Part 29 (2/2)
”She said that! You are not deceiving me?”
”Oh, no! how can you think so?”
”There is hope still,” I murmured; and I bowed my head upon my hands, hot tears forcing their way through the clasped fingers.
”One word more,” said I; ”you tell me that Lilian has a repugnance to this Margrave, and yet that she found comfort in his visits,--a comfort that could not be wholly ascribed to cheering words he might say about myself, since it is all but certain that I was not, at that time, uppermost in her mind. Can you explain this apparent contradiction?”
”I cannot, otherwise than by a conjecture which you would ridicule.”
”I can ridicule nothing now. What is your conjecture?”
”I know how much you disbelieve in the stories one hears of animal magnetism and electro-biology, otherwise--”
”You think that Margrave exercises some power of that kind over Lilian?
Has he spoken of such a power?”
”Not exactly; but he said that he was sure Lilian possessed a faculty that he called by some hard name, not clairvoyance, but a faculty, which he said, when I asked him to explain, was akin to prevision,--to second sight. Then he talked of the Priestesses who had administered the ancient oracles. Lilian, he said, reminded him of them, with her deep eyes and mysterious smile.”
”And Lilian heard him? What said she?”
”Nothing; she seemed in fear while she listened.”
”He did not offer to try any of those arts practised by professional mesmerists and other charlatans?”
”I thought he was about to do so, but I forestalled him, saying I never would consent to any experiment of that kind, either on myself or my daughter.”
”And he replied--”
”With his gay laugh, 'that I was very foolish; that a person possessed of such a faculty as he attributed to Lilian would, if the faculty were developed, be an invaluable adviser.' He would have said more, but I begged him to desist. Still I fancy at times--do not be angry--that he does somehow or other bewitch her, unconsciously to herself; for she always knows when he is coming. Indeed, I am not sure that he does not bewitch myself, for I by no means justify my conduct in admitting him to an intimacy so familiar, and in spite of your wish; I have reproached myself, resolved to shut my door on him, or to show by my manner that his visits were unwelcome; yet when Lilian has said, in the drowsy lethargic tone which has come into her voice (her voice naturally earnest and impressive, though always low), 'Mother, he will be here in two minutes; I wish to leave the room and cannot,' I, too, have felt as if something constrained me against my will; as if, in short, I were under that influence which Mr. Vigors--whom I will never forgive for his conduct to you--would ascribe to mesmerism. But will you not come in and see Lilian again?”
”No, not to-night; but watch and heed her, and if you see aught to make you honestly believe that she regrets the rupture of the old tic from which I have released her--why, you know, Mrs. Ashleigh, that--that--”
My voice failed; I wrung the good woman's hand, and went my way.
I had always till then considered Mrs. Ashleigh--if not as Mrs. Poyntz described her--”commonplace weak”--still of an intelligence somewhat below mediocrity. I now regarded her with respect as well as grateful tenderness; her plain sense had divined what all my boasted knowledge had failed to detect in my earlier intimacy with Margrave,--namely, that in him there was a something present, or a something wanting, which forbade love and excited fear. Young, beautiful, wealthy, seemingly blameless in life as he was, she would not have given her daughter's hand to him!
CHAPTER XLIV.
The next day my house was filled with visitors. I had no notion that I had so many friends. Mr. Vigors wrote me a generous and handsome letter, owning his prejudices against me on account of his sympathy with poor Dr. Lloyd, and begging my pardon for what he now felt to have been harshness, if not distorted justice. But what most moved me was the entrance of Strahan, who rushed up to me with the heartiness of old college days. ”Oh, my dear Allen, can you ever forgive me; that I should have disbelieved your word,--should have suspected you of abstracting my poor cousin's memoir?”
”Is it found, then?”
”Oh, yes; you must thank Margrave. He, clever fellow, you know, came to me on a visit yesterday. He put me at once on the right scent. Only guess; but you never can! It was that wretched old housekeeper who purloined the ma.n.u.script. You remember she came into the room while you were looking at the memoir. She heard us talk about it; her curiosity was roused; she longed to know the history of her old master, under his own hand; she could not sleep; she heard me go up to bed; she thought you might leave the book on the table when you, too, went to rest. She stole downstairs, peeped through the keyhole of the library, saw you asleep, the book lying before you, entered, took away the book softly, meant to glance at its contents and to return it. You were sleeping so soundly she thought you would not wake for an hour; she carried it into the library, leaving the door open, and there began to pore over it. She stumbled first on one of the pa.s.sages in Latin; she hoped to find some part in plain English, turned over the leaves, putting her candle close to them, for the old woman's eyes were dim, when she heard you make some sound in your sleep. Alarmed, she looked round; you were moving uneasily in your seat, and muttering to yourself. From watching you she was soon diverted by the consequences of her own confounded curiosity and folly.
In moving, she had unconsciously brought the poor ma.n.u.script close to the candle; the leaves caught the flame; her own cap and hand burning first made her aware of the mischief done. She threw down the book; her sleeve was in flames; she had first to tear off the sleeve, which was, luckily for her, not sewn to her dress. By the time she recovered presence of mind to attend to the book, half its leaves were reduced to tinder. She did not dare then to replace what was left of the ma.n.u.script on your table; returned with it to her room, hid it, and resolved to keep her own secret. I should never have guessed it; I had never even spoken to her of the occurrence; but when I talked over the disappearance of the book to Margrave last night, and expressed my disbelief of your story, he said, in his merry way: 'But do you think that Fenwick is the only person curious about your cousin's odd ways and strange history? Why, every servant in the household would have been equally curious. You have examined your servants, of course?' 'No, I never thought of it.' 'Examine them now, then. Examine especially that old housekeeper. I observe a great change in her manner since I came here, weeks ago, to look over the house. She has something on her mind,--I see it in her eyes.' Then it occurred to me, too, that the woman's manner had altered, and that she seemed always in a tremble and a fidget. I went at once to her room, and charged her with stealing the book. She fell on her knees, and told the whole story as I have told it to you, and as I shall take care to tell it to all to whom I have so foolishly blabbed my yet more foolish suspicions of yourself. But can you forgive me, old friend?”
”Heartily, heartily! And the book is burned?”
”See;” and he produced a mutilated ma.n.u.script. Strange, the part burned--reduced, indeed, to tinder--was the concluding part that related to Haroun,--to Grayle: no vestige of that part was left; the earlier portions were scorched and mutilated, though in some places still decipherable; but as my eye hastily ran over those places, I saw only mangled sentences of the experimental problems which the writer had so minutely elaborated.
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