Lay a garland on my hearse,
Of the dismal yew;
Maidens, willow gardens bear;
Say I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth;
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly, gentle earth.--_The Maid’s Tragedy_.
Professor Mapleleafe speedily saw that to oppose his sister would
be inopportune--might perhaps even cause her decline and death. He
determined’ therefore to humour her, and to delay for a short time their
proposed return to America.
‘Look here, Eustasia,’ he said to her one day, ‘I find I’ve got
something to do in Paris; you shall come with me. Perhaps the change
there may bring you back to your old self again. Anyhow we’ll try it;
for if this goes on much longer you’ll die!’
‘No, Salem, I shan’t die till I’ve seen _him_ again!’ she answered, with
a faint forced smile.
They set about making their preparations at once, and were soon on their
way to Paris. The movement and change had given colour to Eustasia’s
cheeks, and brought a pleasurable light of excitement into her eyes, so
that already her brother’s spirits were raised.
‘She’ll forget him,’ he said to himself, ‘and we’ll be what we were
before he came!’
But in this Salem was mistaken. Eustasia was not likely to forget
Bradley. Indeed, it was the thought of seeing him again that seemed to
give new life to her rapidly wasting frame. She knew that he had left
England; she thought that, like herself, he might be travelling to get
rid of his own distracting thoughts; so wherever she went she looked
about her to try and catch a glimpse of his face.
They fixed themselves in Paris, and Salem soon dropped into the old
life. He fell amongst some kindred spirits, and the _séances_ began
again; Eustasia taking part in them to please her brother, but no more.
She was utterly changed; each day as it rolled away seemed to take
with it a part of her life, until her wasted frame became almost as
etherealised as those of the spirits with whom she had dealt so much.
With constant nursing and brooding upon, her fascination for the
Englishman increased; it seemed, indeed, to be the one thing which kept
her thin thread of life from finally breaking.
‘If I could see him again,’ she murmured to herself, ‘only once again,
and then (as Salem says) die!’
The wish of her heart was destined to be realised: she did at least see
Bradley once again.
She was sitting at home one day alone, when the door of the room opened,
and more like a spectre than a man he walked in.
At the first glimpse of his face Eustasia uttered a wild cry and
staggered a few steps forward, as if about to throw herself into his
arms; but suddenly she controlled herself, and sank half swooning into a
chair.
‘You have come!’ she said at length, raising her eyes wistfully to his;
‘you have come at last!’
He did not answer, but kept his eyes fixed upon hers with a look which
made her shudder.
‘How--how did you find me?’ she asked faintly.
‘I came to Paris, and by accident I heard of you,’ he answered in a
hollow voice.
Again there was silence. Bradley kept his eyes fixed upon the sibyl with
a look which thrilled her to the soul. There was something about him
which she could not understand; something which made her fear him.
Looking at him more closely, she saw that he was curiously changed; his
eyes were sunken and hollow; and though they were fixed upon her they
seemed to be looking at something far away; his hair, too, had turned
quite grey.
She rose from her seat, approached him, and gently laid her hand upon
his arm.
‘Mr. Bradley,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
He passed his hand across his brow as if to dispel a dream, and looked
at her curiously.
‘Eustasia,’ he said, using for the first time her Christian name, ‘speak
the truth to me to-day; tell me, is all this real?’
‘Is what real?’ she asked, trembling. His presence made her faint, and
the sound of her name, as he had spoken it, rang continually in her
ears.
‘Is it not all a lie? Tell me that what you have done once you can do
again; that you can bring me once more into the presence of the spirit
of her I love!’
‘Of her you love?’ said the girl, fixing her large eyes wistfully upon
his face. ‘What--what do you want me to do?’
‘Prove that it is not all a lie and a cheat: if you are a true woman, as
I trust, I want you to bring back to me the spirit of my darling who is
dead!’
She shrank for a moment from him, a sickening feeling of despair
clouding all her senses; then she bowed her head.
‘When will you come?’ she said.
‘To-night.’
