A MEETING BETWEEN CONSTANCE AND THE PROPHETESS.

A strange suspicion had entered Constance’s mind, and for Godolphin’s sake she resolved to put it to the proof.  She drew her mantle round her stately figure, put on a large disguising bonnet, and repaired to Madame Liehbur’s house.

The Moorish girl opened the door to the countess; and her strange dress, her African hue and features, relieved by the long, glittering pendants in her ears, while they seemed suited to the eccentric reputation of her mistress, brought a slight smile to the proud lip of Lady Erpingham, as she conceived them a part of the charlatanism practised by the soothsayer.  The girl only replied to Lady Erpingham’s question by an intelligent sign; and running lightly up the stairs, conducted the guest into an anteroom, where she waited but for a few moments before she was admitted into Madame Liehbur’s apartment.

The effect that the personal beauty of the diviner always produced on those who beheld her was not less powerful than usual on the surprised and admiring gaze of Lady Erpingham.  She bowed her haughty brow with involuntary respect, and took the seat to which the enthusiast beckoned.

“And what, lady,” said the soothsayer, in the foreign music of her low voice, “what brings thee hither?  Wouldst thou gain, or hast thou lost, that gift our poor sex prizes so dearly beyond its value?  Is it of love that thou wouldst speak to the interpreter of dreams and the priestess of the things to come?”

While the bright-eyed Liehbur thus spoke, the countess examined through her veil the fair face before her, comparing it with that description which Godolphin had given her of the sculptor’s daughter, and her suspicion acquired new strength.

“I seek not that which you allude to,” said Constance; “but of the future, although without any definite object, I would indeed like to question you.  All of us love to pry into dark recesses hid from our view, and over which you profess the empire.”

“Your voice is sweet, but commanding,” said the oracle; “and your air is stately, as of one born in courts.  Lift your veil, that I may gaze upon your face, and tell by its lines the fate your character has shaped for you.”

“Alas!” answered Constance, “life betrays few of its past signs by outward token.  If you have no wiser art than that drawn from the lines and features of our countenances, I shall still remain what I am now ­an unbeliever in your powers.”

“The brow, and the lip, and the eye, and the expression of each and all,” answered Liehbur, “are not the lying index you suppose them.”

“Then,” rejoined Constance, “by those signs will I read your own destiny, as you would read mine.”

The sibyl started, and waved her hand impatiently; but Constance proceeded.

“Your birth, despite your fair locks, was under a southern sky; you were nursed in the delusions you now teach; you were loved, and left alone; you are in the country of your lover.  Is it not so? ­am I not an oracle in my turn?”

The mysterious Liehbur fell back in her chair; her lips apart and blanched ­her hands clasped ­her eyes fixed upon her visitant.

“Who are you?” she cried at last, in a shrill tone; “who, of my own sex, knows my wretched history?  Speak, speak! ­in mercy speak! tell me more! convince me that you have but vainly guessed my secret, or that you have a right to know it!”

“Did not your father forsake, for the blue skies of Rome, his own colder shores?” continued Constance, adopting the heightened and romantic tone of the one she addressed; and, “Percy Godolphin ­is that name still familiar to the ear of Lucilla Volktman?”

A loud, long shriek burst from the lips of the soothsayer, and she sank at once lifeless on the ground.  Greatly alarmed, and repenting her own abruptness, Constance hastened to her assistance.  She lifted the poor being, whom she unconsciously had once contributed so deeply to injure, from the ground; she loosened her dress, and perceived that around her neck hung a broad ivory necklace wrought with curious characters, and many uncouth forms and symbols.  This evidence that, in deluding others, the soothsayer deluded herself also, touched and affected the countess; and while she was still busy in chafing the temples of Lucilla, the Moor, brought to the spot by that sudden shriek, entered the apartment.  She seemed surprised and terrified at her mistress’s condition, and poured forth, in some tongue unknown to Constance, what seemed to her a volley of mingled reproach and lamentation.  She seized Lady Erpingham’s hand, dashed it indignantly away, and, supporting herself the ashen cheek of Lucilla, motioned to Lady Erpingham to depart; but Constance, not easily accustomed to obey, retained her position beside the still insensible Lucilla; and now, by slow degrees, and with quick and heavy sighs, the unfortunate daughter of Volktman returned to life and consciousness.

