LUCILLA.--THE SOLITUDE.--THE SPELL.--THE DREAM AND THE RESOLVE.
While the above events, so fatal to Lucilla, were in progress at Rome,
she was holding an unquiet commune with her own passionate and restless
heart, by the borders of the lake, whose silver quiet mocked the mind
it had, in happier moments, reflected. She had now dragged on the weary
load of time throughout the winter; and the early and soft spring was
already abroad--smoothing the face of the waters, and calling life into
the boughs. Hitherto this time of the year had possessed a mysterious
and earnest attraction for Lucilla--now all its voices were mute.
The letters that Godolphin had written to her were so few, and so
restrained, in comparison with those which she had received in the
former periods of absence, that--ever alive as she was to impulse, and
unregulated by settled principles of hope--her only relief to a tearful
and spiritless dejection was in paroxysms of doubt, jealousy, and
despair.
It is the most common thing in the world, that, when we have once
wronged a person, we go on in the wrong, from a certain soreness with
which conscience links the associations of the injured party. And thus,
Godolphin, struggling with the return to his early and never-forgotten
love, felt an unwillingness that he could seldom successfully combat, in
playing the hypocrite to Lucilla. His very remorse made him unkind;
the feeling that he ought to write often, made him write seldom: and
conscious that he ought to return her expressions of eager devotion, he
returned them with involuntary awkwardness and reserve. All this is
very natural, and very evident to us; but a thousand mysteries were more
acceptable to, more sought for and more clung to, by Lucilla, than a
conjecture at the truth.
Meanwhile she fed more and more eagerly on those vain researches which
yet beguiled her time, and flattered her imagination. In a science so
false, and so unprofitable, it mattered, happily, little, whether or not
the poor disciple laboured with success; but I need scarcely tell to any
who have had the curiosity to look over the entangled schemes and quaint
figures of the art, how slender was the advancement of the daughter in
the learning of the sire. Still it was a comfort and a soothing, even to
look upon the placid heaven, and form a conjecture as to the language of
its stars. And, above all, while she questioned the future, she thought
only of her lover. But day after day passed--no letter, or worse than
none; and at length Lucilla became utterly impatient of all rest: a
nervous fever possessed her; the extreme solitude of the place filled
her with that ineffable sensation of irritability which sometimes
preludes the madness that has been produced in criminals by solitary
confinement.
On the day that she wrote that letter to Godolphin which I have
transcribed, this painful tension of the nerves was more than hitherto
acute. She longed to fly somewhere; nay, once or twice, she remembered
that Rome was easily gained, that she might be there as expeditiously as
her letter. Although in that letter only we have signified that Lucilla
had expressed her wish for Godolphin’s return; yet, in all her later
letters, she had (perhaps, more timidly) urged that desire. But they had
not taken the same hold on Godolphin; nor, while he was playing with his
danger, had they produced the same energetic resolution. Lucilla could
not, however, hope with much reason that the success of her present
letter would be greater than that of her former ones; and, at all
events, she did not anticipate an immediate compliance with her prayers.
She looked forward to some excuses, and to some delay. We cannot,
therefore, wonder that she felt a growing desire to follow her own
epistle to Rome; and although she had been prevented before, and still
drew back from absolutely favoring and enforcing the idea, by the fear
of Godolphin’s displeasure; yet she trusted enough to his gentleness of
character to feel sure that the displeasure could scarcely be lasting.
Still the step was bold, and Lucilla loved devotedly enough to be timid;
and besides, her inexperience made her look upon the journey as a far
more formidable expedition than it really was.
Debating the notion in her mind, she sought her usual retreat, and
turned listlessly over the books which she had so lately loved to study.
At length, in moving one she had not looked into before, a paper fell to
the ground; she picked it up; it was the paper containing that figure,
which it will be remembered, the astrologer had shown to his daughter,
as a charm to produce dreams prophetic of any circumstance or person
concerning whom the believer might be anxious to learn aught. As she saw
the image, which, the reader will recollect, was of a remarkable design,
the whole of her conversation with Volktman on the subject rushed into
her mind, and she resolved that very night to prove the efficacy of
the charm on which he had so confidently insisted. Fraught with the
chimerical delusion, she now longed for the hours to pass, and the
night to come. She looked again and again at the singular image and the
portentous figures wrought upon the charm; the very strangeness of
the characters inspired her, as was natural, with a belief of their
efficacy; and she felt a thrill, an awe, creep over her blood, as the
shadows of eve, deepening over the far mountains, brought on the time of
trial. At length it was night, and Lucilla sought her chamber.
