CHAPTER XXVIII. HELENA’S DIARY.
Looking at the last entry in my Journal, I see myself anticipating that the event of to-day will decide Philip’s future and mine. This has proved prophetic. All further concealment is now at an end.
Forced to it by fate, or helped to it by chance, Eunice has made the discovery of her lover’s infidelity. “In all human probability” (as my father says in his sermons), we two sisters are enemies for life.
I am not suspected, as Eunice is, of making appointments with a sweetheart. So I am free to go out alone, and to go where I please. Philip and I were punctual to our appointment this afternoon.
Our place of meeting was in a secluded corner of the town park. We found a rustic seat in our retirement, set up (one would suppose) as a concession to the taste of visitors who are fond of solitude. The view in front of us was bounded by the park wall and railings, and our seat was prettily approached on one side by a plantation of young trees. No entrance gate was near; no carriage road crossed the grass. A more safe and more solitary nook for conversation, between two persons desiring to be alone, it would be hard to find in most public parks. Lovers are said to know it well, and to be especially fond of it toward evening. We were there in broad daylight, and we had the seat to ourselves.
My memory of what passed between us is, in some degree, disturbed by the formidable interruption which brought our talk to an end.
But among other things, I remember that I showed him no mercy at the outset. At one time I was indignant; at another I was scornful. I declared, in regard to my object in meeting him, that I had changed my mind, And had decided to shorten a disagreeable interview by waiving my right to an explanation, and bidding him farewell. Eunice, as I pointed out, had the first claim to him; Eunice was much more likely to suit him, as a companion for life, than I was. “In short,” I said, in conclusion, “my inclination for once takes sides with my duty, and leaves my sister in undisturbed possession of young Mr. Dunboyne.” With this satirical explanation, I rose to say good-by.
I had merely intended to irritate him. He showed a superiority to anger for which I was not prepared.
“Be so kind as to sit down again,” he said quietly.
He took my letter from his pocket, and pointed to that part of it which alluded to his conduct, when we had met in my father’s study.
“You have offered me the opportunity of saying a word in my own defense,” he went on. “I prize that privilege far too highly to consent to your withdrawing it, merely because you have changed your mind. Let me at least tell you what my errand was, when I called on your father. Loving you, and you only, I had forced myself to make a last effort to be true to your sister. Remember that, Helena, and then say—is it wonderful if I was beside myself, when I found You in the study?”
“When you tell me you were beside yourself,” I said, “do you mean, ashamed of yourself?”
That touched him. “I mean nothing of the kind,” he burst out. “After the hell on earth in which I have been living between you two sisters, a man hasn’t virtue enough left in him to be ashamed. He’s half mad—that’s what he is. Look at my position! I had made up my mind never to see you again; I had made up my mind (if I married Eunice) to rid myself of my own miserable life when I could endure it no longer. In that state of feeling, when my sense of duty depended on my speaking with Mr. Gracedieu alone, whose was the first face I saw when I entered the room? If I had dared to look at you, or to speak to you, what do you think would have become of my resolution to sacrifice myself?”
“What has become of it now?” I asked.
“Tell me first if I am forgiven,” he said—“and you shall know.”
“Do you deserve to be forgiven?”
It has been discovered by wiser heads than mine that weak people are always in extremes. So far, I had seen Philip in the vain and violent extreme. He now shifted suddenly to the sad and submissive extreme. When I asked him if he deserved to be forgiven, he made the humblest of all replies—he sighed and said nothing.
“If I did my duty to my sister,” I reminded him, “I should refuse to forgive you, and send you back to Eunice.”
“Your father’s language and your father’s conduct,” he answered, “have released me from that entanglement. I can never go back to Eunice. If you refuse to forgive me, neither you nor she will see anything more of Philip Dunboyne; I promise you that. Are you satisfied now?”
After holding out against him resolutely, I felt myself beginning to yield. When a man has once taken their fancy, what helplessly weak creatures women are! I saw through his vacillating weakness—and yet I trusted him, with both eyes open. My looking-glass is opposite to me while I write. It shows me a contemptible Helena. I lied, and said I was satisfied—to please him.
“Am I forgiven?” he asked.
It is absurd to put it on record. Of course, I forgave him. What a good Christian I am, after all!
