Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 30

She walked, at first, with uncertain steps, then more firmly, and with ever swifter stride. The by-streets through which she pa.s.sed were quiet, almost deserted; she was hardly noticed, though in one or two observers a faint curiosity was aroused by the figure of the well-dressed, hatless woman, be-ap.r.o.ned and clasping to her breast a dust-cloth and a book. As for her, she noticed nothing as she hastened on.

Without pause, with ever-increasing pace, which had now become a run, she entered the gates of the cemetery, threading its alleys, seeing nothing with her bodily eyes; for their horror and despair were no reflection of the mournful yet peaceful scene in which she pa.s.sed. She came to the grave of her child. Again she crouched as she had done in the library of her home; her despairing eyes were turned upward and her hands raised in appeal to the serene and pitiless sky.

Words came to her in the language of her childhood. "My G.o.d," she cried, "Fiend that dwellest beyond the sky, have mercy. Pitiless Father, who didst condemn thy Son for sport, whose nostrils love the scent of burning men, whose ears find music in their agony, whose eyes gloat upon their writhings, take me to thy h.e.l.l of torment and release my child."

And so, with frantic blasphemy, cursing G.o.d and beating her breast, she fell forward upon the baby's grave.

CHAPTER XXIX.

DR. STANLEY DISCOURSES CONCERNING THE DIVERSIONS OF THE SAINTS.

At the hour agreed upon, Mrs. Joe left Stormpoint to fetch Natalie. As the latter had done in the morning, and in order to inspect the newly-erected headstone, she alighted from her carriage at the cemetery and pa.s.sed through various alleys, when, as she approached her destination, she suddenly halted.

A woman was stretched upon the grave, who, on hearing the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of Mrs. Joe, partly raised her head, disclosing an earth-bedaubed face, and emitting sounds not human, but rather the moans of a tortured animal.

Mrs. Joe ran and seized her shoulder, and at the touch Natalie half arose. Her gleaming eyes, her face distorted and soiled with earth--these presented an appalling spectacle.

The lady of Stormpoint could hardly have told how the task was accomplished, but she succeeded in inducing the frantic woman to enter the carriage, and, thus separated from the grave, she became quieter, though never ceasing to mutter phrases which caused the listener to shudder. Mrs. Joe was a woman of varied experience. She had heard the oaths of mining camps when pistols and knives were out and frenzied ruffians were athirst for blood; she would have thought no form of profanity strange to her ears; yet she had heard no blasphemy equal to that uttered by her companion, repeated as a weary child asleep may repeat some hard-learned sentence impressed upon a tired brain.

Arrived home, and Natalie in her bed, and withal lying quiet, and the carriage dispatched at full speed for Dr. Stanley, there was time to consider the next step.

"Send for Father Cameril," urged Paula.

"What is Leonard's address?" asked the lady, ignoring the suggestion.

"Dear," said Paula, caressingly, and taking Natalie's hand, "where is Leonard?"

"In h.e.l.l," was the answer. "I am overjoyed in hearing the howlings of h.e.l.l. My joy is increased as I gaze upon Leonard in the midst of that sea of suffering."

"Good Lord deliver us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Joe. Paula fell upon her knees.

"Father in heaven!" she commenced.

Natalie looked at her with languid interest "The sight of h.e.l.l-torments exalts the happiness of the saints," she said.

At this delectable quotation from Jonathan Edwards Mrs. Joe wrung her hands; Paula uttered a half scream and burst into tears; in the same moment Dr. Stanley was ushered into the room.

"A frightful shock!" was his verdict. "Absolute quiet! No tears; no exorcisms," with a warning finger upheld for Paula. "I'll send a nurse at once and return soon."

By night he was again in the house, having received bulletins from the nurse in the meanwhile. The patient was asleep; had been so for nearly three hours. "Excellent!" he said to Mrs. Joe, finding that lady awaiting his report in the library. "It's a fine brain, Mrs. Claghorn.

Let us hope it may prove a strong one. Can you explain further than you could this afternoon?"

"The keeper of the cemetery knows nothing. Her maids are here. I sent James for them, and have kept them to be questioned by you."

The maids only knew that Mrs. Leonard had visited the house, and had spent the day in the library; that one of them, noting that her mistress had neglected the luncheon that had been laid out for her, had ventured to look into the room. "She was crouched on the floor, reading; I could not well see her face. When I spoke she waved her hand, as though I was not to interrupt. That was about two o'clock. I went back to the kitchen, just putting the tea on the range so's to heat it. Then neither Martha nor I thought anything more about her, until about five Martha thought she heard the front door slam. We looked in the library; she was gone. She hadn't touched the lunch." Such, relieved of some circ.u.mlocution, was the report of the maid most glib of speech. They were dismissed by the doctor.

"She has done," was his comment, "that which creed-adherents usually omit. She has read, and as a consequence is crazed."

"Crazed as a consequence of reading!" exclaimed Mrs. Joe.

"Mrs. Leonard has sustained a shock; there must be a cause. No external injury is discoverable. The cause is to be found in her moral, or, if you please, her spiritual const.i.tution--I don't care what you call it--among other things in strong maternal yearnings--subjective causes these, and not sufficient to explain the seizure; there must have been an agent. The maid found her deeply absorbed; people that read crouched on the floor are so; therefore a book----"

"I took this from her," exclaimed the lady, producing the Reverend Eliphalet's "Call to the Careless."

"Aha!" exclaimed the doctor, pouncing upon the volume and glancing at the t.i.tle-page, "here we have it; here's enough to convert a lying-in hospital into Bedlam."

Mrs. Joe gazed upon the fat little volume in the hand of the speaker, with the same expression with which a novice might contemplate an overgrown spider impaled upon the card of a collector.

"This unctuous treatise," proceeded the doctor, who, finding his hobby saddled, was impatient to mount, "was written by a shining light of that family to which you and I have been graciously permitted to ally ourselves. In this volume are recorded the ecstatic transports of one of the most blessed of the blessed Claghorns. Our patient may have derived her tendency to exaltation from this very rhapsodist. Here, with the Reverend Eliphalet, we may revel in angelic joys; with him, we may, G.o.d-like, gloat over sinners d.a.m.ned, and, enraptured, contemplate Flames, Torment and Despair; here our ears may be charmed with the Roars of Age, the Howls of Youth, the Screams of Childhood and the Wails of Infancy; all in linked sweetness long drawn out; all in capital letters, and all extorted by the Flames that Lick the Suffering d.a.m.ned!"

"Doctor!" exclaimed the lady, scandalized at that which she supposed was a burst of profanity.

"Shocked? Well, shocking it is--in me, who refuse to believe it, but edifying in Eliphalet. Ah! madam, the evil that men do lives after them.

Was truth ever better exemplified? Listen to this: The writer pictures himself in heaven and looking down into h.e.l.l. 'What joy to behold Truth vindicated from all the horrid aspersions of h.e.l.lish monsters!' (that's me) 'I am overjoyed at hearing the everlasting Howlings of the Haters of the Almighty! Oh! Sweet, sweet. My heart is satisfied!'"

The lady attempted to interrupt, but the doctor continued to read: "The saints in glory will see and better understand (than we do) how terrible the sufferings of the d.a.m.ned are! When they have this sight it will excite them to joyful praises,' that's a choice bit from Jonathan Edwards. What do you think of the diversions of 'the saints in glory?'"

"It's blasphemy!"

"Blasphemy! Tell it not in Hampton! But listen to Jonathan again. Here is his picture of a sinner just condemned. His parents are witnesses of his terror and agony, and thus they righteously gloat: 'When they shall see what manifestations of amazement will be in you at the hearing of this dreadful sentence; when they shall behold you with a frightened and amazed countenance, trembling and astonished, and shall hear you groan and gnash your teeth, these things will not move them at all to pity you, but you will see them with a holy joy in their countenances and with songs in their mouths. When they shall see you turned away and beginning to enter into the great furnace, and shall see how you shrink at it, and hear how you shriek and cry out, yet they will not be at all grieved for you; but at the same time you will hear from them renewed praises and hallelujahs for this true and righteous judgment of G.o.d in so dealing with you!'"

"If," interjected the listener, "that is written there, the devil wrote it."

"The devil may have had a hand in the matter, but it was written by no less a person than Jonathan Edwards, regarded, and justly, by the Reverend Eliphalet and others, as a great man. He is also quoted here as saying to his hearers, 'If you perish hereafter, it will be an occasion of joy to all the G.o.dly'; one is hardly surprised that he didn't get on with his congregation. Imagine Father Cameril making that announcement with you and Miss Paula in the front pew."

"Doctor, if you are not inventing----"

"I could not. My imagination is not warmed by the flames of h.e.l.l or by celestial visions. This book is filled with similar elegant extracts."

"I have heard enough, Doctor. Really----"

"Permit me one or two more. We have hardly heard the author himself as yet."

"But to what end?"

"You were incredulous when I a.s.serted that a day's reading in Leonard's library would account for the present condition of his wife. It's only fair to allow me to justify my a.s.sertion."

"You have read enough to drive _me_ crazy, if for one moment I believed it."

"Hardly. _You_ are not a recently bereaved mother; _you_ are not just emerging from a condition consequent upon disturbance of the physical economy which has reacted upon the mental; _you_ are not inclined to mysticism, to see visions, to find pictures in goblets of water or in grate fires; in short, while you have your own idiosyncrasies, they are not of a character to render you liable to this sort of transport. But there are organizations which, though seduced by mystic lore, can hardly contemplate such matters without injury. The compiler of this book, the men he quotes, the ecstatics in general--revivalists, hermits, nuns and monks in all ages--do you believe that as a cla.s.s they were well balanced? Peering into heaven is a dangerous business."

"The men you have quoted seem to have peered into h.e.l.l."

"That is the Puritan mode of ecstatic enjoyment. Our Catholic--I beg your pardon, our Roman Catholic--enthusiasts, being more artistic, and lovers of the beautiful, prefer contemplation of heaven. Unlike the smug Puritan, they do not spare their bodies. They fast and flog, wear hair shirts, roll in ashes and wash seldom, but their eyes are turned upward; they urge the spirit to rejoice. Your fat and well-fed Calvinist prefers a gloom irradiated by the flames of h.e.l.l, in which he can behold the writhing victims of G.o.d's vanity----"

"Doctor, you are as bitter as all your brethren; you unbeliever----"