THE TWO DESTINIES by Wilkie Collins

THE TWO DESTINIES
by Wilkie Collins
The Prelude.
THE GUEST WRITES AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DINNER PARTY.
MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States
to pay our first visit to England.
We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter of
course. Among them there was a letter which had been written for
us by my wife's brother. It presented us to an English gentleman
who held a high rank on the list of his old and valued friends.
"You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine," my
brother-in-law said, when we took leave of him, "at a very
interesting period of his life. My last news of him tells me that
he is just married. I know nothing of the lady, or of the
circumstances under which my friend first met with her. But of
this I am certain: married or single, George Germaine will give
you and your wife a hearty welcome to England, for my sake."
The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of
introduction at the house of Mr. Germaine.
The next morning we went to see a favorite object of American
interest, in the metropolis of England--the Tower of London. The
citizens of the United States find this relic of the good old
times of great use in raising their national estimate of the
value of republican institutions. On getting back to the hotel,
the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us that they had already
returned our visit. The same evening we received an invitation to
dine with the newly married couple. It was inclosed in a little
note from Mrs. Germaine to my wife, warning us that we were not
to expect to meet a large party. "It is the first dinner we give,
on our return from our wedding tour" (the lady wrote); "and you
will only be introduced to a few of my husband's old friends."
In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe also, when
your host invites you to dine at a given hour, you pay him the
compliment of arriving punctually at his house. In England alone,
the incomprehensible and discourteous custom prevails of keeping
the host and the dinner waiting for half an hour or more--without
any assignable reason and without any better excuse than the
purely formal apology that is implied in the words, "Sorry to be
late."
Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and Mrs.
Germaine, we had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the
ignorant punctuality which had brought us into the drawing-room
half an hour in advance of the other guests.
In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so little
ceremony, in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost fancied
ourselves back in our own country. In the second place, both
husband and wife interested us the moment we set eyes on them.
The lady, especially, although she was not, strictly speaking, a
beautiful woman, quite fascinated us. There was an artless charm
in her face and manner, a simple grace in all her movements, a
low, delicious melody in her voice, which we Americans felt to be
simply irresistible. And then, it was so plain (and so pleasant)
to see that here at least was a happy marriage! Here were two
people who had all their dearest hopes, wishes, and sympathies in
common--who looked, if I may risk the expression, born to be man
and wife. By the time when the fashionable delay of the half hour
had expired, we were talking together as familiarly and as
confidentially as if we had been all four of us old friends.
Eight o'clock struck, and the first of the English guests
appeared.
Having forgotten this gentleman's name, I must beg leave to
distinguish him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let me call
him Mr. A. When he entered the room alone, our host and hostess
both started, and both looked surprised. Apparently they expected
him to be accompanied by some other person. Mr. Germaine put a
curious question to his friend.
"Where is your wife?" he asked.
Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apology,
expressed in these words:
"She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs me to make
her excuses."
He had just time to deliver his message, before another
unaccompanied gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters of the
alphabet, let me call him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed that our
host and hostess started when they saw him enter the room alone.
And, rather to my surprise, I heard Mr. Germaine put his curious
question again to the new guest:
"Where is your wife?"
The answer--with slight variations--was Mr. A's neat little
apology, repeated by Mr. B.
"I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She is subject
to bad headaches. She begs me to make her excuses."
Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The husband's face
plainly expressed the suspicion which this second apology had
roused in his mind. The wife was steady and calm. An interval
passed--a silent interval. Mr. A and Mr. B retired together
guiltily into a corner. My wife and I looked at the pictures.
Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own
intolerable silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still
wanting to complete the party. "Shall we have dinner at once,
George?" she said to her husband. "Or shall we wait for Mr. and
Mrs. C?"
"We will wait five minutes," he answered, shortly--with his eye
on Mr. A and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner.
The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third married
lady was expected; we all looked toward the door in unutterable
anticipation. Our unexpressed hopes rested silently on the
possible appearance of Mrs. C. Would that admirable, but unknown,
woman, at once charm and relieve us by her presence? I shudder as
I write it. Mr. C walked into the room--and walked in, _alone_.
Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiving the
new guest.
"Is your wife ill?" he asked.
Mr. C was an elderly man; Mr. C had lived (judging by
appearances) in the days when the old-fashioned laws of
politeness were still in force. He discovered his two married
brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by _their_ wives; and he
delivered his apology for _his_ wife with the air of a man who
felt unaffectedly ashamed of it:
"Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She does so
regret not being able to accompany me."
At this third apology, Mr. Germaine's indignation forced its way
outward into expression in words.
"Two bad colds and one bad headache," he said, with ironical
politeness. "I don't know how your wives agree, gentlemen, when
they are well. But when they are ill, their unanimity is
wonderful!"
The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his lips.
I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining-room. Her
sense of the implied insult offered to her by the wives of her
husband's friends only showed itself in a trembling, a very
slight trembling, of the hand that rested on my arm. My interest
in her increased tenfold. Only a woman who had been accustomed to
suffer, who had been broken and disciplined to self-restraint,
could have endured the moral martyrdom inflicted on her as _this_
woman endured it, from the beginning of the evening to the end.
Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of my
hostess in these terms? Look at the circumstances as they struck
two strangers like my wife and myself.
Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Germaine had
given since their marriage. Three of Mr. Germaine's friends, all
married men, had been invited with their wives to meet Mr.
Germaine's wife, and had (evidently) accepted the invitation
without reserve. What discoveries had taken place between the
giving of the invitation and the giving of the dinner it was
impossible to say. The one thing plainly discernible was, that in
the interval the three wives had agreed in the resolution to
leave their husbands to represent them at Mrs. Germaine's table;
and, more amazing still, the husbands had so far approved of the
grossly discourteous conduct of the wives as to consent to make
the most insultingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any
crueler slur than this have been cast on a woman at the outs et
of her married life, before the face of her husband, and in the
presence of two strangers from another country? Is "martyrdom"
too big a word to use in describing what a sensitive person must
have suffered, subjected to such treatment as this? Well, I think
not.
We took our places at the dinner-table. Don't ask me to describe
that most miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest and
dreariest of human festivals! It is quite bad enough to remember
that evening--it is indeed.
My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation moving as
easily and as harmlessly as might be. I may say that we really
worked hard. Nevertheless, our success was not very encouraging.
Try as we might to overlook them, there were the three empty
places of the three absent women, speaking in their own dismal
language for themselves. Try as we might to resist it, we all
felt the one sad conclusion which those empty places persisted in
forcing on our minds. It was surely too plain that some terrible
report, affecting the character of the unhappy woman at the head
of the table, had unexpectedly come to light, and had at one blow
destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband's
friends. In the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the
face of the empty places at the dinner-table, what could the
friendliest guests do, to any good purpose, to help the husband
and wife in their sore and sudden need? They could say good-night
at the earliest possible opportunity, and mercifully leave the
married pair to themselves.
Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen,
designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were
sufficiently ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the
first members of the dinner party who left the house. In a few
minutes more we rose to follow their example. Mrs. Germaine
earnestly requested that we would delay our departure.
"Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her
husband. "I have something to say to you before you go."
She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to
the opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy
together in low voices. The husband closed the consultation by
lifting the wife's hand to his lips.
"Do as you please, my love," he said to her. "I leave it entirely
to you."
He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine
unlocked a cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned
to us, alone, carrying a small portfolio in her hand.
"No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your
kindness," she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect
dignity at the same time. "Under very trying circumstances, you
have treated me with the tenderness and the sympathy which you
might have shown to an old friend. The one return I can make for
all that I owe to you is to admit you to my fullest confidence,
and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether I deserve the
treatment which I have received to-night."
Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We
both begged her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added
his entreaties to ours. She thanked us, but she persisted. Like
most sensitively organized persons, she could be resolute when
she believed that the occasion called for it.
"I have a few words more to say," she resumed, addressing my
wife. "You are the only married woman who has come to our little
dinner party. The marked absence of the other wives explains
itself. It is not for me to say whether they are right or wrong
in refusing to sit at our table. My dear husband--who knows my
whole life as well as I know it myself--expressed the wish that
we should invite these ladies. He wrongly supposed that _his_
estimate of me would be the estimate accepted by his friends; and
neither he nor I anticipated that the misfortunes of my past life
would be revealed by some person acquainted with them, whose
treachery we have yet to discover. The least I can do, by way of
acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same position
toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The circumstances
under which I have become the wife of Mr. Germaine are, in some
respects, very remarkable. They are related, without suppression
or reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at the
time of our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent
relatives, whose good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The
manuscript is in this portfolio. After what has happened, I ask
you both to read it, as a personal favor to me. It is for you to
decide, when you know all, whether I am a fit person for an
honest woman to associate with or not."
She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good
night. My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities
proper to the occasion, and kissed her at parting. At that one
little act of sisterly sympathy, the fortitude which the poor
creature had preserved all through the evening gave way in an
instant. She burst into tears.
I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But
(unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing
her. On our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a
cheering word to her husband as he accompanied us to the door.
"Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under
my arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't
married already, I tell you this--I should envy you your wife."
He pointed to the portfolio in his turn.
"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will
understand what those false friends of mine have made me suffer
to-night."
The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the
strange story of George Germaine's marriage.
The Narrative.
GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY.
CHAPTER I.
GREENWATER BROAD
LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past,
through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise
again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores of the
little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in the innocent
beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us live again, my
angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and sorrow
lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into the world.
The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were
floating on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue,
we called Greenwater Broad.
Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees
tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from which it
took its name. In a creek at the south end, the boats were
kept--my own pretty sailing boat having a tiny natural harbor all
to itself. In a creek at the north end stood the great trap
(called a "decoy"), used for snaring the wild fowl which flocked
every winter, by thousands and thousands, to Greenwater Broad.
My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the
last birds of the season lured into the decoy.
The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of
the lake in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic
branches bent to the needed shape, and covered with folds of fine
network, making the roof. Little by little diminishing in size,
the arches and their net-work followed the secret windings of the
creek inland to its end. Built back round the arches, on their
landward side, ran a wooden paling, high enough to hide a man
kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on the lake. At
certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just large
enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of the terrier
or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yet
sufficient mechanism of the decoy.
In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking
on our way to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and
companion. The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate.
He was, besides, a skilled master in the art of decoying ducks.
The dog that helped him (we used no tame ducks as decoys in
Suffolk) was a little black terrier; a skilled master also, in
his way; a creature who possessed, in equal proportions, the
enviable advantages of perfect good-humor a nd perfect common
sense.
The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog.
Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat
down to wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children
crouched behind the paling, and peeped through the outermost
dog-hole, which commanded a full view of the lake. It was a day
without wind; not a ripple stirred the surface of the water; the
soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and hid the sun from view.
We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild
ducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly
dressing their feathers on the placid surface of the lake.
The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at
the bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the
hole, so as to show himself on the narrow strip of ground
shelving down from the outer side of the paling to the lake.
First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together,
discovered the dog.
A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly
became an object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The
outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the strange
four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. By twos and
threes, the main body of the waterfowl gradually followed the
advanced guard. Swimming nearer and nearer to the dog, the wary
ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised on the water, viewed
from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land.
The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!"
Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through
the hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the
water, the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the
dog had trotted round, and had shown himself through the next
hole in the paling, pierced further inward where the lake ran up
into the outermost of the windings of the creek.
The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second
fit of curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam
forward again, to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then,
judging their safe distance once more, they stopped for the
second time, under the outermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog
vanished, and the puzzled ducks waited. An interval passed, and
the third appearance of Trim took place, through a third hole in
the paling, pierced further inland up the creek. For the third
time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to advance further
and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. A fourth
and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the
water-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the
decoy. There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last
advance, a last cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The
bailiff touched the strings, the weighed net-work fell vertically
into the water, and closed the decoy. There, by dozens and
dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of their own
curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a few
hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the
London market.
As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its
end, little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising
herself on tiptoe, whispered in my ear:
"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that
is better worth seeing than the ducks."
"What is it?"
"It's a surprise. I won't tell you."
"Will you give me a kiss?"
The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round
my neck, and answered:
"As many kisses as you like, George."
It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on
mine. The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his
ducks, discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each
other's arms. He shook his big forefinger at us, with something
of a sad and doubting smile.
"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father
comes home, do you think he will approve of his son and heir
kissing his bailiff's daughter?"
"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I
shall tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your
daughter."
The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his
ducks.
"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only
children. There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile."
Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly
understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a
gentleman aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly,
and went away together, hand in hand, to the cottage.
CHAPTER II.
TWO YOUNG HEARTS.
"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he
is getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove
him from school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the
open air at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand,
take it away directly. There is my prescription."
Those words decided my fate in life.
In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle
boy--without brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to
roam about the grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's
daughter, like me, was an only child; and, like me, she had no
playfellows. We met in our wanderings on the solitary shores of
the lake. Beginning by being inseparable companions, we ripened
and developed into true lovers. Our preliminary courtship
concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to school) to
burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife.
I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible
people," we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers
yet.
We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure
which we found in each other's society. We objected to the night,
because it parted us. We entreated our parents, on either side,
to let us sleep in the same room. I was angry with my mother, and
Mary was disappointed in her father, when they laughed at us, and
wondered what we should want next. Looking onward, from those
days to the days of my manhood, I can vividly recall such hours
of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I remember no
delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and
enduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with
Mary in the woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the
lake; when I met Mary, after the cruel separation of the night,
and flew into her open arms as if we had been parted for months
and months together.
What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other,
at an age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in
me?
We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love
one another, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly.
Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, or
advantages which singled us out as differing in a marked way from
other children at our time of life. We possessed nothing of the
sort. I had been called a clever boy at school; but there were
thousands of other boys, at thousands of other schools, who
headed their classes and won their prizes, like me. Personally
speaking, I was in no way remarkable--except for being, in the
ordinary phrase, "tall for my age." On her side, Mary displayed
no striking attractions. She was a fragile child, with mild gray
eyes and a pale complexion; singularly undemonstrative,
singularly shy and silent, except when she was alone with me.
Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certain
artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charming
reddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and prettily in
different lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly
commonplace children, we were mysteriously united by some kindred
association of the spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not
only defied discovery by our young selves, but which lay too deep
for investigation by far older and far wiser heads than ours.
You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders
to check our precocious attachment, while it was still an
innocent love union between a boy and a girl.
Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was
away from home.
He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind.
Inheriting his estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was
to increase his small available income by his own exertions; to
set up an establishment in London; and to climb to political
distinction by the ladder of Parliament. An old friend, who had
emigrated to America, had proposed to him a speculation in
agriculture, in one of the Western States, which was to make both
their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struck by the
idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in the
United States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters)
was, that he might be shortly expected to return to us in the
enviable character of one of the richest men in England.
As for my poor mother--the sweetest and softest-hearted of
women--to see me happy was all that she desired.
The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and
interested her. She jested with Mary's father about the coming
union between the two families, without one serious thought of
the future--without even a foreboding of what might happen when
my father returned. "Sufficient for the day is the evil (or the
good) thereof," had been my mother's motto all her life. She
agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff, already recorded
in these pages: "They're only children. There's no call, poor
things, to part them yet a while."
There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible
and serious view of the matter.
My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered
what was going on between Mary and me; and was, at first,
naturally enough, inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation
altered his way of thinking. He became convinced that my mother
was acting like a fool; that the bailiff (a faithful servant, if
ever there was one yet) was cunningly advancing his own interests
by means of his daughter; and that I was a young idiot, who had
developed his native reserves of imbecility at an unusually early
period of life. Speaking to my mother under the influence of
these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me back with
him to London, and keep me there until I had been brought to my
senses by association with his own children, and by careful
superintendence under his own roof.
My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the
advantage over my uncle of understanding my disposition. While
she was still doubting, while my uncle was still impatiently
waiting for her decision, I settled the question for my elders by
running away.
I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no
mortal power should part me from Mary, and promising to return
and ask my mother's pardon as soon as my uncle had left the
house. The strictest search was made for me without discovering a
trace of my place of refuge. My uncle departed for London,
predicting that I should live to be a disgrace to the family, and
announcing that he should transmit his opinion of me to my father
in America by the next mail.
The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy
discovery is soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's
knowledge) in the bedroom of the bailiff's mother. And did the
bailiff's mother know it? you will ask. To which I answer: the
bailiff's mother did it. And, what is more, gloried in doing
it--not, observe, as an act of hostility to my relatives, but
simply as a duty that lay on her conscience.
What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was
this? Let her appear, and speak for herself--the wild and weird
grandmother of gentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times,
known, far and wide, in our part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody.
I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cottage
parlor, hard by the window, so that the light fell over her
shoulder while she knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old
woman was Dame Dermody--with fierce black eyes, surmounted by
bushy white eyebrows, by a high wrinkled forehead, and by thick
white hair gathered neatly under her old-fashioned "mob-cap."
Report whispered (and whispered truly) that she had been a lady
by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately closed her
prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior in
social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, she
herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's
memory was a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit,
watching over her, waking or sleeping, morning or night.
Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those
grossly material ideas of modern growth which associate the
presence of spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and
monkey antics performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's
nobler superstition formed an integral part of her religious
convictions--convictions which had long since found their chosen
resting-place in the mystic doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. The
only books which she read were the works of the Swedish Seer. She
mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and departed spirits,
on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with wild fancies,
and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary
religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's
household, but also on proselytizing expeditions to the
households of her humble neighbors, far and near.
Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a
supreme power; priding herself alike on her close attention to
her domestic duties, and on her privileged communications with
angels and spirits. She would hold long colloquys with the spirit
of her dead husband before anybody who happened to be
present--colloquys which struck the simple spectators mute with
terror. To her mystic view, the love union between Mary and me
was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by the
mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us
little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when
we met and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her
son to look upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking
unconsciously on a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning
was on earth, but whose bright end was among the angels in a
better state of being. Imagine my appearing before such a woman
as this, and telling her with tears of despair that I was
determined to die, rather than let my uncle part me from little
Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the hospitality
which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own room.
When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed
a serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said
to her (with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you,
Dame. My mother shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom."
The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced
me roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen.
"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce
black eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I
was ashamed of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done
now? Wait there. Your mother may mistake me too. I shall write to
your mother."
She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims
and sat down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged,
whenever she was at a loss for an expression, she looked over her
shoulder, as if some visible creature were stationed behind her,
watching what she wrote; consulted the spirit of her husband,
exactly as she might have consulted a living man; smiled softly
to herself, and went on with her writing.
"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an
imperial gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are
written there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your
mother."
So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of
manner and language.
I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it
together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her
husband, Dame Dermody wrote:
"MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great
liberty. I have assisted your son George in se tting his uncle's
authority at defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his
resolution to be true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild,
Mary Dermody.
"It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what
motive I have acted in doing these things.
"I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and
consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the
better world are divinely commissioned to discover each other and
to begin their union in this world. The only happy marriages are
those in which the two destined spirits have succeeded in meeting
one another in this sphere of life.
"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can
really part them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find
each other again and become united spirits once more. Worldly
wisdom may force them into widely different ways of life; worldly
wisdom may delude them, or may make them delude themselves, into
contracting an earthly and a fallible union. It matters nothing.
The time will certainly come when that union will manifest itself
as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited spirits, finding
each other again, will become united here for the world beyond
this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of
all human notions of right and wrong.
"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife,
and widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good.
"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I
received the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly
notion of education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_
spirit while I was still young. I knew true love and true union
before I was twenty years of age. I married, madam, in the rank
from which Christ chose his apostles--I married a laboring-man.
No human language can tell my happiness while we lived united
here. His death has not parted us. He helps me to write this
letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing among the
angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river.
"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites
the young spirits of our children at the bright outset of their
lives.
"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed
to you to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you
freely that I look on what I have done toward thwarting your
relative in this matter as an act of virtue. You cannot expect
_me_ to think it a serious obstacle to a union predestined in
heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, and that my
grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from your
mind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of
rank. Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even
in this world) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness
only, but your own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to
my words. I warn you, madam, you cannot hinder the destined union
of these two child-spirits, in after-years, as man and wife. Part
them now--and YOU will be responsible for the sacrifices,
degradations and distresses through which your George and my Mary
may be condemned to pass on their way back to each other in later
life.
"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all.
"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way
unwittingly offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your
faithful servant and well-wisher,
HELEN DERMODY."
So the letter ended.
To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolary
composition. I see in it the prophecy--strangely fulfilled in
later years--of events in Mary's life, and in mine, which future
pages are now to tell.
My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of
her poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody;
and she was, besides, habitually averse to all discussions which
turned on the mysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved,
admonished, and forgiven; and there was the end of it.
For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance or
interruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was
coming, however, when we least expected it. My mother was
startled, one morning, by a letter from my father, which informed
her that he had been unexpectedly obliged to sail for England at
a moment's notice; that he had arrived in London, and that he was
detained there by business which would admit of no delay. We were
to wait for him at home, in daily expectation of seeing him the
moment he was free.
This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts of the
stability of her husband's grand speculation in America. The
sudden departure from the United States, and the mysterious delay
in London, were ominous, to her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am
now writing of those dark days in the past, when the railway and
the electric telegraph were still visions in the minds of
inventors. Rapid communication with my father (even if he would
have consented to take us into his confidence) was impossible. We
had no choice but to wait and hope.
The weary days passed; and still my father's brief letters
described him as detained by his business. The morning came when
Mary and I went out with Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last
wild fowl of the season lured into the decoy; and still the
welcome home waited for the master, and waited in vain.
CHAPTER III.
SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL.
MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused
in the first chapter.
Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at
the decoy, and had set forth on our way together to Dermody's
cottage.
As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house
waiting there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for
me.
"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you
can. A letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a
post-chaise from London, and sends word that we may expect him in
the course of the day."
Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words.
"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see
what I have got waiting for you at home?"
I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was
only to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I
disappoint her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at
the bare prospect of it.
I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort.
My love to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an
hour.
We entered the cottage.
Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual,
with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her
lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to
us to occupy our customary corner without speaking to her. It was
an act of domestic high treason to interrupt the Sibyl at her
books. We crept quietly into our places. Mary waited until she
saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, and her grandmother's
bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. Then, and
then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared
noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to
me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric
handkerchief.
"Is that the surprise?" I whispered.
Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?"
"Something for me?"
"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?"
I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on
helping me by a hint.
"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you."
I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me.
"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F."
I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources
failed me.
Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she
said. "You are three whole years older than I am. After all the
trouble I have taken to please you, you may be too big to care
for my present when you see it. Guess again."
"I can't guess."
"You must!"
"I give it up."
Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint.
"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she
asked.
"Was i t long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer.
"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were
falling, and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George,
_ you_ have forgotten!"
Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is
always _his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We
were only two children, and we were types of the man and the
woman already.
Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of
her grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object
out of her handkerchief.
"There! " she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?"
I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all
those months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for
me in secret by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with
a dove embroidered on it in white, carrying in its beak the
typical olive-branch, wrought in gold thread. The work was the
tremulous, uncertain work of a child's fingers. But how
faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! how
patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the
pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary
winter days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride,
my gratitude, my happiness?
I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I
took the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was
fairly out of breath and could kiss no longer.
"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my
father is coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I
will marry you to-morrow!"
"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come
here."
Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody's weird black
eyes were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary
followed me timidly, by a footstep at a time.
The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which
was new in my experience of her.
"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide
it!" she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be
taken from you!"
"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of
my boat."
"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that
answer she took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into
the breast-pocket of my jacket.
"Don't crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously.
I repeated my question:
"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?"
Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg
lying in her lap.
"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she
said. "Three times the words of the prophet warn me that there is
trouble coming. Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I
look there," she went on, pointing to the place where a ray of
sunlight poured slanting into the room, "and I see my husband in
the heavenly light. He bows his head in grief, and he points his
unerring hand at You. George and Mary, you are consecrated to
each other! Be always worthy of your consecration; be always
worthy of yourselves." She paused. Her voice faltered. She looked
at us with softening eyes, as those look who know sadly that
there is a parting at hand. "Kneel!" she said, in low tones of
awe and grief. "It may be the last time I bless you--it may be
the last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel!"
We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary's heart
throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could
feel my own heart quickening its beat, with a fear that was a
mystery to me.
"God bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! God
prosper, in future days, the union which God's wisdom has willed!
Amen. So be it. Amen."
As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust
open. My father--followed by the bailiff--entered the room.
Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a
stern scrutiny.
"It has come," she said to herself. "It looks with the eyes--it
will speak with the voice--of that man."
My father broke the silence that followed, addressing himself to
the bailiff.
"You see, Dermody," he said, "here is my son in your
cottage--when he ought to be in my house." He turned, and looked
at me as I stood with my arm round little Mary, patiently waiting
for my opportunity to speak. "George," he said, with the hard
smile which was peculiar to him, when he was angry and was trying
to hide it, "you are making a fool of yourself there. Leave that
child, and come to me."
Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging by
appearances, I was still a boy. Judging by my own sensations, I
had developed into a man at a moment's notice.
"Papa," I said, "I am glad to see you home again. This is Mary
Dermody. I am in love with her, and she is in love with me. I
wish to marry her as soon as it is convenient to my mother and
you."
My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, his
humor changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, presumed to be
amused. He seemed to become mad with anger, all in a moment.
"I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery," he said, "but I
didn't believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's weak head?
Who has encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it's
you, Dermody, it shall be the worst day's work you ever did in
your life." He turned to me again, before the bailiff could
defend himself. "Do you hear what I say? I tell you to leave
Dermody's girl, and come home with me."
"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you
please, after I have been with you."
Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my
audacity.
"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out.
"I tell you this: you will never darken these doors again! You
have been taught to disobey me here. You have had things put into
your head, here, which no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say
more, which no decent people would have let you know."
"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully
and very firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a
master in a hot temper is privileged to say to the man who serves
him. But you have gone beyond your privilege. You have shamed me,
sir, in the presence of my mother, in the hearing of my child--"
My father checked him there.
"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and
servant no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage,
and playing at sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to
close the door on him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you
no longer. Take a month's notice, Dermody. You leave my service."
The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no
longer the easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my
remembrance.
"I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he answered.
"You shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just
said to me. I will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave
your service to-morrow."
"We agree for once," retorted my father. "The sooner you go, the
better."
He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control himself.
"I don't want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant.
There must be an end to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack
up and go, and come back to the house with me."
His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the
spirit of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to
melt him by entreaties.
"Oh, papa! papa!" I cried. "Don't part me from Mary! See how
pretty and good she is! She has made me a flag for my boat. Let
me come here and see her sometimes. I can't live without her"
I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out crying. Her
tears and my entreaties were alike wasted on my father.
"Take your choice," he said, "between coming away of your own
accord, or obliging me to take you away by force. I mean to part
you and Dermody's girl."
"Neither you nor any man can part them," interposed a voice,
speaking behind us. "Rid your mind of that notion, master, before
it is too late."
My father looked round quickly, and discovere d Dame Dermody
facing him in the full light of the window. She had stepped back,
at the outset of the dispute, into the corner behind the
fireplace. There she had remained, biding her time to speak,
until my father's last threat brought her out of her place of
retirement.
They looked at each other for a moment. My father seemed to think
it beneath his dignity to answer her. He went on with what he had
to say to me.
"I shall count three slowly," he resumed. "Before I get to the
last number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, or submit
to the disgrace of being taken away by force."
"Take him where you may," said Dame Dermody, "he will still be on
his way to his marriage with my grandchild."
"And where shall I be, if you please?" asked my father, stung
into speaking to her this time.
The answer followed instantly in these startling words:
"_You_ will be on your way to your ruin and your death."
My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile of
contempt.
"One!" he said, beginning to count.
I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he spoke. I
had inherited some of his temper, and he was now to know it.
"Two!" proceeded my father, after waiting a little.
Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: "Let me go,
George! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know
he'll hurt you."
My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before
he counted Three.
"Stop!" cried Dame Dermody.
My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am--have you anything particular to say to
me?" he asked.
"Man!" returned the Sibyl, "you speak lightly. Have I spoken
lightly to You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will
that is mightier than yours. The spirits of these children are
kindred spirits. For time and for eternity they are united one to
the other. Put land and sea between them--they will still be
together; they will communicate in visions, they will be revealed
to each other in dreams. Bind them by worldly ties; wed your son,
in the time to come, to another woman, and my grand-daughter to
another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may doom them to
misery, you may drive them to sin--the day of their union on
earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will
come! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a
doomed man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of
death, on your face. Go; and leave these consecrated ones to walk
the dark ways of the world together, in the strength of their
innocence, in the light of their love. Go--and God forgive you!"
In spite of himself, my father was struck by the irresistible
strength of conviction which inspired those words. The bailiff's
mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might have impressed
him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on his lips,
but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as
ever when he turned my way once more.
"The last chance, George, " he said, and counted the last number:
"Three!"
I neither moved nor answered him.
"You _will_ have it?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm.
I fastened _my_ hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave
you!" She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot
in my arms. A faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips.
Dermody instantly stepped forward. Before my father could wrench
me away from her, he had said in my ear, "You can give her to
_me_, Master George," and had released his child from my embrace.
She stretched her little frail hands out yearningly to me, as she
lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she said, faintly. I saw
her head sink on her father's bosom as I was dragged to the door.
In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against the cruel
hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I cried
out to her, "I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I
will never marry any one but you!" Step by step, I was forced
further and further away. The last I saw of her, my darling's
head was still resting on Dermody's breast. Her grandmother stood
near, and shook her withered hands at my father, and shrieked her
terrible prophecy, in the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when
she saw the separation accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin!
you go to your death!" While her voice still rang in my ears, the
cottage door was opened and closed again. It was all over. The
modest world of my boyish love and my boyish joy disappeared like
the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, which was my
father's world, opened before me void of love and void of joy.
God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment!
CHAPTER IV.
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a
close prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my
father could depend.
The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered
before I had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I
contrived to write to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing
hand of the housemaid who attended on me. Useless! The vigilance
of my guardian was not to be evaded. The woman was suspected and
followed, and the letter was taken from her. My father tore it up
with his own hands.
Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me.
She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve
my interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her
by announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him,
when he returned to America.
"Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, "is to be
thrown into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in
London; he has let the house to some rich tradesman for seven
years; he has sold the plate, and the jewels that came to me from
his mother. The land in America swallows it all up. We have no
home, George, and no choice but to go with him."
An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door.
My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him,
with a desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I
ran, I flew, along the path that led to Dermody's cottage. The
door stood open; the parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I
went into the upper rooms. Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had
left the place; and his mother and his daughter had gone with
him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with a message; no
letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in what
direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting
words which his master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was
concerned in leaving no trace of his whereabouts; my father might
consider it as a trace purposely left with the object of
reuniting Mary and me. I had no keepsake to speak to me of my
lost darling but the flag which she had embroidered with her own
hand. The furniture still remained in the cottage. I sat down in
our customary corner, by Mary's empty chair, and looked again at
the pretty green flag, and burst out crying.
A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as to leave
to my mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the
traveling carriage.
"We shall not find Mary here, George," she said, gently. "And we
_ may_ hear of her in London. Come with me."
I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low down on the
clean white door-post caught my eye as we passed it. I stooped,
and discovered some writing in pencil. I looked closer--it was
writing in Mary's hand! The unformed childish characters traced
these last words of farewell:
"Good-by, dear. Don't forget Mary."
I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me--it was like
a farewell touch from Mary's hand. I followed my mother quietly
to the carriage.
Late that night we were in London.
My good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could
do (in her position) to comfort me. She privately wrote to the
solicitors employed by her family, inclosing a description of
Dermody and his mother and daughter and directing inquiries to be
made at the various coach-offices in London. She also referred
the lawyers to two of Dermody's relatives, who lived in the city,
a nd who might know something of his movements after he left my
father's service. When she had done this, she had done all that
lay in her power. We neither of us possessed money enough to
advertise in the newspapers.
A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice in that
interval I communicated with the lawyers; and twice I was
informed that the inquiries had led to nothing.
With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an end.
For ten long years afterward I never again met with my little
Mary; I never even heard whether she had lived to grow to
womanhood or not. I still kept the green flag, with the dove
worked on it. For the rest, the waters of oblivion had closed
over the old golden days at Greenwater Broad.
CHAPTER V.
MY STORY.
WHEN YOU last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You now see me a
man of twenty-three.
The story of my life, in the interval between these two ages, is
a story that can be soon told.
Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end of his
career did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we
had been a year in America, the total collapse of his land
speculation was followed by his death. The catastrophe was
complete. But for my mother's little income (settled on her at
her marriage) we should both have been left helpless at the mercy
of the world.
We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people
of the United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave.
But there were reasons which inclined us to return to our own
country after my father's death; and we did return accordingly.
Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier
pages of my narrative), my mother had another relative--a cousin
named Germaine--on whose assistance she mainly relied for
starting me, when the time came, in a professional career. I
remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. Germaine had been an
unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the days when they
were young people together. He was still a bachelor at the later
period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed him
in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made
no difference in his habits of life: he was a lonely old man,
estranged from his other relatives, when my mother and I returned
to England. If I could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I
might consider my prospects (in some degree, at least) as being
prospects assured.
This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America.
There was another--in which I was especially interested--that
drew me back to the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad.
