Pierre; or The Ambiguities

"Oh! is that you, sir? well, well, then;" and the man set down the easel.

"Well, my boy," exclaimed Millthorpe to Pierre; "you are in the Inferno dream yet. Look; that's what people call an easel, my boy. An easel, an easel– not a weasel; you look at it as though you thought it a weasel. Come; wake up, wake up! You ordered it, I suppose, and here it is. Going to paint and illustrate the Inferno, as you go along, I suppose. Well, my friends tell me it is a great pity my own things aint illustrated. But I can't afford it. There now is that Hymn to the Niger, which I threw into a pigeon-hole, a year or two ago – that would be fine for illustrations."

"Is it for Mr. Glendinning you inquire?" said Pierre now, in a slow, icy tone, to the porter.

"Mr. Glendinning, sir; all right, aint it?"

"Perfectly," said Pierre mechanically, and casting another strange, rapt, bewildered glance at the easel. "But something seems strangely wanting here. Ay, now I see, I see it: – Villain! – the vines! Thou hast torn the green heart-strings! Thou hast but left the cold skeleton of the sweet arbor wherein she once nestled! Thou besotted, heartless hind and fiend, dost thou so much as dream in thy shriveled liver of the eternal mischief thou hast done? Restore thou the green vines! untrample them, thou accursed! – Oh my God, my God, trampled vines pounded and crushed in all fibers, how can they live over again, even though they be replanted! Curse thee, thou! – Nay, nay," he added moodily – "I was but wandering to myself." Then rapidly and mockingly – "Pardon, pardon! – porter; I most humbly crave thy most haughty pardon." Then imperiously – "Come, stir thyself, man; thou hast more below: bring all up."

As the astounded porter turned, he whispered to Millthorpe – "Is he safe? – shall I bring 'em?"

"Oh certainly," smiled Millthorpe: "I'll look out for him; he's never really dangerous when I'm present; there, go!"

Two trunks now followed, with "L. T." blurredly marked upon the ends.

"Is that all, my man?" said Pierre, as the trunks were being put down before him; "well, how much?" – that moment his eyes first caught the blurred letters.

"Prepaid, sir; but no objection to more."

Pierre stood mute and unmindful, still fixedly eying the blurred letters; his body contorted, and one side drooping, as though that moment half-way down-stricken with a paralysis, and yet unconscious of the stroke.

His two companions, momentarily stood motionless in those respective attitudes, in which they had first caught sight of the remarkable change that had come over him. But, as if ashamed of having been thus affected, Millthorpe summoning a loud, merry voice, advanced toward Pierre, and, tapping his shoulder, cried, "Wake up, wake up, my boy! – He says he is prepaid, but no objection to more."

"Prepaid; – what's that? Go, go, and jabber to apes!"

"A curious young gentleman, is he not?" said Millthorpe lightly to the porter; – "Look you, my boy, I'll repeat: – He says he's prepaid, but no objection to more."

"Ah? – take that then," said Pierre, vacantly putting something into the porter's hand.

"And what shall I do with this, sir?" said the porter, staring.

"Drink a health; but not mine; that were mockery!"

"With a key, sir? This is a key you gave me."

"Ah! – well, you at least shall not have the thing that unlocks me. Give me the key, and take this."

"Ay, ay! – here's the chink! Thank'ee sir, thank'ee. This'll drink. I aint called a porter for nothing; Stout's the word; 2151 is my number; any jobs, call on me."

"Do you ever cart a coffin, my man?" said Pierre.

"'Pon my soul!" cried Millthorpe, gayly laughing, "if you aint writing an Inferno, then – but never mind. Porter! this gentleman is under medical treatment at present. You had better – ab' – you understand – 'squatulate, porter! There, my boy, he is gone; I understand how to manage these fellows; there's a trick in it, my boy – an off-handed sort of what d'ye call it? – you understand – the trick! the trick! – the whole world's a trick. Know the trick of it, all's right; don't know, all's wrong. Ha! ha!"

"The porter is gone then?" said Pierre, calmly. "Well, Mr. Millthorpe, you will have the goodness to follow him."

"Rare joke! admirable! – Good morning, sir. Ha, ha!"

And with his unruffleable hilariousness, Millthorpe quitted the room.

