I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow escape me.
At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who had so obstinately
rejected me. I stood looking down at her with a merciless anger, the
bare remembrance of which fills me at this day with a horror of myself.
There is but one excuse for me. The shock of that last overthrow of the
one hope that held me to life was more than my reason could endure. On
that dreadful night (whatever I may have been at other times), I myself
believe it, I was a maddened man.
I was the first to break the silence.
"Get up," I said coldly.
She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she doubted
whether she had heard aright.
"Put on your hat and cloak," I resumed. "I must ask you to go back with
me as far as the boat."
She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, bewildered
look.
"Why am I to go with you to the boat?" she asked.
The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat in one
hand, and the key of the cabin in the other.
"I'm ready," she said. "I will open the cabin door."
Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went back
as far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited there,
listening. I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable composure, and
answered the question which she had addressed to me.
"You are left," I said, "without the means of getting away from this
place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I shall sail
at once on the return voyage. We part, this time, never to meet again.
Before I go I am resolved to leave you properly provided for. My money
is in my traveling-bag in the cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to
ask you to go with me as far as the boat."
"I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. "I don't stand in
such serious need of help as you suppose."
"It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. "I have spoken
with the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at Amsterdam, and I
know exactly what your position is. Your pride must bend low enough to
take from my hands the means of subsistence for yourself and your child.
If I had died in England--"
I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that she
would inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might quite as
becomingly take money from me in my life-time as take it from my
executors after my death. In forming this thought into words, the
associations which it called naturally into being revived in me the
memory of my contemplated suicide in the Greenwater lake. Mingling with
the remembrance thus aroused, there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so
overpoweringly vile, and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at
the moment, that it shook me to the soul. "You have nothing to live for,
now that she has refused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered. "Take
your leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you love take it
with you!" While I was still looking at her, while my last words to her
faltered on my lips, the horrible facilities for the perpetration of
the double crime revealed themselves enticingly to my view. My boat was
moored in the one part of the decaying harbor in which deep water still
lay at the foot of the quay. I had only to induce her to follow me when
I stepped on the deck, to seize her in my arms, and to jump overboard
with her before she could utter a cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I
knew by experience, were hard to wake, and slow to move even when they
were roused at last. We should both be drowned before the youngest and
the quickest of them could get up from his bed and make his way to the
deck. Yes! We should both be struck together out of the ranks of the
living at one and the same moment. And why not? She who had again and
again refused to be my wife--did she deserve that I should leave her
free to go back, perhaps, for the second time to Van Brandt? On the
evening when I had saved her from the waters of the Scotch river, I
had made myself master of her fate. She had tried to destroy herself
by drowning; she should drown now, in the arms of the man who had once
thrown himself between her and death!
Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face to face
with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished sentence.
"If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my will.
What you would have taken from me then, you may take from me now. Come
to the boat."
A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me began
to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without making any
reply.
"Come to the boat," I reiterated.
"It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the room at the
child, still waiting by the door. "Come, Elfie," she said, calling the
little creature by one of her favorite nicknames. "Come to bed."
I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the
innocent means of forcing her mother to leave the house? Trusting to the
child's fearless character, and her eagerness to see the boat, I
suddenly opened the door. As I had anticipated, she instantly ran out.
The second door, leading into the square, I had not closed when I
entered the courtyard. In another moment Elfie was out in the square,
triumphing in her freedom. The shrill little voice broke the death-like
stillness of the place and hour, calling to me again and again to take
her to the boat.
I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie's mother
could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way.
"Will you go with us?" I asked. "Or must I send the money back by the
child?"
Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of
distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. "You are not
like yourself to-night," she said. Without a word more, she took her
hat and cloak and went out before me into the square. I followed her,
closing the doors behind me. She made an attempt to induce the child to
approach her. "Come, darling," she said, enticingly--"come and take my
hand."
But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and answered from
a safe distance. "No," said the child; "you will take me back and put me
to bed." She retreated a little further, and held up the key: "I shall
go first," she cried, "and open the door."
She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and waited
for what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned, and looked
close at me under the light of the stars.
"Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked.
The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose? Had
my face warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat? It was
impossible. The more likely motive for her inquiry was to find a new
excuse for not accompanying me to the harbor. If I told her that the men
were on board, she might answer, "Why not employ one of your sailors
to bring the money to me at the house?" I took care to anticipate the
suggestion in making my reply.
"They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully; "but I don't
know them well enough to trust them with money."
To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and
deliberately repeated her question:
"Are the sailors on board the boat?"
I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and paused
to see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her resolution. After
a moment's consideration, she turned toward the place at which the child
was waiting for us. "Let us go, as you insist on it," she said, quietly.
I made no further remark. Side by side, in silence we followed Elfie on
our way to the boat.
Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light glimmered
on us from the grim black houses. Twice the child stopped, and (still
keeping slyly out of her mother's reach) ran back to me, wondering at
my silence. "Why don't you speak?" she asked. "Have you and mamma
quarreled?"
I was incapable of answering her--I could think of nothing but my
contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every better
instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed, seemed to
be dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child's future troubled my
mind. I had no power of looking on further than the fatal leap from the
boat: beyond that there was an utter blank. For the time being--I can
only repeat it, my moral sense was obscured, my mental faculties were
thrown completely off their balance. The animal part of me lived and
moved as usual; the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned,
and that was all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a
dull quietude in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. And yet
no madman was fitter for restraint, or less responsible morally for his
own actions, than I was at that moment.
The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the child, we
had passed through the last street--we were out on the empty open space
which was the landward boundary of the harbor. In a minute more we
stood on the quay, within a step of the gunwale of the boat. I noticed
a change in the appearance of the harbor since I had seen it last.
Some fishing-boats had come in during my absence. They moored, some
immediately astern and some immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked
anxiously to see if any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not
a living being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives
and their families.
Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van Brandt
stepped between us as I stooped to take her up.
"We will wait here," she said, "while you go into the cabin and get the
money."
Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her suspicions of
me--suspicions, probably, which led her to fear not for her life, but
for her freedom. She might dread being kept a prisoner in the boat, and
being carried away by me against her will. More than this she could not
thus far possibly apprehend. The child saved me the trouble of making
any remonstrance. She was determined to go with me. "I must see the
cabin," she cried, holding up the key. "I must open the door myself."
She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran round to the
other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat in an
instant. Before I could turn round, her mother had followed her, and was
standing on the deck.
The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on her left
hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her right. Before us
was the open deck, and the low gunwale of the boat overlooking the deep
water. In a moment we might step across; in a moment we might take the
fatal plunge. The bare thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to
its climax. I became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw
my arm round her waist with a loud laugh. "Come," I said, trying to drag
her across the deck--"come and look at the water."
She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that astonished me.
With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the child by the hand and
get back to the quay. I placed myself between her and the sides of the
boat, and cut off her retreat in that way. Still laughing, I asked her
what she was frightened about. She drew back, and snatched the key of
the cabin door out of the child's hand. The cabin was the one place of
refuge now left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat.
In the terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door,
and hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin, taking
the child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had betrayed
myself, yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on carrying out my
purpose. "I have only to behave quietly," I thought to myself, "and I
shall persuade her to go on deck again."
My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the table.
Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting for me.
Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I approached
them. She looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness of the mother's
action had frightened the child. I did my best to compose Elfie before
I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the different objects which were
likely to interest her in the cabin. "Go and look at them," I said, "go
and amuse yourself."
The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she asked.
"No, no!"
"Are you angry with mamma?"
"Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. "Tell Elfie if I am angry
with you," I said.
She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the necessity of
humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing the child. She turned
away to examine, in high delight, the new and strange objects which
surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother and I stood together, looking at
each other by the light of the lamp, with an assumed composure which hid
our true faces like a mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque
and the terrible, always together in this strange life of ours, came
together now. On either side of us, the one sound that broke the
sinister and threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping
captain and crew.
She was the first to speak.
"If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to propitiate me in
that way, "I am ready to take it now."
I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather case
which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on deck again,
my mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too strong to be
controlled.
"We shall be cooler on deck," I said. "Let us take the bag up there."
She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help rising
to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of mind enough to
foresee what might happen before she could rouse the sleeping men.
"We have a light here to count the money by," she answered. "I don't
feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a little longer. See
how Elfie is amusing herself!"
Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression of them
quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I might take
her on deck by force before the men could interfere. But her cries would
rouse them; they would hear the splash in the water, and they might be
quick enough to rescue us. It would be wiser, perhaps, to wait a little
and trust to my cunning to delude her into leaving the cabin of her own
accord. I put the bag back on the table, and began to search for the
leather money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could
only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag on the
table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what I was doing.
"Oh, how awkward you are!" she burst out, in her frankly fearless way.
"Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!"
I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to be always
doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, irritated me now. The
interest that I had once felt in the charming little creature was all
gone. An innocent love was a feeling that was stifled in the poisoned
atmosphere of my mind that night.
The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank of
England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum that
would probably be required to take a traveler back to London; and I put
all that remained into the hands of Mrs. Van Brandt. Could she suspect
me of a design on her life now?
"That will do for the present," I said. "I can communicate with you in
the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam."
She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met mine
with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old tenderness
for her; she made a last appeal to my forbearance and consideration.
"We may part friends," she said, in low, trembling tones. "And as
friends we may meet again, when time has taught you to think forgivingly
of what has passed between us, to-night."
She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I penetrated
her motive in appealing to my old regard for her. Still suspecting me,
she had tried her last chance of getting safely on shore.
"The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with ironical
politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree with me that Elfie
ought to be in her bed." I looked round at the child. "Be quick, Elfie,"
I said; "your mamma is going away." I opened the cabin door, and offered
my arm to Mrs. Van Brandt. "This boat is my house for the time being,"
I resumed. "When ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to
the dock. Pray take my arm."
She started back. For the second time she was on the point of crying for
help, and for the second time she kept that last desperate alternative
in reserve.
"I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild with fear, a
forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. "There are several little things
here that interest me. Give me another minute or two to look at them."
She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of looking
round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door, watching her.
She made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a chair as if by
accident, and then waited to discover whether her trick had succeeded in
waking the men.
The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was audible on
either side of us.
"My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly. "Don't be
alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes these Dutch sailors
when they are once safe in port."
She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and
advanced toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing behind
the table to the other end of the cabin. I followed her until she had
reached the extremity of the room and could get no further. She met the
look I fixed on her; she shrunk into a corner, and called for help. In
the deadly terror that possessed her, she lost the use of her voice. A
low moaning, hardly louder than a whisper, was all that passed her lips.
Already, in imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt
the cold contact of the water--when I was startled by a cry behind me.
I turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had apparently just
discovered some new object in the bag, and she was holding it up in
admiration, high above her head. "Mamma! mamma!" the child cried,
excitedly, "look at this pretty thing! Oh, do, do ask him if I may have
it!"
Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for getting
away from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to seize her. She
suddenly turned round on me, a woman transformed. A bright flush was
on her face, an eager wonder sparkled in her eyes. Snatching Elfie's
coveted object out of the child's hand, she held it up before me. I saw
it under the lamp-light. It was my little forgotten keepsake--the Green
Flag!
"How came you by this?" she asked, in breathless anticipation of my
reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the terror that
had convulsed it barely a minute since! "How came you by this?" she
repeated, seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in the ungovernable
impatience that possessed her.
My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict of
emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on the green
flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that refused to come
to me. I answered, mechanically: "I have had it since I was a boy."
She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture of
ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like light from
heaven over her face. For one moment she stood enraptured. The next she
clasped me passionately to her bosom, and whispered in my ear: "I am
Mary Dermody! I made it for You!"
The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had suffered
before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her arms.
When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie was
playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with my hand in
hers. One long look of love passed silently from her eyes to mine--from
mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits were united; The Two
Destinies were fulfilled.
THE END OF THE STORY.
The Finale.
THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY.
THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to "The Two
Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by this time.
The narrative was written by myself--a citizen of the United States,
visiting England with his wife. It described a dinner-party at which we
were present, given by Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, in celebration of their
marriage; and it mentioned the circumstances under which we were
intrusted with the story which has just come to an end in these pages.
Having read the manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to
decide whether we should continue our friendly intercourse with them or
not.
At 3 o'clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five minutes
later I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet on, and there
we were, bound straight for Mr. Germaine's house, when the servant
brought a letter into the room, addressed to my wife.
She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered that it was "Mary
Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by side to read the letter
before we did anything else.
On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it, too. Mrs.
Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you feel some interest.
And she is on that account, as I think, the fittest person to close the
story. Here is her letter:
"DEAR MADAM (or may I say--'dear friend'?)--Be prepared, if you please,
for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall have left
London for the Continent.
"After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking this
journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me by the
ladies whom we had asked to our table, I willingly prepared for our
sudden departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away from his false friends,
my experience of him tells me that he will recover his tranquillity.
That is enough for me.
"My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I drove
to the school in the suburbs at which she is being educated, and took
her away with me. It is needless to say that she was delighted at the
prospect of traveling. She shocked the schoolmistress by waving her hat
over her head and crying 'Hooray,' like a boy. The good lady was very
careful to inform me that my daughter could not possibly have learned to
cry 'Hooray' in _her_ house.
"You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have
committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your estimation
now. Is it possible that I might have seen you and your good husband if
we had not left London so suddenly? As things are, I must now tell you
in writing what I should infinitely have preferred saying to you with
your friendly hand in mine.
"Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the absence
of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report affecting my character.
You are quite right. While I was taking Elfie away from her school, my
husband called on one of his friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and
insisted on an explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who
is known to you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's lawful wife. In her
intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs. Waring had
met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been interested in
the story of her wrongs, as she called them. My name was, of course,
mentioned. I was described as a 'cast-off mistress' of Van Brandt, who
had persuaded Mr. Germaine into disgracing himself by marrying her,
and becoming the step-father of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon
communicated what she had heard to other ladies who were her friends.
The result you saw for yourselves when you dined at our house.
"I inform you of what has happened without making any comment. Mr.
Germaine's narrative has already told you that I foresaw the deplorable
consequences which might follow our marriage, and that I over and over
again (God knows at what cost of misery to myself) refused to be his
wife. It was only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each
other that I lost all control over myself. The old time on the banks of
the lake came back to me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier
days; and I said Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said
No. Will you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that
the kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will you
take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so dearly, and he is
so fond of me!
"In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the wisest
course that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she will say again
of me what she has said already, whenever she can find the opportunity.
My child might hear the reports about her mother, and might be injured
by them when she gets older. We propose to take up our abode, for a time
at least, in the neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we
may hope to live without annoyance among a people whose social law
is the law of mercy. Whatever may happen, we have always one last
consolation to sustain us--we have love.
"You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us. If you
should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a friend of my
husband's, and he will have our address. I wonder whether we shall ever
meet again? It does seem hard to charge the misfortunes of my life on
me, as if they were my faults.
"Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this letter, that
the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross my path again. The
Van Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain information that he is
now on his way to New Zealand. They are determined to prosecute him if
he returns. He is little likely to give them the opportunity.
"The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My husband
sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes. His manuscript
will be quite safe (when you leave London) if you send it to his
bankers, at the address inclosed. Think of me sometimes--and think of me
kindly. I appeal confidently to _your_ kindness, for I don't forget that
you kissed me at parting. Your grateful friend (if you will let her be
your friend),
"MARY GERMAINE."
We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we decide on
long journeys by sea or land without making the slightest fuss about
it. My wife and I looked at each other when we had read Mrs. Germaine's
letter.
"London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came of it.
My wife read my remark the right way directly.
"Suppose we try Naples?" she said.
That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples.