"I would talk with some old lover's ghost,Who lived before the god of love was born."
"I would talk with some old lover's ghost,Who lived before the god of love was born."
Two days later we were seated in the firelight near the bed of Monsieur Picot. He had rallied some, though I was unable to say whether or not it was merely temporarily. The large old room was played upon by the flickering flame and a thousand ghostly shadows stole about the furniture and hid in the darkest corners. The bright, feverish face of the Abbé could be seen among the pillows. The rest of the bed was hidden by the half-drawn curtains. Nance sat upon a stool and gazed at the embers, beneath the andirons, from time to time lifting her face, aglow with interest. My patient, whom I cautioned to become less animated for his nerves' sake, was speaking. For many minutes he had been telling us of some of the strange and wonderful happeningswithin his old house, so long a mystery for the children of Oldmeadow.
"Now as for ghosts," said he whimsically, "it is a matter of choice. Frankly I rather like them, Mademoiselle.... Now there is the old lover's ghost of the banquet hall in the west wing. He's such a gentle, tobacco-loving shade. I assure you he is fully as harmless as a spinster. He is almost domesticated. A little timid, however, and a bit suspicious of you.... He—comes—every—Christmas—eve," he slowly and solemnly reiterated, with a twinkle in his eye, "and sits and dreams over the empty banquet table. The feast is ended. The spoils strew the table. Among the empty glasses and forgotten viands lies a broken fan. Here my gentle friend is to be found. He is a solemn spook.... Perhaps it is his liver, Monsieur Doctor.... Thus he sits with bowed head before the wreck of tasted pleasures, and seems to dream of another day. You may enter as quietly as you please, yet, with a sort of hurt expression about him, as if, though quite unconsciously, yet surely, you hadgently broken his heart, he fades away like the smoke. This look of reproach upon his face, doubtless because of his knowledge of your innocent intentions, is tempered by plainly written forgiveness. When he is gone you catch the faint odor of tobacco, with the still more subtle perfume of a handkerchief, as if a lady had at least been present in his dreams."
"I think I should love him," ventured Nance, speaking softly.
"I hope you will, my daughter," was the Abbé's reply.... Then he continued:
"Perhaps my friendly ghost has something to do with the Love Story of the East Room and the Duel in the Wine Cellars.... Yes?" and he waited for an answer.
"Go on!" cried Nance gleefully, looking at me with an appeal to share her delight in the adventures of the old house.
"Prosper tells me," continued the Abbé, "that every midsummer's eve—you know I am always away in midsummer and I only know this of old Prosper—thereis a beautiful quaintly dressed lady of the long ago who makes her abode in the great east room. She is a very weepy, pretty lady, at first, Prosper asserts. Then, when a great splendid buck of a fellow in laces and frills and long-plaited powdered hair comes climbing up by way of the portico, she quickly becomes very beautiful and the light of her eyes brightens the whole room. In fact it is this very brilliancy which attracts another gentleman who comes from the hallway. Immediately, with much bowing, he invites the gallant cavalier off to the wine cellars, where blood is spilled.... Now I tell Prosper it is merely rats he hears with his deaf old ears.
"'Non, Monsieur,' he insists; 'what of the casks of good red wine I find spilled upon the floor the morning following midsummer eve?'"
"He's right, Monsieur," said Nance simply. "I myself have seen the light and believed it elf-fire."
"I believe you, my dear-a," he replied.
"Go on," said she.
"Then there is the cabinet with the hidden drawer, and the secret stairway we shall climb when I am well.... Ah, it is at the top of the magic stairway where old Jacques finds his forest of Arden.... Some day you shall know.... There are the merry ghosts of two happy children in the very heydey of youth. There is the spook of an old vagabond who sleeps in dingles in phantom greenwoods. There, my children, are a thousand dreams of mine: the ghosts of yesterday; there the little narrow streets of old Paris—St. Jacques, Rue de l'Abbé de l'Epee, the Rue de la Fouarre; there, gentle Amiens and her great cathedral; a long, white road—le trimard—through Picardy; a tiny garret in the Rue St. Jacques, where first I knew all the bright hopes and brave fancies of youth. All—all these and a thousand more at the top of my secret stairs, and some day, le bon Dieu knows how soon, I shall bequeath it all—all to you!"
Then Nance bade him be quiet and began to smooth his brow with her hand.Presently he fell into a troubled sleep, murmuring of roads and rivers and tree-clad hills.
"I think we had better go, Charles," said she, leading the way into the library and closing the door after us. Old Prosper with the wonderful eyes, and who was deaf, was with his master.
On another day, while alone with old Prosper and Nance, he turned to her and said:
"Nance, did I ever tell you about the Priest and the Faun, whom I found in my blessed attic at the top of my secret stairway?... Yes?"
"Are you feeling quite strong enough, Monsieur Jacques?" was her gentle answer.
"Better than I shall ever feel again," came the reply.
"I should like to hear about them," she said.
"When I found them," he began, "the Priest was seated upon a stool. His head was bowed, about his neck was the rosary, the crucifix of which he held in his hand. Upon his face was sorrow, a great pity, infinite patience, gentleness. His features though rugged were softened and refinedby the strength and compassion of his heart.
"His brother, the Faun, stood facing him. He was closely enough like the Priest for their relationship to be seen at once. Yet he who stood was a trifle larger of body, with features bearing a wild and inhuman cast of countenance. His small bright eyes glistened in astonishment mingled with anger. The wide, large-lipped mouth was twisted into a leer of contempt. The small pointed ears twitched nervously. In his hand there was the branch of an oak all clustered with leaves and acorns.
"'So you would remain here,' said the Faun in a preternatural, highly pitched voice which had the sound of the wind in the tree-tops, 'and count your weary beads?... You—you would do good to man,'" he smiled.
"'I would, my brother,' came the reply in a quiet, even tone, yet compassionate withal.
"'Ah! Out with you,' fairly shouted the Faun, 'you are no brother of mine! I—I,' he laughed shrilly, 'am brotherto the trees, to the hills, to the river, to the old god Pan, but never—
"'Ah,' he cried, changing his tone to one of gentle pleading not unlike a summer's breeze on the river, 'come! Come with me where the wild thyme grows, where the rhododendron climbs the mountainside with sinuous grace, where the lusty trout leap out of their clear course from sheer joy of living! Come with me to the dingle where my cousin the gipsy camps o' night. Where their maidens frolic in enticing nakedness in the streams and the old crones chant their witches' songs. Come where men are brave and strong and virile like my sire, the oak. Come where the berries shall stain your mouth with gladness; the frolicsome squirrel shall call you comrade; the fairies and elves, even the goblins of hell, shall dance about you in moonlit revels; the great-limbed satyrs shall teach you their bacchanalian bouts; while with amorous-breasted dryads you will discover the delectable madness of passion.... You shall roam the wide earth—free, alive, with love and an open heart! Come!'
"At this the priest stood, and anger lit his face. The resemblance between them was now more marked.
"'Come with me, brother to Pan,' cried he. 'Come into the house of the poor, the broken of spirit, the conquered, the beaten, the hopeless who have fallen in the battle! Come into the house of death, of shame, of ignominy. Come into the hovels of wretched, diseased hearts and leprous souls! Come where children are born into crime, and the breasts of mothers secrete the poisonous milk of lust! Come where all of the misery of hell reigns, brutalizing, dwarfing, killing the souls of men. Come and let your slender Faun's fingers bring hope and health and opportunity.... Come?'
"Thus they struggled, the Faun and the Priest, threatening, pleading, defying. Sometime the Faun fled to his greenwood; often the Priest to his people. Rarely, as if they would effect a compromise, did they go together: the Priest gladly to the hills; the Faun with terror into town. And to-day they yet wrangle.
"I have wondered in my heart, Nance, which one of them would win."
"It is when they go together, first to the dingle, then to the street, that I like them best. That comes nearest to the way of solution," she said, with a smile as comprehending as it was sympathetic.
"The Priest must come to nature; the Faun, at least occasionally, to town. May not old Pan with his pipes be the brother of the Man with the heart of God?" she asked.
"I have given a great deal of time to living, Nance, and little enough to thinking, but I feel that you speak the truth."
An hour later Monsieur l'Abbé, dreaming of France with her sunny fields, her morning roads, and happy village streets, discovered a boy fishing by a merry little stream.
"Do you live here?" questioned Monsieur Picot, indicating the town near by.
"Yes," returned the boy, "I live when I am here," meaning the river and the hills, "but I stay in the town. I know it is natural to live in the fields.... Wasit not queer that the good God should make that which is right so different from that which is natural?"
"But the good God did not, my son," replied the priest.
"Are you sure, sir? My master thinks He did."
"Your master is wrong, my lad.... Tell me, your face seems familiar to me," said the Abbé, "have I ever seen you before?"
"You have," replied the boy; "I am your soul."
And Monsieur l'Abbé smiled in his sleep.
As Monsieur l'Abbé Picot's illness grew and he became largely unconscious as to what was going on about him, the more closely Nance confined herself to nursing. Because of many urgent calls I was forced to be away from them more than I liked, but old Doctor Longstreet spent many hours of each day reading in the library, adjoining the bedroom, in case he should be needed. But dear little Nance, whose face became thin and whose eyes grew large with watching, scarcely left her patient.
Then there came the day when old Prosper went across the river in a small skiff to a neighboring city a few miles away, returning two hours later with the parish priest. He was an old man of delicate frame, with the thoughtful,patient cast of countenance of the student. After the confession, upon his return to the library, his face wore a very gentle and peaceful expression. I have wondered at the strange words he must have heard. He came from a charge whose sins were doubtless exceedingly commonplace. Was there any rare and startling tale stirring his heart? What were the struggles and experiences of the soul of this adventurous brother of St. Francis of Assisi? If there was anything to startle, it could be guessed only from the preoccupied manner in which he sat looking into the fire with eyes which, when you caught them, were brimming with wonder and with tears. The three of us, though no words were then or ever spoken, shared with profound sympathy a common sorrow, which we alone fully understood.
"I shall remain with you," he said. We nodded our approval, his being the only words spoken.
All night long we kept a prayerful vigil beside the troubled bed of Monsieur l'Abbé. For hours I leaned above himin the darkened room, lit only by the firelight, giving him what assistance and relief lay in my power. Nance, at the east window, gazed out into the impenetrable darkness. For hours at a time she stood and looked as into space and without so much as moving. Now and then she came to my side and raised questioning eyes to my face. Upon shaking my head she would return to her place, like a sentinel upon duty. At last, when the gray dawn shone ghastly and ugly over the snow-covered landscape, my patient appeared to grow easier and from a restless suffering night he sank into a very gentle sleep. I closed the curtains about his bed and, stealing softly across the floor, stood beside Nance.
The day was breaking. Together we stood and watched the sky turn from its sickly pallor of many weeks' duration into wonderful shades of gold and then to glorious crimson. All of the east was streaked with red. Together we watched the winter's sun peep over the edge of the world and restore the hope of the landwith a smile. Together we stood and watched and waited while the Master painted. Unconscious of anything but the present need of the heart, forgetful of anything which now lay eternally behind, I tenderly placed my arm about her, and Nance, with the sob of a grief-stricken child, laid her weary head upon my breast. The sunlight from over the hills and the river burst into the room like an irresponsible, happy youth and flooded it with light.
"I shall need you very much now, dear," she said simply. Suddenly from the bed we heard him call:
"My children!"
We hastened to his side and drew the curtains.
"The sun!" exclaimed he. "I own the sun," he smiled at me.
Then for a moment he caressed it and seemed to drink in its life and beauty as it shone in lusty splendor upon his counterpane.
"Will you place some pillows behind me?" he requested.
"Now, that will do. Thank you, mydear-a," he smiled feebly at Nance, who had deftly arranged him so that he half-way sat up.
"Ah, my little jade, I'm off for the long, white highway.... My children, yours is the old home—
"Do not interrupt me!" he exclaimed. "I must speak now, for they are waiting, for me.... The old house, the old Prosper, the books, and my pleasant ghosts—I shall leave them and yet take them, that being a special privilege allowed choice spirits—all, all yours, my dears.... As for me," here he smiled in an old familiar whimsical way, "I'm off for Paradise!"
Nance fell sobbing to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
"What," he cried, with unnatural strength, accompanied by flights of fantasy, "have you not heard me say, many's the time, that when I should come to die—"
He stopped long enough to place a hand upon the head of the kneeling girl.
"Ah, Nance, the word must not hurt you.... When I should come to die,"he continued, "I hoped to find myself, on passing, in a certain little house in the Rue St. Jacques, with Rogue and Columbine waiting at the door while the good angel would be saying, 'Monsieur Picot, my compliments.... Here, my dear Monsieur, there are no poor, no sick, no broken-hearted. There is nothing at all to be done—no task for the little Abbé of the Church of the Street. Take your blessed caravan and followle long trimardof your heart's desire.... I—I, eternal Wayfarer, am Death, and this—this is Paradise.'
"Au revoir, my son.... Au revoir, my daughter.... I'm off—off for France!" Here he seemed to gather a moment's strength.... He attempted to sing:
"'Will you buy any tape,Any lace for——for——'
"'Will you buy any tape,Any lace for——for——'
"I'm off, my dear-a, for Picardy, for beautiful Amiens, Rouen, to black Rennes, for dear old Paris, for the road from Lille to Dunkerque."
Here his voice grew faint and it was with an effort he whispered:
"Sometimes, my dear-a, come here to the green and watch for me as of old.... Who knows? Who knows, my children? Perhaps I shall be gone forever and a day.... Perhaps," and he rose from his pillows, "perhaps—au revoir—
"Rogue, you sacré pig of a zebra, home.... Home!"
And Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot had gone upon his journey.