THE TAKING AWAY OF THE SHADOW.
When her lover had gone, a strong inclination came over Mary to be alone
for a time, she felt so perplexed and yet so happy. Taking in her hand
the nosegay of wild flowers he had gathered for her, she went off by
herself for a stroll in the woods, to think quietly over all that had
happened and that was to be. One moment the idea that she might some day
call the man she loved so dearly by the sweet name of husband, made her
heart beat quick with delight. The next moment her hope died out, and
she shuddered as she thought of that secret of hers which must surely
divide them for ever. How was it all to end? But, on the whole, she felt
very happy. She could not feel miserable on this day. A great part of
the shadow had already been cleared away. Possibly, but how she could
not tell, the rest would go too--she even felt sure that it would be so
soon.
She reached the river again, and sat down on a mossy bank by the side of
it, and now the excitement of the day began to tell on her yet enfeebled
brain.
Lulled by the slumberous hum of insects, the gentle rustling of the
leaves overhead, and the dashing of the stream across its shingle bed
below, a drowsiness, or rather a waking dream, stole over her senses--a
delicious, weary calm full of changing visions.
It seemed to her as if the sky and hills and trees were further off
from her, vaster, lovelier than of earth; and a music of birds was in
the trees such as might have charmed some grove of the innocent Eden. It
was as if the trance of him who has eaten of the magical Indian herb had
fallen on her--a trance magnifying, glorifying all her surroundings. The
warm breeze was as a lover's kisses on her cheek and neck, so lovingly
it played around her; an intoxicating delight was in the scent of the
flowers; and the air she breathed was as liquid joy. And it seemed to
her as if she were quite alone in the midst of this beautiful Nature.
She forgot all about the picnic and the people that were not far from
her, all about the great world beyond. She was a being alone, the
solitary Eve of a lovely Eden--alone save for one god-like man who had
just left her.
She felt the delight, the glory of the garden, and that was all; so,
scarcely knowing what she did, she took off her shoes and stockings, and
dipped her pretty feet and ankles in the stream as she sat by it,
singing softly the while in a mellow, dreamy voice even such a chant as
some lone Lorelei or sad, soul-less Undine might have sung by the sunny
Rhine. Then she took up the primroses and hyacinths her lover had given
her, and separated them; some she fastened in her straw hat, the rest
she strewed in her lap.
She remembered that they had all been plucked by him, and she laughed
low as she kissed them one by one. Then she threw them up so that they
fell over her head and shoulders in a soft shower; and she sang again a
song, not of words, but breathing forth inexpressible delight--a song
that at times almost trembled into sobs with the very fullness of that
delight.
She formed a beautiful picture indeed, as of a half-crazed Ophelia; but
there was no occasional touch of sadness in _her_ mood, for she knew
that her love was true to her and kind, and the shadow was so far away
now--away--away--beyond the glorious woods and gardens, below the faint
horizon, sunk under the world--and gone for ever, it seemed to her
imagination--there would be no more shadow now.
* * * * *
But two fierce eyes were watching her unseen. Someone had approached
noiselessly as a snake, and stood motionless a little way off, looking
at the girl with a fixed and intent stare through the dense bushes.
The intruder was a woman with pale face and deep-sunk, flashing eyes,
and with lips lined at the corners as with much anguish. She stood there
concealed by the foliage, her fists clenched, her body leaning forward,
rigid, as of a tigress ready to spring on its prey.
The happy girl sang on and played with the flowers unconscious of the
danger near her.
The woman was Catherine King. She had come down as she had promised, to
carry out the mandate of the Secret Society, with a Judas kiss to invite
Mary to her destruction.
On reaching Mrs. White's cottage that morning, she was informed by the
maid that all the family were away, that they had gone to picnic in the
woods.
"They will be back early this evening, then?" asked Catherine.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Very well, I will wait for them," and she went into the little
drawing-room.
She waited there for about half-an-hour. She sat first on one chair,
then on another; then paced up and down the room quickly. She looked out
of the window; she took up book after book, only immediately to put it
down again unread. She could not read just then--she could not
think--she felt she could not even wait idle in that room any longer, or
she would go mad.
She was distracted by a feverish nervousness, which was ever
intensifying. She felt that she must go to Mary at once and do what was
required of her--she must do it at once, before it became altogether
impossible for her--so she rang the bell.
The maid entered the room.
"How far off is this picnic?" asked Catherine, curtly.
"About four miles I think, ma'am."
"Can you tell me the way there?"
"Yes, ma'am. You will have to walk along the road across the moor until
you come to the bridge. If you cross the bridge, ma'am, and turn to the
right, following the river, you will come to them."
"You are the only girl I ever met who could direct one clearly; thank
you, I will go there."
She followed the maid's instructions and walked very fast all the way,
in hopes that the rapid motion would drive away her nervousness.
At the bridge she stood still for a few moments, and drawing a bottle
from her pocket which contained laudanum, or some other drug, she drank
a small quantity of it.
Then she looked down the white road before turning off into the wood,
and she saw in the distance a countryman dragging along a ram by a cord.
The sight called up memories of old lessons of her childhood. She
laughed bitterly to herself. "Ah! were I a Christian, I might accept
that as a good omen. Jehovah found Abraham such a substitute at the last
moment when he was about to sacrifice his only son. But for me, alas!
there can be no such hope."
She walked along the narrow foot-path by the river-side for some way,
when suddenly she heard a sweet human voice rising and falling in a song
wild and untaught as a lark's, a song that seemed to ring with such
ecstacy of pure happiness that she paused to listen. In her present mood
the gladness of it stung her, and she ground her teeth in her agony.
Then she turned pale and listened intently--yes, the voice was familiar
to her! Cautiously she approached, until she came to some bushes, from
behind which, herself concealed, she perceived Mary sitting on the
river-bank close to her, singing and playing with the flowers.
The woman stood quite still and watched the girl for several minutes.
What a storm of passions was sweeping across her fierce mind, torturing
the iron will! At first she felt nothing but a mad hate--the strong hate
of jealousy. But the pathetic image of the happy, half-crazed girl soon
raised other emotions. Love and hate together, joining in one new, wild
passion rose to torment her. Ah, how she hated, how she loved, that weak
child yonder! Her soul yearned upon her. Yet she longed to kill her then
and there--to stab and then clasp the dying girl in her arms--to lie
down by her, kissing the beloved lips--to drink her last breath and die
with her! Ah! how sweet to die with her!--in one long, last
kiss--kissing and stabbing her, loving and torturing her, at the same
time. Strange, impossible fancies crowded on her mind. A passion that
was not love, that was not hate, but the unnatural offspring of the two
and fiercer than either, possessed her--such a discordant passion, as we
are told by the Grecian myths, the Furies sow in the minds of men whom
the Gods have doomed to destruction.
She looked, and she gnashed her teeth with hate; she looked again, and
tears came into her hot eyes to see her Mary--the dear child--the sole
human being she had ever loved! Yes! she must run forward to her, fall
down and kiss those bare white feet, forego her vengeance and beg
herself for forgiveness.
But no, no--it could not be. The girl loved a man. She had herself
confessed to it. She must die.
Then her reason, if reason it could be called, returned to her for a
moment. She hardened her heart. Was not Mary a traitor to the cause? The
safety of the Sisterhood, the success of this grand scheme, called for
her death. She _must_ die.
But yet, she thought, how was the poor child to blame for all this? Was
it not her own cruel self--she, Catherine King--that had enticed Mary
into the Secret Society, and led her into danger? But she smothered
these fancies--steeled herself for her task. She hesitated no longer,
and stepping out of her ambush, she stood before the girl.
As soon as Mary perceived her, she dropped the flowers and sprang to
meet her with a smile of joyous welcome. She was not startled by
Catherine's sudden appearance. Her happiness had been too deep to be
disturbed in a moment by any fears. The discord that divided them did
not occur then to her mind; she only remembered the old love between
them.
But to the girl's surprise, Catherine did not return her fond caresses;
she scarcely seemed to recognize her, but drew back averting her gaze,
as if afraid of meeting those pleading eyes.
"Mother, dear mother!" cried Mary, looking up to her face as she put her
arms about her. "What is it? Are you still angry with me?"
The woman took the girl's hands in hers, she could not help it, and
spoke in dreamy absent tones, looking away from her the while across the
river.
"No Mary, no! but I do not feel very well to-day."
"Poor mother! I am so sorry," Mary commenced, in a sympathetic voice.
Catherine could not bear this. She felt she must hurry through her duty,
or else break down. She wished now that she had not come to see the
girl, but had written to her, so she strove against the horror that was
paralyzing her will and spoke again, but with a painful excitement which
she could not suppress. Her words came hurriedly and confusedly.
"Mary, I must go in a few minutes--I have to catch a train--I wished to
see you for a moment; I want to know if"----she almost broke down
now--"if you will come and stay with me a week or two in town
before--before--" ... but she could trust herself to say no more, and
paused.
Mary was astonished at the strangely excited, yet constrained manner of
her former mistress, but suspected nothing.
The woman waited for the girl's reply, waited breathlessly, hoping
against hope that she would refuse the invitation. The pause seemed an
eternity of agony to her, yet it was but of a few seconds.
Mary answered in a voice full of affection and confidence, "Dear mother!
How can you doubt what my answer will be? I was afraid you would never
be friends with me again. You know how glad I shall be to be with you."
She was going to say more, but stopped suddenly, observing the terrible
change, the expression of extreme anguish that crossed Catherine's face.
One choking sob escaped the woman, and feeling dizzy she sat down,
almost fell, on the bank, and supporting her head on her hands gazed
into vacancy with an awful look upon her fixed features, a look that
told clearly of her soul's utter despair.
Mary ran up to her in great bewilderment and alarm, knelt before her,
stroked her hand with her own, fondled her.
"Mother, my dear mother, what is it? What can I do?"
Catherine still answered nothing, but she slowly raised her now ghastly
white face toward the girl's; turned her eyes that seemed dim, and to
have no sense in them upon her; eyes that looked at her, yet appeared
not to see, as those of one sightless; and the nervously twitching mouth
moved as if speaking, but no words came forth.
"Mother! mother!" cried the terrified girl. "Speak to me--are you ill--I
will get you some water--wait for me, only a few moments and I will
fetch assistance."
"No, no, no!" cried the woman in a spasmodic way. "No! I am better--it
is nothing--stay here--fetch nobody--I have something to say to you."
She spoke with such a stem authority that the girl could not but obey.
Then came a long silence, a great suspense--the girl watching her
mistress with open, frightened eyes; the woman sitting motionless with
a fixed inscrutable look again on her features, as if absorbed in
painfully intense thought.
But Catherine King was not thinking at all. The image of Mary, the touch
of the dear hand, had fascinated her, had paralyzed her brain for the
time. She was conscious of no mental operations; memory and emotion were
effaced. Her mind was a blank, or rather in a state of expectant
attention, waiting for some accident to wake it again to a rush of
thought; like a magazine of powder, inactive till the spark should come.
Such a complete suspension of the mental faculties often succeeds to
excessive excitement and conflict of ideas, only to precede another
mightier wave of emotion, and fiercer gust of will, even as the calm
precedes the storm.
Of a sudden the spark came, the mind was at work again. But a strange
thing had come to pass. It seemed to Catherine as if her brain had
become a mere machine. Will was dead; there was no deliberation, no
weighing of conflicting motives; but some other power, some dominant
idea that had come from outside, took the place of will, and worked the
mind--drove it along one narrow groove, allowing it to go neither to the
right nor to the left, but straight on, wandering into no side
associations, hindered by no opposing fears, hopes, or memories.
It was if some demon had possessed her, before whom her reason bowed, a
demon whose biddings she must obey without resistance.
She felt as if the chord of volition had snapped in her brain, when this
strong impulse fell on it. So without hesitation, or thought of
consequences, she obeyed the impulse and spoke what she was compelled
to--spoke in a dreamy passionless voice at first, like one under the
mesmeric influence. All the fierce love and all the fierce hate were
slumbering for the time, the idea was alone in her mind.
She rose to her full height, and taking the girl's hand again in hers,
the words, unpremeditated by her, came forth slowly.
"Mary, you have left us, but you have not betrayed us. I know you too
well to suspect you of that. You are free. It is unnecessary to release
you from your promises to us--you are free without that. Oh, Mary! my
heart is broken. We have failed--failed miserably. Our Society is broken
up. When it came to action, the weak women would not support me. The
very object of the Society is no more. Everything has gone wrong. The
Act of Parliament relating to the Tenure of Land on which all our hopes
hung will not be passed after all. There are signs to show that the
Radicals will not obtain that overwhelming majority we looked forward to
at the coming elections. Our plans are postponed indefinitely, which
means that all is lost. There is an accursed reaction in the country. It
is all over, my scheme, my hopes. You are free--marry, do what you will.
You need not fear the weight of the secret any more. You need not
tremble to read in the papers accounts of our doings. It is all over,
and there is nothing left me now but to die."
Thus had Catherine King been driven by the irresistible power to tell
this comforting lie to the girl; all the ideas and plans that filled her
mind when she came down having vanished completely as if they had never
been. And she said the very thing that was alone needed to make Mary
really free and happy. The girl had no further cause to fear the secret.
It was a harmless secret now. The horrible work would not be done. Her
conscience would not torment her for preserving a criminal silence, and
so becoming the accomplice of assassins.
A light of supreme triumphant joy came to Mary's eyes. She could not
speak at first, so moved was she, but stood with her hands clasped
together, trying to realize all that those precious words meant for her.
Then Catherine was inspired once more by the power to speak--to complete
her work.
"Mary! you must promise me one thing. Kneel down, girl,--kneel and
swear by the God in whom you now believe that you will keep this
promise."
She spoke in a terrible voice that compelled obedience. It was not
herself but _that_ which possessed her, that cried through her mouth in
such commanding accents.
Mary knelt down, pale and trembling.
"I swear it," she whispered.
"Remember! as long as you live, if I, or any of the Sisterhood, at any
time, invite you to visit them or meet them anywhere--you must not go.
Avoid us all for ever. If you act otherwise you will die."
"But, oh! dear mother! what a cruel promise to exact from me," and the
girl embraced the woman. "I must see _you_, you cannot mean that."
Catherine drew herself back quickly, as if stung by the girl's
affection. "You have sworn," she interrupted her in a hoarse voice. "I
tell you girl that you will surely die if you do not observe that oath."
Mary approached as if to embrace her mistress once more, her arms
stretched out towards her pleadingly; but Catherine seized, her by the
arm and pushed her back savagely--she was coming to her senses, and
began to realize all she had done.
"Keep away, girl; keep away!" she almost shrieked. "You don't know what
I have sacrificed for your sake--accursed be the day I met
you!--accursed be my own weakness! Keep away from me! Don't come fawning
on me or I will kill you."
Then without another word she turned and walked away rapidly through the
woods and was lost to sight, leaving Mary confused, dazed, and full of
compassion for the miserable woman whom she had loved so well; but after
a few moments all other ideas vanished before the great happiness that
had come to her.
_The shadow had gone._
Oh, the blessed relief to the poor distracted soul! It was too intense a
joy for her to bear! She lay down on the grass, and sobbed wildly,
until Mrs. White, who had become anxious about her, came and found her
there. Then the girl rose, and placing her arms round her friend's neck,
cried with an hysterical laugh, "Dear, dear, Mrs. White! the kind God
has answered your prayers for me."
* * * * *
That very evening, as soon as she reached Mrs. White's cottage, Mary
wrote her first letter to Dr. Duncan, the first love letter of her life.
It was a very short one.
"My love, Come to me as soon as you can,
"Your loving,
"MARY."