The doctor soon discovered that Mary's was no mere passing fainting-fit. The girl was evidently seriously ill, the symptoms being those of acute brain fever.
Her nervous system had for a considerable time been dangerously overstrained by the mental agony resulting from the conflict between her love, and what she considered her duty; so that even without the final shock described in the previous chapter, she would have most certainly succumbed in time.
She was put to bed in a room by herself, and a messenger was sent to Mrs. King to acquaint her with the illness of her niece.
Susan Riley was now terrified at all the mischief she had caused. She was beside herself with fear. For the time, out of her many interesting qualities, cowardice became the dominant one; voluptuousness and cruelty slumbered a while.
She felt she was between two great perils. On one side was the barrister, who at any moment might recover his reason sufficiently to accuse her of his murder, on the other side was Mary, who might divulge everything in her delirium. A slight accident might send her to the gallows. She was tortured by the dread and the suspense.
She could not attend to her duties properly that day, but wandered about in a distracted objectless way, at short intervals taking glimpses into the two wards where her victims lay, but carefully avoiding being seen by them.
In the evening Dr. Duncan contrived to meet her alone on the balcony that surrounded the hospital.
"You look very ill, Miss Riley," he observed.
"I am," she replied hastily. "I am worried about Mary."
All her old flippant manner had departed. She was evidently much concerned about her friend's illness. "She has a heart after all," thought the doctor.
"I wanted to speak to you about Miss King," he said; "I have not clearly understood from you yet why or how she fainted. Did she recognize the man?"
"I don't know," replied Susan, hap-hazard, and not considering what she was saying. "I don't think her fainting had much to do with seeing him in any case. She has been very ill for some time."
The doctor nodded his head as in acquiescence to this view. "Yes!" he reflected, "it must be so; the mere sight of poor Hudson, even if she has known him at some time, would not have been a sufficient cause by itself."
He remembered, too, how on the previous day Mary had stated that she had no male acquaintances, save those connected with the hospital. He loved her too well to mistrust her. He knew she would not deceive him, so the fact of Hudson's having called out her name in his delirium gave him no uneasiness.
"What do you think is the matter with her, Dr. Duncan?" asked Susan timidly.
"I am afraid it is brain fever," was the reply.
"Is she delirious?" she asked anxiously.
"Not at this moment, but she doubtlessly will be."
"I will go and see her, Dr. Duncan."
Susan was exceedingly anxious that she alone should sit by the bedside of the sufferer, and overhear her ravings. She begged so earnestly for this that she was allowed to have the special nursing of Mary.
Her behaviour on this occasion quite won her the esteem of Dr. Duncan, who naturally could not divine the real motives of her anxiety for her friend. She was so untiring in her attention, so jealous of anyone else relieving her, and was so evidently upset by the critical condition of the girl, that the doctor could not but put it all down to a real affection. He came to the conclusion that he had greatly misjudged this woman, and he began to entertain a respect and liking for her.
Susan was indeed too anxious, and her health began to suffer in consequence. She did her best to conceal her nervous state; but at last it was so patent that Dr. Duncan, in spite of her protestations, insisted on her abandoning her work of love (or rather of fear), and ordered her away for a holiday.
She seemed almost heartbroken at having to part from her friend, and the doctor was more surprised than ever to find that the frivolous woman could exhibit so much devotion.
So within a fortnight from the commencement of Mary's illness, Susan, prostrated by sheer terror, and with her nerves thoroughly unstrung, went down to a little sea-side village by herself, to recover her strength.
And even there she ate out her heart with that perpetual fear. She was no longer the same woman. She did not flirt with men. She avoided her fellow-beings. When indoors she would sit brooding, with knit brows, starting and trembling at every noise. When out of doors she would wander up and down unfrequented portions of the beach, pale and haggard, and make a long circuit when she saw anyone in the distance, were it only a fishing-lad, so as not to pass within recognisable distance of him.
For a strange thing had come to Susan Riley. It will be remembered how she explained to Mary, in the course of a conversation, that the experience of all Nihilists was as follows: They suffered from the horrorsbeforecommitting the deed. They were wont to fear that, as soon as their hands were redwith a first murder, some frightful bogie, some maddening remorse, worse than anything imaginable before, would leap up and seize them; but as soon as theyhadcommitted the deed, they were so agreeably surprised to find that this dreaded bogie did not appear, that a delightful reaction would at once set in, they became mad with joy. "As soon as you have killed your first baby," she told Mary, "your horrors will all go. You will experience immediate relief. It's like having a tooth out."
But now Susan, in her own person, found this process altogether reversed.
She had felt no compunction, no horror, before the deed. She had murdered her lover, the barrister, with a light heart. But, lo! now that shehaddone the deed, she was haunted by the terror—the avenging Furies never left her. She was consumed by a perpetual and awful fear.
She would start out of her disturbed sleep, twenty times in a night, to see distinctly before her the disfigured face of her victim, looking into her very soul, even as he had looked that last time in the hospital ward, with his one unbandaged eye.
In her first panic she thought of leaving the country and concealing herself in some foreign town. But she soon perceived that this would be a most imprudent step. The chances were, after all, that her crime would not come to light. Even if Mary or the barrister did accuse her, it would be better for her to remain at home and brazen it out than to invite suspicion by flight.
Besides, she remembered that though it might be comparatively easy to hide herself from the justice of the law with its clumsy machinery, it would be altogether impossible to escape from the vengeance of the secret societies.
She knew that, if Mary accused her of murdering the barrister—if the Sisters discovered that she had made use of the secret of the society to satisfy her own private malice—her fate was sealed.
She knew how the Nihilist societies all over the world were connected with each other. She knew that wherever she might hide herself, she would be hunted down and executed by their agents: first, because death was the punishment always awarded to one who prostituted the methods of the societies to work his own private ends; and secondly, because the Sisterhood would decree her removal in their own defence, so as to anticipate the law, and obviate all chance of her betraying them, did the police succeed in tracking and arresting her. She saw clearly that flight was worse than useless, so remained where she was.
Dr. Duncan had promised to write to her every day and report the progress of Mary's illness.
On one fine Sunday morning, a few days after her arrival at the sea-side, she received a letter from him, which considerably allayed her fears for the time. She felt almost cheerful after reading it, and ate her breakfast with some semblance of appetite, to the delight of her landlady, a sympathetic soul, who pitied and took great interest in her sick lodger.
