STILL THE CLOUD.
For three days and nights did I watch beside the sick bed of my wife.
In all this time her fate continued doubtful. I doubt if any anxiety or
attention could have exceeded mine; as it was clear to myself that,
in spite of jealousy and suspicion, my love for her remained without
diminution. Yet this watch was not maintained without some trials far
more severe and searching than those which it produced upon the body.
Her mind, wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all
its racking doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins
burned with fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at
spasmodic moments--strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in
my ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, her
mother occupied a seat upon that opposite. The eyes of my wife opened
upon both of us--turned from me, convulsively, with an expression, as
I thought, of disgust, then closed--while her lips, taking up their
language, poured forth a torrent of threats and reproaches.
I can not repeat her words. They rang in my ears, understood, indeed,
but so wildly and thrillingly, that I should find it a vain task to
endeavor to remember them. She spoke of persecution, annoyance, beyond
propriety, beyond her powers of endurance. She threatened me--for I
assumed myself to be the object of her denunciation--with the wrath of
some one capable to punish--nay, to rescue her, if need be, by violence,
from the clutches of her tyrant. Then followed another change in her
course of speech. She no longer threatened or denounced. She derided.
Words of bitter scorn and loathing contempt issued from those bright,
red, burning, and always beautiful lips, which I had never supposed
could have given forth such utterance, even if her spirit could have
been supposed capable of conceiving it. Keen was the irony which she
expressed--irony, which so well applied to my demerits in one great
respect, that I could not help making the personal application.
“How manly and generous,” she proceeded, “was this sort of persecution
of one so unprotected, so dependent, so placed, that she must even be
silent, and endure without speech or complaint, in the dread of dangers
which, however, would not light upon her head. Oh, brave as generous!”
she exclaimed, with a burst of tremendous delirium, terminating in a
shriek; “oh, brave as generous!--scarcely lion-like, however, for the
noble beast rushes upon his victim. He does not prowl, and skulk, and
sneak, watching, cat-like; crouching and base, in stealth and darkness.
Very noble, but mousing spirit! Beware! Do I not know you now! Fear you
not that I will show your baseness, and declare the truth, and guide
other eyes to your stealthy practice? Beware! Do not drive me into
madness!”
Thus she raved. My conscience applied these stinging words of scorn,
which seemed particularly fitted to the mean suspicious watch which I
had kept upon her. I could have no thought that they were meant for any
other ears than my own, and the crimson flush upon my cheeks was the
involuntary acknowledgment which my soul made of the demerits of my
unmanly conduct. I fancied that Julia had detected my espionage, and
that her language had this object in reference only. But there were
other words; and, passing with unexpected transition from the language
of dislike and scorn, she now indulged in that of love--language timidly
suggestive of love, as if its utterance were restrained by bashfulness,
as if it dreaded to be heard. Then a deep sigh followed, as if from the
bottom of her heart, succeeded by convulsive sobs, at last ending in a
gushing flood of tears.
For the space of half an hour I had been an attentive but suffering
listener to this wild raving. My pangs followed every sentence from her
lips, believing, as I did, that they were reproachful of myself, and
associated with a now unrestrained expression of passion for another.
Gradually I had ceased, in the deep interest which I felt, to be
conscious that Mrs. Delaney was present. I leaned across the couch; I
bent my ear down toward the lips of the speaker, eager to drink up every
feeble sound which might help to elucidate my doubts, and subdue or
confirm my suspicions. Then, as the accumulating conviction formed
itself, embodied and sharp, like a knife, into my soul, I groaned aloud,
and my teeth were gnashed together in the bitterness of my emotion! In
that moment I caught the keen gray eyes of my mother-in-law fixed upon
me, with a jibing expression, which spoke volumes of mockery. They
seemed to say, “Ah! you have it now! The truth is forced upon you at
last! You can parry it no longer. I see the iron in your soul. I behold
and enjoy your contortions!”