He took my willing hand. “My lovely darling,” he said, “our marriage rests with you. Whether your father approves of it or not, say the word; claim me, and I am yours for life.”
I must have been infatuated by his voice and his look; my heart must have been burning under the pressure of his hand on mine. Was it my modesty or my self-control that deserted me? I let him take me in his arms. Again, and again, and again I kissed him. We were deaf to what we ought to have heard; we were blind to what we ought to have seen. Before we were conscious of a movement among the trees, we were discovered. My sister flew at me like a wild animal. Her furious hands fastened themselves on my throat. Philip started to his feet. When he touched her, in the act of forcing her back from me, Eunice’s raging strength became utter weakness in an instant. Her arms fell helpless at her sides—her head drooped—she looked at him in silence which was dreadful, at such a moment as that. He shrank from the unendurable reproach in those tearless eyes. Meanly, he turned away from her. Meanly, I followed him. Looking back for an instant, I saw her step forward; perhaps to stop him, perhaps to speak to him. The effort was too much for her strength; she staggered back against the trunk of a tree. Like strangers, walking separate one from the other, we left her to her companion—the hideous traitress who was my enemy and her friend.
CHAPTER XXIX. HELENA’S DIARY.
On reaching the street which led to Philip’s hotel, we spoke to each other for the first time.
“What are we to do?” I said.
“Leave this place,” he answered.
“Together?” I asked.
“Yes.”
To leave us (for a while), after what had happened, might be the wisest thing which a man, in Philip’s critical position, could do. But if I went with him—unprovided as I was with any friend of my own sex, whose character and presence might sanction the step I had taken—I should be lost beyond redemption. Is any man that ever lived worth that sacrifice? I thought of my father’s house closed to me, and of our friends ashamed of me. I have owned, in some earlier part of my Journal, that I am not very patient under domestic cares. But the possibility of Eunice being appointed housekeeper, with my power, in my place, was more than I could calmly contemplate. “No,” I said to Philip. “Your absence, at such a time as this, may help us both; but, come what may of it, I must remain at home.”
He yielded, without an attempt to make me alter my mind. There was a sullen submission in his manner which it was not pleasant to see. Was he despairing already of himself and of me? Had Eunice aroused the watchful demons of shame and remorse?
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, gloomily. “Good-by.”
My anxiety put the all-important question to him without hesitation.
“Is it good-by forever, Philip?”
His reply instantly relieved me: “God forbid!”
But I wanted more: “You still love me?” I persisted.
“More dearly than ever!”
“And yet you leave me!”
He turned pale. “I leave you because I am afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid to face Eunice again.”
The only possible way out of our difficulty that I could see, now occurred to me. “Suppose my sister can be prevailed on to give you up?” I suggested. “Would you come back to us in that case?”
“Certainly!”
“And you would ask my father to consent to our marriage?”
“On the day of my return, if you like.”
“Suppose obstacles get in our way,” I said—“suppose time passes and tries your patience—will you still consider yourself engaged to me?”
“Engaged to you,” he answered, “in spite of obstacles and in spite of time.”
“And while you are away from me,” I ventured to add, “we shall write to each other?”
“Go where I may,” he said, “you shall always hear from me.”
I could ask no more, and he could concede no more. The impression evidently left on him by Eunice’s terrible outbreak, was far more serious than I had anticipated. I was myself depressed and ill at ease. No expressions of tenderness were exchanged between us. There was something horrible in our barren farewell. We merely clasped hands, at parting. He went his way—and I went mine.
There are some occasions when women set an example of courage to men. I was ready to endure whatever might happen to me, when I got home. What a desperate wretch! some people might say, if they could look into this diary!
Maria opened the door; she told me that my sister had already returned, accompanied by Miss Jillgall. There had been apparently some difference of opinion between them, before they entered the house. Eunice had attempted to go on to some other place; and Miss Jillgall had remonstrated. Maria had heard her say: “No, you would degrade yourself”—and, with that, she had led Eunice indoors. I understood, of course, that my sister had been prevented from following Philip to the hotel. There was probably a serious quarrel in store for me. I went straight to the bedroom, expecting to find Eunice there, and prepared to brave the storm that might burst on me. There was a woman at Eunice’s end of the room, removing dresses from the wardrobe. I could only see her back, but it was impossible to mistake that figure—Miss Jillgall. She laid the dresses on Eunice’s bed, without taking the slightest notice of me. In significant silence I pointed to the door. She went on as coolly with her occupation as if the room had been, not mine but hers; I stepped up to her, and spoke plainly.
