The Last Man
“First,” she said, “let us replace the pavement above the vault.”
We drew near to it; “Shall we look on her again?” I asked.
“I cannot,” she replied, “and, I pray you, neither do you. We need not
torture ourselves by gazing on the soulless body, while her living
spirit is buried quick in our hearts, and her surpassing loveliness is
so deeply carved there, that sleeping or waking she must ever be
present to us.”
For a few moments, we bent in solemn silence over the open vault. I
consecrated my future life, to the embalming of her dear memory; I
vowed to serve her brother and her child till death. The convulsive sob
of my companion made me break off my internal orisons. I next dragged
the stones over the entrance of the tomb, and closed the gulph that
contained the life of my life. Then, supporting my decrepid
fellow-mourner, we slowly left the chapel. I felt, as I stepped into
the open air, as if I had quitted an happy nest of repose, for a dreary
wilderness, a tortuous path, a bitter, joyless, hopeless pilgrimage.
CHAPTER IV.
Our escort had been directed to prepare our abode for the night at the
inn, opposite the ascent to the Castle. We could not again visit the
halls and familiar chambers of our home, on a mere visit. We had
already left for ever the glades of Windsor, and all of coppice,
flowery hedgerow, and murmuring stream, which gave shape and intensity
to the love of our country, and the almost superstitious attachment
with which we regarded native England. It had been our intention to
have called at Lucy’s dwelling in Datchet, and to have re-assured her
with promises of aid and protection before we repaired to our quarters
for the night. Now, as the Countess of Windsor and I turned down the
steep hill that led from the Castle, we saw the children, who had just
stopped in their caravan, at the inn-door. They had passed through
Datchet without halting. I dreaded to meet them, and to be the bearer
of my tragic story, so while they were still occupied in the hurry of
arrival, I suddenly left them, and through the snow and clear
moon-light air, hastened along the well known road to Datchet.
Well known indeed it was. Each cottage stood on its accustomed site,
each tree wore its familiar appearance. Habit had graven uneraseably on
my memory, every turn and change of object on the road. At a short
distance beyond the Little Park, was an elm half blown down by a storm,
some ten years ago; and still, with leafless snow-laden branches, it
stretched across the pathway, which wound through a meadow, beside a
shallow brook, whose brawling was silenced by frost—that stile, that
white gate, that hollow oak tree, which doubtless once belonged to the
forest, and which now shewed in the moonlight its gaping rent; to whose
fanciful appearance, tricked out by the dusk into a resemblance of the
human form, the children had given the name of Falstaff;—all these
objects were as well known to me as the cold hearth of my deserted
home, and every moss-grown wall and plot of orchard ground, alike as
twin lambs are to each other in a stranger’s eye, yet to my accustomed
gaze bore differences, distinction, and a name. England remained,
though England was dead—it was the ghost of merry England that I
beheld, under those greenwood shade passing generations had sported in
security and ease. To this painful recognition of familiar places, was
added a feeling experienced by all, understood by none—a feeling as if
in some state, less visionary than a dream, in some past real
existence, I had seen all I saw, with precisely the same feelings as I
now beheld them—as if all my sensations were a duplex mirror of a
former revelation. To get rid of this oppressive sense I strove to
imagine change in this tranquil spot—this augmented my mood, by causing
me to bestow more attention on the objects which occasioned me pain.
I reached Datchet and Lucy’s humble abode—once noisy with Saturday
night revellers, or trim and neat on Sunday morning it had borne
testimony to the labours and orderly habits of the housewife. The snow
lay high about the door, as if it had remained unclosed for many days.
“What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?”
I muttered to myself as I looked at the dark casements. At first I
thought I saw a light in one of them, but it proved to be merely the
refraction of the moon-beams, while the only sound was the crackling
branches as the breeze whirred the snow flakes from them—the moon
sailed high and unclouded in the interminable ether, while the shadow
of the cottage lay black on the garden behind. I entered this by the
open wicket, and anxiously examined each window. At length I detected a
ray of light struggling through a closed shutter in one of the upper
rooms—it was a novel feeling, alas! to look at any house and say there
dwells its usual inmate—the door of the house was merely on the latch:
so I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase. The door of the
inhabited room was ajar: looking in, I saw Lucy sitting as at work at
the table on which the light stood; the implements of needlework were
about her, but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed on
the ground, shewed by their vacancy that her thoughts wandered. Traces
of care and watching had diminished her former attractions—but her
simple dress and cap, her desponding attitude, and the single candle
that cast its light upon her, gave for a moment a picturesque grouping
to the whole. A fearful reality recalled me from the thought—a figure
lay stretched on the bed covered by a sheet—her mother was dead, and
Lucy, apart from all the world, deserted and alone, watched beside the
corpse during the weary night. I entered the room, and my unexpected
appearance at first drew a scream from the lone survivor of a dead
nation; but she recognised me, and recovered herself, with the quick
exercise of self-control habitual to her. “Did you not expect me?” I
asked, in that low voice which the presence of the dead makes us as it
were instinctively assume.
“You are very good,” replied she, “to have come yourself; I can never
thank you sufficiently; but it is too late.”
“Too late,” cried I, “what do you mean? It is not too late to take you
from this deserted place, and conduct you to—-”
My own loss, which I had forgotten as I spoke, now made me turn away,
while choking grief impeded my speech. I threw open the window, and
looked on the cold, waning, ghastly, misshaped circle on high, and the
chill white earth beneath—did the spirit of sweet Idris sail along the
moon-frozen crystal air?—No, no, a more genial atmosphere, a lovelier
habitation was surely hers!
I indulged in this meditation for a moment, and then again addressed
the mourner, who stood leaning against the bed with that expression of
resigned despair, of complete misery, and a patient sufferance of it,
which is far more touching than any of the insane ravings or wild
gesticulation of untamed sorrow. I desired to draw her from this spot;
but she opposed my wish. That class of persons whose imagination and
sensibility have never been taken out of the narrow circle immediately
in view, if they possess these qualities to any extent, are apt to pour
their influence into the very realities which appear to destroy them,
and to cling to these with double tenacity from not being able to
comprehend any thing beyond. Thus Lucy, in desert England, in a dead
world, wished to fulfil the usual ceremonies of the dead, such as were
customary to the English country people, when death was a rare
visitant, and gave us time to receive his dreaded usurpation with pomp
and circumstance—going forth in procession to deliver the keys of the
tomb into his conquering hand. She had already, alone as she was,
accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found her employed,
was her mother’s shroud. My heart sickened at such detail of woe, which
a female can endure, but which is more painful to the masculine spirit
than deadliest struggle, or throes of unutterable but transient agony.
This must not be, I told her; and then, as further inducement, I
communicated to her my recent loss, and gave her the idea that she must
come with me to take charge of the orphan children, whom the death of
Idris had deprived of a mother’s care. Lucy never resisted the call of
a duty, so she yielded, and closing the casements and doors with care,
she accompanied me back to Windsor. As we went she communicated to me
the occasion of her mother’s death. Either by some mischance she had
got sight of Lucy’s letter to Idris, or she had overheard her
conversation with the countryman who bore it; however it might be, she
obtained a knowledge of the appalling situation of herself and her
daughter, her aged frame could not sustain the anxiety and horror this
discovery instilled—she concealed her knowledge from Lucy, but brooded
over it through sleepless nights, till fever and delirium, swift
forerunners of death, disclosed the secret. Her life, which had long
been hovering on its extinction, now yielded at once to the united
effects of misery and sickness, and that same morning she had died.
After the tumultuous emotions of the day, I was glad to find on my
arrival at the inn that my companions had retired to rest. I gave Lucy
in charge to the Countess’s attendant, and then sought repose from my
various struggles and impatient regrets. For a few moments the events
of the day floated in disastrous pageant through my brain, till sleep
bathed it in forgetfulness; when morning dawned and I awoke, it seemed
as if my slumber had endured for years.
My companions had not shared my oblivion. Clara’s swollen eyes shewed
that she had passed the night in weeping. The Countess looked haggard
and wan. Her firm spirit had not found relief in tears, and she
suffered the more from all the painful retrospect and agonizing regret
that now occupied her. We departed from Windsor, as soon as the burial
rites had been performed for Lucy’s mother, and, urged on by an
impatient desire to change the scene, went forward towards Dover with
speed, our escort having gone before to provide horses; finding them
either in the warm stables they instinctively sought during the cold
weather, or standing shivering in the bleak fields ready to surrender
their liberty in exchange for offered corn.
During our ride the Countess recounted to me the extraordinary
circumstances which had brought her so strangely to my side in the
chancel of St. George’s chapel. When last she had taken leave of Idris,
as she looked anxiously on her faded person and pallid countenance, she
had suddenly been visited by a conviction that she saw her for the last
time. It was hard to part with her while under the dominion of this
sentiment, and for the last time she endeavoured to persuade her
daughter to commit herself to her nursing, permitting me to join
Adrian. Idris mildly refused, and thus they separated. The idea that
they should never again meet grew on the Countess’s mind, and haunted
her perpetually; a thousand times she had resolved to turn back and
join us, and was again and again restrained by the pride and anger of
which she was the slave. Proud of heart as she was, she bathed her
pillow with nightly tears, and through the day was subdued by nervous
agitation and expectation of the dreaded event, which she was wholly
incapable of curbing. She confessed that at this period her hatred of
me knew no bounds, since she considered me as the sole obstacle to the
fulfilment of her dearest wish, that of attending upon her daughter in
her last moments. She desired to express her fears to her son, and to
seek consolation from his sympathy with, or courage from his rejection
of, her auguries.
On the first day of her arrival at Dover she walked with him on the sea