Without speaking, without even looking up, he took out his pocketbook, and began to write in it. Constantly interrupted either by a trembling in the hand that held the pencil, or by a difficulty (as I imagined) in expressing thoughts imperfectly realized—his patience gave way; he dashed the book on the floor.
“My mind is gone!” he burst out. “Oh, Father in Heaven, let death deliver me from a body without a mind!”
Who could hear him, and be guilty of the cruelty of preaching self-control? I picked up the pocketbook, and offered to help him.
“Do you think you can?” he asked.
“I can at least try.”
“Good fellow! What should I do without you? See now; here is my difficulty. I have got so many things to say, I want to separate them—or else they will all run into each other. Look at the book,” my poor friend said mournfully; “they have run into each other in spite of me.”
The entries proved to be nearly incomprehensible. Here and there I discovered some scattered words, which showed themselves more or less distinctly in the midst of the surrounding confusion. The first word that I could make out was “Education.” Helped by that hint, I trusted to guess-work to guide me in speaking to him. It was necessary to be positive, or he would have lost all faith in me.
“Well?” he said impatiently.
“Well,” I answered, “you have something to say to me about the education which you have given to your daughters.”
“Don’t put them together!” he cried. “Dear, patient, sweet Eunice must not be confounded with that she-devil—”
“Hush, hush, Mr. Gracedieu! Badly as Miss Helena has behaved, she is your own child.”
“I repudiate her, sir! Think for a moment of what she has done—and then think of the religious education that I have given her. Heartless! Deceitful! The most ignorant creature in the lowest dens of this town could have done nothing more basely cruel. And this, after years on years of patient Christian instruction on my part! What is religion? What is education? I read a horrible book once (I forget who was the author); it called religion superstition, and education empty form. I don’t know; upon my word I don’t know that the book may not—Oh, my tongue! Why don’t I keep a guard over my tongue? Are you a father, too? Don’t interrupt me. Put yourself in my place, and think of it. Heartless, deceitful, andmydaughter. Give me the pocketbook; I want to see which memorandum comes first.”
He had now wrought himself into a state of excitement, which relieved his spirits of the depression that had weighed on them up to this time. His harmless vanity, always, as I suspect, a latent quality in his kindly nature, had already restored his confidence. With a self-sufficient smile he consulted his own unintelligible entries, and made his own wild discoveries.
“Ah, yes; ‘M’ stands for Minister; I come first. Am I to blame? Am I—God forgive me my many sins—am I heartless? Am I deceitful?”
“My good friend, not even your enemies could say that!”
“Thank you. Who comes next?” He consulted the book again. “Her mother, her sainted mother, comes next. People say she is like her mother. Was my wife heartless? Was the angel of my life deceitful?”
(“That,” I thought to myself, “is exactly what your wife was—and exactly what reappears in your wife’s child.”)
“Where does her wickedness come from?” he went on. “Not from her mother; not from me; not from a neglected education.” He suddenly stepped up to me and laid his hands on my shoulders; his voice dropped to hoarse, moaning, awestruck tones. “Shall I tell you what it is? A possession of the devil.”
It was so evidently desirable to prevent any continuation of such a train of thought as this, that I could feel no hesitation in interrupting him.
“Will you hear what I have to say?” I asked bluntly.
His humor changed again; he made me a low bow, and went back to his chair. “I will hear you with pleasure,” he answered politely. “You are the most eloquent man I know, with one exception—myself. Of course—myself.”
“It is mere waste of time,” I continued, “to regret the excellent education which your daughter has misused.” Making that reply, I was tempted to add another word of truth. All education is at the mercy of two powerful counter-influences: the influence of temperament, and the influence of circumstances. But this was philosophy. How could I expect him to submit to philosophy? “What we know of Miss Helena,” I went on, “must be enough for us. She has plotted, and she means to succeed. Stop her.”
“Just my idea!” he declared firmly. “I refuse my consent to that abominable marriage.”
In the popular phrase, I struck while the iron was hot. “You must do more than that, sir,” I told him.
His vanity suddenly took the alarm—I was leading him rather too undisguisedly. He handed his book back to me. “You will find,” he said loftily, “that I have put it all down there.”
I pretended to find it, and read an imaginary entry to this effect: “After what she has already done, Helena is capable of marrying in defiance of my wishes and commands. This must be considered and provided against.” So far, I had succeeded in flattering him. But when (thinking of his paternal authority) I alluded next to his daughter’s age, his eyes rested on me with a look of downright terror.
