Chapter XXXVII: The Ghostly Visitor

Hushed were his angel’s lips, but still their bland
And beautiful expression seemed to melt
With love that could not die.—CAMPBELL.

“You should lie down and try to get some rest, my poor child. You look quite worn out,” whispered Dr. Sales, looking compassionately on Elfie’s thin, white face, and tremulous frame.

“I will, when Justin returns to the room. I must sleep an hour or two this afternoon, so as to be able to watch with her through the night, if indeed she should live so long,” assented Elfie.

And when Justin resumed his place by the bedside, Elfie retired to seek her much needed sleep, warning them all to have her called if any change should take place in Erminie.

It was as well Elfie went away when she did, for if she had remained in the sick room five minutes longer, no one would have been able to persuade her to go to rest.

For scarcely was the tired girl safe within her sanctuary, before old Frederica came hobbling up stairs, and put her head into the door of the sick room.

Justin arose softly and went to her.

“What is it, Frederica?” he asked.

“I want Miss Elfie.”

“She has gone to lie down. She must not be disturbed on any account. Can I supply her place?”

“Well, she asked for Miss Elfie, sir. But if Miss Elfie can’t see her, I suppose you can.”

“See—who?”

“Miss Conyers, sir.”

“MISS CONYERS!” exclaimed Justin.

And all the joy his sorrow could admit for companionship rushed into his heart. But then came wonder and perplexity, and he repeated slowly—“_Miss Conyers?_”

“Yes, sir, Miss Conyers, and she’s just offen a long journey, and she looks completely wored out.”

“I will see her immediately,” said Justin.

And he stole to the bedside, whispered the news of the arrival to Dr. Sales, and then he followed old Frederica from the room, and down the stairs.

He opened the library door.

There stood Britomarte, sun-burned, dusty, travel-stained, almost unrecognizable, but undoubtedly Britomarte.

“Britomarte! Miss Conyers!” exclaimed Justin, going towards her with both hands stretched forth.

She met him and seized his hands as she exclaimed:

“How is your sister? How is my dear Erminie?”

“Oh, Britomarte! Oh, my friend, in what an hour of sorrow we meet!”

“She is—not gone?” hurriedly breathed Miss Conyers.

“No, not gone, but she is an angel prepared for Heaven, and she is going,” groaned Justin.

“Oh, what is it? What is it that is killing her?” wept Britomarte.

Justin told her, as Elfie had told him:

“A malignant fever, caught in the hospital during her attendance upon the sick soldiers.”

“Elfie? where is she? How is she?”

“Well, except that she is very much fatigued with incessant watching. She is gone to lie down for a few hours.”

“And when can I see my dear Erminie?”

“At any time. Nothing disturbs her now. Would to Heaven it could. But I warn you, dear Britomarte, that the sight will almost break your heart.”

“Take me to her, please,” said Miss Conyers, rising and taking off her dusty bonnet and shawl.

Justin led the way up stairs to the chamber of death, and Britomarte went up to the bedside and stood gazing upon the ruins of her beautiful friend as Justin had gazed before; and the watchers now made way for her as they had once made way for him; and after a few minutes Britomarte sank, sobbing, upon her knees, and buried her head in the bedclothes.

They let her weep on undisturbed until the storm of grief had exhausted its violence and left her quiet, and then Justin and Dr. Sales approached, and each took a hand of hers, and they raised her from the floor and placed her on the chair.

“Your grief is one that is shared by us all. All who knew and loved her will be awfully bereaved. Only God can comfort us,” said the pastor, gravely, as he pressed the hand of Miss Conyers.

At that moment old Frederica again appeared at the door, ushering in the medical attendant.

The physician in solemn silence shook hands with Dr. Sales, Justin and Britomarte, and then proceeded to examine his patient.

He lingered some fifteen or twenty minutes at the bedside with his finger on her pulse, his eyes on her countenance, or his ear near her lips—counting, watching, or listening for the ebb, or flow, or pause of the currents of life.

At length he made his report: no change in the patient for better or worse. He gave his prescriptions,—certain draughts and powders, to be administered under certain contingencies; and he issued his orders to be summoned immediately should any change take place in her, and then he took leave and went away.

