We were married at the end of the month, and when I brought my beautiful bride back to Elmore Court, I thought myself the happiest man in the world. I had reason indeed to think so; for I had marked in Geraldine a depth and earnestness of passion which I felt time would deepen and make still more earnest. And yet what was there about her that forced me into light musings, of which I was hardly conscious of the tenor? Of course, I deemed her love genuine, and I knew afterwards that it was genuine. Yet there was aboutit a suggestion of oddness, a hint of some sombre presence, which my instincts surely felt, if my heart did not at first recognise.
But her beauty was of the radiant type that sheds a universal lustre on the character. It transfigured her in my eyes. It threw a veil of light over her nature, and hid from my sight those features which a lesser grace must have discovered. My love was apt to give names of its own to the qualities it detected. To me, there seemed no violation of reason in calling her artless, wayward, childlike. I found her capricious conversation fascinating, not perplexing. Her habit of breaking off in her grave speech to chase some irrelevant and simple fancy charmed me. Her composite character suggested the two extremes of womanly sense and childlike innocence, and her beauty filled with light the void that divided them. So that I tookno notice of the want of those connecting links, those pauses and gradations of mind, which in reality are as needful to the intellectual character as the middle keys of an instrument are essential to its capacity for producing harmony.
I had proposed that we should spend our honeymoon abroad; but she would not listen to our leaving Elmore Court. She said it was now in the fulness of its beauty, and where should we find abroad so lovely and quiet an abode? "Did I not tell you, naughty boy, that I would not leave this house?" she had said. "It is the very perfection of a home, in my eyes. We know no one. We can have all the long days to ourselves. I can work in the garden without minding my dress. I should hate to have to keep myself tidy to receive callers—stupid people, who would come to envy and go away to tell stories. Look at myhair now—if I were anywhere else I should have to keep it dressed."
And she pointed at her reflection in the glass, which showed her yellow hair negligently looped behind with a piece of blue ribbon, with stray curls sunning over her white forehead, and streaming down her back.
She seemed, and she was, I am sure, perfectly happy. The gardeners took to her at once; and I would often see one or the other of them following her about to listen to her directions, touching his cap so often as he received her wishes; and yet, spite of his respectful manner, hinting by his behaviour that he thought her rather more of a child than a woman.
She had wanted to bring her own maid Lucy along with her, but the two servants and Mrs. Williams were enough for our wants. So Lucy returned to the villagewith the promise of filling the next vacancy in Elmore Court.
I purchased a phaeton and a smart little mare, and would drive Geraldine long excursions into the country. The memory of those days is very fresh. She seems to be at my side while I write, her large luminous eyes fixed on my face, her small white hand on my neck, interrupting me with the musical lilt of her voice to tell me of a bright-plumed bird that is drinking at the fountain.
You do not ask me what had become of the fine resolutions that had brought me to Cliffegate. You know, for you have doubtless experienced, that love is too absorbing a business to admit of any other occupation. The living freshness of my wife's society made my library a kind of mausoleum; and if I preferred basking in the luxury of her beauty to handling the dusty skeletons whichlined the shelves, you will not be surprised. At the time of forming my resolutions I had never contemplated marrying; and now that Ihadmarried, my wife, for the time being at all events, fully satisfied the craving for occupation, for something to live for, which I had hoped ambition might have appeased. Yet I did not despair of waking one morning with a strong impulse to study. The fact of my life being no longer companionless would disarm the fears of ambition; and I felt that, should I fail in the attempt to distinguish myself hereafter, disappointment would be qualified, if indeed not obviated, by the knowledge that I had always by my side some one to love and who loved me, and whose happiness it would be a joyous occupation to minister to.
Her dislike of society had at first surprised me; but it made me love her themore. It argued, I thought, her ignorance of her fascination; for I could not doubt, had she known her powers of delighting, that she would never have buried them in so dead a retreat as Cliffegate. She was twenty-seven, a period of a woman's life when her love of pleasure and admiration is strong; though, it must be owned, that this love very often strengthens in proportion as time makes its gratification more difficult. Marrying her as I had, without a deep knowledge of her character, it would not have surprised me had she expressed a desire to change her solitude for a life of pleasure. The dull time she had passed would certainly have justified the wish. Her eagerness therefore to remain hidden from the world pleased me. It illustrated a nature pure and unsophisticated; a heart innocent and sincere. And it made me happy to believe I could always think ofher as my own, without having the calmness of my devotion sullied by those breezes of jealousy which society sometimes brings with it, and which one's particular friends generally take care shall increase to gales.
We passed our time almost wholly together. She did not like that I should ever be from her side. She would call me from a book or a letter, to come and watch her watering some favourite plants, or any other work she might be at. And when such an excuse would be wanting, she would sit by me, take my hand, and so remain quiet, rubbing her cheek against my shoulder, and by her action and eloquent breathing suggesting the grace and purring of a kitten.
It was strange that I should have inspired such a love. This narrative has, I fear, given you but an imperfect conception of my character; yet you may infer enough fromthe crude sketch to make you wonder that any one so commonplace as I, should have given such life and movement to the deepest and most latent instincts of this beautiful creature's nature.
She had well said she was born to be loved. Her sensibilities were singularly acute; her nature warm and sudden; her sympathies too powerful; for they agitated her with more joy and grief than the occasion that bred the emotion justified. Her spirit, made tameless by solitude, desired the corrective of love; her fancies needed sobering; her longings wanted interpreting; her whole nature demanded the warmth of imparted passion to give life to slumbering powers, nourishment to sickly instincts, sap and vigour to the drooping qualities which had developed in loneliness and blossomed in sorrow.
