Miss Melville

“ Thou speakest to a human thing, but something heavenly should answer thee;—some flute heard in the air should answer thee; for sure thy most undreamed-of accents, Pierre, sure they have not been unheard on high. Blessings that are imageless to all mortal fancyings, these shall be thine for this.'
'Blessing like to thine, doth but recoil and bless homeward to the heart that uttered it. I cannot bless thee, my sister, as thou dost bless thyself in blessing my unworthiness. But, Isabel, by still keeping present the first wonder of our meeting, we shall make our hearts all feebleness. ”

“ Ellen fell back in a sitting posture and looked for Richard, whom she had forgotten, and who was now standing at the end of the bed. She stretched out her hands to him and moaned; and at that sound recognition stirred in the centre of Mrs. Melville's immense glazed gaze, like a small waking bird ruffling its feathers on some inmost branch of a large tree.
"Oh, mother dear! Mother dear!"
From that roaring throat came a tortured, happy noise; and she tried to make her lips meet, and speak.
"My wee lamb, don't try to speak. Just lie quiet. It's heaven just to be with you. You needn't speak." ”

“ Before my eyes—there, passing in slow procession along the wheeling cylinders, I seemed to see, glued to the pallid incipience of the pulp, the yet more pallid faces of all the pallid girls I had eyed that heavy day. Slowly, mournfully, beseechingly, yet unresistingly, they gleamed along, their agony dimly outlined on the imperfect paper, like the print of the tormented face on the handkerchief of Saint Veronica.
"Halloa! the heat of the room is too much for you," cried Cupid, staring at me. ”

“ Again I tell thee, I will do any thing—yes, any thing that Pierre commands—for, though outer ill do lower upon us, still, deep within, thou wilt be careful, very careful with me, Pierre?”
“Thou art made of that fine, unshared stuff of which God makes his seraphim. But thy divine devotedness to me, is met by mine to thee. Well mayest thou trust me, Isabel; and whatever strangest thing I may yet propose to thee, thy confidence,—will it not bear me out? Surely thou will not hesitate to plunge, when I plunge first;—already have I plunged! now thou canst not stay upon the bank. ”

“ As evening came on, my comrades fell fast asleep, leaving me at the helm.
How soft and how dreamy the light of the hour. The rays of the sun, setting behind golden-barred clouds, came to me like the gleaming of a shaded light behind a lattice. And the low breeze, pervaded with the peculiar balm of the mid-Pacific near land, was fragrant as the breath of a bride.
Such was the scene; so still and witching that the hand of Yillah in mine seemed no hand, but a touch. Visions flitted before me and in me; something hummed in my ear; all the air was a lay. ”

“ There is a door in Pierre's room opposite the window of Pierre: and now a soft knock is heard in that direction, accompanied by gentle words, asking whether the speaker might enter.
'Yes, always, sweet Isabel,' answered Pierre, rising and approaching the door;—'here: let us drag out the old camp-bed for a sofa; come, sit down now, my sister, and let us fancy ourselves anywhere thou wilt.'
'Then, my brother, let us fancy ourselves in realms of everlasting twilight and peace, where no bright sun shall rise, because the black night is always its follower. ”

“ It is not day! Were this thing so, I should go mad, and be shut up, and not walk here where every door is open to me.—My own only son married to an unknown—thing! My own only son, false to his holiest plighted public vow—and the wide world knowing to it! He bears my name—Glendinning. I will disown it; were it like this dress, I would tear my name off from me, and burn it till it shrivelled to a crisp!—Pierre! Pierre! come back, come back, and swear it is not so! It cannot be! Wait: I will ring the bell and see if it be so,'
She rung the bell with violence, and soon heard a responsive knock. ”

“ But suddenly, upon the wan features turned so anxiously toward Melville, there came a change which even his inexperienced eye was swift to interpret.
With a strength born of excitement,—or given by God,—he forced his useless body downward upon the lounge until he could clasp and hold his grandmother’s head against his breast.
Then a rapture, born of her great love for him and of her gratitude for his unwonted tenderness, illumined the aged face: “My darling—my darling!” she cried faintly. ”

“ Leave me!—what share hast thou in me? Surely, thou lovest not me?—that were most miserable for thee, and me, and Lucy. It can not be. What, who art thou? Oh! wretched vagueness—too familiar to me, yet inexplicable,—unknown, utterly unknown! I seem to founder in this perplexity. Thou seemest to know somewhat of me, that I know not of myself,—what is it then? If thou hast a secret in thy eyes of mournful mystery, out with it; Pierre demands it; what is that thou hast veiled in thee so imperfectly, that I seem to see its motion, but not its form? ”

“ I will be no encumbrance to thee. I know just where thou art, and how thou art living; and only just there, Pierre, and only just so, is any further life endurable, or possible for me. She will never know—for thus far I am sure thou thyself hast never disclosed it to her what I once was to thee. Let it seem, as though I were some nun-like cousin immovably vowed to dwell with thee in thy strange exile. Show not to me,—never show more any visible conscious token of love. I will never to thee. Our mortal lives, oh, my heavenly Pierre, shall henceforth be one mute wooing of each other ”

“ 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 fail from himself ”

