David Elginbrod

Calling at Mrs. Elton’s, he learned that the count had not been there; that Miss Cameron had been very ill all night; but that she was rather better since the morning.

That night, as the preceding, Margaret had awaked suddenly. Euphra was not in the bed beside her. She started up in an agony of terror; but it was soon allayed, though not removed. She saw Euphra on her knees at the foot of the bed, an old-fashioned four-post one. She had her arms twined round one of the bed-posts, and her head thrown back, as if some one were pulling her backwards by her hair, which fell over her night-dress to the floor in thick, black masses. Her eyes were closed; her face was death-like, almost livid; and the cold dews of torture were rolling down from brow to chin. Her lips were moving convulsively, with now and then the appearance of an attempt at articulation, as if they were set in motion by an agony of inward prayer. Margaret, unable to move, watched her with anxious sympathy and fearful expectation. How long this lasted she could not tell, but it seemed a long time. At length Margaret rose, and longing to have some share in the struggle, however small, went softly, and stood behind her, shadowing her from a feeble ray of moonlight which, through a wind-rent cloud, had stolen into the room, and lay upon her upturned face. There she lifted up her heart in prayer. In a moment after the tension of Euphra’s countenance relaxed a little; composure slowly followed; her head gradually rose, so that Margaret could see her face no longer; then, as gradually, drooped forward. Next her arms untwined themselves from the bed-post, and her hands clasped themselves together. She looked like one praying in the intense silence of absorbing devotion. Margaret stood still as a statue.

In speaking about it afterwards to Hugh, Margaret told him that she distinctly remembered hearing, while she stood, the measured steps of a policeman pass the house on the pavement below.

In a few minutes Euphra bowed her head yet lower, and then rose to her feet. She turned round towards Margaret, as if she knew she was there. To Margaret’s astonishment, her eyes were wide open. She smiled a most child-like, peaceful, happy smile, and said:

“It is over, Margaret, all over at last. Thank you, with my whole heart. God has helped me.”

At that moment, the moon shone out full, and her face appeared in its light like the face of an angel. Margaret looked on her with awe. Fear, distress, and doubt had vanished, and she was already beautiful like the blessed. Margaret got a handkerchief, and wiped the cold damps from her face. Then she helped her into bed, where she fell asleep almost instantly, and slept like a child. Now and then she moaned; but when Margaret looked at her, she saw the smile still upon her countenance.

She woke weak and worn, but happy.

“I shall not trouble you to-day, Margaret, dear,” said she. “I shall not get up yet, but you will not need to watch me. A great change has passed upon me. I am free. I have overcome him. He may do as he pleases now. I do not care. I defy him. I got up last night in my sleep, but I remember all about it; and, although I was asleep, and felt powerless like a corpse, I resisted him, even when I thought he was dragging me away by bodily force. And I resisted him, till he left me alone. Thank God!”

It had been a terrible struggle, but she had overcome. Nor was this all: she would no more lead two lives, the waking and the sleeping. Her waking will and conscience had asserted themselves in her sleeping acts; and the memory of the somnambulist lived still in the waking woman. Hence her two lives were blended into one life; and she was no more two, but one. This indicated a mighty growth of individual being.

“I woke without terror,” she went on to say. “I always used to wake from such a sleep in an agony of unknown fear. I do not think I shall ever walk in my sleep again.”

Is not salvation the uniting of all our nature into one harmonious whole—God first in us, ourselves last, and all in due order between? Something very much analogous to the change in Euphra takes place in a man when he first learns that his beliefs must become acts; that his religious life and his human life are one; that he must do the thing that he admires. The Ideal is the only absolute Real; and it must become the Real in the individual life as well, however impossible they may count it who never try it, or who do not trust in God to effect it, when they find themselves baffled in the attempt.

In the afternoon, Euphra fell asleep, and when she woke, seemed better. She said to Margaret:

“Can it be that it was all a dream, Margaret? I mean my association with that dreadful man. I feel as if it were only some horrid dream, and that I could never have had anything to do with him. I may have been out of my mind, you know, and have told you things which I believed firmly enough then, but which never really took place. It could not have been me, Margaret, could it?”

“Not your real, true, best self, dear.”

“I have been a dreadful creature, Margaret. But I feel that all that has melted away from me, and gone behind the sunset, which will for ever stand, in all its glory and loveliness, between me and it, an impassable rampart of defence.”

Her words sounded strange and excited, but her eye and her pulse were calm.

“How could he ever have had that hateful power over me?”

“Don’t think any more about him, dear, but enjoy the rest God has given you.”

“I will, I will.”

At that moment, a maid came to the door, with Funkelstein’s card for Miss Cameron.

“Very well,” said Margaret; “ask him to wait. I will tell Miss Cameron. She may wish to send him a message. You may go.”

She told Euphra that the count was in the house. Euphra showed no surprise, no fear, no annoyance.

“Will you see him for me, Margaret, if you don’t mind; and tell him from me, that I defy him; that I do not hate him, only because I despise and forget him; that I challenge him to do his worst.”

She had forgotten all about the ring. But Margaret had not.

“I will,” said she, and left the room.

On her way down, she went into the drawing-room, and rang the bell.

“Send Mr. Irwan to me here, please. It is for Miss Cameron.”

The man went, but presently returned, saying that the butler had just stepped out.

“Very well. You will do just as well. When the gentleman leaves who is calling now, you must follow him. Take a cab, if necessary, and follow him everywhere, till you find where he stops for the night. Watch the place, and send me word where you are. But don’t let him know. Put on plain clothes, please, as fast as you can.”

“Yes, Miss, directly.”

The servants all called Margaret, Miss.

She lingered yet a little, to give the man time. She was not at all satisfied with her plan, but she could think of nothing better. Happily, it was not necessary. Irwan had run as fast as his old legs would carry him to the Golden Staff. Hugh received the news with delight. His heart seemed to leap into his throat, and he felt just as he did, when, deer-stalking for the first time, he tried to take aim at a great red stag.

“I shall wait for him outside the door. We must have no noise in the house. He is a thief, or worse, Irwan.”

“Good gracious! And there’s the plate all laid out for dinner on the sideboard!” exclaimed Irwan, and hurried off faster than he had come.

But Hugh was standing at the door long before Irwan got up to it. Had Margaret known who was watching outside, it would have been a wonderful relief to her.

She entered the dining-room, where the count stood impatient. He advanced quickly, acting on his expectation of Euphra, but seeing his mistake, stopped, and bowed politely. Margaret told him that Miss Cameron was ill, and gave him her message, word for word. The count turned pale with mortification and rage. He bit his lip, made no reply, and walked out into the hall, where Irwan stood with the handle of the door in his hand, impatient to open it. No sooner was he out of the house, than Hugh sprang upon him; but the count, who had been perfectly upon his guard, eluded him, and darted off down the street. Hugh pursued at full speed, mortified at his escape. He had no fear at first of overtaking him, for he had found few men his equals in speed and endurance; but he soon saw, to his dismay, that the count was increasing the distance between them, and feared that, by a sudden turn into some labyrinth, he might escape him altogether. They passed the Golden Staff at full speed, and at the next corner Hugh discovered what gave the count the advantage: it was his agility and recklessness in turning corners. But, like the sorcerer’s impunity, they failed him at last; for, at the next turn, he ran full upon Falconer, who staggered back, while the count reeled and fell. Hugh was upon him in a moment. “Help!” roared the count, for a last chance from the sympathies of a gathering crowd.

“I’ve got him!” cried Hugh.

“Let the man alone,” growled a burly fellow in the crowd, with his fists clenched in his trowser-pockets.

“Let me have a look at him,” said Falconer, stooping over him. “Ah! I don’t know him. That’s as well for him. Let him up, Sutherland.”

The bystanders took Falconer for a detective, and did not seem inclined to interfere, all except the carman before mentioned. He came up, pushing the crowd right and left.

“Let the man alone,” said he, in a very offensive tone.

“I assure you,” said Falconer, “he’s not worth your trouble; for—”

“None o’ your cursed jaw!” said the fellow, in a louder and deeper growl, approaching Falconer with a threatening mien.

“Well, I can’t help it,” said Falconer, as if to himself.

“Sutherland, look after the count.”

“That I will,” said Hugh, confidently.

Falconer turned on the carman, who was just on the point of closing with him, preferring that mode of fighting; and saying only: “Defend yourself,” retreated a step. The man was good at his fists too, and, having failed in his first attempt, made the best use of them he could. But he had no chance with Falconer, whose coolness equalled his skill.

