All-Story Weekly/Volume 98/Number 3/Fires Rekindled/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
THE VEIL OF ISIS.
THE librarian, walking his beneficent rounds, again paused at my desk.
"Did you find any matter in the little book, pertinent to your investigation?" he inquired in his friendly way. "I've only glanced through it myself, but I recalled catching the name Lionel—your ancestor's name, I think you said—and the year being 1818, I fancied there might be something referring to his mission here."
"Is there any record, to your knowledge," I asked in return, "of a singer from abroad—from the United States, possibly—a Mrs. Asgard; Aileen or Aline Asgard—who gave a private performance before the regent at Buckingham Palace, and afterward fell into disfavor with him, perhaps from not having been compliant enough with the royal gentleman's wishes? I have some grounds for suspecting that my ancestor may have had some relations with her, and that she was killed, under mysterious circumstances, in her dressing-room at Drury Lane Theater. Such an event might account for some obscurities."
The librarian crossed his arms, laying one finger across his chin—his attitude when searching the alcoves of that encyclopedic memory of his.
"Seems to me there was a tragic occurrence about that period—Mrs. Asgard, Aline Asgard. an American; I'm almost sure there was a cause célèbre—and that the regent was suspected of a connection with it! But the investigation was discontinued, if I'm not mistaken—suppressed, you know, presumably for that very reason; court intrigues are apt to be problematic, and were especially so in the regent's time. Asgard! I think there was a Norwegian musician or composer of that name, may have been the lady's husband, though she herself was, as you suggest, a country-woman of Captain Heathcote's. My impression is—but I confess I'm very vague on the subject—losing my memory, I suppose—that both Asgard and Aline Asgard were involved in some accident or catastrophe at a theater; but of Captain Heathcote's share, if any, in the affair, I could hardly—er—hardly—"
"Of course, of course!" I muttered. "You're very wonderful as it is!"
"I'll tell you, though," he rejoined, brightening under the eulogium, "there ought to be some mention in the legal records or state archives of that date of any transaction of which the law might take cognizance; documents, you know, have away of turning up if one camps on their trail—as you Americans say—persistently enough, and I think, within a day or two, I may be able to furnish you with data which—"
"You're very kind," I said, "but the light you have already shed on the darkness may be enough to help me out of my difficulties. The prince regent—"
"Ah, a sad dog, a sad dog!" said the librarian, shaking his head. "No woman was safe from him, and he showed considerable ingenuity in covering his traces, too! Still, we won't despair! As your American poet, Emerson, says:
"There is no sequestered grot,
No mountain tarn, or isle forgot,
But Justice, journeying in the sphere,
Daily stoops to harbor there!
Though it might be said that Emerson himself, as a poet, has never yet had full justice done him. But his time will come; his time will come!"
So the good gentleman hurried away, and I came back to my lodgings here, and found a long letter from Joan awaiting me.
She has been nursing Philip in one of the base hospitals; he progresses favorably; and he has incidentally seen much of the marvels and the tragedies out yonder. She speaks of a wonderful pressing through of the spiritual from the material in many of the wounded and sick soldiers she talks with, many of them men who had never before had any notion of anything above their bodies. She thinks it isn't a religious revival, in the ordinary sense, but a new era, a new dispensation of the spiritual world on earth. Men lying on the battle-field have seen spiritual armies sweeping by; they have been led by spiritual guidance to do things incredible; some of them have a strange look in their eyes as they lie on their cots, as if they were beholding visions. Relatives of those who have died have seen and spoken with what they believed to be their spirits. This state hasn't the characteristics of a contagious excitement or delusion, Joan says, but is quiet and confident, as if they spoke of every-day and unquestionable things.
Yes, it may be that the thunders of Armageddon portend that after so many blindfolded ages, the veil of Isis is being lifted at last! Some of us at last may consciously be admitted to intercourse with souls disincarnate, and hear nightingale notes of paradise. How can I doubt it!
The French marshal seems to have stemmed and turned the tide, and the people that pass me in the streets have the light of victory in their faces. The air that blows toward us from the death-laden trenches bears the scent of immortal roses. In the East the light of a new morning kindles the mountain-tops!
The veil of Isis!—the veil of mortal sense, perhaps? But though on this plane of existence the body does but clothe a spirit which was before, and will be after, how can mortal sense make us aware of spiritual beings, or these have knowledge of us? To each, its own! To mingle them would be confusion!
And yet the insight or inspiration of a poet has affirmed that on his journey through the world, man "by the vision splendid is on his way attended," and that Nature may not at all times avail to make him "forget the glories he hath known, and that imperial palace whence he came." And surely I have, at moments, caught "the visionary gleam—the glory and the dream." It would be treason to the highest that is in me to deny it.
Aline Asgard, the sweet singer, the woman with dark, sparkling eyes and red-gold hair; how has she beckoned me onward, now from this side, now from that, by what paths of surprise and seeming accident, but always approaching nearer, each glimpse of her more veritable than the last! With each advance, the confusion seems to be dissipated, like night mists under the rising sun, and a truth and reason superior to our facts and logic to appear. What has wrought the miracle? Is it love? Is it lack of love that keeps us from heaven? But one mystery succeeds another, and the final gate is never passed. What is love? All my awakening understanding tells me it is life. But if I ask what life is, I am dazzled by rays proceeding from the source of the Infinite!
Aline and her Lionel! Now that I have so painfully learned her name, I think I always knew it; but the recovery of it renders her more distinct than before. Then am I Lionel? Is he something—some one—hitherto unacknowledged, who is more myself than I have ever been? Is he the impulse, the stirring, the yearning to be expressed, far within the closed chambers of my nature, whose emergence some unexplained fear has always prompted me to oppose? Fear of what—his rivalry? But how can the rivalry between the outer and the inner self be other than wholesome and purifying? Or I be worthy of Aline if I flinch from putting to the test my birthright in her?
It is Sunday afternoon, and there is a rhythm and swell of far-off music—the congregation of some neighboring church, as I think, praising God for the promise of overcoming the world's evil with good. I have opened all my windows, and the door of the bedroom; a warm July air draws through the apartment, and the sunshine falls aslant on the faded old carpet. I am probably alone in the house; Kittie, the chambermaid, has her half-holiday, and good Mrs. Blodgett, though there be no male of her kin at the front, is none the less conscientious in regular and punctual attendance at her place of worship.
As I sit here in the great chair, I am reminded of a day in my boyhood at home when I awaited, in my room—I was convalescent from an illness, I think—the return of my mother from an absence. My father had long since died, and the relations between my mother and myself had always been very close and tender. We had seldom been out of each other's reach. But she had been away, and was now on her return. I might hear the wheels of the wagon at any moment. I sat there in a tenseness of happy anticipation, impatient, but in a sort of latent joy.
Similar to this is my state now. I am sensible of the gradual oncoming of some revelation or fulfilment. I can't formulate any forecast more precise. I don't dread it; I welcome it. And yet there is a kind of awe in it. Perhaps it may be the approach of death! But, no! There is in it too much of the fire and triumph of life for that.
I can write no more at present.