‘This is not the first time,’ said he, ‘that you have seen my furnaces
alight. One morning, in the small hours, I saw you driving past; a
delicate experiment miscarried; and I cannot acquit myself of having
startled either your driver or the horse that drew you.’
‘What!’ cried I, beholding again in fancy the antics of the figure,
‘could that be you?’
‘It was I,’ he replied; ‘but do not fancy that I was mad. I was in
agony. I had been scalded cruelly.’
We were now near the house, which, unlike the ordinary houses of the
country, was built of hewn stone and very solid. Stone, too, was its
foundation, stone its background. Not a blade of grass sprouted among
the broken mineral about the walls, not a flower adorned the windows.
Over the door, by way of sole adornment, the Mormon Eye was rudely
sculptured; I had been brought up to view that emblem from my childhood;
but since the night of our escape, it had acquired a new significance,
and set me shrinking. The smoke rolled voluminously from the chimney
top, its edges ruddy with the fire; and from the far corner of the
building, near the ground, angry puffs of steam shone snow-white in the
moon and vanished.
The doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold. ‘You ask me
what I make here,’ he observed. ‘Two things: Life and Death.’ And he
motioned me to enter.
‘I shall await my mother,’ said I.
‘Child,’ he replied, ‘look at me: am I not old and broken? Of us two,
which is the stronger, the young maiden or the withered man?’
I bowed, and passing by him, entered a vestibule or kitchen, lit by a
good fire and a shaded reading-lamp. It was furnished only with a
dresser, a rude table, and some wooden benches; and on one of these the
doctor motioned me to take a seat; and passing by another door into the
interior of the house, he left me to myself. Presently I heard the jar
of iron from the far end of the building; and this was followed by the
same throbbing noise that had startled me in the valley, but now so near
at hand as to be menacing by loudness, and even to shake the house with
every recurrence of the stroke. I had scarce time to master my alarm
when the doctor returned, and almost in the same moment my mother
appeared upon the threshold. But how am I to describe to you the peace
and ravishment of that face? Years seemed to have passed over her head
during that brief ride, and left her younger and fairer; her eyes shone,
her smile went to my heart; she seemed no more a woman but the angel of
ecstatic tenderness. I ran to her in a kind of terror; but she shrank a
little back and laid her finger on her lips, with something arch and yet
unearthly. To the doctor, on the contrary, she reached out her hand as
to a friend and helper; and so strange was the scene that I forgot to be
offended.
‘Lucy,’ said the doctor, ‘all is prepared. Will you go alone, or shall
your daughter follow us?’
‘Let Asenath come,’ she answered, ‘dear Asenath! At this hour, when I am
purified of fear and sorrow, and already survive myself and my
affections, it is for your sake, and not for mine, that I desire her
presence. Were she shut out, dear friend, it is to be feared she might
misjudge your kindness.’
‘Mother,’ I cried wildly, ‘mother, what is this?’
But my mother, with her radiant smile, said only ‘Hush!’ as though I were
a child again, and tossing in some fever-fit; and the doctor bade me be
silent and trouble her no more. ‘You have made a choice,’ he continued,
addressing my mother, ‘that has often strangely tempted me. The two
extremes: all, or else nothing; never, or this very hour upon the
clock—these have been my incongruous desires. But to accept the middle
term, to be content with a half-gift, to flicker awhile and to burn
out—never for an hour, never since I was born, has satisfied the appetite
of my ambition.’ He looked upon my mother fixedly, much of admiration
and some touch of envy in his eyes; then, with a profound sigh, he led
the way into the inner room.
It was very long. From end to end it was lit up by many lamps, which by
the changeful colour of their light, and by the incessant snapping sounds
with which they burned, I have since divined to be electric. At the
extreme end an open door gave us a glimpse into what must have been a
lean-to shed beside the chimney; and this, in strong contrast to the
room, was painted with a red reverberation as from furnace-doors. The
walls were lined with books and glazed cases, the tables crowded with the
implements of chemical research; great glass accumulators glittered in
the light; and through a hole in the gable near the shed door, a heavy
driving-belt entered the apartment and ran overhead upon steel pulleys,
with clumsy activity and many ghostly and fluttering sounds. In one
corner I perceived a chair resting upon crystal feet, and curiously
wreathed with wire. To this my mother advanced with a decisive
swiftness.
‘Is this it?’ she asked.
The doctor bowed in silence.
‘Asenath,’ said my mother, ‘in this sad end of my life I have found one
helper. Look upon him: it is Doctor Grierson. Be not, oh my daughter,
be not ungrateful to that friend!’
She sate upon the chair, and took in her hands the globes that terminated
the arms.
‘Am I right?’ she asked, and looked upon the doctor with such a radiancy
of face that I trembled for her reason. Once more the doctor bowed, but
this time leaning hard against the wall. He must have touched a spring.
The least shock agitated my mother where she sat; the least passing jar
appeared to cross her features; and she sank back in the chair like one
resigned to weariness. I was at her knees that moment; but her hands
fell loosely in my grasp; her face, still beatified with the same
touching smile, sank forward on her bosom: her spirit had for ever fled.
I do not know how long may have elapsed before, raising for a moment my
tearful face, I met the doctor’s eyes. They rested upon mine with such a
depth of scrutiny, pity, and interest, that even from the freshness of my
sorrow, I was startled into attention.
‘Enough,’ he said, ‘to lamentation. Your mother went to death as to a
bridal, dying where her husband died. It is time, Asenath, to think of
the survivors. Follow me to the next room.’
I followed him, like a person in a dream; he made me sit by the fire, he
gave me wine to drink; and then, pacing the stone floor, he thus began to
address me—
‘You are now, my child, alone in the world, and under the immediate watch
of Brigham Young. It would be your lot, in ordinary circumstances, to
become the fiftieth bride of some ignoble elder, or by particular
fortune, as fortune is counted in this land, to find favour in the eyes
of the President himself. Such a fate for a girl like you were worse
than death; better to die as your mother died than to sink daily deeper
in the mire of this pit of woman’s degradation. But is escape
conceivable? Your father tried; and you beheld yourself with what
security his jailers acted, and how a dumb drawing on a rock was counted
a sufficient sentry over the avenues of freedom. Where your father
failed, will you be wiser or more fortunate? or are you, too, helpless in
the toils?’
I had followed his words with changing emotion, but now I believed I
understood.
‘I see,’ I cried; ‘you judge me rightly. I must follow where my parents
led; and oh! I am not only willing, I am eager!’
‘No,’ replied the doctor, ‘not death for you. The flawed vessel we may
break, but not the perfect. No, your mother cherished a different hope,
and so do I. I see,’ he cried, ‘the girl develop to the completed woman,
the plan reach fulfilment, the promise—ay, outdone! I could not bear to
arrest so lively, so comely a process. It was your mother’s thought,’ he
added, with a change of tone, ‘that I should marry you myself.’ I fear I
must have shown a perfect horror of aversion from this fate, for he made
haste to quiet me. ‘Reassure yourself, Asenath,’ he resumed. ‘Old as I
am, I have not forgotten the tumultuous fancies of youth. I have passed
my days, indeed, in laboratories; but in all my vigils I have not
forgotten the tune of a young pulse. Age asks with timidity to be spared
intolerable pain; youth, taking fortune by the beard, demands joy like a
right. These things I have not forgotten; none, rather, has more keenly
felt, none more jealously considered them; I have but postponed them to
their day. See, then: you stand without support; the only friend left to
you, this old investigator, old in cunning, young in sympathy. Answer me
but one question: Are you free from the entanglement of what the world
calls love? Do you still command your heart and purposes? or are you
fallen in some bond-slavery of the eye and ear?’
I answered him in broken words; my heart, I think I must have told him,
lay with my dead parents.
‘It is enough,’ he said. ‘It has been my fate to be called on often, too
often, for those services of which we spoke to-night; none in Utah could
carry them so well to a conclusion; hence there has fallen into my hands
a certain share of influence which I now lay at your service, partly for
the sake of my dead friends, your parents; partly for the interest I bear
you in your own right. I shall send you to England, to the great city of
London, there to await the bridegroom I have selected. He shall be a son
of mine, a young man suitable in age and not grossly deficient in that
quality of beauty that your years demand. Since your heart is free, you
may well pledge me the sole promise that I ask in return for much expense
and still more danger: to await the arrival of that bridegroom with the
delicacy of a wife.’
I sat awhile stunned. The doctor’s marriages, I remembered to have
heard, had been unfruitful; and this added perplexity to my distress.
But I was alone, as he had said, alone in that dark land; the thought of
escape, of any equal marriage, was already enough to revive in me some
dawn of hope; and in what words I know not, I accepted the proposal.
He seemed more moved by my consent than I could reasonably have looked
for. ‘You shall see,’ he cried; ‘you shall judge for yourself.’ And
hurrying to the next room he returned with a small portrait somewhat
coarsely done in oils. It showed a man in the dress of nearly forty
years before, young indeed, but still recognisable to be the doctor. ‘Do
you like it?’ he asked. ‘That is myself when I was young. My—my boy
will be like that, like but nobler; with such health as angels might
condescend to envy; and a man of mind, Asenath, of commanding mind. That
should be a man, I think; that should be one among ten thousand. A man
like that—one to combine the passions of youth with the restraint, the
force, the dignity of age—one to fill all the parts and faculties, one to
be man’s epitome—say, will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious
girl? Say, is not that enough?’ And as he held the picture close before
my eyes, his hands shook.
I told him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced with
this display of fatherly emotion; but even as I said the words, the most
insolent revolt surged through my arteries. I held him in horror, him,
his portrait, and his son; and had there been any choice but death or a
Mormon marriage, I declare before Heaven I had embraced it.
‘It is well,’ he replied, ‘and I had rightly counted on your spirit.
Eat, then, for you have far to go.’ So saying, he set meat before me;
and while I was endeavouring to obey, he left the room and returned with
an armful of coarse raiment. ‘There,’ said he, ‘is your disguise. I
leave you to your toilet.’
The clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat lubberly boy of fifteen;
and they hung about me like a sack, and cruelly hampered my movements.
But what filled me with uncontrollable shudderings, was the problem of
their origin and the fate of the lad to whom they had belonged. I had
scarcely effected the exchange when the doctor returned, opened a back
window, helped me out into the narrow space between the house and the
overhanging bluffs, and showed me a ladder of iron footholds mortised in
the rock. ‘Mount,’ he said, ‘swiftly. When you are at the summit, walk,
so far as you are able, in the shadow of the smoke. The smoke will bring
you, sooner or later, to a canyon; follow that down, and you will find a
man with two horses. Him you will implicitly obey. And remember,
silence! That machinery, which I now put in motion for your service, may
by one word be turned against you. Go; Heaven prosper you!’
The ascent was easy. Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before me on
the other side a vast and gradual declivity of stone, lying bare to the
moon and the surrounding mountains. Nowhere was any vantage or
concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset with spies, I made
haste to veil my movements under the blowing trail of smoke. Sometimes
it swam high, rising on the night wind, and I had no more substantial
curtain than its moon-thrown shadow; sometimes again it crawled upon the
earth, and I would walk in it, no higher than to my shoulders, like some
mountain fog. But, one way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened
furnace protected the first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved to
the canyon.
There, sure enough, I found a taciturn and sombre man beside a pair of
saddle-horses; and thenceforward, all night long, we wandered in silence
by the most occult and dangerous paths among the mountains. A little
before the dayspring we took refuge in a wet and gusty cavern at the
bottom of a gorge; lay there all day concealed; and the next night,
before the glow had faded out of the west, resumed our wanderings. About
noon we stopped again, in a lawn upon a little river, where was a screen
of bushes; and here my guide, handing me a bundle from his pack, bade me
change my dress once more. The bundle contained clothing of my own,
taken from our house, with such necessaries as a comb and soap. I made
my toilet by the mirror of a quiet pool; and as I was so doing, and
smiling with some complacency to see myself restored to my own image, the
mountains rang with a scream of far more than human piercingness; and
while I still stood astonished, there sprang up and swiftly increased a
storm of the most awful and earth-rending sounds. Shall I own to you,
that I fell upon my face and shrieked? And yet this was but the overland
train winding among the near mountains: the very means of my salvation:
the strong wings that were to carry me from Utah!
When I was dressed, the guide gave me a bag, which contained, he said,
both money and papers; and telling me that I was already over the borders
in the territory of Wyoming, bade me follow the stream until I reached
the railway station, half a mile below. ‘Here,’ he added, ‘is your
ticket as far as Council Bluffs. The East express will pass in a few
hours.’ With that, he took both horses, and, without further words or
any salutation, rode off by the way that we had come.
Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the train as
it swept eastward through the gorges and thundered in tunnels of the
mountain. The change of scene, the sense of escape, the still throbbing
terror of pursuit—above all, the astounding magic of my new conveyance,
kept me from any logical or melancholy thought. I had gone to the
doctor’s house two nights before prepared to die, prepared for worse than
death; what had passed, terrible although it was, looked almost bright
compared to my anticipations; and it was not till I had slept a full
night in the flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my
irreparable loss and to some reasonable alarm about the future. In this
mood, I examined the contents of the bag. It was well supplied with
gold; it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far
as Liverpool, and a long letter from the doctor, supplying me with a
fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence, and
bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son. All then had been
arranged beforehand: he had counted upon my consent, and what was tenfold
worse, upon my mother’s voluntary death. My horror of my only friend, my
aversion for this son who was to marry me, my revolt against the whole
current and conditions of my life, were now complete. I was sitting
stupefied by my distress and helplessness, when, to my joy, a very
pleasant lady offered me her conversation. I clutched at the relief; and
I was soon glibly telling her the story in the doctor’s letter: how I was
a Miss Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I
had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my
instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with questions,
began to embroider on my own account. This soon carried one of my
inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked a shadow on the
lady’s face, when a gentleman drew near and very civilly addressed me.
‘Miss Gould, I believe?’ said he; and then, excusing himself to the lady
by the authority of my guardian, drew me to the fore platform of the
Pullman car. ‘Miss Gould,’ he said in my ear, ‘is it possible that you
suppose yourself in safety? Let me completely undeceive you. One more
such indiscretion and you return to Utah. And, in the meanwhile, if this
woman should again address you, you are to reply with these words:
“Madam, I do not like you, and I will be obliged if you will suffer me to
choose my own associates.”’
Alas, I had to do as I was bid; this lady, to whom I already felt myself
drawn with the strongest cords of sympathy, I dismissed with insult; and
thenceforward, through all that day, I sat in silence, gazing on the bare
plains and swallowing my tears. Let that suffice: it was the pattern of
my journey. Whether on the train, at the hotels, or on board the ocean
steamer, I never exchanged a friendly word with any fellow-traveller but
I was certain to be interrupted. In every place, on every side, the most
unlikely persons, man or woman, rich or poor, became protectors to
forward me upon my journey, or spies to observe and regulate my conduct.
Thus I crossed the States, thus passed the ocean, the Mormon Eye still
following my movements; and when at length a cab had set me down before
that London lodging-house from which you saw me flee this morning, I had
already ceased to struggle and ceased to hope.
The landlady, like every one else through all that journey, was expecting
my arrival. A fire was lighted in my room, which looked upon the garden;
there were books on the table, clothes in the drawers; and there (I had
almost said with contentment, and certainly with resignation) I saw month
follow month over my head. At times my landlady took me for a walk or an
excursion, but she would never suffer me to leave the house alone; and I,
seeing that she also lived under the shadow of that widespread Mormon
terror, felt too much pity to resist. To the child born on Mormon soil,
as to the man who accepts the engagements of a secret order, no escape is
possible; so I had clearly read, and I was thankful even for this
respite. Meanwhile, I tried honestly to prepare my mind for my
approaching nuptials. The day drew near when my bridegroom was to visit
me, and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent. A son of Doctor
Grierson’s, be he what he pleased, must still be young, and it was even
probable he should be handsome; on more than that, I felt I dared not
reckon; and in moulding my mind towards consent I dwelt the more
carefully on these physical attractions which I felt I might expect, and
averted my eyes from moral or intellectual considerations. We have a
great power upon our spirits; and as time passed I worked myself into a
frame of acquiescence, nay, and I began to grow impatient for the hour.
At night sleep forsook me; I sat all day by the fire, absorbed in dreams,
conjuring up the features of my husband, and anticipating in fancy the
touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. In the dead level and
solitude of my existence, this was the one eastern window and the one
door of hope. At last, I had so cultivated and prepared my will, that I
began to be besieged with fears upon the other side. How if it was I
that did not please? How if this unseen lover should turn from me with
disaffection? And now I spent hours before the glass, studying and
judging my attractions, and was never weary of changing my dress or
ordering my hair.
When the day came I was long about my toilet; but at last, with a sort of
hopeful desperation, I had to own that I could do no more, and must now
stand or fall by nature. My occupation ended, I fell a prey to the most
sickening impatience, mingled with alarms; giving ear to the swelling
rumour of the streets, and at each change of sound or silence, starting,
shrinking, and colouring to the brow. Love is not to be prepared, I
know, without some knowledge of the object; and yet, when the cab at last
rattled to the door and I heard my visitor mount the stairs, such was the
tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been proud
to own their parentage. The door opened, and it was Doctor Grierson that
appeared. I believe I must have screamed aloud, and I know, at least,
that I fell fainting to the floor.
When I came to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse. ‘I
have startled you,’ he said. ‘A difficulty unforeseen—the impossibility
of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity—has forced me to resort to
London unprepared. I regret that I should have shown myself once more
without those poor attractions which are much, perhaps, to you, but to me
are no more considerable than rain that falls into the sea. Youth is but
a state, as passing as that syncope from which you are but just awakened,
and, if there be truth in science, as easy to recall; for I find,
Asenath, that I must now take you for my confidant. Since my first
years, I have devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task;
and the time of my success is at hand. In these new countries, where I
was so long content to stay, I collected indispensable ingredients; I
have fortified myself on every side from the possibility of error; what
was a dream now takes the substance of reality; and when I offered you a
son of mine I did so in a figure. That son—that husband, Asenath, is
myself—not as you now behold me, but restored to the first energy of
youth. You think me mad? It is the customary attitude of ignorance. I
will not argue; I will leave facts to speak. When you behold me
purified, invigorated, renewed, restamped in the original image—when you
recognise in me (what I shall be) the first perfect expression of the
powers of mankind—I shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your
passing and natural incredulity. To what can you aspire—fame, riches,
power, the charm of youth, the dear-bought wisdom of age—that I shall not
be able to afford you in perfection? Do not deceive yourself. I already
excel you in every human gift but one: when that gift also has been
restored to me you will recognise your master.’
Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to
myself; and bidding me consult reason, and not girlish fancies, he
withdrew. I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found me
still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my hands,
my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions. Late in the evening he
returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain irritable tremor, bade
me rise and sup. ‘Is it possible,’ he added, ‘that I have been deceived
in your courage? A cowardly girl is no fit mate for me.’
I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears besought
him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that my cowardice
was abject, and that in every point of intellect and character I was his
hopeless and derisible inferior.
‘Why, certainly,’ he replied. ‘I know you better than yourself; and I am
well enough acquainted with human nature to understand this scene. It is
addressed to me,’ he added with a smile, ‘in my character of the still
untransformed. But do not alarm yourself about the future. Let me but
attain my end, and not you only, Asenath, but every woman on the face of
the earth becomes my willing slave.’
Thereupon he obliged me to rise and eat; sat down with me to table;
helped and entertained me with the attentions of a fashionable host; and
it was not till a late hour, that, bidding me courteously good-night, he
once more left me alone to my misery.
In all this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I scarce
knew from which hypothesis I should the more eagerly recoil. If his
hopes reposed on any base of fact, if indeed, by some abhorrent miracle,
he should discard his age, death were my only refuge from that most
unnatural, that most ungodly union. If, on the other hand, these dreams
were merely lunatic, the madness of a life waxed suddenly acute, my pity
would become a load almost as heavy to bear as my revolt against the
marriage. So passed the night, in alternations of rebellion and despair,
of hate and pity; and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more
fully my enslaved position. For though he appeared with a very tranquil
countenance, he had no sooner observed the marks of grief upon my brow
than an answering darkness gathered on his own. ‘Asenath.’ he said, ‘you
owe me much already; with one finger I still hold you suspended over
death; my life is full of labour and anxiety; and I choose,’ said he,
with a remarkable accent of command, ‘that you shall greet me with a
pleasant face.’ He never needed to repeat the recommendation; from that
day forward I was always ready to receive him with apparent cheerfulness;
and he rewarded me with a good deal of his company, and almost more than
I could bear of his confidence. He had set up a laboratory in the back
part of the house, where he toiled day and night at his elixir, and he
would come thence to visit me in my parlour: now with passing humours of
discouragement; now, and far more often, radiant with hope. It was
impossible to see so much of him, and not to recognise that the sands of
his life were running low; and yet all the time he would be laying out
vast fields of future, and planning, with all the confidence of youth,
the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and ambition. How I replied I
know not; but I found a voice and words to answer, even while I wept and
raged to hear him.
A week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great
exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily weakness. ‘Asenath,’ said
he, ‘I have now obtained the last ingredient. In one week from now the
perilous moment of the last projection will draw nigh. You have once
before assisted, although unconsciously, at the failure of a similar
experiment. It was the elixir which so terribly exploded one night when
you were passing my house; and it is idle to deny that the conduct of so
delicate a process, among the million jars and trepidations of so great a
city, presents a certain element of danger. From this point of view, I
cannot but regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts;
but, on the other hand, I have succeeded in proving that the singularly
unstable equilibrium of the elixir, at the moment of projection, is due
rather to the impurity than to the nature of the ingredients; and as all
are now of an equal and exquisite nicety, I have little fear for the
result. In a week then from to-day, my dear Asenath, this period of
trial will be ended.’ And he smiled upon me in a manner unusually
paternal.
I smiled back with my lips, but at my heart there raged the blackest and
most unbridled terror. What if he failed? And oh, tenfold worse! what
if he succeeded? What detested and unnatural changeling would appear
before me to claim my hand? And could there, I asked myself with a
dreadful sinking, be any truth in his boasts of an assured victory over
my reluctance? I knew him, indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a
sign. Suppose, then, this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return
to me, hideously restored, like a vampire in a legend; and suppose that,
by some devilish fascination . . . My head turned; all former fears
deserted me: and I felt I could embrace the worst in preference to this.
My mind was instantly made up. The doctor’s presence in London was
justified by the affairs of the Mormon polity. Often, in our
conversation, he would gloat over the details of that great organisation,
which he feared even while yet he wielded it; and would remind me, that
even in the humming labyrinth of London, we were still visible to that
unsleeping eye in Utah. His visitors, indeed, who were of every sort,
from the missionary to the destroying angel, and seemed to belong to
every rank of life, had, up to that moment, filled me with unmixed
repulsion and alarm. I knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of
any leader my fate were sealed beyond redemption; and yet in my present
pass of horror and despair, it was to these very men that I turned for
help. I waylaid upon the stair one of the Mormon missionaries, a man of
a low class, but not inaccessible to pity; told him I scarce remember
what elaborate fable to explain my application; and by his intermediacy
entered into correspondence with my father’s family. They recognised my
claim for help, and on this very day I was to begin my escape.
Last night I sat up fully dressed, awaiting the result of the doctor’s
labours, and prepared against the worst. The nights at this season and
in this northern latitude are short; and I had soon the company of the
returning daylight. The silence in and around the house was only broken
by the movements of the doctor in the laboratory; to these I listened,
watch in hand, awaiting the hour of my escape, and yet consumed by
anxiety about the strange experiment that was going forward overhead.
Indeed, now that I was conscious of some protection for myself, my
sympathies had turned more directly to the doctor’s side; I caught myself
even praying for his success; and when some hours ago a low, peculiar cry
reached my ears from the laboratory, I could no longer control my
impatience, but mounted the stairs and opened the door.
The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a large,
round-bellied, crystal flask, some three parts full of a bright
amber-coloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude and joy
unspeakable. As he saw me he raised the flask at arm’s length.
‘Victory!’ he cried. ‘Victory, Asenath!’ And then—whether the flask
escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the explosion were spontaneous,
I cannot tell—enough that we were thrown, I against the door-post, the
doctor into the corner of the room; enough that we were shaken to the
soul by the same explosion that must have startled you upon the street;
and that, in the brief space of an indistinguishable instant, there
remained nothing of the labours of the doctor’s lifetime but a few shards
of broken crystal and those voluminous and ill-smelling vapours that
pursued me in my flight.
_THE SQUIRE OF DAMES_
(_Concluded_)
What with the lady’s animated manner and dramatic conduct of her voice,
Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine emotion. His
fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively character, applauded both
the matter and the style; but the more judicial functions of his mind
refused assent. It was an excellent story; and it might be true, but he
believed it was not. Miss Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless
possible for a lady to wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to
tell her so? His spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now
fell to zero; and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a
troubled and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to
thank her for her narrative. His mind, indeed, was empty of everything
beyond a dull longing for escape. From this pause, which grew the more
embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden laughter of
the lady. His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced her; their eyes
met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank merriment as put him
instantly at ease.