Such were the speculations on hercharacter Ithenindulged in; and from the standpoint I occupied they were just. But when some time had passed, and I got to penetrate her character more deeply, the undefinable feeling about her I have before spoken of became more definite.
I remember well the pain and horror that accompanied the suspicion when it first flashed upon me. I endeavoured to reason the conjecture away; but the very arguments I brought to bear against it turned traitor and marshalled themselves on the other side. I reviewed her conduct; I recalled her actions, her language, her moods. They increased my apprehension.
Now that love no longer consented to blind me, now that I suffered myself to be possessed with suspicion, I knew that the truest confirmation of my fear was to be sought and found in her eyes. The light that sometimes leaped from their depths,the vacant dullness that sometimes made them lustreless, were not always the sparkle or the shadow of the mood then on her.
I was alone when I first fell into this train of thinking. She had not left me long; and I heard her singing in the drawing-room as she sought in her portfolio for a sketch which she announced her intention to finish. I threw down the book I held and went to the library. My mood was a strange one: a curiosity and a despair—a feverish wish to know the truth, with a terror of that truth. I strode to and fro, dreading that my face (which I could never force to mask my feelings) would provoke her questioning, and striving to master the miserable doubts that had seized me. But she soon missed me and came to the library, peeping in as was her wont, and then, bounding forward with a movement graceful as a child's.
"You shall not read," said she, taking my hand and pulling me to the door. "I want you to watch me finish my drawing of our home."
"Leave me a little, Geraldine; I will be with you soon."
"Why not now?" she asked, pouting her under lip. And then, coming in front of me, she looked right up in my face.
"Arthur," she whispered, "you look now as you look when you are asleep."
"What kind of look is that, Geraldine?" I said, forcing a smile.
"Come with me and I will tell you."
When we were in the parlour she took a penknife and began to sharpen a pencil. She frowned over her task and then laughed, but so quietly that the sound died in a breath.
"Now, tell me how I look in my sleep."
She laid knife and pencil on the table, andknelt before me, resting her hands on my knees.
"Did you ever know I watched you in your sleep, Arthur?"
"No."
"Not by moonlight-though the moon shines bright sometimes; but never bright enough for me to see you. But when you are sleeping soundly I steal out of bed, and light the candle and watch you. But first I listen to your breathing. If it is calm then I watch; but if it is disturbed I go to sleep. Shall I tell you why?"
"Yes."
"Because I never know whether you are dreaming of me or not. If you breathe short and troubled, the expression of your face might give me pain—it would be troubled, too; and if I were to think at such a time that you were dreaming of me it would make me wretched." She sighed.
"And when I breathe calmly?"
"Then I love to look at you; for you may be dreaming of me. I watch you much longer than you can tell; but I do not look at you too long at a time for fear my eyes should awaken you."
"But what makes you do this?"
"Do I not tell you? Besides," and she averted her face and gave me a sweet shy look, "my watching might make you dream of me."
"But could not I dream of you as well when you are by my side?"
She shook her head. "No. You can make people dream of you by looking at them in their sleep."
"Nonsense, Geraldine," I exclaimed, a little warmly; "this is some crazy old woman's belief: you must not think such things."
I saw her upturned eyes slowly cloud withtears. Her beauty, too, suddenly took the same intensely plaintive and piteous expression I had marked in her when I had seen her walking in her sleep.
"You are angry with me, Arthur."
"No, dearest," I answered, kissing the tears from her eyes, "I am not angry with you. I only think you should not indulge such foolish fancies."
She smiled. It was like an April sunbeam shining after a shower. Springing from her knees, "Now for my drawing!" she exclaimed. She drew a chair to the table and went to work at once.
Some time after this, in going upstairs I met Mrs. Williams. She stepped aside to let me pass, but I paused on the landing. I had an idea that she was a much shrewder woman than her calm, pleasant, but not highly intelligent countenance would have suggested. I called her to the window onthe landing and pointed to the front garden. Geraldine stood at the fountain making a cup of her hands to receive one of the silver threads of water which fell into the brimming basin.
"She seems as happy as a child here, does she not?" I said.
"She is like a child, Sir; innocent and gay as any little girl of five."
"And yet she is very womanly too; and it is this combination of gravity and simplicity that makes her so fascinating. Do you often talk with her, Mrs. Williams?"
"Sometimes, Sir."
"What do you talk about?"
"Oh, of different things."
"I dare say she puzzles your plain understanding?" I said, with a laugh, whose artificiality made it worse than my gravity. "She has a way of breaking off in her speech, of jumping from one idea toanother, that must make her sometimes difficult for you to understand, eh?"
She glanced at me and quickly averted her eyes to the garden.
"Mistress," she said, "doesn't always talk quite collectedly."
"You have hit it exactly. She is sometimes a little incoherent."
"She is, Sir; but that comes, I am sure, from too much good spirits. She's as bright and brisk as a bird which the eye can't always follow."
"Do you really think this way of hers comes from her good spirits?"
"I beg you'll excuse me, Sir," she remarked, folding her hands, "but I should like to know what you think."
"No, Mrs. Williams, I question you. Pray be perfectly frank with me. You must see I have a motive in asking you these questions. I have faith in yourjudgment, and I am anxious to hear your opinion of Mrs. Thorburn."
Her fingers worked nervously, and something like an expression of distress entered her face. She remained silent. I looked through the window; Geraldine was gone.
