Charles Auchester Volume II Part 34

"Do I look morbid, Carlomein? That is an ugly word, and you deserve it as much as I do, pale-face."

He laughed out joyously. I looked at him again. How his eyes radiated their splendors, as an eastern starlight in a northern sky! How the blossom-blushes rose upon his cheek! Health, joy, vitality, all the flowers of manhood, the fairest laurels of an unsullied fame, shone visionary about him. He seemed no earthling "born to die." I could not but smile; still, it was at his beauty, not his mirth.

"Sir, you don't look much like a martyr now."

"Carlomein. I should rather be a martyr than a saint. The saints are robed in glory, but the glory streams from heaven upon the martyr's face." (Oh, he could feel no pain, with that light there; I know he felt none.) "The saints wear lilies, or they dream so; and dream they not the martyrs wear the roses,--have not the thorns pierced through them? They are thornless roses there, for pa.s.sion is made perfect."

"Sir, but I do think that the musician, if duteous, is meet for a starry crown."

"And I could only think, when I saw that picture, that the crown was not mine own; but I dreamed within myself that it should not be in vain I desire to deserve the crown which I should wear, but not that star-crown. Poetry may be forgiven for hiding sorrow in bliss, but it is only music that hides bliss with sorrow. And see, Carlomein (for we are in a tale of dreams just now, and both alone), there have been martyrs for all faiths,--for love, for poetry, for patriotism, for religion. Oh! for what cause, where pa.s.sion strikes and stirs, have there not been martyrs? But I think music has not many, and those were discrowned of that glory by the other crown of Fame. Shall I die young, and not be believed to have died for music? For that end must the music be rapt and purified,--stolen from itself; its pleasures must be strong to pain, its exercises sharper than agony. I know of none other choice for myself than to press forwards to fulfil the call I have heard since music spoke to me, and was as the voice of G.o.d.

There is so much to undo in very doing, while those who were not called, but have only chosen music, defile her mysteries, that the few who are called must surely witness for her. We will not speak again so, Carlomein. I have made your young face careful, and I would rather see scorn work upon it than such woe. I am now going to a shop. Are there any shops here, Carlomein?"

"Plenty, sir, but they are closed; still, I am certain you can get anything you want, no matter what."

"I have something to make to-night which is most important, and I must have nuts, apples, and sugar-plums."

We went to a large confectioner's whose windows were but semi-shuttered. Here the Chevalier quite lost himself in the treasures of those gla.s.s magazines. I should scarcely have known him as he had been. He chose very selectly, nathless, securing only the most delicate and rare of the wonders spread about him, and which excited his _navete_ to the utmost. His choice comprised all crisp white comfits and red-rose ones, almond-eggs, the most ravishing French bonbons, all sorts of chocolate, myriad sugar millions, like rain from fairy rainbows, twisted green angelica, golden strips of crystallized orange-peal, not to speak of rout-cakes like fish and frogs and mice and birds' nests. Nor did these suffice; off we walked to the toy-shop. Our town was of world renown for its toys. Here it was not so easy to effect an entrance; but it _was_ effected the moment the Chevalier showed his face. To this hour I believe they took him in there for some extraordinary little boy,--he certainly behaved like nothing else. He bought now beads of all colors, and spangles and shining leaf, and of all things the most exquisite doll, small-featured, waxen, dressed already in long white robes, and lying in a cradle about a foot long, perfectly finished. And next, besides this baby's baby, he s.n.a.t.c.hed at a box of letters, then at a gilt watch, and finally at a magic-lantern. We so loaded ourselves with all these baubles that we could scarcely get along; for, with his wonted impetuosity on the least occasions, he would not suffer anything to be sent, lest it should not arrive in time. And then, though I reminded him of the dinner-hour at hand, there was to be no rest yet, but I must take him to some garden or nursery of winter-plants. Fortunately, a great friend of Davy's in that line lived very near him; for Davy was a great flower-fancier. This was convenient; for had it been two miles off, Seraphael would have run there, being in his uttermost wayward mood. He chose a gem of a fir-tree, and though both the florist and I remonstrated with our whole hearts, would carry it himself,--happily not very far. I was reminded of dear old Aronach's story about his child-days as I saw him clasp it in his delicate arms so nerved with power, and caught his brilliant face through the spires of the foliage. Thus we approached Davy's house, and I reminded the Chevalier that we were expected to dine at my mother's, not there. In fact, poor Millicent, in her bonnet, looked out anxiously from the door; the Chevalier called to her as she ran to open the gate, "See, Mrs. Davy, see! Here's 'Birnam Wood come to Dunisnane.' Make way!"

"You are very naughty," said Davy, stepping forth. "Our beloved mamma will be coming after us."

"It is very rude, I know; but I am going to dine with your daughter."

"My daughter is coming too. Did you think we should leave her behind?"

Millicent was about, in fact, to mount the stairs for the baby; but Seraphael rushed past her.

"Pardon! but I don't wish to be seen at present;" and we both bore our burdens into the parlor, and laid them on the table.

"Now, Carlomein, the moment dinner is over, we two shall come back and lock ourselves in here."

"I should like it of all things, sir, selfish wretch that I am! but I don't think they will."

"Oh, yes, I will make them!"

When at last we descended ready, Carlotta, in her white beaver bonnet, my own present, looked as soft as any snowdrop,--too soft almost to be kissed. She held out her arms to Seraphael so very pertinaciously that he was obliged to carry her; nor would he give her up until we reached my mother's door. It was quite the same at dinner also; she would sit next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, "I like you much-much!" with all Davy's earnestness, though with just so much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put herself completely over her chair into Seraphael's lap, when he laughed at her. He was in ecstasies, and every now and then a shade so tender stole upon his air that I knew he could only be adverting to the tenderest of all human probabilities,--the dream of his next year's offspring.

After dinner, Miss was to retire. She was carried upstairs by Margareth, of whom I can only say she loved Carlotta better than she had loved Carl. Seraphael then arose, and gracefully, gleefully, despite the solicitations on all hands exhibited, declared he must also go, that he had to meet the Lord Chancellor, and could not keep him waiting. There was no more prayer wasted after this announcement, everybody laughed too much. Taking a handful of nuts from a dish, and throwing a glance of inexpressible elfishness at my mother, he said, "Carl and the Lord Chancellor and I are going to crack them in a corner. Come, Carlomein! we must not keep so grand a person waiting."

I know not what blank he left behind him, but I know what a world he carried with him. We had such an afternoon! But we had to be really very busy; I never worked so hard in a small way. When all was finished, the guilt fruit hung, the necklaces festooned, the glitter ordered with that miraculous rapidity in which he surpa.s.sed all others, and that fairy craft of his by which he was enabled to re-create all Arabian, mystical, he placed the cradle in the shade.

"You see, Carlomein, I could not have a Christ-child up there at the top, because your brother is rather particular, and might not choose to approve. It will never occur to him about the manger, if we don't tell him; but you perceive all the same that it is here, being made of straw, and very orthodox."

"It appears to me, sir, that you have learned English customs to some purpose, as well as German."

He replied by dancing round the tree, and twisting in the tapers red and green.

"Now, you go, Carlomein, and fetch them all, and when I hear your voices, I will light the candles. Begone, Carlomeinus!" and he snapped his fingers.

They came immediately, all rather mystified, but very curious. I carried Carlotta, who talked the whole way home about the stars. But after cl.u.s.tering a few moments in the dark pa.s.sage, and her little whispered "ohs!" and wondering sighs, when the door was opened, and the arch musician for all ages, seated at the piano, played a measure only meet for child or fairy ears, her ecstasy became quite painful.

She shuddered and shivered, and at last screamed outright; and then, even then, only Seraphael had power to soothe her, leading her to the fairy earth-lights as he led us to the lights of heaven.

Glorious hours that dye deep our memories in beauty, music that pa.s.ses into echo and is silent, alike are conserved forever. Often and often in the months that pa.s.sed when he had left us, after a visit so exquisite that it might have been diffused millenniums and yet have kept its fragrance, did my thoughts take such a form as this enunciation bears; I was so unutterably grateful for what had happened that it helped me to bear what was yet before me. The growing, glowing fame, heralded from land to land, in praise of that young genius and purest youth, had certainly reached its culmination; neither envy withered nor scandal darkened the spell of his perfect name. All grades of artists, all ranks of critics,--the old and calm, the impertinent but impetuous young,--bowed as in heart before him. It was so in every city, I believe; but in ours it was peculiar, as well as universal. An odor of heavenly altars had swept our temple; we were fitter to receive him than we had been. In no instance was this shown more clearly than on the fortunate occasion when Davy was treated with, and requested very humbly to add his vocal regiment to the festival chorus. One day just afterwards, in early April, he came running to me with a letter, anxious for me to open it, as he was in a fit of fright about the parts which ought to have arrived, and had not. It was only a line or two, addressed to me by Seraphael's hand, to tell us that Clara had borne him twin sons.

