In the year 1870 I found myself compelled to submit to the demands of two hard task-masters.
Advancing age and failing health reminded the Governor of the Prison of his duty to his successor, in one unanswerable word—Resign.
When they have employed us and interested us, for the greater part of our lives, we bid farewell to our duties—even to the gloomy duties of a prison—with a sense of regret. My view of the future presented a vacant prospect indeed, when I looked at my idle life to come, and wondered what I should do with it. Loose on the world—at my age!—I drifted into domestic refuge, under the care of my two dear and good sons. After a while (never mind how long a while) I began to grow restless under the heavy burden of idleness. Having nothing else to complain of, I complained of my health, and consulted a doctor. That sagacious man hit on the right way of getting rid of me—he recommended traveling.
This was unexpected advice. After some hesitation, I accepted it reluctantly.
The instincts of age recoil from making new acquaintances, contemplating new places, and adopting new habits. Besides, I hate railway traveling. However, I contrived to get as far as Italy, and stopped to rest at Florence. Here, I found pictures by the old masters that I could really enjoy, a public park that I could honestly admire, and an excellent friend and colleague of former days; once chaplain to the prison, now clergyman in charge of the English Church. We met in the gallery of the Pitti Palace; and he recognized me immediately. I was pleased to find that the lapse of years had made so little difference in my personal appearance.
The traveler who advances as far as Florence, and does not go on to Rome, must be regardless indeed of the opinions of his friends. Let me not attempt to conceal it—I am that insensible traveler. Over and over again, I said to myself: “Rome must be done”; and over and over again I put off doing it. To own the truth, the fascinations of Florence, aided by the society of my friend, laid so strong a hold on me that I believe I should have ended my days in the delightful Italian city, but for the dangerous illness of one of my sons. This misfortune hurried me back to England, in dread, every step of the way, of finding that I had arrived too late. The journey (thank God!) proved to have been taken without need. My son was no longer in danger, when I reached London in the year 1875.
At that date I was near enough to the customary limit of human life to feel the necessity of rest and quiet. In other words, my days of travel had come to their end.
Having established myself in my own country, I did not forget to let old friends know where they might find me. Among those to whom I wrote was another colleague of past years, who still held his medical appointment in the prison. When I received the doctor’s reply, it inclosed a letter directed to me at my old quarters in the Governor’s rooms. Who could possibly have sent a letter to an address which I had left five years since? My correspondent proved to be no less a person than the Congregational Minister—the friend whom I had estranged from me by the tone in which I had written to him, on the long-past occasion of his wife’s death.
It was a distressing letter to read. I beg permission to give only the substance of it in this place.
Entreating me, with touching expressions of humility and sorrow, to forgive his long silence, the writer appealed to my friendly remembrance of him. He was in sore need of counsel, under serious difficulties; and I was the only person to whom he could apply for help. In the disordered state of his health at that time, he ventured to hope that I would visit him at his present place of abode, and would let him have the happiness of seeing me as speedily as possible. He concluded with this extraordinary postscript:
“When you see my daughters, say nothing to either of them which relates, in any way, to the subject of their ages. You shall hear why when we meet.”
The reading of this letter naturally reminded me of the claims which my friend’s noble conduct had established on my admiration and respect, at the past time when we met in the prison. I could not hesitate to grant his request—strangely as it was expressed, and doubtful as the prospect appeared to be of my answering the expectations which he had founded on the renewal of our intercourse. Answering his letter by telegraph, I promised to be with him on the next day.
On arriving at the station, I found that I was the only traveler, by a first-class carriage, who left the train. A young lady, remarkable by her good looks and good dressing, seemed to have noticed this trifling circumstance. She approached me with a ready smile. “I believe I am speaking to my father’s friend,” she said; “my name is Helena Gracedieu.”
Here was one of the Minister’s two “daughters”; and that one of the two—as I discovered the moment I shook hands with her—who was my friend’s own child. Miss Helena recalled to me her mother’s face, infinitely improved by youth and health, and by a natural beauty which that cruel and deceitful woman could never have possessed. The slanting forehead and the shifting, flashing eyes, that I recollected in the parent, were reproduced (slightly reproduced, I ought to say) in the child. As for the other features, I had never seen a more beautiful nose and mouth, or a more delicately-shaped outline, than was presented by the lower part of the face. But Miss Helena somehow failed to charm me. I doubt if I should have fallen in love with her, even in the days when I was a foolish young man.
The first question that I put, as we drove from the station to the house, related naturally to her father.
“He is very ill,” she began; “I am afraid you must prepare yourself to see a sad change. Nerves. The mischief first showed itself, the doctor tells us, in derangement of his nervous system. He has been, I regret to tell you, obstinate in refusing to give up his preaching and pastoral work. He ought to have tried rest at the seaside. Things have gone on from bad to worse. Last Sunday, at the beginning of his sermon, he broke down. Very, very sad, is it not? The doctor says that precious time has been lost, and he must make up his mind to resign his charge. He won’t hear of it. You are his old friend. Please try to persuade him.”
Fluently spoken; the words well chosen; the melodious voice reminding me of the late Mrs. Gracedieu’s advantages in that respect; little sighs judiciously thrown in here and there, just at the right places; everything, let me own, that could present a dutiful daughter as a pattern of propriety—and nothing, let me add, that could produce an impression on my insensible temperament. If I had not been too discreet to rush at a hasty conclusion, I might have been inclined to say: her mother’s child, every inch of her!
The interest which I was still able to feel in my friend’s domestic affairs centered in the daughter whom he had adopted.
In her infancy I had seen the child, and liked her; I was the one person living (since the death of Mrs. Gracedieu) who knew how the Minister had concealed the sad secret of her parentage; and I wanted to discover if the hereditary taint had begun to show itself in the innocent offspring of the murderess. Just as I was considering how I might harmlessly speak of Miss Helena’s “sister,” Miss Helena herself introduced the subject.
“May I ask,” she resumed, “if you were disappointed when you found nobody but me to meet you at our station?”
Here was an opportunity of paying her a compliment, if I had been a younger man, or if she had produced a favorable impression on me. As it was, I hit—if I may praise myself—on an ingenious compromise.
“What excuse could I have,” I asked, “for feeling disappointed?”
“Well, I hear you are an official personage—I ought to say, perhaps, a retired official personage. We might have received you more respectfully, ifbothmy father’s daughters had been present at the station. It’s not my fault that my sister was not with me.”
The tone in which she said this strengthened my prejudice against her. It told me that the two girls were living together on no very friendly terms; and it suggested—justly or unjustly I could not then decide—that Miss Helena was to blame.
“My sister is away from home.”
“Surely, Miss Helena, that is a good reason for her not coming to meet me?”
“I beg your pardon—it is a bad reason. She has been sent away for the recovery of her health—and the loss of her health is entirely her own fault.”
What did this matter to me? I decided on dropping the subject. My memory reverted, however, to past occasions on which the loss ofmyhealth had been entirely my own fault. There was something in these personal recollections, which encouraged my perverse tendency to sympathize with a young lady to whom I had not yet been introduced. The young lady’s sister appeared to be discouraged by my silence. She said: “I hope you don’t think the worse of me for what I have just mentioned?”
“Certainly not.”
“Perhaps you will fail to see any need of my speaking of my sister at all? Will you kindly listen, if I try to explain myself?”
“With pleasure.”
She slyly set the best construction on my perfectly commonplace reply.
“Thank you,” she said. “The fact is, my father (I can’t imagine why) wishes you to see my sister as well as me. He has written to the farmhouse at which she is now staying, to tell her to come home to-morrow. It is possible—if your kindness offers me an opportunity—that I may ask to be guided by your experience, in a little matter which interests me. My sister is rash, and reckless, and has a terrible temper. I should be very sorry indeed if you were induced to form an unfavorable opinion of me, from anything you might notice if you see us together. You understand me, I hope?”
“I quite understand you.”
To set me against her sister, in her own private interests—there, as I felt sure, was the motive under which she was acting. As hard as her mother, as selfish as her mother, and, judging from those two bad qualities, probably as cruel as her mother. That was how I understood Miss Helena Gracedieu, when our carriage drew up at her father’s house.
A middle-aged lady was on the doorstep, when we arrived, just ringing the bell. She looked round at us both; being evidently as complete a stranger to my fair companion as she was to me. When the servant opened the door, she said:
“Is Miss Jillgall at home?”
At the sound of that odd name, Miss Helena tossed her head disdainfully. She took no sort of notice of the stranger-lady who was at the door of her father’s house. This young person’s contempt for Miss Jillgall appeared to extend to Miss Jillgall’s friends.
In the meantime, the servant’s answer was: “Not at home.”
The middle aged lady said: “Do you expect her back soon?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I will call again, later in the day.”
“What name, if you please?”
The lady stole another look at me, before she replied.
“Never mind the name,” she said—and walked away.
“She is a perfect stranger to me,” I answered.
“Are you sure you have not forgotten her?”
“Why do you think I have forgotten her?”
“Because she evidently remembered you.”
The lady had no doubt looked at me twice. If this meant that my face was familiar to her, I could only repeat what I have already said. Never, to my knowledge, had I seen her before.
Leading the way upstairs, Miss Helena apologized for taking me into her father’s bedroom. “He is able to sit up in an armchair,” she said; “and he might do more, as I think, if he would exert himself. He won’t exert himself. Very sad. Would you like to look at your room, before you see my father? It is quite ready for you. We hope”—she favored me with a fascinating smile, devoted to winning my heart when her interests required it—“we hope you will pay us a long visit; we look on you as one of ourselves.”
I thanked her, and said I would shake hands with my old friend before I went to my room. We parted at the bedroom door.
It is out of my power to describe the shock that overpowered me when I first saw the Minister again, after the long interval of time that had separated us. Nothing that his daughter said, nothing that I myself anticipated, had prepared me for that lamentable change. For the moment, I was not sufficiently master of myself to be able to speak to him. He added to my embarrassment by the humility of his manner, and the formal elaboration of his apologies.
“I feel painfully that I have taken a liberty with you,” he said, “after the long estrangement between us—for which my want of Christian forbearance is to blame. Forgive it, sir, and forget it. I hope to show that necessity justifies my presumption, in subjecting you to a wearisome journey for my sake.”
Beginning to recover myself, I begged that he would make no more excuses. My interruption seemed to confuse him.
“I wished to say,” he went on, “that you are the one man who can understand me. There is my only reason for asking to see you, and looking forward as I do to your advice. You remember the night—or was it the day?—before that miserable woman was hanged? You were the only person present when I agreed to adopt the poor little creature, stained already (one may say) by its mother’s infamy. I think your wisdom foresaw what a terrible responsibility I was undertaking; you tried to prevent it. Well! well! you have been in my confidence—you only. Mind! nobody in this house knows that one of the two girls is not really my daughter. Pray stop me, if you find me wandering from the point. My wish is to show that you are the only man I can open my heart to. She—” He paused, as if in search of a lost idea, and left the sentence uncompleted. “Yes,” he went on, “I was thinking of my adopted child. Did I ever tell you that I baptized her myself? and by a good Scripture name too—Eunice. Ah, sir, that little helpless baby is a grown-up girl now; of an age to inspire love, and to feel love. I blush to acknowledge it; I have behaved with a want of self-control, with a cowardly weakness.—No! I am, indeed, wandering this time. I ought to have told you first that I have been brought face to face with the possibility of Eunice’s marriage. And, to make it worse still, I can’t help liking the young man. He comes of a good family—excellent manners, highly educated, plenty of money, a gentleman in every sense of the word. And poor little Eunice is so fond of him! Isn’t it dreadful to be obliged to check her dearly-loved Philip? The young gentleman’s name is Philip. Do you like the name? I say I am obliged to cheek her sweetheart in the rudest manner, when all he wants to do is to ask me modestly for my sweet Eunice’s hand. Oh, what have I not suffered, without a word of sympathy to comfort me, before I had courage enough to write to you! Shall I make a dreadful confession? If my religious convictions had not stood in my way, I believe I should have committed suicide. Put yourself in my place. Try to see yourself shrinking from a necessary explanation, when the happiness of a harmless girl—so dutiful, so affectionate—depended on a word of kindness from your lips. And that word you are afraid to speak! Don’t take offense, sir; I mean myself, not you. Why don’t you say something?” he burst out fiercely, incapable of perceiving that he had allowed me no opportunity of speaking to him. “Good God! don’t you understand me, after all?”
The signs of mental confusion in his talk had so distressed me, that I had not been composed enough to feel sure of what he really meant, until he described himself as “shrinking from a necessary explanation.” Hearing those words, my knowledge of the circumstances helped me; I realized what his situation really was.
“Compose yourself,” I said, “I understand you at last.”
He had suddenly become distrustful. “Prove it,” he muttered, with a furtive look at me. “I want to be satisfied that you understand my position.”
“This is your position,” I told him. “You are placed between two deplorable alternatives. If you tell this young gentleman that Miss Eunice’s mother was a criminal hanged for murder, his family—even if he himself doesn’t recoil from it—will unquestionably forbid the marriage; and your adopted daughter’s happiness will be the sacrifice.”
“True!” he said. “Frightfully true! Go on.”
“If, on the other hand, you sanction the marriage, and conceal the truth, you commit a deliberate act of deceit; and you leave the lives of the young couple at the mercy of a possible discovery, which might part husband and wife—cast a slur on their children—and break up the household.”
He shuddered while he listened to me. “Come to the end of it,” he cried.
