CHAPTER XLII.VISIONS AND RETROSPECTIONS.
Chaleco came close to me and laid one hand softly on my head.
“Be tranquil—be tranquil,” he murmured, smoothing my hair from time to time.
A soft languor stole over me. I sunk slowly down upon what seemed to be a couch, and like two rose-leaves heavy with fragrance, my eyelids closed so softly that I felt a thrill as the lashes fell upon my cheek.
He kept one hand upon my head awhile, then moved it gently across my forehead and over my eyes. I felt a delicious and almost imperceptible current of air flowing coolly over my bosom and down my arms. Then the air was agitated, as if a group of angels were fanning me with their wings; the lids fell heavier still over my slumberous eyes; my limbs grew rigid, but with a sensation of exquisite repose. It began to lighten. I knew that fiery gleams were breaking and sparkling all around me. Then followed peal after peal of thunder making the tower rock, and upheaving, as it seemed, the very foundations of the building.
I was conscious of all this, but it did not disturb the languid repose into which I had fallen. The dawning consciousness of two lives—two entire beings came sweetly upon my soul. I saw my old self fading away; I was alone in the universe withthat man; the whole past or present, for the time, held nothing but him and me. Then followed a blank like that which fills the first year of infancy, dreamy and quiet.
Pang after pang went through me after that, each sweeping the shadows from my brain; and I saw a young girl, mature in her dark bright beauty, but almost a child still, holding an infant in her lap. The little one was like its mother, the same eyes, the same rich complexion. I knew the mother well, and the child. My own soul, full of innocent love, lay in the bosom of that child.
I looked around. The two were in an old farm-house, among hills covered with purple heath; sheep grazed along the upland slopes; and cattle ranged the valleys. Men in short, plaid garments and flat bonnets watched the sheep; and the young mother carried her child to the window, that it might see the lambs play as the shepherds drove them to the fold.
While the mother stood there with her child, a stout farmer came to the window, and taking the little one from her arms began to dance it up and down in the bright air, till the silken curls blew all over its face. The mother laughed, and so did the child, gleefully, like a little bird. Then came a woman round an angle of the house; her sleeves were rolled up, leaving her round, well-shaped arms bare to the elbow. She took the child from her good man, and smoothing its curls with her plump fingers, covered it with kisses.
A shot from the hill-side made the whole group start joyfully forward. The old man shaded his eyes and looked eagerly toward the mountain. The young mother seized her child and ran forward, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks in a glow.
Along the shore of a little lake that lay in the lap of those hills, came a young man in hunter’s dress. A gun, which he had just discharged, was thrown back upon his shoulders, and as he saw the young mother coming toward him, he flung out a white handkerchief, smiling a happy welcome.
I knew the young man’s face well, and my soul, which was in the child’s bosom, sang for joy as he came up.
A moment of obscurity, of mistiness and shadows—then appeared before me the cottage in Greenhurst, its gardens, its dim old wilderness of trees; and now my soul leaped from event to event, scaling over all that might have been repose, and seizing upon the rugged points of that human history like a vampire.
Again and again I saw that young mother, so beautiful, so sad, that every fibre of my being ached with sympathy. It was not her face or her form alone that I saw, but all the doubt, the anguish, the humiliation of her wild, proud nature tortured my own being. I not only saw her, but felt all the changes of her soul writing themselves on my own intelligence.
Why was it that in that wonderful sleep or trance—I know not to this day what it was—but how did it happen that I could read every thought and feeling in my mother’s heart, but only the actions of my father? Did that weird being so will it, that all my burning nature should pour itself forth in sympathy for the wronged woman, and harden into iron toward the man? I saw him too, pale, struggling with indecisions, that ended in more than mental torture, but this awoke no sympathy in my bosom, none, none. Then came another upon my vision, a proud, noble woman, always clad in black, that hovered around the old dwelling where my father rested, like a raven. She was my mother’s rival; I felt it the moment her black shadow fell upon my memory. I saw her in a dim old room, and he was with her. Both were pale and in trouble; she sat watching him through her tears, and those tears shook his manhood till he trembled from head to foot. A child, dark-eyed, and with a look of intelligence beyond her years, sat crouching in a corner, with her great black eyes following every movement—I knew that child well. It was the infant who had shouted its joyous greeting to the young huntsman. Its blood was beating then in my own veins.
Again I saw the woman, beneath a clump of gnarled old oaks. She lay prone upon the earth, white as death, stiffened like a corpse; a horse dripping with sweat stood cowering on the other side of a chasm that yawned between him and the lady.There was that child again, peering out from a thicket, with her wild eyes gleaming with ferocious joy, as if she gloried in the stillness that lay like death upon the woman.
Then a huntsman rode up, and I saw the white face of the woman on his bosom. He kissed the face—he wept over it—he laid her on the grass, and looked piteously around for help.
