HOW strange those long days of insensibility now seem! How mysterious
that vague consciousness of unconsciousness, when the mind closes
all communication with the outer world, and lives in a state of
semi-existence within itself! All sight was gone, yet a dull gray blank
pressed down upon my eyeballs—gray and dull, though invisible; all
hearing was gone, yet a singing sound lingered in my ears, as if a cap
had been exploded near them; feeling there was none, yet an undefined
pain and sickness pervaded my system, like a dream of deadly nausea.
A gap in existence, a chasm in thought and sense, known through the
veil of an uncertain consciousness! After a long while, as it seemed
to me, vague, uncertain shadows began to flit across this dull blank
before my vision. Gradually, after many flittings, they began to assume
varying shapes; and, as the form and features of a negative slowly
come into distinctness as the photographer washes the plate, so these
shapes began to show distinctly as familiar forms and faces. But oh!
how changed their expression! Those whom I had thought loved me most
now wore the blackest scowl for me, and, pointing at me, called me
Murderer! Father, mother and Carlotta stood around me constantly,
regarding me with a fiendish malignity and hatred. But among all the
faces that passed before me there was one that never changed its
position or expression—always directly before me, almost touching
mine; a face with a stony glare from its fixed eyes; a face with a
snarl of hate on its white lips, from which bubbled a froth of blood;
a face I could never escape, go where I would. I sprang over frightful
precipices, I traversed burning deserts, I climbed rugged wilds, but
everywhere, turning as I turned, _that_ face was ever before me,
freezing my blood with its hideous scowl. After awhile these visions
became less distinct, and soon another blank succeeded, during which I
one day unclosed my eyes and found everything familiar around me.
The room was darkened and silent. The occasional clicking of the coals
in the grate, as they powdered their red cheeks with white ashes, and
the foot-fall of a passer on the pavement below, were all the sounds
I could hear. I tried to raise myself on my elbow to make out what it
all meant, but I had scarcely made the effort when some one rose from a
chair at the side of the bed, and Carlotta’s beautiful face bent over
me, with an expression of anxious inquiry, as if she thought I was
still delirious.
“Where—where have I been? How came I in bed?” I said, in a weak,
drawling voice.
“Oh, you are yourself again!” she exclaimed, with a cry of delight;
“let me run and tell Mrs. Smith.”
“No; stop! Tell me what I am doing in this dark room. What is the
matter with me?”
“You have been very sick,” she said, removing a wet cloth from my
forehead, and wiping the dampness away; “you have been delirious for
more than two weeks. But the doctor says you must lie still and not
talk.”
“But I _will_ talk,” I said, peevishly; “I _will_ know how I came here.
Where are Ned and Ramie?”
A half distinct memory of the duel and its consequences flitted across
my mind, but it was all so confused that it seemed some horrid dream,
and in helpless uncertainty I turned my cheek over on my palm and gazed
at Carlotta, imploringly.
She stroked my forehead with her soft hand, and begged me to remain
quiet, promising to tell me all I wanted to know as soon as I became a
little stronger. Her touch and sweet voice were so soothing that I fell
into a gentle doze, from which I soon awoke much clearer in my mind
than before. And now a blighting remembrance of Ramie’s death came over
me, with such force as to nearly unsettle my reason again.
Mother soon came in, and, by skilfully diverting my thoughts from the
painful subject, managed to remove some of the shadows that clustered
around me.
Days lengthened into weeks before I was able to sit up, and how dreary
would have been those convalescent hours had it not been for Carlotta!
She seemed to have no interest outside of my room. Her attention was
never officious or too constant, and it was rendered with so much
tact it seemed as if I was conferring a favor by accepting it. I was
so sure it was a pleasure to her that I never refused letting her
do whatever she would for me. She would sit by my bedside for hours
reading or talking to me, seeking to divert me by all means possible
from gloomy thoughts or sad reflections. So bright was the sunshine of
her presence that I was unhappy unless she were near me; and however
dreary I might be feeling, as soon as she entered, my face and heart
would sensibly brighten.