I had no more to say, and I was obliged to answer him to that effect.
“No more to say?” he replied. “You have not told me yet what I most want to know.”
I did a rash thing; I asked what it was that he most wanted to know.
“Can’t you see it for yourself?” he demanded indignantly. “Suppose you were put between those two alternatives which you mentioned just now.”
“Well?”
“What would you do, sir, in my place? Would you own the disgraceful truth—before the marriage—or run the risk, and keep the horrid story to yourself?”
Either way, my reply might lead to serious consequences. I hesitated.
He threatened me with his poor feeble hand. It was only the anger of a moment; his humor changed to supplication. He reminded me piteously of bygone days: “You used to be a kind-hearted man. Has age hardened you? Have you no pity left for your old friend? My poor heart is sadly in want of a word of wisdom, spoken kindly.”
Who could have resisted this? I took his hand: “Be at ease, dear Minister. In your place I should run the risk, and keep that horrid story to myself.”
He sank back gently in his chair. “Oh, the relief of it!” he said. “How can I thank you as I ought for quieting my mind?”
I seized the opportunity of quieting his mind to good purpose by suggesting a change of subject. “Let us have done with serious talk for the present,” I proposed. “I have been an idle man for the last five years, and I want to tell you about my travels.”
His attention began to wander, he evidently felt no interest in my travels. “Are you sure,” he asked anxiously, “that we have said all we ought to say? No!” he cried, answering his own question. “I believe I have forgotten something—I am certain I have forgotten something. Perhaps I mentioned it in the letter I wrote to you. Have you got my letter?”
I showed it to him. He read the letter, and gave it back to me with a heavy sigh. “Not there!” he said despairingly. “Not there!”
“Is the lost remembrance connected with anybody in the house?” I asked, trying to help him. “Does it relate, by any chance, to one of the young ladies?”
“You wonderful man! Nothing escapes you. Yes; the thing I have forgotten concerns one of the girls. Stop! Let me get at it by myself. Surely it relates to Helena?” He hesitated; his face clouded over with an expression of anxious thought. “Yes; it relates to Helena,” he repeated “but how?” His eyes filled with tears. “I am ashamed of my weakness,” he said faintly. “You don’t know how dreadful it is to forget things in this way.”
The injury that his mind had sustained now assumed an aspect that was serious indeed. The subtle machinery, which stimulates the memory, by means of the association of ideas, appeared to have lost its working power in the intellect of this unhappy man. I made the first suggestion that occurred to me, rather than add to his distress by remaining silent.
“If we talk of your daughter,” I said, “the merest accident—a word spoken at random by. you or me—may be all your memory wants to rouse it.”
He agreed eagerly to this: “Yes! Yes! Let me begin. Helena met you, I think, at the station. Of course, I remember that; it only happened a few hours since. Well?” he went on, with a change in his manner to parental pride, which it was pleasant to see, “did you think my daughter a fine girl? I hope Helena didn’t disappoint you?”
“Quite the contrary.” Having made that necessary reply, I saw my way to keeping his mind occupied by a harmless subject. “It must, however, be owned,” I went on, “that your daughter surprised me.”
“In what way?”
“When she mentioned her name. Who could have supposed that you—an inveterate enemy to the Roman Catholic Church—would have christened your daughter by the name of a Roman Catholic Saint?”
He listened to this with a smile. Had I happily blundered on some association which his mind was still able to pursue?
“You happen to be wrong this time,” he said pleasantly. “I never gave my girl the name of Helena; and, what is more, I never baptized her. You ought to know that. Years and years ago, I wrote to tell you that my poor wife had made me a proud and happy father. And surely I said that the child was born while she was on a visit to her brother’s rectory. Do you remember the name of the place? I told you it was a remote little village, called—Suppose we putyourmemory to a test? Can you remember the name?” he asked, with a momentary appearance of triumph showing itself, poor fellow, in his face.
After the time that had elapsed, the name had slipped my memory. When I confessed this, he exulted over me, with an unalloyed pleasure which it was cheering to see.
“Yourmemory is failing you now,” he said. “The name is Long Lanes. And what do you think my wife did—this is so characteristic of her!—when I presented myself at her bedside. Instead of speaking of our own baby, she reminded me of the name that I had given to our adopted daughter when I baptized the child. ‘You chose the ugliest name that a girl can have,’ she said. I begged her to remember that ‘Eunice’ was a name in Scripture. She persisted in spite of me. (What firmness of character!) ‘I detest the name of Eunice!’ she said; ‘and now that I have a girl of my own, it’s my turn to choose the name; I claim it as my right.’ She was beginning to get excited; I allowed her to have her own way, of course. ‘Only let me know,’ I said, ‘what the name is to be when you have thought of it.’ My dear sir, she had the name ready, without thinking about it: ‘My baby shall be called by the name that is sweetest in my ears, the name of my dear lost mother.’ We had—what shall I call it?—a slight difference of opinion when I heard that the name was to be Helena. I really couldnotreconcile it to my conscience to baptize a child of mine by the name of a Popish saint. My wife’s brother set things right between us. A worthy good man; he died not very long ago—I forget the date. Not to detain you any longer, the rector of Long Lanes baptized our daughter. That is how she comes by her un-English name; and so it happens that her birth is registered in a village which her father has never inhabited. I hope, sir, you think a little better of my memory now?”
I was afraid to tell him what I really did think.
He was not fifty years old yet; and he had just exhibited one of the sad symptoms which mark the broken memory of old age. Lead him back to the events of many years ago, and (as he had just proved to me) he could remember well and relate coherently. But let him attempt to recall circumstances which had only taken place a short time since, and forgetfulness and confusion presented the lamentable result, just as I have related it.
The effort that he had made, the agitation that he had undergone in talking to me, had confirmed my fears that he would overtask his wasted strength. He lay back in his chair. “Let us go on with our conversation,” he murmured. “We haven’t recovered what I had forgotten, yet.” His eyes closed, and opened again languidly. “There was something I wanted to recall—” he resumed, “and you were helping me.” His weak voice died away; his weary eyes closed again. After waiting until there could be no doubt that he was resting peacefully in sleep, I left the room.
A perfect stranger to the interior of the house (seeing that my experience began and ended with the Minister’s bedchamber), I descended the stairs, in the character of a guest in search of domestic information.
On my way down, I heard the door of a room on the ground floor opened, and a woman’ s voice below, speaking in a hurry: “My dear, I have not a moment to spare; my patients are waiting for me.” This was followed by a confidential communication, judging by the tone. “Mind! not a word about me to that old gentleman!” Her patients were waiting for her—had I discovered a female doctor? And there was some old gentleman whom she was not willing to trust—surely I was not that much-injured man?
Reaching the hall just as the lady said her last words, I caught a glimpse of her face, and discovered the middle-aged stranger who had called on “Miss Jillgall,” and had promised to repeat her visit. A second lady was at the door, with her back to me, taking leave of her friend. Having said good-by, she turned round—and we confronted each other.
I found her to be a little person, wiry and active; past the prime of life, and ugly enough to encourage prejudice, in persons who take a superficial view of their fellow-creatures. Looking impartially at the little sunken eyes which rested on me with a comical expression of embarrassment, I saw signs that said: There is some good here, under a disagreeable surface, if you can only find it.
She saluted me with a carefully-performed curtsey, and threw open the door of a room on the ground floor.
“Pray walk in, sir, and permit me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Gracedieu’s cousin—Miss Jillgall. Proud indeed to make the acquaintance of a gentleman distinguished in the service of his country—or perhaps I ought to say, in the service of the Law. The Governor offers hospitality to prisoners. And who introduces prisoners to board and lodging with the Governor?—the Law. Beautiful weather for the time of year, is it not? May I ask—have you seen your room?”
The embarrassment which I had already noticed had extended by this time to her voice and her manner. She was evidently trying to talk herself into a state of confidence. It seemed but too probable that I was indeed the person mentioned by her prudent friend at the door.
Having acknowledged that I had not seen my room yet, my politeness attempted to add that there was no hurry. The wiry little lady was of the contrary opinion; she jumped out of her chair as if she had been shot out of it. “Pray let me make myself useful. The dream of my life is to make myself useful to others; and to such a man as you—I consider myself honored. Besides, I do enjoy running up and down stairs. This way, dear sir; this way to your room.”
She skipped up the stairs, and stopped on the first landing. “Do you know, I am a timid person, though I may not look like it. Sometimes, curiosity gets the better of me—and then I grow bold. Did you notice a lady who was taking leave of me just now at the house door?”
I replied that I had seen the lady for a moment, but not for the first time. “Just as I arrived here from the station,” I said, “I found her paying a visit when you were not at home.”
“Yes—and do tell me one thing more.” My readiness in answering seemed to have inspired Miss Jillgall with confidence. I heard no more confessions of overpowering curiosity. “Am I right,” she proceeded, “in supposing that Miss Helena accompanied you on your way here from the station?”
“Quite right.”
“Did she say anything particular, when she saw the lady asking for me at the door?”
“Miss Helena thought,” I said, “that the lady recognized me as a person whom she had seen before.”
“And what did you think yourself?”
“I thought Miss Helena was wrong.”
“Very extraordinary!” With that remark, Miss Jillgall dropped the subject. The meaning of her reiterated inquiries was now, as it seemed to me, clear enough. She was eager to discover how I could have inspired the distrust of me, expressed in the caution addressed to her by her friend.
When we reached the upper floor, she paused before the Minister’s room.
“I believe many years have passed,” she said, “since you last saw Mr. Gracedieu. I am afraid you have found him a sadly changed man? You won’t be angry with me, I hope, for asking more questions? I owe Mr. Gracedieu a debt of gratitude which no devotion, on my part, can ever repay. You don’t know what a favor I shall consider it, if you will tell me what you think of him. Did it seem to you that he was not quite himself? I don’t mean in his looks, poor dear—I mean in his mind.”
There was true sorrow and sympathy in her face. I believe I should hardly have thought her ugly, if we had first met at that moment. Thus far, she had only amused me. I began really to like Miss Jillgall now.
“I must not conceal from you,” I replied, “that the state of Mr. Gracedieu’s mind surprised and distressed me. But I ought also to tell you that I saw him perhaps at his worst. The subject on which he wished to speak with me would have agitated any man, in his state of health. He consulted me about his daughter’s marriage.”
Miss Jillgall suddenly turned pale.
“His daughter’s marriage?” she repeated. “Oh, you frighten me!”
“Why should I frighten you?”
She seemed to find some difficulty in expressing herself. “I hardly know how to put it, sir. You will excuse me (won’t you?) if I say what I feel. You have influence—not the sort of influence that finds places for people who don’t deserve them, and gets mentioned in the newspapers—I only mean influence over Mr. Gracedieu. That’s what frightens me. How do I know—? Oh, dear, I’m asking another question! Allow me, for once, to be plain and positive. I’m afraid, sir, you have encouraged the Minister to consent to Helena’s marriage.”
“Pardon me,” I answered, “you mean Eunice’s marriage.”
“No, sir! Helena.”
“No, madam! Eunice.”
“What does he mean?” said Miss Jillgall to herself.
I heard her. “This is what I mean,” I asserted, in my most positive manner. “The only subject on which the Minister has consulted me is Miss Eunice’s marriage.”
My tone left her no alternative but to believe me. She looked not only bewildered, but alarmed. “Oh, poor man, has he lost himself in such a dreadful way as that?” she said to herself. “I daren’t believe it!” She turned to me. “You have been talking with him for some time. Please try to remember. While Mr. Gracedieu was speaking of Euneece, did he say nothing of Helena’s infamous conduct to her sister?”
Not the slightest hint of any such thing, I assured her, had reached my ears.
“Then,” she cried, “I can tell you what he has forgotten! We kept as much of that miserable story to ourselves as we could, in mercy to him. Besides, he was always fondest of Euneece; she would live in his memory when he had forgotten the other—the wretch, the traitress, the plotter, the fiend!” Miss Jillgall’s good manners slipped, as it were, from under her; she clinched her fists as a final means of expressing her sentiments. “The wretched English language isn’t half strong enough for me,” she declared with a look of fury.
I took a liberty. “May I ask what Miss Helena has done?” I said.
“Mayyou ask? Oh, Heavens! you must ask, you shall ask. Mr. Governor, if your eyes are not opened to Helena’s true character, I can tell you what she will do; she will deceive you into taking her part. Do you think she went to the station out of regard for the great man? Pooh! she went with an eye to her own interests; and she means to make the great man useful. Thank God, I can stop that!”
She checked herself there, and looked suspiciously at the door of Mr. Gracedieu’s room.
“In the interest of our conversation,” she whispered, “we have not given a thought to the place we have been talking in. Do you think the Minister has heard us?”
“Not if he is asleep—as I left him.”
Miss Jillgall shook her head ominously. “The safe way is this way,” she said. “Come with me.”
My ever-helpful guide led me to my room—well out of Mr. Gracedieu’s hearing, if he happened to be awake—at the other end of the passage. Having opened the door, she paused on the threshold. The decrees of that merciless English despot, Propriety, claimed her for their own. “Oh, dear!” she said to herself, “ought I to go in?”
My interest as a man (and, what is more, an old man) in the coming disclosure was too serious to be trifled with in this way. I took her arm, and led her into my room as if I was at a dinner-party, leading her to the table. Is it the good or the evil fortune of mortals that the comic side of life, and the serious side of life, are perpetually in collision with each other? We burst out laughing, at a moment of grave importance to us both. Perfectly inappropriate, and perfectly natural. But we were neither of us philosophers, and we were ashamed of our own merriment the moment it had ceased.