Davy's astonishment amused me; it appeared that he had formed no idea of their having been likely to come at all, until this moment. I was glad, indeed, to be alone, to think of that fairest friend of mine, now so singularly blest. I thought of her in bed with her babies, I thought of the babies being his, and she no less his own, until I was not fit company for any one,--and it was long before I became so. I could hardly believe it, and more especially because they were all four so far away; for I am not of the opinion of those fortunate transcendentalists, who aver we can better realize that which is away from us than that which is at hand. Time and s.p.a.ce must remain to us our eternity and our freedom, till freedom and eternity shall be our own.

CHAPTER XVIII

We were extremely busy, for a little while, in preparing a box of presents, and when it was despatched we began seriously to antic.i.p.ate our awful, glorious festival; we began to have leisure to contemplate it. It was a delightful dream, amidst that dream, to reflect that we should see them all then, for Seraphael sent us word, in his grateful reply to our enclosures, that both his children and their mother would accompany him. Meantime, I was very anxious to spread the news abroad, and most extraordinary appointments were made by all kinds of people to secure places. I began to think, and had I been in Germany should, of course, have settled to my own satisfaction, that the performances must be in the open air, after all, such crowds demanded admittance so early as early in June. It was for the last week in July that our triple day was fixed, and in the second week of June the long-expected treasure, the exclusive compositions, arrived from Lilienstadt. Davy was one of the committee called immediately, and I awaited, in unuttered longing, his return, to hear our glorious doom.

He came back almost wild. I was quite alarmed, and told him so.

"Charles," he said, "there is almost reason; so am I, myself, in fact.

Just listen to the contents of the parcel received,--an oratorio for the first morning (such a subject, 'Heaven and Earth'!); a cantata for a double choir; an organ symphony, with interludes for voices only; a sonata for the violin; a group of songs and fancies. The last are for the evenings; but otherwise the evenings are to be filled with Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Handel,--the programmes already made out. How is it possible, Charles, that such progress can have been condensed into a few mere months? Think of the excitement, the unmitigated stress of such an industry! Three completed works in less than a quarter of a year, not to speak of the lesser wonders!"

It seemed to affect Davy's brain; as for me, I felt sure the works had stirred,--as the Spirit moving upon the face of the waters, before the intermomentary light, long ages, as we reckon in this world's computation, before they framed themselves into form. Nor was this conviction lessened when I first became acquainted with the new-born glories of an imagination on fire of heaven.

Seraphael came to England, and of course northwards, to superintend the earliest rehearsals; it was his own wish to do so, and every one felt it necessary to be introduced by him alone to what came alone of him. Those were strange times,--I do not seem to have lived them, though in fact I was bodily present in that hall, consecrated by the pa.s.sion of a child. But they were wild hours; all tempest-tossed was my spirit amidst the rush of a manifold enthusiasm.

Seraphael was so anxious to be at his home again that the rehearsals were conducted daily. He was to return again, having departed, for their ultimate fulfilment. It appeared very remarkable that he should not have taken the whole affair at once, have brought his family over then, and there remained; but upon the subject he was unapproachable, only saying, with relation to his arduous life just then and then to be, that he could not be too much occupied to please himself.

He did not stay in our house this time; we could not press him to do so, for he was evidently in that state to which the claims of friendship may become a burden instead of a beguiling joy. He was alone greatly at his hotel, though I can for myself say that in his intercourse with me, his gentleness towards me was so sweet that I dare not remind myself of it. Still, in all he said and did there was something seeming to be that was not; an indescribable want of interest in the charms of existence which he had ever drawn into his bosom,--a constant endeavor to rouse from a manifest abstraction.

