Cord and Creese Part 28

After a long sleep Edith waked again. She said nothing. I did not wish her to speak. She lay awake, yet with closed eyes, thinking such thoughts as belong to one, and to one alone, who had known what she had known.

I did not speak to her, for she was to me a holy being, not to be addressed lightly. Yet she did not refuse nourishment, and grew stronger, until at last I was able to have her moved to Quebec. There I obtained proper accommodations for her and good nurses.

I have told you what she was before this. Subsequently there came a change. The nurses and the doctors called it a stupor.

There was something in her face which inspired awe among all who saw her. If it is the soul of man that gives expression to the features, then her soul must have been familiar with things unknown to us. How often have I seen her in walking across the room stop suddenly and stand fixed on the spot, musing and sad! She commonly moved about as though she saw nothing, as though she walked in a dream, with eyes half closed, and sometimes murmuring inaudible words. The nurses half loved and half feared her. Yet there were some little children in the house who felt all love and no fear, for I have seen her smiling on them with a smile so sweet that it seemed to me as if they stood in the presence of their guardian angel. Strange, sad spirit, what thoughts, what memories are these which make her life one long reverie, and have taken from her all power to enjoy the beautiful that dwells on earth! She fills all my thoughts with her loneliness, her tears, and her spiritual face, bearing the marks of scenes that can never be forgotten. She lives and moves amidst her recollections. What is it that so overwhelms all her thoughts? That face of hers appears as though it had bathed itself in the atmosphere of some diviner world than this: and her eyes seem as if they may have gazed upon the Infinite Mystery.

Now from the few words which she has casually dropped I gather this to be her own belief. That when she fell into the state of trance her soul was parted from her body, though still by an inexplicable sympathy she was aware of what was pa.s.sing around her lifeless form. Yet her soul had gone forth into that spiritual world toward which we look from this earth with such eager wonder. It had mingled there with the souls of others. It had put forth new powers, and learned the use of new faculties. Then that soul was called back to its body.

This maiden--this wonder among mortals--is not a mortal, she is an exiled soul. I have seen her sit with tears streaming down her face, tears such as men shed in exile. For she is like a banished man who has only one feeling, a longing, yearning homesickness. She has been once in that radiant world for a time which we call three days in our human calculations, but which to her seems indefinite; for as she once said--and it is a pregnant thought, full of meaning--there is no time there, all is infinite duration. The soul has illimitable powers; in an instant it can live years, and she in those three days had the life of ages. Her former life on earth has now but a faint hold upon her memory in comparison with that life among the stars. The sorrow that her loved ones endured has become eclipsed by the knowledge of the blessedness in which she found them.

Alas! it is a blessing to die, and it is only a curse to rise from the dead. And now she endures this exile with an aching heart, with memories that are irrepressible, with longings unutterable, and yearnings that cannot be expressed for that starry world and that bright companionship from which she has been recalled. So she sometimes speaks. And little else can she say amidst her tears. Oh, sublime and mysterious exile, could I but know what you know, and have but a small part of that secret which you can not explain!

For she can not tell what she witnessed _there_. She sometimes wishes to do so, but can not. When asked directly, she sinks into herself and is lost in thought. She finds no words. It is as when we try to explain to a man who has been always blind the scenes before our eyes. We can not explain them to such a man. And so with her. She finds in her memory things which no human language has been made to express. These languages were made for the earth, not for heaven. In order to tell me what she knows, she would need the language of that world, and then she could not explain it, for I could not understand it.

Only once I saw her smile, and that was when one of the nurses casually mentioned, with horror, the death of some acquaintance. "Death!" she murmured, and her eyes lighted up with a kind of ecstasy. "Oh, that I might die!" She knows no blessing on earth except that which we consider a curse, and to her the object of all her wishes is this one thing--Death. I shall not soon forget that smile. It seemed of itself to give a new meaning to death.

Do I believe this, so wild a theory, the very mention of which has carried me beyond myself? I do not know. All my reason rebels. It scouts the monstrous idea. But here she stands before me, with her memories and thoughts, and her wonderful words, few, but full of deepest meaning--words which I shall never forget--and I recognize something before which Reason falters. Whence this deep longing of hers? Why when she thinks of death does her face grow thus radiant, and her eyes kindle with hope? Why does she so pine and grow sick with desire? Why does her heart thus ache as day succeeds to day, and she finds herself still under the sunlight, with the landscapes and the music of this fair earth still around her?

Once, in some speculations of mine, which I think I mentioned to you, Teresina, I thought that if a man could reach that spiritual world he would look with contempt upon the highest charms that belong to this.

Here is one who believes that she has gone through this experience, and all this earth, with all its beauty, is now an object of indifference to her. Perhaps you may ask, Is she sane? Yes, dear, as sane as I am, but with a profounder experience and a diviner knowledge.

After I had been in Quebec about a month I learned that one of the regiments stationed here was commanded by Colonel Henry Despard. I called on him, and he received me with unbounded delight. He made me tell him all about myself, and I imparted to him as much of the events of the voyage and quarantine as was advisable. I did not go into particulars to any extent, of course. I mentioned nothing about _the grave_. That, dearest sister, is a secret between you, and me, and her. For if it should be possible that she should ever be restored to ordinary human sympathy and feeling, it will not be well that all the world should know what has happened to her.

His regiment was ordered to Halifax, and I concluded to comply with his urgent solicitations and accompany him. It is better for _her_ at any rate that there should be more friends than one to protect her. Despard, like the doctors, supposes that she is in a stupor.