“When you hear what I have to tell you,” Miss Jillgall began, “I hope you will think as I do. What has slipped Mr. Gracedieu’s memory, it may be safer to say—for he is sometimes irritable, poor dear—where he won’t know anything about it.”
With that she told the lamentable story of the desertion of Eunice.
In silence I listened, from first to last. How could I trust myself to speak, as I must have spoken, in the presence of a woman? The cruel injury inflicted on the poor girl, who had interested and touched me in the first innocent year of her life—who had grown to womanhood to be the victim of two wretches, both trusted by her, both bound to her by the sacred debt of love—so fired my temper that I longed to be within reach of the man, with a horsewhip in my hand. Seeing in my face, as I suppose, what was passing in my mind, Miss Jillgall expressed sympathy and admiration in her own quaint way: “Ah, I like to see you so angry! It’s grand to know that a man who has governed prisoners has got such a pitying heart. Let me tell you one thing, sir. You will be more angry than ever, when you see my sweet girl to-morrow. And mind this—it is Helena’s devouring vanity, Helena’s wicked jealousy of her sister’s good fortune, that has done the mischief. Don’t be too hard on Philip? I do believe, if the truth was told, he is ashamed of himself.”
I felt inclined to be harder on Philip than ever. “Where is he?” I asked.
Miss Jillgall started. “Oh, Mr. Governor, don’t show the severe side of yourself, after the pretty compliment I have just paid to you! What a masterful voice! and what eyes, dear sir; what terrifying eyes! I feel as if I was one of your prisoners, and had misbehaved myself.”
I repeated my question with improvement, I hope, in my looks and tones: “Don’t think me obstinate, my dear lady. I only want to know if he is in this town.”
Miss Jillgall seemed to take a curious pleasure in disappointing me; she had not forgotten my unfortunate abruptness of look and manner. “You won’t find him here,” she said.
“Perhaps he has left England?”
“If you must know, sir, he is in London—with Mr. Dunboyne.”
The name startled me.
In a moment more it recalled to my memory a remarkable letter, addressed to me many years ago, which will be found in my introductory narrative. The writer—an Irish gentleman, named Dunboyne confided to me that his marriage had associated him with the murderess, who had then been recently executed, as brother-in-law to that infamous woman. This circumstance he had naturally kept a secret from every one, including his son, then a boy. I alone was made an exception to the general rule, because I alone could tell him what had become of the poor little girl, who in spite of the disgraceful end of her mother was still his niece. If the child had not been provided for, he felt it his duty to take charge of her education, and to watch over her prospects in the future. Such had been his object in writing to me; and such was the substance of his letter. I had merely informed him, in reply, that his kind intentions had been anticipated, and that the child’s prosperous future was assured.
Miss Jillgall’s keen observation noticed the impression that had been produced upon me. “Mr. Dunboyne’s name seems to surprise you.” she said.
“This is the first time I have heard you mention it,” I answered.
She looked as if she could hardly believe me. “Surely you must have heard the name,” she said, “when I told you about poor Euneece?”
“No.”
“Well, then, Mr. Gracedieu must have mentioned it?”
“No.”
This second reply in the negative irritated her.
“At any rate,” she said, sharply, “you appeared to know Mr. Dunboyne’s name, just now.”
“Certainly!”
“And yet,” she persisted, “the name seemed to come upon you as a surprise. I don’t understand it. If I have mentioned Philip’s name once, I have mentioned it a dozen times.”
We were completely at cross-purposes. She had taken something for granted which was an unfathomable mystery to me.
“Well,” I objected, “if you did mention his name a dozen times—excuse me for asking the question—-what then?”
“Good heavens!” cried Miss Jillgall, “do you mean to say you never guessed that Philip was Mr. Dunboyne’s son?”
I was petrified.
His son! Dunboyne’s son! How could I have guessed it?
At a later time only, the good little creature who had so innocently deceived me, remembered that the mischief might have been wrought by the force of habit. While he had still a claim on their regard the family had always spoken of Eunice’s unworthy lover by his Christian name; and what had been familiar in their mouths felt the influence of custom, before time enough had elapsed to make them think as readily of the enemy as they had hitherto thought of the friend.
But I was ignorant of this: and the disclosure by which I found myself suddenly confronted was more than I could support. For the moment, speech was beyond me.
His son! Dunboyne’s son!
What a position that young man had occupied, unsuspected by his father, unknown to himself! kept in ignorance of the family disgrace, he had been a guest in the house of the man who had consoled his infamous aunt on the eve of her execution—who had saved his unhappy cousin from poverty, from sorrow, from shame. And but one human being knew this. And that human being was myself!
Observing my agitation, Miss Jillgall placed her own construction on it.
“Do you know anything bad of Philip?” she asked eagerly. “If it’s something that will prevent Helena from marrying him, tell me what it is, I beg and pray.”
I knew no more of “Philip” (whom she still called by his Christian name!) than she had told me herself: there was no help for it but to disappoint her. At the same time I was unable to conceal that I was ill at ease, and that it might be well to leave me by myself. After a look round the bedchamber to see that nothing was wanting to my comfort, she made her quaint curtsey, and left me with her own inimitable form of farewell. “Oh, indeed, I have been here too long! And I’m afraid I have been guilty, once or twice, of vulgar familiarity. You will excuse me, I hope. This has been an exciting interview—I think I am going to cry.”
She ran out of the room; and carried away with her some of my kindliest feelings, short as the time of our acquaintance had been. What a wife and what a mother was lost there—and all for want of a pretty face!
Left alone, my thoughts inevitably reverted to Dunboyne the elder, and to all that had happened in Mr. Gracedieu’s family since the Irish gentleman had written to me in bygone years.
The terrible choice of responsibilities which had preyed on the Minister’s mind had been foreseen by Mr. Dunboyne, when he first thought of adopting his infant niece, and had warned him to dread what might happen in the future, if he brought her up as a member of the family with his own boy, and if the two young people became at a later period attached to each other. How had the wise foresight, which offered such a contrast to the poor Minister’s impulsive act of mercy, met with its reward? Fate or Providence (call it which we may) had brought Dunboyne’s son and the daughter of the murderess together; had inspired those two strangers with love; and had emboldened them to plight their troth by a marriage engagement. Was the man’s betrayal of the trust placed in him by the faithful girl to be esteemed a fortunate circumstance by the two persons who knew the true story of her parentage, the Minister and myself? Could we rejoice in an act of infidelity which had embittered and darkened the gentle harmless life of the victim? Or could we, on the other hand, encourage the ruthless deceit, the hateful treachery, which had put the wicked Helena—with no exposure to dread ifshemarried—into her wronged sister’s place? Impossible! In the one case as in the other, impossible!
Equally hopeless did the prospect appear, when I tried to determine what my own individual course of action ought to be.
In my calmer moments, the idea had occurred to my mind of going to Dunboyne the younger, and, if he had any sense of shame left, exerting my influence to lead him back to his betrothed wife. How could I now do this, consistently with my duty to the young man’s father; knowing what I knew, and not forgetting that I had myself advised Mr. Gracedieu to keep the truth concealed, when I was equally ignorant of Philip Dunboyne’s parentage and of Helena Gracedieu’s treachery?
Even if events so ordered it that the marriage of Eunice might yet take place—without any interference exerted to produce that result, one way or the other, on my part—it would be just as impossible for me to speak out now, as it had been in the long-past years when I had so cautiously answered Mr. Dunboyne’s letter. But what would he think of me if accident led, sooner or later, to the disclosure which I had felt bound to conceal? The more I tried to forecast the chances of the future, the darker and the darker was the view that faced me.
To my sinking heart and wearied mind, good Dame Nature presented a more acceptable prospect, when I happened to look out of the window of my room. There I saw the trees and flowerbeds of a garden, tempting me irresistibly under the cloudless sunshine of a fine day. I was on my way out, to recover heart and hope, when a knock at the door stopped me.
Had Miss Jillgall returned? When I said “Come in,” Mr. Gracedieu opened the door, and entered the room.
He was so weak that he staggered as he approached me. Leading him to a chair, I noticed a wild look in his eyes, and a flush on his haggard cheeks. Something had happened.
“When you were with me in my room,” he began, “did I not tell you that I had forgotten something?”
“Certainly you did.”
“Well, I have found the lost remembrance. My misfortune—I ought to call it the punishment for my sins, is recalled to me now. The worst curse that can fall on a father is the curse that has come to me. I have a wicked daughter. My own child, sir! my own child!”
Had he been awake, while Miss Jillgall and I had been talking outside his door? Had he heard her ask me if Mr. Gracedieu had said nothing of Helena’s infamous conduct to her sister, while he was speaking of Eunice? The way to the lost remembrance had perhaps been found there. In any case, after that bitter allusion to his “wicked daughter” some result must follow. Helena Gracedieu and a day of reckoning might be nearer to each other already than I had ventured to hope.
I waited anxiously for what he might say to me next.