"Mrs. Williams, I am going to ask you a question. The fact of my asking it will convince you of the high opinion I have of your character and how much I appreciate your conduct since you have been in my service. It will imply also the confidence I possess in your truth and secrecy—in your truth to give me an honest downright answer, and in your secrecy to conceal whatever discovery you may make. Do you think my wife sane?"
The answer came reluctantly: "No, Sir."
"What makes you doubt her sanity?"
"Her manners, Sir, and her behaviour,and sometimes a look she has in her eyes; but her conversation, principally."
"Have you had any experience of mad people?"
"Yes, Sir. Father once took charge of a niece of his that was mad."
"What form did her madness take?"
"She was very cunning. Her mind was full of crazy thoughts; but she seemed to know that if she spoke them she would be thought mad. But she couldn't always hide them. And she was very artful. She would steal things and hide them so that nobody could find them. She was taken worse after she had been with us a year, and we had to send her to an asylum over at Barnstock, where she died raving."
"You would be more likely, after such an experience, to know madness when you saw it than I?"
"Yes, Sir."
"And do you seriously and truly think Mrs. Thorburn mad?"
"You ask me, Sir—it's painful to say—but I would swear there is madness in her."
"When did you make the discovery?"
"I didn't make it suddenly. I had my suspicions after she had been in the house two or three days. But I became sure when, not long after she had been here, she came to me and told me she had seen a shadow in the air of a hand holding a knife."
"She told you this?" I exclaimed, with a start.
"Yes, Sir. She spoke in a whisper, looking around her, like one who tells a great secret. Her eyes were all alight, but her cheeks were pale. She told me not to tell you."
"And you kept your promise?" I said,bitterly. "Why did you not tell me?"
"I hadn't the heart, Sir. I saw how you loved her—how you loved each other—and I couldn't speak. Besides, I thought it might be some wild notion she had brought away with her from her home. She led a dull life, and I guessed all sorts of strange fancies might have taken her in her loneliness. And to speak the truth, Sir, though I feared that her mind was not right, I thought your company would bring her back to herself."
"And do you think she has improved?"
"I am afraid not, Sir."
"What am I to do, Mrs. Williams? how do you advise me to act?"
Just then I heard my wife singing as she mounted the stairs, and we broke off our conversation. I put on a cheerful look; and when she saw me she came bounding up, with lighted eyes and outstretchedhands, her face brilliant with a smile. Mrs. Williams had left the landing before Geraldine reached me; and for my part, I appeared in the act of descending. She caught my hand and kissed it, a frequent action with her, but she did it with an exquisite grace, as one would do who had learnt her attitudes from nature.
She had a little story to tell me; how, deep in the shadows of the orchard, she had been watching a green and purple insect crawl from a hole in a tree to a stone, under which it vanished; and when she turned the stone over with a stick a thousand strange things wriggled away. "It taught me something! it taught me something!" she cried.
I asked her what.
"I said to myself," she answered gravely, "that green and purple insect is a lie, and I who follow it am the world; for its coloursplease me and I can't help pursuing it. And the stone it has crept under is corruption, where a thousand other falsehoods, some pretty and some very ugly, lie hid; and when I turn it over, I am like a reformer, who floods corruption with the blaze of heaven, and all the foul things rush from the light of truth. Is not that pretty, Arthur?"
"Yes, dearest; but do you know what your little fable typifies?"
"What?"
"The Reformation. You were Luther, the stone was Rome, the wriggling insects the priests."
"No, no! There never was a Reformation; there was a wicked schism."
"Well, don't let us argue," I said, with a cheerless laugh.
She had descended the stairs with me, forgetting the purpose for which she hadmounted them. The harshness of my laugh struck her.
"What is the matter, Arthur?"
"Nothing, darling."
"You do not look as you used. You look frightened."
"Of what should I be frightened?"
"You are; your eyes are scared. Now am I not sharp, to read your face so quickly? Oh, but I know every line in it! I can see the slightest shadow pass over it. It lies quite transparent. It is like the water in the marble basin. I was watching the water not long ago. I saw the tiniest bird, mirrored deep, deep down. Do you know, Arthur, I sometimes think I could fly? I feel so light—so light—I am sure I should only have to put out my arms to rise."
"You would become an angel before your time, Geraldine."
"But I would never fly away from you, Arthur."
"I hope not, for I don't know how I should be able to pursue you."
She laughed. I passed my arm through hers, and we entered the garden.
Day after day I watched her closely. Fear made observation keen. I had fondly hoped that both Mrs. Williams and I had been mistaken—that our commonplace minds had confounded the brisk and illogical expression of an agile intellect with madness. But conviction came at last: I could doubt no longer; her strange speech, her wild ways, her eyes sometimes startling me with their brilliancy, sometimes paining me with their sadness, admitted only of one interpretation.
My pen is powerless to describe thefeeling of misery that took possession of me. The stern necessity of self-control made the suffering more sharp. I dared not by word or look hint my suspicion, lest the avowal, however vague, might precipitate the fruition of her madness. My apprehensions exaggerated the results of observation, and gave to her actions and language a greater importance than they probably deserved.
And all the long days were filled for me with a weird and tearful pathos. For her love grew greater and greater, grew to a wildness and depth that marked her derangement more plainly than any other illustration. She followed me from room to room, into the garden, sometimes at a distance, sometimes at my side. She would throw herself at my feet, rest her cheek on my knee and look up at me with her large and wonderful eyes, of which the beautybecame more startling as her insanity grew more vigorous.
