PRAEMONITUS, PRAEMUNITUS.
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead,
Were better mate than I!
_Scott_.
Fools, when they cannot see their way,
At once grow desperate,
Have no resource--have nothing to propose--
But fix a dull eye of dismay
Upon the final close.
Success to the stout heart, say I,
That sees its fate, and can defy!
_Faust_.
Two weeks later, and things had not stood still; they rarely do, when
there is so much at hand, and ripe for mischief; seventeen does not take
up the practice of wisdom voluntarily. I do not think I was very
different from other girls of seventeen, and I cannot blame myself very
much that I spent all these days in a dream of bliss and folly; how
could it have been otherwise, situated exactly as we were? This is the
way our days were passed. Mr. Langenau was better, but still not able to
leave his room. He was the hero, as a matter of course, and little
besides his sufferings, his condition, and his prospects, was talked of
at the table; which had the effect of making Kilian stay away two nights
out of three, and of alienating Richard altogether. Richard went to town
on Monday morning after the accident occurred, and it was now Friday of
the following week, and he had not come back.
It was a little dull for Mary Leighton and for Henrietta, perhaps;
possibly for Charlotte Benson, but she did not seem to mind it much; and
I had never found R---- so enchanting as that fortnight. Charlotte
Benson liked to be Florence Nightingale in little, it was very plain;
and naturally nothing made me so happy as to be permitted to minister to
the wants of the (it must be confessed) frequently unreasonable
sufferer. For the first few days, while he was confined to his bed, of
course Charlotte and I were obliged to content ourselves with the
sending of messages, the arranging of bouquets, the concocting of soups
and jellies, and all the other coddling processes at our command. But
when Mr. Langenau was able to sit up, Sophie (at the instance of
Charlotte Benson, for she seemed to have renounced diplomacy herself,)
arranged that the bed should be taken away during the daytime, and
brought back again at night, and that Mr. Langenau should lie on the
sofa through the day. This made it possible for us to be in the room,
even without Sophie, though we began to think her presence necessary.
That scruple was soon done away with, for it laid too great a tax on
her, and restricted our attentions very much. The result was, we passed
nearly the whole day beside him; Mary Leighton and Henrietta very often
of the party, and Sophie occasionally looking in upon us. Sometimes when
Charlotte Benson, as ranking officer, decreed that the patient needed
rest, we took our books and work and went to the piazza, outside the
window of his room.
He would have been very tired of us, if he had not been very much in
love with one of us. As it was, it must have been a kind of fool's
paradise in which he lived, five pretty women fluttering about him,
offering the prettiest homage, and one of them the woman for whom,
wisely or foolishly, rightly or wrongly, he had conceived so violent
a passion.
As soon as he was out of pain and began to recover the tone of his
nerves at all, I saw that he wanted me beside him more than ever, and
that Charlotte Benson, with all her skill and cleverness, was as nothing
to him in comparison. No doubt he dissembled this with care; and was
very graceful and very grateful and infinitely interesting. His moods
were very varying, however; sometimes he seemed struggling with the most
unconquerable depression, then we were all so sorry for him; sometimes
he was excited and brilliant; then we were all thrilled with admiration.
And not unfrequently he was irritable and quite morose and sullen. And
then we pitied, and admired, and feared him _à la fois_. I am sure no
man more fitted to command the love and admiration of women ever lived.
Charlotte Benson with great self-devotion had insisted upon teaching the
children for two hours every day, so that Mr. Langenau might not be
annoyed at the thought that they were losing time, and that Sophie might
not be inconvenienced. It was the least that she could do, she reasoned,
after the many lessons that Mr. Langenau had given us, with so much
kindness, and without accepting a return. Henrietta volunteered for the
service, also, and from eleven to one every day the boys were caught and
caged, and made to drink at the fountain of learning; or rather to
approach that fountain, of which forty Charlottes and Henriettas could
not have made them drink.
At that time Charlotte always decreed that Mr. Langenau should lie on
the sofa and go to sleep. The windows were darkened, and the room was
cleared of visitors. On this Friday morning, nearly two weeks after the
accident, as I was following Sophie from the room (Charlotte having gone
with Henrietta to capture the children), Mr. Langenau called after me
rather imperiously, "Miss d'Estrée--Miss Pauline--"
It had been a stormy session, and I turned back with misgivings. Sophie
shrugged her shoulders and went away toward the dining-room.
"What are you going away for, may I ask?" he said, as I appeared before
him humbly.
"Why, you know you ought to lie down and to rest," I tried to say with
discretion, but it was all one what I said: it would have irritated him
just the same.
"I am rather tired of this surveillance," he exclaimed. "It is almost
time I should be permitted to express a wish about the disposition of
myself. As I do not happen to want to go to sleep, I beg I may be
allowed the pleasure of your society for a little while."
"I don't think it would give you much pleasure, and you know you don't
feel as well to-day."
"Again, may I be permitted to judge how I feel myself?"
"Oh, yes, of course, but--"
"But what, Miss d'Estrée?--No doubt you want to go yourself--I am sorry
I thought of detaining you (with a gesture of dismissal). I beg you to
excuse me, A sick man is apt to be unreasonable."
"Oh, as to that, you know entirely well I do not want to go. You are
unreasonable, indeed, when you talk as you do now. I only went away for
your benefit."
"_Qui s'excuse, s'accuse_."
"But I am not excusing myself; and if you put it so I will go away at
once."
"_Si vous voulez_--"
"But I don't '_voulez_'--Oh, how disagreeable you can be."
"You will stay?"
"Pauline!" called Sophie from across the hall.
"There!" I exclaimed, interpreting it as the voice of conscience. I left
my work-basket and book upon the table, and went out of the room.
"You called me?" I said, following her into the parlor, where, shutting
the door, she motioned me to a seat beside her. She had a slip of paper
and an envelope in her hand, and seemed a little ill at ease.
"I've just had a telegram from Richard," she said. "He's coming home
to-night by the eleven o'clock train. It's so odd altogether. I don't
know why he's coming. But you may as well read his message yourself,"
she said with a forced manner, handing me the paper. It was as follows:
Send carriage for me to eleven-thirty train to-night. Remember my
injunctions, our last conversation, and your promises."
"Well?" I said, looking up, bewildered and not violently interested, for
I was secretly listening to the quick shutting of the library-door.
"Why, you see," she returned, with a forced air of confidence that made
me involuntarily shrink from her; I think she even laid her hand upon my
sleeve, or made some gesture of familiarity which was unusual--
"You see, that last conversation was--about you. Richard is annoyed
at--at your intimacy with Mr. Langenau. You know just as well as I do
how he feels, for no doubt he's spoken to you himself."
"He never has," I said, quite shortly.
"No?" and she looked rather chagrined. "Well--but at all events you know
how he feels. Girls ar'nt slow generally to find out about those things.
And he is really very unhappy about it, very. I wish, Pauline, you'd
give it up, child. It's gone quite far enough; now don't you think so
yourself? Mr. Langenau isn't the sort of man to be serious about, you
know. It's all very well, just for a summer's amusement. But, you know,
you mustn't go too far. I'm sure, dear, you're not angry with me: now
you understand just what I mean, don't you?"
No: not angry, certainly not angry. She went on, still with the
impertinent touch upon my arm: "Richard made me promise that I would
look after you, and not permit things to go too far. And you
see--well--I'll tell you in confidence what I think his coming to-night
means, and his message and all. I think--that is, I am afraid--he's
found out something against Mr. Langenau since he's been away. I know he
never has felt confidence in him. But I've always thought, perhaps that
was because he was--well--a little jealous and suspicious. You know men
are so apt to be suspicious; and I was sure, when he went away that last
Monday morning, that he would not leave a stone unturned in finding out
everything about him. It is that that's kept him, I am sure. Don't let
that make you feel hardly toward Richard," she went on, noticing perhaps
my look; "you know it's only natural, and besides, it's right. How would
he answer to your uncle?"
"It is I who should answer to my uncle," I returned, under my breath.
"Yes, but you are in our house, in our care. You know, my dear child,
you are very young and very inexperienced; you don't know how very
careful people have to be."
"Why don't you talk that way to Charlotte and Henrietta and Mary
Leighton? Have I done anything so very different from them?" I answered,
with a blaze of spirit.
"No, dear," she said, with a little laugh, "only there are one or two
men very much in love with you, and that makes everything so different."
I blushed scarlet, and was silenced instantly, as she intended.
"Now, maybe I am mistaken about his having discovered something," she
went on, "but I can't make anything else out of Richard's message. He is
not one to send off such a despatch without a reason. Evidently he is
very uneasy; and I thought it was best to be perfectly frank with you,
dear, and I know you'll do me the justice to say I have been, if Richard
ever says anything to you about it. You mustn't blame me, you know, for
the way he feels. I wish the whole thing was at an end," she said, with
the first touch of sincerity. "And now promise me one thing," with
another caressing movement of the hand, "Promise me, you won't go into
the library again till Richard comes, and we hear what he has to say.
