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CHAPTER XXXI
THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS ON SEA OR LAND
“MONSIEUR,” said the surgeon whom Sir Godfrey had called in, as he drew that politician aside to a comer of the room, – “it is, I think, my duty to tell you that, in effect, you must be warned against entertaining any confidence in the patient’s recovery. It was a most lamentable accident indeed; and such a fine young man too! Excessively lamentable.”
He glanced towards the couch, by which Adelheid knelt.
“You would like further advice? – you wish to name?” . . . . .
Sir Godfrey looked at him anxiously, and paused, for the expression upon the surgeon’s face effectually checked the words he was about to utter.
“Understand me, monsieur, I will tell you plainly. There is no hope, – he has not two hours’ life in him. If there is any arrangement of a worldly nature to be made, – any spiritual consolation –”
He stopped in his turn, for an impatient gesture on the part of monsieur rendered any further observations superfluous.
“I have dressed the wound, monsieur, I conceive nothing more can he done. As it is possible that my presence here might, under the circum-stances, prove embarrassing to you and your friends, I will, with your permission, retire, – for the present.”
He glances towards the couch again, and bows to Sir Godfrey, who returns the salutation, accompanies him into the outer passage, and comes back again softly, alone. Through the open door of the bedchamber the drowsy candlelight glints and flickers upon Tristan’s easel, and illumines fitfully the passionate face and lifted hands of Hypatia. For a minute the eyes of the young painter rest with a wistful expression upon the
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work that should have been his pride, – the only begotten child of his dreaming brain; then he turns and looks at Adelheid Stern.
“Another day would have finished it,” he mutters faintly, “only another day; and now I shall never touch a brush again. But thou, my Queen, complete my shadowy thought, make real the vision I have raised. Be that which my fantasy has dimly shaped for you, soul of my soul; fulfil the Destiny which may indeed he thine! Aye, though I know, my Queen, that the Christians of to-day will tear thee, as of old they tore Hypatia – for the mystery of tribulation remains unchanged, and noble souls are ever crowned by martyrdom. So, also, Godiva redeemed the city, but with fear and peril of shame. With woeful and protracted pangs Alcmena brought forth the mighty son of Jove. And these are allegories which remain for evermore, that men may know what price of bitter pain salvation costs, and learn how every worthy diadem is bought by suffering and penance. Bare then thine heart, my Queen, though it be in the public ways, for thou shalt save the people yet! Be faithful and abiding as thy name, rise like a Star upon this darkened earth, burn through the distance of dreams, Hesperia, my Sweet; – shine on with stedfast glory to the end!”
She laid her lips to his, and sealed her promise there.
“It grows late,” said the Earl is low tones to Sir Godfrey; ”when does the surgeon purpose to return?”
“He will not return,” answered the minister, looking full at his friend.
“Templar?”
“Hush,” whispered the other, “be calm. Place yourself in the hands of God. He cannot live.”
The Earl staggered back against the wall and groaned.
But from his place behind the couch, the Italian Baldassare heard, and leaning forward he touched his pupil’s cheek.
“Tristan,” said he in solemn tones, – “tell me what is in your mind now? Are you sorry to leave the world?”
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“I have no regrets.” answered the boy, with a brilliant glance. “But yet for the sake of my Queen I would indeed have stayed. Strange, – that only yesterday – to part like this would have broken my heart; but with the hour likewise comes the grace. Now I can say it is well, – Tristan the Pilgrim, the son of tears, is also the beloved of the gods.”
Then in clearer tones of urgent pathos came the cry, – “O Baldassare! it is Night still! They told me Vivian could not die till dawn; – must I wait for the dawning too?”
“Templar,” whispers the Earl, recovering his self-possession with an effort – “I have left a duty too long undone. Do me the kindness to go at once to my hotel, and enquire for Lady Cairnsmuir. If she is there tell her what has occurred, and bring her back with you.”
Without a word of reply Sir Godfrey wrings his friend's hand, and I noiselessly retires on his errand. Tristan lies back upon Adelheid’s bosom, his gaze rivetted upon the gloom, and on his face the shadow of that strange old age, like the shadow of a cloud upon the open sea.
“Tristan, my dear boy,” murmurs the Earl in an awed voice – “what do you behold? what do you hear?”
I behold the Immensity,” answers Tristan, with a magnetic power in the deeps of his great dark eyes, “I hear the sound of the stars in their courses. Thine, O God, is the kingdom, the power, and the glory! Thy will is done for evermore!”
As he speaks, there floats into the gloomy chamber with deep sonorous reverberation the chime of a church clock somewhere beyond the houses of the Place without. It is Midnight. And as the heavy brazen tones die slowly away in welling circles of sound, the last echo is caught up by the bells from end to end of the city. In a minute the room is filled with the rolling jubilant pæan; through crevice and door and closed window it comes bursting and pouring in tumultuously – out of the bleak starry night. Yes, the stars are there, those omniscient eyes of God which behold in the selfsame hour all things past, present, and to
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come: all Life, all Death, all changes of Time and Spirit, – in the sight of which “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”
Is that a light of stars upon Tristan’s face now – that Light that irradiates the pallid features so drivinely; that shrouds and covers the golden hair of Adelheid Stern as with a bridal veil of filmy sheen - that Light which enfolds and embraces them both in its tender glow?
Lord Hubert bends forward and lays his hand in the core of the wondrous luminance. It rests there still, it brightens as he watches it. With a significant motion of his eyes he directs the attention of the old Italian to this unaccountable phenomenon; and as he again looks back upon the couch there comes out – distinct and dear – that weird mysterious likeness between the faces of Tristan and the Lady of his soul. Stronger now than in the moment of their first meeting – more wonderful and definite beneath the electric halo of that unearthly shining – a likeness so startling and intense that it seems indeed as though it consisted, not in any physical resemblance, but were rather the marvellous revelation of a far nearer and truer kinship of Spirit.
Into the open eyes of Tristan comes a rapt expression, as of unutterable gladness; he throws out his arms and turns him face towards the window.
“The bells!” he cries, “the bells of the New Year! They are ringing for my fête – for my coming of age – for my going home. Ah, my love, my darling, sing to me – sing to me of the everlasting stars and of the bells of Heaven, thou who art still my Star and my sweetest Queen; my soul desires but to hear thy voice and pass away!”
And all at once she lifts her golden head upon which the mystic Light is shining still, and bursts into a wild German melody, such as the elfish Undine might have sung to the musical goblin laughter of the waterfall; a wayward thrilling carol that floats and ebbs and mingles with the rolling voices of the bells, as though it were a part of their mellow drifting symphony.
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Involuntarily Baldassare and the Earl retreat from the couch amazed; – the appalling witchery of the scene, – the time, – the wizard face upon the pillow, – the miraculous light, – the wild tumultuous song; – was there ever a Passing away so spectral and awful as this? Fain would my Lord believe that he is distracted by some spell; that his senses are misled by a glamour, – disordered by some hallucination; he draws his hand across his eyes, and tries to remember a prayer.
She sings of an errant knight returning home, of his Ladye’s grace, of his unchanging faith and love, of the perils which beset him in haunted woods and stormy wilds, and of the wandering lights of earth which seek in vain to beguile the true and noble soul. She sings of the stars and the sea, the stars which are grand and eternal, the sea which gives voice evermore to the mighty harmony of Love; for these only are steadfast and divine, these only shall endure when the illusive mists and meteors of the world are quenched and dissolved for aye. And this is the song which Tristan’s Lady sang to him:-
“Prick fast, fair Knight, the West is gray,
The East is dark and eerie,
No hope for him who rides this way,
If heart or spur be weary!”
– “Fair Elle-maid, mine are spurs of steel,
My heart no peril jars,
If only on my face I feel
The holy light of stars, –
If but athwart the gloom shall steal
The stedfast light of Stars!”
– “Ah, valiant sir! round yonder heights
The windy thunders revel;
The Forest of the Wandering Lights
Lies black along the level!”
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– “No mountain storms, pale Elf, I fear,
Nor lights upon the Iea,
If only breaks upon mine ear
The murmur of the sea –
If but across the wild I hear
The Voice of Salem’s Sea!” –
To dare the fearsome waste he flies
Ere scarce the words are spoken,
Secure beneath his corselet lies
His chosen Lady’s token;
The mystic Forest o’er him throws
Its black colossal bars,
But high above them slowly grows
The glory of the stars,
He greets their silver smile, and knows
It is the Light of Stars.
Wild voices cry, strange faces glance
From tufted glen and hollow,
Before him ghostly meteors dance,
Behind him shadows follow!
The boughs are live that touch his cheeks,
The grass that sweeps his knee,
The goblin bird of midnight shrieks
From every gnarléd tree;
But, evermore sonorous speaks
The voice of Salem's Sea!
Weird spectres round him wheel and dart,
But he nor turns nor tarries,
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For still upon that knightly heart
His Lady’s gift he carries;
No phantom bred of reedy mires
His eastward journey bars;
He trusts alone the holier fires
Of Heaven’s eternal stars, –
A sacred light his soul inspires
From yonder burning Stars!
“I mind thee not, dim Wood,” he sings,
“Thou World of Lights pretended;
False fires, and tongues of vapid things
That die like lamps expended!
Vague babble of uncertain creeds,
Vain faiths that flit and flee;
My heart one nobler warning heeds
From yonder sounding sea, –
No wandering voice my path impedes
To that eternal Sea!
“Evöe! through the darkness burns
A light of Love supernal;
Die, feeble tongues! my spirit yearns
For harmonies eternal!
Evöe! from yon purple space,
The storm no longer bars
That glory from my lifted face
That is the Light of Stars –
So mighty is my Lady’s grace,
So true the holy Stars!”
The song fades with the tide of the bells, it sinks to the softness
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of a lullaby; it merges into a low, crooning chant. It dies into silence.
Hark! signor, hark,” says a voice at Lord Cairnsmuir side – “It comes; this is indeed the hour of his birth!”
IT?
For there is a strange sound in the room, like a wind. Hardly a sound nevertheless; so faint and inexplicable is the stir it makes that it seems less perhaps a sound than a Presence. It hovers upon the dark scattered curls of Tristan’s head, as though it were a loving hand pausing there to leave a benediction; it descends and touches the dress of the kneeling girl, as though it lingered with her a moment to whisper consolation; it surrounds the Earl and breathes lightly upon his forehead as it goes – as it goes floating upward and out, – passing away as it came.
Passing away, but not alone. For the weary head sinks lower upon Adelheid’s breast, the strange eyes close, the old age dies out of the beautiful face for ever, and with a sigh of parting, Tristan Le Rodeur enters his Father’s inheritance.
He had not waited for the dawning. . . . . . . .
Someone stands upon the threshold of the bedroom. Someone with trailing robes of satin and a glittering arch of diamonds in her shadowy hair, and beneath the diamonds a face like the face of Death.
“O my child! my darling child! the child of my love!”
“Too late, Dolores!” cries the voice of the heart-broken Earl, “it is over for evermore! Our House is left unto us desolate!”
And again, while they stand looking at one another, the bells without burst forth wildly upon the terrible stillness. The wind has risen, and the night that a minute since was so calm and tranquil, is full of turbulent sound and hurricane. AII round the silent chamber of Death, the City of Laughter is drinking, and gambling, and dancing in the New Year Sixty-Nine, that closing year of all its mad gaieties and wanton riot, that year that is destined to witness the last of its glory and its regal sway!
But far above, through the free expanse, beyond flashing lights and
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blatant bells, and mirth and tears of men, the Wandering Wind, dispersing with solemn thunders the narrowing mist and blinding vapours of earth, bears upward a human spirit into the mighty bosom of God. O Wind, thou Pilgrim of the Universe, thou vagabond of the Ages, thyself divine though yet the Messenger of the gods – bear with thee to Heaven also this passionate cry of a mother’s heart:
“O Mary, Queen! Our Lady of Mercy! in thy mercy remember the sorrow of my soul!”
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