CHAPTER XX
SPIRITS OF THE AIR
Alice Cramer stood by the small window of her home, her fingers unconsciously thrumming on the pane, while she gazed out into the shadowing twilight of early spring.
The road was a dark line in the gray landscape and she watched eagerly for a figure to arise from it into vision. It was the evening that Mark should come, and she remembered that she had parted from him almost in anger. She had expected then to see him soon again, in a few weeks at the furthest, but the weeks had grown into months. There had been trouble with the Indians on the frontier and Mark was ordered to report for active duty and sent away a long distance from home. What a long, dreary winter it had been, even though her mother had been with her. Alice sighed as she thought of it. Even the mother had gone back to her Eastern home now, and she was alone.
Ah, she was glad, very glad Mark was coming; but there was a shadow of fear tinging the brightness of her joy. She had disobeyed him. She compressed her lips as she thought again of the command he had laid upon her. Why had he been so bitter and prejudiced in regard to Professor Russell? Mark was usually so tolerant of others’ beliefs and foibles. It could not be from the cause the Professor had once insinuated. A hot flush of shame swept over her as she thought of that dreadful insinuation. Surely, the man had forgotten himself when he hinted that. She should never dare repeat his words to Mark. He would shoot him, she feared. Perhaps Mark was right in his dislike for the man, but she could not refuse to credit his doctrine. Surely, surely she had proof of unseen visitants surrounding her. She felt their presence.
And even as she thus thought, a shiver of fear came over her. The air about her grew chill. In imagination she could see without, in the gathering darkness, a host of shadowy forms flitting backward and forward before her, like swarms of tiny insects in the atmosphere. How they swarmed about her and over her as she grew colder and her breathing more difficult. Involuntarily she turned her head and glanced backward over her shoulder. The shadows had deepened in the room. A frightful figure began to take shape before her excited vision. Her heart beat loudly and painfully. Her breath came in gasps. A moment, and the shape began to approach her. She gazed in fascinated terror into the darkness, not daring to move. Nearer and nearer it came,—ah, God! Alice felt her limbs sinking beneath her, and dropping to the floor she cowered and covered her face with her hands.
Oh, the fright and awfulness of that moment! She felt the forms all about her, shadowing and overpowering her. She heard them in a swarming, buzzing confusion of sound. Suddenly, out from it all came another sound, louder and more distinct, but she was too paralyzed to reason.
She heard the sound of heavy footsteps outside. Nearer and nearer they came. The door opened. Some one approached in the half darkness. There was a rushing and roaring as of many waters in Alice’s brain, and she crouched lower and lower and uttered a faint shriek of terror.
“Alice, Alice!” a voice called in her ear. “Alice, where are you? All in the dark by yourself?” Then, as the visitor nearly stumbled over the heap upon the floor, he started back involuntarily. “Great Heavens! What has happened? What is the matter? Alice, can this be you upon the floor? Why, child, what has happened? Did I startle you by coming sooner than you expected?”
Mark Cramer, with anxious countenance, bent over the cowering figure of his wife.
Her face was still buried in her hands, her frame shaking, her whole attitude one of extreme fear.
Mark’s heart sank with a fear of unknown dangers. This was a strange welcome after his long absence.
Alice’s letter had, it is true, prepared him to find her ill, perhaps only depressed, for he had noted the dejection of spirits in the written words, but he could account for that; but could this shrinking, cowering creature be his formerly light-hearted and happy wife? Surely he had expected nothing like this.
Nothing less than a serious nerve shock could have caused this condition. From what source could the shock have come? Could it be, Alice had brooded in her cabin until she had become insane? These and a hundred other thoughts rushed through his brain in the space of a moment as he bent over the abject form of his wife.
“Alice, dear Alice, have you no welcome for me after all these long months?”
Mark tried to raise her, but she shrank back from him, limp and helpless, yet trembling as with palsy.
“Alice, do you know me? Have you lost your mind? My God, what a home-coming is this! You surely are not afraid of me, Mark? Speak to me, Alice.”
She looked up at him with dazed eyes and tried to speak, but her lips would not obey her will.
“Alice, O Alice!” Mark lifted the trembling figure in his arms and held her tightly. “Alice Cramer, do you not know me? What has happened to put you in this state?”
She turned her white face against his shoulder, hiding it.
Darker thoughts took possession of the man. Was there a reason why his wife should fear him, her husband? His blood grew hot with anger. Had that villain, Russell, so poisoned her mind that she feared his return, or had some person, just previous to his return, frightened and prostrated her? He glanced into the adjoining room and listened for any noise to denote an intruder. No, Alice was alone.
“Alice, speak to me!” he commanded sternly.
“Mark, Mark,” she murmured. “Oh! has it gone? Can you save me from it?” And again she shrank fearingly against his arm.
“There is nothing here, Alice; only I, Mark. What has disturbed you so? Was any one here before I came? Has any one been trying to frighten you?”
Alice raised her head and looked shrinkingly behind her, clinging closer to her husband as she did so. Then she began to sob, and clutch his shoulders tightly.
“Yes—oh—I do not know! I saw it behind me here in the room. It was so hideous—so dreadful! I saw it over my shoulder there!”
“I think, my dear, it was only the shadow cast by my horse as it came down the road.”
“Oh, no, no, it was there!”
Mark looked distressed.
“Alice, I shall not dare leave you alone again while your nerves are in this state. Do you know that there has been nothing here but spectres of your excited imagination. Since when have you conjured gruesome hobgoblins out of the darkness? You never saw such things before, did you?”
Alice hid her face in his bosom.
“Yes, Mark, many times. They are always about me. When I walk they come up behind me and I hear their padding footsteps following me. They even pull my hair sometimes at night when I cannot sleep. Oh, I cannot bear it!”
Mark frowned, and chewed his mustache reflectively, but he repressed the words that came to his lips.
“My dear child, I am home with you now.”
“Yes, Mark, and I am so—so—glad! But you will go away and then they will come again.”
“I wish you might go when I do. You are nearly ill with nervous prostration. You should see a doctor right away.”
“O, no, Mark! Not a doctor! I am not sick!”
“What has caused this trouble, Alice? I do not know unless it is that miserable hound Russell. Can you not believe me when I tell you this is all a mere delusion of the senses? You have thought and thought over, and allowed your mind to dwell upon that wretched ism until it has nearly shipwrecked you. It was an evil day when that villain darkened our door.” And Mark ground his teeth in impotent wrath. “But come, let us have a light and drive away the spirits of darkness.”
“But, Mark, dear,” said Alice, as she arose and lighted a lamp, “can you not see that, to me, it is truth? I really see and hear them, and if it were not for these hideous ones—”
“They are all hideous—the whole doctrine is hideous, my dear, and only such as an unbalanced mind can conceive of,” he said hastily. “For my sake,—for God’s sake,—try and use some reason and judgment in the matter! You used to feel different from this—you, the little fearless woman of five years ago. I was so proud of you for your bravery, as became a soldier’s wife. You were all right until that man came here—until that serpent came into our Eden. Now you are frightened, and faint at your own shadow. But forgive me, dear, I didn’t come home to scold you. I am sure it is because you are not well and your nerves are to blame for it all. Queer things, these nerves, to play us such pranks. You are better, are you not?”
Alice turned her face, still pale and wan, toward him, and said in a voice yet unsteady: “We will not talk of it any more. It is too dreadful.”
“No, we will choose pleasanter themes. I have some news for you. I have received a letter from my sister Elinor, and she thinks of coming to make us a visit. She will have a fine rest here after her round of society life.”
“But I thought she was in California.”
“So she is, but will stop and visit us on the way East. I know it will do you good to have her here. She is always bright and happy.”
Alice’s lip quivered at the implied reproach, though Mark had no intention of meaning it as such.
“But will she be happy here? I am afraid our rude little cabin will scarcely make her comfortable.”
“Don’t worry about that, child. Nellie is a good-hearted little woman, in spite of her wealth and love of society, and she will enjoy the change, I assure you.”
“I feel—afraid to see her,” said Alice, the tears quivering in her lashes.
“Alice, dear, can it be this lonely, isolated life that is ruining your health and nerves? Shall I give up my commission and go back East?”
“Oh, no, Mark! It is pleasant here—only—” And Alice again looked apprehensively behind her.
“My poor child, we will go East,—anywhere,—to get you away from these scenes and influences,” he murmured.
“But, Mark, do you not think they are everywhere? In the East and West and North and South? The air is full of them, it seems to me. What used to seem only thin, pure, fresh air, sweet to breathe, and space vast and limitless, appears now a thickly populated ether or chaos in which are countless thousands of spirits floating or coming and going in surging, whirling, maddening confusion. Oh, you cannot see with my eyes! If you could you would pity me!” Alice leaned against her husband’s arm and her tears fell softly. “You wouldn’t scold me if you knew.”
“Poor child, poor child! I will not scold you nor laugh at you. I will cure you. I know disordered nerves are as bad as other functional disorders, or worse, and it is a physician you need, and a big dose of rest, and you shall have them. You shall not be left alone again, either. You are not afraid when I am here?”
“No, you seem to exercise control even over the inhabitants of the air.”
“I thank God I am able to. Did you know, Alice, Nathan’s little Lucy is ill?”
“Little Lucy? Ah, how sorry I am. How did you learn it?”
“I met Nathan down the road and came home with him.”
“Mark, dear, how I am neglecting you. I am sure you are tired and hungry, and here I have been taking your time with my woes, and forgetting your needs. Supper is all ready, however, except making the tea.”
“Ah, that begins to sound like home again. Yes, I am hungry. I am always hungry when I can come home to my own table and have my good wife’s cooking.”
And Alice, intent upon the hospitable entertainment of her husband, forgot, for the time, the spectres that haunted her.