Part 2

"But you _must_. I insist. You need it. Don't you agree with me, doctor, that it is just what she requires?"

He spoke in a rising key, with a rapid accent. Edith reached forth her hand, and took the little dish of orange ice. It shook like a lily in the wind; but she said, softly and with apparent calmness,--

"Anything to please you, brother. I will choose this every day if you think it good for me."

He gave her a satisfied look. Then there was a brief silence, which their guest was about to dissipate with a playful remark, when St. Victor turned abruptly to the steward,--

"Thompson," he cried, "now bring in the skeleton!"

"What, sir?" stammered the astonished servant.

"Bring in the skeleton, I said. Do you not know that the Egyptians always crown their feasts with a death's head? Bring it in, I say, and place it--_there_!"

Half-rising in his seat, he pointed to the vacant space behind his sister's chair.

The man now smiled, thinking his master jested; but his expression grew more questioning and anxious as the bright eyes turned upon him glittering in anger.

"Why am I not obeyed? Bring in the skeleton, I repeat, and place it behind my sister's chair. It is in the house; you will have no difficulty in finding it. It has lurked here long. I have been aware of its presence these many months,--always following, following my dear Edith,--a shadow in her steps. You see how young and fair she is; but it is all hollow--ashes--coffin-dust! She does not know of it; she has never even turned her head when it lurked behind her; but to-night she must make its acquaintance. It will not longer be put off. Our feast is nearly over. Bring it in, Thompson, and we will salute it."

The steward, with a puzzled look, turned from one to another of the company. Miss Marchand had risen to her feet, and was regarding her brother with terrified eyes, stretching out her hands toward him. The doctor, too, arose, not in excitement, but with commingled pain and resolution stamped upon his features; while his gaze rested upon the face of St. Victor until the eyes of the young man were riveted and arrested by the doctor's demeanor. A flush then diffused itself gradually over Marchand's pale countenance; his thin nostrils quivered; his fingers twitched and trembled and sought his bosom, as if in search of something concealed there. Then he laughed once more that short, nervous laugh so significant to the physician's ears, and cried, in a high tone,--

"So, Edith, you did not know that you were going mad? _I_ did. I've watched you night and day this long time. I have all along been afraid it would end as it has--on Christmas night. _That_ was the day our father tried to murder our mother. An anniversary, then, we have to-night celebrated. Ha, ha! And you didn't know the skeleton was awaiting admittance to the banquet!"

His eyes gleamed with a light at once of delight and with malice; but he quietly added,--

"But _I_ shall not harm you, you demented thing, you beautiful insanity. There! doctor, didn't I tell you to watch her--to read her--to comprehend the subtle thing? So full of art and duplicity! But look at her now--_now_! She is as mad as the serpent which has poisoned itself with its own fangs--mad--mad! O God! has it come to this? But, I knew it--knew the skeleton was her skeleton--the bones without her beautiful flesh. We've had enough of it now. Take it away, Thompson,--hurry it away!"

"Appear to obey him. Pretend that you take something from the room," said Dr. Graham, in an undertone, to the servant, while St. Victor's eyes were fixed glaring and lurid upon his trembling, agonized, speechless sister.

The skeleton had, in truth, appeared at the Christmas feast.

Laying his hand firmly upon the young man's wrist the doctor said,--

"Mr. Marchand, you're not well, to-night. You are over-fatigued. Shall we go upstairs?"

St. Victor's quickly flashing gaze was met by that clear, resolute, almost fierce response in the physician's eye, before which he hesitated, then shrank. The madman had his master before him.

"You are right. I am not very well; my head aches; I'm worn out with this trouble about Edith, doctor. _Do_ you think it is hopeless? She had better come with us. I don't like to leave her alone with that hideous shape at her back."