I once fancied that her past held some sorrow which might contribute to mature, if it did not actually feed her madness. I had little faith in my power of winning confession; and her exquisite sensibilities and my own clumsy judgment alike prohibited the ordeal of examination. Yet I resolved to question her, and did, at wide intervals, and rather by implication than by direct interrogation; but won no more from her than she had before told me. She said that her married life had been miserable, but that its misery now was forgotten in my love. She never recurred to it. She dared not. She felt that she had been destined for me, and she thought there was something menacing to her future in remembering that another one occupied the position that should have been always mine. The taskof questioning was sadly embarrassed by her inconsequential language. Day by day her speech grew more incoherent. Instinct, so far as her passions were concerned, supplied the place of memory; her memory grew visibly impaired. She could discuss with pertinent consistency the first portion of a topic; but the rest slipped from her, and she fell with strange abruptness into another subject, without manifesting the slightest uneasiness at the sharp departures of her mind.
I took counsel of Mrs. Williams, who implored me to conceal my fears from my wife.
"She is young, Sir," she said, "and her reason may get the upper hand yet. It is not as if she was utterly wild. If there's much strangeness there's likewise much sense in what she says. This proves she's capable of reasoning; and there's no tellingat her time of life what nature mayn't do for her."
"My position is terrible," I said. "This kind of existence is life in death. It is hard—it is hard to see one I love so well, who loves me with so pure and rare a love, slowly succumbing to this most awful of human diseases. Cannot I save her? Would a change benefit her, do you think?"
"I doubt it, Sir. It is not always thought wise to change the residences of people so afflicted. Their feelings will reason for them when they are surrounded with familiar things. If you bring them among strangers and into strange places their poor faculties haven't the power to grasp what they hear and see. It's like cutting the thread that supports them."
"But it is impossible that I can sit quietly by and see her decaying, as it were, before me. I must do something."
"Would you like to have a doctor to see her, Sir?"
"I have thought of that. I have thought of taking her to London. But what excuse could I make—what would she think?"
"Wouldn't it be better to have a doctor down here, Sir?"
"To be sure it would," I replied, grasping the idea at once. "I could pretend he was a friend."
"Yes, Sir; and he wouldn't require to stop longer than two or three days."
"Perhaps not. He would see her in all her moods and come to a conclusion on which he would base his advice."
I was turning from her when she said,
"I believe, Sir, Mr. Martelli is at Cliffegate."
"Martelli?" I exclaimed, stopping short.
"Why, Sir, so Sarah says," (Sarah was the housemaid). "She was that wayyesterday, and says she saw him sitting on the beach."
"I can hardly believe it. What should Martelli do here?—unless, indeed, he has taken a situation at a school—but you have no schools here, have you?"
"No, Sir. But it is quite likely Sarah was mistaken. She was in a hurry, and the gentleman she saw might well happen to be a stranger. Yet she declares the person she saw was Mr. Martelli."
"Perhaps he has returned to Cliffegate wishing to return to me: but it is out of the question that I could receive him now."
I retreated to the library and wrote a letter to an old medical gentleman who was long my mother's adviser and mine. I set my position before him with the bluntness I knew he relished, and asked him if he could oblige me with the name of anymedical man who he thought would have leisure and skill enough to carry out my stratagem. He sent me a long reply, saying he had spoken to a friend who had made the treatment of insanity his study, who would be happy to carry out my wishes. To obviate all chance of exciting my wife's suspicions he advised me to come to London and settle the programme; "for," he continued, "madness is often subtle enough to mislead the most practised observer, and it would therefore be absolutely necessary that Dr. F——'s visit to your house should be so contrived as to seem perfectly consistent with the excuse for his visit which you will contrive."
I saw the wisdom of this and determined to go to London.
As some pretence for my absence was needful, I pretended that I had received a letter on a business matter of great urgency.A large sum, I said, was at stake, and my presence in town was imperative. Geraldine was very reluctant to let me go. Her large eyes filled, and her beauty became mournful, as though some great sorrow had entered her heart.
"I shall be counting the hours, day and night, until you return," she said. "But how blank the time will be without you! I shall not care to eat or drink, or go into the garden. Is it not you who make all those flowers beautiful, and this home dear and sweet to me as heaven?"
"But I will not be long gone, Geraldine. And do you not know that little separations like these sweeten love, as the clouds in the sky make the sunshine more brilliant when their shadows pass?"
"Our love does not want brightening," she answered, with a sob. "But since you must go, I will pray to the Blessed Virginto watch over you and bring you safe back to me; for though you do not love her as I do, she loves you and will never forsake you."
I kissed her, and in a few hours after we parted.
I reached London late at night, and next morning drove to the house of my friend. He received me very cordially. I learned to my regret that Dr. F—— had been suddenly summoned to the death-bed of a near relation, and was not likely to return for three days. I thought more of Geraldine than myself. But my friend consoled me by saying that my absence might benefit her; anxiety for my return would give definite occupation to her mind; the longer indeed my absence was protracted the better, for fear and hope would steady by their weight the vibrations of her reason, while expectancy would serve as a leader to her thoughts,marshal them and keep them in a kind of logical order.
I wrote to her, saying that my return was unavoidably delayed, but promised I would do my utmost to be with her on Wednesday. I added that in all probability I should return with a friend, and desired her to tell Mrs. Williams to get the spare room ready.
On the Tuesday afternoon I met Dr. F—— by appointment at the house of my friend. I found him reserved, but gentlemanly. He asked me many questions about my wife, to all which I replied as fully as I could. He announced his willingness to return with me and to give his opinion; and in reply to my inquiry named a fee which I thought sufficiently moderate.
