An overwhelming dread took possession of me. I ceased to think of myself at all—my worldly hopes, prospects, or joys—over which this man’s influence had long hung like an accursed shadow; a sun turned into darkness—the more terrible because it had once been a sun. I seemed to see M. Anastasius only with relation to this young man, over whom I knew he once had so great power. Would it return—and in what would it result? Not merely in the breaking off any feeble tie to me. I scarcely trembled for that, since, could it be so broken, it was not worth trembling for. No! I trembled for Alexis’ soul.
It was a soul, I had gradually learnt—more than ever perhaps in this voyage, of which every day seemed a life, full of temptation, contest, trial—a soul pure as God’s own heaven, that hung over us hour by hour in its steady tropic blue; and deep as the seas that rolled everlastingly around us. Like then, stirring with the lightest breath, often tempest-tossed, liable to adverse winds and currents; yet keeping far, far below the surface a divine tranquility—diviner than any mere stagnant calm. And this soul, full of all rich impulses, emotions, passions,—a soul which, because it could strongly sympathize with, might be able to regenerate its kind, M. Anastasius wanted to make into a Catholic Jesuit priest—a mere machine, to work as he, the head machine, chose!
This was why (the thought suddenly struck me, like lightning) he had told each of us severally, concerning one another, those two lies. Because we were young; we might love—we might marry; there was nothing externally to prevent us. And then what would become of his scheme?
I think there was born in me—while the most passive slave to lawful, loving rule—a faculty of savage resistance to all unlawful and unjust power. Also, a something of the female wild-beast, which, if alone, will lie tame and coward in her solitary den, to be shot at by any daring hunter; whereas if she be not alone—if she have any love-instinct at work for cubs or mate—her whole nature changes from terror to daring, from cowardice to fury.
When, as we neared the tropics, I saw Alexis’ cheek growing daily paler, and his eye more sunken and restless with some secret struggle, in the which M. Anastasius never left him for a day, an hour, a minute, I became not unlike that poor wild-beast mother. It had gone ill with the relentless hunter of souls if he had come near me then.
But he did not. For the last week of our voyage M. Anastasius kept altogether out of my way.
It was nearly over—we were in sight of the shores of Hispaniola. Then we should land. My estates lay in this island. Mr. Saltram’s business, I was aware, called him to Barbados; thence again beyond seas. Once parted, I well knew that if the power and will of my guardian could compass anything, and it seemed to me that they were able to compass everything in the whole wide earth—Alexis and I should never meet again.
In one last struggle after life—after the fresh, wholesome, natural life which contact with this young man’s true spirit had given me—I determined to risk all.
It was a rich tropic twilight. We were all admiring it, just as three ordinary persons might do who were tending peacefully to their voyage-end.
Yet Alexis did not seem at peace. A settled, deadly pallor dwelt on his face—a restless anxiety troubled his whole mien.
M. Anastasius said, noticing the glowing tropic scenery which already dimly appeared in our shoreward view:
“It is very grand: but Europe is more suited to us grave Northerns. You will think so, Alexis, when you are once again there.”
“Are you returning?” I asked of Mr. Saltram.
My cousin answered for him, “Yes, immediately.”
Alexis started; then leaned over the poop in silence, and without denial.
I felt profoundly sad. My interest in Alexis Saltram was at this time—and but for the compulsion of opposing power, might have ever been—entirely apart from love. We might have gone on merely as tender friends for years and years—at least I might. Therefore no maidenly consciousness warned me from doing what my sense of right impelled, towards one who held the same faith as I did, and whose life seemed strangled in the same mesh of circumstances which had nearly paralyzed my own.
“Alexis, this is our last evening; you will sail for Europe—and we shall be friends no more. Will you take one twilight stroll with me?”—and I extended my hand.
If he had hesitated, or shrunk back from me, I would have flung him to the winds, and fought my own battle alone; I was strong enough now. But he sprang to me, clung to my hand, looked wildly in my face, as if there were the sole light of truth and trust left in the world; and as if even there, he had begun—or been taught—to doubt. He did not, now.
“Isbel, tell me! You still hold our faith—you are not going to become a nun?”
“Never! I will offer myself to Heaven as Heaven gave me to myself—free, bound by no creed, subservient to no priest. What is he, but a man that shall die, whom the worms shall cover?”
I said the words out loud. I meant M. Anastasius to hear. But he looked as if he heard not; only when we turned up the deck, he slowly followed.
I stood at bay. “Cousin, leave me. I wish to speak to Mr. Saltram. Cannot I have any friend but you?”
“None, whom I believe you would harm and receive harm from.”
“Dare you—”
“I myself dare nothing; but there is nothing which my church does not dare. Converse, my children. I hinder you not. The deck is free for all.”
He bowed, and let us pass, then followed. Every sound of that slow, smooth step seemed to strike on my heart like the tracking tread of doom.
Alexis and I said little or nothing. A leaden despair seemed to bind us closely round, allowing only one consciousness, that for a little, little time, it bound us together! He held my arm so fast that I felt every throbbing of his heart. My sole thought was how to say some words that should be fixed eternally there, so that nothing might make him swerve from his Christian faith. That faith, which was my chief warranty of meeting him—never, or never in this world but in the world everlasting!
