THE SECOND INTERVIEW AT THE FARM-HOUSE, AND THE SECOND PART OF THE STORY
OF ISABEL. THEIR IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE EFFECT UPON PIERRE.
I.
His second interview with Isabel was more satisfying, but none the less
affecting and mystical than the first, though in the beginning, to his
no small surprise, it was far more strange and embarrassing.
As before, Isabel herself admitted him into the farm-house, and spoke no
word to him till they were both seated in the room of the double
casement, and himself had first addressed her. If Pierre had any way
predetermined how to deport himself at the moment, it was to manifest by
some outward token the utmost affection for his sister; but her rapt
silence and that atmosphere of unearthliness which invested her, now
froze him to his seat; his arms refused to open, his lips refused to
meet in the fraternal kiss; while all the while his heart was
overflowing with the deepest love, and he knew full well, that his
presence was inexpressibly grateful to the girl. Never did love and
reverence so intimately react and blend; never did pity so join with
wonder in casting a spell upon the movements of his body, and impeding
him in its command.
After a few embarrassed words from Pierre, and a brief reply, a pause
ensued, during which not only was the slow, soft stepping overhead
quite audible, as at intervals on the night before, but also some slight
domestic sounds were heard from the adjoining room; and noticing the
unconsciously interrogating expression of Pierre's face, Isabel thus
spoke to him:
"I feel, my brother, that thou dost appreciate the peculiarity and the
mystery of my life, and of myself, and therefore I am at rest concerning
the possibility of thy misconstruing any of my actions. It is only when
people refuse to admit the uncommonness of some persons and the
circumstances surrounding them, that erroneous conceits are nourished,
and their feelings pained. My brother, if ever I shall seem reserved and
unembracing to thee, still thou must ever trust the heart of Isabel, and
permit no doubt to cross thee there. My brother, the sounds thou hast
just overheard in yonder room, have suggested to thee interesting
questions connected with myself. Do not speak; I fervently understand
thee. I will tell thee upon what terms I have been living here; and how
it is that I, a hired person, am enabled to receive thee in this seemly
privacy; for as thou mayest very readily imagine, this room is not my
own. And this reminds me also that I have yet some few further trifling
things to tell thee respecting the circumstances which have ended in
bestowing upon me so angelical a brother."
"I can not retain that word"--said Pierre, with earnest lowness, and
drawing a little nearer to her--"of right, it only pertains to thee."
"My brother, I will now go on, and tell thee all that I think thou
couldst wish to know, in addition to what was so dimly rehearsed last
night. Some three months ago, the people of the distant farm-house,
where I was then staying, broke up their household and departed for some
Western country. No place immediately presented itself where my services
were wanted, but I was hospitably received at an old neighbor's hearth,
and most kindly invited to tarry there, till some employ should offer.
But I did not wait for chance to help me; my inquiries resulted in
ascertaining the sad story of Delly Ulver, and that through the fate
which had overtaken her, her aged parents were not only plunged into the
most poignant grief, but were deprived of the domestic help of an only
daughter, a circumstance whose deep discomfort can not be easily
realized by persons who have always been ministered to by servants.
Though indeed my natural mood--if I may call it so, for want of a better
term--was strangely touched by thinking that the misery of Delly should
be the source of benefit to me; yet this had no practically operative
effect upon me,--my most inmost and truest thoughts seldom have;--and so
I came hither, and my hands will testify that I did not come entirely
for naught. Now, my brother, since thou didst leave me yesterday, I have
felt no small surprise, that thou didst not then seek from me, how and
when I came to learn the name of Glendinning as so closely associated
with myself; and how I came to know Saddle Meadows to be the family
seat, and how I at last resolved upon addressing thee, Pierre, and none
other; and to what may be attributed that very memorable scene in the
sewing-circle at the Miss Pennies."
"I have myself been wondering at myself that these things should
hitherto have so entirely absented themselves from my mind," responded
Pierre;--"but truly, Isabel, thy all-abounding hair falls upon me with
some spell which dismisses all ordinary considerations from me, and
leaves me only sensible to the Nubian power in thine eyes. But go on,
and tell me every thing and any thing. I desire to know all, Isabel, and
yet, nothing which thou wilt not voluntarily disclose. I feel that
already I know the pith of all; that already I feel toward thee to the
very limit of all; and that, whatever remains for thee to tell me, can
but corroborate and confirm. So go on, my dearest,--ay, my only sister."
Isabel fixed her wonderful eyes upon him with a gaze of long
impassionment; then rose suddenly to her feet, and advanced swiftly
toward him; but more suddenly paused, and reseated herself in silence,
and continued so for a time, with her head averted from him, and mutely
resting on her hand, gazing out of the open casement upon the soft
heat-lightning, occasionally revealed there.
She resumed anon.
II.
"My brother, thou wilt remember that certain part of my story which in
reference to my more childish years spent remote from here, introduced
the gentleman--my--yes, _our_ father, Pierre. I can not describe to
thee, for indeed, I do not myself comprehend how it was, that though at
the time I sometimes called him my father, and the people of the house
also called him so, sometimes when speaking of him to me; yet--partly, I
suppose, because of the extraordinary secludedness of my previous
life--I did not then join in my mind with the word father, all those
peculiar associations which the term ordinarily inspires in children.
