 | Pierre, or, The ambiguities |  |
8. BOOK VIII.
THE SECOND INTERVIEW AT THE FARM-HOUSE, AND THE
SECOND PART OF THE STORY OF ISABEL. THEIR
IMMEDIATE IMPULSIVE EFFECT UPON PIERRE.
I.
His second interview with Isabel was more satisfying, but
none the less affecting and mystical than the first, though in the
beginning, to his no small surprise, it was far more strange and
embarrassing.
As before, Isabel herself admitted him into the farm-house,
and spoke no word to him till they were both seated in the
room of the double casement, and himself had first addressed
her. If Pierre had any way predetermined how to deport himself
at the moment, it was to manifest by some outward token
the utmost affection for his sister; but her rapt silence and that
atmosphere of unearthliness which invested her, now froze him
to his seat; his arms refused to open, his lips refused to meet
in the fraternal kiss; while all the while his heart was overflowing
with the deepest love, and he knew full well, that his
presence was inexpressibly grateful to the girl. Never did love
and reverence so intimately react and blend; never did pity so
join with wonder in casting a spell upon the movements of his
body, and impeding him in its command.
After a few embarrassed words from Pierre, and a brief reply,
a pause ensued, during which not only was the slow, soft stepping
but also some slight domestic sounds were heard from the adjoining
room; and noticing the unconsciously interrogating
expression of Pierre's face, Isabel thus spoke to him:
“I feel, my brother, that thou dost appreciate the peculiarity
and the mystery of my life, and of myself, and therefore I am at
rest concerning the possibility of thy misconstruing any of my actions.
It is only when people refuse to admit the uncommonness
of some persons and the circumstances surrounding them, that
erroneous conceits are nourished, and their feelings pained. My
brother, if ever I shall seem reserved and unembracing to thee,
still thou must ever trust the heart of Isabel, and permit no
doubt to cross thee there. My brother, the sounds thou hast
just overheard in yonder room, have suggested to thee interesting
questions connected with myself. Do not speak; I fervently
understand thee. I will tell thee upon what terms I
have been living here; and how it is that I, a hired person, am
enabled to receive thee in this seemly privacy; for as thou
mayest very readily imagine, this room is not my own. And
this reminds me also that I have yet some few further trifling
things to tell thee respecting the circumstances which have
ended in bestowing upon me so angelical a brother.”
“I can not retain that word”—said Pierre, with earnest lowness,
and drawing a little nearer to her—“of right, it only pertains
to thee.”
“My brother, I will now go on, and tell thee all that I think
thou couldst wish to know, in addition to what was so dimly
rehearsed last night. Some three months ago, the people of the
distant farm-house, where I was then staying, broke up their household
and departed for some Western country. No place immediately
presented itself where my services were wanted, but I was
hospitably received at an old neighbor's hearth, and most kindly
invited to tarry there, till some employ should offer. But I did
not wait for chance to help me; my inquiries resulted in ascertaining
which had overtaken her, her aged parents were not only
plunged into the most poignant grief, but were deprived of the
domestic help of an only daughter, a circumstance whose deep
discomfort can not be easily realized by persons who have always
been ministered to by servants. Though indeed my natural
mood—if I may call it so, for want of a better term—was
strangely touched by thinking that the misery of Delly should
be the source of benefit to me; yet this had no practically operative
effect upon me,—my most inmost and truest thoughts
seldom have;—and so I came hither, and my hands will testify
that I did not come entirely for naught. Now, my brother,
since thou didst leave me yesterday, I have felt no small surprise,
that thou didst not then seek from me, how and when I
came to learn the name of Glendinning as so closely associated
with myself; and how I came to know Saddle Meadows to be
the family seat, and how I at last resolved upon addressing
thee, Pierre, and none other; and to what may be attributed
that very memorable scene in the sewing-circle at the Miss
Pennies.”
“I have myself been wondering at myself that these things
should hitherto have so entirely absented themselves from my
mind,” responded Pierre;—“but truly, Isabel, thy all-abounding
hair falls upon me with some spell which dismisses all
ordinary considerations from me, and leaves me only sensible
to the Nubian power in thine eyes. But go on, and tell me
every thing and any thing. I desire to know all, Isabel, and
yet, nothing which thou wilt not voluntarily disclose. I feel
that already I know the pith of all; that already I feel toward
thee to the very limit of all; and that, whatever remains for
thee to tell me, can but corroborate and confirm. So go on,
my dearest,—ay, my only sister.”
Isabel fixed her wonderful eyes upon him with a gaze of
long impassionment; then rose suddenly to her feet, and advanced
reseated herself in silence, and continued so for a time, with
her head averted from him, and mutely resting on her hand,
gazing out of the open casement upon the soft heat-lightning,
occasionally revealed there.
She resumed anon.
II.
