Kitabı oku: «Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician», sayfa 4

CHAPTER VI
THE CLAIRVOYANT

Balsamo had gone up to the young lady, whose appearance in his chamber was not strange to him.

"I bade you sleep. Do you sleep?"

Andrea sighed and nodded with an effort.

"It is well. Sit here," and he led her by the hand the youth had kissed to a chair, which she took.

"Now, see!"

Her eyes dilated as though to collect all the luminous rays in the room.

"I did not tell you to see with your eyes," said he, "but with those of the soul."

He touched her with a steel rod which he drew from under his waistcoat. She started as though a fiery dart had transfixed her and her eyes closed instantly; her darkening face expressed the sharpest astonishment.

"Tell me where you are."

"In the Red Room, with you, and I am ashamed and afraid."

"What of? Are we not in sympathy, and do you not know that my intentions are pure, and that I respect you like a sister?"

"You may not mean evil to me, but it is not so as regards others."

"Possibly," said the magician; "but do not heed that," he added in a tone of command. "Are all asleep under this roof?"

"All, save my father who is reading one of those bad books, which he pesters me to read, but I will not."

"Good; we are safe in that quarter. Look where Nicole is."

"She is in her room, in the dark, but I need not the light to see that she is slipping out of it to go and hide behind the yard door to watch."

"To watch you?"

"No."

"Then, it matters not. When a girl is safe from her father and her attendant, she has nothing to fear, unless she is in love – "

"I, love?" she said sneeringly. And shaking her head, she added sadly: "My heart is free."

Such an expression of candor and virginal modesty embellished her features that Balsamo radiantly muttered:

"A lily – a pupil – a seer!" clasping his hands in delight. "But, without loving, you may be loved?"

"I know not; and yet, since I returned from school, a youth has watched me, and even now he is weeping at the foot of the stairs."

"See his face!"

"He hides it in his hands."

"See through them."

"Gilbert!" she uttered with an effort. "Impossible that he would presume to love me!"

Balsamo smiled at her deep disdain, like one who knew that love will leap any distance.

"What is he doing now?"

"He puts down his hands, he musters up courage to mount hither – no, he has not the courage – he flees."

She smiled with scorn.

"Cease to look that way. Speak of the Baron of Taverney. He is too poor to give you any amusements?"

"None."

"You are dying of tedium here; for you have ambition?"

"No."

"Love for your father?"

"Yes; though I bear him a grudge for squandering my mother's fortune so that poor Redcastle pines in the garrison and cannot wear our name handsomely."

"Who is Redcastle?"

"My brother Philip is called the Knight of Redcastle from a property of the eldest son, and will wear it till father's death entitles him to be 'Taverney.'"

"Do you love your brother?"

"Dearly, above all else; because he has a noble heart, and would give his life for me."

"More than your father would. Where is Redcastle?"

"At Strasburg in the garrison; no, he has gone – oh, dear Philip!" continued the medium with sparkling eyes in joy. "I see him riding through a town I know. It is Nancy, where I was at the convent school. The torches round him light up his darling face."

"Why torches?" asked Balsamo in amaze.

"They are around him on horseback, and a handsome gilded carriage."

Balsamo appeared to have a guess at this, for he only said:

"Who is in the coach?"

"A lovely, graceful, majestic woman, but I seem to have seen her before – how strange! no, I am wrong – she looks like our Nicole; but as the lily is like the jessamine. She leans out of the coach window and beckons Philip to draw near. He takes his hat off with respect as she orders him, with a smile, to hurry on the horses. She says that the escort must be ready at six in the morning, as she wishes to take a rest in the daytime – oh, it is at Taverney that she means to stop. She wants to see my father! So grand a princess stop at our shabby house! What shall we do without linen or plate?"

"Be of good cheer. We will provide all that."

"Oh, thank you!"

The girl, who had partly risen, fell back in the chair, uttering a profound sigh.

"Regain your strength," said the magician, drawing the excess of magnetism from the beautiful body, which bent as if broken, and the fair head heavily resting on the heaving bosom. "I shall require all your lucidity presently. O, Science! you alone never deceive man. To none other ought man sacrifice his all. This is a lovely woman, a pure angel as Thou knowest who created angels. But what is this beauty and this innocence to me now? – only worth what information they afford. I care not though this fair darling dies, as long as she tells me what I seek. Let all worldly delights perish – love, passion and ecstasy, if I may tread the path surely and well lighted. Now, maiden, that, in a few seconds, my power has given you the repose of ages, plunge once more into your mesmeric slumber. This time, speak for myself alone."

He made the passes which replaced Andrea in repose. From his bosom he drew the folded paper containing the tress of black hair, from which the perfume had made the paper transparent. He laid it in Andrea's hand, saying:

"See!"

"Yes, a woman!"

"Joy!" cried Balsamo. "Science is not a mere name like virtue. Mesmer has vanquished Brutus. Depict this woman, that I may recognize her."

"Tall, dark, but with blue eyes, her hair like this, her arms sinewy."

"What is she doing?"

"Racing as though carried off on a fine black horse, flecked with foam. She takes the road yonder to Chalons."

"Good! my own road," said Balsamo. "I was going to Paris, and there we shall meet. You may repose now," and he took back the lock of hair.

Andrea's arms fell motionless again along her body.

"Recover strength, and go back to your harpsichord," said the mesmerist, enveloping her, as she rose, with a fresh supply of magnetism.

Andrea acted like the racehorse which overtaxes itself to accomplish the master's will, however unfair. She walked through the doorway, where he had opened the door, and, still asleep, descended the stairs slowly.

CHAPTER VII
THE MAID AND THE MISTRESS

Gilbert had passed this time in unspeakable anguish. Balsamo was but a man, but he was a strong one, and the youth was weak: He had attempted twenty times to mount to the assault of the guest room, but his trembling limbs gave way under him and he fell on his knees.

Then the idea struck him to get the gardener's ladder and by its means climb up outside to the window, and listen and spy. But as he stooped to pick up this ladder, lying on the grass where he remembered, he heard a rustling noise by the house, and he turned.

He let the ladder fall, for he fancied he saw a shade flit across the doorway. His terror made him believe it, not a ghost – he was a budding philosopher who did not credit them – but Baron Taverney. His conscience whispered another name, and he looked up to the second floor. But Nicole had put out her light, and not another, or a sound came from all over the house – the guest's room excepted.

Seeing and hearing nothing, convinced that he had deluded himself, Gilbert took up the ladder and had set foot on it to climb where he placed it, when Andrea came down from Balsamo's room. With a lacerated heart, Gilbert forgot all to follow her into the parlor where again she sat at the instrument; her candle still burned beside it.

Gilbert tore his bosom with his nails to think that here he had kissed the hem of her robe with such reverence. Her condescension must spring from one of those fits of corruption recorded in the vile books which he had read – some freak of the senses.

But as he was going to invade the room again, a hand came out of the darkness and energetically grasped him by the arm.

"So I have caught you, base deceiver! Try to deny again that you love her and have an appointment with her!"

Gilbert had not the power to break from the clutch, though he might readily have done so, for it was only a girl's. Nicole Legay held him a prisoner.

"What do you want?" he said testily.

"Do you want me to speak out aloud?"

"No, no; be quiet," he stammered, dragging her out of the antechamber.

"Then follow me!" which was what Gilbert wanted, as this was removing Nicole from her mistress.

He could with a word have proved that while he might be guilty of loving the lady, the latter was not an accomplice; but the secret of Andrea was one that enriches a man, whether with love or lucre.

"Come to my room," she said; "who would surprise us there! Not my young lady, though she may well be jealous of her fine gallant! But folks in the secret are not to be dreaded. The honorable lady jealous of the servant, – I never expected such an honor! It is I who am jealous, for you love me no more."

In plainness, Nicole's bedroom did not differ from the others in that dwelling. She sat on the edge of the bed, and Gilbert on the dressing-case, which Andrea had given her maid.

Coming up the stairs, Nicole had calmed herself, but the youth felt anger rise as it cooled in the girl.

"So you love our young lady," began Nicole with a kindling eye. "You have love-trysts with her; or will you pretend you went only to consult the magician?"

"Perhaps so, for you know I feel ambition – "

"Greed, you mean?"