My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries
among the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good
bailiff had been heartily liked and respected in his little
sphere. It seemed at least possible that some among his many
friends in Suffolk might have discovered traces of him, in the
year that had passed since I had left England. In my dreams of
Mary--and I dreamed of her constantly--the lake and its woody
banks formed a frequent background in the visionary picture of my
lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a natural
superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its
promise of happiness for _me_--my life with Mary.
On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone--at my
mother's request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting
the home scenes now occupied by the strangers to whom our house
had been let.
Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the familiar
green waters of the lake once more! It was evening. The first
object that caught my eye was the gayly painted boat, once mine,
in which Mary and I had so often sailed together. The people in
possession of our house were sailing now. The sound of their
laughter floated toward me merrily over the still water. _Their_
flag flew at the little mast-head, from which Mary's flag had
never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes from the
boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me to
a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the
decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we
had knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole
through which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the
stupid curiosity of the water-fowl; there, seen at intervals
through the trees, was the winding woodland path along which Mary
and I had traced our way to Dermody's cottage on the day when my
father's cruel hand had torn us from each other. How wisely my
good mother had shrunk from looking again at the dear old scenes!
I turned my back on the lake, to think with calmer thoughts in
the shadowy solitude of the woods.
An hour's walk along the winding banks brought me round to the
cottage which had once been Mary's home.
The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to me. She
civilly asked me to enter the parlor. I had suffered enough
already; I made my inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were
soon at an end. The woman was a stranger in our part of Suffolk;
neither she nor her husband had ever heard of Dermody's name.
I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing from
cottage to cottage. The twilight came; the moon rose; the lights
began to vanish from the lattice-windows; and still I continued
my weary pilgrimage; and still, go where I might, the answer to
my questions was the same. Nobody knew anything of Dermody.
Everybody asked if I had not brought news of him myself. It pains
me even now to recall the cruelly complete defeat of every effort
which I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the night in
one of the cottages; and I returned to London the next day,
broken by disappointment, careless what I did, or where I went
next.
Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary--as Dame Dermody
said I should see her--in dreams.
Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, and
repeated her farewell words--"Don't forget Mary!" Sometimes she
led me to our well-remembered corner in the cottage parlor, and
opened the paper on which her grandmother had written our prayers
for us. We prayed together again, and sung hymns together again,
as if the old times had come back. Once she appeared to me, with
tears in her eyes, and said, "We must wait, dear: our time has
not come yet." Twice I saw her looking at me, like one disturbed
by anxious thoughts; and twice I heard her say, "Live patiently,
live innocently, George, for my sake."
We settled in London, where my education was undertaken by a
private tutor. Before we had been long in our new abode, an
unexpected change in our prospects took place. To my mother's
astonishment she received an offer of marriage (addressed to her
in a letter) from Mr. Germaine.
"I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal!" (the old
gentleman wrote). "You can hardly have forgotten that I was once
fond of you, in the days when we were both young and both poor.
No return to the feelings associated with that time is possible
now. At my age, all I ask of you is to be the companion of the
closing years of my life, and to give me something of a father's
interest in promoting the future welfare of your son. Consider
this, my dear, and tell me whether you will take the empty chair
at an old man's lonely fireside."
My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul! as if she had
become a young girl again) left the whole responsibility of
decision on the shoulders of her son! I was not long in making up
my mind. If she said Yes, she would accept the hand of a man of
worth and honor, who had been throughout his whole life devoted
to her; and she would recover the comfort, the luxury, the social
prosperity and position of which my father's reckless course of
life had deprived her. Add to this, that I liked Mr. Germaine,
and that Mr. Germaine liked me. Under these circumstances, why
should my mother say No? She could produce no satisfactory answer
to that question when I put it. As the necessary consequence, she
became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine.
I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good mother
congratulated he rself (in this case at least) on having taken
her son's advice.
The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, except in my
dreams. The years went on, until the perilous time which comes in
every man's life came in mine. I reached the age when the
strongest of all the passions seizes on the senses, and asserts
its mastery over mind and body alike.
I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest and
dearest hopes: I had lived patiently, and lived innocently, for
Mary's sake. Now my patience left me; my innocence was numbered
among the lost things of the past. My days, it is true, were
still devoted to the tasks set me by my tutor; but my nights were
given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, which (in my present
frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and dismay. I profaned
my remembrances of Mary in the company of women who had reached
the lowest depths of degradation. I impiously said to myself: "I
have hoped for her long enough; I have waited for her long
enough. The one thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to
forget her."
From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I might
sometimes think regretfully of Mary--at the morning time, when
penitent thoughts mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to
see her in my dreams. We were now, in the completest sense of the
word, parted. Mary's pure spirit could hold no communion with
mine; Mary's pure spirit had left me.
It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my
depravity from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of her grief
was the first influence that sobered me. In some degree at least
I restrained myself: I made the effort to return to purer ways of
life. Mr. Germaine, though I had disappointed him, was too just a
man to give me up as lost. He advised me, as a means of
self-reform, to make my choice of a profession, and to absorb
myself in closer studies than any that I had yet pursued.
I made my peace with this good friend and second father, not only
by following his advice, but by adopting the profession to which
he had been himself attached before he inherited his fortune--the
profession of medicine. Mr. Germaine had been a surgeon: I
resolved on being a surgeon too.
Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my new
way of life, I may at least say for myself that I worked hard. I
won, and kept, the interest of the professors under whom I
studied. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that my
reformation was, morally speaking, far from being complete. I
worked; but what I did was done selfishly, bitterly, with a hard
heart. In religion and morals I adopted the views of a
materialist companion of my studies--a worn-out man of more than
double my age. I believed in nothing but what I could see, or
taste, or feel. I lost all faith in humanity. With the one
exception of my mother, I had no respect for women. My
remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they became little more
than a lost link of association with the past. I still preserved
the green flag as a matter of habit; but it was no longer kept
about me; it was left undisturbed in a drawer of my writing-desk.
Now and then a wholesome doubt, whether my life was not utterly
unworthy of me, would rise in my mind. But it held no long
possession of my thoughts. Despising others, it was in the
logical order of things that I should follow my conclusions to
their bitter end, and consistently despise myself.
The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years old; and
of the illusions of my youth not a vestige remained.
Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive
complaint of my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy
about me. After anxious consideration, my step-father arrived at
a conclusion. He decided that the one chance of restoring me to
my better and brighter self was to try the stimulant of a life
among new people and new scenes.
At the period of which I am now writing, the home government had
decided on sending a special diplomatic mission to one of the
native princes ruling over a remote province of our Indian
empire. In the disturbed state of the province at that time, the
mission, on its arrival in India, was to be accompanied to the
prince's court by an escort, including the military as well as
the civil servants of the crown. The surgeon appointed to sail
with the expedition from England was an old friend of Mr.
Germaine's, and was in want of an assistant on whose capacity he
could rely. Through my stepfather's interest, the post was
offered to me. I accepted it without hesitation. My only pride
left was the miserable pride of indifference. So long as I
pursued my profession, the place in which I pursued it was a
matter of no importance to my mind.
It was long before we could persuade my mother even to
contemplate the new prospect now set before me. When she did at
length give way, she yielded most unwillingly. I confess I left
her with the tears in my eyes--the first I had shed for many a
long year past.
The history of our expedition is part of the history of British
India. It has no place in this narrative.
Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered
incapable of performing my professional duties in less than a
week from the time when the mission reached its destination. We
were encamped outside the city; and an attack was made on us,
under cover of darkness, by the fanatical natives. The attempt
was defeated with little difficulty, and with only a trifling
loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck by
a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to
another.
Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no
serious consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been
poisoned. I escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through
some peculiarity in the action of the poison on my constitution
(which I am quite unable to explain), the wound obstinately
refused to heal.
I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical
help was at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed
there--then broke out again. Twice this happened; and the medical
men agreed that the best course to take would be to send me home.
They calculated on the invigorating effect of the sea voyage,
and, failing this, on the salutary influence of my native air. In
the Indian climate I was pronounced incurable.
Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought
me startling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to
come--had been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died
suddenly, of heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time
when I left England, bequeathed an income for life to my mother,
and left the bulk of his property to me, on the one condition
that I adopted his name. I accepted the condition, of course, and
became George Germaine.
Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other.
Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now
to all appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals;
promoted to the position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a
house in London and of a country-seat in Perthshire; and,
nevertheless, at twenty-three years of age, one of the most
miserable men living!
And Mary?
In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of
Mary?
You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you
will hear hers.
CHAPTER VI.
HER STORY.
WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information
obtained at a date in my life later by many years than any date
of which I have written yet. Be pleased to remember this.
Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom he
occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never
mentioned. My father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch
nation. Dermody knew his master well enough to be aware that the
prejudice might extend to _him_, if he spoke of his Scotch
kindred. He was a discreet man, and he never mentioned them.
On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, partly by
land and partly by sea, to Glasgow--in which city his friends
resided. With his character and his experience, Dermody was a man
in a
thousand to any master who was lucky enough to discover him. His
friends bestirred themselves. In six weeks' time he was placed in
charge of a gentleman's estate on the eastern coast of Scotland,
and was comfortably established with his mother and his daughter
in a new home.
The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had
sunk deep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately to his relatives
in London, telling them that he had found a new situation which
suited him, and that he had his reasons for not at present
mentioning his address. In this way he baffled the inquiries
which my mother's lawyers (failing to discover a trace of him in
other directions) addressed to his London friends. Stung by his
old master's reproaches, he sacrificed his daughter and he
sacrificed me--partly to his own sense of self-respect, partly to
his conviction that the difference between us in rank made it his
duty to check all further intercourse before it was too late.
Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the
little household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world.
In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and
heard me. The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart
while I was still a boy were revealed to her in the mystery of
sleep. Her grandmother, holding firmly to her faith in the
predestined union between us, sustained the girl's courage and
cheered her heart. She could hear her father say (as my father
had said) that we were parted to meet no more, and could
privately think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promise of
another future than the future which Dermody contemplated. So she
still lived with me in the spirit--and lived in hope.
The first affliction that befell the little household was the
death of the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age.
In her last conscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget
that you and George are spirits consecrated to each other.
Wait--in the certain knowledge that no human power can hinder
your union in the time to come."
While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, our
visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it
had been abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my
self-degradation, I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same
period Mary ceased to see me.
The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no
elder woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her
father, who invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of
the old times. The secret sorrow that preys on body and mind
alike preyed on _her_. A cold, caught at the inclement season,
turned to fever. For weeks she was in danger of death. When she
recovered, her head had been stripped of its beautiful hair by
the doctor's order. The sacrifice had been necessary to save her
life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel sacrifice--her
hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear, it had
completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown;
it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At
first sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again.
But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the
face and the figure gained.
In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of
the old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing
Scotch air and the healthy mode of life, into a comely young
woman. Her features were still, as in her early years, not
regularly beautiful; but the change in her was not the less
marked on that account. The wan face had filled out, and the pale
complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its remarkable
development was perceived even by the rough people about her.
Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into
womanly fullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly
beautiful figure, in the strictest sense of the word.
Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period
of their lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his
daughter of former days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her
sweet, equable flow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she
went through the daily routine of her duties enduringly. The hope
of meeting me again had sunk to a dead hope in her by this time.
She made no complaint. The bodily strength that she had gained in
these later days had its sympathetic influence in steadying her
mind. When her father once or twice ventured to ask if she was
still thinking of me, she answered quietly that she had brought
herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I had
long since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained
faithful to her, she was old enough now to know that the
difference between us in rank made our union by marriage an
impossibility. It would be best (she thought) not to refer any
more to the past, best to forget me, as I had forgotten her. So
she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, Dame
Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had failed to
justify itself, and had taken its place among the predictions
that are never fulfilled.
The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary's
illness happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years.
Even at this distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails
me, at the critical stage in my narrative which I have now
reached.
A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of
Scotland. Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a
vessel bound from Holland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore
near Dermody's place of abode. Leading the way in all good
actions, the bailiff led the way in rescuing the passengers and
crew of the lost ship. He had brought one man alive to land, and
was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavy seas, following
in close succession, dashed him against the rocks. He was
rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. The
medical examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises
and lacerations. So far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of
relief. But, after a lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the
patient which revealed to his medical attendant the presence of
serious internal injury. In the doctor's opinion, he could never
hope to resume the active habits of his life. He would be an
invalid and a crippled man for the rest of his days.
Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employer did
all that could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant
to undertake the supervision of the farm work, and he permitted
Dermody to occupy his cottage for the next three months. This
concession gave the poor man time to recover such relics of
strength as were still left to him, and to consult his friends in
Glasgow on the doubtful question of his life to come.
The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for any
sedentary employment; and the little money that he had saved was
not enough to support his daughter and himself. The Scotch
friends were willing and kind; but they had domestic claims on
them, and they had no money to spare.
In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose
life Dermody had saved) came forward with a proposal which took
father and daughter alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of
marriage; on the express understanding (if she accepted him) that
her home was to be her father's home also to the end of his life.
The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the
time of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van
Brandt. He possessed a share in a fishing establishment on the
shores of the Zuyder Zee; and he was on his way to establish a
correspondence with the fisheries in the North of Scotland when
the vessel was wrecked. Mary had produced a strong impression on
him when they first met. He had lingered in the neighborhood, in
the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with time to help him.
Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of life; and he
was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making his
proposal, he produced references to persons of high social
position in Holland, who could answer for hi m, so far as the
questions of character and position were concerned.
Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for
her helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt.
The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her
years since. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of
cheerless celibacy. In thinking of her future, Mary naturally
thought of herself in the character of a wife. Could she fairly
expect in the time to come to receive any more attractive
proposal than the proposal now addressed to her? Mr. Van Brandt
had every personal advantage that a woman could desire; he was
devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful affection for
her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With no other
hope in her heart--with no other prospect in view--what could she
do better than marry Mr. Van Brandt?
Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the
fatal word. She said, "Yes."
At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt,
unreservedly acknowledging that she had contemplated another
future than the future now set before her. She did not conceal
that there had once been an old love in her heart, and that a new
love was more than she could command. Esteem, gratitude, and
regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, love might come.
For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself from the
past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once
connected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness
for herself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now.
These she might find under the roof of an honorable man who loved
and respected her. She could promise, on her side, to make him a
good and faithful wife, if she could promise no more. It rested
with Mr. Van Brandt to say whether he really believed that he
would be consulting his own happiness in marrying her on these
terms.
Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation.
They would have been married immediately but for an alarming
change for the worse in the condition of Dermody's health.
Symptoms showed themselves, which the doctor confessed that he
had not anticipated when he had given his opinion on the case. He
warned Mary that the end might be near. A physician was summoned
from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt's expense. He confirmed the
opinion entertained by the country doctor. For some days longer
the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he put his
daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," he
said, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving
your life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms.
Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The
relatives in Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for.
The relatives in London resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van
Brandt waited, delicately and considerately, until the first
violence of the girl's grief had worn itself out, and then he
pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to console her.
The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time
at which I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached
the age of twenty years.
The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative
leaves us at the outset of our new lives.
I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman
on the estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr.
Germaine. Mary is with her husband, enjoying her new privileges,
learning her new duties, as a wife. She, too, is living in
Scotland--living, by a strange fatality, not very far distant
from my country-house. I have no suspicion that she is so near to
me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even if I had heard it) appeals
to no familiar association in my mind. Still the kindred spirits
are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, and no idea on
mine, that we shall ever meet again.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE.
MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my
books.
"I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she said.
"Come upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it."
I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait,
hanging above the mantelpiece.
"Do you know whose likeness that is?" she asked, half sadly, half
playfully. "George! Do you really not recognize yourself at
thirteen years old?"
How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow;
browned by the sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already
growing thin over my forehead; my eyes already habituated to
their one sad and weary look; what had I in common with the fair,
plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed boy who confronted me in the
miniature? The mere sight of the portrait produced the most
extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me with an
overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself
too dreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my
mother, I left the room. In another minute I was out of the
house.
I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me.
Following a by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful
in itself, so famous among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It
was not then the fishing season. No human being was in sight as I
took my seat on the bank. The old stone bridge which spanned the
stream was within a hundred yards of me; the setting sun still
tinged the swift-flowing water under the arches with its red and
dying light.
Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the
portrait seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its
own: "Look at what you were once; think of what you are now!"
I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the
wasted years of my life between thirteen and twenty-three.
How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what
prospect had I before me?
Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind.
Since the innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more
of love than the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on
the grass. My money, to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would
my money make her dear to me? dear as Mary had once been, in the
golden time when my portrait was first painted?
Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her
again if I saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten
years old: she was now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know
_me_ if we met? The portrait, still pursuing me, answered the
question: "Look at what you were once; think of what you are
now!"
I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn the
current of my thoughts in some new direction.
It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got
back again into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank.
The sun was sinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches
of the old stone bridge. The red light had faded from the
swift-flowing water, and had left it overspread with one
monotonous hue of steely gray. The first stars looked down
peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first shiverings of the
night breeze were audible among the trees, and visible here and
there in the shallow places of the stream. And still, the darker
it grew, the more persistently my portrait led me back to the
past, the more vividly the long-lost image of the child Mary
showed itself to me in my thoughts.
Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in her
perfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life?
It might be so.
I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The effect
produced on me by the sight of my portrait was in itself due to
moral and mental changes in me for the better, which had been
steadily proceeding since the time when my wound had laid me
helpless among strangers in a strange land. Sickness, which has
made itself teacher and friend to many a man, had made itself
teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at the vices
of my youth; at the fruitless after-days when I had impiously
doubted all that is most noble, all that is most consoling in
human life. Consecrated by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it
vain in me to hope that her spirit a nd my spirit might yet be
united again? Who could tell?
I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to linger until
night by the banks of the river. I had left the house, feeling
the impulse which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the
mind, to take refuge in movement and change. The remedy had
failed; my mind was as strangely disturbed as ever. My wisest
course would be to go home, and keep my good mother company over
her favorite game of piquet.
I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the
tranquil beauty of the last faint light in the western sky,
shining behind the black line formed by the parapet of the
bridge.
In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep
stillness of the dying day, I stood alone and watched the sinking
light.
As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Suddenly and
softly a living figure glided into view on the bridge. It passed
behind the black line of the parapet, in the last long rays of
the western light. It crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed
back again half-way. Then it stopped. The minutes passed, and
there the figure stood, a motionless black object, behind the
black parapet of the bridge.
I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer view
of the dress in which the figure was attired. The dress showed me
that the solitary stranger was a woman.
She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast on the
bank. She stood with her arms folded in her cloak, looking down
at the darkening river.
Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone?
As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. She looked
along the bridge, first on one side of her, then on the other.
Was she waiting for some person who was to meet her? Or was she
suspicious of observation, and anxious to make sure that she was
alone?
A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary place, a
sudden distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift-flowing river,
set my heart beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I
hurried up the rising ground which led from the river-bank to the
bridge, determined on speaking to her while the opportunity was
still mine.
She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I
approached with an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not
knowing how she might receive me when I spoke to her. The moment
she turned and faced me, my composure came back. It was as if,
expecting to see a stranger, I had unexpectedly encountered a
friend.
And yet she _was_ a stranger. I had never before looked on that
grave and noble face, on that grand figure whose exquisite grace
and symmetry even her long cloak could not wholly hide. She was
not, perhaps, a strictly beautiful woman. There were defects in
her which were sufficiently marked to show themselves in the
fading light. Her hair, for example, seen under the large garden
hat that she wore, looked almost as short as the hair of a man;
and the color of it was of that dull, lusterless brown hue which
is so commonly seen in English women of the ordinary type. Still,
in spite of these drawbacks, there was a latent charm in her
expression, there was an inbred fascination in her manner, which
instantly found its way to my sympathies and its hold on my
admiration. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her.
"May I inquire if you have lost your way?" I asked.
Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry in
them. She did not appear to be surprised or confused at my
venturing to address her.
"I know this part of the country well," I went on. "Can I be of
any use to you?"
She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a moment,
stranger as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as if it had
been a face that she had seen and forgotten again. If she really
had this idea, she at once dismissed it with a little toss of her
head, and looked away at the river as if she felt no further
interest in me.
"Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed to walking
alone. Good-evening."
She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was delicious; her
bow, as she left me, was the perfection of unaffected grace. She
left the bridge on the side by which I had first seen her
approach it, and walked slowly away along the darkening track of
the highroad.
Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something underlying
the charming expression and the fascinating manner which my
instinct felt to be something wrong. As I walked away toward the
opposite end of the bridge, the doubt began to grow on me whether
she had spoken the truth. In leaving the neighborhood of the
river, was she simply trying to get rid of me?
I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test.
Leaving the bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and to
enter a plantation on the bank of the river. Here, concealed
behind the first tree which was large enough to hide me, I could
command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count on
detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there was a
ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the
obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the
nearest tree that suited my purpose.
I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the
tree, when the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken
by the distant sound of a voice.
The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high pitch; its
accent was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were
these:
"Christ, have mercy on me!"
There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I
looked out on the bridge.
She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I
could cry out, before I could even breathe again freely, she
leaped into the river.
The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the
surface, floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran
headlong down the bank. She sank again, in the moment when I
stopped to throw aside my hat and coat and to kick off my shoes.
I was a practiced swimmer. The instant I was in the water my
composure came back to me--I felt like myself again.
The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly
increased the speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when
she rose for the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few
inches below the surface of the river. One more stroke, and my
left arm was round her; I had her face out of the water. She was
insensible. I could hold her in the right way to leave me master
of all my movements; I could devote myself, without flurry or
fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to the shore.
My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope,
burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current running
toward the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on one side,
and I tried it on the other, and gave it up. The one choice left
was to let myself drift with her down the stream. Some fifty
yards lower, the river took a turn round a promontory of land, on
which stood a little inn much frequented by anglers in the
season. As we approached the place, I made another attempt (again
an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last chance now was
to be heard by the people of the inn. I shouted at the full pitch
of my voice as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A man put
off in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank
again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by the
river-side.
The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to be of
service, and equally ignorant of what they were to do.
Fortunately, my medical education made me competent to direct
them. A good fire, warm blankets, hot water in bottles, were all
at my disposal. I showed the women myself how to ply the work of
revival. They persevered, and I persevered; and still there she
lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without a sign of life
perceptible; there she lay, to all outward appearance, dead by
drowning.
A last hope was left--the hope of restoring her (if I could
construct the apparatus in time) by the process called
"artificial respiration." I was just endeavoring to tell the
landlady what I wanted and was just conscious o f a strange
difficulty in expressing myself, when the good woman started
back, and looked at me with a scream of terror.
"Good God, sir, you're bleeding!" she cried. "What's the matter?
Where are you hurt?"
In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had happened. The
old Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the violent exertion
that I had imposed on myself) had opened again. I struggled
against the sudden sense of faintness that seized on me; I tried
to tell the people of the inn what to do. It was useless. I
dropped to my knees; my head sunk on the bosom of the woman
stretched senseless upon the low couch beneath me. The
death-in-life that had got _her_ had got _me_. Lost to the world
about us, we lay, with my blood flowing on her, united in our
deathly trance.
Where were our spirits at that moment? Were they together and
conscious of each other? United by a spiritual bond, undiscovered
and unsuspected by us in the flesh, did we two, who had met as
strangers on the fatal bridge, know each other again in the
trance? You who have loved and lost--you whose one consolation it
has been to believe in other worlds than this--can you turn from
my questions in contempt? Can you honestly say that they have
never been _your_ questions too?
CHAPTER VIII.
THE KINDRED SPIRITS
THE morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained window; a
clumsy wooden bed, with big twisted posts that reached to the
ceiling; on one side of the bed, my mother's welcome face; on the
other side, an elderly gentleman unremembered by me at that
moment--such were the objects that presented themselves to my
view, when I first consciously returned to the world that we live
in.
"Look, doctor, look! He has come to his senses at last."
"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." My mother was
rejoicing over me on one side of the bed; and the unknown
gentleman, addressed as "doctor," was offering me a spoonful of
whisky-and-water on the other. He called it the "elixir of life";
and he bid me remark (speaking in a strong Scotch accent) that he
tasted it himself to show he was in earnest.
The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, my mind
became clearer. I could speak collectedly to my mother; I could
vaguely recall the more marked events of the previous evening. A
minute or two more, and the image of the person in whom those
events had all centered became a living image in my memory. I
tried to raise myself in the bed; I asked, impatiently, "Where is
she?"
The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, and
gravely repeated his first address to me.
"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this."
I persisted in repeating my question:
"Where is she?"
The doctor persisted in repeating his formula:
"Take a sup of this."
I was too weak to contest the matter; I obeyed. My medical
attendant nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, "Now,
he'll do." My mother had some compassion on me. She relieved my
anxiety in these plain words:
"The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doctor
here."
I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. He was
the legitimate fountainhead of the information that I was dying
to have poured into my mind.
"How did you revive her?" I asked. "Where is she now?"
The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop.
"We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically," he began,
in a very positive manner. "You will understand, that every time
you open your mouth, it will be to take a sup of this, and not to
speak. I shall tell you, in due course, and the good lady, your
mother, will tell you, all that you have any need to know. As I
happen to have been first on what you may call the scene of
action, it stands in the fit order of things that I should speak
first. You will just permit me to mix a little more of the elixir
of life, and then, as the poet says, my plain unvarnished tale I
shall deliver."
So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the most
carefully selected English I had ever heard. A hard-headed,
square-shouldered, pertinaciously self-willed man--it was plainly
useless to contend with him. I turned to my mother's gentle face
for encouragement; and I let my doctor have his own way.
"My name," he proceeded, "is MacGlue. I had the honor of
presenting my respects at your house yonder when you first came
to live in this neighborhood. You don't remember me at present,
which is natural enough in the unbalanced condition of your mind,
consequent, you will understand (as a professional person
yourself) on copious loss of blood."
There my patience gave way.
"Never mind me!" I interposed. "Tell me about the lady!"
"You have opened your mouth, sir!" cried Mr. MacGlue, severely.
"You know the penalty--take a sup of this. I told you we should
proceed systematically," he went on, after he had forced me to
submit to the penalty. "Everything in its place, Mr.
Germaine--everything in its place. I was speaking of your bodily
condition. Well, sir, and how did I discover your bodily
condition? Providentially for _you_ I was driving home yesterday
evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river bank),
and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's
nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half
a mile off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times
go; but a poor creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming
to it now. Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to
anything wanted in the medical way; and there I found you and the
stranger lady in a position which I may truthfully describe as
standing in some need of improvement on the score of propriety.
Tut! tut! I speak jocosely--you were both in a dead swoon. Having
heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, to the best
of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the course of
the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed between
two laws. The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as
the first object of my professional services, while the law of
humanity (seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less
imperatively to you. I am no longer a young man: I left the lady
to wait. My word! it was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal
with your case, and get you carried up here out of the way. That
old wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with. I bid you
beware how you open it again. The next time you go out for an
evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will do well
for your own health to leave her there. What's that I see? Are
you opening your mouth again? Do you want another sup already?"
"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother,
interpreting my wishes for me.
"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who
found no great attraction in the subject proposed to him.
"There's not much that I know of to be said about the lady. A
fine woman, no doubt. If you could strip the flesh off her bones,
you would find a splendid skeleton underneath. For, mind this!
there's no such thing as a finely made woman without a good bony
scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don't think much of
this lady--morally speaking, you will understand. If I may be
permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the
background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However,
not being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My
business with the lady was just to set her vital machinery going
again. And, Heaven knows, she proved a heavy handful! It was even
a more obstinate case to deal with, sir, than yours. I never, in
all my experience, met with two people more unwilling to come
back to this world and its troubles than you two were. And when I
had done the business at last, when I was wellnigh swooning
myself with the work and the worry of it, guess--I give you leave
to speak for this once--guess what were the first words the, lady
said to me when she came to herself again."
I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. "I
give it up!" I said, impatiently.
"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words
she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her
out of the very jaws of death were these: 'How dare you meddle
with me? why didn't you leave me to die?' Her exact
language--I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so provoked that I
gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own coin.
'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again. I, for
one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.' She
looked up sharply. 'Are you the man who took me out of the
river?' she said. 'God forbid!' says I. 'I'm only the doctor who
was fool enough to meddle with you afterward.' She turned to the
landlady. 'Who took me out of the river?' she asked. The landlady
told her, and mentioned your name. 'Germaine?' she said to
herself; 'I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder whether it was
the man who spoke to me on the bridge?' 'Yes,' says the landlady;
'Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing that, she
took a little time to think; and then she asked if she could see
Mr. Germaine. 'Whoever he is,' she says, 'he has risked his life
to save me, and I ought to thank him for doing that.' 'You can't
thank him tonight,' I said; 'I've got him upstairs between life
and death, and I've sent for his mother: wait till to-morrow.'
She turned on me, looking half frightened, half angry. 'I can't
wait,' she says; 'you don't know what you have done among you in
bringing me back to life. I must leave this neighborhood; I must
be out of Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first coach
southward pass this way?' Having nothing to do with the first
coach southward, I referred her to the people of the inn. My
business (now I had done with the lady) was upstairs in this
room, to see how you were getting on. You were getting on as well
as I could wish, and your mother was at your bedside. I went home
to see what sick people might be waiting for me in the regular
way. When I came back this morning, there was the foolish
landlady with a new tale to tell 'Gone!' says she. 'Who's gone?'
says I. 'The lady,' says she, 'by the first coach this morning!'
"
"You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house?" I
exclaimed.
"Oh, but I do!" said the doctor, as positively as ever. "Ask
madam your mother here, and she'll certify it to your heart's
content. I've got other sick ones to visit, and I'm away on my
rounds. You'll see no more of the lady; and so much the better,
I'm thinking. In two hours' time I'll be back again; and if I
don't find you the worse in the interim, I'll see about having
you transported from this strange place to the snug bed that
knows you at home. Don't let him talk, ma'am, don't let him
talk."
With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves.
"Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left the inn,
without waiting to see me?"
"Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. "The lady
left the inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh."
I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: "bitterly" is the word--though
she _was_ a stranger to me.
"Did you see her yourself?" I asked.
"I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your
room."
"What did she say?"
"She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 'Tell Mr.
Germaine that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can
help me. I must go away. My old life is as much at an end as if
your son had left me to drown in the river. I must find a new
life for myself, in a new place. Ask Mr. Germaine to forgive me
for going away without thanking him. I daren't wait! I may be
followed and found out. There is a person whom I am determined
never to see again--never! never! never! Good-by; and try to
forgive me!' She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I
tried to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was
compelled to leave her. There is some dreadful calamity, George,
in that wretched woman's life. And such an interesting creature,
too! It was impossible not to pity her, whether she deserved it
or not. Everything about her is a mystery, my dear. She speaks
English without the slightest foreign accent, and yet she has a
foreign name."
"Did she give you her name?"
"No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady
here is not a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at
the poor creature's linen while it was drying by the fire. The
name marked on it was, 'Van Brandt.' "
"Van Brandt?" I repeated. "That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet
you say she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in
England."
"Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; "and Van
Brandt may be the name of her husband."
The idea of her being a married woman had something in it
repellent to me. I wished my mother had not thought of that last
suggestion. I refused to receive it. I persisted in my own belief
that the stranger was a single woman. In that character, I could
indulge myself in the luxury of thinking of her; I could consider
the chances of my being able to trace this charming fugitive, who
had taken so strong a hold on my interest--whose desperate
attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my own life.
If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do,
being bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her
again--in that great city. and in my present weak state of
health--looked doubtful indeed. Still, there was an underlying
hopefulness in me which kept my spirits from being seriously
depressed. I felt a purely imaginary (perhaps I ought to say, a
purely superstitious) conviction that we who had nearly died
together, we who had been brought to life together, were surely
destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to
us both. "I fancy I shall see her again," was my last thought
before my weakness overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful
sleep.
That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and
that night I saw her again in a dream.
The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far
different image of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the
days of old. The dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had
seen it robed on the bridge. She wore the same broad-brimmed
garden-hat of straw. She looked at me as she had looked when I
approached her in the dim evening light. After a little her face
brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and she whispered in
my ear, "Friend, do you know me?"
I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an
incomprehensible after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my
dream as the stranger who had so warmly interested me, I was,
nevertheless, dissatisfied with myself, as if it had not been the
right recognition. I awoke with this idea; and I slept no more
that night.
In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving with my
mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which
had once belonged to Mr. Germaine.
On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little
waterfall in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration
of the place, and had often expressed a wish to possess some
memorial of it. I resolved to take my sketch-book: with me, on
the chance that I might be able to please her by making a drawing
of her favorite scene.
Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I
found it in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since
my departure for India. In the course of my investigation, I
opened a drawer in the desk, and discovered a relic of the old
times--my poor little Mary's first work in embroidery, the green
flag!
The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the
bailiff's cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her
confident prediction about Mary and me.
I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no human
power could "hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the
children in the time to come." What had become of the prophesied
dreams in which we were to communicate with each other through
the term of our separation? Years had passed; and, sleeping or
waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years had passed; and the
first vision of a woman that had come to me had been my dream a
few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from drowning.
I thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not
contemptuously or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing
its way into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to
myself, "Ah, poor little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in
grateful memory of the days that were gone forever.
We drove to the waterfall.
It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its
brightest and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect
of the falling stream, had been built for the accommodation of
pleasure parties by the proprietor of the place. My mother
suggested that I should try to make a sketch of the view from
this point. I did my best to please her, but I was not satisfied
with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it was half
finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the
summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden
bridge which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how
the landscape looked from a new point of view.
