ISABEL: MRS. GLENDINNING: THE PORTRAIT: AND LUCY.
I.
When on the previous night Pierre had left the farm-house where Isabel
harbored, it will be remembered that no hour, either of night or day, no
special time at all had been assigned for a succeeding interview. It was
Isabel, who for some doubtlessly sufficient reason of her own, had, for
the first meeting, assigned the early hour of darkness.
As now, when the full sun was well up the heavens, Pierre drew near the
farm-house of the Ulvers, he descried Isabel, standing without the
little dairy-wing, occupied in vertically arranging numerous glittering
shield-like milk-pans on a long shelf, where they might purifyingly meet
the sun. Her back was toward him. As Pierre passed through the open
wicket and crossed the short soft green sward, he unconsciously muffled
his footsteps, and now standing close behind his sister, touched her
shoulder and stood still.
She started, trembled, turned upon him swiftly, made a low, strange cry,
and then gazed rivetedly and imploringly upon him.
"I look rather queerish, sweet Isabel, do I not?" said Pierre at last
with a writhed and painful smile.
"My brother, my blessed brother!--speak--tell me--what has
happened--what hast thou done? Oh! Oh! I should have warned thee before,
Pierre, Pierre; it is my fault--mine, mine!"
"_What_ is thy fault, sweet Isabel?"
"Thou hast revealed Isabel to thy mother, Pierre."
"I have not, Isabel. Mrs. Glendinning knows not thy secret at all."
"Mrs. Glendinning?--that's,--that's thine own mother, Pierre! In
heaven's name, my brother, explain thyself. Knows not my secret, and yet
thou here so suddenly, and with such a fatal aspect? Come, come with me
into the house. Quick, Pierre, why dost thou not stir? Oh, my God! if
mad myself sometimes, I am to make mad him who loves me best, and who, I
fear, has in some way ruined himself for me;--then, let me no more stand
upright on this sod, but fall prone beneath it, that I may be hidden!
Tell me!" catching Pierre's arms in both her frantic hands--"tell me, do
I blast where I look? is my face Gorgon's?"
"Nay, sweet Isabel; but it hath a more sovereign power; that turned to
stone; thine might turn white marble into mother's milk."
"Come with me--come quickly."
They passed into the dairy, and sat down on a bench by the honey-suckled
casement.
"Pierre, forever fatal and accursed be the day my longing heart called
thee to me, if now, in the very spring-time of our related love, thou
art minded to play deceivingly with me, even though thou should'st fancy
it for my good. Speak to me; oh speak to me, my brother!"
"Thou hintest of deceiving one for one's good. Now supposing, sweet
Isabel, that in no case would I affirmatively deceive thee;--in no case
whatever;--would'st thou then be willing for thee and me to piously
deceive others, for both their and our united good?--Thou sayest
nothing. Now, then, is it _my_ turn, sweet Isabel, to bid thee speak to
me, oh speak to me!"
"That unknown, approaching thing, seemeth ever ill, my brother, which
must have unfrank heralds to go before. Oh, Pierre, dear, dear Pierre;
be very careful with me! This strange, mysterious, unexampled love
between us, makes me all plastic in thy hand. Be very careful with me. I
know little out of me. The world seems all one unknown India to me. Look
up, look on me, Pierre; say now, thou wilt be very careful; say so, say
so, Pierre!"
"If the most exquisite, and fragile filagree of Genoa be carefully
handled by its artisan; if sacred nature carefully folds, and warms, and
by inconceivable attentivenesses eggs round and round her minute and
marvelous embryoes; then, Isabel, do I most carefully and most tenderly
egg thee, gentlest one, and the fate of thee! Short of the great God,
Isabel, there lives none who will be more careful with thee, more
infinitely considerate and delicate with thee."
"From my deepest heart, do I believe thee, Pierre. Yet thou mayest be
very delicate in some point, where delicateness is not all essential,
and in some quick impulsive hour, omit thy fullest heedfulness somewhere
where heedlessness were most fatal. Nay, nay, my brother; bleach these
locks snow-white, thou sun! if I have any thought to reproach thee,
Pierre, or betray distrust of thee. But earnestness must sometimes seem
suspicious, else it is none. Pierre, Pierre, all thy aspect speaks
eloquently of some already executed resolution, born in suddenness.
Since I last saw thee, Pierre, some deed irrevocable has been done by
thee. My soul is stiff and starched to it; now tell me what it is?"
"Thou, and I, and Delly Ulver, to-morrow morning depart this whole
neighborhood, and go to the distant city.--That is it."
"No more?"
"Is it not enough?"
"There is something more, Pierre."
"Thou hast not yet answered a question I put to thee but just now.
Bethink thee, Isabel. The deceiving of others by thee and me, in a thing
wholly pertaining to ourselves, for their and our united good. Wouldst
thou?"
"I would do any thing that does not tend to the marring of thy best
lasting fortunes, Pierre. What is it thou wouldst have thee and me to do
together? I wait; I wait!"
"Let us go into the room of the double casement, my sister," said
Pierre, rising.
"Nay, then; if it can not be said here, then can I not do it anywhere,
my brother; for it would harm thee."
"Girl!" cried Pierre, sternly, "if for thee I have lost"--but he checked
himself.
"Lost? for me? Now does the very worst blacken on me. Pierre! Pierre!"
"I was foolish, and sought but to frighten thee, my sister. It was very
foolish. Do thou now go on with thine innocent work here, and I will
come again a few hours hence. Let me go now."
He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him
with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her
hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him.
"Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that
my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then
eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this
night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part,
but cheat the air, and die from it. See; I let thee go, lest some poison
I know not of distill upon thee from me."
She slowly drooped, and trembled from him. But Pierre caught her, and
supported her.
"Foolish, foolish one! Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of
me, thou dost reel and fall;--unanswerable emblem of the indispensable
heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of
parting."
"What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!"
"A gainful loss, my sister!"
"'Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?"
"Nothing that my inmost heart would now recall. I have bought inner love
and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid
me back, so I must return the thing I bought."
"Is love then cold, and glory white? Thy cheek is snowy, Pierre."
"It should be, for I believe to God that I am pure, let the world think
how it may."
"What hast thou lost?"
"Not thee, nor the pride and glory of ever loving thee, and being a
continual brother to thee, my best sister. Nay, why dost thou now turn
thy face from me?"
"With fine words he wheedles me, and coaxes me, not to know some secret
thing. Go, go, Pierre, come to me when thou wilt. I am steeled now to
the worst, and to the last. Again I tell thee, I will do any thing--yes,
any thing that Pierre commands--for, though outer ill do lower upon us,
still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?"
"Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his
seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well
mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet
propose to thee, thy confidence,--will it not bear me out? Surely thou
will not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;--already have I
plunged! now thou canst not stay upon the bank. Hearken, hearken to
me.--I seek not now to gain thy prior assent to a thing as yet undone;
but I call to thee now, Isabel, from the depth of a foregone act, to
ratify it, backward, by thy consent. Look not so hard upon me. Listen. I
will tell all. Isabel, though thou art all fearfulness to injure any
living thing, least of all, thy brother; still thy true heart
foreknoweth not the myriad alliances and criss-crossings among mankind,
the infinite entanglements of all social things, which forbids that one
thread should fly the general fabric, on some new line of duty, without
tearing itself and tearing others. Listen. All that has happened up to
this moment, and all that may be yet to happen, some sudden inspiration
now assures me, inevitably proceeded from the first hour I saw thee. Not
possibly could it, or can it, be otherwise. Therefore feel I, that I
have some patience. Listen. Whatever outer things might possibly be
mine; whatever seeming brightest blessings; yet now to live uncomforting
and unloving to thee, Isabel; now to dwell domestically away from thee;
so that only by stealth, and base connivances of the night, I could come
to thee as thy related brother; this would be, and is, unutterably
impossible. In my bosom a secret adder of self-reproach and self-infamy
would never leave off its sting. Listen. But without gratuitous dishonor
to a memory which--for right cause or wrong--is ever sacred and
inviolate to me, I can not be an open brother to thee, Isabel. But thou
wantest not the openness; for thou dost not pine for empty nominalness,
but for vital realness; what thou wantest, is not the occasional
openness of my brotherly love; but its continual domestic confidence. Do
I not speak thine own hidden heart to thee? say, Isabel? Well, then,
still listen to me. One only way presents to this; a most strange way,
Isabel; to the world, that never throbbed for thee in love, a most
deceitful way; but to all a harmless way; so harmless in its essence,
Isabel, that, seems to me, Pierre hath consulted heaven itself upon it,
and heaven itself did not say Nay. Still, listen to me; mark me. As thou
knowest that thou wouldst now droop and die without me; so would I
without thee. We are equal there; mark _that_, too, Isabel. I do not
stoop to thee, nor thou to me; but we both reach up alike to a glorious
ideal! Now the continualness, the secretness, yet the always present
domesticness of our love; how may we best compass that, without
jeopardizing the ever-sacred memory I hinted of? One way--one way--only
one! A strange way, but most pure. Listen. Brace thyself: here, let me
hold thee now; and then whisper it to thee, Isabel. Come, I holding
thee, thou canst not fall."