We left London next morning by an early train and reached Cornpool at about three in the afternoon. I had telegraphed for my phaeton to be in waiting and a little afterfour we halted at the gate of Elmore Court.
Mrs. Williams received us. I asked anxiously after Geraldine. Dr. F—— drew near to hear the reply.
"I cannot tell what has come over her, Sir. Since yesterday she has been as changed as though she had been suddenly taken with illness. She fretted a little after you left, but she cleared up before long, and got talking with me on the pleasure it gave her to think of your return. I couldn't help taking notice that she talked much more rationally than she used, and I thought that the health of her mind might be coming back to her. But yesterday morning, when she came down to breakfast, I was shocked by her looks. She was white as a sheet; her eyes rolled, and she talked so wildly and quick I couldn't follow her. My fear was that something had happened to you, Sir.But when I asked her if she had heard bad news from master, she clutched me by the arm and cried out piteously, 'Is there bad news? is there bad news?' I answered, 'Not that I know of.' On which she left me, and stood muttering to herself."
"But where is she now?" I asked.
"She should be in the drawing-room, Sir."
I did not stop to ask if she had expected me; but directing Mrs. Williams to conduct Dr. F—— to his bedroom ran to the drawing-room.
I found her walking to and fro with her hands behind her. Mrs. Williams was right. An extraordinary change had come over her since we parted. Her face was ashen pale; beneath her eyes the flesh had fallen and turned dark; her eyes flashed, but a look of fear came into her face when she saw me.
"Geraldine—dear Geraldine!" I cried, approaching her with outstretched arms.
She stood stock still, then all at once bounded forward with a sharp cry.
"It is my darling boy!" she said, throwing her arms around my neck.
I kissed her; but I felt her tremble in my embrace. I led her to a sofa.
"Did you not expect me, Geraldine?"
"Yes, I knew you would come."
"And you would not receive me at the door?"
"Have you not come to me?"
"Of course I have. But, dearest, you look ill. Has anything happened since we parted?"
"What should happen?" she said, pushing my hair off my forehead. "But I am sick—I am sick for wanting you."
"I could not come before, as I told you. But now that you have me, will youbrighten up? I do not like your worn air. Those white cheeks do not become you."
"You will give me health, Arthur."
"If God permits me!" I said fervently, pained by the great pathos of her eyes and the troubled frightened expression of her face. "I have brought a friend with me, Geraldine. Perhaps he will help me to make you well."
"What friend?"
"Did not I tell you of my intention to bring a friend from London?"
"Did you?" she asked, with a bewildered look. Then feeling in her pocket she produced my letter. "How often have I kissed it!" she said, as though to herself; "but I do not want it, now that I have him with me."
"There," said I, opening the letter and pointing to the passage in it: "do you not remember reading those lines?"
She knitted her brow like one in deep reflection; and looking up, with her face softened with rather the shadow of a smile than a smile, answered, "Yes—I ran with it to Mrs. Williams and told her to get the spare room ready."
Just then the door opened and a servant ushered in Dr. F——. I rose and introduced him to Geraldine. He bowed with polite reserve. She inclined her head and sat watching him as a child might.
He appeared to take no notice of her. He began a light conversation with me, wandering from topic to topic, evidently with the design of engaging her attention and inducing her to speak. Now and then I caught him looking at her.
She rose after a little, as if his presence made her uneasy, and went to the window; but soon returned and resumed her seat by my side. All at once she asked:
"Are you an old friend of my husband?"
"We have known each other some time."
"How came you to meet?"
"We met at the house of a common friend."
"Were youverypleased to see him?"
He answered with a smile, "It is always pleasing to meet with one's friends."
"Arthur," she said, turning to me, "it is not fair in you to call anyone 'friend' but me. 'Acquaintance' is what you should call everybody but Geraldine."
"I call you my wife, dearest; and that is a higher name than all."
"Mr. Fenton," she said, addressing him by the name I had introduced him by, "do you think Arthur has any friend who would mourn if he left him for only a day?"
"He is fortunate if he has, Mrs. Thorburn."
"I did, Mr. Fenton. And has he a friend who, if he were lying ill, would wish to be ill too? who, if he were dying would wish to be dying? who, if he were dead, would kill himself, if he could not die for grief, that he might be by his side in the grave?" Her eyes sparkled, her nostrils dilated; she added proudly: "He has only one friend who would wish all this for his dear sake, and she is his wife."
"I am sure he is very sensible of your devotion," he answered, gravely.
She again left my side. So restless was she that even when she was seated her form swayed like one who is ever about to rise. Dr. F—— and I exchanged looks. She abruptly called from the window, "Mr. Fenton, have you seen the garden?"
"Not yet, Mrs. Thorburn," he answered, approaching her.
"Come, Arthur," she called, "we will show Mr. Fenton our flowers."
I wished them to be alone, so I answered that I would change my coat and then join them. Saying which I left the room.
But I was hardly in the hall before she came running after me. She took my hand and kissed it, saying, "Do you think I can be away from you?"
"But you should not leave our guest alone, Geraldine. I will join you in a few minutes."
"What is our guest compared to you, Arthur? Have you not been away from me? It was cruel to bring that man here; he comes between us; you are notallmy own now. He will require your attention, and I shallhatehim because you give it. I will ask him to go away."
I detained her by the hand, fearing she would actually carry out her threat.
"If you love me, darling," I said, "you will be courteous to this gentleman. You will not refuse me this favour."