The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank,
presented even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like
me, than the prospect which he had just left. We returned to the
summer-house.
I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in
my advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no
longer empty as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table
with my pencil in her hand, writing in my sketch-book!
After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the
door, and stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in
the summer-house was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who
had attempted to destroy herself from the bridge!
There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the
memorable face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had
dreamed of only a few nights since! The woman herself--I saw her
as plainly as I saw the sun shining on the waterfall--the woman
herself, with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book!
My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation.
"George!" she exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?"
I pointed through the open door of the summer-house.
"Well?" said my mother. "What am I to look at?"
"Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my
sketch-book?"
My mother eyed me quickly. "Is he going to be ill again?" I heard
her say to herself.
At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly
to her feet.
She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her
hand and beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. Moving without
conscious will of my own, drawn nearer and nearer to her by an
irresistible power, I ascended the short flight of stairs which
led into the summer-house. Within a few paces of her I stopped.
She advanced a step toward me, and laid her hand gently on my
bosom. Her touch filled me with strangely united sensations of
rapture and awe. After a while, she spoke in low melodious tones,
which mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the falling
water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur, I
heard in the voice, these words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her
hand dropped from my bosom; a momentary obscurity passed like a
flying shadow over the bright daylight in the room. I looked for
her when the light came back. She was gone.
My consciousness of passing events returned.
I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the
evening was at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the
summerhouse to take us away. I felt my mother's hand on my arm,
and heard her voice speaking to me anxiously. I was able to reply
by a sign entreating her not to be uneasy about me, but I could
do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul, in the one desire to
look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I had seen the woman, so
certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand, writing in
my book.
I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I
looked at the blank space on the lower part of the page, under
the foreground lines of my unfinished drawing. My mother,
following me, looked at the page too.
There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were
her written words left behind her: visible to my mother as well
as to me, readable by my mother's eyes as well as by mine!
These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy
them here:
When the full moon shines
On Saint Anthony's Well.
CHAPTER IX.
NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL.
I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my
mother. I was not mistaken. She _had_ seen it, as I had seen it.
But she refused to acknowledge that anything had happened to
alarm her--plainly as I could detect it in her face.
"Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she said.
I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother
was evidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow
explanation as I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We
set forth in silence on our drive home.
The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it;
my mind was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition
beckoned me into the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words
and the writing together, the conclusion was too plain to be
mistaken. The woman whom I had saved from drowning had need of me
again.
And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had
not hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house
in which we had been sheltered together--without stopping to say
one grateful word to the man who had preserved her from death!
Four days only had elapsed since she had left me, never (to all
appearance) to see me again. And now the ghostly apparition of
her had returned as to a tried and trusted friend; had commanded
me to remember her and to go to her; and had provided against all
possibility of my memory playing me false, by writing the words
which invited me to meet her "when the full moon shone on Saint
Anthony's Well."
What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural
manner of her communication with me mean? What ought my next
course of action to be?
My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her
hand, and suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the
sight of the writing in it were unendurable to her.
"Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep
your thoughts to yourself?"
"My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest
nothing and explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one
question of what I am to do next. On that point I believe I may
say that my mind is made up." I touched the sketch-book as I
spoke. "Come what may of it," I said, "I mean to keep the
appointment."
My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own
senses.
"He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George,
you don't really believe that you saw somebody in the
summer-house? The place was empty. I tell you positively, when
you pointed into the summer-house, the place was empty. You have
been thinking and thinking of this woman till you persuade
yourself that you have actually seen her."
I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on
this page," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong."
My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in
taking the rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened
her.
"It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying
between life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk
of keeping the appointment, in your state of health? An
appointment with a shadowy Something in your own imagination,
which appears and disappears, and leaves substantial writing
behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder you can help
laughing at yourself."
She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in
her eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to
regret having opened my mind so freely to her.
"Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I
may not be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint
Anthony's Well; I have not the least idea where it is. Suppose I
make the discovery, and suppose the journey turns out to be an
easy one, would you like to go with me?"
"God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to
do with it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak
to the doctor."
"By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person.
We pass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner.
In the meantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see
the doctor."
I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was
sadly disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest
noises on the road startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr.
MacGlue, who looked at all mortal matters from the same immovably
practical point of view, might really have its use, in my case,
as a species of moral remedy.
We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants
had left the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch
doctor as I have told it here; and, that done, I opened the
sketch-book to let him see the writing for himself.
Had I turned to the wrong page?
I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the
lamp that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right
page. There was my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but
where were the two lines of writing beneath?
Gone!
I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white
paper looked back at me.
I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly
as I did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the
bottom of the page."
My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror.
"Gone?" I asked.
"Gone!"
I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No
incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed
his lips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting
gravely to hear more.
"I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I
saw the apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that
page. I declare that I took the book in my hand, and saw these
words written in it, 'When the full moon shines on Saint
Anthony's Well.' Not more than three hours have passed since that
time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige of the writing
remains."
"Not a vestige of the writing remains, " Mr. MacGlue repeated,
quietly.
"If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went
on, "ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the
writing too."
"I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr.
MacGlue, with a composure that surprised me.
"Can you account for it?" I asked.
"Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work,
I believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of some
people. For example, I might give you what they call the rational
explanation, to begin with. I might say that you are, to my
certain knowledge, in a highly excited nervous condition; and
that, when you saw the apparition (as you call it), you simply
saw nothing but your own strong impression of an absent woman,
who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or amatory side of
you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--"
"I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking
plainly--the rational explanation is thrown away on me."
"I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that
I'm entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational
explanation myself."
This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What _do_ you
believe in?" I inquired.
Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him.
"Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation
to try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of
your mind better than the other. We will say this time that you
have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living person. Very
good. If you can suppose a disembodied spirit to appear in
earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as the case may be--it's no
great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable
of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a
mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your
ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing
should follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the
vanishment may be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost
does not like letting a stranger like me into its secrets, or
that vanishing is a settled habit of ghosts and of everything
associated with them, or that this ghost has changed its mind in
the course of three hours (being the ghost of a woman, I am sure
that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see you 'when the full
moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the _ir_rational
explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to add
that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either."
Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question
began to irritate me.
"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the
circumstances that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious
investigation?"
"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the
circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you
put it right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are
alive and hearty at this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good
Mistress Germaine or yourself were to fall down dead in another
moment, I, doctor as I am, could no more explain what first
principle of life and movement had been suddenly extinguished in
you than the dog there sleeping on the hearth-rug. If I am
content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an impenetrable
mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every time I see
a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may I
not sit down content in the face of your lady in the
summer-house, and say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and
there is an end of her?"
At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first
time.
"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take
your sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe
it?--he positively means (if he can find the place) to go to
Saint Anthony's Well!"
Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue.
"Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does
he? Well, I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his
resolution. I can tell him of another man who kept a written
appointment with a ghost, and what came of it."
This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he
said?
"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked.
"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person really
believes in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at
the head of our profession who has ever been discovered in high
spirits (in medical hours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You
may have wondered, I dare say, at seeing me take your strange
narrative as coolly as I do. It comes naturally, sir. Yours is
not the first story of a ghost and a pencil that I have heard."
"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man
who has seen what I have seen?"
"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The
man was a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the
honorable name of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take
another glass of the sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the
vulgar saying is, before I begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was
mate of a bark at the time I'm speaking of, and he was on a
voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At noon one day, he and
the captain, having taken their observation of the sun, were hard
at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on their
slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door
of the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says
Brace. The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did
Bruce see? The face of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face
of a total stranger! Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full
gallop all in a moment, and searches for the captain on deck, and
finds him much as usual, with his calculations done, and his
latitude and longitude off his mind for the day. 'There's
somebody at your des k, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing on your
slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my
cabin?' says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six
weeks out of port. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know
how, but he sticks to his story. Away goes the captain, and
bursts like a whirlwind into his cabin, and finds nobody there.
Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge that the place is
certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a sober man,' says
the captain, 'I should charge you with drinking. As it is, I'll
hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't do it
again, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw
the man writing on the captain's slate. The captain takes up the
slate and looks at it. 'Lord save us and bless us!' says he;
'here the writing is, sure enough !' Bruce looks at it too, and
sees the writing as plainly as can be, in these words: 'Steer to
the nor'-west.' That, and no more.--Ah, goodness me, narrating is
dry work, Mr. Germaine. With your leave, I'll take another drop
of the sherry wine.
"Well (it's fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running
down the glass)--well, steering to the north-west, you will
understand, was out of the captain's course. Nevertheless,
finding no solution of the mystery on board the ship, and the
weather at the time being fine, the captain determined, while the
daylight lasted, to alter his course, and see what came of it.
Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an iceberg came of it; with
a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice; and the
passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion.
Wonderful enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the
mate was helping one of the rescued passengers up the side of the
bark, who should he turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly
appearance Bruce had seen in the captain's cabin writing on the
captain's slate! And more than that--if your capacity for being
surprised isn't clean worn out by this time--the passenger
recognized the bark as the very vessel which he had seen in a
dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one of the
officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 'We shall be
rescued to-day,' he had said; and he had exactly described the
rig of the bark hours and hours before the vessel herself hove in
view. Now you know, Mr. Germaine, how my wife's far-away cousin
kept an appointment with a ghost, and what came of it."*
Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself to
another glass of the "sherry wine." I was not satisfied yet; I
wanted to know more.
"The writing on the slate," I said. "Did it remain there, or did
it vanish like the writing in my book?"
Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had
never heard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told
me all that he knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and
that was in the nature of a remark with a moral attached to it.
"There's a marvelous resemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your
story and Bruce's story. The main difference, as I see it, is
this. The passenger's appointment proved to be the salvation of a
whole ship's company. I very much doubt whether the lady's
appointment will prove to be the salvation of You."
I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just been
related to me. Another man had seen what I had seen--had done
what I proposed to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure
the strong impression which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind.
"I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she said,
sharply.
"May I ask why, madam?"
"You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to Saint
Anthony's Well."
Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he
replied.
"It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. "That
gives Mr. Germaine some days of rest, ma'am,. before he takes the
journey. If he travels in his own comfortable carriage--whatever
I may think, morally speaking, of his enterprise--I can't say,
medically speaking, that I believe it will do him much harm."
"You know where Saint Anthony's Well is?" I interposed.
"I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that,"
replied the doctor.
"Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?"
"It's just outside Edinburgh--looks down on it, as you may say.
You follow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You
turn to your right past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross
the Park and the Drive, and take your way upward to the ruins of
Anthony's Chapel, on the shoulder of the hill--and there you are!
There's a high rock behind the chapel, and at the foot of it you
will find the spring they call Anthony's Well. It's thought a
pretty view by moonlight; and they tell me it's no longer beset
at night by bad characters, as it used to be in the old time."
My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire to
the drawing-room.
"I confess you have disappointed me," she said to Mr. MacGlue. "I
should have thought you would have been the last man to encourage
my son in an act of imprudence."
"Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no encouragement.
I can see for myself that his mind is made up. Where is the use
of a person like me trying to stop him? Dear madam, if he won't
profit by your advice, what hope can I have that he will take
mine?"
Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the
deepest respect, and threw open the door for my mother to pass
out.
When we were left together over our wine, I asked the doctor how
soon I might safely start on my journey to Edinburgh.
"Take two days to do the journey, and you may start, if you're
bent on it, at the beginning of the week. But mind this," added
the prudent doctor, "though I own I'm anxious to hear what comes
of your expedition--understand at the same time, so far as the
lady is concerned, that I wash my hands of the consequences." --
* The doctor's narrative is not imaginary. It will be found
related in full detail, and authenticated by names and dates, in
Robert Dale Owen's very interesting work called "Footfalls on the
Boundary of Another World." The author gladly takes this
opportunity of acknowledging his obligations to Mr. Owen's
remarkable book.
CHAPTER X.
SAINT ANTHONY'S WELL.
I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of Saint
Anthony's Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburgh
and of the old Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of the
full moon.
The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, was
behind the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the
ruin, partly to recover my breath after ascending the hill;
partly, I own, to master the nervous agitation which the sense of
my position at that moment had aroused in me. The woman, or the
apparition of the woman--it might be either--was perhaps within a
few yards of the place that I occupied. Not a living creature
appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught my ear from
any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole attention
on the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My
mind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. My
mind was with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-house
writing in my book.
I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over
the broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the
high boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed
brightly in the light of the moon.
She was there.
I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock,
with her hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I
recognized her face as she looked up quickly, startled by the
sound of my footsteps in the deep stillness of the night.
Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited,
looking at her in silence.
She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound
that I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had
heard on the bridge when we first met in the dim evening light.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!"
she went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise . "What
does this mean?"
"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment."
She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight
shone full upon her face. There was terror as well as
astonishment in her eyes while they now looked at me.
"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you since
you spoke to me on the bridge."
"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance of
you--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write."
She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled
resentment and curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What did
I write?"
"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the full
moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' "
"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?"
"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Do
you know the place?"
Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst
from her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I
hurriedly approached her, in the fear that she might fall on the
stony ground.
She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she
exclaimed. "Stand back, sir. You frighten me."
I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am.
Can you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of
saving your life?"
Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without
hesitation, and took me by the hand.
"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not so
ungrateful as I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was mad
with misery when I tried to drown myself. Don't distrust me!
Don't despise me!" She stopped; I saw the tears on her cheeks.
With a sudden contempt for herself, she dashed them away. Her
whole tone and manner altered once more. Her reserve returned;
she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and defiance
in her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "you
were dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see
me; you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar
words to a stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try to
frighten me by talking of it as if it was a real thing!" She
changed again; her eyes softened to the sad and tender look which
made them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew her cloak round her
with a shudder, as if she felt the chill of the night air. "What
is the matter with me?" I heard her say to herself. "Why do I
trust this man in my dreams? And why am I ashamed of it when I
wake?"
That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know
that I had overheard her last words.
"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said.
"Do me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--you
are in trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to help
you."
She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature
drew it away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be
the fear of letting me touch her.
"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what I
have got to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write.
Are you staying in Edinburgh?"
I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--with
this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the
address of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by
the moonlight when I put it into her hand.
"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as
the name passed her lips. " 'George Germaine.' I never heard of
'Germaine.' But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiled
sadly at some passing fancy or remembrance in which I was not
permitted to share. "There is nothing very wonderful in your
being called 'George,' " she went on, after a while. "The name is
common enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man's name And
yet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, "I am
not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called
'George.' "
So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery!
If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my
Christian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in the
briefest and most guarded terms of her past life--the barrier
between us, which the change in our names and the lapse of ten
years had raised, must have been broken down; the recognition
must have followed. But I never even thought of it; and for this
simple reason--I was in love with her. The purely selfish idea of
winning my way to her favorable regard by taking instant
advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the
one idea which occurred to my mind.
"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off till
to-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I
deserve some little return for the sympathy that I feel with you?
I don't ask for much. Make me happy by making me of some service
to you before we part to-night."
I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole
woman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in
mine; her charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and
nearer to me; her head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured
in faint accents, broken by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. I
am so friendless; I am so completely in your power." Before I
could answer, before I could move, her hand closed on mine; her
head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears.
Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected
her at that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away
gently past the ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill.
"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk a
little, and you will soon be yourself again."
She smiled through her tears like a child.
"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentally
taken the direction which led away from the city; she begged me
to turn toward the houses and the streets. We walked back toward
Edinburgh. She eyed me, as we went on in the moonlight, with
innocent, wondering looks. "What an unaccountable influence you
have over me!" she exclaimed.
"Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we met
that evening at the river?"
"Never."
"And I never heard _your_ name, and never saw _you_ before.
Strange! very strange! Ah! I remember somebody--only an old
woman, sir--who might once have explained it. Where shall I find
the like of her now?"
She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidently
been dear to her. "A relation of yours?" I inquired--more to keep
her talking than because I felt any interest in any member of her
family but herself.
We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreed
that we were to advance no further.
"Don't ask me about my relations!" she broke out. "I daren't
think of the dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now.
If I speak of the old times at home, I shall only burst out
crying again, and distress you. Talk of something else, sir--talk
of something else."
The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not cleared
up yet. I took my opportunity of approaching the subject.
"You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I began.
"Tell me your dream."
"I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was something
else," she answered. "I call it a dream for want of a better
word."
"Did it happen at night?"
"No. In the daytime--in the afternoon."
"Late in the afternoon?"
"Yes--close on the evening."
My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the shipwrecked
passenger, whose ghostly "double" had appeared in the vessel that
was to rescue him, and who had himself seen that vessel in a
dream.
"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked.
She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day
when my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour
when I had seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in my
book!
I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this
time nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace
of Holyrood. My companion, after a glance at me, turned and
looked at the rugged old building, mellowed into quiet beauty by
the lovely moonlight.
"This is my fa vorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have been
in Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the perfect
tranquillity here at night." She glanced at me again. "What is
the matter?" she asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me."
"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come to
be sleeping in the daytime?"
"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as we
walked on again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my
helpless condition keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I
remember, and I had no appetite. I went upstairs (at the inn
where I am staying), and lay down, quite worn out, on my bed. I
don't know whether I fainted or whether I slept; I lost all
consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got some other
consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only say
it was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life."
"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired.
"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a table
in a summer-house."
"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?"
She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the
waterfall from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding,
of my sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at home
in Perthshire!
"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what you
wrote?"
She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to
recall this part of her dream.
"You have mentioned it already," she said. There is no need for
me to go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ were
at the summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the
door before you went in?"
I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing
in my book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she
had done or dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered
the summer-house.
"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones.
"If you had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more
familiarly. I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand
on your bosom. I spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldest
and dearest friend. I said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I was
so ashamed of myself when I came to my senses again, and
recollected it. Was there ever such familiarity--even in a
dream--between a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, and
then as a perfect stranger?"
"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time when
you lay down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake
again?"
"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time of
the house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long
after I had come to myself I heard a church clock strike the
hour. Reckoning from one time to the other, it must have been
quite three hours from the time when I first lay down to the time
when I got up again."
Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be
found here?
Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to
think that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the
apparition of her had vanished. In three hours she had come to
herself, and had felt ashamed of the familiar manner in which she
had communicated with me in her sleeping state. While she had
trusted me in the trance--trusted me because her spirit was then
free to recognize my spirit--the writing had remained on the
page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of her
sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation?
If it is not, where is the explanation to be found?
We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street
in which she lodged. We stopped at the door.
CHAPTER XI.
THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.
I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of
respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that
night, the time had come to speak of other subjects than the
subject of dreams.
"After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask you to
admit me any further into your confidence until we meet again.
Only let me hear how I can relieve your most pressing anxieties.
What are your plans? Can I do anything to help them before you go
to rest to-night?"
She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and
down the street in evident embarrassment what to say next.
"Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?" I asked.
"Oh no! I don't wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much
further away. I think I should do better in London; at some
respectable milliner's, if I could be properly recommended. I am
quick at my needle, and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep
accounts, if--if anybody would trust me."
She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from
sure, poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted
on that hint, with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in
love.
"I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I said,
"whenever you like. Now, if you would prefer it."
Her charming features brightened with pleasure. "Oh, you are
indeed a friend to me!" she said, impulsively. Her face clouded
again--she saw my proposal in a new light. "Have I any right,"
she asked, sadly, "to accept what you offer me?"
"Let me give you the letter," I answered, "and you can decide for
yourself whether you will use it or not."
I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn.
She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she
saw her lodger enter the house at night in company with a
stranger, and that stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as
she made the objection. Reckless what I said or what I did, I
introduced myself as her relative, and asked to be shown into a
quiet room in which I could write a letter. After one sharp
glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that she was
dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor
behind the "bar," placed writing materials on the table, looked
at my companion as only one woman can look at another under
certain circumstances, and left us by ourselves.
It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone.
The embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color
and brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the
table, confused and irresolute, her firm and supple figure
falling into an attitude of unsought grace which it was literally
a luxury to look at. I said nothing; my eyes confessed my
admiration; the writing materials lay untouched before me on the
table. How long the silence might have lasted I cannot say. She
abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that silence might
have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with an
effort; she said, uneasily, "I don't think you ought to write
your letter to-night, sir."
"Why not?"
"You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a
person who is a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger.
I am a miserable wretch who has tried to commit a great sin--I
have tried to destroy myself. Perhaps the misery I was in might
be some excuse for me, if you knew it. You ought to know it. But
it's so late to-night, and I am so sadly tired--and there are
some things, sir, which it is not easy for a woman to speak of in
the presence of a man."
Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little;
she said no more. The way to reassure and console her lay plainly
enough before me, if I chose to take it. Without stopping to
think, I took it.
Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we
met that evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the
sad story of her troubles until it was convenient to her to send
me the narrative in the form of a letter. "In the mean time," I
added, "I have the most perfect confidence in you; and I beg as a
favor that you will let me put it to the proof. I can introduce
you to a dressmaker in London who is at the head of a large
establishment, and I will do it before I leave you to-night."
I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess
frankly the lengths to which my infatuation led me. The
dressmaker to whom I had alluded had been my mother's maid in f
ormer years, and had been established in business with money lent
by my late step-father, Mr. Germaine. I used both their names
without scruple; and I wrote my recommendation in terms which the
best of living women and the ablest of existing dressmakers could
never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find excuses for me?
Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have not
completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It
matters little; I don't deserve them.
I handed her the open letter to read.
She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at
me, which I remembered but too well for many and many an
after-day. The next moment, to my astonishment, this changeable
creature changed again. Some forgotten consideration seemed to
have occurred to her. She turned pale; the soft lines of pleasure
in her face hardened, little by little; she regarded me with the
saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the letter down
before me on the table, she said, timidly:
"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?"
I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and
took up the pen again.
"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken
on trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice
sunk lower and lower, so that I could barely hear the next
words--"for more than three months, certain."
It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in
the nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from
showing some curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of
recommendation by such a postscript as this.
"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked.
"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding
mine.
An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found
its way into my mind.
"Have you some absent friend," I went on, "who is likely to prove
a better friend than I am, if you only give him time?"
She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested
on me with a look of patient reproach.
"I have not got a friend in the world," she said. "For God's
sake, ask me no more questions to-night!"
I rose and gave her the letter once more--with the postscript
added, in her own words.
We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a
momentary silence.
"How can I thank you?" she murmured, softly. "Oh, sir, I will
indeed be worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!"
Her eyes moistened; her variable color came and went; her dress
heaved softly over the lovely outline of her bosom. I don't
believe the man lives who could have resisted her at that moment.
I lost all power of restraint; I caught her in my arms; I
whispered, "I love you!" I kissed her passionately. For a moment
she lay helpless and trembling on my breast; for a moment her
fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant more it was
over. She tore herself away with a shudder that shook her from
head to foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her
indignantly at my feet.
"How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!" she
said. "Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will
never speak to you again. You don't know what you have done. You
don't know how deeply you have wounded me. Oh!" she cried,
throwing herself in despair on a sofa that stood near her, "shall
I ever recover my self-respect? shall I ever forgive myself for
what I have done to-night?"
I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance and regret
in words which did really come from my heart. The violence of her
agitation more than distressed me--I was really alarmed by it.
She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet with
modest dignity, and silently held out her hand in token that my
repentance was accepted.
"You will give me time for atonement?" I pleaded. "You will not
lose all confidence in me? Let me see you again, if it is only to
show that I am not quite unworthy of your pardon--at your own
time; in the presence of another person, if you like."
"I will write to you," she said.
"To-morrow?"
"To-morrow."
I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor.
"Make your goodness to me complete," I said. "Don't mortify me by
refusing to take my letter."
"I will take your letter," she answered, quietly. "Thank you for
writing it. Leave me now, please. Good-night."
I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left her,
with my mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which gradually
resolved themselves into two master-feelings as I walked on:
Love, that adored her more fervently than ever; and Hope, that
set the prospect before me of seeing her again on the next day.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT.
A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bed
afterward if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rank
among the number of his reasonable anticipations the expectation
of getting a night's rest. The morning was well advanced, and the
hotel was astir, before I at last closed my eyes in slumber. When
I awoke, my watch informed me that it was close on noon.
I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand.
It had been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who had
driven to the hotel door in a carriage, and had then driven away
again. The man had found me sleeping when he entered my
bed-chamber, and, having received no orders to wake me overnight,
had left the letter on the sitting-room table until he heard my
bell.
Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. An
inclosure fell out of it--to which, for the moment, I paid no
attention. I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced
that the writer had escaped me for the second time: early that
morning she had left Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to be
my letter of introduction to the dressmaker returned to me.
I was more than angry with her--I felt her second flight from me
as a downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on my
clothes and was on my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast as
a horse could draw me.
The servants could give me no information. Her escape had been
effected without their knowledge.
The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberately
declined to assist me in any way whatever.
"I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate person,
"to answer not one word to any question that you may ask me about
her. In my belief, she is acting as becomes an honest woman in
removing herself from any further communication with you. I saw
you through the keyhole last night, sir. I wish you
good-morning."
Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried.
I traced the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down at
a shop, and had then been dismissed. I questioned the
shop-keeper. He remembered that he had sold some articles of
linen to a lady with her veil down and a traveling-bag in her
hand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a description of
her in the different coach offices. Three "elegant young ladies,
with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands,"
answered to the description; and which of the three was the
fugitive of whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover.
In the days of railways and electric telegraphs I might have
succeeded in tracing her. In the days of which I am now writing,
she set investigation at defiance.
I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the
pen might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any
other way. Here is the narrative that she addressed to me, copied
from the original, word for word:
"DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in
Perthshire. After what took place last night, I have no other
choice (knowing my own weakness, and the influence that you seem
to have over me) than to thank you gratefully for your kindness,
and to bid you farewell. My sad position must be my excuse for
separating myself from you in this rude manner, and for venturing
to send you back your letter of introduction. If I use the
letter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me. For
your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must never
give you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I must
go away, leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly
discover me.
"But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion
and your courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what
the provocation was that drove me to drowning myself, and what my
situation is, now that I am (thanks to you) still a living woman.
You shall hear my sad story, sir; and I will try to tell it as
briefly as possible.
"I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose
name is Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family
particulars. I have endeavored to write and tell you about my
dear lost father and my old home. But the tears come into my eyes
when I think of my happy past life. I really cannot see the lines
as I try to write them.
"Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended
to my good father before I married. I have only now discovered
that he obtained these recommendations from his friends under a
false pretense, which it is needless to trouble you by mentioning
in detail. Ignorant of what he had done, I lived with him
happily. I cannot truly declare that he was the object of my
first love, but he was the one person in the world whom I had to
look up to after my father's death. I esteemed him and respected
him, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed make him a
good wife.
"So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening
came when you and I met on the bridge.
"I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when the
maid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in a
carriage at the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. Van
Brandt. I sent the maid on before to show her into the
sitting-room, and I followed to receive my visitor as soon as I
had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, with a flushed,
fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. Van Brandt?'
she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?' she
asked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset my
temper. I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face.
'Send for Van Brandt,' she said. I went out into the passage and
called him down from the room upstairs in which he was writing.
'Ernest,' I said, 'here is a person who has insulted me. Come
down directly.' He left his room the moment he heard me. The
woman followed me out into the passage to meet him. She made him
a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he set eyes on
her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake, what
does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You
shall know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to
the house till I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he
was so unlike himself, that I declare he daunted me. I let him
take me as far as the garden door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my
sake, darling,' he whispered, 'do what I ask of you.' I went into
the garden and sat me down on the nearest bench, and waited
impatiently for what was to come.
"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a
pitch at last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to
the house.
"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to
the parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and
opened the door.
"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in
my husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it
and read it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced,
ruined. The woman with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was
Van Brandt's lawful wife. She had given him his choice of going
away with her at once or of being prosecuted for bigamy. He had
gone away with her--gone, and left me.
"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no
friends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to
comfort or advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a
temper which feels even the smallest slights and injuries very
keenly. Do you wonder at what I had it in my thoughts to do that
evening on the bridge?
"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy
myself if I could only have burst out crying. No tears came to
me. A dull, stunned feeling took hold like a vise on my head and
on my heart. I walked straight to the river. I said to myself,
quite calmly, as I went along, '_There_ is the end of it, and the
sooner the better.'
"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on
to the next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you
at the inn by the river-side.
"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first
conveyance that I could find to take me, and this was the fear
that Van Brandt might discover me if I remained in Perthshire.
The letter that he had left on the table was full of expressions
of love and remorse, to say nothing of excuses for his infamous
behavior to me. He declared that he had been entrapped into a
private marriage with a profligate woman when he was little more
than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. When
he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she was
dead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she
had discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out.
Knowing her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one
means of preventing an application to the justices and a scandal
in the neighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase his
release from her by an addition to the allowance which she had
already received from him: he would return to me and take me
abroad, out of the way of further annoyance. I was his wife in
the sight of Heaven; I was the only woman he had ever loved; and
so on, and so on.
"Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me
if I remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made
my flesh creep. I was determined never again to see the man who
had so cruelly deceived me. I am in the same mind still--with
this difference, that I might consent to see him, if I could be
positively assured first of the death of his wife. That is not
likely to happen. Let me get on with my letter, and tell you what
I did on my arrival in Edinburgh.
"The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where
you found me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my
father, living in Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what
a forlorn position I found myself.
"I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his
wife requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They
had business then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and
I might expect to see them both with the least possible delay.
"They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed
themselves civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a
small sum of money when they found how poorly my purse was
furnished. But I don't think either husband or wife felt much for
me. They recommended me, at parting, to apply to my father's
other relatives, living in England. I may be doing them an
injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me (as the common
phrase is) off their hands.
"The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless
was also the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you
which I have already related. I lingered on at the house in the
Canongate, partly because the landlady was kind to me, partly
because I was so depressed by my position that I really did not
know what to do next.
"In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite
walk of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me,
your kind interest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an
ungrateful woman. I could ask Providence for no greater blessing
than to find a brother and a friend in you. You have yourself
destroyed that hope by what you said and did when we were
together in the parlor. I don't blame you: I am afraid my manner
(without my knowing it) might have seemed to give you some
encouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have no
honorable choice left but never to see you again.
"After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those
other relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The
chance that they may help me to earn an honest living is the one
chance that I have left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you
prosperity and happiness from the bottom of my heart; and remain,
your grateful servant,
"M. VAN BRANDT.
"P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was
mine) as a proof that I have honestly written the truth about
myself, from first to last. For the future I must, for safety's
sake, live under some other name. I should like to go back to my
name when I was a happy girl at home. But Van Brandt knows it;
and, besides, I have (no matter how innocently) disgraced it.
Good-by again, sir; and thank you again."
So the letter concluded.
I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and
thoroughly unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had
done, she had done wrong. It was wrong of her, in the first
place, to have married at all. It was wrong of her to contemplate
receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if his lawful wife had died
in the interval. It was wrong of her to return my letter of
introduction, after I had given myself the trouble of altering it
to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take an
absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration,
and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van
Brandt himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her
to sign her Christian name in initial only. Here I was,
passionately in love with a woman, and not knowing by what fond
name to identify her in my thoughts! "M. Van Brandt!" I might
call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, Magdalen, Mary--no, not
Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but I owed some
respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days were
still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me as
this woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to
think even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of
her at all? Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of
tracing her in her letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace
a woman who had gone I knew not whither, and who herself informed
me that she meant to pass under an assumed name. Had I lost all
pride, all self-respect? In the flower of my age, with a handsome
fortune, with the world before me, full of interesting female
faces and charming female figures, what course did it become me
to take? To go back to my country-house, and mope over the loss
of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to send for a
courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly among
foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at
that moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my
imagination. I first astonished the people at the hotel by
ordering all further inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt
to be stopped; and then I opened my writing desk and wrote to
tell my mother frankly and fully of my new plans.
The answer arrived by return of post.
To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with
only formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy
which I had not ventured to expect from her, she had made all her
arrangements for leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to
join me as my traveling companion. "You shall not go away alone,
George," she wrote, "while I have strength and spirits to keep
you company."
In three days from the time when I read those words our
preparations were completed, and we were on our way to the
Continent.
CHAPTER XIII.
NOT CURED YET.
WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from
England nearly two years.
Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the
image of Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my
mind?
No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of
Dame Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in
the time to come. For the first two or three months of our
travels I was haunted by dreams of the woman who had so
resolutely left me. Seeing her in my sleep, always graceful,
always charming, always modestly tender toward me, I waited in
the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her in my
waking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a given
place and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no
apparition showed itself. The dreams themselves grew less
frequent and less vivid and then ceased altogether. Was this a
sign that the days of her adversity were at an end? Having no
further need of help, had she no further remembrance of the man
who had tried to help her? Were we never to meet again?
I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don't
forget her now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say what
I might.
I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries
could show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society
that Paris, Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours
in the company of the most accomplished and most beautiful women
whom Europe could produce--and still that solitary figure at
Saint Anthony's Well, those grand gray eyes that had rested on me
so sadly at parting, held their place in my memory, stamped their
image on my heart.
Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it,
I still longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of
my mind from my mother. But her loving eyes discovered the
secret: she saw that I suffered, and suffered with me. More than
once she said: "George, the good end is not to be gained by
traveling; let us go home." More than once I answered, with the
bitter and obstinate resolution of despair: "No. Let us try more
new people and more new scenes." It was only when I found her
health and strength beginning to fail under the stress of
continual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless
search after oblivion, and to turn homeward at last.
