When the subject of the trial was happily dismissed, my first inquiry
related to Eunice. The reply was made with an ominous accompaniment of
sighs and sad looks. Eunice had gone back to her duties as governess at
the farm. Hearing this, I asked naturally what had become of Philip.
Melancholy news, again, was the news that I now heard.
Mr. Dunboyne the elder had died suddenly, at his house in Ireland, while
Philip was on his way home. When the funeral ceremony had come to an
end, the will was read. It had been made only a few days before the
testator’s death; and the clause which left all his property to his son
was preceded by expressions of paternal affection, at a time when Philip
was in sore need of consolation. After alluding to a letter, received
from his son, the old man added: “I always loved him, without caring to
confess it; I detest scenes of sentiment, kissings, embracings, tears,
and that sort of thing. But Philip has yielded to my wishes, and has
broken off a marriage which would have made him, as well as me, wretched
for life. After this, I may speak my mind from my grave, and may tell my
boy that I loved him. If the wish is likely to be of any use, I will add
(on the chance)--God bless him.”
“Does Philip submit to separation from Eunice?” I asked. “Does he stay
in Ireland?”
“Not he, poor fellow! He will be here to-morrow or next day. When I last
wrote,” Miss Jillgall continued, “I told him I hoped to see you again
soon. If you can’t help us (I mean with Eunice) that unlucky young man
will do some desperate thing. He will join those madmen at large who
disturb poor savages in Africa, or go nowhere to find nothing in the
Arctic regions.
“Whatever I can do, Miss Jillgall, shall be gladly done. Is it really
possible that Eunice refuses to marry him, after having saved his life?”
“A little patience, please, Mr. Governor; let Philip tell his own
story. If I try to do it, I shall only cry--and we have had tears enough
lately, in this house.”
Further consultation being thus deferred, I went upstairs to the
Minister’s room.
He was sitting by the window, in his favorite armchair, absorbed in
knitting! The person who attended on him, a good-natured, patient
fellow, had been a sailor in his younger days, and had taught Mr.
Gracedieu how to use the needles. “You see it amuses him,” the man said,
kindly. “Don’t notice his mistakes, he thinks there isn’t such another
in the world for knitting as himself. You can see, sir, how he sticks to
it.” He was so absorbed over his employment that I had to speak to him
twice, before I could induce him to look at me. The utter ruin of his
intellect did not appear to have exercised any disastrous influence over
his bodily health. On the contrary, he had grown fatter since I had last
seen him; his complexion had lost the pallor that I remembered--there
was color in his cheeks.
“Don’t you remember your old friend?” I said. He smiled, and nodded, and
repeated the words:
“Yes, yes, my old friend.” It was only too plain that he had not the
least recollection of me. “His memory is gone,” the man said. “When
he puts away his knitting, at night, I have to find it for him in the
morning. But, there! he’s happy--enjoys his victuals, likes sitting out
in the garden and watching the birds. There’s been a deal of trouble in
the family, sir; and it has all passed over him like a wet sponge over
a slate.” The old sailor was right. If that wreck of a man had been
capable of feeling and thinking, his daughter’s disgrace would have
broken his heart. In a world of sin and sorrow, is peaceable imbecility
always to be pitied? I have known men who would have answered, without
hesitation: “It is to be envied.” And where (some persons might say) was
the poor Minister’s reward for the act of mercy which had saved Eunice
in her infancy? Where it ought to be! A man who worthily performs a good
action finds his reward in the action itself.
At breakfast, on the next day, the talk touched on those passages in
Helena’s diary, which had been produced in court as evidence against
her.
I expressed a wish to see what revelation of a depraved nature the
entries in the diary might present; and my curiosity was gratified. At
a fitter time, I may find an opportunity of alluding to the impression
produced on me by the diary. In the meanwhile, the event of Philip’s
return claims notice in the first place.
The poor fellow was so glad to see me that he shook hands as heartily as
if we had known each other from the time when he was a boy.
“Do you remember how kindly you spoke to me when I called on you in
London?” he asked. “If I have repeated those words once--but perhaps you
don’t remember them? You said: ‘If I was as young as you are, I should
not despair.’ Well! I have said that to myself over and over again, for
a hundred times at least. Eunice will listen to you, sir, when she will
listen to nobody else. This is the first happy moment I have had for
weeks past.”
I suppose I must have looked glad to hear that. Anyway, Philip shook
hands with me again.
Miss Jillgall was present. The gentle-hearted old maid was so touched
by our meeting that she abandoned herself to the genial impulse of
the moment, and gave Philip a kiss. The outraged claims of propriety
instantly seized on her. She blushed as if the long-lost days of her
girlhood had been found again, and ran out of the room.
“Now, Mr. Philip,” I said, “I have been waiting, at Miss Jillgall’s
suggestion, to get my information from you. There is something wrong
between Eunice and yourself. What is it? And who is to blame?”
“Her vile sister is to blame,” he answered. “That reptile was determined
to sting us. And she has done it!” he cried, starting to his feet, and
walking up and down the room, urged into action by his own unendurable
sense of wrong. “I say, she has done it, after Eunice has saved me--done
it, when Eunice was ready to be my wife.”
“How has she done it?”
Between grief and indignation his reply was involved in a confusion of
vehemently-spoken words, which I shall not attempt to reproduce. Eunice
had reminded him that her sister had been publicly convicted of an
infamous crime, and publicly punished for it by imprisonment. “If I
consent to marry you,” she said, “I stain you with my disgrace; that
shall never be.” With this resolution, she had left him. “I have tried
to convince her,” Philip said, “that she will not be associated with her
sister’s disgrace when she bears my name; I have promised to take her
far away from England, among people who have never even heard of her
sister. Miss Jillgall has used her influence to help me. All in vain!
There is no hope for us but in you. I am not thinking selfishly only of
myself. She tries to conceal it--but, oh, she is broken-hearted! Ask the
farmer’s wife, if you don’t believe me. Judge for yourself, sir. Go--for
God’s sake, go to the farm.”
I made him sit down and compose himself.
“You may depend on my going to the farm,” I answered. “I shall write to
Eunice to-day, and follow my letter to-morrow.” He tried to thank me;
but I would not allow it. “Before I consent to accept the expression of
your gratitude,” I said, “I must know a little more of you than I know
now. This is only the second occasion on which we have met. Let us look
back a little, Mr. Philip Dunboyne. You were Eunice’s affianced husband;
and you broke faith with her. That was a rascally action. How do you
defend it?”
His head sank. “I am ashamed to defend it,” he answered.
I pressed him without mercy. “You own yourself,” I said, “that it was a
rascally action?”
“Use stronger language against me, even than that, sir--I deserve it.”
“In plain words,” I went on, “you can find no excuse for your conduct?”
“In the past time,” he said, “I might have found excuses.”
“But you can’t find them now?”
“I must not even look for them now.”
“Why not?”
“I owe it to Eunice to leave my conduct at its worst; with nothing
said--by me--to defend it.”
“What has Eunice done to have such a claim on you as that?”
“Eunice has forgiven me.”
It was gratefully and delicately said. Ought I to have allowed this
circumstance to weigh with me? I ask, in return, had _I_ never committed
any faults? As a fellow-mortal and fellow-sinner, had I any right to
harden my heart against an expression of penitence which I felt to be
sincere in its motive?
But I was bound to think of Eunice. I did think of her, before I
ventured to accept the position--the critical position, as I shall
presently show--of Philip’s friend.
After more than an hour of questions put without reserve, and of answers
given without prevarication, I had traveled over the whole ground laid
out by the narratives which appear in these pages, and had arrived at my
conclusion--so far as Philip Dunboyne was concerned.
I found him to be a man with nothing absolutely wicked in him--but with
a nature so perilously weak, in many respects, that it might drift into
wickedness unless a stronger nature was at hand to bold it back. Married
to a wife without force of character, the probabilities would point to
him as likely to yield to examples which might make him a bad husband.
Married to a wife with a will of her own, and with true love to sustain
her--a wife who would know when to take the command and how to take the
command--a wife who, finding him tempted to commit actions unworthy
of his better self, would be far-sighted enough to perceive that her
husband’s sense of honor might sometimes lose its balance, without being
on that account hopelessly depraved--then, and, in these cases only, the
probabilities would point to Philip as a man likely to be the better and
the happier for his situation, when the bonds of wedlock had got him.
But the serious question was not answered yet.
Could I feel justified in placing Eunice in the position toward Philip
which I have just endeavored to describe? I dared not allow my mind to
dwell on the generosity which had so nobly pardoned him, or on the force
of character which had bravely endured the bitterest disappointment, the
cruelest humiliation. The one consideration which I was bound to face,
was the sacred consideration of her happiness in her life to come.
Leaving Philip, with a few words of sympathy which might help him to
bear his suspense, I went to my room to think.
The time passed--and I could arrive at no positive conclusion. Either
way--with or without Philip--the contemplation of Eunice’s future
harassed me with doubt. Even if I had conquered my own indecision, and
had made up my mind to sanction the union of the two young people, the
difficulties that now beset me would not have been dispersed. Knowing
what I alone knew, I could certainly remove Eunice’s one objection to
the marriage. In other words, I had only to relate what had happened on
the day when the Chaplain brought the Minister to the prison, and the
obstacle of their union would be removed. But, without considering
Philip, it was simply out of the question to do this, in mercy to Eunice
herself. What was Helena’s disgrace, compared with the infamy which
stained the name of the poor girl’s mother! The other alternative of
telling her part of the truth only was before me, if I could persuade
myself to adopt it. I failed to persuade myself; my morbid anxiety for
her welfare made me hesitate again. Human patience could endure no
more. Rashness prevailed and prudence yielded--I left my decision to be
influenced by the coming interview with Eunice.
The next day I drove to the farm. Philip’s entreaties persuaded me
to let him be my companion, on one condition--that he waited in the
carriage while I went into the house.
I had carefully arranged my ideas, and had decided on proceeding with
the greatest caution, before I ventured on saying the all-important
words which, once spoken, were not to be recalled. The worst of those
anxieties, under which the delicate health of Mr. Gracedieu had broken
down, was my anxiety now. Could I reconcile it to my conscience to
permit a man, innocent of all knowledge of the truth, to marry the
daughter of a condemned murderess, without honestly telling him what
he was about to do? Did I deserve to be pitied? did I deserve to be
blamed?--my mind was still undecided when I entered the house.
She ran to meet me as if she had been my daughter; she kissed me as if
she had been my daughter; she fondly looked up at me as if she had been
my daughter. At the sight of that sweet young face, so sorrowful, and
so patiently enduring sorrow, all my doubts and hesitations, everything
artificial about me with which I had entered the room, vanished in an
instant.
After she had thanked me for coming to see her, I saw her tremble a
little. The uppermost interest in her heart was forcing its way outward
to expression, try as she might to keep it back. “Have you seen Philip?”
she asked. The tone in which she put that question decided me--I was
resolved to let her marry him. Impulse! Yes, impulse, asserting itself
inexcusably in a man at the end of his life. I ought to have known
better than to have given way. Very likely. But am I the only mortal who
ought to have known better--and did not?
When Eunice asked if I had seen Philip, I owned that he was outside in
the carriage. Before she could reproach me, I went on with what I had
to say: “My child, I know what a sacrifice you have made; and I should
honor your scruples, if you had any reason for feeling them.”
“Any reason for feeling them?” She turned pale as she repeated the
words.
An idea came to me. I rang for the servant, and sent her to the carriage
to tell Philip to come in. “My dear, I am not putting you to any unfair
trial,” I assured her; “I am going to prove that I love you as truly as
if you were my own child.”
When they were both present, I resolved that they should not suffer
a moment of needless suspense. Standing between them, I took Eunice’s
hand, and laid my other hand on Philip’s shoulder, and spoke out
plainly.
“I am here to make you both happy,” I said. “I can remove the only
obstacle to your marriage, and I mean to do it. But I must insist on
one condition. Give me your promise, Philip, that you will ask for no
explanations, and that you will be satisfied with the one true statement
which is all that I can offer to you.”
He gave me his promise, without an instant’s hesitation.
“Philip grants what I ask,” I said to Eunice. “Do you grant it, too?”
Her hand turned cold in mine; but she spoke firmly when she said: “Yes.”
I gave her into Philip’s care. It was his privilege to console and
support her. It was my duty to say the decisive words:
“Rouse your courage, dear Eunice; you are no more affected by Helena’s
disgrace than I am. You are not her sister. Her father is not your
father; her mother was not your mother. I was present, in the time of
your infancy, when Mr. Gracedieu’s fatherly kindness received you as his
adopted child. This, I declare to you both, on my word of honor, is the
truth.”
How she bore it I am not able to say. My foolish old eyes were filling
with tears. I could just see plainly enough to find my way to the door,
and leave them together.
In my reckless state of mind, I never asked myself if Time would be my
accomplice, and keep the part of the secret which I had not revealed--or
be my enemy, and betray me. The chances, either way, were perhaps equal.
The deed was done.