THE SPIRIT MATERIALIZED.
At five next afternoon, Viscount Charny and Sebastian reached the
Tuileries Palace gates. The name of his brother passed Isidore and his
companion into the middle courtyard.
Young Gilbert had wanted to go to the house in Honore Street where his
father dwelt, but the other had pointed out that as he was honorary
physician to the Royal Household, he might be at the palace, where the
latest news of him could be had.
While an usher made inquiries, Sebastian sat on a sofa and Isidore
walked up and down the sitting-room.
In ten minutes the man returned: Count Charny was with the Queen; Dr.
Gilbert had had nothing happen to him; he was supposed to be with the
King, as a doctor was with his Majesty. If it were so, he would be
informed on coming out that a person was waiting to see him.
Isidore was much affected in parting with him as his joy at recovering
his father made the loss of his brother more painful.
At this the door opened for a servant to call: “The Viscount of Charny
is asked for in the Queen’s apartments.”
“You will wait for me,” said Isidore; “unless your father comes, promise
me, Gilbert, for I am answerable for you to the doctor.”
“Yes, and receive my thanks in the meantime,” rejoined Sebastian,
resuming his place on the sofa as the Viscount left the room with the
domestic.
Easy about his father’s fate, and himself, certain that the good intent
would earn his forgiveness for the journey, he went back in memory to
Father Fortier, and on Pitou, and reflected on the trouble which his
flight and his note would cause them severally.
And naturally, by the mechanism of ideas, he thought of the woods around
Pitou’s home, where he had so often pursued the ghost in his reverie.
The White Lady seen so oft in visions, and once only in reality, he
believed in Satory Wood, appearing and flitting away in a magnificent
carriage drawn by a galloping pair.
He recalled the profound emotion this sight had given him and half
plunged in dreams anew, he murmured:
“My mother?”
At this juncture, a door in the wall over against him opened. A woman
appeared. This appearance was so much in harmony with what happened in
his fancy, that he started to see his ghost take substance. In this
woman was the vision and the reality--the lady seen at Satory.
He sprang up as though a spring had acted under his feet.
His lips tightened on one another, his eyes expanded, and the pupils
dilated. His heaving breast in vain endeavored to form a sound.
Majestic, haughty and disdainful, the lady passed him without any heed.
Calm as she was externally, yet her pale countenance, frowning brow and
whistling respiration, betrayed that she was in great nervous
irritation.
She crossed the room diagonally, opened another door, and walked into a
corridor.
Sebastian comprehended that she was escaping him, if he did not hasten.
He still looked as if apprehensive that it was a ghost, but then darted
after her, before the skirt of her silken robe had disappeared round the
turning of the lobby.
Hearing steps behind her, she walked more briskly as if fearing pursuit.
He quickened his gait as much as he could, fearing as the corridor was
dark that he might miss her. This caused her to accelerate her pace
also, but she looked round.
He uttered a cry of joy for it was clearly the vision.
Seeing but a boy with extended arms and understanding nothing why she
should be chased, the lady hurried down a flight of stairs. But she had
barely descended to one landing than Sebastian arrived at the end of the
passage where he called out:
“Lady, oh, lady!”
This voice produced a strange sensation throughout the hearer; she
seemed struck in the heart by a pain which was half delight, and from
the heart a shudder sent by the blood through all her veins.
Nevertheless, as all was a puzzle to her; she doubled her speed, and the
course resembled a flight.
They reached the foot of the stairs at the same time.
It was the courtyard into which the lady sped. A carriage was waiting
for her, for a servant was holding the door open. She stepped in swiftly
and took her seat.
Before the door could be closed, Sebastian glided in between it and the
footman, and seizing the hem of her dress, kissed with frenzy and cried:
“Oh, lady!”
Looking at the pretty boy who had frightened her at first, she said in a
sweeter voice than she usually spoke, though it was yet shaken with fear
and emotion:
“Well, my little friend, why are you running after me? why do you call
me? what do you want?”
“I want to see you, and kiss you,” replied the child. “I want to call
you ‘Mother,'” he added in so low a voice that only she could hear him.
