well-known symptoms of the visitation to which I had become subject
suddenly seized upon me,--the leap of the heart; the sudden, causeless,
overwhelming physical excitement, which I could neither ignore nor allay.
I was terrified beyond description, beyond reason, when I became
conscious that this was about to begin over again: what purpose did it
answer; what good was in it? My father indeed understood the meaning of
it though I did not understand; but it was little agreeable to be thus
made a helpless instrument, without any will of mine, in an operation of
which I knew nothing; and to enact the part of the oracle unwillingly,
with suffering and such a strain as it took me days to get over. I
resisted, not as before, but yet desperately, trying with better
knowledge to keep down the growing passion. I hurried to my room and
swallowed a dose of a sedative which had been given me to procure sleep
on my first return from India. I saw Morphew in the hall, and called him
to talk to him, and cheat myself, if possible, by that means. Morphew
lingered, however, and, before he came, I was beyond conversation. I
heard him speak, his voice coming vaguely through the turmoil which was
already in my ears, but what he said I have never known. I stood staring,
trying to recover my power of attention, with an aspect which ended by
completely frightening the man. He cried out at last that he was sure I
was ill, that he must bring me something; which words penetrated more or
less into my maddened brain. It became impressed upon me that he was
going to get some one--one of my father’s doctors, perhaps--to prevent
me from acting, to stop my interference, and that if I waited a moment
longer I might be too late. A vague idea seized me at the same time, of
taking refuge with the portrait,--going to its feet, throwing myself
there, perhaps, till the paroxysm should be over. But it was not there
that my footsteps were directed. I can remember making an effort to open
the door of the drawing-room, and feeling myself swept past it, as if by
a gale of wind. It was not there that I had to go. I knew very well where
I had to go,--once more on my confused and voiceless mission to my
father, who understood, although I could not understand.
Yet as it was daylight, and all was clear, I could not help noting one or
two circumstances on my way. I saw some one sitting in the hall as if
waiting,--a woman, a girl, a black-shrouded figure, with a thick veil
over her face; and asked myself who she was, and what she wanted there.
This question, which had nothing to do with my present condition, somehow
got into my mind, and was tossed up and down upon the tumultuous tide
like a stray log on the breast of a fiercely rolling stream, now
submerged, now coming uppermost, at the mercy of the waters. It did not
stop me for a moment, as I hurried towards my father’s room, but it got
upon the current of my mind. I flung open my father’s door, and closed it
again after me, without seeing who was there or how he was engaged. The
full clearness of the daylight did not identify him as the lamp did at
night. He looked up at the sound of the door, with a glance of
apprehension; and rising suddenly, interrupting some one who was standing
speaking to him with much earnestness and even vehemence, came forward to
meet me. “I cannot be disturbed at present,” he said quickly; “I am
busy.” Then seeing the look in my face, which by this time he knew, he
too changed color. “Phil,” he said, in a low, imperative voice, “wretched
boy, go away--go away; don’t let a stranger see you--”
“I can’t go away,” I said. “It is impossible. You know why I have come. I
cannot, if I would. It is more powerful than I--”
“Go, sir,” he said; “go at once; no more of this folly. I will not have
you in this room: Go-go!”
I made no answer. I don’t know that I could have done so. There had
never been any struggle between us before; but I had no power to do
one thing or another. The tumult within me was in full career. I heard
indeed what he said, and was able to reply; but his words, too, were
like straws tossed upon the tremendous stream. I saw now with my
feverish eyes who the other person present was. It was a woman, dressed
also in mourning similar to the one in the hall; but this a middle-aged
woman, like a respectable servant. She had been crying, and in the
pause caused by this encounter between my father and myself, dried her
eyes with a handkerchief, which she rolled like a ball in her hand,
evidently in strong emotion. She turned and looked at me as my father
spoke to me, for a moment with a gleam of hope, then falling back into
her former attitude.
My father returned to his seat. He was much agitated too, though doing
all that was possible to conceal it. My inopportune arrival was evidently
a great and unlooked-for vexation to him. He gave me the only look of
passionate displeasure I have ever had from him, as he sat down again;
but he said nothing more.
