IN WHICH THE COMMON LIFE GLIDES INTO THE STRANGE.--EQUALLY TRUE, BUT THE
TRUTH NOT EQUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED.
It was on the night of this interview that Constance, coming into
Godolphin’s room, found him leaning against the wall, pale, and
agitated, and almost insensible. “Percy--Percy, you are ill!” she
exclaimed, and wound her arms round his neck. He looked at her long and
wistfully, breathing hard all the time, until at length he seemed slowly
to recover his self-possession, and seating himself, motioned Constance
to do the same. After a pause, he said, clasping her hand.
“Listen to me, Constance. My health, I fear, is breaking; I am tormented
by fearful visions; I am possessed by some magic influence. For several
nights successively, before falling asleep, a cold tremor has gradually
pervaded my frame; the roots of my hair stand on end; my teeth chatter;
a vague horror seizes me; my blood seems turned to a solid substance, so
curdled and stagnant is it. I strive to speak, to cry out, but my voice
clings to the roof of my mouth; I feel that I have no longer power over
myself. Suddenly, and in the very midst of this agony, I fall into
a heavy sleep; then come strange bewildering dreams, with Volktman’s
daughter for ever presiding over them; but with a changed countenance,
calm, unutterably calm, and gazing on me with eyes that burn into
my soul. The dream fades, I wake with the morning, but exhausted and
enfeebled. I have consulted physicians; I have taken drugs; but I cannot
break the spell--the previous horror and the after-dreams. And just now,
Constance, just now--you see the window is open to the park, the gate of
the garden is unclosed; I happened to lift my eyes, and lo! gazing upon
me in the sickly moonlight, was the countenance of my dreams--Lucilla’s,
but how altered! Merciful Heaven! is it a mockery, or can the living
Lucilla really be in England? and have these visions, these terrors been
part of that mysterious sympathy which united us ever, and which her
father predicted should cease but with our lives?”
The emotions of Godolphin were so rarely visible, and in the present
instance they were so unaffected, and so roused, that Constance could
not summon courage to soothe, to cheer him; she herself was alarmed and
shocked, and glanced fearfully towards the window, lest the apparition
he had spoken of should reappear. All without was still, not a leaf
stirred on the trees in the Mall; no human figure was to be seen. She
turned again to Godolphin, and kissed the drops from his brow, and
pressed his cheek to her bosom.
“I have a presentiment,” said he, “that something dreadful will happen
shortly. I feel as if I were near some great crisis of my life; and as
if I were about to step from the bright and palpable world into regions
of cloud and darkness. Constance, strange misgivings as to my choice
in my past life haunt and perplex me. I have sought only the present; I
have adjured all toil, all ambition, and laughed at the future; my hand
has plucked the rose-leaves, and now they lie withered in the grasp.
My youth flies me--age scowls on me from the distance; an age of
frivolities that I once scorned; yet--yet, had I formed a different
creed, how much I might have done! But--but, out on this cant! My nerves
are shattered, and I prate nonsense. Lend me your arm, Constance, let us
go into the saloon, and send for music!”
And all that night Constance watched by the side of Godolphin, and
marked in mute terror the convulsions that wrung his sleep, the foam
that gathered to his lip, the cries that broke from his tongue. But
she was rewarded when, with the grey dawn, he awoke, and, catching her
tender and tearful gaze, flung himself upon her bosom, and bade God
bless her for her love!