The journey here exercised a favorable influence over her. Her strength increased to a marked degree, and she has once or twice spoken about the past. She told me that her father wrote to his son Louis in Australia some weeks before his death, and urged him to come home. She thinks that he is on his way to England. The Colonel and I at once thought that he ought to be sought after without delay, and he promised to write to his nephew, your old playmate, who, he tells me, is to be a neighbor of yours.

If he is still the one whom I remember--intellectual yet spiritual, with sound reason, yet a strong heart, if he is still the Courtenay Despard who, when a boy, seemed to me to look out upon the world before him with such lofty poetic enthusiasm--then, Teresella, you should show him this diary, for it will cause him to understand things which he ought to know. I suppose it would be unintelligible to Mr. Thornton, who is a most estimable man, but who, from the nature of his mind, if he read this, would only conclude that the writer was insane.

At any rate, Mr. Thornton should be informed of the leading facts, so that he may see if something can be done to alleviate the distress, or to avenge the wrongs of one whose father was the earliest benefactor of his family.

CHAPTER XVI.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

"It is now the middle of February," said Despard, after a long pause, in which he had given himself up to the strange reflections which the diary was calculated to excite. "If Louis Brandon left Australia when he was called he must be in England now."

"You are calm," said Mrs. Thornton. "Have you nothing more to say than that?"

Despard looked at her earnestly. "Do you ask me such a question? It is a story so full of anguish that the heart might break out of pure sympathy, but what words could be found? I have nothing to say. I am speechless. My G.o.d! what horror thou dost permit!"

"But something must be done," said Mrs. Thornton, impetuously.

"Yes," said Despard, slowly, "but what? If we could reach our hands over the grave and bring back those who have pa.s.sed away, then the soul of Edith might find peace; but now--now--we can give her no peace. She only wishes to die. Yet something must be done, and the first thing is to find Louis Brandon. I will start for London to-night. I will go and seek him, not for Edith's sake but for his own, that I may save one at least of this family. For her there is no comfort. Our efforts are useless there. If we could give her the greatest earthly happiness it would be poor and mean, and still she would sigh after that starry companionship from which her soul has been withdrawn."

"Then you believe it."

"Don't you?"

"Of course; but I did not know that you would."

"Why not? and if I did not believe it this at least would be plain, that she herself believes it. And even if it be a hallucination, it is a sublime one, and so vivid that it is the same to her as a reality. Let it be only a dream that has taken place--still that dream has made all other things dim, indistinct, and indifferent to her."

"No one but you would read Paolo's diary without thinking him insane."

Despard smiled. "Even that would be nothing to me. Some people think that a great genius must be insane.

'Great wits are sure to madness near allied,'

you know. For my part, I consider Paolo the sublimest of men. When I saw him last I was only a boy, and he came with his seraphic face and his divine music to give me an inspiration which has biased my life ever since. I have only known one spirit like his among those whom I have met."

An indescribable sadness pa.s.sed over his face. "But now," he continued, suddenly, "I suppose Thornton must see my uncle's letter. His legal mind may discern some things which the law may do in this case. Edith is beyond all consolation from human beings, and still farther beyond all help from English law. But if Louis Brandon can be found the law may exert itself in his favor. In this respect be may be useful, and I have no doubt he would take up the case earnestly, out of his strong sense of justice."

When Thornton came in to dinner Despard handed him his uncle's letter.

The lawyer read it with deep attention, and without a word.

Mrs. Thornton looked agitated--sometimes resting her head on her hand, at others looking fixedly at her husband. As soon as he had finished she said, in a calm, measured tone:

"I did not know before that Brandon of Brandon Hall and all his family had perished so miserably."

Thornton started, and looked at her earnestly. She returned his gaze with unutterable sadness in her eyes.

"He saved my father's life," said she. "He benefited him greatly. Your father also was under slight obligations to him. I thought that things like these const.i.tuted a faint claim on one's grat.i.tude, so that if one were exposed to misfortune he might not be altogether dest.i.tute of friends."

Thornton looked uneasy as his wife spoke.

"My dear," said he, "you do not understand."

"True," she answered; "for this thing is almost incredible. If my father's friend has died in misery, unpitied and unwept, forsaken by all, do I not share the guilt of ingrat.i.tude? How can I absolve myself from blame?"

"Set your mind at rest. You never knew any thing about it. I told you nothing on the subject."

"Then you knew it!"

"Stop! You can not understand this unless I explain it. You are stating bald facts; but these facts, painful as they are, are very much modified by circ.u.mstances."

"Well, then, I hope you will tell me all, without reserve, for I wish to know how it is that this horror has happened, and I have stood idly and coldly aloof. My G.o.d!" she cried, in Italian; "did _he_ not--did _they_ not in their last moments think of me, and wonder how they could have been betrayed by Langhetti's daughter!"

"My dear, be calm, I pray. You are blaming yourself unjustly, I a.s.sure you."

Despard was ghastly pale as this conversation went on. He turned his face away.

"Ralph Brandon," began Thornton, "was a man of many high qualities, but of unbounded pride, and utterly impracticable. He was no judge of character, and therefore was easily deceived. He was utterly inexperienced in business, and he was always liable to be led astray by any sudden impulse. Somehow or other a man named Potts excited his interest about twelve or fifteen years ago. He was a mere vulgar adventurer; but Brandon became infatuated with him, and actually believed that this man was worthy to be intrusted with the management of large business transactions. The thing went on for years. His friends all remonstrated with him. I, in particular, went there to explain to him that the speculation in which he was engaged could not result in any thing except loss. But he resented all interference, and I had to leave him to himself.