The face of Doctor Melville at that moment was a study. He seemed like a man endeavouring to dispel some illusion caused by the influence of mesmerism, or by the agency of a powerful opiate.
“There is certainly something very extraordinary in all this,” he said, with an air of brooding truth. “How curious is it that the face of the lady, whose portrait hangs there above the fire-place, is marvellously like my daughter’s face! But for the difference of dress I would almost have sworn it was my daughter’s portrait.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the old man. “What a singular coincidence, truly! And pray, doctor—doctor—what’s your name?—for I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance—might I trouble you to let me know your daughter’s name, and also her age?”
“Her name is Una, and she is just nineteen years of age.”
With an exclamation of astonishment Doctor Rutherford raised himself to his feet.
“In God’s name, sir,” he said, now speaking with terrible earnestness, “if you wish to save me from everlasting misery, gratify an old man’s wish —call it a whim if you like—let me see your daughter! bring her here; it can do her no harm. I want to see her. You tell me she resembles that portrait, and that her name is Una? Strange—strange! Can this be some phantasy of nature—for sometimes nature plays us curious tricks—or can it be possible that somewhere on this earth my Una still lives, not old, withered as I am, but blooming in changeless youth and loveliness? Listen, and in a few words I will tell you how it happened. I was young and ambitious. My profession at first seemed to be all in all to me; but there is something stronger than ambition, and that is love—the master passion of our being. And so it was, that just two hundred and twenty-one years ago I fell in love, with the sweetest, purest, fairest creature that ever visited this sad world in the shape of woman. Her maiden name was Una Talbot. Her family was a Roman Catholic one, and they objected to me as a suitor, first, because I happened to be a member of the Reformed Church, and, secondly, because I was associated with Lord Berkeley, to whom the Talbots were bitterly opposed on political grounds. I was an ardent lover, however, and in a moment of weakness—or, should I not rather say, yielding to her supreme trust in me—Una consented to wed me secretly, without obtaining her parent’s sanction.”
“Una Talbot,” murmured Doctor Melville, as if uttering his thoughts aloud, “there is something peculiar in the recurrence of that name.” Then staring confusedly at the old man he went on: “you say that your wife’s name was Una Talbot, and that she lived in Dublin over two hundred years ago. Why, that was the very name of an ancestress of mine on my mother’s side, and it was after her my daughter was called.”
“I knew it must be so!” said the old man, with glittering eyes. “The same! the very same! But let me finish. There was something mysterious about Una’s early life. She was just blossoming into womanhood—nineteen at most—and her parents had been always fearful about her health, for she seemed more like an embodied spirit, than a thing of flesh and blood. She was fair-haired, blue-eyed, and was like the Madonna before the angel told her she was to be the Mother of God. I shrank in my secret soul from the idea of marriage with so ethereal a being: but love is stronger than reason—stronger than the strongest presentiments. Well, we were married. Ah! how vividly I can recall that day! It seems as if it were only yesterday. Oh! what unutterable rapture it was to hear her pronounce the marriage formula: I take thee for my wedded husband,’ to lead her to my home, to whisper in her ears those words of burning love, which were the last I ever addressed to her! Some curious fancy led her to suggest that we should pass the first few days after our marriage in this house. It was not my residence at the time, but it had been the property of a young nobleman, who, having squandered his patrimony, sold it to me at a very low figure a few weeks before my marriage. I gladly acted on Una’s suggestion, for here was a capital means of baffling the inquiries of her incensed relatives. They would seek me at my former address, and would find no tidings of me there, as I kept my new residence a complete secret from all my acquaintances. Therefore, they could find no trace of either myself or Una. But alas! a worse misfortune than any I had sought to escape from fell upon me, even on my wedding-day! She had not been many hours my bride, when she disappeared like a phantom, and left me lonely and wretched to wear out life, without love, without hope!”
“I do not quite understand you,” Doctor Melville here broke in.
