All-Story Weekly/Volume 98/Number 3/Fires Rekindled/Chapter 7

INCE our parting I have lived in a place midway between an abyss and a mountain, where the sick and wounded of earth go to be healed, if seeds of health be in them, or if not, to perish. The dead go down into the abyss; those freed from death ascend to their felicity. But for our love, O heart of my soul, I should have chosen death; but because our love could not die I live, and our reunion is near!

I tried to tell you of my coming, but for a long while my voice was muffled, and I was bound hand and foot. When I would speak, my tongue stumbled, as if its use were forgotten. I must, as it were, train a dull and sluggish learner to utter my words and do my will. Of myself, I should have failed; but you helped me, beloved;  your light and beauty and music molded the clay and warmed and guided it;  and now I know that the stumbling-block was in truth some ignorant image of myself which, animated and instructed by our mutual desire, should at last understand and serve!

Of what is to come for us we know, and need know no more than that, in every thought, emotion and sense we shall be one. But the impulse rushes upon me to recover our beginnings, so that the foundations of our house of happiness may be established, and its symmetry complete. For whatever is immortal has its root in time, and the loveliness of its fulfilment is not comprehended till its source be known.

On a spring day, with some chance companion, I sat me down among a multitude in a hall of audience where musicians fiddled and blew: a careless soldier, indifferent to beauty, unconscious as yet of his own soul. But as I sat there immersed in my vain musings, the instruments were hushed and a voice, clear, pure and ravishing, ascended and soared out of the stillness, gathered power magically, shivered deliciously in my heart, rose again to slenderest pinnacles of ecstasy, and tinted the air with tremulous rainbows. I looked up and saw a slim figure, white-armed, with ruddy hair, and dark jewel eyes under wide, clear brows. She stood erect and serene as a Moorish column, robed in shimmering black, pranked with blue ribbons on shoulder and flank. I had marched to drum and fife, but music was created for me in that hour. And she that sang was music's incarnation.

All that had preceded that hour was an abandoned and meaningless desert, and I was born! When she had gone out I read on the program: "Mrs. Emma Aline Asgard." Aline! Aline! The name printed itself on my soul, like a slender, lily in an illuminated missal. Her other names did not concern me—garments worn before the world—but Aline was mine! In the primal morning we belonged to each other, and all temporal accidents since then, for her or for me, were trifles without substance, which the breath of love should blow away.

Let me go to her! But that fat, bedizened tailor's block in the royal box had sent her a message—she had won his gracious approbation! An American soldier, who had seen his lobster-backs scuttle and crave mercy, could be heedless of court etiquette! I stepped before him and took your hand in mine. Your eyes laughed and sparkled, and you said, "At my house-warming, Thursday!" I kissed your hand, saw the jowls of his royal highness grow purple, and went out. What cared I for favor at court, for the success of my mission, who had made my tryst with you!

But on that day our words were few, for again a crowd surrounded you; only our hands and our looks met, and we foresaw, I think, what was to come. "To-morrow I shall be alone." Hours after, at sundown, I found myself leaning on Richmond Bridge, having walked thither, conscious only of your radiance in my heart. In the trees of Kew, over the still waters, nightingales sang, but your voice was sweeter than theirs!

I waited in the quiet room, with its green walls damaskened with gold. I had brought a little gift for you of a book, lately writ by a young poet, after reading in which the night before I had written, To the heart of my soul, from Lionel. It was the poesy of love, and therefore ours. I laid it on the table, and beside the table was a great arm-chair, and I said, "In that chair will we two sit, and read the book together!" Then the door of your chamber opened, and we were face to face! As we looked in each other's eyes, you knew that the arms of my soul were around you, and you swerved back a little, not in fear, but in a lovely coquetry, as who should say, "Ask a blessing ere you drink!" I bowed myself before you in the true reverence of a knight before his lady. In my rough journey through the world I had little heeded law or measure, but in you I knew my law and my gospel.

"Stand there, exquisite and adorable," I said, "and let me drink you with my eyes!"

So you stood there, within arm's reach, in your soft, dark raiment, a lock of your red-gold hair dropping to your shoulder, now glancing up in seriousness, now lowering your lids with a half smile, and a long breath rounded your bosom like a dove's, and then subsided.

At length my gaze still unquenchably drinking you, you began to palpitate and said plaintively, "Never before did a man's eyes so burn me! Is it lest you forget me?"

"How can I not gaze on you, who have been prophesied to me from the beginning of the world?"

"I had thought I came into the world to please ears rather than eyes!"

"You came for the delight of all senses, and each whets the other's appetites. You are poetry's soul, and music, till you sang, was but a hope. You have created me, and though as yet I do your skill small credit, have patience and finish your work!"

You laughed, like the mounting thrill of a bird, and tossed your head flowerlike. "Was it for the making-over of grown men, do you think, that I crossed the ocean?"

"You lack still one step of your journey's end," I said. "Come, what is one step to the wide ocean?"

Then you searched me with a grave and deep look.

"It is the longest step in the world!" you said.

"It is the world itself!" I answered. "Come, put it behind you!"

You crossed your arms over your breast, clasping each shoulder with the other hand, as if on the brink of a gulf, your eyes still searching me.

"We have been prisoners too long," I said; "there is but one freedom!" and I held out my arms. But you said:

"I am content as I am. Why do you disquiet me?"

"It is love that disquiets us both, and now only love can give us peace," I answered. "You bade me stand here, and here I am, and here I stay, unless some one takes me!" you said, with tears and smiles at once.

After that, there was no need of words.

"I am to sing to-day—you must go now," you said; but in the very saying it, your arms came round my neck, and your lips were so close that mine felt them speak.

There was a portrait of the prince upon the wall, with his compliment writ on it. I knew that you had been commanded to the palace that afternoon, and he had sent you this portrait by the messenger. My anger rose up against him.

"Are we to be parted at this pleasure?" I demanded.

You made me sit in the great chair, and perched yourself on my knee.

"Hear me, only beloved of my soul and body," you said. "You and I have consented, for our love's sake, to forget the world. But we cannot forget it if we begin by fighting it. The prince is the world; let his picture hang there;  but you are flesh and blood and spirit, to whom only will my door ever open. Since the reality is ours, we may leave the world its shadows. I left the cruel cage that tortured me, on the other side, and you too took your liberty;  shall we tempt them to molest us by proclaiming our happiness? To be free to meet, our meeting must be secret. Silently, step by step, like nymphs and fauns in the forest, we can withdraw, while the world's thoughts are turned elsewhere;  but if we shout defiance, we shall be pursued and hunted down. Dearest, let me sing my songs for a time; they protect that of me which even you could not protect; and when I see my audience listen, breathless, I feel a better right to be yours than if that power were lost to me. My only pleasure in honor is to honor you; if we became outcasts, only my naked self would be left for your compensation. My art is my shield and my crown; what answer could I make to God, if I abandoned it? All the more do I need it, since your love has made me sacred in my own eyes. At best, peril waits on all who take the law into their own hands; what the end maybe, we cannot tell;  let us not tempt it wantonly!"

I sighed, and kissed you. "May I come here after you return?" I asked you.

Then you ran to your harpsichord that stood by the partition, and played and sang:

So I let the prince hang there, and went out and walked London streets, my mind full of wonder, and my heart of worship, till evening, and then came back and hung about the shadows of the corner, like a foot-pad, till I saw your coach drive up; then I ran up, and as the door opened, I caught in my arms the muffled figure that alighted—but it was not you, but your dark-haired maid, Nellie! How your laugh made music in the silent street, as you came after! So in we went, I stepping lightly, lest old Caleb Blodgett, the landlord, hear me in spite of his deafness; and afterward, Nellie—a quiet and skilful handmaiden, who like all who come near you, adores you—made a little supper for us, most of which I, that had fasted since breakfast, and was full of happiness and hunger, devoured, you feeding me, white-fingered and sparkling-eyed, while you told of your triumph—indeed, the table was heaped with the flowers they had showered on you. When Nellie had cleared away the dishes and said her good-night, you lay in my arms a while, in our big chair, and kissed me for the book of poetry, and for joy, and for love. Oh, how sweet and slender you were in your rustling silken frock, through which I felt the warmth of your fragrant body!

