Bressant Part 25

"Well! let her!" cried the young man, rising roughly from his chair, and shouldering backward and forward across his room with short, incensed steps. "If her proofs can prevent my marriage, let her bring them. She'd better be quick about it! Four days from now! They'd better never have come at all. It's her interest as much as mine--more than mine. She's a half-crazy old creature. She can do nothing for herself. If she has any thing to say, let her say it. I'm no baby, to shape my life after an old woman's story. Who is she? What is she to me?

"Let something happen, I say," continued he, stretching out his great arms, with the fists clinched. "I'm tired of this--the life of a dog with his tail between his legs. Is it _I_ who go about, afraid to look man or woman in the face? Am I the same who came here six months ago?

Did I come here to learn this? Who was it taught it to me, then? I say, I've been deceived; it's no work of mine. Professor Valeyon--he's made me a subject for experiment; he's tried his theories on me; dissected me, and filled in the parts that were wanting. It's a dangerous business, Professor Valeyon. You've lost one daughter; the other may go too."

Bressant's voice, which had been growing hoa.r.s.er and more rapid as he went on, abruptly sank, at this last sentence, into a whisper; yet, had any one been there to listen, the whisper would have sounded louder and more terrible than the most violent vociferation of angry pa.s.sion. It breathed a sudden concentration of evil intelligence, that startled like the hiss of a serpent.

He stopped his short, pa.s.sionate walk, and leaned against his table, with his arms once more folded. The idea that he had been tampered with had gained possession of him, and nothing tends more to demoralize a man, and make him unmanageably angry. His was an uncandid position, without doubt: he was attempting to lay upon others the responsibility which--the greater part of it, at least--should have been borne by himself; but still, the vein of reasoning he pursued was connected, and comprehensible, and was rendered awkward by an ugly little thread of something like truth and justice, which showed here and there along its course.

"They've taught me to love; did they think they could stop there? that I shouldn't learn to lie, as well? and to hate, and be revengeful? and to be afraid? Was I so bad when I came here, that all this has made me no worse? I was happy, at any rate; my brain was clear; my mind had no fear, and no weariness--it was like an athlete; my blood was cool. Look at me now! Am not I ruined by this patching and mending? I can do no work. When I think, it's no longer of how I might become great, and wise, and powerful--of nothing inspiring--nothing n.o.ble; but all about these petty, heated, miserable affairs, that have twisted themselves around me, and are choking me up. I don't ask myself, any more, whether my name will be as highly honored and as long remembered as the Christian Apostles', and Mohammed's, and Luther's. My only question is, whether I'm to turn out more of a fool, or of a liar! And _I_ love Sophie Valeyon! I'm to be her husband."

The young man came to a sudden stop, and slowly lifted his head. Through the sullen, unhappy, and resentful cloud that darkened his eyes, there glimmered doubtfully a light such as can be reflected only from what is most divine in man. It was a strange moment for it to appear, for at no time had Bressant's moral level been so low as now; but, happily, the phenomenon is by no means without precedent in human nature. G.o.d is never ashamed to declare the share He holds in a sinner's heart, however black the heart may be.

"No, no!" said he; and, as he said it, the first tears that he had ever known glistened for a moment in his eyes; "such as I am, I must never marry her."

The point on which this sudden and momentous resolve turned was so subtle and delicately evanescent as scarcely to be susceptible of clearer portrayal. To be consistent, the weight of his revengeful sentiments should have been directed upon Sophie, for she it was who had played the most effective part in changing his nature, and swerving him from his cold but sublime ambitions. By teaching Bressant love, she had, by implication, done him deadly injury, yet was the love itself so pure and genuine as to prompt him to resign its object; he being rendered unworthy of her by that same moral dereliction which she herself had occasioned.

But the very quality which enables us to do a n.o.ble deed dulls our appreciation of our own praiseworthiness. Bressant took no encouragement or pleasure from what he had done; probably, also, his realization of the extensive and fearful consequences of the action, to others as well as to himself, was as yet but rudimentary; so soon as the momentary glow was pa.s.sed, he fell back into a yet darker mood than before, and felt yet more adrift and reckless. To make a sacrifice is well, but does not hinder the need of what is given up from crippling us.

Again the young man turned to the window, and, raising the sash, he secured it by the little b.u.t.ton used for the purpose, and leaned out into the snow-storm. The flakes fell and melted upon his face, and caught in his bushy beard, and rested lightly upon his twisted hair.