Fiend language! She was something of a fiend! I started from the
bedside, and just then a flood of tears came to the relief of my wife,
and lessened the excitement of her brain. The tears relieved her. The
paroxysm passed away. She turned her eyes upon me, and closed them
involuntarily, while a deep crimson tint passed over her cheek, a blush,
which seemed to me to confirm substantially the tenor of that language
in which, while delirious, she had so constantly indulged. It did not
lessen the seeming shame and dislike which her countenance appeared at
once to embody, that a soft sweet smile was upon her lips at the same
moment, and she extended to me her hand with an air of confidence which
staggered and surprised me.
“What is the matter, dear husband? And you here, mother? Have I been
sick? Can it be?”
“Hush!” said the mother. “You have been sick ever since the night of my
marriage.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed with an air of anxiety and pain, while pressing her
hand upon her eyes, “Ah! that night!”
A shudder shook her frame as she uttered this simple and short
sentence. Simple and short as it was, it seemed to possess a
strange signification. That it was associated in her mind with some
circumstances of peculiar import, was sufficiently obvious. What were
these circumstances? Ah! that question! I ran over in my thought, in
a single instant, all that array of events, on that fatal night, which
could by any possibility distress me, and confirm my suspicions. That
waltz with Edgerton--that long conference between them--that lonely ride
together from the home of Mrs. Delaney, in a close carriage--and the
subsequent disaster--her unconscious ravings, and the strong, strange
language which she employed, clearly full of meaning as it was, but in
which I could discover one meaning only! all these topics of doubt
and agitation passed through my brain in consecutive order, and with
a compact arrangement which seemed as conclusive as any final issue. I
said nothing; but what I might have said, was written in my face. Julia
regarded me with a gaze of painful anxiety. What she read in my looks
must have been troublously impressive. Her cheeks grew paler as she
looked. Her eyes wandered from me vacantly, and I could see her thin
soft lips quivering faintly like rose-leaves which an envious breeze has
half separated from the parent-flower. Mrs. Delaney watched our mutual
faces, and I left the room to avoid her scrutiny. I only re-entered it
with the physician. He administered medicine to my wife.
“She will do very well now, I think,” he said to me when leaving the
house; “but she requires to be treated very tenderly. All causes of
excitement must be kept from her. She needs soothing, great care,
watchful anxiety. Clifford, above all, you should leave her as little
as possible. This old woman, her mother, is no fit companion for
her--scarcely a pleasant one. I do not mean to reproach you; ascribe
what I say to a real desire to serve and make you happy; but let me tell
you that Mrs. Delaney has intimated to me that you neglect your wife,
that you leave her very much at night; and she further intimates, what
I feel assured can not well be the case, that you have fallen into other
and much more evil habits.”
“The hag!”
“She is all that, and loves you no better now than before. Still, it is
well to deprive such people of their scandal-mongering, of the meat for
it at least. I trust, Clifford, for your own sake, that you were absent
of necessity on Wednesday night.”
“It will be enough for me to think so, sir,” was my reply.
“Surely, if you DO think so; but I am too old a man, and too old a
friend of your own and wife's family, to justify you in taking exception
to what I say. I hope you do not neglect this dear child, for she is one
too sweet, too good, too gentle, Clifford, to be subjected to hard usage
and neglect. I think her one of earth's angels--a meek creature, who
would never think or do wrong, but would rather suffer than complain.
I sincerely hope, for your own sake, as well as hers, that you truly
estimate her worth.”
I could not answer the good old man, though I was angry with him. My
conscience deprived me of the just power to give utterance to my anger.
I was silent, and he forbore any further reference to the subject.
Shortly after he took his leave, and I re-ascended the stairs. Wearing
slippers, I made little noise, and at the door of my wife's chamber I
caught a sentence from the lips of Mrs. Delaney, which made me forget
everything that the doctor had been saying.
