Book: A Strange Story, Volume 6.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> A Strange Story, Volume 6.
"I think that open door leads at once to the rooms Mr. Margrave hires; he
can go in and out without disturbing the other inmates. They used to
keep, on the side which they inhabit, a beer-house, but the magistrates
shut it up; still, it is a resort for bad characters. Now, sir, what
shall we do?
"Watch separately. You wait within the enclosure of the wall, hid by
those heaps of rubbish, near the door; none can enter but what you will
observe them. If you see her, you will accost and stop her, and call
aloud for me; I shall be in hearing. I will go back to the high part of
the ground yonder--it seems to me that she must pass that way; and I would
desire, if possible, to save her from the humiliation, the--the shame of
coming within the precincts of that man's abode. I feel I may trust you
now and hereafter. It is a great thing for the happiness and honour of
this poor young lady and her mother, that I may be able to declare that I
did not take her from that man, from any man--from that house, from any
house. You comprehend me, and will obey? I speak to you as a
confidant,--a friend."
"I thank you with my whole heart, sir, for so doing. You saved my
sister's life, and the least I can do is to keep secret all that would
pain your life if blabbed abroad. I know what mischief folks' tongues can
make. I will wait by the door, never fear, and will rather lose my place
than not strain all the legal power I possess to keep the young lady back
from sorrow."
This dialogue was interchanged in close hurried whisper behind the broken
wall, and out of all hearing. Waby now crept through a wide gap into the
inclosure, and nestled himself silently amidst the wrecks of the broken
boat, not six feet from the open door, and close to the wall of the house
itself. I went back some thirty yards up the road, to the rising ground
which I had pointed out to him. According to the best calculation I could
make--considering the pace at which I had cleared the precipitous pathway,
and reckoning from the place and time at which Lilian had been last
seen-she could not possibly have yet entered that house. I might presume
it would be more than half an hour before she could arrive; I was in hopes
that, during the interval, Margrave might show himself, perhaps at the
door, or from the windows, or I might even by some light from the latter
be guided to the room in which to find him. If, after waiting a
reasonable time, Lilian should fail to appear, I had formed my plan of
action; but it was important for the success of that plan that I should
not lose myself in the strange house, nor bring its owners to Margrave's
aid,--that I should surprise him alone and unawares. Half an hour, three
quarters, a whole hour thus passed. No sign of my poor wanderer; but
signs there were of the enemy from whom I resolved, at whatever risk, to
free and to save her. A window on the ground-floor, to the left of the
door, which had long fixed my attention because I had seen light through
the chinks of the shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back, the
casement opened, and I beheld Margrave distinctly; he held something in
his hand that gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards the mound on
which I stood, nor towards the path I had taken, but towards an open space
beyond the ruined wall to the right. Hid by a cluster of stunted shrubs I
watched him with a heart that beat with rage, not with terror. He seemed
so intent in his own gaze as to be unheeding or unconscious of all else.
I stole from my post, and, still under cover, sometimes of the broken
wall, sometimes of the shaggy ridges that skirted the path, crept on, on
till I reached the side of the house itself; then, there secure from his
eyes, should he turn them, I stepped over the ruined wall, scarcely two
feet high in that place, on--on towards the door. I passed the spot on
which the policeman had shrouded himself; he was seated, his back against
the ribs of the broken boat. I put my hand to his mouth that he might not
cry out in surprise, and whispered in his ear; he stirred not. I shook
him by the arm: still he stirred not. A ray of the moon fell on his face.
I saw that he was in a profound slumber. Persuaded that it was no natural
sleep, and that he had become useless to me, I passed him by. I was at
the threshold of the open door, the light from the window close by falling
on the ground; I was in the passage; a glimmer came through the chinks of
a door to the left; I turned the handle noiselessly, and, the next moment,
Margrave was locked in my grasp.
"Call out," I hissed in his ear, "and I strangle you before any one can
come to your help."
He did not call out; his eye, fixed on mine as he writhed round, saw,
perhaps, his peril if he did. His countenance betrayed fear, but as I
tightened my grasp that expression gave way to one of wrath and
fierceness; and as, in turn, I felt the grip of his hand, I knew that
the struggle between us would be that of two strong men, each equally
bent on the mastery of the other.
I was, as I have said before, endowed with an unusual degree of physical
power, disciplined in early youth by athletic exercise and contest. In
height and in muscle I had greatly the advantage over my antagonist; but
such was the nervous vigour, the elastic energy of his incomparable frame,
in which sinews seemed springs of steel, that had our encounter been one
in which my strength was less heightened by rage, I believe that I could
no more have coped with him than the bison can cope with the boa; but I
was animated by that passion which trebles for a time all our
forces,--which makes even the weak man a match for the strong. I felt
that if I were worsted, disabled, stricken down, Lilian might be lost in
losing her sole protector; and on the other hand, Margrave had been taken
at the disadvantage of that surprise which will half unnerve the fiercest
of the wild beasts; while as we grappled, reeling and rocking to and fro
in our struggle, I soon observed that his attention was distracted,--that
his eye was turned towards an object which he had dropped involuntarily
when I first seized him. He sought to drag me towards that object, and
when near it stooped to seize. It was a bright, slender, short wand of
steel. I remembered when and where I had seen it, whether in my waking
state or in vision; and as his hand stole down to take it from the floor,
I set on the wand my strong foot. I cannot tell by what rapid process of
thought and association I came to the belief that the possession of a
little piece of blunted steel would decide the conflict in favor of the
possessor; but the struggle now was concentred on the attainment of that
seemingly idle weapon. I was becoming breathless and exhausted, while
Margrave seemed every moment to gather up new force, when collecting all
my strength for one final effort, I lifted him suddenly high in the air,
and hurled him to the farthest end of the cramped arena to which our
contest was confined. He fell, and with a force by which most men would
have been stunned; but he recovered himself with a quick rebound, and, as
he stood facing me, there was something grand as well as terrible in his
aspect. His eyes literally flamed, as those of a tiger; his rich hair,
flung back from his knitted forehead, seemed to erect itself as an angry
mane; his lips, slightly parted, showed the glitter of his set teeth; his
whole frame seemed larger in the tension of the muscles, and as, gradually
relaxing his first defying and haughty attitude, he crouched as the
panther crouches for its deadly spring, I felt as if it were a wild beast,
whose rush was coming upon me,--wild beast, but still Man, the king of
the animals, fashioned forth from no mixture of humbler races by the slow
revolutions of time, but his royalty stamped on his form when the earth
became fit for his coming.[1]
At that moment I snatched up the wand, directed it towards him, and
advancing with a fearless stride, cried,--
"Down to my feet, miserable sorcerer!"
To my own amaze, the effect was instantaneous. My terrible antagonist
dropped to the floor as a dog drops at the word of his master. The
muscles of his frowning countenance relaxed, the glare of his wrathful
eyes grew dull and rayless; his limbs lay prostrate and unnerved, his head
rested against the wall, his arms limp and drooping by his side. I
approached him slowly and cautiously; he seemed cast into a profound
slumber.
"You are at my mercy now!" said I.
He moved his head as in sign of deprecating submission.
"You hear and understand me? Speak!"
His lips faintly muttered, "Yes."
"I command you to answer truly the questions I shall address to you."
"I must, while yet sensible of the power that has passed to your hand."
"Is it by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you have
exercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as Lilian
Ashleigh?"
"By that wand and by other arts which you could not comprehend."
"And for what infamous object,--her seduction, her dishonour?"
"No! I sought in her the aid of a gift which would cease did she cease
to be pure. At first I but cast my influence upon her that through her I
might influence yourself. I needed your help to discover a secret.
Circumstances steeled your mind against me. I could no longer hope that
you would voluntarily lend yourself to my will. Meanwhile, I had found in
her the light of a loftier knowledge than that of your science; through
that knowledge, duly heeded and cultivated, I hoped to divine what I
cannot of myself discover. Therefore I deepened over her mind the spells
I command; therefore I have drawn her hither as the loadstone draws the
steel, and therefore I would have borne her with me to the shores to which
I was about this night to sail. I had cast the inmates of the house and
all around it into slumber, in order that none might witness her
departure; had I not done so, I should have summoned others to my aid, in
spite of your threat."
