University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.

“WATCHMAN McDonough reports that, late last night,
he picked up, on the sidewalk, the insensible body of
Maurice Carlyle, who showed some signs of returning
animation after his removal to Station House No. —. A
physician was called in, and every effort made to save the unfortunate
victim of intemperance; but medical skill was inadequate
to arrest the work of many years of excess, and before
daylight the wretched man expired in dreadful convulsions.
Coroner Boutwell held an inquest on the body, and the verdict
rendered was `Death from mania a potu.' Mr. Carlyle was well
known in this city, where for many years he was an ornament to
society, and a general favorite in the fashionable and mercantile
circle in which he moved. Of numbers who were once the recipients
of his bounty and hospitality, none offered succor in the hour
of adversity, and among all his former friends none were found
to cheer or pity in the last ordeal to which flesh is subjected.
The melancholy fate of Maurice Carlyle furnishes another illustration
of the mournful truth that the wages of intemperance
are destitution and desertion.”

Such was the startling announcement, which, under the head
of “Police Report,” Dr. Grey read and re-read in a prominent
New-York paper that had accidentally remained for some days
unopened on his desk, and was dated nearly a month previous.
Locking the door of his office, he sat down to collect his bewildered
thoughts, and to quiet the tumult in his throbbing heart.

During the two years that had drearily worn away since his
last interview with Mrs. Carlyle, he had sternly forbidden his
mind to dwell on its brief dream of happiness, and by a life of
unusually active benevolence endeavored to forget the one
episode which alone had power to disquiet and sadden him.

He had philosophically schooled himself to the calm, unmurmuring

acceptance of his lonely destiny, and looked forward to
a life solitary yet not unhappy, although uncheered by the love
and companionship which every man indulges the instinctive
hope will sooner or later crown his existence.

Now heart and conscience, so long at deadly feud, suddenly
signalled a truce, clasped hands, embraced cordially. How
radiant the world looked, — with what wondrous glory the
future had in the twinkling of an eye robed itself. The
woman he had loved was stainless and free, and how could she
long resist the pleadings of his famished heart?

He would win her from cynicism and isolation, would melt
her frozen nature in the genial atmosphere of his pure and
constant affection, and interweave her aimless, sombre life with
the busy, silvery web of his own.

After forty years, God would grant him home, and wife, and
hearthstone peace.

What a flush and sparkle stole to this grave man's olive
cheek, and calm, deep blue eyes!

Ah! how hungrily he longed for the touch of her hand, the
sight of her face; and, snatching his hat, he put the paper in
his pocket, and hurried towards “Solitude.”

In the holy hush of that hazy autumnal afternoon, nature —
Magna Mater, —

seemed slumbering and dreaming away the day.

The forests were gaudy in their painted shrouds of scarlet
and yellow leaves, and long, feathery flakes of purple bloom
nodded over crimson berries, emerald mosses, and golden-hearted
asters.

Only a few weeks previous, Dr. Grey had driven along that
road, and, while the echo of harvest hymns rang on the hay-scented
air, had asked himself how men and women could

become so completely absorbed in temporal things, ignoring the
solemn and indisputable fact of the brevity of human life and
the restricted dominion of man, —

But to-day all sober-hued reflections were exorcised by the
rapturous Jubilate that hope was singing through the sunlit
chambers of his happy heart; and when he entered the grounds
of “Solitude” they seemed bathed in that soft glamour, that
witching “light that never was on sea or land.”

As he sprang from his buggy and opened the little gate leading
into the parterre, Robert came slowly forward, bearing a
basket filled with a portion of the crimson apples that flushed
the orchard, just beyond the low hedge.

“You could not have chosen a better time to come, Dr. Grey;
and if I were allowed to have my way you would have been
here last night. Were you sent for at last, or was it a lucky
chance that brought you?”

“Merely an accident, as I received no summons. Robert,
how is your mistress?”

“God only knows, sir; I am sure I never can tell how she
really is. She has not seemed well since she took that journey
to the North, and for two weeks past she appears to have been
slipping down by inches into her grave. She neither eats nor
sleeps, and for the last three nights has not lain down, — so old
Ruth, the housekeeper, tells me. Yesterday I begged my mistress
to let me go for you, but she smiled that awful freezing
smile that strikes to the very marrow of my bones, worse
than December sleet, — and raised her finger so: and said, `At
your peril, Robert. Mind your orchard, man, and I will take
care of myself. I want neither doctors nor nurses, and only
desire that you, and Ruth, and Anna, will attend to your respective
duties and let me be quiet. All will soon be well with me.'
I killed a partridge, had it nicely broiled, and carried it to her;
and she thanked me, and made a pretence of eating the wing,

just to please me; but when the waiter was taken away to the
kitchen, I found all the bird on the plate. This morning, just
before daylight, I heard her playing a wild, mournful thing on
the piano, that sounded like a dirge or a wail; and Ruth says
when she went into the parlor to open the blinds, she found
her praying, and thinks she was on her knees for an hour.
Please God! sometimes I wish she was in heaven with my
mother, for she will never see any peace in this life.”