“My brother, thou wilt remember that certain part of my
story which in reference to my more childish years spent remote
from here, introduced the gentleman—my—yes, our
father, Pierre. I can not describe to thee, for indeed, I do not
myself comprehend how it was, that though at the time I
sometimes called him my father, and the people of the house
also called him so, sometimes when speaking of him to me;
yet—partly, I suppose, because of the extraordinary secludedness
of my previous life—I did not then join in my mind with
the word father, all those peculiar associations which the term
ordinarily inspires in children. The word father only seemed
a word of general love and endearment to me—little or nothing
more; it did not seem to involve any claims of any sort,
one way or the other. I did not ask the name of my father;
for I could have had no motive to hear him named, except to
individualize the person who was so peculiarly kind to me; and
individualized in that way he already was, since he was generally
called by us the gentleman, and sometimes my father. As
I have no reason to suppose that had I then or afterward, questioned
the people of the house as to what more particular
name my father went by in the world, they would have at all
disclosed it to me; and, indeed, since, for certain singular
reasons, I now feel convinced that on that point they were
come to learn my father's name,—and by consequence, ever
have learned the least shade or shadow of knowledge as to
you, Pierre, or any of your kin—had it not been for the merest
little accident, which early revealed it to me, though at the
moment I did not know the value of that knowledge. The
last time my father visited the house, he chanced to leave his
handkerchief behind him. It was the farmer's wife who first
discovered it. She picked it up, and fumbling at it a moment,
as if rapidly examining the corners, tossed it to me, saying,
`Here, Isabel, here is the good gentleman's handkerchief; keep
it for him now, till he comes to see little Bell again.' Gladly
I caught the handkerchief, and put it into my bosom. It was
a white one; and upon closely scanning it, I found a small
line of fine faded yellowish writing in the middle of it. At
that time I could not read either print or writing, so I was
none the wiser then; but still, some secret instinct told me,
that the woman would not so freely have given me the handkerchief,
had she known there was any writing on it. I forbore
questioning her on the subject; I waited till my father should
return, to secretly question him. The handkerchief had become
dusty by lying on the uncarpeted floor. I took it to the brook
and washed it, and laid it out on the grass where none would
chance to pass; and I ironed it under my little apron, so that
none would be attracted to it, to look at it again. But my
father never returned; so, in my grief, the handkerchief became
the more and the more endeared to me; it absorbed many of
the secret tears I wept in memory of my dear departed friend,
whom, in my child-like ignorance, I then equally called my
father and the gentleman. But when the impression of his
death became a fixed thing to me, then again I washed and
dried and ironed the precious memorial of him, and put it
away where none should find it but myself, and resolved never
more to soil it with my tears; and I folded it in such a manner,
it was like opening a book and turning over many blank leaves
before I came to the mysterious writing, which I knew should
be one day read by me, without direct help from any one.
Now I resolved to learn my letters, and learn to read, in order
that of myself I might learn the meaning of those faded
characters. No other purpose but that only one, did I have
in learning then to read. I easily induced the woman to give
me my little teachings, and being uncommonly quick, and
moreover, most eager to learn, I soon mastered the alphabet,
and went on to spelling, and by-and-by to reading, and at last
to the complete deciphering of the talismanic word—Glendinning.
I was yet very ignorant. Glendinning, thought I,
what is that? It sounds something like gentleman;—Glendin-ning;—just
as many syllables as gentleman; and—G—it
begins with the same letter; yes, it must mean my father. I
will think of him by that word now;—I will not think of the
gentleman, but of Glendinning. When at last I removed
from that house and went to another, and still another, and as
I still grew up and thought more to myself, that word was
ever humming in my head, I saw it would only prove the key
to more. But I repressed all undue curiosity, if any such has
ever filled my breast. I would not ask of any one, who it was
that had been Glendinning; where he had lived; whether,
ever any other girl or boy had called him father as I had done.
I resolved to hold myself in perfect patience, as somehow mystically
certain, that Fate would at last disclose to me, of itself,
and at the suitable time, whatever Fate thought it best for me
to know. But now, my brother, I must go aside a little for a
moment.—Hand me the guitar.”
Surprised and rejoiced thus far at the unanticipated newness,
and the sweet lucidness and simplicity of Isabel's narrating, as
compared with the obscure and marvelous revelations of the
night before, and all eager for her to continue her story in the
and unearthly frame of mind the melodies of her guitar
had formerly thrown him; Pierre now, in handing the instrument
to Isabel, could not entirely restrain something like a
look of half-regret, accompanied rather strangely with a half-smile
of gentle humor. It did not pass unnoticed by his sister,
who receiving the guitar, looked up into his face with an expression
which would almost have been arch and playful, were
it not for the ever-abiding shadows cast from her infinite hair
into her unfathomed eyes, and redoubledly shot back again
from them.
“Do not be alarmed, my brother; and do not smile at me;
I am not going to play the Mystery of Isabel to thee to-night.
Draw nearer to me now. Hold the light near to me.”
So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as
to open a peep lengthwise through its interior.
“Now hold it thus, my brother; thus; and see what thou
wilt see; but wait one instant till I hold the lamp.” So saying,
as Pierre held the instrument before him as directed, Isabel
held the lamp so as to cast its light through the round
sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar.
“Now, Pierre, now.”
Eagerly, Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed,
and yet surprised at what he saw. He saw the word
Isabel, quite legibly but still fadedly gilded upon a part of one
side of the interior, where it made a projecting curve.
“A very curious place thou hast chosen, Isabel, wherein to
have the ownership of the guitar engraved. How did ever any
person get in there to do it, I should like to know?”
The girl looked surprisedly at him a moment; then took the
instrument from him, and looked into it herself. She put it
down, and continued.
“I see, my brother, thou dost not comprehend. When one
knows every thing about any object, one is too apt to suppose
any other person. I did not have the name gilded there, my
brother.”
“How?” cried Pierre.
“The name was gilded there when I first got the guitar,
though then I did not know it. The guitar must have been
expressly made for some one by the name of Isabel; because
the lettering could only have been put there before the guitar
was put together.”
“Go on—hurry,” said Pierre.
“Yes, one day, after I had owned it a long time, a strange
whim came into me. Thou know'st that it is not at all uncommon
for children to break their dearest playthings in order
to gratify a half-crazy curiosity to find out what is in the hidden
heart of them. So it is with children, sometimes. And,
Pierre, I have always been, and feel that I must always continue
to be a child, though I should grow to three score years
and ten. Seized with this sudden whim, I unscrewed the part
I showed thee, and peeped in, and saw `Isabel.' Now I have
not yet told thee, that from as early a time as I can remember,
I have nearly always gone by the name of Bell. And at the
particular time I now speak of, my knowledge of general and
trivial matters was sufficiently advanced to make it quite a
familiar thing to me, that Bell was often a diminutive for Isabella,
or Isabel. It was therefore no very strange affair, that
considering my age, and other connected circumstances at the
time, I should have instinctively associated the word Isabel,
found in the guitar, with my own abbreviated name, and so be
led into all sorts of fancyings. They return upon me now.
