CHAPTER LIII.
There is an instance of the absorbing tyranny of every-day life which must
have struck all such of my readers as have ever experienced one of those
portents which are so at variance with every-day life, that the ordinary
epithet bestowed on them is "supernatural."
And be my readers few or many, there will be no small proportion of them
to whom once, at least, in the course of their existence, a something
strange and eerie has occurred,--a something which perplexed and baffled
rational conjecture, and struck on those chords which vibrate to
superstition. It may have been only a dream unaccountably verified,--an
undefinable presentiment or forewarning; but up from such slighter and
vaguer tokens of the realm of marvel, up to the portents of ghostly
apparitions or haunted chambers, I believe that the greater number of
persons arrived at middle age, however instructed the class, however
civilized the land, however sceptical the period, to which they belong,
have either in themselves experienced, or heard recorded by intimate
associates whose veracity they accept as indisputable in all ordinary
transactions of life, phenomena which are not to be solved by the wit that
mocks them, nor, perhaps, always and entirely, to the contentment of the
reason or the philosophy that explains them away. Such phenomena, I say,
are infinitely more numerous than would appear from the instances
currently quoted and dismissed with a jest; for few of those who have
witnessed them are disposed to own it, and they who only hear of them
through others, however trustworthy, would not impugn their character for
common-sense by professing a belief to which common-sense is a merciless
persecutor. But he who reads my assertion in the quiet of his own room,
will perhaps pause, ransack his memory, and find there, in some dark
corner which he excludes from "the babbling and remorseless day," a pale
recollection that proves the assertion not untrue.
And it is, I say, an instance of the absorbing tyranny of everyday life,
that whenever some such startling incident disturbs its regular tenor of
thought and occupation, that same every-day life hastens to bury in its
sands the object which has troubled its surface; the more unaccountable,
the more prodigious, has been the phenomenon which has scared and
astounded us, the more, with involuntary effort, the mind seeks to rid
itself of an enigma which might disease the reason that tries to solve it.
We go about our mundane business with renewed avidity; we feel the
necessity of proving to ourselves that we are still sober, practical men,
and refuse to be unfitted for the world which we know, by unsolicited
visitations from worlds into which every glimpse is soon lost amid
shadows. And it amazes us to think how soon such incidents, though not
actually forgotten, though they can be recalled--and recalled too vividly
for health--at our will, are nevertheless thrust, as it were, out of the
mind's sight as we cast into lumber-rooms the crutches and splints that
remind us of a broken limb which has recovered its strength and tone. It
is a felicitous peculiarity in our organization, which all members of my
profession will have noticed, how soon, when a bodily pain is once passed,
it becomes erased from the recollection,--how soon and how invariably the
mind refuses to linger over and recall it. No man freed an hour before
from a raging toothache, the rack of a neuralgia, seats himself in his
armchair to recollect and ponder upon the anguish he has undergone. It is
the same with certain afflictions of the mind,--not with those that strike
on our affections, or blast our fortunes, overshadowing our whole future
with a sense of loss; but where a trouble or calamity has been an
accident, an episode in our wonted life, where it affects ourselves alone,
where it is attended with a sense of shame and humiliation, where the pain
of recalling it seems idle, and if indulged would almost madden
us,--agonies of that kind we do not brood over as we do over the death or
falsehood of beloved friends, or the train of events by which we are
reduced from wealth to penury. No one, for instance, who has escaped from
a shipwreck, from the brink of a precipice, from the jaws of a tiger,
spends his days and nights in reviving his terrors past, re-imagining
dangers not to occur again, or, if they do occur, from which the
experience undergone can suggest no additional safeguards. The current of
our life, indeed, like that of the rivers, is most rapid in the midmost
channel, where all streams are alike comparatively slow in the depth and
along the shores in which each life, as each river, has a character
peculiar to itself. And hence, those who would sail with the tide of the
world, as those who sail with the tide of a river, hasten to take the
middle of the stream, as those who sail against the tide are found
clinging to the shore. I returned to my habitual duties and avocations
with renewed energy; I did not suffer my thoughts to dwell on the dreary
wonders that had haunted me, from the evening I first met Sir Philip
Derval to the morning on which I had quitted the house of his heir;
whether realities or hallucinations, no guess of mine could unravel such
marvels, and no prudence of mine guard me against their repetition. But I
had no fear that they would be repeated, any more than the man who had
gone through shipwreck, or the hairbreadth escape from a fall down a
glacier, fears again to be found in a similar peril. Margrave had
departed, whither I knew not, and, with his departure, ceased all sense of
his influence. A certain calm within me, a tranquillizing feeling of
relief, seemed to me like a pledge of permanent delivery.
But that which did accompany and haunt me, through all my occupations and
pursuits, was the melancholy remembrance of the love I had lost in Lilian.
I heard from Mrs. Ashleigh, who still frequently visited me, that her
daughter seemed much in the same quiet state of mind,--perfectly
reconciled to our separation, seldom mentioning my name, if mentioning
it, with indifference; the only thing remarkable in her state was her
aversion to all society, and a kind of lethargy that would come over her,
often in the daytime. She would suddenly fall into sleep and so remain
for hours, but a sleep that seemed very serene and tranquil, and from
which she woke of herself. She kept much within her own room, and always
retired to it when visitors were announced.
Mrs. Ashleigh began reluctantly to relinquish the persuasion she had so
long and so obstinately maintained, that this state of feeling towards
myself--and, indeed, this general change in Lilian--was but temporary and
abnormal; she began to allow that it was best to drop all thoughts ofa
renewed engagement,--a future union. I proposed to see Lilian in her
presence and in my professional capacity; perhaps some physical cause,
especially for this lethargy, might be detected and removed. Mrs.
Ashleigh owned to me that the idea had occurred to herself: she had
sounded Lilian upon it: but her daughter had so resolutely opposed
it,--had said with so quiet a firmness "that all being over between us, a
visit from me would be unwelcome and painful,"--that Mrs. Ashleigh felt
that an interview thus deprecated would only confirm estrangement. One
day, in calling, she asked my advice whether it would not be better to try
the effect of change of air and scene, and, in some other place, some
other medical opinion might be taken? I approved of this suggestion with
unspeakable sadness.
"And," said Mrs. Ashleigh, shedding tears, "if that experiment prove
unsuccessful, I will write and let you know; and we must then consider
what to say to the world as a reason why the marriage is broken off. I
can render this more easy by staying away. I will not return to L----
till the matter has ceased to be the topic of talk, and at a distance any
excuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. But
still--still--let us hope still."
"Have you one ground for hope?"
"Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail and fallacious."
"Name it, and let me judge."
"One night--in which you were on a visit to Derval Court--"
"Ay, that night."
"Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and the
door was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was asleep,
but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling on your
name in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great terror. She
cried, 'Do not go, Allen--do not go--you know not what you brave!--what
you do!' Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her face was set
and rigid; I tried to awake her, but could not. After a little time, she
breathed a deep sigh, and murmured, 'Allen, Allen! dear love! did you not
hear, did you not see me? What could thus baffle matter and traverse
space but love and soul? Can you still doubt me, Allen?--doubt that I
love you now, shall love you evermore?--yonder, yonder, as here below?'
She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and then I woke her."
"And what did she say on waking?"
"She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passed
through some great terror; but added, with a vague smile, 'It is over, and
I feel happy now.' Then she turned round and fell asleep again, but
quietly as a child, the tears dried, the smile resting."
"Go, my dear friend, go; take Lilian away from this place as soon as you
can; divert her mind with fresh scenes. I hope!--I do hope! Let me know
where you fix yourself. I will seize a holiday,--I need one; I will
arrange as to my patients; I will come to the same place; she need not
know of it, but I must be by to watch, to hear your news of her. Heaven
bless you for what you have said! I hope!--I do hope!"