"If you asked me to love him, I would try to love him," she answered submissively, her lips tremulous, her eyes downcast.
"That would make me jealous. I only want you to be courteous. Return to him now, show him over the grounds, and justify my great love for you by letting him see how sweet you can be."
She gave me a long look and returned to the drawing-room.
When afterwards I went downstairs I stood at the window watching them before I entered the grounds. They were traversing a broad walk. She looked incessantly towards the house; but sometimes she would loiter with an air of strangeabandon, or bend to pick a flower and follow her companion with a bound.
Alas! I did not need Dr. F—— to confirm my fears. There was not a look, a remark, even an attitude of hers, that did not now insinuate derangement.How she loved me! Those earnest glances at the house were for me. Pitiful it was to think on such a passion corrupted by madness. What a sorrowful pageant her beauty, her devotion, her innocence made! It was the Dance of Death; the graces marshalled by a skeleton. Was I worthy of her love? Yes, for I loved her well, too. She must have known it, to have been so fond of me. Instinct in this stood her in the place of reason. She loved me with her spirit; she recognised my love by the faculties of her spirit. Had her brain interpreted her experiences her devotion must have been less deep.
That night Dr. F—— and I sat in the library. Geraldine had retired to rest. Up to that moment we had found no opportunity for conversation, for she was always near, always at my side.
I had marked his incessant study of her. I had admired the skill with which he directed her attention—as a steersman directs his bark; provoking her into speech, perplexing her views to ascertain the consistency of her mind, then helping her thoughts, to witness whether her incoherence were due to normal weakness of intellect or to disease.
He had lighted a cigar and sat smoking in silence—a silence I feared to question. From time to time he looked at me, with pity rather than embarrassment, and at last he spoke.
"Mr. Thorburn, I should be intruding upon your hospitality were I to remain over to-morrow."
"I understand. You have no doubt?"
"No doubt."
I mastered an emotion with a struggle.
"Will you give me your opinion?" I said.
"My opinion is that your wife is insane. It is impossible that I should pronounce upon the degree of her insanity from the short time I have been with her. The conditions with which she is surrounded must necessarily retard the growth of her madness. Her love for you and your presence here exercise aa restraining influence. Yet I am not satisfied that her mind is free from anxiety."
"What makes you think this?"
"I judge more from her aspect than her manners or language. Her physical condition implies the presence of some active mental pain, which is not due to insanity, though it would aggravate it."
"But what could pain her? She is perfectly happy in my love. She will not suffer me to remove her from this house. Would society benefit her?"
"I think not. If she objects to it she has her reason, and it would distress her."
"Would a change of air, would a change of scene, be of use? I am rich, doctor; do not scruple to prescribe. If my fortune would benefit her, it should be spent."
"I can prescribe only one thing—will you surrender her to my care?"
"No. I could not part with her."
"I am not surprised. Even if I took charge of her, I could not guarantee her recovery."
"I will take charge of her myself. She would never bear being separated from me."
"In one sense," he replied, "you would make a better guardian than I. But the duty of watching the mad is very painful—especially when the insane person is one we love."
"But you do not think she requires watching yet?"
"Not yet. I mean that there is no need of vigilant scrutiny, though I should advise you to keep her well in view. Her madness has not yet emphatically pronounced itself—but it may do so any day.You must humour her. Her love gives you an influence which no one else could easily possess. I predict, that when her insane moods are most vehement she will prove docile to you." He added, after a pause, "you should procure some woman whom you can trust to watch her. But not yet. Give her perfect freedom now. But when you find it needful to restrain her—and that time I fear will come—appoint some keeper of whose humanity and patience you can have proofs."
"Have you no hope that she will recover?"
"It is impossible for me to pronounce. From the character of the disease in her, I should say it would grow; but its culmination may not be intense. Neither good health nor good spirits will much profit her. Illness, indeed, is sometimes beneficial to madness. I once had a patient under my chargewhom I considered incurable. He was seized with scarlet fever, which was within an ace of killing him. He escaped death by a miracle, and when the delirium passed, I found he had recovered his mind."
"But in the case of my wife, should you think her madness hereditary or acquired?"
"There again you puzzle me. It would be necessary for me to hear Mrs. Thorburn's history before I could hazard a conjecture."
"Her history is brief. She married a man who ill-treated her. Her sufferings must have been great, for it has made her detest the world and shun society like a plague. But I can discern no madness in this. It would be the natural attitude of a young mind embittered by wrong.
"As you say, her attitude is no proofof madness, but the cause that forced her into that attitude may have induced madness."
"You would attribute her derangement to her first husband's ill-treatment?"
"Her ill-treatment may have been one cause. If there were a previous disposition to madness a very painful experience would hardly fail to excite it. In my own mind, I have little doubt that she is oppressed with some recollection, of which the removal would benefit, if it did not cure her."
"Surely, I should be able to ascertain it?"
"Better than any one else. But you will have to be very cautious in your approaches. Yet you will hardly need tuition in such a matter. Your knowledge of her character will teach you better how to act than any suggestionsfrom a stranger. With respect to myself, I do not see that I can be of any further use to you. Indeed, I doubt if my stay here would be advisable. My presence irritates her; and it must be your business to keep her mind as composed and tranquil as possible."
"I am perfectly in your hands, doctor; and however you may act, I am sure it will be for the best."
We remained together until after twelve. Our conversation was entirely restricted to the one subject. He had had much experience of madness and illustrated the information I gave him respecting my wife's derangement by anecdotes of corresponding peculiarities in other cases he had met with. On separating, I conducted him to his room, and then returned to see after the house for the night, as was my custom. At the bottom of the staircase I met Mrs.Williams, candle in hand, going to bed.
"I am afraid we have kept you up rather late," I said.
"Oh! never mention that, Sir. I only trust and pray that the doctor's visit here may be of use."
"Of no use, I fear," I replied, "except to confirm my sorrow. He does not doubt that she is insane."
"I feared so, I feared so," she said, shaking her head.
"He will leave to-morrow, for he can be of no further service here; and he thinks his presence irritates her."
"He is right, Sir. Mistress came to me this evening, and told me it was as much as she could do to speak civilly to him. 'What does he want in this house?' she said. 'Mr. Thorburn can't be with me as he used before this man came. And he vexes me so, Mrs. Williams. He asks me questions itpains my head to answer; and I don't like his eyes;' and here she began to cry."
"Well, he leaves us in the morning. He is keen-sighted and honourable, and sees that his presence can do no good. I have been troubling myself to guess what could have worked such a change in Mrs. Thorburn during my absence. The alteration is too sudden to be due to illness. Nor is she ill."
"It all came at once, Sir. She was well over night, and next morning, as I told you, I met her looking downright changed."
"Did she not seem suffering at all the night before?"
"No, Sir, I went to bed at about half-past ten, and left her in the library. I thought she might be writing to you."
"Am I to believe," I said, "that a sudden access of insanity would effect such a change? It is possible. Some horror may have seizedher in the night. God only knows what dreadful fancies the diseased mind will generate to craze the brain. Dr. F—— has told me I must expect her madness to increase, and that it will be necessary to procure some one to watch her. Mrs. Williams, would you undertake such a duty?"
"I would not object, Sir. I would do it from pity. She is so delicate and sweet with all her strangeness, that I could not have the heart to see her in anybody else's charge."
"By doing this you would be bestowing on me an obligation I could not repay. It would almost mitigate my grief to think she was tended by one so worthy and kind as you. Rest assured I shall do my utmost to recompense you for the trying position you will be placed in."
She curtesied.
"I only beg you will keep the secret. I shall continue residing here until I see what form her madness takes. Where else could I secure such privacy—such perfect security from intrusion? From my heart of hearts I humbly pray God to avert from her and me this most terrible calamity. But if it be His will that her madness should strengthen, then we will watch over her as we would over some stricken infant. I may expect tenderness and love for her from you, Mrs. Williams. You will think of my devotion, and will take my place when I am from her side; and cherish, and bear with her; for she deserves it—she deserves it! So young, so beautiful, so fond—to be blighted like this!"
I buried my face in my hands and burst into tears.
"I will do for her, Sir, as if she was my own child," said Mrs. Williams in atremulous tone, moved by my grief. "She shall never want for love while she is with me."
I took and pressed the kind creature's hand, and passed into the library. The window stood open as I had left it, for the night, though it was the autumn, was close. I entered the balcony. The air was dark; there was no moon; the stars were few and faint. The wind stole through the trees which towered above the house with a hollow plaining.
The gloom and stillness were friendly to thought and melancholy. Away down there among those black shadows I had first met her, walking with a queenly air, her face made marble by sleep, her eyes made sightless by the slumbering of her soul. Into what a life had her beauty led me! The intelligence of my spirit had not deceived me. Had it not inspired me with propheticforebodings of some such commingling of mine and this fair creature's destinies as was now realised? Of what sin had I been guilty to merit this dread expiation? My love was pure; why was it made a misery?
I was in the act of leaving the balcony when I heard a cry—a human cry, as of some one in pain or distress. It smote my ear—faint but defined; but whence it had come, whether from right or left of me, or from the deep black shadows of the trees beyond, I knew not. I stood straining my hearing to catch the cry again, but it was not repeated.
Was it a human voice? I might have been mistaken. It might have been the dull note of some wakeful bird, humanised by my imagination. It might have been the moan of some homeless dog. I waited wondering.
All at once my thoughts rushed to Geraldine. The cry might have come from her room; its passage through the open window making it sound as though uttered in the garden.
I mounted the stairs gently and opened the bedroom door. A candle burnt on the toilet-table. I glanced at the bed; it was empty, yet her form had pressed it, and the clothes were disordered.
I hastened downstairs, possessed with a strange belief; I entered the balcony, passed down the steps, and gained the garden. I walked forward cautiously, peering to right and left, pausing at intervals to listen, then advancing noiselessly as before. Half-way down the grounds I stopped; I heard the sound of footsteps. In a few minutes a figure in white came out of the gloom and flitted rapidly by me.
I called "Geraldine!" She halted. I went up to her.
"My darling, what are you doing in the garden at this hour? The grass is wet, and you are thinly clad."
"Who are you?" she asked in a hard whisper.
"Your husband—Arthur."
"Let me feel you."
I took her hand and led her to the house. She did not speak until we had gained the library. By the light of the candle I saw that her eyes were dilated, her face quite bloodless, her lips thin, white and rigid.
"Great God, Geraldine! Speak! What is the matter with you?" I cried.
"Let me get to bed—I am weary, weary," she answered.
I closed the window and accompanied her to our bedroom. She moaned like oneunder the influence of a narcotic. Her face was almost deformed by the harshness of its expression. Her fingers worked incessantly, like those of an infant in a sick slumber.
"Were you walking in your sleep Geraldine?" I asked.
She answered with extraordinary quickness, "Yes, I have been walking in my sleep."