“What seems to be the disease?”

“Heart-ache.”

“You should have come and told me this long ago.”

“And pray to what purpose, Dr. Grey? She vowed she
would allow no human being to cross her threshold, except the
servants, and I would sooner undertake to curl a steel, or make
ringlets out of a pair of tongs, than bend her will when once
she takes a stand. Humph! My mistress is no willow wand,
and is about as easily moved as the church-steeple, or the stone-tower
of the lighthouse.”

“Has she recently received letters that contained tidings
which excited or distressed her?”

“A letter came last week, but I know nothing of its contents.
You need not go into the house if you wish to find her, for
about an hour and a half ago I saw her come out into the
grounds, and she never goes in till the lamps are lighted.”

An anxious look clouded for an instant Dr. Grey's countenance,
but undaunted hope sang on of the hours of hallowed communion
that the future held, while in her invalid condition he assumed
the care and guardianship of his beloved; and, turning into the
lawn, he eagerly searched the winding walks for some trace of
her, some flutter of her garments, some faint, subtle odor of
orange-flowers or tube-roses.

Here and there clusters of purple, pink, and orange chrysanthemums
flecked the lawn with color; and a flower-stand,
covered with china jars that held geraniums, seemed almost a
pyramid of flame, from the profusion of scarlet blooms.

The sun had gone down behind the waving line of low hills,
where, —

Still as crystal was the sapphire sea that mirrored that quiet,
sapphire sky, and not a murmur, not a ripple, stirred the
evening air or the yellow sands that stretched for miles along
the winding coast.

When Dr. Grey had partially crossed the lawn, he glanced
towards the marble temple that gleamed against the dark background
of deodars, and saw a woman sitting on the steps of the
tomb. Softly he approached and entered the mausoleum by an
arch on the opposite side; but, notwithstanding his cautious
tread, he startled a white pigeon that had perched on the altar,
where fresh violets, heliotrope, and snowy sprigs of nutmeg-geranium
were leaning over the scallopped edge of the Venetian
glasses, and distilling perfume in their delicate chalices.

Mrs. Carlyle had brought her floral tribute to the sepulchral
urn, and, having carefully arranged her daily Arkja, had seated
herself on the steps to rest.

From the two sentinel poplars that guarded the front, golden
leaves were sifting down on the marble floor, and three or four
had drifted upon the lap of the quiet figure, while one, bright
and rich as autumn gilding could make it, rested like a crown
on the silver waves that covered her head.

Down the shining steps trailed the folds of the white merino
robe, and around her shoulders was wrapped the blue crape
shawl, while a cluster of violets seemed to have slipped from
her fingers, and strewed themselves at random on her dress.

Softly Dr. Grey drew near, and his voice was tremulously
tender, as he said, —

“Mrs. Carlyle, no barrier divides us now.”

She did not speak, or turn her queenly head, and he laid his
hand caressingly on the glistening gray hair.

“My darling, my first and only love — my brave, beautiful
`Agla,' may I not tell you, at last, what conscience once forbade
my uttering?”

As motionless and silent as the sculptured poppies above her,
she took no notice of his passionate pleading, and he sprang
down one step directly in front of her.

The white face was turned to the sea, and the large, wide,
wonderfully lovely yet mournful gray eyes were gazing fixedly
across the waste of water, at a filmy cloud as fine as lace, that
like a silver netting caught the full October moon which was
lifting itself in the pearly east.

The long black lashes did not droop, nor the steady eyes
waver, and with a horrible foreboding Dr. Grey seized her
hands. They were rigid and icy. He stooped, caught her to
his bosom, and pressed his lips to hers, but they were colder
than the marble column against which she leaned; for, one hour
before, Vashti Carlyle had fronted her God.

Alone in the autumn evening, sitting there with the golden
poplar leaves drifting over her, the desolate woman had held her
last communion with the watching ocean that hushed its murmuring,
to see her die; and, laying down the galling burden of
her sunless, dreary life, she had joyfully and serenely “put on
immortality” in that everlasting rest, where “there was no
more sea, no more death, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away.”

Ah! beautiful and holy was —