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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7692.txt b/7692.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d403f56 --- /dev/null +++ b/7692.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2561 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook A Strange Story, by E. B. Lytton, Volume 1. +#120 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: A Strange Story, Volume 1. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7692] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE STORY, LYTTON, V1 *** + + +This eBook was produced by Andrew Heath +and David Widger + + + + + +A STRANGE STORY + +by Edward Bulwer Lytton +(Lord Lytton) + + + +PREFACE. + +Of the many illustrious thinkers whom the schools of France have +contributed to the intellectual philosophy of our age, Victor Cousin, +the most accomplished, assigns to Maine de Biran the rank of the most +original. + +In the successive developments of his own mind, Maine de Biran may, +indeed, be said to represent the change that has been silently at work +throughout the general mind of Europe since the close of the last +century. He begins his career of philosopher with blind faith in +Condillac and Materialism. As an intellect severely conscientious in +the pursuit of truth expands amidst the perplexities it revolves, +phenomena which cannot be accounted for by Condillac's sensuous theories +open to his eye. To the first rudimentary life of man, the animal life, +"characterized by impressions, appetites, movements, organic in their +origin and ruled by the Law of Necessity," [1] he is compelled to add, +"the second, or human life, from which Free-will and Self-consciousness +emerge." He thus arrives at the union of mind and matter; but still a +something is wanted,--some key to the marvels which neither of these +conditions of vital being suffices to explain. And at last the +grand self-completing Thinker attains to the Third Life of Man in Man's +Soul. + + "There are not," says this philosopher, towards the close of his last + and loftiest work,--"there are not only two principles opposed to + each other in Man,--there are three. For there are in him three + lives and three orders of faculties. Though all should be in accord + and in harmony between the sensitive and the active faculties + which constitute Man, there would still be a nature superior, a + third life which would not be satisfied; which would make felt + (ferait sentir) the truth that there is another happiness, another + wisdom, another perfection, at once above the greatest human + happiness, above the highest wisdom, or intellectual and moral + perfection of which the human being is susceptible." [2] + +Now, as Philosophy and Romance both take their origin in the Principle of +Wonder, so in the "Strange Story" submitted to the Public it will be +seen that Romance, through the freest exercise of its wildest vagaries, +conducts its bewildered hero towards the same goal to which Philosophy +leads its luminous Student, through far grander portents of Nature, far +higher visions of Supernatural Power, than Fable can yield to Fancy. +That goal is defined in these noble words:-- + + "The relations (rapports) which exist between the elements and the + products of the three lives of Man are the subjects of meditation, + the fairest and finest, but also the most difficult. The Stoic + Philosophy shows us all which can be most elevated in active life; + but it makes abstraction of the animal nature, and absolutely fails + to recognize all which belongs to the life of the spirit. + Its practical morality is beyond the forces of humanity. Christianity + alone embraces the whole Man. It dissimulates none of the sides of + his nature, and avails itself of his miseries and his weakness in + order to conduct him to his end in showing him all the want that he + has of a succor more exalted." [3] + +In the passages thus quoted, I imply one of the objects for which +this tale has been written; and I cite them, with a wish to acknowledge +one of those priceless obligations which writings the lightest and most +fantastic often incur to reasoners the most serious and profound. + +But I here construct a romance which should have, as a romance, +some interest for the general reader. I do not elaborate a treatise +submitted to the logic of sages. And it is only when "in fairy fiction +drest" that Romance gives admission to "truths severe." + +I venture to assume that none will question my privilege to avail +myself of the marvellous agencies which have ever been at the legitimate +command of the fabulist. + +To the highest form of romantic narrative, the Epic, critics, indeed, +have declared that a supernatural machinery is indispensable. That the +Drama has availed itself of the same license as the Epic, it would be +unnecessary to say to the countrymen of Shakspeare, or to the generation +that is yet studying the enigmas of Goethe's "Faust." Prose Romance has +immemorially asserted, no less than the Epic or the Drama, its heritage +in the Realm of the Marvellous. The interest which attaches to the +supernatural is sought in the earliest Prose Romance which modern times +take from the ancient, and which, perhaps, had its origin in the lost +Novels of Miletus; [4] and the right to invoke such interest has, ever +since, been maintained by Romance through all varieties of form and +fancy,--from the majestic epopee of "Telemaque" to the graceful fantasies +of "Undine," or the mighty mockeries of "Gulliver's Travels" down to +such comparatively commonplace elements of wonder as yet preserve +from oblivion "The Castle of Otranto" and "The Old English Baron." + +Now, to my mind, the true reason why a supernatural agency is +indispensable to the conception of the Epic, is that the Epic is the +highest and the completest form in which Art can express either Man or +Nature, and that without some gleams of the supernatural, Man is not +man nor Nature, nature. + +It is said, by a writer to whom an eminent philosophical +critic justly applies the epithets of "pious and profound:" [5] + + "Is it unreasonable to confess that we believe in God, not by reason + of the Nature which conceals Him, but by reason of the Supernatural + in Man which alone reveals and proves Him to exist?... Man reveals + God: for Man, by his intelligence, rises above Nature; and in virtue + of this intelligence is conscious of himself as a power not only + independent of, but opposed to, Nature, and capable of resisting, + conquering, and controlling her."[6] + + +If the meaning involved in the argument, of which I have here made +but scanty extracts, be carefully studied, I think that we shall find +deeper reasons than the critics who dictated canons of taste to the last +century discovered,--why the supernatural is indispensable to the Epic, +and why it is allowable to all works of imagination, in which Art looks +on Nature with Man's inner sense of a something beyond and above her. + +But the Writer who, whether in verse or prose, would avail himself +of such sources of pity or terror as flow from the Marvellous, can +only attain his object in proportion as the wonders he narrates are of a +kind to excite the curiosity of the age he addresses. + +In the brains of our time, the faculty of Causation is very markedly +developed. People nowadays do not delight in the Marvellous according +to the old childlike spirit. They say in one breath, "Very extraordinary!" +and in the next breath ask, "How do you account for it?" If the Author of +this work has presumed to borrow from science some elements of interest for +Romance, he ventures to hope that no thoughtful reader--and certainly no +true son of science--will be disposed to reproach him. In fact, such +illustrations from the masters of Thought were essential to the +completion of the purpose which pervades the work. + +That purpose, I trust, will develop itself in proportion as the story +approaches the close; and whatever may appear violent or melodramatic in +the catastrophe, will, perhaps, be found, by a reader capable +of perceiving the various symbolical meanings conveyed in the story, +essential to the end in which those meanings converge, and towards +which the incidents that give them the character and interest of +of fiction, have been planned and directed from the commencement. + +Of course, according to the most obvious principles of art, the +narrator of a fiction must be as thoroughly in earnest as if he were +the narrator of facts. One could not tell the most extravagant +fairy-tale so as to rouse and sustain the attention of the most +infantine listener, if the tale were told as if the taleteller did not +believe in it. But when the reader lays down this "Strange Story," +perhaps he will detect, through all the haze of romance, the outlines of +these images suggested to his reason: Firstly, the image of sensuous, +soulless Nature, such as the Materialist had conceived it; secondly, the +image of Intellect, obstinately separating all its inquiries from +the belief in the spiritual essence and destiny of man, and incurring all +kinds of perplexity and resorting to all kinds of visionary speculation +before it settles at last into the simple faith which unites the +philosopher and the infant; and thirdly, the image of the erring but +pure-thoughted visionary, seeking over-much on this earth to separate +soul from mind, till innocence itself is led astray by a phantom, and +reason is lost in the space between earth and the stars. Whether in +these pictures there be any truth worth the implying, every reader +must judge for himself; and if he doubt or deny that there be any +such truth, still, in the process of thought which the doubt or +denial enforces, he may chance on a truth which it pleases himself +to discover. + + "Most of the Fables of AEsop,"--thus says Montaigne in his + charming essay "Of Books"[7]--"have several senses and meanings, of + which the Mythologists choose some one that tallies with the fable. + But for the most part 't is only what presents itself at the first + view, and is superficial; there being others more lively, essential, + and internal, into which they had not been able to penetrate; + and"--adds Montaigne--"the case is the very same with me." + +[1] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. i. See introduction. + +[2] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. iii. p. 546 (Anthropologie). + +[3] OEuvres inedites de Maine de Biran, vol. iii. p. 524. + +[4] "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius. + +[5] Sir William Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics, p. 40. + +[6] Jacobi: Von der Gottlichen Dingen; Werke, p. 424-426. + +[7] Translation, 1776, Yol. ii. p. 103. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +In the year 18-- I settled as a physician at one of the wealthiest +of our great English towns, which I will designate by the initial L----. +I was yet young, but I had acquired some reputation by a professional +work, which is, I believe, still amongst the received authorities on +the subject of which it treats. I had studied at Edinburgh and at +Paris, and had borne away from both those illustrious schools of medicine +whatever guarantees for future distinction the praise of professors +may concede to the ambition of students. On becoming a member of +the College of Physicians, I made a tour of the principal cities of +Europe, taking letters of introduction to eminent medical men, and +gathering from many theories and modes of treatment hints to enlarge +the foundations of unprejudiced and comprehensive' practice. I had +resolved to fix my ultimate residence in London. But before this +preparatory tour was completed, my resolve was changed by one of +those unexpected events which determine the fate man in vain would work +out for himself. In passing through the Tyro, on my way into the +north of Italy, I found in a small inn, remote from medical attendance, an +English traveller seized with acute inflammation of the lungs, and +in a state of imminent danger. I devoted myself to him night and +day; and, perhaps more through careful nursing than active remedies, I +had the happiness to effect his complete recovery. The traveller +proved to be Julius Faber, a physician of great distinction, contented +to reside, where he was born, in the provincial city of L----, but whose +reputation as a profound and original pathologist was widely spread, and +whose writings had formed no unimportant part of my special studies. It +was during a short holiday excursion, from which he was about to return +with renovated vigour, that he had been thus stricken down. The patient +so accidentally met with became the founder of my professional fortunes. +He conceived a warm attachment for me,--perhaps the more affectionate +because he was a childless bachelor, and the nephew who would succeed +to his wealth evinced no desire to succeed to the toils by which the +wealth had been acquired. Thus, having an heir for the one, he had +long looked about for an heir to the other, and now resolved on finding +that heir in me. So when we parted Dr. Faber made me promise to +correspond with him regularly, and it was not long before he disclosed +by letter the plans he had formed in my favour. He said that he was +growing old; his practice was beyond his strength; he needed a partner; +he was not disposed to put up to sale the health of patients whom he had +learned to regard as his children: money was no object to him, but it was +an object close at his heart that the humanity he had served, and the +reputation he had acquired, should suffer no loss in his choice of +a successor. In fine, he proposed that I should at once come to +L---- as his partner, with the view of succeeding to his entire +practice at the end of two years, when it was his intention to retire. + +The opening into fortune thus afforded to me was one that rarely +presents itself to a young man entering upon an overcrowded profession; +and to an aspirant less allured by the desire of fortune than the hope of +distinction, the fame of the physician who thus generously offered +to me the inestimable benefits of his long experience and his cordial +introduction was in itself an assurance that a metropolitan practice +is not essential to a national renown. + +I went, then, to L----, and before the two years of my partnership +had expired, my success justified my kind friend's selection, and far +more than realized my own expectations. I was fortunate in effecting +some notable cures in the earliest cases submitted to me, and it is +everything in the career of a physician when good luck wins betimes for +him that confidence which patients rarely accord except to lengthened +experience. To the rapid facility with which my way was made, some +circumstances apart from professional skill probably contributed. I was +saved from the suspicion of a medical adventurer by the accidents of +birth and fortune. I belonged to an ancient family (a branch of the +once powerful border-clan of the Fenwicks) that had for many generations +held a fair estate in the neighbourhood of Windermere. As an only +son I had succeeded to that estate on attaining my majority, and had +sold it to pay off the debts which had been made by my father, who had +the costly tastes of an antiquary and collector. The residue on the +sale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of a +profession; and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father's +debts, so I obtained that character for disinterestedness and integrity +which always in England tends to propitiate the public to the successes +achieved by industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional ability +I might possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivated +with assiduity the sciences and the scholarship which are collaterally +connected with the study of medicine. Thus, in a word, I established a +social position which came in aid of my professional repute, and +silenced much of that envy which usually embitters and sometimes impedes +success. + +Dr. Faber retired at the end of the two years agreed upon. He went +abroad; and being, though advanced in years, of a frame still robust, and +habits of mind still inquiring and eager, he commenced a lengthened +course of foreign travel, during which our correspondence, at first +frequent, gradually languished, and finally died away. + +I succeeded at once to the larger part of the practice which the labours +of thirty years had secured to my predecessor. My chief rival was a Dr. +Lloyd, a benevolent, fervid man, not without genius, if genius be present +where judgment is absent; not without science, if that may be science which +fails in precision,--one of those clever desultory men who, in adopting +a profession, do not give up to it the whole force and heat of their +minds. Men of that kind habitually accept a mechanical +routine, because in the exercise of their ostensible calling their +imaginative faculties are drawn away to pursuits more alluring. +Therefore, in their proper vocation they are seldom bold or +inventive,--out of it they are sometimes both to excess. And when they do +take up a novelty in their own profession they cherish it with an obstinate +tenacity, and an extravagant passion, unknown to those quiet + philosophers who take up novelties every day, examine them with the +sobriety of practised eyes, to lay down altogether, modify in part, or +accept in whole, according as inductive experiment supports or destroys +conjecture. + +Dr. Lloyd had been esteemed a learned naturalist long before he was +admitted to be a tolerable physician. Amidst the privations of his youth +he had contrived to form, and with each succeeding year he had +perseveringly increased, a zoological collection of creatures, not +alive, but, happily for the be holder, stuffed or embalmed. From what I +have said, it will be truly inferred that Dr. Lloyd's early career as a +physician had not been brilliant; but of late years he had gradually +rather aged than worked himself into that professional authority and +station which time confers on a thoroughly respectable man whom no one +is disposed to envy, and all are disposed to like. + +Now in L---- there were two distinct social circles,--that of the +wealthy merchants and traders, and that of a few privileged families +inhabiting a part of the town aloof from the marts of commerce, and +called the Abbey Hill. These superb Areopagites exercised over the +wives and daughters of the inferior citizens to whom all of L----, +except the Abbey Hill, owed its prosperity, the same kind of mysterious +influence which the fine ladies of May Fair and Belgravia are reported +to hold over the female denizens of Bloomsbury and Marylebone. + +Abbey Hill was not opulent; but it was powerful by a concentration of +its resources in all matters of patronage. Abbey Hill had its own +milliner and its own draper, its own confectioner, butcher, baker, and +tea-dealer; and the patronage of Abbey Hill was like the patronage of +royalty,--less lucrative in itself than as a solemn certificate of +general merit. The shops on which Abbey Hill conferred its custom were +certainly not the cheapest, possibly not the best; but they were +undeniably the most imposing. The proprietors were decorously pompous, +the shopmen superciliously polite. They could not be more so if they had +belonged to the State, and been paid by a public which they benefited and +despised. The ladies of Low Town (as the city subjacent to the Hill had +been styled from a date remote in the feudal ages) entered those shops +with a certain awe, and left them with a certain pride. There they had +learned what the Hill approved; there they had bought what the Hill had +purchased. It is much in this life to be quite sure that we are in the +right, whatever that conviction may cost us. Abbey Hill had been in the +habit of appointing, amongst other objects of patronage, its own +physician. But that habit had fallen into disuse during the latter years +of my predecessor's practice. His superiority over all other medical men +in the town had become so incontestable, that, though he was emphatically +the doctor of Low Town, the head of its hospitals and infirmaries, and by +birth related to its principal traders, still as Abbey Hill was +occasionally subject to the physical infirmities of meaner mortals, so on +those occasions it deemed it best not to push the point of honour to the +wanton sacrifice of life. Since Low Town possessed one of the most +famous physicians in England, Abbey Hill magnanimously resolved not to +crush him by a rival. Abbey Hill let him feel its pulse. + +When my predecessor retired, I had presumptuously expected that the +Hill would have continued to suspend its normal right to a special +physician, and shown to me the same generous favour it had shown to him, +who had declared me worthy to succeed to his honours. I had the more +excuse for this presumption because the Hill had already allowed me to +visit a fair proportion of its invalids, had said some very gracious +things to me about the great respectability of the Fenwick family, and +sent me some invitations to dinner, and a great many invitations to tea. + +But my self-conceit received a notable check. Abbey Hill declared +that the time had come to reassert its dormant privilege; it must have a +doctor of its own choosing,--a doctor who might, indeed, be permitted to +visit Low Town from motives of humanity or gain, but who must +emphatically assert his special allegiance to Abbey Hill by fixing his +home on that venerable promontory. Miss Brabazon, a spinster of +uncertain age but undoubted pedigree, with small fortune but high nose, +which she would pleasantly observe was a proof of her descent from +Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (with whom, indeed, I have no doubt, in spite +of chronology, that she very often dined), was commissioned to inquire of +me diplomatically, and without committing Abbey Hill too much by the +overture, whether I would take a large and antiquated mansion, in which +abbots were said to have lived many centuries ago, and which was still +popularly styled Abbots' House, situated on the verge of the Hill, as in +that case the "Hill" would think of me. + +"It is a large house for a single man, I allow," said Miss Brabazon, +candidly; and then added, with a sidelong glance of alarming sweetness, +"but when Dr. Fenwick has taken his true position (so old a family!) +amongst us, he need not long remain single, unless he prefer it." + +I replied, with more asperity than the occasion called for, that I had +no thought of changing my residence at present, and if the Hill wanted me, +the Hill must send for me. + +Two days afterwards Dr. Lloyd took Abbots' House, and in less than a +week was proclaimed medical adviser to the Hill. The election had been +decided by the fiat of a great lady, who reigned supreme on the sacred +eminence, under the name and title of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. + +"Dr. Fenwick," said this lady, "is a clever young man and a +gentleman, but he gives himself airs,--the Hill does not allow any airs +but its own. Besides, he is a new comer: resistance to new corners, and, +indeed, to all things new, except caps and novels, is one of the bonds that +keep old established societies together. Accordingly, it is by my advice +that Dr. Lloyd has taken Abbots' House; the rent would be too high for his +means if the Hill did not feel bound in honour to justify the trust he +has placed in its patronage. I told him that all my friends, when they +were in want of a doctor, would send for him; those who are my friends +will do so. What the Hill does, plenty of common people down there will +do also,--so that question is settled!" And it was settled. + +Dr. Lloyd, thus taken by the hand, soon extended the range of his +visits beyond the Hill, which was not precisely a mountain of gold to +doctors, and shared with myself, though in a comparatively small degree, +the much more lucrative practice of Low Town. + +I had no cause to grudge his success, nor did I. But to my theories +of medicine his diagnosis was shallow, and his prescriptions obsolete. +When we were summoned to a joint consultation, our views as to the proper +course of treatment seldom agreed. Doubtless he thought I ought to have +deferred to his seniority in years; but I held the doctrine which youth +deems a truth and age a paradox,--namely, that in science the young men +are the practical elders, inasmuch as they are schooled in the latest +experiences science has gathered up, while their seniors are cramped by +the dogmas they were schooled to believe when the world was some decades +the younger. + +Meanwhile my reputation continued rapidly to advance; it became more +than local; my advice was sought even by patients from the metropolis. +That ambition, which, conceived in early youth, had decided my career and +sweetened all its labours,--the ambition to take a rank and leave a name +as one of the great pathologists to whom humanity accords a grateful, if +calm, renown,--saw before it a level field and a certain goal. + +I know not whether a success far beyond that usually attained at the +age I had reached served to increase, but it seemed to myself to +justify, the main characteristic of my moral organization,--intellectual +pride. + +Though mild and gentle to the sufferers under my care, as a necessary +element of professional duty, I was intolerant of contradiction from +those who belonged to my calling, or even from those who, in general +opinion, opposed my favourite theories. I had espoused a school of +medical philosophy severely rigid in its inductive logic. My creed was +that of stern materialism. I had a contempt for the understanding of men +who accepted with credulity what they could not explain by reason. My +favourite phrase was "common-sense." At the same time I had no prejudice +against bold discovery, and discovery necessitates conjecture, but +I dismissed as idle all conjecture that could not be brought to a +practical test. + +As in medicine I had been the pupil of Broussais, so in +metaphysics I was the disciple of Condillac. I believed with that +philosopher that "all our knowledge we owe to Nature; that in the +beginning we can only instruct ourselves through her lessons; and that +the whole art of reasoning consists in continuing as she has compelled us +to commence." Keeping natural philosophy apart from the doctrines of +revelation, I never assailed the last; but I contended that by the first +no accurate reasoner could arrive at the existence of the soul as a third +principle of being equally distinct from mind and body. That by a +miracle man might live again, was a question of faith and not of +understanding. I left faith to religion, and banished it from +philosophy. How define with a precision to satisfy the logic of +philosophy what was to live again? The body? We know that the +body rests in its grave till by the process of decomposition its +elemental parts enter into other forms of matter. The mind? But the +mind was as clearly the result of the bodily organization as the music of +the harpsichord is the result of the instrumental mechanism. The mind +shared the decrepitude of the body in extreme old age, and in the +full vigour of youth a sudden injury to the brain might forever destroy +the intellect of a Plato or a Shakspeare. But the third principle,--the +soul,--the something lodged within the body, which yet was to survive it? +Where was that soul hidden out of the ken of the anatomist? When +philosophers attempted to define it, were they not compelled to confound +its nature and its actions with those of the mind? Could they reduce it +to the mere moral sense, varying according to education, circumstances, +and physical constitution? But even the moral sense in the most virtuous +of men may be swept away by a fever. Such at the time I now speak of +were the views I held,--views certainly not original nor pleasing; but I +cherished them with as fond a tenacity as if they had been consolatory +truths of which I was the first discoverer. I was intolerant to those who +maintained opposite doctrines,--despised them as irrational, or disliked +them as insincere. Certainly if I had fulfilled the career which my +ambition predicted,--become the founder of a new school in pathology, and +summed up my theories in academical lectures,--I should have added +another authority, however feeble, to the sects which circumscribe the +interest of man to the life that has its close in his grave. + +Possibly that which I have called my intellectual pride was more +nourished than I should have been willing to grant by the self-reliance +which an unusual degree of physical power is apt to bestow. Nature had +blessed me with the thews of an athlete. Among the hardy youths of the +Northern Athens I had been preeminently distinguished for feats of +activity and strength. My mental labours, and the anxiety which is +inseparable from the conscientious responsibilities of the medical +profession, kept my health below the par of keen enjoyment, but had in no +way diminished my rare muscular force. I walked through the crowd with +the firm step and lofty crest of the mailed knight of old, who felt +himself, in his casement of iron, a match against numbers. Thus the +sense of a robust individuality, strong alike in disciplined reason and +animal vigour, habituated to aid others, needing no aid for itself, +contributed to render me imperious in will and arrogant in opinion. Nor +were such defects injurious to me in my profession; on the contrary, +aided as they were by a calm manner, and a presence not without that kind +of dignity which is the livery of self-esteem, they served to impose +respect and to inspire trust. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +I had been about six years at L---- when I became suddenly involved +in a controversy with Dr. Lloyd. Just as this ill-fated man appeared at +the culminating point of his professional fortunes, he had the imprudence +to proclaim himself not only an enthusiastic advocate of mesmerism as +a curative process, but an ardent believer of the reality of somnambular +clairvoyance as an invaluable gift of certain privileged organizations. +To these doctrines I sternly opposed myself,--the more sternly, perhaps, +because on these doctrines Dr. Lloyd founded an argument for the +existence of soul, independent of mind, as of matter, and built thereon a +superstructure of physiological fantasies, which, could it be +substantiated, would replace every system of metaphysics on which +recognized philosophy condescends to dispute. + +About two years before he became a disciple rather of Puysegur than +Mesmer (for Mesmer hard little faith in that gift of clairvoyance of +which Puysegur was, I believe, at least in modern times, the first +audacious asserter), Dr. Lloyd had been afflicted with the loss of a wife +many years younger than himself, and to whom he had been tenderly +attached. And this bereavement, in directing the hopes that consoled him +to a world beyond the grave, had served perhaps to render him more +credulous of the phenomena in which he greeted additional proofs of +purely spiritual existence. Certainly, if, in controverting the +notions of another physiologist, I had restricted myself to that +fair antagonism which belongs to scientific disputants anxious only for +the truth, I should need no apology for sincere conviction and honest +argument; but when, with condescending good-nature, as if to a man +much younger than himself, who was ignorant of the phenomena which he +nevertheless denied, Dr. Lloyd invited me to attend his seances and +witness his cures, my amour propre became aroused and nettled, and it +seemed to me necessary to put down what I asserted to be too gross an +outrage on common-sense to justify the ceremony of examination. I wrote, +therefore, a small pamphlet on the subject, in which I exhausted all the +weapons that irony can lend to contempt. Dr. Lloyd replied; and as he was +no very skilful arguer, his reply injured him perhaps more than my +assault. Meanwhile, I had made some inquiries as to the moral character +of his favourite clairvoyants. I imagined that I had learned enough to +justify me in treating them as flagrant cheats, and himself as their +egregious dupe. + +Low Town soon ranged itself, with very few exceptions, on my side. +The Hill at first seemed disposed to rally round its insulted physician, +and to make the dispute a party question, in which the Hill would have +been signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who had +secured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against him, +and the Eminence frowned. + +"Dr. Lloyd," said the Queen of the Hill, "is an amiable creature, +but on this subject decidedly cracked. Cracked poets may be all the +better for being cracked,--cracked doctors are dangerous. Besides, in +deserting that old-fashioned routine, his adherence to which made his +claim to the Hill's approbation, and unsettling the mind of the Hill with +wild revolutionary theories, Dr. Lloyd has betrayed the principles on +which the Hill itself rests its social foundations. Of those principles +Dr. Fenwick has made himself champion; and the Hill is bound to support +him. There, the question is settled!" + +And it was settled. + +From the moment Mrs. Colonel Poyntz thus issued the word of +command, Dr. Lloyd was demolished. His practice was gone, as well as his +repute. Mortification or anger brought on a stroke of paralysis which, +disabling my opponent, put an end to our controversy. An obscure +Dr. Jones, who had been the special pupil and protege of Dr. Lloyd, +offered himself as a candidate for the Hill's tongues and pulses. The +Hill gave him little encouragement. It once more suspended its electoral +privileges, and, without insisting on calling me up to it, the Hill +quietly called me in whenever its health needed other advice than that of +its visiting apothecary. Again it invited me, sometimes to dinner, +often to tea; and again Miss Brabazon assured me by a sidelong glance +that it was no fault of hers if I were still single. + +I had almost forgotten the dispute which had obtained for me so +conspicuous a triumph, when one winter's night I was roused from sleep by +a summons to attend Dr Lloyd, who, attacked by a second stroke a few +hours previously, had, on recovering sense, expressed a vehement desire +to consult the rival by whom he had suffered so severely. I dressed +myself in haste and hurried to his house. + +A February night, sharp and bitter; an iron-gray frost below, a +spectral melancholy moon above. I had to ascend the Abbey Hill by a +steep, blind lane between high walls. I passed through stately gates, +which stood wide open, into the garden ground that surrounded the old +Abbots' House. At the end of a short carriage-drive the dark and +gloomy building cleared itself from leafless skeleton trees,--the moon +resting keen and cold on its abrupt gables and lofty chimney-stacks. +An old woman-servant received me at the door, and, without saying a +word, led me through a long low hall, and up dreary oak stairs, to a +broad landing, at which she paused for a moment, listening. Round +and about hall, staircase, and landing were ranged the dead specimens +of the savage world which it had been the pride of the naturalist's +life to collect. Close where I stood yawned the open jaws of the fell +anaconda, its lower coils hidden, as they rested on the floor +below, by the winding of the massive stairs. Against the dull wainscot +walls were pendent cases stored with grotesque unfamiliar mummies, seen +imperfectly by the moon that shot through the window-panes, and the +candle in the old woman's hand. And as now she turned towards me, +nodding her signal to follow, and went on up the shadowy passage, +rows of gigantic birds--ibis and vulture, and huge sea glaucus--glared +at me in the false light of their hungry eyes. + +So I entered the sick-room, and the first glance told me that my +art was powerless there. + +The children of the stricken widower were grouped round his bed, the +eldest apparently about fifteen, the youngest four; one little girl--the +only female child--was clinging to her father's neck, her face pressed +to his bosom, and in that room her sobs alone were loud. + +As I passed the threshold, Dr. Lloyd lifted his face, which had been +bent over the weeping child, and gazed on me with an aspect of strange +glee, which I failed to interpret. Then as I stole towards him softly +and slowly, he pressed his lips on the long fair tresses that streamed +wild over his breast, motioned to a nurse who stood beside his pillow to +take the child away, and in a voice clearer than I could have expected in +one on whose brow lay the unmistakable hand of death, he bade the nurse +and the children quit the room. All went sorrowfully, but silently, save +the little girl, who, borne off in the nurse's arms, continued to sob as +if her heart were breaking. + +I was not prepared for a scene so affecting; it moved me to the +quick. My eyes wistfully followed the children so soon to be orphans, as +one after one went out into the dark chill shadow, and amidst the +bloodless forms of the dumb brute nature, ranged in grisly vista beyond +the death-room of man. And when the last infant shape had vanished, and +the door closed with a jarring click, my sight wandered loiteringly +around the chamber before I could bring myself to fix it on the broken +form, beside which I now stood in all that glorious vigour of frame which +had fostered the pride of my mind. In the moment consumed by my mournful +survey, the whole aspect of the place impressed itself ineffaceably on +lifelong remembrance. Through the high, deepsunken casement, across +which the thin, faded curtain was but half drawn, the moonlight rushed, +and then settled on the floor in one shroud of white glimmer, lost under +the gloom of the death-bed. The roof was low, and seemed lower still by +heavy intersecting beams, which I might have touched with my lifted hand. +And the tall guttering candle by the bedside, and the flicker from the +fire struggling out through the fuel but newly heaped on it, threw their +reflection on the ceiling just over my head in a reek of quivering +blackness, like an angry cloud. + +Suddenly I felt my arm grasped; with his left hand (the right side was +already lifeless) the dying man drew me towards him nearer and nearer, +till his lips almost touched my ear, and, in a voice now firm, now +splitting into gasp and hiss, thus he said, "I have summoned you to gaze +on your own work! You have stricken down my life at the moment when it +was most needed by my children, and most serviceable to mankind. Had I +lived a few years longer, my children would have entered on manhood, safe +from the temptations of want and undejected by the charity of strangers. +Thanks to you, they will be penniless orphans. Fellow-creatures +afflicted by maladies your pharmacopoeia had failed to reach came to me +for relief, and they found it. 'The effect of imagination,' you say. +What matters, if I directed the imagination to cure? Now you have mocked +the unhappy ones out of their last chance of life. They will suffer and +perish. Did you believe me in error? Still you knew that my object was +research into truth. You employed against your brother in art venomous +drugs and a poisoned probe. Look at me! Are you satisfied with your +work?" + +I sought to draw back and pluck my arm from the dying man's grasp. I +could not do so without using a force that would have been inhuman. His +lips drew nearer still to my ear. + +"Vain pretender, do not boast that you brought a genius for epigram to +the service of science. Science is lenient to all who offer experiment +as the test of conjecture. You are of the stuff of which inquisitors are +made. You cry that truth is profaned when your dogmas are questioned. +In your shallow presumption you have meted the dominions of nature, and +where your eye halts its vision, you say, 'There nature must close;' in +the bigotry which adds crime to presumption, you would stone the +discoverer who, in annexing new realms to her chart, unsettles your +arbitrary landmarks. Verily, retribution shall await you! In those +spaces which your sight has disdained to explore you shall yourself be a +lost and bewildered straggler. Hist! I see them already! The gibbering +phantoms are gathering round you!" + +The man's voice stopped abruptly; his eye fixed in a glazing stare; +his hand relaxed its hold; he fell back on his pillow. I stole from the +room; on the landing-place I met the nurse and the old woman-servant. +Happily the children were not there. But I heard the wail of the female +child from some room not far distant. + +I whispered hurriedly to the nurse, "All is over!" passed again under +the jaws of the vast anaconda, and on through the blind lane between the +dead walls, on through the ghastly streets, under the ghastly moon, went +back to my solitary home. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +It was some time before I could shake off the impression made on me by +the words and the look of that dying man. + +It was not that my conscience upbraided me. What had I done? +Denounced that which I held, in common with most men of sense in or out +of my profession, to be one of those illusions by which quackery draws +profit from the wonder of ignorance. Was I to blame if I refused to +treat with the grave respect due to asserted discovery in legitimate +science pretensions to powers akin to the fables of wizards? Was I to +descend from the Academe of decorous science to examine whether a +slumbering sibyl could read from a book placed at her back, or tell me at +L---- what at that moment was being done by my friend at the Antipodes? + +And what though Dr. Lloyd himself might be a worthy and honest man, +and a sincere believer in the extravagances for which he demanded an +equal credulity in others, do not honest men every day incur the penalty +of ridicule if, from a defect of good sense, they make themselves +ridiculous? Could I have foreseen that a satire so justly provoked would +inflict so deadly a wound? Was I inhumanly barbarous because the +antagonist destroyed was morbidly sensitive? My conscience, therefore, +made me no reproach, and the public was as little severe as my conscience. +The public had been with me in our contest; the public knew nothing of my +opponent's deathbed accusations; the public knew only that I had attended +him in his last moments; it saw me walk beside the bier that bore him to +his grave; it admired the respect to his memory which I evinced in the +simple tomb that I placed over his remains, inscribed with an epitaph that +did justice to his unquestionable benevolence and integrity; above all, it +praised the energy with which I set on foot a subscription for his orphan +children, and the generosity with which I headed that subscription by a +sum that was large in proportion to my means. + +To that sum I did not, indeed, limit my contribution. The sobs of the +poor female child rang still on my heart. As her grief had been keener +than that of her brothers, so she might be subjected to sharper trials +than they, when the time came for her to fight her own way through the +world; therefore I secured to her, but with such precautions that the +gift could not be traced to my hand, a sum to accumulate till she was +of marriageable age, and which then might suffice for a small wedding +portion; or if she remained single, for an income that would place her +beyond the temptation of want, or the bitterness of a servile dependence. + +That Dr. Lloyd should have died in poverty was a matter of +surprise at first, for his profits during the last few years had been +considerable, and his mode of life far from extravagant. But just before +the date of our controversy he had been induced to assist the brother of +his lost wife, who was a junior partner in a London bank, with the loan +of his accumulated savings. This man proved dishonest; he embezzled that +and other sums intrusted to him, and fled the country. The same sentiment +of conjugal affection which had cost Dr. Lloyd his fortune kept him +silent as to the cause of the loss. It was reserved for his executors to +discover the treachery of the brother-in-law whom he, poor man, would +have generously screened from additional disgrace. + +The Mayor of L----, a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased the +museum, which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural history had induced him to +form; and the sum thus obtained, together with that raised by subscription, +sufficed not only to discharge all debts due by the deceased, but to +insure to the orphans the benefits of an education that might fit at +least the boys to enter fairly armed into that game, more of skill than +of chance, in which Fortune is really so little blinded that we see, in +each turn of her wheel, wealth and its honours pass away from the lax +fingers of ignorance and sloth, to the resolute grasp of labour and +knowledge. + +Meanwhile a relation in a distant county undertook the charge of the +orphans; they disappeared from the scene, and the tides of life in a +commercial community soon flowed over the place which the dead man had +occupied in the thoughts of his bustling townsfolk. + +One person at L----, and only one, appeared to share and inherit the +rancour with which the poor physician had denounced me on his death-bed. +It was a gentleman named Vigors, distantly related to the deceased, and who +had been, in point of station, the most eminent of Dr. Lloyd's partisans +in the controversy with myself, a man of no great scholastic +acquirements, but of respectable abilities. He had that kind of power +which the world concedes to respectable abilities when accompanied +with a temper more than usually stern, and a moral character more than +usually austere. His ruling passion was to sit in judgment upon others; +and being a magistrate, he was the most active and the most rigid of all +the magistrates L---- had ever known. + +Mr. Vigors at first spoke of me with great bitterness, as having +ruined, and in fact killed, his friend, by the uncharitable and unfair +acerbity which he declared I had brought into what ought to have been an +unprejudiced examination of simple matter of fact. But finding no +sympathy in these charges, he had the discretion to cease from making them, +contenting himself with a solemn shake of his head if he heard my +name mentioned in terms of praise, and an oracular sentence or two, such +as "Time will show," "All's well that ends well," etc. Mr. Vigors, +however, mixed very little in the more convivial intercourse of the +townspeople. He called himself domestic; but, in truth, he was +ungenial,--a stiff man, starched with self-esteem. He thought that his +dignity of station was not sufficiently acknowledged by the merchants of +Low Town, and his superiority of intellect not sufficiently recognized by +the exclusives of the Hill. His visits were, therefore, chiefly confined +to the houses of neighbouring squires, to whom his reputation as a +magistrate, conjoined with his solemn exterior, made him one of +those oracles by which men consent to be awed on condition that the awe is +not often inflicted. And though he opened his house three times a week, +it was only to a select few, whom he first fed and then biologized. +Electro-biology was very naturally the special entertainment of a man whom +no intercourse ever pleased in which his will was not imposed upon others. +Therefore he only invited to his table persons whom he could stare into +the abnegation of their senses, willing to say that beef was lamb, or +brandy was coffee, according as he willed them to say. And, no doubt, the +persons asked would have said anything he willed, so long as they had, in +substance, as well as in idea, the beef and the brandy, the lamb and the +coffee. I did not, then, often meet Mr. Vigors at the houses in which I +occasionally spent my evenings. I heard of his enmity as a man safe in +his home hears the sough of a wind on a common without. If now and then +we chanced to pass in the streets, he looked up at me (he was a small man +walking on tiptoe) with a sullen scowl of dislike; and from the height of +my stature, I dropped upon the small man and sullen scowl the affable +smile of supreme indifference. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +I had now arrived at that age when an ambitious man, satisfied with +his progress in the world without, begins to feel in the cravings of +unsatisfied affection the void of a solitary hearth. I resolved to marry, +and looked out for a wife. I had never hitherto admitted into my life the +passion of love. In fact, I had regarded that passion, even in my earlier +youth, with a certain superb contempt,--as a malady engendered by an +effeminate idleness, and fostered by a sickly imagination. + +I wished to find in a wife a rational companion, an affectionate and +trustworthy friend. No views of matrimony could be less romantic, more +soberly sensible, than those which I conceived. Nor were my requirements +mercenary or presumptuous. I cared not for fortune; I asked nothing from +connections. My ambition was exclusively professional; it could be +served by no titled kindred, accelerated by no wealthy dower. I was no +slave to beauty. I did not seek in a wife the accomplishments of a +finishing-school teacher. + +Having decided that the time had come to select my helpmate, I imagined +that I should find no difficulty in a choice that my reason would approve. +But day upon day, week upon week, passed away, and though among the +families I visited there were many young ladies who possessed more than +the qualifications with which I conceived that I should be amply +contented, and by whom I might flatter myself that my proposals would not +be disdained, I saw not one to whose lifelong companionship I should not +infinitely have preferred the solitude I found so irksome. + +One evening, in returning home from visiting a poor female patient +whom I attended gratuitously, and whose case demanded more thought than +that of any other in my list,--for though it had been considered hopeless +in the hospital, and she had come home to die, I felt certain that I +could save her, and she seemed recovering under my care,--one evening--it +was the fifteenth of May--I found myself just before the gates of the +house that had been inhabited by Dr. Lloyd. Since his death the house +had been unoccupied; the rent asked for it by the proprietor was +considered high; and from the sacred Hill on which it was situated, +shyness or pride banished the wealthier traders. The garden gates stood +wide open, as they had stood on the winter night on which I had passed +through them to the chamber of death. The remembrance of that deathbed +came vividly before me, and the dying man's fantastic threat rang again in +my startled ears. An irresistible impulse, which I could not then account +for, and which I cannot account for now,--an impulse the reverse of that +which usually makes us turn away with quickened step from a spot that +recalls associations of pain,--urged me on through the open gates up the +neglected grass-grown road, urged me to look, under the weltering sun of +the joyous spring, at that house which I bad never seen but in the gloom +of a winter night, under the melancholy moon. As the building came in +sight, with dark-red bricks, partially overgrown with ivy, I perceived +that it was no longer unoccupied. I saw forms passing athwart the open +windows; a van laden with articles of furniture stood before the door; a +servant in livery was beside it giving directions to the men who were +unloading. Evidently some family was just entering into possession. I +felt somewhat ashamed of my trespass, and turned round quickly to retrace +my steps. I had retreated but a few yards, when I saw before me, at +the entrance gates, Mr. Vigors, walking beside a lady apparently of middle +age; while, just at hand, a path cut through the shrubs gave view of a +small wicketgate at the end of the grounds. I felt unwilling not only to +meet the lady, whom I guessed to be the new occupier, and to whom I should +have to make a somewhat awkward apology for intrusion, but still more to +encounter the scornful look of Mr. Vigors in what appeared to my pride a +false or undignified position. Involuntarily, therefore, I turned down +the path which would favour my escape unobserved. When about half way +between the house and the wicket-gate, the shrubs that had clothed the +path on either side suddenly opened to the left, bringing into view a +circle of sward, surrounded by irregular fragments of old brickwork +partially covered with ferns, creepers, or rockplants, weeds, or wild +flowers; and, in the centre of the circle, a fountain, or rather well, +over which was built a Gothic monastic dome, or canopy, resting on small +Norman columns, time-worn, dilapidated. A large willow overhung this +unmistakable relic of the ancient abbey. There was an air of antiquity, +romance, legend about this spot, so abruptly disclosed amidst the delicate +green of the young shrubberies. But it was not the ruined wall nor the +Gothic well that chained my footstep and charmed my eye. + +It was a solitary human form, seated amidst the mournful ruins. + +The form was so slight, the face so young, that at the first +glance I murmured to myself, "What a lovely child!" But as my eye +lingered it recognized in the upturned thoughtful brow, in the sweet, +serious aspect, in the rounded outlines of that slender shape, the +inexpressible dignity of virgin woman. + +A book was on her lap, at her feet a little basket, half-filled +with violets and blossoms culled from the rock-plants that nestled amidst +the ruins. Behind her, the willow, like an emerald waterfall, showered +down its arching abundant green, bough after bough, from the tree-top to +the sward, descending in wavy verdure, bright towards the summit, in the +smile of the setting sun, and darkening into shadow as it neared the +earth. + +She did not notice, she did not see me; her eyes were fixed upon the +horizon, where it sloped farthest into space, above the treetops and the +ruins,--fixed so intently that mechanically I turned my own gaze to follow +the flight of hers. It was as if she watched for some expected, familiar +sign to grow out from the depths of heaven; perhaps to greet, before +other eyes beheld it, the ray of the earliest star. + +The birds dropped from the boughs on the turf around her so fearlessly +that one alighted amidst the flowers in the little basket at her feet. +There is a famous German poem, which I had read in my youth, called the +Maiden from Abroad, variously supposed to be an allegory of Spring, or of +Poetry, according to the choice of commentators: it seemed to me as if the +poem had been made for her. Verily, indeed, in her, poet or painter might +have seen an image equally true to either of those adornments of the +earth; both outwardly a delight to sense, yet both wakening up thoughts +within us, not sad, but akin to sadness. + +I heard now a step behind me, and a voice which I recognized to be that +of Mr. Vigors. I broke from the charm by which I had been so lingeringly +spell-bound, hurried on confusedly, gained the wicket-gate, from which a +short flight of stairs descended into the common thoroughfare. And there +the every-day life lay again before me. On the opposite side, houses, +shops, church-spires; a few steps more, and the bustling streets! How +immeasurably far from, yet how familiarly near to, the world in which we +move and have being is that fairy-land of romance which opens out from the +hard earth before us, when Love steals at first to our side, fading back +into the hard earth again as Love smiles or sighs its farewell! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +And before that evening I had looked on Mr. Vigors with supreme +indifference! What importance he now assumed in my eyes! The lady with +whom I had seen him was doubtless the new tenant of that house in which +the young creature by whom my heart was so strangely moved evidently had +her home. Most probably the relation between the two ladies was that of +mother and daughter. Mr. Vigors, the friend of one, might himself be +related to both, might prejudice them against me, might--Here, starting +up, I snapped the thread of conjecture, for right before my eyes, on the +table beside which I had seated myself on entering my room, lay a card +of invitation:-- + + MRS. POYNTZ. + At Home, + Wednesday, May 15th. + Early. + + +Mrs. Poyntz,--Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, the Queen of the Hill? There, +at her house, I could not fail to learn all about the new comers, who +could never without her sanction have settled on her domain. + +I hastily changed my dress, and, with beating heart, wound my way up the +venerable eminence. + +I did not pass through the lane which led direct to Abbots' House +(for that old building stood solitary amidst its grounds a little apart +from the spacious platform on which the society of the Hill was +concentrated), but up the broad causeway, with vistaed gaslamps; the gayer +shops still-unclosed, the tide of busy life only slowly ebbing from the +still-animated street, on to a square, in which the four main +thoroughfares of the city converged, and which formed the boundary of Low +Town. A huge dark archway, popularly called Monk's Gate, at the angle of +this square, made the entrance to Abbey Hill. When the arch was passed, +one felt at once that one was in the town of a former day. The pavement +was narrow and rugged; the shops small, their upper stories projecting, +with here and there plastered fronts, quaintly arabesque. An ascent, +short, but steep and tortuous, conducted at once to the old Abbey Church, +nobly situated in a vast quadrangle, round which were the genteel and +gloomy dwellings of the Areopagites of the Hill. More genteel and less +gloomy than the rest--lights at the windows and flowers on the +balcony--stood forth, flanked by a garden wall at either side, the mansion +of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. + +As I entered the drawing-room, I heard the voice of the hostess; it +was a voice clear, decided, metallic, bell-like, uttering these words: +"Taken Abbots' House? I will tell you." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Mrs. Poyntz was seated on the sofa; at her right sat fat Mrs. Bruce, +who was a Scotch lord's grand-daughter; at her left thin Miss Brabazon, +who was an Irish baronet's niece. Around her--a few seated, many +standing--had grouped all the guests, save two old gentlemen, who had +remained aloof with Colonel Poyntz near the whist-table, waiting for the +fourth old gentleman who was to make up the rubber, but who was at that +moment spell-bound in the magic circle which curiosity, that strongest of +social demons, had attracted round the hostess. + +"Taken Abbots' House? I will tell you.--Ah, Dr. Fenwick, charmed to +see you. You know Abbots' House is let at last? Well, Miss Brabazon, +dear, you ask who has taken it. I will inform you,--a particular friend +of mine." + +"Indeed! Dear me!" said Miss Brabazon, looking confused. "I hope I +did not say anything to--" + +"Wound my feelings. Not in the least. You said your uncle Sir +Phelim employed a coachmaker named Ashleigh, that Ashleigh was an uncommon +name, though Ashley was a common one; you intimated an appalling suspicion +that the Mrs. Ashleigh who had come to the Hill was the coach maker's +widow. I relieve your mind,--she is not; she is the widow of Gilbert +Ashleigh, of Kirby Hall." + +"Gilbert Ashleigh," said one of the guests, a bachelor, whose parents +had reared him for the Church, but who, like poor Goldsmith, did not think +himself good enough for it, a mistake of over-modesty, for he matured into +a very harmless creature. "Gilbert Ashleigh? I was at Oxford with +him,--a gentleman commoner of Christ Church. Good-looking man, very; +sapped--" + +"Sapped! what's that?--Oh, studied. That he did all his life. He +married young,--Anne Chaloner; she and I were girls together; married the +same year. They settled at Kirby Hall--nice place, but dull. Poyntz and +I spent a Christmas there. Ashleigh when he talked was charming, but he +talked very little. Anne, when she talked, was commonplace, and she +talked very much. Naturally, poor thing,---she was so happy. Poyntz and +I did not spend another Christmas there. Friendship is long, but life is +short. Gilbert Ashleigh's life was short indeed; he died in the seventh +year of his marriage, leaving only one child, a girl. Since then, though +I never spent another Christmas at Kirby Hall, I have frequently spent a +day there, doing my best to cheer up Anne. She was no longer talkative, +poor dear. Wrapped up in her child, who has now grown into a beautiful +girl of eighteen--such eyes, her father's--the real dark blue--rare; sweet +creature, but delicate; not, I hope, consumptive, but delicate; quiet, +wants life. My girl Jane adores her. Jane has life enough for two." + +"Is Miss Ashleigh the heiress to Kirby Hall?" asked Mrs. Bruce, who +had an unmarried son. + +"No. Kirby Hall passed to Ashleigh Sumner, the male heir, a cousin. +And the luckiest of cousins! Gilbert's sister, showy woman (indeed all +show), had contrived to marry her kinsman, Sir Walter Ashleigh Haughton, +the head of the Ashleigh family,--just the man made to be the reflector of +a showy woman! He died years ago, leaving an only son, Sir James, who was +killed last winter, by a fall from his horse. And here, again, Ashleigh +Summer proved to be the male heir-at-law. During the minority of this +fortunate youth, Mrs. Ashleigh had rented Kirby Hall of his guardian. He +is now just coming of age, and that is why she leaves. Lilian Ashleigh +will have, however, a very good fortune,--is what we genteel paupers call +an heiress. Is there anything more you want to know?" + +Said thin Miss Brabazon, who took advantage of her thinness to wedge +herself into every one's affairs, "A most interesting account. What a +nice place Abbots' House could be made with a little taste! So +aristocratic! Just what I should like if I could afford it! The +drawing-room should be done up in the Moorish style, with +geranium-coloured silk curtains, like dear Lady L----'s boudoir at +Twickenham. And Mrs. Ashleigh has taken the house on lease too, I +suppose!" Here Miss Brabazon fluttered her fan angrily, and then +exclaimed, "But what on earth brings Mrs. Ashleigh here?" + +Answered Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, with the military frankness by which she +kept her company in good humour, as well as awe,-- + +"Why do any of us come here? Can any one tell me?" + +There was a blank silence, which the hostess herself was the first to +break. + +"None of us present can say why we came here. I can tell you why +Mrs. Ashleigh came. Our neighbour, Mr. Vigors, is a distant connection of +the late Gilbert Ashleigh, one of the executors to his will, and the +guardian to the heir-at-law. About ten days ago Mr. Vigors called on me, +for the first time since I felt it my duty to express my disapprobation of +the strange vagaries so unhappily conceived by our poor dear friend Dr. +Lloyd. And when he had taken his chair, just where you now sit, +Dr. Fenwick, he said in a sepulchral voice, stretching out two fingers, +so,--as if I were one of the what-do-you-call-'ems who go to sleep when he +bids them, 'Marm, you know Mrs. Ashleigh? You correspond with her?' +'Yes, Mr. Vigors; is there any crime in that? You look as if there were.' +'No crime, marm,' said the man, quite seriously. 