Eustasia sank into her chair, and, without another word, Bradley
departed.
At seven o’clock that night Bradley returned, and found the sibyl
waiting for him.
She was quite alone. Since the morning her manner had completely
changed; her hands were trembling, her cheek was hushed, but there was
a look of strange determination about her lips and in her eyes. Bradley
shook hands with her, then looked around as if expecting others.
She smiled curiously.
‘We are to be alone!’ she said--‘quite alone. I thought it better for
you!’
For some time she made no attempt to move; at length, noticing Bradley’s
impatience, she said quietly--
‘We will begin.’
She rose and placed herself opposite Bradley, and fixed her eyes
intently upon him. Then, at her request, he turned down the gas; they
were in almost total darkness touching hands.
For some time after Bradley sat in a strange dream, scarcely conscious
of anything that was taking place, and touching the outstretched hands
of Eustasia with his own.
Suddenly a soft voice close to his ear murmured,--
‘Ambrose, my love!’
He started from his chair, and gazed wildly about him. He could see
nothing, but he could feel something stirring close to him. Then he
staggered back like a drunken man, and fell back in his chair.
‘Alma!’ he cried piteously, still conscious of the medium’s trembling
hands, ‘Alma, my darling, come to me!’
For a moment there was silence, and Bradley could hear the beating of
his heart. Then he became conscious of a soft hand upon his head; of
lips that seemed to him like warm human lips pressed against his fore
head.
Gasping and trembling he cried--
‘Alma, speak; is it _you_?’
The same soft voice answered him--
‘Yes, it is I!’
The hand passed again softly over his head and around his neck, and a
pair of lips rich and warm were pressed passionately against his own.
Half mad with excitement, Bradley threw one arm around the figure he
felt to be near him, sprang to his feet while it struggled to disengage
itself, turned up the light, and gazed full into the eyes of--Eustasia
Mapleleafe.
*****
Never till his dying day did Bradley forget the expression of the face
which the sibyl now turned towards his own, while, half crouching, half
struggling, she tried to free herself from the grip of his powerful
arms; for though the cheeks were pale as death, the eyes wildly dilated,
they expressed no terror--rather a mad and reckless desperation. The
mask had quite fallen; any attempt at further disguise would have been
sheer waste of force and time, and Eustasia stood revealed once and for
all as a cunning and dangerous trickster, a serpent of miserable deceit.
Yet she did not quail. She looked at the man boldly, and presently,
seeing he continued to regard her steadfastly, as if lost in horrified
wonder, she gave vent to her characteristic, scarcely audible, crooning
laugh.
A thrill of horror went through him, as if he were under the spell of
something diabolic.
For a moment he felt impelled to seize her by the throat and strangle
her, or to savagely dash her to the ground. Conquering the impulse, he
held her still as in a vice, until at last he found a voice--
‘Then you have lied to me? It has all been a lie from the beginning?’
‘Let me go,’ she panted, ‘and I will answer you!’
‘Answer me _now_,’ he said between his set teeth.
But the sibyl was not made of the sort of stuff to be conquered by
intimidation. A fierce look came into her wonderful eyes, and her lips
were closely compressed together.
‘Speak--or I may kill you! he cried.
‘Kill me, then!’ she answered. ‘Guess I don t care!’
There was something in the wild face which mastered him in spite of
himself. His hands relaxed, his arms sank useless at his side, and he
uttered a deep despairing groan. Simultaneously she sprang to her feet,
and stood looking down at him.
‘Why did you break the conditions?’ she asked in a low voice. ‘The
spirits won’t be trifled with in that way, and they’ll never forgive
you, or me; never.’
He made no sign that he heard her, but stood moveless, his head sunk
between his shoulders, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Struck by the
sudden change in him, she moved towards him, and was about to touch him
on the shoulder, when he rose, still white as death, and faced her once
more.
‘Do not touch me!’ he cried. ‘Do not touch me, and do not, if you have
a vestige of goodness left within you, try to torture me again. But look
me in the face, and answer me, if you can, truly, remembering it is the
last time we shall ever meet. When you have told me the truth, I shall
leave this place, never to return; shall leave _you_, never to look upon
your face again. Tell me the truth, woman, and I will try to forgive
you; it will be very hard, but I will try. I know I have been your dupe
from the beginning, and that what I have seen and heard has been only a
treacherous mirage called up by an adventuress and her accomplices. Is
it not so? Speak! Let me have the truth from your own lips.’
‘I can’t tell,’ answered Eustasia coldly. ‘If you mean that my brother
and I have conspired to deceive you, it is a falsehood.
We are simply agents in the hands of higher agencies than ours.’
‘Once more, cease that jargon,’ cried Bradley; ‘the time has long past
for its use. Will you confess, before we part for ever? You will not?
Then good-bye, and God forgive you.’
So saying he moved towards the door; but with a sharp, bird-like cry she
called him back.
‘Stay! you must not go!’
He turned again towards her.
‘Then will you be honest with me? It is the last and only thing I shall
ask of you.’
‘I--I will try,’ she answered in a broken voice.
‘You will!’
‘Yes; if you will listen to me patiently.’
She sank into a chair, and covered her face with her hands. He stood
watching her, and saw that her thin, white, trembling fingers were wet
with tears.
‘Promise,’ she said, ‘that what I am about to say to you shall never be
told to any other living soul.’
‘I promise.’
‘Not even to my brother.’
‘Not even to _him_.’
There was a long pause, during which he waited impatiently for her to
continue. At last, conquering her agitation, she uncovered her face, and
motioned to a chair opposite to her; he obeyed her almost mechanically,
and sat down. She looked long and wistfully at him, and sighed several
times as if in pain.
‘Salem says I shan’t live long,’ she murmured thoughtfully. ‘To-night,
more than ever, I felt like dying.’
She paused and waited as if expecting him to speak, but he was silent.
‘Guess _you_ don’t care if I live or die?’ she added piteously, more
like a sick child than a grown woman--and waited again.
‘I think I do care,’ he answered sadly, ‘for in spite of all the anguish
you have caused me, I am sorry for you. But I am not myself, not the man
you once knew. All my soul is set upon one quest, and I care for nothing
more in all the world. I used to believe there was a God; that there was
a life after death; that if those who loved each other parted here, they
might meet again elsewhere. In my despair and doubt, I thought that you
could give me assurance and heavenly hope; and I clutched at the
shadows you summoned up before me. I know now how unreal they were; I
know now that you were playing tricks upon my miserable soul.’
She listened to him, and when he ceased began to cry again.
‘I never meant any harm to _you_,’ she sobbed! ‘I--I loved you too
well.’
‘You loved me!’ he echoed in amaze.
She nodded quickly, glancing at him with her keen wild eyes.
‘Yes, Mr. Bradley. When Salem first took me to hear you preach, you
seemed like the spirit of a man I once loved, and who once loved me.
He’s dead now, he is; died over there in the States, years ago. Well,
afterwards, when I saw you again, I began to make believe to myself that
you were that very man, and that he was living again in you. You think
me crazy, don’t you? Ah well, you’ll think me crazier when you hear all
the rest. I soon found out all about you; it wasn’t very hard, and our
people have ways of learning things you’d never guess. I didn’t look far
till I found out your secret; that you loved another woman, I mean. That
made me care for you all the more.’
Her manner now was quite simple and matter-of-fact. Her face was quite
tearless, and, with hands folded in her lap, she sat quietly looking
into his face. He listened in sheer stupefaction. Until that moment
no suspicion of the truth had ever flashed upon his mind. As Eustasia
spoke, her features seemed to become elfin-like and old, with a set
expression of dreary and incurable pain; but she made her avowal without
the slightest indication of shame or self-reproach, though her manner,
from time to time, was that of one pleading for sympathy and pity.
She continued--
‘You don’t understand me yet, and I guess you never will. I’m not a
European, and I haven’t been brought up like other girls. I don’t seem
ever to have been quite young. I grew friends with the spirits when I
wasn’t old enough to understand, and they seem to have stolen my right
heart away, and put another in its place.’
