 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
24. BOOK XXIV.
LUCY AT THE APOSTLES.
I.
Next morning, the recently appropriated room adjoining on
the other side of the dining-room, presented a different aspect
from that which met the eye of Delly upon first unlocking it
with Pierre on the previous evening. Two squares of faded
carpeting of different patterns, covered the middle of the floor,
leaving, toward the surbase, a wide, blank margin around them.
A small glass hung in the pier; beneath that, a little stand,
with a foot or two of carpet before it. In one corner was a cot,
neatly equipped with bedding. At the outer side of the cot,
another strip of carpeting was placed. Lucy's delicate feet
should not shiver on the naked floor.
Pierre, Isabel, and Delly were standing in the room; Isabel's
eyes were fixed on the cot.
“I think it will be pretty cosy now,” said Delly, palely glancing
all round, and then adjusting the pillow anew.
“There is no warmth, though,” said Isabel. “Pierre, there
is no stove in the room. She will be very cold. The pipe—
can we not send it this way?” And she looked more intently
at him, than the question seemed to warrant.
“Let the pipe stay where it is, Isabel,” said Pierre, answering
her own pointed gaze. “The dining-room door can stand
open. She never liked sleeping in a heated room. Let all be;
coals. Yes, yes—that can be easily done; a little fire of a
morning—the expense will be nothing. Stay, we will have a
little fire here now for a welcome. She shall always have
fire.”
“Better change the pipe, Pierre,” said Isabel, “that will be
permanent, and save the coals.”
“It shall not be done, Isabel. Doth not that pipe and that
warmth go into thy room? Shall I rob my wife, good Delly,
even to benefit my most devoted and true-hearted cousin?”
“Oh! I should say not, sir; not at all,” said Delly hysterically.
A triumphant fire flashed in Isabel's eye; her full bosom
arched out; but she was silent.
“She may be here, now, at any moment, Isabel,” said Pierre;
“come, we will meet her in the dining-room; that is our reception-place,
thou knowest.”
So the three went into the dining-room.
II.
They had not been there long, when Pierre, who had been
pacing up and down, suddenly paused, as if struck by some
laggard thought, which had just occurred to him at the eleventh
hour. First he looked toward Delly, as if about to bid
her quit the apartment, while he should say something private
to Isabel; but as if, on a second thought, holding the contrary
of this procedure most advisable, he, without preface, at once
addressed Isabel, in his ordinary conversational tone, so that
Delly could not but plainly hear him, whether she would
or no.
“My dear Isabel, though, as I said to thee before, my cousin,
mystically resolved to come and live with us, yet it must
be quite impossible that her friends can approve in her such a
singular step; a step even more singular, Isabel, than thou, in
thy unsophisticatedness, can'st at all imagine. I shall be immensely
deceived if they do not, to their very utmost, strive
against it. Now what I am going to add may be quite unnecessary,
but I can not avoid speaking it, for all that.”
Isabel with empty hands sat silent, but intently and expectantly
eying him; while behind her chair, Delly was bending
her face low over her knitting—which she had seized so soon
as Pierre had begun speaking—and with trembling fingers was
nervously twitching the points of her long needles. It was
plain that she awaited Pierre's accents with hardly much less
eagerness than Isabel. Marking well this expression in Delly,
and apparently not unpleased with it, Pierre continued; but by
no slightest outward tone or look seemed addressing his remarks
to any one but Isabel.
“Now what I mean, dear Isabel, is this: if that very probable
hostility on the part of Miss Tartan's friends to her fulfilling
her strange resolution—if any of that hostility should chance to
be manifested under thine eye, then thou certainly wilt know
how to account for it; and as certainly wilt draw no inference
from it in the minutest conceivable degree involving any thing
sinister in me. No, I am sure thou wilt not, my dearest Isabel.
