Tales of the Wonder Club Volume I Part 36

"My health of late has been, if anything, better than usual. I do not think this presentiment can be reasonably accounted for in that way. At other times when I have felt at all poorly such a thought has never occurred to me."

I merely shook my head and said that I hoped she would not encourage these presentiments.

"William," she said, "remember my words; I shall not live till the year is out."

I did not know what to answer, and gazed upon her in astonishment for some minutes, when suddenly her face grew agonised, and she manifested symptoms of impatience.

"What is it, Maud?" I asked. "What ails you?" She seemed to have difficulty in answering, but I fancied that I understood the words, "I am drawn to the body; let me go."

And rising suddenly from her chair and gasping, she made for the door, but disappeared from my sight before she had time to reach it.

I remained stupefied at the figure's sudden disappearance, as well as at the whole occurrence of the evening. I knew not what to think. Had I been dreaming? No. This was not the first time, either, that I had seen her. I had been holding converse with no less a being than Maud's ghost; her own pure and beautiful spirit, drawn by my art from the body while yet breath remained.

A horrid thought struck me. Perhaps I had detained the spirit too long away from the body. Perhaps there was no one in the house to wake her out of her trance. I reproached myself for not foreseeing the mischief that I might do, and returned home from the theatre that evening with Maud more than ever in my thoughts.

Next morning when I awoke, whether from the excitement of the previous evening or from a cold caught by walking home in the rain, or both combined, perhaps, I found myself in a high fever. I was compelled to remain in bed, though I was averse to sending for the doctor until some days later, when I found the fever grew rapidly worse.

A doctor was sent for--not my friend Merrivale, as I knew not where he lived--and he attributed my illness to over-study and want of proper exercise. I merely mention my illness to tell you a dream which occurred to me during a portion of it. I thought that I was transported to realms of enchantment, and that whilst the most beautiful scenery imaginable lay before me, I heard in the distance soft strains of music and singing, which gradually drew nearer and nearer to me.

The atmosphere seemed to fill with a delicious perfume, and looking upwards, I descried a troop of angels, bearing one with them who seemed lately of this earth. The angels gradually descended, and left the figure they carried with them at my feet, whilst they flew upward. I instantly recognised in the figure before me the features of Maud. She was dressed in a long robe of white, and, with an expression in her countenance too beautiful and too unearthly to describe, she spoke these words:

"Farewell, William; we meet again," and vanished.

I awoke, and the dream remained impressed upon my mind for a long time afterwards.

Recovering at length from my illness, I resumed my duties at the theatre, where I was received with immense applause after my long absence, and continued my career with enthusiasm on my part and admiration on the part of my audience. Night after night I would go through my part, and week after week and month after month pa.s.sed away, and I neither heard nor saw anything further of Maud since our strange meeting in the stage box--_viz._, on the 31st of December.

Sometimes a violent desire to see her again would seize me in the midst of my part, and I would glance furtively towards the haunted spot, half expecting to see her, but I never saw her again from that day to this.

The dream I had had concerning her during my illness often recurred to me, and I wondered whether it really was a revelation or only an ordinary dream to be accounted for by the state of my health at the time.

I had seen no more of Maud's family, neither had I again met our common friend the doctor or any other friend of the family from whom I might learn the state of Maud's health, or whether she were dead or alive.

A year or two pa.s.sed away, when I was invited by some friends of mine to spend a week or so at their country seat, not very far from the seat of Maud's family. I took the stage, and was put down at a country inn, from whence I had to walk about a mile-and-a-half to reach my friend's house.

It was early in the morning when I arrived at the inn, and not being in a particular hurry to reach the house, thinking that the family might not yet have risen, I sauntered leisurely along the carriage road, halting occasionally and looking around me. The whole scene--the air itself--seemed to call up memories of Maud.

Absorbed in a reverie, I wandered on until I found myself at the gate of a cemetery, which I mechanically entered. I had pa.s.sed the same cemetery often before in my walks with Maud. What a picturesque old place it was!

Filled with old crumbling monuments with quaint epitaphs and overgrown with rank gra.s.s and weeds.

It was one of Maud's favourite spots for meditation, as she told me. It was so perfectly solitary--overlooked by no houses and shut out from the gaze of pa.s.sers-by with thick yew trees and cypress. Then, when you entered at the gate, what a silence reigned within! I love those grand old melancholy retreats, and so did Maud. Here the rich and poor of the surrounding villages for miles around were buried. I pa.s.sed by the elegant marble tombs of the wealthy and the humbler gra.s.sy mounds of the peasantry. My thoughts were filled with the shortness of human life, the vanity of its n.o.blest pursuits, and the equalling, never-sparing hand of death.

Even the bracing morning air and the merry suns.h.i.+ne were insufficient to dispel thoughts like these, for the spot had a solemnity of its own about it. The abode of the dead is at all times sacred to us, even when we find it in the heart of a populous city, amidst the bustle and stir of daily life; but how much more is it sanctified when we discover it in some rural and secluded spot ungrimed with the smoke of factories, unbroken in upon by rude voices from without, and the mossy stones and overgrown weeds and brambles of which even the hand of the trim gardener has not disturbed.

I seated myself upon an ancient tomb, and gazed around me. Here lay a knight of old, there a lord of the manor; yonder some poor rustic whose humble grave of turf bore no record of the name, age, or s.e.x of its occupant, what its owner's deeds had been on earth, whether fruitful or unfruitful. Close beside it rose a stately tombstone of white marble with a long inscription. "Doubtless here lays some rich landowner," I thought, "whose supposed virtues are here recorded in full."

I was too far off to read what was inscribed, but the tomb was a new one. It was not there when Maud and I took our rambles together, and I recollected all the most important gravestones. I rose and advanced a few steps, when I suddenly halted a few paces from the tomb, and recoiled in horror. I was seized with trembling, my heart sank, and I felt my brow covered with a cold sweat. The letters on the monument swam before my eyes. I brushed away a tear as I read the following lines:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF MAUD E----N, YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF GEORGE E----N, OF ---- WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 31ST OF DECEMBER, 1750.

AGED 21 YEARS.

Then followed one or two verses from the Bible.

"Oh, Maud, Maud!" I cried, in an agony, and throwing myself on her grave, I wept bitterly.

"What says the gravestone? 'On the 31st of December,'" said I to myself.

"Good heavens! That was the very evening on which I saw her spirit last in the stage box!"

I had drawn her soul away from her body for too great a length of time.

_I_ then was the cause of her death. Poor Maud! She was right in saying she should not live the year out, but I little thought that when her spirit hurried from my presence on that fatal night that it was then about to leave the body for ever.

I felt like a murderer. The thought that one so good, so innocent, and so talented should meet with her death through one so worthless as myself galled me. My agony was insufferable. "Oh, Maud! would that we had never met!" I cried aloud, for now, but, alas, too late, I began to feel the consuming fire of an intense love for her that in her lifetime was as yet undeveloped; added to which were the stings of remorse for my own careless, if not wicked, conduct.

I felt now that she had loved _me_. Why had I not come forward before to crave her hand? Could I not see that she loved me, though she confessed it not? Fool that I was! Could I not have been happy with her and made her happy? What was it that made me draw back? I know not. There was something about her which awed me, and kept me aloof.

Then, again, was I in a position at that time to support a wife? Had I the right to come forward? No, I answered myself, and this thought consoled me somewhat, but had I not already allowed myself to be carried away by a pa.s.sion that had engulfed both her and myself?

Love, grief, and remorse struggled in my breast for the mastery. I wept aloud, and kissed the cold gravestone fervently. I know not how long I might have been thus, for in my anguish I took no count of time, when I was suddenly aroused by a footstep behind and a voice.

"Mercy on us, who is this?" said the stranger.

I turned, and beheld my friend Merrivale. Whilst taking his morning's walk as usual he had been attracted by my lamentations, and curiosity led him to enter the cemetery.

"Why, what the--I say--what! Is that _you_?" he said, as I looked up abashed in the midst of my grief, and knew not what to reply.

"Come, come," said he. "I understand all, I saw all from the beginning.

I am not surprised, you know, with one of your temperament, but do you know, young man, you might catch your death of cold, indulging your grief in the morning dew on a cold gravestone. You must be--really, my dear sir--you must be insane."

"Doctor," said I, "we may meet another time, when I may have more to say to you. For the present leave me. I arrived here early this morning, having been invited to a friend's house. It is time for me to make my appearance. Till we meet again, farewell. And, doctor," said I, "you will keep this matter secret, eh?"

"Very well," said he, with a smile which seemed to me forced in order to disguise his emotion, for I noticed that he turned away his head suddenly, shook my hand, and walked away hurriedly.

We had both of us left the cemetery, and about half-a-mile further on led me to the door of my friend's house.

I tried to a.s.sume an air of indifference before my friend, and discoursed on various topics; nevertheless, he noticed that my hand trembled, and that I seemed distracted. I said I had been a little out of health lately, and was glad of a little change of air.

"My doctor, Mr. Merrivale," said he, "will be here to-day to look at the children. If you would like to see him----"

"Thank you, thank you; but I hope it is nothing worth mentioning."

In the afternoon Merrivale arrived, and I managed to find an opportunity of speaking with him alone. I inquired after the family E----n, and was informed that Maud had died suddenly in a trance, and he had been called too late. That her two sisters were engaged to be married. That Maud had spoken much of me before her last fit, and had given out some strange mysterious hints of a certain power I had over her, and nothing could induce her mother and sisters to believe otherwise than that I had cast an evil spell over her.

He added that her father was more reasonable, and did not believe in those things. The family would be sure to hear of my arrival in the village, therefore I resolved to call on an early opportunity. I did so, and was well received by Maud's father, he having been intimate with mine, but by the mother and sisters with rigid coldness. They did not even offer me their hand. I expected this, but nevertheless felt it my duty to call. I made some slight allusion to Maud's death in as delicate a way as I could, but was checked in the midst of my remarks by scornful glances from the mother and sisters.

I left the house, and I need hardly say that this was my last call on that family, although the master of the house wrung my hand cordially, and said he should be always glad to see me when chance led me to those parts.

I returned to my friend's house, where I tried to divert myself with a week's shooting. I frequently met my friend Merrivale. We used to take walks together sometimes. In one of our rambles I recounted to him all the particulars of the evening of the 31st of December, when I had last seen and spoken to Maud in the spirit at the theatre.

He marvelled, but was silent.