I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London
before she returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in
Perthshire. It is needless to say that I remained in town with
her. My mother now represented the one interest that held me
nobly and endearingly to life. Politics, literature,
agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in my position--had
none of them the slightest attraction for me.
We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of the
season." Among the operatic attractions of that year--I am
writing of the days when the ballet was still a popular form of
public entertainment--there was a certain dancer whose grace and
beauty were the objects of universal admiration. I was asked if I
had seen her, wherever I went, until my social position, as the
one man who was indifferent to the reigning goddess of the stage,
became quite unendurable. On the next occasion when I was invited
to take a seat in a friend's box, I accepted the proposal; and
(far from willingly) I went the way of the world--in other words,
I went to the opera.
The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to
the theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused
themselves with looking for familiar faces in the boxes and
stalls. I took a chair in a corner and waited, with my mind far
away from the theater, from the dancing that was to come. The
lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies in general) disliked the
neighborhood of a silent man. She determined to make me talk to
her.
"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theater
anywhere so full as this theater is to-night?"
She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front
of the box to look at the audience.
It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space
(as I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of
the building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward,
my range of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that
distance, the excellent glass which had been put into my hands
brought the faces of the audience close to me. I looked first at
the pe rsons who occupied the front row of seats in the gallery
stalls.
Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the
seats, I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle.
My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body.
There was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces
near it. I had discovered Mrs. Van Brandt!
She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stall
immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from
time to time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with
something of a sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or
might not, find that out. Under any circumstances, I determined
to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt.
The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could
to my friends, and instantly left the box.
It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the
gallery. My money was refused. There was not even standing room
left in that part of the theater.
But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait
for Mrs. Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was
over.
Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen
sitting behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder?
While I paced backward and forward before the door, that one
question held possession of my mind, until the oppression of it
grew beyond endurance. I went back to my friends in the box,
simply and solely to look at the man again.
What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot
now remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I
borrowed it and kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that
vast audience, turned my back on the stage, and riveted my
attention on the gallery stalls.
There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance
spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van
Brandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in
the spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing
(so far as I could see) in an absent, weary manner. When the
applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries and clapping of
hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded
the theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the
marked indifference which she showed to the performance) tapped
her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was
quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of
the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had already
identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did
something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to
interfere. "If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you
had better leave us." He spoke with the authority of an old
friend. I had sense enough left to take his advice, and return to
my post at the gallery door.
A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience
began to pour out of the theater.
I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery
stairs, and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be
endless, she and her companion appeared, slowly descending the
stairs. She wore a long dark cloak; her head was protected by a
quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on _her_) the most becoming
head-dress that a woman could wear. As the two passed me, I heard
the man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance.
"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking
_you_ to the opera."
"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on
the ground. "I am out of spirits to-night."
"Will you ride home or walk?"
"I will walk, if you please."
I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her
until the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they
turned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was
close at her side, and then I took off my hat and spoke to her.
She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her
face brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of
delight that I ever saw on any human countenance. The moment
after, all was changed. The charming features saddened and
hardened. She stood before me like a woman overwhelmed by
shame--without uttering a word, without taking my offered hand.
Her companion broke the silence.
"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent,
with an under-bred insolence of tone and manner.
She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr.
Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me in
Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took
refuge, poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my
health. "I hope you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft,
sweet voice, trembling piteously.
I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at
the opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have the
honor of calling on you?"
Her companion answered for her before she could speak.
"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She
doesn't receive visitors. We both wish you good-night."
Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic
assumption of respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to
walk on abruptly with him. Feeling certainly assured by this time
that the man was no other than Van Brandt, I was on the point of
answering him sharply, when Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rash
words as they rose to my lips.
"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an
imploring look that instantly silenced me. After all, she was
free (if she liked) to go back to the man who had so vilely
deceived and deserted her. I bowed and left them, feeling with no
common bitterness the humiliation of entering into rivalry with
Mr. Van Brandt.
I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken
three steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold
on me again. I submitted, without a struggle against myself, to
the degradation of turning spy and following them home. Keeping
well behind, on the opposite side of the way, I tracked them to
their own door, and entered in my pocket-book the name of the
street and the number of the house.
The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more
contemptuously toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still
love a woman after she had deliberately preferred to me a
scoundrel who had married her while he was the husband of another
wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, I felt that I loved her just
as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it was shocking; but it was
true. For the first time in my life, I tried to take refuge from
my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my club, and
joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass
after glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling the
slightest sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instant
the consciousness of my own contemptible conduct. I went to my
bed in despair; and through the wakeful night I weakly cursed the
fatal evening at the river-side when I had met her for the first
time. But revile her as I might, despise myself as I might, I
loved her--I loved her still!
Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there were
two which must find their place in this narrative.
The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once
before, at the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van
Brandt.
"For your own sake" (the letter ran) "make no attempt to see me,
and take no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receive
with this note. I am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneath
your notice. You owe it to yourself, sir, to forget the miserable
woman who now writes to you for the last time, and bids you
gratefully a last farewell."
Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless to
say that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at all
hazards. I kissed the paper on which her hand had rested, and
then I turned to the second letter. It contained the "invitation"
to which my correspondent had alluded, and it was expressed in
these terms:
"Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, and
begs to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which he
received Mr. Germaine's polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffers
habitually from nervous irritability, and he felt particularly
ill last night. He trusts Mr. Germaine will receive this candid
explanation in the spirit in which it is offered; and he begs to
add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted to receive Mr.
Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her with a
visit."
That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to serve
in writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that the
unhappy woman who bore his name was heartily ashamed of the
proceeding on which he had ventured, were conclusions easily
drawn after reading the two letters. The suspicion of the man and
of his motives which I naturally felt produced no hesitation in
my mind as to the course which I had determined to pursue. On the
contrary, I rejoiced that my way to an interview with Mrs. Van
Brandt was smoothed, no matter with what motives, by Mr. Van
Brandt himself.
I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer.
Leaving a message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense of
shame enough left to shrink from facing her), I hastened away to
profit by my invitation on the very day when I received it.
CHAPTER XIV.
MRS. VAN BRANDT AT HOME.
As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was opened
from within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt himself
stood before me. He had his hat on. We had evidently met just as
he was going out.
"My dear sir, how good this is of you! You present the best of
all replies to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. Van Brandt
is at home. Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted. Pray walk in."
He threw open the door of a room on the ground-floor. His
politeness was (if possible) even more offensive than his
insolence. "Be seated, Mr. Germaine, I beg of you." He turned to
the open door, and called up the stairs, in a loud and confident
voice:
"Mary! come down directly."
"Mary"! I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it through
Van Brandt. No words can tell how the name jarred on me, spoken
by his lips. For the first time for years past my mind went back
to Mary Dermody and Greenwater Broad. The next moment I heard the
rustling of Mrs. Van Brandt's dress on the stairs. As the sound
caught my ear, the old times and the old faces vanished again
from my thoughts as completely as if they had never existed. What
had _she_ in common with the frail, shy little child, her
namesake, of other days? What similarity was perceivable in the
sooty London lodging-house to remind me of the bailiff's
flower-scented cottage by the shores of the lake?
Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sickening
servility.
"I have a business appointment," he said, "which it is impossible
to put off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will do the honors.
Good morning."
The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of the dress
came slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before me.
"Mr. Germaine!" she exclaimed, starting back, as if the bare
sight of me repelled her. "Is this honorable? Is this worthy of
you? You allow me to be entrapped into receiving you, and you
accept as your accomplice Mr. Van Brandt! Oh, sir, I have
accustomed myself to look up to you as a high-minded man. How
bitterly you have disappointed me!"
Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her
color; they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at
her.
"If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would
understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings
me into your presence again after two years of absence."
She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny
on my face.
"There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have
received my letter, or you have not read it?"
"I have received it, and I have read it."
"And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?"
"Yes."
She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered
her face with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have
distressed, but to have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I
heard her say. "I thought I might trust in _his_ sense of what
was due to himself and of what was compassionate toward me."
I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her
hands from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me
with a cold and steady surprise.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation,"
I said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart
is yours, whose whole life is bound up in you."
She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as
if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted
my last words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me,
and struck her open hand on the table with a passionate
resolution which I now saw in her for the first time.
"Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end
there shall be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the
house? Answer me, Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest."
There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in
earnest--vehemently in earnest.
"His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt."
She sat down again, and turned her face away from me.
"Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you
know what made him invite you to this house?"
I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read
Van Brandt's letter. I made no reply.
"You force me to tell you the truth," she went on. "He asked me
who you were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were
rich, and that _he_ wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of
your position in the world. He was too cunning to believe me; he
went out to the public-house and looked at a directory. He came
back and said, 'Mr. Germaine has a house in Berkeley Square and a
country-seat in the Highlands. He is not a man for a poor devil
like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of him, and I expect
you to make a friend of him too.' He sat down and wrote to you. I
am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His wife is
not dead, as you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to be
living. I wrote to you that I was beneath your notice, and you
have obliged me to tell you why. Am I sufficiently degraded to
bring you to your senses?"
I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my
power over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have
used it) without scruple. I took her hand.
"I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," I said.
"You have been forced into your present position: there are
circumstances which excuse you, and which you are purposely
keeping back from me. Nothing will convince me that you are a
base woman. Should I love you as I love you, if you were really
unworthy of me?"
She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to
change the subject. "There is one thing you haven't told me yet,"
she said, with a faint, forced smile. "Have you seen the
apparition of me again since I left you?"
"No. Have _you_ ever seen _me_ again, as you saw me in your dream
at the inn in Edinburgh?"
"Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell
why?"
If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have
recognized each other. But the subject dropped. Instead of
answering her question, I drew her nearer to me--I returned to
the forbidden subject of my love.
"Look at me," I pleaded, "and tell me the truth. Can you see me,
can you hear me, and do you feel no answering sympathy in your
own heart? Do you really care nothing for me? Have you never once
thought of me in all the time that has passed since we last met?"
I spoke as I felt--fervently, passionately. She made a last
effort to repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her hand
closed on mine, a low sigh fluttered on her lips. She answered
with a sudden self-abandonment; she recklessly cast herself loose
from the restraints which had held her up to this time.
"I think of you perpetually," she said. "I was thinking of you at
the opera last night . My heart leaped in me when I heard your
voice in the street."
"You love me!" I whispered.
"Love you!" she repeated. "My whole heart goes out to you in
spite of myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I am--knowing as I
do that nothing can ever come of it--I love you! I love you!"
She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her with all her
strength. The moment after, she dropped on her knees. "Oh, don't
tempt me!" she murmured. "Be merciful--and leave me."
I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she had
spoken to me.
"Prove that you love me," I said. "Let me rescue you from the
degradation of living with that man. Leave him at once and
forever. Leave him, and come with me to a future that is worthy
of you--your future as my wife."
"Never!" she answered, crouching low at my feet.
"Why not? What obstacle is there?"
"I can't tell you--I daren't tell you."
"Will you write it?"
"No, I can't even write it--to _you_. Go, I implore you, before
Van Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity me."
She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave her.
"I insist on knowing what binds you to that man," I said. "Let
him come back! If _you_ won't answer my question, I will put it
to _him_."
She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw my
resolution in my face.
"Don't frighten me," she said. "Let me think."
She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if some new
way out of the difficulty had occurred to her.
"Have you a mother living?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you think she would come and see me?"
"I am sure she would if I asked her."
She considered with herself once more. "I will tell your mother
what the obstacle is," she said, thoughtfully.
"When?"
"To-morrow, at this time."
She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled her
eyes. She drew me to her gently. "Kiss me," she whispered. "You
will never come here again. Kiss me for the last time."
My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her feet and
snatched up my hat from the chair on which I had placed it.
"Take your hat," she said. "He has come back."
My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose and
took my hat to quiet her. At the same moment the door of the room
opened suddenly and softly. Mr. Van Brandt came in. I saw in his
face that he had some vile motive of his own for trying to take
us by surprise, and that the result of the experiment had
disappointed him.
"You are not going yet?" he said, speaking to me with his eye on
Mrs. Van Brandt. "I have hurried over my business in the hope of
prevailing on you to stay and take lunch with us. Put down your
hat, Mr. Germaine. No ceremony!"
"You are very good," I answered. "My time is limited to-day. I
must beg you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me."
I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale when she
shook hands with me at parting. Had she any open brutality to
dread from Van Brandt as soon as my back was turned? The bare
suspicion of it made my blood boil. But I thought of _her_. In
her interests, the wise thing and the merciful thing to do was to
conciliate the fellow before I left the house.
"I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation," I said, as
we walked together to the door. "Perhaps you will give me another
chance?"
His eyes twinkled cunningly. "What do you say to a quiet little
dinner here?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you know, and a
bottle of good wine. Only our three selves, and one old friend of
mine to make up four. We will have a rubber of whist in the
evening. Mary and you partners--eh? When shall it be? Shall we
say the day after to-morrow?"
She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van Brandt while
he was speaking to me. When he mentioned the "old friend" and the
"rubber of whist," her face expressed the strongest emotions of
shame and disgust. The next moment (when she had heard him fix
the date of the dinner for "the day after to-morrow") her
features became composed again, as if a sudden sense of relief
had come to her. What did the change mean? "To-morrow" was the
day she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she really
believe, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I
should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see her
more? And was this the secret of her composure when she heard the
date of the dinner appointed for "the day after to-morrow"?
Asking myself these questions, I accepted my invitation, and left
the house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, that sudden
composure when the day of the dinner was fixed, weighed on my
spirits. I would have given twelve years of my life to have
annihilated the next twelve hours.
In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented myself in my
mother's sitting-room.
"You have gone out earlier than usual to-day," she said. "Did the
fine weather tempt you, my dear?" She paused, and looked at me
more closely. "George!" she exclaimed, "what has happened to you?
Where have you been?"
I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here.
The color deepened in my mother's face. She looked at me, and
spoke to me with a severity which was rare indeed in my
experience of her.
"Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is
due to your mother?" she asked. "Is it possible that you expect
me to visit a woman, who, by her own confession--"
"I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and
to be your daughter-in-law," I interposed. "Surely I am not
asking what is unworthy of you, if I ask that?"
My mother looked at me in blank dismay.
"Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?"
"Yes."
"And she has said No?"
"She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way. I
have tried vainly to make her explain herself. She has promised
to confide everything to _you_."
The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My mother
yielded. She handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was
accustomed to record her engagements. "Write down the name and
address," she said resignedly.
"I will go with you," I answered, "and wait in the carriage at
the door. I want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van
Brandt the instant you have left her."
"Is it as serious as that, George?"
"Yes, mother, it is as serious as that."
CHAPTER XV.
THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME.
HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van
Brandt's lodgings? Judging by my sensations, I waited half a
life-time. Judging by my watch, I waited half an hour.
When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained
of a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a
hope abandoned before she had opened her lips. I saw, in her
face, that an obstacle which was beyond my power of removal did
indeed stand between me and the dearest wish of my life.
"Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the house,
"and tell it at once."
"I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, "as
she told it to me. She begged me herself to do that. 'We must
disappoint him,' she said, 'but pray let it be done as gently as
possible.' Beginning in those words, she confided to me the
painful story which you know already--the story of her marriage.
From that she passed to her meeting with you at Edinburgh, and to
the circumstances which have led her to live as she is living
now. This latter part of her narrative she especially requested
me to repeat to you. Do you feel composed enough to hear it now?
Or would you rather wait?"
"Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can,
in her own words."
"I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I
can. After speaking of her father's death, she told me that she
had only two relatives living. 'I have a married aunt in Glasgow,
and a married aunt in London,' she said. 'When I left Edinburgh,
I went to my aunt in London. She and my father had not been on
good terms together; she considered that my father had neglected
her. But his death had softened her toward him and toward me. She
received me kindly, and she got me a situation in a shop. I kept
my situation for three months, and then I was obliged to leave
it.'
"
My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange postscript
which Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote
for her at the Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only
contemplated remaining in her employment for three months' time.
"Why was she obliged to leave her situation?" I asked.
"I put that question to her myself," replied my mother. "She made
no direct reply--she changed color, and looked confused. 'I will
tell you afterward, madam,' she said. 'Please let me go on now.
My aunt was angry with me for leaving my employment--and she was
more angry still, when I told her the reason. She said I had
failed in duty toward her in not speaking frankly at first. We
parted coolly. I had saved a little money from my wages; and I
did well enough while my savings lasted. When they came to an
end, I tried to get employment again, and I failed. My aunt said,
and said truly, that her husband's income was barely enough to
support his family: she could do nothing for me, and I could do
nothing for myself. I wrote to my aunt at Glasgow, and received
no answer. Starvation stared me in the face, when I saw in a
newspaper an advertisement addressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He
implored me to write to him; he declared that his life without me
was too desolate to be endured; he solemnly promised that there
should be no interruption to my tranquillity if I would return to
him. If I had only had myself to think of, I would have begged my
bread in the streets rather than return to him--' "
I interrupted the narrative at that point.
"What other person could she have had to think of?" I said.
"Is it possible, George," my mother rejoined, "that you have no
suspicion of what she was alluding to when she said those words?"
The question passed by me unheeded: my thoughts were dwelling
bitterly on Van Brandt and his advertisement. "She answered the
advertisement, of course?" I said.
"And she saw Mr. Van Brandt," my mother went on. "She gave me no
detailed account of the interview between them. 'He reminded me,'
she said, 'of what I knew to be true--that the woman who had
entrapped him into marrying her was an incurable drunkard, and
that his ever living with her again was out of the question.
Still she was alive, and she had a right to the name at least of
his wife. I won't attempt to excuse my returning to him, knowing
the circumstances as I did. I will only say that I could see no
other choice before me, in my position at the time. It is
needless to trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to
speak of what I may suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no
alarm, madam, about your son. I shall remember proudly to the end
of my life that he once offered me the honor and the happiness of
becoming his wife; but I know what is due to him and to you. I
have seen him for the last time. The one thing that remains to be
done is to satisfy him that our marriage is impossible. You are a
mother; you will understand why I reveal the obstacle which
stands between us--not to him, but to you.' She rose saying those
words, and opened the folding-doors which led from the parlor
into a back room. After an absence of a few moments only, she
returned."
At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. Was
she afraid to go on? or did she think it needless to say more?
"Well?" I said.
"Must I really tell it to you in words, George? Can't you guess
how it ended, even yet?"
There were two difficulties in the way of my understanding her. I
had a man's bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by
suspense. Incredible as it may appear, I was too dull to guess
the truth even now.
"When she returned to me," my mother resumed, "she was not alone.
She had with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk
with the help of her mother's hand. She tenderly kissed the
child, and then she put it on my lap. 'There is my only comfort,'
she said, simply; 'and there is the obstacle to my ever becoming
Mr. Germaine's wife.' "
Van Brandt's child! Van Brandt's child!
The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the
incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was
prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her
to the brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who
had cruelly deceived her--all was explained, all was excused now!
With an infant at the breast, how could she obtain a new
employment? With famine staring her in the face, what else could
the friendless woman do but return to the father of her child?
What claim had I on her, by comparison with _him_? What did it
matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned the love
that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between
us--there was _his_ hold on her, now that he had got her back!
What was _my_ hold worth? All social proprieties and all social
laws answered the question: Nothing!
My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence.
My good mother took my hand. "You understand it now, George?" she
said, sorrowfully.
"Yes, mother; I understand it."
"There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which
I have not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that
she had the faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to
destroy herself. Her first suspicion that it was possible she
might become a mother was conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a
conversation with her aunt. It is impossible, George, not to feel
compassionately toward this poor woman. Regrettable as her
position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for it. She was
the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married her;
she has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to
you and to me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a
woman in a thousand--a woman worthy, under happier circumstances,
to be my daughter and your wife. I feel _for_ you, and feel
_with_ you, my dear--I do, with my whole heart."
So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed
forever. As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood,
so it was again now with the love of my riper age!
Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my
self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt--as _she_ had foreseen
I should write!--to apologize for breaking my engagement to dine
with him.
Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me
to the woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for
her, and better for me, that I should not write. And yet the idea
of leaving her in silence was more than my fortitude could
endure. Her last words at parting (as they were repeated to me by
my mother) had expressed the hope that I should not think hardly
of her in the future. How could I assure her that I should think
of her tenderly to the end of my life? My mother's delicate tact
and true sympathy showed me the way. "Send a little present,
George," she said, "to the child. You bear no malice to the poor
little child?" God knows I was not hard on the child! I went out
myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and before I sent
it away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing this
inscription: "To your little daughter, from George Germaine."
There is nothing very pathetic, I suppose, in those words. And
yet I burst out crying when I had written them.
The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house
in Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad
I had tried already. Nothing was left but to go back to the
Highlands, and to try what I could make of my life, with my
mother still left to live for.
CHAPTER XVI.
MY MOTHER'S DIARY.
THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of
time, in looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which
followed each other monotonously in my Highland home. The actions
of my life, however trifling they may have been, I can find some
interest in recalling: they associate me with my
fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with the
vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the
purely selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from
dwelling on the minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the
pr essure of adverse fortune. Let the domestic record of our
stagnant life in Perthshire (so far as I am concerned in it) be
presented in my mother's words, not in mine. A few lines of
extract from the daily journal which it was her habit to keep
will tell all that need be told before this narrative advances to
later dates and to newer scenes.
"20th August.--We have been two months at our home in Scotland,
and I see no change in George for the better. He is as far as
ever, I fear, from being reconciled to his separation from that
unhappy woman. Nothing will induce him to confess it himself. He
declares that his quiet life here with me is all that he desires.
But I know better! I have been into his bedroom late at night. I
have heard him talking of her in his sleep, and I have seen the
tears on his eyelids. My poor boy! What thousands of charming
women there are who would ask nothing better than to be his wife!
And the one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman whom
he loves!
"25th.--A long conversation about George with Mr. MacGlue. I have
never liked this Scotch doctor since he encouraged my son to keep
the fatal appointment at Saint Anthony's Well. But he seems to be
a clever man in his profession--and I think, in his way, he means
kindly toward George. His advice was given as coarsely as usual,
and very positively at the same time. 'Nothing will cure your
son, madam, of his amatory passion for that half-drowned lady of
his but change--and another lady. Send him away by himself this
time; and let him feel the want of some kind creature to look
after him. And when he meets with that kind creature (they are as
plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about it if
there's a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup
which has served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma'am, to the
new one with the utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will
permit.' I hate Mr. MacGlue's opinions--so coarse and so
hard-hearted!--but I sadly fear that I must part with my son for
a little while, for his own sake.
"26th.--Where is George to go? I have been thinking of it all
through the night, and I cannot arrive at a conclusion. It is so
difficult to reconcile myself to letting him go away alone.
"29th.--I have always believed in special providences; and I am
now confirmed in my belief. This morning has brought with it a
note from our good friend and neighbor at Belhelvie. Sir James is
one of the commissioners for the Northern Lights. He is going in
a Government vessel to inspect the lighthouses on the North of
Scotland, and on the Orkney and Shetland Islands--and, having
noticed how worn and ill my poor boy looks, he most kindly
invites George to be his guest on the voyage. They will not be
absent for more than two months; and the sea (as Sir James
reminds me) did wonders for George's health when he returned from
India. I could wish for no better opportunity than this of trying
what change of air and scene will do for him. However painfully I
may feel the separation myself, I shall put a cheerful face on
it; and I shall urge George to accept the invitation.
"30th.--I have said all I could; but he still refuses to leave
me. I am a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad when he
said No.
"31st.--Another wakeful night. George must positively send his
answer to Sir James to-day. I am determined to do my duty toward
my son--he looks so dreadfully pale and ill this morning!
Besides, if something is not done to rouse him, how do I know
that he may not end in going back to Mrs. Van Brandt after all?
From every point of view, I feel bound to insist on his accepting
Sir James's invitation. I have only to be firm, and the thing is
done. He has never yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He will not
disobey me now.
"2d September.--He has gone! Entirely to please me--entirely
against his own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a good son cannot
get a good wife! He would make any woman happy. I wonder whether
I have done right in sending him away? The wind is moaning in the
fir plantation at the back of the house. Is there a storm at sea?
I forgot to ask Sir James how big the vessel was. The 'Guide to
Scotland' says the coast is rugged; and there is a wild sea
between the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I almost regret
having insisted so strongly--how foolish I am! We are all in the
hands of God. May God bless and prosper my good son!
"10th.--Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how full of
trouble this life is! and how strange that we should cling to it
as we do!
"15th.--A letter from George! They have done with the north coast
and they have crossed the wild sea to the Orkneys. Wonderful
weather has favored them so far; and George is in better health
and spirits. Ah! how much happiness there is in life if we only
have the patience to wait for it.
"2d October.--Another letter. They are safe in the harbor of
Lerwick, the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The weather has
not latterly been at all favorable. But the amendment in George's
health remains. He writes most gratefully of Sir James's
unremitting kindness to him. I am so happy, I declare I could
kiss Sir James--though he _is_ a great man, and a Commissioner
for Northern Lights! In three weeks more (wind and weather
permitting) they hope to get back. Never mind my lonely life
here, if I can only see George happy and well again! He tells me
they have passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a
word does he say about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are
scarce in those wild regions? I have heard of Shetland shawls and
Shetland ponies. Are there any Shetland ladies, I wonder?"
CHAPTER XVII.
SHETLAND HOSPITALITY.
"GUIDE! Where are we?"
"I can't say for certain."
"Have you lost your way?"
The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. That
is his answer to my question. And that is enough.
The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion,
myself, and the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies--so
small in stature, that we two strangers were at first literally
ashamed to get on their backs. We are surrounded by dripping
white mist so dense that we become invisible to one another at a
distance of half a dozen yards. We know that we are somewhere on
the mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see under the feet of our
ponies a mixture of moorland and bog--here, the strip of firm
ground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, the
strip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if
we step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends.
This question of the moment is, What are we to do next?
The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned us
against the weather before we started for our ride. My traveling
companion looks at me resignedly, with an expression of mild
reproach. I deserve it. My rashness is to blame for the
disastrous position in which we now find ourselves.
In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorably
of my health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I still
remember the day when I parted with the one hope and renounced
the one love which made life precious to me. My torpid condition
of mind, at home, has simply given place to a perpetual
restlessness, produced by the excitement of my new life. I must
now always be doing something--no matter what, so long as it
diverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is unendurable;
solitude has become horrible to me. While the other members of
the party which has accompanied Sir James on his voyage of
inspection among the lighthouses are content to wait in the
harbor of Lerwick for a favorable change in the weather, I am
obstinately bent on leaving the comfortable shelter of the vessel
to explore some inland ruin of prehistoric times, of which I
never heard, and for which I care nothing. The movement is all I
want; the ride will fill the hateful void of time. I go, in
defiance of sound advice offered to me on all sides. The youngest
member of our party catches the infection of my recklessness (in
virtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come of it?
We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; and the treacherou
s peat-bogs are round us in every direction!
What is to be done?
"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says.
"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?"
"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it to
the pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on _my_ powny."
He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his
pony, and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his
pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he were
sitting by his own fireside at home.
We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone
on the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our
stupid supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like
hounds on the scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide,
they skirt round it. Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over,
they cross it by a jump. Trot! trot!--away the hardy little
creatures go; never stopping, never hesitating. Our "superior
intelligence," perfectly useless in the emergency, wonders how it
will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers that it will end in
the ponies finding their way certainly to the nearest village or
the nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one warning to
us. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!"
It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomed
to place himself in that helpless position under stress of
circumstances, and he knows exactly what his pony can do.
To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks
dangerous in the extreme. More than once I check myself, not
without an effort, in the act of resuming the command of my pony
on passing the more dangerous points in the journey. The time
goes on; and no sign of an inhabited dwelling looms through the
mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I find myself
secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While I am in
this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black,
winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth
time at least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in
appearance by the mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a
leap by any pony that ever was foaled. I lose my presence of
mind. At the critical moment before the jump is taken, I am
foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly check the pony.
He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if he had
been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets
twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist.
If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself
well off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his
struggles to rise, before I have completely extricated myself
from him, the pony kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it,
his hoof strikes just where the poisoned spear struck me in the
past days of my service in India. The old wound opens again--and
there I lie bleeding on the barren Shetland moor!
This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to
breast the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman
to support. I preserve my senses; and I am able to give the
necessary directions for bandaging the wound with the best
materials which we have at our disposal. To mount my pony again
is simply out of the question. I must remain where I am, with my
traveling companion to look after me; and the guide must trust
his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to which I can
be removed.
Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion)
takes our " bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of my
pocket-compass. This done, he disappears in the mist, with the
bridle hanging loose, and the pony's nose to the ground, as
before. I am left, under my young friend's care, with a cloak to
lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our ponies composedly help
themselves to such grass as they can find on the moor; keeping
always near us as companionably as if they were a couple of dogs.
In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangs
thicker than ever all round us.
The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majestic
silence of the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words,
but we both feel that hours may pass before the guide discovers
us again. The penetrating damp slowly strengthens its clammy hold
on me. My companion's pocket-flask of sherry has about a
teaspoonful of wine left in the bottom of it. We look at one
another--having nothing else to look at in the present state of
the weather--and we try to make the best of it. So the slow
minutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that forty
minutes have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished from
our view.
My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can do
toward proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may,
by the barest possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him
to try the experiment, having no strength to spare for vocal
efforts of any sort. My companion shouts at the highest pitch of
his voice. Silence follows his first attempt. He tries again;
and, this time, an answering hail reaches us faintly through the
white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or stranger, is
near us--help is coming at last!
An interval passes; and voices reach our ears--the voices of two
men. Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible in
the mist. Then the guide advances near enough to be identified.
He is followed by a sturdy fellow in a composite dress, which
presents him under the double aspect of a groom and a gardener.
The guide speaks a few words of rough sympathy. The composite man
stands by impenetrably silent; the sight of a disabled stranger
fails entirely either to surprise or to interest the
gardener-groom.
After a little private consultation, the two men decide to cross
their hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My arms
rest on their shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friend
trudges behind them, with the saddle and the cloak. The ponies
caper and kick, in unrestrained enjoyment of their freedom; and
sometimes follow, sometimes precede us, as the humor of the
moment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my bearers, a light
weight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and set me
down on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly through
the mist for some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothing
but a little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond.
Where are we?
The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water,
looming large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the
boat, with my saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies
to the desolate freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to
eat (the guide says); and when night comes on they will find
their own way to shelter in a village hard by. The last I see of
the hardy little creatures they are taking a drink of water, side
by side, and biting each other sportively in higher spirits than
ever!
Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had at
first supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a little
island; a flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried
along a rough pathway made of great flat stones, until we reach
the firmer earth, and discover a human dwelling-place at last. It
is a long, low house of one story high; forming (as well as I can
see) three sides of a square. The door stands hospitably open.
The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The men open an
inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed by a
peat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms;
on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my
eye. Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at right
angles into a second. Here a door is opened at last: I find
myself in a spacious room, completely and tastefully furnished,
having two beds in it, and a large fire burning in the grate. The
change to this warm and cheerful place of shelter from the chilly
and misty solitude of the moor is so luxuriously delightful that
I am quite content, for the first few minutes, to stretch myself
on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new position; without caring to
inquire into whose house we have intruded; without even wondering
at the strange absence of master, mistress, or member of the
family to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof.
After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant
curiosity revives. I begin to look about me.
The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling
companion at the further end of the room, evidently occupied in
questioning the guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside.
What discoveries has he made? whose is the house in which we are
sheltered; and how is it that no member of the family appears to
welcome us?
My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as
attentively to the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new
to him.
The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient
Northern lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken
retirement on the barren island for twenty years past, with no
other companion than a daughter, who is his only child. He is
generally believed to be one of the most learned men living. The
inhabitants of Shetland know him far and wide, under a name in
their dialect which means, being interpreted, "The Master of
Books." The one occasion on which he and his daughter have been
known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when a
terrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the
neighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night among
their poor and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no
danger could shake, with a tender care which no fatigue could
exhaust. The father had escaped infection, and the violence of
the epidemic was beginning to wear itself out, when the daughter
caught the disease. Her life had been preserved, but she never
completely recovered her health. She is now an incurable sufferer
from some mysterious nervous disorder which nobody understands,
and which has kept her a prisoner on the island, self-withdrawn
from all human observation, for years past. Among the poor
inhabitants of the district, the father and daughter are
worshiped as semi-divine beings. Their names come after the
Sacred Name in the prayers which the parents teach to their
children.
Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose
privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain
interest of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it fails
entirely to explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it
possible that he is not aware of our presence in the house? We
apply the guide, and make a few further inquiries of him.
"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?"
The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I
could hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries
him with a simpler form of words.
"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to
the house?"
The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of
feeling perfectly scandalized by the question.
"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough to
disturb the Master over his books for such a little matter as
bringing you and your friend into this house?"
"Do you mean that you have brought us here without first asking
leave?" I exclaim in amazement.
The guide's face brightens; he has beaten the true state of the
case into our stupid heads at last! "That's just what I mean!" he
says, with an air of infinite relief.
The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on us
by this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman,
shrouded in a long black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room.