“No more of that!” he said. “I won’t talk of the girls’ ages even with you.”
What did he mean? It was useless to ask. I went on with the matter in hand—still deliberately speaking to him, as I might have spoken to a man with an intellect as clear as my own. In my experience, this practice generally stimulates a weak intelligence to do its best. We all know how children receive talk that is lowered, or books that are lowered, to their presumed level. “I shall take it for granted,” I continued, “that Miss Helena is still under your lawful authority. She can only arrive at her ends by means of a runaway marriage. In that case, much depends on the man. You told me you couldn’t help liking him. This was, of course, before you knew of the infamous manner in which he has behaved. You must have changed your opinion now.”
He seemed to be at a loss how to reply. “I am afraid,” he said, “the young man was drawn into it by Helena.”
Here was Miss Jillgall’s apology for Philip Dunboyne repeated in other words. Despising and detesting the fellow as I did, I was forced to admit to myself that he must be recommended by personal attractions which it would be necessary to reckon with. I tried to get some more information from Mr. Gracedieu.
“The excuse you have just made for him,” I resumed, “implies that he is a weak man; easily persuaded, easily led.”
The Minister answered by nodding his head.
“Such weakness as that,” I persisted, “is a vice in itself. It has led already, sir, to the saddest results.”
He admitted this by another nod.
“I don’t wish to shock you, Mr. Gracedieu; but I must recommend employing the means that present themselves. You must practice on this man’s weakness, for the sake of the good that may come of it. I hear he is in London with his father. Try the strong influence, and write to his father. There is another reason besides for doing this. It is quite possible that the truth has been concealed from Mr. Dunboyne the elder. Take care that he is informed of what has really happened. Are you looking for pen, ink, and paper? Let me offer you the writing materials which I use in traveling.”
I placed them before him. He took up the pen; he arranged the paper; he was eager to begin.
After writing a few words, he stopped—reflected—tried again—stopped again—tore up the little that he had done—and began a new letter, ending in the same miserable result. It was impossible to witness his helplessness, to see how pitiably patient he was over his own incapacity, and to let the melancholy spectacle go on. I proposed to write the letter; authenticating it, of course, by his signature. When he allowed me to take the pen, he turned away his face, ashamed to let me see what he suffered. Was this the same man, whose great nature had so nobly asserted itself in the condemned cell? Poor mortality!
The letter was easily written.
I had only to inform Mr. Dunboyne of his son’s conduct; repeating, in the plainest language that I could use, what Miss Jillgall had related to me. Arrived at the conclusion, I contrived to make Mr. Gracedieu express himself in these strong terms: “I protest against the marriage in justice to you, sir, as well as to myself. We can neither of us content to be accomplices in an act of domestic treason of the basest kind.”
In silence, the Minister read the letter, and attached his signature to it. In silence, he rose and took my arm. I asked if he wished to go to his room. He only replied by a sign. I offered to sit with him, and try to cheer him. Gratefully, he pressed my hand: gently, he put me back from the door. Crushed by the miserable discovery of the decay of his own faculties! What could I do? what could I say? Nothing!
Miss Jillgall was in the drawing-room. With the necessary explanations, I showed her the letter. She read it with breathless interest. “It terrifies one to think how much depends on old Mr. Dunboyne,” she said. “You know him. What sort of man is he?”
I could only assure her (after what I remembered of his letter to me) that he was a man whom we could depend upon.
Miss Jillgall possessed treasures of information to which I could lay no claim. Mr. Dunboyne, she told me, was a scholar, and a writer, and a rich man. His views on marriage were liberal in the extreme. Let his son find good principles, good temper, and good looks, in a wife, and he would promise to find the money.
“I get these particulars,” said Miss Jillgall, “from dear Euneece. They are surely encouraging? That Helena may carry out Mr. Dunboyne’s views in her personal appearance is, I regret to say, what I can’t deny. But as to the other qualifications, how hopeful is the prospect! Good principles, and good temper? Ha! ha! Helena has the principles of Jezebel, and the temper of Lady Macbeth.”
After dashing off this striking sketch of character, the fair artist asked to look at my letter again, and observed that the address was wanting. “I can set this right for you,” she resumed, “thanks, as before, to my sweet Euneece. And (don’t be in a hurry) I can make myself useful in another way. Oh, how I do enjoy making myself useful! If you trust your letter to the basket in the hall, Helena’s lovely eyes—capable of the meanest conceivable actions—are sure to take a peep at the address. In that case, do you think your letter would get to London? I am afraid you detect a faint infusion of spitefulness in that question. Oh, for shame! I’ll post the letter myself.”
