SUSAN GOES TO CHURCH.
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
horrors _before_ committing the deed. They were wont to fear that, as
soon as their hands were red with a first murder, some frightful bogie,
some maddening remorse, worse than anything imaginable before, would
leap up and seize them; but as soon as they _had_ committed 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
she _had_ done 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 will joy,
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. "Fancy _my_ going 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 terror crept 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 she _knew_ that 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.