SPIRITS OF THE AIR
“Are you visited by phantoms or by ghosts at midnight, walking?
See you grim and grisley spectres? Do you never hear them talking?
Talking low, in chilling whispers, of the worn heart’s secret sorrows,
Of the lone heart’s hidden treasures, and the hopes it vainly borrows?
“When alone, at evening sitting, in the shadows of the twilight,
See them softly by you flitting—or in dimness of the firelight—
Phantoms of your youthful pleasures, mocking at you now, and scoffing,
Whispering as they brush you, lightly, ‘past the hours of mirth and
laughing.’
“Spectres of the dear departed, who once smiled upon you, brightly;
Of the fair and faithful hearted, whom you love to dream of, nightly.
Other forms from out the shadows walk and grin with horrid grimness,
Mock you with their ceaseless chatter, as the firelight fades in
dimness.
“Then, sometimes you feel the coolness of the west wind softly blowing,
Of the cool sweet wind of summer, fresh from where bright waves are
flowing,
And it carries with it zephyrs, whispers of the happy childhood—
Of the joyous days of girlhood, and the fragrance of the wildwood.
“And you clutch with eager yearning, but to stay them in their fleeting,
Clutch at air and soulless nothing, vain is all your soul’s entreating;
Gone beyond is all the sweetness, carried by the zephyrs lightly,
Borne afar beyond your reaching, by the mocking phantoms, nightly.
“O the year so slowly drifting, with their freight of human sorrow,
Are they very near their ending? Will they end, too, on the morrow?
Ghosts of years and ghosts of pleasures, cease, oh cease, your midnight
stalking,
Fill no more the heart with anguish, by your tireless, soundless
walking.”
Alice Cramer stood by the small window of her home, her fingers
unconsciously thrumming on the pane, while she gazed out into the
shadowing twilight of early spring.
The road was a dark line in the gray landscape and she watched eagerly
for a figure to arise from it into vision. It was the evening that Mark
should come, and she remembered that she had parted from him almost in
anger. She had expected then to see him soon again, in a few weeks at
the furthest, but the weeks had grown into months. There had been
trouble with the Indians on the frontier and Mark was ordered to report
for active duty and sent away a long distance from home. What a long,
dreary winter it had been, even though her mother had been with her.
Alice sighed as she thought of it. Even the mother had gone back to her
Eastern home now, and she was alone.
Ah, she was glad, very glad Mark was coming; but there was a shadow of
fear tinging the brightness of her joy. She had disobeyed him. She
compressed her lips as she thought again of the command he had laid upon
her. Why had he been so bitter and prejudiced in regard to Professor
Russell? Mark was usually so tolerant of others’ beliefs and foibles. It
could not be from the cause the Professor had once insinuated. A hot
flush of shame swept over her as she thought of that dreadful
insinuation. Surely, the man had forgotten himself when he hinted that.
She should never dare repeat his words to Mark. He would shoot him, she
feared. Perhaps Mark was right in his dislike for the man, but she could
not refuse to credit his doctrine. Surely, surely she had proof of
unseen visitants surrounding her. She felt their presence.
And even as she thus thought, a shiver of fear came over her. The air
about her grew chill. In imagination she could see without, in the
gathering darkness, a host of shadowy forms flitting backward and
forward before her, like swarms of tiny insects in the atmosphere. How
they swarmed about her and over her as she grew colder and her breathing
more difficult. Involuntarily she turned her head and glanced backward
over her shoulder. The shadows had deepened in the room. A frightful
figure began to take shape before her excited vision. Her heart beat
loudly and painfully. Her breath came in gasps. A moment, and the shape
began to approach her. She gazed in fascinated terror into the darkness,
not daring to move. Nearer and nearer it came,—ah, God! Alice felt her
limbs sinking beneath her, and dropping to the floor she cowered and
covered her face with her hands.