For in the letter occurred the following passage:
"That poor Mr. Hudson died this morning. His constitution seemed unable to rally after his last attack. He never spoke a single word since you saw him last. He became totally paralysed. His case, indeed, was a very unusual one in some respects."
"Ah, then, she was safe," she said to herself. "He was dead—had died without revealing anything—there could not be produced a tittle of evidence against her now—he would be buried by this time—even if they dug him up again," she chuckled to herself. "No examination could betray her work. The poison of the Sisterhood was too subtle."
Again, even if Mary disclosed what she knew, who would believe her? Her story would be put down as the delusion of a madwoman. Yes! she was safe now.
She felt then quite her own self again, and was so full of willjoy, that she must needs put on her bonnet and start out for a long walk across the sands—she was too jolly to be still.
"Take care now, Missy, take care," said the motherly old landlady in a warning tone as she observed her flushed cheek and sparkling eye. "You have had good news in that letter, but that doesn't make you strong and well all of a sudden, though you feel so just now. Don't go and tire yourself, or you'll be as bad as ever again to-night."
"Nonsense!" replied Susan impatiently as she tripped merrily down the stairs.
As she walked down the village street, she met all the people going to church, and being a stranger she was naturally thoroughly inspected and criticised. She soon noticed this, and fear having been driven away, up came her old vanity again, and she ogled the men unmercifully.
An idea struck her, she too would go to church. It was the proper thing to do in the country—besides, it might afford her an opportunity of captivating some young squire or other local grandee.
"What a lark!" she said to herself. "Fancymygoing to church."
She entered the church, and was placed by an old gentleman, who acted as pew-opener, in an empty pew which was in a very prominent position.
Once there, all her pluck and gladness seemed to run out of her finger ends again quite suddenly.
Her old landlady was right. The letter had only produced a temporary relief, a reaction all the more quickly fleeting, that it was so intense. The Furies had not left her yet.
It was a strange sensation that came over her. The silence of the church before the service commenced, the number of quiet faces—faces that had assumed that look of solemn misery which the rustic considers proper to the sacredness of the day and place—seemed to mesmerize her. A sense of vague terrorcrept over her, her nerves were strung to breaking. It was as if some explosion, something horrible, was about to happen at any moment.
The wretched woman was on a rack of mental agony and suspense. She could not move and leave the church; she was held there by the mesmeric gaze of all those quiet faces, which she believed was concentrated on herself.
Everything that occurred through that awful hour was as a separate stab. And all was so deliberate too, so cruelly deliberate.
The old clergyman mounted slowly into his pulpit, and putting on his spectacles deliberately, looked at her for a moment or two. It was horrible!
Then commenced the slow, deliberate, monotonous words of the service, each an instrument of torture. She rose, and sat, and knelt, without knowing what she did, with the other people.
At last came the dreary intoning of the ten commandments.
On hearing the first, she suddenly remembered that there was another further on, the sixth, which said, "Thou shalt do no murder." She felt as if her face must express her guilt, when these words were drawled out. She would be betrayed to all those people.
She waited for it without breathing. Her heart seemed to stop. She thought she would die when it came.
One by one the commandments seemed to boom out in her ears like some distant death-knell.
Slowly the last words of the fifth were uttered by the sleepy old clergyman. He actually paused before the sixth to adjust his spectacles. "Oh! it was done on purpose," she thought. "They knew all!" She could not suppress a low groan, and then a dark veil seemed to fall over her eyes.
"Thou—shalt—do—no—murder."
Her head swam, a great roaring sound filled her ears, but still louder, above it, rang out those awful words.
"A sort of epileptic fit," said the village doctor rather vaguely to the squire as he met him at the church door after the service. "Poor thing! I wonder who she is. We took her home to her lodgings. It seems she's been here about two weeks. The landlady says she's been very strange and in low spirits till to-day, when a letter cheered her up. There's the danger of sudden reaction and excitement, you see," rubbing his hands and winking with one eye in a knowing way at the squire, who himself was a choleric man, with a tendency to apoplexy.
Endowed with a vigorous constitution, she soon recovered from the effects of the seizure, whatever it was.
But she could not shake off the terror. The Furies would not let her go.
She felt that she must go mad if this continued. She even contemplated suicide.
Then she took to opium, and was never without a bottle of laudanum in her pocket, from which she would take frequent sips.
Yet sheknewthat she was quite safe. She tried to prove this to herself. She tried to laugh away her senseless fears, but it was no good. The horrors will not give way to logic.
Though human law could not punish her, she suffered enough in all conscience to satisfy those strictest lovers of retributive justice who would require even more than a tooth for a tooth.
A month of this condition robbed her of a considerable portion of her beauty. Her peachy complexion was no more; her cheeks were sunken and sallow; and the crows' feet about her eyes were as those of a woman twice her age.
Curiously enough, it was the very loss of beauty which at last brought about her recovery, and prevented her from becoming a hopeless lunatic.
The horror had to battle with a formidable foe—vanity, and, indeed, had ultimately to retreat before it.
Her great dread of age and ugliness saved her.
She observed the fast deepening wrinkles, the fading roses, and felt greatly alarmed. "This must not be allowed to go on," she thought. "I must live more healthily. I must get calmer, or all my beauty will go."
So now she had another idea, though it was an unpleasant one, to occupy her thoughts.
The horror did not now altogether absorb her mind—one terror distracted her attention from the other. Thus monomania was averted.
It is better to be possessed by two or even a legion of devils than by one alone.
So, gradually, she became something like her old self again, but not quite so. She had lost a good deal of her nerve, and could not altogether abandon her laudanum drinking. The horror faded away, but the wrinkles would not. She could not smooth those crows' feet out. Her cheeks resumed their roundness, but not all their purity of complexion.
This soured her temper. Her old jovial flippancy, objectionable though it was, gave way to a still more objectionable cynical ill-humour, which made her hurt the feelings of others whenever possible. She could not help revealing this at times even to the men she wished to fascinate. She made a practice of saying very nasty things on all occasions, and became a very disagreeable person generally.
She never returned to the hospital to resume her duties as nurse, but when she was fairly recovered from her strange illness, she went up to London, reported herself to the Secret Society, and threw herself with a zeal she had never displayed before into its machinations. With congenial villainy and occasional laudanum, she hoped to drown thought and so recover her lost beauty.
As soon as Catherine King heard of Mary's illness, she hurried to the hospital in her great anxiety. She loved the girl with the intensity which characterised all her passions—loved her far more dearly than her own life and happiness—almost as much as she loved the "cause" itself.
Pale and trembling with fear for her darling, the usually cold, stern woman appeared before Dr. Duncan.
"Let me see her," she said, in a choking voice.
"Dear Mrs. King," he replied, "I think it will be better for her if you do not see her just yet. Sit down and I will tell you all about her. Pray do not alarm yourself."
"Is it dangerous?" she interrupted in the same tones, seemingly not having heard what he said.
"We cannot tell yet; she has received a severe shock. It may prove to be merely a passing attack, or it may be—"
"May be what?"
"Brain fever."
Catherine looked down on the ground, and thought a little before she spoke again. "You say she received a shock. Who gave her a shock?—what was it?—who was it?" and the look of a wild beast that has been robbed of its young came into her eyes, as she waited for his answer.
The doctor knew that she could easily acquire the informationfrom other sources, so thought it best to tell her all that had occurred at once.
"The poor girl has appeared to me to have been unwell for some time, Mrs. King—to have had something on her mind, some great worry that has been destroying her peace and undermining her health."
"Oh, yes! I know all about that," exclaimed Catherine, impatiently; "but theshock—what do you mean by that?"
"The shock would not have affected her in the way it did, if she had not been in the unstrung condition I speak of, Mrs. King." Then he told her how a patient suffering from delirium tremens had been brought into the hospital, how his attendants had heard him call out the name of Mary Grimm several times in his delirium, how Mary had been brought into his ward to see if she could identify him, and how she had fainted away on seeing him.
After he had completed his narrative, Catherine rose from the chair and paced up and down the room several times, a deep frown on her brow. Then she stopped, and facing the doctor commenced to question him in a calm but abrupt manner.
"Didshe recognise him?"
"I don't know; she is not in a state to explain anything yet."
"Was anybody by when she saw him?"
"Yes, one of our nurses—a Miss Riley."
"Ah!"
After a pause she spoke again:
"Then the man has not been identified."
"Oh yes, he has! I recognised him. He is a barrister; his name is Hudson."
Catherine turned her face away that the doctor might not read the terrible expression that had come to it, and which she could not hide. She asked one more question:
"You say he was heard to call out the name of Mary Grimm several times—who heard him?"
"I believe it was Miss Riley."
"Ah!"
Any man who has ever been possessed by a mad love for a woman, and suddenly has certain proof brought before him that she has deceived him, that there is another man whom she loves as she never loved him, can to some extent realise what were the feelings of Catherine King, as she listened to the doctor's narrative.
For the love she felt for Mary was of a kind not very uncommon among women, especially when one of the two is of a more masculine nature than the other. It was as the deep tender love of a strong man for a weak timid girl. It was a love accompanied by passionate jealousy. This demon of jealousy now possessed Catherine. She choked with rage and vexation. "What!" she reflected, "this man, this miserable drunkard, has robbed me of Mary's affections! The gross ingratitude of the girl too, and her deceit!" She remembered Mary's story about the barrister's kindness to her when she first ran away from home. Doubtlessly she had been holding clandestine meetings ever since. This accounted for the treacherous girl's melancholy of late.
As all these thoughts and erroneous though not unnatural suspicions flashed across her brain, she felt so bitter a hatred against the viper she had cherished to her breast, that she could have choked her there and then; but she concealed these emotions as much as possible, and said to the doctor in a calm voice:
"Let me see this man."
A jealous curiosity seized her to discover what this rival of hers was like.
"Certainly! you may see him if you wish to do so," Dr. Duncan replied; and he took her into the special ward where Hudson was lying, insensible just then, enjoying a respite between the horrible visions.
She stood by the bed and looked at the miserable man with an expression of indescribable loathing and hatred which she could not conceal. The doctor observed it.
"Will he live?" she asked turning suddenly to him.
"I think so. It is a bad attack; but then he is a comparatively young man," he replied.
She turned away from the bed with a gesture of disgust.
"Take me out, doctor. I won't see Mary to-day, as you think it better for her to be quiet. Besides, I don't feel well; I am rather dizzy, I should like a glass of water, if you please."
After her glass of water, she left the hospital and walked home rapidly, as miserable, as savage, as all the pangs of jealousy could make her.
For several days she endeavoured to come to some resolution concerning Mary. To love, perhaps to marry this barrister, must of course altogether cut the girl off from the Secret Society. Why, there was but one thing to do—Mary must be removed, must be killed. Yes, Mary, the only thing that she loved must be killed—she was a traitor to the Cause!
Catherine's mind was distraught by the conflicting passions her discovery had excited in her.
She nearly went mad with them.
At one moment she felt that she hated Mary with the greatest of hates, that she could laugh to see her suffer and die before her sight; at another moment, the woman would lie on her solitary bed moaning in despair over her lost love.
And even when her mind was calmer, it was so miserable to sit in the dark little parlour all alone; there was no Mary there now to caress and converse with.
One day she collected all the girl's little effects, her work-box, her two or three books, and after kissing them each passionately a dozen times, put them away together in a cupboard in her own bed-room, where she could visit and kiss them again privately at intervals.
But the next day, the remembrance of the girl's perfidy, of her love for a man, so excited her jealous hatred again, that she turned all the treasures out of the cupboard, tore them up and threw them in the fire, feeling a grim satisfaction in so doing.
But an hour after she repented again with moans and tears for what she had done.
She felt as if she had been tearing her own heart strings out. She hated herself for her cruelty in having destroyed all her darling's little favourite things.
The ruthless Nihilist, in short, acted generally in much the same silly fashion as the greenest school-girl would have acted under similar circumstances.
Dr. Duncan was very surprised to find that day after day passed, and yet Catherine King did not call at the hospital to make inquiries about her niece.
At last he wrote to her. He informed her that Mary's illness had taken the form of brain fever, but that she would in all probability recover. He also incidentally conveyed to her the same bit of news which had so relieved the fears of Susan Riley—the death of the barrister.