“It was simple enough,” said the old man, mournfully shaking his head, “and yet so extraordinary was it that no logic could explain it, no science account for it. On the evening of our wedding-day we were seated side by side. I was telling her, for perhaps the thousandth time, how much she was to me—more than ambition, friends, fame, life itself. In the ecstasy of that sweet moment, I did not pause to notice that she scarcely responded to my impassioned words. I clasped her in my arms. I touched her dear lips with mine; but lo! in that very instant she seemed to melt away like a vision. She dissolved, as it were, into thin air; and since then I have seen her only in dreams. I have tried to clasp her in my arms as she flitted through the lonely spaces of the night; but I awoke with the bitter consciousness that it was an illusion.”
“And so, perhaps, was your marriage,” said Doctor Melville, half cynically, as the old man stopped, gasping for breath, and looking more wan and ghostly than ever.
In his own mind, the younger physician asked himself: “Is this a case of senile dementia? or what is it, in Heaven’s name?”
“My marriage an illusion?” exclaimed Doctor Rutherford. “My friend, you are too practical, to use the wretched phrase of the nineteenth century. The world, indeed, is perishing from the effect of this sordid materialism. No, no. It was no illusion. We were united at God’s altar. Our creeds were different, but we both were true believers in the Redeemer of man, and it mattered not that the clergyman was one of my church and not of hers. But do not mock at me, my good sir; I am old and foolish, perhaps, but bear with my weaknesses, and grant the request I asked of you, to let me see your daughter. Ah! sir, you are leavened, I fear, with the scepticism of a cold-blooded age. You do not believe in the transmigration of souls. What, indeed, is there that people do believe in now-a-days but money? As for me, mere possessions appear to me so much dross. To show you how little I cling to the things of this world, give me one sheet of note paper, and reach me a pen, which you will find on yonder table.”
Doctor Melville followed the old man’s directions, but had some difficulty in getting at a writing desk, which he placed on the couch by Doctor Rutherford’s side.
“Call in Hafiz, or wait, I will call myself. Hafiz! Hafiz!” and his voice rose to a feeble effort at shouting.
The Asiatic speedily made his appearance.
“I need you as a witness,” said his master grimly. “As I have otherwise made provision for you, I am not going to leave you any legacy. Preserve the secret of the Elixir when I am gone, and use it to prolong your own existence.”
Hafiz bowed.
Then fixing a keen glance on Doctor Melville, he said:
“Long as we have been talking together you have not told me your surname; let me know it, pray.”
Doctor Melville gave the information required.
Then, for some minutes, all that could be heard in the room was the scratching of a pen.
At length, with a sigh, the old physician laid down the pen, and read aloud the following words:
“In the name of God, Amen. I, Humphrey Rutherford, of the city of Dublin, Doctor of Medicine, being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, make this as my last will and testament. I leave all I die possessed of to Una, daughter of Doctor Melville, of the city of Dublin, and I appoint her my residuary legatee and sole executrix of this my will.”
“And now there is nothing to be done save to attest the will,” said Doctor Rutherford.
“But, my dear sir—” began Doctor Melville.
“Do not gainsay,” said the old man
, with a supplicating look: and forthwith he signed his name at the foot of the document, whose contents he had just read out.
The signatures of Doctor Melville and Hafiz were speedily attached.
“So much for settling my affairs,” said the old physician with forced calmness. “And now let me see her face—the face of Una—before I die.”
“Well, Doctor Rutherford, I should be a brute to refuse, under the circumstances,” said the younger physician. “Have patience for half-an-hour, and I promise you that you shall see my daughter. Meanwhile, your servant here must remain with you in case you want anything.”
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, nodding self-complacently. “Hafiz will stay here until your return. Go! Gratify the wish, the last hope of an unhappy being; and may God Almighty bless you for it!”
Without saying anything in reply, Doctor Melville hurried away.
The old man awaited his return with breathless impatience. Every moment he was becoming more restless, more vehement, more frenzied.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he muttered, with his eyes fixed on vacancy; “she will come back! I know she will come back to me; and I shall realize what true happiness means before I die!”
