CHAPTER XV.
Before my own and only love departed, she knew, thank God, she knew aswell as I did, that I had never wronged her pure and true affection.But it was long before I learned what had so distressed her. Though sheappeared quite sensible, and looked at me, every now and then, with thesame reproachful harrowing gaze, it seemed to me ages, it must have beenhours, before she could frame her thoughts in words. In an agony ofsuspense for her, for our children, for our love, I could hardly repressmy impatience even at her debility. Many a time she opened hertrembling lips, but the words died on them. At last I caught hermeaning from a few broken sentences.
"How could he do it? How could he so betray her? And his own Lily thatloved him so--no, she must not be Lily any more, she was only FiordalisaDella Croce. How could he come and pretend to love her, and pretend tomarry her, when all the while he had a young wife at home in England?Never would she have believed it but for the proofs, the proofs thathateful man had shown her. How could he shame his own love so, and hischildren, and the aged father--there was no hope for her but to die--todie and never see him more; and then perhaps he would be sorry, for hemust care about her a little."
Then she burst into such a torrent of tears, and pressed both hands onher bounding heart, and grew white with terror. Then as the palpitationpassed, she looked at me and knew me, and crept close to me, forgettingall the evil,--and seemed to sleep awhile. Of course I saw what it was;dazed as I was and wild at her sorrow and danger, I slowly perceivedwhat it was. The serpent-like foe had been there, and had hissed in herear what he thought to be true--that I had done her a dastard's wrong;had won her passionate maiden love, and defiled her by a sham marriage,while my lawful wife was living.
When once I knew my supposed offence, it did not take long to explainthe murderer's error, an error which had sprung from my own deceit. Butmy children, where are my children, Lily?
In her ecstatic joy, she could not think for the moment even of herchildren; but pressed me to her tumultuous heart, as if I were all shewanted. Then she began to revile herself, for daring to believe any illof her noble husband.
"And even if it had been true, which you know it never could be,dear,--I must have forgiven you, sweetest darling, because you couldn'thave helped it, you did love me so, didn't you?"
This sweet womanly logic, you, Clara, may comprehend--But where are thechildren, my Lily?
"Oh, in bed I suppose, dear: let me get up, we must go and kiss thedarlings. When I first came in, I could not bear to go near them, poorpets; but now--Oh my heart, holy Madonna, my heart!"
She leaped up as if she were shot, and a choking sound rose in herthroat.. Her fresh youth fought hard in the clutches of death. "Ohsave me, my own husband, save me. Hold me tighter; I cannot die yet.So young and so happy with you. It is gone; but the next pang is death.Hold me so till it comes again. God bless you, my own for ever. Youwill find me in heaven, won't you? You can never forget your own Lily."
Her large eyes rested on mine, as they did when she first owned herlove; and her soul seemed trying to spring into the breast of mine.Closer to me she clung, but with less and less of strength. Her smooth,clear cheek was on mine, her exhausted heart on my wild one. I felt itslast throb, as the death-pang came, and she tried to kiss me to showthat it was not violent. Frantic, I opened my lips, and received thelast breath of hers.
The crush of its anguish her heart might have borne, but not the reboundof its joy.
Her body, the fairest the sun ever saw, was laid beside her father's inthe little churchyard at St. Katharine's, with the toy baby on herbreast; her soul, the most loving and playful that ever the angelsvisited, is still in attendance upon me, and mourns until mine rejoinsit.
You have heard my greatest but not my only distress. For more than threemonths, my reason forsook me utterly. I recognised no one, not evenmyself, but sought high and low for my Lily. At night I used to wanderforth and search among the olive-trees, where we so often roved:sometimes the form I knew so well would seem to flit before me, temptingme on from bole to bole, and stretching vain hands towards me. Then asI seemed to have overtaken and brought to bay her coyness, with a faintshriek she would vanish into hazy air. Probably I owed these visions tocapricious memory, gleaming upon old hexameters of the Eton clink. Truefrom false I knew not, neither cared to know: everything I did seemed tobe done in sleep, with all the world around me gone to sleep as well.One vague recollection I retain of going somewhere, to do something thatmade me creep with cold. This must have been the funeral of my lostone; when the Corsicans, as I am told, fled from my ghastly stare, andwould only stand behind me. They are a superstitious race, and theyfeared the "evil eye."
All the time I was in this state, faithful Petro waited on me, andwatched me like a father. He sent for his wife, old Marcantonia, whowas famed for her knowledge of herbs and her power over the witches, whonow beyond all doubt had gotten me in possession. Decoctions manifoldshe gave me at the turn of the moon, and hung me all over with amulets,till I rang like a peal of cracked bells. In spite of all thesesovereign charms, Lepardo might at any time have murdered me, if he hadthought me happy enough to deserve it. Perhaps he was in some otherland, making sure of my children's lives.
Poor helpless darlings, all that was left me of my Lily, as yet I didnot know that even they were taken. Petro told me afterwards that I hadasked for them once or twice, in a vacant wondering manner, but had beenquite content with some illusory answer.
It was my Lily, and no one else, who brought me back to conscious life.What I am about to tell may seem to you a feeble brain's chimera; and soit would appear to me, if related by another. But though my body wasexhausted by unsleeping sorrow, under whose strain the mental chords hadyielded, yet I assure you that what befell me did not flow from butswept aside both these enervations.
It is the Corsican's belief, that those whom he has deeply mourned, anddesolately missed, are allowed to hover near him in the silent night.Then sometimes, when he is sleeping, they will touch his lids and say,"Weep no more, beloved one: in all, except thy sorrow, we are blessed asthou couldst wish." Or sometimes, if the parting be of still moretender sort, (as between two lovers, or a newly wedded couple) in thedepth of darkness when the lone survivor cannot sleep for trouble,appears the lost one at the chamber door, holds it open, and callssoftly; "Dearest, come; for I as well am lonely." Having thriceimplored, it waves its cerements like an angel's wing, and awaits theanswer. Answer not, if you wish to live; however the sweet voice thrillsyour heart, however that heart is breaking. But if you truly wish todie, and hope is quenched in memory; make answer to the well-knownvoice. Within three days you will be dead, and flit beside the invokingshadow.
Perhaps old Marcantonia had warned me of this appeal, and begged me tokeep silence, which for my children's sake I was bound to do. All Iknow is that one night towards the end of January, I lay awake as usual,thinking--if a mind distempered thus can think--of my own sweet Lily.All the evening I had sought her among the olive-trees, and at St.Katharine's Church, and even on the sad sea-shore by the moaning of thewaves. Now the winter moon was high, and through the embrasured window,the far churchyard that held my wife, and the silver sea beyond it,glimmered like the curtain of another world. Sitting up in the widowedbed, with one hand on my aching forehead--for now I breathed perpetualheadache--I called in question that old church of one gay wedding andtwo dark funerals. Was there any such church at all; was it not a dreamof moonlight and the phantom love?
Even as I sat gazing now, so on many a moonlight night sat my Lilygazing with me, whispering of her father's grave, and looking for it inthe shrouded distance. Her little hand used to quiver in mine, as shedeclared she had found it; and her dark eyes had so wondrous a gift ofsight, that I never would dare to deny, though I could not quite believeit. Had she not in the happy days, when we roamed on the beachtogether, waiting for the yacht and pretending to seek shells, had shenot the
n told me the stripes and colours of the sailors' caps, and eventhe names of the men on deck, when I could hardly see their figures?
Ah, could she tell my own name now, could she descry me from that shorewhich mocks the range of telescope, and the highest lens of thought; wasshe permitted one glimpse of him from whom in life she could hardly bearto withdraw those gentle eyes? Answer me, my own, in life and death myown one; tell me that you watch and love me, though it be but now andthen, and not enough to break the by-laws of the disembodied world.
Calmly as I now repeat it, but in a low melodious tone, sweeter than anymortal's voice, a tone that dwelt I knew not where, like the sighing ofthe night-wind, came this answer to me:
"True love, for our children's sake, and mine who watch and love youstill, quit this grief, the spirit's grave. All your sorrow still ismine, and would you vex your darling, when you cannot comfort her?Though you see me now no more, I am with you more than ever; I am yourimage and your shadow. At every sigh of yours, I shiver; your smiles areall my sunshine. Let me feel some sunshine, sweetest; you know how Iused to love it, and as yet you have sent me none. I shall look forsome to-morrow. Lo I, for ever yours, am smiling on you now."
And a golden light, richer than any sunbeam, rippled through the room.I knew the soft gleam like the sunset on a harvest-field. It was myLily's smile. A glow of warmth was shed on me, and I fell at once intoa deep and dreamless sleep. You, my child, who have never known suchloss--pray God you never may--very likely you regard all this incidentas a dream. Be it so: if it were a dream, Lily's angel brought it.