“ Oh, seems to me, there should be two ceaseless steeds for a bold man to ride,—the Land and the Sea; and like circus-men we should never dismount, but only be steadied and rested by leaping from one to the other, while still, side by side, they both race round the sun. I have been on the Land steed so long, oh I am dizzy!”
“Thou wilt never listen to me, Pierre,” said Lucy lowly; “there is no need of this incessant straining. See, Isabel and I have both offered to be thy amanuenses;—not in mere copying, but in the original writing; I am sure that would greatly assist thee.” ”

“ For I feel, that always is love love, and can not know change, Pierre; I feel that heaven hath called me to a wonderful office toward thee. By throwing me into that long, long swoon,—during which, Martha tells me, I hardly ate altogether, three ordinary meals,—by that, heaven, I feel now, was preparing me for the superhuman office I speak of; was wholly estranging me from this earth, even while I yet lingered in it; was fitting me for a celestial mission in terrestrial elements. Oh, give to me of thine own dear strength! I am but a poor weak girl, dear Pierre ”

“ A gradual dormancy, entrancing, delightful, stole over my senses. I thought of Virginia Melville. I recalled every feature of her beautiful countenance; not a smile, not a word that had charmed me, were lost. I saw all, heard all again. Then the whole became confused. I roamed in a garden, where the hyacinth bloomed and the honeysuckle and woodbine gracefully twined round the oak, and the rose unfolded its young buds. The place was lonely—far from the haunts of man; yet the song of the linnet and the thrush enlivened its solitude, and I felt that I was not alone. ”

“ Not exactly so; but there are many women as good as Miss Melville. I grant that she is a fine woman, and one of excellent principles and understanding; but not just the sort of person one could go into heroics about. I do not say that as a companion and friend her place could be filled up to you by such women as Miss Crichton or any of the Jardine girls, or even by Eliza Rennie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Behold, in the very bodily act of loosing hold of me, thou dost reel and fall;—unanswerable emblem of the indispensable heart-stay, I am to thee, my sweet, sweet Isabel! Prate not then of parting.”
“What hast thou lost for me? Tell me!”
“A gainful loss, my sister!”
“’Tis mere rhetoric! What hast thou lost?”
“Nothing that my inmost heart would now recall. I have bought inner love and glory by a price, which, large or small, I would not now have paid me back, so I must return the thing I bought.”
“Is love then cold, and glory white? Thy cheek is snowy, Pierre.” ”

“ How glad am I that Pierre loves her so, and not some dark-eyed haughtiness, with whom I could never live in peace; but who would be ever setting her young married state before my elderly widowed one, and claiming all the homage of my dear boy—the fine, proud, loving, docile, vigorous boy!—the lofty-minded, well-born, noble boy; and with such sweet docilities! See his hair! His does in truth illustrate that fine saying of his father's, that as the noblest colts, in three points—abundant hair, swelling chest, and sweet docility—should resemble a fine woman, so should a noble youth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lucy!—she's fainted!'
Then both stumbled again, and fell from each other in the cell: and for a moment all seemed still, as though all breaths were held.
As the light was now thrust in, Fred was seen on the floor holding his sister in his arms; and Millthorpe kneeling by the side of Pierre, the unresponsive hand in his; while Isabel, feebly moving, reclined between, against the wall.
'Yes! Yes!—Dead! Dead! Dead!—without one visible wound—her sweet plumage hides it.—Thou hellish carrion, this is thy hellish work! Thy juggler's rifle brought down this heavenly bird! Oh, my God, my God! ”

“ He was turning from her, when Isabel sprang forward to him, caught him with both her arms round him, and held him so convulsively, that her hair sideways swept over him, and half concealed him.
'Pierre, if indeed my soul hath cast on thee the same black shadow that my hair now flings on thee; if thou hast lost aught for me; then eternally is Isabel lost to Isabel, and Isabel will not outlive this night. If I am indeed an accursing thing, I will not act the given part, but cheat the air, and die from it. ”

“ Then sit down by me, Isabel, and sit close; wind in within my ribs,—if so thou canst,—that my one frame may be the continent of two.”
“Fine feathers make fine birds, so I have heard,” said Isabel, most bitterly—“but do fine sayings always make fine deeds? Pierre, thou didst but just now draw away from me!”
“When we would most dearly embrace, we first throw back our arms, Isabel; I but drew away, to draw so much the closer to thee.”
“Well; all words are arrant skirmishers; deeds are the army’s self! be it as thou sayest. I yet trust to thee.—Pierre.”
“My breath waits thine; what is it, Isabel?” ”

“ In a kind of ante-cabin, a number of respectable looking people, male and female, way-passengers, recently come on board, are listlessly sitting in a mutually shy sort of silence.
Holding up a small, square bottle, ovally labeled with the engraving of a countenance full of soft pity as that of the Romish-painted Madonna, the herb-doctor passes slowly among them, benignly urbane, turning this way and that, saying:—
"Ladies and gentlemen, I hold in my hand here the Samaritan Pain Dissuader, thrice-blessed discovery of that disinterested friend of humanity whose portrait you see. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For an instant, he stood bewildered; but started at his mother's voice; her arm being still in his. 'Why do you clutch my arm so, Pierre? You pain me. Pshaw! some one has fainted,—nothing more.'
Instantly Pierre recovered himself, and affecting to mock at his own trepidation, hurried across the room to offer his services, if such were needed. But dames and maidens had been all beforehand with him; the lights were wildly flickering in the air-current made by the flinging open of the casement near to where the shriek had come. ”