"And would Lilian Ashleigh have passively accompanied you, to her own
irretrievable disgrace?"
"She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of her
acts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would she
have waked from that state while she lived; that would not have been
long."
"Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert an
influence which withers away the life of its victim?"
"Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life
beyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on."
"And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret of
renewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image on
the night when we met last?"
The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and his
countenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal.
"Be quick," he murmured, "or I die. The fluid which emanates from that
wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and
rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead!
low--low,--lower still!"
"What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?"
"I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a
great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your
eye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!"
The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed.
"One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question,
and I depart."
He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, and
gasped out,--
"Yonder. Pass through the open space up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree;
you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from my
hand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her!
They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!" Here
his face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shrieked
out, "Away! away! or you are my murderer!"
I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, and
when I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but he
seemed locked in a profound swoon.
I left the room,--the house,--paused by Waby; he was still sleeping.
"Awake!" I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once,
rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and bade
him follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margrave
had pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantastic
thorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; her
face, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that I
needed no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the peril
to which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. "Come
with me," I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with a
placid smile.
Rough though the way, she seemed unconscious of fatigue. I placed her
arm in mine, but she did not lean on it. We got back to the town. I
obtained there an old chaise and a pair of horses. At morning Lilian
was under her mother's roof. About the noon of that day fever seized
her; she became rapidly worse, and, to all appearance, in imminent
danger. Delirium set in; I watched beside her night and day,
supported by an inward conviction of her recovery, but tortured by
the sight of her sufferings. On the third day a change for the better
became visible; her sleep was calm, her breathing regular.
Shortly afterwards she woke out of danger. Her eyes fell at once on me,
with all their old ineffable tender sweetness.
"Oh, Allen, beloved, have I not been very ill? But I am almost well now.
Do not weep; I shall live for you,--for your sake." And she bent forward,
drawing my hand from my streaming eyes, and kissed me with a child's
guileless kiss on my burning forehead.
[1] And yet, even if we entirely omit the consideration of the soul, that
immaterial and immortal principle which is for a time united to his body,
and view him only in his merely animal character, man is still the most
excellent of animals.--Dr. Kidd, On the Adaptation of External Nature to
the Physical Condition of Man (Sect. iii. p. 18).
CHAPTER LVI.
Lilian recovered, but the strange thing was this: all memory of the weeks
that had elapsed since her return from visiting her aunt was completely
obliterated; she seemed in profound ignorance of the charge on which I
had been confined,--perfectly ignorant even of the existence of Margrave.
She had, indeed, a very vague reminiscence of her conversation with me in
the garden,--the first conversation which had ever been embittered by a
disagreement,--but that disagreement itself she did not recollect. Her
belief was that she had been ill and light-headed since that evening.
From that evening to the hour of her waking, conscious and revived, all
was a blank. Her love for me was restored, as if its thread had never
been broken. Some such instances of oblivion after bodily illness or
mental shock are familiar enough to the practice of all medical men;[1]
and I was therefore enabled to appease the anxiety and wonder of Mrs.
Ashleigh, by quoting various examples of loss, or suspension, of memory.
We agreed that it would be necessary to break to Lilian, though very
cautiously, the story of Sir Philip Derval's murder, and the charge to
which I had been subjected. She could not fail to hear of those events
from others. How shall I express her womanly terror, her loving,
sympathizing pity, on hearing the tale, which I softened as well as I
could?
"And to think that I knew nothing of this!" she cried, clasping my hand;
"to think that you were in peril, and that I was not by your side!"
Her mother spoke of Margrave, as a visitor,--an agreeable, lively
stranger; Lilian could not even recollect his name, but she seemed shocked
to think that any visitor had been admitted while I was in circumstances
so awful! Need I say that our engagement was renewed? Renewed! To her
knowledge and to her heart it had never been interrupted for a moment.
But oh! the malignity of the wrong world! Oh, that strange lust of
mangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least wantonly cruel!
Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third person, who never
offended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, like fire, lighted none
know how, in the herbage of an American prairie! Who shall put it out?
What right have we to pry into the secrets of other men's hearths? True
or false, the tale that is gabbled to us, what concern of ours can it be?
