Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845
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"My aunt used to maintain," said Clara, "that the room was warmer with this ice on the window than when the glass was clear."
"Possibly!" replied Henry. "But on the strength of this faith I would not dispense with the fire."
"How wonderfully various," said Clara, "are these ice-flowers! Is it not strange, one seems to have seen them all in reality, yet cannot give a name to a single one of them? And look how one grows over the other, and how the noble leaves seem to expand, even as we speak of them."
"It is your sweet breath, my dear, that is calling up these ghosts and spirits of departed flowers," said Henry. "I imagine that some invisible genius is reading all thy gentle and loving fancies, and pictures them forth, as they arise, in these flower-phantoms; so that, by looking at this glass, I know, even while you are silent, that your thoughts are full of love — that they are dwelling upon me."
A fond kiss was the answer and the reward of this pretty speech.
Henry took up his journal, and beginning at the ante-penultimate page, read aloud: — "To-day — Sold to that old miser of a bookseller, my rare copy of Chaucer, the costly edition of Caxton. My friend, the dear, noble Andreas Vandelmeer, made me a present of it on my birthday, when we were at the university together. He had written to London for it himself: paid an enormous price for it; and then had it bound, after his own taste, in rich Gothic style. The old hunks of a bookseller will, no doubt, send it back to London, and will get for it tenfold what he has given me. I ought, at least, to have cut out the leaf where the circumstance of this gift is recorded; and here I have written some lamentable lines, signed with my present name and address. This is vexatious. Parting with this book almost persuades me that something like want is pressing on us; for, without doubt, it was the most precious thing I possessed, and the memorial of my dearest and my only friend. Oh, Andreas Vandelmeer! art thou still living? Where art thou? And dost thou still think of me?"
"I saw your pain," said Clara, as he concluded, "when you sold that book; but this friend of your youth — you have never described him to me."
"He was in person," replied Henry, "somewhat resembling myself — rather older and more staid. We knew each other as boys at school. I might say he almost persecuted me with his love, so passionately did he press it on me. He was ever complaining that my friendship was too cold. Rich as he was, and tenderly as he had been brought up, no indulgence had made him selfish. On leaving the university, he determined on going to India, that distant land of wonder having fascinated his ardent imagination. There was then quite a storm of entreaties and supplications that I should accompany him. He assured me that I should make my fortune there, as his own forefathers had in fact done. But my mother died about this time, and my friends, moreover, procured for me a position in the diplomatic body. He persuaded me, at least, to entrust to him the small fortune I had inherited from my mother, that he might employ it advantageously for me; a request which I have always suspected was made in order that he might have, some future time, a pretext and disguise for his generosity. We took leave of each other, and I repaired, in the suite of my ambassador, to the town where your father resided — and where" —
"The history becomes tolerably well known to us both. But this noble Andreas — did you never hear of him again?"
"I received two letters," answered Henry, "from that remote quarter of the world. After which I heard, but through no authentic source, that he died of the cholera. So far as fortune was concerned, I was left as you see, entirely dependent on myself. Still, I enjoyed the favour of my ambassador — was not unpopular at my court — could reckon on some powerful friends; — but all this has disappeared."
"All this, alas!" said Clara, "you have sacrificed for me. And I also am a fugitive from home."
"Then love must supply all. And so it has, and so it will. Has not our honeymoon, as they vulgarly call it, lasted nearly a year?"
"It shall last for ever!" said Clara. Then after a pause, which was filled up as lovers' pauses usually are, she added. "But the worst blow of all was the loss of your own book; — that dear poetry you had written. If we had but kept a copy of it, we might have passed many hours of these winter evenings in reading it. But then," she added, with a smile and a sigh at the same time, "we should have wanted a candle."