They flew into his eyes, and made little drifts upon the collar of his coat and in the folds of his sleeves. He gazed up toward the dull, gray cloud whence they came, and presently, out of the confusion, and carelessness, and morbid impatience of his heart, he put forth a prayer that some awfully stirring event might come to pa.s.s; let a sword pa.s.s through his life! let him be smitten down and trampled upon! let his mind be continually occupied with the extreme of active, living suffering! let there be no cessation till the end! He could accept it and exult in it; but to live on as he was living now was to walk open-eyed into insanity. Rather than that, he would commit some capital crime, and subject himself to the penalty. Let G.o.d take at least so much pity upon him, and grant him physical agony!

It is not often that our prayers are answered, nor, when they are, does the answer come in the form our expectations shaped. Occasionally, however--and then, perhaps, with a promptness and completeness that force us to a realization of how extravagant and senseless our desires are--does fulfillment come upon us.

As Bressant's strange pet.i.tion went up through the storm, a sleigh came along from the direction of the railway-station. It was nothing but a cart on runners, and painted a dingy, grayish blue; it was loaded with a dozen tin milk-cans much defaced by hard usage, each one stopped with an enormous cork. The driver was clad in an overcoat which once had been dark brown or black, but had worn to a greenish yellow, except where the collar turned up around the throat, and showed the original color. His head and most of his face were enveloped in a knit woolen comforter, and mittens of the same make and material protected his hands. His legs were wrapped up in a gray horse-blanket. He was whitened here and there with snow, and snow was packed between the necks of the milk-cans. He drove directly toward the boarding-house, and he and Bressant caught sight of one another at the same moment.

"Hallo!" called the stranger; "you're Bressant, I guess, ain't you? I've got something for you." Here he drew up beneath the window. "You see, I was down to the depot getting some milk aboard the up-train, and Davis, the telegraph-man, came up and asked me, 'Bill Reynolds, are you going up to Abbie's? 'cause,' says he, 'here's a telegraph has come for the student up there--him that's going to marry Sophie Valeyon--and our boy he's down with the influenza,' says he. 'I'm you're man!' says I, 'let's have it!' and here 'tis," added Mr. Reynolds, producing a yellow envelope from the bottom of his overcoat pocket.

Bressant had heard little or nothing of the explanation volunteered by the bearer of the message, but he at once recognized the yellow telegraph-envelope, and comprehended the rest. But, ere he could leave the window to go down and receive it, he saw the fat servant-girl, who had witnessed the scene from the parlor, run down to the front-gate, sinking above her ankles at every step, take the envelope from Bill's mittened paw, exchange a word and a grin with him, and then return, carefully stepping into the holes she had made going out.

Bill gave a nod of good-will to Bressant's window--for Bressant was no longer there--whipped up his nag, and jingled off with his milk-cans. In another minute the fat servant-girl, after stamping the remains of the snow off her shoes upon the door-mat, opened the door, and introduced the dispatch and her own smiling physiognomy. Bressant s.n.a.t.c.hed the former, and shut the door in the latter, before the hand-wiping and haranguing had time to begin.

Before opening the envelope, he stood up at his full height, and filled his lungs with a long, profound breath; then emitted it suddenly in a sort of deep, short growl, and took his seat at the table. He tore open the end of the envelope, pulled out the inclosure, which was an ordinary printed telegraph-blank, filled in with three lines of writing, as follows: "Been very ill come on at once at once must hear all no alternative" in the scrawly and unpunctuated chirography peculiar to written telegrams. The name signed was "M. Vauderp." Bressant read the message, and afterward carefully perused the printing, even down to the name of the printer's firm, which was given in very small type at the bottom of the paper. Then he glanced over the writing once more, and returned the paper to the envelope.

"At once, at once!" muttered he; "that's the only way of writing italics in telegraphy, I suppose. Well, I'll go at once; it's ten now; there's a train at half-past."

He unlocked a drawer in his table, and took from it a purse, which he put in his pocket. He b.u.t.toned a pea-jacket across his broad chest, pressed a round fur-cap on to his handsome head, took a pair of thick gloves from the mantel-piece, and walked away without giving one backward glance.

The snow blew and drifted through the open window into the empty room; the few remaining flowers were hustled from their stalks; the red eye of the stove grew dimmer and dimmer, and finally faded into darkness, and the colored drawing of the patent derrick broke loose at another corner, and flapped and fluttered against the wall in crazy exultation.

CHAPTER XXVII.

FACT AND FANCY.

The snow-storm continued all that afternoon. The customary hour for Bressant's visit to the Parsonage went by, and he did not appear. The professor smoked two extra pipes, and spent half an hour looking out across the valley trying to discern the open spot upon the top of the hill. Finally, the early twilight set in, and he returned to his chair, but felt no impulse to light a lamp and take up a book. He sat tilted back, pulling Shakespeare's nose with meditative fingers. A gloom gradually settled over the room, withdrawing one after another of the familiar objects around him from the old gentleman's sight; it even seemed to creep into his heart, and create a vague uneasiness there. He tried to shake it off, telling himself that he was the happiest and most fortunate old fellow alive; that every thing was coming out just as he had hoped and prayed it might; that one daughter, with the man of her choice, would be just far enough removed from his fireside to give piquancy to the frequent visits he should receive from her; while the other would still, for a time, continue to pour out sunshine in the house, and redouble her love for him by way of compensating for what he should miss in Sophie's absence. And then the professor built an airier and a fairer castle still: beneath it lay the heavy clouds of suffering, barren effort, and hope deferred; its sunlit walls were hewn of solid faith; the banner which floated over the battlements was woven with white threads of truth; over the arched entrance-gate was written "Constancy." Yet, fair and lofty as the castle was, the building-materials were taken from no less homely edifices than the village boarding-house and his own Parsonage!

By-and-by, however, the vision faded, or else the clouds upon which it was built rose up and hid it. The professor, returning to himself, found that he was now surrounded with thick darkness, and, strive as he would, he could paint no fancies upon it which did not partake more or less of the character of the background. Sophie seemed to have lost the steady cheer of her aspect; she was pale and fragile, and every moment took away yet more of earthly substance, till scarcely any thing but the faint l.u.s.tre of her face and form remained. Then, all at once, the features which had heretofore been only sad, changed into an expression of horror and torture and despair; and, while the professor, himself aghast, strained his old eyes to make out more clearly the half-indistinguishable image, it vanished quite away. But, at the last moment, it had spoken--at least, the lips bad moved as if in speech, though no sound had reached the professor's ears; yet he fancied he had caught a glimmering of the purport. He pressed his hands over his forehead to shut out the thought, and wondered no longer at the expression upon Sophie's face.

Then Cornelia moved across the hollow blackness of the room. She was sunshiny no longer, but morose and stern; her eyebrows were drawn together; a secret defiance was in her tigerish eyes; her lips were set, yet seemed, ever and anon, as she turned her face aside, to tremble with a pa.s.sionate yearning. As he gazed, she disappeared, but the professor had a feeling that she was still concealed somewhere in the darkness. And, at last, she came again--she, or something that looked like her. The old gentleman shivered and recoiled, as though a snow-drift had somehow blown into his warm, old heart. Was it his daughter who looked with those unmeaning eyes, encircled with dark rings, in which life and pa.s.sion burned out had left the dull ashes of remorse and hopelessness? Where were the luminous cheeks and the queenly step of his proud and beautiful Cornelia?--What words were those? or was it only fancy?--Ah!--The professor started with a sharp exclamation: but he was alone in his dark study, and the phantom of Cornelia was gone.

He composed himself in his chair again, and, presently, a third figure grew into form and color before him. At first, as a stately young girl, with the arched feet and hot blood of the south, and her eyes dark and soft as a Spaniard's; but her beauty lasted but for a moment. A withering change came over face and figure: she was cold and hard; her youthful ardor, warmth, and freshness, had been shrivelled up or worn away. The rich black hair grew rusty, and the dark, delicate complexion became dull and l.u.s.treless. Nevertheless, the professor continued to look with hopeful expectation, confident that a further alteration would ensue, which, though, it would not restore the grace of youth, would give a peace and happiness yet more beautiful. And, indeed, it seemed, for a moment, as though his expectation would be gratified. The figure raised its head, and held forth its hands, and the professor's bright antic.i.p.ation was reflected in its eyes. But, alas! the brightness faded almost before it could be affirmed to exist. The hands dropped to the sides, the head was averted, and the whole form shrank back, and sank to the ground. For the third time--the professor's imagination was certainly playing him strange tricks this evening--the ghost of spoken words appeared to fall upon his ears, and sink like molten lead into his heart. He groaned, and there was an oppression on his chest, so that he struggled for breath; but, in another moment, the crouching figure was gone, and the oppression with it; but drops of sweat stood upon the old man's broad forehead.

Still another vision awaits him, however, and he draws himself up sternly to encounter it, and a heavy frown lowers on his thick gray eyebrows. But the lofty form which confronts him, ma.s.sive and stalwart, alike in mind and body, meets his gaze unflinchingly, and frowns back in angry defiance. The old professor pauses in his intended denunciation, being taken aback somewhat, at the unexpected counter-accusation which strikes out at him from the young man's eyes. Yet do his self-confidence and indignation become reconfirmed, for there, behind, the three former phantoms appear together, and seem to launch against the last a deadly shaft of bitter reproach and judgment. The professor watches it cleave a pa.s.sage through the stalwart figure's heart, and he bows his head, and thinks--it is but justice! In the same instant, a cry of intensest pain and horror escapes him: the deadly arrow, additionally poisoned by the blood it has just shed, has pa.s.sed quite through the spectre of his former pupil, and is buried up to the feather in Professor Valeyon's own vitals! This shock effectually wakened the old gentleman--for, after all, he had only been having an uneasy nap in his straight-backed chair!--and he started to his feet, and fumbled nervously for the match-box. Just then, Sophie appeared at the door with a lamp in her hand--the real Sophie, this time--no intangible shadow.

"Why, papa dear! What are you doing in here in the dark? Have you been asleep?"

"Come here, my dear!" said the professor, in a shaken voice, holding out his hand. He took her on his knee, and hugged her to him eagerly, pa.s.sing his hand down her arm, and pressing her slender fingers. "Are you well and happy, Sophie?"

"Yes, papa," she answered, laying her head as usual on his shoulder.

"He--your--young man didn't come to-day?" continued the professor, with an attempt to be jocose. "He's getting very squeamish to be kept back by a snow-storm!" Sophie replied only by nestling closer to her father's shoulder.

"Where's Neelie?" inquired the professor, again breaking the silence.

"She's seeing about supper, I believe."

"Have you heard any thing about Abbie lately?" proceeded the other. He must have been either strangely anxious to keep up a conversation, or unusually inquisitive, this evening.

"Not very lately; I saw her about a week ago. She didn't look in very good spirits, it seemed to me."

"Not in good spirits, eh? not in good spirits? and that was a week ago!

was she ill?"

"I don't think there was any thing the matter--with her health, I mean; she only looked very sad--as if something had almost broken her heart.

But then she always is grave, you know."

"She has been of late years, that's certain," muttered the old man, gruffly; "and does she begin to be broken-hearted _now_!" he added, to himself. More thoughts, and angry ones, he might have had, but the memory of his untoward dream still hovered about him, and he suppressed them.

"What are you thinking of, papa?" demanded Sophie, with an inquietude of manner which attracted the professor's attention. He laid his finger on her pulse, and touched her forehead.

"You've taken cold, my dear," he said, with the most tender anxiety of tone. "What have you been doing? How have you exposed yourself?"

"I was out on the porch about an hour ago," replied she, languidly. "I wanted to--to see if he was coming, you know. The snow came on me a little, I believe, and I had on my slippers. But I didn't feel any thing--any cold. I was out only a moment."

Professor Valeyon turned his strong-featured face away from the lamp, so that the shadow covered his expression. He could feel the heat of Sophie's cheek through his coat, as she lay heavily on his shoulder; heavily, but not half so heavily there as upon his heart. But, with the physician's instinct, his voice was on that account all the more cheerful.

"Well, well, my little girl; it won't do to run any risks nowadays, remember! I shall make you drink a big cup of hot water, with a little tea and sugar in it, and go to bed early, with three or four extra blankets. Meanwhile, come! let's go and see whether Cornelia has got supper ready yet." So saying, the old gentleman gained his feet, offering his arm with a bow, took up the lamp with his other hand, and off they went, leaving Shakespeare's plaster bust placidly to face the darkness alone, as he had often done before.

The next morning the storm was over, and the sun came dazzling over the spotless fields, but Sophie kept her bed, with bright, restless eyes, and hot checks. The professor dreaded a return of the typhoid pneumonia, and paced his study incessantly, in a voiceless fever of anxiety; physically exhausting himself the better to affect quiet and unconcern when in her room. He mentioned his fears to no one--not even to Cornelia; besides, if care were taken, she might recover yet, without fatal, or even serious danger. To herself, therefore, and to all who inquired, he spoke of her attack as merely a cold, which must be nursed for prudence' sake. Meanwhile, no signs of Bressant. Sophie said not a word, but Cornelia showed uneasiness, and kept making suggestive remarks to her father, and hazarding unsatisfactory explanations of his absence.

She never ventured to say any thing to her sister on the subject, however. There was a gulf between the two that widened like a river, hour by hour.

Toward evening a letter came from the boarding-house, directed to Professor Valeyon. It was in Abbie's handwriting, and must contain some news of Bressant. The old gentleman shut himself up in his room, the better to deal with the intelligence, and the paper rustled nervously in his fingers as he read; but the news amounted to little, after all.

"For fear dear Sophie and you should feel anxious about Mr. Bressant, I will tell you all I know of his absence," said the letter. "A telegram came for him yesterday morning about ten. Joanna, the servant, who took it up to him, says Mr. Reynolds told her it was from New York. So I suppose some friend there--you will probably be able to say who--has been taken very dangerously ill, or perhaps is dead. The summons must have been very urgent, for he left his room not ten minutes afterward, and took the half-past ten o'clock train down.