Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 700», sayfa 4

THE TWELFTH RIG

IN SIX CHAPTERS

CHAPTER V. – THE WORKING OF THE CHARM

The theatre was crowded with an assemblage of fashion and beauty, and many were the glances directed towards the boxes, and numerous the comments of those who came to see rather than to hear, on the beauties who shone there like so many stars striving to outsparkle each other.

In one of the side-boxes Eliza was seated with her husband. Passionately fond of music, she seemed to have forgotten her sorrows, till, on turning to Charles to make some observation, she perceived that some young men, acquaintances of his, had entered and were conversing with him. One of them was directing his attention to a particular box. Following their eyes, she observed a young lady, all in fleecy white and pale blue, with pearls glimmering in her dark hair. A most radiant beauty, her eyes sparkling with extraordinary brilliancy, and seeming to far outshine the lustre of the diamonds that gleamed around; the rich damask of her cheek putting to shame the roses she held in her hand. Several gentlemen stood around her, attentive to every word and look, each striving to win her special regard. She appeared in buoyant spirits, and conversed with great animation, smiling often with singular sweetness. But her smiles, though so bewitching, were distributed carelessly, and she never distinguished any one of those about her above the rest.

Eliza, struck with admiration, gazed at her earnestly. The young lady looked in that direction. Their eyes met. A thrill passed through Eliza's frame. All at once the gay assemblage seemed to vanish from her sight, the lights burned dim and lurid, and the air grew heavy as if with death. The voices of the singers retreated far away. She heard the murmur of mountain rivulets, and the soughing of the wind over a wide space. Before her eyes uprose a lonely field, with the moonbeams shimmering over its dark ridges. She saw herself, and fronting her a shadowy white face and form, like the dim reflection in a stream, of a human figure. Then, mingling with the distant music, the words 'Doomed, doomed!' smote on her ears like a wailing cry of agony, or the scornful laugh of a mocking fiend.

With this scene before her, with these words ringing around her, she sat on, as if in a dream. Had she looked towards her husband, she would have seen a dark cloud on his forehead and a moody look in his eye. Could she have seen into his mind, it would have troubled her more.

'How lovely!' he thought. 'What grace, what ease and animation! And she might have been my wife. What a fool I was! Eliza is pretty enough still, but compared to her' – he turned, that he might make the comparison, but she was unconscious of it. 'Ah! mere country prettiness, which loses half its charm out of its place. Vivacity was her attraction, and that gone, what has she? She looks now as if she did not know what was going on around her. And for her I gave up the beauty that brings all Paris to its feet, lost a handsome fortune, alienated my family, and endangered my prospects from them. Yet that is not the worst. I see now that my marriage with Eliza was a mistake in every way. I was mad to throw away my prospects and happiness thus; to forsake her whom I really loved, and who loved me – then at least. Blind fool that I was!'

There was a stir in that box towards which so many glances were directed. The young lady had risen, and pale as death, leaning heavily on the arm of a middle-aged lady, prepared to leave the theatre. 'She is fainting; the heat is too much for her,' was whispered around. A dozen gentlemen sprang forward to wrap her in her mantle and call her carriage; she thanked them with a faint sweet smile, but uttered no word. When the carriage had driven away and all were out of sight, she cast herself sobbing on her companion's breast, and trembled from head to foot.

'Oh, do not bring me to these scenes any more!' she cried; 'I cannot bear it; indeed I cannot; they are torture to me. I know you meant it kindly, dear friend – thought to rouse and cheer me; but it will not do; I cannot be gay like others while my heart is breaking. Oh, take me far away to some quiet spot, where I may pass the short time that remains to me in peace and seclusion!'

'Darling, we shall leave Paris to-morrow, if you really wish it,' returned the middle-aged lady; and her tone betrayed alarm, as if she feared for the result of so much emotion.

'Eliza!' said Charles, somewhat roughly; 'don't you see all is over and everybody is going away? Are you dreaming?'

She started and looked up with a bewildered air; then she saw how dark his brow was, and the cause puzzled her.

All that night Eliza lay awake tossing feverishly; she made an effort to dispel the thoughts that distracted her and compose herself to sleep; but when she closed her eyes, faces seemed to press close up to hers, familiar faces, that she used to see every day. It was useless to think of sleep, and she lay watching wearily till dawn.

In the morning, Eliza was so feverish and ill that she felt unable to rise. A doctor was sent for. Before he arrived, she had become delirious, and raved pitifully about her old home and her father. Another name too was often on her lips. The doctor, who was an Englishman, as he stood by her bedside, supposed it might be that of her husband. 'Will! Will!' she repeated over and over, sometimes in tender loving accents, then in tones of wild despair. When the physician took her hand she seemed to become conscious of who he was and of her own illness.

'I shall die,' she said in a sad quiet tone. 'I know I shall. There's no use in your coming to me. You may be the greatest doctor in Europe, but all your skill won't save me. I am doomed, doomed!'

He thought her still raving, in spite of her calm tone; but in reality she was not so now. Her youth and beauty, joined to her piteous look and tones, moved him. Some of her wanderings seemed to shew that she had once been accustomed to a sphere of life far beneath that in which he found her. He thought some sorrow or trouble weighed on her mind, and tried to discover if such were the case. But in answer to his kind questioning she only shook her head or moaned feebly.

On leaving his patient, the doctor sought Crofton. He found him lounging, with a very gloomy brow, over a late breakfast.

'I have seen Mrs Crofton,' he said. 'I do not apprehend any danger at present. It is a touch of fever, which will pass. But I wish to mention that change of air and scene are absolutely necessary for her. I was told by her maid that she has been in the habit of remaining very much within doors of late, and that she has been depressed in spirits.'

'She need not have remained within doors if she did not choose,' returned Charles coldly; 'and if she was depressed, it was totally without cause.'

The other looked at him. It was a strange tone for the husband of one so young and beautiful; and not long wedded, as he had been given to understand.

'Well,' he replied after a pause, 'I recommend that she should be removed to a quiet country place as soon as possible – to-morrow, if she is able to bear the journey.'

'As you say so, of course it shall be done. My own arrangements do not permit of my leaving Paris at present, but that need make no difference; Mrs Crofton can go accompanied by her maid.'

Again the doctor looked at him, the tone was so indifferent, as if he wished to dispose of the matter at once, and be troubled no more. Merely mentioning the place he thought most suitable for his patient, a quiet little town in the south of France, he bowed coldly, and withdrew.

Charles rose and sauntered to the mantel-piece. 'She acts the fine lady well,' he muttered to himself. 'Ill and out of spirits! She has no cause to be so. As much as I lost she has gained. Yet she acts and speaks sometimes as if she had made a sacrifice for me. I could almost fancy that she regrets that clodhopping fellow. It is a pity, after all, she was so ready to jilt him. She can't expect that I will coop myself up in a wretched dreary place. We are not so very devoted now, either of us, that we require no other company than that of the other.'

In the evening Eliza was better; the feverishness had passed, and it was thought she would be able to leave next day; so Charles went to her room to inform her of the doctor's command, and the fact that the journey was to be made without him.

'I have arranged to remain here yet, and can't alter my plans,' he said. 'But my presence could do you no good; and when you are better you can join me; that is, if you wish to do so.'

If she wished to do so! He would not then care if she did not join him! His words and manner implied that she had become a burden to him, which he would willingly cast off, were it possible; since it was not possible, absent himself from her as much as he could. She turned, sighing, away; and Charles left the room without another word, without a kiss.

It had come now that he was actually estranged from her! He could let her go from him alone, ill as she was, and in a foreign land, the land he had brought her to! It was not with any wild passionate pang, such as she would have felt had she loved him, that she thought this; but a dead cold weight pressed on her heart, and a sense of utter desolation came over her.

'Alone, alone!' she murmured. 'Father, lover, friends, home – I abandoned them all, and for what? – for what?'

CHAPTER VI. – THE CHARM DISSOLVED

Next day Eliza set out, accompanied only by her maid. No one, to see her, would have fancied she was not yet one year a wife.

In the sweet quiet spot to which she went her illness passed away; but she was weaker than before, and her health precarious. Her spirits too sank daily, and the rich glow of her cheek, dimmer during the last few months than it used to be, faded more and more. The sparkling smile of other days, or the discontented pout which had always betrayed any little 'temper,' never dwelt on her lips now. A softened subdued shade settled on her countenance. In her sadness and loneliness, forsaken by him to whom she would still have clung even when love was gone, she turned, in her sorrow, to thoughts which had never occupied her before, to religion, the one source of consolation that remains to the disappointed and unfortunate; fortunate if they can embrace it, and find peace and full satisfaction somewhere at last.

In a peaceful nook, embosomed among a grove of beech-trees, there was a lonely little chapel. Thither Eliza went every evening, and kneeling among the few quiet worshippers, lifted her eyes to the sculptured form above the altar, whose mild angelic face and outstretched arms seemed to speak of pity and sympathy with human woe.

One evening she lingered till dusk began to gather in the quaint old place. It was now again the eve of All-Hallows, and her thoughts reverted to the past and all that had happened during one short year. Looking up at last, she found that the others had gone and she was alone. The pale spectral rays of a rising moon, broken and intercepted by the fluttering trees without, stole in at the windows and crept with a kind of stealthy motion across the floor. The silence was tomb-like. It smote on Eliza's heart. Part of the chapel, where the moonbeams did not pierce, was veiled in gloom, and in the darkness the draperies about the altar seemed to stir and take strange form. Indistinct masses, which looked as if they might at any moment become endowed with animation, filled the corners. Eliza could almost fancy that the dim dead who slept in the vaults beneath were rising round her. She turned to leave the place, and then perceived that she was not alone.

A female figure knelt at a little distance, the face buried in the hands. As Eliza moved down the aisle it rose slowly and turned round. With a low shuddering cry she sprang back, and almost sank to the ground. She gasped for breath. She tried to speak, but for some moments in vain. At last, in a loud cry, her voice broke forth: 'In the name of the blessed God and by this holy sign!' (crossing herself rapidly), 'speak! Who and what are you, that twice before have crossed my path? In the lonely field; in the crowded theatre, suddenly changing from an aspect of light and beauty to a ghastly corpse-like image; and now again!'

The figure approached a few steps, the lips moved, but no sound came. Eliza shrank back to the wall, pressing against it as if she would force herself through the stone. A low sigh sounded, a faint tremulous voice spoke: 'Twice before have you started up to bewilder and affright me: in the lonely field, when the night-wind was sighing; in the gay assemblage; and here again, the third time. Who and what are you, let me ask?'

Eliza rose. 'One who is lonely and unhappy,' she answered; 'who, having deserted others, is herself left alone now. If you would know my name, it is Eliza Crofton.'

There was a pause, then in low, awestruck tones, the last word was repeated: 'Crofton! And I am Ellen Courtney.'

'And we meet thus, for the first time knowing each other, though I have often heard your name, and you mine! Did you too, then, go to the Twelfth Rig last Hallow-eve night?'

'Listen, and I will tell you. He did not come home that evening – he, I mean, who is now your husband. There was company at the house, and he was expected. There was dancing and music, but I could not join in it. I stole away to my own room, and afterwards wandered out into the fields. I had heard of the charm of the Twelfth Rig, but it was not with any settled intention of trying it that I went out. When I got to the field, overcome with sorrow and weariness, for I had walked a long distance, I sank down; and thinking that nothing stirred in that lonely spot but the night-wind, gave loose to the grief and despair that filled my heart. When at last I rose up, I saw a figure wrapped in a cloak standing motionless in the centre of one of the ridges, pale, with wild eyes, and black dishevelled hair. As I gazed, it uttered a dreadful scream, and turning, fled. I had heard stories of the banshee, and I thought this must be it, or some spirit of doom, that had appeared to warn me of my approaching death. I believe I sank down again on the ground. My senses seemed to leave me. I know not what I did, but I heard a voice crying "Doomed, doomed!" and I think it was myself that uttered the words.'

'I heard it,' said Eliza. 'It pursued me as I fled, repeated, I suppose, by the mountain echoes. Ah! how it has haunted me. I tried to crush back the thought; but it was there still, though I wouldn't face it, and I felt in my heart that my days were numbered. Has the clearing up come too late? I have suffered so much, I scarcely feel fit for life now.'

'It comes too late for me. Though it was no spirit that stood in the midst of the Twelfth Rig, the charm will work still. I was ill after that night, very ill, else we might have met before you left, and recognised each other. Then came the shock that tore up by the roots the last hopes that lingered in my heart. You know to what I allude. I may speak of it now with calmness, standing as I do on the brink of the grave. – Why do you look so shocked? Have you never heard that Ellen Courtney was dying – dying of a broken heart?'

'No, no! I never heard it, never dreamt of it. O heaven!' – wringing her hands, and raising them above her head, with a despairing gesture – 'then I am a murderess! The punishment has descended in full force now. A curse could not but attend my marriage. Did not friends warn me again and again? and yet I persisted – persisted, though faith had to be broken on both sides, a heart cast aside, and trampled on. It was an unholy marriage, and the blessing of heaven could not sanctify it. It was that which made my husband cease to love me, shrivelled up my own heart, and made everything become valueless in my eyes. I was content to suffer myself; it was only reaping what I had sowed. But that you should suffer – suffer and die; you, who never injured any one, who must be gentle and good as an angel. But oh!' she pursued, dropping on her knees, and raising her dark eyes pleadingly, as sinner might to saint, 'remove the curse before you die – if heaven so wills – before I die, as perhaps I shall, and give me back my husband's love, the only thing that remains to me now.' The last words were uttered in a piteous moan.

'Do not speak so wildly,' entreated Ellen, sitting down on one of the seats, and raising her hand (Eliza marked its transparency) to her damp white forehead. 'You are not so much to blame. Life and happiness could never have been mine, even had you not intervened. If he ceased to love me, as he must have done soon, for he never loved me truly, I could not have borne it. My heart would have broke, and I should have died all the same. You have my forgiveness fully and entirely – and he has too. Do not fret yourself for the lover you forsook. His wound is healed. He has found happiness with one who long loved him in secret. This was the appointed day for his marriage with your cousin, Mary Conlan.'

Eliza started, and the blood rushed to her face. He then had forgotten her; and the thought sent a bitter pang through her heart; yet she thanked heaven that it was so.

'Part of the weight is lifted from my soul,' she said. 'And I have your forgiveness too. Lay your hand on my head, and say again that you forgive me, and breathe a blessing on me.'

The shadowy white hand was raised. It lay like a spotless lily, emblem of heaven's pity and forgiveness, on the dark bowed head.

'I forgive you from my heart. If my earnest wishes can make you happy, be so. – Now I must go.' She rose, but tottered as she attempted to walk.

'You are weak,' exclaimed Eliza. 'Let me go with you.'

'No, no; there is no need. I have not far to go.'

'But still, let me walk with you, and lean on me. I shall think you cannot bear my presence near you, if you refuse.'

'Be it so then.'

They left the chapel together. Not a word was spoken as they walked slowly on till Ellen paused before the gate of a villa.