CHAPTER XXII.
The profound stillness that pervades a room where life and death grapple for mastery, invites and aids that calm, inexorable introspection, which Gotama Buddha prescribes as an almost unerring path to the attainment of peace; and, in the solemn silence of his last and memorable vigil, Dr. Grey brought his heart into complete unmurmuring subjection to the Divine will. A soi-disant “resignation” that draws honied lips to the throne of grace, leaving a heart of gall in the camp of sedition, could find no harbor in his uncompromisingly honest nature; and though the struggle was severe, he felt that faith in Eternal wisdom and mercy had triumphed over merely human affection and earthly hopes, and his strong soul chanted to itself the comforting strains of Lampert’s “Trust Song.”
No mere gala barge, gay with paint and gaudy with pennons, was his religion; no fair summer-day toy bearing him lightly across the sun-kissed, breeze-dimpled sea of prosperity and happiness, and frail as the foam that draped its prow with lace; but a staunch, trim, steady, unpretending bark, that with unfaltering faith at the helm, rode firmly all the billows of adversity, and steered unerringly harborward through howling tempests and impenetrable gloom. Human friendships and sympathy he considered unstable and treacherous as Peter, when he shrank from his Lord; but Christian trust was one of the silver-tongued angels of God, ringing chimes of patience and peace, far above the din of wailing, bleeding hearts, and the fierce flames of flesh martyrdom.
One o’clock found Dr. Grey sitting near the pillow, where for five hours Mrs. Gerome had slept as quietly as a tired child. The fever-glow had burned itself out, and left an ashen hue on the lips and cheeks.
Wishing to arouse her, he spoke to her several times and 287 raised her head, but though she drank the powerful stimulant he held to her mouth, her heavy eyelids were not lifted, and when he smoothed the pillow and laid her comfortably upon it, she slumbered once more.
At the foot of the bed, with his keen yellow eyes fastened on his mistress, crouched the greyhound, his silky head on his paws; and on a pallet in one corner of the room slept Katie, ready to render any assistance that might be required.
The apartment was elegantly furnished, and green and gold tinted all its appointments. On an Egyptian marble table stood a work-box curiously inlaid with malachite and richly gilded, and there lay some withered flowers, a small thimble, and a pair of scissors with mother-of-pearl handles. Around the walls hung a number of paintings, which, with one exception, were landscapes or ocean-views; and as Dr. Grey sat watching the shimmer of lamp-light on their carved frames and varnished surfaces, they seemed to furnish images of
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“Green glaring glaciers, purple clouds of pine, White walls of ever-roaring cataracts; Blue thunder drifting over thirsty tracts, Rose-latticed casements, lone in summer lands,— Some witch’s bower; pale sailors on the marge Of magic seas, in an enchanted barge Stranded at sunset, upon jewelled sands. Some cup of dim hills, where a white moon lies, Dropt out of weary skies without a breath In a great pool; a slumb’rous vale beneath, And blue damps prickling into white fire-flies.” |
No sweet-lipped, low-browed Madonnas, no rapt Cecilias, no holy Johns nor meek Stephens, no reeling Satyrs nor vine-clad Bacchantés relieved the eye, weary of mountain ghylls, red-ribbed deserts, and stormy surfage.
One long narrow picture baffled interpretation, and excited speculations that served in some degree to divert the sad current of the physician’s thoughts.
It was a dreary plain, dotted with the “fallen cromlechs of Stonehenge,” and in front of the desecrated stone altars 288 stood a veiled woman, with her hands clasped over a silver crescent-curved knife, and her bare feet resting on oaken chaplets and mistletoe boughs, starred and fringed with snowy flowers. Under the dexterously painted gauze that shrouded the face, the outline of the features was distinctly traceable, end behind the film,—large, oracular, yet mournful eyes, burned like setting stars, seen through magnifying vapors that wreathe the horizon.
It was a solemn, desolate, melancholy picture, relieved by no flush of color,—gray plain, gray distance, gray sky, gray temple tumuli, and that ghostly white woman, gazing grimly down at the gray-haired sufferer on the low bed beneath her.
Under some circumstances, certain pictures seem basilisk-eyed, riveting a gaze that would gladly seek more agreeable subjects, and it chanced that Dr. Grey found a painful fascination in this piece of canvas that hung immediately in front of him. Wherein consisted the magnetism that so powerfully attracted him, he could not decide, but several times when the wind blew the scalloped edge of the lace curtain between the lamp and the picture, and threw a dim wavering shadow over the figure on the wall, he almost expected to see the veil float away from the stony face, and reveal what the artist had adroitly shrouded. Now it looked a doomed “Norma,” and anon the Nemesis of a dishonored faneless faith, that was born among Magi, and had tutored Pythagoras; and finally Dr. Grey rose and turned away to escape its spectral spell.
Waking Katie, he charged her to call him if any change occurred in his patient, and went to the front of the house for a breath of fresh air.
Narcissus-like, a three-quarter moon was staring down at her own image, rocked on the bosom of the sea, while dim stars printed silver photographs on the deep blue beneath them,—
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“And the hush of earth and air Seemed the pause before a prayer.” |
The wind that had blown steadily for two days past from the south-east, had gone down into some ocean lair; but the 289 sullen element refused to forget its late scourging, and occasionally a long swelling billow dashed itself into froth against the stone piers of the boat-house, and the cliffs which stood like a phantom fleet along the southern bend of the beach, were fringed with a white girdle of incessant breakers.
Far out from shore the rolling mass of water was darkly blue, but now and then a wave broke over its neighbor, and in the distance the foam flashed under moonshine like some reconnoitring Siren-face, peeping landward for fresh victims; or as the samite-clad arm that Arthur and Sir Bedivere saw rise above the mere to receive Excalibar.
Following the beckoning of those snowy hands, and listening to the low musical monologue that sea uttered to shore, Dr. Grey started in the direction of the terrace, whence he could see the whole trend of the beetling coast, but some unaccountable impulse induced him to pause and look back.
The dense shadow of the trees shut out from the spot where he stood the golden radiance of the moon, but over the lawn it streamed in almost unearthly splendor,—and there he saw some white object glide swiftly towards the group of deodars. The first solution that occurred to his mind was that Katie had fallen asleep, and Mrs. Gerome in her delirium making her way out of the house, was seeking her favorite walk; but a moment’s reflection convinced him that she was too utterly prostrated to cross the room, still less the grounds, and, resolved to satisfy himself, he followed the moving object that retreated before him.
Walking rapidly but stealthily in the shadow of the trees and shrubbery, he soon ascertained that it was a woman’s figure, and saw that it stopped at Elsie’s grave, and bent down to touch the head-board. Creeping forward, he had approached within ten yards of her, when his hat struck the lower limbs of a large acacia, and startled a bird that uttered a cry of terror and darted out. The sound caused the figure to turn her head, and catching a glimpse of Dr. Grey, she ran under the dense boughs of the deodars, and disappeared.
He followed, and groped through the gloom, but when he 290 emerged, no living thing was visible; and, perplexed and curious, he stood still.
After some moments he heard a faint sound, as of some one smothering a cough, and pursuing it, found himself at the boundary of the grounds. Here a thick hedge of osage orange barred egress, and he saw the woman disentangling her drapery from the thorns that had seized it.
Springing forward, he exclaimed,—
“Stand still! You can not escape me. Who are you?”
A feigned and lugubrious voice answered,—
“I am the restless spirit of Elsie Maclean, come back to guard her grave.”
In another instant he was at her side, and laying his hand on the white netted shawl with which she was veiling her features, he tore it away, and Salome’s fair face looked defiantly at him.
