Isabel fixed her wonderful eyes upon him with a gaze of long impa.s.sionment; then rose suddenly to her feet, and advanced swiftly toward him; but more suddenly paused, and reseated herself in silence, and continued so for a time, with her head averted from him, and mutely resting on her hand, gazing out of the open cas.e.m.e.nt upon the soft heat-lightning, occasionally revealed there.
She resumed anon.
II.
"My brother, thou wilt remember that certain part of my story which in reference to my more childish years spent remote from here, introduced the gentleman--my--yes, _our_ father, Pierre. I can not describe to thee, for indeed, I do not myself comprehend how it was, that though at the time I sometimes called him my father, and the people of the house also called him so, sometimes when speaking of him to me; yet--partly, I suppose, because of the extraordinary secludedness of my previous life--I did not then join in my mind with the word father, all those peculiar a.s.sociations which the term ordinarily inspires in children.
The word father only seemed a word of general love and endearment to me--little or nothing more; it did not seem to involve any claims of any sort, one way or the other. I did not ask the name of my father; for I could have had no motive to hear him named, except to individualize the person who was so peculiarly kind to me; and individualized in that way he already was, since he was generally called by us _the gentleman_, and sometimes _my father_. As I have no reason to suppose that had I then or afterward, questioned the people of the house as to what more particular name my father went by in the world, they would have at all disclosed it to me; and, indeed, since, for certain singular reasons, I now feel convinced that on that point they were pledged to secrecy; I do not know that I ever would have come to learn my father"s name,--and by consequence, ever have learned the least shade or shadow of knowledge as to you, Pierre, or any of your kin--had it not been for the merest little accident, which early revealed it to me, though at the moment I did not know the value of that knowledge. The last time my father visited the house, he chanced to leave his handkerchief behind him. It was the farmer"s wife who first discovered it. She picked it up, and fumbling at it a moment, as if rapidly examining the corners, tossed it to me, saying, "Here, Isabel, here is the good gentleman"s handkerchief; keep it for him now, till he comes to see little Bell again." Gladly I caught the handkerchief, and put it into my bosom. It was a white one; and upon closely scanning it, I found a small line of fine faded yellowish writing in the middle of it. At that time I could not read either print or writing, so I was none the wiser then; but still, some secret instinct told me, that the woman would not so freely have given me the handkerchief, had she known there was any writing on it. I forbore questioning her on the subject; I waited till my father should return, to secretly question him. The handkerchief had become dusty by lying on the uncarpeted floor. I took it to the brook and washed it, and laid it out on the gra.s.s where none would chance to pa.s.s; and I ironed it under my little ap.r.o.n, so that none would be attracted to it, to look at it again. But my father never returned; so, in my grief, the handkerchief became the more and the more endeared to me; it absorbed many of the secret tears I wept in memory of my dear departed friend, whom, in my child-like ignorance, I then equally called _my father_ and _the gentleman_. But when the impression of his death became a fixed thing to me, then again I washed and dried and ironed the precious memorial of him, and put it away where none should find it but myself, and resolved never more to soil it with my tears; and I folded it in such a manner, that the name was invisibly buried in the heart of it, and it was like opening a book and turning over many blank leaves before I came to the mysterious writing, which I knew should be one day read by me, without direct help from any one. Now I resolved to learn my letters, and learn to read, in order that of myself I might learn the meaning of those faded characters. No other purpose but that only one, did I have in learning then to read. I easily induced the woman to give me my little teachings, and being uncommonly quick, and moreover, most eager to learn, I soon mastered the alphabet, and went on to spelling, and by-and-by to reading, and at last to the complete deciphering of the talismanic word--Glendinning. I was yet very ignorant. _Glendinning_, thought I, what is that? It sounds something like _gentleman_;--Glen-din-ning;--just as many syllables as _gentleman_; and--G--it begins with the same letter; yes, it must mean _my father_. I will think of him by that word now;--I will not think of the _gentleman_, but of _Glendinning_. When at last I removed from that house and went to another, and still another, and as I still grew up and thought more to myself, that word was ever humming in my head, I saw it would only prove the key to more. But I repressed all undue curiosity, if any such has ever filled my breast. I would not ask of any one, who it was that had been Glendinning; where he had lived; whether, ever any other girl or boy had called him father as I had done. I resolved to hold myself in perfect patience, as somehow mystically certain, that Fate would at last disclose to me, of itself, and at the suitable time, whatever Fate thought it best for me to know. But now, my brother, I must go aside a little for a moment.--Hand me the guitar."