“You oblige me to remind you,” I said, “that you are not in your own room.” There, I waited a little, and found that I had produced no effect. “With every disposition,” I resumed, “to make allowance for the disagreeable peculiarities of your character, I cannot consent to overlook an act of intrusion, committed by a Spy. Now, do you understand me?”
She looked round her. “I see no third person here,” she said. “May I ask if you mean me?”
“I mean you.”
“Will you be so good, Miss Helena, as to explain yourself?”
Moderation of language would have been thrown away on this woman. “You followed me to the park,” I said. “It was you who found me with Mr. Dunboyne, and betrayed me to my sister. You are a Spy, and you know it. At this very moment you daren’t look me in the face.”
Her insolence forced its way out of her at last. Let me record it—and repay it, when the time comes.
“Quite true,” she replied. “If I ventured to look you in the face, I am afraid I might forget myself. I have always been brought up like a lady, and I wish to show it even in the company of such a wretch as you are. There is not one word of truth in what you have said of me. I went to the hotel to find Mr. Dunboyne. Ah, you may sneer! I haven’t got your good looks—and a vile use you have made of them. My object was to recall that base young man to his duty to my dear charming injured Euneece. The hotel servant told me that Mr. Dunboyne had gone out. Oh, I had the means of persuasion in my pocket! The man directed me to the park, as he had already directed Mr. Dunboyne. It was only when I had found the place, that I heard some one behind me. Poor innocent Euneece had followed me to the hotel, and had got her directions, as I had got mine. God knows how hard I tried to persuade her to go back, and how horribly frightened I was—No! I won’t distress myself by saying a word more. It would be too humiliating to let you see an honest woman in tears. Your sister has a spirit of her own, thank God! She won’t inhabit the same room with you; she never desires to see your false face again. I take the poor soul’s dresses and things away—and as a religious person I wait, confidently wait, for the judgment that will fall on you!”
She caught up the dresses all together; some of them were in her arms, some of them fell on her shoulders, and one of them towered over her head. Smothered in gowns, she bounced out of the room like a walking milliner’s shop. I have to thank the wretched old creature for a moment of genuine amusement, at a time of devouring anxiety. The meanest insect, they say, has its use in this world—and why not Miss Jillgall?
In half an hour more, an unexpected event raised my spirits. I heard from Philip.
On his return to the hotel he had found a telegram waiting for him. Mr. Dunboyne the elder had arrived in London; and Philip had arranged to join his father by the next train. He sent me the address, and begged that I would write and tell him my news from home by the next day’s post.
Welcome, thrice welcome, to Mr. Dunboyne the elder! If Philip can manage, under my advice, to place me favorably in the estimation of this rich old man, his presence and authority may do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Here is surely an influence to which my father must submit, no matter how unreasonable or how angry he may be when he hears what has happened. I begin already to feel hopeful of the future.
CHAPTER XXX. EUNICE’S DIARY.
Through the day, and through the night, I feel a misery that never leaves me—I mean the misery of fear.
I am trying to find out some harmless means of employing myself, which will keep evil remembrances from me. If I don’t succeed, my fear tells me what will happen. I shall be in danger of going mad.
I dare not confide in any living creature. I don’t know what other persons might think of me, or how soon I might find myself perhaps in an asylum. In this helpless condition, doubt and fright seem to be driving me back to my Journal. I wonder whether I shall find harmless employment here.
I have heard of old people losing their memories. What would I not give to be old! I remember! oh, how I remember! One day after another I see Philip, I see Helena, as I first saw them when I was among the trees in the park. My sweetheart’s arms, that once held me, hold my sister now. She kisses him, kisses him, kisses him.
Is there no way of making myself see something else? I want to get back to remembrances that don’t burn in my head and tear at my heart. How is it to be done?