The word father only seemed a word of general love and endearment to
me--little or nothing more; it did not seem to involve any claims of any
sort, one way or the other. I did not ask the name of my father; for I
could have had no motive to hear him named, except to individualize the
person who was so peculiarly kind to me; and individualized in that way
he already was, since he was generally called by us _the gentleman_, and
sometimes _my father_. As I have no reason to suppose that had I then or
afterward, questioned the people of the house as to what more particular
name my father went by in the world, they would have at all disclosed it
to me; and, indeed, since, for certain singular reasons, I now feel
convinced that on that point they were pledged to secrecy; I do not
know that I ever would have come to learn my father's name,--and by
consequence, ever have learned the least shade or shadow of knowledge as
to you, Pierre, or any of your kin--had it not been for the merest
little accident, which early revealed it to me, though at the moment I
did not know the value of that knowledge. The last time my father
visited the house, he chanced to leave his handkerchief behind him. It
was the farmer's wife who first discovered it. She picked it up, and
fumbling at it a moment, as if rapidly examining the corners, tossed it
to me, saying, 'Here, Isabel, here is the good gentleman's handkerchief;
keep it for him now, till he comes to see little Bell again.' Gladly I
caught the handkerchief, and put it into my bosom. It was a white one;
and upon closely scanning it, I found a small line of fine faded
yellowish writing in the middle of it. At that time I could not read
either print or writing, so I was none the wiser then; but still, some
secret instinct told me, that the woman would not so freely have given
me the handkerchief, had she known there was any writing on it. I
forbore questioning her on the subject; I waited till my father should
return, to secretly question him. The handkerchief had become dusty by
lying on the uncarpeted floor. I took it to the brook and washed it, and
laid it out on the grass where none would chance to pass; and I ironed
it under my little apron, so that none would be attracted to it, to look
at it again. But my father never returned; so, in my grief, the
handkerchief became the more and the more endeared to me; it absorbed
many of the secret tears I wept in memory of my dear departed friend,
whom, in my child-like ignorance, I then equally called _my father_ and
_the gentleman_. But when the impression of his death became a fixed
thing to me, then again I washed and dried and ironed the precious
memorial of him, and put it away where none should find it but myself,
and resolved never more to soil it with my tears; and I folded it in
such a manner, that the name was invisibly buried in the heart of it,
and it was like opening a book and turning over many blank leaves before
I came to the mysterious writing, which I knew should be one day read by
me, without direct help from any one. Now I resolved to learn my
letters, and learn to read, in order that of myself I might learn the
meaning of those faded characters. No other purpose but that only one,
did I have in learning then to read. I easily induced the woman to give
me my little teachings, and being uncommonly quick, and moreover, most
eager to learn, I soon mastered the alphabet, and went on to spelling,
and by-and-by to reading, and at last to the complete deciphering of the
talismanic word--Glendinning. I was yet very ignorant. _Glendinning_,
thought I, what is that? It sounds something like
_gentleman_;--Glen-din-ning;--just as many syllables as _gentleman_;
and--G--it begins with the same letter; yes, it must mean _my father_. I
will think of him by that word now;--I will not think of the
_gentleman_, but of _Glendinning_. When at last I removed from that
house and went to another, and still another, and as I still grew up and
thought more to myself, that word was ever humming in my head, I saw it
would only prove the key to more. But I repressed all undue curiosity,
if any such has ever filled my breast. I would not ask of any one, who
it was that had been Glendinning; where he had lived; whether, ever any
other girl or boy had called him father as I had done. I resolved to
hold myself in perfect patience, as somehow mystically certain, that
Fate would at last disclose to me, of itself, and at the suitable time,
whatever Fate thought it best for me to know. But now, my brother, I
must go aside a little for a moment.--Hand me the guitar."
Surprised and rejoiced thus far at the unanticipated newness, and the
sweet lucidness and simplicity of Isabel's narrating, as compared with
the obscure and marvelous revelations of the night before, and all eager
for her to continue her story in the same limpid manner, but
remembering into what a wholly tumultuous and unearthly frame of mind
the melodies of her guitar had formerly thrown him; Pierre now, in
handing the instrument to Isabel, could not entirely restrain something
like a look of half-regret, accompanied rather strangely with a
half-smile of gentle humor. It did not pass unnoticed by his sister, who
receiving the guitar, looked up into his face with an expression which
would almost have been arch and playful, were it not for the
ever-abiding shadows cast from her infinite hair into her unfathomed
eyes, and redoubledly shot back again from them.
"Do not be alarmed, my brother; and do not smile at me; I am not going
to play the Mystery of Isabel to thee to-night. Draw nearer to me now.
Hold the light near to me."
So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as to open a
peep lengthwise through its interior.
"Now hold it thus, my brother; thus; and see what thou wilt see; but
wait one instant till I hold the lamp." So saying, as Pierre held the
instrument before him as directed, Isabel held the lamp so as to cast
its light through the round sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar.
"Now, Pierre, now."
Eagerly Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed, and yet
surprised at what he saw. He saw the word _Isabel_, quite legibly but
still fadedly gilded upon a part of one side of the interior, where it
made a projecting curve.
"A very curious place thou hast chosen, Isabel, wherein to have the
ownership of the guitar engraved. How did ever any person get in there
to do it, I should like to know?"
The girl looked surprisedly at him a moment; then took the instrument
from him, and looked into it herself. She put it down, and continued.
"I see, my brother, thou dost not comprehend. When one knows every thing
about any object, one is too apt to suppose that the slightest hint
will suffice to throw it quite as open to any other person. _I_ did not
have the name gilded there, my brother."
"How?" cried Pierre.
"The name was gilded there when I first got the guitar, though then I
did not know it. The guitar must have been expressly made for some one
by the name of Isabel; because the lettering could only have been put
there before the guitar was put together."
"Go on--hurry," said Pierre.
"Yes, one day, after I had owned it a long time, a strange whim came
into me. Thou know'st that it is not at all uncommon for children to
break their dearest playthings in order to gratify a half-crazy
curiosity to find out what is in the hidden heart of them. So it is with
children, sometimes. And, Pierre, I have always been, and feel that I
must always continue to be a child, though I should grow to three score
years and ten. Seized with this sudden whim, I unscrewed the part I
showed thee, and peeped in, and saw 'Isabel.' Now I have not yet told
thee, that from as early a time as I can remember, I have nearly always
gone by the name of Bell. And at the particular time I now speak of, my
knowledge of general and trivial matters was sufficiently advanced to
make it quite a familiar thing to me, that Bell was often a diminutive
for Isabella, or Isabel. It was therefore no very strange affair, that
considering my age, and other connected circumstances at the time, I
should have instinctively associated the word Isabel, found in the
guitar, with my own abbreviated name, and so be led into all sorts of
fancyings. They return upon me now. Do not speak to me."
She leaned away from him, toward the occasionally illuminated casement,
in the same manner as on the previous night, and for a few moments
seemed struggling with some wild bewilderment But now she suddenly
turned, and fully confronted Pierre with all the wonderfulness of her
most surprising face.
"I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is neither man nor
woman about it. Why should I not speak out to thee? There is no sex in
our immaculateness. Pierre, the secret name in the guitar even now
thrills me through and through. Pierre, think! think! Oh, canst thou not
comprehend? see it?--what I mean, Pierre? The secret name in the guitar
thrills me, thrills me, whirls me, whirls me; so secret, wholly hidden,
yet constantly carried about in it; unseen, unsuspected, always
vibrating to the hidden heart-strings--broken heart-strings; oh, my
mother, my mother, my mother!"
As the wild plaints of Isabel pierced into his bosom's core, they
carried with them the first inkling of the extraordinary conceit, so
vaguely and shrinkingly hinted at in her till now entirely
unintelligible words.
She lifted her dry burning eyes of long-fringed fire to him.
"Pierre--I have no slightest proof--but the guitar was _hers_, I know, I
feel it was. Say, did I not last night tell thee, how it first sung to
me upon the bed, and answered me, without my once touching it? and how
it always sung to me and answered me, and soothed and loved me,--Hark
now; thou shalt hear my mother's spirit."
She carefully scanned the strings, and tuned them carefully; then placed
the guitar in the casement-bench, and knelt before it; and in low,
sweet, and changefully modulated notes, so barely audible, that Pierre
bent over to catch them; breathed the word _mother, mother, mother_!
There was profound silence for a time; when suddenly, to the lowest and
least audible note of all, the magical untouched guitar responded with a
quick spark of melody, which in the following hush, long vibrated and
subsidingly tingled through the room; while to his augmented wonder, he
now espied, quivering along the metallic strings of the guitar, some
minute scintillations, seemingly caught from the instrument's close
proximity to the occasionally irradiated window.
The girl still kept kneeling; but an altogether unwonted expression
suddenly overcast her whole countenance. She darted one swift glance at
Pierre; and then with a single toss of her hand tumbled her unrestrained
locks all over her, so that they tent-wise invested her whole kneeling
form close to the floor, and yet swept the floor with their wild
redundancy. Never Saya of Limeean girl, at dim mass in St. Dominic's
cathedral, so completely muffled the human figure. To Pierre, the deep
oaken recess of the double-casement, before which Isabel was kneeling,
seemed now the immediate vestibule of some awful shrine, mystically
revealed through the obscurely open window, which ever and anon was
still softly illumined by the mild heat-lightnings and
ground-lightnings, that wove their wonderfulness without, in the
unsearchable air of that ebonly warm and most noiseless summer night.
Some unsubduable word was on Pierre's lip, but a sudden voice from out
the veil bade him be silent.
"Mother--mother--mother!"
Again, after a preluding silence, the guitar as magically responded as
before; the sparks quivered along its strings; and again Pierre felt as
in the immediate presence of the spirit.
"Shall I, mother?--Art thou ready? Wilt thou tell me?--Now? Now?"
These words were lowly and sweetly murmured in the same way with the
word _mother_, being changefully varied in their modulations, till at
the last _now_, the magical guitar again responded; and the girl swiftly
drew it to her beneath her dark tent of hair. In this act, as the long
curls swept over the strings of the guitar, the strange sparks--still
quivering there--caught at those attractive curls; the entire casement
was suddenly and wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now, in the
succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave and billow of
Isabel's tossed tresses gleamed here and there like a tract of
phosphorescent midnight sea; and, simultaneously, all the four winds of
the world of melody broke loose, and again as on the previous night,
only in a still more subtile, and wholly inexplicable way, Pierre felt
himself surrounded by ten thousand sprites and gnomes, and his whole
soul was swayed and tossed by supernatural tides; and again he heard the
wondrous, rebounding, chanted words:
"Mystery! Mystery!
Mystery of Isabel!
Mystery! Mystery!
Isabel and Mystery!
Mystery!"
III.
Almost deprived of consciousness by the spell flung over him by the
marvelous girl, Pierre unknowingly gazed away from her, as on vacancy;
and when at last stillness had once more fallen upon the room--all
except the stepping--and he recovered his self-possession, and turned to
look where he might now be, he was surprised to see Isabel composedly,
though avertedly, seated on the bench; the longer and fuller tresses of
her now ungleaming hair flung back, and the guitar quietly leaning in
the corner.
He was about to put some unconsidered question to her, but she
half-anticipated it by bidding him, in a low, but nevertheless almost
authoritative tone, not to make any allusion to the scene he had just
beheld.
He paused, profoundly thinking to himself, and now felt certain that the
entire scene, from the first musical invocation of the guitar, must have
unpremeditatedly proceeded from a sudden impulse in the girl, inspired
by the peculiar mood into which the preceding conversation, and
especially the handling of the guitar under such circumstances, had
irresistibly thrown her.
But that certain something of the preternatural in the scene, of which
he could not rid his mind:--the, so to speak, voluntary and all but
intelligent responsiveness of the guitar--its strangely scintillating
strings--the so suddenly glorified head of Isabel; altogether, these
things seemed not at the time entirely produced by customary or natural
causes. To Pierre's dilated senses Isabel seemed to swim in an electric
fluid; the vivid buckler of her brow seemed as a magnetic plate. Now
first this night was Pierre made aware of what, in the superstitiousness
of his rapt enthusiasm, he could not help believing was an extraordinary
physical magnetism in Isabel. And--as it were derived from this
marvelous quality thus imputed to her--he now first became vaguely
sensible of a certain still more marvelous power in the girl over
himself and his most interior thoughts and motions;--a power so hovering
upon the confines of the invisible world, that it seemed more inclined
that way than this;--a power which not only seemed irresistibly to draw
him toward Isabel, but to draw him away from another quarter--wantonly
as it were, and yet quite ignorantly and unintendingly; and, besides,
without respect apparently to any thing ulterior, and yet again, only
under cover of drawing him to her. For over all these things, and
interfusing itself with the sparkling electricity in which she seemed to
swim, was an ever-creeping and condensing haze of ambiguities. Often, in
after-times with her, did he recall this first magnetic night, and would
seem to see that she then had bound him to her by an extraordinary
atmospheric spell--both physical and spiritual--which henceforth it had
become impossible for him to break, but whose full potency he never
recognized till long after he had become habituated to its sway. This
spell seemed one with that Pantheistic master-spell, which eternally
locks in mystery and in muteness the universal subject world, and the
physical electricalness of Isabel seemed reciprocal with the
heat-lightnings and the ground-lightnings nigh to which it had first
become revealed to Pierre. She seemed molded from fire and air, and
vivified at some Voltaic pile of August thunder-clouds heaped against
the sunset.
The occasional sweet simplicity, and innocence, and humbleness of her
story; her often serene and open aspect; her deep-seated, but mostly
quiet, unobtrusive sadness, and that touchingness of her less unwonted
tone and air;--these only the more signalized and contrastingly
emphasized the profounder, subtler, and more mystic part of her.
Especially did Pierre feel this, when after another silent interval, she
now proceeded with her story in a manner so gently confiding, so
entirely artless, so almost peasant-like in its simplicity, and dealing
in some details so little sublimated in themselves, that it seemed well
nigh impossible that this unassuming maid should be the same dark, regal
being who had but just now bade Pierre be silent in so imperious a tone,
and around whose wondrous temples the strange electric glory had been
playing. Yet not very long did she now thus innocently proceed, ere, at
times, some fainter flashes of her electricalness came from her, but
only to be followed by such melting, human, and most feminine traits as
brought all his soft, enthusiast tears into the sympathetic but still
unshedding eyes of Pierre.
IV.
"Thou rememberest, my brother, my telling thee last night, how
the--the--thou knowest what I mean--_that, there_"--avertedly pointing
to the guitar; "thou rememberest how it came into my possession. But
perhaps I did not tell thee, that the pedler said he had got it in
barter from the servants of a great house some distance from the place
where I was then residing."
Pierre signed his acquiescence, and Isabel proceeded:
"Now, at long though stated intervals, that man passed the farm-house in
his trading route between the small towns and villages. When I
discovered the gilding in the guitar, I kept watch for him; for though I
truly felt persuaded that Fate had the dispensing of her own secrets in
her own good time; yet I also felt persuaded that in some cases Fate
drops us one little hint, leaving our own minds to follow it up, so that
we of ourselves may come to the grand secret in reserve. So I kept
diligent watch for him; and the next time he stopped, without permitting
him at all to guess my motives, I contrived to steal out of him what
great house it was from which the guitar had come. And, my brother, it
was the mansion of Saddle Meadows."
Pierre started, and the girl went on:
"Yes, my brother, Saddle Meadows; 'old General Glendinning's place,' he
said; 'but the old hero's long dead and gone now; and--the more's the
pity--so is the young General, his son, dead and gone; but then there is
a still younger grandson General left; that family always keep the title
and the name a-going; yes, even to the surname,--Pierre. Pierre
Glendinning was the white-haired old General's name, who fought in the
old French and Indian wars; and Pierre Glendinning is his young
great-grandson's name.' Thou may'st well look at me so, my
brother;--yes, he meant thee, _thee_, my brother."
"But the guitar--the guitar!"--cried Pierre--"how came the guitar openly
at Saddle Meadows, and how came it to be bartered away by servants? Tell
me that, Isabel!"
"Do not put such impetuous questions to me, Pierre; else thou mayst
recall the old--may be, it is the evil spell upon me. I can not
precisely and knowingly answer thee. I could surmise; but what are
surmises worth? Oh, Pierre, better, a million times, and far sweeter are
mysteries than surmises: though the mystery be unfathomable, it is still
the unfathomableness of fullness; but the surmise, that is but shallow
and unmeaning emptiness."
"But this is the most inexplicable point of all. Tell me, Isabel; surely
thou must have thought something about this thing."
"Much, Pierre, very much; but only about the mystery of it--nothing
more. Could I, I would not now be fully told, how the guitar came to be
at Saddle Meadows, and came to be bartered away by the servants of
Saddle Meadows. Enough, that it found me out, and came to me, and spoke
and sung to me, and soothed me, and has been every thing to me."
She paused a moment; while vaguely to his secret self Pierre revolved
these strange revealings; but now he was all attention again as Isabel
resumed.
"I now held in my mind's hand the clew, my brother. But I did not
immediately follow it further up. Sufficient to me in my loneliness was
the knowledge, that I now knew where my father's family was to be found.
As yet not the slightest intention of ever disclosing myself to them,
had entered my mind. And assured as I was, that for obvious reasons,
none of his surviving relatives could possibly know me, even if they saw
me, for what I really was, I felt entire security in the event of
encountering any of them by chance. But my unavoidable displacements and
migrations from one house to another, at last brought me within twelve
miles of Saddle Meadows. I began to feel an increasing longing in me;
but side by side with it, a new-born and competing pride,--yes, pride,
Pierre. Do my eyes flash? They belie me, if they do not. But it is no
common pride, Pierre; for what has Isabel to be proud of in this world?
It is the pride of--of--a too, too longing, loving heart, Pierre--the
pride of lasting suffering and grief, my brother! Yes, I conquered the
great longing with the still more powerful pride, Pierre; and so I would
not now be here, in this room,--nor wouldst thou ever have received any
line from me; nor, in all worldly probability, ever so much as heard of
her who is called Isabel Banford, had it not been for my hearing that at
Walter Ulver's, only three miles from the mansion of Saddle Meadows,
poor Bell would find people kind enough to give her wages for her work.
Feel my hand, my brother."
"Dear divine girl, my own exalted Isabel!" cried Pierre, catching the
offered hand with ungovernable emotion, "how most unbeseeming, that this
strange hardness, and this still stranger littleness should be united in
any human hand. But hard and small, it by an opposite analogy hints of
the soft capacious heart that made the hand so hard with heavenly
submission to thy most undeserved and martyred lot. Would, Isabel, that
these my kisses on the hand, were on the heart itself, and dropt the
seeds of eternal joy and comfort there."
He leaped to his feet, and stood before her with such warm, god-like
majesty of love and tenderness, that the girl gazed up at him as though
he were the one benignant star in all her general night.
"Isabel," cried Pierre, "I stand the sweet penance in my father's stead,
thou, in thy mother's. By our earthly acts we shall redeemingly bless
both their eternal lots; we will love with the pure and perfect love of
angel to an angel. If ever I fall from thee, dear Isabel, may Pierre
fall from himself; fall back forever into vacant nothingness and night!"
"My brother, my brother, speak not so to me; it is too much; unused to
any love ere now, thine, so heavenly and immense, falls crushing on me!
Such love is almost hard to bear as hate. Be still; do not speak to me."
They were both silent for a time; when she went on.
"Yes, my brother, Fate had now brought me within three miles of thee;
and--but shall I go straight on, and tell thee all, Pierre? all? every
thing? art thou of such divineness, that I may speak straight on, in all
my thoughts, heedless whither they may flow, or what things they may
float to me?"
"Straight on, and fearlessly," said Pierre.
"By chance I saw thy mother, Pierre, and under such circumstances that I
_knew_ her to be thy mother; and--but shall I go on?"
"Straight on, my Isabel; thou didst see my mother--well?"
"And when I saw her, though I spake not to her, nor she to me, yet
straightway my heart knew that she would love me not."
"Thy heart spake true," muttered Pierre to himself; "go on."
"I re-swore an oath never to reveal myself to thy mother."
"Oath well sworn," again he muttered; "go on."
"But I saw _thee_, Pierre; and, more than ever filled my mother toward
thy father, Pierre, then upheaved in me. Straightway I knew that if ever
I should come to be made known to thee, then thy own generous love would
open itself to me."
"Again thy heart spake true," he murmured; "go on--and didst thou
re-swear again?"
"No, Pierre; but yes, I did. I swore that thou wert my brother; with
love and pride I swore, that young and noble Pierre Glendinning was my
brother!"
"And only that?"
"Nothing more, Pierre; not to thee even, did I ever think to reveal
myself."
"How then? thou _art_ revealed to me."
"Yes; but the great God did it, Pierre--not poor Bell. Listen.
"I felt very dreary here; poor, dear Delly--thou must have heard
something of her story--a most sorrowful house, Pierre. Hark! that is
her seldom-pausing pacing thou hearest from the floor above. So she
keeps ever pacing, pacing, pacing; in her track, all thread-bare,
Pierre, is her chamber-rug. Her father will not look upon her; her
mother, she hath cursed her to her face. Out of yon chamber, Pierre,
Delly hath not slept, for now four weeks and more; nor ever hath she
once laid upon her bed; it was last made up five weeks ago; but paces,
paces, paces, all through the night, till after twelve; and then sits
vacant in her chair. Often I would go to her to comfort her; but she
says, 'Nay, nay, nay,' to me through the door; says 'Nay, nay, nay,' and
only nay to me, through the bolted door; bolted three weeks ago--when I
by cunning arts stole her dead baby from her, and with these fingers,
alone, by night, scooped out a hollow, and, seconding heaven's own
charitable stroke, buried that sweet, wee symbol of her not unpardonable
shame far from the ruthless foot of man--yes, bolted three weeks ago,
not once unbolted since; her food I must thrust through the little
window in her closet. Pierre, hardly these two handfuls has she eaten in
a week."
"Curses, wasp-like, cohere on that villain, Ned, and sting him to his
death!" cried Pierre, smit by this most piteous tale. "What can be done
for her, sweet Isabel; can Pierre do aught?"
"If thou or I do not, then the ever-hospitable grave will prove her
quick refuge, Pierre. Father and mother both, are worse than dead and
gone to her. They would have turned her forth, I think, but for my own
poor petitionings, unceasing in her behalf!"
Pierre's deep concern now gave place to a momentary look of benevolent
intelligence.
"Isabel, a thought of benefit to Delly has just entered me; but I am
still uncertain how best it may be acted on. Resolved I am though to
succor her. Do thou still hold her here yet awhile, by thy sweet
petitionings, till my further plans are more matured. Now run on with
thy story, and so divert me from the pacing;--her every step steps in my
soul."
"Thy noble heart hath many chambers, Pierre; the records of thy wealth,
I see, are not bound up in the one poor book of Isabel, my brother. Thou
art a visible token, Pierre, of the invisible angel-hoods, which in our
darker hours we do sometimes distrust. The gospel of thy acts goes very
far, my brother. Were all men like to thee, then were there no men at
all,--mankind extinct in seraphim!"
"Praises are for the base, my sister, cunningly to entice them to fair
Virtue by our ignorings of the ill in them, and our imputings of the
good not theirs. So make not my head to hang, sweet Isabel. Praise me
not. Go on now with thy tale."
"I have said to thee, my brother, how most dreary I found it here, and
from the first. Wonted all my life to sadness--if it be such--still,
this house hath such acuteness in its general grief, such hopelessness
and despair of any slightest remedy--that even poor Bell could scarce
abide it always, without some little going forth into contrasting
scenes. So I went forth into the places of delight, only that I might
return more braced to minister in the haunts of woe. For continual
unchanging residence therein, doth but bring on woe's stupor, and make
us as dead. So I went forth betimes; visiting the neighboring cottages;
where there were chattering children, and no one place vacant at the
cheerful board. Thus at last I chanced to hear of the Sewing Circle to
be held at the Miss Pennies'; and how that they were anxious to press
into their kind charity all the maidens of the country round. In various
cottages, I was besought to join; and they at length persuaded me; not
that I was naturally loth to it, and needed such entreaties; but at
first I felt great fear, lest at such a scene I might closely encounter
some of the Glendinnings; and that thought was then namelessly repulsive
to me. But by stealthy inquiries I learned, that the lady of the
manorial-house would not be present;--it proved deceptive
information;--but I went; and all the rest thou knowest."
"I do, sweet Isabel, but thou must tell it over to me; and all thy
emotions there."
V.
"Though but one day hath passed, my brother, since we first met in life,
yet thou hast that heavenly magnet in thee, which draws all my soul's
interior to thee. I will go on.--Having to wait for a neighbor's wagon,
I arrived but late at the Sewing Circle. When I entered, the two joined
rooms were very full. With the farmer's girls, our neighbors, I passed
along to the further corner, where thou didst see me; and as I went,
some heads were turned, and some whisperings I heard, of--'She's the new
help at poor Walter Ulver's--the strange girl they've got--she thinks
herself 'mazing pretty, I'll be bound;--but nobody knows her--Oh, how
demure!--but not over-good, I guess;--I wouldn't be her, not I--mayhap
she's some other ruined Delly, run away;--minx!' It was the first time
poor Bell had ever mixed in such a general crowded company; and knowing
little or nothing of such things, I had thought, that the meeting being
for charity's sweet sake, uncharity could find no harbor there; but no
doubt it was mere thoughtlessness, not malice in them. Still, it made my
heart ache in me sadly; for then I very keenly felt the dread
suspiciousness, in which a strange and lonely grief invests itself to
common eyes; as if grief itself were not enough, nor innocence any armor
to us, but despite must also come, and icy infamy! Miserable returnings
then I had--even in the midst of bright-budding girls and full-blown
women--miserable returnings then I had of the feeling, the bewildering
feeling of the inhumanities I spoke of in my earlier story. But Pierre,
blessed Pierre, do not look so sadly and half-reproachfully upon me.
Lone and lost though I have been, I love my kind; and charitably and
intelligently pity them, who uncharitably and unintelligently do me
despite. And thou, _thou_, blessed brother, hath glorified many somber
places in my soul, and taught me once for all to know, that my kind are
capable of things which would be glorious in angels. So look away from
me, dear Pierre, till thou hast taught thine eyes more wonted glances."
"They are vile falsifying telegraphs of me, then, sweet Isabel. What my
look was I can not tell, but my heart was only dark with ill-restrained
upbraidings against heaven that could unrelentingly see such innocence
as thine so suffer. Go on with thy too-touching tale."
"Quietly I sat there sewing, not brave enough to look up at all, and
thanking my good star, that had led me to so concealed a nook behind the
rest: quietly I sat there, sewing on a flannel shirt, and with each
stitch praying God, that whatever heart it might be folded over, the
flannel might hold it truly warm; and keep out the wide-world-coldness
which I felt myself; and which no flannel, or thickest fur, or any fire
then could keep off from me; quietly I sat there sewing, when I heard
the announcing words--oh, how deep and ineffaceably engraved they
are!--'Ah, dames, dames, Madame Glendinning,--Master Pierre
Glendinning.' Instantly, my sharp needle went through my side and
stitched my heart; the flannel dropt from my hand; thou heard'st my
shriek. But the good people bore me still nearer to the casement close
at hand, and threw it open wide; and God's own breath breathed on me;
and I rallied; and said it was some merest passing fit--'twas quite over
now--I was used to it--they had my heart's best thanks--but would they
now only leave me to myself, it were best for me;--I would go on and
sew. And thus it came and passed away; and again I sat sewing on the
flannel, hoping either that the unanticipated persons would soon depart,
or else that some spirit would catch me away from there; I sat sewing
on--till, Pierre! Pierre!--without looking up--for that I dared not do
at any time that evening--only once--without looking up, or knowing
aught but the flannel on my knee, and the needle in my heart, I
felt,--Pierre, _felt_--a glance of magnetic meaning on me. Long, I,
shrinking, sideways turned to meet it, but could not; till some helping
spirit seized me, and all my soul looked up at thee in my full-fronting
face. It was enough. Fate was in that moment. All the loneliness of my
life, all the choked longings of my soul, now poured over me. I could
not away from them. Then first I felt the complete deplorableness of my
state; that while thou, my brother, had a mother, and troops of aunts
and cousins, and plentiful friends in city and in country--I, I, Isabel,
thy own father's daughter, was thrust out of all hearts' gates, and
shivered in the winter way. But this was but the least. Not poor Bell
can tell thee all the feelings of poor Bell, or what feelings she felt
first. It was all one whirl of old and new bewilderings, mixed and
slanted with a driving madness. But it was most the sweet, inquisitive,
kindly interested aspect of thy face,--so strangely like thy father's,
too--the one only being that I first did love--it was that which most
stirred the distracting storm in me; most charged me with the immense
longings for some one of my blood to know me, and to own me, though but
once, and then away. Oh, my dear brother--Pierre! Pierre!--could'st thou
take out my heart, and look at it in thy hand, then thou would'st find
it all over written, this way and that, and crossed again, and yet
again, with continual lines of longings, that found no end but in
suddenly calling thee. Call him! Call him! He will come!--so cried my
heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that night went
home. But pride rose up--the very pride in my own longings,--and as one
arm pulled, the other held. So I stood still, and called thee not. But
Fate will be Fate, and it was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful
glance; once having seen the full angelicalness in thee, my whole soul
was undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and soon
showed a blighting in the bud; which spread deep into my whole being,
till I knew, that utterly decay and die away I must, unless pride let me
go, and I, with the one little trumpet of a pen, blew my heart's
shrillest blast, and called dear Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as
my beseeching ink went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their
mite, and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly
tear-mingled ink--that last depth of my anguish--would never be visibly
known to thee, but the tears would dry upon the page, and all be fair
again, ere the so submerged-freighted letter should meet thine eye.