She uttered a scream, embraced him, and approaching him as by a sudden
revelation, fastened her ardent lips on his brow. Then, as though she
dreaded someone coming to snatch away this child whom she had found, she
drew him entirely into the vehicle, pushed him to its other side, shut
the door with her own hand, and lowering the glass to order: “Drive to
No. 9 Coq-Heron Street, the first carriage-doorway from Plastriere
Street,” she shut the window instantly.
Turning to the boy she asked his name.
“Sebastian? come, Sebastian, come here, on my heart.”
She threw herself back as if going to swoon, muttering: “What new
sensation is this? can it be what is called happiness?”
The journey was one long kiss of mother and son.
She had found this son by a miracle, whom the father had torn from her
in a terrible night of anguish and dishonor; he had disappeared with no
trace but the abductor’s tracks in the snow; this child had been
detested until she heard its first wail, whereupon she had loved him;
this child had been prayed for, called for, begged for. Her brother had
uselessly hunted for him over land and ocean. For fifteen years she had
yearned for him, and despaired to behold him again; she had begun to
think no more of him but as a cherished spirit. Here he was, running and
crying after her, seeking her, in his turn, calling her “Mother!”
He was pillowed on her heart, pressing on her bosom, loving her filially
although he had never seen her, as she loved him with maternal
affection. Her pure lips recovered all the joys of a lost life in this
first kiss given her son.
Above the head of mankind is Something else than the void in which the
spheres revolve: in life there is Another Thing than chance and
fatality.
After fourteen years she was taken back to the house where he was born,
this offspring of the union of the mesmerist Gilbert and the daughter of
the House of Taverney, his victim. There he had drawn the first breath
of life and thence his father had stolen him.
This little residence, bought by the late Baron Taverney, served as
lodging for his son when he came to town, which was rarely, and for
Andrea, when she slept in town.
After her conflict with the Queen, unable to bear meeting the woman who
loved her husband, Andrea had made up her mind to go away from the
rival, who visited on her retaliation for all her griefs, and whom the
woes of the Queen, great though they were, always remained beneath the
sufferings of the loving woman.
All concurred then in making this evening a happy one for the ex-Queen’s
maid of honor. Nothing should trouble her. Instead of a room in a palace
where the walls are all ears and eyes, she was harboring her child in
her own little, secluded house.
As soon as she was closeted with Sebastian in her boudoir, she drew him
to a lounge, on which were concentrated the lights from both candles and
fire.
“Oh, my boy, is it really you?” she exclaimed with a joy which still
quivered with lingering doubt.
“Mother!” ejaculated Sebastian with an outburst of the heart, flowing
like refreshing dews on Andrea’s burning heart and enfevered veins.
“And the meeting to be here,” said she, looking round with terror
towards the room whence he had been stolen.
“What do you mean by ‘Here?'”
“Fifteen years ago, my boy, you were born in this room, and I bless the
mercy of the Almighty that you are miraculously restored to me.”
“Yes, miraculously indeed,” said the youth, “for if I had not feared for
my father----“
Andrea closed her eyes and leaned back, so sharp was the pang shooting
through her.
“If I had not set out alone in the night, I should not have been
perplexed about the road: and then I should not have been recognized by
Lord Isidore Charny, who offered his help and conducted me to the
Tuileries----“
Her eyes re-opened, her heart expanded and her glance thanked heaven:
for it increased the miracle that Sebastian should be led to her by her
husband’s brother.
“I should not have seen you passing through the palace and not following
you might never have called you ‘Mother!’ the word so sweet and tender
to utter.”
Recalled to her bliss, she hugged him again and said:
“Yes, you are right, my boy; it is most sweet: but there is perchance
another one more sweet and tender; ‘My son!’ which I say to you as I
press you to my heart. But in short,” she suddenly said, “it is
impossible that all should remain mysterious around us. You have
explained how you come here, but not how you recognized me and ran after
me, calling me your mother.”
“How can I tell? I do not myself know,” replied Sebastian, looking at
her with love unspeakable. “You speak of mysteries? all is mysterious
about you and me. List to me, and I will tell you what seems a prodigy.”
