IX
SEPTEMBER brought other guests, and with their arrival Amos Judd and Molly Cabot found the easy, irresponsible routine of their happy summer again disturbed. To his own fierce regret Amos could invent no decent pretext for escaping a visit he had promised early in the summer, and a more unwilling victim never resigned himself to a week of pleasure. To the girl he was to leave behind him, he bewailed the unreasonable cruelty of his friends. “This leaving you, Soul of my Soul, is worse than death. I shall not eat while I am gone, and nights I shall sit up and curse.”
But at the end of a week he returned, promptly on the minute. His moments of depression, however, seemed rather to increase than diminish, and, although carefully repressed, were visible to a pair of watchful eyes. Upon his face when in repose there hadalways been a melancholy look, which now seemed deepening as from an inward sorrow, too strong to conquer. This was betrayed occasionally by a careless speech, but to her questioning he always returned a cheerful answer. In spite of these heroic efforts to maintain a joyful front, Molly was not deceived, and it was evident, even to Mr. Cabot, that the young man was either ill in body or the victim of a mental disturbance that might be disastrous in its results. Of this he was destined to have a closer knowledge than his daughter. It came about one Sunday morning, when the two men had climbed a neighboring hill for a view which Mr. Cabot had postponed from week to week since early June. This was his last Sunday in Daleford and his final opportunity.
The view was well worth the climb. The day itself, such a day as comes oftenest in September, when the clear air is tempered tothe exact degree for human comfort by the rays of a summer sun, was one in which the most indifferent view could shine without an effort. Below them, at the foot of the hill, lay the village of Daleford with its single street. Except the white spires of the churches, little of it could be seen, however, beneath the four rows of overhanging elms. Off to their left, a mile or two away, the broad Connecticut, through its valley of elms, flowed serenely to the sea; and beyond, the changing hills took on every color from the deepest purple to a golden yellow. A green valley on their right wandered off among the woods and hills, and in it the stately avenue of maples they both knew so well. A silence so absolute and so far-reaching rested upon the scene that, after a word or two of praise, the two men, from a common impulse, remained without speaking. As thus they sat under the gentle influence of a spell which neither cared to break, the notesof an organ came floating upward from the trees below them, and mingled with the voices of a choir. Mr. Cabot’s thoughts turned at once to the friend at his side, whom he felt must experience a yet deeper impression from these familiar scenes of his childhood. Turning to express this thought, he was so struck by the look upon Amos’s face, an expression of such despairing melancholy, that he stopped in the middle of his sentence. While well aware that these tragic eyes were always most pathetic objects in repose, he had never seen upon a human face a clearer token of a hopeless grief.
“What is it, my boy?” he asked, laying a hand upon the knee beside him. “Tell me. I may be able to help you.”
There was a slight hesitation and a long breath before the answer came. “I am ashamed to tell you, Mr. Cabot. I value your good opinion so very much that it comes hard to let youknow what a weak and cowardly thing I have been, and am.”
“Cowardly—that I do not believe. You may be weak; all of us are that; in fact, it seems to be the distinguishing attribute of the human family. But out with it, whatever it is. You can trust me.”
“Oh, I know that, sir! If you were only less of a man and more like myself, it would be easier to do it. But I will tell you the whole story. By the fourth of November I shall not be alive, and I have known it for a year.”
Mr. Cabot turned in surprise. “Why do you think that?”
But Amos went on without heeding the question.
“I knew it when I asked Molly to be my wife; and all the time that she has gone on loving me more and more, I have known it, and done all I could to make things worse. And now, as the time approaches and I realizethat in a few weeks she will be a broken-hearted woman—for I have learned what her affection is and how much I am to her—now I begin to see what I have done. God knows it is hard enough to die and leave her, but to die only to have played a practical joke on the girl for whom I would joyfully give a thousand lives if I had them, is too much.”
He arose, and standing before her father, made a slight gesture as of surrender and resignation. The older man looked away toward the distant river, but said nothing.
“Listen, sir, and try to believe me.” Mr. Cabot raised his glance to the dark face and saw truth and an open heart in the eyes fixed solemnly upon his own; and he recognized a being transformed by a passion immeasurably stronger than himself.
“When I found she loved me I could think of nothing else. Why should I not be happy for the short time I had to live? Her love wasmore to me than any earthly thing, than any possible hereafter. Better one summer with her than to live forever and not have known her. Oh! I thought of her side of it, often and often; many a night I have done nothing else, but I could no more give her up than I could lift this hill.” He paused, drew a long breath, as if at the hopelessness of words to convey his meaning, then added, very calmly:
“Now I am soberer, as the end approaches, and I love her more than ever: but I will do whatever you say; anything that will make her happier. No sacrifice can be too great, and I promise you I will make it. I have often wished the bull had killed me that day, then I should have her love and respect forever; and yours too, perhaps.”
“You have both now, Amos. But tell me why you think you are to die by November fourth?”
Amos resumed his seat upon the rock andanswered: “Because I have seen myself lying dead on that day.”
“I have sometimes wondered,” said Mr. Cabot, “if that temptation would not prove too strong for you.”
“No, sir, it was not too strong for me under ordinary circumstances, but it happened when I was not myself, when I came out of that fever last October, and as I lay in bed, weak and half-conscious, I felt sure my day had come. I thought the doctor was not telling me the truth, so, by looking ahead for myself, I learned more than I cared to know, and saw myself lying on a sofa in a strange room, a place I had never been into; a public building, I should think.”
“But why do you think it is to be the fourth of November, and this year?”
“Because I looked about and saw near a window a little day calendar, and that was the date it bore. Then on a table lay a daily paperof the day before, and two magazines of the same month, all of this year.”
“But is it not possible the room is unoccupied and that these things have been lying there indefinitely?”
Amos shook his head. “No, sir, it is a room that is lived in. There are other papers lying about: books, and a letter on the desk waiting to be mailed. And in the fireplace the embers are still glowing.”
Mr. Cabot looked with the profoundest sympathy toward his friend, who was scaling bits of moss from the rock beside him; then he turned again to the view and its tranquil beauty seemed a mockery. In the village below them he could see the congregation pouring out from a little white church like ants from a loaf of sugar. Mr. Cabot was not a religious man, and at present there was nothing in his heart that could be mistaken for resignation. His spirit was in revolt, his pugnacityaroused, and with this quality he was freely endowed. Rising to his feet he stood for a moment in silence, with folded arms, frowning upon the distant hills.
“Amos,” he said, finally, “in spite of bygone defeats I am inclined to resist this prophecy of yours. You were not absolutely master of your own mind at the time, and under such conditions nothing would be easier than to confuse your own imagining with a vision of another character. At least it is not impossible, and if by good luck you did happen to confound one with the other we are having our panic for nothing. Moreover, even if this vision is correct, it need not necessarily signify an undeviating fulfilment in every detail. It may indicate the result to be expected in the natural order of events; that is, if things are allowed to take their course without obstruction or intervening influences. But it is difficult for me to believe this faculty is to continue infalliblethrough all your mental and physical developments and fluctuations of faith, and never, under any possible conditions, vary a hair’s-breadth from the truth. It is a law of nature that a disused faculty shall weaken and lose its power, and for years you have done your best to repress and forget it.”
“Yes, sir, but whenever employed it has been correct.”
“That may be, and its day of failure still remain a probability. In this present case the prophecy, aside from its uncertain origin, is one whose fulfilment is more easy to avert than some of the others. You say the room in which you saw yourself is one you are unfamiliar with, and consequently is not in Daleford.”
“Oh, no! There is nothing like it in this vicinity.”
“Well, suppose you were to remain in Daleford during the critical period with two men, nominally visitors at your house, to watch youday and night and see that you do not escape? Or, better still, let me send you to an institution in which I am a director, where you will be confined as a dangerous patient, and where escape, even if you attempted it, would be as hopeless as from a prison.”
Amos doubted the success of any attempt at foiling fate, or, in other words, giving the lie to a revelation once received, but he was willing to do whatever his friend desired. As they walked home they discussed the plan in detail and decided to act upon it; also to take every precaution that Molly should be kept in ignorance.
The first week in October the house at the north end of the avenue was empty and the Cabots were in New York. As the end of the month approached a little tale was invented to explain the cessation for a time of Amos’s visits, and early one afternoon the two men got into a cab and were driven to the outskirtsof the city. They entered the grounds of a well-known institution, were received by the superintendent and one or two other officials, then, at the request of the elder visitor, were shown over the entire building and into every room of any size or importance. When this inspection was over Mr. Cabot took his companion aside and asked if he had seen the room they sought. Amos shook his head and replied that no such room could be within the grounds. A few minutes later the young man was shown to a chamber where his trunk had preceded him. The two friends were alone for a moment, and as they separated Amos gave the hand in his own a final pressure, saying: “Don’t think I am weakening, Mr. Cabot, but I cannot help feeling that I have seen Molly for the last time. And if you and I never meet again, you may be sure my last thoughts were with you both.”
In a cheerful tone the lawyer answered: “Ishall listen to no such sentiments. If your prophecy is correct you are to be lying in a room outside these grounds on November fourth. No such prophecy can be carried out. And if the prophecy is incorrect we shall meet for several years yet. So good-by, my boy. I shall be here the third.”
During ten days Amos was to remain under the strictest watch, to be guarded by two men at night and by two others in the day-time, and to be permitted under no conditions to leave that wing of the building. By the subordinate in charge and by the four guardians he was believed to be the victim of a suicidal mania. As the fourth of November approached Mr. Cabot’s thoughts were less upon his business than with his imprisoned friend. He remembered with what inexorable force he himself had been held to the fulfilment of a prediction. He had felt the hand of an unswerving fate; and he had not forgotten.
But the fourth of November came and went with no serious results, and when the five succeeding days had safely passed he experienced a relief which he was very careful to conceal. With friendly hypocrisy he assumed a perfect confidence in the result of their course, and he was glad to see that Amos himself began to realize that anything like a literal fulfilment of his vision was now improbable.
One week later, the last day of durance, the prisoner and Mr. Cabot had an interview with Dr. Chapin in the latter’s private office. Dr. Chapin, the physician in charge, an expert of distinction in mental disorders, was a man about sixty years of age, short, slight, and pale, with small eyes, a very large nose, and a narrow, clean-shaven face. His physical peculiarities were emphasized by a complete indifference as to the shape or quality of his raiment; his coat was a consummate misfit, and his trousers were baggy at the knees. Even thespectacles, which also fitted badly, were never parallel with his eyes and constantly required an upward shove along his nose. But a professional intercourse with this gentleman led to a conviction that his mental outfit bore no relation to his apparel. Mr. Cabot had known him for years, and Amos felt at once that he was in the presence of a man of unusual insight. Dr. Chapin spoke calmly and without pretension, but as one careful of his speech and who knew his facts.
“That you should have made that visit against your will,” he said to Mr. Cabot in answering a question, “is not difficult to explain as Mr. Judd unconsciously brought to bear upon your movements a force to which he himself has repeatedly yielded. If he happens to remember, I think he will find that his thoughts were with you at that time,” and he smiled pleasantly on Amos.
“Yes, sir, but only as a matter of interest inthe novel experience I knew Mr. Cabot was going through.”
“Certainly, but if you had forgotten the visit and if you believed at that moment that he was to go in another direction, Mr. Cabot would have followed the other thought with equal obedience. This unconscious control of one intelligence over another is well established and within certain limits can be explained, but in these affairs science is compelled to accept a barrier beyond which we can only speculate. In this case the unusual and the most interesting feature is the unvarying accuracy of your visions. You have inherited something from your Eastern ancestors to which a hypothesis can be adjusted, but which is in fact beyond a scientific explanation. I should not be at all surprised to find somewhere in the city the room in which you saw yourself lying; and it is more than probable that, if unrestrained, you would have discovered it and fulfilled yourprophecy, unconsciously obedient to that irresistible force. A blow, a fall, a stroke of apoplexy or heart disease; the sudden yielding of your weakest part under a nervous pressure, could easily bring about the completion of your picture. Some of the authenticated reports of corresponding cases are almost incredible. But before you are forty, Mr. Judd, you will find in these visions a gradual diminution of accuracy and also, as in this case, that their fulfilment is by no means imperative.”
For Amos there was immense relief in hearing this, especially from such a source, and he left the building with a lighter heart than he had known for months. Now that the danger was over, he wished the wedding to take place at once, but Molly would consent to no undignified haste. He found, however, an unexpected and influential ally in her grandmother Jouvenal, just arrived from her home in Maryland for a month’s visit, and who insisted upon thewedding taking place while she was with them. Mrs. Jouvenal was a slender person of sprightly manners, whose long life had been sweetly tempered by an exaggerated estimate of the importance of her own family; but in other matters she was reasonable and clear-headed, endowed with quick perceptions, a ready wit, and one of those youthful spirits that never grow old. She was interested in all that went on about her, was never bored and never dull. It was of course a little disappointing that a girl with such an ancestry as Molly’s, on her mother’s side, should give herself to an unknown Judd from an obscure New England village; but her fondness for Amos soon consoled her for the mésalliance. Molly had a strong desire to acquaint her grandmother with the ancestral facts of the case, but Amos refused to give his consent. Those discoveries in the attic he insisted they must keep to themselves, at least while he was alive. “WhenI am transplanted I shall be beyond the reach of terrestrial snobs, and you can do as you please.”
The first week in December Mrs. Jouvenal was to visit her son in Boston. “And really, my child,” she said to Molly, “it is the last wedding in the family I shall be alive to see, and with such an exotic specimen as you have selected, I shall not be sure of a Christian ceremony unless I see it myself.”
As her father remained neutral Molly finally yielded, and there was a wedding the first Wednesday in December.