"It is the same thing, as you take it."

"Don't let us bandy words: you avoid me lately."

"I seek solitude – "

"And you want to go up into solitude by a ladder? Beg pardon, I did not know that was the way to it."

Gilbert was beaten in the first defenses.

"You had better out with it, that you love me no longer, or love us both."

"That would only be an error of society, for in some countries men have several wives."

"Savages!" exclaimed the servant, testily.

"Philosophers!" retorted Gilbert.

"But you would not like me to have two beaux on my string?"

"I do not wish tyrannically and unjustly to restrain the impulses of your heart. Liberty consists in respecting free will. So, change your affection, for fidelity is not natural – to some."

Discussion was the youth's strong point; he knew little, but more than the girl. So he began to regain coolness.

"Have you a good memory, Master Philosopher?" said Nicole. "Do you remember when I came back from the nunnery with mistress, and you consoled me, and taking me in your arms, said: 'You are an orphan like me; let us be brother and sister through similar misfortune.' Did you mean what you said?"

"Yes, then; but five months have changed me; I think otherwise at present."

"You mean you will not wed me? Yet Nicole Legay is worth a Gilbert, it seems to me."

"All men are equal; but nature or education improves or depreciates them. As their faculties or acquirements expand, they part from one another."

"I understand that we must part, and that you are a scamp. How ever could I fancy such a fellow?"

"Nicole, I am never going to marry, but be a learned man or a philosopher. Learning requires the isolation of the mind; philosophy that of the body."

"Master Gilbert, you are a scoundrel, and not worth a girl like me. But you laugh," she continued, with a dry smile more ominous than his satirical laugh; "do not make war with me; for I shall do such deeds that you will be sorry, for they will fall on your head, for having turned me astray."

"You are growing wiser; and I am convinced now that you would refuse me if I sued you."

Nicole reflected, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth.

"I believe you are right, Gilbert," she said; "I, too, see my horizon enlarge, and believe I am fated for better things than to be so mean as a philosopher's wife. Go back to your ladder, sirrah, and try not to break your neck, though I believe it would be a blessing to others, and may be for yourself."

Gilbert hesitated for a space in indecision, for Nicole, excited by love and spite, was a ravishing creature; but he had determined to break with her, as she hampered his passion and his aspirations.

"Gone," murmured Nicole in a few seconds.

She ran to the window, but all was dark. She went to her mistress' door, where she listened.

"She is asleep; but I will know all about it to-morrow."

It was broad day when Andrea de Taverney awoke.

In trying to rise, she felt such lassitude and sharp pain that she fell back on the pillow uttering a groan.

"Goodness, what is the matter?" cried Nicole, who had opened the curtains.

"I do not know. I feel lame all over; my chest seems broken in."

"It is the outbreak of the cold you caught last night," said the maid.

"Last night?" repeated the surprised lady; but she remarked the disorder of her room, and added: "Stay, I remember that I felt very tired – exhausted – it must have been the storm. I fell to sleep over my music. I recall nothing further. I went up hither half asleep, and must have thrown myself on the bed without undressing properly."

"You must have stayed very late at the music, then," observed Nicole, "for, before you retired to your bedroom I came down, having heard steps about – "

"But I did not stir from the parlor."

"Oh, of course, you know better than me," said Nicole.

"You must mistake," replied the other with the utmost sweetness: "I never left the seat; but I remember that I was cold, for I walked quite swiftly."

"When I saw you in the garden, however, you walked very freely."

"I, in the grounds? – you know I never go out after dark."

"I should think I knew my mistress by sight," said the maid, doubling her scrutiny; "I thought that you were taking a stroll with somebody."

"With whom would I be taking a stroll?" demanded Andrea, without seeing that her servant was putting her to an examination.

Nicole did not think it prudent to proceed, for the coolness of the hypocrite, as she considered her, frightened her. So she changed the subject.

"I hope you are not going to be sick, either with fatigue or sorrow. Both have the same effect. Ah, well I know how sorrows undermine!"

"You do? Have you sorrows, Nicole?"

"Indeed; I was coming to tell my mistress, when I was frightened to see how queer you looked; no doubt, we both are upset."

"Really!" queried Andrea, offended at the "we both."

"I am thinking of getting married."

"Why, you are not yet seventeen – "

"But you are sixteen and – "

She was going to say something saucy, but she knew Andrea too well to risk it, and cut short the explanation.

"Indeed, I cannot know what my mistress thinks, but I am low-born and I act according to my nature. It is natural to have a sweetheart."

"Oh, you have a lover then! You seem to make good use of your time here."

"I must look forward. You are a lady and have expectations from rich kinsfolks going off; but I have no family and must get into one."

As all this seemed straightforward enough, Andrea forgot what had been offensive in tone, and said, with her kindness taking the reins:

"Is it any one I know? Speak out, as it is the duty of masters to interest themselves in the fate of their servants, and I am pleased with you."

"That is very kind. It is – Gilbert!"

To her high amaze, Andrea did not wince.

"As he loves you, marry him," she replied, easily. "He is an orphan, too, so you are both your own masters. Only, you are both rather young."

"We shall have the longer life together."

"You are penniless."

"We can work."

"What can he do, who is good for nothing?"

"He is good to catch game for master's table, anyway; you slander poor Gilbert, who is full of attention for you."

"He does his duty as a servant – "

"Nay; he is not a servant; he is never paid."

"He is son of a farmer of ours; he is kept and does nothing for it; so, he steals his support. But what are you aiming at to defend so warmly a boy whom nobody attacks?"

"I never thought you would attack him! it is just the other way about!" with a bitter smile.

"Something more I do not understand."

"Because you do not want to."

"Enough! I have no leisure for your riddles. You want my consent to this marriage?"

"If you please; and I hope you will bear Gilbert no ill will."

"What is it to me whether he loves you or not? You burden me, miss."

"I daresay," said Nicole, bursting out in anger at last; "you have said the same thing to Gilbert."

"I speak to your Gilbert! You are mad, girl; leave me in peace."

"If you do not speak to him now, I believe the silence will not last long."

"Lord forgive her – the silly jade is jealous!" exclaimed Andrea, covering her with a disdainful look, and laughing. "Cheer up, little Legay! I never looked at your pretty Gilbert, and I do not so much as know the color of his eyes."

Andrea was quite ready to overlook what seemed folly and not pertness; but Nicole felt offended, and did not want pardon.

"I can quite believe that – for one cannot get a good look in the nighttime."

"Take care to make yourself clear at once," said Andrea, very pale.

"Last night, I saw – "

"Andrea!" came a voice from below, in the garden.

"My lord your father," said Nicole, "with the stranger who passed the night here."

"Go down, and say that I cannot answer, as I am not well. I have a stiff neck; and return to finish this odd debate."

Nicole obeyed, as Andrea was always obeyed when commanding, without reply or wavering. Her mistress felt something unusual; though resolved not to show herself, she was constrained to go to the window left open by Legay, through a superior and resistless power.

CHAPTER VIII
THE HARBINGER

The traveler had risen early to look to his coach and learn how Althotas was faring.

All were still sleeping but Gilbert, who peeped through a window of his room over the doorway and spied all the stranger's movements.

The latter was struck by the change which day brought on the scene so gloomy overnight. The domain of Taverney did not lack dignity or grace. The old house resembled a cavern which nature embellishes with flowers, creepers and capricious rookeries, although at night it would daunt a traveler seeking shelter.

When Balsamo returned after an hour's stroll to the Red Castle ruins, he saw the lord of it all leave the house by a side door to cull roses and crush snails. His slender person was wrapped in his flowered dressing-gown.

"My lord," said Balsamo, with the more courtesy as he had been sounding his host's poverty, "allow my excuses with my respects. I ought to wait your coming down, but the aspect of Taverney tempted me, and I yearned to view the imposing ruins and pretty garden."

"The ruins are rather fine," returned the baron; "about all here worth looking at. The castle was my ancestors'; it is called the Red Castle, and we long have borne its name together with Taverney, it being the same barony. Oh, my lord, as you are a magician," continued the nobleman, "you ought with a wave of your wand uprear again the old Red Castle, as well as restore the two thousand odd acres around it. But I suppose you wanted all your art to make that beastly bed comfortable. It is my son's, and he growled enough at it."