The guide steps forward, and respectfully closes the door for
him. We are evidently in the presence of The Master of Books!
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DARKENED ROOM.
THE little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky white hair
flows over his shoulders; he looks at us with faded blue eyes; he
bows with a sad and subdued courtesy, and says, in the simplest
manner, "I bid you welcome, gentlemen, to my house."
We are not content with merely thanking him; we naturally attempt
to apologize for our intrusion. Our host defeats the attempt at
the outset by making an apology on his own behalf.
"I happened to send for my servant a minute since," he proceeds,
"and I only then heard that you were here. It is a custom of the
house that nobody interrupts me over my books. Be pleased, sir,
to accept my excuses," he adds, addressing himself to me, "for
not having sooner placed myself and my household at your
disposal. You have met, as I am sorry to hear, with an accident.
Will you permit me to send for medical help? I ask the question a
little abruptly, fearing that time may be of importance, and
knowing that our nearest doctor lives at some distance from this
house."
He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words--more
like a man dictating a letter than holding a conversation. The
subdued sadness of his manner is reflected in the subdued sadness
of his face. He and sorrow have apparently been old
acquaintances, and have become used to each other for years past.
The shadow of some past grief rests quietly and impenetrably over
the whole man; I see it in his faded blue eyes, on his broad
forehead, on his delicate lips, on his pale shriveled cheeks. My
uneasy sense of committing an intrusion on him steadily
increases, in spite of his courteous welcome. I explain to him
that I am capable of treating my own case, having been myself in
practice as a medical man; and this said, I revert to my
interrupted excuses. I assure him that it is only within the last
few moments that my traveling companion and I have become aware
of the liberty which our guide has taken in introducing us, on
his own sole responsibility, to the house. Mr. Dunross looks at
me, as if he, like the guide, failed entirely to understand what
my scruples and excuses mean. After a while the truth dawns on
him. A faint smile flickers over his face; he lays his hand in a
gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder.
"We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality," he says, "that
we are slow to understand the hesitation which a stranger feels
in taking advantage of it. Your guide is in no respect to blame,
gentlemen. Every house in these islands which is large enough to
contain a spare room has its Guests' Chamber, always kept ready
for occupation. When you travel my way, you come here as a matter
of course; you stay here as long as you like; and, when you go
away, I only do my duty as a good Shetlander in accompanying you
on the first stage of your journey to bid you godspeed. The
customs of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs here. I
beg of you to give my servant all the directions which are
necessary to your comfort, just as freely as you could give them
in your own house."
He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks; and
notices in the guide's face plain signs that the man has taken
offense at my disparaging allusion to him.
"Strangers cannot be expected to understand our ways, Andrew,"
says The Master of Books. "But you and I understand one
another--and that is enough."
The guide's rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crowned king
on a throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he could hardly
have looked more proud of the honor conferred than he looks now.
He makes a clumsy attempt to take the Master's hand and kiss it.
Mr. Dunross gently repels the attempt, and gives him a little pat
on the head. The guide looks at me and my friend as if he had
been honored with the highest distinction that an earthly being
can receive. The Master's hand had touched him kindly!
In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door to
answer the bell.
"You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter," says
Mr. Dunross. "And you will wait on this gentleman, who is
confined to his bed by an accident, exactly as you would wait on
me if I were ill. If we both happen to ring for you together, you
will answer his bell before you answer mine. The usual changes of
linen are, of course, ready in the wardrobe there? Very good. Go
now, and tell the cook to prepare a little dinner; and get a
bottle of the old Madeira
out of the cellar. You will spread the table, for to-day at
least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased to
dine together. Return here in five minutes' time, in case you are
wanted; and show my guest, Peter, that I am right in believing
you to be a good nurse as well as a good servant."
The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression of the
Master's confidence in him, as the guide brightened under the
influence of the Master s caressing touch. The two men leave the
room together.
We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows to
introduce ourselves by name to our host, and to inform him of the
circumstances under which we happen to be visiting Shetland. He
listens in his subdued, courteous way; but he makes no inquiries
about our relatives; he shows no interest in the arrival of the
Government yacht and the Commissioner for Northern Lights. All
sympathy with the doings of the outer world, all curiosity about
persons of social position and notoriety, is evidently at an end
in Mr. Dunross. For twenty years the little round of his duties
and his occupations has been enough for him. Life has lost its
priceless value to this man; and when Death comes to him he will
receive the king of terrors as he might receive the last of his
guests.
"Is there anything else I can do," he says, speaking more to
himself than to us, "before I go back to my books?"
Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. He
addresses my companion, with his faint, sad smile. "This will be
a dull life, I am afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to be fond
of angling, I can offer you some little amusement in that way.
The lake is well stocked with fish; and I have a boy employed in
the garden, who will be glad to attend on you in the boat."
My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts the
invitation. The Master says his parting words to me before he
goes back to his books.
"You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. Germaine,
while you are so unfortunate as to be confined to this room. He
has the advantage (in cases of illness) of being a very silent,
undemonstrative person. At the same time he is careful and
considerate, in his own reserved way. As to what I may term the
lighter duties at your bedside such as reading to you, writing
your letters for you while your right hand is still disabled,
regulating the temperature in the room, and so on--though I
cannot speak positively, I think it likely that these little
services may be rendered to you by another person whom I have not
mentioned yet. We shall see what happens in a few hours' time. In
the meanwhile, sir, I ask permission to leave you to your rest."
With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as he
walked into it, and leaves his two guests to meditate gratefully
on Shetland hospitality. We both wonder what those last
mysterious words of our host mean; and we exchange more or less
ingenious guesses on the subject of that nameless "other person"
who may possibly attend on me--until the arrival of dinner turns
our thoughts into a new course.
The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection and
admirably served. I am too weary to eat much: a glass of the fine
old Madeira revives me. We arrange our future plans while we are
engaged over the meal. Our return to the yacht in Lerwick harbor
is expected on the next day at the latest. As things are, I can
only leave my companion to go back to the vessel, and relieve the
minds of our friends of any needless alarm about me. On the day
after, I engage to send on board a written report of the state of
my health, by a messenger who can bring my portmanteau back with
him.
These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at my own
request) to try his skill as an angler in the lake. Assisted by
the silent Peter and the well-stocked medicine-chest, I apply the
necessary dressings to my wound, wrap myself in the comfortable
morning-gown which is always kept ready in the Guests' Chamber,
and lie down again on the bed to try the restorative virtues of
sleep.
Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the window, and
asks in fewest possible words if he shall draw the curtains. In
fewer words still--for I am feeling drowsy already--I answer No.
I dislike shutting out the cheering light of day. To my morbid
fancy, at that moment, it looks like resigning myself
deliberately to the horrors of a long illness. The hand-bell is
on my bedside table; and I can always ring for Peter if the light
keeps me from sleeping. On this understanding, Peter mutely nods
his head, and goes out.
For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the companionable
fire. Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and the embrocation on
my sprained wrist steadily subdue the pains which I have felt so
far. Little by little, the bright fire seems to be fading. Little
by little, sleep steals on me, and all my troubles are forgotten.
I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose--I wake,
feeling the bewilderment which we all experience on opening our
eyes for the first time in a bed and a room that are new to us.
Gradually collecting my thoughts, I find my perplexity
considerably increased by a trifling but curious circumstance.
The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to touch are
drawn--closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole room in
obscurity. And, more surprising still, a high screen with folding
sides stands before the fire, and confines the light which it
might otherwise give exclusively to the ceiling. I am literally
enveloped in shadows. Has night come?
In lazy wonder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on the
other side of my bed.
Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone.
A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline of the
dress tells me that it is the figure of a woman. Straining my
eyes, I fancy I can discern a wavy black object covering her head
and shoulders which looks like a large veil. Her face is turned
toward me, but no distinguishing feature in it is visible. She
stands like a statue, with her hands crossed in front of her,
faintly relieved against the dark substance of her dress. This I
can see--and this is all.
There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its voice,
and speaks first.
"I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?"
The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness or tone which
falls soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistakably the accent
of a refined and cultivated person. After making my
acknowledgments to the unknown and half-seen lady, I venture to
ask the inevitable question, "To whom have I the honor of
speaking?"
The lady answers, "I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no
objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you."
This, then, is the "other person" dimly alluded to by our host! I
think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her
poor and afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy
result of her devotion to others which has left her an incurable
invalid. My anxiety to see this lady more plainly increases a
hundred-fold. I beg her to add to my grateful sense of her
kindness by telling me why the room is so dark "Surely," I say,
"it cannot be night already?"
"You have not been asleep," she answers, "for more than two
hours. The mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining."
I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side.
"May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?"
"To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?"
"Yes--with your permission. I own I should like to see the
sunlight."
"I will send Peter to you immediately."
The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another
moment, unless I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am
so eager to see will have left the room.
"Pray don't go!" I say. "I cannot think of troubling you to take
a trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only
ring the bell."
She pauses--more shadowy than ever--halfway between the bed and
the door, and answers a little sadly:
"Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He
closed the curtains by my order."
The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while
Miss Dunro ss is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were
weak, they would be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can
see that she does not wear a shade. Why has the room been
darkened--if not for me? I cannot venture on asking the
question--I can only make my excuses in due form.
"Invalids only think of themselves," I say. "I supposed that you
had kindly darkened the room on my account."
She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she
does answer, it is in these startling words:
"You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been
darkened--not on your account, but on _mine_."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CATS.
MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss
what to say next.
To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in
darkness while she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to
the contrary) to be an act of positive rudeness. To venture on
any general expression of sympathy with her, knowing absolutely
nothing of the circumstances, might place us both in an
embarrassing position at the outset of our acquaintance. The one
thing I could do was to beg that the present arrangement of the
room might not be disturbed, and to leave her to decide as to
whether she should admit me to her confidence or exclude me from
it, at her own sole discretion.
She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a
chair at the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly
the sad secret of the darkened room.
"If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she began, "you
must accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my
lot to live. Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the
people in our part of this island; and I was so unfortunate as to
catch the infection. When I recovered--no! 'Recovery' is not the
right word to use--let me say, when I escaped death, I found
myself afflicted by a nervous malady which has defied medical
help from that time to this. I am suffering (as the doctors
explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the
nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw
the curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the
acutest pain all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the
curtains with my bare hands, I should feel the same pain in my
hands. You can just see, perhaps, that I have a very large and
very thick veil on my head. I let it fall over my face and neck
and hands, when I have occasion to pass along the corridors or to
enter my father's study--and I find it protection enough. Don't
be too ready to deplore my sad condition, sir! I have got so used
to living in the dark that I can see quite well enough for all
the purposes of _my_ poor existence. I can read and write in
these shadows--I can see you, and be of use to you in many little
ways, if you will let me. There is really nothing to be
distressed about. My life will not be a long one--I know and feel
that. But I hope to be spared long enough to be my father's
companion through the closing years of his life. Beyond that, I
have no prospect. In the meanwhile, I have my pleasures; and I
mean to add to my scanty little stack the pleasure of attending
on you. You are quite an event in my life. I look forward to
reading to you and writing for you, as some girls look forward to
a new dress, or a first ball. Do you think it very strange of me
to tell you so openly just what I have in my mind? I can't help
it! I say what I think to my father and to our poor neighbors
hereabouts--and I can't alter my ways at a moment's notice. I own
it when I like people; and I own it when I don't. I have been
looking at you while you were asleep; and I have read your face
as I might read a book. There are signs of sorrow on your
forehead and your lips which it is strange to see in so young a
face as yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with many
questions about yourself when we become better acquainted with
each other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as
nurse. Are your pillows comfortable? I can see they want shaking
up. Shall I send for Peter to raise you? I am unhappily not
strong enough to be able to help you in that way. No? You are
able to raise yourself? Wait a little. There! Now lie back--and
tell me if I know how to establish the right sort of sympathy
between a tumbled pillow and a weary head."
She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I
was, that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected
me almost with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to
help her with the pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It
felt so cold and so thin, that even the momentary contact with it
startled me. I tried vainly to see her face, now that it was more
within reach of my range of view. The merciless darkness kept it
as complete a mystery as ever. Had my curiosity escaped her
notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words told me
plainly that I had been discovered.
"You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my hand warned
you not to try again? I felt that it startled you when you
touched it just now."
Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such
fearless candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my
side. I owned the truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive
me.
She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed.
"If we are to be friends," she said, "we must begin by
understanding one another. Don't associate any romantic ideas of
invisible beauty with _me_, Mr. Germaine. I had but one beauty to
boast of before I fell ill--my complexion--and that has gone
forever. There is nothing to see in me now but the poor
reflection of my former self; the ruin of what was once a woman.
I don't say this to distress you--I say it to reconcile you to
the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so far as your eyes are
concerned, between you and me. Make the best instead of the worst
of your strange position here. It offers you a new sensation to
amuse you while you are ill. You have a nurse who is an
impersonal creature--a shadow among shadows; a voice to speak to
you, and a hand to help you, and nothing more. Enough of myself!"
she exclaimed, rising and changing her tone. "What can I do to
amuse you?" She considered a little. "I have some odd tastes,"
she resumed; "and I think I may entertain you if I make you
acquainted with one of them. Are you like most other men, Mr.
Germaine? Do you hate cats?"
The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that,
in this respect at least, I was not like other men.
"To my thinking," I added, "the cat is a cruelly misunderstood
creature--especially in England. Women, no doubt, generally do
justice to the affectionate nature of cats. But the men treat
them as if they were the natural enemies of the human race. The
men drive a cat out of their presence if it ventures upstairs,
and set their dogs at it if it shows itself in the street--and
then they turn round and accuse the poor creature (whose genial
nature must attach itself to something) of being only fond of the
kitchen!"
The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me
greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross.
"We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she said. "Now I
can amuse you! Prepare for a surprise."
She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially
opening the door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received
his instructions.
"Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy
firelight streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with
her directions. "Open the door of the cats' room, Peter; and
bring me my harp. Don't suppose that you are going to listen to a
great player, Mr. Germaine," she went on, when Peter had departed
on his singular errand, "or that you are likely to see the sort
of harp to which you are accustomed, as a man of the modern time.
I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my harp is an ancient
instrument (with new strings)--an heirloom in our family, some
centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of pictures
of St. Cecilia--and you will be treating my performance kindly if
you will remember, at the sam e time, that I am no saint!"
She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle
which she took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment
the lithe and shadowy figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in
the red light, answering their mistress's call. I could just
count six of them, as the creatures seated themselves demurely in
a circle round the chair. Peter followed with the harp, and
closed the door after him as he went out. The streak of daylight
being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross threw back her
veil, and took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I observed,
with her face turned away from the fire.
"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said,
"without having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give
me the acute pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my
face--I feel a certain inconvenience from it, and nothing more."
She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as
she had said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I
thought, the ancient harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at
first unpleasantly high in pitch, to my untutored ear. At the
opening notes of the melody--a slow, wailing, dirgelike air--the
cats rose, and circled round their mistress, marching to the
tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a change in
the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they
separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the
chair in opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats
quickened their pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang
out, and faster and faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like
living shadows, whirled round the still black figure in the
chair, with the ancient harp on its knee. Anything so weird,
wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before even in a dream! The
music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. One perched
itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung up
together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders.
The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted
on her head! There the six creatures kept their positions,
motionless as statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands
over the harp-strings; no sound but the sound of the music
stirred in the room. Once more the melody changed. In an instant
the six cats were on the floor again, seated round the chair as I
had seen them on their first entrance; the harp was laid aside;
and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon tired--I must
leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow."
She rose, and approached the bedside.
"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said.
"From the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time,
you must not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no
choice but to remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve
hours or more. The long repose seems to keep my life in me. Have
I and my cats surprised you very much? Am I a witch; and are they
my familiar spirits? Remember how few amusements I have, and you
will not wonder why I devote myself to teaching these pretty
creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me like dogs! They
were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons of
patience. Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn
wonderfully well. How you will amuse your friend, when he comes
back from fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in
the dark, and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect
_you_ to amuse _me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about
yourself, and how you came to visit these wild islands of ours.
Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better acquainted, you
will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell me the
true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on your face
while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman left in me
to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who
interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil
night, and a pleasant waking. - Come, my familiar spirits! Come,
my cat children! it's time we went back to our own side of the
house."
She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of
cats, glided out of the room.
Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the
curtains. The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window.
At the same moment my traveling companion returned in high
spirits, eager to tell me about his fishing in the lake. The
contrast between what I saw and heard now, and what I had seen
and heard only a few minutes since, was so extraordinary and so
startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled figure with
the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic creations
of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me
awake or asleep when he came into the room!
Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his
appearance, to receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and
listened absently as if his mind were still pre-occupied by his
studies--except when I referred gratefully to his daughter's
kindness to me. At her name his faded blue eyes brightened; his
drooping head became erect; his sad, subdued voice strengthened
in tone.
"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever
interests or amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the
breath of mine. She is more than my daughter; she is the
guardian-angel of the house. Go where she may, she carries the
air of heaven with her. When you say your prayers, sir, pray God
to leave my daughter here a little longer."
He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left
me.
The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent
Peter, taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I
sleep next door," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling
companion, taking the second bed in the room, reposed in the
happy sleep of youth. In the house there was dead silence. Out of
the house, the low song of the night-wind, rising and falling
over the lake and the moor, was the one sound to be heard. So the
first day ended in the hospitable Shetland house.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GREEN FLAG.
"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in
words. Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van
Brandt."
"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?"
"May I speak as plainly as usual?"
"Certainly!"
"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt."
Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way
into my confidence already!
By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret
and sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my
mother's ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle
manner in which her sympathies twined themselves round mine; but
I fail entirely to trace the infinite gradations of approach by
which she surprised and conquered my habitual reserve. The
strongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was not
hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was shrouded
in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the
screen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her
face, and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was
perhaps partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in
which she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interest
which associated itself with her mere presence in the room. Her
father had told me that she "carried the air of heaven with her."
In my experience, I can only say that she carried something with
her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, and
made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had been
her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars,
down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions
of Dame Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of
former days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the
apparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings with
her in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left
its mark of sorrow on my face--all these events, all these
sufferi ngs, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided
them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in the
darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity
of judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like
your Mrs. Van Brandt!"
"Why not?" I asked.
She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but
Mary."
"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen."
"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary
is waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to
remember that you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on
your separation from that woman as the happiest event of your
life. I may not live to hear of it--but _you_ will live to own
that I was right."
Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about
my meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me.
"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that
our two destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or
what may happen in the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is
still a marriage delayed, and nothing more?"
"I firmly believe it."
"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my
marrying Mrs. Van Brandt?"
She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the
right one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new
ground.
"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van
Brandt is the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of
her, why don't you call her Mary?"
I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly
unworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation,
she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to make my
humiliating confession.
"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him
with such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the
name! It lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips."
I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly
raised her head as if she were looking at me intently in the
dark.
"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of
her now?"
"I never dream of her now."
"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?"
"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help,
and when she has no friend to look to but me."
"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?"
"Never!"
"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in
dreams?"
"Yes--when I was a lad."
"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who
came to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when
she was far away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She
little thought, in her life-time, that her prediction would be
fullfilled by the wrong woman!"
To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If
she had only pressed them a little further--if she had not
unconsciously led me astray again by the very next question that
fell from her lips--she _must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the
idea obscurely germinating in hers--the idea of a possible
identity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt!
"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now,
what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to
see?"
I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at
this distance of time?"
"Try!" she said.
Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I
searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child
of my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate
woman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!
The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross
dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial
conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the
aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time and
circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, we
had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once
more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a
hair-breadth!
"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross,
"to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of
what a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt
any sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxom
women!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interested
I am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that pretty
present of needle-work which the poor little thing embroidered
for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!"
She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I
felt a little confused as I answered her.
"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my
house in Perthshire."
"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her
keepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed
forgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted with
her life rather than part with the one memorial left of the time
when she first loved!"
She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such
agitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me.
"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."
"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the
green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that,
if _my_ belief is right."
"What do you believe?"
"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading
of your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."
"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as
frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of
Mary?"
"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered,
gravely--"the hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in
the time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I was thinking
of your pretty love story by the banks of the bright English
lake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I felt the conviction
that the poor child's green flag is destined to have its innocent
influence in forming your future life. Your happiness is waiting
for you in that artless little keepsake! I can't explain or
justify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, I
suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music of my
harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only your
friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and
entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had
made Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's
portrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag
is with you, Mary's influence is with you; Mary's love is still
binding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years of
separation, will meet again!"
The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness
which had given expression to it would have had its influence
over a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she had
made me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my neglect of
the green flag.
"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and
I will take care that it is carefully preserved for the future."
"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the
flag about you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever
you go. When they brought your luggage here from the vessel at
Lerwick, you were particularly anxious about the safety of your
traveling writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there
anything very valuable in it?"
"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more
highly--my mother's letters, and some family relics which I
should be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its
own familiar interest as my constant traveling companion of many
years past."
Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was
sitting.
"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said.
"You have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your
nurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr.
Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy
woman. Promise me that the green
flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in
your desk!"
It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the
promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the
first time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand
in mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my
first grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I
released it. She started--trembled--and suddenly and silently
passed out of the room.
CHAPTER XXI.
SHE COMES BETWEEN US.
WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I
offended or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced
on her inner knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had
thus far resolutely ignored?
I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I
questioned my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that
they might serve me as a means of solving the mystery of her
sudden flight from the room.
What effect had she produced on me?
In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the
exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten
days she had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women
would have failed to possess themselves in so many years. I
remembered, to my shame, that my mother had but seldom occupied
my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. Van Brandt--except when the
conversation had turned on her--had become a faint image in my
mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James downward, they
had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and
ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free
for the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government
vessel was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still
painful when I tried to use it; but the far more serious injury
presented by the re-opened wound was no longer a subject of
anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was sufficiently
restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick, if I
rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr.
Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the
question of rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest
moment. The motive which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty
as to the sufficient recovery of my strength. The motive which I
now confessed to myself was reluctance to leave Miss Dunross.
What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what
passion, had she awakened in me? Was it love?
No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the
place which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not
the place occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary
sense of the word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never
seen? whose beauty had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted
life hung by a thread which the accident of a moment might snap?
The senses have their share in all love between the sexes which
is worthy of the name. They had no share in the feeling with
which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the feeling, then? I
can only answer the question in one way. The feeling lay too deep
in me for my sounding.
What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I
ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand?
I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had
deliberately set myself to make. I thought of her shattered
health; of her melancholy existence in shadow and solitude; of
the rich treasures of such a heart and such a mind as hers,
wasted with her wasting life; and I said to myself, Let her
secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, bring the
trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be veiled
from me in the darkness which veils her face!
In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return.
I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day.
The post to the south went out on the next day; and the early
hour of the morning at which the messenger called for our letters
made it a matter of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In
the disabled state of my hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed
to write home for me, under my dictation: she knew that I owed a
letter to my mother, and that I relied as usual on her help. Her
return to me, under these circumstances, was simply a question of
time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative
duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be.
The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never
appeared.
I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in
the garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I
might be found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild
place, to my southern notions; but it extended for some distance
along the shore of the island, and it offered some pleasant views
of the lake and the moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my
walk, I proposed to myself to occupy my mind to some useful
purpose by arranging beforehand the composition of the letter
which Miss Dunross was to write.
To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind
on the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in
wandering from the letter to my mother, and concentrated
themselves instead--on Miss Dunross? No. On the question of my
returning, or not returning, to Perthshire by the Government
vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of feeling which it
seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now absorbed
on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent
from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt!
My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will,
to my last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her
again. I tasted once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss;
I felt once more the pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had
parted with her and found myself alone in the street. Tears--of
which I was ashamed, though nobody was near to see them--filled
my eyes when I thought of the months that had passed since we had
last looked on one another, and of all that she might have
suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on hundreds
of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if
she were walking in the garden by my side!
This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally
strange condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered
over me faintly from head to foot. I walked without feeling the
ground as I trod on it; I looked about me with no distinct
consciousness of what the objects were on which my eyes rested.
My hands were cold--and yet I hardly felt it. My head throbbed
hotly--and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It seemed as if I
were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere which
altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up at
the clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I
stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if
I had caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. The sun
sank below the moorland horizon; the gray twilight trembled over
the dark waters of the lake. I went back to the house; and the
vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, still in close companionship,
went back with me.
The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the
closed curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit
through the window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary
limit where the light was crossed by the obscurity which filled
the rest of the room, I saw Miss Dunross seated, with her veil
drawn and her writing-case on her knee, waiting my return.
I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been
careful to tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked
me before I could say more.
"It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to hurry your
return to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?"
She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and
sadder than ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case,
instead of turning it toward me as usual while we were talking. I
still felt the mysterious trembling which had oppressed me in the
garden. Drawing a chair near the fire, I stirred the embers
together, and tried to warm myself. Our positions in the room
left some little distance between us. I could only see her
sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of
the curtain which still remained drawn.
"I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. "I feel
chilled by the cold evening air."
"Will you have some more wood put on the fire?" she asked. "Can I
get you anything?"
"No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly
ready to write for me."
"Yes," she said, "at your own convenience. When you are ready, my
pen is ready."
The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had
last spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as
by me. We were no doubt longing to break through it on either
side--if we had only known how. The writing of the letter would
occupy us, at any rate. I made another effort to give my mind to
the subject--and once more it was an effort made in vain. Knowing
what I wanted to say to my mother, my faculties seemed to be
paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering by the fire--and
she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap.
CHAPTER XXII.
SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN.
THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss
Dunross made an attempt to rouse me.
"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at
Lerwick?" she asked.
"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my
friends in this house."
Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she
answered me.
"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your
duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your
mother is suffering."
"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--"
"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss
Dunross interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious
confession of anxiety in every line that she writes to you. You
know, as well as I do, that there is cause for her anxiety. Make
her happy by telling her that you sail for home with your
friends. Make her happier still by telling her that you grieve no
more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write it, in your
name and in those words?"
I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those
terms, or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy
love-story of my manhood had never been a forbidden subject
between us on former occasions. Why did I feel as if it had
become a forbidden subject now? Why did I evade giving her a
direct reply?
"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to
you about yourself."
She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if
to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I
persisted, nevertheless, in returning to it.
"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at
parting what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe
that you are an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told
you, has been the education of a medical man. I am well
acquainted with some of the greatest living physicians, in
Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you allow me to describe
your malady (as I understand it) to men who are accustomed to
treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you let me
write and tell you the result?"
I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she
encourage the idea of any future communication with her. I
ventured to suggest another motive which might induce her to
receive a letter from me.
"In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I went
on. "You firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to
meet again. If your anticipations are realized, you will expect
me to tell you of it, surely?"
Once more I waited. She spoke--but it was not to reply: it was
only to change the subject.
"The time is passing," was all she said. "We have not begun your
letter to your mother yet."
It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her
voice warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light
through the parted curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed,
to write the letter. I could find other opportunities of speaking
to her before I left the house.
"I am ready," I answered. "Let us begin."
The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I
informed my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to
use, and that nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the
lighthouse commissioner was ready to return. This was all that it
was necessary to say on the subject of my health; the disaster of
my re-opened wound having been, for obvious reasons, concealed
from my mother's knowledge. Miss Dunross silently wrote the
opening lines of the letter, and waited for the words that were
to follow.
In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was
to sail on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which
my mother might expect to see me, weather permitting. Those
words, also, Miss Dunross wrote--and waited again. I set myself
to consider what I should say next. To my surprise and alarm, I
found it impossible to fix my mind on the subject. My thoughts
wandered away, in the strangest manner, from my letter to Mrs.
Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry with myself--I
resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively finish
the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will
availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview
were murmuring in my ears--not a word of my own would come to me!
Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to
look at me.
"Surely you have something more to add to your letter?" she said.
"Certainly," I answered. "I don't know what is the matter with
me. The effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this
evening."
"Can I help you?" she asked.
I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," I
said, "which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too
stupid to think of them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to
think of them for me."
That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of
returning to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the
opportunity with a woman's persistent resolution when she has her
end in view, and is determined to reach it at all hazards.
"You have not told your mother yet," she said, "that your
infatuation for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in
your own words? Or shall I write it for you, imitating your
language as well as I can?"
In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance
conquered me. I thought to myself indolently, "If I say No, she
will only return to the subject again, and she will end (after
all I owe to her kindness) in making me say Yes." Before I could
answer her she had realized my anticipations. She returned to the
subject; and she made me say Yes.
"What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help
you, and do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?"
"Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish."
"Will you dictate the words?"
"I will try."
I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van
Brandt vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of
the sentence which was to tell my mother that my "infatuation"
was at an end!
"You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are
doing their good work."
Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the
next sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker
and darker. I went on.
"I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the
subject of Mrs. Van Brandt."
In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary
traveling steadily over the paper while it wrote those words.
"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased.
"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones.
I went on again with my letter.
"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I
am resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt."
As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from
Miss Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in
the deepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of
the chair. My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to
her. I had barely got to my feet, when some indescribable dread
paralyzed me on the instant. Supporting myself against the
chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable of advancing a step.
The effort to speak was the one effort that I could make.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without
raising her head.
"I am frightened," she said.
"What has frightened you?"
I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she
whispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?"
"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may
trust me with the truth."
She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange
words:
"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing
for you."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you."
"Can you see it?"
"No."
"Can you feel it?"
"Yes!"
"What is it like?"
"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter."
"Has the window come open?"
"The window is close shut."
"And the door?"
"The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it for
yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?"
I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I
was conscious of a change in that part of the room.
In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light
shining; not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and
starry radiance, a pale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the
starry radiance quivered as if some breath of air had stirred it.
When it was still again, there dawned on me through the unearthly
luster the figure of a woman. By fine and slow gradations, it
became more and more distinct. I knew the noble figure; I knew
the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in the
presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt.
She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which
she had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the
bridge--in the dress in which she had first appeared to me, by
the waterfall in Scotland. The starry light shone round her like
a halo. She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she
had looked when I saw the apparition of her in the summer-house.
She lifted her hand--not beckoning me to approach her, as before,
but gently signing to me to remain where I stood.
I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I
looked at her.
She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss
Dunross sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at
the back. By the light of the pale halo that encircled the
ghostly Presence, and moved with it, I could see the dark figure
of the living woman seated immovable in the chair. The
writing-case was on her lap, with the letter and the pen lying on
it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled head was now
bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone in
the act of trying to rise from her seat.
A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the
living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested
the writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen
and wrote on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back
on the lap of the living woman. Still standing behind the chair,
it turned toward me. It looked at me once more. And now it
beckoned--beckoned to me to approach.
Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I
first saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an
irresistible power--I approached and stopped within a few paces
of her. She advanced and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt
those strangely mingled sensations of rapture and awe, which had
once before filled me when I was conscious, spiritually, of her
touch. Again she spoke, in the low, melodious tones which I
recalled so well. Again she said the words: "Remember me. Come to
me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light in which she
stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight glimmering
between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She had
gone.
I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to
touch her.
She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a
dreadful dream.
"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who
touched me."
I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her.
"Have you seen anything in the room?"
She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen
nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap."
"Did you see the hand that lifted it?"
"No."
"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?"
"No."
"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?"
"I saw it resting on my shoulder."
"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_
writing?"
"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am
sitting."
"Did it move?"
"It moved across the paper."
"As a pen moves in writing?"
"Yes. As a pen moves in writing."
"May I take the letter?"
She handed it to me.
"May I light a candle?"
She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in
silence.
I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the
writing.
There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before
on the blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written
words which the ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged
once more in two lines, as I copy them here:
At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE KISS.
SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all
the old love, all the old devotion owning her power once more.
Whatever had mortified or angered me at our last interview was
forgiven and forgotten now. My whole being still thrilled with
the mingled awe and rapture of beholding the Vision of her that
had come to me for the second time. The minutes passed--and I
stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking only of her
spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her
mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint
Paul's."
The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had
shown itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that
was still in the future. Ample time was before me for the
pilgrimage to which I was self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage
to the shadow of Saint Paul's. Other men, in my position, might
have hesitated as to the right understanding of the place to
which they were bidden. Other men might have wearied their
memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, the
streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to
Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have
fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first
to turn their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first
conclusion was the one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind.
"Saint Paul's" meant the famous Cathedral of London. Where the
shadow of the great church fell, there, at the month's end, I
should find her, or the trace of her. In London once more, and
nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I loved, in the
living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the ghostly
presence.
Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united
us, in defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could
predict to what end our lives were tending in the years that were
to come?
Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were
still fixed on the mysterious writing--when I became
instinctively aware of the strange silence in the room. Instantly
the lost remembrance of Miss Dunross came back to me. Stung by my
own sense of self-reproach, I turned with a start, and looked
toward her chair by the window.
The chair was empty. I was alone in the room.
Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because
she was suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented,
naturally resented, my neglect of her?
The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to
me. I rang my bell, to make inquiries.
The bell was answered, not, as usua l, by the silent servant
Peter, but by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly
dressed, whom I had once or twice met on the way to and from my
room, and of whose exact position in the house I was still
ignorant.
"Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked.
"No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is."
"Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter."
I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was
the first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that
formal way. I tried to gain further information by questioning
her messenger.
"Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked.
"I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the answer,
spoken very ungraciously.
"Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message
to her?"