This letter caused a revulsion in the woman's feelings and greatly excited her. She started for the hospital as soon as she received it, and on arriving there asked for Dr. Duncan.
She was shown into a waiting-room and the doctor soon appeared.
"Well, doctor, so she is much better?"
"Not exactly that, Mrs. King, but progressing favourably."
"Can I see her?"
"I think she is asleep. Sleep of course is of the greatest importance just now, but I think if you desire it you might see her without disturbing her."
"Is she in her right mind? can she recognize people?"
"Hardly yet; the fever is still on her, but she does not exhibit much delirium."
"So the 'shock' is dead?"
"The unfortunate Mr. Hudson, if that is what you mean, is dead, but I don't consider the shock of seeing him was the real cause of your niece's illness. It would have come sooner or later without that."
"Indeed! Then what do you consider was the cause, Dr. Duncan?"
"As I told you the last time you were here, Mrs. King, there is something on her mind."
"There is," said Catherine, "and I think I know what it is." She spoke irritably, as the thought of the love which she imagined existed between Mary and the barrister rose to her mind.
"And until that something is taken off her mind she will never recover," continued the doctor.
"The something is gone now, Dr. Duncan," she said, looking straight into his eyes.
"I hope that is so," he replied doubtfully.
"What a fool the man must be not to understand me," thought Catherine; but the doctor had very good reasons to know that it was not love for Tom Hudson that weighed on the young girl's mind.
"Well! let us go and see Mary now," she said.
The girl had been placed in a small private room by herself. When they came to it the door was opened by the nurse who was in charge of the patient.
Catherine looked keenly at the young woman, then turning to Dr. Duncan, exclaimed:
"I thought you told me the other day that Miss Riley was nursing my niece."
"She has been nursing her," replied the doctor, "but we have sent her away for a holiday. She has been much overworked lately, and is far from well."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Catherine.
"Yes, she is not at all well, and her anxiety about your niece, who is a great friend of hers, seems to have upset her very much."
This information very much puzzled Catherine. "Susan is not the person to get overworked and ill," she reflected, "and still less the person to get anxious about a friend, and she's gone off without giving me any notice. There is some mystery in all this, but I will get to the bottom of it."
She entered the room and walked softly up to the side of the bed.
The room was darkened, but there was sufficient light to enable her to clearly distinguish the features of the sick girl.
Mary was lying there sleeping peacefully. She had been in this condition for some hours. It was the first natural and refreshing sleep that had come to her fevered brain since her attack. Nature was working her remedy in her own fashion.
Catherine stooped and looked intently at the quiet face. She saw that it was pinched and white and that a circle of dark purple surrounded the closed eyelids.
She also noticed how thin had become the arm on which the head was lying, the poor head off which all the beautiful hair had been shorn close.
But there was a happy smile on the half-parted lips of the sleeping girl, her dreams were sweet.
Catherine looked at her for several minutes without moving or speaking.
All her anger and jealousy melted away now, before her great pity and her great love. She asked herself reproachfully how she could have harboured one hard thought about her darling. The poor child could not help loving the man who had befriended her, and now he was dead. It was all the more incumbent on herself to cherish and console the poor girl in her affliction.
At last she made a sign to the doctor that she was ready to go, and they left the room with silent tread.
She did not speak till they were once more in the waiting-room, then she asked, simply:
"How often may I see her?"
"Every day," he replied.
"Then I will come every day, and oh, Dr. Duncan!"—she seized his hand passionately—"I can see you are a good man. She is all the world to me. Do your best to make her well again, spare no pains, I implore you! But of course you will do all that; pardon my folly, but I love her so much, I forget what I am saying."
"You can rely on me to do my best I think, Mrs. King," he replied, as he pressed her hand.
So Catherine came every day to the hospital, sitting by and ministering to the sick girl when she happened to be awake, or if that was not the case, contenting herself with one long, yearning look at her sleeping form.
The fever left Mary in a very weak and precarious condition.
Her reason did not wholly return to her. Her memory of everything that had passed was very imperfect, and came only in flashes. She seemed to have forgotten all about the Secret Society. She had no remembrance of having stood by the barrister's death-bed and heard Susan's cold-blooded confession. She even could only recognize in a vague way the friends she had known before her illness.
But all that occurred around her during her convalescence was written indelibly on her memory. She did not forget the slightest incident.
So, as all that did occur around her at this period, as all her experiences consisted merely of the kind attentions of her friends, doctors, and nurses, her mind was occupied entirely by the consciousness of all this sympathetic care. A sense of boundless gratitude possessed her; it was the one idea or emotion of the poor feeble intellect.
It moved to tears the most callous of her nurses, hardened topitiful sights, to see how grateful the girl was for every little attention. In an imbecile way, she would fondle and stroke with her thin hand anyone who performed some slight service for her. Her eyes swam with love as they followed the movements of all those kind people. All the passions and sorrows and fears seemed to have departed from the weakened mind, leaving only this gentle love.
Sometimes, but rarely, her expression would suddenly change; a look of terror would come to her eyes; she would start up in her bed, staring wildly and pointing at some imaginary object. It seemed to always assume the same form; for she would cry whenever it appeared to her: "Oh! there is the shadow again—the black shadow!" or words to the same effect.
For days after one of these attacks, she would be silent and sullen, and pay no heed whatever to the events and people around her.
Dr. Duncan noticed that these painful relapses would nearly always originate when Catherine King was by her. Mary seemed to be fonder of her adopted aunt than of any other of the people that she saw. She would shower her caresses on her as she would on no one else, though she only half recognized the woman as one who had known her and been kind to her before her illness.
But it happened sometimes that she would gaze fixedly into the stern, pale face, as if trying to recall to mind some forgotten association; she would look puzzled, draw her hand across her forehead, turn her eyes away with a sad and pensive expression, and at last be seized by the imaginary horror of the shadow that I have described.
Sometimes, too, the sight of Dr. Duncan seemed to awake in her some dormant memories; but in this case, after gazing at him in the same earnest, puzzled way, not a look of horror but a wonderful smile of love would come to her face; and she would stroke his hand caressingly, in a simple, artless fashion,making the strong man himself feel as if he could scarce prevent himself from bursting into passionate tears over her.
