"I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I have a right to reclaim it."
I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded up the letter and covered it from sight.
"You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don"t know my skill in sleight of hand; I might practise as a conjuror if I liked. Mamma says sometimes, too, that I have a harmonizing property of tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me-did you, Lucy?"
"Indeed-indeed-when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more then than now-for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with subtlety. But still,-Dr. John, you have what they call in this country "un air fin," that n.o.body can, mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and--"
"And liked it," said he, laughing, "because she has it herself. But, Lucy, give me that letter-you don"t really care for it."
To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile playing about his lips-very sweet, but it grieved me somehow-a new sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not rea.s.suring. I rose to go-I bid him good-night a little sadly.
His sensitiveness-that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of his-felt in a moment the unspoken complaint-the scarce-thought reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as implying a negative.
"Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in your look and manner, however well controlled, that whilst alone this evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret-that dungeon under the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with phthisis and catarrh: a place you never ought to enter-that you saw, or thought you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to impress the imagination. I know that you are not, nor ever were, subject to material terrors, fears of robbers, &c.-I am not so sure that a visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake your very mind. Be calm now. This is all a matter of the nerves, I see: but just specify the vision."
"You will tell n.o.body?"
"n.o.body-most certainly. You may trust me as implicitly as you did Pere Silas. Indeed, the doctor is perhaps the safer confessor of the two, though he has not grey hair."
"You will not laugh?"
"Perhaps I may, to do you good: but not in scorn. Lucy, I feel as a friend towards you, though your timid nature is slow to trust."
He now looked like a friend: that indescribable smile and sparkle were gone; those formidable arched curves of lip, nostril, eyebrow, were depressed; repose marked his att.i.tude-attention sobered his aspect. Won to confidence, I told him exactly what I had seen: ere now I had narrated to him the legend of the house-whiling away with that narrative an hour of a certain mild October afternoon, when he and I rode through Bois l"Etang.
He sat and thought, and while he thought, we heard them all coming down-stairs.
"Are they going to interrupt?" said he, glancing at the door with an annoyed expression.
"They will not come here," I answered; for we were in the little salon where Madame never sat in the evening, and where it was by mere chance that heat was still lingering in the stove. They pa.s.sed the door and went on to the salle-a-manger.
"Now," he pursued, "they will talk about thieves, burglars, and so on: let them do so-mind you say nothing, and keep your resolution of describing your nun to n.o.body. She may appear to you again: don"t start."
"You think then," I said, with secret horror, "she came out of my brain, and is now gone in there, and may glide out again at an hour and a day when I look not for her?"
"I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear, following on and resulting from long-continued mental conflict."
"Oh, Doctor John-I shudder at the thought of being liable to such an illusion! It seemed so real. Is there no cure?-no preventive?"
"Happiness is the cure-a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both."
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do you cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged me. Adversity gave me and my mother one pa.s.sing scowl and brush, but we defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
"There is no cultivation in all this."
"I do not give way to melancholy."
"Yes: I have seen you subdued by that feeling."
"About Ginevra Fanshawe-eh?"
"Did she not sometimes make you miserable?"
"Pooh! stuff! nonsense! You see I am better now."
If a laughing eye with a lively light, and a face bright with beaming and healthy energy, could attest that he was better, better he certainly was.
"You do not look much amiss, or greatly out of condition," I allowed.
"And why, Lucy, can"t you look and feel as I do-buoyant, courageous, and fit to defy all the nuns and flirts in Christendom? I would give gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manoeuvre."
"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"
"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one thing-true, yes, and pa.s.sionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no less a price."
"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while since."
"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave! but I am a free man now!"
He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was more than ease-a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.
"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much disposed to exact love for love-pa.s.sion for pa.s.sion-and good measure of it, too."
"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under difficulties-to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".
He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his gloves), "will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"
"I don"t think she will."
"Give her my compliments, if she does-Dr. John"s compliments-and entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that yet; and that is the really important point."
"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes glittered."
"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at least she had handsome eyes-bright and soft."
"Cold and fixed," was the reply.
"No, no, we"ll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand that, do you think?"
I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."
And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was rarely without one or more panes broken or cracked: and besides, a heavy hail-storm had fallen a few days ago. Madame questioned me very closely as to what I had seen, but I only described an obscure figure clothed in black: I took care not to breathe the word "nun," certain that this word would at once suggest to her mind an idea of romance and unreality. She charged me to say nothing on the subject to any servant, pupil, or teacher, and highly commended my discretion in coming to her private salle-a-manger, instead of carrying the tale of horror to the school refectory. Thus the subject dropped. I was left secretly and sadly to wonder, in my own mind, whether that strange thing was of this world, or of a realm beyond the grave; or whether indeed it was only the child of malady, and I of that malady the prey.