"I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to
read the letter."
We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived impression of
me was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or
offended Miss Dunross? And had the servant--perhaps the faithful
servant who loved her--discovered and resented it? The woman
frowned as she looked at me. It would be a mere waste of words to
persist in questioning her. I let her go.
Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any
form of address, in these lines:
"I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has
already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear
more. For my father's sake--not for my own--I must take all the
care I can of the little health that I have left.
"Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature
whom you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said
when you questioned me in your room a little while since, I
cannot fail to infer that the same vision has shown itself to
you, for the second time. The fear that I felt, the strange
things that I saw (or thought I saw), may have been imperfect
reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours. I do not
stop to inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion, or
whether we are the chosen recipients of a supernatural
communication. The result, in either case, is enough for me. You
are once more under the influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not
trust myself to tell you of the anxieties and forebodings by
which I am oppressed: I will only acknowledge that my one hope
for you is in your speedy reunion with the worthier object of
your constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I am consoled
in believing, that you and your first love will meet again.
"Having written so far, I leave the subject--not to return to it,
except in my own thoughts.
"The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all
made. Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey
home. Do not, I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to
you, if I say my farewell words here.
"The little services which you have allowed me to render you have
brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a
treasury of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are
gone, with miserly care. Are you willing to add new claims to my
grateful remembrance? I ask it of you, as a last favor--do not
attempt to see me again! Do not expect me to take a personal
leave of you! The saddest of all words is 'Good-by': I have
fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God preserve and
prosper you--farewell!
"One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you
promised me, when I told you my foolish fancy about the green
flag. Wherever you go, let Mary's keepsake go with you. No
written answer is necessary--I would rather not receive it. Look
up, when you leave the house to-morrow, at the center window over
the doorway--that will be answer enough."
To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes
is only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be
touched. When I had in some degree recovered my composure, the
impulse which urged me to write to Miss Dunross was too strong to
be resisted. I did not trouble her with a long letter; I only
entreated her to reconsider her decision with all the art of
persuasion which I could summon to help me. The answer was
brought back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in four
resolute words: "It can not be." This time the woman spoke out
before she left me. "If you have any regard for my mistress," she
said sternly, "don't make her write to you again." She looked at
me with a last lowering frown, and left the room.
It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only
increased my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we
parted--perhaps forever. My one last hope of success in attaining
this object lay in approaching her indirectly through the
intercession of her father.
I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my
respects to his master that evening. My messenger returned with
an answer that was a new disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged
that I would excuse him, if he deferred the proposed interview
until the next morning. The next morning was the morning of my
departure. Did the message mean that he had no wish to see me
again until the time had come to take leave of him? I inquired of
Peter whether his master was particularly occupied that evening.
He was unable to tell me. "The Master of Books" was not in his
study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was sitting
by the sofa in his daughter's room.
Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until
the next morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time
in his life than the time I passed during the last night of my
residence under Mr. Dunross's roof.
After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought
of trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed
it by reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to
sufficiently illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece
to light the second candle which stood there, I noticed the
unfinished letter to my mother lying where I had placed it, when
Miss Dunross's servant first presented herself before me. Having
lighted the second candle, I took up the letter to put it away
among my other papers. Doing this (while my thoughts were still
dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at the letter
again--and instantly discovered a change in it.
The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had
vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing
met my eyes now but the blank white paper!
My first impulse was to look at my watch.
When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the
characters had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On
this occasion, as nearly as I could calculate, the writing had
vanished in one hour only.
Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van
Brandt when we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to the
discoveries which followed at a later period of my life, I can
only repeat that she had again been the subject of a trance or
dream, when the apparition of her showed itself to me for the
second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and freely
appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her
spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to
herself, after an interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed
of the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in
the trance--had again unconsciously counteracted by her
waking-will the influence of her sleeping-will; and had thus
caused the writing once more to disappear, in an hour from the
moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace) it.
This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time
when the incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted
to the confidence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily
incapable of arriving at any solution of the mystery, right or
wrong. I could only put away the letter, doubting vaguely whether
my own senses had not deceived me. After the distressing thoughts
which Miss Dunross's letter had roused in my mind, I was in no
humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to the mystery of
the vanished writing. My ner ves were irritated; I felt a sense
of angry discontent with myself and with others. "Go where I may"
(I thought impatiently), "the disturbing influence of women seems
to be the only influence that I am fated to feel." As I still
paced backward and forward in my room--it was useless to think
now of fixing my attention on a book--I fancied I understood the
motives which made men as young as I was retire to end their
lives in a monastery. I drew aside the window curtains, and
looked out. The only prospect that met my view was the black gulf
of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could see nothing; I
could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one alternative
before me was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge told
me plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one
of the unattainable luxuries of life for that night. The
medicine-chest which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal
remained in the room. I mixed for myself a strong sleeping
draught, and sullenly took refuge from my troubles in bed.
It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not
only act in a totally different manner on different
constitutions, but that they are not even to be depended on to
act always in the same manner on the same person. I had taken
care to extinguish the candles before I got into my bed. Under
ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in the darkness
for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would have sent me
to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught stupefied
me, and did no more.
Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in
the semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously
characteristic of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore
on, such a sense of heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was
literally impossible for me to open them--such a masterful
languor possessed all my muscles that I could no more move on my
pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, in this somnolent
condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of pleasant
thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the
faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through
the rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more
keenly sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy
furniture of a room, of those sudden settlements of extinct coals
in the grate, so familiar to bad sleepers, so startling to
overwrought nerves! It is not a scientifically correct statement,
but it exactly describes my condition, that night, to say that
one half of me was asleep and the other half awake.
How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense
of hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot
tell. I can only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening
intently, with fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was
the faintest sound imaginable, as of something soft and light
traveling slowly over the surface of the carpet, and brushing it
just loud enough to be heard.
Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and
then suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me.
I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the
next sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the
silence, if the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they
could be called) were drifting back again into their former
course, when I became suddenly conscious of soft breathing just
above me. The next moment I felt a touch on my forehead--light,
soft, tremulous, like the touch of lips that had kissed me. There
was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh trembled through the
silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound of something
brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time _from_ my
bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost in
the silence of the night.
Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily
wonder what had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips
really touched me? Was the sound that I had heard really the
sound of a sigh? Or was it all delusion, beginning and ending in
a dream? The time passed without my deciding, or caring to
decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the composing
influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its hold on
my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking
impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held
me to conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep.
Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my
memory, my first clear recollection was the recollection of the
soft breathing which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my
forehead, and of the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it
possible that some one had entered my room in the night? It was
quite possible. I had not locked the door--I had never been in
the habit of locking the door during my residence under Mr.
Dunross's roof.
After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room.
Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached
the door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly
satisfied myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was
now ajar. Had it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or
had a person, after entering and leaving my room, forgotten to
close it?
Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these
probabilities, I noticed a small black object on the carpet,
lying just under the key, on the inner side of the door. I picked
the thing up, and found that it was a torn morsel of black lace.
The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black
veil, hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss
Dunross to wear. Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard
softly traveling over the carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my
forehead; _her_ sigh that had trembled through the silence? Had
the ill-fated and noble creature taken her last leave of me in
the dead of night, trusting the preservation of her secret to the
deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was asleep? I
looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil might
easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she
passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly
and reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured
memorials which I had brought with me from home. To the end of
her life, I vowed it, she should be left undisturbed in the
belief that her secret was safe in her own breast! Ardently as I
still longed to take her hand at parting, I now resolved to make
no further effort to see her. I might not be master of my own
emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me to
her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the
last sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I
made the sacrifice.
In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the
door, and that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall.
I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at
me. His faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were
together, were not once raised from the ground.
"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home,"
he said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on
the first few miles of your journey. There are reasons which
oblige me to remain with my daughter in the house."
He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was
something in his manner which, for the first time in my
experience, seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him.
Knowing the intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which
existed between the father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind
whether the secret of the past night was entirely a secret to Mr.
Dunross. His next words set that doubt at rest, and showed me the
truth.
In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express
to him (and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of
gratitude for the kindness which I had received under his roof.
He stopped me, politely and resolutely, speaking with that
quaintly precise choice of language which I h ad remarked as
characteristic of him at our first interview.
"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation
which you may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you
will be pleased to consider your residence here as an unimportant
episode in your life, which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your
departure, you will more than repay any kindness that you may
have received as my guest. In saying this, I speak under a sense
of duty which does entire justice to you as a gentleman and a man
of honor. In return, I can only trust to you not to misjudge my
motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any further."
A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain
proud resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret,
respected it more resolutely than ever, before her father.
"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are
my commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him
with marked respect, and left the house.
Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window,
as she had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously
closed, kept out the light from the room within. At the sound of
the pony's hoofs on the rough island road, as the animal moved,
the curtains were parted for a few inches only. Through the gap
in the dark draperies a wan white hand appeared; waved
tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from my view. The
curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary
wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the
lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was
kept for the passage of animals to and from the island. With
slow, regular strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took
their leave. I looked back at the distant house. I thought of her
in the dark room, waiting patiently for death. Burning tears
blinded me. The guide took my bridle in his hand: "You're not
well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony."
When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended
in the interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house
and the lake had disappeared, to be seen no more.
CHAPTER XXIV.
IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S.
In ten days I was at home again--and my mother's arms were round
me.
I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly--seeing that
she was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to
observe a change for the worse, for which her letters had not
prepared me. Consulting our medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found
that he, too, had noticed my mother's failing health, but that he
attributed it to an easily removable cause--to the climate of
Scotland. My mother's childhood and early life had been passed on
the southern shores of England. The change to the raw, keen air
of the North had been a trying change to a person at her age. In
Mr. MacGlue's opinion, the wise course to take would be to return
to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and to make
our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or
Torquay.
Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which
summoned me to London at the month's end, Mr. MacGlue's
suggestion met with no opposition on my part. It had, to my mind,
the great merit of obviating the necessity of a second separation
from my mother--assuming that she approved of the doctor's
advice. I put the question to her the same day. To my infinite
relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the journey to
the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland;
and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a certain
longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire
coast.
We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by
post--resting, of course, at inns on the road at night. In the
days before railways it was no easy matter for an invalid to
travel from Perthshire to London--even with a light carriage and
four horses. Calculating our rate of progress from the date of
our departure, I found that we had just time, and no more, to
reach London on the last day of the month.
I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my
mind, under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every
account, my mother's strength held out. The easy and (as we then
thought) the rapid rate of traveling had its invigorating effect
on her nerves. She slept better when we rested for the night than
she had slept at home. After twice being delayed on the road, we
arrived in London at three o'clock on the afternoon of the last
day of the month. Had I reached my destination in time?
As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some
hours at my disposal. The phrase, "at the month's end," meant, as
I understood it, at the last hour of the last day in the month.
If I took up my position "under the shadow of Saint Paul's," say,
at ten that night, I should arrive at the place of meeting with
two hours to spare, before the last stroke of the clock marked
the beginning of the new month.
At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long
journey, and privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my
post. The night was fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the
cathedral marked distinctly the limits within which I had been
bid to wait, on the watch for events.
The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten--and nothing happened.
The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one
time absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching
the gradual diminution in the number of foot passengers who
passed me as the night advanced. The City (as it is called) is
the most populous part of London in the daytime; but at night,
when it ceases to be the center of commerce, its busy population
melts away, and the empty streets assume the appearance of a
remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As the half hour
after ten struck--then the quarter to eleven--then the hour--the
pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count
the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the
places of public refreshment within my view beginning already to
close for the night.
I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At
that hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the
public street?
The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to
be. The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her
once more, accompanied by some friend--perhaps under the escort
of Van Brandt himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my
self-control, in the presence of that man, for the second time.
While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my
attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice,
putting a strange little question, close at my side.
"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's
shop open at this time of night?"
I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a
basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand.
"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any
medicine, you must ring the night-bell."
"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a
little boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out
of their beds, without somebody to speak for me."
The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such
a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his
face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him.
"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked.
"I don't know, sir."
"Have you got a doctor's prescription?"
He held out his morsel of paper.
"I have got this," he said.
I took the paper from him, and looked at it.
It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked
first at the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly
obscure person in the profession. Below it was written the name
of the patient for whom the medicine had been prescribed. I
started as I read it. The name was "Mrs. Brand."
The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at
any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt.
"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked.
" Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I
have done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've
pawned her ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs,
and I've taken care of the change. Mother looks to the change for
her rent. It isn't my fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but
ten years old--and all the chemists' shops are shut up!"
Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes
overpowered him, and he began to cry.
"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something
more about the lady first. Is she alone?"
"She's got her little girl with her, sir."
My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that
other little girl whom my mother had once seen.
"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next.
"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he
hasn't come back yet."
I put a last conclusive question.
"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired.
"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered.
I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have
noticed it!
Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she
was obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner,
alone with her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that
moment? Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of
leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of
sympathy and help? The more I thought of it, the more strongly
the idea of returning with the boy to the house in which his
mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock
struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in
misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare
before the month reached its end.
"Where do you live?" I asked.
The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for
the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further
particulars, was that he lived close by the river--in which
direction, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to
tell me.
While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed
slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned
the name of the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The
street was rather more than a mile away from us, in an easterly
direction. He undertook to drive me there and to bring me back
again to Saint Paul's (if necessary), in less than twenty
minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and told my little friend
to get in. The boy hesitated.
"Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he asked.
"No. You are going home first, with me."
The boy began to cry again.
"Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine."
"I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am a
doctor myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the
medicine."
The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy
with a certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to
accompany me to his mother's house.
"Do you mean to charge the lady anything?" he asked. "The money
I've got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't like having it
taken out of her rent."
"I won't charge the lady a farthing," I answered.
The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, "as
long as mother gets her money."
Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid anxieties
of life was completed already at ten years old!
We drove away.
CHAPTER XXV.
I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT.
THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the
dirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at
the door, would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare
themselves for a distressing discovery when they were admitted to
the interior of the dwelling. The first impression which the
place produced on _my_ mind suggested, on the contrary, that the
boy's answers to my questions had led me astray. It was simply
impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as _I_ remembered her)
with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now beheld. I
rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my
inquiries would lead to no useful result.
As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of a
beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when
I asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Please
stand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!"
A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was
necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed
as my small friend's mother.
"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained,
as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been gone
on an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want,
sir?"
I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own
business.
"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I found
him lost in the streets; and I have brought him home."
The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, and
discovered her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The
language of the eye, superseding on this occasion the language of
the tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had produced
on her: "You bring my lost brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you
are mad."
"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," I
went on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady
of the same name whom I know. But I should like to make sure
whether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb your
lodger to-night?"
The woman recovered the use of her tongue.
"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn't
know his way about London yet!" She emphasized those words by
shaking her brawny fist at her son--who instantly returned to his
place of refuge behind the tail of my coat. "Have you got the
money?" inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hidden
offspring over my shoulder. "Or have you lost _that_ as well as
your own stupid little self?"
The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother's
knotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves
fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver--and then became
partially pacified.
"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don't
keep the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she and
her child," the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy
has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother
has tasted today. She's pawned everything by this time; and what
she's to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The
doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn't
better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. Follow the
boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know."
I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted
under a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to
associate the charming object of my heart's worship with the
miserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped
the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply
as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and
who had called to see her.
We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now
at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was
nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened
the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear
what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs.
Brand" was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a
stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay
within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under "the
shadow of Saint Paul's."
The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child.
"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!"
"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat."
"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!"
There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice
once more.
"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for
your egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll
choke yourself. What's the matter with your mamma? Are you
asleep, ma'am?"
I could bar ely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it
uttered but one word: "No!"
The boy spoke again.
"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you."
This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to
me at the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything
of her."
It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any
longer to enter the room. I went in.
There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber,
lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among
the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the
great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to
screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the
handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered
the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like
face the face of the woman I loved!
For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and
giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was
round her--her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking,
past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said
nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I
held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring its
bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy,
on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us.
And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a
corner was the only sound in the room.
The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained,
rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation in
which I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it
in the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quick
flutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to the
nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. "Be quick about it,"
I said; "and you shall have more money for yourself than ever you
had in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his
hand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the room as never
boy ran yet.
I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The
cry of the child stopped me.
"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!"
I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She
looked up at me with wondering eyes.
"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papa
never kisses me."
I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed
slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in
mine. "Happier days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now."
There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that was
all.
In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his
promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his
treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked some
crumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, I
revived her failing strength by nourishment administered at
intervals in that cautious form. After a while she raised her
head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiably
like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show
itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in
whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her
side.
"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?"
She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was
slow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost
remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. "What
brought you here?" she asked. "Was it my dream?"
"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all."
I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child
followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled
at her mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of
the house that I should remain with my patient, watching her
progress toward recovery, through the night. He went out,
jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three were left
together.
As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into
a broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as
if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the
nourishment which I still carefully administered wrought its
healthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieter
slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as the
child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return later
in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magic
of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a
docile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructions
exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I
went away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of
the sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time
that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest of
all rewards to feel sure of this--to touch her cool forehead
lightly with my lips--to look, and look again, at the poor worn
face, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. change as it
might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright
morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of
joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our
heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud!
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER.
I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of
repose, before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in
her own room. I observed, in her reception of me on this
occasion, certain peculiarities of look and manner which were far
from being familiar in my experience of her.
When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful,
questioning look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she
shrunk from expressing in words. And when I inquired after her
health, as usual, she surprised me by answering as impatiently as
if she resented my having mentioned the subject. For a moment, I
was inclined to think these changes signified that she had
discovered my absence from home during the night, and that she
had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But she never
alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and
not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or
indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only
conclude that she had something important to say in relation to
herself or to me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly
abstained from giving expression to it at that time.
Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on
the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to
Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss
Dunross. Here, again, when I least expected it, there was another
surprise in store for me.
"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green
flag which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were
both children. Have you really kept it all this time?"
"Yes."
"Where have you left it? In Scotland?"
"I have brought it with me to London."
"Why?"
"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever
I might go."
My mother smiled.
"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young
lady in Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed,
you believe in the green flag being the means of bringing Mary
Dermody and yourself together again?"
"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor
Miss Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after
all I owed to her kindness?"
The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively.
"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression
on you," she said.
"I own it. I feel deeply interested in her."
"If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might
have become interested in Miss Dunross--perhaps in the character
of my daughter-in-law?"
"It is useless, mother, to speculate on what _might_ have
happened. The sad reality is enough."
My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me.
"Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your
presence, when there happened to be light in the room?"
"Always."
"She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?"
"Never."
"And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a
painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?"
"You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told
me the truth."
"No, George. I only doubt whether she told you _all_ the truth."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more
serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that
she gave _you_."
I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never
occurred to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of
morbid nervous sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss
Dunross, as described by herself--and that had been enough for
me. Now that my mother's idea had found its way from her mind to
mine, the impression produced on me was painful in the last
degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and
profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of
Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject--the evil
influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by
talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my
mother's room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where
alone I could hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van
Brandt.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT.
THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached
the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful
anticipations. The poor lodger looked already "like another
woman"; and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs,
watching for the return of her "new papa."
"There's one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you
go upstairs," the woman went on. "Don't trust the lady with more
money at a time than the money that is wanted for the day's
housekeeping. If she has any to spare, it's as likely as not to
be wasted on her good-for-nothing husband."
Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind,
I had thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Where he ought to be," was the answer. "In prison for debt."
In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a
man imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being
shortened by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt.
Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the
upper landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a
cake for her on my way to the house. She forthwith turned over
the doll to my care, and, trotting before me into the room with
her cake in her arms, announced my arrival in these words:
"Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him
better, too."
The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale
again, as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously,
and discerned the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed.
Her grand gray eyes rested on me again with a glimmer of their
old light. The hand that had lain so cold in mine on the past
night had life and warmth in it now.
"Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?"
she asked, softly. "Have you saved my life for the second time? I
can well believe it."
Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and
touched it tenderly with her lips. "I am not an ungrateful
woman," she murmured--"and yet I don't know how to thank you."
The child looked up quickly from her cake. "Why don't you kiss
him?" the quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of
astonishment.
Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly.
"No more of Me!" she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and
suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. "Tell me what happy
chance brought you here last night?"
"The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint Anthony's
Well."
She raised herself eagerly in the chair.
"You have seen me again--as you saw me in the summer-house by the
waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?"
"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland."
"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!"
I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently
with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing
from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to
suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I
had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross's
roof.
"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me
attentively to the end.
"What is strange?" I asked.
She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave
eyes.
"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to
have no concealments in such a matter from you. I understand
everything that you have told me--with one exception. It seems
strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your
companion while you were at the house in Shetland."
"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired.
"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house."
I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it
forced me to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past
experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence from her,
while I was spiritually present to her mind in a trance or dream.
Had she also seen the daily companion of my life in
Shetland--Miss Dunross?
I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether
I should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not.
"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in
Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my
house in Perthshire?"
"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time.
I fell asleep, or became insensible--I cannot say which. And I
saw you again, in a vision or a dream."
"Where did you see me?"
"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river--just as I
met you on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the
stream and the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them,
into darkness. I waited a little, and the darkness melted away
slowly. I stood, as it seemed to me, in a circle of starry
lights; fronting a window, with a lake behind me, and before me a
darkened room. And I looked into the room, and the starry light
showed you to me again."
"When did this happen? Do you remember the date?"
"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The
misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not then
fallen on me; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had the
strangest prevision of calamity that was to come. I felt the same
absolute reliance on your power to help me that I felt when I
first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did the same familiar
things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: 'Remember
me. Come to me.' I even wrote--"
She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on
her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent
agitation, I hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for
that day, on the subject of her dream.
"No," she answered, firmly. "There is nothing to be gained by
giving me time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my
mind. As long as I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think
of what I saw near you in that darkened room."
She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the
shrouded figure, with the black veil over its head? Was she about
to describe her first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross?
"Tell me one thing first," she resumed. "Have I been right in
what I have said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a
darkened room when you saw me?"
"Quite true."
"Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the
close of evening?"
"Yes."
"Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!"
"I was not alone."
"Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other
companion?"
It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now
heard) to attempt to deceive her.
"I had another companion," I answered. "The person in the room
with me was a woman."
Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the
terrifying recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by
this time, some difficulty myself in preserving my composure.
Still, I was determined not to let a word escape me which could
operate as a suggestion on the mind of my companion.
"Have you any other question to ask me?" was all I said.
"One more," she answered. "Was there anything unusual in the
dress of your companion?"
"Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and
face, and dropped to below her waist."
Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes
with her hands.
"I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of
that miserable woman in the house," she said. "It is good and
kind, like all your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in
the trance I saw everything exactly as it was in the reality; and
I, too, saw that frightful face!"
Those words literally electrified me.
My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred
to my memory. I started to my feet.
"Good God!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean?"
"Don't you understand yet?" she asked in amazement on her side.
"Must I speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of
me, did you see me write?"
"Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the
words afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: 'At
the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.' "
"How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?"
"You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen
lay, off the lady's lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the
case on her shoulder."
"Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on
her?"
"I saw no effect produced," I answered. "She remained immovable
in her chair."
"I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand--not the
hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As _I_ lifted
the writing-case, _she_ lifted her hand, and parted the folds of
the veil from off her face--I suppose to see more clearly. It was
only for a moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid.
Don't let us speak of it! You must have shuddered at that
frightful sight in the reality, as I shuddered at it in the
dream. You must have asked yourself, as I did: 'Is there nobody
to poison the terrible creature, and hide her mercifully in the
grave?' "
At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say
nothing--my face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth.
"Good heavens!" she cried, "you have not seen her! She must have
kept her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did
you cheat me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again.
See, we are frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is
nothing to be afraid of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You
shall be a great lady, giving a grand dinner; and we will be two
friends whom you have invited to dine with you; and the doll
shall be the little girl who comes in after dinner, and has fruit
at dessert!" So she ran on, trying vainly to forget the shock
that she had inflicted on me in talking nursery nonsense to the
child.
Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second
the effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that
she might well be self-deceived in believing the horrible
spectacle presented to her in the vision to be an actual
reflection of the truth. In common justice toward Miss Dunross I
ought surely not to accept the conviction of her deformity on no
better evidence than the evidence of a dream? Reasonable as it
undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still lingering in
my mind. The child's instinct soon discovered that her mother and
I were playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. She
dismissed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back
with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met
her--the landing outside the door. No persuasion on her mother's
part or on mine succeeded in luring her back to us. We were left
together, to face each other as best we might--with the forbidden
subject of Miss Dunross between us.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LOVE AND MONEY.
FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her
side, Mrs. Van Brandt spoke first.
"You have said nothing to me about yourself," she began. "Is your
life a happier one than it was when we last met?"
"I cannot honestly say that it is," I answered.
"Is there any prospect of your being married?"
"My prospect of being married still rests with you."
"Don't say that!" she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me.
"Don't spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what
can never be! Have you still to be told how it is that you find
me here alone with my child?"
I forced myself to mention Van Brandt's name, rather than hear it
pass _her_ lips.
"I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt," I
said. "And I saw for myself last night that he had left you
helpless."
"He left me the little money he had with him when he was
arrested," she rejoined, sadly. "His cruel creditors are more to
blame than he is for the poverty that has fallen on us."
Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick.
"I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him," I said, bitterly.
"I ought to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any
wrong that a man can inflict on her--when he is the man whom she
loves."
She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say
any more.
"How can you speak so cruelly to me?" she asked. "You know--to my
shame I confessed it to you the last time we met--you know that
my heart, in secret, is all yours. What 'wrong' are you talking
of? Is it the wrong I suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a
wife living at the time (and living still)? Do you think I can
ever forget the great misfortune of my life--the misfortune that
has made me unworthy of you? It is no fault of mine, God knows;
but it is not the less true that I am not married, and that the
little darling who is playing out there with her doll is my
child. And you talk of my being your wife--knowing that!"
"The child accepts me as her second father," I said. "It would be
better and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the
child."
"Pride?" she repeated. "In such a position as mine? A helpless
woman, with a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have
not fallen quite so low yet as to forget what is due to you, and
you will pay me a compliment that will be nearer to the truth. Am
I to marry you for my food and shelter? Am I to marry you,
because there is no lawful tie that binds me to the father of my
child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has still _that_ claim upon
me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he has been forced
away. My only friend, is it possible that you think me ungrateful
enough to consent to be your wife? The woman (in my situation)
must be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the
estimation of the world and the regard of your friends! The
wretchedest creature that walks the streets would shrink from
treating you in that way. Oh, what are men made of? How _can_
you--how _can_ you speak of it!"
I yielded---and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only
increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved,
and lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could
still offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated
the man who had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even
capable of helping him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I
don't deny it; I don't excuse it--hopeless infatuation!
"You have forgiven me," I said. "Let me deserve to be forgiven.
It is something to be your only friend. You must have plans for
the future; tell me unreservedly how I can help you."
"Complete the good work that you have begun," she answered,
gratefully. "Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to
submit to a doctor's estimate of my chances of living for some
years yet."
"A doctor's estimate of your chances of living?" I repeated.
"What do you mean?"
"I hardly know how to tell you," she said, "without
speaking again of Mr. Van Brandt."
"Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?" I asked.
"Why need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not
do to relieve _your_ anxieties."
She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress.
"Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?"
she asked, as soon as she could speak. "I, who owe everything to
your devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth.
There is a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He
must pay his creditors; and he has found out a way of doing
it--with my help."
"Your help?" I exclaimed.
"Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since,
he obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich
relative of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept
it. Unhappily, he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and
the same day he was arrested for debt. His relative has offered
to keep the situation open for a certain time, and the time has
not yet expired. If he can pay a dividend to his creditors, they
will give him his freedom; and he believes he can raise the money
if I consent to insure my life."
To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was
plainly revealed in those four words.
In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was
of age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress.
What was there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she
pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as to give Van
Brandt a direct interest in her death? Knowing what I knew of
him--believing him, as I did, to be capable of any atrocity--I
trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened if I had
failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to
the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of
protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend
the scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour's notice, and
he was the man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could
make it.
"You don't seem to approve of our idea," she said, noticing, in
evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. "I
am very unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and
annoyed you for the second time."
"You are quite mistaken," I replied. "I am only doubting whether
your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is
quite so simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that
are likely to take place before it will be possible to borrow
money on your policy of insurance?"
"I know nothing about it," she said, sadly.
"Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are
trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use
to you."
Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the
alarm.
"Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van
Brandt," she rejoined, "and I will accept your help gratefully."
I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in
keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined
to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me.
The sooner I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily
our present doubts and difficulties would be resolved.
She rose, as I rose--with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on
her cheeks.
"Kiss me," she whispered, "before you go! And don't mind my
crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your goodness that
overpowers me."
I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of
a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in
which I had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my
own sentence of banishment. When my interference had restored my
unworthy rival to his freedom, could I submit to the degrading
necessity of seeing her in his presence, of speaking to her under
his eyes? _That_ sacrifice of myself was beyond me--and I knew
it. "For the last time!" I thought, as I held her to me for a
moment longer--"for the last time!"
The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the
landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the
mother. It was only when the child's round, innocent little face
laid itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I
was past speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited
on the lower flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world
outside.
CHAPTER XXIX.
OUR DESTINIES PART US.
DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a
moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which
of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the
only person to whom I could venture to address the question.
Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid
construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner.
"Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets
already?" she asked. "If I was as rich as you are, I should let
it go. In your place, I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!"
The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it
started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too
dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to
degrade myself by personally communicating with Van Brandt in his
prison. It only now occurred to me that my legal advisers were,
as a matter of course, the proper persons to represent me in the
matter--with this additional advantage, that they could keep my
share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt himself.
I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior
partner--the tried friend and adviser of our family--received me.
My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was
immediately to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my behalf,
without mentioning my name to any one. And he was gravely to
accept as security for repayment--Mr. Van Brandt's note of hand!
"I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by
which a gentleman can throw away his money," the senior partner
remarked. "I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered
an entirely new way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding
a newspaper, taking a theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at
Monaco, are highly efficient as modes of losing money. But they
all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt!"
I left him, and went home.
The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my
mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak
to her.
I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room.
"Well, George?" she said, without a word to prepare me for what
was coming. "How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?"
I was completely thrown off my guard.
"Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?" I asked.
"My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this time how
you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind.
Sit down by me. I have something to say to you which I wanted to
say this morning; but, I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I
am bolder now, and I can say it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van
Brandt. You have my permission to marry her."
Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van
Brandt's own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not
even half an hour had passed since I had given the directions
which would restore to liberty the man who was the one obstacle
to my marriage. And this was the time that my mother had
innocently chosen for consenting to receive as her
daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt!
"I see that I surprise you," she resumed. "Let me explain my
motive as plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth,
George, if I told you that I have ceased to feel the serious
objections that there are to your marrying this lady. The only
difference in my way of thinking is, that I am now willing to set
my objections aside, out of regard for your happiness. I am an
old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot hope to be
with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to care
for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will be
left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my
first consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has
been led astray) is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her."
I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my
mother's feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a
boy again.
"Think of it, George," she said. "And come back to me when you
are composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do."
She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw
something in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which
struck a sudden fear through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke
from a knife.
The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter
in the hall.
"Has my mother left the house," I asked, "while I have been
away?"
"No, sir."
"Have any visitors called?"
"One visitor has called, sir."
"Do you know who it was?"
The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician--a man at
the head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat
and went to his house.
He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken
to him, and was followed at once by my admission to his
consulting-room.
"You have seen my mother," I said. "Is she seriously ill? and
have you not concealed it from her? For God's sake, tell me the
truth; I can bear it."
The great man took me kindly by the hand.
"Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself
aware of the critical state of her health," he said. "She sent
for me to confirm her own conviction. I could not conceal from
her--I must not conceal from you--that the vital energies are
sinking. She may live for some months longer in a milder air than
the air of London. That is all I can say. At her age, her days
are numbered."
He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he
placed his vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge,
at my disposal. From his dictation, I committed to writing the
necessary instructions for watching over the frail tenure of my
mother's life.
"Let me give you one word of warning," he said, as we parted.
"Your mother is especially desirous that you should know nothing
of the precarious condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to
see you happy. If she discovers your visit to me, I will not
answer for the consequences. Make the best excuse you can think
of for at once taking her away from London, and, whatever you may
feel in secret, keep up an appearance of good spirits in her
presence."
That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to
tell my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt's refusal to marry me, and
there was an intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to
leave London. The same night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of
the sad event which was the cause of my sudden departure, and to
warn her that there no longer existed the slightest necessity for
insuring her life. "My lawyers" (I wrote) "have undertaken to
arrange Mr. Van Brandt's affairs immediately. In a few hours he
will be at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered
to him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my
unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before she
left England.
This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, of no
acutely painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. There
is a limit, morally as well as physically, to our capacity for
endurance. I can only describe my sensations under the calamities
that had now fallen on me in one way: I felt like a man whose
mind had been stunned.
The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage of our
journey to the south coast of Devonshire.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE PROSPECT DARKENS.