"Ah, there thou wast deceived, poor Isabel," cried Pierre impulsively;
"thy tears dried not fair, but dried red, almost like blood; and nothing
so much moved my inmost soul as that tragic sight."
"How? how? Pierre, my brother? Dried they red? Oh, horrible!
enchantment! most undreamed of!"
"Nay, the ink--the ink! something chemic in it changed thy real tears to
seeming blood;--only that, my sister."
"Oh Pierre! thus wonderfully is it--seems to me--that our own hearts do
not ever know the extremity of their own sufferings; sometimes we bleed
blood, when we think it only water. Of our sufferings, as of our
talents, others sometimes are the better judges. But stop me! force me
backward to my story! Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;--no, not
entirely all. Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did
have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor Bell was
too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives then. The impulse in
me called thee, not poor Bell. God called thee, Pierre, not poor Bell.
Even now, when I have passed one night after seeing thee, and hearkening
to all thy full love and graciousness; even now, I stand as one amazed,
and feel not what may be coming to me, or what will now befall me, from
having so rashly claimed thee for mine. Pierre, now, _now_, this instant
a vague anguish fills me. Tell me, by loving me, by owning me, publicly
or secretly,--tell me, doth it involve any vital hurt to thee? Speak
without reserve; speak honestly; as I do to thee! Speak now, Pierre, and
tell me all!"
"Is Love a harm? Can Truth betray to pain? Sweet Isabel, how can hurt
come in the path to God? Now, when I know thee all, now did I forget
thee, fail to acknowledge thee, and love thee before the wide world's
whole brazen width--could I do that; then might'st thou ask thy question
reasonably and say--Tell me, Pierre, does not the suffocating in thee of
poor Bell's holy claims, does not that involve for thee unending misery?
And my truthful soul would echo--Unending misery! Nay, nay, nay. Thou
art my sister and I am thy brother; and that part of the world which
knows me, shall acknowledge thee; or by heaven I will crush the
disdainful world down on its knees to thee, my sweet Isabel!"
"The menacings in thy eyes are dear delights to me; I grow up with thy
own glorious stature; and in thee, my brother, I see God's indignant
embassador to me, saying--Up, up, Isabel, and take no terms from the
common world, but do thou make terms to it, and grind thy fierce rights
out of it! Thy catching nobleness unsexes me, my brother; and now I know
that in her most exalted moment, then woman no more feels the twin-born
softness of her breasts, but feels chain-armor palpitating there!"
Her changed attitude of beautiful audacity; her long scornful hair, that
trailed out a disheveled banner; her wonderful transfigured eyes, in
which some meteors seemed playing up; all this now seemed to Pierre the
work of an invisible enchanter. Transformed she stood before him; and
Pierre, bowing low over to her, owned that irrespective, darting majesty
of humanity, which can be majestical and menacing in woman as in man.
But her gentler sex returned to Isabel at last; and she sat silent in
the casement's niche, looking out upon the soft ground-lightnings of the
electric summer night.
VI.
Sadly smiling, Pierre broke the pause.
"My sister, thou art so rich, that thou must do me alms; I am very
hungry; I have forgotten to eat since breakfast;--and now thou shalt
bring me bread and a cup of water, Isabel, ere I go forth from thee.
Last night I went rummaging in a pantry, like a bake-house burglar; but
to-night thou and I must sup together, Isabel; for as we may henceforth
live together, let us begin forthwith to eat in company."
Isabel looked up at him, with sudden and deep emotion, then all
acquiescing sweetness, and silently left the room.
As she returned, Pierre, casting his eyes toward the ceiling, said--"She
is quiet now, the pacing hath entirely ceased."
"Not the beating, tho'; her foot hath paused, not her unceasing heart.
My brother, she is not quiet now; quiet for her hath gone; so that the
pivoted stillness of this night is yet a noisy madness to her."
"Give me pen or pencil, and some paper, Isabel."
She laid down her loaf, and plate, and knife, and brought him pen, and
ink, and paper.
Pierre took the pen.
"Was this the one, dear Isabel?"
"It is the one, my brother; none other is in this poor cot."
He gazed at it intensely. Then turning to the table, steadily wrote the
following note:
"For Delly Ulver: with the deep and true regard and sympathy of
Pierre Glendinning.
"Thy sad story--partly known before--hath now more fully come to
me, from one who sincerely feels for thee, and who hath imparted
her own sincerity to me. Thou desirest to quit this neighborhood,
and be somewhere at peace, and find some secluded employ fitted to
thy sex and age. With this, I now willingly charge myself, and
insure it to thee, so far as my utmost ability can go.
Therefore--if consolation be not wholly spurned by thy great grief,
which too often happens, though it be but grief's great folly so to
feel--therefore, two true friends of thine do here beseech thee to
take some little heart to thee, and bethink thee, that all thy life
is not yet lived; that Time hath surest healing in his continuous
balm. Be patient yet a little while, till thy future lot be
disposed for thee, through our best help; and so, know me and
Isabel thy earnest friends and true-hearted lovers."
He handed the note to Isabel. She read it silently, and put it down, and
spread her two hands over him, and with one motion lifted her eyes
toward Delly and toward God.
"Thou think'st it will not pain her to receive the note, Isabel? Thou
know'st best. I thought, that ere our help do really reach her, some
promise of it now might prove slight comfort. But keep it, and do as
thou think'st best."
"Then straightway will I give it her, my brother," said Isabel, quitting
him.
An infixing stillness, now thrust a long rivet through the night, and
fast nailed it to that side of the world. And alone again in such an
hour, Pierre could not but listen. He heard Isabel's step on the stair;
then it approached him from above; then he heard a gentle knock, and
thought he heard a rustling, as of paper slid over a threshold
underneath a door. Then another advancing and opposite step tremblingly
met Isabel's; and then both steps stepped from each other, and soon
Isabel came back to him.
"Thou did'st knock, and slide it underneath the door?"
"Yes, and she hath it now. Hark! a sobbing! Thank God, long arid grief
hath found a tear at last. Pity, sympathy hath done this.--Pierre, for
thy dear deed thou art already sainted, ere thou be dead."
"Do saints hunger, Isabel?" said Pierre, striving to call her away from
this. "Come, give me the loaf; but no, thou shalt help me, my
sister.--Thank thee;--this is twice over the bread of sweetness.--Is
this of thine own making, Isabel?"
"My own making, my brother."
"Give me the cup; hand it me with thine own hand. So:--Isabel, my heart
and soul are now full of deepest reverence; yet I do dare to call this
the real sacrament of the supper.--Eat with me."
They eat together without a single word; and without a single word,
Pierre rose, and kissed her pure and spotless brow, and without a single
word departed from the place.
VII.
We know not Pierre Glendinning's thoughts as he gained the village and
passed on beneath its often shrouding trees, and saw no light from man,
and heard no sound from man, but only, by intervals, saw at his feet the
soft ground-lightnings, snake-like, playing in and out among the blades
of grass; and between the trees, caught the far dim light from heaven,
and heard the far wide general hum of the sleeping but still breathing
earth.
He paused before a detached and pleasant house, with much shrubbery
about it. He mounted the portico and knocked distinctly there, just as
the village clock struck one. He knocked, but no answer came. He knocked
again, and soon he heard a sash thrown up in the second story, and an
astonished voice inquired who was there?
"It is Pierre Glendinning, and he desires an instant interview with the
Reverend Mr. Falsgrave."
"Do I hear right?--in heaven's name, what is the matter, young
gentleman?"
"Every thing is the matter; the whole world is the matter. Will you
admit me, sir?"
"Certainly--but I beseech thee--nay, stay, I will admit thee."
In quicker time than could have been anticipated, the door was opened to
Pierre by Mr. Falsgrave in person, holding a candle, and invested in his
very becoming student's wrapper of Scotch plaid.
"For heaven's sake, what is the matter, Mr. Glendinning?"
"Heaven and earth is the matter, sir! shall we go up to the study?"
"Certainly, but--but--"
"Well, let us proceed, then."
They went up-stairs, and soon found themselves in the clergyman's
retreat, and both sat down; the amazed host still holding the candle in
his hand, and intently eying Pierre, with an apprehensive aspect.
"Thou art a man of God, sir, I believe."
"I? I? I? upon my word, Mr. Glendinning!"
"Yes, sir, the world calls thee a man of God. Now, what hast thou, the
man of God, decided, with my mother, concerning Delly Ulver?"
"Delly Ulver! why, why--what can this madness mean?"
"It means, sir, what have thou and my mother decided concerning Delly
Ulver."
"She?--Delly Ulver? She is to depart the neighborhood; why, her own
parents want her not."
"_How_ is she to depart? _Who_ is to take her? Art _thou_ to take her?
_Where_ is she to go? _Who_ has food for her? _What_ is to keep her from
the pollution to which such as she are every day driven to contribute,
by the detestable uncharitableness and heartlessness of the world?"
"Mr. Glendinning," said the clergyman, now somewhat calmly putting down
the candle, and folding himself with dignity in his gown; "Mr.
Glendinning, I will not now make any mention of my natural astonishment
at this most unusual call, and the most extraordinary time of it. Thou
hast sought information upon a certain point, and I have given it to
thee, to the best of my knowledge. All thy after and incidental
questions, I choose to have no answer for. I will be most happy to see
thee at any other time, but for the present thou must excuse my
presence. Good-night, sir."
But Pierre sat entirely still, and the clergyman could not but remain
standing still.
"I perfectly comprehend the whole, sir. Delly Ulver, then, is to be
driven out to starve or rot; and this, too, by the acquiescence of a man
of God. Mr. Falsgrave, the subject of Delly, deeply interesting as it is
to me, is only the preface to another, still more interesting to me, and
concerning which I once cherished some slight hope that thou wouldst
have been able, in thy Christian character, to sincerely and honestly
counsel me. But a hint from heaven assures me now, that thou hast no
earnest and world-disdaining counsel for me. I must seek it direct from
God himself, whom, I now know, never delegates his holiest admonishings.
But I do not blame thee; I think I begin to see how thy profession is
unavoidably entangled by all fleshly alliances, and can not move with
godly freedom in a world of benefices. I am more sorry than indignant.
Pardon me for my most uncivil call, and know me as not thy enemy.
Good-night, sir."