Obeying the gentle but firm pull upon his wrist, the brother turned to leave the room, looking back wistfully upon his sister. She was following them with clasped hands, and a face from which all youth and color had fled. St. Victor suddenly paused, gave a scream like the cry of a panther, wrenched himself quickly from the grasp upon his arm, and, in an instant, his teeth were buried in the white shoulder of his sister. But only for an instant, for almost as quickly as the madman's movement had been the doctor's. One terrible blow of his fist sent the maniac to the floor like a clod.

"O doctor! why did you do it?"

"To save your life, Miss Marchand."

"Poor St. Victor! His fate is on him at last."

Her voice was calm in its very despair. She sank down beside the senseless man, lifting the worn, white face to her lap and covering it with kisses. "I saw it,--yet I did not think it would come so soon. O God! be pitiful! Have I not prayed enough?"

The lips of the injured man began to quiver. "We must bind him and get him to bed before he fully recovers," said the doctor, lifting Edith to her feet. "Here, Thompson, help me to carry him to his bed."

When the maniac recovered consciousness fully, his ravings were fearful. It was the malady of frenzy in its most appalling condition. The extent of the mental wreck Dr. Graham had, for the last half hour of the feast, been trying to fathom. When he dealt that dreadful blow he knew the wreck was complete: reason had gone out forever with that panther-like shriek. All that could be done was to secure the maniac against injury to himself or others, and to administer such anti-spasmodics or anæsthetics as, in some degree, would control the paroxysms.

Poor St. Victor! So young, so gifted, so blest with worldly goods; his fate was upon him, as Edith had said.

From that hour he had but brief respite from torment. Not a gleam of sanity came from those fiery eyes; all was fierce, untamable, inhuman, as if the life had been one of storm and crime, instead of peace and purity. Did there lay upon that racking bed a proof of the natural depravity of the creature man, when the creature was uncontrolled by a reasoning, responsible will? Or, was it not rather a proof that the mental machine was in disorder, by a distention of the blood-vessels and their engorgement in the brain,--that cerebral excitement was a purely physical phenomenon, dependent upon simple, physical causes, which science some day shall define and skill shall counteract?

Happily, the fire in the sufferer's brain scorched and consumed the sources of his life, as flames drink up the water that is powerless to quench them. Day by day he wasted; and, in less than a month from that night,--Christmas evening,--St. Victor Marchand's form was at peace in death.

During all that time Dr. Graham never left the sufferer's bedside. Day and night he was there at his post, doing all that was possible to alleviate the pain. The skill of a physician and the love of a brother were exhausted in that battle with death in its most dreaded form.

His care was, too, required for Miss Edith. Her life was so interwoven with that of her brother, that the doctor doubted if she could survive the shock to her sympathies and affection. When the surprise of the tragedy was over, on the day following the first outburst of the malady, she told him that for months she had feared the worst. She had remarked symptoms so like her father's as to excite her fears; yet, with the happiness of youth, the sister persuaded herself that her apprehensions were groundless. His sunny nature seemed proof against the approach of an evil so blasting; and her momentary fears were banished by the very mood of heightened vivacity and excitement which had awakened them. Having no intimate friend in whom to confide, none to counsel, she had borne the weight of her inward sorrow and dread alone.

At intervals, during Christmas day, she had observed an incoherency in her brother's speech, and an unwonted nervousness of manner, which had inspired her with serious alarm. When he proposed to drive out, she encouraged the suggestion, hoping that the cold air might restore him to his usual state. Upon his return with Dr. Graham, he had seemed so entirely like himself, so happy, so disposed to enjoyment, that she once more dismissed every thought of danger, until she overheard the sharp whispers in which he addressed his guest.

"And oh, to think," she cried, while the tears rained down her cheeks, "that in his love for me, his madness should take the shape of beholding the conditions of his own brain reflected in mine! He was so afraid harm would come to me,--thoughtful of me so long as even the shadow of sanity remained. Dear, dear St. Victor,--so good, so pure, so wise! Why was not I the victim, if it was fated that there must be one?" Then lifting her tearful eyes,--"Doctor, perhaps the poison lurks in my veins, too! Tell me, do you think there is danger that I, too, shall one day go mad?"