Do not speak to me.”
She leaned away from him, toward the occasionally illuminated
casement, in the same manner as on the previous night,
and for a few moments seemed struggling with some wild bewilderment.
But now she suddenly turned, and fully confronted
face.
“I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is
neither man nor woman about it. Why should I not speak
out to thee? There is no sex in our immaculateness. Pierre,
the secret name in the guitar even now thrills me through and
through. Pierre, think! think! Oh, canst thou not comprehend?
see it?—what I mean, Pierre? The secret name in the
guitar thrills me, thrills me, whirls me, whirls me; so secret,
wholly hidden, yet constantly carried about in it; unseen, unsuspected,
always vibrating to the hidden heart-strings—broken
heart-strings; oh, my mother, my mother, my mother!”
As the wild plaints of Isabel pierced into his bosom's core,
they carried with them the first inkling of the extraordinary
conceit, so vaguely and shrinkingly hinted at in her till now
entirely unintelligible words.
She lifted her dry burning eyes of long-fringed fire to him.
“Pierre—I have no slightest proof—but the guitar was hers,
I know, I feel it was. Say, did I not last night tell thee, how
it first sung to me upon the bed, and answered me, without my
once touching it? and how it always sung to me and answered
me, and soothed and loved me,—Hark now; thou shalt hear
my mother's spirit.”
She carefully scanned the strings, and tuned them carefully;
then placed the guitar in the casement-bench, and knelt before
it; and in low, sweet, and changefully modulated notes, so
barely audible, that Pierre bent over to catch them; breathed
the word mother, mother, mother! There was profound silence
for a time; when suddenly, to the lowest and least audible
note of all, the magical untouched guitar responded with a
quick spark of melody, which in the following hush, long vibrated
and subsidingly tingled through the room; while to his
augmented wonder, he now espied, quivering along the metallic
strings of the guitar, some minute scintillations, seemingly
irradiated window.
The girl still kept kneeling; but an altogether unwonted expression
suddenly overcast her whole countenance. She darted
one swift glance at Pierre; and then with a single toss of her
hand tumbled her unrestrained locks all over her, so that they
tent-wise invested her whole kneeling form close to the floor,
and yet swept the floor with their wild redundancy. Never
Saya of Limeean girl, at dim mass in St. Dominic's cathedral,
so completely muffled the human figure. To Pierre, the deep
oaken recess of the double-casement, before which Isabel was
kneeling, seemed now the immediate vestibule of some awful
shrine, mystically revealed through the obscurely open window,
which ever and anon was still softly illumined by the mild
heat-lightnings and ground-lightnings, that wove their wonderfulness
without, in the unsearchable air of that ebonly warm
and most noiseless summer night.
Some unsubduable word was on Pierre's lip, but a sudden
voice from out the vail bade him be silent.
“Mother—mother—mother!”
Again, after a preluding silence, the guitar as magically responded
as before; the sparks quivered along its strings; and
again Pierre felt as in the immediate presence of the spirit.
“Shall I, mother?—Art thou ready? Wilt thou tell me?—
Now? Now?”
These words were lowly and sweetly murmured in the same
way with the word mother, being changefully varied in their
modulations, till at the last now, the magical guitar again responded;
and the girl swiftly drew it to her beneath her dark
tent of hair. In this act, as the long curls swept over the
strings of the guitar, the strange sparks—still quivering there—
caught at those attractive curls; the entire casement was suddenly
and wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now,
in the succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave
a tract of phosphorescent midnight sea; and, simultaneously,
all the four winds of the world of melody broke loose;
and again as on the previous night, only in a still more subtile,
and wholly inexplicable way, Pierre felt himself surrounded by
ten thousand sprites and gnomes, and his whole soul was
swayed and tossed by supernatural tides; and again he heard
the wondrous, rebounding, chanted words:
Mystery of Isabel!
Mystery! Mystery!
Isabel and Mystery!
Mystery!”
III.
Almost deprived of consciousness by the spell flung over
him by the marvelous girl, Pierre unknowingly gazed away
from her, as on vacancy; and when at last stillness had once
more fallen upon the room—all except the stepping—and he
recovered his self-possession, and turned to look where he might
now be, he was surprised to see Isabel composedly, though
avertedly, seated on the bench; the longer and fuller tresses of
her now ungleaming hair flung back, and the guitar quietly
leaning in the corner.
He was about to put some unconsidered question to her, but
she half-anticipated it by bidding him, in a low, but nevertheless
almost authoritative tone, not to make any allusion to the
scene he had just beheld.
He paused, profoundly thinking to himself, and now felt certain
that the entire scene, from the first musical invocation of
the guitar, must have unpremeditatedly proceeded from a
which the preceding conversation, and especially the handling of
the guitar under such circumstances, had irresistibly thrown her.
But that certain something of the preternatural in the scene,
of which he could not rid his mind:—the, so to speak, voluntary
and all but intelligent responsiveness of the guitar—its
strangely scintillating strings—the so suddenly glorified head
of Isabel; altogether, these things seemed not at the time entirely
produced by customary or natural causes. To Pierre's
dilated senses Isabel seemed to swim in an electric fluid; the
vivid buckler of her brow seemed as a magnetic plate. Now
first this night was Pierre made aware of what, in the superstitiousness
of his rapt enthusiasm, he could not help believing
was an extraordinary physical magnetism in Isabel. And—as
it were derived from this marvelous quality thus imputed to
her—he now first became vaguely sensible of a certain still
more marvelous power in the girl over himself and his most
interior thoughts and motions;—a power so hovering upon the
confines of the invisible world, that it seemed more inclined that
way than this;—a power which not only seemed irresistibly to
draw him toward Isabel, but to draw him away from another
quarter—wantonly as it were, and yet quite ignorantly and
unintendingly; and, besides, without respect apparently to any
thing ulterior, and yet again, only under cover of drawing
him to her. For over all these things, and interfusing itself
with the sparkling electricity in which she seemed to swim,
was an ever-creeping and condensing haze of ambiguities.
Often, in after-times with her, did he recall this first magnetic
night, and would seem to see that she then had bound
him to her by an extraordinary atmospheric spell—both physical
and spiritual—which henceforth it had become impossible
for him to break, but whose full potency he never recognized
till long after he had become habituated to its sway. This
spell seemed one with that Pantheistic master-spell, which
world, and the physical electricalness of Isabel seemed reciprocal
with the heat-lightnings and the ground-lightnings
nigh to which it had first become revealed to Pierre. She
seemed molded from fire and air, and vivified at some Voltaic
pile of August thunder-clouds heaped against the sunset.
The occasional sweet simplicity, and innocence, and humbleness
of her story; her often serene and open aspect; her deep-seated,
but mostly quiet, unobtrusive sadness, and that touchingness
of her less unwonted tone and air;—these only the more
signalized and contrastingly emphasized the profounder, subtler,
and more mystic part of her. Especially did Pierre feel this,
when after another silent interval, she now proceeded with her
story in a manner so gently confiding, so entirely artless, so almost
peasant-like in its simplicity, and dealing in some details
so little sublimated in themselves, that it seemed well nigh
impossible that this unassuming maid should be the same dark,
regal being who had but just now bade Pierre be silent in so
imperious a tone, and around whose wondrous temples the
strange electric glory had been playing. Yet not very long did
she now thus innocently proceed, ere, at times, some fainter
flashes of her electricalness came from her, but only to be followed
by such melting, human, and most feminine traits as
brought all his soft, enthusiast tears into the sympathetic but
still unshedding eyes of Pierre.
IV.
“Thou rememberest, my brother, my telling thee last night,
how the—the—thou knowest what I mean—that, there”—avertedly
pointing to the guitar; “thou rememberest how it came
into my possession. But perhaps I did not tell thee, that the
house some distance from the place where I was then residing.”
Pierre signed his acquiescence, and Isabel proceeded:
“Now, at long though stated intervals, that man passed the
farm-house in his trading route between the small towns and
villages. When I discovered the gilding in the guitar, I kept
watch for him; for though I truly felt persuaded that Fate had
the dispensing of her own secrets in her own good time; yet
I also felt persuaded that in some cases Fate drops us one little
hint, leaving our own minds to follow it up, so that we of ourselves
may come to the grand secret in reserve. So I kept diligent
watch for him; and the next time he stopped, without
permitting him at all to guess my motives, I contrived to steal
out of him what great house it was from which the guitar had
come. And, my brother, it was the mansion of Saddle Meadows.”
Pierre started, and the girl went on:
“Yes, my brother, Saddle Meadows; `old General Glendinning's
place,' he said; `but the old hero 's long dead and gone
now; and—the more 's the pity—so is the young General, his
son, dead and gone; but then there is a still younger grandson
General left; that family always keep the title and the name
a-going; yes, even to the surname,—Pierre. Pierre Glendining
was the white-haired old General's name, who fought in
the old French and Indian wars; and Pierre Glendinning is
his young great-grandson's name.' Thou may'st well look at
me so, my brother;—yes, he meant thee, thee, my brother.”
“But the guitar—the guitar!”—cried Pierre—“how came
the guitar openly at Saddle Meadows, and how came it to be
bartered away by servants? Tell me that, Isabel!”
“Do not put such impetuous questions to me, Pierre; else
thou mayst recall the old—may be, it is the evil spell upon me.
I can not precisely and knowingly answer thee. I could surmise;
times, and far sweeter are mysteries than surmises: though
the mystery be unfathomable, it is still the unfathomableness of
fullness; but the surmise, that is but shallow and unmeaning
emptiness.”
“But this is the most inexplicable point of all. Tell me,
Isabel; surely thou must have thought something about this
thing.”
“Much, Pierre, very much; but only about the mystery of
it—nothing more. Could I, I would not now be fully told, how
the guitar came to be at Saddle Meadows, and came to be bartered
away by the servants of Saddle Meadows. Enough, that
it found me out, and came to me, and spoke and sung to me,
and soothed me, and has been every thing to me.”
She paused a moment; while vaguely to his secret self Pierre
revolved these strange revealings; but now he was all attention
again as Isabel resumed.
“I now held in my mind's hand the clew, my brother. But
I did not immediately follow it further up. Sufficient to me in
my loneliness was the knowledge, that I now knew where my
father's family was to be found. As yet not the slightest intention
of ever disclosing myself to them, had entered my mind.
And assured as I was, that for obvious reasons, none of his surviving
relatives could possibly know me, even if they saw me,
for what I really was, I felt entire security in the event of encountering
any of them by chance. But my unavoidable displacements
and migrations from one house to another, at last
brought me within twelve miles of Saddle Meadows. I began
to feel an increasing longing in me; but side by side with it, a
new-born and competing pride,—yes, pride, Pierre. Do my
eyes flash? They belie me, if they do not. But it is no common
pride, Pierre; for what has Isabel to be proud of in this
world? It is the pride of—of—a too, too longing, loving heart,
Pierre—the pride of lasting suffering and grief, my brother!
pride, Pierre; and so I would not now be here, in this
room,—nor wouldst thou ever have received any line from me;
nor, in all worldly probability, ever so much as heard of her
who is called Isabel Banford, had it not been for my hearing
that at Walter Ulver's, only three miles from the mansion of
Saddle Meadows, poor Bell would find people kind enough to
give her wages for her work. Feel my hand, my brother.”
“Dear divine girl, my own exalted Isabel!” cried Pierre,
catching the offered hand with ungovernable emotion, “how
most unbeseeming, that this strange hardness, and this still
stranger littleness should be united in any human hand. But
hard and small, it by an opposite analogy hints of the soft
capacious heart that made the hand so hard with heavenly submission
to thy most undeserved and martyred lot. Would,
Isabel, that these my kisses on the hand, were on the heart
itself, and dropt the seeds of eternal joy and comfort there.”
He leaped to his feet, and stood before her with such warm,
god-like majesty of love and tenderness, that the girl gazed up
at him as though he were the one benignant star in all her
general night.
“Isabel,” cried Pierre, “I stand the sweet penance in my father's
stead, thou, in thy mother's. By our earthly acts we shall redeemingly
bless both their eternal lots; we will love with the
pure and perfect love of angel to an angel. If ever I fall from
thee, dear Isabel, may Pierre fall from himself; fall back forever
into vacant nothingness and night!”
“My brother, my brother, speak not so to me; it is too
much; unused to any love ere now, thine, so heavenly and
immense, fells crushing on me! Such love is almost hard to
bear as hate. Be still; do not speak to me.”
They were both silent for a time; when she went on.
“Yes, my brother, Fate had now brought me within three
miles of thee; and—but shall I go straight on, and tell thee
I may speak straight on, in all my thoughts, heedless whither
they may flow, or what things they may float to me?”
“Straight on, and fearlessly,” said Pierre.
“By chance I saw thy mother, Pierre, and under such circumstances
that I knew her to be thy mother; and—but shall
I go on?”
“Straight on, my Isabel; thou didst see my mother—well?”
“And when I saw her, though I spake not to her, nor she
to me, yet straightway my heart knew that she would love me
not.”
“Thy heart spake true,” muttered Pierre to himself; “go
on.”
“I re-swore an oath never to reveal myself to thy mother.”
“Oath well sworn,” again he muttered; “go on.”
“But I saw thee, Pierre; and, more than ever filled my
mother toward thy father, Pierre, then upheaved in me.
Straightway I knew that if ever I should come to be made
known to thee, then thy own generous love would open itself to
me.”
“Again thy heart spake true,” he murmured; “go on—and
didst thou re-swear again?”
“No, Pierre; but yes, I did. I swore that thou wert my
brother; with love and pride I swore, that young and noble
Pierre Glendinning was my brother!”
“And only that?”
“Nothing more, Pierre; not to thee even, did I ever think
to reveal myself.”
“How then? thou art revealed to me.”
“Yes; but the great God did it, Pierre—not poor Bell.
Listen.
“I felt very dreary here; poor, dear Delly—thou must have
heard something of her story—a most sorrowful house, Pierre.
Hark! that is her seldom-pausing pacing thou hearest from the
track, all thread-bare, Pierre, is her chamber-rug. Her father
will not look upon her; her mother, she hath cursed her to her
face. Out of yon chamber, Pierre, Delly hath not stept, for
now four weeks and more; nor ever hath she once laid upon
her bed; it was last made up five weeks ago; but paces, paces,
paces, all through the night, till after twelve; and then sits
vacant in her chair. Often I would go to her to comfort her;
but she says, `Nay, nay, nay,' to me through the door; says
`Nay, nay, nay,' and only nay to me, through the bolted door;
bolted three weeks ago—when I by cunning arts stole her dead
baby from her, and with these fingers, alone, by night, scooped
out a hollow, and, seconding heaven's own charitable stroke,
buried that sweet, wee symbol of her not unpardonable shame
far from the ruthless foot of man—yes, bolted three weeks ago,
not once unbolted since; her food I must thrust through the
little window in her closet. Pierre, hardly these two handfuls
has she eaten in a week.”
“Curses, wasp like, cohere on that villain, Ned, and sting
him to his death!” cried Pierre, smit by this most piteous tale.
“What can be done for her, sweet Isabel; can Pierre do
aught?”
“If thou or I do not, then the ever-hospitable grave will
prove her quick refuge, Pierre. Father and mother both, are
worse than dead and gone to her. They would have turned
her forth, I think, but for my own poor petitionings, unceasing
in her behalf.”
Pierre's deep concern now gave place to a momentary look
of benevolent intelligence.
“Isabel, a thought of benefit to Delly has just entered me;
but I am still uncertain how best it may be acted on. Resolved
I am though to succor her. Do thou still hold her here yet
awhile, by thy sweet petitionings, till my further plans are
from the pacing;—her every step steps in my soul.”
“Thy noble heart hath many chambers, Pierre; the records
of thy wealth, I see, are not bound up in the one poor book of
Isabel, my brother. Thou art a visible token, Pierre, of the invisible
angel-hoods, which in our darker hours we do sometimes
distrust. The gospel of thy acts goes very far, my brother.
Were all men like to thee, then were there no men at all,—
mankind extinct in seraphim!”
“Praises are for the base, my sister, cunningly to entice them
to fair Virtue by our ignorings of the ill in them, and our imputings
of the good not theirs. So make not my head to
hang, sweet Isabel. Praise me not. Go on now with thy
tale.”
“I have said to thee, my brother, how most dreary I found
it here, and from the first. Wonted all my life to sadness—if
it be such—still, this house hath such acuteness in its general
grief, such hopelessness and despair of any slightest remedy—
that even poor Bell could scarce abide it always, without some
little going forth into contrasting scenes. So I went forth into
the places of delight, only that I might return more braced to
minister in the haunts of woe. For continual unchanging residence
therein, doth but bring on woe's stupor, and make us as
dead. So I went forth betimes; visiting the neighboring cottages;
where there were chattering children, and no one place
vacant at the cheerful board. Thus at last I chanced to hear
of the Sewing Circle to be held at the Miss Pennies'; and how
that they were anxious to press into their kind charity all the
maidens of the country round. In various cottages, I was besought
to join; and they at length persuaded me; not that I
was naturally loth to it, and needed such entreaties; but at
first I felt great fear, lest at such a scene I might closely encounter
some of the Glendinnings; and that thought was then
namelessly repulsive to me. But by stealthy inquiries I
proved deceptive information;—but I went; and all
the rest thou knowest.”
“I do, sweet Isabel, but thou must tell it over to me; and
all thy emotions there.”
V.
“Though but one day hath passed, my brother, since we
first met in life, yet thou hast that heavenly magnet in thee,
which draws all my soul's interior to thee. I will go on.—
Having to wait for a neighbor's wagon, I arrived but late at
the Sewing Circle. When I entered, the two joined rooms
were very full. With the farmer's girls, our neighbors, I passed
along to the further corner, where thou didst see me; and
as I went, some heads were turned, and some whisperings I
heard, of—`She's the new help at poor Walter Ulver's—the
strange girl they've got—she thinks herself 'mazing pretty, I'll
be bound;—but nobody knows her—Oh, how demure!—but
not over-good, I guess;—I wouldn't be her, not I—mayhap
she's some other ruined Delly, run away;—minx!' It was the
first time poor Bell had ever mixed in such a general crowded
company; and knowing little or nothing of such things, I had
thought, that the meeting being for charity's sweet sake, uncharity
could find no harbor there; but no doubt it was mere
thoughtlessness, not malice in them. Still, it made my heart
ache in me sadly; for then I very keenly felt the dread suspiciousness,
in which a strange and lonely grief invests itself to
common eyes; as if grief itself were not enough, nor innocence
any armor to us, but despite must also come, and icy infamy!
Miserable returnings then I had—even in the midst of bright-budding
girls and full-blown women—miserable returnings then
I spoke of in my earlier story. But Pierre, blessed Pierre,
do not look so sadly and half-reproachfully upon me. Lone
and lost though I have been, I love my kind; and charitably
and intelligently pity them, who uncharitably and unintelligently
do me despite. And thou, thou, blessed brother, hath
glorified many somber places in my soul, and taught me once
for all to know, that my kind are capable of things which would
be glorious in angels. So look away from me, dear Pierre, till
thou hast taught thine eyes more wonted glances.”
“They are vile falsifying telegraphs of me, then, sweet Isabel.
What my look was I can not tell, but my heart was only dark
with ill-restrained upbraidings against heaven that could unrelentingly
see such innocence as thine so suffer. Go on with
thy too-touching tale.”
“Quietly I sat there sewing, not brave enough to look up at
all, and thanking my good star, that had led me to so concealed
a nook behind the rest: quietly I sat there, sewing on a
flannel shirt, and with each stitch praying God, that whatever
heart it might be folded over, the flannel might hold it truly
warm; and keep out the wide-world-coldness which I felt myself;
and which no flannel, or thickest fur, or any fire then
could keep off from me; quietly I sat there sewing, when I
heard the announcing words—oh, how deep and ineffaceably
engraved they are!—`Ah, dames, dames, Madame Glendinning,—Master
Pierre Glendinning.' Instantly, my sharp needle
went through my side and stitched my heart; the flannel dropt
from my hand; thou heard'st my shriek. But the good people
bore me still nearer to the casement close at hand, and
threw it open wide; and God's own breath breathed on me;
and I rallied; and said it was some merest passing fit—'twas
quite over now—I was used to it—they had my heart's best
thanks—but would they now only leave me to myself, it were
best for me;—I would go on and sew. And thus it came and
either that the unanticipated persons would soon depart, or
else that some spirit would catch me away from there; I sat
sewing on—till, Pierre! Pierre!—without looking up—for
that I dared not do at any time that evening—only once—
without looking up, or knowing aught but the flannel on my
knee, and the needle in my heart, I felt,—Pierre, felt—a
glance of magnetic meaning on me. Long, I, shrinking, side-ways
turned to meet it, but could not; till some helping spirit
seized me, and all my soul looked up at thee in my full-fronting
face. It was enough. Fate was in that moment. All
the loneliness of my life, all the choked longings of my soul,
now poured over me. I could not away from them. Then
first I felt the complete deplorableness of my state; that while
thou, my brother, had a mother, and troops of aunts and
cousins, and plentiful friends in city and in country—I, I,
Isabel, thy own father's daughter, was thrust out of all hearts'
gates, and shivered in the winter way. But this was but the
least. Not poor Bell can tell thee all the feelings of poor Bell,
or what feelings she felt first. It was all one whirl of old and
new bewilderings, mixed and slanted with a driving madness.
But it was most the sweet, inquisitive, kindly interested aspect
of thy face,—so strangely like thy father's, too—the one only
being that I first did love—it was that which most stirred the
distracting storm in me; most charged me with the immense
longings for some one of my blood to know me, and to own
me, though but once, and then away. Oh, my dear brother—
Pierre! Pierre!—could'st thou take out my heart, and look at
it in thy hand, then thou would'st find it all over written, this
way and that, and crossed again, and yet again, with continual
lines of longings, that found no end but in suddenly calling
thee. Call him! Call him! He will come!—so cried my
heart to me; so cried the leaves and stars to me, as I that
night went home. But pride rose up—the very pride in my
stood still, and called thee not. But Fate will be Fate, and it
was fated. Once having met thy fixed regardful glance; once
having seen the full angelicalness in thee, my whole soul was
undone by thee; my whole pride was cut off at the root, and
soon showed a blighting in the bud; which spread deep into
my whole being, till I knew, that utterly decay and die away
I must, unless pride let me go, and I, with the one little trumpet
of a pen, blew my heart's shrillest blast, and called dear
Pierre to me. My soul was full; and as my beseeching ink
went tracing o'er the page, my tears contributed their mite,
and made a strange alloy. How blest I felt that my so bitterly
tear-mingled ink—that last depth of my anguish—would
never be visibly known to thee, but the tears would dry upon
the page, and all be fair again, ere the so submerged-freighted
letter should meet thine eye.
“Ah, there thou wast deceived, poor Isabel,” cried Pierre
impulsively; “thy tears dried not fair, but dried red, almost
like blood; and nothing so much moved my inmost soul as
that tragic sight.”
“How? how? Pierre, my brother? Dried they red? Oh,
horrible! enchantment! most undreamed of!”
“Nay, the ink—the ink! something chemic in it changed
thy real tears to seeming blood;—only that, my sister.”
“Oh Pierre! thus wonderfully is it—seems to me—that our
own hearts do not ever know the extremity of their own sufferings;
sometimes we bleed blood, when we think it only water.
Of our sufferings, as of our talents, others sometimes are the
better judges. But stop me! force me backward to my story!
Yet methinks that now thou knowest all;—no, not entirely all.
Thou dost not know what planned and winnowed motive I did
have in writing thee; nor does poor Bell know that; for poor
Bell was too delirious to have planned and winnowed motives
then. The impulse in me called thee, not poor Bell. God
passed one night after seeing thee, and hearkening to all thy
full love and graciousness; even now, I stand as one amazed,
and feel not what may be coming to me, or what will now befall
me, from having so rashly claimed thee for mine. Pierre,
now, now, this instant a vague anguish fills me. Tell me, by
loving me, by owning me, publicly or secretly,—tell me, doth
it involve any vital hurt to thee? Speak without reserve;
speak honestly; as I do to thee! Speak now, Pierre, and
tell me all!”
“Is Love a harm? Can Truth betray to pain? Sweet
Isabel, how can hurt come in the path to God? Now, when I
know thee all, now did I forget thee, fail to acknowledge thee,
and love thee before the wide world's whole brazen width—
could I do that; then might'st thou ask thy question reasonably
and say—Tell me, Pierre, does not the suffocating in thee
of poor Bell's holy claims, does not that involve for thee unending
misery? And my truthful soul would echo—Unending
misery! Nay, nay, nay. Thou art my sister and I am thy
brother; and that part of the world which knows me, shall
acknowledge thee; or by heaven I will crush the disdainful
world down on its knees to thee, my sweet Isabel!”
“The menacings in thy eyes are dear delights to me; I grow
up with thy own glorious stature; and in thee, my brother, I
see God's indignant embassador to me, saying—Up, up, Isabel,
and take no terms from the common world, but do thou make
terms to it, and grind thy fierce rights out of it! Thy catching
nobleness unsexes me, my brother; and now I know that
in her most exalted moment, then woman no more feels the
twin-born softness of her breasts, but feels chain-armor palpitating
there!”
Her changed attitude of beautiful audacity; her long scornful
hair, that trailed out a disheveled banner; her wonderful
transfigured eyes, in which some meteors seemed playing up;
Transformed she stood before him; and Pierre, bowing
low over to her, owned that irrespective, darting majesty of humanity,
which can be majestical and menacing in woman as
in man.
But her gentler sex returned to Isabel at last; and she sat
silent in the casement's niche, looking out upon the soft ground-lightnings
of the electric summer night.
VI.
Sadly smiling, Pierre broke the pause.
“My sister, thou art so rich, that thou must do me alms;
I am very hungry; I have forgotten to eat since breakfast;—
and now thou shalt bring me bread and a cup of water, Isabel,
ere I go forth from thee. Last night I went rummaging in a
pantry, like a bake-house burglar; but to-night thou and I must
sup together, Isabel; for as we may henceforth live together, let
us begin forthwith to eat in company.”
Isabel looked up at him, with sudden and deep emotion, then
all acquiescing sweetness, and silently left the room.
As she returned, Pierre, casting his eyes toward the ceiling,
said—“She is quiet now, the pacing hath entirely ceased.”
“Not the beating, tho'; her foot hath paused, not her unceasing
heart. My brother, she is not quiet now; quiet for her
hath gone; so that the pivoted stillness of this night is yet a
noisy madness to her.”
“Give me pen or pencil, and some paper, Isabel.”
She laid down her loaf, and plate, and knife, and brought
him pen, and ink, and paper.
Pierre took the pen.
“Was this the one, dear Isabel?”
“It is the one, my brother; none other is in this poor cot.”
He gazed at it intensely. Then turning to the table, steadily
wrote the following note:
“For Delly Ulver: with the deep and true regard and sympathy
of Pierre Glendinning.
“Thy sad story—partly known before—hath now more fully
come to me, from one who sincerely feels for thee, and who hath
imparted her own sincerity to me. Thou desirest to quit this
neighborhood, and be somewhere at peace, and find some secluded
employ fitted to thy sex and age. With this, I now willingly
charge myself, and insure it to thee, so far as my utmost
ability can go. Therefore—if consolation be not wholly spurned
by thy great grief, which too often happens, though it be but
grief's great folly so to feel—therefore, two true friends of thine
do here beseech thee to take some little heart to thee, and bethink
thee, that all thy life is not yet lived; that Time hath
surest healing in his continuous balm. Be patient yet a little
while, till thy future lot be disposed for thee, through our best
help; and so, know me and Isabel thy earnest friends and true-hearted
lovers.”
He handed the note to Isabel. She read it silently, and put
it down, and spread her two hands over him, and with one
motion lifted her eyes toward Delly and toward God.
“Thou think'st it will not pain her to receive the note, Isabel?
Thou know'st best. I thought, that ere our help do really
reach her, some promise of it now might prove slight comfort.
But keep it, and do as thou think'st best.”
“Then straightway will I give it her, my brother,” said Isabel
quitting him.
An infixing stillness, now thrust a long rivet through the
night, and fast nailed it to that side of the world. And alone
again in such an hour, Pierre could not but listen. He heard
then he heard a gentle knock, and thought he heard a rustling,
as of paper slid over a threshold underneath a door. Then
another advancing and opposite step tremblingly met Isabel's;
and then both steps stepped from each other, and soon Isabel
came back to him.
“Thou did'st knock, and slide it underneath the door?”
“Yes, and she hath it now. Hark! a sobbing! Thank
God, long arid grief hath found a tear at last. Pity, sympathy
hath done this.—Pierre, for thy dear deed thou art already
sainted, ere thou be dead.”
“Do saints hunger, Isabel?” said Pierre, striving to call her
away from this. “Come, give me the loaf; but no, thou shalt
help me, my sister.—Thank thee;—this is twice over the bread
of sweetness.—Is this of thine own making, Isabel?”
“My own making, my brother.”
“Give me the cup; hand it me with thine own hand. So:
—Isabel, my heart and soul are now full of deepest reverence;
yet I do dare to call this the real sacrament of the supper.—
Eat with me.”
They eat together without a single word; and without a
single word, Pierre rose, and kissed her pure and spotless brow,
and without a single word departed from the place.
VII.
We know not Pierre Glendinning's thoughts as he gained
the village and passed on beneath its often shrouding trees, and
saw no light from man, and heard no sound from man, but
only, by intervals, saw at his feet the soft ground-lightnings,
snake-like, playing in and out among the blades of grass; and
between the trees, caught the far dim light from heaven, and
breathing earth.
He paused before a detached and pleasant house, with much
shrubbery about it. He mounted the portico and knocked distinctly
there, just as the village clock struck one. He knocked,
but no answer came. He knocked again, and soon he heard a
sash thrown up in the second story, and an astonished voice inquired
who was there?
“It is Pierre Glendinning, and he desires an instant interview
with the Reverend Mr. Falsgrave.”
“Do I hear right?—in heaven's name, what is the matter,
young gentleman?”
“Every thing is the matter; the whole world is the matter.
Will you admit me, sir?”
“Certainly—but I beseech thee—nay, stay, I will admit
thee.”
In quicker time than could have been anticipated, the door
was opened to Pierre by Mr. Falsgrave in person, holding a
candle, and invested in his very becoming student's wrapper of
Scotch plaid.
“For heaven's sake, what is the matter, Mr. Glendinning?”
“Heaven and earth is the matter, sir! shall we go up to the
study?”
“Certainly, but—but—”
“Well, let us proceed, then.”
They went up-stairs, and soon found themselves in the clergyman's
retreat, and both sat down; the amazed host still holding
the candle in his hand, and intently eying Pierre, with an
apprehensive aspect.
“Thou art a man of God, sir, I believe.”
“I? I? I? upon my word, Mr. Glendinning!”
“Yes, sir, the world calls thee a man of God. Now, what
hast thou, the man of God, decided, with my mother, concerning
Delly Ulver?”
“Delly Ulver! why, why—what can this madness mean?”
“It means, sir, what have thou and my mother decided concerning
Delly Ulver.”
“She?—Delly Ulver? She is to depart the neighborhood;
why, her own parents want her not.”
“How is she to depart? Who is to take her? Art thou
to take her? Where is she to go? Who has food for her?
What is to keep her from the pollution to which such as she
are every day driven to contribute, by the detestable uncharitableness
and heartlessness of the world?”
“Mr. Glendinning,” said the clergyman, now somewhat calmly
putting down the candle, and folding himself with dignity
in his gown; “Mr. Glendinning, I will not now make any
mention of my natural astonishment at this most unusual call,
and the most extraordinary time of it. Thou hast sought information
upon a certain point, and I have given it to thee, to
the best of my knowledge. All thy after and incidental questions,
I choose to have no answer for. I will be most happy
to see thee at any other time, but for the present thou must
excuse my presence. Good-night, sir.”
But Pierre sat entirely still, and the clergyman could not but
remain standing still.
“I perfectly comprehend the whole, sir. Delly Ulver, then,
is to be driven out to starve or rot; and this, too, by the acquiescence
of a man of God. Mr. Falsgrave, the subject of Delly,
deeply interesting as it is to me, is only the preface to another,
still more interesting to me, and concerning which I once cherished
some slight hope that thou wouldst have been able, in
thy Christian character, to sincerely and honestly counsel me.
But a hint from heaven assures me now, that thou hast no
earnest and world-disdaining counsel for me. I must seek it
direct from God himself, whom, I now know, never delegates his
holiest admonishings. But I do not blame thee; I think I
begin to see how thy profession is unavoidably entangled by all
world of benefices. I am more sorry than indignant. Pardon
me for my most uncivil call, and know me as not thy enemy.
Good-night, sir.”
| Pierre, or, The ambiguities | |