“You must understand,” he said, addressing the woman, “that I have said
my last words on this subject. I don’t choose to enter into it again in
the presence of my son, who is not well enough to be made a party to any
discussion. I am sorry that you should have had so much trouble in vain,
but you were warned beforehand, and you have only yourself to blame. I
acknowledge no claim, and nothing you can say will change my resolution.
I must beg you to go away. All this is very painful and quite useless. I
acknowledge no claim.”
“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes beginning once more to flow, her speech
interrupted by little sobs. “Maybe I did wrong to speak of a claim. I’m
not educated to argue with a gentleman. Maybe we have no claim. But if
it’s not by right, oh, Mr. Canning, won’t you let your heart be touched
by pity? She don’t know what I’m saying, poor dear. She’s not one to beg
and pray for herself, as I’m doing for her. Oh, sir, she’s so young!
She’s so lone in this world,--not a friend to stand by her, nor a house
to take her in! You are the nearest to her of any one that’s left in this
world. She hasn’t a relation,--not one so near as you,--oh!” she cried,
with a sudden thought, turning quickly round upon me, “this gentleman’s
your son! Now I think of it, it’s not your relation she is, but his,
through his mother! That’s nearer, nearer! Oh, sir! you’re young; your
heart should be more tender. Here is my young lady that has no one in the
world to look to her. Your own flesh and blood; your mother’s
cousin,--your mother’s--”
My father called to her to stop, with a voice of thunder. “Philip, leave
us at once. It is not a matter to be discussed with you.”
And then in a moment it became clear to me what it was. It had been with
difficulty that I had kept myself still. My breast was laboring with the
fever of an impulse poured into me, more than I could contain. And now
for the first time I knew why. I hurried towards him, and took his hand,
though he resisted, into mine. Mine were burning, but his like ice: their
touch burnt me with its chill, like fire. “This is what it is?” I cried.
“I had no knowledge before. I don’t know now what is being asked of you.
But, father, understand! You know, and I know now, that some one sends
me,--some one--who has a right to interfere.”
He pushed me away with all his might. “You are mad,” he cried. “What
right have you to think--? Oh, you are mad--mad! I have seen it
coming on--”
The woman, the petitioner, had grown silent, watching this brief conflict
with the terror and interest with which women watch a struggle between
men. She started and fell back when she heard what he said, but did not
take her eyes off me, following every movement I made. When I turned to
go away, a cry of indescribable disappointment and remonstrance burst
from her, and even my father raised himself up and stared at my
withdrawal, astonished to find that he had overcome me so soon and
easily. I paused for a moment, and looked back on them, seeing them large
and vague through the mist of fever. “I am not going away,” I said. “I am
going for another messenger,--one you can’t gainsay.”
My father rose. He called out to me threateningly, “I will have nothing
touched that is hers. Nothing that is hers shall be profaned--”
I waited to hear no more; I knew what I had to do. By what means it was
conveyed to me I cannot tell; but the certainty of an influence which no
one thought of calmed me in the midst of my fever. I went out into the
hall, where I had seen the young stranger waiting. I went up to her and
touched her on the shoulder. She rose at once, with a little movement of
alarm, yet with docile and instant obedience, as if she had expected the
summons. I made her take off her veil and her bonnet, scarcely looking at
her, scarcely seeing her, knowing how it was: I took her soft, small,
cool, yet trembling hand into mine; it was so soft and cool,--not
cold,--it refreshed me with its tremulous touch. All through I moved and
spoke like a man in a dream; swiftly, noiselessly, all the complications
of waking life removed; without embarrassment, without reflection,
without the loss of a moment. My father was still standing up, leaning a
little forward as he had done when I withdrew; threatening, yet
terror-stricken, not knowing what I might be about to do, when I returned
with my companion. That was the one thing he had not thought of. He was
entirely undecided, unprepared. He gave her one look, flung up his arms
above his head, and uttered a distracted cry, so wild that it seemed the
last outcry of nature,--“Agnes!” then fell back like a sudden ruin, upon
himself, into his chair.
I had no leisure to think how he was, or whether he could hear what I
said. I had my message to deliver. “Father,” I said, laboring with my
panting breath, “it is for this that heaven has opened, and one whom I
never saw, one whom I know not, has taken possession of me. Had we been
less earthly, we should have seen her--herself, and not merely her image.
I have not even known what she meant. I have been as a fool without
understanding. This is the third time I have come to you with her
message, without knowing what to say. But now I have found it out. This
is her message. I have found it out at last.” There was an awful
pause,--a pause in which no one moved or breathed. Then there came a
broken voice out of my father’s chair. He had not understood, though I
think he heard what I said. He put out two feeble hands. “Phil--I think I
am dying--has she--has she come for me?” he said.
We had to carry him to his bed. What struggles he had gone through before
I cannot tell. He had stood fast, and had refused to be moved, and now he
fell,--like an old tower, like an old tree. The necessity there was for
thinking of him saved me from the physical consequences which had
prostrated me on a former occasion. I had no leisure now for any
consciousness of how matters went with myself.
His delusion was not wonderful, but most natural. She was clothed in
black from head to foot, instead of the white dress of the portrait. She
had no knowledge of the conflict, of nothing but that she was called for,
that her fate might depend on the next few minutes. In her eyes there was
a pathetic question, a line of anxiety in the lids, an innocent appeal in
the looks. And the face the same: the same lips, sensitive, ready to
quiver; the same innocent, candid brow; the look of a common race, which
is more subtle than mere resemblance. How I knew that it was so I cannot
tell, nor any man. It was the other, the elder,--ah, no! not elder; the
ever young, the Agnes to whom age can never come, she who they say was
the mother of a man who never saw her,--it was she who led her kinswoman,
her representative, into our hearts.
* * * * *
My father recovered after a few days: he had taken cold, it was said, the
day before; and naturally, at seventy, a small matter is enough to upset
the balance even of a strong man. He got quite well; but he was willing
enough afterwards to leave the management of that ticklish kind of
property which involves human well-being in my hands, who could move
about more freely, and see with my own eyes how things were going on. He
liked home better, and had more pleasure in his personal existence in the
end of his life. Agnes is now my wife, as he had, of course, foreseen. It
was not merely the disinclination to receive her father’s daughter, or to
take upon him a new responsibility, that had moved him, to do him
justice; but both these motives had told strongly. I have never been
told, and now will never be told, what his griefs against my mother’s
family, and specially against that cousin, had been; but that he had been
very determined, deeply prejudiced, there can be no doubt. It turned out
after, that the first occasion on which I had been mysteriously
commissioned to him with a message which I did not understand, and which
for that time he did not understand, was the evening of the day on which
he had received the dead man’s letter, appealing to him--to him, a man
whom he had wronged--on behalf of the child who was about to be left
friendless in the world. The second time, further letters--from the nurse
who was the only guardian of the orphan, and the chaplain of the place
where her father had died, taking it for granted that my father’s house
was her natural refuge--had been received. The third I have already
described, and its results.
For a long time after, my mind was never without a lurking fear that the
influence which had once taken possession of me might return again. Why
should I have feared to be influenced, to be the messenger of a blessed
creature, whose wishes could be nothing but heavenly? Who can say? Flesh
and blood is not made for such encounters: they were more than I could
bear. But nothing of the kind has ever occurred again.
Agnes had her peaceful domestic throne established under the picture.
My father wished it to be so, and spent his evenings there in the
warmth and light, instead of in the old library,--in the narrow circle
cleared by our lamp out of the darkness, as long as he lived. It is
supposed by strangers that the picture on the wall is that of my wife;
and I have always been glad that it should be so supposed. She who was
my mother, who came back to me and became as my soul for three strange
moments and no more, but with whom I can feel no credible relationship
as she stands there, has retired for me into the tender regions of the
unseen. She has passed once more into the secret company of those
shadows, who can only become real in an atmosphere fitted to modify and
harmonize all differences, and make all wonders possible,--the light of
the perfect day.