I speak not of cases to which the law has been summoned, which law has
sifted, on which law has pronounced. But how, when the law is silent, can
we assume its verdicts? How be all judges where there has been no
witness-box, no cross-examination, no jury? Yet, every day we put on our
ermine, and make ourselves judges,--judges sure to condemn, and on what
evidence? That which no court of law will receive. Somebody has said
something to somebody, which somebody repeats to everybody!
The gossip of L---- had set in full current against Lilian's fair name.
No ladies had called or sent to congratulate Mrs. Ashleigh on her return,
or to inquire after Lilian herself during her struggle between life and
death.
How I missed the Queen of the Hill at this critical moment! How I longed
for aid to crush the slander, with which I knew not how to grapple,--aid
in her knowledge of the world and her ascendancy over its judgments! I
had heard from her once since her absence, briefly but kindly expressing
her amazement at the ineffable stupidity which could for a moment have
subjected me to a suspicion of Sir Philip Derval's strange murder, and
congratulating me heartily on my complete vindication from so monstrous a
charge. To this letter no address was given. I supposed the omission to
be accidental, but on calling at her house to inquire her direction, I
found that the servants did not know it.
What, then, was my joy when just at this juncture I received a note from
Mrs. Poyntz, stating that she had returned the night before, and would be
glad to see me.
I hastened to her house. "Ah," thought I, as I sprang lightly up the
ascent to the Hill, "how the tattlers will be silenced by a word from her
imperial lips!" And only just as I approached her door did it strike me
how difficult--nay, how impossible--to explain to her--the hard positive
woman, her who had, less ostensibly but more ruthlessly than myself,
destroyed Dr. Lloyd for his belief in the comparatively rational
pretensions of clairvoyance--all the mystical excuses for Lilian's flight
from her home? How speak to her--or, indeed, to any one--about an occult
fascination and a magic wand? No matter: surely it would be enough to say
that at the time Lilian had been light-headed, under the influence of the
fever which had afterwards nearly proved fatal, The early friend of Anne
Ashleigh would not be a severe critic on any tale that might right the
good name of Anne Ashleigh's daughter. So assured, with a light heart and
a cheerful face, I followed the servant into the great lady's pleasant but
decorous presence-chamber.
[1] Such instances of suspense of memory are recorded in most
physiological and in some metaphysical works. Dr. Abercrombie notices
some, more or less similar to that related in the text: "A young lady
who was present at a catastrophe in Scotland, in which many people lost
their lives by the fall of the gallery of a church, escaped without any
injury, but with the complete loss of the recollection of any of the
circumstances; and this extended not only to the accident, but to
everything that had occurred to her for a certain time before going to
church. A lady whom I attended some years ago in a protracted illness, in
which her memory became much impaired, lost the recollection of a period
of about ten or twelve years, but spoke with perfect consistency of things
as they stood before that time." Dr. Aberercmbie adds: "As far as I have
been able to trace it, the principle in such cases seems to be, that when
the memory is impaired to a certain degree, the loss of it extends
backward to some event or some period by which a particularly deep
impression had been made upon the mind."--ABERCROMBIE: On the
Intellectual Powers, pp. 118, 119 (15th edition).
CHAPTER LVII.
Mrs. Poyntz was on her favourite seat by the window, and for a wonder, not
knitting--that classic task seemed done; but she was smoothing and folding
the completed work with her white comely hand, and smiling over it, as if
in complacent approval, when I entered the room. At the fire-side sat the
he-colonel inspecting a newly-invented barometer; at another window, in
the farthest recess of the room, stood Miss Jane Poyntz, with a young
gentleman whom I had never before seen, but who turned his eyes full upon
me with a haughty look as the servant announced my name. He was tall,
well proportioned, decidedly handsome, but with that expression of cold
and concentred self-esteem in his very attitude, as well as his
countenance, which makes a man of merit unpopular, a man without merit
ridiculous.
The he-colonel, always punctiliously civil, rose from his seat, shook
hands with me cordially, and said, "Coldish weather to-day; but we shall
have rain to-morrow. Rainy seasons come in cycles. We are about to
commence a cycle of them with heavy showers." He sighed, and returned to
his barometer.
Miss Jane bowed to me graciously enough, but was evidently a little
confused,--a circumstance which might well attract my notice, for I had
never before seen that high-bred young lady deviate a hairsbreadth from
the even tenor of a manner admirable for a cheerful and courteous ease,
which, one felt convinced, would be unaltered to those around her if an
earthquake swallowed one up an inch before her feet.
The young gentleman continued to eye me loftily, as the heir-apparent to
some celestial planet might eye an inferior creature from a half-formed
nebula suddenly dropped upon his sublime and perfected, star.
Mrs. Poyntz extended to me two fingers, and said frigidly, "Delighted to
see you again! How kind to attend so soon to my note!"
Motioning me to a seat beside her, she here turned to her husband, and
said, "Poyntz, since a cycle of rain begins tomorrow, better secure your
ride to-day. Take these young people with you. I want to talk with Dr.
Fenwick."
The colonel carefully put away his barometer, and saying to his daughter,
"Come!" went forth. Jane followed her father; the young gentleman
followed Jane.
The reception I had met chilled and disappointed me. I felt that Mrs.
Poyntz was changed, and in her change the whole house seemed changed. The
very chairs looked civilly unfriendly, as if preparing to turn their backs
on me. However, I was not in the false position of an intruder; I had
been summoned; it was for Mrs. Poyntz to speak first, and I waited quietly
for her to do so.
She finished the careful folding of her work, and then laid it at rest in
the drawer of the table at which she sat. Having so done, she turned to
me, and said,--
"By the way, I ought to have introduced to you my young guest, Mr.
Ashleigh Sumner. You would like him. He has talents,--not showy, but
solid. He will succeed in public life."
"So that young man is Mr. Ashleigh Sumner? I do not wonder that Miss
Ashleigh rejected him."
I said this, for I was nettled, as well as surprised, at the coolness with
which a lady who had professed a friendship for me mentioned that
fortunate young gentleman, with so complete an oblivion of all the
antecedents that had once made his name painful to my ear.
In turn, my answer seemed to nettle Mrs. Poyntz.
"I am not so sure that she did reject; perhaps she rather misunderstood
him; gallant compliments are not always proposals of marriage. However
that be, his spirits were not much damped by Miss Ashleigh's disdain, nor
his heart deeply smitten by her charms; for he is now very happy, very
much attached to another young lady, to whom he proposed three days ago,
at Lady Delafield's, and not to make a mystery of what all our little
world will know before tomorrow, that young lady is my daughter Jane."
"Were I acquainted with Mr. Sumner, I should offer to him my sincere
congratulations."
Mrs. Poyntz resumed, without heeding a reply more complimentary to Miss
Jane than to the object of her choice,--
"I told you that I meant Jane to marry a rich country gentleman, and
Ashleigh Sumner is the very country gentleman I had then in my thoughts.
He is cleverer and more ambitious than I could have hoped; he will be a
minister some day, in right of his talents, and a peer, if he wishes it,
in right of his lands. So that matter is settled."
There was a pause, during which my mind passed rapidly through links of
reminiscence and reasoning, which led me to a mingled sentiment of
admiration for Mrs. Poyntz as a diplomatist and of distrust for Mrs.
Poyntz as a friend. It was now clear why Mrs. Poyntz, before so little
disposed to approve my love, had urged me at once to offer my hand to
Lilian, in order that she might depart affianced and engaged to the house
in which she would meet Mr. Ashleigh Sumner. Hence Mrs. Poyntz's anxiety
to obtain all the information I could afford her of the sayings and
doings at Lady Haughton's; hence, the publicity she had so suddenly given
to my engagement; hence, when Mr. Sumner had gone away a rejected suitor,
her own departure from L----; she had seized the very moment when a vain
and proud man, piqued by the mortification received from one lady, falls
the easier prey to the arts which allure his suit to another. All was so
far clear to me. And I--was my self-conceit less egregious and less
readily duped than that of yon glided popinjay's! How skilfully this
woman had knitted me into her work with the noiseless turn of her white
hands! and yet, forsooth, I must vaunt the superior scope of my intellect,
and plumb all the fountains of Nature,--I, who could not fathom the little
pool of this female schemer's mind!