While she would never allow me to draw her into conversation about
Ramie and his mother, yet I gradually learned the sad truth. After
Madame DeVare was carried to the hotel every effort was made by the
physicians to revive her, but in vain. The cataleptic stroke, induced
by the shock she received, in spite of all their labor, proved fatal,
and she and Ramie were buried together in the cemetery the same day.
Then Carlotta would listen with such a pleasant, talk-eliciting
interest to my stories of college life that I could talk with untiring
volubility. In return she would tell me of all that had occurred at
home since I had been away, with so much originality of expression and
artlessness of narration that I would lie and gaze for an hour at a
time on her faultless face. Occasionally she would lift her eyes from
her needlework, and whenever they met mine I always looked away with a
strange and unaccountable confusion.
One day, in our talk, she asked me if Frank and I were still good
friends. I told her no, and inquired why she asked.
“Because Lulie has changed so in her conduct towards me. She has been
very reserved and formal with me since you left, and rarely visits me.”
“Has Frank been paying her much attention this vacation?” I asked,
taking a sip of the cordial that stood by my bed.
“I have not had many opportunities for observing,” she replied, driving
her stiletto through a floss flower on her embroidery; “but I have seen
them together many times, and gossip says they are very much devoted.
Perhaps it is at his request she has withdrawn her intimacy from me.”
“No doubt of it,” I replied; “she is perfectly infatuated, and he
cares nothing whatever for her, except as a conquest to boast of. I
heard him read one of her letters to a crowd in his room one night, and
tell of liberties he had taken.”
Her dark eyes opened with a flash of indignant astonishment as she
exclaimed, energetically:
“And she trusts to such perfidy! I’ll warn her, if she spurns me, for
we have been fond friends. But no,” she added, after a pause; “that
would implicate you, and perhaps lead to another affray.”
“I don’t care,” I said, punching in the end of the pillow, as if it
were Frank’s head; “tell her by all means. I would go to her myself,
but she would think it was an invention of my own to supersede Frank in
her favor.”
“I hear Mrs. Smith coming up stairs,” said Carlotta, folding up
her work; “and as it is late in the afternoon I’ll run over to Dr.
Mayland’s and have a good long talk with Lulie, and get back in time to
bring up your tea.”
“Bless your dear heart, how I love you!” I murmured, as I watched
her tucking back the curtains and setting everything to rights ere
she tripped from the room. I could not help instituting a comparison
between her and Miss Carrover, and I could find only one point in
the latter’s favor: that she was a grown lady, who had seen much of
society, while Carlotta was, to my college dignity, only a child—too
often present for the romantic sigh, and too constantly near for the
heart-throb when I met her.
And, in thinking of Lillian, the faint shadow of a demon thought began
to flit across my mind. The baseness of its ingratitude made me shudder
as I shrank from it; yet it gradually grew, ever lurking deep down in
my heart, as it whispered, through the reveries of the day and the
dreams of the night, “Lillian can love you now; Ramie is dead.”
Deeply ungrateful as it was to the memory of my noble friend, I could
not help looking forward with pleasure to my meeting with her: when I
could take her hand, and, looking into her fond eyes, hear her say,
“Nothing binds me now; I am yours forever.”
I would then endeavor to plaster over conscience by imagining how
fondly we would cherish together the memory of DeVare; how we would
pour our mingled tears upon his grave, and feel that his spirit was
smiling upon our union. And I would endeavor to convince myself that I
would be acting in exact conformity to the wishes of Ramie, could he
express them; and I would say a dozen times in a day, “I am sure Ramie
had rather she would love me than another.”
A day or two elapsed and I was able to walk about the house before
Carlotta had an opportunity of telling me the result of her visit to
Lulie.
She said that as soon as she mentioned the subject Lulie had gotten
into quite a passion about it, and said she had parents to advise her,
and that she was under obligations to no one else for advice; that she
would do as she pleased and take the consequences.
“May heaven help her,” I said fervently, as we changed the subject.