Robert Williams Buchanan

“ Again he felt the touch of a clammy hand, and again he heard the mysterious voice.
‘Death is nothing; it is only a mystery—a change. The body is nothing; the spirit is all-present and all-powerful. Keep quiet; and I will try to materialise myself even more.’
He sat still in shivering expectation; then he felt a touch like breath upon his forehead, and two lips, warm with life, were pressed close to his, while at the same moment he felt what seemed a human bosom heaving against his own. ”

“ No sooner did he find himself in total darkness than his heart began to beat with great muffled throbs, and nervous thrills ran through his frame. Before there was the slightest intimation of any supernatural presence, he seemed to see before him the dead face of his wife, white and awful as he had beheld it in that darkened chamber at Boulogne. Then the usual manifestations began; bells were rung, faint lights flashed hither and thither, the table round which they were seated rose in the air, mysterious hands were passed over Bradley’s face. ”

“ Yes, there she was, helpless and almost fainting—her eyes were heavy, her lips blue; and he seemed to be looking straight into the face of death. Bradley paused, and the two gazed into each other’s eyes. He saw that her strength was going, but he made no attempt to put out a hand to save her. He thought of the past, of the curse this woman had been to him; and he knew that by merely doing nothing she would be taken from him.
Should he let her die? Why not? If he had not swum out she most assuredly would have sunk and been heard of no more. ”

“ You are juggling with my life, as you have done with hers. But tell me it is all false, and I will forgive you. Though you are a priest, you have at least the heart of a man. Have pity! If what you have said is true, I am destroyed body and soul—yes, body and soul! Have mercy upon me! Tell me my darling is not dead!’
The Abbe’s face went white as death, and at the same moment his lustrous eyes seemed to fill with tears. Trembling violently, he took Bradley’s hand, and pressed it tenderly. Then releasing him, he glanced upward and turned towards the door of the chamber. ”

“ I have been wandering, so to speak, among the gravestones of the Catholic Church, visiting not only the great shrines and cathedrals, but lingering in every obscure roadside chapel, and halting at every Calvary, in southern and western France. Thence I have come on to Switzerland, where religion grows drearier, and life grows dismaller, in the shadow of the mountains. In a few days I shall follow in your own footsteps, and go on to Italy—to Rome. ”

“ But in this Eustasia was quite wrong. He was flying not from her but from himself. The wretched life of self-reproach and misery which he was compelled to lead was crushing him down so utterly that unless he made some effort he would sink and sicken. Die? Well, after all, that would not have been so hard; but the thought of leaving Alma was more than he could bear. He must live for the sake of the days which might yet be in store for them both. ”

“ Ambrose Bradley.
CHAPTER XXIII—ALMA’S WANDERINGS Scoff not at Koine, or if thou scoff beware
Her vengeance waiting in the heaven and air;
Her love is blessing, and her hate, despair.
Yet see! how low the hoary mother lies,
Prone on her face beneath the lonely skies—
On her head ashes, dust upon her eyes.
Men smile and pass, but many pitying stand,
And some stoop down to kiss her withered hand,
Whose sceptre is a reed, whose crown is sand.
Think’st thou no pulse beats in that bounteous breast
Which once sent throbs of rapture east and west? ”

“ The more he thought of what he had heard and seen, the more puzzled he became. At times he seemed half inclined to believe in supernatural collaboration, then he flouted his belief and laughed contemptuously at himself. Of course it was all imposture, and he had been a dupe.
Then he thought of Eustasia, and the interest which she had at first aroused in him rapidly changed to indignation and contempt.
Very soon these people ceased to occupy his thoughts at all; so self-absorbed was he, indeed, in his own trouble that he forgot them as completely as if they had never been. ”