He held her tremblingly; she bent over toward him; his mouth wet her
ear; he whispered it.
The girl moved not; was done with all her tremblings; leaned closer to
him, with an inexpressible strangeness of an intense love, new and
inexplicable. Over the face of Pierre there shot a terrible
self-revelation; he imprinted repeated burning kisses upon her; pressed
hard her hand; would not let go her sweet and awful passiveness.
Then they changed; they coiled together, and entangledly stood mute.
II.
Mrs. Glendinning walked her chamber; her dress loosened.
"That such accursed vileness should proceed from me! Now will the
tongued world say--See the vile boy of Mary Glendinning!--Deceitful!
thick with guilt, where I thought it was all guilelessness and gentlest
docility to me. It has not happened! It is not day! Were this thing so,
I should go mad, and be shut up, and not walk here where every door is
open to me.--My own only son married to an unknown--thing! My own only
son, false to his holiest plighted public vow--and the wide world
knowing to it! He bears my name--Glendinning. I will disown it; were it
like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it
shriveled to a crisp!--Pierre! Pierre! come back, come back, and swear
it is not so! It can not be! Wait: I will ring the bell, and see if it
be so."
She rung the bell with violence, and soon heard a responsive knock.
"Come in!--Nay, falter not;" (throwing a shawl over her) "come in. Stand
there and tell me if thou darest, that my son was in this house this
morning and met me on the stairs. Darest thou say that?"
Dates looked confounded at her most unwonted aspect.
"Say it! find thy tongue! Or I will root mine out and fling it at thee!
Say it!"
"My dear mistress!"
"I am not thy mistress! but thou my master; for, if thou sayest it, thou
commandest me to madness.--Oh, vile boy!--Begone from me!"
She locked the door upon him, and swiftly and distractedly walked her
chamber. She paused, and tossing down the curtains, shut out the sun
from the two windows.
Another, but an unsummoned knock, was at the door. She opened it.
"My mistress, his Reverence is below. I would not call you, but he
insisted."
"Let him come up."
"Here? Immediately?"
"Didst thou hear me? Let Mr. Falsgrave come up."
As if suddenly and admonishingly made aware, by Dates, of the
ungovernable mood of Mrs. Glendinning, the clergyman entered the open
door of her chamber with a most deprecating but honest reluctance, and
apprehensiveness of he knew not what.
"Be seated, sir; stay, shut the door and lock it."
"Madam!"
"_I_ will do it. Be seated. Hast thou seen him?"
"Whom, Madam?--Master Pierre?"
"Him!--quick!"
"It was to speak of him I came, Madam. He made a most extraordinary call
upon me last night--midnight."
"And thou marriedst him?--Damn thee!"
"Nay, nay, nay, Madam; there is something here I know not of--I came to
tell thee news, but thou hast some o'erwhelming tidings to reveal to
me."
"I beg no pardons; but I may be sorry. Mr. Falsgrave, my son, standing
publicly plighted to Lucy Tartan, has privately wedded some other
girl--some slut!"
"Impossible!"
"True as thou art there. Thou knowest nothing of it then?"
"Nothing, nothing--not one grain till now. Who is it he has wedded?"
"Some _slut_, I tell thee!--I am no lady now, but something deeper,--a
woman!--an outraged and pride-poisoned woman!"
She turned from him swiftly, and again paced the room, as frantic and
entirely regardless of any presence. Waiting for her to pause, but in
vain, Mr. Falsgrave advanced toward her cautiously, and with the
profoundest deference, which was almost a cringing, spoke:--
"It is the hour of woe to thee; and I confess my cloth hath no
consolation for thee yet awhile. Permit me to withdraw from thee,
leaving my best prayers for thee, that thou mayst know some peace, ere
this now shut-out sun goes down. Send for me whenever thou desirest
me.--May I go now?"
"Begone! and let me not hear thy soft, mincing voice, which is an infamy
to a man! Begone, thou helpless, and unhelping one!"