The afternoon passed off and no change took place in Erminie. She lay on her bed, like a dead girl on her bier, or like a stone effigy on a tomb, and her watchers sat around her motionless as statues.

As for Elfie, shut away in her distant room, she slept the deep sleep of weariness until after sunset, when she awoke with a start, feeling guilty that she had slept so long. Before even hurrying on her clothes, she threw a large shawl around her and slipped down the back stairs to inquire of Frederica about Erminie.

“She is still the same—no better, but no worse,” replied the housekeeper. “And now, Miss Elfie, you had better go back to your room and take a ’freshing bath; and by the time you are dressed, I will bring you a cup of tea and a round of toast,” added old Frederica, wisely suppressing the fact of Miss Conyers’ arrival, lest Elfie, in her impatience to meet her friend, should deprive herself of the comfort and refreshment so much needed.

So Elfie, ignorant of Britomarte’s presence in the house, took her bath and afterwards her tea, and feeling refreshed and strengthened, went immediately to the sick room, and walked directly to the bed where Erminie still lay, a beautiful, white, motionless form, and where the watchers still sat like statues.

In the absorption of all her thoughts with the subject of the sick girl, Elfie had not noticed that there was a stranger present. She looked down upon the marble face, pressed her lips to the cold mouth and the colder brow, laid her hand upon the faintly beating heart, dropped fast tears upon the quiescent form, and murmured:

“No change! no change! Oh, Heaven, will she pass away in this manner, without recognizing any of her friends? What does the doctor say, Justin?”

“He can give no decided opinion,” sighed the brother. Then, seeing that Elfie’s attention continued to be so fixed upon the patient that she entirely overlooked the visitor, he added:

“Elfie, do you see Miss Conyers?”

And Britomarte arose and held out her hand.

Elfie gave a start and uttered a cry that must have aroused any patient not in a state of coma.

“You—you here! Where did you drop from? When did you come? Oh! but I am so glad to see you; or I should be so, if I could feel glad of anything now,” eagerly yet cautiously exclaimed Elfie, in half suppressed excitement and a half smothered voice.

“I came last from Baltimore. I got here at two o’clock this afternoon,” whispered Miss Conyers.

“At two o’clock! That was just when I laid down. Why didn’t they call me?”

“We would not permit you to be disturbed,” said Britomarte.

“My dear Elfie,” said Justin, “Miss Conyers has arrived off a long and dusty journey, and needs hospitable attentions of all sorts. May I ask you to take my dear sister’s place as hostess, and do the honors of the house to her?”

“Of course, of course,” hurriedly whispered Elfie; and she beckoned Britomarte, who followed her from the room.

First Elfie gave orders to old Frederica to prepare a light repast for the guest. And then she led Britomarte to a chamber up stairs, where she supplied her with water, towels, and a complete change of clothes.

And afterwards, while Miss Conyers sat drinking tea, she poured into her ear the history of her strange meeting with Goldsborough in the hospital, and his tragic death.

Much of this Britomarte had heard before, by letters from Erminie; but now she heard for the first time the full particulars of the affair.

Elfie then talked of Erminie and her fatal devotion to the sufferers in the fever wards of the hospital, and the martyrdom in which that devotion was about to end. And at that point she burst into tears.

“Take comfort,” said Miss Conyers. “I have watched her attentively for the last five or six hours. And friends and physicians may all be mistaken at last; and youth and constitution may eventually triumph.”

“Well, I hope so; or rather I would hope if I could,” sighed Elfie, despondently.

And then they talked of other matters.

Elfie had her own theory, true or false, of Britomarte’s hidden life; and so she forbore to ask Miss Conyers any questions about her manner of existence.

And indeed in a little while they returned to the sick room, where the beautiful Erminie still lay on her bed like a dead girl on her bier.

The gentlemen went down stairs to their late and comfortless dinner; for meals were now very irregular in this house of woe.

After dinner Dr. Sales went away.

