Book: A Strange Story, Volume 5.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> A Strange Story, Volume 5.




[3] Bacon's "Essay on Atheism." This quotation is made with admirable
felicity and force by Dr. Whewell, page 378 of Bridgewater Treatise on
Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural
Theology.




CHAPTER XLVII.

That night, as I sat in my study, very thoughtful and very mournful, I
resolved all that Julius Faber had said; and the impression his words had
produced became gradually weaker and weaker, as my reason, naturally
combative, rose up with all the replies which my philosophy suggested.
No; if my imagination had really seduced and betrayed me into monstrous
credulities, it was clear that the best remedy to such morbid tendencies
towards the Superstitious was in the severe exercise of the faculties most
opposed to Superstition,--in the culture of pure reasoning, in the science
of absolute fact. Accordingly, I placed before me the very book which
Julius Faber had advised me to burn; I forced all my powers of
mind to go again over the passages which contained the doctrines that his
admonition had censured; and before daybreak, I had stated the substance
of his argument, and the logical reply to it, in an elaborate addition to
my chapter on "Sentimental Philosophers." While thus rejecting the
purport of his parting counsels, I embodied in another portion of my work
his views on my own "illusions;" and as here my commonsense was in concord
with his, I disposed of all my own previous doubts in an addition to my
favourite chapter "On the Cheats of the Imagination." And when the pen
dropped from my hand, and the day-star gleamed through the window, my
heart escaped from the labour of my mind, and flew back to the image of
Lilian. The pride of the philosopher died out of me, the sorrow of the
man reigned supreme, and I shrank from the coming of the sun, despondent.




CHAPTER XLVIII.

Not till the law had completed its proceedings, and satisfied the public
mind as to the murder of Sir Philip Derval, were the remains of the
deceased consigned to the family mausoleum. The funeral was, as may be
supposed, strictly private, and when it was over, the excitement caused by
an event so tragical and singular subsided. New topics engaged the public
talk, and--in my presence, at least--the delicate consideration due to one
whose name had been so painfully mixed up in the dismal story forbore a
topic which I could not be expected to hear without distressful emotion.
Mrs. Ashleigh I saw frequently at my own house; she honestly confessed
that Lilian had not shown that grief at the cancelling of our engagement
which would alone justify Mrs. Ashleigh in asking me again to see her
daughter, and retract my conclusions against our union. She said that
Lilian was quiet, not uncheerful, never spoke of me nor of Margrave, but
seemed absent and pre-occupied as before, taking pleasure in nothing that
had been wont to please her; not in music, nor books, nor that tranquil
pastime which women call work, and in which they find excuse to meditate,
in idleness, their own fancies. She rarely stirred out, even in the
garden; when she did, her eyes seemed to avoid the house in which Margrave
had lodged, and her steps the old favourite haunt by the Monks' Well. She
would remain silent for long hours together, but the silence did not
appear melancholy. For the rest, her health was more than usually good.
Still Mrs. Ashleigh persisted in her belief that, sooner or later, Lilian
would return to her former self, her former sentiments for me; and she
entreated me not, as yet, to let the world know that our engagement was
broken off. "For if," she said, with good sense, "if it should prove not
to be broken off, only suspended, and afterwards happily renewed, there
will be two stories to tell when no story be needed. Besides, I should
dread the effect on Lilian, if offensive gossips babbled to her on a
matter that would excite so much curiosity as the rupture of a union in
which our neighbours have taken so general an interest."

I had no reason to refuse acquiescence in Mrs. Ashleigh's request, but I
did not share in her hopes; I felt that the fair prospects of my life
were blasted; I could never love another, never wed another; I resigned
myself to a solitary hearth, rejoiced, at least, that Margrave had not
revisited at Mrs. Ashleigh's,--had not, indeed, reappeared in the town.
He was still staying with Strahan, who told me that his guest had
ensconced himself in Forman's old study, and amused himself with
reading--though not for long at a time--the curious old books and
manuscripts found in the library, or climbing trees like a schoolboy, and
familiarizing himself with the deer and the cattle, which would group
round him quite tame, and feed from his hand. Was this the description of
a criminal? But if Sir Philip's assertion were really true; if the
criminal were man without soul; if without soul, man would have no
conscience, never be troubled by repentance, and the vague dread of a
future world,--why, then, should not the criminal be gay despite his
crimes, as the white bear gambols as friskly after his meal on human
flesh? These questions would haunt me, despite my determination to accept
as the right solution of all marvels the construction put on my narrative
by Julius Faber.

