The Dreamer Part 26

CHAPTER XXVII.

A day when the porch was rose-embowered once more and the garden-spot a riot of color and the birds singing in the trees round about, found Mr.

Graham seated at Edgar Poe's desk in the office of _Graham's Magazine_.

The door behind him opened, and he raised his head from his writing and quickly glanced over his shoulder. The look of inquiry in his blue eyes instantly kindled into one of welcome.

"Come in! Come in! Dr. Griswold," he exclaimed. "I am more than glad to see you! We are overwhelmed with work just now and perhaps we'll induce you to lend a hand."

The visitor came forward with outstretched hand, stooping and bowing his huge bulk as he came in a manner that to a less artless mind than Mr.

Graham's might have suggested a touch of the obsequious. His furtive but watchful eye had already marked the fact that it was at Mr. Poe's desk--not his own--that Mr. Graham sat--which was as he had antic.i.p.ated.

"Mr. Poe laid up again?" he queried.

"Yes; he seems to be having quite an obstinate attack this time."

The visitor sadly shook his head. "Ah?--poor fellow, poor fellow!"

"Do you think his condition serious?" asked Mr. Graham, with anxiety.

Dr. Griswold cast a glance of the furtive eye over his shoulder and around the room; then stooped nearer Mr. Graham.

"Didn't you know?" he questioned, in a lowered tone.

"Only that the failure of his wife's health has been a sad blow to him and that after each of her attacks he has had a break-down. Is there anything more?"

Dr. Griswold stooped nearer still and brought his voice to a yet lower key.

"Whiskey"--he whispered.

Mr. Graham drew back and the candid brows went up.

"Ah--ah" he exclaimed. Then fell silent and serious.

"Did you never suspect it?" asked his companion.

"Never. I used to hear rumors when he was with Billy Burton, but I never saw any indications that they were true, and didn't believe them. How could I? Think of the work the man turns out--its quant.i.ty, its quality!

He is at once the most brilliant and the most industrious man it has been my good fortune to meet--and withal the most perfect gentleman--exquisite in his manners and habits, and the soul of honor.

Did you ever know a man addicted to drink to be so immaculately neat as he always is? Or so refined in manners and speech? Or so exact in his dealings? There is no one to whom I would more readily advance money, or with greater a.s.surance that it will be faithfully repaid in his best, most painstaking work--to the last penny!"

Dr. Griswold's face took on a look of deep concern.

"The more's the pity--the more's the pity!" said he. "A good man gone wrong!" Then with a hesitating, somewhat diffident air.

"You say that you need help which I might, perhaps, give?"

Mr. Graham was the energetic business man once more. Dr. Griswold's visit was most opportune, he said, for while he had on hand a good deal of "copy" for the next number of the magazine--furnished by Mr. Poe before his illness--there were one or two important reviews that must be written and Dr. Griswold would be the very man to write them, if he would.

As Rufus Griswold seated himself at Edgar Poe's desk a look that was almost diabolic came into his face. The temporary subst.i.tution was but a step, he told himself, to permanent succession. As editor of the magazine which under Poe's management had come to dominate thought in America, he could speak to an audience such as he had not had before.

_He_ could make or mar literary reputations and he could bring the public to recognize him as a poet!

It so chanced that upon that very day the editor of _Graham's Magazine_ found himself sufficiently recovered from his illness to go out for the first time. As he fared forth, gaunt and tremulous, the midsummer beauty of out-of-doors effected him curiously. It seemed strange to him that the rose on the porch should be so gay, that the suns.h.i.+ne should lie so golden upon the houses and in the streets of Spring Garden--that birds should be singing and the whole world going happily on when his heart held such black despair. As he went on, however, the fresh sweet air gave him a sense of physical well-being that buoyed his spirits in spite of the bitterness of his thoughts.

He was going to work again, and he was glad of it--but he made no resolutions for the future. In the past when he had fallen and had braced himself up again, he had sworn to himself that he would be strong thereafter--that he would never, never yield to the temptation to touch wine again. But he had not been strong. And now he looked the deplorable truth straight in the face. He hoped with all his soul that he would not fall again. He would give everything he possessed to ensure himself from yielding to the temptation to taste the wild exhilaration--the freedom--the forgetfulness--to say to the cup "Nevermore"--to ensure himself from having to pay the price of his yielding in the agony of remorse that was a descent into h.e.l.l.

But he would deceive himself with no lying pledges. He hoped--he longed to be strong; but he could not swear that he would be--he did not know whether he would be or not. The temptation was not upon him now--he loathed the very thought of it now; but the temptation would most certainly return sooner or later. He hoped from the bottom of his soul that he would resist it, but he feared--nay, in his secret heart he believed--that he would yield. And because he believed it he loathed himself.

As he drew near the office he thought of Mr. Graham,--how kind he was--how trustful. He wondered if Mr. Graham knew the cause of his illnesses and if not how long it would before he would know it; and if the attacks were repeated how long he would be able to hold the place that had shown him the end of the rainbow? How bitter it would be to some day find, added to all the other disastrous results of his weakness of will--to find another in the editorial chair of _Graham's_.

Just at this point in his soliliquy he reached his destination. He mounted the steps leading to the office of _Graham's Magazine_ and opened the door--quietly.

For a moment the two men in the office--each deep in his own work--were unaware of his presence, and he stood staring upon their backs as they sat at their desks. Mr. Graham was in his accustomed seat and in his--The Dreamer's--the giant frame of the man whose big brain he admired--though he was "no poet,"--the frame of Rufus Griswold!

Horror clutched his heart. Mr. Graham evidently knew, and knowing had supplied his place without deeming him worth the trouble of notifying, even. Had supplied it, moreover, with the one man who he himself believed would fill it with credit. The readers would be satisfied. He would not be missed. He turned and stumbled blindly down the stairs. Mr.

Graham heard him, and hurrying to the door, recognized and followed him--trying to explain and to persuade him to return. But he was too much excited to listen. His reason prompted him to listen, but the Imp of the Perverse laughed reason to scorn. Seeing disaster ahead he rushed headlong to embrace it.

He understood--he understood, he reiterated. There was nothing to explain. Mr. Graham had secured Dr. Griswold's services. Mr. Graham had done well. No, not for any inducement would he consider returning.

He was gone! He was in the street--a wanderer! A beggar, he told himself!

He wandered aimlessly about for an hour, then foot-sore--exhausted in mind and body--he turned his face wearily in the direction of Spring Garden, with its rose-embowered cottage sheltering exquisite beauty--unalterable love--unfailing forgiveness--_heartsease_. He must go home and tell "Muddie" and "Sissy" that he was a ruined man! Oh, if they would only give him his desert for once! If they would only punish him as he felt he should be punished. But they would not! They could not--for they were angels. They were more--they were loving women filled with that to which his mind and his soul bowed down and wors.h.i.+pped as reverently as they wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d in Heaven--woman's love, with its tenderness, its purity, and its unwavering steadfastness. They would suffer--that horrible fear, the fear of the Wolf at the door which they had not known in their beloved Spring Garden and since he had been with _Graham's_ would again rob them of peace. They would bear it with meek endurance, but they would not be able to hide it from him. He would see it in the wistful eyes of Virginia and in the patient eyes of "Muddie."

But they would utter no reproach. They would soothe him with winning endearments and bid him be of good cheer and would make a gallant fight to show him that they were perfectly happy.

During the year and a half of Edgar Poe's connection with _Graham's Magazine_ he had raised the number of subscribers from five thousand to thirty-seven thousand. His salary, like that he had received from _The Messenger_, had been a mere pittance for such service as he gave, but also, like what he received from _The Messenger_ it had been a regular income--a dependence. With the addition of the little checks paid him for brilliant work in other periodicals, it had amply served, as has been said, to keep the Wolf from the door. In order to make as much without a regular salary it would be necessary for him to sell a great many articles and that they should be promptly paid for. And so he wrote, and wrote, and wrote, while "Muddie" took the little rolls of ma.n.u.script around and around seeking a market for them. Her stately figure and saintlike face became familiar at the doors of all the editors and publishers in Philadelphia.

It was a weary business but her strength and courage seemed never to flag. Sometimes she succeeded in selling a story or a poem promptly and receiving prompt pay. Then there was joy in the rose-embowered cottage.

Sometimes after placing an article payment was put off time and time again until hope deferred made sick the hearts of all three dwellers in the cottage.

Oftentimes they were miserably poor--sometimes they were upon the verge of despair--yet through all there was an undercurrent of happiness that nothing could destroy--they had each other and even at the worst they still dreamed the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Gra.s.s, even though the heartsease blossom drooped and drooped.

Virginia's attacks continued to come at intervals, and each time the shadow hung more persistently and with deeper gloom over the cottage. It would be lifted at length, but not until the husband and mother had suffered again all the agonies of parting--not until what they believed to be the last goodbyes had been said and the imagination, running ahead of the actual, had gone through each separate detail of death and burial.

The Dreamer's thoughts dwelt constantly upon these scenes and details until finally the "dirges of his hope one melancholy burden bore--of Never--Nevermore."

Under the influence of the state of mind that was thus induced, a new poem began to take shape in his brain--a poem of the death of a young and beautiful woman and the despair and grief of the lover left to mourn her in loneliness. As it wrote itself in his mind the word that had thrilled and charmed and frightened him at the bedside of his mother and to whose time his feet had so often marched, as to a measure--the mournful, mellifluous word, Nevermore--became its refrain.

The composition of his new poem became an obsession with him. His brain busied itself with its perfection automatically. Not only as he sat at his desk, pen in hand; frequently it happened that at these times the divine fire refused to kindle--though he blew and blew. But at other times, without effort on his part, the spark was struck, the flames flashed forth and ran through his thoughts like wild-fire. When he was helping Virginia to water the flowers in the garden; when he walked the streets with dreaming eyes raised skyward, studying the clouds; when he sat with Virginia and the Mother under the evening lamp or with feet on the fender gazed into the heart of the red embers, or when he lay in his bed in the quiet and dark--wherever he was, whatever he did, the phrases and the rhythm of the new poem were filtering through his sub-consciousness, being polished and made perfect.

Indeed the poem in the making cast a spell upon him and he pa.s.sed his days and his nights as though in a trance. Virginia and Mother Clemm knew that he was in the throes of creation, and they respected his brown-study mood--stepping softly and talking little; but often by a silent pressure of his hand or a light kiss upon his brow, saying that they understood. They were happy, for they knew the state of mind that enveloped him to be one of profound happiness to him--though the brooding look that was often in his grey eyes told them that the visions he was seeing had to do with sorrow. They waited patiently, feeling certain that in due course would be laid before them a work in prose or verse, presenting in jewel-like word and phrase, scenes in some strange, fascinating country which it would charm them to explore.

At last it was done! He told them while they sat at the evening meal.