As I heard Edgar creaking softly about the room, giving the
impression, even as I lay with my eyes shut, unable to observe his
elaborate movements, of great weight trying to be light, my heart
smote me at the thought of deceiving him with the rest. 'The
elephant,' it had been a joke between ourselves for me to call him;
and like a great elephant he was, huge, intelligent, gentle, not
without a certain massive beauty, with keen feelings of loyalty, and a
long slow-smouldering memory, with inclinations towards a laborious
and somewhat painful sportiveness. Rebel against his sententious
homilies as I occasionally might, he was a good old fellow, and I was
fond of him. I moved a little to show him I was awake, and then said:
'Hallo, Edgar, is that you?'
'Yes. How do you feel?'
'Oh, ever so much better. I shall be getting up soon now.'
'Well, you mustn't be in too great a hurry. You have been patient so
long, it would be a pity to destroy your credit just at the last.'
'I am only waiting for my face to heal now, of course. But, I say,
Edgar, it will take a long time for that to get all right. Why, part
of my cheek was completely blown away. It will be months, at least,
before I dare show myself. I think I shall go to some German baths,
and, you know, I don't know how long I may have to stay there. In the
meantime----'
'In the meantime, what?'
'Your sister--Helen--must know that she is free.'
'But supposing she doesn't want to be free? Supposing----'
'Supposing she has a fancy for being tied to a death's-head? No,
Edgar, she must be released at once. I want you to write a letter from
me to her, if you will. The sooner it is over the better for both of
us.'
I suppose Edgar felt that my attitude was not one of pure resignation,
for he made no further effort to dissuade me, but went instantly in
search of pens and paper. He was so very submissive, however, in
taking this step, which I knew to be distasteful to him, that I was
quite sure, before the letter was half written, that he was 'up to'
something. So, when it was finished, I was mean enough to insist on
his leaving it with me, together with the directed envelope; and after
reading it carefully through myself as soon as I was alone, I made
the housekeeper fold it and seal it up in my presence, and directed
her to get it posted at once.
The letter said:
MY DEAREST HELEN--You have no doubt long ago heard the reason
of my silence, and forgiven me for it, I am sure. I am sorry to
tell you that my head [I felt an odd shyness of saying "my
face"] has been injured so seriously that it will be a long
time before I can return to town; I am going straight to
Germany as soon as I am able to leave here, and cannot yet tell
when I shall be in England again. Under these circumstances,
although I know that you would overlook my new imperfections
with the same sweetness with which you have forgiven my older
defects, I feel that I cannot impose again upon your
generosity. I therefore set you free, begging you to do me one
last kindness by not returning to me the little souvenirs that
you have from time to time been good enough to accept from me.
And please don't send me back my letters, if you have ever
received them with any pleasure. Burn them if you like. I will
send back yours if you wish; but, as no woman will ever look
with love upon my face again, your womanly dignity will suffer
but little if you let me still keep them. There are only eight
of them. And there is a glove, of course, and a packet of dried
flowers, of course, and the little silver match-box. All these
I shall insist upon keeping, whether you like it or not. They
could not compromise anybody; the little glove could pass for a
child's. You will trust me with them all, will you not? You see
this isn't the usual broken-off match with its prelude of
disastrous squabbles and wrangles. Some jealous demon who saw I
did not deserve my good fortune has broken my hopes of
happiness abruptly, and released you from a chain which I am
afraid my ill-temper had already begun to make irksome to you.
Forgive me now, and bear as kindly a recollection of me as you
can. God bless you, Helen. I shall always treasure the
remembrance of your little fairy face, and remember gratefully
your sweet forbearance with me.--Yours most sincerely and
affectionately,
HENRY LYTTLETON MAUDE.
I hoped the child would not think this letter too cold and formal. My
heart yearned towards her now with a longing more tender than before;
I felt oppressed by the necessity of foregoing the shallow little love
which, as the handsomest man about town, I had begun to consider far
beneath my deserts.
Two days later I received an answer from Helen. I waited until I was
alone to read it, for I still guarded my face carefully from all eyes
but the doctor's. The touch of the letter, the sight of the sprawling,
slap-dash handwriting which it delighted Helen to assume, in common
with the other young ladies of her generation, moved me; for I could
not but feel that this was the last '_billet_' by any possibility to
be called '_doux_' which I should ever receive. I opened it with an
apprehension that I should find the contents less moving than the
envelope. I was mistaken.
MY DEAREST HARRY--I am afraid you have a very poor opinion of
me if you think I care for nothing but personal attractions.
You have always been most kind and generous to me, and you need
not think because I am not intellectual myself I do not care
for a man who is intellectual and all those things. I am coming
down to see you myself and then if you wish to give me up you
can do so--but I hope you will not throw me over so hastily. I
am so sorry for your accident and that it has made you so ill,
but I do not mind what else it has done.--Believe me, dearest
Harry, with best love, hoping you will soon be quite recovered,
yours ever lovingly,
HELEN.
Childish as the letter was it touched me deeply. Edgar must be right
after all; I had misjudged a simple but loyal nature that only wanted
an emergency to bring its nobler qualities to the surface. I told him
about the letter, and added that it made giving her up harder to bear.
'Why should you give her up?' said he eagerly. 'You see she herself
will not hear of it.'
'Because she does not understand the case. I am disfigured past
recognition; she would shrink with horror from the sight of me. It
would be a shock even to you, a strong unromantic man, to see what I
have become.'
'You are too sensitive, old fellow. However shocking the change in you
may be, you cannot fail to exaggerate its effect on others.'
'We shall see.'
A few days later, when the horror of my new appearance was indeed a
little mitigated by the falling off of the withered outer skin which
had covered the right side of my face, I tried the effect of my
striking physiognomy on Edgar.
Whether he had expected some such surprise, or whether he was endowed
with a splendid insensibility to ugliness, he stood the shock with
the most stolid placidity.
'Well?' said I defiantly, looking at him from out my ill-matched eyes
in a passion of aggressive rage.
'Well?' said he, as complacently as if I had been a turnip.
'I hope you admire this style of beauty,' I hurled out savagely.
'I don't go quite so far as that, but it's really much better than I
expected.'
'You are easily pleased.'
He went on quietly. 'The chief impression your countenance gives one
now is not, as you flatter yourself, of consummate ugliness,
but--forgive me--of consummate villainy.'
'What!'
'You are preserved for ever from the danger of being anything but
strictly virtuous and straightforward in your dealings, for no one
would trust the possessor of that countenance with either a secret or
a sovereign.'
This blunt frankness acted better than any softer measures could have
done; it made me laugh. Looking again at myself in a glass, for I was
now up and dressed, I noticed, what had escaped me before in my
paralysed contemplation of the change in my own features, that the
drawing up of the right-hand corners of my mouth and eye, together
with the removal of every vestige of hair from that side of the face,
had given me the grotesquely repulsive leer of a satyr. To crown my
disadvantages, the left side of my face, seen in profile, still
retained its natural appearance to mock my new hideousness.
'But I think I see a way out of all difficulties,' Edgar went on, more
seriously. 'You will advance objections, I know, but you must permit
your objections to be overruled. Accident can be combated by artifice,
and to artifice you must resort until nature does her work and
relieves you from the new necessity.'
We fought out the question, and at last I very unwillingly gave way,
and submitted to the adoption of a false eyebrow, a false moustache,
and a beautiful tuft of curly false hair much superior to my own, to
hide the bald patch left by the accident.
Rather elated by this distinct improvement, assumed for the reception
of Helen's promised visit, and encouraged by assurances that my own
hair would soon grow again and enable me to discard its substitutes, I
was ready to believe that the discoloration and disfigurement still
visible were comparatively unimportant, and that the repellent
expression, which no artifice much abated, might indeed affect
strangers, but would not, in the sight of my friends, obscure their
long-established impression of my amiability and sweetness.
Sir Wilfrid and Lady Speke had by this time gone up to town, leaving
the place, with many kind wishes for my early and complete recovery,
entirely at the disposal of myself and my unwearied nurse Edgar. So a
day was fixed for the arrival of Helen and her mother. On that
eventful afternoon Edgar settled me in a small sitting-room on the
same floor with the room I had been occupying, before starting for the
station. The blinds were drawn, and I sat with my back to this
carefully-softened light. I wished, now that the ordeal was getting so
near, that I had not let myself be dissuaded from my intention of
sneaking quietly away without showing my disfigured face to any one.
What was the use of my seeing the child again? I did indeed long
foolishly for a few last words with her since she had shown
unexpected depth of feeling towards me in my misfortune; but it could
not end, as Edgar still obstinately hoped, in a renewal of our
engagement, which I persisted in regarding as definitely broken. The
meeting was only for a farewell. I was ashamed of the artifices I had
used to conceal the traces of my accident, and I was feeling half
inclined to tear off my false ornaments and present myself in my true
hideousness, when the arrival of my visitors luckily stopped me. The
room where I sat was at the back of the house, so that I had no
warning of the return of the carriage until I heard Edgar's voice. I
sprang up with one last look of agony at my reflection in the glass,
which seemed to me at that moment a ghastly caricature of my old self,
and then sat nervously down again, feeling like a doomed wretch with
the executioner outside his cell.
The door opened, and Edgar bounded up to me, dragging Helen, who
seemed shy and nervous, forward on his arm.
'Here he is, Nellie. Getting well fast, you see. Where is mother? I
must fetch her up.'
I saw in a moment through the dear clumsy fellow's manoeuvres. He
prided himself on his strategy, fancying he had only to leave us
together for us to have a touching reconciliation. But I knew better.
I saw her turn pale and cling to her brother's arm, and I said
hastily--
'No, no. Lady Castleford is not far behind, you may be sure. I am glad
to see you, Lady Helen; it is very kind of you to come. It is
easier----'
'Helen has come to persuade you to get well in England among your
friends instead of going abroad to be ill among strangers,' said
Edgar, cutting me short. 'He's getting on well, isn't he, Helen?
Come, he's well enough to have his hand shaken now.'
He drew her forward, to my inexpressible pain, for I saw the
reluctance in her face. Before I could attempt a protest, a reassuring
word, she had held out her hand, which I timidly took. Then she lifted
her eyes to my face for the first time. For the first and last time I
saw the expression of the most vivid, most acute emotion on the fairy
face. The muscles were contracted, the pupils of the eyes were dilated
with intense horror.
'I am very glad----' she began.
Then, before she could finish her sentence, even while I still held
her little hand in mine, she fell like a crushed flower unconscious in
her brother's arms.
Poor fellow! How contrite, how miserably, abjectly humble and
despairing he was when he appeared later in my room, to which I had
fled, like a wounded beast to its den, when little Helen's unwilling
blow gave me my social death-warrant. I was able to laugh then, and to
tell him truly that my only regret was for the pain the injudicious
meeting had caused poor Helen.
'It was you who dictated her letter to me,' I said.
Edgar did not attempt to deny it.
'She ought to be ashamed of herself,' said he, reddening with
indignation.
'No, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. I for my vanity in thinking
there was any charm in my dull personality to compensate for the loss
of the only merit I could have in a girl's eyes; you for your generous
idiotcy in carrying that mistake farther still. Are they gone?'
'Yes. My mother wanted to see you, but----'
'That's all right. And now, old fellow, you mustn't make any more
blunders on my account; you must let me make my own. I leave England
in a few days.'
'Well, I suppose you must do as you like. I'll come and see you off.'
'No,' said I firmly. 'I shall say good-bye to you here, Edgar. I have
very particular reasons for it, and you must give way to me in this.'
He tried to change my mind; he wanted to know my reasons; but he was
unsuccessful in both attempts. I knew how obstinate he was, and that
if I once allowed him to go with me to town, he would be sure to
subject me to more painful meetings in the endeavour to persuade me to
remain in England. Luckily for me, the very next day the Marquis
telegraphed to his son to join him immediately in Monmouthshire; and
no sooner had Edgar left the house, with the sure knowledge that he
should not see me again, than I fulfilled his fears by instant
preparation for my own departure. I had discarded all disguises, and
contented myself by masking my face as much as possible with a
travelling cap and a muffler; on arriving in town I went to an hotel
in Covent Garden, where I was not known, and by the evening of the
following day I had provided myself with the outfit of a Transpontine
villain, a low-crowned, wide-brimmed soft hat and a black Spanish
cloak.
In this get-up, which, when not made too conspicuous by a stage-walk
and melodramatic glances around, is really a very efficient disguise
both of form and features, I knew myself to be quite safe from
recognition anywhere, and having decided to start from Charing Cross
for Cologne by way of Ostend on the following morning, I devoted the
evening of my second day in town to a last look round.