"We talk — we gossip," said Henry, "which is much better. I hear the sweet tones of your voice; you sing me a song, or you break suddenly out into that heavenly laugh of yours. What is there not in that musical, jubilee laugh? When I hear it, angel mine, I am not only delighted, I muse, I meditate, I am rapt. How much of character is there in a laugh! You know no man till you have heard him laugh — till you know when and how he will laugh. There are occasions — there are humours when a man with whom we have been long familiar, shall quite startle and repel us, by breaking out into a laugh which comes manifestly right from his heart, and which yet we had never heard before. Even in fair ladies with whom I have been much pleased, I have remarked the same thing. As in many a heart a sweet angel slumbers unseen till some happy moment awakens it, so there sleeps often in gracious and amiable characters, deep in the background, a quite vulgar spirit, which starts into life when something rudely comical penetrates into the less frequented chambers of the mind. Our instinct teaches us that in that being there lies something we must take heed of.
"As to that young and thoughtless publisher," continued Henry, "who became bankrupt and ran off with my glorious manuscript, he, no doubt, did us good service; for how easily might my intercourse with him, while the book was being printed, have led to our discovery? Your father has not yet, be assured, relinquished his pursuit of us — my passport would have been examined again with severer scrutiny — something, no doubt, would have led to the suspicion that the name I bear is assumed. We should have been separated. So, angel mine, we are happy as we are — most happy!"
It had now grown dark, and the fire was burned out; a candle to talk by would have been certainly superfluous: so they retired early to their sleeping apartment. Here they could continue their chat in the dark, quite heedless of the heavy fall of snow that was encumbering their windows.
Chapter II
Next morning, at approach of dawn, Clara hastened up to run to the stove, to awake the sparks in the ashes. Henry soon came to her assistance, and they laughed like children, as, with all their efforts, the flame would not come. At last, with much puffing and blowing, the shavings kindled, and slips of wood were most artistically laid on so as to heat the little stove without any waste of the precious store. "You see, Henry dear," said Clara, "there is hardly enough for to-morrow, and then" —
"A fresh supply must be had," said her husband, in a tone as if this matter of supply was the simplest thing in the world; whereas he well knew, that whatever stock of money remained to them, must be reserved for the still more essential article of food. After breakfast, he again took up his journal. "How I long to come to that page which records how you and I, dearest, ran away with one another."
"O Heaven!" cried Clara, "how strange, how unexpected as that eventful moment! For some days my father had shown a certain ill-humour towards me, and had spoken in a quite unusual manner. He had before expressed his surprise at your frequent visits; now he did not name you, but talked at you, and spoke continually of young men who refused to know their own position. If I was silent on these occasions he was angry; and if I spoke it was still worse: he grew more and more bitter. One morning, just as I was going out in the carriage to pay some visits, my faithful maid ran down the steps after me, and, under pretence of adjusting my dress, whispered into my ear that all was discovered — that my desk had been broken open, and your letters found — and that, in a few hours, I was to be sent off a prisoner to an aunt in a distant part of the country. How sudden was my resolution! I had not ridden far before I alighted from the carriage, under pretence of buying something at a trinket-shop. I sent the coachman and servant away, bidding them return for me in at hour, and then" —
"And then," interrupted Henry, "how delighted was I, how almost terrified with joy, to see you suddenly enter my apartments! I had just returned from my ambassador, and had by good chance some blank passports with me; I filled one up with the first name that occurred; and then, without further preparation, we entered a hired carriage, crossed the borders, were married, and were happy."
This animated dialogue was interrupted by the entrance of an old woman, by name Christina, who had formerly been Clara's nurse. In their flight they had entered into her little cottage as a place where they could safely stop to rest themselves, and the faithful old dame had entreated them to take her with them. She now lived in a small room below, in the same house, and entirely supported herself by going out to work amongst the neighbors. She entered the room at present to mention that she should not sleep that night in her own apartment below; but that, nevertheless, she should return next morning early enough to make their usual daily purchases for them. Clara followed her out of the room to speak with her apart. Henry, in her absence, as if relieved from the necessity of supporting his spirits, or deprived of the power which sustained them, sunk his head upon the table, and burst into tears.
"Why cannot I," he muttered to himself, "work with my hands as this poor woman does? I have still health and strength. But no — I dare not — she would then, for the first time, feel the misery of our position; she would torture herself to work also; besides, we should be discovered and separated — and, come what may, while we can yet live, we are happy."
Clara returned in excellent spirits. They sat down to their frugal and cheerful meal, to which some additions had been made by the obstinate kindness of old Christina. "I could not have the heart to refuse her," said Clara. "Now, if only wood were not wanting, all would be well."
The next morning Clara slept longer than usual. She was surprised, on waking, to see that the day had dawned, and still more to find that her husband had left her side. Her astonishment was further increased when she heard, in the next room, a crashing and grating noise, as of one sawing through an obstinate piece of timber. She got up as speedily as possible, to ascertain the cause of these unusual events.
"Henry," she cried, as she entered the room, "what are you about there?"
"Sawing wood, my dear," he replied, as he looked up panting from his labours.
"But how in the world did you come by that saw, and this famous piece of wood?"
"I remembered," answered Henry, "having seen in the loft above us, soon after we came here, in one of my voyages of discovery, a saw and a hatchet, belonging, I suppose, to some previous tenant of our apartment, or perhaps to our old landlord. So much for these brave tools. As to this noble piece of wood, it was till this morning the banister to our staircase. Observe what solid, substantial men our ancestors were! What a broad, magnificent piece of oak! This will make a quite different sort of fire from your deal shavings and slips of fir."
"But," cried Clara, "the damage to the house!"
"No one comes to see us," said Henry. "We know these steps, and indeed seldom or never go down them. The old Christina is the only person who will miss it, and I will say to her very gravely — Look you, old lady, do you think that a noble oak of the forest is to be hewn down, and then planed and polished by carpenters and joiners, merely that you may come up and down these steps a little more easily? No, no, such a magnificent banister is a most palpable superfluity."
"Since it is done," said Clara, "I will at least take my share in this new species of woodcraft."
So they laid the beam, which filled the apartment, on two chairs, and first they sawed with united efforts at the middle to make it the more manageable. It was hard work, for the oak was tough, and the saw was old, and the workmen were more willing than skilful; but at length it came in two with a crash.
"Well," said Clara, as she looked up, and threw her ringlets aside, her face glowing with the unwonted exercise, "this work has one advantage at least; we want no fire this morning to warm us."
After sawing off several square blocks, Henry set to work with his hatchet to cleave them into pieces fit for the stove. It was fortunate that, during this operation, which made the walls of their little dwelling re-echo, their landlord was absent. Nor were the neighbours likely to be much surprised at the noise, as many handicraftsmen inhabited that locality.
On this eventful day breakfast had been forgotten; dinner and breakfast were consolidated into one meal. This being dispatched with their usual cheerfulness, they retired to their seat by the window. To-day there was no frost upon the glass; and the sky — all that could be seen of it — was clear as crystal. It was a curiously simple prospect which this window presented. Underneath them, over the ground-floor of the house, had been constructed — for what reason it would not be easy to say — a tiled roof, which projected in such a manner as completely to hide the narrow street from their view. In front stretched the long low roof of a building, which seemed to be used as a warehouse; and on both sides they were hemmed in by the blank projecting walls and the tall chimneys of larger houses — so that certain masses of brickwork, a long roof, and a fragment of the open sky, was all that the eye could possibly command. This complete isolation suited the lovers very well; for, besides that it effectually concealed them from the discovery of their pursuers, it permitted them to stand at the window, and talk and caress, without the restraint occasioned by envious spectators. When they first occupied the apartment, if they heard an unusual noise out of doors, they naturally ran to the window to look down into the street; and it was not till after many fruitless experiments that they learned to sit quiet on such occasions. It was quite an event if a cat was seen stealthily making its way over the long sloping roof in front of them. In the summer, when the sparrows built their nests in the tall chimneys on either side, and were perpetually flying to and fro, twittering, caressing, quarrelling — this was quite a society. When a chimney-sweeper once thrust out his black face from one of these chimneys, and shouted aloud to testify the accomplishment of his ascent, it was an event that brought a shriek of surprise from Clara.
Thus passed the days, and the pair were happy as kings, though they were living very like beggars. Very singular was their power of abstraction from the future, their entire satisfaction with the present. Clara, it is true, cast some anxious thoughts after the wood; but Henry brought in every morning the necessary supply: there was no symptoms of failure. She thought indeed, of late, that the grain of the wood seemed altered; but it burned as well as ever.
"Where," said Clara, one morning, "where is our faithful Christina? I have not seen her for many a day. You rise in the morning before I can get up — you take in the bread and the water-jug — I never see her. Why does she not come up? Is she ill?"
"No," said Henry, with a slight embarrassment of manner, which his wife did not fail to detect.
"Ah! you conceal something from me" she cried. "I will go down directly and see what is the matter with her."
"It is so long since you descended these steps, and there is no banister — you will fall."
"No, no, I know the steps — I could find them in the dark."
"Those steps," said Henry, with a mock solemnity of manner — "those steps will you never tread again!"
"Oh, there is something you conceal from me!" exclaimed Clara. "Say what you will, I will go down and see Christina."
She turned quickly round and opened the door, but Henry clasped her as quickly in his arms.
"My dear," cried he, "will you break your neck?"
The secret was at once disclosed. They stepped together to the landing-place. There were no longer any stairs to be seen. Clara clasped her little hands as she looked first down into the dark precipice below, and then at her husband, who maintained the most comical gravity in the world. She then ran back to the stove, snatched up one of the pieces of wood, and, looking at it closely, said — "Ah, now I see why the grain was so different! So, then, we have burned up the stairs?"
"So it seems," answered Henry, quite calmly. "I hardly know why I kept this secret from you — perhaps that you might not be distressed by any superfluous scruples. Now that you know it, I am sure you will find it quite reasonable."
"But Christina?"
"Oh, she is quite well! In the morning I let her down a cord, to which she fastens her little basket. This I draw up, and afterwards the water-jug. Our housekeeping proceeds in the most orderly fashion in the world. When the banister was at an end, it struck me that one half at least of the steps of our staircase might be dispensed with; it was but to step a little higher, as one is forced to do in many houses. With the help of Christina, who entered into this philosophical view of the matter, I broke off the first, third, fifth, and so forth. When one half of the steps was consumed, the other half was also condemned as superfluous — for what do we want with stairs, we who never go out?"
"But the landlord?"
"He will not return till Easter. Meanwhile the weather will be getting milder, and there are still some old doors and planks up above, which I shall pronounce altogether superfluous. Therefore warm thee, dearest Clara, without any care for the future."
Things, however, did not quite fall out as expected. On the afternoon of that very same day, a carriage was heard to drive up to the little house. They heard the rattling of the wheels, the stopping of the vehicle, the descent of the passengers. It was in vain to put their heads out of window, they could see nothing there. But they heard the sound of unpacking, then the greeting of neighbours — it was evident, beyond a doubt, that their dreaded landlord had returned home much sooner than he ought. The heavy tread of the gouty gentleman now resounded in the passage — the crisis was at hand. Henry stood at the half-open door, listening. Clara sat within, regarding him with a questioning look.
"I must go up," the landlord was now heard to say; "I must go up, and see after my lodgers. I hope they are as cheerful as ever, and the young wife as pretty."
There was a pause. The old man was groping about in the dark.
"How is this?" he muttered to himself. "Don't know my own house! Not here — not there! Ulric! Ulric! help here!"
Ulric, his servant and factotum, came to his assistance.
"Help me up these stairs," said the landlord. "I am blinded — bewitched! I cannot find the steps, and yet they were broad enough!"
"Herr Emmerich," said the old and somewhat surly domestic, "you are a little giddy from travelling."
"An hypothesis," whispered Henry, turning to his wife, "which unhappily will not hold."
"Zounds!" cried Ulric, who had run his head against the wall, "I have lost my wits too!"
"I am groping right and left," said the landlord, "and all round, and up above. I think the devil has taken the stairs!"
"Another hypothesis," whispered Henry, "and a very bold one."
Meanwhile the more sensible domestic had at once run for a light. This he now returned with, and, holding it up in his sturdy fist, he illuminated the quite empty space.
"Ten thousand devils!" exclaimed the landlord, as he gazed around and above him with astonishment. "This is the strangest business! Herr Brand! Herr Brand! Is any one up there?"
It was of no use to deny himself. Henry stepped out, bent over the landing, and saw, by the uncertain flicker of the light, the portly form of his landlord.
"Ah, my worthy friend, Herr Emmerich!" he called out in the blandest manner imaginable, "you are most welcome. It speaks well for the gout that you have returned so much earlier than your appointed time. I am delighted to see you looking so well."
"Your obedient servant," answered the other; "but that is not the question. What has become of my stairs?"
"Stairs! were there any stairs here?" said Henry. "Indeed, my friend, I go out so seldom, or rather not at all, that I take no notice of any thing out of my own chamber. I study, I work — I concern myself about little else."
"Herr Brand," said the landlord, half choking with rage, "we must speak about this in another tone! You are the only lodger. You shall give an account before a court of justice" —
"Be not overwroth," replied Henry. "If you really contemplate legal proceedings, I think I can be of use to you; for, now I think of it, I perfectly remember that there were stairs here, and have a vivid recollection of having, in your absence, used them."
"Used them!" cried the old man, stamping with his feet; "and how used them? You have destroyed them — you have destroyed the house."
"Nay, do not exaggerate, Herr Emmerich. I cannot ask you to walk up-stairs, or you might see that these rooms we inhabit are in a perfect state of preservation. As to this ladder, which was but an asses' bridge for tedious visitors and bad men, I removed it with great difficulty, as being superfluous."
"But these steps," cried Emmerich, "with their noble banister, these two-and-twenty broad, strong oaken steps, were an integral part of my house. Old as I am, I never heard of a lodger who dealt as he pleased with the stairs of a house."
"Be patient," said Henry, "and you shall hear the real connexion of events. The post failed in bringing our necessary remittances; the winter was unusually severe; all ordinary means of procuring fuel were wanting; I had recourse to this sort of forced loan. At the same time I did not think, respected sir, that you would return before the warm summer weather."
"Nonsense!" said the landlord. "Summer weather! Do you think that these my stairs will sprout out again, like asparagus, when the summer comes?"
"Really," said Henry, "I am not sufficiently acquainted with the growth and habits of the stair-plant to determine."
"Ulric!" cried the wrathful landlord, "run for the police. You shall find this no jesting matter."
The police arrived. The inspector was scandalized at the outrage which had been committed, and summoned the delinquent to surrender.
"Never!" said Henry. "An Englishman says well that his house is his castle; and mine is a castle with the drawbridge up."
"There is an easy remedy for that," said the officer, who thereupon called for a ladder, and gave command to his men to mount, to bind the criminal with cords, and bring him down to his condign punishment.
The house was now filled with the people of the neighbourhood. Men, women, and children had been attracted to the spot, and a crowd of curious spectators, assembled in the street, made their comments upon the business. Clara had seated herself near the window, not a little embarrassed; but as she saw that her husband still retained his accustomed cheerfulness, she also kept her self-possession — not, however, without much wondering how it would all end. Henry came in for a moment to hearten her, and also to fetch something from the room.