And that evening the watch for the night was arranged in this manner:

Elfie, having been refreshed by her long afternoon’s nap, was to sit up from eight o’clock until two, and then she was to be relieved by Britomarte.

Miss Conyers, being fatigued by her long journey, was to go to bed at eight o’clock, and rest until two, when she was to rise and relieve Elfie.

Accordingly, at eight o’clock Britomarte retired; and Elfie having drank several large cups of strong green tea to keep herself wide awake, took her seat in the big easy chair near the head of Erminie’s bed.

She had nothing to do but to think. She could neither read nor sew; for there was no light in the room but the dim taper that burnt upon the hearth. The whole house was very silent. The three gentlemen, Justin, Major Fielding, Captain Ethel, were reading, or trying to read, in the library below.

The two servants, old Frederica and Catherine, her niece, were seated in their kitchen.

And the one man servant, old Bob, was dozing in a sort of porter’s chair in the hall near the front door, to be easily within call.

Elfie looked forward wearily, drearily to her six hours of lonely vigilance. Nothing but her love for Erminie could have borne through its solitude and tediousness.

Even the first two hours, between eight and ten, when she had waking company in the house, seemed awful in solitude and interminable in tediousness.

All was so silent that she heard the sound of the very first footfalls of the family preparing to retire, and it filled her with a strange, nervous sense of desolation and dread.

First came the echo of the distant steps of the women servants going by the back stairs to their rooms in the attic.

Next came the three gentlemen up the front stairs. They all paused at the door of the sick room, to hear the last report of Erminie’s condition before taking a final leave for the night.

Elfie went to meet them and gave her cheerless bulletin—“No change.”

Justin came in on tip-toes and gazed mournfully on his sister for a few moments, and then kissed her pallid brow and stole away.

And the three gentlemen went up another flight of stairs, separated to their several apartments and retired to bed.

Lastly Elfie heard Old Bob drag his mattress up the kitchen stairs and along the hall to the front door, across which he laid it down; for there, like a big watch-dog, he slept all night to guard the door, and also to be at hand to let the doctor in should he call during the night or very early in the morning. The tumbling rather than the laying down of Old Bob on his mattress was the last social sound that Elfie heard to keep her company.

After that all about the house was as still as the tomb. Though Elfie hated snorers, now, so nervous and excitable did she feel, that she would have been glad to hear Old Bob snore most sonorously. But apparently the porter was a deep and silent sleeper.

Every five or ten minutes Elfie stooped over her patient; but the still white face, so like the face of the dead, filled her with terror. She could sometimes scarcely forbear screaming and running from the room. But she controlled herself and watched on.

“What _has_ come over me?” she asked of herself. “I am naturally no coward; and yet here I am listening and watching and starting as if I expected to hear, or see, or suffer something hideous. Is it that I am out of sorts through broken rest and irregular meals—fatigue of body and anxiety of mind? Or is it the effect of the green tea? Or is it the near proximity of death that gives all my surroundings a supernatural aspect and throws over my spirit an atmosphere of awe and dread? I will walk awhile.”

And so saying, Elfie arose and paced up and down the floor. Her feet, cased in velvet slippers and walking over a soft carpet, made no noise. So Elfie paced back and forth many times, until she had walked a mile or two, if the distance had all been stretched out in a line.

Then when she had thoroughly fatigued herself, she sat down again in her easy chair. Her act had been a very imprudent one; it had tired her and made her sleepy. Indeed, she was just dropping off to sleep when the striking of the clock aroused her.

It was a very softly, silvery sounding clock; but it was enough to startle an irritable napper; and Elfie awoke with a spring, thinking that she had very nearly fallen asleep; but having no idea that she really had done so.

The clock chimed twelve.

And Elfie, to occupy her mind and keep herself awake, commenced quoting poetry; another imprudent act, for however appropriate were the lines to the time and scene, they were ill chosen for the occasion, because they made her the more nervous, though not the less sleepy. The lines she quoted were these:

“’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion on the world.”

And so on to the end.

Before Elfie got to the end she had dropped asleep again, and she slept on until she was once more aroused by the silvery striking of the clock. It chimed “one,” and she sprang up with a guilty pang.