‘Why do you speak of such things as if they were real? You know the
whole thing is a trick and a lie.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she answered quickly. ‘I’m not denying that I’ve played
tricks with _them_, just as they’ve played tricks with _me_; but they’re
downright real--they are indeed. First mother used to come to me, when I
was very little; then others, and in after-days I saw _him_; yes, after
he was dead. Then sometimes, when they wouldn’t come, Salem helped out
the manifestations, that’s all.’
‘For God’s sake, be honest with me!’ cried Bradley. ‘Confess that all
these things are simple imposture. That photograph of yourself, for
example--do you remember?--the picture your brother left in my room, and
which faded away when I breathed upon it?’ She nodded her head again,
and laughed strangely.
‘It was a man out West that taught Salem how to do that,’ she replied
naïvely.
‘Then it was a trick, as I suspected?’
‘Yes, I guess that was a trick. It was something they used in fixing the
likeness, which made it grow invisible after it had been a certain time
in contact with the atmospheric air.’
Bradley uttered an impatient exclamation.
‘And all the rest was of a piece with that! Well, I could have forgiven
you everything but having personified one who is now lost to me for
ever.’
‘I never did. I suppose you _wished_ to see her, and she came to you out
of the spirit-land.’
‘_Now_ you are lying to me again.’
‘Don’t you think I’m lying,’ was the answer; ‘for its gospel-truth I’m
telling you. I’m not so bad as you think me, not half so bad.’
Again shrinking from lier, lie looked at her with aimer and loathing.
‘The device was exposed to-day,’ he said sternly. ‘You spoke to me with
her voice, and when I turned up the light I found that I was holding in
my arms no spirit, but yourself.’
‘Well, I’m not denying that’s true,’ she answered with another laugh.
‘Something came over me--I don’t know how it happened--and then, all at
one, I was kissing you, and I had broken the conditions.’
By this time Bradley’s brain had cleared, and he was better able to
grasp the horrible reality of the situation. It was quite clear to him
that the sibyl was either an utter impostor, or a person whose mental
faculties were darkened by fitful clouds of insanity. What startled
and horrified him most of all was the utter want of maidenly shame,
the curious and weird sang-froid, with which she made her extraordinary
confession. Her frankness, so far as it went, was something
terrible--or, as the Scotch express it, ‘uncanny.’ Across his
recollection, as he looked and listened, came the thought of one of
these mysterious sibyls, familiar to mediæval superstition, who come
into the world with all the outward form and beauty of women, but
without a Soul, but who might gain a spiritual existence in some
mysterious way by absorbing the souls of men. The idea was a ghastly
one, in harmony with his distempered fancy, and he could not shake it
away.
‘Tell me,’ said Eustasia gently, ‘tell me one thing, now I have told
you so much. Is that poor lady dead indeed--I mean the lady you used to
love?’
The question went into his heart like a knife, and with livid face he
rose to Ins feet.
‘Do not speak of her!’ he cried. ‘I cannot bear it--it is blasphemy!
Miserable woman, do you think that you will ever be forgiven for
tampering, as you have done, with the terrible truth of death? I came
to you in the last despairing hope that among all the phantoms you have
conjured up before me there might be some reality; for I was blind and
mad, and scarcely knew what I did. If it is any satisfaction to you,
know that you have turned the world into a tomb for me, and destroyed
my last faint ray of faith in a living God. In my misery, I clung to the
thought of your spirit world; and I came to you for some fresh assurance
that such a world might be. All that is over now. It is a cheat and a
fraud like all the rest.’
With these words he left her, passing quickly from the room. Directly
afterwards she heard the street door close behind him. Tottering to the
window, she looked down in the street, and saw him stalk rapidly by, his
white face set hard as granite, his eyes looking steadily before him,
fixed on vacancy. As he disappeared, she uttered a low cry of pain, and
placed her hand upon her heart.