"SAD CASE OF MANIA A POTU."
"Watchman McDonough reports that late last night, he picked up, on the
sidewalk, the insensible body of Maurice Carlyle, who showed some
signs of returning animation after his removal to Station House
No. ----. A physician was called in, and every effort made to save the
unfortunate victim of intemperance; but medical skill was inadequate
to arrest the work of many years of excess, and before daylight the
wretched man expired in dreadful convulsions. Coroner Boutwell held an
inquest on the body, and the verdict rendered was 'Death from _mania a
potu_.' Mr. Carlyle was well known in this city, where for many years
he was an ornament to society, and a general favorite in the
fashionable and mercantile circle in which he moved. Of numbers who
were once the recipients of his bounty and hospitality, none offered
succor in the hour of adversity, and among all his former friends none
were found to cheer or pity in the last ordeal to which flesh is
subjected. The melancholy fate of Maurice Carlyle furnishes another
illustration of the mournful truth that the wages of intemperance are
destitution and desertion."
Such was the startling announcement, which, under the head of "Police
Report," Dr. Grey read and re-read in a prominent New York paper that
had accidentally remained for some days unopened on his desk, and was
dated nearly a month previous. Locking the door of his office, he sat
down to collect his bewildered thoughts, and to quiet the tumult in
his throbbing heart.
During the two years that had drearily worn away since his last
interview with Mrs. Carlyle, he had sternly forbidden his mind to
dwell on its brief dream of happiness, and by a life of unusually
active benevolence endeavored to forget the one episode which alone
had power to disquiet and sadden him.
He had philosophically schooled himself to the calm, unmurmuring
acceptance of his lonely destiny, and looked forward to a life
solitary yet not unhappy, although uncheered by the love and
companionship which every man indulges the instinctive hope will
sooner or later crown his existence.
Now heart and conscience, so long at deadly feud, suddenly signalled a
truce, clasped hands, embraced cordially. How radiant the world
looked,--with what wondrous glory the future had in the twinkling of
an eye robed itself. The woman he had loved was stainless and free,
and how could she long resist the pleadings of his famished heart?
He would win her from cynicism and isolation, would melt her frozen
nature in the genial atmosphere of his pure and constant affection,
and interweave her aimless, sombre life with the busy, silvery web of
his own.
After forty years, God would grant him home, and wife, and hearthstone
peace.
What a flush and sparkle stole to this grave man's olive cheek, and
calm, deep blue eyes!
Ah! how hungrily he longed for the touch of her hand, the sight of her
face; and, snatching his hat, he put the paper in his pocket, and
hurried towards "Solitude."
In the holy hush of that hazy autumnal afternoon, nature--_Magna
Mater_,--
"The altar-curtains of whose hills
Are sunset's purple air,"
"Who dips in the dim light of setting suns
The spacious skirts of that vast robe of hers
That widens ever in the wondrous west,"
seemed slumbering and dreaming away the day.
The forests were gaudy in their painted shrouds of scarlet and yellow
leaves, and long, feathery flakes of purple bloom nodded over crimson
berries, emerald mosses, and golden-hearted asters.
Only a few weeks previous, Dr. Grey had driven along that road, and,
while the echo of harvest hymns rang on the hay-scented air, had asked
himself how men and women could become so completely absorbed in
temporal things, ignoring the solemn and indisputable fact of the
brevity of human life and the restricted dominion of man,--
"Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills
Is, that his grave is green."
But to-day all sober-hued reflections were exorcised by the rapturous
_Jubilate_ that hope was singing through the sunlit chambers of his
happy heart; and when he entered the grounds of "Solitude" they seemed
bathed in that soft glamour, that witching "light that never was on
sea or land."
As he sprang from his buggy and opened the little gate leading into
the _parterre_, Robert came slowly forward, bearing a basket filled
with a portion of the crimson apples that flushed the orchard, just
beyond the low hedge.
"You could not have chosen a better time to come, Dr. Grey; and if I
were allowed to have my way you would have been here last night. Were
you sent for at last, or was it a lucky chance that brought you?"
"Merely an accident, as I received no summons. Robert, how is your
mistress?"
"God only knows, sir; I am sure I never can tell how she really is.
She has not seemed well since she took that journey to the North, and
for two weeks past she appears to have been slipping down by inches
into her grave. She neither eats nor sleeps, and for the last three
nights has not lain down,--so old Ruth, the housekeeper, tells me.