Then the child sprang up like a tiger-cub from the thicket; with a bound she stood beside the two; her little form dilating, her whole attitude full of wrath. Words were spoken, between the man and the child, bitter, harsh words. Then the woman moved faintly; the child saw it; her tiny hands were clenched; her teeth locked together, and lifting her foot, she struck it fiercely down upon the lady’s bosom.
A blow from the man dashed her to the ground; confusion followed, flashes as of fire filled my vision. Then I saw the child wandering through the tall trees alone, her little features locked, her arms tightly folded.
It grew dark, so dark that under the trees the young mother, who stood by her child, could not see the fierce paleness of her face. Then I saw them both wandering like thieves along the vast mansion house. They were separated. The mother went into numberless chambers searching for some one, and holding her breath. At one moment she stood over a bed, on which the strange woman slept; then I was sure that the child was hers by the deadly blackness of her eyes as they fell on the noble sleeper. She passed out with one hand firmly clenched, though it held nothing, and wandered into the darkness again.
Once more she stood in the light, dim and faint, for the lamp that gave it was hidden under an alabaster shade, and sent forth only a few pale rays like moonbeams. I saw little that surrounded her, for my soul was searching the great agony of heart with which she stood beside that man. He was not in bed, but wrapped in a dressing-gown of some rich Oriental silk, lay upon a couch with his eyes closed and smiling.
She held her breath, and the last tender love that ever beatin her heart swelled up from its depths as she bent down and gathered the smile with her lips.
He started. She fell upon her knees; she locked his hand in hers; her black tresses drooped over him; oh, with what agony pleaded for a return of the love that had been the pulse of her life, the breath on her lips.
He arose and shook her off—with a mighty effort he steeled his heart and shook her off, the mother of his child, the wife of his bosom. She stood upright, pale and transfigured. For one whole minute she remained gazing on him speechless, and so still that the beating of his heart sounded clear and distinct in the room. She turned and glided into the darkness again, and she disappeared with her child, who waited for her there.
Then followed a panorama of scenery, rivers, mountains, and seas, over which the mother wandered, holding her child by the hand. At last she stood in sight of an ancient city, rich with Moorish relics, but as I turned to gaze on them a crowd of fierce human beings surrounded her, filling the air with hoarse noises, glaring at her and the child with their fierce eyes. An old woman, tiny as a child, and thin as a mummy, stood by, shouting back their reviling with defiance. Thus with whoop, and taunt, and sacrilegious gibes, they drove the poor creature onward to the mountains. Up and up she clambered with the little one still clinging to her neck, till the snow became heavy around her, and she waded knee deep through it, tottering and faint. At last the crowd surged together around a mountain peak, and pointed with hoarse shouts to a valley half choked up with stone cairns and shimmering with untrod snow.
Down into the virgin whiteness of this valley the black masses poured, treading down the snow with all their squalid ferocity doubled by contrast with its whiteness. They took the child from her mother and carried her shrieking to the outskirts of the crowd. I knew the man that held her, and read all the fierce agony of his grief as he strove to blind the child to the horrible deed that crowd was perpetrating.
I saw it all—the first unsteady whirl of stones, the fiendisheagerness that followed; I heard the shrieks—I felt her death agony.
Oh, how I struggled! how I pleaded with the strong will that enslaved my faculties! how I prayed that he would redeem me from the horrors of that mountain pass! But no, the curse of memory must be complete; I was compelled to live over the agony of my mother’s death.
I knew well all the time that the child and myself were one being; but as in ordinary life a person often looks upon his own sufferings with self-pity, as if he were a stranger; so I followed wearily after the little creature as they bore her, an orphan, from the Valley of Stones. I saw her growing thin, pining, pining always for the mother who was dead, till she grew into a miserable shadow, with all the life of her being burning in those large eyes. The old woman and the man kept her to themselves, but she seemed pining to death while they wandered from mountain to mountain, and at last across the seas.
Again Greenhurst arose on my vision, the old building among distant trees, the village just in sight. A gipsy’s tent stood in a hollow, back from the wayside, and in it lay the shadowy child.
The gipsy man and that weird little woman were in the tent, and from without I heard the ringing of bells and the tramp of horses, smothered and soft, as if each hoof-fall were broken with flowers.
Then I forgot the sick child and stood within the village church.Hewas there standing before the altar, his hand clasped that of the proud lady who had so often wandered through the drama which I was forced to witness. The bridegroom was pale as death, and she looked strangely pallid in the silvery cloud of her brocaded robe. Still she was firm, and I saw that nothing had been confided to her—that the history of my poor mother had never reached the bosom of that proud woman.Hewas resolute, resolute to trample down every right of another in search of his own happiness. Fool!fool! happiness will not be thus wickedly wrenched from the hands of the Creator. Even then, before God’s altar, he had begun to reap the whirlwind. Coming events cast their shadows all around. No wonder he grew white. No wonder the marriage vows died like snow upon his lips. No wonder that all the bridal blossoms with which the greensward glowed when they went in, had withered beneath the hot sun! Their dying fragrance fell over the noble pair as they came forth wedded man and wife. Man and wife! had he forgotten the subterranean vaults beneath the Alhambra, where my mother stood by his side with firmer faith and more devoted constancy than that woman ever knew? Was that oath forgotten? No, as he came forth into the sunshine treading down the pale blossoms as he had trampled my mother out of life, a bronzed hand, long and lean as a vulture’s claw, was thrust over his path; and night-shade fell thick among the dead blossoms. He did not see it, for the weird gipsy woman moved like a shadow among the village children; but he shrunk as if with some hidden pain, and grew paler than before.
