THE NEW “SAVING GRACE.”
Thou hast thews
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race;
But such a love is mine, that here I chase
Eternally away from thee all bloom
Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb.
ENDYMION.
Fierce, wan,
And tyrranizing was the lady’s look.
_Idem._
A year, in the life of man, is a long time. Alas! what changes may it
not bring about to any, the strongest of us, the most secure—those
weary, dragging twelve months! Such a period has elapsed in the
chronology of our narrative, since the scenes described as occurring at
the Graham House.
It is late, on a dark stormy evening, and we will look into the
well-stocked half library and half office of a handsome private
residence in Beekman Street, New York.
The cushioned appliances of the most fastidious luxury of repose were
strewed about the room in the strangest disorder of heaped cushions,
fallen chairs, and out-of-place lounges; while books, surgical
instruments, vials, dusty, crusty, broken, and corkless, all mingled in
the desolate confusion which seemed to have usurped the place.
A shaded lamp stood upon the table in the centre of this chaos, and
threw its light upon a large decanter of brandy and a glass beneath.
A deep-drawn moaning sigh disturbs the deathlike silence of the room;
and a broad, stout figure, which had leaned back within the shadow
of a huge cushioned chair beside the table, reached suddenly forward
and clutched the brandy-bottle convulsively. He dashed a great gulp
into the glass, and then, with trembling hand, attempted to carry it
to his lips. After two or three efforts, which proved unavailing from
his excessive nervousness, he replaced the glass, muttering, “Curse
this nervousness! It will not even let me drink my poison any more!”
He shuddered as he turned his head away. “No wonder! how horribly the
hell-broth smells!” He fell back into the deep chair again and was
silent for some time, when, uttering from the depths of his chest that
strange moan, he sprang to his feet.
“I must drink!” he gnashed, as, seizing the decanter again, he filled
the tumbler to overflowing, splashing the dark fluid over everything on
the table. “I shall die if I do not drink! I shall go crazy! I will not
be baffled!”
Without attempting to raise it again to his lips, he bowed them to
the brimming glass, and as the beast drinks, so drank he. Oh, fearful
degradation! Where now is the strong man? that powerful frame would
speak. After leaning the tumbler with his lips and trembling hands in
a long, deep draught, he straightened himself with an expression of
loathing that distorted his face hideously.
“Paugh! Hell should mix more nectar with its chiefest physic! This
stuff is loathsome, and my revolting nerves seem with a separate life
to shudder as the new babe does to hear the asp hiss amidst the flowers
where it sports! Paugh! infernal! that it should come to me in this
short time, even as a second nature, to learn to feed on poisons! It
was not so once; nature was sufficient, aye, sufficient, when the skies
rained glory out of day, and the stars came down in beamy strength
through night! But then! but then! Ah, yes! it had not become necessary
then, that I should be s-a-v-e-d by human love!” and his features
writhed as he prolonged the word.—“S-a-v-e-d! no! no! no heavenly guise
of horrid lust to s-a-v-e me! The chaste and blushing spring came to
the early winter of my sterile life that bloomed beneath its radiant
warmth, and gladdened to grow green and odor-breathed and soft, and
then! oh, horror! horror! I am strong enough to drink again. My nerves
are numbed now; they dare not tremble.”
He seized the decanter once more, and then, with unshaking hand,
conveyed the brimming glass to his lips, and after a deep draught threw
himself upon the chair again, and drawing at the same time a glittering
object from his breast, he leaned forward within the circle of the
lamp-light to regard it as it lay open upon the table before him. This
is the first time we have seen that face clearly—that haggard, pallid
face. Ha! can it be? Those sunken, bloated cheeks! Those dimmed, hollow
eyes, with leaden, drooping lids! O, can it be? Have we known that face
before? God help us! The good Doctor! and only one year!
But see the change! His eye has rested upon that face before him. A
miniature, beautifully executed. In it a charmed art has presided at a
miracle! an arch seraphic brow all “sunnied o’er” by the golden reflex
from its tangled curls, broken in beam and shadow, gracefully glanced a
gay defiance in his eyes, from eyes—so lustrous innocent! You dare not
say they could be less than all divine, but that the sweet mouth spoke
of earth, and every weakness of it, “earthy.”
See how the face of that sad and broken man is changing! those shrunk
and heavy features are re-lit with life, as some dead waste with
sunshine, suddenly. The bright, the tender past; the mellowed, mournful
past, have mounted to the eyes and flushed those massive features once
again. He seems as one transfigured for a moment, while he gazes. The
glory of old innocence has compassed him about, alas! but for a moment!
The tears pour flooding from his eyes, and blot the face whereon he
gazes. A sob—that wild and piteous moan again—and the palsied wreck of
the strong man falls back once more into his cushioned chair. A horrid,
stertorous breathing, most like that of a dying man, fills the gloomy
air of that dim room, and with ashy lips and fallen jaw, he sleeps! Ah,
that seems a fearful sleep, with the tears, warm tears, still pouring,
pouring down the rigid cheek!
The shaded lamp burns on, and fitfully the chaos of that room, here and
there, is touched by its faint light. A slight sound, a rustling tread
is heard, and in a moment, a woman, dressed in black, with a black veil
about her face, and the umbrella which had protected her from the storm
in her hand, stood beside the sleeper. She evidently had a pass-key,
for she walked forward as one accustomed to use it at all hours and
confidently.
“The beast! Drunk, dead drunk again!” she muttered. “I shan’t get the
money I wanted to-night, that is plain! Curse his obstinacy! After all
my trouble to save him, this is my reward! Worse and worse!”
She sprang forward eagerly as her eye fell upon the jewelled miniature
that lay before him on the table, and snatched it up. “Ha! this will
save me some trouble!” She turned it eagerly over in her hands,
throwing back her veil at the same time, to examine the valuable case
with vivid glistening eyes, that did not seem to notice in the least
degree the exquisite painting within.
“Ah, yes, this is great! Wonder the fool never let me know of it
before! I should have had it in Chatham Street before this! Never mind,
‘never too late,’ I see! It saves me the trouble of exploring his
pockets and table-drawers to-night, for what is getting to be a scarce
commodity. Bah! what silly school-girl face is this? He is falling back
to whine about the past. O, that’s all right. I’ll fill his decanter
for him! He has done enough. He has fed me for a year. I’ll let the
poor wretch off! Yes, I’ve _saved_ him! _I have feasted on him!_” And
she drew herself erect with a triumphant swelling of the whole frame,
which seemed to emit, for the moment, from its outline, a keen quick
exhalation most like the heat-lightning of a sultry summer sky.
She fills the decanter rapidly from a demijohn she drags from a closet
in the room, and places it by his side. She pushes the water-pitcher
far beyond his reach, and then steps forward for a moment into the
light.
Have we ever seen that face before? No! no! It might have been—there
is some resemblance—but this form and face are too full of arrogant
abounding strength to be the same faint bleeding victim of ruthless
persecution that we saw at first! No! no! It cannot be she! Ha! as
she thrusts that jewelled miniature into her bosom and turns to glide
away, I can detect that infernal obliquity of the left eye! O, dainty
Etherial!