CHAPTER XXV. MISERRIMUS DEXTER--SECOND VIEW
THOROUGHLY disheartened and disgusted, and (if I must honestly confessit) thoroughly frightened too, I whispered to Mrs. Macallan, "I waswrong, and you were right. Let us go."
The ears of Miserrimus Dexter must have been as sensitive as the ears ofa dog. He heard me say, "Let us go."
"No!" he called out. "Bring Eustace Macallan's second wife in here. Iam a gentleman--I must apologize to her. I am a student of humancharacter--I wish to see her."
The whole man appeared to have undergone a complete transformation. Hespoke in the gentlest of voices, and he sighed hysterically when he haddone, like a woman recovering from a burst of tears. Was it revivingcourage or reviving curiosity? When Mrs. Macallan said to me, "The fitis over now; do you still wish to go away?" I answered, "No; I am readyto go in."
"Have you recovered your belief in him already?" asked my mother-in-law,in her mercilessly satirical way.
"I have recovered from my terror of him," I replied.
"I am sorry I terrified you," said the soft voice at the fire-place."Some people think I am a little mad at times. You came, I suppose,at one of the times--if some people are right. I admit that I am avisionary. My imagination runs away with me, and I say and do strangethings. On those occasions, anybody who reminds me of that horribleTrial throws me back again into the past, and causes me unutterablenervous suffering. I am a very tender-hearted man. As the necessaryconsequence (in such a world as this), I am a miserable wretch. Acceptmy excuses. Come in, both of you. Come in and pity me."
A child would not have been frightened of him now. A child would havegone in and pitied him.
The room was getting darker and darker. We could just see the crouchingfigure of Miserrimus Dexter at the expiring fire--and that was all.
"Are we to have no light?" asked Mrs. Macallan. "And is this lady to seeyou, when the light comes, out of your chair?"
He lifted something bright and metallic, hanging round his neck, andblew on it a series of shrill, trilling, bird-like notes. After aninterval he was answered by a similar series of notes sounding faintlyin some distant region of the house.
"Ariel is coming," he said. "Compose yourself, Mamma Macallan; Arielwith make me presentable to a lady's eyes."
He hopped away on his hands into the darkness at the end of theroom. "Wait a little," said Mrs. Macallan, "and you will have anothersurprise--you will see the 'delicate Ariel.'"
We heard heavy footsteps in the circular room.
"Ariel!" sighed Miserrimus Dexter out of the darkness, in his softestnotes.
To my astonishment the coarse, masculine voice of the cousin in theman's hat--the Caliban's, rather than the Ariel's voice--answered,"Here!"
"My chair, Ariel!"
The person thus strangely misnamed drew aside the tapestry, so as to letin more light; then entered the room, pushing the wheeled chair beforeher. She stooped and lifted Miserrimus Dexter from the floor, like achild. Before she could put him into the chair, he sprang out of herarms with a little gleeful cry, and alighted on his seat, like a birdalighting on its perch!
"The lamp," said Miserrimus Dexter, "and the looking-glass.--Pardon me,"he added, addressing us, "for turning my back on you. You mustn't seeme until my hair is set to rights.--Ariel! the brush, the comb, and theperfumes!"
Carrying the lamp in one hand, the looking-glass in the other, and thebrush (with the comb stuck in it) between her teeth, Ariel the Second,otherwise Dexter's cousin, presented herself plainly before me for thefirst time. I could now see the girl's round, fleshy, inexpressiveface, her rayless and colorless eyes, her coarse nose and heavy chin. Acreature half alive; an imperfectly developed animal in shapeless formclad in a man's pilot jacket, and treading in a man's heavy laced boots,with nothing but an old red-flannel petticoat, and a broken comb inher frowzy flaxen hair, to tell us that she was a woman--such was theinhospitable person who had received us in the darkness when we firstentered the house.
This wonderful valet, collecting her materials for dressing herstill more wonderful master's hair, gave him the looking-glass (ahand-mirror), and addressed herself to her work.