“But Julia, there must have been some accident--something must have
happened. Did your foot slip? perhaps, in getting out of the carriage,
or in going up stairs, or--. There must have been something to frighten
you, or hurt you. What was it?”
I paused; my heart rose like a swelling, struggling mass in the gorge
of my throat. I listened for the reply. A deep sigh followed; and then I
heard a reluctant, faint utterance of the single word, “Nothing!”
“Nothing?” repeated the old lady. “Surely, Julia, there was something.
Recollect yourself. You know you rode home with Mr. Edgerton. It was
past one o'clock--”
“No more--no more, mother. There was nothing--nothing that I recollect.
I know nothing of what happened. Hardly know where I am now.”
I felt a momentary pang that I had lingered at the entrance. Besides,
there was no possibility that she would have revealed anything to the
inquisitive old woman. Perhaps, had this been probable, I should not
have felt the scruple and the pang. The very questions of Mrs. Delaney
were as fully productive of evil in my mind, as if Julia had answered
decisively on every topic. I entered the room, and Mrs. Delaney, after
some little lingering, took her departure, with a promise to return
again soon. I paced the chamber with eyes bent upon the floor.
“Come to me, Edward-come sit beside me.” Such were the gentle words of
entreaty which my wife addressed to me. Gentle words, and so spoken--so
sweetly, so frankly, as if from the very sacredest chamber of her heart.
Could it be that guilt also harbored in that very heart--that it was the
language of cunning on her lips--the cunning of the serpent? Ah! how
can we think that with serpent-like cunning, there should be dove-like
guilelessness? My soul revolted at the idea. The sounds of the poor
girl's voice sounded like hissing in my ears. I sat beside her as she
requested, and almost started, as I felt her fingers playing with the
hair upon my temples.
“You are cold to me, dear husband; ah! be not cold. I have narrowly
escaped from death. So they tell me--so I feel! Be not cold to me. Let
me not think that I am burdensome to you.”
“Why should you think so, Julia?”
“Ah! your words answer your question, and speak for me. They are so
few--they have no warmth in them; and then, you leave me so much, dear
husband--why, why do you leave me?”
“You do not miss me much, Julia.”
“Do I not! ah! you do me wrong. I miss nothing else but you. I have all
that I had when we were first married--all but my husband!”
“Do not deceive yourself, Julia; these fine speeches do not deceive
me. I am afraid that the love of woman is a very light thing. It yields
readily to the wind. It does not keep in one direction long, any more
than the vane on the house-top.”
“You do NOT think so, Edward. Such is not MY love. Alas! I know not how
to make it known to you, husband, if it be not already known; and yet it
seems to me that you do not know it, or, if you do, that you do not care
much about it. You seem to care very little whether I love you or not.”
I exclaimed bitterly, and with the energy of deep feeling.
“Care little! _I_ care little whether you love me or no! Psha! Julia,
you must think me a fool!”
It did seem to me a sort of mockery, knowing my feelings as _I_
did--knowing that all my folly and suffering came from the very
intensity of my passion--that I should be reproached, by its object,
with indifference! I forgot, that, as a cover for my suspicion, I had
been striving with all the industry of art to put on the appearance of
indifference. I did not give myself sufficient credit for the degree of
success with which I had labored, or I might have suddenly arrived at
the gratifying conclusion, that, while I was impressed and suffering
with the pangs of jealousy, my wife was trembling with fear that she had
for ever lost my affections. My language, the natural utterance of my
real feelings, was not true to the character I had assumed. It filled
the countenance of the suffering woman with consternation. She
shrunk from me in terror. Her hand was withdrawn from my neck, as she
tremulously replied:--
“Oh, do not speak to me in such tones. Do not look so harshly upon me.
What have I done?”
“Ay! ay!” I muttered, turning away.
She caught my hand.
“Do not go--do not leave me, and with such a look! Oh! husband, I may
not live long. I feel that I have had a very narrow escape within these
few days past. Do not kill me with cruel looks; with words, that, if
cruel from you, would sooner kill than the knife in savage hands. Oh!
tell me in what have I offended? What is it you think? For what am I to
blame? What do you doubt--suspect?”