In assisting Lucilla, the countess had thrown aside her veil, and the eyes of the soothsayer opened upon that superb beauty, which once to see was never to forget.  Involuntarily she again closed her eyes, and groaned audibly; and then, summoning all her courage, she withdrew her hand from Constance’s clasp, and bade her Moorish handmaid leave them once more alone.

“So, then,” said Lucilla, after a pause, “it is Percy Godolphin’s wife; his English wife, who has come to gaze on the fallen, the degraded Lucilla; and yet,” sinking her voice into a tone of ineffable and plaintive sweetness ­“yet I have slept on his bosom, and been dear and sacred to him as thou!  Go, proud lady, go! ­leave me to my mad, and sunken, and solitary state.  Go!”

“Dear Lucilla!” said Constance, kindly, and striving once more to take her hand, “do not cast me away from you.  I have long sympathised with your generous although erring heart ­your bard and bitter misfortunes.  Look on me only as your friend ­nay, your sister, if you will.  Let me persuade you to leave this strange and desultory life; choose your own home:  I am rich to overflowing; all you can desire shall be at your command.  He shall not know more of you unless (to assuage the remorse that the memory of you does, I know, still occasion him) you will suffer him to learn, from your own hand, that you are well and at ease, and that you do not revoke your former pardon.  Come, dear Lucilla!” and the arm of the generous and bright-souled Constance gently wound round the feeble frame of Lucilla, who now, reclining back, wept as if her heart would break.

“Come, give me the deep, the grateful joy of thinking I can minister to your future comforts.  I was the cause of all your wretchedness; but for me, Godolphin would have been yours for ever ­would probably, by marriage, have redressed your wrongs; but for me you would not have wandered an outcast over the inhospitable world.  Let me in something repair what I have cost you.  Speak to me, Lucilla!”

“Yes, I will speak to you,” said poor Lucilla, throwing herself on the ground, and clasping with grateful warmth the knees of her gentle soother; “for long, long years ­I dare not think how many ­I have not heard the voice of kindness fall upon my ear.  Among strange faces and harsh tongues hath my lot been cast; and if I have wrought out from the dreams of my young hours the course of this life (which you contemn, but not justly), it has been that I may stand alone and not dependent; feared and not despised.  And now you, you whom I admire and envy, and would reverence more than living woman (for he loves you and deems you worthy of him), you, lady, speak to me as a sister would speak, and ­and ­” Here sobs interrupted Lucilla’s speech; and Constance herself, almost equally affected, and finding it vain to attempt to raise her, knelt by her side, and tenderly caressing her, sought to comfort her, even while she wept in doing so.

And this was a beautiful passage in the life of the lofty Constance.  Never did she seem more noble than when, thus lowly and humbling herself, she knelt beside the poor victim of her husband’s love, and whispered to the diseased and withering heart tidings of comfort, charity, home, and a futurity of honour and of peace.  But this was not a dream that could long lull the perturbed and erring brain of Lucilla Volktman.  And when she recovered, in some measure, her self-possession, she rose, and throwing back the wild hair from her throbbing temples, she said, in a calm and mournful voice: 

“Your kindness comes too late.  I am dying, fast ­fast.  All that is left to me in the world are these very visions, this very power ­call it delusion if you will ­from which you would tear me.  Nay, look not so reproachfully, and in such wonder.  Do you not know that men have in poverty, sickness, and all outer despair, clung to a creative spirit within ­a world peopled with delusions ­and called it Poetry? and that gift has been more precious to them than all that wealth and pomp could bestow?  So,” continued Lucilla, with fervid and insane enthusiasm, “so is this, my creative spirit, my imaginary world, my inspiration, what poetry may be to others.  I may be mistaken in the truth of my belief.  There are times when my brain is cool, and my frame at rest, and I sit alone and think over the real past ­when I feel my trust shaken, and my ardour damped:  but that thought does not console but torture me, and I hasten to plunge once more among the charms, and spells, and mighty dreams, that wrap me from my living self.  Oh, lady! bright, and beautiful, and lofty, as you are, there may come a time when you can conceive that even madness may be a relief.  For” (and here the wandering light burned brighter in the enthusiast’s glowing eyes), “for, when the night is round us, and there is peace on earth, and the world’s children sleep, it is a wild joy to sit alone and vigilant, and forget that we live and are wretched.  The stars speak to us then with a wondrous and stirring voice; they tell us of the doom of men and the wreck of empires, and prophesy of the far events which they taught to the old Chaldeans.  And then the Winds, walking to and fro as they list, bid us go forth with them and hear the songs of the midnight spirits; for you know,” she whispered with a smile, putting her hand upon the arm of the appalled and shrinking Constance, who now saw how hopeless was the ministry she had undertaken, “though this world is given up to two tribes of things that live and have a soul:  the one bodily and palpable as we are; the other more glorious, but invisible to our dull sight ­though I have seen them ­Dread Solemn Shadows, even in their mirth; the night is their season as the day is ours; they march in the moonbeams, and are borne upon the wings of the winds.  And with them, and by their thoughts, I raise myself from what I am and have been.  Ah, lady, wouldst thou take this comfort from me?”

“But,” said Constance, gathering courage from the gentleness which Lucilla’s insanity now wore, and trying to soothe, not contradict her in her present vein, “but in the country, Lucilla, in some quiet and sheltered nook, you might indulge these visions without the cares and uncertainty that must now perplex you; without leading this dangerous and roving life, which must at times expose you to insult, to annoyance, and discontent you with, yourself.”

“You are mistaken, lady,” said the astrologer, proudly; “none know me who do not fear.  I am powerful, and I hug my power ­it comforts me:  without it, what should I be? ­an abject, forsaken, miserable woman.  No! that power I possess ­to shake men’s secret souls ­even if it be a deceit ­even if I should laugh at them, not pity ­reconciles me to myself and to the past.  And I am not poor, madam,” as, with the common caprice of her infirmity, an angry suspicion seemed to cross her; “I want no one’s charity, I have learned to maintain myself.  Nay, I could be even wealthy if I would!”

“And,” said Constance, seeing that for the present she must postpone her benevolent intentions, “and he ­Godolphin ­you forgive him still?”

At that name, it was as if a sudden charm had been whispered to the fevered heart of the poor fanatic; her head sank from its proud bearing; a deep, a soft blush coloured the wan cheek; her arms drooped beside her; she trembled violently; and, after a moment’s silence, sank again on her seat and covered her face with her hands.  “Ah!” said she, softly, “that word brings me back to my young days, when I asked no power but what love gave me over one heart:  it brings me back to the blue Italian lake, and the waving pines, and our solitary home, and my babe’s distant grave.  Tell me,” she cried, again starting up, “has he not spoken of me lately ­has he not seen me in his dreams? have I not been present to his soul when the frame, torpid and locked, severed us no more, and, in the still hours, I charmed myself to his gaze?  Tell me, has he not owned that Lucilla haunted his pillow?  Tell me; and if I err, my spells are nothing, my power is vanity, and I am the helpless creature thou wouldst believe me!”

Despite her reason and her firm sense, Constance half shuddered at these mysterious words, as she recalled what Percy had told her of his dreams the preceding evening, and the emotions she herself had witnessed in his slumbers when she watched beside his bed.  She remained silent, and Lucilla regarded her countenance with a sort of triumph.

“My art, then, is not so idle as thou wouldst hold it.  But ­hush! ­last night I beheld him, not in spirit, but visibly, face to face:  for I wander at times before his home (his home was once mine!) and he saw me, and was smitten with fear; in these worn features he could recognise not the living Lucilla he had known.  But go to him! ­thou, his wife, his own ­go to him; tell him ­no, tell him not of me.  He must not seek me; we must not held parley together:  for oh, lady” (and Lucilla’s face became settled into an expression so sad, so unearthly sad, that no word can paint, no heart conceive, its utter and solemn sorrow), “when we two meet again to commune, ­to converse, ­when once more I touch that band, when once more I feel that beloved, that balmy breath; ­my last hour is at hand ­and danger ­imminent, dark, and deadly danger, clings fast to him!”

As she spoke, Lucilla closed her eyes, as it to shut some horrid vision from her gaze; and Constance looked fearfully round, almost expecting some apparition at hand.  Presently Lucilla, moving silently across the room, beckoned to the countess to follow:  she did so:  they entered another apartment:  before a recess there hung a black curtain:  Lucilla drew it slowly aside, and Constance turned her eyes from a dazzling light that broke upon them; when she again looked, she beheld a sort of glass dial marked with various quaint hieroglyphics and the figures of angels, beautifully wrought; but around the dial, which was circular, were ranged many stars, and the planets, set in due order.  These were lighted from within by some chemical process, and burnt with a clear and lustrous, but silver light.  And Constance observed that the dial turned round, and that the stars turned with it, each in a separate motion; and in the midst of the dial were the bands as of a clock-that moved, but so slowly, that the most patient gaze alone could observe the motion.

While the wondering Constance regarded this singular device, Lucilla pointed to one star that burned brighter than the rest; and below it, half-way down the dial, was another, a faint and sickly orb, that, when watched, seemed to perform a much more rapid and irregular course than its fellows.

“The bright star is his,” said she; “and yon dim and dying one is the type of mine.  Note:  in the course they both pursue they must meet at last; and when they meet, the mechanism of the whole halts ­the work of the dial is for ever done.  These hands indicate hourly the progress made to that end; for it is the mimicry and symbol of mine.  Thus do I number the days of my fate; thus do I know, even almost to a second, the period in which I shall join my Father that is in Heaven!

“And now,” continued the maniac (though maniac is too harsh and decided a word for the dreaming wildness of Lucilla’s insanity), as, dropping the curtain, she took her guest’s hand and conducted her back into the outer room ­“and now, farewell!  You sought me, and, I feel, only from kind and generous motives.  We never shall meet more.  Tell not your husband that you have seen me.  He will know soon, too soon, of my existence:  fain would I spare him that pang and,” growing pale as she spoke, “that peril; but Fate forbids it.  What is writ, is writ:  and who shall blot God’s sentence from the stars, which are His book?  Farewell! high thoughts are graved upon your brow may they bless you; or, where they fail to bless, may they console and support.  Farewell!  I have not yet forgotten to be grateful, and I still dare to pray.”

Thus saying, Lucilla kissed the hand she had held, and turning hastily away, regained the room she had just left; and, locking the door, left the stunned and bewildered countess to depart from the melancholy abode.  With faltering steps she quitted the chamber, and at the foot of the stairs the little Moor awaited her.  To her excited fancy there was something eltrich and preternatural in the gaze of the young African, and the grin of her pearly teeth, as she opened the door to the visitant.  Hastening to her carriage, which she had left at a corner of the square, the countess rejoiced when she gained it; and throwing herself back on the luxurious cushions, felt as exhausted by this starry and weird incident in the epic of life’s common career, as if she had partaken of that overpowering inspiration which she now almost incredulously asked herself, as she looked forth on the broad day and the busy streets, if she had really witnessed.