Surprised and rejoiced thus far at the unantic.i.p.ated newness, and the sweet lucidness and simplicity of Isabel"s narrating, as compared with the obscure and marvelous revelations of the night before, and all eager for her to continue her story in the same limpid manner, but remembering into what a wholly tumultuous and unearthly frame of mind the melodies of her guitar had formerly thrown him; Pierre now, in handing the instrument to Isabel, could not entirely restrain something like a look of half-regret, accompanied rather strangely with a half-smile of gentle humor. It did not pa.s.s unnoticed by his sister, who receiving the guitar, looked up into his face with an expression which would almost have been arch and playful, were it not for the ever-abiding shadows cast from her infinite hair into her unfathomed eyes, and redoubledly shot back again from them.
"Do not be alarmed, my brother; and do not smile at me; I am not going to play the Mystery of Isabel to thee to-night. Draw nearer to me now.
Hold the light near to me."
So saying she loosened some ivory screws of the guitar, so as to open a peep lengthwise through its interior.
"Now hold it thus, my brother; thus; and see what thou wilt see; but wait one instant till I hold the lamp." So saying, as Pierre held the instrument before him as directed, Isabel held the lamp so as to cast its light through the round sounding-hole into the heart of the guitar.
"Now, Pierre, now."
Eagerly Pierre did as he was bid; but somehow felt disappointed, and yet surprised at what he saw. He saw the word _Isabel_, quite legibly but still fadedly gilded upon a part of one side of the interior, where it made a projecting curve.
"A very curious place thou hast chosen, Isabel, wherein to have the ownership of the guitar engraved. How did ever any person get in there to do it, I should like to know?"
The girl looked surprisedly at him a moment; then took the instrument from him, and looked into it herself. She put it down, and continued.
"I see, my brother, thou dost not comprehend. When one knows every thing about any object, one is too apt to suppose that the slightest hint will suffice to throw it quite as open to any other person. _I_ did not have the name gilded there, my brother."
"How?" cried Pierre.
"The name was gilded there when I first got the guitar, though then I did not know it. The guitar must have been expressly made for some one by the name of Isabel; because the lettering could only have been put there before the guitar was put together."
"Go on--hurry," said Pierre.
"Yes, one day, after I had owned it a long time, a strange whim came into me. Thou know"st that it is not at all uncommon for children to break their dearest playthings in order to gratify a half-crazy curiosity to find out what is in the hidden heart of them. So it is with children, sometimes. And, Pierre, I have always been, and feel that I must always continue to be a child, though I should grow to three score years and ten. Seized with this sudden whim, I unscrewed the part I showed thee, and peeped in, and saw "Isabel." Now I have not yet told thee, that from as early a time as I can remember, I have nearly always gone by the name of Bell. And at the particular time I now speak of, my knowledge of general and trivial matters was sufficiently advanced to make it quite a familiar thing to me, that Bell was often a diminutive for Isabella, or Isabel. It was therefore no very strange affair, that considering my age, and other connected circ.u.mstances at the time, I should have instinctively a.s.sociated the word Isabel, found in the guitar, with my own abbreviated name, and so be led into all sorts of fancyings. They return upon me now. Do not speak to me."
She leaned away from him, toward the occasionally illuminated cas.e.m.e.nt, in the same manner as on the previous night, and for a few moments seemed struggling with some wild bewilderment But now she suddenly turned, and fully confronted Pierre with all the wonderfulness of her most surprising face.
"I am called woman, and thou, man, Pierre; but there is neither man nor woman about it. Why should I not speak out to thee? There is no s.e.x in our immaculateness. Pierre, the secret name in the guitar even now thrills me through and through. Pierre, think! think! Oh, canst thou not comprehend? see it?--what I mean, Pierre? The secret name in the guitar thrills me, thrills me, whirls me, whirls me; so secret, wholly hidden, yet constantly carried about in it; unseen, unsuspected, always vibrating to the hidden heart-strings--broken heart-strings; oh, my mother, my mother, my mother!"
As the wild plaints of Isabel pierced into his bosom"s core, they carried with them the first inkling of the extraordinary conceit, so vaguely and shrinkingly hinted at in her till now entirely unintelligible words.
She lifted her dry burning eyes of long-fringed fire to him.
"Pierre--I have no slightest proof--but the guitar was _hers_, I know, I feel it was. Say, did I not last night tell thee, how it first sung to me upon the bed, and answered me, without my once touching it? and how it always sung to me and answered me, and soothed and loved me,--Hark now; thou shalt hear my mother"s spirit."
She carefully scanned the strings, and tuned them carefully; then placed the guitar in the cas.e.m.e.nt-bench, and knelt before it; and in low, sweet, and changefully modulated notes, so barely audible, that Pierre bent over to catch them; breathed the word _mother, mother, mother_!
There was profound silence for a time; when suddenly, to the lowest and least audible note of all, the magical untouched guitar responded with a quick spark of melody, which in the following hush, long vibrated and subsidingly tingled through the room; while to his augmented wonder, he now espied, quivering along the metallic strings of the guitar, some minute scintillations, seemingly caught from the instrument"s close proximity to the occasionally irradiated window.
The girl still kept kneeling; but an altogether unwonted expression suddenly overcast her whole countenance. She darted one swift glance at Pierre; and then with a single toss of her hand tumbled her unrestrained locks all over her, so that they tent-wise invested her whole kneeling form close to the floor, and yet swept the floor with their wild redundancy. Never Saya of Limeean girl, at dim ma.s.s in St. Dominic"s cathedral, so completely m.u.f.fled the human figure. To Pierre, the deep oaken recess of the double-cas.e.m.e.nt, before which Isabel was kneeling, seemed now the immediate vestibule of some awful shrine, mystically revealed through the obscurely open window, which ever and anon was still softly illumined by the mild heat-lightnings and ground-lightnings, that wove their wonderfulness without, in the unsearchable air of that ebonly warm and most noiseless summer night.
Some unsubduable word was on Pierre"s lip, but a sudden voice from out the veil bade him be silent.
"Mother--mother--mother!"
Again, after a preluding silence, the guitar as magically responded as before; the sparks quivered along its strings; and again Pierre felt as in the immediate presence of the spirit.
"Shall I, mother?--Art thou ready? Wilt thou tell me?--Now? Now?"
These words were lowly and sweetly murmured in the same way with the word _mother_, being changefully varied in their modulations, till at the last _now_, the magical guitar again responded; and the girl swiftly drew it to her beneath her dark tent of hair. In this act, as the long curls swept over the strings of the guitar, the strange sparks--still quivering there--caught at those attractive curls; the entire cas.e.m.e.nt was suddenly and wovenly illumined; then waned again; while now, in the succeeding dimness, every downward undulating wave and billow of Isabel"s tossed tresses gleamed here and there like a tract of phosph.o.r.escent midnight sea; and, simultaneously, all the four winds of the world of melody broke loose, and again as on the previous night, only in a still more subtile, and wholly inexplicable way, Pierre felt himself surrounded by ten thousand sprites and gnomes, and his whole soul was swayed and tossed by supernatural tides; and again he heard the wondrous, rebounding, chanted words:
"Mystery! Mystery!
Mystery of Isabel!
Mystery! Mystery!
Isabel and Mystery!
Mystery!"
III.
Almost deprived of consciousness by the spell flung over him by the marvelous girl, Pierre unknowingly gazed away from her, as on vacancy; and when at last stillness had once more fallen upon the room--all except the stepping--and he recovered his self-possession, and turned to look where he might now be, he was surprised to see Isabel composedly, though avertedly, seated on the bench; the longer and fuller tresses of her now ungleaming hair flung back, and the guitar quietly leaning in the corner.
He was about to put some unconsidered question to her, but she half-antic.i.p.ated it by bidding him, in a low, but nevertheless almost authoritative tone, not to make any allusion to the scene he had just beheld.
He paused, profoundly thinking to himself, and now felt certain that the entire scene, from the first musical invocation of the guitar, must have unpremeditatedly proceeded from a sudden impulse in the girl, inspired by the peculiar mood into which the preceding conversation, and especially the handling of the guitar under such circ.u.mstances, had irresistibly thrown her.
But that certain something of the preternatural in the scene, of which he could not rid his mind:--the, so to speak, voluntary and all but intelligent responsiveness of the guitar--its strangely scintillating strings--the so suddenly glorified head of Isabel; altogether, these things seemed not at the time entirely produced by customary or natural causes. To Pierre"s dilated senses Isabel seemed to swim in an electric fluid; the vivid buckler of her brow seemed as a magnetic plate. Now first this night was Pierre made aware of what, in the superst.i.tiousness of his rapt enthusiasm, he could not help believing was an extraordinary physical magnetism in Isabel. And--as it were derived from this marvelous quality thus imputed to her--he now first became vaguely sensible of a certain still more marvelous power in the girl over himself and his most interior thoughts and motions;--a power so hovering upon the confines of the invisible world, that it seemed more inclined that way than this;--a power which not only seemed irresistibly to draw him toward Isabel, but to draw him away from another quarter--wantonly as it were, and yet quite ignorantly and unintendingly; and, besides, without respect apparently to any thing ulterior, and yet again, only under cover of drawing him to her. For over all these things, and interfusing itself with the sparkling electricity in which she seemed to swim, was an ever-creeping and condensing haze of ambiguities. Often, in after-times with her, did he recall this first magnetic night, and would seem to see that she then had bound him to her by an extraordinary atmospheric spell--both physical and spiritual--which henceforth it had become impossible for him to break, but whose full potency he never recognized till long after he had become habituated to its sway. This spell seemed one with that Pantheistic master-spell, which eternally locks in mystery and in muteness the universal subject world, and the physical electricalness of Isabel seemed reciprocal with the heat-lightnings and the ground-lightnings nigh to which it had first become revealed to Pierre. She seemed molded from fire and air, and vivified at some Voltaic pile of August thunder-clouds heaped against the sunset.
The occasional sweet simplicity, and innocence, and humbleness of her story; her often serene and open aspect; her deep-seated, but mostly quiet, un.o.btrusive sadness, and that touchingness of her less unwonted tone and air;--these only the more signalized and contrastingly emphasized the profounder, subtler, and more mystic part of her.
Especially did Pierre feel this, when after another silent interval, she now proceeded with her story in a manner so gently confiding, so entirely artless, so almost peasant-like in its simplicity, and dealing in some details so little sublimated in themselves, that it seemed well nigh impossible that this una.s.suming maid should be the same dark, regal being who had but just now bade Pierre be silent in so imperious a tone, and around whose wondrous temples the strange electric glory had been playing. Yet not very long did she now thus innocently proceed, ere, at times, some fainter flashes of her electricalness came from her, but only to be followed by such melting, human, and most feminine traits as brought all his soft, enthusiast tears into the sympathetic but still unshedding eyes of Pierre.
IV.
"Thou rememberest, my brother, my telling thee last night, how the--the--thou knowest what I mean--_that, there_"--avertedly pointing to the guitar; "thou rememberest how it came into my possession. But perhaps I did not tell thee, that the pedler said he had got it in barter from the servants of a great house some distance from the place where I was then residing."
Pierre signed his acquiescence, and Isabel proceeded:
"Now, at long though stated intervals, that man pa.s.sed the farm-house in his trading route between the small towns and villages. When I discovered the gilding in the guitar, I kept watch for him; for though I truly felt persuaded that Fate had the dispensing of her own secrets in her own good time; yet I also felt persuaded that in some cases Fate drops us one little hint, leaving our own minds to follow it up, so that we of ourselves may come to the grand secret in reserve. So I kept diligent watch for him; and the next time he stopped, without permitting him at all to guess my motives, I contrived to steal out of him what great house it was from which the guitar had come. And, my brother, it was the mansion of Saddle Meadows."
Pierre started, and the girl went on:
"Yes, my brother, Saddle Meadows; "old General Glendinning"s place," he said; "but the old hero"s long dead and gone now; and--the more"s the pity--so is the young General, his son, dead and gone; but then there is a still younger grandson General left; that family always keep the t.i.tle and the name a-going; yes, even to the surname,--Pierre. Pierre Glendinning was the white-haired old General"s name, who fought in the old French and Indian wars; and Pierre Glendinning is his young great-grandson"s name." Thou may"st well look at me so, my brother;--yes, he meant thee, _thee_, my brother."
"But the guitar--the guitar!"--cried Pierre--"how came the guitar openly at Saddle Meadows, and how came it to be bartered away by servants? Tell me that, Isabel!"
"Do not put such impetuous questions to me, Pierre; else thou mayst recall the old--may be, it is the evil spell upon me. I can not precisely and knowingly answer thee. I could surmise; but what are surmises worth? Oh, Pierre, better, a million times, and far sweeter are mysteries than surmises: though the mystery be unfathomable, it is still the unfathomableness of fullness; but the surmise, that is but shallow and unmeaning emptiness."
"But this is the most inexplicable point of all. Tell me, Isabel; surely thou must have thought something about this thing."