Once or twice in turning we came face to face with M. Anastasius. He was walking at his usual slow pace, his hands loosely clasped behind him—his head bent; a steely repose, even pensiveness, which was his natural look—settled in his grave eyes. He was a man of intellect too great to despise, of character too spotless to loathe. The one sole feeling he inspired was that of unconquerable fear. Because you saw at once that he feared nothing either in earth or heaven, that he owed but one influence, and was amenable but to one law, which he called “the Church,” but which was, himself.
Men like M. Anastasius, one-idea’d, all-engrossed men, are according to slight variations in their temperaments, the salvation, the laughingstock, or the terror of the world.
He appeared in the latter form to Alexis and me. Slowly, surely came the conviction, that there was no peace for us on this earth while he stood on it; so strong, so powerful, that at times I almost yielded to a vague belief in his immortality. On this night, especially, I was stricken with a horrible—curiosity, I think it was—to see whether he could die, whether the grave could open her mouth to swallow him, and death have power upon his flesh, like that of other men.
More than once, as he passed under a huge beam, I thought—should it fall? as he leaned against the ship’s side—should it give way? But only, I declare solemnly, out of a frenzied speculative curiosity, which I would not for worlds have breathed to a human soul! I never once breathed it to Alexis Saltram, who was his sister’s son, and whom he had been kind to as a child.
Night darkened, and our walk ceased. We had said nothing—nothing; except that on parting, with a kind of desperation Alexis buried my hand tightly in his bosom, and whispered, “Tomorrow?”
That midnight a sudden hurricane came on. In half an hour all that was left of the good ship Argo was a little boat, filled almost to sinking with half-drowned passengers, a
nd a few sailors clinging to spars and fragments of the wreck.
Alexis was lashed to a mast, holding me partly fastened to it, and partly sustained in his arms. How he had found and rescued me I know not; but love is very strong. It has been sweet to me afterwards to think that I owed my life to him—and him alone. I was the only woman saved.
He was at the extreme end of the mast; we rested, face to face, my head against his shoulder. All along to its slender point, the sailors were clinging to the spar like flies; but we two did not see anything in the world, save one another.
Life was dim, death was near, yet I think we were not unhappy. Our heaven was clear, for between us and Him to whom we were going came no threatening image, holding in its remorseless hand life, faith, love. Death itself was less terrible than M. Anastasius.
We had seen him among the saved passengers swaying in the boat; then we thought of him no more. We clung together with closed eyes, satisfied to die.
“No room—off there! No room!” I heard shouted, loud and savage, by the sailor lashed behind me.
I opened my eyes. Alexis was gazing on me only. I gazed, transfixed, over his shoulder, into the breakers beyond.
There, in the trough of a wave, I saw, clear as I see my own right hand now, the up-turned face of Anastasius, and his two white stretched-out hands, on one finger of which was his well-known diamond ring—for it flashed that minute in the moon.
“Off!” yelled the sailor, striking at him with an oar. “One man’s life’s as good as another’s. Off!”
The drowning face rose above the wave, the eyes fixed themselves full on me, without any entreaty in them, or wrath, or terror—the long-familiar, passionless, relentless eyes.
I see them now; I shall see them till I die. Oh, would I had died!
For one brief second I thought of tearing off the lashings and giving him my place; for I had loved him. But youth and life were strong within me, and my head was pressed to Alexis’ breast.
A full minute, or it seemed so, was that face above the water; then I watched it sink slowly, down, down.
Chapter IV
We, and several others, were picked up from the wreck of the Argo by a homeward-bound ship. As soon as we reached London I became Alexis’ wife.
That which happened at the theatre was exactly twelve months after—as we believed—Anastasius died.
I do not pretend to explain, I doubt if any reasoning can explain, a circumstance so singular—so impossible to be attributed to either imagination or illusion. For, as I must again distinctly state, we ourselves saw nothing. The apparition, or whatever it was, was visible only to other persons, all total strangers.
I had a fever. When I arose from it, and things took their natural forms and relations, this strange occurrence became mingled with the rest of my delirium, of which my husband persuaded me it was a part. He took me abroad—to Italy—Germany. He loved me dearly! He was, and he made me, entirely happy.
In our happiness we strove to live, not merely for one another, but for all the world; all who suffered and had need. We did—nor shrunk from the doing—many charities which had first been planned by Anastasius, with what motives we never knew. While carrying them out, we learnt to utter his name without trembling; remembering only that which was beautiful in him and his character, and which we had both so worshipped once.
In the furtherance of these schemes of good, it became advisable that we should go to Paris, to my former hotel, which still remained empty there.
“But not, dear wife, if any uneasiness or lingering pain rests in your mind in seeing the old spot. For me, I love it! Since there I loved Isbel, before Isbel knew it, long.”
So I smiled; and went to Paris.
My husband proposed, and I was not sorry, that Colonel Hart and his newly-married wife should join us there, and remain as our guests. I shrunk a little from re-inhabiting the familiar rooms, long shut up from the light of day; and it was with comfort I heard my husband arranging that a portion of the hotel should be made ready for us, namely, two salons en suite, leading out of the farther one of which, were a chamber and dressing-room for our own use—opposite two similar apartments for the Colonel and his lady.
I am thus minute for reasons that will appear.
Mrs. Hart had been travelling with us some weeks. She was a mild sweet-faced English girl, who did not much like the Continent, and was half shocked at some of my reckless foreign ways, on board steamboats and on railways. She said I was a little—just a little—too free. It might have seemed so to her; for my southern blood rushed bright and warm, and my manner of life in France had completely obliterated early impressions. Faithful and fond woman, and true wife as I was, I believe I was in some things unlike an English woman or an English wife, and that Mrs. Hart thought so.
Once—for being weak of nature and fast of tongue, she often said things she should not—there was even some hint of the kind dropped before my husband. He flashed up—but laughed the next minute; for I was his, and he loved me!
It seemed uncourteous to retire for the night; so I merely threw my dressing-gown over my evening toilette, and lay down outside the bed dreamily watching the shadows which the lamp threw. This lamp was in my chamber, but its light extended faintly into the boudoir, showing the tall mirror there, and a sofa which was placed opposite. Otherwise, the little room was half in gloom, save for a narrow glint streaming through the not quite closed door of the salon.
I lay broad awake, but very quiet, contented, and happy. I was thinking of Alexis. In the midst of my reverie, I heard, as I thought, my maid trying the handle of the door behind me.
“It is locked,” I said; “come another time.”
The sound ceased; yet I almost thought Fanchon had entered, for there came a rift of wind which made the lamp sway in its socket. But when I looked, the door was closely shut, and the bolt still fast.
I lay, it might be, half an hour longer. Then, with a certain compunction at my own discourtesy in leaving her, I saw the salon door open, and Mrs. Hart appear.
She looked into the boudoir, drew back hurriedly, and closed the door after her.
Of course I immediately rose to follow her. Ere doing so, I remember particularly standing with the lamp in my hand, arranging my dress before the mirror in the boudoir, and seeing reflected in the glass, with my cashmere lying over its cushions, the sofa, unoccupied.
Eliza was standing thoughtful.
“I ought to ask pardon for my long absence, my dear Mrs. Hart.”
“Oh no—but I of you, for intruding in your apartment; I did not know Mr. Saltram had returned. Where is my husband?”
“With mine, no doubt! We need not expect them for an hour yet, the renegades.”
“You are jesting,” said Mrs. Hart, half offended. “I know they are come home. I saw Mr. Saltram in your boudoir not two minutes since.”
“How?”
“In your boudoir, I repeat. He was lying on the sofa.”
“Impossible!” and I burst out laughing. “Unless he has suddenly turned into a cashmere shawl. Come and look.”
I flung the folding doors open, and poured a blaze of light into the little room.
“It is very odd,” fidgeted Mrs. Hart; “very odd indeed. I am sure I saw a gentleman here. His face was turned aside—but of course I concluded it was Mr. Saltram. Very odd, indeed.”
I still laughed at her, though an uneasy feeling was creeping over me. To dismiss it, I showed her how the door was fastened, and how it was impossible my husband could have entered.
“No; for I distinctly heard you say, ‘It is locked—come another time.’ What did you mean by that?”
“I thought it was Fanchon.”
To change the subject I began showing her some parures my husband had just bought me. Eliza Hart was ver
y fond of jewels. We remained looking at them some time longer in the inner-room where I had been lying on my bed; and then she bade me good night.
“No light, thank you. I can find my way back through the boudoir. Goodnight. Do not look so pale tomorrow, my dear.”
She kissed me in the friendly English fashion, and danced lightly away, out at my bedroom door and into the boudoir adjoining—but instantly I saw her reappear, startled and breathless, covered with angry blushes.
“Mrs. Saltram, you have deceived me! You are a wicked French woman.”
“Eliza!”
“You know it—you knew it all along. I will go and seek my husband. He will not let me stay another night in your house!”
“As you will,”—for I was sick of her follies. “But, explain yourself.”
“Have you no shame? Have you foreign women never any shame? But I have found you out at last.”
“Indeed!”
“There is—I have seen him twice with my own eyes—there is a man lying this minute in your boudoir,—and he is—not Mr. Saltram!”
Then indeed I sickened—a deadly horror came over me. No wonder the young thing, convinced of my guilt, fled from me, appalled.
For, I knew now whom she had seen.
* * * *
Hour after hour I must have lain where I fell. There was some confusion in the house—no one came near me. It was early daylight when I woke and saw Fanchon leaning over me, and trying to lift me from the floor. “Fanchon—is it morning?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“What day is it?”
“The twenty-sixth of May.”
It had been he, then. He followed us still.
Shudder after shudder convulsed me. I think Fanchon thought I was dying.
“Oh, Madame! Oh, poor Madame! And Monsieur not yet come home.”
I uttered a terrible cry—for my heart foreboded what either had happened or assuredly would happen.
The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Page 36