IN GREAT PERPLEXITY.
Mary had known what wretchedness was during her old life at Brixton; but
that was almost happiness to the mental agony she was now experiencing.
For the image of one man was ever in her mind; the sound of his voice
rang in her ears; and when the remembrance of his burning kisses came to
her, as it often did, her cheek flushed and her heart beat with a flood
of new emotions that terrified her.
She could not put him out of her thoughts. She hardly knew whether she
loved him; but, with the exception of Mrs. King, he was her only friend,
the only human being she liked and venerated; and though to be with him
raised only thoughts of pain, yet when she was away from him, there came
to her a worse misery, a want, that made her wish for that sweet pain
again.
But it could not be; she must not love him; she, one of "the Sisters,"
committed to a Cause that killed its children! No, it could not be! She
must suffer and endure in silence, but never know love.
A first, great love filling her being and a fearful consciousness of its
hopelessness--so great a delight within her grasp and duty preventing
her from seizing it--such was the mental conflict, full of agony, that
had now come to her young life.
Her feverish restlessness undermined her health. When alone at night,
she would sob through the long hours in broken-hearted despair. She
would go through her duties by day with a listless languor.
Catherine King noticed how pale and thin and sad the girl was becoming;
but shrewd as she was, she had no suspicions as to the true cause of
this change.
I have said that a great affection had sprung up between the Chief of
the Secret Society and her disciple. This affection was ever deepening.
The relation between them had long ceased to be that of mistress and
servant; it was no longer merely that of teacher and pupil; but they had
become to each other as mother and daughter. Catherine represented to
the outside world that Mary was her niece; but the girl had of late
fallen into the way of calling her protectress, when they were alone
together, by the more affectionate name of mother.
One dismal November afternoon, before the lights were lit, Catherine
King was sitting in her chair by the fire sewing. Mary was sitting by
the window, listless, motionless, looking out to the street with a
strange, sad air, as of one that despaired yet was resigned.
The elder woman occasionally cast keen glances towards her, and at last,
putting down her work, said, "Mary!"
"Yes, mother!" replied the girl, starting suddenly from her reverie,
while a bright flush came to her pale cheeks for a moment.
"You seem ill, Mary."
"Yes, mother; I am not very well," she replied in a low, apathetic
voice.
"What is it? There seems to be something on your mind. Is it the idea of
the work that has to be done soon that is weighing on you?"
"No, no! I know it is my duty, mother. I am proud to be a helper in the
Cause. Oh, no! mother, it is not that.... I don't know what it is; but I
fear I am weak and foolish. I am getting nervous.... I am a coward and
unfit for so great a mission."
"Strange! that is not like you! I think a little change of air would do
you good. We will take a holiday, Mary, and go to the sea-side."
"Thank you, mother; how very kind you are to me! but indeed I do not
deserve it."
"You are a good girl, Mary. Happy for me was the day on which I first
met you. Your companionship has been very dear to me. I, who thought
that I had altogether given up tender emotions, that my whole being was
absorbed in my work for Humanity, that I would never again care for any
individual--I have come to love you dearly." She continued absently, not
intending her words for the girl's ears: "Yes! I half regret sometimes
that you should have to be one of the workers, poor girl"--then
recollecting herself again, and putting aside her unwonted softness for
her usual exalted zeal for Humanity that over-rode all lesser
sentiments--"but this is nonsense. How nobler our lives, how happier
even, though severing us from mankind and human sympathies, than the
weak loves and affections of the ordinary men and women! How glorious to
feel we are so far above them!"
She did not suspect how she sent the arrow home to Mary's heart. Tears
came to the girl's eyes. The sacrifice of human affections might be a
little thing to the enthusiast, but to her, alas! it meant death. But
she had determined that she would not waver in her allegiance; for the
wild theories were to her great truths. She had such entire faith in her
protectress, that she would not have hesitated to tear her heart out for
the Chief and the Cause.
"Mother!" she cried out at last. "Oh, mother! you _must_ love me! I am
so weak, I do not feel fit for the life that is before me. By myself I
can do nothing. I shall be stronger if I may lean on you--if I may see
you often--if you will let me love you. I cannot explain what I mean--I
do not understand it myself." She spoke in a pitiful voice that
expressed the great yearning that was in her.
Catherine King looked at the girl in silence for some moments, and the
quivering of her lips showed that she was struggling with some strong
emotion; then she said:
"I fear we are entering on a dangerous path--but, Mary! Mary! I do
love you ... very much indeed--dear"--she hesitated over the last word
as if ashamed of using it; she had never used it before--"too well,
perhaps ... for it is our duty to look far beyond individual sympathies;
we must steel our hearts; we must be of stern stuff; but I do love you,
child. Come here, that I may kiss you!"
Mary knew what deep affection it must be to make this woman confess to
such weakness. She came up to the chair where Catherine was sitting, and
knelt before her. The woman kissed her on her forehead, and gently
stroked the soft hair of the girl, feeling a tenderness in her heart
that she had not known for many long years.
"There can be no harm in our loving each other, I think, Mary," she
said, doubtfully, and with a tremulousness in her one as of
consciousness of guilt, as of one hesitating on the brink of some sweet,
strong temptation to crime--"no harm--but we must not be too
affectionate; we must not fear for each other, or we shall be unnerved
when the battle begins. Now, Mary! don't! don't! My dear child, I cannot
bear it!" for the girl had seized her hand and was kissing it
passionately, while she shook with a paroxysm of sobs.
"Oh, mother! mother! I am so miserable--without your love I should die!
It is the only thing that makes life bearable. I cannot be strong and
brave like you"--raising her head and looking admiringly at her through
her tears--"but your love will make me braver too. Why are you not angry
with me for being so silly and so weak?"
The poor child hardly suspected herself what this longing for affection
signified. She did not yet know her own heart altogether; she did not
confess to herself that it was the strange, budding love of a maiden
for a man that brought on this need for the sympathy of one of her own
sex.
"Weak, weak!" replied Catherine, pensively; "no I do not think that you
are weak--the reverse in this case. These old moral instincts, or
whatever we like to call them--this intense like to adopting means
condemned by antique ethics, for the working of righteous ends, are
difficult to contend with. You have strong instincts which are in
opposition to your sense of duty. Had you been weaker-minded in this
conflict, you would have abandoned duty and followed instinct. In you,
both the sense of duty and the instinct are very strong. It is because
of this--because your nature is strong and not weak--that the conflict
for you is a terrible one--that you are a martyr--as such a martyr as
Ridley or Latimer, who gave up all that natural instinct makes
dear--even life, and things dearer than life, for duty's sake."
Mary felt that what the Chief said was very true. The instinctive horror
at the nature of her duties preyed on her mind; but she was ashamed as
she considered that she was quite undeserving of these words of praise,
knowing as she did that there was now another element that complicated
the conflict, the nature of which her kind protectress little guessed.
It has been shown how Mary's Brixton education had made of her a liar;
but somehow although her latter training in Maida-Vale, with its
Jesuitical teachings as to all means being good if for the advancement
of the "Cause," was hardly calculated to cure her of this vice, she
could never lie to her benefactress; and now that she had known Dr.
Duncan, she had begun to feel a repugnance to deceiving anyone at all.
Such is the power of love. The woman looks up to the lord of her heart,
and if he be good, she will seek to be good too; she wonders that he can
look on her as an angel, and she endeavours to come as near as possible
to his ideal.
So it was that Mary felt a great desire to reveal the fact of her
dangerous friendship with Dr. Duncan to her protectress. She could not
deceive her any longer, and determined to unburden her mind at once. So
she commenced by timidly asking, "Mother, have you ever ... loved? Have
you ever loved ... anyone beside me?" Then she paused, in confusion, not
knowing how to proceed, a deep blush suffusing her cheeks.
Catherine King stared at her, but evidently did not understand her
meaning. No one possessed keener powers of observation than the Chief of
the Sisterhood; but when pondering over subjects connected with the
Cause she would often become absent-minded, and notice nothing. She had
now drifted into this condition, so replied to Mary in a rhapsodical
tone: "Oh, love, love! what a deep-rooted instinct of life thou art! But
we ill-fated, born into a miserable age, must trample on our instincts
for Humanity's sake. Until the old order is altogether changed for the
new, such as you and I, Mary, can have nothing to do with love."
The girl's courage melted--she dared not tell her tale just then, whilst
Catherine King was in that mood, so she replied, submissively: "So
be it ... so long as I have your love, mother ... for oh, I am weak,
miserably weak, and love I must have; or I will fail!"
Catherine spoke again: "Love is, indeed, a noble instinct, Mary, but of
all loves love of Humanity is the most noble, the most unselfish. We
must sacrifice all lesser loves for that one. Future ages will look back
to us as the martyrs of Humanity, my child," and as she uttered these
words the woman's eyes blazed with enthusiasm, and assumed that far-away
look that was usual to them.
The conversation here dropped. "Martyrs! Martyrs, indeed!" thought the
poor girl, and she fell again into her miserable brooding, and her soul
grew darker and darker, as the early night settled down on the city, and
the gas-lights came out one by one in the dismal, rainy street.
But on the other hand, to the woman absorbed in her dream of Humanity,
the dingy little room faded away; and to her exalted mind vision after
vision, each more glorious than the last, arose--of future peoples,
perfect, happy, good; and her brain whirled with the magnificence of her
fancies, and her soul wandered in a paradise of beautiful imaginations;
so that there came to her expressive features a nobility, such as the
face of some saint of old drunk with God, on the point of martyrdom,
might have worn.
* * * * *
Catherine King was perplexed--she could perceive that the girl's illness
was mental rather than physical. She considered that it was the horror
of the nature of her duties working on a young mind; but she could
hardly account for the recent rather sudden aggravation of these
symptoms in her pupil.
Loving the girl as she did, she was much troubled. Remorse for the agony
to which she was dooming this young life tormented her; but her thorough
belief in the righteousness of her scheme made her stifle these natural
feelings.--"Yes, it must be--the child must be sacrificed."