Days passed; I saw and heard nothing of Margrave. I began half to hope
that, in the desultory and rapid changes of mood and mind which
characterized his restless nature, he had forgotten my existence.

One morning I went out early on my rounds, when I met Straban
unexpectedly.

"I was in search of you," he said, "for more than one person has told me
that you are looking ill and jaded. So you are! And the town now is hot
and unhealthy. You must come to Derval Court for a week or so. You can
ride into town every day to see your patients. Don't refuse. Margrave,
who is still with me, sends all kind messages, and bade me say that he
entreats you to come to the house at which he also is a guest!"

I started. What had the Scin-Laeca required of me, and obtained to that
condition my promise?" If you are asked to the house at which I also am a
guest, you will come; you will meet and converse with me as guest speaks
to guest in the house of a host!" Was this one of the coincidences which
my reason was bound to accept as coincidences, and nothing more? Tut,
tut! Was I returning again to my "hallucinations"? Granting that Faber
and common-sense were in the right, what was this Margrave? A man to
whose friendship, acuteness, and energy I was under the deepest
obligations,--to whom I was indebted for active services that had saved my
life from a serious danger, acquitted my honour of a horrible suspicion.
"I thank you," I said to Strahan, "I will come; not, indeed, for a week,
but, at all events, for a day or two."

"That's right; I will call for you in the carriage at six o'clock. You
will have done your day's work by then?"

"Yes; I will so arrange."

On our way to Derval Court that evening, Strahan talked much about
Margrave, of whom, nevertheless, he seemed to be growing weary.

"His high spirits are too much for one," said he; "and then so
restless,--so incapable of sustained quiet conversation. And, clever
though he is, he can't help me in the least about the new house I shall
build. He has no notion of construction. I don't think he could build a
barn."

"I thought you did not like to demolish the old house, and would content
yourself with pulling down the more ancient part of it?"

"True. At first it seemed a pity to destroy so handsome a mansion; but
you see, since poor Sir Philip's manuscript, on which he set such store,
has been too mutilated, I fear, to allow me to effect his wish with regard
to it, I think I ought at least scrupulously to obey his other whims.
And, besides, I don't know, there are odd noises about the old house. I
don't believe in haunted houses; still there is something dreary in
strange sounds at the dead of night, even if made by rats, or winds
through decaying rafters. You, I remember at college, had a taste for
architecture, and can draw plans. I wish to follow out Sir Philip's
design, but on a smaller scale, and with more attention to comfort."

Thus he continued to run on, satisfied to find me a silent and attentive
listener. We arrived at the mansion an hour before sunset, the westering
light shining full against the many windows cased in mouldering pilasters,
and making the general dilapidation of the old place yet more mournfully
evident.

It was but a few minutes to the dinner-hour. I went up at once to the
room appropriated to me,--not the one I had before occupied. Strahan had
already got together a new establishment. I was glad to find in the
servant who attended me an old acquaintance. He had been in my own employ
when I first settled at L----, and left me to get married. He and his
wife were now both in Strahan's service. He spoke warmly of his new
master and his contentment with his situation, while he unpacked my
carpet-bag and assisted me to change my dress. But the chief object of
his talk and his praise was Mr. Margrave.

"Such a bright young gentleman, like the first fine day in May!"

When I entered the drawing-room, Margrave and Strahan were both there.
The former was blithe and genial, as usual, in his welcome. At dinner,
and during the whole evening till we retired severally to our own rooms,
he was the principal talker,--recounting incidents of travel, always very
loosely strung together, jesting, good-humouredly enough, at Strahan's
sudden hobby for building, then putting questions to me about mutual
acquaintances, but never waiting for an answer; and every now and then, as
if at random, startling us with some brilliant aphorism, or some
suggestion drawn from abstract science or unfamiliar erudition. The whole
effect was sparkling, but I could well understand that, if long continued,
it would become oppressive. The soul has need of pauses of
repose,--intervals of escape, not only from the flesh, but even from the
mind. A man of the loftiest intellect will experience times when mere
intellect not only fatigues him, but amidst its most original conceptions,
amidst its proudest triumphs, has a something trite and commonplace
compared with one of those vague intimations of a spiritual destiny which
are not within the ordinary domain of reason; and, gazing abstractedly
into space, will leave suspended some problem of severest thought, or
uncompleted some golden palace of imperial poetry, to indulge in hazy
reveries, that do not differ from those of an innocent, quiet child! The
soul has a long road to travel--from time through eternity. It demands
its halting hours of contemplation. Contemplation is serene. But with
such wants of an immortal immaterial spirit, Margrave had no fellowship,
no sympathy; and for myself, I need scarcely add that the lines I have
just traced I should not have written at the date at which my narrative
has now arrived.




CHAPTER XLIX.

I had no case that necessitated my return to L---- the following day. The
earlier hours of the forenoon I devoted to Strahan and his building plans.
Margrave flitted in and out of the room fitfully as an April sunbeam,
sometimes flinging himself on a sofa, and reading for a few minutes one of
the volumes of the ancient mystics, in which Sir Philip's library was so
rich. I remember it was a volume of Proclus. He read that crabbed and
difficult Greek with a fluency that surprised me. "I picked up the
ancient Greek," said he, "years ago, in learning the modern." But the
book soon tired him; then he would come and disturb us, archly enjoying
Strahan's peevishness at interruption; then he would throw open the window
and leap down, chanting one of his wild savage airs; and in another moment
he was half hid under the drooping boughs of a broad lime-tree, amidst the
antlers of deer that gathered fondly round him. In the afternoon my host
was called away to attend some visitors of importance, and I found myself
on the sward before the house, right in view of the mausoleum and alone
with Margrave.

I turned my eyes from that dumb House of Death wherein rested the corpse
of the last lord of the soil, so strangely murdered, with a strong desire
to speak out to Margrave the doubts respecting himself that tortured me.
But--setting aside the promise to the contrary, which I had given, or
dreamed I had given, to the Luminous Shadow--to fulfil that desire would
have been impossible,--impossible to any one gazing on that radiant
youthful face! I think I see him now as I saw him then: a white doe, that
even my presence could not scare away from him, clung lovingly to his
side, looking up at him with her soft eyes. He stood there like the
incarnate principle of mythological sensuous life. I have before applied
to him that illustration; let the repetition be pardoned. Impossible, I
repeat it, to say to that creature, face to face, "Art thou the master of
demoniac arts, and the instigator of secret murder?" As if from
redundant happiness within himself, he was humming, or rather cooing, a
strain of music, so sweet, so wildly sweet, and so unlike the music one
hears from tutored lips in crowded rooms! I passed my hand over my
forehead in bewilderment and awe.

"Are there," I said unconsciously,--"are there, indeed, such prodigies in
Nature?"

"Nature!" he cried, catching up the word; "talk to me of Nature! Talk of
her, the wondrous blissful mother! Mother I may well call her. I am her
spoiled child, her darling! But oh, to die, ever to die, ever to lose
sight of Nature!--to rot senseless, whether under these turfs or within
those dead walls--"

I could not resist the answer,--

"Like yon murdered man! murdered, and by whom?"

"By whom? I thought that was clearly proved."

"The hand was proved; what influence moved the hand?"

"Tush! the poor wretch spoke of a Demon. Who can tell? Nature herself is
a grand destroyer. See that pretty bird, in its beak a writhing worm!
All Nature's children live to take life; none, indeed, so lavishly as man.
What hecatombs slaughtered, not to satisfy the irresistible sting of
hunger, but for the wanton ostentation of a feast, which he may scarcely
taste, or for the mere sport that he finds in destroying! We speak with
dread of the beasts of prey: what beast of prey is so dire a ravager as
man,--so cruel and so treacherous? Look at yon flock of sheep, bred and
fattened for the shambles; and this hind that I caress,--if I were the
park-keeper, and her time for my bullet had come, would you think her life
was the safer because, in my own idle whim, I had tamed her to trust to
the hand raised to slay her?"

"It is true," said I,--"a grim truth. Nature, on the surface so loving
and so gentle, is full of terror in her deeps when our thought descends
into their abyss!"

Strahan now joined us with a party of country visitors. "Margrave is the
man to show you the beauties of this park," said he. "Margrave knows
every bosk and dingle, twisted old thorn-tree, or opening glade, in its
intricate, undulating ground."

Margrave seemed delighted at this proposition; and as he led us through
the park, though the way was long, though the sun was fierce, no one
seemed fatigued. For the pleasure he felt in pointing out detached
beauties which escaped an ordinary eye was contagious. He did not talk as
talks the poet or the painter; but at some lovely effect of light amongst
the tremulous leaves, some sudden glimpse of a sportive rivulet below, he
would halt, point it out to us in silence, and with a kind of childlike
ecstasy in his own bright face, that seemed to reflect the life and the
bliss of the blithe summer day itself.

Thus seen, all my doubts in his dark secret nature faded away,--all my
horror, all my hate; it was impossible to resist the charm that breathed
round him, not to feel a tender, affectionate yearning towards him as to
some fair happy child. Well might he call himself the Darling of Nature.
Was he not the mysterious likeness of that awful Mother, beautiful as
Apollo in one aspect, direful as Typhon in another?




CHAPTER L.

"What a strange-looking cane you have, sir!" said a little girl, who was
one of the party, and who had entwined her arm round Margrave's. "Let me
look at it."

"Yes," said Strahan," that cane, or rather walking-staff, is worth looking
at. Margrave bought it in Egypt, and declares that it is very ancient."

This staff seemed constructed from a reed: looked at, it seemed light, in
the hand it felt heavy; it was of a pale, faded yellow, wrought with black
rings at equal distances, and graven with half obliterated characters that
seemed hieroglyphic. I remembered to have seen Margrave with it before,
but I had never noticed it with any attention until now, when it was
passed from hand to hand. At the head of the cane there was a large
unpolished stone of a dark blue.

"Is this a pebble or a jewel?" asked one of the party.

"I cannot tell you its name or nature," said Margrave; "but it is said to
cure the bite of serpents[1], and has other supposed virtues,--a talisman,
in short."

He here placed the staff in my hands, and bade me look at it with care.
Then he changed the conversation and renewed the way, leaving the staff
with me, till suddenly I forced it back on him. I could not have
explained why, but its touch, as it warmed in my clasp, seemed to send
through my whole frame a singular thrill, and a sensation as if I no
longer felt my own weight,--as if I walked on air.

Our rambles came to a close; the visitors went away; I re-entered the
house through the sash-window of Forman's study. Margrave threw his hat
and staff on the table, and amused himself with examining minutely the
tracery on the mantelpiece. Strahan and myself left him thus occupied,
and, going into the adjoining library, resumed our task of examining the
plans for the new house. I continued to draw outlines and sketches of
various alterations, tending to simplify and contract Sir Philip's general
design. Margrave soon joined us, and this time took his seat patiently
beside our table, watching me use ruler and compass with unwonted
attention.

"I wish I could draw," he said; "but I can do nothing useful."

"Rich men like you," said Strahan, peevishly, "can engage others, and are
better employed in rewarding good artists than in making bad drawings
themselves."

"Yes, I can employ others; and--Fenwick, when you have finished with
Strahan I will ask permission to employ you, though without reward; the
task I would impose will not take you a minute."

He then threw himself back in his chair, and seemed to fall into a doze.

The dressing-bell rang; Strahan put away the plans,--indeed, they were now
pretty well finished and decided on. Margrave woke up as our host left
the room to dress, and drawing me towards another table in the room,
placed before me one of his favourite mystic books, and, pointing to an
old woodcut, said,

"I will ask you to copy this for me; it pretends to be a facsimile of
Solomon's famous seal. I have a whimsical desire to have a copy of it.
You observe two triangles interlaced and inserted in a circle?--the
pentacle, in short. Yes, just so. You need not add the astrological
characters: they are the senseless superfluous accessories of the dreamer
who wrote the book. But the pentacle itself has an intelligible meaning;
it belongs to the only universal language, the language of symbol, in
which all races that think--around, and above, and below us--can establish
communion of thought. If in the external universe any one constructive
principle can be detected, it is the geometrical; and in every part of the
world in which magic pretends to a written character, I find that its
hieroglyphics are geometrical figures. Is it not laughable that the most
positive of all the sciences should thus lend its angles and circles to
the use of--what shall I call it?--the ignorance?--ay, that is the
word--the ignorance of dealers in magic?"

He took up the paper, on which I had hastily described the triangles and
the circle, and left the room, chanting the serpent-charmer's song.

[1] The following description of a stone at Corfu, celebrated as an
antidote to the venom of the serpent's bite, was given to me by an eminent
scholar and legal functionary in that island:--

DESCRIPTION of THE BLUESTONE.--This stone is of an oval shape 1 2/10 in.
long, 7/10 broad, 3/10 thick, and, having been broken formerly, is now set
in gold.

When a person is bitten by a poisonous snake, the bite must be opened by a
cut of a lancet or razor longways, and the stone applied within
twenty-four hours. The stone then attaches itself firmly on the wound,
and when it has done its office falls off; the cure is then complete. The
stone must then be thrown into milk, whereupon it vomits the poison it has
absorbed, which remains green on the top of the milk, and the stone is
then again fit for use.

This stone has been from time immemorial in the family of Ventura, of
Corfu, a house of Italian origin, and is notorious, so that peasants
immediately apply for its aid. Its virtue has not been impaired by the
fracture. Its nature or composition is unknown.

In a case where two were stung at the same time by serpents, the stone was
applied to one, who recovered; but the other, for whom it could not be
used, died.

It never failed but once, and then it was applied after the twenty-four
hours.

Its colour is so dark as not to be distinguished from black.

P. M. COLQUHOUN.

Corfu, 7th Nov., 1860.

Sir Emerson Tennent, in his popular and excellent work on Ceylon, gives an
account of "snake stones" apparently similar to the one at Corfu, except
that they are "intensely black and highly polished," and which are
applied, in much the same manner, to the wounds inflicted by the
cobra-capella.


QUERY.-Might it not be worth while to ascertain the chemical properties of
these stones, and, if they be efficacious in the extraction of venom
conveyed by a bite, might they not be as successful if applied to the bite
of a mad dog as to that of a cobra-capella?




CHAPTER LI.

When we separated for the night, which we did at eleven o'clock, Margrave
said,--

"Good-night and good-by. I must leave you to-morrow, Strahan, and before
your usual hour for rising. I took the liberty of requesting one of your
men to order me a chaise from L----. Pardon my seeming abruptness, but I
always avoid long leave-takings, and I had fixed the date of my departure
almost as soon as I accepted your invitation."

"I have no right to complain. The place must be dull indeed to a gay
young fellow like you. It is dull even to me. I am meditating flight
already. Are you going back to L----?"

"Not even for such things as I left at my lodgings. When I settle
somewhere and can give an address, I shall direct them to be sent to me.
There are, I hear, beautiful patches of scenery towards the north, only
known to pedestrian tourists. I am a good walker; and you know, Fenwick,
that I am also a child of Nature. Adieu to you both; and many thanks to
you, Strahan, for your hospitality."

He left the room.

"I am not sorry he is going," said Strahan, after a pause, and with a
quick breath as if of relief. "Do you not feel that he exhausts one? An
excess of oxygen, as you would say in a lecture."

I was alone in my own chamber; I felt indisposed for bed and for sleep;
the curious conversation I had held with Margrave weighed on me. In that
conversation, we had indirectly touched upon the prodigies which I had not
brought myself to speak of with frank courage, and certainly nothing in
Margrave's manner had betrayed consciousness of my suspicions; on the
contrary, the open frankness with which he evinced his predilection for
mystic speculation, or uttered his more unamiable sentiments, rather
tended to disarm than encourage belief in gloomy secrets or sinister
powers. And as he was about to quit the neighbourhood, he would not again
see Lilian, not even enter the town of L----. Was I to ascribe this
relief from his presence to the promise of the Shadow; or was I not
rather right in battling firmly against any grotesque illusion, and
accepting his departure as a simple proof that my jealous fears had been
amongst my other chimeras, and that as he had really only visited Lilian
out of friendship to me, in my peril, so he might, with his characteristic
acuteness, have guessed my jealousy, and ceased his visits from a kindly
motive delicately concealed? And might not the same motive now have
dictated the words which were intended to assure me that L---- contained
no attractions to tempt him to return to it? Thus, gradually soothed and
cheered by the course to which my reflections led me, I continued to muse
for hours. At length, looking at my watch, I was surprised to find it was
the second hour after midnight. I was just about to rise from my chair
to undress, and secure some hours of sleep, when the well-remembered cold
wind passed through the room, stirring the roots of my hair; and before me
stood, against the wall, the Luminous Shadow.

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