Hafiz vainly tried to calm his overstrung excitement. He kept saying repeatedly, “She is coming back! she is coming back,” and listening eagerly for the sound of approaching footsteps.
At length, there was a knock at the hall door; and the old physician, unable to control his emotions, rose, and endeavoured to follow Hafiz out of the Blue Room. He was, however, too feeble to make his way farther than the door of the apartment. There he paused, with a wild stare in his eyes, and his hands stretched forth tremblingly.
“Oh! hasten, hasten,” he exclaimed, in a broken voice; “hasten, or I die!”
Presently Hafiz, holding in his right hand one of the golden candlesticks, showed a young girl of a strange and almost unearthly type of beauty up the old-fashioned staircase. There was a dreamy smile on her face; but her lips trembled slightly as she gazed upon the withered countenance of the poor old physician. Still, she did not pause, but advanced towards him quietly until they stood quite close to each other.
“O Una! O my wife!—my long-lost Una, found at last!” almost shrieked the old man. And he spasmodically strove to fling his arms around her neck.
She shrank away from him with a cry of alarm, and would have fallen, had not Hafiz rushed to her assistance.
As for Doctor Rutherford, his withered features now grew frightfully pallid. A low, heart-piercing moan escaped him, and then from his blanched lips trickled a stream of blood. He made a faint effort to speak, but could only articulate one word:
“Wife!”
The next moment, his jaws relaxed, and he fell back—dead.
The Black Cat
May, 1907
ITSELF
by Edgar Mayhew Bacon
EDGAR Mayhew Bacon (1855-1935) was a teacher and a writer of nonfiction as well as fiction. His forte was guidebook-like expositions of various regions (which he also illustrated), typified by The New Jamaica, details of Modern Jamaica (1890), The Hudson River (1902), and Nar.ra-gansett Bay (Putnam, 1904). He was an important regional historian with Chronicles of Tarry town and Sleepy Hollow (Putnam, 1897), Henry Hudson (Putnam, 1907), In Memoriam Washington Irving (1909), as well as an anthologist. His last book, The Capture of Major Andre, was published in 1930.
Itself clearly benefits from his interest in people and their immediate environment. It is a remarkable story for 1907, anticipating the manner of John Steinbeck in a very modern approach to telling a story.
When this story was written, it had been only five years since Marie and Pierre Curie had actually been able to isolate radium in a measurable amount. The speed with which this new advance in science, like that of the X-ray, was incorporated into science fiction as a base for more advanced speculations is here demonstrated. It illustrates that science fiction, while unquestionably a great prophet of science, is frequently also a reflection of scientific progress.
THE MISSOURI was in flood. To use a common financial phrase, there was a slump in real estate, and several thousand acres of well-connected, arable land had abandoned their ancient riparian rights and degenerated into mere yellow mud, which swept by Glascow and Booneville at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Between Arrow Rock and Lisbon the stream, that had spread out below the islands, tried to swing at racing speed into its narrowing channel, swirling against the curving bank with mad impetuosity,—tearing, grinding, and overflowing it.
When the wall of soapy froth that marked the edge of the flood began to fill the windows and doorway of Mike Cassedy’s house, the family thought it time to go. Their exodus was accompanied with loud bewailings, led by Jane Cassedy, the teamster’s wife, while Ellen, Janey and Mamie Cassedy chimed in according to their ability. Gramma McCrea, a victim of rheumatism, hobbled out in tearful silence, devoutly crossing herself when the little band of homeless refugees reached the safer ground of the bluff. They were not alone in their flight. When they halted, the forlorn family found themselves in the midst of equally unfortunate neighbors, a circumstance which went far to mitigate the severity of their affliction.
Mrs. Toone was there, with her six children, each one redder-eyed than the others, and Mrs. O’Grady lamented in concert with Mrs. Donelly and the Widow Daly. The Kearnses, being a thrifty race, had already begun to build a shack to cover them, and the O’Brians, in view of their royal blood, actually aspired to nothing less than a two-roomed cabin, built from wreckage carried up from the shore.
About three o’clock in the afternoon, after rocking for some time upon its foundations, the Cassedy house floated off. It careened till it struck the only unshaken building in the neighborhood, the little stone church of St. Ann. The last the tearful family saw of their late home, it was being whirled away in fragments on the face of the waters.
Mike Cassedy had no idea of joining in the idle lamentations of the women, nor the aimless speculations of most of the men. Having saved his team and wagon, he pursued a work of salvage till twilight settled over land and flood, the result of his toil being a pile of lumber, motley in its variety, but quite sufficient to form a shelter that vied with the camp of the Kearnses, or the gypsy palace of the O’Brians.
When night covered the turgid waters of the Missouri, and the last keener on the bluff forgot her wailing in troubled sleep, a strange thing occurred on the sunken neck of land where the Cassedy house had stood. Mistress McCrea, being blessed with the faculty of dreaming true when important things were coming to pass, saw in her slumbers a brave, new house riding the flood. It stranded on the point, the lower angle of the front grinding first upon the submerged bar, and then, as it righted, gradually dragged more and more to the east, till at last it settled solidly within twenty paces of the spot where the old house had stood.
With the first peep of day Ellen, Tessie and Mamie were awake and out of doors. To the edge of the bluff they went, to discover what they could of novelty. In five minutes they were back, breathless with excitement, and pouring an astonishing tale into the credulous ears of the grandmother.
“A new house, bigger an’ better’n ourn,” explained Tessie.
“An’ it’s got paint on it!” supplemented the other sisters, shrilly exultant that this important item of news, the delivery of which would almost outweigh the glory of the first announcement, should have been omitted by the nimble-tongued Tessie.
Gramma showed no astonishment but, rising, took her cane without a word, and being already dressed, hobbled slowly to the point of observation, while her newly awakened daughter-in-law, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, made frantic haste to put on such clothes as decency demanded before facing the gaze of early rising neighbors. Mike Cassedy, being stiff and sore from yesterday’s exertions, was longer in getting his faculties in hand, poor man; but at last he, too, joined the little procession, and after all Gramma McCrea arrived last at the bluff.
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“Did iver annywan see th’ loike?” Mrs. Cassedy’s voice was reduced almost to a whisper in the face of what she made no doubt was a miraculous dispensation of Providence.
“Yis, yis, ‘tis jest as I saw it,” Gramma repeated. “ ‘Tis jest as I saw it last night in me drame.”
“What’s that yere saying’?” asked Mrs. Cassedy.
“Gramma dramed it,” whispered the children to each other, while Mike, who was seldom known to speak unless he had something of importance to say, and seldom then till the occasion was passed, turned his serious big face inquiringly toward the wise woman.
“Aye”; repeated Gramma. “ ‘Deed I dramed it while ye were all slapin’, not long from midnight. I saw it come down on the strame and shtrand thayer, where it is now, an’ that I’ll take oat’ to.”
It was not long before the refugee settlement on the bluff had learned that Mike Cassedy’s family were favored of Heaven to the extent of having a better house in the place of the one they had lost, and to add to the excitement caused by this astonishing news, word was solemnly passed that Mistress McCrea had dramed it.
“She’s a wonderful woman, that.”
“Aye. She has the second sight.”
“Seein’ she dramed it, wouldn’t the house belong to her, now?”
“Whisht. What differ does it make? Wouldn’t she have a home anyhow? Mike Cassedy has been good to th’ ould woman, an’ whether she was in her own house or his, I warrant she’ll never know any odds.”
It was a nice point to raise, this question of ownership in a house that had come unincumbered by title-deed, lease, mortgage, or other document wherewith properties are wont to be trammeled, all the world over. Former proprietor there seemed to have been none. Advised by the good priest, Father Joseph, Cassedy sought diligently to discover whence the house had come; but although his inquiries extended for thirty miles up the river, and descriptions of the dwelling were inserted in several papers between Booneville and Lexington, no trace of an owner could be found.
Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911 Page 44
