Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, page 373
Was he ill? Fear clutched her heart and made her faint. The suspense was terrible, and she had no one to go to for sympathy — no one. She dared not mention her anxiety to her husband; it made him furious. He could not stand the sound of Eddie’s name, even — her darling, beautiful Eddie! Her arms felt so empty they ached.
Winter was passing. The garden that Eddie loved so dearly was coming to life. The crocuses for which he always watched with so much interest were come and gone. The jonquils were in bloom and the first sweet hyacinths, blue as turquoises, she had gathered and put in his room. It cheered her to see them there. Somehow, they made the room look more “ready” than usual — as if he might come home that day.
He did not come, but something else did. A letter with the Boston post-mark she had so longed to see, and a small, flat package addressed to her in his dear hand. She broke the seal of the letter first — she was so hungry for the sight of the familiar, “Mother dear,” and to know how he fared.
It was a short letter, but, ah, the blessed relief of knowing he was well and happy! And prospering — prospering famously — for he told her he was sending her the first copy off the press of his book of poems! It was a very little book, he said, but it was a beginning. He felt within him that he would have much bigger and better things to show her erelong. For the present, he was hard at work making ready for a revised and enlarged edition of his book, if one should be called for.
There was a jubilant note in the letter that delighted her and communicated itself to her own spirits. She eagerly tore the wrappings from the package, and pressed the contents against her lips and her heart. It was but a slender volume, cheaply printed and bound, but it was her boy’s first published work and a wonderful thing in her eyes. She already saw him rich and famous — saw him come home to her crowned with honor and success — vindicated.
She turned the pages of the book. He had written upon the fly-leaf some precious words of presentation to her. She kissed them rapturously and passed on to the title-page:
“Tamerlane and Other Poems. By a Bostonian. Boston: Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer.”
She was still gloating over her treasure when the brass knocker on the front door was sounded, and a minute later Myra Royster — now Mrs. Shelton — was announced. Taking the book with her, she tripped downstairs, singing as she went, and burst in upon Myra as she sat in state in the drawing-room, in all her bridal finery.
Myra noticed as she kissed her, her glowing cheeks and shining eyes.
“How well you are looking today, Mrs. Allan,” she exclaimed.
“It is happiness, dear. I’ve just had such a delightful letter from Eddie, and this darling little book. It is his poems, Myra!”
Myra was all interest. “To think of knowing a real live author!” she exclaimed. “I was sure Eddie would be famous some day, but had no idea it would come so soon.”
“Don’t you wish you had waited for him?” teased Mrs. Allan, laughing happily.
They chatted over the wonderful news until nearly dinner-time, and after they had parted Mrs. Allan sat at the window watching for her husband to come home that she might impart it to him at the earliest moment possible. But when at last he appeared she put off the great moment until after dinner, and then when he was comfortably smoking a fragrant cigar she approached him timidly and placed the letter and the book in his lap without a word.
“What’s all this?” he questioned sharply.
She made no reply, but hovered about his chair, too excited to trust herself to speak.
He picked up the letter and read it with a deepening frown, then opened the book and ran his eyes hurriedly down one or two of its pages. At length he spoke:
“So this is the way he’s wasting his time and, I dare say, his money too. Will the boy ever amount to anything, I wonder?”
The happiness in Frances Allan’s face gave place to quick distress.
“Oh, John,” she cried, “Don’t you think it amounts to anything for a boy of eighteen to have written and published a book of poetry?”
“Poetry? This stuff is bosh — utter bosh!”
For the first time in her life, there was defiance in her gentle face. Her clinging air was discarded. She raised her head and with flashing eyes and rising color, faced him.
“You think that, because you cannot understand or appreciate it,” she retorted, with spirit. “Neither do I understand it, but I can see that it is wonderful poetry. If he can do this at eighteen I have no doubt he will make himself and us famous before many years are past!”
Her husband’s only reply was an astonished and piercing stare which she met without flinching, then turned and swept from the room, leaving him with a feeling of surprise to see that she was so tall.
Her self assertion was but momentary. As she ascended the stair and entered Eddie’s room, all the elasticity was gone from her step, all the brightness from her cheeks and eyes and, still clasping her boy’s letter and book to her heart, she threw herself upon his bed and burst into a passion of tears.
Meantime, the elms on Boston Common were clothed with tender April green and under foot sweet, soft grass was springing. In this inspiring cathedral walked Edgar Poe, his pale face and deep eyes, passionate with the worship of beauty that filled his soul, lifted to the greening arches above him, his sensitive ears entranced with the bird-music that fluted through the cool aisles. His mind was teeming with new poems in the making and with visions of what he should do if his book should sell.
But it did not sell. The leading magazines acknowledged its receipt in their review columns, but with the merest mention, which was exceedingly disconcerting. It was discussed (but with disappointment) for a week by his friends at home and at the University, to whom he sent copies. Then was forgotten.
And now its author was, for the first time within his recollection, beginning to feel the pinch of poverty. His money was almost gone and he saw no immediate hope of getting more. He moved to the cheapest boarding house he could find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in public. His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he had laundered. This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating in the extreme.
He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of giving his book wider circulation. He visited the offices of the several newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of journalism — reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any aptitude or preparation; but without success.
At length the sign of “Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer” had suddenly disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal “To Let,” was in its place.
At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia.
CHAPTER XV.
Where was Edgar Poe? —
Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness and their silence.
And still the garden’s true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a wanderer, where? —
Oh, beautiful “Ligeia,” was it not your voice that now and again whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not — did you not, bring news of the wanderer?
If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well.
Within the homestead there was little change save a deepening of the quietness that had fallen upon it. In the master of the house there was no visible difference. There are some men who seen from year to year seem as unchanging as the sphinx. It is only after a long period that any difference in them can be detected and then they suddenly appear broken and aged. The fair lady of the manor was as fair as ever, but with the pale, tremulous fairness of a late star in the grey dawn of a new day in which it will have no part. Her bloom, her roundness, her gaiety — all these were gone. She spent more time than ever in the room which, waiting for its roving tenant, became more and more like a death chamber. The silence there was not now broken by her sobs even, for it was with dry-eyed grief that she watched and waited for her boy, these days — watched and waited and prayed. Ah, how she prayed for him, body and soul! Prayed that wherever he might be, he might be kept from harm and strengthened to resist temptation.
Was it her agonized petitions that kept him to the straight and narrow path of duty during those two years amid uncongenial surroundings and hard conditions?
Who knows?
Yet the chair and the desk and the books and the vases of fresh flowers on the mantel, and the fire-wood resting on the shining andirons ready for a match, and the reading lamp with trimmed wick and bright chimney on the table, and the canopied white bed still waited, in vain, his coming.
Many months had passed since the name of Eddie had been spoken between husband and wife, but though she held her peace, like Mary of old, like Mary too, she pondered many things in her heart. He, loving her well, but having no aptitude for divining woman’s ways, indulged in secret satisfaction, for he took her silence to mean that she was coming to her senses, and regarding the boy as he did. That she no longer importuned him to enquire into Edgar’s whereabouts with the intention of inviting him home was a source of especial relief to him.
Then, upon a day two years after she had triumphantly placed Eddie’s book and letter in his hands, it was his turn to bring her a letter.
“You see the bad penny has turned up again,” he remarked, dryly.
She looked questioningly at the folded sheet. Its post-mark was Fortress Monroe and the hand-writing was not familiar to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A letter from Dr. Archer. He’s surgeon at the fort, you know. Read it. It is about Edgar.”
With shaking hands and a blanched face she spread open the sheet. A nameless dread possessed her. A letter about Eddie — not from him — and from a surgeon! For a moment darkness seemed to descend upon her and she could not make out the characters before her. She pressed her hand upon her heart. In sudden alarm, her husband rushed to a celaret nearby and brought out a decanter of wine. Pouring a glass he pressed it to her lips.
“Eddie,” she gasped, as soon as she could speak. “Is he well?”
In spite of John Allan’s anxiety, he was irritated, and showed it.
“Pshaw, Frances!” he exclaimed. “I hoped you had forgotten the boy. Yes, he’s well, and, I’m glad to say, in a place where he is made to behave.”
She calmed herself with an effort and began to read the letter. The story it told had a smack of romance.
Dr. Archer had (he wrote) been called to the hospital in the fort to see a private soldier by the name of Edgar A. Perry, who was down with fever. The patient spoke but little but the Doctor was struck with his marked refinement of look and manner, and there was something familiar to him about the prominent brow and full grey eyes, though the name was strange to him. His attention was aroused and he could not rid himself of the impression that he had seen the young man before. He mentioned the fact to some of the officers and found at once that his patient was a subject of deep interest to them. They felt sure (they told him) that he had a story. His polished manners and bright and cultivated conversation seemed to them incongruous with the duties of a private soldier, and they laughingly said that they suspected they were entertaining an angel unawares. Yet his duties were performed with the utmost faithfulness and efficiency. He had never been heard to speak of himself or his past in a way which would throw any light upon his history, and his reserve was of the kind which was bound to be respected. Dr. Archer had grown (he wrote) more and more interested in his patient as he became better acquainted with him, and being convinced that the young man had for some reason, gotten out of his proper sphere, he determined to try and help him back to it.
By the time the young soldier was convalescent the Doctor had won his confidence and obtained from him the confession that the name of Perry was an assumed one, and that he was none other than Mr. Allan’s adopted son, Edgar Poe, whom Dr. Archer had not seen since he was a small boy.
The discovery of his identity had greatly increased the good Doctor’s interest and he and the officers of the fort were of the opinion that as young Poe had made a model soldier (having been promoted to the rank of sergeant-major, for good conduct) the best thing that could be done for him was to secure his discharge and get him an appointment to West Point. This, Mr. Allan could bring about, he thought, through men of influence whose friendship the Doctor knew he enjoyed. Edgar had enlisted for five years. He had confessed that at the time he had been almost upon the point of starvation and had turned to the army when every effort to find other means of livelihood had failed.
The Doctor and other officers thought that it would be a great sacrifice to leave a young gentleman of Edgar’s abilities to three more years of such uncongenial life.
He was quite recovered and in accordance with a promise made the Doctor, was writing to Mr. Allan at that moment.
“Did Eddie’s letter come too?” Mrs. Allan asked, as she finished the one in her hand.
Without a word, her husband handed it over to her. In it Edgar expressed much contrition for the trouble which his larger experience in life told him he had cost his foster-father, and asked his forgiveness. He also asked that Mr. Allan would follow the suggestion of Dr. Archer, and apply for a discharge from the army for him, and an appointment to West Point.
He had not written his “Mother” in the past because he had unfortunately nothing to tell which he believed could give her any pleasure, but he sent her his undying love.
Frances Allan looked through wet lashes into her husband’s face, but her eyes were shining through the tears.
“Oh, John,” she said breathlessly, “You will have him to come and make us a little visit before he goes to West Point, won’t you?”
“I’ll have nothing to do with him!” was the emphatic reply. “He seems to be getting along very well where he is. Let him stick it out!”
Feeling how vain her pleadings would be, yet not willing to give up hope, she wept, she prayed, she hung upon John Allan’s neck. She brought every argument that starved motherhood could conceive to bear upon him.
To think that Eddie was in Virginia — just down at Old Point! The cup of joy was too near her lips to let it pass without a mighty effort. But finally she gave up and shrank within herself, drooping like the palest of lilies.
Then came a day when a stillness such as it had never known before hung over the Allan home. The garden was at its fairest. The halls and the drawing-rooms, with their rich furnishings and works of art were as beautiful as ever; but there was not even a bereaved mother, with an expression on her face like that of Mary at the foot of the cross, to tread the lonely floors. The luxurious rooms were quite, quite empty — all save one — an upper chamber, where upon a stately carved and canopied bed lay all that was mortal of Frances Allan, like a lily indeed, when pitiless storm has laid it low!
The learned doctors who had attended her had given long Latin names to her malady. In their books there was mention of no such ailment as heartbreak, and so happily, the desolate man left to preside in lonely state, over the goodly roof-tree which her presence had filled and made sweet and satisfying, was spared a suspicion even, of the real cause of her untimely end.
His one consuming desire for the present was that all things should be done just as she would wish, and so — all minor bitternesses drowned in the one overwhelming bitterness of his loss — he scribbled a few hurried lines to Edgar Poe acquainting him with the sad news and telling him to apply for a leave and come “home” at once.
But the mails and travel were slow in those days, and when the young soldier reached Richmond the last, sad rites were over, and for the third time in his brief career the grave had closed over a beautiful woman who had loved him and upon whose personality had been based in part, that ideal of woman as goddess or angel before which his spirit throughout his life, with all its vicissitudes, bowed down. As the lumbering old stage crawled along the road toward Richmond, he lived over again the years spent in the sunshine of her presence. Her death was a profound shock to him. How strange that one so fair, so merry, so bubbling with life should cease to be! Would it always be his fate, he wondered, to love where untimely death was lying in wait?
Upon the night when he reached “home” and every night till, his furlough over, he returned to his post of duty at Fortress Monroe, he lay in his old room with his old household gods — his books in their shelves, his pictures on the walls, his desk and deep arm-chair, and other objects made dear by daily use in their accustomed places, and “the lamplight gloating o’er,” around him. He was touched at the sweet, familiar look of it all and at the thoughtfulness of himself of which he saw signs everywhere. Could it be that he had been two years an exile from these homelike comforts or had it been only one of his dreams? In spite of the void her absence made, it was good to be back — good after his wanderings to come into his own again.