Oh, the fright and awfulness of that moment! She felt the forms all
about her, shadowing and overpowering her. She heard them in a swarming,
buzzing confusion of sound. Suddenly, out from it all came another
sound, louder and more distinct, but she was too paralyzed to reason.
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside. Nearer and nearer they
came. The door opened. Some one approached in the half darkness. There
was a rushing and roaring as of many waters in Alice’s brain, and she
crouched lower and lower and uttered a faint shriek of terror.
“Alice, Alice!” a voice called in her ear. “Alice, where are you? All in
the dark by yourself?” Then, as the visitor nearly stumbled over the
heap upon the floor, he started back involuntarily. “Great Heavens! What
has happened? What is the matter? Alice, can this be you upon the floor?
Why, child, what has happened? Did I startle you by coming sooner than
you expected?”
Mark Cramer, with anxious countenance, bent over the cowering figure of
his wife.
Her face was still buried in her hands, her frame shaking, her whole
attitude one of extreme fear.
Mark’s heart sank with a fear of unknown dangers. This was a strange
welcome after his long absence.
Alice’s letter had, it is true, prepared him to find her ill, perhaps
only depressed, for he had noted the dejection of spirits in the written
words, but he could account for that; but could this shrinking, cowering
creature be his formerly light-hearted and happy wife? Surely he had
expected nothing like this.
Nothing less than a serious nerve shock could have caused this
condition. From what source could the shock have come? Could it be,
Alice had brooded in her cabin until she had become insane? These and a
hundred other thoughts rushed through his brain in the space of a moment
as he bent over the abject form of his wife.
“Alice, dear Alice, have you no welcome for me after all these long
months?”
Mark tried to raise her, but she shrank back from him, limp and
helpless, yet trembling as with palsy.
“Alice, do you know me? Have you lost your mind? My God, what a
home-coming is this! You surely are not afraid of _me_, Mark? Speak to
me, Alice.”
She looked up at him with dazed eyes and tried to speak, but her lips
would not obey her will.
“Alice, O Alice!” Mark lifted the trembling figure in his arms and held
her tightly. “Alice Cramer, do you not know me? What has happened to put
you in this state?”
She turned her white face against his shoulder, hiding it.
Darker thoughts took possession of the man. Was there a reason why his
wife should fear him, her husband? His blood grew hot with anger. Had
that villain, Russell, so poisoned her mind that she feared his return,
or had some person, just previous to his return, frightened and
prostrated her? He glanced into the adjoining room and listened for any
noise to denote an intruder. No, Alice was alone.
“Alice, speak to me!” he commanded sternly.
“Mark, Mark,” she murmured. “Oh! has it gone? Can you save me from it?”
And again she shrank fearingly against his arm.
“There is nothing here, Alice; only I, Mark. What has disturbed you so?
Was any one here before I came? Has any one been trying to frighten
you?”
Alice raised her head and looked shrinkingly behind her, clinging closer
to her husband as she did so. Then she began to sob, and clutch his
shoulders tightly.
“Yes—oh—I do not know! I saw it behind me here in the room. It was so
hideous—so dreadful! I saw it over my shoulder there!”
“I think, my dear, it was only the shadow cast by my horse as it came
down the road.”
“Oh, no, no, it was there!”
Mark looked distressed.
“Alice, I shall not dare leave you alone again while your nerves are in
this state. Do you know that there has been nothing here but spectres of
your excited imagination. Since when have you conjured gruesome
hobgoblins out of the darkness? You never saw such things before, did
you?”
Alice hid her face in his bosom.
“Yes, Mark, many times. They are always about me. When I walk they come
up behind me and I hear their padding footsteps following me. They even
pull my hair sometimes at night when I cannot sleep. Oh, I cannot bear
it!”
Mark frowned, and chewed his mustache reflectively, but he repressed the
words that came to his lips.
“My dear child, I am home with you now.”
“Yes, Mark, and I am so—so—glad! But you will go away and then they will
come again.”
“I wish you might go when I do. You are nearly ill with nervous
prostration. You should see a doctor right away.”