Notwithstanding, he still wore the air of the most perfect health, nor did I construe those signs, except into the fact of his being absent from his new-found, his endeared and delighted home. He left us so suddenly that I was only just in time to see him off. He would not permit me to accompany him to London, from whence he should instantly embark; but it was a letter from Clara that really hastened his departure,--his babes were ill. I could not gain from him the least idea of their affection, nor whether there was cause for fear; his face expressed alarm, but had an unutterable look besides,--a look which certainly astonished me, for it might have bespoken indifference, as it might bespeak despair. One smile I caught as he departed, that was neither indifferent nor desolate; it wrung my heart with happiness to reflect that smile had been for me.

The feeling I had for those unknown babies was inexplicable after he was fairly gone. That I should have loved them, though unseen, was scarcely strange, for they were the offspring of the two I loved best on earth; but I longed and languished for one glimpse of their baby faces just in proportion to the haunting certainty which clutched me that those baby faces I should never see. Their beauty had been Seraphael's only inspiration when, in conversation with me, he had fully seemed himself: the one so light and clear, with eyes as the blue of midnight,--his brow, her eyes; the other soft and roseate, with her angel forehead and his own star-like gaze,--her smile upon them both, and the features both of him. As one who reads of the slaughtered darlings in the days of Herod, as one who pores on chronicles of the cradle plague-smitten, I felt for them; they seemed never to have been born, to me.

Oh, that they had never been born, indeed! At least, there was one while I thought so. We had a heart-rending letter from Clara one fortnight after her lord returned to her: the twins were both dead, and by that time both buried in the same grave. With her pure self-forgetfulness where another suffered, she spoke no word of her own sorrow, but she could not conceal from us how fearfully the blow had fallen upon him. The little she said made us all draw close together and tremble with an emotion we could not confess. But the letter concluded with an a.s.surance of his supreme and undaunted intention, undisturbed by the shocks and agonies of unexpected woe, to undertake the conductorship of the festival. The sorrow that now shadowed expectations which had been too bright, tempered also our joy, too keen till then. But after a week or two, when we received no further tidings, we began absolutely to expect him, and with a stronger antic.i.p.ation--infatuation--than ever, built upon a future which no man may dare to call his own, either for good or evil. The hottest summer I had ever known interfered not with the industry alike of band and chorus. The intense beauty of the music and its marvellous embodiments had fascinated the very country far and wide; it was as if art stood still and waited even for him who had magnified her above the trumpery standards of her precedented progress.

We were daily expecting a significant a.s.surance that he was on our very sh.o.r.es. I was myself beginning to tremble in the air of sorrow that must necessarily surround them both, himself and his companion, when, one morning,--I forget the date; may I never remember it!--I was reflecting upon the contents of a paper which Davy took in every week,--a chronicle of musical events, which I ransacked conscientiously, though it was seldom much to the purpose. Strangely enough, I had been reading of the success of another friend of mine,--even Laura, who had not denied herself the privilege of artist-masonry after all, for she was dancing amidst flowers and fairy elements, and I was determining I would, at the first opportunity, go to see her. Then I considered I should like her to come to the festival, and was making up a letter of requests to my ever-generous friend, Miss Lawrence, that she might bring Laura, as I knew she would be willing, when a letter came for me, was brought by an unconscious servant and laid between my hands. It was in Clara's writing, once again. I was coward enough to spare myself a few moments. There was no one in the room; I was just on the wing to my band, but I could not help still sparing myself a little, and a very little, longer. I believe I knew as well what was in the letter as if I had opened it before I broke the seal. I believe terror and intense presentiment lent me that stillness and steadiness of perception which are the very empyrean of sorrow. Enough! I opened it at last, and found it exactly as I had expected,--Seraphael himself was ill. The hurry and trouble of the letter induced me to believe there was more behind her words than in them, mournful and unsatisfactory as they were. He was, as he believed himself to be, overwrought; and though he considered himself in no peril, he must have quiet. This struck me most; it was all over if he felt he must have quiet. But the stunning point was that he deputed his friend Lenhart Davy to the conductorship of his own works,--the concerts all being arranged by himself in preparation, and nothing but a director being required. Clara concluded by asking me to come to her if I could. She did not say he wished to see me, but I knew she wished to see me herself; and even for his sake that call was enough for me.

