Woven with the Ship: A Novel of 1865

I sat down beside her and willed her to do as I directed. I hastily made her turn to the part which treated of the resumption of the relationship; a new disappointment awaited me – the learned Archidechus stated that the individual in the case he studied had never resumed his mortal condition, and that the means of doing so were entirely unknown to him. That took away my last hope.

Mechanically I released Mary from the influence and then waited to see what she would do. Her glance fell upon me, and she looked at me wonderingly.

"Why," she said, "how long Harry sleeps!" She touched him on the shoulder. "Harry! Harry!" and then she looked in his face and screamed.

The family, the servants, every one, came running in. They filled my little room, and after narrowly escaping being crushed to death by our fat cook, who hysterically sank back in the chair in which I was sitting, I walked over to the corner of the room and waited. They picked him up and laid him on the bed, and tried all the simple remedies they knew to revive him. One poured brandy down his physical throat, – imagine the sensation in my spiritual one, – another one chafed his hands, one wetted a towel and struck him repeatedly with it, the old-fashioned feather was held under his physical nose – imagine my spiritual sensation a thousand times intensified and judge what I suffered.

I wished they would go away and bury me decently and let me alone; it was too much to endure quietly. I tried to hypnotize the whole lot, but unavailingly. Finally the futility of their efforts dawned upon them and they sat down to wait while one went for a doctor.

Doctor! I thought, contemptuously; what could he do? unless, indeed, they might find a stray spiritualist who could fulfil his promises and perhaps summon my spirit back into its earthly shell. Sure, never had I seemed so sweet to myself. If I ever got back to myself again I made a solemn vow never to leave myself on any pretext.

Presently the door opened and my father came in. My mother was long since dead. The old gentleman was almost heart-broken; he sat down beside me and took my physical hand. (I find the pronouns very confusing in endeavoring to relate this dual story.) I would have given worlds to comfort him. Different members of the family stood around the room talking in low, hushed whispers of the dreadful fate that had befallen me, exchanging reminiscences about me, extolling me for many virtues I never possessed. There was some consolation in hearing what a noble fellow I was. I have not heard it before, nor have I heard it since, except from Geraldine. Finally the door opened and the doctor entered. He could do nothing whatever, as I had foreseen, – he actually pronounced me dead, – and a few hours later I found myself neatly laid out in a coffin in the parlor, – that is, my physical body was.

I took the most comfortable chair – when no one else wanted it, of course – and waited for further developments. This was growing interesting, and I had become somewhat resigned to the hopelessness of my situation. I noted several curious facts. After a while I got very sleepy, intensely so, and lay back in my chair and closed my eyes and tried to go to sleep. It was no use; I could not. And yet I never so longed to go to sleep in my life. The fact was, a spirit could not sleep; and it was my body there in the coffin which felt sleepy; but I must suffer for it. It was the same way with hunger. I was hungry. I actually got so desperate as to go out to the pantry and look at the cold chicken and boiled ham there. I could easily smell them; but as to the eating – oh, it was horrible! I do not know how I got through the night.

The next day I could do nothing but sit and look at the people who came to see me and hear what they had to say. I have forgotten to mention that in my condition I seemed to have as one of its attributes a peculiar faculty of divining the real thoughts of the people who came to look at me. Among them was John Haverford. He was actually glad to see me; so at least I read his thought. Geraldine thinks I must have been mistaken; at any rate, the sight of him filled me with so much rage that I rushed over to him, I threatened him; I did more, I struck him, kicked him, nothing of which he was sensible. It was too bad.

Geraldine did not come. I waited heart-broken for her. Would she come? The old man surely would not keep her. He was a pretty good fellow, after all – he is devoted to our youngest daughter now. I thought he certainly might bring her. I did not go out I could not bear to leave my lonesome looking body in the coffin. I had no heart for further adventures, anyway. I was intensely cramped from lying so long in one position. When I die I am going to be cremated; no more coffins for me. My wife says, however, she will not hear of that.

Geraldine told me afterwards that she passed the day in longing for me to come and take her away, and wondering why I did not, besides being continually impressed with a premonition that something was going to happen. Finally, toward night on the second day of my anomalous situation, Mary – good and faithful Mary – bethought herself to go and tell Geraldine. On hearing the news that noble girl promptly fainted. She recovered herself, however, and through Mary's aid managed to get out of the house and come down to see me.