"I heard a cry; did you utter it?"
She laughed quietly, but without the least change of expression.
"Who else?—who else?" she replied.
"But did you hurt yourself, that you cried out?"
A shrewd light shone in her eyes as she answered:
"I stumbled; the fall awoke me, and in my fear I cried out."
She began to play with her hair, suddenly desisted, and asked querulously,
"What makes this room red?"
"It is not red, dearest."
"I say it is!" she exclaimed, irritably. "The flame of the candle is red—the walls are red—your face is red!"
"Your nerves are excited. The shock of awakening has been too great. Lie down, dearest; you will rise refreshed in the morning."
She seated herself on the edge of the bed, looking at her fingers and turning them about. Presently she began to cry, but very quietly. I went to her and kissed her, clasping her in my arms for she trembled as though she were cold. And indeed she was; her hands and cheeks were like ice; but her forehead burned. After a little I succeeded in coaxing her into bed, where she lay sighing as though her heart would break. I watched by her for half an hour, when the regular respiration told me she was asleep.
When she rose next morning she looked very very ill. I was greatly distressed by her appearance and entreated her to remain in bed. But she declared she must get up; what could she do in bed? She had some work in the garden, and must go to it. I could not help taking notice of her constrained manner, as though she addressed me under compulsion. She appeared to have difficulty in articulating her words; and her eyes, which the sickness of her body seemed to make more brilliant, were restless, startled, and impatient. Before leaving the room she said:
"I do not like your friend, Arthur; when will he go?"
"He is going to-day, love."
"Why did he come?"
Bound to be consistent, I repeated my story of his being a friend whom I had asked to spend a week at Elmore Court, but whonow found he would have to return to London that day.
"What time will he leave?"
"In the early part of the afternoon, I think."
"I do not mean to see him. I'll go into the garden and hide myself. Do you know, when he looks at me his eyes give me a pain in the head?"
"I am sure he does not wish to pain you."
"But he does, or he would not look at me like that. And he asks me questions which trouble me to reply to. I won't meet him."
"Very well," I answered, recollecting Dr. F——'s advice that she should be humoured.
"And do not bring him near me," she continued, "and do not come and look for me, for I shall hide myself until he is gone."
"But you are not strong enough to work in the garden. Why will you not remain indoors? Let Mrs. Williams nurse you a little. You need repose after what happened last night."
"What happened last night?" she cried, looking sharply up.
If the memory of it had passed, I thought it best not to recall it. So I answered:
"I am sure, dearest, you need a little nursing. And should you fatigue yourself in the garden"——
"Tell me of last night," she whispered, creeping close to me.
"Why," I replied, marking her resolution to be answered, "do you not remember finding yourself walking in your sleep?"
She tossed her hands and laughed out.
"Oh, yes, I remember! But go you downstairs and detain your friend while Ipass. I will breakfast in the housekeeper's room. Tell him I am ill and cannot be seen."
"Very well," I answered, reluctantly. It did not please me to leave her to herself. Her face looked wax-like, so delicate and transparent was the white of her skin, and her eyes actually trembled with the light in them, as though they reflected the rays of some flickering flame.
I found Dr. F—— in the breakfast-room. I gave him a brief account of what had happened on the previous night, and of her condition. I also acquainted him with the aversion he had inspired her with. He replied that her aversion was an illustration of his influence over insane persons. The first operation of this influence was hate and distrust; but fear soon followed. The motto of the mad doctor, he added, was the expression of the Roman emperor—oderint dum metuant.
"She refuses to meet you," I said, "and has gone to hide herself among the trees. You will require no apology for this behaviour," I added, with a mournful smile.
"You do right to let her have her own way. Yet you see how necessary her dislike makes my departure?"
"Yes. It is not wholly impossible that her cunning may have conjectured the truth, and that she has guessed your mission."
"I should hardly think that; though you are right in accrediting insanity with a power of perception which is often far beyond the reach of intellect. The decay of the brain seems to bring the functions of the spirit into activity. But this perception does not always refer to material things. Its proper dominion is the immaterial. Where reason sees order, insanity witnesses disorder; but, on the other hand, insanity riots in the chaos that lies without the limits of normal thought, anddelights in constructing theories and forms from the thrice-confounded abstractions it seems to contemplate."
"This would account for many of its delusions."
"After a fashion. But it is hard to reason on the reasonless. The worst form of madness is the total subversion of the intellectual faculties; when the mind represents everything totally opposite to what it is. I remember hearing of two lovers who went mad through a cruel separation. When they were brought together they recognised each other, but each denied the other to be the beloved one. A distinguished mathematician went mad through mistaking the number 6 for an 0 in all his calculations."
"We can appreciate the horror of madness when it is brought home to us. Much surely may be done by tenderness and sympathy?"
"They are both severely taxed. I do not utterly despair of your wife, though she will have to be worse before she is better. My parting advice, Mr. Thorburn, is to endeavour to ascertain if she is at all troubled in her mind. If a real sorrow lies there it should be uprooted; if an imaginary woe it must be reasoned away. You must have patience; watch her narrowly; sound her persistently, though with delicacy, and keep her as cheerful as opportunity will allow."
A reference to the time-tables showed a train to be leaving Cornpool at twelve. Having ordered the phaeton to be in readiness, we went for a walk towards the sea. It was his own wish to keep away from the house. The walk was hardly agreeable; my mood was sombre and melancholy, and all my thoughts were with Geraldine. On our return we found the phaeton waiting, and having pressed a cheque into his hand, I bade him farewell.