Andrea bent nearer.
“It is ten years since I knew you. You do not understand. I have dreams
which my father calls hallucinations.”
At the reminder of Gilbert, passing like a steel point from the boyish
lips, Andrea started.
“I have seen you twenty times, mother. In the village, while playing
with the other schoolboys, I have followed you as you flitted through
the woods and pursued you with useless calls till you faded away.
Crushed by fatigue I would drop on the spot, as if your presence alone
had sustained me.”
This kind of second existence, this living dream, too much resembled
what the medium herself experienced for her not to understand him.
“Poor darling,” she said as she pressed him more closely, “it was vainly
that hate strove to part us. Heaven was bringing us together without my
suspecting it. Less happy than you, I saw my dear child neither in dream
nor reality. Still, when I passed through that Green Saloon I felt a
shiver; when I heard your footsteps behind mine, giddiness thrilled my
heart and brain; when you called me ‘Lady’ I all but stopped; when you
called me ‘Mother!’ I nearly swooned; when I embraced you, I believed.”
“My mother,” repeated Sebastian, as if to console her for not having
heard the welcome title for so long.
“Yes, your mother,” said the countess, with a transport of love
impossible to describe.
“Now that we have found each other,” said the youth, “and as you are
contented and happy at our union, we are not going to part any more,
tell me?”
She shuddered: she was enjoying the present to the exclusion of the past
and totally closing her eyes on the future.
“How I should bless you, my poor boy, if you could accomplish this
miracle!” she sighingly murmured.
“Let me manage it; I will do it. I do not know the causes separating you
from my father,”--Andrea turned pale--“but they will be effaced by my
tears and entreaties, however serious they may be.”
“Never,” returned the countess, shaking her head.
“I tell you that my father adores you,” said Sebastian, who believed
that the woman was in the wrong from the way his father had forbidden
him ever to mention her name.
Her hands holding the speaker’s relaxed but he did not notice this, as
he continued:
“I will prepare him to greet you; I will tell him all the happiness you
give me; one of these days, I will take you by the hand and lead you to
him, saying: ‘Here she is, father--look, how handsome she is!'”
Repulsing Sebastian, she sprang up.
“Never,” repeated she, while he stared with astounded eyes for she was
so white as to alarm him. This time her accent expressed a threat rather
than fright.
She recoiled on the lounge; in that face he had seen the hard lines
which Raphael gives to irritated angels.
“Why do you refuse to receive my father?” he demanded, in a sullen
voice.
At these words, the lightning burst as at the contact of two clouds.
“Why? do you ask me why? well, never shall you know.”
“Still, I ask why,” said Sebastian, with firmness.
“Because, then,” said Andrea, incapable of self-restraint under the
sting of the serpent gnawing at her heart, “because your father is an
infamous villain!”
He bounded up from the divan and stood before her.
“Do you say that of my father,” he cried, “of Dr. Gilbert, who brought
me up and educated me, the only friend I ever knew? I am making a
mistake--you are no mother of mine!”
She stopped him darting towards the door.
“Stay,” she said, “you cannot know, ought not understand, may not
judge.”
“No; but I can feel, and I feel that I love you no more.”
She screamed with pain.
Simultaneously, a diversion was given to the emotion overwhelming her by
the sound of a carriage coming up to the street doorway. Such a shudder
ran over her that he thrilled in sympathy.
“Wait, and be silent,” she said so that he was subjugated.
“Who am I to announce?” she heard the old footman demand in the
ante-room.
“The Count of Charny; and inquire if my lady will do me the honor to
receive me?”
“Into this room, child,” said Andrea, “he must not see you--he must not
know that you exist!”
She pushed the frightened youth into the adjoining apartment.
“Remain here till he shall have gone, when I will relate to--No, nothing
of that can be said? I will so love you that you will not doubt that I
am your own loving mother.”
His only reply was a moan.
At this moment the door opened and the servant, cap in hand, acquitted
himself of the errand entrusted to him.
“Show in the Count of Charny,” she said in the firmest voice she could
find.
As the old man retired, the nobleman appeared on the sill.