iris has told me that the scottish gift of second-sight runs in her family, and that she is afraid she has it. those who are so endowed look upon a well man and see a shroud wrapt about him. according to the degree to which it covers him, his death will be near or more remote. it is an awful faculty; but science gives one too much like it. luckily for our friends, most of us who have the scientific second-sight school ourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or look.
day by day, as the little gentleman comes to the table, it seems to me that the shadow of some approaching change falls darker and darker over his countenance. nature is struggling with something, and i am afraid she is under in the wrestling-match. you do not care much, perhaps, for my particular conjectures as to the nature of his difficulty. i should say, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is subject, and certain other marks which, as an expert, i know how to interpret, that his heart was in trouble; but then he presses his hand to the right side, as if there were the centre of his uneasiness.
when i say difficulty about the heart, i do not mean any of those sentimental maladies of that organ which figure more largely in romances than on the returns which furnish our bills of mortality. i mean some[61] actual change in the organ itself, which may carry him off by slow and painful degrees, or strike him down with one huge pang and only time for a single shriek,——as when the shot broke through the brave captain nolan’s breast, at the head of the light brigade at balaklava, and with a loud cry he dropped dead from his saddle.
i thought it only fair to say something of what i apprehended to some who were entitled to be warned. the landlady’s face fell when i mentioned my fears.
poor man!——she said.——and will leave the best room empty! hasn’t he got any sisters or nieces or anybody to see to his things, if he should be took away? such a sight of cases, full of everything! never thought of his failin’ so suddin. a complication of diseases, she expected. liver-complaint one of ’em?
i must tell iris that i think her poor friend is in a precarious state. she seems nearer to him than anybody.
i did tell her. whatever emotion it produced, she kept a still face, except, perhaps, a little trembling of the lip.——could i be certain that there was any mortal complaint?——why, no, i could not be certain; but it looked alarming to me.——he shall have some of my life,——she said.
i suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, of a kind of magnetic power she could give out;——at any rate, i cannot help thinking she wills her strength away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color from that day. i have sometimes thought he gained the force she lost; but this may have been a whim, very probably.
one day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly pale. her lips moved, as if she were speaking; but i could not[62] at first hear a word. her hair looked strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of wild light. she sunk upon a chair, and i thought was falling into one of her trances. something had frozen her blood with fear; i thought, from what she said, half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shrouded figure.
that night, at about eleven o’clock, i was sent for to see the little gentleman, who was taken suddenly ill. bridget, the servant, went before me with a light. the doors were both unfastened, and i found myself ushered, without hindrance, into the dim light of the mysterious apartment i had so longed to enter....
the house was deadly still, and the night-wind, blowing through an open window, struck me as from a field of ice, at the moment i passed back again into the creaking corridor. as i turned into the common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, stood full before me. i thought at first it was one of those images made to stand in niches and hold a light in their hands. but the illusion was momentary, and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the bright flame and snowy drapery to see that the figure was a breathing one. it was iris, in one of her statue-trances. she had come down, whether sleeping or waking, i knew not at first, led by an instinct that told her she was wanted,——or, possibly, having overheard and interpreted the sound of our movements,——or, it may be, having learned from the servant that there was trouble which might ask for a woman’s hand. i sometimes think women have a sixth sense, which tells them that others, whom they cannot see or hear, are in suffering. how surely we find them at the bedside of the dying! how[63] strongly does nature plead for them, that we should draw our first breath in their arms, as we sigh away our last upon their faithful breasts!
with white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, dressed as the starlight knew her, and the morning when she rose from slumber, save that she had twisted a scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone before me, holding in one hand a lighted coil of wax-taper, and in the other a silver goblet. i held my own lamp close to her, as if she had been a figure of marble, and she did not stir. there was no breach of propriety then, to scare the poor relation with and breed scandal out of. she had been “warned in a dream,” doubtless suggested by her waking knowledge and the sounds which had reached her exalted sense. there was nothing more natural than that she should have risen and girdled her waist, and lighted her taper, and found the silver goblet with “ex dono pupillorum” on it, from which she had taken her milk and possets through all her childish years, and so gone blindly out to find her place at the bedside,——a sister of charity without the cap and rosary; nay, unknowing whither her feet were leading her, and with wide, blank eyes seeing nothing but the vision that beckoned her along.——well, i must wake her from her slumber or trance.——i called her name, but she did not heed my voice.
the devil put it into my head that i would kiss one handsome young girl before i died, and now was my chance. she never would know it, and i should carry the remembrance of it with me into the grave, and a rose perhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did out of lord[64] lovel’s, in memory of that immortal moment! would it wake her from her trance? and would she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph, and hate and despise me ever after? or should i carry off my trophy undetected, and always from that time say to myself, when i looked upon her in the glory of youth and the splendor of beauty, “my lips have touched those roses and made their sweetness mine forever”? you think my cheek was flushed, perhaps, and my eyes were glittering with this midnight flash of opportunity. on the contrary, i believe i was pale, very pale, and i know that i trembled. ah, it is the pale passions that are the fiercest,——it is the violence of the chill that gives the measure of the fever! the fighting-boy of our school always turned white when he went out to a pitched battle with the bully of some neighboring village; but we knew what his bloodless cheeks meant,——the blood was all in his stout heart,——he was a slight boy, and there was not enough to redden his face and fill his heart both at once.
perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, to tell the internal conflicts in the heart of a quiet person something more than juvenile and something less than senile, as to whether he should be guilty of an impropriety, and if he were, whether he would get caught in his indiscretion. and yet the memory of the kiss that margaret of scotland gave to alain chartier has lasted four hundred years, and put it into the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether victoria or eugénie would do as much by him, if she happened to pass him when he was asleep. and have we ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the young john milton tingled under the lips of[65] some high-born italian beauty, who, i believe, did not think to leave her card by the side of the slumbering youth, but has bequeathed the memory of her pretty deed to all coming time? the sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
there is one disadvantage which the man of philosophical habits of mind suffers, as compared with the man of action. while he is taking an enlarged and rational view of the matter before him, he lets his chance slip through his fingers. iris woke up, of her own accord, before i had made up my mind what i was going to do about it.
when i remember how charmingly she looked, i don’t blame myself at all for being tempted; but if i had been fool enough to yield to the impulse, i should certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. she did not know what to make of it, finding herself there alone, in such guise, and me staring at her. she looked down at her white robe and bare feet, and colored,——then at the goblet she held in her hand,——then at the taper; and at last her thoughts seemed to clear up.
i know it all,——she said.——he is going to die, and i must go and sit by him. nobody will care for him as i shall, and i have nobody else to care for.
i assured her that nothing was needed for him that night but rest, and persuaded her that the excitement of her presence could only do harm. let him sleep, and he would very probably awake better in the morning. there was nothing to be said, for i spoke with authority; and the young girl glided away with noiseless step and sought her own chamber.