I was looking at myself very dejectedly in the parlor, half dead from loss of sleep, hunger, and thirst, and wholly crazy from loss of love and my dreadful prospects, – I surmised they would bury me to-morrow, – when I heard the outside door open, a familiar and yet nervous step sounded in the hall, and then the parlor door opened. I had recognized the step; it was Geraldine, but how changed! I forgot myself and my trouble, and as she threw herself down on her knees and clasped me in her arms and kissed me, I suffered for her agony a thousand times worse than for mine. Great heavens! Was ever man in such a predicament? I bent over her in despair, and as she turned her face up in prayer, I kissed her lips again. She sprang to her feet and screamed, —

"Oh, he is not dead! I am sure of it! I felt him kiss me! I cannot be mistaken! Mary, send for papa, and tell him to bring his newest and most powerful storage battery along. I am sure Harry is not dead; hurry, hurry!"

So it was from Geraldine herself that this new idea of torture emanated. Oh, why could they not let a disembodied spirit alone in its peaceful misery? An electric battery could do no good, and it would be worse than the burnt feather.

Old Mr. Holabird was an electrician and an enthusiast. He would have sacrificed his best friend to an experiment, and consequently did not hesitate to come and practice upon me, whom he hated so bitterly previous to the unfortunate dissolution of partnership between my body and spirit. He was soon in the parlor with a servant following him bringing the battery. He was angry and astonished at seeing Geraldine, but his experiment was too engrossing for much time to be wasted upon her then.

Having obtained the consent of my father, he began taking off my shoes and then my socks. I blushed crimson; at least my spiritual entity did. My physical body, I must confess, betrayed no evidence of shame at the exposure; and before Geraldine, too! Mary and father and the rest of the family looked on with anxiety and little apparent faith. Geraldine stood beside me, resting one hand against my breast and looking at me as if not to lose the faintest sign of life I might show. Her father, all business and energy, attached the wires with a reckless want of ceremony; I thought in wretchedly bad taste. I must confess I hoped for the result of this experiment but faintly; however, there might be something in it, so I stood with my arm around Geraldine and my head resting upon her shoulder – spiritually, of course – as the connection was made.

I was quiet enough for just one-millionth of a second, till I felt the power of the current. It was awful; worse than any other experiment. I groaned in anguish while that fiendish old man made the current stronger and stronger, and that miserably placid body of mine lay there as calm and as unfeeling as a log, while I was in torment. I flew at the old man, clinched my hands in his hair, grasped him around the throat, did everything, and yet had to bear a current strong enough to have killed a dozen men, added to which was the anguish of feeling my last hope vanish. I was doomed!

The scientific fervor of old Holabird was at last satisfied, and he allowed the current to die down to one of much less intensity, merely keeping, as he said, a little on in case of an emergency. A little! It felt like ten toothaches run into one, but was so much less than before that it seemed almost like a caress in the first moment of relief.

While I was standing there helplessly, wondering what they would do with me, the old man walked up to Geraldine, who stood wringing her hands, looking at me, with her last hope gone, too, poor girl! and said, —

"Come, Geraldine, we must go; the man is dead."

"Liar!" I shouted; but no one heard me.

"And there is no use staying here," he continued; "I tell you you must come. I promised John Haverford that you would see him to-night. He asked me for your hand, and I consented to-day."

Oh, I could have begged him to turn on the electricity again; each pang fate had in store for me was worse than before. Geraldine answered gloriously, —

"But I have not consented."

"What difference? I say you shall marry him!" he said, grasping her wrist.

"And I say I will not! I will be faithful to my dear dead Harry here!"

"Nonsense! You shall marry Haverford! You must!"

At this moment a strange thing occurred. Geraldine wrenched herself away from her father, threw herself upon the physical half of me, and whispered, "I'll die with him first!"

Something passed over me as a blinding lightning flash, and behold! The body in the coffin struggled, sat up, clasped a trembling arm about Geraldine, and exclaimed, —

"I am not dead, Geraldine. And you, you infernal old villain, get out of my sight! Take off the battery; give me something to eat and drink!"

The spirit had entered my body again. My love for Geraldine and her love for me had wrought the miracle, just as anxiety for her and love for her had wrought the first change. Ay, through love the world is made and destroyed.

There is nothing more to tell. My story was so circumstantial that people generally believe it in spite of the learned doctors, who hold it to have been merely a case of suspended animation. In my mind and Geraldine's, however, there is no doubt about it. Besides, does not the learned Archidechus say – but never mind; if it were not for this affair Geraldine says she might have been years in finding out her heart as she did when she thought me dead, and her father never would have consented to our marriage as he did.

He is very kind to us now, and we are very happy, and have only anxiety lest my spirit should ever take to wandering again. Geraldine says if it does she will marry John Haverford, who is still pining for her; but I know that is only a threat to prevent the dissolution of partnership, as she confesses in private that she would never marry any one but me – never!

I am very fat and well now, and have burned up the parchments of the learned Archidechus, and am training myself utterly to disbelieve such things. The memory seems like a faint dream now in the light of our present happiness, for Geraldine is the loveliest and sweetest of wives, and says I am the best of husbands. And giving her that last word, I lay down the pen.

THE END