But Catherine King, led off the scent by the episode of Tom Hudson, never for a moment suspected that any tender relations had existed between Mary and Dr. Duncan, though she was rather surprised on one occasion to hear the crazy girl—who was in one of her affectionate moods—call him "Harry," which, by the way, she had never done when in her right senses.
Seeing how Mrs. King's presence occasionally produced an injurious effect on his patient, Dr. Duncan persuaded her to diminish the frequency of her visits.
Mary's strength gradually returned, till at last, after she had been laid up for two months, it was decided that she could leave the hospital with safety.
So one afternoon, Dr. Duncan called on Mrs. King to inform her of this, and was shown into the little parlour where the heads of the Secret Society were wont to hold their councils.
As he waited for her to come into the room, he picked up a book from the table and read a page or two of it to while away the time. It was a pamphlet on some social question published by the "Free Thought Association." He threw it down in disgust. "Yes! I must get Mary out of this house," he said to himself. "This is no fit place for her."
As soon as Catherine came in, he communicated to her the object of his visit.
"Mrs. King, I have brought you some good news. Your niece is now so much better that I think we ought to get her out of town as soon as we can. That is all she wants now. She will quickly recover her health in the country."
Catherine's face brightened up with the great joy she felt; she had been so eagerly looking forward to the time when she should have her darling all to herself again.
"I am so glad to hear this, Dr. Duncan," she said. "It is very kind of you to bring this news to me in person. I willtake her to the sea-side without delay. When do you think she could start?"
"Very soon. But, Mrs. King, if you have no place in view to which you would like to take her, I have a suggestion to make. The sea-side is very well if you have really good lodgings; but, as a rule, you can't get the care and cooking in sea-side lodgings that I should like Miss King to have. It will not do to risk anything with her at present. Now my sister, who is a widow with two little children, lives in a cottage near Farnham, in the prettiest and healthiest part of Surrey. I have talked to her on the subject, and she would be so pleased if Mary would pay her a visit. She would get pure air and good country food there. I believe it would do her a great deal of good, far more so, indeed, than going to some strange lodging in a sea-side place. She would have pleasant society there, too, and I know that she and my sister would get on well together. Farnham is only about an hour from London, so you could easily run down and see her, and stay a few days occasionally. Now, Mrs. King, let me persuade you, as you love your niece, to agree to this."
Catherine first frowned, then the picture of that poor thin face rose to her mind.
"It would do her good, you think?"
"I am sure of it, and I have yet another reason for her going down there: after attacks like those your niece has suffered from, it is often advisable to change all the associations of the patient for a time. It is better, sometimes, that there should be a complete separation from old intimates, especially relatives I think it would be unwise if you lived entirely with Miss King for the present. To see her occasionally, though, would of course do her good."
The woman was grievously disappointed, but she said:
"Yes, I have heard that. It is hard for me to be separated from Mary; but I know it will be good for her. I will acceptthis kind offer of yours. You are a good man, Dr. Duncan," she added, as he rose to shake hands with her before going. "I am very grateful to you; and what is more, I admire and respect you. Excuse my eccentric way of putting things, but I always mean what I say, and, alas! there are very few people to whom I would say those words."
"Aunty Mary, are oo wicked?"
The speaker was a pretty healthy-looking boy of five.
The young girl whom he addressed as Aunty Mary was leaning back languidly in a comfortable arm-chair, which had been placed under the shade of a fine old beech-tree, standing on the lawn of a small but beautiful garden.
At the back of the lawn was a cheerful-looking little cottage, almost smothered in flowering creepers.
The girl was propped up on pillows, and there were wraps around her to protect her from the spring wind. She was evidently in a state of convalescence from a serious illness; and, indeed, she still seemed so fragile that one would have said she was hardly likely to see the ripened fruit of the blossoms that made the apple orchard beyond the garden look so lovely on that early spring day.
As she lay back, a closed book in one hand, and a bunch of violets and primroses, which the children had just brought her, in the other, her large wistful eyes were gazing pensively through an opening in the green foliage, to where below the orchards, at some distance off, there stretched a broad sheet of blue water rippling in the soft wind, surrounded by dark spreads of moor and glittering streaks of yellow sand, backed afar off by undulating hills of heather.
It was indeed a lovely view, as lovely a one as even beautifulSurrey can show. Not many Londoners know this Frensham Pond, as it is called, and all that sweet valley of the upper Wey into which its waters drain, though these are not more than thirty miles from the metropolis.
The little boy who spoke was sitting at the girl's feet with his head resting on her lap.
He had been looking up into her face for some minutes silently, in a solemn wondering manner, as she gazed over him towards the lake in an absent-minded mood.
"Aunty Mary, are oo wicked?"
"Why do you ask such a funny question?" she said as she stroked his soft curls.
"Cos mummy says, 'Good people is always happy and laugh, but bad ones cry and are sorry.' Oo never laugh, Aunty Mary, but oo are not bad, are oo?"
"You silly little boy!" interrupted a little girl who was a year younger than her brother, "you know poor aunty's not well. That's why she don't laugh. You'd cry, you'd be very naughty if you felt bad like aunty Mary."
"You little darlings!" cried the girl as she pressed them to her with warm affection and kissed them.
"But oh, Aunty Mary," continued Bobby, who had a great taste for philosophical disquisitions, and was especially fond of adducing arguments to prove the fallacy of the doctrine as regards retributive justice, which those in authority over him tried to inculcate into his acute little mind. "But oh, Aunty Mary, I believe that Anne (the cook) is an awful bad woman, and yet she laughs very loud."
"She isn't bad, Bobby!" emphatically denied the sister.
"She is! doo know, aunty," and he spoke in a tone of mysterious confidence, "doo know—mummy told them not to tell me; but I know—Anne drowned all the poor baby dogs. There was six of them. Isn't she very bad to kill all the poor little baby dogs, aunty?"
To the surprise of the children, Mary's response was a flood of hysterical tears. Weakened by her illness, and in the early stage of convalescence, she could not contain her feelings, and the innocent words of the babies pierced her heart with bitter memories.
At this moment the mother of the children approached the group.
"Oh, mummy!" cried the puzzled Bobby running up to her, "poor Aunty Mary's so bad. She's so sorry because the little baby dogs is killed."
Mrs. White was an active pretty little woman in a widow's cap. Her face had a calm serenity in it, a great amiability which was yet free from weakness, and which at once fascinated anyone who looked at her.
No one could know the sister of Dr. Duncan and fail to love her.
She came up to Mary and kissed her, and soothed her in her own sweet feminine way. No influence could be more soothing than hers. To lessen affliction was with her a gift.
The girl feeling tranquil again, put her arms round her neck and kissed her.
"You have been out too long, dear," said Mrs. White. "Come in now. I want you to lie on the sofa, and hear me play a new piece of music Harry has just sent me." She had observed before how beneficial an effect music had on the girl, and she knew when to employ it.
For such was this woman. She would notice all the little tastes of those who were with her, especially of this sick girl, whom her brother had confided to her care, and unobtrusively, without the object of her attention ever guessing it, she would do the right thing to please at the right time.
Mary had not been long in this pleasant cottage among the Surrey hills before she conceived a great affection for this good woman and her three little children.
At times now she was very happy; but it was a painful happiness, for she was frightened at the very greatness of it, feeling that it could not be for long. When the shadow, as it often did, came across her mind, it seemed all the more horrible and dark in contrast to the innocent light around her.
So her sadness deepened. The thought of the terrible future preyed on her mind. The knowledge that she was pledged to perform a fearful duty, made her tremble at the deliciousness of this new life, this glorious paradise, of which she was allowed a passing glimpse, but which must be for ever closed to her.
This prevented her brain from recovering beyond a certain point, and on some days her memory would leave her, and she would be like a child again, a helpless, lovable witless creature, to see whom was to bring tears to the eyes of the hardest.
One circumstance, happily for herself, was entirely erased from her memory, never to return to it—this was Susan's confession of the barrister's murder. She distinctly remembered going into the ward and recognizing her old benefactor, but on what happened after that, her mind was a complete blank. She knew nothing of Susan's cold-blooded explanation, or of her own fainting-fit.
Mrs. White was a truly religious woman, and Dr. Duncan, thinking it well, if only from a physical point of view, to divert the girl's thoughts into ways of consolation, had hinted to his sister that Mary had been educated by an atheist, and so most probably herself entertained rather strange opinions on the subject of religion.
Thereupon the woman, without obtruding it in any way, yet contrived to bring before the girl's observation, how intimately religion entered into the daily life of herself and others, how in sorrow they were comforted by their faith, and looked forward to happiness beyond the grave.
All this seemed so strange to the girl at first. She looked onwith a mild mournful wonder, yet envied this mental state so entirely opposite to her own.
"The simple happy people," she thought. "Ah! that I was like them and did not know."
The two entered the drawing-room of the cottage, a cheerful room, whose graceful ornaments and profusion of flowers reflected the spirit of the lady of that peaceful abode.
Mary was forced by her hostess to lie back on the sofa; then Mrs. White sat down at the piano and began to play. It was a new piece of the German school, not cheerful exactly, certainly not melancholy, but full of a dreamy exaltation, suggestive of wanderings into some glorious realm. Indeed, it breathed all the rapture of religion.
Mary listened to it, feeling really happy as that noble harmony filled her soul, and for the moment drove away the shadow altogether.
She felt as if she were floating away into a shadowless heaven on that flood of music, and odour of flowers, and sunshine, that harmonising together pervaded all the room.
Then the music stopped.
After a pause Mrs. White said, "How do you like that, dear?"
"Oh, it is beautiful! too beautiful! It makes one so sad afterwards!"
"Do you find that? I don't at all."
"It seems to carry one away into some altogether impossible happiness, and when it is over one feels a regret for it. It is like waking out of a very pleasant dream."
"Poor dear, you won't talk like that when we have got you round. I'm a witch, and I foretell lots of happiness for your young life yet."
"You are always happy, Mrs. White."
"Of course I am. I should be a very discontented person if I was not, with everything to make me happy as I have."
Mary sighed. "And this woman," she thought, "has yet losther husband, she has lost her love forever, and yet is happy! Could I ever be happy again if I lost mine?" She would have liked to have asked her a question yet dared not. She wondered whether the widow was happy because she knew she would meet her love in another world. "She could not be happy unless she believed this. How sweet must be the lives of such as this woman, so full of love and joy, which even death, they believe, cannot destroy. How different," she thought, "from the agony, the despair, of those like me who know no world but this, who, when their loved ones are taken from them, lose them for ever. Ah, the hopelessness of it!" She felt that she was alone in the world, altogether cut out from the innocent joys and beliefs, for she had tasted the fruits of that poisonous tree of knowledge.
At last she said,
"Music generally raises one curious idea to me, not altogether sad but so strange. That last piece did not raise that idea though, but made me feel wonderfully glad while it lasted."
"And what is it that most music suggests to you then?" asked Mrs. White.
"It is very curious. It makes me feel as if I was all alone, far away somewhere, apart from other beings, and that all else was nothing but a series of pictures passing by me. Did you ever read Greek plays, Mrs. White?"
"Dear me! no! never. Why, you don't mean to say that Greek too was one of your studies?"
"No! but my aunt has read me translations of some of the Greek plays, and she explained to me the spirit of them. I often feel when I am listening to music as if I was the central figure of one of those old tragedies, a being hunted by a relentless fate; and sometimes it seems as if all that comes across me in life were incidents and characters in the play—characters subsidiary to mine, instruments of the Fate which is the key-note of the play, some knowingly, some unknowingly. Those whoharm me will not be punished, those who are kind to me will not be rewarded; they are but the blind tools of the same Destiny. For in my play there is not, as in modern plays and novels, a retributive justice setting all things right at the end, but this pitiless Fate, careless of anyone. It is a fearful fancy and it seems to haunt me."
She said this in a languid dreamy way, beating the sides of the sofa nervously with her thin fingers as she spoke.
The idea was a common one of hers, and as she said, haunted her, with many others of like nature, born of that most pernicious habit of self-introspection which her recent education had inculcated.
"It's not a very healthy fancy, dear," said Mrs. White; "but we'll soon drive it away. Life is not a Greek drama if that's what a Greek drama is like. No human being stands alone in that way. There is no relentless Fate. We are all bound together by something better than that. I am sure I don't feel like a subsidiary character to you"—and she laughed merrily—"but as your dear friend who loves you very much."
"Oh, I wish I could believe all that you do, Mrs. White. I am altogether lost in a maze of contrary ideas. I don't seem to know what is right or wrong now in the least—since my illness. I am getting so puzzled about everything—" a little hysterical half-sob, half-laugh divided her sentences. "I don't think my head will ever get right again—when I try to think my brain gets quite sick and dizzy, and I don't know where I am."
"Poor little girl! but you must not think at all, at present; you've got to please your friends by being quiet and allowing them to get you well again."
"I wish I was good and unselfish like you, dear Mrs. White."
"Nonsense, child—I am not more unselfish than other people. What greater pleasure is there than to make others happy?It's not so unselfish after all to do what is the pleasantest to oneself."
"Ah! that is it—I am beginning to feel it. There is only one thing about which I am quite certain."
"And that is?"
"That to help others, that to love, is the only happy thing on earth. It is so nice to love. Sometimes when I am altogether miserable I can make myself happy by thinking of all the dear friends that I love, and planning little things I can do for them.—Ah, my dear friends! I would die to help them—Love! It is the only thing I do understand. I have grown so weak that I cannot realize now all I once thought and knew, and believe in it as I did—but I do love."
"And what more is wanted? I do not believe that any human being is altogether miserable as long as he can love. Love, dear, is the key of all happiness. Religion is love. Scientific people may talk of their discoveries—may talk about our having no wills, about our being machines—excuse me, dear, for I am not clever in these things—but can they explain this love? Not a bit of it. No machinery, no evolution, no fortuitous concourse of atoms—you see I know some of the learned terms—can make love, I know!"
The simple woman spoke with conviction. This was her favourite, indeed, her only argument against materialism. She would listen to no other arguments for or against. This one, in her opinion, entirely crushed vain philosophy, so there was no necessity to look further into the question.
She felt rather proud of her logic and eloquence, so looked through the corners of her eyes at Mary, to see what effect her speech had produced. She was disappointed to discover that it had not impressed the girl much.
"But oh, what a puzzle this life is!" said Mary. "There can be no doubt that to love humanity, that to work for the happiness of the race, is far higher than merely to love andhelp our friends. But it is so difficult a problem; the interests of humanity and of the individual are so often entirely different."
Mrs. White looked thoughtful. The idea expressed by Mary was evidently rather novel to her, and she did not know whether it ought to be considered as an orthodox one or the reverse. Anyhow as being something new, it must be regarded, with suspicion—it might be some subtle fallacy of materialists and socialists—so she said,
"To work for humanity is far beyond most of us anyhow. We must be content to love and help each other, or do nothing. I don't think we poor simple women need trouble ourselves much about humanity. We must leave that to wiser heads, and even they seem to go wrong as often as not when they make the circle of their sympathy too wide.
"Besides how much nicer to love people you can be with and see, how pleasant to make them smile! To love humanity generally, and to think only about nations and races instead of individuals, must be rather a cold sort of a love. I am a weak woman and must love something I can touch. Now you see I am not so unselfish as you imagined," she laughed, "and I like to get an immediate reward for anything I do, and you will have to give me a reward at once dear for all this learned lecture, in the shape of a nice kiss."
At this juncture the maid announced that the tea was ready, so the debate on love was postponed till another day, the artless prattling of the little children, who then came indoors, turning the conversation into a very different groove.
Gradually by weakness and human love, Mary was brought over to doubt her old teachings. "Were they after all infallible? Was religion true? Surrounded by all the mysteries of life, with all these loves, these emotions, these profound instincts, was it not presumptuous folly for man to despise theirwhisperings, and from the limited data of science to argue that there was no God, no religion, no free will, noa prioriethics?"
Mary begun to yearn after that religion of love which she saw so beautifully exemplified in this woman.
At times, when she felt her head turn as if her senses were altogether going, when the shadow rushed on her mind as if to darken it suddenly and for ever; she would clasp her hands and shut her eyes, and repeat to herself the word, "Love! love! love!" in a monotonous passionate way. She felt as if doing this prevented the darkness from utterly closing on her. The uttering of this word seemed a charm to her in her half-witted state. It was her first attempt at prayer.
In this weak imbecile condition, love, as she said herself, became her master idea. She loved, loved that one man, and also in another way, her friends, especially her benefactress Catherine King, and this kind sister of Dr. Duncan.
Her mental disease seemed to have intensified this emotion; and well it was so, perhaps, for it relieved her overwrought brain from the presence of the shadow, which otherwise would have alone occupied her thoughts and oppressed her constantly.
Her love for the children was an intense one. She had never played with children for years, hardly ever when herself an infant, and she had actually come to consider them as a sort of half-conscious creatures, for Catherine generally talked about them as if they were so, when advocating her strange views as to their removal if they stood in the way of humanity's progress.
But now Mary, being in close companionship with babies, felt a true woman's sympathy for them, and fully realised the horrible nature of the work she was pledged to.
The natural result came at last. Her mind underwent a gradual change; but it was not till after a long time, not without much doubt and wavering, that she finally made a certainstep of supreme importance. This was no less than a determination that she at any rate would not be guilty of child-killing, however expedient it might be for humanity. She made up her mind to acquaint Catherine King with this resolve at the earliest opportunity.
But this left her still in a great perplexity. That intolerable secret would still be on her mind. She could not betray her benefactress. Though herself innocent of blood, she would still know of the terrible work of the Sisterhood; she would be constantly hearing of its results, and yet not be able to utter one word to save the children.
Painfully she reflected what she ought to do, but could see no way open to her; and as the problem daily stood out more terribly bright before her, and yet daily more insoluble, her reason began to wane once more. What health she had gained was being gradually lost again.
She felt that she was dying and she was glad to die, poor perplexed child, for whom circumstances had made life so portentous a problem!
So it was that Mary by degrees began to entertain a half belief in religion, or rather she had come to altogether believe in a religion of her own—a vague religion that had no dogmas, but the key-stone of which was a profound faith in love. That was the cross to which she clung, a reality; she knew nothing else for certain, of Gods or creeds. They were as yet dark and shifting to her vision. She could not immediately accept all the beliefs of her new friends.
But this mysterious love that carried her soul so far above merely earthly things, opened possibilities, nay certainties, of higher mysteries. She could no longer accept the cold ethical schemes in which she had been educated. She thought the reasonings must be fallacious that were so opposed to these divine supersensual instincts.
Taught by nature herself, she worshipped in her way the unknown God, whose sole revelation to her was love.
At first she would listen with sad wonder to the little prayers that Mrs. White's eldest children would lisp at their mother's knee, in which they invoked their God's blessing on their mother, Aunty Mary, all their kind friends, and even their pet animals. It was very beautiful and sweet to have this belief she thought.
She fell into a way ofwishinga sort of prayer of her own, when she got into bed at night.
At last she would even kneel down by the bedside, as she had seen the children do, and pray earnestly in a more definite manner.
It was the crying out of a soul in darkness, a prayer true as was that of the publican in the parable. It was a prayer to the unknown God somewhat in this wise:
"O God! if there be a God, O God of Love! God of the Christians! if, indeed, thou art; I love Thee. I do not pray for myself, except that I may die. But oh, bless all my dear friends, and especially Mrs. King, my mother; make her happy in knowing Thee; and make Harry happy, make him not miss me much, and not be very sorry when I am gone, but give him a true good wife. And, O God, let me die soon, else I shall be the curse of him I love, and ruin his happiness. Take me away from him and let me die."
As Mary's cure was no longer a question for medical science, but depended solely upon the cheerfulness of her surroundings and such like natural remedies, Dr. Duncan had not considered it necessary, so far, to visit his sister's cottage. He was afraid, too, lest his presence might distress the girl, and decided not to see her until her convalescence was at a more advanced stage.
He also hinted to Mrs. King that it would be well if she too abstained from seeing her niece for the present.
Mrs. White kept her brother fully informed by letter of the progress of the patient. Of late these letters had not been quite so hopeful as they were at first. She told him that the convalescence which at first had been so rapid, had reached its limit; that Mary's health was no longer improving, but seemed to her to be even retrograding.
At last she wrote him a long letter in which she expressed her great anxiety about the girl. She begged him to come down himself, and also to send down Mrs. King, as it waspossible that the woman's presence would be of benefit to Mary. "At any rate," she wrote, "send her down for a couple of days, the experiment is worth trying."
"She is sure to be right," thought the doctor as he read his sister's letter, so he called on Mrs. King and told her that it would be advisable now for her to visit her niece, but he asked her to make this first visit a very short one, merely to run down one afternoon and return the next morning, then, if the effect on the girl was satisfactory, the visits could be frequent and of longer duration.
Catherine was of course overjoyed at the prospect of again seeing her darling, and arranged to go to the cottage on the following evening.
So the next morning's post brought Mrs. White a letter announcing this fact.
She went out upon the lawn with Mary after breakfast with the intention of breaking this news to her.
Mrs. White had never been able to quite make out what were the exact feelings between Mrs. King and her niece. Mary always exhibited a strange dislike to speaking about her aunt. She never voluntarily introduced her into the conversation. She seemed troubled when questioned about her; and yet, on the rare occasions when the girl was more communicative than usual on this subject, she always spoke of Catherine King in terms of the highest praise. She evidently entertained a great admiration and love for her.
"Mary," said Mrs. White when they were upon the lawn, "I have good news for you, your aunt is coming to see you."
Mary clapped her hands with childish joy, "Oh! I am so glad," she exclaimed. "I have so looked forward to this. I have been waiting so long; I thought I should never be allowed to see her."
"She is coming this evening and will stay till to-morrow morning, so you will be able to have a long talk with her."
Mary stood still and her brow became clouded. "Yes, I have much to talk to my aunt about," she said, slowly.
"You never speak to me about her, dear. I should like to know her better. She must be very fond of you."
"She likes me much better than I deserve," replied Mary, sadly. "I have been very ungrateful to her."
Mrs. White, who was too true a woman not to suffer from curiosity, after a little thought said:
"My brother tells me that Mrs. King has some rather startling political and social theories."
"She has," replied Mary, rather curtly.
A long pause followed.
"Has she succeeded in converting you to her views?" then inquired Mrs. White.
A look of distress came to Mary's face. "I don't know," she cried, in an excited, nervous way. "Don't ask me now about those things, dear Mrs. White. I am too ill to think." She passed her hand across her forehead as if to wipe away some painful vision.
Mrs. White took the girl's hand tenderly in hers. "Forgive me, Mary dear," she said. "It is cruel of me to worry you with inquisitive questions; but I will be good now."
The little woman reproached herself bitterly for having so thoughtlessly caused the girl pain, and turned the conversation into another channel.
Throughout the day, Mary was strangely excited and changeable in her moods. One moment she was wild with delight at the prospect of seeing again her beloved chief; the next she felt sick with fear, as she thought of the confession that she had to make; for she had made up her mind to tell Catherine all—her doubts as to the righteousness of the cause; her love for Dr. Duncan; she would throw herself at her feet and make a clean breast of it.
She endeavoured to divert her thoughts by taking up anyemployment she could to fill up the tedious hours of this exciting day. In the afternoon, she begged Mrs. White's permission to relieve her at her usual task of bathing the youngest baby and putting him to bed before tea.
He was soon splashing and chuckling away in the bath, while Mary was assiduously sponging him, playing and laughing with him in an unusually happy mood for the time.
While she was engaged at this performance, there came a ring at the entrance bell; but she did not hear it.
Soon after she heard the voices of two people who were mounting the stairs leading to the nursery.
The door opened, and her hostess entered with a smiling and excited face.
"See whom I have brought to see you, Mary," she said.
Mary looked up and perceived, closely following Mrs. White, the tall figure of Catherine King.
The sudden meeting produced a strange shock and revulsion of feeling in both the mistress and pupil.
Mary dropped her sponge, but did not move from where she was kneeling by the bath. Her face and neck and ears turned a vivid crimson, and she looked aghast at Catherine, deprived of all power to speak for the moment, so startled was she at this abrupt appearance.
The effect on Catherine was no less strong. She had entered the room with her heart beating with joyful anticipation, like a lover's when at the door of his mistress's house; but as soon as her eyes fell on Mary engaged at so unexpected a task, she turned pale and involuntarily stepped backward a pace.
She stood looking at the girl without speaking, her eye going alternately from her to the child in the bath.
The sight of the naked baby that lay between them, now squalling loudly at being neglected, suggested strange and fearful thoughts to both their minds, and either knew of what the other was thinking.