She combed, she brushed, she oiled, she perfumed the flowing locks andthe long silky beard of Miserrimus Dexter with the strangest mixture ofdullness and dexterity that I ever saw. Done in brute silence, witha lumpish look and a clumsy gait, the work was perfectly well donenevertheless. The imp in the chair superintended the whole proceedingcritically by means of his hand-mirror. He was too deeply interestedin this occupation to speak until some of the concluding touches to hisbeard brought the misnamed Ariel in front of him, and so turned herfull face toward the part of the room in which Mrs. Macallan and I werestanding. Then he addressed us, taking especial care, however, not toturn his head our way while his toilet was still incomplete.
"Mamma Macallan," he said, "what is the Christian name of your son'ssecond wife?"
"Why do you want to know?" asked my mother-in-law.
"I want to know because I can't address her as 'Mrs. Eustace Macallan.'"
"Why not?"
"It recalls _the other_ Mrs. Eustace Macallan. If I am reminded of thosehorrible days at Gleninch my fortitude will give way--I shall burst outscreaming again."
Hearing this, I hastened to interpose.
"My name is Valeria," I said.
"A Roman name," remarked Miserrimus Dexter. "I like it. My mind is castin the Roman mold. My bodily build would have been Roman if I had beenborn with legs. I shall call you Mrs. Valeria, unless you disapprove ofit."
I hastened to say that I was far from disapproving of it.
"Very good," said Miserrimus Dexter "Mrs. Valeria, do you see the faceof this creature in front of me?"
He pointed with the hand-mirror to his cousin as unconcernedly as hemight have pointed to a dog. His cousin, on her side, took no morenotice than a dog would have taken of the contemptuous phrase by whichhe had designated her. She went on combing and oiling his beard ascomposedly as ever.
"It is the face of an idiot, isn't it?" pursued Miserrimus Dexter! "Lookat her! She is a mere vegetable. A cabbage in a garden has as much lifeand expression in it as that girl exhibits at the present moment. Wouldyou believe there was latent intelligence, affection, pride, fidelity,in such a half-developed being as this?"
I was really ashamed to answer him. Quite needlessly! The impenetrableyoung woman went on with her master's beard. A machine could nothave taken less notice of the life and the talk around it than thisincomprehensible creature.
"_I_ have got at that latent affection, pride, fidelity, and the restof it," resumed Miserrimus Dexter. "_I_ hold the key to that dormantIntelligence. Grand thought! Now look at her when I speak. (I namedher, poor wretch, in one of my ironical moments. She has got to like hername, just as a dog gets to like his collar.) Now, Mrs. Valeria, lookand listen.--Ariel!"
The girl's dull face began to brighten. The girl's mechanically movinghand stopped, and held the comb in suspense.
"Ariel! you have learned to dress my hair and anoint my beard, haven'tyou?"
Her face still brightened. "Yes! yes! yes!" she answered, eagerly. "Andyou say I have learned to do it well, don't you?"
"I say that. Would you like to let anybody else do it for you?"
Her eyes melted softly into light and life. Her strange unwomanly voicesank to the gentlest tones that I had heard from her yet.
"Nobody else shall do it for me," she said at once proudly and tenderly."Nobody, as long as I live, shall touch you but me."
"Not even the lady there?" asked Miserrimus Dexter, pointing backwardwith his hand-mirror to the place at which I was standing.
Her eyes suddenly flashed, her hand suddenly shook the comb at me, in aburst of jealous rage.
"Let her try!" cried the poor creature, raising her voice again to itshoarsest notes. "Let her touch you if she dares!"
Dexter laughed at the childish outbreak. "That will do, my delicateAriel," he said. "I dis
miss your Intelligence for the present. Relapseinto your former self. Finish my beard."
She passively resumed her work. The new light in her eyes, the newexpression in her face, faded little by little and died out. In anotherminute the face was as vacant and as lumpish as before; the hands didtheir work again with the lifeless dexterity which had so painfullyimpressed me when she first took up the brush. Miserrimus Dexterappeared to be perfectly satisfied with these results.
"I thought my little experiment might interest you," he said. "You seehow it is? The dormant intelligence of my curious cousin is like thedormant sound in a musical instrument. I play upon it--and it answers tomy touch. She likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hearme tell a story. I puzzle her to the verge of distraction; and the moreI confuse her the better she likes the story. It is the greatest fun;you really must see it some day." He indulged himself in a last lookat the mirror. "Ha!" he said, complacently; "now I shall do. Vanish,Ariel!"
She tramped out of the room in her heavy boots, with the mute obedienceof a trained animal. I said "Good-night" as she passed me. She neitherreturned the salutation nor looked at me: the words simply producedno effect on her dull senses. The one voice that could reach her wassilent. She had relapsed once more into the vacant inanimate creaturewho had opened the gate to us, until it pleased Miserrimus Dexter tospeak to her again.
"Valeria!" said my mother-in-law. "Our modest host is waiting to seewhat you think of him."
While my attention was fixed on his cousin he had wheeled his chairaround so as to face me with the light of the lamp falling full on him.In mentioning his appearance as a witness at the Trial, I find I haveborrowed (without meaning to do so) from my experience of him at thislater time. I saw plainly now the bright intelligent face and the largeclear blue eyes, the lustrous waving hair of a light chestnut color, thelong delicate white hands, and the magnificent throat and chest which Ihave elsewhere described. The deformity which degraded and destroyed themanly beauty of his head and breast was hidden from view by an Orientalrobe of many colors, thrown over the chair like a coverlet. He wasclothed in a jacket of black velvet, fastened loosely across his chestwith large malachite buttons; and he wore lace ruffles at the ends ofhis sleeves, in the fashion of the last century. It may well have beendue to want of perception on my part--but I could see nothing mad inhim, nothing in any way repelling, as he now looked at me. The onedefect that I could discover in his face was at the outer corners ofhis eyes, just under the temple. Here when he laughed, and in a lesserdegree when he smiled, the skin contracted into quaint little wrinklesand folds, which looked strangely out of harmony with the almostyouthful appearance of the rest of his face. As to his other features,the mouth, so far as his beard and mustache permitted me to see it, wassmall and delicately formed; the nose--perfectly shaped on the straightGrecian model--was perhaps a little too thin, judged by comparison withthe full cheeks and the high massive forehead. Looking at him as a whole(and speaking of him, of course, from a woman's, not a physiognomist'spoint of view), I can only describe him as being an unusually handsomeman. A painter would have reveled in him as a model for St. John. And ayoung girl, ignorant of what the Oriental robe hid from view, would havesaid to herself, the instant she looked at him, "Here is the hero of mydreams!"
His blue eyes--large as the eyes of a woman, clear as the eyes of achild--rested on me the moment I turned toward him, with a strangelyvarying play of expression, which at once interested and perplexed me.
Now there was doubt--uneasy, painful doubt--in the look; and now againit changed brightly to approval, so open and unrestrained that a vainwoman might have fancied she had made a conquest of him at first sight.Suddenly a new emotion seemed to take possession of him. His eyes sank,his head drooped; he lifted his hands with a gesture of regret. Hemuttered and murmured to himself; pursuing some secret and melancholytrain of thought, which seemed to lead him further and further awayfrom present objects of interest, and to plunge him deeper and deeper introubled recollections of the past. Here and there I caught some of thewords. Little by little I found myself trying to fathom what was darklypassing in this strange man's mind.
"A far more charming face," I heard him say. "But no--not a morebeautiful figure. What figure was ever more beautiful than hers?Something--but not all--of her enchanting grace. Where is theresemblance which has brought her back to me? In the pose of the figure,perhaps. In the movement of the figure, perhaps. Poor martyred angel!What a life! And what a death! what a death!"
Was he comparing me with the victim of the poison--with my husband'sfirst wife? His words seemed to justify the conclusion. If I were right,the dead woman had evidently been a favorite with him. There was nomisinterpreting the broken tones of his voice when he spoke of her: hehad admired her, living; he mourned her, dead. Supposing that Icould prevail upon myself to admit this extraordinary person into myconfidence, what would be the result? Should I be the gainer or theloser by the resemblance which he fancied he had discovered? Would thesight of me console him or pain him? I waited eagerly to hear more onthe subject of the first wife. Not a word more escaped his lips. A newchange came over him. He lifted his head with a start, and looked abouthim as a weary man might look if he was suddenly disturbed in a deepsleep.
"What have I done?" he said. "Have I been letting my mind drift again?"He shuddered and sighed. "Oh, that house of Gleninch!" he murmured,sadly, to himself. "Shall I never get away from it in my thoughts? Oh,that house of Gleninch!"
To my infinite disappointment, Mrs. Macallan checked the furtherrevelation of what was passing in his mind.
Something in the tone and manner of his allusion to her son'scountry-house seemed to have offended her. She interposed sharply anddecisively.
"Gently, my friend, gently!" she said. "I don't think you quite knowwhat you are talking about."
His great blue eyes flashed at her fiercely. With one turn of his handhe brought his chair close at her side. The next instant he caught herby the arm, and forced her to bend to him, until he could whisper inher ear. He was violently agitated. His whisper was loud enough to makeitself heard where I was sitting at the time.
"I don't know what I am talking about?" he repeated, with his eyes fixedattentively, not on my mother-in-law, but on me. "You shortsightedold woman! where are your spectacles? Look at her! Do you see noresemblance--the figure, not the face!--do you see no resemblance thereto Eustace's first wife?"
"Pure fancy!" rejoined Mrs. Macallan. "I see nothing of the sort."
He shook her impatiently.
"Not so loud!" he whispered. "She will hear you."
"I have heard you both," I said. "You need have no fear, Mr. Dexter, ofspeaking before me. I know that my husband had a first wife, and I knowhow miserably she died. I have read the Trial."
"You have read the life and death of a martyr!" cried Miserrimus Dexter.He suddenly wheeled his chair my way; he bent over me; his eyes filledwith tears. "Nobody appreciated her at her true value," he said, "butme. Nobody but me! nobody but me!"
Mrs. Macallan walked away impatiently to the end of the room.
"When you are ready, Valeria, I am," she said. "We cannot keep theservants and the horses waiting much longer in this bleak place."
I was too deeply interested in leading Miserrimus Dexter to pursuethe subject on which he had touched to be willing to leave him at thatmoment. I pretended not to have heard Mrs. Macallan. I laid my hand, asif by accident, on the wheel-chair to keep him near me.
"You showed me how highly you esteemed that poor lady in your evidenceat the Trial," I said. "I believe, Mr. Dexter, you have ideas of yourown about the mystery of her death?"
He had been looking at my hand, resting on the arm of his chair, until Iventured on my question. At that he suddenly raised his eyes, and fixedthem with a frowning and furtive suspicion on my face.
"How do you know I have ideas of my own?" he asked, sternly.
"I know it from reading the Trial," I answered. "The lawyer whocr
oss-examined you spoke almost in the very words which I have justused. I had no intention of offending you, Mr. Dexter."
His face cleared as rapidly as it had clouded. He smiled, and laidhis hand on mine. His touch struck me cold. I felt every nerve in meshivering under it; I drew my hand away quickly.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "if I have misunderstood you. I _have_ideas of my own about that unhappy lady." He paused and looked at me insilence very earnestly. "Have _you_ any ideas?" he asked. "Ideas abouther life? or about her death?"
I was deeply interested; I was burning to hear more. It might encouragehim to speak if I were candid with him. I answered, "Yes."
"Ideas which you have mentioned to any one?" he went on.
"To no living creature," I replied--"as yet."
"This very strange!" he said, still earnestly reading my face. "Whatinterest can _you_ have in a dead woman whom you never knew? Why did youask me that question just now? Have you any motive in coming here to seeme?"
I boldly acknowledged the truth. I said, "I have a motive."
"Is it connected with Eustace Macallan's first wife?"
"It is."
"With anything that happened in her lifetime?"
"No."
"With her death?"
"Yes."
He suddenly clasped his hands with a wild gesture of despair, and thenpressed them both on his head, as if he were struck by some sudden pain.
"I can't hear it to-night!" he said. "I would give worlds to hear it,but I daren't. I should lose all hold over myself in the state I am innow. I am not equal to raking up the horror and the mystery of the past;I have not courage enough to open the grave of the martyred dead. Didyou hear me when you came here? I have an immense imagination. It runsriot at times. It makes an actor of me. I play the parts of all theheroes that ever lived. I feel their characters. I merge myself in theirindividualities. For the time I _am_ the man I fancy myself to be. Ican't help it. I am obliged to do it. If I restrained my imaginationwhen the fit is on me, I should go mad. I let myself loose. It lastsfor hours. It leaves me with my energies worn out, with my sensibilitiesfrightfully acute. Rouse any melancholy or terrible associations in meat such times, and I am capable of hysterics, I am capable of screaming.You heard me scream. You shall _not_ see me in hysterics. No, Mrs.Valeria--no, you innocent reflection of the dead and gone--I would notfrighten you for the world. Will you come here to-morrow in the daytime?I have got a chaise and a pony. Ariel, my delicate Ariel, can drive. Sheshall call at Mamma Macallan's and fetch you. We will talk to-morrow,when I am fit for it. I am dying to hear you. I will be fit for youin the morning. I will be civil, intelligent, communicative, in themorning. No more of it now. Away with the subject--the too exciting, thetoo interesting subject! I must compose myself or my brains will explodein my head. Music is the true narcotic for excitable brains. My harp! myharp!"
He rushed away in his chair to the far end of the room, passing Mrs.Macallan as she returned to me, bent on hastening our departure.
"Come!" said the old lady, irritably. "You have seen him, and he hasmade a good show of himself. More of him might be tiresome. Come away."
The chair returned to us more slowly. Miserrimus Dexter was working itwith one hand only. In the other he held a harp of a pattern which I hadhitherto only seen in pictures. The strings were few in number, and theinstrument was so small that I could have held it easily on my lap.It was the ancient harp of the pictured Muses and the legendary Welshbards.
"Good-night, Dexter," said Mrs. Macallan.
He held up one hand imperatively.
"Wait!" he said. "Let her hear me sing." He turned to me. "I decline tobe indebted to other people for my poetry and my music," he went on. "Icompose my own poetry and my own music. I improvise. Give me a moment tothink. I will improvise for You."
He closed his eyes and rested his head on the frame of the harp. Hisfingers gently touched the strings while he was thinking. In afew minutes he lifted his head, looked at me, and struck the firstnotes--the prelude to the song. It was wild, barbaric, monotonous music,utterly unlike any modern composition. Sometimes it suggested a slowand undulating Oriental dance. Sometimes it modulated into tones whichreminded me of the severer harmonies of the old Gregorian chants. Thewords, when they followed the prelude, were as wild, as recklessly freefrom all restraint of critical rules, as the music. They were assuredlyinspired by the occasion; I was the theme of the strange song. Andthus--in one of the finest tenor voices I ever heard--my poet sang ofme:
"Why does she come? She reminds me of the lost; She reminds me of thedead: In her form like the other, In her walk like the other: Why doesshe come?
"Does Destiny bring her? Shall we range together The mazes of the past?Shall we search together The secrets of the past? Shall we interchangethoughts, surmises, suspicions? Does Destiny bring her?
"The Future will show. Let the night pass; Let the day come. I shall seeinto Her mind: She will look into Mine. The Future will show."
His voice sank, his fingers touched the strings more and more feebly ashe approached the last lines. The overwrought brain needed and took itsreanimating repose. At the final words his eyes slowly closed. His headlay back on the chair. He slept with his arms around his harp, as achild sleeps hugging its last new toy.
We stole out of the room on tiptoe, and left Miserrimus Dexter--poet,composer, and madman--in his peaceful sleep.