Just for my sake, you know, my dear, for you see he would blame me if I
did not keep a strict surveillance. You won't mind doing that, I'm
sure, for me?"
"I shall not promise anything," I returned, getting up, "but I am not
likely to go near the library after what you've said."
"That's a good child," she said, evidently much relieved, and thinking
that the affair was very near its end. I opened the door, and she added:
"Now go up-stairs, and rest yourself, for you look as if you had a
headache, and don't think of anything that's disagreeable." That was a
good prescription, but I did not take it.
Of course, I did not go near the library; that was understood. After
dinner, the servant brought in Mr. Langenau's tray untouched, and
Charlotte Benson started up, and ran in to see what was the matter.
Sophie went too, looking a little troubled. I think they were both
snubbed: for ten minutes after, when I met Charlotte in the hall, she
had an unusual flush upon her cheek, and Sophie I found standing at one
of the parlor-windows, biting her lip, and tapping impatiently upon the
carpet. Evidently the affair was not as near its placid end as she had
hoped. She started a little when she saw me, and tried to look
unruffled.
"How sultry it is this afternoon!" she said. "Are you going up to your
room to take a rest? stop in my room on your way, I want to show you
those embroideries that I was telling Charlotte Benson of last night."
"I did not hear you, and I do not know anything about them," I said,
feeling not at all affectionate.
"No? Oh, I forgot: it was while you and Henrietta were sitting in the
library, and Charlotte and I were walking up and down the piazza while
it rained. Why, they are some heavenly sets that I got this spring from
Paris--Marshall picked them up one day at the _Bon Marché_--and verily
they are _bon marché_. I never saw anything so cheap, and I was telling
Charlotte that some of you might just as well have part of them, for I
never could use the half. Come up and look them over."
Now I loved "heavenly sets" as well as most women, but dress was not the
bait for me at that moment. So I said my head ached and I could not look
at them then, if she'd excuse me; and I went silently away to my room,
not caring at all if she were pleased or not. I disliked and distrusted
her more and more every moment, and she seemed to me so mean: for I knew
all her worry came from the apprehension of what she might have to fear
from Richard, not the thought of the suffering that he or that any one
else endured.
It was a long afternoon, but it reached its end, after the manner of
all afternoons on record, even those of Marianna. When I came
down-stairs they were all at tea and Kilian had arrived. A more
enlivening atmosphere prevailed, and the invalid was not discussed. A
drive was being canvassed. There was an early moon, and Kilian proposed
driving Tom and Jerry before the open wagon, which would carry four,
through the valley-road, to be back by half-past nine or ten o'clock.
"But what am I to do," cried Kilian, "when there are five angels, and I
have only room for three?"
"Why, two will have to stay at home, according to my arithmetic," said
Charlotte, good-naturedly, "and I've no doubt I shall be remainder."
"If you stay, I shall stay with you," said Henrietta, dropping the
metaphor, for metaphors, even the mildest, were beyond her reach
of mind.
Everybody wanted to stay, and everybody tried to be quite firm; but as
no one's firmness but mine was based on inclination, the result was that
Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton, Charlotte, and
Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at half-past seven
o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was really good-natured
with all her sharpness and self-will, went into the library to speak to
Mr. Langenau, and to show she did not resent the noonday slight,
whatever that had been. But presently she came back looking rather
anxious, and said to Sophie, ignoring me (whom she always did ignore if
possible),
"Do go and see what you can do for Mr. Langenau. He is really very far
from well. His tea stands there, and he hasn't taken anything to eat. He
looks feverish and excited, and I truly think he ought to see the
Doctor. You know he promised the Doctor to stay in his room, and keep
still all the rest of the week. But I am sure he means to come out
to-morrow, and he even talks of going down to town. It will kill him if
he does; I'm sure he's doing badly, and I wish you'd go and see to him."
"Does he know Richard is coming up to-night?" asked Sophie, _sotto
voce_, but with affected carelessness.
"I do not know; oh yes, he does, I mentioned it to him at dinner-time, I
remember now."
"Well, I'll see if I can do anything for him; now go, they're waiting
for you. Have a pleasant time."
After they were gone, Sophie went into the library, but she did not stay
very long. She came and sat beside me on the river-balcony, and talked a
little, desultorily and absent-mindedly.
Presently there was a call for "mamma," a hubbub and a hurry--soon
explained. Charley, who had been running wild for the last two weeks,
without tutor or uncle to control him, had just fallen from the mow, and
hurt himself somewhat, and frightened himself much more. The whole house
was in a ferment. He was taken to mamma's room, for he was a great baby
when anything was the matter with him, and would not let mamma move an
inch away from him. After assisting to the best of my ability in making
him comfortable, and seeing myself only in the way, I went down-stairs
again, and took my seat upon the balcony that overlooked the river.
The young moon was shining faintly, and the air was soft and balmy. The
house was very still; the servants, I think, were all in a distant part
of the house, or out enjoying the moonlight and the idleness of evening.
Sophie was nailed to Charley's bed up-stairs, trying to soothe him;
Benny was sinking to sleep in his little crib. It seemed like an
enchanted palace, and when I heard a step crossing the parlor, it made
me start with a vague feeling of alarm. The parlor-window by me, which
opened to the floor, was not closed, and in another moment some one came
out and stood beside me. It was Mr. Langenau. I started up and
exclaimed, "Mr. Langenau, how imprudent! Oh, go back at once."
He seemed weak, and his hand shook as he leaned against the casement,
but his eyes were glittering with a feverish excitement. He did not
answer. I went on: "The Doctor forbade your coming out for several days
yet--and the exertion and the night-air--oh, I beg you to go back."
"Alone?" he said in a low voice.
"No, oh no, I will go with you. Anything, only do not stay here a moment
longer; come." And taking his hand (and how burning hot it was!) and
drawing it through my arm, I started toward the hall. He had to lean on
me, for the unusual exertion seemed to have annihilated all his
strength. When we reached the library, I led him to a chair--a large and
low and easy one, and he sank down in it.
"You are not going away?" he asked, as he gasped for breath, "For there
is something that must be said to-night."
"No, I will not go," I answered, frightened to see him so, and agitated
by a thousand feelings. "I will light the lamp, and read to you. Let me
move your chair back from the window."
"No, you must not light the lamp; I like the moonlight better. Bring
your chair and sit here by me--here." He leaned and half-pulled toward
him the companion to the chair on which he sat, a low, soft, easy one.
I sat down in it, sitting so I nearly faced him. The moon was shining
in at the one wide window: I can remember exactly the pattern that the
vine-leaves made as the moonlight fell through them on the carpet at our
feet. I had a bunch of verbena-leaves fastened in my dress, and I never
smell verbena-leaves at any time or place without seeing before me that
moon-traced pattern and that wide-open window.
"Pauline," he said, in that low, thrilling voice, leaning a little
toward me, "I have a great deal to say to you to-night. I have a great
wrong to ask pardon for--a great sorrow to tell you of. I shall never
call you Pauline again as I call you to-night. I shall never look into
your eyes again, I shall never touch your hand. For we must part,
Pauline; and this hour, which heaven has given me, is the last that we
shall spend together on the earth."
I truly thought that his fever had produced delirium, and, trying to
conceal my alarm, I said, with an attempt to quiet him, "Oh, do not say
such things; we shall see each other a great, great many times, I hope,
and have many more hours together."
"No, Pauline, you do not know so well as I of what I speak. This is no
delirium; would to heaven, it were, and I might wake up from it. No, the
parting must be said to-night, and I must be the one to speak it. We
may spend days, perhaps, under the same roof--we may even sit at the
same table once again; but, I repeat, from this day I may never look
into your eyes again, I may never touch your hand. Pauline, can you
forgive me? I know that you can love. Merciful Heaven! who so well as I,
who have held your stainless heart in my stained hand these many dreamy
weeks; and Justice has not struck me dead. Yes, Pauline, I know you've
loved me; but remember this one thing, in all your bitter thoughts of me
hereafter: remember this, you have not loved me as I have loved you. You
have not given up earth and heaven both for me as I have done for you.
For you? No, not for you, but for the shadow of you, for the thought of
you, for these short weeks of you. And then, an eternity of absence, and
of remorse, and of oblivion--ah, if it might be oblivion for you! If I
could blot out of your life this short, blighting summer; if I could put
you back to where you were that fresh, sweet morning that I walked with
you beside the river! I loved you from that day, Pauline, and I drugged
my conscience, and refused to heed that I was doing you a wrong in
teaching you to love me. Pauline, I have to tell you a sad story: you
will have to go back with me very far; you will have to hear of sins of
which you never dreamed in your dear innocence. I would spare you if I
could, but you must know, for you must forgive me. And when you have
heard, you may cease to love, but I think you will forgive. Listen."