For some reason, which my unassisted penetration was unable to discover, Miss Helena Gracedieu kept out of my way.
At dinner, on the day of my arrival, and at breakfast on the next morning, she was present of course; ready to make herself agreeable in a modest way, and provided with the necessary supply of cheerful small-talk. But the meal having come to an end, she had her domestic excuse ready, and unostentatiously disappeared like a well-bred young lady. I never met her on the stairs, never found myself intruding on her in the drawing-room, never caught her getting out of my way in the garden. As much at a loss for an explanation of these mysteries as I was, Miss Jillgall’s interest in my welfare led her to caution me in a vague and general way.
“Take my word for it, dear Mr. Governor, she has some design on you. Will you allow an insignificant old maid to offer a suggestion? Oh, thank you; I will venture to advise. Please look back at your experience of the very worst female prisoner you ever had to deal with—and be guided accordingly if Helena catches you at a private interview.”
In less than half an hour afterward, Helena caught me. I was writing in my room, when the maidservant came in with a message: “Miss Helena’s compliments, sir, and would you please spare her half an hour, downstairs?”
My first excuse was of course that I was engaged. This was disposed of by a second message, provided beforehand, no doubt, for an anticipated refusal: “Miss Helena wished me to say, sir, that her time is your time.” I was still obstinate; I pleaded next that my day was filled up. A third message had evidently been prepared, even for this emergency: “Miss Helena will regret, sir, having the pleasure deferred, but she will leave you to make your own appointment for to-morrow.” Persistency so inveterate as this led to a result which Mr. Gracedieu’s cautious daughter had not perhaps contemplated: it put me on my guard. There seemed to be a chance, to say the least of it, that I might serve Eunice’s interests if I discovered what the enemy had to say. I locked up my writing—declared myself incapable of putting Miss Helena to needless inconvenience—and followed the maid to the lower floor of the house.
The room to which I was conducted proved to be empty. I looked round me.
If I had been told that a man lived there who was absolutely indifferent to appearances, I should have concluded that his views were faithfully represented by his place of abode. The chairs and tables reminded me of a railway waiting-room. The shabby little bookcase was the mute record of a life indifferent to literature. The carpet was of that dreadful drab color, still the cherished favorite of the average English mind, in spite of every protest that can be entered against it, on behalf of Art. The ceiling, recently whitewashed; made my eyes ache when they looked at it. On either side of the window, flaccid green curtains hung helplessly with nothing to loop them up. The writing-desk and the paper-case, viewed as specimens of woodwork, recalled the ready-made bedrooms on show in cheap shops. The books, mostly in slate-colored bindings, were devoted to the literature which is called religious; I only discovered three worldly publications among them—Domestic Cookery, Etiquette for Ladies, and Hints on the Breeding of Poultry. An ugly little clock, ticking noisily in a black case, and two candlesticks of base metal placed on either side of it, completed the ornaments on the chimney-piece. Neither pictures nor prints hid the barrenness of the walls. I saw no needlework and no flowers. The one object in the place which showed any pretensions to beauty was a looking-glass in an elegant gilt frame—sacred to vanity, and worthy of the office that it filled. Such was Helena Gracedieu’s sitting-room. I really could not help thinking: How like her!
She came in with a face perfectly adapted to the circumstances—pleased and smiling; amiably deferential, in consideration of the claims of her father’s guest—and, to my surprise, in some degree suggestive of one of those incorrigible female prisoners, to whom Miss Jillgall had referred me when she offered a word of advice.
“How kind of you to come so soon! Excuse my receiving you in my housekeeping-room; we shall not be interrupted here. Very plainly furnished, is it not? I dislike ostentation and display. Ornaments are out of place in a room devoted to domestic necessities. I hate domestic necessities. You notice the looking-glass? It’s a present. I should never have put such a thing up. Perhaps my vanity excuses it.”
She pointed the last remark by a look at herself in the glass; using it, while she despised it. Yes: there was a handsome face, paying her its reflected compliment—but not so well matched as it might have been by a handsome figure. Her feet were too large; her shoulders were too high; the graceful undulations of a well-made girl were absent when she walked; and her bosom was, to my mind, unduly developed for her time of life.
She sat down by me with her back to the light. Happening to be opposite to the window, I offered her the advantage of a clear view of my face. She waited for me, and I waited for her—and there was an awkward pause before we spoke. She set the example.