One day we had been, for sport, to have the famous Ayub tell our fortunes; and then out to our villa at Twickenham, where the lawn was softer than the cushions of the Grand Turk's harem;  and Nellie brought us a dish of tea beside the old sun-dial, under the tree where the nightingale sings at evening.

You said, "We should have asked him for a spell to change me into a nightingale, so that you could have taken me about with you safely!"

"He told us to beware of a man from across the sea," I said. "I think he and I will meet some day—the last day of his life!"

"Sooner let it be the last day of mine!" you murmured, turning pale. "Lionel, to kill him would part us forever!"

"Not that he is your husband, but that he mistreated you! But for that, he might live, for what I care! But why do we speak gravely of the maunderings of a lying charlatan? Had Master Ayub warned us against a prince, we might have given heed!"

"The prince! I would as little fear a stuffed doll as that poor creature! Besides," you said, kissing a white rose from the vase and fastening it to my breast, "it is months since an audience has heard me sing, and the prince has forgotten me. Grand Turks have short memories, love of my life!"

"Could any man that has looked in your eyes and heard your voice, forget you? You would be remembered in the dust of the grave!"

When the English summer was done, we planned for Italy. There had been many letters, beseeching you to sing once more; and betimes one morning, while I, at the window, idly cut the letters of our names on the oaken window-shutter, and you sat before your mirrow [sic] binding up your glittering hair, you said, "Dearest heart, shall I give them one song more?"

I looked around at you, sitting there in your soft blue morning-robe, your naked arms lifted and your supple hands busied with the golden braids; the outline of your delicate cheek, pure against the shadows of the further chamber, and the image of your face in the mirror, which reproduced its hues but faintly, as if it were your own wraith looking back at you from another world;  and thinking of the glories and eternities of joy which that little room had held for me in the gift of yourself, my heart swelled with a loving tenderness well nigh beyond bearing. Surely God has made us for each other, and if, in the years while we were blindly seeking each other, we had turned aside from the true path, it was but that the union to come might be more perfect!

In the summer days now past, while under the magic of love you had muted your nightingale notes from the ear of the world, and made yourself invisible in our nest under the lime trees, foregoing fame and applause for love's sake—we had dwelt together in a fairy-land enchantment that seemed to remove us forever from memory or desire of outer things. Yet I had learned to recognize the sovereignty of art in the artist, who needs to express the gift as the plant its blossom, and if the expression be too strictly or too long withheld, forfeits also something of the vigor and delight of spiritual life. And that hint of yours that you be permitted one song—one public triumph more, struck me with remorse, that I had selfishly bound your divine genius to a privacy too close.

I put an arm about your neck, and as you leaned back your head upon it, kissed your upturned lips.

"Your glory is mine, beloved," I said, "go forth and lead captivity captive! The great theater shall be prepared for you; you give me, a hundredfold, what you give them! Renew your reign over them, and shame them of their earthly dynasties! The skies of Venice will be the brighter above us for the fogs you dispel in London!"

You may have caught an accent in my extravaganza that raised some ghost of a doubt of its full integrity; but our embrace overbore it, and my own heart repudiated it. If I had misgivings, I banished them. Your eyes held mine for a moment in one of those looks that explore beyond mortal plummets, but I blindfolded you with kisses, and you were reassured. One song more, and then for Italy!

Events not yet born in earthly time create currents in the spiritual atmosphere which we sometimes heed, but oftener disregard. Twice, when I had been on my way to you, I had been aware of a tall figure walking near, with heavy eyebrows and bushy, grizzled hair—something foreign in his aspect. Once, when I had borne a communication from our minister to his royal highness, this same figure, I fancied, had appeared at the end of the corridor, but had turned aside before we met and closed a door behind him.

Once, our minister himself had said to me in private: "A certain personage, I think, has not forgotten a slight you put upon him some time since; don't rely too much on formal professions of favor;  we diplomats must always be circumspect!"

But I was confident, and full of prefigurings of our happiness to come—a long lifetime of undisturbed communion! Meanwhile, all preparations were made in the great theater for your farewell song, and all London was eager to hear you. And though, on the morning of the day, it was given out that previous arrangements made it impossible that the royal box should be occupied, it caused no abatement in the enthusiasm of the people, who had made you their uncrowned queen, and little concerned themselves with the movements of other royalties!

On the morning of that day I had been closeted with our minister, to close up some affairs before taking the leave of absence for which I had already applied, and which would be longer than he imagined!

At parting, he pushed aside the papers and looked kindly upon me.

"Captain Heathcote," he said, "young as you still are, you have shown qualities which justify the forecast of a distinguished career for you—it may be, a very great one! But I have observed faults, too—chiefly such as belong to youth and a free temper—which in affairs of state, might seriously impede you. To a young man, certain hopes, certain purposes, may appear cogent, which the judgment of later years might rate less high. A man must choose, finally, between personal and public interests; in your case, I might perhaps say, between himself and his country—his love for what concerns himself alone, and that impersonal passion that we call patriotism! He may imagine that secrecy and discretion may enable him to follow the one without abandoning the other;  but experience of the world proves that things the most secret are often proclaimed from the housetops;  no barriers or silences can safeguard them! And in casting up his last account and striking the balance, he may find that the impersonal passion would have been the wiser. Pardon this little homily from a man older than yourself; you may neither need nor heed it;  but I beg you to believe that only the most cordial interest in your fortunes prompted me to utter it!"

"I so understand it," I said. "I thank you, and shall not forget it, and whatever fate lies before me, I shall rejoice to have met you and won your good will."

With that, we clasped hands and said farewell.

In years to come, I thought, when we had long rested secure in our felicity, I might relate to you this interview, and we would smile at the wisdom of this world, which, to gain success in life, would leave life itself out of the reckoning. But I would not speak of it to-day. when you were bending your thoughts and summoning your energies for the signal event of a few hours hence.

As I went up the darksome stairway of our little London lodging, the sound of your voice at the harpsichord, testing itself at passages of the coming performance, came to my ears like warblings of the birds of Eden. Oh, unmatched and unmatchable one! A moment of that music were worth an age of an existence unknowing of it! Yet was it but the imperfect expression of the lovely and beloved source from which it came!

At my entrance you sprang from your seat and gathered yourself into my arms like a beautiful and tender bird, all a tremor with art and love!

"Heart's darling!" you said, "how immeasurably more precious than all other things are you to me! I've been thinking that perhaps it was wrong and foolish of me to wish this last meeting with the people. It was only that I desired you to be proud of me—to feel that in giving you my poor self, I was bringing you something higher and better! But I've had doubts, fears of I know not what! Tell me the truth, dearest; and if it be your pleasure, we will even now send a message to the theater, and set out to-night for Venice!"

I laughed, and kissed your sweet breath away.

"Because we are to take our ease in Venice is no reason for foregoing your victory to-night," I said. "You are over-wrought by the anticipation, as always when you sing your best. Lie quiet herein my arms, and rest and be at peace. To-night, when all is over, you will laugh at these misgivings, and rejoice that you overcame them."

"Oh, blessed afterward! I wish it were now!"

"Think how I am worshiping you. while you sing," I said, "and outdo even all you have done before! Feel my kisses on your lips, giving them courage to enchant the world! All will be well."

From my place in the theater I saw you stand, slender and alone, before that mighty audience, while those divine notes hushed them to breathlessness and lifted them to ecstasy. When the last strain had died away, there came a wondering silence: and then an outbreak like storm-waves suddenly thundering upon an entranced shore. Above that enormous tumult I saw your dark eyes sparkle in a smile from your pure face; all the multitude was on its feet, and men were struggling to cast garlands on the stage before you.

I turned and fought my way against the throng, striving to reach the stair that led to your tiring-room, where we were to meet. Though much delayed and buffeted, I came to it at last, and began to mount the narrow windings toward your aerie. Ere I was half-way up, I heard a scream that plunged through my soul like a rapier—your voice, in deadly peril! I leaped upward swifter than a bodiless thought, and flung myself against the door. It was torn from its hinges, and I plunged inward.