My restless nights are passed in Selina’s room.
Her bed remains near the window. My bed has been placed opposite, near
the door. Our night-light is hidden in a corner, so that the faint glow
of it is all that we see. What trifles these are to write about! But
they mix themselves up with what I am determined to set down in
my Journal, and then to close the book for good and all. I had not
disturbed my little friend’s enviable repose, either when I left our
bed-chamber, or when I returned to it. The night was quiet, and the
stars were out. Nothing moved but the throbbing at my temples. The
lights and shadows in our half-darkened room, which at other times
suggest strange resemblances to my fancy, failed to disturb me now. I
was in a darkness of my own making, having bound a handkerchief, cooled
with water, over my hot eyes. There was nothing to interfere with the
soothing influence of the dose that I had taken, if my father’s medicine
would only help me.
I began badly. The clock in the hall struck the quarter past the
hour, the half-past, the three-quarters past, the new hour. Time was
awake--and I was awake with Time.
It was such a trial to my patience that I thought of going back to my
father’s room, and taking a second dose of the medicine, no matter what
the risk might be. On attempting to get up, I became aware of a change
in me. There was a dull sensation in my limbs which seemed to bind them
down on the bed. It was the strangest feeling. My will said, Get up--and
my heavy limbs said, No.
I lay quite still, thinking desperate thoughts, and getting nearer and
nearer to the end that I had been dreading for so many days past. Having
been as well educated as most girls, my lessons in history had made me
acquainted with assassination and murder. Horrors which I had recoiled
from reading in past happy days, now returned to my memory; and, this
time, they interested instead of revolting me. I counted the three
first ways of killing as I happened to remember them, in my books of
instruction:--a way by stabbing; a way by poison; a way in a bed, by
suffocation with a pillow. On that dreadful night, I never once called
to mind what I find myself remembering now--the harmless past time,
when our friends used to say: “Eunice is a good girl; we are all fond of
Eunice.” Shall I ever be the same lovable creature again?
While I lay thinking, a strange thing happened. Philip, who had haunted
me for days and nights together, vanished out of my thoughts. My memory
of the love which had begun so brightly, and had ended so miserably,
became a blank. Nothing was left but my own horrid visions of vengeance
and death.
For a while, the strokes of the clock still reached my ears. But it was
an effort to count them; I ended in letting them pass unheeded. Soon
afterward, the round of my thoughts began to circle slowly and more
slowly. The strokes of the clock died out. The round of my thoughts
stopped.
All this time, my eyes were still covered by the handkerchief which I
had laid over them.
The darkness began to weigh on my spirits, and to fill me with distrust.
I found myself suspecting that there was some change--perhaps an
unearthly change--passing over the room. To remain blindfolded any
longer was more than I could endure. I lifted my hand--without being
conscious of the heavy sensation which, some time before, had laid my
limbs helpless on the bed--I lifted my hand, and drew the handkerchief
away from my eyes.
The faint glow of the night-light was extinguished.
But the room was not quite dark. There was a ghastly light trembling
over it; like nothing that I have ever seen by day; like nothing that I
have ever seen by night. I dimly discerned Selina’s bed, and the frame
of the window, and the curtains on either side of it--but not the
starlight, and not the shadowy tops of the trees in the garden.
The light grew fainter and fainter; the objects in the room faded slowly
away. Darkness came.
It may be a saying hard to believe--but, when I declare that I was not
frightened, I am telling the truth. Whether the room was lighted by
awful light, or sunk in awful dark, I was equally interested in the
expectation of what might happen next. I listened calmly for what I
might hear: I waited calmly for what I might feel. A touch came first.
I feel it creeping on my face--like a little fluttering breeze. The
sensation pleased me for a while. Soon it grew colder, and colder, and
colder, till it froze me.
“Oh, no more!” I cried out. “You are killing me with an icy death!”
The dead-cold touches lingered a moment longer--and left me.
The first sound came.
It was the sound of a whisper on my pillow, close to my ear. My strange
insensibility to fear remained undisturbed. The whisper was welcome, it
kept me company in the dark room.
It said to me: “Do you know who I am?”
I answered: “No.”
It said: “Who have you been thinking of this evening?”
I answered: “My mother.”
The whisper said: “I am your mother.”
“Oh, mother, command the light to come back! Show yourself to me!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My face was hidden when I passed from life to death. My face no mortal
creature may see.”
“Oh, mother, touch me! Kiss me!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My touch is poison. My kiss is death.”
The sense of fear began to come to me now. I moved my head away on the
pillow. The whisper followed my movement.
“Leave me,” I said. “You are an Evil Spirit.”
The whisper answered: “I am your mother.”
“You come to tempt me.”
“I come to harden your heart. Daughter of mine, whose blood is cool;
daughter of mine, who tamely submits--you have loved. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“The man you loved has deserted you. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“A woman has lured him away to herself. A woman has had no mercy on you,
or on him. Is it true?”
“It is true.”
“If she lives, what crime toward you will she commit next?”
“If she lives, she will marry him.”
“Will you let her live?”
“Never.”
“Have I hardened your heart against her?”
“Yes.”
“Will you kill her?”
“Show me how.”
There was a sudden silence. I was still left in the darkness; feeling
nothing, hearing nothing. Even the consciousness that I was lying on
my bed deserted me. I had no idea that I was in the bedroom; I had no
knowledge of where I was.
The ghastly light that I had seen already dawned on me once more. I
was no longer in my bed, no longer in my room, no longer in the house.
Without wonder, without even a feeling of surprise, I looked round. The
place was familiar to me. I was alone in the Museum of our town.
The light flowed along in front of me. I followed, from room to room in
the Museum, where the light led.
First, through the picture-gallery, hung with the works of modern
masters; then, through the room filled with specimens of stuffed
animals. The lion and the tiger, the vulture of the Alps and the
great albatross, looked like living creatures threatening me, in the
supernatural light. I entered the third room, devoted to the exhibition
of ancient armor, and the weapons of all nations. Here the light rose
higher, and, leaving me in darkness where I stood, showed a collection
of swords, daggers, and knives arranged on the wall in imitation of the
form of a star.
The whisper sounded again, close at my ear. It echoed my own thought,
when I called to mind the ways of killing which history had taught me.
It said: “Kill her with the knife.”
No. My heart failed me when I thought of the blood. I hid the dreadful
weapons from my view. I cried out: “Let me go! let me go!”
Again, I was lost in darkness. Again, I had no knowledge in me of where
I was. Again, after an interval, the light showed me the new place in
which I stood.
I was alone in the burial-ground of our parish church. The light led me
on, among the graves, to the lonely corner in which the great yew tree
stands; and, rising higher, revealed the solemn foliage, brightened by
the fatal red fruit which hides in itself the seeds of death.
The whisper tempted me again. It followed again the train of my own
thought. It said: “Kill her by poison.”
No. Revenge by poison steals its way to its end. The base deceitfulness
of Helena’s crime against me seemed to call for a day of reckoning that
hid itself under no disguise. I raised my cry to be delivered from the
sight of the deadly tree. The changes which I have tried to describe
followed once more the confession of what I felt; the darkness was
dispelled for the third time.
I was standing in Helena’s room, looking at her as she lay asleep in her
bed.
She was quite still now; but she must have been restless at some earlier
time. The bedclothes were disordered, her head had sunk so low that the
pillow rose high and vacant above her. There, colored by a tender flush
of sleep, was the face whose beauty put my poor face to shame. There,
was the sister who had committed the worst of murders--the wretch who
had killed in me all that made life worth having. While that thought was
in my mind, I heard the whisper again. “Kill her openly,” the tempter
mother said. “Kill her daringly. Faint heart, do you still want courage?
Rouse your spirit; look! see yourself in the act!”
The temptation took a form which now tried me for the first time.
As if a mirror had reflected the scene, I saw myself standing by the
bedside, with the pillow that was to smother the sleeper in my hands. I
heard the whispering voice telling me how to speak the words that warned
and condemned her: “Wake! you who have taken him from me! Wake! and meet
your doom.”
I saw her start up in bed. The sudden movement disordered the nightdress
over her bosom and showed the miniature portrait of a man, hung round
her neck.
The man was Philip. The likeness was looking at me.
So dear, so lovely--those eyes that had once been the light of my heart,
mourned for me and judged me now. They saw the guilty thought that
polluted me; they brought me to my knees, imploring him to help me back
to my better self: “One last mercy, dear, to comfort me under the loss
of you. Let the love that was once my life, be my good angel still. Save
me, Philip, even though you forsake me--save me from myself!”
.......
There was a sudden cry.
The agony of it pierced my brain--drove away the ghastly light--silenced
the tempting whispers. I came to myself. I saw--and not in a dream.
Helena _had_ started up in her bed. That cry of terror, at the sight
of me in her room at night, _had_ burst from her lips. The miniature of
Philip hung round her neck, a visible reality. Though my head was dizzy,
though my heart was sinking, I had not lost my senses yet. All that the
night lamp could show me, I still saw; and I heard the sound, faintly,
when the door of the bed-chamber was opened. Alarmed by that piercing
cry, my father came hurrying into the room.
Not a word passed between us three. The whispers that I had heard were
wicked; the thoughts that had been in my mind were vile. Had they left
some poison in the air of the room, which killed the words on our lips?
My father looked at Helena. With a trembling hand she pointed to me. He
put his arm round me and held me up. I remember his leading me away--and
I remember nothing more.
My last words are written. I lock up this journal of misery-never, I
hope and pray, to open it again. ----
Second Period (continued).
EVENTS IN THE FAMILY, RELATED BY THE GOVERNOR. ----