For, understand me, regarding this strange mood in my cousin
as a thing wholly above my comprehension, and indeed regarding
my poor cousin herself as a rapt enthusiast in some wild
mystery utterly unknown to me; and unwilling ignorantly to
interfere in what almost seems some supernatural thing, I shall
not repulse her coming, however violently her friends may seek
to stay it. I shall not repulse, as certainly as I have not invited.
But a neutral attitude sometimes seems a suspicious
one. Now what I mean is this: let all such vague suspicions
absurd misgivings come near my dearest Isabel, to give the
least uneasiness. Isabel! tell me; have I not now said enough
to make plain what I mean? Or, indeed, is not all I have
said wholly unnecessary; seeing that when one feels deeply
conscientious, one is often apt to seem superfluously, and indeed
unpleasantly and unbeseemingly scrupulous? Speak, my
own Isabel,”—and he stept nearer to her, reaching forth his
arm.
“Thy hand is the caster's ladle, Pierre, which holds me entirely
fluid. Into thy forms and slightest moods of thought,
thou pourest me; and I there solidify to that form, and take
it on, and thenceforth wear it, till once more thou moldest me
anew. If what thou tellest me be thy thought, then how can
I help its being mine, my Pierre?”
“The gods made thee of a holyday, when all the common
world was done, and shaped thee leisurely in elaborate hours,
thou paragon!”
So saying, in a burst of admiring love and wonder, Pierre
paced the room; while Isabel sat silent, leaning on her hand,
and half-vailed with her hair. Delly's nervous stitches became
less convulsive. She seemed soothed; some dark and vague
conceit seemed driven out of her by something either directly
expressed by Pierre, or inferred from his expressions.
III.
Pierre! Pierre!—Quick! Quick!—They are dragging
me back!—oh, quick, dear Pierre!”
“What is that?” swiftly cried Isabel, rising to her feet, and
amazedly glancing toward the door leading into the corridor.
But Pierre darted from the room, prohibiting any one from
following him.
Half-way down the stairs, a slight, airy, almost unearthly
figure was clinging to the balluster; and two young men, one
in naval uniform, were vainly seeking to remove the two thin
white hands without hurting them. They were Glen Stanly,
and Frederic, the elder brother of Lucy.
In a moment, Pierre's hands were among the rest.
“Villain!—Damn thee!” cried Frederic; and letting go the
hand of his sister, he struck fiercely at Pierre.
But the blow was intercepted by Pierre.
“Thou hast bewitched, thou damned juggler, the sweetest
angel! Defend thyself!”
“Nay, nay,” cried Glen, catching the drawn rapier of the
frantic brother, and holding him in his powerful grasp; “he is
unarmed; this is no time or place to settle our feud with him.
Thy sister,—sweet Lucy—let us save her first, and then what
thou wilt. Pierre Glendinning—if thou art but the little finger
of a man—begone with thee from hence! Thy depravity, thy
pollutedness, is that of a fiend!—Thou canst not desire this
thing:—the sweet girl is mad!”
Pierre stepped back a little, and looked palely and haggardly
at all three.
“I render no accounts: I am what I am. This sweet girl
—this angel whom ye two defile by your touches—she is of
age by the law:—she is her own mistress by the law. And
now, I swear she shall have her will! Unhand the girl! Let
her stand alone. See; she will faint; let her go, I say!”
And again his hands were among them.
Suddenly, as they all, for the one instant vaguely struggled,
the pale girl drooped, and fell sideways toward Pierre; and,
unprepared for this, the two opposite champions, unconsciously
relinquished their hold, tripped, and stumbled against each
other, and both fell on the stairs. Snatching Lucy in his arms,
Isabel and Delly,—who, affrighted, had been lingering there;
—and bursting into the prepared chamber, laid Lucy on her
cot; then swiftly turned out of the room, and locked them all
three in: and so swiftly—like lightning—was this whole thing
done, that not till the lock clicked, did he find Glen and
Frederic fiercely fronting him.
“Gentlemen, it is all over. This door is locked. She is in
women's hands.—Stand back!”
As the two infuriated young men now caught at him to hurl
him aside, several of the Apostles rapidly entered, having been
attracted by the noise.
“Drag them off from me!” cried Pierre. “They are trespassers!
drag them off!”
Immediately Glen and Frederic were pinioned by twenty
hands; and, in obedience to a sign from Pierre, were dragged
out of the room, and dragged down stairs; and given into the
custody of a passing officer, as two disorderly youths invading
the sanctuary of a private retreat.
In vain they fiercely expostulated; but at last, as if now
aware that nothing further could be done without some previous
legal action, they most reluctantly and chafingly declared
themselves ready to depart. Accordingly they were let
go; but not without a terrible menace of swift retribution directed
to Pierre.
IV.
Happy is the dumb man in the hour of passion. He makes
no impulsive threats, and therefore seldom falsifies himself in
the transition from choler to calm.
Proceeding into the thoroughfare, after leaving the Apostles',
themselves, that Lucy could not so easily be rescued by
threat or force. The pale, inscrutable determinateness, and
flinchless intrepidity of Pierre, now began to domineer upon
them; for any social unusualness or greatness is sometimes
most impressive in the retrospect. What Pierre had said concerning
Lucy's being her own mistress in the eye of the law;
this now recurred to them. After much tribulation of thought,
the more collected Glen proposed, that Frederic's mother should
visit the rooms of Pierre; he imagined, that though insensible
to their own united intimidations, Lucy might not prove deaf
to the maternal prayers. Had Mrs. Tartan been a different
woman than she was; had she indeed any disinterested agonies
of a generous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications,
however poignant; then the hope of Frederic and Glen might
have had more likelihood in it. Nevertheless, the experiment
was tried, but signally failed.
In the combined presence of her mother, Pierre, Isabel, and
Delly; and addressing Pierre and Isabel as Mr. and Mrs.
Glendinning; Lucy took the most solemn vows upon herself,
to reside with her present host and hostess until they should
cast her off. In vain her by turns suppliant, and exasperated
mother went down on her knees to her, or seemed almost on
the point of smiting her; in vain she painted all the scorn and
the loathing; sideways hinted of the handsome and gallant
Glen; threatened her that in case she persisted, her entire
family would renounce her; and though she should be starving,
would not bestow one morsel upon such a recreant, and
infinitely worse than dishonorable girl.
To all this, Lucy—now entirely unmenaced in person—replied
in the gentlest and most heavenly manner; yet with a
collectedness, and steadfastness, from which there was nothing
to hope. What she was doing was not of herself; she had
been moved to it by all-encompassing influences above, around,
suffering was sympathetic. She looked for no reward; the essence
of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well
without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of
worldly wealth and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses
of drawing-rooms; these were no loss to her, for they
had always been valueless. Nothing was she now renouncing;
but in acting upon her present inspiration she was inheriting
every thing. Indifferent to scorn, she craved no pity. As to
the question of her sanity, that matter she referred to the verdict
of angels, and not to the sordid opinions of man. If any
one protested that she was defying the sacred counsels of her
mother, she had nothing to answer but this: that her mother
possessed all her daughterly deference, but her unconditional
obedience was elsewhere due. Let all hope of moving her be
immediately, and once for all, abandoned. One only thing
could move her; and that would only move her, to make her
forever immovable;—that thing was death.
Such wonderful strength in such wonderful sweetness; such
inflexibility in one so fragile, would have been matter for marvel
to any observer. But to her mother it was very much more;
for, like many other superficial observers, forming her previous
opinion of Lucy upon the slightness of her person, and the
dulcetness of her temper, Mrs. Tartan had always imagined that
her daughter was quite incapable of any such daring act. As
if sterling heavenliness were incompatible with heroicness. These
two are never found apart. Nor, though Pierre knew more of
Lucy than any one else, did this most singular behavior in her
fail to amaze him. Seldom even had the mystery of Isabel fascinated
him more, with a fascination partaking of the terrible.
The mere bodily aspect of Lucy, as changed by her more recent
life, filled him with the most powerful and novel emotions.
That unsullied complexion of bloom was now entirely gone,
without being any way replaced by sallowness, as is usual in
of God, and marble indeed were the only fit material for so
holy a shrine, a brilliant, supernatural whiteness now gleamed
in her cheek. Her head sat on her shoulders as a chiseled
statue's head; and the soft, firm light in her eye seemed as
much a prodigy, as though a chiseled statue should give token
of vision and intelligence.
Isabel also was most strangely moved by this sweet unearthliness
in the aspect of Lucy. But it did not so much persuade
her by any common appeals to her heart, as irrespectively commend
her by the very signet of heaven. In the deference with
which she ministered to Lucy's little occasional wants, there
was more of blank spontaneousness than compassionate voluntariness.
And when it so chanced, that—owing perhaps to
some momentary jarring of the distant and lonely guitar—as
Lucy was so mildly speaking in the presence of her mother, a
sudden, just audible, submissively answering musical, stringed
tone, came through the open door from the adjoining chamber;
then Isabel, as if seized by some spiritual awe, fell on her knees
before Lucy, and made a rapid gesture of homage; yet still,
somehow, as it were, without evidence of voluntary will.
Finding all her most ardent efforts ineffectual, Mrs. Tartan
now distressedly motioned to Pierre and Isabel to quit the chamber,
that she might urge her entreaties and menaces in private.
But Lucy gently waved them to stay; and then turned to her
mother. Henceforth she had no secrets but those which would
also be secrets in heaven. Whatever was publicly known in
heaven, should be publicly known on earth. There was no
slightest secret between her and her mother.
Wholly confounded by this inscrutableness of her so alienated
and infatuated daughter, Mrs. Tartan turned inflamedly
upon Pierre, and bade him follow her forth. But again Lucy
said nay, there were no secrets between her mother and Pierre.
She would anticipate every thing there. Calling for pen and
the following lines, and reached them to her mother:
“I am Lucy Tartan. I have come to dwell during their
pleasure with Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Glendinning, of my own unsolicited
free-will. If they desire it, I shall go; but no other
power shall remove me, except by violence; and against any
violence I have the ordinary appeal to the law.”
“Read this, madam,” said Mrs. Tartan, tremblingly handing
it to Isabel, and eying her with a passionate and disdainful significance.
“I have read it,” said Isabel, quietly, after a glance, and
handing it to Pierre, as if by that act to show, that she had no
separate decision in the matter.
“And do you, sir, too, indirectly connive?” said Mrs. Tartan
to Pierre, when he had read it.
“I render no accounts, madam. This seems to be the written
and final calm will of your daughter. As such, you had best
respect it, and depart.”
Mrs. Tartan glanced despairingly and incensedly about her;
then fixing her eyes on her daughter, spoke.
“Girl! here where I stand, I forever cast thee off. Never
more shalt thou be vexed by my maternal entreaties. I shall
instruct thy brothers to disown thee; I shall instruct Glen
Stanly to banish thy worthless image from his heart, if banished
thence it be not already by thine own incredible folly and
depravity. For thee, Mr. Monster! the judgment of God will
overtake thee for this. And for thee, madam, I have no words
for the woman who will connivingly permit her own husband's
paramour to dwell beneath her roof. For thee, frail one,” (to
Delly), “thou needest no amplification.—A nest of vileness!
And now, surely, whom God himself hath abandoned forever,
a mother may quit, never more to revisit.”
This parting maternal malediction seemed to work no visibly
corresponding effect upon Lucy; already she was so marble-white,
then at all within her heart. For as the highest, and purest,
and thinnest ether remains unvexed by all the tumults of the
inferior air; so that transparent ether of her cheek, that clear
mild azure of her eye, showed no sign of passion, as her terrestrial
mother stormed below. Helpings she had from unstirring
arms; glimpses she caught of aid invisible; sustained she was
by those high powers of immortal Love, that once siding with
the weakest reed which the utmost tempest tosses; then that
utmost tempest shall be broken down before the irresistible resistings
of that weakest reed.
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |