Faithful Margaret: A Novel

Schmolnitz was not dead, and he soon recovered enough to speak. "Dolores bent over him, his head in her lap, and hoped that he would recognize her; but he did not, in the gloom, until she spoke, entreating him for the sake of her love years ago to take her back to him. "Most brutally he repudiated her, assuring her that she could not be his wife, and that he would never own her as such. "Then, indeed, she sounded the shallow waters of his soul, and desired revenge. "She would have stabbed him to the heart even then, if she had not been prevented, but she swore beside the heartless wretch that she should have vengeance; then she and her attendants rode back to Richmond. "Months passed, all trace of the man was lost to her; but patiently she searched for him until she found a clew. "After many adventures, she found him in this city, and what think you were the titles which this little tailor had assumed? "Dear count, will you not make a guess? "Friends, I believe our honored count is indisposed--how pale he has become! Little wonder, for he sympathizes with every word I say. "Do not, good Count de Calembours, forsake us until my story is completed. "You must go? Then I shall hasten. "Friends, the miserable little tailor, this renegade, dastard and spy, had entered the highest circles in New York under the title which this man wears--the Count de Calembours!" She swooped forward, she seized the arm of the retreating chevalier, and wheeled him round until he faced the company. He was frightfully pale, his eyes flickered ominously, he glared helplessly at his tormentor, the beautiful bride-elect. "What! has my _fiance_ nothing to say?" jibed madame, with flashing eyes, green as a tigress. "Is he choked by a skein of thread? Felled by a thimble? Stabbed by a tailor's needle? Fie, fie! Ladislaus Schmolnitz, to let the coat fit you so well! To stand dumb as your own goose! Oh, cowardly little tailor!" Shrilly the scoffing denunciation rang out; stepping back a pace she pointed her finger in his face and laughed wildly; and the good company, suddenly catching the resistless drollery of the farce, burst into a long, convulsive, mocking peal of merciless laughter, till the room rang again, the glasses jingled, and the poor little tailor threw himself on his knees before the ferocious Nemesis and begged for mercy. But the good company pointed their fingers in the wretch's appalled face and hissed him down; and the air seemed alive with ten thousand serpents, and the room swam around with eyes of mockery and ire; and deafened, horror-stricken, and utterly routed, the poor little tailor fell forward on the carpet in a dead swoon. When he recovered his senses, the room was deserted, the lights were out, and one small, airy figure stood at a distant door with a taper in her hand and looking on the fallen hero. "Better, good Monsieur Schmolnitz?" mocked Madame Hesslein. He rose unsteadily, and held by the back of a chair. "Beast! traitress! you are my wife, are you?" hissed he, in a furious whisper. "I had my doubts of you all the while. But this shall ruin you." "Oh, no, my excellent tailor, I am above your puny attacks. So, now that we have squared accounts, I will bid you a long adieu." She bowed to the floor, rose, and gave him one long, fierce, taunting glance. He drew a pistol from his breast, took deliberate aim, and fired it full at her face, just as she closed the door. It missed her by a hair-breadth. She looked in again with a diabolical laugh, and vanished; and he, too, fled by the opposite door, just as the hotel servants rushed in to quell the tumult. CHAPTER XXXI. BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING. "Circles and circles of brightening light breaking over me; a faint, but delicious sense of comfort; a swift vanishing of the distorted phantoms which have left me here for dead--a kind and dear awakening. "What tender face is this that is bending over me? What soft bosom is this upon which my head is lying? "Have I bridged at last the chasm of mortality, and is this my fate in the immortal world? "I smile, if this be so, at the idle fears of those who prophesied for me a hell. This is Heaven! What seraph is this who is bearing me upon her bosom after my fight with the throes of death? How soft and cool her hand, which bands my brow! Her wings are folded close, and she will not fly away; her breath wafts my weary eyelids like the zephyr born at the gates of Paradise. "It was worth that long battle with the writhing furies, who would have chained me to Charon's boat, midway in the awful river, to be stranded here within these clinging arms. "O spirit pure and tender! is this Christ-like care for me at your King's command? Am I done with earth and sin, and entered into rest upon your hallowed heart? "Yes, the dark obscurity of earth no longer blinds me; I am reading the face of one who has gazed upon the Incarnate, and caught from Him beatitude past utterance. "How pure and above all earthly beauty are these holy lineaments! the essence of eternal love seems to shed from these eyes upon my languid soul; her rich tresses seem enwreathed with beams from the Fount of Joy; I am dazzled with the vision." The worn, white face of the sick man sinks more heavily upon the gentle bosom which supports it; but there is a fixed smile upon the blue lips of wonder and of triumph; there are tears stealing from the eyes which have been darkly fixed upward. The trembling soul who has been looking into the realm of Heaven, turns back at the yearning pressure of those arms, and new circles of brightening light and consciousness break over him, and St. Udo Brand looks up. A damp, cool perfume breathes around him of flowers; he seems to be surrounded by those sweet comforters; flowers upon his breast, against his fevered face, upon his pillow; and soft arms are truly around him, and his head is lying upon the yielding breast of a woman. "How is it that I am here?" "Did my darling try to speak?" "How strange! she is then some one to whom I am dear. I am indeed in Heaven, and this heavenly seraph is to be my guide and teacher. What made me suppose for an instant that I was back to earth? "It is so much better than I deserve, pure spirit--so much better." "Did you say you felt better?" "This vision is a woman? her heart seems bounding with joy; she bends closer with a sob of rapture; these holy eyes are dropping tears! "'There are no tears in Heaven.' Is it possible that I come back to earth and find some one weeping tears of joy for me! "Tell me who you are?" "You have whispered something again. Oh! love, you are so faint and weak that I can scarcely see your lips move. But I think you know me." "No, no. I left no such angel as you on earth when I died." "Do you say so? Wait until I bring my ear close." "No. Tell me." "Don't you know your nurse, who has been with you for two weeks? the nurse that you have clung to, and moaned for when your glazed eyes could not see me? Don't you remember how you made me hold you--just so--when the fever-phantoms were chasing you? Surely we are old friends by this time?" "My Perdita?" "Why, darling, do you know me, then? Now I shall dare to hope. Oh, thank Heaven!" "How strange that she should look so joyful at any good befalling me! Am I St. Udo Brand, who was at odds with all the world? or have I been changed into a man with a human heart, to be prized by a noble woman? Is this a revised and improved edition of St. Udo? Have I got out of that bitter, reckless being, and, after ages of toiling in a black, demon-crowded abyss for my sins have I re-entered the world to be simple, and beloved, and happy? O Thou who saved me from annihilation, will that this be true! "Lady, will you not tell me your name?" "You called me 'Perdita' when I thought the pest was drifting you from my arms farther--farther, and yet the closer into my heart--call me Perdita still. Oh, my darling, to think that after all I have won you from the gates of death!" "How long have we loved each other, Perdita? Why do these deep gray eyes hide themselves from me? Why does that flush creep to brow and gentle cheek? What a dear face! what a holy face! I hope that it will beam upon me until I die! What is it that she says?" "I found you smitten with the plague, and, taking care of you, because there was no one else who had such a right, as the Marplot of your life, you came to think me some one whom you loved, and to call me Perdita. It was one of your fancies." "I hope it will develop into a reality. I shall pinion your wings, bright seraph, to keep you by me." "Hush! hush! You are wandering away again." "Keep by me, my love--Perdita! oh, keep by me!" "As if I would ever leave you, while I could make one moment lighter for you." "Ah, well! Remember you have promised that." He sinks softly down among his pillows with a sigh of ineffable peace; his Perdita wipes the tears of joy from his face, and rearranges the light coverings. A soft wind is blowing through the half-closed windows, from over the quiet water clasped within the arms of the coral reef, and the dreamy strains of a military band creep from a gallant war-ship out in the bay; and in the beautiful twilight the graceful boats are shooting in and out from cedar groves to the white huts standing on the edge of the reefs like Grecian temples, and the lovely scene is calm as the smile on the face of the sick man. The mosquito-net is drawn close around the invalid's bed, and his nurse sits within the fold, and watches him until he sinks to sleep. And then she bends her head until it touches his lissom hand, and, weeping much in her deep thankfulness, she too sinks to slumber--well earned and long denied. The same hour next evening St. Udo Brand comes to himself again from the mystic depths of fever, and sorrow, and importunate desire, to see the same tender vision watching over him, and to breathe the same sweet perfume of fresh-culled flowers, and to feel the same restful joy which broke the darkness of his weary trance before. And then he is so glad to find this dream staying by him when so many others have slipped away, that he stretches out his hands, and beckons with a cry of welcome. "My Perdita, I feared I had lost you! Where did you go?" "I have never left your side." "I could not find you, and I have been wandering, wandering everywhere. How was it you got away from my hand?" She, bending her ear to catch these feeble accents, glows with a look of wonder and joy; all the lines of weariness pass away from her face; for the moment she is quite beautiful. "Dear one, was it really _me_ you were trying to hold in your sleep?" she asks, softly. "I saw your brow gather, and your lips move, and an anxious expression come over you in every little slumber: but when I held your groping hand you clasped mine tightly, and became happy in your dreams. Was it Perdita whom you wished so much to keep by you?" "Yes, yes; that was it. You express my thoughts so smoothly for me that I wish you would try again. Something has got away from me after all. Let me hold you while I try to remember." She gives him her hand, and she gives him also her faithful bosom. Gladly she lifts him in her frail arms, and clasps him close, close, and she presses her lips upon his sunken eyelids with kisses as soft and healing as the flowers of Paradise. "It is coming back, I kept it so long, in spite of the whirling goblins and demons who tried to snatch it from me, but when I came to you just now I found that it was gone. Did you take it from me, and give it back to me now when you laid my head upon your bosom?"