“O, no, Mark! Not a doctor! I am not sick!”
“What has caused this trouble, Alice? I do not know unless it is that
miserable hound Russell. Can you not believe me when I tell you this is
all a mere delusion of the senses? You have thought and thought over,
and allowed your mind to dwell upon that wretched _ism_ until it has
nearly shipwrecked you. It was an evil day when that villain darkened
our door.” And Mark ground his teeth in impotent wrath. “But come, let
us have a light and drive away the spirits of darkness.”
“But, Mark, dear,” said Alice, as she arose and lighted a lamp, “can you
not see that, to me, it is truth? I really see and hear them, and if it
were not for these hideous ones—”
“They are _all_ hideous—the whole doctrine is hideous, my dear, and only
such as an unbalanced mind can conceive of,” he said hastily. “For my
sake,—for God’s sake,—try and use some reason and judgment in the
matter! You used to feel different from this—you, the little fearless
woman of five years ago. I was so proud of you for your bravery, as
became a soldier’s wife. You were all right until that man came
here—until that serpent came into our Eden. Now you are frightened, and
faint at your own shadow. But forgive me, dear, I didn’t come home to
scold you. I am sure it is because you are not well and your nerves are
to blame for it all. Queer things, these nerves, to play us such pranks.
You are better, are you not?”
Alice turned her face, still pale and wan, toward him, and said in a
voice yet unsteady: “We will not talk of it any more. It is too
dreadful.”
“No, we will choose pleasanter themes. I have some news for you. I have
received a letter from my sister Elinor, and she thinks of coming to
make us a visit. She will have a fine rest here after her round of
society life.”
“But I thought she was in California.”
“So she is, but will stop and visit us on the way East. I know it will
do you good to have her here. She is always bright and happy.”
Alice’s lip quivered at the implied reproach, though Mark had no
intention of meaning it as such.
“But will she be happy here? I am afraid our rude little cabin will
scarcely make her comfortable.”
“Don’t worry about that, child. Nellie is a good-hearted little woman,
in spite of her wealth and love of society, and she will enjoy the
change, I assure you.”
“I feel—afraid to see her,” said Alice, the tears quivering in her
lashes.
“Alice, dear, can it be this lonely, isolated life that is ruining your
health and nerves? Shall I give up my commission and go back East?”
“Oh, no, Mark! It is pleasant here—only—” And Alice again looked
apprehensively behind her.
“My poor child, we will go East,—anywhere,—to get you away from these
scenes and influences,” he murmured.
“But, Mark, do you not think they are everywhere? In the East and West
and North and South? The air is full of them, it seems to me. What used
to seem only thin, pure, fresh air, sweet to breathe, and space vast and
limitless, appears now a thickly populated ether or chaos in which are
countless thousands of spirits floating or coming and going in surging,
whirling, maddening confusion. Oh, you cannot see with my eyes! If you
could you would pity me!” Alice leaned against her husband’s arm and her
tears fell softly. “You wouldn’t scold me if you knew.”
“Poor child, poor child! I will not scold you nor laugh at you. I will
cure you. I know disordered nerves are as bad as other functional
disorders, or worse, and it is a physician you need, and a big dose of
rest, and you shall have them. You shall not be left alone again,
either. You are not afraid when I am here?”
“No, you seem to exercise control even over the inhabitants of the air.”
“I thank God I am able to. Did you know, Alice, Nathan’s little Lucy is
ill?”
“Little Lucy? Ah, how sorry I am. How did you learn it?”
“I met Nathan down the road and came home with him.”
“Mark, dear, how I am neglecting you. I am sure you are tired and
hungry, and here I have been taking your time with my woes, and
forgetting your needs. Supper is all ready, however, except making the
tea.”
“Ah, that begins to sound like home again. Yes, I am hungry. I am always
hungry when I can come home to my own table and have my good wife’s
cooking.”
And Alice, intent upon the hospitable entertainment of her husband,
forgot, for the time, the spectres that haunted her.