'Mrs. Ashleigh is a lady +of amiable temper, and you are a woman of masculine understanding.'" + +Here there was a general titter. Mrs. Colonel Poyntz hushed it +with a look of severe surprise. "What is there to laugh at? All women +would be men if they could. If my understanding is masculine, so much the +better for me. I thanked Mr. Vigors for his very handsome compliment, and +he then went on to say that though Mrs. Ashleigh would now have to leave +Kirby Hall in a very few weeks, she seemed quite unable to make up her +mind where to go; that it had occurred to him that, as Miss Ashleigh was +of an age to see a little of the world, she ought not to remain buried in +the country; while, being of quiet mind, she recoiled from the dissipation +of London. Between the seclusion of the one and the turmoil of the other, +the society of L---- was a happy medium. He should be glad of my opinion. +He had put off asking for it, because he owned his belief that I had +behaved unkindly to his lamented friend, Dr. Lloyd; but he now found +himself in rather an awkward position. His ward, young Sumner, had +prudently resolved on fixing his country residence at Kirby Hall, rather +than at Haughton Park, the much larger seat which had so suddenly passed +to his inheritance, and which he could not occupy without a vast +establishment, that to a single man, so young, would be but a cumbersome +and costly trouble. Mr. Vigors was pledged to his ward to obtain him +possession of Kirby Hall, the precise day agreed upon, but Mrs. Ashleigh +did not seem disposed to stir,--could not decide where else to go. Mr. +Vigors was loth to press hard on his old friend's widow and child. It was +a thousand pities Mrs Ashleigh could not make up her mind; she had had +ample time for preparation. A word from me at this moment would be an +effective kindness. Abbots' House was vacant, with a garden so extensive +that the ladies would not miss the country. Another party was after it, +but--'Say no more,' I cried; 'no party but my dear old friend Anne +Ashleigh shall have Abbots' House. So that question is settled.' I +dismissed Mr. Vigors, sent for my carriage, that is, for Mr. Barker's +yellow fly and his best horses,--and drove that very day to Kirby Hall, +which, though not in this county, is only twenty-five miles distant. I +slept there that night. By nine o'clock the next morning I had secured +Mrs. Ashleigh's consent, on the promise to save her all trouble; came +back, sent for the landlord, settled the rent, lease, agreement; engaged +Forbes' vans to remove the furniture from Kirby Hall; told Forbes to begin +with the beds. When her own bed came, which was last night, Anne Ashleigh +came too. I have seen her this morning. She likes the place, so does +Lilian. I asked them to meet you all here to-night; but Mrs. Ashleigh +was tired. The last of the furniture was to arrive today; and though dear +Mrs. Ashleigh is an undecided character, she is not inactive. But it is +not only the planning where to put tables and chairs that would have +tried her today: she has had Mr. Vigors on her hands all the afternoon, +and he has been--here's her little note--what are the words? No doubt +'most overpowering and oppressive;' no, 'most kind and attentive,'-- +different words, but, as applied to Mr. Vigors, they mean the same thing. + +"And now, next Monday---we must leave them in peace till then--you +will all call on the Ashleighs. The Hill knows what is due to itself; it +cannot delegate to Mr. Vigors, a respectable man indeed, but who does +not belong to its set, its own proper course of action towards those +who would shelter themselves on its bosom. The Hill cannot be kind and +attentive, overpowering or oppressive by proxy. To those newborn +into its family circle it cannot be an indifferent godmother; it has +towards them all the feelings of a mother,--or of a stepmother, as +the case may be. Where it says 'This can be no child of mine,' it is a +stepmother indeed; but in all those whom I have presented to its +arms, it has hitherto, I am proud to say, recognized desirable +acquaintances, and to them the Hill has been a mother. And now, +my dear Mr. Sloman, go to your rubber; Poyntz is impatient, though he +don't show it. Miss Brabazon, love, we all long to see you seated +at the piano,--you play so divinely! Something gay, if you please; +something gay, but not very noisy,--Mr. Leopold Symthe will turn the +leaves for you. Mrs. Bruce, your own favourite set at vingt-un, with +four new recruits. Dr. Fenwick, you are like me, don't play cards, and +don't care for music; sit here, and talk or not, as you please, while I +knit." + +The other guests thus disposed of, some at the card-tables, some round +the piano, I placed myself at Mrs. Poyntz's side, on a seat niched in the +recess of a window which an evening unusually warm for the month of May +permitted to be left open. I was next to one who had known Lilian as a +child, one from whom I had learned by what sweet name to call the image +which my thoughts had already shrined. How much that I still longed to +know she could tell me! But in what form of question could I lead to the +subject, yet not betray my absorbing interest in it? Longing to speak, I +felt as if stricken dumb; stealing an unquiet glance towards the face +beside me, and deeply impressed with that truth which the Hill had long +ago reverently acknowledged,--namely, that Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was a very +superior woman, a very powerful creature. + +And there she sat knitting, rapidly, firmly; a woman somewhat on +the other side of forty, complexion a bronze paleness, hair a bronze +brown, in strong ringlets cropped short behind,--handsome hair for a man; +lips that, when closed, showed inflexible decision, when speaking, became +supple and flexible with an easy humour and a vigilant finesse; eyes of a +red hazel, quick but steady,--observing, piercing, dauntless eyes; +altogether a fine countenance,--would have been a very fine countenance in +a man; profile sharp, straight, clear-cut, with an expression, when in +repose, like that of a sphinx; a frame robust, not corpulent; of middle +height, but with an air and carriage that made her appear tall; peculiarly +white firm hands, indicative of vigorous health, not a vein visible on the +surface. + +There she sat knitting, knitting, and I by her side, gazing now on +herself, now on her work, with a vague idea that the threads in the skein +of my own web of love or of life were passing quick through those +noiseless fingers. And, indeed, in every web of romance, the fondest, one +of the Parcae is sure to be some matter-of-fact She, Social Destiny, as +little akin to romance herself as was this worldly Queen of the Hill. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +I have given a sketch of the outward woman of Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. The +inner woman was a recondite mystery deep as that of the sphinx, whose +features her own resembled. But between the outward and the inward woman +there is ever a third woman,--the conventional woman,--such as the whole +human being appears to the world,--always mantled, sometimes masked. + +I am told that the fine people of London do not recognize the +title of "Mrs. Colonel." If that be true, the fine people of London must +be clearly in the wrong, for no people in the universe could be finer than +the fine people of Abbey Hill; and they considered their sovereign had +as good a right to the title of Mrs. Colonel as the Queen of England +has to that of "our Gracious Lady." But Mrs. Poyntz herself never +assumed the title of Mrs. Colonel; it never appeared on her cards,--any +more than the title of "Gracious Lady" appears on the cards which +convey the invitation that a Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain is +commanded by her Majesty to issue. To titles, indeed, Mrs. Poyntz +evinced no superstitious reverence. Two peeresses, related to her, not +distantly, were in the habit of paying her a yearly visit which +lasted two or three days. The Hill considered these visits an honour to +its eminence. Mrs. Poyntz never seemed to esteem them an honour to +herself; never boasted of them; never sought to show off her grand +relations, nor put herself the least out of the way to receive +them. Her mode of life was free from ostentation. She had the advantage +of being a few hundreds a year richer than any other inhabitant of +the Hill; but she did not devote her superior resources to the +invidious exhibition of superior splendour. Like a wise sovereign, the +revenues of her exchequer were applied to the benefit of her subjects, and +not to the vanity of egotistical parade. As no one else on the Hill +kept a carriage, she declined to keep one. Her entertainments were +simple, but numerous. Twice a week she received the Hill, and was +genuinely at home to it. She contrived to make her parties proverbially +agreeable. The refreshments were of the same kind as those which the +poorest of her old maids of honour might proffer; but they were better of +their kind, the best of their kind,--the best tea, the best lemonade, the +best cakes. Her rooms had an air of comfort, which was peculiar to them. +They looked like rooms accustomed to receive, and receive in a friendly +way; well warmed, well lighted, card-tables and piano each in the place +that made cards and music inviting; on the walls a few old family +portraits, and three or four other pictures said to be valuable and +certainly pleasing,--two Watteaus, a Canaletti, a Weenix; plenty of +easy-chairs and settees covered with a cheerful chintz,--in the +arrangement of the furniture generally an indescribable careless elegance. +She herself was studiously plain in dress, more conspicuously free from +jewelry and trinkets than any married lady on the Hill. But I have heard +from those who were authorities on such a subject that she was never +seen in a dress of the last year's fashion. She adopted the mode as it +came out, just enough to show that she was aware it was out; but +with a sober reserve, as much as to say, "I adopt the fashion as far as +it suits myself; I do not permit the fashion to adopt me." In short, +Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was sometimes rough, sometimes coarse, always +masculine, and yet somehow or other masculine in a womanly way; +but she was never vulgar because never affected. It was impossible +not to allow that she was a thorough gentlewoman, and she could do things +that lower other gentlewomen, without any loss of dignity. Thus +she was an admirable mimic, certainly in itself the least ladylike +condescension of humour. But when she mimicked, it was with so +tranquil a gravity, or so royal a good humour, that one could only +say, "What talents for society dear Mrs. Colonel has!" As she was +a gentlewoman emphatically, so the other colonel, the he-colonel, +was emphatically a gentleman; rather shy, but not cold; hating trouble +of every kind, pleased to seem a cipher in his own house. If the +sole study of Mrs. Colonel had been to make her husband comfortable, +she could not have succeeded better than by bringing friends about him +and then taking them off his hands. Colonel Poyntz, the he-colonel, +had seen, in his youth, actual service; but had retired from his +profession many years ago, shortly after his marriage. He was a +younger brother of one of the principal squires in the country; +inherited the house he lived in, with some other valuable property +in and about L----, from an uncle; was considered a good landlord; and +popular in Low Town, though he never interfered in its affairs. He was +punctiliously neat in his dress; a thin youthful figure, crowned with a +thick youthful wig. He never seemed to read anything but the newspapers +and the "Meteorological Journal:" was supposed to be the most weatherwise +man in all L----. He had another intellectual predilection,--whist; +but in that he had less reputation for wisdom. Perhaps it requires a +rarer combination of mental faculties to win an odd trick than to +divine a fall in the glass. For the rest, the he-colonel, many +years older than his wife, despite the thin youthful figure, was an +admirable aid-de-camp to the general in command, Mrs. Colonel; and +she could not have found one more obedient, more devoted, or more +proud of a distinguished chief. + +In giving to Mrs. Colonel Poyntz the appellation of Queen of the +Hill, let there be no mistake. She was not a constitutional sovereign; +her monarchy was absolute. All her proclamations had the force of laws. + +Such ascendancy could not have been attained without considerable +talents for acquiring and keeping it. Amidst all her off-hand, brisk, +imperious frankness, she had the ineffable discrimination of tact. +Whether civil or rude, she was never civil or rude but what she carried +public opinion along with her. Her knowledge of general society must +have been limited, as must be that of all female sovereigns; but she +seemed gifted with an intuitive knowledge of human nature, which she +applied to her special ambition of ruling it. I have not a doubt that if +she had been suddenly transferred, a perfect stranger, to the world of +London, she would have soon forced her way to its selectest circles, +and, when once there, held her own against a duchess. + +I have said that she was not affected: this might be one cause of +her sway over a set in which nearly every other woman was trying rather to +seem, than to be, a somebody. + +Put if Mrs. Colonel Poyntz was not artificial, she was artful, or +perhaps I might more justly say artistic. In all she said and did there +were conduct, system, plan. She could be a most serviceable friend, a +most damaging enemy; yet I believe she seldom indulged in strong likings +or strong hatreds. All was policy,--a policy akin to that of a grand +party chief, determined to raise up those whom, for any reason of state, +it was prudent to favour, and to put down those whom, for any reason of +state, it was expedient to humble or to crush. + +Ever since the controversy with Dr. Lloyd, this lady had honoured me +with her benignest countenance; and nothing could be more adroit than the +manner in which, while imposing me on others as an oracular authority, she +sought to subject to her will the oracle itself. + +She was in the habit of addressing me in a sort of motherly way, +as if she had the deepest interest in my welfare, happiness, and +reputation. And thus, in every compliment, in every seeming mark of +respect, she maintained the superior dignity of one who takes from +responsible station the duty to encourage rising merit; so that, somehow +or other, despite all that pride which made me believe that I needed no +helping and to advance or to clear my way through the world, I could not +shake off from my mind the impression that I was mysteriously patronized +by Mrs. Colonel Poyntz. + +We might have sat together five minutes, side by side in silence as +complete as if in the cave of Trophonius--when without looking up from her +work, Mrs. Poyntz said abruptly,-- + +"I am thinking about you, Dr. Fenwick. And you--are thinking +about some other woman. Ungrateful man!" + +"Unjust accusation! My very silence should prove how intently my +thoughts were fixed on you, and on the weird web which springs under your +hand in meshes that bewilder the gaze and snare the attention." + +Mrs. Poyntz looked up at me for a moment--one rapid glance of the +bright red hazel eye--and said,-- + +"Was I really in your thoughts? Answer truly." + +"Truly, I answer, you were." + +"That is strange! Who can it be?" + +"Who can it be? What do you mean?" + +"If you were thinking of me, it was in connection with some other +person,--some other person of my own sex. It is certainly not poor dear +Miss Brabazon. Who else can it be?" + +Again the red eye shot over me, and I felt my cheek redden beneath it. + +"Hush!" she said, lowering her voice; "you are in love!" + +"In love!