‘You certainly,’ he said, ‘appear to bear your calamities with excellent
spirit.’
‘Do I not?’ she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter. But
from this access she more speedily recovered. ‘This is all very well,’
said she, nodding at him gravely, ‘but I am still in a most distressing
situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I shall find it
difficult indeed to free myself.’
At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.
‘My sympathies are much engaged with you,’ he said, ‘and I should be
delighted, I am sure. But our position is most unusual; and
circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control, deprive me
of the power—the pleasure—Unless, indeed,’ he added, somewhat brightening
at the thought, ‘I were to recommend you to the care of the police?’
She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and he saw
with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of their meeting,
every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.
‘Do so,’ she said, ‘and—weigh my words well—you kill me as certainly as
with a knife.’
‘God bless me!’ exclaimed Challoner.
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I can see you disbelieve my story and make light of the
perils that surround me; but who are you to judge? My family share my
apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw yourself by what an
emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen to supply me with the
funds for my escape. I admit that you are brave and clever and have
impressed me most favourably; but how are you to prefer your opinion
before that of my uncle, an ex-minister of state, a man with the ear of
the Queen, and of a long political experience? If I am mad, is he? And
you must allow me, besides, a special claim upon your help. Strange as
you may think my story, you know that much of it is true; and if you who
heard the explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and
assist me, to whom am I to turn?’
‘He gave you money then?’ asked Challoner, who had been dwelling singly
on that fact.
‘I begin to interest you,’ she cried. ‘But, frankly, you are condemned
to help me. If the service I had to ask of you were serious, were
suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more. But what is it? To
take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will suffer me, I propose to pay)
and to carry from one lady to another a sum of money! What can be more
simple?’
‘Is the sum,’ asked Challoner, ‘considerable?’
She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had not yet
found time to make the count, tore open the cover and spread upon her
knees a considerable number of Bank of England notes. It took some time
to make the reckoning, for the notes were of every degree of value; but
at last, and counting a few loose sovereigns, she made out the sum to be
a little under £710 sterling. The sight of so much money worked an
immediate revolution in the mind of Challoner.
‘And you propose, madam,’ he cried, ‘to intrust that money to a perfect
stranger?’
‘Ah!’ said she, with a charming smile, ‘but I no longer regard you as a
stranger.’
‘Madam,’ said Challoner, ‘I perceive I must make you a confession.
Although of a very good family—through my mother, indeed, a lineal
descendant of the patriot Bruce—I dare not conceal from you that my
affairs are deeply, very deeply involved. I am in debt; my pockets are
practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that state when a
considerable sum of money would prove to many men an irresistible
temptation.’
‘Do you not see,’ returned the young lady, ‘that by these words you have
removed my last hesitation? Take them.’ And she thrust the notes into
the young man’s hand.
He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss
Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.
‘Pray,’ she said, ‘hesitate no further; put them in your pocket; and to
relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me by what name
I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself reduced to the
awkwardness of the pronoun.’
Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had come
lightly to the young man’s aid; but upon what pretext could he refuse so
generous a trust? Upon none he saw, that was not unpardonably wounding;
and the bright eyes and the high spirits of his companion had already
made a breach in the rampart of Challoner’s caution. The whole thing, he
reasoned, might be a mere mystification, which it were the height of
solemn folly to resent. On the other hand, the explosion, the interview
at the public-house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove
beyond denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,
could he desert her? There was a choice of risks: the risk of behaving
with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a lady, and the risk
of going on a fool’s errand. The story seemed false; but then the money
was undeniable. The whole circumstances were questionable and obscure;
but the lady was charming, and had the speech and manners of society.
While he still hung in the wind, a recollection returned upon his mind
with some of the dignity of prophecy. Had he not promised Somerset to
break with the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the first
adventure offered? Well, here was the adventure.
He thrust the money into his pocket.
‘My name is Challoner,’ said he.
‘Mr. Challoner,’ she replied, ‘you have come very generously to my aid
when all was against me. Though I am myself a very humble person, my
family commands great interest; and I do not think you will repent this
handsome action.’
Challoner flushed with pleasure.
‘I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,’ she added, her eyes dwelling on
him with a judicial admiration, ‘a consulship in some great town or
capital—or else—But we waste time; let us set about the work of my
delivery.’
She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart; and once
more laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him, as they crossed
the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind. Near the Marble Arch they
found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to the terminus at Euston
Square; and here, in the hotel, they sat down to an excellent breakfast.
The young lady’s first step was to call for writing materials and write,
upon one corner of the table, a hasty note; still, as she did so,
glancing with smiles at her companion. ‘Here,’ said she, ‘here is the
letter which will introduce you to my cousin.’ She began to fold the
paper. ‘My cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character of
a very charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing,
but at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father; so
have you—kinder than all—kinder than I can bear to think of.’ She said
this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed the envelope.
‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘I have shut my letter! It is not quite courteous; and
yet, as between friends, it is perhaps better so. I introduce you, after
all, into a family secret; and though you and I are already old comrades,
you are still unknown to my uncle. You go then to this address, Richard
Street, Glasgow; go, please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter
with your own hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name
by which she is to pass. When we next meet, you will tell me what you
think of her,’ she added, with a touch of the provocative.
‘Ah,’ said Challoner, almost tenderly, ‘she can be nothing to me.’
‘You do not know,’ replied the young lady, with a sigh. ‘By-the-bye, I
had forgotten—it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed to mention
it—but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to make yourself a
little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way suits you. We had
agreed upon a watchword. You will have to address an earl’s daughter in
these words: “_Nigger_, _nigger_, _never die_;” but reassure yourself,’
she added, laughing, ‘for the fair patrician will at once finish the
quotation. Come now, say your lesson.’
‘“Nigger, nigger, never die,”’ repeated Challoner, with undisguised
reluctance.
Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter. ‘Excellent,’ said she, ‘it
will be the most humorous scene.’ And she laughed again.
‘And what will be the counterword?’ asked Challoner stiffly.
‘I will not tell you till the last moment,’ said she; ‘for I perceive you
are growing too imperious.’
Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform, bought him
the _Graphic_, the _Athenæum_, and a paper-cutter, and stood on the step
conversing till the whistle sounded. Then she put her head into the
carriage. ‘_Black face and shining eye_!’ she whispered, and instantly
leaped down upon the platform, with a thrill of gay and musical laughter.
As the train steamed out of the great arch of glass, the sound of that
laughter still rang in the young man’s ears.
Challoner’s position was too unusual to be long welcome to his mind. He
found himself projected the whole length of England, on a mission beset
with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet, by the trust he had
accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere. How easy it appeared, in the
retrospect, to have refused the whole proposal, returned the money, and
gone forth again upon his own affairs, a free and happy man! And it was
now impossible: the enchantress who had held him with her eye had now
disappeared, taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave
him an address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat. To
use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she had
presented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and as he was
alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at the landscape in
impotent repentance, and long before he was landed on the platform of St.
Enoch’s, had fallen to the lowest and coldest zones of self-contempt.
As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have preferred to
dine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words of the young lady,
and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no delay. In the late,
luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer evening, he accordingly set
forward with brisk steps.
The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the
character of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but the
extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded it
with miles of streets. From the top of the hill a range of very tall
buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the population and
variegated by drying-poles from every second window, overplumbed the
villas and their little gardens like a sea-board cliff. But still, under
the grime of years of city smoke, these antiquated cottages, with their
venetian blinds and rural porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy
savour of the past.
The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted. From hard
by, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear; but in
Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of human
habitation. The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed heavily on the
mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets of London, he was
impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as he approached the number
indicated, and somewhat falteringly rang the bell, his heart sank within
him.
The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous note;
and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear quarters of
the building. Following upon this an inner door was stealthily opened,
and careful and catlike steps drew near along the hall. Challoner,
supposing he was to be instantly admitted, produced his letter, and, as
well as he was able, prepared a smiling face. To his indescribable
surprise, however, the footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with
the like stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interior
of the house. A second time the young man rang violently at the bell; a
second time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet footing
moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again the fainthearted
garrison only drew near to retreat. The cup of the visitor’s endurance
was now full to overflowing; and, committing the whole family of
Fonblanque to every mood and shade of condemnation, he turned upon his
heel and redescended the steps. Perhaps the mover in the house was
watching from a window, and plucked up courage at the sight of this
desistance; or perhaps, where he lurked trembling in the back parts of
the villa, reason in its own right had conquered his alarms. Challoner,
at least, had scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by
the sound of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another,
rattling in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door
opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very stalwart
figure in his shirt sleeves. He was a person neither of great manly
beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man, in ordinary moods,
to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he now stood in the doorway,
he was marked so legibly with the extreme passion of terror that
Challoner stood wonder-struck. For a fraction of a minute they gazed
upon each other in silence; and then the man of the house, with ashen
lips and gasping voice, inquired the business of his visitor. Challoner
replied, in tones from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he
was the bearer of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque. At this name,
as at a talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;
and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the door was
closed behind him and his retreat cut off.
It was already long past eight at night; and though the late twilight of
the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage it was already
groping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a parlour looking on the
garden to the back. Here he had apparently been supping; for by the
light of a tallow dip the table was seen to be covered with a napkin, and
set out with a quart of bottled ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese. The
room, on the other hand, was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls
were lined with scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases. The house
must have been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of
the shirt sleeves and the mean supper. As for the earl’s daughter, the
earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long ago
begun to fade in Challoner’s imagination. Like Doctor Grierson and the
Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of dreams. Not an
illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope was left him, but to
be speedily relieved from this disreputable business.
The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised anxiety, and
began once more to press him for his errand.
‘I am here,’ said Challoner, ‘simply to do a service between two ladies;
and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss Fonblanque,
into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the letter that I
bear.’
A growing wonder began to mingle on the man’s face with the lines of
solicitude. ‘I am Miss Fonblanque,’ he said; and then, perceiving the
effect of this communication, ‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘what are you staring
at? I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.’
Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and the
remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could only suppose
himself the subject of a jest. He was no longer under the spell of the
young lady’s presence; and with men, and above all with his inferiors, he
was capable of some display of spirit.
‘Sir,’ said he, pretty roundly, ‘I have put myself to great inconvenience
for persons of whom I know too little, and I begin to be weary of the
business. Either you shall immediately summon Miss Fonblanque, or I
leave this house and put myself under the direction of the police.’
‘This is horrible!’ exclaimed the man. ‘I declare before Heaven I am the
person meant, but how shall I convince you? It must have been Clara, I
perceive, that sent you on this errand—a madwoman, who jests with the
most deadly interests; and here we are incapable, perhaps, of an
agreement, and Heaven knows what may depend on our delay!’
He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time there
flashed upon the mind of Challoner the ridiculous jingle which was to
serve as password. ‘This may, perhaps, assist you,’ he said, and then,
with some embarrassment, ‘“Nigger, nigger, never die.”’
A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man with the
chin-beard. ‘“Black face and shining eye”—give me the letter,’ he
panted, in one gasp.
‘Well,’ said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, ‘I suppose I
must regard you as the proper recipient; and though I may justly complain
of the spirit in which I have been treated, I am only too glad to be done
with all responsibility. Here it is,’ and he produced the envelope.
The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled in a
manner painful to behold, tore it open and unfolded the letter. As he
read, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch of nightmare. He
struck one hand upon his brow, while with the other, as if unconsciously,
he crumpled the paper to a ball. ‘My gracious powers!’ he cried; and
then, dashing to the window, which stood open on the garden, he clapped
forth his head and shoulders, and whistled long and shrill. Challoner
fell back into a corner, and resolutely grasping his staff, prepared for
the most desperate events; but the thoughts of the man with the
chin-beard were far removed from violence. Turning again into the room,
and once more beholding his visitor, whom he appeared to have forgotten,
he fairly danced with trepidation. ‘Impossible!’ he cried. ‘Oh, quite
impossible! O Lord, I have lost my head.’ And then, once more striking
his hand upon his brow, ‘The money!’ he exclaimed. ‘Give me the money.’
‘My good friend,’ replied Challoner, ‘this is a very painful exhibition;
and until I see you reasonably master of yourself, I decline to proceed
with any business.’
‘You are quite right,’ said the man. ‘I am of a very nervous habit; a
long course of the dumb ague has undermined my constitution. But I know
you have money; it may be still the saving of me; and oh, dear young
gentleman, in pity’s name be expeditious!’ Challoner, sincerely uneasy
as he was, could scarce refrain from laughter; but he was himself in a
hurry to be gone, and without more delay produced the money. ‘You will
find the sum, I trust, correct,’ he observed ‘and let me ask you to give
me a receipt.’
But the man heeded him not. He seized the money, and disregarding the
sovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor, thrust the bundle of notes
into his pocket.
‘A receipt,’ repeated Challoner, with some asperity. ‘I insist on a
receipt.’
‘Receipt?’ repeated the man, a little wildly. ‘A receipt? Immediately!
Await me here.’
Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary time, as
he was himself desirous of catching a particular train.
‘Ah, by God, and so am I!’ exclaimed the man with the chin-beard; and
with that he was gone out of the room, and had rattled upstairs, four at
a time, to the upper story of the villa.
‘This is certainly a most amazing business,’ thought Challoner;
‘certainly a most disquieting affair; and I cannot conceal from myself
that I have become mixed up with either lunatics or malefactors. I may
truly thank my stars that I am so nearly and so creditably done with it.’
Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering the episode of the whistle, he
turned to the open window. The garden was still faintly clear; he could
distinguish the stairs and terraces with which the small domain had been
adorned by former owners, and the blackened bushes and dead trees that
had once afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw the
strong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed the
garden to the back; and again above that, the pile of dingy buildings
rearing its frontage high into the night. A peculiar object lying
stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his eyesight; but at length
he had made it out to be a long ladder, or series of ladders bound into
one; and he was still wondering of what service so great an instrument
could be in such a scant enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by
the noise of some one running violently down the stairs. This was
followed by the sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that
again, by rapid and retreating footsteps in the street.
Challoner sprang into the passage. He ran from room to room, upstairs
and downstairs; and in that old dingy and worm-eaten house, he found
himself alone. Only in one apartment, looking to the front, were there
any traces of the late inhabitant: a bed that had been recently slept in
and not made, a chest of drawers disordered by a hasty search, and on the
floor a roll of crumpled paper. This he picked up. The light in this
upper story looking to the front was considerably brighter than in the
parlour; and he was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the
hotel at Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following
lines in a very elegant and careful female hand:
‘DEAR M‘GUIRE,—It is certain your retreat is known. We have just had
another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the usual
humiliating result. Zero is quite disheartened. We are all
scattered, and I could find no one but the _solemn ass_ who brings
you this and the money. I would love to see your meeting.—Ever
yours,