Why should I repeat that terrible disclosure? why harrow my soul with
going back over that dark path? Let me try to forget that such sins,
such wrongs, such revenges, ever stained a human life. I was so young,
so innocent, so ignorant. It was a strange misfortune that I should have
had to know that which aged and changed me so. But he was right in
saying that I had to know it. My life was bound involuntarily to his by
my love, and what concerned him was my fate. Alas! He was in no other
way bound to me than by my love: nor ever could be.
I don't know whether I was prepared for it or not: I knew that something
terrible and final was to come, and I felt the awe that attends the
thoughts that words are final and time limited. But when I heard the
fatal truth--that another woman lived to whom he was irrevocably
bound--I heard it as in a dream, and did not move or speak. I think I
felt for a moment as if I were dead, as if I had passed out of the ranks
of the living into the abodes of the silent, and benumbed, and
pulseless. There was such a horrible awe, and chill, and check through
all my young and rapid blood. It was like death by freezing. It is not
so pleasant as they say, believe me. But no pain: that came afterward,
when I came to life, when I felt the touch of his hand on mine, and
ceased to hear his cruel words.
I had shrunk back from him in my chair, and sat, I suppose, like a
person in a trance, with my hands in my lap, and my eyes fixed on him
with bewilderment. But when he ceased to speak--and, leaning forward on
one knee, clasped my hands in his, and drew me toward him, then indeed I
knew I was not dead. Oh, the agony of those few moments--I tried to
rise, to go away from him. But he held me with such strength--all his
weakness was gone now. He folded his arms around my waist and held me as
in a vise. Then suddenly leaning his head down upon my arms, he kissed
my hands, my arms, my dress, with a moan of bitter anguish.
"Not mine," he murmured. "Never mine but in my dreams. O wretched
dreams, that drive me mad. Pauline, they will tell us that we must not
dream--we must not weep, we must be stocks and stones. We must wear this
weight of living death till that good Lord that makes such laws shall
send us death in mercy. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years of suffering:
that might almost satisfy Him, one would think. Pauline! you and I are
to say good-bye to-night. Good-bye! People talk of it as a cruel word.
Think of it: if it were but for a year, a year with hope at the end of
it to keep our hearts alive, it would be terrible, and we should need be
brave. The tears that lovers shed over a year apart; the days that have
got to come and go, how weary. The nights--the nights that sleep flies
off from, and that memory reigns over. Count them--over three hundred
come in every year. One, you think while it is passing, is enough to
kill you: one such night of restless torture, and how many shall we
multiply our three hundred by? We are young, Pauline. You are a child, a
very child. I am in the very flush and strength of manhood. There is
half a century of suffering in me yet: this frame, this brain, will
stand the wear of the hard years to come but too, too well. There is no
hope of death. There is no hope in life. That star has set. Good God!
And that makes hell--why should I wait for it--it cannot be worse there
than here. Don't listen to me--it will not be as hard for you--you are
so young--you have no sins to torture you--only a little love to conquer
and forget. You will marry a man who lives for you, and who is patient
and will wait till this is over. Ah, no: by Heaven! I can't quite stand
it yet. Pauline, you never loved him, did you--never blushed for
him--never listened for his coming with your lips apart and your heart
fluttering, as I have seen you listen when you thought that I was
coming? No, I know you never loved him: I know you have loved me
alone--me--who ought to have forbidden you. Forgive--forgive--forgive
me."
A passion of tears had come to my relief, and I shook from head to foot
with sobs. I cannot feel ashamed when I remember that he held me for one
moment in his arms. He had been to me till that shock, strength, truth,
justice: _the man I loved_. How could I in one instant know him by his
sin alone, and undo all my trust? I knew only this, that it was for the
last time, and that my heart was broken.
I forgave him--that was an idle form; in my great love I never felt that
there was anything to be forgiven, except the wrong that fate had done
me, in making my love so hopeless. He told me to forget him; that seemed
to me as idle; but all his words were precious, and all my soul was in
his hand. When, at that moment, the sound of wheels upon the gravel
came, and the sound of laughter and of voices, I sprang up; he caught me
in his arms and held me closely. Another moment, the parting was over,
and I was kneeling by my bed up-stairs, weeping, sobbing, hopeless.