Meantime, the Bohemian had been watching his chance; and although the contest certainly did not last longer than one minute, found opportunity, in the middle of it, to wrench himself free from Hugh, trip him up, and dart off. The crowd gave way before him. He vanished so suddenly and completely, that it was evident he must have studied the neighbourhood from the retreat side of the question. With rat-like instinct, he had consulted the holes and corners in anticipation of the necessity of applying to them. Hugh got up, and, directed, or possibly misdirected by the bystanders, sped away in pursuit; but he could hear or see nothing of the fugitive.

At the end of the minute, the carman lay in the road.

“Look after him, somebody,” said Falconer.

“No fear of him, sir; he’s used to it,” answered one of the bystanders, with the respect which Falconer’s prowess claimed.

Falconer walked after Hugh, who soon returned, looking excessively mortified, and feeling very small indeed.

“Never mind, Sutherland,” said he. “The fellow is up to a trick or two; but we shall catch him yet. If it hadn’t been for that big fool there—but he’s punished enough.”

“But what can we do next? He will not come here again.”

“Very likely not. Still he may not give up his attempts upon Miss Cameron. I almost wonder, seeing she is so impressible, that she can give no account of his whereabouts. But I presume clairvoyance depends on the presence of other qualifications as well. I should like to mesmerize her myself, and see whether she could not help us then.”

“Well, why not, if you have the power?”

“Because I have made up my mind not to superinduce any condition of whose laws I am so very partially informed. Besides, I consider it a condition of disease in which, as by sleeplessness for instance, the senses of the soul, if you will allow the expression, are, for its present state, rendered unnaturally acute. To induce such a condition, I dare not exercise a power which itself I do not understand.”

CHAPTER XIX. MARGARET

For though that ever virtuous was she,She was increased in such excellence,Of thewes good, yset in high bounté,And so discreet and fair of eloquence,So benign, and so digne of reverence,And couthé so the poeple’s hert embrace,That each her loveth that looketh in her face.CHAUCER.—The Clerk’s Tale.

Hugh returned to Mrs. Elton’s, and, in the dining-room, wrote a note to Euphra, to express his disappointment, and shame that, after all, the count had foiled him; but, at the same time, his determination not to abandon the quest, till there was no room for hope left. He sent this up to her, and waited, thinking that she might be on the sofa, and might send for him. A little weary from the reaction of the excitement he had just gone through, he sat down in the corner farthest from the door. The large room was dimly lighted by one untrimmed lamp.

He sat for some time, thinking that Euphra was writing him a note, or perhaps preparing herself to see him in her room. Involuntarily he looked up, and a sudden pang, as at the vision of the disembodied, shot through his heart. A dim form stood in the middle of the room, gazing earnestly at him. He saw the same face which he had seen for a moment in the library at Arnstead—the glorified face of Margaret Elginbrod, shimmering faintly in the dull light. Instinctively he pressed his hands together, palm to palm, as if he had been about to kneel before Madonna herself. Delight, mingled with hope, and tempered by shame, flushed his face. Ghost or none, she brought no fear with her, only awe.

She stood still.

“Margaret!” he said, with trembling voice.

“Mr. Sutherland!” she responded, sweetly.

“Are you a ghost, Margaret?”

She smiled as if she were all spirit, and, advancing slowly, took his joined hands in both of hers.

“Forgive me, Margaret,” sighed he, as if with his last breath, and burst into an agony of tears.

She waited motionless, till his passion should subside, still holding his hands. He felt that her hands were so good.

“He is dead!” said Hugh, at last, with all effort, followed by a fresh outburst of weeping.

“Yes, he is dead,” rejoined Margaret, calmly. “You would not weep so if you had seen him die as I did—die with a smile like a summer sunset. Indeed, it was the sunset to me; but the moon has been up for a long time now.”

She sighed a gentle, painless sigh, and smiled again like a saint. She spoke nearly as Scotch as ever in tone, though the words and pronunciation were almost pure English.—This lapse into so much of the old form, or rather garment, of speech, constantly recurred, as often as her feelings were moved, and especially when she talked to children.

“Forgive me,” said Hugh, once more.