“ As it is, I would give a great deal if I could penetrate into the true motives of your conduct, and ascertain how far you are self-deluded.’
‘It’s no use,’ answered Eustasia, shaking her head sadly. ‘I can’t explain it all even to myself; impossible to explain to you.’
‘But do you seriously and verily believe in the truth of these so-called spiritual manifestations?’
‘Guess I do,’ returned the lady, with a decided nod.
‘You believe in them, even while you admit their stupidity, their absurdity?’
‘If you ask me, I think life is a foolish business altogether. ”

“ Had Bradley been a different kind of man, he would scarcely have misunderstood the look she gave him then, full as it was of passionate admiration which she took no care to veil. Bending towards him, and looking into his eyes, she placed her hand on his; and the warm touch of the tremulous fingers went through him with a curious thrill. Nor did she withdraw the hand as she continued:
‘I’ve only seen one man in the world like you. He’s dead, he is. But you’re his image. I told Salem so the day I first saw you. ”

“ Alma Craik to the Rev. Ambrose Bradley.
Your letter, together with one from my uncle, found me at Lucerne, and brought me at once grief and comfort: grief, that you still reproach yourself over what was inevitable; comfort, that you are, as you assure me, still endeavouring to pursue your religious work. Pray, pray, do not write to me in such a strain again. You have neither wrecked my life nor broken my heart, as you blame yourself for doing; I learned long ago from our Divine Example that the world is one of sorrow, and I am realising the truth in my own experience, that is all. ”

“ The tall figure of an Augustine monk, shading his eyes and looking up the road was visible; and from the refectory within came the faint tolling of a bell mingled from time to time with the deep barking of a dog.
‘The monks receive travellers still?’ asked Alma. ‘I suppose the Hospice is rapidly becoming, like its compeers, nothing more or less than a big hotel?’
‘Madame——’
‘Please do not call me Madame. I am unmarried.’
She spoke almost without reflection, and it was not until she had uttered the words that their significance dawned upon her. Her face became crimson with sudden shame. ”

“ Just as a physiologist would examine his own blood under the microscope, just as a scientific inquirer would sacrifice his own life and happiness for the verification of a theory, so would Bradley ask himself, even when on the rack of moral torment, How far does this suffering help me to a solution of the mystery of life? ”

“ Bradley’s first impulse, on quitting Boulogne, was to hasten at once on to Italy, seek out Alma, and tell her all that had occurred; but that impulse was no sooner felt than it was conquered. The man had a quickening conscience left, and he could not have stood just then before the woman he loved without the bitterest pain and humiliation. ”

“ As the days passed, Bradley found his state of suspense and anxiety intolerable. Day after day he had hoped to hear from Alma, until at length disappointment culminated in despair.
He then determined he should know with certainty what had become of her, and resolved to go to Milan.
What he had seen at the séance had impressed him more than he would admit to himself. He could not believe that any evil had happened—he would not believe it without the most positive evidence of the fact. So he said to himself one hour, and the next his heart grew sick with an uncontrollable dread ”

“ That seems a stupid sort of life, doesn’t it?—about as stupid as this one? I’d rather tuck my head under my wing, like a little bird, and go to sleep for ever!’
Bradley opened his eyes, amazed and a little disconcerted by the lady’s candour. Before he could make any reply she continued, in a low voice:
‘You see, I’ve got no one in the world to care for me, except Salem, my brother. He’s good to me, he is, but that doesn’t make up for everything. I don’t feel like a girl, but like an old woman. ”

“ He had never really loved the woman, and her conduct, previous to their long separation, had been such as to kill all sympathy in the heart of a less sensitive man, while what might be termed her unexpected resurrection had roused in him a bitterness and a loathing beyond expression. Yet now that the last word was said, the last atonement made, now that he beheld the eyes that would never open again, and the lips that would never again utter speech or sound, his soul was stirred to infinite compassion. ”

“ Long before, as the reader well knows, the man’s faith in the supernatural had faded, he had refined away his creed till it had wasted away of its own inanition, and when the hour of trial came and he could have called upon it for consolation, he was horrified to find that it was a corpse, instead of a living thing. Then, in his horror and despair, he had clutched at the straw of spiritualism, only to sink lower and lower in the bitter waters of Marah. He found no hope for his soul, no foothold for his feet. ”