The will that controlled mine forced me onward with the newly married pair. I saw him struggle against the leaden memories that would not be swept away. His mournful smile, as he looked on her, was full of saddened love. I could have pitied them but for my mother. I saw what they did not, her grave, that cairn of reddened stones looming before them at every step. They shuddered beneath the invisible shadow, but I knew from whence it fell.
Their route to Greenhurst was trampled over a carpet of flowers; silver and gold fell like rain among the village children; the carriage streaming with favors swept by that gipsy tent where the sick child was lying, his child, all unconscious of its double orphanage.
In the thralldom of my intellect I was forced to look on, though my strength was giving way. With shrinking terror I watched the movements of that weird murderess as she crept into Greenhurst, and with the accuracy of a bloodhound stolethrough the very apartments my mother had penetrated, crawling like a reptile close to the walls, till she stood upright in the bridal chamber. She concealed herself behind the snowy masses of drapery that fell around the bed.
While her form was shrouded in the heavy waves of silk, her dark face peered, ever and anon, through the transparent lace of the inner curtains like that of a watching fiend.
As one whose senses were locked in a single channel, I too waited and watched. People came in and out of the room, little dreaming of the fiend hidden in the snow of the curtains.
Even in its slavery my spirit sickened as I watched and saw the withered veins of that unearthly wretch swelling with murderous venom, while her victims were moving unconsciously in the next room.
The curtains rustled, that claw-like hand was thrust out, and I saw half a dozen drops flash down like diamonds into a goblet of water that had just been placed on the toilet.
Then a door opened, and the bride entered from her dressing-room alone. In the simple white of her robe she looked touching and lovely, like one subdued and humbled by the depth of her own feelings. The delicate lace of her night coif left a shadow on her temples less deep than that which lay beneath her eyes. Her bosom rose slowly and with suppressed respiration beneath the rich embroidery that embossed her night robe, and her uncovered feet fell almost timidly on the carpet; not with girlish bashfulness, but with a sort of religious awe as one visits a place of prayer afraid to enter.
She knelt down by the bed, and clasping her hands, remained still, as if some prayer lay at the bottom of her heart, which she had not the courage to breathe aloud. The broad, white eyelids were closed, and twice I saw that fiendish face glaring at her through the curtains.
She arose at length, and heaving a deep sigh, stepped into bed. As she sunk to the pillow her eye fell upon the goblet, and resting on one elbow, she reached forth her hand and drank off its contents.
As she fell softly back to the pillows, a hoarse chuckle came through the curtains. She started, turned her face that way, and out came that black head, peering at her with its terrible eyes. A broken sigh, a shudder that made the white drapery rustle as if in a current of wind, and the bride lay with her eyes wide open staring upon the Sibyl.
The dead face grew more and more pallid; the dark one above glowed and gloated over it like a ghoul. Then the soft light was darkened, and the bridegroom leaned over his bride listening for her breath. As he stooped, the curtains opposite were flung back, the lace torn away, and like an exulting demon the old woman laughed over the living and the dead.
The scene changed, the old woman, the gipsy man and the child were in a tent at midnight. The poor little one, aroused from her torpid rest, looked wildly up as the Sibyl told of her murderous act—told of it and perished in the midst of her triumph—her old age, exhausted by the excitement of her crime, ended in death.
As the life left her body, I felt a shock run through my whole being; the past was linked with the present. Back to that gipsy tent my memory ran strong and connectedly.
I struggled in the mesmeric hands which guided my energies like steel.
“Peace,” said the man who had enthralled me, “peace, and remember.”
There was a stir in the air as if some unseen bird were fanning it with his wings, a cool and delicious feeling of rest crept over me, and as a child wakes I opened my eyes. The Spanish gipsy stood over me revealed by the quick flashes of lightning that blazed through the room. I knew that he had been my mother’s friend, that the blood in his veins was of her nation and mine. I reached forth my hand. He took it in his, and I sat up.
“You remember all now?” he said—“all that I have revealed to you—all that old Papita bade you forget?”
“Yes, I remember—I know much, but not all; that which happened before I lived, tell me of that.”
“Not yet, you are tired!”
“Yes, but”——
A faintness came over me, my strength had received too great a shock; for a time I had no power to think or feel.