Dust: A Novel

by Julian Hawthorne

But the seed of that flower of love that had been planted in the soil of Charles Grantley’s grave took root, and grew, and blossomed; and it bade fair to be as sweet and wholesome a flower as ever such seed produced. Marion and Philip, looking into their future, could see nothing but brightness there, all the brighter by contrast with the tender shadow of sadness out of which they looked. Nothing but good, they believed, could come from a union begun at such a time, and with such a consecration. The influence of Grantley was with them, with almost the vividness, at times, of a spiritual presence; and they insensibly spoke and acted on a higher and purer plane than they would have done had he not lived and died. If his mourners were few, few men have been more tenderly mourned; and to Marion especially was his memory dear and reverend, by reason of the cloud that had overhung so large a portion of his life. That cloud, to her apprehension, had now become all illuminated with heavenly gold; and she felt as little need to confirm her faith by an examination of the packet left in her care, as to ask Philip for proof of her love for him. Marion was enthusiastic and imperious in her faiths even more than in her scepticisms. But, indeed, her whole nature was, for the time, sweetened, subdued, and yet ardently developed. The strangeness and harshness which had occasionally characterized her in the past, was now no longer noticeable; her moods were equal, her heart happy and active. It seemed as if nothing could obscure her serenity; and yet a woman in her condition is peculiarly liable to tragic or chilling accidents. The delicate and sensitive petals of the soul, expanding thus freely to the unaccustomed air, are never so susceptible as now to blight and injury, albeit it is from one source only that the harm can come. Let the lover walk heedfully at this period of his career, nor even grasp his treasure too firmly, lest unawares it vanish from his hand, or be transformed into something hostile.

The reading of Mr. Grantley’s will was, for various reasons, postponed until about a week after his funeral. Merton Fillmore, who had charge of it, had sent a communication to the Marquise Desmoines to be present on the occasion; but she, after some delay, finally let it be known that she declined the invitation, observing that she had but the slightest acquaintance with the gentleman who called himself Grant, or Grantley, and that it was impossible to suppose that she could have any interest in the disposition of his property; from which it may be inferred that she had made up her mind to ignore, ostensively if not also from conviction, his pretensions to relationship with her. Upon receiving her letter, Fillmore stroked his chin with a slight, ambiguous smile, and forthwith took measures to convene the meeting at Mrs. Lockhart’s house on the following morning, at twelve o’clock.

Now, it so happened that Philip had, the evening previous, received a note from his publisher in the city, requesting his presence at the office betimes the next day. For Philip’s labors during the last few months had resulted in the production of a poem, more ambitious in design and larger in scope than anything he had heretofore attempted. His earlier writings, indeed, had been chiefly lyrical in character, and had been rather indicative of poetical moods and temperament in the author than of those unmistakable gifts of seeing, feeling, and creating that belong to poets by divine right. He had made good his claims to be ranked among the aristocracy of genius—possibly among those whose place is near the throne; but he had as yet put forward no serious pretensions to wear the royal crown on his own brows. The present work, which bore the title of Iduna, seems to have been a semi-mystical composition, cast in a more or less dramatic form, and aiming to portray the conflict which is to some extent going on in every human heart, between the love that consults and indulges selfish interests or impulses, and that nobler and purer love which strikes through the mortal and temporary symbol to the divine and eternal reality. To illustrate this theme, Philip had imagined a wild, sea-beaten kingdom, situated somewhere in the unexplored ocean of time; a rocky vision of a royal castle, and living there a warrior-king, grim, whose beard drifts like the snow blown from a mountain-top across the sky. To him was born Iduna, glorious in beauty, untamable in spirit, dowered from her infancy with mysterious and half-supernatural gifts. For once, when little more than a baby, she had wandered alone from the castle, and down to the misty reaches of the wave-beaten shore. What happened to her there was never known; but round her neck was hung a broad necklace, wrought with more than human skill of workmanship, of unknown shells and precious stones and links of virgin gold. The necklace was endowed with talismanic attributes, conferring on the grim king’s daughter miraculous powers and the lustre of a goddess; and it was whispered among the people that it was the gift of some mighty spirit of the sea, some ocean demi-god, who had met the little princess on the shore, and who, if she remained true to the sublimity of her fate, would one day claim her for his bride. But woe to her should the magic necklace be lost or yielded up! At these foolish fancies the grim king laughed and tossed his beard; but, as Iduna grew in stature and in the splendor of her beauty, men said that for such as she no merely human destiny was meet; and when, at certain seasons, the sea thundered more resoundingly along the coast, and the wreaths of foam were swept by the fierce breeze past the castle battlements, Iduna would mount her horse and ride forth, as if she heard the voice of her god-like lover calling to her in the gale, and saw his form moving towards her over the tumultuous crests of the ocean billows; though to other eyes than hers he would appear but as a pillar of gleaming mist, a stately phantom of the storm, half seen, half imagined. At these superstitions the grim king frowned, and swore by his beard that the girl should learn—and that ere long—the sufficient worth of a mortal bridegroom.

Of this earthly love; of the loss of the magic necklace, and with it the protection of the sea-god; of Iduna’s imprisonment in the castle; of her final recovery of her talisman by the self-sacrificing agency of the mortal lover whose happiness depended upon withholding it from her; and of her escape from the castle: no more than a hint can be given. Seaward she rode, and the storm came up to meet her. But the tidings of her flight came to the king, and he mounted his war-horse and thundered with all his knights in pursuit. Wilder grew the storm; the heavens were darkened, and seemed to stoop to the earth; strange sounds, as of the fierce mutterings and laughter of viewless spirits, filled the air. Yet still the grim king rode on, and, filled with grisly forebodings, his knights pressed after him in silence. Then the blast shrieked madly in their ears; the earth rocked and shuddered; ghastly lights flickered along the blackness of the sky; and the sea, gathering itself together in a thunder-smitten battlement of toppling surges, swept forward on the land. Yet, ere it engulfed them forever, they saw by the glimmer of phantom fires, the form of Iduna flying far before them, her black hair floating backward on the hurricane, and the magic necklace flashing round her neck. And even as the waters smote them, a god-like apparition seemed to emerge resplendent and serene from the midmost heart of the tempest; toward him Iduna stretched her arms, and was folded to his breast.

When the sun rose again, castle and kingdom, knights and king had vanished, and the gray sea rolled its murmuring billows fathoms overhead. But tradition tells that in the night, after the princess had gone forth, the lover who had liberated her to his own dear cost mounted to the topmost turret and gazed seaward, and as the destroying wave came towering toward him through the roar and terror of the darkness, he saw, riding with it on its awful crest, two beings of superhuman beauty and grandeur. As they drew near him, he bowed his head, trembling; but his heart seemed to hear a voice that was like Iduna’s murmuring his name, and her soft fingers touched his cheek. He seemed to be gathered up out of himself, and to move beside her; the tempest was still; they were together and alone, and the morning broke.

Such, in bare prose, is the outline of the poem to the making of which Philip had brought his best talents and energies, and on the merits of which he had been fain to stake his fame. Being done, however, and in the printers’ hands, he had lost heart about it; felt that it was cold and inadequate, and regretted that he had not been wise enough to have kept it for ten years, and then destroyed it. Accordingly his publisher’s summons, coming as it did within a fortnight of the time the book appeared, failed to kindle in him any pleasurable anticipations; and on his way to the city he pretty well made up his mind to abandon poetry as a profession, and take to something else. It was all very well to amuse one’s self with such vanities while one is a boy, but now that he was about to take to himself a wife, Philip felt that he ought to adopt some more remunerative calling. He presented himself at the office, with a very grave face, about ten o’clock.

The publisher bowed, and begged Mr. Lancaster to be seated. “I should have had the honor to wait upon you at your own residence, sir,” he said, “but as it was desirable to have your signature to some receipts, and for other business reasons, I took the liberty—er—well! Now, Mr. Lancaster, I don’t know what your expectations were; it was only natural that they should have been great; so were mine; but, to tell you the truth ... however, judge for yourself.” And he handed him a paper, on which was a brief statement of accounts. “We have been on the market only ten days last Wednesday,” added the publisher, “and I call the results thus far fair—fair! Sir, they deserved to be; but I doubt not we shall do better yet.”

“What is this about?” inquired Philip, who had been staring at the paper. “What does this entry of eleven hundred and fifty pounds mean?”

“Your profits on the percentage as agreed upon,” answered the publisher. “We published at ten and sixpence, you know.”

“Oh ... I see!” said Philip, quietly. His heart heaved, and he knew not whether he were more likely to burst into a storm of tears or a shout of laughter. “That seems to me very good indeed,” he compelled himself to add. “Didn’t expect the half of it.”