“Goodness! I had nearly been asleep again. One o’clock! well, the time does pass. Only one hour more of this dreadful watch. I must try to keep awake somehow. It will never do to let Britomarte catch me, a sentinel, sleeping on my post. She is used to military discipline, and might take it into her head that I ought to be shot. And indeed I think she would be right. What a brute I am, even to feel like going to sleep beside this dying angel!” exclaimed Elfie, rising and looking over her charge.

“No change—oh, no change, my poor, sweet martyr,” she said, as she kissed the pale brow and then resumed her seat.

“Yes, I must keep awake somehow. Let me try more poetry, though nothing but the horrible recurs to my memory to-night,” said Elfie, yawning.

“Now o’er the one-half world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft—”

Elfie lost herself, nodded forward, caught herself up and began again, “Now witchcraft,” and nodded, and then resumed, “Witchcraft,” and then she fell fast asleep.

Now what followed Elfie could never exactly account for, could never even understand whether it were reality or “witchcraft,” indeed.

But this was what took place, or seemed to do so.

Elfie thought that she was again on the point of dropping to sleep, when she became conscious that a tall, handsome, black-haired and black-dressed man stood beside her. She seemed only half awake, and took the man for Justin, and was about to speak to him, when she suddenly recognized the Rebel General Eastworth, supposed to be then in the entrenched lines of Charleston, helping to defend the city, but also reported to have been killed in the last assault by the Union forces.

Before Elfie recovered from her astonishment so as to be able to call out, the man, or the ghost, whichever it was, stretched forth his arm, and placed a moist sponge, enveloped in a white handkerchief, to her nose. And Elfie was at once exhilarated and overwhelmed by a strange, delicious odor, that intoxicated her with a wild yet sweet delirium, and deprived her of both the will and the power to change her position.

Sitting there, perfectly powerless, yet perfectly conscious, unable to move or to speak, she yet heard and saw all that passed.

The tall man pinned the sponge in the handkerchief to her boddice directly under her nose, so that, with her head resting on her breast, she must continue to breathe the fumes.

Then he turned and dropped on his knees by the bed so as to bring his dark, agonized brow nearer to the level of the beautiful pale face pillowed there, and he kissed the cold lips passionately and wept.

“Oh! my dearest, my dearest, is it even so? I am here at the risk of my life, of my honor, only to look upon your sweet eyes once more before they are hidden forever in the grave, only to hear your gentle voice speak forgiveness before it is hushed forever in death! But your eyes are closed—your lips are mute—and your wings are already spread for Heaven! Oh, Erminie! Erminie! how could I ever have weighed my mad ambition against your holy love! Oh, my darling! my darling! that I could offer up my life in ransom for yours! I would give my life to restore you, my love!—nay, I would give my life merely to hear those sweet silent lips speak one word—forgiveness!”

And here the strong man bowed his head upon the sides of the bed and wept convulsively.

And now came the strangest part of the strange vision.

Elfie, witnessing all that occurred, as in a nightmare dream from which she sought in vain to wake, saw also this strange phenomenon.

The white-robed form of Erminie slowly arose to a sitting posture; the golden glory of her auburn hair fell around her like a halo; her face shone “as the face of an angel;” she stretched forth her fair arms and let her fair hands fall softly and slowly as snow-flakes upon the bowed black head beneath them; and she murmured, in a grave, sweet, silvery cadence:

“’Tis not for me to say the Heavenly word. But you sought me and I love you. You saved my dear father from a dreadful doom, and I bless you. May the Lord speak forgiveness to your soul, my love.”

Yes, to Elfie’s incredulous amazement, she who, for twenty-four hours, had lain on her bed “like a marble girl on a marble slab,” incapable of being moved to consciousness by the gentle words and caresses of her only brother, or by the tender tears and kisses of her bosom friend, had been stirred to life and roused to response by the passionate appeal of her ghostly lover!

Simultaneously with this strange, discovery, there was a ringing as of many bells in Elfie’s ears, a dancing as of many lights in Elfie’s eyes, and the whole vision was whirled away from her in a delirious carnival of glory.