She swiftly paced the room again, swiftly muttering to herself. "Now,
now, now, now I see it clearer, clearer--clear now as day! My first dim
suspicions pointed right!--too right! Ay--the sewing! it was the
sewing!--The shriek!--I saw him gazing rooted at her. He would not speak
going home with me. I charged him with his silence; he put me off with
lies, lies, lies! Ay, ay, he is married to her, to her;--to
her!--perhaps was then. And yet,--and yet,--how can it be?--Lucy,
Lucy--I saw him, after that, look on her as if he would be glad to die
for her, and go to hell for her, whither he deserves to go!--Oh! oh! oh!
Thus ruthlessly to cut off, at one gross sensual dash, the fair
succession of an honorable race! Mixing the choicest wine with filthy
water from the plebeian pool, and so turning all to undistinguishable
rankness!--Oh viper! had I thee now in me, I would be a suicide and a
murderer with one blow!"
A third knock was at the door. She opened it.
"My mistress, I thought it would disturb you,--it is so just
overhead,--so I have not removed them yet."
"Unravel thy gibberish!--what is it?"
"Pardon, my mistress, I somehow thought you knew it, but you can not."
"What is that writing crumpling in thy hand? Give it me."
"I have promised my young master not to, my mistress."
"I will snatch it, then, and so leave thee blameless.--What? what?
what?--He's mad sure!--'Fine old fellow Dates'--what? what?--mad and
merry!--chest?--clothes?--trunks?--he wants them?--Tumble them out of
his window!--and if he stand right beneath, tumble them out! Dismantle
that whole room. Tear up the carpet. I swear, he shall leave no smallest
vestige in this house.--Here! this very spot--here, here, where I stand,
he may have stood upon;--yes, he tied my shoe-string here; it's
slippery! Dates!"
"My mistress."
"Do his bidding. By reflection he has made me infamous to the world; and
I will make him infamous to it. Listen, and do not delude thyself that
I am crazy. Go up to yonder room" (pointing upward), "and remove every
article in it, and where he bid thee set down the chest and trunks,
there set down all the contents of that room."
"'Twas before the house--this house!"
"And if it had not been there, I would not order thee to put them there.
Dunce! I would have the world know that I disown and scorn him! Do my
bidding!--Stay. Let the room stand; but take him what he asks for."
"I will, my mistress."
As Dates left the chamber, Mrs. Glendinning again paced it swiftly, and
again swiftly muttered: "Now, if I were less a strong and haughty woman,
the fit would have gone by ere now. But deep volcanoes long burn, ere
they burn out.--Oh, that the world were made of such malleable stuff,
that we could recklessly do our fieriest heart's-wish before it, and not
falter. Accursed be those four syllables of sound which make up that
vile word Propriety. It is a chain and bell to drag;--drag? what sound
is that? there's dragging--his trunks--the traveler's--dragging out. Oh
would I could so drag my heart, as fishers for the drowned do, as that I
might drag up my sunken happiness! Boy! boy! worse than brought in
dripping drowned to me,--drowned in icy infamy! Oh! oh! oh!"
She threw herself upon the bed, covered her face, and lay motionless.
But suddenly rose again, and hurriedly rang the bell.
"Open that desk, and draw the stand to me. Now wait and take this to
Miss Lucy."
With a pencil she rapidly traced these lines:--
"My heart bleeds for thee, sweet Lucy. I can not speak--I know it all.
Look for me the first hour I regain myself."
Again she threw herself upon the bed, and lay motionless.
III.
Toward sundown that evening, Pierre stood in one of the three bespoken
chambers in the Black Swan Inn; the blue chintz-covered chest and the
writing-desk before him. His hands were eagerly searching through his
pockets.
"The key! the key! Nay, then, I must force it open. It bodes ill, too.
Yet lucky is it, some bankers can break into their own vaults, when
other means do fail. Not so, ever. Let me see:--yes, the tongs there.
Now then for the sweet sight of gold and silver. I never loved it till
this day. How long it has been hoarded;--little token pieces, of years
ago, from aunts, uncles, cousins innumerable, and from--but I won't
mention _them_; dead henceforth to me! Sure there'll be a premium on
such ancient gold. There's some broad bits, token pieces to my--I name
him not--more than half a century ago. Well, well, I never thought to
cast them back into the sordid circulations whence they came. But if
they must be spent, now is the time, in this last necessity, and in this
sacred cause. 'Tis a most stupid, dunderheaded crowbar. Hoy! so! ah, now
for it:--snake's nest!"
Forced suddenly back, the chest-lid had as suddenly revealed to him the
chair-portrait lying on top of all the rest, where he had secreted it
some days before. Face up, it met him with its noiseless, ever-nameless,
and ambiguous, unchanging smile. Now his first repugnance was augmented
by an emotion altogether new. That certain lurking lineament in the
portrait, whose strange transfer blended with far other, and sweeter,
and nobler characteristics, was visible in the countenance of Isabel;
that lineament in the portrait was somehow now detestable; nay,
altogether loathsome, ineffably so, to Pierre. He argued not with
himself why this was so; he only felt it, and most keenly.
Omitting more subtile inquisition into this deftly-winding theme, it
will be enough to hint, perhaps, that possibly one source of this new
hatefulness had its primary and unconscious rise in one of those
profound ideas, which at times atmospherically, as it were, do insinuate
themselves even into very ordinary minds. In the strange relativeness,
reciprocalness, and transmittedness, between the long-dead father's
portrait, and the living daughter's face, Pierre might have seemed to
see reflected to him, by visible and uncontradictable symbols, the
tyranny of Time and Fate. Painted before the daughter was conceived or
born, like a dumb seer, the portrait still seemed leveling its prophetic
finger at that empty air, from which Isabel did finally emerge. There
seemed to lurk some mystical intelligence and vitality in the picture;
because, since in his own memory of his father, Pierre could not recall
any distinct lineament transmitted to Isabel, but vaguely saw such in
the portrait; therefore, not Pierre's parent, as any way rememberable by
him, but the portrait's painted _self_ seemed the real father of Isabel;
for, so far as all sense went, Isabel had inherited one peculiar trait
no-whither traceable but to it.
And as his father was now sought to be banished from his mind, as a most
bitter presence there, but Isabel was become a thing of intense and
fearful love for him; therefore, it was loathsome to him, that in the
smiling and ambiguous portrait, her sweet mournful image should be so
sinisterly becrooked, bemixed, and mutilated to him.
When, the first shock, and then the pause were over, he lifted the
portrait in his two hands, and held it averted from him.
"It shall not live. Hitherto I have hoarded up mementoes and monuments
of the past; been a worshiper of all heirlooms; a fond filer away of
letters, locks of hair, bits of ribbon, flowers, and the
thousand-and-one minutenesses which love and memory think they
sanctify:--but it is forever over now! If to me any memory shall
henceforth be dear, I will not mummy it in a visible memorial for every
passing beggar's dust to gather on. Love's museum is vain and foolish as
the Catacombs, where grinning apes and abject lizards are embalmed, as,
forsooth, significant of some imagined charm. It speaks merely of decay
and death, and nothing more; decay and death of endless innumerable
generations; it makes of earth one mold. How can lifelessness be fit
memorial of life?--So far, for mementoes of the sweetest. As for the
rest--now I know this, that in commonest memorials, the twilight fact of
death first discloses in some secret way, all the ambiguities of that
departed thing or person; obliquely it casts hints, and insinuates
surmises base, and eternally incapable of being cleared. Decreed by God
Omnipotent it is, that Death should be the last scene of the last act of
man's play;--a play, which begin how it may, in farce or comedy, ever
hath its tragic end; the curtain inevitably falls upon a corpse.
Therefore, never more will I play the vile pigmy, and by small memorials
after death, attempt to reverse the decree of death, by essaying the
poor perpetuating of the image of the original. Let all die, and mix
again! As for this--this!--why longer should I preserve it? Why preserve
that on which one can not patient look? If I am resolved to hold his
public memory inviolate,--destroy this thing; for here is the one great,
condemning, and unsuborned proof, whose mysticalness drives me half
mad.--Of old Greek times, before man's brain went into doting bondage,
and bleached and beaten in Baconian fulling-mills, his four limbs lost
their barbaric tan and beauty; when the round world was fresh, and rosy,
and spicy, as a new-plucked apple;--all's wilted now!--in those bold
times, the great dead were not, turkey-like, dished in trenchers, and
set down all garnished in the ground, to glut the damned Cyclop like a
cannibal; but nobly envious Life cheated the glutton worm, and
gloriously burned the corpse; so that the spirit up-pointed, and visibly
forked to heaven!
"So now will I serve thee. Though that solidity of which thou art the
unsolid duplicate, hath long gone to its hideous church-yard
account;--and though, God knows! but for one part of thee it may have
been fit auditing;--yet will I now a second time see thy obsequies
performed, and by now burning thee, urn thee in the great vase of air!
Come now!"
A small wood-fire had been kindled on the hearth to purify the
long-closed room; it was now diminished to a small pointed heap of
glowing embers. Detaching and dismembering the gilded but tarnished
frame, Pierre laid the four pieces on the coals; as their dryness soon
caught the sparks, he rolled the reversed canvas into a scroll, and tied
it, and committed it to the now crackling, clamorous flames. Steadfastly
Pierre watched the first crispings and blackenings of the painted
scroll, but started as suddenly unwinding from the burnt string that had
tied it, for one swift instant, seen through the flame and smoke, the
upwrithing portrait tormentedly stared at him in beseeching horror, and
then, wrapped in one broad sheet of oily fire, disappeared forever.
Yielding to a sudden ungovernable impulse, Pierre darted his hand among
the flames, to rescue the imploring face; but as swiftly drew back his
scorched and bootless grasp. His hand was burnt and blackened, but he
did not heed it.
He ran back to the chest, and seizing repeated packages of family
letters, and all sorts of miscellaneous memorials in paper, he threw
them one after the other upon the fire.
"Thus, and thus, and thus! on thy manes I fling fresh spoils; pour out
all my memory in one libation!--so, so, so--lower, lower, lower; now all
is done, and all is ashes! Henceforth, cast-out Pierre hath no
paternity, and no past; and since the Future is one blank to all;
therefore, twice-disinherited Pierre stands untrammeledly his
ever-present self!--free to do his own self-will and present fancy to
whatever end!"
IV.
That same sunset Lucy lay in her chamber. A knock was heard at its door,
and the responding Martha was met by the now self-controlled and
resolute face of Mrs. Glendinning.
"How is your young mistress, Martha? May I come in?"
But waiting for no answer, with the same breath she passed the maid, and
determinately entered the room.
She sat down by the bed, and met the open eye, but closed and pallid
mouth of Lucy. She gazed rivetedly and inquisitively a moment; then
turned a quick aghast look toward Martha, as if seeking warrant for some
shuddering thought.
"Miss Lucy"--said Martha--"it is your--it is Mrs. Glendinning. Speak to
her, Miss Lucy."
As if left in the last helpless attitude of some spent contortion of her
grief, Lucy was not lying in the ordinary posture of one in bed, but lay
half crosswise upon it, with the pale pillows propping her hueless form,
and but a single sheet thrown over her, as though she were so heart
overladen, that her white body could not bear one added feather. And as
in any snowy marble statue, the drapery clings to the limbs; so as one
found drowned, the thin, defining sheet invested Lucy.
"It is Mrs. Glendinning. Will you speak to her, Miss Lucy?"
The thin lips moved and trembled for a moment, and then were still
again, and augmented pallor shrouded her.
Martha brought restoratives; and when all was as before, she made a
gesture for the lady to depart, and in a whisper, said, "She will not
speak to any; she does not speak to me. The doctor has just left--he has
been here five times since morning--and says she must be kept entirely
quiet." Then pointing to the stand, added, "You see what he has
left--mere restoratives. Quiet is her best medicine now, he says. Quiet,
quiet, quiet! Oh, sweet quiet, wilt thou now ever come?"
"Has Mrs. Tartan been written to?" whispered the lady. Martha nodded.
So the lady moved to quit the room, saying that once every two hours she
would send to know how Lucy fared.
"But where, where is her aunt, Martha?" she exclaimed, lowly, pausing at
the door, and glancing in sudden astonishment about the room; "surely,
surely, Mrs. Lanyllyn--"
"Poor, poor old lady," weepingly whispered Martha, "she hath caught
infection from sweet Lucy's woe; she hurried hither, caught one glimpse
of that bed, and fell like dead upon the floor. The Doctor hath two
patients now, lady"--glancing at the bed, and tenderly feeling Lucy's
bosom, to mark if yet it heaved; "Alack! Alack! oh, reptile! reptile!
that could sting so sweet a breast! fire would be too cold for
him--accursed!"
"Thy own tongue blister the roof of thy mouth!" cried Mrs. Glendinning,
in a half-stifled, whispering scream. "'Tis not for thee, hired one, to
rail at my son, though he were Lucifer, simmering in Hell! Mend thy
manners, minx!"
And she left the chamber, dilated with her unconquerable pride, leaving
Martha aghast at such venom in such beauty.