These questions were asked hurriedly, apprehensively, with a look of
vague terror, her cheeks whitening as she spoke, her eyes darting wildly
into mine, and her lips remaining parted after she had spoken.
“Ah!” I exclaimed, keenly watching her. Her glance sank beneath my gaze.
I put my hand upon her own.
“What do I suspect I What should I suspect? Ha!”--Here I arrested
myself. My ardent anxiety to know the truth led me to forget my caution;
to exhibit a degree of eagerness, which might have proved that I did
suspect and seriously. To exhibit the possession of jealousy was to
place her upon her guard--such was the suggestion of that miserable
policy by which I had been governed--and defeat the impression of that
feeling of perfect security and indifference, which I had been so long
striving to awaken. I recovered myself, with this thought, in season to
re-assume this appearance.
“Your mind still wanders, Julia. What should I suspect? and whom? You do
not suppose me to be of a suspicious nature, do you?”
“Not altogether--not always--no! But, of course, there is nothing to
suspect. I do not know what I say. I believe I do wander.”
This reply was also spoken hurriedly, but with an obvious effort at
composure. The eagerness with which she seized upon my words, insisting
upon the absence of any cause of suspicion, and ascribing to her late
delirium, the tacit admissions which her look and language had made, I
need not say, contributed to strengthen my suspicions, and to confirm
all the previous conjectures of my jealous spirit.
“Be quiet,” I said with an air of sang froid. “Do not worry yourself in
this manner. You need sleep. Try for it, while I leave you.”
“Do not leave me; sit beside me, dear Edward. I will sleep so much
better when you are beside me.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, believe me. Ah! that I could always keep you beside me!”
“What! you are for a new honeymoon?” I said this in a TONE of merriment,
which Heaven knows, I little felt.
“Do not speak of it so lightly, Edward. It is too serious a matter. Ah!
that you would always remain with me; that you would never leave me.”
“Pshaw! What sickly tenderness is this! Why, how could I earn my bread
or yours?”
“I do not mean that you should neglect your business, but that when
business is over, you should give me all your time as you used to.
Remember, how pleasantly we passed the evenings after our marriage. Ah!
how could you forget?”
“I do not, Julia.”
“But you do not care for them. We spend no such evenings now!”
“No! but it is no fault of mine!” I said gloomily; then, interrupting
her answer, as if dreading that she might utter some simple but true
remark, which might refute the interpretation which my words conveyed,
that the fault was hers, I enjoined silence upon her.
“You scarcely speak in your right mind yet, Julia. Be quiet, therefore,
and try to sleep.”
“Well, if you will sit beside me.”
“I will do so, since you wish for it; but where's the need?”
“Ah! do not ask the need, if you still love me,” was all she said,
and looked at me with such eyes--so tearful, bright, so sad,
soliciting--that, though I did not less doubt, I could no longer deny.
I resumed the seat beside her. She again placed her fingers in my hair,
and in a little while sunk into a profound slumber, only broken by an
occasional sob, which subsided into a sigh.
Were she guilty--such was the momentary suggestion of the good
angel--could she sleep thus?--thus quietly, confidingly, beside the man
she had wronged--her fingers still paddling in his hair--her sleeping
eyes still turning in the direction of his face?
To the clear, open mind, the suggestion would have had the force of a
conclusive argument; but mine was no longer a clear, open mind. I had
the disease of the blind heart upon me, and all things came out upon my
vision as through a glass, darkly. The evil one at my elbow jeered when
the good angel spoke.
“Fool! does she not see that she can blind you still!” Then, in the
vanity and vexation of my spirit, I mused upon it further, and said to
myself:--“Ay, but she will find, ere many days, that I am no longer to
be blinded!” The scales were never thicker upon my sight than when I
boasted in this foolish wise.