"No, poor child, most emphatically, I do _not_. You must not permit such a fancy to enter your mind. As St. Victor said, you are your mother's image and counterpart, in temperament and mental quality, while he, doubtless, in all active or positive elements of constitution and temperament, was his father's reflex. Is it not true?"

"I believe so. My dear father used, I know, to think St. Victor nearer to him than I could be. When together, they looked and acted very much alike. Poor, dear brother!" and again the tears coursed down her cheeks.

The doctor was deeply moved; this grief was so inexpressibly deep as to stir in his heart every emotion of tenderness and sympathy it was possible for a gentle-souled man to feel.

"I loved him," he said, gently, "before I had known him an hour. His nature was like a magnet, to draw love. Alas! it is sad, when the promise of such a life is blighted. I would have given my life for his, could it have averted this terrible blow from this house."

A radiant, soul-full look dwelt in her tear-dimmed eyes. That this man--a comparative stranger--should manifest this interest in her brother aroused all the gratitude and affection of her warm nature.

"And I love you, Dr. Graham, for loving him," she said, in the pathos of the language that never speaks untruthfully,--the pathos of irrepressible feeling. Then she added: "Do not leave us, doctor. You are all the friend we have here in this great city. If you leave us I shall, indeed, be alone."

"I will remain, my dear child, so long as there is need of my services."

He did not tell her, in so many words, that the case was hopeless; but her eye was quick to see the wasting form and the growing prostration which followed each paroxysm. How those two faithful attendants watched and waited for the end! And in the grief for the sister, the physician's gentleness found that road to a mutual devotion, which is sure to open before those who love and wait upon a common object of affection. The doctor and sister became, without a consciousness of their real feeling, mutually dependent and trusting.

In less than a month, as we have written, the skeleton which came to the feast on Christmas night departed from the house to abide on St. Victor Marchand's grave.

At the next meeting of the Institute, Doctor Graham gave a full account of the case, remarking upon the singular feature in it of the madness assuming an embodiment in the sanity of another. From much that Edith told him, as well as from his own observation and knowledge, he was convinced that, for months, the young man had detected every minute symptom and development of his disease in his sister; and had a physician been at hand, he could have traced the insidious progress of the malady in the strength of the brother's suspicions regarding his sister. The facts cited to the Institute touched the compassion of the most practice-hardened physician when Dr. Graham related the strange and pitying tenderness with which young Marchand had watched his sister, and strove to divert from her mind the madness which tainted his blood alone.

"Alone in this great city. If you leave me, I shall be alone indeed." The words were like an angel's rap upon the heart's door. In his own great trouble,--the loss of his wife,--the physician deemed himself afflicted beyond his deserts; but what was his condition compared with that of this youthful, tender, dependent woman, whose loss isolated her from all others?

No, not all others. After the first black cloud of her sorrow had drifted away, she turned to him, whose hand had sustained her, even when prayer had left her helpless and hopeless,--turned to him with a love that was more than a love, with an adoration, before which the physician bent, in wonder and satisfaction. He drew her to his bosom as something to be kept with all the truth and tenderness of an abiding love.

The dull office has been exchanged for a home that is like a palace of dreams; and Edith Graham, never forgetting her great sorrow, yet became one of the happiest of all who ever loved.

LET THOSE LAUGH WHO WIN.

LET THOSE LAUGH WHO WIN.

Mr. Pontifex Pompadour was a gentleman whose family record testified to his having breathed the breath of life sixty years, and yet his appearance bore witness to not more than forty. Appearances, however, though they are deceitful, result from causes more or less palpable; and, in this case, they could be naturally accounted for.

_Ecce testem!_

Mr. Pompadour's complexion was clear and transparent,--but it was not his own. His teeth were white and regular,--but they were artificial. His hair was black and glossy,--but it was dyed. His whiskers were ibid.,--but they were ditto. His dress was the perfection of fashion and taste, though rather youthful; and withal he carried himself with a jaunty air, and a light and springing step, smiling blandly on all he met, as if smiles were dollars and he were dispensing them right royally.

He had an only son,--Augustus Fitz Clarence Pompadour,--who was heir-apparent to the very considerable property supposed to belong to the "said aforesaid." This son was twenty-three, and had graduated at college with some knowledge of some things, if not of some others. He was a modern Mithridates in his power to withstand strychnine and nicotine; and he had devoted much attention to that branch of geometry which treats of the angles of balls on a cushion. One beautiful trait in his character, however, was his tender affection for his father, which showed itself most touchingly--whenever he was in need of money.

In person he was prepossessing, having light-blue eyes, dark-brown hair, and a drooping moustache. Nor will I allow that he was a vicious lad. Indolent and useless he certainly was,--an insignificant numeral in the great sum of humanity, but a _roué_ he certainly was not. The worst thing about him was his name, and that he received from a weak, silly novel-reading mother, who gave her life for his, and, with her dying breath, charged his father to pay this homage to the yellow-covered world in which she had lived.

If there was anything wanting in the comfortable mansion, where the Pompadours, father and son, kept bachelor's hall, it was the refining and softening influence of woman. And this brings us to the consideration of the skeleton which abode in the closets of Pompadour and son.

The late Mrs. Pompadour had possessed some property which she had retained after marriage. Before her death she made a will, leaving to Augustus the fee, and to his father the income of the estate. In case, however, Augustus should marry before his father _did_, he was to enter into full possession of the property. Wives, in dying, do not generally offer their husbands a premium for replacing them; and so the judges inferred that the real meaning of the testatrix would be arrived at by inserting the letter _e_ in the word "_did_;" thus making the contingency turn upon Augustus' marrying before his father _died_. Moreover, the lawyer who drew the will (his ancestor was limned by Æsop in the fable of the Ass in the lion's skin) swore positively to this rendering being in accordance with the wish of the deceased, and so the courts decided that in the event of Mr. Pompadour's marrying before his son, he should retain his interest during life.

Now Mr. Pompadour, aside from mercenary motives, was very uxoriously inclined; and would doubtless have married years before, had he not set too high an estimate on himself.

His condition of mind at the beginning of this history might be expressed logically somewhat as follows:--

First, he must get married.

Second, Augustus must _not_.

And Augustus, by analogous reasoning on identical premises, _mutatis mutandis_, had arrived at a dual conclusion.

First, he must get married.

Second, his father must _not_.

A vigorous system of espionage had been instituted by father and son, on the actions of each other. Skirmishes had been frequent; and if neither gained any decided advantage, neither lost. But the great battle of the war was yet to be fought, and it has been reserved for my pen to inscribe its history.

In the suburban village where Mr. Pompadour resided was a handsome residence; and its owner, "about visiting Europe," offered it for rent. The house was elegant, and the grounds especially fine. They were flanked by two shady streets and fronted on a third. A widow lady with one daughter became the tenant; and, as is usual in such cases, the whole village called upon her,--three persons prompted by politeness, and three hundred by curiosity. The cards which did duty for the lady in returning these calls, announced her to be "Mrs. Telluria Taragon, _née_ Trelauney." By the same token her daughter was discovered to be "Miss Terpsichore Taragon."

Mrs. Taragon was one of the most bewitching of widows. About forty (she acknowledged to thirty-three), she was the very incarnation of matronly beauty. She was just tall enough to be graceful, and just plump enough not to be unwieldy. Her eyes were black and dangerous. Her hair was short, and it clustered over her forehead in little ringlets,--rather girlish, but very becoming. Her teeth were white and natural, and she had a most fascinating smile, which showed her teeth in a carefully unstudied manner, formed a pretty dimple in her chin, and enabled her to look archly without apparent intention.

Her daughter, Miss Terpsichore, was twenty, with a slender, graceful form, and a pair of rosy cheeks, before whose downy softness the old simile of the peach becomes wholly inadequate. She had hazel eyes, whose liquid depths reflected the brightest and sunniest of tempers, and dark brown hair, with just a suspicion of golden shimmer filtering through its wavy folds.

Mrs. Taragon, on the bare charge, could not have escaped conviction as a "designing widow." She not only was on the lookout, perpetually, for an investment of her daughter, but she was flying continually from her cap a white flag of unconditional surrender to the first man bold enough to attack herself.

Mr. Pontifex Pompadour "availed himself of an early opportunity" to call upon Mrs. Taragon. His fame had preceded him; and that estimable lady, who was in her boudoir when he was announced, gave a small shriek of dismay at her dishevelled appearance. However, no one need be alarmed at such a manifestation on the part of a "lady of fashion." It is indicative of perfect satisfaction with her general effect. Mrs. Taragon flew to her mirror to shake out another curl--and her flounces; smiled bewitchingly by way of rehearsal; bit her lips frantically to bring the blood _to_ them, and walked aimlessly about the room for a few moments with her hands above her head, to send the blood _out_ of them. Then picking up her handkerchief daintily, and going downstairs slowly, that her cheeks might not be too much flushed, she acquired sudden animation at the parlor-door, and burst into the room with an elaborate rustle, and a thousand apologies for having kept Mr. Pompadour waiting so long,--and wasn't "the day perfectly lovely?"

If a conversation be interesting, or serve in any way to develop the plot of a story, I hold that it should be given at full length; but the polite nothings which were repeated at _this_ interview, came under neither of these heads. They served only to display Mr. Pompadour's false teeth, and Mrs. Taragon's real ones (and the dimple) through the medium of Mr. P.'s real smile and Mrs. T.'s false one.

The two parted mutually pleased, and Mrs. Taragon said to herself, as she resumed the novel she had dropped at Mr. Pompadour's entrance, "If I marry _him_, I will have that set of sables, and those diamonds I saw at Tiffany's."

Mr. Pompadour beheaded a moss rose with his cane, as he stepped jauntily down the walk, and remarked to his inner self, "A monstrous fine woman that, and I may say, without vanity, that she was struck with my appearance. Why, ho! who the devil's that?"

The acute reader will perceive a slight incoherence in the latter portion of this remark. It was due to a sight which met Mr. Pompadour's gaze on stepping into the street from Mrs. Taragon's domain. This was nothing else than Augustus Fitz Clarence walking leisurely up the street with a young lady whom we know--but the illustrious parent did not--to be Miss Terpsichore Taragon.

"Confound the boy!" said the old gentleman, "I wonder who he's got there? Just like his father, though! For I may say, without vanity, that I was a tremendous fellow among the girls."

Augustus Fitz Clarence was not at all pleased at this chance rencontre. The intimacy with the charming widow, which it strongly hinted at, brought vividly to his mind its possible results upon his own prospects. And, moreover, he was conscious of a peculiar and novel sensation in regard to the young lady, which made him rather shamefaced under the paternal eye. In short, he was in love. All the symptoms were apparent: a rush of blood to the face, and a stammering in the speech, whenever proximity to the infecting object induced a spasm. He also had the secondary symptoms,--a sensation of the spinal cord, as if molasses were being poured down the back, and a general feeling "all over," such as little boys call "goose-flesh," and which is ordinarily occasioned by a ghost story, or a cold draught from an open door-way.

To the writer, who stands upon the high level of the philosophic historian, it is evident that the same feelings warmed the gentle breast of Terpsichore that burned in the bosom of Augustus. To furnish food, however, for the unextinguishable laughter of the gods, this fact is never made clear to the principals themselves till the last moment. "And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe ... and thereby hangs a tale."

With the foregoing paragraph, I bridge over an "hiatus, as it were," of several months.

Respect for truth obliges me to record the fact, that Mrs. Taragon regarded her daughter with that unchristian feeling called jealousy. But, if a heartless, she was a shrewd woman, and she meant to dispose of Terpsichore advantageously.