Caxton's Book: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Tales, and Sketches Part 5

She was buried at sea; and never can I forget the unutterable anguish of poor Lucile, as her mother's body splashed into the cold blue waters of the Pacific.

There she stood, holding on to the railing, paler than monumental marble, motionless as a statue, rigid as a corpse. The whole scene around her seemed unperceived. Her eyes gazed upon vacancy; her head was thrust slightly forward, and her disheveled tresses, black as Plutonian night, fell neglected about her shoulders.

Captain Watkins, then commanding the "Panama"--whom, may G.o.d bless--wept like a child; and his manly voice, that never quailed in the dread presence of the lightning or the hurricane, broke, chokingly, as he attempted to finish the burial rite, and died away in agitated sobs.

One by one the pa.s.sengers left the spot, consecrated to the grief of that only child--now more than orphaned by her irreparable loss. Lifting my eyes, at last, none save the daughter and her father stood before me.

Charmed to the spot was I, by a spell that seemed irresistible. Scarcely able to move a muscle, there I remained, speechless and overpowered.

Finally the father spoke, and then Lucile fell headlong into his arms.

He bore her into his state-room, where the ship's surgeon was summoned, and where he continued his ministrations until we reached this port.

It is scarcely necessary to add, that I attended them ash.o.r.e, and saw them safely and commodiously lodged at the old Parker House, before I once thought of my own accommodations.

Weeks pa.s.sed, and months, too, stole gradually away, before I saw anything more of the bereaved and mourning child. One day, however, as I was lolling carelessly in my office, after business hours (and that meant just at dark in those early times), Lucile hastily entered. I was startled to see her; for upon her visage I thought I beheld the same stolid spell of agony that some months before had transfixed my very soul. Before I had time to recover myself, or ask her to be seated, she approached closer, and said in a half whisper, "Oh, sir, come with me home."

On our way she explained that her father was lying dangerously ill, and that she knew no physician to whom she could apply, and in whose skill she could place confidence. I at once recommended Dr. H. M. White (since dead), well knowing not only his great success, but equally cognizant of that universal charity that rendered him afterwards no less beloved than ill.u.s.trious. Without a moment's hesitation, the Doctor seized his hat, and hastened along with us, to the wretched abode of the sick, and, as it afterwards proved, the palsied father. The disease was p.r.o.nounced apoplexy, and recovery doubtful. Still, there was hope. Whilst we were seated around the bedside, a tall, emaciated, feeble, but very handsome young man entered, and staggered to a seat. He was coa.r.s.ely and meanly clad; but there was something about him that not only betokened the gentleman, but the well-bred and accomplished scholar. As he seated himself, he exchanged a glance with Lucile, and in that silent look I read the future history of both their lives. On lifting my eyes toward hers, the pallor fled for an instant from her cheek, and a traitor blush flashed its crimson confession across her features.

The patient was copiously bled from an artery in the temple, and gradually recovered his consciousness, but on attempting to speak we ascertained that partial paralysis had resulted from the fit.

As I rose, with the Doctor, to leave, Lucile beckoned me to remain, and approaching me more closely, whispered in French, "Stay, and I will tell you all." The main points of her story, though deeply interesting to me, at that time, were so greatly eclipsed by subsequent events, that they are scarcely worthy of narration. Indeed, I shall not attempt to detail them here fully, but will content myself with stating, in few words, only such events as bear directly upon the fortunes of John Pollexfen.

As intimated above, Lucile was an only child. She was born in Dauphiny, a province of France, and immigrated to America during the disastrous year 1848. Her father was exiled, and his estates seized by the officers of the government, on account of his political tenets. The family embarked at Ma.r.s.eilles, with just sufficient ready money to pay their pa.s.sage to New York, and support them for a few months after their arrival. It soon became apparent that want, and perhaps starvation, were in store, unless some means of obtaining a livelihood could be devised.

The sole expedient was music, of which M. Marmont was a proficient, and to this resource he at once applied himself most industriously. He had acc.u.mulated a sufficient sum to pay his expenses to this coast, up to the beginning of 1851, and took pa.s.sage for San Francisco, as we have already seen, in the spring of that year.

Reaching here, he became more embarra.s.sed every day, unacquainted as he was with the language, and still less with the wild life into which he was so suddenly plunged. Whilst poverty was pinching his body, grief for the loss of his wife was torturing his soul. Silent, sad, almost morose to others, his only delight was in his child. Apprehensions for her fate, in case of accident to himself, embittered his existence, and hastened the catastrophe above related. Desirous of placing her in a situation in which she could earn a livelihood, independent of his own precarious exertions, he taught her drawing and painting, and had just succeeded in obtaining for her the employment of coloring photographs at Pollexfen's gallery the very day he was seized with his fatal disorder.

Some weeks previous to this, Charles Courtland, the young man before mentioned, became an inmate of his house under the following circ.u.mstances:

One evening, after the performances at the Jenny Lind Theatre (where M.

Marmont was employed) were over, and consequently very late, whilst he was pursuing his lonely way homewards he accidentally stumbled over an impediment in his path. He at once recognized it as a human body, and being near home, he lifted the senseless form into his house. A severe contusion behind the ear had been the cause of the young man's misfortune, and his robbery had been successfully accomplished whilst lying in a state of insensibility.

His recovery was extremely slow, and though watched by the brightest pair of eyes that ever shot their dangerous glances into a human soul, Courtland had not fully recovered his strength up to the time that I made his acquaintance.

He was a Virginian by birth; had spent two years in the mines on Feather River, and having acc.u.mulated a considerable sum of money, came to San Francisco to purchase a small stock of goods, with which he intended to open a store at Bidwell's Bar. His robbery frustrated all these golden dreams, and his capture by Lucile Marmont completed his financial ruin.

Here terminates the first phase in the history of John Pollexfen.

PHASE THE SECOND.

"Useless! useless! all useless!" exclaimed John Pollexfen, as he dashed a gla.s.s negative, which he had most elaborately prepared, into the slop-bucket. "Go, sleep with your predecessors." After a moment's silence, he again spoke: "But I know _it exists_. Nature has the secret locked up securely, as she thinks, but I'll tear it from her. Doesn't the eye see? Is not the retina impressible to the faintest gleam of light? What telegraphs to my soul the colors of the rainbow? Nothing but the eye, the human eye. And shall John Pollexfen be told, after he has lived half a century, that the compacted humors of this little organ can do more than his whole laboratory? By heaven! I'll wrest the secret from the labyrinth of nature, or pluck my own eyes from their sockets."

Thus soliloquized John Pollexfen, a few days after the events narrated in the last chapter.

He was seated at a table, in a darkened chamber, with a light burning, though in the middle of the day, and his countenance bore an unmistakable expression of disappointment, mingled with disgust, at the failure of his last experiment. He was evidently in an ill-humor, and seemed puzzled what to do next. Just then a light tap came at the door, and in reply to an invitation to enter, the pale, delicate features of Lucile Marmont appeared at the threshold.

"Oh! is it you, my child?" said the photographer, rising. "Let me see your touches." After surveying the painted photographs a moment, he broke out into a sort of artistic glee: "Beautiful! beautiful! an adept, quite an adept! Who taught you? Come, have no secrets from me; I'm an old man, and may be of service to you yet. What city artist gave you the cue?"

Before relating any more of the conversation, it becomes necessary to paint John Pollexfen as he was. Methinks I can see his tall, rawboned, angular form before me, even now, as I write these lines. There he stands, Scotch all over, from head to foot. It was whispered about in early times--for really no one knew much about his previous career--that John Pollexfen had been a famous sea captain; that he had sailed around the world many times; had visited the coast of Africa under suspicious circ.u.mstances, and finally found his way to California from the then unpopular region of Australia. Without pausing to trace these rumors further, it must be admitted that there was something in the appearance of the man sufficiently repulsive, at first sight, to give them currency. He had a large bushy head, profusely furnished with hair almost brickdust in color, and growing down upon a broad, low forehead, indicative of great mathematical and constructive power. His brows were long and s.h.a.ggy, and overhung a restless, deep-set, cold, gray eye, that met the fiercest glance unquailingly, and seemed possessed of that magnetic power which dazzles, reads and confounds whatsoever it looks upon. There was no escape from its inquisitive glitter. It sounded the very depths of the soul it thought proper to search. Whilst gazing at you, instinct felt the glance before your own eye was lifted so as to encounter his. There was no human weakness in its expression. It was as pitiless as the gleam of the lightning. But you felt no less that high intelligence flashed from its depths. Courage, you knew, was there; and true bravery is akin to all the n.o.bler virtues. This man, you at once said, may be cold, but it is impossible for him to be unjust, deceitful or ungenerous. He might, like Shylock, insist on a _right_, no matter how vindictive, but he would never forge a claim, no matter how insignificant. He might crush, like Caesar, but he could never plot like Catiline. In addition to all this, it required but slight knowledge of physiognomy to perceive that his stern nature was tinctured with genuine enthusiasm. Earnestness beamed forth in every feature. His soul was as sincere as it was unbending. He could not trifle, even with the most inconsiderable subject. Laughter he abhorred. He could smile, but there was little contagion in his pleasantry. It surprised more than it pleased you. Blended with this deep, scrutinizing, earnest and enthusiastic nature, there was an indefinable something, shading the whole character--it might have been early sorrow, or loss of fortune, or baffled ambition, or unrequited love. Still, it shone forth patent to the experienced eye, enigmatical, mysterious, sombre. There was danger, also, in it, and many, who knew him best, attributed his eccentricity to a softened phase of insanity.

But the most marked practical trait of Pollexfen's character was his enthusiasm for his art. He studied its history, from the humble hints of Niepce to the glorious triumphs of Farquer, Bingham, and Bradley, with all the soul-engrossing fidelity of a child, and spent many a midnight hour in striving to rival or surpa.s.s them. It was always a subject of astonishment with me, until after his death, how it happened that a rough, athletic seaman, as people declared he was originally, should become so intensely absorbed in a science requiring delicacy of taste, and skill in manipulation rather than power of muscle, in its practical application. But after carefully examining the papers tied up in the same package with his last will and testament, I ceased to wonder, and sought no further for an explanation.

Most prominent amongst these carefully preserved doc.u.ments was an old diploma, granted by the University of Edinburgh, in the year 1821, to "John Pollexfen, Gent., of Hallicardin, Perthshire," const.i.tuting him Doctor of Medicine. On the back of the diploma, written in a round, clear hand, I found indorsed as follows:

Fifteen years of my life have I lost by professing modern quackery. Medicine is not a science, properly so called. It is at most but an art. He best succeeds who creates his own system.

Each generation adopts its peculiar manual: Sangrado to-day; Thomson to-morrow; Hahnemann the day after. Surgery advances; physic is stationary. But chemistry, glorious chemistry, is a science. Born amid dissolving ruins, and cradled upon rollers of fire, her step is onward. At her side, as an humble menial, henceforth shall be found

JOHN POLLEXFEN.

The indors.e.m.e.nt bore no date, but it must have been written long before his immigration to California.

Let us now proceed with the interview between the photographer and his employee. Repeating the question quickly, "Who gave you the cue?"

demanded Pollexfen.

"My father taught me drawing and painting, but my own taste suggested the coloring."

"Do you mean to tell me, really, that you taught yourself, Mlle.

Marmont?" and as he said this, the cold, gray eye lit up with unwonted brilliancy.

"What I say is true," replied the girl, and elevating her own l.u.s.trous eyes, they encountered his own, with a glance quite as steady.

"Let us go into the sunlight, and examine the tints more fully;" and leading the way they emerged into the sitting-room where customers were in the habit of awaiting the artist's pleasure.

Here the pictures were again closely scrutinized, but far more accurately than before; and after fully satisfying his curiosity on the score of the originality of the penciling, approached Lucile very closely, and darting his wonderful glance into the depths of her own eyes, said, after a moment's pause, "You have glorious eyes."

Lucile was about to protest, in a hurried way, against such adulation, when he continued: "Nay, nay, do not deny it. Your eyes are the most fathomless...o...b.. that ever I beheld--large, too, and l.u.s.trous--the very eyes I have been searching for these five years past. A judge of color; a rare judge of color! How is your father to-day, my child?"

The tone of voice in which this last remark was made had in it more of the curious than the tender. It seemed to have been propounded more as a matter of business than of feeling. Still, Lucile replied respectfully, "Oh! worse, sir; a great deal worse. Doctor White declares that it is impossible for him to recover, and that he cannot live much longer."

"Not live?" replied Pollexfen, "not live?" Then, as if musing, he solemnly added, "When your father is dead, Lucile, come to me, and I will make your fortune. That is, if you follow my advice, and place yourself exclusively under my instructions. Nay, but you shall earn it yourself. See!" he exclaimed, and producing a bank deposit-book from his pocket, "See! here have I seven thousand five hundred dollars in bank, and I would gladly exchange it for one of your eyes."

Astonishment overwhelmed the girl, and she could make no immediate reply; and before she had sufficiently recovered her self-possession to speak, the photographer hastily added, "Don't wonder; farewell, now.

Remember what I have said--seven thousand five hundred dollars just for one eye!"

Lucile was glad to escape, without uttering a syllable. Pursuing her way homewards, she pondered deeply over the singular remark with which Pollexfen closed the conversation, and half muttering, said to herself, "Can he be in earnest? or is it simply the odd way in which an eccentric man pays a compliment?" But long before she could solve the enigma, other thoughts, far more engrossing, took sole possession of her mind.

She fully realized her situation--a dying father, and a sick lover, both dependent in a great measure upon her exertions, and she herself not yet past her seventeenth year.

On reaching home she found the door wide open, and Courtland standing in the entrance, evidently awaiting her arrival. As she approached, their eyes met, and a glance told her that all was over.

"Dead!" softly whispered Courtland.

A stifled sob was all that broke from the lips of the child, as she fell lifeless into the arms of her lover.

I pa.s.s over the mournful circ.u.mstances attending the funeral of the exiled Frenchman. He was borne to his grave by a select few of his countrymen, whose acquaintance he had made during his short residence in this city. Like thousands of others, who have perished in our midst, he died, and "left no sign." The newspapers published the item the next morning, and before the sun had set upon his funeral rites the poor man was forgotten by all except the immediate persons connected with this narrative.

To one of them, at least, his death was not only an important event, but it formed a great epoch in her history.

Lucile was transformed, in a moment of time, from a helpless, confiding, affectionate girl, into a full-grown, self-dependent, imperious woman.