“Isn’t it curious?” she remarked. “When two people have something particular to say to each other, and nothing to hinder them, they never seem to know how to say it. You are the oldest, sir. Why don’t you begin?”
“Because I have nothing particular to say.”
“In plain words, you mean that I must begin?”
“If you please.”
“Very well. I want to know whether I have given you (and Miss Jillgall, of course) as much time as you want, and as many opportunities as you could desire?”
“Pray go on, Miss Helena.”
“Have I not said enough already?”
“Not enough, I regret to say, to convey your meaning to me.”
She drew her chair a little further away from me. “I am sadly disappointed,” she said. “I had such a high opinion of your perfect candor. I thought to myself: There is such a striking expression of frankness in his face. Another illusion gone! I hope you won’t think I am offended, if I say a bold word. I am only a young girl, to be sure; but I am not quite such a fool as you take me for. Do you really think I don’t know that Miss Jillgall has been telling you everything that is bad about me; putting every mistake that I have made, every fault that I have committed, in the worst possible point of view? And you have listened to her—quite naturally! And you are prejudiced, strongly prejudiced, against me—what else could you be, under the circumstances? I don’t complain; I have purposely kept out of your way, and out of Miss Jillgall’s way; in short, I have afforded you every facility, as the prospectuses say. I only want to know if my turn has come at last. Once more, have I given you time enough, and opportunities enough?”
“A great deal more than enough.”
“Do you mean that you have made up your mind about me without stopping to think?”
“That is exactly what I mean. An act of treachery, Miss Helena,isan act of treachery; no honest person need hesitate to condemn it. I am sorry you sent for me.”
I got up to go. With an ironical gesture of remonstrance, she signed to me to sit down again.
“Must I remind you, dear sir, of our famous native virtue? Fair play is surely due to a young person who has nobody to take her part. You talked of treachery just how. I deny the treachery. Please give me a hearing.”
I returned to my chair.
“Or would you prefer waiting,” she went out, “till my sister comes here later in the day, and continues what Miss Jillgall has begun, with the great advantage of being young and nice-looking?”
When the female mind gets into this state, no wise man answers the female questions.
“Am I to take silence as meaning Go on?” Miss Helena inquired.
I begged her to interpret my silence in the sense most agreeable to herself.
This naturally encouraged her. She made a proposal:
“Do you mind changing places, sir?”
“Just as you like, Miss Helena.”
We changed chairs; the light now fell full on her face. Had she deliberately challenged me to look into her secret mind if I could? Anything like the stark insensibility of that young girl to every refinement of feeling, to every becoming doubt of herself, to every customary timidity of her age and sex in the presence of a man who had not disguised his unfavorable opinion of her, I never met with in all my experience of the world and of women.
“I wish to be quite mistress of myself,” she explained; “your face, for some reason which I really don’t know, irritates me. The fact is, I have great pride in keeping my temper. Please make allowances. Now about Miss Jillgall. I suppose she told you how my sister first met with Philip Dunboyne?”
“Yes.”
“She also mentioned, perhaps, that he was a highly-cultivated man?”
“She did.”
“Now we shall get on. When Philip came to our town here, and saw me for the first time—Do you object to my speaking familiarly of him, by his Christian name?”
“In the case of any one else in your position, Miss Helena, I should venture to call it bad taste.”
I was provoked into saying that. It failed entirely as a well-meant effort in the way of implied reproof. Miss Helena smiled.
“You grant me a liberty which you would not concede to another girl.” That was how she viewed it. “We are getting on better already. To return to what I was saying. When Philip first saw me—I have it from himself, mind—he felt that I should have been his choice, if he had met with me before he met with my sister. Do you blame him?”
“If you will take my advice,” I said, “you will not inquire too closely into my opinion of Mr. Philip Dunboyne.”
“Perhaps you don’t wish me to say anymore?” she suggested.
“On the contrary, pray go on, if you like.”
After that concession, she was amiability itself. “Oh, yes,” she assured me, “that’s easily done.” And she went on accordingly: “Philip having informed me of the state of his affections, I naturally followed his example. In fact, we exchanged confessions. Our marriage engagement followed as a matter of course. Do you blame me?”
“I will wait till you have done.”
“I have no more to say.”
She made that amazing reply with such perfect composure, that I began to fear there must have been some misunderstanding between us. “Is that really all you have to say for yourself?” I persisted.
Her patience with me was most exemplary. She lowered herself to my level. Not trusting to words only on this occasion, she (so to say) beat her meaning into my head by gesticulating on her fingers, as if she was educating a child.
“Philip and I,” she began, “are the victims of an accident, which kept us apart when we ought to have met together—we are not responsible for an accident.” She impressed this on me by touching her forefinger. “Philip and I fell in love with each other at first sight—we are not responsible for the feelings implanted in our natures by an all-wise Providence.” She assisted me in understanding this by touching her middle finger. “Philip and I owe a duty to each other, and accept a responsibility under those circumstances—the responsibility of getting married.” A touch on her third finger, and an indulgent bow, announced that the lesson was ended. “I am not a clever man like you,” she modestly acknowledged, “but I ask you to help us, when you next see my father, with some confidence. You know exactly what to say to him, by this time. Nothing has been forgotten.”
“Pardon me,” I said, “a person has been forgotten.”
“Indeed? What person?”
“Your sister.”
A little perplexed at first, Miss Helena reflected, and recovered herself.
“Ah, yes,” she said; “I was afraid I might be obliged to trouble you for an explanation—I see it now. You are shocked (very properly) when feelings of enmity exist between near relations; and you wish to be assured that I bear no malice toward Eunice. She is violent, she is sulky, she is stupid, she is selfish; and she cruelly refuses to live in the same house with me. Make your mind easy, sir, I forgive my sister.”
Let me not attempt to disguise it—Miss Helena Gracedieu confounded me.
Ordinary audacity is one of those forms of insolence which mature experience dismisses with contempt. This girl’s audacity struck down all resistance, for one shocking reason: it was unquestionably sincere. Strong conviction of her own virtue stared at me in her proud and daring eyes. At that time, I was not aware of what I have learned since. The horrid hardening of her moral sense had been accomplished by herself. In her diary, there has been found the confession of a secret course of reading—with supplementary reflections flowing from it, which need only to be described as worthy of their source.
A person capable of repentance and reform would, in her place, have seen that she had disgusted me. Not a suspicion of this occurred to Miss Helena. “I see you are embarrassed,” she remarked, “and I am at no loss to account for it. You are too polite to acknowledge that I have not made a friend of you yet. Oh, I mean to do it!”
“No,” I said, “I think not.”
“We shall see,” she replied. “Sooner or later, you will find yourself saying a kind word to my father for Philip and me.” She rose, and took a turn in the room—and stopped, eying me attentively. “Are you thinking of Eunice?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“She has your sympathy, I suppose?”
“My heart-felt sympathy.”
“I needn’t ask how I stand in your estimation, after that. Pray express yourself freely. Your looks confess it—you view me with a feeling of aversion.”
“I view you with a feeling of horror.”
The exasperating influences of her language, her looks, and her tones would, as I venture to think, have got to the end of another man’s self-control before this. Anyway, she had at last irritated me into speaking as strongly as I felt. What I said had been so plainly (perhaps so rudely) expressed, that misinterpretation of it seemed to be impossible. She mistook me, nevertheless. The most merciless disclosure of the dreary side of human destiny is surely to be found in the failure of words, spoken or written, so to answer their purpose that we can trust them, in our attempts to communicate with each other. Even when he seems to be connected, by the nearest and dearest relations, with his fellow-mortals, what a solitary creature, tried by the test of sympathy, the human being really is in the teeming world that he inhabits! Affording one more example of the impotence of human language to speak for itself, my misinterpreted words had found their way to the one sensitive place in Helena Gracedieu’s impenetrable nature. She betrayed it in the quivering and flushing of her hard face, and in the appeal to the looking-glass which escaped her eyes the next moment. My hasty reply had roused the idea of a covert insult addressed to her handsome face. In other words, I had wounded her vanity. Driven by resentment, out came the secret distrust of me which had been lurking in that cold heart, from the moment when we first met.
“I inspire you with horror, and Eunice inspires you with compassion,” she said. “That, Mr. Governor, is not natural.”
“May I ask why?”
“You know why.”
“No.”
“You will have it?”
“I want an explanation, Miss Helena, if that is what you mean.”
“Take your explanation, then! You are not the stranger you are said to be to my sister and to me. Your interest in Eunice is a personal interest of some kind. I don’t pretend to guess what it is. As for myself, it is plain that somebody else has been setting you against me, before Miss Jillgall got possession of your private ear.”
In alluding to Eunice, she had blundered, strangely enough, on something like the truth. But when she spoke of herself, the headlong malignity of her suspicions—making every allowance for the anger that had hurried her into them—seemed to call for some little protest against a false assertion. I told her that she was completely mistaken.
“I am completely right,” she answered; “I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Saw you pretending to be a stranger to me.”
“When did I do that?”
“You did it when we met at the station.”
The reply was too ridiculous for the preservation of any control over my own sense of humor. It was wrong; but it was inevitable—I laughed. She looked at me with a fury, revealing a concentration of evil passion in her which I had not seen yet. I asked her pardon; I begged her to think a little before she persisted in taking a view of my conduct unworthy of her, and unjust to myself.
“Unjust to You!” she burst out. “Who are You? A man who has driven your trade has spies always at his command—yes! and knows how to use them. You were primed with private information—you had, for all I know, a stolen photograph of me in your pocket—before ever you came to our town. Do you still deny it? Oh, sir, why degrade yourself by telling a lie?”
No such outrage as this had ever been inflicted on me, at any time in my life. My forbearance must, I suppose, have been more severely tried than I was aware of myself. With or without excuse for me, I was weak enough to let a girl’s spiteful tongue sting me, and, worse still, to let her see that I felt it.
“You shall have no second opportunity, Miss Gracedieu, of insulting me.” With that foolish reply, I opened the door violently and went out.
She ran after me, triumphing in having roused the temper of a man old enough to have been her grandfather, and caught me by the arm. “Your own conduct has exposed you.” (That was literally how she expressed herself.) “I saw it in your eyes when we met at the station. You, the stranger—you who allowed poor ignorant me to introduce myself—you knew me all the time, knew me by sight!”
I shook her hand off with an inconsiderable roughness, humiliating to remember. “It’s false!” I cried. “I knew you by your likeness to your mother.”
The moment the words had passed my lips, I came to my senses again; I remembered what fatal words they might prove to be, if they reached the Minister’s ears.
Heard only by his daughter, my reply seemed to cool the heat of her anger in an instant.
“So you knew my mother?” she said. “My father never told us that, when he spoke of your being such a very old friend of his. Strange, to say the least of it.”
I was wise enough—now when wisdom had come too late—not to attempt to explain myself, and not to give her an opportunity of saying more. “We are neither of us in a state of mind,” I answered, “to allow this interview to continue. I must try to recover my composure; and I leave you to do the same.”
In the solitude of my room, I was able to look my position fairly in the face.
Mr. Gracedieu’s wife had come to me, in the long-past time, without her husband’s knowledge. Tempted to a cruel resolve by the maternal triumph of having an infant of her own, she had resolved to rid herself of the poor little rival in her husband’s fatherly affection, by consigning the adopted child to the keeping of a charitable asylum. She had dared to ask me to help her. I had kept the secret of her shameful visit—I can honestly say, for the Minister’s sake. And now, long after time had doomed those events to oblivion, they were revived—and revived by me. Thanks to my folly, Mr. Gracedieu’s daughter knew what I had concealed from Mr. Gracedieu himself.
What course did respect for my friend, and respect for myself, counsel me to take?
I could only see before me a choice of two evils. To wait for events—with the too certain prospect of a vindictive betrayal of my indiscretion by Helena Gracedieu. Or to take the initiative into my own hands, and risk consequences which I might regret to the end of my life, by making my confession to the Minister.
Before I had decided, somebody knocked at the door. It was the maid-servant again. Was it possible she had been sent by Helena?
“Another message?”
“Yes, sir. My master wishes to see you.”
Had the Minister’s desire to see me been inspired by his daughter’s betrayal of what I had unfortunately said to her? Although he would certainly not consent to receive her personally, she would be at liberty to adopt a written method of communication with him, and the letter might be addressed in such a manner as to pique his curiosity. If Helena’s vindictive purpose had been already accomplished—and if Mr. Gracedieu left me no alternative but to present his unworthy wife in her true character—I can honestly say that I dreaded the consequences, not as they might affect myself, but as they might affect my unhappy friend in his enfeebled state of body and mind.
When I entered his room, he was still in bed.
The bed-curtains were so drawn, on the side nearest to the window, as to keep the light from falling too brightly on his weak eyes. In the shadow thus thrown on him, it was not possible to see his face plainly enough, from the open side of the bed, to arrive at any definite conclusion as to what might be passing in his mind. After having been awake for some hours during the earlier part of the night, he had enjoyed a long and undisturbed sleep. “I feel stronger this morning,” he said, “and I wish to speak to you while my mind is clear.”
If the quiet tone of his voice was not an assumed tone, he was surely ignorant of all that had passed between his daughter and myself.
“Eunice will be here soon,” he proceeded, “and I ought to explain why I have sent for her to come and meet you. I have reasons, serious reasons, mind, for wishing you to compare her personal appearance with Helena’s personal appearance, and then to tell me which of the two, on a fair comparison, looks the eldest. Pray bear in mind that I attach the greatest importance to the conclusion at which you may arrive.”
He spoke more clearly and collectedly than I had heard him speak yet.
Here and there I detected hesitations and repetitions, which I have purposely passed over. The substance of what he said to me is all that I shall present in this place. Careful as I have been to keep my record of events within strict limits, I have written at a length which I was far indeed from contemplating when I accepted Mr. Gracedieu’s invitation.
Having promised to comply with the strange request which he had addressed to me, I ventured to remind him of past occasions on which he had pointedly abstained, when the subject presented itself, from speaking of the girls’ ages. “You have left it to my discretion,” I added, “to decide a question in which you are seriously interested, relating to your daughters. Have I no excuse for regretting that I have not been admitted to your confidence a little more freely?”
“You have every excuse,” he answered. “But you trouble me all the same. There was something else that I had to say to you—and your curiosity gets in the way.”
He said this with a sullen emphasis. In my position, the worst of evils was suspense. I told him that my curiosity could wait; and I begged that he would relieve his mind of what was pressing on it at the moment.
“Let me think a little,” he said.
I waited anxiously for the decision at which he might arrive. Nothing came of it to justify my misgivings. “Leave what I have in my mind to ripen in my mind,” he said. “The mystery about the girls’ ages seems to irritate you. If I put my good friend’s temper to any further trial, he will be of no use to me. Never mind if my head swims; I’m used to that. Now listen!”
Strange as the preface was, the explanation that followed was stranger yet. I offer a shortened and simplified version, giving accurately the substance of what I heard.
The Minister entered without reserve on the mysterious subject of the ages. Eunice, he informed me, was nearly two years older than Helena. If she outwardly showed her superiority of age, any person acquainted with the circumstances under which the adopted infant had been received into Mr. Gracedieu’s childless household, need only compare the so-called sisters in after-life, and would thereupon identify the eldest-looking young lady of the two as the offspring of the woman who had been hanged for murder. With such a misfortune as this presenting itself as a possible prospect, the Minister was bound to prevent the girls from ignorantly betraying each other by allusions to their ages and their birthdays. After much thought, he had devised a desperate means of meeting the difficulty—already made known, as I am told, for the information of strangers who may read the pages that have gone before mine. My friend’s plan of proceeding had, by the nature of it, exposed him to injurious comment, to embarrassing questions, and to doubts and misconceptions, all patiently endured in consideration of the security that had been attained. Proud of his explanation, Mr. Gracedieu’s vanity called upon me to acknowledge that my curiosity had been satisfied, and my doubts completely set at rest.
No: my obstinate common sense was not reduced to submission, even yet. Looking back over a lapse of seventeen years, I asked what had happened, in that long interval, to justify the anxieties which still appeared to trouble my friend.
This time, my harmless curiosity could be gratified by a reply expressed in three words—nothing had happened.
Then what, in Heaven’s name, was the Minister afraid of?
His voice dropped to a whisper. He said: “I am afraid of the women.”
Who were the women?
Two of them actually proved to be the servants employed in Mr. Gracedieu’s house, at the bygone time when he had brought the child home with him from the prison! To point out the absurdity of the reasons that he gave for fearing what female curiosity might yet attempt, if circumstances happened to encourage it, would have been a mere waste of words. Dismissing the subject, I next ascertained that the Minister’s doubts extended even to the two female warders, who had been appointed to watch the murderess in turn, during her last days in prison. I easily relieved his mind in this case. One of the warders was dead. The other had married a farmer in Australia. Had we exhausted the list of suspected persons yet? No: there was one more left; and the Minister declared that he had first met with her in my official residence, at the time when I was Governor of the prison.
“She presented herself to me by name,” he said; “and she spoke rudely. A Miss—” He paused to consult his memory, and this time (thanks perhaps to his night’s rest) his memory answered the appeal. “I have got it!” he cried—“Miss Chance.”
My friend had interested me in his imaginary perils at last. It was just possible that he might have a formidable person to deal with now.
During my residence at Florence, the Chaplain and I had taken many a retrospective look (as old men will) at past events in our lives. My former colleague spoke of the time when he had performed clerical duty for his friend, the rector of a parish church in London. Neither he nor I had heard again of the “Miss Chance” of our disagreeable prison experience, whom he had married to the dashing Dutch gentleman, Mr. Tenbruggen. We could only wonder what had become of that mysterious married pair.
