So it was all settled between them. Philip is to throw me away, like one
of his bad cigars, for this unanswerable reason: “Helena disgusts me.”
And he is to persuade Eunice to take my place, and be his wife. Yes! if
I let him do it.
I heard no more of their talk. With that last, worst outrage burning in
my memory, I left the place.
On my way back to the carriage, the dog met me. Truly, a grand creature.
I called him by his name, and patted him. He licked my hand. Something
made me speak to him. I said: “If I was to tell you to tear Mr. Philip
Dunboyne to pieces, would you do it?” The great good-natured brute held
out his paw to shake hands. Well! well! I was not an object of disgust
to the dog.
But the coachman was startled, when he saw me again. He said something,
I did not know what it was; and he produced a pocket-flask, containing
some spirits, I suppose. Perhaps he thought I was going to faint. He
little knew me. I told him to drive back to the place at which I had
hired the cab, and earn his money. He earned it.
On getting home, I found Mrs. Tenbruggen walking up and down the
dining-room, deep in thought. She was startled when we first confronted
each other. “You look dreadfully ill,” she said.
I answered that I had been out for a little exercise, and had
over-fatigued myself; and then changed the subject. “Does my father seem
to improve under your treatment?” I asked.
“Very far from it, my dear. I promised that I would try what Massage
would do for him, and I find myself compelled to give it up.”
“Why?”
“It excites him dreadfully.”
“In what way?”
“He has been talking wildly of events in his past life. His brain is in
some condition which is beyond my powers of investigation. He pointed
to a cabinet in his room, and said his past life was locked up there.
I asked if I should unlock it. He shook with fear; he said I should let
out the ghost of his dead brother-in-law. Have you any idea of what he
meant?”
The cabinet was full of old letters. I could tell her that--and could
tell her no more. I had never heard of his brother-in-law. Another of
his delusions, no doubt. “Did you ever hear him speak,” Mrs. Tenbruggen
went on, “of a place called Low Lanes?”
She waited for my reply to this last inquiry with an appearance of
anxiety that surprised me. I had never heard him speak of Low Lanes.
“Have you any particular interest in the place?” I asked.
“None whatever.”
She went away to attend on a patient. I retired to my bedroom, and
opened my Diary. Again and again, I read that remarkable story of the
intended poisoning, and of the manner in which it had ended. I sat
thinking over this romance in real life till I was interrupted by the
announcement of dinner.
Mr. Philip Dunboyne had returned. In Miss Jillgall’s absence we were
alone at the table. My appetite was gone. I made a pretense of eating,
and another pretense of being glad to see my devoted lover. I talked to
him in the prettiest manner. As a hypocrite, he thoroughly matched
me; he was gallant, he was amusing. If baseness like ours had been
punishable by the law, a prison was the right place for both of us.
Mrs. Tenbruggen came in again after dinner, still not quite easy about
my health. “How flushed you are!” she said. “Let me feel your pulse.” I
laughed, and left her with Mr. Philip Dunboyne.
Passing my father’s door, I looked in, anxious to see if he was in the
excitable state which Mrs. Tenbruggen had described. Yes; the effect
which she had produced on him--how, she knows best--had not passed away
yet: he was still talking. The attendant told me it had gone on for
hours together. On my approaching his chair, he called out: “Which are
you? Eunice or Helena?” When I had answered him, he beckoned me to
come nearer. “I am getting stronger every minute,” he said. “We will go
traveling to-morrow, and see the place where you were born.”
Where had I been born? He had never told me where. Had he mentioned the
place in Mrs. Tenbruggen’s hearing? I asked the attendant if he had been
present while she was in the room. Yes; he had remained at his post;
he had also heard the allusion to the place with the odd name. Had Mr.
Gracedieu said anything more about that place? Nothing more; the poor
Minister’s mind had wandered off to other things. He was wandering now.
Sometimes, he was addressing his congregation; sometimes, he wondered
what they would give him for supper; sometimes, he talked of the
flowers in the garden. And then he looked at me, and frowned, and said I
prevented him from thinking.
I went back to my bedroom, and opened my Diary, and read the story
again.
Was the poison of which that resolute young wife proposed to make use
something that acted slowly, and told the doctors nothing if they looked
for it after death?
Would it be running too great a risk to show the story to the doctor,
and try to get a little valuable information in that way? It would be
useless. He would make some feeble joke; he would say, girls and poisons
are not fit company for each other.
But I might discover what I want to know in another way. I might call on
the doctor, after he has gone out on his afternoon round of visits,
and might tell the servant I would wait for his master’s return.
Nobody would be in my way; I might get at the medical literature in the
consulting-room, and find the information for myself.
A knock at my door interrupted me in the midst of my plans. Mrs.
Tenbruggen again!--still in a fidgety state of feeling on the subject of
my health. “Which is it?” she said. “Pain of body, my dear, or pain of
mind? I am anxious about you.”
“My dear Elizabeth, your sympathy is thrown away on me. As I have told
you already, I am over-tired--nothing more.”
She was relieved to hear that I had no mental troubles to complain of.
“Fatigue,” she remarked, “sets itself right with rest. Did you take a
very long walk?”
“Yes.”
“Beyond the limits of the town, of course? Philip has been taking a walk
in the country, too. He doesn’t say that he met you.”
These clever people sometimes overreach themselves. How she suggested it
to me, I cannot pretend to have discovered. But I did certainly suspect
that she had led Philip, while they were together downstairs, into
saying to her what he had already said to Miss Jillgall. I was so angry
that I tried to pump my excellent friend, as she had been trying to pump
me--a vulgar expression, but vulgar writing is such a convenient way
of writing sometimes. My first attempt to entrap the Masseuse failed
completely. She coolly changed the subject.
“Have I interrupted you in writing?” she asked, pointing to my Diary.
“No; I was idling over what I have written already--an extraordinary
story which I copied from a book.”
“May I look at it?”
I pushed the open Diary across the table. If I was the object of any
suspicions which she wanted to confirm, it would be curious to see if
the poisoning story helped her. “It’s a piece of family history,” I
said; “I think you will agree with me that it is really interesting.”
She began to read. As she went on, not all her power of controlling
herself could prevent her from turning pale. This change of color (in
such a woman) a little alarmed me. When a girl is devoured by deadly
hatred of a man, does the feeling show itself to other persons in
her face? I must practice before the glass and train my face into a
trustworthy state of discipline.
“Coarse melodrama!” Mrs. Tenbruggen declared. “Mere sensation. No
analysis of character. A made-up story!”
“Well made up, surely?” I answered.
“I don’t agree with you.” Her voice was not quite so steady as usual.
She asked suddenly if my clock was right--and declared that she
should be late for an appointment. On taking leave she pressed my
hand strongly--eyed me with distrustful attention and said, very
emphatically: “Take care of yourself, Helena; pray take care of
yourself.”
I am afraid I did a very foolish thing when I showed her the poisoning
story. Has it helped the wily old creature to look into my inmost
thoughts?
Impossible!
To-day, Miss Jillgall returned, looking hideously healthy and spitefully
cheerful. Although she tried to conceal it, while I was present, I could
see that Philip had recovered his place in her favor. After what he had
said to her behind the hedge at the farm, she would be relieved from all
fear of my becoming his wife, and would joyfully anticipate his marriage
to Eunice. There are thoughts in me which I don’t set down in my book. I
only say: We shall see.
This afternoon, I decided on visiting the doctor. The servant was quite
sorry for me when he answered the door. His master had just left the
house for a round of visits. I said I would wait. The servant was afraid
I should find waiting very tedious. I reminded him that I could go away
if I found it tedious. At last, the polite old man left me.
I went into the consulting-room, and read the backs of the medical books
ranged round the walls, and found a volume that interested me. There was
such curious information in it that I amused myself by making extracts,
using the first sheets of paper that I could find. They had printed
directions at the top, which showed that the doctor was accustomed
to write his prescriptions on them. We had many, too many, of his
prescriptions in our house.
The servant’s doubts of my patience proved to have been well founded. I
got tired of waiting, and went home before the doctor returned.
From morning to night, nothing has been seen of Mrs. Tenbruggen to-day.
Nor has any apology for her neglect of us been received, fond as she is
of writing little notes. Has that story in my Diary driven her away? Let
me see what to-morrow may bring forth.
To-day has brought forth--nothing. Mrs. Tenbruggen still keeps away from
us. It looks as if my Diary had something to do with the mystery of her
absence.
I am not in good spirits to-day. My nerves--if I have such things, which
is more than I know by my own experience--have been a little shaken by
a horrid dream. The medical information, which my thirst for knowledge
absorbed in the doctor’s consulting-room, turned traitor--armed itself
with the grotesque horrors of nightmare--and so thoroughly frightened me
that I was on the point of being foolish enough to destroy my notes. I
thought better of it, and my notes are safe under lock and key.
Mr. Philip Dunboyne is trying to pave the way for his flight from this
house. He speaks of friends in London, whose interest will help him to
find the employment which is the object of his ambition. “In a few days
more,” he said, “I shall ask for leave of absence.”
Instead of looking at me, his eyes wandered to the window; his fingers
played restlessly with his watch-chain while he spoke. I thought I would
give him a chance, a last chance, of making the atonement that he owes
to me. This shows shameful weakness, on my part. Does my own resolution
startle me? Or does the wretch appeal--to what? To my pity? It cannot be
my love; I am positively sure that I hate him. Well, I am not the first
girl who had been an unanswerable riddle to herself.
“Is there any other motive for your departure?” I asked.
“What other motive can there be?” he replied. I put what I had to say to
him in plainer words still. “Tell me, Philip, are you beginning to wish
that you were a free man again?”
He still prevaricated. Was this because he is afraid of me, or because
he is not quite brute enough to insult me to my face? I tried again for
the third and last time. I almost put the words into his mouth.
“I fancy you have been out of temper lately,” I said. “You have not been
your own kinder and better self. Is this the right interpretation of the
change that I think I see in you?”
He answered: “I have not been very well lately.”
“And that is all?”
“Yes--that is all.”
There was no more to be said; I turned away to leave the room. He
followed me to the door. After a momentary hesitation, he made the
attempt to kiss me. I only looked at him--he drew back from me in
silence. I left the new Judas, standing alone, while the shades of
evening began to gather over the room.
Third Period _(continued)_.
_EVENTS IN THE FAMILY, RELATED BY MISS JILLGALL._