But hardly had the door closed upon him, nor had he yet removed his hand from its outer knob, when suddenly it swung half open again, and thrusting his fair curly head within, Millthorpe cried: "By the way, my boy, I have a word for you. You know that greasy fellow who has been dunning you so of late. Well, be at rest there; he's paid. I was suddenly made flush yesterday: – regular flood-tide. You can return it any day, you know – no hurry; that's all. – But, by the way, – as you look as though you were going to have company here – just send for me in case you want to use me – any bedstead to put up, or heavy things to be lifted about. Don't you and the women do it, now, mind! That's all again. Addios, my boy. Take care of yourself!"

"Stay!" cried Pierre, reaching forth one hand, but moving neither foot – "Stay!" – in the midst of all his prior emotions struck by these singular traits in Millthorpe. But the door was abruptly closed; and singing Fa, la, la: Millthorpe in his seedy coat went tripping down the corridor.

"Plus heart, minus head," muttered Pierre, his eyes fixed on the door. "Now, by heaven! the god that made Millthorpe was both a better and a greater than the god that made Napoleon or Byron. – Plus head, minus heart – Pah! the brains grow maggoty without a heart; but the heart's the preserving salt itself, and can keep sweet without the head. – Delly!"

"Sir?"

"My cousin Miss Tartan is coming here to live with us, Delly. That easel, – those trunks are hers."

"Good heavens! – coming here? – your cousin? – Miss Tartan?"

"Yes, I thought you must have heard of her and me; – but it was broken off; Delly."

"Sir? Sir?"

"I have no explanation, Delly; and from you, I must have no amazement. My cousin, – mind, my cousin, Miss Tartan, is coming to live with us. The next room to this, on the other side there, is unoccupied. That room shall be hers. You must wait upon her, too, Delly."

"Certainly sir, certainly; I will do any thing;" said Delly trembling; "but, – but – does Mrs. Glendin-din – does my mistress know this?"

"My wife knows all" – said Pierre sternly. "I will go down and get the key of the room; and you must sweep it out."

"What is to be put into it, sir?" said Delly. "Miss Tartan – why, she is used to all sorts of fine things, – rich carpets – wardrobes – mirrors – curtains; – why, why, why!"

"Look," said Pierre, touching an old rug with his foot; – "here is a bit of carpet; drag that into her room; here is a chair, put that in; and for a bed, – ay, ay," he muttered to himself; "I have made it for her, and she ignorantly lies on it now! – as made – so lie. Oh God!"

"Hark! my mistress is calling" – cried Delly, moving toward the opposite room.

"Stay!" – cried Pierre, grasping her shoulder; "if both called at one time from these opposite chambers, and both were swooning, which door would you first fly to?"

The girl gazed at him uncomprehendingly and affrighted a moment; and then said, – "This one, sir" – out of mere confusion perhaps, putting her hand on Isabel's latch.

"It is well. Now go."

He stood in an intent unchanged attitude till Delly returned.

"How is my wife, now?"

Again startled by the peculiar emphasis placed on the magical word wife, Delly, who had long before this, been occasionally struck with the infrequency of his using that term; she looked at him perplexedly, and said half-unconsciously —

"Your wife, sir?"

"Ay, is she not?"

"God grant that she be – Oh, 'tis most cruel to ask that of poor, poor Delly, sir!"

"Tut for thy tears! Never deny it again then! – I swear to heaven, she is!"

With these wild words, Pierre seized his hat, and departed the room, muttering something about bringing the key of the additional chamber.

As the door closed on him, Delly dropped on her knees. She lifted her head toward the ceiling, but dropped it again, as if tyrannically awed downward, and bent it low over, till her whole form tremulously cringed to the floor.

"God that made me, and that wast not so hard to me as wicked Delly deserved, – God that made me, I pray to thee! ward it off from me, if it be coming to me. Be not deaf to me; these stony walls – Thou canst hear through them. Pity! pity! – mercy, my God! – If they are not married; if I, penitentially seeking to be pure, am now but the servant to a greater sin, than I myself committed: then, pity! pity! pity! pity! pity! Oh God that made me, – See me, see me here – what can Delly do? If I go hence, none will take me in but villains. If I stay, then – for stay I must – and they be not married, – then pity, pity, pity, pity, pity!"

BOOK XXIV.

LUCY AT THE APOSTLES

I

NEXT morning, the recently appropriated room adjoining on the other side of the dining-room, presented a different aspect from that which met the eye of Delly upon first unlocking it with Pierre on the previous evening. Two squares of faded carpeting of different patterns, covered the middle of the floor, leaving, toward the surbase, a wide, blank margin around them. A small glass hung in the pier; beneath that, a little stand, with a foot or two of carpet before it. In one corner was a cot, neatly equipped with bedding. At the outer side of the cot, another strip of carpeting was placed. Lucy's delicate feet should not shiver on the naked floor.

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. Let all be; it is well. Eh! but there is a grate here, I see. I will buy coals. Yes, yes – that can be easily done; a little fire of a morning – the expense will be nothing. Stay, we will have a little fire here now for a welcome. She shall always have fire."

"Better change the pipe, Pierre," said Isabel, "that will be permanent, and save the coals."

"It shall not be done, Isabel. Doth not that pipe and that warmth go into thy room? Shall I rob my wife, good Delly, even to benefit my most devoted and true-hearted cousin?"

"Oh! I should say not, sir; not at all," said Delly hysterically.

A triumphant fire flashed in Isabel's eye; her full bosom arched out; but she was silent.

"She may be here, now, at any moment, Isabel," said Pierre; "come, we will meet her in the dining-room; that is our reception-place, thou knowest."

So the three went into the dining-room.

II

THEY had not been there long, when Pierre, who had been pacing up and down, suddenly paused, as if struck by some laggard thought, which had just occurred to him at the eleventh hour. First he looked toward Delly, as if about to bid her quit the apartment, while he should say something private to Isabel; but as if, on a second thought, holding the contrary of this procedure most advisable, he, without preface, at once addressed Isabel, in his ordinary conversational tone, so that Delly could not but plainly hear him, whether she would or no.

"My dear Isabel, though, as I said to thee before, my cousin, Miss Tartan, that strange, and willful, nun-like girl, is at all hazards, mystically resolved to come and live with us, yet it must be quite impossible that her friends can approve in her such a singular step; a step even more singular, Isabel, than thou, in thy unsophisticatedness, can'st at all imagine. I shall be immensely deceived if they do not, to their very utmost, strive against it. Now what I am going to add may be quite unnecessary, but I can not avoid speaking it, for all that."

Isabel with empty hands sat silent, but intently and expectantly eying him; while behind her chair, Delly was bending her face low over her knitting – which she had seized so soon as Pierre had begun speaking – and with trembling fingers was nervously twitching the points of her long needles. It was plain that she awaited Pierre's accents with hardly much less eagerness than Isabel. Marking well this expression in Delly, and apparently not unpleased with it, Pierre continued; but by no slightest outward tone or look seemed addressing his remarks to any one but Isabel.

"Now what I mean, dear Isabel, is this: if that very probable hostility on the part of Miss Tartan's friends to her fulfilling her strange resolution – if any of that hostility should chance to be manifested under thine eye, then thou certainly wilt know how to account for it; and as certainly wilt draw no inference from it in the minutest conceivable degree involving any thing sinister in me. No, I am sure thou wilt not, my dearest Isabel. For, understand me, regarding this strange mood in my cousin as a thing wholly above my comprehension, and indeed regarding my poor cousin herself as a rapt enthusiast in some wild mystery utterly unknown to me; and unwilling ignorantly to interfere in what almost seems some supernatural thing, I shall not repulse her coming, however violently her friends may seek to stay it. I shall not repulse, as certainly as I have not invited. But a neutral attitude sometimes seems a suspicious one. Now what I mean is this: let all such vague suspicions of me, if any, be confined to Lucy's friends; but let not such absurd misgivings come near my dearest Isabel, to give the least uneasiness. Isabel! tell me; have I not now said enough to make plain what I mean? Or, indeed, is not all I have said wholly unnecessary; seeing that when one feels deeply conscientious, one is often apt to seem superfluously, and indeed unpleasantly and unbeseemingly scrupulous? Speak, my own Isabel," – and he stept nearer to her, reaching forth his arm.

"Thy hand is the caster's ladle, Pierre, which holds me entirely fluid. Into thy forms and slightest moods of thought, thou pourest me; and I there solidify to that form, and take it on, and thenceforth wear it, till once more thou moldest me anew. If what thou tellest me be thy thought, then how can I help its being mine, my Pierre?"

"The gods made thee of a holyday, when all the common world was done, and shaped thee leisurely in elaborate hours, thou paragon!"

So saying, in a burst of admiring love and wonder, Pierre paced the room; while Isabel sat silent, leaning on her hand, and half-vailed with her hair. Delly's nervous stitches became less convulsive. She seemed soothed; some dark and vague conceit seemed driven out of her by something either directly expressed by Pierre, or inferred from his expressions.

III

"Pierre! Pierre! – Quick! Quick! – They are dragging me back! – oh, quick, dear Pierre!"

"What is that?" swiftly cried Isabel, rising to her feet, and amazedly glancing toward the door leading into the corridor.

But Pierre darted from the room, prohibiting any one from following him.

Half-way down the stairs, a slight, airy, almost unearthly figure was clinging to the balluster; and two young men, one in naval uniform, were vainly seeking to remove the two thin white hands without hurting them. They were Glen Stanly, and Frederic, the elder brother of Lucy.

In a moment, Pierre's hands were among the rest.

"Villain! – Damn thee!" cried Frederic; and letting go the hand of his sister, he struck fiercely at Pierre.

But the blow was intercepted by Pierre.

"Thou hast bewitched, thou damned juggler, the sweetest angel! Defend thyself!"

"Nay, nay," cried Glen, catching the drawn rapier of the frantic brother, and holding him in his powerful grasp; "he is unarmed; this is no time or place to settle our feud with him. Thy sister, – sweet Lucy – let us save her first, and then what thou wilt. Pierre Glendinning – if thou art but the little finger of a man – begone with thee from hence! Thy depravity, thy pollutedness, is that of a fiend! – Thou canst not desire this thing: – the sweet girl is mad!"

Pierre stepped back a little, and looked palely and haggardly at all three.

"I render no accounts: I am what I am. This sweet girl – this angel whom ye two defile by your touches – she is of age by the law: – she is her own mistress by the law. And now, I swear she shall have her will! Unhand the girl! Let her stand alone. See; she will faint; let her go, I say!" And again his hands were among them.

Suddenly, as they all, for the one instant vaguely struggled, the pale girl drooped, and fell sideways toward Pierre; and, unprepared for this, the two opposite champions, unconsciously relinquished their hold, tripped, and stumbled against each other, and both fell on the stairs. Snatching Lucy in his arms, Pierre darted from them; gained the door; drove before him Isabel and Delly, – who, affrighted, had been lingering there; – and bursting into the prepared chamber, laid Lucy on her cot; then swiftly turned out of the room, and locked them all three in: and so swiftly – like lightning – was this whole thing done, that not till the lock clicked, did he find Glen and Frederic fiercely fronting him.

"Gentlemen, it is all over. This door is locked. She is in women's hands. – Stand back!"

As the two infuriated young men now caught at him to hurl him aside, several of the Apostles rapidly entered, having been attracted by the noise.

"Drag them off from me!" cried Pierre. "They are trespassers! drag them off!"

Immediately Glen and Frederic were pinioned by twenty hands; and, in obedience to a sign from Pierre, were dragged out of the room, and dragged down stairs; and given into the custody of a passing officer, as two disorderly youths invading the sanctuary of a private retreat.

In vain they fiercely expostulated; but at last, as if now aware that nothing farther could be done without some previous legal action, they most reluctantly and chafingly declared themselves ready to depart. Accordingly they were let go; but not without a terrible menace of swift retribution directed to Pierre.

IV

HAPPY is the dumb man in the hour of passion. He makes no impulsive threats, and therefore seldom falsifies himself in the transition from choler to calm.

Proceeding into the thoroughfare, after leaving the Apostles', it was not very long ere Glen and Frederic concluded between themselves, that Lucy could not so easily be rescued by threat or force. The pale, inscrutable determinateness, and flinchless intrepidity of Pierre, now began to domineer upon them; for any social unusualness or greatness is sometimes most impressive in the retrospect. What Pierre had said concerning Lucy's being her own mistress in the eye of the law; this now recurred to them. After much tribulation of thought, the more collected Glen proposed, that Frederic's mother should visit the rooms of Pierre; he imagined, that though insensible to their own united intimidations, Lucy might not prove deaf to the maternal prayers. Had Mrs. Tartan been a different woman than she was; had she indeed any disinterested agonies of a generous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications, however poignant; then the hope of Frederic and Glen might have had more likelihood in it. Nevertheless, the experiment was tried, but signally failed.

In the combined presence of her mother, Pierre, Isabel, and Delly; and addressing Pierre and Isabel as Mr. and Mrs. Glendinning; Lucy took the most solemn vows upon herself, to reside with her present host and hostess until they should cast her off. In vain her by turns suppliant, and exasperated mother went down on her knees to her, or seemed almost on the point of smiting her; in vain she painted all the scorn and the loathing; sideways hinted of the handsome and gallant Glen; threatened her that in case she persisted, her entire family would renounce her; and though she should be starving, would not bestow one morsel upon such a recreant, and infinitely worse than dishonorable girl.

To all this, Lucy – now entirely unmenaced in person – replied in the gentlest and most heavenly manner; yet with a collectedness, and steadfastness, from which there was nothing to hope. What she was doing was not of herself; she had been moved to it by all-encompassing influences above, around, and beneath. She felt no pain for her own condition; her only suffering was sympathetic. She looked for no reward; the essence of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of worldly wealth and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses of drawing-rooms; these were no loss to her, for they had always been valueless. Nothing was she now renouncing; but in acting upon her present inspiration she was inheriting every thing. Indifferent to scorn, she craved no pity. As to the question of her sanity, that matter she referred to the verdict of angels, and not to the sordid opinions of man. If any one protested that she was defying the sacred counsels of her mother, she had nothing to answer but this: that her mother possessed all her daughterly deference, but her unconditional obedience was elsewhere due. Let all hope of moving her be immediately, and once for all, abandoned. One only thing could move her; and that would only move her, to make her forever immovable; – that thing was death.

Such wonderful strength in such wonderful sweetness; such inflexibility in one so fragile, would have been matter for marvel to any observer. But to her mother it was very much more; for, like many other superficial observers, forming her previous opinion of Lucy upon the slightness of her person, and the dulcetness of her temper, Mrs. Tartan had always imagined that her daughter was quite incapable of any such daring act. As if sterling heavenliness were incompatible with heroicness. These two are never found apart. Nor, though Pierre knew more of Lucy than any one else, did this most singular behavior in her fail to amaze him. Seldom even had the mystery of Isabel fascinated him more, with a fascination partaking of the terrible. The mere bodily aspect of Lucy, as changed by her more recent life, filled him with the most powerful and novel emotions. That unsullied complexion of bloom was now entirely gone, without being any way replaced by sallowness, as is usual in similar instances. And as if her body indeed were the temple of God, and marble indeed were the only fit material for so holy a shrine, a brilliant, supernatural whiteness now gleamed in her cheek. Her head sat on her shoulders as a chiseled statue's head; and the soft, firm light in her eye seemed as much a prodigy, as though a chiseled statue should give token of vision and intelligence.

Isabel also was most strangely moved by this sweet unearthliness in the aspect of Lucy. But it did not so much persuade her by any common appeals to her heart, as irrespectively commend her by the very signet of heaven. In the deference with which she ministered to Lucy's little occasional wants, there was more of blank spontaneousness than compassionate voluntariness. And when it so chanced, that – owing perhaps to some momentary jarring of the distant and lonely guitar – as Lucy was so mildly speaking in the presence of her mother, a sudden, just audible, submissively answering musical, stringed tone, came through the open door from the adjoining chamber; then Isabel, as if seized by some spiritual awe, fell on her knees before Lucy, and made a rapid gesture of homage; yet still, somehow, as it were, without evidence of voluntary will.

Finding all her most ardent efforts ineffectual, Mrs. Tartan now distressedly motioned to Pierre and Isabel to quit the chamber, that she might urge her entreaties and menaces in private. But Lucy gently waved them to stay; and then turned to her mother. Henceforth she had no secrets but those which would also be secrets in heaven. Whatever was publicly known in heaven, should be publicly known on earth. There was no slightest secret between her and her mother.