It was Sunday afternoon, nearly a week later. Elsie sat alone by the
window with a writing-tablet in her lap, gazing out at the row of
houses across the street. But though the new-fallen snow on roof,
cornice, and iron grating transformed the familiar scene, and though
snow in such profusion and splendor was a new and wonderful experience
to her, the girl wasn't really seeing the landscape any more than she
was writing a letter. Realizing the fact after half an hour of stony
silence, she rose, dropped her writing materials, and crossing the
room, threw herself down on the hearth-rug with a gesture of despair.
It wasn't merely because she couldn't write the letter--which, by the
way, was that which she had given as an excuse for withdrawing on the
evening of Mr. Graham's call. It was true that writing to her
stepmother--something that had been growing increasingly difficult for
some time--had become practically impossible since that evening. But
that was, in a way, a minor detail. For everything, _everything_ had
become impossible since the hour she had heard his recital of that
experience of Cousin Julia's youth.
"There's no use," the girl cried out within herself, "I simply cannot
stand it. I can't go on so. Cousin Julia's gone to a funeral. I'll
have one while she's gone and bury everything deep down. There's
nothing else to do. Now that I know for deadly certain that Cousin
Julia would hate me if she knew, I can't go on being--as I am. Why,
what _he_ did wasn't dishonest. It was only, as Mr. Graham said, less
than honest. And look at me!"
It was true that Cousin Julia hadn't _hated_ him, even when he wasn't
sorry about the wrong itself, Elsie repeated; for this was by no means
the first or second time she had gone over the matter since that night;
indeed, she had scarcely thought of anything else since. Still, she
wouldn't have anything more to do with him, and must have despised him,
which was worse. And it was also true that she would even have
forgiven him utterly if he had sinned in a moment of temptation. And
again the girl lamented bitterly that she hadn't done something even
worse if it could have been committed in hot blood, and therefore
followed by repentance, confession, and forgiveness. Only last evening
Cousin Julia had read some verses from Browning which had filled her
heart with a longing that was like remorse--something about a "certain
moment" which "cuts the deed off, calls the glory from the grey." Were
her wrong-doing only of the sort to be neatly cut off in that manner,
how gladly would she own up. How certain would she be of obtaining
full forgiveness, and how blissfully could she go on thence-forward!
But hers wasn't that sort. Hers was the sort that goes on and on and
on. After making the beginning, there was no hope, any more than there
was of stopping a ball when one starts it to rolling down a steep,
smooth hill. And besides, it was of the very nature of that which had
hurt Cousin Julia so cruelly in the case of her lover of twenty-odd
years ago. For it was for Elsie's own advantage that she had entered
upon the course of deceit, and it was she that was profiting by it,
daily and hourly. She had imposed herself upon one whom she had no
claim whatever upon for the sake of making things easier and pleasanter
for herself--of gaining her own way. And wasn't she continuing the
imposition largely for the same reason?
No, she wasn't doing that--at least not now. Absolutely selfish as her
motive may have been in the first place, these last days had shown her
that another element was now involved. Her longing to be an actress
remained the same. Her distaste for the idea of life at the parsonage
in Enderby had been increased almost to horror by the glimpses she had
had through her friend's letters of what seemed to her its dreary and
complacent domesticity. Nevertheless, at this moment she felt that she
would give up the former and accept the latter without a murmur if she
could thereby measure up to Cousin Julia's standard, and yet, in the
process, hurt neither her nor Elsie Marley.
But there was no blinking the fact that Cousin Julia's heart was so
bound up in her that the discovery of her duplicity would wound her
cruelly; indeed, Elsie couldn't bear to contemplate what it would mean
to her. As for Elsie Marley--she was apparently, for her part, equally
bound up in the Middletons, and the shock and change would be terribly
painful to her. Moreover, she was, in a way, almost as innocent as
Cousin Julia herself. Her masquerading was only masquerading. She had
only accepted, in her sweet, docile manner, her part in the plan that
Elsie had made to further her own interests. The wrong was all her
own, truly; but any attempt to undo it would hurt the innocent Elsie at
least equally.
What could she do? Was she really, as it seemed, bound hand and foot?
The girl wrung her hands, and there was no thought of the dramatic in
the gesture. Must her punishment be to keep on and on with her
wrong-doing, with the consciousness, increasingly more painful, of
deceiving Cousin Julia, of being, not only _not_ the person she
believed her to be, but exactly the sort of person she most despised?
Could that be her fate?
Looking ahead, Elsie said to herself she couldn't stand it--not now.
Before, she had had her uncomfortable moments; but since that talk with
Mr. Graham she had had no moment that wasn't agony. He had roused her
out of her dream of making things right by calling them so. And yet,
less than ever since that knowledge had come to her, was she ready to
hurt Cousin Julia, as confession or discovery would hurt her. Could it
be that it was impossible for her to straighten out her own conscience
without wounding the hearts of others? Was there no way whereby she
could make things right without involving Elsie Marley and Cousin Julia
in misery?
Staring wretchedly into the fire, the girl was unaware that she was
grappling with a big moral problem: that her personal perplexity was a
part of the old problem of evil: that what daunted her was the old
paradox that has confronted mankind since before the time of Job. She
understood dimly that the lines between good and ill do not converge
any more than unmoral geometrical parallels; but she still felt that it
must be possible to limit the consequences of wrong-doing to the
evil-doer so that the innocent should wholly escape.
But what, short of her own death, would bring that about? In that
event, indeed, Cousin Julia's natural grief would not be bitterly
painful; and Elsie Marley would simply go on as she was. But she
wasn't likely to die, and besides, wretched as she was, she didn't want
to. And even if she did, she wouldn't be so wicked or so cowardly as
to do anything to hasten her end.
But her consideration of that solution of her problem made way for
another. On a sudden a substitute solution presented itself to her
mind. Having gone so far, it was but natural that the girl's dramatic
instinct and her familiarity with romance and melodrama should suggest
something that would answer the purpose of death without occasioning
the same measure of pain--namely, her own disappearance. And the
suggestion no sooner appeared than it was accepted. Before Miss
Pritchard returned the idea was already so familiar as to seem to be of
long standing.
Her mind was quick and her invention fertile, and before she slept that
night her plans were well along. She was to lose herself
utterly--where and how she would determine later. She would, at the
proper moment, disappear absolutely and mysteriously, yet not without
leaving behind her satisfactory and reassuring explanation for the two
persons to whom it would mean most--nay, three--she mustn't forget her
stepmother. She would write to Elsie Marley that she had felt obliged
to take the step for the sake of her own future, and would entreat her
to go on as she was and never to let any one know what had happened.
And she would leave a long letter for Cousin Julia to discover on her
return from the office the day of her departure. She would tell her
how she loved her--better than any one else she had ever known except
her mother--and how she had never been so happy in her life as with
her. Then she would make the same enigmatical but satisfactory
reference to her future and how it made the step imperative, adding
that if Cousin Julia could understand, she would agree that she
couldn't have done otherwise.
When she had reached this point, Elsie's heart sank. Disappearance
might be preferable to death, but it seemed as if it were going to be
quite as painful. But only for her, and after all, that was where the
pain belonged. The girl cried herself to sleep that night, but she
woke next morning with a sense of relief so active and positive that it
seemed like refreshment and almost like joy. She realized why it was:
her mind hadn't been wholly at ease before since the day in the summer
when she had first seen Mr. Graham, and for the past days she had lived
in torture. The removal of the burden was almost like unsnapping the
cover of a Jack-in-the-box. She was going to be good and straight and
honest again. She was going to make amends, so far as in her lay, for
the wrong she had done. She was going--_away_!
Here Elsie faltered. But she sprang from bed before depression could
swoop down upon her. And while she was dressing a suggestion came to
her that sent her to the breakfast-table with a serene and even joyful
face. It had come to her that she would better not attempt to carry
out her resolve until after Christmas, lest she mar Cousin Julia's or
Elsie Marley's enjoyment of the day. She would act immediately after
Christmas, beginning the New Year with a clean slate. And meantime she
would devote herself to making every one she knew as happy as possible,
particularly Cousin Julia.
And she would be happy herself. There would be sufficient unhappiness
coming to her later to pay her in full for all the mischief she had
done; and she saw no harm in putting the matter from her thoughts for
the interim, and making the most of the eighteen days. Then, Christmas
being over, one day, or two at most, would suffice her to decide where
to go and to make her preparations. Another day would give her time to
write the letters with due deliberation, and on the third she would be
off.
Wherefore, her resolve being fixed and her conscience accordingly
clear, she adventured the first precious day with a light heart.