THREE days after my mother and I had established ourselves at
Torquay, I received Mrs. Van Brandt's answer to my letter. After
the opening sentences (informing me that Van Brandt had been set
at liberty, under circumstances painfully suggestive to the
writer of some unacknowledged sacrifice on my part), the letter
proceeded in these terms:
"The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to undertake secures
to us the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. For the first
time since my troubles began, I have the prospect before me of a
peaceful existence, among a foreign people from whom all that is
false in my position may be concealed--not for my sake, but for
the sake of my child. To more than this, to the happiness which
some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, aspire.
"We leave England for the Continent early tomorrow morning. Shall
I tell you in what part of Europe my new residence is to be?
"No! You might write to me again; and I might write back. The one
poor return I can make to the good angel of my life is to help
him to forget me. What right have I to cling to my usurped place
in your regard? The time will come when you will give your heart
to a woman who is worthier of it than I am. Let me drop out of
your life--except as an occasional remembrance, when you
sometimes think of the days that have gone forever.
"I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when I too
look back at the past. I have been a better woman since I met
with you. Live as long as I may, I shall always remember that.
"Yes! The influence that you have had over me has been from first
to last an influence for good. Allowing that I have done wrong
(in my position) to love you, and, worse even than that, to own
it, still the love has been innocent, and the effort to control
it has been an honest effort at least. But, apart from this, my
heart tells me that I am the better for the sympathy which has
united us. I may confess to you what I have never yet
acknowledged--now that we are so widely parted, and so little
likely to meet again--whenever I have given myself up
unrestrainedly to my own better impulses, they have always seemed
to lead me to you. Whenever my mind has been most truly at peace,
and I have been able to pray with a pure and a penitent heart, I
have felt as if there was some unseen tie that was drawing us
nearer and nearer together. And, strange to say, this has always
happened (just as my dreams of you have always come to me) when I
have been separated from Van Brandt. At such times, thinking or
dreaming, it has always appeared to me that I knew you far more
familiarly than I know you when we meet face to face. Is there
really such a thing, I wonder, as a former state of existence?
And were we once constant companions in some other sphere,
thousands of years since? These are idle guesses. Let it be
enough for me to remember that I have been the better for knowing
you--without inquiring how or why.
"Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend! The child sends
you a kiss; and the mother signs herself your grateful and
affectionate
M. VAN BRANDT."
When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to my
memory--very strangely, as I then thought--the predictions of
Dame Dermody in the days of my boyhood. Here were the foretold
sympathies which were spiritually to unite me to Mary, realized
by a stranger whom I had met by chance in the later years of my
life!
Thinking in this direction, did I advance no further? Not a step
further! Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself to my mind
even yet.
Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this? Would
another man in my position have discovered what I had failed to
see?
I look back along the chain of events which runs through my
narrative, and I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to be
found (in my case, or in the case of any other man) of
identifying the child who was Mary Dermody with the woman who was
Mrs. Van Brandt? Was there anything left in our faces, when we
met again by the Scotch river, to remind us of our younger
selves? We had developed, in the interval, from boy and girl to
man and woman: no outward traces were discernible in us of the
George and Mary of other days. Disguised from each other by our
faces, we were also disguised by our names. Her mock-marriage had
changed her surname. My step-father's will had changed mine. Her
Christian name was the commonest of all names of women; and mine
was almost as far from being remarkable among the names of men.
Turning next to the various occasions
on which we had met, had we seen enough of each other to drift
into recognition on either side, in the ordinary course of talk?
We had met but four times in all; once on the bridge, once again
in Edinburgh, twice more in London. On each of these occasions,
the absorbing anxieties and interests of the passing moment had
filled her mind and mine, had inspired her words and mine. When
had the events which had brought us together left us with leisure
enough and tranquillity enough to look back idly through our
lives, and calmly to compare the recollections of our youth?
Never! From first to last, the course of events had borne us
further and further away from any results that could have led
even to a suspicion of the truth. She could only believe when she
wrote to me on leaving England--and I could only believe when I
read her letter--that we had first met at the river, and that our
divergent destinies had ended in parting us forever.
Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of my
matured experience, I note how remarkably Dame Dermody's faith in
the purity of the tie that united us as kindred spirits was
justified by the result.
It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van Brandt--in
other words, it was only when she was a pure spirit--that she
felt my influence over her as a refining influence on her life,
and that the apparition of her communicated with me in the
visible and perfect likeness of herself. On my side, when was it
that I dreamed of her (as in Scotland), or felt the mysterious
warning of her presence in my waking moments (as in Shetland)?
Always at the time when my heart opened most tenderly toward her
and toward others--when my mind was most free from the bitter
doubts, the self-seeking aspirations, which degrade the divinity
within us. Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the
perfect sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the
chances and changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal
life.
I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came to me.
My narrative must return to the time when I was still walking in
darkness.
Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my mother's life, I
found in the performance of this sacred duty my only consolation
under the overthrow of my last hope of marriage with Mrs. Van
Brandt. By slow degrees my mother felt the reviving influences of
a quiet life and a soft, pure air. The improvement in her health
could, as I but too well knew, be only an improvement for a time.
Still, it was a relief to see her free from pain, and innocently
happy in the presence of her son. Excepting those hours of the
day and night which were dedicated to repose, I was never away
from her. To this day I remember, with a tenderness which
attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I read to
her, the sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the
games of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip
that amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else.
These are my imperishable relics; these are the deeds of my life
that I shall love best to look back on, when the all-infolding
shadows of death are closing round me.
In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts--occupying themselves
mostly among the persons and events of the past--wandered back,
many and many a time, to Shetland and Miss Dunross.
My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really hidden
from me was no longer accompanied by a feeling of horror when it
now recurred to my mind. The more vividly my later remembrances
of Miss Dunross were associated with the idea of an unutterable
bodily affliction, the higher the noble nature of the woman
seemed to rise in my esteem. For the first time since I had left
Shetland, the temptation now came to me to disregard the
injunction which her father had laid on me at parting. When I
thought again of the stolen kiss in the dead of night; when I
recalled the appearance of the frail white hand, waving to me
through the dark curtains its last farewell; and when there
mingled with these memories the later remembrance of what my
mother had suspected, and of what Mrs. Van Brandt had seen in her
dream--the longing in me to find a means of assuring Miss Dunross
that she still held her place apart in my memory and my heart was
more than mortal fortitude could resist. I was pledged in honor
not to return to Shetland, and not to write. How to communicate
with her secretly, in some other way, was the constant question
in my mind as the days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all
that I wanted; and, as the irony of circumstances ordered it, my
mother was the person who gave me the hint.
We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watching me on
those occasions when we were in the company of friends and
acquaintances at Torquay, my mother plainly discerned that no
other woman, whatever her attractions might be, could take the
place in my heart of the woman whom I had lost. Seeing but one
prospect of happiness for me, she steadily refused to abandon the
idea of my marriage. When a woman has owned that she loves a man
(so my mother used to express her opinion), it is that man's
fault, no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make
her his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she pressed
it on my consideration one day in these words:
"There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being here
with you. I am an obstacle in the way of your communicating with
Mrs. Van Brandt."
"You forget," I said, "that she has left England without telling
me where to find her."
"If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear,
you would easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely
write to her. Don't mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope
of your forgetting her--if I saw you only moderately attracted by
one or other of the charming women whom we know here--I should
say, let us never speak again or think again of Mrs. Van Brandt.
But, my dear, your heart is closed to every woman but one. Be
happy in your own way, and let me see it before I die. The wretch
to whom that poor creature is sacrificing her life will, sooner
or later, ill-treat her or desert her and then she must turn to
you. Don't let her think that you are resigned to the loss of
her. The more resolutely you set her scruples at defiance, the
more she will love you and admire you in secret. Women are like
that. Send her a letter, and follow it with a little present. You
talked of taking me to the studio of the young artist here who
left his card the other day. I am told that he paints admirable
portraits in miniatures. Why not send your portrait to Mrs. Van
Brandt?"
Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search! Quite
superfluous as a method of pleading my cause with Mrs. Van
Brandt, the portrait offered the best of all means of
communicating with Miss Dunross, without absolutely violating the
engagement to which her father had pledged me. In this way,
without writing a word, without even sending a message, I might
tell her how gratefully she was remembered; I might remind her of
me tenderly in the bitterest moments of her sad and solitary
life.
The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings were
afterward continued during the hours while my mother was resting
in her room, until the portrait was completed. I caused it to be
inclosed in a plain gold locket, with a chain attached; and I
forwarded my gift, in the first instance, to the one person whom
I could trust to assist me in arranging for the conveyance of it
to its destination. This was the old friend (alluded to in these
pages as "Sir James") who had taken me with him to Shetland in
the Government yacht.
I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to
express myself to Sir James with any reserve. On the voyage back
we had more than once spoken together confidentially of Miss
Dunross. Sir James had heard her sad story from the resident
medical man at Lerwick, who had been an old companion of his in
their college days. Requesting him to confide my gift to this
gentleman, I did not hesitate to acknowledge the doubt that
oppressed me in relation to the mystery of the black veil. It
was, of course, impossible to decide whether the doctor would be
able to relieve that doubt. I could only venture to suggest that
the question might be guardedly put, in making the customary
inquiries after the health of Miss Dunross.
In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days,
but for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James's
answer. His letter only reached me after an unusually long delay.
For this, or for some other reason that I cannot divine, I felt
so strongly the foreboding of bad news that I abstained from
breaking the seal in my mother's presence. I waited until I could
retire to my own room, and then I opened the letter. My
presentiment had not deceived me.
Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The letter
inclosed tells its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot
grieve for her; but I can feel sorry for you."
The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the
doctor at Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words:
"The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which
we communicate with the mainland. I have only received your
letter to-day. With it, there has arrived a little box,
containing a gold locket and chain; being the present which you
ask me to convey privately to Miss Dunross, from a friend of
yours whose name you are not at liberty to mention.
"In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed
me in a position of extreme difficulty.
"The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of
her life--a life of such complicated and terrible suffering that
death comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance.
Under these melancholy circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame
if I hesitate to give her the locket in secret; not knowing with
what associations this keepsake may be connected, or of what
serious agitation it may not possibly be the cause.
"In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket,
and my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of
the remembrances which my unhappy patient may connect with the
portrait. I don't know whether it will give her pleasure or pain
to receive it, in her last moments on earth. I can only decide to
take it with me, when I see her to-morrow, and to let
circumstances determine whether I shall risk letting her see it
or not. Our post to the South only leaves this place in three
days' time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know the
result.
"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My
distress of mind is great. But I will do my best to write
intelligibly and fully of what has happened.
"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had
rallied for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept
during the early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there
were symptoms of fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The
words that escaped her in this condition appear to have related
mainly to an absent person whom she spoke of by the name of
'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to see 'George' again
before she died.
"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait
in the locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent
her nurse out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting
partly to her own admirable courage and strength of mind, and
partly to the confidence which I knew she placed in me as an old
friend and adviser, I adverted to the words which had fallen from
her in the feverish state. And then I said, 'You know that any
secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, do you expect to
receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'?
"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was
over her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was
producing on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial
movement, of her hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk
coverlet of the bed.
"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to
hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing
became oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She
told me nothing; she only put a question:
" 'Is he here?' she asked.
"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.'
" 'Is there a letter?'
"I said 'No.'
"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of
her fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor!
Whatever it is, give it to me, before I die.'
"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into
her hand.
"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at
first. She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.'
I obeyed her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil;
and then (as I suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low
cry--not of sorrow or pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst
from her. I heard her kiss the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my
profession to piteous sights and sounds, I never remember so
completely losing my self-control as I lost it at that moment. I
was obliged to turn away to the window.
"Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the
bedside. In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had
sunk again; it was so weak that I could only hear what she said
by leaning over her and placing my ear close to her lips.
" 'Put it round my neck,' she whispered.
"I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to
lift her hand to it, but her strength failed her.
" 'Help me to hide it,' she said.
"I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the
white dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in
her breathing increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow
was not high enough. I rested her head on my shoulder, and
partially opened her veil. She was able to speak once more,
feeling a momentary relief.
" 'Promise,' she said, 'that no stranger's hand shall touch me.
Promise to bury me as I am now.'
"I gave her my promise.
"Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate
the next words:
" 'Cover my face again.'
"I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence.
Suddenly the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She
started, and raised her head from my shoulder.
" 'Are you in pain?' I asked.
" 'I am in heaven!' she answered.
" Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last
outburst of joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her
supreme happiness and the moment of her death were one. The mercy
of God had found her at last.
"I return to my letter before the post goes out.
"I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my
promise. She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her
bosom, and with the black veil over her face. No nobler creature
ever breathed the breath of life. Tell the stranger who sent her
his portrait that her last moments were joyful moments, through
his remembrance of her as expressed by his gift.
"I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet
replied. You ask me if there was any more serious reason for the
persistent hiding of her face under the veil than the reason
which she was accustomed to give to the persons about her. It is
true that she suffered under a morbid sensitiveness to the action
of light. It is also true that this was not the only result, or
the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. She had
another reason for keeping her face hidden--a reason known to two
persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her
father's house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to
divulge to any living creature what our eyes alone have seen. We
have kept our terrible secret even from her father; and we shall
carry it with us to our graves. I have no more to say on this
melancholy subject to the person in whose interest you write.
When he thinks of her now, let him think of the beauty which no
bodily affliction can profane--the beauty of the freed spirit,
eternally happy in its union with the angels of God.
"I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father
will not be left in cheerless solitude at the lak e house. He
will pass the remainder of his days under my roof, with my good
wife to take care of him, and my children to remind him of the
brighter side of life."
So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of
my room forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my
own life. My interests in this busy world were now narrowed to
one object--to the care of my mother's failing health. Of the two
women whose hearts had once beaten in loving sympathy with mine,
one lay in her grave and the other was lost to me in a foreign
land. On the drive by the sea I met my mother, in her little
pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry sunshine. I
dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked by the
side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly
on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that
was before me, and tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to
live resignedly in the passing hour.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION.
SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again.
The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my
mother's life have come to their end. She has died in my arms:
her last words have been spoken to me, her last look on earth has
been mine. I am now, in the saddest and plainest meaning of the
words, alone in the world.
The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to
be performed that require my presence in London. My house is let;
I am staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on
business), has rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in
my sitting-room. For the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and
yet I cannot go into society; I shrink from persons who are mere
acquaintances. At Sir James's suggestion, however, one visitor at
the hotel has been asked to dine with us, who claims distinction
as no ordinary guest. The physician who first warned me of the
critical state of my mother's health is anxious to hear what I
can tell him of her last moments. His time is too precious to be
wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins us at the
dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit his
friends.
The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to
preserve my self-control; and in few words have told the simple
story of my mother's last peaceful days on earth. The
conversation turns next on topics of little interest to me: my
mind rests after the effort that it has made; my observation is
left free to exert itself as usual.
Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in
the conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me,
and then arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence
which has not been acknowledged, and in which I am concerned.
Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me
with a furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to
conceal. Over and over again I notice that he contrives to divert
the conversation from general topics, and to lure me into talking
of myself; and, stranger still (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir
James understands and encourages him. Under various pretenses I
am questioned about what I have suffered in the past, and what
plans of life I have formed for the future. Among other subjects
of personal interest to me, the subject of supernatural
appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe in occult
spiritual sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or
distant persons. I am dexterously led into hinting that my views
on this difficult and debatable question are in some degree
influenced by experiences of my own. Hints, however, are not
enough to satisfy the doctor's innocent curiosity; he tries to
induce me to relate in detail what I have myself seen and felt.
But by this time I am on my guard; I make excuses; I steadily
abstain from taking my friend into my confidence. It is more and
more plain to me that I am being made the subject of an
experiment, in which Sir James and the physician are equally
interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion
of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true
motive for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part
that Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my guest.
Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on
the table.
The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces
that the bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the
envelope, and find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing
the completion of some formal matter of business. I at once seize
the opportunity that is offered to me. Instead of sending a
verbal message downstairs, I make my apologies, and use the
letter as a pretext for leaving the room.
Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the
corridor in which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door
of my bed-chamber. A second door communicates with the
sitting-room, and has a ventilator in the upper part of it. I
have only to stand under the ventilator, and every word of the
conversation between Sir James and the physician reaches my ears.
"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir
James's voice.
"Quite right," the doctor answers.
"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life,"
Sir James proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house
in Scotland; I have proposed traveling with him on the Continent;
I have offered to take him with me on my next voyage in the
yacht. He has but one answer--he simply says No to everything
that I can suggest. You have heard from his own lips that he has
no definite plans for the future. What is to become of him? What
had we better do?"
"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak
plainly, the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I
noticed something strange in him when he first came to consult me
about his mother's health. The mischief has not been caused
entirely by the affliction of her death. In my belief, his mind
has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, for some time past. He is
a very reserved person. I suspect he has been oppressed by
anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his age,
the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused
by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of
love; and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have
bitterly disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect
is plain--his nerves have broken down, and his brain is
necessarily affected by whatever affects his nerves. I have known
men in his condition who have ended badly. He may drift into
insane delusions, if his present course of life is not altered.
Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts?"
"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks.
"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression,"
the doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at
any moment."
"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for
myself, doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor
fellow. His mother was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and
he has inherited many of her engaging and endearing qualities. I
hope you don't think the case is bad enough to be a case for
restraint?"
"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no
positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of
reason for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a
difficult and a doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by
a competent person, and thwart him in nothing, if you can
possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite his suspicions;
and if that happens, we lose all control over him."
"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?"
"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely;
and he has certainly been a long time out of the room."
Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the,
sitting-room (by way of the corridor) and resume my place at the
table.
The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the
circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I
invent the necessary
excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the
conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that
escapes me, without betraying any appearance of restraint in my
manner. Early in the evening the doctor leaves us to go to a
scientific meeting. For half an hour or more Sir James remains
with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther testing the state of my
mind, he renews the invitation to his house in Scotland. I
pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as his
guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give
him a definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast.
Sir James is delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each
other good-night. At last I am left alone.
My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed
without a moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel
privately the next morning before Sir James is out of his
bedroom.
To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next
question that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the
last days of my mother's life we spoke together frequently of the
happy past days when we were living together on the banks of the
Greenwater lake. The longing thus inspired to look once more at
the old scenes, to live for a while again among the old
associations, has grown on me since my mother's death. I have,
happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir James or to
any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will be no
suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To
the old home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning.
Wandering among the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with
myself how I may best bear the burden of the life that lies
before me.
After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For
all I know to the contrary, my own servant may be employed
to-morrow as the spy who watches my actions. When the man makes
his appearance to take his orders for the night, I tell him to
wake me at six the next morning, and release him from further
attendance.
I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on
the table, to speak for themselves after my departure.
In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have
discovered his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner.
While I thank him for the interest he takes in my welfare, I
decline to be made the object of any further medical inquiries as
to the state of my mind. In due course of time, when my plans are
settled, he will hear from me again. Meanwhile, he need feel no
anxiety about my safety. It is one among my other delusions to
believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking care of
myself. My second letter is addressed to the landlord of the
hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of my luggage and the
payment of my bill.
I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few
things that I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case.
Opening it, I discover my pretty keepsake--the green flag! Can I
return to "Greenwater Broad," can I look again at the bailiff's
cottage, without the one memorial of little Mary that I possess?
Besides, have I not promised Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall
always go with me wherever I go? and is the promise not doubly
sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit idly looking at
the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered on the green
ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent
love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in
horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the
flag and place it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all
is done. I may rest till the morning comes.
No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest
for me that night.
Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now
that my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends
who have plotted against me has had time to subside, my mind
reverts to the conversation that I have overheard, and considers
it from a new point of view. For the first time, the terrible
question confronts me: The doctor's opinion on my case has been
given very positively. How do I know that the doctor is not
right?
This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession
entirely by his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who
succeed by means of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous
handling of good opportunities. Even his enemies admit that he
stands unrivaled in the art of separating the true conditions
from the false in the discovery of disease, and in tracing
effects accurately to their distant and hidden cause. Is such a
man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not far more
probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself?
When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the
strange events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the
visionary product of my own disordered brain--realities to me,
and to no one else? What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What
are the ghostly apparitions of her which I believe myself to have
seen? Delusions which have been the stealthy growth of years?
delusions which are leading me, by slow degrees, nearer and
nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion which has
made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to
save my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping
from the hotel like a criminal escaping from prison?
These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the
dead of night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I
rise and dress myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through
my open window into the street.
The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me
like a deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my
soul once more. Why should I wait in the room that is still
haunted by my horrible doubts of the night? I take up my
traveling-bag; I leave my letters on the sitting-room table; and
I descend the stairs to the house door. The night-porter at the
hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass him; and
(God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad.
"Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in
my hand.
Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out
for a day in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start
early.
The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to
carry my bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires
if I have any messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that
I have left written messages upstairs for Sir James and the
landlord. Upon this he draws the bolts and opens the door. To the
last he looks at me as if he thought I was mad.
Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I
tell?
CHAPTER XXXII.
A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD.
MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and
breathed the fresh morning air.
Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the
first office that I passed, and secured my place by the early
coach to Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the
market-town which was nearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a
few miles in the cool evening brought me, through well-remembered
by-roads, to our old house. By the last rays of the setting sun I
looked at the familiar row of windows in front, and saw that the
shutters were all closed. Not a living creature was visible
anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at the
door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up.
After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old
man opened the door.
Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the
by-gone time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On
his side, he tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No
doubt I was the more sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to
introduce myself. The poor fellow's withered face brightened
slowly and timidly, as if he were half incapable, half afraid, of
indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a smile. In his confusion
he bid me welcome home ag ain, as if the house had been mine.
Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old
man gave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a
glass of home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand
me when I informed him that the only object of my visit was to
look once more at the familiar scenes round my old home. But he
willingly placed his services at my disposal; and he engaged to
do his best, if I wished it, to make me up a bed for the night.
The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had
been dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for
horse-racing, developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired
tradesman who had purchased the estate at the time of our family
troubles. He had gone abroad with his wife to live on the little
income that had been saved from the wreck of his fortune; and he
had left the house and lands in such a state of neglect that no
new purchaser had thus far been found to take them. My old
friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge of the place.
As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was at
perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of
the door on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man,
with his old hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I
pleased to go. I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to
make up a bed in the lonely house. The night was fine, the moon
was rising. I had supped; I had rested. When I had seen what I
wanted to see, I could easily walk back to the market-town and
sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, I set forth alone on
the way through the grounds which led to Dermody's cottage.
Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled
so happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something
that reminded me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we
had sat together under the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and
vowed to be constant to each other to the end of our lives. There
was the bright little water spring, from which we drank when we
were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, still bubbling its
way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I listened to
the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to see
her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to
the music of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild
flowers by dipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on
and I reached a clearing in the wood and stood on a little
promontory of rising ground which commanded the prettiest view of
Greenwater lake. A platform of wood was built out from the bank,
to be used for bathing by good swimmers who were not afraid of a
plunge into deep water. I stood on the platform and looked round
me. The trees that fringed the shore on either hand murmured
their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlight trembled
softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I could just
see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days
when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my
left was the wooden paling that followed the curves of the
winding creek, and beyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy
for wild fowl, now falling to ruin for want of use. Guided by the
radiant moonlight, I could see the very spot on which Mary and I
had stood to watch the snaring of the ducks. Through the hole in
the paling before which the decoy-dog had shown himself, at
Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a little black
shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters of the
lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back in
mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden
of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth
living now?
I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the
circling ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered
if a practiced swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit
suicide by drowning, and had been so resolute to die that he had
resisted the temptation to let his own skill keep him from
sinking. Something in the lake itself, or something in connection
with the thought that it had put into my mind, revolted me. I
turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the path
through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage.
Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the
well-remembered parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let
in the light of the moon.
With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed,
perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my
recognition in every part of the room. The tender moonlight
streamed slanting into the corner in which Mary and I used to
nestle together while Dame Dermody was at the window reading her
mystic books. Overshadowed by the obscurity in the opposite
corner, I discovered the high-backed arm-chair of carved wood in
which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the memorable day when she
warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her blessing for
the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, I
recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest--the
gaudily colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work,
which we thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular
mirror to which I used to lift Mary when she wanted "to see her
face in the glass." Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, it
showed me some familiar object that recalled my happiest days.
Again the by-gone time looked back in mockery. Again the voices
of the past came to me with their burden of reproach: See what
your life was once! Is your life worth living now?
I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and
there between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I
thought to myself: "Thus far my mortal journey has brought me.
Why not end it here?"
Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of
all living men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the
fewest duties to perform toward others, the least reason to
hesitate at leaving a world which had no place in it for my
ambition, no creature in it for my love.
Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my
death was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to
represent itself as a death by accident.
On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling,
might I not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went
to bed? And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming,
might it not nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by
cramp? On the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a
drowning man would bring no help at night. The fatal accident
would explain itself. There was literally but one difficulty in
the way--the difficulty which had already occurred to my mind.
Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of
self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first
plunge?
The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and
walked to and fro--now in the shadow, and now in the
moonlight--under the trees before the cottage door.
Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence
over me now. I, who had once found it impossible to excuse,
impossible even to understand, the despair which had driven Mrs.
Van Brandt to attempt self-destruction--I now contemplated with
composure the very act which had horrified me when I saw it
committed by another person. Well may we hesitate to condemn the
frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the one unanswerable
reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar temptations
may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties ourselves.
Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one
consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led
back to the lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible
for such a swimmer as I was to drown himself. This was all that
troubled my mind. For the rest, my will was made, and I had few
other affairs which remained unsettled. No lingering hope was
left in me of a reunion in the future with Mrs. Van Brandt. She
had never written to
me again; I had never, since our last parting, seen her again in
my dreams. She was doubtless reconciled to her life abroad. I
forgave her for having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of
others were the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was
withdrawn already from the world, whose views were narrowing fast
to the one idea of his own death.
I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place
began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my
nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came
to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good
swimmer could drown himself.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A VISION OF THE NIGHT.
RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and
opened my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions
to give to my representatives, which might spare them some
trouble and uncertainty in the event of my death. Disguising my
last instructions under the commonplace heading of "Memoranda on
my return to London," I began to write.
I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to
the next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my
attention on the subject that was before it. I was at once
reminded of the similar difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when
I had tried vainly to arrange the composition of the letter to my
mother which Miss Dunross was to write. By way of completing the
parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as they had wandered then, to
my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a minute or two I
began to feel once more the strange physical sensations which I
had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's house. The
same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to foot.
I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what
the objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on
that lovely summer night, as if there had been an electric
disturbance in the atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid my
pocket-book and pencil on the table, and rose to go out again
under the trees. Even the trifling effort to cross the room was
an effort made in vain. I stood rooted to the spot, with my face
turned toward the moonlight streaming in at the open door.
An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I
became aware of something moving far down among the trees that
fringed the shore of the lake. The first impression produced on
me was of two gray shadows winding their way slowly toward me
between the trunks of the trees. By fine degrees the shadows
assumed a more and more marked outline, until they presented
themselves in the likeness of two robed figures, one taller than
the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, their gray
obscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an
inner light of their own as they slowly approached the open space
before the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly
presence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I
beheld a second apparition never before revealed to me, the
apparition of her child.
Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the
bright moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother's
face looked at me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes
which I remembered so well. But the face of the child was
innocently radiant with an angelic smile. I waited in unutterable
expectation for the word that was to be spoken, for the movement
that was to come. The movement came first. The child released its
hold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly upward, remained
poised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out of the
dark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room,
and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and
pencil when I could no longer write. As before, she took the
pencil and wrote on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to me
to step nearer to her. I approached her outstretched hand, and
felt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch on my bosom,
and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the words:
"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The
pale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. She
had spoken. She had gone.
I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the
writing of the ghostly hand, these words only:
_"Follow the Child."_
I looked out again at the lonely night landscape.
There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of
the trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child.
Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the
threshold of the door. The softly glowing vision of the child
moved away before me among the trees. I followed, like a man
spellbound. The apparition, floating slowly onward, led me out of
the wood, and past my old home, back to the lonely by-road along
which I had walked from the market-town to the house. From time
to time, as we two went on our way, the bright figure of the
child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant face
looked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little hand, and
floated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages in
the olden time.
I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering
over the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the
evening. I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for another
journey. The postilion waited for his further directions. I
looked up. The child's hand was pointing southward, along the
road that led to London. I gave the man his instructions to
return to the place at which I had hired the carriage. At
intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through the window. The
bright figure of the child still floated on before me gliding low
in the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I went
on till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the eastern
heaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light,
the figure of the child floated on before me in its changeless
and mystic light. Mile after mile, it still led the way
southward, till we left the country behind us, and passing
through the din and turmoil of the great city, stopped under the
shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the river that runs
by it.
The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further
need of his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the
figure of the child pause on its airy course. I looked upward
again. The child's hand pointed toward the river. I paid the
postilion and left the carriage. Floating on before me, the child
led the way to a wharf crowded with travelers and their luggage.
A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready to sail. The child led
me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering over me in the
smoky air.
I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile,
and pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While
my eyes were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it
fade away upward and upward into the higher light, as the lark
vanishes upward and upward in the morning sky. I was alone again
with my earthly fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but
the remembrance of the child's hand pointing eastward to the
distant sea.
A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the
deck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man
looked at me in surly amazement, and answered:
"To Rotterdam."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
BY LAND AND SEA.
IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go
where I might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt.
She had need of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the
visionary hand of the child had pointed, thither I was destined
to go. Abroad or at home, it mattered nothing: when I next set my
foot on the land, I should be further directed on the journey
which lay before me. I believed this as firmly as I believed that
I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of the child.
For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I
descended to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I
could lie down to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and
the vessel was at sea.
I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the
sensation of drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours
together. My friend, the physician, would no doubt have
attributed this prolonged need of repose to the exhausted
condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions which had
lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause be
what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake
at intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary
animal, lost in sleep.
When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to
ask my way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of
money with me; and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be
well, before I did anything else, to take the necessary measures
for replenishing my purse.
I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater
Broad I had left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter
had placed it in the carriage when I started on my return to
London. The bag contained my checkbook, and certain letters which
assisted me in proving my identity to the consul. He kindly gave
me the necessary introduction to the correspondents at Rotterdam
of my bankers in London.
Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain
necessaries of which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the
street, knowing nothing of what my next proceeding was to be, and
waiting confidently for the event which was to guide me. I had
not walked a hundred yards before I noticed the name of "Van
Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a house which appeared
to be devoted to mercantile purposes.
The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the
passage, led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for
Mr. Van Brandt. A clerk who spoke English was sent for to
communicate with me. He told me there were three partners of that
name in the business, and inquired which of them I wished to see.
I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name, and mentioned it. No
such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at the office.
"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here,"
the clerk explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may
know where Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire
there."
It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my
way to Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I
slept at a hotel. The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The
next morning I set forth by the public conveyance for Amsterdam.
Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was
referred to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English
perfectly; and he received me with an appearance of interest
which I was at a loss to account for at first.
"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask
if you are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been
introduced here as his wife?"
I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any
assistance to the lady of which she may stand in need."
The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest
with which he had received me.
"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and
myself of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by
referring for a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We
have a fishing establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on
the shores of the Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share
in it at one time, which he afterward sold. Of late years our
profits from this source have been diminishing; and we think of
giving up the fishery, unless our prospects in that quarter
improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having a vacant
situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of Mr.
Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing
his connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related
to one of my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that
he is a very bad man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him
by embezzling our money; and he has taken to flight--in what
direction we have not yet discovered. The English lady and her
child are left deserted at Enkhuizen; and until you came here
to-day we were quite at a loss to know what to do with them. I
don't know whether you are already aware of it, sir; but the
lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts which we
entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To
our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman
some years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first
wife is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your
unfortunate country-woman, pray believe that our services are at
your disposal."
With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is
needless to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor
mother had once said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that
had abandoned me filled my heart once more; the future which I
had so long feared to contemplate showed itself again bright with
the promise of coming happiness to my view. I thanked the good
merchant with a fervor that surprised him. "Only help me to find
my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer for the rest."
"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied.
"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?"
"Plenty of money."
"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under
the care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our
office for many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger,
will be to go by sea; and the Englishman will show you where to
hire a boat."
In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the
harbor.
Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the
boat and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to
purchase provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of
my companion, and to the hearty good-will with which he exerted
it, my preparations were completed before night-fall. I was able
to set sail for my destination on the next day.
The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee,
of being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's
cabin was at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his
crew were berthed forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the
boat, partitioned off on the one side and on the other from the
captain and the crew, was assigned to me for my cabin. Under
these circumstances, I had no reason to complain of want of
space; the vessel measuring between fifty and sixty tons. I had a
comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen was well away
from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own request, I
set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I
preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a
former period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and
we could communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in
the French language.
We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the
smooth waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee.
The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the
days when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence.
Where the waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a
great inland lake, with but one river to serve it as an outlet to
the sea. Swelled by a succession of tempests, the lake overflowed
its boundaries: its furious waters, destroying every obstacle in
their course, rested only when they reached the furthest limits
of the land.