--I! Permit me to ask you why you think so?" + +"The signs are unmistakable; you are altered in your manner, even in +the expression of your face, since I last saw you; your manner is +generally quiet and observant,--it is now restless and distracted; your +expression of face is generally proud and serene,--it is now humbled and +troubled. You have something on your mind! It is not anxiety for your +reputation,--that is established; nor for your fortune,--that is made; it +is not anxiety for a patient or you would scarcely be here. But anxiety +it is,--an anxiety that is remote from your profession, that touches your +heart and is new to it!" + +I was startled, almost awed; but I tried to cover my confusion with a +forced laugh. + +"Profound observer! Subtle analyst! You have convinced me that I must +be in love, though I did not suspect it before. But when I strive to +conjecture the object, I am as much perplexed as yourself; and with you, I +ask, who can it be?" + +"Whoever it be," said Mrs. Poyntz, who had paused, while I spoke, from +her knitting, and now resumed it very slowly and very carefully, as if her +mind and her knitting worked in unison together,--"whoever it be, love in +you would be serious; and, with or without love, marriage is a serious +thing to us all. It is not every pretty girl that would suit Allen +Fenwick." + +"Alas! is there any pretty girl whom Allen Fenwick would suit?" + +"Tut! You should be above the fretful vanity that lays traps for a +compliment. Yes; the time has come in your life and your career when you +would do well to marry. I give my consent to that," she added with a +smile as if in jest, and a slight nod as if in earnest. The knitting here +went on more decidedly, more quickly. "But I do not yet see the person. +No! 'T is a pity, Allen Fenwick" (whenever Mrs. Poyntz called me by my +Christian name, she always assumed her majestic motherly manner),--"a +pity that, with your birth, energies, perseverance, talents, and, let me +add, your advantages of manner and person,--a pity that you did not choose +a career that might achieve higher fortunes and louder fame than the most +brilliant success can give to a provincial physician. But in that very +choice you interest me. My choice has been much thesame,--a small circle, +but the first in it. Yet, had I been a man, or had my dear Colonel been a +man whom it was in the power of a woman's art to raise one step higher in +that metaphorical ladder which is not the ladder of the angels, why, +then--what then? No matter! I am contented. I transfer my ambition to +Jane. Do you not think her handsome?" + +"There can be no doubt of that," said I, carelessly and naturally. + +"I have settled Jane's lot in my own mind," resumed Mrs. Poyntz, +striking firm into another row of knitting. "She will marry a country +gentleman of large estate. He will go into parliament. She will study +his advancement as I study Poyntz's comfort. If he be clever, she will +help to make him a minister; if he be not clever, his wealth will make +her a personage, and lift him into a personage's husband. And, now that +you see I have no matrimonial designs on you, Allen Fenwick, think if it +will be worth while to confide in me. Possibly I may be useful--" + +"I know not how to thank you; but, as yet, I have nothing to confide." + +While thus saying, I turned my eyes towards the open window beside +which I sat. It was a beautiful soft night, the May moon in all her +splendour. The town stretched, far and wide, below with all its +numberless lights,--below, but somewhat distant; an intervening space was +covered, here, by the broad quadrangle (in the midst of which stood, +massive and lonely, the grand old church), and, there, by the gardens and +scattered cottages or mansions that clothed the sides of the hill. + +"Is not that house," I said, after a short pause, "yonder with the +three gables, the one in which--in which poor Dr. Lloyd lived--Abbots' +House?" + +I spoke abruptly, as if to intimate my desire to change the +subject of conversation. My hostess stopped her knitting, half rose, +looked forth. + +"Yes. But what a lovely night! How is it that the moon blends +into harmony things of which the sun only marks the contrast? That +stately old church tower, gray with its thousand years, those vulgar +tile-roofs and chimney-pots raw in the freshness of yesterday,--now, +under the moonlight, all melt into one indivisible charm!" + +As my hostess thus spoke, she had left her seat, taking her work +with her, and passed from the window into the balcony. It was not often +that Mrs. Poyntz condescended to admit what is called "sentiment" into the +range of her sharp, practical, worldly talk; but she did so at +times,--always, when she did, giving me the notion of an intellect much +too comprehensive not to allow that sentiment has a place in this life, +but keeping it in its proper place, by that mixture of affability and +indifference with which some high-born beauty allows the genius, but +checks the presumption, of a charming and penniless poet. For a few +minutes her eyes roved over the scene in evident enjoyment; then, as they +slowly settled upon the three gables of Abbots' House, her face regained +that something of hardness which belonged to its decided character; her +fingers again mechanically resumed her knitting, and she said, in her +clear, unsoftened, metallic chime of voice, "Can you guess why I took so +much trouble to oblige Mr. Vigors and locate Mrs. Ashleigh yonder?" + +"You favoured us with a full explanation of your reasons." + +"Some of my reasons; not the main one. People who undertake the task +of governing others, as I do, be their rule a kingdom or a hamlet, must +adopt a principle of government and adhere to it. The principle that +suits best with the Hill is Respect for the Proprieties. We have not much +money; entre nous, we have no great rank. Our policy is, then, to set up +the Proprieties as an influence which money must court and rank is afraid +of. I had learned just before Mr. Vigors called on me that Lady Sarah +Bellasis entertained the idea of hiring Abbots' House. London has set its +face against her; a provincial town would be more charitable. An earl's +daughter, with a good income and an awfully bad name, of the best manners +and of the worst morals, would have made sad havoc among the Proprieties. +How many of our primmest old maids would have deserted tea and Mrs. Poyntz +for champagne and her ladyship! The Hill was never in so imminenta +danger. Rather than Lady Sarah Bellasis should have had that house, I +would have taken it myself, and stocked it with owls. + +"Mrs. Ashleigh turned up just in the critical moment. Lady Sarah is +foiled, the Proprieties safe, and so that question is settled." + +"And it will be pleasant to have your early friend so near you." + +Mrs. Poyntz lifted her eyes full upon me. + +"Do you know Mrs. Ashleigh?" + +"Not in the least." + +"She has many virtues and few ideas. She is commonplace weak, as I am +commonplace strong. But commonplace weak can be very lovable. Her +husband, a man of genius and learning, gave her his whole heart,--a heart +worth having; but he was not ambitious, and he despised the world." + +"I think you said your daughter was very much attached to Miss +Ashleigh? Does her character resemble her mother's?" + +I was afraid while I spoke that I should again meet Mrs. Poyntz's +searching gaze, but she did not this time look up from her work. + +"No; Lilian is anything but commonplace." + +"You described her as having delicate health; you implied a hope +that she was not consumptive. I trust that there is no serious reason for +apprehending a constitutional tendency which at her age would require the +most careful watching!" + +"I trust not. If she were to die--Dr. Fenwick, what is the matter?" + +So terrible had been the picture which this woman's words had brought +before me, that I started as if my own life had received a shock. + +"I beg pardon," I said falteringly, pressing my hand to my heart; "a +sudden spasm here,--it is over now. You were saying that--that--" + +"I was about to say-" and here Mrs. Poyntz laid her hand lightly +on mine,--"I was about to say that if Lilian Ashleigh were to die, I +should mourn for her less than I might for one who valued the things of +the earth more. But I believe there is no cause for the alarm my words so +inconsiderately excited in you. Her mother is watchful and devoted; and +if the least thing ailed Lilian, she would call in medical advice. Mr. +Vigors would, I know, recommend Dr. Jones." + +Closing our conference with those stinging words, Mrs. Poyntz here +turned back into the drawing-room. + +I remained some minutes on the balcony, disconcerted, enraged. With +what consummate art had this practised diplomatist wound herself into my +secret! That she had read my heart better than myself was evident from +that Parthian shaft, barbed with Dr. Jones, which she had shot over her +shoulder in retreat. That from the first moment in which she had decoyed +me to her side, she had detected "the something" on my mind, was perhaps +but the ordinary quickness of female penetration. But it was with no +ordinary craft that the whole conversation afterwards had been so shaped +as to learn the something, and lead me to reveal the some one to whom the +something was linked. For what purpose? What was it to her? What motive +could she have beyond the mere gratification of curiosity? Perhaps, at +first, she thought I had been caught by her daughter's showy beauty, and +hence the half-friendly, half-cynical frankness with which she had avowed +her ambitious projects for that young lady's matrimonial advancement. +Satisfied by my manner that I cherished no presumptuous hopes in that +quarter, her scrutiny was doubtless continued from that pleasure in the +exercise of a wily intellect which impels schemers and politicians to an +activity for which, without that pleasure itself, there would seem no +adequate inducement. And besides, the ruling passion of this petty +sovereign was power; and if knowledge be power, there is no better +instrument of power over a contumacious subject than that hold on his +heart which is gained in the knowledge of its secret. + +But "secret"! Had it really come to this? Was it possible that the +mere sight of a human face, never beheld before, could disturb the whole +tenor of my life,--a stranger of whose mind and character I knew nothing, +whose very voice I had never heard? It was only by the intolerable pang +of anguish that had rent my heart in the words, carelessly, abruptly +spoken, "if she were to die," that I had felt how the world would be +changed to me, if indeed that face were seen in it no more! Yes, secret +it was no longer to myself, I loved! And like all on whom love descends, +sometimes softly, slowly, with the gradual wing of the cushat settling +down into its nest, sometimes with the swoop of the eagle on his +unsuspecting quarry, I believed that none ever before loved as I loved; +that such love was an abnormal wonder, made solely for me, and I for it. +Then my mind insensibly hushed its angrier and more turbulent thoughts, as +my gaze rested upon the roof-tops of Lilian's home, and the shimmering +silver of the moonlit willow, under which I had seen her gazing into the +roseate heavens. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +When I returned to the drawing-room, the party was evidently about to +break up. Those who had grouped round the piano were now assembled round +the refreshment-table. The cardplayers had risen, and were settling or +discussing gains and losses. While I was searching for my hat, which I +had somewhere mislaid, a poor gentleman, tormented by tic-doloureux, crept +timidly up to me,--the proudest and the poorest of all the hidalgos +settled on the Hill. He could not afford a fee for a physician's advice; +but pain had humbled his pride, and I saw at a glance that he was +considering how to take a surreptitious advantage of social intercourse, +and obtain the advice without paying the fee. The old man discovered the +hat before I did, stooped, took it up, extended it to me with the profound +bow of the old school, while the other hand, clenched and quivering, was +pressed into the hollow of his cheek, and his eyes met mine with wistful +mute entreaty. The instinct of my profession seized me at once. I could +never behold suffering without forgetting all else in the desire to +relieve it. + +"You are in pain," said I, softly. "Sit down and describe the +symptoms. Here, it is true, I am no professional doctor, but I am a +friend who is fond of doctoring, and knows something about it." + +So we sat down a little apart from the other guests, and after a +few questions and answers, I was pleased to find that his "tic" did not +belong to the less curable kind of that agonizing neuralgia. I was +especially successful in my treatment of similar sufferings, for which I +had discovered an anodyne that was almost specific. I wrote on a leaf of +my pocketbook a prescription which I felt sure would be efficacious, and +as I tore it out and placed it in his hand, I chanced to look up, and saw +the hazel eyes of my hostess fixed upon me with a kinder and softer +expression than they often condescended to admit into their cold and +penetrating lustre. At that moment, however, her attention was drawn from +me to a servant, who entered with a note, and I heard him say, though in +an undertone, "From Mrs. Ashleigh." + +She opened the note, read it hastily, ordered the servant to wait +without the door, retired to her writing-table, which stood near the place +at which I still lingered, rested her face on her hand, and seemed musing. +Her meditation was very soon over. She turned her head, and to my +surprise, beckoned to me. I approached. + +"Sit here," she whispered: "turn your back towards those people, who are no +doubt watching us. Read this." + +She placed in my hand the note she had just received. It contained but +a few words, to this effect:-- + + DEAR MARGARET,--I am so distressed. Since I wrote to you a few + hours ago, Lilian is taken suddenly ill, and I fear seriously. What + medical man should I send for? Let my servant have his name and + address. + + A. A. + +I sprang from my seat. + +"Stay," said Mrs. Poyntz. "Would you much care if I sent the servant to +Dr. Jones?" + +"Ah, madam, you are cruel! What have I done that you should become my +enemy?" + +"Enemy! No. You have just befriended one of my friends. In this world +of fools intellect should ally itself with intellect. No; I am not your +enemy! But you have not yet asked me to be your friend." + +Here she put into my hands a note she had written while thus speaking. +"Receive your credentials. If there be any cause for alarm, or if I can +be of use, send for me." Resuming the work she had suspended, but with +lingering, uncertain fingers, she added, "So far, then, this is settled. +Nay, no thanks; it is but little that is settled as yet." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +In a very few minutes I was once more in the grounds of that old gable +house; the servant, who went before me, entered them by the stairs and +the wicket-gate of the private entrance; that way was the shortest. So +again I passed by the circling glade and the monastic well,--sward, trees, +and ruins all suffused in the limpid moonlight. + +And now I was in the house; the servant took up-stairs the note +with which I was charged, and a minute or two afterwards returned and +conducted me to the corridor above, in which Mrs. Ashleigh received me. I +was the first to speak. + +"Your daughter--is--is--not seriously ill, I hope. What is it?" + +"Hush!" she said, under her breath. "Will you step this way for +a moment?" She passed through a doorway to the right. I followed her, +and as she placed on the table the light she had been holding, I looked +round with a chill at the heart,--it was the room in which Dr. Lloyd had +died. Impossible to mistake. The furniture indeed was changed, there was +no bed in the chamber; but the shape of the room, the position of the high +casement, which was now wide open, and through which the moonlight +streamed more softly than on that drear winter night, the great square +beams intersecting the low ceiling,--all were impressed vividly on my +memory. The chair to which Mrs. Ashleigh beckoned me was placed just on +the spot where I had stood by the bedhead of the dying man. + +I shrank back,--I could not have seated myself there. So I remained +leaning against the chimney-piece, while Mrs. Ashleigh told her story. + +She said that on their arrival the day before, Lilian had been in more +than usually good health and spirits, delighted with the old house, the +grounds, and especially the nook by the Monk's Well, at which Mrs. +Ashleigh had left her that evening in order to make some purchases in the +town, in company with Mr. Vigors. When Mrs. Ashleigh returned, she and +Mr. Vigors had sought Lilian in that nook, and Mrs. Ashleigh then +detected, with a mother's eye, some change in Lilian which alarmed her. +She seemed listless and dejected, and was very pale; but she denied that +she felt unwell. On regaining the house she had sat down in the room in +which we then were,--"which," said Mrs. Ashleigh, "as it is not required +for a sleeping-room, my daughter, who is fond of reading, wished to fit up +as her own morning-room, or study. I left her here and went into the +drawing-room below with Mr. Vigors. When he quitted me, which he did very +soon, I remained for nearly an hour giving directions about the placing of +furniture, which had just arrived, from our late residence. I then went +up-stairs to join my daughter, and to my terror found her apparently +lifeless in her chair. She had fainted away." + +I interrupted Mrs. Ashleigh here. "Has Miss Ashleigh been subject +to fainting fits?" + +"No, never. When she recovered she seemed bewildered, disinclined +to speak. I got her to bed, and as she then fell quietly to sleep, my +mind was relieved. I thought it only a passing effect of excitement, in a +change of abode; or caused by something like malaria in the atmosphere of +that part of the grounds in which I had found her seated." + +"Very likely. The hour of sunset at this time of year is trying to +delicate constitutions. Go on." + +"About three quarters of an hour ago she woke up with a loud cry, and +has been ever since in a state of great agitation, weeping violently, and +answering none of my questions. Yet she does not seem light-headed, +but rather what we call hysterical." + +"You will permit me now to see her. Take comfort; in all you tell me I +see nothing to warrant serious alarm." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +To the true physician there is an inexpressible sanctity in the sick +chamber. At its threshold the more human passions quit their hold on his +heart. Love there would be profanation; even the grief permitted to +others he must put aside. He must enter that room--a calm intelligence. +He is disabled for his mission if he suffer aught to obscure the keen +quiet glance of his science. Age or youth, beauty or deformity, innocence +or guilt, merge their distinctions in one common attribute,-human +suffering appealing to human skill. + +Woe to the households in which the trusted Healer feels not on his +conscience the solemn obligations of his glorious art! Reverently as in a +temple, I stood in the virgin's chamber. When her mother placed her hand +in mine, and I felt the throb of its pulse, I was aware of no quicker beat +of my own heart. I looked with a steady eye on the face more beautiful +from the flush that deepened the delicate hues of the young cheek, and the +lustre that brightened the dark blue of the wandering eyes. She did not +at first heed me, did not seem aware of my presence; but kept murmuring to +herself words which I could not distinguish. + +At length, when I spoke to her, in that low, soothing tone which we +learn at the sick-bed, the expression of her face altered suddenly; she +passed the hand I did not hold over her forehead, turned round, looked at +me full and long, with unmistakable surprise, yet not as if the surprise +displeased her,--less the surprise which recoils from the sight of a +stranger than that which seems doubtfully to recognize an unexpected +friend. Yet on the surprise there seemed to creep something of +apprehension, of fear; her hand trembled, her voice quivered, as she +said,-- + +"Can it be, can it be? Am I awake? Mother, who is this?" + +"Only a kind visitor, Dr. Fenwick, sent by Mrs. Poyntz, for I was uneasy +about you, darling. How are you now?" + +"Better. Strangely better." + +She removed her hand gently from mine, and with an involuntary modest +shrinking turned towards Mrs. Ashleigh, drawing her mother towards +herself, so that she became at once hidden from me. + +Satisfied that there was here no delirium, nor even more than the +slight and temporary fever which often accompanies a sudden nervous attack +in constitutions peculiarly sensitive, I retired noiselessly from the +room, and went, not into that which had been occupied by the ill-fated +Naturalist, but down-stairs into the drawing-room, to write my +prescription. I had already sent the servant off with it to the chemist's +before Mrs. Ashleigh joined me. + +"She seems recovering surprisingly; her forehead is cooler; she is +perfectly self-possessed, only she cannot account for her own +seizure,--cannot account either for the fainting or the agitation with +which she awoke from sleep." + +"I think I can account for both. The first room in which she +entered--that in which she fainted--had its window open; the sides of the +window are overgrown with rank creeping plants in full blossom. Miss +Ashleigh had already predisposed herself to injurious effects from the +effluvia by fatigue, excitement, imprudence in sitting out at the fall of +a heavy dew. The sleep after the fainting fit was the more disturbed, +because Nature, always alert and active in subjects so young, was making +its own effort to right itself from an injury. Nature has nearly +succeeded. What I have prescribed will a little aid and accelerate that +which Nature has yet to do, and in a day or two I do not doubt that your +daughter will be perfectly restored. Only let me recommend care to avoid +exposure to the open air during the close of the day. Let her avoid also +the room in which she was first seized, for it is a strange phenomenon in +nervous temperaments that a nervous attack may, without visible cause, be +repeated in the same place where it was first experienced. You had better +shut up the chamber for at least some weeks, burn fires in it, repaint and +paper it, sprinkle chloroform. You are not, perhaps, aware that Dr. Lloyd +died in that room after a prolonged illness. Suffer me to wait till your +servant returns with the medicine, and let me employ the interval in +asking you a few questions. Miss Ashleigh, you say, never had a fainting +fit before. I should presume that she is not what we call strong. But +has she ever had any illness that alarmed you?" + +"Never." + +"No great liability to cold and cough, to attacks of the chest or lungs?" + +"Certainly not. Still I have feared that she may have a tendency to +consumption. Do you think so? Your questions alarm me!" + +"I do not think so; but before I pronounce a positive opinion, one +question more. You say you have feared a tendency to consumption. Is +that disease in her family? She certainly did not inherit it from you. +But on her father's side?" + +"Her father," said Mrs. Ashleigh, with tears in her eyes, "died young, +but of brain fever, which the medical men said was brought on by over +study." + +"Enough, my dear madam. What you say confirms my belief that your +daughter's constitution is the very opposite to that in which the seeds of +consumption lurk. It is rather that far nobler constitution, which the +keenness of the nervous susceptibility renders delicate but elastic,--as +quick to recover as it is to suffer." + +"Thank you, thank you, Dr. Fenwick, for what you say. You take a load +from my heart; for Mr. Vigors, I know, thinks Lilian consumptive, and Mrs. +Poyntz has rather frightened me at times by hints to the same effect. But +when you speak of nervous susceptibility, I do not quite understand you. +My daughter is not what is commonly called nervous. Her temper is +singularly even." + +"But if not excitable, should you also say that she is not +impressionable? The things which do not disturb her temper may, perhaps, +deject her spirits. Do I make myself understood?" + +"Yes, I think I understand your distinction; but I am not quite sure if +it applies. To most things that affect the spirits she is not more +sensitive than other girls, perhaps less so; but she is certainly +very impressionable in some things." + +"In what?" + +"She is more moved than any one I ever knew by objects in external +nature, rural scenery, rural sounds, by music, by the books that she +reads,--even books that are not works of imagination. Perhaps in all this +she takes after her poor father, but in a more marked degree,--at least, I +observe it more in her; for he was very silent and reserved. And perhaps +also her peculiarities have been fostered by the seclusion in which she +has been brought up. It was with a view to make her a little more like +girls of her own age that our friend, Mrs. Poyntz, induced me to come +here. Lilian was reconciled to this change; but she shrank from the +thoughts of London, which I should have preferred. Her poor father could +not endure London." + +"Miss Ashleigh is fond of reading?" + +"Yes, she is fond of reading, but more fond of musing. She will sit by +herself for hours without book or work, and seem as abstracted as if in a +dream. She was so even in her earliest childhood. Then she would tell me +what she had been conjuring up to herself. She would say that she had +seen--positively seen--beautiful lands far away from earth; flowers and +trees not like ours. As she grew older this visionary talk displeased me, +and I scolded her, and said that if others heard her, they would think +that she was not only silly but very untruthful. So of late years she +never ventures to tell me what, in such dreamy moments, she suffers +herself to imagine; but the habit of musing continues still. Do you not +agree with Mrs. Poyntz that the best cure would be a little cheerful +society amongst other young people?" + +"Certainly," said I, honestly, though with a jealous pang. "But here +comes the medicine. Will you take it up to her, and then sit with her +half an hour or so? By that time I expect she will be asleep. I will +wait here till you return. Oh, I can amuse myself with the newspapers and +books on your table. Stay! one caution: be sure there are no flowers in +Miss Ashleigh's sleeping-room. I think I saw a treacherous rose-tree in a +stand by the window. If so, banish it." + +Left alone, I examined the room in which, oh, thought of joy! I had +surely now won the claim to become a privileged guest. I touched the +books Lilian must have touched; in the articles of furniture, as yet so +hastily disposed that the settled look of home was not about them, I +still knew that I was gazing on things which her mind must associate with +the history of her young life. That luteharp must be surely hers, and the +scarf, with a girl's favourite colours,--pure white and pale blue,--and +the bird-cage, and the childish ivory work-case, with implements too +pretty for use,--all spoke of her. + +It was a blissful, intoxicating revery, which Mrs. Ashleigh's entrance +disturbed. + +Lilian was sleeping calmly. I had no excuse to linger there any longer. + +"I leave you, I trust, with your mind quite at ease," said I. "You will +allow me to call to-morrow, in the afternoon?" + +"Oh, yes, gratefully." + +Mrs. Ashleigh held out her hand as I made towards the door. + +Is there a physician who has not felt at times how that ceremonious fee +throws him back from the garden-land of humanity into the market-place of +money,--seems to put him out of the pale of equal friendship, and say, +"True, you have given health and life. Adieu! there, you are paid for +it!" With a poor person there would have been no dilemma, but Mrs. +Ashleigh was affluent: to depart from custom here was almost impertinence. +But had the penalty of my refusal been the doom of never again beholding +Lilian, I could not have taken her mother's gold. So I did not appear to +notice the hand held out to me, and passed by with a quickened step. + +"But, Dr. Fenwick, stop!" + +"No, ma'am, no! Miss Ashleigh would have recovered as soon without me. +Whenever my aid is really wanted, then--but Heaven grant that time may +never come! We will talk again about her to-morrow." + +I was gone,--now in the garden ground, odorous with blossoms; now in +the lane, inclosed by the narrow walls; now in the deserted streets, over +which the moon shone full as in that winter night when I hurried from the +chamber of death. But the streets were not ghastly now, and the moon was +no longer Hecate, that dreary goddess of awe and spectres, but the sweet, +simple Lady of the Stars, on whose gentle face lovers have gazed ever +since (if that guess of astronomers be true) she was parted from earth to +rule the tides of its deeps from afar, even as love, from love divided, +rules the heart that yearns towards it with mysterious law. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +With what increased benignity I listened to the patients who visited me +the next morning! The whole human race seemed to be worthier of love, and +I longed to diffuse amongst all some rays of the glorious hope that had +dawned upon my heart. My first call, when I went forth, was on the poor +young woman from whom I had been returning the day before, when an +impulse, which seemed like a fate, had lured me into the grounds where I +had first seen Lilian. I felt grateful to this poor patient; without her +Lilian herself might be yet unknown to rue. + +The girl's brother, a young man employed in the police, and whose pay +supported a widowed mother and the suffering sister, received me at the +threshold of the cottage. + +"Oh, sir, she is so much better to-day; almost free from pain. Will +she live now; can she live?" + +"If my treatment has really done the good you say; if she be really +better under it, I think her recovery may be pronounced. But I must first +see her." + +The girl was indeed wonderfully better. I felt that my skill was +achieving a signal triumph; but that day even my intellectual pride was +forgotten in the luxurious unfolding of that sense of heart which had so +newly waked into blossom. + +As I recrossed the threshold, I smiled on the brother, who was still +lingering there,-- + +"Your sister is saved, Wady. She needs now chiefly wine, and good +though light nourishment; these you will find at my house; call there for +them every day." + +"God bless you, sir! If ever I can serve you--" His tongue faltered, +he could say no more. + +Serve me, Allen Fenwick--that poor policeman! Me, whom a king could not +serve! What did I ask from earth but Fame and Lilian's heart? Thrones +and bread man wins from the aid of others; fame and woman's heart he can +only gain through himself. + +So I strode gayly up the hill, through the iron gates, into the fairy +ground, and stood before Lilian's home. + +The man-servant, on opening the door, seemed somewhat confused, and +said hastily before I spoke,-- + +"Not at home, sir; a note for you." + +I turned the note mechanically in my hand; I felt stunned. + +"Not at home! Miss Ashleigh cannot be out. How is she?" + +"Better, sir, thank you." + +I still could not open the note; my eyes turned wistfully towards the +windows of the house, and there--at the drawing-room window--I encountered +the scowl of Mr. Vigors. I coloured with resentment, divined that I was +dismissed, and walked away with a proud crest and a firm step. + +When I was out of the gates, in the blind lane, I opened the note. It +began formally. "Mrs. Ashleigh presents her compliments," and went on to +thank me, civilly enough, for my attendance the night before, would not +give me the trouble to repeat my visit, and inclosed a fee, double the +amount of the fee prescribed by custom. I flung the money, as an asp that +had stung me, over the high wall, and tore the note into shreds. Having +thus idly vented my rage, a dull gnawing sorrow came heavily down upon all +other emotions, stifling and replacing them. At the mouth of the lane I +halted. I shrank from the thought of the crowded streets beyond; I shrank +yet more from the routine of duties, which stretched before me in the +desert into which daily life was so suddenly smitten. I sat down by the +roadside, shading my dejected face with a nervous hand. I looked up as +the sound of steps reached my ear, and saw Dr. Jones coming briskly along +the lane, evidently from Abbots' House. He must have been there at the +very time I had called. I was not only dismissed but supplanted. I rose +before he reached the spot on which I had seated myself, and went my way +into the town, went through my allotted round of professional visits; but +my attentions were not so tenderly devoted, my kill so genially quickened +by the glow of benevolence, as my poorer patients had found them in the +morning. I have said how the physician should enter the sick-room. "A +Calm Intelligence!" But if you strike a blow on the heart, the intellect +suffers. Little worth, I suspect, was my "calm intelligence" that day. +Bichat, in his famous book upon Life and Death, divides life into two +classes,--animal and organic. Man's intellect, with the brain for its +centre, belongs to life animal; his passions to life organic, centred in +the heart, in the viscera. Alas! if the noblest passions through which +alone we lift ourselves into the moral realm of the sublime and beautiful +really have their centre in the life which the very vegetable, that lives +organically, shares with us! And, alas! if it be that life which we +share with the vegetable, that can cloud, obstruct, suspend, annul that +life centred in the brain, which we share with every being howsoever +angelic, in every star howsoever remote, on whom the Creator bestows the +faculty of thought! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +But suddenly I remembered Mrs. Poyntz. I ought to call on her. So I +closed my round of visits at her door. The day was then far advanced, and +the servant politely informed me that Mrs. Poyntz was at dinner. I could +only leave my card, with a message that I would pay my respects to her the +next day. That evening I received from her this note:-- + + Dear Dr. Fenwick,--I regret much that I cannot have the pleasure of + seeing you to-morrow. Poyntz and I are going to visit his brother, at + the other end of the county, and we start early. We shall be away some + days. Sorry to hear from Mrs. Ashleigh that she has been persuaded by + Mr. Vigors to consult Dr. Jones about Lilian. Vigors and Jones both + frighten the poor mother, and insist upon consumptive tendencies. + Unluckily, you seem to have said there was little the matter. Some + doctors train their practice as some preachers fill their churches,--by + adroit use of the appeals to terror. You do not want patients, Dr. + Jones does. And, after all, better perhaps as it is. + Yours, etc. + M. Poyntz. + +To my more selfish grief, anxiety for Lilian was now added. I had seen +many more patients die from being mistreated for consumption than from +consumption itself. And Dr. Jones was a mercenary, cunning, needy man, +with much crafty knowledge of human foibles, but very little skill in the +treatment of human maladies. My fears were soon confirmed. A few days +after I heard from Miss Brabazon that Miss Ashleigh was seriously ill, +kept her room. Mrs. Ashleigh made this excuse for not immediately +returning the visits which the Hill had showered upon her. Miss Brabazon +had seen Dr. Jones, who had shaken his head, said it was a serious case; +but that time and care (his time and his care!) might effect wonders. + +How stealthily at the dead of the night I would climb the Hill and look +towards the windows of the old sombre house,--one window, in which a light +burned dim and mournful, the light of a sick-room,--of hers! + +At length Mrs. Poyntz came back, and I entered her house, having fully +resolved beforehand on the line of policy to be adopted towards the +potentate whom I hoped to secure as an ally. It was clear that neither +disguise nor half-confidence would baffle the penetration of so keen an +intellect, nor propitiate the good will of so imperious and resolute a +temper. Perfect frankness here was the wisest prudence; and after all, it +was most agreeable to my own nature, and most worthy of my own honour. + +Luckily, I found Mrs. Poyntz alone, and taking in both mine the hand +she somewhat coldly extended to me, I said, with the earnestness of +suppressed emotion,-- + +"You observed when I last saw you, that I had not yet asked you to be +my friend. I ask it now. Listen to me with all the indulgence you can +vouchsafe, and let me at least profit by your counsel if you refuse to +give me your aid." + +Rapidly, briefly, I went on to say how I had first seen Lilian, and +how sudden, how strange to myself, had been the impression which that +first sight of her had produced. + +"You remarked the change that had come over me," said I; "you +divined the cause before I divined it myself,--divined it as I sat there +beside you, thinking that through you I might see, in the freedom of +social intercourse, the face that was then haunting me. You know what has +since passed. Miss Ashleigh is ill; her case is, I am convinced, wholly +misunderstood. All other feelings are merged in one sense of anxiety,--of +alarm. But it has become due to me, due to all, to incur the risk of your +ridicule even more than of your reproof, by stating to you thus candidly, +plainly, bluntly, the sentiment which renders alarm so poignant, and +which, if scarcely admissible to the romance of some wild dreamy boy, may +seem an unpardonable folly in a man of my years and my sober calling,--due +to me, to you, to Mrs. Ashleigh, because still the dearest thing in life +to me is honour. And if you, who know Mrs. Ashleigh so intimately, who +must be more or less aware of her plans or wishes for her daughter's +future,--if you believe that those plans or wishes lead to a lot far more +ambitious than an alliance with me could offer to Miss Ashleigh, then aid +Mr. Vigors in excluding me from the house; aid me in suppressing a +presumptuous, visionary passion. I cannot enter that house without love +and hope at my heart; and the threshold of that house I must not cross if +such love and such hope would be a sin and a treachery in the eyes of its +owner. I might restore Miss Ashleigh to health; her gratitude might--I +cannot continue. This danger must not be to me nor to her, if her mother +has views far above such a son-in-law. And I am the more bound to +consider all this while it is yet time, because I heard you state that +Miss Ashleigh had a fortune, was what would be here termed an heiress. +And the full consciousness that whatever fame one in my profession may +live to acquire, does not open those vistas of social power and grandeur +which are opened by professions to my eyes less noble in themselves,--that +full consciousness, I say, was forced upon me by certain words of your +own. For the rest, you know my descent is sufficiently recognized as that +amidst well-born gentry to have rendered me no mesalliance to families the +most proud of their ancestry, if I had kept my hereditary estate and +avoided the career that makes me useful to man. But I acknowledge that on +entering a profession such as mine--entering any profession except that of +arms or the senate--all leave their pedigree at its door, an erased or +dead letter. All must come as equals, high-born or low-born, into that +arena in which men ask aid from a man as he makes himself; to them his +dead forefathers are idle dust. Therefore, to the advantage of birth I +cease to have a claim. I am but a provincial physician, whose station +would be the same had he been a cobbler's son. But gold retains its grand +privilege in all ranks. He who has gold is removed from the suspicion +that attaches to the greedy fortune-hunter. My private fortune, swelled +by my savings, is sufficient to secure to any one I married a larger +settlement than many a wealthy squire can make. I need no fortune with a +wife; if she have one, it would be settled on herself. Pardon these +vulgar details. Now, have I made myself understood?" + +"Fully," answered the Queen of the Hill, who had listened to me +quietly, watchfully, and without one interruption, "fully; and you have +done well to confide in me with so generous an unreserve. But before I +say further, let me ask, what would be your advice for Lilian, supposing +that you ought not to attend her? You have no trust in Dr. Jones; neither +have I. And Annie Ashleigh's note received to-day, begging me to call, +justifies your alarm. Still you think there is no tendency to +consumption?" + +"Of that I am certain so far as my slight glimpse of a case that +to me, however, seems a simple and not uncommon one, will permit. But in +the alternative you put--that my own skill, whatever its worth, is +forbidden--my earnest advice is that Mrs. Ashleigh should take her +daughter at once to London, and consult there those great authorities to +whom I cannot compare my own opinion or experience; and by their counsel +abide." + +Mrs. Poyntz shaded her eyes with her hand for a few moments, and seemed +in deliberation with herself. Then she said, with her peculiar smile, +half grave, half ironical,-- + +"In matters more ordinary you would have won me to your side long ago. +That Mr. Vigors should have presumed to cancel my recommendation to a +settler on the Hill was an act of rebellion, and involved the honour of my +prerogative; but I suppressed my indignation at an affront so unusual, +partly out of pique against yourself, but much more, I think, out of +regard for you." + +"I understand. You detected the secret of my heart; you knew that Mrs. +Ashleigh would not wish to see her daughter the wife of a provincial +physician." + +"Am I sure, or are you sure, that the daughter herself would accept +that fate; or if she accepted it, would not repent?" + +"Do you not think me the vainest of men when I say this,--that I cannot +believe I should be so enthralled by a feeling at war with my reason, +unfavoured by anything I can detect in my habits of mind, or even by the +dreams of a youth which exalted science and excluded love, unless I was +intimately convinced that Miss Ashleigh's heart was free, that I could +win, and that I could keep it! Ask me why I am convinced of this, and I +can tell you no more why I think that she could love me than I can tell +you why I love her!" + +"I am of the world, worldly; but I am a woman, womanly,--though I may +not care to be thought it. And, therefore, though what you say is, +regarded in a worldly point of view, sheer nonsense, regarded in a womanly +point of view, it is logically sound. But still you cannot know Lilian as +I do. Your nature and hers are in strong contrast. I do not think she +is a safe wife for you. The purest, the most innocent creature +imaginable, certainly that, but always in the seventh heaven; and you in +the seventh heaven just at this moment, but with an irresistible +gravitation to the solid earth, which will have its way again when the +honeymoon is over--I do not believe you two would harmonize by +intercourse. I do not believe Lilian would sympathize with you, and I am +sure you could not sympathize with her throughout the long dull course of +this workday life. And, therefore, for your sake, as well as hers, I was +not displeased to find that Dr. Jones had replaced you; and now, in return +for your frankness, I say frankly, do not go again to that house. Conquer +this sentiment, fancy, passion, whatever it be. And I will advise Mrs. +Ashleigh to take Lilian to town. Shall it be so settled?" + +I could not speak. I buried my face in my hands-misery, misery, +desolation! + +I know not how long I remained thus silent, perhaps many minutes. At +length I felt a cold, firm, but not ungentle hand placed upon mine; and a +clear, full, but not discouraging voice said to me,-- + +"Leave me to think well over this conversation, and to ponder well the +value of all you have shown that you so deeply feel. The interests of +life do not fill both scales of the balance. The heart, which does not +always go in the same scale with the interests, still has its weight in +the scale opposed to them. I have heard a few wise men say, as many a +silly woman says, 'Better be unhappy with one we love, than be happy with +one we love not.' Do you say that too?" + +"With every thought of my brain, every beat of my pulse, I say it." + +"After that answer, all my questionings cease. You shall hear from me +to-morrow. By that time, I shall have seen Annie and Lilian. I shall +have weighed both scales of the balance,--and the heart here, Allen +Fenwick, seems very heavy. Go, now. I hear feet on the stairs, Poyntz +bringing up some friendly gossiper; gossipers are spies." + +I passed my hand over my eyes, tearless, but how tears would have +relieved the anguish that burdened them! and, without a word, went down +the stairs, meeting at the landing-place Colonel Poyntz and the old man +whose pain my prescription had cured. The old man was whistling a merry +tune, perhaps first learned on the playground. He broke from it to thank, +almost to embrace me, as I slid by him. I seized his jocund blessing as a +good omen, and carried it with me as I passed into the broad sunlight. +Solitary--solitary! Should I be so evermore? + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE STORY, LYTTON, V1 *** + +******* This file should be named 7692.txt or 7692.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by Andrew Heath +and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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