The hour was exceedingly serene, and the stars shone through the
casement with a lustre that to her seemed ominous. With bare feet, and
only in her night-robe, she stole tremblingly across the threshold. She
paused for a moment at the window, and looked out on the deep and quiet
night; and as she so stood, it was a picture that, had I been a painter,
I would have devoted a youth to accomplish. Half in light--half in
shadow--her undress gave the outline, and somewhat more, of a throat and
breast, whose roundness, shape, and hue, never were surpassed. Her arms
were lightly crossed above her bosom; and her long rich hair seeming
darker by that light, fell profusely, yet not dishevelled, around her
neck; parting from her brow. Her attitude at that moment was quite
still, as if in worship, and perhaps it was; her face was inclined
slightly upward, looking to the heavens and towards Rome. But that
face--there was the picture! It was so young, so infantine, so modest;
and yet, the youth and the timidity were elevated and refined by the
earnest doubt, the preternatural terror, the unearthly hope, which dwelt
upon her forehead--her parted lip, and her wistful and kindled eye.
There was a sublimity in her loneliness and her years, and in the fond
and vain superstition, which was but a spirit called from the deeps of
an unfathomable and mighty love. And afar was heard the breaking of
the lake in upon the shore--no other sound! And now, among the unwaving
pines, there was a silver shimmer as the moon rose into her empire, and
deepened at once, along the universal scene, the loveliness and the awe.
Lucilla turned from the window, and kneeling down wrote with a trembling
hand upon the figure one word--the name of Godolphin. She then placed it
under her pillow, and the spell was concluded. The astrologer had told
her of the necessary co-operation which the mind must afford to
the charm; but it will easily be believed that Lucilla required no
injunction to let her imagination dwell upon the vision she expected
to invoke. And it would have been almost strange, if, so intently and
earnestly brooding, as she had done over the image of Godolphin, that
image had not, without recurring to any cabalistical spells, been
present to her dreams.
She thought that it was broad noonday, and that she was sitting alone
in the house she then inhabited, and weeping bitterly. Of a sudden the
voice of Godolphin called to her; she ran eagerly forth, but no
sooner had she passed the threshold, than the scene so familiar to her
vanished, and she was alone in an immense and pathless wilderness; there
was no tree and no water in this desert; all was arid, solitary, and
inanimate. But what seemed most strange to her was that in the heavens,
although they were clear and bright, there was neither sun nor stars;
the light seemed settled and stagnant--there was in it no life.
And she thought that she continued to move involuntarily along the
waste; and that, ever and anon, she yearned and strove to rest, but her
limbs did not obey her will, and a power she could not control urged her
onward.
And now there was no longer an utter dumbness and death over the scene.
Forth from the sands, as from the bowels of the reluctant earth, there
crept, one by one, loathly and reptile shapes; obscene sounds rang
in her ears--now in a hideous mockery, now in a yet more sickening
solicitation. Shapes of terror thickened and crowded round her. She was
roused by dread into action; she hurried faster and faster; she strove
to escape; and ever as she fled, the sounds grew louder, and the
persecuting shapes more ghastly,--abominations which her pure mind
shuddered to behold, presented themselves at every turn: there was no
spot for refuge, no cave for concealment. Wearied and despairing, she
stopped short; but then the shapes and sounds seemed gradually to lose
their terror; her eye and ear became familiar to them; and what at first
seemed foes, grew into companions.
And now, again, the wilderness was gone; she stood in a strange spot,
and opposite, and gazing upon her with intent and mournful eyes, stood
Godolphin. But he seemed much older than he was, and the traces of care
were ploughed deeply on his countenance; and above them both hung a
motionless and livid cloud; and from the cloud a gigantic hand was
stretched forth, pointing with a shadowy and unmoving finger towards
a quarter of the earth which was enveloped in a thick gloom. While she
sought with straining eyes, to penetrate the darkness of the spot
thus fearfully marked out, she thought Godolphin vanished, and all was
suddenly and utter night--night, but not stillness--for there was a
roar as of many winds, and a dashing of angry waters, that seemed close
beneath; and she heard the trees groan and bend, and felt the icy and
rushing air: the tempests were abroad. But amidst the mingling of the
mighty sounds, she heard distinctly the ringing of a horse’s hoofs; and
presently a wild cry, in which she recognised the voice of Godolphin,
rang forth, adding to the wrath of nature the yet more appalling witness
of a human despair. The cry was followed by the louder dashing of the
waves, and the fiercer turmoil of the winds; and then her anguish and
horror freeing her from the Prison of Sleep, she woke.
It was nearly day, but the serenity of the late night had gone; the
rain fell in torrents, and the house shook beneath the fury of a violent
storm. This change in the mood of nature had probably influenced the
latter part of her dream. But Lucilla thought of no natural solution to
the dreadful vision she had undergone. Her superstition was confirmed
and ratified by the intense impression wrought upon her mind by the
dream. A thousand unutterable fears, fears for Godolphin, rather
than herself--or if for herself, only in connection with him--bore
irresistible despotism over her thoughts. She could not endure to wait,
to linger any longer in the dark and agitated suspense she herself
had created; the idea she before had nursed now became resolve, she
determined forthwith to set out for Rome--to see Godolphin. She rose,
woke her attendant, and that very day she put her resolution into
effect.