“ He accosted her with his characteristic bonhomie.
‘Ah, Mademoiselle, it is you!’ he cried smiling. ‘We are destined to meet in the high places—here on the tower of the cathedral, there on the heights of the Simplon!’
There was something so unexpected, so mysterious in the man’s reappearance, that Alma was startled in spite of herself, but she greeted him courteously, and they descended the tower steps together. ”

“ Think what has yet to be done to make life freer, purer, safer, happier!
I grant you the millennium of the Grand Être is still far off; but it is most surely coming, and we can all aid, more or less, that blessed consummation—not by idle wailing, by useless dreams, or by selfish striving after an impossible personal reward, but by duty punctually performed, by self-sacrifice cheerfully undergone, by daily and nightly endeavours to ameliorate the condition of Man.
‘Men perish; Man is imperishable. Personal forms change; the great living personality abides. ”

“ This English signor, who accompanies me, is deeply interested in her of whom I speak, and the Holy Office permits that you should tell him all you know.
The woman again gazed fixedly at Bradley as she replied—
‘She who enters here as an inmate leaves behind her at the gate her past life, her worldly goods, her kith and kin, her very name. Death itself could not strip her more bare of all that she has been. She becomes a ghost, a shadow, a cipher. ”

“ I am here as you left me; a guilty, conscience-stricken creature struggling in a world of nightmares. Nothing now seems substantial, permanent, or true. Every time that I stand up before my congregation I am like a shadow addressing shadows; thought and language both fail me, and I know not what platitudes flow from my lips; but when I am left alone again, I awaken as from a dream to the horrible reality of my guilt and my despair. ”

“ With frenzied self-reproach he blamed himself for all that had taken place. Had he never consented to an ignoble deception, never gone through the mockery of a marriage ceremony with Alma, they might still have been at peace together; legally separated for the time being, but spiritually joined for ever; pure and sacred for each other, and for all the world. But now—now it seemed that he had lost her, body and soul!
The carriage presently halted, and Bradley saw at a glance that they were at the corner of the cul-de-sac leading to the convent. They alighted, and the Abbé paid the driver. ”

“ A mean man would have exulted in the new freedom Death had brought; Bradley, on the other hand, stood stupefied and aghast at his own liberation. On a point of conscience he could have fought with, and perhaps conquered, all the prejudices of society; but when his very conscience turned against him he was paralysed with doubt, wonder, and despair.
He returned to London, and there awaited Alma’s answer. One day, urged by a sudden impulse, he bent his steps towards the mysterious house in Bayswater, and found Eustasia Mapleleafe sitting alone. ”

“ Nature has made you a living miracle, Eustasia! I do admire to see one so gifted throwing herself away, just like a schoolgirl, on the first good-looking man she meets!’
‘I hate spiritualism,’ was the reply. ‘What has it done for me? Broken my heart, Salem, and wasted my life. I’ve dwelt too long with ghosts; I want to feel my life as other women do. ”

“ Something numbs expression, though my thoughts seem full to overflowing. I am like one who longs to speak, yet fears to utter a syllable, lest her voice should be clothed with tears and sobs. God help me! All the world is changed, and I can hardly realise it, yet!
IV.
Ambrose Bradley to Alma Craik.
Dearest Alma,—You tell me in your letter that you have said nothing of the thoughts that struggle within you for utterance; alas! your words are only too eloquent, less in what they say than in what they leave unsaid. ”

“ In one sense, indeed, you have conjured up devils, who some day or another will compass your own destruction.’
‘That’s true enough—they may be devils,’ said Eustasia. ‘Salem knows—we all know—that we can’t prevent the powers of evil from controlling the powers of good, and coming in their places. Guess some of them have been at work to-night. Mr. Bradley, perhaps it’s our last meeting on earth. Won’t you shake hands?’ As she spoke her wild eyes were full of tears, which streamed down her face. ”