Bice learned my words and followed me. She knew my utterance. I was
the master--she the disciple. But here was one who could lead me. I
would be the follower and disciple. From her I could learn more than in
all my life I could ever discover by my own unassisted efforts.

It was mine, therefore, to struggle to overcome the lisping, stammering
utterance of my purely earthly music; to gain from her some knowledge of
the mood of that holier, heavenly expression, so that at last I might be
able in some degree to speak to this exile the language of the home
which she loved; that we, by holding commune in this language, might
rise together to a higher spiritual realm, and that she in her solitude
might receive at least some associate.

So I proposed to her to come back and stay with me again. She consented
at once.

Before that memorable evening I purified my heart by fasting and prayer.
I was like one who was seeking to ascend into heaven to take part in
that celestial communion, to join in the New Song, the music of the
angels.

By fasting and prayer I sought so to ascend, and to find thoughts and
fit utterance for those thoughts. I looked upon my office as similar to
that of the holy prophets of old. I felt that I had a power of utterance
if the Divine One would only inspire.

I fasted and prayed that so I might reduce this grosser material frame,
and sharpen and quicken every nerve, and stimulate every fibre of the
brain. So alone could I most nearly approach to the commune of spirits.
Thus had those saints and prophets of old done when they had entered
upon the search after this communion, and they had received their
reward, even the visitation of angels and the vision of the blessed.

A prophet--yes--now, in these days, it is left for the prophet to utter
forth his inspiration by no other way than that of music.

So I fasted and prayed. I took up the words from the holy priesthood,
and I said, as they say:

Munda cor meum, ac labia mea, Omnipotens Deus, qui labia Isaiae
prophetae, calculo mundasti ignito!

For so Isaiah had been exalted till he heard the language of heaven, the
music of the seraphim.

She, my divinity, my adored, enshrined again in my house, bore herself
as before--kind to me and gentle beyond all expression, but with
thoughts of her own that placed between us a gulf as wide as that which
separates the mortal from the immortal.

On that evening she was with me in the parlor which looks out upon the
Northwest Arm. The moon shone down there, the dark, rocky hills on the
opposite side rose in heavy masses. The servants were away in the city.
We were alone.

Ah, my Cremona! if a material instrument were ever able to utter forth
sounds to which immortals might listen, thou, best gift of my father,
thou canst utter them!

"You are pale," said she, for she was always kindly and affectionate as
a mother with a child, as a guardian angel with his ward. "You are pale.
You always forget yourself for others, and now you suffer anxiety for
me. Do not suffer. I have my consolations."

I did not make any reply, but took my Cremona, and sought to lift up all
my soul to a level with hers, to that lofty realm where her spirit ever
wandered, that so I might not be comfortless. She started at the first
tone that I struck forth, and looked at me with her large, earnest eyes.
I found my own gaze fixed on hers, rapt and entranced. Now there came at
last the inspiration so longed for, so sought for. It came from where
her very soul looked forth into mine, out of the glory of her lustrous,
spiritual eyes. They grew brighter with an almost immortal radiance, and
all my heart rose up till it seemed ready to burst in the frenzy of that
inspired moment.

Now I felt the spirit of prophecy, I felt the afflatus of the inspired
sibyl or seer, and the voice of music which for a lifetime I had sought
to utter forth now at last sounded as I longed that it should sound.

I exulted in that sound. I knew that at last I had caught the tone, and
from her. I knew its meaning and exulted, as the poet or the musician
must always exult when some idea sublimer than any which he has ever
known is wafted over his upturned spiritual gaze.

She shared my exaltation. There came over her face swiftly, like the
lightning flash, an expression of surprise and joy. So the face of the
exile lightens up at the throbbing of his heart, when, in some foreign
land, he suddenly and unexpectedly hears the sound of his own language.
So his eyes light up, and his heart beats faster, and even amidst the
very longing of his soul after home, the desire after that home is
appeased by these its most hallowed associations.

And the full meaning of that eloquent gaze of hers as her soul looked
into mine became all apparent to me. "Speak on," it said; "sound on, oh
strains of the language of my home! Unheard so long, now heard at last."

I knew that I was comprehended. Now all the feelings of the melancholy
months came rushing over my heart, and all the holiest ideas which had
animated my life came thronging into my mind, bursting forth into tones,
as though of their own accord, involuntarily, as words come forth in a
dream.

"Oh thou," I said, in that language which my own lips could not utter--
"oh thou whom I saved from the tomb, the life to which I restored thee
is irksome; but there remains a life to which at last thou shalt attain.

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