Yesterday I begged my mistress to let me go for you, but she smiled
that awful freezing smile that strikes to the very marrow of my bones,
worse than December sleet,--and raised her finger so: and said, 'At
your peril, Robert. Mind your orchard, man, and I will take care of
myself. I want neither doctors nor nurses, and only desire that you,
and Ruth, and Anna, will attend to your respective duties and let me
be quiet. All will soon be well with me.' I killed a partridge, had it
nicely broiled, and carried it to her; and she thanked me, and made a
pretence of eating the wing, just to please me; but when the waiter
was taken away to the kitchen, I found all the bird on the plate. This
morning, just before daylight, I heard her playing a wild, mournful
thing on the piano, that sounded like a dirge or a wail; and Ruth says
when she went into the parlor to open the blinds, she found her
praying, and thinks she was on her knees for an hour. Please God!
sometimes I wish she was in heaven with my mother, for she will never
see any peace in this life."
"What seems to be the disease?"
"Heart-ache."
"You should have come and told me this long ago."
"And pray to what purpose, Dr. Grey? She vowed she would allow no
human being to cross her threshold, except the servants, and I would
sooner undertake to curl a steel, or make ringlets out of a pair of
tongs, than bend her will when once she takes a stand. Humph! My
mistress is no willow wand, and is about as easily moved as the
church-steeple, or the stone-tower of the lighthouse."
"Has she recently received letters that contained tidings which
excited or distressed her?"
"A letter came last week, but I know nothing of its contents. You need
not go into the house if you wish to find her, for about an hour and a
half ago I saw her come out into the grounds, and she never goes in
till the lamps are lighted."
An anxious look clouded for an instant Dr. Grey's countenance, but
undaunted hope sang on of the hours of hallowed communion that the
future held, while in her invalid condition he assumed the care and
guardianship of his beloved; and, turning into the lawn, he eagerly
searched the winding walks for some trace of her, some flutter of her
garments, some faint, subtle odor of orange-flowers or tube-roses.
Here and there clusters of purple, pink, and orange crysanthemums
flecked the lawn with color; and a flower-stand, covered with china
jars that held geraniums, seemed almost a pyramid of flame, from the
profusion of scarlet blooms.
The sun had gone down behind a waving line of low hills, where,--
"Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver,
Clouds in the distance dwell,
Clouds that are cool, for all their color,
Pure as a rose-lipped shell.
Fleets of wool in the upper heavens
Gossamer wings unfurl;
Sailing so high they seem but sleeping
Over yon bar of pearl."
Still as crystal was the sapphire sea that mirrored that quiet,
sapphire sky, and not a murmur, not a ripple, stirred the evening air
or the yellow sands that stretched for miles along the winding coast.
When Dr. Grey had partially crossed the lawn, he glanced towards the
marble temple that gleamed against the dark background of deodars, and
saw a woman sitting on the steps of the tomb. Softly he approached and
entered the mausoleum by an arch on the opposite side, but,
notwithstanding his cautious tread, he startled a white pigeon that
had perched on the altar, where fresh violets, heliotrope, and snowy
sprigs of nutmeg-geranium were leaning over the scalloped edge of the
Venetian glasses, and distilling perfume in their delicate chalices.
Mrs. Carlyle had brought her floral tribute to the sepulchral urn,
and, having carefully arranged her daily Arkja, had seated herself on
the steps to rest.
From the two sentinel poplars that guarded the front, golden leaves
were sifting down on the marble floor, and three or four had drifted
upon the lap of the quiet figure, while one, bright and rich as autumn
gilding could make it, rested like a crown on the silver waves that
covered her head.
Down the shining steps trailed the folds of the white merino robe, and
around her shoulders was wrapped the blue crape shawl, while a cluster
of violets seemed to have slipped from her fingers, and strewed
themselves at random on her dress.
Softly Dr. Grey drew near, and his voice was tremulously tender, as he
said,--
"Mrs. Carlyle, no barrier divides us now."
She did not speak, or turn her queenly head, and he laid his hand
caressingly on the glistening gray hair.
"My darling, my first and only love--my brave, beautiful 'Agla,' may I
not tell you, at last, what conscience once forbade my uttering?"
As motionless and silent as the sculptured poppies above her, she took
no notice of his passionate pleading, and he sprang down one step
directly in front of her.
The white face was turned to the sea, and the large, wide,
wonderfully lovely yet mournful gray eyes were gazing fixedly across
the waste of water, at a filmy cloud as fine as lace, that like a
silver netting caught the full October moon which was lifting itself
in the pearly east.
The long black lashes did not droop, nor the steady eyes waver, and
with a horrible foreboding Dr. Grey seized her hands. They were rigid
and icy. He stooped, caught her to his bosom, and pressed his lips to
hers, but they were colder than the marble column against which she
leaned; for, one hour before, Vashti Carlyle had fronted her God.
Alone in the autumn evening, sitting there with the golden poplar
leaves drifting over her, the desolate woman had held her last
communion with the watching ocean that hushed its murmuring, to see
her die; and, laying down the galling burden of her sunless, dreary
life, she had joyfully and serenely "put on immortality" in that
everlasting rest, where "there was no more sea, no more death, neither
shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."
Ah! beautiful and holy was--
"That peaceful face wherein all past distress
Had melted into perfect loveliness."