“If I had known that my pursuer was Dr. Grey, I would not have troubled myself to play the ghost farce, for of course I could not expect to frighten you off; but I hoped you were one of the servants, who would not very diligently chase a spectre. I did not suppose that you could be coaxed or driven thus far from your arm-chair beside the bed where Mrs. Gerome is asleep.”
Astonishment kept him silent for some seconds, and, in the awkward pause, the girl laughed constrainedly—nervously.
“After all your show of bravery in pursuing a woman, I verily believe you are too much frightened to arrest me if I chose to escape.”
“Salome, has something terrible happened at home, that you have come here at midnight to break to me?”
“Nothing has happened at home.”
“Then why are you here? Are you, too, delirious?”
Her scornful laugh rang startlingly on the still night air.
“Oh, Salome! You grieve, you shock me!”
“Yes, Dr. Grey, you have assured me of that fact too frequently—too feelingly—to permit me to doubt your sincerity. You need not repeat it; I accept the assertion that you are shocked at my indiscretions.”
Compassion predominated over displeasure, as he observed the utter recklessness that pervaded her tone and manner.
“I am unwilling to believe that you would, without some very cogent reason, violate all decorum by coming alone at dead of night two miles through a dreary stretch of hills and woods. Necessity sometimes sanctions an infraction of the rules of rigid propriety, and I am impatient to hear your defence of this most extraordinary caprice.”
She was endeavoring to disengage the fringe of her shawl from the hedge, but finding it a tedious operation, she caught her drapery in both hands and tore it away from the thorns, leaving several shreds hanging on the prickly boughs.
“Dr. Grey, I have no defence to offer.”
“Tell me what induced you to come here.”
“An eminently charitable and commendable interest in your fair patient. I came here simply and solely to ascertain whether Mrs. Gerome would die, or whether she could possibly recover.”
Unflinchingly she looked up into his eyes, and he thought he had never seen a fairer, prouder, or lovelier face.
“How did you expect to accomplish your errand by wandering about these grounds, exposing yourself to insult and to injury?”
“I have been on the gallery since twilight, looking through the lace curtains at Mrs. Gerome lying on her bed, and at you sitting in the arm-chair. Her eyes are keener than yours, for she saw me peeping through the window, and told you so. When you left the room I came out among the trees to escape observation. I scorn all equivocation, and have no desire to conceal the truth, for if I am not dowered
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‘With blood trained up along nine centuries, To hound and hate a lie,’ |
at least I hold my pauper soul high above the mire of falsehood; and
| ... ‘The things we do, We do: we’ll wear no mask, as if we blushed.’” |
They had walked away from the hedge, and Dr. Grey paused at the mound, where the Ariadne gleamed cold and white in the moonbeams that slanted across it like silver lances.
Revolving in his mind the best method of extricating the orphan from the unfortunate predicament in which her rashness had plunged her, he did not answer immediately, and Salome continued, impatiently,—
“If you imagine that I came here to act as spy upon your actions, you most egregiously mistake me, for I know all that the most rigid surveillance could possibly teach me. I heard you say that this night would prove a crisis in Mrs. Gerome’s case, and I was so anxious to learn the result that I could not wait quietly at home until morning. I begged you to bring me, and you refused; consequently, I came alone. Deal frankly with me,—tell me, will that woman die?”
The breathless eagerness with which she bent towards him, the strained, almost ferocious expression of her keen eyes, sickened his soul, and he put his hand over his face to shut out the sight of hers.
“Tell me the truth. I must and will know it.”
Her sweet clear voice had become a low hoarse pant, and the knotted lines were growing harder and tighter on her beautiful brow.
“I pray ceaselessly that God will spare her to me, and I hope all things from His mercy. Another hour will probably end my suspense, and decide the awful question of life or death. Salome, if she should die, my future will be very lonely,—and my heart bereft of the brightest, dearest hopes, that have ever cheered it.”
A half-smothered cry struggled across the orphan’s trembling lips that had suddenly grown colorless, and he saw her clutch her fingers.
“And if she lives?”
“If she lives, and will accept the affection I shall offer her, the remainder of my years will be devoted to the work of making her forget the sorrows that have darkened the 293 early portion of her life. I do not wish to conceal the fact that she is inexpressibly dear to me.”
During the long silence that ensued, a lifetime of agony seemed compressed into the compass of a few moments, but Salome stood motionless, with her arms pressed over her aching heart, and her head thrown haughtily back, while the moonlight streamed down on her face where pride and pain were struggling for right to reign.
When all expectation of earthly happiness is smothered in a proud, passionate soul, and the future robes itself in those dun hues that only the day-star of eternity can gild, nerves and muscles shrink and shiver at the massacre of hopes which despair hews down, in the hour that it “storms the citadel of the heart, and puts the whole garrison to the sword.”
Dr. Grey could not endure the sight of that fixed, hardened face, and sorely distressed by the consciousness of the suffering which he had unintentionally inflicted on one so young, he moved away, and for some time walked slowly under the arching laurestines. Although his stern integrity of purpose acquitted him of all blame, and he could accuse himself of no word or deed that might be held amenable to conscience for the mischief and misery that had resulted from his acquaintance with this unfortunate girl, he regretted that he had remained in the same house, and, by constant association, fed the flame that absence might have extinguished.
While he pitied the weakness that had induced her to yield so entirely to the preference she indulged for him, he felt humiliated at the thought that he, who had intended to guide and elevate this wayward child of nature, had been instrumental in darkening and embittering her young life.
When he came back to the spot, whence she had not moved, and laid his hand gently on her shoulder, she smiled strangely, and
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“Unbent the grieving beauty of her brows. But held her heart’s proud pain superbly still.” |
“My little sister, you must not stay here any longer. Would you prefer to go home at once in my buggy, or remain in the parlor until daylight?”
“Neither. Let me sit down on the stone terrace till the end comes. I will disturb no one. It will be three hours before day breaks, and when you know whether your idol will live or die, come and tell me. Take your hand from my shoulder.”
He had endeavored to detain her, but she shrank away from his grasp, and glided down the smooth sward to the terrace which divided it from the ripple-barred and ringed sands of the shelving beach.
As he returned to the house, the wind sprang up and moaned through the dense foliage above him, and an owl, perched in some clustering bough that overhung the portico, screamed and hooted dismally. The sound was so startling that the greyhound leaped to his feet and set up an answering howl, which almost froze Katie with fright, and caused even Mrs. Gerome’s heavy eyelids to unclose.
Salome sat down on the paved terrace, crossed her arms over the low stone balustrade, and resting her chin upon them, looked out at the burnished bosom of the ocean. Just beneath her, and near enough to moisten the granite with the silvery spray,—
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“Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee, Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea.” |
If the old Rabbinical legend of Sandalphon be grounded in some solemn vision granted to the saints of eld, who walked in Syria, then peradventure on this night, the angel must have been puzzled indeed concerning the petitions that floated up, and demanded admission to the Eternal ear.
From the anxious heart of the sincere and humble Christian who knelt at the bedside of the invalid, rose a fervent prayer that if consistent with the Father’s will, He would lay His healing hand upon the sufferer, and restore her to health and strength; while the wretched girl on the terrace prayed vehemently that God would crush the feeble flicker of life in Mrs. Gerome’s wasted frame, would take from the world a 295 woman whose existence was a burden to herself and threatened to prove a curse to others.
The passionate cry of Salome’s soul was,—
“Punish me in any way, and all other ways! Send sickness, destitution, humiliation,—let every other affliction smite me; but save me from the intolerable anguish of seeing that woman his wife! O my God! the world is not wide enough to hold us both. Take her, or else call me speedily hence. I am not fit to die, but I shall never be better, if I am doomed to witness this marriage. I would sooner go down to perdition now, than live to see that thing of horror. Of two hells, I choose that which takes me farthest from her.”
For the first time in her life she felt that the hours were flying, that the day of doom was rushing to meet her, and she shuddered when one after another the constellations slipped softly and solemnly down the sky, and vanished behind the dim shadowy outline of the western hills. Gradually the moon sank so low that the sea could no longer reflect her beams, and as the mighty waste of waters slowly darkened, and the wind stiffened, and the song of the surf swelled like a rising requiem, the girl felt that all nature was preparing to mourn with her over the burial of her only hope of earthly peace.
If Mrs. Gerome died, a quiet future stretched before the orphan, and she could bear to live without the love which she had the grim satisfaction of knowing brightened no other woman’s life.
The happiness of the man for whom she almost impiously prayed, was a matter of little importance compared with the ease of her own heart; and she had yet to learn that the welfare and peace of the object she loved so selfishly would one day become paramount to all other aims and considerations. That pure and sublime spirit of self-abnegation which immolates every hope and wish that is at variance with the happiness of the beloved had not yet been born in Salome’s fiery nature; and she cared little for the anguish that might be Dr. Grey’s portion, provided her own heart could be spared the pang of witnessing his wedded bliss.
Through the trees, she could see the steady light of the lamp that burned in the room where the sick woman lay, and so she watched and waited, shivering in the shadow that fell over earth and ocean just before the breaking of the new day.
Along the eastern horizon, the white fires of rising constellations paled and flickered and seemed to die, as a gray light stole up behind them; and the gray grew pearly, and the pearly opaline, and ere long the sky crimsoned, and the sea reddened until its waves were like ruby wine or human gore.
In the radiant dawn of that day which would decide the earthly destinies of three beings, Salome saw Dr. Grey coming across the lawn. His step was quiet,—neither slow nor hasty, and she could not conjecture the result; but as he approached, she rose, wrapped her shawl about her, and advanced to meet him. He paused, took off his hat, and she knew all before a syllable passed his lips.
“Salome, God has heard my prayers,—has mercifully taken my darling from the arms of death, and given her to me. I do not think I am too sanguine in saying that she will ultimately recover, and my heart can not find language that will interpret its gratitude and joy.”
Never before had such a light shone in his clear, calm blue eyes, and illumined his usually grave countenance; and though continued vigils and keen anxiety had left their signet on his pale face, his great happiness was printed legibly on every feature, and found expression even in the deepened and softened tones of his voice.
The girl did not move or speak, but looked steadily into his bright eyes, and the calmness with which she listened, comforted and encouraged him to hope that ere long she would conquer her preference.
How could he know that at that instant she was impiously vowing that heaven had heard her last prayer?—that never again should a petition cross her lips? God had granted one prayer,—had decided against hers,—had denied her utterly; and henceforth she would not weary Him,—she would not mock herself and her misery.
Dr. Grey saw that there was no quiver on the still, pale lips, no contraction of the polished forehead; but the rigidity of her face broke up suddenly in a smile of indescribable mournfulness,—a smile where self-contempt and pity and hopeless bitterness all lent their saddest phases.
“Dr. Grey, in your present happy mood, you certainly can not be so ungracious as to deny me a favor?”
“Have I ever refused my little sister anything she asked?”
“The only favor you can ever grant me will be to persuade Miss Jane to consent to my departure. Look to it, sir, that I am allowed to go, and that right speedily; for go I certainly shall, at all hazards. Convince your sister that it is best, and let me go away forever, without incurring the displeasure of the only friend I ever had or ever shall have.”
She moved away as if to leave the grounds, but he caught her arm.
“Wait five minutes, Salome, and I will take you home in my buggy. It is not right for you to walk alone at this early hour, and I will not allow it.”
She shook off his hand as if it had been an infant’s; and, as she walked away, he heard her laugh with a degree of savage bitterness that stabbed his generous heart like a dagger; while behind her trailed the hissing echo,—
| ... “Oh, alone, alone,— Not troubling any in heaven, nor any on earth.” |