"I protest it is excellent, and I want to prove it by doing you some service in return."

Labrie was bringing to his master a glass of spring water on a splendid china platter.

"Here's your chance," said the baron, always jeering; "turn that into wine as the greatest service of all."

Balsamo smiling, the old lord thought it was backing out and took the glass, swallowing the contents at a gulp.

"Excellent specific," said the mesmerist. "Water is the noblest of the elements, baron. Nothing resists it; it pierces stone now, and one of these days will dissolve diamonds."

"It is dissolving me. Will you drink with me. It has the advantage over wine of running freely here. Not like my liquor."

"I might make one useful to you."

"Labrie, a glass of water for the baron. How can the water which I drink daily comprise properties never suspected by me? As the fellow in the play talked prose all his life without knowing it, have I been practising magic for ten years without an idea of it?"

"I do not know about your lordship, but I do know about myself," was the other's grave reply.

Taking the glass from Labrie, who had displayed marvelous celerity, he looked at it steadily.

"What do you see in it, my dear guest?" the baron continued to mock. "I am dying with eagerness. Come, come! a windfall to me, another Red Castle to set me on my legs again."

"I see the advice here to prepare for a visit. A personage of high distinction is coming, self-invited, conducted by your son Philip, who is even now near us."

"My dear lord, my son is on military duty at Strasburg, and he will not be bringing guests at the risk of being punished as a deserter."

"He is none the less bringing a lady, a mighty dame – and, by the way, you had better keep that pretty Abigail of yours at a distance while she stays, as there is a close likeness between them."

"The promised lady guest bears a likeness to my servant Legay? What contradiction!"

"Why not? Once I bought a slave so like Cleopatra that the Romans talked of palming her off for the genuine queen in the triumph in their capital."

"So you are at your old tricks again?" laughed the baron.

"How would you like it, were you a princess, for instance, to see behind your chair a maid who looked your picture, in short petticoats and linen neckerchief."

"Well, we will protect her against that. But I am very pleased with this boy of mine who brings guests without forewarning us!"

"I am glad my forecast affords you pleasure, my dear baron; and, if you meant to properly greet the coming guest, you have not a minute to lose."

The baron shook his head like the most incredulous of beings, and as the two were near the dwelling part of the baron's daughter, he called out to her to impart the stranger's predictions.

This was the call which brought her to the window despite herself, and she saw Balsamo. He bowed deeply to her while fixing his eyes upon her. She reeled and had to catch the sill not to fall.

"Good-morning, my lord," she answered.

She uttered these words at the very moment when Nicole, telling the baron that his daughter would not come, stopped stupefied and with gaping mouth at this capricious contradiction.

Instantly Andrea fell on a chair, all her powers quitting her. Balsamo had gazed on her to the last.

"This is deusedly hard to believe," remarked the baron, "and seeing is believing – "

"Then, see!" said the wonder-worker, pointing up the avenue, from the end of which came galloping at full speed a rider whose steed made the stones rattle under its hoofs.

"Oh, it is indeed – " began the baron.

"Master Philip!" screamed Nicole, standing on tiptoe, while Labrie grunted in pleasure.

"My brother!" cried out Andrea, thrusting her hands through the window.

"This is the commencement," said Balsamo.

"Decidedly you are a magician," said the baron.

A smile of triumph appeared on the mesmerist's lips.

Soon the horse approached plainly, reeking with sweat and smoking, and the rider, a young man in an officer's uniform, splashed with mud up to the countenance, animated by the speed, leaped off and hurried to embrace his father.

"It is I," said Philip of Taverney, seeing the doubt. "I bear a great honor for our house. In an hour Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and bride of the Dauphin of France, will be here."

The baron dropped his arms with as much humility as he had shown sarcasm and irony, and turned to Balsamo for his forgiveness.

"My lord," said the latter, bowing, "I leave you with your son, from whom you have been long separated and to whom you must have a great deal to say."

Saluting Andrea, who rushed to meet her brother in high delight, Balsamo drew off, beckoning Nicole and Labrie, who disappeared with him under the trees.