Atlantic Monthly - - (free e books to read txt) 📗

the gentleman I met going out, as I was coming in.

“Oh,—Clodman! You saw him?” cried Pendlam.

“Yes, and remember distinctly seeing him at least twice before; once as the Practical Organizer of the Initial Association of Free Disciples, and once as the self-appointed castigator of unfortunate temperance missionaries.”

“You are pleased to be sarcastic,” said Pendlam, mildly. “He is a very useful man to us. I welcome his visits to my house; for I consider his magnetism highly beneficial to Susan.”

“Then, by all the gods at once, you wrong me!” I said. “If that man’s magnetism is what she needs, to suppose that mine is, also, is an insult. I lose patience with you, O most free Disciple!”

“I see,” replied Pendlam, with a smile, “you have not yet reached the plane of perfect freedom. I cannot argue with you; but when you have had certain necessary experiences, and arrived at my stand-point, you will see as I do.”

He conducted me to the door, rather coolly. I stopped a moment to speak to Susan.

“For the love of Heaven,” I said, “remember what I told you. You don’t know how much depends upon you!”

Susan stared. I left her staring.

About this time Miss Kellerton returned, and played a brilliant engagement. I accompanied Horatio one evening to witness her fourth appearance in a new play, which had taken the theatrical portion of the city by storm. The play-house was packed from top to bottom. We had our seats in the orchestra, where we enjoyed a view of both actors and audience, and a cool breeze from behind the scenes. For criticisms of the performance, I must refer the reader to the newspapers of the period. Horatio cheered like a madman. He was quite beside himself with enthusiasm, especially at the close of the third act. He was clapping furiously, and looking about upon the audience to see who else was cheering, when he suddenly stopped, his hands asunder, his countenance transfixed with an alarming expression. I thought he had clapped himself into a fit.

“Horatio!” I cried,—“Horatio! what’s the matter?”

“Look! look!”

“Where?”

“Yonder! by the pillar!” I now thought (his head being turned) that perchance he beheld a ghost. “Don’t you see?—Pendlam!”

It was true;—there sat the reformer, out-cheering Horatio himself! By his side was Susan, looking brighter and happier than I had seen her for months. By her side sat—

“That rascal Clodman!” hissed Horatio, through his teeth.

Miss Kellerton came before the curtain. A vast tumult of applause burst forth and died away. Pendlam cheered after all the rest had ceased. Then he and Clodman conferred,—the face of the latter so near Susan’s, as he leaned before her, that Horatio swore he kissed her. Both Pendlam and Susan were beaming with smiles.

“This recreation will do them good,” I whispered.

“That Clodman is a villain!” muttered Horatio. “Ask Miss Kellerton; she knows him. But, villainy aside, what a stupendous joke it is to see Pendlam here!”

Horatio arose, flushed and excited.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

“I’ll tell you soon. Let me pass.”

He left the theatre. I did not see him again until the play was over. He made his way to the orchestra box where I sat, in time to applaud Miss Kellerton’s final appearance before the curtain. Then he grasped my arm.

“Come with me; they are going!”

He indicated Pendlam’s party. We passed up the aisle, reached the hall, and waited for them at the foot of the stairs. Presently they appeared. Clodman was praising the performance; Susan expressed her delight; Pendlam said something about miscellaneous magnetisms. They had reached the foot of the stairs, when Horatio sprang upon them like a brigand, and seized John Henry’s collar.

“Ha! Horatio!” gasped Pendlam, a good deal startled.

“Too late to escape!” And Horatio drew a tract upon him, like a revolver. “Here is something, sir, which I think mil suit your case,” levelling it at Pendlam’s throat.

“Ha!” stammered Pendlam, reading the title, “‘The Theatre a Stronghold of Vice; a Sermon, by—’”

“By the Reverend John Henry Pendlam,” roared out Horatio. “Pendlam, the distinguished temperance-preacher!”

A lurid smile played over the grim features of the Practical Organizer.

“Pendlam has outgrown his former opinions,” he said, with a look of hate at Horatio.

“Not precisely,” said Pendlam. “I have simply enlarged them, or rather added to them. I preach temperance the same; but every man must be his own master. The vices of the theatre appear just as hideous to me as ever; but the theatre itself may be redeemed, and made an instrument of salvation. As the patronage of bad people rendered it what it has been, so the patronage of the good is required to make it what it should be. The divine magnetism of a few spiritual persons in the audience must necessarily affect, not only the remainder of the audience, but also the actors. In our new Association—”

“Come!” growled the Practical Organizer, turning away, with Susan leaning confidingly on his arm; “shall we go?”

“Excuse me. I will give you my ideas of a spiritual drama another time. I’ll take this sermon. I shall read with interest what I had to say on the subject before my mind had attained its present plane. Good night! You see where I am,” added Pendlam.

Thenceforward the Pendlams were frequent visitors at the theatres. When John Henry was too much occupied to attend, Clodman had the gallantry to escort Susan. This was considered exceedingly kind in Clodman; he not only treated Susan to delightful dramatic performances, but at the same time imparted to her his valuable magnetism.

One Sabbath evening Horatio came suddenly upon me in the street, and pulled me breathlessly around a corner.

“Wait till I can speak; the miracle of miracles! I have been to—to call on HER; and who do you suppose had been dining with her?”

I named successively several noted actress-hunters and snobs, whose names disgusted Horatio. “Who then?” I asked.

“Pendlam! Pendlam! Pendlam!” ejaculated Horatio. “He wanted to consult HER upon the subject of creating a Divine Drama, or some such nonsense.”

“Possibly a new Divine Comedy,” I suggested.

“She made him stay and dine on Sunday! And will you believe it?—he finds her magnetic impartations, as he calls them, highly agreeable and advantageous to his constitution! Bless him! he isn’t the first man who has found them agreeable, if not so advantageous. But she gave him a dose!”

“Of what?”

“Of bitter truth about Clodman. She knows him for a villain, and told him so. I was there, and glad to hear it. But I was enraged. I could have wrung John Henry Pendlam’s neck for him, when he said, with his quiet, charitable, mild, incredulous smile, that he was already aware there existed in the community a good deal of prejudice against Clodman!”

Matters were now progressing rapidly to a crisis. One day during the ensuing summer, I asked Horatio the usual question, “Where is Pendlam now?”—referring, as John Henry himself would have said, not to locality, but condition.

“That is impossible to say,” replied Horatio, “for I have not seen him since yesterday. Then he was situated opposite a bottle of pale sherry, which that rascal Clodman had just brought to the house. They were drinking, and talking over the Organization of Free Disciples. Several wealthy men have become interested in the enterprise, and large amounts have been subscribed. Pendlam is writing a work on the subject.”

“And Susan?”

“Her child is sick, and claims all her attention. They are trying to cure it with magnetisms. Clodman is day and night at the house; his magnetism being considered indispensable for the restoration of the child.”

A month later, Horatio brought me word that the child was dead.

Another month, and I learned that Susan had been sent to some celebrated Western Magnetic Springs for her health.

“How did she go?”

Horatio hesitated. “I am sorry to say she has gone with that rascal Clodman, who is travelling on business for the Association. Pendlam remains at home, hard at work on his book. I will now add what I did not wish you to know,” said Horatio. “For some months Pendlam’s family subsisted almost entirely upon funds advanced him by that rascal Clodman. They talk of his wonderful generosity! But the villain has a wife of his own, and a couple of young children, who are left to suffer for want of the actual necessaries of life. Pendlam has given up preaching, you know, in order to devote himself entirely to the Association.”

“Horatio, I am afraid that all is lost. I did hope better things of Susan. Wretched, wretched girl!”

Tears came into Horatio’s eyes. “How could the damnable thing ever happen?” he exclaimed, passionately. “She was a true, honest girl; and Pendlam is not a bad man.”

“He is a man,” I said, “who verily thinketh no evil. He has imagination, intellect, spirituality; but he wants balance. From the first, I saw that his powers needed centralizing. He had no hold upon integral truth, but snatched here a fragment and there a fragment. Always distrust that man, Horatio, that talks forever of planes, and stand-points, and step-by-step processes, and deems it necessary to inform you each day where he stands.”

“I do not know what could have saved him!” sighed Horatio.

“I know what could; an entire and absorbing love. His wife should have been one towards whom all his thoughts and sympathies would have been drawn. Such a love would have given him concentration, poise, unity. But, on the other hand, his heart had no anchor, and his intellect was left adrift. He has pursued truth, forgetting that truth is a tree, one and mighty, but with innumerable branches; and that it is unsafe to risk the weight of one’s salvation upon a single bough. Susan had no part in his life; she was left with that hungry, yearning heart, until the sympathy even of a Clodman seemed food to her perishing nature. Pity her, Horatio, but do not condemn.”

The Initial Association failed. Clodman did not return; and it was found that he had appropriated to his private use the funds of the Association. Behind him he had left a distressed family, and many creditors. Where was Susan?

I now thought it time to hunt up Pendlam. After no little search, I was sent to an obscure lodging. I opened the door pointed out to me, and entered an extraordinary chamber. The sides were covered with strange diagrams, grotesque drawings, lettered inscriptions. Some were sketched rudely upon the plastering with colored chalk; others were designed upon paper, and pasted on the wall. In the centre of the room sat an indescribable human figure, with its face buried in its hands. It wore an anomalous garment, slashed with various colors, like a harlequin’s coat. Upon one shoulder was sewed the semblance of a door cut out of blue cloth; on the other, a crescent cut out of green. Upon the head was set a tinsel crown, amid tangles of disordered hair. Above was a huge brass key, suspended by a tow string from the ceiling. Table and floor were littered with manuscripts and papers; under the former I observed an empty bottle.

I spoke. The figure started, and looked up. In the sallow cheeks, untrimmed beard, sunken and encircled eyes, I recognized Pendlam. A quick flush spread over his haggard features, and he made a snatch at his tinsel crown.

“Do not be disturbed,” I entreated.

He smiled, but with an air of embarrassment; and leaving the tinsel upon his uncombed head, pointed to the wall.

“You see where I am,” said Pendlam.

“I see, yet do not see.”

“I have reached the plane of symbols. You are aware that there is something in symbols?”

“A great deal! a great deal!” I said, from