The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my
bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the
Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in
an obscure part of the street.
"Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, "can I speak with you a moment?"
As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss to
mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with
her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric
line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new
science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her
sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice;
nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such
skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which at
once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady
in question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject,"
"clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and
openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a
step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries
with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his
preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary,
all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and
artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order
to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to
ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest
of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity,
and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one
time very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family and
fortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. It was
white, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side of
a cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed
to insulate her from the material world, from time and space, and to
endow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit.
Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have little
to do with the present narrative--except, indeed, that I had
propounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the
success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was of
the true Sibylline stamp,--nonsensical in its first aspect, yet on
closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has
certainly accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle in
my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the
old man above mentioned interrupted me.
"Mr. Coverdale!--Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, in
order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he
uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to
Blithedale tomorrow."
I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patch
over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old
fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing
enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was
a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the more
singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into
the stir and hubbub of the world more than the generality of men.
"Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what interest he could take in
the fact, "it is my intention to go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can I be
of any service to you before my departure?"
"If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very great
favor."
"A very great one?" repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed but
little alacrity of beneficence, although I was ready to do the old man
any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "A very
great favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I have a
good many preparations to make. But be good enough to tell me what you
wish."
"Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, "I don't quite like to do that; and, on
further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps I had better apply to some
older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness to
make me known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale. You are
a young man, sir!"
"Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked I.
"However, if an older man will suit you better, there is Mr.
Hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age,
and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am
only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that! But
what can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It begins to interest me;
especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be found
desirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you."
But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakish
and obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or other into his head
that made him hesitate in his former design.
"I wonder, sir," said he, "whether you know a lady whom they call
Zenobia?"
"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasure
to-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already a
resident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? or
have you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can have
interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose you
know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comes
before the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,--a
contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only
a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you tell me what I
can do for you?"
"Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You are
very kind; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all, there
may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your
lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I wish
you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you."
And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next morning,
it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at a
plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving
at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a
cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to
the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some
former periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably
with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly be
taken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to bed, after
drinking a glass of particularly fine sherry on which I used to pride
myself in those days. It was the very last bottle; and I finished it,
with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out for Blithedale.