Pierre; or The Ambiguities. Melville Herman

patronizing in the manner of the resplendent, full-blown Mrs. Glendinning, toward the delicate and shrinking girlhood of young Lucy. She treated her very much as she might have treated some surpassingly beautiful and precocious child; and this was precisely what Lucy was. Looking beyond the present period, Mrs. Glendinning could not but perceive, that even in Lucy's womanly maturity, Lucy would still be a child to her; because, she, elated, felt, that in a certain intellectual vigor, so to speak, she was the essential opposite of Lucy, whose sympathetic mind and person had both been cast in one mould of wondrous delicacy. But here Mrs. Glendinning was both right and wrong. So far as she here saw a difference between herself and Lucy Tartan, she did not err; but so far – and that was very far – as she thought she saw her innate superiority to her in the absolute scale of being, here she very widely and immeasurably erred. For what may be artistically styled angelicalness, this is the highest essence compatible with created being; and angelicalness hath no vulgar vigor in it. And that thing which very often prompts to the display of any vigor – which thing, in man or woman, is at bottom nothing but ambition – this quality is purely earthly, and not angelical. It is false, that any angels fell by reason of ambition. Angels never fall; and never feel ambition. Therefore, benevolently, and affectionately, and all-sincerely, as thy heart, oh, Mrs. Glendinning! now standest affected toward the fleecy Lucy; still, lady, thou dost very sadly mistake it, when the proud, double-arches of the bright breastplate of thy bosom, expand with secret triumph over one, whom thou so sweetly, but still so patronizingly stylest, The Little Lucy.

      But ignorant of these further insights, that very superb-looking lady, now waiting Pierre's return from the portico door, sat in a very matronly revery; her eyes fixed upon the decanter of amber-hued wine before her. Whether it was that she somehow saw some lurking analogical similitude between that remarkably slender, and gracefully cut little pint-decanter, brimfull of light, golden wine, or not, there is no absolute telling now. But really, the peculiarly, and reminiscently, and forecastingly complacent expression of her beaming and benevolent countenance, seemed a tell-tale of some conceit very much like the following: – Yes, she's a very pretty little pint-decanter of a girl: a very pretty little Pale Sherry pint-decanter of a girl; and I – I'm a quart decanter of – of – Port – potent Port! Now, Sherry for boys, and Port for men – so I've heard men say; and Pierre is but a boy; but when his father wedded me, – why, his father was turned of five-and-thirty years.

      After a little further waiting for him, Mrs. Glendinning heard Pierre's voice – "Yes, before eight o'clock at least, Lucy – no fear;" and then the hall door banged, and Pierre returned to her.

      But now she found that this unforeseen visit of Lucy had completely routed all business capacity in her mercurial son; fairly capsizing him again into, there was no telling what sea of pleasant pensiveness.

      "Dear me! some other time, sister Mary."

      "Not this time; that is very certain, Pierre. Upon my word I shall have to get Lucy kidnapped, and temporarily taken out of the country, and you handcuffed to the table, else there will be no having a preliminary understanding with you, previous to calling in the lawyers. Well, I shall yet manage you, one way or other. Good-bye, Pierre; I see you don't want me now. I suppose I shan't see you till to-morrow morning. Luckily, I have a very interesting book to read. Adieu!"

      But Pierre remained in his chair; his gaze fixed upon the stilly sunset beyond the meadows, and far away to the now golden hills. A glorious, softly glorious, and most gracious evening, which seemed plainly a tongue to all humanity, saying: I go down in beauty to rise in joy; Love reigns throughout all worlds that sunsets visit; it is a foolish ghost story; there is no such thing as misery. Would Love, which is omnipotent, have misery in his domain? Would the god of sunlight decree gloom? It is a flawless, speckless, fleckless, beautiful world throughout; joy now, and joy forever!

      Then the face, which before had seemed mournfully and reproachfully looking out upon him from the effulgent sunset's heart; the face slid from him; and left alone there with his soul's joy, thinking that that very night he would utter the magic word of marriage to his Lucy; not a happier youth than Pierre Glendinning sat watching that day's sun go down.

IV

      AFTER this morning of gayety, this noon of tragedy, and this evening so full of chequered pensiveness; Pierre now possessed his soul in joyful mildness and steadfastness; feeling none of that wild anguish of anticipative rapture, which, in weaker minds, too often dislodges Love's sweet bird from her nest.

      The early night was warm, but dark – for the moon was not risen yet – and as Pierre passed on beneath the pendulous canopies of the long arms of the weeping elms of the village, an almost impenetrable blackness surrounded him, but entered not the gently illuminated halls of his heart. He had not gone very far, when in the distance beyond, he noticed a light moving along the opposite side of the road, and slowly approaching. As it was the custom for some of the more elderly, and perhaps timid inhabitants of the village, to carry a lantern when going abroad of so dark a night, this object conveyed no impression of novelty to Pierre; still, as it silently drew nearer and nearer, the one only distinguishable thing before him, he somehow felt a nameless presentiment that the light must be seeking him. He had nearly gained the cottage door, when the lantern crossed over toward him; and as his nimble hand was laid at last upon the little wicket-gate, which he thought was now to admit him to so much delight; a heavy hand was laid upon himself, and at the same moment, the lantern was lifted toward his face, by a hooded and obscure-looking figure, whose half-averted countenance he could but indistinctly discern. But Pierre's own open aspect, seemed to have been quickly scrutinized by the other.

      "I have a letter for Pierre Glendinning," said the stranger, "and I believe this is he." At the same moment, a letter was drawn forth, and sought his hand.

      "For me!" exclaimed Pierre, faintly, starting at the strangeness of the encounter; – "methinks this is an odd time and place to deliver your mail; – who are you? – Stay!"

      But without waiting an answer, the messenger had already turned about, and was re-crossing the road. In the first impulse of the moment, Pierre stept forward, and would have pursued him; but smiling at his own causeless curiosity and trepidation, paused again; and softly turned over the letter in his hand. What mysterious correspondent is this, thought he, circularly moving his thumb upon the seal; no one writes me but from abroad; and their letters come through the office; and as for Lucy – pooh! – when she herself is within, she would hardly have her notes delivered at her own gate. Strange! but I'll in, and read it; – no, not that; – I come to read again in her own sweet heart – that dear missive to me from heaven, – and this impertinent letter would pre-occupy me. I'll wait till I go home.

      He entered the gate, and laid his hand upon the cottage knocker. Its sudden coolness caused a slight, and, at any other time, an unaccountable sympathetic sensation in his hand. To his unwonted mood, the knocker seemed to say – "Enter not! – Begone, and first read thy note."

      Yielding now, half alarmed, and half bantering with himself, to these shadowy interior monitions, he half-unconsciously quitted the door; repassed the gate; and soon found himself retracing his homeward path.

      He equivocated with himself no more; the gloom of the air had now burst into his heart, and extinguished its light; then, first in all his life, Pierre felt the irresistible admonitions and intuitions of Fate.

      He entered the hall unnoticed, passed up to his chamber, and hurriedly locking the door in the dark, lit his lamp. As the summoned flame illuminated the room, Pierre, standing before the round center-table, where the lamp was placed, with his hand yet on the brass circle which regulated the wick, started at a figure in the opposite mirror. It bore the outline of Pierre, but now strangely filled with features transformed, and unfamiliar to him; feverish eagerness, fear, and nameless forebodings of ill! He threw himself into a chair, and for a time vainly struggled with the incomprehensible power that possessed him. Then, as he avertedly drew the letter from his bosom, he whispered to himself – Out on thee, Pierre! how sheepish now will ye feel when this tremendous note will turn out to be an invitation to a supper to-morrow night; quick, fool, and write the stereotyped reply: Mr. Pierre Glendinning will be very happy to accept Miss so and so's polite invitation.

      Still for the moment he held the letter averted. The messenger had so hurriedly accosted him, and delivered his