So often and so idly it is our custom to say, I shall never forget!
that the words scarcely cause a ripple of comment in the mind; whereas,
in fact, they are among the most audacious which we ever take upon our
lips. How know we what law of selection our memories will obey in that
system of mental relations which we call "forever"?
I, who believe myself to have obtained some especial knowledge upon
this point, not possessed by all my readers, and to be more free than
many another to use such language, still retreat before the phrase, and
content myself with saying, "I have never forgotten." Up to this time
I have never been able to forget the smallest detail of that night
whose history I am now to record. It seems to me impossible in any set
of conditions that memory could blot that experience from my being; but
of that what know I? No more than I know of the politics of a meteor.
Upon discovering my predicament I was, of course, greatly disturbed. I
tried the door, and tried again; I urged the latch violently; I exerted
myself till the mere moral sense of my helplessness overcame my
strength. I called to the watchman, whose distant steps I heard, or
fancied that I heard, pacing the corridors. There was a Safe Deposit
in the basement, and the great building was heavily guarded. I shouted
for my liberty, I pleaded for it, I demanded it; but I did not get it.
No one answered me. I ran to the barred windows and shook the iron
casement as prisoners and madmen do. Nobody heard me. I bethought me
of the private telegraph which stood by Brake's desk, mute and
mysterious, like a thing that waited an order to speak. I could not
help wondering, with something like superstition, what would be the
next words which would pass the lips of the silent metal. It occurred
to me, of course, to telegraph for relief; but I did not know how, and
a kind of respect for the intelligence and power of the instrument
deterred me from meddling with it to no visible end. Suddenly I
remembered the electric signal which so often communicates with
watchman or police in places of this kind. This, after some search, I
found in a corner, over the desk of Brake's assistant, and this I
touched. My effort brought no reply. I pressed the button again with
more force and more desperation; I might say, with more personality.
"Obey me!" I cried, setting my teeth, and addressing the electric
influence as a man addresses a menial.
Instantly a thrill passed from the wire to the hand. A distant sound
jarred upon the air. Steps shuffled somewhere beyond the massive
walls. I even thought that I heard voices, as of the watchman and
others in possible consultation. No one approached the broker's door.
I urged the signal again and again. I became quite frantic, for I had
now begun to think with dismay of the effect of all this upon my wife.
I railed upon that signal like a delirious patient at the order of a
physician. A commotion seemed to follow, in some distant part of the
building. But no one came within hearing of my voice; the noise soon
ceased, and my efforts at freedom with it.
It having now become evident that I must spend the night where I was, I
proceeded to make the best of it; and a very bad best it was. I was
exhausted, I was angry, and I was distressed.
The full force of the situation was beginning to fall upon me. The
inspector had put a not unnatural interpretation upon my condition; he
thought so little of a gentleman who had dined too freely; it was a
perfectly normal incident in his experience. He had mistaken the
character of the stupor caused by my accident, and left me in that
office for a drunken man. The fact that he was not accustomed to view
me in such a light in itself probably explained the originality of his
method. We were on pleasant terms. Drayton was a good fellow. Who
knew better than he what would be the professional significance of the
circumstance that Dr. Thorne was seen intoxicated down town at
midnight? The city would ring with it in twelve hours, and it would
not be for me, though I had been the most popular doctor in town, to
undo the deed of that slander, if once it so much as lifted its
invisible hand against the proud and pure reputation in whose shelter I
lived and laboured, and had been suffered to become what we call
"eminent." It was possible, too, that the inspector had some human
regard for my family in this matter, and reasoned that to spare them
the knowledge of my supposed disgrace was the truest kindness wherewith
it was in his power to serve me. He meant to leave me where I was and
as I was to sleep it off till morning. He would return in good season
and release me quietly, and nobody the wiser but the watchman; who
could be feed. This was plainly the purpose and the programme.
But Helen--
I returned to the table near which I had been sitting, and took the
office chair again, and tried, like a reasonable creature, to calm
myself.
What would Helen think by this time? I looked about the office
stupidly. At first the dreary scene presented few details to me; but
after a time they took on the precision and permanence which trifles
acquire in emergencies. The gas was not lighted, but I could see with
considerable ease, owing to the overwrought brain condition. It
occurred to me that I saw like a cat or a medium; I noted this, as
indicative of a certain remedy; and then it further occurred to me that
I might as well doctor myself, having nothing better to do; and plainly
there was something wrong. I therefore put my hand in my pocket for my
case. It was gone.
Now, a physician of my sort is as ill at ease without his case as he
would be without his body; and this little circumstance added
disproportionately to my discomfort. With some irritable exclamation
on my lips I leaned back in the chair, and once more regarded my
environment. It was a rather large room, dim now, and as solitary as a
graveyard after twilight. Before me stood the table, an oblong table
covered with brown felt. A blue blotter, of huge dimensions, was
spread from end to end; it was a new blotter, not much blurred.
Inkstand, pens, paper-weight, calendar, and other trifles of a strictly
necessary nature stood upon the blotter. Letters on file, and brokers'
memoranda neatly stabbed by the iron stiletto--I forget the name of the
thing--for that purpose made and provided, attracted my sick attention.
An advertisement from a Western mortgage firm had escaped the neat hand
of the clerk who put the office in order for the night, and fell
fluttering to my feet. It would be impossible to say how important
this seemed to me. I picked it up conscientiously and filed it, to the
best of my remembrance, with an invitation to the Merchant's Banquet,
and a subscription list in behalf of the blind man who sold
tissue-paper roses at the head of the street.
In one corner of the room, as I have said, was the clerk's desk; the
electric signal shone faintly above it; it had, to my eyes, a certain
phosphorescent appearance. Opposite, the steam radiator stood like a
skeleton. There was a grate in the room, with a Cumberland coal fire
laid. On the wall hung a map of the State, and another setting forth
the proportions of a great Western railroad. At the extreme end of the
room stood chairs and settees provided for auctions. Between myself
and these, the high, guarded public desk of the broker rose like a
rampart.
In this sombre and severe place I now abandoned myself to my thoughts;
and these gave me no mercy.
My wife was a reasonable woman; but she was a loving and sensitive one.
I was accustomed to spare her all unnecessary uncertainty as to my
movements--being more careful in this respect, perhaps, than most
physicians would be; our profession covers a multitude of little
domestic sins. I had not taken the ground that I was never to be
expected till I came. A system of affectionate communication as to my
whereabouts existed between us; it was one of the pleasant customs of
our honeymoon which had lasted over. The telegraph and the messenger
boy we had always with us; it was a little matter for a man to take the
trouble to tell his wife why and where he was kept away all night. I
do not remember that I had ever failed to do so. It was a bother
sometimes, I admit, but the pleasure it gave her usually repaid me;
such is the small, sweet coin of daily love.
As I sat there at the broker's desk, like a creature in a trap, all
that long and wretched night, the image of my wife seemed to devour my
brain and my reason.
The great clock on the neighbouring church struck one with a heavy and
a solemn intonation, of which I can only say that it was to me unlike
anything I had ever heard before. It gave me a shudder to hear it, as
if I listened to some supernatural thing. The first hour of the new
day rang like a long cry. Some freak of association brought to my mind
that angel in the Apocalypse who proclaimed with a mighty voice that
Time should be no more. I caught myself thinking this preposterous
thing: Suppose it were all over? Suppose we never saw each other
again? Suppose my wife were to die? To-night? Suppose some accident
befell her? If she tripped upstairs? If the child's crib took fire
and she put it out, and herself received one of those deadly shocks
from burns not in themselves mortal?
Suppose--she herself opening the door to let in the messenger expected
from me--that some drunken fellow, or some tramp--
"This," I said aloud, "is the kind of thing she does when I am delayed.
This is what it means to wait. Men don't do it often enough to know
what it is. I wonder if we have any scale of measurement for what
women suffer?"
What she, for instance, by that time was suffering, oh, who in the wide
world else could guess or dream? There were such suffering cells in
that exquisite nature! Who but me could understand?
I brought my clinched hand down upon the broker's blue blotting-paper,
and laid my heavy head upon it.
Suppose somebody had got the news to her that the horse had been seen
dashing free of the buggy, or had returned alone to the stable, panting
and cut?
Suppose Helen thought that my unaccountable absence had something to do
with that scene between us? Suppose she thought--or if she
suspected--perhaps she imagined--
I hid my face within my shaking hands and groaned. A curse upon the
cruel words that I had spoken to the tenderest of souls, to the dearest
and the gentlest of women! A curse upon the lawless temper that had
fired them! Accursed the hot lips that had uttered them, the unmanly
heart that could have let them slip!
I thought of her face--I really had not thought of her face before,
that wretched night. I had not strictly dared. Now I found that
daring had nothing to do with it. I thought because I had to think. I
dwelt upon her expression when I spoke to her--God forgive me!--as I
did; her attitude, the way her hands fell, her silence, the quiver in
her delicate mouth. I saw the dim parlour, the lighted room beyond
her, the scarlet shade upon the gas; she standing midway, tall and
mute, like a statue carved by one stroke of a sword.
My own words came back to me; and I was not apt to remember things I
said to people. So many impressions passed in and out of my mind in
the course of one busy day, that I became their victim rather than
their master. But now my language to my wife that unhappy evening
returned to my consciousness with incredible vividness and minuteness.
It will be seen from the precision with which I have already recorded
it, how inexorable this minuteness was.
It occurred to me that I might as well have struck her.
In this kind of moral pommelling which sensitive women feel--as they
do--how could I have indulged! I, who knew what a sensitive woman is,
what fearful and wonderful nervous systems these delicate creatures
have to manage; I, with what I was pleased to term my high organization
and special training--I, like any brutal hind, had berated my wife. I,
who was punctilious to draw the silken portiere for her, who could not
let her pick up so much as her own lace handkerchief, nor allow her to
fold a wrap of the weight of a curlew's feather about her own soft
throat--I had belaboured her with the bludgeons that bruise the life
out of women's souls. I wondered, indeed, if I should have been a less
amiable fellow if I had worn cow-hide boots and kicked her.
My reproaches, my remorses, my distresses, it is now an idle tale to
tell. That night passed like none before it, and none which have come
after it. My mind moved with a piteous monotony over and over and
about the aching thought: to see Helen--to see Helen--to be patient
till morning, and tell Helen--Only to get through this horrible night,
and hurry, rushing to the morning air, to the nearest cab dashing down
the street, and making the mad haste of love and shame, to see my
wife--to tell my wife--
As never in all our lives before, I should tell her how dear she was;
how unworthy was I to love her; how I loved her just as much as if I
were worthy, and could not help it though I tried--or (as we say) could
not help it though I died! I should run up, ringing the bell, never
waiting to find the latch-key--for I could wait for nothing. I should
spring into the house, and find her upstairs, in our own room; it would
be so early; she would be only half-dressed yet, pale and lovely,
looking like a spirit, far across the rich colours of the room, her
long hair loose about her. I should gather her to my heart before she
saw me; my arms and lips should speak before my breaking voice. I
should kiss my soul out on her lifted face. I should love her so, she
should forgive me before I could so much as say, Forgive! And when I
had her--to myself again--when these arms were sure of their own, and
these lips of hers, when her precious breath was on this cheek again,
and I could say;--
"Helen, Helen, Helen"--
and could say no more, for love and shame and sorrow, but only--
"Helen, Helen"--
"Yes," said the watchman's voice in the corridor. "It is all right,
sir. Me and Inspector Drayton, we thought we beard a noise, last
night, and we considered it safe to look about. We had a thorough
search. We thought we'd better. But there wasn't nothing. It's all
straight, sir."
It was morning, and Brake's clerk was coming in. It was very early,
earlier than he usually came, perhaps; but I could not tell. He did
not notice me at first, and, remembering Drayton's hypothesis, I shrank
behind the tall desk, and instinctively kept out of sight for a few
uncertain minutes, wondering what I had better do. The clerk called
the janitor, and scolded a little about the fire, which he ordered
lighted in the grate. It was a cold morning. He said the room would
chill a corpse. He had the morning papers in his hand. He unfolded
the "Herald," and laid it down upon his own desk, as if about to read
it.
At that instant, the telegraph clicked, and he pushed the damp, fresh
paper away from him, and went immediately to the wires. The young man
listened to the message with an expression of great intentness, and
wrote rapidly. Moved by some unaccountable impulse, I softly rose and
glanced over his shoulder.
The dispatch was dated at midnight, and was addressed to Henry Brake.
It said:
"_Have you seen my husband, to-night?_" and it was signed, "_Helen
Thorne._"
Oh, poor Helen!...
Now, maniac with haste to get to her, it occurred to me that the moment
while the clerk was occupied in recording this message was as good a
time as I could ask for in which to escape unobserved, as I greatly
wished to do. As quietly as I could--and I succeeded in doing it very
quietly--I therefore moved to leave the broker's office. As I did so,
my eye caught the heading, in large capitals, of the morning news in
the open "Herald" which lay upon the desk behind the clerk. I stopped,
and stooped, and read. This is what I read:--
SHOCKING ACCIDENT.
TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.
RUNAWAY AT THE WEST END.
_The eminent and popular physician._
_Dr. Esmerald Thorne,_
KILLED INSTANTLY.