“We are the same as in the old days,” answered Margaret; and Hugh was satisfied.

“How do you come to be here?” said Hugh, at last, after a silence.

“I will tell you all about that another time. Now I must give you Miss Cameron’s message. She is very sorry she cannot see you, but she is quite unable. Indeed, she is not out of bed. But if you could call to-morrow morning, she hopes to be better and to be able to see you. She says she can never thank you enough.”

The lamp burned yet fainter. Margaret went, and proceeded to trim it. The virgins that arose must have looked very lovely, trimming their lamps. It is a deed very fair and womanly—the best for a woman—to make the lamp burn. The light shone up in her face, and the hands removing the globe handled it delicately. He saw that the good hands were very beautiful hands; not small, but admirably shaped, and very pure. As she replaced the globe,—

“That man,” she said, “will not trouble her any more.”

“I hope not,” said Hugh; “but you speak confidently: why?”

“Because she has behaved gloriously. She has fought and conquered him on his own ground; and she is a free, beautiful, and good creature of God for ever.”

“You delight me,” rejoined Hugh “Another time, perhaps, you will be able to tell me all about it.”

“I hope so. I think she will not mind my telling you.”

They bade each other good night; and Hugh went away with a strange feeling, which he had never experienced before. To compare great things with small, it was something like what he had once felt in a dream, in which, digging in his father’s garden, he had found a perfect marble statue, young as life, and yet old as the hills. To think of the girl he had first seen in the drawing-room at Turriepuffit, idealizing herself into such a creature as that, so grand, and yet so womanly! so lofty, and yet so lovely; so strong, and yet so graceful!

Would that every woman believed in the ideal of herself, and hoped for it as the will of God, not merely as the goal of her own purest ambition! But even if the lower development of the hope were all she possessed, it would yet be well; for its inevitable failure would soon develope the higher and triumphant hope.

He thought about her till he fell asleep, and dreamed about her till he woke. Not for a moment, however, did he fancy he was in love with her: the feeling was different from any he had hitherto recognized as embodying that passion. It was the recognition and consequent admiration of a beauty which everyone who beheld it must recognize and admire; but mingled, in his case, with old and precious memories, doubly dear now in the increased earnestness of his nature and aspirations, and with a deep personal interest from the fact that, however little, he had yet contributed a portion of the vital food whereby the gracious creature had become what she was.

In the so-called morning he went to Mrs. Elton’s. Euphra was expecting his visit, and he was shown up into her room, where she was lying on a couch by the fire. She received him with the warmth of gratitude added to that of friendship. Her face was pale and thin, but her eyes were brilliant. She did not appear at first sight to be very ill: but the depth and reality of her sickness grew upon him. Behind her couch stood Margaret, like a guardian angel. Margaret could bear the day, for she belonged to it; and therefore she looked more beautiful still than by the lamp-light. Euphra held out a pale little hand to Hugh, and before she withdrew it, led Hugh’s towards Margaret. Their hands joined. How different to Hugh was the touch of the two hands! Life, strength, persistency in the one: languor, feebleness, and fading in the other.

“I can never thank you enough,” said Euphra; “therefore I will not try. It is no bondage to remain your debtor.”

“That would be thanks indeed, if I had done anything.”

“I have found out another mystery,” Euphra resumed, after a pause.

“I am sorry to hear it,” answered he. “I fear there will be no mysteries left by-and-by.”

“No fear of that,” she rejoined, “so long as the angels come down to men.” And she turned towards Margaret as she spoke.

Margaret smiled. In the compliment she felt only the kindness.

Hugh looked at her. She turned away, and found something to do at the other side of the room.

“What mystery, then, have you destroyed?”

“Not destroyed it; for the mystery of courage remains. I was the wicked ghost that night in the Ghost’s Walk, you know—the white one: there is the good ghost, the nun, the black one.”

“Who? Margaret?”

“Yes, indeed. She has just been confessing it to me. I had my two angels, as one whose fate was undetermined; my evil angel in the count—my good angel in Margaret. Little did I think then that the holy powers were watching me in her. I knew the evil one; I knew nothing of the good. I suppose it is so with a great many people.”

Hugh sat silent in astonishment. Margaret, then, had been at Arnstead with Mrs. Elton all the time. It was herself he had seen in the study.

“Did you suspect me, Margaret?” resumed Euphra, turning towards her where she sat at the window.

“Not in the least. I only knew that something was wrong about the house; that some being was terrifying the servants, and poor Harry; and I resolved to do my best to meet it, especially if it should be anything of a ghostly kind.”

“Then you do believe in such appearances?” said Hugh.

“I have never met anything of the sort yet. I don’t know.”

“And you were not afraid?”

“Not much. I am never really afraid of anything. Why should I be?”

No justification of fear was suggested either by Hugh or by Euphra. They felt the dignity of nature that lifted Margaret above the region of fear.

“Come and see me again soon,” said Euphra, as Hugh rose to go.

He promised.

Next day he dined by invitation with Mrs. Elton and Harry. Euphra was unable to see him, but sent a kind message by Margaret as he was taking his leave. He had been fearing that he should not see Margaret; and when she did appear he was the more delighted; but the interview was necessarily short.

He called the next day, and saw neither Euphra nor Margaret. She was no better. Mrs. Elton said the physicians could discover no definite disease either of the lungs or of any other organ. Yet life seemed sinking. Margaret thought that the conflict which she had passed through, had exhausted her vitality; that, had she yielded, she might have lived a slave; but that now, perhaps, she must die a free woman.

Her continued illness made Hugh still more anxious to find the ring, for he knew it would please her much. Falconer would have applied to the police, but he feared that the man would vanish from London, upon the least suspicion that he was watched. They held many consultations on the subject.

CHAPTER XX. A NEW GUIDE

Das Denken ist nur ein Traum des Fühlens, ein erstorbenes Fühlen, ein blass-graues, schwaches Leben.

Thinking is only a dream of feeling; a dead feeling; a pale-grey, feeble life.

NOVALIS.—Die Lehrlinge zu Sais.

For where’s no courage, there’s no ruth nor mone.

Faerie Queene: vi. 7, 18.

One morning, as soon as she waked, Euphra said:

“Have I been still all the night, Margaret?”

“Quite still. Why do you ask?”

“Because I have had such a strange and vivid dream, that I feel as if I must have been to the place. It was a foolish question, though; because, of course, you would not have let me go.”

“I hope it did not trouble you much.”

“No, not much; for though I was with the count, I did not seem to be there in the body at all, only somehow near him, and seeing him. I can recall the place perfectly.”

“Do you think it really was the place he was in at the time?”

“I should not wonder. But now I feel so free, so far beyond him and all his power, that I don’t mind where or when I see him. He cannot hurt me now.”

“Could you describe the place to Mr. Sutherland? It might help him to find the count.”

“That’s a good idea. Will you send for him?”

“Yes, certainly. May I tell him for what?”

“By all means.”

Margaret wrote to Hugh at once, and sent the note by hand. He was at home when it arrived. He hurriedly answered it, and went to find Falconer. To his delight he was at home—not out of bed, in fact.

“Read that.”

“Who is it from?”

“Miss Cameron’s maid.”

“It does not look like a maid’s production.”

“It is though. Will you come with me? You know London ten thousand times better than I do. I don’t think we ought to lose a chance.”

“Certainly not. I will go with you. But perhaps she will not see me.”

“Oh! yes, she will, when I have told her about you.”

“It will be rather a trial to see a stranger.”

“A man cannot be a stranger with you ten minutes, if he only looks at you;—still less a woman.”

Falconer looked pleased, and smiled.

“I am glad you think so. Let us go.”

When they arrived, Margaret came to them. Hugh told her that Falconer was his best friend, and one who knew London perhaps better than any other man in it. Margaret looked at him full in the face for a moment. Falconer smiled at the intensity of her still gaze. Margaret returned the smile, and said:

“I will ask Miss Cameron to see yet.”

“Thank you,” was all Falconer’s reply; but the tone was more than speech.

After a little while, they were shown up to Euphra’s room. She had wanted to sit up, but Margaret would not let her; so she was lying on her couch. When Falconer was presented to her, he took her hand, and held it for a moment. A kind of indescribable beam broke over his face, as if his spirit smiled and the smile shone through without moving one of his features as it passed. The tears stood in his eyes. To understand all this look, one would need to know his history as I do. He laid her hand gently on her bosom, and said: “God bless you!”