My duties, my intentions, all lay in the dust. I considered but how to make way thither with the speed that one fain would change to wind, to lightning, or yoke to them as steeds. I packed up nothing, nor did I leave a single trace of myself behind, except Clara's letter and a postscript, in pencil, of my own. I was in my mother's house when the letter came upon me; and flying past Davy's on my way to the railroad, I saw Millicent with Carlotta looking out of one of the windows, all framed in roses. It was a sight I merely recall as we recall touches of pathos to medicine us for deeper sorrow. Two days and nights I travelled incessantly, without information or help, solitary as a pilgrim who is wandering from home to heaven; it could be nothing else, I knew. The burning, glowing summer, the tossing forests, the corn-fields yet unravished, the glory on the crested lime-trees, the vines smothering rock and wall and terrace with fruit of life,--all these I saw, and many other dreams, as a dream myself I pa.s.sed. I only know I seemed taking the whole world. So wide the scattered sensations spread themselves that I dared not call home to myself; for they did but minister to the perfect appreciation that what I dreamed was true, and what I yearned to clasp as truth a dream.

The city of his home was before me,--but how can I call it a city? It was a nest itself in a nest of hills. Below the river rushed, its music ever in a sleep, and its blue waves softened hyaline by distance. In the last sunset smile I saw the river and the valley, the vines at hand crawled over it, and there was not a house around that was not veiled in flowers. When I entered the valley from below, the purple evening had drowned the sunset as with a sea, there was no mist nor cloud, the starlight was all pure, it brightened moment by moment.

And having hurried all along till now, at length I rested. For now I felt that of all I had ever endured, the approaching crisis was the consummation. Had I dared, I would have returned; for I even desired not to advance. My own utter impotence, my unavailing presence, weighed me down, and the might of my pa.s.sion ensphered me as did that distant starlight,--I was as nothing to itself. I had shed no tears.

Tears I have ever found the springs of gladness, and grief most dry.

But who could weep in that breathless expectation? who would not, when he cannot, rejoice to weep? Brighter than I had ever seen them, the stars shone on me; and brighter and brighter they seemed to burn through the crystal clarity of my perception: my ear felt open, I heard sounds born of silence which, indeed, were no sounds, but _themselves_ silence. I saw the unknown which, indeed, could not be seen; and thus I waited, suspended in the midst of time, yearning for some heaven to open and take me in. Whatever air stirred was soft as the pulse of sleep; whatever sigh it carried was a sigh of flowers, late summer sweetness, first autumn sadness, poured into faint embrace. I saw the church-tower in the valley, it reached me as a dream. All was a dream round about,--the dark shade of the terraced houses, the shadier trees; and I myself the dreamer, to whom those stars above, those heights so unimaginable, were the only waking day.

At midnight I had not moved, and at midnight I dreamed another dream, still standing there.

The midnight hour had struck, and died along the valley into the quiet, when a sudden gathering gleam behind a distant rock rose like a red moonlight and tinged the very sky. But there was no moon, and I felt afraid and child-like. I was obliged to watch to ascertain. It grew into a glare, that gleam,--the glare of fire; and slowly, stilly as even in a dream indeed, wound about the rock and pa.s.sed down along the valley a dark procession, bearing torches, with a darker in the midst of them than they.

Down the valley to the church they came: I knew they were for resting there. No bell caught up the silence, I heard no tramp of feet, they might have been spirits for all the sound they made; and when at last they paused beneath me in the night, the torches streamed all steadily, and rained their flaming smiles upon the imagery in the midst.

That bier was carried proudly, as of a warrior called from deadly strife to death's own sleep. But not as warrior's its ornaments, its crown. The velvet folds pa.s.sed beneath into the dark gra.s.s as they paused, as storm-clouds rolling softly, as gloom itself at rest. But above, from the face of the bier, the darkness fled away,--it was covered with a mask of flowers. Wreath within wreath lay there, hue within hue, from virgin white and hopeful azure to the youngest blush of love. And in the very midst, next the pale roses and their tender green, a garland of the deepest crimson glowed, leafless, brilliant, vivid; the full petals, the orb-like glory, gave out such splendors to the flame-light that the fresh first youth's blood of a dauntless heart was alone the suggestion of its symbol. Keenly in the distance the clear vision, the blaze of softness, reached me. I stirred not, I rushed not forwards; I joined in the dread feast afar. I stood as between the living and the dead,--the dead below, the living with the stars above,--and the plague of my heart was stayed.