The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of
ruin; and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it
now. The years advanced, the generations of man succeeded each
other; and on the shores of the new ocean there rose great and
populous cities, rich in commerce, renowned in history. For
centuries their prosperity lasted, before the next in this mighty
series of changes ripened and revealed itself. Isolated from the
rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good fortune,
careless of the march of progress in the natio ns round them, the
inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor
of a secluded people. The few members of the population who still
preserved the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the
mass left behind resignedly witnessed the diminution of their
commerce and the decay of their institutions. As the years
advanced to the nineteenth century, the population was reckoned
by hundreds where it had once been numbered by thousands. Trade
disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, once
filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted
accumulation of sand. In our own times the decay of these once
flourishing cities is so completely beyond remedy, that the next
great change in contemplation is the draining of the now
dangerous and useless tract of water, and the profitable
cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are still
to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder
Zee.
As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the
tawny hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the
shallow water, and which make the navigation dangerous to
inexperienced seamen. We found our moorings for the night at the
fishing island of Marken--a low, lost, desolate-looking place, as
I saw it under the last gleams of the twilight. Here and there,
the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose black against the
dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared at the
waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat.
And that was all I saw of the island of Marken.
Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there
were moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality
of my own position.
Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the
mother and daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by
the apparition of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night
anchorage in the unknown sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces
of the same morbid mental puzzle, all delusions from which I
might wake at any moment, and find myself restored to my senses
again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by doubts which led me
further and further from any definite conclusion, I left my bed
and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and cloudy
night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker
shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears
was the heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on
either side of me. I waited, looking round and round the circle
of darkness in which I stood. No new vision showed itself. When I
returned again to the cabin, and slumbered at last, no dreams
came to me. All that was mysterious, all that was marvelous, in
the later events of my life seemed to have been left behind me in
England. Once in Holland, my course had been influenced by
circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace
discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my
position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions
departed from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or
had my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my
mortal pilgrimage were to find their end? Who could say?
Early the next morning we set sail once more.
Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny
sea, changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull
pearl-gray. On the other side was the flat, winding coast,
composed alternately of yellow sand and bright-green
meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by towns and villages,
whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples rose gayly
against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me to visit
the famous towns of Edam and. Hoorn; but I declined to go on
shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs.
Van Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to
make for the promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind
fell, then shifted to another quarter, and blew with a force
which greatly increased the difficulties of navigation. I still
insisted, as long as it was possible to do so, on holding on our
course. After sunset, the strength of the wind abated. The night
came without a cloud, and the starry firmament gave us its pale
and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious wind shifted
back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into the
desolate harbor of Enkhuizen.
The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their
frugal suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I
was the only person left awake in the boat.
I ascended to the deck, and looked about me.
Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing
vessels visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place
was a vast solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary
banks of sand. Looking inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the
Dead City--black, grim, and dreadful under the mysterious
starlight. Not a human creature, not even a stray animal, was to
be seen anywhere. The place might have been desolated by a
pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it now appear. Little
more than a hundred years ago, the record of its population
reached sixty thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a tenth
of that number when I looked at Enkhuizen now!
I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to
be.
The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt
if I ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the
other hand, now that I had reached the place in which she and her
child were living, friendless and deserted, could I patiently
wait through the weary interval that must elapse before the
morning came and the town was astir? I knew my own
self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this latter
alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through
Enkhuizen on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform
me of Mrs. Van Brandt's address.
First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped
from the bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth
upon my night wanderings through the Dead City.
CHAPTER XXXV.
UNDER THE WINDOW.
I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then
followed the course of the first street that lay before me.
On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on
me. There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets.
For a quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper
into the city, without encountering a living creature on my
way--with only the starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into
a street broader than the rest, I at last saw a moving figure,
just visible ahead, under the shadows of the houses. I quickened
my pace, and found myself following a man in the dress of a
peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he turned and looked at
me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted a thick cudgel
that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and called to
me in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to stand
back. A stranger in Eukhuizen at that time of night was evidently
reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citizen! I had
learned on the voyage, from the captain of the boat, how to ask
my way in Dutch, if I happened to be by myself in a strange town;
and I now repeated my lesson, asking my way to the fishing office
of Messrs. Van Brandt. Either my foreign accent made me
unintelligible, or the man's suspicions disinclined him to trust
me. Again he shook his cudgel, and again he signed to me to stand
back. It was useless to persist. I crossed to the opposite side
of the way, and soon afterward lost sight of him under the
portico of a house.
Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached
what I at first supposed to be the end of the town.
Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess),
rose a tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at
intervals reposing for the night. I advanced over the grass, and
observed here and there, where the ground rose a little, some
moldering fragments of brickwork. Looking onward as I reached the
middle of th e meadow, I perceived on its further side, towering
gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or gateway, without
walls at its sides, without a neighboring building of any sort,
far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of the ancient
gates of the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been
destroyed as useless obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the
waste meadow-land round me had once stood the shops of the
richest merchants, the palaces of the proudest nobles of North
Holland. I was actually standing on what had been formerly the
wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And what was left of it now? A few
mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land of sweet-smelling grass,
and a little flock of sheep sleeping.
The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its
history) struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to
lose its balance in the dreadful stillness that was round me. I
felt unutterable forebodings of calamities to come. For the first
time, I repented having left England. My thoughts turned
regretfully to the woody shores of Greenwater Broad. If I had
only held to my resolution, I might have been at rest now in the
deep waters of the lake. For what had I lived and planned and
traveled since I left Dermody's cottage? Perhaps only to find
that I had lost the woman whom I loved--now that I was in the
same town with her!
Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked
about me, intending to return by the street which was known to me
already. Just as I thought I had discovered it, I noticed another
living creature in the solitary city. A man was standing at the
door of one of the outermost houses on my right hand, looking at
me.
At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined
to make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I
returned to the boat.
Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway.
His dress and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered
this time a person in the lower ranks of life. He answered my
question civilly in his own language. Seeing that I was at a loss
to understand what he said, he invited me by signs to follow him.
After walking for a few minutes in a direction which was quite
new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little square, with a plot of
neglected garden-ground in the middle of it. Pointing to a lower
window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly appeared, my
guide said in Dutch: "Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed, and left
me.
I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high
enough to be above my head. The light in the room found its way
outward through the interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still
haunted by misgivings of trouble to come, I hesitated to announce
my arrival precipitately by ringing the house-bell. How did I
know what new calamity might not confront me when the door was
opened? I waited under the window and listened.
Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in the
room. There was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the
voice of Mrs. Van Brandt.
"Come, darling," she said. "It is very late--you ought to have
been in bed two hours ago."
The child's voice answered, "I am not sleepy, mamma."
"But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again
if you keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you
will soon fall asleep when I put the candle out."
"You must _not_ put the candle out!" the child returned, with
strong emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is he to find his
way to us, if you put out the light?"
The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange words had
irritated her.
"You are talking nonsense," she said; "and you must go to bed.
Mr. Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England."
I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window:
"Mr. Germaine is here!"
CHAPTER XXXVI.
LOVE AND PRIDE.
A CRY of terror from the room told me that I had been heard. For
a moment more nothing happened. Then the child's voice reached
me, wild and shrill: "Open the shutters, mamma! I said he was
coming--I want to see him!"
There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother
opened the shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at the
window, with the light behind her, and the child's head just
visible above the lower part of the window-frame. The quaint
little face moved rapidly up and down, as if my self-appointed
daughter were dancing for joy!
"Can I trust my own senses?" said Mrs. Van Brandt. "Is it really
Mr. Germaine?"
"How do you do, new papa?" cried the child. "Push open the big
door and come in. I want to kiss you."
There was a world of difference between the coldly doubtful tone
of the mother and the joyous greeting of the child. Had I forced
myself too suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? Like all sensitively
organized persons, she possessed that inbred sense of
self-respect which is pride under another name. Was her pride
wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, deserted as well as
deceived--abandoned contemptuously, a helpless burden on
strangers--by the man for whom she had sacrificed and suffered so
much? And that man a thief, flying from the employers whom he had
cheated! I pushed open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that
this might be the true explanation of the change which I had
already remarked in her. My apprehensions were confirmed when she
unlocked the inner door, leading from the courtyard to the
sitting-room, and let me in.
As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her head,
so that my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed deeply; her
eyes looked away from me as she spoke her few formal words of
welcome. When the child flew into my arms, she cried out,
irritably, "Don't trouble Mr. Germaine!" I took a chair, with the
little one on my knee. Mrs. Van Brandt seated herself at a
distance from me. "It is needless, I suppose, to ask you if you
know what has happened," she said, turning pale again as suddenly
as she had turned red, and keeping her eyes fixed obstinately on
the floor.
Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of her
father's disappearance in these words:
"My other papa has run away! My other papa has stolen money! It's
time I had a new one, isn't it?" She put her arms round my neck.
"And now I've got him!" she cried, at the shrillest pitch of her
voice.
The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive woman
struggled successfully with herself; but the pang that wrung her
was not to be endured in silence. With a low cry of pain, she hid
her face in her hands. Overwhelmed by the sense of her own
degradation, she was even ashamed to let the man who loved her
see that she was in tears.
I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in the
sitting-room, which happened to be left open. It showed me a
bed-chamber within, and a candle burning on the toilet-table.
"Go in there and play," I said. "I want to talk to your mamma."
The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. "Give
me something to play with," she said. "I'm tired of my toys. Let
me see what you have got in your pockets."
Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let
her take what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the
inner room. As soon as she was out of sight, I approached the
poor mother and seated myself by her side.
"Think of it as I do," I said. "Now that he has forsaken you, he
has left you free to be mine."
She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her
tears.
"Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more unworthy
of you than ever!"
"Why?" I asked.
"Why!" she repeated, passionately. "Has a woman not reached the
lowest depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by
a thief?"
It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present
frame of mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful
subject by referring to the strange succession of events which
had brought me to her for the third time. She stopped me
impatiently at the outset.
"It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other
occasions," she answered. "I understand what has brought you
here. I
have appeared to you again in a vision, just as I appeared to
you twice before."
"No," I said. "Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time
I saw you with the child by your side."
That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward
the bed-chamber door.
"Don't speak loud!" she said. "Don't let the child hear us! My
dream of you this time has left a painful impression on my mind.
The child is mixed up in it--and I don't like that. Then the
place in which I saw you is associated--" She paused, leaving the
sentence unfinished. "I am nervous and wretched to-night," she
resumed; "and I don't want to speak of it. And yet, I should like
to know whether my dream has misled me, or whether you really
were in that cottage, of all places in the world?"
I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she
appeared to feel in putting her question. There was nothing very
wonderful, to my mind, in the discovery that she had been in
Suffolk, and that she was acquainted with Greenwater Broad. The
lake was known all over the county as a favorite resort of picnic
parties; and Dermody's pretty cottage used to be one of the
popular attractions of the scene. What really surprised me was to
see, as I now plainly saw, that she had some painful association
with my old home. I decided on answering her question in such
terms as might encourage her to take me into her confidence. In a
moment more I should have told her that my boyhood had been
passed at Greenwater Broad--in a moment more, we should have
recognized each other--when a trivial interruption suspended the
words on my lips. The child ran out of the bed-chamber, with a
quaintly shaped key in her hand. It was one of the things she had
taken out of my pockets. and it belonged to the cabin door on
board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity (the insatiable
curiosity of a child) had seized her on the subject of this key.
She insisted on knowing what door it locked; and, when I had
satisfied her on that point, she implored me to take her
immediately to see the boat. This entreaty led naturally to a
renewal of the disputed question of going, or not going, to bed.
By the time the little creature had left us again, with
permission to play for a few minutes longer, the conversation
between Mrs. Van Brandt and myself had taken a new direction.
Speaking now of the child's health, we were led naturally to the
kindred subject of the child's connection with her mother's
dream.
"She had been ill with fever," Mrs. Van Brandt began; "and she
was just getting better again on the day when I was left deserted
in this miserable place. Toward evening, she had another attack
that frightened me dreadfully. She became perfectly
insensible--her little limbs were stiff and cold. There is one
doctor here who has not yet abandoned the town. Of course I sent
for him. He thought her insensibility was caused by a sort of
cataleptic seizure. At the same time, he comforted me by saying
that she was in no immediate danger of death; and he left me
certain remedies to be given, if certain symptoms appeared. I
took her to bed, and held her to me, with the idea of keeping her
warm. Without believing in mesmerism, it has since struck me that
we might unconsciously have had some influence over each other,
which may explain what followed. Do you think it likely?"
"Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory (if you
could believe in it) would carry the explanation further still.
Mesmerism would assert, not only that you and the child
influenced each other, but that--in spite of the distance--you
both influenced _me_. And in that way, mesmerism would account
for my vision as the necessary result of a highly developed
sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with the child
in your arms?"
"Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of
my resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn
situation, forsaken in a strange place, I dreamed of you again,
and I appealed to you again as my one protector and friend. The
only new thing in the dream was, that I thought I had the child
with me when I approached you, and that the child put the words
into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw the words, I
suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I awoke? I
found the child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms.
All through the night there was no change in her. She only
recovered her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start? What
have I said that surprises you?"
There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On
the day and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had
stood on the deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of
her disappear from my view.
"Did she say anything," I asked, "when she recovered her senses?"
"Yes. She too had been dreaming--dreaming that she was in company
with you. She said: 'He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have
been showing him the way.' I asked her where she had seen you.
She spoke confusedly of more places than one. She talked of
trees, and a cottage, and a lake; then of fields and hedges, and
lonely lanes; then of a carriage and horses, and a long white
road; then of crowded streets and houses, and a river and a ship.
As to these last objects, there is nothing very wonderful in what
she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which she saw in
her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from London to
Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places,
especially the cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can
only suppose that her dream was the reflection of mine. _I_ had
been dreaming of the cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in
years long gone by; and--Heaven only knows why--I had associated
you with the scene. Never mind going into that now! I don't know
what infatuation it is that makes me trifle in this way with old
recollections, which affect me painfully in my present position.
We were talking of the child's health; let us go back to that."
It was not easy to return to the topic of her child's health. She
had revived my curiosity on the subject of her association with
Greenwater Broad. The child was still quietly at play in the
bedchamber. My second opportunity was before me. I took it.
"I won't distress you," I began. "I will only ask leave, before
we change the subject, to put one question to you about the
cottage and the lake."
As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was _her_ turn now
to be innocently an obstacle in the way of our discovering each
other.
"I can tell you nothing more to-night," she interposed, rising
impatiently. "It is time I put the child to bed--and, besides, I
can't talk of things that distress me. You must wait for the
time--if it ever comes!--when I am calmer and happier than I am
now."
She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the
impulse of the moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her.
"You have only to choose," I said, "and the calmer and happier
time is yours from this moment."
"Mine?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"
"Say the word," I replied, "and you and your child have a home
and a future before you."
She looked at me half bewildered, half angry.
"Do you offer me your protection?" she asked.
"I offer you a husband's protection," I answered. "I ask you to
be my wife."
She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on my
face.
"You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened," she
said. "And yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly enough!"
"The child only told me," I rejoined, "what I had heard already,
on my way here."
"All of it?"
"All of it."
"And you still ask me to be your wife?"
"I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my wife."
"Knowing what you know now?"
"Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give me your
hand. Whatever claim that man may once have had, as the father of
your child, he has now forfeited it by his infamous desertion of
you. In every sense of the word, my darling, you are a free
woman. We have had sorrow enough in our lives. Happiness is at
last within our reach. Come to me, and say Yes."
I tried to take her in my arms. She drew
back as if I had frightened her.
"Never!" she said, firmly.
I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner room
might not hear us.
"You once said you loved me!"
"I do love you!"
"As dearly as ever?"
"_More_ dearly than ever!"
"Kiss me!"
She yielded mechanically; she kissed me--with cold lips, with big
tears in her eyes.
"You don't love me!" I burst out, angrily. "You kiss me as if it
were a duty. Your lips are cold--your heart is cold. You don't
love me!"
She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile.
"One of us must remember the difference between your position and
mine," she said. "You are a man of stainless honor, who holds an
undisputed rank in the world. And what am I? I am the deserted
mistress of a thief. One of us must remember that. You have
generously forgotten it. I must bear it in mind. I dare say I am
cold. Suffering has that effect on me; and, I own it, I am
suffering now."
I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy on
which she evidently counted in saying those words. A man can
respect a woman's scruples when they appeal to him mutely in her
looks or in her tears; but the formal expression of them in words
only irritates or annoys him.
"Whose fault is it that you suffer?" I retorted, coldly. "I ask
you to make my life a happy one, and your life a happy one. You
are a cruelly wronged woman, but you are not a degraded woman.
You are worthy to be my wife, and I am ready to declare it
publicly. Come back with me to England. My boat is waiting for
you; we can set sail in two hours."
She dropped into a chair; her hands fell helplessly into her lap.
"How cruel!" she murmured, "how cruel to tempt me!" She waited a
little, and recovered her fatal firmness. "No!" she said. "If I
die in doing it, I can still refuse to disgrace you. Leave me,
Mr. Germaine. You can show me that one kindness more. For God's
sake, leave me!"
I made a last appeal to her tenderness.
"Do you know what my life is if I live without you?" I asked. "My
mother is dead. There is not a living creature left in the world
whom I love but you. And you ask me to leave you! Where am I to
go to? what am I to do? You talk of cruelty! Is there no cruelty
in sacrificing the happiness of my life to a miserable scruple of
delicacy, to an unreasoning fear of the opinion of the world? I
love you and you love me. There is no other consideration worth a
straw. Come back with me to England! come back and be my wife!"
She dropped on her knees, and taking my hand put it silently to
her lips. I tried to raise her. It was useless: she steadily
resisted me.
"Does this mean No?" I asked.
"It means," she said in faint, broken tones, "that I prize your
honor beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your career is
destroyed by your wife; and the day will come when you will tell
me so. I can suffer--I can die; but I can _not_ face such a
prospect as that. Forgive me and forget me. I can say no more!"
She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter despair
of that action told me, far more eloquently than the words which
she had just spoken, that her resolution was immovable. She had
deliberately separated herself from me; her own act had parted us
forever.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE TWO DESTINIES.
I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow
escape me. At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who
had so obstinately rejected me. I stood looking down at her with
a merciless anger, the bare remembrance of which fills me at this
day with a horror of myself. There is but one excuse for me. The
shock of that last overthrow of the one hope that held me to life
was more than my reason could endure. On that dreadful night
(whatever I may have been at other times), I myself believe it, I
was a maddened man.
I was the first to break the silence.
"Get up," I said coldly.
She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she
doubted whether she had heard aright.
"Put on your hat and cloak," I resumed. "I must ask you to go
back with me as far as the boat."
She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull,
bewildered look.
"Why am I to go with you to the boat?" she asked.
The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat
in one hand, and the key of the cabin in the other.
"I'm ready," she said. "I will open the cabin door."
Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went
back as far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited
there, listening. I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable
composure, and answered the question which she had addressed to
me.
"You are left," I said, "without the means of getting away from
this place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I
shall sail at once on the return voyage. We part, this time,
never to meet again. Before I go I am resolved to leave you
properly provided for. My money is in my traveling-bag in the
cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to ask you to go with me as
far as the boat."
"I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. "I don't
stand in such serious need of help as you suppose."
"It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. "I have
spoken with the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at
Amsterdam, and I know exactly what your position is. Your pride
must bend low enough to take from my hands the means of
subsistence for yourself and your child. If I had died in
England--"
I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that
she would inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might
quite as becomingly take money from me in my life-time as take it
from my executors after my death. In forming this thought into
words, the associations which it called naturally into being
revived in me the memory of my contemplated suicide in the
Greenwater lake. Mingling with the remembrance thus aroused,
there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so overpoweringly vile,
and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at the moment,
that it shook me to the soul. "You have nothing to live for, now
that she has refused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered.
"Take your leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you
love take it with you!" While I was still looking at her, while
my last words to her faltered on my lips, the horrible facilities
for the perpetration of the double crime revealed themselves
enticingly to my view. My boat was moored in the one part of the
decaying harbor in which deep water still lay at the foot of the
quay. I had only to induce her to follow me when I stepped on the
deck, to seize her in my arms, and to jump overboard with her
before she could utter a cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I
knew by experience, were hard to wake, and slow to move even when
they were roused at last. We should both be drowned before the
youngest and the quickest of them could get up from his bed and
make his way to the deck. Yes! We should both be struck together
out of the ranks of the living at one and the same moment. And
why not? She who had again and again refused to be my wife--did
she deserve that I should leave her free to go back, perhaps, for
the second time to Van Brandt? On the evening when I had saved
her from the waters of the Scotch river, I had made myself master
of her fate. She had tried to destroy herself by drowning; she
should drown now, in the arms of the man who had once thrown
himself between her and death!
Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face
to face with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished
sentence.
"If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my
will. What you would have taken from me then, you may take from
me now. Come to the boat."
A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me
began to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without
making any reply.
"Come to the boat," I reiterated.
"It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the room at
the child, still waiting by the door. "Come, Elfie," she said,
calling the little creature by one of her favorite nicknames.
"Come to bed."
I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the
innoce nt means of forcing her mother to leave the house?
Trusting to the child's fearless character, and her eagerness to
see the boat, I suddenly opened the door. As I had anticipated,
she instantly ran out. The second door, leading into the square,
I had not closed when I entered the courtyard. In another moment
Elfie was out in the square, triumphing in her freedom. The
shrill little voice broke the death-like stillness of the place
and hour, calling to me again and again to take her to the boat.
I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie's
mother could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way.
"Will you go with us?" I asked. "Or must I send the money back by
the child?"
Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of
distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. "You
are not like yourself to-night," she said. Without a word more,
she took her hat and cloak and went out before me into the
square. I followed her, closing the doors behind me. She made an
attempt to induce the child to approach her. "Come, darling," she
said, enticingly--"come and take my hand."
But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and
answered from a safe distance. "No," said the child; "you will
take me back and put me to bed." She retreated a little further,
and held up the key: "I shall go first," she cried, "and open the
door."
She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and
waited for what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned,
and looked close at me under the light of the stars.
''Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked.
The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose?
Had my face warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat?
It was impossible. The more likely motive for her inquiry was to
find a new excuse for not accompanying me to the harbor. If I
told her that the men were on board, she might answer, "Why not
employ one of your sailors to bring the money to me at the
house?" I took care to anticipate the suggestion in making my
reply.
"They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully; "but I
don't know them well enough to trust them with money."
To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and
deliberately repeated her question:
"Are the sailors on board the boat?"
I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and
paused to see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her
resolution. After a moment's consideration, she turned toward the
place at which the child was waiting for us. "Let us go, as you
insist on it," she said, quietly. I made no further remark. Side
by side, in silence we followed Elfie on our way to the boat.
Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light
glimmered on us from the grim black houses. Twice the child
stopped, and (still keeping slyly out of her mother's reach) ran
back to me, wondering at my silence. "Why don't you speak?" she
asked. "Have you and mamma quarreled?"
I was incapable of answering her--I could think of nothing but my
contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every
better instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed,
seemed to be dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child's
future troubled my mind. I had no power of looking on further
than the fatal leap from the boat: beyond that there was an utter
blank. For the time being--I can only repeat it, my moral sense
was obscured, my mental faculties were thrown completely off
their balance. The animal part of me lived and moved as usual;
the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned, and that
was all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a
dull quietude in my face, an immovable composure in my manner.
And yet no madman was fitter for restraint, or less responsible
morally for his own actions, than I was at that moment.
The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the
child, we had passed through the last street--we were out on the
empty open space which was the landward boundary of the harbor.
In a minute more we stood on the quay, within a step of the
gunwale of the boat. I noticed a change in the appearance of the
harbor since I had seen it last. Some fishing-boats had come in
during my absence. They moored, some immediately astern and some
immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked anxiously to see if
any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not a living
being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives
and their families.
Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van
Brandt stepped between us as I stooped to take her up.
"We will wait here," she said, "while you go into the cabin and
get the money."
Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her
suspicions of me--suspicions, probably, which led her to fear not
for her life, but for her freedom. She might dread being kept a
prisoner in the boat, and being carried away by me against her
will. More than this she could not thus far possibly apprehend.
The child saved me the trouble of making any remonstrance. She
was determined to go with me. "I must see the cabin," she cried,
holding up the key. "I must open the door myself."
She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran round to
the other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat
in an instant. Before I could turn round, her mother had followed
her, and was standing on the deck.
The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on
her left hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her
right. Before us was the open deck, and the low gunwale of the
boat overlooking the deep water. In a moment we might step
across; in a moment we might take the fatal plunge. The bare
thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to its climax. I
became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw my arm
round her waist with a loud laugh. "Come," I said, trying to drag
her across the deck--"come and look at the water."
She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that
astonished me. With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the
child by the hand and get back to the quay. I placed myself
between her and the sides of the boat, and cut off her retreat in
that way. Still laughing, I asked her what she was frightened
about. She drew back, and snatched the key of the cabin door out
of the child's hand. The cabin was the one place of refuge now
left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat. In the
terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door,
and hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin,
taking the child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had
betrayed myself, yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on
carrying out my purpose. "I have only to behave quietly," I
thought to myself, "and I shall persuade her to go on deck
again."
My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the
table. Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting
for me. Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I
approached them. She looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness
of the mother's action had frightened the child. I did my best to
compose Elfie before I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the
different objects which were likely to interest her in the cabin.
"Go and look at them," I said, "go and amuse yourself."
The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she asked.
"No, no!"
"Are you angry with mamma?"
"Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. "Tell Elfie if I am
angry with you," I said.
She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the
necessity of humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing
the child. She turned away to examine, in high delight, the new
and strange objects which surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother
and I stood together, looking at each other by the light of the
lamp, with an assumed composure which hid our true faces like a
mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque and the terrible,
always together in this strange life of ours, came together now.
On either side of us, the one sound that broke the si nister and
threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping
captain and crew.
She was the first to speak.
"If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to
propitiate me in that way, "I am ready to take it now."
I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather
case which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on
deck again, my mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too
strong to be controlled.
"We shall be cooler on deck," I said. "Let us take the bag up
there."
She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help
rising to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of
mind enough to foresee what might happen before she could rouse
the sleeping men.
"We have a light here to count the money by," she answered. "I
don't feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a
little longer. See how Elfie is amusing herself!"
Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression
of them quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I
might take her on deck by force before the men could interfere.
But her cries would rouse them; they would hear the splash in the
water, and they might be quick enough to rescue us. It would be
wiser, perhaps, to wait a little and trust to my cunning to
delude her into leaving the cabin of her own accord. I put the
bag back on the table, and began to search for the leather
money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could
only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag
on the table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what
I was doing.
"Oh, how awkward you are!" she burst out, in her frankly fearless
way. "Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!"
I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to be
always doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual,
irritated me now. The interest that I had once felt in the
charming little creature was all gone. An innocent love was a
feeling that was stifled in the poisoned atmosphere of my mind
that night.
The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank
of England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum
that would probably be required to take a traveler back to
London; and I put all that remained into the hands of Mrs. Van
Brandt. Could she suspect me of a design on her life now?
"That will do for the present," I said. "I can communicate with
you in the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam."
She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met
mine with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old
tenderness for her; she made a last appeal to my forbearance and
consideration.
"We may part friends," she said, in low, trembling tones. "And as
friends we may meet again, when time has taught you to think
forgivingly of what has passed between us, to-night."
She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I
penetrated her motive in appealing to my old regard for her.
Still suspecting me, she had tried her last chance of getting
safely on shore.
"The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with
ironical politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree with
me that Elfie ought to be in her bed." I looked round at the
child. "Be quick, Elfie," I said; "your mamma is going away." I
opened the cabin door, and offered my arm to Mrs. Van Brandt.
"This boat is my house for the time being," I resumed. "When
ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to the deck.
Pray take my arm.
She started back. For the second time she was on the point of
crying for help, and for the second time she kept that last
desperate alternative in reserve.
"I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild with
fear, a forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. "There are
several little things here that interest me. Give me another
minute or two to look at them."
She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of
looking round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door,
watching her. She made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a
chair as if by accident, and then waited to discover whether her
trick had succeeded in waking the men.
The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was
audible on either side of us.
"My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly.
"Don't be alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes
these Dutch sailors when they are once safe in port."
She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and
advanced toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing
behind the table to the other end of the cabin. I followed her
until she had reached the extremity of the room and could get no
further. She met the look I fixed on her; she shrunk into a
corner, and called for help. In the deadly terror that possessed
her, she lost the use of her voice. A low moaning, hardly louder
than a whisper, was all that passed her lips. Already, in
imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt the
cold contact of the water--when I was startled by a cry behind
me. I turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had
apparently just discovered some new object in the bag, and she
was holding it up in admiration, high above her head. "Mamma!
mamma!" the child cried, excitedly, "look at this pretty thing!
Oh, do, do ask him if I may have it!"
Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for
getting away from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to
seize her. She suddenly turned round on me, a woman transformed.
A bright flush was on her face, an eager wonder sparkled in her
eyes. Snatching Elfie's coveted object out of the child's hand,
she held it up before me. I saw it under the lamp-light. It was
my little forgotten keepsake--the Green Flag!
"How came you by this?" she asked, in breathless anticipation of
my reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the
terror that had convulsed it barely a minute since! "How came you
by this?" she repeated, seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in
the ungovernable impatience that possessed her.
My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict
of emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on
the green flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that
refused to come to me. I answered, mechanically: "I have had it
since I was a boy."
She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture
of ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like
light from heaven over her face. For one moment she stood
enraptured. The next she clasped me passionately to her bosom,
and whispered in my ear: "I am Mary Dermody! I made it for You!"
The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had
suffered before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her
arms.
When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie
was playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with
my hand in hers. One long look of love passed silently from her
eyes to mine--from mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits
were united; The Two Destinies were fulfilled.
THE END OF THE STORY.
The Finale.
THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY.
THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to "The Two
Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by this time.
The narrative was written by myself--a citizen of the United
States, visiting England with his wife. It described a
dinner-party at which we were present, given by Mr. and Mrs.
Germaine, in celebration of their marriage; and it mentioned the
circumstances under which we were intrusted with the story which
has just come to an end in these pages. Having read the
manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to decide whether
we should continue our friendly intercourse with them or not.
At 3 o'clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five
minutes later I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet
on, and there we were, bound straight for Mr. Germaine's house,
when the servant brought a letter into the room, addressed to my
wife.
She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered
that it was "Mary Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by
side to read the letter before we did anything else.
On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it,
too. Mrs. Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you
feel some interest. And she is on that account, as I think, the
fittest person to close the story. Here is her letter:
"DEAR MADAM (or may I say- 'dear friend'?)--Be prepared, if you
please, for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall
have left London for the Continent.
"After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking
this journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me
by the ladies whom we had asked to our table, I willingly
prepared for our sudden departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away
from his false friends, my experience of him tells me that he
will recover his tranquillity. That is enough for me.
"My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I
drove to the school in the suburbs at which she is being
educated, and took her away with me. It is needless to say that
she was delighted at the prospect of traveling. She shocked the
schoolmistress by waving her hat over her head and crying
'Hooray,' like a boy. The good lady was very careful to inform me
that my daughter could not possibly have learned to cry 'Hooray'
in _her_ house.
"You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have
committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your
estimation now. Is it possible that I might have seen you and
your good husband if we had not left London so suddenly? As
things are, I must now tell you in writing what I should
infinitely have preferred saying to you with your friendly hand
in mine.
"Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the
absence of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report
affecting my character. You are quite right. While I was taking
Elfie away from her school, my husband called on one of his
friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and insisted on an
explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who is known to
you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's lawful wife. In her
intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs.
Waring had met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been
interested in the story of her wrongs, as she called them. My
name was, of course, mentioned. I was described as a 'cast-off
mistress' of Van Brandt, who had persuaded Mr. Germaine into
disgracing himself by marrying her, and becoming the step-father
of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon communicated what she had
heard to other ladies who were her friends. The result you saw
for yourselves when you dined at our house.
"I inform you of what has happened without making any comment.
Mr. Germaine's narrative has already told you that I foresaw the
deplorable consequences which might follow our marriage, and that
I over and over again (God knows at what cost of misery to
myself) refused to be his wife. It was only when my poor little
green flag had revealed us to each other that I lost all control
over myself. The old time on the banks of the lake came back to
me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier days; and I said
Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said No. Will
you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that the
kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will
you take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so
dearly, and he is so fond of me!
"In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the
wisest course that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she
will say again of me what she has said already, whenever she can
find the opportunity. My child might hear the reports about her
mother, and might be injured by them when she gets older. We
propose to take up our abode, for a time at least, in the
neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we may hope to
live without annoyance among a people whose social law is the law
of mercy. Whatever may happen, we have always one last
consolation to sustain us--we have love.
"You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us.
If you should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a
friend of my husband's, and he will have our address. I wonder
whether we shall ever meet again? It does seem hard to charge the
misfortunes of my life on me, as if they were my faults.
"Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this
letter, that the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross
my path again. The Van Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain
information that he is now on his way to New Zealand. They are
determined to prosecute him if he returns. He is little likely to
give them the opportunity.
"The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My
husband sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes.
His manuscript will be quite safe (when you leave London) if you
send it to his bankers, at the address inclosed. Think of me
sometimes--and think of me kindly. I appeal confidently to _your_
kindness, for I don't forget that you kissed me at parting. Your
grateful friend (if you will let her be your friend),
"MARY GERMAINE."
We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we
decide on long journeys by sea or land without making the
slightest fuss about it. My wife and I looked at each other when
we had read Mrs. Germaine's letter.
"London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came of it.
My wife read my remark the right way directly.
"Suppose we try Naples?" she said.
That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples.