“Oh! John, what is the matter? where is Mr. DeVare? what has happened?”
“He is dead!” I said, with a vacant stare; then, turning, rushed up stairs, heedless of her calls for mother. I managed to reach my bed, when I fell across it into a great black chasm of oblivion.
CHAPTER XXIV.
How strange those long days of insensibility now seem! How mysterious that vague consciousness of unconsciousness, when the mind closes all communication with the outer world, and lives in a state of semi-existence within itself! All sight was gone, yet a dull gray blank pressed down upon my eyeballs – gray and dull, though invisible; all hearing was gone, yet a singing sound lingered in my ears, as if a cap had been exploded near them; feeling there was none, yet an undefined pain and sickness pervaded my system, like a dream of deadly nausea. A gap in existence, a chasm in thought and sense, known through the veil of an uncertain consciousness! After a long while, as it seemed to me, vague, uncertain shadows began to flit across this dull blank before my vision. Gradually, after many flittings, they began to assume varying shapes; and, as the form and features of a negative slowly come into distinctness as the photographer washes the plate, so these shapes began to show distinctly as familiar forms and faces. But oh! how changed their expression! Those whom I had thought loved me most now wore the blackest scowl for me, and, pointing at me, called me Murderer! Father, mother and Carlotta stood around me constantly, regarding me with a fiendish malignity and hatred. But among all the faces that passed before me there was one that never changed its position or expression – always directly before me, almost touching mine; a face with a stony glare from its fixed eyes; a face with a snarl of hate on its white lips, from which bubbled a froth of blood; a face I could never escape, go where I would. I sprang over frightful precipices, I traversed burning deserts, I climbed rugged wilds, but everywhere, turning as I turned, that face was ever before me, freezing my blood with its hideous scowl. After awhile these visions became less distinct, and soon another blank succeeded, during which I one day unclosed my eyes and found everything familiar around me.
The room was darkened and silent. The occasional clicking of the coals in the grate, as they powdered their red cheeks with white ashes, and the foot-fall of a passer on the pavement below, were all the sounds I could hear. I tried to raise myself on my elbow to make out what it all meant, but I had scarcely made the effort when some one rose from a chair at the side of the bed, and Carlotta’s beautiful face bent over me, with an expression of anxious inquiry, as if she thought I was still delirious.
“Where – where have I been? How came I in bed?” I said, in a weak, drawling voice.
“Oh, you are yourself again!” she exclaimed, with a cry of delight; “let me run and tell Mrs. Smith.”
“No; stop! Tell me what I am doing in this dark room. What is the matter with me?”
“You have been very sick,” she said, removing a wet cloth from my forehead, and wiping the dampness away; “you have been delirious for more than two weeks. But the doctor says you must lie still and not talk.”
“But I will talk,” I said, peevishly; “I will know how I came here. Where are Ned and Ramie?”
A half distinct memory of the duel and its consequences flitted across my mind, but it was all so confused that it seemed some horrid dream, and in helpless uncertainty I turned my cheek over on my palm and gazed at Carlotta, imploringly.
She stroked my forehead with her soft hand, and begged me to remain quiet, promising to tell me all I wanted to know as soon as I became a little stronger. Her touch and sweet voice were so soothing that I fell into a gentle doze, from which I soon awoke much clearer in my mind than before. And now a blighting remembrance of Ramie’s death came over me, with such force as to nearly unsettle my reason again.
Mother soon came in, and, by skilfully diverting my thoughts from the painful subject, managed to remove some of the shadows that clustered around me.
Days lengthened into weeks before I was able to sit up, and how dreary would have been those convalescent hours had it not been for Carlotta! She seemed to have no interest outside of my room. Her attention was never officious or too constant, and it was rendered with so much tact it seemed as if I was conferring a favor by accepting it. I was so sure it was a pleasure to her that I never refused letting her do whatever she would for me. She would sit by my bedside for hours reading or talking to me, seeking to divert me by all means possible from gloomy thoughts or sad reflections. So bright was the sunshine of her presence that I was unhappy unless she were near me; and however dreary I might be feeling, as soon as she entered, my face and heart would sensibly brighten.
While she would never allow me to draw her into conversation about Ramie and his mother, yet I gradually learned the sad truth. After Madame DeVare was carried to the hotel every effort was made by the physicians to revive her, but in vain. The cataleptic stroke, induced by the shock she received, in spite of all their labor, proved fatal, and she and Ramie were buried together in the cemetery the same day.
Then Carlotta would listen with such a pleasant, talk-eliciting interest to my stories of college life that I could talk with untiring volubility. In return she would tell me of all that had occurred at home since I had been away, with so much originality of expression and artlessness of narration that I would lie and gaze for an hour at a time on her faultless face. Occasionally she would lift her eyes from her needlework, and whenever they met mine I always looked away with a strange and unaccountable confusion.
One day, in our talk, she asked me if Frank and I were still good friends. I told her no, and inquired why she asked.
“Because Lulie has changed so in her conduct towards me. She has been very reserved and formal with me since you left, and rarely visits me.”
“Has Frank been paying her much attention this vacation?” I asked, taking a sip of the cordial that stood by my bed.
“I have not had many opportunities for observing,” she replied, driving her stiletto through a floss flower on her embroidery; “but I have seen them together many times, and gossip says they are very much devoted. Perhaps it is at his request she has withdrawn her intimacy from me.”
“No doubt of it,” I replied; “she is perfectly infatuated, and he cares nothing whatever for her, except as a conquest to boast of. I heard him read one of her letters to a crowd in his room one night, and tell of liberties he had taken.”
Her dark eyes opened with a flash of indignant astonishment as she exclaimed, energetically:
“And she trusts to such perfidy! I’ll warn her, if she spurns me, for we have been fond friends. But no,” she added, after a pause; “that would implicate you, and perhaps lead to another affray.”
“I don’t care,” I said, punching in the end of the pillow, as if it were Frank’s head; “tell her by all means. I would go to her myself, but she would think it was an invention of my own to supersede Frank in her favor.”
“I hear Mrs. Smith coming up stairs,” said Carlotta, folding up her work; “and as it is late in the afternoon I’ll run over to Dr. Mayland’s and have a good long talk with Lulie, and get back in time to bring up your tea.”
“Bless your dear heart, how I love you!” I murmured, as I watched her tucking back the curtains and setting everything to rights ere she tripped from the room. I could not help instituting a comparison between her and Miss Carrover, and I could find only one point in the latter’s favor: that she was a grown lady, who had seen much of society, while Carlotta was, to my college dignity, only a child – too often present for the romantic sigh, and too constantly near for the heart-throb when I met her.
And, in thinking of Lillian, the faint shadow of a demon thought began to flit across my mind. The baseness of its ingratitude made me shudder as I shrank from it; yet it gradually grew, ever lurking deep down in my heart, as it whispered, through the reveries of the day and the dreams of the night, “Lillian can love you now; Ramie is dead.”
Deeply ungrateful as it was to the memory of my noble friend, I could not help looking forward with pleasure to my meeting with her: when I could take her hand, and, looking into her fond eyes, hear her say, “Nothing binds me now; I am yours forever.”
I would then endeavor to plaster over conscience by imagining how fondly we would cherish together the memory of DeVare; how we would pour our mingled tears upon his grave, and feel that his spirit was smiling upon our union. And I would endeavor to convince myself that I would be acting in exact conformity to the wishes of Ramie, could he express them; and I would say a dozen times in a day, “I am sure Ramie had rather she would love me than another.”
A day or two elapsed and I was able to walk about the house before Carlotta had an opportunity of telling me the result of her visit to Lulie.
She said that as soon as she mentioned the subject Lulie had gotten into quite a passion about it, and said she had parents to advise her, and that she was under obligations to no one else for advice; that she would do as she pleased and take the consequences.
“May heaven help her,” I said fervently, as we changed the subject.
CHAPTER XXV.
Ned and I are again at Chapel Hill, in our old room. We found our books and furniture dusty, but undisturbed, and a day’s preparation sufficed to get us in harness again.
It was with great difficulty father had secured my re-admission. His first application was peremptorily refused, but by many letters and pledges to the trustees and faculty, and in consideration of my youth and inexperience, I was at last allowed to go on with my class.
For all this I had made extra resolves of diligence, and had promised father that nothing should divert me from intense application to my books.
Of Miss Carrover I thought but little. I had heard from Charleston, whither she had gone soon after the duel, that she was the gayest belle of its society. This disregard of what was due the memory of her betrothed, coupled with the gradually acquired conviction that my suit was hopeless, and a conscientious desire to do well in my studies, had somewhat impaired the romantic fervor of my admiration for her, and I heard with remarkable composure the statement that she would spend a week or two in Chapel Hill on her way to New York. I resolved at first not to see her at all; but, feeling that this was too great a confession of weakness, even to myself, and having, besides, in my possession the valuables DeVare had requested me to deliver to her, I determined to call just once, that I might mark her deportment before making up my final judgment on her character. Of one thing I was fully resolved, that whether she was gay or sad, whether kind and cordial or cold and distant towards me, no word or glance of mine should betray the faintest trace of the old love, or depart from the consistent seriousness of real bereavement.
When I entered the parlor at Professor Z – ’s I found her surrounded by a throng of admirers. As she came forward to meet me, the same superbly beautiful woman I had once adored, her usual queenly air softened into one of kindest greeting, and gave me both hands in her warm welcome, my heart bounded wildly, and for a moment I had forgotten Ramie, resolves, and everything save the rapture of being near her again – of hearing her soft, rich voice, and gazing into her dreamy eyes. The presence of other gentlemen restrained me, or I believe I should have knelt at her feet.
Taking my seat in the circle, and dropping into a commonplace conversation, I gradually regained my senses and my self-control. And as I became composed, and marked the levity of her conduct – the jest, the sarcasm and the repartee – and then thought of the cold form in the cemetery at home, my admiration of her beauty was tinged with contempt for her frivolity.
Her visitors began to depart, and I was about to say good night without having accomplished my mission, when she handed me a slip of paper, on which she had scribbled the words “Don’t leave.”
Of course I waited, and we were soon in the parlor alone.
As the last one closed the door she moved on the sofa and said:
“Come, sit by me. Oh, how tiresome those fellows are! and I wanted to be alone with you so much. Now tell me all about yourself, for it has been a dreary, long time since I have seen you.”
“I thought you were aware, Miss Carrover, that I was connected with a most unfortunate affair at the close of the session,” I replied, nervously twisting my watch chain, for I hardly knew what reply to make, and felt embarrassed and awkward.
“Oh! do not speak of that,” she exclaimed, burying her face in her handkerchief, and trembling with very inaudible sobs. “I was trying to avoid that subject. My heart has been almost broken in its agony. Only in the past few days have I been able to compose my thoughts and feelings. Oh, the terrible shock of the announcement!” Her voice was so muffled by the handkerchief over her face that her words were almost indistinguishable. Far better could they have been lost in the cambric folds than to have vibrated into eternal existence!
The only reply I could make was to give her the casket containing Ramie’s ring and jewels, as he had directed.
She lifted her face, with eyes rather dry for such convulsive weeping, and taking the casket pressed it to her lips, as she said:
“And did he think of me! Oh, how can I ever love you enough for your kindness to him!”
I ventured to say, “Love his memory.”
“I do, I do,” she replied, looking into my eyes with hers clear and tearless. “Heaven alone knows how I cherish the memory of my noble Ramie!”
I did her the justice to believe her, but said nothing.
She continued, trying to open the back of the watch:
“But, my dear friend, for this mutual grief has made you seem nearer than ever before, there is one point on which I want your counsel. How must I act towards society? Must I open my heart to its hundred eyes, and, by a sudden seclusion and retirement, reveal my sacred sorrow to its gaze; or must I go through the hollow mockery of gaiety, and assume a cheerful face with an aching heart? Gentlemen call every evening, and I am at a loss to know what to do. If I refuse to receive visitors it will cause remark and inquiry, and my engagement with Mr. DeVare will be made public, with all the usual train of disagreeable comment. I sometimes think it were best to do violence to my own feelings, and appear in company as if nothing had happened, while I am here. I will soon be in New York, where I can adapt my conduct to my sad bereavement. Do you not think so?”
“Really, Miss Carrover,” I replied, coldly, for the veil of her pretended sorrow was too thin, “I do not feel competent to advise you. You know best how the death of DeVare affects you; and, if you will pardon me for saying it, your smiles and favors to the frivolous throng to-night would indicate that your course of action is already determined.”
“Oh, Mr. Smith, you blame me, I know you do, and perhaps I deserve it; but you cannot appreciate my feelings. I did love Ramie devotedly, for he was the noblest and best of earth; but no one knew we were betrothed, and to retire from society now would be only to reveal what he wished kept secret. Besides, I will be candid enough to confess that I find the best cure for a sad heart in a round of pleasure, and, knowing that seclusion and manifested grief were not expected of me, I have sought to drown my sorrow in a whirl of frivolity.”
She paused, and looked at me for some reply, but, as I could make none but what would have offended her, I said nothing.
“I know serious people will blame me for this trifling,” she continued, “but gaiety and pleasure are as much my element as the air I breathe. Those who know me will not cease to love me. And you, who once professed such devotion, now hate me, because I do not wear a widow’s weeds! Please do not desert me when we ought to become better friends; love me still,” and she laid her soft, beautiful hand on mine.
Who could have resisted? A moment before I was despising her heartlessness, now, at the electric touch of her hand, I was changed; the old flame burst forth again with resistless fervor, and I could take her, heartless as she was, to be forever mine, only so that she loved me. I almost crushed her hand in mine as I pressed my lips upon it again and again.
“Love you, Lillian! Heaven only knows how madly, how wildly I do love you. Only say just once that you love me, or bid me hope. I have never ceased to love you, Lillian, but your faith was plighted to another, and I crushed my heart into silence. But he who stood between us is dead, and, as God shall judge me, I have sorrowed sincerely over his grave; but nothing now binds you; you are free to love me if you will. Darling, darling Lillian, come to my heart and be its queen.”
I put forth my arms to draw her to my side, but she drew back and said:
“No, sir, the change is too sudden. A moment ago there was a look of contempt on your face – nay, do not deny it – and now you would have me believe these wild protestations of your phœnix-like love.”
There was a gleam of triumph in her eyes that told me she did believe me, and gloried in her wondrous power, but I was careless of everything save to be lord of her hand and heart.
“Lillian,” I said, gazing into her face with such intense earnestness that even her eyes fell beneath my gaze, “you once believed me; will you doubt me now when I swear to you that I love you as no other man ever dared love you before – that I am willing to give up everything for your sake, even the memory of Ramie? If that stands between our love, I will forget that he ever lived and forget that he ever died.”
I felt a shudder run from her frame into her hand as the harsh words fell from my lips, but ‘twas only a shudder.
“You are sure you mean what you say?” she said, with a half credulous smile that irritated me, and a slight pressure of her fingers that soothed and made me hopeful. I waited for her to continue, and we both sat for a few moments gazing into the glowing coals on the hearth before us. Suddenly, deep in the fire, where the heat was whitest, a dull red spot appeared, that seemed to rise and fall as if there was breath beneath it. In an instant I was again kneeling on the damp ground, with a white face resting on my arm, and pale lips bubbling blood as they bade me farewell. It was as vivid as vision itself; and after the eyes were closed by the surgeon’s hand, I could still see the pale lips murmuring, “False! False!”
My hands and forehead grew cold as ice, and my heart, in its remorse, beat audibly, “False loving false! False loving false!” My resolve was taken from that moment; I would not be shaken from it by scorn or tears. I dropped her hand and, rising, said:
“Miss Carrover, I did mean all that I said; you know that I have loved you; but forget it. Even if you could love me, which I dare not hope, it must not be – Ramie’s spirit forbids it. Will you pardon what I have said tonight?”
She rose and stood before me, the personification of anger and scorn, her dreamy eyes now flashing, and her beautiful face flushed with her feeling.
“Do you fear that I am going to accept your paltry love, that you hasten to retract it? Not content with insulting me with your cant about what was due the dead, you have attempted a contemptible flirtation. To say that I saw through your pitiful design, would indicate that I paid some attention to your rhodomontade, which I did not; but ‘tis useless to waste further words upon you; I can never sufficiently express my contempt; there! go, sir!” and with a gesture that would have graced Siddons she pointed her jewelled hand to the door.
With a profound bow, I said:
“Thanks, Miss Carrover, for the lesson of to-night. But before I take my leave permit me to remind you that you asked my adv – ” but she had swept magnificently from the room.
The next evening, while strolling with Ned on the suburbs of the village, I met Miss Carrover riding in a buggy with Ellerton, who had not yet applied for re-admission to the University, but was staying with a friend. She looked confused as she passed us, and averted her head, while I turned and stared at them till they were out of sight.
“Oh, Ramie, Ramie,” I murmured, as we turned homeward, “better to wed death than the false creature of thy betrothal; better the worm at thy lips than her kiss; better the sod on thy cheek than her Delilah-like caresses.”