LUCILLA.--THE SOLITUDE.--THE SPELL.--THE DREAM AND THE RESOLVE.
While the above events, so fatal to Lucilla, were in progress at Rome, she
was holding an unquiet commune with her own passionate and restless heart,
by the borders of the lake, whose silver quiet mocked the mind it had, in
happier moments, reflected. She had now dragged on the weary load of time
throughout the winter; and the early and soft spring was already
abroad--smoothing the face of the waters, and calling life into the
boughs. Hitherto this time of the year had possessed a mysterious and
earnest attraction for Lucilla--now all its voices were mute. The letters
that Godolphin had written to her were so few, and so restrained, in
comparison with those which she had received in the former periods of
absence, that--ever alive as she was to impulse, and unregulated by
settled principles of hope--her only relief to a tearful and spiritless
dejection was in paroxysms of doubt, jealousy, and despair.
It is the most common thing in the world, that, when we have once wronged
a person, we go on in the wrong, from a certain soreness with which
conscience links the associations of the injured party. And thus,
Godolphin, struggling with the return to his early and never-forgotten
love, felt an unwillingness that he could seldom successfully combat, in
playing the hypocrite to Lucilla. His very remorse made him unkind; the
feeling that he ought to write often, made him write seldom: and
conscious that he ought to return her expressions of eager devotion, he
returned them with involuntary awkwardness and reserve. All this is very
natural, and very evident to us; but a thousand mysteries were more
acceptable to, more sought for and more clung to, by Lucilla, than a
conjecture at the truth.
Meanwhile she fed more and more eagerly on those vain researches which yet
beguiled her time, and flattered her imagination. In a science so false,
and so unprofitable, it mattered, happily, little, whether or not the poor
disciple laboured with success; but I need scarcely tell to any who have
had the curiosity to look over the entangled schemes and quaint figures of
the art, how slender was the advancement of the daughter in the learning
of the sire. Still it was a comfort and a soothing, even to look upon the
placid heaven, and form a conjecture as to the language of its stars.
And, above all, while she questioned the future, she thought only of her
lover. But day after day passed--no letter, or worse than none; and at
length Lucilla became utterly impatient of all rest: a nervous fever
possessed her; the extreme solitude of the place filled her with that
ineffable sensation of irritability which sometimes preludes the madness
that has been produced in criminals by solitary confinement.
On the day that she wrote that letter to Godolphin which I have
transcribed, this painful tension of the nerves was more than hitherto
acute. She longed to fly somewhere; nay, once or twice, she remembered
that Rome was easily gained, that she might be there as expeditiously as
her letter. Although in that letter only we have signified that Lucilla
had expressed her wish for Godolphin's return; yet, in all her later
letters, she had (perhaps, more timidly) urged that desire. But they had
not taken the same hold on Godolphin; nor, while he was playing with his
danger, had they produced the same energetic resolution. Lucilla could
not, however, hope with much reason that the success of her present letter
would be greater than that of her former ones; and, at all events, she did
not anticipate an immediate compliance with her prayers. She looked
forward to some excuses, and to some delay. We cannot, therefore, wonder
that she felt a growing desire to follow her own epistle to Rome; and
although she had been prevented before, and still drew back from
absolutely favoring and enforcing the idea, by the fear of Godolphin's
displeasure; yet she trusted enough to his gentleness of character to feel
sure that the displeasure could scarcely be lasting. Still the step was
bold, and Lucilla loved devotedly enough to be timid; and besides, her
inexperience made her look upon the journey as a far more formidable
expedition than it really was.
Debating the notion in her mind, she sought her usual retreat, and turned
listlessly over the books which she had so lately loved to study. At
length, in moving one she had not looked into before, a paper fell to the
ground; she picked it up; it was the paper containing that figure, which
it will be remembered, the astrologer had shown to his daughter, as a
charm to produce dreams prophetic of any circumstance or person concerning
whom the believer might be anxious to learn aught. As she saw the image,
which, the reader will recollect, was of a remarkable design, the whole of
her conversation with Volktman on the subject rushed into her mind, and
she resolved that very night to prove the efficacy of the charm on which
he had so confidently insisted. Fraught with the chimerical delusion, she
now longed for the hours to pass, and the night to come. She looked again
and again at the singular image and the portentous figures wrought upon
the charm; the very strangeness of the characters inspired her, as was
natural, with a belief of their efficacy; and she felt a thrill, an awe,
creep over her blood, as the shadows of eve, deepening over the far
mountains, brought on the time of trial. At length it was night, and
Lucilla sought her chamber.
The hour was exceedingly serene, and the stars shone through the casement
with a lustre that to her seemed ominous. With bare feet, and only in her
night-robe, she stole tremblingly across the threshold. She paused for a
moment at the window, and looked out on the deep and quiet night; and as
she so stood, it was a picture that, had I been a painter, I would have
devoted a youth to accomplish. Half in light--half in shadow--her undress
gave the outline, and somewhat more, of a throat and breast, whose
roundness, shape, and hue, never were surpassed. Her arms were lightly
crossed above her bosom; and her long rich hair seeming darker by that
light, fell profusely, yet not dishevelled, around her neck; parting from
her brow. Her attitude at that moment was quite still, as if in worship,
and perhaps it was; her face was inclined slightly upward, looking to the
heavens and towards Rome. But that face--there was the picture! It was
so young, so infantine, so modest; and yet, the youth and the timidity
were elevated and refined by the earnest doubt, the preternatural terror,
the unearthly hope, which dwelt upon her forehead--her parted lip, and her
wistful and kindled eye. There was a sublimity in her loneliness and her
years, and in the fond and vain superstition, which was but a spirit
called from the deeps of an unfathomable and mighty love. And afar was
heard the breaking of the lake in upon the shore--no other sound! And
now, among the unwaving pines, there was a silver shimmer as the moon rose
into her empire, and deepened at once, along the universal scene, the
loveliness and the awe.
Lucilla turned from the window, and kneeling down wrote with a trembling
hand upon the figure one word--the name of Godolphin. She then placed it
under her pillow, and the spell was concluded. The astrologer had told
her of the necessary co-operation which the mind must afford to the charm;
but it will easily be believed that Lucilla required no injunction to let
her imagination dwell upon the vision she expected to invoke. And it
would have been almost strange, if, so intently and earnestly brooding, as
she had done over the image of Godolphin, that image had not, without
recurring to any cabalistical spells, been present to her dreams.
She thought that it was broad noonday, and that she was sitting alone in
the house she then inhabited, and weeping bitterly. Of a sudden the voice
of Godolphin called to her; she ran eagerly forth, but no sooner had she
passed the threshold, than the scene so familiar to her vanished, and she
was alone in an immense and pathless wilderness; there was no tree and no
water in this desert; all was arid, solitary, and inanimate. But what
seemed most strange to her was that in the heavens, although they were
clear and bright, there was neither sun nor stars; the light seemed
settled and stagnant--there was in it no life.
And she thought that she continued to move involuntarily along the waste;
and that, ever and anon, she yearned and strove to rest, but her limbs did
not obey her will, and a power she could not control urged her onward.
And now there was no longer an utter dumbness and death over the scene.
Forth from the sands, as from the bowels of the reluctant earth, there
crept, one by one, loathly and reptile shapes; obscene sounds rang in her
ears--now in a hideous mockery, now in a yet more sickening solicitation.
Shapes of terror thickened and crowded round her. She was roused by dread
into action; she hurried faster and faster; she strove to escape; and ever
as she fled, the sounds grew louder, and the persecuting shapes more
ghastly,--abominations which her pure mind shuddered to behold, presented
themselves at every turn: there was no spot for refuge, no cave for
concealment. Wearied and despairing, she stopped short; but then the
shapes and sounds seemed gradually to lose their terror; her eye and ear
became familiar to them; and what at first seemed foes, grew into
companions.
And now, again, the wilderness was gone; she stood in a strange spot, and
opposite, and gazing upon her with intent and mournful eyes, stood
Godolphin. But he seemed much older than he was, and the traces of care
were ploughed deeply on his countenance; and above them both hung a
motionless and livid cloud; and from the cloud a gigantic hand was
stretched forth, pointing with a shadowy and unmoving finger towards a
quarter of the earth which was enveloped in a thick gloom. While she
sought with straining eyes, to penetrate the darkness of the spot thus
fearfully marked out, she thought Godolphin vanished, and all was suddenly
and utter night--night, but not stillness--for there was a roar as of many
winds, and a dashing of angry waters, that seemed close beneath; and she
heard the trees groan and bend, and felt the icy and rushing air: the
tempests were abroad. But amidst the mingling of the mighty sounds, she
heard distinctly the ringing of a horse's hoofs; and presently a wild cry,
in which she recognised the voice of Godolphin, rang forth, adding to the
wrath of nature the yet more appalling witness of a human despair. The
cry was followed by the louder dashing of the waves, and the fiercer
turmoil of the winds; and then her anguish and horror freeing her from the
Prison of Sleep, she woke.
It was nearly day, but the serenity of the late night had gone; the rain
fell in torrents, and the house shook beneath the fury of a violent storm.
This change in the mood of nature had probably influenced the latter part
of her dream. But Lucilla thought of no natural solution to the dreadful
vision she had undergone. Her superstition was confirmed and ratified by
the intense impression wrought upon her mind by the dream. A thousand
unutterable fears, fears for Godolphin, rather than herself--or if for
herself, only in connection with him--bore irresistible despotism over her
thoughts. She could not endure to wait, to linger any longer in the dark
and agitated suspense she herself had created; the idea she before had
nursed now became resolve, she determined forthwith to set out for
Rome--to see Godolphin. She rose, woke her attendant, and that very day
she put her resolution into effect.