Mr. Gracedieu being undoubtedly ignorant of the woman’s marriage, it was not easy to say what the consequence might be, in his excitable state, if I informed him of it. He would, in all probability, conclude that I knew more of the woman than he did. I decided on keeping my own counsel, for the present at least.
Passing at once, therefore, to the one consideration of any importance, I endeavored to find out whether Mr. Gracedieu and Mrs. Tenbruggen had met, or had communicated with each other in any way, during the long period of separation that had taken place between the Minister and myself. If he had been so unlucky as to offend her, she was beyond all doubt an enemy to be dreaded. Apart, however, from a misfortune of this kind, she would rank, in my opinion, with the other harmless objects of Mr. Gracedieu’s distrust.
In making my inquiries, I found that I had an obstacle to contend with.
While he felt the renovating influence of the repose that he enjoyed, the Minister had been able to think and to express himself with less difficulty than usual. But the reserves of strength, on which the useful exercise of his memory depended, began to fail him as the interview proceeded. He distinctly recollected that “something unpleasant had passed between that audacious woman and himself.” But at what date—and whether by word of mouth or by correspondence—was more than his memory could now recall. He believed he was not mistaken in telling me that he “had been in two minds about her.” At one time, he was satisfied that he had taken wise measures for his own security, if she attempted to annoy him. But there was another and a later time, when doubts and fears had laid hold of him again. If I wanted to know how this had happened, he fancied it was through a dream; and if I asked what the dream was, he could only beg and pray that I would spare his poor head.
Unwilling even yet to submit unconditionally to defeat, it occurred to me to try a last experiment on my friend, without calling for any mental effort on his own part. The “Miss Chance” of former days might, by a bare possibility, have written to him. I asked accordingly if he was in the habit of keeping his letters, and if he would allow me (when he had rested a little) to lay them open before him, so that he could look at the signatures. “You might find the lost recollection in that way,” I suggested, “at the bottom of one of your letters.”
He was in that state of weariness, poor fellow, in which a man will do anything for the sake of peace. Pointing to a cabinet in his room, he gave me a key taken from a little basket on his bed. “Look for yourself,” he said. After some hesitation—for I naturally recoiled from examining another man’s correspondence—I decided on opening the cabinet, at any rate.
The letters—a large collection—were, to my relief, all neatly folded, and indorsed with the names of the writers. I could run harmlessly through bundle after bundle in search of the one name that I wanted, and still respect the privacy of the letters. My perseverance deserved a reward—and failed to get it. The name I wanted steadily eluded my search. Arriving at the upper shelf of the cabinet, I found it so high that I could barely reach it with my hand. Instead of getting more letters to look over, I pulled down two newspapers.
One of them was an old copy of theTimes, dating back as far as the 13th December, 1858. It was carefully folded, longwise, with the title-page uppermost. On the first column, at the left-hand side of the sheet, appeared the customary announcements of Births. A mark with a blue pencil, against one of the advertisements, attracted my attention. I read these lines:
“On the 10th inst., the wife of the Rev. Abel Gracedieu, of a daughter.”
The second newspaper bore a later date, and contained nothing that interested me. I naturally assumed that the advertisement in theTimeshad been inserted at the desire of Mrs. Gracedieu; and, after all that I had heard, there was little difficulty in attributing the curious omission of the place in which the child had been born to the caution of her husband. If Mrs. Tenbruggen (then Miss Chance) had happened to see the advertisement in the great London newspaper, Mr. Gracedieu might yet have good reason to congratulate himself on his prudent method of providing against mischievous curiosity.
I turned toward the bed and looked at him. His eyes were closed. Was he sleeping? Or was he trying to remember what he had desired to say to me, when the demands which I made on his memory had obliged him to wait for a later opportunity?
Either way, there was something that quickened my sympathies, in the spectacle of his helpless repose. It suggested to me personal reasons for his anxieties, which he had not mentioned, and which I had not thought of, up to this time. If the discovery that he dreaded took place, his household would be broken up, and his position as pastor would suffer in the estimation of the flock. His own daughter would refuse to live under the same roof with the daughter of an infamous woman. Popular opinion, among his congregation, judging a man who had passed off the child of other parents as his own, would find that man guilty of an act of deliberate deceit.
Still oppressed by reflections which pointed to the future in this discouraging way, I was startled by a voice outside the door—a sweet, sad voice—saying, “May I come in?”
The Minister’s eyes opened instantly: he raised himself in his bed.
“Eunice, at last!” he cried. “Let her in.”