This eBook was produced by Andrew Heath
and David Widger
Lilian's wondrous gentleness of nature did not desert her in thesuspension of her reason. She was habitually calm,—very silent; when shespoke it was rarely on earthly things, on things familiar to her past,things one could comprehend. Her thought seemed to have quitted theearth, seeking refuge in some imaginary heaven. She spoke of wanderingswith her father as if he were living still; she did not seem to understandthe meaning we attach to the word "Death." She would sit for hoursmurmuring to herself: when one sought to catch the words, they seemed inconverse with invisible spirits. We found it cruel to disturb her atsuch times, for if left unmolested, her face was serene,—more serenelybeautiful than I had seen it even in our happiest hours; but when wecalled her back to the wrecks of her real life, her eye became troubled,restless, anxious, and she would sigh—oh, so heavily! At times, if wedid not seem to observe her, she would quietly resume her once favouriteaccomplishments,—drawing, music. And in these her young excellence wasstill apparent, only the drawings were strange and fantastic: they had aresemblance to those with which the painter Blake, himself a visionary,illustrated the Poems of the "Night Thoughts" and "The Grave,"—faces ofexquisite loveliness, forms of aerial grace, coming forth from the bellsof flowers, or floating upwards amidst the spray of fountains, theiroutlines melting away in fountain or in flower. So with her music: hermother could not recognize the airs she played, for a while so sweetly andwith so ineffable a pathos, that one could scarcely hear her withoutweeping; and then would come, as if involuntarily, an abrupt discord, and,starting, she would cease and look around, disquieted, aghast.
And still she did not recognize Mrs. Ashleigh nor myself as her mother,her husband; but she had by degrees learned to distinguish us both fromothers. To her mother she gave no name, seemed pleased to see her, butnot sensibly to miss her when away; me she called her brother: if longerabsent than usual, me she missed. When, after the toils of the day, Icame to join her, even if she spoke not, her sweet face brightened. Whenshe sang, she beckoned me to come near to her, and looked at me fixedly,with eyes ever tender, often tearful; when she drew she would pause andglance over her shoulder to see that I was watching her, and point to thedrawings with a smile of strange significance, as if they conveyed in somecovert allegory messages meant for me; so, at least, I interpreted hersmile, and taught myself to say, "Yes, Lilian, I understand!"
And more than once, when I had so answered, she rose, and kissed myforehead. I thought my heart would have broken when I felt thatspirit-like melancholy kiss.
And yet how marvellously the human mind teaches itself to extractconsolations from its sorrows. The least wretched of my hours were thosethat I had passed in that saddened room, seeking how to establishfragments of intercourse, invent signs, by which each might interpreteach, between the intellect I had so laboriously cultured, so arrogantlyvaunted, and the fancies wandering through the dark, deprived of theirguide in reason. It was something even of joy to feel myself needed forher guardianship, endeared and yearned for still by some unshatteredinstinct of her heart; and when, parting from her for the night, I stolethe moment in which on her soft face seemed resting least of shadow, toask, in a trembling whisper, "Lilian, are the angels watching over you?"and she would answer "Yes," sometimes in words, sometimes with amysterious happy smile—then