I have tried books—no! I have tried going out to look at the shops—no! I have tried saying my prayers—no! And now I am making my last effort; trying my pen. My black letters fall from it, and take their places on the white paper. Will my black letters help me? Where can I find something consoling to write down? Where? Where?
Selina—poor Selina, so fond of me, so sorry for me. When I was happy, she was happy, too. It was always amusing to hear her talk. Oh, my memory, be good to me! Save me from Philip and Helena. I want to remember the pleasant days when my kind little friend and I used to gossip in the garden.
No: the days in the garden won’t come back. What else can I think of?
.......
The recollections that I try to encourage keep away from me. The other recollections that I dread, come crowding back. Still Philip! Still Helena!
But Selina mixes herself up with them. Let me try again if I can think of Selina.
How delightfully good to me and patient with me she was, on our dismal way home from the park! And how affectionately she excused herself for not having warned me of it, when she first suspected that my own sister and my worst enemy were one and the same!
“I know I was wrong, my dear, to let my love and pity close my lips. But remember how happy you were at the time. The thought of making you miserable was more than I could endure—I am so fond of you! Yes; I began to suspect them, on the day when they first met at the station. And, I am afraid, I thought it just likely that you might be as cunning as I was, and have noticed them, too.”
Oh, how ignorant she must have been of my true thoughts and feelings! How strangely people seem to misunderstand their dearest friends! knowing, as I did, that I could never love any man but Philip, could I be wicked enough to suppose that Philip would love any woman but me?
I explained to Selina how he had spoken to me, when we were walking together on the bank of the river. Shall I ever forget those exquisite words? “I wish I was a better man, Eunice; I wish I was good enough to be worthy of you.” I asked Selina if she thought he was deceiving me when he said that. She comforted me by owning that he must have been in earnest, at the time—and then she distressed me by giving the reason why.
“My love, you must have innocently said something to him, when you and he were alone, which touched his conscience (when he had a conscience), and made him ashamed of himself. Ah, you were too fond of him to see how he changed for the worse, when your vile sister joined you, and took possession of him again. It made my heart ache to see you so unsuspicious of them. You asked me, my poor dear, if they had quarreled—you believed they were tired of walking by the river, when it was you they were tired of—and you wondered why Helena took him to see the school. My child! she was the leading spirit at the school, and you were nobody. Her vanity saw the chance of making him compare you at a disadvantage with your clever sister. I declare, Euneece, I lose my head if I only think of it! All the strong points in my character seem to slip away from me. Would you believe it?—I have neglected that sweet infant at the cottage; I have even let Mrs. Molly have her baby back again. If I had the making of the laws, Philip Dunboyne and Helena Gracedieu should be hanged together on the same gallows. I see I shock you. Don’t let us talk of it! Oh, don’t let us talk of it!”
And here am I writing of it! What I had determined not to do, is what I have done. Am I losing my senses already? The very names that I was most anxious to keep out of my memory stare me in the face in the lines that I have just written. Philip again! Helena again!
.......
Another day, and something new that must and will be remembered, shrink from it as I may. This afternoon, I met Helena on the stairs.
She stopped, and eyed me with a wicked smile; she held out her hand. “We are likely to meet often, while we are in the same house,” she said; “hadn’t we better consult appearances, and pretend to be as fond of each other as ever?”
I took no notice of her hand; I took no notice of her shameless proposal. She tried again: “After all, it isn’t my fault if Philip likes me better than he likes you. Don’t you see that?” I still refused to speak to her. She still persisted. “How black you look, Eunice! Are you sorry you didn’t kill me, when you had your hands on my throat?”
I said: “Yes.”
She laughed, and left me. I was obliged to sit down on the stair—I trembled so. My own reply frightened me. I tried to find out why I had said Yes. I don’t remember being conscious of meaning anything. It was as if somebody else had said Yes—not I. Perhaps I was provoked, and the word escaped me before I could stop it. Could I have stopped it? I don’t know.
.......
Another sleepless night.
Did I pass the miserable hours in writing letters to Philip and then tearing them up? Or did I only fancy that I wrote to him? I have just looked at the fireplace. The torn paper in it tells me that I did write. Why did I destroy my letters? I might have sent one of them to Philip. After what has happened? Oh, no! no!
Having been many days away from the Girls’ Scripture Class, it seemed to be possible that going back to the school and the teaching might help me to escape from myself.
Nothing succeeds with me. I found it impossible to instruct the girls as usual; their stupidity soon reached the limit of my patience—suffocated me with rage. One of them, a poor, fat, feeble creature, began to cry when I scolded her. I looked with envy at the tears rolling over her big round cheeks. If I could only cry, I might perhaps bear my hard fate with submission.
I walked toward home by a roundabout way; feeling as if want of sleep was killing me by inches.
In the High Street, I saw Helena; she was posting a letter, and was not aware that I was near her. Leaving the post-office, she crossed the street, and narrowly escaped being run over. Suppose the threatened accident had really taken place—how should I have felt, if it had ended fatally? What a fool I am to be putting questions to myself about things that have not happened!
The walking tired me; I went straight home.
Before I could ring the bell, the house door opened, and the doctor came out. He stopped to speak to me. While I had been away (he said), something had happened at home (he neither knew nor wished to know what) which had thrown my father into a state of violent agitation. The doctor had administered composing medicine. “My patient is asleep now,” he told me; “but remember what I said to you the last time we met; a longer rest than any doctor’s prescription can give him is what he wants. You are not looking well yourself, my dear. What is the matter?”
I told him of my wretched restless nights; and asked if I might take some of the composing medicine which he had given to my father. He forbade me to touch a drop of it. “What is physic for your father, you foolish child, is not physic for a young creature like you,” he said. “Count a thousand, if you can’t sleep to-night, or turn your pillow. I wish you pleasant dreams.” He went away, amused at his own humor.
I found Selina waiting to speak with me, on the subject of poor papa.
She had been startled on hearing his voice, loud in anger. In the fear that something serious had happened, she left her room to make inquiries, and saw Helena on the landing of the flight of stairs beneath, leaving the study. After waiting till my sister was out of the way, Selina ventured to present herself at the study door, and to ask if she could be of any use. My father, walking excitedly up and down the room, declared that both his daughters had behaved infamously, and that he would not suffer them to speak to him again until they had come to their senses, on the subject of Mr. Dunboyne. He would enter into no further explanation; and he had ordered, rather than requested, Selina to leave him. Having obeyed, she tried next to find me, and had just looked into the dining-room to see if I was there, when she was frightened by the sound of a fall in the room above—that is to say, in the study. Running upstairs again, she had found him insensible on the floor and had sent for the doctor.
“And mind this,” Selina continued, “the person who has done the mischief is the person whom I saw leaving the study. What your unnatural sister said to provoke her father—”
“That your unnatural sister will tell you herself,” Helena’s voice added. She had opened the door while we were too much absorbed in our talk to hear her.
Selina attempted to leave the room. I caught her by the hand, and held her back. I was afraid of what I might do if she left me by myself. Never have I felt anything like the rage that tortured me, when I saw Helena looking at us with the same wicked smile on her lips that had insulted me when we met on the stairs. “Have we anything to be ashamed of?” I said to Selina. “Stay where you are.”
“You may be of some use, Miss Jillgall, if you stay,” my sister suggested. “Eunice seems to be trembling. Is she angry, or is she ill?”
The sting of this was in the tone of her voice. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life—but I did succeed in controlling myself.
“Go on with what you have to say,” I answered, “and don’t notice me.”
“You are not very polite, my dear, but I can make allowances. Oh, come! come! putting up your hands to stop your ears is too childish. You would do better to express regret for having misled your father. Yes! you did mislead him. Only a few days since, you left him to suppose that you were engaged to Philip. It became my duty, after that, to open his eyes to the truth; and if I unhappily provoked him, it was your fault. I was strictly careful in the language I used. I said: ‘Dear father, you have been misinformed on a very serious subject. The only marriage engagement for which your kind sanction is requested, is my engagement. I have consented to become Mrs. Philip Dunboyne.’”
“Stop!” I said.
“Why am I to stop?”
“Because I have something to say. You and I are looking at each other. Does my face tell you what is passing in my mind?”
“Your face seems to be paler than usual,” she answered—“that’s all.”
“No,” I said; “that is not all. The devil that possessed me, when I discovered you with Philip, is not cast out of me yet. Silence the sneering devil that is in You, or we may both live to regret it.”
Whether I did or did not frighten her, I cannot say. This only I know—she turned away silently to the door, and went out.
I dropped on the sofa. That horrid hungering for revenge, which I felt for the first time when I knew how Helena had wronged me, began to degrade and tempt me again. In the effort to get away from this new evil self of mine, I tried to find sympathy in Selina, and called to her to come and sit by me. She seemed to be startled when I looked at her, but she recovered herself, and came to me, and took my hand.
“I wish I could comfort you!” she said, in her kind simple way.
“Keep my hand in your hand,” I told her; “I am drowning in dark water—and I have nothing to hold by but you.”
“Oh, my darling, don’t talk in that way!”
“Good Selina! dear Selina! You shall talk to me. Say something harmless—tell me a melancholy story—try to make me cry.”
My poor little friend looked sadly bewildered.
“I’m more likely to cry myself,” she said. “This is so heart-breaking—I almost wish I was back in the time, before you came home, the time when your detestable sister first showed how she hated me. I was happy, meanly happy, in the spiteful enjoyment of provoking her. Oh, Euneece, I shall never recover my spirits again! All the pity in the world would not be pity enough for you. So hardly treated! so young! so forlorn! Your good father too ill to help you; your poor mother—”
I interrupted her; she had interested me in something better than my own wretched self. I asked directly if she had known my mother.
“My dear child, I never even saw her!”
“Has my father never spoken to you about her?”
“Only once, when I asked him how long she had been dead. He told me you lost her while you were an infant, and he told me no more. I was looking at her portrait in the study, only yesterday. I think it must be a bad portrait; your mother’s face disappoints me.”
I had arrived at the same conclusion years since. But I shrank from confessing it.
“At any rate,” Selina continued, “you are not like her. Nobody would ever guess that you were the child of that lady, with the long slanting forehead and the restless look in her eyes.”
What Selina had said of me and my mother’s portrait, other friends had said. There was nothing that I know of to interest me in hearing it repeated—and yet it set me pondering on the want of resemblance between my mother’s face and mine, and wondering (not for the first time) what sort of woman my mother was. When my father speaks of her, no words of praise that he can utter seem to be good enough for her. Oh, me, I wish I was a little more like my mother!
It began to get dark; Maria brought in the lamp. The sudden brightness of the flame struck my aching eyes, as if it had been a blow from a knife. I was obliged to hide my face in my handkerchief. Compassionate Selina entreated me to go to bed. “Rest your poor eyes, my child, and your weary head—and try at least to get some sleep.” She found me very docile; I kissed her, and said good-night. I had my own idea.
When all was quiet in the house, I stole out into the passage and listened at the door of my father’s room.
I heard his regular breathing, and opened the door and went in. The composing medicine, of which I was in search, was not on the table by his bedside. I found it in the cupboard—perhaps placed purposely out of his reach. They say that some physic is poison, if you take too much of it. The label on the bottle told me what the dose was. I dropped it into the medicine glass, and swallowed it, and went back to my father.
Very gently, so as not to wake him, I touched poor papa’s forehead with my lips. “I must have some of your medicine,” I whispered to him; “I want it, dear, as badly as you do.”
Then I returned to my own room—and lay down in bed, waiting to be composed.
CHAPTER XXXI. EUNICE’S DIARY.
My restless nights are passed in Selina’s room.
Her bed remains near the window. My bed has been placed opposite, near the door. Our night-light is hidden in a corner, so that the faint glow of it is all that we see. What trifles these are to write about! But they mix themselves up with what I am determined to set down in my Journal, and then to close the book for good and all. I had not disturbed my little friend’s enviable repose, either when I left our bed-chamber, or when I returned to it. The night was quiet, and the stars were out. Nothing moved but the throbbing at my temples. The lights and shadows in our half-darkened room, which at other times suggest strange resemblances to my fancy, failed to disturb me now. I was in a darkness of my own making, having bound a handkerchief, cooled with water, over my hot eyes. There was nothing to interfere with the soothing influence of the dose that I had taken, if my father’s medicine would only help me.
I began badly. The clock in the hall struck the quarter past the hour, the half-past, the three-quarters past, the new hour. Time was awake—and I was awake with Time.
It was such a trial to my patience that I thought of going back to my father’s room, and taking a second dose of the medicine, no matter what the risk might be. On attempting to get up, I became aware of a change in me. There was a dull sensation in my limbs which seemed to bind them down on the bed. It was the strangest feeling. My will said, Get up—and my heavy limbs said, No.
I lay quite still, thinking desperate thoughts, and getting nearer and nearer to the end that I had been dreading for so many days past. Having been as well educated as most girls, my lessons in history had made me acquainted with assassination and murder. Horrors which I had recoiled from reading in past happy days, now returned to my memory; and, this time, they interested instead of revolting me. I counted the three first ways of killing as I happened to remember them, in my books of instruction:—a way by stabbing; a way by poison; a way in a bed, by suffocation with a pillow. On that dreadful night, I never once called to mind what I find myself remembering now—the harmless past time, when our friends used to say: “Eunice is a good girl; we are all fond of Eunice.” Shall I ever be the same lovable creature again?
While I lay thinking, a strange thing happened. Philip, who had haunted me for days and nights together, vanished out of my thoughts. My memory of the love which had begun so brightly, and had ended so miserably, became a blank. Nothing was left but my own horrid visions of vengeance and death.
For a while, the strokes of the clock still reached my ears. But it was an effort to count them; I ended in letting them pass unheeded. Soon afterward, the round of my thoughts began to circle slowly and more slowly. The strokes of the clock died out. The round of my thoughts stopped.
All this time, my eyes were still covered by the handkerchief which I had laid over them.
The darkness began to weigh on my spirits, and to fill me with distrust. I found myself suspecting that there was some change—perhaps an unearthly change—passing over the room. To remain blindfolded any longer was more than I could endure. I lifted my hand—without being conscious of the heavy sensation which, some time before, had laid my limbs helpless on the bed—I lifted my hand, and drew the handkerchief away from my eyes.
The faint glow of the night-light was extinguished.
But the room was not quite dark. There was a ghastly light trembling over it; like nothing that I have ever seen by day; like nothing that I have ever seen by night. I dimly discerned Selina’s bed, and the frame of the window, and the curtains on either side of it—but not the starlight, and not the shadowy tops of the trees in the garden.
The light grew fainter and fainter; the objects in the room faded slowly away. Darkness came.
It may be a saying hard to believe—but, when I declare that I was not frightened, I am telling the truth. Whether the room was lighted by awful light, or sunk in awful dark, I was equally interested in the expectation of what might happen next. I listened calmly for what I might hear: I waited calmly for what I might feel. A touch came first. I feel it creeping on my face—like a little fluttering breeze. The sensation pleased me for a while. Soon it grew colder, and colder, and colder, till it froze me.
“Oh, no more!” I cried out. “You are killing me with an icy death!”
The dead-cold touches lingered a moment longer—and left me.
The first sound came.
It was the sound of a whisper on my pillow, close to my ear. My strange insensibility to fear remained undisturbed. The whisper was welcome, it kept me company in the dark room.
It said to me: “Do you know who I am?”
I answered: “No.”
It said: “Who have you been thinking of this evening?”
I answered: “My mother.”
The whisper said: “I am your mother.”
“Oh, mother, command the light to come back! Show yourself to me!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My face was hidden when I passed from life to death. My face no mortal creature may see.”
“Oh, mother, touch me! Kiss me!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My touch is poison. My kiss is death.”
The sense of fear began to come to me now. I moved my head away on the pillow. The whisper followed my movement.
“Leave me,” I said. “You are an Evil Spirit.”
The whisper answered: “I am your mother.”
“You come to tempt me.”
“I come to harden your heart. Daughter of mine, whose blood is cool; daughter of mine, who tamely submits—you have loved. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“The man you loved has deserted you. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“A woman has lured him away to herself. A woman has had no mercy on you, or on him. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“If she lives, what crime toward you will she commit next?”
“If she lives, she will marry him.”
“Will you let her live?”
“Never.”
“Have I hardened your heart against her?”
“Yes.”
“Will you kill her?”
“Show me how.”
There was a sudden silence. I was still left in the darkness; feeling nothing, hearing nothing. Even the consciousness that I was lying on my bed deserted me. I had no idea that I was in the bedroom; I had no knowledge of where I was.
The ghastly light that I had seen already dawned on me once more. I was no longer in my bed, no longer in my room, no longer in the house. Without wonder, without even a feeling of surprise, I looked round. The place was familiar to me. I was alone in the Museum of our town.
The light flowed along in front of me. I followed, from room to room in the Museum, where the light led.
First, through the picture-gallery, hung with the works of modern masters; then, through the room filled with specimens of stuffed animals. The lion and the tiger, the vulture of the Alps and the great albatross, looked like living creatures threatening me, in the supernatural light. I entered the third room, devoted to the exhibition of ancient armor, and the weapons of all nations. Here the light rose higher, and, leaving me in darkness where I stood, showed a collection of swords, daggers, and knives arranged on the wall in imitation of the form of a star.
The whisper sounded again, close at my ear. It echoed my own thought, when I called to mind the ways of killing which history had taught me. It said: “Kill her with the knife.”
No. My heart failed me when I thought of the blood. I hid the dreadful weapons from my view. I cried out: “Let me go! let me go!”
Again, I was lost in darkness. Again, I had no knowledge in me of where I was. Again, after an interval, the light showed me the new place in which I stood.
I was alone in the burial-ground of our parish church. The light led me on, among the graves, to the lonely corner in which the great yew tree stands; and, rising higher, revealed the solemn foliage, brightened by the fatal red fruit which hides in itself the seeds of death.
The whisper tempted me again. It followed again the train of my own thought. It said: “Kill her by poison.”
No. Revenge by poison steals its way to its end. The base deceitfulness of Helena’s crime against me seemed to call for a day of reckoning that hid itself under no disguise. I raised my cry to be delivered from the sight of the deadly tree. The changes which I have tried to describe followed once more the confession of what I felt; the darkness was dispelled for the third time.
I was standing in Helena’s room, looking at her as she lay asleep in her bed.
She was quite still now; but she must have been restless at some earlier time. The bedclothes were disordered, her head had sunk so low that the pillow rose high and vacant above her. There, colored by a tender flush of sleep, was the face whose beauty put my poor face to shame. There, was the sister who had committed the worst of murders—the wretch who had killed in me all that made life worth having. While that thought was in my mind, I heard the whisper again. “Kill her openly,” the tempter mother said. “Kill her daringly. Faint heart, do you still want courage? Rouse your spirit; look! see yourself in the act!”
The temptation took a form which now tried me for the first time.
As if a mirror had reflected the scene, I saw myself standing by the bedside, with the pillow that was to smother the sleeper in my hands. I heard the whispering voice telling me how to speak the words that warned and condemned her: “Wake! you who have taken him from me! Wake! and meet your doom.”
I saw her start up in bed. The sudden movement disordered the nightdress over her bosom and showed the miniature portrait of a man, hung round her neck.
The man was Philip. The likeness was looking at me.
So dear, so lovely—those eyes that had once been the light of my heart, mourned for me and judged me now. They saw the guilty thought that polluted me; they brought me to my knees, imploring him to help me back to my better self: “One last mercy, dear, to comfort me under the loss of you. Let the love that was once my life, be my good angel still. Save me, Philip, even though you forsake me—save me from myself!”
.......
There was a sudden cry.
The agony of it pierced my brain—drove away the ghastly light—silenced the tempting whispers. I came to myself. I saw—and not in a dream.
Helena had started up in her bed. That cry of terror, at the sight of me in her room at night, had burst from her lips. The miniature of Philip hung round her neck, a visible reality. Though my head was dizzy, though my heart was sinking, I had not lost my senses yet. All that the night lamp could show me, I still saw; and I heard the sound, faintly, when the door of the bed-chamber was opened. Alarmed by that piercing cry, my father came hurrying into the room.
Not a word passed between us three. The whispers that I had heard were wicked; the thoughts that had been in my mind were vile. Had they left some poison in the air of the room, which killed the words on our lips?
My father looked at Helena. With a trembling hand she pointed to me. He put his arm round me and held me up. I remember his leading me away—and I remember nothing more.
My last words are written. I lock up this journal of misery-never, I hope and pray, to open it again. ——
Second Period (continued).